by Lisa Smedman
Pita turned away, moving slowly to the back of the cell. There were more than two dozen women inside it now. If she could just hide behind some of them, she might avoid the cop’s gaze. Maybe—just maybe—he really was looking for someone else. But Pita didn’t think so. She was the youngest one in the cell.
She started chanting the mantra that had saved her in the alley, the night she’d hidden in the dumpster. Don’t let him notice me. Don’t let him see me. But then the clang of metal on metal made her jump and broke her concentration.
"Hey, you!" the cop said, louder this time. "The girl in the black jacket and torn jeans. Prisoner Number 500387378. I said turn around. Now!"
A clear space had suddenly formed around Pita. So much for the ORC slogans of solidarity. The "sisters" had abandoned her. Swallowing her fear, she turned to face the cop. She nearly fainted when she saw what he’d rapped on the bars with. His ungloved hand. It was made of articulated metal joints covered with gleaming chrome. She recognized the distinctive clicking and whirring noise it made as he extended a finger, pointing it at her. It had made the same noise as he wielded the machete that had carved up Chen and her other two chummers.
The flutter returned to her stomach. Pita was certain she was going to be sick again. She put out a hand, hoping one of the other prisoners would sense her plight and rush to her side to support her.
No one did.
"Is this yours?" the cop asked. In his other, meat hand, he held the book Pita had stolen from Aziz’s shop.
Pita opened her mouth but was unable to speak. She managed only a slight nod. Her eyes were wide and round, locked on the cop’s metal hand.
"Are you a shaman?"
"I—" pita was unable to croak out any more. Her legs felt as if all the muscles in them had lost their elasticity. She was certain they would collapse under her at any moment.
"Where’s your thaumaturgy license?" the cop asked. "If you’re practicing magic within the city limits, you need a license."
Pita almost laughed with relief. Was that all the cop wanted? To enforce some stupid little bylaw? Maybe he hadn’t recognized her, after all. The street where Chen and the others had been shot had been dimly lit. Perhaps the cops hadn’t gotten a good look at her through the tinted windows of their patrol car.
The officer cocked a metallic finger at Pita. "Come with me. There’s some special processing we’ve got to do."
Pita’s hands began to tremble. Had the cop emphasized the word "special"? What did he mean by it? She didn’t want to find out. She searched, desperately, for somewhere to hide.
But it was too late. The cop had already tucked the book under one arm and was opening the door of the cell.
20
The air wasn’t cold. Even so, Pita was shivering. She sat on the plastifoam chair that smelled faintly of stale sweat, her hands nervously kneading the worn fabric of her jeans. The room was small and absolutely bare, with concrete walls and a single green metal door. There were no windows. The only light came from a single halogen bulb set into a recess in the ceiling.
The cop who’d pulled her from the detention cell—the same cop who’d killed Chen—walked around Pita in slow, predatory circles. He paused only once, to turn off the camera that was monitoring the room. He hadn’t spoken since removing her from the cell, except to curtly direct her to this room. He’d flipped up the visor on his helmet, but what lay underneath was even worse: one cold blue eye and a cybernetic implant of glinting metal with a flat lens at the center of it.
Pita concentrated on looking at the ground, not wanting to look into that face again.
Suddenly, the cop was in her face. "Hey, porkie!" he shouted.
Pita jerked back, then tried to hide the trembling in her hands by clenching her fists around the folds in her jeans.
The cop chuckled, low and soft. He paced once more around Pita, then stood behind her, where she couldn’t see him. But she could feel his eyes on her back.
"I asked you a question earlier." the cop said in a soft growl. "Are you a shaman, or not?"
"No." Pita whispered, not sure if she was lying. She wasn’t formally trained, after all. "I’m just a kid." She tried to focus her mind, as she had earlier when controlling the yakuza’s thoughts. But all she could picture was Chen’s bloody corpse and the inhuman monster behind her leaning over it, hacking at it, dipping his cyberhand in the blood to smear a slogan on the wall. . .
