by P. J. Sky
Keshia drew the pendant back into her pocket. The burly man reached for her. Keshia rolled sideways, leapt to her feet, and ran towards the opposite end of the alleyway.
“’You just come back here,” she heard one of the men cry.
Keshia ran into the street, her bare feet kicking up the red dust. She squeezed between two pedestrians, their elbows linked like lovers, one holding a battered, pink parasol, and darted between two scrawny donkeys. Their ribs, easily visible through their damp coats, pressed against her like the bars of two xylophones. She ducked between their docile snouts, swung around the back of a metal cart piled high with red dirt, and slipped into a crowd of people clustered around a baker’s stall. The bread smelt rich and fresh.
“Hey, stop that kid.”
Hands reached down through the crowd but Keshia slipped between them, always one step ahead of their grasp. On the other side of the crowd, she clambered over a fence, sprinted across a paddock, her foot squelching in a warm mound of animal dung, and slid between two humped camels. The camels rolled their jaws but otherwise ignored her. She scraped her feet in the dry dirt; she hated getting dung between her toes.
Keshia slid out from between the camels, clambered onto a dented metal keg, and pulled herself through the overhead growths of electrical cabling and onto the low, sloped roof of a building. Below, she could see the two men moving through the crowd. They were quicker than she thought they’d be. One pointed up at her. Keshia’s heart bounced and she stuck out her tongue.
She turned and sprinted along the edge of the roof. A roof tile slipped and clattered to the ground below and someone shouted up to her.
“Hey…”
She staggered onto a rooftop terrace and ran into a blanket that hung from a washing line. The blanket swallowed her and she stumbled blind.
She heard a harsh voice. “Wha’ do ya think ya doin’, stealin’ my blankets?” Something hard hit her in the ribs. One blow, two blows.
Keshia pulled away the blanket and looked up to see a red-faced woman in an apron brandishing a rolling pin. She held her hands out to the woman, stumbled backwards, and fell on her backside.
“Ge’ out of it kid.”
Keshia scrambled to her feet. She turned, stumbled, and knocked over a plant pot sending dark mud scattering across the floor. Without waiting for the woman’s reaction, she ducked through the kitchen door.
What smelt like a stew bubbled on the hob; probably more liquid than root or fat, but still it smelt thick and sweet and heavy on her stomach. A table was laid, two plastic cups, a pot of something, two plates, two spoons. Keshia’s stomach grumbled.
Just think how much the pendant must be worth though.
Keshia ran into the second room where beds were made up on the floor. She could hear the woman behind her shouting.
“An’ just where do ya think you’re goin’, kid?”
Keshia climbed through the window and back onto the roof. Her feet slipped against the eaves and she grabbed hold of the sill to steady herself.
A haze of wood smoke hung over the flat roofs of the city. From up here, she could see the big, silver screen, where they played the moving pictures all the pilgrims came to see. Every night the past was recreated on the big screen and the stories of another time and place were told. Not many could read the titles; Keshia could, she’d been taught in the orphanage, back when it was still there. But being able to read the titles didn’t necessarily mean they made any sense to her.
Keshia slipped down onto the balcony. Below, the busy street thronged with traders, travellers, refugees, pilgrims and slaves. It seemed that, with the war, everyone was on the move. Between the throng, carts and even the occasional powered vehicle tried to press through the disorderly streets.
“Get outa my way,” someone shouted.
“I was ‘ere first,” came the quick retort.
“Well, I been ‘ere since last week.”
“Only a week ‘e says, only a week!”
Traders cried out from their stalls; “Relics, relics, hardly been worshipped.”
“Fresh bread, only baked yesterday.”
“Kangaroo, wallaby, rat on a stick.”
Again, Keshia’s stomach grumbled. She slipped down onto a passing cart and pushed herself down between the hessian sacks. From a passing window, a small boy saw her and she grinned at him and put her finger to her lips.
