The Color of Rain

by Cori McCarthy

  “Just cuz he’s here and now doesn’t mean he ain’t infected,” she says as she scrubs at her cheeks.

  “Yeah, but you can’t prove he’s Touched, so let us pass. Besides, shouldn’t you worry about being infected now?”

  Horror squashes her pudgy face, and the men step back, not just from Walker and me, but from her now as well. And I don’t miss the moment. I grab my brother’s hand and jerk us into a sprint.

  We’re on the next street before I slow. “You were great, Walk.”

  A crooked smile gives life to his pale lips. “I’m the greatest. So said Dad. Remember?”

  “I remember.”

  He touches his chest and arms like he just found them, still disoriented. “Those chasers been after us for a while?”

  “‘Have those chasers been after us?’” I correct. “And I don’t know. I only noticed them this morning.” It was a close one, but Walker is here now, and I bring out Hallisy’s ten-credit note. “What do you want to do? We can do anything.”

  He snatches it. “How’d you get this?”

  “I earned it.” Walker frowns for a moment, and I worry that he’s remembering how I earned that money. I clear my throat. “How about some eats? You hungry?”

  My brother’s great smile is worth five hundred credits. “I’m always hungry.”

  We swing by our favorite meat-on-sticks place, and it almost feels like old times, at least it would if I wasn’t counting down the seconds until his clarity fades. We pick out a shish kebab for each hand and wander through the rain-washed streets toward our makeshift home.

  Walker strips a piece of tough meat and makes a pleased groaning sound. “Rain, what happened before?”

  “I met a Runner. A Void captain, Walk. I’m going to trade with him to get us passage.” I look over my dinner but can’t force another bite. “Maybe next time you wake, you’ll be better. We’ll be on the Edge.”

  “And you’ll be the captain of your own starship, and Mom and Jeremy will be back, and Dad will be up from the dead like he was taking a nap?” He spits a bit of cartilage out on the sidewalk. “You’re full of dreaming, Rain. If you really want a shot, you’d let them take me.”

  “Don’t be such a depressing old man.” I wiggle my kebab in his face. He bats it away with his skewer, and we swordfight until I de-stick him and claim arms-raised victory.

  We reach an old fire escape, climbing to the roof. Our home is glass-paneled: a rooftop greenhouse from back in the eco days. People grew gardens here once, and someone even put a swimming pool in the center of it. Of course it’s all gone to hell now. Many of the panes are cracked or missing, and the green plants have long since disintegrated into piles of ashy soil.

  Walker sits on blankets in the shallow corner of the empty pool, and I grab my favorite tatty book from the stack that I rescued from our old apartment. The bindings have been glued and reglued. Some of them have grown mold, but I can’t part with them. They were my dad’s.

  “Read from this one tonight.” I gently toss the book to Walker, but he doesn’t catch it. It scatters on the tile, losing pages. “Watch it!”

  He scoops it up. “We’ve already read this one. And I don’t like poetry.”

  “Too bad. Read.”

  Walker tugs the book open. He starts to read a poem, struggling with the rhythm and so many of the words. My dad would have taught him to taste the words as he reads them just like he taught Jeremy and me, but I’ve proven to be a bad teacher. Maybe I’m not trying hard enough.

  “‘I pass death with the dying, and birth with the new-wash’d babe . . . and am not contain’d between my hat and boots.’” Walker’s voice is lazy and heartless.

  “Don’t you feel it? ‘Not contain’d between my hat and boots.’ Do you get that?”

  “I’m not wearing a hat.”

  “Don’t be literal. It means that you’re more than your body. Your mind goes outward. You know?” I close my eyes and finish the poem by memory, “‘And peruse manifold objects, no two alike, and every one good; The earth good, and the stars good . . .’”

  “I guess it sounds nice.” He shuts the book.

  “That’s a start.” I lie back on the old diving board, my legs swinging off the sides. “We’ll do more when you’re better,” I add to myself. “Much more.” A brown-skinned vine grows along the rusted beams that crisscross the glass walls and ceiling. I admire that plant. The sun hasn’t broken through the smog in over two years, but still it grows. A survivor. And somehow it’s snaked through cracks in the glass without cutting itself.

