I dart back around to Wiskee and lay her flat on the ground. I need to get some oxygen in her and then I can take her downstairs. I press the heel of my palm against her chest. I’ve seen Teq do this before. She taught me.
I count to thirty. Then I lean her chin back, pinch her nose, and blow gently. Again.
“Come on, come on,” I beg. I count thirty more compressions. Breathe. Breathe.
I will life into her. Teq and Tonick disappeared. I can’t lose Wiskee, too.
She coughs and she shudders, but she takes a breath on her own. It sounds hoarse and strangled, but then she takes another. That’s good enough for me. I can work with that.
I wrap my arms around her and drag her toward the stairs, apologizing over and over. It’s awkward, but she’s taller than me. I know I’m beating her up the whole way down, but I’ve got to get her downstairs. There’s a medkit down there.
When I settle her in Tonick’s bed, I hit the Close Door button and dash to his closet. He’s got a metal shelf there, filled with supplies. The top two shelves are filled with spare robotic hands, implants, and replacement parts. Most days, Tonick is a tinkerer, but some days, he’s a healer. I’d seen him replace severed arms and legs with robotic ones. He’s repaired more Pinks than I could count on my two hands. He gave them their lives back when no one else would.
He’s the reason I’ll save Wiskee. He makes me want to be a hero.
From the middle shelf, I yank an orange square with a giant plus sign emblazoned on the top. I rip the wrapping and pop the lid.
The medkit’s filled with tiny pill packs, two emergency meals, myriad bandages, and three syringes filled with a crazy concoction that Tonick claims can bring back the dead. Each syringe is marked with a number.
With a whoosh, the entrance seals over our heads and harsh LEDs flicker and then throw their steadied beams over us. Jeez. I hope this works.
I uncap the needle with a number one on it. I’ve seen this done, too, but never been taught how. Teq gives shots in the vein, but she has a special sort of street experience that I don’t. Upper arm it is. It’ll have to do.
I bite my bottom lip. Here goes.
I jam the needle into her arm. A slight stutter, midinhalation, is the only indication that she can feel anything.
A pleasant voice announces from the hypodermic, “Begin countdown.”
A small display on the now empty syringe shows a ticking timer next to the nanoinjection. They’re given in hourly succession. Maybe my new friend will be awake in the morning.
I examine the wound in her side. I can’t stitch it up, but I pour on the silver-colored antiseptic/antibiotic from the medkit before bandaging.
Since the imminent danger has passed and I can’t climb into my bed until I give her the third dose, I mill around Tonick’s quarters, searching for something to wipe the dried blood off my feet. I find a box filled with thumb-size packages of self-moistening squares. When I open one of the packets, it reacts to the air and grows as big and thick as Tonick’s pillow. It cleans and sanitizes my skin, even buffing away calluses.
After that, I find the tag detector and pass it over the Pink. She has one buried in her right calf. It’s about twice the size of a normal one and giving off weird readings, much stronger than normal. I can’t figure out how the GenCor henchmen patrol missed that earlier. That should have glared like a lighthouse on their grid.
I need to get it out of her, but I don’t know how to perform surgery. I’ll probably kill her if I go hacking around in her leg in the condition she’s in. I hope Tonick installed some sort of insulation around his room that blocks their sensors. I put away the wand.
Afterward, I settle down on the end of the bed.
My thoughts drift to my “wake-up days,” as Teq calls them. I don’t recall much more than waking up in Tonick’s bed. Teq was there, pushing me back into the mattress, telling me everything was okay. I swung my fist, landed a blow to her chin, and then Tonick jabbed me with something sharp. The memories are jumbled, knit together in a weird order until I woke up in my bed upstairs. Later, Teq spoon-fed me broth and helped me learn to walk.
She taught me to hide. “Don’t run. Don’t confront. Hide,” she said.
When the med timer beeps, I jump straight up, slip on something, and fall face-first to the floor. I don’t have time to pick up what I stumbled on. Instead, I grab the medkit and retrieve the second injection. My needle-virgin status gone, it’s easier to stick her this time.
