Tempered

by Britt Ringel

The pair walked for several blocks before Teki asked, “Why did you defect? You never answered me.”

  “What’s Jahnke eleven nineteen?” Kat countered.

  Teki hesitated, clearly reluctant to give up a secret. Eventually, she relented. “That was my last name. I was born in the Brexley Farming Ward. We’re not supposed to know the details of our first lives but Tess told me. She gave me back something that’s truly mine.” The woman’s gait hitched and she sighed. After several forlorn steps, she whispered, “She’s really gone, isn’t she? And, and we were part of it… Jesus.”

  A jolt coursed through Kat’s body like electricity. I know my name is Kallista Pendleton. How? Did Tess give it to me too? The thought made her wish she’d had more time with the woman. “Tess wanted you to do it. We honored her choice, Teki. Don’t you dare go down the other path or you’ll end up like Lolz. What’s the eleven nineteen part?”

  “Eleven nineteen is the date I learned that I passed my final trials. Best day of my life.” Teki glanced at Kat with renewed interest. “Can you remember anything about your past? Were you trialed like the rest of us? You were supposed to be in my cadre but got pushed back to the one after me. Even then, you were always an excused absence. That generated a lot of animosity, especially when we went through the pain trigger tests.” She continued to chatter nervously. “Lolz always stuck up for you though. Did you know that she had three positive indices during those trials? It added months to them. They basically tortured her for half a year but she just fought her way through it. She was amazing.”

  “And so smart,” Kat added before realizing she’d opened her mouth. I remember Lolz from that time, before she changed.

  “Yes!” Teki agreed enthusiastically. “I mean, not only was she a strong telepath but she could see patterns in people’s thoughts that even they couldn’t recognize. The Director of Analysis was furious when he learned that you’d killed her.” The petite woman looked up at Kat and opened her mouth to ask a question but shut it immediately. Finally, curiosity got the best of her. “Lolz once said that you apportated a bullet in midflight. Is that true?”

  “Seems unlikely.”

  Teki grunted lightly. “Yeah, I figured as much. I guess it’s only natural to embellish a little for a friend.”

  The bloody mural splattered behind Lolz’s lifeless body flashed through Kat’s mind. “Can we stop talking about her, please?”

  “Sure.” The pair left the main street for a narrow lane that carried them closer to Reneta’s neighborhood. Kat realized she had unknowingly walked within two blocks of Reneta’s house on many occasions, back when she made herb runs into The Blight. “So, why did you defect, Kat?”

  “Why did you defect, Teki?”

  The woman chewed her lip briefly. “It wasn’t an easy decision. I was a loyal operative for almost a decade and I grew up a Pelletier Pioneer.” She giggled nervously before raising her right hand and touching her thumb and little finger together. “A Pioneer protects her homestead. She is honest and obedient. She protects her fellow pioneers and those who built our home.”

  Above all else, a Pioneer gives fidelity to those who have given her everything. A shiver ran down Kat’s spine.

  “Tess recruited me after Sonnie died,” Teki continued in a subdued tone. “Actually, she reached out to Bowen first. Bowen and Sonnie were the worst kept secret in the Society. Tess had hoped Bowen might be willing to come over after watching him try to save her.” She shrugged. “He ignored her subtle hints but what Tess said to him really affected me. It validated what I was beginning to realize on my own.”

  “What was that?”

  “That we aren’t less human, like the Society insists. That we should have the right to choose who and what we become rather than having it decided for us. The Society didn’t save us like they claim. They stole us.” She watched Kat for a reaction. Failing to see any, she added, “I know… blasphemy, right?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” Kat admitted quietly.

  Teki nodded and reached tentatively for Kat’s hand. “With Tess gone… I don’t know either. What’s going to happen to us now?”

  Kat fought the urge to pull her hand away. Her instinct told her to withdraw. Don’t let anyone close to you. Run before they catch you. Flee. Hide. Get away. That’s all I’ve done lately. She squeezed Teki’s hand with what she hoped was reassurance. “First, we survive.”

