Nola soon reached the Secat family home. She knocked on the door. A moment later Lanta Secat opened it a crack and peered out.
“Yes?” she asked, her voice a whisper.
“Mrs. Secat, I found Yan’s body today in the Scour. I retrieved his collar for you.”
She pulled her pack off and took the collar out. Lanta stepped out of the house and closed the door behind her. She was a small woman, coming up to Nola’s chin. She’d always been chubby—as most of the middle rich were—but now she was thin, her face narrow, her collarbones jutting out.
She took the collar from Nola and ran her bony fingers around the outer edge. Nola waited for her to speak but all she did was stare. Feeling awkward, Nola slipped her pack on and cleared her throat.
“Um… I need you to pay the reward,” she said.
Lanta looked at her in surprise, as though she’d forgotten she was there. Then her face fell and she resumed looking at the dull silver collar.
“I… I can’t. I can’t afford it.”
Nola blinked and looked over Lanta’s shoulder to the front door. Real wood. That alone was worth twenty bucks if she cut it up and threw it in the Machine.
“His quota will add to your family total for seven years until this collar comes back. How much is that? Seven times three sixty-five? You can’t afford it?”
The anger was rising, mixing with panic.
“I’m sorry,” Lanta repeated.
Nola stepped forward, her fists clenching. The fear was getting the better of her. Was she about to punch a widow?
“We’re absolute zero on Feed unless you pay me the reward. I need it.”
Lanta stepped back and opened the front door, letting Nola see into the house. It had been stripped bare. The floorboards were gone, ripped away, leaving only dirt. The house was empty, giant holes torn in the walls where they’d ripped away as much as they could to throw into the Machine (or their hasdee) without the place toppling down on them.
Nola walked in, brushing past Lanta. Every room was empty. No furniture, no pictures, nothing. Only one room held anything—the same shitty pallet beds their family slept on and a tiny hasdee, standing no higher than her knee.
“I’m sorry,” Lanta murmured from behind her.
Nola turned around, fury bubbling. If Lanta was chubby like before she might have hit her. Now she’d break like a sparrow made of glass.
“Why are you still living here? Sell this house, move to the slum—don’t tear this place up and ruin it.”
“It belongs to Fat Man. He says that even if we leave, we have to keep paying for it.”
It was a common story. Fortunes were always rising and falling. On the way up Fat Man was happy to take your money. On the way down, he insisted on taking it still.
Nola could feel the anger lodged in her chest. She wanted to shout and scream at the sobbing woman. Wanted to punch her and smash the house down. But what use was it? She had nothing to give. The beds were worth next-to-nothing. She didn’t have some hidden fortune under the dirt. Was she going to tear the front door off and take it as her prize?
“He’s about five hundred meters outside the fence. I covered him but I can’t guarantee bugs or hazels won’t get him. If we’re still free day after Feed I’ll take you to his body.”
She turned and walked out of the ruined house, slamming the front door behind her.
Chapter 29
Ash
Time passed with Ash doing his best to obey the strange message etched into the underside of the trapdoor. Raj was still unconscious, his wound clotted—Ash suspected the crossbow bolt might have been dipped in a sedative. It seemed unnatural that he didn’t wake and the longer he remained like that, the less chance he had of surviving unscathed.
Ash cleared away junk, digging down as he pulled it out piece by piece and flung it behind him to clatter down the hole. He’d tied Raj with his own rope to a broken concrete beam so if he did wake he wouldn’t roll over to land in the pit of spikes. Ash had sent Raj’s bugs down there, lighting it—no bones but the spikes were stained with old blood.
He had four of his own bugs, slow and stupid compared to Raj’s, currently building a small hasdee. If Raj could wake for even a minute he could tell his bugs to obey Ash. As it was, he was stuck with slow bugs that moved like they were walking through cold mud. The hasdee was almost complete—as soon as it was, he’d put Silver’s tempcube in and update what it would process. They had no food and their water was running dangerously low. But they had bottles of piss and stored shit that could be turned into pap.
