Matthew S. Cox's Blog, page 24

Divergent Fate #54

Two violet dots floated in a void of black glass upon the door of a food reassembler. A five by seven inch holo-panel hovered to the right of the boxy machine, presenting the same list of generic “universally appealing” choices some suit in an office somewhere on Earth approved. Nothing too spicy or too bland, nothing whatsoever that could run the risk of offending or injuring anyone. Risa had stared at the same list since she was a little girl. She felt, with a reasonable degree of certainty, this machine was older than her by at least four years.

One option offered a chance at excitement; flickering blue letters at the bottom of the menu overlapped the border on the screen with the phrase: “I feel lucky.” Someone hacked the control module years ago, supposedly adding a secret list of random ‘things with flavor.’ A lump squeezed Risa’s throat as she recalled how Genevieve tried it once, about six years ago. It wasn’t so much the scream that echoed through the entire facility that got to her, as it was remembering her friend’s death seven months after “the vindaloo incident.”

Everyone teased the ever-tired redhead of having awful luck, an attribute perhaps proven by the disastrous result of choosing an option claiming to feel lucky. The bomb she had tried to plant had gone off the instant she’d hit the button to start the countdown.

The menu items faded to a blur of indistinct pixels. At least she didn’t feel anything.

A few people made tentative passes through the area behind her, no doubt hovering to see if the ‘sem was open. Two guys in the bunks arranged around the wall of the alcove hadn’t moved a muscle since she’d walked in. She hadn’t realized how loud she’d yelled at Garrison. Her walk from his office to one of the residence cubbies caused total silence in the Martian Liberation Front safehouse. Not one person over the age of fourteen made eye contact with her. Granted, none of the usual whispering happened either.

Fear and guilt look the same sometimes.

A faint reflection in the glass dwarfed hers as a man edged up behind her.

“No matter ‘ow long you stare at it, it will not have sushi,” said a deep voice.

“I know.” She flung her hand into the intangible holo-panel, not concerned whatsoever with the selection. “Sorry, Osebi.”

“Is it something of which you wish to speak?”

Risa shifted her weight onto one leg as the machine lit up inside and whirred. Tiny metal feelers flailed like the legs of a hand-sized spider, weaving and painting molecules of OmniSoy into food. She glanced at the well-muscled eye-level chest to her left before reaching out and placing one finger through a small hole on the front of his sleeveless tan vest.

“New one?”

Osebi swiped a blue bandanna from his bald head and wadded it into his pocket. “Dat came two weeks ago. Just a flesh wound.” He lowered his voice. “Tis not ae bad ting what ta have people fearin’ ya. If it be the right people.”

“That’s the problem.” A ding drew her attention to the ‘sem, long enough to remove what appeared to be a slab of grilled chicken on a roll, covered in yellow-orange slime with a smell somewhere between cheese and foot. “Genevieve.”

Osebi’s left hand engulfed her shoulder. “We play with matches, it is inevitable we will burn ourselves. She was very skilled. She could not have known the timer was shorted.”

Risa stared at the floor.

He patted her twice and reached to the ‘sem. “You have advantages Genevieve did not. She did take the occasional shortcut or two. You are methodical.”

She nibbled on the sandwich. “It’s not fair the good people always die.”

“Why not ask your angel to bring her a message.” Osebi’s teeth formed a crescent of ivory, stark white against his face.

“You don’t believe he’s real. You wouldn’t be grinning like that.”

Osebi tapped a finger on his lower lip, cocking his head to the side for a moment. “Who is to say? You are still alive after many risky things. Perhaps we doubt what we do not understand.”

“Short straw?”

He pulled a cheeseburger out of the machine. “Come again?”

“They put you up to apologizing, didn’t they?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” He walked backwards three paces and fell into a chair by the small table. “They asked me nothing. I am just a man who is hungry.”

A halfhearted smile, as ephemeral as what passed for happiness in her life, came and went. Osebi took half the burger in his next bite. Risa wandered away from the residence cubby, across the command room, and into a rear hall. One of the perks of being a field operative handling infiltration and demolition work was a room on “death row.” The name was a running joke of madmen laughing in the face of oblivion, a fleeting effort to preserve a shred of sanity.

Children’s laughter mixed with the sounds of mock warfare and battles with monsters echoed from the corner at the far end, five doors away from Risa’s bunk room. It had been hers for a little over five years, not that she used it much. Even when she was small, and had a bed in Garrison’s office, she could only truly sleep in a vent shaft a quarter-mile down. It seemed foolish to lower one’s guard in a place the military wanted to destroy. She stepped over hoses as thick as her arm, strewn about the floor for months in preparation to be mounted in the ceiling. A hip thrust to the control panel opened her door, and she sat on the edge of a battered Comforgel bed. The plate, and the half-eaten chicken experiment sat on her lap.

The room looked unoccupied, save for one doll perched on the basic steel writing desk in front of her. What few clothes she owned aside from her armored suit formed a haphazard pile under the desk. She hadn’t yet been able to organize them into the wardrobe cabinet. That would feel too much like having a real home. It would feel too normal, and remind her of what happened to her life.

She glanced down at her food; already, the surface of the “roll” showed signs of degeneration. Spots with a shiny quality appeared here and there; she hallucinated that she could see them growing. Another five minutes and it would melt back into tasteless, beige OmniSoy. Risa ate in defiance of her mood, unconcerned with seeming the savage and devouring it in three huge bites. The echoes of the kids got her to her feet and out the door, where she leaned against the wall watching them.

Four of the boys from the mine shaft hid behind makeshift barricades of footlockers and small shelves, aiming tools and bits of pipe as though they were rifles. Kree crept on all fours up to a wheeled cart full of mechanical parts and wires, holding a brown ration packet wrapped with red wires.

“Speeware!” the little girl shouted.

Kree jumped out of her hiding place, running at the four boys. Good sports they were, all of them moved as if in slow motion and fell down as she made clawing gestures at them. The six-year-old “mini Risa” did a spot on impression of her idol’s “don’t mess with me” walk over to another shelf. She set the ration pack on it and made beeping noises as she poked it with one finger.

Risa covered her mouth with a hand, feeling warmth gather in the corners of her eyes. When first the kids had seen her, she’d planted a bomb that was seconds away from killing them. Now it was a game to them. Kree pivoted on one foot, making an overacted show of “running fast” as she darted down the hall. While the girl made bomb noises from a safe distance, the boys sat up.

“This is boring,” said one.

“Aww c’mon, she’s little,” whispered the oldest, about thirteen.

“Brett, Speedware’s cheating,” whined a scrawny Marsborn boy of ten.

“It is,” said Risa, stepping away from the wall.

All four of them screamed. Their startlement morphed to embarrassed anger as giggles echoed down the hallway.

“You didn’t see her either, Kree,” said the youngest.

“Wait, you said it is cheating?” asked one of the ten year olds.

