by P. J. Fox
“Malnutrition,” she said flatly. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“You look older,” she commented.
They walked in silence while he scanned the near-empty street, alert.
It was early and the sun hadn’t been up long, but already the twin stenches of sewage and garbage were near overpowering. A toothless, wrinkled woman who looked to be about a hundred but was probably closer to his age poked through a pile of trash with a stick.
He decided that, when he did get home, his first order of business would be to spend a week in a brothel. He’d sleep, eat, and allow himself to be pleasured by nubile young things until he got bored or his cock fell off, whichever came first. He hoped it was the latter.
They turned down a different street, this one even more foul than the last. Both gutters—if you could call them that, they were really more depressions in the road—were filled with stagnant piss.
He didn’t ask where they were going; he had a general idea and the question was redundant.
She spoke suddenly. “Wouldn’t it have been better to send someone that, well, he wouldn’t recognize?”
He glanced down at her, surprised by her insight.
“I knew you were friends,” she told him, “from how you talked about him.”
Either he was losing his edge—which he doubted—or she was much smarter than he gave her credit for.
Her look turned accusing. “You think that, because I’m a woman, I’m stupid.”
“No,” he replied honestly, “I think that, because you’re not me, you’re stupid.”
She sniffed, put out.
“I’m the best at what I do.” It wasn’t a boast; it was a simple statement of fact.
“What a thing to be good at.”
“I’m ambitious,” he told her, “after my own fashion.”
“You’re ambitious to kill people.”
“Yes,” he replied simply.
She stopped. They’d arrived.
Their destination was a hovel that made the places he’d been so far look like the Gardens of Paradise.
It was three two-story concrete buildings all in a row, like shoe boxes upended in the mud. There was a fourth structure, a wooden lean-to that looked as if it had been there since before the scriptures were written, enclosing some kind of market bazaar full of fourth and fifth-hand items that served no apparent practical purpose. People milled about, all the same, seeming excited. And on the far side, underneath an upstairs room that appeared to be a brothel and that looked in serious danger of falling off altogether, was a fruit stand.
He thought about visiting a brothel here and shuddered.
The flat, weather-damaged roofs of all the buildings, except the lean-to, had been built from mismatching sheets of various corrugated metals.
The bottom floor of the middle building was open to the elements. He thought it might have started out life as a garage. Above it, a sad-looking door opened onto an even sadder looking microchip of a porch. A woman was standing on it, yelling something at the children running around in circles below. A piece of dog shit went flying—at least he hoped it was dog shit—striking one of them in the face. Now he knew what she was yelling about.
A sign advertised the establishment as The Golden Lotus. A more willfully ironic name there could not be.
He glanced down, and they exchanged a look. Udit smiled cheerfully.
She was enjoying this, he realized.
Squeezing between a pair of half filled rain barrels, they took a seat at the back of the so-called restaurant.
He glanced down at her again. She was wearing the same grimy shift she’d worn the day before, undoubtedly one of a very few she owned. After locking herself back into the bathroom, she’d changed out of the bathrobe and, truthfully, he’d been sorry to see it go. It smelled nice.
Not that she, exactly, smelled precisely bad. She didn’t, surprisingly enough. But he had a good imagination and he could picture her oiled and perfumed and—he made himself stop.
She shot him a knowing look that wasn’t entirely friendly.
Just don’t sit in my lap, then. He arched an eyebrow.
She looked away.
She was frightened of him. She hid it well, but the signs were there.
When she looked back, he was still watching her.
“You’re scrutinizing me,” she said in a low voice, swallowing nervously.
“Yes,” he agreed.
She seemed surprised at the admission. She was about to say something else, he thought, when she saw that someone—someone she obviously recognized, and liked—was coming over.
He was young, astonishingly clean for this part of the world, and good-looking.
Udit beamed.
Ceres felt a twinge of annoyance.
When they’d come in, he’d chosen a table in the back corner of the restaurant, a place that was surprisingly full for this time of morning. Then again, most of the people who lived here were unemployed; what else did they have to do, except talk to each other over watered-down coffee?
He’d slid into a curved, more or less upholstered bench that looked like it’d been liberated from a cruise ship, his back against the concrete wall, and pulled Udit in beside him.
The stranger, still grinning like an idiot, pulled out the stool opposite them and sat down.
“Justi,” Udit enthused, “it’s so nice to see you.”
“You haven’t been by in—how long as it been?” he wondered dramatically, fully knowing the answer. “Months? Years?”
Udit giggled. Ceres decided he hated the man.
“I was just in last week.”
“Well it feels like years,” replied Justi soulfully, still batting his eyelashes at Udit and ignoring Ceres entirely.
There was a fork on the table, of the same battered variety Udit had used on him yesterday. He could slide it in just under Justi’s clavicle, that would produce an exciting spray of blood.
“You’re such a flirt,” she replied, not seeming displeased.
Ceres, apparently, didn’t rate either notice or an introduction.
