After the Red Rain (30 page)

S
he stayed in her apartment for days as she healed. The mirror she covered with an old sheet, not wanting to see her face.

The comm started bleating on the second day, reminding her that work attendance was mandatory, that shirking her duty as a citizen would have consequences, and so on. She couldn’t turn it off, but she didn’t have to pay attention to it. She opened the window, even though it was hot and humid outside. Stuck her head outside once an hour on the hour when the comm ran through its gamut of threats and wheedles. Stared out into the endless Territory.

On the third day, the door buzzed. She ignored it. Minutes later someone began pounding on it, and still she ignored it until a familiar voice called, “Ms. Ward! Ms. Ward, open up! I can force my way in, but I’d rather not.”

With a sigh and slumped shoulders, she thumbed open the door.

“Ms. Ward,” SI Markard began, “I—” He broke off, no doubt at the sight of her bruises. As usual, she couldn’t tell from his expression exactly what he was or wasn’t feeling. She didn’t really care, she realized.

“I’m so sorry for your… trials,” he said at last, fidgeting in the hallway. “May I come in?”

It was a pointless question—if he wanted to come in, he would do so, no matter what she said. She said, “No,” just to see how it felt.

It felt good, she decided.

He surprised her by saying, “Very well, then,” and remaining outside. “I just wanted to offer my personal apologies that things got out of hand. The Magistrate was—and remains—quite distraught over the death of his son.”

“I don’t care,” she told him.

“And,” he went on, “I wanted to return your personal property.”

He handed over Dr. Dimbali’s SmartSpex. The pristine lens was still whole, but a new crack had formed in the already-broken lens and one of the stems was bent out of shape. She took them silently and stared at him.

“Again, my apologies,” he said. “I hope you—” He shrugged and went away.

Deedra closed the door to blessed solitude once more.

Not leaving the apartment meant no way to replenish her food stocks, either from rations or scavenge. She had some food hidden away, and she parceled it out to herself with care, not allowing herself to binge, no matter how hungry she felt.

Each night, she draped herself in the roach netting and tossed in fitful sleep, shifting from dream to dream, nightmares of Rose’s death, of her interrogation.

The battery to the SmartSpex was still in the pocket of the pants she’d been wearing the day they’d interrogated her, and it slid into the charging compartment easily. The SmartSpex booted up just fine.

She figured at some point the DeeCees would come to roust her from her apartment. After a week, she had enough demerits that she
would receive no rations for a month, meaning a month of starvation and privation. She couldn’t summon the energy to care.

The DeeCees never came, though. After her visit from Markard, she was alone and she stayed alone. She’d been written off, she realized. She was in the Territory, but no longer
of
the Territory. Even the bleating of the comm had died eventually.

She was off-ration. A nonperson. She didn’t exist.

The big bad Territory forces she’d feared her whole life just didn’t care. They weren’t paying attention to her anymore.

She opened the window. It was raining, the downpour hissing against the hot concrete as it pelted down. Her water had been cut off entirely, but she couldn’t risk drinking the rain, even though it wasn’t red; it was too poisonous.

Or was it? Was that, too, a lie? She wondered, but she wasn’t willing to test it.

How many of her neighbors had been written off like this? How many of them right now? How many of them in the past?

Eventually she would have to go out. She had some water saved up, but not much. She would have to scavenge, and some dimly lit, quietly churning part of her mind knew that she would need to try to work herself back into the good graces of the Territory. Pure scavenge was no way to live; rations were consistent, at least. Maybe if she went back to L-Twelve, she could work off the demerits and…

But the problem was this: She didn’t want to go back to L-Twelve. She didn’t want to be a part of the Territory any longer. She remembered Rose saying that he belonged to no Territory—that was her lot, now.

What are you going to do, then, Deedra? You can’t go on living here if you’re not going to get rations. This Territory can’t support you on scavenge alone.

She knew the answer before it actually congealed into discrete chunks of thought in her mind: She would leave. For real, this time.

It saddened her to think of leaving. She’d been prepared to do it before, but it had seemed like a triumph in a way. She would flee to avoid Jaron, and Rose would go with her, and it would have been frightening but exhilarating.

Now… now she was leaving because she had no choice. Because there was nothing left for her but to run.

Still, Rose had wandered and survived, hadn’t he? He’d seen other Territories, other Cities.

Maybe this wasn’t a sign of defeat. Maybe it was the best way to honor his memory.

She took down the sheet from the mirror. Her face had returned to its normal contours, with only slight discoloration here and there. As long as she kept her scar covered, she would be able to travel without drawing attention to herself.

But first… she would take Lissa with her. Or at least ask her to go. If Lissa had, indeed, killed Jaron, then eventually the DeeCees would catch on. Superior Inspector Markard was cowed by the Magistrate, true, but when Max Ludo wasn’t in the room, the man was dogged and smart. He would track down Lissa. Even if she hadn’t killed Jaron, her mere possession of one of Rose’s tendrils would implicate her and be more than sufficient evidence in the eyes of the Magistrate.

Lissa had family in the Territory, but if it meant her life, she might be willing to leave them. Or they could all go together. It might be safer that way.

Deedra began throwing things into her backpack, including her knife and her gifts from Rose. She put on the drone-avoidance poncho Dr. Dimbali had given her and grabbed the SmartSpex.

