The Last Book in the Universe (8 page)

 

 

B
OSS
L
ADY
. The Latch Queen. Nails. The White Widow.

Lotti has a lot of names, none of them good. Nails because she has special razors glued onto her long fingernails, razors that'll spill your red so quick and deep, you won't even feel it. White Widow because most of her luvmates don't seem to live very long. She has other names, too, names that are only whispers, names that'll get you canceled if she hears.

The first and only time Lotti Getts ever noticed me was the day I lost my family unit. And on that day Lotti tickled me with her razor nails, looked at me with eyes of stone, and said, “You've got bad blood, boy, and we can't have that in our latch, can we?”

Now we're surrounded by her gang the moment we cross into her territory. Like they knew we were coming.

“Nothing to worry about,” Lanaya announces, sounding almost cheerful. “They know me here.”

Before I can say anything, she pops out the top hatch and waves a greeting. “I come to trade!” Lanaya announces. “Let me pass!”

The Vandals rev their jetbikes so loud it makes the air feel as thick as jelly. So loud you can almost see the noise shimmering. Exhaust flames scorch the ground, and the Vandals are all grinning in that hard, mean way they have, like they can't wait to hurt something.

Lotti Getts raises her fist. When the engines fade away she stands up in her saddle and stares hard at Lanaya. Most normals would be afraid to stare like that at a proov, but not Lotti.

“What trade have you?” Lotti demands.

Me and Ryter and Little Face are hiding in the takvee and watching on the vidscreens, but even so I can tell that Lanaya is surprised by the question. Like nobody ever dared ask her before. “The, um, usual items,” she says, sounding uncertain. “Is there a problem?”

“Yes, there's a problem,” Lotti says. “Someone has been running mindprobes into my latch. Probing is forbidden here, under penalty of death.” The jetbikes rev, as if in agreement.

“I'm not a runner,” Lanaya protests. “I don't know anything about mindprobes.”

“No?”

Lotti gets off her jetbike, climbs up on the hood of the takvee like she's mounting a throne in her stab-heel boots, and stands eye-to-eye with Lanaya. All around there's maybe five hundred of her best and meanest Vandals armed to the teeth with splat guns and gut-rippers and armor-piercing crossbows. If Lotti gives the signal, they'll fight until they win, or die. That's the rule of the Vandals, win or die. And they always win.

“What are you hiding?” Lotti demands.

“Hiding?” says Lanaya. “Nothing.”

“We'll see about that,” says Lotti. And with one hand she lifts Lanaya right out of the hatch and sets her down on the hood. On the vidscreen Lanaya's face looks astonished, like her whole world just got tilted.

The next thing we know Lotti is looking down into the open hatch. She doesn't seem a bit surprised to find us there. “Two choices,” she says, smiling with her teeth. “Come out or I'll firebomb this vehicle with you in it.”

We come out. Ryter first, then Little Face, then me.

“I can explain, my lady,” says Ryter, in his grandest voice.

“Don't ‘lady' me,” Lotti snarls. “And don't explain. I see what I see,” she says, looking hard at me. “And what I see is a traitor, a rule breaker, a latch runner.”

“Don't hurt them,” I say. “They were just trying to help me.”

Lotti seems delighted to hear it. “Helping you disobey your latchboss is a killing offense,” she says. “You knew that?”

I nod.

“We all knew it,” Ryter says.

“Shut your hole, geez! I'm talking to the spaz boy. Tell me, Spaz boy, what's in my latch worth risking your life for?”

My heart is pounding so fierce, I can hardly think, but I know if I don't tell Lotti, she'll slice the truth out of me anyway. “My sister,” I tell her. “I want to see my sister.”

I get the idea Lotti already knows why I'm here, that she heard all about it from Billy Bizmo. They say Billy was once her luvmate, one of the few who survived, and that's why whenever there's a latch war, Lotti and Billy are usually on the same side.

Lotti gets in my face, so close I can smell the anger on her breath. Like the air after lightning strikes. “Give me a reason,” she says. “A reason to let you live.”

“Let me see Bean and I'll do anything you want.”

She strokes her razor nails under my chin. “That's not a reason,” she says.

“I'm begging you.”

“There's a rule against begging, Spaz boy.”

I decide maybe it's better to shut up. Lotti's just playing with us. She doesn't really care why we're here, or what we want. “You'll do anything, eh?” she says, turning the idea around in her mind. “Hmmm, that might be interesting. Let me confer with my warriors.”

The way Lotti saunters back to the Vandals, you know she rules the ground she walks on. We can't hear what her gang brutes have to say, but several of them nod and glance at us as they talk among themselves.

A few moments later she comes back to the takvee. “I, Lotti Getts, queen of the Vandals, boss of the latch, task you with this. Find me the probe runner. Deliver the vermin into my hands, and Spaz may visit his wretched sister. That is my ruling.”

