Nylon Angel

by Marianne de Pierres

  But Sto nodded slowly like he was churning it all through his mind.

  "Mei's been saying to me that something's changed. Something big was gonna happen. Said she sensed changes in the flows. So did the others."

  "So you don't think I'm insane?"

  Sto gave me a watery grin. "Yeah, sure I do. But not about this. Parrish, I'm scared."

  I stepped toward him. "So am I. Where can I find the other shamans, Sto?"

  He rubbed his hand across his hair. Sweaty pale fingers through a mat of yellow white. "I shouldn't be telling you this, but I guess I still owe you in a way. Find Vayu, around Torley's."

  I squeezed his arm, smiling as warmly as I could manage. "Keep safe."

  He held the door open and the Remington out. I took it from him and walked on through.

  * * * *

  Nobody looked twice at me in Daac's safe house. I hurried along the corridor and down to the nearest way out. The first one I came to was crowded with eager war-johnnies and heavily guarded. Gens, no doubt.

  I wondered if Minoj had holed up with his arsenal of weapons. Who was he supplying? Probably everyone. Making a killing in cred.

  Minoj made me think of Teece.

  Daac had gotten Teece involved in this. How involved? Enough to betray me?

  No.

  * * * *

  I slipped back upstairs and scouted the other entrances. They were all the same.

  I sighed. That left the attics.

  I headed up the next flights of stairs, picked a top-floor room at random. I turned the handle and let myself in. It took no hard guesses to work out that the inhabitants were probably downstairs playing soldier.

  By design all the upstairs rooms in The Tert villas had attic hatches. This one was no exception, though it hadn't been used in a while. Knowing Daac, he'd probably booby-trapped the entire roof area.

  I would have.

  I dragged a crate over, stood on it and tweaked the lid the tiniest fraction. A device winked back at me. An image of Gwynn flashed into my mind. If I got my arms blown off I might be good company for him. I lowered the lid again, losing my nerve.

  What the hell was I doing? Going out to find a shaman who lived in the same district as the man I most despised, most wanted to kill and most wanted to avoid—in the middle of a gang war!

  Wouldn't it be easier to ride the whole thing out here and see what happened? Get some psy-spook to help my visions when the war was over. At least here I was out of the Militia's and the media's grasp.

  Or was I? What was Daac's crack about them nuking us?

  On impulse I got down from the crate and fiddled with the room's comm. It only took a minute to tune in on a news bulletin.

  A Prier giving a panorama of The Tert was the main image of the news footage. Any which way. The accompanying audio reports beat up the rumors of gang war. Pinch-faced sociologists discussing the possible implications for the citizens of Viva. Blah. Blah.

  The very last segment, though, had me tripping over my own jaw:

  "… rival gangs in the Tertiary sector are said to be responsible for the current unrest. A racially motivated group thought to be led by Parrish Plessis is making a bid for control and racial supremacy. Plessis is wanted in connection with the murder of news anchorwoman Razz Retribution. Plessis, having made a Mission-Impossible type of escape from a robbery on M'Grey Island, is back in the Tertiary sector directing her gang effort. Any information …"

  My brain screamed a protest at the distorted truths. Was this what Daac had meant by the Militia nuking us?

  I stared at the screen, not hearing any more. Not wanting to.

  How did this happen? How did this get so bad?

  The more I tried to take control of my life, the more out of control it got. I didn't know whether to cry, or laugh or crawl away and hide.

  All of the above.

  Yet all of the above wouldn't solve a frigging thing!

  With a mental cuff I slung Sto's Remington over my shoulder. Then I walked over to the window and began removing the mesh.

  It wasn't hard to get onto the roof from these unit blocks. They only had short overhangs and no gutters to accommodate for the torrential summer rains. My main worry was being shot in the back while I hung there.

  As I scrabbled up I expected any second to feel a searing pain between my shoulder blades.

  It didn't come. Maybe the dimming light covered me, or maybe there was too much to watch out for on the ground.