Keshia peeked over the sacks and could see the hooded form of the driver, his back to her, and the bob of the camel’s head. People of all types pressed around the cart as it waded through the throng like a boat working its way up river, fighting the current. There were city guards with their green armbands, pilgrims in white robes, and the endless stream of refugees that poured into the city each day from the eastern deserts. People in rags, or missing limbs, some with those wide, numb eyes.
For some reason, even though the war had swept her into Bo along with everyone else, Keshia had never really felt like one of the refugees. These people felt like they’d lost something, while Keshia couldn’t help feeling like she’d found something. She wasn’t sure what, but for so long she’d yearned to escape the orphanage, and though she truly hadn’t liked seeing the mother superior face down in a pool of her own blood, she couldn’t help feeling that, on that particular occasion, it was the mother superior, not she, who had lost the most.
Under the shadow of the monorail, the cart stopped, and Keshia slid off the back and onto the street. Overhead, the electric motor whined and the metal wheels sparked as the ancient train clattered past. At the junction, Keshia moved through the throng and back into the market. Traders pressed on either side of her, peddling everything from bread to clothing, but especially anything that could be considered a relic from the time of the moving pictures. The most prized of these relics were the tiny, brown pictures. Once, Keshia had seen one up close. The image contained what looked to her like a man in a shiny suit of armour that covered every part of him including his head, standing next to some kind of canister with an oval lid. The canister leant on its side and the man in the suit of armour had his metal hand on the top of the canister. As Keshia had studied it, the only thing she really got from it was that it was valuable to people who had more half-moon coins than they needed.
Keshia ducked her head and slipped past the stall that sold the shiny jewellery and was now missing a pendant.
In the centre of the market, Keshia skirted around the Fallen Star; a hunk of blackened metal people said once fell from the sky. Keshia didn’t know if she believed this legend, but she understood that in Bo, anything that fell from the sky was considered more valuable than anything dug up out of the ground, so it was clearly beneficial to declare that anything you dug up from the ground actually fell from the sky. Everything, after all, was now very old; who was to say it hadn’t at one time spent time in the sky? In a world obsessed with the stars, it was a good idea to be connected with one.
These days, everyone seemed to be chasing after one star cult or another; the Maker Star, the Southern Star, the Morning Star, the We’re-all-in-Sirius-Trouble Star; increasingly there was a star for all occasions, to be wished upon and cursed upon in equal measure. Everyone was looking for a saviour, as if there were a star out there that might let them escape this downtrodden world.
Keshia pushed through two stalls piled high with rusty scrap metal and slipped into a quiet alleyway.
She grinned. They’ll have to be faster than that, she thought.
A heavy hand clamped onto her shoulder.
∆∆∆
Keshia’s feet left the ground and she winced as the burly man picked her up by her shoulders and pressed her against the alley wall. One side of the man’s face balled together to reveal, in his upper gum, a single yellow tooth.
“Think ya can get away from me, do ya?”
Keshia tried not to choke on his acrid breath. The man’s huge sausage fingers dug into her skin. Across the alleyway, the scrawny man with the chin li
ke sandpaper glared at her.
“No one steals from me an’ gets away with it.”
The burly man started rifling through her pockets. Between the pebbles and bits of string, he found the four half-moon coins. He held the coins up to her face.
“See, you steal from me, I steal from you, now where’s the pendant?”
The man must have caught sight of the black cord around her neck. He pulled at the cord and the tiny, metal cross danced on the end of it.
“No, please,” said Keshia.
“Not up to you, missy.”
The man tugged and the cord came free. He held it to the light and the sun glinted on its metallic surface.
“Bitta’ silver ‘ere. Not as much as the pendant, but it’s a start, ay, missy, now where’s the pendant?”
“Please.” Tears formed in Keshia’s eyes and she tried to wriggle away. She tilted her head and bit into the hand that grasped her shoulder.
The man yelped and struck her across the cheek.
Keshia tasted iron. Then, all of a sudden, someone had pulled the man from her and she was falling to the floor. She looked up and saw the familiar shaved head and sharp, grey eyes.
“Ari!”
