by C. G. Hatton
She had more ‘visitors’ before we were done. Raised voices fast turned to shouts, crashing noises and scuffling. I was struggling to get into a hooded sweatshirt, breaking into a sweat and just shaking with the effort of moving. The clothes were cheap, rough and ready, the kind of stuff Latia used to buy for us, a million miles from anything anyone like Genie would have ever worn in her life. She didn’t complain and she was helping me ease my arm into the sleeve when there was a pop outside the door, followed by the kind of sound that could only be a body falling to the floor.
I muttered, “Shit,” and glanced around. There was a back door. “Come on,” I murmured, “we’re leaving,” but there were more crashes and bangs, and the main door burst open before we could move. I edged in front of Genie.
The woman pushed past us, mumbling to herself. She started stuffing medical supplies into a bag she had slung over her shoulder, reaching for bottles and jars from the shelves, grabbing a handful of the dangling feathers and sparkling beads and throwing those in too, then pulled out a drawer, spilling ammo boxes, live rounds not FTH, and guns onto the table top, starting to reload them.
She threw me a glance. “So… DK from Earth, huh?” She narrowed her eyes at me even as she was thumbing rounds into the magazines. “My Aunt Gertrude bought shares in DK.”
I swear, my heart stopped beating for a split second.
The way she said it was disparaging. And she didn’t let up. “Yeah, years back. Cost her a frikking fortune and didn’t ever make her a dime.”
I think I forgot to breathe.
She was guild.
Chapter 20
Hearing my code word, here, the code word Mendhel had made sure I took in, absolutely took in, amongst the mass of intel he’d thrown at me, made my heart race.
“Everyone’s Aunt Gertrude bought shares in DK,” I muttered, giving her the reply, hardly believing this was happening. “They’ll be worth a fortune someday.”
She stopped what she was doing and leaned on the counter, leaning forward to stare at me and say quietly, “My name’s Parish, and you need to trust me if you wanna survive this. Are you going to trust me, Felix?”
Her words hung there. It was the worst thing she could have said to me.
Don’t ever trust anyone who says ‘trust me’…
I had a lump in my throat, heart pounding like lead in my stomach but we were a long way from Kheris, and if she really was guild, I had no choice but to trust her.
I nodded.
She placed a handful of injectors in front of me.
“Take one of these now. Keep the rest to hand. Don’t use them unless you absolutely have to. Only ever take one at a time. And don’t use the blues unless you have no choice… like if you’re dying. You understand?”
I nodded again as I pressed it against my wrist, a welcome warmth spreading through my limbs. It was go-juice she was giving me. Even back then I knew what go-juice felt like. Instant energy, a concoction of stimulants, pain inhibitors and who knows what else. Battlefield drugs. I didn’t know what the ones with the fluorescent blue stripe were but I pocketed them anyway.
“Do you need that arm re-strapping?”
She was more blunt and abrupt than any medic I’d ever encountered before.
I didn’t know what to say but she gave me a look, raised eyebrows, and beckoned me closer. She was good, knew just what to do to ease the pain and strapped it tight against my chest.
“What happened to your Senson?”
“Fried,” I managed to say, my chest cold despite the hit of go-juice. We were with a deep cover. A legendary guild deep cover. Holy shit. “Right before they hit the vehicles,” I forced myself to say out loud. “Before the bombs.”
She nodded, curt and efficient, tied off the strapping and pushed a gun towards me. “You know how to load one of these?”
I already had the clip out, even with one arm incapacitated.
She grinned. “And you, missy…” She tossed another bag across to Genie. “Make yourself useful and fill this with trauma patches. They’re in that cupboard. And grab some good luck charms while you’re in there. The green ones. He’s gonna need them.”
There was hammering at her front door even as we slipped down through a trap door in the back. Parish bolted it once we were through, standing on the ladder and leaning down to hand me a gun as she was jamming a bar across the mechanism to make sure. “Can you shoot right-handed?”
