Ascendant Unrest

by Matthew S. Cox

  “We should”―he gasped for breath―“check this one. Place”―he wheezed―“got thirty floors, looks about where”―he coughed―“it hit.”

  Sarah sat on the steps. “I need a break.”

  No one protested.

  In a few minutes when she’d gotten her breath back, Sarah grabbed Pick’s shoulder. “There’s dosers in this building. I don’t want any of you running off. We stay together. I swear, if anyone does something stupid, I will never go scavving with you again.”

  “Don’t be mean,” muttered Pick.

  “She ain’t bein’ mean.” Marcus nodded at Sarah. “She bein’ smart. Tryin’ to protect us.”

  “We should bring an adult when we go scavving,” said Maya. “It’s dumb to be alone out here.”

  “We’re not alone,” said Pick. “We’re together.”

  “Grown-ups don’t got time to do scavvin’,” said Anton.

  Maya swallowed a knot of worry. “Genna would come with us.”

  “Yeah, but she don’t gotta job,” said Pick.

  “She does, but not like people who go to a place every day at the same time,” said Emily. “Mommy might help us too. She works in our building. She’s gonna be the new super!”

  “New?” Marcus blinked at her. “I thought she already was.”

  Emily shrugged. “It’s what she said. It’s ’fishal now.”

  “Let’s get out of here. I want to go home,” said Maya.

  “We can’t go back yet, we haven’t found anything.” Pick waved his arms.

  “I don’t mean right this second. I mean I want to get home as soon as possible, so hurry up.” Maya stood.

  One by one, the kids got up and proceeded past the doorway into a hall with relatively intact carpeting. An odd stale smell reminiscent of petrified bread hung in the air. Drab beige walls held light fixtures that looked like upside down clam shells at even intervals. From her countless hours surfing the AuthNet, she remembered enough pictures to guess by the décor this had been a higher-end apartment building before the war. Pick started to sprint for the first open door, but caught himself after three steps. He gave Sarah a ‘see, I’m not running off’ stare while pointing at it.

  When the group reached that apartment, he peered inside. The place looked like some gang had thrown one hell of a party. Graffiti covered everything, including the ceiling. Beer cans littered the floor along with crumpled paper and plastic bags.

  Maya stood with her feet together, arms tight at her sides, staring at the ground. If a roach showed itself, she’d be ready to run.

  “This ain’t it,” said Marcus. “Wall’s not broke.”

  “I know.” Pick hurried to the far wall, and a sliding glass patio door covered in spray paint. “Wanna see what side we’re on.”

  “Don’t go out there,” said Sarah. “The deck might break.”

  “’Kay. I just wanna see.” Pick grunted, fighting the sliding door. He found the lock, flipped it, and pulled the door open enough to stick his head out. “The deck won’t fall if I step on it.”

  “Don’t go out there!” yelled Sarah.

  He looked back with a big grin. “It won’t fall if I step on it ’cause it already falled.”

  Sarah half threw Emily into Maya and ran over to grab Pick. “Get away from the―eek!” She pulled him back from the patio door, which opened to nothing but air.

  Maya held on, keeping Emily from going over to check out the view. Sarah made an alarmed squeal when Marcus approached, but he only grasped the handle and pulled the sliding door closed. At the click of the lock, Sarah let go of Pick and swooned to her knees.

  “Are you okay?” Maya walked over to her.

  “Yeah. I don’t like high places.”

  Maya tilted her head. “You weren’t scared on my porch.”

  “Your porch has a railing, and we live on the seventh floor. This is the twenty-seventh.” Sarah stood.

  “This is the right side. Prob’ly four or five ’partments that way.” Pick pointed to the right.

  “Not checking all the rooms?” asked Maya.

  Marcus grinned. “Thought you’s in a hurry to go home.”

  “I am, but you like scavving.”

  “We been here before, couple times. Only comin’ back here ’cause of that new crash.” Marcus put on a reassuring face. “We ain’t so far from the Hab that it’s too bad here. We spent a couple days checkin’ this place out ’fore you showed up. Ain’t like dangerous people from the Dead Space come this close.”

  “Hey, a balloon!” cheered Emily, pointing at something under the crushed sofa.

