Snowburn

by Frost, E J

  Kez snorts. “You must be thinking of someone else.”

  “You knew what Kincaid would want.”

  She touches the derm over her eye gingerly. “I only did a few runs for him while I was with Livvy. Little things. I think I took him his lunch a couple of times. He made me take off my shirt once. He stared at my boobs while he ate his lunch and wanked off under his damn desk. But he never tried to touch me.”

  “You went in there alone, knowing he’s a sadist. That’s fearless. Or stupid. You tell me.”

  She smiles a little, then presses the back of her fingers against her split lip. “If those are my options, I’d prefer fearless.”

  “Now tell me why you needed it so bad.”

  She slides her hand under her cheek. Turns her face into it so she doesn’t have to meet my eyes. “I can’t.” She pauses for a moment, then looks up at me. “Not because I don’t want to. It’s part of the deal.”

  I grunt, irritated that she won’t tell me anyway.

  “I could tell you . . . other things. Things I’ve figured out for myself.”

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  “Well, you know how I said I had a run coming up to the Cloudlands?” She shifts her hand up a little to cover a yawn.

  “Yeah.”

  “I got both runs at the same time. This one and the one to the Cloudlands. I think they’re related.”

  “How?”

  “Kincaid used to control Hemos City and Nock, right? But since Sokun Tyng was killed, he’s moved down to New Brunny, and Kimpler’s taken over his old turf.”

  “Yeah, I heard that.” I’ve also heard about Kimpler. Heard he’s a quietly scary motherfucker who likes to hunt on his days off. Most of the time he hunts Kuseros’s indigenous predators. Sometimes he hunts people who’ve pissed him off.

  “I did a run for Kimpler. A long time ago. He did the meet himself, in person. He had me meet him out on the Cloudlands. I think he has a place out there.”

  “So, Kincaid and Kimpler.” The two remaining lieutenants in Tyng’s empire, after old Kison Tyng’s heir apparent got himself killed. “Sokun Tyng. Didn’t he die in Kuus?”

  “Yup, in the Deeps. No one knows what he was doing there or how he died. But my friend Java disappeared around the same time. He was number two in the Pack.”

  “Sokun Tyng dies. Someone hires you to pick up a box of black-market glands that are in the paws of his killers, and deliver them to Junior Tyng’s replacement. Big coincidence.”

  Kez nods. “Except I don’t think the Pack killed Tyng.”

  “Why not? Seriously unfriendly fuckers.”

  “They’re starving. I told you, they’re nicer than the Snatchers one on one,” she says.

  I snort. That really doesn’t move them up much on my nice scale.

  She continues, “I’ve been going into the Deeps for years and I’ve never had a problem with them before. Besides, don’t you think if the Pack killed his son that Old Man Tyng would have exterminated them to the last ratling by now? No one knows. But maybe someone is testing a theory.”

  “By taking the glands to Kincaid?”

  “And the run to Kimpler. Who had the most to gain by Sokun Tyng’s death?”

  “Man had a lot of enemies.”

  “Frenemies. He hated Kincaid and Kimpler, and from everything I’ve heard, the feeling was totally mutual.”

  “Yeah? How d’you know so much about the Tyngs?”

  “I listen.”

  “You must have big ears.”

  “And thin walls.” She yawns hugely.

  “How’s that?”

  “Chiara Tyng likes to talk about her family after sex.”

  “Chiara Tyng—?”

  “My brother’s girlfriend.”

  Talking exhausts her. Her uncovered eyelid gets heavier and heavier. Finally, she drops into a fitful doze. I slide silently out of my chair and open one of the smuggler’s hatches in the flight deck floor. Take out one of the boxes that the original Snow thoughtfully left me. Smuggler’s supplies, including an impressive range of black-market meds.

  The pain patches are right on top. I select two, enough to knock her out for several hours, and stow the box. I lean over Kez, careful not to wake her. She’s twitching, shivering in her sleep. I hope she’s not dreaming yet.

  Silently, carefully, I reach across to where her hand has dropped into her lap, and smooth two patches onto her inner wrist.

  The derms work quickly. Within a minute, she relaxes. Her breathing drops until it’s deep and even.

