Archon's Queen
Author: Matthew S. Cox
Date: 2015-05-02 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Young Adult
Description: Secrets, guilt, and shame―Annabelle Morgan has them all in droves. Fortunately, only one can kill her. Anna’s gift, psionic control over electricity, tends to go haywire in moments of high emotion. One such episode leaves her homeless after her father’s “accidental” death. She ekes out a modest life as a thief and freelance enforcer until a close call with a murderous government agency makes her turn to Zoom―a powerful hallucinogenic street drug that numbs her mind so the monster cannot get out. Her safety blanket becomes a devouring pit. In 2413 London, Anna lives in the gutter, unable to eve
Publisher: Curiosity Quills Press

A Division of Whampa, LLC
P.O. Box 2160
Reston, VA 20195
Tel/Fax: 800-998-2509
http://curiosityquills.com

© 2015 Matthew S. Cox
http://www.matthewcoxbooks.com

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information about Subsidiary Rights, Bulk Purchases, Live Events, or any other questions - please contact Curiosity Quills Press at info@curiosityquills.com, or visit http://curiosityquills.com

ISBN 978-1-62007-746-7 (ebook)
ISBN 978-1-62007-639-2 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-62007-640-8 (hardcover)

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espair billowed through the sky in the guise of clouds. Formless, the shroud of charcoal mist devoured life and hope, leaving the city below to wallow in its own tragedy. Rain, four days of it this week, saturated the ground with rivulets of muck and poison. As black as the mud, the rounded girth of an aging monolith of plastisteel and broken glass glimmered wherever moonlight caught it. Old wires drifted from its side, like the probing tentacles of some great beast searching the air, connected only to the frigid wind lofting them about.

Coventry Tower clawed at the heavens, reminiscent of the raised finger of an enormous old crone. Its shadow spread ominous upon the field of debris over which it ruled. The old tower block apartment had been the only structure in the district to survive the airstrikes; fate itself had ordained it the home of the unwanted.

It was barren here. So empty even advert bots did not bother with the place.

Annabelle squinted up into the droplets, a mournful stare sent at evil shapes drawn by the drugs in her blood. Clouds had become a roiling fog circling the upper parts of the building, alive in the images of demons and imps. Their eyes flickered from the glow of hidden moonlight, they grinned and wrung themselves out to bring more rain out of spite. Whorls of grey churned about in the devils dance, and took on ever more terrifying forms as the faces called her by name.

She glanced down at her old boots while navigating puddles dotting the blackened muck. The hiss of the downpour overpowered her squishing steps and let her approach a group of four men, three crowded around one, without notice.

The three were clad in black; a red smear on each of their arms approximated a capital ‘E,’ the mark of the East End Boys. At their center, the tallest loomed over the fourth. A wiry figure tried without success to avoid the rain with a poncho of dull beige plastic. The small man whined and pleaded, his effort to wheedle a bargain out of the Boys failing.

Annabelle shivered as the wind reached under her ragged half shirt. Loose, the decrepit cloth flapped like a flag for the Manchester United Frictionless club. Her glossy indigo skirt of faux leather did little to stop the chill swirling about. She stared at the men, her trembling fingers tugged at the hem in an attempt to pull it down a little further over her rain-soaked thighs. She had helped herself to Spawny’s jacket, hoping he wouldn’t notice while passed out. Water beaded and rolled off the coated synthetic denim that held his fragrance as well as Penny’s perfume. Either was an improvement over the stink of the dusty chemical rot lurking in The Ruin.

Again to the sky she looked, while the men argued in dire whispers. The demons and creatures had faded into steely clouds, wafting in the wind. She rubbed her face with one hand, as a tremor started in her arm. The zoomer was wearing off. Anna tuned out the conversation in front of her, and pulled her sleeve down to expose her left wrist. She tugged at a skin-colored patch of rubberized plastic. The spent derm came free from her arm, leaving a one-inch square mark with rounded corners.

She winced at the touch of her thumb rubbing cold rainwater over the red burn at the center. Too many times hitting the same spot had let the chemical eat into her skin. Drawing her arm against her chest, she suppressed a whimper. Anna tried not to think about the drugs so close to being out of her system, or about cold water matting her short white hair to the sides of her head, or the miserable wreck of a life she led.

A gurgling wheeze startled her into looking up. The tallest of the Boys had a hand around the neck of the little man, lifting him into the air with a metal fist. Knux was the first of the East End Boys to get a whole arm replaced, and few dared ask where he got the money for it. Rain flowed around the dark plastisteel limb. Anna stared transfixed; for an instant, something inside it called to her.

The ever-present shadow of a beard twisted as Knux frowned. “Oi Mate, what do you think this is, a charity?”

The man gurgled, his attempt to speak failing. His legs kicked as Knux lifted him higher, and he flailed. Annabelle looked down, thankful it wasn’t her getting the treatment. The chirp of a firing circuit added fear to the cold. Between the sound and an icy trickle down her back, she could no longer resist shivering. Knux stuffed a boxy grey pistol into the face of his would-be customer. Rain beaded on the plastisteel frame, running over the glowing LED ammo counter and onto his still-flesh left hand.

“You’re into it for almost a grand now, bucko. The tap’s cut off till ya make a payment.”

Knux’s cybernetic fingers snapped open, releasing his grip at the same instant his other hand smashed the pistol sidelong across the man’s face. The impact sent the junkie to the ground with a wet splat, where he sprawled on his hands and knees in black mud. Straw-brown hair hung past the hood of the poncho, blotches of red appeared in the puddle below his face as blood fell, drop by drop, from his nose.

The man sat back and rubbed his neck, coughing. “I s-s-swear I’ll g-g-get it, really I swear. Is bad man… I just need―”

The Boy to Knux’s right kicked the man in the face, flipping him over backwards into a puddle large enough to count as a tiny lake. “Cut off means cut off. When ya got at least half the dosh, we kin deal.”

Poncho wailed in protest as two Boys hauled him to his feet and sent him off with a boot in the ass, howling with laughter at his frantic sprint. She knew they would kill him to make an example of not paying; in this case, quite likely the police would do it when the man did something foolish in his haste to get money.

Knux spun on Annabelle, startled by her quiet approach. She cowered, staring at the ground where water pooled around her boots up to the shin. Looking down felt like staring up; shifting leaden clouds rolled across the surface, swirling. The sight gave her vertigo, as though she could fall into the endless sky.

He grinned, baring metal fangs where his canine teeth used to be. “Well hey there, luv. Mus’ be in need if yer out in this parky mess.”

She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, trying to find some warmth. “Me last zoomer’s all clapped out. I’m in a bad way.”

The other two returned from taking out the trash, the trio formed a half-ring around her as they had with the other man. Fear of what they could do with her added to the angst of her sobriety. In another life, it would have been them cowering from her. The thought of it sent a tingle crawling up her spine. They loomed, indelicate in their obvious gandering. The man on her right brushed a hand over her cheek, wiping the remains of mascara away. A thunderclap rolled through her mind as the image of a well-dressed man smiled at her. What was his name…

“Only got one left, but I’ll give it to ya on the cheap. Hundred creds.”

“Giro was light this fort.” Annabelle sighed. “I got sixty five.”

A hand on her ass, a voice in her ear from the left mimicked that of an old woman. “Your last sixty five on a Zoomer, ya poor dearie, what’ll ya eat?”

Quaking, she kept her gaze on ripples spawned from the walls of her boots. “I can beg for food… I can’t beg for zoom.”

She fumbled through a battered handbag, rifling around trash and empty wrappers until she found a three-inch plastic fob: the credstick. The man on the right tugged her shirt up to expose her breasts, and the air washed over her, crisp and cool, speckled with freezing dots of rain. The part of her that used to blush had broken years ago.

“Well then, this lil’ scrubber’s got quite the pair.” Knux helped himself to a feel with his living hand. “Size o’ peaches.”

The man to her left shook his head. “Gotta be fake. Too round.”

Knux smirked, patting the underside of her right boob, making it bounce. “Now where’d a slag like this git the creds fer ‘at? They feels awrite.”

“Yeah, Spid. This one blows her whole allowance on candy, ain’t gonna afford any work.”

“Tim’s got a point there, mate.” Knux’s throaty chuckle became a phlegmatic projectile, which vanished into a nearby puddle.

She stared at the ground. Numb, she ignored the grimy paws smudging her pale skin. “They’re real. Sixty-five and a show then? Will that do?”

“I’m thinkin’ ya keep your creds and do us a favor instead, lass.” The guy on the right winked.

Annabelle covered her mouth, the urgent lack of drugs in her blood added to the nausea of what they suggested. She was not so desperate she’d shag three men in the middle of The Ruin where anyone could see. The shudders could not hide the presence of the thing in the back of her mind. With the drugs so thin, it swam to the surface. Coarse hands teased at her exposure, circling her nipples; she looked to the right and bit her lip, shoving her right arm behind her back so they couldn’t see the tiny, warm spark crawling through her fingers.

“I’ll get the rest of the creds in a couple o’ days. If it pleases you lot, I don’t fancy a feck in the mud.”

Tim pulled her by the hips against his body. Hot breath flushed around her neck and filled her nose with the fragrance of synthbeer as he licked at her ear. Scared, she pushed at him to get away. The presence stirred in her mind, riding the wave of fear. Knux’s metal arm flew into a spasmodic fit of twitching while Spid grabbed his head and screamed; a faint wisp of silicon smoke drifted on his breath and rose from the M3 plug behind his ear.

“Oi, what the hell.” Tim let her go, rushing to his friend’s side.

Annabelle scurried to the right a few paces, almost falling from her effort not to allow the thick mud to pull her boots off. Gulping, she pulled her shirt down and tried to calm herself. “Must be bum ‘ware, shortin’ out inna rain.”

Knux swiped the credstick from her and offered a thin sheet of white plastic with two flesh-toned derms. “Take ‘em, ya look a mess. Kin pay me the balance nex’ time.”

With that, he retreated to tend to his misbehaving arm and screaming friend. Anna trudged away, stepping with urgency between areas of old paving that peeked through the mud on her way back to the tower. She peeled one of the dermal patches from its backing and pressed it into the tender skin of her right forearm, two inches south of her wrist. Within seconds, the uncomfortable sharpness of sobriety faded away to the reassuring calm of a zoom high. The thing in the back of her mind roared, vanishing like a demon drawn down to the abyss through a rent in the Earth.

She squatted, unable to walk through the woozy onrush of the chem coursing through her veins. Once more, faces swelled out of the clouds and laughed at her. Raindrops screamed as they fell past, the sound of millions of tiny men falling to their deaths. Blue sparks arced between her bare legs, snapping at the water for an instant before vanishing. She curled tighter into herself as the taste of ozone filled the air and the sound of the wind mutated into a howling roar. Rain fell on her in a hail of ice needles.

Springing to her feet, she ran ahead, slipping and falling several times in her haste to avoid the sharp things streaking out of the sky. A goblin darted out from behind an overturned car; yellow eyes filled with greed gleamed out of the darkness. She drew up short, and took a step back, ready to scream. Its clawed hand raked at the air as it edged closer.

Mottled green and brown gave way to grime-covered skin. The form changed, standing straighter. The claw became a hand upturned, begging. Glimmering greed melted away to curiosity. A young boy no older than ten stared up at her. His look of hope fell to one of resignation. She was every bit as poor as he. The boy gave her a sad look before he ran off to the tower.

To Annabelle, the building beckoned, despite the lime green fire raging through the closed windows. The weather fell on it like gasoline, turning the ebon spire into a torch shining a sickly glow over the devastation around it.

She buried her face in her hands, struggling to rein in the hallucinations, the unpleasant side effect of her necessary evil. Years ago, they were wild and terrifying. Now, for the most part, she could recognize them for what they were―illusions. The loss of reality used to last much longer. Tolerance let her will away the sights after a short time.

Annabelle clutched her head, chanting, “It’s all in my head,” over and over for several minutes. Wild, nightmarish changes in The Ruin lessened. She remained motionless in the rain for a time with her eyes clamped shut. The Zoom filtered through her brain, caging the writhing beast within. When she looked, the world had returned to bleak rainy normality with only a hint of faces above; as long as she concentrated hard, she was in control. The reassuring fog in her head remained, forming a gate the Devil could not breach. She wobbled to her feet and slogged through mud toward the monolith of gloom.

Coventry Tower sat at the center of The Ruin, an area once known as Tower Hamlets before the war bombed it to oblivion and back. From Bishopsgate in the west to Hackney Road in the north, the crushed and flattened remnants of buildings came to an approximate end by Grove and Burdett streets. Beyond that, abandonment left intact structures empty east to Gillender Street, but no Proper wanted to live in them, being it was so close to the refuse that collected here.

Created long before her birth, The Ruin existed as a tangled mess of collapsed buildings, old cars, and crashed military craft. This place adopted those whom society no longer wanted, a refuge for people with nowhere else to go.

It was her home.

yes closed, Annabelle rubbed her thumb over the derm. The sensation of her smooth skin interrupted by a tiny square of rubberized plastic felt like an old friend holding her hand. The cold wind stopped bothering her, and a thousand whispering voices in the dark came and went. A light hit her like a tangible diaphanous object; her eyes snapped open.

A quarter mile away, where the police had a blockade around The Ruin, someone on an armored truck had spotted her out in the field. By the time she got her arm up to shield her eyes, the light had moved on. She had no weapons and nothing of value, merely another throwaway. The spotlight circle panned over the debris field. Shiny corners of the police van gleamed, a polished onyx brick. She stared at it, that they ignored her obvious distress stirred both relief and anger.

Anna turned away, facing the tower, and cringed away from imps and scuttling fiends that cavorted around the shattered landscape. A grey creature two feet tall, with an oblong head and floppy ears, ran up and clung to her leg. She looked down at the black banded tail as it coiled around her boot. The little thing stared at her with pleading yellow eyes. She pressed a hand to the side of her head. With a grunt of concentration, the creature melted into a loose piece of windblown plasfilm fluttering against her. She kicked and it glided off into the scrap.

Anna ignored the various sights and sounds she knew to be false, and stumbled toward the only building here. The voices continued, their source circling about and changing at random. No longer screaming, the raindrops hit her like a hail of freezing pinpricks, putting a spring in her step. A patch of paving offered refuge from the mud, and she wobbled her way onto it between two slabs of wall that used to be the façades of shops. She ventured a glance at the shattered window frame and a thin figure drawn of shadow staring back at her.

A prolonged blink chased it away. Her world swayed, making it difficult to stay on her feet; Knux had given her a potent zoomer this time, not to mention at almost two in the morning, fatigue made the ride more intense. The voices got louder. She staggered ahead, trying to get to Coventry tower, ignoring phantom creatures that prodded and picked at her arms.

Solid hands seized her and wrenched her about. Another demon stared down at her from a towering height, glowing eyes of fire widening in amusement. Two others, wreathed in the flame of hellspawn’s wings, held her by the arms as the massive one leaned back and laughed a scorching breath into the sky. He spoke at her in a tongue she could not understand, and his clawed hand reached for her. Anna struggled to get away, but the demons held her in place. Oddly enough, she had a feeling this mythological creature of a forgotten religion wanted money. She had none; they’d take the zoom.

“Oi, that’s plenty enough you lot. Sod off!”

An amorphous humanoid shape drawn of dark smoke emerged from behind the deep baritone. She knew the voice. The mass of shadow split down the center, revealing a man. The smoke rolled behind him as he advanced, murkiness sent to oblivion by her recognition of Ol’ Jack.

He installed himself as the doorman of Coventry Tower, a protector of sorts, and had been there since before she arrived. Six and a half feet tall, he moved with the grace of a prowling tiger. Hands poised, his body language gave a warning absent from his calm face. Anna grinned at the sight of the rain trailing over his coffee-colored skin. She forgot the demons holding her, oblivious to everything aside from the trickles of water merging and parting down his leather coat.

“Back off, chap. This lil’ pikey’s ours,” said the demon in front of her. “Promise not ta’ ‘urt ‘er too much.”

The weight of her limp body hung on her arms; she craned her head back to peer up at the burning demon. In an instant, the monstrous apparition vanished, replaced by one of the ubiquitous pieces of street drek who prowled The Ruin. His scarlet hair soaked to his cheek in the rain, threaded through the jet of a wild beard. Black cybernetic horns, two inches tall, protruded from his temples.

When Ol’ Jack pounced, the hands released her. She fell, bouncing once before rolling to her side. Landing ass to pavement should have hurt, but the zoomer turned the hard ground into padding, and she gawped at the air. Above her, the sound of a beating commenced, meaty thuds interspersed with growls and ‘oofs.’ The scarlet-haired man hit the ground in front of her, face down for an instant before something dragged him out of her field of view. She curled fetal, grinning at the splash crowns the rain made in murky grey puddles.

A firearm chirped to life. Anna looked up, searching for the birds, and giggled at a flock of handguns with wings passing by.

Ol’ Jack brushed the side of his nose with his thumb. “Bad move, mate.”

Four hits came at the pace of a machinegun, chased by the unmistakable crack of a broken arm and a howl. Something landed on her back and slid to the ground. She rolled away, petrified by the mud-splattered pistol next to her. The gun flapped one wing, and went still. It seemed to stare back; somehow, she sensed an electronic heartbeat, threads within where power ran among its components. The glimmering amber lines reminded her of the thing in the back of her mind. A well-dressed man faded in over her, not a speck of mud on his suit. He shook his head at what she had become.

I had to run away from you. Who are you?

Anna kicked the gun away into the muck, shrieking, and crawled towards the building.

Behind her, an uncoordinated barrage of wet footsteps splattered off into the night. She crawled faster, forearm deep in frigid mud. A hand clasped her about the arm. She screamed and fought until the presence of Ol’ Jack’s cologne fell on her. Her panic ebbed; she looked up at him and relaxed. Skin wrinkled about his eyes and a faint green light blinked in a slow cadence between his left ear and his neck. Beads of rainwater on his shoulder caught the light, glinting in the dark with each pulse. A weave of amber threads glowed over his arms for an instant and faded. She admired the lines of his face, thinking he had to be about fifty now, and cuddled against him.

“Bloody hell, Pix… What are you doin’ out here alone at this hour?”

She tried to speak, but all she managed to do was spit bubbles into the air. His age made her feel younger, what he had done for her made him feel like her father. Imagined blue pixie wings thrummed at her back, but failed to let her fly. With a childish giggle, she cooed.

“Daddy.”

He shook his head and pulled her to her feet. “You’re feckin’ legless aren’t ya. That shit’s gonna kill you.”

She tried to walk, clinging to him, but wound up doing little more than twitching. He picked her up and carried her like a bride through the open archway into the tower. The cessation of the pelting rain made her gasp and look at the ceiling as if the world had broken.

“I dunno what gets inta ya, girl. Why do ya do this ta yourself?”

She let her head down on his shoulder as he carried her past blurry images of red letters painted on walls, the shadow of a stairwell, and a chain of dangling lights. Anna held her arms out trying to fly, and closed her eyes.

“Let’s get ya ta bed then.”

ull grey-painted concrete spread out above, lined with the splintering cracks of abandonment. Annabelle raised a hand to her forehead, trying to rub away the dizziness of sobriety and oversleep. A moment later, the cause of her consciousness became apparent as a rhythmic tapping on the wall. From the sound of it, a couple in the next apartment went at it full tilt.

She sat up to find her boots slouched next to the bed and the imitation denim jacket missing. Her bag rested upon the nightstand, grimed windows muted the sun’s feeble attempt to poke through the clouds. White patterns laced across peach-colored walls; through half-closed eyes, it looked as though someone had tried to paint flowering ivy wherever plaster flaked to the ground. Naked wires carried stolen electricity to a single fist-sized LED in the center of the ceiling.

Oh, right. I’m home.

Blood and dirt spattered her in equal parts, she had no idea where the blood came from, but did remember going out for a fix last night. She slid off the bed and staggered into the bathroom, straight to autoshower, still in her top and skirt. Anna punched the console to start the machine. Somewhere along the second run, she slipped out of her clothes and swayed with her best attempt at standing upright. During the third cycle, she peeled the spent derm off her arm and cast it into the swirling torrent around the drain. With her hands as high as they would go, she stretched, before running them down over her face, chest, and stomach. Anna glanced at herself, gliding her fingers over her ribs.

The East Ender was right. I should eat more.

She stared at her body, the swath of milky skin broken only by a three-inch tall tattoo of a pixie on the front of her right hip. Its hair was short and white, like hers, with cobalt blue wings that trailed tiny stars around her side. Anna traced a finger around it, grinning at the thought of the long-ago boyfriend who had started calling her Pixie due to her short stature, slight build, and short hair. He had wanted it to touch her naughty bits with a wand, but that was far too bawdy for her back then. Her wistful smile melted away at the thought of his death―and who she was now.

The autoshower kicked into its dry cycle, embracing her with a whirlwind of hot air. Coils of wire beneath her feet pulsed in the back of her mind; the current moving through the inner workings of the fan motors called to her. Every wire, every motor, every detail of the circuitry manifested clear in her thoughts on racing threads of amber light superimposed over reality. Anna felt ashamed at the sight; her father shouted out of the past, angry with her for breaking things. Her body cowered without thinking, away from an expected fist.

It’s not my fault! It just does what it wants! Her tween-aged voice screamed in her memory.

Anna leaned her face against the tube, sobbing as she remembered the house where her childhood began and ended. No matter how much she tried to control it, the thing in her head had destroyed her home. Her father’s begging had become demanding, and then beating. It only made things worse.

Spawny tapped on the plastic.

Huddled on the floor inside the autoshower, arms crossed over her face, she could not recall going from standing to sitting, or how long she had been in there after the hot air cycle ended. She lowered her guard, frowning at the wiry and quite naked body hovering on the other side of clear plastic. Long black hair hung to his waist, his emaciated frame gave him the look of a famous holovid star well on his way to burning out before thirty. When her mind caught up to her eyes, she held a hand over them.

“Done yet? Our autoshower is shafted.”

“Dammit man, I don’t need to see that.”

A little nudge poked at the back of her mind. She wanted to be embarrassed, but could not find the energy for the emotion. Spawny had been on her for weeks about having a threesome with her best friend Penny, but some lines she still refused to cross. He always wore the same smirking grin whenever he brought it up, lending enough doubt to his seriousness that neither she nor Penny had gotten upset with him. She gathered her semi-dry clothes, and put them on before opening the tube.

He leaned into her as she stepped out into the cold air, his chin a half-inch above her eye level. The scent of Penny clung to him.

“Offer still stands, luv. Girl’s got needs, right?”

She pushed past him into the bedroom. “No thanks.”

“What?” He spun to face her, arms by his sides, ‘little Spawny’ swinging side to side. “Penny’s fine with it.”

“No, she’s not. Even if by some twisted parallel universe bend she was, I’m not.”

Spawny inhaled as he entered the tube. “What so you’ll wave ‘em ‘round a room full o’ gits, but won’t have a romp with your besties?”

Anna ignored him, retrieving her boots and purse from the bedroom before going across the hall to Penny’s apartment. The air hung stagnant and thick, filled with the aromas of food and sex. She kicked small pieces of trash out of her way as she walked in.

“Oi, Penny? You ‘ere?”

“In the kitch.” Her friend’s voice came around the corner of the pale green wall.

Anna ducked through the crumbling plaster arch separating the kitchenette from the remainder of the place, and the smell of cooking overpowered the fragrance of the other room. To her relief, she found her friend dressed, as much as a knee-length pink shirt with large holes could be called such.

Penny Dhara arrived in London a month or two after Anna hit the street. They’d come to Coventry together. A mail-order bride from Bangalore at the age of sixteen, she had been eager for a new life married to an executive. As it turned out, the executive never existed. A street gang’s cyberspace jock falsified records to purchase her for use in a brothel, but the police had intercepted her at the shuttle port. Unable to afford to return home, she wound up stuck in London. They had run into each other as scared children and had been inseparable since.

Penny grinned over her shoulder, her knee length hair swirling around as Anna took a seat and pulled her boots on.

“Jesus, luv.” Penny set the cooking aside and hurried over to fuss with Anna’s hair. “You’re a right mess. You’ve gotta change somethin’. I hate seein’ you like this.”

“I’m fine.” Anna’s elbow hit the table hard. “Spawny’s at it again.”

“Oh, pay him no mind. He doesn’t learn.” Penny picked at her a moment more, and returned to the stove. “You’ve lost control, Pix. The shit’s no good for you, certainly not better than workin’ for Carroll.”

The lights flickered. Anna bent forward, sniffling.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Pix… I didn’t mean to make you think of Tommy.”

Anna looked up, red around her eyes, and wiped her nose. “I… I couldn’t save him. Bloody filth shot him because of me. He was always reckless, showing off.” She covered her face as the tears came on strong. “Tommy was more worried about Arsenal winning than us gettin’ killed.”

“Every time I ask how it was your fault, you change the subject.” Penny’s spatula scraped a pan. “When are you going to let me into your private world?”

“Is your autoshower buggered or did he just want to peeping tom me?”

“See, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. The water’s a bit tepid, but it runs.” Penny put two sausages on a plate with some eggs and set it on the table. “Probably wanted to gape.”

“Figured.” Anna tucked closer to her breakfast. “Thanks.”

Penny fixed herself a plate and sat. Before she touched the food, she put a hand on Anna’s wrist. “I’ve been looking after you for ten years, yet I feel like you’re shutting me out of some important bits. You need to change some things, Pix. Ol’ Jack said you were a mess last night, called him Daddy.”

Wearing a fierce blush, Anna poked at her food, unable to look up. “Yeah.”

“You can tell me, Pix. I don’t care what you’re hidin’ from. I can’t help unless you let me. You used to kill people for that sod Carroll, didn’t you? You know the Syndicate never forgets. Is that what you’re trying to protect me from?”

“No.” Annabelle shuddered.

She stared at the plate; flickering blue light, men screaming, and the scent of burned meat came back to her. Her nature had turned her own father against her. She could not bear it if Penny reacted the same way. She had to keep it down. She had to drown it in zoom.

“It’s got somethin’ to do with the way electronics tend to ‘ave short lives ‘round you, innit?”

Anna cringed, biting her lower lip. “You noticed.”

“How could I not?”

“Please don’t make me say it.” Anna sniffled like a ten-year-old.

Aside from the scraping of forks, silence held the kitchen for a few minutes before Spawny returned, still naked, and collected his breakfast on a plate. Anna leaned her head in her left hand, looking away from him.

“Good morning, ladies.” Spawny slid his hand over Anna’s head as he passed, patting her like a cat.

“Put some bloody clothes on, we ‘ave a guest.” Penny threw a napkin at him.

“Nonsense, luv. You know she can’t ‘elp but bask in the glory.”

“You’ve an odd notion of glory,” muttered Anna, too low for either of them to hear.

“Stuff it.” Penny scowled. “You know she’s sensitive about it.”

“Oh yeah, real sensitive. Sensitive enough to dance starkers at BC.”

Anna shrank in on herself.

“Lay off it, Milo.” He cringed at Penny using his real name. “The dole ain’t enough to get on, and it’s the only work she’s got. Did it ever occur to you maybe she hates it?”

“Roight. Uh”―Spawny scratched his head and swiped pajama pants off the back of a nearby chair―“Soz, luv.”

“I should be off, then.” Anna started to stand, but hesitated with a dying thought at the tip of her brain. Whatever she had wanted to say came out as, “thanks for the brekky.”

She forced a pleasant smile at Penny, left her plate in the sink, and walked out.

ondon these days had two types of weather: raining, and about to be raining. Today was the latter, though the breeze was still up and about. Anna’s thin red jacket did not do as well against it as Spawny’s imitation denim. The Ruin, lit by the day, stretched out into a sea of black mud lakes, bridged here and there by fragments of surviving road.

A trio of little girls wearing dirt and simple dresses giggled and climbed over a decrepit tank hulk that mired in the ground long before their parents were born. A boy their age dangled from the bent cannon. Anna glanced at them and balanced her way across a fallen signpost crossing a huge puddle.

Poor kids… She watched them play, jealous of their innocence and pained by what the future held for them. He’s probably gonna wind up with the Boys, if he lives long enough. The unrestrained joy on the girls’ faces made her feel even lower at what she had become. Why do Covs have children? It’s cruel.

“Oi, kids. Get ‘way from that. Might be somethin’ left behind in it could hurt ya.”

The children darted off as a pack into the muck, and Anna made her way as best she could along the paved bits towards the police line. Anywhere a route away from The Ruin was passable, the police blocked it off.

It had been that way for three years now, ever since the Trafalgar Unrest. The people responsible for the attack had fled into The Ruin to elude the law. For all anyone knew, they still hid out here somewhere, though they’d be geriatrics. The police wanted no part of the place. Everyone from patrolmen to politicians had been certain it would set off a massive gang war and give the left-wingers endless ammunition to weaken the Crown. Despite pressure to bring the terrorists to justice, the authorities decided to wall it off. Rather than take the criminals to jail, they made their home into a prison―and to Hell with everyone else in there.

At six of them to one Cov, Old Bill acted the lords of London; the other way around, they ran like chickens in black. Perimeter watch offered boring inglorious work to a constable, and it had become a dumping ground for less-than-stellar officers. The longer a constable spent here, the less likely they would get redeemed back to being ‘real’ policemen. Most of the long-timers took out their vexation upon the Covs.

Anna hesitated behind the shadow of a slab of concrete wall, staring at the checkpoint. Usually, Spawny and a couple of his friends would walk her to town to lessen the chances The Filth would mess with her. She chewed on her lip, chiding herself for storming off alone. Cold fingers brushed at the bridge of her nose, trying to push her drug-addled mind closer to something resembling lucidity. Evading detection used to be an easy trick for her to do.

She focused on the police, trying to get a sense of their minds. Her atrophied telepathic sense sputtered, producing only a feeling as though she eavesdropped on a conversation through a thick wall. How did it go? She recalled it had something to do with wanting them not to see her. She concentrated on forcing their minds to disregard her existence.

At a snail’s pace, she crept, concentrating. Do not see me. A pair of police vans sat nose to nose at the street she chose to leave by, four men in black armor with yellow armbands stood guard at the wall of a small portable building.

It’s working…

“Oi, Wot’s your name?”

Fuck.

A ponderous fellow, whose belt barely contained his gut, waved her to a halt.

Her words came as a pitiful squeak, a hair above a whisper. “Annabelle, constable.”

“Annabelle wot then?”

“Morgan, constable.” She kept her gaze upon the wet road.

The shadow of an armored man fell on her; a mixture of sweet pastry, sweat, and coffee exuded from every pore. She knew what meat felt like, knew it every night she worked at the Bristol City Club―only here she would not be paid for it.

“Need some extra precautions with this one.” He nodded to his comrades with a wink, waving her at the door of the little building. “Come on then, in ya go.”

Keeping her eyes down, she offered no protest as he led her by a one-handed grip on her arm to the small pod building at the boundary line. Decorated in plain steel grey, it was as bleak inside as the sky outside. One desk, two chairs, a plain chrome table, and a weapons vault complimented the communications suite at the far end. Through a tiny doorway, the presence of holding cells brought a shiver.

“There’s a bit of a gate tax, luv.”

Her mousy response sounded like someone else had taken control. “Yes constable, whatever your pleasure.”

“‘Ands up then.”

She complied, passive as he handcuffed her through a bar overhead. The posture forced someone of her stature up on tiptoe. Anna bit her lower lip, grunting from the discomfort of her weight shifting to her wrists. The large man walked around behind her, pulling off his gloves.

“Where ya off to on this fine mornin’?”

“Work, constable.”

“Work?” Condescending surprise laced his chuckle. Gloves clattered to the metal desk. “What sort of work would that be?”

He patted her down, ostensibly searching for weapons.

“Dancing, constable, at the Bristol City Club.”

A bellicose laugh thundered over her from behind. “Titty City eh? Well then, I imagine you know the drill.”

“Yes, constable.” Overhead lights weakened and flashed as a wave of fear went through her, making him look up. “I don’t want no trouble.”

Last night’s zoomer was almost out of her system, only the knowledge of the spare in her jacket pocket staved off outright panic. She shifted as best she could to avoid him, which was not much at all. For a moment, hands pawed all over her. He pulled her skirt up; a rush of cold air made her gasp. Brown’s amusement at her lack of panties gave her a few seconds’ reprieve. One of the other dancers had stolen her last pair months ago.

Cold plastisteel around her wrists reminded her of Tommy. He’d been into that sort of thing. Somewhere in the fog of the past several years, she had gone from hating feeling helpless to using it as armor. The more pathetic she acted, the better people treated her. Silent tears ran down her face. Anna blushed, mortified at how the handcuffs excited her despite wanting no part of the slovenly constable’s attention. Her body was at odds with her mind. She tugged at the chain, a genuine effort to escape, which had the paradoxical effect of turning her on more. Warmth flushed her cheeks, her heartbeat quickened―she could not move. No matter how much she wished it, man sliding his hands down her arms and sides was not Tommy.

She felt like a deer hung for cleaning.

A shower of sparks burst from the corner of the room as any sense of titillation at her predicament gave way to repulsion and anger. The constable shifted toward the sound. She let all her weight hang on her wrists, trying to slip free.

“Constable, beggin’ your pardon, you shouldn’t. I ain’t clean.”

His armored potbelly brushed against her as he leaned in to kiss the back of her neck, leaving a sticky fruit-scented imprint of the most recent victim of his gluttony. “Neither am I, luv.”

Anna looked up past the cuffs at her reddening hands, wishing her payment of tax to be over as fast as possible. He fussed with his belt and she closed her eyes. Terror pierced the haze in her mind; images of men writhing in pain on the ground came back to her. The urge to do the same to the man behind her grew, but popped like a bubble. Wouldn’t help; his mates would kill me before I got loose.

Rough hands grasped her hips. The reality of what was about to happen banished calculated thought. She had no chemicals in her system to detach from reality; she whimpered, begged, and squirmed, but her protest only drew forth amused sounds from him. She stopped moving and tensed, waiting for it. Anna swallowed the urge to beg him not to; if he got the feeling she hated it, he’d make it worse. Heat drew close between her legs, an inch away. Without conscious thought, she lifted herself up to buy an extra fraction of a second before contact. Something on his uniform blew up in a shower of small arcs.

He let off a yelp.

“Constable Brown! What’s this then?” A loud man’s voice rang off metal walls.

Anna jumped at the sound, and strained to look at an older man in police armor standing in the doorway. Short silver hair gleamed, backlit from the outdoors, a military cut. He shot a dour frown at the pudgy constable racing to put himself back into his pants. She hung motionless; trembling as if she was the one caught doing something wrong. All she wanted to do was cover herself, but could not lower her trapped hands.

Despite her fear, she felt relief.

“Sergeant.” Constable Brown coughed. “Just doin’ a routine search of this scrubber for contraband.”

“With your John Thomas?” he barked. “I already told you twice, if I catch you at this again, I’ll have you shuttled off to the Orkneys. Get your slovenly arse out of here this instant. That’s the last straw for you, Brown. Out of my sight!”

