Free Stories 2014

by Baen Books

  Widget winced. "Babs thinks it's just badly sprained."

  Widget didn't have the golden ticket of being a mother to a half-elf yet, so she couldn't go to Mercy Hospital for treatment. Babs was the commune's mid-wife. Qualified or not, Babs ended up treating everything from runny noses to broken fingers.

  Usagi continued listing their streak of bad luck. "Clover developed edema on the first day of berry picking; her feet swelled up to soccer balls." Clover was nine months pregnant and ready to pop. "Babs ordered her into bed with air conditioning and cold compresses. Winnie has been working double shifts because two of the part-timers at the bakery got caught and are being deported." Usagi windmilled her arms in sheer frustration. "It was just me and Babs and the kids picking. It took forever! We finished two days ago and we've been canning non-stop since then. We're almost done but Clover went into labor. Babs is upstairs with her. We need to have a full pallet packed and ready to go when the truck shows up."

  "I'm here for you." It got her a fierce hug that threatened to break bones. For a little thing, the woman had muscles. "Where should I start?"

  "Scrub up." Usagi pointed at a clean apron hanging by the door. "Suit up. Build a shipping box, pack it with jars with labels, seal it, and stack it on the pallet on the loading dock. Lather, rinse, repeat."

  "Consider it done, but I need Widget to do some database digging when she's free."

  Widget threw up her hands. "I'm free right now. I've labeled everything that I can. I have to wait until the seals set up on the next set of jars."

  Law knew that by "scrub" that Usagi meant under her nails and up to her elbows. Law moved berries out of the way so she could wash. "I'm looking for the owner of the license plate BAD 0001."

  "Someone' s gonna get it," Widget sang as she fished her tablet out of a messenger bag. "What did this B-hole do?"

  "He took a female elf out in the middle of nowhere and stranded her there." Law dried her hands and found the shipping boxes.

  "Oh my gosh!" Widget cried. "Did he hurt her?"

  "No." Law dried her hands and found the shipping boxes. "He might have planned on coming back later, but I found her first." And have no idea what to do with her. "She remembers his license plate. I want to find out who to keep an eye open for." Law stated her reason for wanting to identify the man. She wasn't sure why Bare Snow was keen on tracking him down.

  "You should tell the police or the EIA or someone." Widget was sometimes hopelessly naïve. Which was why she had needed Law to haul her out of trouble and hook her up with Usagi.

  Usagi snorted loudly as she measured jam out into jars.

  "What?" Widget asked.

  "I had a dickhead of an ex while going to college," Usagi explained. "He'd got me kicked out of my dorms because my 'guest' wouldn't follow rules. I got a restraining order for him, and moved into an apartment."

  Usagi banged around the metal utensils, growing angry as she told her story. "I got kicked out there because I'd called the cops too many times. The landlord called it "disturbing the peace."

  "You're kidding!" Widget cried.

  "No. The shitty thing was that by the time I'd call the cops, I'd be so scared and angry that I'd be screaming at the world. Dickhead would be calm and smirk and do that male 'must be that time of the month' thing. Like it's unreasonable to be upset by a man who's a foot taller and eighty pounds heavier than you and just won't leave you alone. The cops would end up hassling me more than him. All he would have to say was 'she's my girlfriend' and that would be the end of it. Once upon a time, long past regretting, I'd said 'yes' to this man and that was all that mattered in the cop's head. It didn't matter than I'd been saying 'no' for months, that I given up a full scholarship and moved to the other side of the country. It didn't matter that I wanted nothing more from him. We were 'a couple.' This was 'domestic quarrel' and we were both guilty."

  Usagi took a deep breath, eyes closed. "God, sorry, it's been twelve years and it still pisses me off. I finally applied to the University of Pittsburgh and moved an entire planet away from him. I had plans of doing this—" She waved her hand to take up the kitchen and the hundreds of canning jars. "But at the other end of it. I'd be the one living on Earth, calling the shots. In my senior year, he'd gotten my address and started to send me letters. He had plans. Plans that included me. And I just snapped—I was pregnant within a month."

  "Wow," Widget breathed. "That sucks."