Ari heaved the burly man against the opposite wall. “Why don’t ya pick on someone ya own size, instead 'a goin’ after the kid?”
Keshia breathed a sigh of relief. She could always count on Ari to get her out of a fix. In comparison with Ari’s taut, wiry figure, all muscle and bone, the burly man looked like a sack of salt.
The scrawny man threw himself against Ari, struck her sideways, and Ari stumbled, her heavy boots skidding in the dust, and fell onto the floor. Her marsupial eyes darted between her assailants.
The burly man picked himself up and pointed towards Keshia. “She stole a pendant, right off my stall, plain as day.”
Ari slid the blade from its sheath by her ankle and leapt to her feet. “Yeah, so ya say.”
“Ya don’t scare us,” said the scrawny man.
Ari stepped forwards, her jaw set, and both men stepped back.
The burly man held out one thick finger and pointed it at Keshia. “I’ll be back with the guard, just you see.” Keshia’s cross hung from his fingers on its cord.
“An’ you do that,” said Ari. She reached out and snatched the cross from his fingers.
The burly man grumbled; “Back with the guard, you just see if we’re not. Ya won’t be seein’ the last of us. If I was you two, I’d be gettin’ out of Bo and fast before the guard catches up with ya, or worse.” The burly man grinned, relishing this last word.
“Come on kid,” said Ari.
Keshia smiled at the two men. “Be seeing you two around, then.”
“Shut it, kid,” said Ari.
Keshia looked up and scowled.
The burly man shook his head and the two men turned and walked away.
Ari slipped the blade into its sheath. “I ain’t gonna always be here kid. Next time, ya might be on ya own.”
Keshia reached inside her shirt and pulled out the silver pendant. It glinted in the hot sun.
“So ya did thieve it.”
Keshia shrugged. “Received it from a table already too heavily laden. Besides, how else are we going to pay back the syndicate?”
Ari shook her head. “So ya plan to steal from one group ‘a folks so ya can pay back another?”
“The syndicate don’t care where the money comes from.”
“Yeah, but that ain’t the point. That fancy orphanage learned ya some big words but they didn't learn ya nothin’ about not thievin’. I’m thinkin’ I shouldn’ even return ya cross till ya learn not to go thievin’.”
Keshia’s mouth dropped. “Ari, you can’t keep it.”
“An’ why not?” She stopped and looked down at Keshia, her finger raised. “I don't know how, but we’re gonna make those coins back the honest way.”
Ari turned and carried on walking. For a moment, Keshia didn’t move.
I should have been more careful, she thought, I shouldn’t have got caught in the first place. Next time I’ll be more careful.
She watched Ari push her cross deeper into her pocket, clearly not yet planning to return it. The cross was almost all Keshia had left from that forgotten time at the orphanage and, though she rarely thought of what it represented, and she didn’t miss the orphanage, this didn’t mean she wanted to part with it.
Keshia sighed. “Ari, wait up.”
They made their way through a series of quiet backstreets and into the wide avenues of the individually fortified homes. In these nicer parts of town there was always less trouble. Keshia liked it here, and she imagined herself one day living on the other side of one of these walled compounds, as the rich folk did. From the glimpses Keshia had seen as their gates opened and closed, the occupants of these walled houses lived lives a world apart from the outside streets.
“See,” said Ari, “I only see this thievin’ goin’ one ‘a two ways. Either the guard catches ya an’ strings ya up outside the walls, or the Jackrollas get ya an’ they break ya legs. An either way, when the day comes I ain’t stickin’ around to help ya out, ya got that?”
Keshia didn’t care about stall owners threatening her with the guard, but somehow, when Ari said it, it felt more real, like she really could end up with the other thieves, hanging by a rope outside the city walls. Rarely did she think of it, except in the middle of the night when she woke in a cold sweat, the memory of shell explosions echoing in her ears.
Keshia shrugged. “Well, you don’t have any better ideas do you? We can’t leave the city, not with the war, and there’s no work for people like us…”
“Now that ain’t entirely true.”