“Yes, Sam.” She walked up to them. “If you were playing a game where losing meant you died, wouldn’t you do everything possible not to lose?”

Sam studied his mismatched boots. The smallest of the boys, a year or so older than Kree, picked his nose and made a face at her.

“Something wrong, Kyle?”

He opened his mouth, shifted his expression from confused to angry and back to confused, and closed it again.

Kree scrambled over.

“It’s a bad game if you die,” said Kyle.

“Well then.” Risa patted him on the head. “I guess I should be happy it’s not a game.” She shot a wistful look at Kree. “I don’t want you to think I have fun when I have to hurt people. That’s not what this is about.”

The boys looked downcast, as if scolded.

“It hurts too. It’s not all fun.” Risa traced a finger down her arm. “The wires get hot. They’re inside me, so I can’t stop touching them, even if they’re burning me.”

All five kids shivered.

“But, you don’t cry,” said Kree.

Risa laughed. “I guess I just got used to it. It was nice of you to let her ‘speedware’ work, but you were moving a bit too fast.”

“Too fast?” Brett blinked. “We were hardly moving.”

“Show us!” yelled Kyle.

“I…” She shot a pained glance at the control room, visible through blurry hanging plastic at the far end of the hall to the right. Straight ahead, an older section darkened the passage black about forty yards away where it turned left. Play? I don’t remember the last time… Even when I was their age, all I did was hide. “Oh, why not.”

Kree squealed and jumped up and down with delight.

“Uhm, you’re not gonna claw us for real are you,” asked Brett.

“No,” she snapped. At the fearful look they gave her, she softened. “I already came too close to hurting you all.”

Kree reached up and hugged her about the waist. “You didn’t know we were there, and you went back to stop it. We forgive you.”

The boys gave her encouraging nods and smiles.

After collecting her composure, Risa sent them back to their ‘fortifications’ and touched her fingers to a greasy machine built into on the wall before walking around the corner.

“That’s too far,” said Kyle, pointing at the cart. “Kree was there.”

Risa leaned her back to the wall, with the open corridor to her right. “I said you were too fast, didn’t I? Tell me when you’re ready, and then if you think you could’ve shot me.”

What am I doing?

Kree beamed up at her, hero-worship all but flowing out of her bulging eyes.

Risa returned the grin.

“Go,” yelled Brett.

An instantaneous mental command kicked her neuralware up to full boost, and plunged the world into slow motion. Distant voices and technical sounds from the command room dragged into something akin to the foggy soundtrack of a horror vid. She leapt around the corner and sprinted fifteen yards before brushing Kyle’s cheek with two fingertips of her left hand. Another boy on the right got two black spots on his forehead. She smudged a line over Brett’s neck and left five fingerprints on the chest of the last boy. Not one of the small faces showed any reaction to her appearance before she’d passed them.

Risa shut down the boost and crossed her arms, winking at Kree who stood with her jaw hanging open where Risa had been less than two seconds earlier. Surely, to the little girl’s point of view, she had turned into a black smear. All four boys reacted to being touched simultaneously.

“I’d ask if you think you hit me, but I didn’t see any of you try to make gun sounds.”

They jumped, and whirled around; after a few seconds, they laughed at the smudges on each other.

Kyle made a sad face. “Did that hurt?”

“Not really.” She winked. “I didn’t leave it on that long.”

“I don’t wanna play ‘speeware’ with her anymore,” said one of the middle boys, pointing at Kree. “It’s not a game if she always wins.”

“You’d have more fun playing tunnel spiders,” said Risa.

The boys, inspired by the suggestion, ran off toward the darkened part of the hall. Kree remained, staring up at her. After a moment, the awe and innocence in her dark blue eyes turned to desire.

“I wanna be like you when I get big. I want claws and speeware and fireflies for eyes too!”

Risa’s lip quivered. She dropped to one knee and pulled the girl into a hug.

“No, Kree. No, you don’t.”

Book Signing | Sep 20 2014

Please join me at the Barnes and Noble of Holmdel NJ on Saturday, September 20th during a local authors event. I will be on site signing books from around 4pm-6pm EST.

The Commons at Holmdel

2134 State Highway 35

Holmdel, NJ 07733

732-275-0620

Lex De Mortuis Release Event

Wow, that was a fast six months. The release of Division Zero: Lex De Mortuis (Book 2) is coming up in just 4 days. To celebrate, we are doing an online release party via Facebook event. We will have several games and contests for prizes including:

Two signed paperback copies of the Division Zero book 1.

Two signed paperback copies of Division Zero: Lex De Mortuis.

Four ebooks (winner’s choice among: Division Zero 1, Virtual Immortality, or Caller 107)

Four items made by Rhonda from Justplummy Swagit.

Please join us online on September 9th at 8:00 PM EST.

Click here to go to the event on Facebook.

Divergent Fate #53

(Start from the beginning)

Garrison’s words hung in the air, a ponderous weight upon her shoulders threatening to crush her to the ground. Risa stared, her jaw lax. Years of wary glances and whispered comments flashed through her mind. Most, if not all, of the Martian Liberation Front thought her Cat-6 for ‘talking to angels.’ They called her crazy, said she heard voices, was delusional. Now, the closest thing she had to a father confessed to believing in him.

“You knew?”

He took a step back, a posture not quite sitting on the edge of his desk. “I found out too late to do anything. Everett was already on scene by the time word got to me, but the PVM had it handled… their feelers run deep.”

“No, I mean―” she covered her face in both hands.

“Why do you think we stay deep in UCF territory?” He kept his gaze on the desk to his right while fidgeting with small bits of junk behind him. “We have enough influence in the system here. Even if you were to be captured, the odds of you being… hurt are slim.”

A rush of warmth flooded her cheeks. “That’s not what I mean. You knew I wasn’t nuts.”

“I never thought you were nuts.”

“No, but everyone else in this place does,” she yelled. After a pause to collect herself, she whispered. “Raziel made contact with you.” She glanced around for a place to sit, sensing the strength leave her legs.

“Of all the things”―he moved away from the desk and put an arm around her―“you’ve been through, a couple of people thinking you’re strange seems petty.”

“Petty?” She squirmed away from him. “You think it’s petty to have everyone you work and live with think you’re crazy? You think it’s petty to have people hide behind doors or run away from me all the time? Half the safe house thinks I could snap and kill them at any second. You think it’s petty they all think I’m an assassin who has no heart, or that they whisper behind my back?” She raked both hands through her hair. “You should’ve seen the way they all looked at me when I walked in.”

He let his arm drop. “Risa…”

“It’s part of the plan, isn’t it?” She squinted, anger the victor over sorrow. “Make me feel isolated from everyone but you. You needed to keep me hating the government, only trusting the Front. That’s why you never told me you knew about my father.”

