The Burn Zone

by James K. Decker

  “Shit!” someone yelled as the car’s alarm began to whistle. The wind blew the torn curtain like a flag, and as the last of the glass skittered and spun away, I snapped out of it.

  Dragan.

  I pushed away from the concrete wall and crossed the street to where the kid sat stunned on his airbike.

  “Hey, are you okay?” he asked.

  “I need your bike,” I said.

  “What? No way, kid—”

  “I need your bike!”

  I snatched a shard of broken glass from the smaller pieces littering the sidewalk and felt the edge bite into the crooks of my fingers. I slashed at him with it, spraying drops of blood across his shirt as he ducked back. He tried to slide off the bike and lost his balance, tumbling down onto his butt. Before he could get back up, I threw the glass at him and straddled the still-warm seat.

  “Hey!”

  I cranked the throttle and then opened up the graviton emitters. The street beneath me lurched away on a rush of wind, and horns blared as I cut through the layers of traffic above. In seconds the cursing kid dwindled to the size of an ant, and then was lost altogether beneath the rows of streaking headlights.

  Shit....

  I pulled back on the stick as our building’s neon sign rushed back in reverse, spinning as I tried to steady the bike. I cut too quickly and the undercarriage swung up toward the sky. I clamped my thighs down against the sides as my stomach flipped in weightlessness.

  “Shit, shit, shit....”

  The building face sheared past as I completed the loop and wrestled the machine back under control. Wind rushed over me as I picked up speed. I spotted our balcony, where a single curtain still fluttered, and closed in.

  When I cleared the railing I leaned forward and crouched below the windshield. The bike accelerated and the nose went straight back through the hole in the glass where I’d gone out. The remains of the window exploded into the living room as the bottom of the bike tore through the carpet and ripped into the floor underneath. Through the racket, I could hear Tānchi screaming bloody murder.

  The undercarriage caught on something and the bike jerked to a stop, throwing me off the seat and over the broken edge of the windshield. I tumbled through the air, then rolled across the carpet and slammed into the opposite wall.

  Pain shot through one leg as I pushed myself back up onto my feet. The soldiers were gone. I didn’t see anyone else except Tānchi.

  “Dragan!” I yelled. No one answered.

  Tānchi continued to scream as I looked frantically around the room.

  “Dragan?” I lurched down the hall, but he wasn’t in any of the other rooms either.

  Limping back, my shoes kicking through broken glass, I approached the spot where he’d struggled with the soldiers. There were boot scuffs left behind in the debris, heading back the way they’d come. I knelt down, my body shaking from the adrenaline, and I realized I was alone. Amid the wreckage, glittery specks of glass powder drifted slowly up from the floor in a stray graviton riptide. They twinkled, twirling in slow motion like the specks inside a snow globe. He was gone.

  The only father I’d ever known was gone.

  ~ * ~

  Chapter Two

  29:41:32BC

  I stepped through the wreckage of our apartment in a daze, the humid breeze blowing in through the shattered window and out through the broken front door, which still hung from one stubborn hinge. Tānchi’s wails pounded through my head as I went to the crib, my shoes crunching through broken glass.

  “Shh,” I whispered, kissing his forehead. “It’s okay. Calm down…”

  He was so fragile. His little bones were like spun glass beneath his skin. It was a miracle he hadn’t been crushed during the attack or my airbike stunt afterward. The gate end point in the alley was probably how they’d left the building anyway; what had I even been thinking? I could have just waited there and ...

  And what?

  “Shh, Tānchi.”

  I clenched my fists and tried to calm down. Tānchi’s presence vibrated, anxious as he felt around in my head. He sensed danger, but relaxed a little at the sound of my voice.

  Outside, I heard a siren chirp and when I turned I saw a streak of blue flash among the streams of traffic. Even if the soldiers didn’t come back, it would only be a matter of time before the place was crawling with security. I had to get out of there, and fast, or a detention center might be the least of my worries.

  “Shh ...” I stroked Tānchi’s cheek. “It’s okay. I’ll be right back.”

  “I love you like you were my own flesh and blood, Sam.”

  My throat burned and I cleared it, blinking back tears as I stepped away from the crib. I spotted my knife, the tip still red with blood, and wiped it on my pant leg before folding the blade in and dropping it in my pocket. Lying on the floor two steps away from it was a shiny black object, like a little electronic corkscrew. Dragan’s security twistkey.

  I picked up the key, turning it over in my fingers. Twistkeys were used to alter gate destinations. All the soldiers carried coded keys that let them override the street gates.

  “Search him. Find the twistkey.”

  “He doesn’t have it. Just the standard issue.”

  The soldiers had been looking for one, but not this one. I stuck it in my pocket and crossed to the broken window that looked out over the city. The remaining curtain billowed in the warm wind as I passed into the kitchen and took the last ration from the fridge, then grabbed the surrogate ration kit and slung it over my shoulder.

