Nanoshock

by K C Alexander

  My chest ached. I thumped it hard, forcing the black hole I carried inside my ribs to shut the fuck up.

  No leads.

  Shattered cred.

  At this point, I didn’t even know if I had the backup I needed to proceed.

  Did Muerte count? I shot her a narrow-eyed glare. She fell in line beside me. Her nanos had already sealed the hole in her shoulder – a through-and-through like that wouldn’t do much to her.

  I expected her to go all deep-thinker on me. Her life had just gone up in serious flames.

  She could join the cunting club.

  Instead, she sounded almost cheerful as she caught up and nudged my shoulder with hers. “Hey, on the plus side, at least you know I’m not your pendejo stalker.”

  I shook my head, eyes on Lucky’s bare entry. “Dirty trick. You just blew up years with Dancer, for what?”

  “So did you.” She kicked at a few rocks, sending them skittering down the street. The somewhat less empty street, I noted, as the afterparty began to creep out of quiet tenements and dark alleys. They’d scavenge what they could, exchange notes on what they saw, make up wild stories.

  Street theater was as much a part of this city as pissing on walls.

  “I was planning to move on, anyway,” she added. “Want bigger fixes to fuck with.”

  I’d just bet. Shaking my head, I gestured her towards a large warehouse door. Like most flat surfaces around here, it was marred with so much Kongtown border war graffiti that the original metal had long since stained. Layers and layers of the stuff.

  Behind that door was Lucky’s operating shop – large space, cement floor I’d had to rinse blood off so many times that I knew every discoloration, a single operating table. Because he was a man who prided himself on his work, he took one client at a time. Most banked on quantity, but Lucky’s ratio of success skyrocketed beyond the norm.

  He charged up the dickhole; it’d always been worth it.

  Beyond the chopshop, his cramped little space. I used to live here, back when I was still new. Occasionally swung by once he’d shoved me out of the nest on my own.

  I wondered if that’s how he kept tabs on me. How he always seemed to know what I was doing. If he used that to make sure everybody else knew I was still under his thumb.

  The lump in my chest wasn’t anything more than the pain in my arm. The unraveling edges of my anxiety was just the slow bleed of wasted adrenaline.

  The way my hand shook as we approached the cement steps wasn’t fear. Or anger.

  Best case or worst case, how Lucky dealt with me here would be the barometer for how I proceeded. He’d been around longer, fought harder, carved a space for himself so deep that even the best of the best watched themselves around him.

  Either I’d get answers, or I’d get a bullet.

  Maybe I’d be able to use Muerte as a shield.

  I pounded on the door. Didn’t really have the balls to walk in, not when I wasn’t sure of my welcome. Which was a lie, and I knew it. I knew exactly what Lucky’d do if I walked right into his pad. He’d made that clear.

  So I tried to stow my dick. Like, really tried.

  The door thudded in its frame – he didn’t bother to reinforce that shit. Did I mention nobody fucked with him? I’d only heard whispers of why. Living with him cemented the rest.

  Muerte jammed her hands into the pockets of her little red shorts. “You sure he’s here?”

  “I’m sure he’s usually here,” I replied. I rose on tiptoe, shading my eyes to peer into the grimy window slot a few inches above my eye level. Too dusty to see much. Shadows in the entryway. “He takes off every so often, vanishes for weeks.”

  “Maybe he’s gone.”

  Maybe. Or maybe he’d just decided to let me rot in the street. Maybe he’d dicked out so hard, everybody figured I was finally fair game.

  My jaw clenched. Both of my fists balled.

  Muerte stepped off the uneven cement stoop and backed up enough to study both sides of the warehouse. Looking for another entry. Surveying the upper windows; just as gross. Just as gritty. The roof was slatted aluminum, metal girders built into the sloping surface. I’d spent a long time staring up at those welded slats. Above them, crumpling aluminum siding too unsteady to risk squatting in.

  Nope. Wasn’t playing this game. Couldn’t. This was all I had; a shot in the pissing dark.

  Taking two steps back, I inhaled, sharp and quick, and kicked in the fucking door.

