by H. A. Swain
My HandHeld beeps. 8:45. “Oh crap, I have to go!” I say. “If I’m not at the MediPlex by nine…”
“Want me to go with you?” Dorian asks.
“We shouldn’t be seen together. It’s too dangerous right now,” I tell him. “You should go home. Both of you. Make up an alibi. Say you were together all night at home. I’ll go to the MediPlex and then back to my POD. I’ll ping you if anything goes down.”
Marley nods and puts his hand on Dorian’s shoulder. “She’s right.”
I gather the money from the box.
“Is there enough?” Dorian asks.
“Plenty,” I say, teary with gratitude.
* * *
I ride my red bike as fast as I can and arrive at the MediPlex with five minutes to spare. At the elevator bank, I push all the buttons, then decide there’s no time to wait. I’m worried the Robos have already gotten Nonda out of bed and are shuffling her out the door. What if they put her in the elevator and she’s on her way down while I’m going up? So I take the stairs two at a time, clicking off floors, hoping that they’ll wait a few more minutes. When I get to the third floor, I zoom around the corner and sprint to her room, yelling, “I’m here! I’m here,” while waving the stack of cash over my head. I see Robo wheels beneath the edge of curtain seven.
“Wait!” I yell and rip the curtain aside then hang on to it, panting, “I. Can. Pay.” My eyes go straight to the empty bed where the Robo is changing sheets. “No!” I yell. “Where’s my Nonda?”
The RoboNurse’s head unit spins toward me. “Visiting hours are over in … three minutes.”
I grab for the Robo but it quickly wheels away from me. I chase after it. “Stop. Where’s my grandmother?” My voice cracks. “It’s not nine o’clock yet! I can pay her bill. She can stay.” I shove the money toward the robot but of course it doesn’t care. “Where is Layla Robinson?” I demand.
“Mrs. Layla Robinson…” it says and pauses. “Has been moved to … the geriatric memory unit on floor five, room six, bed number … two. Her discharge date is … one week from today.”
“What?” I gasp as if the wind has been knocked out of me. “You must be wrong. I didn’t pay yet.”
The Robo’s digital eyes blink at me.
“Oh my god, I need to speak to a human!”
“Would you like to speak with a human?” it asks.
“Yes, please!” I whine. “Dr. Garcia? Is she available?”
“One moment.” Its face screen blanks out for a few seconds. I try to catch my breath, calm down, and not cry. The money is sweaty in my grip.
Then Dr. Garcia’s face is on the screen. “Can I help you?” she says.
“I can’t find my grandmother,” I blurt out.
“Oh, it’s you!” she says happily. “Your grandmother is doing great.”
“But she’s not here.”
Dr. Garcia cocks her head to the side. “Yes, she is. I moved her to the geriatric unit after her mammogram and set up a consult with the gerontologist for tomorrow.”
“But how? I haven’t paid her bill yet.”
Dr. Garcia looks at her screen, perplexed, but then she smiles again. “Yes, you did,” she says with a little laugh. “Yesterday. Or someone did.” She splits the screen on the Robo’s face so I can see the info, too.
“But wait … I didn’t … Who?” I step closer. “What’s this?” I jabbed my finger on the Payment Received link from yesterday, which opened up the transaction. Sure enough, someone’s transferred funds into her account.
“There’s been a mistake,” I tell Dr. Garcia. “This payment wasn’t from me. It must be for another patient.”
Dr. Garcia shrugs. “Consider it a grace period, then. Billing will work it out. In the meantime, your grandmother is okay, Zimri. She’ll be here at least another week while we run more tests and try out some new meds. I’m hoping to enroll her in a trial for a drug that I think will help tremendously.”
“Can I see her?” I ask.
“Visiting hours are now over,” the RoboNurse says. “Please proceed to the exit.”
“Tomorrow,” Dr. Garcia tells me. “Come back tomorrow.”
“Okay,” I say, confused, but I turn to go. Then I stop and look over my shoulder again. “Thank you,” I call to Dr. Garcia. “Thank you for taking care of my grandmother.”
