Razor Girl

by Marianne Mancusi

  Well, wondering wouldn’t answer any questions. Molly staggered to her feet and set down off down the street as fast as her legs would carry her.

  Chase swore under his breath as his brother’s shout filled the otherwise still air, echoing through the neighborhood. “Way to be subtle,” he muttered. “Why not just call them down on you?”

  Crouched on the rooftop of a dilapidated garage, he inched forward, careful not to make any sudden movements. As he’d climbed the weather-beaten structure, it felt like it could collapse at any moment; still, it was the best vantage point for seeing any Others wandering the nearby perimeter, and Chase wanted to know the area was clear before making his score. It wasn’t like they saw Others every day, but it seemed the creatures always appeared when you least expected it. Whenever you let your guard down, bam, that was when they got you. Wasn’t that what had happened over and over to their little group?

  “Chase! Dude! If you don’t come out I’m going back!”

  His brother’s voice again. Louder, more urgent. Did the idiot really think he was lost? That he hadn’t slipped away on purpose? Probably. Tank wasn’t known for his brains. Just his foolhardy protectiveness of those he took under his wing—which was practically anyone and anything these days. Nonetheless, Tank wouldn’t have approved of Chase going off on his own, and he certainly wouldn’t have approved of Chase’s intended goal.

  Whatever. At the end of the day, a man had to do what he had to do, older brother’s approval or not.

  “Hey! Over here! I’m over here!”

  Chase’s head jerked around and he almost lost his balance on the roof. What was that? Another voice? And not just any voice. It sounded like a woman. It came in the other direction from his brother, and it was faint.

  He squinted as he peered down the street, the setting sun making it difficult to see. But then his eyes found movement. Something—someone—was running down the street with wild abandon.

  At first he feared it might be one of the Others, but it didn’t move like one. They could be quick, but he’d never seen one run. And the air didn’t smell like them, either. Their putrid rot often caused a stink that gave plenty of warning—although not always.

  Just to be safe, he lowered himself onto his belly, flush with the garage roof, pulled his thick leather gloves over his wrists and drew the steel blade from the sheath at his waist. Once properly prepared for any potential fight, he peered over the roof edge again.

  At first he thought he must be hallucinating. The girl came around the corner and he blinked his eyes a few times, rubbed them, then took another look. She was still there. Wearing a white tank top and jean cutoffs, of all things. Miles of skin—milk-white skin—completely exposed. His first thought was that she must be truly stupid to walk around like that. His second thought was how truly happy he was that she did.

  His eyes roved her body, drinking in the first live adult female shape he’d seen in years. The curve of her waist, the flare of her hips. Full breasts, tempting and teasing under the thin fabric of her white tank top. Her long neck, high cheekbones and beautiful golden hair, pulled up in a casual ponytail. She wore some sort of mirrored sunglasses, leaving Chase with an inexplicable curiosity about the color of her eyes, though he wouldn’t have been able to see the irises from here anyway.

  He watched as she ran down the street in his direction. She was beautiful, to say the least; it became clearer the closer she came. But there was something else. Something weirdly familiar about the—

  He shook his head. Impossible. And pay attention, he told himself. Distractions will get you killed.

  As if on cue, the breeze suddenly shifted and a smell caught his nostrils. A putrid stink. He tensed, shoving all thoughts of lust to the back of his mind. The Others were near. One of them, at least. And this girl was a sitting duck.

  Something stirred inside him, some weird, knight-in-shining-armor bullshit that compelled him to jump off the roof and go down to rescue her. The notion went against his grain, and he didn’t obey it, but he did scramble to his feet and wave his arms. “Hey, up here!” he hissed. “Quick!”

