Lifel1k3

by Jay Kristoff

  “Trouble,” she said.

  Lemon nodded, hefted her electric baseball bat. Eve slung the satchel over her back with a grunt, pulled out her own beat-stick. It was similar to Lemon’s: aluminum, fixed with a power unit and a fat wad of insulated tape around the handle. The bats were Grandpa’s design, and they could pump out around 500kV—enough to knock most peeps flat on their soft parts. As a clue to where she was likely to insert it if push came to shove, Lemon had nicknamed her bat Popstick. But in keeping with her love of mythology, Eve had painted her bat’s name down its haft in dayglow pink.

  EXCALIBUR.

  Grandpa had gotten paid with some basic self-defense software on a repair job last year, and he’d uploaded it onto Eve’s Memdrive so she’d be able to protect herself. She wasn’t too worried about the chances of a brawl, particularly with Kaiser around. But still, anything could happen this far out in the Scrap. . . .

  “Best come on out!” Eve called. “Sneaking up on a body like that’s gonna end dusty.”

  “Lil’ Evie, lil’ Evie,” called a singsong voice. “You a long way from Tire Valley, girl.”

  Eve and Lemon turned toward the songbird, half a dozen shapes coalescing out of the haze. She didn’t even need to see the colors on their backs to recognize them.

  “Long way from Fridge Street, too, Tye.”

  Eve looked at the scavvers, each in turn. Their gear was a motley of duct-taped body armor and salvaged hubcaps. Most weren’t much older than her. A big fellow named Pooh was armed with a methane-powered chainsaw and a ragged teddy bear tied around his neck. The tall, thin one called Tye drew an old stub gun from his trench coat.

  She’d bumped into the Fridge Street Crew a few times during her own runs, and they were usually smart enough for parlay. But just in case, Eve thumbed her bat’s ignition and the air filled with a crackling hum.

  Rule Number Three in the Scrap:

  Carry the biggest stick.

  “We were here first, juves,” she said. “No need to tussle on this.”

  “Don’t see no standard planted anywhere.” Tye turned his palms toward the gray sky and looked around. “Without colors on the dirt, you ain’t got official claim.”

  Cricket stepped forward, held up spindly, rust-colored hands.

  “We were just leaving, anyway. It’s all yours, gents.”

  Tye spat in Cricket’s direction. “You talking to me, you little fug?”

  Cricket frowned. “Don’t call me little.”

  “Or what, Rusty?” the boy scoffed.

  “Just leave him alone, Tye,” Eve said.

  The boy’s teeth were the color of coffee stains. “‘Him’? Don’t you mean ‘it’? Damn, check this flesh, sticking up for the fugazi.”

  “Fugazi” was slang for “fake.” No one was quite sure of its origin anymore, but the word was a slur used to describe anything artificial—cybernetic implants, bots, synthetic food, you name it. Its short form, “fug,” was a common insult for logika, who were treated on the island as second-class citizens at best, and as simple property at worst.

  Tye looked to his boys and waggled his eyebrows.

  “These girls gone stir-crazy living out there alone with old Silas,” he grinned. “Prefer the company of metal to meat now. Maybe they haven’t met the right flavor.” The boy grabbed his crotch and shook it, and all his crew guffawed.

  Lemon drummed her fingers on Popstick’s grip. “You shake that thing at us again, your sister’s going to bed disappointed tonight.”

  The crew all howled with laughter, and Eve saw Tye bristle. He needed to save face now. Bless her heart, but Lemon’s mouth was going to get her into serious brown one day.

  “Shut it, scrub.” Tye hefted his stub gun, aimed it in Lemon’s general direction.

  “You really want to kick off over this?” Eve watched the crew fanning out around them. “We’re walking away. You can have the salvage.”

  “And what’s that in your pack, lil’ Evie? Already scavved the best of it?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Smelling me some lies.” Tye aimed the gun at her face. “Show me the bag, deviate.”

  Eve felt the blood drain from her face at the insult, her jaw clench tight.

  “Oh yeah, I seen what you done in Dome las’ night,” Tye continued. “News was all over the feeds. Your grandpa might be the best mechanic this side of the Glass. And maybe he’s racked up some goodwill fixing busted water recycs for folks and whatnot. But you think anyone’ll cry if I ghost you right now? Some trashbreed abnorm?”

