“I’m glad you enjoyed the tacos, Renzi,” Ajiñe said. “Because the Fists of Zapi are going to find out what you want, and if we don’t like it, zyiza . . . that’s the last thing you’ll ever eat.”
REFUEL: MEMORY
Half in the black.
Half in the quiet.
Half in the numb, empty body. Cold room, muted beeps.
Drowning in nothing, with only the tether of a shithole tory as a chance to breathe. Constantly fighting through the dark, dead void just to catch a gasp.
And then the race. The rush. The speed pulling her to him, fully in a body. Fully on a cycle—her cycle, her sweet baby—with the rush in her hair and her heart and throbbing fire from the engine up her legs into her cock.
His. His body.
Not hers.
But still hers, at least for the fleeting seconds of the race. Beautiful, amazing seconds where she and the tory and the cycle were all working together, pushing harder and faster as they closed the inches between them and the frontrunner. Almost won it.
Then the race ended, and as they came to a stop, as the glorious speed faded away, she found herself slammed back down into the void.
Darker, harder, deeper than ever.
She clawed her way up to find, at least, her own body, muted and numb as it was.
In the distance, there was a hint of light, of heat, of motion. She pulled her way through the sickly sweet of the empty void toward it. It must be the tory, the shit that he was. Maybe he was fucking the girl who won. Or fucking Partinez again. Or getting ready to betray them all.
Asshole.
She reached out and grabbed the light and pulled herself to it.
The world exploded.
She was in the bunker, as everything shook again. The next round of bombing had started. It had been relentless. She was huddled under the table, like Mother told her, her sister cradled in her arms.
This time, she was sure, the roof would not hold.
This time, she was sure, Mother wouldn’t come back.
This time, she was sure, the soldiers would find them. Maybe the Alliance’s. Maybe the tyrant’s.
There was no knowing which one would be worse.
Mother had said the 7th Senja was now no one’s—they were fighting circle to circle, street to street, inch to inch.
All while the bombers dropped another round of fire and death.
“It’s all right, Lathéi,” she whispered to her sister, too small and young to understand. She barely understood.
The walls shook again. They certainly wouldn’t hold and Mother would never—
Nália pushed back. This wasn’t her.
She never knew her mother.
She never cared for a baby sister. She never had a baby sister.
She had been a baby during the Great Noble. Born in a purge camp. Hidden in the floorboards. Kept from the guards. In the dark as the ceiling—the floor—shook with every step.
Everything dark. The void swallowed her again.
Her body being moved.
Not hers.
His body.
In the black.
In the quiet.
Numb and empty.
And no spark of light from Wenthi Tungét, save the labyrinth of horror in his memory.
She reached for it. It was all she had in the abyss of nothing.
THIRD CIRCUIT:
THE FISTS OF ZAPI
29
Ajiñe casually finished the last of her corn while Fenito and Mensi loaded Renzi and his cycle into the back of the truck. Three tacos and an ear, and she was still hungry.
She was almost always hungry, though.
She gave a few more coins to the cart chef. He deserved it just for the tacos, but also for turning an eye from the business of dosing Renzi and taking him and his cycle away. The chef knew the score. He wasn’t in the movement, but he had the loyalty. He was as much a proud Zapi as the rest of them, a jifoz who knew his home soil.
And he did make damned good tacos.
“Where you want to take him?” Gabrána asked. She was still dressed in her raceside finery, which was a whole thing Ajiñe never quite understood. Most of them looked like frippy fools, just like the Intown rhique who wore those clothes twelve years ago. Gabrána loved those outfits, though. Wore them whenever she could, no matter how damned impractical it was. Her wide-brim hat was very cute, though, at least on Gabrána. Ajiñe would never dress that way, not with engine work to do and cycles to ride.
But Gab wasn’t one to ride the cycles, even when out on the street for a run. She was brains and eyes.
“Nic is already at the bomb-out in the valley by Street Cohecta?”