Garrison pinched the bridge of his nose, the other arm across his chest, clutching his elbow. “No. You were a scared child. I didn’t want to cause any more damage. I thought it kinder to leave your memories of him positive. It’s not like you were destined to fight for the Front. I felt bad for you, the way you feel for those kids from the mineshaft. All I wanted to do was take you in, give you a safe home.”

“You wanted me angry.” Risa pointed at him, shouting. “You wanted me ready to kill anyone in a military uniform without hesitation. You groomed me into the monster I’ve become. Now you tell me you believe Raziel is real?”

Garrison winced as if slapped. “You’re not a monster.”

She whirled, putting her back to him and staring at her legs. “I’ve got wires all over my body; more silicon in my head than in my NetMini… What’s it been, twenty-six bombs? I’ve killed dozens of people I never laid eyes on. How is that not a m―”

He moved up behind, grasping her arms. “You are not a monster.”

“You made me―”

“Stop,” he yelled. “Risa, just stop it. I’m sorry.”

A feeble attempt to wriggle away caused his grip to tighten. “Let go.”

Garrison held on. “For everything. I didn’t mean for things to turn out like they did. I offered you a home, but you kept running off into the vents, afraid of open places and all the people here.”

She squirmed. Idiot. He knows what I could do to him if I wanted to.

“You always came back. Maybe I shouldn’t have let you run off; maybe if you weren’t so comfortable in the dark, Maris wouldn’t have suggested the augments.”

He knows, but―she stopped struggling―he knows I couldn’t.

Risa let head sag to the left, staring down at the battered slats over the duct she had so often crawled through. The fire couldn’t follow her into the vents. “You could’ve told him no.”

“You were nineteen then, or thereabouts.” He loosened his hold on her arms and pulled her around to face him. “I couldn’t answer for you. Only you could’ve made that decision.”

Her lip quivered. She swallowed her emotion, becoming the cold specter everyone thought her to be. “I thought I owed my life to you. How could I say no? I thought they blinded me when they took my eyes, but I think I was blind well before that. Even if these metal things in my head can do things living eyes can’t, they feel…” She lifted her head, meeting his gaze. “What was so special about me?”

“You’re my daughter.” Garrison squeezed her hands. “The last thing I wanted was for you to go off into harm’s way.”

“What are you holding back?” Emotion crept into her voice. “Am I really? Are you sure I’m not just a weapon?”

“Risa…” His face went red with rage; for an instant, she expected him to slap her, but he slouched. “Maris leaned on you because of a mysterious financier. Someone, we still don’t know his real identity, offered to send us enough credits to cover the augmentation as well as a healthy bit more, if…”

She blinked. “If? If what?”

Redness returned to his cheeks. He looked to the wall. “I just sat there and let Maris shit all over your life.”

“If it was me?” Risa covered her mouth with one hand. “Some deck jockey wanted me to be the one? Why? There’s hundreds of tí-zhèn out there already. Did they really need to find some other desperate bitch to wire up?”

“I wish I could answer that.” He brushed a few strands of hair away from her cheek. “Even six years ago, the Front didn’t have the financial strength it does now. We couldn’t have hired a tí-zhèn, nor would the brass have trusted a mercenary. Maris worked himself up over the offer to the point of believing if you refused, the revolution would have been doomed.”

“I thought I was helping the citizens.” She looked down. “I thought I was fighting to avenge my father’s murder at the hands of a corrupt government.”

“You are helping the citizens, and government is corrupt. Some more than others.” His glare softened. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to do this. If it’s what you want, I’ll find a way to pay for a dunk at the med center so you can have as normal a life as you can.”

She pulled away, pacing a lopsided figure eight in the space between his desk and the door. Her boot soles squeaked with each step, the only sound encroaching on the draw of breath from outside the door. A mental impulse switched her eyes to thermal mode, outlining six child-sized handprints on the door in red-orange, plus two shapes hinting at heads pressed to the metal. She blinked, switching back to standard vision.

“There’s no real difference,” said Garrison. “The process regenerates tissue from your own DNA. New biological eyes would be no different than what you were born with. You scared the hell out of me, Risa. I’ve a lot of faith in the PVM, but there are some risks not worth taking. Say the word and I’ll do everything I can to―”

“Make me human again?” She twisted to the right, only far enough to get a blur of him in her peripheral vision. “Then who else gets stuck like this? I’m already broken.”

“You’re human, and you’re not bro―”

“I need to think.” She stomped to the door, loud enough to chase off the pack of small eavesdroppers. “I’m not even sure whatI want anymore.”

Cover Reveal | Borderlands Anthology

The release date for the Borderlands Anthology is coming up fast – Sep 11 2014. I am pleased to be able to announce the cover art for a collection of short stories I was privileged to be a part of. Each story is set in the world established in The Actuator.

Please join us on Facebook for the release party:

https://www.facebook.com/events/358737554283637/

The Borderlands Anthology contains:

Remembering Emily, by Sara Wolf

Stolen Orchid, by Matthew Cox

The Blackbird’s Tale, by Dan Willis

The Dream Journal of Oren Wesley, by Nathan Yocum

The Austenation, by Mara Valderran

Escape, by Patrick Burdine

The Ritual, by Whitney Trang

The Gatekeepers of Change, by James Pratt

The Ringer, by Craig Nybo

Anna and Lena, by Jason Purdy

Once Upon A Frozen North, by Jenny Persson

Halfway, by Jay Wilburn

The Search for Punarav, by Juhi

15 Seconds of Fame, by Jason A. Anderson

Forever Young, by Wil Stanton

Cult of the Actuation, by James Wymore

 

Divergent Fate #52

 

(Start at the beginning)

Despite General Maris insisting the nearby vent shafts be secured, the challenge of getting through all the sensors, stunners, and physical barriers offered a certain meditative calm. Like the old veteran who builds model starships inside water cooler bottles, she found it soothing. The poor sot who had to rewire the whole thing afterward seldom shared her enthusiasm. Entering the safe house via the front door felt like a bizarre breach of protocol.

Today, however, she did not wish to lose the two hours a quiet entry would cost her. Kali and Lancaster at the front gate looked at her as though she’d come back from the dead. Her approach out in the open probably set their minds racing to figure out what pissed her off. Neither spoke as she slipped through the small gap in a blast door covered in scrawled graffiti. By the time she’d made it halfway down the main entrance corridor, word had gone on ahead, bringing a standstill to the usual din. She stopped and listened for a moment, trying to eavesdrop on whatever distant murmurings leaked between the whirrs of two portable turrets panning back and forth.

Risa traced her fingers along the contour of the feed tube linking an ammunition drum to the mechanism of the tripod-mounted 13.5 mm machinegun on her left, a common civilian-legal defense turret sold to numerous corporations. Ballistic weapons were cheap, plus anyone likely to assault this place in earnest would be covered in body armor designed for energy weapons. Soldiers for both sides operating on Mars hated carrying ammunition when they had access to power.

