Sketches

by Teyla Branton

  “At what cost!” spat Dani. “The death and imprisonment of the people here. Your people.”

  “Then we’ll change it.”

  Dani was already walking away. “You go, then. Try to change the world, but you’d better act fast because we’re not waiting around.”

  “Wait,” he called after her. “Is there any way we can reach you? To tell you what we find.”

  She patted her pocket. “Don’t worry. I’ve recorded your number. Your precious CORE aren’t the only ones with pre-Breakdown tech. Thanks for the visit. You’ve been helpful in more ways than you know.”

  Jaxon didn’t like the sound of that, but before he could think of a way to keep Dani there, she and most of her men had retreated around the back of the transfer station.

  “What now?” Eagle asked. “Do you think we still need to check in with the enforcers here?”

  That was the last thing Jaxon wanted to do, but he nodded. “And we’ll need to talk to Hammer and have him check the numbers for the births here. I want to check Dani’s numbers.”

  “We saw all the children.” Reese reached to pick up her pack, and Jaxon wasn’t surprised to see her take out her sketchbook. “You know she’s right. And whatever’s going on here, I think its clear the authorities aren’t trying to integrate these people into the CORE.”

  “Except for us,” Eagle reminded her. “Clearly, they expected more from their experiment. But what did they do to us?”

  “A better question,” Jaxon said, “is how can we stay ahead of their cleanup squad? You heard what Dani said about that. The next time they try to take us somewhere, they might not care if we end the confrontation still breathing.”

  He started across the open space of the transfer station, heading back to the wall. Reese went over first, followed by Eagle. As Jaxon set his hand on the rope ladder, his heart began thudding loudly in his ears and the world darkened as a premonition overtook his senses.

  Dani sits submerged in water, her arms wrapped around her legs. Her eyes are open and unblinking. Her mouth curves in a smile and a few air bubbles release . . .

  Chapter 18

  THEIR JOURNEY BACK through the housing development was more subdued than the journey in. Reese could feel the gazes of the children playing in the miniscule yards like weights on her shoulders. She was pretty sure that other eyes watched them too, but it was only a feeling and not something she could pinpoint.

  Seeing Dani had been strange. So many changes. Only that crazy white hair was the same as the child Dani—and her protectiveness. A part of Reese found it difficult to take in the fact that Dani wasn’t leaving with them.

  “I’m glad you reached out to her,” Jaxon said, startling Reese from her thoughts. “For a moment there, I was worried she’d shoot us.”

  “I know.” Reese glanced at him briefly before looking ahead again, one hand near her hidden gun. They weren’t out of danger yet. “When I first saw you, I wasn’t sure how you’d react and I didn’t know what to do . . . and then you gave me that hug. It was what made all the years vanish—or brought back the connection, rather. I wanted to give that to Dani.”

  “Funny, just seeing you brought it all back for me.”

  “Well, you did know I was coming.”

  His grin vanished. “Yes, but I was very glad to see you.”

  “Me too.” Their hands brushed, and Reese angled slightly away. Her foot hit a stray rock, sending it flying, and her next step came down a little hard, sending twinges through her right side. The pain in her side had been growing since their climb over the wall, and she was worried something might have reopened.

  “So, no premonitions while we were with Dani?”

  “Nothing important, but are you ready to show me your drawing?”

  “It was nothing. A faceless guy. Wearing some kind of mask.” She reached into her pack for the sketchbook, passing it to him. “Or maybe he’s a mutated fringer.” She said this last bit as more of a joke because the blank smoothness of the man’s face had to be a mask. It wasn’t exactly grotesque, but even excessive Nuface therapy couldn’t change a face that much.

  Jaxon missed a step as he did a double take of the image. “I know this man,” he said.

  “You know him?”

  “Of him. I’ve heard of his description—the blank face, the brown eyes, the C on his cheek.”

  “I thought it was some kind of strange moon tattoo or a misshapen mole.”

  “It’s a C for El Cerebro.”

