Lifel1k3

by Jay Kristoff

  “You okay, Riotgrrl?”

  “Fizzy.”

  “Did you know Silas could fly this thing? Did you even know this thing could fly?”

  “Grandpa’s definitely pro at keeping secrets.” She glanced at the lifelike, now hauling itself up the wall with its one good arm and testing its right leg gingerly. It looked like it’d had whatever passed for the stuffing kicked out of it. “You fizzy, Braintrauma?”

  “I’ve had worse beatings,” it replied. “Trust me.”

  “Can you carry Kaiser with only one arm? I need to take him down to the worksh—”

  The ship lunged sideways, sending Lemon into Eve and Eve into the wall. Cricket yelped and tumbled across the corridor, ending upside down against the bulkhead. There was a loud metallic crunch, a long squeal. The freighter shuddered again, rolling up onto its port side and sending everyone to their knees. Ezekiel grabbed Eve to stop her cracking her skull open on the bulkhead. Its arm was like warm iron, wrapped around her chest and crushing the breath out of her.

  “Get off me . . . ,” she gasped.

  “What was that?” Lemon demanded.

  Eve was pulling herself to her feet when the internal PA crackled. Grandpa’s voice was hoarse with pain, almost drowned out by roaring wind. “Eve, she’s in—”

  The transmission dropped dead with a hiss of static.

  Ezekiel met Eve’s frightened stare.

  “Faith . . . ,” he said.

  “Grandpa!” Eve snatched Excalibur from Cricket’s hands and bolted down the corridor. Lemon ran beside her. Cricket wailing in protest. She could hear the lifelike bringing up the rear, limping badly after its beatdown.

  They ran through the warren of corridors, up to the cockpit, tearing open a hatchway and stepping out into a rushing gale. The windshield was smashed to splinters, glittering on the floor. Grandpa’s electric wheelchair was on its side, wheels still humming. Wind howled through the shattered glass. Eve could see ashen sky beyond, the island of Dregs sailing away beneath their feet. Black ocean in the distance. No one at the controls.

  “Grandpa?” she cried.

  Lemon peered out through the broken windshield.

  “. . . Mister C?”

  A bloodied hand reached down from outside, slammed Lemon’s head into the console. She collapsed, blood dripping from her split brow. Eve clenched her fists as a figure dropped in through the broken glass. Blood crusted in its ragged bangs. Glistening wounds in its belly and chest. Eyes the flat gray of a dead telescreen.

  “Hello, Ana.” Faith smiled. “You look wonderful for a dead girl.”

  Thinking only of her grandpa, Eve swung Excalibur with all her strength. Faith parried with a forearm, hissing as the shock rocked it back into the console. The lifelike recovered in a heartbeat, slapped the bat from Eve’s hand with almost casual ease.

  Eve still had the self-defense routines in her Memdrive to fall back on, landing a decent jab on the lifelike’s jaw before a single punch drove the breath from her lungs. She was seized by the throat, hauled into a choke hold.

  “Gabriel will be so pleased to see you,” Faith whispered in her ear.

  Eve struggled to speak against the lifelike’s grip. “What did you . . . do with—”

  “Silas? He’s in my flex-wing, dead girl.” The lifelike thumbed a control at its belt. Eve heard engines roar to life above her head. “Don’t worry. I’m taking you both home.”

  “If you’ve . . . hurt my . . . grandpa—”

  “. . . Grandfather?” A sharp smile twisted those perfect lips. “Oh, you poor girl. What has he been telling you?”

  Black flowers bloomed in Eve’s good eye. Tiny star flared and died as her pulse slowed. A roaring in her ears. A white-noise hiss. And beneath it all, a little voice, high and shrill. Yelling her name.

  “Evie!”

  A dark shape barreled into the cockpit, a silhouette in the light of a too-bright sun. Eve felt an impact, heard a wet crunch. She fell to her knees, hacking and coughing, stars in her eyes. Cricket was beside her, begging her to run. She was dimly aware of shapes moving in the cockpit—two figures, a dance of fists and knees and elbows. Blinding sparks. Metal tearing. The pilot’s seat uprooted. The console crushed like an old caff cup.

  The freighter wrenched to one side. Eve rolled across the deck, struggled to her knees. Cricket was roaring over the pulse in her ears, the pain in her head. She could see Faith and Ezekiel, hands at each other’s throats, their brawl shredding the casehardened steel around them as if it were wet cardboard.