  I flick the automatics off, and concentrate on giving her a smooth ride into Nock City.

  Chapter 8

  Unsurprisingly, her brother sleeps through the landing. Even more unsurprisingly, he’s a hostile little shit when I wake him.

  “We’re here. Unpack your gear,” I tell him.

  “Where’s Kez?” he asks, rubbing his eyes.

  “Sleeping.”

  “Wake her up. I can’t carry all this shit.”

  I wrap two fingers in the neck of his vest and drag him up until he’s eye to eye. “Then leave it here and get your worthless ass off my ship,” I tell him.

  He avoids my eyes. All juvenile bluster and no spine. “Man, I don’t know what she sees in you.”

  “Feeling’s mutual.” I drop him back into the cradle. Grumbling, he climbs out of it and begins opening the hatches for the passenger storage compartments. I leave him to it and go to shut down my ship.

  Kez sleeps peacefully in the co-pilot’s chair while I cycle down the ship’s flight systems. Open up the solar cells and leave them to charge in Kuseros’s early morning light. Set the ship’s computer to bounce calls to my place by the river. I take a minute to send a thanks but no thanks plex to the long hopper. I’m not sure where Kez and I have ended up, but I’m not disappearing for any length of time until I find out. Thirty-five standard years. Four hundred twenty months. Twelve thousand seven hundred seventy-five days. I’ve spent less than one of them with Kez. I’m not losing out on my chance to spend another with her, the way I did with Marin.

  When all that remains is to close and lock the ship, I shrug on my jacket, pocket the rolls of credits, the ship’s remote and an eskey, and gather Kez out of the co-pilot’s chair. She stirs and murmurs, but the drugs keep her under. I settle her into my arms, holding her across my body with her head on my shoulder. It’s becoming natural, carrying her. I notice the weight in my lower back and biceps, but it’s not uncomfortable. I carry her out into the corridor where Ape waits with two bags, the float boards and her backpack.

  “Yeah, I can see how that’d be too much for you,” I growl over his sister’s head. He has the sense to look sheepish. “Where’s her jacket?”

  He offers it to me and I wrap it around her, carefully hiding her wrist with its bright red patches. “Hat,” I grunt at him.

  “I don’t know where it is.”

  “Find it,” I growl. “You really want to answer questions about her face?”

  “No,” he says sullenly. He roots through her backpack until he unearths her hat. Settles it awkwardly between her head and my shoulder.

  “First breeze’ll have that off.” I shift Kez up onto my shoulder until I get a hand free to snug the hat around her head. Tug it down until it shades her damaged face.

  “I called a taxi,” Ape says. “Figured she wouldn’t be up to boarding.”

  “You figured right.” I don’t add for once, but it’s implied. “Where is it?”

  “Er, outside . . .”

  Infant. “Tell it to come to red zone four. Authorization SM2662.”

  “Oh, okay.” Ape pulls a blocky palmtop out of his vest pocket and begins tapping.

  I step over their luggage, onto the ramp and, as it cycles, let it carry me down onto the permacrete landing pad. A yellow and blue taxi buzzes through the restricted gate. It pulls up onto the red pad across from my ship and settles onto a cushion of dust blown up by its neg cells. The passenger d
oor slides open obligingly. I climb in, holding Kez in front of me and settling her onto one of the wide seats once we’re inside. No driver. The taxi’s automated. Not surprising at this hour of the morning. I wait for Ape and while he heaves the bags into the taxi’s main compartment, lean out and click the master control at the ship. The ramp silently closes and the ship goes dark. With the solar panels unfurled above the cargo bays, the Marie looks like a massive mechanical butterfly, waiting to take flight. Good ship.

  Ape punches a destination into the taxi’s interface and it rises in a billow of dust. A gentle jerk and we’re whizzing through the port and out into the early morning streets of Nock City.

  I pull Kez into my lap. Settle her in my arms and look down into her sleeping face. Brush her bangs and a stray dreadlock off her cheek so I can inspect the damage. The derm has brought down the swelling. Her cheekbone’s split and bruised, but it’s fading under the effects of the derm to a line of red and a shadow of purple and green. It’ll be gone in a couple of hours. I tip up her chin so I can see her mouth. The salve’s closed the split on her lower lip to a thin red line. As I look closely, I can see red lines in the corners of her mouth, too. Those aren’t from Kincaid’s hand. They’re from the impact of a different organ. I sigh and tuck her close to my chest. He made her earn those two thousand after all.

