by Faith Hunter
I walked closer and leaned to him, sniffing, wondering if I could smell his fear. “Until today you knew me as Ms. Smith. That’s all you’ve ever known me as. But a bit ago you called me”—I took a slow breath, my nose at his throat—“Shining.” His pulse pounded in his neck. The sweat stink in his clothes was potent. “Tell me about Clarisse Warhammer.”
He couldn’t help his intake of breath. My skin caught a faint vibration of foreign nanobots in his sweat. That was interesting. I hadn’t known I could detect them that way.
“Did Warhammer come by, looking for me? Ask you some questions?” He didn’t react. “Did…” I stopped so close I could feel the damp heat of his body. “Did you get an offer to capture my friend, Harlan, and send him to her?”
Marty flinched. Mateo’s cursing stopped. Jagger targeted Wanda’s head. She whimpered.
Marty’s eyes dilated and then constricted. Softly, so softly I wasn’t sure he’d hear me, I asked, “Did you give Harlan to Warhammer? Did you help her kill my friend?” My tone dropped lower. “Maybe give her my address? Send her after me?”
“She. Shesheshe—” He stopped suddenly, only now realizing how deep this pit of trouble was. Really, really bad trouble. He licked his desert-dry lips. “She came by. Asked some questions. She—” he stopped again. “Ms. Smith, I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt. I liked Harlan. She told me she just wanted to talk to him.”
“And you believed her,” I stated, my quiet tone mocking.
Wanda spoke up. “She showed up here a few months back. Marty knew what she wanted and what she planned. You let me go and I’ll tell you everything I know.”
“And everything Marty knows?” Jagger asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I know everything he does.”
I smiled at Marty. Aimed at his gut. Pressed the blaster’s trigger. He stood there, uncertainty on his face, followed by confusion. He looked down at the weapon. Frowned hard. Coughed softly. Blood boiled from his nose and trickled from his mouth. Marty fell at my feet. Twitched. Died.
“You killed my friend,” I said to his corpse.
Killing Marty wasn’t enough. Nothing would ever be enough.
I aimed another blast at his head until brains bubbled out his ears.
“Asshole, you and Amos bring the men down, truss them so they can breathe a little. Put the living and this piece of crap inside. Wanda and I are going to have a little chat.” I walked over and took her from Jagger, shoving her against the door to the storefront. I searched her thoroughly and not at all gently, opened the door, and thrust her inside. She landed face down on the cool floor. I hauled her up with one fist and rammed her into a chair.
“You said you’d let me go,” she said.
“I didn’t say you’d have all your teeth.”
∆∆∆
Marty’s keys in my pocket, I sat at the table where we had eaten a meal together, as the air conditioner cooled me. I sipped Marty’s good coffee in the silence, and watched as his body began to cool and grow stiff on the floor at my feet, his bladder and bowels loosening. The two men who had been ready to kill me from the roof were sitting close by the body. They squirmed and worried, hands secured behind their backs, a rope pulling their arms so high that struggling meant pulling their shoulders out of joint. Their expressions said they knew they were in deep trouble and had no easy way out of the mess they were in. They weren’t gagged, but neither of them spoke, their breaths panting, growing faster each time a cat curled up on them and rolled over on their crotches, looking up at them, showing teeth, hissing softly.
I thought it was funny, but I was beginning to think I might be slightly warped.
As I drank my coffee, Jagger and Cupcake secured the premises. Amos kept an eye on the two captives. Wanda, Marty’s right-hand man, watched me. Eventually, I turned emotionless eyes to her. Into the quiet, I said, “Talk.”
“A few months past—I have the date on the calendar if you need it—a woman calling herself Clarisse Warhammer showed up asking questions. She asked about Harlan and about crazy stuff, like spaceships and war weapons. She flashed around a lot of money and brought a camo-painted container for trade.”
“Was she alone?”
“Two men, one with an eyepatch, but she was in charge. The three of them were still here when I went home for the day and were here when I came back the next day. He never said, but I know Marty. He slept with her and told her everything she wanted to know. The next time Harlan came by to do business, Marty coldcocked him, put him in a cage, and called Warhammer for a pickup. When she got here, the negotiations were totally private. I wasn’t part of them. But Warhammer brought in the rest of the camo-painted containers when she picked up Harlan.”
