A distant door slammed.
“Kinda terrifying, actually,” said Spawny, his emotionless face snapping into a smile. “In a good way.”
“You’ve been there for me every step for ten years… I couldn’t just stand there and let them―” Anna sniffled.
Spawny extricated himself from the kitchen as Penny walked around the table to comfort her friend. Anna held on, and they cried on each other’s shoulders for a good ten minutes. Neither paid much attention to the muted cheering of a stadium of Frictionless fans in the living room.
Once Penny calmed down and went to sit with Spawny, Anna got up, gathered Faye’s unfinished food, and tiptoed back to her apartment.
She found Faye hiding between the bed and the wall in a full on cry. Anna set the food on the nightstand and sat on the bed with her back facing, quiet until it became apparent the girl would not speak first.
“Don’t mind him, kiddo. He doesn’t know what happened to you.” Anna lowered her voice. “Was me what got bent over the rubbish bin that night. Living out here makes you wanna give up. I was going to just lie there and let him.” She remained quiet for a moment. “I couldn’t let ‘em do it to Penny.”
“He’s an ass.” Faye muttered.
“I’m not gonna lie to you. He was tryin’ to scare ya into wantin’ to go home to your folks. We all think you deserve a real life.”
“They don’t want me. They think I’m a liar.”
“Twee…”
A small hand bashed the nightstand. “Don’t call me that.”
“Look, Faye. They might be idiots but they―”
“They don’t believe me.” The girl lunged to her feet, kicking the side of the bed. “Mr. Bell did that to me… just what Spawny said, and they think I made it all up for attention.”
“Want me to kill ‘im then?”
Faye was quiet for a full minute until a little whisper slid through her teeth. “What? Did you just ask me if I wanted you to kill him?”
Anna sat still as stone, save for the small bundle of lint she rolled betwixt her thumb and forefinger. Back and forth it went; she watched, unblinking. Little fibers split apart from the mass as it moved. The girl walked in front of her, red-eyed.
“Yes. Do you want Bell dead for what he did to you? Could you go home if he was gone?”
Faye sank onto the bed, sitting next to her. “You’re not bloody serious?”
“I don’t care what ‘appens to me. My life is already down the pan.” Her thumb traced over the faint red footprint from the last dose of zoom. “I don’t want you with me in the same gutter, you still have a future. Besides, I’ll probably get away with it.” I’m good at making accidents.
“No.” Faye shook her with both hands. “I’d rather be here with you than home and ‘ave you rottin’ in some jail. Bell’s a piece of shit, but it’s not worth what’ll ‘appen to you for it.”
Anna at last made eye contact, hers every bit as puffy as Faye’s. The lump in her throat grew. “You need to go back to your folks. I want to help. You have parents that still love you, even if they are obtuse about it. My dad wanted to kill me. I had no choice but to run away. I don’t want you to make a mistake that’ll ruin your whole life.”
Faye saw it in her eyes, the guilt and shame. “Did they?”
“The Crossmen just got handsy. Old Bill showed up before it got to that point, almost arrested us for public indecency.”
“What? Arrested you? You were almost raped!” Faye gasped.
Hands clasped, Anna looked down. “We’re Covs, Faye. We don’t matter. If you stay out here, it’s only a question of when. What Bell did to you is horrible, inexcusable, and I’ll kill him for it―but worse waits for you here. Go home.”
Faye sniffled. “I don’t want to look at him. He lives right next door.”
She pulled the girl into a hug, patting her on the back. “Don’t worry about ‘im, luv.”
The girl sobbed on her, letting out a burden of shame and guilt. Anna did her best to comfort her, sitting in silence for some time after the tears stopped.
“You need to finish your brekky. I worked hard for the credits, almost got shot for it. Eat.”
“What? Shot?”
Anna handed her the plate. “I never went to university. I either gotta wag my tits or work for interesting people. You really need to get―”
“Pixie?” Penny yelled from her apartment. “Get in here now. You have to see this.”
