Archon's Queen (50 page)

She looked. Game over. Reporters and orb bots parted as Anna trudged through the front yard to the porch. Voices surrounded her with questions: who are you? Are you the person who found the girl? Where had she been? Will you accept the reward? What happened? The parents didn’t seem to know what to make of her at first, until Faye wriggled loose enough to reach out.

“Okay fine.” She took the girl’s hand. “But I can’t stay all night.”

nna spent hours riding around in an aimless search for closure. As she feared it would, the P word came out in conversation with her parents. Their initial horror was muted by what she had done for them, and came close to tenuous acceptance after Faye’s repeated insistence that Anna had protected her. Faye was safe at home, in bed, with two loving parents to watch over her.

Two loving parents Anna would never have.

The sky rumbled, spitting, but the downpour hesitated. Killing Blake had not provided the sense of vengeance she thought it would. Images of his death interleaved with snapshots of the video in the darkness lurking in each alley. Murdering her rapist had not undone his crime. All at once, she felt cheap and worthless again. Even if she rampaged over every corrupt constable, every street punk that pawed her, and every man who ever laid a hand on her in Bristol City, it was a vacuous hollow she could never fill.

By the time she drove through the checkpoint around The Ruin, it was hard to navigate through tear-blurred vision. The motorbike splashed through puddles, kicking ink-black mud into the air behind her whenever it struggled to gain purchase on a patch of broken wet pavement. The squish of tires came to a halt about ten meters outside the main entrance to Coventry Tower.

Ol’ Jack un-leaned from his post by the door as she dismounted, giving her an unusually wary squint. It was the kind of stare he often reserved for the East End Boys who came to start trouble. The kickstand sank into the ground, so she leaned the bike against a still-erect fragment of wall. When she turned back to the building, she found her nose all but touching his chest.

She did not like the way he looked down at her. “Ground’s a bit squidgy today. Kickstand isn’t working.”

“You think it’s a good idea to be here, Pix? Word is trouble’s got your name.”

“Jack?” She looked up. “How many times have you saved me from the wankshafts ‘round ‘ere? I’m just coming home.”

He shifted, leaning back as if preparing for a fight. “You’re a Proper now, lass. You don’t belong ‘ere.”

Too stunned to find a response, she stared at him as tears warmed her cheeks. Penny was with her in the alley, she’d been her big sister for ten years. Only Penny could help her cope with the pain caused by that awful video. Only her friend, and a dozen cycles of an autoshower, might scratch some of the grime away.

“Turn it ‘round, don’t come back. Don’t want anyone gettin’ hurt ‘cause of what you are.”

“What’s come over you?” She gasped. “It’s just me, Pixie… I’m not gonna hurt anyone here.”

His face didn’t soften as he motioned at the bike. Veins rose in his forehead and he broke out in a sweat. His eye fluttered with a tic. “We don’t know what you’re capable of. You’re a danger to us all.”

Anna glanced up at the thirteenth floor. “Jack. I’ve known you for years. You’re a good man. I thought you knew me, but I guess I was wrong. If you know what I am, then you know what I can do. You’ve got so much aug in you I could turn you off like a switch. Get out of my way, please. I’m going to see Penny.”

He stood firm. “She doesn’t want you here either.”

The Ruin echoed with a sound like a cannon blast. Ol’ Jack landed a few feet away, smoke peeling from his coat. He struggled to sit up, like a turtle on its back, making the oddest wheezing moan as erratic electrical threads shivered through his neuralware. It left him paralyzed, but not seriously injured.

She fought hard to keep her voice sounding confident. “I don’t believe that. If she really wants me gone, I’ll sod off, but I am going to see her. I owe you for saving my arse many times. Please don’t make this unpleasant.”

“Hannah?” Jack reached upward. “What’s happened, Hannah?”

The unfamiliar name made her look at his thoughts. A woman, a little younger than herself, blonde… so familiar. Anna’s eyes widened. It was as though she looked at a sister. She jumped on Ol’ Jack and grabbed him by the flaps of his coat, shaking him as much as her scrawny arms could move a half-metal man.

“Jack, sod it! Who is Hannah?”

“Promised… Mother.” He wheezed and passed out.

She grunted, struggling to drag him into the lobby and prop him against the wall.
Was that my mother? Did he know? Why was he so focused on making me want to go away? Oh, no. Something must’ve happened upstairs and he doesn’t want me to know.

She sprinted away from him, scrambling past a dozen regulars huddled around a trio of burn barrels. They looked at her like a Proper had stumbled into the wrong part of town; if any recognized her, they hid it well.

Twelve flights of stairs went by in a blur of grey and sadness. Two men saw her in the hallway outside of Penny’s apartment and ran the other way. Penny’s laughter came through the wall, followed by the usual sound Spawny made after he’d said something crass. Anna calmed, feeling even more confused by Ol’ Jack’s behavior. She’d been expecting a crime scene.

