Upgraded (24 page)

“Look, you wanna die out here that’s your business.” Zeb’s strength, surprising for his age, kept Mac upright even though his knees wanted to buckle and crash him to the ground. “I saved your life, but if you don’t want to extend me even the slightest bit of gratitude for my efforts, so be it.”

Zeb released him. By some cruel trick of gravity, Mac didn’t fall. He raised his head. Nothing but dust, as far as he could see, and the shadows of buzzards staining the red. The color brought the smell of burning and blood to clog nose and mouth. He brought up hands to claw the scent away. No . . . Only one hand. He bucked, his body trembling rebellion against his conviction to die.

“Wait!” At Mac’s croak, Zeb paused, light winking from the green glass covering his eye. “I’m sorry.”

Zeb grunted; he waited for Mac to catch up.

The wall gleamed in the late apricot light. All his will concentrated on not collapsing, Mac dragged himself to the way station door where Zeb waited. Two double-wide trailers, hollowed out and laid on their ends, had been soldered with hooks to fit a bar attached to a keypad with a red, blinking light. Zeb tapped in a code.

The light turned amber, then green; the bar rose. The double-wide trailers swung open, and the junkyard opened to them.

“Don’t get much trade these days. Still, got a few bits around as might be useful. Build up more in my spare time. Gotta keep busy.” The door swung shut. The encircling walls layered shadows thick between the piles of junk, and the air seemed colder.

“You’re all alone?” Mac asked, trying focus on something other than panic and pain.

Zeb shrugged. “Most days. Sit before you fall down.”

He pointed to an oil drum, sawed in half to make one of a pair of seats next to an ash-filled fire pit. Mac lowered himself, careful not to over-balance.

“Palace guard?” Zeb spoke over the rattle as he hauled open the drawer of a battered filing cabinet standing beside the nearest junk pile. If there was order in the chaos, Mac couldn’t see it.

“Not anymore.” Mac’s throat tightened. “I . . . I tried to save the prince. She refused to leave the palace.”

Mac shook his head. The ache filling the hollow space behind his eyes colored like a bruise. The prince’s eyes, the stubborn set of her jaw. She’d never believed in her own mortality. She’d built the wall her father had spoken of all her life, filling her head with it until it became her dream, and she believed it would never fall. And because the wall had filled her world, she’d never thought to look to the people inside it for signs of danger.

Mac’s throat worked, aching as he tried to swallow the salt-taste of memory. He’d believed in the prince’s vision, stopped his ears when his sisters and brother had called the prince’s regime unfair, pressed literature into his hands, invited him to their meetings, held in secret places far from the palace’s prying eyes.

He told himself their lives weren’t his. They’d always had their own world, their own shared language and memories. Mac was the intruder, the latecomer, blooming his mother’s belly, and breaking into their established, closed world.

But they were family. And he’d offered no bribes, done nothing to stay the hangman’s noose. For what? The prince’s softening waist, the seed planted in her belly she wouldn’t even confirm was his, the child growing inside the body she didn’t believe in, preferring to see herself as incorruptible, immortal, inhuman?

Zeb slammed the drawer, and opened the door of a scarred, wooden object that might once have been a wardrobe. Mac caught a glimpse of limbs, stripped of skin, only metallic bones—gold, silver, and copper—hanging from hooks. His gaze went to Zeb’s own mechanical leg. It bent the wrong direction. The discrepancy, one flesh knee facing forward, one metal knee bending back, gave the old man an odd, rolling gait, but it didn’t slow him down.

“Ha!” Zeb emerged from the cabinet with an arm. He squinted, holding the appendage in front of him, assessing Mac. “This looks just your size.”

Zeb shut the cabinet door, but it bounced open again. Something tumbled out, rolling to a stop against Mac’s foot, a skull—emptied of eyes, lips, nose, mouth—everything but the silvered teeth and servo-powered jaws.

Mac kicked it away, the trembling he’d only just gotten under control threatening to start up again. He’d seen a trader come to the city once with a golden arm, wanting to sell armor to the prince. When Mac had asked, the prince told him the limbs were common during the war, before the wall. She’d waved further questions away, impatient.

The thought of metal joined to his flesh left cold sweat slicking his skin. Mac’s head buzzed. Zeb’s lips moved, but Mac couldn’t hear him. The only thing was the roar of blood in his ears, the high-pitched ringing in the wake of the cannon that had taken his arm.

