Spellhacker

by M. K. England

  She’s right. This is the first job we’ve ever failed to come through on, and the funny thing is it’s absolutely the least of our worries. Now that we’re murderers. Now that we’ve let loose a new plague upon the Industrial District. Now that we’ve irrevocably damaged the lives of thousands of people. All the guilt and shame Jaesin and Remi were trying to avoid shows plainly on their faces, in the way they sit slouched over, shoulders pressed together. I’m tempted to hack into the hospital’s records and see if Ginny from the bakery is among the ill or dead, but I don’t.

  I can’t.

  “I have to figure out why it happened,” I say, trying so hard to keep my voice from shaking. “Yes, I made a mistake. I pushed it too hard, but that shouldn’t have caused such a huge rupture up the pipe unless there was already something else wrong. You felt it, Remi,” I say, pleading for them to back me up.

  They only shrug, avoiding my eyes as they wipe a tear away. “I definitely felt something surge or change right at the end there, but I have no idea what it was or where to go about looking for it. Besides, I think Ania is right here. I hate that it happened, but what will knowing change? It still will have happened. Those people will still be ill. Or dead.”

  I blink, stunned. I want to protest, to say something in reply, but I can’t force my brain to comprehend. I know Remi can’t mean that the way it sounds. They must be hurting, hurting so bad, thinking of all the newly ill. So how can they not want to figure this out? I look to Jaesin to back me up, but he only nods, leaning forward to brace his forehead on his folded hands.

  “I think what we really need to do here is take whatever money we can pull from our accounts and get out of town,” he says. When he lifts his head, his eyes are shiny with tears, but hard. “We head to Jattapore a few days early, that’s all. Ania, you come with us for a week, just to lay low and let this pass. And we forget this ever happened.”

  My vision whites out with a surge of anger.

  “No. NO!” I shout, momentarily forgetting about Ania’s parents. “We have to figure out what we did wrong. What if it happens again? Or what if it wasn’t our fault and there’s something wrong with the system down there, just waiting to set off another spellplague?”

  Ania’s expression is pained, but she shakes her head. “I’m with Jaesin here,” she begins. “They’ll be investigating for a long time. If there’s something wrong, they’ll find it. We need to—”

  “You’re a bunch of fucking cowards!” I spit, my throat raw and tight. My hands clench into fists, the knuckles going white. “Hundreds of people dead or dying, they said, and you just wanna skip town?”

  They’re so fixated on leaving, so constantly ready to just abandon Kyrkarta and leave everything behind. We grew up here, Davon is here, our parents died and are buried here, and they can just walk away? Just ditch our home city to fend for itself in the wake of a disaster of our own making? How can they find it so easy to leave this place?

  To leave me?

  They should know. I shouldn’t have to ask them to stay and deal with this, they should know.

  We were supposed to have more time.

  “I won’t leave,” I say, quieter, low and furious. “I won’t run away from this.”

  Jaesin, the perpetually patient one, finally snaps, that fury I glimpsed on the bridge boiling over.

  “Why not, Diz? Isn’t avoidance your default way to deal with everything? You never wanted to leave with us anyway. You cared more about yourself and this city than about our ten years of friendship. You decided to take that job with Davon instead of going with us, but you’re too much of a coward to just say it. Don’t think I didn’t notice that slipup yesterday. So what’s the difference? You don’t want to join us? Fine. Stay here and rot in everything you refuse to get over, become an MMC zombie and look over your shoulder every single day, wondering if anyone’s going to figure you out. Go out in the middle of the night and hang out with Davon and dance with random girls, even though there are people right here who care about you, who are offering you another option.”

  He pauses, then shakes his head. “I’ve always known where we stood with you. I guess I just thought you might change your mind before we actually all fell apart.”

  I laugh, harsh and unkind.

  “Well, you should really know better by now, shouldn’t you,” I say. Joke’s on him. I fell apart years ago.

  “Yeah,” he says, quieter. “Yeah, I guess I should.”

  He takes a long breath in, then blows it out slowly.

