by J. Naomi Ay
"That's not important," he mumbled, finally answering my question. "Who the kid is."
"Pardon?"
"I'll tell you later," he said again, this time louder and without chocolate. "Just go find him."
"You got it, Captain," I replied with a mock salute. "So, it's not relevant that the Royal Guard is looking for a kid, something the city cops ought to be able to do, is it?"
"Nope," Loman sighed and opened a third candy bar. "Not relevant."
"Can you tell me anything about him?" I got out my tablet and prepared to jot down some notes. "Anything at all or should I just go find a random kid off the street?"
Loman glared at me. "Your file says you are a good detective, Lt. Taner. It also says you are a smart ass. If I were you, I'd concentrate on the good and smart part and minimize the ass part."
I smiled apologetically. "Sorry Captain."
"The kid you need to get was in the Old Mishnah Orphan Home but ran away when he was old enough to figure out that he could. That was about six years ago when he was a little more than six years old." Loman pulled up a map on his vid. I turned in my chair to study it. "The orphan home is here."
"And you think he is still in Old Mishnah?"
"One of the Sainted Ladies thought she saw him near the farmer's market here about a year ago," Loman pointed. "That's the most recent sighting."
"That's about four or five miles from the orphan home?"
"Six point two."
"A year ago?"
"Yep." Loman cleared his throat. "I need him here by the first of the month, but I'd like him here sooner if at all possible."
"That's eighteen days. Do I get any help?"
"You don't think you can handle a twelve year old by yourself, Lt Taner?"
"I have eighteen days," I repeated. "To find a kid that hasn't been sighted in a year in a city of five million including half a million homeless street people."
"I really want him here earlier if you can." Loman scrunched up his face and tapped his large fingers on his desk. "I'm thinking since the kid has lived on the streets for the last five years or so, he might have some issues. Yes, Taner, I really need him here sooner if at all possible."
"Issues?"
"Yeah, street kid issues, gangs, drugs, whoring, who knows? His Mishnese probably won't be very good, he certainly won't know the protocols, and we may need to thoroughly clean and disinfect him. I'll need some time for all that."
"Right," I nodded. Disinfect him? "What does he look like? Am I allowed to know?"
"He looks like a Karut," Loman sighed heavily as if this were a great shame which it probably was. He typed again, and an image of a boy appeared on the vid. "Here is a pic of him the summer before he ran off. He had just turned six. This was the last time I saw him." At first glance, the kid definitely looked like a Karut with long, wavy, black hair, but at second glance, I noted how pale his skin was. "He has a red birthmark on the top of his head running from his forehead going back. It looks like this."
The screen shifted to an image of a newborn infant's head with a blood red stain running across it beneath fine black hair.
"It kind of looks like a bird flying," I remarked.
"Yeah, sort of. Oh, and Taner, his eyes. You should be able to identify him just by his eyes. They're different."
"What does that mean?"
"They're silver. Not just silver colored but they give off a silver light."
"Beg pardon?" I stopped taking notes. "Did you just say the kid has silver eyes that give off light? Are you making this up, Captain? Is this some kind of test or is this a joke?"
Loman looked at me steadily. "No, Lt Taner," he enunciated. "This is neither a test nor a joke."
"Is he some kind of alien then?" I studied the kid. Kind of cute, not very happy, and vaguely familiar although I didn’t know why he would be.
"No. He's not an alien. He just has very strange eyes, like a mutation or something."
"Ok," I replied. "In summary, I need to find a Karut kid with mutated eyes and a bird on his head. Is there anything else I should know?"
"He goes by the name Senya. That's all I can tell you right now."
"Do you know more that you are not telling me or is this all that you know?"
Loman looked out the window. He drummed his fingers on the desk some more. "I have told you enough to complete your assignment. Go get your gun and get started."
"The first, right?" I stood up and headed toward the door.
"Right," Loman called after me. "Taner, this could be good for you, you know. There was a reason I chose you for this assignment."