  “What happened to her?” Ape asks.

  I look across the taxi at him. “What d’you think?”

  “Kincaid beat on her, didn’t he?”

  And the rest. “Yeah.”

  “I should have gone with her. Why didn’t she wake me up?”

  Plenty of guilt to go around. “Dunno.”

  Ape sits forward, leans his elbows on his knees and pops his knuckles. “I wish she was ugly. So fucking ugly no one would look at her.”

  “How’s that?” I ask, not sure I’ve heard him correctly.

  He shakes his head. “If she wasn’t pretty, this wouldn’t happen to her.”

  I doubt that. Kincaid’s particular pathology doesn’t discriminate that way. But that’s not what catches at me. “This happened before?”

  He rubs his hand over his mouth. His hands are like hers. Long-fingered. Big even for his overdeveloped body. Puppy paws. “She wouldn’t want me to say.”

  “But it’s not the first time, is it?”

  “No.” He stares at his hands for a minute before he continues. “She was caught by NoBos a couple of years back. Their David’s always hated her ‘cause she’s a better runner than he is. He barely left anything of her. She was in a regen tank for over a month.”

  I hold her a little tighter. “Were you running with her then?”

  He shakes his head. “I was still in school. She made me stay in until I was eighteen.”

  “She’s a good sister.”

  “Overprotective.” He smiles a little and I can see that he has her mischievous grin, when he lets it out. “No, she’s a good sister. Don’t . . . you know, don’t hurt her.”

  “I’m not planning on it.”

  “She’s been talking about you for a long time.” He shifts uncomfortably on his seat. “She thinks you’re the second coming or something.”

  We have yet to get to that. “Yeah?”

  “She’s got shit taste in men. So I hope you’re different.”

  That remains to be seen. “You’re not impressed by her choices, huh?” When he shakes his head, I continue. “Why not?”

  “Half the time she picks scumbags. Real assholes. Ask them her name afterwards and I bet they couldn’t tell you. And when she does hook up with someone who’s half-way okay, like Chain, she can’t keep him.”

  I file the name away for later. “No?” I ask, to keep him talking.

  Ape scowls. “He said it wasn’t her. That he wanted his own crew. He’s a runner, too, see? But that was just an excuse. I heard them fighting. Then he packs up and moves out. That was over a year ago. She hasn’t been with anyone since. I thought . . . I thought she might have gone off guys. Then she began talking about you.”

  No resentment there or anything. No wonder he’s jealous. He’s had big sister’s undivided attention for a year. “You’d rather she was all alone? She told me you have a girl.”

  His whole demeanor changes. Softens. He smiles. “Chiara.”

  He’s smitten. Sucker.

  “I hear she’s a Tyng.”

  He immediately bristles. “So what?”

  “You know who Kincaid works for.”

  “Chi’s father. So what?”

  “Just one of life’s little coincidences, huh?”

  “We do runs for the Tyngs sometimes.” He hunches into himself. Hyper-defensive.

  “How often?”

  “I don’t know. She’s done them before.” He practically throws himself across the seat. “We’re here.”

  Not very often, I’m guessing. Definitely something going on there. Did Kez say that Ape knew the Jello Boy who fronted the run? I’m betting Ape set up the run. And left his sister to pay the price. Little shit.

  He climbs out of the taxi without paying. It beeps indignantly at me and I thumb a few credits off the roll I brought along to pacify it. Tap standby on the interface screen. Glance out the door Ape’s left open in his flight. We’ve pulled up on a side street in lower Nock. Not even a klick from my place by the river, but this neighborhood’s a lot less exclusive. The house we’ve pulled up in front of is an architect’s nightmare. It looks like it started as a Colony pre-fab, then mutated. Unstructured, organic. Anti-authoritarian. Very Kez.

  Ape reaches back into the taxi and drags out the heaviest bag. I’m betting it has the money in it. Kez has taught him to keep his eyes on the prize at least. “I got it,” Ape huffs.