  “Well, we’re leaving tomorrow. With or without you. Right?” he asks. The others nod their assent, tears running down their cheeks, Remi’s eyes pleading.

  I can’t look at them. I can’t look at any of them. My blood boils hot under my skin.

  “Fine,” I say. “Fine.”

  My chest tightens, the vise grip around my heart squeezing until it crumbles away to ashes.

  “Goodbye, I guess.”

  It comes out rough, the last syllable barely audible, because a little dignity is apparently too much to ask for.

  A notification pops up on my lenses as I snatch my boots up off the rack and tug them roughly onto my feet. Davon.

  (private) Davon: Hey, I’ve been buried in code all day and only just heard about the maz accident. You weren’t on the west side of town today, were you?

  Please get back to me

  Please Dizzy, gods, where are you?

  I almost laugh. At least someone’s still in my corner. Until I screw that up too. Until he finds out what I’ve done.

  I walk over to the shoulder-height window that borders on a back alleyway, tuning out the muttered argument going on behind me. It slides open easily when I touch the controls, because of course everything in this house is in perfect, pristine working order. I take a steadying breath and place my hands on the windowsill.

  “Dizzy, wait,” Remi says, breaking through the fog, their voice high and strangled.

  I jump and lift myself up, my boots probably leaving scuff marks on the wall as they brace my climb. The cool evening air stings my tear-stained cheeks as I force myself out. Free. Burning for answers.

  Alone.

  Eleven

  MY HIPS BARELY FIT THROUGH the narrow basement window, but after a long, awkward moment staring out into the empty evening streets with my ass stuck inside the house, I finally tumble free. Extremely graceful exit—I’m sure everyone’s impressed.

  I get slowly to my feet and keep low to the ground, scurrying down the side street where the trash drones do their pickups. Stars forbid these people have to have trash bins out front of their houses like the rest of us slobs. It works to my benefit, though, because it gives me a narrow alley no one wants to look at to run down in the fading light.

  My entire front is uncomfortably damp, and I brush the grassy bits off as best I can. It rained as we made our way to Ania’s house earlier, slowly and carefully over the course of a few hours, and it didn’t occur to me the grass would still be wet. Genius. It won’t matter for long, though. Without Remi’s or Ania’s concealment spells, I need a disguise. A dry disguise, preferably.

  I spend the next two hours walking four miles to a thrift shop I know, mostly unstaffed but for one oblivious attendant there to monitor all the self-checkout stations. Once there, I flit among the dusty, too-crowded racks of clothing for something as different from my normal everyday wear as possible.

  A dress or a skirt is out of the question for so many reasons, foremost because I plan to be running through the sewers later. I settle on some tighter-than-normal jeans, a frilly and flowing black shirt, and some deep green wellies to keep my feet dry and moderately less nasty down in the tunnels. The on-again, off-again rain gives me the excuse to wear them and not stand out. I also snag a half-used cosmetics kit that I have no idea how to use, a comb to part the longer half of my hair so it flops over the shaved side, a threadbare backpack, and a plain old umbrella with none of the usual smart features.


  Once I’ve made my purchases and gotten changed, I study myself in the mirror, avoiding my own eyes. This disguise won’t fool anyone who gets a good look at me, but hopefully it won’t come to that. I’ve killed a lot of time shopping, so I have the newly fallen darkness on my side.

  I stand there, staring at the green wellies on my feet, my mind full of static. I’ve been so thoroughly distracted by getting here unseen, then by putting together my disguise, that I’ve managed to avoid thinking about my situation completely. In the silence of the dressing room, everything comes rushing back, and my hands begin to shake. I clench my fists and bite my lip, hard, then sit with my back to the dressing-room mirror.

  I glance under the thin curtain to make sure I’m alone, then bring up the message thread with Davon on my lenses. He’s probably worried sick that I haven’t responded yet. Yet another dick move on my part. I close my eyes and command my lenses to leave the interface up, so the words are all I see as I lean my head back against the unyielding glass.