"What's that boss?" I turned around to face him. "You think I'd make a good baby sitter?"
"No," Loman rolled his eyes. "I think you would make a terrible babysitter. Get going."
So there I was on the street packing a piece and blade. It was my fourteenth day out there, and I had exactly four more days until the first of the month. Over the last two weeks, I had covered about twenty square miles of the old city on foot and I was getting desperate. I had searched every filthy corner of every stinking alley of every trash filled block in Old Mishnah. I had met a few who said there was a Karut kid who lived around here, but no one was sure where or a least they were not about to tell me. I guess even in my civs, and dragging on a cig, I looked too much like a copper and they weren’t anxious to share. It might have been my haircut. Dusk was falling. The drug pushers were already out in force. Someone a street over was screaming like they were being knifed. I debated whether to call it a night and head back to the Palace but then realized I was out of cigs so on a whim I stepped into a shop. A bell hanging from a rope around the cracked glass door announced my presence.
"Hey, Pops," I called to the skinny old guy behind the counter. He was sitting on a stool and smoking his own cig.
"Hey, Coppah," he replied and looked at me with rheumy eyes. "I ain't done nuttin." I thought this is what he said. Between his toothless gums and street Mishnese accent, I could barely understand him.
"I know, Pops," I sighed. "You're innocent. Where's the cigs?"
"Second shelf over," the old guy pointed. "Whatcha doing in this neighborhood, son?"
"How’d you know I was a cop?" I asked. "My haircut?"
"Nah. You smell like one," the old guy laughed and showed his empty tooth sockets.
"Clean, maybe? Like maybe I showered in the last ten years." I tossed the pack of cigs on his table. He rang it up, and I threw him the coins. "So," I said. "You ever see a Karut kid around here?"
The old guy snorted. "You taking him in?"
"Sure. You want me to?"
"Sticky fingers that little rat has."
I broke open the pack and took out a cig. I lit up and took a long drag. "So you do know him then?"
"Yep," old grocer nodded.
"How old you think he is?"
"Dun't know. Young but not too young. Used to be younger. Was just a little guy when he first started showing up here."
"Sure," I said encouragingly. "Would you guess about twelve?"
"Yeah. Bout right."
"What does he look like?" I casually walked over to the window. It was dark outside. I fingered my piece with my free hand and sucked on my cig.
"Karut. Ugly."
"Black hair? Strange eyes? "
"Yep. Just like that cept he's white, a white Karut," the old guy laughed. "Looks like a Karut fucked a Lightie. Imagine that!"
"Kid got a name, Pops?"
"Ach, Copper, a course 'e do. Ye ought to know it too."
"Senya?"
"That be one of them, yeah."
I walked back over to the counter and threw a tenner at the old guy.
"Know where I can find Senya?"
"Nope." Pops pocketed the tenner. "But Meri might. She's been known to feed him. Fourth door down, third floor, t’other side of the street."
"Thanks, Pop." I ventured out into the street to find Senya, the sticky fingered Karut. The bell
tinkled as the door shut behind me.
Four doors down, I hauled myself up to the third floor as rats scurried in the stairwell and something sticky grabbed at me from every step. The whole building smelled like a toxic combination of urine, mold, and something else which I didn’t want to think about. There was no light in the hallway, so I used my torch, avoiding the corners and floorboards which were cluttered with filth and most likely vermin.
"What do you want?" A hesitant voice called from behind the only door on the floor. The wood was splintered with age and nearly all paint had flaked away.
"Meri?" I tried my best not to sound like a cop but as usual failed at it.
"Go away, Copper," she replied without opening the door. Her Mishnese was surprisingly good.
"Meri," I tried again. "I'm looking for Senya. Do you know where he is?"
The door cracked open enough for one very over painted eye to peek out.
"You taking him in?" She said.
"I don't know," I replied. “Should I?” Now there were two over painted eyes on a face that looked like it was burnt and had serious scars. If it weren't for the scars, I would guess her to be no older than me. "You see him lately?" She pondered for a moment and then glanced around the room behind her as if she remembered that he was hiding in a corner.
