by James Knapp
The cop leaned over again. The expression on his face was a little different.
“How do you know Agent Wachalowski?” he asked.
“I work with him sometimes.”
“Doing what?”
“It’s classified.”
He looked tired. “Lady—”
“I really do work with him sometimes. Look,” I said, fishing out my contractor’s badge. It had my picture on it. He looked between the picture and me for a minute.
“Look, ma’am, it’s late. Other people live here besides just your friend, and I can’t have you just hanging around watching the place from across the street because then I have to check it out. You get me?”
I shrugged.
“If you don’t clear out, I’m going to have to come back and ask him about it directly. Is that going to be okay with you?”
My face got even hotter. He got that pity look again.
“Ma’am, come on. It’s raining out—”
I focused on him and everything got bright around me. The raindrops looked crisp and sharp, like little pieces of ice, as they dripped off the edge of the umbrella between us. The lights came up around his head and I eased them back, smoothing them down until they were all a calm, deep blue.
“Sleep,” I told him. His eyelids drooped.
“Can you hear me?” I asked. He nodded, barely moving his head.
“Did anyone call this in or did security just see me on the camera?”
“Just the camera.”
“Go back and tell whoever sent you that you checked it out and it was nothing. It was just a woman waiting for her friend, but she got tired of waiting and left. Understand?”
“I understand.”
“You have better things to do than check out stuff like this. You should get back to doing real police work.”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
The colors faded and the light dimmed back down again. The cop looked out of it for a second and then his eyes cleared. He picked up his radio and spoke into it.
“This is car seven-oh-one.”
“Go ahead, car seven-oh-one.”
“She checks out. It’s nothing.”
“Copy that.” He switched off.
“Be careful out there,” I told him. He nodded.
“You too, ma’am.”
The window went back up and he drove away. I watched him go until his taillights got lost with all the rest; then I figured I’d better get going. At that point, it seemed like it would be worse if Nico actually did come home and found me.
I made my way back to the subway entrance, and the closer I got, the more crowded it got. A few blocks away I saw the first dealer, or maybe prostitute. There was more and more neon until between the cars and traffic lights and signs, it was nothing but squiggles of bright color. It took the edge off the rain, but there were too many people. I found the stairs and made my way down into the tunnel.
Once I was through the turnstile I started to smell food and coffee. I followed a row of stands selling anything and everything, and headed for the platform. The whole area smelled like a mixture of meat, bread, and spices. Places like those stayed open all night.
The next row of stands sold drinks, with all the same variety: one sold beer, the next one sold absinthe, the next whiskey. One sold sake. I slowed down and stopped for a minute.
Stopping something you’ve done forever is hard, especially something like drinking. Even if you take away the shakes and the sweating and just the physical need to do it, there’s still this other part that’s almost harder to let go. It’s hard not to do what you’ve always done. I couldn’t remember a time I lived in the city when I passed by a row of those stands and didn’t have a drink. Even if I was already drunk and even if I had a bottle in my hand, I always stopped. I just always did. Now I had to just walk by, and so far I’d managed, but every time I did, I wondered how much longer I’d make it.
Why weren’t you home? I thought.
I wondered where he was and what he was doing. I wondered if he knew that I thought about him, or if I was just invisible to him like I was to everyone else. I wondered if he’d met someone, and if that wasn’t why he had drifted off like he had lately.
The sake stand was run by an old Asian guy who kept a little TV mounted in back of the little bar. He filled the little ceramic glasses in front of the people sitting there, steam rising off the tops of each one while the TV flickered. I could smell it from where I was standing.
The nights were too long now. I stayed in my apartment as long as I could, but I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to go down and bug Karen but she’d gotten back together with that asshole and I could hear her down there with him.
I stared at the big ceramic jug in front of the Asian man, and the steam coming out of its spout. I wanted to talk to Nico. I wanted …
A hand touched my shoulder and I jumped. When I turned, I saw a woman, about my size with straight black hair and bright blue eyes. She was wearing a red rain poncho with a wool hat, and around her neck was the tattoo of a snake. It went all the way around, until it swallowed its own tail. Its red eye stared from over her jugular.
She pinched my shoulder and my arm locked up as she turned me around so we were face-to-face. One second she wasn’t there and the next she was, right up in front of me. She was looking right at me.
Without thinking, I focused on her and everything went bright, but only for a second. In that second, I saw the colors come up around her and something else, a band of white that circled her head like a halo. As soon as I saw it, it was gone. The lights went back to normal and it was just her, standing there staring right into my eyes. Her lips curled just a little bit.
My breath caught in my throat. I’d first seen a halo like that after I got kidnapped. I’d seen it down in the cages, where there were others like me. This weird woman was like me.
“Don’t be afraid,” she said. “I just wanted to say hello.”
Her hand moved away from my shoulder and my arm came unstuck. I looked around to see if anyone else thought what was happening was weird, but no one was paying any attention to us. When I looked back at her she was still staring at me.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I’m Penny,” she said. She had this calm, quiet voice that was a little creepy.
