by Lyga, Barry
The alley was strewn with trash and rubble. Garbage drums and an enormous trash bin stood against one wall. Deedra watched the Bang Boys knock over the drums, sending a resounding series of gongs and clangs into the air. Jaron stood off to one side, fuming, pointing, commanding. Deedra could have burst into flame, and they still wouldn’t have noticed her, so focused were they on tearing apart the alley and scrutinizing every inch of it.
When the drums proved Rose-less, Jaron browbeat Rik and Lio into climbing into the bin. Deedra’s breath lodged in her throat like gristle. The bin was the only place big enough for Rose to hide.
But a minute passed. Then five. Then ten.
The Bang Boys had scoured every conceivable inch of space in the alleyway.
Rose had disappeared. Again.
She should have run, should have vacated the area before Jaron and the Bang Boys saw her. But the impossibility of Rose’s disappearance froze her muscles and locked her into place, staring. She was still standing there, paralyzed, when Jaron emerged from the alley with Rik, Lio, Hart, and Kent following him sheepishly.
Run, Deedra, she urged herself as Jaron caught sight of her. Run, now.
But running would be pointless. She had no head start. They would catch up to her easily. She eyed the pipes the Bang Boys carried and winced at the thought of them on her flesh.
“What are you doing here?” Jaron demanded, getting close. “This is all your fault.”
“No, I—”
“Shut up.” He grabbed her by the arm, just above her elbow, and squeezed. Hard. “You were warned, remember? You were told to keep your mouth shut, and you better keep keeping it shut. I’ve been patient and I’ve been good to you, but that won’t last forever. So just shut your mouth. I’m in no mood, understand?”
Wrenching herself free, she took a step back. Jaron’s eyes blazed, and she found herself speaking soft and low, trying to calm him just long enough for her to get away. “Look, I’m just going to leave, okay?” She swallowed with great difficulty. “You’re in no mood, like you said. I’ll just go.”
Jaron said nothing. He was staring at her. More precisely, he was staring at her chest. She backed away some more. This? Again?
She swallowed hard and got ready to run.
“Where did you get that?” he demanded and, closing the distance between them, reached out.
She bit back a useless scream and almost turned to run, but then Jaron yanked hard, and she felt the chain of her necklace break against the back of her neck as he snatched away her pendant. It must have flopped out from under her shirt as she’d been running.
“Where did you get this?” he shouted, holding it up in a fist. His face flushed, and behind him the Bang Boys came closer, fanning out behind their leader, pipes at the ready.
Why did Jaron even care? Rooted to the spot, she opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
With a snort and a dismissive jerk of his shoulders, Jaron said, “Doesn’t matter. What matters is that I have it now. Get out of here. You’re useless to me. You and your boyfriend.”
Her legs came unstuck and she began to walk away.
And then she ran.
CHAPTER 14
When the time came for him to rule the Territory, Jaron realized, he was going to need a higher caliber of flunky. The Bang Boys had failed him in the most humiliating fashion possible.
As he stomped into the factory, the belts were running, but everyone was moving slowly. Hundreds of faces gawked at him as he entered. Jaron clenched his jaw. This was his life: He couldn’t leave the factory for even a few minutes without things slowing down. He looked around for Dimbali, that useless piece of trash.
But the longer he stayed on the factory floor, the more uncomfortable he became with the eyes on him. “Get these people working,” he snarled under his breath to the Bang Boys. “See if you can get that right today.”
Orders issued to his lieutenants, he stomped up the stairs to the catwalk and into his office. Alone, he gave full vent to his outrage, screaming to the ceiling, then picking up the tab he used to log on to the wikinets. It was only a year old, but that didn’t stop him from hurling it at the wall. Its face shattered with a satisfying crackle, and the wall dented, plaster raining down.
The satisfaction didn’t last long.
