by Shelly Crane
He turned red. “I’ve got three kids. I can’t even—”
“I know.” I felt bad for saying what I said. I understood why he was doing it. “I would have done anything to save my mom,” I looked down, “just like she did everything for me; even if paying our taxes couldn’t be one of them.”
When I looked back up, he looked infinitely sad and angry and just…like we all do. Tired. Tired of being on the bottom.
“Just do it.” He hesitated. “Just…do it.”
With the cameras watching from the screens in the sky and whoever was watching us, he came for me. I hoped I had enough to do the job when they all came for me.
When he got close enough, I uncrossed my arms and sprayed him with the incapacitation spray. He went down like a rock.
“Sorry,” I muttered and turned for who was coming at me next. He hadn’t seen what happened because he was behind me, so he went down, too. The next guy was wiser and held his breath. The mist went everywhere and he walked through it, coming to me and grabbing my arms.
“Nice try,” he said and raised his eyebrow at me. “Did you really think that was going to work on all of us?”
I kneed him in the groin.
“Ahhh,” he groaned as he went down.
“I hoped, so I wouldn’t have to hurt you. It was your choice, big fella.”
“Ah, you b—”
“I wouldn’t say that if I were you,” I told him as I faced the two who were left. “It’s not worth the fee.” They were debating how to go about it. “Come on, guys. Just scoot on and we can all end this peacefully.”
They looked up and saw the screens. One of them said, “And have the whole planet see that you took out six of us by yourself? Sorry, sweetheart. Not gonna happen.”
They both came at once. I sprayed the spray, but it fizzled out with a sputter. I threw the can at one of them and he batted it away easily right before he grabbed me around the throat and pushed me into one of the hot panels. I screamed from the pain in my back.
When I tried to knee him, he quickly, moved his leg away.
He leaned close. “I’ve gotta give it to you for effort, but the key is to come up with a new lineup. You can’t have the same plays for every game or your opponent knows what’s coming next.”
“I guess you should have seen this coming then.”
We both whipped our heads around to see Maxton standing on the roof’s edge behind him. His eyes were furious.
The man with his hands around my neck said, “The deal we all made was that we’d split it amongst us.” He pointed at them all. “Sorry, buddy, but I think you’re a little too late to be coming and trying to get in on the—”
“Let her go.”
“Did you not hear me?”
“Did you not hear me?”
“Wait…” He looked at me and back at Maxton. “You’re not here for the reward money, are you.” It wasn’t a question.
Maxton walked over to the man who was trying to get up from the spray and pulled something from his bag. He sprayed him again, and then the other guy on the ground as well.
“I said, let her go.” Maxton got closer, spraying the man trying to crawl away from where I kneed him as well.
I couldn’t help but breathe fast, ragged, frantic breaths. Maxton had not only come back for me like he said he would, but he had seen me on the screens and came to get me? To save me? To…what?
I just watched him in wonder as he moved closer, taking his bag off from his back, setting it off to the side on one of the hooks so it wouldn’t fly away, getting ready to fight, obviously, and facing the men who were still holding me.
The one who wasn’t holding me went for Maxton and I held my breath, but Maxton put him down quickly. One sweep of his leg and the guy was down on his back, knocked out cold on the roof as his head hit with force. Maxton looked up in anticipation to the other one and I could feel the tension. Was he giving up, or going to fight Maxton and then come for me again?
I had to do something. I reached down and wrapped my hand in the strap of my bag. I swung it up with all my might and hit the man in the back of the head, the heavy book and awkward doll inside made for an awful thud when it struck him. But he just groaned and then squeezed a little more on my throat before he pushed me back onto the solar panel again, releasing me. All I could do was whimper as I slid to the roof, trying not to scrape my back all the way down. I was aching and burning, and tried not to squirm, but ultimately had to just put my palms on the rooftop under me and try to slow my breathing. I knew he’d be coming for me again if Maxton couldn’t fend him off and I wanted to be ready.
He took large steps toward Maxton, who took steps toward him in equal measure. It was strange to see people who seemed so eager to fight. When they reached each other, the other guy was the first to swing. Maxton ducked under it easily and then laid a punch into the man’s gut. He cried out in a shout of pain, buckling over. Then he rose and rammed his shoulder into Maxton’s stomach.
I hissed in sympathy, but could do nothing but watch.
When Maxton’s back hit the rooftop, the man reared back to punch him, but Maxton swerved his head left to miss it, making him punch the roof instead. He howled in pain before, with a grunt of frustration, he sent another quick, fast punch into Maxton’s jaw, actually making contact this time. Maxton took the hit like someone who had taken a few in his lifetime and came back with knock to the man’s temple, making him groan loudly. Then Maxton grabbed his collar and rolled over, taking the man with him, before jumping up on his feet. He looked over to check on me for two seconds before his eyes settled back on the man who was trying to hand him his butt on the roof, in front of the entire planet.
To save me.
When I saw the guy go for Maxton again, I wondered what in the world this man could need the money so badly for…
“Oh, no…” I said out loud. “You can’t pay your taxes.”