It’s over and done in less than thirty seconds. Wiskee still doesn’t react beyond a hiccup in her exhalation, but her breathing sounds less strangled. She doesn’t rattle like death now.
“Begin countdown,” announces the same pleasant AI voice. One more hour and then...
I glance at my new charge. I didn’t have a name when I got here. At least not one that I can remember. I wonder if she’s the same as me. Maybe she won’t mind that I named her Wiskee. I settle back on the end of the bed, but the glint of the LEDs on metal catches my eye. It must be what I slipped on. I bend over and pick it up.
My heart stops.
It’s a metal plate about the size of my palm. In big black letters, it reads, “Property of GenCor. Return this unit to GenCor.” It’s just like the impression on the edges of the Pink’s wound.
The logo plunges me into an ocean of tumult and sets my teeth chattering. I can’t help it. I’ve been running from them for over a year. That logo has me programmed to fear.
I turn the plaque over and over in my hand. Tonick made me promise never to steal from them. GenCor doesn’t forget. GenCor sends the Corp after us. They put tracking tags in everything they own. Their only ambition is possession.
Maybe Tonick stole something from them and got caught. Or maybe it was Tonick who got Teq caught. Why would he even have this marker in his room?
The room is smaller. I swallow and yank on my collar, pulling at invisible fingers squeezing my neck. They’re closer than ever. I turn back to the other Pink. They’ll be hunting both of us now.
The seal around the door in the ceiling disengages. So much for the hope the Corp wouldn’t find us. I drop to the floor, searching for something to use as a weapon, and the GenCor label falls aside with a clatter. I don’t know where the plaque came from, but it might as well be tattooed on our backs.
They found us. They’ve been circling me all day, and they’ve come back for their property. My hair is long enough already for them to know I’m a Pink without even testing me.
Footsteps hurry down the stairway. I scoot under Tonick’s bed, trying to tuck myself between two oversized speakers.
Runners, not hiders. They are programmed to find runners, not hiders. This is my last chance. I mentally apologize to the girl. I won’t be able to give her that third shot.
“Jin?”
The rush of tears makes it hard to see anything. I can’t even get out from my hiding place. I didn’t think I would ever hear his voice again.
“Tonick,” I whisper, but it sounds more like a sob. He grabs my foot and pulls me out. “Where have you been?”
“I had to return something to someone.” His mechanical irises focus on me, his expression intense.
The blue is as vivid as I remembered, and my knees almost give way. They’re the only implants he has, but he must have had money or known somebody with money. I’ve never seen anybody with ocular implants as flawless as his. Everything’s crude in the UnderCity.
I press my fingers over my mouth, stopping all the words that want to escape. “I thought I lost you.”
“Jin,” he says. It’s a strangled sigh of relief. The muscles flex in his jaw, and his eyes turn glassy, sparkling in the dim light. He scoops me off the floor into a two-armed hug and crushes me against his hard chest. “I’ve been worried about you.”
I wrap my arms around him, relishing the contact. He feels better than he should, and a little tremor pulses behind where my belly button would be, if I had one. “Teq?” I
ask. My voice is muffled against his rough shirt; my palms rest on his pecs.
He clears his throat. “She didn’t make it.”
Teq was closer than a sister. She deserves to be mourned like one.
This time, when the tears come flooding in, I can’t stop them, so I don’t try.
Tonick holds me until the hypodermic alarm beeps. “Stay there,” he says, then he stiffens and puts me away from him—like I have a case of death rot he doesn’t want to catch.
His action makes my chest hurt, and I turn away so he can’t see the new rush of tears.
“Who’s she?” he asks.
“New project,” I say. I hope he can’t hear the tremor in my voice. “I need you to get the tracker out of her.”
Without a word, he administers the final injection, then cuts away the bottom half of her tank top and peels the soaked bandage off so he can see the wound in her side. He should be smiling. Laughing to be home. Something. Anything.
