by J P Carver
"Must've been magic."
"Maybe. Well, in any case, you get some time off my radar, just like I promised. Breaking this case makes me look good to the brass, so it's a win-win."
"How much time?"
He leaned back in his chair, folded his hands on top of his head, and shrugged. "Where's the fun in that? You've got some time, that's all. Take care, Miss Eisen. You're starting to become useful to me, and I'd hate for our… partnership to end on a bad note." He cut the link, and I sat there dumbfounded, staring at the static-filled screen. I needed to stop meeting people.
Someone knocked on my front door, and I jerked up to my feet. The camera outside the door showed Nina with a bag. She waved toward where the camera lens was hidden.
When I opened the door, she gave me a huge grin. "Why'd you take off so quick?"
"Tired." I rubbed at an eye to sell that idea.
"I bet ya were. I heard some of Ziller's chewing out."
"You did, huh?" I crossed my arms, went back into the room, and flopped down on the couch. "Everyone else hear it too?"
"Nah. Plot and Winter were still a bit loopy, and the nurse was fussing with them both. Ziller was out of line, Raggy." She came in and closed the door.
"Nah, I deserved it… I guess."
"Not right then you didn't." She held up the bag as she came over. "Figured we could have a bit of a movie night, like old times. That is, if you don't mind hanging with me."
I shifted over and patted the cushion next to me. "Wouldn't want to hang out with anyone else."
"Not even Plotigan?" There was a glint in her eye as she sat down with the bag between us. "You seemed awfully worried about him when you woke up."
I sneered. "Think you got some neural bleed or something, Crow."
"Uh-uh. I already know he's into you." She tossed over a bag of chips and took a swig from a can of beer. "Didn't think you'd feel the same, though."
"You're about three words from me kicking your ass out. How's Winter? He good now?"
"Yeah, he's gonna be all right." The laughter left her voice, and she started to scrape at the plastic beer can with a fingernail. "You know he's an arrow? Finished high school and got into some big college place for next year. He's gonna be a wage slave probably, but he's too damn smart to stay there."
"He ain't better than you, Crow."
"Nah, I know. I just feel like I'm being left behind, ya know?"
I nodded. I knew the feeling well and had felt it a million times since my father died. What normal friends I used to have still had their parents when I was burying mine. They still had their normal lives, and friends that I used to tell everything to and had sleepovers with had all moved on from me. I didn't even know what any of them were doing and could barely remember their names. It was strange how quickly big portions of a person's life, things that seemed so important, became little more than scattered memories after enough time.
"You don't have to be," I said.
"Yeah, I do. We're from two different worlds. I mean, Plotigan is closer to our world… even if he does come from money and—"
"Wait, what do you mean? Plot's family is rich?"
"From what he's said. He dropped out of college and turned to a life of doing public good like the rest of us."
"You brought him in, didn't you? How'd you two meet?" I ate a chip, as I finally felt hungry.
"Why so interested?" she teased.
"Uh, probably because he's part of the group and has Richie Rich family peeps. He could bring heat down on all of us and walk away."
"He won't. He gets caught, and he's disowned. His parents are pretty hardline on that, from what he's said. Anyway, Ziller vetted him, so don't worry."
I lifted a shoulder and grabbed her beer. I took a swig from it and sighed. "How'd we get here, Crow? How'd we get strung up in all these relations?"
"I blame you. I was doing fine before you came along." She snagged the beer back. "But we're probably better off having people looking out for us."
"Maybe. I don't know how much longer that's gonna last."
"Well, we've always got us. If shit gets too sticky, we can fall back on each other."
"Yeah, hopefully that'll be enough in the future. At the rate we're going, we may be disarming a bomb and saving the East Coast next week."
She laughed. "And we'd do it because we're two badasses."
"I'll let you handle cutting the wires, then."
"You'll probably be too busy making out with Plot by then, so I'd have to." She ducked my hand, but I caught her wrist and pulled her to me in a headlock, the beer splashing over both of us. "I was kidding!" she said. "Stop!" I let go, laughing, as she straightened up and wiped droplets of beer from her shirt. "Now I know you like him."
"Just keep on saying that crap, and see where you end up." She dropped her head to my shoulder and faced the screen. We sat in silence for a bit, and I looked down at her purple hair and wondered if she was safe with me. The thought didn't last long, as I knew she would never go anywhere. "Thanks for coming over, Nina. I needed this."
"It's what we do, Raggy. We're there for each other. Now, shut up. I'm trying to watch the movie."
One
A Drug in the Past
At twenty-one I tried the street drug Pazz and ruined the first good track my life was riding in a long time. That summer I lived in a shitty little apartment with my boyfriend Chris. We’d been together a little more than a year and he was the main reason I’d been clean for that long, but the itch never went away.
July heat made the air in the bedroom oppressive. I laid stretched out on the bed, sweating through my underwear and wondered if removing a few layers of skin would be worth it. The heat made me sick that morning. My head still pounded and my stomach moved to the beat. I sighed and placed my forearm over my eyes and day-dreamed about snow.
Chris shifted beside me and his fingertips lazily trailed my ribs. I swatted his hand away and scooted over to the edge of the bed.
