Hath No Fury

by Melanie R. Meadors

  “You want?” she cooed in a singsong voice. She held out a relaxy. The drug was in a tiny aerosol can the size of my pinky.

  Suit waved her away, then his hand snapped right back to his knee.

  Koku staggered over to me.

  I didn’t need it, but Jimmy was offering. I took it and put it to my nose. My eyes rolled back into my head as the drug took hold. I barely heard Koku go back to her charging dock or Suit start to retch. A sweet blissful calm overtook me and suddenly I didn’t mind Jimmy’s flying anymore.

  THE DRUG WORE OFF BY the time we landed in a podunk little settlement called Mercy. The settlement was located in a place known as “Texas” before the United States of America was dissolved in favor of the Havens. Boss already paid Jimmy for the flight, so I grabbed my bag and walked down the ramp in the back of the airship. The ramp had lost most of its traction, the yellow metal rungs worn down smooth and silver. I slipped more than walked.

  Suit glided down it without fumbling, his head turning slightly as he scanned our surroundings. Now on steady ground, he had his cool back, and I was reminded he was a professional. He pressed his sleeve against his mouth and muttered something I couldn’t hear.

  “Arigato!” Koku said enthusiastically as we left. She bowed and one of her oversized breasts slipped from the kimono. When she stood, I reached out and fixed her outfit. I pulled off the loose obi then wrapped it around her waist and double knotted it in front for good measure.

  The Mercy airship landing zone was small and enclosed only by a chain link fence. The sky was a brilliant scorching orange where the sun was on the verge of disappearing below the horizon. Without towering buildings and electrified walls enveloping me, I felt incredibly vulnerable. A handful of Infected would tear those fences down as though they were paper.

  For the first time since we boarded the transport ship, Suit spoke to me, breaking me from my thoughts. “Fuck me, it’s hot.”

  Despite almost being night, it was hot. Too fucking hot for someone from a rainy, cool Haven up in the Pacific Northwest. I smelled hot asphalt, smoke, and behind that hundreds of miles of grasslands. There wasn’t even a breeze to give some respite.

  “Astute observation.” I wiped my forehead and the back of my hand came away slick with perspiration. “Bet you didn’t know what you were getting into coming here.”

  “Actually, I did. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be doing my job right. Fun fact, Mercy was formed by a radical anti-tech group who abandoned the Southern Haven fifty years ago.”

  I bit my lip and raised a brow. “That’s a fact. Not a fun fact. Why do you think a top tier Bonecrusher would retire in a place like this?”

  He shrugged. “Hell if I know. I’ve never understood it myself, what they do.”

  The Valkyrie7’s engine rumbled to life and ended our conversation. We started walking across the tarmac and headed towards the more substantial wall separating the landing zone from the city. The sliding gate was open, not a care in the world, and behind it I saw the motel.

  Now in speaking range, I slowed my pace, curious by what Suit said.

  “What’s there to not understand? When you were a kid, didn’t you want to be a Bonecrusher? Insane fighting skills, sick guns and blades, millions of adoring fans, and a badass costume?”

  “No.”

  “No…?”

  “Fighting in the Arena, risking my life for people’s entertainment doesn’t get me off. I’d rather watch.” Suit slapped a mosquito on his neck. A tiny smear of his own blood threatened to stain the edge of his stiff white collar. “And look, they obviously go crazy once they retire. Why else would someone live outside of a Haven?”

  That was the question, wasn’t it? What if the infamous Darla Dreadful was a washed up drunk who was just looking to make a quick buck? All I needed was enough info to write a decent piece, so as long as she was coherent enough to answer the questions I’d prepared, I suppose it didn’t matter if she was a total loser.

  Suit stepped in front of me and opened the door to the motel reception office.

  The corner of the door tapped a bell mounted to the wall and it chimed, the sound clear and delicate. There was one woman leaning back in her chair behind a waist-high counter. She was reading a genuine book. A book made out of dead trees.

  “Hello.” The wrinkles in her tanned skin deepened as she smiled. “You’re the only guests we’ve got so I’ve been expecting you. Flight okay?”