Ryter strokes his wispy beard and says, “But my lady, there may not be time. We must —”

“Shut it!” Lotti shrieks. “Do as I command, old man. Bring me the probe runner! Do it or die!”

Even if we'd dared to object, we couldn't have made ourselves heard over the air-shaking rumble of the jetbikes, or the earsplitting cheer of the Vandals chanting for their queen.

“Nails! Nails! Nails!” they roar. “Nails! Nails! Nails!”

Finally she rakes the cool gray sky with her red-cutting fingernails and fixes me with a pay-attention stare that says without speaking:
I mean it, boy, find me the probe runner or die trying.

 

 

T
HE FIRST THING
Lanaya wants to know is, can we get away with disobeying. “I mean, what's to stop us from finding your sister and then just running away?” she asks.

Ryter sighs and looks at me, like he thinks I'm the one who should tell her.

“Lotti will have my family unit under watch,” I explain. “Just by coming here I've put them all in danger. We don't have any choice. We have to find this stupid probe runner.”

Some runners carry messages, but some carry things to trade, forbidden things, and Lotti has forbidden probing in her territory. She must have seen what happened in the nearby latches when gangs spent more time probing than taking care of business.

“She's an intelligent leader,” Ryter offers. “Brutal but brilliant. If Mongo had been half as smart, he'd still be Mongo the Magnificent.”

We're back in the takvee, trying to put some distance between us and the Vandals. I expected them to follow, but so far they haven't. Maybe Lotti thinks we'll have a better chance of finding the runner if she's not around. The trouble is, I've no idea where to start. I feel like I'm slowly falling down a bottomless black hole and the more I try to get out, the deeper I go. The worst part is, I'm dragging everybody else down with me.

“We must think deeply,” Ryter suggests. “All of us. Put our heads together and come up with a plan.”

The takvee rolls to a stop in a deserted area known to locals (and I used to be a local, remember) as the Brick Yard. All that's left of the old buildings are huge piles of broken bricks slowly eroding into dust. Nothing lives here anymore. Nothing on two legs, that is. Even on the vidscreens the red eyes of long-tailed rodents wink like stars among the brick mountains. On certain nights — the blackest nights — the Brick Yard comes alive with a chittering that sounds like conversation, as if all the rats are trying to talk at once.

I don't mention the rats, but Ryter notices me shivering.

“We'll think of something,” he promises. “Lanaya, my dear, do you have any thoughts? If you were on your own, how would you go about identifying a probe runner?”

Lanaya shrugs. “I don't know. Find where to buy the probes, I guess. That's where I'd start.”

“Excellent!” Ryter exclaims. When the old man gets excited, his face looks younger, as if ideas have the power to melt the years away. “It has the advantage of simplicity,” he says, rubbing his withered hands together, “and the best ideas begin with simplicity. Yes indeed, child, I believe you've struck on a viable strategy. If we find a source for the forbidden mindfliks, we may be able to make a connection to the person supplying them — namely the probe runner.”

An idea blinks into my head. “What if we pretend we want to trade for probes?” I ask.

“Yes!” Ryter says. “Yes! Yes! Make him come to us! Brilliant!”

And that's how we hatch a plan to become criminals, and enter the very dangerous underworld of traders who deal in things forbidden in the latch of the Vandal Queen.

 

Lanaya takes us to Traderville, where hundreds of merchants keep their stalls, and even the strolling beggars have things to trade. She's been there before and knows where to leave the takvee, and who to see.

“Let me do the talking,” she announces. “They know me here,” she adds, with her beautiful nose up in the air. Making sure that we never forget she's Little Miss Genetically Perfect.

Traderville is this crowded-up jumble of stalls and shacks and security shelters shoved together under the old skyrails. They say in the backtimes that trains flew through the air, just overhead. Trains that moved so fast, they made their own wind. Trains that went faster than the sound they left behind. It might even be true, but the trains are gone now, and all that remains is the old elevated track system. Parts of it fall from the sky now and then, but that doesn't stop the merchants from gathering there to trade and haggle — and steal, if they can.

They say “trader” is just another word for “thief.” I don't know if that's true, exactly, but you have to be very careful or you'll go into a stall to trade for clothes, let's say, and end up without a shirt on your back. I know because it happened to me once. Charly, my former dad, told me I'd learned a valuable lesson that was worth more than the stupid old shirt. As far as I'm concerned, the valuable lesson was “don't bother complaining to Charly.” And, like they say, don't give up your goods until the trade is on the table.

