Archon's Queen (16 page)

“No, dammit. I mean what the crap is this?” She extended a hand at the moaning bodies.

He took the case of instant meals again, offering her his elbow with a smile. “I’ve had an interesting life.”

She accepted his elbow, this time noticing how firm it was. When she focused her mind through the fading zoom, the sense of electrical energy in both arms became apparent as well as lines of it throughout his whole body. He had a lot of cyberware. His two prosthetic arms had to be military grade; visually, they looked no different from natural limbs. At least one eye was artificial, and he had some manner of full-body speedware.

Adrenaline from the fight tamped down the fog in her head enough to peer into Jack’s head.

Flashes of red desert drifted through his mind as they navigated The Ruin. He had been in the military; something called the SAS, and his thoughts drifted back to combat he had seen on Mars. Old army buddies leaned on frightening looking vehicles, smiles and waves shifted in the fog of years. Under it all, he seemed oddly focused on Anna’s welfare. The name Hannah formed and faded as he looked at her.

Anna worried he might still be with the government, helping those two men who showed up at the checkpoint. Alas, dulled by zoom and lack of practice, her ability could not reach beyond his surface thoughts. When he smiled at her again, she sensed only relief at having protected her.

Anna made her way up twelve stories, stepping over bodies of those too strung out to find their hovels. Bottles clanked and rolled out of her way. A can bounced down the pale concrete stairs over rusting metal slats, which crowned the edges. Here and there, bits of it went missing wherever an errant bullet had gone by or a desperate wretch had pried the steel away to sell for scrap.

The thirteenth floor, labeled fourteen, offered trash of lower density to wade through as Penny spent much of her time cleaning the area when she was not babysitting. It gave her a sense of purpose and made the place feel more like a real home than a squat no one cared about.

She walked around the corner, heading for her room. Ten doors past her flat, the area broke apart into one wide-open space; half of the thirteenth floor was blown out and all of those apartments merged into one commingled mess of hanging tarpaulins and jagged metal struts. Few were sorry enough to make their home there, with the east wall missing, it was little different than sleeping outside. Here, behind the protection of a ninety-degree bend, their apartments felt like a home.

Her boot left a scuffmark on the dull orange door of Penny’s apartment before she walked into hers. Faye sat cross-legged on the bed, still in her skivvies, listening to some horrendous loud music piped into wireless earpieces from her NetMini. The girl looked up at Anna, as if disappointed to see her back.

“It’s not your apartment yet, kiddo.” Anna smiled, hiding the discomfort still aching through her.

The music stopped as the girl tilted her head at the giant box under Anna’s arm. “Wot’s that?”

Anna flopped on the end of the bed. “Got you some things.”

She set the case of instant meals down and handed her the bear. “Couldn’t resist when I saw it.”

The girl smirked at the offering, as if it was uncool.

“G’won then. You don’t need to act hard all the time.” She dropped the bear in the kid’s lap. “Oh, and there’s this too.” She handed her the box with the earrings.

“What’s all this for?” Faye glanced at them, throwing back a suspicious stare.

“Saw them and thought of you. Figured you could use a cheer-up.”

A little crack peered through the girl’s shell; her nascent smile ran away from a crash at the front of the apartment.

Penny burst through the door, running up to Anna with a bog-eyed stare. “Cripes, girl. Where the hell have you been? I thought you got nicked.”

“I did, but it was just a border check.”

Penny hugged her. “Which border did they check?”

Anna laughed. “I got lucky again.”

“You look awful.” Penny fussed over her. “What is that smell? Did you hurl?”

“Whore of a comedown this time…”

“Dammit girl.” Penny shoved at her. “You need to get off the shit.”

Faye set the bear to the side and helped herself to one of the instant meals. Ten seconds after she yanked the pull strip, the room flooded with the scent of Chinese noodle soup. She picked at the corner tab, and drew back the plastic sheet, which loosed a cloud of steam into the air. Translucent noodles swam in a yellow broth, interspersed with hunks of vat-grown shrimp and hydroponic-farm vegetables. The girl started on it straight away, so hungry she ignored how hot it was.

