Matthew S. Cox's Blog, page 19
March 26, 2015
Daughter of Mars #80 | (A Better Life Part 2)
Kree stirred, jostling Risa out of an unintended nap. Her eyelids parted to the sight of the child’s face an inch away from hers, grinning. Risa inhaled through her nose while inheriting the girl’s smile. A reflexive glance at the time display in the corner of her vision indicated three hours had passed, and triggered a collision of elation and horror. Her sight had returned, but she had metal eyes.
Risa sat up and stretched, cringing at the sensation of flexible armor peeling away from her skin. Kree crawled around on the bed, playing with a small human figure made of scrap bolts and nuts. At some point while Risa was unconscious, the girl had shed most of her clothes in preparation for sleep, keeping only her underpants and the moonboots she adored. When she discovered the leftover ‘Bacon-mageddon’ in its box, she scooted over and maneuvered her improvised doll as if he were climbing it. A few seconds later, she got a whiff of the contents and lost all interest in the makeshift doll. Kree tore the container open, and seized the cold sandwich in two hands. Her pleading glance at Risa attracted no sign of disapproval, and she tore into it as though she’d been starved for days.
Risa put a hand on the girl’s arm. “Slow down, kiddo. You’ll choke.”
Kree grinned. “This is good! It’s not slime.”
“No, it’s all vat-grown.” Risa laughed. “The way you’re gnawing on that, it’s like you’ve never had bacon before.”
“Whazzat?” Kree stuffed the last bits of the sandwich in her mouth.
“You’ve never had it before?” Risa cocked her head.
“No.” Kree folded her hands in her lap, lip quivering. “Mommy said meat was bad and makes us sick.” After a few seconds of sullen quiet, she looked up. “Did your mommy let you have meat?”
“I don’t remember mine. I was really little when…” My dad killed her. “She died.”
Kree covered her face in both hands, sniveling. “Why do mommies die?”
Risa pulled the child close, holding her as the girl bawled. “My mother was a spy. The person she was assigned to watch found out about her and killed her.” She shouldn’t have trusted him.
She rocked Kree until her crying quieted. Risa pondered the revelation her beloved father had been the one to murder the mother she never knew. Had learning the truth been what weakened her consuming need to take revenge?
At least he loved me…
Kree wiped her face and looked up. “Maybe you can sorta be my mommy, but not be my mommy.”
I can’t do that to her. What if I die? “Maybe. We’ll see what happens.”
“’Kay.” The girl scampered off the bed, diving into a bundle of fabric by the desk. After a little rummaging around, she emerged with a datapad in hand.
Risa surveyed the sprawl of pants, shirts and socks. Maybe I should try this ‘normal clothing’ thing out. Kree crawled out of the pile of clothes and sat cross-legged with the datapad across her knees.
With the child busying herself with a video game, Risa rummaged through the ‘floordrobe’, snagging a loose pair of black shorts and a grey tank top. As soon as she took a step for the door, Kree ran over and grabbed her around the legs.
“Don’t go.”
“Kree.” Risa patted her on the head and chuckled. “I’m just going to take a shower. I promise I won’t leave the safehouse.”
“Baths are dumb.” Kree pouted at her boots.
Risa poked her in the stomach with one finger, earning a grin. “I’ll be right back.”
“’Kay.” The girl pivoted on her heel and did a toy soldier walk back to her nest of laundry.
One step out the door, Risa reversed course and plucked her laser pistols off the bed. I shouldn’t leave these in reach of a child. She glanced at desk drawers, one closet, and a footlocker with a dead code panel. Crap.
“I won’t touch them,” said Kree, absorbed by the game in her hands. “Gar-son said I could die.”
“You’re not the only kid around here these days.” The room offered nothing high to hang the harness on. “It’s the boys I’m worried about, and not necessarily the ones too small to shave.”
Kree smiled; flashing lights from the holographic display lit her face blue, pink, and green.
Risa wandered down the hallway, clothes in one hand, harness dangling from two fingers in the other. While passing the common room at the end of ‘Death Row’, where Genevieve had her ‘vindaloo incident’, she diverted to a folding table at which Osebi and Ralek occupied themselves with holo-poker.
“Hey, can you guys watch these for me?”
“Them little things?” asked Ralek.
She dangled her pistols over the table, smirking at him. “These, jackass.”
“That’s what I meant.” He patted one of the MPRG-9 rifles Shiro provided. “You got little pea-shooters.”
“Yeah well.” Risa set the harness on the table. “Still don’t want one of the kids messing around with them.”
“Lock dem up?” Osebi raised an eyebrow.
“Nah,” said Ralek. “They’d cry an’ make noise.”
“I meant da weapons.” Osebi waved a hand over his NetMini; iridescent green holographic cards faded out. He levelled a stare across the table. “What is wrong with you?”
Ralek wasn’t small by any means, but compared to Osebi, he seemed like a boy.
“Hey, they have jokes on Earth, don’t they?” Ralek raised his hands.
“Such tings are not jokes. De ACC no’ treat resistance different because they be small.” Osebi pulled Risa’s weapons harness closer to him. “I will watch for you.”
“Thanks.” She walked off, leaving the men to their game.
Sam and Brett came running around a corner up ahead, shoes clanking and squeaking on the metal floor. They paused from their toy gunfight with invisible soldiers only long enough to wave and say “Hi, Risa” at the same time before zooming off. She returned their smiles, leaning to the side to let them race past. Two turns and a hallway later, she ducked into the small bathing area where Pavo had given her the PWRS vest.
Floor, walls, ceiling, and the row of lockers hadn’t changed from their basic black, though it felt darker. Her heart sank as she remembered his arms encircling her from behind, pointing out the various functions of the filtration unit that would provide water made from her own urine. A ghostly tickle traced over her abdomen at the memory of Pavo’s finger.
Risa dropped her ‘clean’ clothes on the metal bench and bent forward to unfasten her boots. Lifeless fingers took their time opening the five plastic clips. I could grab Kree and run. Do I really owe these people my life? She stepped out of her boots and squeezed the MolWeave fastener under her jaw. The soft egg-shaped lump of rubber peeled the suit apart like a silent zipper down to her hip.
Maybe Garrison, but Maris wouldn’t care if I died. He’d probably be relieved.
She peeled the dense, rubbery material away, hopping long enough to extricate her right foot from a clump of legging. Naked, she wandered to the back of the room where an ancient showerhead stuck out at the end of a single grey pipe bolted to the wall. At chest level, two valves with disc-shaped knobs offered the illusion of hot water. A rubber line went to a portable water heater powered by the same kind of e-mag her laser pistols used. Why no one had bothered to drag an autoshower down here was anyone’s guess.
The way they repair shit in this place, I’m not surprised. Low-tech faucets don’t break so often.
Risa twisted both knobs and braced for the freezing spray. She shivered in place until the hot water caught up and made the downpour tolerable. She held her armor under the shower first, rinsing dried sweat from the sleeves and legs. A canister of autoshower soap, rigged with a hand pump, dangled on a wire from the pipe between the faucets. The concentrated lavender syrup saturated the air with an artificial flower scent, watering her eyes as she collected a handful. She rubbed the substance around her entire body while keeping her back to the door as much as possible in case of unexpected company. Most would hear the water running and at least knock first.