“What do you want?”
“Just planting a seed,” she said. “I’m going to be your friend soon.”
I felt like I was falling all of a sudden, and stumbled a little. She reached out and steadied me. I felt dizzy for a second, and she held my arm until it passed. Then, before I could say anything else, she winked at me and walked away. She merged with the rest of the crowd, and then was gone around the corner.
Was she was real? No one else seemed like they even saw her.
I guessed it didn’t matter. Real or not, she was gone. When I looked back at the sake stand, a news lady was on TV, standing outside next to a broken concrete wall with rebar sticking out. Blood was splashed on it and by her feet were what looked like bodies, missing their heads and arms.
“…nightmare in the ghetto of Juba, where scenes like this one are becoming all too common …”
The war. The grinder, some people called it. They were on the other side of the planet. It looked hot over there. It was a hot, dirty place where lots of people died.
I looked back at the sake, but all of a sudden I just wanted to get home. The whole trip had been a bust, and I was really starting to hope Nico never found out I’d been there.
Part of me still thought he might warm up to me. I think there was a part of me that really believed it, but there was another part of me that always knew it wasn’t going to happen. Even if I was prettier or sexier or just had more of whatever it was he was into, it probably wouldn’t have made a difference in the end. He was still hung up on a dead girl.
I should have just accepted that. If I had, I could have saved myself a world of hurt.
Calliope Flax—Met
ro Center Station
On the train, in a car full of dregs and drunks, was the first time I felt like I was home. After two years in the grinder, it was kind of hard to believe.
“…in other news, the last appeal for the controversial ‘Five-Percent Bill,’ which would have allowed offshore UAC company sites to pad up to five percent of their workforce with revivor laborers, was shot down today in a move that was not unexpected, with the note that if the companies are to remain UAC based, then UAC law will apply in this case. Key members of the corporate conglomerate who pushed for the bill were quick to assign blame.”
My left hand tingled. It tingled all the time, and it was always cold, like the blood was cut off. I made a fist and cracked my eyes open, head to the glass. It was dark out there. The TV feed hung in front of my eyes like a ghost. Since I made corporal and got the implant, I had TV twenty-four/seven; the UAC dream.
They cut from the news bitch, and some fat asshole with white hair popped up.
“We were supposed to have Heinlein Industries’ support,” the fat, white-haired asshole said.
“Even Heinlein Industries is bound by UAC law, Mr. Hargraves.”
“This whole thing was a sham! This was going to bring big business to them, and they knew it. They were one hundred percent on board with it, but what do they have to worry about now? With that massive decommission forced down our throats, they’ve got a military contract sitting in their laps like this world has never seen!”
“Are you saying Heinlein was—”
“I’m not saying anything! This isn’t over!”
“According to the UAC Supreme Court, it is over, Mr. Hargraves.”
I shut it off and closed my eyes. The “massive decommission” had geared up while I was over there. Someone got it into their head to scrap every revivor that was stored before a certain date. They said they were obsolete even though they weren’t, and someone up top was pushing it hard. Disposal was a piece of shit work we all got stuck with at some point. I never thought about Heinlein, and how much they’d get paid to replace the ones we threw out. Some shit never changed.
“Next stop, Brockton-Stark Street Station,” a voice crackled over the speaker. I stood up and hung my bag on my shoulder while I held the rail. In front of me, pasted over about fifty other notices, was a pink piece of paper with smeared black print that said TIER TWO IS A LIE.
In some ways, it was like I never left. Two years gone, and it was more of the same; people pissed about tiers, revivors, and the grind. Most people were still tier two, and they still screamed the most. They never shut up about the grind, even though they saw it only on TV. The grind wasn’t like they thought. It wasn’t like anyone thought. The only part anyone got right was how bloody it was.
My unit got dropped in a place called Yambio, or what was left of it. Next to it, Bullrich was fucking heaven. They wanted the place locked down—why, I had no clue. The fuckers that lived there were cut off, and to feed them took more than they had. The ones with the drugs had cash and guns. The rest just had guns. Yambio was a war zone that didn’t know or give a shit about the rest of the grind, never mind the world.
I did my time in a ghetto called Juba. The folks that lived there spent most of their time trying to eat and not get killed. Every night there was a gunfight, and it felt like every day when the sun came up, we pulled bodies off the street. In two years, the body count got a little lower, and that was about it. That’s what I had to show for my two years—that, and losing the fastest pound I ever lost.
Still, to the guys that had to live there, fewer bodies on the street was a big deal. Getting killed out of nowhere was their every-fucking-day. Any one of the bodies you found facedown in an alley, stinking and covered with flies, was somebody to someone. Some extra feet on the ground were a real big deal for them.
“Now arriving at Brockton-Stark Street Station.”
The bell went off, and I cracked my back. That was my stop. I did my part for Juba. I lost my hand, saved a life, and bunked next to five filthy jacks for almost two years. That was enough.
