Nerves of Steel

by Lee Hayton

  Norman’s face screwed up, then he shook his head. “Who the hell else have you been pissing off lately?”

  I shrugged, but the look of anger and distaste on the Pennyworths’ butler’s face as he waved the memory card at me swam into my vision.

  “Perhaps, the Pennyworths didn’t want it made public that they’re trying to blackmail their way into a public service contract. Those legal fees must add up to a lot more than I thought.”

  “Don’t they always.”

  The incongruency between Norman’s ‘been there, done that,’ tone of voice and his appearance struck me full-force. It did that occasionally. I’d forget that I was talking to someone older than me then be surprised when a granddad started talking.

  “Should we shore up the door?” Norman asked. “If we’re staying in here for a while, it might keep Earnest from checking.”

  “Just because he can’t get into our apartment won’t stop him from trying to extract rent.” I sighed and shrugged. “If we barricade ourselves in, he’ll just charge us extra for lighting the fire to get us out.”

  “Did you get the new bags for feeding?”

  I looked up at the ceiling, wondering what kind of day Norman thought I’d had. From getting thrown out of a rich person’s estate to hiding from soldiers in a musty cellar, I couldn’t fathom when he thought I’d have the time. Or the money.

  “We’re running out,” Norman said. Perhaps he realized a second too late that his petulance wouldn’t go down too well. His voice softened, and he leaned back, patting the cushion to coax Miss Tiddles out from behind my back.

  “We’ll just have to make do. If need be, we can go the old-fashioned route.”

  Norman ducked his head, snuggling into the ginger fur of the cat. An excellent way to hide his face if he was blushing at a specific memory.

  “I’d better get out my stash,” I said, standing up and checking out the window one more time. “I’m still starving from the last feed. I might finally be feeling my age.”

  Norman grunted. Any observations that centered on his dining habits always met a blank wall. I guessed that was fair enough. It wasn’t his fault that his species dined on mine. At least I could be assured of always living to tell the tale. If Norman drained me too far, I’d kill him as my final act long before he found his next meal.

  I lifted the rug underneath my bed and pulled up the loose floorboard. For reasons I didn’t really understand, my psyche insisted on hiding excess food as well as possible, though it wouldn’t make a difference to anyone breaking in. A week’s supply of nuts and candy bars weren’t going to satisfy the craving of a junkie for cash. Old habits die hard, though.

  As soon as I reached into the hole, I knew something was wrong. The last time I’d tipped something in here, I’d had to shuffle the bags and bars around to get the board to fit neatly back into place. Now, I couldn’t see squat.

  With the tempo of my pulse increasing, I leaned further into the hidey hole, praying that my memory was at fault.

  Nope. Parts of my body might be running slower than they used to, but even a major run-time error wouldn’t cause the discrepancy I’d found.

  The cavity under the loose floorboard was empty. My stash of emergency food supplies was gone.

  Chapter Nine

  In some neighborhoods, the action on the streets dies down after dark. All the residents go home and tuck themselves in for the night. Without the trash of hookers and dealers plying for trade, or being chased by the demand, there was no one left out to cause trouble. The alley cats chasing mice were the only population that remains.

  Not in our suburb, though.

  Here, the streets had more money and trade changing hands during the nighttime hours than anyone could have dreamed of in the day. On some of the back alleys, I had to shoulder my way through the crowd of people to get where I needed to go.

  Nighttime was when the creatures of poverty liked to play. It’s when the poor people bartered for the necessities of life—their lives, at any rate—and the sellers got to parade their wares.

  Not the best of times to venture out, but for the moment, I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t often get the all-consuming hunger after offering up Norman’s feeds, but when I did, I couldn’t wait them out.

  If I didn’t replenish my own supplies, there was no way I’d be helping him out. Give Norman a couple of days off food, and he’s like an office worker without their morning cup of coffee. He’d start to grump, whinge, and whine—and that’s bad enough—but soon he’d also begin to change.

