Never Too Far (20 page)

“No.”

“Don’t be so stubborn.”

She surprised Joe by knocking his arms away. She was stronger than she looked. Then she swept her legs off the bed and sprang to her feet. She took two steps and turned to face him as if to prove there was nothing wrong with her. But there was definitely something wrong
. She wavered a moment. Her already white face turned ghostly. Her eyelids trembled. She seemed to realize she was becoming faint and what that meant.

“I’m fine,” she said. “You don’t have to go.”

Joe stood up because he thought she was going to fall, but somehow she held herself steady.

“It’s okay,” Joe said. “Just listen to me. Sit down. You aren’t well.”

Joe inched toward her. He was afraid to grab her again because she might try to wrench free once more and really fall. When she coughed, her little shoulders jerked up and her chest sunk like a popped bubble. Her head drooped low and her hair hung down so he couldn’t see her face at all. It was the way he was used to always seeing her.  

“Come on, lay down,” Joe said.

She didn’t move. Joe stepped toward her, but before he could put his arms around her, she tilted forward and rested the crown of her head against his chest. He slid his arms along the sides of her hard belly and around her waist. Then he shifted her toward the bed again. She moved like a bundle of empty sacks in his arms. He set her on the bed gently before he bent down to lift her feet onto the sheets.

After he sat in the chair, she asked him, “What if you don’t come back?”

“That’s not going to happen,” Joe said.

“How do you know?”

“I just know. You have to trust me.”

He hoped she would confirm what he said by saying she did trust him or she
did believe him, but she didn’t open her mouth or look at him. Instead, she stared at the images flashing on the television. So this was how it was going to be, Joe thought. She was hardening herself for the worst, cocooning herself again in case he didn’t return. No amount of talking was going to change that. It was the price he had to pay to make sure she was healthy again. She would understand, eventually.

Chapter 34

Downstairs, he opened the door and made sure not to lock it when he closed it. He even opened it again to be certain. Hopefully, when he got back, it would still be unlocked. If not, he could climb up on the side roof below their window and get back in the room that way.

Out in the street, he stood next to a hole in the uneven cobblestones. It was half full of muddy water. Across the street a few people sat on their stoops. There was a sulfuric smell in the air. A woman held a handkerchief to her mouth. A few pickup wagons rolled past and a car buggy pulled by two horses.

Joe kept to the side of the street as he walked toward the Fulfillment District. If there was any food to be had, it had to be there. Ahead of him, the bright lights blinked blue and red and yellow. They could almost be beautiful, if not for the fact that they were luring people in like flies.

Soon enough he was back along those seedy streets. He pushed through the crowd, barely able to stomach the stench of rotten sweat and sour vomit. He held his breath and endured the shoves and curses from the men he bumped into. As he passed the patio of a brothel, a strumpet painted like a clown spotted him and cooed to the others: “There’s a young one, girls. Mmmm, ripe and fresh. Come here, boy. I’ll take you for free.” They laughed and called to him. One of them reached out and grabbed Joe by the arm. She yanked him against her body and shoved his face in her powdered bosom. He managed to tear himself away and tumbled into a crowd that erupted into hoots of laughter.

When he recovered himself, he peeked inside the door of a noisy bar. On a stage, a three-piece band played as topless women flounced and danced around in skirts. The rest of the big room was filled with tables of both men and women who were all drinking, smoking, and shouting. The air was clouded with white smoke.

A few doors down, he stepped inside a place that didn’t seem as rowdy as the others. Matter of fact, it was fairly quiet. It was the Braun Theater. People sat around tables laden with empty dinner plates and leftover food. That was a good sign, no doubt. The crowd, however, was looking off to the right, so Joe craned his neck around a pillar to see what everyone was staring at.