  Her stomach clenched. “What would Dani have to do with El Cerebro?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ve a feeling we’re going to find out.”

  Eagle, who’d been leading the way, glanced back at them “Who’s El Cerebro?”

  “Head of the Underground in Amarillo City and maybe the black market in all of Dallastar,” Jaxon said. “We’ve never been able to prove anything, and no one knows who he really is. It’s almost like he knows what we’re doing and where we’re going before we do.”

  “He could have spies inside division,” Reese suggested.

  Jaxon’s foot sent a rock skittering along the narrow road. “The thought has crossed my mind. Maybe Dani thinks he’s helping the CORE clean up after their experiment here, and that’s why she thought of him.”

  “Maybe. There’s another sketch too.” Reese flipped the page to show a young man with dark skin. He had his head back laughing. “No idea who he is, though.”

  “Friend, lover, brother?”

  “She had a cousin. Maybe we can see if he’s in the database.”

  Eagle dropped back to walk with them. “I still wish we had a sample of the water.”

  “You heard Dani,” Jaxon said. “Whatever experiment they were conducting, it’s long over.”

  Eagle shrugged. “That doesn’t mean they aren’t trying a new experiment. I sincerely doubt that whoever comes up with these ideas is going to run it past Dani before starting something new.”

  A thought about water teased Reese’s mind, but she couldn’t quite bring the thought into focus. Something about the water skins she’d kept under her bed as a child and had taken with her from the Coop. Why would she think about those now? The water had saved her life on the way to Theena’s, regardless of what it had contained.

  “A sample now isn’t going to tell us what they did to us all those years ago,” she said.

  “No, it won’t.” Eagle was reaching in his backpack for a water skin. “You think one of these kids will go inside and get a sample for me? Because if something is in the water, I doubt it’ll be at the enforcer division here.”

  “The house might be using one of Dani’s filters.”

  The idea didn’t deter Eagle. “Maybe, but filters don’t catch everything anyway.”

  Jaxon handed him a plastic credit. “Offer them this.”

  They paused as Eagle angled off to talk to a group of kids throwing a lopsided ball around in the narrow street. Seconds later, one of them rushed inside and came out clutching Eagle’s skin filled with water.

  “That was easy,” he said, joining them. “I wonder if I can buy a sample of the food.”

  “I’m out of cash credits, so it’d have to be in one of the cafés, where we can use our CivID’s,” Jaxon said. “Unless someone else has some.”

  Reese shook her head. “I don’t, and it wouldn’t be the same from the restaurant. It’s the prepared foods that would have additives.” A few years ago there had been a brief uproar about immunizations being added to the readymeals, but she’d found the fuss all a little silly when each person who visited a doctor, attended a school, or went to work was given required yearly injections as a matter of course. Still, it was a waste doubling the dosages, so she was glad they’d removed it from the food. But no one knew how many years it had been there before discovery. It was an interesting thought.

  They walked down the middle of the street for several seconds in silence, and then Eagle said into the quiet, “Hey guys, we invited
Dani to fight with us, but how are we going to do that exactly? What’s the plan?”

  Reese’s mind had been so busy coming to terms with their new reality that she hadn’t thought of any plan. Maybe Dani was right to laugh at them. What could so few do to right a wrong that had continued for over sixty years?

  Jaxon beat her to an answer. “First we find the people who tried to take us. Then we track down whoever pulls their strings. Then we expose them. Like I told Dani, there are good people out there. Once they know, they won’t stand by and let this continue. But first we need to see how far it goes.”

  See how many of the CORE leaders were involved, he meant. What if they all were? Reese refused to believe that. “Right,” she said. “And in the meantime, we do our jobs.” But she was glad Dani was also out there, protecting the people.

  Their people, as she had reminded them.

  Reese realized they were back at the school, the now-deserted yard looking drab and forlorn without the children playing outside. “Uh,” she said, “wasn’t this where we left the shuttle?”

  Jaxon’s gaze darted around the open space. “I set the alarms.”