I stand on my toes and peer over him. “How did I do?” To me, it doesn’t look any better than it did earlier, but it doesn’t look any worse.
He nods. “Fine.”
At least that’s something. I rock back on my heels and ask, “What happened to you out there?”
Tonick shrugs and changes the bandage without a word. Afterward, he crosses the room, and his foot catches on the metal GenCor logo. When he picks it up, he slides his hand over it.
“Listen,” he says, his gaze meeting mine as he sighs. “Jin, I think I have something to tell you.”
GenCor Invisi-Communique
***Begin***
RE: Tonick
Abnormalities detected. Reinserted.
***End***
Chapter Five
LOCUS: ALTER EARTH
UnderCity
Bostgo Sector
Cheers
Date: 11 Pentian
Time: 2300
JIN STARES AT ME. I can’t tell what she’s thinking. Flashes of images bolt through my brain...of some place other. My skin tingles all over.
I know I’m here. With Jin. But something’s broken. I should feel...feel...more. I should know more.
She tips her head to the side. Relief and horror war on her face. “Where have you been?” she whispers.
“I don’t know.” I’m not sure. I think I know, but something’s wrong with my recall. There are blanks in my memory where there shouldn’t be.
She hasn’t bolted yet, so whatever she’s thinking isn’t horrible enough to make her hide from me. Maybe she should.
She might think differently after I tell her what happened to Teq. My throat is tight from tears that I refuse to let loose. I don’t have time to mourn. Something clicks, and the rush of emotion disappears.
Her pink dreads are about an inch long. She must have been working again last night. Otherwise, they’d be longer. She shaves before she heads out, but her hair is always back by morning. It’s a side effect of the weird self-healing trick all Pinks have.
I wave toward her head. “Any luck?”
She shakes her head from side to side. “My heart wasn’t in it.”
“Ah.”
I don’t think she needs more heart to work the streets. She probably needs less.
Given her chosen part-time profession, her expectation that I have romantic, amorous feelings for my bedmates is...ironic, to say the least.
At least she hasn’t nagged me about that since she figured out Teq and I were “benefiting” from our friendship.
I have plenty of feelings I can’t use, so they remain locked away, and I do the “easy” thing, because loving Teq...
Teq. Sweet Teq. She didn’t deserve it. More images flash like lightning.
Then it’s gone. The reeling feelings go, too.
I frown. So much for my attempt at small talk. I’m usually good at filling up the quiet. Instead, I glance at the new Pink.
Teq is barely in her grave, and we have a replacement. That can’t be a coincidence. My mouth twists, and I tilt my head. “Where’s her tracker?”
Jin studies the woman she tucked into my bed. “Deep in her right calf. It’s big, though, and giving off weird readings.”
Crossing my arms, I nod. That tag can’t stay there, or they’ll find her for sure. “Have you named her yet? I need to know what to call her.”
Jin’s eyes cut to me, wider than before, like she’s been caught midtheft. “No, I thought she might like to be involved in picking out her name.”
I grin. I can’t help it. “Smart,” I say.
It makes sense. That was one thing that Jin was angry about when she came to. Teq and I picked her name from a bottle of booze upstairs. We called her Jin when she woke up, and she accepted it as her name, accepted that we knew who she was. Until she asked. When we told her the truth, she smashed every gin bottle in the joint.
Teq picked her name—Tequila—from a different bottle. If you come to visit and don’t have a name, we play spin the bottle until we find a name we can tolerate. Then we spell it differently. Just to be contrary. It’s always been that way, for as long as I can remember. I can’t recall being named, but I know that’s where mine came from, too.
We’re all named after the trash that nobody ever threw away, after a row of empty bottles on a shelf. Yet names never define a family, and that’s what we are, no matter what we decided to call ourselves.
Our dismal décor is familiar now. Jin tried straightening it all up a few months ago but had to stop. It unsettles me whenever things change.
