The Slaine brothers and Farouk disappeared into a nearby building with a pharmacist’s symbol painted on its door. Oxygen addicts. The clean-air craze.
“Lunch?” Shakes suggested.
“Is food the only thing you think about?” Wes chided him.
“What else is there?” Shakes asked, and it was a good question.
Nat realized she was starving; she hadn’t eaten much since the night Wes knocked on her door. She wondered now when anyone would notice she was gone. What would happen to her apartment, to the books she’d shoved underneath her bed? She had thrown her lot in with Wes and his crew without looking back for a moment; there was only the way forward.
But what if Wes—and everyone else—was right? What if there was no such thing as the Blue? She waited to hear the voice in her head protest—but there was nothing. Maybe because it knew it was too late for her to turn back now. They weren’t very far from the coast, and with enough gas, they could probably get to the pier tonight. She fingered the stone around her neck, thinking it wouldn’t be long now.
Shakes led them into a dark building, down the stairs, into a bustling turo-turo restaurant in the basement. At a turo-turo (Nat knew it meant “point point” in a forgotten language), all a customer had to do was point at the food they wanted to eat since hardly anyone could read a menu. There was a big lunch counter with steam tables featuring an array of dishes of varying ethnic origins. But unlike the corporate mash-ups, the food was singular and unlike anything she had encountered before.
There was a vat of fish ball soup, a doughy concoction that didn’t look like fish at all, but tasted delicious; charred meat skewers—pork from the smugglers who worked in the heated enclosures—almost impossible to find and incredibly expensive in New Vegas, but available here; fragrant rice dishes stuffed with real vegetables; and slippery noodles filled with slivers of real garlic and ginger, steaming and tempting.
“Does it all come from the runners?” she asked, as they pointed to their choices and accepted heaping plates of rice, noodles, and meat.
“Most of it.” Wes nodded. “But some are military rations that the cronies unload here, trading food stock for weapons.”
“Military rations! But that would mean—”
“K-Town wouldn’t exist without the military’s permission,” Wes said. “They need to keep an eye out in Garbage Country and have a place where they can conduct business with slavers without anyone knowing.”
“So the food shortages aren’t real either,” she said. The lack of resources was the reason every citizen was given a Fo-Pro card. Unless you were rich and could eat from the tiny but luxurious private sector, every aspect of the food supply was rationed, given out piecemeal.
“Who knows, but there’s food here,” Wes said.
“While we starve on slop.” Shakes shook his head.
“Five centavos,” said the cashier behind the counter.
Nat was surprised to find the girl had bright burgundy eyes, and the girl stared back at her with a languid, almost bored expression.
Wes paid for their lunch with a real silver coin. “They don’t take watts here—only the old currency from Before.”
But Nat was still staring at the girl. She couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that the marked girl was moving about so freely, without anyone noticing or caring.
“A lot of marked refugees get stuck in K-Town,” said Wes, bumping her elbow to move her along. “They save enough watts to get past the border, but have nothing left to go anywhere else. So they work, hoping to earn enough to pay for transport out of here. But most of them never do.”
“And no one cares?” she said, looking at a few military personnel scattered around the place.
“Not here at least.”
They settled down to eat their meal. Nat marveled at the texture—she’d never had vegetables like this before, never had meat that hadn’t been processed or wasn’t just tofu made to taste like meat. It was a revelation. Still—just as in New Vegas—everyone drank Nutri. Clean water was rare, even in K-Town.
Wes took a swig from his cup and motioned to a bearded man seated at the next table. “Howie, you know if Rat still runs the table? Is that game still going on? Slob happen to be around? Or any other of Jolly’s boys?” he asked, wiping his lips with a napkin.
“Should be. Doesn’t change. You in?”
Nat pushed away her plate. She felt ill after eating such a huge meal. “There’s a casino?” she asked, feeling a gambler’s excitement at the prospect.
“Better yet—there’s a high-stakes poker match,” Wes replied.