  “Don’t touch that,” yelled Sarah.

  “Aww.” Emily whined.

  “Someone else has put their, uhh, lips on it. You will get sick.” Sarah took her by the hand and pulled her to the door.

  Maya peered at the limp scrap of beige-yellow stuck to a cushion. She recognized latex, but the glove only had one finger. Also, it seemed an ugly color for a balloon. With a shrug, she followed the group into the hall, past four doors and a giant spray-paint mural that attempted to depict Vanessa Oman being shot. A tangle of shapes underneath formed such a stylized effort at lettering she couldn’t make out what it tried to say. The twins backtracked when they caught her twisting her head to attempt reading it.

  “They wrote ‘F Ascendant,’” said Anton.

  “Oh.” Maya nodded. “Yeah. F Ascendant.”

  Pick turned the knob on the next door on the left, causing the door to swing open hard enough to knock him on his butt and let a strong wind into the hall. Maya squinted and guarded her face from a pelting of grit. Undeterred, the boy leapt to his feet and pointed inside, letting off a whoop of victory as his puffy brown mane whipped about.

  “Yes!” shouted Marcus.

  The boys ran inside.

  “Stay away from the hole!” yelled Sarah.

  Maya crept in last, still cringing from the gale. The apartment stank like wet dog. Small black footprints formed on the pale beige rug wherever the kids stepped, street dirt washed away by a saturated carpet. The kids fanned out to either side, giving Maya a view of a long, rectangular craft slumped in the middle of the living room, surrounded by chunks of brick, cinderblock, and drywall. It lay at the end of a gouge in the rug, having slid to a halt about fifteen feet from the smashed wall.

  The pale green drone had a rectangular shape with an aerodynamic tapered nose and mostly flat rear end. It matched her estimation of size, as big as an e-car. Six broken struts jutted out from the frame, one at each corner and two at the midpoint, though the fans and their shrouds were missing. Both sides bore a simple black stripe with ‘IPS’ in plain block letters.

  “It’s a drone all right, but where the fans at?” asked Anton.

  Maya walked into the stiff gust, her hair whipping about, and circled the crashed machine. “Probably sheared off when it hit the building. Bet the fans and stuff are all over the ground outside.”

  “Sheared?” asked Sarah. “Don’t pity me.”

  Maya giggled. “They broke off when it hit. The body is tougher and shaped like a spear, so it made a hole in the wall, but the fans were weak so the wall won.”

  “Uhh, ’nuff school,” said Anton. He crouched by the back end and fiddled with something. “Hey, Faerie, can you open this? It’s locked.”

  “This transport drone is the property of Interstate Parcel Service. Unauthorized tampering is a violation of the law,” said a recorded female voice.

  Sarah crept around to the rear and gave the hatch the once-over. The wind kept throwing her hair forward over her face. “Probably. It’s a physical lock.” She gathered her unruly mane, stuffed it into her dress, and pulled a couple thin rods from her fanny pack. “Anton or Marcus, watch the hall. Pick, keep quiet.”

  “Okay.” He jammed his finger up his nose.

  Maya stood behind Emily, arms wrapped around her.

  The howl of the wind filled the otherwise silent apartment. Pick wandered over to
the hole, leaned out, and spat. Sarah yelled at him to get back, but he lingered until his missile hit the ground.

  Emily twisted to look at Maya. “Are you holding me like a doll because you’re scared or because you don’t want me to get into something dangerous?”

  “Yes,” said Maya. “And you look like a doll.”

  “Oh.” Emily smiled. “I like this dress.”

  “Your parents get you nice clothes, but you always wear this same dress.”

  “I like it.”

  “Did they get you shoes?” asked Maya.

  Emily nodded.

  “Why don’t you wear them? Think they’ll get stolen?”

  “Faeries don’t wear shoes. It makes them too heavy to fly.”

  Maya giggled. “But you can’t fly.”

  “I’m trying to learn, and if I’m too heavy, I won’t know if it works.” She raised her arms as much as Maya’s grip permitted, and let them fall.