The world tilted out from under him, taking with it the smell of charred flesh, and a hand that no longer existed—phantom fingers scrabbling over marble, reaching for the prince sprawled upon the palace steps, braids spread around her head, the medals covering her uniform winking with reflected flame.

“That should do you.” Zeb’s face leaned into his again.

“Liana?” The name slipped, unbidden, from Mac’s lips. He could clearly see Zeb leaning over him, but it was his sister’s eyes, so like their mother’s, peering anxiously at him. It was her hand touching his fevered brow.

Mac tried to push him away, but again, his hand didn’t move. His whole body refused motion, sleep-drugged, blood thick with whatever Zeb had given him to keep him under.

“Li, I’m sick.”

Zeb frowned. “It’ll wear off soon.”

Doubled behind Zeb, Liana hushed him. She took Mac’s right hand, the missing one, humming a lullaby he remembered from when he was a child. Mac swallowed, his throat raw. He tried to close his eyes, but they were already closed. Had Zeb poisoned him? Why couldn’t he think straight?

“Li?”

But, no. Li was dead. Trin had spit on him, and called him a traitor. Cal had refused to look at him. Only Liana, who had their mother’s eyes, looked at him square on, and whispered
why
?

Why?
The crows echoed the call: why, why, why—opening their rusty beaks, shaking their midnight wings, fixing Mac with eyes the color of dried blood.
Why.
And below the crows, three bodies swung from the prince’s gibbet, turning slow.

Mac’s ragged throat opened, repeating the question through lips that felt bruised and swollen. “Why?”

Zeb cleared his throat, looking away. Mac blinked. Liana no longer stood behind him.

Pain edged in as the confusion cleared. Mac struggled to focus. “Why are you helping me?”

 “Soldiers gotta watch each other’s backs.” Zeb shrugged, still not looking at Mac. “Can you sit up?”

 Mac reached out with his right hand, deliberate this time. It didn’t move, not even the phantom sensation of motion. Mac rolled his head to look. Metal joined his burned shoulder, the slick scent of oil replacing charred flesh. It was dim enough, the sun having set, Mac could only just make out the pipe—mimicking bone—and the greased joints, mimicking ball sockets, trailing from his shoulder.

“What did you do?” Mac tasted rust and blood at the back of his throat; his voice grated accordingly.

 “It’ll take a bit of getting used to.”

 “The fuck?” Mac’s tongue stuck thick to the roof of his mouth.

“That gratitude again.” Zeb brought his gaze back to Mac’s, expression sour. Something lay tucked beneath it, something Mac couldn’t quite read.

Mac focused on the metal arm again, willed his fingers to move. The silvered joints, just visible by the plum-colored light, disobeyed. Weight dragged his shoulder, pinning him to the ground.

“Some of it’s rust. Most of it’s dead weight. We’ll get you a ghost, and you’ll be right as rain in no time.”

“Ghost?” Mac jerked, but the space over Zeb’s shoulder remained empty.

“I’ll get you something to eat, help you regain your strength. Hang on.”

Mac heard Zeb rattling around, but couldn’t turn his head far enough to follow his motion. The whine of Zeb’s wrong-facing knee gave away his return. The old man crouched, oddly bent, his good leg stuck straight out to accommodate the backward one. He helped Mac sit, propping him against one of the dented filing cabinets. Mac’s right side listed under the weight of the metal arm.

Zeb handed him a tin plate, sloppy with beans and chunks of pork that were mostly fat. Mac’s stomach grumbled, surprising him. When was the last time he ate? Balancing the plate awkwardly on his legs, he gripped the spoon on his left hand and shoveled food into his mouth. Zeb watched him, wary.

When he was done, he handed Zeb the plate. “Thanks.”

His head felt clearer, he felt stronger, but his right-hand fingers remained dead-spider curled, palm open to the sky. With his left hand, Mac touched the metal. Desert cool. He traced the length of the arm. Fingers, wrist, elbow—and there. He stopped. Ridged flesh met his fingers and Mac pulled away.

“I need a new shirt.”

Zeb nodded. He rose, rummaged again and returned with a shirt, clean but not new. “It belonged to . . . Never mind.” Zeb helped Mac pull the shirt over the dead weight of his right arm.

 “How . . . does this work?” Mac tilted his head, indicated the metal limb.

“You need a ghost.”

“What are you talking about?” His chest tightened. The word
why
crow-cawed in his head.

“A ghost. To power your arm.” Zeb pointed. “Didn’t anybody ever lose a limb in the city?”

