Archon's Queen

by Matthew S. Cox

  Once she dressed, she tugged at the hem of her skirt. So short, it felt little different than wearing nothing. Penny offered to lend her some jeans, being only two inches taller. She fidgeted with the material, wishing she had taken her up the loan. She felt like a cheap slut for wearing something so skimpy; complete nudity would have seemed less sleazy.

  Maybe this is why Old Bill keeps giving me the biz.

  Drawing a breath, she steeled herself and walked past the easels. The students would be back the next day to continue working, so they left their work in situ. Curiosity gnawed at her, and she lifted the shrouds, peering at the smudges of charcoal.

  She choked up; the angelic figures posed upon the pages looked so far removed from any way she had thought about herself. The students restored innocence in her face that had long been absent. By the fifth sketch, tears escaped, lost in the purity of it. Is this how people see me? This was what they thought of her when they did not know she was from Coventry, or high, or a whore.

  She crumbled her fingers into her mouth, trying to stifle the sound of sobbing.

  Memories flashed while she walked among the standing frames: herself as a child watching a sheet-covered gurney wheeled out of her old house. A close call with a psychologist seeing her create lightning. Running away. As a child begging at restaurants, and then the ignored beggar was stealing. The counter of Mason’s pawnshop appeared again and again, seeming lower with each repetition. She had grown up dropping purloined goods on that pale blue surface. A face appeared out of the dark, the picture of exaggerated handsomeness mounted atop an impeccable black suit. Stealing from the wrong place earned the notice of the Syndicate, and Mr. Carroll. They knew she was more than a simple thief. She had made good money with him doing unsavory things for unsavory people, but those sort of things attracted the CSB. The zoom worked at first to hide her from the government; she’d thought she could control it.

  She’d been wrong.

  Anna swallowed; the sandy grit of the smiley ground at the underside of her tongue. People used them to enhance pleasure and happiness, especially when having sex. The drug oiled the path her emotions tried to walk, and they slipped in it, falling headfirst into a spiral of sorrow and regret.

  Among the henge of easels, she basked in the fading sunlight, the warm brown-orange glow of this time-forgotten space cloaked in ethereal serenity. Her doppelgangers looked off at an unseen bird; their facing changed a few degrees from one to the next. When she reached the students who had a clear view of her from the front, she sniffled at what was on the paper.

  They had not focused on her sex; one man had spent the most effort on her eyes and the delicate nose between them. Another had gone over and over her hair, capturing the feathered layering of her pixie cut. A third had defined the curves of her silhouette with near photographic precision, faint smudges of his fingers bringing her musculature out in three dimensions. Only one hinted at anatomical correctness, with a simple curved line. The flick of an artist’s wrist to indicate a change of light, a passing charcoal acknowledged the physicality of her being a woman without dwelling upon it.

  The sketch with the most attention paid to the breasts had been done by a girl. She marveled at the roundness, wondering if the artist had given her too much credit. Two dozen black and white apparitions stared into the air, proud and innocent―two things Anna felt far removed from.

  “Are you all right, miss? It’s been almost an hour.”

  She jumped at the voice; the professor had returned.

  Blushing at being caught with wet eyes, she looked at the floor. “I’m fine… these are beautiful.”

  His grey moustache curled with a smile. “They have potential, but still have much to learn.”

  Anna offered a sheepish nod, and walked with him to collect her credits.

  I suppose I do as well.

  he smiley had to have worn off by now. The rat of sobriety gnawed upon her brain stem. She gathered her thin coat about herself and moved among the crowd. The usual reaction to someone of her obvious station never bothered her as much as it did right then, but she held on to knowing she was no longer a stripper. She found a tiny scrap of self-respect. The wind tugged at her microskirt, causing a few men to stare.

  Even the advert bots seemed to ogle.

  She had survived by flashing her assets in the faces of drunken men, but now she wanted to disappear. For the most part, the citizens obliged and disregarded her. She wanted to turn invisible to all of London, but the best she could hope for was two or three people in close proximity. Each gust of the breeze made her feel naked. Head down, she shuffled through the crowd. Telepathic invisibility could not help, but there were far more mundane solutions to be had.

