Hardwired (3 page)

Sarah was ten. She was doing a tour in a Youth Reclamation Camp near Stone Mountain when three rocks obliterated Atlanta and killed her mother. Daud, who was eight, was trapped in the rubble, but the neighbors heard his screams and got him out. After that, Sarah and her brother bounced from one DP agency to another, then ended up in Tampa with her father, whom she hadn’t seen or heard of since she was three. The social worker held her hand all the way up the decaying apartment stairs, and Sarah held Daud’s. The halls stank of urine, and a dismembered doll lay strewn on the second-floor landing, broken apart like the nations of Earth, like the lives of the people here. When the apartment door opened she saw a man in a torn shirt with sweat stains in the armpits and watery alcoholic eyes. The eyes, uncomprehending, had moved from Sarah and Daud and then to the social worker as the papers were served, and the social worker said, “This is your father. He’ll take care of you,” before dropping Sarah’s hand. It turned out to be only half a lie.

She looks at the fading photographs in their dusty frames, the dead men and women with their metallic Zeiss eyes. Maurice is looking at them, too. He is lost in his memories, and it looks as if he is trying to cry; but his eyes are lubricated with silicon and his tear ducts are gone, of course, along with his dreams, with the dreams of the billions who had hoped the Orbitals would improve their lives, who have no hope now but to get out somehow, out into the cold, perfect cobalt of the sky.

Sarah wishes she herself could cry, for the dead hope framed in black on the walls, for herself and Daud, for the broken thing that is all earthly aspiration, even for the snagboy who had seen his chance to escape but had not been smart enough to play his way out of the game his hopes had dealt him into. But the tears are long gone and in their place is hardened steel desire– the desire shared by all the dirtgirls and mudboys. To achieve it she has to want it more than the others, and she has to be willing to do what is necessary– or to have it done to her, if it comes to that. Involuntarily her hand rises to her throat as she thinks of Weasel. No, there is no time for tears.

“Looking for work, Sarah?” The voice comes from the quiet white man who has been sitting at the end of the bar. He has come closer, one hand on the back of the bar stool next to her. He is smiling as if he is unaccustomed to it.

She narrows her eyes as she looks at him sidelong, and takes a deliberately long drink. “Not the kind of work you have in mind, collarboy,” she says.

“You come recommended,” he says. His voice is sandpaper, the kind you never forget. Perhaps he’s never had to raise it in his life.

She drinks again and looks at him. “By whom?” she says.

The smile is gone now; the nondescript face looks at her warily. “The Hetman,” he says.

“Michael?” she asks.

He nods. “My name is Cunningham,” he says.

“Do you mind if I call Michael and ask him?” she says. The Hetman controls the Bay thirdmen and sometimes she runs the Weasel for him. She doesn’t like the idea of his dropping her name to strangers.

“If you like,” Cunningham says. “But I’d like to talk to you about work first.”

“This isn’t the bar I go to for work,” she says. “See me in the Plastic Girl, at ten.”

“This isn’t the sort of offer that can wait.”

Sarah turns her back to him and looks into Maurice’s metal eyes. “This man,” she says, “is bothering me.”

Maurice’s face does not change expression. “You best leave,” he says to Cunningham.

Sarah, not looking at Cunningham, receives from the corner of her eye an impression of a spring uncoiling. Cunningham seems taller than he was a moment ago.

“Do I get to finish my drink first?” he asks.

Maurice, without looking down, reaches into the till and flicks bills onto the dark surface of the bar. “Drink’s on the house. Outta my place.”

Cunningham says nothing, just gazes for a calm moment into the unblinking metal eyes.

“Townsend,” Maurice says, a code word and the name of the general who had once led him up against the Orbitals and their burning defensive energies. The Blue Silk’s hardware voiceprints him and the defensive systems appear from where they are hidden above the bar mirror, locking down into place. Sarah glances up. Military lasers, she thinks, scrounged on the black market, or maybe from Maurice’s old cutter. She wonders if the bar has power enough to use them, or whether they are bluff.

Cunningham stands still for another half second, then turns and leaves the Blue Silk. Sarah does not watch him go.

“Thanks, Maurice,” she says.

Maurice forces a sad smile. “Hell, lady,” he says, “you a regular customer. And that fella’s been Orbital.”

