Scorched

by Britt Ringel

“And I can’t pay you more,” Reynolds said harshly. “You were never going to get ahead if you stayed with me. I think you’re destined for something bigger than hauling water and cleaning bloody bandages.”

  There was silence between them before Kat stated, “I’m just worried about how safe working at the mine will be.” She looked around the trampled courtyard at the debris in the triage field.

  “Safer than your little excursions into the blight, young lady,” Reynolds noted with an intemperate tone. She crossed her arms but her expression softened. “I admit it though. I’ll be a little scared for you.” The doctor broke eye contact and looked away with a hint of shame. “But, honey, I also have to admit that I’m a little scared of you.” She bit her lip before continuing. “Some of the things you’ve said… and done… I like you, Kat, but I’m starting to wonder if I know you. If there’s one thing you’re not, it’s a nobody.”

  Chapter 11

  Kat walked through most of Waytown to get to Eastpoint. Initially anxious that her visa might expire before crossing the threshold of the gate, her fears were unfounded and her eyes took in every difference between the settlement for citizens and the slums she called home. The streets on her journey were mostly paved and the vehicle traffic heavy enough to force pedestrians to use available sidewalks. The central business district of Waytown stretched for three, short blocks. Four-story and five-story buildings constructed from alloys, transparent compounds and concrete lined the downtown. She walked past the Porter Mining Enterprises headquarters on her way home, making a mental note to estimate how long it took her to travel from its doors to Eastpoint.

  The streets of Waytown felt clean and sterile, the trash and debris so common to her daily existence mostly absent. Beggars, thieves and drunks were also missing along the thoroughfares. For the first time in her memory, Kat felt truly safe. Judging by the way parents pulled their children close as she passed, she was the only hazard on the street.

  The stroll through Waytown took fifty minutes, far too short for Kat’s liking. She entered the first exchange shop she saw at Eastpoint and once confident that she was receiving a fair rate, traded her credit stick for silver. Exiting the town was a simple affair. She simply surrendered her visa to the border officer and stepped back into the fetid squalor of Shantytown.

  The silver in Kat’s shirt pocket jingled as she walked. She kept pressing her hand to her chest, worried that the coins would work their way free. She was also concerned that the clinking, even muted, might attract unwanted attention.

  She ducked into the Beggar’s Market on her way home. It wasn’t far out of her way and her stomach was growling after the long, foodless day. She spent two small on punji sticks of murine, eating one as she strolled among the carts and shacks but saving the second for when she could wash down the stringy meat with water. When the sun set, the market closed and Kat headed for home.

  She was only three blocks from her alley when she realized how relaxed she had become. Even though she was walking deeper into worse neighborhoods, she felt as though she was finally taming Shantytown’s dangers.

  A subdued moan pulled her attention down a dark alley. She stopped, staring into the black while her eyes adjusted. The passage was darker than most because it was a true dead end. Only the blackening sky and the solar streetlamps dozens of meters away offered any sliver of light to the narrow lane. She heard the faint whimper again.

  Suspicious, Kat waited stubbornly at the corner until her eyes could make out a small boy trapped under a fallen pile of rubbish. Debris covered him from his feet to his waist. He was on his back, issuing quiet, pathetic sobs with a skinny arm draped over his eyes. The alley was otherwise empty but there was no sense in entering a dark and unfamiliar dead end in Shantytown. She began to pivot again to the main street. The boy’s whimpers were quiet as a whisper, almost easy to ignore. After a half step she stopped, her own words carrying through her memories. I may not know who I am but I know who, and what, I want to be.

  She turned reluctantly back toward the alley with a long sigh and padded quietly down to the child. As she approached, she estimated he was between eight and ten years old and she could tell he was shabbily dressed, even for Shantytown. He looked pinned. Kat reached the waif and knelt beside him. “Hey,” she soothed, “you’re going to be okay.” She placed her hands under the debris covering his legs and the hair on the back of her neck stood straight. There was a sizeable gap between the boy’s legs and the refuse.

  “Sorry, Lady.” The boy quickly darted under the debris completely. She could hear him scrabbling deeper under the pile.