  Even slave vampires get fed on time. No one needed the hassle.

  As unobtrusively as I could, I made my way along to everyone’s favorite vending machine. Except, it turned out, it wasn’t someone’s favorite, after all. When I got to it, the poor thing was lying on its front, glass shattered around it. The back had been levered open with a crowbar or suchlike, and the thieves had stolen away its only reason for living.

  If it hadn’t been for the increased bounty, I might have taken a chance at the local bodega. A couple of minutes sweet-talking the service bot and I could get what I needed. Given the new circumstances, I could also expect trouble to follow me home within minutes, if not seconds.

  I circled around the neighborhood, growing more desperate and less careful the hungrier I got. On Willis Avenue, a woman was eating a sandwich while her pimp explained the ways of the world to her. For a moment, I considered how easy it would be to steal it straight out of her hand.

  Focus.

  If I kept heading up Willis, then soon I’d be crossing into a different tier of society. As annoying as the crowds of patrons lining our streets were, if I was the only one out and about, there’d be more chance of being followed and caught.

  A drone sailed above my head, delivering packages at the convenience of midnight—probably to some college kids stoned out of their brains. Who else gets the munchies at that time of night? After a second’s thought, I bent down and picked up a stone from the pavement.

  The first throw clipped the side propeller and sent the drone in a strange loop that whirled it further out of reach. If I could just get within infra-red distance, I could take control and help myself to its payload. Something that wouldn’t happen if I missed again.

  This time, the rock I found was larger. I hefted it in my hand a few times, getting used to the weight. I mapped out the trajectory in my head, a harder task now that the drone was injured. After the computations came back, I threw it with half of my might.

  Bingo.

  The drone circled and buzzed furiously, like a fly with half its wings pulled off. Without the propellant necessary to move it forward, soon it swooped in lazy circles down to the ground.

  I ran forward, not trusting that others hadn’t seen my performance and marked it out for themselves. I bent double, snagged it up in my arms, and kept running until I was around the next corner.

  My assumption of college potheads appeared to be correct. I couldn’t imagine another group of people who’d send out at midnight for nachos, two pounds of red licorice, and a drum full of salted caramel popcorn.

  A munchies delight and, boy, did I have the munchies.

  As I chewed on a couple of licorice straps, I broke out the communication chip from the drone and crushed it to metal fragments under my feet. The remainder of the defeated worker, I placed neatly in a trash can. At least it could live again through the power of recycling, even if its stint in this life was done.

  The journey home was far more enjoyable than the trek out. I munched on the red licorice until it made me feel sick, then ate a few twists more. The food wasn’t enough for the length of time I’d need to stay undercover, not by a long shot, but it was enough to get me through to the next feeding.

  One day at a time. Forget the alcoholics—I’d purloin the phrase for the bounty-hunted instead.

  With my immediate food needs taken care of, I could focus more clearly on who the hell had stolen my rations. What
monster would break into an apartment just to pilfer snacks? More so, they’d managed to pull off that feat without disturbing Norman. Considering how little it took to upset him most of the time, it meant the culprits must be damned near silent and invisible.

  Norman might actually come in handy, now that I thought about it. If anybody knew the flats that stood empty during the day, it was him. Since some hairless scrotum had helped himself to my food, it seemed only fair I pinch it back.

  Come tomorrow, no apartment in the building would be safe from my righteous hunger. If they had a lock that could be jimmied, then their snack food was mine!

  A great plan. Either that or the sugar high was kicking-in big time. Tomorrow could sort out that puzzle. For tonight, it was bed and sleep and maybe a few more sticks of raspberry licorice.

  Norman barely bothered to grunt in welcome as I let myself back into the apartment. How somebody so dependent on my well-being could simultaneously be so disinterested, I didn’t understand.

  For my part, I cared a lot about what Norman was thinking and feeling. For dysfunctional relationships, I’d scored a doozy.

