by Sean Grigsby
Hurley Girly and Dipity entered next, they had their jackets zipped up to their chests and their hair finger-combed out – what accounted for “dressing up” on Oubliette.
“Let’s talk about it later,” Lena told Ava. There’d be time enough for a quick rundown of what she had in mind. It was going to be spectacular.
Sterling brought in Sarah, linked onto her arm. Hurley Girly frowned and hunted for something else to look for in the room. Sterling’s nose swelled purple and yellow.
Shit, Lena thought. I feel like shit. But she didn’t show it.
Ava handed over Loveless’s jacket. It had been cleaned off, ready for a new owner.
“I always feel like there should be music,” Dipity said.
Hurley Girly shrugged. “We could hum.”
“Shut up, you guys!” Ava snapped.
Lena stood in the middle of the room, hands on her hips. Sterling led Sarah over and then took her place with the other Daughters.
“Kneel,” Lena said.
Sarah did.
“This jacket is made from pieces of this city, boiled down and made into something new. You’re a part of this city now. Do you want to be made new?”
“Yes,” Sarah said, following the script Ava had coached her through.
Ava stepped forward. “Are you willing to kill for your sisters?”
“With everything I have.”
“Will you ride into death if you have to?” asked Dipity.
“I will.”
Lena glared at Sterling, who focused on Sarah and the ceremony. Lena hoped she heard that last question well enough, remembered that she’d taken the same oath not too long ago. How easy it is to forget, she thought, even when you have nothing to do but ride or die.
Sterling signed, Will you care for the dwellers under you?
“They will be like my family, their pain is my own.”
Hurley Girly breathed in slowly, holding back laughter. She stared at Sarah, probably having forgotten her lines. Finally, she said, “Are you forgotten?”
“Long forgotten,” Sarah said.
“Then stand up and be forgotten with the rest of us,” Lena said.
Sarah stood and Lena helped her ease into the jacket. The rest of the Daughters whooped and patted Sarah hard on the back. The thin glass leather looked good on her if not a little big. Her short blue hair above the collar brought it all together. She fit in, and Lena didn’t just mean the jacket. Despite all recent and questionable decisions, Lena had made an excellent pick from this last shipment, she knew that much. The smile on Sarah’s face brought Lena back to the night she’d received her own jacket from Grindy. She’d been exactly where Sarah stood. When her arms had slid into the sleeves – damn, there was no other feeling like it. She remembered sleeping with her jacket on, never taking it off until the following quarter. Grindy had forced her to take a shower, saying the other Daughters complained she smelled like the Sludge River.
“How’s it feel?” Hurley Girly asked Sarah.
“It feels…” Sarah’s eyes watered, still smiling. She was trying hard not to cry. When she hid her face in the crook of her newly jacketed arm, the other Daughters slapped her shoulders, a little harder than before.
Dipity laughed, and Hurley slid her arm around Sarah. Sterling mussed Sarah’s hair.
“This is the last time you get away with crying in front of us,” Ava said, but even she smiled like a proud big sister.
“Thank you, guys,” Sarah said. “I’ll try not to screw this up.”
“OK, enough of all this sentimental shit,” Lena said. “Pao, you’ve got your first order of business as an official Daughter. Our dwellers will be here soon. Eat some manna, and piss if you have to. This is going to take you a while.”
Hurley Girly and the others left Lena and Sarah in the middle of the ganghouse, laughing and scrambling up the black stairs, eager as hell to get away from what was to come.
“Dwellers?” Sarah said. “What do I have to do with them?”
“Just because I’m blind doesn’t make me stupid!” The scrawny dweller pointed her cane at Sarah, most likely the sole item she’d brought with her from Earth.
“I’m… I’m not saying you’re stupid,” Sarah stammered.
“You don’t think I can count? I know how many manna loaves I have in my apartment. I count them every day. You’re new here, so you probably still don’t understand that food has to last until the next shipment. If people go around stealing it from under your nose, it means you could die. And I know she took it!” The blind dweller swung her cane toward the accused to her right, a big-boned woman whose crossed eyes darted from floor to wall like a skittish chameleon.
