Streetlethal

by Steven Barnes

  She looked down and wrapped her hands around her midsection, turning and falling against the wall, sliding to the ground. She said something that Aubry couldn't hear.

  "What the hell are you mumbling about?"

  She jerked her face around, and for the first time in weeks, there was color in it, tiny rivulets of hue that crept, unsparkling, into the pain-grooved valleys. "I said that at least I have a reason."

  "Do you, now?"

  "Yes, damn your black ass."

  "And what's that?"

  She screamed it. "I'm pregnant!"

  There was silence in the room, except for the sound of labored breathing. Aubry stared.

  Then: "What?"

  "I said I'm carrying your baby."

  "But—how in the—I thought—how could you—?"

  "Because I'm a whore, right? How can a whore have a baby, right? Why didn't I take care of it? Isn't that what you're thinking?"

  "Yeah. I guess something like that. Yeah."

  She stripped the sleeve from her upper arm, exposing an ugly, ragged scar, still visible even in the bad light of their room. "I had a contraception implant. Good for a year at a time."

  A horrible suspicion froze the breath in his lungs. "And?"

  "I cut it out about four months ago." She stood back up, something hopelessly, helplessly bewildered and angry in her body, her voice, her face. "After we started taking the mushrooms together."

  "But... why?"

  "I don't know. Because I was crazy, because I was doped out of my mind." She dropped her eyes to the ground and her voice turned quiet. "Because I found out that I wanted to have your baby."

  "Oh, my God " There was outrage in him, and crazy laughter that rippled like a pool of swirling colored oils. He rose from the cot and tried to embrace her. She pushed him away.

  "No! Don't—don't touch me." She shivered, watching him out of the comer of her eyes. "I hate you." She was trembling harder now, in the grip of something she could no longer control. "I hate you, and I hate what's happened to my life, and I hate what you've done to me, and I hate myself for ever, ever wanting something so incredibly stupid."

  "There's nothing stupid... nothing—"

  "DON'T TOUCH ME!"

  He reeled back, stricken by the venom in her voice, and staggered to his cot, squatting there, looking down between his knees at the twisted ruin of the mushroom. Slowly, hating himself for it every second, he reached down and picked it up, not even brushing the dirt from it before he put it into his mouth and began to chew.

  The particles of grit tore at his gums.

  The two of them lay close together in the darkness, Promise spoonlike against Aubry's back. She was crying, and had been ever since they had come to each other's arms.

  "I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." she mumbled over and over, kissing him.

  Aubry couldn't find his own feelings, lost totally in her, happy to escape from his own head, his own body, into a place the two of them had created together, into peace.

  And Promise cried, and begged forgiveness. As she always did. And Aubry, deep in the grip of the drug, accepted wordlessly, for the moment forgetting that when the effect wore off, the cycle would begin again.

  "What are we going to do?" She said it quietly, kissing his shoulder. She kneaded it, trying to find reassurance in his strength. His flesh seemed to have lost so much of its tone, as if he just didn't care any more.

  "I don't know. As long as we love each other..." His voice trailed off. She didn't press him to complete the thought.

  After a time Aubry rose from the mat, feeling around in the darkness for his pants, pulling them on with heavy grunting sounds.

  "Where are you going?"

  "I think maybe we had better put in an appearance at the Communal. Anyway, I'm hungry."

  She moaned something indistinct and felt her belly, feeling the roundness that spoiled the contours of her once-perfect body. "Aubry, let's just stay here a little longer."

  He flicked on the lights and looked back at her, wrapped in soiled sheets, face gutted with tears and fatigue, muscles slack with exhaustion, hair a curly chopped jungle, filthy and ratted. The mother of his child. "The plastiskin," he muttered, "will it stretch enough for a baby?"

  "It's more elastic than human skin," Promise said, trying to smile. "I knew an Exotic who put on thirty kilos while she had the plastic. Looked kind of funny, but it didn't hurt her."

  Aubry nodded silently while he pulled on his clothes. "All right. I've got to get out of here for a while. I'm going to the Communal."

  "Wait for me?" She rolled out of bed and clothed herself. He held the door for her as they exited.