The room reminded her too much of Pavo, especially his intimate contact. I never should have said ‘I love you.’ I gave him a death sentence. She sank to her knees under the spray and stared down at lilac-tinted soap bubbles gathering against her leg before trailing past her on the way to the drain. Water fell on her back and ran in rivulets over her face. Risa made fists, teetering on a precipice between wanting to sob and scream with rage.
I don’t even know for sure who killed him.
She composed herself and stood, careful to turn both valves off at the same time. Dripping, she trudged over and sat on the bench. Wet hair adhered to her back, though she ignored the annoyance of innumerable droplets tickling down her skin. She air-dried herself for a little while, until the memories in the room grew too heavy to bear.
Her tank top and shorts clung to her still-wet body as she walked barefoot, carrying her boots over grit-covered floors and cold metal grates. Kree remained as she had left her, cross-legged on the floor with her datapad. She looked up long enough to smile as Risa walked in and hung her armor up to dry. Kree kept her attention on the video game as Risa moved to the floor behind her, grumbling only when the dress passing over her eyes presented an unavoidable interruption. She wrapped her arms around the girl and rested her chin atop her head, watching a tiny cartoon spaceman navigate a world of oversized toys.
“That’s Explorer One,” said Kree. “She’s okay.” The child twisted her body to the right, as if it would help her avoid an explosion on the screen. “She’s not as powerful as you.”
Risa took advantage of the “You have died – continue?” screen to lean forward and pull Kree’s boots off. The girl started breathing hard as if to erupt in tears.
“Shh, Kree. We can’t get your leggings on over the boots.”
Why am I doing this? Risa stretched the leggings out by the child’s feet. She grasped the child’s legs one after the next and tucked them into the pants. Kree giggled when Risa lifted her an inch off the ground to get the fabric around her butt. When she let the elastic waistband snap, she squealed, and shot her a squinty-eyed glare. It’s only going to hurt her more when I die. The child sat still, staring at her toes and making a weak gurgle as Risa squeezed her tight.
“My feet are cold.” Kree squirmed, trying to reach for her boots.
“Okay.” Risa relaxed her grip.
Kree reached forward, got her boots on, and leaned back against Risa. “Okay, you can hug me now.”
I’m making a mistake. Risa wrapped her arms around Kree. She deserves better.
Kree restarted the game from the last save checkpoint, and her little green space woman with an oversized bubble helmet sprinted through the maze again. She collected blocks, apparently in an effort to spell the word ‘nebula.’ Risa kept quiet, mesmerized by the sensation of the little body in her arms breathing.
“I don’t like this part. I always lose here.” Kree hesitated at the entrance to a long hallway. “It’s got bombs on the floor and lasers in the walls… green stuff from the roof. Stupid Explorer One should have speeware.”
“Those big purple berries are the bombs?” Risa peered around Kree’s head.
Kree walked back and forth past the hallway, ducking a stray laser. “Yeah.”
“Have you tried shooting them? They look targetable.”
“No.” Kree made a cute snarling nose when her character’s laser blast set off the first bomb, triggering a chain reaction that cleared the hallway―destroying both the lasers in the walls and the gas vents in the ceiling. Her sour face lasted a minute before she paused the game and started sniffling. “This game is stupid.”
Risa rocked her side to side. “Sometimes things that look like they’re long and complicated are really simple.”
Kree shifted to the side, resting her head against Risa’s chest. Her face turned red as quiet tears ran down her cheeks. Risa remembered learning to cry without making a noise. Bad things come looking for crying children. She rubbed and patted Kree’s back, too choked up herself to even whisper. She’s not this upset about a game.
Kree clung for a few minutes without making a noise. Eventually, she looked up and wiped her eyes. “You’re still not my mommy.”
Risa smiled. “Are you hungry? Oh, wait, you ate that thing…”
“Yeah,” muttered Kree.
“I need to eat something.”
After a brief squeeze, Risa stood, wiped the sand off her soles and stepped into her boots. Kree snagged her datapad, already playing it as she followed to the common room. Ralek’s eyebrows had slithered together, forming a single, flat line over his face. He stared at his holographic cards as if the fate of the world rested on a decision he had ten seconds to make. Kree plopped down on a seat made of old shipping crates covered with a dingy bedsheet, and set her game on a folding table. Risa stopped by the food ‘sem, dialed up a sad excuse for pancakes, and joined her.
“Osebi mopping up again?” asked Risa.
Ralek shook his head as the big man flashed a smile of perfect white. “Son of a bitch can’t be that lucky. He’s gotta be cheating but I can’t tell how.”
“It is not cheating.” Osebi, raised a finger. “The luck has always been with me.”
“It ain’t lucky to get shot nineteen times, mate.” Ralek laughed.
“He’s still alive.” Risa dug in to her food.
Kree wrinkled her nose at the artificial ‘maple’ smell.
Risa lowered her voice. “I asked someone about your mother.”
The child’s thumb flicked up to pause the game. She went still as a statue.
“If I can find the people who did it I―”
“No,” said Kree. She looked up from the screen, though she stared right through Risa at nowhere. “They kill mommies.”
I thought I wasn’t Mommy. Risa couldn’t bring herself to say it, or much else past the tightness in her throat. She reached across the table to hold the girl’s hand. Kree dropped the datapad on the table and scrambled off her seat. She ran around Ralek and crawled into Risa’s lap. The expected explosion of tears didn’t happen; the girl’s eerie calm kept Risa quiet as she finished her breakfast.
Kree looked up, tilted her head, and reached a tentative finger towards Risa’s eye. She didn’t feel the girl’s fingertip touch the metal sclera, only an odd sense of her eyeball pressing against the back of the eye socket.
“What took your eyes?” Kree lowered her arm.
A power-hungry asshole. Me being hot-headed. I… dunno. “I… It’s complicated.”
“Did someone hurt you?”
“No. I didn’t get hurt. I sold them.” Risa let the fork slip out of her fingers, clattering onto the plate. “If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t.”
Kree’s mouth hung open. “But you’ve got speeware!”
“Yeah… I don’t need―”
“Can Kree play?” yelled a boy.
Risa looked up at the group of mineshaft kids. A sense of contentment chipped at the underside of the deep void left by Pavo’s loss. At least they’re better off here than the street. “If she wants to.”
“Okay,” said Kree, squirming to slide off Risa’s lap. “I don’t wanna go outside.”
After a quick hug, she ran off with the other kids. Risa nudged the fork back and forth between her fingers, trying to unwind a tangle of what-ifs in her mind. Her weapon harness clattered in front of her a moment later, breaking her concentration.
Osebi’s frame towered over her, blotting out a bare bulb. “I return dese tings to you. You’ve got de look o’ someone what be thinkin’ deep thoughts.”
“Something like that.” A tiny green indicator light on the side of her pistol swept back and forth along the side, holding her gaze. “I need to talk to Garrison.”
