by Britt Ringel
Kat still stiffened at his earlier words. “I didn’t promise I wouldn’t talk to your mother, Sadler.” No, I broke a completely different promise.
He tilted his head and looked at her askew. “Well, you’re technically right but I hope we don’t start splitting hairs like that.” He squeezed her hand. “Baby, I just wish you had waited. I hate how your first impressions of each other went.” The light returned to his eyes. “You two are eventually going to be friends and know each other for a long time, I hope.”
Kat felt her insides warm at his prediction. With her new strategy for gaining citizenship, the earnest sentiment had a real chance of becoming true. She looked deeply into his eyes. The similarity to Aileth’s was uncanny. “I’m sorry. It was wrong of me,” she confessed. “I’m glad I got to meet your mother but I should have done it with your blessing.” She gave Sadler a demure smile. “She loves you, Sadler. With all her heart and I can respect that.”
Sadler’s brows closed together and a pained expression washed over him. “She’s going to love you too. She’ll come around. I know she will. One day, she’ll treat you like the mother you never had.”
Kat pressed into his side as they approached Miller’s Grill. The last time they dined here, she’d ordered the fettuccine alfredo with bacon. Tonight, she planned on a steak with fresh vegetables. Her body craved better nutrition.
A host seated the couple and a server introduced himself. Sadler ordered wine and the server promptly placed full carafes on their table next to large, stemmed glasses. Two steak orders came next.
Kat took a sip of wine and admitted, “I’ve been looking forward to this meal all week.”
Sadler laughed and reached across the table to hold her hand. “Well, I hope the company complements the food.”
She grinned coyishly.
“Oh!” His hand left the table and shot up excitedly. “I think I have an idea for citizenship. What if I can get Porter to agree to have the company itself sponsor you?”
“I thought we tried that? He said no.”
“I asked the man but all we really need is an endorsement. We would use Porter Mining’s name to sponsor you while I fronted the money.” His eyebrows bounced with enthusiasm. “It wouldn’t cost Porter a single credit and I think he’d agree that stopping Lambert’s sabotage checks the box for ‘distinguished service to the corporation.’ As CEO, he’d just have to approve.”
Kat’s stomach dropped at the proposal. “Y-you can’t risk your own money. Sponsorship is too expensive! And it’s not even a sure thing. Do you even have that much?”
Sadler shrugged nonchalantly. “I don’t care what it costs. I’ve got outstanding credit and an impeccable corporate reputation—”
“You’ve been fined and are under watch, Sadler. Those are black marks to your credit rating and rep.”
“Trivial concerns,” he insisted. “I know I can swing it. The bottom line is I want you in my life.” He raised his wine glass preemptively and gaily offered a toast. “To Kat Smith, Sunthetic citizen?”
She chewed her lip until her head shook. “Don’t do it. Let’s give it a few days and see if something else comes up.” Porter returns to Waytown tomorrow.
“Nothing else is going to come up, Kat. We don’t have options.”
“There are always options,” she insisted and threw him a mischievous wink. “You said that yourself.”
He stared at her before understanding took hold over him. His own head shook. “No. You can’t do that.” He leaned over the table and took her hand again. “Have faith in us. You don’t have to compromise your morals. We can win without cheating.”
Green eyes bore into her soul and she couldn’t keep eye contact. Multiple lies sprang to her tongue, platitudes and half-truths that would buy her the time she needed. She couldn’t push them through her lips, couldn’t say them to the man seated across from her. Instead, she pathetically squirmed and stared at her half-empty wine glass. She took an unsteady breath. “Sadler…” Her voice sounded puny, even to her. In desperation, she fell back to precepts embedded into her core. “Sometimes you have to cheat when facing an unfair system.” She licked her lips, they’d suddenly become very dry. “To make a flower bloom, you have to stick your hands into the dirt.” There, he can surely see the truth in that.
Sadler straightened in his chair. His hand moved away from Kat’s, to his napkin. It gripped the fabric and began to ball into a fist. “Is that what you really believe?”
She opened her mouth to answer but was cut off sharply.
