Tempered

by Britt Ringel

  Kat drank her share between bites. The beef did match well and the onions served as a nice contrast to the wine.

  “I guess my devious plan to get you drunk and take advantage of you tonight is destined to fail.” He reached for her hand and his voice adopted a more tender tone. “Kat, even just sitting here with you is enough. Thank you for meeting me tonight.”

  She pushed the last bite into her mouth before attacking the vegetables. The only vegetables normally available in Shantytown were tubers. “Thank you, Sadler. And thank you for the wonderful dinner.” She reached up to his grubby face. The ridiculous smudge marks on it no longer insulted her. “I know this hasn’t been optimal but I hope we’ll look back at tonight fondly someday.”

  They ate the rest of their meal with little banter, legs pressed together, enjoying the contact. When Sadler finished well ahead of Kat, he wrapped a protective arm around her and waited patiently. They took turns passing the bottle between them. Finally, Kat worked up the courage to broach an unpleasant subject.

  “I had to give another DNA sample yesterday to keep my receptionist job.”

  Sadler frowned. “It’s going to ID you as Kallista Pendleton again.”

  “Well, that’s who I am.”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t die from Pelletier’s Syndrome like her, your, records say.”

  Kat ran her tongue along the backs of her teeth. Her mouth was dry from the wine. “Didn’t you say your mother works in the main offices downtown?” She felt his arm tighten around her.

  “Yeah, she’s the Vice President of the Finance Department.”

  “Would she help us?”

  Sadler unwrapped his arm and turned to face Kat fully. “What would we tell her?”

  “How about Kallista was my twin sister and the capture strips can’t distinguish between us?” She leaned away slightly. “I mean, come on. How accurate can those little plastic pieces of crap be?”

  “You want me to lie to my mom?”

  “The truth might put her in danger.”

  Green eyes darted down to the street, examining every scrap of debris. “It’s not just that. She knows about my fine and under watch status.”

  “And?”

  He dug a groove in the dirt with his shoe. “She sort of blames it on you.”

  Kat opened her mouth to issue a defense but froze. After a sigh of resignation, she answered, “I guess that’s fair. None of it would’ve happened if you hadn’t helped me.” She placed her hand on Sadler’s knee and fished her fingers through the tear in his pants to stroke his skin.

  “Mom’s upset only because she doesn’t know the full story. She thinks I’m just infatuated but I know she’ll eventually come around.”

  “What if I talked to her?”

  Sadler shook his head forcefully. “Don’t do that. She won’t like it. Let her come to terms with us on her own.”

  Kat continued to stroke his knee absentmindedly. All her attempts to take charge of her life were being thwarted. Citizenship was becoming a distant dream and now, holding onto her job seemed doubtful. What will I do if they fire me? More dangerous treks into The Blight for herbs? Where will I sleep? Her fingers stopped. “Where does Phillip Porter live? I mean, work. What floor is his office on?”

  Sadler’s brow knitted together. “Top floor, same as Mom’s. Why?”

  Her voice took on a cynical edge. “No one that rich is squeaky clean.”

  “Kat… what are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking that maybe I need to be willing to push harder to reach my goals.” She raised an eyebrow. “Porter’s still in Northport, right? His office will be empty.”

  “Locked.”

  A dangerous smile was her only response.

  “Kat, don’t do it. What if they catch you? It’s too risky.”

  She snorted. “They won’t. It’s child’s play.”

  “It’s blackmail.” He reached out to her chin and lightly turned her head to him. “That’s what you’re suggesting, isn’t it? It’s wrong.”

  “I’m not sure I have a choice.”

  Sadler fixed her with a hard stare. His voice toughened. “You always have a choice to do the right thing, Kat. Always. We’ll find a way that doesn’t sacrifice who we are.”

  Kat’s shoulders slumped and she turned her head away. “I was just brainstorming.”

  He took her in his hands, guided her face back to him and regarded her again insistently. “Please promise me you won’t do it.”

  She gave him a reluctant nod. “I promise. I’ll keep thinking of alternatives.”