They scurried across the hall, finding her pointing at the vid. A bored Spawny bemoaned the interruption of his Frictionless match.
“Play it again from the start.” Penny playfully swatted at the back of his head.
He flailed. “Oi, knock it off, woman. Calm the feck down.”
She grinned and went to swat him again. He caught her wrist and pulled her over the couch into his lap.
A tiny holographic panel appeared by Spawny’s hand as he swiped a finger across the progress bar. Scrolling text identified it as the hourly news update.
“The Metropolitan Police today released these images taken from a triple murder in downtown London. Three members of the ‘Crossmen’ street gang were found shot dead in an alley behind Zaimi’s Restaurant.”
The feed zoomed in, showing the three men that had attacked them. Lying where they had remembered them, but with additional ventilation. All of the bodies had been shot, once each in the approximate center of the forehead. The conspicuous electrical scoring on the one man’s chest was gone.
“The execution-style shooting is just one in the latest series of violent incidents involving inner-city gangs. Chief Inspector Edmond Green had this to say…”
The image shifted to that of a middle-aged man in uniform with half-grey brown hair. Thick and tall cheeks wagged as he spoke out from under a curtain of diaphanous white eyebrows.
“At the moment, we are attributing this to a retributory attack conducted by either the East End Boys or Clan Brannagh. The violence in this case appears to be related to territorial disputes among rival organized groups and we do not feel it represents a significant threat to the law-abiding public.”
The reporter, a wan fellow in his later forties, came back to the view seated behind a desk. “There you have Chief Inspector Edmond Green with the Met―”
The holographic panel flickered and imploded to a tiny point, leaving silence and darkness in the corner where it had been a second ago. Spawny looked at the two women, his finger still stuck through the intangible power button.
Penny shivered and held on to Spawny. Anna reached over and held her hand, trying to calm her nerves. Faye, not wanting to be alone, sat on the arm of the couch.
“What the devil was that?” Penny looked back and forth between them. “Those men weren’t shot… Anna…” She stopped herself, realizing the girl was there.
Spawny ran a hand up and down her back. “Not the first time you’ve seen news changed for easier digestion?”
Anna glanced at the window, having thought she had seen something moving. “What ‘appened in that alley was some gangbangers killed some other gangbangers. That’s all the Propers can ‘andle, and that’s all Old Bill will allow them to know.”
Spawny set about muttering reassurances to Penny about how no Crossmen walked away from the scuffle, and how none of them would be coming after her. Anna found herself amid a three-way hug.
“Geez, you guys should just have a threesome and get it over with.” Faye grumbled.
“Capital idea, lass! G’won back to Pixie’s flat so we can get on with it.”
Anna smirked at him. “Honestly… I’d rather you knocked that bit off. It’d be like havin’ a shag with me brother.”
Spawny made a pained grimace halfway between a cringe and a smile. “Never thought of it that way.”
“Anna, you know he’s just sayin’ that. He’s not serious.” Penny, head in his lap, looked up at him. “You’re not serious, right?”
“Course not.” Spawny
huffed.
Anna moved to the edge of their bed, the only other seat in their ‘living room.’ Faye followed, sitting close. Everyone was quiet for a few minutes until Spawny flicked the mute off and the sounds of a goal horn rang out. Penny’s sniffling twisted at Anna’s gut.
“I’m thinkin’ of gettin’ a regular job. I don’t want to dance anymore.”
“Are you blushing?” Penny shifted upright, leaning on Spawny.
“Probably.” The charcoal figures flashed through her mind in series, her voice lilted between a whisper and speech. “I don’t want to feel like that again.”
Penny tilted her head. “What’ll you do then?”
Anna shrugged. “Heard Sainsbury’s is lookin’ for cashiers or stock people.”
“That’s the um, hydroponic joint, innit? The one wit’ tha real ‘spensive shite.” Spawny embraced Penny from behind. “‘Ow bout we just cuddle tonight then?”
With a grin, she turned and kissed him before looking back to Anna. “The green apron will suit you I think. Better to be seen in public with that than your last work uniform.”