When the muttered betting over who she was about to kill gave way to curious silence, she peeled her attention away from the robotic weapon and stormed the rest of the way down the hall, around stacks of random boxes and bundles of exposed wires hanging from the ceiling. The stink of silicon tainted the air, evidence of a short somewhere in the walls that, given the clutter, likely continued to elude the repair workers who were nowhere to be seen.

Fog wafted from the grating under foot, a leak in the atmospheric hydration system that had gone on since she was little. No one had bothered to repair it in sixteen years since moisture still got into the air, albeit not quite according to design. Risa swiped her hand through a cloud as she passed through it, remembering Osebi trying to tell her ten year old self they were ghosts.

The corridor ended at a fifteen foot wide open walkway surrounding the central chamber. She moved straight from the corridor to the edge, and leaned on the railing. Two stories down, Garrison and four lieutenants huddled around the holo-map table.

Intense light painted them blue, and shadowed their backs. A monochromatic chunk of Martian terrain, complete with an installation, rotated in slow motion between them. Red-highlighted vehicles approached from one side, precipitating an animated firefight between emplacement turrets and theoretical ground troops. Numbers hovering above the ingot of ground identified this as the fifty-fourth iteration of a combat algorithm.

Everyone else in sight, some twenty or so warm bodies, had dropped whatever they were doing to watch her. Her silent presence and hard expression pulled all attention away from the simulated battle in 1/80th scale.

Some of the kids from the mine shaft she almost bombed ran through the far side of the command area. Kree, the little girl, chased the others with her hands held out like claws. The boys, and one older girl, acted afraid of her. Their mock fight entered from the corridor leading to the garage and disappeared into the tunnel containing the dorm rooms. No one other than Risa paid them any mind.

She pushed off the railing and sauntered down the curved metal staircase, staring at Garrison the entire time. Three paces covered a stretch of exposed rock before she stepped up onto the raised plastisteel plate flooring of their operations control center. Garrison turned at the clank of her boot, giving her the same sort of expression a man might give a woman who slapped him without provocation.

“Any questions?” he asked.

“No, sir.” Came from three underlings.

Garrison swiped one arm to the side, at the corner of the holo-table and shut down the tactical map. “Based on those numbers, it should be quite doable for a little sabotage to tip things for the UCF.”

“Sir, this operation seems like we’re helping them. Aren’t they our enemy as well?”

Risa folded her arms, making it a point to keep her expression unreadable as she glanced at Lieutenant Huang. She held back the urge to roll her eyes at his rank pins. This wasn’t a military force, the Front still felt like a bunch of oversized kids playing solder with live ammo―and dead friends.

“You are correct, Huang,” said Garrison. “However, bear in mind the UCF controls the territory we live in. Also, they are more apt to yield to diplomatic pressure where the ACC never will.”

The other three, a short dark-skinned man with a huge jaw, and two Marsborn women, exchanged uneasy looks.

“My brother was―”

Garrison held his hand up and bowed his head in a somber moment of silence. “I understand the sacrifices our people make, Kwan. Nothing will diminish that. However, I imagine somewhere along the course of your training you studied the concept of fighting battles on multiple fronts… and how that usually ends?”

Lieutenant Kwan Huang put his hands on his hips and scowled at the table. Anger wafted from him, though he seemed at a loss for a logical counterargument.

“We redirect their greater strength to our own ends.” Garrison mimicked an Aikido-inspired takedown. “Before the day comes when they are our only opponent, we will have enough sympathetic minds in places of power so our revolution day will pass without bullets or bloodshed.” He gestured at the room. “Any one of us here is willing to die for liberty, but to die when there are other options is the mark of a fool or a zealot.”

“Sounds like wishful thinking to me, sir.” Huang started away, nodding, but paused long enough to salute. “A good wish at least.”

Garrison returned the gesture to the departing lieutenants and rushed to Risa. Before he could embrace her, she snapped her right hand up in a sharp salute. He stopped in place like a doll suffering total power loss.

“Mission completed, Sir.”

Shocked, Garrison turned his stare on the room around them.

People found things to do other than gawk.

He pointed east and stomped off the raised central platform. She followed him down a short corridor to his office, ducking inside when he waited by the automatic door. It hissed closed after he entered.

“For fuck’s sake, Risa, what were you thinking?” His tone was far from hostile or scolding; the worry dripping out of his voice changed some of her anger to guilt.

“I know.”

He grasped her by both shoulders for a moment, trying to look her in the eye but she kept her gaze downward. After a light shake failed to make her look up, he wrapped his arms around her.

“You scared the shit out of me.”

She left her arms lax at her sides, tolerating his squeeze. “Why did you lie to me?”

“What?” He pushed her back to make eye contact. “Look at me.”

“Who is Andriy Voronin?”

Garrison’s expression went blank. “Sounds Russian.”

A silent stare lasted twenty seconds before Risa’s somatic detection system flagged a stress response: dilating pupils and mild perspiration. He was lying―again. Her face hardened, but tears dribbled from the corners of her eyes.

He reached for her shoulder, but she leaned back.

“I’m sorry, Risa.”

“You lied. You’ve lied to me from the start. You just lied to me now.” Though she wept, her voice showed no trace of it. “If only I had the SDS when I was ten, I’d have known you were full of shit before you made me into a monster.”

“Risa…” He reached for her again, but she dodged. “You’re not a monster.”

“Am I not?” She held her arms out to the sides, claws extended. Each six-inch transparent blade tipped with a droplet of blood from where it pierced her fingertip. “Look at me. How much of this body is electronic? What kind of father talks his little girl into selling her eyes?”

Garrison backed up until he bumped into his desk. Something small and metal hit the ground with a clack. “It was never my intention to force you to do anything. You could’ve said no.”

“Oh, but I wanted to make you happy. I wanted to help the man who saved me from the shadows.” She retracted her claws, staring at the quarter-inch slits in her skin sealing as the blades sank out of sight. “When you found me, I had no possessions to my name except for my underpants. Now I’m worth millions. You saved my life… how could I have said no to the cause you’ve given yours to?”

“You want out?” He gazed at her feet. “I don’t want you to get hurt. No matter what you think of me right now, you must believe me when I say you are my daughter in all ways except DNA. I’ll lay down my life to protect you just like every other ordinary citizen if that’s what you want to be. Your eyes can be regenerated.”

Fire blew out of her sails. She slouched. “We both know Maris won’t sign off on that. That would cost two or three million… and they still wouldn’t be my eyes.” Risa kicked at the ground. “Sometimes I daydream about what my real eyes are seeing right now. I wonder who’s got them. Is it someone beautiful? Is it even a woman?” Quiet lingered for a moment. “We both know they’re not going to spend that much on me, especially not to help me retire.”

“I don’t know what to say, Mouse.”

She gulped. He hadn’t called her that since she was thirteen. She’d been tiny as a child. Living off rationed, stolen food had a habit of doing that to a person.

“When did you find out Colonel Black was a false identity?”

He stared down, flicking at his pants pocket with one thumb.