  Kat spun immediately to face the alley’s entrance, still crouching low. Two men stood side by side, blocking her only escape.

  “Ooh-wee, we got ourselves a looker,” exclaimed the shorter of the two thugs. A sharp nose resided over his thin smile.

  “Hooked a fresh one,” the larger brute agreed. The second man’s neck was thicker than Kat’s thigh.

  Both men began to walk slowly toward her brandishing long, hunting knives.

  Kat gritted her teeth and cursed as reality set in. She cursed Shantytown. She cursed her luck. She cursed herself. You’re not leaving this alley alive, she grimly realized. Her mind quickly played out the events of her afternoon and the good she had done, the person she had met. Bitter tears began to well in her eyes as the truth of Shantytown took hold.

  Both men trod closer. “I’m gonna take care of some personal business before we kill her, Pete,” the smaller man said. He reached toward his trousers as he spoke, practically shivering with excitement.

  “I get to go after you,” the brute insisted.

  I was starting to pull my life together, Kat thought in anguish. And now, these men are going to use me like a toy and kill me. She thought back to her first day and the preacher. A tiny ember of heat ignited in her chest. The sensation spurred a pressure behind her eyes.

  The shorter man had closed to just meters away. He raised his knife at an angle toward Kat, its sharp point reflecting the weak light from the street beyond. “Gonna stick her a few times before I ride her. They bite and scream less that way.”

  He’ll ride me like an animal and then put me out of my misery, Kat thought as her eyes burned. Their callous discussion of her rape and murder enraged her, causing the pressure building inside her to magnify with every step of her assailants. Although growing dizzy, she rose from her crouch in a symbolic act of defiance. The smaller man was almost within arm’s reach and had pulled his knife closer to his body, chambering a strike and eager to lash out.

  The pressure in Kat’s head exploded outward as she screamed, “No!” She raised her hands in defense and curled her fingers into tight balls.

  Both men stopped short and stood slack-jawed, gaping at their empty hands. In unison, they looked up at Kat.

  “Where…? How did…?” the brute stuttered.

  The shorter man began a backpedaling retreat, bumping into his accomplice. Both men jumped at the contact. “Get out of here, Pete! Run!”

  The men turned and fled, disappearing around the alley’s corner. Their heavy footfalls became distant.

  Kat stood in immobile disbelief. The dark lane drew preternaturally silent and Kat’s only stimulus was the trickle running down the side of her face to the line of her jaw. She expelled a breath she had not realized she was holding when her ears popped painfully.

  Before Kat’s eyes, two hunting knives appeared in midair. The blades tumbled downward, thumping to the packed earth of the alley floor. Kat’s heart skipped a beat and her mind reeled at the impossible sight. She took an involuntary step away from the incomprehensible illusion and reflexively raised a hand to cover her gasp. She dabbed at the moisture on her chin and pulled her hand away to reveal bloody fingertips. Alarmed, she traced the thin line of blood around her jaw and up to her right ear. It felt like the minor bleeding had already stopped.

  She carefully stepped to the mysterious knives. After several seco
nds of indecision, she timidly retrieved and inspected the weapons as if the secrets of the last minute might be revealed in the objects themselves. The handles were a combination of durable plastic and rubber. The lethal, fifteen-centimeter blades were a razor-sharp nonmetallic polymer.

  “Where’d they go, Lady?” It was the young boy who had served as lure. His grubby face was sticking out from under the trash heap.

  Kat glared sinisterly at the urchin from over her shoulder and her dark eyes narrowed. “Do you know what karma is, kid?” she asked in a malevolent voice.

  The boy shook his head.

  Kat tucked one knife into the waistband of her pants. The other dangled freely in her left hand. “You will. Someday,” she prophesied. Without another word, she turned toward the alley’s mouth and stalked home.

  Kat skipped the fire crew that night, her appetite abandoning her. She gave Rat her second stick of murine and used the blue tarp reservoir to clean the blood from the side of her face.

