by J P Carver
I began to pace the room again but stopped. What was I going to do?
Beside me, a mirror hung slanted off the cracking plaster wall. I stared at myself for a long moment. I was wired and exhausted at the same time. I swallowed hard and pushed back a clump of hair, surprised at how different I looked from when I’d gotten up that morning. I was still half dead, even after Merigold’s work.
The mirror shattered around my fist. Sharp pain wound up my hand, and I gritted my teeth against it.
I looked down at my hand in surprise, not sure why I’d punched the mirror.
“Jesus, Ragan, what the hell are you doing?” Merigold ran over and took my hand in hers. “I just fixed you, and you’re already tearing yourself up. You need to calm down, sweetie.”
“I am calm.”
“No, I’ve seen you calm. This isn’t you calm. This is you bordering on hysterical.”
I went to snarl something back at her, but she’d already walked away.
“Sit down, and we’ll get this treated. You owe me for a new mirror.”
“You can put it on my tab.” I decided to keep standing and watch my reflection change in the shards. “There’s no way out of this, is there?”
“Of course there is,” Crow said, glass crunching under her shoes as she forced her way in front of me. “Every one of the Mourning Stars is looking into it.”
I stared at her. “He told everyone?”
“Not the details. Just that one of our own is being framed. They won’t stop until they figure out what happened.”
“That’s something, I guess.”
Merigold returned, and we all were silent save for my tiny squeaks of pain as she cleaned glass out of the slices in my knuckles and fingers. After she finished bandaging them, she pushed something into my good hand. “You’re gonna have a lot of time, so that may help pass it a little faster.”
“What is it?”
“That bridge you seemed to be enjoying so much.”
“Not especially. What the hell kind of bridge is it?”
She shrugged. “It’s a new VR that’s supposed to get you through boring stuff without actually being there. College kiddos with connections have eaten up most of the early stock.”
“It’s like being on autopilot?”
“In a way. I haven’t tried that part out yet, but the VR itself is quite nice to look at, wouldn’t you say? At least the cutie with pigtails I got was.”
“Bite me, Merigold.”
“Is that an offer?”
I shook my head and looked down at the bridge. She wouldn’t take it back if I tried to give it, so I put it in my pocket and turned to Crow. “You ready?”
She nodded, gathering up her bag.
“Good. Thanks, Merigold.”
“No problem, dear. Try to keep yourself together a bit better this time.”
“I’ll do my best. You’ll come to the funeral, won’t you?”
She twittered in amusement. “Dear, they won’t leave enough of you to burn or bury.”
Three
Sewer Rat
The one good thing about being boyishly thin was that I could follow Nina through most of what she called her secret highway. It consisted of lots of old drainpipes and creaking rooftops, but it kept us out of sight of the public and most CES cameras. With the rain, though, most of those same pipes were swollen with water and debris.
We stopped before one of the deeper pools. Nina’s flashlight bounced off the film of brown on top.
“You wanna go first?” she asked as she bent down and picked up a chunk of concrete. She dropped it in. It made a thunk sound, and the entire puddle shifted like Jell-O.
“We need to find another way.”
Nina motioned toward the tunnel ahead of us. “Ain’t any other way—not out of sight, at least.”
“You’re enjoying this.”
“Maybe a little. I’ll go first, since you’re too prissy to do it.”
“Prissy? This from the girl that screams if she gets a face full of cobwebs.”
She turned to me, anger and hurt on her face. “That happened once, Raggy—only once—and it was like two years ago. It was a spiderweb, too. A goddamn huge one.”
“It was two months ago.”
“Shut up.” She took a second flashlight out of her backpack and tossed it to me. “It can’t be that deep, I went through here a week ago. Just stop moving if anything brushes against you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just yell for me, all right?” She sat down on the edge of the pool and dropped her legs in. The film on top separated into groups of islands around her legs. She made a disgusted face and dropped up to her chest. “God, it freaking reeks.”
“Sure that’s not you?”
“For that, you can find your own way across.”
“I was only kidding, Crow. Come on.”
She started across slowly and held her bag up over her head.
“You think this is a good idea with my injuries? Pretty sure this stuff could kill me.”
“How the great Ragdoll has fallen. Grow a pair, and get—” She disappeared with a gasp, her bag floating where she once stood.
I didn’t hesitate and jumped into the pool, sloshing forward. “Crow? Shit! Nina! Come back!”
I used my hands as my eyes under the water, praying that I would find her head or a hand. She didn’t come back up. With a deep breath, I stepped into where she’d vanished and found empty space. I dropped down, yanked by an undercurrent.
I didn’t want to open my already-burning eyes, but if I didn’t, I would never find her, so I chanced it.
A fog of water surrounded me, but I could see a flickering beam of piss-colored light below. I swam toward it, hoping that my wounds were healed enough to keep out whatever was in the water. Nina lay at the bottom.
The water pulled me toward her as it drained through a mesh-covered pipe. The current nearly pulled me into the same position beside her.
I grabbed for her arm and struggled to wrap my fingers around her wrist. I pulled her to me. She lay like a doll in my arms. Panic gave strength to my struggle to the surface, but it still seemed farther and farther away.