On a stage was a scene set in a forest with ribbons of fire in the center. On a platform stood a priest wearing a feathered headdress and a snake around his neck. Off to the side were bare-chested men beating on drums. Scattered about the stage were fallen girls who were completely nude and covered in blood. Standing above them were even more nude girls, only they had daggers in their hands. At first, Joe was horrified because he thought they really stabbed them, but then he realized they were only pretending. It was a show, and the blood was fake, not real.

A voice behind Joe made him jump.

“You like the show?”

Joe felt embarrassed. He wanted to get out of there quick
ly, especially since he knew he was wasting time in finding food for Mary.

“Pardon me,” the man said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You didn’t scare me.”

Joe was about to slip out of the theater and keep searching for someplace that might be selling food when he got a good look at the man. He was taken aback by what he saw. The man looked almost exactly like the man in the fedora hat that he saw on television. He had the same half-smirk, half-grin on his face, and the same brown eyes that shimmered like he knew a secret you wanted to know.

“I can see you’re not from around here,” the man said.

“Don’t call me a dirt-eater,” Joe said.

“I won’t. My name’s Phil, by the way. My great grandfather was a plainsman.”
Plainsman
, Joe liked the sound of that. “But he left shortly after the power grids went down out there and they first outlawed oil.”

“That was a long time ago.”

Phil chuckled. “Yes. Things have changed since then. Gotten worse, I hear. Is that why you’re here? Your family has moved to the city?”

“No,” Joe said.

Phil adjusted his hat, shifted his weight a little, and balled his fists in the pockets of his jacket. Inside his lapels he wore a red tie knotted at his neck.

“I’m here because my girl is breech,” Joe said. He remembered to stick to his story. “When she gives birth, we’re going back. She’s really hungry. I need to find some food. Do you know where I can get some?”

“Certainly, I’ll buy you whatever you want.”

Joe almost said yes right away because the offer was too tempting and he wouldn’t have to spend any money or rifle shells. The problem was he had a queer feeling about this guy. Even so, he thought he’d be a fool not to at least follow the guy to where there was some food. He would just have to be careful. That’s all. At the first sign of trouble, he’d simply run.

“I can pay for it, just show me where to go.”

“A man of pride, I see.”

Joe followed Phil down a side street off the crowded Fulfillment District. Moments later, they entered some kind of market with stalls and storefronts that lined the street of medium-sized buildings. It smelled of ripe sweat and fried meat. On top of some of the buildings were heliports where government officials and the wealthy docked their helicrafts.

The market below bustled with all sorts of different people. Men and women shouted and gestured at each other as if they were trying to
outdo one another. Some were dressed in rags, scuttling about or scavenging for anything dropped or discarded. A woman, who had a flattened nose that looked punched in, snatched an apple core that someone tossed. She shoved it whole into her mouth and then smiled as if she couldn’t believe her incredible fortune. Then there was a man and a woman in fancy clothes. The woman, who wore an elaborate hat, was looking over a table of jewelry and strings of what appeared to be teeth or perhaps small bones. They each had cloth masks over their mouths. As the woman examined a necklace, the man kept looking around as if expecting someone.

O
ther stalls and shops sold beaten-up appliances, televisions, radios, computers, mobicoms, and other gadgets that Joe had never seen before. There were also displays of organ scaffolds and exoskeletons. Storefronts proclaimed services for gene mapping, modification, and splicing, as well as fresh replacement organs. Stores sold live animal cells and stem cells. Pet shops sold exotic hybrids like flying cats and miniature chimps with human vocal cords, while other places carried drugs for physical and mental enhancement.

To Joe, it was all a blur of bizarre things he barely understood or wanted to understand.

“Stay close to me,” Phil said.

It wasn’t hard to keep up with him because Phil walked very leisurely. He sidestepped people who suddenly appeared in his way. He said, “Pardon me” as he shuffled around a clot of people who were blocking his path. Joe kept smelling food from restaurants and vendors and wondered why they weren’t stopping. They passed close by a cart strung with the dead carcasses of birds, rats, rabbits, and spotted hogs, which apparently Phil didn’t see because he didn’t stop, so Joe grabbed his sleeve.