I muttered, “Yes,” as I took it, queasy, not wanting Genie to see this side of me. Busting locks and hacking systems, flooring special forces mercenaries, that was one thing… having a loaded gun in my hand…? I bit my lip and avoided looking at her, even though I knew she was staring at me.
Parish dropped down, rubbing her hands together as if she was cold or blatantly money-grubbing, it was hard to tell. She grinned at us. “I want my two mill, children. Let’s get out of here, shall we?”
The tunnel led to a corridor that opened out in a parking garage, low ceilinged, rows of battered old vehicles in not so neat lines. Parish stopped us with an outstretched arm, waiting, watching, muttering under her breath, “Pull up your hoods.”
She had a gun in her hand, tie wraps secured around her forearm that were entwined with charms and beads, all darkened, silenced, not a sound as she moved.
I wanted to ask her if she was speaking to Sienna, if Sienna and Jensonn were alive, but I didn’t want her to tell me they weren’t. I’d never met a guild deep cover before. I’d put the gun she gave me into my waistband, in the small of my back. I didn’t want it. Didn’t want to argue with her either.
I pulled up my hood, shrinking back a step and moving to shield Genie as voices drifted through, aggressive, echoing through the underpass.
“Why aren’t we trying to escape,” Genie whispered into my ear.
I just shook my head. I couldn’t explain.
Parish backed away. Silently. Moving us with her. Gesturing us to go left here, go down there… Calm and steady.
We dropped down another level. Winter’s undercity was a perfect, stratified caste system of social class. The lower you went, the lower the position in society, less maintenance, more scuffed paintwork and broken struts, more trash left on the sidewalks, more haunted faces that stared. I’d lived on the streets. I knew what it was like to stare at folks that wandered into the wrong sector by accident.
We hit the lowest level and walked out into a riot. Parish herded us through a street crowded with people, weapons out, voices raised, shouts that no freaking militia could get through down there and screw them if they tried. There were no flash vid screens showing the news streams but it seemed like everyone knew what was going on. I was jostled a couple of times, trying to shield Genie who looked like she was one second away from stepping up and trying to take control, eyes scanning over the crowds and a tension in her body as she resisted me steering her away, as if she wanted to stop, to reassure them that the militia, her UM militia, would never cause them harm.
“Don’t,” I breathed, trying to follow Parish and trying to read the movement of bodies around us without looking suspicious as hell.
“Fe, this isn’t right…”
Damn right it wasn’t right, but not in the way she was thinking.
I shut her up by bundling her into a doorway as Parish stopped, standing aside and gesturing us to enter.
It was some kind of bar. Cloying narcotic-drenched incense fumes drifted lazily to a background soundtrack of deep hypnotic beats. I’d seen places like this in the Pit beneath Aston. The music pounded deep inside my chest, invasive, demanding.
Genie backed into me, not wanting to go any further as some of the half naked figures sprawled across couches looked our way, giving us cursory drug-addled glances. There was a girl twisting contortions around a pole on the bar. Impressive, acrobatic and almost inhuman, moving as if in a trance in time with the music. I had to drag my eyes away, kept my arm around Genie, and nudged her to follow Parish, through
a door into a narrow corridor, a big guy that looked like a local thug following closely.
“Helluva time to pay us a visit, Parish,” he said, gruff, crowding us from behind.
I could almost feel Genie’s skin crawling.
He pushed me forward, saying over my shoulder, “Do you know what the hell is going on up there?”
She didn’t stop. “I need Moon.”
He laughed. “Right now? That’ll cost ya.” His voice was loud, harsh in my ear, his breath a mix of garlic and cheap whisky.
Genie cringed, putting her hand over mine and squeezing, as if she was reassuring me.
Parish didn’t react, striding ahead, not seeming to care if we were behind her or not. There was a door at the end. She burst in, called out, “Moon, you’re with me. Now,” and turned back to us, turning us around.
