When Ol’ Jack pounced, the hands released her. She fell, bouncing once before rolling to her side. Landing ass to pavement should have hurt, but the zoomer turned the hard ground into padding, and she gawped at the air. Above her, the sound of a beating commenced, meaty thuds interspersed with growls and ‘oofs.’ The scarlet-haired man hit the ground in front of her, face down for an instant before something dragged him out of her field of view. She curled fetal, grinning at the splash crowns the rain made in murky grey puddles.
A firearm chirped to life. Anna looked up, searching for the birds, and giggled at a flock of handguns with wings passing by.
Ol’ Jack brushed the side of his nose with his thumb. “Bad move, mate.”
Four hits came at the pace of a machinegun, chased by the unmistakable crack of a broken arm and a howl. Something landed on her back and slid to the ground. She rolled away, petrified by the mud-splattered pistol next to her. The gun flapped one wing, and went still. It seemed to stare back; somehow, she sensed an electronic heartbeat, threads within where power ran among its components. The glimmering amber lines reminded her of the thing in the back of her mind. A well-dressed man faded in over her, not a speck of mud on his suit. He shook his head at what she had become.
I had to run away from you. Who are you?
Anna kicked the gun away into the muck, shrieking, and crawled towards the building.
Behind her, an uncoordinated barrage of wet footsteps splattered off into the night. She crawled faster, forearm deep in frigid mud. A hand clasped her about the arm. She screamed and fought until the presence of Ol’ Jack’s cologne fell on her. Her panic ebbed; she looked up at him and relaxed. Skin wrinkled about his eyes and a faint green light blinked in a slow cadence between his left ear and his neck. Beads of rainwater on his shoulder caught the light, glinting in the dark with each pulse. A weave of amber threads glowed over his arms for an instant and faded. She admired the lines of his face, thinking he had to be about fifty now, and cuddled against him.
“Bloody hell, Pix… What are you doin’ out here alone at this hour?”
She tried to speak, but all she managed to do was spit bubbles into the air. His age made her feel younger, what he had done for her made him feel like her father. Imagined blue pixie wings thrummed at her back, but failed to let her fly. With a childish giggle, she cooed.
“Daddy.”
He shook his head and pulled her to her feet. “You’re feckin’ legless aren’t ya. That shit’s gonna kill you.”
She tried to walk, clinging to him, but wound up doing little more than twitching. He picked her up and carried her like a bride through the open archway into the tower. The cessation of the pelting rain made her gasp and look at the ceiling as if the world had broken.
“I dunno what gets inta ya, girl. Why do ya do this ta yourself?”
She let her head down on his shoulder as he carried her past blurry images of red letters painted on walls, the shadow of a stairwell, and a chain of dangling lights. Anna held her arms out trying to fly, and closed her eyes.
“Let’s get ya ta bed then.”
ull grey-painted concrete spread out above, lined with the splintering cracks of abandonment. Annabelle raised a hand to her forehead, trying to rub away the dizziness of sobriety and oversleep. A moment later, the cause of her consciousness became apparent as a rhythmic tapping on the wall. From the sound of it, a couple in the next apartment went at it full tilt.
She sat up to find her boots slouched next to the bed and the imitation denim jacket missing. Her bag rested upon the nightstand, grimed windows muted the sun’s feeble attempt to poke through the clouds. White patterns laced across peach-colored walls; through half-closed eyes, it looked as though someone had tried to paint flowering ivy wherever plaster flaked to the ground. Naked wires carried stolen electricity to a single fist-sized LED in the center of the ceiling.
Oh, right. I’m home.
Blood and dirt spattered her in equal parts, she had no idea where the blood came from, but did remember going out for a fix last night. She slid off the bed and staggered into the bathroom, straight to autoshower, still in her top and skirt. Anna punched the console to start the machine. Somewhere along the second run, she slipped out of her clothes and swayed with her best attempt at standing upright. During the third cycle, she peeled the spent derm off her arm and cast it into the swirling torrent around the drain. With her hands as high as they would go, she stretched, before running them down over her face, chest, and stomach. Anna glanced at herself, gliding her fingers over her ribs.
