by Alex Nast
Felix rushes inside, the busted door only making him move faster. I hear him hear a scream. Not a scream of pain though, of terror and sorrow.
Someone's dead. I instantly regret everything I said on the walk over to motivate Felix. I didn't think his family would actually be dead. I've underestimated Victor. Again.
I wait in the stairwell in a crouch, ready to spring like a stray cat. But there's nothing in the stairwell, no sign of Victor. Maybe he's down on the street. Or lurking in the apartment, waiting for me to go in too. I poke my head in through the door.
Felix is kneeling over a body on the floor. There's blood.
"Did Victor kill someone?"
"Not Victor."
Did Felix piss someone else off too?
"Who then?"
There's no response.
I take a good look around. It's been years since I set foot inside a building like this. The apartment looks wonderful. Not like the advertisements for Tower apartments, shiny and sterile. This is more like a home, like the kind of place I dreamed of living with Mom. The kind of place where people love each other, and build a life together. A little pit of resentment builds in my stomach for Felix, and everything he had here. And wasted, getting involved with Victor. He had everything I wanted and he threw it away.
But there's no sign of Victor.
I edge my way in, standing against the wall for a moment, waiting for the hulking, angry man to come lurching out of the shadows to grab me, but there's nothing. When I can't sense any danger I approach Felix and the body. It's a woman. Young and pretty enough, dressed nice enough. Prettier than Felix and his 6.62 score deserve. The knife that was used to kill her didn't get anywhere near her face. His wife I'm guessing.
He doesn't look back at me, but holds up a note to me over his shoulder. The writing is scrawled and messy, like someone was in a hurry:
"She wasn't supposed to die, but she fought me and I had to kill her. I'm sorry. Your daughter is alive. You have something that belongs to my husband. Return it to the place you took it from and you'll get your daughter back."
Victor's wife. Of course. The one person he could trust enough to call to do this for him I suppose. I didn't think of that. Subtly, I switch my grip on my knife, from a grip meant for attacking to a grip meant for defense. If Felix tries to take me I won't kill him, but I won't be taken. Not by him, or anyone.
"I asked you to help me kill him and you wouldn't." His voice is barely a whisper but it quivers with anger. "It would have been so easy. With two of us, we could have done it. But you wouldn't do it. And now this."
He looks back at me, over his shoulder. The tears running freely down his face make me intensely uncomfortable. "She's dead because of you. My daughter was taken because of you. You owe me now."
My hand relaxes on the grip of my blade. A physical assault I can handle. But an emotional assault...
"Shit," I mutter to myself.
8
Felix doesn't want to stay in the apartment and I don't blame him. So we leave, find a quiet street corner to talk. It's dark now, but the city only comes alive more in the coolness of the night. Shadows hide faces though. I've always felt more at home in the darkness.
Felix won't stop crying, and it makes me intensely uncomfortable.
"Think of your daughter Felix. You have to keep it together for her. You can cry later." I say it as gently as possible.
He nods, stops crying.
We make a plan, but I keep finding excuses for my hand to brush close to the hilt of my knife. I know what crazy things a parent will do for their child. I feel bad for him, and my role in the trainwreck his life has become, but I won't be his bargaining chip with Victor.
He pretends not to notice my hand close to my knife, the way I keep a certain distance between us. Or maybe he really is just too dense to notice. The more I get to know him the less sure I am of my judgments of him. I'm used to seeing flashes of people, making snap judgments. That person wants to rob me, that one wants to sell me something, that one's more afraid of me than I am of them.
Turns out people are more complex than that. I think maybe I knew that, before. And I guess I'm relearning it now. But I think it's making me weak.
Felix and I agree that Victor will have Felix's daughter in his office, or whatever it was. One way in, one way out. No windows. It's secure. It's the reason he felt safe enough to sleep there, and it's the place he'll put his hostage.
"I think there might have been another way in," Felix says, "through the ceiling."