“Take that red piece there,” Kin instructed, crouched next to Ash.
The piece of metal was thin and flecked with only a few remaining spots of red. Ash could usually guess what something had been in the past. This was generic junk, the siding from something long lost. He took hold of it and pulled.
“Easy,” Kin whispered.
The junk above them creaked a warning. Ash pulled at the metal—never jerking at it (a sure way to cause an avalanche) and finally it came free. The junk settled and quieted.
“See anything down there yet?”
He tossed the metal out behind him, throwing it over Raj’s prone body. It clanged away into the depths.
Kin twitched his whiskers and sniffed at the small hole Ash had dug in the junk.
“There’s something different down there but I don’t know what it is. It smells sweet.”
“Maybe it’s chocolate.”
“Pull that sharp bit next.”
Ash grimaced as a spike of pain lanced down his face. It seemed to dive into his flesh, ripping into his throat on the way down. He touched the wound. His skin was hot and seeping liquid. He pressed his fingers against it, willing the pain away, not caring his hands were dirty. It made no difference now—infection had taken root. The only thing that could save him now was a bottle of heal. Something strong, blue at least.
“Sharp bit, now,” Kin repeated.
Behind them one of the bugs chirped. The hasdee was complete. It was small, unable to hold more than maybe two hundred grams at a time.
“Let’s do this first,” Ash said, his tongue swollen in his mouth. He edged out of the hole and over to his pack. It was ruined, barely holding together. In a small front pocket he found Silver’s tempcube, a pale brown dot in the center. He slipped the cube into the hasdee. The screen flickered and then started counting from zero.
Ash sat there watching it, Kin alongside him gently swishing his tail. Past sixty, past seventy.
It bricked out, the number frozen at seventy-seven.
“Eat that down and make me another one,” Ash mumbled. He turned around and pulled himself back to the dig-site.
It made no sense to dig down. If the message hadn’t been there Ash would have dug upwards, pulling metal down, trying to find his way to the surface. He’d almost given up half a day ago but then Kin advised he could smell something.
Whatever this sweet thing was, it had to be something amazing or they were dead.
“Sharp bit,” Kin said.
“Sure,” Ash said, reaching for it. That was where they were now. On the spikes, death pressing in on them. Silver’s cube had failed so he might have to drink piss to survive. As for food… the bugs might find a few scrapings of organic matter down here but hardly enough to make even a single pap cube.
Unless.
He glanced at Raj, unable to stop himself. His friend was still alive and so the bugs ignored him. But if he died then he’d become a big chunk of organic matter ready to be recycled.
Ash turned back to the hole, a tear of precious liquid slipping down his nose. He licked it off his lip, tasting salt and dirt. He couldn’t risk wasting a single drop.
He gripped the sharp metal, careful not to cut himself. His wound throbbed again and his mind went away. How a message to him came to be carved into the bottom of a trapdoor didn’t matter. Nor what he might find when he dug down further. He had a mindless task and he a
pplied himself mindlessly.
Chapter 30
Nola
“Would you like another beer my dear?” Nola said to herself from behind the bar.
“Certainly,” she replied and poured herself another.
Nola stood behind the bar like the captain of a ghost ship lost in a raging sea. The wind was howling outside, the rain crashing down and overhead lightning flashed, the boom of thunder running fast behind it.
The Wire Pub was empty and had been all night.
Nola finished pouring the beer, tipping it too early and frothing too much head but she suspected her customer (herself) wouldn’t mind.
“Hey Burl, is it okay if I eat more of your food?” she said in a quiet voice after she took a gulp of beer.
“Oh yes, it is. Go right ahead,” she said back to herself, mimicking him.
When Nola arrived at work, she’d found Burl had locked himself in the cellar, shouting out through the door that he was working and not to be interrupted. He’d left fried pap and a spicy tomato sauce behind the bar with a note on it: “$1 per bowl.”
