by Tessa Elwood
The pillar was straight ahead of me. I step forward, arm out, until my fingers hit warm stone. I slide around the side.
“It’s the third time this week!” Deep Voice continues.
“Second,” says the clerk. “And I can’t help when the grid shuts down.”
“Don’t you ‘second’ me, Gerry! I know what I—”
The lights blink on. Power-outs never last long, five minutes tops.
“About time,” says Deep Voice, who turns out to be a shirtless guy propped against the pillar behind mine. He has more meat than the skeleton, but not enough for a voice like that—especially when compared to the guy with the broad chest and ghost skin, who furtively glances around the same pillar like he’s looking for someone.
Our eyes lock.
The power technician from the museum’s rooftop.
I walk forward. “Hey, what are you—” but I swallow the doing here. It’s a boarding tower, and one of the better ones in the district. Power technicians must make less than I thought. “Uh . . . hey.”
The verbal save that wasn’t.
“You?” he asks. “What are you doing here?”
He’s dressed better than I’ve seen him—the whole two times—in slacks and a dark button-up. Quality stuff, from the way it falls as he shifts his weight. What a fidget looks like on a two-hundred-pound man.
“Trying to rent a room,” I say.
“Ha ha!” barks the guy on the floor. “Ain’t no room for you here, girlie.”
“So I’m told.”
The power tech hustles me toward an empty stretch of wall, away from the cranky complaints lobbied from the staircase and the static voices from the wall-screen’s newscast. He jerks his head at Deep Voice. “He’s not wrong. This ain’t no place for you.”
“It’s for my dad.”
“You’d land your dad here?”
“He can’t stay with me.”
The power tech doesn’t answer. His face expounds for him.
I’m a god-awful daughter. Suitable spawn for a god-awful mom.
“Look,” I start, and the lights go out. Again.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say, and the room agrees—loud and pissed. One power-out isn’t that unusual, but two in succession? That’s not a city power-grid glitch, that’s a faulty tower circuit. Harsh voices clamor between “I want a damn refund!” and “This is unacceptable, you hear me, Gerry?”
The power tech doesn’t join in.
“You looked into the circuits here?” I ask. “It’s your job, right?”
“I don’t work for free,” says the techie.
The wall-screen flickers on in the opposite corner. Nothing else, not the lights or the fans, just the lone screen in the dark.
“Attention,” says a sleek female voice, light and razor-edged. “If I could borrow your attention for a sec.”
Mom.
My heart falls out of my mouth and I can’t feel my hands.
Mom.
The screen crackles and there she is. Smiling with her too-wide mouth, dark hair swept high. Her airy purple blouse has the Archivist symbol stitched into the collar. The same hairstyle and blouse she wore the night she died.
The night she blew up the House Archive.
“That’s better,” she says. “Now, I assume you all know who I am? Excellent. Then you know you cannot stop me. I hope you’ve enjoyed your ravaged energy, but this is the end. You will be held to Account.”
The feed fizzes, separates into static, stringy color that realigns into an ad for upmarket shoes. Sleek men’s shoes with low heels. The same ad that pops up between everyday feedshows. Regular programming.
The lights return. Blare. Colors and movement and a host of raised voices, none of them Mom’s.
She’s dead.
She was right here.
She’s dead.
“Hey.” A hand touches my arm, and I jump from my skin.
I swing round. “What?”
The power tech, eyes pissed and mouth determined. “Wasn’t that your mother? What the hell?”
I shake him off. “I can’t talk about this.”
I can’t think about this. I can’t even breathe.
My chest cycles windstorms. All I do is breathe.
She’s dead.
That was her voice. I’d forgotten.
No, I hadn’t. She talked in my dream. And even if she didn’t, she’s a hack-bomber who kills people, so what do I care?
The techie clasps my arm. “What do you mean you can’t talk about it? She’s on the damn feeds, girl! That ain’t a luxury you get.”