"No," she said and moved to slam the door.
I shoved my knee in between the door and the frame which caused the wood to splinter.
"When does he usually come by?"
She stared at me. I waved a tenner. She looked at it and bit her lip. Then she peered closely at me. "You're from the Palace," she stated. "You're not a street cop."
"That's right." I must have had a really good haircut.
“You’re taking him there.”
“Yes Ma’am.”
"You'll take care of him? You won't let them hurt him?"
"Yes Ma'am," I said again.
"You'll protect him from, from…"
"From what, Ma'am?"
She looked away. "From them who hid him away in the first place!" She snapped and glared at me as if I was stupid, which come to think of it, maybe I was.
"Sure," I agreed. "I'll take care of him. I'll take really good care of him."
She stared at me again, probably judging my sincerity. I must have passed. She swallowed hard before speaking. "Mornings," she said. "He has a sweet tooth, so I bake on Friday. He usually comes then for a treat." She smiled her damaged face wistfully. She might have been pretty once. I removed my hand and my knee from the door. I tried to give her the tenner and a coin, but she refused.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” I said and nodded to her.
She nodded back, and there were tears in her eyes. Tomorrow was Friday.
At six AM on Friday, I was out on the stoop in front of Meri's building; taking a drag on my third cig of the day and watching the grey dawn begin to lighten. The moons had set and so had most of the drug pushers and gangs, so that I was sitting undisturbed. I was trying to think of what I could say to this kid. Though it was only a dozen years since I was that age, I lived in suburbia in a house with a mother and father, a sister and dog. I went to school like a normal kid, ate three square meals and flew a skateboard when I was bored, nothing that a boy raising himself on the streets since the age of six could possibly relate to. The sun rose higher in the sky and the streets around me started to wake up with speeders and people. It was so different here than New Mishnah where the people were dressed well and hurried from one meeting to the next, queuing in the coffee shop or grabbing a bite at a street bistro. The speeders were newer, and taxis were everywhere. You could see the sky there, and it was usually blue. It didn’t smell bad either. Here, the few speeders and city busses were broken and vandalized, and the pedestrians were wearing ragged clothing, hung-over, and in no hurry to go to the jobs they didn’t have. The nearest coffee shop was four blocks over, and there were bars along the windows and doors.
I had sat on the stoop for no less than four hours when I got up to stretch. The sun had risen in the sky, and the noise and stink of Old Mishnah was fully awake, as well. There was a half way decent baking smell coming from Meri's flat above me and it disguised the rancid scent of the street a little. I had walked down the steps and out on to the sidewalk rubbing the knot in the back of my neck when I saw him. There, hidden in the shadows of the very stoop I had been sitting on, he was crouched. A mangy black mutt with enormous snarling teeth was beside him. I froze in place. The dog growled louder.
"Hey Senya," I called and held out my hands innocently.
The dog rose to his feet slowly, baring his teeth, slobber dripping down to the pavement. I must have looked really juicy. It had to have been my haircut. Slowly, I reached into my pocket and grabbed a donut from the bag I had taken this morning. I had been seeing a girl who worked in the Palace bakery and she’d been remarkably good about leaving day old maple twists and a thermos of coffee on my kitchen counter every morning. In a small way, it made up for leaving her warm body asleep in my bed. Only in a very small way though. I tossed a maple twist on the ground by the dog's feet.
"It's good, Senya," I said. "Meri says you like sweets. I've got some for you too." The dog was still snarling but fortunately was distracted by the confection in front of him. "I'm not going to hurt you, Senya." I continued in the best calming voice I could manage. "I want to talk to you." I couldn’t see the boy's expression in the shadows, only the outline of his face and thin slits of silver light that shone from his eyes. Even the little bit that I could see was weird, and I wondered if Loman had lied to me after all and the kid actually was an alien who coincidentally looked like a Karut.