Rose was gone. Rose was gone, and who knew how many hours of productivity had been wasted at L-Twelve in the meantime.…
He paced the length and width of his office. This would not do. The video of that day on the rooftop was gone now, but there were still witnesses. Deedra. Rose. He’d thought that they were going to play along, keep their mouths shut. That he had them under his eye, under his power, anyway.
But now Rose was proving that he liked to talk. Questioning what the factory was building. Maybe he would decide to blather about other things, too.
Maybe? More like definitely. Maybe we could talk about what’s really bothering you? Rose had said.
That would be bad. Depending on what mood Jaron’s father was in, a charge of attempted assault could go either way. If he woke up on one side of the bed, Max Ludo would laugh and shrug it off and toss the charge into the trash. But if he woke up on the other side…
Jaron could find himself tried. Maybe even conscripted as punishment, sent off to hump a chain gun up a hill in Antarctica.
His vid bleated from the wall. “Please hold for the Magistrate,” said one of his father’s secretaries. Jaron grimaced as the screen went staticky. How long would his father make him wait this time? It had gone as long as an hour in the past. He was never sure if he was being taught a lesson about power or if his father just couldn’t be bothered to talk to him.
After a few minutes of frustrated pacing, Jared paused as the vid lit up again, this time with Max Ludo’s annoyed face.
“I hear you got yourself into some trouble today,” his father grumbled.
Great. So someone had already passed word up the chain to the Magistrate. Looking for a handout, no doubt.
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Not what I’ve heard,” his father said with a mean little chuckle. “You know what’s worse than being weak?”
“No, Pop. Tell me. What’s worse than being weak?”
“Being strong, but stupid.”
Jaron bristled but held his tongue.
“If you’re weak,” his father went on, “then people have no expectations. You don’t matter. And you can fly under the radar and maybe eke out one of the pathetic lives you see around you all day. Purposeless and dull and pointless, but safe.
“But if you’re strong,” he continued, “and stupid… well, then that’s a problem. You make yourself a target. Because weak people and strong people alike see what you have, and they realize you don’t have the smarts to back it up, to keep it for yourself. And even the weak can be strong in numbers.”
Jaron nodded, mute. We’ll see who’s strong. And who’s smart. And who’s figured out when to watch his own back.
Max Ludo leaned in close to his own vid, his face filling the screen on Jaron’s end. “So stop thinking about how tough you are and start thinking, period. If you’re an idiot, you’re an embarrassment to me. A liability. Don’t be a liability, Jaron. I have a whole damn Territory full of them.”
“Right, Pop.”
But Max Ludo had already broken the connection.
Jaron gritted his teeth and jammed his hands into his pockets. His fingers brushed against something there: Deedra’s pendant.
He produced it, stared at it as it dangled before him. Then he tucked it away again and pulled up some schematics on his vid.
Yes. Yes, there it was. Just as he remembered it.
Stupid, huh? Well, you’ll see. You’ll see who’s smart, Pop.
He thumbed his comm and barked, “Dr. Dimbali, report to the overseer’s office. Now.”
An instant later his door opened, and Dr. Dimbali stepped inside.
“Where the hell have you been?”
Jaron demanded.
“I was—”
“Never mind. I don’t care. When I came back here, Doctor, this factory was in pathetic shape. If I have to leave, it’s your job to keep things on an even keel in my absence. No excuses.”
“Mr. Ludo, the workers were rattled by the—”
“I just said no excuses!” Jaron said in disbelief. Was this guy for real? “I literally just said no excuses, and now you’re giving me an excuse!”
Dimbali paused, blinking rapidly. “Well, less an excuse, and more of an explanation, really—”
“Just shut up. Okay? Shut up and listen to me.” Jaron stood and clasped his hands behind his back. “We need to step things up around here. Increase productivity.”
“Mr. Ludo, we’re already operating at near-peak performance.”
“Then get us to peak performance. We’re doing important work here.”