  Lemon lifted Popstick with a growl. “Don’t call her that.”

  Tye sneered. “Pony up the salvage, lil’ Evie.”

  Eve sighed to make a show of it. With a grunt, she slung her satchel off her shoulder, tossed it onto the ground between them. Lowering the gun, Tye dawdled over and knelt by the bag. Pawing through it, confusion hit him first, disbelief following, realization finally smacking him around the chops as he turned to his boys.

  “True cert, juves, this is—”

  Three steps and Eve’s boot connected with his face, smooshed his nose across his cheeks. The boy tumbled backward, stub gun sailing into the trash.

  “You fu—”

  Eve stomped on Tye’s crotch to shut him up, lowering the business end of Excalibur to his head. Pooh arced up his chainsaw, but a low growl made him glance over his shoulder. Kaiser was crouched in the shadows, eyes glowing a furious red.

  “Ain’t scared of your doggie, lil’ Evie,” Pooh scoffed. “Bot can’t hurt no human.”

  “Only logika have to obey the Three Laws.” Eve smiled. “Kaiser’s a cyborg. Got an organic brain, see? Bigger one than you, maybe.”

  Kaiser growled again, metal claws tearing the scrap. Staring at the knives in the blitzhund’s gums, the juve lowered his chainsaw, pawed the teddy bear at his throat.

  “Folks gonna hear about this,” he told Eve. “Your name ain’t dirt since last night. I caught talk the Brotherhood’s already heading down to nail you up. Maybe the Fridge Street Crew throws them some love when they come knocking?”

  “There’ll be plenty of love waiting,” Eve growled. “Believe it.”

  “Eve, let’s go.” Cricket tugged on her boots.

  “Crick’s right, let’s jet, Riotgrrl,” Lemon muttered.

  Eve lifted Excalibur, swinging it in an arc at the assembled scavvers.

  “Any of you scrubs follow us, I’ma get Queen of Englund on your asses, you hear?”

  “Don’t need to follow you.” The bottom half of Tye’s face was slick, blood bubbling on his lips as he talked. “We know where you live, you abnorm freak.”

  Eve lowered her bat to Tye’s cheek, live current crackling down the haft. “You ever call me an abnorm again, I’ma teach you what the baseball feels like.”

  She looked around at the assembled scavs, flashing her razor-blade smile.

  “The Chair will now take your questions.”

  The threat hung in the air like smoke. Talking true, the same part of Eve that threw down with that eighty-tonner last night was hoping these juves would make a Thing of it. But one by one, she watched the crew deflate.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. . . .”

  Eve hefted her satchel back onto her shoulder. Heart hammering in her chest despite the bluster. And with a sharp whistle for Kaiser and a nod for Lemon, she turned and motored, fast as her oversized boots would stomp her.

  1.4

  WAKE

  Our feathers painted red. Our cheeks wet with tears. Three pretty birds in a bloodstained cage. And Tania the prettiest of them all.

  She was the softest of us. The shallowest. It didn’t matter if she wasn’t fierce. Or clever. Or brave. Because she was beautiful. That was enough for Tania.

  But there in that cell, I saw the depths of her. Depths even Tania had never swum. When it was all I could do to stop myself flying to pieces, she was hard as iron. Dragging herself to her feet and staring at those four k
illers in their perfect, pretty row.

  A soldier stepped forward, blue eyes and dark hair. Tania didn’t blink.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” she said.

  The soldier didn’t reply.

  His pistol spoke for him.

  By the time they reached Tire Valley, the sun was almost peaking, and Eve’s fauxhawk was drooping with sweat. She gulped down some water with Lemon, poured the last of it on Kaiser’s head. The air around Cricket’s heat sinks was shimmering, his mismatched eyes filmed with dust. They stuck to the shade as best they could, marching in Dunlop, Michelin and Toyomoto shadows. Black rubber cliffs reaching up into a burning sky.

  Grandpa had told her there were automata who worked in Dregs a long time ago, back when what was left of the Yousay still blew smoke about rebuilding. The bots divided most of the island into zones and carted different scrap to designated areas. So Dregs had a Neon Street, Engine Road, Tire Valley and so on. Lemon had told her there was a cul-de-sac somewhere near Toaster Beach lined with nothing but battery-powered “marital aids,” but if it existed, Eve had never found it. For every big stretch of turf in Dregs, there was a gang who ran it. And the Fridge Street Crew was among the dirtiest.