  How do you do what’s wrong without losing yourself in the process? Is there a way to do what Lo does without becoming like Lo?

  I push past the memory of Hallisy and rethink this Johnny. Deal, he said, what you have for what you need. Well, what I have is me. And what I need is passage.

  Walker’s voice breaks into my thinking. “What’ll you try to trade this Runner?”

  “Whatever he wants.”

  “Whatever?” Walker sits. He remembers the alley now. I can see it in his reddening cheeks. “Rain. Earlier you were . . . you were going to let that man . . .”

  I leap from the wobbling board, landing in a crouch on the tile that shoots pain from my ankles to my knees. “I need to make money fast, Walk. You have to trust me.”

  “There are honest ways!”

  “You don’t think I’ve tried?” I pace. “Factory work. Mine work. Sewer work. You know what they all have in common? They pay nothing. And I can’t wait around and watch you disappear.”

  He covers his eyes with his thin hands. “You could save up without me. You could save up in just a few years.”

  “Shut up.” I hug him hard, my chin covering his head.

  “You’ll get hurt,” he says. “Hurt bad. Remember when Jeremy said you couldn’t jump from the fire escape?”

  I hold him a little tighter. “Yes. And I did it.”

  “But you broke your ankle.”

  “But I did it.”

  He shakes his head, pricking the underside of my jaw. “You think you can do anything and no one can touch you, but it’s like what Dad used to say. ‘You can’t run between the raindrops.’”

  I can see our father through Walker’s words—the phrasing he only remembers because I’ve told him it so many times. Some days I wonder just how much Walker truly recalls about our dad. I remember too much . . . his ginger hair. His coarse beard and green eyes. And I miss him too much. Sometimes I admit it out loud to remind myself that the pain in my chest isn’t a cancer or my body going Touched.

  It’s just the missing.

  The last time I saw my dad, the cops were dragging his body facedown into the street. Then they flew away in a hover cab, stealing Jeremy. My dad’s beard had left scratch lines in the trail of blood leaving our apartment building, and I still see those lines in my nightmares . . . an endless rusted trail that I chase and chase without ever finding the place where I lost him.

  Walker pulls out of my arms to curl up on the blankets, and we trade small smiles that have nothing to do with happiness. “Rub my thumb, will you? Feels like it almost ripped off or something,” he says. I massage his bony hand and watch him fall asleep until violent shakes take him somewhere even farther away.

  I run my finger down his cheek, feeling the first fuzz of soft stubble. He’s been waiting for years to grow his scruff like Jeremy and our dad, waiting forever to be a man. Well, he will get his chance. I’ll trade anything in the universe for it.

  High above the glass panels, the smoke sky glows. It could be coming on morning or evening, but I can’t hardly tell. On this planet, the day is always the same color as the night.

  I wake with a start. My brother is not next to me. “Walker?” I get to my feet and check the gray room.

  “Rain.” His voice comes from above—from the diving board. He stands at the very edge, minutely bouncing on the old fiber plank. “You should go without me. You should save up and do it right.
” He stops bouncing. “Run the Void, and then if you do it, I’ll have done it as well. Like a spirit or something.” He opens his arms wide. “Remember when Dad used to call me Night Bird?”

  “Walker, don’t be—”

  He springs on the board and dives, his head careening straight toward the tile. A scream breaks my throat, crashing echoes through the empty pool like waves against rock.

  Waves that do nothing to stop the spray of his blood.

  CHAPTER

  4

  Crimson neon lights bear down on the crowd at the Blackstar Bar like a demented oven. I push through arms and drinks and groping hands toward a table at the back of the room.

  And he is there: Johnny.

  I have whatever you need.

  He fingers a drink, his legs jutting out from a slouch that brings all attention to his waist. When his eyes meet mine, he grins smugly and leans toward a guy beside him. I catch the end of his words: “. . . and you doubted me.”

  Johnny taps something into the silver band on his wrist and speaks without looking up. “Rain, let me guess: you’d like to see the stars. It’s always been your dream.”