The heavyset man scurried off like a hound with its tail betwixt its legs. Annabelle looked away, struggling for a way to keep her composure. The frown on the Sergeant’s face poked at a long-dead sense of dignity. He walked up to her. She cowered, expecting he wanted to take his turn with her first.

“You all right, luv?”

“Yes, guv’na. No complainin’ from me.” She pouted at the floor. Better a dishonest whore than a dead one.

“Don’t lie to me, girl.” He shook his head with a scowl. “Bugger all. These twats take advantage of you Covs so much you roll over for it. Well, s’pose I’d rather you play possum than shoot at us.”

The snap of a rubber glove made her jump.

“Calm yourself, lass. Since you’re already in the posture, I might as well check for illegals, unless you’d like to request a lady constable?”

“Beggin’ your pleasure, Sergeant. I ain’t hidin’ nothin.’ I got a zoomer in me coat, but that’s all.”

She felt his stare for a full minute before he spoke. “You’re not lyin’ ta me again, are ya?”

Her voice sank back to a pathetic squeak. “No, Sergeant.”

He took the plastic sheet from her jacket. A strip of light gleamed across it as he turned it over. Annabelle squirmed, trying to get her hand on it. He glanced between her desperate eyes and the small, pliant patch.

“This ‘ere is why you’re stuck in the dustbin.” He flapped it at her. “Never understood what drove you young people to this crap. Most of you are on the tit, and you spend it on this. Are you on the tit, Miss Morgan?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“Well then, this bit of illegality belongs to the taxpayers.”

He made a sharp heel turn and walked around the desk, slapping the sheet down at the corner. Anna jumped at the hollow metallic slam. Her lifeline was too far away to grasp with her toes, even if she didn’t have boots in the way. Without the zoom, her mind would run away.

Things she could not control would happen, and they would find her again.

The Sergeant fell into a chair and waved a hand over the terminal. A rectangular panel of hologram appeared in midair. The part facing her looked opaque black, while reflected amber light crawled over his face from whatever was on the display.

“Please guv’na, that’s me last one and I don’t have the money for treatment to be off it.”

He didn’t look up, continuing work at the terminal. A Cov speaking to the police out of turn was a risk; one wrong word could bring disastrous consequences, and she’d wasted them begging for drugs rather than dignity. She frowned at the tight, clingy skirt wrapped around her stomach and lifted a leg in an attempt to cover herself.

At least he’s not staring at me. Her head sank. Prob’ly thinks I’m dirty.

Anna stretched, trying to will her arms longer to allow more of her weight onto toes that barely reached the floor. Shifting, she hoped a plaintive mewl of discomfort would send him a hint she’d had enough of being chained to the roof, but it had no effect.

Minutes passed in silence. Again, she glanced up at the shiny metal around her wrists, twisting and pulling in a futile effort to get her crimson hands out. The sound of the latex glove peeling from his fingers scared her motionless.

He asked her name again; she recited it. The panels of light on his face shifted, brightening. She imagined a picture of her in front of him.

“Says ‘ere you’re twenty-three?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“Looks like your father died eleven years ago…” His voice trailed off as he read, an eyebrow lifted. “Faulty food reassembler?”

The drugs could not suppress the shiver that time. The Sergeant’s terminal erupted in a flurry of blue sparks, making him swat it twice. Anna looked away, muttering at the wall. “Yes gov’na. He got a right nasty zap from the thing.”

His chair squeaked when his weight left it. She struggled, pedaling her legs, as he swiped the derm from the corner of the desk and carried it toward a trash disintegrator.

“Gov’na, beggin’ your pardon, please don’t. I’ve been on it too long, comedown could kill me.”

“Zoom withdrawal can’t kill, though you’ll be wishin’ it did. You’re better off without it, girl.”

At a wave of his hand, a panel slid open in the wall. Beyond it, the steel interior of a chute glowed yellow from light deep within. In slow motion, the plasfilm flew through his fingers, drifting like a snowflake toward its conversion to a lump of beige matter. Her mind’s voice screamed inside as if he had taken a kitten away from her and murdered it before her eyes. The thing in the back of her head rose up, but she clamped her eyes shut and focused on staying calm. A police checkpoint was the last place a display of her talent needed to happen.

He was behind her before she realized she was crying. With no strength left in her legs, her body jerked about as he fixed her skirt back into place. Beeping above her head signaled her imminent release from the restraints, but even with warning, she fell when they no longer supported her. The Sergeant caught her and carried her over to a chair by the wall, folding her arms in her lap and shining a small light in one eye and then the other.

“Shall I call for an ambulance?”

Annabelle glanced at the red marks on her wrists, thankful her ‘gate tax’ had taken the mild form of sore arms and lost time. That’s what you get for storming off alone. The nicety of this policeman seemed unusual, exacerbating her sense of being cheap and dirty. She considered the blame for the shamble of her life was as much hers as it belonged to society. Most constables thought of people in her social strata as meat puppets for their personal amusement. The men became occasional victims of police combat training and the girls… well, the girls did whatever the constables wanted. Anna had no idea how to handle a cop who treated her like a person.

It hadn’t much happened since she was twelve.

She ventured a dazed smile and shook her head. “I’m all right.”

“Are ya then? You look ‘orrible.”

“I just got out of bed, and…” She shivered. “The zoom’s wearin’ off.”

He made a face of condescension and disapproval. “Cannae hide forever, girl. Sooner or later, you’ll need to confront your demons. I’ll git started on the incident report then.”

“Incident?” She looked up, wide-eyed.

“That berk, Brown.”

She swallowed hard. “It’s no bother, Sergeant. I don’t want trouble. His mates’ll give it to us twice as bad.”

“Aye, suppose’n they would at that. I’ll deal with ‘im then, an’ leave your name out of it. G’won, yer free ta go.”

He walked her to the door. Anna hesitated, glancing down at the portable metal steps between her and the rain-soaked street.

“Sergeant?”

“Go on.”

Anna shivered, grasping the doorframe for support. “Thank you.”

He nodded, a motion she caught from the corner of her eye. Wind whistled past as she gathered her jacket tight and walked away. The Sergeant leaned against the opening with folded arms, watching her leave the puddle-laden mud of The Ruin behind for the intactness of London. Half a block away, she glanced back to smile at him, but he had gone back inside. In the distant grey, the dull shadow of Coventry tower traced a smudge through the sky.

Annabelle continued through a bustling crowd that scarcely noticed her. More people were out and about today, drawn by the rare lack of rain. A world apart from the tower, London brimmed with jostling bodies, flashing lights, whizzing advert bots dancing through the sky, and random smells of food.

A young man collided with her. His hand swiped through her pocket, but there was nothing to take. She offered a disbelieving glare at the astounded look he gave her, as if she was being rude by having nothing to steal. The crowds thinned as she got farther away from the nicer areas, toward where people closer to her level congregated.

She sped up to an uninspired jog past the tramps and street gangers who shifted out of their lazy rest to get a better look at her. Anna did not glance back until the glow of a giant pair of holographic breasts came into view above a black-painted door. It looked so old and battered she often wondered if it was real wood. Each time she would knock on it, the same thought waltzed through her mind as if it was the first time she had laid eyes on it. Today the zoom was weak; the texture of bubbled plastic looked obvious in one of the gouges.

The door was as fake as most of the tits behind it.

Her trembling hand reached up and knocked again. A panel, eight inches by two, shimmered away from the appearance of paint to a pass-through screen. The club manager’s bushy black eyebrows scrunched together as beady grey eyes glared at her.

“You’re late.”

“Sorry, Mr. Blake. Old Bill kept me for a minute at the border.”

lashing lights thrummed in time with the oppressive music vibrating through Anna’s body. With each twist of her figure, the capsule-shaped cage jostled on the three chains holding it off the ground. The six-foot enclosure of polished plastisteel weighed less than she did, bucking and swaying as she went through her routine. Faces massed into an ocean of lustful eyes at the level of her feet. Men stared at her with alcohol on their breath and sex on their thoughts.

She danced wearing only a dark metal choker connected to a thin band encircling her chest an inch below her breasts. Made to resemble leafy vines, the harness held a device the size of an egg tight against her back from which long filament wings sprouted five feet to either side. Her alabaster skin glowed blue from the holographic appendages that fluttered, waved, or extended in concert with every motion or change in posture. A headband of false flowers projected shimmering antennae of light up from her hair, a dangling pair of orbs at their tips.

Anna clasped the bars above her head, fingers circling about the gentle curve of the metal where it came together. She swung herself about in time with the music pounding into her head; so loud, she imagined her brain compressing with each beat. Her feet landed with the precision of practice. It took more concentration than usual today; anxious sweat came from knowing one misstep would result in a painful fall. The lack of chems in her system made everything tedious, every motion slower, each piece of her act necessitated deliberate thought about what she did. To the room around her, she flashed a smile as insubstantial as her wings.

She could not remember the last time she danced while sober enough to realize she was naked in a room full of strangers. Aside from suppressing her out of control brain, the chems mitigated her embarrassment. At least six men had commented on how red her face was. Concentration spread between containing the thing and not breaking her ankle. Whenever a slip happened, she chose not to fall and it got loose. Few noticed the random spark overhead or a NetMini here and there blowing out. Anna forced herself to move with the beat the way she had always done. Each time her bare skin brushed metal, the nightmare of being hunted down and killed seemed less unwelcome―at least she’d be dressed for that.

Under the haze of zoom, the pixie persona often became real. Sometimes the room full of perverts would melt away to a sylvan forest. Instead of being a whore in a cage, she became a real fey flying through the trees. She could forget who and where she was. Today, she had no such shield. Leering eyes and wild howls hit her without the armor of drugs. The way these men looked at her made her glad for once Blake locked the cages.

He had ignored her plea for a half hour delay. A guy she could score from lived only a few blocks away from the club; she could have been there and back in less than fifteen minutes. He gave her a hard time about being late already and seemed in no mood to suffer a request for even more time. He’d all but dragged her into the changing room and ripped her clothes off.

Working for Blake was one small step above being a slave, not that the police cared one whit about what people did to Cov girls. If she had the gall to go to complain to them, Blake would say she had only made the lot of it up to cover her stealing from him, and they would put her in jail.

At least she made a little cred working here; what need did a Cov have of dignity?

The music shifted: lighter, faster, with a thrumming beat. She altered her routine, moving her body in waves against the cold enclosure as the virtual pixie wings buzzed. Reacting to the pace of the music, the somber blue holograms burst into a frenetic lime green before it cycled through pinks and reds. She stared at them, wishing them real, wishing she could fly out of this cage and disappear into the place she so often dreamed about.

A hand stuffed an orange plastic ticket in a box hanging below her enclosure; a tip, physical tokens exchanged for credits at a booth near the door. On autopilot, she squatted low near the man who dropped the trinket, giving him a closer look. His gaze locked upon her flesh and he touched her breasts where they protruded through the bars. She acted as though she enjoyed the attention, smiling on the outside while she wanted to run off to a dark place and hide. A loud bang erupted somewhere overhead; an electronic element paid the price for her spike of shame. Anna bit her lip as his hand yanked away. One of the enormous bouncers hauled him around by the collar, holding him on his tiptoes.

“No touchin.’ You wanna take her in back for half an hour, it’ll be six hundred. In advance. Backdoor’s another hundred. Kink another two.”

As people who exploited Covs went, Blake was on the more generous side. At least forty credits of that, she’d get to keep.

Anna stared at the latch. Hearing this man sell her body regardless of her say in the matter filled her with shame, though far more than a simple locked door trapped her here. She fantasized, imagining him paying for her. She pictured the door unlocked, opening, the bouncer reaching for her. A knee to the groin would catch him off guard. Anna would let her panic out, let the thing go crazy. The chaos would give her the chance. In her mind, she sprinted through a shower of falling sparks and confused perverts. She would run. As soon as the door was open, she would get out of there. It no longer mattered how little she wore. The cage had become intolerable. She had to escape. Anna gripped the bars of the door with both hands, flashing an eager smile the prospective John would misinterpret.

The customer pulled at his collar, staring at her sideways. “W… What’d I get for that?”

“Whatever ya fancy, ‘cept don’t cause permanent damage. You do anything to ‘er a stimpak won’t fix, I’ll tear your boys off and feed ‘em to ya.”

She stood on tiptoe, licking the bars and winking. The man peeled his gaze from her to babble at the bouncer. In the end, fear won him over and he scurried away. Anna wanted to turn her back to the room to hide the sudden tears that rolled free, but anywhere she faced was more depravity. Half the multicolored, strobing lights, as well as her holo-rig, sputtered and went dark. She swallowed her shame; emotion let the thing out of its cage.

Calm down, Anna. Calm down.

The lights and electronics came back, and within a moment, the confused quiet gave way to the usual din.

Her body did not want to continue. She held on to the bars, swaying barely enough to convey an attempt at continuing to dance. The flashing lights and overbearing music swirled together in her head, creating nausea as though she had suffered a punch to the gut. She swallowed a hint of her breakfast again, gasping for air as she broke out in a cold sweat. The flavor reminded her of Penny. She wanted Penny to save her from the cage like she had saved her from the street. Anna shook the cage, desperate to escape, wanting to go home. Greedy faces blurred at her feet, spinning and whirling into a sickening spiral of degradation. In a moment of panic, she strained at the door, trying to open it. The crowd cheered and clapped at her yearning look at the club’s exit, assuming her effort to escape was part of her act.

Stop looking at me.

She sank to the bottom of the cage and clutched one leg to her chest. The other dangled through the bars below. The initial shock of cold metal upon her skin melted to comfort a few seconds later. Sitting felt wonderful. Her limbs shook, no matter how much she tried to will herself to stop. She leaned her forehead into a space between two bars, too narrow for her skull to fit through. The chill offered momentary relief from the nauseous headache jackhammered into her brain by the sound system.

The holographic wings curled forward. Blue again, they draped around her like a pixie asleep on a branch. She shivered, having gone from overheated to freezing. Beads of sweat raced each other down her extended leg like errant spiders. The trembling intensified. She let go of her breasts and rubbed both arms trying to warm up. Staring eyes bathed her in a chill as though she sprawled out in the snow with nothing on.

Anna wanted a warm blanket, a bed, something softer than the rigid cage in which she cuddled. A convulsion brought a trace of vomit to the back of her mouth; a gossamer thread of bile extended through the bars to the floor. Time lost meaning as she flitted in and out of consciousness, the numbing cold the only constant. A man’s voice wobbled through her clouded mind, asking if she was okay. Bottled water came through the bars and she hugged it like a doll, sipping at it, still floating outside of time. Rejecting the offering, her stomach wound into a knot and sent the liquid back up through her nose in a sputtering cough.

A loud crack of metal on metal jarred her out of her fog. Her head snapped up; the floor around her had cleared of men, except for one. Blake hovered outside, his cheeks red, his eyes glaring. Sprawled at the bottom of the cage, she looked down at him. He roared; his teeth and tongue sprayed her with tiny fragments of discontent. Blake smashed the bars with his truncheon again and again, whatever words he bellowed failed to pierce the haze in her mind.

She reached up to grip the cage and pulled herself standing. Being eye-level with her shins seemed to enrage him even more. Inch-thick plastisteel bars made for uncomfortable footing. The cage wobbled, chains clattering, with her uneasy balance. Anna tugged at the door, locked as always. Blake said it was for their protection.

Bullshit, he loves hearing me beg to be let out.

The incoherent fog between her ears parted as real-time sound came rushing in; the music seemed much weaker than his voice.

“Oi, stupid doser bitch. This ain’t naptime! Get your ass moving. You forget you’re for sale? None of these gits wants to dip their wick in a zombie.”

Anna grasped the bars, rattling the hatch. “Please Blake, I need to use the loo. I feel like shit. Lemme outta here?”

“You’ve only been at it for two hours, your break’s not for another three. Get to it, or you can spend all night in there.”

“Come on, Blake. I’m serious. I feel lousy…”

Anger faded to laughter. “Oh, is that so? How many sick days do you have left?” His joviality ended in an instant, voice dropping to a threatening growl. “I own you, girl. Never forget that.”

“It doesn’t matter how much of a shit you are to me.” Anna clutched at the cage to stay upright, casting a hateful stare. “Answer’s still no. You ain’t gettin’ in my knickers by being a bigger twat.”

“You don’t wear knickers, whore.” He bashed the enclosure an inch above her fingers.

She jumped back; her foot slipped through the bars and she landed on her ass. She grabbed her pinched thigh and screamed. Pain rode up her spine and detonated a budding migraine into a cascade of vomit that splattered onto the floor. Letting gravity take her, she curled into a heap on her side, staring at the wavering blue antenna bobbing in front of her eyes. Everything hurt. The music thrummed into her brain, sending wave after wave of bile through clenched teeth. Flashes of hot and cold ran through her limbs. Her bones ached. When his last word reached her brain―whore―the sound system burned out with a deafening concussive boom that sent all but two of the patrons diving to the floor.

She shivered, glaring at Blake as he turned to deal with pissed off customers. Blue sparks danced over her arms, lapping at the cage. Anna held up a hand, mesmerized by the electricity crackling through her fingers. All she had to do was want Blake dead. Her arm slipped through the bars, straightening, pointing at him.

The door was still locked. She’d kill him and get caught. Her lip curled into a sneer. Fuck it.

Power built up around her as she gathered current from her surroundings. She concentrated on Blake’s head, wanting the current to be drawn there. A feeble thread of lightning snapped between her fingertip and his skull. He swatted the spot as if bitten by a mosquito. Anna let her arm fall limp as a head-sized droid floated up outside of the cage, flashing a holographic advert for antacid.

After a mild convulsion, she vomited again.

Her left eye felt as though a knife had pierced it; the migraine worsened. A few men wandered over to see what Blake would do, but he shooed them towards other dancers less visibly sick. The sales bot lost interest and glided away and her body succumbed to involuntary shudders punctuated by searing threads of pain that flickered through every nerve.

ilence crashed over her with the strength of a loud noise, making her sit upright so fast her head felt like it remained on the bottom of the cage. Darkness surrounded her, broken only by the deep blue glow of her wings. Reality spun in circles around her head and numbness had replaced the feeling of biting cold. She leaned forward, reaching to grasp a horizontal bar. The holographic antennae perked up as she raised her head.

The Bristol City Club was dark, the place having been left to its own devices in the wee morning hours of the next day. Annabelle stared at the obstinate locked door. Blake made good on his threat―she remained trapped inside long after everyone had left. She thrashed at the unmoving door after pulling herself to her feet. Sensing her motion, the faerie wings batted as if she used them to help pull against the enclosure. Her attempt at a scream, a pathetic raspy squeak, reminded her how thirsty she was.

“Blake, you twat! Let me the feck out of here right this instant!”

When her scream echoed back unanswered, she seethed with anger for several minutes before her brain sought the comforting retreat of feeling helpless. Tears came unbidden as she struggled to escape.

The bobbing motion sent her back to her knees in dry heaves; the taste of hours-old vomit returned. Her limbs hung through the bars as she sagged, staring into a bucket Blake had hung below, scowling at the thought he cared more about his floor than his workers. She considered spiting him, but somehow found the presence of mind amid her shuddering misery to fear the beating it would earn her.

Once the retching ceased, she reached through at the water bottle she had dropped hours before. Blake left it there, no doubt knowing she would never be able to reach it. She could stand under the cage without it touching her head. One arm wouldn’t make it to the floor. For ten minutes she tried, sticking arm and leg through the bars in every conceivable contortion. The closest she got was a toe a few feet away.

Fading to oppressive heat, the numbness retreated. Sweat came, this time with a fever and flashing patches of burning sweeping in waves. The zoom was out of her system; all traces of it sat beneath her in the pail. It had been more than a year since she had let it fade this far. Mercifully, she felt so awful the presence lurking in the back of her mind was the farthest thing from it. At the moment, she would have happily glommed anything she could find: a Zoomer, Narcoderm, Freelove, Flowerbasket, Smileys, Yellow Crumblies, a Racer Dot, anything… except maybe Nightcandy or Lace. She craved a high, not a casket.

After a short-lived repeat of her ineffectual thrashing at the door, she held her hands over the lock. Ages ago, she might have caused an arc strong enough to melt it. Her fried mind failed to summon even a static shock. Even her emotion racing from anger through shame to terror produced no effect in the surrounding electronics. The throes of withdrawal kept her power well and truly unreachable. She was helpless, for real.

Is this what it’s like to be normal?

She draped herself against the cage, letting her legs hang free, too hot to move. In defiance of the lethargy that immobilized her body, her mind searched. Knowing she was locked in and could not go off in search of the substance she so desperately craved made her want to scream and kick and shout. Her muscles spent, her angst took the form of a piteous whimper through her nose. Glimmering threads of light, the silver bars reflecting the faerie wings, mesmerized her. A tendril of drool descended from the corner of her lip, landing unnoticed upon her breast. She gaped at the shifting light as if it offered insight to the deepest mystery of the known universe.

An hour passed before the shivering came again; the involuntary spasms of protesting muscles rattled the chains from which her prison hung. Her brain cried out for zoom, the static reality of her surroundings displeased it. She stared at the keyhole and recalled a vid she’d watched as a child where an evil magician kept a faerie locked in a jar to use as a lantern. Anna felt like that tiny woman now; her immediate surroundings aglow in the hologram blue of slow-fluttering wings.

She traced a finger over her pixie tattoo and wondered how much it resembled what she must look like, though certainly she was not grinning. It was futile to fight the cage, and even less purposeful to feel shame. She curled into a shivering ball, forehead against her knees, and cried.

This is what I deserve.

Brilliant sparking explosions shocked her eyes open, and she recoiled from a shower of embers sputtering out of media projectors in the roof. Shame and guilt had awoken the beast. Glancing at the wings, she let slip a detached giggle that they had survived. Then again, they didn’t have much power in them. Anna tried again to melt the lock, but the limp tendril of current that leapt from her hand to the cage only grounded into the ceiling. Am I that rusty? In order to melt plastisteel, she would need more current than she could generate from thin air. She would have to redirect it from a mains supply. Alas, everything in the place had been shut off at the breaker.

The night passed in alternating moments of lucidity and delirium. The bottom of the capsule-shaped cage offered no comfort; no matter how she sat or curled, the bars pressed pain into some tender exposed bit of flesh. Only by virtue of withdrawal did she lose blocks of time. Sweating, shivering, and freezing cycled in minutes-long shifts.

Anna had not eaten since breakfast the previous day, though her condition kept hunger at bay. Sometimes falling into a dream, she imagined herself a real faerie in a real jar, pounding at the glass and begging someone to let her out. Anna cradled sore hands to her chest, unable to distinguish the line between real and dreamed pain.

She tried to cover her body, even the unblinking gaze of an empty room made her feel exposed. Her prison hung near the center of the club, she had no direction to turn where someone could not find a view. Sleep teased at the edge of her mind and the sense of cold metal on her back changed to something warm and smooth. She sat up, finding herself sprawled at the bottom of an immense bottle.

Hand-blown glass distorted the face of the mad wizard leering at her, chin to brow as tall as her height. The initial shock wore off at the realization her world was a flashback. Anna pressed herself into the glass away from the monstrous face as it grew shorter and fatter. The eyebrows thickened, and the ancient mage morphed into the visage of Blake.

The sphere of a man hovered outside the cage, raking his truncheon back and forth across the bars. Her entire body ached as if she had been hit by a maglev train, then run over by another one going the opposite way. The deafening cacophony made her grab both sides of her head.

Floor hit her in the face. She did not remember the cage opening or him grabbing her. The bucket appeared in her hands, the truncheon struck across her buttocks in a series of sharp slaps, urging her across the club to the rear hallway and a bathroom, where he made her dump it. Blake shouted the whole time, though his words drifted through her brain in the form of random explosions of sound somewhere far away.

Compared to the bathroom, the cage had been warm.

The annoying metronome rap of the baton upon her backside chased her on unsteady legs from there to a corridor where her face met the wall several times. Each time she stumbled, he helped her up by a fistful of hair. Time stopped and started; her vision presented as a blur of still images flashing in sequence through her mind.

One by one they came: hallway tilted left, floor, wall, hallway tilted right, ceiling, a bright LED bulb hanging on a naked wire, and doors. From blur to magnificent detail, every grain of sand and every mite upon the surface of each picture glowed in her mind before it returned to unrecognizable haze. The cycle repeated until she sprawled on tattered green carpet that reeked of sweaty socks.

Blake’s hand gripped her shoulder and warm sausage-laden breath choked her gagging. “Think ye kin freeload here, eh?”

It should have hurt, but nothing broke through the full-body agony of the absent zoom. He opened a door with her face and shoved her through. The blurring colors in front of her hinted at the shapes of a messy bedroom. His erection stabbed her in the back through his pants; she stumbled when he shoved her forward. The fall seemed to take longer than it should have.

She landed on her chest in a mound of cold, wet trash.

Anna lifted her head out of the plastic and stared into the rainy grey of an alley. For several seconds, an empty can adhered to her cheek before it peeled away and fell back into the pile. Water pooled in the small of her back and her surroundings glowed azure from the false wings that still managed to work despite the rain. Her soreness receded to a point, shrinking out of her limbs and hiding in her head as if someone had wedged a cannonball between the lobes of her brain, and it crushed outward at the back of her skull.

With a soft whimper, she braced a hand to the side of her head, surprised to find the band of imitation flowers still there. Nudging it caused the antenna to wobble in front of her; the nauseating motion of azure orbs set her dry heaving.

When it passed, she tried to climb off the irregular pile of garbage, but wound up slipping and rolling into a seated position on gritty pavement. Her half-closed eyes gazed at the mound of trash bags, the wet pavement beneath her, and up at eighteen stories of fire escapes from which more water dripped. The wall helped her remember how to stand; she spent a minute leaning on it and trying to understand how she had gotten there from the cage, or why it was daylight now.

Several advert bots swarmed her, displaying advertisements for clothing. When they failed to detect the presence of a NetMini signal or ImDent chip, they lost interest and rushed off, careening over each other around the corner.

Most of the population carried NetMinis, small hand-held devices that combined the function of a VidPhone and computer terminal. Linked to Personal Identity Data, or PID for short, a wave of the device by a merchant’s terminal let civilized people pay for goods and services. Alas, NetMinis were not on good terms with Anna. Every time she’d gotten one, it had burned out in a week.

Hand over hand along the wall, she made it into the street and went two blocks over before the steady stream of gasps and insults reminded her the pixie costume electronics were all she had on. She remembered the long-absent feeling of shame coming over her in the cage, but since she was free, only one thought echoed through her mind.

Nakedness was not it.

Her face fell to a sullen frown. Anna let the words hit her and she accepted them, cringing away from each voice. Whore was a popular one, tramp, slut, filth, street trash, and of course pikey. She lacked the coordination to reach up behind her back and turn the wings off, so she plodded along with them curled over her like a smashed dragonfly. One or two passersby clapped or whistled in appreciation for the unexpected show; they made her feel worse than the sanctimonious ones.

This part of the city saw few cops unless a riot or a raid wound up on the menu, but fortunately, neither one had been scheduled that day. The falling rain washed some of the filth of her miserable night into the gutter. She walked through the open space in the crowd as it moved to let her pass. Despite being one bad week away from winding up in Coventry themselves, the dregs of this part of town acted as if above her. Most had low-wage jobs with little prestige and lived ten bodies to an apartment, but even they looked down their noses at people from The Ruin.

Some took vids of her, others stared, one or two pawed at her, but drew their hands back with howls from unexpected shocks. Fortunately, the zaps her destroyed mind produced were not much stronger than coincidental static―enough to dissuade, but not injure.

She ignored it all, trudging on until a traffic signal made her stop at the corner. The crowd shifted away, half expecting her to do something crazy, steal, or perhaps they merely wanted to avoid a nutter streaking about with animated wings made of light. Her semiconscious gaze fixated on the crossing signal, and her half-dead body suspended the punishment of pain because she promised it what it wanted. The Propers following and harassing her meant nothing.

Plonk’s flat waited for her a few more blocks straight ahead. Going back inside the club in search of clothes had not even occurred to her. What he had was more important.

“Are you all right, miss?” A bookish man a few years her senior leaned close, gathering a sand brown coat about himself as if seeing her made him feel colder.

She shifted, squinting at him through the rain in her eyes. It took some time for the message to go from brain to lips, but she muttered in a hung-over drone.

“Party… lost a dare.”

The crowd whispered amongst themselves; she wanted to think they believed her about being wagered to do this. She wanted to believe she was not all of the things they had called her. Anna folded her arms in a sad attempt at modesty and stared down at the falling water tracing icy lines over her nakedness.

The hope was as empty as her life.

umber Three, Dalrymple Road was a bit more of a walk than she remembered. Last time, she had the lingering haze of a prior dose in her system as well as clothes. Naked in two ways, the trip felt much longer. Derisive looks and hurtful words continued, though all she cared about was finding one special door. For blocks, she had walked through disapproving stares and the unintentional baths provided by passing cars meeting puddles.

Her skin alternated from total numbness to such tender sensitivity the texture of the sidewalk felt as though she trod over an army of small pins. The weather and a small crowd followed her to her destination, but only the rain continued through the yard gate.

Ian Mitchell, better known as Plonk by those with whom he conducted business, sat on the stoop under the protection of an old awning. The Buildup, as it had been called, converted most of the residences in London to multi-level apartments to accommodate the growing population. The ground level looked much like it had ages ago.

Above it, a modern pea-green metal structure reached up into the hazy grey of a rainy afternoon. Anna walked the steps, cold and dry compared to the pedestrian path.

“Well now, aren’t you a sight.” Plonk laughed. “You taken up the Bard then?”

“I think I got the sack.” She muttered, blinking, her eyes unable to focus on anything for much more than an instant.

“Well there you go then. Why ya runnin’ about starkers?”

She pointed in a random direction; it might have been at the club. “Woke up in an alley. Had a bad comedown. Imma die if I don’t get a zoomer, can you help me out?”

A smidge of emotion peeked through the dull deadpan of her voice, riding the last few words. She stumbled up to him and collapsed on her knees a few feet from where he sat. Plonk cringed at the sound of her bones hitting the porch.

“Where you keepin’ your cred stick? Or do I not want to know?”

“I’m out.” She sighed. “Please, Plonk… I get my giro in a day or two, you know I’m good for it, I swear.”

Sensing her anticipatory mood, the wings fluttered to life and spread apart.

“Well now, ya don’t get owt for nowt. I don’t do the credit bit; collection’s a messy bit of business, and your little legs are too pretty to break.”

She wobbled back, sitting on her heels with a desperate stare. “Zoom for a shag then?”

Plonk massaged his lips into a Cheshire grin with one finger. “Well, I’m too much a gentleman to ask, but since you’ve offered. I think we can come to an arrangement.”

Taking her by the hand, he helped her up and led her inside. In the elevator, she sank to her knees again and went for his pants.

“Oi, luv. Not in the lift. I got a place, be proper about it and all. I’ll even fix ya somethin’ ta eat after.”

She clung to him, trembling from the need. He had been around enough to know how bad the want could get. Were he the sort to be inclined to do such a thing, he could have rented her out to his mates for half the day.

As close to The Ruin as it was, this building played host to the sort of people who did not pay attention to things normal people would pay attention to. They did not much react to the naked woman with glowing filament wings faltering past their doors with half-closed eyes, or that Plonk had half the gangs in the East End coming to him for chems. It was healthier not to pay attention to such things.

Grey carpeting spanned the floor of Plonk’s flat. To the right of the door, a dingy kitchenette seemed aged by the unearthly buttery glow of a single lamp. A few feet past it, the room expanded off to the right where a large holo-vid player faced a leather couch. A stylistic representation of a nude woman on all fours with an oval of glass balanced on her back served as a coffee table. The warped figure, far removed from realism, was considered art.

Peeling lime wallpaper on her left ended as the jutting wall cornered at a short hallway. Between the living room and the master bedroom, it provided access to a single bath. Following his gesture, she approached the bed while he rummaged through a number of locked cabinets at the other end of the room by a shuttered window. The blinds narrowed at his verbal command, dimming the room to the point her glowing wings gave off more light than the day.

“Aha. There we are. You said you fancied a zoomer, right?”

“Yes, please.”

She looked up wearing the expression of an eager orphan begging for food, holding her hands together at her heart. He tossed it like a frisbee onto the bed, landing the small patch in front of the pillow. Like a dog after a treat, she pounced, clambering up to it and picking at the adhesive. Her coordination dulled from the withdrawal, it took some doing for her to work the thing free of the backing.

Plonk joined her on the bed, kissing her on the shoulder and caressing her body in an attempt to be at least somewhat romantic. Anna paid little attention to him, and scarcely noticed him inside her after a few minutes. The small square in her hand offered an escape from where she was, who she was―and the filth in which she wallowed.

Whatever went on behind her did not matter at all; what Plonk did to her was worth what she held in her hand. Closing her eyes, she pressed the derm into the tender skin of her wrist. His whispers and grunts dissipated into a sublime sense of floating.

Her face fell into the pillow as the cold zoom spread through her arm. All the misery melted away in the onrush of contentment. She smiled, basking in the rapid retreat of the pain and discomfort of being separated from it for an agonizing day. Reality, and the pillow, faded into clouds.

She sailed upon pixie wings into a forest of hallucination.

Giggling, she looped over branches and glided through the leaves. Birds flew up alongside her, chirping merrily. The storybook woods blurred by in patches of emerald and brown, shafts of sunlight offered warm rays through which she flitted before diving to frolic in the grass. Settling upon a leaf, she drank it free of dew and reclined.

After a moment of blissful rest, a poke in the rear end woke her. Pixie glanced over her hip at a furry little animal with huge cartoon eyes. The diminutive woodland creature, looking a bit like a shaggy beaver with Plonk’s teeth, clung to her rump and fussed with a yellow lamp helmet, flicking at the lens twice.

“Oi. Lil’ help here luv. Can’t do this all on me own and the wick’s running out.”

She smiled, cooing, and stretched back into the leaf―asleep.

drift in a breeze as listless as she was, Annabelle’s hair brushed at her cheeks. Legs dangling through the balcony railing, she stuck her head through and gazed down past her toes at The Ruin, thirteen stories below. London cowered beneath an overcast sky; she couldn’t tell if it was before noon or almost dusk.

“You okay? Ye were all sixes and sevens last night.”

Anna pulled her head out from between the bars and glanced up at Penny, her face a mask of accepted disgrace.

“Had ta cop off with Plonk again when I came to, said the first wasn’t good ‘nuff since I was as good as brown bread. He wouldn’t let me leave till I paid him back.”

Penny stooped behind, pulling Anna’s hand over and smirking at the derm. “You ought to quit these, girl. They’re not an Elastoplast for the heart.”

“I can’t.” Tugging her arm back, she hid handcuff marks in the folds of an over-large nightshirt.

The breeze picked up, making her shiver. Penny tugged at her until she got up and went inside, and then closed the sliding door to shut out the gale. Anna flopped on the bed and tried to rub some warmth into her arms.

“Budge up then…” Penny sat as Anna scooted to the side. “I’m just worried about you. You’ve never been the chipper sort, but you’re a bit stroppy as of late.”