She raised her eyebrows. Things were starting to get interesting. “What’ve you got in mind?” she asked.
“For one thing, I need to get my ship back.”
She stared at him. Did he just say what she thought he’d said? “What do you mean, get your ship back? You don’t have a ship? How are we going to get across the ocean?”
“Relax, relax—I have a ship—just not right now. But that can be rectified.” He shrugged.
She goggled at him and turned to Shakes. “Did you know he doesn’t have a ship? And you guys took this job anyway?”
To his credit, Shakes managed to look sheepish.
“I thought you didn’t gamble,” she accused Wes.
He shot her a Cheshire cat smile. “What can I say? Easy come, easy go.”
Shakes guffawed. “How? Once the Slob sees you, he’ll leave the table. He knows you’ll be after it. He’s not going to risk having to give it back after you won it from him in the first place.”
“I’m not going to win it,” Wes said, pointing at Nat. “She is.”
19
THE PLACE WASN’T A CASINO EXACTLY. It was just another crowded subterranean basement room with a few roulette tables, card tables, a craps table, and a bar. Nat found the noise and the smell of sweat and smoke overwhelming as she walked into the room, a little unsteady on her high heels. She was dressed as a tai tai, a rich Xian trophy wife, slumming in K-Town on her way to Macau.
With the help of a video blog and a few silver coins from Wes’s stash, she’d managed to find an appropriate costume. She was wearing a tight red cheongsam, her long dark hair was held back in a bun with two sparkling chopsticks, and the blue stone remained looped on a chain around her neck, masquerading as a decorative bauble. Farouk had outfitted the dress with a fake fusion battery, which blinked red at her collar. She’d protested she would freeze before she got inside the door, but Wes had been adamant. The tai tais did not wear bulky layers of any kind; they slithered around the city flashing their bare legs as a sign of wealth and ease.
“You look good,” Wes had allowed before she left the shelter. “You think you can do this?”
“Watch me,” she’d told him. Even if she was nervous, it was too late to back out now, and he knew it, too. Besides, of all the things she could do in the world, she could play poker.
The Slaine brothers, dressed in chauffeur uniforms, would act as her bodyguards. If anything happened, they would make sure to get her out of there alive. She didn’t know if she trusted Zedric and Daran with her life, but, once again, she didn’t have a choice. Without a ship, she might as well go home.
“VIP room?” she asked the bouncer guarding a door near the bar.
“Fingerprint,” he grunted, pointing to a reader. “And no muscle inside,” he said, shaking his head at her companions. He held up a flashlight to check her pupils.
Wes had warned her there was a chance she would have to run the play alone, but if she had entered the hall without any protection, no one would believe she was who she pretended to be.
Daran winked and whispered, “Don’t worry, I’ll be close by.”
She dismissed them with a wave of her manicured fingers and smiled at the bouncer as she put her designer sunglasses back on her nose. She pressed he
r hand against the print reader. Farouk had entered her photo and fake background into the system. She was Lila Casey-Liu, the sixteen-year-old wife of a molecular phone magnate.
Nat would have to do much more than convince a bouncer; she’d have to deceive the Slob, one of the most feared slavers in the Pacific. His real name was Slavomir Hubik, but everyone called him Slav, or the Slav, or SLB, his handle in textlish, which had turned into Slob. The Slob was far from one. He was a trim nineteen-year-old pirate from somewhere in New Thrace, the most notorious of the outlaw territories. He was one of the top men in a fearsome scavenger armada that trolled the black waters, supplying garment slaves to Xian factories, drugs to New Vegas, and pleasure girls and boys to anyone who would pay the bride price. There were even rumors that the slavers weren’t just trading animal meat either; to desperate buyers, they were willing to sell the human cargo that wouldn’t sell otherwise.
