“Ha, ha,” she yelled.
The faint sound of an angry woman stomping continued as he shirked off his boxers. The inside of the autoshower reeked of chemical strawberries and sweat. He managed to get one foot in the tube before she barged in.
“I’ll give ya a freebie if you can get these offa me.” She shook her wrists at him.
“What, am I supposed to magic a key out of my ass?” He pulled the hatch closed behind him.
“Come on!” She got her toes around the handle, pulling the little door open before he could hit the start button.
“I’ve seen toms traipsing about with less on than you’re wearing. Just go. Cops don’t care.”
“Less? I’m naked!” she screamed.
“You’re wearing those fuzzy things. They weren’t, so that’s technically less.”
Strawberry fumed. “Don’t be an asshole. What am I supposed to do?”
He let his forehead rest on the cylinder. Because of her, it wasn’t comfortable and cool―it was warm and smelled like hours of screaming. Once again, she delayed his soapy, pleasurable respite. “Oh, I dunno, maybe not be a prostitute?”
She glared, stunned, her face warping into an expression suggesting she might cry. After a couple of stuttering gasps, she turned red and yelled, “You think this is a fucking choice? You think I wanted this life? I never had the money to go to school and all the corporations give all the shitty jobs to dolls they don’t have to pay.”
“If you put half as much effort into bettering yourself as you do into blaming the world, you’d not be stuck naked in a grotty motel.”
Strawberry kicked the tube, causing a sound like a thunderclap to squish his brain. “What the shit am I supposed to be doing then, Mr. right-here-in-the-same-grotty-motel-with-the-worthless-whore?” Her lips quivered; her voice faltered to a near-whisper. “What the fuck does grotty mean, anyway?”
He pressed the start button, but got a ‘door open’ error. “Shitty, poor, dirty… Did you consider military service or signing up for colony settlement? Some companies pay for the transport.”
“I don’t wanna die for someone else’s war… and I’m afraid of space. It would just be my luck I’d never wake up from stasis.”
She’s going to keep whining at me until she’s gone. “Why hasn’t he come lookin’ for you?” he muttered against the wall.
Her voice changed from antagonistic to pleading and sweet. “Munro doesn’t work like that. He waits and gets you when you’re not expecting it. Come on, I just need these damn things off.”
The cuffs were toys, non-electronic things with a physical lock, far flimsier than police-issue binders. Any time he’d had to defeat a lock, it was electronic and surrendered to a police override code. Old style ones like this were a rarity, though some still practiced the art of picking. Darwin would probably know how or, at least, know someone who did.
“’Ave a seat on the bed. Buddy o’ mine’ll be able to get it open.”
She stared at him. “I can’t just wait around here. If he comes looking for me, it’ll be my ass even if it ain’t my fault.”
With an irritated groan leaking from his nose, Aaron stumbled out of the tube and grasped the chain between her wrists. He had been used to his telekinesis having enough power to knock a man over or carry about fifty pounds. An aug could snap the chintzy things with ease. He started to wave her off with a resigned ‘not my problem’ echoing in his mind, but hesitated. His telekinesis shouldn’t be able to fling a roulette table through a wall either. The continued scraping of her high-pitched voice became more painful than any psionic aftershock that might occur if he used his gift.
“It might hurt.”
She twisted to peer over her shoulder at his crotch. “Not bad, but I doubt it.”
“No…” He massaged the bridge of his nose. “Not sex. I mean breaking them off.”
“Breaking? Aren’t you gonna like pick em?”
“I’m not a thief, and you don’t seem interested in waiting for my friend, who is.”
Strawberry faced away. “What, you some kinda aug?”
Aaron focused on the cuff, exerting telekinetic force. Three chain links wobbled and snapped taut. Prior to the day that destroyed his life, he never would have attempted to break such an item. Something had happened to him the moment his mind shattered. Nothing made sense anymore. He concentrated on pulling it apart, sensing the mass and shape of each piece. After a tiny pulse crawled over the top of his skull, the metal around her wrists burst into a spray of shrapnel and pink furry bits. Aaron fell on his ass, as though he’d been punched in the forehead.