  As I moved down the hall, I saw both bedrooms had been tossed. The door to the safe had been cut off and propped against Dragan’s desk. Inside I could see a gun and some other stuff they’d left behind.

  I grabbed my backpack from the floor next to my bed and stuffed the ration into it before heading back to the safe. Inside I found a palm pistol with a scope, a stunner, and a baton. I wrapped them in a towel and stuffed them in the backpack. Underneath the weapons sat an emergency ration sheet and Dragan’s spare security badge. I put the badge in my wallet next to mine and took the sheet, revealing a strip of three pill tabs underneath. They were clear blue, with sparkly speckles inside. I flipped the strip over so I could see the foil backing, and used the 3i to run a search on the text there.

  The first few links that popped up were for something called seritoxedrine or “blue shard,” a military-issue battle drug. I stuffed it in my pocket along with the ration sheet. I pulled an intact pint of shine from the wet bar’s wreckage and dropped that in too, then shouldered the pack and went back for Tānchi.

  “Come on,” I told him, taking his swaddle out of the crib and cradling carefully him in my arms. “Come on, we have to go.”

  I ran with him, and fled into the city. By the time I stopped to think, I was deep in Tùzi-wō under a canopy of flashing signs, pushing through the street market against a tide of shoppers and sellers looking to beat the sweep. I hadn’t stopped long enough to even think about where I should go, or what I should do when I got there. I just pushed my way, shell-shocked, through the haze of human funk while doing my best to shelter Tānchi from it.

  Off to my left a vendor yelled something at the neon displays that loomed over the street above his kiosk, shaking his fist at a buglike haan construct that was dancing across the support frame. It stopped and swiveled its head toward him, sending a red laser bar flickering across his face.

  “Go ahead and report me!” the man shouted, and threw his shoe. The construct jumped in surprise and gated away, vanishing as the sneaker arced and then flopped into the street.

  Ahead, a stand displayed the ghoulish faces of festival masks staring from beneath a canopy of floating cellophane lanterns. Stacked up around them were fireworks and gaudy souvenir snow globes made to look like the haan force field dome with the ship inside, complete with the ring of wired balls, the government’s failsafe graviton lenses that surrounded it. The kid working the register there had a girl in
his lap and his fingers stuffed down the back of her low-riding shorts. He opened one eye and broke his lip-lock to watch me go by while her hand worked rhythmically at his crotch. He stared as we passed. Everybody stared. A bloodstained girl hobbling down the middle of the sidewalk, a screaming haan child clutched to her chest.

  The foot traffic parted grudgingly in front of me while the kid bawled himself hoarse. On some level it registered, but the cries sounded like they were coming from underwater. Everything did. It wasn’t until his little hands grabbed fistfuls of my shirt that his fear cut through the fog. I touched the side of his face with my fingers, and the smooth skin felt hot.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

  Keeping stride, I hoisted the kid to one arm so I could adjust the surrogate kit’s strap. For the first time, I noticed the eyes around me weren’t just staring at me, but at the rations I carried. Greedy, desperate eyes followed us, and broke off only when they saw the black Shiliuyuán stamp on the side of the canister.

  Dragon’s in trouble. The thought bounced around in my head like a fly inside a jar. I have to help him. I have to do something.

  I made myself stop and catch my breath. There were plenty of cops around looking to clear out the square before the sweep made its way here, but they wouldn’t help me. Soldiers had attacked us and everyone knew what the pecking order was. Hangfei had been under martial law since before I was born, and the local cops had zero clout with the military. Telling them would be the same as announcing that I was still alive, and where I was. I tried to tune out the chaos around me and think. I needed help. I needed someone who had some clout, who I could also trust.

  Kang.

  Jake Kang worked security, but he was an expat like Dragan and they went way back. His lawyer wife had even helped clear the paperwork through when Dragan made my adoption legal. If there was anyone in security I could trust, it would be him.

  Ahead, scaffolding had been set up over the sidewalk and covered in sheets of plastic. A row of black-and-red posters sporting Military Governor Hwong’s profile were plastered at sidewalk level, urging citizens to join the United Defense Force. I stopped next to one of them and dug out my phone, then thumbed in Kang’s contact.

  “Hello?” a woman’s voice answered—Kang’s wife, Lijuan. She sounded like she’d been asleep.

  “Um, hi,” I said, raising my voice over the street noise. “I’m looking for Jake Kang?”

  “Jake isn’t here right now,” she said. “Who’s calling?”

  “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  “Who is this?”

  I paused for a minute. She sounded mad.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry to call so late…I just...”

  “Xiao-Xing?” she asked. She sounded surprised, but she remembered my name. I smiled, tears beginning to brim over.