The East Ender was right. I should eat more.
She stared at her body, the swath of milky skin broken only by a three-inch tall tattoo of a pixie on the front of her right hip. Its hair was short and white, like hers, with cobalt blue wings that trailed tiny stars around her side. Anna traced a finger around it, grinning at the thought of the long-ago boyfriend who had started calling her Pixie due to her short stature, slight build, and short hair. He had wanted it to touch her naughty bits with a wand, but that was far too bawdy for her back then. Her wistful smile melted away at the thought of his death―and who she was now.
The autoshower kicked into its dry cycle, embracing her with a whirlwind of hot air. Coils of wire beneath her feet pulsed in the back of her mind; the current moving through the inner workings of the fan motors called to her. Every wire, every motor, every detail of the circuitry manifested clear in her thoughts on racing threads of amber light superimposed over reality. Anna felt ashamed at the sight; her father shouted out of the past, angry with her for breaking things. Her body cowered without thinking, away from an expected fist.
It’s not my fault! It just does what it wants! Her tween-aged voice screamed in her memory.
Anna leaned her face against the tube, sobbing as she remembered the house where her childhood began and ended. No matter how much she tried to control it, the thing in her head had destroyed her home. Her father’s begging had become demanding, and then beating. It only made things worse.
Spawny tapped on the plastic.
Huddled on the floor inside the autoshower, arms crossed over her face, she could not recall going from standing to sitting, or how long she had been in there after the hot air cycle ended. She lowered her guard, frowning at the wiry and quite naked body hovering on the other side of clear plastic. Long black hair hung to his waist, his emaciated frame gave him the look of a famous holovid star well on his way to burning out before thirty. When her mind caught up to her eyes, she held a hand over them.
“Done yet? Our autoshower is shafted.”
“Dammit man, I don’t need to see that.”
A little nudge poked at the back of her mind. She wanted to be embarrassed, but could not find the energy for the emotion. Spawny had been on her for weeks about having a threesome with her best friend Penny, but some lines she still refused to cross. He always wore the same smirking grin whenever he brought it up, lending enough doubt to his seriousness that neither she nor Penny had gotten upset with him. She gathered her semi-dry clothes, and put them on before opening the tube.
He leaned into her as she stepped out into the cold air, his chin a half-inch above her eye level. The scent of Penny clung to him.
“Offer still stands, luv. Girl’s got needs, right?”
She pushed past him into the bedroom. “No thanks.”
“What?” He spun to face her, arms by his sides, ‘little Spawny’ swinging side to side. “Penny’s fine with it.”
“No, she’s not. Even if by some twisted parallel universe bend she was, I’m not.”
Spawny inhaled as he entered the tube. “What so you’ll wave ‘em ‘round a room full o’ gits, but won’t have a romp with your besties?”
Anna ignored him, retrieving her boots and purse from the bedroom before going across the hall to Penny’s apartment. The air hung stagnant and thick, filled with the aromas of food and sex. She kicked small pieces of trash out of her way as she w
alked in.
“Oi, Penny? You ‘ere?”
“In the kitch.” Her friend’s voice came around the corner of the pale green wall.
Anna ducked through the crumbling plaster arch separating the kitchenette from the remainder of the place, and the smell of cooking overpowered the fragrance of the other room. To her relief, she found her friend dressed, as much as a knee-length pink shirt with large holes could be called such.
Penny Dhara arrived in London a month or two after Anna hit the street. They’d come to Coventry together. A mail-order bride from Bangalore at the age of sixteen, she had been eager for a new life married to an executive. As it turned out, the executive never existed. A street gang’s cyberspace jock falsified records to purchase her for use in a brothel, but the police had intercepted her at the shuttle port. Unable to afford to return home, she wound up stuck in London. They had run into each other as scared children and had been inseparable since.
