Shadow Life

by Jason Mather

  Where had he come from? Was that really him? There were too many security breaches; Hans talking to her on a comm he didn’t even know she had, operating the jumpcraft remotely, seizing control of her goggles. Her equipment was supposed to be the most secure there was, and now everything she owned was on a party line. Had Hans blown the building?

  Reports of the disaster drifted in on the newswaves, with viewscreen pictures of the collapsed structure; a sunken, cratered rubble pile, the material of the walls melting spontaneously, coating the surface of the crater with black glass. The shockwave took out one of the trains. Crews were already at work trying to open the tunnel. There were no rescue crews, no one expected any survivors. The worst rail disaster in history. She hoped it wasn’t Hans’ doing. She knew he wouldn’t have done it intentionally; others might not.

  She had to find him. At first, she just wanted him protected, but, true to form, he’d gotten himself snarled in the system. He was now of central importance. Her best lead was probably lying dead in that ruined building; Onyx’s body, both of them. But that wasn’t Onyx. If not, then who? Was Onyx dead? Had she ever been alive? Did she control those crab things? Why had they saved Hans and broken the ambush, but then attacked her and Gino?

  Dammit, she needed to find Hans.

  Gino still slept. Grit needed a walk.

  On an impulse, she headed up to the hospice floor. She’d been doing it for fourteen months, and old habits die hard.

  The entrance area had been cleaned up, with no sign of the nurse’s shooting. The nurse behind the desk recognized her, smiled nervously. Grit realized she didn’t know why she’d come here.

  “Is Doctor Laud in?” The question was more to soothe the nurse.

  “He’s in the stasis room, I’ll have someone…”

  “I know the way, thank you.” The nurse started to protest. Grit didn’t give her the chance.

  The stasis room creeped Grit out. Hans had floated in one of the tanks for almost a year, incisions appearing and disappearing as Laud installed new organs. Grit had been glad when they’d moved him to a normal bed.

  Laud stood over the nurse’s tank. Toni, Grit remembered. He looked up as Grit entered.

  “Commander Ricker. Here to see me?”

  “How is she?”

  “Physically? Much better, the new neural tissue is almost done growing. That doesn’t mean she’ll ever recover, however.”

  “My apologies, Doctor. If we…”

  “Please, Commander Ricker. No one blames you, certainly not I. How could you have foreseen what happened?”

  “I should have.”

  Laud smiled sadly at her. “The arrogance of youth,” he winked.

  “I hardly think ‘youth’ is appropriate.” She should be annoyed, but couldn’t find it in her.

  “When you’re my age ‘youth’ is anything under a hundred or so.”

  “You’re surprisingly spry for a centenarian.”

  “Clean living, Commander Ricker, clean living and the occasional medical miracle.”

  Greta moved to the table. Toni looked peaceful in the tank, face resting, emotionless, like those things that had attacked her in the hallway.

  “Is there anything you can’t grow?” she asked.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Organs, body parts, is there any part of the body you can’t grow?”

  “Only consciousness and personality.”

  “But you could grow a body from scratch?”

  “Yes, though I don’t know why I would,” Laud sounded confused, intrigued.

  “Have you ever heard of anyone doing it?”

  “Rumors mostly, though since we have the capacity, it’s hard to believe that someone hasn’t at least tried it. But you’d have nothing more than a human-shaped slab of meat.”

  Greta mulled this over. Grown bodies. It could explain the lack of distinguishing features. If someone knew how to grow them, why not modify, simplify, depending on their intentions?

  “Could you control them? Externally, I mean?” she asked.

  Doctor Laud gave her a serious look. “I don’t know how. We’ve come a long way, but interfacing the human mind with a computer or transmitter has always been hit or miss. Anyone able to control them externally would have technology the likes of which I’ve never even heard of.”

  “Yeah, there’s been a lot of that going around lately.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Hans stumbled back to the car, refusing to let Onyx carry Lori. The girl sat docilely in his arms, not speaking, barely moving, the only person in the world more confused than him.

  He put her in the backseat, wishing he had something more substantial than her threadbare blanket to cover her. There was nothing in the trunk. He didn’t even have a jacket to give her. So much for big brother.