  “Yeah,” I sniffed. “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “Hey...” Her voice softened immediately. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. I think I’m in trouble.”

  “Where’s Dragan?”

  I looked up and down the street nervously.

  “Lijuan, they took him.” An uncomfortable pause stretched out on the other end of the line.

  “Who took him?” she asked finally. She sounded more awake now, and I heard her sit up in bed. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know.... I wanted to ask Jake if he knew anything.”

  “He’ll help any way he can, but what makes you think he would know something? What’s going on?”

  “They were military,” I said. “Soldiers took him.”

  I heard more movement in the background as walls of people trudged past me on either side. I stuck near a streetlamp pole, hooking one arm around it while I listened to her shuffle out of bed on the other end of the line.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Jake’s out on assignment.”

  “Is he on the security sweep?”

  “No ... he’s on some special assignment. After that he’s off duty for a while, but he sprang a trip to Duongroi on me, and we leave tomorrow.” She paused, listening. “Xiao-Xing, it sounds like you’re on the street. You need to get inside, right now.”

  “Right.” I nodded, rubbing my eyes. “I know.” If I got caught up in the sweep, I’d get hauled in for sure.

  On the 3i, I brought up Vamp’s eyebot map, where people throughout the city were feeding in information through the client app whenever it spotted a soldier. The blob of sightings inched in my general direction, spreading down sidewalks and through alleyways.

  “I’m sorry,” I told her. “I shouldn’t have dumped this on you.”

  Past the floating, colored window I made passing eye contact with a wandering vendor selling festival gear. I looked away too late, and the old woman started over.

  “No,” Lijuan said. “Jake gave me an emergency number. I’ll try and contact him. Was Dragan actually arrested?”

  “I don’t know. I think he was.”

  “Do you know where they took him? What detention center?”

  “No.”

  “Did they say anything that you think might help? Anything I should tell Jake that might be important?”

  I thought about telling her about the haan that had been with them, but something made me stop just short of doing it. The haan didn’t fit. Even with combat armor their bodies could never handle that kind of stress, but I’d felt her through the mite cluster; I was sure of it. There’d been a flood of anger and hate, along with an undercurrent of sadistic pleasure. She’d been hidden under the armor and behind a dispersion mask. Was it possible?

  “Sam?”

  “They ...” I tried to remember as the old woman approached with a wrinkled smile. She held up a papery jiangshi ghost mask with green, iridescent eyes.

  “Handmade,” she said. I smiled politely, shifting the phone to my other ear.

  “... where did you take Alexei Drugov?”

  “They were looking for someone,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “A Pan-Slav. Someone called Alexei Drugov?”

  “Jiangshi,” the old woman said.

  “Not now.”

  The old woman poked me in the tit with a bony finger, and I swatted her hand away. “This one’s perfect for you,” she said. “What do you say? Half price.”

  “Hang on,” Lijuan said. I heard faint typing on the other end of the line.

  “They’ll be twice the price at the Fangwenzhe Festival,” the old woman explained, holding out the mask. She tugged at my pant leg. I looked past her and saw the spinning shadow and burning incense of a gonzo shrine.

  “I know,” I told her. “I don’t have any money.” I held out my empty hand. “No money.”

  “What?” Lijuan asked.

  “Not you.”

  “Sam, get off the street,” she said. “Keep your phone handy. Jake will get back to you.”

  “Do you know why they took him?”

  “Not yet. Just get inside and lie low for now. Don’t talk to the cops, the military, or anyone in private security until you hear from Jake.”

  “Okay.”

  “We’ll get this straightened out. Hang in there.”

  “I will. And thanks.”

  “No need. You’ll hear from us soon. Bye.”

  The line cut as the old woman with the festival mask held it out toward me again.

  “Look, I told you, I don’t have any—”

  The weight on my shoulder suddenly disappeared as the ration kit’s strap sprang loose. Before I even knew what happened, the kit was torn from my side and the two ends of the severed strap whipped away, trailing behind a boy who had it tucked under one arm.

  “Hey!”

  He darted into the crowd, and in seconds I’d lost him. I turned back to the old woman and found that she’d disappeared too. The crone had set me up.

  “You little shit!” I yelled after the kid. “I hope it kills you
!”

  Heads turned toward me, but lost interest just as fast. Way off in the distance, a blue arc flashed in the sky between two buildings while another distant rumble began to swell.

  A hot breeze cut through the summer air, smelling like B.O., car exhaust, and scalefly repellent. I hugged Tānchi to my chest, feeling his warm weight in my arms, and for the first time it occurred to me that I couldn’t keep him, not anymore. Even if the kit hadn’t been stolen, our place had been destroyed. I couldn’t go back there. I had to hunker down and I couldn’t just keep Tānchi out on the street with me. It was too dangerous for him.