He liked to call her his personal GPS. He’d wrap his hand around her waist and drag her along everywhere, saying he was helpless alone, and yet, he always had the sense of being both at home and lost anytime they were together. Where did he stand? What was she thinking behind those fits of curls? What was the correct combination of compliments and comments that would unlock her, re-program the way she felt about him? He stopped asking her these questions a long time ago. Anytime he tried to get inside and pick her brain she would shrug her shoulders and go quiet. Firewall up.
He wasn’t paying attention and suddenly tripped on a raised piece of concrete, falling face first into a puddle.
“Uugh!” He pushed himself up as quickly as he could, trying to not to get soaked. Flinging his legs underneath, he stood upright. Despite his weight loss it was no easier than lifting an anvil. The blood drained from his head and he saw flecks of stars swarming like gnats caught inside his eyeballs. His breathing was labored, as if it might never be caught. He reached out to steady himself but there was nothing to grab.
Then he started shaking, shivering more like it, although it wasn’t even chilly. It was a feverish cold, running in his blood right down into his marrow. He had no meat, no skin, no protection. He was transparent. A baby’s sneeze could blow him over. Anybody or anything could infiltrate his barriers at this stage: Villus, Eurasia, the old brown woman selling rugs.
It was a bad idea to come here. Where? Skunk Alley or to CorMand?
He stumbled through another puddle and shuffled down the street, pressing his hands to his head.
“You fell,” a booming voice came from the shadows.
Eli flinched like a skittish cat with nowhere to hide. Out of habit, he reached into his pocket to grab his shank, but it wasn’t there. There was nothing but his worthless handheld because he was nothing but a Corp-jock now.
“H-hello?” He wished his breath would slow back to normal.
There was the sound of boots scraping across concrete and a beast of a man stepped from the shadows into the blue light.
Eli tilted his neck up to see the black man’s scarred face.
He wore a fur coat, the collar reared up like a lion’s mane enhancing his wide shoulders.
“You looking for someone?” the man asked, his eyes indifferent.
Eli exhaled and his street senses returned like a guide dog. He mirrored the man’s lax expression. “You know Rex?” He found it was always best to get a feel for whether it was a good idea to drop certain names in certain places. Out on the streets friends and foes changed sides so often, it was wise to get a read on someone first.
“No,” the man said.
“Oh.” So much for name dropping. “Where’s Skunk Alley then?”
The man nodded his head toward the ground.
Eli pointed down. “You mean I’m standing in it?”
“No, right now you standing in’a puddle, man.” He sniffed. “And that puddle along with ever’thing you see on this street.” He gestured left to right. “Is all under Blue Sax jurisdiction. You understand?”
Eli did, more than this man could imagine. He had wandered into some gang territory he had no business in.
Eli spoke with careful reverence. “Can you tell me how to get out of here and get to Skunk?”
The man’s face remained stoic. He simply pointed behind Eli. “Follow that street and make a left at the red booth on the corner.”
“’Preciate it.” Eli turned and walked away quickly, but not too fast. It was best to show just the right amount of fear: enough to be respectful but not so much to be judged as vulnerable.
He nearly missed the red booth because the section of the street wasn’t lit. He made the left turn and slowed his stride.
Yes, this had to be the place. The street was illuminated by only the glow of the Kradle moon. The sliver rays against the surrounding buildings cast a thin strip of light directly down the center, like the stripe of a skunk.
Fidgety movements broke the camouflage of the shadows. He blinked, and on both sides of the street, outlines of people formed against the walls. Some were sitting on the ground, while others huddled together standing in between busted windows. They were firmly pressed into the darkness, as far from the light as possible. Eli briefly toyed with the idea they were vampires.
He squared his shoulders and walked down the center stripe, crunching on broken glass, glittery in the light.
All eyes were upon him, but where else could he go except straight through? A woman stepped out into the path, her heeled purple boots clicking loudly. She was wearing a long white wig, her eyebrows were gone, but, she had drawn them with a shiny purple pencil to match her boots.
She didn’t say a word, just looked up at him with ducky lips.
