Archon's Queen

by Matthew S. Cox

A hand on her shoulder pulled her up until she sat on her heels. The hard, wet heels of her boots jabbed at her through thin nylon.

  “Look at this skank, Donner… She’s wild for it.”

  The men were little more than a sea of blurred colors and the fragrance of stale synthetic beer. A hand drifted past her face holding a crinkled white sheet of plasfilm. The only object in focus, a one-inch square derm affixed to it.

  Zoom.

  No, you dumb whore. Get up. Run!

  She reached for it, but it pulled away. She chased, swatting and grasping at empty air. Before she realized, she stumbled toward them, not remembering standing up.

  “What’ll you give us for it, bitch?”

  You left the money at home anyway. I don’t need money to kill that piece of shit. Anna rubbed her forehead. No, talking to parents.

  She patted her bare abdomen, hunting for absent jacket pockets. The man laughed, knowing the look on her face. Her eyes tracked the bouncing derm around in a circle, still the only thing in focus.

  “‘Ow bout a show then, bint? Dance and you can have it.”

  Fuck. Don’t do it. No… You should have stayed with James.

  Her body twisted into a drunken imitation of her club routine. She slipped through a flooded pothole and hit the ground hard, but scrambled back up and continued. Laughter echoed around from all sides. Darkness, a flash of light on bricks, darkness, blurry men surrounding her; she went in circles until the dance ended atop a rubbish bin.

  “Get yer kit off, give us a real show.”

  Don’t you dare, you stupid worthless whore!

  Her hands moved without consent. Inside, she screamed as if someone else stripped her against her will. The wet half-shirt slid off, her breasts bounced free. More applause and then the derm flashed right in front of her eyes, so close she could have snagged it if she’d had any reflexes left.

  She continued to dance, chasing the bouncing patch like the pace ball of a karaoke machine. Cold water hit her feet, she stumbled out of her boots, and then her pants were gone. She did not know, or care, if it was her hand or one of the men who took them. Anna pranced, naked in the rain, dancing like an inebriated moth in pursuit of a taunting candle ever out of reach, a flame that would consume and burn.

  Droplets fell on her; the voice in her head sobbed, begging her not to do it.

  Around and around she whirled, the derm came and went. The light on the bricks flashed white in the dark.

  “Please… I need it so bad…”

  No. You don’t. Stop! The angels are crying. A dozen easels bearing white squares formed in her mind. Shadowy outlines of herself animated, covering their faces, weeping.

  The hand flicked it. A beautiful, deadly sheet of plasfilm spun like a shuriken, flying in a left-curving arc into a pile of trash. Anna galloped after it like a fetching dog, and dove headfirst at the pile. She clawed with desperate fury, flinging refuse into the air, pawing, throwing, whining. Desperate.

  The men laughed.

  Finding it at last, she held it up with a triumphant grin and peeled the derm from the backing, not noticing the ease with which it fell away.

  Don’t you dare.

  She smashed the thing against her arm, squeezing down on it and biting her lip with anticipation. The rain fell stronger, cascading in waves over her back, the hard paving chewed on her knees and shins. Men’s laughter grew louder.

  Nothing happened.

  Whimpering, she peeled the derm back and found the pad dry and dessciated. They had teased her with a used one; her humiliation had been for nothing. Shame hit her with the force of a lead blanket. She curled into a ball and tried to cover herself with her hands.

  Stupid girl. You deserve this. Don’t even try and say it’s not your fault.

  The squeaking of wet rubber on pavement snapped her head up in time to see the handful of young men in red and white sprinting off, having stolen her clothes. A man waved the bundle at her, hurling insults and mocking laughter. Others held up their NetMinis and took image captures. They mocked her with every name imaginable. She crawled into the pile of trash for cover, but shivered as the rain found her anyway. The patter of droplets upon the plastic bags overpowered the distant sound of traffic as well as the voice crying in the back of her head.

