“I wanna kill bad guys.” Kree folded her arms and thrust her lower lip out. “Bad guys won’t hurt me. I won’t let them. I don’t want the war to stop before I get to play.”
Risa slid from the bed to her knees, and crawled under the desk. “Kree, listen to me. War is not a game. It’s not fun. If I could, I’d stay under here with you all the time, where it’s safe.”
“But you’re too brave to hide.”
“No, I’m not. All I do is hide.” She pulled a strand of hair off Kree’s face. “I hide, and I do bad things to bad people.” Her flimsy smile collapsed. “Sometimes, the people aren’t so bad.”
The girl’s arms fell at her sides as she gazed up at Risa. “Why are they fighting then?”
“A long time ago, before even our parents’ parents were born, people came to Mars.”
“From Earth?” Kree rummaged through the clothes.
“Mm hmm. There are a handful of governments left on Earth, but the two biggest, the UCF and the ACC, came here.”
“They don’t know how to share.” Kree held up a wad of azure cloth, the blue dress Shiro had given her, frowning at it.
Risa chuckled. “No… no they don’t. The ACC in particular is pretty bad with sharing. When the two sides realized they were both here, they started a fight that’s still happening today.”
“What about us?”
“Kree.” Risa grabbed her by the shirt, hard enough to startle her. “You are not with the MLF, do you hear me? If anyone ever asks you, you’re a kid we’re protecting. Do you understand?”
“You’re scaring me,” whined Kree.
Risa let go, ready to snarl out of frustration, but decided to play the game. “It’s important. If they think you’re one of us, they will hurt you. A special operative never admits to being an operative.”
The little girl beamed. “Secret spy?”
“Something like that, but some ‘secret spies’ don’t use guns. They look like normal, everyday people.”
“That’s boring.” Kree pouted.
“No it isn’t. How scared do you think an unarmed spy is when everyone thinks he’s just a computer technician, but he’s going into files where he doesn’t belong, looking for information to help us? What about the ordinary-looking office worker, in a hallway where she doesn’t belong, acting lost so she can listen in on someone talking? They don’t have any weapons, and they know if they get caught…”
Kree gasped. “They have no claws?”
“No claws.”
“Guns?”
“No guns either, but that doesn’t make what they do any less useful. Some of the people who’ve made the biggest difference in war never touched a weapon of any kind.”
“I don’t believe you. You think I’m weak.”
“You’re six!” Risa stifled the urge to yell. “I’m scared to death you’ll get hurt.”
Kree ‘rearranged’ the clothes, smashing her fist into the pile here and there, with a dour frown.
“Wanna go to Funzone?”
The child froze like a statue.
“Kree?”
“Outside?” she whispered.
Risa put a hand on the girl’s back, worried at the sudden trembling. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”
“I don’t want to go outside.” She curled into a ball. “The bad things watch the people. They don’t go into the tunnels.”
“Okay, we can stay here.”
Kree crawled into her lap, clinging. Her trembling stopped, but she seemed like a different person. Risa held her, finding herself muttering things like ‘it’ll be okay’ or ‘shh’ at random intervals. She daydreamed about a Mars without war where she could have a family of her own. Pavo figured prominently, as did a version of Kree who had never been forced to live as a beggar in a mineshaft. Scenes of a normal job, birthday parties, a house full of happy, screaming kids, and a cozy moment with Pavo after dark all played through her mind. She found herself getting even more attached, and worried about what the future might bring.
“How did you wind up in the tunnels? Did something happen to your parents?”
Kree snapped out of her dazed stare, made eye contact for a second, and gazed at her lap. “Daddy went away when I was little.”
“What about your mommy?”
The far-off look returned. The girl shifted and let her head fall against Risa’s chest.
“You can tell me what happened if you want to.”
“Can I see your claws?” Kree asked, eerie and emotionless.
“Promise you won’t try to touch them.”
Kree wobbled her head in an exaggerated, slow nod.
