Anna’s eyebrows shot up when Penny’s breasts whispered soothing things to her.
“I shouldn’t be this up. I must’ve taken another patch when I left.”
“Go on then, hon. Get some sleep.” Penny put a hand on Anna’s forehead. “You still look a mess and you’re a tad overheated. I’ll take ya into town tomorrow.”
Anna relinquished the tepid cup, smiling at Penny as she slid into the warm bed. Listening to the repetitious thrum of the autoshower, she was out before the lights.
Soft sobs nearby cracked Anna’s eyelids. She lay curled on her side and took in the faint glimmer of morning lighting the horizon. It had been many years since she had been awake this early. Something about it seemed unnatural even if she had gone to sleep at four in the afternoon.
Rolling left, she found Faye curled on the other side of the bed in her undergarments. As Anna moved, the crying quieted.
A small whisper broke the silence. “Sorry if I woke you.”
“If you’re gonna pinch my bed, at least use the covers. You’ll freeze.”
The girl crawled under the blankets, smiling through runny eyeliner. “Thanks. Penny said it would be okay. T’other flats on this level are a mess, and Spawny didn’t want a kid watchin’ em shag.” She frowned. “Not that I’d wanna see him anyway, the man’s a hairy mess.”
“I’m surprised the bastard didn’t suggest you join them.”
Faye shot her a dire look. “He’s not one of those is he?”
So strong was the fear, Anna’s atrophied telepathy pulled at the child’s surface thoughts―she’d been pawed at by a neighbor. The man’s pasty face leered at her, superimposed over her mind. Anna sat up and put a hand on her face. Ugh. Zoom’s gone. I’d almost forgotten how to listen to that.
“No, Faye, he’s just a horny idiot that’s been after me for months. I can’t even tell if he’s serious or takin’ the Mick.”
Anna took a deep breath, letting her body adjust to the reality of being awake at seven in the morning. When she touched the shivering girl’s shoulder, the child cringed away, and then offered an ashamed look.
“Sorry…” Anna knew the reaction. “Who was it then? Your father?”
“Nothing happened.” Faye was quiet for a long time before she broke into crying again.
“Figure it must be your dad if you’re out here at your age. Mine died when I was twelve.”
The girl quieted. “Mine’s not dead, he just doesn’t believe me. Sorry ‘bout yours.”
“Don’t be.” Anna patted her shoulder. “He deserved what he got.”
The girl rolled on her back, glancing through her sky blue hair. “Did he…?”
“No. Just beat the hell out of me… almost killed me.”
Faye curled away, into a ball. “Mr. Bell, next door. ‘E paid me to watch his terriers while he went off. When he came back… He had me against the wall and…” She choked up.
It had been some years since she made deliberate use of telepathy; nowadays, it required concentration to even peek into a person’s surface thoughts, something that used to be trivial. Great emotion all but projected Faye’s shame into her head.
Anna forced mental images of an unwanted tongue kiss and a roaming hand out of her mind. She offered a sympathetic frown and consoling words, closed her eyes, and thanked the zoom for dulling the spike of anger.
“My pa didn’t believe me. They think Mr. Bell is such a nice man. They think I’m lying to stir up trouble ‘cause I dyed my hair blue and listen to Dead Ballerinas.”
“Did you go to the police? You spend enough time ‘ere in Cov, they’ll stop listening. We’re not people anymore.”
Faye’s body tensed with anger. “Yeah, they didn’t believe me either because I got away from him before he did anything a med-scan would find. Bell’s a dean or deacon or something in the C of E.” She took on a sarcastic tone. “He would never do such a thing.”
Anna figured the girl had run away from home to avoid the neighbor or as an aftershock to a nasty spat with the parents. In a day or two, she’d try to talk her into going back. For now, she would let her cool off.
“Sorry for laughing at you yesterday. It just struck me funny how our names related. You kin stay here with me till you figure out what you wanna do.”
The girl’s voice weakened on the way into sleep. “Thanks.”
