Hand of Raziel (Daughter of Mars Book 1)

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Make me human again?” She twisted to the right, only far enough to get a blur of him in her peripheral vision. “Then who else gets stuck like this? I’m already broken.”

  “You’re human, and you’re not bro―”

  “I need to think.” She stomped to the door, loud enough to chase off the pack of small eavesdroppers. “I’m not even sure what I want anymore.”

  wo violet dots floated in a void of black glass upon the door of a food reassembler. A five-by-seven-inch holo-panel hovered to the right of the boxy machine, presenting the same list of generic ‘universally appealing’ choices some suit in an office somewhere on Earth approved. Nothing too spicy or too bland, nothing whatsoever that could run the risk of offending or injuring anyone. Risa had stared at the same list since she’d been a little girl. She felt, with a reasonable degree of certainty, this machine was older than her by at least four years.

  One option offered a chance at excitement: flickering blue letters in a rounder font at the bottom of the menu overlapped the border on the screen with the phrase ‘I feel lucky.’ Someone hacked the control module years ago, supposedly adding a secret list of random ‘things with flavor.’ A lump squeezed Risa’s throat as she recalled how Genevieve tried it once, about six years ago. Everyone teased the ever-tired redhead for having awful luck, an attribute perhaps proved by the disastrous result of choosing a food reassembler option claiming to feel lucky. It wasn’t so much the scream that echoed through the entire facility when the ‘sem went crazy that got to her, as it was remembering her friend’s death seven months after ‘the vindaloo incident.’

  The bomb she had tried to plant had gone off the instant she’d hit the button to start the countdown.

  Menu items faded to a blur of indistinct, watery pixels. At least she didn’t feel anything.

  A few people made tentative passes into the area behind her, no doubt hovering to see if the ‘sem was open. Two guys in the bunks arranged around the wall of the alcove hadn’t moved a muscle since she’d walked in. She’d evidently screamed at Garrison loud enough for most of the safehouse to hear. Her walk from his office to one of the residence cubbies navigated rooms of total silence and awkward fidgeting. Not one person over the age of fourteen made eye contact with her. Granted, none of the usual whispering happened either.

  Fear and guilt look the same sometimes.

  A faint reflection in the glass dwarfed hers as a man edged up behind her.

  “No matter ‘ow long you stare at it, it will not ‘ave sushi,” said a deep voice.

  “I know.” She flung her hand into the intangible holo-panel, not concerned whatsoever with whatever selection her finger brushed. “Sorry, Osebi.”

  “Is it somet’ing of which ya wish ta speak?”

  Risa shifted her weight onto one leg as the machine lit up inside and whirred. Tiny metal feelers flailed like the legs of a hand-sized spider, weaving and painting molecules of OmniSoy into food. She glanced at the well-muscled chest eye level to her before reaching out and placing one finger through a small hole on the front of his sleeveless tan vest.

  “New one?”

  Osebi swiped a blue bandanna from his bald head and wadded it into his pocket. “Dat came two weeks ago. Just a flesh wound.” He lowered his voice. “Tis not ae bad ting what ta have people fearin’ ya. If it be te right people.”

  “That’s the problem.” A ding drew her attention to the ‘sem long enough to remove what appeared to be a slab of grilled chicken on a roll, covered in yellow-orange slime with a smell somewhere between cheese and foot. “Genevieve.”

  Osebi’s left hand engulfed her shoulder. “When we play wit matches, it is inevitable we will burn ourselves. She was very skilled. She could not ‘ave known de timer was defective. Bad gear.”

  Risa stared at the floor. Raziel would have known. “She didn’t have an angel.”

  He patted her twice and reached to the ‘sem. “You ‘ave advantages Genevieve did not. She take de occasional shortcut or two. You are methodical.”

  She nibbled on the sandwich. “It’s not fair that good people always die.”

  “Why not ask your angel ta bring her a message.” Osebi’s teeth formed a crescent of ivory, stark white against his face.

  “You don’t believe he’s real. You wouldn’t be grinning like that.”

