13. With Both Hands

Bobby eats while Beauvoir explains Vodou as a pragmatic system for “getting things done,” introducing the idea of oungans who “serve with both hands.” He hints that Two-a-Day’s real business is upstream work for powerful Sprawl operators, not just hustling ’ware in Barrytown.

Beauvoir details a setup: major oungans obtained a potent, suspect icebreaker and passed it down for testing. Two-a-Day, unwilling to risk himself, fed it to an ambitious novice—Bobby—and pointed him at a lethal black-ice-protected base, expecting either validation or Bobby’s death.

Lucas sets up a projection tank to replay surveillance from Two-a-Day’s hired cowboys. The display shows the target base’s ice anticipating Bobby and backtracking a kill-tube toward him. At the fatal moment, an anomalous, rectilinear white construct blooms, pierces the hostile ice, and extracts Bobby—matching Bobby’s memory of a girl-voiced presence asking why they were killing him.

Walking through the Projects’ hydroponic level, Beauvoir clarifies alliances: Jackie and Rhea are with Beauvoir and Lucas, not Two-a-Day; Jackie is a mambo, “horse” of Danbala. He criticizes Two-a-Day for failing to secure Bobby and the software after initiating the run.

Beauvoir describes the communal, consecrated grow-level—trees dedicated to loa, shrimp and catfish systems, and the complex’s history. At a window overlooking Barrytown and the distant pink glow of the Sprawl, Lucas and Beauvoir gauge Bobby’s ambition and effectively offer to take him there, as Bobby endures returning pain from his wounds.