Risa’s fingers grew icy. “You knew all along…”

“We had been watching him for a while. We knew the military was going in, and they had no idea you even existed. Oberlin was supposed to have taken you before your father got home that night; made it look like a random kidnapping. He got mauled by an out-of-control auto taxi less than four hundred meters from your door. It’s a damn miracle it took the strike team as long as it did to get the door open. If their electronics tech wasn’t a moron, you’d be dead; Voronin never would’ve had time to get you into the vents.”

“I…” She gazed into space, recalling faint memories of sirens in the background of her e-school. The virtual classroom created by her senshelmet wasn’t supposed to have sirens; she knew it was in the real world, but noises like that happened all the time in that part of the city. “The MLF was monitoring him too?”

“Yeah,” Garrison muttered at the floor. “My finding you wasn’t an accident.”

Risa jumped on him, shaking him as hard as she could by two handfuls of shirt, which barely moved him. “Look at me so these things in my skull can tell me if you’re lying.”

Garrison held her wrists, caressing the backs of her hands until he looked up a few seconds later. She wanted to cringe away from the pain on his face, but didn’t. He repeated it exactly as he said before.

“I’m sorry for not trusting you, but…”

“I deserve it.” He let out a breath. “My team was assigned to watch Voronin in case the Marines jumped the gun. We had made contact with him, and he was helping us. His people didn’t know. His planted wife―sorry, your mother, didn’t know either.”

She trembled; all the glowing text dancing around his face at the end of hair-thin lines showed indicators of truthfulness.

“Some military idiot not high enough up on the food chain to make these kinds of decisions made the decision to take Voronin out. We were caught off guard when they decided to hit the apartment with you there.”

Her fists loosened, she went from throttling to clinging. “What was so important about me?”

“Only that you were an innocent who didn’t deserve what was coming.” Garrison shifted his stance and put an arm around her. “We all thought the worst had happened.”

“When the left-wing NewsNet idiots didn’t start screaming about a little girl killed in a domestic attack, I started looking for you. I’m sorry it took me so long to find you.” He smiled and patted her on the cheek. “I never expected an eight year old to be that hard to find.”

“How’d you manage it? He taught me how to survive… never to take the same route twice in a row or use the same pattern.” Risa let off a wistful chuckle. “Guess he wasn’t paranoid after all.”

“A bit of luck I suspect.” He wagged his NetMini at her. “My Navcon client would target random points in the city all on its own. When the replacement did the same thing, I decided to follow it… and there you were.”

Risa grabbed a handful of his shirt collar. “The thing says you’re full of shit again.”

Garrison chuckled. “Okay, it wasn’t luck.”

She tapped her foot.

“I guess it was an angel.” He winked.

In the alley

 

Starting to play around with GIMP. Feels awkward so far.

Divergent Fate #51

(Start from the beginning)

Creeping shadows danced upon dark metallic walls, writhing in the fluctuating colored light from the holo-bar. The sixty-inch display panel flashed and dimmed in silence, on mute for at least two hours. When Risa had arrived in the tiny hotel room four hours earlier, she had turned it on to a documentary. Some addled man with frizzy blonde hair rambling on about his “conclusive proof” humanity was not the first sentient species to set foot on Mars.

Risa lost interest less than fifteen minutes in, and wandered into the bathroom. She showered, only as an excuse to do something, though the hot water eased her still-sore feet. Ignoring the discomfort of putting it on while damp, she slipped right back into her ballistic stealth suit and curled up on the floor at the innermost corner of the room, hidden behind a four-foot tall thrumming appliance. From there, she could see neither the holo-panel nor the door―though someone kicking it down wouldn’t see her either. She cradled one of her Hotaru-6 pistols flat to her chest, as though its mere presence could protect her.

Does Everett know they were ours? Would he care? She suppressed a shiver as a droplet of cold water slid from her hair down her back. He’s a spymaster, of course he knows. Maybe it was his way of letting me go.

Whenever someone or something made noise in the hallway outside, her heart skipped a beat. The first two dozen times, she popped up like a curious meerkat, convinced it would be Pavo, and each time she settled back down jamming her emotion into a bottle. Elation became disappointment, which grew to sadness swallowed by indignant anger at feeling vulnerable. How could a girl who’d survived for months alone in the city at eight all of a sudden feel desperate to have someone to protect her?

Close call. That’s all it was. You just had your whole life pulled out from under you again. No big deal.

She stared at her hands until the stopped shaking. Fear or anger, she couldn’t tell.

Clattering migrated through the corridor outside. Risa turned her head, peering through a cluster of inch-thick cables connecting the back of the thrumming machinery to the wall. Two plastic cups and an empty, dented autoinjector had settled on them, no doubt after falling from the top. Orange and green light flickered, pushing the shadow of cables toward her in rhythmic pulses.

The person outside wasn’t Pavo; they kept going.

Risa stared at the three pieces of trash nestled in the wiring like insects in a spider’s web. It struck her as a metaphor for her life; something small and insignificant slipped out of sight and lost to the cracks. Part of her wanted to let out all the tension from her almost-arrest and sob. Alone in a dark room, behind a locked door and an atmospheric purifier unit, was about as safe as she could hope to be without crawling a mile underground in a vent shaft.

Red pulsating light flared six times. Risa smirked. Gee-ball must be playing on the holo, and someone just scored. She wrapped her arms around her legs and huddled against the air scrubber. Exhaustion dueled with anxiety, teasing her with twenty second micro-naps. In her half-awake state, scenes tormented her whenever consciousness slipped. Military Police escorted her in chains to an execution chamber at the end of a long, hospital-green hallway, tilted and twisting. Would they have given her a lethal injection or a firing squad?

A metal door, old and with a spinning wheel at its center moved to reveal blinding light.

In her dream, she thrashed against straps holding her to a table. Oversized, warped figures in smocks part way between military and medical loomed over her. Her screams grew higher in pitch as their skin reddened and horns burst through their thin, white caps. The lead ‘doctor’, approaching twelve feet tall, bent over her. His surgical mask ignited and burned off in a foul, sulphurous breath, exposing charred skull where it had covered. Eyes flared, he held one arm aloft, clutching a black autoinjector with a bright green skull and crossbones on it. She squirmed, but couldn’t get away from the injector creeping toward her chest. The medic’s scrubs darkened towards green and sprouted camouflage blobs. Helpless, Risa stared at the tip as it crept closer and closer to her body. When she looked at herself, it hit her they were not giants.

She was a little girl.

Her shrieking faded to a gurgle as the gargantuan air-hypo flooded her tiny body with so much venom it bubbled up out of her mouth. Gagging, drowning, and immobilized, her beating heart grew deafening.

Risa snapped out of the dream, fumbling her pistol. She picked it up and scooted tighter against the wall, coughing away the sour nastiness of the dream poison. They did kill me already. Tears flowed despite her protest, accompanied by a dour frown rather than blubbering.

