“Bugger that.” Anna leaned to the side, nibbling at her food.
“Buggerat!” yelled the little boy.
Anna rubbed her arms. Withdrawal started in the form of full-body aches, as though her skeleton had bruised everywhere.
“You could always get a proper job. You’re always so miserable whenever you come back from the club. Why do you do it if you hate it? Carryin’ food to tables can’t be as demeaning as wagging your chesticles at a room full of drunken men.”
“They’re not that small,” Anna barked, pulling her jacket closed over her breasts. She calmed in a few seconds, and shrugged. “Blake don’t care if I’m high, don’t ask questions, and I don’t have to think about it.”
Penny held a piece of toast up for the boy to gnaw on. “Those tits won’t last forever, hon.”
The child waved his arms, yelling ‘tits’ at the top of his lungs, drawing horrified looks from pedestrians.
Anna pouted, folding her arms tighter over her chest.
“What’s really on you then?” Penny leaned forward. “Please, tell me.”
“Look, even if I was able to hold it together without the chems… I’m hopelessly onto it. I’d need a doctor to get me off it now and…” She gazed down, teasing the fake omelet with a plastic fork. “I just don’t have the strength. I want off it, but… I’m too weak.”
“You’re not weak. I’ll help you through it. What are you afraid of?” Penny squeezed her hand.
Anna looked up with a hurt pout. “It’s more than the chems. I stopped workin’ for Carroll after a close call. I don’t want you to get involved, a nasty bit of business.”
“Organized?” Penny’s eyebrows climbed her forehead.
“Tits,” shouted the boy again, clapping.
“You’re a bit old for that, mite.” Penny placated him with jellied toast, and ordered a glass of milk.
“No, not Syndicate.” Anna leaned close, whispering. “Government nasty.” Her blood ran cold.
Penny’s face shifted from fear to concern. Minutes of silence passed as they finished eating.
“I’m…” Anna glanced to the left. There’s no way in green Hades I’m going to cage dance sober. The mere thought of being locked in that thing again made her shiver. If imma gonna kick this shit, I need to find my old groove. I need practice. Pedestrians smeared into an ever-shifting mass of color. “Gonna take a walk, get somethin’ nice for Twee. Take the lil’ bugger home. Don’t want you getting’ caught up in it case the blag goes pear shaped.”
“Blag?” Penny whisper-shouted and stood, gathering the boy, and stared down at her shoes. “Anna, please don’t do anything stupid.”
“I won’t.” The women exchanged a hug. “If I’m not back by midnight, don’t call the cops.”
Penny’s eyes watered. Something cartoony on a passing advert bot drew the child’s eye and he wriggled, pointing at it and yelling, “Main chaaaati hoon!”
“Oh come off it, I’ll be fine. The zoom’s gone… I got me head back on.” Anna caught her reflection in the café window and shied away. She looked too thin.
Penny waved her NetMini. “Vid me if you need anything.”
“Heh.” Anna turned out her empty pockets. “If I can find a public; you know mine keep breaking.”
Anna figured she had about four hours before the lack of chems started to hurt. This was the less than pleasant time where she had to work to rein it in. She’d had enough practice at the bone-ache stage to muddle through. Another hour or so, and the flu-like mess would start.
With hands tucked in her pockets, she went in the direction of High Street, not paying much attention to the route. At the sight of a familiar warp in the footpath, she glanced up and came face to face with her old home; the edifice of plastisteel and false wood slats floated there as though she had walked into a waking dream.
Number Six Woodseer Street looked as it did when she had last seen it, a modern construction with six mushed-together flats crammed into a giant house. She recalled her father once bragging to his friends about getting into a place built after 2350, a task somewhat difficult to do that close to the heart of London. She had lost track of the date. The last time it mattered at all what year it was, she still had a bed full of dolls and a warm place to go home to at night. That had been 2403.
For a moment, she almost missed the beatings.
