“Can you talk?” I whisper.
She doesn’t move.
“Can you only follow commands?”
Still nothing. “Scratch your nose,” I try, and she obeys. “Can you take me down to the airlocks?”
Nothing.
“Take me down to the airlocks,” I command. She turns and leaves the room, and I snatch the first thing out of Johnny’s pocket that I can find, Ben’s dose rod, hoping that it has a good fingerprint.
I hurry to follow the girl. I have to hurry because the lives of Johnny’s cargo depend on it . . . the souls of 913 Touched.
And one Mec.
CHAPTER
27
I leave the Touched girl in Stride’s rusted-out airlock.
“Wait here. Don’t move. And don’t tell anyone that you helped me,” I command as I cross into Imreas. I don’t like ordering her around, but there’s no time for anything else. At least, for once, I don’t have to worry about security alarms or cameras. All the technology on Imreas is as dead as the engines.
The ships and everyone onboard are like ghosts through the static fog, and I feel like a ghoul myself as I move around them. The catwalk jangles beneath me, and I steal a candle from one of the handrails, trying not to look below into the eerie shadows of the ship’s unknown depths.
I find Melee, holding up my candle so that I can make out the door. I bang once. Twice. “Come on, Ben. You have to be in there!”
After the third knock, Ben struggles to shoulder the door open, making it click against its rails. For all the Mec’s genius, Melee was clearly not meant to function in the Pass.
“Who’s there?” he calls even though he’s looking straight at me.
I hold the candle up to my face. “It’s me, you idiot. Get out of the doorway.”
He takes a few steps back, but his brow folds. “What are you doing here? What’s going on?” He almost falls on the armrest when he backs up to sit on the captain’s chair. I set my candle down on the command panel. It’s the only light in the room.
I force the door closed. “I don’t have a lot of time. I just snuck out of Stride. Damn, Ben. It’s so much worse than I imagined. . . . It’s a living hell. The living being the worst part.”
He looks past me.
“Quit making that face. Are you even listening?”
“Of course I’m listening, Rain. I just can’t see a damn thing!” he yells. He looks in my general direction, without really focusing on me.
“But you can see in the dark. You’ve got the hardware in your eyes. Why . . .” It dawns on me far too slowly. “It doesn’t work in the Pass.”
“Didn’t you wonder why the K-Force didn’t come soaring into the fog to solve this slaving crisis? That’s why they do their business here. Mecs are as useless as paraplegics without our technology. Without our vision. I’m useless.”
“Well, don’t go feeling sorry for yourself. It’s ugly,” I say, stealing one of Lo’s favorite phrases.
Something like a smile creeps up his face, but he fights it down. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to help. You need a fingerprint. I’ve got something with loads of them on it.”
Ben gets up and crosses the room so fast that he bumps right into me. “What do you have?” He puts his hands out, palms up. I place the dose rod in his hand and he carefully sets it on the bunk.
“It’ll have to be a clear print.” He fumbles to find a roll of clear tape and a small square of glass. He wraps a piece of tape around the rod and pulls it free, holding it up. “Did it work?”
Through the candlelight, I see many smudge marks. Too many. “It’s a mess,” I say. “There’s no clear print.”
He crumples it up. “Fuck! Well, there goes that long shot.”
“Wait. You could take it from skin, right? I haven’t washed.” I mumble the last few words, ashamed.
Ben sits down and almost misses the edge of the bunk. “Hell, Rain. You’d need a spot that you knew for sure he’d pressed down on. Hard.”
“Hard enough to leave a bruise?” I yank my shirt up, looking at the purple mark on my hip where he gripped me the night before . . . gripped me so hard that I haven’t been able to bring my pants within three inches of it all day.
He pauses. “He bruises you with his fingers?”
“Don’t fake surprise.” I’m glad that he can’t see what I’m showing him. “Will it work or won’t it?”
