“I’ve never had a girl wave her boobs in my face before,” said Sima, a touch louder than a whisper.
“So, what do you think? Will Mags like these?”
“I dunno. I’m not into girls. They look, umm, fine. Not like I’m some kind of authority on boobs.”
Cassie shrugged. “Maybe if you had some, you would be.”
“I do!” Sima glowered at her.
“You spend so much time trying to hide them and pretending to be twelve that I think they got the hint and went away.” Cassie stuck out her tongue.
Sima sighed, and in a rare moment of boldness, thrust her chest out. “They’re not that little.”
“Oh wow.” Cassie faked a gasp. “You do have tits.”
She squirmed, wanting to hide her face from all the Citizens walking by.
“Look,” said Cassie. “All I’m saying is, somethin’s goin’ down, and you need to get off the street before it comes down right on top of you.”
“If they’re going for kids, they’re not going to care about me. I’m too old to be cute anymore.”
“Exactly.” Cassie bumped her in the arm with the back of her hand. “Time to graduate to being a woman.”
“I dunno. It would take me literally starving to be able to just, like, do it with some strange man for money.”
“You ever do it before?” asked Cassie.
Sima looked away. “Of course.”
“Liar.” Cassie laughed. “You’re such a bad liar for a girl who’s trying to make a living at lyin’.”
“I don’t make a living at lying. It’s called ‘begging.’”
Cassie poked her in the boob, making her gasp. “And making those things ‘disappear’ is what, if it ain’t lyin’?”
“Technicalities.”
Cassie pulled at her. “Come on. Let’s go to Mag’s and get real beds, real food, and actual clothes. You’re a little skinny, but you got big eyes so you’re like cute. I’m sure she’ll take you.”
Sima couldn’t help but laugh and blush at the same time. “Clothes? I’ve seen that place. Everyone sits around in their underwear.”
“That’s working hours. They have clothes when they’re not on the clock. Come on. Go with me.”
“You shouldn’t want to do that to yourself either. You’re gonna end up on drugs or dead in a couple years.”
Cassie gave her a light shove. “Don’t believe that stuff. Mags is like super anti-drug, treats the girls like her own daughters. I heard some dude got rough with one of ’em, and she sliced him up like nothin’ right there.”
“And you wanna go work for someone who can do that?” Sima leaned back. “Not unless I’m gonna die if I don’t.”
“I get it.” Cassie edged closer and threw a companionable arm around her back. “You ran away from home ’cause of that creep, so you’re like scared of sex. It’s not anything like you think it is. You’ve got it made out to be this horrible, evil thing in your head.”
“Cass… If you think it’s what’s right for you, go for it. I wish you wouldn’t do that to yourself, but I’m not ready to go there yet. Find something less… skeevy and I’m in. Even if it’s a bit risky, just no breaking the law. I don’t wanna get killed.”
“Hmm.” Cassie fidgeted. “I can look around, but ‘worth decent money’ and legal don’t go together. You’re describing a ‘job,’ and people won’t hire us. Face it, Seem, there’s two options for girls our age: Magdalena’s or crime.”
“I can’t believe that,” said Sima. “There has to be something.”
“Well, you could always find a sugar daddy or go Keeper.”
She sighed. “No, I mean like maybe learning a skill or something and getting a job.”
“Girl, you haven’t seen a school since you was twelve. That don’t open many doors.”
Sima tried not to glare at her sorta-friend. “Give me a couple days, okay?” She thought about Draz floating away, a corpse in the sewer, and cringed. Magdalena’s did sound better than that. Maybe Cassie had a point about her fear of sex. Then again, having a grown man touch her bum at only twelve—and her mother becoming furious with her over it—left a mark. “If we don’t come up with anything better in a couple days, I’ll go with you to Mag’s.”
“You mean it?” Cassie beamed, bounced on her toes, and hugged her. “Awesome!”
This girl is way too happy about giving away her soul. “Yeah, but don’t skeev off on trying to find something better, okay? Magdalena is a last resort.”