“Still feel like shit?” he asked and nuzzled my ear.
“Get back, you’re like a goddamn heater.” I shoved him to his side of the full bed and he laughed. “Why don’t we got AC on? This place was suppose to have it.”
“It’s on the fritz, just like everything else in this heatwave. Just gonna have to bear it.” He sat up, the smell of his sweat staining the breeze from the fan. “Might help if you shut off that omni setup of yours.”
Through eyelashes I saw the glow of the system under strewed clothing. The omni was working through a section of a corporation's hashed and salted passwords, a term that meant they scrambled them. Cracking the leaked list would up my credit in the hacker world. The miniature sun would be a small price to pay.
My neural would have been faster, but that was how I got sick. Computers generated heat, even neurals, and while the system was normally body temp or lower, push it too hard and it would overheat the body.
“Not happening, babe,” I said and turned to him. “That’s rent right there.”
“More like the power bill,” he said fighting a yawn. “So, we gonna lay half nude in bed all day? Cause if we are, I don’t promise I can keep my hands to myself.”
“Oh look, once again you can’t control yourself.” I grinned and placed my arm to my forehead. “Seems to be a running theme with you.”
“You’re one to talk,” he said and threw a blanket over me. “I don’t think you’ve ever—” he cut himself off when the holopalm rang. He’d turned his neural off as well because of the heat so we were back to the handheld stuff. He picked up the holopalm from the nightstand made of old milk crates and looked at the screen.
“It’s Kay, what’s she calling me for?” He licked his lips and glanced at me. I tossed the blanket to the floor and sat up. “Should I answer? She probably wants nothing good.”
“Nah, it’s cool, Chris. She has a new kite today.” The thought if a new drug made my heart skip a beat. Kay had caught up with me the week before. I
hadn’t seen her in months, but we ran into each other and she told me about the new drug. I tried to brush her off, but not hard enough. Word on the street was that the drug gave you the best high ever, like see the city from orbit kind of high. I couldn’t pass that up.
Chris stared at me, the holo still ringing in his hand. “She’s back to being your dealer?”
I swallowed hard. We had made a deal, no more drugs or dealers and I told him Kay was only a friend… and when I said those things they were true.
“Well, no… she got this new stuff and—you know I haven’t touched anything in a long time, Chris. This stuff is new, it’s safe.”
“It’s a street drug, Ragan. Come on, you can't believe what you’re saying.” He got out of bed and denied the call. He pulled clothes out of the basket in the corner and faced me again. “You really haven't been using?”
“You’re with me almost every day. Hell, I can’t even sneeze, let alone be on some drug, without you noticing. This is just some new stuff, all right? I want… I want to try a bit.”
“A bit?” He gave a mirthless laugh as he got dressed. “You won’t just try it, you’ll get yourself hooked again and I ain’t going through that, Ragan.” He picked up his badge for work from the broken three-legged table in the kitchen.
“Where are you going?”
“Gonna do overtime because you'll meet Kay no matter what I say, and I’m not staying here to be your crutch when you have a bad trip.”
I rolled off the bed and felt dizzy when I stood. “What’s that supposed to mean? If you don’t want me to, I won’t do it.”
He chuckled as he rounded the counter and took a bottle of water from the fridge. “The problem is we know each other too well. You can’t help yourself because if you could you’d have walked away from Kay a long time ago.”
“So you don’t believe me.”
“Sorry. I don’t.”
“Fine. Whatever.” I got up and opened the door. “Don’t be surprised if the locks are re-coded when you come back.”
He stopped with the bottle of water at his lips. He brought it down slowly. “So, this is it? This is the fight?”
“Yeah, I think it is.” The words came on their own. I didn’t want the relationship to end, but they were out and trying to take them back would just make me look worse. Chris had been the first person since my dad died that seemed to give a damn about me. But what he said hurt me, not that he thought I would go back to my old habits, but that he called me out on it and I couldn’t argue back.
He stood silent, his face a mixture of the same emotions that twirled around inside me. He let his face fall blank, and he moved to the door.
“Right. Well, I’ll be by for my stuff tomorrow. Rent is paid for this month already.” He paused, closed his eyes. “Ragan…” he stopped, his hand trembling a few inches from my face and then he shook his head. “If you do that drug… I really hope I don’t see you in the ER tonight. Take care of yourself.” The door shut behind him and left me alone with the hum of the omni and the giant mistake I was making.
If ever I needed a fix, it was then. I reached over and picked up his holopalm, hoping I could bury the familiar pain that bubbled up inside. What I was turning to made it all the worse.
Kay picked up on the third ring.
“Hey…” I said and swallowed hard. “You remember my address right? Great. See you in a few.”
I wish that was the last time a drug almost ruined my life, but it wasn't.
A knock at the door made me roll over in my bed so I could see it over the mountain of strewn covers. For a few days I'd been sicker than I could ever remember and my entire body ached. Even while in panties and a t-shirt I couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep as I was too cold and too hot at the same time. The last thing I wanted to deal with was other people, but the knocking continued.
I accessed the camera outside the door to see a silhouette of someone turned from the lens. There was only one guy I knew who wore a red jacket and could look so out of place.