  She pressed her hand to her throat, still trying to breathe. Cricket was at the controls, trying to pull the barge up from its dive. Faith broke Ezekiel’s hold, kicked the lifelike against the console, bouncing Cricket off the walls and snapping the control wheel off at the root. Pawing along the deck, Eve’s fingers wrapped around Excalibur’s hilt. And with a muffled curse, she cracked the bat across Faith’s spine.

  A surge of 500kV. A burst of current. Faith cried out, landed a thunderous punch to the side of Eve’s head. Eve heard a damp crunch as the lifelike’s fist collided with her Memdrive, felt a blinding flash of pain. She dropped to the deck, gasping and clutching her skull. White light behind her eyes.

  Ezekiel was on its feet, roaring Faith’s name and smashing the lifelike across the head with the broken wheel. And with a desperate cry, Ezekiel drew back its boot and kicked Faith out through the shattered windshield.

  Faith tumbled toward the black ocean below. But over the static in her ears, Eve heard engines snarl on the ceiling above, squealing metal, and seconds later, a flex-wing roared down in pursuit of the falling lifelike.

  Blood rushing in her temples. Vomit on her tongue. Blinding sparks in her eyes; broken images flickering in her head like some old 20C movie projector. The console was smashed to scrap, the controls a broken mess. The thought that her grandpa was inside that flex-wing flashed in her mind, shouted down by the knowledge that she couldn’t see the horizon through the shattered glass anymore. All she could see was black. Breakers made of Styrofoam. Gnashing waves, the color of sump grease.

  The ocean.

  She shook her head, trying to clear it.

  But we’re flying in the sky, aren’t we?

  Ezekiel dragged her into the copilot’s seat. Threw Lemon on top and strapped them both in. Her stomach lurched as the barge listed farther, the pain in her head growing worse. The engine roar swelled, louder and higher. She realized gravity wasn’t working right, that Cricket was bouncing along the ceiling. She could hear Kaiser barking in the background. Ezekiel yelling. Turbines screaming. Staring out through the shattered glass into a black and smiling face. So close she could almost kiss the waves.

  Kiss them goodbye.

  “Ana, hold on!” Ezekiel was roaring. “Hold on!”

  He keeps calling me Ana.

  “HOLD ON!”

  But my name is Eve. . . .

  Her stomach in her throat. Holding Lemon tight.

  She realized she didn’t want to die.

  She hadn’t liked it much the first time.

  Impact.

  1.7

  PREACHER

  Dust howled across the wreckage of Tire Valley, tumbled and tossed in the grip of a blood-warm wind. The trash was black and smoking, the tires melted to bubbling puddles. A crater littered with broken shipping containers and shattered wind turbines was all that remained to mark the spot where the house of Silas Carpenter had once stood.

  Tye lay in the dust, hand on his belly, staring up at the blistering sun.

  He didn’t know how long he’d been sprawled there. Hours, easy. His hands were sticky red. His stomach felt full of acid and broken glass.

  His crew was dead. Sir Westinghouse, Pooh, the Fridgeboys. All wasted by that crazy brunette in her flex-wing. When they’d rolled up to the Valley, Fridge Street had expected a tussle, true cert. But what they’d gotten was a massacre. Somewhere in the mix, Tye had bought himself a bullet in the gut and a one-way
ticket to Coffin Alley.

  God, he was so thirsty. . . .

  The rev of a motor and the soft squeak of brakes caught his attention. He tried to lift his head, but it hurt too much. He heard slow boots crunching in gravel, the chink of spurs. Graycoats, maybe? ’Bout time they showed up. Damn lawmen were never around when you needed ’em. But maybe they could stitch him up, maybe they could . . .

  “Hey,” he called feebly. “H-hey, help!”

  He heard a low growl, joined by a high-pitched yapping. Craning his neck, he clapped eyes on a pair of dogs standing among the scrap. One was huge, black, feral-looking. The second was the kind of cute you’d expect to find sitting in a gramma’s lap. Small, white and very fluffy.

  Tye could swear their eyes were glowing.

  “Mary,” said a deep, graveled voice. “Jojo. You hush now.”