  I place my hand over his.

  “I need . . .” My voice leaves me. Johnny pulls away, and my fingers streak blood down his tan skin.

  He brings a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes at the red. Then he takes my hands and does the same. He turns each of them over, inspecting them. “You need what?”

  What do I need? What could he possibly do?

  Johnny’s fingers wrap around my chin while he dabs at my face, the white cloth coming away scarlet. “I don’t think you’re the one who is injured,” he concludes.

  “My brother,” I say. “I need your help. He fell.”

  “Show me.” Johnny pushes me away to stand. He tosses a few coins on the table and snaps his fingers at the guy beside him. “We’re going. Bring your toys.”

  The guy slips out of the seat behind Johnny. He’s not as tall or as old—I might even call him a boy—but his shoulders are broad. His plain shirt and green cargo pants remind me of a military recruit but not from any service that I know.

  Something about him begs a second look, but my mind buzzes with Walker.

  We take their hover cab, the kind that can soar up into the thinnest atmosphere and maybe beyond for short distances. I sit in the back beside Johnny, squeezing the plush seat as the gliding sensation does weird things to my stomach. I keep turning from the strange guy in the corner, his face cast in shadow, to the back of the driver’s shaggy head.

  Faster. We should be going faster.

  And yet, as the hover cab lets down on my rooftop, it’s only been minutes since we left the bar. But even that might have been too long. . . .

  There was so much blood.

  I rush into the greenhouse, dragging Johnny behind me. Walker is curled in the deep end of the pool. His head is at the center of a great red puddle, and the sound of air leaving his body is a constant wheeze.

  Johnny holds me against him as the other guy leaps into the pool. His boots slide down the blood-slick tile, but he comes to a skillful stop beside my brother and peels back the strips of blankets I tied around Walker’s skull.

  It hadn’t been a long enough fall. He probably thought that he’d break his neck, but his head hit and just split. Then he screamed and screamed and screamed. . . .

  “I couldn’t go to anyone else. They’d take him away or put him out of his misery. But what can you even do?” I squirm in Johnny’s hold, but his arms grow tighter, somewhat comforting but mostly restraining.

  “How is it, Ben?”

  The boy called Ben takes a metal disc from one of the many pants pockets. It pulses with the same sapphire light as the engines hanging over the spacedocks, and he passes it over Walker’s cracked scalp.

  “I asked you a question,” Johnny snaps.

  “It’s bad.” Ben pushes his light brown hair out of his eyes, but even as his words spear me, Walker’s wound transforms under the blue light. Within breaths, the whole gash has sealed into a long, white scar.

  “How in the hell?” I struggle out of Johnny’s arms and drop into the pool. I run my hand over Walker’s scalp. “How did you do that?” I ask Ben.

  “Amazing what you can do with Mec toys,” Johnny says.

  “Where did you get Mec toys?”

  “They usually come with the Mec.” Johnny’s tone is black. “Stars forbid they let anyone else have them.”

  “Mec?” I glance at the blue disc as Ben slips it into his pocket. “You’re Mec?”

  Ben looks away in a hurry, but I swear I see beneath his wild hair for a moment. I swear I see blue eyes that glint like something slightly metallic.

  “Come, Rain. We need to discuss what happens next.” Johnny beckons for me, but I stare at my brother’s drooping eyelids and slow, slipping breath.

  I look to Ben. “He’s better?”

  “On the outside,” he says. “He’s in a coma. They could do more for him on—”

  “The Edge!” I almost yell. “I knew it!”

  “Rain,” Johnny commands. I climb out of the pool but keep trying to look back at Walker’s still form. They could do more for him. A sharp sound brings me back as Johnny kicks the glass from one of the greenhouse panes, and I follow him out onto the rooftop with growing unease.

  Below, people clog the street with their unhurried passage: the passionless procession to the next factory shift. “I don’t understand this planet.” Johnny motions to the workers. “Like insects with one purpose. No wonder your minds have been whittled down to a corruptibly thin wavelength.” He spits over the edge, no doubt hitting someone in the head.

