by E J Frost
Back to the thing that’s really bugging me.
“I told you.”
“’Cause I’m bald?” There’s got to be
more to it than that. “Cause I’m a decent pilot
an’ I don’t cut out when shit gets ugly?”
She looks away, out the viewer, but her
gaze is fixed. I don’t think she’s looking at
the pretty lights anymore. “Because it was a
way in.”
Now the truth comes out.
“How long you really been watchin’ me,
kitten?”
“Three months,” she sighs.
That is a long fucking time. The idea of
her watching me for three months without me
spotting her raises my hackles.
“We met before,” she says softly. “I’ve
been waiting to see if you’d remember, but I
don’t think you have. I dropped off a package
that you picked up in Roysten. You were
angry because I was late, which I wasn’t. I
was told the drop was at one.”
Now that she says it, I do remember. I
was pissed. It was my second trip for
Garagenis. They’d stiffed me first time out
for twenty percent because the drop was late,
and I wasn’t going to let it happen a second
time. I was in such a red haze that I’ve got no
memory of who dropped the package. Only
that they were late.
“You spoke to me. Your voice . . .
touched me . . . here.” She presses two
fingers against her belly, glances at me,
flushes, and looks back out the viewer. I hide
a smile since she can probably see my
reflection in the screen. I know I give good
voice. One of the Company hookers who
gave me a nice hour when I was still in
S.A.W.L. called it a ‘black velvet’ voice. I
can’t remember what planet she was on or
what she looked like, but I’ve always
remembered that phrase.
“You brushed my arm,” Kez continues.
“When you were taking the package off me. I
could feel . . . how strong you are. I tried to
talk to you, but you said you were running
late. I didn’t even get your first name. You
left and I felt . . . I don’t know. I felt like I’d
missed something. Something important.
Then a couple of days later I saw you again.
It was from a distance. At the Nock port. I
realized your ship must be berthed there. I
tried to find you through the Nets, but I
couldn’t get past your ship’s security. You
don’t seem to have any avatars. So I thought
I’d try a flesh-meet. For a while I went to the
bars near the port, hoping to bump into you.
But you were never there. So one night I
waited and followed you. I kept thinking
you’d stop somewhere and I’d be able to go
up to you, ask if I could buy you a drink. But
you never stopped. After that, it was like a
game. Whenever I was near the port I’d see
if I could catch sight of you. If it was near the
end of your shift, I’d follow you. God, that
doesn’t sound right . . . I haven’t been
stalking you. It wasn’t like that.”
Which is good to hear, ‘cause it sounds
exactly like that. But there’s something about
the earnestness with which she relates her
little tale, and her evident embarrassment,
that moves it out of the realm of the
psychotic. Even out of the realm of the
hackle-raising. It’s . . . cute.
“Kez—” I begin.
“I just wanted a way in,” she rushes on.
Trying to justify herself. “Some—” She
waves her hand between us. “Connection. So
you wouldn’t walk away again.”
I let the silence hang for a moment. Make
sure she’s really done. When I hear her take
a shaky breath, I say, “Whaddo you think so
far?”
“Wha—” She wipes her face quickly.
“What do you mean?”
“You musta thought about what it’d be
like. Bein’ with me. Whaddo you think so
far?”
She gives me a shy grin. And a hot pink
blush. “Nothing like what I expected.”
“Still battin’ a thousand?”
“Yes.” She waves a finger at the front
screen. “Maybe a million.”
Still not knocked back by anything, not
even spilling her borderline psycho secret. I
like her fearlessness. “Anythin’ else you
want to tell me before we land?”
She shrugs. “The pickup’s at midnight.
First point of contact’s about two klicks from
the Kuus dock, but I may have to go
somewhere else to collect the box. It
depends. Either way, I should be back by
one. If I’m not, something’s wrong. I’ll signal
you if you give me the ship code.” She tugs
the touch screen on her wrist around and
poises a finger over it.
“SM2662.” I wait while she types it into
her little viewie. “But you won’t need to call
me.”
“I won’t? Um, do you want to monitor me
or something?”
“No, I’m comin’ with you.”
Chapter 3
Her brother objects, vociferously, when
Kez tells him I’ll be accompanying them to
the pickup. He drops the bag he was lifting
out of a storage compartment and crosses his
arms over his chest. “He’ll fuck everything
up. The Snatchers don’t know him. What’re
you gonna tell them?”