“Course she is,” Gab said. “So what’s the buzz with this guy? What have you figured?”
“Nothing yet,” Ajiñe said. “My gut says he’s a tory, but that’s not what he tastes like. So if he is what he claims to be, he can ride like a dog bites. We need someone like that.”
“Sure do,” Gab said. “Can I ride your back while they take the truck?”
Ajiñe caressed Gab’s beautifully blush-painted cheek with the back of her hand. “Spirits, girl, you know you’re always welcome.”
“But I always ask.”
“That’s what I like about you.” She gave a little grin to Gab as she went to her cycle, unclipping the tie-downs that held the petrol bladders of her winnings. “I was going to take the Angpica drop, though.”
“Because you have to beat them to the spot?” Gab rolled her eyes. “Everything’s a race to you.”
“Absolutely,” Ajiñe said. With a quick whistle, she tossed the bladders to Fenito and Mensi. “So get on if you’re coming.”
Fenito and Mensi rumbled off in the truck, Renzi out cold in the bed, next to “his” ’goiz 960 and Ajiñe’s race winnings. Ajiñe got on her cycle, Gabrána getting on behind her, gathering up her skirt with one hand while wrapping the other arm tight around Ajiñe’s waist.
They wound their way through one sheer alley, up to the edge road that had a sharp overlook on Circle Hyunma and that stupid shitty statue. This road was too narrow for the truck, and led up the little mountain in the middle of Miahez, weaving curves the whole way until it reached a fork—one way would take her around the back to Street Xaomico, and the other to Street Angpica that dropped back down hard. Down into the valley below, the worst parts of Miahez that got bombed down in the last war and never rebuilt.
Gab howled with joy as they went over the last crest and dropped down the hill at a ripping pace. Ajiñe kept her cycle in free gear and cut the engine, saving as much fuel as she could. Gravity would do the work, taking them down to the valley faster and faster. Ajiñe had done this run plenty of times, dangerous as it was, but never with anyone clasping onto her back. Gab’s grip tightened as she squealed, and Ajiñe couldn’t tell if it was out of terror or excitement. Probably a bit of both.
Normally, Ajiñe would let herself fly, but she wasn’t going to risk that with Gab on the back. Weight was different, the turns would be as well. She relied a lot more on the brake than she normally would. She still whipped her way down, so for Gabrána it was just as thrilling and terrifying and fast as any ride down Street Angpica ought to be.
They reached the traffic circle at the bottom—which was empty at this sweep—as Ajiñe kicked the engine back to life and flew around it, emerging on Street Cohecta.
“You’re crazy!” Gabrána shouted over the wind.
“You love it!”
Two swipes of the clock later, they pulled up in front of the bomb-out. Once a boarding tenement, before the tyrant, before the Tyrant’s War—Great Noble, indeed—before the baniz were taken out of here and brought to the purge camps.
Of course, the purge camps were now Gonetown, and there were no baniz in this part of the ci
ty. At least, not legally. There probably were a few families in one of the abandoned apartments in the bomb-out. But not the one they were using. All the baniz who hid out here knew well enough to steer clear.
“It’s going to be a quarter-stint at least before they get here,” Gabrána said. There were only a few roads that were wide enough for the truck to manage, and they would have to take a roundabout route to navigate to Street Cohecta. “What ever will we do to pass the time?”
Ajiñe put her cycle into free gear and wheeled it into the building. “Like Nicalla isn’t already here, and like we don’t have work to do.”
“Maybe she is, and maybe that doesn’t matter,” Gabrána said. “You’ve already got me riled, zyiza.”
“A quarter-stint isn’t that much time,” Ajiñe said as she locked down her cycle outside the apartment door. A little regretful, but her mood wasn’t in the same place as Gabrána right now. “And we’ve got work to do.”
Gabrána sighed. “I suppose you’re right.” She leaned in close to Ajiñe. “Is it all right if I leave my lipstick on you, though?”
