Capítulo 24: Red, warm and wet

That night Ivo had trouble falling asleep. Alina's bed was no different than Davi's, but somehow, even with the extra space, he just couldn't get comfortable.

Davi was laying on his side, facing the wall as he usually did when he and Ivo shared the bed. The light from the open window bathed the room in a fuzzy blue glow. Ivo looked towards the squares of light he could see on the buildings across from them and tried to distract himself by imagining the lives of the people living inside them.

But all the while his gaze kept being drawn to the red star nestled between Davi's shoulder blades. Even in the gloom of the half-light the red ink looked fresh.

'If I touch it, my fingers will come away wet,' Ivo thought.

And perhaps because of that his dreams were once again tinted red, warm and wet.

---

When Ivo woke up the first blush of dawn had just streaked the murky skyline. His mind felt syrupy slow and his body too warm. Across the room Davi was still asleep, now on his front, clutching the pillow to his face.

Predictably, Alina hadn't returned.

Ivo got out of bed gingerly, he was itching for a shower. The rest of the apartment was silent, save for the mechanical hum of the computers and holos, the faint wheeze of the tiny fans inside preventing everything from overheating.

He showered slowly, doing his best to ignore the free-trial warning and lose himself in his thoughts. His memories of his dreams were a tangled weave, leaving him more confused the more he tried to make sense of the snippets he recalled. Confused and something else.

Thinking about that made his skin feel too tight. He turned the water all the way to cold and finished his shower to douse the heat boiling his blood.

He left the bathroom and found Thiago sitting at the kitchen counter, cupping a plastic mug in his big hand. He raised it in greeting as soon as he saw Ivo. "I guess it's just us two early birds."

Ivo took a seat across from him. "I guess so."

He poured himself a cup of coffee from the thermos on the counter.

Thiago slid him a plate with some synth meats and pastry snacks. "I brought leftovers from the party last night, there's some cheese bread."

By now, 'pão de queijo' the little puffy, soft cheese-filled breads, were Ivo's favourite food. Despite Alina's taunts that there was no actual cheese in them, and that it was all powdered flavour.

While Davi's hatred for the lux was like the warm steady core that kept him alive, Alina's would bubble up to surface every once in a while like a volcanic eruption.

By now Ivo was well acquainted with what he called her plastic rant, which went something like: 'those lux fucks are the only ones who can afford organic food, it's plastic for the rest of us. Plastic in the food, plastic in the water, plastic in the air.'

He didn't realise he was smiling around his pão de queijo until Thiago raised his eyebrows at him. "Someone's in a good mood," he leaned across the counter with a conspiratorial look, "Alina not the only one who had a good night?"

Ivo sputtered for something to say until finally shaking his head, and saying, "No, I had a very normal night. I slept in Alina's bed." He rushed to add, "without her in it."

Thiago chuckled. "I get it kid, don't worry."

Ivo thought that was the end of the conversation but Thiago was feeling chatty in the early morning. "So, are you ready for the gig tonight?"

He shrugged. "I still don't know anything about it."

"Yeah, that was Davi's idea. He didn't want to tell you in case you ended up not being ready for it."

Ivo frowned. Thiago patted him on the shoulder. "Don't take it personally, Davi hates stupid risks. But hey, he hasn't said anything so you're probably in the clear."

He wasn't in the mood to talk about his readiness for the gig. If necessary he'd make his case to Davi. They weren't leaving him behind. If the city was going to have its way with him anyway, he wanted it to be on his terms.

"What's the deal between Davi and Vice?" he asked, changing the subject.

Thiago whistled loudly, running a hand through the piled up locs on top of his head. "That's a long story, and one I don't think it's my place to tell."

"The three of you love keeping secrets," Ivo said, narrowing his eyes. "When will I be told anything? Instead of being kept in the dark about the most mundane shit."

His temper was rising, and Ivo couldn't tell why. On some level, he understood why Davi and the others were cautious around him, but on the other hand, as someone who knew absolutely nothing about his own past, he hated being kept in the dark about his present too.

"Well, aren't you a nosy motherfucker." Davi's voice drifted in. Ivo leaned back on his stool and saw him standing in the bedroom's doorway, arms crossed over his bare chest.

He shot him an impatient look. "Fine, I won't ask about him. Tell me about the gig instead."

Davi came around towards the kitchen nook and started filing up a plate for himself. He was halfway done with his coffee when he finally looked in Ivo's direction. "We're going to a very exclusive lux club tonight. Something that needs a guestlist and several clearance levels. Yunmi got us in but it wasn't easy, and we'll probably have eyes on us the whole time."

"What are we going there to do?"

"Extracting information," Thiago interjected, "basically you'll get close to the target, and hack his system to extract the data we want. I've told you before about the complications with doing some things remotely. Especially stuff that requires discretion."

"This needs to be flawless, we need to get the data undetected." Davi said, his eyes fixed on Ivo's over the coffee cup's rim.

"And what's my role? Stay out of the way and cover you guys?"

Ivo looked at Davi expectantly, who shook his head with a quick jerk.

"No. You're bait."