Anna pulled the bedclothes over her bare legs, basking in the warmth. The little things giggling at her from under the bureau whispered about her. They gave voice to Anna’s shame at Penny seeing the red lines around her wrists. Knowing the whispers to be a product of the drugs, she tuned them out.

“Your hair’s nice,” mumbled Anna.

“I’ve ‘ad my hair like this since we’ve met. It’s not changed.” Penny sat on the edge of the bed, nudging Anna’s eyes open wider with a thumb. “Oi, you’re wrecked, aren’t ya?”

Anna grinned, stroking her fingers through her friend’s long, ebon locks. “I love this black.”

“You know they ‘ave dye. You could change it.” Penny crossed her arms, feigning jealousy. “I don’t see why you would though, yours is so much prettier. You should let it grow out again. You’re not runnin’ with that Carroll gent anymore.”

“Right.” Anna let her hands fall in her lap. “Long hair just got in the way.” Tears welled up in her eyes as her face warped in preparation of hard sobbing.

Penny threw an arm around her and patted her back. She rubbed Anna’s shoulder for a while until the sadness weakened.

“Hey, it’ll be okay.” Penny squeezed. “Did something else happen wif Plonk? I haven’t seen you like this since I found you in a rubbish bin.”

“Been thinkin’ about my dad.” Anna burst out laughing, wiping her cheeks dry. “I must’ve been a sight, aye. Guess I loved the bastard after all. Maybe I shouldn’t ‘ave killed him.”

“Killed him?” Penny gasped. “Your Da? You said it was an acci―oh… The food ‘sem, did you make it blow up?”

Vacant blue eyes regarded Penny for a full minute as Anna’s brain caught up to what had slipped out of her mouth. Anna was thirteen when they met; ten years was an age in Coventry time, most did not survive that long. She wanted to confess about the thing in her head, but that sort of truth could ruin even the quasi-sisterhood that kept them alive.

“I-I.” She shivered, staring at Penny. “He used to beat the hell out of me. I dunno why ‘lectronics fritz around me. I got bad luck or something.”

Penny, to Anna’s surprise, did not recoil away. “Oh, Pix… You’ve been blaming yourself for an accident all these years?”

Lying to her only true friend hurt as much as murdering her father, even if it had been self-defense. Penny comforted her through another bout of tears.

“No, Pen, I really did it. I wanted the machine to kill him.”

“You were twelve, and you witnessed it. I can’t imagine the kind of nightmares you must’ve had. I don’t believe for an instant it was your fault.” Penny ruffled her hair the way she used to, ten years ago. “You really ought to get off that shit.”

“It’s better if I keep on with it. I can’t afford the hospital and there’s nothing at the chemist’s for this.”

Penny offered a comforting glance, begging her without a word to open up. A scrape of ice ran through her chest from the guilt. More so when Penny jumped at the faltering lights. If there was anyone Anna could trust in the world, it was Penny. She wanted, no needed, to tell her the one thing she had kept to herself. Anna looked up, crying again when they made eye contact. It would be safer for Penny not to know about her. If they ever came for her again, not knowing would keep Penny alive.

Anna remained silent. After a pat on the back, her friend got up to leave.

“Stay in bed, hon, you still look like death warmed over.”

“Pen.”

Halfway to the door, the older woman turned with a flourish of hair. “Yes?”

Anna grimaced, staring.

“You’re either going to shit the bed with that face or you’re dumping me.”

She buried her face in her hands, laughing and crying at the same time. “I don’t want you to hate me, but I can’t take it anymore.”

Penny rushed over. “It’s that Carroll bloke, you’ve killed for ‘im ‘aven’t you?”

“Yeah, but… not like assassinations or anything, just bastards trying to shoot me.”

“Well…” Penny sat again. “Spawny’s popped a few East Enders, not tha’ big a do.”

Anna clamped her arms around Penny as if she were a five year old waking from a nightmare, whispering, “Pen… I’m psionic. I can’t do it anymore; I can’t keep lying to you.”

The expected stiffening happened. Anna braced for rejection.

“I know, luv.”

“What.” Anna’s head snapped up. “You know?”

“Oh, get off it, girl. You talk in your sleep. All the stuff what breaks around you? I’ve seen the sparks.”

Anna sniveled. She knows and didn’t leave? She whimpered through crying, “I’m so sorry I never told you, I thought you’d hate me. My dad was a piss-artist, and in rare form that night. I practically got drunk just from breathin’ the same air. He broke my arm and had me in the kitch against the cabinets. I…”

“Shh.” Penny kissed her on the forehead. “It’s okay, I believe you.”

Penny sat with her, rubbing her back until she faded through the high and got drowsy again. Anna popped awake at the sound of her door opening, unsure of how much time had passed. Penny entered with a mug of spiced chai, followed by a younger girl with blue hair who appeared to be around thirteen. Her face seemed childlike, a sharp contrast to the imitation leather jacket, t-shirt with the image of zombies in tutus, spiked chains, and ganger boots. Her eyes glimmered with a collage of inexperience mixed with a put-on sense of toughness.

From the look of her, Anna figured the girl had been out of a proper home less than a week. The overall effect of her black-and-white striped sleeves gave the feel of a suburban kid trying to act like a street tough. She still had meat on her bones and smelled of fruity shampoo.

Anna took the tea, cradling the warm cup to her chest for a moment and basking in the bouqet of cardamom, cinnamon, clove, and ginger steam before sipping it.

“Who’s that?”

Penny shook her head. “Little miss tough hasn’t said much. Spawny’s taken to callin’ her Twee.”

Anna chuckled. The girl bristled at the term.

After a sip, Anna winked at her. “If you don’t like it, speak up.”

The girl’s blue hair expanded upward, blowing in a breeze that did not exist. The concentric black and white rings on her arms started moving like barber poles and the undead on her shirt went into a mosh dance. Rubbing the bridge of her nose, Anna groaned.

“Cripes, this one’s strong… What’s it been? Six hours and I’m still seeing shit.”

“Faye.” The girl fidgeted.

Lost to uncontrolled giggles, Anna laughed to the point where Penny had to stabilize the tea. The blue-haired girl frowned and blushed.

“Why is that funny?” Penny smiled at the new arrival, trying to make her feel better.

“I’m Pixie… She’s fey.”

“Don’t mind her, luv.” Penny gestured at Anna with both hands. “This is why you shouldn’t do drugs.”

The young girl’s voice carried a surly undertone, some of the venom leeched by unfamiliar surroundings. “This place is a grotty shithole. Um, can I use your shower? Do you even have one?”

Anna stopped giggling as if a switch had been thrown, sitting up with a straight face and taking her tea back. “I suppose. You should run a clean cycle first so you don’t get any Plonk on you.”

Faye whirled with a raised brow. “The eff is Plonk?”

“You don’t want to know.” Penny and Anna spoke at the same time.

“Why is she here?” Anna held the now-empty cup tight in an effort to extract any remaining warmth.

Penny’s gaze followed raindrops down the patio door. “She needs somewhere to stay.”

“I know that.” Anna made a playful batting gesture. “I mean she’s so little… Why does she need to be here?”

She doesn’t have a little monster in her head. She can go to the police.

Penny sighed. “Some nonsense with her parents… Isn’t it always?”

It occurred to Anna she was almost the same age when she’d made herself homeless.

Penny’s words stalled from the impact of Anna draping herself over from behind and hugging the wind from her sails.

“You kept me alive.” Anna sobbed. “I never said thank you. I’ve showered three times today, but I can’t wash the dirt off.”

Faye backpedaled, pointing over her shoulder with a thumb. “I’ll just, um, give you two some privacy. Yeah…” She darted into the bathroom and closed the door.

Returning the hug, Penny comforted her friend’s drug-fueled burst of emotion. “I know. Some stains soap can’t get rid of. I’ll always be here for you.”

Anna’s eyebrows shot up when Penny’s breasts whispered soothing things to her.

“I shouldn’t be this up. I must’ve taken another patch when I left.”

“Go on then, hon. Get some sleep.” Penny put a hand on Anna’s forehead. “You still look a mess and you’re a tad overheated. I’ll take ya into town tomorrow.”

Anna relinquished the tepid cup, smiling at Penny as she slid into the warm bed. Listening to the repetitious thrum of the autoshower, she was out before the lights.

Soft sobs nearby cracked Anna’s eyelids. She lay curled on her side and took in the faint glimmer of morning lighting the horizon. It had been many years since she had been awake this early. Something about it seemed unnatural even if she had gone to sleep at four in the afternoon.

Rolling left, she found Faye curled on the other side of the bed in her undergarments. As Anna moved, the crying quieted.

A small whisper broke the silence. “Sorry if I woke you.”

“If you’re gonna pinch my bed, at least use the covers. You’ll freeze.”

The girl crawled under the blankets, smiling through runny eyeliner. “Thanks. Penny said it would be okay. T’other flats on this level are a mess, and Spawny didn’t want a kid watchin’ em shag.” She frowned. “Not that I’d wanna see him anyway, the man’s a hairy mess.”

“I’m surprised the bastard didn’t suggest you join them.”

Faye shot her a dire look. “He’s not one of those is he?”

So strong was the fear, Anna’s atrophied telepathy pulled at the child’s surface thoughts―she’d been pawed at by a neighbor. The man’s pasty face leered at her, superimposed over her mind. Anna sat up and put a hand on her face. Ugh. Zoom’s gone. I’d almost forgotten how to listen to that.

“No, Faye, he’s just a horny idiot that’s been after me for months. I can’t even tell if he’s serious or takin’ the Mick.”

Anna took a deep breath, letting her body adjust to the reality of being awake at seven in the morning. When she touched the shivering girl’s shoulder, the child cringed away, and then offered an ashamed look.

“Sorry…” Anna knew the reaction. “Who was it then? Your father?”

“Nothing happened.” Faye was quiet for a long time before she broke into crying again.

“Figure it must be your dad if you’re out here at your age. Mine died when I was twelve.”

The girl quieted. “Mine’s not dead, he just doesn’t believe me. Sorry ‘bout yours.”

“Don’t be.” Anna patted her shoulder. “He deserved what he got.”

The girl rolled on her back, glancing through her sky blue hair. “Did he…?”

“No. Just beat the hell out of me… almost killed me.”

Faye curled away, into a ball. “Mr. Bell, next door. ‘E paid me to watch his terriers while he went off. When he came back… He had me against the wall and…” She choked up.

It had been some years since she made deliberate use of telepathy; nowadays, it required concentration to even peek into a person’s surface thoughts, something that used to be trivial. Great emotion all but projected Faye’s shame into her head.

Anna forced mental images of an unwanted tongue kiss and a roaming hand out of her mind. She offered a sympathetic frown and consoling words, closed her eyes, and thanked the zoom for dulling the spike of anger.

“My pa didn’t believe me. They think Mr. Bell is such a nice man. They think I’m lying to stir up trouble ‘cause I dyed my hair blue and listen to Dead Ballerinas.”

“Did you go to the police? You spend enough time ‘ere in Cov, they’ll stop listening. We’re not people anymore.”

Faye’s body tensed with anger. “Yeah, they didn’t believe me either because I got away from him before he did anything a med-scan would find. Bell’s a dean or deacon or something in the C of E.” She took on a sarcastic tone. “He would never do such a thing.”

Anna figured the girl had run away from home to avoid the neighbor or as an aftershock to a nasty spat with the parents. In a day or two, she’d try to talk her into going back. For now, she would let her cool off.

“Sorry for laughing at you yesterday. It just struck me funny how our names related. You kin stay here with me till you figure out what you wanna do.”

The girl’s voice weakened on the way into sleep. “Thanks.”

“If you wanna talk…”

When no response came, Anna eased out of bed and tucked Faye in. After a shower, she leaned on the doorframe to the bathroom, staring at herself ten years ago. A pang of jealousy reared up at the girl still having live parents, obtuse or not, and a home she chose to leave.

Anna glanced down at her hands, curling open to reveal her palms. The lights behind her in the bathroom flickered and died while a tiny azure spark danced through her fingers.

There was no need to lie to her own mind; she had very much made a choice as well.

ixie kept her stare upon a stripe of reflective paint on pale grey cinderblocks. Her knuckles whitened as she clutched a worn metal railing at chest level. Hands roamed her body, patting and squeezing here and there. For once, the constable was somewhat professional and only touched as long as he had to in order to check for weapons.

“No weapons.”

His sudden voice an inch away from her left ear made her jump. The expected slap on the ass did not come, only a painful hand around her left bicep guiding her to a waiting line while he rummaged through her purse. She would be smarter today, getting the zoom in London after she left The Ruin.

Penny’s larger handbag fell on the desk. The closest thing she had to a sister pressed up against her from behind, clinging and eyeing the constable who had searched her. He walked past them, winking at Penny while he muttered something in Hindi. Penny’s face brushed the back of her neck when she turned away. She shifted to gaze into Penny’s eyes, open to the din of the woman’s thoughts. He had touched her, threatened her, told her what he wanted to do to her if they were alone, and what would happen if she complained.

Anna scowled at his untouchable grin. She knew the type―all talk. Holding Penny’s hands against her gut, she offered a reassuring pat and projected hatred at the sorry excuse for a public servant. His police armor brimmed with electronic devices: sensors, communication and targeting systems, bio monitor―a full military suite. Energy paths appeared superimposed on it, lines traced in glowing amber visible only to Anna. She tugged at the sense of the electricity, drawing it out in an uncontrolled release. Without warning, a flower of lightning bloomed around him, crackling for less than a full second with a report like a rifle shot. He screamed and hit the ground twitching as three small fires started on his suit.

The other officers rushed to his side, shouting in a panic as he convulsed. In a moment, he sat up, shaking. Anna backed into the wall with her hands up, acting surprised and frightened by the sight. She wanted to turn and give Penny a proper comforting, but not in front of Old Bill.

The officers made them wait while a MedVan flew in to extract the officer. After the scene calmed and the police found no contraband in either bag, an officer waved them through.

Two blocks deeper into London, they paused on the corner. Now it was Anna’s turn to comfort Penny. “It’s not right what they do to us.”

She looked into Anna’s eyes, shaking her head. “There’s no need for pat-downs like that. How do you keep going back to that club? It’s…”

“Dirty.” Anna squeezed her. “What can we do? They’re the Met. They could kill us and no one would care. We’re not even people to them.”

Penny’s large brown eyes filled with tears and futility. No one who lived in the dustbin, as the Propers called it, got any respect. “Have you thought about the Moon?”

Anna blinked. “The Moon? Are you daft? We couldn’t afford the shuttle ticket, and I’m not about to lick that much todger.”

“I hear they don’t trust dolls up there.”

“They don’t trust dolls here, either. The King’s a bit touched, thinks one’ll kill him.”

Penny looked to the sky for a moment. “We could get jobs. I saw an advert yesterday bout this place lookin’ for executive assistants. We could do that.”

“It’s a bit more than makin’ coffee and bein’ a pretty face on a VidPhone; ya gotta know biz-ness.” Anna leaned on the last word, turning it into a sarcastic giggle.

A few minutes later, Anna came to a halt while Penny turned up the walkway of a small dwelling.

“Well we could wait tables then or something… cleaner.” Penny offered a consoling look, fixed herself up, and pushed the buzzer. “Get away from this place.”

“This place is fine. It’s that place what’s the problem.” Anna stared at the ominous grey smear in the air behind them.

A brick-red door slid to the side with a hiss. Penny chatted with an older Indian woman for a while in a rambling of language Anna couldn’t follow. When their conversation ended, a small boy of about three years emerged from the house, bundled in a beige coat. He waved at Anna and leapt into Penny’s arms, happy to see her.

As the trio left the front yard and continued down the street, Penny doted over him. Ad-bots whizzed overhead, occasionally making him point skyward and plead for some treat or toy he saw. With a child in tow, the Propers stopped looking at the two women the way Anna had become accustomed to. They became two people among many thousands, largely ignored until they arrived in the lobby of the public assistance office and got on line.

Sighing, Penny bounced the kid on her hip to keep him from fussing. “I don’t see why they don’t automate this.”

Anna kicked a stone into the street. “I don’t have a ‘mini, plus they gotta check us to make sure we’re not wasting the dole on drugs or booze.”

The smirk on Penny’s face made Anna burst out laughing, drawing a few stares.

“Oh don’t give me such a sanctimonious look. I’m not the one pawning someone else’s kid off as mine to fatten my giro. To think she pays you to babysit on top of it.”

“One of these days, you’re not going to get so ‘lucky’ and have a sensor blow out.” Penny made air quotes. “What’ll you do when they pick up the shit in your blood? How long does your psych cert last anyway? You ought to stop dodging the doctors.”

Anna stared at her scuffed boots, fidgeting over the pale green and yellow tiles. “I dunno. Watching my father die when I was twelve affected me deeply. I don’t think I’ll be right in the head ever. Lucky for me the sensors keep failing.” The complete lack of emotion in her voice gave away her lie, but then a thought brought forth genuine sorrow. “What I wouldn’t give to not be able to make…” The rest of what Anna muttered trailed off into silence.

“What’s that?”

Her head snapped up, a faint trace of blush visible through an ashen look of dread. “Nothing… Yeah, you’re right. I’m getting lucky. I should stop taking zoom. Not good for me.”

“Anna…” Penny gave her a mother’s scolding look.

She stared, focusing her telepathic voice into Penny’s mind. There’s something wrong with me. The zappy thing happens on its own. I can’t control it. Whenever I get riled up, it just goes off willy-nilly. Anna waited for the startled expression to fade from her friend. Soz. I don’t wanna say this out loud. Yes, I’m a telepath. Anna hung her head as if confessing to a heinous crime. I started taking zoom to hide my power… I just… It’s such evil shit. I lost control.

Anna’s face reddened with shame.

Penny prodded her in the arm with the child’s shoe, squinting at her. “What about li’l Twee then. She’s fond of you. You’re the tough street-bitch she thinks she is.”

They both laughed.

“She sees you using, she’ll pick it right up too. You don’t want that, do you?”

Anna stared guilt into the floor. As the line drew closer to the door, Penny stopped talking. When it came her turn at the window, she showed her ID card and smiled, speaking only Hindi at the flustered young man behind the counter. The little boy in her arms grinned at him, as she had asked him to, and the two of them vanished through a doorway into the checking room.

A moment later, the next clerk waved Anna over. “Name?”

“Annabelle Emily Morgan.”

“Gander into that then.”

He pointed at a small box mounted to the frame of the window. Dark brown rust peeked through flaking lime-colored paint above and below the mechanism to which she pressed her forehead. She hated the way the metal smelled, hated the way the breath of the previous fifty people pooled within the hollow confines of the machine enclosing her face. Flickering bands of blue and green light went up, down, and crossways over her eyes. When it beeped, she leaned away, blind for several seconds from the glare.

“Righto. There you are. Bloody shame about your father, that.”

“Thank you.” She offered a pleasant smile.

“Been three months since your last visit with the doc. You’re due up for another psych eval.”

“There’s been a bother with the authorization; I’m just waiting for NHS approval.”

It was a lie, but a believable one. Half the room behind her moaned in a shared complaint about the agency’s pace.

“Hope they get that sorted for you. Need a shrink to sign off on your dole, or you’ll have to get a real job.”

“I understand.”

The limp sense of indignation at yet another person belittling her barely registered. Better they thought of her as a freeloader or a harlot than they learn what she really was. She shied away from holographic posters on the walls, asking “concerned citizens” to identify potential psionic terrorists so the government can keep everyone safe.

“Right then, through the door on your left.” The man closed his window, vanishing through a small access way.

When the door slid open, she followed him into a cramped exam room. A sleepy nurse waited by a paper-covered table. Anna shrugged out of her coat and climbed onto it amid crinkling. She lied her way through questions about drug use, enduring another light in her eyes and other discomforts of an abbreviated physical. Once again, Penny’s skilled hand at makeup covered the red squares on her arm. Any medtech who cared could spot the derm tracks with ease. In this place, they only wanted to process people fast. During a few prior visits, the techs gave her sympathetic looks, silent offers of help. No one wanted to deal with the proverbial paperwork of filing a report about her using. Toward the end, the wide-bodied nurse came at her with a portable medical scanner, touching it to the skin of her bicep.

Anna closed her eyes, cringing from the mild burn caused by the flickering electrical discharge. Silicon smoke hazed the air between the three of them, and she sat in silence waiting for the public assistance man to tell the nurse not to bother with the drug test.

He took a step closer. “Crikey. Are you all right?”

Being it unclear whom he addressed, both women answered with a yes.

Anna smiled, rubbing her arm where a small red dot remained from the burn. Please… Skip it.

“Spose you’ll need to fetch another unit then?” He nudged the nurse toward a rear door with his eyes.

Terror.

LED lamps in the ceiling exploded all at once; flashing sparks lit the subsequent darkness for seconds afterward accompanied by a lingering buzz and reek of ozone. The gunshot like sound of the failure sent everyone in the waiting area to the ground.

The assistance man yelled, pulling Anna to the floor as if to shield her. “What the bloody hell was that?”

“All the others are in use in the other rooms. We’ve been losin’ one a month lately. Damn cheap Paki machines.” The nurse grumbled and smacked the dead scanner.

Backup lights filled the room red. The man gave Anna the once-over and shook his head.

“Bugger it then. You don’t look strung out. Don’t let me find out you’re on somethin’, luv.”

She offered a demure smile. “Wouldn’t dream of it, guv’na.”

dvert droids massed around the public assistance office, like flies searching for the perfect spot of turd to settle on. Whenever someone left, they suffered a bombardment of ads for a block and a half, until the droids gave up and returned to the throng. Walking astride, the two women headed to a small sidewalk café.

The pair seated themselves and ordered the least expensive breakfast they could find after scrolling through a menu terminal at the center of the table. Anna leaned back in the chair and turned the credstick over in her fingers, staring at the glowing digits on its end with a frown.

“Five twenty-five. What do they expect anyone to do with that?”

Penny spoke between the noises she made at the boy whilst trying to feed him some of her eggs. “They’d give you double if you popped one out. Still, for one person it’s not bad for two weeks.”

After some quick mental arithmetic, Anna blurted. “Are you serious? The cheapest food I can get is about twelve credits a plate. Three times a day for two weeks, almost all of it… Five hundred or so―”

“Five o’ four to be precise.” Penny swabbed synthetic mayo on a thick chip and tossed it in her mouth.

Anna used a chip to scoop mayo out of the little serving bowl. It almost didn’t taste like they had been reassembled at a molecular level from the same bland paste.

“Still.” Anna stuffed the credstick into her pocket. “That leaves me Ͼ21 for rent, clothes, travel, and whatever else.”

“We don’t pay rent, you don’t travel, and you’ve worn the same outfit every day for six months. I’m astounded that skirt isn’t walking on its own.”

Guess I at least owe Plonk for getting my clothes back.

Pushing her plate to the side, Anna flopped face down on folded arms. “They treat us like such trash, but they don’t give us a chance. We don’t pay rent ‘cause we can’t. Where else would we go?”

“There’s always the Moon.” Penny grinned.

“Bugger that.” Anna leaned to the side, nibbling at her food.

“Buggerat!” yelled the little boy.

Anna rubbed her arms. Withdrawal started in the form of full-body aches, as though her skeleton had bruised everywhere.

“You could always get a proper job. You’re always so miserable whenever you come back from the club. Why do you do it if you hate it? Carryin’ food to tables can’t be as demeaning as wagging your chesticles at a room full of drunken men.”

“They’re not that small,” Anna barked, pulling her jacket closed over her breasts. She calmed in a few seconds, and shrugged. “Blake don’t care if I’m high, don’t ask questions, and I don’t have to think about it.”

Penny held a piece of toast up for the boy to gnaw on. “Those tits won’t last forever, hon.”

The child waved his arms, yelling ‘tits’ at the top of his lungs, drawing horrified looks from pedestrians.

Anna pouted, folding her arms tighter over her chest.

“What’s really on you then?” Penny leaned forward. “Please, tell me.”

“Look, even if I was able to hold it together without the chems… I’m hopelessly onto it. I’d need a doctor to get me off it now and…” She gazed down, teasing the fake omelet with a plastic fork. “I just don’t have the strength. I want off it, but… I’m too weak.”

“You’re not weak. I’ll help you through it. What are you afraid of?” Penny squeezed her hand.

Anna looked up with a hurt pout. “It’s more than the chems. I stopped workin’ for Carroll after a close call. I don’t want you to get involved, a nasty bit of business.”

“Organized?” Penny’s eyebrows climbed her forehead.

“Tits,” shouted the boy again, clapping.

“You’re a bit old for that, mite.” Penny placated him with jellied toast, and ordered a glass of milk.

“No, not Syndicate.” Anna leaned close, whispering. “Government nasty.” Her blood ran cold.

Penny’s face shifted from fear to concern. Minutes of silence passed as they finished eating.

“I’m…” Anna glanced to the left. There’s no way in green Hades I’m going to cage dance sober. The mere thought of being locked in that thing again made her shiver. If imma gonna kick this shit, I need to find my old groove. I need practice. Pedestrians smeared into an ever-shifting mass of color. “Gonna take a walk, get somethin’ nice for Twee. Take the lil’ bugger home. Don’t want you getting’ caught up in it case the blag goes pear shaped.”

“Blag?” Penny whisper-shouted and stood, gathering the boy, and stared down at her shoes. “Anna, please don’t do anything stupid.”

“I won’t.” The women exchanged a hug. “If I’m not back by midnight, don’t call the cops.”

Penny’s eyes watered. Something cartoony on a passing advert bot drew the child’s eye and he wriggled, pointing at it and yelling, “Main chaaaati hoon!”

“Oh come off it, I’ll be fine. The zoom’s gone… I got me head back on.” Anna caught her reflection in the café window and shied away. She looked too thin.

Penny waved her NetMini. “Vid me if you need anything.”

“Heh.” Anna turned out her empty pockets. “If I can find a public; you know mine keep breaking.”

Anna figured she had about four hours before the lack of chems started to hurt. This was the less than pleasant time where she had to work to rein it in. She’d had enough practice at the bone-ache stage to muddle through. Another hour or so, and the flu-like mess would start.

With hands tucked in her pockets, she went in the direction of High Street, not paying much attention to the route. At the sight of a familiar warp in the footpath, she glanced up and came face to face with her old home; the edifice of plastisteel and false wood slats floated there as though she had walked into a waking dream.

Number Six Woodseer Street looked as it did when she had last seen it, a modern construction with six mushed-together flats crammed into a giant house. She recalled her father once bragging to his friends about getting into a place built after 2350, a task somewhat difficult to do that close to the heart of London. She had lost track of the date. The last time it mattered at all what year it was, she still had a bed full of dolls and a warm place to go home to at night. That had been 2403.

For a moment, she almost missed the beatings.

She leaned upon the well-kept railing that cordoned off the laughably small front yard and stared at the dark square of plexi that used to be her window. Her gaze drifted down to a wisp of pink metal among the ill-tended lawn, settling upon an old bicycle, white tire squeaking around in a pathetic breeze. They’d had a few good years, until the thing got out of control.

“Checkin’ the place out, lass?”

Anna jumped, holding onto the rail to keep from falling. An elder had snuck up on her, quite unintentionally, and clasped a hand over his chest from the shock of her startlement. Wisps of silver hair wavered, threads of cotton held to his scalp by the weight of a tweed cap, toyed with by the breeze.

“Sorry, dear.” He offered a grandfatherly smile, fixing a powder blue sweater back into place over a dark shirt. “Not many come to check the vacant one out.”

She tilted her head, a hand on her chest. “Oh?”

The man shook his head, casting a disdainful scowl at the lawn. “Man what used ta live there wasn’t right in the head. Used ta beat his little’un somethin’ fierce. Poor thing, nae wonder ‘is wife left ‘im. Old Bill’d come here two or three times a week, but they did sweet Fanny Adams about it. Someone should’a done somethin’ for that girl.”

Anna looked up at the black window. She remembered being on the other side of it, shaking from the pain her father had strapped across her backside, staring down at the neighbors, people who had heard the screaming, wondering why no one helped her.

“Aye Mr. Harrison… Someone did.”

He blinked at her, squinted, and then took a step back. “Gor Blimey, is it you? O’ course, it has ta be. How many ladies yer age got ‘air that color.”

She leaned on her elbows, nodding with a regretful smile. “Aye, tis me. I hadn’t realized where I’d wandered to ‘till I saw the place.”

He ambled closer, patting her on the back. “You doin’ okay lass? We all been wonderin’ what happened since…” He fidgeted. “Well, you know.”

The lying came too easy. “Social welfare, put me with some fosters. I got a job on the West End now, acquisitions.”

“Oh that’s jolly for you. Good ta see ya bounce back from that dreadful mess. Edith hasn’t touched the ‘sem since.”

Anna chuckled. Everyone thought the food machine malfunctioned.

She chatted for a bit with her old neighbor, spinning a milquetoast web of fancy about her flat uptown, a fiancée, and a pleasant but boring office job. He did not ask much about her father’s death, only enough to attribute it to a karmic act of the divine since the police had done such a cack-handed job of protecting her from his beatings. After word got out that a man died in the place, it had been difficult to rent it out. The property manager was obstinate and holding out for full value, figuring location would outweigh superstition soon enough. Some part of her wanted to buy it, but there was no way in hell she could afford it.

The thought of squatting occurred to her, followed by an involuntary tightening of her throat; she missed her old life. Her head sagged forward under the weight of lies and shame.

He was going to kill me. I had to do it. It was me or him.

Anna curled over the rail, trying to maintain the smiling contentment of her imagined life for her elderly neighbor. She worked so hard not to cry, the thing at the back of her mind slipped free of her grasp. The eerie whisper of the wind drowned amid a cacophony of blaring horns, wailing sirens, and flashing lights from two dozen cars along Woodseer Street. Every anti-theft mechanism in every vehicle a hundred yards in either direction went off all at once.

Poor Mr. Harrison nearly died of shock.

orris & Baker was the sort of shop where the working man could secure a bit of pretty for the one he loved. The kind of place carrying baubles considered nice, but unremarkable in a way that lent them handily to pawning. Something too big and rare would be traced; things too cheap were not worth the risk. This place was perfect.

Annabelle leaned against a vendomat a half block away, sipping artificial tea from a bioplastic cup that would be little more than a puddle of glop half an hour after it cooled. Her heartbeat had about returned to normal from the explosion of car alarms; the blast of nerves threatened to undermine her resolve. She gazed through the name of the shop, spelled out in glittering gold hologram above the door, watching patrons with the intensity of a cat waiting for the perfect unobservant mouse.

The zoom no longer clouded her mind. She focused on her purpose, pushing worry of withdrawal out to arm’s length. If she let her emotion run off, it would ruin any chance she had. In order to do this, she’d have to let the little monster half out of its pen. She closed her eyes and inhaled the steam from the Earl Grey―or at least the best attempt possible at Earl Grey via molecular assemblage. Her father had mentioned it once in passing that her mother had been fond of it, but he loathed the stuff.

Each time she had some, she spited him.

The sudden distraction of violet light drew her head to the left. A cat-sized bot hovered at about eye level, projecting a hologram at her of a lingerie advert.

It knew.

Her cheeks flushed crimson. “Damn nosy thing. Sod off.”

Anna shied away from it, the sudden rush of embarrassment coincided with the holo-advert failing to static. Small orange sparks flew from the side as the droid careened off along the street in a whirling spiral, all the while emitting a high-pitched digital version of an agonized scream. The chaos in its wake halted with a metallic thud out of sight around a corner four blocks distant.

She looked down, tapping the toe of her boot against the footpath, dawdling until a short blonde woman caught her eye. The air of credits wafted from her like perfume; not so much she would find this place undesirable, but enough to choose something worth nicking.

Her empty cup tossed into the bin, Anna followed the woman through the door, meandering about the shelves for a moment before stopping at a column-mounted terminal. Various pieces, custom ordered of course, appeared in ten times scale in full holographic glory. Anna pawed at the light, flipping virtual pages and pretending to be interested in ordering something.

The blonde went straight to the attendant and struck up a conversation. Anna’s anticipatory rush came to a cold halt when she remembered the little trick only worked on people, not electronics. She took advantage of her short skirt and exposed midriff as she sashayed around to keep the other clerk’s eyes on her. Unsure if he became excited by the impression of her breasts in the light cloth, or incensed by the fading Manchester United logo between them, she smiled.

Out of the corner of her eye, she examined four security orbs in the ceiling. One by one, she fixated on them until the thing in the back of her head expanded into her consciousness.

Threads drawn in amber light illuminated the wiring in the recorder spheres within her mind. Every wirepath, every shifting mass of electrons racing along their conduits, and the strong surge of the tie to mains power glowed to her, a presence tangible to her thoughts. She stretched over the counter, forcing her breasts tight to the shirt and tugged with her mind at the first orb.

Electricity heeded her call, flooding into the sphere, which sputtered a brief wisp of black smoke, staining the white paint around it. The subdued pop went unheard beneath the din of the eager blonde assaulting the shop worker with an endless prattle of inconsequential details of the person she shopped for. The poor man smiled his way through it, hoping for a sale.

The rumble of a truck passing outside afforded her the chance to zap the second recorder. She waited a moment to see if anyone noticed. Perhaps a man in the back room watching terminals would come running to see why his screens turned to static. Then again, if the store was small enough, they might not have a man in back. The clerk near her leaned closer, staring with greedy eyes at the taut fabric.

“Can I be of any assistance, Miss?”

She acted as though she looked for a gift for a young niece, something cheap that would not create too big an issue if she wound up having to buy it. He retrieved a set of five-petaled pink kunzite daisy earrings. Sixty credits for the pair.

She pretended to drop one out of clumsiness while holding it up to let the light play with it.

“Oh, heavens,” she said, pouring on the ditz. “I’m sorry.”

Turning to face the other counter and the blonde, she bent down to pick it up. When she heard the sound of a knee meeting the counter behind her, she assumed the clerk was leaning up, hoping she bent a little farther.

While he was eminently distracted, she coerced more electricity into the two remaining orbs. The blonde gasped with alarm at the sight of black smoke.

Bollocks!

Anna stood with the earring and flashed an apologetic smile at the dumbfounded clerk. A twitch picked at the right corner of his mouth twice before his lips curled to a grin. The pink daisy clicked upon the glass, and she glared sideways at the debutante about to ruin her entire plan.

When the smoke proved to be a brief wisp and not the start of a fire, the woman lost interest and returned to her chat. Anna exhaled and collected the earrings into the pink satin bed of their case.

She snapped it closed with a sharp pop. “These will do nicely.”

By now, a number of pieces had been laid out on the counter in front of the blonde, mostly necklaces and pendants. Anna walked sideways to the register, appraising them. The attendant helping the woman seemed on edge having that much inventory out in the open, and eyed the woman with suspicion.

Anna handed over the credstick, paying for the cheap earrings. When the man returned it with a bag, she thanked him and walked toward the exit. As soon as he looked away from her, she took a breath and held it, trying to remember how to open herself to the world. This used to be easy. Come on, like ridin’ a bike, right? The presence of three sentient minds hovered around her. Her psionic emanation mingled into their thoughts, masking the conscious realization she existed from their perception. To the people in the room, she vanished.

Invisible.

