A little sweet talk and three bottles of authentic Carnglen was all it took to get Monkey and Raz into the cold steel room in the sub-level where corpses were stored before incineration. Ten minutes, probing fingertips into rubbery dead flesh, Monkey making quick slits with her knife, and they were out of there, heading east towards the abandoned algae fields.
"Mama Bot," Raz mused as they walked, "She got to be more bot than person." The blush of the cut sky reflected off the city's towering steel and plaz, filling the day around them, two jangly tall girls on the street, not yet grown into their limbs, Monkey with the Percom IDs tucked in an inside pocket and Raz, a soiled faerie smoking some thinly-rolled ragleaf.
Monkey wasn't sure how it was they'd gotten close. Raz, a Pretty Girl, fundamentally softer in some way than Monkey. Always putting glitter on her cheeks before they went anywhere, making sure her hair was right in a little hand mirror she had, this girl who tried to be a hick but whose parents had been dancers from somewhere far off. Never making up her own mind. But it was there between them, Monkey and Raz, something always syncing in the easy way they walked together. Maybe it was just three months of living side by side inside the harvester, but it was there.
"Hey," Monkey agreed, and from the distance came gunfire, the rain-on-metal sound of Dom Chivo's people costing the Epirians money. "Sometimes I think she thinks we're bots. Wants us to be anyway. Gets all frustrated when she actually got to talk to us. The way she stares, like she's trying to just think at us the way she can with her bugs."
"Zactly. She forgets we ain't. Sometimes I wish I was a bot."
It was Fate's Day and it was hot. Securcons and their shining bots hunkered at street corners, there to put down any notion the locals might have of getting unruly. And yet in the distance, the sporadic pop-pop and rat-a-tat of Dom Chivo's people, unruly indeed. His graffiti was everywhere, his bearded face painted on walls on every street, his finger pointing.
"Dom Chivo wants you," Monkey teased. Raz snickered.
"Shut up."
"He does. He wants you."
"That's gross." Raz passed Monkey the cigarette. In the long silence as they walked, Monkey sensed Raz thinking hard.
Finally Raz said, "You trust her?"
"Mama?"
"I heard what she said. What she done to Boo-Coo. Rogero, too, letting them walk into the station like that, knowing they'd get shot up."
"Better them than us." Monkey, blowing out smoke. "What Mama would say anyway."
"Hey. But now it's our turn." Raz gestured at the pocket where Monkey had the Percoms stashed. "You trust her this'll work?"
Monkey thought about it. She pulled hard on the ragleaf and passed it back. She said, "Mama saved me."
"Just kept you from being stupid. I saw the way you was about to go at those Securcons."
"No, I mean Kalan Pleasure, when I was working for him." Monkey glanced at Raz and Raz looked away. "He was real bad, and I thought I had to handle it. Just to keep living, hey. I seen Mama a couple times before she talked to me. Couple of nights in a row she come in, but didn't do nothing, didn't talk to nobody. She just buys a drink and sits there watching. Maybe her third night there, she comes in and gives Kalan his money and points right at me. Didn't even know she noticed me before that. I figure, okay, it's my job, hey, woman or man don't matter. I take her to my flop. But Mama doesn't want nothing. She gives me that stare of hers, like I ain't nothing but a holoscreen she's reading. She says to me, 'It's a choice, you know.' I don't know what she's even on about, but she lays this knife down on the flop between us and says, 'Being powerless. It's a choice.' She tells me I want to I can make a different choice. Then she stands up and walks out, doesn't even look back. Took me all of about ten minutes to think it over. I got out that night."
"You didn't answer my question, though," Raz said. They were at the city's edge now, where the towers ceased in a long line of glinting plaz. Before them, the checkerboard green of the old algae fields spread across pale desert to the horizon. The harvester rumbled along out there, through the nearest fields, rolling in long slow arcs, awaiting their return. Overhead, the Craster sky pulsed with bloody smears, the Maelstrom coming down.
"I'll tell you what," Monkey said, "I trust her to be predictable. Whatever the plan is, Mama won't let nothing bad happen to herself. No matter what goes down or what she tells you, you stay close to her. You do what she does. You'll be alright."