  Onyx resumed the passenger seat. Hans pulled them out of the parking lot and set the autopilot for his hometown of Glenwood.

  “Taking her home to meet the family?” There was no sneer in Onyx’s voice. Maybe playful teasing.

  “We need to figure some things out, and you owe me some answers. But we can’t do it here, not with her. I’m taking her to my mother, then we can make plans.”

  “I’m intrigued to meet Matron Ricker. Such interesting children she’s raised.”

  “I don’t think she’ll like you calling her matron.”

  Onyx shrugged.

  The car drove onto the interstate, sliding precariously between two cargo haulers. He flinched at the closeness of it and decided to darken the windows, give the autopilot a rare bit of trust.

  He dozed on and off, not the best of ideas, even with the car driving. But he was exhausted. His last sleep felt years ago, his feet sore, legs sore, arms sore, head throbbing; just needed to close his eyes for a while. He jerked them open, glanced back to check on Lori. She sat upright, peering through the window.

  “First car ride?” he asked her. She nodded timidly.

  “Won’t be the last, I promise.”

  Another nod.

  How much damage had been done to her? Could she read? Write? Did she have any education at all? Would she even be able to adapt to the outside world? Hans had read of feral children kept in closets, how after a certain age they could be tamed but never taught. He had hope for Lori. Not a common feeling for him.

  “You did good,” Onyx said.

  “What?”

  “With the girl. Whatever else happens, know that you did the right thing removing her from there.”

  “I thought you were against it?”

  “I was wrong.”

  “The great Onyx, ruler of her domain, wrong? Didn’t think I’d ever see that.”

  “I have made many errors in my life, some nearly lethal for me, some definitely lethal for others. I know the mistakes I make, Hans. I try to learn from them. Can you say the same?”

  Food for thought. A criminal and murderer lecturing him on learning from his mistakes. His last mistake ended lives. What could he possibly learn from that? He was still wondering if he could live with it.

  The droning of the road lulled him to sleep.

  — «» —

  Sunlight woke him. There was something heavy in his lap. A naked girl. His legs were asleep, arms nearly so. Lori had crawled up onto his lap and left the filthy robe and blanket in the backseat. He didn’t have the heart to move her. Definitely have to get her some clothes.

  They’d made it to the mountains overnight, driving up through mesas and foothills. His home ground.

  Onyx sat completely still in the passenger seat, eyes open. Had she slept?

  “You a ninja or something?” Hans whispered, so as not to wake Lori.

  “Hmmm?” her voice seemed far away, distracted.

  “You learn how to sleep with your eyes open?”

  “Sleep doesn’t come easily to me.”

  As they topped a rise, the car pulled out to pass a cargo truck. The mountains loomed ahead. Maybe an hour to Glenwood. Han
s recognized a small store run by a friend of his mom’s. It sold a little bit of everything, sitting out in unincorporated land to avoid taxation. He pulled in.

  “Why are we stopping?” Onyx asked.

  “I need to get some clothes for Lori.”

  Hans woke her gently. She had slept like the dead and woke confused, hair rumpled.

  “I need to get out for a moment.”

  She clung.

  “Just for a few minutes. I’m going to get you some clothes. I’ll be back, I promise.”

  Lori docilely allowed herself to be placed in the backseat. Hans sat kneading his legs, waiting for the tingling to go away. When he felt he could walk, he opened the door.

  “Can you stay with her?”

  Onyx nodded.

  It took him fifteen minutes or so. The store did not have much selection, and the proprietor kept trying to sell him on having the clothes fabricated on site. Anything he wanted. Hans protested, shoved a pair of boy’s jeans, a small belt, button-up collared shirt, and a pair of work boots on the counter, talked the woman into letting him owe her since she knew his mother, and stood through a few minutes of bored idle gossip.

  He put the clothes on the seat next to Lori. She gave him a look and a hug. Awkward but enjoyable. She’d still barely talked.

  They resumed their drive.