Back on Earth, Sarah had seen courtroom television shows when she’d stayed home sick from school. She’d always thought if she sat in the judge’s position she could tell who was right and wrong and would throw down her hammer of justice without blinking an eye. But now she was the judge and mediator for the dwellers who’d come for reprisal and absolution. Now she knew why the other Daughters had fled to their rooms.
Lena had only stayed long enough to tell her what she was expected to do, and where to sit when the dwellers started floating in. Sarah, now officially the gang’s ass, had to handle all dweller disputes. Mostly, it had been simple acts of thievery and spats between neighbors that she sorted out easily due to quick confessions or the involved parties coming to agreements without her even having to make a decision. For a while, Sarah thought that most of the dwellers were used to how things went and could figure it out on their own. All of this was just for show, and respect for the Daughters of Forgotten Light. Then the blind woman had come.
“I knew she’d been in my apartment when I walked in. I could smell she’d been there.”
The cross-eyed woman mumbled something.
“Speak up, please,” Sarah said, trying to show at least a little authority.
“I said I don’t even smell!” the woman shouted.
“The hell she doesn’t,” the blind dweller said. “Even if all my remaining senses weren’t so sharp, a pig with a cold could smell her dirty ass!”
“OK,” Sarah said. “Let’s just–”
“I wouldn’t touch your manna if it was covered in chocolate sprinkles and sang me to sleep,” the cross-eyed one said.
“I hope you choke on it, you trashy piece of–”
“Shut up!” Sarah stood. She wanted to hit something. These dwellers were driving her crazy. Why couldn’t people ever get along? It didn’t matter if it was on Earth or in the deepest reaches of space, people would complain about anything and squabble over the dumbest things. They couldn’t set aside their petty, selfish ways and understand the bigger picture. She could almost see why their mothers had given them up to Oubliette.
Sarah sat back down and breathed slowly as she rubbed against an approaching headache. “Do you have any proof besides a smell and a few missing loaves?”
“Well…” the blind dweller leaned against her cane “…not really.”
“And you,” Sarah pointed to the accused, “did you steal her manna?”
“No. I didn’t.”
“Then it looks like we’re at an impasse. If you find any evidence that’s worth bringing back, we’ll look at this again. Make your manna last as long as you can. If you get to a place where you’re going to starve, then we’ll see what we can do.” Sarah tried to sound confident and like a Daughter who’d been surviving Oubliette for more than a decade, not the newbie who hadn’t even shot her rang gun yet.
The two dwellers in front of her stared back in silence. The cross-eyed one looked satisfied, and even though the blind dweller soured her face and looked to spit, she nodded and turned back to the front doors.
As they walked away, keeping distance from one another, Sarah smiled a little to herself. She could do this, was good at it. The dwellers just needed someone to bitch to and, if need be, to be given a tiny nudge in the right direction. As she saw it
, she’d put in a hard night’s work, but as soon as the last two dwellers passed through the doors, a mob entered.
Sarah leapt to her feet, taken by surprise at the angry group stomping toward her. At the head, a shirtless Asian woman with a terrible attempt at a crew cut led a bony dweller forward. Crew Cut bared her flabby breasts with no modesty or care for where the huge things swung, and her missing shirt tied the prisoner’s hands behind her back. A cut under the bound woman’s right eye bled.
The horde of dwellers stood eerily silent as their prisoner cursed them all to Hell and back. A few dwellers in the rear carried some kind of bundle, but Sarah couldn’t see much past the huddled shoulders in front.
“What’s going on?” Sarah said. She’d wished she hadn’t sounded so nervous, but who could blame her.
“Murder,” the shirtless woman said.
Oh, great, Sarah thought. Now I have to deal with a lynch mob.
“Don’t listen to these psycho bitches.” The prisoner hacked, almost gagging. “They’ve got the wrong sheila!” Her curly black hair fell over her face as the shirtless woman shook her to be quiet.
