Snowburn

by Frost, E J

  “Kez—” I begin.

  “Did you take off my vcom?”

  I debate lying to her. The viewie could have fallen off when I was putting her to bed. “Kez—”

  “Did you?!” She flares at me. Teeth and claws and fur standing on end.

  “Yeah.”

  She goes so pale I think she might faint. I put a hand out to catch her. She recoils. A tear slips down her cheek. “I need my backpack,” she whispers.

  “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “My friend, my best friend is in trouble because I didn’t bring her her meds. Because I was here, with you, fucking when she was hurting!” Her voice rises until she’s yelling. “I need my goddamn backpack!”

  “I’ll get it,” I say dully. I should have known it was too good to last. Beauty never does. I turn on my heel and head towards the front hall where I dimly remember dropping her backpack after carrying her in from the taxi.

  She’s pulled on her clothes by the time I return. She’s stamping her foot into her boot and talking into her viewie. Her voice is low and urgent. “Sky, I just need to know where she is. She’s not answering her com. Is she there?”

  A male voice answers her. “Like I’d fuckin’ tell you.”

  “The Hex will kill the baby, Skylar. Please, I’ve got her Naltrex. Just tell me where she is and I’ll bring it to her.”

  I drop the backpack next to her. She nods but doesn’t take her eyes off the screen.

  “I told you, she doesn’t want to see you. She’s fine now and she’s gonna stay fine fine fine and all mine.”

  “So she’s there with you?”

  “I’m not tellin’ you, you fuckin’ lesbo bitch. She’s told me all about you. How you brush her hair when she’s twitchin’. I know you’re just trying to get in her pants, ain’t you gay-girl?”

  “That’s right, Skylar. I just wanted to get with her. But you win, she’s back with you, right?”

  “Straight up, bitch.”

  “And she’s going to stay with you at your place.” It’s not a question. She’s turned it around so he’ll confirm her statement. Clever kitten.

  “That’s right, that’s right, that’s righty-right-right. Me and Nevie and the baby. We’ll be one happy family and you’ll have no one, you lesbo bitch!”

  Kez smiles into the Hexer’s snarling face. “Thanks, Sky, that’s all I needed to know.” She taps the screen and snatches up her backpack. “I have to go,” she says to me.

  I nod. I’ve caught enough of the conversation to understand the crux of what’s happened. “Kez—”

  She shakes her head. Doesn’t meet my eyes as she stamps on the other boot. On her wrist, the touchscreen flares. She glances at it. “My taxi’s here. Where’s the door?”

  I beckon her with two fingers. Lead her through the house to the front door. All the while debating what to say to her. At the front door I pause, my hand on the control panel. “Kez—”

  She winces. “I have to go.”

  I tap the panel. Stand aside as the door cycles. Watch her walk out my door. She doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t say good-bye. I tap the panel again to activate the gates. Glance at the monitor beside the door to make sure she gets into the taxi waiting beyond the outer gate. As she climbs into the taxi, she looks back at the house. The vid’s resolution isn’t good enough to show me her expression. She shakes her head, closes the door, and the taxi hums away.

  I stand with my forehead against the door, staring at the blank monitor. I’ve let her go. Let her slip through my fingers. In one moment, doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, I’ve lost her. Just like I lost Marin.

  Why doesn’t the beauty in my life ever last?

  Chapter 10

  Four minutes, thirty-nine seconds later, I’m racing through my outer gate. Opening up the trike’s engine. Cranking the neg cells towards their redline. The late afternoon streets are quiet. Too late for the lunch crowd, too early for rush-hour. At the end of the street, I corner hard on the trike’s big front wheel, and turn north to follow the river.

  Eddle’s not far, maybe fifteen minutes upriver. But Kez has a good head-start on me. Once she reaches her destination, disappears inside the huge, ancient set of habitables that are the Eddle Housing Block, I may not be able to track her. I keep the throttle open, feel the wind pick up as I reach the open soyufields of Blyss District. The wind stings my bare chest. Flaps my jacket around my waist. I’m not dressed for the trike, but I couldn’t take the time to pull on my riding gear, not if I wanted to catch Kez. I just grabbed my boots and helmet. And a few blades. Never leave home without them.