“What you believe, Kat. Tonight. Now. Not what Pre-Cat may have been brainwashed into believing.”
Kat’s mouth became a grim line. “I wasn’t brainwashed.” Heat rose within, giving her the strength to meet his eyes. “I wasn’t some dupe and I sure as hell wasn’t the victim you like to make me out to be.” The volume of her voice began to grow. Words suddenly came too easily. “Today, I realized I was good at my job. Damned good. Nobody on this whole, shattered planet could’ve done what I did today.”
She saw his jaw drop. He had flinched as if she’d struck him. In contrast to her own, his voice grew quiet. “So, you’ve already done it. After you promised me you wouldn’t.” He dabbed the corners of his mouth with the rumpled napkin.
Kat sat motionless, unsure what was happening but suddenly very anxious. He’s not…
“Enjoy your meal, Kat,” he said gruffly before standing.
Panic lurched through her. “Sadler, wait!”
He stepped away from the table. Kat’s tear-filled eyes followed him as he spoke briefly to their server and waved his wrist over the employee’s handheld. She froze in her seat, desperately willing him to stop and turn to her.
He didn’t.
An hour later, Kat passed through Eastpoint gate, handing her visa to a border agent. She’d refused to chase after Sadler, not because she didn’t want to but because nothing she could have said would have made a difference. She’d broken her promise and didn’t want to add more lies on top of old ones. After Sadler left the restaurant, she had simply counted to twenty and then escaped the watchful eyes of the patrons around her.
Then, she had wandered Waytown in the cool, desert night. She should have been freezing but the crisp bite was a fitting reprimand. Sometime during her walk, she’d grown numb, physically and emotionally, and by the time she entered Shantytown, the surreal feeling of detachment was almost soothing. The thought of Sadler ending their relationship was too much to process and consequently, somehow, she’d just switched off. She felt unreal, as if walking in a thick fog, pressing through the mist, unable to see consequences.
A rough hand grabbed her left arm from the fog. It yanked her off balance and she stumbled sideways, trying to stay on her feet. The busy street rushed away as she was pulled into a black alley. The thick mental haze she’d retreated into muted her reactions. It even seemed to muffle her surprised yelp.
Kat’s head slammed against a wall and stars burst in front of her eyes. Unyielding hands pressed against her shoulders, pinning her to the brick. The back of her head stung and she tried to focus as large hands lowered themselves onto her breasts. They squeezed harshly, the pain finally bringing her clarity.
Her assailant was a hulking man, her head barely reaching his shoulders. His face was surprisingly clean although his breath reeked of grain alcohol. His blue eyes conveyed a hunger mixed with the powerful intoxicants of lust and fear. His shirt was brown, not dissimilar to her oversized shirt from the Beggar’s Market. Kat couldn’t see his pants as he pressed solidly against her, rubbing against her stomach. His right hand slipped off her covered breast and dipped lower. She felt thick, calloused fingers on her bare thigh. His quivering hand began to travel up her leg.
The man’s groin seemed welded to her and his arousal was obvious. Her instincts assessed it as an impossible target. Her arms and hands were free, the man releasing them after battering her to the wall. He was still groping her chest with his
left hand. The other was nearing its goal further below. Despite being wider than her by half, he’d given Kat’s arms free rein over the outside. Hell, one of his hands was essentially pinned between her legs. His head began to lower toward hers, mouth open and needy.
Kat felt revulsion but not terror. The detachment she’d created to deal with losing Sadler now worked to her advantage and honed instincts took over from there. It felt almost as if the attack were happening to someone else. As if the body being violated wasn’t her own.
She felt the forceful press of the man’s mouth against her as she raised her hands, flattened them and smashed them into the sides of his head. The brutal twin strike was nearly textbook. Her cupped palms slammed directly over her assailant’s ears in perfect concert.
The offending lips and hands sloughed away. The man collapsed to his ass before falling onto his back to stare blankly into Shantytown’s night sky. All fight had left him. He was finished.
Kat was not.