Jin teases me about my biweekly tradition of painting “Everybody knows your name” on the upstairs wall. But she doesn’t know I do it because nobody knows anybody’s name, and the repeated humor is my ritually venting my sadness in a way that doesn’t depress the hell out of everyone.
I need the sameness or my brain doesn’t process things correctly.
I study the girl. Everybody is a potential traitor.
“Where did you disappear to?” Jin asks, settling on the corner of my bed.
Something winks at the edge of my vision, but I can’t quite focus on it, so I ignore it.
“They took her. I ran after the vehicle. Somebody hit me on the head, and I don’t remember anything after they zapped her.”
A sore place at the back of my head starts throbbing. I massage the base of my skull.
“You were gone a while.”
“They hit me pretty hard.” I pause to frown, and roll the girl one way and then the other. Other than the tracker Jin found, she seems clean. “I did notice one thing before they knocked me out.”
Somebody is splitting my skull. The ache makes my eyes bulge.
Jin leans toward me. “Yes?”
I drop my hand. “I saw your name at the bottom of a list. Teq was listed right above you. You two were the only ones who weren’t struck through. They’ll be coming after you next.” I wave toward the invader on the bed. “Maybe she’s a part of their plan to find you.”
She gasps. “How do they know our names?”
“They know about us. They have to. Right?”
“Are they listening right now?”
“They could be. Maybe they have mics.”
“Who betrayed us?”
“Could be any of the ones we’ve helped. Somebody told them our names.”
“How could they betray us like that?” Her voice raises two octaves by the end.
“They have ways of getting the information they want.” I don’t know how to answer her or how to make something so twisted okay.
Jin jerks back as her eyes widen. Her mouth works, but she doesn’t say anything more.
I massage my throbbing head. “I don’t remember anything after that. I woke up on the street in the same place where they took Teq.”
I should know, shouldn’t I?
I study the body on my bed. She has the pink hair I favor. But I don’t know her. I’ve never seen her before. How did she know to come to my bar? She has a lot
of questions to answer. I roll her over and rub my hand down her calves. I can’t tell which one has it, so I have to run the wand over her.
Choking sounds pull me away from my suspicions about our newcomer. Jin is wiping her cheeks. Every other sniff, her face contorts. She’s trying to keep it together, but her dam is about to break. “I wanted her to be alive.”
“Me too,” I mumble.
It’s the truth. I’m not paternal or brotherly toward either one of them. I’m not into acknowledging my feelings, but I want Teq to come home. She was my partner and my friend.
“Don’t you care, Tonick?” Jin’s voice cracks.
She wraps her arms around herself. She’s sobbing. My heart crumbles a little as I watch her cry. This is her first close death. She hasn’t been around long enough to appreciate the finite nature of everything in the UnderCity.
“I care,” I offer, but I have to deal in reality. “I don’t have time to mourn. ‘Let the dead bury the dead.’”
It’s getting harder to hold on to reality. I know I’m about to step off into a dark abyss because Teq’s gone.
“What an awful thing to say,” she says through clenched teeth. “Teq was worth more than that cold-hearted lie.”
Before I can agree, she spins on her heels and runs up the stairs. Each riser gives a metallic squeak beneath her bare feet.
My thoughts fracture. I should be doing...something.
Instead, an errant fragment of memory comes forward.
A door-to-door truth peddler tried to sell me his religion once. He read it to me from the black leather-bound book he held in front of him like a shield. Later that week, the Corp shot him as dead as all the others. His peaceful truth didn’t save him. Irony is an odd creature.
Maybe the ReWater, the perpetually reused water, will escort the ugly truth down the drain and I’ll grow some rose-colored glasses. Jin expects me to be a hero.
Trouble is, I’m not hardwired to be a hero. I always screw things up.
I need a shower. I shouldn’t take the time for one. I was supposed to do something...a tracker? Yeah. In the legs on my bed.
First Shot Page 4