Lanaya leads us to the most densely crowded part of Traderville, under the rusty metal awnings that provide shade from the naked sun, or protection from the acid rain, depending on the weather. The stalls display goods from all over the Urb. Boots from Latch West, velvet capes made by the famous Beastie slave girls, ironware for cooking, every kind of edible, weaponry, body armor, exotic luv-scents guaranteed to “cloud men's minds,” herbs and potions and poisons, holos and 3Ds, cheap crib gear (inflato chairs that leak), expensive crib gear (inflatos that don't leak), thumpers and flutes, three-legged dogs (It Barks And It Bites But It Can't Run Away!), twenty-eight flavors of noodle, and last but not least, choxbars.

First thing, Lanaya trades her earrings for a new stock of edibles. She hands Little Face a choxbar, and almost before he gets the wrapper off he's grinning like he's just been made king of the latch. “Chox!” he chirps, clinging to her shimmering white gown. “Lan-ay-ah chox!”

That freezes me. I save the brat's life more than once, and let him come along with us, but he learns to say her name, not mine? Lanaya gives me a look that says,
see, I told you,
but I pretend not to be annoyed. We've got more important things to worry about.

“This way,” Lanaya says. “I know exactly the man to see.”

She leads us to one of the larger stalls, where three lovely young women offer a variety of luv-scents. They make their pitch to Ryter, holding out their scented bottles and chanting, “Essence of orchid! Essence of rose! Come on, old man, put it under your nose!” as if they assume he wants to buy luv-scents for the beautiful young proov girl.

Ryter waves them off with a smile while Lanaya gets right down to business. “I must speak with your master,” she says, keeping her voice low. “Is Bender here?”

“Bender is always here,” trills one of the luv-scent girls. She makes a funny, birdlike noise, somewhere between a whistle and a laugh, and the man himself appears from behind the curtains at the back of the stall.

When he sees who has summoned him, Bender's face lights up. “My dear!” he exclaims. “What a wonderful surprise!”

They say “fat as a rich man” because only the rich can afford enough edibles to make them fat. If it's true, then Bender must be very rich indeed. He wears the proof of his wealth like some men wear body armor, and he keeps patting his wonderfully plump belly as if to make sure he's well-protected by his layer of hard-earned blubber. His face is as round as the rest of him, and just as jolly. Everything about Bender looks jolly except his eyes, which are small and bright and watchful. As he carefully looks us over, he fingers the many small gold rings that are woven into his silky black beard.

“I see you have taken a new escort, my dear. Did your teks displease you somehow?”

“Indeed they did,” Lanaya says, offering no further explanation. She beckons to Bender, drawing him closer, which seems to make him more than a little nervous. “I'm interested in trading for probes, Bender,” she whispers huskily. “Can you help me?”

Bender shrinks away as if she's cut him. “Oh no, my dear! Probing is forbidden in this latch! Merely to possess a probe means instant cancellation. To actually trade for them means even worse.”

“Worse than death?” Lanaya asks curiously.

“Oh indeed, there are many things worse than death, and the Latch Queen knows them all. Forget about probing, I beg you.”

“But surely a proov isn't bound by the same rules,” Lanaya says, coaxing him. “Surely an exception can be made for me?”

She reaches out as if to stroke the rings woven into Bender's beard, but he hastily pulls away. “No, my dear, not possible!”

“But you've made many such exceptions in the past.”

The trader shakes his head so hard that the rings in his beard chime and all of his many chins wobble. “Not for probes, my dear. Never for probes. Anything else I'll happily trade, but not that. Gold, silver, gemstones, these I can provide. But not the other.” Bender has been slowly backing up, trying to put distance between himself and the dangerous proov girl, but she won't let him get away. Lanaya finally hooks her fingers into his beard rings and draws him close. She whispers something in his ear, he nods fearfully, then whispers something back.

Lanaya returns to us with a secret smile. “Come along,” she says, looking very pleased with herself. “It's not far from here.”

She leads us behind the stalls, into the darkest part of Traderville. To the place where armored thugs guard each shack, and luv-girls beckon from the open windows. You can buy anything in this place, from dice-bones to a human life. My first impulse is to cover Little Face's eyes, but I know he's seen worse, like every child on the curb.

Lanaya doesn't seem to notice all the wickedness and filth. As if somehow it isn't real to her. Which makes me think that nothing in the world of normals is quite real to her. Maybe that's why she acts as if nothing can touch her, because she thinks we're all part of an exciting, entertaining game called Proov Princess Visits the Latch.

Ryter glances at me and shakes his head. He looks worried, if not for himself then for the rest of us. It's not unusual for people to enter this part of Traderville and never be seen again. I'm about to say something, when Lanaya holds up her hand.

“Be still,” she commands. “We must wait here while the Furies check us out.”

Furies, I'm thinking, what Furies?

And then I see them. Figures in black-hooded capes, creeping out from between the shacks. It's not until they're close enough to touch that I notice the skull masks and the black daggers, and by then it's too late.