Wham, wham, wham.

She jumped, whirling to the right and looking through the gap behind the air purifier at the front door. The heavy knock sounded like a softer version of her nightmare heartbeat. Whoever it was had woken her out of the dream. Her hands shifted on the Hotaru-6, changing from the clutch of a security blanket to the hold of a trained shooter.

Two beeps chimed from the security panel as the door slid open to the side, exposing an empty hallway coated in dull red dust. Risa’s index finger teased the smooth plastic trigger. She aimed, waiting for any sign of motion. Never again would she surrender to the authorities. No kangaroo court, no public relations sweep, no months and months of sitting in a cage waiting to die.

No, she would go out on her feet―and take as many with her as she could.

“Risa?” whispered Pavo.

Fatal resolve collapsed into a rush of emotion: joy, relief, worry, and fear. She wanted to speak but couldn’t.

A small plastic wand poked around the corner, tipped with a white glowing dot. It bent back and forth like a tentacle-mounted eye, until it pointed at her.

“Please don’t shoot me,” said Pavo.

The optic wire retreated, and he peeked around the corner in person. When Risa lowered her weapon, he walked in and shut the door. She sat where she was, staring mute as he crossed the room. Her body reacted on its own to his approach, huddling tighter in a ball. He seemed to fight the urge to give her a pitying look, and raised both eyebrows.

“You alright?”

Risa got the pistol into its harness without firing it by accident, and managed a nod. Her voice continued to elude her. Warmth spread through her cheeks with a blush; embarrassment at being caught hiding like a frightened child got her upright. Pavo pulled her into an embrace as soon as she stood.

“Sorry,” she squeaked.

“Now you’re scaring me.” He patted her back. “I’ve never seen you like this.”

She held on to him for several minutes before settling off tiptoe and stepping back. “It’s all a lie.”

“What is?”

“Everything.” She folded her arms, walking to the holo-bar. “It’s all a goddamned lie.”

He pivoted to keep facing her. She swiped a finger over the mirror-finished plastic, plunging the room into darkness as the intangible display panel collapsed, swallowing a gyrating red yeti mascot. Her cybereyes auto-switched to night vision until she activated the room lights by verbal command.

“Not a fan of the Manglers?” Pavo chuckled.

Risa kept her back to him. “I never got into sports.”

Pavo approached, circling his arms around her from behind. “Right. Too busy hunting for food and trying not to get dead.”

“I don’t need sympathy.” She leaned into him. “I’m trying to deal with how close I came to an awful death… and I… bad dream.”

“There’s no shame in being afraid.” His breath warmed her cheek. “You’re so in control of yourself, some of the others think you’re a synthetic. I get to see the real person inside.”

“Everett said my father was ACC. He had files. Too many files to whip up only to fake me out.” Risa stared at the floor, her voice an emotionless drone. “My mother was an intelligence agent trying to turn him. He killed her when she broke cover too soon. She’d fallen in love with him and wanted him to defect.”

“But he was dedicated to his mission.”

She swallowed.

“The general told you your father had nothing to do with the Front.”

“Yes. If it’s true, everything Garrison told me is a lie.” Risa squirmed around to look him in the eye. “I’ve been fighting for the MLF based on dustblow. I… Have I thrown my life away?”

Pavo slid his arms out from around her back and held her hand. He stared at her for a long moment before exhaling. “What we stand for, our calling, is to free hundreds of thousands of people from tyranny. Whatever the truth about your father, it doesn’t make our goal any less worthy.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“Garrison shouldn’t have manipulated you, assuming what Everett said can be trusted. Honestly, if it were me, it would take some of the pain out of his death to learn he was with the Council. As bad as the UCF can be, the ACC is many times worse.”

She wandered to the bed and sat on the end. “The ACC doesn’t put on a nice face and act like there’s traces of democracy left in the system. Their citizens know exactly where they stand.”

Pavo shook his head. “Yes, but they treat them like cattle. You can’t argue people on the UCF side have it better―not that I’m saying we’re wrong about wanting to be rid of both, but I’d find it easier knowing he was a traitor.”

“Aren’t we traitors too?” She leaned against him when he sat next to her.

“Centuries ago―”

“You’re going to compare us to the American Revolution?”

Pavo chuckled. “So you did have some schooling.”

“Oh, yes.” Risa rolled her eyes. “Bits and pieces, especially that. Garrison loved that part of history. Now that I look back on it, it seems like cherry picking.”

“Well, look at the similarities. We’re governed by people millions of miles away who have no idea what it’s like up here. Our conflict is the same, just on a larger scale. Planets instead of nations.”

“Do you think it’s true?”

“About your father?” Pavo offered a weak shrug. “Government’s involved. The weave of deceit is so deep it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s not anymore. Sometimes I’m not sure this is even really Mars.”

She twisted and grabbed his coat in both hands, shaking him. “I have to know.”

He held her fists, holding her tight to his chest. “Risa… wanting to know is what almost got you killed. What will it change? I’m sorry, but your father is dead either way.”

“I…” Text danced around his head as she locked eyes; his heart rate, perspiration levels, blush response―sincerity. No longer able to hold back the want to cry, she hated her traitorous body for its reaction to an untenable situation, but she had no one to get angry at anymore. Killing, blowing something up, or hiding―none of those options could soothe her feelings. She flung herself against him, clinging as she struggled to get control of herself.

Pavo held her without saying a word.

Risa sniffled and attempted to chuckle a few minutes later. “I haven’t cried like this since I was small. It’s embarrassing.”

He put an arm around her back. “Sounds like you’re about due to let some of it out.”

“I need to know.” She wiped her face. “I just do. I’m no one’s pawn.”

Pavo exhaled. “I’ll see what I can find. I want you to lay low for a while until this blows over.”

Her head snapped up; she glared. I’m not helpless. “I…” Don’t want to die. Her gaze fell. “Okay. Are we doing the right thing?”

“You laying low?”

“The resistance in general.”

He studied the ceiling for some time; the thoughts sliding back and forth through his brain manifested in a series of intense facial expressions. “Thousands of us have already died for independence. If we walk away now, all that life would have been wasted. The people of Mars deserve to govern themselves. If anything, what you’ve learned should keep you alive. Maybe you won’t take such silly risks anymore.”

“I’m not sure I should believe it… How could Garrison―” She jumped to her feet, shouting at the wall. “Raziel! I know you’re there. I want the truth.”

Pavo pursed his lips and examined the rug.

“Dammit. Please, Raziel.” She spun in a circle, staring at the walls. The look Pavo gave her stalled her in place. “You know I’m not Cat-6. He’s real. He knows!” Risa yelled straight up. “You know. Tell me!”

Yes, I knew.

She grabbed her head in both arms and fell to her knees, shuddering. The angel’s voice cascaded down her back as though boiling water poured over her head. Forcing her way through the muscle-cramping pain, Risa crawled to the bed and grabbed on. Pavo pulled her up.