“We found Dandelion here hunched over my girlfriend…” the shirtless woman swallowed and blinked away tears that began to fill her eyes. “…with her hands around her throat. We were too late to save my Susan, but we were able to grab this piece of shit.”
The other dwellers murmured their agreement.
“We wanted to do this right,” the shirtless one said. “Even though I wanted to beat her face in when we found her. We brought her to the Daughters for judgment.”
Sarah couldn’t find her voice. Whatever confidence she’d begun to build off the last few dweller disputes had flown away. She was saved a few moments’ embarrassment when the dwellers in the back came forward with the mysterious bundle. Laying it down the way they did, it revealed a corpse’s eyes that begged for a reckoning. It was the dead woman, Susan.
“I was checking her fucking pulse!” Dandelion said.
“With two hands?”
“You were seeing things. I would never have killed her.” Dandelion turned to Sarah. “I would never kill anybody.”
“We have all these witnesses who can confirm it,” the shirtless woman said. The other dwellers nodded or affirmed with, “Yep!”
“Half these whores weren’t even there.” Dandelion became red in the face and she squirmed against her bonds. However they’d tied that shirt it must have been pretty snug.
“Um,” Sarah said. It had come out as her mind raced for something, anything to say. But the dead woman’s eyes kept staring and the blue of her lips matched Sarah’s hair, and this was all so far over Sarah’s head she couldn’t think straight. “I’ll be right back.”
She hustled for the black stairs, ignoring the grunts of confusion from the dwellers thirsting for blood and a swift judgment.
Sarah knocked and entered Lena’s room in a flurry. “I really, really need your help.”
“It can’t be that bad.” Lena lay on her bed, hands cradling the back of her head. She didn’t open her eyes when she answered Sarah. “Just tell them to get along and share their manna. They’re like five year-olds.”
“Well these five year-olds formed a lynch mob and want justice for a murdered dweller.”
Lena bolted up. “Ah, shit.”
Sarah explained the matter to Lena as best she could while they flew down the stairs. When they came to the ground floor, the dweller mob’s yelling filled the ganghouse. The rest of the Daughters, except Ava, stood there listening to incoherent complaints and fruitlessly trying to calm several red-faced dwellers. The front door was smashed open and scratches ran along the wall beside it. The Asian woman with the crew cut was yelling and pointing wildly. She still hadn’t put on her shirt, even though it now lay tattered in front of her. Dandelion was gone.
“Everybody quiet!” Lena yelled, speeding ahead of Sarah. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” Dipity said. “We just got down here after hearing all the commotion. But they’re pissed.”
“You’re damn right we’re pissed,” the shirtless woman said. “Your new recruit ran off, and the bitch that killed my Susan broke free and took off on one of your motorcycles!”
All the Daughters stopped and turned to the Asian woman.
“What did you say?” Hurley Girly asked.
Before the woman could repeat herself, Lena broke in. “Whose bike is missing?”
Dipity quickly scanned over the cyclones parked against the wall. Her expression went from annoyed to oh-shit-fearful. “Ava’s.”
“Who the fuck took my bike?” Ava stood at the entrance to the stairwell. She might have just walked in, but she was in time for things to get worse.
Chapter 16
Lena trotted away from the crowd, toward her second-in-command. She raised her hand to hold back Ava’s rage, but that was like making love to a bear trap – never a good idea in the best of circumstances. Helpless, Hurley Girly and Dipity looked at each other. Sterling shook her head.
“No!” Ava shouted. “I want to know the name of the low-down, rotten-assed sack of shit I’m going to be killing tonight for stealing my cyclone.”
“Her name is Dandelion,” the shirtless woman offered.
A short black sheila entered and circled around the crowd. The mob continued to roar as she snuck by. She wasn’t a part of the bloodlust crowd.
The short woman walked up to Sterling, the closest Daughter. “I need to talk to Horror,” she whispered.
Sterling and the new arrival looked to Lena.
