Daugher of Ash

by Matthew S. Cox

  A gust of wind brought a shiver. She leaned against the wall, coarse and scratchy on her arm and shoulder. Her gaze fell once more on her jacket, skirt, and boots, searching for the reassurance that came with the appearance of clothes. Fat droplets patted to the ground from the corner of a green and white awning. She reached out and caught one; the droplet hissed and bounced over her palm, fizzling away to steam in seconds. As a little girl, she’d wondered why the water didn’t like her. Now it just made her angrier. She shoved off the building with a grunt, stomping around the next corner into a familiar alley.

  “Hey, Silva. Got somethin’ weird comin’ this way on thermal.”

  The upper half of a broad-shouldered man emerged, leaning around from the far side of a trash compactor. He tilted his head, right eye open wider than the left. Patches of metal poked out of the collar of his suit, where skin gave way to augmented arms. Cold plastisteel hands opened and closed at the ends of his sleeves.

  “No weapons, but, uhh…” He shot a sideways glance at someone out of sight. “She’s ridiculously hot.”

  An unseen man laughed.

  The big guy frowned. “No, you fucking tool. Heat hot. Like almost seven hundred degrees.”

  Kate stopped a few steps from a side door, smiling up at him. The top of her head almost reached his chin. “You’re too kind.”

  A thinner guy, short for a man―about her height―extended his arm and banged on the door with a closed fist twice. “It’s okay. She works for the boss.”

  “Afternoon, Silva.”

  He winked. “It’s night.”

  The big man shifted. “On thermal, she looks―”

  “I am.” She grumbled. “Don’t fuckin’ remind me.”

  She kicked at trash on the way to the door, leaving the new guy pondering how her boot left a char mark on a piece of wet cardboard in the shape of a bare footprint. A dim, cramped corridor made an abrupt right turn three steps in, leading past the kitchen of a restaurant. Kate tiptoed along at a brisk pace, trying not to touch the floor longer than necessary in any one place.

  At another turn, this time left, a stationary sentry gun swiveled to aim, tracking her motion. Her bracelet chirped, the sound echoed a split second later by the sentry. It resumed its slow side-to-side panning as she trotted into another hallway. Here, exposed concrete let her slow to a casual walk as she passed doors leading to large cooler rooms on either side. Two augmented men guarded a plain door at the end. Kate offered a professional nod, but her eyes hardened at the grin one of them flashed. An image of her drawn in white upon his surface thoughts revealed every contour amid a wavering inferno of reds and oranges.

  “High resolution thermal, huh?” She asked, staring at the floor.

  His grin fell flat. “Uhh, sorry. I forgot―”

  “I can see your thoughts?”

  “Show a little respect.” The other man swatted his associate on the shoulder. “She helps the boss out with problems.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled, holding his hands up. “Standard procedure to scan… We don’t usually have such beautiful ladies come through here.”

  She winced.

  “What? I’m tryin’ to be nice.” He flashed a cheesy smile. “Sides, it’s true. You’re gorgeous, like those European runaways the boss brings in.”

  “You mean buys? Oh, sorry… covers the travel expenses for.” She studied the floor for a moment. “Oh, well… if you think I’m pretty.” Kate’s gaze shot upward, with a manic-eyed grin. “We can duck into a room if you want? Have a nice quickie? Maybe you could take me home, show me off to your buddies.”

  “Uhh…” He leaned into the wall.

  She reached up and put her hand on the Epoxil paneling trying to pass itself off as wood. Smoke peeled from her touch. Hissing, melting plastic sizzled, filling the air with an eye-watering chemical stench. The augmented bodyguard stood on tiptoe, cringing away from her proximity.

  “Just once, I’d like to reach the end of a day without some idiot reminding me of what I can’t have.”

  He stared at the wisps peeling away from the black handprint, speechless as she went through the door.