  — «» —

  Glenwood had attracted people to its hot springs and vapor caves for almost two hundred years, and the natives had used them before that. But the heat that powered them faltered a few decades before, and Glenwood transformed from a tourist trap to one of the many hardscrabble, unincorporated towns dotting the increasingly wild land outside the major city-states. Towns like Glenwood attracted the misanthropes and malcontents, people who were not comfortable with the monitoring systems even in a free city-state like Denver. There wasn’t so much a heavy criminal element in Glenwood as a thriving black market in the types of things the feds didn’t have time to police. Antique weapons sold alongside very modern, and somewhat illegal, body mods, mood enhancers, underground pornography and such. Several discredited surgeons lived here. If one was a bit suicidal and willing to sign all the right forms waving the surgeon’s responsibility, it was possible to have the internal ID chip removed. It was not a common surgery, and the chance of escaping permanent brain damage or death was only fifty-three percent. Hans had been lucky, for probably the only time.

  The welcome sign was nearly covered in vegetation. The population hadn’t been updated in decades. It was considerably more than the faded 8538.

  Though the springs had dried up, the smell still permeated everything. Sulfur. It smelled like home. The main drag still displayed the facades of small town America, but the stores behind them were anything but. No mom and pop stores, no candy and licorice. Most of the stores dealt in gray market contraband. The owners kept guns under the counters and didn’t like strangers. His kind of town.

  Hans piloted the car manually through the town proper. Pat’s reputation with a rifle was legendary.

  He stopped the car in front of an old gate, got out to open it. Lori was peering avidly from the window, Onyx unaffected. It was a half mile drive up smooth gravel to Pat’s house, which had two stories and wraparound porch of bare wood. Hans was home. He wished he could stay.

  He stopped the car, started toward the house, then remembered Lori. She sat at the window, unmoving. Idiot. He went back to help her out. She didn’t want to get out at first. Hans cajoled her, pulled firmly. Lori resisted him. Eventually he picked her up. She grasped him desperately. He tried to be encouraging.

  They walked toward the old house.

  Pat was on the porch, standing with the door open, rifle propped on her hip like some modern Annie Oakley. At sixty-four, the hardness was just starting to leave her. She was lean and wiry, wearing jeans and an old, faded button-up. Frontier woman extraordinaire.

  “Hello, Hans.” She smiled at him, frowned at the other two. “Who’re these?”

  “Friends.”

  Pat waited for him to explain.

  “This is Illiyana.” Onyx stepped forward, extended a hand. Pat shook it fiercely, frowned at her outfit. “She’s saved my life a couple of times. I’m trying to return the favor.”

  “You saved my boy?” Pat dropped her hand, put it back in a pocket. “Thank you, though you may find it wasn’t worth it.”

  “I’m figuring that out.” A brief smile at Hans’ expense.

  Pat turned back to Hans, moved closer. Lori gripped him fiercely. “And who’s this?” she asked him.

  “Her name’s Lorilei.”

  “You kidnapping girls now, Hans?”

  “Just started yesterday.”

  Lorilei continued to grip him, fingers finding sore muscles. He tried to relax her. Pat moved in and grasped her gently but firmly under the chin, turned her face from Hans’ chest.

  “Can you speak, girl?”

  “Yes.” Almost a whisper.

  “Can you walk?”

  “Yes.” Nearly nonexistent.

  “Well, then, do you like hot cocoa?”

  Just a nod of her head.

  “We got some pretty good hot cocoa inside, but the only lady that ever gets carried through my door better be a newlywed. Did you marry my son?”

  Lorilei shook her head.

  “Then you’ll have to walk. Get down from there and follow me.”

  Hans started to protest, Pat ignored him and went inside. Onyx followed. The girl stared up at him.

  “Looks like we gotta walk. Test out those new shoes. You game?”

  She sat quietly in his arms, deciding. Nodded. He set her down. She held his hand. Wouldn’t let go.

  They went inside.

  — «» —

  Lorilei took to Pat almost immediately. She was good at taking orders, Pat good at giving them. Anger stayed with him, though, as he watched the conditioning she had endured. She stood by the table, unwilling to sit until Pat directly ordered her to. Then she sat next to Hans, unmoving, not even swinging her legs, which didn’t quite reach the floor. Hans pulled her chair next to his. She squeezed his hand tightly, nodding at questions from Hans’ mom, only letting go to reach for the steaming mug, even then glancing at Hans for permission to drink.