“Okay, yeah, sure.” Cassie grinned. “You still at the same Crash?”
“Yeah.”
“Meet you there after dark. Think I can zonk with you?”
Sima flashed a coy smile. “I don’t have a lot of room. It’d be kinda intimate.”
“Only if you make it that way. I thought you didn’t like girls.”
“I don’t.”
“Well, neither do I, so it won’t get weird.”
“Right.”
Cassie winked at her and hurried off, hopefully in search of something that they could make a little money on that didn’t require doing anything Sima would hate herself for.
Hours went by, back to her usual routine. With the lack of small beggars in the area and the fear of having to become a prostitute lending genuine desperation to her eyes, she wound up pulling in fifty-seven glint by the time the sun headed for the western horizon. Having zero interest in being caught outside after dark again, she hurried to an OmniMart and bought a wrap sandwich from the cooler case for only one glint. The bread, vegetables, chicken, and sauce had all probably come from the same basic organic slime, but they offered the most food for the least cost of anything around. So what if a steady diet of such fakery might give her cancer by fifty. She didn’t expect to make it to that age anyway.
Sandwich clutched to her chest like a precious baby, Sima jogged the couple blocks back to the Crash, reaching the entry ramp before sundown. The single worst part of living there, other than no showers, was the bathroom. A direct tunnel to the sewer more or less wound up causing people to do their thing right off the side into one of the canals, much the same way they’d tossed Draz. Frequently, others would show up at embarrassing moments, but since everyone eventually caught everyone with their pants down, the Outcasts living there all tended to ignore it happened.
After using the ‘toilet,’ mercifully without anyone else showing up, she scurried back to her ‘room’ and curled up like a squirrel with a nut, devouring her wrap. If she closed her eyes and pretended real hard, she could almost make believe the bread, lettuce, tomato, and chicken had different flavors and she didn’t chow down on one giant log of mushy food-like something.
Still, the wrap’s decent heft filled her almost too much. By the time she finished eating, she felt a little sick and had no desire to move. She slouched against the wall, staring at the wires tied around her legs to hold her sandals on, lacking even the urge to reach down to undo them.
Cassie should be here soon. She’s got no idea where my spot is, but she’ll yell or something. Or ask. That girl is not shy.
Hands on her belly, Sima half-closed her eyes, basking in the satisfaction of having had a meal.
A blur of time later, the mental fog of almost-sleep broke at a commotion in the distance, sounding near the entryway. Indistinct voices shouted, but the complicated chamber with dozens of little internal walls blurred the voices into non-words. Something in the tone set her on edge, so she stood and crept toward her ‘doorway,’ a large crack in the concrete.
Oema stuck her head in, her fluffy white hair glowing cyan and purple from light outside. Fear made the thirteen-year-old look more like eleven. “Run! EGSF is here!”
The younger girl didn’t stick around to see if Sima would listen. She darted off, still carrying the precious game system she’d scavenged from Draz. It took a few seconds for the meaning of her words to soak into Sima’s brain. The shout of an adult man amplified by helmet-mounted speakers sh
ocked her into motion.
Security force!
She leapt out from her space, yelping when Torrent ran by, nearly plowing her over. She darted after him, following a group of five or six Outcasts down the same shaft they’d gone the other day for the ‘funeral.’ EGSF officers shouted, “Do not run. This is not a raid. We are here to talk,” repeatedly, but Sima didn’t trust a word of it.
Someone grabbed a fistful of her tunic from behind, but pushed/carried her along a little faster, helping her run. She didn’t bother looking back, instead concentrating on not slipping into the sewer channel or tripping over any hunks of stone in her way. Panic drove the group onward. In their fear, they split up passage by passage. For whatever reason, she didn’t feel like going down any of those particular side shafts, and kept on running for a while more until randomly veering left.
The tunnel reeked of sewer and mold, though the narrow path beside the wave of foulness looked reasonably clear of biological matter. She slowed to a rapid walk, somewhat relieved that the amplified shouts of EGSF officers no longer echoed in the darkness behind her. No matter why they wanted Outcasts, she doubted they’d bother going this deep to catch them.