  A short distance later, two panels of inch thick glass slid out of her way, granting entry to a small clothing shop. Anna flashed a grateful smile at the mechanical doors that spared her the need of having to uncurl her arms from around her chest. The smiley gone, the zoom had been absent long enough to hurt. She had to focus and keep her mind on an even keel or she would attract the wrong kind of attention from the wrong kind of people.

  A dozen freestanding shelves jammed into the center of the place made walking through it a bit of a challenge. Clothing, still a popular item for physical stores, had not done quite as well with the to-your-door market as most things these days. People much preferred to see and touch things they wanted to wear before spending on them.

  Selecting a pair of loose black pants, the kind with pockets down the legs, she checked the size by holding it against her hips. A passable fit, her boots would absorb the extra length in the legs. Two hundred and sixty credits, a hair less than a quarter of her remaining money, but she wanted it bad enough. There would always be more pieces of jewelry to steal, and she could not put a price on dignity.

  The clerk’s gaze had not left her ass since the moment she entered. Had she zoom in her system, she would have changed right there in the open in hopes of a discount; sober, she went for the dressing room. Thin black material slid up and over her legs, cool, smooth, and best of all―form obscuring. The belly-baring shirt did not bother her even an eighth of what the skirt had as a lean too far gave people a show.

  She decided to keep the new pants on, and wadded the skirt before stuffing it into her purse. On her way back out, she selected a thin nylon belt and put it on right from the shelf. After ripping the tags off both, she approached the counter and set the stubs by the drooling young man. He made perfect eye-to-tit contact and smiled. His hand missed the tags twice before he found them.

  “That’ll be all then, miss?”

  “Quite.”

  “Two sixty for the Ruperts, thirty five for the belt… after tax that’ll be three forty-five.”

  “Oh…” She stuffed a hand in her purse. “I’m exempt.”

  “Wha?” He made eye contact at last.

  “Tax. I’m on the dole.” She rummaged for the laminated card. “Here.”

  Anna imagined his hardon drooping as fast as his face. The lust in his eyes became contempt, and he swiped the card through the terminal as if he was loathe to tolerate even touching it. She pondered zapping him out and helping herself to the credit transfer machine, but he’d scanned her card and the authorities would trace anything she did here. She glowered, ashamed of the way he had looked at her at first, and furious at the dehumanizing sneer he gave her now. Society shunned her for what she was; it wasn’t her fault she had this life. Now that she tried to pull it together he still had the nerve to look at her like that. The little voice in the back of her head whispered ‘do it… do it…’

  Sanctimonious bastard.

  The man dove to the floor, shrieking, as the merchant terminal burst into smoke and sparks.

  Dammit… She cringed, and acted startled.

  Purse tucked in the crook of her left elbow, Anna held her head high for the first time in many years. The swish-swish sound of the synthetic fabric kept up a continuous reminder she no
longer attracted every eye in the crowd. No one around her saw her as a Cov; as far as they knew, she was a Proper like them.

  The sound of a hovercar weakened her smile; the Crown permitted only the police and the military to use them in London. Off in the countryside, anyone with money could get them, but King William had become possessed of an irrational fear someone would get drunk and have a smash up with some irreplaceable treasure. Never mind the onboard crash avoidance systems would render such an event an order of improbable as to be nonexistent―unless someone disabled it.

  She looked, against her better instinct, at the unmarked black vehicle gliding overhead. At the speed of a walk, it crawled over the crowd. Too slow for a routine patrol, they had to be looking for someone. Anna ducked her head and stared at the footpath, hoping the facial recognition system had not captured her yet.

  A block later, she darted into a chippery to get off the street and because the smell had enticed her. This close to the heart of the city, nothing would be cheap. It didn’t matter to her then; she wanted to feed the illusion of being a real person.