“Of course!” she says. “Us Nobodies have to stick together.”
* * *
I leave the MediPlex and ride along the river path, trying to puzzle through how someone else has paid my grandmother’s bill. All I can figure is, the bills must have gotten crossed and soon enough the system will figure out the error. I hope some other old woman isn’t out on her ear tonight. In the meantime, I’ll put the cash from Nowhere someplace safe until I have to pay up.
When I approach the bend in the river where Nowhere is nestled under the embankment, I speed up. Stomach acid creeps up into my mouth because I suspect Medgers is on patrol, ready to nab anyone stupid enough to still be nearby, but everything is as calm and quiet as when I left half an hour ago. I let out a long sigh and look up into the night sky. The clouds from earlier have begun to move off and the stars are peeking out. It’s been the strangest night of my life. Both good and bad, happy and sad. But mostly, utterly exhausting. Somewhere up the river, a whippoorwill cries its name over and over into the night. I join in its sad song, making up lyrics as I go.
“Oh whippoorwill, whippoorwill, I know just how you feel, singing for a broken heart that may never heal.”
ORPHEUS
For the next half hour, after I leave Nowhere, I sit inside my Cicada scanning the Buzz, trying to find information about whether Zimri managed to hijack another LiveStream, but there’s been nothing. Not that I should be surprised. My father has probably done everything possible to ensure a hijacking never happens again.
There is, however, almost nonstop coverage of my supposed disappearance and potential death. My father, who’s off in Europe, claims I ran away after he threatened me with rehab for my Juse addiction. “His mother never let him have a pump so he self-medicates with black-market Juse,” he claims, then says they can trace my path that night via my Cicada’s GPS. “We know he crashed into a river,” he says but refuses to release the exact location for fear of a media frenzy.
“If anyone has any information regarding my son’s whereabouts,” he pleads, as if weary with worry and fatigue, “ping the Chanson Industries hotline. Otherwise, I beg you to allow us to conduct our search in peace so we can bring him home.”
Then they flash pix of me from over a year ago, when I was two inches shorter, ten pounds lighter, and my hair was completely different.
“What a load of crap!” I say aloud. My father’s message is coming through loud and clear. He knows exactly where my car is sitting and wants me to stay gone. As I suspected, I’m worth more to him when I’m missing. That way he gets pity points while he battles Calliope in court.
Not to be outdone, my mother has launched her own PR campaign contradicting my father. She insists I don’t have a drug problem (thanks, Mom!) and that my father has me locked inside a surgical facility where I’m being forced to have an ASA against my will. My father, of course, denies this and calls my mother unstable. As usual, the media is all over their public skirmish like maggots on rotting meat.
I turn off the Buzz—let them conduct their battle without me for once! Instead, I scan the waves on the receiver until I catch a hint of a familiar voice. The song starts out far away and moves closer as I spin the dials, trying to tune her in. Then I realize: the song is coming from outside, not from the receiver speakers. I open the car door and jump out. Her voice is loud and clear.
“Whippoorwill, oh whippoorwill, I know just how you feel,” Zimri sings. “Singing for a broken heart that may never heal.”
“Zimri!” I yell as I run from under the willow tree up to the path. “Zimri!”
“Look out!”
Brakes squeal. I spin
around, but it’s too late. The bike is already on top of me.
“Oooph.” I go down hard on the path. Feel the tires roll over my arm. Hear a clatter and a thud.
“Seriously!” she yells as she slides past me tangled in her bike. “Do you wait in the middle of the path for me?”
“Why are you always riding like a bat out of hell?” I peel myself off the ground and crawl toward the dark lump I assume is Zim. “Are you hurt?”
She kicks the bike away and hops to her feet. “I’m fine.”
“No blood?”
“I said I’m fine!” she growls.
I pick up the bike and say, “Zimri, darling, we really have to stop running into each other like this!”
Rather than laugh, Zimri runs at me with her arms straight out and shoves me hard on the chest. I drop her bike and stumble backward.