  Osebi tapped a finger on his lower lip, cocking his head to the side for a moment. “Who is ta say? You are still alive afta many risky tings. Perhaps we doubt what we do not understand.”

  “Short straw?”

  He pulled a cheeseburger out of the machine. “Come again?”

  “They put you up to apologizing, didn’t they?”

  “I don’t know what you talkin’ aba’t.” He walked backwards three paces and fell into a chair by the small table. “Dey ask me nu’ting. I am merely a man who is hungry.”

  A halfhearted smile, as ephemeral as what passed for happiness in her life, came and went. Osebi took half the burger in his next bite. Risa wandered away from the residence cubby, across the command room, and into a rear hall. One of the perks of being a field operative handling infiltration and demolition work took the form of a private room on Death Row. The name started as a running joke by madmen laughing in the face of oblivion, a fleeting effort to preserve a shred of sanity while giving the reaper the finger.

  Children’s giggles mixed with the sounds of mock warfare and battles with monsters echoed from the corner at the far end, five doors away from Risa’s room. It had been hers for a little over five years, not that she used it much. Even as a small child with a bed in Garrison’s office, she could only truly surrender to sleep in a vent shaft a quarter-mile down. It seemed foolish to lower one’s guard in a place the military wanted to destroy. She stepped over hoses as thick as her arm, strewn about the floor as they had been for months in preparation to be mounted in the ceiling ‘next week.’ A hip thrust to the control panel opened her door, and she sat on the edge of a battered Comforgel bed. The plate, and the half-eaten chicken experiment, sat on her lap.

  The room looked a mess, the princess doll perched on the basic steel writing desk in front of her and what few clothes she owned aside from her armored suit formed a haphazard pile on the floor. She hadn’t yet been able to organize them into the wardrobe cabinet. That would feel too much like having a real home. It would seem too normal, and remind her of what happened to her life.

  She glanced down at her food. Already, the surface of the supposed bun showed signs of degeneration. Spots with a shiny quality appeared here and there. She hallucinated she could perceive them growing. Another five minutes, and it would melt back into tasteless, beige OmniSoy. Risa ate in defiance of her mood, unconcerned with seeming the savage and devouring it in three huge bites. The echoes of the kids lured her to her feet and out the door, where she leaned against the wall watching them.

  Four of the boys from the mineshaft hid behind makeshift barricades of footlockers and small shelves, aiming tools and bits of pipe as though they were rifles. Kree crept on all fours, the black of her puffy skirt sparkling with glitter, up to a wheeled cart full of mechanical parts and wires, holding a brown ration packet wrapped with red wires.

  “Spee’ware!” the little girl shouted.

  Kree jumped out of her hiding place, running at the four boys. Good sports they were; all of them moved as if in slow motion and fell down as she made clawing gestures at them. The six-year-old ‘mini Risa’ did a spot-on impression of her idol’s ‘don’t mess with me’ walk over to another shelf. She set the ration pack on it and made beeping noises as she poked it with one finger.

  Risa covered her mouth with a hand, warmth gathering in the corners of her eyes. The first time these kids had seen her, she’d planted a bomb in the supposedly abandoned tunnels they called home. She almost hadn’t made it back to disarm it in time. Their almost-death had become a game to them. Kree pivoted on one foot, making an overacted show of ‘running fast’ as she darted down
the hall. While the girl made bomb noises from a safe distance, the boys sat up.

  “This is boring,” said one.

  “Aww c’mon, she’s little,” whispered the oldest boy.

  “Tim, speedware’s cheating,” whined Sam.

  “Nuh-uh,” said Tim. “It’s cybernetics.”

  “It is,” said Risa, stepping away from the wall.

  All four of them screamed. Their shock morphed to embarrassed anger as giggles echoed from down the hallway.

  “Don’t laugh! You didn’t see her either, Kree,” yelled Kyle.

  “Wait, you said it is cheating?” asked Brett.

  “Yes.” She sauntered up to them. “If you were playing a game where losing meant you died, wouldn’t you do everything possible not to lose?”

  Sam studied his mismatched boots. The smallest boy, a year or so older than Kree, picked his nose and made a face at her.