My lungs began to burn. The water felt like an ocean, but I kept swimming, clutching Nina to me.
We broke the surface. I gulped in sewer air and kicked to solid ground with Nina beside me.
She wasn’t breathing as I laid her out on the concrete. “Nina, you better not have left me, you hear?”
I put my ear to her lips and felt no air. I checked for a pulse—there was none. I gulped and sent my neural searching for instructions for CPR. It gave an error at first, but on the second try, they came up in pixelated text. I followed them as they appeared.
Place hands on chest and pump until you’ve done thirty compressions.
Blow into mouth until lungs are filled.
I tilted her head back, placed my mouth over hers, and breathed into her. Tears burned along my eyes as I willed her to come back. I even prayed.
I sat back, took another deep breath and started compressions again. “Damn you, Nina.”
She started to cough up water on my third breath.
I turned her head to the side and bawled like a little kid as her breathing came in ragged gasps. “You scared the living shit out of me.”
“Sorry…” She coughed and gripped my arm that lay across her. “There was usually a board across that gap. The water must’ve washed it away…”
“I don’t care. I thought I lost you.”
“Now you’re just getting sappy.”
“Shut up. I get to be sappy now.” I wiped her matted hair from her face.
“Then we can be sappy together.”
I laughed and squeezed her into a tighter hug.
After a few minutes, we stumbled to our feet, Nina lying heavily against me. Ahead of us, a pipe burped out chunky liquid. Behind us, something rumbled along the tunnels.
The second sound made m
e pause. “You hear that?”
Nina stood as straight as a rod, her hand squeezing mine to keep her upright. She tilted her head, and I held my breath. “Shit,” she said.
“What?”
“It’s a freaking sewer rat.” She moved in front of me and pulled me back into the water. She grabbed her bag and jumped across the gap, taking me with her. “Why the hell are CES using them now? They know the rain makes everyone scatter.”
Once out of the ditch, she broke into a run, making quick turns that I could sometimes see coming. When I couldn’t, I bounced off the edges of walls and stumbled to keep up with her.
The rumbling became a dull buzzing that set my teeth on edge. I’d seen the drones they used to clear the sewers. It wasn’t much more than a smooth oval-shaped hovercraft. What was under that smooth exterior was what sent us running. Its scanning equipment was set up to pick out wanted criminals, wiped I-Dent chips, and anything that could be considered illegal, right down to the licensed software in your neural.
If it found you breaking any kind of law, it would tranq you in the chest or groin because—I assume those who programmed it were sadistic assholes. From there, it dragged you out with its robotic arm, and into a CES vehicle you went.
“How much farther?” I gritted out between puffs of breath.
“Exit should be just ahead. Do you see that rat?”
I glanced back, just enough to see a shadow bend along the water-stained wall from one of the few lights in the sewer. “It’s freaking close!”
Nina stumbled, and in one smooth motion, I bent and pulled her back up by her arm. I could see a ladder that led up to a platform and a steel-gray door. I lifted Nina to it and jumped up behind her, struggling to pull myself up as the rat’s buzzing filled the area.
A few wounds, mostly the ones in my fingers, tore open again. All I could do was hope Merigold’s work would hold. Halfway up the ladder, I glanced down to find the oval rat beneath me. Water sprayed from under it in white circles.
“Let’s go!” Nina called.
The drone sputtered below me. I looked up to Nina’s face at the top of the ladder. I focused all my energy on getting up to the ledge.
“What’s it doing?” I asked as I pulled myself up beside Nina.
She frantically hit the door with a thud, trying to open it.
“Crow?”
“Help me!” She hit the door again.
It was reinforced and locked by a keypad; we would just hurt ourselves if we tried to pry it open. I shoved Nina aside and pushed up against the wall and pulled the wire from my wrist.
“Pry off the keypad,” I said while I dug in my bag for a jumper.
She didn’t move.
I punched her shoulder. “Dammit, Crow, pull it together.”
“Right—sorry.” She worked at the keypad and kept glancing back to the ladder.
The buzzing wasn’t as loud now, and I allowed a little hope that the drone had decided to let us go. Foolish hope, but it helped clear the haze from my head.
“Got it!” Nina pulled off the front casing to show a tan circuit board and a number of fiber wires running along the silicone.
With the jumper in hand, I shorted the board and made the keypad’s program reset so that I could crack into it. I connected the jumper to three nodes and started my work.
“Come on, hurry, Raggy—”
“Shut up and give me a second.” The code showed up in my neural HUD as a bunch of fuzzy text.
Nina still held the keypad.
“Code is five-one-three-four-five-two-six-four.”
The door buzzed, and Nina was through before I could start to slide my wire back in place. I followed her and found a maintenance tunnel, walls lined with every shape of pipe I could imagine. A burst of steam echoed from far ahead, and above us, a grated ceiling showed a midnight-blue sky. The sound of the city flowed from them, loud talking and laughing, and sirens in the distance.
“We shouldn’t have cracked that pad. They’re gonna be swarming this area.”