“Always.” Ajiñe almost never painted her face outside of ceremonies, while Gabrána never stepped into the street without a fully made-up look. How she achieved that on jifoz rations was a mystery. Her lips were always lush, glorious, and red.
“Good.” Gabrána hooked her arms around Ajiñe’s neck and kissed her, passionate enough to leave her mark on Ajiñe’s lips, but controlled enough to not mar her own makeup. The sort of kiss that would normally get Ajiñe’s transmission into the same gear as Gab was at, but her head was elsewhere.
The Renzi problem tasked her.
Gabrána must have sensed that. “Let’s not dally,” she said in a breathy whisper as she pulled away. “Like you said, Nicalla is waiting.”
They went inside the bomb-out apartment, where they were greeted by flickering light, tinny radio drama, and the churning drone of the petrol generator that powered the place. Nicalla lay splayed out, face-down on the floor, writing notes in her book while checking a map of the city. She glanced up at them through her carbon-bottle-thick glasses.
“You were kissing in the hallway, weren’t you?”
“We considered more, darling,” Gabrána said. “But we know how much you don’t like that.”
“Gross,” Nicalla said. This time, she did not add her usual refrain of, “This is where we work, kindly don’t turn it into a fuck-den.” Ajiñe usually respected Nicalla’s feelings in this, but the fact was she—and everyone else in the cell—lived in a tiny fasai with several other people. Papa and Ziva, in Ajiñe’s case. Having any private space to have sex, especially with the rest of her cell, the people she loved and trusted the most? There were times when it was too tempting to pass up. Especially after they did any job where they were on the same myco together, synced up and energized. Nicalla was the only one in the cell who refrained, and she did so thoroughly and completely. Not with anyone in the cell, not with anyone anywhere, as far as Ajiñe knew. For those post-mission celebrations, she tended to intentionally drop her connection from the rest of them.
“We get word of any—”
“No,” Nicalla said, pushing herself up on her elbows. “And I’m glad. I hate it when Varazina cuts into my stories to give us instructions.”
“Your stories are Sehosian prop,” Gabrána said. “I don’t know how you can enjoy them.”
“I know it’s Sehosian prop,” Nicalla said. “I can still like them.”
Ajiñe knew both of them well enough to know they could go on for some time bickering at each other, and there wasn’t time for that. The boys were coming with Renzi, and things would need to be settled soon.
“Clear the floor,” Ajiñe said. “And get the chair. We’ve got a lot to do before dawn breaks.”
30
Ajiñe helped Nicalla clear up her work—which was important work, of course. Nicalla kept track of the jobs, listened for Varazina’s instructions, knew how to communicate with the other cells. She was the one who recruited new folks. Ajiñe worried that the girl spent too much time holed up in this dusty bomb-out, but she never belittled her.
Gabrána brought out the chair, with its iron shackles welded at the armrests and feet, and further steel reinforcement. She put it in its designated spot in the middle of the floor, quickly latching it into the small hooks they had put into the concrete. No one would easily get out of the chair once they had them in there.
Which is where Renzi Llionorco would be shortly.
“You’re sure about doing this?” Nicalla asked. “Usually we recruit with a bit more subtlety.”
“You tell me when you see his cycle. I never met the two who got pinched, or saw the girl’s cycle. You’re the one who said it was a modified bash from a ’goiz 960.”
“Yeah, but—”
“It’s very simple,” Gabrána said, taking off her hat and lying down on the cot they kept in the corner. “We need to check this Renzi fellow out, and I’d rather not waste a moment.”
Nicalla’s eyes went to Ajiñe. “You think you want him with us?”
“If he’s really the person he presents himself as, he’d be perfect. If he’s what I think he is, we need to get rid of him now.”
“That’s the real thing,” Gabrána said. “Flush out every tory spy as soon as possible.”
“You’re wrong, again,” Nicalla said. “If we actually find a tory working to infiltrate, we should use that.”