“We can try.” Ben fumbles with the tape while I step closer, tucking my shirt around my stomach. “You’re going to have to help me.”
I guide his hands over the spot, his fingers brushing my skin and making strange places on my body tickle in response. Below my ears, for one. The backs of my knees, for another.
“You’re sure? Right there?” he asks.
“Of course I’m sure.” I remember how Johnny looked through the candlelight while lying beneath me. I close my eyes and try to shake my thoughts free.
Ben smooths the tape over and over again on my hip. “What made you change your mind and want to help me?”
“He—that Leland—he adjusts their brains. That’s how he makes them work. He lobotomizes them, Ben. Did you know?”
He cringes. “I’ve heard rumors of torture. I didn’t know it was that bad.”
“Bad doesn’t come close.”
“This will sting,” he warns before yanking the tape away. The spot smarts, but Ben holds the plastic strip up, and through the candlelight I can see the imprint of Johnny’s thumb. “Did it work?”
“Of course.” I rub my hip. “Told you I was sure. I could tell you every place he’s ever grabbed me. I swear the bruises fade without healing.” I don’t realize that I’m speaking aloud until I glance at Ben. His gaze has the kind of pity that I don’t want or deserve. “But whatever. I asked for all of this, didn’t I? I deserve it.”
He feels for the edges of the glass plate and sticks the tape to it, smoothing it down. “You agreed to sleep with him, Rain. You did not agree to the cruelty. To the violence. As for what you deserve, well, if it was up to me . . . ah, hell, don’t make me get all sappy.”
I like his words, but I don’t know if I can believe them.
“Let me get the glue residue.” He wipes my stomach with a piece of cloth, and again, I have to turn away from his touch. A quiet sob comes through me, and I’m so lost in my nightmares that I don’t know what he’s doing until I feel something else.
Ben kisses my hip.
His lips are soft and cool and brief. He leans away and wipes his hands over and over with the cloth, his face bowed. “My mom used to kiss my hurts when I was a kid,” he says. “I used to think that it healed them.”
I tuck my shirt down and fix the waist of my pants. “My mom did that, too. And I did it for Walker.”
“See? I told you we were both the same species.”
“Right,” I say, thankful that he can’t see the way I cup my hand over the spot where he kissed me.
“So what now?” I ask.
“We see if it works.” Ben seals the small glass plate into a metal frame. “I tempered the pane with an electrical current before we entered the Pass. It should give off an energy source even in this fog.”
“So Mecs aren’t entirely useless in the Pass?”
“I said ‘should.’ There’s always a small chance that it’ll still zap me to death,” he says as though this is a little funny. “Actually, if it does work, I may have stumbled on a way to bring a power source into the Pass.” His fingers fumble to line up the glass with the catch on the inner side of his com, and I help him right it. Then he places his thumb over the pane. I hold my breath, but nothing happens.
He breathes out, but then jerks, letting out a small scream.
“Ben!”
He laughs. “Just kidding.”
I smack him hard. “That’s not funny!”
“Then why are you laughing?”
“You’re lucky I don’t zap you myself.”
“I’m sure you’ll get the chance.” His chuckle turns hollow. “It didn’t work.”
I push his thumb away. “Maybe you’re just not lining it up right.” I kneel before him and place my own thumb over Johnny’s print on the glass. The com clicks and drops off his wrist, clunking on the ground. I scoop up the heavy circlet of metal. “It worked!”
“So surprised,” he mocks, but his face is split with a grin. I place the com in his hand, and he opens and closes it over and over. “Okay, maybe I can’t believe that it worked either.” His fingers find mine, and for a moment, both of my hands hold both of his, but the hopeful look on his face makes me stand up and pace.
“So now we’ve got to get that thing into the Touched shipment? Wouldn’t it be easier if I put it somewhere on Leland’s ship myself?”
“Easier and more dangerous.” Ben stands and folds his arms. “I only asked you to get the fingerprint. I take the rest of the risk myself.”
