Deadly in Pink

by Matthew A Goodwin

  The apartment felt empty, and Gato was nowhere to be found. She poured yesterday’s coffee into a cup and gulped it down quickly before remembering Hector’s beers. She opened one and took it with her to the shower.

  Once she was clean and dressed, she felt like a new woman.

  She tried to put the events of the previous night out of her head as she stepped on the door that had been blasted off its hinges. She awkwardly pulled it up and leaned it on the frame, knowing it would do nothing to stop someone if they chose to break in.

  She plodded down the street toward the drudge rental, looking the whole time at the Carcer emblems taped and hung in the store windows and doors. Thinking about what her mother had said, she had an idea right on the tip of her brain that she could not quite grab.

  Ynna entered Mama’s Discount Drudge Rentals to find a girl not much older than Marco sitting on a stool behind the counter, swinging her legs as she watched a cartoon on a screen set into the counter. The walls of the shop were lined with dilapidated humanoid robots under pictures in dusty frames of the jobs they could complete.

  “Greetings, ma’am,” the girl said, looking up and shooting Ynna a wide smile.

  “You mama?” Ynna joked, and the girl snickered, covering her mouth with a tiny hand.

  “No, ma’am,” she chuckled. “Mama’s not even my mom. She’s my grandma.”

  “Ah, and you run the shop for her?” Ynna asked, surprised that the kid would be left alone in this neighborhood.

  “Just while mom’s on lunch,” the girl explained.

  “I see,” Ynna said, stroking her chin in mock intense thought. “You don’t go to school?”

  “School’s lame,” the girl answered, cocking her head and putting on a pout.

  Ynna winked. “On that, we agree.”

  “Something I can help you with,” the girl’s tone became businesslike.

  “Oh,” Ynna said, slightly surprised by the shift. “Yes, please. I need a drudge, probably only an hour’s work for a door repair and cleanup.”

  The girl smiled. “No problem, but blood stains are extra.”

  Ynna smirked. “What makes you think there are bloodstains?”

  The girl’s face fell flat. “There’s always bloodstains. You think I’m some kind of idiot?”

  “No. No, I do not,” Ynna said. She followed it up with, “Actually, you seem rather savvy.”

  The girl beamed. “Yep, I’m pretty great.” She kicked her legs excitedly. “Just synch your account with the screen, and we’ll charge you after.”

  “I was hoping to pay with a cash chip,” Ynna told her, producing the chip from a pocket.

  The girl’s face was utter shock. “A cash chip? What are you, like, a hundred?”

  Ynna laughed and pressed her hands to her heart in mock offense. “You wound me, madam.”

  The girl laughed, too. “Hand over the chip, old-timer,” she said, extending a palm and pressing the chip against a reader on the counter.

  She handed the chip back and tried to cover her amusement as she said, “We also have ones that can change your adult diapers.”

  Ynna guffawed.

  “I’m funny, too,” the girl said, obviously pleased with herself.

  “Well, it was nice to meet you,” Ynna said, extending a hand expectantly.

  “Doro,” the girl said.

  “Nice to meet you, Doro. I’m Ynna. I hope our paths cross again,” she said, shaking the girl’s hand.

  Doro chuckled. “Path? What’s that, like, some old-time street?”

  Ynna smiled. “Not your best joke.”

  Doro huffed but smiled, too.

  She left the shop having completely put the night before from her mind. She was impressed with the girl. At such a young age, she seemed smarter and more capable than Ynna felt. She had been afforded all the advantages of life but was completely ill-equipped for the real world. Yet here was this girl, much younger and much more prepared.

  When she arrived at The Press, she was not surprised to find that her friends were already out for the day. Feeling lost and lonely, she wandered aimlessly. She considered eating something, but her body rejected the idea.

  A street preacher, promoting some religion of old, hollered, “Hear the good news, everyone.” He waved a leather-bound book as the denizens of the city tried to avoid eye contact.

  Ynna moved to avoid him as well and was faced with another Carcer logo mounted on a suction-cupped hook in a shop window.

  Ynna stopped. Her heart raced, and her hands went numb.