  “Something wrong, Kyle?”

  He opened his mouth, shifted his expression from confused to angry and back to confused, and closed it again.

  Kree scrambled over.

  “It’s a bad game if you die,” said Kyle.

  “Well then.” Risa patted him on the head. “I guess I should be happy it’s not a game, and I don’t want any of you to ever play it.” She shot a wistful look at Kree. “It’s not at all fun when I have to hurt people. That’s not what this is about.”

  The boys looked downcast, as if scolded.

  “It hurts too.” Risa traced a finger down her arm. “The wires get hot. They’re inside me, so I can’t stop touching them, even if they’re burning me.”

  All five kids shivered.

  “But, you don’t cry,” said Kree.

  Risa laughed. “I guess I just got used to it. It was nice of you to let her ‘speedware’ work, but you were moving a bit too fast.”

  “Too fast?” Brett, the other ten-year-old, blinked. “We were hardly moving.”

  “Show us!” yelled Kyle.

  “Yeah… I wanna see,” said Sam.

  “I…” She shot a pained glance at the control room, visible on the other side of blurry hanging plastic at the far end of the hall to the right. Straight ahead, an older section darkened the passage black about forty yards away where it turned left. Play? I don’t remember the last time… Even when I was their age, all I did was hide. “Oh, why not.”

  Kree squealed and jumped up and down with delight.

  “Umm, you’re not gonna claw us for real are you,” asked Brett.

  “No,” she snapped. At the fearful look they gave her, she softened. “I already came too close to hurting you all.”

  Kree reached up and hugged her about the waist. “You didn’t know we were there, and you went back to stop it. We forgive you.”

  The boys gave her encouraging nods and smiles.

  After collecting her composure, Risa sent them back to their ‘fortifications’ and touched her fingers to a greasy machine attached to the ceiling before walking around the corner.

  “That’s too far,” said Kyle, pointing at the cart. “Kree was there.”

  Risa leaned her back to the wall, with the open corridor to her right. “I said you were too fast, didn’t I? Tell me when you’re ready. Afterward, tell me if you think you could’ve shot me before I got to you.”

  What am I doing?

  Kree beamed up at her, hero-worship all but flowing from her bulging eyes.

  Risa returned the grin.

  “Go,” yelled Brett.

  An instantaneous mental command kicked her speedware up to full boost, and plunged the world into frozen time. Distant voices and technical sounds from the command room dragged into something akin to the foggy soundtrack of a horror vid. She leapt around the corner and sprinted fifteen yards before brushing Kyle’s cheek with two fingertips of her left hand. Sam on the right got two black spots on his forehead. She smudged a line over Brett’s neck and left five fingerprints on Timothy’s chest. Not one of the small faces showed any reaction to her appearance before she’d passed them.

  Once she stopped behind them, Risa shut down the boost and crossed her arms, winking at Kree who stood with her jaw hanging open where she’d been less than two seconds earlier. Surely, to the little girl’s point of view, she had become a black smear and all but teleported. All four boys reacted to being touched simultaneously, twitching and screaming.

  “I’d ask if you think you hit me, but I didn’t see any of you try to make gun sounds.”

  The boys whirled around. After a few seconds, they laughed at the smudges they all wore.

  Kyle made a sad face. “Did that hurt?”

  “Not really.” She winked. “I didn’t leave it on that long. They say it’ll kill me someday. Overstressing the nerves can cause burnout.”

  “I don’t wanna play ‘spee’ware’ with her anymore.” Brett pointed at Kree. “It’s not a game if she always wins.”

  “You’d have more fun playing tunnel spiders,” said Risa.

  The boys, inspired by the suggestion, ran off toward the darkened part of the hall. Kree remained, staring up at her. After a moment, the awe and innocence in her dark blue eyes turned to desire.

  “I wanna be like you when I get big. I want claws and spee’ware and fireflies for eyes too!”

  Risa’s lip quivered. She dropped to one knee and pulled the girl into a hug.

  “No, Kree. No, you don’t.”