  24

  There are times when I look back and think I’d do things differently. Not often – I preferred living day by day. Hell, hour by hour. Saints live risky enough lives without throwing cockswinging competitions into the daily mix, and worrying about shit done in the past just led to more shit done to top it in the future.

  The definition of zen.

  As Lucky’s front door slammed against the wall, rebounded hard and splintered off the hinges, I experienced one of those moments. I worried about my shit. What I’d done in the past, and what the hell I’d do in the future.

  Now I had more reason to.

  “Ai,” Muerte said, half a laugh. “That’s one way to make an entrance.”

  My stomach clenched. Wrenched in on itself and hurt so badly, I forgot about everything else. I shook my head, said quietly, “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Que?” She pushed up behind me, peering over my shoulder. “Why?”

  I stared down the narrow hall that doubled as a bottleneck should some motherfuckers get uppity and stupid, took in the dull floor, the sparkling dust motes whirling in the air – upset by my entry. Thick enough to choke on.

  I didn’t answer her. Couldn’t. I stepped inside the familiar foyer into the attached kitchen. Spotty tile, once kept near-pristine but for the stains that wouldn’t come out. I’d spent hours cleaning it. A giant steel sink at the far end for cleaning tools and what few dishes Lucky owned. Shelves beside it that once held lopsided clay mugs Lucky had made himself.

  If I closed my eyes, I could see it as it was. Quiet and clean, with illegally filtered hot water steaming as it hit the bottom of the deep sink. I could almost smell the coffee he’d made often, left simmering on a hotplate at all hours. Like oil and pepper spray in one delicious brew.

  None of that remained. Not even the sink. Just torn up piping and jagged holes in the tile where it’d been.

  Muerte’s boots clicked as she poked her head into the only other door – Lucky’s custom chopshop. She whistled. It echoed back. “I got news, nena.”

  I already knew. And with every step, the void in my chest got bigger. Deeper.

  Blacker.

  “I’m not,” I muttered as I pushed past her, “your girlfriend.”

  “No.” Muerte’s hand curved over my shoulder. I barely felt it, wrapped up in the numb ache seeping under my skin. “But maybe you can use one right now.”

  Goddamn pity everyfuckingwhere I went.

  I’d known he’d kicked me out. He’d made it clear.

  But he’d also left room for me to come back; said to fix what I’d broke. He’d always been patient, stern as balls on a nanosteel cock, and his methods had left more bruises and broken bones than squishy warmth and fragile feelings.

  He was the reason I’d survived – no, thrived.

  I’d always had Lucky. First before Indigo, before anything else.

  Now I had an empty chopshop, shuttered windows, dust layered thick on every surface. The operating table was gone, ripped up from the foundations. Shaking off her hand, I looked up.

  Nothing remained of the circular seal above it, designed to separate the table from the rest of the place. Lucky hadn’t had to use it often; my clearest memory was a merc who’d swaggered in demanding too much tech with too little smarts to back it up. I never knew if Lucky had agreed to it to teach me a lesson I’d never forget, but I’ve definitely never forgotten it.

  The runner’s screams had echoed long after his converting meat became ash. The incinerator left noth
ing to chance.

  Now it was gone. Everything, gone.

  I staggered into the warehouse. Looked up the steel stairs, saw nothing but more dust, more shadows – more haunting echoes.

  “Riko. Bebe…”

  My breath locked down. My knees folded. Fists clenched so hard my optics registered steel-threatening pressure. Both fists hit the cement floor so hard, bones broke in one all over again. Cement shattered beneath the other – a spiderweb of dusted rock.

  He was gone. Well and truly gone.

  And I was well and truly fucked.

  Fury clawed at me. Bloodyfuckingrage.

  And a sense of loss so deep, it knifed way past bone.

  Throwing back my head, I screamed. Screamed myself ragged, screamed until I ran out of breath and voice and the ache in my chest swallowed any softness – any affection, any respect, any cunting memories – I had left. Screamed my throat raw and left nothing but fire and ash behind.

  Muerte left me alone. She’d call it grief.

  I called it betrayal. Straight to the bone.

  She was sitting on a cement block, a nearly finished cigarette between her fingers, when I finally stepped outside. Two lines of dark gray smoke streamed from her nostrils. “Hola.” She stubbed out the remains, filterless end left to smolder. “What’s next?”