Penny grinned over her shoulder, her knee length hair swirling around as Anna took a seat and pulled her boots on.
“Jesus, luv.” Penny set the cooking aside and hurried over to fuss with Anna’s hair. “You’re a right mess. You’ve gotta change somethin’. I hate seein’ you like this.”
“I’m fine.” Anna’s elbow hit the table hard. “Spawny’s at it again.”
“Oh, pay him no mind. He doesn’t learn.” Penny picked at her a moment more, and returned to the stove. “You’ve lost control, Pix. The shit’s no good for you, certainly not better than workin’ for Carroll.”
The lights flickered. Anna bent forward, sniffling.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Pix… I didn’t mean to make you think of Tommy.”
Anna looked up, red around her eyes, and wiped her nose. “I… I couldn’t save him. Bloody filth shot him because of me. He was always reckless, showing off.” She covered her face as the tears came on strong. “Tommy was more worried about Arsenal winning than us gettin’ killed.”
“Every time I ask how it was your fault, you change the subject.” Penny’s spatula scraped a pan. “When are you going to let me into your private world?”
“Is your autoshower buggered or did he just want to peeping tom me?”
“See, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. The water’s a bit tepid, but it runs.” Penny put two sausages on a plate with some eggs and set it on the table. “Probably wanted to gape.”
“Figured.” Anna tucked closer to her breakfast. “Thanks.”
Penny fixed herself a plate and sat. Before she touched the food, she put a hand on Anna’s wrist. “I’ve been looking after you for ten years, yet I feel like you’re shutting me out of some important bits. You need to change some things, Pix. Ol’ Jack said you were a mess last night, called him Daddy.”
Wearing a fierce blush, Anna poked at her food, unable to look up. “Yeah.”
“You can tell me, Pix. I don’t care what you’re hidin’ from. I can’t help unless you let me. You used to kill people for that sod Carroll, didn’t you? You know the Syndicate never forgets. Is that what you’re trying to protect me from?”
“No.” Annabelle shuddered.
She stared at the plate; flickering blue light, men screaming, and the scent of burned meat came back to her. Her nature had turned her own father against her. She could not bear it if Penny reacted the same way. She had to keep it down. She had to drown it in zoom.
“It’s got somethin’ to do with the way electronics tend to ‘ave short lives ‘round you, innit?”
Anna cringed, biting her lower lip. “You noticed.”
“How could I not?”
“Please don’t make me say it.” Anna sniffled like a ten-year-old.
Aside from the scraping of forks, silence held the kitchen for a few minutes before Spawny returned, still naked, and collected his breakfast on a plate. Anna leaned her head in her left hand, looking away from him.
“Good morning, ladies.” Spawny slid his hand over Anna’s head as he passed, patting her like a cat.
“Put some bloody clothes on, we ‘ave a guest.” Penny threw a napkin at him.
“Nonsense, luv. You know she can’t ‘elp but bask in the glory.”
“You’ve an odd notion of glory,” muttered Anna, too low for either of them to hear.
“Stuff it.” Penny scowled. “You know she’s sensitive about it.”
“Oh yeah, real sensitive. Sensitive enough to dance starkers at BC.”
Anna shrank in on herself.
“Lay off it, Milo.” He cringed at Penny using his real name. “The dole ain’t enough to get on, and it’s the only work she’s got. Did it ever occur to you maybe she hates it?”
“Roight. Uh”―Spawny scratched his head and swiped pajama pants off the back of a nearby chair―“Soz, luv.”
“I should be off, then.” Anna started to stand, but hesitated with a dying thought at the tip of her brain. Whatever she had wanted to say came out as, “thanks for the brekky.”
She forced a pleasant smile at Penny, left her plate in the sink, and walked out.
ondon these days had two types of weather: raining, and about to be raining. Today was the latter, though the breeze was still up and about. Anna’s thin red jacket did not do as well against it as Spawny’s imitation denim. The Ruin, lit by the day, stretched out into a sea of black mud lakes, bridged here and there by fragments of surviving road.