  I crawled up the slight incline of the roof, weaving carefully between the mic dishes. A hand reached out and grabbed my ankle as I stepped between two sleeper cocoons, nearly upending me. I stomped down as hard as I could with my other heel and swung the nose of the Remington into the narrow opening. Comm drone drifted out.

  "Let go," I growled over the noise, "or I'll blow you off the side of the roof."

  Whoever it was took me at my word.

  I scrambled as quickly as I could to the peak and looked around.

  The Tert's sea of roofs hadn't altered from the time Daac and I had stood there together. There were no signs to show the turmoil below, save for black and brown smudges here and there that I took for packs of canrats keeping well out of the trouble, and the wasp buzz of Priers.

  The strip of sea to the east and the dull, oily glint of the Filder River to the west were where they should be.

  Only I was lost.

  I checked my compass and took a bearing northeast that would take me back to Torley's. All I had to do was stay alive long enough to get there.

  I shuffled to the other edge and light-footed over a makeshift rope bridge to the next roof. From there I used the roof-dwellers' rope-down to get me to the ground. For all the effort I was probably only thirty meters better off. But at least no one had tried to stop me.

  The alley was uncannily quiet. Occasional bursts of handguns and the whine of machinery punctuated the silence.

  The evening felt heavy with the usual stormy cloud—what I could see. of it—and the air fitted around me like a dank, tight jumper. Cooking smells were strangely absent. As if people were afraid to eat in case someone else took advantage of their distraction from the war to turn them into a casualty.

  * * * *

  I slipped from corner to corner, remembering how easily Bras had navigated her way around in the dark. I wished she were with me now. For my sake. For her sake she was a whole lot better off with King Ban and his family.

  Under the cover of darkness everyone was dangerous; and vulnerable.

  Several times during my long night I came face-to-face with armed groups of strangers carrying glowers or light wands or fire torches. They wore no colors, no identifying marks.

  Neither did I.

  It saved me on more than one occasion. In a battle where the opponent's lines aren't clearly marked, hesitation could be a friend. More than once they whispered warily amongst themselves. Who is she with? Is she one of us? Sometimes I talked my way around things by guessing their alliances. Other times I used their indecision to vanish into the dark.

  A few times I turned into blind alleys, where patchy constructions coupled buildings together, blocking the thoroughfare. In one alley I stumbled upon four young gangers torturing their captive. One of them hummed. Another raped while he held a knife. They performed their act in the pinprick of a hovering Prier's spotlight.

  Without stopping to think, I kicked the rapist so hard in the back of his head that he was unconscious before he hit the pavement. The singer I shot in the thigh. The remaining pair ran, dragging their injured friends.

  As I helped the woman to her feet the Prier lifted and swung away. I fired after it but it was a useless gesture.

  The woman was old. Like my grandmother would be if I'd had one.

  "What's your name, girl?" She clung to me with desperate gratitude.

  "I'm Parrish. Did you know who they were?"

  Tears ran down her face. She nodded through them as if she could barely say t
he words. "Boys from my block. I know their families. They wanted my food."

  She moaned aloud—a wail that chilled my blood. "This fighting is turning them into animals. But what's it about? I don't know what's happening."

  I carried her across the alley to a squat that was boarded up. I knew the occupants must have seen what had happened, but were afraid.

  "Let me in," I shouted. "The woman needs help and shelter."

  Eventually a light flashed across us from a window and the door opened a crack. "Please take her." I handed her gently into the arms of a woman about my age with shaved hair and tattoos on her face.

  "You did a brave thing," she said. "I would have helped. But I have children…"

  I nodded, understanding what she meant.

  "Them Priers are everywhere with their cameras. It's creepy."

  "Stay inside," was all I could think to say, and left.

  * * * *

  This fighting is turning them into animals.

  The old woman's words burned into my mind as I continued on my way. Maybe because deep down I felt a sensation that I didn't like and refused to own. A churning excitement at the blood and the danger and the ugliness.

