Scorched

by Britt Ringel

“I think you’re going to recover just fine,” the doctor opened. “Overall, you’ve suffered a good number of minor contusions consistent with trauma expected in a coal mine collapse.” He tapped the large screen at the first circle on the left side of the silhouette. The view zoomed and transitioned to show a resonance image of Kat’s left ribcage. “You’ve suffered moderate bruising of your fourth, fifth and sixth ribs along the left side of your body. I suspect this was sustained when you struck the wall. They’ll heal over the next three to four weeks although you’ll experience pain and some difficulty breathing, especially early, during the recovery. I’m going to recommend to Porter Mining that you’re placed on light duty during that timeframe.”

  The doctor reset the silhouette and pressed a finger near the right hand. Again, the screen shifted to Kat’s imaging results. “There is moderate swelling along your MCP joints and associated phalanges. Nothing’s broken and the swelling will disappear in a few days.”

  The image returned to the silhouette once more before the doctor tapped the final flashing circle. The displayed results panned upward, to the right side of Kat’s head. The resonance image showed a detailed right-side view of her brain. “You have a concussion. There’s some swelling but nothing dangerous. Your hardhat saved your life, Ms. Smith. I understand it was cracked.” He drew a line over the front of the image. “You can see some damage along the parietal lobe. It’s recent trauma although it appears to already be healing. I was confounded at first because this honestly looks like damage from an older event. Have you suffered a head injury in the last month?”

  Kat shook her head while staring at the image.

  “You can see how the synapses inside your parietal lobe have suffered some kind of distress. I really can’t identify the nature of the trauma but it seems obvious that it would be from the accident. The synaptic pathways almost seem suppressed in some way.” The doctor smiled and assured, “Like I said though, your brain is already recovering. The synapses and neurons are awakening. I want you to come back at the end of the week and we’ll conduct another exam so I can compare the progress between today and Friday. Porter Mining covers the first week of your medical expenses so there will be no cost to you.”

  Kat continued to gape at the screen. “What does that part of the brain do, Doctor?”

  “It’s responsible for touch sensation, visual perception, information processing, cognition.” He paused briefly in consideration. “Uh, reading comprehension, math computation… head injuries aren’t really my specialty. Waytown is too small to have a dedicated neurologist.” He pressed his fingers to the screen and twisted the image. “You can see the impairment penetrated deeply into the brain, all the way to the hippocampus. That’s responsible for long term memory processing and emotional responses.” He raised an eyebrow upward. “Have you had any memory loss since the accident?”

  “No, I haven’t had any memory loss since the accident,” Kat replied.

  “Good,” the doctor said with a smile. “You really are a lucky, young woman. Without that hardhat, you easily would have suffered acute skull fractures that could have proved fatal. If you don’t have any more questions, I’ll write up a pain management prescription and have the nurse bring it to you with further instructions.” He deactivated the screen.

  Kat thanked the doctor, who excused himself. She closed her eyes and tried to process the new information that seemed to both confirm and contradict her present condition. At least he says I’m healing, she told herself. Maybe my memories will return.

  “Ms. Smith?” The nurse who had helped her clean up stood at the door. “You’re free to go now.” She handed Kat two small packets and a piece of paper. “Take the capsules inside the packets at bedtime and when you wake up. When you arrive at the mine tomorrow, one of their safety technicians will look you over. These pills will cause drowsiness so don’t mix them with alcohol.” She pointed at the paper in Kat’s hands. “Those instructions explain all this. Be sure to try to take a deep breath every ten minutes. It will help your recovery. You should also try to lay on your injured side when you go to bed. I know it’s counterintuitive but it will actually help you breathe easier.”