  “Flying over Infected isn’t any good for my blood pressure. Other than that, it was fine,” I answered. “Definitely need some rest.”

  I noticed two incredibly high-tech Beretta laser rifles mounted on the wall. It took me a moment to recognize the model. It wasn’t a lethal force weapon. It was a tranquilizer.

  Weird. And slightly creepy.

  She slid a metal key across the counter. Room 10. “Locks aren’t electronic and I lost the master key a couple years ago so don’t lose this. Vending machine out front if you’re hungry.”

  Paper books, metal keys. I was transported through time into the dawn of the 2000s. “Great. Thanks.”

  Suit had Room 1, so we stopped at his place first. The motel was shaped like a U, and his room was directly across from mine.

  “Don’t leave your room. Tomorrow, bright and early, we interview Darla Dreadful and head home. Got it?”

  I smiled real wide. “You got it.”

  The motel was much nicer than I expected. Sure, there were water stains on the wall—one looked a lot like Boss—and the yellowed tile in the bathtub had grout stained a suspicious shade of reddish brown. But the sheets were clean and the place smelled like nothing much in particular. Better than most places you’d find in a Haven. I had a nice view of an overgrown lot with the skeleton of a burned down building protruding from the dead grass.

  Not a second had passed since I did my preliminary motel room checks that my phone chimed. I grabbed the earpiece from my bag and popped it in. I already knew who it was.

  “What’s shakin’, Boss?”

  “Your bodyguard informed me you’d both arrived and were settled in for the night.” His voice was all gravel. “I’d like to stress that last part about being settled in for the night.”

  I masked my laugh with a cough. “Right. I know. There’s a lot of money in this story. Don’t fuck it up.”

  “MC,” he sighed. I imagined him leaning back in his rickety desk chair, sweat trailing down his forehead no matter the temperature around him. “It isn’t just the money. MegaCorp has their fist so far up my ass I can taste yesterday’s breakfast.”

  That was news to me. I knew a story on Darla Dreadful would get us a lot of hits, thus a lot of ad revenue, but…

  “Why’s MegaCorp so interested? You didn’t tell me that when I came down here.”

  “Shit. I shouldn’t have said anything at all.”

  “It’s five o’clock over there, isn’t it?”

  “Get off my back, MC,” he grumbled. Five o’clock meant Boss had no less than three scotches in his belly. “When they found out she contacted us—which isn’t a scandal, they own our damn station—they asked for updates. So, as soon as you interview her, I expect all your raw interview files sent straight away. With the Arena so soon, I think they want to keep close tabs on what the media is posting. You know how it goes.”

  I did, all too well. I could tell the Boss wasn’t going to give me anything else so I promised I’d be good and bid him farewell. After that, I climbed out the back window and took a breath of fresh air.

  I’D BEEN TO TOWNS SMALLER than Mercy and a thousand times bigger and they always had one thing the same. A seedy bar. A hub of life, the oasis in the desert all animals flocked to.

  The bar was situated between a boarded up, unmarked building and a pawn shop that offered repairs on laser rifles. The front windows were blacked out. There were posters tacked onto the ancient wood exterior, most of them faded beyond recognition.

  When I walked in, the piss scent o
f homemade beer hit me hard. The place seated thirty comfortably but only a dozen scattered around the tables, single pool table, and beat up bar that extended from one end of the building almost to the other.

  I received some interested glances. I didn’t think it was my spiky red hair or shiny neon blue pants, currently popular in the Havens, thank you very much. It was because I was an outsider.

  Without missing a beat, I crossed the grimy wooden floor to the bar and plopped myself down in a seat that offered me a good view of the place. I scanned for Darla Dreadful just in case. There were a couple women, but it was mostly men. No Dreadful.

  There was a bar over the TV. It was bulky and ancient by modern standards, but there it was. A recap of last year’s top kills from the Arena played. A tight shot of Dandy Randy flashed on the screen. His perfectly styled white hair was slicked back from his head, his curly mustache bleached to match his ’do. Sometimes he wore a bowler hat but that year at the Arena he opted to go without. He stood on the back of an Infected and literally ripped off its head with his bare hands. Blood spurted across the sandy arena and onto his old-timey suit. The camera zoomed out and followed him while he used the head as a bludgeoning device on an oncoming Infected.