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March 19, 2015
Daughter of Mars #79 | (A Better Life Part 1)
Twelve stories below the surface of Mars, Risa strode through the front door of the Martian Liberation Front safehouse and offered a calm nod to Lancaster and Kali. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d chosen the ‘normal’ entrance when she wasn’t either furious or terrified. Kali kicked off the wall following, her expression a mixture of concern and curiosity. The woman’s dark skin had been a cause of distrust, as was her bloodthirsty reputation. Kali, or whatever her real name was, liked knives and swords as much as she hated cybernetic implants. No one questions her loyalty now that they have me to worry about. They should’ve chosen her for this shit. Risa looked at her hands. I bet they asked her first and she said no. That one’d been an assassin, and loved it. She let out a silent sigh. Maybe it’s better this way. Kali would’ve given the NewsNet exactly what they wanted.
“Hey.” Kali caught up and walked at her side. “You okay?”
“Fine why?” Risa slowed as she approached the end of the hallway.
The hallway ahead seemed too quiet. Silence could mean several things, none of them pleasant. Her ears caught the distant beep of the ‘sem announcing it had completed perpetrating another atrocity of cuisine.
Kali hefted her rifle up, balancing it one hand across her shoulder. Her Mars-red camouflage fatigues shed dust as she swiveled to peer down the hallway. “You don’t look pissed off enough to use the front door.”
Risa opened her mouth to say something, but her brain tripped and fell flat. Her teeth met with a click while she pondered her words. Anything she said to Kali would make it through the ranks within an hour. “I fucked up, broke the rule.”
“You got involved with someone?” Kali raised an eyebrow, her sympathy fading to interest. “It’s a bad rule, you know. What are we doing this for if not for the people we care about? Who is it?”
“Was.” Risa took a step.
Kali’s voice softened. “If you wanna talk…”
Risa paused. “Dunno. Maybe. I’ve got some murder to do first.”
“It isn’t Maris is it?” Kali laughed.
Risa glanced at her with the blank expression of a plastic-faced doll. “Depends on what he says.”
Lancaster coughed from the entrance twenty meters away. Kali blinked.
Flickering overhead lights tinted the plastisteel walls of the entry corridor blue. A few sparks crackled from where a bullet hit a wire bundle a few months ago. At least the Tunnel Rats learned their lesson. She rendered a limp salute at Kali and trudged on. Thirty meters later, she went right at a T intersection and headed through a section full of bunk pods before hooking left. A hallway later, she ignored another left turn to ‘Death Row’ and approached the circular railing overlooking the command area. The mineshaft kids gathered at the edge, peering down at the reason for the silence.
A mission briefing.
On the ground level, most of the MLF personnel had assembled in a circle around the rectangular holo-table. Garrison and Maris, flanked by Huang and Kendrick, stood at one narrow end as they went over the particulars of a surgical demolition job intended to sever a buried fiberoptic cable and blind a remote ACC outpost.
Kree sat at the far end of the table, staring at the flashy graphics hovering in front of her. One leg dangled, swinging her oversized lavender moon boot back and forth. Risa caught the eye of a few people as she descended the long, curving ramp. Shadows stretched from hoses crisscrossing the patch of bare rock floor at the bottom. She made no great effort to remain silent, but padded boots and the darkness created by the concentration of light at the tactical map made it easy to evade notice.
She slipped through the crowd and crept up behind Kree, hands on either side of the girl at the edge of the table. A few of the guys patted her on the shoulder and back, gestures of welcome.
Risa whispered at Kree’s ear. “What are they talking about?”
“Bombs,” muttered the girl. “Aren’t you listening?”
“I just got here.”
Kree fired an annoyed look back over her shoulder. Risa smiled. The girl’s expression went blank for two seconds before she started crying. Risa shifted her weight from leg to leg, not having expected such a reaction. The outburst silenced Maris’s explanation of how an infiltration team would force their way into the underground remnants of an abandoned colony site. All eyes turned to her; a few ‘welcome homes’ and ‘good to see you alives’ floated around.
“Shh. It’s okay.” Risa reached out to run a hand over Kree’s head, but the six-year-old abandoned the holo-table and clamped onto her. Sniveling and muffled wailing flooded Risa’s right ear. She slipped one arm under the little body attached to her chest, and patted the girl on the back with the other hand. “I’m back. I’m okay.”
Garrison smiled through the three-dimensional display of rock and tunnels. Maris glared, though whether he directed his ire at her for running off to Arden or at the child for interrupting him, she couldn’t tell. Risa continued whispering soothing words to Kree while locking eyes with him. Their tense exchange lasted a few seconds before Maris offered a resigned shake of the head. Risa walked away from the briefing, huddled over Kree as if to shield her. Discussion of an upcoming mission resumed after Maris cleared his throat, soon fading to background noise as she ascended the ramp and headed for her room on ‘Death Row.’
The door yielded to a nudge from her boot, revealing a nest of blankets and three dolls at the center of her bed. She sat on the edge with Kree in her lap, unsure how to reconcile the war in her head. This tiny person idolized her; as much as Risa wanted to protect her, she couldn’t bear the thought of growing too attached. She needs someone who isn’t going to run off and die. The thought of what losing another ‘mommy’ would do to her brought quiet tears.
Kree sniffled, and put her hand on Risa’s cheek. “Why are you crying?”
“Sometimes, the things I have to do are dangerous. I…” She had to look away from the wide blue eyes staring back at her. “I might not come home.” I could walk away. Take her and go somewhere the war can’t find us.
“You’re too fast to die. You ran faster than a bomb.” Kree crossed her arms, furrowing her eyebrows. “Why were you hiding?”
“I’m sorry I scared you.” Risa brushed Kree’s hair out of her face. “I had some things to deal with first.”
“I wasn’t scared. The angel told me you were okay.”
What? Risa grabbed the girl’s shoulders and stared into her eyes. “Raziel spoke to you?”
Kree’s emphatic nodding made her butt-length hair dance.
“You heard him?” Oh, no. I asked you to protect her.
Kree shook her head, mussing her hair even more. “No.” She pointed at the terminal on the desk for a few seconds before letting her arm fall limp. “Why’s an angel gotta use a Vidphone? He’s got magic.”
Risa hunted around until she unearthed a hairbrush in the pile of loose clothes on the floor. She sat on the bed and pulled Kree up to her lap, facing away. Kree seemed content to sit there while Risa pulled her fingers through the tangled mess to get the child’s hair closer to a state suitable for brushing.
“When Raziel talks to me, it hurts.” The last time I did this, I was eight and playing with a doll. She hesitated with doubt. Oh, how different could it be?
“Ow,” said Kree, sounding bored.
Risa froze. “Sorry.”
Each time she tried to pull the brush through the girl’s hair, she’d repeat the unenthusiastic declaration of pain. After the ninth stroke, Risa leaned around to look at a huge grin.
“You’re playing with me.”
Kree giggled.
Risa laughed for a few seconds before the urge to cry came out of nowhere. She’s already got me. Shit. Kree grabbed one of the dolls, pretending to brush its hair while Risa attempted to brush hers. Tangles worked out with each successive pass. Kree’s head tilted left or right whenever the brush snagged, but she didn’t make a sound.
“When Raziel talks in my head, it hurts. I bet he used the phone so he didn’t hurt you.”
“Okay.” Kree knocked the toes of her puffy lavender moon boots together.