  She looked up, surprise mixing with joy on her face. She really was beautiful. And as she practically bounced over to the garage she cried, “Oh my God. You’re a person. A real person. I was beginning to think I was the only—”

  “Behind you!” he cried, realizing he was likely too late. The Other had shown up out of seemingly nowhere, appearing from behind an overturned Smart Volvo, and was inches away from the girl. Dressed like that, with all that skin exposed and perfect for biting, she didn’t have a chance of escaping infection. Of course, she wasn’t even going to avoid becoming the monster’s dinner. Yup, she was a goner for sure. And since he’d made himself known, he was likely in for a battle himself.

  Shoulda just stayed hidden and let her die, he berated himself. He knew as well as anyone it did no good these days to help people. Or even animals for that matter. Look what happened to Spud when he’d tried to save that puppy he found in the alley two weeks ago. Picked up the little wiggly thing and bam! Zombie gets the jump on him.

  Yes, these days, it was every man—and dog—for himself. That was the only way to really survive.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Molly, where have you been? You’re late. And you know how I feel about tardiness.” Ian Anderson raked his hands through his graying hair and scowled as his daughter entered the basement where he had set up their training center. There were two punching bags—one heavy and one speed bag—a weight bench, a treadmill and some jump ropes. It was all last-century tech, like everything else in their house. Except her dad’s lab, that was. Beyond the gym, a locked door held more equipment than most government research facilities, all illegally firewalled and creatively routed to avoid unwanted scrutiny. All totally off-limits to Molly.

  “Sorry, Dad,” she apologized, setting down her bag and grabbing some workout clothes. She stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. “I got tied up.”

  “Tied up?” he repeated through the wall. “You wouldn’t happen to be using those sims again, would you? With your friend Erin? You know how I feel about them.”

  “They’re just games, Dad.”

  “They’re all connected up, linked to the system. Meaning, everything you say in there is monitored by Homeland Security—or worse. We don’t need any trouble with the feds.”

  Molly sighed as she pulled a tank top over her head. “Dad, we’re in there chatting about boys and clothes. I hardly think the government is interested.”

  “It’s always better to err on the side of safety,” came the reply as she next pulled on her shorts and leaned over to lace her sneakers. “Besides, if nothing else, they’re also a terrific waste of time. Especially when they start interfering with your training. We’ve got a lot to get through and not a lot of time. We need your body strong and fit.”

  “I know, I know.” Molly opened the door. “Because the end of the world is near.”

  Her dad handed her a set of boxing gloves. “Go ahead and laugh,” he said, nodding serenely. “Everyone does. But you will all see for yourselves soon enough.”

  Molly donned the gloves. It was pointless to argue with him when he got on this track. He didn’t care that the rest of the world thought he was crazy; he believed what he believed. And, at the end of the day, she gave him some props for that. Even if it was a big pain in the ass to be his daughter sometimes.

  “So, what have you been up to today, Dad?” she asked, ready for a subject change. She tossed a few punches at the heavy bag, warming up. Mostly she enjoyed these training sessions. There was something about breaking a sweat that no one else in her world seemed to understand. Her classmates were too into their injections and surgeries to find any joy in building muscles the old-fashioned way. In the same way Molly liked fitting in at school, she was glad to be different at home. She mostly understood what her father wanted her to be.

  “Reading,” her fat
her replied. He walked over to his desk and held up a paperback book.

  Molly resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Ian Anderson was the only person on Earth who didn’t own an e-reader. Even she had one: he’d had to allow it, for the technology was the only way to access school texts. But her dad always claimed he preferred the good old days when books were made of paper and the government couldn’t check up on what you were reading. He hunted flea markets constantly, looking for rare, out-of-print treasures and banned books.

  She swung a few times at the speed bag, then glanced at the cover. “Neuromancer,” she said. “What’s it about?”

  “It’s brilliant,” he replied. “The author completely predicted sims and the Internet and the dangers of artificial intelligence. And this was back in 1984—before most people even had a computer! If you read this book you’d never use a sim again, I bet. At the very least you’d want to know who was controlling it.”

  “Sounds interesting,” Molly said, feeling sweat bead on her forehead as she continued her speed training. “I’ll have to take a look when you’re done.”