  “Dosers won’t steal her dress because it’s too fancy. Foz can’t sell it ’cause no one will buy it ’cause they’d all be afraid of it getting stolen,” said Anton.

  “That doesn’t make any sense. People don’t steal it because it’ll get stolen?” Maya scratched her head.

  Pick climbed up on top of the drone, triggering the recording to announce again.

  “Get down,” said Sarah, her concentration on defeating the lock making her voice monotone.

  “This one’s broken. It won’t fly away and ’splode.” Pick held his head up in triumph.

  Maya shifted her weight from leg to leg. “How long is this gonna―?”

  “Got it!” Sarah stuffed her tools back in her hip satchel before pulling a small handle that made the entire rear end of the drone open like a hatchback, revealing a bunch of boxes inside. “Ooh. There’s stuff!”

  The kids swarmed the drone, reaching in and unpacking boxes as fast as they could get their hands on them. Maya grinned, surrendering to the elation of discovering unclaimed property. She couldn’t quite make up her mind if it counted as stealing, considering it had crashed and been left here. Not like they’d broken into a place. Still, even if it did fall under the label of theft, a corporation could bear the loss. They hadn’t raided the storeroom of a person trying to survive.

  The first white plastiboard cube Maya pulled out had markings for Medela Biotech Miami on the outside. According to the print at one corner, it held a hundred bottles of Paratab. She skimmed the label until she hit the word Paracetamol. Oh, pain pills.

  “What’s that?” asked Sarah. “You’re studying it like it’s gold.”

  “Uhh, looks like a common pain medication. Like for headaches and stuff.” Maya set it on the floor.

  “Oh, Foz’ll buy that right up.” Anton grinned.

  Medela Biotech Miami… Maya traced her finger back and forth over the carton. Wonder if they’d make Xeno? While the others continued unloading the drone, Maya slipped a single bottle from that case and pocketed it after making sure the label had an address for the company on it.

  A squeal of delight came from Pick. He held up a box full of minicomputers.

  “What are those?” asked Marcus.

  “Games!” yelled Pick.

  “They’re minicomputers. Almost everyone in the Sanc has them,” said Maya. “You can call people, take pictures, play games, hit the AuthNet.”

  “Oh.” Pick frowned. “I thought they were game machines.”

  “They kinda are, but not like a console.” Maya unpacked ten other cubes of the same pills and decided to push the one she’d opened to the side. “We should keep one of these for Doc.”

  Emily picked it up. “I’ll carry it.”

  The boys stacked boxes once they’d cleaned out the drone and surveyed their haul of headache pills, minicomputers, and accessories (headphones, protective cases, and charging plugs). Marcus ran deeper into the apartment without warning. He returned a minute or so later with a bundle of white cloth, which turned out to be a bedsheet and a fitted sheet.

  “We can make Santa bags.” He set the sheet flat and stacked boxes on top of it.

  Soon, Anton and Marcus each struggled with a giant sack over their shoulder, and Emily carried the box of pain meds destined for her father’s clinic. Going down the stairs didn’t exhaust everyone, even with the burden of their plunder, though they stopped about halfway and again at the bottom to rest their hands. The passed-out naked man remained as they had found him, flat on his back inside the ground-floor landing.

  “Ow.” Anton kneaded his hands. “These shits is heavy. Carryin’ em all the way home is gonna suck.”

  “Yeah,” muttered Marcus.

  “Hey,” said Sarah. “Idea.”

  She darted over to the dead end and dragged a shopping cart out of the pile of junk.

  “It ain’t all gonna fit in that.” Marcus rubbed his hands on his khaki shorts.

  “There’s tons of them,” said Sarah, while trotting back to get another one.

  “Two oughta do it.” Marcus opened his bundle without hesitating and tossed boxes one by one into the cart.

  Emily clung to her precious store of meds.

  After packing two wagons overflowing, Sarah used the sheets as covers so no one would be able to tell what the kids had collected. She even added a few pieces of broken appliances from the pile in the back.

  “What’s with the crap?” asked Pick.

  “To make people think we’re just a bunch of kids collecting trash no one wants.” Maya smiled.

  Sarah grinned at her. “See, you’re not bad at scavving.”

