Cassandra Kresnov 04: 23 Years on Fire

by Joel Shepherd

  The woman spilled a lot of the water on her chin. It trickled onto the pullover under her coat. When the glass was empty, she handed it to Svetlana, who took it before she could drop it.

  “Hello?” Danya tried. “What is your name? What happened to you?” The woman said nothing. Whether that was because she would not tell, or could not, Danya didn’t know. “We don’t own this place, do you understand me? We pay rent. The landlord is upstairs, I tried to reach him but he didn’t answer the door. Either you tell us, or you tell him. He’s not always a very nice man.”

  The woman slumped her head back against the wall, and closed her eyes.

  “Who are you?” Danya tried again. “Are you a GI?”

  A faint nod. Svetlana grabbed Kiril’s shoulder and pulled him back a little. Danya could have smacked her on the head. Now you’re worried?

  “Who do you work for? What designation are you?” Nothing. “A high designation, or low?”

  “Very high,” she croaked.

  So she could speak. “Do you work for a corporation?”

  “No,” she said. “I got hit with . . . tranquilizer. GI specific. Can you get . . . bipofalzin?”

  “Drugs?” Now Danya was very wary. “Is it expensive?”

  “Don’t know,” she gasped. “Maybe.”

  Danya spread his hands in exasperation. “Lady, we’ve barely got enough to eat. Thieves get killed. Either this bipofaz . . .”

  “Bipofalzin.”

  “ . . . either it’s easy to get, or I can’t get it. I’m sorry. I don’t even know if you can stay here, once Treska finds out.” Pity she’s a GI, he thought. If she weren’t, with looks like hers, Treska would have let her make payment in other ways. But no one was crazy enough to offer that with a GI.

  “The tranq shuts down my systems,” she said. “If I don’t get it, I’m dead. Forty-eight hours, max.” She had a funny accent. At first Danya had thought it was just her condition. But now that her voice was loosening up, it was undeniably an accent. Which was odd, because old people had accents, those that had come from other places. No younger people did, and never any GIs. How did a GI get an accent? Where was she from?

  “I’m sorry, lady,” Danya repeated. “But this is Droze, people die all the time. I have to look after my brother and sister. They’re all I have.”

  The woman looked across the room, gathering thought as she tried to gather air, one deep gasp at a time.

  “You’re fifteen?” she asked, looking back at him.

  “Thirteen,” he said, a little self-consciously.

  “So you were seven in the crash.” Her eyes rolled across to Kiril and Svetlana. “And these two . . . the little one might not have been born.”

  “He was a baby,” Danya confirmed. “Svet was four.”

  “So this is all you’ve known. Do you like it here?”

  Danya frowned. What kind of a question was that? “What difference does it make?” he retorted. “Here is all there is.”

  “No.” She shook her head, with slow effort. “I’m Federation. Tanusha, on Callay.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” said Danya. “The Federation doesn’t make GIs, everyone knows that.”

  “I came from the League,” she replied. “But I left. I emigrated. Became a Federation citizen.”

  Danya was unconvinced. “Danya, I heard about this,” Svetlana cut him off, eyes wide, before he could ridicule the GI further. “People say some GIs went to the Federation. To Callay.”

  “Which people said that?”

  “News feeds,” Svetlana insisted. “I read them, Danya. How does she have an accent if she’s not from the Federation?”

  “She could be League,” said Danya, coldly. “All offworlders have accents.”

  “But that would be suicide!” Svetlana insisted. “Everyone hates the League!” Danya was uncertain. Svetlana was a dreamer, and too often she wanted things to be true that weren’t. But she did read the news feeds, and all kinds of things Danya never found useful. If she said she’d read that GIs had gone to the Federation, it was probably true. But that didn’t mean this one was telling the truth.

  “If you’re from the Federation, why are you here?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Can’t say. It’s secret. But I’m not supposed to be here. My group were ambushed. I think betrayed.” She stopped for a moment. It might have just been the tranquilizer, but she seemed to be struggling with emotion. If so, that would mean she was a very high designation. “Some of my people were killed. I escaped. Ended up here. Kid. Your name’s Danya?”