  Kat sat up slowly in the bed and rocked her feet gingerly to one side. “Thank you.” She pushed herself off the bed and landed on her feet. The pain was bearable. She out-processed, doing little more than waving her wristwrap over several scanners. As promised, Porter Mining covered the medical expenses. Her last stop was at the front lobby to obtain an emergency two-hour visa that would permit her to walk to Eastpoint legally. The receptionist stressed that she should start toward Eastpoint immediately since it might take her longer than usual to cover the distance in her condition. Leaving the hospital, Kat briefly considered catching the mag-rail to the mine with the night shift workers but she was exhausted. She would have to find out about Deke and Reece in the morning. With no other real options, Kat headed directly for the gate and home.

  By the time she entered Shantytown, the sun had set. As she walked down the Strip, she casually confirmed her bag still held the polymer hunting knife. Even medicated, she walked gingerly and at a pace that allowed her to breathe as shallow as possible. At least the heat of the evening had given way to the cool, night air.

  The trip through Shantytown was its usual mixture of paranoia and depression. An endless stream of hungry hopeless traveled alongside Kat. Mixed within the pathetic spectrum of mendicants were carefully concealed wolves seeking worthwhile prey. Despite her injuries, Kat maintained her vigilance.

  She began to relax as she turned the final corner to her street. The mouth of her alley was just a half block away and Kat was looking forward to a night’s rest. She had already set her watch’s alarm and her medicine had fully kicked in. Her eyelids and her satchel felt heavy and she longed to put the day behind her.

  Kat rounded the corner, stepped into her alley and immediately froze.

  Two of the three figures invading her home were dressed in grey and black clothing that resembled a cross between a corp-sec officer’s uniform and an executive’s attire. The black body armor covering their chests and holstered pistols on their hips made it clear that these were not representatives of either ilk. Kat’s eyes swept over the man and woman and her thoughts screamed out an instinctual warning: Disposal Team.

  They were standing on Rat’s side of the alley, less than a meter from his body. The poor man’s chest had been ripped apart at its center. He had fallen into his now bloody water reservoir and Kat could dimly see the blue tarp under him through the gaping hole in his torso.

  The third intruder in the alley lacked the military-style clothing of the other two. He was a middle-aged man with greying hair near his temples, standing directly in Kat’s bed space. Her second hunting knife lay at his feet. His hands held Kat’s pressboard carton and he spoke even as his eyes were closed. “She’s walked a long way with this. I can feel sand inside my shoes.” The handsome man cocked his head toward the mouth of the alley as if sensing Kat’s presence. He opened his eyes and turned to her, smiling. “Why hello, Cat. We’ve been looking for you.”

  The two agents reached to their holsters and withdrew imposing pistols. The muzzles of each handgun ended not with a single, wide barrel but a cluster of nine, distinctly miniature versions.

  “Don’t shoot her!” the man cried immediately. “Maybe she’ll be reasonable.” He looked down at his feet and kicked the knife behind him. It spun under the edge of the trash wall. He made a beckoning gesture and said politely, “Please, come sit down and have a conversation.”

  Kat took a slow step back. A pair of index fingers moved in unison from the sides of the pistols to their triggers. I’ll never make it, she judged.

  The man waved lackadaisically toward his armed companions. “I’ll just have them shoot you now, Cat, if you don’t obey. The Society wants you dead and I’m more than happy to comply.”

  Kat glanced at Rat’s cratered chest and slowly moved into th
e alley. Her eyes skimmed over a figure on the trash wall before returning to the handsome man. He seemed completely unarmed. “Who are you people?” she asked.

  The man’s eyebrows arched. “I was just going to ask how much you remembered. They said a scorch causes catastrophic memory loss based on the test subjects’ results but there was uncertainty about the effects on a real target.” He shook his head once. “Do you remember anything at all?”

  Kat casually placed her right hand on top of her satchel. “Why should I bother answering you if you’re just going to kill me when we’re finished?”

  “An excellent ques—”

  “You murderin’ sumbitches! You killed my man!”

  Starlet shrieked a banshee’s cry as she leapt from the top of the trash wall. She collided into the backs of both of the armed agents. Between heartbeats, the handsome man turned wildly to his right and reflexively cringed in response to the naked aggression of the attack. Starlet pounded maniacally on the back and neck of the female agent.