  A lamp on the wall exploded, plunging the area into midnight and showering her with fragments of hot glass and sparks. She stared at the mouth of the alley, watching the occasional car slip past. Trapped by her embarrassment for the better part of half an hour, she bit her knuckle, remembering the march of shame.

  Abject humiliation had murdered the mental urge for zoom. Whatever force had taken control of her had run off with the thugs. The walk to Plonk’s flat a few days ago had not been a big deal; she needed Zoom, he had zoom, and she did not care at all what people thought of the naked harlot stumbling down the street with glowing blue wings.

  I don’t want to be a harlot anymore. I hate this place.

  Another car passed the end of the alley. The rain strengthened and the wind grew colder. Staying out in this would be bad for her health, but it took another ten minutes for her to drum up the nerve to stand. She covered herself with her hands at first, but when she reached the sidewalk, she reconsidered. If she acted ashamed, people might laugh and make fun of the situation. If she acted nonchalant, she could seize control. If she seemed desirable rather than embarrassed, it would not feel so bad.

  That lasted ten steps.

  No sooner did she realize people stared than her hands flew in a desperate search for modesty. Eyes down, she tiptoed forward at a demure pace. A few people called out asking if she needed help. If she stopped, the police would get involved and start asking questions she was both afraid and ashamed to answer. Chasing drugs or planning to murder a nonce, neither were things she wished a discourse with Old Bill about. In her delicate mind-state, she might even blurt about being psionic.

  When she ignored offers of help, the mood of the people changed. A woman her age nude in public who was not frantic, not crying, and not making eye contact had to be on drugs. She had to be someone from Coventry. The first voice that called her a whore caused her to cringe from the disgrace of it, and killed a streetlamp. Nothing reined in her emotion. The little thing in the back of her mind leapt into the world, frothing at the mouth. Anna kept her head down, gathering her arms tighter around her body as she put one foot in front of the other, faster and faster, to get away from the horrible words.

  “Such a tramp,” a disgusted sounding older man yelled.

  If you’re offended, why are you looking?

  Anna shrank a little more and a vendomat blew up in a fusillade of sparks as she passed it.

  A shrill female voice cried out. “Pervert.”

  An air handler two stories above detonated with an electrical zapping sound. Clanging fragments of metal fell to the street, sending some of the Propers scrambling.

  A block later, a man shouted, “Put something on, you bloody tart.”

  I would if I had anything you tosser!

  A great arc of lightning flew from a nearby streetlamp into the puddle below it, followed in seconds by the bulb going off in a report that echoed for blocks.

  “She just wants attention, so shameful.”

  No, I don’t. Stop watching me!

  All the power in a passing car arced from the in-wheel motors to the wet road, leaving it dead in the street. She came to a halt, looking up with the startled realization she could force some of them not to see her. Her clothing could take the form of telepathic invisibility. The gathering of mental energy, and the accompanying grin, dispersed at the feeling of a hand on her arm.

  “Do you need hel―”

  A man stood right behind her, his coat held out in offer when he made contact. The instant his fingers touched, an intense jolt threw him into the air and sent his body bouncing off the window of a bakery full of stale pastries. The clatter of his hitting the thick resin panel drew the attention of
everyone.

  Anna backed away, staring at the victim of her accidental discharge. He moaned, still alive, at the edge of consciousness.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Terrified of the police inquiring about an unexplainable assault, she ran, slipping and skidding in the driving rain. Sliding into walls and bouncing off vendomats, she sprinted two blocks over and three down before slowing to a walk. Under the cover of a dark section of street, she came to a halt and tried to catch her breath. Motionless, she folded her arms across her chest and sank into a squat. Anna stared at a trail of water that ran off her nose and fell between her knees to rejoin the small ankle-deep river in which she perched on the balls of her feet.

  Freezing water numbed her toes as it sluiced toward the storm drain, the sound of its descent into the oblivion of the sewer louder than the air rushing through her teeth. The wind threw the downpour in her face with each gust, her body wracked with shivers of exhaustion and cold. Anna considered letting gravity take her to the ground, lying there and giving up. Rapid breaths slowed to a calm intake and release of air and the sounds of approaching people sent her back to her feet after a brief rest.