“What do you want me to say? She’s dead.”
The room roars, fear and anger. The righteous indignation of the wronged. They do know her, have been hurt as the whole city has been hurt. Punished for the bloodlings’ past sins.
Mom held the rear access door of the Archive open for me that night. Snuck me past security. “I’m so glad you came!” she’d said, like a little kid. Like we were getting away with something. “I was afraid I wouldn’t get to show you where I worked.”
My museum tour had run late, and I didn’t think I’d make her highly specific time frame. Something to do with guard rotations. “I could have just come tomorrow,” I said.
She smiled. She had a pretty smile. “No, you really couldn’t.”
“What did she mean?” asks the techie, shaking me a little. “What was she on about? What ‘end’?”
I twist out of his grasp. “I don’t know, okay?”
And I don’t, except that Mom’s vengeance always meant paying back in kind.
“Hey, you!” says another and all too familiar voice. “Back off her!”
Greg. Lean, lanky, pretty in an oily way. His shirt was nice once, a paisley button-up that was probably somebody else’s. The sleeves are too long. So are his curls. They flop into his eyes, oily and frizzy at once. He sidles up next to us, strutting manfully while also taking care to keep me between him and power tech’s beefy frame.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“What do you think?” His glare balances between lethal and sullen. “Some of us don’t have anywhere else to live.”
I clutch my head. Of course. Of course. If it isn’t Mom’s fault, it’s mine. And it’s not like this isn’t the place I helped Greg get a room in before, way back when we were still speaking. What did I expect?
“The real question is, what are you doing here?” Greg flicks my hair off my ear, shaky knuckles brushing my temple. “This looks like hell, by the way.”
“So do you.”
He grins. The same grin he gave me when we were kids, missing tooth and all. His hand drops to my shoulder and rubs. “Aw, rough day?”
“This your boyfriend?” The power tech’s disapproval is almost tactile.
“I said back off, man.” Greg takes my elbow and hauls me aside. “Kit, I need to talk to you.”
“I already had it out with Dee, talk to her.” There’s nothing to say, and enough people are talking already—like the whole male mob yelling about Mom. The air practically pulses anger, and at some point the clerk’s going to piece together why I look familiar.
I shake Greg off and head to the rear door, skirting the crowd and keeping to the shadows. I make the alley without mishap, slamming into heat thick enough to eat my lungs.
“Kit, wait up!” Greg’s only three steps behind. He grabs hold of my shirt. “I told you, we need to talk.”
Damn guys and their grabby hands.
I twist free. “Keep your voice down! You want to get me killed?”
The power tech follows next, closing the door with a soft groan. His bulky mass fills the alley even more than the dumpster at my elbow. “I thought that’s what you were goin’ for.”
Greg jumps. “What the hell?”
“Oh, drop it already,” I tell the techie. “You’ve done your good deed, call it done.”
“What good deed?” asks Greg.
The power tech glares murder.
Greg throws up his hands, sleeves sagging down his bony arms. “You know what? I don’t care.” He leans in to whisper-spit in my ear, “I need to talk to you. Alone.”
He jerks his chin at the techie, who unfolds his arms and prowls forward. They crowd the alley between them, skinny and bulky, rumpled and crisp, and both determined for answers.
I need space, fresh air, and quiet. Maybe one of Mrs. Divs’s cookies, or even dinner with someone who survived East 5th.
I need Mom’s voice out of my head.
“Later, Greg, okay? I—have a date.” Or a dinner. Whatever. It works.
Or doesn’t. Greg snorts. “Like hell. I’m just asking for five minutes here—”
“Fine, I’ll pay your room for a week. After that, you’re on your own.” With the bracelet money, I should have enough. “I’ll be back tonight with Dad.”
“Tonight won’t cut it,” says Greg.
“Well, it’ll have to.” I spin on my heel and sprint for the street.