  I appreciated that she didn’t ask me any other questions. Hell if I knew how to answer them. I bent my arm slowly, straightened it again. Repeated it until I no longer winced when my shoulder muscles stretched. “Only one place to go,” I said, searching the darkened street. It hadn’t cleared, but looked like business as usual. Kids sitting on stoops, playing with whatever they could find. Older crowd gathering on stoops, passing around whatever they drank.

  Teenagers starting young on the corners, making like they weren’t dealing whatever it was they dealt.

  Babies. They’d learn, or they’d choke.

  I sighed. “To the Mecca.”

  “Indigo there by now?”

  I nodded.

  “You think he’ll have ideas for you?”

  “I’m shit out of luck if he doesn’t.”

  Muerte chuckled her raspy, broken chuckle and slung an arm around my neck. “Chica, you ran out of that a long time ago.”

  “Cunt,” I muttered, and let the rest go. She wasn’t wrong. My throat hurt, ruined enough to grate when I swallowed. My arm hurt, ratcheted up by a brain put through the wringer and fucked for extra fun. My hand knitted; I was beyond an idiot.

  So much for my hard-won cred.

  The space under my sternum roiled.

  Muerte, thank fuck, drove like she was batshit out of her mind. The Mecca wasn’t all that far away from Kongtown, but north instead of near westside where Lucky’s shop – where it had been.

  I stared out the shielded window the whole ride. Didn’t even peek at Muerte’s deliciously squeezable ass. I guess I’d hit my limit.

  Not even a little snatch to snatch action would pull me out of this one.

  Goddammit.

  25

  By the time we rolled into the rack, dark had set in and the zone was in full swing. The Mecca’s line circled the block. This time, nobody catcalled me when I bypassed it. Maybe the smeared blood and naked rage on my face warned them off. I’d wiped what I could off – dried blood itches – but fuck it.

  The bouncer this time wasn’t Jad; too bad, I’d left the Valiant strapped in my harness. Shiva allowed weapons, long as you knew the rules. I wasn’t planning on shooting anybody, but I wasn’t taking chances, either.

  Most shops hire muscle and size, Jad being a sterling example of both. Lien Ta – shorten her name and she’d have your ass on the floor before you saw her coming – was neither large nor lean. She was short, pudgy, with apple-round cheeks and eyes sweeping up at the corners. Her complexion hovered between pale with a yellow undertone and brilliant red at her nose and cheeks, down her neck, and across her sizeable cleavage.

  I love ’em short and round. So much to squeeze.

  Unfortunately for me, Lien Ta wouldn’t touch me with a nanosteel baton. She eyed me head to toe, gave Muerte the same treatment, and smiled sunnily at us both. “Going in for blood?”

  “Not if I can help it,” I replied. “Valiant’s for later.”

  “I’ll tell Shiva.”

  Of course she would. I shrugged. She jerked a thumb at the beaded curtain muting the chaotic strobe – a talent all bouncers learned early. “Don’t fuck it up.” I didn’t have it in me to flirt with her. As I approached the door, she sized me up. “You’re more subdued than usual.”

  Muerte raised a warding hand. “Don’t go there.”

  “Rough day?”

  “Mm.”

  I shoved the beads aside, stepped in just as I heard Lien Ta chuckle. “Too bad, I might have jumped her skinny ass had she asked.”

  I glanced back at her. “Liar.”

  Her smile lifted her cheeks, nearly swallowed her eyes as she spread both arms. “We’ll never know.”

  I scowled. “I hate you.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  Muerte dragged me away from the exchange. “Avanza.”

  Yeah, fine. I turned, surveyed the interior of the Mecca for signs of… hell, I don’t know. Indigo. Theme. Trouble.

  I smelled at least one. May have just been paranoid, but I wouldn’t take any bets; the odds didn’t feel right.

  Music tonight pounded, but not the same way as it did when the Mecca revved up its people. The floor hosted a scattered handful of clubbers – mostly slummers banded together – dancing to the beat under the sliding, pulsing lights. Chairs and tables saw more than a few mercs sprawled in lazy comfort. Drink glasses glittered. Some empty, some filled with all kinds of colorful stuff. Lots of shot glasses.

