Cassandra Kresnov 04: 23 Years on Fire

by Joel Shepherd

  Danya ran behind a truck loaded with bags of fertiliser, and peered toward the courtyard where the Mosque was. There was dust everywhere, big clouds of it, and more people running. Someone was being carried by others, obviously hurt.

  “A flyer!” someone was shouting to a neighbour. “It came down by the Mosque! Lots of men with guns, they went inside!”

  “They shoot anyone?” came the incredulous reply.

  “Didn’t hear any shooting.”

  “What’s anyone want with Abraham?”

  Svetlana ran out, but Danya dragged her back.

  “We have to find Kiril!” Svetlana shouted, eyes filled with tears. “This is my fault, they came for Kiril because of me . . .”

  “Svet, calm down.” Danya pulled her down, and they crouched together, watching the commotion. “There’s no way this has anything to do with you. The Tings couldn’t afford a flyer. Men with guns in flyers means corporations. The Tings don’t have anything to do with corporations.”

  Or at least, nothing important. A wind blew the dust toward them; Danya pulled up his goggles to keep it from his eyes. He could see Abraham now, tall in robes, discussing with neighbours, describing what had happened. No sign of any kids. Probably they were being kept safe inside.

  Someone joined them behind the truck. “Danya,” said the new arrival, “was Kiril in there?”

  Danya looked—it was Modeg, a slim black guy in a heavy jacket. He was Rimtown district Home Guard, which meant he was probably armed. Home Guard wore no uniforms least the corporations just pick them off with snipers. Only locals knew their identities.

  Danya nodded. “He was in there. I want to see if he’s okay, but there’s some people after us and I don’t want to put them onto Kiril.” Modeg could be trusted . . . which wasn’t to say that he was a friend. The Home Guard fought the corporations. They were leftovers from the crash; the only remnant of organised armed resistance the neighbourhoods had left. But the Home Guard knew street kids were excellent reconnaissance, and made it a point to know them all. Modeg’s only interest was in resisting the corporations, not in befriending street kids, but sometimes those two things were the same.

  Modeg thought about it. “You’d better come with me,” he said. “We’ve got someone over there. They’ll come with information on what happened and if anyone’s missing.”

  Danya and Svetlana followed Modeg down a narrow alley between shop fronts, then up a small rear stairway. A doorway led into a small back room with other rooms adjoining, all cluttered with close living. A woman sat before some small display screens, a short machinegun over her shoulder. There were posters on the walls, all political stuff. Some of them denounced corporations. Others were famous photographs from the crash, masses of people running down streets pursued by AMAPS and aerial vehicles. A bloody resistance soldier, badly wounded, raising his fingers in a defiant victory sign to the camera. And one photo from the Dawn Theatre, its seats smouldering, bodies carpetting the floors. Everyone knew that photo, the random limbs protruding amongst the seats.

  “Who were they?” Danya asked. Modeg opened a small fridge and offered them a choice of a fresh pear each, or a chocolate bar. Both kids grabbed the pears, and ate.

  “Chancelry,” said Modeg. “We think. First got an idea they were coming when the jamming started—they do it with UAVs, circling high above. All our coms went dead.”

  “How long ago was that?” Danya asked, careful not to let any pear juice go to waste.

  “Just ten minutes ago. We might have taken a rocket shot at this bastard, but we didn’t have anything close enough to where he came down.”

  Svetlana peered at the display screens, which showed the Mosque from several angles. Luozi ran through the dust, panicked and bleating.

  “We have to randomise the transmissions,” the woman watching the displays explained to Svetlana. “Otherwise the corporations can track airbourne signals back to their source. They could put a rocket right on our heads.”

  Once upon a time, Danya knew, quite a few Droze citizens had had inbuilt uplinks. Some of those still remained, but a lot had been killed. The corporations tracked such people down, gave jobs to some useful ones, and killed the rest. Uplinks were a threat, and now the technology for surveillance and communications was several centuries behind what existed on other worlds. Outside of the corporations, anyhow.

