The Color of Rain (7 page)

I back down a few inches. “You're serious?”

“I'm trying to help you.” The fierceness in his gaze is a little daunting. “You're not as damaged as the others, I can tell. Maybe there's still hope for you.”

“So you want me to know that Johnny is bad news, but you don't want me to know why. You can't say anything, but you can't seem to keep your mouth closed. And what makes you think that I'm not just as bad as Johnny? I mean I'm the one trading . . .”
Myself
.

I'm trading
myself
.

“That's easy.” He leans back to break our standoff. “People on this planet don't seem to think twice about giving up their family members when they go Touched.”

I look away. “People swallow the propaganda that the Touched are contagious. If they were, everyone would have it. We don't know what causes the disease.”

“Right, but most people don't fight back. And they certainly don't hide their loved ones in an old pool.” His voice softens. “I doubt a
bad
person would bother.”

“He's a smart kid. Worth saving.” I pause. “He's all I have left.”

Ben holds my gaze, and it dawns on me why it was so strange to see him holding Walker's limp body in the deep end: No one touches the Touched. Even the cops have nets and gloves. “You're not afraid of them,” I say.

“They need medical attention. Not restraints.” He steps back.
“It bothers me how they're corralled and locked away. I've been trying to find details about the disease, but there is so little known. Before the emigration, they called it Alzheimer's, and it only affected the old and came on slowly. But it's evolved somehow.”

“It bothers me, too. Seeing them treated like animals.” I have a sudden urge to push his hair out of his eyes, but another question is more pressing. “Will your people really help him on the Edge?”

“I don't know if they will, but they can. He'll definitely be better off there than staying here. But what you're trading isn't worth it. You don't know what it's like outside of this planet. What
he's
like.”

“And you don't know what it's like on this planet.” I walk away. “Trust me. I've dealt with worse. I can deal with him,” I add over my shoulder.

“Keep telling yourself that.”

Back on the hover cab, Samson flies us toward the spacedocks. I hum with excitement as the starships I've always dreamed about grow larger and more detailed through the window.

“Ready to leave?” Samson calls back. “Need a moment or something?”

“Nope.” I don't even look down. “The only thing this place ever did was strip away the people I love one at a time.” I look up to find Samson's fogged goggles as well as Ben's judging gaze, and I glance at the trunk where Walker's pod rests. “I'm bringing everything I need with me,” I add.

“Every planet's got its fire pits and gold mines. Don't be too
hard on yours.” Samson pulls off his goggles and tosses them back. “Read the strap.”

I turn the greasy rubber over until I find a very common stamp:
MADE ON EARTH
. “So what? Everything on Earth City has that stamp.” I hand the goggles back, and he tugs them on.

“Yes, but I bought these at a street market on the Edge. You might be surprisingly proud when you find that stamp at all ends of the known universe. Your people don't toil for nothing—they produce. They keep the Runners in business along the Void.”

“
Produce
,” I repeat. “That's a nice word for it. Too nice for this dead place.”

“This planet's not dead,” Samson says. “Just veiled.” He pulls the cab straight up, and I grip the seatback to keep from tumbling into Ben. We soar higher than the spacedocks, slamming into the smoke sky. For a few breaths we are swathed in gray, but then we come rocketing free . . .

And I'm blinded by yellow light.

I peer through my fingers as the cab pauses above the smog, squinting into a stretch of blue sky and a golden sun. The light strokes my skin with gentle heat, and I turn my hands over and over in the baking glow. What I wouldn't give to share this with Walker.

Through my daydream, I hear Ben ask, “Are we above the net?”

“Aye.” Samson grunts as he clears his throat. “It's now or never, Ben.”

I glance at Ben's narrowed eyes. “Well, don't mind me,” I say. He makes a face like he's chewing the inside of his cheek and turns
back to his com. A high-pitched buzz slices through my hearing, and I clasp my ears. “What was that?”

“Interference.” Ben pulls his sleeve over his com, and his eyes catch mine in a kind of playful dare.

“All right.” I uncover my ears. “Call us even . . . for the
Limpicilin
.”

Ben smirks. He might dismiss the idea that we could be friends, but that doesn't mean I can't use him for information.

I point to his com. “That's what Johnny was yelling about when he said he knew what you were up to, wasn't it? He thinks you're doing something with that bracelet. And you're a Mec. You could be doing anything with that technology, am I right?”

“All right. What do you want from me?”

I turn back to the window. “Nothing yet.”

“We could still let you go,” he says. “Your brother, too.”

“It'll be your head, Ben,” Samson calls back.

“No,” I say. The dried blood on my sleeves scratches. “I have to save him.” Ben's steel eyes are as clear as the sky outside, and I don't shy from staring into them. “There's nothing for us here.”

He glowers a little and twists the silver band on his wrist.

Samson adjusts his own grip on the steering drive. “To
Imreas
we go.”

I take a last look at the golden sun, and we fall through the smog to where the starships are parked in the Earth City sky. The skyscrapers appear less decrepit from our height, and I let myself look down, whispering a good-bye that I don't want them to hear.