A trio of little girls wearing dirt and simple dresses giggled and climbed over a decrepit tank hulk that mired in the ground long before their parents were born. A boy their age dangled from the bent cannon. Anna glanced at them and balanced her way across a fallen signpost crossing a huge puddle.
Poor kids… She watched them play, jealous of their innocence and pained by what the future held for them. He’s probably gonna wind up with the Boys, if he lives long enough. The unrestrained joy on the girls’ faces made her feel even lower at what she had become. Why do Covs have children? It’s cruel.
“Oi, kids. Get ‘way from that. Might be somethin’ left behind in it could hurt ya.”
The children darted off as a pack into the muck, and Anna made her way as best she could along the paved bits towards the police line. Anywhere a route away from The Ruin was passable, the police blocked it off.
It had been that way for three years now, ever since the Trafalgar Unrest. The people responsible for the attack had fled into The Ruin to elude the law. For all anyone knew, they still hid out here somewhere, though they’d be geriatrics. The police wanted no part of the place. Everyone from patrolmen to politicians had been certain it would set off a massive gang war and give the left-wingers endless ammunition to weaken the Crown. Despite pressure to bring the terrorists to justice, the authorities decided to wall it off. Rather than take the criminals to jail, they made their home into a prison―and to Hell with everyone else in there.
At six of them to one Cov, Old Bill acted the lords of London; the other way around, they ran like chickens in black. Perimeter watch offered boring inglorious work to a constable, and it had become a dumping ground for less-than-stellar officers. The longer a constable spent here, the less likely they would get redeemed back to being ‘real’ policemen. Most of the long-timers took out their vexation upon the Covs.
Anna hesitated behind the shadow of a slab of concrete wall, staring at the checkpoint. Usually, Spawny and a couple of his friends would walk her to town to lessen the chances The Filth would mess with her. She chewed on her lip, chiding herself for storming off alone. Cold fingers brushed at the bridge of her nose, trying to push her drug-addled mind closer to something resembling lucidity. Evading detection used to be an easy trick for her to do.
She focused on the police, trying to get a sense of their minds. Her atrophied telepathic sense sputtered, producing only a feeling as though she eavesdropped on a conversation through a thick wall. How did it go? She recalled it had something to do with wanting them not to see her. She concentrated on forcing their minds t
o disregard her existence.
At a snail’s pace, she crept, concentrating. Do not see me. A pair of police vans sat nose to nose at the street she chose to leave by, four men in black armor with yellow armbands stood guard at the wall of a small portable building.
It’s working…
“Oi, Wot’s your name?”
Fuck.
A ponderous fellow, whose belt barely contained his gut, waved her to a halt.
Her words came as a pitiful squeak, a hair above a whisper. “Annabelle, constable.”
“Annabelle wot then?”
“Morgan, constable.” She kept her gaze upon the wet road.
The shadow of an armored man fell on her; a mixture of sweet pastry, sweat, and coffee exuded from every pore. She knew what meat felt like, knew it every night she worked at the Bristol City Club―only here she would not be paid for it.
“Need some extra precautions with this one.” He nodded to his comrades with a wink, waving her at the door of the little building. “Come on then, in ya go.”
Keeping her eyes down, she offered no protest as he led her by a one-handed grip on her arm to the small pod building at the boundary line. Decorated in plain steel grey, it was as bleak inside as the sky outside. One desk, two chairs, a plain chrome table, and a weapons vault complimented the communications suite at the far end. Through a tiny doorway, the presence of holding cells brought a shiver.
“There’s a bit of a gate tax, luv.”
Her mousy response sounded like someone else had taken control. “Yes constable, whatever your pleasure.”
“‘Ands up then.”
She complied, passive as he handcuffed her through a bar overhead. The posture forced someone of her stature up on tiptoe. Anna bit her lower lip, grunting from the discomfort of her weight shifting to her wrists. The large man walked around behind her, pulling off his gloves.
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