Archon's Queen (25 page)

All the wind in her chest burst out as their fall slammed into a sudden deceleration. Gasping for air, she ignored the pain in her arms and looked up at a one by three foot rectangle connected to Orange’s shoulders by hair-thin cables, stark ashen grey against the near black of the sky. The edges rimmed with yellow light from the glow of micro ion emitters. Too weak to propel them in flight, they gave only enough thrust to increase the effect of the tiny airfoil to that of a large parachute.

Her head to the side, Anna recoiled from the sweeping line of a laser sight―the security men searching for them in the dark. Orange chased the updrafts between buildings on Long Acre, heading southwest to a gentle landing in the middle of Leicester Gardens. The parafoil split in half, each piece folding into itself twice more before vanishing into compartments in the upper portion of cybernetic shoulders.

“You’re just full of surprises, Mr. Orange.”

The binding around her wrists came apart with the flick of a small knife; she hit the grass like a sack of wheat. Sprawled in the wet, she sat up and braced her fingers through the cold green behind her. A silly smile happened despite a body that wouldn’t stop twitching.

“You’re in rougher shape than I thought, girl.” He shook his head, clucking his tongue. “On the rattle, eh? Well… Good luck to you. Can’t imagine what your lot goes through.”

She would have shrugged, but did not want to fall over backwards.

Orange crouched, pulling her upright. “Look here, Pixie, is it? There’s a man over at Oxford… Doctor Mardling if I recall properly. I’ve seen some stuff in the net ‘bout him. He helps people like you, and he doesn’t much like the government. Rather hates their treatment of psionics.”

“M-Mardling?” she asked, before losing control to a seizure.

Orange’s voice swirled into the oblivion of her unconsciousness as he muttered something about not wanting to leave her out there. He sighed as she collapsed in the grass, unable to stand on her own. Arms tightened around her, followed by a sense of being lifted.

She did not care what he did to her; anything was better than how she felt.

lurry pea green haze hovered over her, indistinct in its distance or composition. Weightless, Anna drifted in a swath of time detached from the world. Dull aches teased at her muscles and the sound of each breath sliding in and out rushed like a gale through her skull. A faint breeze tickled and plucked at individual hairs. Her hands ached, and she remembered Mr. Orange.

It seemed she had been left within the drab confines of a motel room that explored every imaginable shade of vomit green. With a moan, she raised her left hand to her forehead and rubbed it, forcing her fingers through her hair and trying to dislodge the anvil balanced there. A line of bruise wrapped around each wrist; the sight dragged the parachute landing back from the depths of her memory.

Something on her arm brushed her nose, and she froze. Lifting it up from her face, she stared at the zoomer adhered to the tender skin. Seeing it brought rage and despair, screaming and tears. She could not remember how it got there, but she also could not find most of yesterday in the dark halls of her mind. Her arm flew, pounding a fist into the bed at her side.

“Damn!”
All that hell for nothing.

Curling on her side, her eyes followed a trail of clothes between the bed and the autoshower. She stared at the derm, picking at the edge with her nails. She wanted to pull it off, but something inside her couldn’t do it.

Sobbing, she berated herself for buying the zoom. She knew how bad the quitting would be, especially cold turkey, and had chickened out before she chickened out. Anna wailed; she clawed at the derm, scratching red lines through her ashen skin. The little beige square might as well have been an impenetrable manacle chaining her to Coventry.

“No, no, no.”

Clutching her arm to her forehead, she bawled, cursing herself and her life. Moments later, she opened her eyes. Spawny’s jacket, draped over a little chair tucked up to a table near the bed, shimmered into focus. Two more zoomers waited in the pocket. If she put them both on at once and milked them, there was a good chance her problems would come to an end. Anna pushed herself up, sitting at the edge of the bed in a fog.

The chilly room brought shivers in time with surges of driving rain against the window. Anna stared down at her protruding ribs, her thin bony legs and prominent hips. Credits that should have gone to food had bought more chemical chains so she could tie herself to this misery. She did not want to go back to the club, or be a plaything for the police, or continue to wallow at the edge of a society that did not want her. Her own father had been ready to kill her.

