by Terry Brooks
Somewhere deep in his heart, where truths cannot be denied, he knows such hope is false. But still he lingers.
By midafternoon, he admits there is no point in waiting longer. Resigned to the futility of staying, he walks out from the cottage to the road in front of the mansion and summons a robo-taxi. When it arrives, he orders the bot driver to take him to a nearby substem on the border of the Red Zone.
He will go to the only place he might find his absent friends: Street Freaks. He will swing by for a quick look. If there is a reason to stay, he will do so. Otherwise, he will have to come up with a new plan. He cannot imagine what it will be.
On the way, Ash flips on the backseat vidcam and listens to the latest news. It is all about Cyrus Collins and his links to BioGen. His father’s death is mentioned. By now, it is also about ORACLE and the role it might have played in what is being referred to as an unbelievable abuse of discretion and authority. He listens absently, his mind elsewhere. It quickly becomes clear there is nothing new to be learned, so he switches it off and rides the rest of the way in silence.
Once arrived at the substem, Ash goes underground to take the train. From there, he walks. An hour later, he stands in front of his destination.
He is in luck. The police tape blocking access through the gates is gone. There are no signs of Achilles Pod or any other police presence. It is early evening by now, and there are lights on inside the building. He walks up to the call box and triggers the digital pad to announce his presence. He is relieved when Jenny answers and the gate opens.
Jenny Cruz rushes out to greet him, enfolding him in her warm embrace. “We were so worried about you!” she gasps. “Thank goodness you’re all right!”
“Not entirely,” he deadpans, seeing the look on her face as she takes in the damage to his.
Inside the building, Woodrow is there to welcome him back too. The minute he sees the bot boy, a huge wave of relief washes over Ash. “What happened to you last night?” he demands. “One moment you were there on the link and the next you were gone.”
“A malfunction,” the boy answers. “Someone threw up a scramble signal inside BioGen, and I lost contact with you. Everything went dead. I couldn’t manage to reconnect.”
“But when we went back, the safe house was torn apart and you were gone!”
“A speedy exit proved necessary when the black-clads showed up. I went down into the basement and out through a tunnel to the house next door. I told you, Ash—always have an exit plan. I just needed to move a little faster than usual.” He grins. “I can do that, you know, when I have to.”
“So my father’s file got into the right hands?” Ash asks Jenny.
“Everything we wanted to happen is happening. Maybe you’ve heard some of it. BioGen is shut down and Sparx are being pulled from the market and distribution centers so they can be destroyed. The people your father named as accomplices to Cyrus are under arrest. The story is being replayed on every news feed. Your uncle’s grandiose plans are over and done with.”
“Better yet,” Woodrow adds, “the U.T. is looking into what happened to those street kids BioGen was experimenting on. They’re tracking down everyone who was involved, using the names your father provided, demanding a full accounting. It didn’t take long to get it either. There were some scared enough to provide information on all of the others. Just in time to save a handful of kids that were still being held captive, waiting their turn. But there’s an end to it now. It’s over and done with.”
“So here we are,” Jenny interrupts. “After I sent the records you and Cay forwarded last night to all the news agencies and the U.T. president and senate, I made a few calls to a couple of Red Zone officials who are still friends. Asked them how things stood. They said it was all right to return, that the lockout orders had been rescinded. The whole business with your uncle last night changed everything. Woodrow and I came back a few hours ago. Everything was the way we left it. The Shoe was still hanging in Bay 3, so we got him down. Kind of gruesome, but we had to do it. We owed him that much.”
She pauses. “We heard about your uncle. Found dead behind Heads & Tails, no cause given. What happened, Ash?”
He tells them the parts of the story he thinks they need to know. He does not tell them everything. He does not reveal to them what Cay did for him afterward, how she washed him and slept with him, how they made love. He does not wish to divulge any of this. It is a private memory—fuzzy though much of it remains. But it is his memory alone; it belongs to him. Revealing any part of it would feel like a violation.
He does not mention the note.
“We haven’t heard from her,” Woodrow says of Cay. “Not since yesterday.”
“Where’s Holly?” Ash asks, hoping to forestall any further questions about Cay.
“Still at the medical center,” Jenny says. “I think maybe they decided if they kept her there she couldn’t do any more damage to herself. She was pretty banged up. Her regeneration wrap was torn to shreds, and she had cracked ribs and deep contusions. If she hadn’t been wearing body armor, she would be dead. They said she’ll be all right, but it will take her time to heal.”
