LEGACY BETRAYED

by Rachel Eastwood

  And if Liam didn’t give up the reel soon, the theft would come to light regardless; he’d lose his job, and what if he was charged with something? Obstruction of justice? He didn’t know, but it had to be meaningful, didn’t it? What if the CC successfully brought the monarchy to collapse, using Exa as their Trojan horse? What if their loose, wishful logic exhausted all New Earth’s resources in a matter of months, and all the air cities starved, fell into disrepair, cracked, and crashed into the surface of the planet, populated only by corpses, and it would all be his fault because he never brought this development forward?

  Clenching his jaw, Liam pushed up from the table and made toward Dyna’s studio, where she was practically mouthing the microphone she clutched, square and brass with a circular grid set in the center. “. . . anticipate an address from the duke within the next day,” she chewed. “It is 2:30 pm, Monday, August the fourteenth, and I’m Dyna Logan with CIN-3, bringing you the latest in this breaking story. Now a word from our sponsors. Tired of tasting the tar in your vitamins? Head on over to Nanny’s Assemblage on Welles Pike for their new lemon-esque supplements and enjoy the taste of healthy bones!”

  Dyna pulled a lever, the OFF AIR sign illuminated, and she looked up at Liam expectantly, raising one flawlessly manicured eyebrow.

  Dyna Logan, realistically in her late-thirties but supposedly in her late-twenties, had a stern, brutish kind of beauty, as if she had literally clawed her way to the forefront of news media. Her features weren’t particularly thuggish, and so it must have been all her. Her chestnut hair crept from its bun just now, though usually was smothered beneath extravagant hats or structured into stiff sculpture. A long string of pearls spilled onto her desk from her narrow neck, and her oval face was perfectly powdered and rouged, the red wax of her lips so thick and rich, it was nearly black. She was one of the few residents of Icarus who could afford more than the standard brownish, repeatedly patched fabrics, and today sported an intricate pastel print.

  “Yes?” she prompted, pointing a jagged ruby cuticle at him. “What have you got?”

  Liam took a deep breath and forged ahead. “The slushers brought me something,” he forced himself to say. Extending the filament in his hands to Dyna, he stood and awaited her reaction.

  “Is this–?” Her eyes tipped up, and for a moment, the awe on her face softened her features into something more classically feminine. “This is Exa Legacy,” she whispered. “And is that–?”

  Liam nodded. Even from behind, Kaizen Taliko’s long, pale gold hair was instantly recognizable.

  Dyna smiled, and all the softness crumbled away. “Thank you, Liam,” she said. “I’m sure this must’ve been hard for you to do,” she noted with strange relish, as if delighting in the torments of the human condition. As if wishing she could add this footnote to her report and make it even juicier. Dyna knew that Exa was his Companion, and had already almost threatened to fire him if he wouldn’t provide her with an exclusive interview. It was only when he assured her that he himself hardly knew Exa that she finally relented, sullen, merely commanding yet another Invigorate from the drink cart instead.

  An electronic voice patched into the station. “Visitor for Liam Wilco.”

  Liam tensed, praying it was not Exa.

  “Who is it?” Dyna squawked, brightening. Clearly she was thinking the same thing.

  “Messenger, CCSS,” the voice replied.

  Dyna dampened. “Send them in,” she told the speaker. “Go take a break, Wilco,” she said to her assistant. “You’ve got two minutes.” Dyna added this with a glowering severity, pointing that jagged ruby cuticle once more before grasping her mic, pulling that lever, and rattling on about affordable automaton repair in downtown Icarus. How quick she was to forget gratitude.

  Liam stepped into the hallway and immediately recognized Dax Ghrenadel, Exa’s best friend, examining the percolating fount of mossy green on the drink cart, a popular choice known as Calm the Nerves. This likable sidekick had always aroused Liam’s suspicion, but then, everyone needed a friend, didn’t they? And anyway, Dax was sick. Like, really sick. Couldn’t kiss someone while you were wearing a rebreather, could you?