  “Thank you.” He leaned forward and kissed her lightly. “You’re a good person, Kat. Don’t let other people change that.” He gathered the paper wrappings and containers and stuffed them into the bag. His head swiveled, looking for a nonexistent trash can in Shantytown.

  Kat’s first instinct was to ask for the bag. The pressboard cups could serve as her water glass during meals in the canteen. Her dignity won the fight against her practicality and she let the resources go.

  “You think up another explanation for the DNA returns,” Sadler advised. “I’ll work on the citizenship problem. I have an idea that might work but I need to research it a little more.”

  “I could enlist in a corporate army, if they’d have me.” Her shoulders rose and fell. “Maybe Aegiscore? Your mom might approve of that.” She dreaded the thought of serving years in a military just for a chance at citizenship, spending years away from Sadler fighting in conflicts that meant nothing to her. How much would change between them during that time?

  He scratched his head and lifted himself off the street before offering Kat a supportive hand. “I don’t think you can enlist. They’ll run a lot more than a DNA strip on you during the physical.”

  “Shit.” She pulled herself up with Sadler’s help. Her injured ribs still nagged her but produced nothing like the debilitating pain the night of the cave-in. Deep breaths came easy now.

  “We’re going to get your citizenship,” Sadler promised. The pair walked back toward Kat’s bunkhouse. “But we both also need to be thinking about the Pelletier’s Society. That’s our biggest concern right now.”

  “Where did you park?” Kat asked, ignoring the shift to another hard topic. There was nothing to say. How could I run, even if I wanted to?

  “I landed inside Waytown near the gate and then walked through. Safer for the vehicle that way.”

  They walked hand in hand until they reached the stoop of Kat’s two-story building. She hesitated before turning to him, chastising herself silently for not leasing even partial privacy inside. Their night would have to end here. The kiss she offered started in regret but deepened with passion when she brought her hand up to roam in Sadler’s thick, brown hair. His hand caressed her back before slipping lower, pressing her to him. Each simple action provoked a bolder response until the energy between them left them panting. They broke off the kiss unwillingly, neither wanting the visit to end.

  “I’ll see you in the trailer tomorrow,” Sadler promised as he ran his fingers through his mussed hair.

  “No, I have a doctor’s appointment in the morning and Tabitha gave me the rest of the day off.”

  Sadler rolled his eyes at the mention of his ex. “She’s become unbearable when I run into her at the apartments.” He lifted his hands to Kat’s shoulders and centered her shirt. “Then I guess we’ll see each other at seven o’clock at Lucky Gun’s fountain tomorrow night, right?”

  She leaned forward and up to kiss him again, this time modestly. “It’s a date.”

  Chapter 9

  The safety of the tenement lulled Kat into the deepest sleep she’d ever had in Shantytown…

  She stomped past a conservatively dressed secretary, acknowledging the woman with nothing more than a malevolent glare. A lanyard swung at her neck, holding credentials that permitted her the lack of decorum. She heard the secretary alert her boss to the imminent intrusion as she tripped to a halt at a soli
d door. Grasping the locked doorknob, she waited impatiently. After half a beat, she raised her other hand to the door and began to bundle psionic energy. Her fingers brushed a nameplate: Harold Parker, Director of Operations. She would see him whether he wanted the visit or not, yet she paused. Kat had long ago learned not to use her powers without good reason. The physical pain brought on by a push was incentive enough without the Society’s rules and punishments. A brief buzzer sounded and she let the surging energy dissipate when the lock clicked. She twisted the knob and opened the door.

  “I’d prefer a little more warning, Kitten. I was on an important call with Chairman Westbrook.”

  She stalked across the office, bypassing a decadently long couch for the front of Parker’s desk. “Don’t call me that, not when you seem adamant on turning me into your personal fixer.” She reached the chairs facing the desk and threw herself into one in a huff. Her hands rubbed her temples as she slouched.

  “There was nothing personal about this and you know it.” The low gravel in Parker’s voice made his statement sound cynical. His grey eyes assessed her as she seethed.

  “It was overkill,” she insisted. “They’d just lost their child, for Christ’s sake! Of course they were going to ask questions.”