“Rex sent me,” Eli tried.
She popped her gum and he could smell the sweet rot. “That way.” she nodded toward a cluster of dumpsters at the end of the road. “Skeet’s there.”
Eli nodded and moved past her. As he went by she grabbed his crotch just tight enough to stop him.
“I can help you too.” She raised both of her purple brows and grinned, revealing a gold tooth.
Eli took her wrist softly and removed her hand. “Thanks for the offer, but I gotta see Skeet.”
“I’ll be here all night!” she called after him.
He studied the dumpsters, situated in a semi-circle along the brick wall. His heart was pounding so hard he worried he might pass out.
One foot after the other. Steady. Steady.
As he approached, a man, thin as a toothpick, darted out from behind a bin as though he were expecting Eli.
“Who’s there?” He hugged the wall and squinted, studying Eli with black olive eyes, so dark and vacant he may have been blind.
“Skeet?”
A smile spread across the man’s face and Eli then understood his name. With his two buck teeth and pointy nose, the guy did seem rather skeetish.
“Do we have a new customer?” He ran a white hand through his greasy hair. There was a black drawing that appeared to be a baby’s pacifier tattooed on the back of his hand.
The blood rushed back into Eli’s head whooshing in his ears, like a wave that broke and spilled over before receding back to sea, leaving his drums ringing. He touched his forehead. What was he doing here? This was a mistake. He didn’t want to be anything to this guy, certainly not his customer.
“We gots medicine for you ails my friend. You low? You got problems? You got pain? I gots the medicine.”
Then Eli remembered his empty stomach and his empty apartment with its empty fridge. If there was anybody in the world that needed Skeet’s medicine it was him. “Rex sent me,” he said in a low voice.
Skeet’s eyes lit up. “Oh Rex!” He laughed. “Good man. Good customer. One of the babies.” He lifted his hand and kissed the pacifier with a loud wet smack. “Come on in here to my office, where I prefer to conduct my bin-nis.”
Eli was hesitant step into the guy’s “office” but he also didn’t want to do the exchange out in the open. He followed Skeet through a space between a bin and the wall.
The area was littered with garbage and boxes full of “medicine.” A lone table stood in the middle. The overhead street lamp cast a ghoulish glow between the spaces in the dumpsters like jail bars over a window.
Skeet stood on one side of the table. He leaned over on his hands and studied Eli. “You look like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.”
“I’m hungry.” He was still dizzy and didn’t know why he said that.
Skeet nodded, his black widows peak moved up and down like an oil derrick striking the ground. “I gots jes the thing.” He rummaged through some boxes and finally brought out an inhaler. “Jes bite down on this, breath it in, and you gonna be numb from head to toe. Sleep real sound.”
Eli eyed small plastic contraption speculatively. It was still wrapped and sealed.
Skeet seemed to read his mind.
“It’s clean. Same stuff I give all corp babies. Rex. Tom. Dick. Harry.” He laughed. “All-a-ya’ll.”
Eli took the plastic. “How much?”
“Thousand.”
Eli nodded. “I’ll do it now. I’m not about to smuggle this stuff inside.”
Skeet lifted his hand as if to say be-my-guest.
Eli opened up the package, bit down on the inhaler and took a deep breath. The results were immediate. He was submerged, weightlessly floating in a protective womb, numb and peaceful. The street lights evaporated before his eyes into a smoky, dizzying haze, nebulous and bewitching. Then he was falling. Falling along a soft, cool plane, as if descending into silk sheets, basking in their warmth as they touched every sense, kissing every erogenous. This was good stuff. He bit down again and inhaled the last of the invisible steam.
The inhaler slid out of his mouth, sticking on his dry lips for a moment before it fell to the ground.
Eli wasn’t sure if he was smiling or not, but he was smiling on the inside, as if a magic eraser were traveling through his head and body, touching his aches and pains and rubbing them out until he was new.
Man this was good stuff!