  Law nodded to acknowledge the unfairness of it. Most people were good wonderful people that would give you anything you needed—time, money, patience. There were, however, one or two people who should be just taken out and shot.

  Usagi was probably right for the wrong reasons. If the male that drove Bare Snow truly was an elf pretending to be a human, then neither the police nor the EIA could do anything about it. Even if he was a human (and Bare Snow was mistaken about the accent) he actually hadn't broken any laws. Yet. The man definitely had planned something hinky but the police would have their hands tied until someone was hurt or dead.

  Someone like Bare Snow.

  Law had built, packed, sealed, and stacked thirty boxes when Widget blew out a loud raspberry. "That doesn't sound good."

  "BAA to BAZ was assigned to the EIA!" Widget cried.

  "What the hell?" Law said. "The EIA doesn't have that many vehicles."

  "The range numbers are reserved." Widget tapped on her tablet and shook her head. "Basically it lets the EIA generate random plates to put on their cars instead of having to go to the city for plates. Kind of independent but cooperative."

  Law nodded. "Same old, same old." The City and the EIA were two huge cog-turning mechanisms, dependent on each other while trying to stay totally separate. The city was a territory of United States with elected officials and non-military police force. It maintained the infrastructure of Pittsburgh: the roads, the water, the sewage and the like. The EIA was a United Nations entity created to oversee humanity's presence on an alien world at the edge of Queen Soulful Ember's domain. It controlled access entering and leaving Elfhome and had the final word on everything related to the elves.

  Widget frowned at her tablet. "It seems as if the license plate BAD 0001 is on a white Ford Explorer. It's labeled UPU. What the hell is that?"

  "Unmarked, private use," Usagi said. "Most of the 'official' EIA vehicles are white with 'U.N.' painted on the hood and sides. But the staff is from all over the world and they occasionally need access to cars for personal activities like shopping. The EIA has a motor pool of unmarked cars for private use. UPU. I could have used one while I interned with the EIA but I never had the need for a car."

  "So anyone that works for the EIA has access to them?" Law asked.

  "Yes," Usagi said. "You're looking at about five hundred possible males. He would have had to sign for the car, so there's a paper trail. "

  "Can you find out who used that car?" Law asked Widget.

  Widget blew another raspberry. "The city of Pittsburgh has an ancient system. It's easy as pie to get in—actually it's easier than making pie, if you ask me. Rolling pastry is hard! EIA's systems were just updated two years ago with more firewalls than god. I can't get into their system."

  "Oh my god, who is she?" Usagi pointed at the doorway. "She's gorgeous!"

  Bare Snow peered into the kitchen with curious eyes. A collection of little hands and the top of heads gathered on the sill of the closed half-door.

  "Tell her! Tell her!" the children whispered in Elvish.

  Clearly uncertain about her mission, Bare Snow spilled out a long discussion in High Elvish, sprinkled with rote-learned English phrases of "Peanut Butter" and "Chocolate Milk" and "I'm not asking. I'm telling."

  Usagi covered her mouth to keep in a surprised laugh. "That is not funny." She finally said loudly to the children. She glanced at the kitchen clock. "Oh! I didn't realize how late it was." With her back to the door, she grinned hugely. "I didn't feed them dinner but they know not to get underfoot when I'm working on
a deadline."

  With practiced ease, Usagi smeared scoops of peanut butter and jam onto slices of homemade bread, squished them together, poured a glass of milk, stirred in chocolate syrup, and then reached one plate and one cup down over the other side of the door to a child. "Bring me your dirty plates. Blade and Thunder, you'll have to take sandwiches up to your mothers when you're done eating."

  While the children were given their dinner, Bare Snow continued to ask questions. A blush started to creep up Usagi's face even as she tried to control giggles.

  "Poor thing. She wants to know where we got all the baby elves—did we steal them or just find them? Why do we have weasels running loose? Why is there a woman upstairs in a bucket of water, screaming? And why doesn’t anyone seem worried about that?"

  "Bucket of water?"

