Heir Ascendant

by Matthew S. Cox

  Sarah opened the door in a few seconds, looking weary, but smiled once she recognized Maya. “Hey.”

  “I need your help. Get your lock stuff.” Maya bounced on her toes.

  “Are you hungry?” Sarah took her hand and pulled. “C’mon. You gotta eat something.”

  “Later.” Maya dug her heels in. “Please. This is important. We don’t have much time.”

  Sarah bit her lip and looked over her shoulder. “Okay, be right back.”

  She left the door ajar and ran into the apartment. Maya waited in the hall, listening to an unending tirade of linguistic masterpieces such as: “sons a’ bitches,” “who them fuckers think they is,” “I’ma bust my boot off in a dozen asses,” and “fuck ‘em all, bloody idiots,” interspersed with several loud burps.

  The redhead reemerged from the back room with her hip bag on and adjusted the many folds of her wrapped-around dress to hide it. She came to the door by way of the kitchen and retrieving a beer for her father. His angry rant faded to some affectionate mutterings. He kissed her on the top of the head and settled in to watch TV. Sarah slipped out the door and pulled it closed.

  “What’s going on?”

  Maya smiled and took Sarah’s hand. “Trust me.”

  She led the older girl to the fire stairs and down to the ground floor. As soon as they entered the hall, Sarah got tense. When Maya walked straight at Mr. Mason’s door, Sarah recoiled.

  “No. Don’t.” Sarah shook her head. “Get away from there.”

  “Sarah.” Maya spun around. “I know what he did to you.”

  The girl’s snow-white face turned as red as her hair. “He didn’t. I got away. He grabbed me and tried to get me to take my clothes off. He told me what he wanted to do to me. I kicked him in the balls, so he punched me. I started screaming and he let me go.” Sarah wiped at her left eyebrow. “He lied. He told everyone he caught me trying to steal from him.”

  Maya stared into her friend’s dark blue eyes. “He tried to trick me to go inside with him. Offered to wash my nightie and give me a bath. I believe you.”

  Sarah sniffled.

  “You’re afraid of him too. He’s the one who told the Authority about me. He’s responsible for what happened today, like a little boy mad at me for not getting his way. I am going to make sure he never hurts anyone again.”

  “H-how?” Sarah leaned forward and stared at the front doors. The look on her face suggested the tiniest noise would’ve sent her sprinting up the stairs.

  “I have a way. It’s better if you don’t know, but I need to get inside his apartment.”

  Sarah furrowed her eyebrows. “You don’t trust me?”

  “I do!” Maya hugged her. “I don’t want you getting in trouble if it doesn’t work.”

  “I’ve done worse than break into this pig’s apartment.” Sarah looked around again before whispering. “I help the Brigade sometimes.”

  “You’re eleven.” Maya blinked. “Genna said they don’t involve kids in war.”

  “I don’t war. I sneak around and bring messages.”

  Maya sighed. Arguing wasted time. “Okay, fine.” She held up the paper. “I wrote down Vanessa’s addresses. Most of them are secret. If the Authority finds this in his place…”

  Sarah’s eyes widened. She almost shoved Maya on her ass to get to the door. “They’ll totally kill him!” She rummaged for her tools and attacked the knob as if ten million NuCoin waited on the other side.

  Maya flailed her arms to keep balance. “Uhh, yeah.”

  The doorknob lock clicked in about thirty seconds. It took Sarah another sixteen to get the deadbolt open.

  “Don’t touch anything,” whispered Sarah.

  Maya rolled her eyes. “They’re not going to look for fingerprints.”

  She walked into a disaster of a bachelor’s home. Cups, plates, take-out food containers, and random cardboard boxes stood in piles so thick they formed islands with definable paths between them. The place was at least twice the size of every other apartment she’d seen, with two bedrooms, a kitchen, a small area with a table, and another room at the far back end holding a desk with a computer terminal. Being half-underground, it lacked a patio.

  Maya tiptoed around the junk, careful not to step on anything other than exposed carpet. In an alcove between kitchen and bathroom, a tiny washer/dryer combo supported a small army of soda cans. The sight of it made Maya feel sick.

