Three (9 page)

“I’ll be back in a minute,” he said finally. Then disappeared down into the half-height hallway.

Cass stood there with her hand on the wall, gathering herself.

“Mama?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“I can’t get my shoe off.”

She sighed to herself. So weary.

“Alright.”

Cass turned to face Wren, saw him with his right foot at an awkward angle, stuck in the upper part of his boot. Only a child could figure out how to get a foot stuck in shoes that were too big for him. She started to walk over to him, to help get him free.

Instead, everything went black.

H
er first thought on waking was that she’d fallen onto a bed of coals. From hip to breast her right side seared with pain, though try as she might, she could not will herself away from it. Darkness coated her vision, an oily blackness filled with disease. Voices floated there, muted, distorted.

“…a blanket, water…”

The words were harsh, commanding. Cass felt the floor give way beneath her. Falling. Pain clinging like a web.

She landed in an arctic lake, subterranean, its blackness complete. Surrounded, drowning, but somehow able to breathe. Silence. Nothingness.

A
roaring wind blasted her ears. Scalding. She was trapped, cocooned in agony. She fought to free herself, struggling, thrashing to no avail. Iron shackles clamped her wrists, biting her skin, crushing her bones. A weight pressed down on her, smothering. Forcing the air from her lungs. Compressing her ribcage, preventing inhalation. Though blind, she felt the blackness returning. Closing in. Stalking. Overtaking.

N
aked, under a night sky. Glimmers of light streaked, stars falling from heaven. Beautiful. Deadly. A storm of glassy shards plummeted, showered her, pierced her flesh like needle-point icicles. She screamed, but her voice sounded far away. She twisted to escape, but some steely trap encased her, held her tightly beneath the impaling rain. Too much to bear. Consciousness slipped out of reach, never fully grasped.

A
gentle breeze soothed her skin, her forehead, her cheeks. A wetness brushed across her lips, and Cass opened her eyes. Asher loomed over her with his wolfish grin, a steel cup in his hand. Cass tried to pull away, but had no strength. He leaned down, pressed the cup to her lips. She fought, clenched her teeth, tried to shake it away. A viscous fluid flowed over her lips, down her throat, acrid, bitter. Her body tried to reject it, but the liquid seemed alive, crawled its way into her belly, nested in her gut. Asher stood, and smiled until his face ripped. Within the crimson wounds, something wet wriggled. Blackness swallowed her.

S
omething cold in her hand. Small, but soothing, life-giving. A beacon. Calling her. It pulsed, grew warmer, lent her strength. Blue light glowed, faintly electric, peaceful. She warmed slowly, steadily, and the light brightened. A shape appeared at the center of the light, and Cass smiled to herself. Wren. He was there with her, bringing her light in the darkness. His mouth moved in slow motion, as if saying her name, though he made no sound. She called to him, but the words felt foreign, or too big for her mouth. She heard herself moan, and in that moment, the light shattered. A thousand sparkles of blue-hued glass exploded and faded into the darkness, and once again she knew no more.

“M
ama.”

Something moved in the darkness.

“Mama, please.”

A pressure on her forehead, a brush of flesh across her cheek. Eyelids fluttered. She saw.

Three’s face filled her view, his dark eyes piercing, his breath splashing hot over her lips. At her waking, he did not smile. Instead, he retreated.

In the next instant, Wren was upon her, arms around her neck, sobbing. Cass swung a weak arm across his shoulders, let it fall heavily over him. She felt like she should say something to him, anything, but her tongue was a lump of sandy rubber in her mouth. She tried to remember when she’d last had a drink. Hours? Days?

Asher.

She remembered the bitter fluid creeping into her belly, felt a surge of panic. Scanned her surroundings. The metal bed, the gray concrete walls. Asher couldn’t have gotten to her. A dream, a nightmare. Nothing more.

Three reappeared, a canister of fresh water in his hand. He knelt, gently pulled Wren off Cass and spoke something to him too softly for her to hear. Wren nodded and with a quiet but hopeful look to his mother, disappeared on the other side of the screen. Three returned to her side, slipped a hand under her head and carefully lifted her. As cool water splashed over her parched lips, Cass realized for the first time that she felt no pain. The water rushed cold through her throat straight into her veins, cathartic, washing away the fever, the chills, the black disease within. Her body demanded that she drink forever, but Three pulled the canister away, and laid her back. His fingers were strong; his hand seemed to linger on her neck after he pulled away.

