Killers, Traitors, & Runaways

by Lucas Paynter

  It was a longer wait for Jean’s name, and Cetus Vellum admitted to being unsure if he remembered it correctly. After some intense prompting from a teacher who staunchly avoided addressing anyone on a first name basis, she’d called herself Jean Dìzhèn.

  Neither name produced a whit of information, incriminating or otherwise. “It’s … probably nothing.”

  “Nothing doesn’t keep you off the net,” Rina said. “Even if you’re boring and lame. Unless … what if their parents are radicals or something? Those anti-techs who believe in bodily purity?”

  “It’s not impossible—” Leria started.

  “You’re right…” Rina’s eyes widened in understanding. “It makes perfect sense! What if they’re not just anti-techs, but one of those freaky terrorist groups that don’t register so they can blow a bunch of people up?!”

  Rina began hyperventilating. Eventually her lungs would be upgraded and such panic attacks would be less of a problem. For the moment, Leria kept a paper bag around, and gave Rina a minute to breathe into it and calm down. Once she steadied, Rina whipped her attention back to Leria’s monitor and began rapidly composing a message.

  “What are you doing?” Leria asked in concern.

  “We need to warn people,” Rina said. “Our classmates, at least. Maybe even the police, or the government! They could get a Manhunter down tomorrow—”

  “Hey, whoa!” Leria pulled Rina’s chair away from the desk. “You don’t have any proof of anything! You’ll just make a few skins look bad if you expose them like this! Maybe—maybe they witnessed something really terrible! Maybe all their files are sealed for some reason!”

  “…Maybe…” Rina didn’t hide her reluctance. “At least promise me you’ll stay away from them. If this Mack guy is really gonna leave, just let him. Get your life back to normal and avoid getting mixed up in something dangerous.”

  Leria shook her head, amused by her friend’s overreaction. But Rina’s earnest expression caused her to mull over the request. She spent most of the night thinking about it, but didn’t have it in her to accede.

  * * *

  At night, light erupted from Annora’s gaps—every alley and avenue—creating a massive, luminescent grid. Jean had come to the rooftop alone, but it hadn’t escaped her notice that Flynn was cautiously approaching. The two hadn’t spoken much in recent weeks; they weren’t very close anymore.

  “I ain’t lookin’ for company.”

  Flynn stopped short, just out of arm’s reach. Jean stared into the depths of the restless city, whose lights dulled the stars above and made her forget how late it really was.

  “You won’t stay mad at me forever.”

  His statement embittered Jean. She knew it was true—that whatever hatred she felt toward Flynn, she hadn’t disowned him. Nor had she stopped calling him friend, for it was a relationship she placed great stock in, and he hadn’t done anything to irreparably damage it.

  “I understand,” he went on. “You detest that I should speak so candidly about your feelings.”

  “Then why the fuck do ya keep doin’ it?!” she whipped around and demanded.

  “To get you to talk.”

  Jean flushed, angry at being so easily provoked. They had so little in common. The one thing she’d thought they shared had been proven a lie, and because of that, Jean no longer knew what to make of their relationship.

  “You ever know what it’s like to run for yer life, Flynn?” she asked, her voice straining. “To have hid and be so scared you’ve actually pissed yerself ’cause ya can’t budge?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Well, I do!” she roared, rising to face him. Her breath was heavy, her fists clenched instinctively and aching from her schoolyard brawl, the pain racing through her forearms. Both arms were subtly engorged from elbow to wrist—a mutation she’d been born with, one that came with tremendous power and a stigma to match.

  “It was the way of the world,” Flynn replied unflinchingly. “The way it was before either of us were born. We all played our parts: those who were like me … and those like you.” Jean heaved a heavy breath, but let Flynn go on. “It wasn’t right, but it’s how things were. And it was easy to be a part of that system when I still looked normal.”