She leaned upon the well-kept railing that cordoned off the laughably small front yard and stared at the dark square of plexi that used to be her window. Her gaze drifted down to a wisp of pink metal among the ill-tended lawn, settling upon an old bicycle, white tire squeaking around in a pathetic breeze. They’d had a few good years, until the thing got out of control.
“Checkin’ the place out, lass?”
Anna jumped, holding onto the rail to keep from falling. An elder had snuck up on her, quite unintentionally, and clasped a hand over his chest from the shock of her startlement. Wisps of silver hair wavered, threads of cotton held to his scalp by the weight of a tweed cap, toyed with by the breeze.
“Sorry, dear.” He offered a grandfatherly smile, fixing a powder blue sweater back into place over a dark shirt. “Not many come to check the vacant one out.”
She tilted her head, a hand on her chest. “Oh?”
The man shook his head, casting a disdainful scowl at the lawn. “Man what used ta live there wasn’t right in the head. Used ta beat his little’un somethin’ fierce. Poor thing, nae wonder ‘is wife left ‘im. Old Bill’d come here two or three times a week, but they did sweet Fanny Adams about it. Someone should’a done somethin’ for that girl.”
Anna looked up at the black window. She remembered being on the other side of it, shaking from the pain her father had strapped across her backside, staring down at the neighbors, people who had heard the screaming, wondering why no one helped her.
“Aye Mr. Harrison… Someone did.”
He blinked at her, squinted, and then took a step back. “Gor Blimey, is it you? O’ course, it has ta be. How many ladies yer age got ‘air that color.”
She leaned on her elbows, nodding with a regretful smile. “Aye, tis me. I hadn’t realized where I’d wandered to ‘till I saw the place.”
He ambled closer, patting her on the back. “You doin’ okay lass? We all been wonderin’ what happened since…” He fidgeted. “Well, you know.”
The lying came too easy. “Social welfare, put me with some fosters. I got a job on the West End now, acquisitions.”
“Oh that’s jolly for you. Good ta see ya bounce back from that dreadful mess. Edith hasn’t touched the ‘sem since.”
Anna chuckled. Everyone thought the food machine malfunctioned.
She chatted for a bit with her old neighbor, spinning a milquetoast web of fancy about her flat uptown, a fiancée, and a pleasant but boring office job. He did not ask much about her father’s death, only enough to attribute it to a karmic act of the divine since the police had done such a cack-handed job of protecting her from his beatings. After word got out that a man died in the place, it had been difficult to rent it out. The property manager was obstinate and holding out for full value, figuring location would outweigh superstition soon enough. Some part of her wanted to buy it, but there was no way in hell she could afford it.
The thought of squatting occurred to her, followed by an involuntary tightening of her throat; she missed her old life. Her head sagged forward under the weight of lies and shame.
He was going to kill me. I had to do it. It was me or him.
Anna curled over the rail, trying to maintain the smiling contentment of her imagined life for her elderly neighbor. She worked so hard not to cry, the thing at the back of her mind slipped free of her grasp. The eerie whisper of the wind drowned amid a cacophony of blaring horns, wailing sirens, and flashing lights from two dozen cars along Woodseer Street. Every anti-theft mechanism in every vehicle a hundred yards in either direction went off all at once.
Poor Mr. Harrison nearly
died of shock.
orris & Baker was the sort of shop where the working man could secure a bit of pretty for the one he loved. The kind of place carrying baubles considered nice, but unremarkable in a way that lent them handily to pawning. Something too big and rare would be traced; things too cheap were not worth the risk. This place was perfect.
Annabelle leaned against a vendomat a half block away, sipping artificial tea from a bioplastic cup that would be little more than a puddle of glop half an hour after it cooled. Her heartbeat had about returned to normal from the explosion of car alarms; the blast of nerves threatened to undermine her resolve. She gazed through the name of the shop, spelled out in glittering gold hologram above the door, watching patrons with the intensity of a cat waiting for the perfect unobservant mouse.