  What the devil are so many bloody people doing outside at this hour?

  A surge of anger―at herself for chasing the zoom―welled up inside. She forced her shaking body to stand, firing off hateful stares at a cluster of pedestrians snapping image caps of her with their NetMinis. Two of the devices ignited, startling and distracting the crowd. She trudged ahead, unsure where she was heading. The rain left the footpath slippery. She wanted to run, but fatigue and fried muscles added to the numbing cold and made her balance unsteady. Anna forced her legs to keep moving, walking with gaze downcast and hands in place as best she could to retain as much dignity as one of Coventry’s residents could possess.

  Derisive stares followed as she walked away from offers of assistance. People here would call the police for finding a woman traipsing about in the all-together, not like the lousy sections of town where street girls did that all the time. If you were poor enough, the cops had better things to do than give you a hard time over it―but they might take a tax. Those girls didn’t mind.

  I’m not one of those girls.

  She moved up to a trot to avoid as many prying eyes as she could, her hands in a constant battle to shield herself. Bursts of dazzling orange flecks leapt from streetlamp after streetlamp, her thinly veiled humiliation reached out into the world and drew forth a fanfare of blue arcs from sputtering electronics. Anna trailed a cavalcade of fireworks, dead lights, and car alarms for another few blocks before salvation appeared in the welcome blue-green glow of an autocab station. She abandoned modesty for a full sprint.

  Under the beautiful dryness of the teal awning, she spent every ounce of willpower she had left to steel her nerves and ignore the small crowd collected to watch her Lady Godiva performance. The aqua colored podium created an unending train of car icons scrolling through a holographic cartoon city from left to right. Their grilles and headlights formed smiling faces intended to be appealing, but even they laughed at her miserable state. One quaking hand exposed a rain-soaked breast to the evil chill of the wind long enough to tap the request button.

  For several minutes, none of the crowd said anything; some took vids of her while others feigned shock. She thought of saying she had lost a dare, but her voice hid in a deep dark pit somewhere beneath her self-respect. She positioned herself against the rear wall of the autocab booth, rattling against the cold plastic, and tried to cover as much of her body as she could.

  A middle-aged woman, one of the Propers, glared at her and pointed. “What’s the city comin’ to, the ‘ores prancin’ about like this. No morals left, I say.”

  Anna’s face burned red and she found herself lunging to lean at the crowd and screaming, “You’re no bleedin’ better for staring at me, ya old cow. ‘Ave a little damn respect and look the other way. I’m tryin to get the hell inside you demic old cunt! I was bloody mugged.”

  A gasp swept through the crowd. One by one, their NetMinis and other personal electronics burst in flashes of disintegrating plastic and tingles of blue crawling sparks running down their arms. One man howled as some implanted headware overheated. He clutched the side of his face and stumbled away at a drunken run from a burning piece of metal in his skull he could not evade.

  Anna’s back slid down the plastic as she fell into a squat against the green and blue barricade. “Go on then, piss off. Stop staring at me.” The shout petered out to a timid whisper. “Please…” She touched her face to her knees and sniffled.

  At a loss to explain why all of their handhelds failed at the same time, and perhaps feeling a tiny bit of compassion, some of the crowd meandered off. Cupping her hands over her mouth, she exhaled through them in an attempt to force some warmth back into her fingers.

  As one man started to unbutton his coat, a tiny green driverless car rounded the corner and came to a halt. Its front-end was made to look like a cute smile, and the hubcaps bore yellow happy faces, which landed upside down when it stopped.

  The side door opened upward; she leapt through, landing on an unforgiving seat and slammed the hatch closed. She scooted over cold, coarse cloth until she leaned against the far wall, where she curled into a fetal position on the forward-facing seat. Deafening raindrops drummed on the roof, but they no longer nipped at her exposed skin. Another bench faced to the rear, covered in the same cheap fabric without even an attempt at being cushioned: thin cloth over hard plastic. Still, it surpassed wet pavement. Even inside the heated car, she kept shaking. The cold had soaked through to her bones.