“If you wanna talk…”
When no response came, Anna eased out of bed and tucked Faye in. After a shower, she leaned on the doorframe to the bathroom, staring at herself ten years ago. A pang of jealousy reared up at the girl still having live parents, obtuse or not, and a home she chose to leave.
Anna glanced down at her hands, curling open to reveal her palms. The lights behind her in the bathroom flickered and died while a tiny azure spark danced through her fingers.
There was no need to lie to her own mind; she had very much made a choice as well.
ixie kept her stare upon a stripe of reflective paint on pale grey cinderblocks. Her knuckles whitened as she clutched a worn metal railing at chest level. Hands roamed her body, patting and squeezing here and there. For once, the constable was somewhat professional and only touched as long as he had to in order to check for weapons.
“No weapons.”
His sudden voice an inch away from her left ear made her jump. The expected slap on the ass did not come, only a painful hand around her left bicep guiding her to a waiting line while he rummaged through her purse. She would be smarter today, getting the zoom in London after she left The Ruin.
Penny’s larger handbag fell on the desk. The closest thing she had to a sister pressed up against her from behind, clinging and eyeing the constable who had searched her. He walked past them, winking at Penny while he muttered something in Hindi. Penny’s face brushed the back of her neck when she turned away. She shifted to gaze into Penny’s eyes, open to the din of the woman’s thoughts. He had touched her, threatened her, told her what he wanted to do to her if they were alone, and what would happen if she complained.
Anna scowled at his untouchable grin. She knew the type―all talk. Holding Penny’s hands against her gut, she offered a reassuring pat and projected hatred at the sorry excuse for a public servant. His police armor brimmed with electronic devices: sensors, communication and targeting systems, bio monitor―a full military suite. Energy paths appeared superimposed on it, lines traced in glowing amber visible only to Anna. She tugged at the sense of the electricity, drawing it out in an uncontrolled release. Without warning, a flower of lightning bloomed around him, crackling for less than a full second with a report like a rifle shot. He screamed and hit the ground twitching as three small fires started on his suit.
The other officers rushed to his side, shouting in a panic as he convulsed. In a moment, he sat up, shaking. Anna backed into the wall with her hands up, acting surprised and frightened by the sight. She wanted to turn and give Penny a proper comforting, but not in front of Old Bill.
The officers made them wait while a MedVan flew in to extract the officer. After the scene calmed and the police found no contraband in either bag, an officer waved them through.
Two blocks deeper into London, they paused on the corner. Now it was Anna’s turn to comfort Penny. “It’s not right what they do to us.”
She looked into Anna’s eyes, shaking her head. “There’s no need for pat-downs like that. How do you keep going back to that club? It’s…”
“Dirty.” Anna squeezed her. “What can we do? They’re the Met. They could kill us and no one would care. We’re not even people to them.”
Penny’s large brown eyes filled with tears and futility. No one who lived in the dustbin, as the Propers called it, got any respect. “Have you thought about the Moon?”
Anna blinked. “The Moon? Are you daft? We couldn’t afford the shuttle ticket, and I’m not about to lick that much todger.”
“I hear they don’t trust dolls up there.”
“They don’t tr
ust dolls here, either. The King’s a bit touched, thinks one’ll kill him.”
Penny looked to the sky for a moment. “We could get jobs. I saw an advert yesterday bout this place lookin’ for executive assistants. We could do that.”
“It’s a bit more than makin’ coffee and bein’ a pretty face on a VidPhone; ya gotta know biz-ness.” Anna leaned on the last word, turning it into a sarcastic giggle.
A few minutes later, Anna came to a halt while Penny turned up the walkway of a small dwelling.
“Well we could wait tables then or something… cleaner.” Penny offered a consoling look, fixed herself up, and pushed the buzzer. “Get away from this place.”
“This place is fine. It’s that place what’s the problem.” Anna stared at the ominous grey smear in the air behind them.