  Aluminum cans clattered as her foot plowed forward through the junk at the doorway to the computer room. Sarah followed close behind, refusing to let go of Maya’s shoulders. Two wastebaskets to the left of a rolling chair overflowed with crinkled-up tissues.

  “Wow, he must get sick a lot,” said Sarah. “Look at all of ‘em. They’re on the floor too. And that one’s stuck to the wall.”

  “Eww.” Maya tiptoed among a minefield of paper wads on the carpet. “Vanessa had an assistant like that… she was always sniffling.”

  The component stack next to the monitor looked like a mixture of routers, high-end enthusiast gaming computer cases, and a satellite net uplink from hell. She smiled at the Takeshi-Imura logo on the main computer box.

  Maya leaned forward to stick the folded up paper between the components, but froze. “I got a better idea.”

  “What?” asked Sarah in a strangled whisper. “I don’t like it in here. Let’s get out of here.”

  “They’re going to think it’s suspicious if it isn’t on his computer somewhere.” Maya took one look at the dingy grey chair and decided to stay standing. She hip-bumped it aside and moved up to the keyboard. The machine seemed to be on, so she tapped a random key, which brought up a password prompt.

  “Crap,” said Sarah.

  “It’s cool. I know a trick for the TI machines. They still haven’t patched it. If ya hold both shifts, and hit the number keys in alternating order from right to left toward the middle, it’s a backdoor.” She tried to hit both shift keys with her pinky and thumb, but her tiny hand couldn’t manage it. “Hold down the right shift, please.”

  Sarah reached around her and poked her finger into the key.

  Maya pressed left shift and typed 0192837465 on the number keys. The screen flashed and went bright blue. “We’re in.”

  The blank screen faded to reveal an image of a cartoon version of Maya, tied naked to a chair with the shadows of several men looming over her. Much to the real Maya’s horror, her illustrated doppelganger looked eager and happy. Along the left edge of the screen, a column contained a list of disturbing categories with numbers next to them, presumably counting images that fit each one. ‘Sexy_Maya,’ currently highlighted, had 5721 entries. Domx_Vanessa was in the sixty-thousand range.

  Sarah clung to her from behind, shaking. “Holy shit. That’s disgusting. Sick freak. Who would draw that?”

  Maya clamped her jaw, trying not to throw up. As much as she wanted to close the page, she had to leave it open or he’d know someone was here. She did not want to see anything else, figuring the image she’d stumbled on was probably the tamest thing there. The cartoony scene made her almost as sick as Mason grabbing her chest. She braced her right forearm to her mouth to hold in puke.

  “Don’t look over there,” said Sarah.

  Of course, Maya glanced to the right. A number of dolls lay on the floor around two video game consoles with pink controllers. Any lingering doubt or regret at what she planned to do vanished. She minimized the awful image and got into the file system where she created a folder and named it ‘work expenses.’ After that, she created about a dozen blank spreadsheets, titling them with dates ranging over the past two months. In one of the spreadsheet files, she entered the addresses and passwords from the notepaper, and hid the tab.

  “Why are you hiding it?” Sarah squeezed her, whined, and looked back at the door. “I really, really, really do not want to be in here when he comes home. He’ll keep us.”

  “I’m hiding it because I don’t want it to look too obvious. I coul
d stick it to his fridge, but then they wouldn’t believe he did it.” She closed the file, closed the folder, and―with great reluctance―tapped the screen to return to the porn site. Cringing not to look, she hit the lock button, which replaced the revolting cartoon with a pleasant, innocent password prompt. As a final touch, she wedged the folded notebook paper between the bottom component and the desk. “Okay, let’s get out of here.”

  Bang.

  Both girls jumped and clung to each other at the noise out in the hall. Footsteps grew louder.

  “Cabinets,” whispered Maya. “Hurry!”

  Holding hands, they speed-tiptoed through the junk toward the kitchen. Maya about lost her bladder when a blur of dark swept past the door, but whoever it was kept on going into the fire stairs. At the squeak of shoes on concrete steps, they shared a sigh of relief. As soon as total silence returned outside, Maya ran out into the hall. Sarah pulled the door closed and started for the stairway, but Maya grabbed her dress, nearly ripping two safety pins out.

