The Backworlds

by M. Pax

  Chapter 22

  Craze found himself staring into the face of a gal with chrome-hued skin. Tears and blood streamed down her cheeks. Her lips opened wide as a Lepper portal. She screamed and screamed and screamed. Craze had to close his ear holes, choking, trying to speak. He couldn’t get enough air. He could only lay there blinking at her, hoping his expression conveyed he meant her no harm.

  “Please,” he huffed. “Please ... I ... no ... hurt ... you.”

  She stopped shrieking to listen to his choppy plea, sniffling. “You look familiar. Have we met? I think we met before. Not here though. I hate this place. I haven’t been here long, but I know I hate it.”

  Her pink irises raked down Craze, making him feel naked. There was a glow behind them not entirely natural. He noticed cybernetic plugs at her elbows, but the mechanical halves of her arms were missing. The same was true of her knees and legs. She had no hands or feet, helpless on the floor like he was.

  He recovered enough to speak better. “We haven’t met. I’d remember you. I don’t like this place either. You OK? You look hurt.”

  “I suppose I’ll live if my next master lets me. I don’t know why I still need a master. I can think for myself now, decide things for myself. This obedience thing sucks. They make me do things I don’t want to do.” She sniffed, crinkling the bruises on her otherwise lovely chrome cheeks.

  Her partial arm hit against his coveralls. “That’s how I know you. I made those. Don’t you remember? My master kept me on Siegna several weeks so I could make those for you. They not working well enough here, huh? That’s not because I did bad work. Wism is just hard for anybody to breathe on let alone someone like you. There’s a canteen in the corner with the rest o’ my stuff, a tea I brewed. It should help you. Drink it.”

  Wow, she could talk. He’d never met a cybernetic Backworlder before and couldn’t judge whether this was normal. “It wasn’t me you met on Siegna,” he said, “but I’ve been told my pa ‘n I resemble each other a lot.” He looked around, trying to figure out which corner she meant.

  “Your pa? What a small arm of the galaxy. What’s the chances of us running into each other like this?”

  “Freaky.” Craze pushed himself up to sitting, slumping against the nearest crate. The effort made his head swim. He noticed her arms and legs thrown into the farthest corner across the bay. Of course, way over there. He crawled toward them. “Who did this to you?”

  “My master is unhappy with me. Says he’s going to sell me.” Her weeping filled the storage room, until she wailed like an alarm. “I don’t want to stay here.”

  Craze pushed the cybernetic arms and legs at the gal. They slid easily across the floor, bumping up against her floundering form. He followed after them, rolling and slithering. He figured out how to plug in an arm for her. After that, she was able to put on the other arm and her legs herself.

  She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Thank you. Now drink the tea.” She held the canteen to his lips.

  He panted on the floor, hand pressed over his aching chest, taking a tentative sip. Her concoction tasted like over-ripe socks in piss. He pushed the flask away. “That tastes terrible.”

  She sobbed. “Oh. I mean nothing bad. Honest I don’t.” Her shoulders shook with her sorrow. “You won’t buy me now, will you? I had hopes. You seem like a good man.”

  Craze ripped a cuff off of his shirt, wiping her face of blood and tears. “Don’t be so sad. I know you mean good.” He took back the canteen, swallowing down half of the contents, swiping away stray dribbles with the back of his hand. “See.”

  Her words heaved out in sputters. “I work so hard to please, but my masters is always angry ‘n mean. I don’t know how to be better. Why do I have to have a master?”

  Craze didn’t know, didn’t understand her kind. He could empathize with not feeling good enough for others, and he was pissed someone would stoop to beating her and leaving her like this.

  He put an arm around her shoulders, pressing his side against hers, offering comfort. “You deserve better than this, Sweetheart. I’ll help you. OK? Does that make you feel better?”

  Her dripping pink eyes raised up to meet his gaze, her lower lip trembling. “You will?”

  Shit, he was such a sap. That was exactly how Yerness had manipulated him, acting all needy and sad, proclaiming him hero. What would this gal do to him in the end? Leave him here naked and dead, all his chips in her pockets? Well, OK, she didn’t have pockets or clothes or much of anything and she didn’t have that I’m-going-to-devour-you spark in her eye. Besides her tea worked. Already his lungs ached less. This gal wasn’t out to use anybody for anything but to end her misery. Craze could relate.