  “Okay.” I shove the float boards at him with my foot. Pick up her backpack and drop it on the seat next to me. Sit back and settle Kez more firmly within the curve of my arm. “See you later.”

  “Wait! Where are you going?”

  “I’m taking her to my place.” Where we’ll be as safe as I can make us, behind my gates and security, and where we’re both going to get some real Ralph time. “I’ll bring her back when she’s rested.”

  Ape frowns, his reddish-blond brows drawing into a single line across his forehead, and making him look all the more like his namesake. “She didn’t agree to that.”

  “She did, actually.” Although our Ralph time was very much up in the air when she went to sleep. And she never specified that payback would begin straight after the run.

  “She needs to be here. You don’t get it. She never goes away for more than a day.”

  I shrug. “Call it a first.”

  “You don’t get it, Mister Dick!” Ape snarls at me.

  I’ve had enough of him for one day. I reach across Kez and tap the taxi’s door closed.

  “She’s not going to thank you for this!” Ape shouts through the door.

  “She can tell me when she wakes up.” I wave at him, punch the grid coordinates for my house into the taxi’s interface, and feel it begin to hum in response. As it lifts slightly on its cushion of neg-gee, three people come out of the ramshackle house. Two women and a man. One of the women is heavily pregnant, taut, rounded skin protruding between the edges of her jade green tank and cut-off sweatpants. Even with her large belly, sloppy clothes and silk-black hair piled messily on top of her head, she’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. Her face is a perfect oval. She has huge, dark eyes and a pouting mouth almost as full as the hooker’s who finally broke Marin’s death grip on the little monster. The taxi turns and begins to scoot down the street, leaving Ape and his friends on the sidewalk. The beautiful girl runs out into the street after the taxi, holding her belly, her lush mouth framing a round o of surprise. She waves her arm, but we’re leaving her behind and sliding through the early morning traffic towards the river.

  I pay the taxi out of the credits I’ve made and carry Kez into my house.

  Inside, I lay
Kez across my bed, unlace her boots and ease them off. Pull the thermoblanket over her and leave her to sleep while I shower. Getting rid of sweat, sewer-stink and rat guts feels good, but it’s the anticipation of finally getting into a bed with Kez that’s got the little monster twitching. It’ll be hours before the drugs let her go. And when she wakes I want to give her the time and space to offer herself to me again. Not be coerced by a roaring monster. A couple of quick tugs while remembering what we did up against the alley wall takes care of the worst of the little monster’s roar.

  I undress her carefully. She makes a few small noises while I’m getting her fatigues off, but relaxes back into deep sleep as soon as they’re off. Bare, her legs are beautiful. Long and slender with definition in her calves and thighs even with her muscles relaxed in sleep. Definitely a runner.

  At her underwear, I debate. I’ve wanted to see her naked since she first looked up at me with those huge kitten-eyes, but maybe this ain’t the time. When she wakes up, she’ll be disoriented from the drugs. In a strange place, with a man she’s only known a few hours. Only a few hours after being abused by a man she’s hated for years.

  All the more reason to give her the comfort of skin.

  I peel her panties down her legs. They’re a soft black feminine fabric. High cut on her hips but serviceable. Not lace, or a thong or anything designed to entice. Definitely not hooker-wear. Her ass is as beautiful as her legs. But it’s what removing her panties uncovers that gives me pause.

  There’s a huge derm plastered over the small of her back. I peel it back carefully. The bruise underneath has faded, like the one around her eye, but it’s still purple and black. How the hell did she get this? I don’t remember her hitting her back. I examine the bruise carefully. It’s much worse on her right side. There’s a swollen red bump just a few centimeters from her spine. I remember her limping into the dock on New Brunny. Remember what I saw and heard through her viewie. The desk. He knocked her into the corner of his desk. Fucking sadistic prick.

  I rise and move through the house. Polarize the windows so the rooms are swathed in cool gloom. Pour some filtered water into a bulb to put beside the bed. Gather more med supplies out of my stash. All the while pacifying my red rage with the image of drawing a shiv across Kincaid’s throat. I am going to kill him. It’s just a matter of time.