  “Grandpa’s gonna be so flat with me,” Eve sighed.

  “Toldja.” Cricket shrugged his lopsided shoulders. “We shoulda gone straight home. Now what’ve we got? Some broken red tech in a bag and Fridge Street lining up behind the Brotherhood to put a knife in your tenders.”

  “This body will be worth it, Crick.”

  “It’s worth a life stretch in a Daedalus factoryfarm.”

  “Pfft.” Lemon shook her head. “How many CorpCops you seen round here lately?”

  “Are you familiar with the First Law of Robotics, Miss Fresh?”

  Lemon sighed, spoke by rote. “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.”

  “Correct. That includes standing with my hands down my pants while my mistress does things liable to get herself perished.”

  “You’re not wearing pants, Crick.”

  “Just sayin’. They outlawed those things for a damn reason.”

  “Your concern is noted in the minutes, Mister Cricket,” Eve said. “But we got zero creds, and meds don’t buy themselves. So don’t tell Grandpa about it yet, okay?”

  “Is that an order or a request?”

  “Order,” Eve and Lemon said in unison.

  The bot gave a small, metallic sigh.

  They trudged on in silence. Eve ran her fingers over Kaiser’s back, pulled her hand away with a yelp as she discovered the blitzhund was scalding hot. Dragging off her poncho, she slung it over him to cut the glare. Kaiser wagged his tail, heat sink lolling from his mouth.

  She’d seen an old history virtch about the Nuclear Winter theory once. All these scientists messing their panties about what’d happen when the fallout blotted out the sun after mass detonation. Seemed to her they should’ve spent more time worrying about what’d happen after, when all that carbon dixoide and nitrogen and methane released by the blasts ripped a hole in the sky, and the UVB rays waltzed right through the ozone and started frying humanity’s DNA. Abnorms and deviates had been popping up ever since. “Manifesting” was the polite term for it, but polite didn’t have much place in Dregs.

  Of course, everyone had heard talk about deviates who could move things just by thinking on it, or even read minds, but Eve figured that was just spit and brown. Because as fizzy as “mutation” might have sounded in old Holywood flicks, most folks didn’t get superpowers or Godzilla smiles or even great suntans in Dregs. They just got cancer. Lots and lots of cancer.

  And the few folks who did get “Special”?

  Well, the Brotherhood got them dead.

  The quartet was deep in Tire Valley when an automated sentry gun twisted up out of a cluster of old tractor tires, spitting a plume of methane smoke. Hoping the voice-ident software wasn’t fritzing again, Eve started singing some antique tune Grandpa had made her learn. Beethovey or something . . .

  “Da-da-da-daaaaa. Da-da-da-dummmmmm.”

  The gun slipped back into its hidey-hole, and they rolled on. Eve had to sing at a couple more automata sentries on the way, dodging the thermex charges Grandpa had laid for uninvited guests, finally rounding a bend to find home sweet home.

  It was a series of shipping containers and antique trailer homes, welded around the hulk of a heavy thopter-freighter that had crashed here years ago and buried itself up to the eyeballs in trash. The freighter’s engines had been slicked with grease to spare them the rust that was slowly eating the rest of the ship. Methane exhaust sputtered from three chimneys, and the structure rattled and hummed with the songs of wind turbines and coolant fans. It was surrounded by mountains of tires and the remnants of an old 20C amusement park. The rusted spine of an ancient roller coaster could be seen cresting the trash around them, like some corroding sea serpent swimming through an ocean of garbage.

  Eve strolled up to the freighter, banged on the hatch.

  “Grandpa, it’s Evie!”

  Dragging her wilted fauxhawk from her eyes, she banged on the door again. She heard slow whirring from inside. Pained, labored breathing. The vidscreen beside the door crackled to life and two rheumy eyes peered out from the display.

  “We don’t want any,” a voice said.

  “Come on, Grandpa, let us in. It’s hot out here.”

  “‘Grandpa’?” His voice was all gravel and broken glass. “I used to have a granddaughter once. Damn fool stayed out all night and half the day. Got herself the cancer. Died screaming with her eyes swollen shut and her belly full of blood.”

  “That is foul, Grandpa.”

  “You kinda remind me of her, actually.” A wet cough crackled through the speaker’s hum. “She was better-looking, though.”

