Heir Ascendant (Faded Skies Book 1)

by Matthew S. Cox

  Two blocks passed. She caught glimpses of a few kids, most of whom looked like they’d been wearing the same clothes for months. Younger ones played with improvised toys and one group of five teens prowled an alley. Maya didn’t like the way they stared at her. Of the lot, only one boy had shoes, and he seemed to be running away from two others who wanted them.

  A stick-thin woman, lost in a grimy grey coat that covered her to the shins, shambled out of an alley at them. She reached up to tug at a circular wall of cloth around her head, pulling it down from her face. “Hey, got a couple NuCoin I could have?”

  Maya peered up with a neutral expression. Guess she doesn’t feel as guilty as that man.

  Genna mumbled something incoherent.

  “Come on, I got a kid too.” The beggar twisted around to show off a backpack-turned-papoose containing a maybe one-year-old boy.

  “I’m dry, Lynn.” Genna looked about to fall forward but caught herself. “Things went bad.”

  The woman took a half step back and leaned to her left as if measuring Genna’s coherence. Once Genna resumed staggering, the beggar fell in behind them, eyeing the knives and handgun. Maya kept her attention on Lynn as she got closer, gaze jumping between an outstretched hand and the weapons.

  Genna whirled at the last possible second, drawing her knife and pressing the edge to Lynn’s throat. The smaller, pale woman froze with a strangled gargle. “I may be in a bad way, but I ain’ no blind bitch. What you tryin’ to do, girl? You know I help ya sorry ass out if I had any shit.”

  Lynn jumped back, grasping her throat in both hands. The baby toppled out of her backpack and careened headfirst at the pavement.

  Maya screamed.

  Bonk.

  The boy bounced on his head and wobbled around onto his back, still moving and cooing as though nothing happened. Lynn wheezed apologies, collected the artificial infant, and ran off with it under her arm like a football.

  Maya, gasping for breath with her hands pressed over her heart, peeled her gaze off the street and looked up at Genna. “That was a doll? I thought it was a real baby!”

  “Now that’s irony for ya.” Genna started to chuckle, but winced, and trudged on. “Yeah. She thinks it’ll make her more sympathetic or some shit.”

  “Does it?” Maya ducked around to Genna’s left and took the hand of her unbroken arm.

  “It did… for the first week.”

  Past four more blocks they walked, heading deeper into the forest of tall buildings. Every so often, a metal signpost bore a square steel plate with numbers. The first one read 03, the next 08. Eventually, they reached 13. Genna turned right down the cross street. A few e-cars sat about, parked with one set of wheels up on the sidewalk. Most buildings in this area looked at least ten stories high and had more or less the same design. Children’s voices called out with the occasional shout or laugh, though echoes made it impossible to tell if they were ten feet or ten blocks away.

  At the ninth high-rise on the right, Genna stopped. She almost fell over while attempting to turn her body to face it. Motionless, she stared at the place as though she couldn’t quite remember what a building even was.

  “Mom?” asked Maya, after a yawn. “Is this it?”

  Genna nodded. “Yeah. Them endorphins are wonderful.”

  A dead identity-scanner, a hexagonal white box on the wall by the entrance with a red lens-eye, offered no reaction as they walked up a short strip of paving that divided a miniscule front yard in half. Genna nudged the door open with her boot and shambled into a hallway lined on both sides with tiny metal doors bearing keyholes and little numbers. Judging from the amount of grime on them, mail service hadn’t bothered to stop by since before the war.

  Maya glanced down at the cold, smooth floor. She couldn’t quite tell what material the tiles were made of, smears of deep emerald green with lighter squiggles. The hallway opened wider fifteen paces farther in, revealing a stairway on the left, a red door on the right labeled ‘employees only,’ and a lounge with three elevator doors straight ahead that led to another corridor deeper in.

  A fair-skinned man with light brown hair in a short military-inspired cut sprang to his feet from behind the stairs. Aside from a compact assault rifle across his back, barrel pointed down, his grey coat and pants looked much the same as everyone else around here not stuck wearing scraps. Squiggly thin black hoses dangled from his filter mask, loose around his neck.