“Penny-Bird is with her,” Woodrow adds. “Probably making sure she follows doctors’ orders and stays put. But it’s good you’re here. We were really worried.”
“No need to worry about me,” Ash says, shrugging.
But Jenny shakes her head. “I don’t think that’s entirely true. Your nose? The way you walk and hold yourself? Your uncle did a number on you. It’s off to the medical center with you, and no arguments.”
It turns out he has fractured ribs, broken fingers and nose, cuts and lacerations, and bruises of such variety and numbers that he looks like a walking Rorschach test. At the medical center they look him over carefully, wrap his ribs and attend to his wounds, and send him home with a warning not to follow Holly’s example. No one asks him what happened.
On the way back, after the silence drags on for too long, Jenny says to him, “Cay will turn up, Ash. She always does.”
He nods and smiles. He hopes she is right, but wonders.
In the days and weeks that follow, Ash manages to stay busy. He drifts through his waking hours in a kind of daze, busying himself with work, trying not to think too hard or too long about other things. Street Freaks reopens. Jenny is in charge now. The Shoe left her the business—building, inventory, tools, equipment, and accounts—in a will they knew nothing about until after he was gone. He left her the abandoned warehouse down the block as well.
“He must have done it when he was feeling more generous about me,” Jenny observes archly.
But Ash sees the tears.
They are back to building street machines and racers but are out of the corporate espionage game. It is an easy decision to make. They struggle along at first with just the three of them, forced to accept only a minimal number of orders. They look for more help but do not find anyone possessing the skills they want.
Or maybe they just don’t find the kinds of people they want.
Then one day, two months later, just before closing, Penny-Bird walks through the door. It is the first time they have seen or heard from her since that last day at the medical center. From Holly herself, they have heard nothing, even after her discharge. Penny looks different than the last time Ash saw her. The Goth clothing is gone and some of the metal has been removed from her face and body. She smiles—a surprise to both Ash and Woodrow, who are standing in Bay 3 to greet her when she enters.
She walks over without preamble and says, “Business seems good.”
“Not bad,” Ash answers, glancing past her for some sign of Holly.
Penny sees the disappointment reflected on his face and shakes her head. “She isn’t with me, so you can stop looking. She’s back at our place. She’s still recovering, but she’s getting stronger. Her leg is healing; the tissue is regenerating. The wrap comes off in about a week, so we’ll know more then. She’s walking, thou
gh she can’t be up yet for more than a couple hours each day. She’ll need a few weeks, maybe a month, before she’s doing much of anything else.”
“That’s good to hear,” Ash says. “Will you tell her we miss her and want her back?”
Jenny walks out of her office and stands behind Woodrow. Penny-Bird gives her a look. “Is that right, Jenny? Do you want Holly back?”
Jenny Cruz nods. “Does she want to come back?”
Penny nods. “Of course she wants to come back. This is her home. But only if I can come with her. If you’ll have us both. She’d never ask, so I’m asking for her.”
“So she doesn’t know you’re here?”
A dismissive shrug. “You know Holly. She’s stubborn. She wants to be here, but she wants to set the terms.”
Jenny cocks an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t we want you both? You belong together—here, with us. But don’t wait. Move back now. Give yourselves a chance to settle in while she’s recovering.”
The smile on Penny-Bird’s fifteen-year-old face is a revelation.
So they return, and while Holly continues to heal, Penny-Bird goes to work with the others. After the first week, they decide they can manage until Holly is well enough to join them. The new arrangement works fine. Everyone is content.
Which is not the case everywhere. BioGen is now under direct government supervision. The entire hierarchy has been dismissed. Sparx are off the market completely. New regulations govern the dissemination of BioGen products. Experiments on street kids are over. Across the U.T., there is widespread distrust of the company. It will take a long time to win that trust back. If ever. The old days are history. The autonomy and power previously enjoyed by BioGen is a thing of the past.
ORACLE has a new director and a new management board to oversee its operations. Achilles Pod has been reduced to a handful of shock units that function only in national emergencies. Various territorial Preventatives have been given sole responsibility for the crimes that occur in their regions. The black-clads that once dominated local jurisdictions are no longer permitted to do so.
Strife and discontent still surface regularly across the Territories. Separatist movements continue to flourish, engaging in demonstrations against the establishment and making demands for change. Sometimes the authorities respond reasonably; sometimes they do not. The resolution to the problems of the United Territories remains elusive.
Life goes on.