He stopped, almost skidding. He looked at me over his shoulder. He was equal distance from me and Maxton, about five steps between each.
“What did you say?” he asked, his voice shaking with the weight of responsibility, with the weight of a father or husband, with the weight of having to answer the question…what would you do?
“Why else would you be so adamant?” I looked at them all on the ground. “None of them can pay their taxes this time, can they?”
His mouth set in an angry line as his brow turned down but he just stared at me, whether it was because he was surprised by my candor or by my understanding. I looked at Maxton over the man’s shoulder and realized it was really the first time that I had been able to do so since he’d gotten there. He was watching me. Our eyes clashed and I felt my lips part as I breathed a needed breath. He looked angry and ready for another fight. But something else, too. I didn’t know what it was exactly, but it reminded me of my mother’s face a little. It had been so long since I’d seen anything like that I couldn’t even remember what it looked like, but I could almost imagine that he might even be a smidge worried about me.
Frightened.
I promptly closed my mouth and looked back to the other man so I’d stop seeing things that weren’t there. I mean come on, how could he be worried about someone he didn’t even know?
The man was looking between us both, deciding what to do next. I decided for him and tried to slip behind him when he wasn’t looking. He was quicker than I thought. When I felt his hand bunch in the back of my shirt and yank me back, I tried not to cry out but couldn’t hold it in.
He let me fall unceremoniously to the side, my shirt rising as I fell, the tuck I’d carefully placed long gone. I heard his grunt as well as Maxton’s. I rushed to yank it back down, but they had seen. I twisted back around to see him looking down at me, Maxton making quick strides to him. It all seemed to happen in slow motion as his pity-filled eyed watched me.
“You weren’t lying, were you? They did beat you.”
Maxton grabbed his collar and h
eld him there, but he continued to look down at me, not removing his eyes for a second.
I closed mine for a second, needing a second of space to myself, even if he didn’t. When I opened them, he was still right with me. “That’s what they do to slaves. They beat them.”
He flinched like he himself had been hit. “But…what did you do?”
I shook my head. “I couldn’t pay—”
“No. Why were you beaten?”
Even Maxton looked over and waited for my answer.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Yes,” he hissed. “Yes, I do.”
There was guilt in his eyes, either for me or for someone else. He needed to hear it, to know what was done, to keep punishing himself. This tortured man on the bottom of society…as were they all.
I gulped through my dry throat and flicked my gaze to Maxton, expecting him to look away, but he didn’t, so I did. I stood, brushing my hands on my pants, tucking my shirt in once more, looking up at the sky, up at the girl on the screens who looked up at her sky, too. Though her lips moved, you couldn’t hear what she said as she told the people on the roof of the horrors of her life. Her life—nothing but a silent film that until this day had always felt silent to her, too.
“This time, I was beaten because the other slave lied and said I had done something I hadn’t. She dropped all her pieces and shavings of metal and silver on the floor, and then he was coming, there wasn’t enough time to pick them up. So she grabbed my basket and said I did it. I wasn’t having coitus with him so he believed her.”
“For that? You got beat for that?”
“I’ve gotten beaten for a lot less,” I ground out and adjusted my bag back around on my back. I finally looked back up. They were both staring at me. Maxton was barely even holding his collar anymore. I ground my teeth and rolled my eyes. “What?” I said sharply.
That snapped them out of it and Maxton moved away from him. The man looked between us sadly before shaking his head and walking off.
“How many children do you have?” I asked.
He stopped once more, not looking back at us. “Four,” he said hoarsely.
“That’s why you want to know why I got beat.” I gulped and was surprised by how hard it was to keep back the tears. “You want to know what’s going to happen to your…”
His chin fell forward to his chest. I stared at his back before I made my decision. I reached inside my shirt and pulled out my baggie, looking at it in my hands, knowing it was my absolute last chance to leave this place, but knowing that I couldn’t put others where I had been. Children, just like I had been when I became a slave. If this could save his family, and maybe more, then I had to do it.
A single tear pooled in the corner of my eye. I swiped at it.
I remembered my father reading from our book and it saying once how a tear had rolled down the girl’s cheek. I had always wondered what that would feel like. I could imagine it would feel like a sort of freedom, a sort of…rebellion. An escape.
When I lifted my head, Maxton was watching me, his always constant gaze unnerving. He seemed to be pondering something, too. When he saw my shavings in my hand, he shook his head, and then clenched his jaw as he made his way to the man, who was still standing in the place we’d left him.
They spoke and before I could understand what was happening, Maxton was putting his forearm over the man’s and money was being exchanged. I gasped, drawing Maxton’s gaze. He dared me to say something, anything, in that moment, but all I could do was stare back and hope he understood how grateful I was to him for that, how I understood the sacrifice. I knew that he needed the money for something, and it was amazing that he was doing this for them. I hoped I conveyed all those things to him.
But in the end, we just stared at each other, wasting oxygen with our rapid breaths, and making me feel like the girl in the sky, who looked out into the beyond, might have been looking for something, or someone, the whole time after all.