Risa kept working the brush in even strokes, long after any trace of knots or snarls were gone. “What did he say?”
“He said you were sad ‘cause the boy you liked got hurt. An’ you got hurt, but it was only your speeware.” She moved the doll in a pantomime of claw fighting. “You’re not gonna die ‘cause you’re too good. You can beat alla emmenies.”
“There’s always someone bigger and better.” Risa drew Kree tight to her chest. Part of her felt like an overgrown child clinging to a doll for security; part of her wanted to shield the girl from all harm.
“I’ll pa-tect you. Garson’s teachin’ me how to shoot stuff.”
I’ll kill him. “What? Why?”
“He said a girl’s gotta pa-tect herself.” Kree gripped an imaginary gun in two hands. “Hol’ it in boaf hands like this.”
“You’re too little to play with guns.” Risa rocked her side to side. “Pointing a gun at someone can make them shoot you, even if they weren’t going to hurt you because you’re small.”
Kree frowned. “He didn’ give me a gun.”―she held her arms out, fingers splayed―“I don’t wanna gun. I want claws like you.”
Please, no. Risa kissed the back of Kree’s head. “You’d be happier without them.”
“Nuh-uh.” Kree closed her fists and flicked her fingers open making a pssht noise. “Claws!”
She squirmed around and attacked Risa’s ribs, tickling. The thick ballistic suit muted the sensation, though Risa fell to the side laughing anyway. Once she shrugged out of the harness holding her laser pistols, a full on battle ensued. Before long, they both lay gasping for breath between giggles. Too tired to continue, Kree curled up on her side next to Risa, who stared at the ceiling.
For almost a half hour, she hadn’t thought of Pavo.
The realization swelled a lump in her throat. Warm, rapid breaths washed over her neck from the grinning child beside her. Could I be happy? She opened her suit a little to let it breathe; sweat trapped between the dense material and her body made the air feel icy. Would Pavo still be alive if I’d not gone to Arden? Her fight with the C-Branch operator replayed in her head. No matter how she looked at it, she didn’t have a chance against someone with so much training and the same boosts she did. Every scenario she imagined at Pavo’s side ended the same way.
Risa closed her eyes and slid a hand up to hold Kree’s.
They’d have gotten us both.
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March 13, 2015
Release Party | Division Zero Thrall
Greetings!
It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since Division Zero came out, and now the third book in the series, Thrall, is due for release at the end of March. We’re having a Facebook release party (hosted by the wonderful Leslie Whitaker) on March 31 from 7-9pm Eastern time. There’ll be games/contests and prizes-though I am still working out the exact details that.
Please join me on Facebook to help kick off the release of book 3 in the Division Zero series.
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March 12, 2015
Daughter of Mars #78 | (Breaking Eggs Part 2)
Risa stared through the empty space where the virtual comm screen had floated. A dancing pair of threads tied to the slats of an air vent mesmerized her.
“Something wrong?” asked Aurelia.
“Garrison’s been calling me nonstop since my electronics came online. I couldn’t keep dodging the man who got me off the street.” She picked at her nails. “I’ve been shitty to him. Like it’s his fault I agreed to get wired up. He got me off the street. If he hadn’t, I’d have grown up to be some gang’s sex toy… if I even grew up.”
Aurelia grumbled. “I have some moments where I wonder if your people have the right idea. It’s a different world on Earth where it’s about ratings and PR. No one sees Mars… except the people stuck here.”
“Stuck here?” Risa broke her stare at the ribbons. “You thinking of going back down?”
“No… I was born here too. I mean… We’re stuck with this mess.” Aurelia lowered her voice. “You’ve gotten your hands dirty, haven’t you? If I find out who’s responsible for Pavo, you want in?”
Risa locked eyes with her. “Yes.”
They sat in awkward silence for several minutes. The waiter returned, topped off coffees, and collected empty plates. When the two suits got up to leave, Aurelia shifted in her seat and broke the stalemate.
“There’s a lot of stories on the NewsNet about the bombings your people carry out. How much of it’s true?”
“Almost none.” Risa pondered another bite, but couldn’t summon the effort needed. “They show the same victims over and over again. There’s a scene with a dog trotting away with someone’s arm in its mouth, but the arm doesn’t leave a shadow. Reflections in windows don’t match what’s going on in the scene. It’s like they’re not even putting any effort into the dustblow, but people buy it.”
“So the Front doesn’t set off bombs?” Aurelia added cream and sugar to her coffee. “I think waiters are psionic. They always know when to come by and throw off the perfect balance.”
“We do, but not against civilians.” She folded her arms and looked down. “The Corporates like to use people as shields.”
“That’s a guilty look if I’ve ever seen one.” The woman’s tone came off as accusing, but she had a hint of a smile.
“As far as I know, none of the devices I’ve ever used have harmed someone who didn’t deserve it. I’m not sure if scientists developing a nanobot-powered bio weapon intended to melt the flesh off still-living civilians counts as a military target, but―” Risa sighed.
“Why didn’t the military strike that facility? Seems strange that your people found it first.”
“Yeah, it does.” She let her arm flop on the table, curling half-alive fingers around her cup. “Never thought about that before. I used to feel awful whenever I had to kill. Even the heartless bastards working to bring such a horrible death to innocent people.”
“Used to?” Aurelia sipped her coffee.
“I wanted out. I wanted a normal life…” Her voice fell to a whisper. “With Pavo.”
“I still can’t believe he was MLF.” Aurelia shook her head. “Suppose you can spend years with someone and never really know who they are.”
“He wasn’t technically Front, he was PVM. More of an ideological group of high-thinkers than rebels who run around planting bombs… but he ran around planting bombs.” Risa smiled at the same time tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Why would the media accuse you of killing civilians if you didn’t?”
“Vultures. They want ratings and fear.” Risa gathered her emotion in the span of a few breaths. “Thyle City wasn’t so clean. Real civilians got caught in a demolition operation once. We hit a heavy vehicle production facility the ACC set up on the bottom two tiers, with four levels of colonists on top of it.”
“I remember that on the ‘net. I was… damn I was in high school then. How could you not know?”
“It wasn’t me. I wasn’t doing bombs back then. I was still a child. My sis―not really… she was like a sister. There was a malfunction with the detonator. It went off in her face while she was planting the last charge. Almost everyone on Tier 4 died when it caved in. The failing superstructure kept collapsing, leaving the rest of the people who didn’t get crushed or fall to death to gasp for air.”
“She shouldn’t have gone through with it.” Aurelia glanced over her shoulder as a group of men in dark-stained work coveralls walked in. “I’m not saying she deserved to die, but…”
“Genevieve wasn’t a rookie. I think she killed herself on purpose.” Risa covered her mouth. “Everyone I get close to dies.”
“I guess that sounded callous. I didn’t realize you were so close.” Aurelia drummed her fingers on the helmet she’d moved to her lap.
“The MLF found me when I was nine. I was the only kid there. Gen was maybe fifteen or so and got to be my babysitter since she was the next youngest. She used to have the worst luck. A month or so before she died, she tried to get chicken vindaloo out of the ‘sem and it exploded. Orange sauce and chunks of half-formed chicken sprayed everywhere. She got it full in the face and screamed.” Risa laughed despite feeling awful for it.