The Slob had a scar above his right eyebrow, dyed white-blond hair “drau style” in a military fade, and tonight wore a vintage velour tracksuit—a real synthetic, not the cheap animal furs that the other slavers preferred. His face was all sharp angles, handsome but with an edge. He didn’t look up when Nat joined the table.
“Deal me in,” Nat said, taking a seat next to the dealer, traditionally the luckiest draw in the table. “One hundred large,” she said, with a brilliant smile as she slipped him a doctored heat-credit card. Farouk assured her it would pass the scanner in the room, but once it was out of range it would read zero.
“Feeling lucky tonight?” she asked her fellow gamblers. The Slob wasn’t the only slaver at the table; she could tell by the tattoos on their faces. There was a girl, about her age, similarly bejeweled and bedecked, who nodded when she approached. “Love your shoes,” the girl cooed.
Nat played conservatively at first, allowed herself to win a few hands, but not so much that she attracted attention. Wes had cautioned her to reel him in slowly. He’s a wise guy—he won’t expect you to be a hustler—the tai tais like to gamble for the thrill—the slavers let them in because they bring big money to the table. He’ll like a challenge. Beat him up a little.
It was time. Nat won the next hand and the next, by the third, she had quintupled her money.
“Big win for a little lady,” the slaver said in his clipped accent.
“Eh,” Nat said dismissively.
“Too boring for you?”
“Let’s make it exciting,” she said with a gleam in her eye.
He shrugged. “Sure. What do you want?”
“I hear you have a fast boat,” she said.
The slaver seemed amused. “You can’t have Alby. Out of the question.”
“Too scared you’ll lose, Slob?”
For a moment, Nat saw the rage in the slaver’s eyes. No one called him Slob to his face. But Nat knew she would get away with it. She had seen the way he looked at her legs. She giggled, letting him know she was flirting, playing her role.
The slaver gave her a thin smile. “Please, call me Avo.”
“Avo, then,” she said.
“If I put the bird in play, what will you give me?” he said, leaning over with a wolflike grin. “That gem around your neck?” he asked.
“This? A mere trifle,” she said, slipping the stone underneath her collar and wishing he hadn’t noticed it at all, irritated with herself that she had worn it. “This is the real treasure.” Nat placed a small velvet pouch on the table. She pulled the string and showed him what was inside: tiny crystals that sparkled in the light, bright as diamonds.
It was fleur de sel. Sea salt. Real salt, not the synthetic kind—which was at once too salty and not salty enough—but the real thing, from before the floods, when the world was still whole. The last in the world, harvested before the oceans were poisoned. It was one of the souvenirs she had taken from the treatment center, nicked from the commander’s kitchen, and she had been saving it for just the right moment. Wes didn’t ask her where she got it, only told her it wasn’t enough to buy a ship, but it might be enough to win one back if she was clever enough.
Avo Hubik eyed her. “Do you know how valuable that is?”
“Yes,” she said evenly.
“I doubt it; if you did, you would not wager it so easily,” he said, picking up his cards.
“In New Kong we bathe in it,” she said, and waved her cards like a fan. The rest of the table folded, watching the two circle each other—like a mating dance—one before a kill.
“Why do you want Alby so bad?” he asked.
“I have a hobby. I like taking what matters most to people. It keeps life interesting.” She yawned.
“You can’t have the boat.”
“We’ll see,” she said sweetly.
“Fine. Let me see the salt.”
He held it to his eye and then tossed it to the beautiful girl with bright orange hair and gold eyes who was standing behind his chair. A sylph, maybe? Nat couldn’t be sure. The mages’ mark on her cheek shaped like a serpent meant she was a healer, Nat knew. “Check this,” he said.
“It’s real,” the girl said, tasting a little of it with her finger. Her eyes shone greedily.
Nat flicked her eyes away, disturbed. “Show me your cards,” she said, laying down hers: a straight flush.
This time, the slaver smiled broadly. “Full house.” He took the velvet bag of salt off the table.
“My husband will kill me,” she mumbled.
