“I guess I’ll stay,” Cali said after a time. Her usually pale skin now had a sickly grey hue, and a dark cast shadowed her delicate eyelids. He had done that to her, overdrawn her. Never before had he taken so much from her, or any sapien. Not a living one. He should not have dared touch her with his mind raging with need. After he’d drained the dead baby before burial, hunger alone could not account for his recklessness. He shook his head hard in an attempt to shine his mind.
“What’s wrong?” Cali asked, her voice limp and flat.
“Nothing,” he said. “Strap this on then.” She had to relieve herself first, and when she returned a short time later, Draven had collected himself some, and he stood to meet her. He held the pack for her to slip her arms through, then ordered her onto his back. When she’d mounted, he donned the backpack on his chest and started towards the highway.
Upon reaching an intersection a short time later, Draven stopped to let Cali rest. She slipped from his back and surveyed the busy city before them, the ads shining from faraway buildings and the glow lighting the night from many lower buildings they could not yet see. “It looks like home,” she said. “The way it looked from the Confinement, anyway. Inside the city, it looks different, right?”
“Yes.”
“Are we going to live here, or what are we doing here?”
“Losing ourselves.”
“Wow,” Cali said, hugging herself. “It’s really…pretty.”
Draven smiled. “I imagine it is.”
“So where do we start? Where are we, anyway?”
“Wellsville. The industrial sector, it appears.”
“What’s that?”
“Where things are made,” he said. “I don’t imagine anyone will speak to you, but if someone does, we must have similar answers to their questions. Understand?”
“Of course. So what’s our story?”
He smiled. “My car malfunctioned and I’m walking to a charging station. I did not want to leave you alone in the car.”
“What about the backpacks?”
“It would be rude to ask. But if someone does, we shall say that one contains a battery and the other, my valuables.”
“Battery, valuables. Got it.”
“Now let us find you a more comfortable situation.” He reached out and took her hand to steady her when she slipped on the snow, and held on as they continued, not wanting her to sustain an injury under such circumstances. Already they were sure to attract attention. Once the cars began passing at regular intervals, he slipped his hand around the back of her neck in the customary hold of a master on his sapien so as to arouse as little suspicion as possible.
By morning, they had crossed quarter of the city, stealing and salvaging a few supplies along the way. Though it would once have given him pause, Draven had no qualms about stealing a bag of necessities for Cali at the sapien supply store. He’d killed a man for her. The theft of a bag of crackers and some necessary products hardly seemed consequential.
When the sky began to lighten and the trickle of cars sliding along the streets began to resemble a flood, Draven found an alley, deposited the bags, and secured Cali to his back before ascending to the roof. He had forgotten the rush that charged him when climbing walls and leaping onto rooftops. He also seemed to have forgotten much of the strength he needed to perform the feat, and it proved more difficult than he remembered. But soon his fingers gripped the indentations between sheets of stiff reflective paneling as if their memory alone could propel him upwards.
Once he reached the rooftop of the first building, however, he realized greater challenges lay ahead. Though they could not make a permanent home on the rooftops, he had hoped they could stay a few weeks to rest. Even at street level, the most skillful trackers would have some difficulty finding them in a city. Each night, thousands of feet crossed any given street. A scent could get lost in minutes, even seconds. Until someone discovered their method of roof-travel, nearly every portion of the city would be absent any trace of their passing.
But traversing the roofs presented a greater challenge here than in Princeton. Princeton’s buildings, of nearly uniform design and height within each city sector, hadn’t posed too great a challenge. Here, adjacent buildings often varied ten stories or more in height. The taller buildings would afford a view of their camp during the night, and a curious observer would likely report them. Therefore, Draven had to scale the tallest building in that sector before he could make camp. This in itself proved a daunting task with his fingers locking from the cold every few minutes. Doubt encroached at the mere thought of attempting the climb with Cali astride.
He returned to street level, although he knew the dangers of walking through the city with a sapien in tow. Still, no one knew him here. If he could assume the attitude of a Second, with every right to possess a sap and not be stopped and questioned for it, no one would find him overly suspicious. Thus began a few miserable hours of wandering the city, trying to find the sectors with the least people outdoors, where Draven could duck behind a building and ascend to the roof to scout for a building that loomed above the others but which might be scaled while encumbered with an unwieldy load. It took some time, but eventually he found an industrial building with steam belching from the mouths of an assortment of blackened steel pipes. The mass of pipes, along with the steam, would conceal a small tent for a short time, until he could locate something more suitable. When he had settled Cali on a rooftop, he leapt to the alleyway to collect the bags.
For a moment, he considered carrying Cali across the city while he searched, but he quickly decided against it. If she still meant to run, she would not do it while fifty meters above the ground. Leaving Cali with food and all their possessions, he began to cross the rooftops nearby, the strange sensation that he moved over a dome above the city becoming stronger as he leapt from building to building, moving swiftly without cargo to impede his progress, but mindful always of his stiffening fingers. Perhaps overconfidence on a jump would not kill him, but it could kill Cali. In the weeks it would take him to heal from a severe injury, Cali would starve or die of exposure, trapped on a grimy rooftop in the sprawling urban landscape.