  “If you think Earnest will drop by tomorrow, then perhaps you should stop by his office and start to lay some groundwork tonight.”

  I shook my head and scowled—adopting Norman’s main emotive routine for the moment.

  “I don’t do that to manipulate people,” I said, stuffed so full of righteousness, it made it hard to walk. “That’s for money and only with consent.”

  Norman shrugged and sloped off to his bedroom, cat in tow. To be fair, at that moment, my ethics did seem out of place. With one quick forage inside Earnest’s mind, I could have him so happy that he’d forget about the rent.

  No. That wouldn’t work. No high in the world, even a natural one, existed without a steep drop to level ground waiting at the end. Unless Earnest somehow associated the pleasure with not charging us, he’d return to settle the debt as soon as the serotonin wore off.

  I could straight up charge for it, except Earnest wasn’t a druggie. The ones who’d gladly pay for the experience tended to be the ones who’d never scrape together the necessaries.

  Back to plan B. The plan that didn’t exist so far, but I’d stay working on it. After a good night’s sleep, perhaps it would reveal itself.

  Two nights’ later, I hit up the bodega after all.

  My body was so exhausted after donating to Norman again that I couldn’t formulate a plan to save myself. For hours after removing the needle, I’d lain in bed feeling my pulse struggle to send the remaining blood around my body.

  Once before, it had gotten that bad. Only once, though, because that was more than enough. To be reliving the same drained and lifeless countenance as I had when my relationship with Norman was young and foolish, made me feel even worse than the physical toll.

  At one point during the day, Miss Tiddles had wandered in with half a tuna sandwich she'd pilfered from Lord knows where. Even though the room temperature fish probably had a host of bacteria sprouting inside it, I gobbled the food down. Instead of giving me energy, it only heightened my ability to tell what I lacked.

  Without another reasonable option available, it had to be the corner store. If I survived long enough, the neighborhood could drum me out of town. By this point, I just need to stay alive.

  The clerk was easier to convince than I’d thought possible. He was a simple bot and once I synced up our communication chips, it was a straightforward override to get him to do what I wanted.

  Never let anyone tell you that bots didn’t have emotions. I know they did. They were the things that I tinker with until the machines did exactly what I want, just like a human. Unlike a person, a bot wouldn’t lose its self-respect once the performance was over. A quick reset and they were as good as new. You can draw your own conclusions as to whether that’s a good thing.

  With the whole store at my disposal, I did better than a few packets of snacks. I raided their fresh meat and veg section, filling up my basket until it overflowed.

  The store wasn’t stuffed full of other shoppers, but there were enough that clocked me and would remember. Tough titties. Better to die on a full stomach than dying alone in an apartment building, trying to do the right thing.

  Sometimes, the right thing was whatever got you through the night.

  “Where are you going?” a man asked as I left the counter, bags packed. “I didn’t see you pay for those.”

  “They’re on credit,” I said, putting some spark into my eyes, so they glowed cyan blue. Between that and the faceplates, he figured out that I wasn’t fully human. “My owners have a tab running with this chain. I haven’t been in here before, but I can assure you, everything’s in order.”

  He frowned but nodded. The hesitation pulsed off him in waves. The acceptance of my credit speech wouldn’t last long. By the time he arrived back home, there’d be a few holes poked in it. By the time he went to bed at night, he’d have remembered seeing me in a dozen different places, none of them remotely connected with servitude.

  I expected that, come the morning, he’d have reported his concerns. Between that and the re-stockers getting an imbalance, it wouldn’t take long for the owners to start a trace.

  The counter bot was wiped clean, along with the internal video. Same with the corner, and the edge of the old Parkland Hotel, where the CCTV camera poked over the stone engraved façade, like a curious guest peering out along the street.

  There’ll be one, though. At least one. By the time I’m feeling well enough to move on, the bounty hunters will be on their way. A day, an hour. Who knows how long they’ll take to track me down? Time to move again.