Risa held out her right hand, straightened her fingers, and sent the mental command. Five triangular, transparent blades snapped out with such speed they seemed to appear at full length. Kree didn’t even jump. She studied them, fascinated by the droplets of blood creeping back along the inner curve.
“Do they hurt?”
Risa brushed her safe hand over Kree’s hair. “Yes. Every time they come out.”
“Why don’t they cut you inside?”
“You know how a knife has a sheath?”
Kree looked up long enough to whisper ‘yeah’ before again focusing on the blades like a snake fixed on a charmer’s flute.
“There are little sheaths in my fingers.”
“How do you bend them?”
Risa turned her hand palm down, holding it as though examining her fingernails. “The claws are separate pieces that lock together when they come out. Some stay inside the finger, some in the hand.”
“They’re so small. Are you afraid they’ll break?”
Risa retracted them and wiped her fingertips on the nearest cloth. “They’re as hard as diamonds, but difficult to use. If I hit something like a cyborg the wrong way, they can break.” She frowned, using her now harmless hand to stroke the girl’s hair. “Claws are a meant to be an emergency weapon.” No sane person prefers them. They’re an assassin’s toy. “They’re difficult to use properly. I keep trying to use them when a smart person would use a gun.” A smart person wouldn’t keep getting into these situations.
“But you love them. Everyone knows you always use your claws.”
“I like quiet. Guns aren’t quiet, but they’re far more effective. Any kind of blade is dangerous because you have to get close without being shot.” Risa sighed. “Am I really having this conversation with a little girl?”
Kree stuck out her tongue.
Risa hugged her.
“I don’t have a mommy anymore,” Kree said, sounding distant.
“Oh, sweetie.” Risa squeezed her tight. “I’m so sorry.”
They sat together in silence for a while. The girl showed little outward reaction to Risa’s affectionate squeezes and head-rubs.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I can’t fight forever. I want you to have the family I never did. I can’t let this damn war ruin another life.”
Kree sniffled.
“Would you like to stay with me?”
The girl lifted her gaze slow, as if afraid to make eye contact. “Like a mommy?”
Risa found herself smiling, despite how foolish and scary it sounded. “If you like.”
Kree’s face warped with rage. “No! I don’t want you for a mommy.”
The tiny voice hit her like a cyborg boot to the gut. “W-wha?”
“‘Cause!” Kree glowered at her for another three seconds before all her rage melted into an explosion of tears. “I d-don’t want you to d-die.” The child sniveled for a moment before clamping tight to Risa’s chest and emitting a faint whisper.
“Mommies die.”
eep-red light glimmered from the sheen of condensation upon the metal-paneled wall. At the end of the narrow hallway, head-sized holographic Chinese characters forced an intricate nest of shadow from a mass of exposed wires. A row of people, little more than silhouettes formed of baggy clothing and bright, gleaming goggles, shifted to get a better
look as Risa availed herself of the shortcut. Half laid on the floor, pressed against the wall. The ones who sat up presented the most risk. In the castoff crimson glow of the noodle vendor’s sign, they resembled creatures of darkness lurking in an outer ring of Hell.
She knew walking with her head down was an invitation to be accosted. The posture conveyed either weakness or fear, neither of which had much of a hold on her emotional state. Kree’s reaction to her offer of a home still echoed through her mind. Where had that come from? The sudden desire to take the girl in caught her off guard and escaped her lips before she could think.
A child isn’t an impulse kitten in a store window.
Her vulnerable appearance didn’t bother her as much as she wanted it to. If one of the thugs made a move, she’d see it coming regardless of where she looked. The Wraith would give her brain warning, a ghostly smear of detected motion. Today would be a bad day for someone to get in her way. At that moment, she’d have killed without batting an eyelash. She fantasized about being human again, being defenseless in the dark of an alley deep within the first sublevel of Elysium City. What price would she pay to be normal again? Would it be worth being a victim?
