NoBos a couple of years back. Their
David’s always hated her ‘cause she’s a
better runner than he is. He barely left
anything of her. She was in a regen tank for
over a month.”
I hold her a little tighter. “Were you
running with her then?”
He shakes his head. “I was still in
school. She made me stay in until I was
eighteen.”
“She’s a good sister.”
“Overprotective.” He smiles a little and I
can see that he has her mischievous grin,
when he lets it out. “No, she’s a good sister.
Don’t . . . you know, don’t hurt her.”
“I’m not planning on it.”
“She’s been talking about you for a long
time.” He shifts uncomfortably on his seat.
“She thinks you’re the second coming or
something.”
We have yet to get to that. “Yeah?”
“She’s got shit taste in men. So I hope
you’re different.”
That remains to be seen. “You’re not
impressed by her choices, huh?” When he
shakes his head, I continue. “Why not?”
“Half the time she picks scumbags. Real
assholes. Ask them her name afterwards and
I bet they couldn’t tell you. And when she
does hook up with someone who’s half-way
okay, like Chain, she can’t keep him.”
I file the name away for later. “No?” I
ask, to keep him talking.
Ape scowls. “He said it wasn’t her. That
he wanted his own crew. He’s a runner, too,
see? But that was just an excuse. I heard
them fighting. Then he packs up and moves
out. That was over a year ago. She hasn’t
been with anyone since. I thought . . . I
thought she might have gone off guys. Then
she began talking about you.”
No resentment there or anything. No
wonder he’s jealous. He’s had big sister’s
undivided attention for a year. “You’d rather
she was all alone? She told me you have a
girl.”
His whole demeanor changes. Softens.
He smiles. “Chiara.”
He’s smitten. Sucker.
“I hear she’s a Tyng.”
He immediately bristles. “So what?”
“You know who Kincaid works for.”
“Chi’s father. So what?”
“Just one of life’s little coincidences,
huh?”
“We do runs for the Tyngs sometimes.”
He hunches into himself. Hyper-defensive.
“How often?”
“I don’t know. She’s done them before.”
He practically throws himself across the
seat. “We’re here.”
Not very often, I’m guessing. Definitely
something going on there. Did Kez say that
Ape knew the Jello Boy who fronted the run?
I’m betting Ape set up the run. And left his
sister to pay the price. Little shit.
He climbs out of the taxi without paying.
It beeps indignantly at me and I thumb a few
credits off the roll I brought along to pacify
it. Tap standby on the interface screen.
Glance out the door Ape’s left open in his
flight. We’ve pulled up on a side street in
lower Nock. Not even a klick from my place
by the river, but this neighborhood’s a lot
less exclusive. The house we’ve pulled up in
front of is an architect’s nightmare. It looks
like it started as a Colony pre-fab, then
mutated. Unstructured, organic. Anti-
authoritarian. Very Kez.
Ape reaches back into the taxi and drags
out the heaviest bag. I’m betting it has the
money in it. Kez has taught him to keep his
eyes on the prize at least. “I got it,” Ape
huffs.
“Okay.” I shove the float boards at him
with my foot. Pick up her backpack and drop
it on the seat next to me. Sit back and settle
Kez more firmly within the curve of my arm.
“See you later.”
“Wait! Where are you going?”
“I’m taking her to my place.” Where
we’ll be as safe as I can make us, behind my
gates and security, and where we’re both
going to get some real Ralph time. “I’ll bring
her back when she’s rested.”
Ape frowns, his reddish-blond brows
drawing into a single line across his
forehead, and making him look all the more
like his namesake. “She didn’t agree to that.”
“She did, actually.” Although our Ralph
time was very much up in the air when she
went to sleep. And she never specified that
payback would begin straight after the run.
“She needs to be here. You don’t get it.
She never goes away for more than a day.”
I shrug. “Call it a first.”
“You don’t get it, Mister Dick!” Ape
snarls at me.
I’ve had enough of him for one day. I
reach across Kez and tap the taxi’s door
closed.
“She’s not going to thank you for this!”
Ape shouts through the door.
“She can tell me when she wakes up.” I
wave at him, punch the grid coordinates for
my house into the taxi’s interface, and feel it
begin to hum in response. As it lifts slightly
on its cushion of neg-gee, three people come
out of the ramshackle house. Two women
and a man. One of the women is heavily
pregnant, taut, rounded skin protruding
between the edges of her jade green tank and
cut-off sweatpants. Even with her large
belly, sloppy clothes and silk-black hair
piled messily on top of her head, she’s one
of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.