“Ow, motherfucker!” She danced around, waving her arms. “What the fuck just happened? The goddamn thing exploded.”
Aaron’s face twitched. He tried to rub feeling back into his cheeks as he stood up. Using telekinesis again so soon after an ‘event’ woke up the headache, but at least Strawberry’s needles-in-the-eardrums voice would soon cease. The woman looked at him, at his crotch, and at the boxers on the floor.
“You sure you don’t wanna―”
“Quite.” He held up a hand. “I’m in no shape for a shag. I honestly think I’d get seasick.”
And I’ve no want to learn what sort of nasty little bugs you’ve got in there.
“’Ave a seat, I’ll order you somethin’ to wear once I’ve scrubbed up.”
Dozens of women’s faces played a slideshow in his memory, an uncountable number of frictionless fans back home. They all wanted one thing. All women wanted one thing, except for Allison―and that bitch took her away.
Damn women, nothing but credit siphons. If it isn’t sex, it’s pity.
He trudged into the tube, gagging on the cloying presence of concentrated fruit-scented perfume. “How the feck long were ya stuck in ’ere?”
“All yesterday since about one.” Her voice sounded as though it came from near the floor, rising toward the end. “That Driftwraith better pray Monro finds him before I do. Monro’ll just kill him.”
“That’s half a day. It’s not even dawn yet.”
“Thanks for lettin’ me out.”
“Aye.” Aaron poked the start button, letting his body bask in the onrush of warm water jets. He wore the same stupid grin for the entire second rinse cycle. By the time hot air swirled around him, he felt like a new man. “A day, eh? Spose you’ll be famished. May as well get some food too.”
Silence.
He shifted around, wiping fog off the inside of the clear tube to peer into the outer room. No trace remained of the girl―or his boxers.
“Kinn’ell.” He let his forehead hit the plastic wall, which sent a ripple of agony bouncing off the inside of his skull. “Ouch. That was stupid.”
Once the autoshower cycle stopped, he shoved the tube open and cast a disparaging glance at the sheet responsible for trapping Strawberry in the shower. He’d been distrustful of touching the woman, but that level of disgust paled in comparison to the revulsion caused by the sight of dark spots on the linen. He left it on the floor and trudged into the bedroom. His suit, socks, and shoes were gone―including his NetMini and Allison’s nametag.
Aaron ran outside, finding himself on the fifth floor balcony of a cheap hotel, staring down at puffs of fog gliding over a rain-soaked parking lot.
He grabbed the railing with both hands, leaning out and screaming, “Strawberry! Come back. You took her tag!”
His voice echoed against silence, a rare moment when even the distant music of advert bots had stopped. He yelled her name twice more before he slouched, defeated.
The encroaching dawn had brightened enough to render the city in silhouette, except for the neon glow in the skyline of Sector 214. It shone above the decrepit buildings across the street and to the right. A twinge of nausea rumbled in his gut at the prominent Infinity Casino tower aglow in pyramids of purple blue and green. The playground of the rich reflected in neon smears on the wet ground.
Judging by his surroundings, the ar
ea looked to be the start of a grey zone. He blinked with disbelief at the still-functional manager’s office. At this proximity to an abandoned sector, whoever ran this place had some set of balls to demand people pay to spend the night here.
Winded from shouting, he gasped a mouthful of trash and chemical flavored air. He coughed himself to tears while a slow golf-clap came from his left. A thick, muscular black man in a tank top, dark military style pants, and a red bandanna gave him an appraising look. Small bits of metal studded with tiny blue LEDs protruded from both cheeks, concentrated around the eyes.
“What you seen, man?” He pulled open the top of a backpack, exposing a myriad of autoinjectors ranging from new-in-shrink-wrap to the fortieth refill. “You let Christof know if you be needin’ more.”
A tongue clucked to his right, where a middle-aged woman with caramel skin shook her head and refused to look at him. She wore a harness with four handguns over a white shirt with the hotel’s logo. Her housekeeper’s cart had a number of bullet holes.
Anger and loss overwhelmed him, and he let off a blood-curdling scream. The single car in the parking lot wound up embedded in the wall of the fifth floor of the building across the street. Christof the chem dealer un-leaned from the wall and walked away.
