Streetlethal

by Steven Barnes

  "Making do."

  Mira ran up ahead and unshackled the metal gate that lay across the exit from the river bed.

  "Gate looks newer than the rest of the fence. That your doing too?"

  "Yes, but it's not supposed to look newer. Have to get that fixed."

  The headlights on the carts were dimmed the moment they left the river. The streets were dark, but there was enough illumination to steer by.

  Most of the buildings were tattered ruins. Clothing hanging in the windows showed Aubry that they were inhabited, despite die yellow and red "condemned" signs emblazoned across their doorways.

  They cruised through the streets, a miniature convoy, electric engines purring low in mechanical throats. Here and there were the first signs of wakefulness, a flickering light or two in ground-floor windows, a shadowy movement in the mouth of an alley.

  "So, some of the gangs do favors for you. What's in it for them?"

  "Sometimes we have goods that they want. Or services."

  A movement on a rooftop drew Aubry's attention for a moment. He turned back to Warrick. "What kind of services?"

  "I'm surprised you ask. You worked on one of our classrooms."

  "Classrooms? What do you teach?"

  "Just basics. Reading. Writing. The educational system has broken down completely—unless you can afford to pay. How much education do you have, Aubry?"

  "Enough." He glared at the streets as they fanned past, drew his collar tighter, feeling the chill. "Not much. Promise has a hell of a lot more than me."

  "But you're not at all stupid. Did you ever have the feeling that you don't have as much control over your life as you'd like?"

  "Seems to me that we've had this conversation before."

  "Is your answer the same?"

  There was silence for about twenty seconds. Then, "No."

  "And what's the difference?"

  Aubry shrugged. "I'm not sure. I just know that there's this big thing inside me that feels empty, and I want to fill it."

  "What with?"

  "With everything, man. With the world." He paused, trying to find words. "There used to be something in my head, something that told me what I was, and what the world was, and what my place was."

  "And that was important?"

  "Hell, man, it was everything. I mean, all your power comes from knowing who you are."

  There were one or two people on the street now, carrying bundles, headed in the same direction as the carts. They paid little attention.

  "Definitions are just words, just labels. And once you label something, the label gets between you and the thing."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Say you found a lizard, all right? You put him in a jar, and slap on a big label that says 'lizard.' Only the label is so big that you can't see the lizard anymore."

  Aubry looked pained. "You're driving me crazy. Four weeks ago you were telling me to call myself a Warrior. Now you say not to hide behind a label. Are you trying to make a fool of me, or what?"

  "Labels are useful only if they're not vital. You mustn't need one, even if it reads 'toughest man in the world.'"

  Aubry ground his face down into the palms of his hands, rocking his head from side to side. "I don't know, man. I just don't know. I hear what you say, and it makes sense. I can't say any of it is crap. But my head hurts when you talk. It feels like there's something dying inside me."

  "Don't be afraid of dying. A Warrior lives with death, Aubry. Welcomes it as an ally. All other fears are just fragments of death, forms of unbecoming. A fighter clings to life, and therefore cannot win. A warrior treats life and death as the same thing, and therefore cannot lose."

  Warrick turned out of the street and up into a cleared area where there were booths and music and sunlight. Aubry leaned back against his seat, a huge grin breaking out on his face like candles glowing at midnight. "Well, I'll be damned," he said.

  Warrick laughed. "You never can tell."

  Four Scavengers had arrived at the Fair Market before dawn, staking out a small booth. Aubry jumped out of the cart and walked through the crowd to die spot, searching the faces around him, smelling, looking at the battered buildings ringing the square, feeling the difference in everything he saw, knowing that the difference was in him, only in him.

  They set up the booth, handing out crafts made from bits of scrap metal, coils of wire trinkets, carved wood, painted mirrors, fresh vegetables from the hydroponics garden, and other items.

  "Whatever we can't sell at a profit to our normal wholesalers," Warrick explained. "Bulk metals and wood, unwrought wire, salvageable machine parts—all of that goes to our regular buyer, who in turn is cleared by the state government. We free-market the rest of it."