  Kat thrust her hand into her satchel and wrapped her fingers around the handle of her knife. She bolted forward while withdrawing the blade and sank it into the side of the handsome man’s chest. She felt the blade deflect off ribs and drive deeply into his body. The gruesome sensation made Kat gag but she pushed with all her adrenalin-addled might. The knife sank to its handle.

  The man’s natural reaction was to attempt to twist away while rising to his toes. It was a futile effort and his piercing scream was punctuated by deafening roars from an agent’s pistol.

  A fine spray of gore splattered both Kat and her victim as pieces of Starlet splashed the alley’s side wall. Kat felt her knife slide free when the man beside her collapsed in a heap. She spun to find the female agent beginning to rise over a sundered Starlet. The male agent trained his weapon on Kat.

  Kat pushed out frantically with her mind while focusing on the pistols. Pressure exploded inside her head and the pistols exited reality in an eye-blink. Both agents stared at their empty hands.

  “How?” gasped the female agent, defiant in her utter disbelief. “You were scorched!”

  Kat answered with a wild knife swing. The woman’s partner easily danced away to recover near the trash wall while the female agent ducked under the blade and rose quickly to grab Kat’s right wrist with both hands. Kat pushed forward still clutching the knife but quickly realized the woman was gaining control. It’s either release the knife or end up in a wristlock, her instincts told her. She shoved her hand forward to launch the knife several meters down the alley. At the weapon’s release, the female agent relinquished her grip and dove for the blade.

  The male casually rotated his shoulders as if stretching before raising his hands to a martial arts guard. Across the alley, the woman recovered the hunting knife, spun in a low crouch and faced Kat with angry, brown eyes. Caught between two adversaries, Kat bent to her knees but offered a wicked smile.

  Her ears popped and the pistols fell to her feet. An instant later, nimble hands scooped both up. Jamison Flechette Series D handguns. Outlawed twenty-two years ago. She could tell by the competing weights that the pistol in her right hand held a larger amount of plastisteel pack in its magazine. Kat raised both pistols. Her left hand fired blindly at the agent near the trash wall while her vision condensed to nothing more than the front sight of the Jamison in her right hand. Trigger press, not pull, she instructed calmly between heartbeats. The gun barked twice and a blurry, red spray appeared beyond the crystal-clear image of her front sight.

  Without pause, she jerked her head to the left. The male agent was already down, though not finished. She pointed her weapon at the man and looked away to Rat’s torn body. His green bottle of tonic lay smashed near his outstretched hand. Kat’s pistol boomed again in the alley.

  Over the ringing in her ears, she could hear the wail of corp-sec enforcement vehicles. She stepped over the body of the female agent. A blast had unhinged the woman’s right arm at the shoulder although her battered chest armor had prevented penetrations to her torso. Kat’s second, devastating salvo had nearly decapitated her. The sheer destructive power of the flechette rounds made Kat retch. Grimacing, she bent over the torn form. She tried not to inhale the smell of death as she struggled to pick up her knife with a gun already in each hand. After collecting it, she ran for the alley’s exit.

  A crowd was already gawking at the carnage in her wake. She turned the corner but not before looking behind her. The curled fingers of Rat’s bloodless hand became the last image she saw of home.

  Chapter 28

  She ran down the street, the ribs on her left side threatening to explode. Overhead, the first aircar blazed by, lights flashing. Kat could hear the car’s thrusters change vector as it entered its hover. She continued her dash until she turned a second corner. Looking back while stuffing both pistols and the knife into her satchel, she forced herself to slow to a brisk walk. Nobody seemed willing to point her out to the circling corp-sec vehicle and she quickly moved through the largest crowd of people she could see.

  By the time a second aircar had joined the search, Kat was several blocks away. More sirens howled in the distance. The roving patrols in her vicinity were out of sight, their locations only vaguely perceivable by the echoing sounds of vectored thrust. Kat continued toward the Strip, hoping its heavy crowds would offer the best anonymity.