"You don’t look like a kid to me. You look awfully . . . developed . . . for the age you gave in Processing." He let the words hang in the air a moment.
Pita swallowed. What did he mean by that? She was big for her age—big for a human, that was, although not so big for an ork. But the human standing behind her was even taller than she was, and twice as muscular. And he had a cybernetic hand that could crush her skull like an egg.
"You didn’t give an address." He said it hard and flat, like an accusation.
"I don’t have one. But I used to live in Puyallup until . . ." Until I goblinized, she thought to herself. Until my parents threw me out.
"You’re a Barrens brat, huh?" he guessed. But he was wrong. Pita and her family had lived on the other side of the tracks, in a neighborhood where metahumans weren’t welcome.
The cop leaned closer; Pita could feel his breath on the back of her neck. "Well, you should have stayed in the Barrens. It’s gutterpunks like you who cause all the problems downtown. Panhandling, breaking into shops, cluttering up the sidewalk by sleeping on it in your filthy blankets, spreading lice and disease . . . What are decent people supposed to do when they see you kids hanging about in gangs on the streets, selling drugs and sex? My girlfriend is afraid to go out at night because of trash like you. But oh, no—you porkies just keep breeding like rabbits. Spilling out of the Barrens in a never-ending wave of degeneracy. It’s time somebody put a stop to it. Somebody with the guts to do what’s right."
"Somebody like the Humanis Policlub?"
The words just slipped out. As soon as she said them, Pita cringed. She tensed her shoulders, waiting for his blow. But instead the cop paused—either to take a breath or to savor her fear—then started in on a new tack. "You and your precious committee want special rights, huh? And you think you’re going to get them by blocking the streets and tossing trash at our government buildings? You aren’t fit to sit in the gutter in front of Metroplex Hall, let alone walk in the front door and demand special treatment. Why don’t you porkers stay in the Underground where you belong?"
Pita sat through the tirade, shoulders hunched. She didn’t dare speak. Had she been human, none of this would be happening. She’d be safe at home, still attending high school, snug in her circle of friends. She hated being an ork—hated the way she looked. But not as much as this man did.
The cop strode around to face Pita and lifted her chin with the tip of his stun baton. He held the baton fully at arms’ length, as if using it to shift a piece of foul-smelling trash. "So tell me, kid. How do you make a living on the streets? By selling yourself?" His eyes were no longer on her face, but were scanning her body.
Pita felt a tear trickle down her cheek. She hated this man for what he was doing to her, for how he made her feel. Cheap. And dirty. She had sold herself—but only twice, and only since Chen’s death—for the drugs that had helped to ease her grief. Both times, it was to humans who looked at her much as the cop eyed her now, with equal mixtures of loathing and lust. Who wanted "something exotic." Not someone—some thing. But what could she tell this cop? That she kept herself alive by stealing? He was probably just looking for an excuse to hurt her. Either with his stun baton, or . . .
She jerked her head back, finally finding the courage to speak. "You wouldn’t be doing this to me if I were human." she said in a quavering voice. "The woman in the processing room said I get to see a lawyer. Well, I want to see one. Now."
The cop laughed out loud. "The waiting list for public defenders is three weeks long." he said. "But I suppose you’r
e talking about a real lawyer. How do you expect to pay for one, street trash?" His baton slid down her body. "With this?"
"I get to make a telecom call." Pita protested.
The cop rested the baton on his shoulder. "Yeah? Who to? You didn’t list any next of kin. Maybe your pimp, huh?"
Pita thought about what Chen had told her. He’d been arrested once, for shoplifting. He’d done a year in a juvenile detention center. She hoped the rules were still the same. And that this cop would follow them. "I don’t have to tell you that."
The cop was still holding the book on cat shamans in his flesh hand. He smacked Pita’s face with it. "Don’t get smart with me, porkie."
Pita rubbed her cheek. "I get one call." she said stubbornly. She cringed as he raised his hand. But this time, he shook the book in her face.
"You get nothing until I say so. You’re a shaman, aren’t you?"
