Masterminds by Kristine Kathryn Rusch Read Free Book Online Page A

Her mother had died in that explosion.
    Berhane thought of it every single time she stepped through a train’s doors. It didn’t matter that the Express wasn’t nearly as fancy as this train. The Express was designed for short distances, while this was a bullet train, designed for travel between domes.
    The trip from Littrow to Armstrong only took thirty minutes, but after the news she had just received, she needed privacy.
    Her ex-fiancée, Torkild Zhu, was dead. Murdered, maybe by the police.
    She’d heard from her father while she was supervising some cleanup in the devastated part of Littrow. Her father sounded shocked, something she would have thought impossible; he hadn’t even sounded like that when he found out Berhane’s mother had died.
    After hearing the news, Berhane forced herself not to think about it. She had to finish briefing the new volunteers on the things they would discover inside the ruined section of Littrow. She always started her newest volunteers in Littrow, mostly so that she could oversee their work, and so that she could make her little “this is hard but important work” speech.
    Four months ago, she had founded the Anniversary Day Victims’ Identification and Recovery Service, and immediately hired Dabir Kaspian away from Armstrong Search & Rescue to run the business. She did fundraising, mostly, and handled the bigger things, like opening branches in all nineteen affected domes.
    But one day per week, she went to Littrow and did hands-on work, donned an environmental suit, had some bots trail her, and used the equipment to scrape the DNA from the rubble, searching for the faintest traces of human DNA.
    Her company found the Anniversary Day victims and, more importantly, identified them. So far, her company had identified nearly fifty thousand victims Moonwide—a drop in the bucket, considering the millions killed—but, as Donal Ó Brádaigh constantly reminded her, she was comforting each family whose loved one she found.
    The days were wearing but worthwhile. The entire company made her feel like she was finally doing the work she was meant to do.
    But she could find little comfort in that today.
    She squinched up on the luxurious, high-backed chair, kicked off her shoes, and tucked her feet underneath her thighs. She still stared out the window, seeing her own narrow features reflected. Her black hair was boyishly short, something that had shocked Torkild the last time she had seen him, not quite a week ago.
    Tears threatened. She shouldn’t be mourning him. She shouldn’t even be sad about him.
    He had treated her badly throughout their relationship and had ended it in public, on Anniversary Day, just before news of the bombings struck. Which would have been memorable enough if it weren’t for the fact that he was showing complete insensitivity.
    Her mother had died exactly four years earlier. The “anniversary” being commemorated on that day was that of the Armstrong bombing, which had killed her mother and had, in its own way, inspired Berhane’s entire company.
    Because for years, years , Berhane had expected her mother to walk through the door. Berhane had expected her mother to show up, claim she’d had amnesia or had been in a coma or something. It wasn’t until her mother’s DNA had been found that Berhane had finally gotten peace.
    And Torkild had never understood that. He always thought grief was something to be overcome.
    Berhane wondered if he would have appreciated the irony of having her grieve for him.
    She wasn’t sure she appreciated the irony of it.
    Especially since it forced her to admit that despite their history, despite the way they had treated each other, she had loved him.
    She had thought the love was gone, murdered by their behavior, his and hers. But it remained, underneath, like the regolith beneath the bullet train, covered over, but still there.
    She leaned her head against the back of the seat, glad she was alone in first class. She had