  I’d seen the clip dozens of times. He was one of my personal favorites. His Gimmick was unique and he was gorgeous. I wrote a piece on how that year’s blood-splattered suit was auctioned for two million credits to a mega-fan.

  The bartender wandered over to me. His nose was a tad big and crooked—a fistfight, I’d guess—but his jawline was sharp, covered in more than a few days growth. Not bad, but no Dandy Randy.

  “I’d ask you what I can get you, but we’ve only got two options.”

  “Yeah?” I leaned in. “What are they?”

  “I’ve got Strong Stuff and Really Strong Stuff. Thinking you want the Really Strong Stuff.”

  “I guess you’ve got me pegged. I’ll take the Really Strong Stuff.”

  He smiled and poured amber liquid from an unmarked bottle into a short glass. I took a sip. It tasted like liquid fire going down my throat and once my mouth stopped stinging I felt warmth wash over my body. I shuddered and licked my lips.

  “Decent.”

  “Big fan of the Arena?” he asked, catching me watching the TV.

  I shrugged. “Of course. Infected are scary as fuck. Makes you feel a little better seeing the Bonecrushers take them out like they’re nothing.”

  He chuckled but there was no humor in it and the smile certainly didn’t reach his eyes. If anything, there was some reluctance to it. I hit a nerve, which was odd because I’d never met someone who was squeamish about the Arena.

  “What’s your name?” I asked, changing the subject before I lost him. I lifted my glass, signaling I wanted another.

  At the same time I asked him for his name, his gaze shifted behind me. His body tensed and he set down the bottle beside my empty cup.

  “Get out of here.”

  I turned and saw a woman leaning against a pool table. She was drunk or on some kind of drugs. Her body swayed. She could barely keep herself up.

  “Ffffffuck you, Wolf. And fuck this chick.”

  The drunk staggered over to the bar. She was close enough to me that I smelled the Really Strong Stuff wafting off her. Both of her eyes were genetically augmented. Behind the collar of her oversized jacket, there was a tattoo creeping up her neck of an ornate cross. Her hair was ratted and pulled back, but I recognized the flaming red color. It was almost the same as my own.

  “Sister Slaughter?”

  She sneered. “Haven’t heard that name for a long time.”

  Sister Slaughter was a household name about six years ago. Her Gimmick was a nun getup—with a dangerously short hemline of course—and her red hair braided into pigtails. I remembered kids buying plastic toy versions of the pearl handled revolvers she used. They had the same cross as on her neck etched into each handle.

  I dressed up as her for a costume party.

  She’d been a rising star. Then, one day, she dropped off the face of the media world.

  “People think you went off outside of the Haven and killed yourself.”

  “You get too old they take you out back, know what I mean? I left on my own instead. Tell me something…” Wolf started to speak but Sister Slaughter continued. “Do you like it when you see us get torn apart by the Infected? How’s that part of the gladiator bullshit? Good?”

  “No, I don’t,” I stammered, losing my cool. “That rarely happens, though.”

  “Right, a few here and there doesn’t mean anything to you. You watch us on screens. We aren’t real to you.”

  “Miranda, don’t do this,” Wolf begged. “Just go.”

  Sister Slaughter plopped onto the stool next to me. “I tell you what, give me one drink and one more question for MC here and then I’ll leave. I swear. Now, MC, what makes you think you can save everyone when you don’t even care about a couple Bonecrushers?”

  I stiffened. I never told her my name.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I paused. “How do you know me?”

  Miranda guzzled her drink in a single gulp. She peered at me from behind hooded eyes. “You watching this bullshit on the TV, you’re just like the rest of them. If you can’t see us as people you won’t see Them as people either. You can’t do a damn thing…”

  She swayed. One hand snapped to the edge of the bar with lightning speed to stop herself from falling.

  I tried to keep my voice even. “What are you talking about, Miranda?”