“How do you feel?” he asked, in his usual direct, flat tone. He didn’t sound like a man who had just coaxed life back into a dying woman.

“I should be dead,” she answered.

He nodded.

“You would be, if it wasn’t for your boy.”

He held the water canister out to her: a simple test of her strength. Cass took it, surprised at the hollowness in her arms.

“Quint’s evil stuff,” he said. As she sipped, he got up from his knee and sat on the foot of the bed. “I wouldn’t have pegged you as one to run something like
that
.”

It was the first time she’d heard Three say anything that sounded even slightly judgmental. He raised a shoulder in a barely perceptible half-shrug.

“Good thing Wren knew.”

“Where’d you find more?”

“I didn’t. I made a synth.”

She waited for more. It took a raising of her eyebrows to prompt him.

“It won’t boost you like quint, but it should keep your cells from imploding. Probably have to drink it every few days though.”

In a flash, Cass remembered choking down the acrid ooze, and realized only part of her nightmare had been imagined.

“What’s in it?”

Three shook his head.

“You don’t wanna know, girl.”

Cass sipped more of the cool water, and already found herself feeling refreshed, more alert. On a whim, she rolled up to an elbow, started to sit up. Three shot a reflexive hand out to steady her. After a few wobbly moments, he let go, and they sat together in uncertain silence. Then he spoke, in even lower tones than normal.

“What’s your burn rate?”

Cass shrugged, bought herself some time with another swig of water. She didn’t want to lie, but she couldn’t tell him the truth.

“Fifty a day, I guess,” she slipped it out between drinks, hoping it sounded casual. “Maybe a little more.”

“That’s what, tab every eight days?”

“Depends on the grade, but yeah, that’s about right.”

In reality, Cass was burning at nearly twice that just to maintain; far more if she boosted. Three looked at her with the usual hardness, but if he suspected she was lying he didn’t show it. She paused, made herself take a breath before changing the subject, not wanting to seem eager.

“I, uh…” she paused, genuinely now, uncertain. “I don’t know what all you had to do to, uh…”

Cass wanted to be eloquent, felt that there should be much more to say than she could think of, but in the end, she just decided to keep it simple.

“Thank you.”

“Sure,” Three said, still with a hard look in his eye. “And since we’re all friends and neighbors now, you wanna tell me who’s after you?”

His directness surprised her, though she knew it shouldn’t. So far, she hadn’t seen him any other way. This just wasn’t the change of subject she’d been hoping for.

“Just some people from my past. Got involved with them when I was young, and they don’t want to let me get uninvolved.”

“How many?”

“Can we do this later? I’m pretty tired. I think I need to lie down again.”

“In a minute.”

There was an edge to Three’s voice now, like the soft, deep rumble of a dog that doesn’t want to bare its teeth, but wants you to know it’ll go there if you push it. The room seemed a lot smaller all of a sudden.

“How many?”

“Six,” she answered with a weary sigh, knowing there was no use in resisting. Then corrected herself. “Well, I guess it’s just five now.”

“What were you workin’?”

It was becoming an interrogation. And Three’s penetrating eyes made her fear how much she’d give away, no matter how little she actually said.

“What do you mean?”

“Fedor, Kostya, you, the kid.” Three held up a finger for each name as he said them. “Two genies, a chemic, and your boy. I’ve never seen anything like him before, but he’s some kind of something, for sure. That ain’t people from your past, that’s a crew. So what were you workin’?”

“Security,” she said. Then for some reason, she continued. “At first, anyway. I was just a kid when we started, I didn’t know what it was going to turn into–”

Three cut her off.

“Look, I don’t care about who you are, where you’re from, or whose pocket you picked in your youth. All I want to know is what I’m up against. Get me?”

Cass nodded, hoping he didn’t see how much his words had stung her.

“What kind of security? Sec/Net?”