Aurelia exhaled.
“Does the MDF spend much time trying to find us?”
“Uhm… A ‘be on the lookout for suspicious MLF activity’ notice every so often, but nothing organized. They sent your picture around once, but it looks nothing like you. Older and more…” She waved her hand around in a circle as if trying to grab a word from thin air.
Risa thought back to the image from the public holo-panel. “Evil?”
“Yeah.” Aurelia scooted to the edge of her bench seat. “I gotta get going. I’m on duty. I’m going to check on that video file. Something bothers me about it. Pavo wasn’t acting right.”
“They probably drugged him.” Risa stared into space, trying not to think about him. “I… I don’t even care about politics anymore. All that matters is finding the people who killed him.”
“I’m still hunting for information.” Aurelia stood and put her helmet on. “I’ll vid if I find anything. Please do the same. That’s a party I don’t want to be late for.”
The helmet sealed with a hiss. Conversation among the workers stalled at the sight of an MDF officer so close.
“I will.”
Aurelia approached the counter, swiped her NetMini to pay for her food, and left. Whispering evolved back to normal speech a moment after she was out of sight. Risa slipped out of the booth, snagging the box of leftovers. She lingered at the edge of the table, picking at the plastic box in her hands. Waiting won’t make it any easier.
She gazed up at the ceiling where naked LED bulbs glowed like brilliant stars against greasy blackness in an impressionist version of outer space. Raziel, if you’re still listening, I need to ask one more favor.
“Please don’t let me kill Maris.”
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Daughter of Mars #77 | (Breaking Eggs Part 1)Daughter of Mars #76 | A Plea in Darkness part 2Daughter of Mars #75 | (A Plea In Darkness part 1)
March 5, 2015
Goodreads Giveaway | Division Zero: Thrall
To celebrate the March 31 release of the third novel in the Division Zero series, Curiosity Quills has posted a Goodreads giveaway for Thrall! Enter to win a paperback copy. A winner will be selected by Goodreads on April 1 2015 (not an April Fool’s joke.)
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/128493-division-zero-thrall
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Daughter of Mars #77 | (Breaking Eggs Part 1)
The “Bacon-mageddon” sandwich exceeded her expectations in both size and quality. Over an inch of egg separated the buns, infused with a liberal helping of bacon cubes. Risa opted for cheese as the only adjustment, and nursed a large, black coffee now that her stomach refused to accommodate any more solids.
She leaned back in the seat, watching the endless procession of shoppers and commuters moving past the entrance. One in every five stopped in, most buying only coffee. Hunger had gotten the better of her brain; she frowned at the third of a sandwich remaining. Ugh. I should’ve stopped halfway instead of trying to finish it. Not moving at all seemed like the best course of action for a while.
A soft beep played in her head, followed by a holo panel drawn upon her electronic retinas. She stared at text only she could see, which announced an incoming vid from Garrison. The words “missed: 11” hovered under the window, adding guilt to her urge to ignore him yet again.
Damn. “I’m here.”
The grizzled face of her adoptive father filled in the plain, blue panel. More silver than she’d remembered had infiltrated the brown stubble on his cheeks. Since she’d left for Arden, he seemed to have aged a decade. In the span of four seconds, elation, worry, rage, and sympathy flashed through his eyes.
“Risa…”
“Sorry I’ve been off the grid for a few days. I had some technical difficulties.”
A woman in full MDF armor walked out of the crowd, turned her featureless red facemask in Risa’s direction for a moment, and approached the counter. Her helmet emitted a hiss as the front half swung forward enough to remove. Aurelia had her hair clipped up, and appeared sweaty and uncomfortable. She tucked the helmet under her left arm while talking to Jimmy.
“Technical…” Garrison put a hand to his forehead for a few seconds. “Dammit, Risa, we all thought you’d bagged it in Arden. Osebi went out there determined to find your body.”
“Sorry. I should’ve checked in, but I haven’t been in a good place. Pavo…” The corners of her eyes burned. She couldn’t bring herself to even think the word ‘dead’ to her implanted phone.
“Is this seat taken?” Aurelia fell into the facing bench seat before getting an answer. “You look like you’ve had a rough night.”
“We heard about Pavo,” said Garrison. He leaned to his side and grunted.
Kree stuck her head into the comm panel from the bottom, seated in Garrison’s lap. “Risa! You’re not dead!” The girl burst into tears, but kept smiling. “I tol’ you!” She turned to Garrison, thrusting a tiny finger into the screen. “She’s too good! No one can beat her.”
“Hey, you okay?” asked Aurelia. She eyed the trail of wet creeping down Risa’s cheek, and offered a napkin. “I want to get these bastards as much as you do.”
“I still don’t believe it.” Risa stared into her coffee, and continued speaking in her head. “Hey kiddo. I’ll be back soon.”
“Refill?” asked the waiter, gesturing at Risa’s cup. He set a forearm-sized burrito in front of Aurelia.
Risa slid the cup over. “Yeah.”
“What are you doing now?” asked Garrison, struggling to contain a flailing child.
Aurelia gathered her breakfast in two hands; the scent of jalapeños and salsa wafted over. “I haven’t found a goddamn thing except assholes leaving binders and bras all over my desk and locker. Like I need a reminder I fucked up.”
“So what did you think?” The waiter winked at Kirsten while pouring coffee.
“I’m not an angel”―Risa forced a pleasant smile through her blackening mood―“but it was amazing.” A brief urge to take another bite made her grab her protesting belly. “Can I get a box?”
“When are you coming home?” yelled Kree.
Aurelia took a big bite of her breakfast burrito. The waiter excused himself as a pair of men in suits walked in. The taller patron rushed in and sat facing the entrance, while his associate hesitated by the other bench as if afraid to touch it.
“Very soon, kiddo. As soon as I finish up a few things,” said Risa. “No, it doesn’t involve hurting anyone.” An instantaneous thought opened a command menu along the top of her vision. The focus of her gaze darted among options, selecting a link to file storage on her NetMini. That file, the video from Pavo’s helmet, appeared to sail across the room and plunge into the word ‘Contacts’, which expanded to a scrolling list of names. She dropped it on Aurelia’s. Seconds later, a chirp emanated from the woman’s belt. “I haven’t found much either. A friend sent me that file. It… uhm…”
“Oh, shit.” Aurelia put her food down before she dropped it. “Bad news? Is that why you’re crying?”
“I’m worried about you, Risa,” said Garrison. He clamped both arms around Kree to contain her after she picked up a hand grenade from his desk. “What the hell happened out there?”
“Yeah it’s bad. He’s… uhm.” Risa twisted the coffee cup counterclockwise with a series of measured hand movements.
“No!” Aurelia screamed, pounding her fist into the table. “Someone’s going to burn for this. Every last motherfucking one of them.”
Both suits gawked at her. The hesitant one took his seat as if lowering his weight onto a sponge full of hungry viruses.
“Guess we forgot the extra jalapeños.” The waiter chuckled.