  A small man carrying a tool chest touched Aubry on the arm, and he looked down into a sallow, wizened face. The man couldn't possibly be as old as he seemed—no ambulatory human being could have been. Only his eyes were truly alive— his eyes and his mouth, which was empty except for the worn stumps of teeth. He looked like nothing so much as a smiling, bleached prune.

  "Sir?" the oldster said timidly, "I don't have nothin' to trade but myself, but if you've got anything need's fixin', you can count on me."

  Warrick glanced into the tool chest. "We don't turn away anyone who is willing to work. Come back at the end of the day."

  The old man looked longingly at the oranges stacked in a corner of the basket. They were small, with patches of green on them and a slightly shriveled look, but in the old one's eyes they might have been globes of nectar. "It's been a long time," he said timidly. "Can’t even chew it, but if I could just suck the juice—" He smiled regretfully, already expecting a refusal, but Warrick caught his shoulder.

  "I think we can advance you an orange."

  The old man snatched die orange out of Warrick's hands with surprising speed and dug a dirty thumbnail into the skin, squeezing until juice welled out around the edges. He put it to his mouth and slurped as he walked away, juice running through his stubble.

  "You can't just give the stuff away," Aubry said.

  "Call it an investment."

  Aubry snorted.

  Trade went briskly. Few people had coin or Service Marks, and dollars were next to useless, but some exchanged needed tools for fresh food or craft items, and a few more signed up to do specialized work in tunnels and inner chambers.

  Warrick wandered off to check the other booths, leaving Aubry and Mira to conduct most of the business.

  Drink vendors circulated through the crowd, hawking their wares as the day wore on and the sun warmed the air to the point that Aubry loosened the braided thongs that held shut the front of his shirt, reveling in the freedom.

  A pretty young Hispanic woman eyed a pair of end tables that Aubry had dug out of a buried furniture shop and stripped and lacquered himself. They weren't pretty, but they were made of wood, and that, in the Maze, was rarer than virginity.

  "Big man," she said, "what you asking for those?"

  "What are you offering?"

  She smiled suggestively at him, raising her skirt to expose a shapely calf. Aubry laughed regretfully. "Sorry, sugar. Got some of that at home. What else?"

  She matched his smile. "Can't blame a girl for trying." Her purse was a thing of cloth and plastic, home-patched, and she turned slightly sideways to conceal her calculations. "Three Maiks."

  Aubry shook his head. "Spent that much just putting the things back together. Nine."

  "Nine! Hijo de la.. A give you five, and not a deci more."

  "I can go as low as eight, and if you can't match that, you're walking away empty-handed."

  "Listen—all I have is seven and a half. Honest." She batted huge black eyes at him. Aubry leaned forward to peer into her purse.

  "You're sure about that?"

  "God as my witness."

  "Deal." Money and property were exchanged. She stacked the tables onto a small wire cart, and limped away.

  Aubry elbowed Mir
a. "How about that?"

  "Just a born merchant, aren't you."

  "Must be in the blood."

  "Certainly not in the eyes."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Watch the way she walks." The woman was disappearing into the crowd, the easy swing of her hips interrupted by a slight wobble.

  "So she limps. So what?"

  "So one of her legs is shorter than the other. Because she keeps her money in her shoe."

  Aubry winced. "Oh."

  "Don't worry about it. I only know because she pulled that game on my brother once."

  "Old 'see all, know all'?"

  "Still just a man." She chuckled, but there was something uncomfortable in her laughter. She looked around, as if checking to see if anyone was listening. "There's something you should know about him, Aubry," she said, then abruptly shut up as a familiar figure appeared at Aubry's elbow.

  "Big man," the old repairman said, his face cautious.

  "Hey, sorry, old timer. You'll have to wait."

  "Not that. I think I can help you."

  "This sounds like a con to me." Aubry put one huge hand over the bowl of fruit. "All right, let's hear it."