He closed his eyes and swayed from side to side wondering if this was what being in the ocean felt like. Did Mevia swim in the ocean at night? Was she there right now, standing in the dark while the waves undulated over her body? Instead of a street lamp she would be illuminated by the moon. The real moon. What did the real moon look like? And those stars. God it had to be beautiful. He wanted to be in that ocean under that moon with her, and for a minute he was, but then the undertow came, pulling him out into the dark sea.
“…take care of you all right but what about you desires and the freedom…”
Eli opened one eye. Skeet was gradually coming into focus. His mouth was moving in slow motion but the words were coming out in real time.
“…money can’t buy happiness but it’s everthin’…it’s a record of you work…says you a freeman.”
Eli’s brain was foamy, as if full of lathered soap. It swirled around his head like one of those colored cocktail drinks. Even his body was soapy now. He could slip and slide between the alleyways and buildings. He could probably slip in between the cracks of the dumpsters if he wanted to. Yeah, and that’s what he would do.
He licked his lips and tried to speak.
But Skeet kept talking. “I’d be hungry too if I was a baby.” He laughed and smacked another wet kiss on his tattoo.
Eli stared at the spitty spot glistening on his hand. “What…what do you mean?”
Skeet revealed his two rat teeth. “That’s what you is, ain’t it? A baby? You live off of the teet of the corp mama.” He cracked up, his laugh high like a siren.
Eli was ready to get the deal done and leave, but for some reason he wanted to hear what Skeet had to say, something in him was listening. “How’m I a baby?”
Skeet sucked his teeth and frowned. “You a baby ‘cause live off the big corp mama. Yeah she give you everything you need. Food, threads, roof. Maybe even a binky and some flash.”
Eli thought of the bars and clubs. “And?”
“Must be nice being a baby, but that is until one day you want things your way. You want to go buy a place somewhere outside of them walls. Nope. Not allowed. Baby get slapped.” He whacked his hand down on the table.
Eli flinched. His face was hot but his breath was cold in his lungs. Again he tried to say something, but the words crowded like moths in his mouth.
Skeet kept going. “Maybe the baby wants to have another baby, more than one. Nope. Baby get slapped! Whack! Maybe baby wants to eat two big ‘ol ice cream sundaes. Get nice and fat. Nope. Baby get slapped! Whack!” He sniggered through his nose. “See they can’t have too many fat babies running around they corps running up they bills.”
Eli wasn’t sure if he was dreaming. His knees were wet and wobbly. “W-what are you saying?”
Then Skeet’s face darkened, as if a camera had zoomed in on his sharp, polygon face. His brow furrowed making him look more cartoonish than serious. “I say being a baby is nice. Warm and comfy. Funny thing is. The thing you don’ see.” He stopped and snorted a laugh behind his hand. “You don’ see that the more they give you, the less you have. As long as you hooked up to that teet, you they baby.”
Eli shook his head like he had a bad taste in his mouth. He needed this guy to shut up, needed to get out of there. “Stop. Just…” Eli grew breathless. “Just stop talking.”
But Skeet kept right on going. His eyes were on Eli, but they were somehow looking through him. “Baby want a bigger house? Whack!”
“Here, I have a card. I gotta go.”
Skeet held up a finger. “God forb-ee. If baby mama and daddy die. Nobody want that baby. Baby go bye-bye.”
Eli’s hands balled into fists.
Skeet’s mouth stretched into an eerie clown grin. “Whack!” He clapped his hands together. “That baby outta there!” He cracked up. “Knocked clean out-o-tha park!”
“Stop,” Eli said weakly, leaning against the table for balance.
Skeet sniggered again, making that broom on the floor sound, like his tongue was sweeping the back of his teeth. “Nowaday we got more orphan babes runnin’ around than we gots fleas!”
Eli banged his fist on the table. “Shut up!”
A string of spittle fell from Skeet’s cracked lips. “Can’t take a babe from his corp mama. Won’t have nothing. Won’t be nobody.”
“I said stop.”
But the man wouldn’t quit laughing. If Eli had to listen to that little rodent snickering for one more second…
Eli leaned over the table, closer to Skeet’s face. “So what if I’m a corp baby! What else am I s’posed to do? You think I want to live in the streets like you? Huh? I’d rather be a baby than end up here.”