Her place was the same as it had been when she left it, with the exception of a pair of fist-sized orb bots floating in the main room. Both swiveled to face her as she walked in, exposing small gun barrels, and exploded in a flickering nimbus of lightning. She stomped through the glimmering cloud of debris to the bed, and plucked the little white bear from where Faye’s abductors had posed it. The pink kunzite earrings waited in their box on the nightstand, their nocturnal resting place.

“Twee…” Anna clutched the bear. The girl’s absence hung in the air, tangible.

Any semblance of ‘home’ this place may have had was gone. Now, it felt like the hollow shell it was. Anna drifted out onto the balcony where she had spent many an hour with her legs dangling through the bars, looking out at the city that did not want her. She stood this time, staring over the smashed remnants of city between here and a glittering coalescence of light, London proper. Numbness set in as she thumbed through the GlobeNet presence of Bluebot, a shipping service. She leaned on the railing, watching the moving lights whizzing through the air between the distant tall buildings, neon gnats on rotting fruit. The place she had lived in for so long felt different now, like the bombed out shithole it was.

One of the gnats came like a shooting star out of the glowing mass, tracing the location of her NetMini. A hoverbot the size of a large dog glided up to the balcony, drifting toward the pocket where she had stashed it. Reading a match, it chirped and played the Bluebot jingle as it opened a side hatch.

She removed the zip ties from the bear and put it inside the bot with the box. After a momentary hesitation, she pushed the lid closed. “Faye Taylor, Nine Clifton Hill, number three, please.”

The bot emanated a series of beeps and pivoted to face her. “Destination found. Sixteen credits have been charged to your account. Thank you for using Bluebot.”

It rocketed off to rejoin the swarm on the horizon. Anna tracked the flying light until she lost it among the thousand others. Watching Faye’s things fly away may as well have been the girl leaving her life for good.
She’ll be better off without me knowing her
. Anna glanced down at the one earring she kept. A tear splattered over it into her palm.

Anna trudged through the decrepit room she had once called home, and crossed the hallway to Penny’s door.

She paused, for a moment feeling enough like an outsider she wondered if she should knock. Her raised hand hovered for an instant, but she decided to walk in. Thick and warm, the air held the fragrance of food from an hours-old meal. Penny rummaged through stacked crates, on all fours amid a pile of clothes.

Spawny reclined on the bed, a hairy flesh-toned break in the black of the cheap sheets covering him from the hips down. A narcotic vapor trailed upward from his mouth and nose. Somewhere between the scent of sausage and potato, a whiff of Flowerbasket teased at Anna’s nose.

She took a step toward her friend. “Penny?”

The woman whirled as if an intruder had broken in. Recognition calmed her a little, but she trembled. “Hi Anna.” Penny’s face twitched, warped with a look of conflict.

“Not you too…” Anna sank onto the end of the couch, face in her hands. “What’s wrong with everyone?”

“You’re gonna get us killed.” Spawny sat up, pointing at the ceiling.

He’d likely meant to yell, but it came out sounding bored due to the drug.

“Blake…” Anna sniffled, reaching toward her friend. “Penny, He r―”

Her friend took a step closer, not the fervent embrace Anna needed. “A man came by today, Anna. He wanted to fix me up with a job, a real job in the city.”

A faint peal of thunder rolled overhead. Spawny looked up, moving his head as if tracking some great boulder going past. “Oh feck. Here they come. You led them right to us.”

“What happened to bezzy mates?” Anna glared. “You said it wasn’t a big deal.”

He fell flat as his arm slid out from under him. “T’was before we knew how dangerous you were.”

“It’s not that.” Penny risked getting close enough to touch her shoulder. “The men after you could kill us for knowing you. We won’t say a word, but… It’s too dangerous to stay here.” She winced as if having a headache, and looked back up at Anna. Fear and concern traded places back and forth for a moment.

Blake raped me! I need you…

Anna held Penny’s hand tight against her shoulder, unable to speak or even transmit the thought. Penny’s eyes shook with fear which became love; swooning, she shook her head and blinked as though she’d come out of a dream.

Weeping with joy, Penny fell on Anna with a hug. “I’m getting’ out of this place, Anna. I’ll be a proper secretary.”

Anna held on, shivering. “Penny, I need you… I was…”

Spawny pointed one finger straight up from the bed. “Mind out Pen. Don’t touch ‘er, she’ll zap ya.”

A dozen small pieces of electronica around the apartment sputtered into sparklers. Anna sobbed into Penny’s side, crying harder when she felt her friend gasping for air. Penny staggered, leading Anna by the hand into the kitchen―away from Spawny.