  As the muted banter of the fire crew mixed with the noise of the street, Kat sat against the crumbling brick wall. Slender arms tucked around her bent legs as her chin rested on her kneecaps. Her mind replayed the attack endlessly. Did my cry take them by surprise and cause them to simply drop their knives? she wondered. That didn’t explain the knives’ remarkable reappearance. Did I imagine it under the stress? She swallowed. Am I going crazy?

  Two gunshots boomed from several blocks away. Kat didn’t flinch. Even though her mind was racing desperately for suitable answers, her body’s reserves had been drained. Her eyes kept closing against her will. Maybe it was my guardian angel, she thought as she shifted to lay on her side. She tucked her hands underneath her head and sighed sleepily. An angel that just got back from a very long vacation.

  Chapter 12

  Kat’s eyes dreamily squinted open into narrow wedges and perceived her alley shrouded in darkness. A hollow boom sounded right next to her but she didn’t stir. An undented replica of Rat’s fire barrel had been knocked over and was rolling slowly down the alley. Loud grunts and the sounds of a scuffle pulled her eyes from the barrel.

  Two meters away, Rat fought for his life. He was locked in a grappling embrace with another vagrant. The pair appeared to dance as they shuffled from side to side. They crashed into a blue tarp that hung on a cord tied between two refuse piles. The cord snapped and the men tumbled to the ground.

  Rat rolled on top of his opponent and tore viciously at the other man’s eyes. The pinned man appeared to be much older than Rat but had wedged an arm between them and was pushing Rat away. Rat pulled one hand from the man’s face and desperately groped the dirt near his knees. A cloud of dust hid his objective from Kat’s view but a moment later, she saw him raise his hand high and plunge it down to the chest of the stranger.

  The second man shrieked horrifically but Rat stabbed again and again, raising and lowering his hand with a speed Kat had never seen her alleymate display. Blood sprayed across the blue tarp. The knife continued to rise and fall long after the prone man was still. When Rat finally stopped, he was wheezing for breath. His whole body heaved and it took him several attempts to stand to his feet.

  He looked down at his lifeless victim while gasping to refill his lungs. “Dammit,” he rasped, “you should’ve just given it to me, you old fool.”

  A cane nudged Kat’s side and her eyes popped open. It was mid-morning and light already filtered into the alley. She looked up to see Rat standing over her, bemused and unbloodied. What a horrible dream! Kat thought, sucking in air to clear her head. The violent dream was replaced by the memories of the last evening’s assault and made her shudder.

  “It’s Saturday,” Rat proclaimed. “You got just two days paid until I get more tonic from you.”

  Kat wiped at her eyes. She had slept soundly for nearly ten uninterrupted hours and felt energized. Even her back no longer ached despite sleeping on the hard, dusty ground. She promised to buy herself a blanket this weekend with some of the money earned yesterday. “I remember, Rat. I’ll pay next week’s rent on Monday. I have the money for it.”

  Rat grunted and hobbled back to his side of the alley. He propped his walking stick against the wall and slowly knelt by the blue tarp reservoir. Cupped hands brought water to his grimy lips.

  Kat found her appetite had returned with a vengeance, her body craving calories. She stretched over to a small pile of trash lining the wall of the brick building and slid her long arm deep into the pile. Her fingertips comfortingly brushed against the handle of one of the hunting knives she had stashed last evening, laying atop her folded pressboard carton. She looked over her shoulder toward Rat. He was staggering around his living space and focused on his own world. She withdrew the second hunting knife from her waistband and secreted it into the same hole in the refuse. I shouldn’t take a weapon into Porter Mining, she told herself.

  She stood and moved to the reservoir, washing her face with the mucky water. In its current state, there was no way she would drink from the two centimeters of liquid remaining, even after boiling it. She would stop by the Beggar’s Market after applying for the mining job to quench her thirst and to refill her plastic bottle there. Combing her hair with her fingers, she looked at her hazy reflection on the water’s surface. Her skin was becoming darker as she tanned. The burns on the right side of her face had nearly disappeared. Her hair looked less like a result from injury and more like an unfashionable style choice.