  On the other side, as plush an office as the surroundings allowed took up the entirety of a repurposed storeroom. Slats covered the windows, breaking the glow of an outside streetlamp into shimmering bands of floating dust. At the center, a thin, older man in a black suit sat behind an ornate metal desk: two kneeling succubus nudes sculpted in chrome holding a slab of obsidian over their heads. He nudged a white hat up in a gesture of greeting and extended a dark caramel-hued hand as if to indicate her seat.

  A few quick steps spared the linoleum and brought her to a field of thick, white tiles upon which waited a metal chair marred with the blued discoloration of repeated exposure to high heat. Kate sat and crossed her legs. She picked at her wristband, the off-white material identical to the substance underfoot. Her chair creaked. Even covered by opaque holographic clothing, she still felt naked. Despite knowing him for years, she always felt exposed sitting in front of him. A Syndicate underboss could make anyone cease to exist over business, even if he liked them.

  Some manner of game involving rectangular scraps of paper and colored chips between two men paused as they glanced in her direction. Off to the right of the desk, they sat in downdraft of a slow-spinning ceiling fan and seemed as likely to run as they did to pull guns on her.

  “You look sad, my dear. The usual”―he waved his hand about, searching for the right words―“fire in your eyes is dim.”

  Kate kept her head down, unsettled by the eerie glow her clothing gave off in the dim light. “Shitty morning.”

  He drew a sharp breath. “What happened to your face? Who has forfeited their life?”

  The sound of his voice, deep and dry, brought back a sense of confidence. “Thank you for your concern, El Tío. It’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Look at me.”

  “I do not want you to think I pry into your thoughts.” She closed her eyes and lifted her chin, posing so he could see the bruise.

  “You have such magnificent cheekbones. I will find this dog that struck you.”

  “It’s not worth your attention. No one struck me.”

  El Tío’s eyebrow went up.

  “Some little bitch punk shot me. It was a misunderstanding.” In an effort to avoid eye contact with the underboss, she watched the two men.

  They shifted, hands moving away from their guns.

  El Tío laughed, patting the desk. After his hand came down twice, he went stone-faced. “I should envy your ability to forgive mistakes, but I don’t. Mistakes cost lives.”

  Kate let her gaze fall into her lap again. “It’s done.”

  A terminal on the desk came to life, tinting El Tío’s face and making his hat glow bright blue. He swatted his hand at the terminal, paging over a series of screens; the hat flickered orange. Kate waved at her bracelet, causing a holo-panel to spread open a few inches above it, and poked at the intangible controls. The miniskirt shimmered and changed into jeans while her top grew into a baggy T-shirt. Despite showing no skin beyond face and hands, she still felt exposed.

  Her bracelet beeped. A text message indicated a deposit of fifty thousand credits to her account. ‘Emily Ramirez’ was doing well for herself. She ran her fingers over the solid part of the device, careful not to touch the screen. How silly that something so small could be so important.

  “Well done. The entire building too… That was rather thorough.”

  “Sorry, El Tío. Anger management issues.”

  He chuckled, this time letting the emotion run its natural course. “I’d like for you to consider staying somewhere nicer. I would sleep better knowing you weren’t out there in the blight.”

  “And do what? Curl up on heat tiles in my own little corner of an expensive apartment I couldn’t enjoy? I’d feel like a dog in a kennel.”

  “I promise not to lock the door.” He winked.

  �
��Thanks, but it would be a waste. You’d spend a lot of money on a fancy place where I couldn’t touch anything in a part of the city where I’d be near people who’d try to shake hands or grab my ass and run away screaming. It’s better for everyone if I just stay where I am.”

  El Tío steepled his fingers, lifting his upper lip in thought. “Very well. There is another matter I need you to attend to. An unintelligent man is making and selling Nightcandy in my part of the city.”

  He made a gesture as if grasping something from his holo-terminal and throwing it at her wristband. The small device beeped. She held her arm up, swiping past a series of ghostly faces.

  Kate ignored the wisp of smoke from the chair as she stood and let her arm fall at her side. “How many need to die this time?”