  You: Hey.

  Davon: Stars, Diz, I was full-on panicking over here

  You all right?

  You: Yeah.

  Sort of.

  Actually . . . no.

  I’m not hurt or anything. But can I meet you somewhere?

  Davon: Yes

  Of course

  Where are you at? I can pick you up.

  You: Let’s meet halfway.

  I’m coming from the thrift shop on Deckard Street.

  Davon: And where are we going?

  I hesitate.

  You: I’ll tell you in person.

  Davon: Fine, Super Sneaky McSpy Diz

  For the first time in hours, the corner of my mouth twitches into an attempted smile.

  You: No

  Just

  Don’t try.

  You can’t master the naming.

  Davon: You’re right, I apologize. I bow to your superior skills.

  You: Damn right.

  Let’s just meet at Nellie’s on U Street.

  Davon: Be there in ten. Stay safe, Dizzy.

  Outside the changing room, the shuffling of sneakers over carpet catches my attention. A pair of feet in ragged, stained hightops comes to a stop just beyond the curtain.

  “Hey,” a voice says. The shop monitor. “You can’t be like . . . getting high in there or sleeping or whatever.”

  I push myself to my feet and blink the chat out of my lenses, feeling slightly more functionally human than I did ten minutes earlier. Davon will meet me and hear me out. He won’t be happy with my extracurricular activities, but he’ll be on my side, at least. He’ll want to know what happened. He’ll help, like he always does. No matter what I get into, he’s always there.

  More than I can say for some people.

  The shop guy grunts as I slide the curtain aside and push past him without a backward glance, stalking out into the misting rain with my new-old backpack slung over my shoulder. I pop open my umbrella, jog across the street, and sharpen my mind, blocking out the internal noise. The low-level constant screaming of wrongness and guilt. It’s time to focus.

  I have a job to do.

  Davon is already waiting for me outside Nellie’s when I turn the corner onto U Street. His eyes slide right over me at first, then widen when he does a double take, looking me over from head to toe and getting stuck on the green boots.

  “Uh,” he says. “Are you okay?”

  I roll my eyes. “It’s a disguise.”

  “Clearly.” He looks at me sidelong for a still moment. Then his lip quivers, and he reaches for me. “Dizzy, I know you hate this kind of thing, but—”

  I don’t let him finish. I throw myself into his arms and bury my face in his shoulder. His military-cut jacket is a rough canvas material, scratchy against my cheek, the sensation grounding and immediate. He’s probably half choking, I’m squeezing so hard, but I need it, need to crush us together until my heart can crawl out and curl up with his, safe and protected. Despite his lack of oxygen, he wraps his arms around me and holds me close, rocking me like my mother used to when I woke up from a nightmare.

  “Hey, it’s okay, Dizzy,” he croons, rubbing a soothing hand up my back. “I’ve got you. Whatever it is, we’re gonna figure it out.”

  He eases back and turns his attention to the people entering the club behind him, to give me a moment to wipe away my tears. Gratitude surges in my heart for this cousin of mine, the one person on this planet who just gets me, doesn’t try to change me, who always gives me exactly what I need. No more, no less. Space when my thorns are out, love when I’m falling apart, independence and support in perfect balance.

  I give one last sniffle and pull all my shattered pieces back together, then clear my throat.

  “Hey, eyes forward,” I say with a gentle shove. “I didn’t ask to meet here so we could go dancing.”

  Nellie’s is our favorite club, the place we always go when I need a night away from the others. Needed, I guess. Chill, safe, good music, plenty of queer folk of my particular persuasions. But tonight isn’t a night for fun. My mind couldn’t be further from it.

  “Come on,” I say, taking Davon by the arm and walking us down to the end of the street. “Call us a pod.”

  “Okay,” he drawls. “Happy to, but I have no idea where we’re going. Why can’t you do it?”

  “For reasons.” I close my eyes and breathe hard through my nose. This is why I hate crying so much. Once you start, round two is always right behind your eyes, just waiting for the slightest provocation. “Please, Davon, I’ll explain everything once we’re inside. Will you just call a pod?”