  Like two people living inside one skin. Not enough room. I shivered.

  One of us was definitely going to have to go.

  Sometime well past midnight, I noticed the outline of the buildings had changed, telling me I'd reached Torley's and the Shadoville strip.

  I moved along as silently as I could, but soon I was surrounded by a band of hostile shapes waving light wands. I slid the Remington around till it hung loosely in front of me.

  One magazine would take some of them. Then again, from the gleam of steel and the flicker of LED displays, they packed some decent hardware of their own.

  One of them stepped closer. A stocky, mongrel female with a semi. She waved her wand in my face and squinted. "Who have we got here?"

  I decided to try talk first and took my hand off the trigger. "No one. Minding their own business."

  She stared hard. "Seen you before, haven't I?" Falling back she whispered to the figure on her right.

  "You're Mondo's woman." Then she stepped toward me again and smiled. It wasn't a smiling kind of night.

  "Figure you might be worth something," she said.

  "You figure wrong."

  "Heard he had a price out for you."

  "You heard wrong too."

  Three of them came at me from the front. They were easy. I arced the Remington and it answered sweetly in a rattle of fire that took their legs out from under them. But it's hard to see everywhere when your enemy is in a barely lit circle. As I turned to watch my back, another wave came from the front and the sides. I was down on my knees sucking pavement way too quickly.

  Ten or more. The Wombat knows how many in the shadows.

  The mongrel with the semi rammed her piece into the side of my neck and spat into my face.

  It dribbled down the collar of my shirt. I would have wiped it away, but someone was tying my hands behind my back. I scraped my face along the ground to stop the spit getting in my eyes.

  They hauled me up and stretched me over an old water hydrant. Greedy hands tore at my top; catcalls ricocheted around me.

  "Strip her," ordered the mongrel.

  It was happening to me now. The same as I'd seen earlier in the night. Rape, maybe murder. Or worse than that—delivered to Jamon for bounty.

  No.

  As they tried to tie my feet to my hands I kicked and jerked, rolling free of the hydrant.

  Rough hands grabbed me again, pulling me onto my back, but they couldn't contain my legs. I caught one of them under the jaw hard enough, I hoped, to shatter bone. I roared and kicked and kicked.

  The mongrel leapt astride my chest, ordered others onto my legs.

  Trapped.

  I lay still, smelling her anticipation. She put her face down close to mine. "Do that again and I'll blow your brains out," she muttered hoarsely.

  My eyes seemed to be playing tricks in the darkness. One side of her face, distorted and crawling with dark whorls.

  "Be my guest," I offered. "Better than your filth on me."

  But I lied. I didn't want my life spread on a Tert Town pavement. I didn't want to die.

  I wanted to kill her.

  I want to kill her!

  That thought crystallized pure and clear.

  My ears filled with a throbbing sound. Pressure gathered in my head, so fierce I thought I was dying anyway. A roar erupted. A sound I could never make. A battle cry, bloodcurdling and vicious.

  Yet it came from me. The pressure built steadily until my skin stretched to bursting. Crimson ran before my eyes.

  With a crack I exploded.

  At least I thought so.

  * * * *

  Time passed.

  I groped around dazed, my hands free from the ropes. Bodies lay strewn around me. Other shapes backing away. Scared. I touched the nearest corpse. Hot flesh. Burnt. Sounds overtook the echoing war cry in my head. Sounds of fighting. Young voices. Young bodies with homemade weapons—finishing the job I had started.

  More bodies. Around me like torn scraps.

  "Oya?"

  I stared into a child's face. Filthy, feral and alight with hope.

  "Oya. We fight for you."

  I licked my lips. With immense effort I framed a word. "Me?"

  More of them came. Clustering around. "Oya, we were watching."

  I shook my head in confusion.

  Daylight was coming.

  They helped me up, two tall, skinny boys under each arm. One blind, the other smiling broadly.

  I only looked back once as I limped away.