“What this city is coming to.” The housekeeper blinked at the car-turned-projectile, shook her head again, and went into the adjacent room.
Aaron sat on the end of the Comforgel pad, elbows on his knees and head in his hands. The glowing gel cycled amid red and orange as it tried to keep him warm, bathing the darkened room in the colors of Hades. He didn’t look up when the door opened. A figure blocked the light in stunned silence long enough for the scent of char siu ramen to reach him. The room seemed dimmer when the door closed.
“I’m goin’ ta guess yo’ naked ass has somethin’ ta do with the car across the street?” asked Darwin. “And by the way, that’s way more of you than I ever wanted to see again. Twice in two days, makes a man start wonderin’ if you tryin’ ta send a message.”
“You didn’t check the bathroom when you left me here, did you?”
“I didn’t have to go.” Darwin put a plastic bowl on the bed before taking a seat at the table. “Why?”
“The tom locked in the tube was a bit pissed off.”
“Was some dude―”
“A tom is a prostitute… cretin.”
Darwin chuckled. “She give you a discount?”
“You’re a right comic, mate.” Aaron rubbed his eyes. “I wouldn’t touch her with a plastisteel nodder. Besides”―he waved about as if to condemn society as a whole―“she’s probably still a minor.”
“Did she have tits?”
Aaron glared at him.
“Hey, man. All I’m sayin’ is seventeen is still negotiable. Sorry I’m late, it took me awhile to smooth things over with Shimmer. Consider yourself lucky I was able to.”
“Oh, that’s just grand.” Aaron picked up the bowl, twisting it in small, precise motions while flicking at the flimsy plastic cover. “That would be quite the tragedy, if Shimmer was upset with us. I don’t know how I’d recover from such a catastrophe.”
Chopsticks bounced off Aaron’s head. He caught them with a trivial telekinetic effort, and they careened to a midair halt before touching the carpet. He glared at Darwin’s still outstretched arm, not moving until the man huddled in a heap of shredded green coat over the table.
“You’ve got a pair o’ brass ones, puttin’ any of this on me.” Aaron whipped the cover aside, letting it flutter to the rug. Chunks of red-tinted mystery meat floated in a morass of noodles, broth, and unidentifiable green globs. “Was your genius idea to tit about with the roulette table.”
“I didn’t go nucular on the room.” Darwin slurped noodles, making a series of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ at the heat. “Or toss a fuckin’ car through a window.”
“The word is nuclear. Noo-clee-ur.” Aaron pinched his fingers at the air as he enunciated it. “You honestly thought you’d… we’d get away with that?” He jammed his chopsticks into the floating mass of pasta. A lump that could’ve been crabmeat or shrimp bobbed to the surface. “Bugger it. You’re right. I used to be a bloody cop dealing with nonsense like this. I shouldn’t ’ave let you talk me into doing that at all. I ought to ’ave known they’d ’ave a damn telepath on staff.” He pouted into the soup, muttering, “There’s a bloody good reason kinetics don’t cheat casinos. An’ I’m a bit rusty.”
“Rusty?” Darwin cocked an eyebrow.
“Never mind. Nothin’ to do with casinos.”
Both men ate in silence for some minutes. Aaron glanced up twice but decided against speaking.
“Ain’t never spent this much time in a room with a naked man before,” muttered Darwin. “People gonna get the wrong idea ’bout our relationship.”
Tension snapped; Aaron cracked up for over a minute before he gathered himself enough to speak. “I’d order some clothes, but the tom nicked my NetMini.”
“Since I’ve known you… what’s it been, four months? I think you’ve had two or three a week… Law of averages says sooner or later one of ’em’s gonna game you.”
“She’s not my tom. Came wit’ the room. Didn’t even shag that one.” Aaron slurped broth. “She’d ’ave had to pay me. The sort of tom I patronize is quite a bit different.”
“How so? Payin’ for fuckin’ is payin’ for fuckin’, ain’t it?”
“Five thousand credits a night compared to fifty or a hundred? That one’d cost me more at a clinic gettin’ cleaned out than she charged.” He slurped broth. “It’s a difference of a woman who enjoys an art form and one who just”―he tapped his fingers on the bowl―“doesn’t have a choice.”