  Jean’s anger softened as she wondered what Flynn had looked like before. Without the pointy, gnarled ears, without the hairy frame and slitten eyes. When his fingers had had no claws within them. The first time they’d met, she’d believed him to be a ‘half-human,’ like her; he more than looked the part. After escaping Terrias, he’d admitted his lie, a confession that stewed in her like sickness.

  They lingered in silence for a time.

  Her troubled mind settled, and eventually Jean gave a trembling sigh, having come to a simple conclusion.

  “You deserved it.”

  Flynn knew what she meant, and said nothing.

  “I don’t know why you got uglied up like ya did, but you deserved it. The eyes, claws, and teeth … you deserved it all.”

  “That people might see me for the monster I am.”

  “If nothin’ else,” Jean replied. She wasn’t in a hurry to figuratively kiss and make up, but part of her wanted to forgive him. Even so, she wasn’t ready yet, and turned away without another word.

  * * *

  Leria awoke early the next morning, her thin blanket crumpled aside, wearing nothing but a thin shirt and panties. Her parents were fully automated—save for their minds, where technology had not yet caught up—and didn’t see the point in wasting electricity to cool the apartment for the comfort of one. Stale air blew in through the window. There was more shade than light around her as Leria sat up and stretched.

  She pulled on her uniform with little care, adjusting her skirt and fixing her holographic tie before her room’s automatic door slid open at her approach. Her father sat at the table, browsing the morning news while nursing a nutrient drink. It was little more than brain fuel, as the modern human body ran on power sources far more infallible than food and rest. Even so, the mind still needed both. Her father hardly seemed aware of her as Leria poked through the barren pantry.

  “You’re going to be late if you don’t leave soon,” he commented casually while she excavated several packets of dried food. It was hard to find anything fresher without a lengthy field trip, and Leria hadn’t been up for it in months.

  “I know,” she replied, tearing open a packet with her teeth. “I’ll be going as soon as I’m done eating.”

  Her father looked up. “You could always take the train.” She froze, then shook her head rapidly in response. “Sorry,” he said, and returned to his morning read.

  It was an hour’s walk to and from school, and Leria could arrive in a sixth of that by riding the rail. A phantom pain echoed in her left leg at the thought, and she flexed the prosthetic that had replaced it to remind herself it was really gone. Fear made her take the long way.

  When Leria left, she hurried along the automated paths, darting past leisurely commuters along the way. Long had she navigated Annora, and other cities in the surrounding isles until just a few months prior. There were many roads, high and low, that most didn’t know about or consider, and Leria was cutting through a back alley when she unexpectedly collided with a man coming around the corner.

  “Ow!” She lost her balance and fell back, his chest predictably sturdy for one of the locals. Yet as Leria looked up at him, she was surprised to find the head on his broad shoulders was flesh, colored by light scars on his tan face. A rugged poncho was draped over his clothes, all of which were too thick and heavy for Annora’s humid climate. The way he was perspiring, it seemed he felt it.

  “Sincere apologies,” he told her, offering his right hand to help her up. Yet where his hand should have been, there wasn’t more than a stump, wrapped heavily in leather chords. He laughed in earnest at h
is error.

  “It’s fine, fine,” she assured him with a smile as she stood. “I’m used to pulling myself back up.”

  “A recent misfortune,” he explained, indicating his damaged hand. “Had an unlucky spat with a vindictive taskmaster. Was actually just searching for a local clinic to have the thing replaced.”

  “There’s one just two levels down, three streets over,” she told him.

  “My gratitude, and good day to you,” he replied, and hurried on his way.

  “Was it worth it?” she asked. He turned back, surprised. “Must have been a pretty bad argument for him to do … that.”

  “Oh, quite,” he assured her. “Quite worth it.”

  Leria watched him go off. If he was skin under all those heavy clothes, he was more impressively built than anyone she’d ever met. It was a shame then, that no matter how brawny he might actually be, any common prosthetic arm could outmatch him.