  He sat back with a casual smile. “Only about a dozen.”

  he rain had stopped by the time Kate got several blocks deep into the grey. A mobile NavMap client on her wrist confirmed the address. The cartoon thumbtack wobbled back and forth with a faint chirp, indicating she neared her destination. Red warning text scrolled across a boundary along the top of the map, where void obscured city detail. It made her smile; there she felt safe.

  Kate closed the navigation software and fiddled with the interface for her apparel app. A few pokes of a finger later, her jeans and shirt turned black. Light faded as she dropped her arm; the holo-panel shrank away to nothing. About a block and a half ahead, four armed gang members stood near the door to what once had been an electronics shop. Civilization had cleared out of there years ago; bullet holes and missing windows a testament to the turf war that caused evacuation.

  They didn’t look like Wharf Rats, too new and too disorganized to have colors yet. Guns, however, they did have, as well as the nervous jitteriness of men who expected to piss someone like El Tío off.

  A dull ache spread over her cheek as she eyed their weapons. The runaway’s little pistol had hit her like a stiff punch. The artillery these people had would likely knock her senseless. A head-on confrontation in the open would hurt. She crossed the street and jogged to an alley. The majority of structures in this area consisted of one or two stories of commercial space with residential apartments above them. Sizzling squeaks squelched with each step on the rain-soaked plastisteel surface, followed by the reek of incinerating foulness. More than once, she winced at the texture of slime boiling out from underfoot.

  I’ll never get used to that.

  When the NavMap showed she’d reached a point behind the building across the street from the drug operation, she stopped. A chain link fence surrounded a space recessed into the first floor, large enough to accept a small delivery truck. She climbed it with practiced ease, leaving a few glowing orange spots. At the top, she perched like a cat to evaluate the ground on the other side. Years of living in the forgotten parts of the city taught her to look before she stepped. Picking broken glass out of her feet was not an experience she wanted to repeat.

  I’d kill a busload of people to be able to wear shoes.

  Unable to find an appealing place to jump, she swung herself over and climbed down, tiptoeing through debris. Once clear of the crud stacked against the fence, she trotted to a loading dock with a single rolling door that had not opened in decades. To the left, a person-sized door fluttered in the wind. The soft, ghostly moan of a breeze emanated from a building with no windows. She grabbed the top of the loading dock, at chest level, and lifted herself up. The poured concrete structure was in no danger of catching fire, and afforded her the chance for a few easy breaths. Lacking dirt, stone made the best bed―at least until she met Greg.

  She thought about him with a smile, one of the few people in the entire mess that was East City who had always been nice to her without ulterior motives. Kate leaned both hands on the wall, letting her head hang as she pictured his smiling face. Just once, she’d like someone to hold her and tell her everything would be okay. Whenever she fantasized, anyone who dared to be nice melted into a screaming puddle.

  With a snarl, she leaned back and kicked in the door. In the garage, racks of mildewing clothing still shrouded in packing material mocked her. She glared at the once-clear plastic, yellow with age and grime. Most of the inventory looked like kids’ clothes. None of it would fit her even if she could touch it without destroying it.

  Guess this place was another casualty of delivery bots.

  Navigating a field of such flammable items proved tiring. Plastic melted and shrank away from her, and quite a few times, the old garments combusted. The fire Kate did not need to see; she felt it. Each time it winked into existence, she willed it away. Her observation post couldn’t be allowed to burn; at least not yet. She crouched at the doorway between the front and the storeroom, clutching a thick fireproof door.

  The desperate had looted the place long ago; a few freestanding racks remained, some tilted over. Scraps of fabric, a sock here, a boy’s necktie there; damaged and useless things lingered amid a milieu of security tags and windblown debris from outside. For a moment, she locked eyes with a little girl mannequin holding a sign about a summer swimsuit sale. The racks on either side of it were empty. Someone had even taken the swimsuits. A bikini beats nothing. She scowled and crawled forward, savoring the overwhelming stink of mold, the stagnant air a comfortable blanket. Her passage left a series of blackened toe marks, knee smears, and handprints on what had once been thin carpeting; the concentration necessary to prevent lighting the room aflame left her unprepared for a sudden meeting between her head and the radiator along the front window.

