“She’s turned you down?”
“Not so much ‘turned down’ as ‘never noticed to begin with.’”
Leria toyed around with the thoughts in her mind. The night had been going well, and if Mack were sticking around, she’d have been tempted to delve beyond his odd answers. From what he’d told her, however, they didn’t have the luxury to explore one another in that way. The only thing certain was this one night.
“…And you’ve never tried asking her?” she reluctantly asked.
“Oh, come now!” Mack scoffed. “That would be faaaar too straightforward!”
“Maybe you should try,” she suggested with a warm smile.
Mack chewed on the thought, trying time and again to find a response but always losing the words. Eventually, small talk returned and carried them from the diner out onto the drifting boulevard. They passed into the highest levels of one of the countless interlocking buildings, speaking at ease under the faint stars of the night sky.
“Do you know when you’ll be going?” Leria asked. “I’m just wondering if I’ll see you in the halls tomorrow.”
“School’s not really goin’ so hot,” Mack admitted. “So we might stop soon. But hey! I’ll try to come by to say ta-ta!”
“And when you do go, where will you be going?”
“I dunno,” Mack shrugged. “I suppose I’ll know when I get there.”
“Well, let me know when you find out?” She smiled back at him. “I want to be able to look you up.”
Mack didn’t have a response. If he was trying to tell her that she wouldn’t be able to reach him, he hadn’t the nerve to spit it out, and their conversation briefly stalled. As the hours wore on and the crowds thinned—if only a little, for as much as Annora ever slept—Leria and Mack agreed it was time to conclude the night. Realizing herself too hesitant and Mack too forward, Leria found herself in something that started as a handshake and awkwardly melded into a hug.
She let it last, in no hurry to say goodbye when they might never meet again. She felt his heartbeat against hers, and knew she would remember its rhythm for a long time. Never would she give up her own heart, however inexhaustible an artificial one might be, and she hoped secretly that Mack wouldn’t either.
* * *
Leria knew she should have let things go, returned to her home and the normal life that accompanied it. Instead she followed Mack. Where he stopped at regular intervals to retrace his path or regain his bearings, Leria used the crowd and every high and low road to stay out of sight.
She followed him through the avenues and the superstructures and into the back ways that were her domain. Not once did he notice her, but as they ascended to the upper levels, only a short distance from one another, Leria slowed to a stop.
“What am I doing?” she whispered to herself.
The area was shabby, in the midst of construction. The building ahead was in the throes of considerable remodeling, and Leria could have easily kept pace. But for what purpose? To see a little further into Mack’s life, to find out how and where he—and possibly Jean and Chariska—lived?
There was no point to it; only one night’s satisfaction, and a deeper sense of holding on. Knowing where Mack lived would only make her feel emptier when he was gone.
Reluctantly, Leria let him go and took the long way home, letting the road carry her. Lost in thought, she only came back to reality when she noticed someone behind her.
Mack? But she quickly knew better. The large, broad frame could not have been more different from Mack’s. She turned and recognized the man she’d bumped into that morning, on the way to school. An artificial hand, freshly grafted, hung from his wrist. A synthetic finger curled.
“Leria Rujet?” he asked. She was perturbed at his knowing who she was, but he’d seduced her attention just the same. “I know you’re trapped here. In this world, this way of life. I can show you a way out.”
Despite the air of confidence he displayed, Leria grew wary of him. “Can you, now?”
He smiled; it was warm and genuine. “We have much to speak about.”
CHAPTER THREE: New Destinations
The one condition Leria set was that they keep to public spaces, and to her surprise the man readily agreed. He maintained a polite distance as she navigated the late-night shoppers of the sleepless city and found a recess beneath the dull glow of a billboard monitor, removed enough to speak in comfort but close enough to scream for help. As she opened her mouth, Leria heard a train pass in the distance, and shuddered involuntarily.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
She shook it off. “How do you know my name?”
“Leria Rujet, SIN ID number one-two-three-four-five,” he replied. “How did you manage to get such a number, by the way?”
“Probably just registered after whoever got number one-two-three-four-four.” Her tone made it clear she wasn’t eager to make small talk.
“It wasn’t difficult to find you,” he went on. “Registered on Annora. Prosthetic arm, the result of early adaptive surgery.” He glanced down below her skirt. “File didn’t mention anything about the leg though.”
“It’s recent.” She tugged instinctively at her skirt’s hem. “And who are you? It would save me some trouble in looking it up when I get home.”
“Crescen DuMear,” he replied. “You won’t find anything concerning me on the net. I’m something of a recruiter.”
“For what?” Leria couldn’t contain her laughter. “No one wants skins for anything, not even halfsies like me.”
“I represent a foreign interest,” he replied simply. Leria didn’t follow his meaning—foreign was itself a foreign concept, and had been for centuries. Breth operated under a self-interested global governance, so interconnected that concepts of culture had long ago blurred. “Officially, we haven’t yet begun operations here. Breth’s people are complacent, comfortable. They haven’t been challenged, let alone sorted.”