One telecom call, Pita thought desperately. Just let me make one call. She couldn’t think who she would call—who would possibly want to help her? Not her parents. Not the friends who’d deserted her when she began to goblinize. But if she could just get out of this room . . .
The cop waved the book at her. "We have a special processing procedure for shamans. It’s called the mage-mask. It’s a tight plastic hood, with nothing but a mouth tube for breathing. With it on your head, you won’t be able to hear or see anything. And when the white-noise generator is turned on, you won’t be able to think, either." He paused, and Pita could hear his cyberhand whirring as he tightened his grip on the handle of the stun baton. "I think it’s just what you need."
Pita closed her eyes, shutting out the room. If she could just find an excuse to get out of here, into an area where there were other people, maybe she could call for help.
One phone call. One phone call. One phone call. She chanted it over and over in her mind, her lips whispering it silently. At the same time, she cast her thoughts out desperately, searching for Cat. Please, Cat, she cried. Help me. Please.
When the answer came, Pita nearly missed it. The touch was velvety soft, like a paw against her skin. A paw with claws sheathed.
As the invisible presence stroked her hand, an image came to Pita’s mind. Of a hand slipping into a velvet glove. All at once, she knew what she had to do. She had to slide—soft as velvet—into the mind of her opponent. To become one with his thoughts. To guide him gently, instead of attacking him directly as she had the yakuza back at the hotel.
Cat purred, conveying pleasure that the message had been understood. The touch disappeared.
Pita forced her thoughts outward, toward the cop. She imagined herself flowing like a ghost, slipping gently into his mind through his ear. When his thoughts started to boil past her in an angry torrent, she nearly backed away, nearly broke contact. His mind was a seething cauldron of hatred, filled with his urge to hurt her, to humiliate her. There were memory pictures there, too—of the view from inside the Lone Star cruiser of a group of four teenaged orks on a darkened sidewalk. Of watching one of them—her friend Shaz—throw a chunk of concrete at the vehicle. Of the cop’s partner—a man with the nickname Reno—smiling and squeezing the trigger that activated a machine gun built into the front of the cruiser. Of three orks falling, jerking like bloody puppets, while one ran off into the night. Of following the running ork, whose face merged in the cop’s mind with the face of every other ork he’d ever seen, ever hated ...
With a start, Pita realized that this cop had not, in fact, recognized her. She was just a young meta he’d picked out of the detention cell because she was smaller than the others and he thought he could bully her. He didn’t believe she had any magical ability at all and didn’t see her as a threat; he’d just used the cat shaman book as an excuse to bring her to this room. But the thoughts that swirled through his mind as he looked at her now—as she looked through his eyes at herself, cringing with eyes closed and mouth whispering as she sat on the plastifoam chair—made it clear that this wouldn’t help her. He didn’t care which ork he took out his misguided "vengeance" on. He only cared about making her too frightened to tell his fellow cops about it afterward.
Entering the cop’s mind had taken only a second or two. Pita changed her whisper, molding it to his train of thought. Let the kid make one telecom call, she urged. It’ll look better that way. You can bring her back to the room later, in a few hours, when things cool down. It’ll look less suspicious that way. But if you don’t let her make the call, the guards in Detention will start to talk. They’ll wonder why the kid was taken from the cell. And why you’re not following procedure.
Pita was still inside the cop’s mind when she felt his lips begin to move. "One telecom call." He said it in time with her whisper.
"One call, and then back to the detention cell for you. We’ll continue this interrogation later."
***
Pita rushed down the corridor toward the barred door that was all that stood between her and freedom. "Masaki!" she shouted. "You came!"
The reporter waved at her from the public waiting room. He was a most unlikely looking rescuer. His shirt was half untucked, and hung loosely over his chubby stomach. His wide cheeks were spotted with gray stubble, but even this wasn’t enough to make him fit in with the tough-looking crowd of orks, scragged-out humans, and streeters who crowded the containment facility’s waiting room. He looked old and soft, his face too open and friendly. If Pita had seen him on the street, she would have pegged him as an easy mark for panhandling. But right now, she looked upon him as her knight in fragging shining armor.