The bar was empty and Nola promptly served herself a bowl and gulped it down.
Getting the go ahead from her imaginary boss, Nola ate another bowl, not even bothering to rush. She didn’t know what was wrong with Burl but he clearly wasn’t coming out of the cellar anytime soon.
When she’d arrived at work she’d been bouncing between fury and despair. A night and a day, two opportunities to get warm and both collapsed in front of her. The fury came and went, spread over Danton, Carter, Garrick, Jarrah and Lanta Secat, starving thin in her ruined house. Then despair followed. A better throw and the Machine would have gulped down the platinum. What would Jarrah do then? Take her in for theft? It was a hanging offense. But he’d let her go and she suspected he might have done the same even if he’d caught her paying off her quota with stolen goods.
As soon as Nola realized Burl intended to stay locked away, she’d served herself a beer and dulled the sharp edges that seemed to be sawing at her mind from both sides.
The fury still returned but with decreasing strength.
“Why the fuck didn’t Lanta Secat have any bounty money?” Nola asked the empty bar.
Outside the thunder boomed, shaking the windows.
“Why the fuck didn’t Ash fucking come with me to steal the fucking platinum?”
Lightning cracked a reply.
Because he’s a goody-goody who thinks it’s better to be poor and noble than rich and a thief.
“Fucking right he is,” Nola said and drained her beer.
Between her job and Ash scavenging every day, they rarely overlapped. He was asleep when she got home. He was gone with she awoke. She was gone when he returned home.
But they’d talked, whispered conversations in the night, snatched moments up too late or awake too early.
They’d both done the sums months ago, dividing the quota and days remaining and knew that working at the pub and scavenging wasn’t going to cut it. This year they’d go absolute zero unless they had an extraordinary chunk of money come in. Then it was join Fat Man’s family or die.
Nola favored theft but Ash was against it. They’d had a whispered argument about it, Ash naming everyone who’d ever swung from the end of a rope. She’d dared him to think of a better plan but he’d had nothing. Nothing except his stubborn refusal to believe that something would arise. Nola had worn him down though and Ash had agreed to help her if she devised a good plan. She’d kept Garrick to herself, knowing she had to tell Ash at the last moment or he’d spend his time worrying at the plan or lack thereof. But then he’d come home excited and told them that Raj had seen a missile fall in the Scour and they were going out to dig.
“Something always comes up,” he’d whispered to her in the dark.
She’d kept her vague plan to herself. Ash had left with Raj, heading into the Scour. She didn’t even bother arguing it with him. The wealth in Fat Man’s storeroom was certain. Some random hole in the Scour? It would have to be a miracle for it to contain anything good enough to get them warm.
Nola cleaned her bowl and the glass and put them away before turning back to the empty bar. Her feet ached from standing still too long. As soft as Burl was, she suspected he would lose it at her if he caught her sitting in the chairs on the customer side of the bar.
Her gaze drifted across to the ancient cash register. It was mechanical of course, most of the buttons worn clean. It still dinged though when she pressed the big button at the bottom and the drawer slid open. Burl told her that her father had sold it to him—finding it in the Scour and then fixing it. It had been when he’d first come to town with the bastardo troupe.
She pressed the button and the drawer slid out. There were only a few single dollars in there. If customers wanted change, she had to ask Burl. She looked at the paltry notes, touched one, feeling the laminated surface, the tiny ridges and whorls of the raised surface pattern and then closed the drawer.
Too little return for too much risk. She didn’t want to end like Nix.
Not that it mattered anyway. They were deep cold.
They were fucked.
Maybe it was better Ash was out in the Deep Scour. If he’d been there when Danton and Carter grabbed her, who knows what might have happened?
What happened to Carter?
“Fucked if I know,” Nola told the empty bar.
Why didn’t Garrick tell on you?
“He’s in love.”
What is your plan now girl?