  “I’m talking about real life,” Exa had said to him, almost two weeks ago, during that awesome conversation about how she’d rather die alone than be with him. “Things happen! Things happen that are spontaneous and inexplicable and illogical. It’s . . . it’s magic, not math. The leap in my chest that I feel when he smiles has nothing to do–”

  “Who?”

  “Dax.”

  “Ghrenadel?”

  Liam’s jaw clenched with the recollection. Apparently, the attention Exa paid to Dax’s eyes was so painstaking, she knew when he was smiling, even though his mouth was always covered.

  Though, considering the film those slushers uncovered, jealousy of Dax was a bit pointless, wasn’t it? Perhaps he’d be better served to simply join him in a drink of Calm and a toast to the dog that bit them both.

  “Ghrenadel,” Liam greeted. His voice carried with a natural firmness, so he almost always sounded irritated. “How goes?”

  Dax glanced up, startled, and said, “Oh, hey, Liam.” For a beat, the guy just stared at him, fumbling for the next word. “I’ve got a notice for you.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Liam replied, frowning. Frowns also came naturally to him. “I forgot you worked with the CCSS. Let’s have it then.” Dax wordlessly passed him the notice, and Liam continued, “You, uh, seen Exa lately?” without looking down at it. “Last saw her Friday, myself, in Heroes Park, but, uh . . . her flybot’s . . . not taking my messages anymore.”

  “Yeah, she –she broke it,” Dax answered, scratching his head. The boy seemed uncomfortable. Suspiciously uncomfortable. “I don’t know, man. She’s not at home?”

  “Well, you would know, wouldn’t you?” Liam countered. “Thought you two were constant . . .” The phrase was a common one, and halfway out of his mouth, but he wished he could call it back. “. . . companions,” he finished.

  And if you’re pretending you think she’s at home, when we both know she’s not and she hasn’t been, then you’ve got something to hide, too.

  “She’s probably hiding. That’s what Dyna says anyway, isn’t it?” Dax answered sharply, his own eyes beginning to glimmer with a touch of aggression. “After all, the duke’s probably looking to pin the whole coronation catastrophe on her, isn’t he?”

  “Not all the duke’s looking to pin on her,” Liam muttered.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” Liam’s eyes panned down to the notice, skimming. “I just –I just want to know where she is, and if you’d cut the shit, it’d really . . .”

  COMPANION REASSIGNMENT

  “. . . help me out,” Liam murmured. “What is this?”

  “Well,” Dax said. “It looks like Leg’s legal issues have made her ineligible, is my guess.” There was a pause in which Liam continued staring at the words on the page, suddenly illiterate. “You never ran that story,” Dax said. The words seemed to penetrate from a great distance, and Liam glared up, pulled back into reality.

  “What?”

  “The story about Leg and the earl,” Dax elaborated. He was maintaining eye contact with a stony significance. “Dyna never ran it.”

  Liam took a breath. So Exa had told Dax. That was weirdly admirable of her. It figures. Just when I want to picture her as a villain, she does something of virtue. “I didn’t give her the pictures,” he answered, omitting mention of the past few minutes. “Didn’t want to get Exa in trouble, even if –even if she’s –not going to be my Companion anymore.” He also omitted that Exa hadn’t been his Companion for a long time now, regardless of the CCSS mandate.

  Dax still stared, the hardness in his gaze unchanging. “She’s–” He cleared his throat, glanced around, and stepped closer, tilting his head toward Liam’s ear. “Glitch’s, at Groundtown,” he whispered. “But if I go back there, and anything has happened to her?
” He stayed where he was, intruding on Liam’s personal space, but tilted his head again so he was no longer whispering in the other man’s ear, but was now boring directly into his eyes. “I will kill you.”

  Liam opened his mouth to respond, a likely antagonistic retort, paused, and Dax patted his shoulder twice and stepped to the side. What an annoying, condescending gesture. “Later,” he called over his shoulder, advancing to the lift without a backwards glance.