Shit just got even more serious. “Wait for me over by the stairs,” Lena told the newly arrived dweller, and she obeyed.
Ava grumbled half-words as Lena led her over to the other Daughters. Instinctually, they made a huddle.
“Go get Ava’s bike,” Lena said. “Pao, let Ava drive yours while you ride bitch. When you sheilas find this Dandelion, you know what to do.”
Sterling, Hurley Girly, and Dipity nodded. Staring at the floor, Ava gritted her teeth and pounded a fist into her palm.
Lena turned to the Asian woman. “Where does this Dandelion sheila live?”
“In the Right Twin tower, just south of the Sludge.”
“Would she be dumb enough to go back to her place? Pick up manna and stuff?”
The Asian woman shrugged. “She always seemed like a dumbass to me. Are you going to–”
“Might as well start there,” Lena told the Daughters.
The shirtless woman continued griping and the rest of the dwellers started in again with angry shouts.
“You not coming, Horror?” Ava asked.
“No,” Lena looked quickly to the woman by the stairs. “I’ve got something important to deal with here, and I’ll keep these heathens appeased until you get back.”
Chapter 17
Sarah had no idea what the Daughters would do when, and if, they retrieved Ava’s bike. It was another time to be thankful for her position in the gang. The ass just followed.
Dipity led the way as the Daughters hustled to their bikes. After she climbed onto her cyclone, Sarah scooted back to leave room for Ava, but the gang’s right arm was stomping toward the shirtless woman.
“My girlfriend, my love, my Susan is dead!”
In one smooth motion, Ava swung a right hook, connected with the woman’s jaw and turned back to Sarah’s cyclone. The shirtless woman hit the ground with a dead smack. Her flab quaked and her bare breasts flopped lopsided toward her face.
“Someone had to shut her up,” Ava said.
The Daughters shot through the open door, headed into the dark heart of Oubliette. Dandelion may or may not have been a murderer, but she was definitely a thief. Sarah wondered if the punishment for it was any less severe.
Chapter 18
Ava had made it easier on Lena. After she KO’d the shirtless woman, the dwellers who’d stormed in with her became silent and disoriented, like b
ees whose big-mouthed queen got squished. Lena told the dwellers to wait in the ganghouse until the other Daughters got back. Then they’d get the justice they were after, but no sooner. She excused herself and led Jessica, the lone dweller who’d come in during all the uproar, up to her room.
“I have to say,” Lena said, as she entered her room and headed for a manna loaf she’d left on her bed, “you being here worries me.”
“You said to let you know if I had anything worth your time.”
“That’s what’s worrisome. But let’s have it.”
Lena offered Jessica a pinch of manna but she refused.
“Shamika is planning on stealing that baby the night the shipment comes.”
“Mother. Fucker.”
Lena threw away her piece of manna and darted for the big window overlooking the city. What did she think she was going to see? The Onyx Coalition riding by and flipping her the bird in defiance? Lena had to admit she’d only gotten up to hide her silent scream from Jessica.
“You did good,” Lena finally said, getting a tiny shred of composure back. “How’d you find out?”
“They had some of us come help put up barricades and fortify their ganghouse. That’s what got me suspicious to begin with. They said it was because Shamika had always wanted more security. But then I heard Shakes asking Brenda if she’d ever taken care of a baby before.”
“Which one is Shakes again?” Lena asked. She was familiar with Brenda, Shamika’s right arm.
“She’s their left leg. The one who’s always jittery. Anyway, Brenda told her to shut her mouth and they walked away before I heard anything else. Their ass kept telling us to hurry up, that we had to come back tomorrow and finish before the next shipment. A lot of them think we’re stupid, but it wasn’t hard to figure out.”
For fuck’s sake, Lena didn’t need this. There had to be a way to use this to her advantage, capitalize on it, but she couldn’t see how. Her whole plan had been to take the baby the night of the shipment, secretively and quickly enough to where her and the Daughters could get back to their ganghouse to fight off the oncoming retribution.