  I look over my brother’s savior in the numb daylight, my words leaking before I can stop them. “You’re an angry sort.”

  He turns at me a little fast, and I take a step back. He puts a hand up that may have wanted to grab me but only shows his palm instead. “Don’t be afraid of me. Do me that favor.”

  “All right.” I lick my lips and stand close to him again. Close to the edge of the building where he could give me the lightest shove and send me over. “Should we deal now?”

  “Deal.” He sets his teeth on the word. “Let’s.”

  I take a deep breath. “Well, you want me. Clearly.”

  He chuckles. “Clearly.” He touches the curly ends of my hair at my elbow. “You’re a rare beauty, but you know that. And up there”—he says, glancing into the smog like it isn’t there, like he can imagine every detail of the stars beyond—“things get a little lonely.”

  “I’ll go with you. I’ll be your friend. More, even.”

  “More?”

  “You want it in writing? I’ll give you my virginity. Whatever.”

  “So you’ll be my girl.”

  It isn’t a question, so I don’t know how to answer. I look over his profile, striking against the height of the fall just before us. His eyes seem to bleed with brown, but it only makes me want to know more. Who created this haunted sort of guy? How did he become a Void captain? And what else lies beneath this polished surface?

  Maybe he’s not what he seems. Maybe there are unimaginable diamonds in his deep places. That’s what my dad had said about my mother when he first met her. She was homeless and starving, and yet he saw “sparks and stars.”

  “I’ll be your girl. And you’ll get me to the Edge with my brother,” I say in a rush. “Deal?”

  He frowns. “Your brother, of course.” His gaze slips past me, narrowing like he’s suddenly not so sure that I’m worth it. And I have to show him that I am.

  I lick my lips as I reach for his collar, standing on the very edge of my tiptoes to bring his mouth to mine. I’m surprised to find him yielding and the slightest bit hungry before I lean away, embarrassed. He’s the first person I’ve ever really kissed, and my heart pounds with nerves.

  He touches his mouth with the back of his hand, making me think that I did something wrong,
but his eyes glint in an encouraging way. “I’ve heard stories about redheads. Aren’t you supposed to be fiery?”

  I smirk. “My dad used to say that gingers are capable of all kinds of mischief.”

  “All kinds,” he repeats. “It has been a while since I’ve had a challenge.” A sudden grin strikes his face like a spark. “We have a deal.” He spins, reenters the greenhouse, and I jog to keep up.

  “So you’ll take me and my brother all the way to the Edge? You promise.”

  “Cross my heart,” he says with a laugh. “Now, we’re in a hurry.”

  “You mean leave this minute?” I ask. “What about Walker? He’s in a coma!”

  Johnny stops by the edge of the pool, and I collide with his back. Ben stands in the center of the tile, holding my brother like a baby. Walker’s head is against the Mec’s chest and blood smears his white shirt. The sight is strange, but I can’t put my finger on why. . . .

  “So what do we do with him . . .,” Johnny says, and I don’t like his tone. “What say we freeze him?”

  “Freeze him?”

  He frowns. “We can’t have a Touched boy wandering around my ship, and this way you can get him treatment as soon as we set down at the Edge.” He pockets his hands. “And he won’t interrupt the business of the run. Yes, we’ll freeze him. Those are my terms.”

  Ben is watching us. He adjusts my brother’s weight in his arms, and his hair has parted enough to reveal that it wasn’t my imagination: his blue irises really are rimmed with steel.

  “He’ll be fine if he is frozen?” I look to the Mec.

  “Better than fine. He’d be preserved,” Johnny says. “And no babysitting required.”

  Ben gives me the smallest nod.

  I don’t like the idea of freezing my brother, but no babysitting . . . I can’t deny that I’m more than tempted by a reprieve of watching his every moment. “As long as he’ll be safe.”

  “Have it done.” Johnny inputs something on his wrist communicator and leaves Ben and me to stare at each other. On closer inspection, the Mec could be my age. Maybe we could be friends. He’s got to at least know the ins and outs of the starship and this Johnny.