  Small, disc-shaped bots crept about the floor, cleaning and polishing. Anna took a spot at the end of the queue and glanced at the teenagers behind the counter. One doll, off to the rear, mopped up a spill too large for the wheeled bots. The sub-sentient android was made in the image of a young man, though it had obvious lines around its mouth and at each joint. It moved like the robot it was, without facial expression or conversation to anyone near it.

  She had heard across the pond they let dolls have jobs―rather, the dolls had taken jobs away from people like her. Poor undereducated workers had little opportunity over there; they would have to go to the moon or off to a colony world to find decent paying work. At least the King, being fancifully paranoid about them, kept some doors open for unskilled laborers. Anna grinned, remembering the gossip. A fortuneteller hired by the Queen claimed a doll would assassinate him, so he all but banned them from the city.

  It was always amusing to watch the BBC whenever an ambassador from the UCF arrived with one as a bodyguard. The lengths the royal handlers would go to in order to ask the doll to stay behind without making a political incident out of it were quite amusing―doubly so when it had a human brain.

  “What’ll ya ‘ave?”

  The voice of a pale teen girl with jet hair and green eyes startled her attention forward, clicking fingernails drummed with impatience upon the glass counter while Anna gazed up and past her at holographic images of food. She did not reach for her dole card, paying the extra credits for the pride of not suffering the ignominy of being stared at like a peasant twice in one day.

  “I’ll ‘ave the regular, and an iced Earl.”

  Minutes later, she studied the tray, sixty-two credits worth of battered cod and hydroponic potatoes, on her way to take a seat at the back of the room. She regretted it four steps into the walk, spending so much money for one meal even if it was not reassembled OmniSoy. An hour from now, it would be cold, but still fish and potatoes rather than a lump of beige slime. What sat on her plate never swam in any ocean or sat at the bottom of any fishing boat, but genetically, it was cod. Her hunger waged a catfight with a dull ache, her body’s protest at the denial of zoom for two whole days. If she got lucky, this fish would run its way through her before she got sick enough to reject it. The thought of quitting, as Penny and everyone else seemed to want her to do, seemed rather plausible at that moment.

  Of course, in four or five hours, she would be a right mess. Some zoom-heads had been known to kill their own family for a score if they got desperate enough.

  Anna sighed at the plate, wondering if this was how a convict felt while eyeing their last meal.

  Already paid for it, may as well enjoy it.

  Midway through her banquet, the sense of eyes on her made her look up. Half a chip fell from her frozen lip back to the plate. There, in the back end of Chipworth’s, sat Mr. Carroll, smiling at her.

  He looked older than she remembered him, silver highlights smeared through his hair over his ears and his face had thickened. She figured him for almost fifty now, but still a pleasant looking man despite his increased weight. The black coat looked as it always had, joined by a cap and gloves folded on the table near his plate.

  They traded intermittent eye contact while she finished the rest of her meal. Whenever she glanced up, he would be wearing a curious smirk with a trace of a smile. When she got up to leave, he waved her over.

  He gestured as if tipping a hat. “Curious running into you here, luv.”

  “Innit.” Anna looked down, flicking at the pockets of her new pants. “Long time.”

  “Fate and circumstance…”

  “How are they then?”

  “What?” He cocked an eyebrow.

  “Your dogs.”

  Mr. Carroll chuckled, patting his leg as he remembered. “They’re resting peacefully now.”

  Anna sank into the seat opposite him, captivated by the pattern in the table. “Soz.”

  “Pay it no mind, they had a good life. I meant it is fortuitous we have crossed paths. I could use your talents again if you’re available.”

  Anna sat on her hands to hide the trembling. “Might be… This isn’t for Mister Cooper is it?”

  Carroll chuckled. “No, lass. That ol’ turf accountant’s got his own men now; he doesn’t contract through blokes like me anymore.” He lowered his voice. “That business with Thomas was most unfortunate, but it’s good to see you’re still alive. Word’s been you’d fallen rather hard on your derriere.”