  “Hello! Welcome to Britain’s Autocab. Where may I take you on this fine evening?”

  She tried to ignore the threads of ice crawling down her back, speaking through chattering teeth. “Need to fare on the reverse. Doctor James Mardling, please… of Oxford.”

  Huddled in a ball in the back seat of an autocab, she shied away from the faces that loomed at her through the foggy windows, straining to get a peek at the naked wretch. Her humiliation edged toward the realm of rage, but she held it fast, lest the autocab suffer the consequence. This thing had to remain intact. It was her ticket away from a nightmare. She rubbed a hand over her feet, trying to warm them.

  A bleary voice murmured from the console two minutes later. “Who is this? Do you ‘ave any idea what bloody time it is?”

  Doctor Mardling’s face appeared in hologram a few inches in front of the control terminal. A hand floated into the image, wiping sleep from eyes that widened when he saw her.

  “Great Caesar’s ghost! Anna, what the devil’s happened to you? Please tell me you’ve not been―”

  “No, no… I just got… Someone pinched my clobber is all.” She blushed and looked to the side at the seat. “I need ‘elp. Please.”

  “The hell would anyone steal your dirty rags?” A voice that emanated only from his side of the terminal drew a scowl. “Yes, yes. Bloody hell, I’ll accept the fare.”

  “Thank you for using Britain’s Autocab!”

  The cheery singsong jingle faded away and the car lurched forward. Anna lay sideways on the seat, fetal and shaking, trying not to give in to the emotional load wanting to come out of her eyes. Doctor Mardling cared. He wanted to help her from the moment he had seen her.

  Staring down at her soaked and trembling body, it hit her she might just be in need of some assistance.

  ostled about in the back of the tiny car, Anna hid low to the seat in an effort not to give other motorists a show. Amid the alternating pattern of teal and orange squares woven into the light grey fabric, she searched for what she would say to him. The heat had kicked into high, fogging the windows over to an opaque pattern of drifting lights and traffic, blobs of whitish-yellow and red bathed the interior in a color like shining a flashlight through a closed palm.

  She curled up on the bench seat, shivering. Up front, the emergency steering controls wobbl
ed as if manipulated by an invisible driver. Tiny nubs in the front dash, they seemed a toy version of the control sticks for normal cars. In theory, they existed in case of a system failure, but in practicality, they were so small as to be all but useless. Why would a corporation spend credits on things only necessary in an emergency?

  The autocab spun around a corner. A sudden downhill lifted her weight off the seat, sending her sliding ass-first into the far wall as it pulled a hard right. She crashed down on her back, feet against the roof. Before she could scream, she rolled onto the floor when it jammed to a halt.

  “Thank you for using Britain’s autocab. Your travel fare is forty-three credits, paid collect. Have a wonderful morning.”

  The single gull wing door lifted skyward, leaking pure white fluorescent light into the cabin. Anna curled into a ball again and stared at the blinding patch of outside, broken in the center by the dark silhouette of a man. He faded into view and reached toward her.

  It was James, holding a blanket out for her.

  Anna blushed as she sat up, so ashamed of herself she had to cling to the handles to keep from shaking into a spill. She emerged from the tiny, sheltering car into the cold post-midnight air of a subterranean parking deck as frigid as the concrete beneath her foot. At least the air was dry.

  He wrapped her with a warm embrace of fabric that tickled at her thighs an inch above the knee. The amazing feeling of no longer being exposed sapped the strength from her legs. James reached for her. Expecting a hug, she gasped in surprised when his arm scooped behind her knees and lifted her up like a babe.

  “Welcome to your new life, Anna.”

  Quiet as he turned, she leaned her head on his shoulder. The autocab had been kind enough to drop her off adjacent to the elevator, and in short order, they ascended to the forty-second floor. A few people returning home at this hour from various functions and late nights at the office all paused to ask if everything was all right. James made something up about her being robbed down to, and including, her clothes. It felt strange to have people act concerned; none of them knew where she was from.