  “Danil. Same thing.”

  “Right. Russian nickname. You know it’s a girl’s name in Hebrew? Means ‘God is my judge.’” She rolled her eyes to Svetlana. “You’re Svetochka. From Svetlana. That means ‘light.’” Svetlana blinked. “I’m Kresnov. But never Kresnova. GIs don’t have families like that. The feminine stuff doesn’t work.”

  Danya and Svetlana looked at each other. GIs never talked like that, didn’t know this kind of stuff. Very high designation? Or foreign? Or both?

  “Danya, the Federation is interested not just in Droze. We’re interested in New Torah. We’re trying to help, you understand? I can help you. Maybe get you out of here, somewhere nice. But I can’t do that if you don’t get me bipofalzin. Fast.”

  “So, what does Kiril mean?” Kiril asked as Danya led them into the cold morning light.

  “I don’t know, Kiri,” said Danya, distractedly. “Mama never said. Maybe Kresnov knows.”

  The street was cold and dusty, though the glare was not yet bright enough for goggles. Most of the traffic was pedestrian, but there were a few vehicles, driven by home-built combustion engines—ancient things that rattled and clanked. Labs made various combustible fuels, the only thing available for the purpose as the companies jealously guarded the electrical grid, which in turn deprived any working lab of the power required to generate hydrogen or other, more modern fuels in sufficient quantities to power vehicles. Company workers still flew in aircars or flyers, sometimes one could be seen far overhead, beyond small-arms range. Adults told tales of a time when such vehicles had been everywhere. Danya remembered a little of that time himself, but those memories were fading fast. He was too busy with the present to waste time mooning about the past.

  They’d left Kresnov in their upstairs hidey, with a key to lock the door. She wasn’t able to do much more than lie there—he and Svetlana had had to carry her most of the way up the stairs. Danya hadn’t told Treska. He had no idea if Treska would even open the door if he tried again. Danya wasn’t sure if it would be smarter to just dump her—obviously, nasty people were after her. But that wasn’t so uncommon in these parts of Rimtown, and if he became known on the street as unreliable, he couldn’t expect much help when trouble came for him or the kids.

  Besides which, there was her offer. Danya didn’t really believe it. The Federation was an awful long way away. But now Svetlana had gone from wishing Kresnov dead to mooning about that far-off land of wealth and plenty, like some tale on a story reader, with fairies and talking animals. And Kiril, of course, was the same. That was expected from a six-year-old, but Danya was disappointed in Svetlana—she was ten now, and was supposed to be more grown up.

  “So, are you going to get this bipofalzin?” Svetlana asked as they walked. Storefronts were opening, big metal rollers grinding up. Atop building balconies, solar panels were unfurled, rigged to multi-purpose batteries.

  “I don’t know,” said Danya. “I’ll look. But I have to be careful, I can’t just ask around. If it’s a banned drug, or something only for GIs, people might get suspicious that I’m asking. I have to find out what happened to Kresnov and who is after her.”

  “I don’t care who’s after her,” said Svetlana. “We should help her.”

  It wasn’t altruism on Svetlana’s part, Danya knew too well. He loved her and Kiril more than his own life, but it was his objectivity that kept them alive, and on his siblings he was most objectiv
e of all. Of the three of them, Svetlana was the most ruthless. She wanted what she wanted, and cared little for anyone or anything beyond their little circle. If she wanted to take risks on Kresnov’s behalf, it was because Svetlana thought something good for herself and her brothers might come of it. Kresnov herself was just a shiny bauble, a ticket to better things.

  “I think we should help her, too,” said Kiril. “I want to go to Callay.”

  “Yes well, now you’re going to school,” said Danya.

  School was Abraham’s Mosque on the outskirts of town. In an open square it sat, a simple structure of clay bricks, seeming to have risen from the desert sand. Luozi were tethered by a water trough, long ears drooping as they drank. Kiril patted one in passing, and then they entered the building, a simple earth floor and bare walls, the ceiling held up by symmetrical concrete pillars.