  Communal dining was held twice a day, morning and evening, in a converted storage room beneath what had once been the Los Angeles Civic Center. There was room for three hundred. The meals and furnishings were simple, but adequate to the needs of the hard-working Scavenger folk.

  As the two of them wound their way through the tunnels leading to the dining hall, they heard laughter and the clink of dishes and glasses. A cold spot in Aubry's stomach began to warm at the thought of fellowship. Suddenly he wanted it desperately, and his pace quickened.

  As they reached the door of the dining hall, the sound died.

  From under heavy lids, Aubry watched them watch him: a hundred pairs of eyes watched them. In the minor running along the wall, the backs of a hundred heads turned as they approached.

  Warrick spooned thick greenish stew from his bowl. He was the last to look at them, and his hazel eyes were expressionless. "Aubry, Promise. Join us. You're just in time for grace." He indicated two chairs near the head of the table, across from Mira. Aubry nodded sullenly, sitting.

  The children bowed their heads slightly, followed by the adults. Warrick looked out over the table and said: "Life consumes life. Plants and animals die that we might grow. Here, dark within the earth, with no sun save our own understanding, let us acknowledge our humble place in the cycle of death and rebirth, giving love, killing only to survive, and when the time comes, rendering our own lives without fear, with thanks for the days we have known."

  The children raised their heads and said, "Amen." After a few moments the noise level in die room rose and there was conversation again.

  One of the men on serving duty brought bowls to them. Aubry stirred it with a finger, licking the tip with a grunt of satisfaction.

  Promise dipped into her bowl gingerly, swallowing her first spoonful with a grimace.

  Aubry had taken about four spoonfuls when he realized that Warrick was watching him. He tried to ignore the attention, but failed miserably.

  Finally he put his spoon down and looked up at Warrick, who was resting his chin on one bony fist.

  "What is it?" Aubry said uncomfortably.

  "Your hand is shaking, Knight."

  "So what? I've been working hard. The air was bad today." He tried to interest himself in the gruel again, but failed.

  "Yes. I know. It was bad for everyone who worked in R-sector. Are all of their hands shaking?"

  A quick glance around the table told the story. There were many faces watching Aubry's conversation with Warrick, but none of them seemed as empty-eyed as the ghost who looked back at him from the mirror.

  "I don't give a damn."

  Warrick took another sip from his bowl and put it aside. "I know. In fact, you don't seem to care about anything any more, except your woman—"

  "And what the hell is wrong with that?"

  "You shouldn't interrupt, Knight." Warrick's voice was very soft. "Your woman, and your drug."

  Aubry's hands clenched on his spoon, bending it.

  "I have something you need to see," Warrick said.

  Mira rose nervously and pulled a flatscreen video from her purse, extending its tripod. She set it facing Promise and Aubry, then inserted a rectangular plastic card.

  "Yesterday," Mira said, "I was at Fair Market. Someone traded me this for a couple of carrots. I didn't know what
was on it, but I..." She shrugged, and Warrick touched her shoulder comfortingly. "We had a lot of carrots, and there didn't seem to be any harm. It... well, you'll see." She brushed a finger over a flat, heat-sensitive membrane.

  A syrupy male announcer's voice came on a moment before the picture. "Has your romance lost its pizzazz? Is sex the same old boring grind week after week? Are you tired of orgies and one-night stands?

  "Well, now, from the most prestigious hallucinogenics facility in the world comes SX-1000, the first significant advancement in sexual stimulation since the synthesizing of pheromones."

  The screen was filled with pastels and slow-motion action. A teenaged couple were running through a field of poppies, moving more and more slowly, and aging as they grew nearer. Just before they touched, the screen froze. They appeared to be in their mid-sixties.

  The scene segued to a rustling fire. "—or have the passions of the past died away, leaving only a yearning remembrance of what once was?" The same couple was seated on opposite sides of the room. He read his plastic newspaper while she played a sensory game, helmet and gloves blocking out the rest of the world. "Awaken those old desires. Stoke the flame of love with SX-1000. The miracle of this or any age, the magical potion sought throughout history, craved by kings and queens since the beginning of time. Not just another aphrodisiac, SX-1000 makes your partner yours. Love can be yours after a lifetime of loneliness—"

  Warrick reached out and flicked off the viewer. "You can imagine who is responsible for this."