  The empty streets and the trike’s smooth acceleration give me time to think. Too much time. I don’t want to think through what I’ve done. The decisions that led to her walking out, and to me chasing after her. I should be able to let her go. I was ready to on the Marie. Nothing’s changed since then. And she might come back on her own once she’s taken care of her business. Make herself mine again.

  But Marin’s ghost is fucking with me. Spitting the image of her battered face, the light fading from those beautiful eyes, in front of me again and again. Reminding me of the promise I’ve made to her so many times as I’ve woken, sweating and reaching for her. Not to let her go.

  I lean into the wind and push the trike faster upriver.

  I catch Kez’s taxi as it turns off the H-K Main Line. Follow it down the access ramp and into the long shadows cast by the towers of the Eddle Housing Block: four huge fingers of permacrete and plaz, planted into the fertile soil of Kuseros by the drop ship that established the Colony. Eddle was designed to house ten thousand colonists in sterile, insulated comfort until the planet’s terraforming was complete. A hundred years on and it’s a decaying relic. Broken plaz domes glint in the afternoon sunlight. Debris swirls along the empty streets. Soot streaks the permacrete towers from fires deliberate and accidental. Here and there, an intact unit provides shelter for squatters.

  Only the very tough, or very desperate, live in Eddle now.

  The taxi turns and pulls up in front of Housing Block Two. A skimmer is already parked there. A man leans against the skimmer, two fingers pressing the prong of an eskey close to his mouth. He must be using the skimmer as shielding, since most eskeys won’t work with the Twins up. His eyes are shaded by the bill of a cap, but he still squints into the afternoon sunlight as he watches me pull up behind the taxi. He gives me a tentative wave. I nod to him as I power down the trike’s neg cells and lean back into the seat as the floating back end settles onto the pavement. I swing off the trike, cross the distance to the taxi in two strides, and pull open the door. Extend my hand to its occupant.

  Kez looks up at me. It’s not the taxi’s dim interior that makes her pupils dilate. She slides out of the taxi one long leg at a time. Takes my hand as she stands. She slings her backpack over her shoulder and looks up at me. Her eyes linger on my bare chest on the way up.

  I hold her eyes for a long moment. Let her see my anger and disappointment at the way she walked out. My remorse for taking off her viewie.

  “I’d have come back,” she says, her voice nearly lost in the wind that roars between the housing blocks. “I’d have bought noodles and been knocking on your gate before dark.” She looks down at her boots. Shrugs. “I’ve got no pride.”

  “Me, neither.” I run the backs of my fingers down her cheek. Tip her chin up so I can look down into those wide kitten eyes. “I’d have let you in.”

  That gets me a smile, although not her full mischievous grin. She reaches toward me, for a moment I think she might hug me, show me that all’s forgiven, but she stops herself and puts her hand on my chest. “I’ve got to help Nevie. But, later?”

  I nod. I can be patient. “Tell me the play.”

  “Get Nev out of here as fast as we can. Skylar’s probably dosed her full of Hex. Hex can go either way. It can put her on cloud nine, or it can make her violent. Him, too. His mother may be around. She’s worse than
he is.” She sweeps her dreads to one side. Turns her neck so I can see a thin scar that disappears into her hair. “She did that with a broken bottle. She looks like a nice little old lady but she’s a complete psycho.”

  “Complete psycho,” echoes the man who waved at me. He’s drawn close as Kez has been speaking. Kez holds out a hand to him and he knocks his knuckles against hers.

  “Gig, this is Snow,” she says.

  He nods shyly at me and I reassess. His height fooled me, but he’s still a kid. Late teens, all Adam’s apple, elbows and knees. Light brown hair sticks out from under his cap and around the cups he wears over his ears. They’re connected to the prong near his mouth and a visor that he has flipped back over the brim of his cap. Not an eskey; a hyper-rig. He wears the power cells around his waist like a belt and they drag his pants down on his skinny hips. He hitches at them self-consciously before holding his hand out to me. His palm glitters faintly with embedded circuitry. Part of the hyper-rig.