"What are you going to do? If things go bad?"
"Me?" Monkey laughed. "Shit, I'll just run. Nobody going to catch me."
"You ain't going to fight, are you?"
"Hell no."
"Don't lie. Promise me." Raz gave Monkey this look, her brow all furrowed, and for a second Monkey couldn't say anything. It stunned her some, being known, being so cared about. "Promise," Raz commanded.
"I promise. I'll be out of there faster than a rabbit with its ass on fire." Monkey reached beneath her coat and pinched the slick fabric of her optical suit. "Got my 'flage. Nobody so much as see me running. Alright?"
"Alright."
*
They hit St. Lorca Station the next night. Big armature bots, shaped around their human pilots, were the only sign anything had recently gone down—that, and a noticeably higher density of Securcons inside the cathedral. But the trains had started up again, extruding and collecting tourists. Money changing hands, the night crowd as thick as ever and the PA blaring arrivals and departures. Ads for Carnglen and Stimpson's played on the overhead vid.
"You'll be fine," Mama'd insisted. "Just go straight for the gate. Not together, split up. Red and Poxy will override the signals from your IDs. The gate will open right up. The Epirians won't even blink. Billy and I will be right behind you. Act..." Mama Bot's hand circled in the air, as though conjuring words. "Normal," she said.
And so that's what they did, Monkey in her 'flage coverall but with it turned off, a single Percom in her pocket, the way Rogero had done it the first time, Raz off to the left, moving between the vendors, through clouds of ragleaf and fryer smoke, her eyes wide and fixed straight ahead, her own Percom clenched in a fist. The two of them, walking right past Securcons and their bots, close enough for Monkey to clock the reflected queue of passengers bending across their mirrored silver masks.
The gate ahead hypnotized her. Open and closed, open and closed. People passing through one at a time. Open and closed. Her heart hammered in her ears.
"No sum in not at least trying," she said into her mic as she fell into the slow pack of people being filtered through the gates. Ahead, stuck to the barrier's plaz wall, Monkey spotted one of Mama's bug bots. A good sign, maybe.
"They spot me," Raz said, "I'm doing what Boo-Coo did. I'm going straight for that gate."
"Mama says for you two to hush," came Little Billy's voice. He sounded more than scared. His voice trembled, real quiet.
"They spot you," Monkey told Raz, "just bat those big eyes up at them, helpless little orphan girl, and say you don't know nothing, sir, what's a Percom, sir? I'm just a little faerie fresh out of the mines. Break their hearts enough, I bet they give you a ride off planet."
"Hey that."
Their banter, it was cover. For Billy's ears, for Mama Bot's. Act normal. Well, they were, for Mama's benefit. Across the way, Monkey gave Raz a look. Raz peeled out of the line and blended into the crowd, doubling back.
"Hush!" Billy scolded. "Mama says."
The gate, open and closed, open and closed, slowly getting closer. A dog bot waddled past Monkey's leg, its metal paws clicking on the granite. The line inched her past a standing bot with Renshaws on its shoulders—maybe this was the one that'd shot Boo-Coo.
"One of them's looking at me." Raz, talking like she still stood in line, her voice tight fear, laying it on thick. "He's looking at me."
"Just relax, hey."
"No, Monkey, he's looking at me. I think I got to run."
"Don't run. Relax."
"Huuuush!" Billy said.
"And Mama says relax, you're fine."
The maglev hovered there, waiting, doors open. People with clearance began filling the sleek ergonomics within. The tall bot beside Monkey turned. Its head looked not right somehow, misshapen. It took Monkey a second to scope one of Mama's bug bots clinging to its skull. Monkey saw another bug, this one riding the dog bot.
"Monkey. He's coming this way."
Something skittered past Monkey's feet. Another bug bot. They were everywhere. They'd latched themselves to all the Epirian bots. Others ticked along the floor, making for the gate. Other people murmured and pointed, scoping the bots now, too.
"Monkey—"
"Don't move!" They converged on Monkey before she even saw them. Three Securcons, thick in their black armour. "Put your hands on your head, girl!" Two of them had rifles levelled at Monkey, not messing around. Still tense after the riot, expecting things to go bad. Expecting Dom Chivo's people maybe. The third Securcon came at Monkey with auto cuffs in one hand, the palm of his other hand resting on the butt of a pistol at his hip. People backed away from Monkey. Fear squeezed Monkey. For and instant, she couldn't move.
