First Shot

by Bokerah Brumley

  “Halt,” the tinny voices echo. “Precautionary measures will be taken.”

  Gunshots ring out. Somebody screams, and I squeeze my eyes closed to block out the sounds of dying.

  “It’s time to go home,” Dyad says. The words scroll across the interface, and I don’t argue. I have to get home to shave. My pink hair has grown out again. Already.

  Someday, the UnderCity cops will get upgrades to beat the safe places. Someday, but for now, we know how to hide. And maybe GenCor will fall before then.

  Dyad scans the surrounding blocks, and we ease along the perimeter, stopping only to scan. Tonick programmed Dyad to protect me, and she takes her purpose seriously. On our street, I hop off Dyad and tap the bracelet. She fluoresces in orange and white.

  “Have a good night, Jin,” Dyad says, and heads down the block.

  She’ll tuck herself into an empty warehouse until I’m ready to go out searching again. Besides Teq and Tonick, Dyad is my best friend. She knows how badly I need Teq and Tonick, and she knows how my pheromones change around Tonick.

  At least Dyad doesn’t hassle me about it.

  I jog down the street, jump over a low brick wall and through a glassless window that had been broken out before I moved in. Teq said she tossed a chair through it a few years ago when she was arguing with Tonick.

  Outside the establishment, “Cheers” is painted on the red brick over the door. We never use the entrance. The hinges are rusted shut.

  Inside, “Everybody knows your name” is stenciled on the back wall. Tonick repaints it every few months. He says he keeps it since he can’t handle much change. It messes with his brain patterns or something. And he’s a big fan of irony.

  We don’t have electricity, not exactly, but I reach for the switch anyway. Sometimes Tonick’s system syphons off enough energy to power the bulbs in the bar. Most of the time, it’s only enough to fill the rows of batteries in his room. While I wait for the system to warm up, I step behind the counter.

  Empty liquor bottles line the back wall. Tables lie on their sides, and broken-legged chairs litter the floor. Dust covers everything. Tonick says it was a nice place before everyone decided to live above the clouds. I don’t remember anything before I woke up stretched out on the bar, Tonick screaming obscenities at me, telling me not to die.

  The bulb flickers to life. First, I made it to the star; now this. Today is my lucky day.

  I laugh and place a lowball glass on the brushed stainless steel bar, grab a mason jar of white lightning, and fill it. It makes me happy when the lights work while I have a stiff drink, shave my head, and go to work.

  I tuck a handful of pink dreads behind my ear to get them off my neck. The pink is unique. These days, everybody and their mother has gene-spliced hair or faces or bodies. Splicing has never been popular countrywide, but there used to be enough ReProds like me to keep me from sticking out like a sore thumb.

  Not anymore.

  One of my parents—maybe both—wanted a self-healing Pink. Something about lower long-term medical costs, so I got the Pink gene.

  These days, it’s that simple, as long as you can pay. Some piece of stray DNA from a starfish got spliced into mine when I was a zygote. Only my parents never took me home. Maybe they couldn’t make the payments.

  At least I don’t have the perpetual finger twitches of the Tiger-skins. Most of the Tigers have implants to control the twitching now. A gift from the almighty GenCor.

  I don’t know what to believe. The news isn’t truth anymore.

  Why does GenCor need Teq?

  Why do they need me?

  I drain the last of the liquid courage and slam the glass on the metal in front of me, swiping the straight razor from beneath the countertop and crossing the floor to the dartboard. I flip it around to reveal the cheap mirror that’s glued behind the game.

  I stare. Tonick calls my skin burnt umber when it’s not sooty and grimy from the UnderCity. Rimmed in navy blue, his mechanical cerulean irises are clear and never miss much.

  Enough.

  I snarl at my reflection and blow air through my teeth. My hand tightens on the shaver handle. That shot of booze is thinking for me, blurring the edges between the smart thing to do and what I think I want.

  Grabbing my hair, I drag the blade through the base of each dread, as close to the skin as possible. It’s not really a dread. It’s more like a thin starfish arm growing out of my head, a side effect of the gene splicing. And it makes me stand out in the UnderCity. I can’t pick up work as a Pink. GenCor spread rumors about Pinks having diseases at the same time as they put the bounty on our heads.