A brick-red door slid to the side with a hiss. Penny chatted with an older Indian woman for a while in a rambling of language Anna couldn’t follow. When their conversation ended, a small boy of about three years emerged from the house, bundled in a beige coat. He waved at Anna and leapt into Penny’s arms, happy to see her.
As the trio left the front yard and continued down the street, Penny doted over him. Ad-bots whizzed overhead, occasionally making him point skyward and plead for some treat or toy he saw. With a child in tow, the Propers stopped looking at the two women the way Anna had become accustomed to. They became two people among many thousands, largely ignored until they arrived in the lobby of the public assistance office and got on line.
Sighing, Penny bounced the kid on her hip to keep him from fussing. “I don’t see why they don’t automate this.”
Anna kicked a stone into the street. “I don’t have a ‘mini, plus they gotta check us to make sure we’re not wasting the dole on drugs or booze.”
The smirk on Penny’s face made Anna burst out laughing, drawing a few stares.
“Oh don’t give me such a sanctimonious look. I’m not the one pawning someone else’s kid off as mine to fatten my giro. To think she pays you to babysit on top of it.”
“One of these days, you’re not going to get so ‘lucky’ and have a sensor blow out.” Penny made air quotes. “What’ll you do when they pick up the shit in your blood? How long does your psych cert last anyway? You ought to stop dodging the doctors.”
Anna stared at her scuffed boots, fidgeting over the pale green and yellow tiles. “I dunno. Watching my father die when I was twelve affected me deeply. I don’t think I’ll be right in the head ever. Lucky for me the sensors keep failing.” The complete lack of emotion in her voice gave away her lie, but then a thought brought forth genuine sorrow. “What I wouldn’t give to not be able to make…” The rest of what Anna muttered trailed off into silence.
“What’s that?”
Her head snapped up, a faint trace of blush visible through an ashen look of dread. “Nothing… Yeah, you’re right. I’m getting lucky. I should stop taking zoom. Not good for me.”
“Anna…” Penny gave her a mother’s scolding look.
She stared, focusing her telepathic voice into Penny’s mind. There’s something wrong with me. The zappy thing happens on its own. I can’t control it. Whenever I get riled up, it just goes off willy-nilly. Anna waited for the startled expression to fade from her friend. Soz. I don’t wanna say this out loud. Yes, I’m a telepath. Anna hung her head as if confessing to a heinous crime. I started taking zoom to hide my power… I just… It’s such evil shit. I lost control.
Anna’s face reddened with shame.
Penny prodded her in the arm with the child’s shoe, squinting at her. “What about li’l Twee then. She’s fond of you. You’re the tough street-bitch she thinks she is.”
They both laughed.
“She sees you using, she’ll pick it right up too. You don’t want that, do you?”
Anna stared guilt into the floor. As the line drew closer to the door, Penny stopped talking. When it came her turn at the window, she showed her ID card and smiled, speaking only Hindi at the flustered young man behind the counter. The little boy in her arms grinned at him, as she had asked him to, and the two of them vanished through a doorway into the checking room.
A moment later, the next clerk waved Anna over. “Name?”
“Annabelle Emily Morgan.”
“Gander into that then.”
He pointed at a small box mounted to the frame of the window. Dark brown rust peeked through flaking lime-colored paint above and below the mechanism to which she pressed her forehead. She hated the way the metal smelled, hated the way the breath of the previous fifty people pooled within the hollow confines of the machine enclosing her face. Flickering bands of blue and green light went up, down, and crossways over her eyes. When it beeped, she leaned away, blind for several seconds from the glare.
“Righto. There you are. Bloody shame about your father, that.”
“Thank you.” She offered a pleasant smile.
“Been three months since your last visit with the doc. You’re due up for another psych eval.”
“There’s been a bother with the authorization; I’m just waiting for NHS approval.”
It was a lie, but a believable one. Half the room behind her moaned in a shared complaint about the agency’s pace.
“Hope they get that sorted for you. Need a shrink to sign off on your dole, or you’ll have to get a real job.”
