The Rush's Edge

by Ginger Smith

  The side of Hal’s face was painted red, but he had rallied and was still trading blows with his adversary. The other vat didn’t look any better. One of his eyes was swollen completely shut. But there was no rest period; they would hammer each other until someone fell and didn’t get back up.

  Hal backed off momentarily, wiping again at his swollen and bleeding eye. Then, he began to grin as he waited for his opponent’s next attack. Ty breathed out a sigh of relief. “He’s had long enough to nail the guy’s style. Watch.”

  He needn’t have bothered telling her – Vivi couldn’t take her eyes off the cage. Hal stayed still, letting his foe advance. Taking a massive punch to the side of the head so that he could get an opening, Hal stepped in to throw an elbow strike into his opponent’s chin. The heavy man went down like someone had increased the gravity tenfold. Hal backed up, one hand brushing the cage side to steady himself, so he could be ready for the next blow. But there was no need. The man was out cold.

  “And we have a winner!” The announcer opened the cage with a code and entered the arena. He gestured to Hal as the crowd thundered with screams and clapping and thumping fists. He passed Hal a handful of scrilla, which he tucked quickly in his pocket. The announcer urged the crowd to give another round of applause as he ushered Hal to the steps that led off the platform.

  When Hal reached the bottom of the three steps, he stumbled and practically fell into Tyce.

  “Got you,” Tyce said, steadying his friend. “You OK?”

  “Yeah.” Hal said uncertainly, wiping the blood from his eye with the palm of a shaking hand. “What are you doing here?” His eyes were almost completely black.

  “We’re here for you, idiot. What did you take?” Ty tried to steer him over to the side, out of the flow of the bar’s traffic. Hal turned his head toward the sound of music starting back up. Then a flash from someone’s handheld caught his eye and he whipped back around. He was like a moth, being drawn to every flame.

  “Hal.” Ty put his hand on his friend’s face and looked directly in his eyes. “What did you take?”

  “Just some amp,” Hal said, brushing Ty’s hands away. “They wouldn’t let me up there without it.” He ran a trembling hand through his hair.

  Ty considered him a moment and then decided he was telling the truth. They’d probably given him some street-grade shit, with gods knew what else mixed in it to boost it. He’d seen Hal on amp before, and it usually induced a state of focus and heightened awareness. But he’d never seen him this shaky before with it. If it didn’t wear off, he’d get Beryl to run a scan once she’d given him a neutralizer shot. “OK. Shirt and shoes in the back?” Ty asked.

  Hal nodded, gazing at Vivi with a strange expression on his face.

  Ty guided his friend to a booth and sat him down. “Keep him here, Vivi. I’ll be right back.”

  When he returned, Ty handed Hal his shirt and boots. Hal shoved his feet in the shoes, then yanked the shirt over his head and bounced up, ready to go.

  “Here.” Ty had found the one clean towel in the whole place and used it to wipe at the blood on Hal’s face, then pressed a clean edge of the towel to Hal’s eyebrow. “Hold that there,” he instructed, “and let’s go.”

  They got up and wound their way out of the bar, Ty in the front, Hal in the middle, and Vivi in the back. Once, Hal was almost separated from Vivi, so he linked his hand with hers until they exited.

  Things were quieter and clearer outside the club. Ty stopped next to a bulkhead and breathed in the semi-fresh air. “You good to get back to the ship?” he asked Hal.

  “I feel like I could run all the way to Chamn-Alpha,” Hal replied with a grin.

  Ty rolled his eyes. “Yeah, luckily that’s not necessary.”

  Back on the ship, Beryl was watching the Edge newsfeed. She frowned when she saw Hal and the rest enter. “What happened?”

  “Just a fight,” Hal said. He removed the towel from the cut on his head and the blood continued to ooze out slowly.

  “You need some stitches and I’m guessing some neutralizer. Come on.” She took his arm and led him out.

  Ty started to follow, but Vivi pointed at the newsfeed screen. “Wait. Is that… Fortenot?” she asked.