  She had an idea.

  She ran over to a comm booth and stepped in, quickly searching the database and placing the call. The screen displayed her own face as it rang.

  “Hello?” the plump, confused face said.

  “Rose,” Ynna said. “Hi.”

  “Ynna?” Rose said, obviously not expecting to see her. “How are you? Oh, gosh, I heard your Dad threw you out. We miss you at school. How are you? Are you okay?”

  The concern sounded genuine. Guilt filled Ynna as she realized the girl they had played was more concerned about her than any of her supposed friends. “I’m okay,” she said. “I was hoping you could help me with something.”

  “Of course, anything! You know, when you dropped off, I asked the girls how I could reach out, but all of them said they didn’t know how to contact you,” Rose told her.

  Ynna scowled. “Of course, they did.”

  “I just wanted to reach out to tell you I was here for you if you needed anything,” she explained.

  Ynna could hardly stand the undeserved kindness.

  “Thank you, that’s really sweet,” she said.

  “The least I could do,” Rose offered.

  Ynna chuckled a cold, hard laugh. “Well, the least you could do is nothing. It’s what everyone else did. But it’s nice you thought of me. Would you have time to meet up?”

  “That’d be great!” Rose said excitedly. “You want to swing by the apartment? Mom’s at work so we would have the place to ourselves.”

  “That’d be perfect,” Ynna agreed, and the address appeared on the screen.

  Ynna dedicated it to memory. “I’ll leave now. It will be a bit.”

  “No worries. I’m here, and I’ll tell the guards to let you in,” Rose said.

  “See you soonish,” Ynna said, ending the transmission.

  She headed quickly for the cab pad, choosing to fly rather than take the time with a ground vehicle. When she entered the address and saw the price, she questioned her decision but wanted to get her plan in motion, knowing that if she were successful, they would all be earning enough to easily refill their coffers.

  Nervous anticipation and excitement coursed through her as the cab lifted, leaving the destitute part of the city for the sparkling downtown skyrises. She was thrilled that she had come up with a proper plan, that she would be able to potentially leave the revealing outfits and low-level cons behind her.

  The cab moved quickly, the programmed traffic flowing easily through the skies.

  As the glinting city center moved toward her, she realized how disconnected she now felt from the place she had called home her whole life. All the rich people with their lavish lives felt as far to her as the off-world colonies.

  Flashing screens and projected ads filled her vision as they approached the tower with a massive Carcer logo spinning on top. Even seeing it made her skin crawl, and she wanted more than anything to hurt that company the way it had damaged her. It didn’t matter to her that this building was just a housing complex for employees and their families; the very sight of the logo made her sick.

  “A security clearance is required to land at this address,” a computerized voice said through the speaker in the back of the cab.

  “Ynna,” she intoned.

  “Marina Anne Hawkins is cleared as a guest,” the cab told her. She grimaced at the sound of her full name.

  The cab set down. Ynna stepped out, and cameras turned t
o follow her. An electronic scanner ran over the length of her body to check for weapons while another ran imaging on her face. The scanners shut off, and a green light flashed on an elevator set into the roof.

  As she stepped in, she saw that there were no buttons, and she looked to the bulb with a camera mounted on the ceiling of the elevator.

  “Miss Hawkins, you are cleared to enter room 4390 only. Any diversion from this will be seen as a violation of the visitor code of conduct, and you will be escorted from the premises,” a woman’s voice boomed in the small space.

  The doors closed, and the elevator plummeted at a sickening speed before lurching to a stop on the fourth floor. A bell rang, the doors opened, and she stepped out, trying to get her bearings. A digital display pointed her in the direction of the apartment. As she walked, the walls displayed arrows that were clearly meant to lead her in the correct direction.

  As she made her way down the fluorescent-lit, white hallway, she heard a voice call out, “Ynna!”

  She looked up from the wall just in time to see Rose rushing toward her. She enveloped Ynna in a warm embrace. Ynna lifted her hands awkwardly to return the hug.

  Rose was heavy, a head shorter than her, and dressed in a loose-fitting gray sweatsuit. She had narrow eyes and pale skin with her black hair.