  “That might mean something if the shuttle were still here.” Reese watched as he pulled out his iTeev, and soon a holographic image of what the shuttle’s cameras had seen appeared in all their holo feeds. A few interested children passed, then a few older kids. One kicked at a tire. Then came three men with black hoods. Before coming close, one pointed a device at the cameras set on several tall poles around the school.

  “Bet that knocked out the CORE feed,” Eagle said.

  Reese pulled up the menus on her iTeev, using her enforcer codes to access the feed from the school camera. They saw only a brief glimpse of the men and then nothing but static.

  “Look at that!” Jaxon said, bringing her attention back to the holo from the shuttle’s cameras. “They have some kind of antigrav units. Definitely pre-Breakdown tech. The shuttle looks like it weighs almost nothing.” The three men spread out around the shuttle, one on each side and one on the back, as they pushed it away, pausing every now and then to aim the disrupting device at another mounted camera.

  They watched the men push the shuttle for several rows of houses before the feed abruptly cut off. “Well,” Reese said. “You think they knew we’d watch the feed? Maybe they wanted us to. Because they could have shut down the shuttle’s cameras sooner.”

  “What I think is that Dani is having a big laugh right now,” Jaxon growled. “I thought she seemed a little too content. She made sure to keep us there until her men got here to take the shuttle.”

  “Now what?” Eagle asked.

  “We’ll have to take the sky train to the local enforcer division. See if they can help with the shuttle. Then we’ll take the external sky train home. Stay vigilant, though. They might be pushing us to use the sky train for a reason.”

  What a lovely thought. Reese made a face, thinking of her father’s death. She’d pondered their last moments together often. If she’d been with him that day, would she have died too?

  They made a right, heading in the direction of the sky train. Reese was glad it was so close because the twinges in her side had escalated to a continuous dull ache.

  The streets and the nearby houses were strangely deserted, but there was plenty of activity at the train station: adults coming home or leaving for a night out, kids smoking and playing loud music in the square, two thin beggars sitting on the cement with misshapen legs under them. Odds and ends filled a torn box in front of the beggars—a readymeal, a dried apple, a tiny box of cereal like those handed out for breakfast at the schools, and two homemade cigarettes that might contain just about anything.

  Reese wished she’d thought to bring plastic credits. She suspected these beggars wouldn’t survive long; as a child, she’d never seen the same ones at the station more than a few months, though where they had gone was a mystery back then. She hadn’t personally known anyone who hadn’t worked until the day they passed away. Even Jaxon’s mother with her side “job” had still put in ten hours a day at one of the factories. Everyone received a house and basic food in the colonies, but they were also required to work, and if they couldn’t and didn’t have family to live with, what became of them? If what Dani said was true, they weren’t being supported by the CORE. For a moment, Reese found it hard to breathe.

  The train ride to the enforcer division was uneventful. Walking into the building, Reese experienced the same feeling of familiarity as she did when entering any division, though this place was considerably smaller than all the other places she’d worked. Immediately, the captain was notified of their arrival, and he came out, a wide, pale-faced man wearing a black enforcer uniform and a disgruntled expression.

  “Greetings,” he said, his tone devoid of warmth. “I’m Captain Montee. What brings you to Colony Subdivision 6? I also might add that you are considerably late in reporting in. You have no jurisdiction here, and you’ll need to approve any activities in this colony through me.”

  That wasn’t quite true. Colony 5 and 6 subdivisions were under Amarillo Enforcer Division’s umbrella. Because of the distance from Amarillo City, though, the colony divisions acted independently, except for daily reports that were largely ignored in Amarillo City. That meant Reese’s new boss, Captain Brogan, was over the activity here, and if he’d sent them, his orders would take precedence over this man’s. Only the chief enforcer, who was over all of the Dallastar divisions, was higher in authority than Brogan in Dallastar. Too bad Brogan had no idea they were here, so they couldn’t wave around his authority.