  There was an ID picture of Astin Fortenot on the feed. “Authorities think the technology specialist was murdered, possibly by pirates that have been wreaking havoc in and around the Border. If you have any information, you are encouraged to contact the Omicron Station Authority or the ACAS. We’ll have that contact information on the screen in just a moment.”

  “Damn. I guess there’s nothing we can do for him now,” Ty said.

  Hal looked into the mirror in his bathroom; with the blood washed off, he could see his face was turning a shade of purple on the same side as his swollen eye. Beryl had stitched him up and sealed the cut on his forehead to make sure it didn’t reopen. The neutralizer she’d given him meant he’d mostly come down off the amp; his hands had stopped trembling and he felt less jumpy. Still, it would be hours before he could sleep.

  He pulled on a pair of sleep pants, exited the bathroom and was dragging a towel over his spiky hair when he saw Vivi standing in his room by his door.

  “I’m sorry. I rang and you didn’t come to the door, so I thought… I thought that you might have gone out again or something… and I was worried…”

  “Vivi.” As he approached her, he saw she was wearing an oversized grey tee and a pair of sleep shorts. A tiny pair of sleep shorts, he noticed with a thudding in his chest. He followed her long legs to her bare feet before he was able to look back up at her. She was twisting a hand nervously in her shirt hem. “It’s OK. You, er, don’t have to worry,” he said, trying to pull the reins on his own emotions.

  “Oh. Good. Didn’t mean to bother you.”

  “It’s OK,” he said softly. “You know you can always bother me, Veevs.” He was still holding his towel in his clenched fists, unsure of what he might do if he came closer. He didn’t trust himself enough, so he stayed locked where he was.

  She looked into his steady gaze. “I need to talk to you but maybe later would be better?”

  He looked away. “You don’t have to say it. I know already. It’s no use to think that we could ever have something between us.” Hal turned and tossed his towel over the metal desk chair and gripped the back of it hard in both hands as he continued in a low voice, not looking at her. “I mean, I’m a vat, but I’m not that stupid. Like you said, six years is not long enough… you’re a nat. You would never be interested in–”

  When he turned back, she was right there. She stood on her tiptoes, pulled him in and kissed him.

  It was like being slammed with another dose of amp. Before he knew what he was doing, his hands were tangled in her curls, pulling her closer. It was a desperate kiss that left him aching for something he’d never known existed. The seconds lasted hours.

  When he eventually broke away from her, he realized that he had pressed her against the nearby wall in his urgent need to have her. He took a shuddering breath, his eyes stuck on the beautiful pink curve of her lips. His hands caressed her, making their way to her waist as he made a supreme effort to tear his gaze away from her mouth. “Gods, Veevs. If… if this… is not what you want, you gotta tell me now, while I can still… think.”

  As a response, she pushed her hips against his, and trapped his mouth in another deep kiss. No more words were needed.

  Vivi awoke in the middle of the night to Hal cradling her in his arms, pulling her back against the warmth of his body. She could feel his chest rising and falling rhythmically. He was still sound asleep.

  She turned and faced him; the bruises on his face were worse now. His eye was swollen; the black stitches matched the bruises.

  His eyes fluttered slowly awake, and a smile crept on his face seeing her.

  “Is it morning?” he asked.

  “No,” she smiled. “I just woke up.”

  He nodded, leaning in t
o kiss her again. They laid there long moments until she spoke, “Your eye’s OK? Does it hurt?”

  He shook his head and smiled. “Nothing hurts right now.”

  “Liar,” she smiled back. He’d have a scar to add to the older one running through his eyebrow. “Where did you get this other one?”

  “Fighting in the ACAS. First day I joined Ty’s company the ‘Iron Glaives’. I got in a fight with another vat who wanted to try out the new guy.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “I put him down,” Hal said with a smirk.

  She frowned. “Did they do that again?” she asked.

  He shook his head slightly. “No. Never had any more trouble after the first guy. Guess word got around.”

  “What about those lines on your back?” She’d tried to figure them out since seeing his tattoos and wondered what caused them.