Stench made it difficult to think and even more difficult to breathe. Upon finding a ladder in a recessed alcove on the other side, she jumped across the channel of effluent and scrambled up the old metal rungs, rust and dirt crumbling at her touch, to a metal cover that blocked the top. She pulled her hood over her hair and pressed her back and shoulder against it, pushing upward with all four limbs. It took every bit of her strength to shove the steel disc up a few inches. Once it cleared the street, she grabbed the edge and shoved it aside. The scrape of metal on paving sounded a bit too much like a tomb being opened for comfort.
Callie’s right… I’m gonna die out here.
She pulled herself up out of the sewer into an alley, fortunately empty of people. With the EGSF actively hunting Outcasts, her friend’s suggestion they go work for Magdalena started to sound reasonable. Even cops patronized the place, so she doubted it would be raided any time soon. Her eroding hesitance to become a prostitute scared her to the core, and brought tears of mourning for the girl she might’ve been if not for him.
That man couldn’t shoulder all the blame. She reserved some for her mother as well. Not to mention the father who never bothered to even meet her once. All three of them had set her up for failure from the start, her mother most of all. Plenty of Outcasts had only a mother taking care of them until death, arrest, or disease got in the way. She knew a good mother could’ve made all the difference in her world.
But she hadn’t been that lucky.
Karma took a giant crap on me right when I was born. I never did anything to deserve this. Why? Where’s the other side? When is something good going to happen for me?
She sniffled and fought her way to stand. Sobbing in the middle of an alley at night was a great way to wind up dead. Sima figured she’d head to the other Crash, the one where the little kids had been taken from. The EGSF wouldn’t go back to a location they’d already raided not too long ago. That place should be safe.
She hurried along for a few cross streets, trying to get her bearings after emerging from the sewer. None of the alleys or building fronts around here looked familiar. We must’ve gone for like a mile underground. Sima rounded a corner, heading toward the sound of traffic while squeezing the white square at the end of her left sleeve. The semi-squishy rubberized module chirped and projected a static-laced holographic panel.
While walking along, she tapped at the screen, trying to get a navigation app to load. She hadn’t exactly taken good care of the tunic, wearing it more or less nonstop for four years. Before long, the batteries gave out and all the lights went dark, including the holographic display.
Most people charged their tunics up at home, but since she didn’t exactly have one of those, she’d have to go to a café or something… and the charging adapter sat in her pile of stuff back at the Crash. No way did she want to set foot anywhere near there until at least tomorrow.
She looked up from the fabric of her left arm, about to growl in frustration, when she spotted a large black U in a circle painted on the wall, the symbol of the Underground.
Eep!
That meant somewhere around here, anti-government Seps hung out. The EGSF usually shot anyone they even suspected of associating with the Underground on sight, no questions asked: too many anti-interrogation suicide bombs took out too may cops. The Separatists didn’t use them as weapons, but if capture became unavoidable, they’d set themselves off to protect others, and escape brutal interrogation.
Suppressing the urge to yelp, Sima ran as fast as she could down the alley to get away from the Underground. At first, she thought it stupid for them to paint their symbols around like that, but Torrent mentioned that ordinary people started making the graffiti to mess with the EGSF. Only the actual Underground members knew which marks were legit and which the work of pranksters. Still, she didn’t want to risk a trigger-happy cop.
A few blocks later, another crumpled-in section of road reminded her of the entrance to her Crash. Despite the drones not announcing a curfew today, going underground again at night seemed a good idea, so she made her way down the ramp. This one hadn’t collapsed as neatly as the other, breaking into three distinct pieces she had to jump between. At the bottom, a broken section of concrete sewer pipe formed a round entrance to a subterranean chamber. Mostly bare blue-grey concrete, it had a few columns decorated with so much spray paint she couldn’t tell where one logo ended and another started.