It was a man’s voice, deep but with a slight whine.
Keshia looked round and there stood Kim Blatta, Jackroller enforcer, representative of the syndicate.
Chapter 3
Kim’s grin exposed his gold front tooth.
“Run,” said Ari.
“I don’t think so,” said Kim.
Two broad shouldered men with guns stepped around the corner. Another two appeared from the other side of the road. These were smartly dressed men in shiny green suits and sporting sculpted beards, except for Kim who was almost unnaturally clean shaven. These men were far smarter and better equipped than the city guard. In Bo, it was the Jackrollers who were the real law.
Kim flexed his fingers inside his leather gloves and pressed his fist into his palm.
“What do ya want?” asked Ari.
“Come, come,” said Kim, “I think we’re beyond that, don’t you?”
“So ya gonna break our legs?”
Kim sucked his bottom lip and stepped forwards. “Well, I could, by rights, that’d be the justice of the streets. But then, the syndicate wouldn't get the coins you owe us, an’ the syndicate is always lookin’ to get its cut. The syndicate is, above all things, a business, an’ we do see you two as, let’s say, somethin’ of a long term investment.”
“So what do ya want?”
“Well, we’ve had word from an associate of ours who would like to offer you both what he promises to be a very lucrative opportunity, one that would allow you to pay back what you stole from us, with interest. So, you’re gonna come with us now, an’ ya gonna hear what our associate has to offer, an’ ya gonna get to make a choice. Either ya take the job, ya make the money, ya pay us back, with interest, or we come back, break both ya legs, an’ drop ya both outside the offices of the guard.”
Keshia shuddered. She thought of the thieves that hung outside the city walls. Did any of them have broken legs?
Kim leant in close to Ari and his accent broadened. “An’ just so ya know, the Jackrollas is one thing, but for me, personally, I hope ya choose the latter.” Kim grinned. He looked down at Keshia and held out his gloved hand. “The pendant ya stole. Let's call it a down payment, somethin’ to stop me breakin’ ya little wrist right now.”
Keshia shivered. She reached inside her shirt and pulled out the silver pendant. She placed it in Kim’s palm and his fingers snapped closed like a trap.
Kim straightened. “It’s always such a pleasure to do business with you two.”
∆∆∆
Kim’s men saw them through the gates and into the walled compound of one of the fortified houses. A boy in white waited at the gate and avoided Keshia’s gaze, as if trained to always look down, never at those he served.
Kim grinned. “Just remember now, there’s always a choice. An’ we’ll always find ya. Ain’t no escaping the syndicate. Now you two have a nice evenin’ now, you’ll be livin’ the good life tonight. But tomorrow, either way, we’ll be here.”
Kim stepped away from the gate and the boy closed it between them and slid the bolts home. The boy nodded to Ari and Keshia and turned and walked away.
Keshia felt like she should follow him but Ari hung back and Keshia did the same. Instead, she looked about at the world they’d somehow slipped into.
Oil lamps hung from gnarled, twisted trees with tiny, green leaves. Water trickled from a central fountain. The floor was an immaculate mosaic of tiny white and green tiles. Beyond the fountain was a covered area with soft, luxurious furnishings. Keshia’s eyes caught the golden candle sticks. They had to be worth something. Whoever lived here was rich.
Keshia circled the fountain and listened to the tinkle of the water on the tiles. She was drawn towards a mirror within an intricate gold frame. She hadn’t looked at her reflection in some time, not since the attack on her convent. As she approached the glass, the girl who gazed back looked older than she remembered. Olive skin, frizzy black hair, tied back behind her head though unruly locks escaped at every opportunity. Deep, dark eyes. The fresh, pink skin on her chin looked better than she’d expected. It would probably scar, but it had healed well. Her cheekbones looked more prominent perhaps, her cheeks more hollowed out.
“Ahh, the vanity of the mirror.”
Keshia turned. A short man in a white suit that matched his mop of white hair was looking at her. He twitched his narrow, blade-like nose and smiled rakishly.