  “There’s even cybernetics in it,” her father continued. Though he was officially out of the business, he admitted to continued fascination in the art of enhancing man by machine, and he was constantly tinkering with parts in his lab. “A girl named Molly Millions. A razor girl.”

  Molly stopped punching. “What’s a razor girl?” she asked.

  “A cybernetic ninja, of sorts,” Ian explained. “Sort of like those soldiers I worked on but…” He broke off, stared at the wall for a moment. “She has four-inch razors under her fingernails that she can slide in and out at will. Deadly. She knows half a dozen forms of martial arts. And she has these ocular implants with infrared and a bunch of other functions. She can see better, move faster, react quicker…She’s amazing. If I had everything from my old lab…Well, she’d be the perfect creature to survive the apocalypse.”

  “I don’t know. Sounds pretty weird to me.” Molly grabbed a towel and wiped her brow. “Besides, how would this person survive before the apocalypse? Imagine what that’d be like. Would she be chopping apples with her fingernails?” Molly laughed. “I’d hate to see her forget while she’s picking her nose.”

  Her father shrugged, set his book down and pulled the gloves off her hands. He handed over the jump rope, saying, “She’d manage. She’d have to be tough to survive the operation, anyway. You wouldn’t want to choose someone who wouldn’t be able to use the enhancements.” Picking up the book and flipping through it, he said, “People adapt. The good ones, at any rate. They take their hardships and make them strengths. Because of her implants, the heroine of this book can’t cry. Her tear ducts were rerouted to her mouth.”

  “Er, okay,” Molly replied.

  “In other words,” her dad said, “a razor girl doesn’t cry. When she’s sad, Molly Millions says, she spits.”

  “Now that’s just plain weird.”

  Her father held up his hands. “Again, mock if you will,” he told her. “But what’s the use in crying? Molly Millions has it right. My bet is that when the end of the world comes, it won’t be the ones who cry who survive, but the ones who spit.”

  “Right.” Molly shook her head and started to jump rope. “Well, I guess when the end of the world comes knocking we’ll see.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Behind you!”

  Instinct from years of training kicked in as Molly heard the warning. The strange guy on the roof pointed, and she whirled. A kick of adrenaline slammed through her body, activating her body’s cybernetic offense. The razors shot out from under her fingernails, flashing in the bright sunlight, and she held them in front of her face, ready. She was coiled in a fighting stance.

  Her eyes widened under her ocular implants. Oh God, it was one of them. For some reason, some stupid reason, she’d imagined they had gone away by now. Died out. Become extinct or something. But no. Evidently they had survived. Perhaps they even ran things these days; she had no idea.

  They sure were as ugly as she remembered. This one was naked, save for scraps of tattered clothing clinging to its glowing yellow-green skin. It had too many fingers, too many toes, a third eye growing out of its forehead. It was covered in festering, pus-filled wounds. And it smelled like—well, she couldn’t think of anything foul enough to compare it to.

  But while they might still be ugly, she wasn’t still defenseless. And she sure as hell wasn’t about to let anything kill her on her first day back in the real world. What would her father say? What would Molly Millions say?

  “Stay back, Pus-head,” she growled. “Unless you want to be sliced and diced.”

  Sadly, though she hadn’t expected him to, Pus-head didn’t seem to have a good grasp of the King’s English. Either that, or it underestimated the martial arts training and nano-enhancements of its intended dinner. With a bellowing roar the monster lunged toward Molly, fleshy arms outstretched, clearly preparing to grab her by the neck and chomp on her face. She leapt away and lashed out with her razors. Those caught the thing’s left shoulder, sliced across its chest, and the creature squealed in pain and fury, blood gushing everywhere. It lunged again but Molly ducked, avoiding a spray of gore and bodily fluids.