The station was mostly empty when I got off. I’d been on the red-eye all night, and the sun was still down. A few sad sacks stood staring at the tracks. Some got on and a few got off with me. Mostly it was bums, and not many of them. I looked around for my ride, but didn’t see him.
Figures.
When I shipped out, the guys from the fight club moved my shit to storage for me. I signed up for four years on the Army’s tit, but after the hand, they sent me home and I was on my own. My old place had been a shit hole, but at least it was a place to land; it was long gone now, and I had to live somewhere. Some group called Second Chance stepped up to help out. They got me set up with a new place while I was still in the med center. It wasn’t far out of Bullrich, but far enough. They said a rep would meet me at the station when I got back, but so far …
Meeting: EMET Corporal Calliope Flax.
The words popped up on my HUD. That was the guy.
I took a step off the platform, and someone stepped out in front of me. It was some spooky chick with a red poncho and a wool cap. Her blue eyes were smeared with black makeup.
“What’s your problem?” I asked her.
“I want to tell you something,” she said. I felt kind of dizzy for a second.
“So tell me.”
“Come closer,” she said. She waved me in with one hand, and I leaned forward.
As soon as I did, she got on her toes and whispered right in my ear. I didn’t catch what she said because of the noise, but right then I got dizzy like before, but worse. I swayed, and she put her hands on my shoulders and squeezed.
You will remember Zoe Ott.
I got a weird flash. There were guns, fire, and smoke, but it wasn’t Juba. It was before. It was cold and dark. I was heading down, deeper and deeper. I had no clue where I was. All I knew was someone was calling me. Someone needed me.
She pulled back and the flash stopped. She gave my shoulders one last squeeze.
“Jeez, you’re ripped,” she said. The dizzy spell passed. “Beat it, you fucking nut job,” I said, but the little bitch was already walking away.
Meeting: EMET Corporal Calliope Flax.
The words came up again, then faded out. I tried to place the weird memory, but I couldn’t. It was snowing, I thought. Nico was there. When I turned to look for the little weirdo, she was gone.
Meeting: EMET Corporal Calliope Flax.
I shook it off, and followed the strays off the platform. The station was like the land of the dead. One guy stood out, though—an old black dude in a long coat and a hat with a brim. He was parked on a bench next to a bum with shaky hands and a big scar on his face. He talked, and the hobo nodded.
Look up, I said.
The old guy raised his head. With the hat out of the way, I saw there were a lot of miles on his face and his kinks had gone gray. There was a Second Chance pin on his collar. When he saw me, he smiled.
“Excuse me for one moment,” he said to the bum, who dug at his scar with a yellow fingernail. It looked like someone had cut him a long time ago.
“Corporal Flax?” the old man asked as he got up, and held out his hand.
“Cal,” I said. His skin was like leather and his grip was strong.
“Cal it is,” he said. “I’m Leon Buckster. I’m with Second Chance.”
He gave the bum a pat on the arm, then gave him his card.
“You go ahead and call that number,” he said. “Or just come down, and I’ll get you set up.”
“Just like that?” the bum growled.
“We can get you to the minimum requirements. After that, we can get you a whole new level of help. Understand me?”
The guy nodded.
“I have to go now,” Buckster said. “Don’t lose that number. Take that first step. It’ll get easier after that, I promise.”
The bum stared at the card. Buckster turned back to me. “Thought maybe you weren�
��t showing,” he said. “Shall we?”
“Sure.”
We left, and when I looked back at the bum, he was still looking at the card.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Recruiting.”
“You recruit bums?”
“Indigent,” he said. “Or homeless. Don’t call them bums. We don’t recruit them for ourselves; we help get them rehabilitated enough to qualify for Posthumous Service.”
“You talk bums into getting wired?”
“PS is an automatic upgrade to tier-two citizenship. At tier two they have access to better aid, better facilities. We can get all kinds of help for them we can’t manage for a tier three.”
“They’re okay with that?”
“Did that guy look like he had anything to lose? The homeless are quickly becoming the largest percentage of posthumous servers, above even your educated service-duckers.”
“If you say so.”
“We recruit quite a few from Bullrich. I grew up there.”
“Yeah, well, no offense, but fuck Bullrich.”
“Give it a few years. You may feel differently,” he said.
“You serve?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
It was hard to guess how old he was, but old. Had this shit been going on that long?
“I’ve got a car outside,” he said. “Come on, I’ll take you where you want to go.”
“Thanks.”
I followed him out. Up on the street it was pouring out, but it was home, and it was good to see. Neon was lit up all over, and no matter where you looked, there was a TV screen. It looked great.
We headed to the pickup entrance, then down three flights to the lot. He walked up to a piece-of-shit micro-bus and pulled the driver’s-side door up.
“You can put your pack in the back.”
He leaned inside and popped the trunk. I stowed my pack and climbed in next to him.
“Where to?” he asked.
I fired the address of the storage place to him over the JZI as he backed out and started up the steep ramp toward street level.