She considered going out the window, but she realized she didn’t care if the Territory system logged her leaving. She wouldn’t be coming back.

The rain pelted her as she made her way to Lissa’s. It pattered against the hood of her poncho in a rhythm that lulled her as she walked.

Maybe that’s why she didn’t notice the DeeCees until she was almost among them.

Lissa’s building was surrounded by DeeCees, and as soon as she saw them, a memory broke free of its moorings in her mind and rapidly ascended, breaking the surface of her consciousness.

It was Rose, wasn’t it? Only he could do it.

That was Max Ludo’s voice. From her interrogation. She’d forgotten most of it, being drugged out of her mind and beaten and in shock from Rose’s murder. But this bit…

We found biomass in Jaron’s apartment that matches the crap they’re hosing out of my courtyard right now.

This bit was coming back to her now…

He shed that stuff all around the Territory.

Oh no.

He shed that stuff all around the Territory. Anyone could have found it.

No no no no no!

Anyone could have found it. Like Lissa.

Deedra froze in the middle of the sidewalk. She knew she should bolt for cover somewhere, but her revelation and her guilt stilled her legs. She’d sold Lissa out. Without even realizing it.

It had been a week since she’d been released from SecFac. How long had it taken them to figure out which “Lissa” she was talking about? Probably five minutes.

Gnawing at her bottom lip, she took a step back. She didn’t know exactly what was going on here, but she didn’t want to walk into it clueless no matter what it was. There might be something on the wikinets
or there might not be, but it was a moot point—she didn’t have access right now.

Or did she?

She fumbled under her poncho and brought out the SmartSpex. Most goggs could connect wirelessly to the wikinets. She could see if there were any reports of what exactly the DeeCees were doing here and then make a move.

Slipping on the SmartSpex, she turned to sidle into an alleyway, only to bump into a DeeCee.

Oh. Crap.

“Watch it, citizen,” the DeeCee snapped, and Deedra could tell from the voice that it was a woman under that riot helmet.

“Sorry,” she said, and went to step around the DeeCee.

But the woman held out an arm, blocking the way. “Wait a sec. What are you doing here? This area’s off-limits.”

“I was trying to take a shortcut,” Deedra lied. “Over to the RecFac.”

“RecFac is shut down, too.” The DeeCee’s voice had gone suspicious. “We’re still looking for the mother—she escaped.”

The mother… escaped…

Deedra’s breath caught in her throat—she needed to swallow fiercely, but she didn’t trust herself to do it without making it obvious how upset she was.

Escaped. So what happened to everyone else? What happened to Lissa?

“You know the family in there? The Stanhopes?”

“No.” A whisper. Barely audible. She forced herself to swallow—it felt like a wad of brick going down. “No.”

She couldn’t see the DeeCee’s facial expression through the riot helmet’s face shield, but the woman’s posture changed just enough that Deedra knew she was in trouble.

“Show me your brand,” the DeeCee demanded.

Deedra shook her head, mute and terrified.

“Do it now.” The DeeCee adjusted her stance, a hand on her sidearm’s grip. “Don’t make me tear that poncho off you. Brand. Now.”

“Let’s go, Spex,” Deedra mumbled.

“What did you say?” the DeeCee asked.

The SmartSpex booted up. Deedra shrugged. “Nothing. Did you say you wanted to see my brand?” Stalling during the boot-up. Trying to remember the right murm…

“You heard me the first time, drift-rat.” The DeeCee grabbed Deedra by the arm. “If I don’t see it, stat, I’m hauling you in for resisting interrogation and refusal to submit to stop-and-frisk. Do you hear me? You want to spend time in SecFac, drift-rat?”

No, thanks. I’ve spent more than enough time there.

The SmartSpex were online. She ransacked her memory for the correct murm, the one Dr. Dimbali had told her to use only when absolutely desperate. How did it go? Oh, right…

“Did you hear me?” the DeeCee shouted, now shaking her. “You going to answer me?”

“Blow it up, Spex,” Deedra said.

For an instant, she was certain that the murm hadn’t worked—that either the goggs hadn’t understood her or that Dr. Dimbali’s “custom script” had gone awry. In the next instant, though, all doubts were erased as the DeeCee howled in shock and pain, both hands coming up to claw at her helmet.

Dr. Dimbali’s “custom script” had worked after all. It hacked into the helmet’s operating system and sent a five-hundred-decibel burst of static through the speakers. At the same time, it flashed a seizure-inducing pattern of strobe lights along the helmet’s heads-up display. The DeeCee went from threatening to thrashing on the ground, desperately scrabbling at the safety catch under her chin, in less than two seconds.

Deedra spun around. An alarm had sounded. DeeCees were
massing back at Lissa’s building. She had a head start—she could outrun them. But she couldn’t outrun the drones bearing toward her.

Don’t panic. Let them get a little bit closer…

She kept her position, waiting. There were six or seven drones—their speed made it tough to tell—closing on her. At least two of them were the armed variety.

“Flashlight, Spex.”

Again, nothing happened. Visibly, at least.

But on the infrared band, the SmartSpex emitted an explosive burst of IR light. The drones, blinded, spun out of control, colliding with one another and with buildings.

Deedra didn’t stick around to watch the fallout. She ran like hell.