“T-tell me, Raziel… Is Everett right? Was m-my father―”

What Everett told you is true. I had hoped you would abandon your search… I felt it kinder you didn’t know.

Tears streamed down her cheeks. “You knew? You knew the whole time.”

In the years I have spoken to you, have I once led you astray?

Her forehead mushed a dent into the Comforgel pad; convulsions rocked through her body. Pavo squeezed her shoulder, attempting to help as much as he could.

“No… but you should have told me.”

Innocent people need your help, Risa. The Front is not one woman or one man, it is a collection of ideals. One person can make a difference. Your destiny is carved of red stone, whether you embrace it or flee from it. You can rise above your past.

“What if I don’t want to?” She sniffled. “What if I just want to be happy?”

Can you truly be happy while others suffer?

Pavo lifted her into his lap. He seemed alarmed at feeling her tremble. She ducked away from his hand when he attempted to thumb her eyes open.

“I’m fine… it’s Raziel. He’s an angel. Overwhelming.” She giggled through the burn. “Besides, my eyes are electronic. Why are you checking pupil dilation?”

He laughed.

Involuntary muscle contractions lessened; she sagged limp. Pavo’s grip kept her from rolling onto the floor. Silent minutes passed; she lacked the energy to move and he the inclination.

“What did he say this time?” asked Pavo.

All trace of sorrow left her voice. “Everett wasn’t lying. It’s true.”

“I’m sorry, Risa.” He kissed her forehead.

She leaned up, seeking a proper kiss. When they pulled apart, she gave him contented half-closed eyes.

“What now? Back to the safe house?”

“Yes, eventually.” She shrugged out of her holster harness, letting it dangle from a fingertip before it hit the floor. “I need to discuss a few things with Garrison, but it can wait.”

Guest Post | Tony Healey

I recently had the pleasure of working with Tony Healey on our collaborative novel Operation: Chimera. In addition to the Far From Home saga, Tony put together a charity anthology (Edge of Oblivion) to benefit those suffering from Cystic Fibrosis. Now, Tony is attempting to rally support for a specific child.

-Matt

 

At the beginning of this year I released a charity anthology, featuring the work of 16 fantastic writers and the artwork of the legendary Bruce Pennington, with all proceeds to go to The Cystic Fibrosis Trust (we’ve not hit enough for a donation yet – but we’re getting there).

The original inspiration for that collection of stories – and for doing something to raise funds for CF in the first place – is a little girl called Tilly.

She has a chance to win a free holiday with her Mummy and Daddy next year, but she needs your help. It’s very easy and will only take 2 minutes of your time.

Step 1. Click this link:

http://havenholidays.offerpop.com/campaign/649927/entry/4270902

Step 2. LIKE the Haven Facebook page (you can always UN-LIKE it later).

Step 3. Hit the VOTE button.

That’s it!

Of course, if you wanted to be super-duper cool you could also share the above link and get your friends to vote too. In fact, here’s the link again in case you want to do that:

 http://havenholidays.offerpop.com/campaign/649927/entry/4270902

I’d like to see Tilly reach 1000 votes and take first place. I’ll also be promoting this via my Official Facebook Page, too, which is: http://www.facebook.com/fringescientist?ref=hl

Thanks for your help and support. Let’s win this brave little girl a holiday.

Tony Healey

Divergent Fate #50

(Start from the beginning)

The deep vents of Elysium city had made for a welcome, if not uncomfortable, night. Tons of rock and metal created shelter around her and afforded her a dreamless sleep, perhaps too much. Crawling out of the darkness had felt as difficult as leaving a warm bed on a cold morning. Risa lurked in one corner of a subterranean square, cloaked in the shadow of thrumming air filtration units. Even after an hour of being awake, she continued to find crumbs in her eyes and lead in her limbs.

People shuffled through the courtyard, oblivious to her watchful eyes. Those who looked at her mistook the two violet dots for some advert bot or electronic signage. Most came from the northern passage, navigated a gauntlet of ragged street vendors and a handful of beggar children, and exited through the eastern tunnel. A handful went south, down a half-width hallway too small for the cars that never quite saw widespread use in non-surface cities.

Wisps of steam and smoke gathered around at least two electric grills, where people hawked street meat to more fortunate citizens on their way to jobs. A scrawny adolescent girl in rags helped one man offer food; they seemed to be doing more business than his competition on the other side of the square, who worked alone. A trio of shoeless boys darted through the crowd; they appeared to be playing, but Risa’s augmented hearing caught the chirp of a credit skimmer each time they got close to a commuter.

She found odd comfort in the foulness of the chemical reek wafting from the machinery in front of her. How something that stank like that could ‘purify’ air was a mystery. Each time she inhaled, the smooth material of her ballistic suit tightened around her chest, making her feel safe. Warm and secure inside her heavy boots, her feet still ached.

CamNano cyberware had changed her hair to a light shade of brown. The hologram face of a fashion model from Earth hovering over her NetMini had served as a point of reference for a temporary alteration of skin tone. She left her hands stuffed in the pockets of her long, black coat so she didn’t have to see the southern West City tan. Blonde seemed the most likely choice of disguise, but it reminded her too much of the old plasfilm poster on the wall inside her bunk space.

Growing up, her “room” had been the back corner of Garrison’s office, a battered bunk bed behind a freestanding partition. From around the age of ten until midway through her teens, Risa had envied the woman on her wall: always tanned, always blonde, and always smiling. Whoever it was had posed for an ad for lipstick. Risa still didn’t understand why someone would be so happy over lipstick―or need to wear a bikini to advertise it.

How she had hated her snow-hued skin.

She’d wanted to be the girl in the poster. Free of war, free of poverty, free of cares. The grinning idiot in the orange bikini didn’t worry that the military might kick in her door and kill everyone she knew. The grinning model never knew what it was like being unable to sleep for days after a new recruit gave her a creepy look.

A man and a woman in dull red armor walked astride into the square. Both had the insignia of the Mars Defense Force on their shoulders. The “playing” boys ran like hell, disappearing into a vent in the back. Some of the vendors tweaked hidden buttons on their ware carts, causing motorized shelves to shift and hide their less legal merchandise. They moved against the flow of the majority, heading from the eastern tunnel to the north. Risa watched Pavo and his duty partner move toward her, and frowned at the woman. She had Earth-normal skin, somewhere between caramel and coffee, and black hair. Eleven-year-old Risa was jealous. Real-time Risa squinted, wondering if her color betrayed a lack of loyalty to Mars. Did she make a choice not to go Marsborn, or was she a new arrival with no ties to the red planet other than a paycheck?

Pavo stopped to chat with some of the vendors. They seemed at ease around him, devoid of the usual barrier of fear that so often lubricated interactions between citizens and police. His partner stopped two steps later, arms folded and hip thrust out. If her skin color wasn’t enough evidence, her obvious contempt for commoners all but proved she couldn’t be trusted. Risa caught a subtle exchange of a data fob disguised in a handshake. The man selling refurbished NetMinis must be one of Pavo’s helper network―indirect supporters of the Front.