  Tye heard crunching footsteps, the creak of leather. With a wince, he pulled himself up onto his elbow, caught sight of a tall fellow in a dusty black coat, a wide-brimmed cowboy hat. But though he almost wore the right color, this fellow surely wasn’t the Law.

  His face was weatherworn but handsome, his eyes a pale and shocking blue. He was packing serious grit—a long-barreled rifle slung on his back, two custom shooters at his hips, a belt loaded with frontline tech Tye didn’t even recognize. A red glove covered his right hand. Snug in his breast pocket was an old, beaten copy of the Goodbook. And at the top of his button-down black shirt, encircling his neck, the man wore a pristine white collar.

  “Y-you a . . . priest?” Tye asked.

  “Preacher.” The man tipped his hat. “Howdy.”

  “Howdy?” Tye coughed, holding up his bloody hands. “I got a bullet in my belly, Preacherman, how the hells d’you think?”

  “Mmmf,” the man grunted. He fished inside a pocket and stuffed a wad of what must’ve been synthetic tobacco into his cheek. Blue eyes took in his surroundings as he stroked the stubble on his chin.

  “You just gonna stand there?” Tye hollered. “I’m gutshot, Preacher, go get the Graycoats. I need me some—”

  “I’d shush that hole of yours, boy,” the man said. “Unless you want another.”

  Something in the Preacher’s voice made Tye fall quiet. Something that reached past the broken glass and acid and planted a cold, wriggling fear inside his gut. The Preacher scoped the remnants of the battle, the bodies and the ruined Spartans, the smoking tires. He nodded to himself. Spat a long stream of brown juice into the dirt.

  “Well, you boys surely made a mess.”

  Tye clutched his punctured belly, licked at dry lips.

  “Listen, you g-got any water? I’m real th—”

  “Lookin’ for someone,” the man replied, still scanning the trash. “Blond piece. Fancy hair. Skinny scavvergirl, ’bout yay high.” The man gestured vaguely.

  “Y-yeah, Evie.” Tye winced. “I kn-know her.”

  “Where’s she at, boy?”

  “She . . . she jetted. Her and her grandpa Silas. Took off . . . in their damn h-house, if you believe it. After that brunette in the flex-wing b-blew my crew all to hell.”

  “Mmmf,” the Preacher grunted.

  “Mister, I’m r-real thirsty. . . .”

  The man ignored him, wandered off into the Scrap with the big black dog. The fluffy white one simply sat on the trash and eyeballed Tye. He couldn’t see what the preacherman was doing, concentrated instead on ignoring the pain in his belly. He didn’t know how long he lay there. The minutes pooled together like the blood on the ground beneath him. Finally, he heard footsteps approaching across the trash again. Raising his head, he saw the Preacher looming over him.

  The man was holding a dirty poncho, partway burned, splashed with red. He held it out to Tye, and the boy saw writing on the inside collar:

  Property of Eve Carpenter. If found, please return to Tire Valley. If stolen, screw you, trash-humper.

  “This her?” the Preacher asked. “Evie Carpenter?”

  “Y-yeah,” Tye whimpered. “That’s her.”

  The Preacher held out the poncho to his dogs. They snuffled the fabric, eyes still glowing softly. The little white fluffball growled like a broken chainsaw. Tye groaned as the pain in his belly surged. He could taste blood in his mouth now.

  “Preacher, I’m h-hurt. I’m hurt real bad.”

  “Yup,” the man replied, eyes still on the scrap.

  “You’re a f-fellow of the Goodbook. Ain’t you g-gonna help me?”

  The Preacher sighed. “I reckon.”

  Reaching to his belt, the man drew out a hulking pistol.

  “H-hey, whoa, whoa!” The boy raised his bloody palms. “You’re a holy m-man, you don’t got no right to lay a killin’ on me!”

  The Preacher took aim between Tye’s eyes.

  “Boy, I got the only right.”

  BOOM.

  The man looked about the battleground one more time. Studying the patterns and the poetry. Listening to the wind. Satisfied his blitzhunds had the scent, he threw the poncho over Tye’s shattered head.

  Spat into the dirt.

  “Mmmf,” he grunted.

  Spinning on a spurred heel, the Preacher strode off into the Scrap.

  1.8

  BREATHE

  This is not my life.

  This is not my home.

  I am not me.