Their brains subconsciously disregarded her as she pushed at the door to make it beep as though she had left. She crept to the far counter, but neither attendant reacted to her. When the man took his eyes away from a necklace of dangly gold baguettes with small rubies affixed to the ends, she palmed it into her shopping bag and backed away.

The man continued showing pieces to the blonde. With his attention locked on the other woman’s hands, he remained oblivious to the one missing.

Anna went to the door, maintaining her projection of nonexistence in their minds. The entire area pulsed with electrical power; the door beeper, the holographic sign, and the anti-theft field emitters that would certainly sense the purloined necklace in her bag. The entirety of it came to her in threads of amber light. A three dimensional construction drew itself into her reality, a feeling of power wherever active wires lay. She merged her thoughts with the essence of it, pushing the electricity out of the security system and the door. For all intents and purposes, everything simply powered off.

A block away, she glanced over her shoulder, smiled at the lack of alarm, and became part of the crowd.

Anna had not returned to Mason’s, an old haunt of hers, since she was sixteen and fell in with Mr. Carroll. The place was still dingy and decrepit, in a part of the East End where the Propers would not want to be after dark.

A certain rustic charm dwelled in the way he’d rigged the door with actual bronze bells, and how she had to kick small objects out of her path to make it through the aisles. The rear of the shop hung thick with the combined smell of beer, cigars, and Middle Eastern incense. She stopped at a counter with a bullet-resistant barrier made of polycarbonate resin and metal mesh. Several gouges and twisted strands of metal gave away where vibro blades and bullets tried and failed to rob the place.

Behind the protective barricade, a large man in every sense of the word leaned back in a chair that creaked beneath his mass. Easily six and a half feet tall, he seemed quite muscular beneath the paunch of a sincere love of ale. Unkempt black hair jutted at random below a fading blue bandana, and pins and knick-knacks from various motorbike events studded his imitation denim vest.

Anna sauntered up to the counter. “Oi, Mason, long time.”

The man leaned forward, letting the wooden chair legs strike the floor as his weight shifted. It took a moment for his eyeballs to appear out from under furrowing brows, and another for them to widen with recognition.

“Anna? Zat you?”

“Aye.” She upended the bag, spilling both necklace and earring box onto the counter.

Mason reached through the tiny opening for the small white cube, but Anna was faster to snatch it back into the bag. “Not that one, need to flog the gold. This is a chintzy bauble you wouldn’t want.”

He drew the necklace through the tray and dangled it in front of his face. Coarse beard hairs parted as his fingers slid through them, rubbing back and forth in an appraising glower. Anna felt the old, familiar fear come back. There was nothing stopping him from telling her to get lost and keeping it. No matter how much she’d brought him, as soon as the loot was on the other side of bullet-resistant barriers, she dreaded that every time. Mason didn’t question how she had come to possess such a thing, he knew why street youth came to him. If he didn’t know her, a well-acted posture on top of her height would’ve let her pass for fifteen. He lowered the jewelry to the counter, letting his weight rest over the chain.

“You know, lass. You’re gettin’ a wee bit old for this now. If you get pinched, Old Bill won’t let you off with a rap on the wrist and a free supper.” He grinned, flecks of green leaf clung to his teeth. “Kind of miss the glory days. I’ve you to thank for much of my current state of comfort. Shame you got in with that uptown lot. You were the best little filch.”

She stared off, wondering how much of the stuff on the shelves she’d brought here.

“Look at you, gone out then? Oi.” Mason snapped his fingers in front of her face.

She leaned on the counter. “I know, it’s a one-off. I’m not lookin’ ta go back to that life if I can ‘elp it. Too risky.”

“Buck up, lass. You’ll get no trouble ‘ere.” He winked. “Figger I kin do bout eighteen hundred for it, if’n you’ll ‘ave it.”

“That’s fine then.” Anna scowled in her mind. The store was asking for ten thousand. Still, what he offered felt like a fortune now.

Mason slid the credstick back through the recess in the counter, past the bullet-resistant barrier, eighteen hundred credits richer than it had been a moment before. As it changed hands, he clasped his fingers through hers in the sunken channel, a silent offer of help. Anna thanked him, not moving until he broke contact.

“Thanks, Mason.” Despite his slovenly appearance, she trusted him. One of the few men who’d never looked at her that way. “I appreciate it.”

“Take care’a yerself, girl.” He grabbed a tool to detach the security tag from the necklace.

Outside, she turned at the sense of a small sphere of electrical power. A volleyball-sized orb hovered, peeking past the corner of the building at the end of the street. Anna thought it strange an advert bot tried to hide rather than bombard her with things to buy.

She thought it even more peculiar when it followed her at a distance, but paid it little mind.

It was probably only a perv hacker checking out her ass.

ubsequent a credits-only transaction at Plonk’s, Anna stopped at the market. She had popped for a case of Panda’s instant meals, the more expensive brand not made from OmniSoy, and a small white teddy bear. With one parcel under each arm, she approached the police line around The Ruin.

Because she had zoom in her purse, she had half a mind to invisibility her way past the cops this time to avoid the hassle. Of course, they’d not be as dim-witted as the jewelers; they would notice their cameras burning out. All it would take was one lapse of concentration and she’d seem to appear out of thin air among them. That would invite unwanted attention. The voices in her head argued about whether she should pitch her head down and tolerate the derision she deserved, or avoid it altogether. Before she could come to an accord, a voice ahead of her shouted.

“That’s her.”

Her heart stopped. She looked up to see a half-dozen police, two female, with rifles aimed. The little white teddy bear trembled with her.

“‘Old it right there, then.” The man in the center took a step forward.

She blinked. “What’s this about?” What the hell are you doing? Don’t give them attitude.

“Special request, lass. Drop the stuff and up against the wall with ya.”

Anna stared at the road, dreading what she knew would follow. Perhaps all six of them would take turns this time. The nice sergeant was nowhere in sight. After stepping to the nearest wall, she set the crate of meals down and placed the bear on top of it to keep it off the muddy ground. The hunger that had been forming in her gut twisted into a knot of queasiness as she assumed the position against the grey bricks.

They shuffled up to her, keeping a wary distance, which she thought rather odd. One of the two female officers approached, slinging her rifle and performing a cursory squeeze-down to check for weapons before peeking into her tiny purse.

The officer’s visor flickered, bathing her face in green light. “Not seeing any weapons.”

“Check again. These Cov vermin kin ‘ave plastic knives on ‘em,” said a man.

Anna remained passive as the constable secured her hands behind her back. The cold metal about her wrists made her think of Tommy. Fear kept her thoughts from drifting into the realm of sex as the female constable searched her pockets reached under her shirt. Finding no bra, the hand retreated in an instant. Strictly professional. Anna endured it without protest, in fact giving the woman a grateful glance. It bothered her how nervous the officer was.

Something’s not right.

The woman spun her around and led her along by a hand on the elbow, taking her to the same room where Constable Brown had strung her up like a side of beef. Another slice of dignity sloughed off at the thought of it.

She followed nonverbal commands to a chair by the steel table, and sat. The officer left her to stare at her knees while one of the men set her purchases and purse on a shelf. The female officer traded her weight from leg to leg, inching backwards with each shift. With the other constables leaving, the woman broke into a run out the door, leaving Anna alone.

The feck are they scared of?

Paths of electricity in the lights above thrummed in her mind, as did wires running inches below the floor plate, and even near her wrists in the powered restraints. She let her unnatural senses probe the binders, smiling when she found the contacts to the hasp motor. A small jolt of power there would open them. She leaned back in the chair, hoping that by ignoring the thickening stone-like quality forming in her skull, the withdrawal would be less harsh.

She focused on containing her fear and shame. If she blew out the restraints, she would be stuck in them for hours while the police scrambled for a tool capable of cutting them, an experience she did not want to relive. She played with opening them, but put them back on, afraid of the beating that would earn her when the police returned. Her body stiffened as she eyed the cameras in the corners of the room. Hopefully, no one had seen the cuffs open and close. Trembles took over; whether it was withdrawal or fear she could not tell. Popping the cuffs required a lot of precision control and tiny voltages. It wasn’t something she’d be able to do in a panic. If she wanted to run, she’d have to commit to it before the situation escalated.

Murmuring voices hovered outside the door, too weak to make out. Anna wondered what the devil they wanted; she expected to be bent over a desk by now, not left alone in a room. In some odd way, being treated civilly felt worse than being used. She wondered if she missed a security recorder at Morris & Baker, or if Mason had tried to ‘help’ her by getting her off the street.

No, this doesn’t feel right. If it was about the necklace, they’d be working me over already.

Quiet as she could, she eased her weight onto her feet and crept up to the door to peer through a tiny square window low enough for her to reach on tiptoe. All six clustered in a group outside, chatting away as if they had some kind of monster locked in the office. The armored door was too thick to make out what they said, but their fear was palpable.

A hovercar, gloss black with windows tinted opaque, circled around a few minutes later and settled onto the pavement about ten meters from the police, spraying them with rainwater. Both doors opened, disgorging two men.

On the near side, a wiry man in his early thirties extracted a pair of dark glasses from his breast pocket, which he flicked open with a smooth whip-like gesture before sliding them on. Of average height with thin brown hair, the fluttering folds of a long black coat obscured his build. Military boots and gloves left only the ashen skin of his face visible, wrinkled with lines beyond his years.

The other man was taller, a pillar of military training. His bald head caught the baleful light filtering down from the grey sky, a neatly trimmed dark moustache and goatee encircled his mouth. He wore the same coat, open unlike the smaller man, revealing a black armored vest bedecked with various small items. As he reached his full stature, the thin man turned to glance at him over the car.

Anna gasped at the sight.

Behind his left ear, a gleam flashed from a metal triangle the size of a pinky nail. The mark of registration, an implanted detonator designed to kill a psionic with the push of a button. Some bureaucrat in a plush office could determine risk exceeded benefit, or perhaps decide not to like you, and make a vid call. A minute later, a disinterested low-level military person barely out of high school would flick a holographic button and kill someone they would never meet and knew only as a thirteen-digit code.

Two lamps sputtered in the ceiling, shaken by the wave of fear that rippled through her. Somehow, she kept it in check; exploded lights would be impossible to explain. Someone must have reported her as an unregistered psionic―but who? She struggled at the handcuffs, too out of sorts to find the circuit path. Their transition from nuisance to captivity added to her panic and made the task even harder.

“Fuck!” She gasped, trying to calm down, but could not.

Anna sprinted to her purse, and leapt butt-first onto the shelf, straining to reach into it. Probing fingers found the hidden zipper and slipped through to the sheet of zoom. She peeled one away and scurried to her chair seconds before the door cracked open. Cold fingers slipped under the back of her skirt, pressing the derm into her left ass cheek. The thin man entered with a pleasant smile, followed by two police officers. The large, bald soldier remained outside, observing from a distance. She slid her fingers out, pushing at the derm through the fabric to squeeze the chem out of the soaked pad faster.

His voice was deeper than she had expected from the look of him. “Good afternoon miss…”

“M-Morgan.”

She stammered, already feeling the effect of the drug. The subtle presence of something else joined her thoughts. When she looked up, the room melted as though she had stumbled into a Salvador Dali painting. Walls warped, the table liquefied, and the ceiling lamps descended on stretching cables. The tall man remained the only thing to keep solid form.

“We have received a report that you might be off the books.” He walked to the left, entering a slow circling prowl.

The surge of zoom made it hard to focus on anything. “I’ve not been to school since I was little.”

Giggling, the white teddy bear waved at her. “Can we go home now?”

“Not yet.”

“Not yet?” The thin man’s voice slithered over her right ear.

Twenty seconds later, she jumped. Something shifted in her mind, like a goldfish moving under her scalp. The thin man emitted a grumble of displeasure and walked a few steps to the right.

“Sorry, guv’na. I’m not sure what you’re gettin’ on about. I’m just a piece of shite from Coventry, thought Old Bill wanted to take ‘is rights with me.”

Random objects in the room changed, morphing into sexually suggestive things. The metal of her seat warped into steel hands forcing her thighs apart. Again, the thin man remained normal. The teddy bear squeaked as it dry-humped the box of instant meals, aiming for the mascot panda. She giggled uncontrollably as the black and white creature inflated away from the label and became a three-dimensional object, and let Teddy have his way.

A disingenuous smile spread across thin lips. “There is no need for subterfuge. We are already aware of what you can do.”

The zoom reached full swing; the dangling lights sang to her, the muffled voices of her breasts screamed as the devil in the Manchester United shield stabbed at them with its pitchfork, and the steel floor splashed like water as she kicked at it. The thin man’s face peeled forward, floating at her, still speaking as it expanded to four feet wide.

“Very well then, we have other means at our disposal.”

Like a dishtowel, his stretched face wound tight, spiraling into a twisted tentacle of flesh that lanced toward her while the body stood rigid. She leaned back in the chair as it speared into her forehead.

Anna shrieked at the sensation of a warm spike piercing her brain. She thrashed about, splashing liquid steel at the man in an attempt to make him flee. Her hallucinated attack did little to stall him; his body agitated, a fidgeting man on sped-up backwards video. The flesh drill surged between the lobes of her brain, swishing around as though a hand squeezed the two halves like sponges.

The teddy bear cowered, shielding its eyes from what must have been a gory sight. The panda screamed, diving for cover back into its label, once more a two dimensional picture. Anna shouted at the stuffed animal for help as hot blood rolled down her face and soaked her shirt. Lost to genuine terror, she strained at the binders and fell out of the chair. Ebon forms seethed up out of the floor and walls, crowding around her. Ethereal hands foiled her attempt to slide away from the tentacle. Her right foot hit something soft, and a demonic wail followed the sound of a body striking the ground.

Shimmering black wraiths hovered over her; traces of fluorescent yellow glowed from the spot where their arms met the central mass. Sputtering, she tried to sit up out of the drowning liquid steel. The wraiths descended on her with keening cries.

Her surrender to the high dose destroyed any rational thought of policemen in black with yellow armbands; she had to embrace the zoom to hide from the telepath. She had to let her mind go over the edge. The wraith-forms’ heads parted, howling spectral cries into her soul. Lost in the world her runaway mind created, she foamed at the mouth and went into a panicking tantrum.

Another wraith glided over her, tearing her legs off below the knee. She screamed again, hyperventilating as the shadowy figure handed the severed limbs to another. When she looked back down, her skin regenerated into clean bare feet, which smoky hands pinned together. The black ghost conjured a tiny white serpent that coiled about her ankles and cinched tight, devouring its own tail. Off to the side, one of the forms moaned as it crawled along the ground in a strange ungainly posture, as if it could no longer float. It shifted its head to face her, roared, and a charblackened skull surged forth from the vapor.

Anna screamed.

She tried to fight, but her arms would not respond. Having forgotten she was restrained, her mind presented her with the image of bloody stumps of arms removed at the shoulder. The floor, no longer fluid, changed without warning as the wraiths flipped her onto her chest; her cheek discovered how hard it was.

The apparitions attached themselves to her shoulders, changing into wings of tattered blackness that carried her aloft. Blurs of color drifted by; bound hand and foot, she believed herself a winged worm flying down a square cave past cackling lights. The journey lasted quite a long time in her mind, ending with her coming to rest on a soft pad. Anna wailed as her shadow wings tore themselves loose, dispersing into clouds of black fog that slid along the walls.

Covered in sweat, shaking from fear both real and imagined, Anna curled into a ball and closed her eyes. Time sank away and the surface upon which she lay alternated from cloud to spider web to cotton candy.

When consciousness returned, she found her mouth full of cheap paper-coated pillow. The initial rush of zoom had passed, leaving her sweat-soaked and shivering with trembles she could not control. Snot and drool foamed out of her mouth and nose. Unable to reach with her hand, she wiped her face on the mattress. Her muscles moved like dense bundles of rubber creaking beneath her skin. Belabored shallow breaths filled her chest with pain on every inhalation. Images in her eyes ghosted as every object became a trail of two or three copies superimposed. Contracted pupils left the room around her dim.

She rolled on her side, realizing she lay in a tiny holding cell with metal restraints on her arms and plastic riot-ties digging into her ankles. Looking down at her feet, she grumbled and wondered where they put her boots. Anna fell sideways into the pillow, and stopped fighting the bindings. She stared into the hallway. The bars blurred as the four cells on the opposite side of the hall came into focus. All were empty. Despite her skimpy attire, the mega-dose left her roasting. She went limp and waited for the pain that throbbed through every joint to end.

Anna remained on her stomach for what felt like hours, lifting and dropping her bound feet. When she could no longer tolerate feeling so helpless, she squirmed in an ineffectual attempt to free herself. A sudden spark of arousal at being tied disintegrated into an onrush of nausea. The zoom sat upon her power like a lead block, she could not feel the wiring in the restraints. This captivity bore no resemblance to how it felt being with Tommy.

Her stomach churned, and she choked back bile.

She did not want to wear puke twice in the same week and attempted to sit up. Her muscle response came delayed, and she overcompensated. The erratic convulsion sent her tumbling to the cold metal floor. Anna shuffled about until she got on her knees, and moved with an erratic series of hops and slides, getting her face in position over the toilet a split second before she could no longer contain herself, and succumbed to a vomiting fit. The fragrance of chemical toilet in her throat only helped it along. Panic came on trying to breathe around the puke, and she gargled, coughed, and thrashed.

Tromping boots and the hiss of a door leaked into her perception between agonized bursts of foul liquid expunging itself from her insides.

“Hey, Virji, think she’s still away with the mixer?”

At a break in the heaves, she lifted her tear-streaked face out of the toilet and glanced through the bars at a pair of constables. The taller one on the left squinted with anger, face reddening. Tall, bald, and with an excess of weight, his chin sagged over his chest as though his head were made of melting wax. Not as paunchy as Constable Brown, his body stored fat in odd places that left him looking as though an experiment in proportion had gone awry.

The other was younger and athletic; an Indian man in his middle-thirties, with salt and pepper hair cut short and darkish skin. His stare almost held a trace of pity for her.

“Unfortunately, lass, you managed to hoof Constable Hargreaves in the knackers while you were beaked up.”

Anna tried to apologize, but only barf came out. Her face dripped with it, and no matter how she squirmed, she could not get a hand around to wipe her face. It streamed from her nose as she huffed at it, spitting. In her foggy reality, she might have begged him to clean her off, or perhaps the voice only existed in her mind. Again, fluid went where air should be, and she choked.

Constable Virji appeared behind her, the product of a time burp. She had not noticed the cell open or him walk in. He held her chin and wiped her clean with a microfiber towel. Submissive as a two year old in a high chair, she endured it, thanking him when he finished.

Hargreaves had his nightstick out, a look on his face as if he wanted to pay her back for making him look like a fool in front of his mates.

“You know, Harg, she was stonkered. Highly unlikely she intended to catch you with her boot. Bet whatever that CSB chap did had a part to play as well.”

“Bad business, all of it.” The big man grumbled, sliding his truncheon back in place on his belt with a loud clack. “Damn psionics. Should just kill the lot of them; or ship them off to the UCF, they seem to like ‘em there.”

Anna curled her legs behind her on the ground, picking with an idle finger at the plastic fusing her ankles together, wishing her skirt was longer. A spark between her thumb and forefinger could melt the riot ties off, but she could not explain that away. Assuming, of course, she could even form the requisite concentration to make the lightning obey.

“I’m sorry.” Her head pitched forward, a mild convulsion preceded her swallowing the urge to continue retching. “Got some bad zoom. If’n it has your pleasure, constables, I’ll do whatever to make it up. I’m just a useless Cov.”

The last part fell from her lips feeling as though she had signed her own death warrant. As soon as the police heard you were a nobody, it was open season. Anna flashed through a waking nightmare of the small bit of Newsnet space her naked body would get tomorrow when some river scav or boat pilot found it on the side of the Thames. She hoped they would at least pose her with a little modesty. She pictured her pink bedroom, back home. The want to be there made her bawl.

“Bother it all.” Hargreaves frowned, his jowls wobbling as he shook his head. “Not touchin’ that povvy growler with a borrowed truncheon.”

Virji laughed. “The face you made when she booted you, I’d expect you’d have to borrow a truncheon.”

Hargreaves shook his fist at his partner, growling.

Constable Virji held her by the armpits and lifted her up to sit on the bed. “You still feelin’ a bit of the violent, lass?”

Anna sniffled, and composed herself. “No, constable.” She stared into her lap, whimpering in the same voice she had used the night her father died. “I’m sorry, constable. I don’t remember it at all, whatever the man did to me…”

“CSB wanted to check you out, they got it in their ‘eads you were unregistered. Guess they’re getting bored these days, can’t tell a psionic from a strung out pikey,” Hargreaves said. “Lot of effort for a false alarm.”

“Dodgy lot, that.” Virji muttered.

The entire meeting with the thin man had all but escaped her memory, lost in a cloud of zoom-dreams. Flashes of a black coat danced at the edge of her mind, a glimpse of the twisting flesh tendril made her tremble. The government men thought of her as another drug-addled piece of street trash who went crazy while in holding.

She tried to sound younger. “Beggin’ your pardon, constables. I think he made the chems worse. I never had a trip that bad before.”

Virji removed the restraints and handed her the towel. “Still got some chunder on ya. You’re free ta go. There’s a loo down the hall if you need to clean up a bit.”

Hargreaves trudged off out of sight. Anna dabbed at her face, and smiled at Virji. She strained to peek at his thoughts, but read only a wall of zoom-fog.

“I’m sorry if I was any trouble.”

he black mud of The Ruin was a sight Anna never thought would be a welcome thing. Stepping around the permanent puddles, she tried to keep to the fragmented scraps of paving as much as possible. How odd it was that not one, but two policemen in short order had been nice to her. They didn’t even steal anything.

What’s the world coming to when Old Bill treats a Cov like a person?

The sergeant had left her hanging with her naughty bits out even if he did spare her from Brown. Virji had been nicer, though he could have taken the binders off a lot faster than he did. Then again, the more she thought about it, the more it made sense given her violent outburst. A naughty smile found a home on her lips as she pictured Constable Virji out of uniform.

Her backside stung where the zoom patch had been; she had overdone it bad by squeezing it so much. Without the tolerance she had built up over the years, a smash like that could have killed her. Limping through the misting rain, she pieced together that the flesh tentacle had to be the zoom’s reaction to a mind-probing telepath. Apparently, the drug had muddled things enough for him not to find her secret. If the chem could dull her brain to the point where she couldn’t use her own powers, it made sense it could do it in the other direction. Out here in the mud, the reality of her predicament knocked her into a shaking squat. If the zoom had not worked, or if she had tried to fight her way out, she would be dead now, or worse―hauled off by the CSB.

No one ever reappeared after the Clandestine Service Bureau got their hands on them.

After leaping a wide puddle of unusual breadth, she wobbled to keep her balance without dropping the case of meals or the little white bear she tucked under her jacket to shield it from the rain. The stuffed animal made her think of Twee, something pure and innocent being brought into this awful place. Darkening light made her look up at the shiny ebon walls of Coventry Tower. Ninety stories of human refuse, its windows shifted with the shadowy forms of people.

Anna’s body sagged. Futility came on strong. The black building, the grey clouds, the never-ending rain―all of it crashed into her with the idea that perhaps next time she should fight. Mostly so they would kill her and take her away from all of this. She thought of her father.

I should have just let Daddy kill me.

For minutes, she wallowed in it, until her eyes caught a glimpse of the tiny pink bow peeking out from under her arm. Thoughts of Faye made her self-pity less overbearing. The kid needed help she would not find anywhere else.

Anna looked up, staring defiance at the jet scar through the sky. Coventry was the home of the unwanted, but perhaps the poor bastards living there had made the choice not to want society.

“You awright, luv?”

Ol’ Jack’s voice caused her to jump. He had approached while she daydreamed, leaning on a fragment of concrete wall tilting out of the muck. Somehow, his sunglasses avoided the rain, but his leather coat ran with thousands of trickles. The white of a smile broke the darkness of his face as he held out a hand.

“Blimey, Jack. I’m shitless.” She took a few breaths to calm down.

He laughed, taking the case of instant meals. “Sorry, Pixie. Saw you out here alone, and what with it bein’ dark and all.”

She stepped closer, letting him put an arm over her shoulders. “Damn fine of you, Jack.”

“Penny’s been climbin’ the walls.”

Walking in stride, she huddled into him. “I’m sorry. Damn filth got me again.”

“Shiftless bastards.” He grumbled. “Did they at least use a nodder?”

She looked up at him, confused. “That’s just the thing, Jack. Twice now, they didn’t touch me… Was almost like I’s a Proper. Makes me worry.”

“Bah.” He squeezed her with a one-armed hug. “Nothin’ wrong with ya, lass. Just gettin’ lucky to find the ones wot ‘ave morals I guess.”

“Old Bill has morals?” Anna blinked. “Well maybe to the Propers.”

He carried her over a huge puddle. “You’d scrub up right nice, Pixie. Change your clothes and they couldn’t tell you weren’t a Proper yourself.”

She blushed.

“Oi, darkmeat. Give us a go with the bint.”

Ol’ Jack stopped walking, letting Anna down on her feet as he turned to face the voice. She clung to his arm, not sure if the fright that came over her at the sight of the six East End Boys in a half circle around them was real or acted. Jack met their stares without a flinch, cracking his neck with a left-right tilt of his head.

“You lot’ll naff off if you fancy keepin’ the ability to breathe.”

Anna looked up at Jack, shocked by his total calm. Faint green light reflected on the inside of his sunglasses. The realization he was augged paled her face and opened her mouth. She had always been so high around him she never felt the electricity inside his limbs until now.

One of the gangers stepped in, raising a pipe. “You got some cods, mate.”

“You know the rules. Any piece out after dark is up for the takin’… now back off.” A second man pulled a sword off his back.

The others all produced weapons. Cloud-filtered moonlight glinted from pipes, knives, and spiked knuckles as the men closed in on Ol’ Jack.

“Jack, you don’t have to―”

“Hold this.” Jack handed her the box of instant meals and pointed at the Boys. “Look ‘ere you planks. I’ll not warn you again.”

The East End boys grinned at him, confident in their six to one ratio. When they showed no sign of relent, Ol’ Jack blurred into a streak at the man with the sword.

In the span of two seconds, a right hand punch to the gut cracked ribs, a left hand jab to the side likely ruptured a kidney, and a spinning kick to the face coincided with Jack tearing the weapon loose from the ganger’s hand.

Ol’ Jack came to a halt, his coat fluttering to rest behind him as augmented strength launched the East Ender fifteen meters away where he landed with a muddy splat. The motion had been so fast the others still stared at the water pooling in the footprints he left next to Anna.

With a war scream, another lunged at him, swinging a pipe. Jack caught the end with his left hand, bending the metal as the weapon came down. A stomp kick into the chest launched the Boy out of the fray; he hit the mud and slid into a crumbling brick wall, causing a rain of wet splats.

Like a dervish, Jack whirled into the rest of the gangers. He ducked a pair of nunchucks and walloped the man on the back with the pipe, driving his face into the ground. While he stepped over that one, he threw the pipe into the groin of another man running in with a vibro knife, dropping him to his knees with a pitiful moan.

The fifth ganger swung a chain, which wrapped about Jack’s right forearm. The Boy pulled, angling for an opening with a spiked fist. Jack took one step from the yank rather than fall as the East Ender hoped. After adjusting his stance, he wrenched the chain from the East Ender’s grip while catching the Boy with his free left hand.

Jack hauled the ganger around in a spin, tossing the street thug like a shot put over a twelve-foot high fragment of wall. The body landed out of sight with the painful sound of crunching, as well as clanging metal. The final man backpedaled as Jack bore down on him, lowering his pipe and fleeing into The Ruin.

“You kids shouldn’t ‘ave such things.” Jack shook the composite broadsword at them. “I’ll keep this so you don’t hurt yourselves.” A third the weight of what a steel blade would be, the weapon pivoted over his hand in a series of fluid sweeps as he gauged its balance. “Now, where in the hell do gang trash get their hands on a military blade?” The glint of it in the pallid light brought a smile of remembrance to Ol’ Jack’s face.

Anna stood from where she had crouched. “Bloody hell Jack, what the devil was that?”

“Composite blade. Military issue, for starship boarding tubes.”

“No, dammit. I mean what the crap is this?” She extended a hand at the moaning bodies.

He took the case of instant meals again, offering her his elbow with a smile. “I’ve had an interesting life.”

She accepted his elbow, this time noticing how firm it was. When she focused her mind through the fading zoom, the sense of electrical energy in both arms became apparent as well as lines of it throughout his whole body. He had a lot of cyberware. His two prosthetic arms had to be military grade; visually, they looked no different from natural limbs. At least one eye was artificial, and he had some manner of full-body speedware.

Adrenaline from the fight tamped down the fog in her head enough to peer into Jack’s head.

Flashes of red desert drifted through his mind as they navigated The Ruin. He had been in the military; something called the SAS, and his thoughts drifted back to combat he had seen on Mars. Old army buddies leaned on frightening looking vehicles, smiles and waves shifted in the fog of years. Under it all, he seemed oddly focused on Anna’s welfare. The name Hannah formed and faded as he looked at her.

Anna worried he might still be with the government, helping those two men who showed up at the checkpoint. Alas, dulled by zoom and lack of practice, her ability could not reach beyond his surface thoughts. When he smiled at her again, she sensed only relief at having protected her.

Anna made her way up twelve stories, stepping over bodies of those too strung out to find their hovels. Bottles clanked and rolled out of her way. A can bounced down the pale concrete stairs over rusting metal slats, which crowned the edges. Here and there, bits of it went missing wherever an errant bullet had gone by or a desperate wretch had pried the steel away to sell for scrap.

The thirteenth floor, labeled fourteen, offered trash of lower density to wade through as Penny spent much of her time cleaning the area when she was not babysitting. It gave her a sense of purpose and made the place feel more like a real home than a squat no one cared about.

She walked around the corner, heading for her room. Ten doors past her flat, the area broke apart into one wide-open space; half of the thirteenth floor was blown out and all of those apartments merged into one commingled mess of hanging tarpaulins and jagged metal struts. Few were sorry enough to make their home there, with the east wall missing, it was little different than sleeping outside. Here, behind the protection of a ninety-degree bend, their apartments felt like a home.

Her boot left a scuffmark on the dull orange door of Penny’s apartment before she walked into hers. Faye sat cross-legged on the bed, still in her skivvies, listening to some horrendous loud music piped into wireless earpieces from her NetMini. The girl looked up at Anna, as if disappointed to see her back.

“It’s not your apartment yet, kiddo.” Anna smiled, hiding the discomfort still aching through her.

The music stopped as the girl tilted her head at the giant box under Anna’s arm. “Wot’s that?”

Anna flopped on the end of the bed. “Got you some things.”

She set the case of instant meals down and handed her the bear. “Couldn’t resist when I saw it.”

The girl smirked at the offering, as if it was uncool.

“G’won then. You don’t need to act hard all the time.” She dropped the bear in the kid’s lap. “Oh, and there’s this too.” She handed her the box with the earrings.

“What’s all this for?” Faye glanced at them, throwing back a suspicious stare.

“Saw them and thought of you. Figured you could use a cheer-up.”

A little crack peered through the girl’s shell; her nascent smile ran away from a crash at the front of the apartment.

Penny burst through the door, running up to Anna with a bog-eyed stare. “Cripes, girl. Where the hell have you been? I thought you got nicked.”

“I did, but it was just a border check.”

Penny hugged her. “Which border did they check?”

Anna laughed. “I got lucky again.”

“You look awful.” Penny fussed over her. “What is that smell? Did you hurl?”

“Whore of a comedown this time…”

“Dammit girl.” Penny shoved at her. “You need to get off the shit.”

Faye set the bear to the side and helped herself to one of the instant meals. Ten seconds after she yanked the pull strip, the room flooded with the scent of Chinese noodle soup. She picked at the corner tab, and drew back the plastic sheet, which loosed a cloud of steam into the air. Translucent noodles swam in a yellow broth, interspersed with hunks of vat-grown shrimp and hydroponic-farm vegetables. The girl started on it straight away, so hungry she ignored how hot it was.

“You nicked a case of ramen?” Penny rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Cripes this is the good stuff. What’s it a hundred credits?”

“I bought the food… nicked a necklace.” Anna drew a finger around her throat with a drug-dulled grin.

Penny swatted at her, scolding. “Anna, you’re being an idiot. You know if you get pinched for it now you’ll go away. I don’t want to lose you.” The batting became a hug.

I did for practice. I’m not gonna keep at it, too dangerous. I overdid it years ago and almost got bagged. Usin’ my talents like that’ll eventually get me killed.

Penny squeezed her tight as Anna’s telepathic voice entered her mind.

“You two munch rug or something?” Faye slurped at her noodles.

Anna snickered.

Penny blushed. “Twee! Certainly not.”

“Well, she’s got a man at least.” Faye nodded at Penny.

Anna’s laughter faded to a shameful stare at the ground. She did not want to admit to working at a strip club or being rented out for six hundred credits an hour. “I just haven’t met the right―”

“Bullshit.” Faye slurped again. “I saw the faerie hologram rig; you’re a stripper aren’t you? You on the game too?”

Anna looked at the nightstand, at the leafy metal harness lay like a dead spider on the imitation wood.

“It’s cute.” Faye slurped noodles. “I tried it on. You don’t have to sugar-coat shit for me. I’m not as innocent as I look. Izzat why they call you Pixie?”

She figured it for posturing. There was no way this girl was anything more than a spoiled suburbanite. She wanted to be seen as tough and undamaged, even if she was homesick and scared to death.

Anna had nowhere to hide, and maybe the truth would send the kid home. “Yeah. There isn’t much other place for girls to go out here. The name came first, ‘cause I’m five nothin’ with a sprog’s face.” She laid it on thick as she described the club, saying she could keep forty credits of the six hundred her manager charged a man to use her. “They basically own me, Twee. If someone pays Blake, I don’t get a say in what they do to me.”

Faye fidgeted, no longer able to make eye contact with either woman.

Penny chirped up. “You could babysit… Walk dogs…”

“Oh yeah… Me, babysit?” Anna slapped herself on the thigh. “Parents would take one look at me and lock their doors.”

“Or ask who’s babysitting you while you babysit their kid.” Faye squinted at her. “Don’t call me Twee.”

“P’raps they wouldn’t if you got off the shit… I think you keep half the corner-chemists in London in Armani.”

Anna sighed, looking at Faye. “It’s not an easy thing to let go of.”

nna smiled at the fond recollection of Faye cuddling the teddy bear in her sleep. She had slipped out of bed and left the girl undisturbed before tiptoeing out of the apartment. At a touch past noon, several dozen people crowded around the base of the tower, collecting by massive grills made of old cinderblocks and rebar.

Spawny knew how to tap the municipal mains to bring electricity into the place through the abandoned sewers. It was a task he repeated every few months when the Power Authority located the splice and fixed it. The wind played with the quasi-edible scent of purloined meat burned black by electric elements from industrial water heaters.

She cut the line and swiped something masquerading as a hamburger patty, smiling and waving at a couple guys whining at her for cutting. Gah, they sound like schoolboys. She munched on it, navigating The Ruin on her way to the police checkpoint.