  Although her pants had never stretched out, the weight she had lost over the week made them form-fitting but no longer obscene. She dabbed at some of the dark brown stains on her shirt and pants. Her clothes needed a thorough cleaning but, for now, her appearance was as good as it was going to get.

  “Duty calls,” Kat said, bidding Rat a farewell.

  The man grunted as he pulled out the last strip of murine from the night before but then looked at her. “What do you do all day?”

  “Scavenge,” she lied.

  Rat nodded knowingly. “Yup.” He returned to his feast.

  Kat left the alley and started toward the Strip. Mornings were the safest times in Shantytown and even though she had left her knives at home, she walked through the dirty streets with a growing confidence. No more dark alleys, she promised herself. Ever. She still cautiously assessed every individual that walked near her but more by habit than out of real fear. It was only when her mind strayed to the intimidating morning ahead of her that she felt truly nervous. She was walking into an environment she had no business being in and asking for a job she had no idea how to perform, or even what it entailed. Strangers would evaluate her and probably not kindly. Further, these people would be citizens, not beggars, thieves or degenerates, but professionals that would rate her value as a human. What if they laugh me out of the office? She shivered at the thought of rejection and questioned why she cared what her faceless evaluators would think. What would Sadler think if he looked over my application? His opinion was what mattered and seemed to have a disproportional weight considering the brief time she had shared with him.

  She shuddered again. Her application was going to look terrible. She had no meaningful skills that she could think of, no education that she could list, not even a past. The form would be as blank as her memory. It would be worse because it would expose her as a nothing. No accomplishments. No contributions. She couldn’t even write the truth because she didn’t know it.

  Doubts preyed on her during the trip to Eastpoint. The night before, she had traveled under the large gate with an optimistic, almost carefree attitude. Today, the gate looked like giant jaws ready to devour her. It was late morning and the line trailing away from the checkpoint was small. She waited less than fifteen minutes before a corp-sec guard directed her under a security arch and to a border agent’s empty service window. Kat nervously approached the man.

  “Your visa.”

  “I don’t have one but there should be authorization in your computer.”

&n
bsp; “Name?”

  “Kat Smith.”

  The attendant tapped at his keyboard. “Your business in Waytown?”

  “Applying for employment with Porter Mining.”

  The man’s eyes darted between his screen and Kat’s face. He typed furiously again before pausing to detach a visa stick from a row plugged into a tray beside his computer. He placed the visa onto the counter and stated, “Standard allotment for employment application is five hours. This visa will self-frag at fifteen twenty-two hours. You’re required to present this visa to any Waytown citizen that asks to see it. The penalty for squatting on an expired visa varies from fines to imprisonment. Do you understand?”

  Kat nodded. “Yes.”

  She snatched the visa off the countertop and moved quickly through the gate. The instant transformation of her surroundings was jarring. These streets were clean. Waytown’s pedestrians, other than those coming from Shantytown, were well-clothed and walked without the paranoid shuffle common in the slums behind her. The interior side of the tall wall separating the two worlds displayed a crystal clear, real-time picture of the landscape past Shantytown, as if the wall’s illusion could erase the vagrant town’s existence.

  The imagery echoed loudly in Kat’s mind. That’s exactly it, she considered. They wish we didn’t exist. We’re something to be looked past. The realization was insulting but at her core, she shamefully admitted that any person from Shantytown would eagerly join these citizens, herself included.

  She walked down the unpolluted sidewalks toward Porter Mining’s headquarters. When she reached the business district, her reflection walked in silent companionship in the shining first floor windows of the buildings she passed. She turned the corner to the Porter building and tripped to a stop.

  Ahead of her were dozens of corporate security officers in full riot gear. Some carried stun batons; most carried rifles. Not just rifles, Kat identified, large caliber battle rifles. Two corp-sec aircars hovered in place over the street, positioned high in the sky to monitor the foot traffic below. Well over three hundred shabbily dressed men and women stood in unmoving lines like cattle. The back of the daunting lines almost reached Kat’s corner and extended forward down the length of the block, leading to the front doors of Porter Mining Enterprises.