  After a moment, Risa sat back on her heels, fussing with the jet-black hair that hung past Kree’s hips, as frizzed and wild as the girl in front of her. She looked less pitiful without dirt and dust smudged on her face, though pure white Marsborn skin made her seem like a phantom. Wide blue eyes set in the eager face of the bony urchin reminded her of what almost happened, of what she almost did.

  She grasped the child by the shoulders, struggling to suppress the urge to shiver at the memory of the timer coming so close to zero. Kree tilted her head and gave her the same mouth-half-open pensive expression she always did whenever Risa couldn’t bear to make eye contact with a child she’d almost killed.

  Gone was the battered man’s shirt that had passed for a dress. Despite Garrison’s protests about taking on more mouths to feed, someone had risked a trip into the city to get them newer clothes. Already, a thumbprint-sized spot of porcelain peeked through the torn knee of her purple tights, and her glittery black skirt had a small rip in the side. Only the pink long-sleeved sweater seemed to have escaped damage.

  “Why?”

  The argument remained fresh in the memory of everyone in the safehouse. Kree hadn’t much cared for such a girly outfit, and few things carry through a metal-walled cave like the voice of an upset little girl. She wailed about everything except her tiny lavender moon-boots. Those, she adored. She even wanted to shower with them on. Oh, how she had screamed when they told her she had to take them off to bathe.

  Risa chuckled. “I’m sorry. They thought you’d like it. It looks cute.”

  “I’m not cute,” said Kree.

  “Oh, fine… I’ll get you some pants as soon as I can.”

  Kree shook her head hard enough to make her entire body sway back and forth. “No. I mean why can’t I grow up to be like you? No one can hurt you, you’re too good!”

  “I’m not that good.” She looked down. “I kill people. I almost killed…”

  “But you didn’t!” Kree pulled on Risa’s hand. “You zoomed like”―she ran in place, making rocket noises―“and you turned off the bomb”―she clawed at the air―“so it didn’t hurt anyone. You’re too fast for lasers and you dis-pear in the dark.”

  “Kree, war isn’t fun. The people I hurt don’t get up and play again. When our friends get hurt, they stay gone too.”

  The girl pouted at the floor. “Why don’t you like me?”

  “I do!” Risa took the girl’s hand and walked with her to her little-used bedroom. “I like you enough to want you to stay safe.” She shivered. “If I didn’t like you, I�
��d tell you to grow up to be just like me.”

  Kree remained quiet for a moment, tolerating a squeezing arm around her back. “I’m still little. I don’t wanna kill any bad guys yet. I gotta get big first.”

  “Don’t rush that.” Risa let go of the girl to wipe her own eyes.

  The girl wandered to where the pile of clothes crept under the desk, and flopped on it, clunking the toes of her puffy boots together.

  Risa sat on the bed, running her nails over her scalp several times while staring at a burned-out e-mag on the floor between her feet. “You shouldn’t be worrying about that. Want me to put on an animation or something? How about a game?”

  “Why? ‘Cause I’m a girl?”

  “No, because you’re six.”

  “I bet you killed your first bad guy when you were six!”

  “When I was six, I played with dolls, wore pink dresses, and had ribbons in my hair.” Risa took out her NetMini. “I was even afraid to go outside, so I didn’t get hurt. We didn’t live in a nice part of the city.”

  Kree’s mouth hung wide. “Liar!”

  Risa held up the only tangible memory of her past. A still holographic picture of her, maybe five, standing next to ‘Colonel Black,’ or Andriy, or whoever the hell he was. Somehow, Garrison had gotten a hold of it after the argument and sent it to her. True to her word, little Risa flashed a saccharin grin, her hair held in twin tails by pink ribbons that matched her frilly dress. It hadn’t occurred to her before how much like the princess doll she looked. The picture was too low-res to make out the color of her eyes. She stared through the back of her own virtual head, noting every dust mote as it glimmered within the ethereal figure of the lie standing next to her.

  “But…” Kree looked as though she’d learned her living god had died.

  A twitch of a thumb shut the NetMini off before she rolled the small black slab over and over in her palm. “It’s okay to act like a little kid. Enjoy it while you can. Maybe there won’t even be a war by the time you’re older.”