“I’ll make it easy; you win this next one, you can have the bird,” he said with a smile now that he could afford to be generous. He threw the keys to the boat in the middle of the table. “I’m a gentleman.”
Nat nodded. She was prepared. Wes’s words rang in her ears. He’ll get arrogant, he’ll want to show off . . . and when he does . . .
Now was her chance. She had been watching the game closely, counting cards. The dealer put down the first cards. King of clubs. Queen of diamonds.
Avo Hubik smirked.
The next one: two of hearts.
The slaver studied his cards with a frown.
An image came to her unbidden: Avo taking another card and drawing a king, which would give him a high pair, which would win him the game, as she held nothing but garbage in her hand. The image faded. It was a premonition. A warning. She understood that she couldn’t let that happen, and she began to panic. She had to do something! But what? She couldn’t control her power, she couldn’t do anything . . . she was paralyzed, cold—
A sudden gust of wind blew the cards from the deck, which scattered across the table.
“What the . . . ?” the dealer cursed.
The gold-eyed girl stared at Nat, her eyes blazing.
Nat didn’t dare look up and scrunched her forehead, pretending to concentrate on her cards.
Was that her? How did that happen? It didn’t matter; what mattered was that the deck had been shuffled.
Avo didn’t seem to think anything of it. He tossed a card and picked up a new one.
She picked up the next card, and somehow, before she had even looked at it, she knew she held the winning hand. Two of clubs. With the two of hearts on the table, it made a pair.
The dealer threw down the river card. Nine of clubs.
Nat felt her skin tingle with anticipation.
The slaver showed his hand with a grin. Ace high.
Nat showed hers.
She had won with the lowest cards in the deck. A pair of twos.
The slaver’s face paled.
She took the keys off the table. “I believe this is mine.”
20
“THIS is what I won? This is your legendary ship? I say we give it back to the Slob!”
Wes ignored her and jumped onto his boat, which was moored to a rotting pier at the far end of the city. A skeleton of a roller coaster and a Ferris whee
l stood not far from them, and a handful of boats bobbed in the water, all of them half-flooded derelicts, their hulls blasted full of holes, engines missing. The rest of the team followed him on board, but Nat remained on the pier, her arms crossed in front of her, an angry, frustrated look on her face.
“Are you going to stand there all day or are you going to get in?” he said finally, as he helped Shakes pull off the tarp.
“I’m not getting in that . . . it looks like it’s about to sink!”
“Suit yourself,” he said, whistling as his crew found their places and hauled in the supplies for the journey. He unrolled the canvas, feeling a glow of pleasure from being back on board. Wes had missed his ship, and its loss had been a harder blow than he would care to admit. He wasn’t one of those sentimental fools, overly attached to their vehicles. A car was just a car, a truck was just a truck. But he did have a soft spot for this one, although he was more amused than annoyed by Nat’s insults. The boat was an old Coast Guard ship, a converted fishing trawler, more than a century old, and built to last, fifty feet long, with a battered hull, a deck pocked with holes and a Jolly Roger painted crudely on the starboard side, ALB-187 etched on the transom. The steel rails had rusted, and the paint was chipped, sure, giving the boat a saggy, dilapidated air, but there was more to Alby than looks alone. Nat might not know it, but he and Shakes had done major work on its engines, and the old girl practically had rocket boosters for propellers, that’s how fast it could go.
“Seriously, we traded one of the most valuable things left on this planet—salt—for this?” Nat was saying. “This isn’t funny!”
Wes looked up from his task, trying not to roll his eyes. He had to hand it to her—she was as tough as they came, she hadn’t blinked once. Without her, he’d never have gotten his ship back. But enough of the princess act already. “We’re not laughing,” he said. “I’m sorry Alby isn’t one of those sleek white whales the navy uses. If I’d known you were such a snob, I’d have turned you in as a border jumper.”
He went back to his task, but she remained on the pier.
Frozen: Heart of Dread, Book One Page 10