“Hey,” calls the power tech as Greg swears, but the only pounding steps are mine. Until something heavy thuds. Crashes? I glance back and stop dead.
The techie’s on the ground. Face-first, something thin and silver stuck in the back of his neck. He doesn’t move. Greg stands over him.
“Shit, I didn’t want to do that,” says Greg.
He’s killed him. Greg killed the power tech.
No. No, oh hell no.
“Dammit, Greg.” I run back and sink to my knees. The techie isn’t bleeding. I twist his face off the pavement, gently. His nose bleeds, cheeks scraped red. I search for a pulse. Where is it? Where is it?
“What the hell? What did you do?” I reach for the silver tube in the techie’s neck, and a cold circle touches the base of mine. It bites, sharp and deep.
I reach for it but my fingers haven’t weight. “G-Greg?”
“Sorry, Kit. Really,” he says, as the world powers out.
Lightning shoots through my bones and snaps me straight. I sit up, nerves pinging like a vid arcade.
“Easy, easy.” Hands on my waist, squeezing soft, trying to keep my scattered guts in place.
Yeah, good luck. They don’t fit. My skin looks intact, but everything underneath fizzes crossways. In about three seconds, I’ll explode. I can see it. A sparking mess of white and blue that doesn’t fade when I blink. Or don’t blink. Maybe I haven’t. It looks the same either way.
The hand transfers to my back and rubs. “Deep breaths. It’ll fade in a minute. Let it do its thing. Breathe.”
The hand takes on rhythm, pushing inhales up my spine and smoothing down on the release. A calm touch. A calm voice.
Maybe my heart won’t claw its way out of my throat.
I breathe. The sparks lessen, coalesce. Fade.
I’m in a room, I think. A rope light hangs from . . . somewhere, half its woven glow-tubes busted. Darkness swallows the ceiling at its base and blankets the world outside our narrow cone of chairs and faces.
Dirty fold-up chairs and two faces, caught between shadow and glow. Besides the man with the calm voice, I see one woman and one man—a girl and a boy. Ardent, grim, and watching me.
Bad. Very bad. They have East 5th all over them, which means whatever they want will probably kill me.
Or not. There’s always worse.
I jump to my feet. My chair crashes, my head spins, and the sparks return with a vengeance.
My feet will not keep steady. My brain claws at my skull.
“I told you we shouldn’t trust the jitterbug,” says the girl. She sounds . . . familiar?
“You’re just pissed ’cause it worked,” says the calm one, a rumble against my ear as he rubs my shoulder.
Off. He needs to get his damn hands off.
“Worked? Look at her! She can’t even process.”
“Give her a minute. Clarity is strong shit.”
Clarity? They flushed my system with Clarity? God, that would revive the dead.
Was I dead?
No, I can’t be. I promised.
I push away from Mr. Chest. The room bounces like a puppy. “What the hell did you hit me with?”
The guy reaches for me, and I throw out my arm, palm up and splayed. I stumble, but the floor doesn’t get me. “Back up. Just back the hell up.”
“Okay, okay. Take it easy.” The calm one raises his hands and keeps his distance. “He wasn’t supposed to dose you, I swear. We only gave him the stuff in case he couldn’t ditch your Shadow.”
“Emergency only,” mutters the girl. “Which it wasn’t.”
“You saw her after he dosed the guy,” Calm hisses low. “He didn’t have a choice.”
“Also a mistake,” she shoots back. “You think you can just dose one of them and get away with it? We probably have a whole Enactor contingent on our ass.”
“His ass,” Calm amends. “We didn’t dose anyone.”
“Shut up,” I say under my breath. My palms flatten on my throbbing temples so they won’t combust. I’m missing something. Darkness curls through my vision and somewhere the universe is breaking, and I can’t tell what’s real unless they all . . . “Shut up,” I yell.
They freeze. Caught midsentence in the glowlight.
“Where the hell am I?” I ask.