“You nicked a case of ramen?” Penny rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Cripes this is the good stuff. What’s it a hundred credits?”

“I bought the food… nicked a necklace.” Anna drew a finger around her throat with a drug-dulled grin.

Penny swatted at her, scolding. “Anna, you’re being an idiot. You know if you get pinched for it now you’ll go away. I don’t want to lose you.” The batting became a hug.

I did for practice. I’m not gonna keep at it, too dangerous. I overdid it years ago and almost got bagged. Usin’ my talents like that’ll eventually get me killed.

Penny squeezed her tight as Anna’s telepathic voice entered her mind.

“You two munch rug or something?” Faye slurped at her noodles.

Anna snickered.

Penny blushed. “Twee! Certainly not.”

“Well, she’s got a man at least.” Faye nodded at Penny.

Anna’s laughter faded to a shameful stare at the ground. She did not want to admit to working at a strip club or being rented out for six hundred credits an hour. “I just haven’t met the right―”

“Bullshit.” Faye slurped again. “I saw the faerie hologram rig; you’re a stripper aren’t you? You on the game too?”

Anna looked at the nightstand, at the leafy metal harness lay like a dead spider on the imitation wood.

“It’s cute.” Faye slurped noodles. “I tried it on. You don’t have to sugar-coat shit for me. I’m not as innocent as I look. Izzat why they call you Pixie?”

She figured it for posturing. There was no way this girl was anything more than a spoiled suburbanite. She wanted to be seen as tough and undamaged, even if she was homesick and scared to death.

Anna had nowhere to hide, and maybe the truth would send the kid home. “Yeah. There isn’t much other place for girls to go out here. The name came first, ‘cause I’m five nothin’ with a sprog’s face.” She laid it on thick as she described the club, saying she could keep forty credits of the six hundred her
manager
charged a man to use her. “They basically own me, Twee. If someone pays Blake, I don’t get a say in what they do to me.”

Faye fidgeted, no longer able to make eye contact with either woman.

Penny chirped up. “You could babysit… Walk dogs…”

“Oh yeah… Me, babysit?” Anna slapped herself on the thigh. “Parents would take one look at me and lock their doors.”

“Or ask who’s babysitting you while you babysit their kid.” Faye squinted at her. “Don’t call me Twee.”

“P’raps they wouldn’t if you got off the shit… I think you keep half the corner-chemists in London in Armani.”

Anna sighed, looking at Faye. “It’s not an easy thing to let go of.”

nna smiled at the fond recollection of Faye cuddling the teddy bear in her sleep. She had slipped out of bed and left the girl undisturbed before tiptoeing out of the apartment. At a touch past noon, several dozen people crowded around the base of the tower, collecting by massive grills made of old cinderblocks and rebar.

Spawny knew how to tap the municipal mains to bring electricity into the place through the abandoned sewers. It was a task he repeated every few months when the Power Authority located the splice and fixed it. The wind played with the quasi-edible scent of purloined meat burned black by electric elements from industrial water heaters.

She cut the line and swiped something masquerading as a hamburger patty, smiling and waving at a couple guys whining at her for cutting.
Gah, they sound like schoolboys
. She munched on it, navigating The Ruin on her way to the police checkpoint.

Anna prepared herself for the usual ‘against-the-wall,’ but she had no zoom on her, no contraband, and felt altogether too strung out and fatigued to put up a fight. Today, the constables watched her go by without even speaking. Something about their stares made her uneasy, as if they were afraid of her. Not wanting to garner more scrutiny, she averted her eyes and walked faster.

Four blocks into the city, she mingled into a disreputable crowd at the end of a back street and waited her turn to talk to Everybody’s Friend.

EF was of mixed African and Indian heritage, and around nineteen. His hands slid among those of the people, passing credits and chems and returning gestures of respect. Most of his head hid beneath a floppy cloth cap, his clothes oversized and too expensive for someone who spent so much time in an alley like this. Within the great hooded mass of maroon cloth covered in a repeating pattern of beige fleur de lis, he had what she needed.

“The Pixie…” He smiled when she reached the front of the line. “Sex on legs… You lookin’ for Faerie Dust?”

“Got any of the usual?”