  The little man drew closer, until Aubry could smell the cheap whiskey on his breath. He jerked a grimy thumb back towards the row of buildings bordering the north edge of the Plaza. "Look over at those buildings."

  "All right. They're falling down on themselves. What else is new?"

  "Now look just a little to your right. Don't move your head. Just your eyes. Down by the last stand in the row."

  Impatient now, Aubry did so. "Damn it, man, I don't see—" But there was someone there, for just a moment—a figure in a ragged dark shirt, a figure which turned away too quickly, and then disappeared. Aubry felt a tickle of fear at the back of his head, but dismissed it swiftly. "What of it?"

  "He's been watching you, big man. For maybe half an hour. I thought you should know."

  "It's probably nothing " But Aubry knew he was lying, and gripped Mira's arm. "Listen—I can feel that there's something wrong here. I'm going to check out those buildings."

  She brushed a strand of dark hair out of her eyes and nodded, her thin face drawn even thinner with worry. "All right, Aubry, but—take care. If there's something wrong, let us help."

  Aubry stepped around from behind the stand, his gaze fixed on the spot where the man had disappeared. "I handle my own problems."

  Her hand was a feather touch on his shoulder. "You're not alone anymore, Aubry. You have a family."

  He nodded without agreeing, and slipped away into the crowd. It parted before him like water, and he felt like a great predator as he moved.

  He shouldered past a vendor hawking cooked rats in time to spy a black shirt disappearing into the north bank of crumbling offices. Aubry plunged through the crowd, breaking free from the sellers and buyers and thieves until he stood under the building with the cracked and ruined steps, the faded "condemned" stickers pasted over the door, all in once-garish reds and yellows, now totally ignored. There were shirts and pants hung out to dry along the windows of the upper stories. Aubry could smell sweat and human waste stewing inside.

  He took a single backward glance at the market, but couldn't find Mira or the Scavenger stall, wondering vaguely why he felt the pang of their absence. He shook his head, growling, and entered the building.

  There was a long straight hall ending in deep shadow, and a slanting staircase that went up to the second level. He paused, straining the air through his teeth, and calmed himself, trying to hear.

  There was the background hubbub of the market and the distant sound of a baby crying. An argument, something about someone spending money on drugs. And the creak of a stair.

  He glided towards the end of the hall almost noiselessly, trying to become one with the building, the trash-filled halls, the grimy doors, the piles of filth and scuttling rats.

  He found an odd mental posture, one where Aubry Knight didn't exist at all, not enough of him to become a part of anything, and all that there was was the building, and the background noises, and the footsteps of...

  Another creak, and Aubry forgot caution and ran, heard the tentative footsteps become frantic, pounding up the stairs. He swung around the railing in time to hear a squeak of terror and see a figure vanish up the next flight of stairs. Aubry took the steps three at a time, slowing only when he heard a crashing, splintering sound.

  He rounded the corner, peering through the darkness to see a figure crouched on the stair, one leg driven through the rotting floor boards.

  Aubry approached cautiously, testing each of the steps, careful not to place too much of his weight on any of them. The figure on the stair whimpered and tried to pull its leg out of the hole, and failing that, tried to edge as far away from Aubry as possible.

  "What do you want from me?" Aubry's voice was like a dull knife pressing a throat. "Just what in die hell am I to you?"

  "Honest, Knight—"

  Aubry started at the sound of his name—and at the sound of the voice. It was a woman's voice, and, although unfamiliar, it made him pull back.

  "Do I know you?"

  She whimpered. "No, and I wish I'd never seen you. I ain't got nothing against you. I just needed the money."

  "Money?" The tickle of alarm blossomed fully now, and even before she spoke, his mind was dropping guesses into place.

  He stepped right up next to her, close enough to see the desperation and hard living in the lines of her face, the trembling of a battered nervous system. "Who's offering money for me?" Ortega.

  "Ortegas," she said, and a great sigh went out of Aubry, a strange feeling of peace coming over him. So. He was right. "Five hundred Marks to anyone who finds you or the woman Promise."

  "Are you working alone, or does someone else know you saw me?"