  Parker ran an index finger over his silver mustache. “And we can usually allow for that.” He dropped his hand and shifted his weight forward. “But not this time, not when those questions were relentless and coming from parents with enough influence to cause real problems.”

  “How could you expect them to not question—” She cut herself off while shaking her head. Finally, she looked away, anywhere but in his eyes, down to the lush carpet at her feet before waving her hands. “I don’t care,” she lied to herself. “It’s not my fight. It’s not worth getting into a debate.”

  Parker leaned back and smiled. “That’s my girl.”

  Her eyes shot up to stare at the man. “But don’t ever ask me to do something like that again.” Some of the heat left her tone as she tried to regain control. “We already tread right up to the line. I don’t want to step over it so many times that I can’t see it anymore.” She shivered. “Some of the things you’ve asked me to do…”

  “It’s important work, Cat. It’s life-saving work. To make a flower bloom, you have to place your hands in the soil.” Parker’s expression softened and his eyes conveyed great sympathy. “You’re a good woman, but young. Even though everything you’ve done for the Society has been sanctioned, I understand why your conscience might bother you.”

  She continued to stare, her need to please him battling with her soul. “Don’t ask me to do this again.”

  Parker looked at her sadly and nodded.

  “Promise me.”

  She swore she saw amusement in his grey eyes but he nodded again and said, “I promise you.” The words echoed in her head.

  Reassurance covered her like a warm blanket. Kat felt herself relax in relative comfort and stretch out her legs. One of her feet poked from under the warm bedsheet and into chilly air. The noise of footlockers closing and toilets flushing intruded on her dream. Her eyes fluttered open to the tenement bunkroom and a procession of Trodden shuffling to the bathroom. The dream had been intense and she lazily rubbed her eyes while enjoying the sanctuary of her bunk.

  Last night, she had watched in fascination as many of her bunkmates pulled contraptions from their footlockers that erected into rickety, three-panel privacy shields around their cots. Little more than paper-thin sheets hanging on flimsy plastic frames, the shields gave a semblance of seclusion in the otherwise open area. A neighbor had informed her that a man named Caleb could provide her one. Not a resident, Caleb appeared periodically near the building’s front stoop in the evenings to take new orders.

  The room’s predawn commotion had woken her but, without the need to catch the mag-rail, she stayed under her blanket and observed the morning pattern. Upon rising, tenants dutifully stowed their privacy shields before moving to the bathroom. Today’s bathroom monitor was male but he seemed to be giving as much privacy as he could. He spent most of his time faced away from the showers and toilets. In the bathroom, immediately to the left of the archway, there were separate banks of showers for each gender. Polymer half walls offered a modicum of isolation for each stall. One of Caleb’s shields divided the line of toilets farther back that, otherwise, offered no privacy at all.

  The thought of such exposure should have made her skin crawl but she had the dimmest recollection of living in a similar arrangement as a child and tween. Under the protection of her cot’s covers, Kat idly pondered her childhood inside the Pelletier’s Society. Her keepers had seemingly raised her from infancy alongside other psi-positive potentials. Her vague memories included playing with other children though she couldn’t remember any names. She recalled what Lolz had said about the “expulsion of students” who failed to manifest powers. Kat now assumed that was a euphemism for something much darker.

  By six-thirty, most of the residents had left the bunkroom for the canteen. With the rush on the bathroom facilities over, the monitor abandoned his duties for his own breakfast. Kat rose and stretched carefully. The good night’s sleep had done further wonders for her ribs. She picked her brown pants and shirt along with undergarments from her locker and stepped to the bathroom. The shower was cold and soapless but still felt decadent. As she scrubbed her body with her hands, she noted that she had gained back some of the weight lost in her first, starving weeks in Shantytown. Firm muscle clung to long, lean limbs with only a hint of the gauntness that had taken hold as she struggled to survive. Moving to the sinks, she stared in the mirror at taut skin covering high cheekbones and a strong jawline. Hers was an athlete’s body, fueled throughout her life with nutritious food and driven hard through exercise and training.