And then, finally, she seemed to remember that he was sitting next to her. Glancing up at him, clearly nervous, she tried to think of what to say. She was, he realized, unsure of whether to use his name. And perhaps, at the same time, unsure of how to describe their connection.
This had possibilities.
She began hesitantly, eyes flickering back and forth. “This is—”
“Ashna,” Ceres cut in smoothly, putting his arm around Udit’s thin shoulders.
Justi’s eyes widened fractionally.
Ceres smiled back, fully aware of how unpleasant his smile was.
“Udit’s friend,” he concluded.
“Justi,” Udit explained, somewhat tensely, “owns this café, with his father.”
“Then perhaps,” said Ceres, “you could get us some coffee.”
His request gave Justi no choice but to depart. A pleasing result. He’d apparently taken Udit’s hesitation for embarrassment at introducing him to another man. Ceres found this dynamic interesting.
“I can’t believe how you’re acting,” she hissed.
He shrugged noncommittally, but didn’t move his arm.
“You’re like a jealous toddler and we’re not—we don’t….” She trailed off, fuming at the indignity.
“Jealousy would imply competition,” he corrected her, feeling smug at the sight of her obvious discomfort, “and I don’t compete. Rather, I take what I want—when I decide I want it.”
And if she thought he wanted her, the little street urchin, she had another thing coming. This was a diversion, nothing more. He was above this, and soon he’d be going home.
He turned, and found her looking him right in the eye.
“Bullshit,” she said, equally calmly.
“Don’t worry, if he’s motivated he won’t lose interest. And if he’s not, wouldn’t you rather know
now?”
“But I’m not—”
She was sputtering. He enjoyed putting her on the defensive. A little payback for what she’d done to him.
“Besides,” he continued, smiling slightly, “a little challenge will do him worlds of good.”
And that was true, but….
Justi returned with their coffees and, with a final, sour look at Ceres, departed.
Stirring his with a battered spoon, Ceres fantasized about popping the other man’s eyeballs out.
“And if you keep antagonizing him,” replied Udit tartly, “he’ll never come back and tell us what we want to know.”
“Oh,” said Ceres, sipping his coffee and finding it awful, “he’ll come back.”
Her mistrusting expression amused him. “You don’t know men,” he told her.
“Yes I do,” she shot back, with more force than he’d expected, “and I don’t like them.”
His heart fell.
Are you attracted to me?
God, he needed to get laid. Here he was, in one of the worst slums in the empire, and all he could think about was seeing this emaciated, childlike gutter snipe naked. It had clearly been too long since he’d spent time with a real woman—one who bathed, and wore cosmetics and perfume and stockings. However often one did it, masturbating just wasn’t the same. No, he’d get out of here, find a woman or five, and get this out of his system.
Udit would look nice in stockings. She had such thin, graceful legs, and long for her frame.
He forced himself to drink his coffee.
“I don’t mean,” she said after a moment, quietly but with the same steady dignity she’d shown before, “that I’m not attracted to them; I am. I just don’t like them,” she clarified, “as people.”
He nodded slowly. “I can see that.”
Justi was shooting them covert looks from behind the bar.
“There’s another reason,” he added. “Our friend is watching for a single man.”
And that was true. Everything he’d said was true, but it was also a justification. The real reason was, he wanted his arm around her. And he wanted that pathetic prick to leave them alone.
“Can I ask you something about yourself?” she ventured.
She sounded uncertain. He nodded. Strangely, he didn’t mind the idea of talking about himself with her.
“Can you…change your mind, about certain things?”
He studied her. “You mean, how much free will do I have?”
She nodded, biting her lip. “He says you can’t.”
They both knew who he was.
“He did,” pointed out Ceres, “didn’t he?”
When she didn’t answer, he continued. “This is who I am. I chose this, freely; I was me then, and I’m me, now. If I’ve changed…people change. But regardless of who else I am, or whatever else inhabits this body, it’s always also me.” He paused. “I was the person who wanted to make this choice, before I became the person who’d made this choice. Do you understand?”
She did, he thought, although she didn’t respond.
She sipped her coffee. “Why?” she asked finally. “Why did you?”
He didn’t answer.
Around them, people chatted and laughed, either oblivious to their poverty or so ground down by it that they’d ceased to care.
“You speak like an educated person,” he said, finally.
“I am an educated person,” she replied with a touch of asperity.
“It’s not an insult,” he told her.
“Not your words, no. But your surprise is.”
To that, he had no response.
A few minutes later, Justi returned.
Chapte Four
Justi had, in the end, proved surprisingly helpful.
It seemed the target had made quite an impression, all over town. Eventually, Ceres hoped Udit would realize that the sheer fact of him having drawn so much attention to himself meant the man was unbalanced. Fugitives from trained assassins didn’t usually go around telling people things only they, as discrete individuals, would know. It was like planting a trail of flags, each one saying, it’s me, I’m here, come get me!
Dharun wanted to be found.
And Ceres would oblige him.