  “It’s good to see you,” Ynna said, letting her arms fall. It was a moment before Rose released her, looking up and smiling.

  “You look great, love the new look,” she said, rubbing Ynna’s hair between her thumb and forefinger.

  Ynna had started coloring her hair pink, and though the roots would show, she liked the way it looked, too. She was saving to have her hair microdyed, but that would have to wait.

  “And the skirt,” Rose continued to gush. “You turned our stupid uniform into some badass-bitch version of Julius Caesar!”

  Ynna smiled. When Whitney and the gang had seen her new look, they liked it but never seemed to get what she was going for.

  She remembered why she had liked Rose. While the other girls in her old clique had found the girl cloying and obnoxious, Ynna had always thought she was pure and nice.

  “Thanks,” Ynna said, trying not to let her pleasure with the compliment show too much.

  “Come in, come in,” Rose said, ushering her into the massive apartment. Ynna looked around the room, shocked that she used to live this way, too.

  The room was massive and open with one entire wall made of glass, looking out onto the city. An island bar flanked one side with a kitchen behind and looked into the living space with a pristine leather couch—worth more than the entire building where Ynna currently lived—facing a wallscreen. Ynna figured the couch had never been sat on, and the screen never turned on.

  Artistic photographs of scorpions adorned the walls, hung in ornate frames. Ynna chuckled to herself, wondering if every apartment in the complex had the same Carcer interior designer.

  “Something to drink?” Rose offered. “We’ve got soda, juice, or actual water if you want.”

  “Got any beers?” Ynna asked without thinking.

  Rose’s eyes went wide. “Wow, a few months on the mean streets, and what are you some kind of alcoholic?”

  “I’m some kind of something,” Ynna said with a little laugh.

  “That tap there on the fridge has wine if you want?” she said, hurrying over to get a glass from a cabinet.

  Ynna laughed at the absurdity of it all. “That’ll do.”

  Rose handed her a glass.

  “You’re not going to have one?” Ynna asked.

  Rose’s face registered a new surprise. “I mean, I never have.”

  “Live a little,” Ynna said and handed the glass back to her before going to fetch her own. She filled it nearly to the brim and took a sip. The sweet liquid coated her tongue, and she moaned. “Fuuuuck, that’s good.”

  Rose giggled and took a sip herself. “Yeah,” she agreed and then dropped her head sheepishly.

  “So, what’s up? I mean, I’m glad to see you and all, but I don’t think you stopped by just for a taste of the high life.”

  “You’re right,” Ynna said and took another swig. “Can we go to your room?” As the words left her mouth, she hated that spending so much time with Killian made her worried that it sounded suggestive.

  Rose didn’t read it that way. “Sure.”

  Ynna’s mouth fell open as she entered the room. She had expected it to be furnished like that of a child, but instead, all the walls were screens, and there was a bed and a desk, and nothing else. Three of the walls were set to show images of the inside of the Egypt section of a museum, and she had to work hard to tell her mind that she could not just stride down the halls to look at the busts and artifacts. The wall that the desk was pressed against was set to an aerial shot of Giza.

  “You like?” Rose asked timidly, and Ynna wondered if she had ever had anyone over to her place before.

  “It’s lovely. I’m just—” Ynna stopped herself.

  “What?” Rose asked nervously.

  “I don’t know. I guess I just figured you for a physical book kind of person,” Ynna admitted.

  “Oh,” Rose said with a smile. She tapped her palm, and one of the walls opened to reveal a shelving unit full of books and what Ynna assumed were actual Egyptian artifacts.

  “There it is!” Ynna exclaimed with pride, rushing over to appraise the shelf.

  Rose seemed thrilled that she was impressed, and they stood in silence a moment before Ynna turned to her.

  “So, I’m going to say something, and you may not like it,” Ynna said.

  Rose’s face dropped. “Yeah?”

  “Carcer is not a good company,” Ynna said, hoping the girl wouldn’t throw her out of the apartment on the spot.