An uncomfortable silence filled the office. Dr. Dimbali programmed the machinery and the vids—Jaron had a feeling that he knew exactly what was being built at Ludo Territory Pride Facility No. 12. No one was supposed to know. Different factories across the Territory—hell, across the City—were building pieces of a larger whole, and no one knew what that whole was.
But Jaron did. His father’s belief to the contrary, Jaron wasn’t stupid. He’d been able to extrapolate from his own schematics and arrive at the right conclusions.
“Yes, Mr. Ludo,” Dr. Dimbali said hesitantly. “We’re doing… very important work.”
Jaron grinned. “You know, don’t you?” He turned to face his second-in-command. “It’s okay. It’s just you and me. You know what we’re building.”
Dr. Dimbali fidgeted. “I spend a lot of time with the schematics,” he said defensively. “And I get adjustments from the other factories. It’s difficult not to speculate.…”
With a shrug, Jaron waved off Dimbali’s nervousness. “Breaking it up, giving each factory a piece of the puzzle… No one ever thought it would be possible to solve the puzzle anyway. But let me tell you this: I’ve seen the other schematics. I know that L-One is building a control pod. I know that L-Six is working on—”
“Mr. Ludo, please.” Dimbali winced as though in actual pain. “Such things shouldn’t be discussed.”
“Really? Well, what would you say if I told you that I could get ahold of those other components. That I could have a complete unit of my own?”
Dimbali held his breath for a moment, as though not sure whether he believed it. Then he shook his head, pursing his lips. “It wouldn’t matter. If you’ve seen the same schematics I’ve seen, then you know that there’s a component so rare and so guarded, one that no factory is manufacturing. Not here, at least. And without that…”
As Dimbali drifted off, Jaron laughed. He dove into his pocket and produced the necklace, holding it high. “Sometimes, Doctor,” he said as Dimbali gazed, astonished, “if you’re a good person and smart and strong, the world delivers exactly what you need.”
CHAPTER 15
Her poncho was balled up outside her building when she got home. Unfurling it, she beheld a day’s worth of rations. Lissa. Lissa was taking care of her.
She should have vidded her friend, but she was still too stunned by what she’d witnessed.
Hours later the question still echoed: How had Rose escaped the Bang Boys?
It baffled her as she ran home. It confounded her as she prepared dinner: a glistening cube of compressed, lab-grown turkey steak studded with genetically modified vitamin pockets. The steak wobbled gently on the plate when she took it out of the microwave, steaming and giving off a smell like mold. Its surface was slick, its center dry and crumbly.
She ate without tasting, which was the only way to eat any of this stuff. It was called turkey steak, but she had no idea what was actually in it. She’d never seen an actual turkey, but the Magistrate’s Office assured everyone that the materials in the turkey steaks were genetically modified from the finest extant turkey DNA. That was some comfort, she guessed.
All the while, the question of Rose’s disappearance plagued her. Evening came and she perched on the sill of her sole window, gazing out at the light gray smoggy band beyond which lay the setting sun.
Out of dumb reflex, she reached for her pendant, to race it along its chain, and her fingers discovered nothing. They never learned, her fingers. She knew the necklace was gone. But her fingers kept seeking it out, only to find nothing, and then to tremble at the empty space they knew should be occupied.
She closed her eyes. A vague, half-formed image of an old man floated there. She’d seen him in dreams, imagined him even while awake at odd intervals for no apparent reason. Had he been a worker at the orphanage? Had he been her father? Had he given her the necklace?
It didn’t matter. It was gone now, for good. There was no way to get it back from Jaron. He would keep it or he would throw it in the river, according to his whim.
A part of her wanted to vid Lissa, but the greater, ashamed part of her resisted. What would she say to Lissa tomorrow? Should she even go to work? How could she go there and encounter Jaron after this latest affront?
Then again, she wondered, pondering her miserable stock of rations, how could she not?
Just as the day deepened to full dark, the sound of her door buzzer shook her from her reverie. It was almost curfew—who could be buzzing her?
The DeeCees. This is it. Jaron sent them for me.