  I give his hand a shake. Firm but not crushing. His rig looks expensive. No reason to fuck it up.

  “Mister Snow, nice to meet you,” he says. Shy and polite. None of Kez’s confidence or her brother’s arrogance. “I’ve been scanning their unit,” he tells Kez. “Signal going in but nothing coming out. No calls since we got here. I’ve tried Skylar a couple of times. He’s not answering.”

  “Anything from Nev?” Kez asks.

  Gig shakes his head. “Her com’s been turned off all day.”

  Kez hunches one shoulder, a sign, I’ve come to realize, that’s she’s steeling herself against something bad. “When was her last dose?”

  “This morning. Right after you, uh—” His brown eyes flick to me. “Left. It didn’t help.”

  “One dose wouldn’t.” Kez sighs. “Right. Let’s do this. Did you bring the money?”

  Gig holds out yet another black nylar bag. They seem to have an endless supply. I take it from him. Sling the bag’s strap over my head and settle the bag on my back so I have both hands free.

  “Is Ape coming?” Kez asks Gig. The boy glances at the skimmer. The privacy shield is down. There’s nothing to see in the windows but the reflections of clouds. He shrugs.

  “It’s like that, huh?” Kez rolls her eyes. “Great. Well, tell him to have the thermo ready. Once I dose her, she’ll get cold fast.”

  “And a zap bag.” Gig’s thin mouth turns down at the edges.

  “Yeah, and that.” Kez scratches at her dreadlocks, which are probably itchy since she didn’t get a shower. She hitches her backpack up on her shoulder. “Snow?”

  “Right behind you.”

  Kez nods and starts into the housing block. The entrance airlock looks like it has withstood multiple assaults. Two of the airlock panes have been bent back over themselves, like faded flower petals. The others are jammed open. Kez ducks nimbly through them. I follow her, admiring both her flexibility and her ass.

  The habitable’s vestibule once held a fountain. Only a dry bed and some exposed pipes remain. The permacrete walls rise two stories above the fountain, but narrow to a claustrophobic archway on the far side, leading deeper into the habitable. The wind that roars outside whistles here. It blows around the tattered strips of plaz that hang in the archway with an off-key rattle.

  Kez ducks through the hanging plaz, passes a lift shaft that stands open and empty, and starts up a flight of stairs. “Third floor,” she says to me.

  “Which unit?”

  “Three-thirteen.”

  “Anyone else live here?”

  “Yes. Watch out.”

  I do, but I don’t see anything as we climb the stairs. On the second floor landing, there’s a transparent plaz table and chair. Both are scarred nearly opaque. I get the feeling that if we were here at another time, they might be occupied, and we might have to offer something in order to pass. But for now the stairwell is empty except for the afternoon light and the gusting wind.

  On the third floor, Kez turns into a darkened hallway, turns again. The permacrete walls here have been stripped of whatever decorative covering they once had and are stained a dull green. There’s a heavy, smoky smell in the air.

  “Quaak,” Kez says, glancing over her shoulder at me.

  “Quack, quack,” I respond, wondering what code we’re speaking.

  “No, quaakal. It’s a mild hallucinogen. Dulls the senses.”

  I nod. I’ve heard of quaakal. It’s an extremely cheap street drug. Best enjoyed when left to smoke over an open flame. There’s a primitive appeal to that, but I rely on my senses too much to fuck with them. “How long until we’re affected?”

  “Maybe five minutes. God, that’s cheap shit. It should smell sweet.”

  “All the more reason to make this quick.”

  Kez nods and continues down the hall. We pass several doorways, most with the doors kicked through. One that still has its door intact is framed by the blinking red and blue lights that the natives hang out at Helasfest, the annual celebration of the Colony’s founding. Helasfast is in Kuseros’s autumn, nearly five months ago, or five months from now, whichever way you want to look at it. Either way, someone doesn’t know what fucking time of year it is. Probably because of all the green shit in the air.

  Kez stops in front of the next doorway, which also has the door still attached. The tasteful plaque that remains on some of the other doors we’ve passed has been ripped off, leaving a bare metal frame. But there’s no question which unit this is. Someone has holo-painted ‘three-thirteen’ in huge black Uni characters across the door. As I move behind Kez, the characters shift, twisting into black dragons.