Risa blinked at the outburst of anger, though her mind-voice remained calm. “They had a backup. Some kind of missile strike hit the dome from the outside. I didn’t have a good view of much more than the guy kicking my ass as everything collapsed on top of us.” She reached across the table and clasped Aurelia’s shaking hand. “I’m going to find them, and when I do, they won’t know what hit them.”
Aurelia lifted her NetMini from her belt. “No. They have to know why.”
“Plug in, please.” Risa glanced to the side. “I don’t want to see or hear it again.”
Garrison’s face lost most of its color. “You had contact with them? Were you identified? Goddammit, Risa. If they’d have gotten a hold of you, who knows what kind of story they’d have made up.”
“Okay.” Aurelia took a small wire from her belt and connected the palmtop device to an M3 port on the back of her neck.
“It’s okay. The operator is dead.” Raziel killed him. She narrowed her eyes, targeting a blank spot on the wall so no one thought she intended the ‘drop dead’ glare for them. Angel or not, she loathed having to be ‘saved.’ “I shouldn’t go into detail on an insecure comm.”
A strangled growl came from Aurelia. Though her eyes focused on images fed to her brain on a wire, her expression fell halfway between wanting to sob and scream in rage. Kree’s face grew as the child leaned close to the terminal. The video feed froze for a half-second as Risa captured a still image of the child and sent it to Aurelia’s ‘mini.
“Are you coming home yet?” Kree tilted her head to the right and widened her eyes.
“I won’t be long.”
Aurelia unplugged the wire and fired a scowl into the rear corridor, startling a heavyset man on his way out of the bathroom. “Something doesn’t seem right about this. Pavo’s running down the middle of the street like a dumb teenager in a horror vid. He makes no attempt to duck for cover or force a hand-to-hand fight.”
The waiter stopped by to drop off a take-out box. He smiled at Aurelia. “Anything else, Officer?”
“No thanks,” said Aurelia. She finished off her food in four savage bites, as if blaming it for what happened to Pavo.
“Raziel said he’s gone somewhere he can’t see.” Risa’s throat tightened. “Can angels see into Hell?”
“Uhh…” Aurelia’s glare softened. “I have no idea. You believe in that stuff? Religion died out centuries ago. Most people say it was all a dog and pony show to control people, and now they don’t need it. The government doesn’t bother with subtle anymore.”
Risa picked at the edge of her plate, and decided to busy herself loading the 1/3 Bacon-mageddon sandwich into the box. To the outside world, she seemed to be lost in a despondent stare. “I gotta go. I’ll be back at the safehouse in an hour or four.”
Garrison’s head shake morphed into a nod. “Alright, but I hope you have one hell of a story for us. Maris is losing his mind.”
“You know what I think of him.” Risa flicked a few stray bits of meat into the box and closed it, before lifting her gaze to Aurelia. “I don’t see how it could be fake. That video wasn’t planted. A deck jockey I know got it for me. Said it was under some high security, government grade. I appreciate your hope, but if someone was going to fake it, they wouldn’t bury the file that deep.”
“Who’s this kid?” Aurelia’s olive cheeks darkened. “She’s adorable.”
“Her name is Kree. I found her homeless and wandering. I think someone killed her mother, probably right in front of her. Can you check the system to see if she’s got any family left?” Risa tapped her fingers on the cheap plastic table. “I’m in a killing mood lately, so if you find out who did it, I’ll deal with them too.”
“It doesn’t matter what you think of him,” said Garrison. “Maris is the leader of the Front. You don’t have to like him, but you should respect him. You may not believe me, but he was actually worried about you.”
“I bet he was horrified at the thought of losing his secret weapon.” Risa grumbled.
“What?” asked Aurelia.
“Maybe, maybe not.” Garrison moved Kree to the side and set her on her feet. “Either way, you should check in as soon as possible.”
A gleeful cry of “Speeeeware!” came over the vid call, and faded into the distance amid the squeaking of small boots.
“What secret weapon?” Aurelia frowned. “You’re on a call, aren’t you?”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry.” Risa held up a hand while thinking to Garrison. “Okay, okay… I’ll be there soon. Let me go.”
“Keep yourself safe.” He stared at her for a long few seconds, as if he couldn’t bring himself to end the call.
Why is he looking at me like that? The weight of guilt made the contents of her stomach more painful. “I’m sorry for not calling you sooner. I’ll be okay.”
He exhaled, nodded once, and reached off screen to end the connection.
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Daughter of Mars #76 | A Plea in Darkness part 2Daughter of Mars #75 | (A Plea In Darkness part 1)Daughter of Mars #74 (Blind Wish part 4)
February 27, 2015
Webcast | ReadOn Live
Tomorrow (Saturday 2/28/15) at 4pm EST, I will be on the ReadOn webcast answering questions about Division Zero: Lex De Mortuis (and probably part one as well). I’m a little fuzzy on the particulars of the giveaway – but I know there is some manner of giveaway for paperbacks involved.)
Hope to see you [and your questions] there 
WATCH THE SHOW: https://plus.google.com/events/c31oa47a0sdor0th1g45udjcqm4
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February 25, 2015
Daughter of Mars #76 | A Plea in Darkness part 2
Before Risa could shove the grate open, one of the gang members offered each boy a skewer. She drew a breath in surprise. The sight of a gang known for violence showing kindness mesmerized her.
“I want you to watch over Kree.” Risa reached up and slid her fingers through the slats, letting her arm hang. “Don’t let them turn her into whatever it is I am.”
What you are is nothing to regret. Raziel’s voice existed as a whisper in the back of her mind, devoid of its usual paralytic charge. You grow weary of the conflict. If not Risa Black, then who?
“That’s not fair.” Her grip on the slat tightened until she expected to see blood. “You can’t have her in my place.”
You misunderstand me. The child is too young. The cause demands action now, not in ten or twelve years. Someone must bear the burden.
Images of the last moments of Pavo’s life replayed in her memory. “Okay. You win. Keep her safe and happy. I’ll do whatever the Front needs… as long as it doesn’t kill civilians.”
Keeping the child safe perhaps I can influence. You are better suited to keeping her happy.
“Me?” Risa wiped a tear as she scoffed. “She’s already lost one mother, and I flirt with death every day. I couldn’t do that to her again. Kree deserves better than me.”
Assisted pneumatic struts hissed as Risa shoved the grate away and up. Her sudden motion startled the SecSpiders, who reached for pistols and submachine guns. The boys kept eating, though their eyes locked on her as she emerged. Risa stood, closed the vent cover, and faced them. Opportunism and lust in their expressions melted to the sort of face she’d have expected from a rat staring at a tiger.
“Make a wrong turn, tí-zhèn?” The man behind the grill let his hand slip away from the pistol at the front of his belt. Yellow irises glowed stark in contrast to his dark brown skin. “Y’aint here for us. Your kind of badness be too much cred for the likes of ‘dis ‘ere.”
“No,” said Risa, walking away.
A different man whistled after her. “Oh, what I wanna do to that ass.”
Risa stopped, leaving her back to them. “Come get it.”
Eyes closed, she relied on her Wraith implant. Six figures drawn in wisps of grey appeared. When did seeing in 360 degrees stop feeling strange? One figure got up and took three steps towards her before hesitating and twisting back.