  “Make us…kill them, make us…” There were tears in her eyes. Miranda pulled out a tiny vial from her pocket. I recognized it. It was a relaxy. Before I could stop her, she put it to her nose and inhaled. She slumped down, head resting on the bar at an angle she was going to regret when she woke up.

  “What the fuck was that?” I didn’t break eye contact with Wolf as I asked.

  “I didn’t want anything escalating.”

  Throughout the years, I had a lot of luck as a journalist. Some would credit it to my tenaciousness, to my commitment to the story. These things were all true. But really, it was good intuition. My gut was telling me there was something more to Sister Slaughter. This wasn’t just a drunk rambling. There was a story here, one a hell of a lot better than an interview with Darla Dreadful. But I wasn’t going to find out until morning. With the amount of booze that must’ve been running in her system, plus the relaxy, she’d be out until dawn.

  I sighed and gestured to my glass, pretending everything was okay and I believed Wolf. “Give me another.”

  WHEN I WOKE UP, MY body was sore from the hard, unfamiliar mattress. The Really Strong Stuff hadn’t sat well with me and I spent the better half of the night puking. Not the best start to my interview with Dreadful.

  I stretched and groaned, then flung off the sweat-dampened sheets.

  There was complimentary caffeine powder on the dresser. I filled the electric kettle with water from the bathroom and tore open two packets. It fizzed as it dissolved into the liquid.

  I paced around the room and stretched the tired out of my muscles. When the coffee was done, I poured myself a cup and took a sip. It was hot and acrid; tasted like it was scraped from the bottom of a barrel. Perfect.

  My tablet was ready and waiting on the desk. I went over my interview questions for Dreadful, simultaneously jotting down notes in case I managed to follow up with Sister Slaughter.

  My stomach started grumbling and I remembered I should eat. I shoved my feet into my boots and wandered out into the crisp, misty morning. Beams of sunlight carved through the mist, all hard geometric shapes as it made its way around the squat buildings of Mercy. You’d think you were living in a different era. No screen billboards, no four hundred story buildings or airships flying every which way.

  I found the vending machine the motel lady mentioned. The model was new, a sleek black thing a little taller than my five-foot-ten heigh
t, and my wingspan across. It dealt in soy products. Not my favorite, but I could see why the little town had it. Feed it a bag of soybeans and sixteen chemical tubes, additives, and some kind of magic, and it would spit out a variety of different “foods.” All made of soybeans. I got one and chomped away as I returned to my room.

  By the time I realized there was someone already in there, I had one boot kicked off and a mouthful of flavorless soybean rolling around in my trap.

  She was small statured. Even sitting, I could tell she was shorter than me. But her presence made up for her size. She commanded the room, sitting straight yet at ease, as though with the wave of her hand her will would be done. Maybe it would.

  I didn’t normally feel intimidated or afraid. Didn’t have time for that bullshit. But looking at the woman in front of me, head shaved, scars across her cheek and neck, sitting there like a predator ready to strike, all I wanted to do was turn around and run. But there was that asshole part of me that said, No.

  I swallowed my breakfast.

  “Darla Dreadful, I take it?” I asked.

  The slightest smile tugged at her lips. Her scars crinkled.

  “The one and only.”

  I positioned myself at a better angle to the door in case I had to run. Her showing up could be weird behavior or crazy. I puffed my chest up a bit. “What are you doing in my room?”

  She went to my coffee pot and poured herself some. I noticed her hands. Two fingers on the right were unskinned machine. All exposed metal and wiring. It clinked against the mug as she lifted it to her lips. She sighed after she swallowed and sat down.

  “Listen, I flew all the way from Haven to this place. Just for you. Don’t play games with me.”

  Dreadful took another gulp of coffee. “What do you know about the Infected?”

  “Fuck me, what is it with people these days? No offense. I mean, I just want to get this show on the road.”

  Her eyebrow raised. “Please, proceed.”

  I sighed and topped off my coffee, then brought up my recording software on the tablet.

  The morning sunlight was muted through gauzy white curtains. Close, I could tell her head had been shaved recently. There was only a fuzzy layer of stubble. Her eyes were gray, but then I noted the subtle pattern of neon blue and silver. Both augments. I jotted that down.