Chapter Six
ro·bot - a machine or mechanism guided by automatic controls that performs various complex acts of a human being whose lack of capacity for human emotions is often emphasized.
Maxton
I gave him enough to pay taxes for all the guys on the roof. How could I not? Sophelia stood there, about to give away everything to her name after she had scrimped and saved for ten freaking years as a slave after one sob story from a guy in the stacks.
That’s terrible, I know, but see, here’s the thing—everyone on this planet has a sob story. If you talk to them for longer than a minute, you’ll hear it and want to save them. It just happens that way. You can’t play hero to everyone or you’ll have nothing to save your own family. It sucks big time. If you can help, great. But most people can’t. It just so happened that I could help this time, but that hardly ever happens on this planet and everyone knows it. That’s why it is the way it is. When you’re all on the bottom of the food chain, what do you expect from people?
He grabbed me up in a bear hug and promised he would give it to the others who had been there, who had all scrammed when they’d woken from their mist stupor. Then he apologized to Sophelia with a wave and was gone. I snatched Sophelia up real quick-like, not waiting for things to get awkward again, and tried to find a way away from screens and cameras. The Militia would be there any second. I was surprised they weren’t already.
As soon as we hopped down in between the buildings where it was dark for a second, I took off the halo around my neck and slipped it around hers. She tried to stop me, but I told her it was fine. “It scrambles technology,” I explained. “See, it looks like a necklace almost, but it’s not. So you’ll look like someone else. And here.” I took out the new clothes I’d gotten her and put on the jacket over her shirt, slipping on the hoodie.
“You got all this for me?” she said in awe as she rubbed the sleeve of the jacket. “This is a female jacket.”
I chuckled. “You’re a female.”
“I’ve never had anything that wasn’t my proprietor’s old clothes before. Well, not since…”
I felt my grin slip, but held it tightly in place. “It’s brand new. And it’s yours. Go ahead.”
She looked down and shook her head, but I saw the small smile come through. “I haven’t gotten to put my name in my clothes since I was a little girl.” She reached up and pulled the tag from the collar down, letting her forearm swipe over it. She watched as her name was lasered into the tag and then the jacket took the measurements for her body from her arm chip to custom-fit her. She waited, letting it happen, and then stood looking down at herself. I tried not to do the same, but hell. With that jacket so tight on her like that, and her pants so tight on her to match, she looked…
“So weird having clothes that fit,” she murmured as I was still trying to remind myself that I was a gentleman.
She looked up and started to speak, but stopped herself. I nodded. She hadn’t thought I was coming back. I got it. “Later,” I promised. “We need to move. Curfew’s coming.”
She nodded and we started for the back alleys, looking for a place to crash for the night.
**
I would have thought Sophelia would be looking over the items in her bag, but other than peeking in at them, she kept her bag wrapped tightly in her fingers and didn’t look at them again. It was as if she was trying to keep it a secret. It made me pause, but whatever was in that bag was none of my business. It was important enough for her to go back for, so I would let it be.
When I fell asleep that night, our backs had been against the wall, our legs stretched out on the old-time fire escape. When I woke up the first time, to noises below us, her head was on my shoulder. I checked as slowly as I could, so as not to wake her, to find it was nothing but a bot making a delivery. When I woke up the second time, her head was on my leg and she was curled into a ball, facing away from me.
When I woke up the third time, she was skittering away from me like I’d accosted
her, slamming her back against the railing on the opposite side of the fire escape. She hissed when she hit, slamming so hard.
“What are you doing?” she asked, eying me with accusation.
“What do you mean?” I asked right back. “You fell asleep on me.”
“I—” She calmed her breaths as she took in the situation, remembering where we were, maybe even remembering everything that had happened. “Sorry.”
I nodded once. “Sure.”
“No,” she said, and closed her eyes for a second. She did that a lot. “I’m sorry,” she said, the conviction in it so real I could almost taste it.
“It’s okay.” She opened her eyes. “I know you’ve had it rough. I can’t imagine. I don’t want to.” She looked down, checking into her bag again. “We need to get moving.”
Last night we talked about how I found her by seeing the screens and recognizing where she was. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have found her again. We would both have been on our own, and on this planet, that is a sucky place to be. I’m ninety-four percent sure that she gets it now—that I’m not going to ditch her or turn her in. Again. We need each other to survive on the outside and the smart thing to do would be to stick together.
We ate the dinner I brought of ham and cheese with crackers. I got to see Sophelia’s vulnerable side once again when she almost flipped out over the cheese.
“I haven’t seen cheese since I was so, so little. They stopped letting us have it and replaced most foods with those vitamins in the water.” She took it from me and took the biggest bite, making me laugh. “Oh, my gosh…” She smiled. “I would give anything if my mom could be here.”
Now, as I watched her move around and collect her things, I would give anything for that, too. She was so strong and such an independent person; she had held her own for ten years, but then, some moments, she was still that little girl who just wanted and needed her mother, who was deprived of her mother.