“Hey, you fuckers just gonna sit there?”
The Spiders aren’t known for preying on women; guess every group has a winner.
“Yep,” said the grill man. “Code don’t abide nothin’ bout stoppin’ suicide.”
The two other figures fidgeted, but made no move to stand.
“Feh,” said the ganger, returning to his seat. “Thought she was offerin’.”
Grill man laughed. “Yeah, to kill you.”
She stood motionless for ten seconds. When none made a move to get up, she walked through a once-wide passage, narrowed with stacked trash containers and loose debris. The din of a crowd grew in volume as she neared the end. Bits and pieces of conversation reflected off the walls from people going about their daily drudgery. The aroma of the Spiders’ street meat had scratched at her hunger, letting it peek out from under the weight of her grief.
A spark leapt a synapse in her brain, raced along a neuron to a point where a nanometer wide platinum thread touched it. At the left corner of her vision, a virtual holo panel unfurled like a scroll with a pattern of thin blue lines against a transparent cyan background. The word ‘calling’ flashed and danced in the middle.
Risa wandered among the crowd, paying them as little mind as they did her. Six steps later, Aurelia Imari’s face appeared in the rectangular frame.
“Risa? Where the hell have you been?” The woman leaned forward, sighing. “For shit’s sake, I thought the bastards got you too.”
“I had some hardware problems.” Risa trudged with a sullen, downcast stare and a blank expression. If she had been wearing anything with pockets, she’d have stuffed her hands in them. “Have you found anything?”
“Can’t talk here, but not much.” Aurelia glanced to the side. “That’s odd. I’m not getting a trace on your location.”
At least I know that works. “New NIU, maybe it’s still upgrading its firmware.” She caught a whiff of bacon on the wind and altered course in that direction. After stopping short to avoid a collision with a large man in a suit, she ducked into a dingy little eatery that appeared to have more grease on the walls than in the food. Another panel opened with the Elysium City navigation app. “I’m on Tier 2, Sector 34 commerce square.”
“Alright, I’ll meet you there.”
Risa slid into the last booth, with her back against the wall. A thin open walkway separated the row of tables from a display case full of various vat-grown lunch meats, and led to a pair of bathrooms in the back. Her vision zoomed in on the shirts of one of the men behind the counter, centering on the logo.
“Apparently, I’m in some shithole named ‘Bob’s’. Judging from the war going on in the men’s room, maybe I shouldn’t eat here.” Sometimes enhanced hearing is a curse.
Aurelia laughed. “The place looks like hell, but the food’s good. A lot of MDF officers swear by it. I’ll be there in a few.”
“Hey,” said a man in his early twenties, in a Bob’s apron. “What’ll you have?”
Aurelia’s virtual image faded as she disconnected the call. Risa looked past the waiter, above the counter where five holographic displays cycled through different offerings. She pointed at something resembling an omelet on a bun. “What’s that?”
“Bacon-mageddon. Eggs, quarter pound of bacon, plus whatever else you want on it.” He smiled. “One of our favorites.”
“Ugh… Omni-bacon smells so good but it congeals too fast.”
He gasped, and placed one hand flat on his chest. “Madame, how could you imply we serve such an atrocity? I assure you, our bacon is real.”
She raised an eyebrow. “This place has vat bacon?”
“We do.” He dropped the false snobbery, and gestured at the oldest man behind the counter, who appeared to be fifty-ish. “Jimmy says ‘the fancier a place looks, the less they spend on the quality of their food.’”
Risa took a moment to look at her surroundings; striated maroon-brown grease on the metal wall, scratched and dented furniture, and a ceiling full of exposed LED bulbs. “If that’s true, the food here ought to be worthy of angels.”
The man bowed. “Then you’ll have to tell me what you think.”
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February 19, 2015
Daughter of Mars #75 | (A Plea In Darkness part 1)
Consciousness invaded the abyss of Risa’s dreamless sleep. She curled on her side, half buried in a mass of trash sucked up into the ventilation system over many decades. The plastic box she used for a pillow had likely been in the duct longer than she’d been alive. Her eyelids peeled apart, breaking the perfect dark with swaths of violet reflection on the dull plastisteel walls. Risa didn’t bother with night vision; fourteen stories below the surface of Mars, there wasn’t anything she wanted to see.
Boop. A soft tone pulsed from the NetMini on her belt, alerting her to unanswered messages.
What am I doing? She sighed, still not bothering to move. Hiding in the vents again like a kid.
Boop.
“Persistent thing.” Trash crinkled and compressed as she pushed herself up to sit. A crinkled plastic cup bounced off her shoulder and landed in her lap. “I wonder what Garrison wants me to blow up this time.”
A quick mental urge triggered a wireless connection between her headware and NetMini. Aqua letters appeared in a holo-panel dimmed to compensate for the lack of ambient light, indicating eleven messages from Tamashī, two from Aurelia, and one from Garrison. Her stomach protested its current empty state with a snarl. She leaned forward and crossed her arms over her knees, forehead to forearms.
“Wow. Three whole people wondering where I went.”
She reached out and poked the air where Tamashī’s name appeared to be. All eleven messages were variations of “Plz call me”, with ‘me’ growing by several ‘e’s per each successive email. Maybe she can help.
An attempt to send a short “okay” failed with a ‘no signal’ error.
“So that’s how I managed to sleep.”
Aurelia’s first Vidmail appeared to come from inside an MDF facility, judging from the crimson-clad figures moving around behind her. Probably her desk. The woman looked exhausted, and a thick layer of dust coated her armored shoulders. Aurelia closed her eyes to let out a long sigh before leaning close to the camera.
“No leads yet. Whoever we’re looking for knows how to cover their tracks. How’d it go with the big S?” Aurelia glanced to her side. “Damn, gotta go. Stupid psych eval. There ain’t enough coffee on Mars.”
Aurelia’s second contact took the form of a text-only message: “No contact too long. Worried. Are you okay?”
She skipped Garrison’s message, dispelling the virtual holo-panel with an arm wave. The ‘screen’ shattered into ‘glass’ fragments, reminding her she had not yet set up interface preferences for her new NIU. Feeling a mixture of foolish and hungry, she crawled free of the gathered junk. Her Wraith implant rendered the walls of the junction chamber in the ducts as planes of grey whenever she moved. All three passages out rested near the roof, five feet off the floor. Risa pulled herself up into the one she’d entered from, identifiable by the open grating.
As a child, she had never gone much deeper than Tier 6, being afraid of stories of mutants, monsters, and homicidal robots lurking in the dark. Now, the deep tunnels offered a place where she could effectively vanish from the world. Nine hours ago, she had ducked into the first open chamber she could find, barely conscious. Risa climbed up through the nearest vertical connector, which spanned five stories and emerged from a floor grating in an inter-sector air handler as large as a standard apartment dwelling. Within the two-story structure, a henge of six fifteen-foot fans drew air from a cavernous opening in the ceiling and forced it down the various offshoots around the walls. Unending wind whipped her hair about; the swirling vortex made any effort to contain it futile.