  Meanwhile, back in the broadcast studio, Dyna Logan rushed through her mid-afternoon report with a memorized recap of the weekend’s events, and then rushed to her personal automaton assistant: a delicate, silver-wrought rose pin which fastened her bun together. Shaking out her long, crimped tresses – a subconscious gesture of victory – Dyna ordered her automaton to direct a message to the young duke. This was not, of course, her only automaton, but it was her favorite. It was so . . . discreet.

  Rather than being relayed to a recording, however, the duke himself answered.

  “Yes, Miss Logan?” the unmistakable baritone inquired.

  “Kaizen, Kaizen, Kaizen,” Dyna purred. Although her voice was normally quite grating, there were times when it assumed an almost silken quality. Those were the times when something for which she’d relentlessly longed had finally fallen into her talons. “I’ve got something sitting in front of me which would be of great value to you.”

  “. . . What is it?” Kaizen replied.

  Dyna sighed. There was such predatory satisfaction in a good interrogation. Especially one which was weighted to her advantage. “A series of pictures.” She idly scanned the frames. “Taken here at CIN-3. Of you. You, and a suddenly newsworthy young woman.”

  “Oh?” Kaizen said, radiating nonchalance.

  “Can you guess who it might be?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t.”

  Dyna grinned. So much going on under that regalia, isn’t there? “Exa Legacy,” she went on. “And you know, darling, I’m juggling so many cover-ups as of late, one of these stories is bound to hit the floor. And break.”

  There was a pause. “What do you want?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know,” Dyna answered, as if she had the whole of New Earth from which to choose. She already had a beautiful home in Lion’s Head. Already had fame. Already had influence. Had the duke in the palm of her hand, even. Then it hit her. A flowery title. She was, after all, Dyna Logan, anchorwoman, of all things. Augh. “Are there any women of the royal court?”she answered him. “I would like to be brought forth as an advisor to the crown. Public relations and media, shall we say? Yes. I want to attend court. Oh, and some silk. An entire crate of the stuff.”

  Kaizen sighed. “There’s been some workman issues on Old Earth, Dyna. I don’t know if I can get an entire crate right now.”

  “Yes, you do,” Dyna went on, crossing her legs. “And you can.”

  There were workman issues on the surface of Old Earth, indeed. The miners had been without their cocktail of Kill Curiosity and Calm the Nerves for five days now. They would soon be two doses behind, but the shortage of manpower in Icarus had caused delays in relief for the staff below. Words and feelings, meanwhile, were surging to the surface of every N.E.E.R. resident like inflated things, pinned at the bottom of a body of water and then released.

  In the scramble to equip the units with cameras and locks, it wasn’t difficult for Coal to meet her neighbors. In fact, it was incredibly easy. They were all named Coal.

  “I don’t want to be named Coal anymore,” one man piped.

  “I don’t think I even like coal that much,” someone else agreed.

  “Shh,” Coal 106 begged, clearing her throat. “Even without the locks –we can’t have that much time.”

  She’d only just become aware of the passage of time, but now more than ever, it did seem extremely important.

  “We wonder why we work, and I think that’s clear,” she went on. “We work for coal. Or whatever else we do. Stuff. We’re here to move or make the stuff.”

  “But we don’t use it,” Coal 111 pointed out. “We don’t use anything, really. Just a hose with some water and a gray bag. Our masks. Our shots. We don’t even have lights.”

  The group shifted at the mention of these things, suddenly aware of how uncomfortable they were. Although this group was small – ten or fifteen of the miners in this particular complex – these same meetings were occurring simultaneously and spontaneously throughout the dome.

  “Let’s be thankful there are no lights right now,” Coal 106 disagreed.

  “But there are lights,” Coal 129 said. “There are lights where we get our shots. There are lights where we get hosed down. There are lights sometimes. We see the lights on the cars, too, that come and go sometimes.”

  “Yes! The cars!” Coal 106 got too excited and coughed deeply. Several people glared about to see if there was movement in the hall beyond, but none came. “The cars take the stuff we do, and where do they go? If we’re not using anything, who is? Who’s getting all this stuff?”

  “The land in the sky,” Coal 129 whispered. “I’ve seen them come and go from beneath there.”

  “How does it get up there, then?” Coal 106 asked. “How does it get up there, while we’re stuck here?”