If he hadn’t offered it, she would never have thought he’d buy that, but since he’d said it first, she just nodded.

“Awful lot of muscle just for tapping Sec/Net.”

“You wouldn’t think that if you’d met our clients.”

Three grunted. Then sat in tense silence. He stared into her eyes so intensely it almost hurt, but Cass didn’t dare look away. It was almost unbearable. At any second, she was certain she would tell him everything, and he would do what anyone with even a hint of brain would. Run.

Instead, he was the first to break the silence.

“You’ve been masking?”

She nodded.

“And you taught the boy how to?”

Cass shook her head, and for the first time saw Three surprised, almost lose control. He raised his voice in frustration.

“So what’s the point of hiding you, if they can track your kid–”

She interrupted.

“
He
taught
me
.”

Again, they returned to silence. Three looked away, down at the floor, processing. Cass just sat there, afraid to move for fear of attracting his attention again. Finally, he spoke, though now he didn’t look at her.

“When you’re ready, we’ll push on north. I know a spot, pretty off-grid,” he said, standing to his feet. “If we make it, we’ll figure out where to go from there.”

Three started to leave, but Cass reached up and touched his hand, stopping him. Still he didn’t look to her.

“How long was I… have we been here?”

“Six days,” he answered.

He lingered for a moment, but when she said nothing else, he walked off, around to where Wren had gone. Moments later, Wren bounded back and curled up beside her, a wolf cub nestling against his mother. Cass hugged him tightly, letting his warmth and touch soothe her. She felt tired, but healthily so, as if she’d fought a long battle, and deserved respite. She lay back, and Wren repositioned, snuggled on her shoulder, and together they slept a deep, restful, dreamless sleep.

T
hree sat on an overturned plasticrate in the supply room, rocked back on one edge with his feet up on a low shelf. Methodically, meticulously, he ran a gritstone along an edge of an eight-inch piece of scrap metal he’d found on some dusty shelf. Shaping it. Sharpening it. His hands moved with practiced precision.

Three small piles lay neatly arranged on the floor: supplies collected and carefully assessed for their weight, durability, and usefulness. He’d taken only what they’d need. Inwardly, he chuckled humorlessly. This wasn’t his way. Hopelessly entangled with the weak and wounded. He’d already done what he could for the woman. Another day or two, and she’d be strong enough to walk. And he’d done what he’d said he’d do. He’d gotten them safely out of the enclave, away from the crew that was chasing them. For now.

He looked at the back wall, where the hidden pressure plates waited. So simple. Stand up, walk down those stairs, move on. On to the next thing. Like always. This wasn’t his way.

He set the gritstone and scrap metal on the shelf behind him and stood. Silently moved to the main room, crept to the bed, stood over the woman and boy. Her color was better, her breathing steady. Both lay on their sides, the mother with a protective arm draped over the son. Peaceful.

They’d have everything they needed. He moved back to the supply room, quietly packed a harness with a few traveling essentials: water, food, an extra chemlight or two. As was the custom, honor code of travelers, he’d exchanged some of his own valuables for those he took. Not one, but two of his shells. Exorbitant for what he’d taken for himself, but he felt it only right to pay for the woman and her kid. He’d brought them in, after all. That left him three in the cylinder, one in the pocket. Three shook his head. He’d have to do something about that soon.

He leaned his head to the side, left ear almost touching his shoulder, and cracked his neck out of habit. He didn’t know why he was still standing there. In his gut, he already knew he’d made his decision. With a full exhalation, he reached down and picked up the harness, slung the straps over each shoulder, adjusted the weight of the two broad pockets that rested on either hip.

Move on. To the next thing. He’d done enough.

Three strode to the shelf at the back wall, fingered the secret plates, stepped back as the floor opened up and offered his escape. The blackness beneath him seemed inviting. His chance to return to a life in the background, in the shadows, without notice. And he stared into it. What was he waiting for?

He glanced back at the door to the supply room. Listened. Heard the deep and steady breath of Cass and Wren. A woman and a boy. Just some other people trapped in the same dying world.

With a silent and half-hearted goodbye, Three slipped like a wraith into the darkness below, and disappeared.