She contemplated not answering the buzz, but the DeeCees had the authority to march right in if they wanted. They could track her anywhere in the Territory, anywhere in the City. If the DeeCees wanted to talk to her, she couldn’t stop them.
But she could tell the truth about Jaron Ludo, she decided, even as she thumbed the button that opened the door to the building. She would tell them everything: how he had provoked Rose, how he had tried to molest her on the rooftop. The DeeCees worked for the Department of Citizen Services. They reported to the Magistrate, true, but they ultimately worked for the City. Maybe they would take action against Jaron.
It was her best option, she decided. She defiantly pulled her hair back, exposing her scar to the world, then crossed her arms over her chest and faced the front door.
“Come in,” she said when the knock came.
And all her defiance melted into astonishment when the door opened to the slender figure of Rose.
CHAPTER 16
Deedra grabbed Rose and hustled him inside, slamming her door.
“How did you get away?” she demanded. “What are you doing here—it’s almost curfew.”
He stared all around her before his eyes finally locked onto her, his expression exhausted and confused. It took him a long moment to recognize her, and when he did, he took a step away from her, turning aside, hands jammed into his pockets. With considerable effort, his words slurring at first, he said, “I can go. If you want. I understand if that’s what you want.”
Was that what she wanted?
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.
“Just tired,” he said, leaning against the wall. “But I’ll go. If that’s what you want.”
She’d never seen him like this before. He was always so self-assured, so self-possessed, so capable. He never seemed…
Needy.
In that moment, yes, Rose needed her. He needed anyone, really, but he’d come here, to her, and so he needed her. Right now.
And she could do as he needed. She could take care of him.
She thought of their time on that rooftop. The moment when she’d thought that maybe they could be each other’s family. But that wasn’t what she really wanted, she realized.
“You can stay,” she whispered. “Of course.”
Rose exhaled a relieved breath and slid down the wall to sit on the floor. “Thank you,” he said. “Very much. Not just for now. For earlier. You were the only one who tried to help.”
Her cheeks went hot with shame. She hadn’t helped. She hadn’t don
e anything. She’d just told him to run. Big deal.
“I should have done more.” Without realizing, she once again reached for her pendant. Once again tapped her fingers together in the empty space where it belonged. “I wish I had. It was the right thing to do.”
“Your pendant,” he said. “Where is it?”
“What do you mean?” She’d never mentioned it to him. Never showed it to him.
“I’ve noticed it. You play with it all the time. But it’s not around your neck, and I don’t see it anywhere.”
She considered lying but found she couldn’t bring herself to lie to him. Not to those limpid green eyes. She told him how Jaron had taken it, trying to downplay the anger and sadness, but her voice cracked as she spoke, thinking of all the years she’d had it—her entire life as far as she knew—and Rose could tell.
“How long have you had it?”
Rose’s voice snapped her back to the present. Just as well; the first thing they taught orphans was not to dwell on the past. “I don’t know. I’ve always had it,” she whispered. “Always. At the orphanage, they told me I had it when I came to them. Sometimes I had to fight off other girls when I was there. They wanted to steal it. There was even a…” She shuddered with memory. “One of the workers there always wanted it. Stared at it. Tried to take it off me one night while I was asleep.” The pendant was the mystery of her life, the secret of her history. It was the one thing in the world that told her that maybe—just maybe—she hadn’t been discarded as a baby. Maybe someone had actually cared about her. Maybe even loved her.
She drew in a deep breath and blew it out. Rose stared violence into the empty space off her right shoulder, as if imagining Jaron there. She’d never seen him so furious.
“My fault,” Rose said. “This is all my fault.” He gnashed his teeth in anger. “I should have—”
“Stop it. You couldn’t have done anything. I chose to run after them; you didn’t make me.”
Rose considered this and seemed to relax a bit. “I’ll get it back for you.” There was a resolve in Rose’s voice that startled her. “Don’t worry. I’ll get it back. Somehow.”