“Too damned risky,” Ajiñe said.
“And she likes risk,” Gabrána added.
The door opened, and Fenito came in with the inert body of Renzi over his shoulder. “Mensi is stashing the truck and will bring the cycle when he comes.”
“But you think I’m right about that ride?” Ajiñe asked.
“I don’t know,” Fenito said as he laid Renzi on the floor. “I mean, yeah, it’s a souped-up ’goiz, but—”
But none of them had met the girl who got pinched or had seen her cycle, except for Nicalla.
“Let’s not waste any more time,” Gabrána said, coming over to Renzi. “He’s likely to come to any swipe.”
“Right,” Ajiñe said. She knelt down with Gab and Fenito as they stripped Renzi’s clothes off. No hidden weapons, nothing that was an obvious telltale sign that he was really a tory. Not that she was entirely sure what that would look like. Once they had him naked, they shackled him into the chair.
“These slacks are the real thing,” Gab said, sniffing at them. “Old denim, with years of oil and shop work baked into them.” Ajiñe took them from her and smelled them, rubbing her finger on the fabric.
“That’s true,” she said. “But it’s not like tories can’t get ahold of real jifoz oil-cat clothes. All they have to do is steal from the people they lock up.”
“And that’s what you think?” Fenito asked. “He’s a tory, wearing the clothes and driving the cycle of the new girl who got pinched?”
“I think we can’t ignore that possibility.”
“We probably can’t ignore that he’s got a gorgeous body, either,” Gab said, running a finger across Renzi’s well-muscled chest.
“That really should not be a consideration,” Nicalla said.
“It’s not, truly,” Gab said. “If we learn he’s a tory, of course, we have to smash in his skull. But if he isn’t, well . . . he truly has a beautiful cock.”
“Gabrána!” Nicalla snapped.
“Tell me I’m wrong. Ajiñe, you really can’t tell me I’m wrong.”
“She’s not wrong,” Fenito said with a wicked smile.
“Stop talking about his cock,” Nicalla said. “I am begging to you and the spirits who watch over you, and do not kneel in front of the chair, Fenito.”
“I’m checking him for scars or such,” Fenito said. “I’m not a complete lustball.”<
br />
“Yes, all his scars,” Gabrána added. “He does have a few on his back.”
Ajiñe went and looked. There was a patchwork of old scarring, the sort that looked like he had been burned in childhood. Maybe he had been caught in one of the bombing runs.
Fenito had moved to looking at Renzi’s hands. “Fingernails are ragged, grease and dirt under them. Not very tory.”
“He’s been on Street Xaomico almost a whole season. Long enough to grow those out.”
“I’m just saying, this guy doesn’t look like he’s been living a rhique or llipe life like most tories we come across.”
“Right,” Nicalla said, coming a bit closer. “But—”
“What do you see?” Gabrána asked.
“Don’t you think he looks, you know, almost too fair?”
Ajiñe nodded. “Maybe. Like if he cleaned up, maybe he could pass for rhique.”
“Some might say that about me,” Gabrána said with a teasing tone. She held out her bare arm next to Renzi’s. “Pretty close.”
Gabrána did have the lightest complexion of the lot of them, and she was absolutely a jifozi girl. Renzi was no lighter. Maybe Ajiñe was just being silly. Maybe Renzi was exactly what he claimed to be.
They had to be sure.
“Are you done molesting him?” Nicalla asked. “I really don’t need to look at all that.”
“Get a handle on yourself,” Ajiñe said. “When he wakes up, we’re going to ask him some questions, and if we still aren’t sure, we’re going to do a mushroom test.”
Nicalla pursed her lips in a grimace. “How much of a mushroom test?”
“We need to really get inside him, right?” Fenito asked. “So, I mean . . . we might need . . . at least one of us . . .”
“All of us is best,” Gabrána said. “Not Nic, of course.”
The Velocity of Revolution Page 16