  “Flogging.”

  The way he said the one word so matter-of-factly caused her alarm. “Oh my gods. They do that?” she asked, searching his face.

  He nodded. “I was flogged by a captain for a uniform violation. Maybe my hair was too long or my shoes not shiny enough, who knows? I can’t remember what it was now. Not like it mattered. Once they zeroed in on me, that was it.”

  “It wasn’t Tyce, was it?” she whispered in horror.

  Hal’s eyes opened just as wide. “No! Never. Some ACAS officers do that, but mine came during training – ordered by Dr Balen. Ty was kind. To everyone.”

  She nodded in reply and lightly ran her fingers along his hairline to his left temple, where there was another line of a scar. “What about this one?”

  “From the interface,” he murmured, tracing his own line from her shoulder to her clavicle.

  She felt a stab of anger, just thinking of what the ACAS did to him, but worked hard not to let it show on her face. If not for the interface, he would be just like her. Not doomed to a short and brutal life. “Did it hurt?” she asked softly.

  He shook his head. “I don’t remember it. It was before I was born. I think they do it when you’re one or two years old in stasis.”

  So, they stole not only the end but the beginning of their lives, she thought angrily.

  “What about you?” he broke into her thoughts. “You have a scar here,” he said, as his fingers traced her collarbone again. “Did you break a bone?”

  She tried to lighten the mood. “Yeah. When I was nine. I thought I’d be brave and jump off the top of a wall. Smart, huh?”

  “Oh, so my baby-tecker was a risk-taker?”

  “Maybe, a little,” she grinned.

  They looked at each other for long moments. Hal studied her features. His gaze was so intense, she finally looked away, blushing a bit. “What?” she asked.

  “I’m just trying to remember everything about this,” Hal breathed.

  She smiled. “Yeah?”

  He nodded.

  “I guess we should stay here a bit longer then,” she said. “It’s not even 0200 yet.”

  “Good,” he said as he pulled her to him.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Dr Max Parsen rubbed his eyes. It had been a long day for the head of genetic engineering at the vat facility on Chamn-Alpha, and he was looking forward to picking up some takeout on his way home, kicking off his shoes, and watching some mindless vid until it was time to go to bed. He had spent the greater part of the day working on his latest batch of vats and had finished up the afternoon writing up the research findings, correlating the vats’ initial test results with their files. As far as he could tell, his genetic tinkering had increased this generation’s intelligence scale ratings at least two percent when compared with its predecessors.

  He switched off his desk lamp, feeling both pleased with his day’s work and ready to knock off for the night. He had turned to grab his bag when the door to his lab opened and slammed shut. When he heard the snick of the door lock, he came around his desk to the lab area.

  A blonde girl of about twelve or thirteen years old stood with her back to him. She was dressed in a rook’s uniform with her blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. He could hear her trembling breathing in the room as she put her ear to the door. “Please, no, no, no,” she whispered to herself.

  He didn’t normally deal with the vats after they were born from their exowombs at the age of twelve; he would just receive the reports from their fitness assessments, and so confronting her felt awkward. Max took a few steps closer, cleared his throat and spoke. “May I help you?”

  The girl’s breath caught and she turned to look at Max. He could see she was rushing, her pupils completely black as she came to attention. Then she immediately averted her eyes to his right shoulder. “S- Sir,” she whispered, her chin trembling.

  “Are you alright?” Max asked, stepping closer. He could see the tears streaking down her face as she tried to hold an attention position. Something had certainly upset her, and although tending crying children was not a part of his job description, he felt bad for her. He needed to find her cohort commander so they could take her back and help her.

  “I’m s- sorry, sir.” She breathed, trembling. “But… they’re looking f- for me.”

  “That’s a good thing. Let’s get you back to your cohort,” Max said, placing a hand on her shoulder and pulling his handheld from the pocket of his lab coat. He would send a quick message to Lieutenant Marlen who would certainly send someone to get her.

  The girl was now staring at him in open horror. “N- no… y- you d- don’t underst- stand,” she whispered, sliding away from him.