  “Damn, Genna… what the fuck happened?” He rushed over and held her by the shoulders.

  Genna managed a half breath of laugh. “Mission went to shit. That jarhead you found flashed back hard.”

  Maya looked off innocently. He had a little help.

  “Damn,” said the man. “Once you’re no longer half dead, I need to hear what happened. I don’t want to risk using him again if you think he’s too erratic.”

  “You won’t,” said Maya. “Moths aren’t very good at flying.”

  Genna made a noise like she tried to laugh, but cringed.

  The man looked down at her. “Who’s that?”

  “Kid,” said Genna, fighting to keep her head upright.

  “No shit it’s a kid.” He looked at a small door past the elevators. “Weber, get your ass in here.”

  “Don’t worry about her. Found her out there; takin’ her in. Bring her up ta my apartment. I need to see Doc.” Genna tried to push past him.

  Another man, younger in the face than the first but with grey hair, rushed out of the small door. He had a similar oversized grey coat, though his pants bore a blue-charcoal city camouflage pattern. Both of them looked like they spent more time in the sun than this place got.

  “Get her to Chang,” said the older man.

  As Weber attempted to collect Genna by the arms, the other man took a knee by Maya and smiled. “Hello, sweetie. What’s your name?”

  Maya kept her head down. “Lisa.”

  He tucked a finger under her chin and lifted. As soon as they made eye contact, his already pale face got two shades whiter. “Holy shit, Genna… you did it. You got her.”

  “Mom!” yelled Maya, clamping her arms around Genna’s waist.

  “Barnes, don’t. No.” With one usable arm, Genna couldn’t evade Weber’s grip. “Get offa me, Bill.”

  “You gotta get looked at,” said Weber. “Damn miracle you’re still even upright.”

  “We’ll sort this out once you’re coherent.” Barnes’s fingers dug into Maya’s ribs as he grasped her under the armpits. He didn’t seem to be trying to hurt her, but he wouldn’t let her squirm loose. “Weber, get her to Doc, ASAP.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Weber. “Come on, Gen. You look like you got run down by an Authority transport.”

  “No!” screamed Maya.

  Barnes hauled her slight body into the air with little apparent effort. Maya kicked, screamed, and flailed as he lifted her away from Genna and carried her past the elevators. She got a handful of leaves from a plastic plant, then tried to grab for a fire extinguisher on the wall but missed. Barnes continued through the small door.

  “Put me down!” No matter how she tried to twist or squirm, neither fist nor foot could find contact enough to dissuade him.

  “Calm down, kid.” Barnes held her out at arms’ length like a piece of radioactive debris. “No one is going to hurt you.”

  “Genna’s gonna kick your ass when she wakes up,” shouted Maya. “Let me go!”

  She pried at his fingers clamped around her chest. He carried her kicking into a small room with a dark grey floor and white walls. Her attempt to cling to the doorjamb slipped away under his much greater strength. Barnes set her on her feet at the approximate center of the room, facing the wall. Maya whirled around and ran after him to the red-painted door, which closed in her face. The knob clicked, as did a pair of deadbolts, one above and one below it. Maya stared at keyholes. Someone had mounted an exterior door backwards to create a prison cell.

  The knob refused to turn. She rose
up on her toes, grunting and fighting with it.

  “Let me out!” She thumped her fists on the steel, filling the ten-by-ten foot room with weak, hollow booms. “Mom!”

  She went still and quiet at Genna’s shouting in the distance. Hope became worry in seconds when no footsteps approached. Soon, worry became anger. Again, she rattled the knob and beat on the door until her hands ached.

  Defeated, she slouched. Not getting what she wanted (aside from Vanessa spending time with her) within a matter of seconds was a new experience―and one she did not like. If these people knew who she was, they wouldn’t treat her so badly. Maya stomped; a sharp clap reverberated off the bare cinder block walls. She sighed.

  “That’s exactly why I’m in here,” she whispered. “They know who I am.”