“Hey,” Joe said. “There’s food right here.”

“That’s no good,” Phil said. “I know where you can get food at a good price. It’s up ahead.”

What Joe saw around the corner didn’t make him feel very confident. The street was more like an alley, dark and deserted. Along the center of the cracked and crumbled cobblestones was a stream of slimy water, and along the edges were heaps of moldering garbage against the sides of the black buildings. Near the end of the street, on the right hand side, was a faint halo of ruddy light.

“I don’t see anything down there,” Joe said.

“See that light? That’s it. The best biscuits in the whole city.”

“I don’t know.”

“Come now. Trust me.”

That was the problem. The queer feeling from earlier got worse. He knew this was a bad idea. He could hear Frank saying, “If you feel afraid, be afraid.” Only he doubted himself. He wasn’t sure the queer feeling was fear. Maybe it was just nerves, or maybe it was hunger. After all, if Phil was right, Joe would get the food he needed for Mary and the baby. He was sure he could escape if he had to. Just a little bit further, he thought.  

Halfway down the squalid street, Joe saw two pairs of feet wrapped in rags sticking out of a wood crate between mounds of trash. The sight startled him and he slipped on the slick cobblestones and stepped into the slimy stream of water.

“You okay?” Phil asked.

“Somebody’s there,” Joe said.

“They’re dead. Keep going.”

“How do you know they’re dead?”

“They’re dead. They’re urchins. Don’t waste your time. They might as well be dead. Come on.”

Up the dark street, Joe heard voices. Two stumbling figures appeared like shadows against the dim light shining from the street behind them. Water splashed and a tin can clunked on the ground. The two men passed under the glow of the ruddy light in the alley. They wore thick wool caps and frayed jackets with no shirts underneath. Their pants were ripped and tattered at the ends and one man, who appeared drunker than the other, was missing a shoe. He laughed and staggered to his knees. The other man fumbled for him and finally caught hold of his collar and yanked him to his feet.

“They might be faking it,” Phil said. “They might want us to think they’re drunk, so they can rob us. Slow down. Stay close to me.”

Phil grabbed Joe’s arm and they practically came to a halt as they waited for the drunken men to pass safely by.

“You can never be too careful,” Phil said. But in the next moment, he said, “Did you hear that?”

Joe perked up his ears and tried to listen for any unusual sounds. He didn’t hear anything. He looked behind him. The drunken men were out of sight now. He looked at the ruddy light shining ahead where Phil said the biscuits where at. He didn’t see anything strange up there either.

“I thought I heard the sound of an Arbyter.” Phil looked around. “They might be conducting a sweep. Over here,” he said. “There’s a place to hide.”

Phil latched onto Joe, and before Joe knew what happened or even had a chance to protest, Phil pulled him into a dark entryway. He felt Phil’s warm breath next to his ear, and then something wet, like the first raindrops to fall before a storm. Joe went to wipe it away, but his hand brushed against Phil’s lips.

Phil breathed heavily. He seized Joe’s hand and pressed his lips to Joe’s knuckles.

“Stop,” Joe said. He tried to rip his hand free. “What are you doing?”

Phil clenched Joe’s wrist with one hand while he wedged his forearm against Joe’s throat. The back of Joe’s head grated on the brick wall behind him. He didn’t understand what was happening. Then Phil released his wrist, and Joe tried to shove him away, only Phil slammed into him and jammed his hand down into Joe’s pants.

“Stop,” Joe tried to shout.

Then
Joe swung his foot up in the air as hard as he could and slammed it right between Phil’s legs. Phil let go, stumbled backwards, and doubled over. He groaned and gasped for breath. When Joe saw him fall, he didn’t waste any time. He whipped around the corner, slipping on the wet stones before he was able to catch his footing again.