“You’re blind as a damn bat. Besides, I have to get back there before Johnny wakes up or Leland comes looking.” I shiver. “That creepy bastard has an interest in me.” And those two green girls . . . can I find a way to help them? “There’s something else I have to do.” I pick up the glass plate off the bunk. “Will this fingerprint thing work on the girls’ bracelets?”
Ben’s arms drop to his sides. “You want to take yours off? Johnny would know for sure that something was up, and he’d—”
“No, no. I’ll keep it on. For now.” I touch the silver tag on my wrist. “But I might be able to help the two girls that Leland took if I can get their bracelets off.”
He shakes his head. “That sounds crazy and ill-conceived, Rain.”
“Maybe.” I drop the glass plate in my pocket and take the com out of Ben’s hand. “But I’m doing this. I’ve done nothing for too long.” I imagine the procession of bodies in Imreas’s wake, flipping through the Void. “Johnny might find out and kill me or my brother, but I won’t let this happen. Not again.”
I begin to push the door open, but Ben blindly grabs for my arm. He misses and gets a great handful of boob. “Hey!”
“Sorry.” He holds his palms up, his face blushing beautifully. “Just stop for a moment, all right? What’s your exit strategy?”
“My what?”
“How are you going to get out of all this? I mean, we’ll be undocking from Stride in the morning. We’ll be out of the Pass soon after. Then the lights and security and everything will be back on.”
“And the K-Force will be tracking your com on Leland’s ship, right?”
“Yes. They’ll be tracking Leland. He’s a higher priority than Johnny.” He touches my arm for real this time. “Which means that we’ve got weeks before we reach the Edge. Weeks where you’ll have to keep Johnny’s favor. You’ll have to stay with him.”
“I made it this far, didn’t I?” My voice wavers. Weeks more?
“If you get caught doing whatever you plan on doing tonight, Johnny won’t hesitate to kill you this time. He may be flattered by the challenge you pose, but in the end, things have to go his way. He’s a narcissist, Rain. When things really go wrong, he’s going to explode.”
“I know, but it’s always this way, isn’t it? We’re always doing something crazy stupid or something that’s bound to get us killed, and still I’ve made it through. The Edge is close now. I’m almost there.”
“He’s never going to let you leave this ship. With or without your brother.”
Something falls inside me until I’m nailed to the metal floor of Melee.
“I know that. I’ve given up on getting away, but if I keep him happy, he’ll let me get my brother off this ship.”
“No, Rain.” He shakes his head, his hair swaying. “You had to tell yourself that or you wouldn’t have made it this far, but Johnny’s not going to let you have that kind of hope. He’s been forced into this life, and he’s probably obsessed with you because your suffering makes his feel like less.” I look away, and Ben searches for my face with his fingers. “We need to figure out how we’re getting out of here.”
“We,” I repeat. The word tastes sweet.
He stands a little taller, and I want to touch his shoulders through his soft shirt. “Johnny might have lied back on Earth City, but I didn’t. I’m going to see that your brother gets medical attention, and you deserve a new life on the Edge.”
I finger the doorframe. Exit strategy. “So we can’t just blast Melee through the side of Imreas like you wanted to before?” I’m somewhat joking, but Ben shakes his head.
“Now that is suicidal. Call it our ‘Nothing Left to Lose’ plan because I don’t know for sure if Melee’s engines have enough juice to blast us through the hull. That was a good idea when . . . when we were going to be dead and not care about the outcome.”
“Right.” I almost laugh. “Well, we’ll find a way. I’m Earth City street-smart, and you’re a Mec. What can’t we do?”
“But I’m grounded now. Without my com, I have to hide from everyone, and I won’t have any access to the security and alarm system when they come back online. You’ll be on your own.” He pulls the dose rod out of his pocket. “Take this, at least. Do you remember the settings?”