  Mr. Carroll was the sort of fellow who put people with needs in touch with people with skills. The last time she had worked for him, she made a touch over twenty grand. At the time, she considered it shy of fair, now it felt like a king’s ransom. He held her ticket out of Coventry, if only she could keep it together. The risk of the CSB lurked like a shadow at the back of the room, breathing cold vapor down her spine. She leaned forward, leaving her hands under her knees, her voice a trace above a whisper.

  “I’ve ‘ad a bit of a rough patch. I s’pose I couldn’t handle it as much as I thought.”

  “Rough patch.” Carroll rubbed his chin. “That’s one way to put it. What about that unpleasantness at Bristol City? I could always arrange for a little accident.”

  Anna shrugged. “They’re scum what ain’t worth the effort or the owin’ you a favor. I’m feelin’ better now. I’m off the stuff.”

  “Is that so? You look like Death’s little sister.” He took hold of her arm and rotated it to examine her wrist. “Why aren’t you eating?”

  “Money.” She cringed, the sad stare from a man who knew her before her fall hit her harder than those who frowned at another dole-taker.

  “Now, that I can fix… if you’re in any shape to work.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Carroll.” She lowered her voice, leaning across the table. “CSB’s was sniffin’ about. Just like before. S’why I ran off.”

  “I imagine they would be rather keen on someone with your talents. I still have friends, girl. If you’re one of mine, they’ll leave you be.”

  “What’s the earner then?”

  “A client of mine is in need of a guardian. The usual sort of chap I work with these days is not nimble enough for this one. The client wants to get to the top of some dreadfully tall place and tap a local.”

  “So just watch his back?” I can do this. “What’s the pay?”

  “Fourteen five.”

  Kinnell! The yell stayed in her mind. She hoped the shock did not leak through her eyes. “That’ll do.”

  He reached forward and propped her chin up. “Guess the times really are as rough as they look on you. You used to quibble the change.”

  “Bit of a transitional period, I’m in. I’m fine.” She forced a smile, ignoring the twitching.

  “Still no ‘mini?”

  She shook her head. “You know why.”

  “Right then. Make contact wi
th our man at the corner of Neal and Long Acre tomorrow at eleven pm. I’ll meet you here with a stick when the thing’s done.”

  “Who’m I lookin for?”

  “Calls ‘imself Mr. Orange. Ya can’t miss him.”

  he handrail kept her from falling over while every muscle screamed in protest at the lack of zoom. When Spawny’s face appeared in the foggy curve of the autoshower tube, a spike of abject humiliation ran from head to toe. She wanted to cover herself from Spawny’s eyes, but could not unclench her fingers.

  Anna did not realize she had closed the bathroom door until Spawny barged in. She had never thought twice about leaving it open before, but that morning she wanted privacy with her shower. Sleep had been a fitful companion, sending her to spend the night on the couch to spare Faye the endless tossing.

  A brilliant blue spark leapt from the metal console in front of her chest, licking at her breasts without harm as she absorbed power from the tube. She sensed it preparing to leap to Spawny and forced it down the drain. The autoshower went dark.

  “Crimey, what the hell!” He jumped away.

  “Spawny,” said Anna in a demure tone, turning her back. “Please let me have some privacy. I’m not in the mood for your antics today.”

  The weight of his stare lingered on her back for a moment. “Well, all right then. F’ya need anyfing, I’ll be ‘cross the hall.” Light shifted on the wall as he filled the doorway. “You okay, Pix?”

  “Just tickety-boo,” she muttered.

  Seconds later, the shower tube came back online; the wash cycle restarted in time with the reboot.

  “Twee?” she yelled, her voice echoed in the confines of the tube.

  “Oi?” The girl stepped into view.

  “Be a dear and close the door please?”

  She reached for it. “Why’s ‘e just walk in on ya like that?”

  Anna pressed her forehead into the wall. “Just the way he is. Thinks it’s funny.”

  Faye shook her head and closed the door. “Perv. ‘E does that ta me I’ll hoof him right in the plums.”