"Raz..." She fought to control her voice. "You doing what we talked about?"
"I am. I'm where I need to be. Monkey...I can see you. You remember what you told me."
Monkey unfroze. She took a single running step.
The Securcon with the cuffs caught her by the shoulder. Monkey struggled, tried to squirm free, but she was no match. The Securcon had her. Monkey spoke into the mic on her collar.
"Well, I tried." She whipped around, the knife already in her hand.
She hit only air. The Securcon was falling, falling, falling, everything slow all of a sudden. He hit the floor.
He had no head. Blood poured from him. Another Securcon flew away from Monkey.
Now she heard the shots, the air tearing itself apart around her. The tall bot, its shoulder-mounted Renshaws—it fired again. The sound made Monkey scream. She couldn't hear herself. The third Securcon shuddered. More shots. He flew apart.
People scattered. Monkey found herself in a clear space, just her and the tall bot. A troop of Securcons fought their way through the crowd towards her. Something flew into them, a flash of metal. The dog bot. One of the Securcons screamed as the bot tore into him. Another of them fell as the tall bot fired again.
A klaxon blared. A red light flashed over the gate.
The gate slid shut. It stayed shut. Beyond it, the train hadn't moved, its doors still open. Monkey cursed. Her feet began to move. She squeezed the tab on the cuff of her optical 'flage, and now she ran. Away from the gate. Away from the train and the tunnel huggers and any hope of a new life. She was running, invisible—yet people cleared out of her way. She looked back—
The big bot ran behind her, pacing her. She stopped. The bot stopped—and now Monkey got it. She dug into her pocket. Her fingertips closed around the Percom's hard edges. She threw it, back the way she'd come. The big bot loped away, following the chip's trajectory.
"It's the Percom!" Maybe Raz could still hear her. "Throw the chip away!"
Monkey, running again, until she saw the mob of people at the station's high arched doors. All of them, pressing to get out while the piloted armature bots pressed to get in, crushing forward. People screamed. Gunfire reverberated inside the station dome.
Monkey changed direction. She came to the info kiosk, began to climb. Atop its roof, she leapt, caught the girder. Hung there for a second by her fingertips, and pulled herself up. She began to climb, up and up, until the beam levelled. She ran across the high backbone of the St. Lorca Station.
Below, the station in chaos. The roar of gunfire. People scattering, falling, bleeding in the flickering light of Stimpson's smiling cat-eyed girl on the vid screen. Above, the night sky ever so slowly tore itself open.
Monkey hunkered there, the place in between, her hidden perch, her favourite place in all of Whitesands. She watched while the armature bots cut everyone below to pieces.
Off to the side, near the gate, Monkey clocked a woman, low and inconspicuous. She wore a tribal shawl and low desert hat. Beside her, a little boy with a blond crew cut. As Monkey watched, the gate slid open a crack. Together the woman and the boy slipped through. It was the way the woman towed the boy across the platform. Towing him by the arm, like luggage, not looking back. Impatient, but parental. Motherly. The two of them got onto the train.
A moment later, another figure stole along the plaz wall. She approached the gate, and slipped through. The gate closed on her. She was caught. She struggled. She tore herself free—stood there for a beat, something left behind, hanging there in the gate's plaz jaws, something she wanted, like a limb. But she made up her mind and left it. Quick and lithe, she ran to the train. Not five seconds later its doors slid shut. It began to move, picking up speed, the silent maglev rush of mass, blurring, one car becoming indecipherable from the next. It disappeared, just empty track.
The bug bots on the gate all fell to the floor. The Epirian bots went still. Gunfire grew sporadic, and petered away.
Mama Bot was gone. And still pinched in the gate, fluttering slightly in the train's wake, hung the filthy gossamer of a lost faerie wing.
*
The harvester was dead, an inert hulk on the algae field. Inside, the bug bots were still alive, but mindless now without Mama, just batteries with churning legs. Monkey sat there, watching them climb the metal hull until they'd slide back, over and over, going nowhere.