“How long will it take to get to the Edge?” I ask.

“A couple of months. The Edge is at the other end of the wormhole.”

“Wormhole?”

“The Void is a wormhole—an accelerated tunnel of sorts. Otherwise it would take decades just to get to the next star system,” Ben says. “And the Edge is about six thousand systems away. But how long it takes to get there will depend on how long we stay on Entra and spend in the Static Pass.”

“The what and where?”

“Hell. I feel like I'm leading Alice down the rabbit hole.”

I turn from the window. “How do you know that Earth City story?”

“It's an
Earth
story. And, if you haven't heard, we are all human.” He twists his hand in his hair; now I know how it gets so wild. “Before the Mecs emigrated to the Edge, we were all the same. Before the genetic advancements, we were all exactly the same. And we still are, for the most part.”

“Genetic advancements?”

“I'm as human as you.”

“That's a weird thing to say. I didn't mean that you're not human.”

“Ben's just sore from the looks he gets on account of him being Mec,” Samson supplies.

“It's not like you're green-skinned or anything. Apart from your eyes, you look just like an Earth Cityite.” I glance over his shoulders and the strong muscles of his neck. “Of course, you're a good deal healthier.” I lean forward, my excitement getting the best of me. “I've heard that Mecs are geniuses.
Evolved
.”

The hint of a smile turns up his cheeks into that boyish look. “A real genius wouldn't admit to being one, would he?” he says.

Samson snorts a laugh and steers us through the spacedocks until we're facing the ship that Johnny called
Imreas
. We dip below the vessel, coming up from behind with a great view of the fiery blue thrusters. A small hatch opens in the side, and we swing around and in as though we're being swallowed whole.

We set down on a platform, and I reach for the door release, so excited to step foot inside my very first starship that my mouth is dry.

Ben stops me. “Wait for the airlock.”

A whining
clank
rises into a sharp
clang
, and Ben pops the door open. I help Samson pull Walker's pod from the trunk, and something inside twists up a little too tight. I touch the stinging cold metal. Have I traded my brother for this chance to escape? What if he never wakes?

What if
this
is how I really lose him?

I follow Ben across a catwalk that spans the length of a massive docking bay. Crew members in black flight suits cross a network of intersecting catwalks under a ceiling cluttered with hanging crates. Below the grated walkway, the starship's cavernous belly stretches into deep shadow, issuing tendrils of steam from clanking, unseen machinery.

The crew clears from Ben's path even though most of them are twice his age. Their faces even turn away like they're afraid he might take notice of them. Apparently it's not only Earth Cityites who fear Mecs.

Samson leads Walker down a different walkway, and I stop. “Where will you put him?”

“Wherever there's room,” the old man calls over his shoulder. “I'll let Ben know where, and he'll let you know when he's allowed.” Samson turns a corner, disappearing with my little brother. I didn't even get to say good-bye.

“When he's allowed?” I repeat. I hurry into a cargo lift behind Ben. “What did he mean by—” A crew member forces himself through the closing lift doors, distracting me. We begin to rise as the short man holds out a huge wad of bills to Ben. “Send me a good one, will you?”

Ben doesn't take the money. “You know it doesn't work like that,” he says tightly.

“What about her?” Gregg ogles my chest. “She won't mind. In fact, she'll do nice—”

“She's a red tag,” Ben says.

“Apologies.” Gregg glances all over the elevator like he's worried that he's been caught on camera. He slams the emergency stop, making the doors jerk open between levels, and he shimmies over the edge to the top floor. Ben smacks a button, and we begin to rise again.

“What was that about?” I ask.

“A desperate act by a desperate idiot.”

“What'd you mean by ‘red tag'?”

He twists his com like it's cutting off the circulation to his hand. “You'll see.”

We exit on a dark, quiet level, and Ben's boots bang confidently as I follow him toward a door with a giant wheel lock.
He presses something on his com, and the lock spins until it jumps open.

We step inside. “This is the center of
Imreas
,” he says. “The safest place on the ship during early space. You'll be freed once we hit the relative safety of the Void. Johnny's weird about his girls walking around before we reach traveling speed.”

“Girls?” My eyes turn around a huge room with high ceilings and . . .

Girls
.

Dozens of girls are strapped to the wall. Their heads hang forward like a demented rainbow of white-blonde to black hair colors. “What the—”

“They're not dead. They're knocked out. Just like you're about to be.” He steps to the front of the line and picks up an empty harness. “Hurry up. I'm late.”

I step closer even though I'd rather be running backward. “These are all
his girls
?”

Ben laughs hollowly. “Johnny calls them
his girls
because they work for him to keep their spots on the ship. He trades them.”

“Trades?”

“Prostitutes.” Ben loosens the harness, talking low. “He pimps them to the crew and other passengers.”

“
He's going to
pimp
me?
”

Ben slips the harness over my shoulders. “I tried to warn you.” I stare into his face, but he looks away, locking the straps around my hips. “Besides, you agreed to give him your body. You didn't tell him that he couldn't share it.” He shakes his head. “I didn't mean . . . hell, I always say the wrong thing. I'm sorry, Rain.”