“We didn’t have a choice.” I pushed against Nina’s shoulder to make her continue down the hall.
About halfway down, we took a breather. Nina slid down the wall and sat with her head between her knees. I stared up at the sky and watched water drip from the grates. The sirens were closer, and every car that splashed by made my breath come a little harder.
I laid my head back against a chilled pipe and gritted my teeth. None of the night had made any sense, and trying to think it over made my head ache more. The feeling of being hunted hadn’t left me since the office building.
“What are we gonna do, Raggy?” Nina asked, her voice muffled.
I pushed away from the wall and bent down beside her. “We’re going to keep moving. We can’t stay here, so we’re gonna keep moving until we reach the Safety. That makes sense, right?”
She nodded and looked up. In the blue light filtering in through the grates, I could make out tear tracks that twisted down her cheeks through dried slime. Her eyes were large and fearful.
I smoothed her hair. “Come on. Show me how to get out of here.”
She looked down both ends of the hall. “I—I’m not sure. I don’t know…”
“Really? Are you saying the great Crow is lost?” I placed my hands on my hips and grinned at the flash of anger that drove away the fear in her eyes. If she had held onto it much longer, I might have mirrored it. Holding the dread down inside was taking almost everything I had.
“N—no. No, of course not.” She jumped to her feet. “I can figure this out.”
“I’m waiting.”
She sneered at me and started down the hall. She made it only three or four steps before the sirens became blaring and tires squealed in the rain. I glanced back to the grates, and Nina’s hand gripped my arm painfully.
“Come on!” she whispered and pulled me after her. We made it three more turns before we came to what looked like a dead end, save for a small tunnel the pipes continued through. Nina would fit, but I didn’t have to check to know I wouldn’t.
I could hear the troopers splashing through the rain puddles, their voices and radios echoing around me as they reported back their positions. Cones of white began to cut through the gloom, steam clouds dancing in the light.
I pushed Nina forward. “You can’t stay here.”
“Neither can you.” She grabbed my hands and held them tightly.
“I won’t fit, Crow. You need to get out of here.”
“Not without you.” Her voice cracked, and it broke my heart. “Come on. At least try? All right? Just try.”
“I’ll find another way and meet you up ahead.”
“They’ll kill you, Raggy. You have to know that.”
I shrugged. “They gotta catch me first.”
“You’re dead if you stay here.”
“I’m dead if I get stuck in that tunnel, too. Now, go. I’ll catch up.”
She slammed into me, her hug knocking me back a step or two. Her tears seeped warmly through my shirt, and I awkwardly hugged her back.
She pulled away and looked up to me, wiping her eyes. “You better show up. I’ll wait in the old factory over on Seventh and Chula. You remember it, right?”
“Yeah, give me forty minutes. If I don’t show up, get as far from here as you can. Now go.” I turned her around and pushed her again toward the tunnel.
After giving one last look back at me, she dropped to her stomach and army-crawled into the darkness.
“I got two heat sigs!” a voice called, only yards away from us. I bit down on the insides of my lips to keep a gasp quiet.
I pushed up against the wall and hoped the steam pipes would hide my heat from their sensors. I slowed my breathing as a ghostly beam of light swept over the floor of the tunnel and came within inches of my feet. Plan after plan came, and I discarded each as soon as it appeared. Nothing seemed to end with my getting out alive.
“Raggy, please tell me you aren’t the
reason for Annie lighting up like a Christmas tree.” The encryption created static underneath the sound, but I knew Ziller’s voice when I heard it.
“I could lie, but I don’t see how that would help,” I whispered, and I hoped his encryption was good enough to go unnoticed. CES were really just sniffing, but if they detected communication, it would give them a reason to search the tunnels on foot instead of just scanning.
“Dammit, girl. Haven’t you had enough for one night?”
“No, Ziller, I’m just a freaking glutton for this kind of attention. I didn’t go looking for this—”
“I know. It’s just scaring the shit outta me.”
“You’re not the one with CES troopers above you.” I inched my way down to the first turn Nina and I had made in the maintenance tunnel, hoping there would be a bigger exit somewhere else.
I peeked around the corner and found another dead end. “I don’t think I’m getting out of this one.”
“Give me a sec. I’ll pull up the tunnel’s schematics. I may be able—”
“I don’t think I get two escapes in one night, Ziller. Let’s just call it, huh? It’s been a good run, but I’ve been royally screwed. We both know there ain’t no way to come back from this.”
“Ragan…”
“Thanks for the jobs and the movies. I’ve learned a lot working with the Mourning Stars.”
“I’m not giving up on you, Ragan. Don’t think this stupid defeatist speech is gonna do a damn thing but piss me off.”
“Probably, but it wouldn’t be a proper goodbye without pissing you off one last time.” I laughed a little and slid down the wall, fighting tears. As I wiped at my nose, I heard the door to the tunnel open. The sound went through me like a knife and sent shivers through my entire body. “Take care of Crow for me, huh? She’s smart but still a kid. She’ll need someone looking out for her.”
I could hear him typing like mad. “If you can get back to the sewer, there’s an exit out to a grate. You can take that.”