  “Yes ‘n I can feel your tea rallyin’ me.” He drank more from the canteen.

  “It’s great I can aid you in payment for helping me. I have to confess, I was afraid you was an awful criminal when I first saw you ‘n again when I saw the coveralls. Your pa said they was for a no-good lowlife he didn’t need hanging around. A man who caused trouble ‘n would do his family harm. You don’t seem like that.”

  Damned Bast. Bastard-ass waste of gene manipulation. “Let’s not talk about him. He’s a dastard as bad as these folks here.”

  “He did you wrong, huh? I’m sorry I had a hand in it,” she said between sniffs.

  Craze handed her the piece of his shirt. “You didn’t know. I’m Craze, by the way.”

  She wiped her face, then held out her see-through mechanical hand. The circuits glowed pink when her fingers moved. “I’m Rainly.”

  They shook. Despite the unnatural origins of the limb, her palm felt soft and warm, like anybody else’s. Craze could detect a pulse thrumming through her wrist. She was more than a compilation of cybernetic parts.

  “Nice to meet you.,” he said.

  She picked at the edges of a crate, peeling off splinters of compressed fibers. “How you going to help me?”

  He had no great plan and didn’t fully understand what he’d be up against. Keeping it simple was best. “We have a ship. You can just leave with us.”

  She separated out the strands of fiber from the severed splinter in her hand. “I don’t think my master will take that well. He’d have everybody here hunt you down. The big guy with the painted face is his brother.”

  Shit. “They awful busy makin’ asses of themselves in the bar. Probably nobody will notice you gone.” Craze sure hoped so.

  Her face brightened. “You think?”

  He shrugged. “Why not? Besides, there’s got to be a way around that sleazy saloon. We’ll find it. C’mon, I’ll see you back to the ship. You’ll be safe there.”

  She threw her arms around his neck, kissing his wide cheeks. “For this, you’ll forever be my bestest friend. Forever.”

  The tea, the break, and his coveralls made him strong enough to stand. A few test strides didn’t wind him. Shrugging out of his coat, he handed it to Rainly to put on, in hopes it would make her less recognizable.

  Craze picked up her hand, tugging her down the corridor. “Let’s try this way.”

  Chapter 23

  Craze struggled to hurry, wanting to remain unseen. The threat of hibernation kept slowing him down, and they kept smacking into dead ends.

  “Looks like we have to cut through the bar,” Rainly said.

  Chances were slim they’d get through the tavern unnoticed and unscathed, no matter how drunk the patrons were. Most thugs had a sixth sense when it came to someone trying to pull something over on them. So Bast had taught him, and he had seen it for himself on Siegna, where the crowd resembled credentialed nannies compared to the gang here on Wism.

  Craze leaned against the rough-hewn wall, huffing. “We didn’t try that way yet.” He pulled himself along, his hands gripping on the rock, dragging him to the left.

  Rainly put an arm around him, assisting. “That leads to the boss man’s place. The big dude with the colorful face.”

  “Oh.” Craze stopped.
Shit.

  “You said they was mighty busy being drunks in the bar. Maybe no one will notice. Like you said.” She winced when she tried to smile. The beating she had taken earlier had swelled her cheeks.

  She would have to bring up the stupidest thing he had said. Dammitall. Maybe with his coat on, she’d pass through as just another drunk. Probably not. The skin, hair, and eyes gave her away. Craze stuck out just as much in tan clothing head to ankle. Tan was better than chrome and white though.

  He took off his shirt, arranging it over her hair as if a scarf. The cold of Wism pricked at his skin, shooting like pikes into his joints. “Act like you belong. Do what they do. Don’t cower.”

  “You clever.” She giggled, patting at the makeshift hood.

  They stumbled back toward the bar, resting just outside. Craze peeked around the corner. Four bodies slumped over the entryway, too drunk to stand. A clump of folks in the center gyrated like insane snakes, singing at the top of their lungs. “Die. Die. Die. Let’s die tomorrow.”