  Once the dreads are gone, I smear my head with a slick of diesel grease and mineral oil and make my scalp baby-butt smooth. I wipe a grimy towel across my head, and then I slick on another layer. It’ll hide the shock of bright pink a little longer as it comes back. I’ll be able to earn one more bite and one more credit than I could otherwise. I clean the razor on the dirty towel and think of Tonick.

  I smooth my hand over my skin. My scalp is on fire from the dull blade. Time to sharpen it again. I’ll tell Tonick when I find him. The hair will be back by morning and just as long.

  I dip a tiny paintbrush in charcoal and drag it around my eyes, each pass wider than the last. At the end, I grab a bigger brush and dust on the black. Tonick calls it my raccoon mask. I think of it as my Zorro mask. It keeps me hidden in plain sight and makes my green eyes stand out.

  I snap another cuff around my other wrist. It’s got more Tonick gadgets hidden in the sharp studs. If the gizmos don’t work, I can stab somebody with it. Or with the small dagger I’ve tucked inside my waistband.

  Life would be easier if my body would take enhancements like everyone else’s. But, like my hair, my body replaces cells too quickly, and I’m stuck here, terrified for Teq and Tonick while I take time for a haircut.

  Chapter Two

  LOCUS: ALTER EARTH

  Bostgo Sector

  MidHeight

  GenCor Hospital

  Date: 11 Pentian

  Time: 1500

  TEQ—Tequila—is naked, hanging from the ceiling above me, strung up in the whitewashed surgical theater. We’re facing each other in two clear coffins: his and hers. Teq’s eyes are closed, but she’s still got smudges of gutter-life grime and grit all over her.

  Where am I? Why does she have tubes coming out of her everywhere? My mind’s running away from the pain, scattering thoughts everywhere. Words trip over each other, and it’s like my brain ate a hiccup glitch.

  Teq even knows how I feel about Jin, even helped me save her when she showed up at our unofficial rescue, nearly ripped to shreds by the shadow gangs. Now I’m paying the price for rushing in where UnderCity fools won’t even tread.

  Teq. She’s hurt.

  I rear back, slamming my head against the plastic beneath me. I reach for her, and pain stabs my chin and shoots up my arms. Bleach fumes singe my nose and make my eyes water. My legs don’t move. It’s been an hour, maybe two, since I woke up, trapped in this clear plastic tube, floating in biofluid with a respirator screwed to my chin. My arms have been shoved through self-sealing holes and tied down to metal plates. The surgical lights burn my retinas, but I can still see her.

  She’s been my partner in saving the ReProds for years. She was a ReProd when I found her...back when we started our ReProd Rescue. She knows me better than I know me.

  The slough-off generation, banished to the UnderCity when obvious genetic modification became uncouth. The ReProd recapture was the result of GenCor’s dirty secrets. Each one bore a barcode, and GenCor scooped them up in FreezeNets—taser nets—every time they found one. The caught never return.

  Teq. I’m sorry we’re here.

  I grin up at her, but she doesn’t move, and my insides spin.

  Just call me the black man in a can, sweetheart. I’ve said the words before.

  When did I? Where is this lab? Are we still in Bostgo?

  I
f Jin had been there, she wouldn’t have found my humor appropriate. Teq, though...she understands me. Even the angry, hard parts of me. She laughs at all my jokes.

  Mediterranean with thick pink dreads, Teq is a pretty plum color in all the right places even with tubes sticking out of her every which way. Different than Jin, but almost the same. I can’t turn my head left or right, only straight up at Teq. They’ve got me locked in beneath her—sadistic punishment for trying to help. I lost my natural eyes in an accident a few years ago, but my mechanical irises don’t miss much about her implant-free body. Even suspended in the contraption above me, she’s as gorgeous as ever.

  Teq is next on their death list. The realization crashes through me.

  She’s been the other half of me for so long, I don’t know what I’m going to do without her. We can’t go out like this.

  Stars lead the way to a brave new day. We’ll find a way.