  Rose let out a loud, deep laugh. “Oh, gosh! I thought you were going to say something mean or play some trick on me.”

  Ynna’s heart broke at the comment, wondering how many times the girl had been burned.

  “No kidding, Carcer is all kinds of evil,” Rose said. “Lots of people in this place would be aghast to hear me say it, but they have blinders on.”

  Ynna breathed a sigh of relief. “So, you wouldn’t mind hacking their system?”

  Rose shifted uncomfortably. “I mean, I guess. I just can’t be caught, or I’ll be sharing a room with you,” she said, worrying her hands. “Or worse.”

  “You getting caught is the last thing I want, too,” Ynna assured her. “If it looks like you can’t break it, just back out.”

  “Okay,” Rose said, swiveling in her chair toward the wall that turned into multiple windows of lines of code. “What are we looking for?”

  Ynna’s guilt was renewed at Rose’s eagerness to please despite the risk. She knew she was putting an innocent girl in danger for this. She had told Rose to keep herself safe, but she really wanted the information. Ynna gritted her teeth, resolved to see this through.

  “There should be a database somewhere in there of stores who do and don’t pay protection to the company,” Ynna explained.

  “Sure,” Rose said, tapping at a digital keyboard in the desk. “What do you want this for?”

  “Would it offend you if I said that for your sake, it’s better that you don’t know?” Ynna asked, hoping the implication was enough to back her off.

  Rose snorted. “I’m all about plausible deniability.”

  “Good,” Ynna said, leaning on the desk to watch what Rose was doing. “Can you explain to me what you are doing as you are doing it? I kinda want to learn this stuff.”

  “Sure!” Rose said, sounding thrilled at the prospect of imparting some knowledge.

  She talked Ynna through the process of hacking the system, and Ynna came to understand that she would need to study a lot more to actually understand this. Despite that, she listened with rapt attention, trying to soak it all in.

  “Wow,” Rose said, surprised.

  “What?” Ynna asked.

 
“This was super easy,” Rose explained. “It’s almost as if they want someone to be able to find this.”

  Ynna smirked. “Assholes.”

  “What?” Rose said, turning to Ynna.

  “They probably do want someone to be able to find this,” Ynna said in disgust.

  “Why?” Rose asked, and Ynna felt like she was playing at naïve. “What are you planning to do?”

  Ynna let her face fall flat. “As I said.”

  “Better I don’t know,” Rose repeated, but Ynna knew she was on to the plan. “You want all of it or some particular districts?”

  “I’ll never be able to make heads or tails of all of it. Just Redwood Point would be fine.”

  “Oh my,” Rose said. “That’s where you’re staying?”

  Ynna chuckled. “Don’t believe everything you hear. The streets below this tower are just as dangerous. People just fear the unknown.”

  “If you say so.” Rose sounded unconvinced. “It’s so safe that you’ve doubled in muscle mass, dress like you want to kick someone’s ass, and are covered in bruises?”

  Ynna was taken aback by the comment at first but, looking down at herself, had to admit the truth in Rose’s words. “Alright, maybe it’s a little less safe.”

  “There you go,” Rose said smugly. “Alright, you got something I can transfer this intel to?”

  Ynna looked at the ground.

  “Oh,” Rose said. “I didn’t mean anything by it. You want a pair of my old lenscreens? I can easily transfer ownership and teach you how to use them.”

  Ynna rotated a foot on one toe. She didn’t want handouts, didn’t want to have to accept further kindness from someone she had so mistreated, but knew she had no choice. Her father had disabled her smart devices the moment they had walked through the door, and they hadn’t needed them since moving. “Sure,” Ynna accepted, but her shame coated the word.

  “Ynna,” Rose said in a kind voice, swiveling to face her and taking another sip of the wine. “Look, I know you are proud, and you notice I haven’t asked about what happened, but it’s okay to take help when you need it.

  “I was in a really dark place when you and the girls started talking to me. I’m not an idiot, and I knew what you wanted, but I needed friends then even if they were fake. I didn’t even care when you dropped me because being seen with you guys for a week gave me enough cachet to start my own little band of losers.”