Sarah contemplates her surprise. “He’s from the blocs?” she asks. “You’re sure?”

“Innes,” Maurice says, another name from the past, and the lasers slot up into place. His hands flicker out to take the money from the bar. “I didn’t say he’s from the blocs, Sarah,” he says, “but he’s been there. Recently, too. You can tell from the way they walk, if you got the eyes.” He raises a gnarled finger to his head. “His ear, you know? Gravity created by centrifugal force is just a little bit different. It takes a while to adjust.”

Sarah frowns. What kind of job is the man offering? Something important enough to bring him down through the atmosphere, to hire some dirtgirl and her Weasel? It doesn’t seem likely. Well. She’ll see him in the Plastic Girl, or not. She isn’t going to worry about it. She shifts her weight from one leg to the other, the muscles crackling with pain even through the endorphin haze. She holds out her glass. “Another, please, Maurice,” she says.

With a slow grace that must have served him well in the high starry evernight, Maurice turns toward the mirror and reaches for the rum. Even in a gesture this simple; there is sadness.

¿VIVE EN LA CIUDAD DE DOLOR?

¡DEJENOS MANDARLE A HAPPYVILLE!

– Pointsman Pharmaceuticals A.G.

She takes a taxi home from the Blue Silk, trying to ignore Cunningham’s calm eyes on the back of her head as she gives the driver her address. He is across the street under an awning, pretending to read a display in a store window. How much is she throwing away here? She doesn’t turn to see if he registers dismay at her retreat, but somehow she doubts his expression has changed.

With Daud she shares a two-room apartment that hums. There is the hum of the coolers and recyclers, more humming from the little glowing robots that move about randomly, doing the dusting and polishing, devouring insects and arachnids, and cleaning the cobwebs out of corners. She has a modest comp deck in the front room and Daud has a vast audio system hooked to it, with a six-foot screen to show the vid. It’s on now, silently, showing computer-generated color patterns, broadcasting them with laser optics on the ceiling and walls. The computer is running the changes on red, and the walls burn with cold and silent fire.

Sarah turns off the vid and looks down at the cooling comp deck, the reds fading slowly from her retinas. She empties the dirty ashtrays Daud has left behind and thinks about the man in brown, Cunningham. The endorphins are wearing off and the bone bruise on her thigh is hammering her with every step. It’s time for another dose.

She checks her hiding place on a shelf, in a can of sugar, and sees that two of her twelve vials of endorphin are gone. Daud, of course. There aren’t enough places to hide even small amounts of stuff in an apartment this size. She sighs, then ties her tourniquet above the elbow. She slots a vial into her injector, dials the dose she wants, and presses the injector to her arm. The injector hums and she sees a bubble rise in the vial. Then there is a warning light on the injector and she feels a tug of flesh as the needle slides on its cool spray of anesthetic into her vein. She unties, watches the LED on the injector pulse ten times, and then she feels a veil slide between her and her pain. She takes a ragged breath, then stands. She leaves the injector on the sofa and walks back to the comp.

Michael the Hetman is in his office when she calls. She speaks to him in Spanglish and he laughs.

“I thought I’d hear from you today, mi hermana,” he says.

“Yes?” she asks. “You know this orbiter Cunningham?”

“So-so. We’ve done business. He has the highest recommendations. ”

“Whose?”

“The highest,” he says.

“So you recommend that I trust him?” Sarah asks.

His laugh seems a little jangled. She wonders if he is high. “I never make that kind of recommendation, mi hermana,” he says.

“Yes, you would, Hetman,” Sarah says. “If you are getting a piece of whatever it is Cunningham is doing. As it is, you’re just doing him a favor.”

“Do svidaniya, my sister,” says Michael, sounding annoyed, and snaps off. Sarah looks into the humming receiver and frowns.

The door opens behind her and she spins and goes into her stance, balanced to jump forward or back. Daud walks carelessly in the door. Behind him, carrying a six-pack of beer, comes his manager, Jackstraw, a small young man with unquiet eyes. Daud looks up at her, speaks through the cigarette held in his lips. “You expecting someone else?” he asks.

She relaxes. “No,” she says. “Just nerves. It’s been a nervous day.”