The calm one opens his mouth, but I hold up my hand. I may only get one question, and there’s a better question, more important. I can almost see it. Stained pavement between looming walls. Oily curls and metal-grated doors.
The power tech on the ground. The spike at my neck.
I search my skin and find the hole—small, raised, and sore as hell.
Greg.
Anger settles my bones. The room stops its shimmy and my body doesn’t sway. “Where is the power tech?”
They shift, straighten. A readying of hands and feet.
“Power tech?” asks the girl.
The calm one glances between her and me. “The Shadow?”
My fists clench, finger by finger. “I mean the man Greg dosed before me. Is. He. Dead?”
“The Shadow,” he reiterates, slower. “No, he’s fine. I made Greg drag him into the boarding tower. We don’t need that kind of trouble.”
“That’s why we pulled in the jitterbug to begin with,” says the girl. “So your tail wouldn’t catch on. Not that that’s worked.”
“You think the power tech’s a spy,” I say. Not just any spy, but from the Enactors’ hidden elite. A boarding tower live-in who fixes museum roofs. If they dumped him unconscious in the tower, his fellow boarders would have robbed him blind. Which means I’ll owe him a room, if they’re right and Greg didn’t—
If Greg—
“Greg sold me out,” I say just to hear the truth of it. Feel the weight. My cousin stuck a needle in my neck and probably a bow on my pretty, packaged head. And the worst part? The ultimate, absolute ache?
I didn’t guess, wouldn’t have thought. Not that he’d attack me. Not this.
Maybe he’d steal the shirt from your back, but not the skin from your bones.
“I’m going to rip his spine out his throat,” I say, matter-of-fact.
The calm one eases a step back even as he holds out a hand. “Hey, easy now, that’s not it at all. We just needed to talk to you without the Shadow.”
“So you had him dose me?”
His fizzy eyebrows bunch in a single thick line. “I told you, that wasn’t our idea.”
“I don’t care whose—” I stop, blink, and my brain kicks in.
Fizzy eyebrows. A fit, muscled girl
who could take the whole room down single-handed. A skinny, silent boy with big, pretty eyes.
The Outer Brink kids from the Low South Market.
I’m stuck in a hole in the dark with people who think my mother a god.
“She remembers,” the skinny one singsongs out of nowhere, so bright the light stutters. I jump and even the calm one flinches.
“Dammit, Sans,” says the calm one. “Give a man some warning.”
“If you remember,” says the girl to me, “then you know what we want.”
“That’d be a ‘no,’” I say.
The girl is out of the chair and in my face. “You may think this funny, but it’s our home on the line. Where the hell is Millie Oen?”
“Dead,” I say into her clear blue eyes.
Her fist rams my stomach. Pain explodes, rocketed together, pressed and screaming and I can’t, I can’t, I can’t—
Scream. Don’t scream.
I stumble, hug the hole where my stomach was. Is? Hell.
“What the hell?” The calm one grabs her arm and pulls her back. “Take it easy.”
“She’s screwing around,” says the girl.
“She’s barely awake!”
“We don’t have time.” The girl shakes him off and circles the chairs, pointing at me. “Look at her! Look. Has she freaked out? Has she even screamed? You really think she won’t screw us regardless?”
As one, they turn and stare. I might be a poisonous, hissing snake. Or the daughter of vengeful god.
Next time, I’m splitting everyone’s eardrums three times over.
Metal clangs against metal, harsh, distant echoes from below or above or wherever the hell is close but not here.
The light goes out.
The calm one swears up a spark storm, while the skinny kid whispers, “They’re here.”
Hell, someone else? Decker? Enactors?
Enactors, probably. They have Shadows on the brain.
“How can they be here?” the calm one rounds on the girl. “The building’s clean, we haven’t used it before. You told me it was clean.”
“You gave me five minutes to check,” she says.
He jerks a thumb at me. “I was hauling her ass around!”