Anna prepared herself for the usual ‘against-the-wall,’ but she had no zoom on her, no contraband, and felt altogether too strung out and fatigued to put up a fight. Today, the constables watched her go by without even speaking. Something about their stares made her uneasy, as if they were afraid of her. Not wanting to garner more scrutiny, she averted her eyes and walked faster.

Four blocks into the city, she mingled into a disreputable crowd at the end of a back street and waited her turn to talk to Everybody’s Friend.

EF was of mixed African and Indian heritage, and around nineteen. His hands slid among those of the people, passing credits and chems and returning gestures of respect. Most of his head hid beneath a floppy cloth cap, his clothes oversized and too expensive for someone who spent so much time in an alley like this. Within the great hooded mass of maroon cloth covered in a repeating pattern of beige fleur de lis, he had what she needed.

“The Pixie…” He smiled when she reached the front of the line. “Sex on legs… You lookin’ for Faerie Dust?”

“Got any of the usual?”

“Naa, girl. All out of the zoom. Been a run on it lately.”

Anna shivered into herself, stuffing her hands in her jacket pockets. “Got anything close?”

“Closest I got is a couple o’ smileys.”

“Need somethin’ that’ll keep my head in a fog… keep me Zen. Nothin’ too rough though.”

“Delicate.” He brushed his fingers over her cheek. “Couldn’t sleep if I broke the wings off the Pixie.”

With a wink, he produced four small yellow spheres, each about the size of a pea, letting them rest between his index and middle finger. Opaque and waxy, black smudges gave the impression someone had attempted to turn them into smiles. He had managed to get them all to line up with their faces pointing at her.

“Looks like balled up ear-wax.”

“These don’t give the kinda light show you’re used to, but they’ll keep your head out of the now just as well.”

The shakes were minutes away. “Fine, smileys it is then.”

“Eighty.”

Her credstick and the pills moved through his ornate hand-play, somewhere between a palm rub and a shake. Within the finger ballet, he plugged it to a metal box in his pocket and the beep of a transaction preceded it flowing back to her. They exchanged a grin and she turned back to the street, one of the smiles dissolving under her tongue. A hint of lemon lurked among a flavor like well-worn floor.

Bristol City sat dark and quiet, a scarcity of light leaked from the ceiling lamps. Lawrence glanced at her from the bar, his preparatory work coming to a halt as his head tracked her glide through the room. Her scuffing boots thundered through the stillness.

Beyond a door into the back hallway, the air vibrated with the chaotic din of a dozen girls chatting about this and that, a feminine sound that slipped out from under the distant frenetic shouts of Sanjay, the club’s owner. He railed at the VidPhone again, yelling about an uptick in the price of synthetic beer.

The dressing area door let off a loud squeak as she shoved it to the side and walked into a garish pink space with benches, lockers, and a dozen other women in various states of dress. The club did not open for another hour, so they sat around killing time chatting, fussing with costumes or makeup, or lost themselves in cyberspace on portable sens-rigs.

Anna set her bag at the end of one of the benches before taking a seat next to it and pulling her boots off. Her feet seemed whiter against the hot pink tile floor; the cracked and chipping blue polish on her toes needed a new coat. As much as she dreaded letting the police have their way with her, in two hours’ time, she would be prancing about for anyone who happened to be in the room. The smiley lacked the punch of zoom, but got her feeling mellow enough to ignore humiliation. After slipping her shirt over her head, she stuffed it in the bag and removed her skirt. She had showered before leaving home, but the reek of Coventry had seeped into her clothes.

She stood like a zombie in one of the exposed autoshowers, ignored by the other girls. Soon, a spritz of cheap jasmine whore replaced the reek of her life outside the club, some knock off perfume Sanjay, the owner, had added to the rinse cycle.

When the tube released her, she plodded back to the bench, dry and smelling like sin.

The hologram rig landed cold on her back before she tugged the metal bands into place and clicked the clasp closed beneath her breasts. She didn’t turn it on yet, that would wait for her to be on the floor. The only question would be if Blake would put her back in the cage or send her to the poles today. If he was still angry, he might make her wait tables naked, or worse yet―lock her in one of the back rooms to wait for the sort of client who doesn’t care what the girl looks like.

Anna gripped the bench, staring at her toes. The mere thought of Blake caused her to throw up a little in the back of her throat. I don’t want to be in that cage again. I’m going to tell him to get fucked if he tries. A wave of mortification came on, and she crossed her hands in her lap. Where did that come from? Stand up to Blake? He’ll beat me to death. She bit her lip, daydreaming about her old life with Mr. Carroll and what she would have done to Blake if they’d met under different circumstances. Deep in the bowels of her mind, the image of a man twice his size begging her not to kill him surfaced for a second.

Her head sagged like a stone atop her neck; she fought to keep it upright as the smiley’s effect crept into her mind. It magnified her mood. The disgrace that had up until this point tiptoed past her consciousness flung off its clothes and pranced in front of her. She bawled, bending forward and hugging her legs.

Hands touched her back. She looked up; two of the other women had come to investigate the outburst. Seeing their concern, she brimmed with gratitude and love and hugged them like long lost sisters.

The smiley was working enough to keep her electrokinesis from running away with itself, though it was a lot weaker than her usual fix. Zoom gave her hallucinations impossible to differentiate from reality. The smiley shoved her emotions along the path of least resistance, but with the knowledge the drug did it. She watched the ups and downs as though she stood outside of herself, but cared not to do much about it.

She chatted for a while, alternating between casual and paralyzed with humiliation for sitting around nude. The girls were friendly enough, save the two veterans jealous for no other reason than her being half their age and looking five years younger than that. Anna lost herself in a giggling fit when they teased her about her height. She did not have the heart to give away her ‘diet secret’ as the simple truth of being too poor to eat, and bragged her boobs were natural.

“Anna… Come here please.”

A pall of silence fell over the room as Sanjay broke the din. He stood at the door, smirking at the assembled women. If not for the power he held over them, the image of the dark skinned man in an overlarge peach-colored suit and pink shirt would have made them laugh.

The newest, Brittany, gasped at the presence of a man entering the room. Anna stumbled to her feet, teetered across the room, and hugged him with a big grin.

Sanjay remained statuesque, indifferent to the nudity of the woman draped around him. His cigar-sized Nicohaler migrated from one side of his mouth to the other, and the end flared blue. Red-tinted glasses rode up the bridge of his nose, driven by one fingertip. He frowned at the sight of the glaze in her eyes.

“Hi Sanjay,” she purred. “You look hot today.”

He grasped her by the shoulders and pushed her back. “No point in your being an arse-lick, girl. You are being stonkered again, aren’t you?”

“Just had a smiley.” She covered her mouth with both hands, unable to stop giggling.

“Blake tells me you spent all day Friday night hanging there like a turd in the pool.”

The giggle fit ended with a confused grimace. “All day… night? What?”

He slapped her, not hard enough to knock her to the ground, but sufficient to turn giggling into cowering. “You spent more time blowing chunder than dancing. I am not making money from chunder.”

“I’m sorry, Mister Sanjay. I was in a bad way… The filth took my zoomer and I started crashing. I would’ve been fine if Blake let me get more, but he threw me in the cage. Won’t happen tonight. I promise.”

One of the old jealous bitches muttered under her breath with a spot-on exaggeration of Sanjay’s accent. It escaped his ear, but Anna burst into snickering again.

He wagged his finger at her. “You are damn right it is not happening again! You are all ballsed-up? You keep showin’ up three sheets to the vind. I do not need whores that can’t function. I do not need chunder! No one vants to be shagging a sack of varm meat that doesn’t even know its own bloody name.”

The smiley jumped on Anna’s emotion and rode it into an enormous crater. She sniveled like a six-year-old being grounded. “But, Sanjay… You can’t give me the sack, the boys like me. What’ll I eat?”

Why am I crying? I want this. I want out.

“The customers like a girl that can dance, not a druggie slag who is not capable of even moving.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Look… You clean yourself up and I think about putting you back out there. Vhile you’re still on the shit, you’re being no good to anyone.”

He walked off, leaving her slouched there clad only in tears. Blake leaned in from the shadows by the door with a leering grin. Anna offered him a pathetic glance, but he seemed amused by the situation.

She could not contain the whimpering sniffles as she removed the holo-rig and got dressed. Cloth slid over her skin, easing her nerves and feeling like armor. The girls offered their condolences while the older ones smiled at having one less pretty twenty-something to compete with. She plodded to the door, hanging her head as she trudged through the club’s main room to the exit.

A patch of flickering green by the door caught her eye. The board always contained announcements: people trying to sell an old bike, concert promotions, coded messages for where to obtain drugs, and other random ads. From a battered emitter, plastered over with a Dead Ballerina sticker, an ad that had been there for weeks caught her eye. She never looked up at the board before, never caring to see what went on outside of her miserable existence.

An offer of a hundred credits made her take a step closer. The holographic poster hung two inches from the wall, shimmering with falling dust and flickering every few seconds with the sputter of a faltering circuit. It was an advert looking for models for an art class at the university. Two hours of posing nude in a room full of people for a hundred credits. She wiped her cheeks dry while reading it, committing the address to memory. The money wasn’t great, but it seemed less sleazy.

I guess those University types are smart. Where else would they find someone willing to do this?

Dust filtered through shafts of sunlight entering between angled wooden slats over ancient glass. One of many thoughts drifting through her mind debated how old the place was; the blinds might be real wood. The scent of polish, paper, and age swam thick through her senses.

She perched like a Greek goddess on a wooden pedestal, exposed to the room. Crumpled white cloth bunched around her hips and over her right thigh, extra folds draped over her perch. Two dozen university students peered from behind easels, sketching with fervor upon giant pads of actual paper. Professor Gresham, a purist, insisted his charges learn the rudimentaries of art before they moved on to modern things like holographic tablets, light pens, and digital animation. A living anachronism, he made her feel like she had gone centuries back in time. This was much different than dancing.

The only thing she had to do was remain as still as possible―a task easier contemplated than executed.

Heavy footfalls echoed over the fervent scratching of charcoal sticks as the instructor paced around. He passed close behind her; a wisp of cologne emerged from the ambiance for a fleeting moment. Every so often, he would pause to comment on someone’s work, sometimes complimenting, but most times suggesting adjustments to the technique.

Anna chose an old stuffed owl on the wall in the corner to stare at, as he had suggested. Hearing his voice in her mind, she tuned out everything else in the world but for the mangy, timeworn bird. He told her to relax as if the only thing that could see her was the one object she picked.

Despite the placement of an advert in a seedy adult club, he spoke to her as though she had no experience exposing herself in public. She rather enjoyed being thought of as a Proper woman, and did not disabuse him of the notion she was anything but. The sheet tickled the small of her back with each breath; she wanted to close her eyes. Sitting still for two hours proved more tiring than dancing in a cage.

The footfalls of the professor mutated into sounds like great blocks of stone being dropped, a heavy metronome reverberating through her mind. She shivered, trying to keep her emotion on an even keel. Free of the club’s pounding music, the silence proved the hardest part. It left her alone with the rambles of her thoughts and the scraping of paper. Here she sat, still being paid to show her tits to the world. It felt different in a way, but a degree of indignity came hand in hand with it nonetheless.

Is this all I am? A pair of bristols?

Penny kept at her to quit taking drugs. Anna did not want Faye to start, and now even her ‘employer’ wanted her off the shit.

What nerve.

A pimp―what he essentially was no matter how he dressed it up―telling one of his ladies to stop taking drugs. Her knuckles whitened, clutching at the wood through the fabric, far angrier than she would have gotten without the smiley in her. Knowledge the drug did it let her keep the rage out of her face and maintain the placid stare of disinterest at the stuffed bird.

How fucked up am I that a bloody pimp tells me to lay off?

She felt the tears banging against the back of her eyes trying to get out, but held them in. Crying was only good if there was someone around to give a rat’s ass. She would have a good sob on Penny’s shoulder later; these people did not need to see such a display.

Perhaps it was a good thing that she had been fired. Every time she left the place, she felt a little dirtier and a little less human. Penny may have been right, she should try to watch tots or walk dogs. Maybe she could shake off the rust and go back to pinching things. No, too dangerous. That will draw the CSB. It was time to stop letting life give it to her in the bum.

The sound of people shuffling about snapped her out of her musings.

Who am I kidding? I’m just a tramp sitting naked on a box.

Professor Gresham approached, offering a grandfather’s smile and gesturing at the easels. “That’s all for today, luv. There’s some good work about. Can I interest you in coming back tomorrow, say another hundred for your time?”

She eased her weight off the wooden cube, stretching the stiffness out of her legs. Her clear lack of modesty brought a touch of crimson to his cheeks.

“That’s fine, guv’na.”

He turned away. She found his courtesy strange; it made tears rush to the brim of her eyelid to get a closer look at him.

“I’ll leave ya to get your kit back on then, lass. I’ll be in my office at the end of the hall when you’re ready to collect your pay.”

Motionless, she stared at the figure in the dull blue sweater and tan pants. He left without trying to sneak a look back at her, out of sight behind the dark chestnut door below the owl. When he had gone, she padded to the partition behind which she had stripped before class. What was the point of this? She frowned at the old folding barrier, gold-hued wood painted with white orchids. They’re goin’ ta see me anyway.

On a desk nearby, an old NinTek 900 sat under a layer of dust, collecting more. Two feet tall, three feet long, and half a foot thick, it now served as a bookend. She gathered her clothes from where she tossed them, staring at the archaic terminal. Before holograms or M3 jacks that plugged the brain into the net, it had been the latest and greatest. It had to be a hundred years old. The last time anyone turned it on was long before her dad was an itch in her grandfather’s pants.

Anna looked down and pulled her skirt into place, ashamed her only thought about such a thing was about how much it would fetch at pawn. The old prof had been civil with her; she would feel guilty swiping it. Not to mention its size, something like that would not be an easy lift.

Once she dressed, she tugged at the hem of her skirt. So short, it felt little different than wearing nothing. Penny offered to lend her some jeans, being only two inches taller. She fidgeted with the material, wishing she had taken her up the loan. She felt like a cheap slut for wearing something so skimpy; complete nudity would have seemed less sleazy.

Maybe this is why Old Bill keeps giving me the biz.

Drawing a breath, she steeled herself and walked past the easels. The students would be back the next day to continue working, so they left their work in situ. Curiosity gnawed at her, and she lifted the shrouds, peering at the smudges of charcoal.

She choked up; the angelic figures posed upon the pages looked so far removed from any way she had thought about herself. The students restored innocence in her face that had long been absent. By the fifth sketch, tears escaped, lost in the purity of it. Is this how people see me? This was what they thought of her when they did not know she was from Coventry, or high, or a whore.

She crumbled her fingers into her mouth, trying to stifle the sound of sobbing.

Memories flashed while she walked among the standing frames: herself as a child watching a sheet-covered gurney wheeled out of her old house. A close call with a psychologist seeing her create lightning. Running away. As a child begging at restaurants, and then the ignored beggar was stealing. The counter of Mason’s pawnshop appeared again and again, seeming lower with each repetition. She had grown up dropping purloined goods on that pale blue surface. A face appeared out of the dark, the picture of exaggerated handsomeness mounted atop an impeccable black suit. Stealing from the wrong place earned the notice of the Syndicate, and Mr. Carroll. They knew she was more than a simple thief. She had made good money with him doing unsavory things for unsavory people, but those sort of things attracted the CSB. The zoom worked at first to hide her from the government; she’d thought she could control it.

She’d been wrong.

Anna swallowed; the sandy grit of the smiley ground at the underside of her tongue. People used them to enhance pleasure and happiness, especially when having sex. The drug oiled the path her emotions tried to walk, and they slipped in it, falling headfirst into a spiral of sorrow and regret.

Among the henge of easels, she basked in the fading sunlight, the warm brown-orange glow of this time-forgotten space cloaked in ethereal serenity. Her doppelgangers looked off at an unseen bird; their facing changed a few degrees from one to the next. When she reached the students who had a clear view of her from the front, she sniffled at what was on the paper.

They had not focused on her sex; one man had spent the most effort on her eyes and the delicate nose between them. Another had gone over and over her hair, capturing the feathered layering of her pixie cut. A third had defined the curves of her silhouette with near photographic precision, faint smudges of his fingers bringing her musculature out in three dimensions. Only one hinted at anatomical correctness, with a simple curved line. The flick of an artist’s wrist to indicate a change of light, a passing charcoal acknowledged the physicality of her being a woman without dwelling upon it.

The sketch with the most attention paid to the breasts had been done by a girl. She marveled at the roundness, wondering if the artist had given her too much credit. Two dozen black and white apparitions stared into the air, proud and innocent―two things Anna felt far removed from.

“Are you all right, miss? It’s been almost an hour.”

She jumped at the voice; the professor had returned.

Blushing at being caught with wet eyes, she looked at the floor. “I’m fine… these are beautiful.”

His grey moustache curled with a smile. “They have potential, but still have much to learn.”

Anna offered a sheepish nod, and walked with him to collect her credits.

I suppose I do as well.

he smiley had to have worn off by now. The rat of sobriety gnawed upon her brain stem. She gathered her thin coat about herself and moved among the crowd. The usual reaction to someone of her obvious station never bothered her as much as it did right then, but she held on to knowing she was no longer a stripper. She found a tiny scrap of self-respect. The wind tugged at her microskirt, causing a few men to stare.

Even the advert bots seemed to ogle.

She had survived by flashing her assets in the faces of drunken men, but now she wanted to disappear. For the most part, the citizens obliged and disregarded her. She wanted to turn invisible to all of London, but the best she could hope for was two or three people in close proximity. Each gust of the breeze made her feel naked. Head down, she shuffled through the crowd. Telepathic invisibility could not help, but there were far more mundane solutions to be had.

A short distance later, two panels of inch thick glass slid out of her way, granting entry to a small clothing shop. Anna flashed a grateful smile at the mechanical doors that spared her the need of having to uncurl her arms from around her chest. The smiley gone, the zoom had been absent long enough to hurt. She had to focus and keep her mind on an even keel or she would attract the wrong kind of attention from the wrong kind of people.

A dozen freestanding shelves jammed into the center of the place made walking through it a bit of a challenge. Clothing, still a popular item for physical stores, had not done quite as well with the to-your-door market as most things these days. People much preferred to see and touch things they wanted to wear before spending on them.

Selecting a pair of loose black pants, the kind with pockets down the legs, she checked the size by holding it against her hips. A passable fit, her boots would absorb the extra length in the legs. Two hundred and sixty credits, a hair less than a quarter of her remaining money, but she wanted it bad enough. There would always be more pieces of jewelry to steal, and she could not put a price on dignity.

The clerk’s gaze had not left her ass since the moment she entered. Had she zoom in her system, she would have changed right there in the open in hopes of a discount; sober, she went for the dressing room. Thin black material slid up and over her legs, cool, smooth, and best of all―form obscuring. The belly-baring shirt did not bother her even an eighth of what the skirt had as a lean too far gave people a show.

She decided to keep the new pants on, and wadded the skirt before stuffing it into her purse. On her way back out, she selected a thin nylon belt and put it on right from the shelf. After ripping the tags off both, she approached the counter and set the stubs by the drooling young man. He made perfect eye-to-tit contact and smiled. His hand missed the tags twice before he found them.

“That’ll be all then, miss?”

“Quite.”

“Two sixty for the Ruperts, thirty five for the belt… after tax that’ll be three forty-five.”

“Oh…” She stuffed a hand in her purse. “I’m exempt.”

“Wha?” He made eye contact at last.

“Tax. I’m on the dole.” She rummaged for the laminated card. “Here.”

Anna imagined his hardon drooping as fast as his face. The lust in his eyes became contempt, and he swiped the card through the terminal as if he was loathe to tolerate even touching it. She pondered zapping him out and helping herself to the credit transfer machine, but he’d scanned her card and the authorities would trace anything she did here. She glowered, ashamed of the way he had looked at her at first, and furious at the dehumanizing sneer he gave her now. Society shunned her for what she was; it wasn’t her fault she had this life. Now that she tried to pull it together he still had the nerve to look at her like that. The little voice in the back of her head whispered ‘do it… do it…’

Sanctimonious bastard.

The man dove to the floor, shrieking, as the merchant terminal burst into smoke and sparks.

Dammit… She cringed, and acted startled.

Purse tucked in the crook of her left elbow, Anna held her head high for the first time in many years. The swish-swish sound of the synthetic fabric kept up a continuous reminder she no longer attracted every eye in the crowd. No one around her saw her as a Cov; as far as they knew, she was a Proper like them.

The sound of a hovercar weakened her smile; the Crown permitted only the police and the military to use them in London. Off in the countryside, anyone with money could get them, but King William had become possessed of an irrational fear someone would get drunk and have a smash up with some irreplaceable treasure. Never mind the onboard crash avoidance systems would render such an event an order of improbable as to be nonexistent―unless someone disabled it.

She looked, against her better instinct, at the unmarked black vehicle gliding overhead. At the speed of a walk, it crawled over the crowd. Too slow for a routine patrol, they had to be looking for someone. Anna ducked her head and stared at the footpath, hoping the facial recognition system had not captured her yet.

A block later, she darted into a chippery to get off the street and because the smell had enticed her. This close to the heart of the city, nothing would be cheap. It didn’t matter to her then; she wanted to feed the illusion of being a real person.

Small, disc-shaped bots crept about the floor, cleaning and polishing. Anna took a spot at the end of the queue and glanced at the teenagers behind the counter. One doll, off to the rear, mopped up a spill too large for the wheeled bots. The sub-sentient android was made in the image of a young man, though it had obvious lines around its mouth and at each joint. It moved like the robot it was, without facial expression or conversation to anyone near it.

She had heard across the pond they let dolls have jobs―rather, the dolls had taken jobs away from people like her. Poor undereducated workers had little opportunity over there; they would have to go to the moon or off to a colony world to find decent paying work. At least the King, being fancifully paranoid about them, kept some doors open for unskilled laborers. Anna grinned, remembering the gossip. A fortuneteller hired by the Queen claimed a doll would assassinate him, so he all but banned them from the city.

It was always amusing to watch the BBC whenever an ambassador from the UCF arrived with one as a bodyguard. The lengths the royal handlers would go to in order to ask the doll to stay behind without making a political incident out of it were quite amusing―doubly so when it had a human brain.

“What’ll ya ‘ave?”

The voice of a pale teen girl with jet hair and green eyes startled her attention forward, clicking fingernails drummed with impatience upon the glass counter while Anna gazed up and past her at holographic images of food. She did not reach for her dole card, paying the extra credits for the pride of not suffering the ignominy of being stared at like a peasant twice in one day.

“I’ll ‘ave the regular, and an iced Earl.”

Minutes later, she studied the tray, sixty-two credits worth of battered cod and hydroponic potatoes, on her way to take a seat at the back of the room. She regretted it four steps into the walk, spending so much money for one meal even if it was not reassembled OmniSoy. An hour from now, it would be cold, but still fish and potatoes rather than a lump of beige slime. What sat on her plate never swam in any ocean or sat at the bottom of any fishing boat, but genetically, it was cod. Her hunger waged a catfight with a dull ache, her body’s protest at the denial of zoom for two whole days. If she got lucky, this fish would run its way through her before she got sick enough to reject it. The thought of quitting, as Penny and everyone else seemed to want her to do, seemed rather plausible at that moment.

Of course, in four or five hours, she would be a right mess. Some zoom-heads had been known to kill their own family for a score if they got desperate enough.

Anna sighed at the plate, wondering if this was how a convict felt while eyeing their last meal.

Already paid for it, may as well enjoy it.

Midway through her banquet, the sense of eyes on her made her look up. Half a chip fell from her frozen lip back to the plate. There, in the back end of Chipworth’s, sat Mr. Carroll, smiling at her.

He looked older than she remembered him, silver highlights smeared through his hair over his ears and his face had thickened. She figured him for almost fifty now, but still a pleasant looking man despite his increased weight. The black coat looked as it always had, joined by a cap and gloves folded on the table near his plate.

They traded intermittent eye contact while she finished the rest of her meal. Whenever she glanced up, he would be wearing a curious smirk with a trace of a smile. When she got up to leave, he waved her over.

He gestured as if tipping a hat. “Curious running into you here, luv.”

“Innit.” Anna looked down, flicking at the pockets of her new pants. “Long time.”

“Fate and circumstance…”

“How are they then?”

“What?” He cocked an eyebrow.

“Your dogs.”

Mr. Carroll chuckled, patting his leg as he remembered. “They’re resting peacefully now.”

Anna sank into the seat opposite him, captivated by the pattern in the table. “Soz.”

“Pay it no mind, they had a good life. I meant it is fortuitous we have crossed paths. I could use your talents again if you’re available.”

Anna sat on her hands to hide the trembling. “Might be… This isn’t for Mister Cooper is it?”

Carroll chuckled. “No, lass. That ol’ turf accountant’s got his own men now; he doesn’t contract through blokes like me anymore.” He lowered his voice. “That business with Thomas was most unfortunate, but it’s good to see you’re still alive. Word’s been you’d fallen rather hard on your derriere.”

Mr. Carroll was the sort of fellow who put people with needs in touch with people with skills. The last time she had worked for him, she made a touch over twenty grand. At the time, she considered it shy of fair, now it felt like a king’s ransom. He held her ticket out of Coventry, if only she could keep it together. The risk of the CSB lurked like a shadow at the back of the room, breathing cold vapor down her spine. She leaned forward, leaving her hands under her knees, her voice a trace above a whisper.

“I’ve ‘ad a bit of a rough patch. I s’pose I couldn’t handle it as much as I thought.”

“Rough patch.” Carroll rubbed his chin. “That’s one way to put it. What about that unpleasantness at Bristol City? I could always arrange for a little accident.”

Anna shrugged. “They’re scum what ain’t worth the effort or the owin’ you a favor. I’m feelin’ better now. I’m off the stuff.”

“Is that so? You look like Death’s little sister.” He took hold of her arm and rotated it to examine her wrist. “Why aren’t you eating?”

“Money.” She cringed, the sad stare from a man who knew her before her fall hit her harder than those who frowned at another dole-taker.

“Now, that I can fix… if you’re in any shape to work.”

“Sorry, Mr. Carroll.” She lowered her voice, leaning across the table. “CSB’s was sniffin’ about. Just like before. S’why I ran off.”

“I imagine they would be rather keen on someone with your talents. I still have friends, girl. If you’re one of mine, they’ll leave you be.”

“What’s the earner then?”

“A client of mine is in need of a guardian. The usual sort of chap I work with these days is not nimble enough for this one. The client wants to get to the top of some dreadfully tall place and tap a local.”

“So just watch his back?” I can do this. “What’s the pay?”

“Fourteen five.”

Kinnell! The yell stayed in her mind. She hoped the shock did not leak through her eyes. “That’ll do.”

He reached forward and propped her chin up. “Guess the times really are as rough as they look on you. You used to quibble the change.”

“Bit of a transitional period, I’m in. I’m fine.” She forced a smile, ignoring the twitching.

“Still no ‘mini?”

She shook her head. “You know why.”

“Right then. Make contact with our man at the corner of Neal and Long Acre tomorrow at eleven pm. I’ll meet you here with a stick when the thing’s done.”

“Who’m I lookin for?”

“Calls ‘imself Mr. Orange. Ya can’t miss him.”

he handrail kept her from falling over while every muscle screamed in protest at the lack of zoom. When Spawny’s face appeared in the foggy curve of the autoshower tube, a spike of abject humiliation ran from head to toe. She wanted to cover herself from Spawny’s eyes, but could not unclench her fingers.

Anna did not realize she had closed the bathroom door until Spawny barged in. She had never thought twice about leaving it open before, but that morning she wanted privacy with her shower. Sleep had been a fitful companion, sending her to spend the night on the couch to spare Faye the endless tossing.

A brilliant blue spark leapt from the metal console in front of her chest, licking at her breasts without harm as she absorbed power from the tube. She sensed it preparing to leap to Spawny and forced it down the drain. The autoshower went dark.

“Crimey, what the hell!” He jumped away.

“Spawny,” said Anna in a demure tone, turning her back. “Please let me have some privacy. I’m not in the mood for your antics today.”

The weight of his stare lingered on her back for a moment. “Well, all right then. F’ya need anyfing, I’ll be ‘cross the hall.” Light shifted on the wall as he filled the doorway. “You okay, Pix?”

“Just tickety-boo,” she muttered.

Seconds later, the shower tube came back online; the wash cycle restarted in time with the reboot.

“Twee?” she yelled, her voice echoed in the confines of the tube.

“Oi?” The girl stepped into view.

“Be a dear and close the door please?”

She reached for it. “Why’s ‘e just walk in on ya like that?”

Anna pressed her forehead into the wall. “Just the way he is. Thinks it’s funny.”

Faye shook her head and closed the door. “Perv. ‘E does that ta me I’ll hoof him right in the plums.”

When Anna left the bathroom, dressed, the girl was seated in the kitchenette, munching on some of the cereal Anna brought home the night before. She poured herself a bowl and sat next to her. They chewed in silence for a while.

“Nice trousers,” said Faye.

Anna pushed the spoon through her bowl “Got tired of givin’ everyone a show whenever I moved.”

“They have these things called panties…” Faye grinned.

“Haven’t had the readies to waste on them.”

“So nick a pack.”

Anna swatted at her. “Not the way to think.”

Spawny yelled from across the hall. “What for, you’re starkers more than dressed anyway.”

The lights flickered. Faye stared up.

“Oh, hell, it’s only been two weeks!” shouted Spawny. “Bastards are getting quick.”

Faye stirred her cereal. “You don’t look so good.”

Anna shrank into her seat. “I’m on the rattles.”

“They had this cheesy presentation at school about drugs. Bunch of fat wankers in suits think they know what’s good for us.”

“Twee…” Anna reached over the table to hold her hand.

“Don’t call me that. I’m not five.”

“Sorry. When I first started taking it, I thought I could control it. I couldn’t. It got me. I used to live with Pen in a nice place in town, had a car even. Money, all the clothes I could want.”

“You sound just like those fat bastards.”

“I’m serious, Faye. Look at me. I’m a bloody mess. Two years ago, I was practically wealthy, now I have to show my tits to eat.”

The girl rolled her eyes. “And you don’t want me ending up like you.”

“Dammit, Faye.” Anna’s shout startled her. “You don’t belong here. I’ve already thrown my life away and I don’t want to watch you do the same thing.”

“Why’d you get started then if it’s such a bad thing?”

“Work.” Anna’s mind raced for a plausible lie. “I had to sneak inta some place posing as a zoom-head. Wound up getting the fake patch mixed with a live one. Once was all it took and I was trapped.”

Faye looked at the half-eaten cereal. “I can’t face them. They think I’m a liar.”

“I could talk―”

“No!” Faye covered her reddening face. “I hate them.”

“I understand…” Telepaths cheat. “Right when you needed them most, they weren’t there for you.”

Redness swept over the girl’s face.

Anna drew a breath to speak, but hesitated when Spawny traipsed in, Penny in tow.

“Cripes, Anna,” said Penny. “What the devil.”

“She’s on the rattles,” muttered Faye.

“No shit.” Spawny looked her over. “Fink ya lost more weight too.”

“Really?” Penny grinned. “You’re trying to quit?”

“Yeah,” moaned Anna, running a hand over her face into her hair. “It’s gonna suck.”

“Zoomers go nuts after about three days. Guess we’ll have to tie you to your bed for a while.” Spawny winked. “Clothing optional.”

Faye glared at him.

The lights faltered again.

He looked at the ceiling. “Tap must be loose.”

“No, I just don’t really want to be helpless around you.” Anna winked.

“What, I’m not enough for ya?” Penny smacked him with her purse.

“Just teasin’.” He cringed, in playful defense. “Hey, Pix, we’re goin skimmin’, wana come with?”

Anna thought about it. She did not want to get caught up in that, but it would be easier to get through the checkpoint in a group, and it might keep her mind off zoom.

“Faye you gonna be okay for a bit?”

She scoffed. “I’m thirteen, not three.”

The maglev orbital circled London proper, crossing the Thames twice on its route. Anna sat at the rearmost part of the rearmost car, jostling about with the motion of the tram. Despite the lack of contact with the rail, a scintillating charge swept down her body each time the car slipped over a seam in the track; the spaces between magnetic fields slid through her stomach. The conversations flooding the confined space drilled into her head: a rotten boss, a lousy breakfast, some Frictionless fans upset at a referee. A pair of nineteen-year-olds four rows ahead tried to give each other hand jobs without anyone noticing. He kept a straight face, but the girl couldn’t help squeaking.

Sweat tickled its way down Anna’s chest in threads as a woman’s distant laugh pummeled her skull like a hyperactive woodpecker. Anyone looking at her would think she had a fever: bleary unfocused eyes, red face, sweating, delirious. With nothing to do, she did not waste the energy trying to keep up outward appearances.

Kicking zoom was a rotten idea.

Spawny draped himself over the bench between her and Penny, tinkering with a little electronic device in the pocket of his imitation denim coat. He held the fabric to conceal it from view and fiddled with knobs on the side to adjust its transmitter range and sensitivity. Penny had one as well, but she was less fickle about the tuning. He babbled under his breath as he worked, mangling some old nursery rhyme with a forced Cockney accent that made it incomprehensible, even to people used to it.

Heavy as stone, Anna’s eyelids drooped. The thing in the back of her mind spun like a tiny cartoon Tasmanian devil, whirling about in search of anything it could use to get out. Her momentary calm trapped it for the moment. Great amounts of power in the car below unfurled into her view as shimmering amber pipes lit by brighter pulses. The ephemeral light crept along the presence of electrical wirepaths in the sidewalls; lines traced themselves out as smears of yellow-orange, holograms in the brain. Her mind played with it, an old atrophied muscle flexing and releasing. Redirecting existing power was less tiring, and far more deadly than pulling it out of thin air. She pressed her back to the wall wearing an expression most would mistake for an orgasm. For a brief moment, the power brought a sense of confidence and safety she had not known in years.

Her head sagged to the left, staring into Spawny’s pocket at the handful of light flakes dancing in his hand. Energy inside his machine glowed intense around the power source: a two by one inch rectangle known as an e-mag. That moniker rolled off the tongue easier than Meissner Cell, though some old-schoolers still called them that. Developed initially by the military for use in energy-based weapons, the ubiquitous super-batteries had infiltrated many aspects of civilian life as well. No reputable company produced skimmers―these were Spawny specials. Bare wires soldered to the contacts of the e-mag sparked and seethed.

Anna stared at it, her memory flashing back to a dark hallway and a man in a dark coat. She’d jammed an e-mag into his throat, and she forced it to discharge all of its power at once. The man’s head had vaporized.

“You all right?”

Glimmering amber threads faded at the sound of Penny’s voice and the hand shaking her listless arm.

Anna squinted. The window-light framing Penny’s face burned her eyes. “Yeah, fine. Just a… bad memory. I need a feckin’ zoomie.”

Penny reached over Spawny and grabbed her by the lapels, shaking her. “Look at me, Anna. You do not need a zoomer. I’m here for you.”