  Cheery lyrics. Blending in with that crowd would be his and Rainly’s best shot at getting through the tavern. He swished his hips side to side, loosening up, tightening his grip on her hand, pushing himself off of the wall.

  “What you doing?” whispered next to his ear.

  Craze jumped, reeling about on his heels, heart hammering, pulse racing, breath escaping him in a gasp. “Talos!”

  Rainly squealed, high and shrill, like when Craze first bumped into her. She didn’t stop. Craze squeezed her hand, petting her cheeks, telling her she had to shut up.

  Too late. The dancing folks quit singing and dancing, pivoting as one toward Rainly’s screams, licking their lips, smelling prey. Shit.

  A man as formidable as Rock Man moved Craze’s way, fists clenched, his lower jaw tightening until rigid. “That’s my property. What you doing with her?”

  Rainly whimpered, trembling like the sands outside in a breeze. Craze pushed her behind him. “Found her discarded in a trash heap.”

  “She wasn’t tossed out. She was stored, dumbass.”

  Craze spoke out the side of his mouth. “We could use some help here, Talos. Find Lepsi ‘n Dactyl. Hurry.”

  He could see he and Rock Brother were evenly matched in size. If he had proper lung capacity, he’d not worry about squaring off with the guy, but he didn’t. Apologizing was out. He’d try that surly-enough thing the lawman had preached, hoping he’d hit it right. “Didn’t see no sign sayin’ so. She’s mine now.” He dodged to duck around the guy.

  Rock Brother’s meaty hand stopped Craze. A punch followed, connecting square on Craze’s jaw, sending him reeling backwards, exposing Rainly.

  She was yanked back to her master’s side. He cracked her one across those already badly beaten cheeks. “What shit you pulling on me, Toots? You forget to tell him who you belong to?”

  She shook, her lip quaking, blubbering an insensible, “Me, me, me, me me.”

  He twisted her wrist until she stopped her sniveling to scream. Loud as a siren her distress had to be heard all over Wism.

  The folks in the bar laughed, closing in, wanting a piece of the blood about to spill. Craze scrambled to get onto his feet, huffing and panting, closing his fists.

  Egged on by the crowd, Rock Brother punched Rainly three times, knocking her onto her ass, stomping on her until she quit resisting and fell silent. “Tell me you sorry. Tell me!” he kept saying.

  Craze charged at him, using all his lung capacity to haul him off of her, clawing, pulling, hitting. Rock Brother whirled, pummeling Craze with fists and boots. Craze did his best to ward off the blows, but the fight quickly winded him. His body threatening to stop, he fell to his knees. Whomp, whomp, whomp. Pain crashed into his temples, his jaw, his nose and lips splintered, agony exploded in his ribs, then in a knee. In a last desperate attempt, he pulled his revolver. Eighty pointed back at him, hammers clicking.

  Shit.

  Rock Brother grabbed Craze by the hair, which hurt more than the punches. The living hair’s abuse made Craze wail like a girl, a vulnerability as glaring as the need for enriched oxygen. He yowled, in more torment than any steel-toed boot could deliver, blinded to any other need. Rock Brother took the advantage offered, wrenching the gun out of Craze’s hand, pressing the barrel against Craze’s temple. Shit fifty times over.

  “Hold on there,” Dactyl strode into the fray. “We can make a deal.”

  The original Rock Man joined his brother, placing a boot on Rainly’s head. “Chocolate won’t save you from your asshole friend stealing ‘n causing trouble. Just ain’t a good idea to go around taking from others on a world like this.”

  “We ain’t friends. Just doing business together. Nothing more. It’s his first time out here on the Edge ‘n he’s woefully uneducated as to our ways. Certainly, we can find a way to forgiveness.” Dactyl held his hands up, inching closer. The aviarmen flanked him, copying the lawman’s every move.

  “Stupid to team up with Flatsy-assed babies.” Rock Man nodded and his brother clutched more severely at Craze’s sensitive hair, taking another swing at Craze’s brutalized nose. The sting welled in Craze’s eyes, fueling cackles and guffaws from the crowd.

  “A chip per punch.” Rock Man held up his tab for the pings. “Five to take out some aggression on robot girl.”