That’s when Skeet really started cackling. “Aw, man you something else.”
He was going out of focus again. Eli lifted his chin until the world stopped moving. “What? What’re you saying?”
Skeet grinned, his rat teeth proudly displayed. “I’m sayin, man, you are here.”
That’s when Eli’s right knee gave out. He stumbled backward and fell, thunking his head on a dumpster. It was empty and drummed loudly, echoing into the night air.
Skeet hooted and pointed. “Mama stop giving you milk and there you go on the ground. Haw-haaw!”
Eli glared up at the skinny, little varmint climbing over the table. Skeet was coming towards him still babbling about the “baby.” Eli was suddenly drenched in blind hatred for that angular little face—as if someone had shoved it really hard into a corner and it froze that way. A boiling pot of rage bubbled up inside of him so powerful it made him crazy.
Then Skeet made the mistake of getting too close. Eli reared up and planted a boot in his face.
Skeet’s head flew back and when it rebounded his nose was bleeding, the blood dribbling down his mouth, almost neon against his paper-white skin. He stopped, his expression unchanging for a moment, as if he wasn’t even aware that the strike had happened, then his face scrunched like a hissing cat. “Yoooou!” He shrieked.
Eli jumped to his feet and made a break for it, pushing in between the rotting dumpsters. As he sprinted away, Skeet was yelling after him.
Eli ran through the middle of the skunk stripe, zipping past the buildings. He didn’t care about the gangs or the pros or the PoDrones. He didn’t even know where he was going. His feet pounded into the ground, sending sonars of his presence through the bowels of the city. Where he was getting this energy was a mystery. His head was still woozy but the exertion sharpened his senses. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, but the wind slapping against his clammy face said otherwise. He ran past a gang huddled in the middle of the street and they watched him pass, no effort was made to follow.
Suddenly he was back in the Slags, a kid again, although it wasn’t so long ago. He turned down a famil
iar looking street. Had he run all the way back to his old neighborhood? Was he surrounded by a dream while his real body was back somewhere, laying passed out among the dumpsters with Skeet?
Databases, networks and mainframes. They weren’t just work areas. They were names of his playgrounds. They were sandboxes and swing sets where he frolicked and toyed, rerouting and reconstructing them into exactly what he required. The real world was a wet, slippery slide that he could never seem to grip.
Maybe he did belong in the dumpsters. After all, he was just a punk Slagger from the wrong side of the Sphere. Mevia already hated him. If she saw him now, she would turn her nose away in disgust. She had probably already lost faith, found someone else. Or maybe she was lying dead on the beach somewhere, her corpse flung across the shoreline where crabs and fishes were making a buffet out of her waterlogged flesh.
It was his fault, all his fault.
No. No-no-no-no-no-no-no.
His lungs were stinging and his energy was failing, but then he saw a Corp he recognized. He came to a stop and keeled over into a grassy knoll along the sidewalk. He lay on his back breathing like a billow.
His eyes traced the dark, star-less sky. Sometimes the engineers would ignite bright, multi-colored lights over the Corps section of the Kradle. Other times they would leave it dark. Eli wondered why, in their supposedly infinite wisdom they chose to leave them off tonight. Why did they get to choose when the stars twinkled and when they didn’t? But what did it matter? Me. It matters to me. I need to see them tonight.
He no longer felt the hunger, but he was still hungry, empty was more like it.
It was strange to think in his buzzed panic he had almost convinced himself he made it back to his Slag neighborhood. Surely his apartment was still there. What if he walked up those crumbling stairs and unlocked that peeling, old door. Maybe Mevia would be there waiting for him. He’d walk in and she’d come inside from the balcony in one of his long, button down shirts. She’d have dirt on her hands, her knees and she’d shake the hair from her eyes and say in a nonchalant manner that the tomatoes and okra were ripe, which meant she was going to cook tomatoes and okra for dinner.
Children of the Kradle (Trilogy Book 1) Page 12