The lightning flashed outside, for a moment so bright it was like day and Nola blinked away spots in her vision.
The crack of thunder followed soon after, sounding like a bomb exploding above the pub but to Nola it was distant. She was seeing a glass screen covered in green dots, a single red dot at the bottom and many clustered at the top.
Collars. Who knew how many?
Fat Man knew.
He was the one holding them.
Holding a collar hostage was forbidden, another hanging offense in a long list. A bounty was traditional but not required. What about just holding a collar with no intention of collecting a bounty? Nola didn’t know but surely that was breaking the law.
Lanta Secat had no money but some of the families those collars belonged to did.
Nola sucked her lip and stared at the clean glasses, lost in thought.
How to take advantage of this? The collars were deep within Fat Man’s palace and surrounding buildings. She’d gotten lucky with Garrick but she couldn’t break in there. It was teeming with guards and dogs.
Reveal it to everyone and hope they handed the bounty over to her?
Tell the Sheriff?
“There’s no fucking time,” she muttered, idly lifting the lid off the bowl of fried pap, dropping it back into place.
A fantasy: middle of the night, pouring rain, the Sheriff led by a brave citizen to the hoarded collars. After she throws them out to bereaved families, some of them press money into her hand. She pays off the quota and lives happily ever after.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuuuuuck.”
On impulse Nola reached under the bar to grab the metal bar Burl kept there to deal with aggressive customers. It was solid and heavy in her hand. It felt good.
What were the chances Fat Man and his goons were expecting a break-in two nights in a row?
The door swung open and a very wet Hefnan staggered in.
“Fuck me that’s cold,” he said, squelching across to her. “What are you doing with that?”
“I’m going to break into Fat Man’s warehouse so my family can get warm. Then tomorrow I’m leaving this shithole forever.”
Hefnan nodded, water dripping off his nose. If Burl was here he’d be having a fit about the droplets of mud and water streaked across the floor.
“Do you have a plan?”
“Crowbar, lock, theft.”
“Need some help?”
He was skinny and
his clothes were disintegrating but it might be helpful to have someone else to lookout or carry stolen goods.
“I’m going right now.”
“I’ll meet you over there.”
Hefnan bolted out of the bar before she could tell him to follow her.
Nola didn’t bother telling Burl she was leaving. If this worked she was gone to another town when the gates opened in the morning. If it failed well… it wouldn’t matter.
Chapter 31
Nola was saturated when she stepped outside. The wind was blowing in gusts that changed direction, sometimes even pushing the rain down faster from the sky. Parker glanced at her with a raised eyebrow but she ignored him, not bothering to hide the bar in her hand.
This time there was no Jarrah hiding in the shadows making her divert from her path. No doubt he was out somewhere, huddled next to a building. The storm was a blessing—keeping drunks inside the Golden Door, keeping the law standing in any dry spot they could find.
Nola walked through Cago like the Queen of Violence, the metal bar solid and heavy in her hand. She was soaked to the skin but burning with an internal fire. Fuck Fat Man. Fuck the Machine. Fuck the law. Fuck the world and everyone in it. If any of Fat Man’s thugs came near her she’d crack their skulls open.
She took the direct path to Fat Man’s storerooms, mud squelching around her feet.
She was a street away when a figure loomed out of the darkness. She swung her bar but missed.
“Nola, stop, it’s me!”
Garrick.
She pointed the bar at him, her arm trembling, not with weakness but fury.
“What the fuck do you want?”
“We need to talk.”
He stepped back into the dry shadows.
“No. I’m going now. Fucking Fat Man thug.”
“I saw you murder someone! And I didn’t tell! So give me a fucking minute please!”
Lightning flashed overhead and Nola saw the angry look on his face. In the three weeks she’d been working him he’d been nothing more than a bumbling thug, afraid of being caught, enamored at receiving a young girl’s attention. He’d never raised his voice once.
Feed the Machine Page 14