But, first, he had to deliver this chicken.
He didn’t know why he was doing it—and that unsettled him. He wasn’t prone to emotion; he’d felt almost nothing when his parents had died. He felt almost nothing for his brother, except a general sense of duty. But…he wanted to see her. God help him, he did.
He told himself it didn’t matter; he had time to kill, and who cared how he chose to spend that time?
After leaving The Golden Lotus, they’d visited several more places and, finally, Udit had told him she had to go home. She still lived with her parents which, he supposed, was appropriate for a girl of her age and status—she was, after all, single—but he found the admission charming nonetheless.
And he’d walked her home, despite her protests, although she’d made him stop a few blocks away out of fear that her father might see.
That, too, he’d found charming.
Men like him didn’t often get to enjoy the company of women without the outlay of cold, hard cash, and thus he hadn’t often spoken to women who were concerned about things like virtue. The women he’d known, indeed, in both the literal and figurative senses, had for the most part turned their back on virtue; some emancipating themselves from male control, because they couldn’t stand living in such a suffocating, paternalistic society and some selling themselves outright, for the chance to indulge their hedonistic tendencies.
Of course he found neither group particularly compelling, as people, but he’d long ago accepted the fact that his chosen path precluded certain niceties. The women in his life were for sex, occasionally companionship, nothing more. He’d never formed what others might call an emotional attachment. And, if he was being honest with himself, he wasn’t sure he could.
Except….
Now, he wondered.
He’d followed her home, of course; he’d been curious to see where she lived.
She’d arrived home to tremendous fanfare, what was obviously her mother and two younger sisters running out to greet her. There had been enthusiasm, yes, but no real worry. Her mother, at least, was used to her rambling about. A useful fact to know. Her sisters were both pretty, both young, and both small—just like she was. Only here, in comparison, and next to their mother, he could discern their relative ages much more easily.
Her mother hugged her, laughing and asking questions about where she’d been.
Udit answered offhandedly, smiling and saying something about Justi that made her mother laugh again.
Ceres’ eyes narrowed.
There seemed to be a large number of dogs, too, all sniffing around hopefully, as if perhaps she’d brought back food. One threw itself down in the mud and stuck its legs up into the air, playing dead. Or perhaps it really was dead, he couldn’t tell. Either one was a definite possibility. In fact, now that he studied them, a couple of the dogs looked distinctly feeble.
He wondered if any of them had rabies.
Still laughing and chatting, the group disappeared back indoors.
Home was a tar paper hut that had seen better days. Not that, when he stopped to think about it, any tar paper hut had seen good days. But this…it must be interminable in the summer and unbearable in the winter. Dharavi never got cold, not like in the north of his own home continent, where it snowed half the year, but even forty degrees felt bad when you were sleeping outside—which Udit’s family, and their neighbors, essentially were.
And now, here he was, with this pointless chicken.
It was dead already, at least; he’d had the butcher kill it. He did, in fact, see some irony to that. He didn’t feel too squeamish, per se, to kill the chicken, he didn’t know exactly how to go about doing so. Growing up, Ceres had never prepared his own food and had the faintly horrify
ing idea that the chicken would run away and that would be emasculating.
The sunset prayers were called out, just as he left the butcher shop. He knelt to pray with everyone else, although he felt nothing while he did it. If God was up there, God was a worst sadist than he. And afterwards, he’d continued his walk through the sewage-filled streets.
The slum was oddly relaxing, at night, like walking through the edges of a party on someone’s lawn.
He passed through the growing darkness unnoticed, marveling, as always, at how few lights came on.
He thought about his parents. Sometimes he did, when he was alone.
And then he thought about Udit.
Was he courting her? No, that was absurd.
She was from no background he could recognize and, moreover, he’d chosen the life of an assassin. Men married—wait? What? Married?
That was insane.
But they did, nonetheless. He’d often wondered how, and why—just logistically, it seemed impossible. Relationships were difficult enough in the best of times; how did you work around the strictures of not being able to tell your consort who you really were? And what kind of woman—a normal, decent woman—could love a man like that? She couldn’t.
And yet here he was, with a chicken.
She’d been helpful to him, it was a gesture of thanks, that was all.
He would have brought them ten chickens, except he knew that such a large gift would only draw attention to their need and if her parents were anything like Udit, they were proud. He understood that, and admired it. He was proud, too. And this was, more or less, something he’d bring a member of his own rank. Of course he’d have a slave do it, but still….
Had he ever held livestock before? He couldn’t be sure.
He was considering this point, and wondering how exactly to explain his arrival, when he heard the screams.
He was light on his feet, and he moved both quickly and silently.
The screams were coming from inside Udit’s house, as he’d known they were.
And then, abruptly, they cut off.
Pressing himself against the side of the wall, losing himself in shadow, he calmed his breathing and thought things through. It was important to plan. If they were dead, he couldn’t bring them back to life and if they weren’t, rushing in on impulse could get them all killed.