I glanced down as she pushed past us, as she palmed something small that looked like a credit stick to the big guy. I hated to think how much was on it. How much she was paying to buy us out of this.
She muttered, “In here,” and held open a side door for us, ushering us through it into some kind of storeroom, and holding it open, a girl wearing a skimpy dress and heels following her in. The girl smiled at me as she edged past, brushing up against me, suggestive, looking up at me through long eyelashes. Her hair was tied up, a tiny red star tattoo showing behind her ear.
“Moon, Jesus, leave him alone,” Parish said as she closed the door. “He’s off limits. Okay, people, we’ve got five minutes. Warm weather gear, medical kit, and rappels. There’s an ET waiting on the surface, two blocks north of the plaza, but you’re gonna need to get past the road blocks so don’t surface until twenty third.” She wasn’t speaking to us. “Take the girls and get them kitted up. I need two minutes with the boy.”
Genie protested as the big guy took her arm, but I muttered that it was okay. They were armed. It wasn’t like we had much choice.
Parish steered me away, saying over her shoulder, “I’m just keeping him alive, sweetheart. Do what I say and you might both make it out of here. Now go.”
She pushed me towards a table and told me to sit.
“I’m okay,” I breathed, trying to hide the fact my chest was aching. “I’m good, really.”
I was. It was aching not hurting. I was up for a fight, up for a freaking run if they told me to run, reckoning I could climb if I had to.
Parish laughed. “Yeah, that’s the drugs. And, believe me, the clock is ticking.” She looked me in the eye. “Pull up your shirt.”
I pulled it up and closed my eyes as she ripped off the trauma patch, prodded and stuck me with another one. I breathed through the heat until it got numb.
“Now listen to me.” Her voice was so quiet I could only just make out what she was saying. “McIntyre is here and he’s running the show, up there and down here. Control want to know if you found any evidence of a ledger with the Kilkennys.”
“No.”
“Okay. We’re getting you both out. Full extraction. Do you understand?”
I didn’t but I nodded. Heart pounding in my stomach as I refused to ask about Sienna.
Parish was readying another shot. “You did well. Remy Kilkenny is alive because of you. Now, let’s get you home, okay?”
She took hold of my right hand and pushed up my sleeve, hesitating as her fingers rubbed over Latia’s bracelet, the warm knotted stones nestled in close to Charlie’s wristband. She raised her eyes, looking so deep into mine I almost pulled away.
She held on tighter. “You have protection,” she said as if she was surprised. She cocked her head slightly. “But you push your luck. Be careful you don’t push it too far.” The stones warmed even further beneath her grip. She was looking me right in the eye, her hand wrapping around my wrist and squeezing, tighter and tighter, until it was painful. Then her expression changed, something like sorrow, pity even, creeping into her gaze as she kept me there, her voice a harsh whisper when she finally spoke. “You are both blessed and cursed. Let me see…” She took both my hands in hers, stroking her thumb across the back of my hand, across the faded scar there. “You have more than nine lives, Felix… and, my god, you’ve used up too many of them already. Use the rest wisely, you hear? You’ll need them in the war to come. And this…” She touched the bracelet again. “When something is this precious, sometimes you have to let it go in order to keep it.”
She held me there a moment, then seemed to steel herself, stabbing the shot into my wrist, and glancing aside as if she was listening to someone else. She pulled down my sleeve. “Time’s up. You need to go.”
I had a lump in my throat. No one had held me like that since Latia. “Are you coming with us?”
“Only so far. Then you’ll be on your own. Then we’ll all be on our own.”