  Kate recoiled backward, twisting to sit with a hand on her face. Carpet smoldered and charred under her ass for a second or two while she bit back the urge to blow the entire building apart for the insolence of a radiator daring to hit her in the face. Once her anger ebbed, she scooted closer to the window and leaned her back against the metal, cradling her forehead in both hands. The rug beneath her caught fire until she gathered her wits enough to quench it. The people across the street didn’t appear to notice the smoke, too engrossed in the video games on their NetMinis to pay attention.

  Eventually, the dull pain in her forehead faded and she shifted around to all fours again, peering over the top of the ancient heating element. Glass bits sparkled before her eyes; the demise of the store’s giant window had covered it with silica snow.

  She listened in on their surface thoughts, mostly images of shooting aliens off the outer hull of a damaged space battleship. Every so often, one of the punks would pause his game to look up and around at the street. In those seconds, she caught one man’s worry that their boss―her primary target―would be there within the hour. The brief flash offered no clue as to why the man would be angry, only that something inside the lab hadn’t gone right.

  This area was too far inland to attract the notice of Wharf Rats, probably why they thought they could handle a high-value product like Nightcandy.

  Even the Rats, as established as they were, avoided the stuff. That chem hadn’t made it as high up on the police’s hate scale as Lace; the cops didn’t perform summary executions on those caught selling Nightcandy. Unlike most ‘soft’ chems, the cops would arrest people for selling it. Still, the Syndicate controlled the heavy chems in the east. Sometimes, they had to remind little upstart gangs like this about that fact.

  For an hour, she sat curled against the radiator; head sideways atop her arm stretched over the metal. She snorted at the fumes of paint burning from the steel wherever her skin made contact. With her eyes closed, she could fall asleep if she let go. The rug below her had burned off to bare concrete, no longer requiring constant focus to keep fire away. Such places had been her home for most of her life.

  A thunk from a car door jarred her out of her catnap. Her head popped up as a PubTran cab scurried off down the street, departing the grey zone fast enough for its wake to tear the hat off the man it had dropped off. She recognized the face from El Tío’s file. The mark. Kate hadn’t even bothere
d to look at his name.

  Marks didn’t need names.

  She shifted her weight onto the balls of her feet, faced the window, and clutched the edge of the radiator. Of the four idiots outside, one had a large submachine gun slung over his chest. Her gaze tried to bore a hole in the ammunition reserve; she concentrated on the spot, feeling for the sensitive propellant wrapped around the caseless ammunition.

  The mark went inside after a terse greeting with the outside men. Manufacturers had gone to great lengths to make ballistic propellant stable. The focus needed to set it off with heat rather than an electrical spark required a lot of concentration. A wisp of blue flames burped from a gap in the weapon’s housing an instant before the entire magazine erupted in a crackling deflagration. Pings and zips echoed from slugs and fragments spraying everywhere, sending the other three diving for cover as the owner of the gun crashed to the ground holding his gut.

  Kate stood, holding her hands out to either side. Flames enveloped her arms from elbow to fingertip in a sheath of burning that shifted from orange to blue as it gained intensity. A casual swipe launched a head-sized comet from her left hand across the street into the back of the nearest ganger. His clothes ignited on contact. She flung her other hand forward, sending another fireball into the next man’s face. They screamed and spun, trying to swat away the burning spots.

  Her mind called to the flames, building the lingering low burn into roaring columns of dark blue that engulfed both men. Howling figures staggered about for only seconds before they collapsed. The fourth man ran for the building, squeezing off haphazard shots from a pistol over his shoulder. Kate dove to the ground and curled tight to the radiator. When bullets stopped bouncing around above her, she crawled to the side and peered past the metal frame of a door that once held glass. The large man who had the submachine gun had gone from moaning in pain to vomiting at the sight and smell of his former compatriots’ corpses.