Her face is a perfect oval. She has huge, dark
eyes and a pouting mouth almost as full as
the hooker’s who finally broke Marin’s death
grip on the little monster. The taxi turns and
begins to scoot down the street, leaving Ape
and his friends on the sidewalk. The
beautiful girl runs out into the street after the
taxi, holding her belly, her lush mouth
framing a round o of surprise. She waves her
arm, but we’re leaving her behind and
sliding through the early morning traffic
towards the river.
I pay the taxi out of the credits I’ve made
and carry Kez into my house.
Inside, I lay Kez across my bed, unlace
her boots and ease them off. Pull the
thermoblanket over her and leave her to
sleep while I shower. Getting rid of sweat,
sewer-stink and rat guts feels good, but it’s
the anticipation of finally getting into a bed
with Kez that’s got the little monster
twitching. It’ll be hours before the drugs let
her go. And when she wakes I want to give
her the time and space to offer herself to me
again. Not be coerced by a roaring monster.
A couple of quick tugs while remembering
what we did up against the alley wall takes
&n
bsp; care of the worst of the little monster’s roar.
I undress her carefully. She makes a few
small noises while I’m getting her fatigues
off, but relaxes back into deep sleep as soon
as they’re off. Bare, her legs are beautiful.
Long and slender with definition in her
calves and thighs even with her muscles
relaxed in sleep. Definitely a runner.
At her underwear, I debate. I’ve wanted
to see her naked since she first looked up at
me with those huge kitten-eyes, but maybe
this ain’t the time. When she wakes up, she’ll
be disoriented from the drugs. In a strange
place, with a man she’s only known a few
hours. Only a few hours after being abused
by a man she’s hated for years.
All the more reason to give her the
comfort of skin.
I peel her panties down her legs. They’re
a soft black feminine fabric. High cut on her
hips but serviceable. Not lace, or a thong or
anything designed to entice. Definitely not
hooker-wear. Her ass is as beautiful as her
legs. But it’s what removing her panties
uncovers that gives me pause.
There’s a huge derm plastered over the
small of her back. I peel it back carefully.
The bruise underneath has faded, like the one
around her eye, but it’s still purple and
black. How the hell did she get this? I don’t
remember her hitting her back. I examine the
bruise carefully. It’s much worse on her right
side. There’s a swollen red bump just a few
centimeters from her spine. I remember her
limping into the dock on New Brunny.
Remember what I saw and heard through her
viewie. The desk. He knocked her into the
corner of his desk. Fucking sadistic prick.
I rise and move through the house.
Polarize the windows so the rooms are
swathed in cool gloom. Pour some filtered
water into a bulb to put beside the bed.
Gather more med supplies out of my stash.
All the while pacifying my red rage with the
image of drawing a shiv across Kincaid’s
throat. I am going to kill him. It’s just a
matter of time.
I return to Kez’s side. Smooth a fresh and
much more powerful derm across the small
of her back. That will give her some real
pain relief. A bruise that bad won’t be
healed in a day the way her eye will, but
she’ll move a lot more easily in a couple of
hours.
The texture of her skin as I smooth on the
derm catches my attention. She’s kitten-soft
everywhere. Except her lower back. I push
her black tank up, hold it between her
shoulders as I survey the ruin of her back.
A round burn scar craters her lower
back. The scar’s recessed, with the knobs of
her spine in low relief. The skin’s mottled,
white and twisted. Shiny pink patches show
where newskin grafts failed. I splay my hand
above the scar. My fingers extend beyond the
margins of the scar, but it’s as big as my
palm. I run my hand over the scar and she
shivers in her sleep. Still sensitive, even
though it has to be a couple of years old.
The NoBos caught her, her brother said.
And barely left her alive. I’m surprised she
survived. It’s the worst burn scar I’ve seen,
and in a bad fucking spot. She’s lucky her
spinal cord wasn’t damaged – or damaged
beyond repair, more likely. For a moment I
think maybe she couldn’t pay for decent
treatment, but the graft scars put the lie to that
faint hope. Her back was so badly damaged
that even newskin couldn’t adhere. She had
to grow a new hide on her own, while the
damage to her spine healed. That’s why she
spent a month in a regen tank.
I take her top off slowly and climb into
the bed with her. Tap the headboard console.