  She hurried along and, despite the minutes lost, still arrived at Education Center 2/5 with time to spare. Although her morning routine would usually include looking for Rina, Leria found her focus directed toward another. She tried to move casually, but without knowing Mack’s routine—or if he was even still attending—she could only hope to bump into him.

  It was a stroke of luck, then, when she saw him talking with the red-haired girl from the previous day—Jean, she remembered.

  “Mack!”

  Mack and Jean were both surprised to see her, albeit for entirely different reasons; one was pleasant, the other simply confused. As Jean asked, “Who the fuck are you?” Leria felt her good cheer sour.

  “Oh, this is the Leria person I met yesterday!” Mack explained.

  Putting her best foot forward, Leria extended her good hand in greeting. Eying it suspiciously, Jean eventually accepted with a firm, hard shake. “I saw your fight against Ruelim yesterday,” Leria admitted, a little star struck. “You were … it was pretty cool, actually.”

  Momentarily taken aback, Jean tried to brush off the compliment. “Wasn’t much. Guy kinda cried like a little bitch, actually.”

  “I hear he’s getting his whole face replaced,” Leria told her, recalling yesterday’s hearsay.

  “No shit? Over that?”

  Jean was genuinely surprised, which in turn surprised Leria. She’d thought it would be obvious, but shrugged it off and replied, “Guess it was as good an excuse as any.”

  The bell for first period had just rung when Jean decided to introduce herself, curiously leaving off the “Dìzhèn” that Rina had dug up. Maybe they’d been given the wrong name?

  “Guess that’s my cue to get to class. ’Cause I’m a student here at … this place.” Jean paused, trying to remember. “Education … sen-something…?”

  “Center. 2/5,” Leria reminded her.

  “Yeah, that place. This place. I’m learnin’ shit here.”

  Mack gave a little wave, and he and Jean turned down the hall. Leria smiled and waved in return, before she remembered why she’d been looking for Mack in the first place.

  “Hey, one second!” she called out as she ran up to them. Talking to the two skins had already gotten her unwanted attention, and Leria was sure putting herself out like this would do nothing for her case.

  They both turned again, but one look made it clear who Leria wanted to speak with. Jean gave them space, crossing her arms impatiently.

  “You wouldn’t still be interested in meeting up after school, would you?” she asked hopefully.

  “Not sure…” Mack said thoughtfully. He looked to his friend, asking, “We got any plans—?”

  “Take him,” Jean said, almost dismissively. “Look, we’ve got nothin’ goin’ on. Just don’t lose him, okay?”

  Amused with Jean’s reaction, Leria failed to notice Mack’s, bothered to have been passed around like a piece of meat.

  * * *

  You didn’t listen to a word I said, did you?”

  Rina hadn’t hidden her disappointment during lunch.

  “Still…” she’d conceded, “maybe it’s good you’re doing something healthy and normal like this. Never know—could inspire you to finally catch up with the rest of us!”

  The telltale way Rina had rubbed Leria’s left, biological arm expressed all her friend’s highest hopes, as though she expected Leria to stop by a clinic on the way to a hot date and have her surviving limbs hacked off and replaced.

  Leria glanced at such a clinic as she was conveyed down the avenue, shuddering to remember her most recent visit and the sound of twisting metal that had preceded it. She reflexively picked up her pace, advancing to the diner where she and Mack were to meet, eager to leave bad memories behind. Yet when she arrived, he was nowhere to be seen. Am I early? She wondered with dismay. Or is he late? A worse feeling followed. Or have I been stood up?

  “Hi-ya, Lersy!”

  She stepped back, looked up, and found Mack strewn across the awning above the diner’s entrance. He rolled off it and landed in front of her on all fours before jumping upright. His uniform had become disheveled and he spared no thought to straightening it as he grinned in greeting.

  “Ah, hi,” she said with embarrassing delight. “Shall we go in?”