  Jaxon gave an insincere smile and offered a handshake. “Nice to meet you, Captain. We’re not here in any official capacity, however. Just checking in on a few old friends.”

  “Friends?” The captain’s word came out as a snort.

  “We used to live here,” Reese added.

  He stared at them blankly. “Live here?”

  Was the man an imbecile? “Yes,” she said.

  “All of you?” The captain looked back and forth between them, a heavy crease growing between his dark eyes.

  They nodded. “Here’s the thing,” Jaxon continued. “We came in an enforcer shuttle. Parked it by the school between housing districts six and seven. But when we came back, it was gone.”

  The captain shook his head. “Impossible. Our citizens are the best behaved in all of the colonies.”

  Eagle cleared his throat. “I thought you had twenty arrests last week, and ten enhancements. At least according to your report that I’m reading.” He tapped one side of his glasses, and it was all Reese could do not to laugh out loud at his innocent casualness.

  Captain Montee’s eyes narrowed, and a slight flush dotted his formerly pale cheeks. “Just a few of the same troublemakers. I tell you it’s good here. I keep the peace.”

  “Then maybe you can help us find our shuttle.” Jaxon’s words were slow and deliberate, which told Reese he didn’t have much confidence in the man—or patience to deal with him. “The men who took it had some kind of antigrav unit. Picked it right up and took it away.”

  The flush drained from the captain’s face, making it even more pale than when he had first walked in. “I . . .” he started and didn’t continue.

  “Our captain—I take it you know Vic Brogan—assigned us the shuttle for our research, so I’m sure you understand that we are concerned about getting it back.” Jaxon offered another smile. “He’s not very understanding about such things.” Reese wondered if that was true or if Jaxon was exaggerating to get results.

  “Well, of course, shuttles are expensive. I’ll send out a few men to take a look.” Captain Montee glanced around at the reception room, empty but for the woman behind the desk. His voice lowered to say, “Look, if they have pre-Breakdown tech like that, it’s gotta be fringers.”

  “I didn’t read about fringers in your report,” Eagle said.

  The captain’s chin lifted as he peered
at Eagle’s glasses, as if trying to determine if they really did have iTeev capabilities. “Won’t be a problem. We’ll find it.” He looked away quickly, the lack of assurance in his voice not at all promising.

  Reese wondered if he was seeing his chances of being transferred out of here swirling down the metaphorical toilet. “If fringers have contacts in town, you might need more men to look into it. The CORE would be very interested to capture anyone involved with fringers.”

  “Oh, right.” The captain risked a smile in her direction. To Jaxon, he added, “If you could turn over the footage you have of them taking the shuttle . . .”

  Reese left Jaxon to give the captain a copy of the shuttle’s recording and walked toward the door, feeling claustrophobic.

  “Were you trying to get him to sell out Dani?” Eagle said in her ear.

  She jumped, unaware that he had followed her. “Stop that. Give me some warning, would you? Before you yell in my ear.”

  “Wasn’t yelling.”

  Reese pushed through the door. “Sorry. This place has me on edge. That guy knows fringers are here, so why hasn’t he reported it? I just wanted to know why.”

  “Probably trying to do his time and get out of here. Leave the mess for the next loser to take care of.”

  “Right.” Reese looked up and down the streets that were unsurprisingly vacant. With the other city buildings closed for the weekend, the people not at work had better things to do than wander around outside the enforcer division. Most were probably hitting the bars or taking care of children they’d been paid extra to have.

  “And for the record, I wasn’t betraying Dani. She can take care of herself. For all we know, he’s in her pocket.”

  They stood in silence until Jaxon emerged from the building, a set expression on his face. “Look alive,” he said. “We need to hurry. Just found out that the next sky train to the outside leaves at noon, which gives us five minutes. We miss it, we’ll have to stay until six.”

  “What about the shuttle?” Reese hurried to match his pace. Arrows of lightning-hot pain exploded through her side. She glanced down, but the wound didn’t seem to be leaking anything through her blouse. Yet.