“We’re boaf ‘ere for ya, luv.” Spawny ruffled her hair as though she were his kid sister.

“Thanks. Kinnel, this sucks.” Anna doubled over, arms through her gut. “I shouldn’t have eaten.”

“Bollocks, girl. You’re a twig.”

“We’re gonna take a stroll. Yell if you need us,” said Spawny.

“You sure that’s wise?”

“She’ll be fine, Pen. We’re just goin’ up and back.”

Anna’s arms fell slack on the seat as her friends got up and walked into the crowd. Gentle rocking of the tram taking a curve caused her to slip back into her semi-awake daze. Her eyes jumped between small diaphanous blobs of power manifesting from people they passed, flying into Spawny’s pocket or Penny’s purse.

That’s twisted. I’ve never seen EM before.

They were skimming.

Sometimes, the glop of energy leapt out of the back of a hand where an ImDent chip lurked.

The skimmers simulated merchant readers, siphoning off credits in small amounts from every device they got in range of. The amount randomized from one ping to the next, the software would not tap the same source twice in less than a month. Most people didn’t notice. Even if they looked at a statement, the odds were good they would overlook it since the transactions stayed small and appeared to be something common like coffee, a snack, or a surcharge.

Her friends reached the end of the car, the tiny acknowledgement chirps of NetMini’s lost amid the din of the cabin and layers of clothing. A cyan retaining field at the end of the cabin dissipated, popping like a film of soapy water as Penny hit the button. They advanced to the next car.

Anna lay like a corpse for a few minutes until the feeling of being alone and vulnerable in a box full of men gave her the wherewithal to stand up. No one had made a move, much to her surprise; perhaps the pants worked.

She lurched in pursuit of Penny and Spawny, falling into the standee posts in series to forestall an intimate meeting with the floor. A few people asked her if she was all right, another new feeling. Anna offered pleasant smiles and claimed a bit of fever, which made them lean away and nod. Their affect was absent the usual derision; most seemed fearful of becoming sick.

At the end of the car, she smacked the wall a few times in a disorganized attempt to find the button to sap the field. A nearby businessman watched her fumble for several minutes until he seemed more uncomfortable by her proximity than bothering himself with another’s problem. He reached forward. She tensed, expecting his hand to go for her ass, but he pressed the button for her. After a thankful nod, which almost sent her spilling into his lap, she wobbled through the opening. Her friends worked three cars down. Anna searched through the aches and pains for the ability to move faster.

There would have to be something done about that before tonight. Her arms moved with the hesitance of a rubber figurine with stiff wires for bones. The job required more flexibility than a piece of jerked beef for her to be of any use to the client or keep herself alive. Anna grunted from the impact with a metal pole she failed to see. Her hands clasped it out of reflex; she clung to gather her balance as well as her thoughts. The maglev went into a gentle rightward turn that spun her around the standee post. If not for the number of people packed in there, the motion would have flung her to the floor.

More zoom would make her feel better without delay, but it would dull her abilities and set her back. Then again, that had been the whole point of starting it. It was rather effective at keeping her electrokinesis from running away with her emotion, but it also made it a chore to call on when she wanted to. To do what Mr. Carroll was willing to pay her to do, she would need to be able to find the little monster in her head. If she were to return to his employ as a matter of routine, she would need to make friends with it―and that meant staying clean.

No… Zoom’s right out. Maybe I’ll take up yoga or tai chi.

Pulling herself to her feet, she thought about visiting a clinic and buying a pacifier. Those autoinjectors could ease the withdrawal, but they ran about a thousand credits. Little more than weakened narcotics, they dulled reaction time almost as bad as the zoom itself. The only differences were the lack of hallucinations and a shorter high. The pacifier was supposed to be non-addictive, but that was a lorry full of codswallop. Anna stopped, staring through the window at the passing grey city, wondering why the illegal drug was a hundred credits but the path to freedom cost a thousand. She lost track of how often Old Bill had let her skate with the supposed contraband.

Bloody government’s in on it.

Five doors later, she caught up to her friends. They stopped halfway through the car, facing away from the forward end to duck the gaze of a pair of constables by the door. The Filth’s body armor had hardware capable of detecting a skimmer if they got too close, but it would look suspicious if Spawny saw police and retreated.

He eyed the cops via their reflection in the window. “They’re watchin’ us. Hey you two lock lips, give ‘em somethin’ to really stare at.”

“Do you want to see my lunch again that badly? She’s like my sister.”

Penny grabbed her, kissing her on the lips before whispering. “Do you want your sister in jail for ten years?”

It could have been the motion of the tram or a fragile stomach already upset from her body’s demand for zoom. The thought of crossing tongues with a woman somewhere between sister and surrogate mum was the last straw that caused the taste of her lunch to burble in the back of her throat. She tried to steel herself, focusing on the thought of Penny getting carted off for skimming. Her mind retreated behind a curtain of logic―do this or Penny goes to jail. Blake had rented her to both men and women, and she forced the thought of who she was with out of her mind and let Penny lead. Spawny behaved as if he was filming them, muttering like a director, holding the skimmer up as though it were a camera.

You cheeky bastard.

In a few minutes, the Met lost interest and went forward through the tram.

Anna let her head fall onto Penny’s shoulder. “I should have skipped the pickles.”

Penny patted her on the back and said soothing things. Holographic adverts slid through the maglev’s windows, accented by the occasional bot brave enough to fly up alongside in an effort to gain the attention of a passenger. By the time they slid into the next station, Anna had gotten a firm grip on her food. They disembarked, eager to avoid the police, but Spawny could not help himself and walked a skim past the people waiting to board the train.

“Oi!” A man shouted.

Spawny ducked the hand reaching for his shoulder, evading the grip of a seven-footer in a heavy black trenchcoat emblazoned with the silver outline of a cross down his entire back, filled with thorns and roses. He squealed when two more men in similar coats, though not as tall, spun about and growled.

He took off at a full sprint, the rubberized soles of his shoes squeaking on the metal of the maglev platform. Penny ran after him, down the switchback stairs to the street level.

A flash of adrenaline chased away some of the knots in her muscles; Anna brought up the rear, moving like a parking lot extra from a bad holo-vid about zombies. Penny caught up to him and grabbed his hand, running together ahead of the three Crossmen who pursued without a word.

The chase spanned the length of two blocks before an ill-chosen left turn stranded them in a dead end alley, among stinking hulks of restaurant trash compactors. Spawny skidded to a halt at the bricked over fence at the end, grabbing Penny by the hips and hauling her up. The widest of the Crossmen checked him into the barrier, smashing the air from his lungs and sending him sliding to the ground.

Penny’s grip failed, and she fell into the waiting arms of the seven-foot man. He threw her like a slab of meat into the grip of his mate, who stepped back with the flailing woman held fast.

“So friend, you fink you kin skim the Crossmen, eh?” He drove a massive boot into Spawny’s side, flipping him over onto his back. “I’m gonna beat seven shades of shite out of ya. Hope you got a box ta put yer hampsteads in when I’m done with ya.”

Spawny howled, lurching to his feet and punching the huge man straight in the jowls. Beard shadow bunched up over his fist, hardly moving the skull behind it. The attack made the huge shaven-headed Crossman grin wider.

“Not bad, mate. My turn.” With that, he slugged the stunned man in the face, bouncing his skull off the wall.

Spawny fell with the grace of a limp noodle to the pavement.

“Stop, please don’t kill him!” Penny kicked and thrashed, pleading. “You can take it all, just don’t kill him.”

“Damn right we’re gonna take it all, right after we’re done with yer little toy-boy.”

Anna stopped a few meters back, her arrival splashed audible through the puddled ground. Three soft pops came out of the darkness to the left, followed by an inexplicable spout of water from a pothole as if someone had dropped a rock into it.

The tall ganger paused, shook his head, blinked, and continued kicking Spawny in the gut. Penny took advantage of the momentary disorientation of the Crossmen cornering her and tried to run. He snapped out of it and shoved her back to the street. The third man spun towards the sound of the splash and spotted her.

“Looks like we got a bonus, mates. This one’s worth a squirt as well.”

Anna, mesmerized by the distant rattle of a metal ladder, did not react as his arms circled around her chest, squeezing her paralyzed. It felt unreal, like a dream. The withdrawal had gone from hypersensitivity to numbness, she knew she could not move her arms or walk away from where she was held. The exact reason of why dangled over her conscious mind like a treat held out of the reach of a dog.

She stared at the hands clasped together over her stomach without recognition of what they were or that they had anything to do with her immobility.

“Yearrrgh.” Spawny howled, leaping up with a series of rapid punches to the big man’s groin.

The tower doubled over, wheezing. Taking the opening, Spawny kicked him in the face and bloodied his nose. Like a rabid Chihuahua, the wiry man leapt and dove at the one holding Penny.

He shrugged over Penny, giving Spawny his back and all but ignored the barrage. When he’d had enough, he flung Penny face-first into the metal wall of a Greek café. She wobbled to the ground as the Crossman grabbed Spawny by the jacket and held him up over his head before driving him chest-first into the wet pavement.

Barely able to breathe, Spawny rolled onto his side in time to catch the sole of a boot in the stomach.

Anna became aware of a rough hand squeezing her right breast. With solid pants on, her nether bits seemed too difficult a target for a quick feel. The one holding her had slipped his mitt up under her shirt and worked her tit like a lump of dough.

She made a face as if that act was so minor a breach of etiquette it left her unsure if it really warranted a reaction. The detachment removed her from the now, as if she watched it happen to someone else. Anna looked at the undulating fabric, wincing as he squeezed too hard. Realizing it was her flesh under assault, she squirmed. Her attempt at a scream ended with a hand over her mouth.

Her protest weak and ineffective, the man forced her to the side and bent her over a row of trashcans. The harder she struggled, the greater the cruelty with which the fingers dug into her breast. His left hand crushed into the base of her neck. Growling, she shoved and squirmed. The man was far too strong and heavy; her palms slipped over the rain-spattered lids rather than pushed her up.

“Leave it out.” She pawed at his arm, trying to get his claws out of her chest. “You’re gonna tear my tit off.”

This was not a police checkpoint; she had no reason at all to surrender to these men, but her withdrawal-wracked body lacked the strength to care. Anna closed her eyes and went limp, half hoping they would kill her afterward. A hand slid into her pants, icy cold against her most intimates. It shocked her conscious enough to notice Penny’s sobbing in the dark. No longer only her, the person she cared about most in the entire miserable world suffered with her. She tried to get away from the touch, but his weight crushed her into the refuse bins as hot breath slid over the left side of her face.

“Noice and yummy, the clam ain’t got no beard. Moi favorite.”

Anna growled as fingers pressed tighter. Drops of sweat fell on her head as he panted like a dog. His other hand crushed her cheek against cold metal. Anna could protect herself; she could protect Penny, but she would have to kill them all, and how would Spawny react? How would Penny react if she saw what Anna could really do?

Penny’s pleading scream made up her mind. If Anna sat there feeling sorry for herself, her only friend would be forever damaged. It didn’t matter if the CSB got wind of her. It didn’t matter what Spawny thought. She couldn’t let then hurt Penny. She had to do something.

Anna drew a breath and opened her mind to the air around her. She pulled at static electricity, amplifying it into arcs that swam over her for an instant, crackling like spider-legs between the metal trash bin and the wet ground. She gathered the sense of the power, calling the lightning into her body and focusing it into the hands touching her. The unmistakable smell of burnt skin surrounded her.

The man flew backwards and smashed into the wall on the other side of the alley. A twitching unconscious heap hit the ground atop bagged refuse. Anna stood and turned, cradling her aching breast in both hands for a moment before she fixed her belt closed. She shuddered with shame and anger, rage growing as she fought the memory of his touch. Anna lost her hesitation, knowing she needed more power to kill. Twenty meters away, a streetlamp flickered and sent a spark snaking into the watery ground.

Anna called it to her; the erratic serpent climbed her legs and wrapped around her chest. Electrical energy built up on her skin, hot and tingly. Her lip curled with contempt and her right hand came up, palm facing the man who had groped her. An intense bolt of lightning seared a black trench over his chest, drawing foam from his mouth and turning his closed eyes into swollen purple masses.

Two great arcs snapped like whips through the air, connecting the streetlamp to Anna’s back as she drew more power.

Penny screamed again. Anna’s gaze shot to the left. The second Crossmen had her bent over a trash bin, dress lifted. Her desperate struggle had thus far frustrated his progress at doing anything more than molesting her with his hands. The rumble of the fatal bolt through the alley drew his attention, and left him gawping at Anna while crushing Penny into a rubbish bin.

“Get off her.” Anna snarled, her already dark glare accented by little blue sparks crawling over her face.

The Crossman tightened his grip on Penny’s hair, as if to use her as a human shield. “Who the fuck are you talking to, bint?”

Anna narrowed her eyes. “A soon-to-be dead man.”

A wail came from Penny as he torqued her hair back.

Penny scrabbled at her coat, going for the knife she kept in the pocket. While the man holding her stared at Anna, she flicked the blade out and plunged it into the Crossman’s thigh with a savage cry, part growl, part shriek. Roaring in pain, he bounced her head off the bin and staggered back as she slumped to the ground.

Anna took a step forward. “Oh bugger all. You just pissed me off, fucko.”

Anger surged through her, pulling a lingering spark from the streetlamp. It struck her between the shoulder blades, sizzling for several seconds. She forced the current to wrap over her limbs, basking in the warm rippling surge as she channeled the electricity around her arms and projected it at someone she wanted to kill―no, erase from existence. The bolt went straight for the metal blade embedded in his leg. Penny dragged herself against the wall, wide-eyed as the arc connecting the streetlamp to Anna to the ganger lit the dead end lit bright as day for several seconds.

The scent ozone overwhelmed the air.

He went stiff as a plank on his feet, and fell face down with smoke peeling from his mouth.

The Tower stopped using Spawny’s gut for Frictionless practice and stared at her. It took him only seconds to decide to haul ass, and he jumped for the fence Penny had failed to climb.

“Where you goin’?” Spawny coughed and spat up blood. “I ain’t done wif you yet.”

Anna thrust her arms out, letting white-blue arcs snap from her fingertips to his back. The shock launched him from the wall. He landed on his back in a large puddle, legs draped over Spawny. Anna stalked closer, arms out to the sides, fingers splayed. She called; more electricity streamed from the air handler on the Greek restaurant and mains power lines on the other side. Anna glowed with crackling light at the center of a nimbus of energy.

The Tower moaned and rolled over in the puddle, staggering upright. He yanked a truncheon from his belt and growled at Anna.

She returned the noise, a mouse taunting a lion.

Penny’s distant whimpering fanned the fire of her anger. Dozens of small sparks connected her hands to the puddle, the steady whip-crack of lightning drowned out the last Crossman’s screams. A thick, scintillating shaft of lightning leapt from each of her outstretched arms, lapping up his legs from knee to groin before they met at his chest. The alley walls shimmered in the flickering radiance, and the odor of seared flesh filled the area.

Faltering noises emanated from the air handler as she drained it to the point of temporary shutdown. She grunted from exertion, roaring and crying, pouring all of her shame and resentment into the blast. When the crackling and flashing ceased, she sagged forward and fell to her knees. The alley seemed darker than it was before her attack. The Crossman stood deflated, arms slack at his sides and legs apart, smoke peeled from his mouth. Eyes half-closed, he remained still for a few seconds before falling forward with a wet splat.

All the power she’d taken from the environment was gone; she bent forward and retched her stomach empty.

Spawny shifted around, holding his stomach, aghast at the dead man nearby. Penny sniffled, not moving from where she’d fallen.

“Jesus fucking H,” whispered Spawny, before he coughed up blood. With one elbow, he dragged himself closer to the women and scrunched up his face at the breeze. “You’re right, luv. You should’a skipped the pickles.”

Anna vomited again.

Penny scrambled to her feet and pushed her dress back to rights.

“Your smalls are showin’.” Anna pointed at the cloth around her ankles.

Penny blushed and fixed them in place.

Anna looked up. “You okay? Did he…”

Penny sobbed, shaking her head. “No. You? Are you all right?”

“Just fingers. I’ve ‘ad worse from the Filth. I’m tired though.”

Penny shivered hard. “These aren’t constables, just street trash. No one’ll miss ‘em. Don’t get all wound up.”

Spawny scratched his head. “Kinda odd Crossmen―”

“Pen…” Tears streamed from Anna’s eyes. “I didn’t throw up ‘cause I killed ‘em. It’s the zoom. I feel like shit and a half. I…” She covered her face with her hands. “Not the first time.”

“Bugger me,” wheezed Spawny.

“Oh, my God, Anna.” Penny crept closer. “You should’ve told me. That Carroll bastard is bad news. He’s put you up to this, has he?”

Anna hung her head, like a child who got caught nicking cookies. Even if her friends were now terrified of her, at least she could live with herself knowing she had spared Penny from rape. She expected them to cringe against the wall to get away from her. It caught her off guard when Penny flew onto her, sobbing, squeezing, and showering her with thanks.

Spawny rolled flat on his back. “Cold, wet alley’s kind of comfortable ta be honest. P’raps I’ll replace me bed with wet pavin’. Could get used ta this I fink.”

Penny moved to his side, helping him sit up. “Bugger. I can’t carry both of you.”

Anna wiped bile from her lip with the back of her arm. “I’ll be okay. I’m just… It’s been a long time since I cut loose like that. Feels like I got hit by a lorry and then par boiled.” She glanced at small burns on her clothes. “Not quite the perfect control I used ta have.”

Spawny coughed up more blood, glancing up at the scuff of an unseen step. “We best shoot off.”

Penny hauled Spawny upright and dragged him along. Anna staggered behind them. The thought of what the trio must look like, sober Penny and her two drunken friends, made Anna laugh.

“That’s a bit psychotic, innit?” Spawny gurgled.

“We look like a pack of drunks.” Anna fell to all fours when she chose to cover her grin rather than grab the wall. “Just, we look a mess.”

A few blocks later, they huddled together in a dim booth at the back end of a small restaurant. She went through six cups of coffee before anyone spoke.

“Quaint lil’ noshery, this.” Anna’s attempt at a smile lasted a few seconds.

Penny stared. Anna could not read the look: fear, pity, or shame. Perhaps all.

“That’s why I started on Zoom. Workin’ for Carroll got the CSB up my arse. I figured I could use it to keep the involuntary bit under control, but when Tommy got shot… I just…” Patterns reflected by overhead lights shimmered in a hypnotic ballet upon the surface of her coffee.

Penny reached across the table to hold her hand. “It’s awright hon, doesn’t change a thing. I’m actually happy for ya. All these years, I thought you’d been nonced.”

Anna shivered. “No… My dad beat the shit out of me, never that. As shitty as he was to me, I think he’d ‘ave still killed someone who tried to do that to me.”

“S’right. Not a fing. I seen worse.” Spawny stretched back in his seat. “This one time, Ol’ Bill hucks a great honkin’ flash grenade at the lot of us. I’d taken a spill in this wild punch up and landed on me arse. The bloody fing bounces and lands right on my jubblies, but it don’ go off. Was a dud. S’were I got me name.”

Anna hid her face as the waitress set a plate down. “Bit o’ luck that, no doubt.”

The interrupted conversation became polite smiles and nods at the food-bearer until she had gone out of earshot.

“You got me by the short and curlies now,” Anna said, and took a bite of her sandwich. “Either one of you could get outta Coventry if you sold me out to the Crown.”

“Bugger that.” Penny squeezed her arm. “No way in hell. Besides, you ain’t got em ta getcha by.”

Anna blushed.

Spawny perked up, keenly interested in the topic shift. “Oi, really?”

They all laughed.

Plates and cups rattled with a shiver rumbling through Anna’s body. Withdrawal―like the Four Horsemen―was coming, and it would be a right bitch and a half. All she had to do was make it through the job for Mr. Orange, and then she could crawl in a hole and die for a few days. Maybe, she thought while glancing at Spawny, she would let him fix her to the bed after all.

For her own safety, of course.

“She’s roight. Gub’mint don’t much like people even known about that sorta thing. They’ll bag and tag us all. We give you up, we fuck ourselves.” Spawny tapped himself on the chest. “An’ no one fucks me, not even me.”

Penny made a face at him.

He slithered over the table, voice dropped to a whisper. “Havin’ none of that, Pix. We’re bezzy mates.”

n the shadow of a dozen gleaming office towers, Anna huddled under the awning of an autocab station, ignoring the digitized voice asking if she needed a transport for the fortieth time. The rain came in waves so thick the wind made an aurora borealis of water in the sky. Mesmerized by the pattern against the silvered windows of the immense structures, she lost time watching the ephemeral serpents dance.

Electrical humming announced the arrival of a spherical advert bot the size of a soccer ball hovering along as it tried to sell various bits of rain gear. The plastic-coated Chinese paper umbrella perched above it at the end of an articulated metal arm gave it the look of a massive cocktail that had gone off wandering. Glistening amoeba of reflected streetlamp light morphed through white stylized dragons upon the red canopy. The orb turned to face its central lens at her; deep within it, a faint haze of violet grew brighter. A sweeping pattern of laser-light shone through dust on the glass as it searched for a NetMini to see what it could sell her.

She stared, as much as one can lock eyes with a four-inch lens, waiting to see what it would do. Dozens of distinct trails of water from the parasol broke into sprays for seconds at a time as it rotated with rapid precision to scan her. Anna mused to herself how sad the orb must be; she imagined brows over its one great eye, despondent it could not find a mini’s beaconing signal anywhere on her. If it had lips, it would surely pout.

With a whirr, it drew closer and nodded down to raise the actuators directing its projector. A selection of umbrellas shimmered into view upon a white holographic pane, bathing the area in a soft glow.

Occasional raindrops fell through the display, glinting like fallen stars.

Something about this poor forlorn sphere of metal made her sigh. She almost felt bad, as if it were a young boy forced to hawk wares in a storm. It pivoted a few degrees to the side, simulating a head tilt as it switched to raincoats for a moment.

“Not bad, little thing. You almost seem like you’re worried about me.” Anna sighed, staring up into the downpour through the clear awning of the autocab port. “Sad that only the robots care about the little things anymore.”

The orb drifted to the left and tried to hold its small umbrella over her head too.

“Bother that, it’s so small. You’ll short out if you get wet inside.”

A sad digital whine was more than the sense of her projected sentience could bear. She surrendered twenty credits from her stick, ordering the least expensive umbrella on its list in the hope of making it feel better.

It continued floating at her side, trying to shield her from the rain where the awning was too narrow. Anna squinted at it.

That’s odd. Little buggers usually race off after they suck credits outta ya. What’s its game? Does it think I’m going to buy something else? It almost seems… concerned. Was its concern for her something other than attempting to endear itself into selling more?

A man’s voice overpowered the monsoon. “Evenin’, you Pixie?”

She turned, glancing at a nondescript man in a shiny coat. Black on the shoulders, sleeves, and grey in the middle, it covered him from neck to shin. His eyes radiated orange light, as if the eyeballs had been replaced with bulbs. Glowing spots on his shoulders appeared to be responsible for a faint blue dome-shaped field above him where the rain wisped away to steam before it could strike his short, dark hair.

She figured him to be a little older than her, twenties still, but closer to thirty. A black metal case in his right hand gave him the feel of a government agent, but he lacked the air of superiority they often wore with it. She glanced at him and lifted an eyebrow. The orb offered him umbrellas.

“You must be Mr. Orange.”

“Indeed.”

He gave her the up and down look, picking at Spawny’s borrowed denim jacket to appraise the smallness of the woman underneath. Anna tensed, not wanting him to discover she caved in on the way here and had three derms of zoom in her left pocket―just in case. The rainy night kept her shivering from seeming out of place; she lost track if it came from the rattles or if she really was freezing. The cold sweats looked like the effect of being out in the rain.

For once, she felt glad it poured.

“You’re a wisp of a thing, lass. Not quite what I was expecting.”

Anna tried to remember what it felt like to be confident and straightened up. “I will admit to being a little rusty, but this isn’t the sort of job I’d have taken before. Too basic.”

He leaned back, appraising her with a finger tracing his cheek. “If I’ve learned nothing else, it’s not to trust my eyes. Shall I take your nervousness as a warning?”

She shivered again, not knowing which of two potential causes to blame. “Feck. Don’t mind me, I’m on edge tonight.”

The umbrella-bearing droid circled in, aiming its ads at Mr. Orange.

“Bugger off.” He swatted at it.

It zoomed off, careening around the corner of a building a block away, where it peeked out like a frightened dog. She frowned at it, finding herself feeling sorry for a thing that had no soul. Another bot, this one long and boxy, glided up. Mr. Orange leaned back and tucked a hand into his coat.

“Keep your hair on, the wee one guilted me into orderin’ an umbrella.”

He relaxed. His hand did not leave the coat until the flying rectangle spat out a small extending umbrella and rocketed off. Once it had disappeared from sight, he let his grip fall away from whatever waited beneath the folded wool.

“Right then. I need to get up to the top of that one.” He pointed at an office bearing the logo of British Telecom.

Her new umbrella exploded in a pop of nylon; she jumped at the sudden sound. It had taken a moment to figure out the precise nature of how to squeeze the handle to make it deploy. Anna walked out from under the awning with her new portable rain-shield and brought a merciful end to the terminal’s incessant inquiries about a ride.

“That’s a big ‘un. How you fancy that? BT ‘as their own police ya know.”

“I got it sussed. Was expecting Carroll to send me a leg-breaker despite being told I needed a nimble sort. Wasn’t expecting a bird… That actually works out. How good’s your drunken tart?”

She glared under flattened eyebrows, her voice as cold as the wind. “I think I can fake it well enough.”

“Good.”

He lifted his left arm, case and all, and peeled back his sleeve. Upon the forearm, a small black panel lay bedecked with buttons and a holographic display unit. A few finger taps later, a field of light formed around his face. Pixels and streaks of green orbited into a cyclone of data that coalesced into an altogether different person.

Anna blinked at the sixtyish silver-hair looking back at her. It had to be a hologram, but it was a damn good one. Unable to resist, she touched his cheek, fascinated at how the image rippled away from her fingertips. He took her arm by the wrist, pulling it away from his face and holding her hand.

“Don’t touch it, that’ll give it away.”

She gasped. The voice had changed; Mr. Orange now sounded like the old man he appeared to be.

“Vox unit… What, do you live in a cave or something?” He frowned. “I thought Carroll was sending a pro.”

She grumbled. “I am. Just not a fan of implants…” and I’m a little rusty.

“Nothing at all? You’re not even armed, what is it exactly you expect to do if we run into problems?”

Anna flashed a wry smile. “I’ve got it sussed.”

“Touché.” He regarded her again. “Before I stick my neck out, I need a little more than that.”

“Can I trust you?”

He gave her a look. His mere presence on this job proved he worked contrary to the law. The reminder of that made her look at her boots.

“Yeah, sorry. Silly question. I’m… Unregistered.”

“Oh.” Orange seemed to grow tense. “Right then, I guess that’ll do.”

Anna took his elbow, not having to work too hard to emulate an intoxicated stagger. She added incoherent babbling about the latest Frictionless match, complaining the ref had made a bad call in favor of Arsenal―by virtue of the claim any call in favor of Arsenal was a bad one.

Orange grumbled at having to support so much of her weight. but she did not care as it made the disguise more real. Her legs ached. More effort went into her ability to speak than she allotted to locomotion, and having him there as a leaning-walking post helped.

He dragged her through the lobby of the building across the street, some manner of financial services firm. She babbled on about never having been with a man his age before and hoping he would be able to keep things lively enough for her. Two security officers, a man and a woman, at the front desk looked up and smirked at the unlikely pair, their glares carried the type of disapproval that could be aimed only at someone they recognized.

At the elevator, he held his fingers up to the wall as tiny mechanized struts extended from his coat sleeve and arranged an electric field over his hand. Orange moved it near the palm reader, and waited until the light turned green and the door slid open. No reaction from the security desk; it seemed they didn’t notice the mechanical assistance.

“Oh, I can’t wait.” Anna dropped to her knees, grabbing at his fly in the elevator.

The security officers looked away, the woman blushing.

“What the feck are you doing?” he whispered.

She continued for several more seconds until the door closed. “They looked away, didn’t they?”

“You can wait till we get upstairs. They’ve cameras in ‘ere.” He pulled her by the jacket back to her feet and whispered, “Are you acting like a wreck or are you ripped?”

Wobbling, she made a dizzy face. “Awright, but you better be good for the credits, luv.”

Leaning into him again, she held on for support, hoping he would think she still acted like a strung out whore―not actually was one. The clarity that came with the absence of zoom filled her with sufficient shame. She wanted to leave that life behind. For Penny, for Faye, perhaps even for herself, the coming hours would be six shades of hell.

Damn it all, why did I buy more? I’m gonna cave.

The chromed panel walls mocked her with how red her eyes had become; she struggled to find the energy it took to keep them halfway open. A hand squeezed into the jacket reminded her where the zoom waited; she had three ready to go.

It’s right here. This hurt will stop if I want it to…

Daydreams of zooming kept her floating on the elevator ride. Anna debated the seriousness of her desire to quit. The fear of the CSB battled with the sense she had gotten from the art students. She wanted to be the girl on the paper, not the girl sitting on the pedestal, and definitely not the girl in the cage. Before she knew it, tears of shame soaked into Mr. Orange’s shoulder. The subconscious squeezed her hand tighter, trying to get to the zoom beyond the barrier of plastic and cloth.

He glanced at her sniffle, lifting an eyebrow at the look on her face. “What the feck is wrong with you? So help me, if Carroll’s buggered me…”

The elevator door pinged and opened.

Anna wailed, clutching at his lapels. “I’m sorry guv’na, please, I need the money. Okay, fine… I’ll let you give it in the bum, please don’t send me away.”

A few employees working late looked up. A Nicohaler dangled from the lip of one man; somewhere out of sight, a light object dropped to the floor with a plop. Several pretended not to notice anything. One woman in a clinging sea foam dress gaped at him in abject shock, shifting in her chair from sympathetic discomfort.

“Don’t just sit there gawking, you’re quite welcome to join us.” Orange held his other arm to her.

The woman flushed crimson, aghast at what had been said to her in the workplace. Anna spun, rolling her back into Mr. Orange’s chest like an affectionate cat. Her tears turned into giggles.

“Look at ‘er gov’na. Bets ya she likes the rug instead.”

“Subtle.” He muttered into the top of her head.

The woman got up and stormed past them to a different elevator, muttering about going to HR in the morning. Mr. Orange led Anna by the arm through the open area full of desks, past a cube farm to the far end of the floor and a row of offices along the outer wall. He ducked through a door bearing the label ‘R. Sturgis ― VP Operations,’ and moved with haste to the window. Outside, the BT tower glowed against the indigo night across the street. The other building was shorter than this one, the roof in plain sight from here.

Once the door closed, he pushed her into the wall. “You better have your head on.”

Anna swallowed. Everything hurt, her throat was dry, muscles sore, and the burned spots from the Crossmen fight throbbed. She gazed into his eyes; her attempt at a confident face became a pleading one. He turned away, cursing Carroll’s name.

“I just need a minute. Look, I’m fine. I… I had a bad night. Pushed myself too far and I’m sore. Took some painkillers.”

“Painkillers?” Orange shook his head. “You’re a lousy actress.”

She frowned shame at the floor.

“That’s not what I mean. Okay, fine, you’re a lousy liar. If you’re wrecked, we need to get out now.”

“I’m good.” Anna took a few breaths and composed herself.

Orange moved to the window and focused his stare at a four-foot white obelisk streaked with threads of red light. It perched atop a metal box with large wire-guides leading down into the building. Anna had seen enough hardware to recognize it as some kind of network relay transmitter. It was powerful; the energy inside it called out to her from here.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Orange patted her on the shoulder. “That’s what I’m looking for.”

“Yes.” She glanced back at him. “But it’s over there and we’re over here.”

“I’ve got it sussed.”

From under his coat came a rifle-like device with a large black box at the rear end. An e-mag protruded from the pistol grip. She followed him through a back exit of the VP’s office, down a hidden hallway past the executive washroom, and out onto an open-air deck.

As soon as they went through the door, holographic images formed at the edges of the patio, simulating a tropical beach. The effect was good, aside from a square of pitch-black night sky directly above them. During the day, the illusion would be perfect.

“End holo.”

Orange’s utterance dispelled the swaying palm trees. With the light source out of the way, he moved to the railing and sighted the strange rifle at the BT tower. A pulse of energy ran down the length of it like a rail gun, only the projectile had a fraction of the velocity of such a weapon.

The whirring of unspooling cable broke the still air for a few seconds before it ended with a distant metallic clank from the other side. Orange backed up to the wall, holding the butt-end of the ‘rifle’ against the plastisteel panel. With the flick of a switch, it energized and electromagnetically adhered to the structure. It whined, a belabored mechanical moan, as the cord tensioned.

He took a smaller device from his coat, a small black box with two rubberized grips. One side had a lever like a motorbike brake. Clipping it to the wire, he smiled at her.

“Off ya go then.”

“Are you serious?” she stammered. The thought of sliding down a wire in her current state added the nausea of fear to the milieu of her misery.

“You are the protection, are you not? This spot is safe. You need to go first in case there’s some unpleasantness waiting on the other side.”

“I know, I know. That’s not what I’m worried about.” She plucked at the near-invisible line. “I haven’t done wire work in about two years.”

“Is it the painkillers?” Orange cocked an eyebrow. “Or the lack of ‘em?”

She scowled. Screw it. I’ve lost weight since last time, should be easy peasy.

Anna jumped up and grasped the handles; the wire, elevated as high as it was, kept her toes off the ground. Not trusting her life to her grip, she swung her legs up and crossed her boots over it.

Orange grinned. “That button changes direction. It’s motored. Squeeze the lever to move.”

“Yes, yes… I’ve done this before.” She sighed. “Not that you’d know it by looking. What’re you grinning on about?”

“Trying to understand how someone so small can protect anyone.”

“I’m a psionic, doesn’t matter how tall I am.”

She clutched the metal handles. With an almost imperceptible whirr, the contraption pulled her forward along the wire, out over the street some ninety stories down.

Anna kept her eyes closed; trying not to think about her sore muscles or how difficult it was not to degenerate into a shivering wretch. The zoom was right there in her pocket, but her will to remain alive bound her hands to the grip, preventing her from reaching for it. Venturing a peek, she gurgled at the sight of being only half way across. The mechanized handle took no effort on her part, but the belabored pace with which it crept down the line made a manual climb almost feel welcome.

A blaring horn tricked her into looking down. Involuntarily, her body convulsed and her gaze followed a sluice of what remained of her dinner on its way to a soon-to-be unhappy motorist. The stripe of greenish-beige slime fell as a column for several stories before it broke apart into a shower of tiny droplets, which faded into the backdrop of the distant lights of traffic. She coughed, spat, and coughed again before looking up at her hands.