“I rather preferred the former.” Spawny offered a bawdy wink.
Red-faced, Anna pulled Faye to her feet and went towards the door. “We’ll leave you two alone then; looks like you want some privacy.”
Faye glanced at the Frictionless players swarming over the holo-panel before giving Anna a suspicious look.
Cascading waves of water thrummed into the plastic tube, all but drowning out the screaming in her head. Anna curled at the base of the shower, shoeless but otherwise dressed, soaked as a wharf rat and lost to uncontrollable shaking. Lights at the top made her feel like a creature on display in some old and forgotten exhibit; the rest of the apartment lay quiet and dark. Dr. Heath said the symptoms would still come, but they’d be a tenth of what would have been otherwise. Still, she’d spent the better part of the last day in and out of bed using Faye as a living teddy bear for support on a roller coaster ride that went from feeling like she had a mild flu to wanting to die to escape the agony.
Fuck me. This is a tenth of it?
Lacing through her hair, her fingers massaged the aching to different parts of her scalp. She imagined the taste, a slight metallic presence in the back of her throat, of a fresh dose of zoom. Her tongue flicked at the roof of her mouth, hoping for some trace of relief from the uncontrolled spasms ripping through her. Her friend’s laughter was painfully loud upon her brain, despite filtering through several walls.
At least Penny is coping.
Thunder rolled over her body as if the lightning had hit the ground between her feet. She curled into a ball, head between her knees. It happened again, a feeling as if the entire shower tube came under assault from heavy artillery. The third time, she looked up at Faye on the other side of the glass thudding her shoe into the wall.
“I thought me dad was cheap… Never saw no one tryin’ ta scrub up and do laundry at the same time. Mind leavin’ me the loo for a min? Need a gypsy.”
Anna nodded and clawed at the walls in an attempt to stand and reach the control panel. A swipe at the flashing colors set the dry mode into full tilt and she whirled about once in the blast of hot air before falling into a heap. When tube opened, she spilled out onto the floor on her back, semi-damp.
Faye shook her head. “Oi, you’re a complete hames.”
The girl pulled her from the shower, dragging her by the armpits for the door. She gave up trying to get her out into the bedroom and propped her back against the wall. Anna slid to the side, fetal upon the ground and shaking. She closed her eyes and tried to exert control over her muscles, but could not tell if the shakes remained or if she imagined them. Black mortar and white tiles blurred into a spiral of grey.
The sound of a flushing toilet peeled her eyes open. The black of Faye’s shoes wavered inches from her face amid a blinding field of white. The girl had turned the lights on, flooding the bathroom with pain. Moaning, Anna tried to crawl away from the glow, but bumped her head into the autoshower. The sensation of impact ran down her body, bounced off the soles of her feet, and came back up into a blooming migraine. Faye, once again, pulled her up into a sitting position and set her shoulders to the wall. The girl took a seat beside her, threw an arm around her, and held on.
Time slipped in and out. Anna became aware of a blanket, and clung to her roommate of circumstance to keep from sliding to the ground.
“You’ve been in there for hours, think you’ve washed out.” Faye padded at her forehead with the towel, catching the drips the fell out of her hair. “‘Ow long are you gonna be this bad?”
Anna coughed to clear her throat, triggering a bout that ended in a half-vomit. When she could again breathe, she spat the bile and sighed.
“I dunno, luv. Never got this far along in a try to quit before.” She took Faye’s head in both hands. “Promise me you’ll never do this shit.”
Faye’s expression went sour. “Why the hell do you care?”
“Look at me.” Anna clung to the child tight, so she could feel every tremble. “Do you want to end up like this? Do you want to be dead in an alley somewhere before your twenty-fifth?”