  Aubry was staring at the dead screen, an ugly thought piercing the confusion in his mind. "The Ortegas?"

  "The Ortegas. I think that we know everything about that drug that we need to know."

  "What—?"

  "Look at yourselves and I won't need to waste my breath. The mushrooms must be destroyed."

  Promise had stopped pretending to eat, dropping her spoon at the word destroyed.

  "Knight, this is a very small community. We depend on each other for mutual survival. Once I saw you as a strong addition to my team and thought the two of you might work out well. For that and—" Mira squeezed his arm in caution. "—other reasons I let you stay. And I let the drug grow. But you aren't eating properly, you can't get along with your coworkers, you don't even bathe often enough. What has happened to the two of you is intolerable. The mushrooms are to be destroyed. Do you have anything to say?"

  Now there was total silence in the room, every eye on them, every face turned to see what Aubry's answer could possibly be. He felt numb, frightened, but a tiny voice within him said, Good. Someone had to. Someone.

  But Promise's broken nails dug into his arm, and he winced as they drove deep, drawing blood.

  "No, Aubry." He looked at her, barely recognizing the woman he had fallen in love with. Her flesh seemed shrunken and pale, ashy; her eyes were huge and glowing. "No, Aubry. You can't let him do that. You just can't. I—" She stood shakily, scanning the rows of Scavengers, trying to find support that wasn't there. She raised her voice. "I just can't make it without them." She ran her hands over her clothes, feeling the soil, for the first time fully conscious of the ruin she had become. "I know that I've fallen down a little Maybe we haven't been working as hard as we should, but we'll change. Honest to God, we will."

  "I know you will," Warrick said quietly. 'The decision has been made."

  "Aubry..."

  Aubry stood, tried to straighten out his frame, felt the kinks from too many hours stooped in nearly airless tunnels, heard his joints popping and creaking as he pulled himself erect. "Isn't there a vote? Don't we have any rights at all?"

  "You have rights," Warrick said. "But so do the families who live here with me. So do their children. If they want to see the results of drug addiction, they can go topside and wander around in the Maze. We've tried to build something better for ourselves down here. It's all these people have, and I'll protect it in every way that I can. I should never have allowed you to begin taking the drug. This is the only way I know of undoing the damage."

  Aubry's voice was so cracked with emotion that it was difficult to understand what he was saying, the words emerging as a dull croak. "I've had everything I ever wanted taken away from me, and now I have something—someone—even if I only have her when we're both freaked out of our minds. And now you want to—to take that away from me? No!"

  "I can't take anything away from you that is truly real. If there is any hope, or any love between you, then it will remain after the drug is gone."

  Aubry looked at Promise. She flinched away, horror stitched rudely across her face.

  The message there was too clear to him, and he pulled away from it as if shocked with a live wire. "No. I can't take that chance. Can't you understand?" He looked up and down the rows of faces. "Can't any of you understand?"

  Silence. A few of them turned away.

  Warrick faced him squarely. "None of them will go against the basic principles of our world, Knight. And none of them will go against me, so long as I am their leader."

  "Well, then, dammit, maybe you shouldn't be their leader. Maybe you just shouldn't be some kind of high-handed dictator, pulling people's guts out to satisfy your injured sense of decency. Did you ever think of that?"

  Two of the men at the head table started to rise, but Warrick restrained them with a wave of his hand. "And what do you propose, Knight?"

  "Fight me." Aubry's hands had knotted into fists, the looseness in his arm muscles gone as he focused his gaze on the slender man at the head table. "Fight me, damn you, if you're any kind of man at all, give me a chance. Just a chance. I'll fight you any way you like. Any at all." Warrick sat back in his seat, watching Aubry with eyes that weighed carefully. "Do you think the weight difference is too much? Use a weapon. Anything you want." He was panting with desperation.

  Warrick's pale eyes were hot, gleaming. "Aubry..."

  "You used to be on the Mercenary Police. You had to learn how to fight. Use anything you want. Anything."