  Soon several more people came up the stairs. One was an older black man with a pointy beard. “Danya and Svetlana,” he said, not very surprised to see them here. He pulled up his goggles and brushed dust from his face and clothes. “They took ten children. Education purposes, Abraham was told. Said they’d raise the kids properly. An act of charity. Kiril was one of them.”

  Danya stared at him. He didn’t know what to say. If it was true, Kiril was lucky. He should be happy for him. But Kiril was his brother, and if Chancelry Corporation had taken him, most likely he’d never see him again. Or if he did, it would be years from now and they’d be strangers, on opposite sides of the Corporate-NCP divide.

  “No!” Svetlana screamed. “No, no, no!” And broke down sobbing. Danya held her.

  “Did they say why?” he asked the new arrival—Duage was his name. Danya knew him well enough, he was the regional Home Guard commander. Modeg was his son. “Why here, why these kids?”

  Duage shook his head. “I wanted to ask you. They’ve always left Abraham alone, so this is an unusual step. Can you think of any reason you might have drawn the attention of the Chancelry Corporation lately?”

  Danya thought. He could. She was lying upstairs in their hidey, awaiting a lifesaving injection. Tell Duage about her? Duage would then have to tell the rest of the Home Guard, possibly all the way to the top. They might want to take Kresnov themselves. If Kiril were captive, Danya wanted to find out if he was truly safe. If not, he was going to need some serious muscle to help get him out. The Home Guard couldn’t do it; they were completely defensive. Danya couldn’t remember the last time they’d ever attacked a corporation directly—they just skulked around the neighbourhoods and took occasional potshots at passing flyers. But a high-designation GI from the Federation . . .

  “No,” he said. “No I can’t . . . well, I mean, we upset the Tings just today, but that was less than an hour ago. Chancelry Corporation don’t care about the Tings.”

  Duage accepted that, and talked with Modeg and one of the others who’d come in. Danya thought he’d played that well enough—Duage would hear the Tings were looking for him and Svetlana, and wonder perhaps if he’d lied, unless Danya admitted it first. Now it wasn’t suspicious.

  Svetlana clung to him and said nothing. She’d trusted him with her life for all her life. Now she continued to, and with Kiril’s also. Even if Chancelry treated him well, Kiril would still be terrified.

  “Don’t worry, Svet,” he murmured. “We’ll get him back.”

  They entered Treska’s place shortly after, past several patrons who were at the tables, nursing drinks, playing games, watching a vid. No one paid two kids any mind. They took the stairs fast, then unlocked their door at the top of the stairwell.

  Kresnov was no longer in the hidey. Svetlana nearly freaked out again, but Danya wasn’t buying it.

  “Svet, Svet, calm down. It’s Treska, it had to be.”

  Svetlana stared up at him with teary eyes. “You think Treska took her?”

  “He had to. You know how I was saying I think he might have some surveillance in the building? I think maybe he has some downstairs. Our locks are still on the doors Svet, all of them. None of them are broken. Some thief getting in here would have had to break some locks, but of course Treska has a key. He’s the only other person who does.”

  “But . . .” Svetlana was confused. “Why would Treska want her? I mean, she’s trouble. Treska doesn’t like trouble.”

  “Yes, but Treska likes pretty girls. You know who he runs with.”

  “Donogle,” said Svetlana, distastefully. “You think he’d rea
lly risk that with a GI?”

  “Treska’s gotten into trouble over pretty girls before,” Danya reminded her, heading out of the hidey and across the corridor, into what had once been an office. Now it was bare, stripped of everything. Svetlana followed. “He’s collected them for Donogle before.”

  “That’s disgusting,” said Svetlana. Danya stuck his head into a part of the wall where a display screen had once been. Now the wall cavity was filled with debris. Danya pulled a bit of boarding aside and pulled out their backpacks.

  “Yes it is,” he agreed. “But it makes him a lot of money on the side.” Inside the backpacks were all their useful items—the teacher, bound up carefully in cloths and plastic. Ropes and clips, for climbing. Several good knives. A makeshift first aid kit. A couple of electronic gadgets they hadn’t yet discovered the use of, and a bunch of other odds and ends. Street kids were hoarders; you never knew when something you’d found would be useful, or valuable to someone else. Now he pulled out the rope and examined their clips.