I poured more coffee. The trickle of liquid was loud in the silence. The cold air blowing up my back felt like heaven. Still quietly, I asked, “And you didn’t call the Law about a man sold like a piece of meat?”
“What would I say?” she asked bitterly. “The Law loves Marty. If I called the cops and Marty handed them a wad of cash and sent them on their way? Then what? I’m out a job and Marty has me killed and my kid gets sent to the city orphanage.” She went silent, watching me. Standing her ground. I found myself liking her. I wondered if Clarisse had touched her too.
I sipped and waited, letting the tension rise, my odd eyes on Wanda.
“I’ll get those papers.” She went to the computer and the file cabinet behind the desk. Amos maneuvered to cover her, a shotgun over the lip of the counter. He didn’t look smart, but he was. I was liking Amos a lot too. I had a feeling that my nanobots would like anyone I could control, and that was a bad thing.
Wanda searched for and printed out all the business and personal paperwork Marty kept on premises. She wrote a valid sales receipt to me, stating that the camo containers (specifying each one by number and location) and all the equipment in them were duly paid for by Smith’s Junk and Scrap. Yesterday. “It’s the least you deserve,” she said.
I didn’t reply.
It was blood money. Harlan’s blood money.
Wanda placed all my paperwork as well as Warhammer’s paperwork on the table by my coffee saucer. I looked at the small stack of papers. Then back up at her. She quailed just a little. Without comment, I flipped through the pages, spotted a few of Clarisse’s that might prove interesting, folded the stack one-handed, and shoved it in a jeans pocket. I’d use the weapons in the containers—weapons that had paid for Harlan’s death—to take Clarisse down.
Jagger made some calls and Marconi arranged for diesel rigs to haul away my containers. Cupcake and Jagger oversaw everything.
Wanda watched us for a while, and as the afternoon hours passed, she began to bring me more trade goods. The good stuff. The expensive stuff. I added them to the clinking bag. She told me everything she thought I might want to know and a lot that I had no interest in but might come in handy later. When she was done, I had gobs of info—one particular item invaluable. I stood, removed my gloves, and bent over the guards, holding my bare hands close to their faces. I felt no vibrations from Warhammer’s nanobots. I re-gloved.
I stood and turned to Wanda, asking, “Did Clarisse Warhammer wear gloves?”
“Yes. Well, the first day. She wasn’t wearing them when I came back the morning after.”
“Did you get sick after she left?”
“Yes. Marty and I both had fevers. . . .” She stopped and stared at my gloved hands. “Did she have the . . . the Zombie plague? Am I going to break out in boils in a few weeks and go crazy?”
Everyone still alive remembered the plagues, especially the Zombie plague, transmitted by touch. The virus had come from the melting icecaps and had affected humans’ brains.
“Do you have access to a med-bay?”
“Yes,” she whispered, confusion on her face. “A portable one. It’s in back.”
“How are you getting home?”
“I have an old electric truck. Long bed.”
I removed my gloves again and held out my bare sweaty hands. Wanda shrank back. I reached as if to touch her and felt the telltale vibration. “I’m sorry. She infected you. I feel it in your skin. I survived what Warhammer has and I have the . . . let’s call them antibodies. I can share them with you. Then we can put the med-bay in the bed of your truck. When you go home, make arrangements for your kid for a week. You’ll be sick again soon. Set the med-bay to monitor your vitals and flush you with fluids. Insert every Berger chip you can find to help your brain stay active. In seventy-two hours, you’ll know if you live or die.”
She cursed, still staring at my bare hands, then at the door, which was too far away. Big globular tears ran down her face. With no way out, Wanda placed her shaking hands in mine. They were cold.
I was ashamed that I felt nothing other than that. I pushed my mutated, altered nanobots, feeling them crawl across her skin, searching for entrance—any minuscule cut, abrasion, torn cuticle—and claimed her as mine. I gave it twenty minutes. When I was done, I sat down and pulled my gloves back on. I wasn’t sure if a second transition was kinder than the actual Zombie plague or not.
“In sixty minutes, you can wash your hands. Not until then.”