  Abraham was a tall man in robes. Some folks called him the Bedouin, but he’d actually been a company man before the crash. He’d seen things, people said, that had caused him to cast off his suit and tie, and build this little mosque from nothing. Today there were perhaps forty children present, of varying ages, reading and doing sums. Abraham would teach them reading and maths and history. Sometimes he’d talk to them about Allah too, but no one minded that, so long as the kids learned the important stuff.

  “Young Danya,” said Abraham, as Svetlana joined Kiril on the floor with a slate and read with him. “You should come and learn more often. Your own reading could improve.”

  “I have to work,” said Danya.

  “At least let Svetlana stay for an hour.” His manner was very kindly. Danya had learned to be wary of some adults who professed their love of children, but he’d never heard a bad word said of Abraham, save for a few who muttered he was crazy. “Danya, we do not have the luxury of tape teach like the company children do, so learning takes more time. It’s very important for children to learn.”

  “Will you feed us if we don’t work?” Danya asked. Abraham sighed. “So stop asking. What do you know about drugs?”

  Abraham frowned. “What kind of drugs?”

  “The kind that fetch a good price. I’m not interested in taking them, I just want to know some prices.”

  Abraham nodded slowly. He always refused to say exactly what he’d done in the corporations, but some rumoured he’d been quite senior. That meant he knew a lot. “Which drugs?”

  “GI drugs.”

  “There are quite a few of those. Most of them are expensive. Have you come across some?”

  Danya shrugged. “I might have. What do you know about bipofalzin?”

  “That’s an anti-toxin. There was a lot of Federation research during the war into how to kill GIs with chemicals. The League did a lot of counter-research to make drugs that cure those effects. Bipofalzin is one of them.”

  “Do the companies make it here?”

  “Probably,” said Abraham. “Drugs are quite simple to make. But they won’t make very much of it, because who fights GIs with chemicals here?”

  That’s a good question, thought Danya.

  “Danya, Danya,” Abraham sighed, and put a hand on his shoulder. “Sometimes you sound so much like a man, I forget that you’re a boy.”

  “I am a man,” Danya said stubbornly, removing Abraham’s hand. “I don’t have a choice.”

  “And Allah loves you for it,” Abraham assured him with a smile. “It is his strength that makes you a man, so that you can protect your sister and brother. But some things a man knows that a boy cannot, no matter how wise before his time. Things like when to take a risk. Do not play around with dangerous things, Danya. It can be tempting, when there are riches on offer, but riches on Droze are a mirage. It was that realisation that brought me here, to serve Allah.”

  “He doesn’t know about the teacher, does he?” Svetlana asked as they walked up Grande Road toward Steel City.

  “I don’t think so,” said Danya. “He still doesn’t think you read very well, though. You should practise more.”

  “I practise plenty,” Svetlana snorted. “We need to buy a new card, that old one gets boring. And some more pills.”

  “Svetlana,” Danya told her for the thousandth time, “we have no money for that.”

  Svetlana made a face. A tractor bus trundled past, its open tray bouncing on the potholed road. The people sitting in the back bounced with it. It was going their way, but even that small fee was pointless, and walking was good for you. Danya had had a bicycle a year ago and that had been wonderful, easy to keep and cheap to run, but it had been stolen, despite his best efforts at keeping it safe. Everything useful got stolen eventually.

  They passed the Kasperwitz Tavern on a corner, music booming out, gaming lights flashing. Armed guards at the door with big rifles, one of them cybernetic, the other certainly augmented—corporations didn’t mind NCP business guards being armed; some rumoured they did deals with small businesses beyond the security zone to keep them sweet. These would be registered. Svetlana peered yearningly for the doorway as they passed, as though hoping to catch a glimpse of the riches inside. They weren’t real riches, Danya had told her firmly, plenty of times. Only the tavern ever really got rich. And people who won too often had a way of getting hurt, or worse.

  Next to the tavern was the brothel, one of the only good looking buildings in town, with a railed balcony and fancy French doors with lacy curtains. That told a story of who the profitable businesses were. There were guards here too, sitting and playing backgammon on the balcony, big rifles nearby, and more inside. Danya had been in a few times, strictly on business, running errands for the Kasperwitz family who owned both it and the tavern, and a few other establishments in the neighbourhood.