  My brother and my sisters are sitting around me, sprawled on white couches made of a fabric I don’t know. The room is large and heart-shaped, pre-Fall art hung in holographic frames on the walls. The sky outside the window is cloudless, and the tint on the glass makes it seem almost blue.

  I’ve never been in this place before.

  I’ve been in this place all my life.

  My little brother Alex is beating my oldest sister Olivia at chess. Tania is looking at her palmglass. Marie is sitting behind me, gently braiding my long blond hair, and my eyelashes are fluttering against my cheeks like butterflies.

  There are no such things as butterflies anymore.

  Music is playing through the walls, the notes tingling on my skin. But slowly the sonata fades away, replaced by a voice that comes from all around us. A figure appears on an empty plinth, translucent and carved of light. It looks like an angel, beautiful and feminine, the long ribbons of its wings flowing like fabric in an imaginary breeze.

  “Children. Your father is on his way to speak to you.”

  That sets us moving, standing and smoothing down our clean white clothes. I share a smile with Alex and he beams back at me. Olivia puts her arm around my shoulder, and I squeeze Marie’s hand. It seems so long since Father has come to see us. I remember he’s been busy with his Work. That I miss him terribly.

  The memory in Eve’s mind flickered like a faulty feed to a broken vidscreen, and she saw her siblings as she remembered them. Their clothes weren’t new or clean. They didn’t live in a beautiful room full of beautiful things. And instead of music, in the distance she could hear screaming. A girl.

  Crying and screaming.

  The image flickers again, and I’m back in the not-place. Not my life. Not my home. My father is standing before us, not dressed as I remember him. But he puts his arms around us, all of us caught up in his embrace. Mother is beside him, pressed close, and though the place is wrong and my clothes are wrong and my life is wrong, this is still how I remember us. Together. A family. Forever.

  Nothing will change that.

  “Children,” Father says. “There are some people I’d like you to meet.”

  Nothing will change that.

  Breathe.

  Water all around her. Black and salty and just a little too warm. Spears of light above. A million bubbles dancing, the groan of tortured metal, the butterfly-belly sensation of vertigo swelling inside her as the dim light around her grew dimmer still.

  They were sinking.

  Don’t breathe.

  Eve squeezed her eyes shut, switching her optic to low-light setting. The world was green and black
as she opened them again, sounds all dull and distant underwater. The freighter was plunging down, down into the greasy, sump-stained water of Zona Bay. She was still strapped into the copilot’s seat. Lemon was unconscious in her lap, her shock of blood-red hair drifting like weeds, actual blood spilling from her wounded brow.

  Eve remembered where they were. The fight with Faith. Her grandpa stolen away. Her lungs were burning, head pounding. Beyond the pain of it, her brain filled with a single thought, growing louder and more frantic the lower they sank.

  Breathe.

  Cricket was at her waist, boggle eyes glowing in the dark, tearing at her seat belt. Eve’s fingers found the clasp, finally snapping it free, and she and Lem tumbled out and up. The cabin was filled with bubbles, a million crystal spheres spiraling ever upward. She couldn’t see Kaiser. Couldn’t see Ezekiel. She could barely see the surface—dim and distant now. The ship was sinking deeper with every second. She had to get out. She didn’t want to die. She hadn’t liked it much the first time.

  Eve grabbed Lemon by her jacket, Cricket clinging to her belt as she kicked out through the shattered windshield. The water tasted like death and oil, filling her boots and pockets as she surged up toward the distant sunlight. A million miles away.

  The ship that had been her home for two years spiraled into the depths below, trying to suck her down toward its grave. She shook her head, kicked savagely, teeth bared. Refusing the dark. Refusing to sleep. Swimming up. Lem’s collar in her fist, her bestest’s arms and legs floating akimbo in the current. Water all around. Water everywhere.

  Don’t breathe.

  Lem was so heavy. Eve’s boots were lead. Her clothes held her back. Cricket was trying to swim, but he was metal. Somewhere in the middle of the crash, he’d managed to grab Excalibur, too, which was just more weight to sink her. Faith had punched her in the head during the brawl; her temple was throbbing, the bone around her Memdrive implant aching from the impact. She wondered if it was dama—

  A flash of light in her mind. An image of white walls and floors and ceilings. A voice like music in the air. A garden like she’d never seen, domed glass holding back the night above. A smile. Sweet and gentle and three microns shy of perfect.