Father knows best, right?

She wobbled to her feet and approached the jacket, peering into the gaping darkness of the pocket. Naked in a cheap motel, high, and with red marks on her wrists, the shame of what the sight would imply sent her to her knees. Face in the cushion of the chair, she rummaged at the coat until she found the sheet. Thin white plasfilm gleamed in the grey light from the window; the skin-hued bits of rubber beckoned with the offer of bliss or permanent release.

Anna lost track of time, kneeling and staring at the drugs as she pondered her life. She had agreed to go back to the art class later that afternoon. The thought of the two dozen sketches of “Innocent Anna” there sent warm streaks down her face and balled her hands into fists. She imagined the angelic versions of her moving, turning to look at her and laughing, pointing, and mocking the whore with no willpower.

They’re all lying to me.

She punched the back of the chair, knocking it into the desk, dropped the sheet of derms, and fell on her side on scratchy, worn green carpet with her face buried in her hands. Something bounced away from her thigh and hit the floor. A small black plastic ingot sat amid the green haze. It sprouted tiny arms and tried to drag itself to her, grunting. Anna chased the hallucination away and blinked at a device the size of her thumb, but flat and rectangular. As thick through as a coffee stirrer, it had one button on its otherwise featureless surface.

At a squeeze, it created a holographic light panel that unfolded through the air. Within, the face of a man hung above a monochromatic green background. He looked in his thirties, with shoulder-length brown hair and a precisely sculpted goatee and moustache. His nose was distinguished, almost prominent, and his right eyebrow lifted a touch as if he wanted to convey the secret of enlightenment. The face smiled as it rotated a quarter turn; text filled in to his right.

“Anna, apologies for leaving you alone last night, but I am bound to certain deadlines by certain individuals that despise tardiness. Don’t worry about the room, I’ve taken care of the fee. This is the man I mentioned regarding your problem. Doctor James Mardling, of Oxford, he might be able to help you with your issue.

Cheers,

Mr. Orange.”

Anna blinked. She was high, but the feeling of the holographic man smiling
at her
seemed more real than part of a looping animation or hallucination. She traced her fingers through the image as if petting the hair of a doll.

Can this bloke do a bloody thing for a worthless wretch?

A man’s voice blurred through the door. Shadows moved through the light leaking underneath. She gasped, and covered herself as if being watched.

The voice from the hall yelled. “Blimey, get away. For the last time, I don’t want a bloody umbrella, damn nuisances.”

Those bots are relentless.
She relaxed.

Anna fussed over the crinkled derm sheet to make sure the doses were intact. Faye and Penny’s faces came to mind and made her feel even more ashamed for considering checking out. She wrapped her arms around herself, crying, as she pictured Penny’s reaction to learning she had committed suicide; then her brain forced her through a hallucination of walking in to find Faye dead.

Somehow, the younger girl had come to represent Anna’s destroyed childhood. She’d known her for a week, but it felt like she’d stepped in as a temporary mum. Faye still had a chance. She couldn’t let the same things happen to her.

She picked at the small black device for a minute, the presence in her hand reminded her Mr. Carroll still owed her a great deal of money. Well, chump change to him, but a fortune to her. She stuffed the derm sheet and the holo recording into the jacket and clutched her stomach. With the credits she had earned, they would eat well for a few weeks. She used the chair to pull herself standing, holding onto it to stop the spinning room.

She could not bear the thought of admitting to Penny she had caved and dosed up. She dreaded the stares of the art students again; she had betrayed the charcoal angels.

After a glance at the clock, she stumbled over to the shower tube. Her body refused to let her mind rid itself of zoom. Anna brushed at the derm patch, ripping it loose and throwing it into the corner. The pain made her stumble into the wall; a droplet of bright crimson glistened against the white of her arm where the chems had weakened her skin. She knew she could not free herself without help; perhaps she would go see this Mardling fellow.

She would not let the zoom win.