  It was a good thing Brigham was dead already. He hadn’t suffered nearly enough.

  When Hans got up to use the restroom, she jumped down to follow him. He put her back in the chair, told her he’d be right back, but she tried to follow anyway. Pat ordered her to sit down and finish her drink. Lorilei bowed her head, returned to the chair.

  Sitting in the john, taking care of business, he wondered what he was going to do. He was glad to help, and felt growing affection for the poor girl, but he was not qualified to deal with what had been done to her. Could anyone completely recover from that? Certainly, she needed more than he could give her. A twelve-year-old girl, completely sheltered and cowed, yet far too experienced in things she should only now be thinking about. It was hopeless, but then so was much of his situation.

  There was screaming from the kitchen. Lorilei yelling and crying, the sound of breaking dishes, Pat yelling. Hans yanked his pants up and ran to help.

  The dogs had woken up. Bogie was sitting dejectedly in the middle of the floor, just barely thumping his tail, disappointment and surprise on his face. Lori sat on top of the table, no longer screaming, her eyes wide with terror.

  She’d never seen a dog before. Or else one had been used to terrorize, maybe hurt her. Hans moved to her, she climbed into his arms, crying, turning her head.

  “It’s OK, Lori. This is Bogie. He couldn’t hurt you if he wanted to, he’s lost most of his teeth. He’s just an old dog looking for a treat.”

  Lori didn’t turn. Pat started to drag Bogie from the kitchen, his eyes hurt by a situation he didn’t understand. Cocker spaniels were not used to frightening people. Hans stopped her.

  “Wait, Mom. I want to introduce them.”

/>   “I don’t think this is the time, Hans.”

  “Then when? Just let him go a second.”

  Pat gave him a look of exasperation, but she let go of Bogie’s collar. Hans put Lori on the table edge and pried her hands loose from his neck. He held her head so she’d look at him, then took a deep breath.

  “Have you ever seen a dog before?”

  She shook her head. At least she’d never been hurt by one.

  “Did you ever have a pet?”

  Another shake of her head.

  “Pets are family, friends. You’re my friend, so is Bogie. He just wants a treat, maybe someone to scratch him behind the ears. Think you can do that?”

  A pause, an almost undetectable shake.

  “You sure? You scratch his ears and he’ll be the best friend you ever had. Do it for me?”

  She just stared at him. Hans picked her up, sat on the floor, and situated her in his lap. He was improvising, hoping he didn’t make things worse. He couldn’t have Lori run screaming every time she saw a dog, too many people let their dogs run loose up here.

  Bogie sat. Hans hadn’t seen him in over a year. A lot more gray speckled Bogie’s muzzle than Hans remembered. Bogie’d put on some weight, probably because Pat spoiled the dogs. He needed a haircut and a bath.

  Hans patted the floor, Bogie trotted over. Lori stiffened, flinched back. Bogie sat just by Hans’ right knee, still waiting, knowing that the girl was scared of him, confused but obedient.

  “Bogie, this is Lori. Lori, Bogie.”

  Bogie tilted his head. Lori sat very still.

  “Now you, Lori.”

  She made a little noise, relaxed a little.

  “Introduce yourself like this.”

  Hans held his hand out, let Bogie sniff it. Bogie’s ears went back, rump coming up off the tile, tail wagging easily. He gave Hans a lick. Hans scratched his ears. Bogie tilted his head into Hans’ hand. It was good to see Bogie again.

  “Now you do what I did. When he puts his ears back and wags his tail, that means hello.”

  Lori took a moment. Most of the fear had left her, replaced by fascination. How could she have never seen a dog before? A tentative hand extended, palm up, just like Hans. Bogie gave it a few sniffs, licked her palm and wagged his tail. Lori giggled a little. It was a glorious sound. She reached up to scratch Bogie’s head, putting her hand just where Hans’ had been. Bogie made a contented noise, tilted his head, thumped his back foot a little.