"Never occurred to me Billy was her kid," and in the echoing quiet she remembered Raz wasn't there to talk to. The holoscreens pulsed, weak maps of light pushing out against the cargo bay's interior blackness. The pretty wave diagrams, the muted loop of Dom Chivo's angry speech. Maybe Monkey slept, or maybe it was the solitude, crushing her. Her mind wandered. Dom Chivo's speech, looping again and again, his silent chant.
Stand up, stand up!
Monkey imagined Raz, dancing someplace full of people who mattered. Stand up, stand up! They'd pay her, Monkey figured, for real, hey, not just pennies in a hat. She thought about Raz, and she smiled.
Stand up, stand up!
Her fingers, tickling the edge of her blade.
Stand up, stand up!
Monkey stood up.
OVER YOU
★
by JAINE FENN
A ragtag Broken fleet is no place for an Artarian House Champion, but that's exactly where Hanori's hunt for the fugitive has taken her. Deprived of her Lorican combat suit, will she be able to catch her prey? Or will other, more personal influences, be decisive?
'PERHAPS WE CAN come to some arrangement?'
What gets me is the way men's expressions change, like it suddenly occurs to them that as well as having whatever-passes-for-money-around here I'm a woman. That I might have something else to trade. After all, I'm in better shape than most of the poor bastards who arrive through this airlock. I resist the temptation to sigh. I also resist the temptation to reach backwards, draw the needler taped under my backpack and shoot this meathead in the place he apparently keeps his brain. Instead I give him a final chance to prove me wrong. 'What sort of arrangement?' I ask, like there might be a non-obvious answer.
'Maybe you step into this side corridor here, where it's good and dark and the two of us—'
I'd palmed my stunner after I tricked the inner lock. I raise my hand now and shoot him in the chest. He falls to the floor, convulsing and making guh-guh-guh noises. Unlike a flechette storm to the groin this won't kill him. Nor will it give him the opportunity to scream and draw attention from beyond the bulkhead. But it should be embarrassing enough that once he regains control of his bodily functions, he won't be telling anyone about the lone female trader he let onto the ship without taking a bribe, let alone any liberties.
*
This is the last of the eight ships in this sorry excuse for a fleet, but finally my luck is changing. I get a lead on you from the fourth person I
speak to. She raises goats. I can't see them, but I can hear them, behind a makeshift barrier, penned up in what used to be a ship's cabin. Smell them too. In order to blend in I didn't take advantage of the hygiene facilities on my ship en route but I still noticed the smell when I came aboard, a combined stink of sweat and sewerage and desperation. Now with added goat. But goat-woman is all smiles, and she's helpful without me having to flash any cash.
'Combat training, you say?' She doesn't look confused at my query, which was the case with the man selling snakeskin belts and with the woman stirring a huge pot of stew farther back in this corridor-turned-marketplace. The third person I spoke to, an old man selling hanks of hand-dyed fabric, said this woman might be able to help. Which doesn't mean she will, of course.
'Yes, that's what I heard. Back in Nicodem.' I nod behind me, though I've no idea which direction the Nicodem system is in; then again neither has she.
'And your people, they're like us?'
In the same way gold is like goat-shit, yes. 'Not really.'
'It's just if there was another group over that way, maybe we could make contact—'
The Broken are always looking for others in the same boat but it's a big old universe out there, even if it is getting smaller all the time. 'Just the one ship, with my family on. We do all right, by ourselves.' Patently, given how well-fed and healthy I am, and the fact that I have my own scoutship. It could almost be the truth.
'Oh. But they let you come all this way, alone.'
'It's our way. Family honour.'
'And it's your brother who's run away.'
I nod, then let my face slide into a grimace with a side order of disappointed frown. 'Yes. I know, he should've known better. But he's had … issues, and he wanted to get some serious combat training. He'd heard about someone out here, in Liberty.' A pretentious name, though they are one of the largest and most coherent groups of Broken we know of; I've visited them twice before on retrieval missions, each time boarding a different ship in the group, using a different alias and cover story.
Tales from the Edge: Escalation: A Maelstrom's Edge Collection Page 6