  “You’re going to climb down the shaft?” Svetlana asked dubiously.

  Danya nodded. “If I take the crowbar, I bet I can get the elevator doors open from the inside.”

  “Danya, that’s stupid. I’m a much better climber and I’ve climbed that shaft before.”

  Danya stared at her. “You have? Without me?”

  “Yes, without you. I’m the sneaky one, remember? I’m good at climbing and stealing and it’s my job, because we’re a team, like you said. This is my special skill. So I climbed the shaft a few times when you were out, just to see where everything is in case we needed it. Treska’s got some sensors in there. They’re not very good though, just laser triggers. I think he made them himself. I can get past them, but you’ll trip them and then we’ll be fucked.”

  Danya blinked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I knew you’d be mad!” she said impatiently, taking the ropes off him and putting them back in the backpack. “And I don’t need these. They’ll just swing and trigger the lasers. You go down and wait by the door, and I’ll let you in, okay?”

  Svetlana climbed. She liked climbing. She liked the freedom it gave her, and the sense of power. It was only a little power—the power to choose where she wanted to go, and the power to overcome obstacles other people had put in her way—but to a street kid, even a little power was an exciting thing.

  The elevator shaft was completely black, so she climbed with a flashlight in her teeth. That was awkward, but she’d found that if she wrapped the hard plastic first in a little cloth, her teeth got a better purchase and it hurt less. Besides, it was only four stories, and she hadn’t been kidding with Danya—she really was good at this. It pleased her to have something she was better at than Danya, not because she wanted to be better than him, but because it meant she could be genuinely useful to him. She’d have died for Danya. Killed for him, certainly. She hated to be a burden on him, as she knew he sometimes found her to be. This was her chance to give something back.

  Finally she got down to Treska’s level, and balanced on the narrow ledge. Shrugging off the backpack, she reached inside and pulled out the crowbar. The elevator shaft hadn’t worked since the crash, it was said. But she’d tried the doors on their own level, and found the crowbar worked well enough to get them open. Treska had had the ones on the ground floor welded shut, so no one could access the shaft from there. She was hoping he hadn’t anticipated that one of his tenants on higher floors might use the shaft themselves. Probably not, given how useful it was as a second escape route . . . particularly for Treska, one floor above the ground and at no risk of a long fall.

  Sure enough, the doors came open when she pried hard enough. Svetlana slipped through, then pulled the backpack after her.

  She was in what had once been a hallway outside this floor’s offices. On the opposite wall there were plaques with company names on them. They hadn’t been polished in a long time.

  Her flashlight off, Svetlana slipped silently down the hall, then peered in a doorway. She knew she should go to the door and let Danya in, but she had to scout first. Treska had not been downstairs at the bar or in his office, where he often was. That meant he was either here, or he’d gone out.

  Immediately she could hear voices, coming from the far side of the floor. Treska used that part as his kitchen and bedroom. Here between were larger living quarters—she’d never been in them herself, but Danya had described them to her. It sounded like at least two people were in the kitchen, one of them Treska.

  Svetlana considered her options. Treska’s door had lots of locks on it. She didn’t need a key to open them from this side—Danya had taken note of that, also. But it would be noisy, and much closer to the kitchen. Someone could hear or notice, or could simply be going to the door. And getting Danya inside would achieve . . . what? He was quite a bit bigger and stronger than her, sure, but bigger and stronger than Treska? Not a chance. Treska was a big man who lifted weights, Danya was a thirteen year old boy.

  She would move faster alone, and didn’t want to put Danya in unnecessary danger. He’d risked his neck so often for her and Kiril. This was her turn.

  She slid into the living room. There, as Danya had suspected, she saw a pair of black boots hanging over the edge of a sofa. Kresnov had worn black boots. Svetlana moved quickly, and came around the edge of the sofa . . . and got a shock, to see Kresnov’s blue eyes staring straight up at her. She was tied up, thick synthetic ropes with heavy knots. Normally a GI could have broken them, no problem.