Before the zoom, something like this would have been fun. In her time working for Carroll, she’d done a few high-altitude jobs with the full works: thermal-masking bodysuit with armored panels, goggles, climbing rig. The man had even talked her into carrying pistols in case she’d found herself needing to kill someone without a handy source of power nearby. Carroll’s assurances his connections with the government would protect her if things went pear shaped never comforted her much. The man was not the sort to be sentimental; as soon as she went from asset to liability, he’d forget ever knowing her. Going over a line in her street clothes felt as reckless as doing it nude. Granted, this was BT, not exactly a high-security installation. The odds of them having thermal cams on the roof were slim to none.

Tonight, in possession of muscles she had to beg to obey, and wracked with the pain of a phantom beating, she had all she could do to cling for her life and pray for the ride to end. The presence of scraping across her ass snapped her eyes open. She pulled up a second before a perimeter of concertina razor wire shredded her new pants, and dropped to the roof once she cleared it.

Anna frowned at the hand carriage as it shot back to Mr. Orange, wondering how she would get back onto the bouncing wire a distance above her best jump. Ahead, the presence of electricity in the machinery sang to her. Eight feet tall, the gloss white shell of the obelisk brimmed with wire bundles that fed the massive transmitter. Glow from fiber optic piping seeped through the gaps in the panels, creating the red lines that segmented its otherwise featureless sides.

She paced, gathering her jacket against the rain and severe wind she had not noticed on the way over, too petrified of falling to care about anything other than her grip. Her new pants were lovely in terms of protecting her from prying eyes, but did little against the cold, especially when the wind held the fluttering material so tight against her legs it looked like black paint.

When she drifted around the corner of the relay, her heart skipped a beat at the appearance of an automated sentry turret unfolding up out of the roof. It emitted a harsh chirping buzz and swiveled to aim in her direction. About the size of a human head, its spherical body elevated on a robotic arm while a three-barrel cannon extended through of a pair of hatches and spun to a stop with a sharp click as it chambered a round.

Absent of conscious thought, her old instincts drew the power out of the mechanism before it could fire, leaving it slouched and twitching. Her hands trembled as she stared at it. With fading panic came the reality she could not stand there concentrating to keep it dead; she had to deal with it. Filaments of amber light parted to her mind’s eye, searching for its power uplink. Her gut tightened as she beckoned the surge, pulling power from the building through the sentry gun in amounts beyond its limit.

The turret arm shuddered, sputtered, and smoked before falling against the concrete roof panels with a note like an out of tune bell, its Myofiber muscles limp. Mr. Orange sauntered around the edge, the cable rifle over his shoulder, and glanced at the smoking remnants.

“Not sure how you managed that. P’raps Carroll was right about you.”

“Guess it didn’t much fancy the rain.”

Anna had gotten her fair share of practice at lies, but she cringed inwardly at the weakness of her response. She rubbed her forehead and leaned against the transmitter array. Carelessness would get her killed or put in a cage and poked by the intelligentsia. Of course, the zoom had also put her in a cage. She debated which kind of poking was worse.

Light glimmered in the corner of her eye with the opening of an access panel. Orange flipped it upward into an awning against the relentless downpour. Glowing bunches of optic cable wound over each other inside, looking like a brain made out of red light; groups of fiber as big around as a man’s arm went in every conceivable direction. Individual threads within the clusters shimmered at random, flickering here and there as millions of conversations, images, sounds, and other traces of the modern age scurried across the GlobeNet.

Each nanosecond flash could be a hundred messages going to a hundred people. Daydreaming about the information made her head hurt. She took the umbrella she had bought from the sad little orb out of her jacket and popped it open, relaxing against an HVAC unit as if she waited at a tram stop.

Orange worked at a feverish pace, picking at the bundles to expose single threads of fiber. He appeared to be searching for a specific one. Anna squatted, peeking over his shoulder.

“How can you tell them apart?”

The old man was gone. Orange’s normal face, complete with glowing eyes, looked up at her and blinked once.

“I can see the data in real time.”

That made her head hurt even more. She stood again, ignoring him, drifting between attempts at watching for danger and trying to tamp withdrawal back down into a can she would open later. Orange spun thread after thread betwixt his fingers, smirking at each for a second or two before discarding it to the side. After what felt like forever, he drew one out from the rest, farther than any other, and grinned. She straightened up, taking her weight off her back.

“That’s the one.”

“Good, my ass is getting numb.”

Somewhere in the dark, a hovercar whined its way across the sky. Light orbs from the ion drives didn’t appear anywhere in sight; it was a good thing the weather was so poor. Whoever was in it couldn’t see them either.

Orange removed a one-inch black sphere from the case. It split open like a clamshell and he clamped it around the fiber, squeezing a button on its side as he closed it. White light appeared in small seams for several seconds before it dimmed to lime green. Once the color changed, he connected the wire lead from the splicer into a cyberspace deck, safe from the rain inside his armored black case.

“Ok, lass. Here’s the dangerous part. I’m goin’ inside now. I’m gonna be like a corpse out here―”

“Yeah, I know. I’m not a total blonde. I’ve done this before.”

“You’re not blonde at all.”

He winked. With a flick of a thumb, the M3 wire clicked in behind his right ear and he sagged forward like a Samurai after committing seppuku. His arms fell limp at his sides, his black coat fanned out over the roof behind him. A dead man knelt upon sheets of rain, awash with dark crimson light glinting from each droplet beaded on his shoulders and arms.

Anna gazed into the patterns dancing in the air, wondering why the wind fought so hard to keep the water from falling. A flash of cold paralyzed her for a moment; the withdrawal had gone from hot that kept her almost comfortable out here into the chills phase. She sank into a squat and clutched at the umbrella handle. Diving into the North Sea in February would have felt warmer than she did at that moment. Each gust of wind rattled her teeth and chased feeling from her fingers and toes.

The gale threatened to tear the umbrella out of her grip. Not wanting to lose something she paid twenty whole credits for, she collapsed it and let the rain hit her in the face. At this altitude, the droplets flew at her sideways, rendering the umbrella moot anyway. Within a few minutes, the sensation passed and the hot phase returned. Soaked through, it was almost pleasant.

Orange grumbled, his body twitching as if he had let out a one-second chuckle at something a touch shy of being humorous. Anna glanced at him, wondering what he saw in cyberspace to elicit such a noise. Was he amused by something, or fighting for his life? Anna had worked with hackers before, hearing them speak of what it was like on the other side in a virtual world as real as this one, only death meant an hour of misery rather than the end of one’s life. She could never know what it was like; cyberware was out of the question. She couldn’t keep a NetMini for more than a week without frying it. Electronics inside her would be a disastrous idea.

Anna nibbled on her fingernails, finally taking a good look at the defenseless man Carroll was paying her to protect. He was not harsh upon the eyes, and not the sort of man who would have shown up at the club to watch her dance. He exuded high class, or at least higher-class than those idiots. She fantasized about having a man sweep her off her feet and save her from her wretched life, carrying her off into the sunset like the knight from the vids she used to watch. Her head clanked against the metal behind her.

Who am I kidding? They’re called fairytales for a reason.

Orange grunted again; this time, she was sure the sheen on his forehead was sweat and not rain. Curious, she peered at his surface thoughts. Flashes of hallway, white and black marble, passed as flakes of chipped stone flew amid the echo of gunfire. With a submachine gun in his left hand and a katana in his right, he fought a wall of creatures, shadowy things that looked like men only somehow more alien. She leaned back, letting the mental link drop.

Maybe the zoom changed things on her. Sometimes the hallucinations came back when your brain starves for it, only they would be dark and threatening. The drug made you see things depending on where your head was at the moment; some said it brought out your inner personality. She usually saw pixies and cute things, but sometimes there would be an ogre with her father’s face.

Those were the bad trips.

A pneumatic hiss made her head snap up. Rain threaded off her nose into a rivulet. Cold embraced her in every sense of the word. Heavy boots thudded into the concrete. Orange was still a zombie. A little red umbrella peeked up over the roof. She stood and looked in the direction of the approaching boots. Deep and foreboding, a man’s voice echoed through the sound of the rain.

“Gotta be over ‘ere.”

“Yep. Got two on thermal.”

Shit.

Anna forced her twitching muscles to still themselves. With a gulp, she balled her hands into fists and waited. Two men, both over six foot, came around the corner. Glistening grey armor covered their entire bodies, a blue BT logo emblazoned upon the corner of their chest. Each had a rifle aimed forward in a one handed grip. One frowned at Orange, the other looked at Anna and his gaze softened.

These two did not look like constables, rather private security employed by BT. If Anna and Orange were not shot and dumped in the Thames, they would likely be stuffed in a holding facility somewhere in the building with no trial, held at the whim of some executive. Illegal though it was, Old Bill could not care about things Old Bill was not aware of.

“Looks like we got a snoop what brought his strung-out bird along.”

Their size scared her witless for an instant, until she sensed the augmentation in them. Either was probably strong enough to toss a car on its side one-handed. On the turn of a dime, mouse became cat. She stepped away from Orange, advancing a pace towards them.

“You two best be on your way then, this doesn’t concern you. No ‘arm to BT, just borrowin’ a backbone connect.”

They exchanged a disbelieving glance. The one on the left chuckled while the other spoke.

“Who the hell do you think you are? Get on the ground, now.”

“Really, I don’t want to hurt you. Piss off then, and forget you saw us.”

Grimacing through a muscle cramp in her left thigh, she tilted her head. His laugh stalled as something by the edge of the roof caught his attention; nothing was there when she looked at the spot.

“Look, hon, you’re young, you’re pretty, and you got no weapons. Don’t give us an excuse to break that sweet little face.”

Her hands shook. The trembles were on her, and they would not stop for some time yet. Adrenaline soaked into her dried-up brain. She’d slipped into a cold spot again, all her body wanted to do was shiver. The headache formed a wall between her and her power. The security men got closer. One raised his weapon at her. Anna tried to focus through the feeling of a skull packed with cotton balls. She glanced at Orange, helpless. She felt stupid for even thinking she could do this.

“Not telling you again girl, get on your face.”

Come on! Damn drugs…

A fist grabbed her by the collar, tightening a bundle of jacket against her neck. She cringed.

Calm down. She brought the sound of Penny begging the Crossman to let her go into her mind. The memory of how it felt to surge with power crept in behind it. Anna raised her arms as if to surrender. Her body shuddered, but she let herself go.

With a crack like a gunshot, a narrow spark leapt from the tip of the obelisk and struck her in the back. The guard holding her jumped away, howling and shaking his hand. The beautiful amber filigree of subdermal wiring traced over their bodies, outlining all their implants. She reached for the transmitter array, clawing through the air at the two men. She grasped the power, pulling it out of the machinery and willing it into the world. A web of lightning arced from the corners of the metal box, scoring burns across their armor and knocking them flat to the ground. They skidded back several meters into the wall of the elevator enclosure.

She tugged her coat back into place and made a ‘come here’ motion at their weapons. The power cell for their rifles’ firing circuits dissipated in a tiny crawling shimmer of blue along the wet roof. Their guns went dark, the absence of glowing LEDs revealing their uselessness. Anna glanced at Orange, wishing he would hurry up and be done with whatever he was doing. He still knelt in silent meditation, a techno-Buddhist lost in a world imagined by machines.

Anna swayed into the vibrating chamber of fiber optics, her touch sent little arcs creeping in two directions along the frame; a one-handed grip kept her from falling to the ground. Her hands shook, her legs twitched, and the roof wavered back and forth in her vision. Bile leaked through her lips, trailing to join the water she stood in. Hot and cold came one after the other, so fast they blended into an entirely new level of awfulness.

A moan emanated from one of the security men as he sat up. With an exasperated grunt, Anna latched her mind onto the power lines in the elevator system and created a blooming orb of lightning six meters around. The security men convulsed for several seconds before she released the power. Both collapsed flat, steaming and moaning. She was nowhere near as angry as she was in the alley. Penny was not in danger; her body could only handle so much power so soon after that night. Anna swooned to her knees, sparks dancing out from where her hands touched wet metal. Pain like a dagger through the skull set her heaving. She would have thrown up again if not for having an empty stomach.

“What the hell…”

Orange was awake.

Anna looked up, not even noticing the sparks that lapped at her body. He stared with both eyebrows lifted; his eyes brightened almost yellow as monk-like calm parted long enough to flash a ‘please don’t kill me’ smile.

“Well fuck me, you really are a psio. Carroll wasn’t dicking around this time.”

He slammed the panel closed like a mechanic having finished his work. She forced herself up and zombie-walked over to him, no longer possessed of the energy necessary to hide how bad a state she was in.

Orange caught her fall and pulled her into a platonic embrace. “Easy Pixie, guess that took a lot out of you.”

He doesn’t know I’m a drugged out wreck. “Yeah…”

“No worries lass. I’m good with secrets.”

“Thanks.”

Associating with people that operated outside the law provided some comfort. He would be disinclined to approach the government to report an unregistered because they would ask him questions he did not want to answer. Anna did her best to walk as he pulled her along to the edge of the roof. The sound of the rain upon the tiny lake they stood in gave way to the spectral keening of razor wire being cut and peeled. Doing it one handed slowed him down; Anna glanced over at the moaning of the security men as they stirred.

“Sorry I’m spent so fast. Not quite the protection you asked for.”

“No harm, girl. I needed protection when I was online, not so much now.”

Time blinked out of existence for her until she felt something tightening around her wrists, binding them together.

Plastic zip ties.

“Ow! What the hell are you doing? I thought…”

“Trust me… You’re in no condition to hold on to anything but the floor.”

He turned his back on her, and pulled her arms over his head, wearing her like a living cape. As the scrapes of the security armor signaled the men were standing, Orange stepped off the roof. Anna clung as hard as she could, which was not much, and breathed into the thick bundle of synthetic wool at the base of his neck.

All the wind in her chest burst out as their fall slammed into a sudden deceleration. Gasping for air, she ignored the pain in her arms and looked up at a one by three foot rectangle connected to Orange’s shoulders by hair-thin cables, stark ashen grey against the near black of the sky. The edges rimmed with yellow light from the glow of micro ion emitters. Too weak to propel them in flight, they gave only enough thrust to increase the effect of the tiny airfoil to that of a large parachute.

Her head to the side, Anna recoiled from the sweeping line of a laser sight―the security men searching for them in the dark. Orange chased the updrafts between buildings on Long Acre, heading southwest to a gentle landing in the middle of Leicester Gardens. The parafoil split in half, each piece folding into itself twice more before vanishing into compartments in the upper portion of cybernetic shoulders.

“You’re just full of surprises, Mr. Orange.”

The binding around her wrists came apart with the flick of a small knife; she hit the grass like a sack of wheat. Sprawled in the wet, she sat up and braced her fingers through the cold green behind her. A silly smile happened despite a body that wouldn’t stop twitching.

“You’re in rougher shape than I thought, girl.” He shook his head, clucking his tongue. “On the rattle, eh? Well… Good luck to you. Can’t imagine what your lot goes through.”

She would have shrugged, but did not want to fall over backwards.

Orange crouched, pulling her upright. “Look here, Pixie, is it? There’s a man over at Oxford… Doctor Mardling if I recall properly. I’ve seen some stuff in the net ‘bout him. He helps people like you, and he doesn’t much like the government. Rather hates their treatment of psionics.”

“M-Mardling?” she asked, before losing control to a seizure.

Orange’s voice swirled into the oblivion of her unconsciousness as he muttered something about not wanting to leave her out there. He sighed as she collapsed in the grass, unable to stand on her own. Arms tightened around her, followed by a sense of being lifted.

She did not care what he did to her; anything was better than how she felt.

lurry pea green haze hovered over her, indistinct in its distance or composition. Weightless, Anna drifted in a swath of time detached from the world. Dull aches teased at her muscles and the sound of each breath sliding in and out rushed like a gale through her skull. A faint breeze tickled and plucked at individual hairs. Her hands ached, and she remembered Mr. Orange.

It seemed she had been left within the drab confines of a motel room that explored every imaginable shade of vomit green. With a moan, she raised her left hand to her forehead and rubbed it, forcing her fingers through her hair and trying to dislodge the anvil balanced there. A line of bruise wrapped around each wrist; the sight dragged the parachute landing back from the depths of her memory.

Something on her arm brushed her nose, and she froze. Lifting it up from her face, she stared at the zoomer adhered to the tender skin. Seeing it brought rage and despair, screaming and tears. She could not remember how it got there, but she also could not find most of yesterday in the dark halls of her mind. Her arm flew, pounding a fist into the bed at her side.

“Damn!” All that hell for nothing.

Curling on her side, her eyes followed a trail of clothes between the bed and the autoshower. She stared at the derm, picking at the edge with her nails. She wanted to pull it off, but something inside her couldn’t do it.

Sobbing, she berated herself for buying the zoom. She knew how bad the quitting would be, especially cold turkey, and had chickened out before she chickened out. Anna wailed; she clawed at the derm, scratching red lines through her ashen skin. The little beige square might as well have been an impenetrable manacle chaining her to Coventry.

“No, no, no.”

Clutching her arm to her forehead, she bawled, cursing herself and her life. Moments later, she opened her eyes. Spawny’s jacket, draped over a little chair tucked up to a table near the bed, shimmered into focus. Two more zoomers waited in the pocket. If she put them both on at once and milked them, there was a good chance her problems would come to an end. Anna pushed herself up, sitting at the edge of the bed in a fog.

The chilly room brought shivers in time with surges of driving rain against the window. Anna stared down at her protruding ribs, her thin bony legs and prominent hips. Credits that should have gone to food had bought more chemical chains so she could tie herself to this misery. She did not want to go back to the club, or be a plaything for the police, or continue to wallow at the edge of a society that did not want her. Her own father had been ready to kill her.

Father knows best, right?

She wobbled to her feet and approached the jacket, peering into the gaping darkness of the pocket. Naked in a cheap motel, high, and with red marks on her wrists, the shame of what the sight would imply sent her to her knees. Face in the cushion of the chair, she rummaged at the coat until she found the sheet. Thin white plasfilm gleamed in the grey light from the window; the skin-hued bits of rubber beckoned with the offer of bliss or permanent release.

Anna lost track of time, kneeling and staring at the drugs as she pondered her life. She had agreed to go back to the art class later that afternoon. The thought of the two dozen sketches of “Innocent Anna” there sent warm streaks down her face and balled her hands into fists. She imagined the angelic versions of her moving, turning to look at her and laughing, pointing, and mocking the whore with no willpower.

They’re all lying to me.

She punched the back of the chair, knocking it into the desk, dropped the sheet of derms, and fell on her side on scratchy, worn green carpet with her face buried in her hands. Something bounced away from her thigh and hit the floor. A small black plastic ingot sat amid the green haze. It sprouted tiny arms and tried to drag itself to her, grunting. Anna chased the hallucination away and blinked at a device the size of her thumb, but flat and rectangular. As thick through as a coffee stirrer, it had one button on its otherwise featureless surface.

At a squeeze, it created a holographic light panel that unfolded through the air. Within, the face of a man hung above a monochromatic green background. He looked in his thirties, with shoulder-length brown hair and a precisely sculpted goatee and moustache. His nose was distinguished, almost prominent, and his right eyebrow lifted a touch as if he wanted to convey the secret of enlightenment. The face smiled as it rotated a quarter turn; text filled in to his right.

“Anna, apologies for leaving you alone last night, but I am bound to certain deadlines by certain individuals that despise tardiness. Don’t worry about the room, I’ve taken care of the fee. This is the man I mentioned regarding your problem. Doctor James Mardling, of Oxford, he might be able to help you with your issue.

Cheers,

Mr. Orange.”

Anna blinked. She was high, but the feeling of the holographic man smiling at her seemed more real than part of a looping animation or hallucination. She traced her fingers through the image as if petting the hair of a doll.

Can this bloke do a bloody thing for a worthless wretch?

A man’s voice blurred through the door. Shadows moved through the light leaking underneath. She gasped, and covered herself as if being watched.

The voice from the hall yelled. “Blimey, get away. For the last time, I don’t want a bloody umbrella, damn nuisances.”

Those bots are relentless. She relaxed.

Anna fussed over the crinkled derm sheet to make sure the doses were intact. Faye and Penny’s faces came to mind and made her feel even more ashamed for considering checking out. She wrapped her arms around herself, crying, as she pictured Penny’s reaction to learning she had committed suicide; then her brain forced her through a hallucination of walking in to find Faye dead.

Somehow, the younger girl had come to represent Anna’s destroyed childhood. She’d known her for a week, but it felt like she’d stepped in as a temporary mum. Faye still had a chance. She couldn’t let the same things happen to her.

She picked at the small black device for a minute, the presence in her hand reminded her Mr. Carroll still owed her a great deal of money. Well, chump change to him, but a fortune to her. She stuffed the derm sheet and the holo recording into the jacket and clutched her stomach. With the credits she had earned, they would eat well for a few weeks. She used the chair to pull herself standing, holding onto it to stop the spinning room.

She could not bear the thought of admitting to Penny she had caved and dosed up. She dreaded the stares of the art students again; she had betrayed the charcoal angels.

After a glance at the clock, she stumbled over to the shower tube. Her body refused to let her mind rid itself of zoom. Anna brushed at the derm patch, ripping it loose and throwing it into the corner. The pain made her stumble into the wall; a droplet of bright crimson glistened against the white of her arm where the chems had weakened her skin. She knew she could not free herself without help; perhaps she would go see this Mardling fellow.

She would not let the zoom win.

ree of the sickness of withdrawal, she seemed at rights when she had met Mr. Carroll at the chippery. He paid her as promised and hinted he might have more work coming up. Lying was something she had gotten rather good at when she had her faculties about her, and she left him thinking all was well. He would give her a ring when the time came.

As fate would have it, the art class was on the other end of the same campus where Mardling worked. Having spent the night in the city proper, she did not need to cross the police line and went directly to the university on the London Orbital maglev. Petrified of running into more Crossmen, she kept her head down, scurried through the platform, and hopped a shuttle to the campus.

Surrounded by people a year or three her junior, she felt uncomfortable even breathing the same air as the Propers. They were all students with promising lives ahead of them, and she was dirty trash.

No. The voice in her head protested. The shout echoed through her thoughts. She was trash, but she would not be dirty trash any more. Her hand rubbed the legs of her nylon pants. Her dignity lay in a tatter, but what little she found, she would cling to. An evil little smile curled onto her lips as she daydreamed about electrocuting Constable Brown if he tried to take his tax again. The smile faded. In all probability, she would let him do it. Killing a policeman would bring far too much heat down on her, and probably the rest of Coventry, but it was fun to think about on the ride.

Pale yellow walls surrounded the tiniest waiting room she had ever seen. Old fake leather chairs lined up against three walls, crowding around a little table full of e-magazines like herd animals looking for water. A lilting metal desk in one corner held an overweight elderly woman more interested in what lived under her fingernails than anything going on in the world beyond.

Anna stood at the edge of the desk, glancing at thirty years of collected kitsch from various vacations and office supply vendors, as well as awards for long-term service.

Didn’t know they gave office trophies for nail maintenance.

The file stopped sliding back and forth, the woman looked up with an angry glare. Anna glanced to the right.

“What’s that?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

The old woman squinted through her. Anna’s lips had not moved, but perhaps her frustration had let one leak on a strand of telepathy. Her eyes flicked back to the turquoise claws, striated with white and blue. The file scratched back and forth like a master violinist.

“Is Doctor Mardling in?”

Without looking up, the secretary answered in a begrudging moan. “What class are you in?”

“No class. I’m here…” She squeezed the little box again, looking at the text to the right of the apparitional head. “About his Horizons project… I wanted to talk to him about volunteering.”

“The Doctor isn’t seein’ anyone today ‘bout that. ‘E’s quite busy with his class schedule.”

Anna’s gaze hit the floor with a thud she almost heard. She stood there, silent as furniture, trying not to let her disappointment leak out of her eyes. A few minutes later, the nail file came to a halt again, but the old woman did not look up.

“You still ‘ere?”

Anna hooked her thumbs in her pants pockets, slouching. A wisp of cool air caressed her waist.

The secretary suppressed a snarl and shot her a glare. She opened her mouth to speak, but paused. “‘Old on a minute. Wot’s that?”

Leaning forward, the woman used the nail file to point at the two blue spots where the tattooed pixie’s antennae protruded over Anna’s belt line.

“A tattoo.”

She frowned with a protruding lower lip. “What of?”

Anna pushed her pants down over her hip far enough to show the tattoo without revealing anything too rude. She was thankful she had not gone with the original design.

“Cute.” The file resumed sawing at her nails. “That one of them faeries or what have you?”

“Yeah… It’s a Pixie. It’s kind of my nickname.”

The fiddle scratched to a stop as the woman’s gaze flicked up to lock with hers. “‘Ave a seat, luv.”

She twirled the file over her fingers, and poked it through a holographic button. The presence of an open audio channel made the room feel larger.

“Doctor Jim. That faerie, pixie, whatever you were talking about’s ‘ere. Shall I send ‘er in?”

Something heavy hit the ground in the back room. Anna jumped as the impact came through the floor. Blinds parted at the behest of two fingers, and a pair of brown eyes stared at her. A woozy feeling spread through her mind for a moment before the blinds snapped closed.

“Send her in straight away.”

Following the pointing file, Anna stepped through a self-opening grey door into an office not much larger than the pitiful waiting area. The man on the other side of the desk seemed in a tizzy, spiraling about the space in his attempt to collect the contents of a dropped box. Pants the color of over-creamed coffee matched the tweed blazer draped over the back of a steel chair painted hospital green. His hair looked more disheveled than the portrait let on, as if he had been up all night. Shimmering clear boards glowed with squiggles of blue and green writing and sketches of brains, and more math than she had ever seen in her life.

With the whoosh of the closing door, he spun to face her and smiled over an armload of datapads. His shirt hung open two buttons and he wore the anticipatory grin of someone going to a job interview, not giving one.

He extended a hand, leaning to the side to retain his bundle. “Hello there. I’m Doctor Mardling.”

She returned a pleasant handshake and sat in a battered brown excuse for a chair on wheels. He tromped to the side of the room and dropped the mass of electronics into a thin plastisteel box all at once. The order with which he kept them seemed to fit his general disheveled state. Anna stifled a giggle, having expected some sort of pompous ass from the look on the face of his hologram.

“I’m Anna.”

He fell into his seat, sending the belabored squeak of decades-old rusty springs crawling through the air. Feet up, then down, he rubbed his chin and leaned forward. The look on his face made her think he found the one nugget of gold in an entire mine. Pulsing strangeness swam through her head; she couldn’t tell if it was the zoom or lack of sleep.

“Are you all right, guv’na? You seem a bit edgy.”

“It’s a pleasure you meet you, Anna.” He at last settled upon leaning back in the chair with feet down and hands tapping the desk. “Blinds… Lights…”

The room darkened as the window blinds rotated closed and the lights dimmed almost all the way off.

Anna crossed her arms through her lap and leaned forward. “So what’s this all about then?”

“It’s about basic human rights. You are here because of the Horizons project, correct? About a certain sort of individual the crown isn’t too fond of?”

One finger picked idly at his cheek. His lips twitched as if he wanted to grin, but was too nervous. She swallowed hard. Saying the wrong thing to the wrong person could create a whirlwind of shit in short order.

“I suppose. You’re not with them?”

“Certainly not.” Insecurity faded for a moment to perfect confidence. “You seem a bit of a mess, luv.”

Shame reddened her cheeks. Doctor Mardling’s expression changed in reaction to the images of self-degradation in her thoughts. Anna fidgeted, unable to look at him anymore, afraid he would see a dirty drugged-out whore and not the charcoal seraph she longed to be.

“I…” Her hand covered the red mark on her left arm, kneading at it. “I’m…”

The cumbersome metal beast of a chair creaked as he leaned forward and sprang to his feet. He ducked around the desk, sat on the corner, and took her cheek in his hand.

“My dear, you are greater than you could ever have imagined. You need to stop abusing yourself.”

Eyes blurred with tears, she shied away as he touched the red spot on her wrist. The drug had a few hours of effect left in it, not enough to keep her high, but enough to keep away the need for more. The sense of his fingers on the tender spot was as embarrassing as if he had ripped her clothes off.

He knows I’m a piece of shit.

“You’re not a piece of shit, Anna.” His hand forced her to look at him. “Those grotty bastards do not possess even the slightest inkling of what you are. No, girl, you are capable of great and wondrous things. Your dignity is in there… somewhere.” He patted her atop the head. “I would love to help you find it.”

She gave him an incredulous look. “Sorry, guv’na, but…”

Dr. Mardling smiled. His voice entered her mind. All things are not as they appear to be.

“You…” Anna swallowed, unable to breathe at the realization there were other psionics. Of course, she knew there were, but she’d never met one before who wasn’t either running, on the leash, or dead. Overwhelmed, she flung herself onto him, clinging to his shirt. “You’re psionic?”

He gathered her hands from his shoulders and eased her into her seat. “It would do well to keep it down, my dear.” He rushed to the window and looked out. “The fools think I’m some boffin in tweed.”

Anna giggled.

“Let me have a look at you then.” Dr. Mardling leaned on the near side of his desk, staring dizziness through her mind. Minutes passed that left her feeling rushes of hot, cold, floating, and abject terror. He stopped when she trembled. “Easy, luv.”

“What did you do?” She clamped her arms over her chest in an effort to stop shaking.

“Electrokinesis is a very rare gift. Not many can exert control over electricity. Little telepathy as well, but I get the sense you do not avail yourself of it much.”

“No, sir. I’ve been too scared of the CSB. Haven’t done much of anything for a while.”

“Hmm.” Mardling rubbed his goatee, eyes hardening. “Those blighters are a bit of a nuisance, are they not? Granted, they are much tougher when they are detaining children. Those dimwits can scarcely contend with ordinary psionics. They have no idea about us.”

“Ordinary psionics?” Anna blinked. “That’s a bit of a contradiction, innit?”

“I will explain more as we go.” He grabbed his coat and rushed to the door. “Come on then. Let’s get you scrubbed up.”

Anna forced herself standing, too ashamed to make eye contact. “Yes, sir.”

hame sent her to a small campus market for cosmetics to hide the red square on her forearm. Doctor Mardling was kind enough to wait while she sat for the art class. She forced herself to remain still, perched on a pedestal naked but for a drape over her lap. Dr. Mardling hovered at the door, chatting with Professor Gresham for the most part. Every so often, he’d send a reassuring telepathic whisper into her head.

Her old friend the stuffed owl sat above the door, though she’d found a new thing to focus on. Tiny wrinkles formed around Mardling’s eyes as he smiled at the art instructor, the two men joking as if they were old classmates. He seemed unassuming, unthreatening, one of the kindest men she had ever laid eyes on.

Mardling laughed at something Gresham said, loud enough to turn the heads of several nearby students. Anna could not help herself but grin at his hands-in-pockets posture and whimsical affect. The sense of having someone there to “hold her hand” made the arduous two hours tolerable.

While the students shuffled off to use the bathroom and pursue snacks on a twenty-minute break, she hid behind the changing partition in the back, bundled in the white sheet. It would be a waste of effort to dress, but she could not bring herself to sit out in the open. Dr. Mardling knocked on the barricade after a few minutes of quiet isolation.

“Brought you some coffee, Anna.” His hand came around the edge with a cup.

She took it in both hands to her chest, siphoning the warmth through the thin sheet. “Thank you, Doctor.”

The drink was about done when the sound of students returning sent a shiver through her body.

“We are ready for you, luv,” whispered Gresham.

Anna cringed, embarrassment mixed with the first physical signs it was time for more zoom: dull channels of pain up and down her bones. This is art, right. High class. She held her head up and strode back to her perch.

With the period over, she dressed behind the partition and sat for a minute hugging her clothing to her skin. When the din of departing students faded to nothing, she skulked out into the room. The spot on her arm burned a sense of unworthiness into her as she moved among the easels, refusing to look at them. Mardling’s hand caught her arm, and she startled up to see his smile.

“You should see how they came out.”

Anna pulled at him, trying to leave, but he held her firm.

“You need to see them.”

He walked her around from one to the next, making sure she studied them all. Twenty-four versions of her, innocent and pure, stared off at the undrawn owl, in contemplation of some mysterious question. How many hundreds of men had seen her naked at the club, yet none of them saw this.

“Perception is in the mind of the observer.” He squeezed her shoulder.

She glanced up into his eager-schoolboy face, still perplexed at why he had been so excited about meeting her.

“You are a beautiful woman,” he whispered. “The only person here who sees you as a tramp is you.”

She shuddered, thumb rubbing against the sore spot. “I don’t want to be trash anymore. I’ve tried to quit, I just keep running back to it.”

“Shrugging off that leash takes a lot of work. Fortunately, you have keenly piqued my interest and I shall help you.” He glanced at his NetMini for the time. “Come along then, we can get to the nitty-gritty of the research after a quick stopover at the clinic.”

“Clinic?”

“Yes, you see… When you introduce substances like that into your body, certain physiological changes take place in the brain to cope with it. Over time, these changes create dependency, which triggers both the craving for the substance as well as the withdrawal symptoms that come on when the chemical is absent. The good lads at the clinic use nanobots to make minor adjustments in regions of the brain… the subthalamic nucleus, dorsal striatum, and sometimes the medial prefrontal cortex. Most especially the nucleus accumbens septi… that is where the incredibly addictive drugs do the most damage.”

Anna stared at him without saying a word for a full fifteen seconds, and blinked. “Well, you certainly sound like a doctor.”

“Geneticist mostly; however, as of late I have chiefly studied the brain.” He helped her turn a corner and guided her down some steps to the outside.

She forced a plaintive smile. “Um, right… about that… I’m not so sure I want some tosser rooting around my brain.”

“Rubbish. It is all done with nanobots. You will not feel pain.”

Drab grey, the waiting section of the clinic was as lifeless as Anna felt. Ten hours after waking up in a motel room, the lack of zoom had changed her head into a mass of iron slag wrapped in cotton. Her brain screamed at her for making it suffer painful withdrawal, then the tease of a dose, and now nothing. She imagined tiny little brains sitting in a nest, mouths agape and chirping like chicks waiting for worms. The thought was so patently ridiculous she burst out laughing in a silent room. When the humor left her, she leaned her head back against the hard metal wall.

Next time I hit I’m gonna see those things.

Doctor Mardling glanced at her from the counter a few meters away, lifting an eyebrow at the sudden outburst. His eyebrows jammed together, a face she thought he would have made at the sight of tiny cheeping brains. With a shake of his head, he returned his attention to the clerk.

His voice dripped with sarcasm. “Zoom. Yes, the narcotic. Surely, you have heard of it working here? Synthetic psychedelic with opioid enhancements… you do have a programme for something like that, have you not?”

“Is she your wife?”

“No.”

“Daughter?”

“Hardly. Do I look that old?”

“Sister?”

“Oh for Pete’s sake, are you going to play silly buggers all day or get on with it? She is my student.” He flashed an ID from the college.

“Beggin your pardon mate, but regs won’t let us process her on your register unless she’s a blood relative or spouse.”

“Do it on hers then, I’ll cover the cost.” He waved her over.

“Give ‘er a swipe.” The clerk pushed a small box across the counter.

“I don’t have a ‘mini.” Anna offered a hesitant smile at the Doctor. “It’s a long story.”