She stepped over him and executed a controlled collapse, dropping a knee onto the man’s throat. His body jerked violently under the savage blow and a gurgle passed through his lips. She leaned her weight against his windpipe while bringing her head closer. She wanted to hear the crunch. Craved it. The man’s arms fluttered lackadaisically, flailing in futility. His dazed, blue eyes rolled backward and, between heartbeats, she contrasted their color to a lush forest.
An hour later, the bunkroom thrummed with the noise of a Friday night. The activity helped conceal Kat’s sobs. Covers pulled over her head hid her tears. Her skull still ached from the slam against the alley wall and she feared a second concussion. Her heart ached worse from Sadler’s blow at their abbreviated dinner. Was it truly over between them? It felt that way. Sadler was a white knight. She was a black pawn. It was hopeless.
No, she scolded herself. I don’t have to be Pre-Cat anymore. She wiped her eyes and quietly sniffed. She could still change, even if Sadler might never see it. The thought drove a spike through her heart and she bit her lip. You don’t believe that. He won’t just give up on you. Why else would you have stopped?
She hadn’t left the alley a killer tonight. She’d knelt steadily until her attacker lapsed into unconsciousness. She’d pressed further still, a voice deep inside coaching her, driving her knee harder against the airway. She’d considered two delicious choices in that moment. Maintain the pressure and let him slowly suffocate or end the cockroach’s life with a decisive, swift jolt. Either was a fitting end to a rapist. But then, she had thought of Sadler and turned away from her dark past. She’d looked forward, into a future where she was happily married to Sadler, living her dream life… and having to explain how she once brutally executed an unconscious man in an alley fight. That’s no longer who I am.
She had stood over her defeated foe in contemplation before dragging him through the dirt, out of the alley and onto the Strip. The man was a rapist and she couldn’t just let him hunt again. His limp hand had flopped back to the dirt when she released her grip. Trodden nearby had stopped to gawk at the scene so close to Eastpoint. With a torn dress and bruised arms and thighs as evidence, she’d levied her indictment against the prone form to the gathering crowd. The congregation drew the attention of an overhead corp-sec patrol but it had remained content to let street justice rule. Kat hadn’t stayed and she didn’t know the man’s final fate. Justice in Shantytown was often cruel but at least it wasn’t murder in a back street by her own hand.
She clung to the notion that she had spared the man’s life because she still had hope with Sadler. It was a dying ember, fading from orange to black but it was hope. She’d find a way to build on it, breathe new life into that ember, add kindling. In the fire of that hope, she could purge the demons of her past, relegate them to ghosts that might haunt her but could never gain control of her again. Sadler would see that fire build and be drawn again to the light.
In her final thoughts before drifting to sleep, she made a resolution. One way or another, she’d banish the darkness.
Chapter 14
It was Saturday morning and the Beggar’s Market was in full swing. Already, Kat had helped Doctor Reynolds with half a dozen patients suffering from ailments ranging from respiratory infections to cuts and sprains. Healing instead of hurting. The motto made Kat wistful. She had a lot of healing to do.
“Three smalls,” Reynolds said while pressing lightly at the swollen ankle of the man on the examination table. “Kat, grab the mountain tobacco, will you?”
Mountain Tobacco: Arnica Montana, also called Wolf’s Bane. Anti-inflammatory, Kat’s mind recited. The oil was in a plastic container on the bottom shelf. Moments later, she held the container up. “This is all we have.” She tilted the small bottle toward Reynolds.
The doctor took it and inspected the level thoughtfully. “Ought to be enough for one application.” She drizzled the oil over the ankle and rubbed gently to spread it. She wrapped a frayed bandage tightly over the swollen skin and patted the dressing. “If you bring this back once you’ve healed, I’ll buy it again for one small.”
The man paid his fee and then hobbled away from the shack. For the first time that morning, no customers lingered at the service window.
“Kat, would you mind grinding more mountain tobacco with the mortar and pestle?” The woman massaged her knobby fingers. The knuckles on the doctor’s left hand had grown large with arthritis.