  Chapter 26

  An hour later, the pair stood in front of a dilapidated tent built from canvas and plastic tarps reinforced with pressboard and rope. The structure was similar to the dozens around it that stood in the thick mud. Smoke wafted skyward from a cutout in the fragile roof, a flap pulled back to create a vent for the fire barrel that burned inside. The neighborhood near The Blight was almost pitch black, lacking corner lampposts that had disappeared blocks ago. Kat could see the dark and empty desert through gaps between the dwellings. In the vast expanse past the town’s edge, a pack of dogs bayed in longing, as if outcasts from Shantytown’s society. Kat stood at the red flap serving as a front door and looked for a place to knock but the loose, frayed fabric failed to offer a solid surface. “Hello?” she called. “Reneta?”

  The flap folded back and a large man with arms the size of tree trunks towered over Kat and Teki.

  “Is Reneta home?” Kat was relatively certain she had selected the correct hut. The red entry was distinctive although when Reneta had described her home, Kat’s remark about the color being lucky had been lost on her friend.

  The goliath eclipsed the doorway. “Who wants to know?” He jerked slightly when a smaller hand poked into his side.

  “Rex, stop being a toad,” Reneta demanded playfully from behind the man. Her face transformed into surprise when she saw Kat. “Wow, did you roll all the way here? You’re absolutely filthy and I’m a Trodden who works in a coal mine so that’s saying something.”

  Kat looked down at herself. The drizzle had done little to erase the mud, dust and blood from her.

  “What’re you doing here anyway?” Reneta continued while pushing Rex aside. “It’s okay, big brother,” she muttered. “You can stop acting tough.”

  The man deflated like a balloon and sulked from the doorway.

  Kat watched the giant disappear into the depths of the tent. “Why doesn’t your brother work at the mines?” He looked strong enough to grind coal from a mineshaft without a machine.

  Reneta turned back to face Kat after her brother moved away. “The idiots won’t hire him on account he’s been arrested before. So, he’s a porter for the Beggar’s Market.” Her eyes widened in excitement and she all but squealed. “Did you hear there was an actual shootout in the market this afternoon?” She teetered on her toes as she grabbed Kat’s arm. “Corp-sec called it a rights riot but the gossip says a street gang got their hands on automatic weapons and gave them a serious fight! They even shot down a couple aircars before corp-sec wiped them out.” She pulled Kat forward while prattling on. “Who’s your friend? Does she work in the offices too?”

  Kat allowed herself to be ushered inside. The dwelling was a large, one-room affair seven meters wide and ten meters long. At the far end, a fire barrel burned. She counted six people around the fire not including Rex. Along every makeshift wall were tattered mattresses, bedrolls and a crudely constructed baby’s crib. Most of the floor was bare earth except for irregular bits of plywood laid strategically around a warped board on cinderblocks. Thin cushions of mismatched size and shape circled the low table.

  Reneta read the expression on Teki’s face and admitted, “Yeah, it’s not much but we got the high ground in the area so it doesn’t flood like some of the other houses near us.”

  Teki took a repentant step back. “Oh no!” she replied quickly. “It’s… it’s, um, lovely.” She pointed at the plywood repurposed as their table. “That’s a creative piece.”

  Reneta burst out laughing and smiled at Kat. “Okay, so she’s definitely not Trodden. Wait a minute
. Is your friend a citizen?”

  The question killed the conversation around the fire barrel and seven Trodden turned their heads in unison toward Teki.

  “No,” Kat answered hastily and loud enough for Reneta’s family to hear. “She’s CINless like us. She’s just not from Shantytown.”

  “Where’s she from?” Reneta’s eyes widened again and she spun toward Teki. “My God, are you from Northport? I’ve heard how fancy the slums are there! They say a lot of CINless can even afford FLATs. Economic opportunity, that’s what they’ve got.”

  Kat raised a hand to stop the river of words gushing from Renata’s mouth. “We need a place to stay for the night. Someplace where we can rest and clean up a little.”

  “What’s wrong with your tenement?” Reneta slapped the side of her head and answered for Kat again. “Oh wait, no visitors allowed, right?”