Daud’s eyes move restlessly over the small apartment. He has altered the irises from brown to a pale blue, just as he’d altered the color of his hair, eyebrows, and lashes to a white blond. He is tanned, and his hair is shoulder-length and shaggy. He wears tooled leather sandals, and a tight white pair of slacks under a dark net shirt. He is taking hormone suppressants, and though he is twenty he looks fifteen and is beardless.

Sarah moves over to him and kisses him hello. “I’m working tonight,” he says. “He wants to have dinner. I can’t stay long.”

“Is it someone you know?” she asks.

“Yes.” He gives a shadowy grin, meant to be reassuring. His blue eyes flicker. “I’ve been with him before.”

“Not a thatch?”

He shrugs out of her embrace and goes to sit on the sofa. “No,” he mumbles. “An old guy. Lonely, I guess. Easy to please. Wants to talk more than anything.” He sees the plastic pack of endorphins and picks it up, searching through it. Sarah sees two more vials vanish between his fingers.

“Daud,” she says, her voice a warning. “That’s our food and rent– I’ve got to get it on the street.”

“Just one,” Daud says. He drops the other back in the bag, holds up one to let her see it.

Cigarette ash drifts to the floor.

“You’ve already had your share,” Sarah says.

His pale eyes flicker in his dark face. “Okay,” he says. But he doesn’t put the vial down. His need is too strong. She looks down and shakes her head. “One,” she agrees. “Okay.” He pockets it, then picks up the loaded injector and dials a dosage–– a high dosage, she knows. She resists the urge to check the injector, knowing that someday if he goes on this way he’ll put himself in a coma, but knowing how much he’d resent her concern. Sarah watches as the endorphin hits his head, as he lies back and sighs, his twitchy nervousness gone.

She takes the injector and frees the vial, then puts it in the plastic bag. There is a half smile on Daud’s face as he looks up at her. “Thanks, Sarah,” he says.

“I love you,” she says.

He closes his eyes and strops his back on the sofa like a cat. His throat makes strange whimpering noises. She takes the bag and walks into her room and throws the bag on her bed. A wave of sadness whispers through her veins like a drug of melancholy. Daud will die before long, and she can’t stop it.

Once it had been she who stood between him and life; now it is the endorphins that keep him insulated from the things that want to touch him. Their father had been crazy and violent, and half her scars were Daud’s by right; she had suffered them on his behalf, shielding him with her body. The madman’s beatings had taught her to fight back, had made her hard and quick, but she couldn’t be there all the time. The old man had sensed weakness in Daud, and found it. When Sarah was fourteen she’d run with the first boy who’d promised her a place free from pain; two years later, when she’d bought her way out of her first contract and come back for him, Daud had been shattered beyond repair, the needle already in his arm. She’d led him to the new house where she worked–– it was the only place she had–– and there he’d learned to earn his living, as she had learned in her own time. He is broken still, and as long as they are in the streets, there is no way of healing him.

If she hadn’t cracked, if she hadn’t run away, she might have been able to protect him. She won’t crack again.

She returns to the other room and sees Daud lying on the sofa, one sandal hanging with the straps tangled between his toes. Tobacco smoke drifts up from his nostrils. Jackstraw is sitting next to him on the sofa and drinking one of his beers. He glances up.

“You look like you’re limping,” Jackstraw says. “Would you like me to rub your legs?”

“No,” Sarah says quickly; and then realizes she is being too sharp. “No,” she says again, with a smile. “Thank you. But it’s a bone bruise. If you touched me, I’d scream.”

ARTIFICIAL DREAMS

The Plastic Girl is a hustler’s idea of the good life. There is a room for zonedance, and there are headsets that plug you into euphoric states or pornography or whatever it is you need and are afraid to shoot into your veins. Orbital pharmaceutical companies provide the effects free, as advertising for their products. There are dancers on the mirrored bar in the back, a bar equipped with arcade games so that if you win, a connection snaps in one of the dancer’s garments and it falls off. If you win big, all the clothes fall off all the dancers at once.

Sarah is in the big front room: brassy music, red leather booths, brass ornaments. She does not, and will probably never, rate the quiet room down the hall, all brushed aluminum and a lot of dark wood that might have been the last mahogany tree in Southeast Asia–– that room is for the big boys who run this fast and dangerous world, and though there isn’t a sign that says NO WOMEN ALLOWED, there might as well be. Sarah is an independent contractor and rates a certain amount of respect, but in the end she is still meat for hire, though on a more elevated plane than she once was.