I try to recreate the room in my mind, to see the ceiling. It's possible there was something there that we could use, but I can't see it in my mind and I don't trust Felix enough now to take his word for it.
"Okay," I say. Either I can trust him and the ceiling really is a way in, or he is lying and trying to bait me further in to whatever plan he has forming in his head. I want to help him, to trust him. I know someone in there is the good person that risked his life to free me. But I swear I can hear that voice in the back of his head telling him to grab me, turn me over to Victor, get his daughter back. I want to tell him to ignore it. But I stay silent.
"So we find our way to the top side of the ceiling," I say, thinking out loud. "We take a look. Probably it will just be his wife in the room with your daughter, or no one in there and she's just locked inside. Victor will be somewhere else, waiting for us to get close. Or for you to show up with me in tow. If we're in either of those scenarios then it's easy, just drop down, grab your daughter and climb back up. If the wife is there we can deal with her easily enough. Hopefully." I think back to Felix's wife, dead on the floor, and mentally prepare myself for a fight with her. If she wasn't a killer before she's a killer now. She's committed to this.
"You know," Felix says, "there is another, maybe easier plan here that we're ignoring."
I look at him, knowing what he's going to suggest and willing him not to say it. I want to trust him.
"We just pretend that you're my prisoner, and we march right up to the front door. When Victor comes to collect you, we jump on him together."
Pretending to be his prisoner could very, very easily become actually being his prisoner. I can imagine a dozen different ways for me to get screwed.
"No," I say, "the ceiling is better."
I watch Felix closely, looking for any sign of betrayal, but he just nods along like I know best and he trusts my judgment and is willing to let me call the shots. Like it was just an innocent suggestion. But was it? Or was he hoping I was stupid enough to get caught in such an obvious trap. I don't know.
"Thank you for doing this," Felix says.
"Let's just get this done." I start walking, but slower than before. No point in rushing now. Felix hobbles along behind me through the dark streets.
Hours later and we're back where we started. Felix is barely holding it together. His leg needs rest, not hours of trekking across the city. A bike cab would have been much better, but I don't keep my money on me, and Felix still hasn't said why he needed money desperately enough to get involved with someone like Victor, but I'm guessing he spent every penny he had before he resorted to that. So we walked.
It's near midnight when we see the abandoned building where Victor is waiting for us, two blocks away. We clamber up to the roof of a nearby building and sit on the edge, looking at our target. Felix needs to rest his leg if he's going to be of any use, and we need to wait a couple hours. The small hours of the morning are best. People get sleepy, they start to relax. It becomes hard to hold their eyes open. Most of my successful petty crimes were committed in the early hours of the night. Any good thief is practically nocturnal.
"So why did you need the money?" I don't look at Felix, but I can sense him stiffen beside me.
It's time to find out if Felix is on my side or his own side. If he's going to try and grab me and exchange me for his daughter, I need him to make his move on my terms, not his.
"I'd rather not talk about it,
" he says.
I can hear the warning in voice. He really does not want to talk about it. Too bad Felix.
"Come on," I say lightly, "we've got a couple hours to kill, so tell me what I'm risking my life for here."
There's a long moment of silence, and I'm dreading having to prod him again.
"My daughter is sick," he finally says.
"You're trying to get her Tower medicine?"
He nods.
The Towers. Black boxes that nothing ever escapes from. Not information, not people, not things. Only rumors, of parties that never end, strange technologies that can cater to every whim and importantly for Felix, cures for everything that afflicts the human body. I wonder if they know about me in there yet. What horrible things will come out, looking for me, for the 9.96?
"Them selling their medicine is just a rumor," I say. "What do Tower people need our money for? What reason would they have to sell you anything?"
Felix shrugs. "I expect that even in the Towers there are winners and losers. Rich and poor. Relatively speaking anyway. I don't claim to understand them, but I know where to go to get their medicine."