  "You're making a mistake, Knight. I know what you were; but more importantly, I know who you are. And you don't know me at all."

  "Save it. Don't hide behind your damn words. Fight me. Come on, Warrick. Fight me. Please. Come on."

  Warrick templed his fingers meditatively. "You may be correct. I've been trying to reach you with words. Perhaps .., perhaps I need to get your attention first." He stood. "Pull the tables back," he said. "We're going to need some."

  Warrick sat at one end of the cleared area, his eyes half-lidded. In his right hand was a twelve-centimeter section of pipe, capped at both ends.

  Twenty meters away squatted Aubry Knight. He tried to stretch out the tendons and muscles in his legs, and felt kinks where once there had been liquid movement. He growled, trying to fight past the pain, but gave up, realizing that he could hurt himself in the trying.

  Joints crackled with disuse. Muscles burned as blood pumped into them. He swallowed air and pushed it down.

  He looked over at Promise, who watched with her face frozen into something on the thin edge between hope and despair. He tried some simple gymnastic maneuvers, alarmed at how much agility and balance had been lost. No matter. He had more than enough left to handle this fossil.

  He walked toward the center of the area. His gaze swept the Scavengers as they stood pressed back against the walls, holding their children, their wives, their security, while he fought for his. He would show them, dammit. He would show them something they would never forget.

  "All right, Warrick. Come out and get your ass whipped."

  Warrick smiled dreamily and rose. He took in Aubry’s stance, the dirt in his clothes and hair, the half-focused gaze.

  "You can't beat me, Aubry. Because all you see in front of you is your own fear."

  Aubry snarled, dropping to die ground, his left leg scything around in a sweep. Even in his debilitated condition, die motion was so fast and fluid that the collected Scavengers gasped in shock. Warrick hopped up and
back, barely fast enough as Aubry finished the full circle, drew his feet together in a crouching blur, and sprang into the air with uncanny lightness, left leg spearing out at die Scavenger leader's chest.

  Warrick pivoted to the side barely in time. Aubry grimaced as his kneecap ran into the end of the short pipe, his own momentum providing die impact.

  Like a scarecrow spinning in the wind, Warrick twisted behind Aubry, too close for the next spinning kick to land. Again, an electric jolt of pain shot up Aubry's leg as his calf collided with the pipe.

  He landed just a hair out of balance, rolling to the side. He tried to spring up and felt the weakness in his lower leg, rolled again to stretch it out and relieve the cramp. He came back to his feet, adjusting his balance to compensate for the ache.

  The instant he balanced he charged in, feinting a front-leg hook kick to the head, changing it to a kick to the ribs. He felt the pain as the pipe connected with his shin, but he had nicked Warrick this time. He gritted his teeth, bearing down. He fought to keep his emotions neutral as he launched a barrage of techniques: elbows, backhands, hammerfists to the groin. Again and again his weapons missed the skittering Warrick and became targets for the steel-capped pipe. Aubry forced the pain back and kept coming. He closed for a moment, grabbed one of Warrick's spindly arms and spun for a hip throw. As he did, die pipe slammed jarringly into his spine, destroying his balance. Aubry fell, legs jelly, but Warrick only half-managed to ride it out and fell with him.

  Aubry groped out, but Warrick wasn't there, and the frustration became a surging wave that smashed against his wall of control, bringing emotions to the surface.

  Where was Warrick? Where was that— Aubry choked back the thought, cursing.

  "You fight with your feelings, don't you, Aubry?" Warrick said. "If you can't feel, you can't fight."

  The words triggered anger, and Aubry's control began to crumble. He turned and caught Warrick coming up behind him, whipping into a series of spinning leaps that drove the Scavenger leader back and back, too powerful to block, too broad to angle away from.

  Warrick didn't have time to get set, and Aubry's foot caught him on the hip, spinning him, and he dropped, ducking under a follow-up kick that would have broken his neck. He scrambled back, and Aubry came after him, balance skewed, form and technique sloppy, but still a juggernaut of destruction, a blurring windmill of death, kicking, chopping, cursing out his rage. He forced greater and greater speed into his limbs. Despite Warrick's ghostly elusiveness, Aubry was nicking him again and again now.