  “We’ll have to find out,” Coal 111 said. “Because they must know, right? They know when it comes and goes. Otherwise, they wouldn’t know. They wouldn’t know how much, or who. But it must be somewhere, planned. It would be put down so we see it. It would be under a light. You need light to see, right?”

  “Right,” Coal 106 replied. “It must be under lights.”

  For the past day and a half, Legacy had done nothing but lounge in the moldering upstairs rental at Glitch’s and listen to CIN-3for nonexistent updates, kicking back and forth what-if scenarios with Dax and, occasionally, with Rain. Legacy was too scared to go home for her own little pile of money, but Dax had left her forty pieces – and she’d spent it all in the House of Oil.

  “Let me get another Calm,” Legacy commanded the turnkey barkeep, whose name, she now knew, was Bart-12. She just called him Bart, as if to divert the automaton from thoughts of his own ephemeral nature.

  “This is your fourth Calm the Nerves,” Bart informed her, delivering the beverage. Legacy tossed the last of the coins in her hand onto the bar.

  “I know,” she said. She didn’t drink it yet; she held the glass and contemplated its murky, comforting shade, which reminded her of Old Earth. Bart kept informing her of how many drinks it’d been. She supposed it was to avoid any discrepancies, but she found it quite annoying. At least, she’d found it quite annoying three Calms ago.

  Now, she couldn’t quite summon the shit to give.

  She’d started drinking at sundown, when she’d waited and waited for Dax to show up. The room had gotten steadily darker, and she’d realized that he wasn’t going to show up. Maybe he’d been too tired and needed a real sleep on a good bed. After all, Dax still had to work, didn’t he? Or maybe he’d come down from the high of their escapades, and was starting to realize that he didn’t want this life. Drifting. Shacking up. Maybe Rain had invited him over and they’d lost track of the time.

  It was just such a lonely thing, laying low. Lonely thing. So she’d wandered down to the bar for some company. Even if it was only semi-conscious.

  Legacy took a sip.

  No work – if Cook would even want her back.

  Another sip.

  No family. Could endanger them, returning home. Probably end up in jail, herself.

  Another sip.

  No friends. Most people didn’t even know where she was.

  A gulp.

  No word on Kaizen, no word on Vector, no word on Trimpot.

  Gulp.

  Just the hole in the floor and the automaton against the wall, registered to Dax’s name.

  She drained the dregs of the drink and set the empty glass down with a resounding clank.

  This had all see
med so much more insurmountable before the second Calm. But after the fourth? It hardly registered as problematic.

  So what if they do hang me? What would I have died of instead? An aneurysm? Cancer? Who cares? Dying is dying and living is living and it’s really all the same. What’s the point of being sad, or afraid, ever? Might as well just do what you want. Life’s too short for little things like legality or convention to come into question. In the end, what are all the little invisible leads we follow even worth? It’s just something somebody said once, otherwise known as “Blah, blah, blah.” Maybe you won’t even get caught. It’s dark out.

  Legacy stood with a sway.

  She threaded through the haze of sprawled patrons, only stumbling over one errant foot before correcting herself, spinning, and muttering an apology.

  Drifting out the door, she pushed herself in the vague direction of her parents’ complex in the domestic district.

  Because fuck it.

  She was going home.

  Legacy thundered drunkenly onto the first porch of the seven-story building, and a familiar, tinny Rrrah! Rrrah! emitted from within the unit. This was the robot dog belonging to its tenant, which stirred at the vibration of the floorboards. Gray shutters on the tiny window to Legacy’s right popped open and a pair of shrewd old eyes peered at her. “Exa,” the Widow Coldermolly hissed. Widow Coldermolly was seventy-nine, hunchbacked, and reclusive. People also said she’d lost her mind when her husband died. Legacy was ashamed to admit that she’d always accepted this, by default, as true.

  But when the police had gone to collect Legacy from her home a few days ago, the Widow Coldermolly had offered her a basement in which to hunker down and wait. She’d seemed not only lucid, but more aware than even Legacy’s own parents as to what was going on in Icarus.