  He huffs, but his eyes go unfocused as he navigates the menus of the ride app. A minute later, a two-person pod descends from the traffic lanes overhead and slides to a stop in front of us. The door pops open, and I dive in first, half out of nerves and half to keep anyone from Nellie’s from recognizing me in this horrible half-assed disguise.

  Davon slides in after me, and when the pod’s nav system asks, “Where can I take you this evening?” he gives me an expectant look.

  “Junction station twenty-nine,” I say, then sit back and fasten my seat belt.

  “Junction station twenty-nine is unavailable at this time,” the pod responds.

  “Get us as close as you can on the southern side of the station, then, please.”

  “Acknowledged. Please prepare for acceleration.”

  Once we’re both settled, the pod takes off, rising into the air and weaving itself back into the light nighttime traffic.

  Davon gives me all of thirty seconds before he pounces. “Okay, we’re in. These things are forbidden by law to have any kind of recording devices, so you’re out of excuses. I’m worried about you, Dizzy. Spill.”

  I look down at my lap and fiddle with a loose string at the bottom of my new-old shirt. I’ve done my best to keep Davon mostly separate from my friends, for a lot of reasons. The others like him just fine, mostly because he can semi-control me and because he sometimes bought us takeout. He’s older than us, which means he has his own apartment outside the orphan district anyway. Natural separation. But he also knows me better than the others, a product of our growing up as neighbors, cousins closer than siblings. And despite that, he actually thinks well of me. It’s been nice, having someone who cares unconditionally, who I can always go to when things with the others were rough. When I still had others.

  So I’ve never wanted him to know about our side gig. I’ve lied for two years, let him think I was a better person than I really am, let him think I got my extra money doing longer shifts for Mr. Ailiano. In reality, I quit the tech shop a year ago to focus on siphoning and fixing ware on a freelance basis. I’ll have to spoil his opinion of me. Maybe even throw away the job at MMC he promised me, if he’s mad enough. That job offer is all I have going for me in Kyrkarta. Davon’s all I have left, now that my friends have ditched me for good.

  Nothing for it, though. I have to know what hap
pened on the job today. What went wrong. And I need someone watching my back while I search.

  I take a deep breath and begin.

  “You know that big disaster at the junction station earlier today?” I ask. Obvious; of course he does. I barrel on. “That was me.”

  Davon frowns, his brows knitted together. “What . . . I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

  I glare at him, focusing all my anger and frustration and helplessness into beaming the information straight into his brain so we don’t have to play this game, so I don’t actually have to say—

  “I did it. I was responsible for the junction station explosion. Jaesin, Remi, Ania, and I, we’ve been running a side business for two years, siphoning maz from MMC’s pipes and selling it off, or taking orders from clients for specific amounts and strains. That’s how I’ve really been paying for my tech and food.”

  I close my eyes and wait. Davon’s silence is heavy with the weight of his disapproval, his horror, and it presses down on me in a way I haven’t felt since . . .

  Since I was seven. Since my mother was alive.

  To my horror, my eyes grow hot and stinging again, and I open them to find Davon blurry through a sheen of tears.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” I say, my voice thick with the aching in my chest and throat. “I don’t even know what happened! That’s what I need to find out tonight. I know it wasn’t just us. We’ve done this a hundred times and I’ve never seen anything like that. Never. Something went wrong.”

  But you opened the valve more, you tried to rush the job, you took an order for a kind of maz you knew nothing about, a little voice in the back of my brain tells me. I shut my eyes again and grit my teeth. “It may have been us that did it, but it wasn’t our fault. I’ll never believe it. I can’t.”

  A faint rustling sound, then a hand on my knee, warm and gentle.

  “Honestly, Diz, I’m not actually surprised about the siphoning thing,” Davon says, his voice low and calm. “I did wonder where the money was coming from, and with your and Remi’s particular skill sets, it’s a natural choice. And I know how Remi feels about MMC.”