She waited impatiently for the Lone Star guard to key the code into a panel behind the door. When it opened, she ducked through it quickly, still afraid that some fragger would change his mind and order her back to the cell.
Masaki half lifted his arms, as if expecting a hug. But when Pita stopped a few steps away, he dropped his hands. She gave him a nervous grin. "Uh, thanks, Masaki."
The reporter nodded. He looked chill about posting her bail, but he’d probably want a more concrete thank you later. They all did. But for now, that didn’t matter. Pita was happy to see a friendly face—any friendly face.
"You were lucky the holding facility was full. They were eager to clear out a few detainees." he said. "And lucky to have only been charged with a misdemeanor. If it had been anything more serious, they wouldn’t have let me post bail. Certainly not on the night of your arrest, anyway."
"I know that." Pita couldn’t keep the irritation out of her voice. Masaki sounded like he was lecturing her. Who did he think he was, anyway? Her fragging father?
"They said you could collect your stuff from the property office." he said. "It’s down this way."
Pita followed him out of the waiting room and down a corridor. At the property office, the cops made her sign an electronic signature pad before they gave back the things they’d confiscated from her earlier. Pita heaved a sigh of relief, seeing that the book on shamanism was included among her possessions. Her final mental command to the cop who’d tormented her had taken root, after all. She opened the plastic bag and took out Chen’s ring, the loose change, and the book, then dropped the bag on the floor. Let some drekhead cop clean it up.
"I’m parked in the visitors’ lot." Masaki said. "Let’s go."
Pita followed him outside, smiling as the door closed behind her. It was dark; it must have been close to one in the morning. The night air was cool and fresh; the light sprinkling of rain had washed much of the smog from it. Overhead, between the patchy clouds, a few stars sparkled.
Pita savored her freedom as they climbed the parkade stairs to Masaki’s car. The feeling was overwhelming, better even than being on Mindease. Except, of course, for the small tickle of worry she still felt. How long until that cop—Number 709—caught up with her again? It won’t happen, she told herself firmly. He isn’t looking for me. He’ll find someone else to pick on. But she couldn’t be sure.
Masaki drove slowly, keeping
exactly to the speed limit, despite the lack of traffic. Only after they had put several blocks between themselves and the containment facility did Pita think to ask where they were going.
"Back to my apartment." he answered. "You can spend the night there."
Pita gave him a sideways glance. "I already have a place to crash." she said carefully. "Just off Denny Way, near the highway. You could drop me there on your way home. Or I could walk if you don’t want to—"
"I don’t think so, Pita. You wouldn’t be safe on the streets. You’re better off with me. For the time being, at least."
"I wouldn’t be on the streets. I’d be—"
A note of irritation crept into Masaki’s voice. "Pita, I just paid five hundred nuyen to bail you out of that detention center. I think that gives me some say in where you’re going to sleep tonight. Or don’t you think so?"
Pita immediately fell silent. She stared out the window, suddenly very tired. She’d wanted to think that Masaki was a good guy, that she’d read him properly. Now she wasn’t so sure. She hadn’t been out of jail ten minutes, and already it was payback time.
The drive to Masaki’s place took about fifteen minutes. He lived in a highrise complex in Bellevue. The entrance to the parkade was through a double-doored security gate that required the driver to provide two separate retinal scans before admission was granted, and the lobby of the apartment block itself was watched over by a live guard, rather than the usual remote cameras. Pita decided that the building was designed either for the very cautious city dweller—or the very paranoid.
The fellow gave Pita a long look as she trailed through the lobby after Masaki. Why was he staring at her? Didn’t they allow orks in this building? Or was he just wondering what Masaki was doing, dragging in "street trash" in the early hours of the morning?
An elevator whisked them up to the twenty-fifth floor. Masaki led Pita down a corridor, carpeted with soft plush, to a door that bristled with yet more security features. He not only had to slide a magkey through the lock but also had to provide a voice sample and yet another retinal scan.