Finally he reached the area of town that did not heed the coming dawn.
In this area bordering the service sector, neon lights flashed, snapping hungrily at the last bits of darkness in the sky, and pools of artificial darkness emanated from blackers with smooth, swanlike necks on black poles. Some of the buildings here, like the rest of the city, had advertisements scrolling across the sides, although these were of a more pornographic nature. Many buildings were bare, made of old-fashioned brick, decorated with only suggestive figures of neon to convey what delights awaited within. A moving image captivated Draven’s attention, and he watched for a few moments, unsure how to react to this almost-forgotten stimulus. He blinked a few times and turned away, startled a bit to realize how long it had been since he’d lain with a woman. For two years, he’d seldom had time to think of one, and, driven by his obsession with finding Cali, he’d never so much as considered seeking one. After affording it a momentary pause, he dismissed the thought, having heard the rude words from those who frequented the street below. He hadn’t time for that kind of desire.
Turning away, he retraced his course to find Cali. She lay asleep, huddled under a blanket, inside a sleep sack, with a backpack for a pillow. Draven knelt and touched a tiny droplet of water that had formed on her cheek where an errant snowflake had fallen and melted while she slept. She looked so fragile lying asleep in the snow, her cheeks wind-burned red, her chapped lips slightly parted, a wet patch above her upper lip where her nose had run and she’d not had the presence of mind to wipe it away.
Cali’s eyes opened, but she did not react to finding Draven watching over her. She simply sat, and shivered, and drew the blanket tighter around her shoulders. When she’d eaten and readied herself, Draven hoisted her onto his back and carried her through the maze of buildings he’d t
raversed earlier. They stopped to deposit their possessions atop a squat brick building, covering the bags with snow as a precaution. Before leaving the privacy of the rooftop, Draven pressed the aspen dagger into Cali’s hand. She took it without comment and hid it inside her jacket. Together they descended the brick wall and reached the street.
“Stay close,” Draven said, letting her slip from his back. She staggered before regaining her balance.
“Yeah, okay,” she said. “Where are we going?”
“We’re going to get a room, and it won’t be the loveliest place you’ve been,” he said. “But it will have a shower.” He slid his arm around her waist and steered her into the street, such acute awareness of her humanity filling his mind that he couldn’t imagine having ever forgotten it for so much as a fraction of a moment. As they turned out of the alley, every head turned, nostrils flared, eyes probing and greedy. A few people stepped back as they passed, expectant expressions on their faces, as if Draven and Cali’s procession was as staged as the shows on display in nearby windows. Others stepped forward to taunt or make lewd gestures as Draven hurried Cali past.
“Hey, pretty little plaything, look what I got here for you to play with.”
“I’d like to play with you...”
“Look at him, thinks he’s all that for showing it off...”
“—sick pervert does that to—”
“—kind of bloodbagging freak—”
“—tasty treat for someone tonight…”
Draven tightened his arm around Cali, his fingers gripping the soft spot between her hipbone and ribcage. “Mmm mmm mm, sure do look tasty,” said a thick-waisted man in ill-fitting pants that matched his skin tone too exactly for comfort. “Maybe I can get a taste of that sweet meat.” He broke away from the pack loitering near the brick wall and sidled onto the sidewalk in front of Draven, twisting his chin to one side as if to ease the tension in a stiff neck. Cali flinched against Draven, catching the front of his shirt and pulling him closer. Draven opened his jacket enough to show the Deactivator he’d confiscated from the trackers. The man cursed and grudgingly ceded the walkway, his resentful gaze following them as they passed.
Cali still clutched Draven’s shirt in a clenched fist, as if she’d like to burrow inside his clothing. With her arms tight around him, she stumbled against him as she walked, but she refused to release her grip, though her awkward position slowed their progress. When they reached the end of the street, Draven steered Cali around the corner. This street featured wider walkways, an attitude of invitation rather than hostility, and attire that clearly advertised the business of pandering that took place there. A row of women leaned against a brick wall, seemingly oblivious to the graphic scene taking place on the screen covering the upper half of the building. Nearly all the women began striking inviting poses the moment Draven turned onto the street.
“Hey, baby, you want some of this?” one of the girls asked, bending so the string of feathers she wore strategically wrapped around her top half fell forward and exposed her exactly symmetrical breasts. The sidewalk swarmed with similar girls, artificially perfect shapes clad in anything from formal eveningwear to synthetic knock-offs of Enforcer uniforms to stick-on stars and body paint. If Draven had been hyper-aware of Cali’s humanity on the last street, this one only increased his discomfort. He had the absurd urge to cover her eyes and spare her the provocative prostrations of the performers.