Kat smiled. “Sure, Maggie. Just call if you need me.” She slipped to the back room and gathered the supplies before placing them on Reynolds’ desk. Carefully, she plucked yellow blossoms off the flowering plants and dropped them into the mortar. Extracting oils from Arnica was a chore but Kat knew she was in far better condition for the work than Reynolds. She pressed the pestle in circular patterns inside the mortar and bore her weight down on the flowers. Gritting her teeth, pressing with controlled might, she asserted her will on the bowl. The bowl ripped from the timeline and the pestle skidded across the desktop, gouging the particleboard surface while scattering the many blossoms about.
Holy shit! Kat stared at the groove through the flower petals. I pushed the mortar by accident. Pressure crested inside her head and she braced. Her ears popped and the mortar returned atop the crushed flowers. She moved the bowl to one side and collected the petals. I pushed the mortar but not the petals inside it. She marveled at the precision required for such a feat while staring at the yellow flowers in her hand. Can I do it again? She dropped the blossoms into the bowl and concentrated.
The second attempt wasn’t as exact as her first, inadvertent one. Both the bowl and petals pushed forward and disappeared. Kat frowned at her lack of control and then groaned as pressure tortured her ears with the mortar’s return. She pressed fingers to her ears and massaged. A drop of red dotted her right index finger. I know I can do better… obviously. Her ears thrummed a staccato beat from the abuse and she resumed her work grinding the flowers into paste. But no more today. Maybe tomorrow.
Kat worked until well after lunchtime. She shared three sticks of murine with Reynolds and the pair chatted about recent happenings in the Beggar’s Market. The doctor seemed reluctant to bring up Kat’s abilities and Kat was content to let it go. When the afternoon crowd subsided, Kat begged off further work in the back room, vaguely citing the need to accomplish Porter-related business the rest of the day.
She left the crowded market for the Strip and walked to Eastpoint. After waving her wristwrap over a comm terminal, the screen flared to life. She tapped in the direct comm code for Phillip Porter’s office.
The terminal blinked and a countdown of her credit total began a sluggish journey toward zero. Although the screen remained dark, Porter answered. His voice was equal parts concern and irritation. “Hello? Who is this? This is a private terminal. Jana?”
“Not Jana, Mr. Porter,” Kat answered. “I have something that belongs to you and I’d like to return it.”
“Who is this?”
�
��Kat Smith. I’m one of your employees.”
“Kat Smith. From the mineshaft blast? The woman I recently promoted?”
“Yes, sir.”
The line went silent for several seconds. “What could you have of mine?” His voice had become curious.
Kat sighed. “I’d like to talk to you in person, Mr. Porter. If you can arrange a visa, I’ll be at your office in forty minutes.”
Porter exhaled in a light snort. “Miss Smith, even on Saturday I’m very busy. The Recore situation, as you know. You can simply hand whatever it is you have to your supervisor and she can send it up the chain to me.”
“I highly doubt you want that, sir. Check your center drawer, far back right.”
Kat heard a muffled grunt of annoyance. The sound of a drawer sliding carried faintly over the comm unit. The gasp that followed was much louder.
“How? W-where did you find that?” The man was grappling with his emotions, trying to bury his panic with a layer of detachment. Kat had heard that struggle many times before in her life.
“Irrelevant,” she replied icily. Her dispassionate tone shocked even her and she took a breath. She tried to warm her voice, to let go of old habits. “Mr. Porter, I want to return this to you and have just a quick word.”
More silence. He’s weighing options, she mused. Wondering how much I know. Wondering how I got the stick. Did Brooke betray him? Does anyone else know? So many questions… When the silence stretched out, she knew he wouldn’t refuse her.
“I-I’ll have a visa waiting for you, Miss Kat,” he stammered, accidentally calling her by her first name, “and someone will bring you up to me.”
Kat waited for the call to terminate. It didn’t. The hook was firmly set.
Porter continued, “I’ll list the reason for the visit as related to the recent mine sabotage. I’d appreciate your cooperation with that. You see, that stick has proprietary information on it. It would shake investor confidence if word leaked that the information on that stick had been removed from the building.” The man had regained his balance, almost sounding casual in his lie.