  The giggles won. "It's a birthing pool! Only it's tiny compared to what elves consider a proper tub." Usagi put a plate and glass in front of Law and then Bare Snow. "Here, you probably haven't eaten either."

  The fire berry jam was like sweet fireworks against the rich creaminess of the peanut butter.

  Bare Snow took a tentative bite of the sandwich and her eyes went wide. "Mmmm!" She took another bite, much bigger, swaying back and forth. "Mmmmm."

  Usagi explained that Clover was having a baby. She added that all the children were half-elf and had been born to human mothers in the same way. This triggered dozens of questions that Law never had the courage to ask. It amazed her that Usagi actually answered them all.

  The father of both Moon Rabbit and Shield was a laedin-caste warrior who belonged to the Viceroy's household and only visited Pittsburgh occasionally. Usagi had deliberately chosen a male who wouldn't be able to keep close watch on her. After having Moon Rabbit, Usagi decided that her daughter should have a sibling, so she'd never be alone. Usagi also wanted her children to be full siblings, so she'd sought the same male out a second time. She'd been afraid that he'd only been with her the first time out of curiosity and wouldn't want a reunion. The male, however, seemed eager to be with her again.

  Bare Snow didn't seem surprised. "I'd heard that humans are like peanut butter, but I didn't understand until now."

  Law had always wondered what the male elves saw in human females. Not to knock Usagi and her housemates, but none of them came close to Bare Snow's beauty. The elf was stunningly beautiful, the way that the sky was always perfect even when filled with rolling storm clouds. Humans, like Law, were like thistles. She supposed some people could like scruffy, but why roll in the weeds when you could have the sky?

  Then again, Law did have a pet porcupine.

  "I am Ground Bare in Winter as Killing Snow Falls in Wind. Please, call me, Bare Snow." She used the English words instead of the Elvish. "I like that name better. I came to Pittsburgh hoping to find a place to belong. I thought that I would be happy with anyone that offered to take a pale shadow of myself. The wind. The ground bare in winter. Now I know that I would be miserable unless I was wanted for all of me."

  Widget gave Law a confused look.

  Law knew what Bare Snow meant, felt an echo within herself. So many people just wanted part of the package that was Law. They didn't want her to be independent and capable. They called it "male" as if no woman could do what she did and still be a woman. They didn't want her to be gay, while ignoring the fact that they never "chose" to be straight. Or they didn't want her to work as a forager despite the fact that they hated their jobs and were envious of her freedom. Or to live in a barn despite the fact that they thought it was cool and had always dreamed about it. She was friends with the people that didn't want to change her, mold her into their idea of "good," but even they had little pieces of her that they didn't want.

  Law didn't want to derail the conversation by laying bare her soul, so she looped the conversation back to the whole reason she was at the commune. "So the license plate lead is a dead end?"

  Widget stared up at the ceiling, squinting, as if peering into Pittsburgh's Internet clouds. "Well, we could go at it at another angle. I can hit the city's driver license database. There's a security field on it to denote EIA employees. It also tracks gender, hair color, eye color, height and weight. We could winnow through the males to see if any match up to her perp."

  "Perp? Is that Elvish?"

  Widget ducked her head and blushed deep red. "Sorry, that's what they call bad guys on old cop shows."

  Bare Snow described the male. Law wasn't sure she could describe her own father with as exacting details. The female had noted his height, weight, and width of his shoulders, shape of his chin, nose, and cheeks. Bare Snow could even state the exact shade of honey brown hair and green eyes that the male had. It became clear as she described the man that she'd instantly known that he was lying to her and probably meant to hurt her in some way.

  "Why did you go with him?" Law asked.

  Bare Snow winced and whispered, "Sometimes the only way to learn more about a trap is to trigger it." Then she shrugged and focused on making herself another sandwich. "I knew it was dangerous but it made me happy. For the first time, I felt fiercely alive. I thought I would finally matter. I waited and waited for something to happen, but nothing did, so I learned nothing. It made me so sad. Maybe I was wrong; maybe the male was just a human and this was where Water Clan belonged. I cried until I fell asleep. When you found me, I was not sure why you were there. You were not an elf and you had a porcupine. Things became clearer when you took the door."