The whole thing sounded shady, and Leria decided to get down to business. “You offered me a chance at a better life. What exactly did that mean?”
“You get to do the right thing, and prove yourself exceptional. Do it, and I can take you someplace far from here, where Leria Rujet is accepted for who she is and doesn’t need special identification because she wasn’t interested in following the crowd.”
“So you’re offering, what, some sort of utopia?”
“Never trust that word,” Crescen warned with amusement. “It’s not a real thing, not yet. If it were, you would be as happy here as everyone around you, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Leria lowered her guard, and allowed Crescen to follow as she returned to the walkway. There was a concert hall nearby, but it was closed; there’d been no performance this night. She glared derisively at the poster of Petia Romu as it flickered in its display. The idol’s hollow cheer played at her nerves. What a joke. Touring a virtual performer like she’s a person. Like she could tire out or care when the crowd gets bored of her and moves on to the next manufactured act.
“And you’re saying, if I went with you, I could have all this?” Leria couldn’t believe him less if she tried, and made no attempt to hide it in her voice.
“I’m only offering a place where, if you were to find a modest stage and sing, your performance would be accepted. Warts and all. You need only the talent and discipline to take yourself there.”
It was a grounded offer. Chance, not certainty. A place where she could be accepted as a performer, not one where acceptance was certain.
A nearby monitor displayed the time. It was late. Her mother was likely home, her father on his way. The two slept together more often than they were awake, but they would have enough time to notice Leria missing if she were gone for too long. She should be heading home, but realized she wasn’t done talking.
�
�And what’s your proof? How do I know you can provide any of this?”
Crescen smiled and shrugged. “I have none. Nothing I can produce on demand, at least. But I can tell you where to find it, provided you speak not a word of meeting me or my offer.”
Leria scrunched her lips rebelliously, before giving a reluctant sigh. “Fine. I’ll play your game for now. Not like I have better options.”
“The one-eyed boy you were following,” Crescen said. “Pick up where you left off. Find his home, meet his friends.”
Leria waited for the rest, but from Crescen’s relaxed expression she realized there was nothing else coming. “That’s all?”
“That’s all,” he confirmed. “I’m not seeking attention at the moment, nor am I in a position to do anything bold. I have allies converging my way, and I’d like to have things set up properly when they arrive. It would make everything far less bloody.”
She eyed him suspiciously. Whatever Mack or Jean had to hide, she somehow doubted it was world changing. Leria turned her back on Crescen and walked off alone; he didn’t follow her, but his words clung to her like smoke.
* * *
Even without any prodding, Leria realized by the next morning she would have found herself in the same place. She left home around the usual time, her father waving farewell with the smallest gyration of his wrist. But she didn’t go to school, instead winding through lesser-known routes until she’d retraced her steps from the night before, though she couldn’t imagine what Crescen expected her to find.
She took a deep breath and advanced, the passing breeze whistling through the incomplete walls and doing more to spook her than cool her. The front of the shanty building loomed, its high windows draped with plastic tarps that fluttered in the wind. She peered up and thought she saw a figure looking back down, but with the sun’s glare, it seemed she’d been mistaken.
The old-style door serving as the only entrance told her there was no electricity here, and she wondered how much farther in she would have to go to find Mack; this building clearly wasn’t livable. The knob was hot in her hand but twisted easily, and the room on the other side was mercifully shaded, save for patches of sunlight where the ceiling above remained incomplete.
Despite the conditions, it appeared to her that several people were living here, between the scattered food wrappers and the bed rolls that littered the floor. There were several boxes, and after taking a few steps in, Leria was drawn to one in particular whose flaps hung open. She reached inside and drew out a school uniform like her own, packaged and pressed. There were many more like it, varying in gender and size.
Leria dropped the uniform back in abruptly, struck with a distinct feeling that she was being watched. She warily turned to the opening to the next room, where another girl stood. She was dressed in an Annoran school uniform, but her skin and hair were blue.
“You … don’t go to my school,” Leria said uncertainly, then froze, seeing the thorny whip coiled in the girl’s hand.
“Just leave,” she warned.
A deep dread fell upon Leria and as she turned to retreat, a figure dropped from a gap in the ceiling to land in front of her. She gasped at seeing him, a young man whose skin was so stark white that she’d have thought it fake, were he not beaded with sweat. His icy glare left her feeling like a trespasser, and as suddenly as he’d appeared, he knocked Leria on her back and unleashed a sword, pressing its jagged, serrated edge to her throat.
“Who sent you here?” he demanded.
“Poe!” the blue girl yelled. “She might’ve just gotten lost!”
As Leria struggled to comprehend the position she’d found herself in, her voice failed her. Crescen’s name began to boil up, but before she could speak the first syllable—
“Ler?”
At the sound of her name, Leria struggled to peer at the source. Mack stood near the blue girl, an electric toothbrush vibrating in his mouth.
“You know this trespasser?” Poe coldly asked him.
“I do, I do!”
Mack hurried over as Poe stepped aside, sheathing his sword in one deft motion. Leria found herself gasping in shallow breaths as the others helped her to her feet.