  She traveled the streets with her right hand in her satchel, wrapped securely around a Jamison pistol. She didn’t care how it looked. Her mind raced along with her body. For the last two weeks, she had suffered nearly unrestrained feelings of distrust, urges to avoid corporation security and the desire never to settle down. At least it wasn’t paranoia, she thought with an unsteady laugh. She was walking much faster than the people around her but couldn’t get her body to slow down any more than it had. Who were those people? The man said “The Society” wants me dead. She had no memory of any society.

  Ahead of her, Kat saw a man tied to a streetlamp post. An energetic crowd had gathered around him, already excitedly chanting “Guilty” in heady anticipation. She passed through the mob without a second thought.

  A third aircar roared over her on its way toward her alley. They aren’t going to give up their search. This wasn’t a simple mugging with a club or knife and those people definitely weren’t Trodden. Her fingers tightened reflexively around the grip of the pistol.

  Kat turned onto the Strip twenty minutes later. Her ribs were punishing her without the adrenalin to mask the pain. There’s no chance I can just keep walking the entire night. I need a place to rest. She stopped at a corner and studied her surroundings. The buildings were mostly crumbling brick, single-story structures though a few taller buildings lined the street. I’ll never get past the front doors and the apartment guards. She searched for alleyways.

  “How much?”

  Kat’s attention returned to her corner. A heavily muscled man had approached her, reeking of sweat and alcohol. “What’s two small get me?” he asked as his eyes took liberties over her body.

  “I’m not a—”

  “Damn right she’s not!” screamed a pair of women stomping toward Kat. “This is our corner, sweetheart. You talk to Big John if you got a problem with that.”

  Kat exhaled and waved her free hand in the air, dismissing the women and their customer. She stepped away and began to walk toward Eastpoint.

  “That’s right, bitch, you just keep on walking!” called one of the women.

  After another half block, Kat spied an opening to an alley. She walked to its mouth and looked in cautiously. A family of five huddled around a fire blazing in a cut-down barrel with a metal pot over it. The man and woman looked up fearfully and the man reached for a long, metal pipe.

  Kat raised her hand up once more and quickly muttered, “I’m sorry. I’m leaving.”

  A row of trash bins in the next alley all proved to be occupied by solitary men and women or couples. Kat’s desperation grew with h
er approach to Eastpoint. The closer I get, the less likely it is that I’m going to find a hole to crawl into.

  After thirty minutes of fruitless searching, Kat found herself ten meters from Eastpoint. A sporadic stream of people passed under the gate, in and out. Emergency visas, medical visas, special work visas, I wonder how else Trodden can get in. Three preachers competed for the attention of the travelers, each promising to save their souls.

  Kat studied one of the preachers while debating internally. She shook her head. I’m not that desperate. Her eyes flickered from the locked and guarded doors of nearby apartments to the crowded lines of pedestrian traffic moving along the street. Her gaze stopped at an exchange shop.

  She moved across the street and entered the short queue for the shop. Several minutes later, she stepped to the window and swiped her wristwrap over a scanner. The readout informed her there were seventy credits available. She looked at the teller and said, “Four large, please.”

  The teller consulted her computer and entered a command. Kat watched the readout drop to thirty credits. “Here,” the woman offered while pushing four large coins under the safety glass. She pointed at Kat and said, “You’re bleeding.”

  Kat wiped annoyingly at the right side of her face. A crusted line of blood trailed from her ear and she rubbed at the narrow stripe before snatching up the coins. She placed two in her pants pocket and tucked the remaining two in her satchel, glimpsing into the bag as they dropped. The sight of the Jamisons gave her comfort.

  She retraced her steps down the Strip. After passing three alleys, she came upon the row of large, rectangular trash bins with flimsy, plastic tops. At one time, they may have served as refuse containers for stores or restaurants but now the rusted receptacles were repurposed as housing. She skipped the first two and lightly rapped on the side of the third container.

  “It’s mine,” screeched a woman’s voice.

  “Excuse me,” Kat said as politely as she could. “Would you be interested in letting me spend the night?”