He sounds sure. But even I don't know where to go to get Tower medicine. And I make it my business to know things like that.
"Is Victor your medicine connect?"
"No," Felix says.
I can hear a bit of amusement in his voice.
"Victor only sells them things," Felix continues, "that channel only goes one way."
"He doesn't sell them things. I'm not a thing."
"I'm sorry," he says quickly, "that's not what I meant."
I started out trying to get him angry and got myself worked up instead. I take a moment and let the anger fade. It's not useful now.
"So how are you going to get medicine for your daughter now?"
"I'll figure it out."
"Outside the city? You really think they're going to have Tower medicine out there? It's roving bands of cannibals out there if you believe the rumors. I don't think cannibals go out of their way to help save dying people."
"I don't know okay," Felix says, turning and glaring at me, "You know I don't have a plan. I'm just trying to get my daughter back. That's it. I haven't thought beyond that."
I put my hand on the hilt of my knife and pull it halfway out. If Felix has any plans to betray me and hand me over to Victor, I'm about to give him all the motivation he needs to screw me.
"Maybe if you'd thought ahead and had an actual good plan your wife would still be alive." I don't cringe when I say it, not even inside myself. There's a kind of perverse satisfaction that the words leave my mouth so easily. I don't need Felix to like me, don't need him think I'm a good person. I don't need him, or anyone.
Felix goes stiff, doesn't say anything. I don't apologize though, don't back down. I need his reaction. Because if he wants to betray me he has every excuse to do it now, and is probably too furious to realize that I'm goading him.
He makes his move, lunging at me, trying to tackle me with his larger frame and hold me. But I'm quicker. I roll away and come up on to my knee, knife in my hand. He grabs my ankle, thinking to pull me in to him, but I slash at his arm, almost casually, not wanting to hurt him too badly, and he cries out in pain and releases my ankle. Pure instinct to get away from the pain.
Victor wouldn't have let go of my ankle for anything. I could have plunged my knife right through his arm and he would have only grunted and squeezed harder. I don't know why I thought going up against Victor with Felix was a good idea. Just a good way to get killed.
"I'm sorry," he says, panicking, "I wasn't trying to do anything, I was just angry about what you said. Please."
He's blubbering, begging with his eyes, wishing he could take it all back, hoping that I can't see the truth. But he played it wrong, made his move when he wasn't prepared, and now I know. And his quick, desperate apology makes it that much more obvious.
I hesitate though. There are so many things I could say. So many things I want to say but shouldn't.
"I hope you find a way to get her back," I say, and then I stand and walk quickly away, not looking back. Felix isn't enough of a threat to bother looking back for.
I feel free again. And I know where I need to go next. I need my money stash. I'm leaving this horrible city. All I need to do is go see the only man who ever saw my face that I didn't manage to kill afterwords. Fucking Arthur.
9
I've been saving whatever little scraps of money I can get my hands on for years. Mostly it's money made from things I've stolen. I never steal much, and nothing that might be precious to anyone. Stealing things from other thieves is best.
I'm not a good person, but I have a code.
As soon as I come in to a little money I add it to my collection, buried in a barren field that used to be a park. Green things used to grow here, before the world got too hot and fried everything, before the sky got covered in a thick layer of dull red dust.
It's hard to imagine a whole park full of green, much less a whole world full of green. And blue. New Seattle is close to the ocean. Maybe if I can get out of the city I'll go see it. The green world may be dead but the ocean must be too big to have dried up and disappeared.
I go find the statue in the park. It's the statue of Dorian. One of the many statues of Dorian. I take a second to read the inscription:
'While governments fell and the world destroyed itself, one man had the vision to build something better, for the future. He led us up in to the Northern Occupied Territories, where the world is still green, and built a shining beacon of hope for humanity, so that we all might dare to dream again. Let this statue, and this park, stand as a monument to his greatness, and his vision. We, the citizens of your great city, are forever in your debt Dorian.'