  “Wait!”

  Sarah, tears in her eyes, whirled around. “What?”

  Maya pointed at the door. “Make it locked again or he’ll know.”

  It took her about twice as long to re-lock the door with shaking hands, but soon, Mr. Mason’s apartment―and the horrors inside it―didn’t appear to have been tampered with. Sarah put her tools away and took a few deep breaths. Her cheeks glowed red and she dripped with perspiration. Maya shared the trembles of adrenaline, but nervous giggling started.

  A moment later, Sarah looked worried and a touch sick. “Does he have drawings of me too?”

  Maya shuddered with rage. “No. He didn’t make those.” How many people hate me enough to wanna imagine such awful things happening to me? She sniffled.

  Sarah comforted her with a hug and a back pat. “We got him.”

  “He deserves it.” Maya grabbed her friend’s hand. “We shouldn’t be seen here.”

  “Right.” Sarah backed up to the fire door.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No.” Sarah shook her head. “I think I’m gonna chuck again.”

  Maya hurried up the stairs behind her. “Me too.”

  rumbs fell onto the thin plastic plate between Maya’s elbows. After sitting around Sarah’s apartment for the better part of an hour, ravenous hunger came out of nowhere. Even the shitty Veteran’s Benefits Center cheese sandwiches tasted like a feast. Honestly, the bread was pretty good, even if she knew the ‘just baked’ fragrance/flavor came from chemicals. The cheese, not so much.

  Sarah sat catty-corner, having finished hers in six bites, clearly eating to survive and not to taste. She hooked one heel on the chair and leaned her head against her knee, watching Maya eat. Her father grumbled at the television, decrying how unrealistic whatever war movie he’d settled on was. Whenever anything happened, he’d pause the movie to go off on a bitching rant about how one particular vehicle couldn’t do that, or that specific gun couldn’t hold that much ammo, or the armor the character wore wouldn’t do shit against 6.55 millimeter armor-piercing explosive bullets.

  As threatening as he sounded, Maya believed Sarah’s opinion of him being all noise and no threat. Any time the girl got close to her father, his whole demeanor changed. With trust that he wouldn’t turn violent (at least toward them), the verbal rampage seemed humorous instead of scary. She smiled at Sarah, who still looked somber.

  Maya stared at her.

  “We killed him,” whispered Sarah.

  Maya studied the last inch or so of sandwich, admiring the pattern of small bite marks. “They might not kill him, but they’ll interrogate him. He won’t know anything about the addresses, so they’ll think he’s lying.”

  Sarah covered her mouth to muffle a burp. “Good for him.”

  “Yeah.” Maya gnawed her sandwich to death. “Genna was gonna kill him anyway.”

  “You can stay here.”

  Maya looked up, fear in her eyes.

  “Uhh, for now.” Sarah fidgeted. “‘Til Genna comes back. Most people they keep this long don’t come back.”

  Maya shot a sullen glare into the plate. “I’m not gonna let them kill her.”

  “Maybe they’ll let her go. They’ve taken Naida like twenty times.”

  “That’s different.” Maya crossed her arms.

  Sarah leaned forward over the table. “You shouldn’t be alone. You’re too little.”

  “You’re only two years older than me.” Maya glared. “And I’m smarter.”

  “Nuh-uh.” Sarah shook her head.

  “Am too,” said Maya, adding a raspberry. “But you’re stronger.”

  The whirr of an e-motor outside stalled the breath in Maya’s throat. She ran from the chair to the living room and out to the patio deck, where she grabbed the flimsy metal railing and peered over at the ground seven stories down.

  A large blue van with white Authority markings had pulled up out front. One officer sat behind a machinegun in the middle of the roof while two others got out and moved to the side. They pulled open a thick, armored double-door with a deep metal scraping noise that echoed down the street. Maya shoved away from the railing and darted back across the apartment.

  “Where are you going?” yelled Sarah. “Stay out of sight.”

  “Plan part two,” shouted Maya, not slowing.

  She headed for the fire stairs and ran down so fast she had to catch herself on the walls to make the turns at each switchback without falling. On the ground floor, she emerged into the hallway seconds before two Authority officers dragged Brian in the main entrance. She tried not to breathe too hard and ruffled her hair up to better hide her face. One of the officers snipped plastic ties off Brian’s wrists.