Mac blinked, comprehension lagging. Zeb’s good eye twitched. He dug in his pocket.

“Tech won’t work without something to drive it. Metal’s metal. Life? That’s something else.” Zeb held up a round of metal surrounding dark red glass, like a lens. “Was gonna do it while you were under, but you woke up sooner’n I expected.”

“What is it?”

“Lets you see ghosts. Useful in the desert. You can trap ’em for trade, or just avoid the ones who wanna eat your flesh.”

Mac’s head snapped up, looking for any sign Zeb was kidding. The old man shrugged. “Some ghosts are hungrier than others.”

Mac licked his lips. Zeb’s good eye showed sympathy; the other, blanked by green glass, was unreadable.

“It’ll hurt like fuck, but it’s the quickest way.”

Zeb flipped the lens, showing the back tipped with wicked prongs. Ghosts. Would he see Liana again? Mac nodded on an out breath. Lightning quick, like a blow, like a slap, Zeb drove his hand into Mac’s face. The metal prongs dug deep, biting skin. Mac yelled, clapped a hand over glass and metal, fingers scrabbling.

Only his hand didn’t move.

Zeb touched something on the lens’ rim. A click, and the prongs bit deeper, minute tips burying themselves in Mac’s flesh so the lens stayed in place when Zeb lowered his hand. Stunned, Mac raised his left hand. His fingers met blood slickness, weeping from his cheek.

“Here.” Zeb handed him a rag. Mac gingerly wiped the blood away. “Come on.”

Zeb got an arm around Mac, dragging him to his feet. Mac leaned, too drained to protest. Zeb’s wrong-bending knee whined with each step; he led Mac to the double-wide trailer doors and opened them to the desert dust and stars.

Mac sucked in a breath. Through his left eye, everything looked normal. Through his right, pomegranate tinted and aching from the new lens, he
saw.
The desert was full of ghosts.

“How do I tell the hungry ones?” Mac stood in the open doorway of the junkyard. Another few days rest, and he could stand on his own now. More of Zeb’s powder to kill the pain didn’t hurt either, but he still felt unsteady, unmoored.

“They’re usually faster.” Zeb pointed to where a dart of color streaked over a rise in the ground. It didn’t come, but Mac imagined the squeal of a rat or lizard, caught unaware and devoured whole. “Avoid those ones. The rest’ll leave you alone.”

The ghosts looked nothing like the shade of Liana he’d seen over Zeb’s shoulder. She’d been fever-born, then. Still, she was out there somewhere, wasn’t she? Cal and Trin, too. And the prince. Mac scanned, as if he might catch sight of something familiar, something to set one twist of light apart from the rest.

Most ghosts simply floated, like thermal currents, drifting above the desert floor, curls of plum-colored and dark pomegranate energy, visible only through his right eye.

“You get used to it.” Zeb’s spoon scraped over the last of their meal, what Mac assumed was burnt squirrel, but was afraid to ask.

“So how do I catch one?”

“Gotta find something they want.”

“Like what?” Mac turned. Zeb rose and rooted in the nearest pile of junk.

“Something like this.” Zeb held up a doll—bald, its fired-clay skin cracked, one eye missing, the other rolled back unsettlingly in its skull. From the black hole of the missing eye, a stream of ants threaded down the doll’s cheek, indignant at having their home disturbed. The idea of catching the ghost of a little girl who would covet a doll like that turned Mac’s stomach.

“I’ll find something.” Mac picked a different pile, nudging it with his toe, shifting bottles, broken pottery, foul-smelling sacks with splitting sides.

“Suit yourself. Try that drawer there.” Zeb tossed the doll aside and pointed. “Once you find something, you gotta season it with something else a ghost would want. Strong tastes work best—whiskey, if you can get it, spices. Gotta be careful, though. Stronger tastes draw stronger ghosts—older ones, angrier ones who need more help to remember flavor. I have some salt. That usually does the trick.”

Mac opened the drawer Zeb had indicated, running the fingers of his left hand over a jumble of buttons, spoons, hand-held mirrors, combs and other trinkets. He tried to think of something Liana or the prince might want. An intricately carved wooden flute caught his eye, but the moment he picked it up, Zeb was there, snatching it out of his hand.

“Not that.” Startled, Mac opened his mouth. Zeb pressed his lips into a thin line, and tucked the flute into his pocket.

“It belonged to my son,” he muttered, turning away before Mac could say anything. Mac watched the old man’s back for a moment, the slump of his shoulders, before returning his attention to the drawer.