  I hoped whoever stole my food choked to death on a peanut, or opened a packet years past its use-by date.

  Perhaps I’d get to meet them in hell.

  Once I had a decent load of real food in my stomach, it was an easy job to get ready to move. My belongings were packed into a duffel bag, same with Norman’s. Despite our long acquaintance with this building, transience was built into our blood.

  With each minute, I gained more strength, so I parked myself at the window when we were ready, hoping to reap the energy of a few more hours so that I wouldn’t conk out halfway to a new place.

  Considering that we didn’t even have a destination in mind, every minute counted. Besides that, we needed the sun to be fully set before Norman could venture outside.

  “Can you get us a car?” he asked, leaning against the kitchen bench. “Like the one the boys were teasing last week. That way, if we can’t find anywhere tonight, you can lock me in the trunk during the day. It’ll give us a lot more freedom.”

  “They have checkpoints all over the city now,” I said. “We’ll never make it through without someone wanting to scrutinize my ID.”

  “If we can’t travel quickly, we’ll get caught, anyways.”

  “You’ve got your shielded suitcase. That’ll have to be good enough.”

  The suitcase was a heavily protected molded case that fitted one teenage vampire if he didn’t mind a bit of a squeeze. Actually, it fitted one even if he screamed bloody murder about how uncomfortable it was. So long as no one stole the case, thinking there was treasure inside something so heavy, we’d be sweet.

  It had worked the last two times we decamped. No reason for it not to work now.

  My pager beeped, and for a moment, Norman and I stared at it, mouths open, eyes wide. The screen had a client code on it, but not one I’d seen for a while.

  “Nika,” I said, the relief crowding into my voice. “Bloody hell. I hope she’s got something good to tell me.”

  “Whereabouts is she staying?”

  “Not too far away. Maybe an hour by foot,” I answered. “If you want to wait here, I can go on by myself. If you want to come with”—I snagged the curtain back a bit, blinking at the late afternoon sun—“you’ll need to get into the case. Your pick.”

  “Go on,” Norman said, as I knew
he would. “But you better make it back here in one piece by nightfall. Otherwise, Miss Tiddles and I are traveling on alone.”

  A cold ripple twisted through my body, making it shudder. The thought of what could stop me from returning left me hollowed-out inside.

  “I’ll be back. You wait here for me.”

  My words came out strongly, no matter how little I believed them.

  Nika was in the same doorway, plying her wares with a completely different look. I couldn’t work out if it was a racist slur for her to be dressed as a traditional Chinese woman, including her face, and I didn’t have the mind-space to argue it out.

  It was what it was.

  A rush of nostalgia warmed my bones. That was Nika to a T. Even when trying to blend into a crowd, she was confrontational.

  “Asha,” she called out in a loud voice before clapping her hand over her mouth.

  Too late, damage done. If anyone within earshot were looking for me, they’d found me. Luckily, everybody in the surrounding area didn’t seem to care.

  “What did you page me about?” I asked, the limpness of my voice betraying my exhaustion.

  Her eyes widened with excitement, and she wriggled her fingertips. “A job.” She grabbed my wrist and dragged me back into the same recessed doorway as before. I’m not sure that the late change of position didn’t just draw more attention, but I let myself be pulled.

  “I heard you had a little bit of a run-in at your last client,” she said with glee.

  Nika never liked life so much as when it was full of trouble. Unless that trouble came smashing into her face after a night out drinking, but that was understandable.

  “Word is, no one will ever hire you again. Your lovebird business has gone tits up!”

  “I already know this, Nika.” I put my hands on my hips. “Did you really drag me down here just to rub salt in my wounds?”

  “Nope,” she said, then held a finger up to her lips. She popped her head out and surveyed the street, then ducked back next to me. “I told you, I’ve found a job for you. The problem is, you’ve got to keep it hush-hush. Otherwise, we could both be killed.”