  Our mantra echoes in my head as Teq convulses.

  More thoughts come, disjointed and out of place but making sense somehow. I can’t place why or wherefore or when.

  A white-coated shadow moves around me. As though a layer of white makes everything clean. A fake kind of wholesome. Goggles hide the face. The GenCor logo glares from above the breast pocket. When the shadow turns its head, another shadow joins it. The second shadow holds a data board.

  They want information from me. Why?

  This isn’t how I planned our special night. This isn’t how the nude anniversary celebration was supposed to go. I wish for the strength to save her, but my insides feel weak and trembly. I eye the cords and tubes in my own arms.

  I hate them. I hate GenCor hospitals. If I get out of here, Teq, I’m going to burn them to the ground.

  I’m praying to Teq again...like the goddess she is.

  I won’t say was. She can’t be a was. Not yet. There’s still time.

  Help me end it differently. Maybe the unseen stars will answer my prayer.

  As long as either of us has a pulse. I try to yank my arm out of the holes on either side of me, but my only reward is a sharp pain and the sensation of ripping skin. I’m afraid to try harder. When it counts most, I’ve become the coward who can’t. If I loved her, I would break myself in two to save her.

  Years ago, when I woke up on the floor of the GenCor cryowarehouse, the rest of my group recalled to MidHeight, a woman saved me from what I was, gave me a new purpose, and taught me to be who I am. Then they dragged her away to a MidHeight hospital and let her die. When I hacked into the system, the official report read, “Natural Causes.” Since then, I’ve checked dozens more “official reports.”

  It’s always “Natural Causes.” It’s the first clue.

  They don’t even bother faking suicides anymore.

  I yank my legs toward me, but the resulting pain makes me see spots, and I give in too soon. I howl into the bioliquid, but the bubbles obscure my vision. I think someone is moving outside the tank I’m trapped in. Maybe three more seconds would have made the difference, convinced them to let me out. There’s a burning sensation in the crook of my elbow, and my skin starts to feel like it’s being peeled away from my bones. I see more spots, bigger this time.

  I’m sorry, Teq. I hope she can hear me.

  Teq has shared my bed for the past year, ever since she offered me a new layer to our friendship. It had been a slow-motion, head-on collision between us, two warriors in the same fight. Teq had hinted at it a long time before she offered, but the impact still took me by surprise. Taking a night of comfort from each other made sense. She understood how I felt about Jin but didn’t punish me for it. Things were easy with her.

  I loved Teq. No. I won’t go there.

  I love her. Different than Jin but just as much.

  Jin always gave me the silent treatment the mornings after my nights with Teq.

  Jin thinks I don’t notice. Teq thinks it’s jealousy. I think Jin imagines she’s my conscience. The guilt trips never work. I don’t prefer loneliness. Teq always leaves with a smile on her face and no misunderstandings about the finite nature of our bedroom attachment. We are both adult enough to handle being friends with benefits, even though I can’t live without Jin in my life. It’s an understanding. Things are easy with Teq.

  Jin is the water to my fire, the cool shade in my desert. Every partner in my bed has been a substitute for her. Even Teq. If I hadn’t expressed my feelings for Jin to Teq while she was in my bed, Teq might have made her offer to Jin instead of me. Teq loves Jin, too, but loves me enough to not make our lives that messy. She was lonely. I was lonely. We both love Jin. Jin isn’t experienced enough to love anybody.

  We make a weird triangle, shrouded in secrets.

  Stop it. Focus.

  My brain wanderings must be a side effect of the med juice they’ve got me on. It’s so hard to hold on to what I need to do.

  I can’t dwell on the should’ve beens. Not today. Not with Teq dying over my head and Jin’s safety in question. There’s a blinding pain in my chest. I choke in short gasps until it passes. The breather fluid rushes in and out of me, and the burning sensation intensifies.

  I tap on the man-sized Tupperware, glaring and staring at the GenCor doctors and nurses out there, out of the corners of my eyes, trying to get them to acknowledge me. I didn’t ask to be the receiver on the other side of the plastine tubes, but here I am. I don’t know what they did with my clothes, and I don’t want to know what these freaks have planned.