  “Here,” she whispered. “I’ve got some bipofalzin, and I’ve got a syringe. How much do you need?”

  Something was odd, because Kresnov’s blue eyes were following her. She looked more alert than she had. But there was a handkerchief tied around her mouth for a gag, she realised. Quickly she pulled it off.

  Kresnov wiggled her jaw, and yawned. “Don’t need the drug,” she murmured in reply. “The big guy already gave me some.” Svetlana blinked. “Wants me alive for a while, apparently.”

  Svetlana could have smacked herself on the head. Neither she nor Danya had thought of that. “So you can break free?”

  “No. He gave me another drug, muscle relaxant. Not strong enough. Got a knife?”

  Svetlana produced one. Kresnov smiled up at her. She was very pretty when she did that. Svetlana smiled back, and began cutting. “Good girl,” said Kresnov.

  The knife wasn’t very big, and the ropes were thick and tough. “My little brother Kiril was taken by a corporation flyer just now,” Svetlana whispered as she worked. “Danya thinks it might have something to do with us helping you. You have to promise you’ll help get him back.”

  Kresnov frowned a little. “But how could they know? If they knew where I was, they’d have come here already and grabbed me.”

  So she did have enemies amongst the corporations. Danya had thought as much. “Treska has some illegal communications gear,” she offered. “He talks on it sometimes.”

  “Ah,” said Kresnov. “If they overheard him talking about me, and you, that could be it. They couldn’t trace it, but they’d know who you are.”

  Wow, thought Svetlana. Maybe she’d gotten out of the Tings’ yard just in time after all. A rope snapped, but there were plenty more. She kept sawing.

  “Promise you’ll help get him back,” she persisted. Kresnov said nothing. Svetlana stopped cutting. “Promise!”

  “I promise,” Kresnov murmured. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  “What?”

  “It’s just something they say in the Federation. My name’s Cassandra, by the way. Cassandra Kresnov. You can call me Sandy.” Suddenly the voices were getting louder. Footsteps approached. “Quick, give me the knife. I’ll keep cutting, you hide. Oh, and put this gag back in.”

  Svetlana pressed the small knife into her hand. She could hide it there under a heavily knotted rope and cut, not easily seen unless you were really close. She retied the gag, the
n scampered for the doorway and hid by the frame.

  “So what do you think?” she heard Treska’s voice in the room she’d just left.

  “Oh, pretty hot.” She didn’t recognise the other man’s voice. A customer? “Blonde, I do like ’em blonde. Pity she doesn’t look a bit younger, though. She looks, what? Twenty-five?”

  “It’s all cosmetics with GIs, my friend,” said Treska. “She could be anything. Though, if you like ’em real young, there’s a fine little piece who lives on the top floor here, cute little brunette. Ten years old as of now.”

  “Bit young. Wait a few years.”

  “That was my thinking. A few years’ time, I take her to Donogle . . . her brother’s a bit protective, might have to do for him first. Shouldn’t be too hard, who’ll miss another street kid?”

  They were talking about her, Svetlana realised. Her and Danya. She was surprised at how little surprised or shocked she was. She’d known Treska was a bad man, but they’d needed a place to stay, and this place was perfect. It had seemed worth the risk. Although in truth, it had been Danya who’d been most worried by and suspicious of Treska, especially where she was concerned. Her big brother was right again.

  “You can have a turn now if you’d like?” Treska offered to the man. “You can be the first, break her in.”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” said the other man, with eagerness.

  “I’ll close the door,” Treska said cheerfully. “Just make sure you don’t let that gag off her. She might still be strong enough to bite your ear off.”

  He left, and there came the sound of a door closing. The rattle of a belt coming loose. Clothes removed. Svetlana peered around the doorframe. The man was disrobing, sure enough.

  Should she wait, Svetlana wondered? She didn’t know what she could do. The man was much bigger than her, and Sandy had her knife. How many ropes had she cut through? What if she hadn’t cut through enough? What if there was no choice but to stand here and wait for this horrible man to finish his business? But if she waited, surely he’d discover the knife?