  * * * *

  A drink and some crumbling pieces of pro-sub and I felt less surreal. The ferals had taken me into a building; an attic protected with movement sensors like the ones in the attic above my room.

  They swung on rafters and perched on beams around me like little primates. Watching and listening. I wondered if Jamon knew about them.

  "Why did you help me?"

  "The Muenos feed us because of you, Oya. The Muenos talk about you. Light candles for you."

  Pas! He had kept his word.

  "What happened back there? When you found me?" I asked one of the tall boys. "What did you see?"

  He looked puzzled. "We saw you, Oya. You burnt them because they were going to hurt you. You are fierce." Around me they began to clap and cheer.

  The boy confirmed my fear. It had come from me. I'd killed twenty or more people with some type of electric charge from my body. Burnt them alive.

  Shivers racked me. "A-are y-you sure?"

  He nodded, his long hair falling across his eyes. "One moment they are on top of you. The next… Psss!" He made a noise like food sizzling in a fire.

  Nearby, an explosion sent dust spiraling around us. The crossbeams groaned.

  The ferals silenced in one accord. The tall boy fixed me with serious, worried eyes.

  "Oya. Can you save us?"

  Chapter Nineteen

  Too many people, too much.

  But how could I stop now?

  For someone trying to climb out from under the pile, I seemed to have gotten responsible for everyone else in it.

  I forced myself to think. "Do you know a shaman named Vayu?"

  The tall boy pondered. "Where from?"

  "Here. Torley's."

  "We can find out. The Pets will know."

  He clicked his fingers, a succession of staccato noises, and a small, pale girl with pure white hair crept alongside him.

  "Tina will go."

  Tina smiled nervously as if the act itself might get her killed.

  I tried to smile back, but my mouth seemed to be suffering rigor mortis. "Thank you. What would you like in payment?"

  The tall boy shook his head and pointed high to a rough shelf attached to the roof. Two young girls armed with small, sharp spears guarded either end of
it. The shelf bulged with stale bread and dried meats. "You've paid. Many times over."

  "Is this what the Muenos gave you?"

  "Yes. But with the fighting there will soon be none for them to give. They help us, but not if their own bellies go hungry."

  "Then tell Pas you have spoken with me. Tell him no matter what he must give you some food."

  "But he will not believe me."

  "Then I will find him."

  "Thank you, Oya. Thank you," he said beaming.

  * * * *

  I slept for the rest of the day and through the night, dimly aware of bodies pressed closely around me. I woke in the slim light of dawn and discovered a tiny girl no more than three or four, still asleep, clutching my shirt and sucking her finger. As I eased away from her I nearly rolled on another, an emaciated boy who tossed and turned restlessly, unable to find comfort for his bones on the hard surface.

  Children lay littered around, moaning as they dreamed; whimpering and calling out in fear. The sound shook me.

  Treading the beams carefully in between young bodies, I moved toward the manhole.

  Tina sat nearby, gnawing on hard bread and sipping water from a container, waiting for me. Exhaustion and apprehension showed in her white face.

  I kneeled next to her. "Tina?"

  She broke off some bread. "I will take you to Vayu now?"

  I hesitated, weighing my promise to the ferals against my desire to find someone who could help me with my visions. Yet from the moment I'd woken to find their bodies pressed trustingly alongside me, I had my answer. "I need to speak with Pas first."

  She nodded.

  We ate together silently. Then left.

  * * * *

  Timid though she appeared, Tina led me through The Tert with surety. Her innate sense of direction reminded me of Bras.

  Outside seemed quieter with daylight dawning, but the remnants of the night's excesses were evident. Drying bloodstains, ransacked hovels, dismembered Pets.

  Tina searched their remains for faces she knew, stopping to sprinkle water on them from a little jar she gripped tightly in her hand.

  "Holy water?" I asked, curious.

  "No. Acid. So nobody eats their eyes."

  I flinched at her matter-of-fact tone.

  "How did you come to be alone, Tina?"

  She stared back at me, cruel shadows under her eyes. "How did you?"