The zoom no longer clouded her mind. She focused on her purpose, pushing worry of withdrawal out to arm’s length. If she let her emotion run off, it would ruin any chance she had. In order to do this, she’d have to let the little monster half out of its pen. She closed her eyes and inhaled the steam from the Earl Grey―or at least the best attempt possible at Earl Grey via molecular assemblage. Her father had mentioned it once in passing that her mother had been fond of it, but he loathed the stuff.
Each time she had some, she spited him.
The sudden distraction of violet light drew her head to the left. A cat-sized bot hovered at about eye level, projecting a hologram at her of a lingerie advert.
It knew.
Her cheeks flushed crimson. “Damn nosy thing. Sod off.”
Anna shied away from it, the sudden rush of embarrassment coincided with the holo-advert failing to static. Small orange sparks flew from the side as the droid careened off along the street in a whirling spiral, all the while emitting a high-pitched digital version of an agonized scream. The chaos in its wake halted with a metallic thud out of sight around a corner four blocks distant.
She looked down, tapping the toe of her boot against the footpath, dawdling until a short blonde woman caught her eye. The air of credits wafted from her like perfume; not so much she would find this place undesirable, but enough to choose something worth nicking.
Her empty cup tossed into the bin, Anna followed the woman through the door, meandering about the shelves for a moment before stopping at a column-mounted terminal. Various pieces, custom ordered of course, appeared in ten times scale in full holographic glory. Anna pawed at the light, flipping virtual pages and pretending to be interested in ordering something.
The blonde went straight to the attendant and struck up a conversation. Anna’s anticipatory rush came to a cold halt when she remembered the little trick only worked on people, not electronics. She took advantage of her short skirt and exposed midriff as she sashayed around to keep the other clerk’s eyes on her. Unsure if he became excited by the impression of her breasts in the light cloth, or incensed by the fading Manchester United logo between them, she smiled.
Out of the corner of her eye, she examined four security orbs in the ceiling. One by one, she fixated on them until the thing in the back of her head expanded into her consciousness.
Threads drawn in amber light illuminated the wiring in the recorder spheres within her mind. Every wirepath, every shifting mass of electrons racing along their conduits, and the strong surge of the tie to mains power glowed to her, a presence tangible to her thoughts. She stretched over the counter, forcing her breasts tight to the shirt and tugged with her mind at the first orb.
Electricity heeded her call, flooding into the sphere, which sputtered a brief wisp of black smoke, staining the white paint around it. The subdued pop went unheard beneath the din of the eager blonde assaulting the shop worker with an endless prattle of inconsequential details of the person she shopped for. The poor man smiled his way through it, hoping for a sale.
The rumble of a truck passing outside afforded her the chance to zap the second recorder. She waited a moment to see if anyone noticed. Perhaps a man in the back room watching terminals would come running to see why his screens turned to static. Then again, if the store was small enough, they might not have a man in back. The clerk near her leaned closer, staring with greedy eyes at the taut fabric.
“Can I be of any assistance, Miss?”
She acted as though she looked for a gift for a young niece, something cheap that would not create too big an issue if she wound up having to buy it. He retrieved a set of five-petaled pink kunzite daisy earrings. Sixty credits for the pair.
She pretended to drop one out of clumsiness while holding it up to let the light play with it.
“Oh, heavens,” she said, pouring on the ditz. “I’m sorry.”
Turning to face the other counter and the blonde, she bent down to pick it up. When she heard the sound of a knee meeting the counter behind her, she assumed the clerk was leaning up, hoping she bent a little farther.
While he was eminently distracted, she coerced more electricity into the two remaining orbs. The blonde gasped with alarm at the sight of black smoke.
Bollocks!
Anna stood with the earring and flashed an apologetic smile at the dumbfounded clerk. A twitch picked at the right corner of his mouth twice before his lips curled to a grin. The pink daisy clicked upon the glass, and she glared sideways at the debutante about to ruin her entire plan.
When the smoke proved to be a brief wisp and not the start of a fire, the woman lost interest and returned to her chat. Anna exhaled and collected the earrings into the pink satin bed of their case.
She snapped it closed with a sharp pop. “These will do nicely.”