  Her terror was pitifully obvious. She was a frail thing, couldn't have been much older than sixteen, with skin so clear it was nearly translucent, little veins in her face and hands showing through clearly. Her hair would probably have been blond if it ever renewed its acquaintance with soap and water. It was clear that she was considering a lie, wondering if it would do any good, but finally shook her head. "Nobody. I saw your picture at my sister's place. They're spreading it all over. Started about a month ago."

  "Just a month ago? What kind of crap is that?" Without conscious thought, his hands had tightened on the collar of her jacket, and she gasped with pain. He cursed under his breath and loosened his grip.

  "That's when the war started," she gasped, purpling.

  "War? What war?"

  "Jesus, don't you know? The top man's supposed to be cracking up, losing his grip. There's blood in the street, man. He's neglecting the gambling, the hookers... it's up for grabs." She swallowed hard. "W-What are you going to do with me?" The tone of her voice said that she had already formed an opinion about his plans. She was sweating, and even in the foul air of the hallway, he could smell the rank dampness of it.

  "That's a damn good question. I sure as hell can't leave you here." What would Warrick think if I brought her back? He bent to pull her leg out of the floorboards. I guess there must be some kind of useful work we can put her to.

  But as his eyes left her hands, she slipped a slender knife from its place in her right boot and brought it down at his neck.

  Aubry felt her body accelerate, and his combat brain took over. From sensitivity alone he knew the arc that her descending hand traveled, and his left hand blocked, grabbed, twisted, and his right hand formed a spear that lanced into her throat at a speed far beyond any conscious control.

  There was a dull crunching sound and a look of shattered surprise on her face. She flew back, her head impacting with the chipped plaster. Aubry heard her arm break at the wrist and elbow. Her eyes stared wetly, and she tried to say something, but only coughed, a single dark droplet of blood sliding out of her mouth and down her cheek.

  Aubry dropped her hand and st
ood back from her, horrified. He looked at his hand as if it were a stranger's.

  The girl was limp, a last sigh trickling out of her lungs along with the bubble of blood. He backed further away.

  "What happened?" Warrick asked.

  Aubry started, then sighed. Only Warrick. The girl was a rag doll now. They used her, like they'll use anyone, anything. Fm not the predator. They are. The whole rotten Family. "The Ortegas. They're still after me."

  Warrick nodded. "Wait here until dark. I'll send someone to bring you back. Did you have to kill her?"

  Aubry could see how thin and frail she was, the way her cheekbones jutted through the skin. He felt sick and ashamed.

  "Were you angry?"

  "I wasn't anything. I felt, and I moved. My God. I never moved that fast in my life."

  He closed his eyes, trying to find the center to the emotions that swirled in his head, and found it an instant before Warrick's large, cool hand clasped his shoulder. "Then feel no shame. Your body did what it was trained to do."

  "I'm not just a body, dammit."

  "I know that," Warrick said. "I've always known that. And now you're learning. Wait here. I'll send someone for you."

  The Scavenger leader left the building, making no sound.

  Aubry sat on the stair, looking at the limp body of the girl he had killed, and waited for darkness to fall.

  Far away from Aubry, hundreds of miles above his head, a relay in a telecommunications satellite pulsed to life.

  The satellite had been in service for thirteen years and was programmed to handle the needs of seventeen hundred separate customers tied into a master tracing network. It was what was called a "locator" satellite, with two antennas, each more than two kilometers long. One was oriented north-south, and the other east-west. Reception beams from this satellite and its brothers scanned the world, looking for the digital codes broadcast by tiny milliwatt radio transmitters belonging to its subscribers. Sometimes the transmitters were attached to packages being shipped. Sometimes they were implanted deep within valuable objects as anti-theft devices. And sometimes the tracers were implanted on or in persons to whom some organization attached special import.

  The satellite picked up a signal it had been seeking for months now. One scanning beam located it north-south, the other east-west, and broadcast the location of the missing transmitter to a ground station in figures accurate to within twenty meters.