  A glance at the bar had me squaring my shoulders. No sign of Lance, but I knew one of the saints behind it. Andalais, a long-term tender who’d just as easily break a glass over your head as serve it to you. Depended on your attitude.

  They liked my attitude. Usually. Today, they gave me a serious nod, the high knot of their braided foil-silver hair shining in the lights. Tawny gold eyes – they’d always sworn all natural – flicked to Muerte. Back to me.

  I hesitated. “Shit,” I muttered.

  Muerte leaned in, her mouth by my ear. “What’s up?”

  “Blood in the water.”

  “Fun?”

  “Doubt it.” I lengthened my stride, putting enough fuck off into my pace, the set of my mouth, to make even the regulars back off. I hoped. Circumstances, as it turned out, had changed. I wasn’t some street virgin fresh off the SINburn – I knew pissing well how many eyes tracked my progress.

  And how many noted the Valiant strapped to my back.

  No more playing around. By the time I made it to the usual back room, my lips twisted into a soundless snarl and my fists clenched openly at my sides. Blood in the water all right, and these motherfuckers thought I was the one bleeding.

  “There shouldn’t be this much interest in you,” Muerte murmured. “Not on your normal turf.” She stayed close to my back, thumbs hooked loosely in her pockets. The way she surveyed the club wasn’t as casual as it looked – I noticed her lock eyes with some of the nastier mercs, hold them in her usual brand of stand the fuck down.

  “Possible it’s because I’m known here,” I said curtly, pulling the beaded curtain roughly to the side. Beads today. Classy. “Digo–”

  Eerily pale eyes in rich, dark skin snapped to me. Geometric tattoos on her head weren’t vid-ink; she’d gone traditional white, needle to scalp.

  Tashi. Fuck me.

  The least friendly of my ex-team. She didn’t trust me; she’d said exactly that to my face. She sat perched on the back of the booth, feet where her tiny ass was supposed to be, braced elbows to knee. A violently red lotus engulfed her right elbow, also tattooed in the old-fashioned way. A half-empty chute of something equally red fizzed gently on the edge of the table.


  Next to the end of the booth, Boone rested one arm on the back of it. He towered over Tashi, typical bandana tied around his head and concealing the mass of wires that lined his skull. His wide foundation-replacement feet, diamond steel from waist to sole and wider at the floor, earned an impressed whistle from my tail.

  Boone was slow to act, slow to think and extra casual for it. Except when he’d made up his mind, in which case he became an unstoppable tank. The weathered lines at his eyes, bracketing his nose and mouth, spoke of years longer than me on the street. Age meant experience; an invaluable bonus for most runners.

  His tattoo was black, carved into his chest over his heart. Oddly sentimental for such a big guy.

  It just made me miss my arm all the more; miss, a tiny voice said in my head, the team I’d belonged to.

  Boone grunted a greeting. Neither angry nor welcome, just acknowledgment of my presence.

  For her part, Tashi stared me down. Lush lips set in a thin line, and the bar under her bottom lip moved as she tongued the back of it. A sign of serious irritation.

  I had no time for this. “Where’s Digo?”

  Boone opened his mouth.

  “What do you care?” Tashi said, cutting him off. He raised his eyebrows, half turned to tilt his blocky head at her. She curled that lip at me. “He’s not here, go the fuck away and take your trouble with you.”

  Muerte snorted a laugh, circling around me to fold her arms over her chest. Her gaze held Tashi’s longer than I expected the splatter specialist to tolerate.

  Again, that lip curl. “Who the shit is she?”

  “Muerte,” she answered.

  Tashi lifted her chin. “Heard of you.” Nothing good, given the grudge I hadn’t heard about. Again, that jewelry shifted. “Squad know you’re slumming?”

  “Squad’s got nothing to do with this.”

  “Right.”

  Silent, Boone turned his gaze to each person who spoke – he’d make his move when he decided it was time. Of the two, he was the least of my worries.

  My fists clenched. Unclenched. I took a deep breath, approached the table. I didn’t take the step up. “I need Indigo’s help. You know where he is?”