“Hold on,” I called at the next knock and struggled to my feet. My stomach shivered dangerously, but I hadn't thrown up since the day before so I took the chance. I removed the chain and peeked out into the hall to see Marcus scuffing the broken wooden floor with his shoe. “What’s going on?”
He looked up, frowned. “How are you?”
I opened the door more, worried. “Good, I guess. You need something? Everything all right?”
“Yeah, can we talk? Ziller sent me.”
I laughed and went to close the door. “I don’t need to hear any—”
Someone pushed in front of Marcus and shoved the door into me, knocking me off my feet. Ziller stood framed in the doorway, his angry expression turning to shock as he shielded his eyes from me.
“Shit, girl, get dressed.”
I pulled down on the shirt as I stood and then punched him hard in the chest. My cheeks burned, and the nausea turned again in my stomach. “You’re the one who barged into my place, you asshole.”
“Sorry, you haven’t been getting back to me and I got worried.” He took a few steps back, grimacing and rubbing where I hit. Marcus appeared behind him, trying and failing to not laugh.
"Never figured you for the colored hearts type, Doll," Marcus said. I tried to lunge over Ziller to get at Marcus, but he stopped me in mid-air and pushed me back. Guy could move fast for his size when he wanted.
“I’m gonna kill both of you for this,” I shouted as I made my way to my room that was behind a thick folding wall.
“Before you do that, just hear us out, okay? And put on some pants.” Ziller said. Annoyed, I pulled out a pair of worn jeans from my laundry basket. I could see the edge of Ziller moving into the living room area as I slipped them on. “Crow says you’ve been sick. You better?”
“No, and why the hell is Crow telling you my business?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “She’s worried about you, girl. We all are.”
I padded into the living room and flopped down on a recliner that didn’t recline anymore. Marcus was pawing his way through my things on the shelves, picking up knickknacks and giving me strange glances. “Stop touching my stuff, Plot.”
Ziller moved between us. “Forget him, you up for a job?” My brow furrowed, and he smiled. “I know you’ve been aching from something big for a few weeks.”
“Nope, just fine doing things on my own.” He flinched which meant he got the point. Over a month ago Ziller and I had a falling out. It was more I decided I needed time away from the group as he thought I didn't play well with others. It pissed me off at the time, but it became a sore spot as what he said that night was true.
“Okay, we both said things we didn’t--”
“I can’t think of anything I regret saying.”
“Fine, I said things in a way I regret, which doesn’t mean I was wrong.”
“Christ, will you two drop your damn egos for five minutes?” Marcus said as he placed a book back on the mantel. “This isn’t even for us, Doll. It’s for Merigold and you owe her.”
“Merigold? Why didn’t she come to me?” Merigold was one of my few good friends, a woman who lost her license to practice medicine and moved to the underground. She was the top tech-head for implants and upgrades for neural computers outside of the clinics. The clinics were useless once you started in my line of work.
“She did, but you’ve been mass blocking calls. She also needs the Stars for the job which she wants to make sure still includes you.”
I glared at Ziller. “So this is about not losing work?”
He turned his gaze to the ceiling, his head shaking. “You think I came here because I’ve been losing work? Shit, girl, I got more work offered to us than I can handle. This is about doing something for a friend, but you wouldn't—” He broke off and swore. “It’s a job and we need you for it. Come on, girl, you can't stay made at me forever.”
“Sure I can, at least for a few more week
s. More if you keep running that big mouth of yours.” I motioned to the couch, and they both sat down. “What's the job? We clearing Merigold’s debt or something?”
“Remember that drug dance thing she mentioned last month?” Marcus said.
“Yes and I wish I didn’t.” They both grinned. “Aw, come on.”
“She wants you there as you promised,” Marcus said and his smile grew even larger.
I sighed and nodded. “All right, but why does she need the stars?”
“The actual job. This dance thing is being held by Rentena Industries for all their big hospital clients,” Ziller said.
My heart skipped a beat. The last time I tangled with Rentena I found myself a wanted fugitive and only quick thinking and luck got me out of a long prison sentence. There were few things I wouldn’t rather be doing than poking at Rentena.
I shook my head and looked between them. “She wants something they have.”
“Sort of,” Ziller said and sat forward. He placed a holopod on the plank of wood I used as a coffee table. It lit to life in a shifting pattern of lines until an image of a vial filled with clear liquid came together. Row after row of text appeared below it and I skimmed.
The product was a failed body image drug, it did its job making you look younger and thinner, but it also ate away at your liver and kidneys. In larger doses it provided the best high around. It never made it to market as even with Rentena’s clout, they couldn’t get it past the government.
“What does Merigold want with this?” I asked.
“She wants to know where it’s coming from,” Ziller said as he swiped his fingers through the lines of light and the image changed. A scarred and sickly person laid in an alleyway surrounded with trash and officers. “It hit the street two weeks ago and junkies have been dropping Pazz like the bad habit it is, only they’re moving up their death clock up by years. This is one of Merigold’s clients, he’s eighteen.”
He looked seventy. “She thinks someone from Rentena released it?”