Kez winces at the dropped bag and
collects it carefully from the floor. I take it
from her and pull the other bag out of the
compartment to save it from Ape’s tender
ministrations. “The same thing I’m going to
tell them about you,” she says. “That you’re
with me. You’ve been up here, what, Ape,
twice? In four years?”
“That’s twice more than him.”
“Actually, I come up every couple
weeks,” I remark, slinging the second bag
over my back and settling the strap across my
chest. I’ve got a regular haul from Kuus to
the Orbitals, but I’ve never strayed outside
the port before. “And you won’t get back into
the port without me. Curfew.”
Kez’s eyes snap up to mine. “Curfew?”
“Yeah. They began lock-down a coupla
weeks ago. After some water rioters broke in
and damaged the tether.”
Kez shakes her head. “Damn.”
“Long as you’re with me, it shouldn’t be
a problem.”
She gives me one of those mischievous
grins. “Then we’d better not lose you in the
tunnels. Ape, stop whining and get the boards
out. We’ve only got fifteen minutes.”
The ‘boards’ are a pair of float boards.
Once we’re off the ship, Kez and her brother
flick on the boards’ neg cells and toss them
into the air, where they hover a half-meter
off the ground. Ape jum
ps onto his with more
agility than I expect, given his size. The
board bursts into a rainbow of light. Trailing
haylon streamers, he does a circle around me
and Kez, then grabs a sensor projecting off
one of the Marie’s ailerons and flips himself
into a somersault, one hand holding the edge
of his board, the other dragging one of the
gear bags.
The sensor bends with a squeal of metal.
Ape lands a few feet away, flips the float
board over between his feet and gives me a
cocky monkey grin.
I reach up and straighten the sensor.
“Hope you enjoy a bumpy ride to New
Brunny,” I say.
“Ape!” Kez hisses at her brother. “I’m so
sorry, Mister Snow.”
I control a grin. Hearing her call me that
is too funny. “S’okay. Let’s go.”
Kez mounts up with less fanfare than the
orangutan and locks her left heel into a
depression in the board. She reaches a hand
back to me. “You can ride with me.”
I shake my head. “I’ll keep up. Lead the
way.”
“You—” Kez begins, but stops at my
expression. She shrugs. “Okay.”
She leans forward and sets off towards
the dock exit. I sling the bags I’m carrying
across my shoulders and start off after her. I
jog at first, until I warm up, then open my
stride and run, easily keeping pace with her
board.
She glances at me several times as I run
beside her through the quiet streets. The first
klick disappears under my boots. I’m getting
nice and warm now, hitting my stride,
swinging over, under and around any
obstacles that Kez floats over. All those
hours training with the parkour master when I
was a grunt coming back to me. Endorphins
surge through my body, telling me I could run
forever. I begin to outpace her float board.
With a determined hum from her board’s
neg cells, she passes me, turns by pulling the
front of her board up sharply with one hand,
and circles around me. Getting bolder, that
mischievous grin lighting her face, she
catches my shoulder on the next pass and
uses me as a pivot as she twists around me. I
hold out my hand. She grabs it and I swing
her around, using our combined momentum to
lift her above my head. She tucks into a
crouch, holding the edge of the board with
one hand, and when I release her, executes a
forward somersault in mid-air and zooms off
ahead of me, laughing delightedly.
I push on and catch up with her as she
pulls up in front of a subway entrance. Ape’s
already several steps down into the subway.
He’s slung his board into a harness on his
back and as Kez dismounts, he takes her
board and tucks it into his harness. He gives
me a short nod as I join them. Kez smiles
hugely at me. “You run really well.”
I shrug. There are some advantages to
being a Mod. “You board really well.” I nod
at her board.
“You’d make a good runner.” She tilts
her head to the side and gives me a long,
evaluating look. Ape snorts, sounding very
much like his namesake.
“He’s too big.”
“So are you. He’s fast. Faster than
Duncan, I bet.”
“Better not let Dunk hear you say that,”
Ape retorts. “C’mon, we’re late.”
Kez nods and follows him a step down
into the stairwell. Then she pauses, and turns
back for me. She holds out her hand, and I
take it.
Ape glances back, sees our joined hands
and groans. “Fuck me, Kez. He’s like an old
man.”
“Butt out,” she says, but there’s no heat to
it. Her patience with her little brother seems
infinite. “Hit the lights. They know we’re
coming.”