  Something about this felt very wrong. Max laid the handheld on a nearby table and raised both empty hands. “Look. It’s OK…” he began, realizing he needed to calm her down first before he made his call. “What’s wrong?”

  She began to cry more, her breath hitching. “I… I f- failed my test.”

  Max’s brow furrowed as he tried to understand. “OK. That’s not a reason to–”

  “I… I f- failed. Th- they’re g- gonna re–”

  A harsh rap on the door startled both of them. “Dr Parsen?” a voice said from outside. Max unlocked the door.

  It was Dr Trelan, one of the biotech specialists, flanked by Lieutenant Marlen and another officer Max didn’t recognize. “Here you are. Take her to the lab. Tell my teckers to get her ready for a level three reprogramming.”

  The two soldiers stepped forward. “No, please!” the girl sobbed.

  “Emotional, isn’t she?” the first soldier said, grabbing her by the arm.

  “She’ll feel better after her attitude adjustment,” Marlen snickered as he took her other arm. “Come on, rook.” Together, they dragged the girl out into the hallway.

  “Sorry for the interruption, Dr Parsen,” Trelan said. “She’s a new rook, failed her entry exams, but once we reset her, she should be just fine.”

  Max didn’t know much about what the bioteckers did on a day to day basis. At the facility there were four departments, which usually kept to themselves: genetic engineering where Max was now, neurosurgical where he had started, biotechnology, and psych. “Is she part of batch 1203? The new ones?” Those were the vats that he’d just read the scores on. He remembered seeing that one of the newly born rooks had failed abysmally, but he’d thought then that one out of fifty wasn’t bad. Looking that one in the eyes, though, was a different matter altogether.

  “Yeah, she’s in with the new ones,” Trelan said. “When she found out she failed, she ran before we could collect her. Sometimes the upper level rooks tell the new ones stories to scare them. Don’t worry though. Two weeks for her reset and she’ll be the best one in the batch.” Trelan nodded, then followed the ACAS soldiers down the hallway.

  Max watched them go uneasily. He grabbed his bag and shut the lab down, but the girl’s predicament continued to eat at him long after.

  The transport Scalpel had taken to Jaleeth had landed, dropping him with his duffel on the platform. He kept his head down and trud
ged from the docking section to merge with the rest of the foot traffic. No one asked him any questions. Why would they? He was just another dock rat seeking work.

  It took ten minutes to walk to the nearest residential complex and rent a cube. It was dirty and small – he could stretch out his hands both ways and just about touch the opposing walls. There was a smell he couldn’t identify and the sheets on the bed were stained and unwashed.

  He wouldn’t be sleeping much anyway, he thought. He tossed his bag in the corner, pulled out his handheld and set a program to hack the surveillance on the station. Then he put Vivi’s picture in hoping to make a match.

  Once the program was running, Scalpel sat back, anticipating his next move. Vivi’s ship and crew had not been on Omicron, but the odds suggested they would be on Jaleeth. It was just a manner of time before he found them.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Vivi woke a little later, but it was still early morning by the ship lights. She glanced at the chrono on the feed screen and saw it was 0500. Hal was not there; his spot in the bed was cold, which meant he had been gone a while. With a knot in her stomach, she got up.

  “Runa? Where’s Hal?”

  Hal is in the corridor leading to the cargo bay, Vivi.

  She ran toward the cargo bay and found Hal standing in the hallway. He’d apparently been awake enough to pull on sleep pants and grab a blaspistol. The fingers of one hand were prying at a latch on the wall, but he was having trouble opening it.

  “Hal,” Vivi said quietly.

  “It’s. In. Here.” Hal looked up at her, his eyes the fathomless black of the rush. He growled in anger and frustration and moved to yank at another hidden latch to open a different smuggling compartment, but it was stuck solidly closed. Vivi flinched as he slammed his fist into it, but it still didn’t open.

  When he drew back, there was blood in the dent he’d left. She captured his hand in both of hers. “Hal. Stop. Come with me. Let’s–”