  My fingertips are more purple than black now. It looks like death rot is eating away at them. If the experiment doesn’t kill me, the death rot will. I’m trapped in medical purgatory.

  That’s a special kind of special.

  I yell at the attendees, but there’s no sound, and I choke on the spit collecting around the respirator. The irritating tube causes another hacking fit, so I go through the seizure motions of coughing without the reward. My throat’s still clogged, and I’m stuck inhaling my own slobber.

  They’re all standing around, excited about the experiment. They don’t care about either of us. I managed to get caught in the FreezeNets when I stopped to read one guy’s wrist monitor. Tunnel vision robbed me of my reflexes when I realized what I was reading: a shopping list of ReProd Pinks. I recognized most of the names as ReProds that I’d helped through the years. A dozen stuck out, with Teq and Jin the last two on the list.

  Teq’s blood is as red as mine as it slips through the tubes and disappears beneath my polymer coffin. A shudder shakes me as her plasma hits me, and a woozy wave crashes over me. And then I taste coconut-strawberries. I would recognize the taste of the street drug Jimmy Buffett anywhere. They must have drugged her first, and now they’re drugging me by filling me with her blood.

  At least she isn’t in pain. Jimmy Buffett is good for that. Through the lid, I can see her, turning paler every second. If I don’t get out of here, they’ll do this to Jin, too.

  I hear the whir of a saw next to my head, then feel it bite into my wrist. It’s like it’s happening to someone else. The concoction they’ve got pumping through Teq has dulled everything for me, too.

  It stings a little, losing a hand. I must be higher than the Swanks. Rich Swanks have creds for days and all the best boozing and chemical binging. I should be screaming. Red splatters my enclosed waterbed. And then my whole body jerks when the blade grinds to a halt halfway through my bone. Saw Guy curses.

  “Sir, we have a problem,” one of them says. There’s a low conversation between them.

  An alarm screeches next to my head. Teq starts thrashing around like that egg-bloated fish I caught that one time on the bank of the swamplands. My grandfather insisted I take the trout off the line and fillet it. I puked on his shoes instead. I’ve never been able to hurt anything. It’s not in my nature.

  A gag contorts the back of my throat, and bile works up my esophagus. I hope yesterday’s dumpster lunch tastes as good backward, because I can’t swallow what’s happening. I�
�m an extra they’ve put to use, but I can’t keep them from figuring out what I really am.

  Teq’s eyes flutter open and then roll back in her head. They’ve drained her to death, left her like an empty bottle on a shelf. Her blood is pumping through my veins. I don’t know how to get it out and back into Teq.

  I’ve got to get out of here. Jin is next on their list.

  There’s a whir again but closer to my ear. Hands are all over my shoulder. There’s a hard yank and then a chorus of gasps. Blood drips, splattering on the white tile below. That’s a waste. Fill me up with Teq and then let it all bleed out onto the floor.

  It makes no sense.

  “Interesting,” a woman says. “The blood doesn’t impact the artificial parts of him. His hand isn’t growing back where the human tissue remains.”

  Saw Guy hands the arm over my tube to a masked, white-coated attendee. The appendage blocks out the glare, dripping red all over my container until she takes it from him.

  Wait.

  That can’t be right. That’s not my arm, but the hand is still clutching the star necklace I had when they caught me. She twists and turns it, a researcher studying a specimen, bending the elbow joint and then finally tugging on the tendons and sinew at the joint, until she sees the jewelry. She cradles the pendant in her hand. The inscription on the back catches the light.

  Pain burns through my chest. This is all wrong. That isn’t my arm. It can’t be. I’m not here. I try to yell the words at the she-scientist, but a coughing fit begins.

  I had been on my way to return it to the guy on the Mag Mile. That’s where they caught us. I didn’t even get the chance to tell the man that I’d found his daughter. I wanted to offer him the opportunity to give her the necklace himself.

  Jin. It was Jin. The whole time.

  A convulsion rolls through my body.

  Chapter Three

  LOCUS: ALTER EARTH

  Bostgo Sector

  UnderCity

  Date: 11 Pentian

  Time: 2000