  Amid the clatter of old wheels, the kids pushed the shopping carts down the hall, out the front door, and along the street. Whenever one of the pieces of camouflage trash fell, Pick scrambled to collect it and stick it back in place. Maya kept her head down, hiding her face behind her hair. With any luck, a bunch of street kids with junk would be functionally invisible.

  Sarah walked at the rear of the procession, one hand under her dress, likely on the handle of the Hornet. Every so often, she bit back a yelp when she stepped on something painful, her attention too focused on possible threats to watch the ground. Maya pushed aside an upwelling of guilt at having shoes by promising herself she would make sure Sarah got some.

  Despite the increased number of people out and about as they returned to the Habitation District, due mostly to day workers on their way back from the Sanc, no one paid much attention to a pack of grungy kids pushing two shopping carts that appeared full of broken toasters, lamps, and chair pieces. Pick impressed Maya when he started bragging about how cool their pirate ship would be after they got all this new stuff on it.

  “Keep moving. You guys are too young,” said a man from a doorway on the right.

  “Do we look like we’re trying to go in?” asked Sarah.

  Maya glanced over at a big man in a black leather vest, no shirt under it, leaning on the wall by a bar full of weary-looking people. He pushed himself off the building and leaned toward Sarah, who stood her ground and met his glare with an equally defiant glower. Marcus and Anton jumped, flailing in their failed effort to decide between running or looking brave.

  The man laughed at her lack of fear and leaned back against the wall. “Say hi to your old man, eh?”

  Maya resumed breathing.

  “Yeah…” Sarah sighed. “Sure.”

  Maya kept glancing back at the guy as they walked. Once they’d gotten far enough away, she scooted close to Sarah and whispered, “Who was that?”

  “Friend of Dad’s. He teases me like since I’m Irish, all I wanna do is drink beer and am tryin’ ta sneak inta his bar before I’m old enough.”

  “Oh.”

  A minute or two passed without words, the din of commuters mixed with the rattling of bent wheels.

  “It’s not,” said Sarah, her tone flat.

  “Huh?” asked Maya.

  “Funny.”

  Maya couldn’t think of any reason her being Irish w
ould make her want beer, never mind the insensitivity of The Dad being too fond of it. She shook her head. “No, it’s not funny at all.”

  A hint of a smile peeked out from under a waterfall of red hair. Pick let out a yell of alarm and rushed around to the lead cart, bracing his body against the nose end to keep it from tipping into the street. Marcus grunted with the weight, but regained control. A left turn and most of a block later, Foz’s place came into view.

  Metal mesh with quite a few dents covered the two giant windows of the storefront. Neon lettering spelled out ‘The Emporium’ in bright green letters in the right side pane. Both windows looked in on shelves full of whatever stuff Foz found or bought from people, behind a horseshoe enclosure of metal fencing around an empty area in the middle. The innermost portion of the open hall had a counter enclosed in a protective barrier of thick, transparent plastic coated in smears of an oily residue. Pegs along the rear wall held several pale grey hooded ponchos with breathing masks. Behind the bulletproof window stood an older, pale man with unnaturally black hair in a wild spray, attention glued to one of two ultrathin television screens hung near the ceiling on either side of the counter. The display he watched showed football; the other had a woman with coffee-toned skin in a bright red dress droning on and on about financial markets and some big deal that happened in the Trenton Sanctuary Zone.

  Maya squinted at the unkempt man, not at all trusting him. That has to be Foz.

  The air smelled of electronics and coffee, tinged with a heavy fruitiness that defied explanation. Sarah grunted as she shoved the second wagon over the lip in the doorway. Pick grabbed the front end and pulled. At the clatter of shopping carts, the man behind the counter looked away from the game. A coffee dribble darkened the front of his peach-colored button down shirt.

  “Hmm?” asked Foz. Cottony eyebrows climbed his forehead at the sight before him. He waved his hand in a shooing gesture. “Don’t deal in junk, kids. Take that mess somewhere else.”

  Sarah skirted around the carts and glided up to the window. “The junk is a decoy so we didn’t get robbed comin’ here. We found good stuff.”

  “Good stuff, huh?” Foz leaned on the counter. “All right. Let’s see.”