  The diner had an old-fashioned door, the kind that had to be pulled open manually, and Mack hung lackadaisically from the handle, yanking it open with one hand while gesturing with the other for her to enter. Though they were the subject of many strange looks, Mack didn’t seem to care and in truth, neither did she.

  The diner was a somewhat tacky throwback to a period when the once-divided nations of Breth had had an ongoing interest in space travel, before those interests dried up and developments were focused inward. The motifs were worn and uncared for, and the place was cutely called the Cosmic Citchen, as though the misspelling somehow made the name cleverer.

  As the nutritional needs of the average citizen had taken a chemically balanced nosedive, the Citchen’s menu was more sweets and indulgences than anything else. The portions were modest and mostly catered to youths who hadn’t fully upgraded yet, as well as the irregular adult who had simply chosen to keep his or her head.

  Having placed their orders, Leria and Mack could do little else but sit at the table and watch each other awkwardly, eyes to eye.

  “Sooo … what do we do now?” Leria realized she hadn’t thought this far ahead.

  “I dunno,” Mack shrugged. “Tell Mack about yourself?”

  “Heh, what’s there to say?” she laughed nervously. “I mean, my grades are decent so I’ll be graduating with my class, I guess. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing after that. I tried applying to a few colleges, but none of them accepted me. How about you? What year are you in?”

  “This one?” Mack seemed puzzled by the question. She felt a pang of frustration, no longer sure if she was asking the wrong things, or if she’d given Mack’s intelligence too much credit. While she fidgeted in her seat, his attention strayed to her bionic arm. “So how’d ya fetch such a nifty appendage?”

  “The usual way.” Mack looked dismayed; he’d been expecting a story. “I was a little girl and my daddy—my dad, I mean—took me in for my first upgrade. I was really excited at the time,” she laughed, though her cheer quickly subsided. “Until I woke, I mean. I got scared … really scared, actually. I panicked and broke a bunch of things with my new arm. They had to remove it until I calmed down, and all the while I was crying about how I wanted my old one back. I couldn’t have it, of course. They’d already gotten rid of it.”

  Leria smiled, to offset any awkwardness. It wasn’t the kind of story she’d have told most people, but seeing how Mack was far more skin than she was, Leria hoped she could trust him with it. Still, she instinctively pulled her skirt over her synthetic left leg and hoped he wouldn’t ask about that too. Some stories were less comfortable to sh
are.

  “So what about you? Where are you from?” Part of her wanted to be more direct and learn how he’d managed to lose an eye and why he hadn’t replaced it, but she hoped such a curious tale would come along naturally.

  “Not … here,” Mack slowly replied, as though trying to find some clever way to name his point of origin. “Far. Far far. Very, very far.” He tapped his fingers together, trying to find something to add. “Me and Jeannie used to bum around a lot before comin’ here. Food wasn’t exactly aplenty, if ya know what I’m sayin’, so we were usually stealing, scavenging, haggling, straggling.”

  “Where in the world would you have to steal to survive?” Leria had a hard time imagining a place on Breth where such desperate measures were needed. If anyone else had told her this, she’d have thought them a liar, but her previous concerns over Mack’s lanky frame seemed to support his claims.

  “Nowhere here,” he replied awkwardly. He sighed, then admitted, “Actually, here, yes. Bit of a slump now. But I’m bettin’ things’ll chip up real soon!”

  When their food arrived, Mack dug in like it was the best thing he’d had in weeks. Halfway through, his mouth full, he stopped to ask, “They let people do the dishes here to pay, right?”

  “I’ll … take care of it,” she told him. Seeing how ravenously he was eating, she’d have felt guilty offering anything less. She waited until he’d had his fill before picking up their conversation. There was something she’d been wanting to ask him. “I’ve been wondering, about you … and Jean. Are the two of you…?”

  “Best chums?”

  There was no denying her curiosity had been amorous in nature and, as though it were written all over her face, Mack shook his head.

  “If ya mean like that, then, naw. We’re not like that. I mean, not for a lack of trying—”