  “Classy,” I comment to Kez.

  “Yeah,” she says. “Wait until you meet Missus Nightingale. She’s classy personified. Oh, and watch out for the dogs.”

  “How many dogs?”

  “They used to have two. That was a year ago. I’ve got no idea how many they have now.”

  Great. I glance at her. She’s wearing her black knit sleeves, black tank and fatigues. Absolutely no protection if the first thing through that door is a dog. My jacket will give me a moment’s protection. My knife will give me more. I sweep Kez behind me.

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “Are we knocking or kicking it in?”

  “Knocking.”

  “Right. Stay behind me.”

  “Um, okay.”

  I knock. Immediately, a low growling begins on the other side of the door. They’ve still got at least one dog. “I’m not much of a dog person,” I say to Kez. I slip my hand into the pocket of my jacket and palm a shiv.

  She fists one of her hands in my jacket. “Me, neither,” she says.

  “Brownie, stop that!” A woman shouts. I hear a scuffling on the other side of the door. “Bad dog. You be nice to paying customers.”

  The door opens. A woman stands in a green-stained hallway, holding a dog that’s maybe as big as my forearm. It snaps its teeth at me, but I doubt those little chompers could even break skin. If it could reach any. Fucking rat-dog.

  The woman smiles at me with long, yellow teeth. But for her teeth and the yellowed whites of her eyes, she could be the perfect granny. Gray curls cap her head. She wears a shapeless flowered house-dress and fuzzy peds on her feet. She comes up to the middle of my chest.

  “Hello, son,” she says pleasantly. “Are you here for the party?”

  “No.”

  The pleasant expression slides off her face like melting butter. She drops the dog and brings up a plasma cannon that she must have been holding behind her back. Fucking gun’s twice as big as the dog. “Then you don’t belong here,” she says, and I look into her true face. Screaming psychosis barely contained within wrinkled skin.

  “Missus Nightingale,” Kez calls from behind me. “We’re here to see Nevie!”

  “Oh.” She lowers the plasma cannon. “Then you are here for the party. It’s two hundred for a half hour. Two fifty if you want to fuck.”

 
“Give her two hundred credits,” Kez whispers urgently.

  Bemused by Ma Quaak’s casual pimping, I fumble the bag around, stick my hand through the flap and break open one of the wrapped rolls of credits. I count out twenty discs by feel, hoping they’re octagons, not wanting to bring the roll out of the bag to check. I hand her the small pile with my left hand, keeping my right hand, and my shiv, in my pocket.

  She smiles at me the way I’d expect her to smile after watching her grandson take his first steps. “Just head or hand then, no snatch.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say. Focus on matching her polite tone to help me bide my time until she points that cannon somewhere else and I can rid the universe of Psycho Granny.

  She slings the plasma cannon over her shoulder, turns and walks down the hallway. When I don’t immediately follow, she glances over her shoulder and says, “Come on, son. We don’t got all day.”

  I glance back at Kez, who nods. I follow Ma Quaak into the unit. Her pooch jumps around my ankles, growling and yapping. I restrain the urge to punt the fucking thing through the nearest window.

  The hall ends in a great-room, with a view of the other habitables through round, green-furred windows. In the center of the great-room, the scuffed, stained flooring has been cut away. A jury-rigged fuel cell sits on the bare permacrete. The fuel cell supports a battered metal basin full of dried leaves that give off the puthering green smoke. Ma Quaak sinks down onto a genSkin couch that was probably white once but is now stained the same grimy green as everything else. She rests the plasma cannon across her knees and picks up a control pad from the seat. The far wall of the room blares to life when she taps the pad. Ma Quaak’s yellowed eyes fix on the screen, which shows a superboxer match. She claps her hands as one of the fighting robots lifts another into the air.

  “Body bang, Toro! Oh, I do like him,” she crows. In the same breath, she says to me, “Go on then, boy. Your half-hour’s started.” She nods her curly gray head at one of the two archways leading out of the great-room.