  Dactyl ground his jaw, spitting. “I got the better deal ‘n yous know it. Chips don’t come close to what I got to offer.”

  “Mercy comes with a heavy price,” Rock Man said, calling one lady forward to kick at Craze and allowing one of the drunken men to paw at Rainly.

  Craze tasted blood in his throat, gasping for a full breath, his fingers clawing against the floor to get to Rainly. He’d get that man off of her. Damn his body for failing him. He put all his effort into moving closer, reaching for her foot. A boot shattered his hand, but Craze barely noticed, his determination on the chrome gal. Her cries were so quiet and she didn’t twitch. It worried him. His hand useless, he employed his elbows to inch across the floor. The asshole’s boots assaulted him as he did. Whomp. Whomp. Whomp.

  “Ten bars of chocolate,” Dactyl said, “for merely letting him return to our ship. He’ll bother yous no more this visit.”

  Rock Man nodded another man forward to punch Craze. “He’ll bother us never again.”

  Craze didn’t feel the slug to his gut. All the spots of anguish cancelled each other out in a numbing agony. Only Rock Brother’s grasp on his hair made any impact. Craze groaned, his mangled hands desperately trying to pry his tormenter’s fingers loose.

  The lawman’s gaze flickered to the sniffling Rainly and the two women using her as a smack sack. “Thirty for the both of ‘em. That’ll bring yous more chips than this moon is worth.”

  Rock Man called the next man forward, pulling the two women off Rainly. “She’s not so easily bought. I can make a lot of money off of her. We get lots of lonely visitors here on Wism.”

  Craze’s sight narrowed to one tiny slit. He watched the next punch from the ceiling, as if he were no longer inside himself. Everyone’s words hummed, and became indistinguishable, a language beyond his understanding. The next blow caused black to edge his vision. He’d welcome losing consciousness. He longed for it.

  Dactyl’s jaw twitched.

  “We offer forty,” Talos said. “No one in this section of the Edge has that many chips. It’s the kind of wealth that’s hard to come by out here.”

  The aviarman was bold. Craze appreciated it, but he groaned again. That was almost the entire stash— the means to their trade routes and taverns, and Dactyl’s desire to catch the Fo’wo’s and make them pay. There’d not be enough left for the lawman to buy a lead.

  Rock Man laughed. “I ain’t much into mercy today ‘n seems my customers like the entertainment.” He called the next two customers forward. One for Craze. One for Rainly.

  Dactyl tugged his coat off, throwing it on the ground, ripping off the left sleeve of his shirt. Images
in ink stained his left bicep. He thrust the shoulder toward the leader of Wism, making sure the man saw the tattoo and understood what it meant. “You’ll stop this now, or suffer the consequences. Yous saw my arm ‘n really get what I mean. Yes?”

  Rock Man’s voice quivered. “Yup. I see.”

  “You’ll take our deal for these two ‘n you’ll take another ten to forget we exist.”

  On the lawman’s arm was a depiction of death. Dark portrayals of suffering people—writhing, sliced open, impaled, their guts spilling, and a river of blood. Skulls decorated the banks and a symbol involving entwined snakes repeated around the whole scene. It had meaning to the thugs here on Wism. It had none to Craze other than he might live through this.

  Rock Man stopped the next bar patron from walloping Craze, and sent the rest of the crowd backwards with a snarl. “I accept. Send Quasser my regards.”

  Fifty bars of chocolate. That left only three. Maybe enough to buy a permanent docking berth on some forsaken world, someplace where all their dreams would wither. Shit.

  Chapter 24

  Back on the Sequi, no one spoke a word. They flew into the Lepper, cleared for Pote. It was a planet the aviarmen had been to before that had a good medical facility and few bothers.

  All the injuries had Craze slipping in and out of hibernation along the way. The memories of being carried to and from the ship and to the hospital were pure fuzz. He could recall ceiling passing by overhead and a gal sniffling. Rainly.

  “Rainly?”

  “You need to rest,” a lady all in orange said, placing an oxygen mask over his face.

  The influx of air made his lungs ache less. When he felt strong enough to sit up, Talos stared at him from a chair across the room, rolling that prized pin between his fingers. His expression was crest-fallen, but not devoid of all hope.