By now, a number of pieces had been laid out on the counter in front of the blonde, mostly necklaces and pendants. Anna walked sideways to the register, appraising them. The attendant helping the woman seemed on edge having that much inventory out in the open, and eyed the woman with suspicion.
Anna handed over the credstick, paying for the cheap earrings. When the man returned it with a bag, she thanked him and walked toward the exit. As soon as he looked away from her, she took a breath and held it, trying to remember how to open herself to the world. This used to be easy. Come on, like ridin’ a bike, right? The presence of three sentient minds hovered around her. Her psionic emanation mingled into their thoughts, masking the conscious realization she existed from their perception. To the people in the room, she vanished.
Invisible.
Their brains subconsciously disregarded her as she pushed at the door to make it beep as though she had left. She crept to the far counter, but neither attendant reacted to her. When the man took his eyes away from a necklace of dangly gold baguettes with small rubies affixed to the ends, she palmed it into her shopping bag and backed away.
The man continued showing pieces to the blonde. With his attention locked on the other woman’s hands, he remained oblivious to the one missing.
Anna went to the door, maintaining her projection of nonexistence in their minds. The entire area pulsed with electrical power; the door beeper, the holographic sign, and the anti-theft field emitters that would certainly sense the purloined necklace in her bag. The entirety of it came to her in threads of amber light. A three dimensional construction drew itself into her reality, a feeling of power wherever active wires lay. She merged her thoughts with the essence of it, pushing the electricity out of the security system and the door. For all intents and purposes, everything simply powered off.
A block away, she glanced over her shoulder, smiled at the lack of alarm, and became part of the crowd.
Anna had not returned to Mason’s, an old haunt of hers, since she was sixteen and fell in with Mr. Carroll. The place was still dingy and decrepit, in a part of the East End where the Propers would not want to be after dark.
A certain rustic charm dwelled in the way he’d rigged the door with actual bronze bells, and how she had to kick small objects out of her path to make it through the aisles. The rear of the shop hung thick with the combined smell of beer, cigars,
and Middle Eastern incense. She stopped at a counter with a bullet-resistant barrier made of polycarbonate resin and metal mesh. Several gouges and twisted strands of metal gave away where vibro blades and bullets tried and failed to rob the place.
Behind the protective barricade, a large man in every sense of the word leaned back in a chair that creaked beneath his mass. Easily six and a half feet tall, he seemed quite muscular beneath the paunch of a sincere love of ale. Unkempt black hair jutted at random below a fading blue bandana, and pins and knick-knacks from various motorbike events studded his imitation denim vest.
Anna sauntered up to the counter. “Oi, Mason, long time.”
The man leaned forward, letting the wooden chair legs strike the floor as his weight shifted. It took a moment for his eyeballs to appear out from under furrowing brows, and another for them to widen with recognition.
“Anna? Zat you?”
“Aye.” She upended the bag, spilling both necklace and earring box onto the counter.
Mason reached through the tiny opening for the small white cube, but Anna was faster to snatch it back into the bag. “Not that one, need to flog the gold. This is a chintzy bauble you wouldn’t want.”
He drew the necklace through the tray and dangled it in front of his face. Coarse beard hairs parted as his fingers slid through them, rubbing back and forth in an appraising glower. Anna felt the old, familiar fear come back. There was nothing stopping him from telling her to get lost and keeping it. No matter how much she’d brought him, as soon as the loot was on the other side of bullet-resistant barriers, she dreaded that every time. Mason didn’t question how she had come to possess such a thing, he knew why street youth came to him. If he didn’t know her, a well-acted posture on top of her height would’ve let her pass for fifteen. He lowered the jewelry to the counter, letting his weight rest over the chain.
“You know, lass. You’re gettin’ a wee bit old for this now. If you get pinched, Old Bill won’t let you off with a rap on the wrist and a free supper.” He grinned, flecks of green leaf clung to his teeth. “Kind of miss the glory days. I’ve you to thank for much of my current state of comfort. Shame you got in with that uptown lot. You were the best little filch.”
Archon's Queen Page 7