  Giving up on the door, she pivoted to face the room. A plain steel table sat on the right with two chairs. Her throat tightened when she noticed a pair of handcuffs padlocked to a ring on one edge and bloodstains on the floor under one chair. On the left, a military-style green cot occupied the corner farthest from the door, mercifully lacking anything that looked like it could tie her down. An olive drab shower curtain draped over a rickety metal frame blocked her view of the near right corner. The space had no windows and a single naked light bulb in the middle of the ceiling.

  Maya paced, fuming. She clenched her hands into fists, squeezing and releasing them while walking in a tight circle. On her fifth orbit, the lure of the toilet hiding behind the tarp grew too strong to ignore. Once she finished, she attacked the door for another ten minutes.

  No one answered her banging, her demands, or her pleas.

  Angry, she stomped over to the cot and fell seated, folding her arms across her chest and swinging her feet back and forth while staring doom at the red door. Genna’s gonna kill him. Her anger faded with the unusual thought that her new mother would actually care if someone mistreated her. Maya’s legs swayed to a halt. She wasn’t lying, was she? A lump formed in her throat. Is this what she wanted to do the whole time? Kill them all and take me for the Brigade? She scooted back on the cot and curled on her side. Trembling lasted a few minutes, until the memory of the look on Genna’s face the first time she called her Mom came to mind.

  No. Genna would be pissed at them for locking her up.

  Maya relaxed and smiled the same smile Vanessa Oman usually wore soon before something bad happened to an idiot. It didn’t take long for the exhaustion of being up all night to drag her over sideways, and off to sleep.

  ellow lens eyes opened in the darkness over Maya’s face and a crushing metal hand pressed down on her mouth. At the instant a frigid gun touched her temple, she snapped awake with a scream. She huddled in a ball, shaking and sniveling for a while. The grip of the nightmare weakened as the reality of finding herself in a stark holding cell sank in.

  She sat up and rubbed the bruise around her left ankle, grateful that no one had tethered her to anything while she slept. Windowless, bare cinder block walls left her clueless to the time, though it felt like it ought to be evening. She stretched before shooting a frown at the door. Her lip quivered from fear. The last time she could remember wanting to sob had been three-ish years ago when Vanessa broke a promise to take her out in person and spend the day with her. The woman had never even apologized. As the daughter of the CEO, she had been expected to accept the company was more important than her feelings.

  Maya had never bothered asking again.

  Assuming Genna hadn’t lied―truth be told, at first Maya only seized upon her guilt as a survival mechanism―the woman represented the mother figure she had pined for. Maya dragged herself again to the toilet, wondering how long these people would leave her shut in here. After flushing, she paced about for some time over a smooth floor neither cold nor warm. Every now and then, she took breaks from pacing to grasp the doorknob and rattle it, or bang on the steel barrier. A faint trace of voices from outside made it through the cinder blocks occasionally, hinting the back of her cell was an outside wall.

  She contemplated screaming for help, but doubted anyone would care.

  Her orbit resumed, still keeping a wary distance from the blood on the floor or the cuffs on the table. She doubted they’d chain her down and hit her until she revealed some mysterious secrets of Ascendant. No, they kept her locked up for the same reason Genna had originally kidnapped her: money. She sighed, hoping it didn’t take them too long to realize abducting her for ransom did nothing but waste time.

  Two circles around the room later, she approached the door and twisted the knob. Still, it moved barely a millimeter in either direction. Maya hit it with a halfhearted fist and sank to her knees, slumped against the metal. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembered a little white dog sitting by the patio glass, desperate to be let out. She had to have been six or so. The dog had messed one of the rugs and disappeared days later. Thinking about him got her crying all over again.

  Her mood swung back and forth between anger and sorrow, manifesting as a steely glare at her lap or a pathetic pout at the door. A tiny warbling noise came from her belly, and she scratched at her nightdress. Chances are, nothing had changed back in the penthouse she used to call home. Vanessa would leave it as is until her replacement daughter grew old enough to be left on her own.

  The scuff of boots echoed outside, growing louder. Maya leapt to her feet and took three steps back. She debated attempting a run for it, but figured a panic-driven dash would only make them use the cuffs on her. She held up her hands, staring at her delicate wrists. I might be able to escape. They’d slip right off. No. She would act docile and wait for a good opportunity. Make them think she’d given up hope, and as soon as they let their guard down, she’d find her mother.