  "It did?" Law was still mystified about the door.

  "That there are three forces at work in Pittsburgh. There are those that set the trap. Those that the trap was set for. And the ones that dismantled the trap before it could be triggered."

  "Wait. I got there before the trap was triggered? But—but—you weren't in the trap already?"

  Bare Snow shook her head vigorously. "When he left me there, I realized that the trap was not for me. I thought I was to be the bait—although I could not guess for whom. Bait should be wanted, and I am not. When you took the door, I realized that I wasn't the bait. I was the screen. When you set a trap, you seek to erase your presence. You don't want the trap to be detected until it has done its job. And, if it fails to be fatal, you don't want the trap to lead survivors to you."

  "All hell is going to break loose regardless but let's not give anyone a nice little goat, shall we?" Crazy Lady meant a scapegoat, not a real goat.

  "So basically you being there behind the white door was so that the Water Clan would be blamed for whatever happened?" Law said.

  "Yes." Bare Snow took a big gulp of chocolate milk; it left a mustache on her upper lip. "Obviously, I needed to change my strategy. I decided to stay mobile until I could determine the players in the game. I believe now that the trap is meant for the Viceroy."

  "Windwolf?" Law cried.

  "Windwolf?" Bare Snow echoed back the English name in confusion.

  "That's his name in English." Like all Elvish names, Windwolf's real name was impossibly long and meant Wolf Who Rules Wind. Elvish word order meant that humans ended up calling him "Rules" when they tried to shorten his name. The English nickname kept the local elves from being pissed off when the humans butchered the Viceroy's name.

  "Windwolf. Windwolf." Bare Snow practiced the nickname and then nodded. "All that I learned today says Windwolf is the target."

  "I've been with you all day. No one talked about killing him! He's going to have fish for dinner. That's it!"

  Bare Snow tilted her head in confusion. "Oh, you don't know our history. It would not be obvious to you." She thought for a minute. "It is a very long story." She thought for a minute longer. "A very, very long story."

  Law went back to building and packing boxes. "This is going to take a while."

  The female did not know how to condense. Granted, it was an epic tale. Sometime in the past, God knows when because Law didn't, the Skin Clan had an empire that stretched from the Eastern Sea to the Western Sea. There
were roads and aqueducts and shipping canals and great dikes built with slave labor at a horrific cost of life. Hundreds of elves died for every mile of a highway that stretched for thousands of miles. The Skin Clan had been all about flaunting its wealth while grinding its slaves into the dirt. Naturally a rebellion swept through the empire, crashing down on all central government, leaving behind ruins and memories of a golden age. An hour later, Bare Snow had painted an elegant picture of an era gone by.

  "But what about the Viceroy?" Law cried finally since his name hadn't surfaced once.

  "Wolf Who Rules' grandfather was Howling. He was the first real head of the Wind Clan. We had been the slaves of the King Boar Bristle, whose kingdom was in the highlands. His father—Wolf Who Rules' great-grandfather—Quick Blade had been the bastard son of Boar Bristle and started the rebellion. Quick Blade was but one of many scattered warlords. It was Howling who made an alliance with the sekasha and gathered all the Wind Clan households to him. After the fall of the Skin Clan, the Wind Clan claimed all the Mauhida as their ancestral right. It put them at odds with the Water Clan that long controlled the ports of the Dark Sea."

  In other words, her parents were from feuding clans. No wonder neither clan wanted Bare Snow. This explained her situation but not why she thought Windwolf was the target.

  "What does this have to do with Windwolf being attacked in Pittsburgh?"

  Bare Snow gestured for Law to wait. "It all relates. The war came to the end when Pure Radiance went to Burning Mountain Temple and told the Holy Ones that we were on the brink of complete destruction. Peace must be established and maintained at any cost. So Cinder called a gathering of sekasha. Deeming that enough blood had been shed, they chose to compete in games to decide which of the clans would lead the others. Cinder won for the Fire Clan and Ashfall was deemed king of all our people."

  Law sighed and glanced to Usagi who spread her hands. Still no mention of the Viceroy. "What about Windwolf?"