For a moment, she stared straight up through the blur of fan blades. Disabling the roof fan long enough to climb through was possible, but she couldn’t climb the inner wall of a hollow pyramid without climbing gear, not to mention the shaft beyond it was too wide to brace her body against the sides. She backtracked along the maintenance catwalk, followed a set of metal grating stairs to the second floor, and hit the emergency stop on a five-foot air mover at the head end of a northerly tunnel. When the blades scraped to a halt, she ducked through and walked. Seconds later, the fan started up, creating a gale strong enough to force her up to a trot. She jogged to the end of the shaft, fifty meters later, and jumped down three feet into another junction chamber.
When she crouched at the opening of a smaller branch-off, her growling stomach echoed through the duct. The noise seemed to startle a metal spider-bot the size of a housecat, distracting it from its tireless search for vermin. It swiveled to face her, raising its front four legs, which sprouted small retractable blades. Once it determined her human, it went back to its task. Risa chuckled under her breath, remembering the scream she let off the first time she’d seen one of those.
“I gotta get out of these shafts. I’m done hiding.”
It is good to hear you say that.
The voice of Raziel shocked through her nerves with a charge that left her paralyzed and unable to scream. Four seconds after he spoke, she collapsed on her chest in the pose of a murder victim.
“R-Raziel,” she wheezed.
Forgive my long silence. I have not forgotten you.
Tears welled up at the corners of her eyes. “I thought you were angry at me for failing.” She struggled to pull herself upright, but her muscles refused to move. “Ngh; what’s wrong with me?”
You did not fail. You saved many lives in Arden.
She moaned through clenched teeth, drawing her knees to her chest and curling into a ball. “Pavo… Is it true?”
I am sorry, Risa. He has been taken to a place I cannot see.
“No…” How could an angel not be able to―Hell… that’s not fair! All fight left her body; she sobbed. “It’s not right.” Hollowness spread through her gut, consuming her.
Do not let sorrow take root in your heart.
“It’s not sorrow.” Risa grunted and pushed herself up onto all fours, and crawled into the duct. “They all think I’m a tí-zhèn, an assassin. I’m going to prove them right.”
The people of Mars need you.
She shuddered under the weight of his voice, and collapsed flat with a resounding boom that repeated into the distance. Despite the burning in her arms, she kept dragging herself forward. “They n-needed Pavo too.” She grunted. “Did you hear them in Concourse 3? Not one of them cares. They think the UCF protects them from us. They think we’re trying to hurt them.”
The pig adores the farmer until it becomes a ham.
“I don’t have any idea what that means.” She forced herself back up to a crawl. “Why should I care what happens to these people? When I was with him was the only time in my life I’ve ever felt happy. Someone took it away from me. If I was nobody I’d―”
Have watched it happen and been helpless to stop it. What happened to Pavo was not about you, Risa. He was with the Pueri Verum Martis before you knew he existed.
“Maybe whoever attacked him wouldn’t have found him if…” She stopped; her breathless gasps for air echoed in the tight confines.
It is not your fault.
“If you didn’t send―”
Then everyone in Arden would be dead now. Do you believe Pavo would think his life worth a hundred?
She cried, lowering her forehead to the cold metal as she wailed. “It is to me.”
Raziel waited until her grief fell silent. I know you don’t mean that.
“Why didn’t you warn us?” She sniffled, wiped her face, and moved into the bottom of another vertical shaft.
I do not foresee all things. The architect of that plan acted on a whim, without preparation.
“So I’m supposed to go on like he never existed? Like everything’s fine?”
It is your destiny.
“My destiny?” After two stories, she hauled her body over the edge of a square hole, and slid into a horizontal passage. “Right now, my destiny is to find everyone responsible for what happened to Pavo.”
You’re not a killer, Risa.
She took a few breaths, resting from her climb. “I’m not? Tell that to the people in the nano-weapons lab.” Pavo went to Hell for it. I guess we’ll be together someday. “Before you say ‘they were going to kill thousands’, maybe it’s still wrong to kill them first.”
The most direct way to prevent a threat is to remove it. Destroying the facility was critical.
“I don’t understand anymore. None of this makes sense.” We’re damning ourselves for people who couldn’t care less. “I don’t know why you chose me or why things happened the way they did. When this is over, when the people responsible―”
The people need you.
“The people need a lot of things. I’m not the only tí-zhèn on the planet.” Risa cringed inside, debating the wisdom of hurling sarcasm at an angel.
Kree needs you.
Risa halted at another ladder that would take her to a street-level intake on Tier 2. Air laced with the flavor of metal and the scent of street food awoke the monster in her belly. Guilt at the expression on Kree’s face when she had begged her not to go to Arden put it back to sleep.
“Raziel?”
I am here.
“I’ve done everything you’ve ever asked of me for almost five years.”
That is true.
“I haven’t asked you for much in return.”
Almost nothing, except to free those women.
She crept to the end of the shaft, crouching behind the grate and peering through the slats at a secluded courtyard beyond. Four street punks wearing the neon green logo of the SecSpiders lounged around on old plastisteel shipping crates as big as caskets. One tended pale slabs of meat sizzling upon a rebuilt e-grill. A long, shallow box lay on the ground at his feet, filled with clear plastic film. Judging by the “Ernesto’s” logo on the side, the gangers had scored an entire plank of vat-grown chicken. Risa wasn’t sure what a chicken looked like, but she doubted they were big enough to carve off a five-foot long slab. The idea of a tank of green slime filled with hundreds of rectangular ingots of meat struck her as neither appetizing nor off-putting.
Whispering in the dark drew her gaze to the far side of the courtyard. A tiny grating opened, allowing pair of preteen boys in tattered clothes to creep out of the shadows, drawn by the scent of food. Her breath stalled in her throat as the children approached the notoriously violent gang. She knew full well how such a fragrance could overpower fear. A lifetime ago, she had been the rat crawling from the tunnel.
The boys approached slow and wide-eyed, young enough to hope their odds at begging outweighed their chances at escaping alive with thievery.
“Would ya lookit that then,” said the man cooking. “What’cha fink we should do?”
“Sorry.” The boy on the left stopped; the hope in his eyes gave way to fear.
The SecSpiders laughed.
Related posts:
Daughter of Mars #69 (Sanctuary part 1)Daughter of Mars #74 (Blind Wish part 4)Daughter of Mars #73 (Blind Wish part 3)
February 15, 2015
Cover Reveal | Thrall
Here’s the cover to Division Zero: Thrall, part three, due out March 31.
Kirsten continues her battle with creatures from the Abyss, complicated by a series of seemingly unrelated murders soon before prominent figures act out of character, making decisions which imperil the security of West City. Worried some trace of Charazu – or the person who summoned it – lingers, she can’t shake the feeling the murders are connected. Her friendship with the priest Carlos Villera grows, as does her devotion to Evan. When the boy takes a dislike to the first man not to run away from her, Kirsten may be forced to give up what she’s wanted for so long.
If you’ve read Division Zero 1, but haven’t read Lex De Mortuis yet – it’s available HERE.
If you haven’t read Division Zero 1 yet, and are willing to leave a review, I’m currently accepting requests for free e-copies in exchange for reviews.
Related posts:
Division Zero Cover RevealCover Reveal | Virtual ImmortalityCover Reveal | James Wymore