Low voices murmured from the tunnel ahead, one of which kinda sounded familiar. Possibly Theof or one of the older Outcasts from her Crash. Maybe they’d come here. She couldn’t be that far away.
Sima crept up to an archway on the opposite end of the large chamber and peeked around the corner. Seven twentysomething adults lounged around on old furniture, some sleeping, one couple making out, a few huffing on inhalers. No luminous pink mist filled the air, so at least they didn’t use Pixie.
Probably a gang… I should get out of here before they see me.
She took a step back, and turned—her face nearly bumping into the chest of a large man.
“Hey there,” said the guy. Before she could scream, he grabbed her. “Hello, treat.”
“Sorry!” whisper-yelled Sima. “I didn’t realize this was your turf. I’m just lookin’ for a Crash.”
He held her by the arms and whistled loud. The others filed out of the room and surrounded her.
“Little young,” said a woman with cherry red hair.
One guy grabbed her breast through her tunic. She whimpered but didn’t struggle too much.
“Please don’t. I’m only fourteen.”
The woman and one guy rummaged her pockets, the guy generously squeezing her backside while doing so. By some miracle, they didn’t notice the pouch of glint she had under her tunic.
“Bah, this kid ain’t got nothin’ worth stealin’. Even her Omnicomp’s outta juice,” said the guy holding her.
An older guy, maybe even in his thirties, leaned into her face. Though muscular, he didn’t stand any taller than her. Despite his short stature, his stare froze her in mute fear. “You got any fanciness you, uhh, don’t need?”
She shook her head. “I don’t do drugs. Nothin’ on me.”
“Aww a good little girl,” chimed a man with forest-green hair and a white goatee. “She’s adorable.”
Sima’s lip quivered.
Short and scary pulled up the front of her tunic and shirt, exposing her stomach. He felt around her sides and upward, but didn’t slide his hand far enough to make contact with her breasts, again missing her pouch of glint. “Bah. Nothin’.” He nodded to the guy holding her.
“Get outta here, kid.” The man released his grip and shoved her to the side.
She dashed out, not wasting a second, racing back up the broken pavement ramp to street l
evel and racing away from the area with the Underground markings. Two blocks later, her body had enough of sprinting, and she collapsed to a gasping stagger.
Those guys just let me go… She couldn’t think of any gang that would let a girl walk away without doing anything at all to her, well, not unless the girl happened to be like ten or younger. It hit her that they might’ve been Underground pretending to be a street gang. She whined out her nose, wanting to run again, but her body wouldn’t listen. If anyone had seen her there and those people were Underground, her life might’ve gotten a countdown timer.
“Stop,” said a male voice, tinged with static crackles.
Sima about soiled her pants. She froze statue still—except for the trembling—and burst into tears. Five minutes away from being in the same room with Separatists, and of course, she trips into an EGSF ambush.
Heavy boots and small searchlights ambled closer. She shifted her gaze upward at a pair of men in the blue-grey armor of the Earth Government Security Force.
“Not getting a signal,” said the one on the left.
His partner pointed at her tunic. “Looks dead. No lights.”
“ID?” asked Officer One.
“I’m sorry. I don’t have any. I’ve been on the street since I was twelve.” Sima looked down, unable to stop shaking, expecting at any second they’d grab her for associating with Seps.
“How old are you now?” asked Two.
“Four—sixteen. Sorry. I tell people I’m fourteen when I’m begging for money so I can eat. I don’t steal or anything. Just ask for help.”
“What are you so nervous about?” asked One. “What’d you do?”
Her shaking intensified. All sorts of rumors said the EGSF officers had lie detectors in their helmets, and telling a simple lie to them could turn into a year or more in prison depending on how much of a prick the officer wanted to be. Even something as harmless as her almost-fib about her age. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Then why do you look like you’re hiding something?” asked Officer Two.
Sima gulped. “I, umm, saw an Underground mark on the wall back there. I’m scared of them. I don’t wanna get shot.”
Out of Sight (Progenitor Book 1) Page 5