I turn the rod over in my hand and glance over the colored markers. “The red one is adrenaline, green is knock out, yellow is that limp drug.”
“Limpicilin.” He grins, reminding me of his first lame joke back on the old pier beneath the spacedocks. And I can’t believe we’ve come this far.
I flip the settings until I see a black one. Johnny’s favorite color. “And what about the black?”
“Black is arsenic. That’s a death shot. No med disc will bring you back after that one,” he says. “Don’t keep it on that setting. And don’t use it on yourself. No matter how bad it gets. Promise me that much.”
I tuck the rod into my sock, but I can’t promise him anything.
His hand trails my waist until his finger hooks into my belt loop. I stare down at it for a long moment. “I want to come with you,” he says. “But I’m a liability without my eyesight.”
“I know.” I pry his finger loose, and his hand closes into a fist. “I’ll be fine.”
“I hate letting you do this.”
I nod, but he can’t see it, so I kiss the very corner of his lips.
CHAPTER
28
I push through the blackout depths of Imreas. Back through the airlocks.
The Touched girl waits for me as though she never moved, not even to shuffle her feet. My fingers close around Ben’s com, the thick metal still warm from his skin. I have so much to do and only an hour or so to do it.
“I need to find a place that isn’t regularly used on this ship,” I tell the girl.
Her eyes are glassy and unresponsive. They don’t even blink. Of course she can’t help me decide where to hide the com; she can only follow commands. No interpretation. No free will.
“Follow me,” I say.
I pass through Stride’s airlock and hold my candle up. Very little reveals itself before my light, but I can tell that Stride was once a ship like Imreas. Maybe a twin ship, only whatever it has been through made it fall into disrepair.
Sliding my feet over the shadowy spots, I wait for a hole to appear and swallow me into the guts of this horrid vessel. I find one fast and grip the handrail, dragging my foot back onto safer ground. The metal bar is frayed with rust and sharp pieces snag on my palm.
“Ouch!” I yank out a metal sliver as my voice echoes traitorously.
Ouch.
ouch
I’m being an idiot. I don’t know what this ship looks like out of the Pass when the lights are on and the Touched crew is moving around. I need to find a place that will be just as murky in the light as it is in this heavy dark.
The fish tank.
I spin around and run straight into the girl. “Take me to the command deck.”
The spiral stairs feel eve
n steeper without Johnny pounding the way before me. I step up and up and up, all the while shadowed by the unblinking obedience of the Touched crew member. “This is no life,” I mutter just for some noise beside my own speeding breath. “And to think you came from Earth City. You’re probably not much older than me.”
I pause and hold the candle up to look over her face. She doesn’t pause because I didn’t tell her to, and she almost knocks me over. “Wait.” I place a hand on her chest. “Can you talk?”
Nothing.
“Talk.”
“Talk,” she returns.
“Tell me your name.”
“Your name,” she parrots. I turn back to the stairs. Her life really isn’t a life. It’s a vacancy much more bottomless than the disease of the Touched.
I remember the way Leland’s eyes dared mine while his hand groped about in her clothes, and I have to look away. “You’ve got it worse than a prostitute. You can’t even give consent.”
We reach the top, and I shove my candle into her hands. “Hold this and wait here . . . please.” The eerie glow on the command deck leads me straight to the yellow-green fish tank. I slip toward it, watching for Leland or more zombie crew members, but find no one. I climb onto the console around the table and reach for the top of the tank.
The lid slides away, and I look down through the water, trying to estimate just where the com will fall. The sanded bottom is layered on one side by a thick, gooey filth cloud—perhaps a patch of eggs—which looks perfect for concealing the heavy metal, but that means reaching in and tossing it so that it falls at the right angle.
The strange fish swim this way and that. The largest one has black-red stripes down its sides and straw-like teeth that hook out of its rust-colored jaw. I wait for him to swim to the bottom and then lower my arm into the slimy water.
The Color of Rain Page 22