Risa’s unhealthy debate outlasted the narrow confines of the connecting tunnel. A hairless and quite rotund Asian man waved at her from an open-faced restaurant. Painted-on silver eyebrows rose as he smiled. Sixteen stools formed a line in front of the counter, behind which dozens of cooking machines―as well as a few actual pots―chugged and created the steam responsible for the wetness on the walls. The fragrance of brine and broth swirled around her as she approached between two empty seats.
“Wanshàng hao. Liang zhong xiā ba,” said Risa.
The fat man smiled so hard his eyes vanished. “Is maybe not bad for a chip. Two shrimp bowls, right?”
“Yes, thanks. One spicy, one regular.” She leaned an elbow, and half her weight, on the counter. “To go.”
“Mashàng, mashàng.” He whirled about, grabbed a bowl from a high shelf and set about adding pinches and handfuls of ingredients from various bins, as if at random.
Her name spoken on the wind attracted her attention to a holo-panel at the end of the street. A NewsNet doll, perfect and blonde, rattled its empty head about her recent escape from military custody. Iciness spread outward from her gut, reaching for her heart until the image of ‘Risa Black’ appeared in a small frame on the right. The woman they were looking for seemed ten years older, taller, and with narrower, menacing eyes lit by a blood-red glow. If Risa saw that woman in a lonely street, she’d want to run too.
Had the Front’s deck jockeys done that? Perhaps the two soldiers who cut her loose had altered the video. If not them, Raziel? Garrison? She pinched the bridge of her nose, finding the mystery of it painful to contemplate. Why should I care who did it? They’re not seriously looking for me. Her head snapped up. “They’re not serious…” It’s all smoke and mirrors. All for the people.
“You get some bad shit, doll?” asked a deep voice, a little too close for comfort.
Plum-colored silk shimmered over the human wall to her right, the side she’d given most of her back to. The shirt added the only color to the otherwise monochromatic figure in a long coat, trousers, and armored boots, all the same shade of midnight. Two pistols hung at the front of his belt, and the tip of a rifle peeked over his left shoulder. She looked up at the grin of a dark-skinned man who could have been Osebi’s twin brother, if Osebi had a brother with belt-long dreadlocks hanging from the top of an otherwise shaved head. Half of the thin, ropey strands had been dyed as white as Risa’s skin.
The urge to fling herself away from anywhere his arms could reach reared up. Self-control squashed it from a leap to a slow turn that put her back to the counter. Any sense of menace came from size, not the look on his face, even with dark wraparound lenses hiding his eyes. Reason dispelled her fear. She raked a hand through her hair, hoping to distance herself from her uncontained expression of alarm.
“What?” she asked. “Anyone that mutters to themselves is on bad shit?”
“You have that look.” He also leaned one elbow on the noodle counter, interlacing his fingers across his stomach. “Like a doll with a jacked-up actuator in her hip and thousand-mile eyes.”
His characterization hit a nerve despite his casual demeanor and disarming smile. He called me a broken marionette. Images of Pavo and the night she’d hoped for flashed in her mind. The thought of attack, of not being able to see him, stirred butterflies in the base of her gut.
“Relax.” He raised one hand for a few seconds. “I come bearing only a message. Arden is unwise.”
“I have no idea what that means.” Virtual display screens exploded at the periphery of her vision, artifacts created by cybernetic eyes displaying eleven concurrent searches for ‘Arden.’ Faces of people, an agricultural settlement, and a couple of entertainment vids. She kept her attention on the man in front of her. A rectangle superimposed over his figure rendered a slab of world map in black and white. Metallurgical scan revealed plastisteel bone grafts, full-body wiring, and more than a little bit of headware. If he wanted to hurt her, she’d be at a disadvantage.
Plastic skiffed along the counter behind her. “You ready. Sixty-two, please.”
Without looking at the cook, Risa held out her NetMini until it beeped over the credit-taker. “Can I get a couple extra packets of hot sauce?”
“Of course. My pleasure, miss.”