  Looking at the ooze on the ground, Molly almost hyperventilated. Returning to her basic defensive stance, arms up, razors out, she focused and forced herself to breathe. This was what she’d trained for, she reminded herself. She could do this. She would do this. She spat on the ground.

  The creature made a grab for her. She swung her leg out, slamming the thing in the stomach with a well-placed kick. It made her stomach turn, the sickening thud of her boot meeting rotten flesh. Good thing she’d left the flip-flops at home. But the creature staggered backwards, losing its balance for a few precious seconds. This was just the opportunity Molly needed. She swept her arm out, blades flashing, aiming at its face. The blow didn’t miss. All three eyes were blinded at once, and the creature bellowed in pain as Molly yanked her hand free and retreated.

  Had her attack been enough to stop it? She wasn’t sure how many more rounds she could take. Only a flesh wound, she imagined it saying, forcing her to slice off its arms and legs. And maybe she should cut off its head.

  Evidently Pus-head hadn’t had a chance to see Monty Python, because instead it made the logical choice: to turn tail and run blindly down the street, still sobbing in pain and rage. Molly couldn’t blame it. She wouldn’t be happy either if she’d spent her whole life missing Monty Python and then been turned into a zombie.

  She sucked in a breath, her heart pounding a mile a minute. Suddenly the boring old shelter where she’d spent the last six years didn’t seem like such a bad place after all. At least deep underground she’d been safe from these things. She’d factored them out of the equation. It was time to factor them back in.

  She looked down at her hands, at the flesh-and blood– caked razors. She’d have to clean them off before retraction beneath her fingernails. So gross! But, she had to admit, they had just saved her life.

  “Thanks, Dad,” she muttered, at last appreciating what he’d done for her. Still, her gratitude was a bit grudging.

  A clapping noise from above startled her back to the present. The guy on the garage roof! She’d almost forgotten about him in the heat of the fight. Forget the razors; it was his warning that had truly saved her life. She looked up and waved.

  “Thanks, guy,” she said, still breathing heavily. “I owe you one.”

  He jumped off the roof and approached her. He was tall and lean, with flashing green eyes and a full mouth that was currently quirked in a half-smile. He wore leather from head to toe: jacket, pants, gloves. Her stomach twisted in an exquisitely female appreciation she hadn’t felt in a long time—maybe ever. It had been a while since she’d seen anyone not in her immediate family. And even back when she had, she couldn’t remember anyone looking so good. Except maybe on some of the romance sims, and let’s face
it, computer-generated guys really didn’t count!

  “I’m Chase,” the man said by way of introduction. He glanced down the street in the direction the creature had run. “That was…well, that was some fighting. I haven’t seen someone take on an Other in…well, ever.”

  She drew in a breath. “So they’re still around, eh? I was sort of hoping they’d have died out or something.” She wiped her razors on the ground, taking particular care with them as she always did. After a moment she spat.

  “Yeah, right. I wish. They live, they thrive. They got us all scared shitless. Nothing’s changed there.” He gave Molly a strange look. “How do you not know this, though? You been living under a rock or something?”

  “Pretty much,” she admitted. “This is the first time I’ve been outside in six years.”

  “Ah, that explains it,” Chase said. “Well, let me be the first to greet you into our brave new world. Our own little corner of hell on Earth. Welcome back.”

  Molly grimaced. “Um, thanks.”

  “Just kidding. Well, sort of,” he said with a shrug. “I do really welcome you back. So, where’s this rock you’ve been hiding under? I thought I’d scouted this neighborhood out good.”

  She pointed down the street. “Twelve Mulberry. My dad bought the old fallout shelter before things started getting really bad. Packed it up with food and supplies. Set a timer, escorted my mom and I inside, closed the door. Home sweet home for six years. The door opened yesterday.”

  Chase stared at her, disbelieving. “Oh my God,” he said.

  “What? It’s not that weird a story, is it? If you’re out here, there must have been—”

  But Chase’s face was white. “Molly Anderson?” he said.