“Hey!” I say. “What was that for? You’re the one who ran me over. Again!”
“You could have gotten me arrested!”
“I know! My god.” I rush toward her, my hands reaching out. “I’m so so so sorry. But I think it’s okay. I’ve been checking the waves. I didn’t hear anything about a hijacking.”
“Are you some kind of spy?” she asks, her breath in ragged pants as she keeps her distance from me.
I stop. “I thought we already established that I would make a terrible spy.”
“Are you working for Smythe and Beauregarde?”
“Who?”
She stamps her foot in frustration. “Why were you at the show?” she demands from between clenched teeth. “Why were you calling my name?”
“Because I was excited!” I throw my hands up in the air. “Because it was you!” I grab her shoulders. “Because you were amazing!” I give her a little shake. “I just got carried away. I didn’t think about what was happening with that camera thingie and the LiveStream. I didn’t know you did it the first time. Everybody thinks it was Calliope Bontempi!”
She smacks my hands away but seems to calm down a bit.
“And I don’t think you managed to do it again,” I tell her. “My da … I mean, those people in the City, the patron, they know how to disrupt signals pretty well.”
She takes a deep breath. “Are you sure?”
“I think it would be all over the Buzz or at least the waves by now, but I haven’t heard a thing.”
She bends over and puts her hands on her knees to take a few deep breaths. “Yeah,” she says. “You must be right, because if I had broken in, someone would have busted me by now.” Then she stands up and stares at me with angry eyes again. “But you outted me. Nobody, not even the people in the audience, is supposed to know that was me. Hello? Black masks? Hidden identity?”
I chuckle. “Are you joking? You’re pretty unmistakable on stage. Who else but you can sing like that? Who else but you moves that way? And who else but you has that hair?” I hold my hands out around my head to mimic her wild curls. “It’s not exactly hidden under the weird black mask. And why would you want to hide? You’re one of the most talented, incredible people I’ve ever—”
She turns away. “Stop saying things like that about me!”
“But … why?” I ask and go after her.
“Because! It’s embarrassing.”
I shake my head. “Not if it’s true.”
“That was an illegal concert!” she hisses.
“The hijacking, sure…”
She looks over one shoulder then the other. “No, the whole thing. Making music. It’s not legal.”
“That’s not true,” I say.
“Yes, it is,” she insists. “Hello! Harold Chanson, the big music patron in the City, owns the part of the brain that makes music. How can you not know that?”
I can’t help but laugh. “He might like to think he does, but—”
“Good god!” She waves away my words and sighs. “This has been the strangest night of my life.”
I inch toward her now that she’s calmer and no longer trying to kick my butt.
“What were you doing out here, anyway?” Zimri asks. “And how did you know about the show? Did somebody tell you?” She looks at me and bites her lip as she waits for my answer. I know that look of anticipation. It’s the same one any Plute gets when we’re wondering if we made the Buzz.
I hate to disappoint her, but I want to be honest. “I just stumbled onto it. I was going to my…” I point toward the willow tree then stop myself but Zimri’s eyes dart that way.
“Whoa, what’s that light?” She heads toward the glowing canopy.
“It’s nothing. Don’t go under there!” I say but it’s too late. She’s already pulled back the low-hanging branches to reveal my banged-up Cicada.
“Holy mother of…” She turns to look at me with her mouth hanging open. “Is this yours?”
“No, well, yes. I mean sort of, but please don’t…” I jog over as she disappears beneath the curtain of leaves.
“Whew!” she yells. “It smells like a dirty sock!” She climbs in the driver’s seat and pushes all the buttons on the dash like a little kid who’s never seen a flying car. “This is fancy!”
“Please don’t. You shouldn’t … Hey, stop it!” I reach in and grab her wrist.
Zimri looks up at me. “Wait a sec.” We lock eyes and I think I might be busted. I brace myself for her to put all the pieces together but then she says, “Are you living in here?”