“I understand.”
The limp sense of indignation at yet another person belittling her barely registered. Better they thought of her as a freeloader or a harlot than they learn what she really was. She shied away from holographic posters on the walls, asking “concerned citizens” to identify potential psionic terrorists so the government can keep everyone safe.
“Right then, through the door on your left.” The man closed his window, vanishing through a small access way.
When the door slid open, she followed him into a cramped exam room. A sleepy nurse waited by a paper-covered table. Anna shrugged out of her coat and climbed onto it amid crinkling. She lied her way through questions about drug use, enduring another light in her eyes and other discomforts of an abbreviated physical. Once again, Penny’s skilled hand at makeup covered the red squares on her arm. Any medtech who cared could spot the derm tracks with ease. In this place, they only wanted to process people fast. During a few prior visits, the techs gave her sympathetic looks, silent offers of help. No one wanted to deal with the proverbial paperwork of filing a report about her using. Toward the end, the wide-bodied nurse came at her with a portable medical scanner, touching it to the skin of her bicep.
Anna closed her eyes, cringing from the mild burn caused by the flickering electrical discharge. Silicon smoke hazed the air between the three of them, and she sat in silence waiting for the public assistance man to tell the nurse not to bother with the drug test.
He took a step closer. “Crikey. Are you all right?”
Being it unclear whom he addressed, both women answered with a yes.
Anna smiled, rubbing her arm where a small red dot remained from the burn. Please… Skip it.
“Spose you’ll need to fetch another unit then?” He nudged the nurse toward a rear door with his eyes.
Terror.
LED lamps in the ceiling exploded all at once; flashing sparks lit the subsequent darkness for seconds afterward accompanied by a lingering buzz and reek of ozone. The gunshot like sound of the failure sent everyone in the waiting area to the ground.
The assistance man yelled, pulling Anna to the floor as if to shield her. “What the bloody hell was that?”
“All the others are in use in the other rooms. We’ve been losin’ one a month lately. Damn cheap Paki machines.” The nurse grumbled and smacked the dead scanner.
Backup lights filled the room red. The man gave Anna the once-over and shook his head.
“Bugger it then. You don’t look strung out. Don’t let me find out you’re on somethin’, luv.”
She offered a demure smile.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, guv’na.”
dvert droids massed around the public assistance office, like flies searching for the perfect spot of turd to settle on. Whenever someone left, they suffered a bombardment of ads for a block and a half, until the droids gave up and returned to the throng. Walking astride, the two women headed to a small sidewalk café.
The pair seated themselves and ordered the least expensive breakfast they could find after scrolling through a menu terminal at the center of the table. Anna leaned back in the chair and turned the credstick over in her fingers, staring at the glowing digits on its end with a frown.
“Five twenty-five. What do they expect anyone to do with that?”
Penny spoke between the noises she made at the boy whilst trying to feed him some of her eggs. “They’d give you double if you popped one out. Still, for one person it’s not bad for two weeks.”
After some quick mental arithmetic, Anna blurted. “Are you serious? The cheapest food I can get is about twelve credits a plate. Three times a day for two weeks, almost all of it… Five hundred or so―”
“Five o’ four to be precise.” Penny swabbed synthetic mayo on a thick chip and tossed it in her mouth.
Anna used a chip to scoop mayo out of the little serving bowl. It almost didn’t taste like they had been reassembled at a molecular level from the same bland paste.
“Still.” Anna stuffed the credstick into her pocket. “That leaves me Ͼ21 for rent, clothes, travel, and whatever else.”
“We don’t pay rent, you don’t travel, and you’ve worn the same outfit every day for six months. I’m astounded that skirt isn’t walking on its own.”
Guess I at least owe Plonk for getting my clothes back.
Pushing her plate to the side, Anna flopped face down on folded arms. “They treat us like such trash, but they don’t give us a chance. We don’t pay rent ‘cause we can’t. Where else would we go?”
“There’s always the Moon.” Penny grinned.
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