  The Kasperwitzes were fair and paid well, but he refused to let Svetlana ever go inside for fear that they’d see her and get ideas. Svetlana had blue eyes, dark hair and fine, pale features. At this age she was only going to get prettier, and a few of the girls in the brothel couldn’t have been older than fifteen. For now she kept her hair cut short under a floppy hat, but that wasn’t going to hide her forever. There were even days when he thought that the brothel wouldn’t be the worst thing. At least she’d get fed there, and protected from the meaner clients by well-paid and heavily armed men. And then he’d hate himself for even thinking it.

  “Maybe we should get a new card for Kiril,” Danya thought aloud, as traffic got heavier and the air thicker with dust from the tires. Vehicle workshops lined the road, from which came the sound of lots of hammering and machine tools. “He’s so smart, I don’t want his learning to fall behind. Especially his maths, he could get a good job with maths.”

  “My maths stink,” said Svetlana. “I’ll never have a good job.”

  “You could if you practised more.”

  “I’m not good at maths!” She kicked at the dust. “How are you going to afford a new card?”

  “We,” Danya corrected. “How are we going to afford a new card. We’re a team.”

  Svetlana was hurt. “I know.”

  “I’ll think of something.” He grimaced. Thinking on it was frustrating.

  “Danya,” said Svetlana, holding his arm with urgency. “Bipofalzin.”

  “Svet, if we can’t even afford a teacher card . . .”

  “How many lucky breaks have we ever had?” Svetlana pleaded. “Kresnov could be a lucky break.”

  “She’s more likely going to get us killed,” Danya muttered. But she looked so hopeful, looking up at him with her big eyes beneath her floppy hat. Danya sighed, and put his arm around her. “I know, Svetochka. I’d like to help her, too. I’ll ask Gunter.”

  Gunter didn’t know anything about bipofalzin. “Just because I’m a GI,” he explained, “that doesn’t mean I’ve heard of all this stuff.”

  Gunter worked security at the Ting Yard. Blond and muscular, he was an okay designation who’d been part of the security detail the League had left on Droze before the crash. When the League pulled
out, they’d had seats only for organic humans, and a lot of GIs had been left behind without employers. A few had found work with the corporations, but the corporations didn’t trust formerly League-employed GIs, especially the higher designations, and most of those they did employ were regs. Gunter had chosen to work for Mr Ting, to Mr Ting’s good fortune. A lot of GIs in Droze were quite rich. A company or business family with a GI employed was relatively safe, while their potential opponents were not. Wealth flocked to safe investment, and the Tings now owned one of the biggest scrap and recycling yards in Steel Town.

  “He’s not very smart, though,” Svetlana reasoned as they worked, after Gunter had strolled away. This time the crate was full of broken home appliances. Danya and Svetlana would take them out and disassemble them, tossing any still-useful bits into various trays for reuse. Mostly they looked for chips, the only parts of real reusable value—the technology was old and crappy, as frontier technology usually was, but old chips were more reusable than new ones. “Just because he doesn’t know about bipofalzin doesn’t mean it’s not available.”

  She grimaced as she reached into the mechanism of what had been a food processor. She wasn’t as young and slim as she had been, but her fingers were still more nimble than Danya’s, better for tight spaces. The yard itself was an old rusting factory space, its floor completely crowded with junk. Machinery echoed and whined beneath the high roof, as heavier equipment moved larger items of junk, or tore them apart. Kids worked on smaller things, with a hope to graduate up as they grew older—there were eleven others on this part of the yard floor, working at their benches.

  “Abraham said there weren’t many people on Droze who used chemicals to fight GIs,” said Danya. “Those are the people who’d have bipofalzin, though.”

  “But only people who employed GIs, themselves,” Svetlana reasoned, digging out the chip and tossing it in its tray. “The big families would have some, I bet.”

  “Yeah, but a lot of the GIs won’t fight each other,” Danya replied. “So the big families like the Tings who employ GIs can’t really fight other families, at least not using their own GIs. They all used to serve together in the League, a lot of them are still friends.”