“No idea what it means,” muttered the man, pulling down his sunglasses to reveal all-chrome eyes. A luminescent grid of bright green lines swam over the mirror orbs from right to left, vanishing as fast as it appeared. “It would be best if your people keep it that way.”
He tucked his shades back into place with his thumb, and strolled away with the crowd.
“What was he all about?” asked the cook. “I ready for fighting, but he go.”
“I don’t know…” Risa tracked the man until he folded into the crowd a block away, and sent an image cap of his face to Garrison’s mailbox.
She smiled at the cook, collected the food, and jogged across the street to an alley. Going in the same direction as the man seemed foolish, and going the opposite direction wouldn’t bring her to Pavo’s apartment. Following a helpful map floating to her right, she circled around via a few alleys at a rapid trot and wound up jogging along a parallel street for a three blocks until she found an access to the lower tiers. Switchback stairs carved from raw Mars rock led down into the depths below the city.
Most tourists regarded Elysium as an aboveground jewel of Mars, much like Arcadia. The people who lived here, the people who deserved Mars, knew better. Elysium’s surface presence represented only about one quarter of the city’s true size. Some structures went farther down than they did up. This sector lay deep in the middle class, without much of the class. Dazed vagrants and broken autoinjectors littered the passage down to the fifth sublevel, but no one lurked in the shadows here. One peculiarity of the grid space Pavo had elected to live in was the unusual number of MDF peace officers who made it their home.
Despite the district’s forlorn appearance, the baser element more or less gave it a wide berth. Anything bad happened here and one knew they dealt with either a poser, someone desperate enough to be truly dangerous, or someone deadly enough not to sweat a guaranteed run-in with the police. An idiot she could handle, and neither of the other options would likely bother with a solitary woman―unless they were looking for her.
That would be an altogether different problem.
She darted out of the stairwell and hurried past two sector blocks of too-quiet alleys. Once she found his building, she caught herself almost skipping down a hallway too small to allow two grown men to pass without shifting sideways. By the time she’d made it past six doors, hooked a right, and approached the third apartment from the corner, the spring had left her step. Risa wrapped her arms around the bundle of soup like a beggar child guarding her f
east, nudged the communication panel with her ass, and stared at her boots.
Her augmented ears picked up the faint whirr of a camera lens focusing. She didn’t move.
A square of light slid across the carpet, leaving her standing in the middle of it. The scent of Pavo, sweat, and cheap cologne leaked into the hallway.
“The only thing missing from that image is rain and a tattered dress.”
“What?” She looked up.
“You look like a cruel stepmother’s sent you off to work. Either that, or you should be meowing at my door.”
“You’re funny tonight, Pavo.” She lifted her gaze, regarding his boxer-clad glory. “Are you going to make me stand here meowing?”
He chuckled and backed away, letting her scoot past before he banged a fist into the wall on the control. Two-inch-thick plastisteel slid closed without much sound but a faint hiss. Risa went to the single table in the apartment’s main area, stepping as best she could over piles of random junk and clothing. A pair of briefs lay flat on the table.
“Oh, that’s appetizing. What are these doing on the table?”
“I was about to iron them.”
She looked at him. “Iron? You’re either a shitty liar or your little box needs some attention.”
“What about yours?” he winked.
“I don’t even have one. My room’s a hole in the ground and I don’t own any―”
“Ugh.” He rubbed sleep off his face. “‘Box’ is Earth slang for…”
Her melancholy broke apart, leaving her laughing to the point of tears.
“It wasn’t that funny.” He jogged over and cleared a spot for her to put the food down. She nudged the briefs to the floor.
“I know,” she yelled. “That’s why it hit me so funny… because it wasn’t funny.”
He sat. “Anything you wanna talk about?”
She slumped in the chair, wiping her eyes and giggling for a few more minutes while he unwrapped the noodle bowls. The spicy one got pushed in front of her with one finger, as though it contained radioactive material he did not want to be near.
“Kree.” Her hands fell in her lap. “That kid saw her mother die. I’m sure of it.”
Hand of Raziel (Daughter of Mars Book 1) Page 36