"Look," I said, slowly taking the whole bag of donuts out of my pocket. "These are for you." I tossed them forward and then I stepped back only to land my foot into something the dog had left there earlier. "Shit!" Now, that was exactly what I had all over my shoe. I turned away for a moment and tried to scrap the mess off and onto the curb. When I looked back, the boy was standing right next to me holding the bag of donuts. I nearly jumped into the street again. “Shit, you’re quiet!” Silver light flickered from beneath his long black eye lashes. I couldn’t decide if that made him look sleepy or just downright creepy.
The boy reached into the bag and tossed another donut to the dog who instantly devoured it.
"My name is Taner," I said and offered my hand. "I need to talk to you." The boy studied me, cocking his head slightly to the side but ignoring my hand. A bus roared past us just then and for a moment I felt a wave of heat and a thickness in my skull. At the time, I thought it was the exhaust from the bus. Then the boy stepped around me and proceeded up the steps of Meri’s building. He sat down on the top stoop where I had been all morning, and ate the rest of the donuts as if he was starving. Judging by the sharp bones protruding from his frame, he probably was. The dog followed, laying down at the boy's feet and snarling albeit half-heartedly as I came up the steps. I sat on the opposite side and took out a cig. I lit up and took a long drag relishing the masquerading effect of the tobacco smell. When I glanced again at the boy, he was holding out his hand.
"You want a cig? Here." I tossed him one and reached for my lighter but by the time I did so, the cig was already lit, and he was inhaling like a pro.
"So, Senya, like I said, my name is Taner," I took another long drag. Strangely, I felt nervous. "I am from the Internal Investigations unit of the Royal Guards."
The dog growled and bared his ugly teeth at me. I guess he was a remarkably perceptive dog.
"So, kid, you need to come with me. I’m supposed to take you back to the Palace."
The boy bolted down the steps with the dog at his heels and headed into the street, nearly getting himself leveled by a low flying speeder.
I was on my feet, and racing after him. He was fast and knew these streets better than I did. In no time, I was winded, and he was gone, dodging between parked and flying speeders and eventually disappearing into th
e shadows between buildings.
"At least he's alive," Loman said in his office later that afternoon. "I was afraid we might be too late. The Sainted Lady with the scarred face is taking care of him." Loman beat on his desk with a pen. He nodded to the tune he was drumming out while he thought.
"She didn't look like a Sainted Lady," I replied.
"She was. The House Father was murdered with a fire poker then his body was set on fire and in the meantime, she and the boy disappeared."
"Did she do it?" I would like a good murder investigation especially with the suspect right there. It'd be more interesting than chasing this boy around Old Mishnah.
"The House Sisters said she couldn't possibly have done it. She was afraid of her own shadow. But, she loved the boy like a mother, so if the Father was abusing him, perhaps. Taner," Loman said steadily. "That is not your case. Your case is to bring in the boy."
"So the House Father was abusing this kid and the kind, ugly Sainted Lady took a poker to him and then she and the kid ran off together so that she could work the streets and he could what?"
Loman sighed heavily as if I was annoying him.
"Why do you want the boy?" I asked again.
"You're the detective," Loman grumbled, peeling a candy bar. "You figure it out. Just get the kid here on time."
Saturday, I spent the entire day on the bloody stoop. No boy, no dog but plenty of drug pushers and whores.
Sunday, I overslept and didn't bother reporting for duty until well in the afternoon. I waited on the stoop awhile, but there was no sign of the boy, so I decided to walk around. Using the stoop as the midpoint, I began a radial search of the neighborhood. Sundays were a bad day in Old Mishnah. Less people survive Saturday night than any other night of the week, and unfortunately, I had to step over quite a few who didn't make it and had yet to be visited by the city coroner's impound truck. Those that lay in pools of blood were either stabbed or shot. Those that were dry were probably overdoses or alcoholic binges. I glanced at them all just to make certain they weren't a twelve year old Karut boy.