The girl, Moon, was about our age, maybe a bit older, about the same size as Genie and dressed now in the same kind of clothes as us. She hooked her arm through Genie’s, and chattered, laughing as if they were old friends, or sisters. It was smart. If they were looking for two rich kids in expensive clothes who were on the run, we looked nothing like it now. I didn’t know if Moon was guild too, the guild didn’t recruit kids as field-ops, I knew that, but I reckoned there was a chance she was some kind of field agent from the way Parish had spoken to her and the big guy. I was still keeping my mouth shut though. Not hard because I was having to concentrate through a pounding roar in my ears.
We made our way out through the back of the club, sounds of fighting drifting in through the back alleys from the main drag. If the militia were trying to lock down this level, they were having a hard time of it.
After a couple of minutes walking steadily, Parish dropped back to my side and muttered, “We need to speed this up. Stay close and use the goddamn gun if you need to.”
I let go of Genie’s hand and pulled the gun out from my waistband, holding it low.
We only went a few more steps then Parish cursed and pushed me into a run, sounds of broken glass and gunfire echoing behind us, getting louder, the big guy running up ahead of us and the girl Moon holding onto Genie as they broke into a sprint.
There was a bang above us, an ominous change in the sound of the air con and a hiss. Parish cursed and shouted, “That’s gas, we’re not gonna make it.” She grabbed my arm and pulled me aside, yelling to the others, swearing. I shoved her off me and shouted to Genie. Moon was looking around, the big guy shouting back something I couldn’t make out.
Parish grabbed me again and hissed in my ear, “You fight me, I’ll frikking knock you on your ass and carry you out of here.”
My chest was getting tight. I could see Genie wavering, Moon steering her towards us, the big guy brushing past us to push aside a massive bin and start pulling at a panel in the wall.
He threw it aside and grunted, “Get in here,” almost picking me up to throw me through into a maintenance accessway. Parish was right behind, grabbing the back of my shirt and hauling me upright, pushing me away from the opening and towards a ladder.
“Wait,” I muttered, feeling my head spin.
“They’re right behind us,” she hissed. “You good to climb down or you want me to throw you down there?”
I could see Genie behind her, heading for us, Moon behind her and the big guy shutting the panel behind him. I started climbing.
It got hotter the further down we went. Either the air temperature was higher down here, geothermals and all, or I was starting to run a fever. I had no idea. We dropped down level after level, the sound of machinery getting louder. My everything became the noise, the heat, pain. Damned electrobes. There must have been AI veins down there. Flashes of the AI core beneath the garrison hit me with that sting of electrobes in my lungs, pain escalating, that reality becoming all-consuming, until Parish reached for me and I freaked, fighting her off and pulling the gun on her. She batted it away, grabbed for me faster than I could react and held me there, wrestled me to a stop until it faded.
&n
bsp; “Winter,” she whispered into my ear, still holding me tight. “This is Winter and no one messes with us, d’you hear?”
Kheris dropped away and I started to tremble. I glanced up. Genie was watching. I wasn’t sure if she’d heard but she just kept staring at me and took my hand as Parish let me go and dished out vials of antidote before telling us to move.
Moon pushed between us, took Genie’s hand herself and pushed the gun back into mine, with a slight smile, a crazed look in her eye, and a murmured, “You’re gonna need this where we’re going.”
Chapter 21
Where we were going was even further down. It felt like it took forever. The noise of the power plant was a constant thrum. Parish warned us to stay close and we walked out onto a concourse, a metalmesh walkway above a space crowded with machinery blocks, ramshackle huts and lean-to structures, canopies faded and torn, a stench of people and waste and food smells like no place I’d ever been. It was all lit by flickering orange lanterns, unstable, as if someone had hacked into the power cables somewhere along the line, nothing like the bright lights of the undercity.
Genie stopped and turned to me, almost gagging, a look of horror on her face as she realised there were people living down here.
The big guy brushed past her and laughed. “What’s wrong, princess? Never realised what it takes to create all that energy you consume up there?”
It was brutal but it was true.
He walked out ahead of us onto a staircase that led down into the midst of the slums, Moon following him and throwing me a too wide grin as she went.