“The man thinks he is an art form.” Darwin raised a hand, as if indicating Aaron to a nonexistent audience.
Aaron bowed.
Darwin gave him a broad grin. “Shimmer said she got to the security feed before the Zeroes arrived. Their cams ain’t gonna show a damn thing. No digital evidence, only thing they had ta go on was what people remembered, which wa’n much but a lot of screaming and pants-shitting. Should be safe enough for us to go back in a day or two an’ finish off.”
“Back? Are you insane? Even if that girl of yours banjaxed the security system, there were dozens of witnesses, plus an entire fecking wall gone. That’s the sort of thing people notice.” Aaron let his shout hang in the air for a few seconds while gawking. He blinked. “You are serious. You are right fuckin’ nutters.” He stood, causing Darwin to cringe away. “You bloody well aren’t batting on a full wicket. You want to go back?”
“Sit down, man.” Darwin held his arms up as if to shield himself from the glow of an atomic detonation. “Only the telepath and the dealer got a good look at you, and neither one of ’em made it. Dealer had a roulette wheel where his head shoulda been and they couldn’t even find the telepath.”
“Fuck.”
“No, thanks.”
Aaron fell seated again, clutching his head. “Fuck, again.”
“Relax, man. Shimmer’s got it handled.”
“She’s got nothing handled.” Aaron shouted, head snapping up. “All her talent’s a big bag of wank compared to what they’re going to send after me.” He clenched his fingers into fists in his hair. “Damn.”
“Say, man. Why you so upset over a suit? You got a dozen of ’em.”
Anger, a sheet of high-polished glass, shattered into a billion flakes of sorrow. All he had left of his wife was her nametag, which he no longer had. He made a squealing noise a step or two closer to a wail of anguish than murderous and clamped his arms around his head. Darwin raised an eyebrow.
“Must’ve been a damn nice suit.”
Aaron glared at him, sitting up. A second of rage passed. Once it no longer seemed like a perfect idea to launch Darwin out the window, he slouched. “I had her nameplate in the pocket.”
“Shit, man.” Darwin tapped his fingers on the table, lookin
g at the rug. “Sorry. I know some people; maybe we can find her. No one’s gonna want a name tag.”
“Mmf. She works for some bloke name o’ Monro.”
“Hmm. I heard that name before. He’s a reasonable sorta man, if reasonable sorts of men made a habit of twisting the heads offa people who ran bad on ’em. Can probably work something out.”
“Great.” Aaron twirled noodles around the chopsticks, trying in vain to summon up the will to eat them.
“Don’t worry about it. You ain’t need no little bit of metal to remember her.” Darwin reached over to pat him on the knee, but thought better of it. “So, about Shimmer’s job.”
Aaron blinked at him, face frozen in a mask of complete disbelief. “You are―”
The door rattled as though someone tried to walk right in. Both of them looked at it. Aaron reached for a gun he no longer carried. He tensed for the inevitable police voice. Getting taken in by Division 0 would be bad enough, but he’d never live down them dragging him bare-assed from a dive hotel.
A much softer knock than he expected sounded twice.
“Hello? Still in there? It’s Strawberry.”
Aaron stared at the closed door, unable to move, brain locked to a screeching halt. Darwin got up and opened it, revealing the pink-haired girl with the glowing blue stars over her eyes. She had matching star earrings, also lit up, a barely-there tube top, and a black imitation leather skirt with faux tatters and shreds like she’d walked in five minutes ago from the Badlands. He locked eyes with his suit, a bundle of folded cloth tucked in her arms.
“Sorry for running off before. Monro gets touchy about punctuality. I woulda called him, but your ’mini was locked.” She slipped past Darwin and dropped the suit on the bed. “I got lucky. He’s more scorched at the Driftwraiths than me. I didn’t even get slapped.”
“See, I told you the man’s reasonable,” said Darwin.
Aaron’s gaze fell upon pink toenails peeking out from transparent orange plastic sandals. Glitter stars adorned the nails of both big toes.
Zero Rogue Page 5