  She didn’t fit in among the Trodden but she also didn’t fit with the likes of Dakota, Lacy and Tabitha. They were all thoroughly feminine. Their flawless skin hugged the soft curves and swells of the female form. Kat saw a different type of woman in the mirror. Where those women had been molded, she had been chiseled. Instead of manicured and moisturized hands, Kat’s were implements of combat bearing scarred knuckles. Tabitha’s golden hair, styled and always fresh, made her look angelic. Kat’s mane was the shade of night and untamed. It was a fool’s errand to try to fit in at the trailer. Intuition told her that she would never measure up. She finished her morning routine without glancing into the mirror again.

  The canteen had nearly emptied by the time Kat entered. A man and woman busied themselves with collecting dirty bowls left on the tables. Most of the Trodden were commuting by now, the majority trudging toward the mag-rail and their dangerous jobs inside the coal mine. Kat wondered how many of her fellow tenants worked elsewhere.

  A cashier sat by a counter stacked with polymer bowls and a tray of utensils. The mismatched dishware was gouged and chipped but clean. A portable scanner stood nearby, similar to the larger pay terminals at the mine. A sign on the wall behind the cashier listed prices in both Shantytown and Waytown currencies.

  “You actually accept credits?” Kat asked. This was the first vendor in Shantytown she had met that did.

  The cashier nodded. “For a couple years now. It’s more convenient for everyone.” He jingled a small leather bag sitting next to the terminal. “We still take silver, of course.”

  Meal price depended simply on the size of the bowl used. A large bowl cost four credits or two smalls, a small bowl was half as much. This morning’s breakfast was oatmeal. “I’ll take a small bowl, please.”

  “If you’re paying with credits, just select the size on the screen and wave your chip or stick under the scanner.”

  “Oh.” She tapped “Small” and then brought her wrist under the scanner. Both the terminal and her wristwrap chirped and Kat snuck a peek at the readout to ensure she wasn’t overcharged. She took a bowl and spoon before going through the short breakfast line. The cook fille
d her bowl to the brim with a soupy oatmeal that was still far more appetizing than the rat meat she had consumed most mornings the week before.

  Four stragglers remained in the cafeteria but Kat sat alone. It felt natural to seat herself away from the others. She idly wondered how badly ostracized she had been in the Society. Despite a possible past friendship, Lolz’s burning hatred at the convention center had been easy to read. Being “precognitive,” or so the Society had believed, had afforded Kat coddling relative to her peers. As she ate the runny oatmeal, a random thought made her chuckle. Did they hate me more than Tabitha does?

  Five minutes later, Kat stepped lightly down the Strip. She had made a quick detour to Eastpoint to convert one hundred Waytown credits into Shantytown coins before retreating deeper into the slums. Her sanctioned appointment at Waytown’s hospital was three hours away, giving her plenty of time to visit Maggie Reynolds and shop in the Beggar’s Market.

  Still conflicted, she resigned herself to wearing her red dress again on her date with Sadler in the evening. She had nothing else and buying a second outfit was an unnecessary luxury. Besides, the dress fit her flawlessly, embracing the lean arcs of her body. It softened her edges, covered many of her scars and enhanced her femininity. It made her feel beautiful. Seductive. Dangerous. Instead of a second dress, Kat had her mind today on other, more vital objectives.

  She queued in the morning’s long line to enter the market. The wait was tedious, for once, as she wasn’t smuggling herbs or weapons through security. When she reached the front of the line, she simply stretched her arms out and surrendered her black satchel. Nine large and five small silver coins were its only contents.

  Inside the market, Kat pushed past the vendors looking to exploit shoppers near the front of the bazaar. She took her usual loping strides and looked at the goods farther from the entrance. Halfway to Reynolds’ shack, she found her first item. A cart on the main thoroughfare displayed hygiene products. One of the battered baskets contained perfumed soap for an exorbitant four smalls per shaving. Kat instead sorted through the basic lye soap in a bigger basket for the two largest chips available. She doled out four smalls to the elderly vendor for the twin chunks before inspecting other baskets resting on the cart.