At Street Freaks, Ash undergoes a gradual transformation. He distances himself from the past and embraces his new life. He is reassured by the love and friendship of his friends, especially once Holly returns. They are a family in all the right ways—bonded not by blood, perhaps, but certainly by choice. They have a shared history that binds them. They have a shared understanding of who and what they are. They are not like other kids. They never will be. Ash accepts this. He is one of them now.
Eventually, he stops agonizing over his father. He quits trying to parse the truth behind his involvement with BioGen and Sparx. It is unproductive and pointless. He eventually stops dreaming of the nightmarish confrontation with his uncle and the events that brought the last of what remained of his old life crashing down. He works hard to forget. Gradually, the bad memories fade. His life is different in a good and satisfying way. He is at peace.
Mostly.
But there are limits to everything.
He cannot forget Cay. He doesn’t even try. It would be pointless. His memory that retains so much retains everything about her with an iron grip. She is so deeply ingrained in his consciousness it is as if she is an actual part of him. Even while gone from him physically, her presence lingers. He knows her expressions, her movements, her scent, and all the modulations of her voice. She is not a ghost to him. She is flesh and blood and warmth and softness. She is never a toy, never a synth, never anything other than real. She is a thatch of blond hair cut short and blue eyes a mile deep. She is silk and iron. She is a voice whispering in his ear, a hand resting on his shoulder. She is the promise of things he has never had.
She is always there.
But she does not come back, in spite of the fact that Jenny has assured him she will. Yet he never stops hoping. On the days he is free to do so, he goes searching for her. He knows it is probably futile, but he cannot help himself. He surfs the global vidnet. He searches for her through inquiries on net chatrooms and by physically going out into the Red Zone and following up on rumors. It all leads nowhere.
On most nights, when his day is done, he sits alone in the darkness on the Street Freaks rooftop and thinks of her. He tries to remember if she ever said anything about where she might go if she were to leave. Or where she might want to travel one day, if she had the chance. Or where living elsewhere might appeal to her. All without success.
When he isn’t trying to find her, he spends his time reminiscing about her. He relives the moments they spent together. He breathes the night air and finds her present. He looks up at the stars and dreams of small pleasures and bright moments yet to come.
They are still together. His memories keep her close.
She is not gone from my life. She never will be gone. She is out there somewhere.
He says this to himself, over and over. He repeats it like a mantra. It feels hopeless, but at the same time it feels empowering. As if by saying it, believing it, and bonding with it he can make it come to pass. It would be too painful to admit he might be wrong. It would be crippling. She will come back to him. She must.
That is the reality of his life.
Until one day he can wait no longer. He packs a bag and tells the others he is leaving. He will search for Cay until it becomes clear that the search is pointless.
Jenny shakes her head in obvious dismay but says nothing.
“You won’t be able to find her, Ash,” Holly counsels, one hand clasping his shoulder as if she might not let him go.
He nods. “It doesn’t matter. I have to try.”
“What happened between you two? You’ve never said. But it was something.”
“Something I can’t talk about. Not yet. Not until I find her.”
He gives her a small smile, and she releases her grip. He starts for the door.
“What if she doesn’t want you to find her?” Holly calls out.
He turns back, and the look he gives her is painfully hopeful. “What if she does?”
Giving her a wave, Ash goes out into the larger world to discover who’s right.
About the Author
Terry Brooks is the New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty-five books, including the Fall of Shannara novels The Black Elfstone and The Skaar Invasion; the Genesis of Shannara trilogy: Armageddon’s Children, The Elves of Cintra, and The Gypsy Morph; The Sword of Shannara; the Voyage of the Jerle Shannara trilogy: Ilse Witch, Antrax, and Morgawr; the High Druid of Shannara trilogy: Jarka Ruus, Tanequil, and Straken; the nonfiction book Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life; and the novel based upon the screenplay and story by George Lucas, Star Wars®: Episode I The Phantom Menace™. His novels Running with the Demon and A Knight of the Word were selected by the Rocky Mountain News as two of the best science fiction/fantasy novels of the twentieth century. The author was a practicing attorney for many years but now writes full-time. He lives with his wife, Judine, in the Pacific Northwest.
Shannara.com
TerryBrooks.net
Facebook.com/AuthorTerryBrooks
Twitter: @OfficialBrooks
Instagram: @OfficialTerryBrooks
Table of Contents
Street Freaks
Also by Terry Brooks
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StreetFreaks.xhtml
Also by Terry Brooks
Grim Oak PressSeattle, WA
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, ...
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Cover
StreetFreaks.xhtml
Also by Terry Brooks
Grim Oak PressSeattle, WA
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, ...
For Judine
Table of Contents
StreetFreaksHalfTitle.xhtml