“Ann ewe n’ka?” Mack asked. His mouth was foaming with toothpaste and, realizing he’d been unclear, Mack gestured for them to wait and hurried out, still brushing his teeth.
Poe gave Leria a scrutinizing glance before leaving her alone with the blue girl.
“You okay?” she asked.
“I think so.” Leria’s breathing calmed. The crisis averted, she felt compelled to comment on something that had been bothering her. “You’re blue.”
“You’re brown,” the girl replied nonchalantly. “And since we’re meeting like this, hi! I’m Zaja! You’re Leria, right?”
“I am. Mack—?”
“Mentioned you, yeah,” Zaja confirmed. “Not that you were coming here, though.”
“I wasn’t actually invited.” Her attention drifted as footsteps rapidly came down the stairs. Jean and Chariska appeared, dressed in their school uniforms. Mack was with them, as was a fourth person, hidden beneath a hooded coat and dark spectacles.
“There she is,” Mack said. “And by the way? Sooo not my fault.”
“I followed you last night,” Leria admitted, sheepishly.
“Sooo my fault,” Mack corrected himself.
“Uh, hello … everyone.” Leria waved politely, though she felt cornered and trapped. The threats had ceased, but her adrenaline was still running high. The hooded one stepped forward and revealed himself, and Leria stiffened at the sight. Something in his look repulsed her, a medley of animal and man, like a genetic experiment gone awry. As he removed his spectacles and her eyes met his, she only felt more unease.
“They’re expecting me at school,” she lied.
“I think, after this, you’d choose to be late,” he told her.
Defeated, Leria nodded in agreement.
* * *
So far as Chari could tell, Leria was taking the discovery of people from other worlds rather well, perhaps owing to her own being the stuff of science fiction. When tensions settled and Leria came to ask what their group was doing there, it was with amusement that she added “on my world” to the end of the question.
While Mack shared a loose explanation, Chari excused herself to the next room. There would be no school today, and though she loved the environment, she loathed the uniform and promptly stripped free of it. From her own belongings she produced a bundle of fabric, strips cut from a local cloth. The material was dark green, with glowing circuits in the fibers. She began wrapping her torso first, then her legs and forearms. Several strands of sturdy prayer beads held it all in place, and though she no longer feigned the role of priestess, she still felt a comforting familiarity in the habit.
When Chari returned to the main room, Leria’s eyes momentarily flitted on her before returning to the others.
“So if you’re trying to find someone, why are you hiding here? Why don’t you just look them up and be on your way?”
“Although we appear to speak your language, we cannot read Brethian script,” Chari explained. “If I could, I’d have scoured your indexes by now and learned what is needed.”
Leria cracked a smile. “So that’s why you’re going to school?”
Chari nodded. “I’ve been able to inquire only with vaguely formed queries, and received expectantly lacking results.”
Leria felt a flicker of pity, but was reluctant to reply. She knew the polite thing to do, but there seemed a risk now in getting too involved.
“So … is there something I can do to help?”
“You can shut yer trap and forget about it,” Jean replied gruffly.
Mack hurried to clear the air. “What Jeannie’s tryin’ to say is that we’re tryin’ to lie low here. So
if you could not tell anyone—Anywhere? Ever?—that’d be swell.”
With a subtle nod, Flynn led Chari back to the adjacent room. She expected to go alone but Zaja, having lost interest in the proceedings, followed.
“You’ve an idea?” Chari asked.
“A bad one. But we need help. We can’t even read the writing on the walls out here. Breth is heavily connected and if the information is out there, we should be able to find it.”
Zaja tried to suppress a laugh. “I get what you’re saying, but still! Do you think we’ll find the way to the Mystik of Growth through an online search?”
“Maybe we’re looking for the wrong thing.” Flynn struggled, as though on the verge of an idea.
Chari, however, had already reached a conclusion. “As a goddess, she would have no presence here. But as a woman, passing for mortal?”
Einré’s name had been shared by Airia Rousow only in urgent confidence, and following their escape from Terrias, the seven had agreed that the information couldn’t leave their circle. If the Reahv’li learned who they were searching for, it could complicate matters considerably.
“If she’s been to Breth, where she’s been may tell us how to find her,” Flynn followed.
“The question at hand is whether we are to trust this Rujet girl,” Chari murmured.
“You all trusted me when we first met,” Zaja offered.
“The stakes weren’t so high then,” Flynn replied. “We knew our enemy but not the sort of reach he commands. We’re trying to be ghosts now in the worst sort of world for it.” Reluctantly, he added, “We had fewer secrets, back on Oma.”
Whatever posturing Flynn might toy with, they all knew there was no better solution. He could ride the rails indefinitely and eventually stumble on a better way out, never mind all the time wasted or the danger of being caught. In the other room, Leria laughed at some tale Mack was cheerfully spinning.
Flynn spoke softly. “Better the devil you know…”
When they returned, any mirth Leria had felt died. She looked at Flynn, waiting for him to pass judgment, and tensed when he said, “I want to ask for your help.”
Killers, Traitors, & Runaways Page 6