The girl looked away, frowning. Amid the upsurges of pain through Anna’s mind, she picked out the occasional bit of Faye’s surface thoughts. It hurt to flex the psionic muscle, like jabbing a finger on a bruise. Her parents had threatened to take her to a psychiatrist for ‘making up lies’ and ‘acting out.’ They did not believe her about the neighbor. Her father thought she had gotten into occultism, Dead Ballerinas being the gateway. Running away had been a desperate ill-conceived idea as frightening as staying in arm’s reach of Mr. Bell. Faye was terrified he’d do it again, and next time she wouldn’t be able to get away before all he did was touch.
The tough-girl act was just that.
Anna grasped fistfuls of her shirt and shook her. “I’ll not let you cock up your life like I did. I’ll set it right.”
She pulled Anna’s fingers out of her clothing and held her hands a distance away.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re as fine as I am.” Anna’s semi-psychotic laugh echoed out into the bedroom. “Which ain’t very fine… Imma deal with that problem of yours and you can go home where it’s safe. You can grow up as a Proper, not throw yourself into this shit.” She tried to stand but shoved clumsily at the wall. “I’m gonna show that nonce what it’s like to be touched in a bad place.”
“No.” Faye yelled, slapping her. “Stop it! You’re scaring me. Don’t kill anyone.” The girl stared at her, flushed and furious, for several seconds before she burst into tears. “I don’t want you to go to jail for me. Don’t leave me here alone.”
Anna blinked. Intense pain rode upon a shock wave that started at her cheek and slithered in slow motion down through her body. The impact had stalled the shakes as well as her thought process. She stared aghast at the blue-haired person in front of her. It took a full minute to realize Twee had clamped herself about and sobbed out of control into her shoulder, begging her not to do anything stupid and make the police take her. The more upset Faye became, the angrier Anna felt.
If she did nothing else before Coventry killed her, she would help this kid.
mears of light and color flashed around Anna. Storefronts, streetlamps, and advert bots all came together in a disorienting spiral that followed whichever direction her head swayed. She remembered plucking a home address from Faye’s surface thoughts while putting her to bed, promising to speak to her parents and not do anything stupid. Nine Clifton Hill should not have been difficult to find, though most of her mental faculties went toward staying on two feet.
No memory of her passage through the police barricade remained. As far as she could recall, she had gone right from her flat to the middle of London. Blaring horns chased her across streets, and armies of faceless blobs avoided her undead gait. She felt a few hands on her searching pockets, though she had forgotten her jacket a
nd the credstick in it back at Coventry. She had nothing to steal, so she ignored them.
Disoriented, Anna stared into the sheen of a streetlight reflecting from the pavement, mesmerized by the ten-foot long smear of radiance shimmering in the light rain. She was so painfully sober she felt high; every muscle took too long to react, and reacted too much when it did. Block after block drifted through a dissociative smear of time. More bots floated up to her offering various products their algorithms calculated she needed. Holograms bearing hangover cures, stimpaks, anti-paks, vitamins, jackets, and underwear herded her along. Her friend with the umbrellas popped in to check on her as well.
She tried to hug it, remembering the little orb that acted so concerned for her. Evading her lunge, it slid off down an alley as she embraced a puddle. The jolt of the icy water on her chest sent her upright with such speed her head felt like it stuck to the ground for a moment before snapping into place. The frigidity stunned her lucid, and she realized she’d strayed way off course.
Amid a reprieve from delirium, Anna forced herself upright and jogged in the direction she had meant to go. A few alleys over, she caught a whiff of chemicals in the air―a cruel hint of Flowerbasket. Her body followed the source of the fragrance despite her mental screams of protest. Five young men had propped themselves up against the crumbling brickwork of an old tenement; she tumbled over a stack of refuse cans and hit the ground on all fours.
Anna remembered surrendering her last zoomers to Dr. Mardling. His reassuring face appeared, telling her she would no longer need them. The fragrance of chems came on as a smoky whip, shattering his face into fragments of falling flesh-colored glass.
Don’t, don’t, don’t. Go away. Get up and walk away. Get your worthless arse out of here, Anna!
“You guys got any zoom?” asked a voice that sounded like hers.
She crawled toward them, trying to smile. Cold water washed over her hands from puddles and the rain fell like needles through her thin half shirt.
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