For a moment, I consider denying it. Making up some crazy story, but why? I’m so sick of how I’m living. Sick of pretending everything is fine. So in that moment, I lean against the door and I say, “Yes and if I don’t get a shower and a decent night’s sleep soon, I’m going to join a pack of coyolves and run off into the wild.”
“But why?” she says. “Why don’t you just go home?”
“Well, for one thing, home is complicated right now and for another, my car would never make it.” I conveniently leave out the part about staying because of her.
“I can’t do anything about your home life.” She looks up at me and smiles. “But I know someone who can fix your car.”
* * *
After twenty tries, the Cicada finally fires up and with Zimri in the passenger seat, we clunk and clang down the deserted river path until we get to a fork.
“That way,” says Zimri, pointing. “That will take us into Old Town.”
“Old Town?” I ask, wary. “I heard it was dangerous.”
“Nah,” says Zim as we bump down a hill, past scraggly lots of abandoned buildings. “People who say that aren’t really from here,” she explains. She points down a deserted, pockmarked road. “They moved here to work for Corp X and think everything past the Strip is a wasteland.” Around the next corner, we come to a street that looks as if it were once the main drag of a quaint small town with wide sidewalks in front of rows of old limestone and brick buildings. Overhead, old-fashioned stoplights swing in the breeze. “Sure it’s a little rough down here. But as Tati says, what do you expect if you come in and take away every ounce of ownership and pride from a town. People find ways to scrape by.”
“You mean black market stuff?” I ask.
“Why is it, when Plutes sell us stuff, they call it an economy but when Plebes sell stuff to one another, it’s called the black market?” Zimri asks.
“Touché,” I say.
“There.” She points to an old shop. The windows are blacked out and there’s no sign above the door. “That’s the place,” she says. “Pull up in back.”
Inside, the shelves are full of every old device I’ve ever seen and many that I haven’t. Ancient laptops and tablets as thick as my hand. Funny old smartphones people carried in their pockets decades ago. Optical head-mount displays they once wore like glasses. 3-D game systems from when my dad was a kid. All kinds of receivers and radios and lots of stuff I can’t begin to name. Then a woman who looks vaguely familiar, short and stout with thick dark hair blunt-cut around her ears, comes out from behind a curtain.
“Zimri!” she says happily. “How’d it go?” When she sees me, she stops. “Who’s this?”
“Hello, I’m Aimery.” I step up and stick out my hand. “I work with Zimri. Haven’t we met before? At the warehouse or the Strip?”
“Not places I tend to frequent.” Tati lets go of my hand but keeps her eyes on me for a moment as she turns back to Zimri. “So, my camera didn’t work, did it? I watched the LiveStream but nothing happened.”
“And good thing, too,” Zimri says while shooting me a look that makes me cringe.
“Did you like the little distraction that I caused?” Tati asks. “Had all of security at the SQEWL.”
“That was you?” I ask and Tati nods as if we should be impressed.
“Some of us have a gift,” she jokes. “If you bring the camera back, I’ll see what I can do.”
“That’s okay,” says Zimri. “I’m laying low for a while. Things have gotten…” She trails off then says, “Weird. But that’s not why we’re here. Aimery has a repair job for you.”
“Does he now?” Tati asks, eyeing me again.
“It’s out back,” Zim tells her. “Can I use your bathroom?”
“Of course,” says Tati. “You know the way.”
After Zimri’s gone, I follow Tati through the curtain and out the back door to where my Cicada is parked.
“Nice wheels,” she says as she walks around my car.
“They used to be,” I admit. “Can you fix it?”
“Probably.” She stops and leans against the driver’s side door. “How’s your friend Rajesh?”
I freeze. A bead of sweat runs down my side. “Rajesh? We have met, haven’t we? In the City, right?”
She nods.
“I bought a receiver from you once?”
“Among other things.”
My face grows warm at the thought of the empty flasks in my glove compartment.
“I wouldn’t think a kid like you would need a Corp X job,” she says.
I try to laugh but it comes out more like a cough. “My situation changed since the last time I saw you.”