Risa had all she could do not to sprint out and jump on him. All the angst and worry from her ride in a prisoner transport hit her at once, forcing her to duck out of sight in case the unexpected sniffle attracted attention. As soon as the want for Pavo to hold her and tell her everything would be okay manifested, she got angry with herself. She couldn’t afford to lower her guard. She was not weak. She did not need to be coddled. Risa Black wasn’t a civilian woman wanting safety or a family―she couldn’t have such things.

Weakness meant death.

She peeked around the vibrating machinery, catching sight of the MDF officers as they resumed walking against the flow of the crowd. Her spike of anger, which she refused to admit to herself was shame, fueled a daydream of killing the woman with Pavo so she could talk to him alone. It made for an entertaining fantasy as she stalked them.

The northern tunnel had the width of a two-lane road, plus a little extra. Beveled corners at each side of the ceiling held tracks of LED strip lights, about half of which worked. A lower ceiling and closer walls conspired with increasing thickness in the air, outside the reach of the square’s air circulators, to build a sense of claustrophobia. She clenched her fists, wondering how a wide corridor could feel more confining than a vent shaft that forced her to crawl. Pavo didn’t seem to notice or react to the change in ambiance; his attention focused on the crowd and the scanner on his left arm.

A few shops in properties hollowed out of the walls offered more reputable food, electronics, and cyberware for the first two hundred meters. After that, the tunnel became featureless red rock with the occasional bit of graffiti, indie concert poster, or political propaganda holo-projector. In the areas known as dark stretches, vagrants and criminals often lurked. Pavo, and the woman at his side, paid particular attention to everyone slumped against the wall sleeping―or faking it.

Light up ahead came from where a bust of City Administrator Daris Yin hovered a few inches from the wall, her head at least two feet tall. The shape of her shoulders hinted at a black suit jacket with thin military epaulets in stark silver, which in addition to her forced smile and tight-bunned hair, made her look… evil. Risa couldn’t pull her gaze off the ethereal figure, feeling the stare as if directed at her alone. The politician’s smug lip curl all but told her “I will find you, all of you little burrowing rats, and I will crush you.”

Don’t be silly. Risa crunched her eyes shut. That woman cares only about being comfortable. She only enforces the law when it suits her purposes.

Grey blurred from the darkness at her left, taking the shape of a humanoid figure with an arm going for her face. Her spatial sensor rendered the lunging man’s motion as an apparition. A grab like that meant one thing in her mind. Speedware plunged the world into slow motion. She whirled, punching the time-suspended figure in the gut three times and face twice. A snap kick caught him in the groin before she threw all her strength behind one last punch. Flabby skin, coated in grease and dirt mushed around her fist as it sank into the front of his throat. Risa ducked out from under his body before his fingers closed around where her face had been.

To the outside world, her strikes were little more than an indecipherable blur and a rippling crack.

He hit the ground, clutching a chemical-soaked rag his throat in both hands and gurgling. The fumes meant for Risa overwhelmed him, and he passed out. She wanted to kill him; he’d be a threat to some other solitary woman in the dark stretch, but the last thing she needed was the hallway full of MDF forcing everyone in the area against the wall for interrogation. After a steely glare, she left him, hoping she had crushed his trachea. Her anger became panic when she could no longer find red armor among the crowd.

A few jogged steps brought Pavo and his partner back in sight, and she resumed breathing. The crowd had thinned enough for her to follow from a greater distance, but she kept herself risky close. Eventually, the tunnel expanded into a four-way intersection, where shops and two hotels disrupted the monotony of plain walls. People in this courtyard node seemed in no hurry to be anywhere, leaving no sense of ‘flow’ among the bodies.

While Pavo struck up a conversation with a man behind a folding table full of suspicious electronics, his partner ducked into a door bearing a hologram of dancing potato-sized cartoon coffee beans. She took the opportunity and walked up to him.

He spun and put a hand on his sidearm, a trained reflex to sudden approach. At the sight of his face, her resolve slipped and she flung her arms around him and kissed him full on the lips. For a few seconds, he struggled. At the point he overpowered her and pushed her away, she remembered her altered coloration.

“Pavo,” she whispered. “It’s me.”

His fingers squeezed into her shoulders at the sound of her voice. After a second’s hesitation, he pulled her into his chest plate. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“It was reckless.”

“No shit.” He let go, but kept her hand in his. “I think your Cat-6 is rubbing off on me. The only reason I wasn’t tearing up the planet looking for you was a message from your ‘angel.’”

“I’m not Cat-6. I don’t have ‘vivid hallucinations’ or delusions of importance or anything.” She lowered her voice. “If anything, I have daydreams of normality. I don’t want to save the world, I just want to live in it.”

“He said you might want to walk away… what did you find?”

Risa glanced through the frolicking coffee beans at the woman inside. “This isn’t a good time, is it?”

“I don’t want to lose sight of you again.”

“You think I’m defenseless?” She squinted at him. “Tell that to the shithead I left unconscious in the alley. I got myself into that mess. I’ll keep my head down.”

“What shithead?” He peered over her shoulder.

“Someone wanting to play grabass with a ‘defenseless’ woman.”

He sighed.

“I didn’t kill him. How long until you’re off duty?”

He caressed her cheek and lifted her face into a kiss. “An excruciatingly long four hours.”

“For the third time, I don’t know!” she yelled. “I never saw the guy’s face.”

Pavo’s eyebrows shot up.

“Is there a problem, Miss?”

He jumped at the voice of his partner.

Risa gestured at the tunnel. “Someone tried to rape me back there.”

The man behind the table gave Pavo a meaningful look. “Yeah, someone did.”

“You saw this?” asked the female officer.

“Yeah. Well, I saw the commotion when this one started screaming.” The merchant pointed at Risa with a half-disassembled NetMini. “Think anyone with a guilty conscience took off when she screamed.”

“I’m sorry, Miss,” said Pavo. “The cams in this section of tunnel have been out for months.”

“Great.” Risa tried to act livid. “What the hell do our taxes pay for? Yin’s imported lobster?”

Pavo held a hand up to his partner and dragged Risa aside. “Subtle.”

“Sorry, she was coming. Guess that vendor’s on our side,” she whispered. “Let it go? Are you serious?”

“There’s nothing we can really do here,” said Pavo, giving her a light shove. “If it happens again, try to record them. You have a NetMini, correct?”

“What the fuck do you people even exist for?” Risa walked backwards, shouting.

She turned on her heel, stomping into the crowd. A few women gave her supporting looks, as did several men. One man corroborated her story, saying the attacker was still limp in the road―now being picked at by scavengers. Two offered to walk with her, but she politely declined. She would make good on her promise; she would lay low. Pavo’s shift ended in four hours. He was right.

They would be long.