The room goes so dark it could be Tol Seng
at midnight. I gather her to my side and tuck
the thermoblanket around her. Smooth it
carefully over the terrible burn scar. Debate
the least threatening position to be in when
she wakes. As I’m debating, one of her hands
steals across my chest. Settles in the hollow
of my shoulder. She’s not awake, so she’s
seeking comfort unconsciously. I give it to
her. Cuddle her close. Cradle her head on my
shoulder. Give her as much skin contact as I
can. She sighs in her sleep and relaxes until
she feels boneless against me.
I close my eyes, relishing the feeling of
her warm satin skin on mine, the sense of
peace that washes over me as I hold her, safe
in my bed, and finally let myself sleep.
She begins to stir three hours later by the
chrono in my eye. She snuffles in her sleep
and cuddles closer. I roll the arm she’s got
stretched across my chest so I can see the
inside of her wrist. The darkness leeches the
color out of the patches, but I can see they’re
much paler than they were when I put them
on. Spent. I peel them off and toss them onto
the bedside table.
“Where are we?” she whispers.
I look down at the peaceful little face
resting on my shoulder. Her good eye is
closed. I flick the edge of the derm on her
other eye. “I think this is done.”
“Okay.” She snuffles and rubs her nose. I
peel the derm off and flick it across the bed
to join its mates on the table.
slightly to ease the pins and needles in the
arm she’s been sleeping on. Stroke the soft,
rounded shoulder that emerges from the
blanket, and tug the edge of the blanket back
over it. “Go back to sleep.”
“I’m not tired,” she says, with a huge
yawn. Her breath is sour. I reach over for the
bulb of water on the bedside table.
“Drink,” I tell her.
“No more fluids. My bladder’s going to
explode.”
“Better than your veins collapsing.” I
hold the bulb for her and she drinks. Puts her
head back down on my shoulder after a
couple of sips.
“So I finally got inside.” She nuzzles my
shoulder sleepily. “What does it look like? Is
it all black and chrome?”
Where’d she get that idea? I like wood –
real wood with a grain I can see and feel –
and soft fabrics. As different from the
ceramsteel and neopoly of slam as possible.
“Open your eyes.”
She does, lifts her head and puts it back
down with a snort. “I can’t see a thing. Why
is it so dark in here?”
“Didn’t want the light to wake you.”
“Oh.” She rubs my chest. “Thank you.”
“Go back to sleep.”
“What time is it?”
“E
leven fifteen.”
“Mmm, that’s okay then.”
“You got somewhere you need to be
today?” ‘Cause I may have some objection to
her spending the day anywhere but in my
bed.
She murmurs something unintelligible,
already slipping back to sleep. After a few
moments of deepening breathing, she rouses
with a little jolt. “Where’s Ape?”
“I dropped him back at your place.”
“With our gear?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, that’s okay then.” She slides her leg
across mine. Rubs her face in my shoulder.
And immediately slides back into sleep.
I smile into the darkness. Stroke the arm
she’s stretched across my chest until I join
her.
The next time I wake – gently and without
remembering any of my dreams – it’s after
fifteen hundred. Six hours of sleep is enough,
and besides, my bladder is demanding to be
emptied and my stomach to be filled.
I unstick myself carefully and slide out
from under Kez, who doesn’t stir. She’s
finally getting some deep sleep. Good. When
I return, having taken care of one need and
mulling through what I want to fill the other,
the bedroom’s lit up like a nightclub. I cross
the room quickly to the source of the
lightshow: the bangle around Kez’s wrist.
Several of the mirrors and beads are lit up.
Her brother’s face shows on one of the
mirrored panels. Annoying chimp. She needs
her sleep.
I slide my finger under the bangle,
intending to silence the call. The whole
thing’s elasticized and slides down her wrist
when I hook my finger under it. I ease the
straps off her wrist, carry it over to the pile
of her clothes beside the bed, drop the
bangle on her fatigues, then pick up her black
tank and drape it over the bangle. With the
bangle covered, the room darkens again. I
check Kez. She’s still sleeping the sleep of
the innocent and the just. I run my hand over
her soft head, smooth her dreadlocks over
the pillow, and leave her to sleep.
My kitchen is disappointingly empty. I
remember now that I’d intended to stop at the
grocer on the way home last night, before
Kez intercepted me. I tap on the kitchen
interface and pull up the list I’ve compiled of
local grocers who deliver. Scroll down to
one I haven’t used before. Ordering from the
same place. Overtipping the delivery ‘bot.
Falling into patterns. That’s how you get