“Ooh, let me see what you got,” said a lovely brown-skinned girl wearing a gold band wrapped around her chest and one around her hips that resembled underpants. She sidled up to Draven and ran her long gold nails down his arm. With her huge cloud of black ringlets circling her head all the way to her shoulders, she reminded him of an old partner from some years ago. But her hair, worn loose in front of anyone who wanted to look, struck him as so obscene he couldn’t fathom being aroused by her. It seemed to reach for him, somehow more blatant and aggressive than the cascading hair of some of the others. “This here’s what I got,” she said, sliding her hands slowly down her body and smiling with her shiny lips and gleaming white teeth. He stepped away so her hair wouldn’t graze his face.
“I got what I need,” Draven said, hurrying along with Cali, who craned her neck to watch the girl over Draven’s shoulder as she retreated, laughing, to her spot along the wall.
Draven pressed Cali to him, although she’d dropped her hand from his shirt and seemed more interested in the women calling out to Draven than in him. “Are you scared?” he asked into her ear.
“Not anymore,” she said, turning her head away to look at a girl wearing a bodysuit made of red netting and a feather headdress. “Who are these people? They’re all really nice to you.”
“They’re mistresses.”
“What’s that?”
“They are paid to be…nice.”
Relieved to have her attention for a moment, he hurried her past a man standing on the walkway watching as two women displayed in a window demonstrated their sexual prowess. He welcomed the next woman’s attention, as Cali seemed captivated by her and didn’t glance at the window they’d passed. “Ooh, you are one fine looking man,” the woman said. She stood a head taller than Draven in her heels, and she approached to rest her elbow on his shoulder as she walked beside him. Her blonde hair hung down her back, secured at the nape of her neck with a silver clip that matched the shimmering fabric of her scanty garment. “What you doing down here? I know you ain’t gotta pay for it. Hell, I might pay you.”
“Thank you,” he said, pulling away. “But no thank you.”
“Mmm, damn, and polite, too. What’s this you got here? If it ain’t a homo-sapien. Hey Shyla, com’ere and looka this. He brought hisself a little friend.”
“You should let her pay you,” Cali whispered, as a woman with curves to spare and long black hair tottered over on shoes that could serve as elevators. “Oooh, I like that,” she said, before Draven could respond to Cali. “I’d even give you a discount, you let me have some of that. Hey, I ain’t opposed to no sapien-loving. I’ll do you both, price of one.”
“Do what to us both?” Cali asked. The girls of the morning began laughing and hooting and calling her cute. She held back as Draven pulled her away, nearly dragging her along.
“Don’t talk to them,” he said, lowering his voice to speak into her ear.
“Why not?”
“It encourages them.”
“To do what?”
“To solicit us.”
“What’s that? They aren’t bothering us, are they?”
“Yes.”
“Why? What do they want?”
“They want our money.”
“But they said they’d pay you.”
“She didn’t mean it. You have to pay them.”
“Is that why they all look so pretty? So you’ll pay to talk to them?”
Draven chuckled. “They don’t want to talk. If you pay, they’ll do that with you,” Draven said, nodding to a wall ad depicting a particularly tame scene for the moment.
“Really?” Cali asked, craning around to look again. “Why?”
“Because that’s their job.”
“You have to pay a fee to mate with a woman?”
He laughed again. “You don’t have to. But you can.”
“But why would you, if you can do it for free?”
“That’s always been my opinion on it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Don’t concern yourself. Things are different for Superiors.”
“But why?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Draven said.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“If you simply must know, ask me when we’ve found a room and I’ll tell you.” Draven brushed off two men in skimpy vinyl shorts and a more persistent, burlier man in skimpier shorts. A curvaceous man in a tight purple dress approached them as they reached the end of the street. He looked a bit confused as his eyes moved from Draven to
Cali and back.
“You looking for anything I can give you?” he asked, doubt evident on his face.
Draven hesitated. The man could report him, but he’d likely have time to move out of sight and regain the roof before Enforcers arrived. “A room,” he told the man in purple. “For only us.”
The man looked over his shoulder at the nearest mistress a few meters away, then silently held out his hand, palm up.
“I can’t pay you,” Draven said. “Please.” He held up his own hand, fingers towards the bright morning sky and palm facing out, and brought the thumb and little finger together. “Third to Third,” he said, his last entreaty.
The man’s lips tightened and he hesitated, then nodded down the adjacent street. “Maxine’s,” he said, and turned back to his corner.
“Gracias,” Draven said, taking off at a brisk pace. He ignored a woman lurking in a doorway looking too hungry for Cali’s safety. Only the desperate would stay out in daylight much longer. Draven pushed Cali inside the darkened doorway of the building the man in purple had indicated. The stench of diseased sapiens, filth, drugs and dirty sap greeted them in the entrance. Draven ignored it and slid his hand up the back of Cali’s neck and held her in front of him. “We want a room,” he told the woman at the desk. She looked up from filing her artificial fingernails.
“Oh yeah? What kinda mistress you looking for? Curvy cowgirl? Dominatrix diva? A tight little virgin whore?”
“No kind. I already have mine.”
The Renegades (The Superiors) Page 25