  “Thanks for the ride,” said Brian, with almost enough sarcasm to earn a punch to the head.

  The officer lowered his fist and pointed at the hallway instead of hitting him.

  Maya kept her hands at her sides and crept out of the late afternoon shadow, bare feet silent on the smooth concrete floor. Brian tromped by, giving her an incredulous look, almost walking into the wall. He hesitated at the door to the fire stairs, watching her approach the officers the way someone about to witness a horrible plane crash would stare, unable to look away.

  When she got close enough, Maya stopped, gaze down, feet together. “Umm, excuse me?”

  Both officers pulled guns and aimed at her.

  “Don’t move,” yelled one.

  “Against the wall, now,” shouted the other.

  Maya obeyed. As soon as the cool cinder blocks touched her chest, black-gloved hands forced her arms out to the side and slid up and down her body. He patted down from armpit to knee and around her hips.

  “She’s not armed,” said the man right behind her.

  “Really?” asked the other. “You had to frisk a tiny little kid in a nightie to figure that out? Where would she hide anything?”

  “I dunno, but kids don’t walk up to us unless they have bombs. Maybe she had a clicker or something.”

  “I want to report a crime.” Maya kept her palms flat against the wall, arms outstretched. “You are the Authority. My mother said I should go to you if I see something bad.”

  “Okay kid, whatcha got?” The man who seemed friendlier put his weapon away.

  Maya didn’t move. “There’s a man here who’s working for the Brigade.” She spoke the last word in a half whisper.

  “Whoa.” The officer who frisked her put a hand on her shoulder and tugged her around to face him. “You Nons never turn on each other. This don’t feel right. What gives, kid?”

  Maya clasped her hands in front of her and kept her face hidden behind her long, straight hair. “My mom’s a veteran, so I’m a Citizen. You arrested her on accident ‘cause someone lied to you. I know who the real Brigade spy is. I want you to let my mom go.”

  “There was a dark-skinned woman brought in from here a few hours ago,” said the nicer man. “No suspicion of Brigade activi
ty, she flagged as a person of interest. Probably be back to you in a day or two once she’s processed.”

  “I want to do the right thing.” Maya ground her toes into the floor, perhaps overacting a little. “He lives in the super’s apartment. Mr. Mason. I was playing hide-and-seek with the other kids and I was hiding in the machine room. I heard him talkin’ onna call. He’s going to give information to the Brigade tonight.”

  “What sort of information?” The nearer officer finally put his sidearm back on his belt.

  “Can you bring my mommy home please?” Maya tried to sound cute and endearing. She fidgeted at her nightdress and swished side to side.

  “Oh look at this one.” The nicer officer chuckled. “What are you, like eight? Already trying to play the game.”

  “I’m sorry.” Maya acted a sniffle. “You’re right. I shouldn’t play games with you. A person is supposed to report crimes because they’re crimes, not to get something. Mr. Mason is helping them. They wanna kill Miss Oman. I heard paper crinkling and he was typing on his computer.”

  Both officers coughed.

  “Horseshit,” said Frisker.

  “He said stuff that sounded like addresses. Something about the Shroud at Double Rock.” Both men twitched at her name-drop of Vanessa’s most secure dwelling, the underground one Maya loathed so much. “There were a lot of names. I don’t ‘member everything.” She peeked up.

  The men exchanged a glance. Her heart pounded. They’d either believe her or realize she was Maya Oman. She bowed her head before they looked down at her again.

  “I dunno,” said Frisker.

  The other man took a knee and grasped her shoulders. “You sure you heard that exact thing, kid?”

  Maya forced herself not to tremble, and made eye contact with―according to his nametag―Officer Kumar. “Yes, officer. The Shroud at Double Rock. He called it a pain in the ass ‘cause of underground. What’s a double rock?”

  “Nothing you need to worry about if you want to stay healthy.” Frisker shifted his weight back and forth.

  “This could seriously bite us in the ass, Cortez.” Kumar glanced at Maya for a few seconds more before standing. “If this kid misheard some dude and we go crazy…”