The rumor is he's still alive, in one of those Towers. Stealing bodies like mine, transplanting his mind again and again and again, living for centuries. His park is a wasteland though, and his shiny city isn't so shiny anymore. And certainly not a beacon of anything resembling hope.
Over the shoulder of Dorian's statue I can see the Towers, impossibly tall, glowing in the heart of the city, disappearing up in to the dust. If he is still alive, I wonder what he thinks about his shining beacon of hope now. I doubt he cares.
I look around, searching for anyone that might be watching, then start digging. Everything is there, right where I left it. The bundle of wrinkled bills wrapped tightly in plastic. And the mirror. The one thing of my mother's that I kept. She only had a few things, and this one was precious to her. Something to remember her by. I take the mirror out, dust it off, hold it up in front of myself. Just a slash of face. Pale blue eyes, a little bit of dirty blond hair poking out in one corner.
Is there anyone watching? I look again, searching for movement, for outlines of bodies, but there's no one. I picked this park because there was an uprising against the Towers here in this neighborhood, forever ago. The Towers turned it in to rubble. Now no one comes here.
The scarf comes off my face easily enough, but I purposefully don't look at the mirror. I take the rest off the top of my head, letting my hair spill free. Finally, I slowly look at the mirror.
Small mouth. Normal looking lips. Dirty blond hair. Small nose. Unblemished skin. I keep looking at the mirror, wanting answers, but there's nothing. How am I a 9.96? I prod at my skin a little with a finger, not really sure what I'm doing. Like maybe I'll poke at it and it will all come peeling off, and everyone will see the true me, underneath.
I try smiling, fake a laugh, watching the face in the mirror. The longer I look at it the less familiar the face looks. Like that face belongs to someone else already. Doesn't belong to me.
I throw the mirror in the dirt and sit down beside the hole that I've dug. I don't replace the scarf. Fuck the scarf. I'm so sick of wearing it. It's my face, my body. Those bastards put it in my head, in everyone's heads, that they're entitled to come and take our bodies.
But
my body belongs to me, and no one is taking it from me. And I decide right then that I'm proud of my 9.96 score too. I'm done feeling like shit because I lost a genetic lottery. I'm not playing by their rules anymore.
I refuse.
The reason I put the money aside, the reason I don't even admit to myself, is that I believe in the Free City. It's a fairy tale, I know it is, but I can't let it go. I'll save up enough money, make the right connections, and I'll pack up and leave and go be that person that I secretly want to be. The one that doesn't wear a scarf, and has friends. Even a husband. Someone who can laugh and trust and just... be a normal human being. In my fantasies Mom is there too. She escaped somehow, couldn't get back in to the city to save me. She had no choice but to leave, but we're reunited so it doesn't matter. All if forgiven. We live happily ever.
It makes me feel stupid and naive to think those things, but I can't help myself. I guess I'm weak too, just like everyone else.
But now... well maybe my fairy tale is the only chance I have. Now the fantasy is going to be exposed to reality, and I'm terrified that it's going to be shattered in to a million pieces and I'll be left with nothing. So I need to stop playing their game, where I'm the prize and they're the hunters. Time to try, or die.
And down there in the hole, below the money and the mirror. I know what else is there. I know I should leave it, cover it back up with the dirt and walk away. But if I'm not playing by their rules anymore...
It feels taboo just to touch the cool metal barrel of the gun. I don't dare to pull it out where anyone can see it. Not having any bullets for my gun would not get me any leniency.
Leave it or take it. I'm not sure. I've never dared carry it in the city for fear of someone seeing it. I already have my face to worry about, I don't need to be worried about keeping a gun hidden too. But outside the city... out there there's no rule of law, no checkpoints to worry about. There might even be a few bullets I could get my hands on. Or I might be able to sell the gun, since I'm going to be giving all my money to Arthur. Or maybe they don't even use money outside the city. But I could trade it for something. Surely.