She took a frightened breath through parted lips.
“When we’re done, you will get in your vehicle and go home. And stay there. You quit your job today because you got sick this morning and because your boss was selling black-market weapons. That will be your story. Where is Marty’s safe?”
Wanda paled. She had carefully not mentioned a safe. She had planned on keeping the cash for herself. Not that I blamed her. “Half the cash in it is yours,” I said. “But you have to lie low. And if you give me up to anyone, you’ll go like Marty did.” I looked at him and his henchmen, trying to decide what to do with them. Fortunately, before I thought it all through, Jagger came in. “I’d rather not have to dispose of them,” I said to him, pointing at the prisoners. “Will Marconi take care of it?”
“Yeah. But it won’t be pretty.”
“No!” one of the men said. “Not Marconi.”
“He’ll give us to Mina,” the other one said. “We’ll do anything.”
I sighed. I couldn’t take them. Or better to say that I wouldn’t. No matter how much my nanobots wanted to create a nest. To Jagger I said, “If they swear to McQuestion?”
“Doable. Better than being dead.”
The prisoners looked at each other. Simultaneously they said, “Whatever that is, yes.”
I said to Jagger, “Do it.”
Jagger pulled his cell and stepped outside. Big rigs arrived, and Marty’s container-moving equipment—a monster portable antigravity device—went to work lifting the containers and putting them on Marconi’s truck beds.
∆∆∆
After Wanda left for the last time, I sat in my chair, gloves on, sipping my third mug of coffee, and watched as Jagger handed over the two henchmen to a biker wearing an OMW kutte. Sat as they were hauled away in a new electric car. Sat as the camo-painted containers were hauled off and stored at the hotel until I could get them back to Smith’s. I’d owe Marconi for this. Maybe he could take over Marty’s scrapyard.
I stared at Marty on the floor and sipped some more. He was wearing khakis and a blue shirt. His belt matched his shoes. His shit stank. I had a feeling Marty would have been surprised at that.
I hated killing people. I hated the odd look in their eyes when they knew they were dead, that moment of surprise and uncertainty and shock when the pain hit and their blood boiled and their organs sizzled. But this guy? He killed Harlan as surely as if he tortured my friend himself. And Wanda had been right. If she called the Law, her future would have been even more doubtful and . . . fraught, maybe? . . . than the future she faced now. The Law was uncertain. Vengeance wasn’t.
The sun threw long shadows. Cupcake entered, Jagger behind her, bringing with them the tantalizing smell of food. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Spy slithered in with them and jumped to the office counter. Cupcake arranged hemp-based take-out containers in the center of the table and set out three fancy plates and silver utensils from Marty’s stock. It was comfort food—eggs sunny-side up on top of fried wheat bread, with a platter of hash browns and a sliced tomato. And a bowl of grits with butter melted on top. Grits looked nasty.
Cupcake poured more coffee, which I didn’t drink. Even with my nanobots, the caffeine had me shaking. They sat and we ate, as if there weren’t a dead body stinking of feces and sour urine on the floor only feet away. I pushed away the grits and Jagger took them. The Mobile boy liked his Southern food, it seemed. I ate. And I ate. We all did. We didn’t talk, which was good. I had no idea what to say.
When we were done, Cupcake brought out a garbage bag and dumped our debris into it, tying it and placing it near the door. She retook her seat. She stared at me. So did Jagger. I sighed. “Okay. Ask your questions.”
“Warhammer created a nest, deliberately infecting people,” Jagger said. “Tying them to her, using them for whatever she wanted. Why did you transition Wanda?”
“I didn’t have a choice. Warhammer touched things in here, leaving her sweat everywhere. That left her nanobots behind. By accident, or on purpose, I don’t know. Wanda had already transitioned. The boys you sent to McQuestion hadn’t. If I left her like she was, Warhammer would eventually call her. Wanda would tell her about everything that happened here. And”—I looked at my gloved hands—“when we did attack Warhammer, Wanda would have died with her queen. I like Wanda.”
“So far as we can tell,” Cupcake said, “you only infected Mateo, us two, and now Wanda, which I understand. But what are you going to do with her?”
I looked at Jagger. “You stayed away. She can stay away too.”