  Deadbolt one clicked.

  Maya balled her hands into fists.

  Deadbolt two clicked.

  “Don’t be afraid, sweetie,” said Barnes.

  The knob emitted a weak metallic snap noise and turned. She held her breath as the door opened inward. The older of the two men she’d seen the previous day followed it, carrying a white plastic plate and cup. A patch of sunlight on the wall at the end of the corridor made her feel tired all over again. She’d thought it nighttime, but it didn’t even look late in the day. She stared at his eyes, wrinkled at the corners, though he didn’t seem that old. Thirty-something, with a short, light brown brush cut.

  Weber, behind him, pulled the door closed, leaving her alone with Barnes. To her relief, he didn’t lock it.

  He set the food on the table and offered a curious smile.

  “No.” Maya backed up. “You’re trying to trick me over there so you can chain me up. I want my mom.”

  He sighed. “No. I’m trying to offer you food.” He took the plate from the table and held it out to her. “She’s still in paradise.”

  “That woman isn’t my mother.” Maya narrowed her eyes. “I mean Genna.”

  “She’s resting. Doc’s patched her up best he can, but she’s gonna be in bed for a while.” He leaned the plate closer. “Eat.”

  Maya sniffed at fluffy yellow stuff and a meat patty between two slices of toast next to it. Hunger overwhelmed caution, and she accepted the meal before backing up to the cot to sit with the plate in her lap. Barnes dragged one of the chairs closer and eased himself into it.

  “Never saw spray can eggs before?”

  “No. I’ve never eaten anything yellow.” Maya lifted one piece of toast to examine the meat disc.

  “It’s cheap, but it supposedly has all the necessary nutrients.”

  Maya dropped the toast and attacked the sandwich.

  He remained quiet, watching her eat. The meat had a strange, piquant flavor that made her tongue tingle.

  “Is this poison? It tastes funny.”

  Barnes chuckled. “No, it’s sausage. Might be a little spicy.”

  She chomped down the rest of the patty-and-toast, barely chewing before swallowing. When he offered the cup of w
ater, she didn’t hesitate and drained it in a continuous series of gulps before handing him back the empty cup.

  “It looks like things have gone a little off plan. There’s no need to be afraid, Maya. No one here will hurt you. As soon as Ascendant pays―”

  “They won’t.” Maya stared down at her feet, which didn’t reach the floor.

  Barnes cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, I’m sure they will. Your mother wants you home safe.”

  Maya’s head snapped up with a glare. “No. She doesn’t. They were going to shoot me on a live video call, and she said, ‘Go ahead. I’ll make another one.’”

  He blinked.

  “Ask Genna. I’m not lying.” Maya tested the ‘eggs.’ Salty foam with a trace of some other flavor, possibly cheese―not too unpleasant.

  “What happened to Genna then? You’re saying she didn’t get injured while exfiltrating you?”

  Maya huffed and crossed her arms. “The word you’re looking for is kidnap, and no. Moth did that. He went crazy. Genna saved me. There is no ransom. They don’t care.”

  Barnes rubbed a finger back and forth across his lips for a few minutes. Quiet settled over the room, enough for the dying wails of Maya’s meal deep in her belly to make themselves known. “So, what happened?”

  She sighed before rambling through as much as she could remember of the abduction. However, according to her re-telling, Icarus had a drug-induced freakout, Headcrash, a paranoid breakdown, and Moth flashed back to Korea and tried to kill everyone when Vanessa laughed at him. Little Maya, of course, cowered on the bed and watched it all unfold.

  “Hmm.” Barnes leaned back and let his arms drape across his lap. He tapped his foot while making contemplative faces. “So what you’re saying is, Genna didn’t kidnap you?”

  “She did.” Maya rubbed the bruise on her shin where she’d slammed into the pipe while trapped in a black nylon bag. She added some ‘child’ and a dash of pout to her voice. “But I don’t wanna go back there.”