  “Come on, I wore my poncho, cut me some rope.”

  “The dog is wearing your poncho, Eve.”

  “He was hot!”

  “And where’s your gas mask?”

  “I look defective in that thing.”

  “And you’ll be the belle of the ball with a faceful of basal cell carcinoma, won’t you?”

  “Are you gonna let us in or what? Kaiser’s brain is probably roasted by now.”

  The door cranked wide enough for the group to squeeze inside. Grandpa waited beyond, slumped in his old electric wheelchair. The chair had no manual controls—directions were jacked straight from Grandpa’s brain via the wetware implant at his wrist.

  The old man was thin as a starving gull. A shock of gray hair. Eyes sharp as scalpels pouched in sandbag sockets. Wheezing breath. It made Eve’s chest hurt to look at him—to remember what he’d been and see what he’d become. Instead, she looked at the floor and crooked a thumb at her co-conspirator.

  “Fizzy if Lemon stays over?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” Grandpa frowned. “She’s stayed over for the last ten months.”

  “Always polite to ask.” Lemon leaned down, kissed him on his stubbled cheek.

  “Away with you and your feminine wiles, Miss Fresh.”

  Lemon grinned. “How you feeling, Mister C?”

  “Like ten miles of rough road.” The old man coughed into his fist, loud and wet. “Better for seeing you, though, kiddo.”

  Kaiser pushed past Eve, still boiling hot. He padded down the hallway, shaking off Eve’s poncho and slinking inside his doghouse. Motion sensors activated the coolant vents, and his tail started wagging in the recycled freon.

  “It’s almost midday.” Grandpa scowled up at Eve. “Where you been?”

  Apparently, Grandpa had continued in his Surly Old Bastard traditions and hadn’t watched the newsfeeds. He’d no idea about the Dome or what’d happened there. The Goliath. Her outstretched fingers. Screaming . . .

  “Went to WarDome last night to watch the bouts,” she said. “Hit Eastwastes on the way home, looking for salvage.”

 
; Grandpa glanced at Cricket.

  “Where’s she been?”

  “Just like she said.” Cricket nodded his bobblehead. “WarDome. Eastwastes.”

  “Oh, so you believe him and not me?” Eve sighed.

  “His honesty protocols are hardwired, chickadee. Yours only work when it suits you.”

  Eve made a face, wrangled her satchel off her back, started peeling away her plasteel armor. Underneath, she was wearing urban-camo cast-offs and a tank top that predated the Quake. She stashed Excalibur near the door. Despite the lawlessness in Dregs, Grandpa wouldn’t allow guns in the house, and with her nightmares being what they were, Eve was only too glad for it. Some old grav-tank pilot’s armor and Popstick were the only armaments keeping her bat company.

  She looked sideways at the old man, tried to sound casual.

  “How you feeling, Grandpa?”

  “Better than I look.”

  “How’s the cough? You take your meds? How much you got left?”

  “Fine. Yes. Plenty.” Grandpa scowled. “Although I sometimes hear this annoying voice in the back of my head, speaking at me like I was a three-year-old. Is that normal?”

  Eve leaned down and kissed her grandpa’s cheek. “You know, the whole lovable grouch thing? Really working for you.”

  “I’ll keep it up, then.” He smiled.

  Kicking off her heavy boots, Eve made fists with her toes in the temperfoam, relishing the air-con on her bare skin. Then, hoping the desalination still was back online, she hefted her satchel with Lemon’s help and shuffled off in search of something to drink.

  Grandpa coughed as she padded up the hall, dragged wet knuckles across his lips. Glancing at Cricket, he muttered softly.

  “Salvage in Eastwastes, huh?”

  “Yessir.”

  “She find anything good?”

  Cricket looked from Grandpa to the satchel the two girls were hauling away, the beautiful red prize coiled inside.

  “No, sir.” The little bot shook his head. “Nothing good at all.”

  “You know, for the reddest of red tech,” said Lemon, “he’s not hard on the eyes.”

  Eve looked at the body laid out on her workbench, stripped of its bloody flight suit, a pair of skintight shorts leaving just a little to the imagination. Smooth olive skin, hard muscle, a thousand different cuts from its journey through the windshield scored across tanned pseudo-flesh. Its brow was smashed inward, its right arm sheared off at the shoulder, that coin slot riveted between its pecs. And yet, it was somehow flawless.