  Kat chewed her lower lip. “I’m not going to lie to you, Reneta.” The statement drew a curious look from Teki. “There are people after me and they’d find me at the tenement but they won’t know to look here.” She dug out a credit stick. “There are one thousand credits on this.”

  Reneta gulped at the declaration. Jaws dropped around the fire barrel.

  Kat took a step forward and directed her announcement to the room. “I’m not saying there isn’t some risk in letting us stay but I promise you’ll be well compensated if you do. We’ll only be here long enough to clean up, maybe eat and grab a little sleep. Teki and I have to be in Waytown before sunrise tomorrow.”

  Reneta began to shake her head and Kat’s stomach dropped until the affable woman said, “Kat, that’s a hundred large. It’s too much money. You’re my friend. You can stay here for free.”

  Kat exhaled in relief but insisted, “No, if we stay here, you’re getting paid.”

  “That’s over two weeks’ pay—”

  “Dammit, Ren,” hollered a grey-haired man near the fire barrel, “take the money. You know we need it.”

  Kat held out the black stick. “And we need a place to stay, so we all come out ahead.”

  Reneta reached reluctantly for the fortune. “You can really afford this? There’s really a thousand credits on it?”

  Kat nodded.

  Her friend grinned openly and held the credit stick as if it were made of crystal. “Holy shit,” she mumbled as she gawked at it. She pinched the ends and each side glowed with the balance readout: 1,000.

  An elderly woman stepped away from the barrel and approached Kat. The various patches covering her dress made it look more like a quilt. Her grey hair was pulled tightly into a bun held in place with a thin piece of rusted wire. “Reneta, where are your manners?” Despite her bark, the matron smiled warmly. “Even if that cred stick was worthless, we don’t leave our guests at the door.” She waved Kat and Teki forward and moved with them toward a corner of the hut. “You can clean up over here.” She pointed at several water buckets and folded towels shielded by a crudely made privacy curtain. “Just strip off your clothes and wrap yourself in a blanket.” She turned her head and ordered, “Reneen, pull out the extra blankets and then scrub our guests’ clothes, will ya?” A girl no more than eight years old sprang into compliance. “Once you’re cleaned up, come over to the fire and get warm while I fix you up some stew. It won’t sell for squat now with the rain pushing all the rats onto the streets so eat your fill.”

  Twenty minutes later, Kat and Teki stood at the fire barrel, wrapped in two layers of worn blankets. After introducing her extended family, Reneta explained how Kat was a Trodden who had bettered herself into a receptionist position at the mine. She recounted the story of a mineshaft’s collapse and how Kat solved the mystery behind it and the string of accidents plaguing the site. Teki hung on the young woman’s every word, glancing now and then at Kat with a new fascination. By the time Kat and Teki finished their servings of a thin stew laced with tiny chunks of murine, Reneta had exhausted herself telling her family all she knew of Kat Smith.

  “So, what’s Northport like?” Reneta asked Teki as she took her empty bowl.

  “Uh, big.” Teki had remained largely quiet since stepping inside the home, unsure what she could share with Kat’s talkative friend.

  “I knew it!” Reneta effused excitedly. “I so want to see it before I die but a mag-rail ticket costs an arm and a leg.”

  “You have the credits now,” Teki reminded her.

  “Don’t get any ideas, Ren,” her mother scolded lightly. “Those credits will see us through a summer drought.”

  Reneta refused to allow her enthusiasm to wane. “I can still dream about it even if the mine would never let me have that much time off anyway.” She handed the empty bowls to her younger sister. “How’d you meet Kat?”

  Teki shot a glance at Kat for help.

  “We met when we were little,” Kat answered easily before feigning a dramatic yawn. “Reneta, would you mind if we took a nap? We need to rest up before we head to Waytown.”

  Reneta led the pair to the bedrolls on the dirt floor. “Help yourself. Rex and I can just use some blankets tonight.” She grinned at her big brother. “Ain’t that right?”

  The large man simply rolled his eyes.