Her brother squeezes a couple of the
nylar bands that circle his bicep. They begin
to glow, yellow light seeping across the
dirty, broken tiles of the station floor. Kez
reaches into her hair with her free hand, does
something to a couple of her dreads, and
nylar beads woven through the fuzzy strands
begin to glow: bright white, green and dull
red. With the nimbus of light around her
head, she looks like an angel.
“Sorry, I didn’t bring any for you,” she
says. I shrug. I don’t need her lights; if
anything, they fuck with my night vision. I
lengthen my stride so I’m a step ahead of her
and her halo.
Between her light and the cat’s eye in my
retinas the chop-doc implanted, I can see as
well as if it was daylight. I can see that the
station is weirdly empty. The streets above
are still populated, if sparsely. When we
begin passing closed for construction signs,
I understand why.
We reach a set of arches next to an
attendant’s station, currently dark and
unmanned. The ticket machines are lit up,
though. Typical that the only thing working
would be the way the govvies take your
credits.
Ape starts through one of the arches, only
to be pulled up by his sister’s sharp
admonition.
“Wait for me to buy the tickets!”
“It’s fucking shut, Kez. Who’s gonna stop
me?” He jumps through the arch and stands
on the far side with his hands up in the air.
“Oh, oh, don’t shoot me!”
“Don’t be an ass! You need to observe
the rules with the Downers. No entry without
a ticket.” She unslings her backpack, pulls
out a credit wand and plugs it into one of the
ticket machines. It dutifully spits out three
plaz tickets. She hands one to me and carries
two to the archway her brother has just
breached.
She inserts two tickets into the glowing
green slot in the archway before she walks
through. I follow her lead. Pull up short
when I see a figure standing in the shadows
behind Ape. I slide my hand into my pocket
where I have a blade in a hidden sheath.
“Moren,” Kez says, nodding at the figure.
Ape jumps and turns around to face the man
in the shadows.
“Kezra. Penny’s expecting you. You’re
gonna be late.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
The figure nods at an escalator. At his
nod, it whirs to life.
“Thanks, Moren,” Kez says.
“Welcome.” The figure steps further back
into the shadows. With only the flash of teeth
and eyes visible, he says, “Hey, Monkey
Boy, next time you come through without a
ticket . . .” He extends a hand out of the
shadows. Each finger is tipped with a
shining steel blade. He clashes the blades
together, then pull
s his hand back into the
shadows and disappears.
Kez slaps her brother upside the head.
“What did I tell you?”
Ape scratches his chin. “Well, fuck.”
“Just follow me.” Kez reaches for my
hand again and when I give it to her, leads
me onto the escalator.
The escalator drops down, down, down.
Deep into the bedrock of Kuseros. I’ve never
been in the Kuus subways before. I know
they’re used as entrances to the metal mines,
as well as for moving cits below the surface,
important in the mountains, because the
winters up here are so cold that the wind can
crack the fucking enamel on your teeth. But I
had no idea how deep they went.
As we descend, it gets warm. I’m already
sweating from my run. Now sweat slicks my
chest. Trickles down my back. I shrug out of
my jacket. Kez, watching me, holds out her
hand and when I give her my jacket, stuffs it
in her backpack. Her knitted sleeves follow.
Sweat-slicked, her pale skin glows like
marble. She has some definition in her
shoulders and arms – not much, she’s more
skinny than built – but her little muscles look
nice with a light sheen of sweat, gleaming in
the light from her hair. I run the backs of my
fingers down her arm appreciatively.
Behind us, Ape makes gagging noises.
“How old’s he?” I ask.
“Twenty-one, going on thirteen.”
“So what’s that, like, half your age?” Ape
sniggers.
“Something like that.” I pull his sister
close, just to piss him off. “Not too old for
you?”
She smiles up at me. “I like older men.
More experience.”
“Better staying power.”
“Sixty minutes?” She winks.
“I’m going to puke,” Ape moans.
“Get over it,” Kez tells him. She begins
looking intently at the graffiti on the tiled
walls as we reach the bottom of the
escalator. “There. This way.”
I can’t tell what she sees. Looks like a
bunch of scribble to me. And a warning that
someone called Hat Trick has crabs. But she
seems sure as she heads off down a dark
tunnel marked Silver Line to All Points.
I keep pace with her and watch the
graffiti. She turns again after more scribble
and a badly drawn picture of a girl with
black pigtails. She pushes through a door
marked Authorized Personnel Only and
we’re out of the passenger areas and into the
service tunnels.
It’s even hotter in here. Kez’s tank is
sticking to her in a way that would be more