Jagger frowned, his whole face pulling down like a death mask. His voice was rough as sandpaper and his words bitter as wormwood when he rasped out, “I wake up wanting you. I want you every single moment of every single day. I spend every one of those moments trying to figure out how to please you. What you might need that I can provide or do to make sure you’re safe and happy.”
I went still as stone. Remembering the very few others I had touched in my life.
“The nights are worse. I wake up in the night, thrashing from dreams”—he took a breath that sounded pained—“wanting you. I fight the need to come to you every single day. Wanda will not be able to fight the compulsion to come to you. It might not be bad for the first few weeks, but she’ll come looking for you out of desperation.”
Spy jumped on the table and brought her nose to my face. It wasn’t a talk to me gesture. It was pure cat, scenting me. “Did you feed the cats?” I asked Cupcake.
“Marty had some cooked shrimp in the fridge. They smelled a little off, but the cats liked them fine.”
Spy sprawled across the table. Two other cats joined her from somewhere, sniffing and curious, before stretching out and beginning the job of grooming. I rubbed my scalp and turned back to Jagger. “I thought the Berger-chip programs were helping you.”
“They do,” Jagger replied. “But nothing makes the need for you go away.”
“That compulsion is one major reason why I don’t transition people, that and the dying part. The first ones I transitioned died. It was horrible.”
I had accidently transitioned a young biker I liked by touching his hand in passing. He got sick and died. And I deliberately transitioned Pops in the vain attempt to keep him alive when he was dying horribly. I hadn’t known what I was doing. He died too. And then I found Mateo, a slave of the sheriff in a nearby town, also dying, because mech nanobots from a battle with a space-worthy PRC Mama-Bot had gotten inside his warbot suit and were eating him alive. He had been badly injured, but he had figured out how to kill the mech nanobots in and on equipment. At his direction, I put his suit under Smith’s big AG Grabber to decontam, and him in the med-bay for palliative treatment since there was no cure. Humans didn’t survive under WIMP anti
gravity energies.
But he kept fighting. Kept trying to live.
The mech-nanos infecting him were so numerous that my only option was to transition him to my own bio-mech-nanos, hoping they would be able to convert the PRC nanos and repair some of the damage. It took weeks, and I monitored him every second. I flushed so much fluid through his system that Mateo should have drowned. Yet he survived. Because he was brain damaged, I uploaded him with Berger chips to reteach him everything.
He developed autonomy of a sort. My first success.
And then the man from Naoma who wanted to date me. He had touched my things in my office. That was when I learned the nanobots in my sweat and blood lived for a while on things I touched. He got sick, and I kept him alive using med-bay protocols I had created for Mateo, but without the Berger chips. He survived.
But he got persistent, repeatedly showing up at the scrapyard, begging me to be his girlfriend, his wife, his anything. He followed me. Stalkerish. When he attacked me, Mateo killed him and put his body under some scrap. I guessed his bones were still there.
Now I had Mateo, Jagger, Cupcake, and Wanda, who had a kid. Jagger was right. She would show up at some point, and I would have to take her in. I was building a nest whether I wanted one or not.
“Bloody hell,” I whispered. “Bloody damn hell.”
“Why do you say that?” Cupcake asked. “Why not shit or fuck like normal people?”
I grinned slightly. “The first time I said shit, Pops backhanded me across the room. He gave me a list of appropriate cuss words, and shit and fuck were not on it. I liked the ones he used, so bloody damn and hell and bugger it is.” I thought a moment. “Sometimes bollocks.”
“Wanda?” Jagger asked, returning us to the problems at hand.
My smile fell away. “All I can do is wish her good luck.”
Jagger crossed his big arms and said, “Eventually McQuestion’s going to find out about you being Shining Smith. What do I tell him?”
“Why should anyone find out—?” I stopped. Clarisse Warhammer was telling people who I was. The MS Angels had to know. McQuestion would learn through his network of spies. The reappearance of Shining Smith would hit the rank and file of the Outlaws like a wrecking ball, which I had been trying to avoid for so many years. And he would ask Jagger about me. Jagger knew I was Shining Smith. Jagger was keeping secrets from his boss. No OMW was permitted divided loyalties. That was a death sentence.