  Kat settled onto a bedroll and set the alarm on her watch. She turned to face the side of the tent and allowed her mind to imagine what tomorrow might bring. Her heart stuttered when dark images of Sadler spending the night in jail and worse, being taken by the Society, filled her visions. She had compartmentalized her dread regarding Sadler’s arrest but with nothing left except to fall asleep, his predicament took the forefront of her thoughts. Long after the restless movements and coughs of Reneta’s family settled into rhythmic breathing and soft snores, Kat lay awake, afraid for Sadler and their uncertain future.

  Chapter 27

  She was far away from Shantytown in her dreams, in another place and another time, and with another woman she once considered a friend…

  Kat eased back into a plush chair at the conference table. Metal and glass framed inlaid monitors in front of ten seats. The surface was otherwise empty except for coffee cups forming a crude oval near its center.

  “Every intrusion heightens the risk of detection.” Lolz’s lopsided grin appeared briefly before she continued, “And I already know what people around me are thinking even without linking to their minds.”

  “And what, pray tell, is that?” asked a suited woman next to the man at the head of the table. Her tone was caustic.

  Lolz slowly swiveled her head toward the woman. Her piercing blue gaze locked on and her smile became rapturous. “Exactly what you’re thinking right now. ‘Is she reading my mind?’” She covered her mouth with a hand as she giggled. “I could assure you that I’m not; attempt to assuage your fears but you won’t believe me.” The smile disappeared. “None of you do.”

  Kat felt chills run down her spine as she listened to Lolz’s antics, her isolation, her paranoia. The telepath’s deterioration was only accelerating. The more she looked into her friend’s eyes, the less she saw of the woman she’d known.

  “Michael doesn’t know about David, Nora,” Lolz whispered playfully. “Your secret is safe.”

  “You bitch!” the woman seethed. “Stay the fuck out of my mind.” She sprang from her seat and leaned over the table menacingly.

  Director Harold Parker thumped the glass table with a finger and the hostility stopped. The creases near his eyes deepened and silver and gray eyebrows pinched together to turn his handsome face into a scowl. “Lolz, focus. Mrs. Adams, calm yourself.” The man didn’t raise his gravelly voice but then, he never had to. “Exactly what did you pull from her?”

  Lolz’s blue eyes flashed to Nora Adams.

  “The subject, Lolz,” Parker clarified heatedly. He brought a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose while closing his eyes.

  “Vala hates me now because she fears me.” Lolz turned to Kat with a sly smile. “She’s not particularly fond of you either, Cat.”
/>   Kat stiffened. “None of the other graduates are.”

  The attractive blonde scrunched her face at her friend. “Well, maybe if you had trialed out like the rest of us had to—”

  “Lolz! Tell me what you found,” Parker ordered over the exchange.

  She sighed and sat pensively for several moments. Her brow furrowed in concentration. “It’s difficult to differentiate between the natural fear of having one’s darkest secrets exposed and what those secrets may actually be.” She dipped a shoulder. “Vala is infatuated with Tess but I don’t know if it’s sexual or something else. She’s unhappy with the Society but is that because she’s dissatisfied with her perceived lack of advancement or something worse?” Lolz broke her stare at the tabletop and cocked her head to one side. “Everyone is hypersensitive when I’m around. They build walls. I can’t read more from Vala without a deeper intrusion that she’d certainly feel.”

  Kat looked between Parker and Lolz. The silence extended between them to oppress the entire room. After several tense moments, Parker’s mouth twisted and he asked quietly, “How do you know her given name?”

  Lolz’s concentration dissolved into laughter. When she had recovered from her outburst well enough to answer, she replied, “You’re asking a telepath how I know her name is Vala Jahnke?” White teeth flashed as she shook her head. Blonde hair cascaded around her face. “Herr Director,” she taunted in a singsong tone, “isn’t the proper question how does she know it?”

  “You’re dismissed. Thank you.” Parker reached to tap on his inlaid screen.

  “I want to hear the verdict,” Lolz countered.

  “I transferred you from my Operations department for good reason. Your presence in this room is no longer appropriate.” His eyes shifted from his screen to the door. “Good… night.” The words were spaced around a long pause.

  Lolz rose with a huff. She glared at Kat before spinning on a heel and tromping toward the exit. “Just kill her, Cat. It’s the safest move for you.” She pushed through the door leaving only the faint aroma of her perfume in her wake.