The clerk grumbled; the irritation of having to do something more than gather dust was quite evident on his face.

Doctor Mardling threw his hand about as he rambled at the ceiling. “Oh, sorry about distracting you from slummocking about, they do pay you to do more than just warm a chair, do they not?”

The pudgy man in white scowled, his anger focusing almost all on her. “Name.”

“Annabelle Emily Morgan.”

“What’s your PID?”

“Don’t ‘ave one.”

He sighed, shutting his eyes for a moment to search for calm. The protracted ‘Ohmmmm’ from Mardling made his face redden.

“You ‘ave a plan at least?”

“Not rightly.” She fumbled through her purse and showed her public assistance card.

“Oh, bother that.” He smirked at it. “She’s on the dole. Gotta put ‘er on a list and wait for the approval to come down. UHS, mate. Might ‘ave her in the door in six months if she’s lucky. That is, of course, assuming she’s got a job lined up and a place to stay. If she’s a Cov, they’re going to deny it.”

She pouted, sliding her badge of disgrace back into the purse. The man seemed pleased he finally had a reason to ignore them.

“Look here, you fat twat.” James Mardling stared into the attendant’s soul. “You are going to put her in the programme right this instant.”

Undulations rippled through the clerk’s paunch as his already pasty cheeks whitened to a shade as pure as Anna’s hair. Sweat exuded from his face as if in time lapse, forming into visible droplets at the tip of his rat’s nose.

Doctor Mardling leaned close over the counter, his words falling to a half whisper. “Right. This. Instant.”

Anna was unsure of how to feel. No one had ever stood up for her before; she had never felt protected at all. Even her own father barely tolerated her sharing the roof with him. Shaking, the clerk’s hands waffled through the holographic displays and pushed bits of light around. After several taps, he nodded and spoke in a voice so hollow he sounded like an android.

“It’s done guv’na. Ten minutes, tops.”

Smiling, James took her elbow and led her back to the waiting bench. “It’s all a matter of knowing how to ask nicely.”

Anna stared up at him, trying to sort out what had just happened from how she felt about it. Seeing proof he was more like her than he had let on chased the last of her doubts out into the street.

Within six minutes, a thin but solid older woman in a white coat emerged from the back. Silver hair streaked with black hung to her belt in a single ponytail, and she wore a perturbed face as if she had been distracted from something she would rather be doing.

“Hello, I’m Doctor Heath. I’m afraid there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding. The schedule was empty for today and there’s no UHS file for your… um―”

“Student.” Mardling stood, offering a pleasant smile that faded away into a flat line before the ‘t’ finished peeling from his tongue. He whispered, “Sorry for making you wait.”

Emotion fled from the woman’s face, replaced by placid calm. “Sorry for making you wait.”

Doctor Mardling gestured at the door, still whispering, “Right this way and we’ll get her set to rights.”

The woman mirrored his smile, waving her arm in the same manner. “Right this way then, we’ll get her set to rights.”

The clerk glanced up with disbelief at Dr. Heath’s sudden change in demeanor. He raised his eyebrows at Mardling, as if to apologize for misunderstanding his influence. Anna stared at the floor as they followed the MD into the back. A hallway later, she entered a small procedure room with a tiny desk, chair, and a large transparent cylinder perched between two metal platforms, one on the floor and one built into the ceiling. Both were ringed with various lights, the one on the ground had vents and slats while all manner of tubes and whatnot dangled from the upper one.

“All right, Miss. You can leave your clothes on the chair there. Step into the tube whenever you’re ready and we’ll begin.”

“Must I?”

“Afraid so dear. Medical nanobots will destroy anything that isn’t biological matter or metal.”

“I’ll be right outside.” Mardling smiled at Anna, and then tugged the medic around to stare at her. “You will do all you can to remove her addiction, and not think one whit about her afterward.”

Doctor Heath blinked off the zombie-like stare a few seconds after James was away in the hall. Anna disrobed and stepped onto the lower platform, gasping as her toes touched the freezing metal. The silver-haired woman pulled a facemask down from above, and held it to her lips as Anna turned around to face the room.

“Since we aren’t working on your lungs today, we’ll use the green stuff.” Doctor Heath attempted to sound reassuring. “This gel is not breathable. It’s much less frightening when you don’t need to inhale liquid. Think of it like taking a nice warm bath, only standing up. Try to relax. You’ll need this mask, don’t try to take in the gel. You’ll be in for about forty-five minutes. Do you have any questions?”

Grasping the apparatus with trembling fingers, Anna found it odd to be eye level with the tall woman before she remembered the raised platform.

“Will it ‘urt? Will I feel anything?”

“Nothing but warm liquid, hon. All the work’s going on in your brain, and its small things… you have nothing to worry about. You’ll feel weightless. Just relax; sleep if you care to.”

“Why don’t the nanobots eat this?” Anna tapped the breather.

Doctor Heath gave her a patronizing smile. “Well, sweetie… It’s made from a specific type of plastic that the little robots ignore. They’re so small they don’t have a lot of room for program instructions on what not to eat. The medical processes were more important than a laundry list of ‘do not destroy.’ Plus, trauma wounds often have fragments of clothing embedded in them. We need the nanobots to clean that out.”

“Oh.”

She flicked her thumbnail over the black plastic breathing tube. She had tried to break the chains of zoom on her own and it did not work. Being stuck in a tank was not a wonderful thought, but getting found dead in an alley wasn’t any better. With a nod, she set the notch in the hose behind her teeth and pulled the straps around her head. Doctor Heath checked them, pulling them a little tighter than Anna cared for before walking across the room to a console.

Clear plastic rose out of the ground, rotating to seal against the roof. Soon, viscous green fluid burbled up out of the floor. The pleasant warmth of it slid up and over her body as it filled the tube. Her weight left her feet and she hung amid the slime, neither floating nor sinking, and adjusted to the sense of breathing through the hose. Faint tingling filled her ears and nose; she wondered if that was the sensation of millions of tiny robots crawling inside her.

Out through a lime-hued lens, she gazed upon the shadow of Doctor Mardling’s hair in the window. He stood with his back to the room, right there if she needed him. Her mind roamed about such a foreign thought, wondering what effect this chance meeting would have on the rest of her life.

A sound like a distant balloon losing air swept through her skull; faint, it cried out at the edge of noticing. Little blighters are loud. Doctor Heath worked a few feet away, sideways to the tank, fingers dancing through holographic images of what was undoubtedly Anna’s head. It was a strange thing to see one’s own brain, even a digital representation thereof.

She averted her gaze and focused on the shadow in the doorway. The little thing in the back of her mind was ripe for a tantrum; free of its zoom-cage, it would lash out if she got too scared. With machines inside her brain, the last thing she wanted was electrical mayhem tearing the room apart.

A wave of nausea came over her. She scratched at the glass and clutched at her face. Doctor Heath’s voice sounded grandmotherly as it echoed through the substance.

“Hon, if you need to vomit, there’s a squeezy on the side of the mask. Pinch it, and you can pull it loose for a moment.”

She did so without thinking, pressing the button and blowing chunder into the green. When the convulsions ceased, she fumbled the mask back into her mouth and tried not to think about the flavor. The cloud of hours-old food expanded in front of her, disintegrating over the course of several seconds until nothing remained. Too small to see, millions of little robots attacked the contamination like piranha.

Threads of numbness ran down her arms and legs, followed by a feeling of bugs crawling on her. Hot chased cold through her body and she got sick again. The room twisted and spun into a sense of vertigo as if she fell. She curled into a ball, waiting for all the strange feelings to go away. A few moments after all went still, she looked up at the sound of metal tapping on plastic.

Doctor Heath knocked at the tube with a light pen. “Put your feet down, Miss.”

Once she straightened out, the doctor swiped at the holographic terminal and the fluid drained. A thick sucking sound filled the tube, her weight settled into her legs, and she braced a hand against the tank to steady herself. The older woman walked up, holding a white towel, and hit a button to open the tank. As soon as the sinking tube became low enough to step over, Anna tried to climb out, but her foot shot out from under her. Doctor Heath, evidently used to dealing with clumsy slime-coated patients, caught her in the towel and held on until she found her balance. After a wipe-down, Anna dressed, then sat on the exam table and endured routine poking and prodding. When the bright flash of the light in her eyes faded, James was standing at her side.

He patted her on the shoulder. “How did it go?”

“I’ve ‘ad worse. Am I cured?”

Doctor Heath cleared her throat. “Well, Miss Morgan, the long term use of the synthetic hallucinogenic opiate known as ‘zoom’ causes a strong addiction reaction in most. I can tell by the condition of your brain tissue you’ve been using it for quite some time. If I were a betting sort, I’d wager you had developed somewhat of a tolerance and could suppress the hallucinations during all but the initial onset.”

She nodded and stared down, no longer able to look the doctor in the eye.

“Well, with such a deep addiction, there is only so much we can do on a physical level. You’ll need to stay well away from that junk for the psychological cravings to go away. You will suffer some physical symptoms over the next few days, but it’ll be about a tenth of what would have happened without this procedure.”

Mardling nodded at the doctor. “Nothing to fret about there, I’ve got a spare bed at my flat.”

She got up, pulling her little jacket on. “Doctor Mardling, I couldn’t impose… Besides I don’t want my friends to be worried.”

“I can send them a message for you. Anna, you need your rest. One moment then, luv.”

She walked into the hall, glancing over her shoulder long enough to see him locked upon Doctor Heath’s vacant stare. The MD offered a mute nod and her lips moved, too weak hear from the hall. James turned with a smile, leaving the doctor standing there with an expression as though she did not remember who she even was.

“Is she all right?”

“Yes… Yes… Perfectly peachy. In a few minutes, she will be right as rain.” Taking her arm, he fell in step alongside her, muttering. “And will not remember ever having seen you.”

The doors of his gold Mercedes opened on their own as they approached. Anna fell into a passenger seat that shifted to fit her size, weight, and posture. She glanced at him, sighing in her mind. Concern about her was quite an unusual state of affairs for a man, or anyone other than Penny for that matter. A non-Cov standing up for her brought confusion.

“Shall we go to my flat then?” He flashed a placid smile.

Anna stared at her lap, picking at the thigh pocket. “Perhaps in a few days… I don’t want to leave Twee alone there.”

He looked at her for a long moment, an instant of exasperation flashed over his face before a placid smile overtook it. “You see yourself in that one, don’t you? You want to protect her, spare her the same life.”

“Well it’s a bit less complicated for her. She’s not got the curse.”

He pulled out of the lot, dodging a flash of plastisteel and red that shot past the windscreen.

“Damn bloody advert bots are everywhere.”

“Yeah.” Anna rubbed her face; sobriety felt alien. “Doctor… I just want to make sure she gets home before she winds up stuck in Coventry. She’s had a rough bit. I, um… Maybe that nonce next door needs to have a fatal accident?”

Oh blimey! I didn’t just say that…

“A little indelicate I think.” His fingers picked at the control sticks. “That could attract undue attention to people with your special skill set. I would rather you did not. See after the girl then if it makes you happy.”

The automatic drive had no programmed destinations for The Ruin; he took manual control and navigated the streets of London toward the police barricade. Soon, the black smear of Coventry Tower loomed high through the endless grey of the sky, a spire of dread amid the rolling gloom.

As the car came to a halt at the checkpoint, Doctor Mardling fiddled with his NetMini.

“Right, mate. What’s your business here?”

A condescending smirk formed. “I’m doing research for the university. Nothing out of the ordinary ‘ere.”

“Right, mistah. Nothing out of the ordinary. Carry on.” The constable nodded and waved him through.

Mardling looked ahead, resting his hand upon Anna’s where they folded in her lap. “I am worried about you. There is a lot of temptation in there. I want to help you through this addiction. You need a stable and safe environment.”

She squeezed his hand. “I know, Doctor. But so does Faye.”

rembling hands portioned out breakfast among four plates. Anna edged up on her seat, ready to jump up and offer help if Penny seemed to need it. The blue-haired girl sat with folded arms and the imperious pout of a child dragged out of sleep early on a day with no school. Spawny slouched forward in his chair, both hands in his pockets. The shirtless skeleton stared with intensity at the incoming meal as a length of drool worked its way into his dense scrub of chest hair.

“Buck up, Twee,” said Spawny.

“Don’t call me that.” Faye leaned back as Penny put food in front of everyone. “My name is Faye.”

Spawny winked. “You’ll always be cute li’l Twee round ‘ere.”

The girl narrowed her eyes at him and jabbed a fork in a sausage.

How’s Penny holding up? Is there anything I can do?

Anna’s voice startled his half-awake brain; he almost fell out of the chair in a fit of flailing. His sudden reaction drew a startled yelp from Penny and a disinterested sidelong glance from Faye. After a breath, Penny sat. Spawny fell upon the food straight away, as if he had to scarf it down in thirty seconds or lose it all.

“Damn, Pen, nang brekky.”

Penny abandoned her half-hearted attempt at nibbling eggs. “Don’t thank me, thank Anna. She paid for it.”

“Mazing you found a place wot’ll send shoeboxes to us ‘ere.” He inhaled half a sausage in one bite, the ecstasy of food preempting whatever else he wanted to say.

With a smirk at the faces he made, Anna cut hers into bite-sized bits. “Any place will send delivery bots anywhere, if you pay for the risk fee.”

“The Boys use bots for target practice sometimes,” muttered Penny.

“What’d you nick?” blurted Faye, still not having touched a bite.

“Sod-all. I ‘ad some work.” Anna sensed the look on the girl’s face. “No, not that kind of work, some corporate fuckery, strictly legit.”

Penny looked up. “Kinnel, Anna. You’re not in with Carroll again, are you?”

Anna looked down at her potatoes. “Maybe.”

Faye appeared more interested in pushing bits of Omplus around her plate than eating it.

Penny leaned toward her. “G’won eat. That’s as close to real eggs as you can get without ownin’ a chicken.”

“Oi, Luv, there any more?” Spawny smiled, like a great hairy four-year-old begging for seconds. “What’s wrong with ‘er then?”

“Leave her be,” said Anna. “She’s thirteen, away from home, scared witless…”

Faye blushed. With both Anna and Penny patting her on the shoulders, she forced herself to eat a little.

Penny got up, tossing two leftover sausages into the pot with the rest of the eggs.

The girl’s glance shifted to Penny without her head moving. “What’re you so shivery about?”

Penny almost dropped the pan at the question. “Don’t bother about me, eat your brekky.”

Anna answered in a flat tone. “We were attacked in an alley.”

The pan of Omplus crashed into the table, the impact came close to spilling the bowl of gravy mushrooms.

“You needn’t worry the child with that,” said Penny, shivering into her seat.

Anna looked at a clean streak following a crack through the grimy window. “Pen… She’s thirteen. It’s not all faeries and unicorns anymore.”

“I know…” Penny stared at her food. “She’s got somewhere to go home to. No need to traumatize her.”

Anna shifted in her seat, face going florid crimson. “I’m sorry, Penny. I… shouldn’t have waited so long. I… It’s my fault.” She looked up, watery eyes locked on watery eyes. I should’ve killed those bastards before they laid a hand on you. I’m so, so sorry.

Penny burst into tears. “Anna… Don’t blame yourself.”

“She’s right,” said Spawny. “If’n she stays out ‘ere, it’ll be ‘er soon enough bent over a rubbish can wif someone grabbin’ quim.”

Faye froze, staring at her plate. After a brief silence, she stormed out of the kitchen.

“You had to say that, didn’t you?” Anna scowled. “You’ll make a brilliant dad someday.”

Penny propped her face on her hands, hiding behind her untamed hair. “I don’t blame you, Pix. You had to hide your… um… Yeah.”

“Pen?”

She parted her hair like a stage curtain, sniffling. “Yeah?”

“You gonna be okay?”

“As okay as I can be, what with Spawny almost getting’ killed, ‘aving a Crossmen tear my smalls off, and watching you kill three men.”

A distant door slammed.

“Kinda terrifying, actually,” said Spawny, his emotionless face snapping into a smile. “In a good way.”

“You’ve been there for me every step for ten years… I couldn’t just stand there and let them―” Anna sniffled.

Spawny extricated himself from the kitchen as Penny walked around the table to comfort her friend. Anna held on, and they cried on each other’s shoulders for a good ten minutes. Neither paid much attention to the muted cheering of a stadium of Frictionless fans in the living room.

Once Penny calmed down and went to sit with Spawny, Anna got up, gathered Faye’s unfinished food, and tiptoed back to her apartment.

She found Faye hiding between the bed and the wall in a full on cry. Anna set the food on the nightstand and sat on the bed with her back facing, quiet until it became apparent the girl would not speak first.

“Don’t mind him, kiddo. He doesn’t know what happened to you.” Anna lowered her voice. “Was me what got bent over the rubbish bin that night. Living out here makes you wanna give up. I was going to just lie there and let him.” She remained quiet for a moment. “I couldn’t let ‘em do it to Penny.”

“He’s an ass.” Faye muttered.

“I’m not gonna lie to you. He was tryin’ to scare ya into wantin’ to go home to your folks. We all think you deserve a real life.”

“They don’t want me. They think I’m a liar.”

“Twee…”

A small hand bashed the nightstand. “Don’t call me that.”

“Look, Faye. They might be idiots but they―”

“They don’t believe me.” The girl lunged to her feet, kicking the side of the bed. “Mr. Bell did that to me… just what Spawny said, and they think I made it all up for attention.”

“Want me to kill ‘im then?”

Faye was quiet for a full minute until a little whisper slid through her teeth. “What? Did you just ask me if I wanted you to kill him?”

Anna sat still as stone, save for the small bundle of lint she rolled betwixt her thumb and forefinger. Back and forth it went; she watched, unblinking. Little fibers split apart from the mass as it moved. The girl walked in front of her, red-eyed.

“Yes. Do you want Bell dead for what he did to you? Could you go home if he was gone?”

Faye sank onto the bed, sitting next to her. “You’re not bloody serious?”

“I don’t care what ‘appens to me. My life is already down the pan.” Her thumb traced over the faint red footprint from the last dose of zoom. “I don’t want you with me in the same gutter, you still have a future. Besides, I’ll probably get away with it.” I’m good at making accidents.

“No.” Faye shook her with both hands. “I’d rather be here with you than home and ‘ave you rottin’ in some jail. Bell’s a piece of shit, but it’s not worth what’ll ‘appen to you for it.”

Anna at last made eye contact, hers every bit as puffy as Faye’s. The lump in her throat grew. “You need to go back to your folks. I want to help. You have parents that still love you, even if they are obtuse about it. My dad wanted to kill me. I had no choice but to run away. I don’t want you to make a mistake that’ll ruin your whole life.”

Faye saw it in her eyes, the guilt and shame. “Did they?”

“The Crossmen just got handsy. Old Bill showed up before it got to that point, almost arrested us for public indecency.”

“What? Arrested you? You were almost raped!” Faye gasped.

Hands clasped, Anna looked down. “We’re Covs, Faye. We don’t matter. If you stay out here, it’s only a question of when. What Bell did to you is horrible, inexcusable, and I’ll kill him for it―but worse waits for you here. Go home.”

Faye sniffled. “I don’t want to look at him. He lives right next door.”

She pulled the girl into a hug, patting her on the back. “Don’t worry about ‘im, luv.”

The girl sobbed on her, letting out a burden of shame and guilt. Anna did her best to comfort her, sitting in silence for some time after the tears stopped.

“You need to finish your brekky. I worked hard for the credits, almost got shot for it. Eat.”

“What? Shot?”

Anna handed her the plate. “I never went to university. I either gotta wag my tits or work for interesting people. You really need to get―”

“Pixie?” Penny yelled from her apartment. “Get in here now. You have to see this.”

They scurried across the hall, finding her pointing at the vid. A bored Spawny bemoaned the interruption of his Frictionless match.

“Play it again from the start.” Penny playfully swatted at the back of his head.

He flailed. “Oi, knock it off, woman. Calm the feck down.”

She grinned and went to swat him again. He caught her wrist and pulled her over the couch into his lap.

A tiny holographic panel appeared by Spawny’s hand as he swiped a finger across the progress bar. Scrolling text identified it as the hourly news update.

“The Metropolitan Police today released these images taken from a triple murder in downtown London. Three members of the ‘Crossmen’ street gang were found shot dead in an alley behind Zaimi’s Restaurant.”

The feed zoomed in, showing the three men that had attacked them. Lying where they had remembered them, but with additional ventilation. All of the bodies had been shot, once each in the approximate center of the forehead. The conspicuous electrical scoring on the one man’s chest was gone.

“The execution-style shooting is just one in the latest series of violent incidents involving inner-city gangs. Chief Inspector Edmond Green had this to say…”

The image shifted to that of a middle-aged man in uniform with half-grey brown hair. Thick and tall cheeks wagged as he spoke out from under a curtain of diaphanous white eyebrows.

“At the moment, we are attributing this to a retributory attack conducted by either the East End Boys or Clan Brannagh. The violence in this case appears to be related to territorial disputes among rival organized groups and we do not feel it represents a significant threat to the law-abiding public.”

The reporter, a wan fellow in his later forties, came back to the view seated behind a desk. “There you have Chief Inspector Edmond Green with the Met―”

The holographic panel flickered and imploded to a tiny point, leaving silence and darkness in the corner where it had been a second ago. Spawny looked at the two women, his finger still stuck through the intangible power button.

Penny shivered and held on to Spawny. Anna reached over and held her hand, trying to calm her nerves. Faye, not wanting to be alone, sat on the arm of the couch.

“What the devil was that?” Penny looked back and forth between them. “Those men weren’t shot… Anna…” She stopped herself, realizing the girl was there.

Spawny ran a hand up and down her back. “Not the first time you’ve seen news changed for easier digestion?”

Anna glanced at the window, having thought she had seen something moving. “What ‘appened in that alley was some gangbangers killed some other gangbangers. That’s all the Propers can ‘andle, and that’s all Old Bill will allow them to know.”

Spawny set about muttering reassurances to Penny about how no Crossmen walked away from the scuffle, and how none of them would be coming after her. Anna found herself amid a three-way hug.

“Geez, you guys should just have a threesome and get it over with.” Faye grumbled.

“Capital idea, lass! G’won back to Pixie’s flat so we can get on with it.”

Anna smirked at him. “Honestly… I’d rather you knocked that bit off. It’d be like havin’ a shag with me brother.”

Spawny made a pained grimace halfway between a cringe and a smile. “Never thought of it that way.”

“Anna, you know he’s just sayin’ that. He’s not serious.” Penny, head in his lap, looked up at him. “You’re not serious, right?”

“Course not.” Spawny huffed.

Anna moved to the edge of their bed, the only other seat in their ‘living room.’ Faye followed, sitting close. Everyone was quiet for a few minutes until Spawny flicked the mute off and the sounds of a goal horn rang out. Penny’s sniffling twisted at Anna’s gut.

“I’m thinkin’ of gettin’ a regular job. I don’t want to dance anymore.”

“Are you blushing?” Penny shifted upright, leaning on Spawny.

“Probably.” The charcoal figures flashed through her mind in series, her voice lilted between a whisper and speech. “I don’t want to feel like that again.”

Penny tilted her head. “What’ll you do then?”

Anna shrugged. “Heard Sainsbury’s is lookin’ for cashiers or stock people.”

“That’s the um, hydroponic joint, innit? The one wit’ tha real ‘spensive shite.” Spawny embraced Penny from behind. “‘Ow bout we just cuddle tonight then?”

With a grin, she turned and kissed him before looking back to Anna. “The green apron will suit you I think. Better to be seen in public with that than your last work uniform.”

“I rather preferred the former.” Spawny offered a bawdy wink.

Red-faced, Anna pulled Faye to her feet and went towards the door. “We’ll leave you two alone then; looks like you want some privacy.”

Faye glanced at the Frictionless players swarming over the holo-panel before giving Anna a suspicious look.

Cascading waves of water thrummed into the plastic tube, all but drowning out the screaming in her head. Anna curled at the base of the shower, shoeless but otherwise dressed, soaked as a wharf rat and lost to uncontrollable shaking. Lights at the top made her feel like a creature on display in some old and forgotten exhibit; the rest of the apartment lay quiet and dark. Dr. Heath said the symptoms would still come, but they’d be a tenth of what would have been otherwise. Still, she’d spent the better part of the last day in and out of bed using Faye as a living teddy bear for support on a roller coaster ride that went from feeling like she had a mild flu to wanting to die to escape the agony.

Fuck me. This is a tenth of it?

Lacing through her hair, her fingers massaged the aching to different parts of her scalp. She imagined the taste, a slight metallic presence in the back of her throat, of a fresh dose of zoom. Her tongue flicked at the roof of her mouth, hoping for some trace of relief from the uncontrolled spasms ripping through her. Her friend’s laughter was painfully loud upon her brain, despite filtering through several walls.

At least Penny is coping.

Thunder rolled over her body as if the lightning had hit the ground between her feet. She curled into a ball, head between her knees. It happened again, a feeling as if the entire shower tube came under assault from heavy artillery. The third time, she looked up at Faye on the other side of the glass thudding her shoe into the wall.

“I thought me dad was cheap… Never saw no one tryin’ ta scrub up and do laundry at the same time. Mind leavin’ me the loo for a min? Need a gypsy.”

Anna nodded and clawed at the walls in an attempt to stand and reach the control panel. A swipe at the flashing colors set the dry mode into full tilt and she whirled about once in the blast of hot air before falling into a heap. When tube opened, she spilled out onto the floor on her back, semi-damp.

Faye shook her head. “Oi, you’re a complete hames.”

The girl pulled her from the shower, dragging her by the armpits for the door. She gave up trying to get her out into the bedroom and propped her back against the wall. Anna slid to the side, fetal upon the ground and shaking. She closed her eyes and tried to exert control over her muscles, but could not tell if the shakes remained or if she imagined them. Black mortar and white tiles blurred into a spiral of grey.

The sound of a flushing toilet peeled her eyes open. The black of Faye’s shoes wavered inches from her face amid a blinding field of white. The girl had turned the lights on, flooding the bathroom with pain. Moaning, Anna tried to crawl away from the glow, but bumped her head into the autoshower. The sensation of impact ran down her body, bounced off the soles of her feet, and came back up into a blooming migraine. Faye, once again, pulled her up into a sitting position and set her shoulders to the wall. The girl took a seat beside her, threw an arm around her, and held on.

Time slipped in and out. Anna became aware of a blanket, and clung to her roommate of circumstance to keep from sliding to the ground.

“You’ve been in there for hours, think you’ve washed out.” Faye padded at her forehead with the towel, catching the drips the fell out of her hair. “‘Ow long are you gonna be this bad?”

Anna coughed to clear her throat, triggering a bout that ended in a half-vomit. When she could again breathe, she spat the bile and sighed.

“I dunno, luv. Never got this far along in a try to quit before.” She took Faye’s head in both hands. “Promise me you’ll never do this shit.”

Faye’s expression went sour. “Why the hell do you care?”

“Look at me.” Anna clung to the child tight, so she could feel every tremble. “Do you want to end up like this? Do you want to be dead in an alley somewhere before your twenty-fifth?”

The girl looked away, frowning. Amid the upsurges of pain through Anna’s mind, she picked out the occasional bit of Faye’s surface thoughts. It hurt to flex the psionic muscle, like jabbing a finger on a bruise. Her parents had threatened to take her to a psychiatrist for ‘making up lies’ and ‘acting out.’ They did not believe her about the neighbor. Her father thought she had gotten into occultism, Dead Ballerinas being the gateway. Running away had been a desperate ill-conceived idea as frightening as staying in arm’s reach of Mr. Bell. Faye was terrified he’d do it again, and next time she wouldn’t be able to get away before all he did was touch.

The tough-girl act was just that.

Anna grasped fistfuls of her shirt and shook her. “I’ll not let you cock up your life like I did. I’ll set it right.”

She pulled Anna’s fingers out of her clothing and held her hands a distance away.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re as fine as I am.” Anna’s semi-psychotic laugh echoed out into the bedroom. “Which ain’t very fine… Imma deal with that problem of yours and you can go home where it’s safe. You can grow up as a Proper, not throw yourself into this shit.” She tried to stand but shoved clumsily at the wall. “I’m gonna show that nonce what it’s like to be touched in a bad place.”

“No.” Faye yelled, slapping her. “Stop it! You’re scaring me. Don’t kill anyone.” The girl stared at her, flushed and furious, for several seconds before she burst into tears. “I don’t want you to go to jail for me. Don’t leave me here alone.”

Anna blinked. Intense pain rode upon a shock wave that started at her cheek and slithered in slow motion down through her body. The impact had stalled the shakes as well as her thought process. She stared aghast at the blue-haired person in front of her. It took a full minute to realize Twee had clamped herself about and sobbed out of control into her shoulder, begging her not to do anything stupid and make the police take her. The more upset Faye became, the angrier Anna felt.

If she did nothing else before Coventry killed her, she would help this kid.

mears of light and color flashed around Anna. Storefronts, streetlamps, and advert bots all came together in a disorienting spiral that followed whichever direction her head swayed. She remembered plucking a home address from Faye’s surface thoughts while putting her to bed, promising to speak to her parents and not do anything stupid. Nine Clifton Hill should not have been difficult to find, though most of her mental faculties went toward staying on two feet.

No memory of her passage through the police barricade remained. As far as she could recall, she had gone right from her flat to the middle of London. Blaring horns chased her across streets, and armies of faceless blobs avoided her undead gait. She felt a few hands on her searching pockets, though she had forgotten her jacket and the credstick in it back at Coventry. She had nothing to steal, so she ignored them.

Disoriented, Anna stared into the sheen of a streetlight reflecting from the pavement, mesmerized by the ten-foot long smear of radiance shimmering in the light rain. She was so painfully sober she felt high; every muscle took too long to react, and reacted too much when it did. Block after block drifted through a dissociative smear of time. More bots floated up to her offering various products their algorithms calculated she needed. Holograms bearing hangover cures, stimpaks, anti-paks, vitamins, jackets, and underwear herded her along. Her friend with the umbrellas popped in to check on her as well.

She tried to hug it, remembering the little orb that acted so concerned for her. Evading her lunge, it slid off down an alley as she embraced a puddle. The jolt of the icy water on her chest sent her upright with such speed her head felt like it stuck to the ground for a moment before snapping into place. The frigidity stunned her lucid, and she realized she’d strayed way off course.

Amid a reprieve from delirium, Anna forced herself upright and jogged in the direction she had meant to go. A few alleys over, she caught a whiff of chemicals in the air―a cruel hint of Flowerbasket. Her body followed the source of the fragrance despite her mental screams of protest. Five young men had propped themselves up against the crumbling brickwork of an old tenement; she tumbled over a stack of refuse cans and hit the ground on all fours.

Anna remembered surrendering her last zoomers to Dr. Mardling. His reassuring face appeared, telling her she would no longer need them. The fragrance of chems came on as a smoky whip, shattering his face into fragments of falling flesh-colored glass.

Don’t, don’t, don’t. Go away. Get up and walk away. Get your worthless arse out of here, Anna!

“You guys got any zoom?” asked a voice that sounded like hers.

She crawled toward them, trying to smile. Cold water washed over her hands from puddles and the rain fell like needles through her thin half shirt.

A hand on her shoulder pulled her up until she sat on her heels. The hard, wet heels of her boots jabbed at her through thin nylon.

“Look at this skank, Donner… She’s wild for it.”

The men were little more than a sea of blurred colors and the fragrance of stale synthetic beer. A hand drifted past her face holding a crinkled white sheet of plasfilm. The only object in focus, a one-inch square derm affixed to it.

Zoom.

No, you dumb whore. Get up. Run!

She reached for it, but it pulled away. She chased, swatting and grasping at empty air. Before she realized, she stumbled toward them, not remembering standing up.

“What’ll you give us for it, bitch?”

You left the money at home anyway. I don’t need money to kill that piece of shit. Anna rubbed her forehead. No, talking to parents.

She patted her bare abdomen, hunting for absent jacket pockets. The man laughed, knowing the look on her face. Her eyes tracked the bouncing derm around in a circle, still the only thing in focus.

“‘Ow bout a show then, bint? Dance and you can have it.”

Fuck. Don’t do it. No… You should have stayed with James.

Her body twisted into a drunken imitation of her club routine. She slipped through a flooded pothole and hit the ground hard, but scrambled back up and continued. Laughter echoed around from all sides. Darkness, a flash of light on bricks, darkness, blurry men surrounding her; she went in circles until the dance ended atop a rubbish bin.

“Get yer kit off, give us a real show.”

Don’t you dare, you stupid worthless whore!

Her hands moved without consent. Inside, she screamed as if someone else stripped her against her will. The wet half-shirt slid off, her breasts bounced free. More applause and then the derm flashed right in front of her eyes, so close she could have snagged it if she’d had any reflexes left.

She continued to dance, chasing the bouncing patch like the pace ball of a karaoke machine. Cold water hit her feet, she stumbled out of her boots, and then her pants were gone. She did not know, or care, if it was her hand or one of the men who took them. Anna pranced, naked in the rain, dancing like an inebriated moth in pursuit of a taunting candle ever out of reach, a flame that would consume and burn.

Droplets fell on her; the voice in her head sobbed, begging her not to do it.

Around and around she whirled, the derm came and went. The light on the bricks flashed white in the dark.

“Please… I need it so bad…”

No. You don’t. Stop! The angels are crying. A dozen easels bearing white squares formed in her mind. Shadowy outlines of herself animated, covering their faces, weeping.

The hand flicked it. A beautiful, deadly sheet of plasfilm spun like a shuriken, flying in a left-curving arc into a pile of trash. Anna galloped after it like a fetching dog, and dove headfirst at the pile. She clawed with desperate fury, flinging refuse into the air, pawing, throwing, whining. Desperate.

The men laughed.

Finding it at last, she held it up with a triumphant grin and peeled the derm from the backing, not noticing the ease with which it fell away.

Don’t you dare.

She smashed the thing against her arm, squeezing down on it and biting her lip with anticipation. The rain fell stronger, cascading in waves over her back, the hard paving chewed on her knees and shins. Men’s laughter grew louder.

Nothing happened.

Whimpering, she peeled the derm back and found the pad dry and dessciated. They had teased her with a used one; her humiliation had been for nothing. Shame hit her with the force of a lead blanket. She curled into a ball and tried to cover herself with her hands.

Stupid girl. You deserve this. Don’t even try and say it’s not your fault.

The squeaking of wet rubber on pavement snapped her head up in time to see the handful of young men in red and white sprinting off, having stolen her clothes. A man waved the bundle at her, hurling insults and mocking laughter. Others held up their NetMinis and took image captures. They mocked her with every name imaginable. She crawled into the pile of trash for cover, but shivered as the rain found her anyway. The patter of droplets upon the plastic bags overpowered the distant sound of traffic as well as the voice crying in the back of her head.

A lamp on the wall exploded, plunging the area into midnight and showering her with fragments of hot glass and sparks. She stared at the mouth of the alley, watching the occasional car slip past. Trapped by her embarrassment for the better part of half an hour, she bit her knuckle, remembering the march of shame.

Abject humiliation had murdered the mental urge for zoom. Whatever force had taken control of her had run off with the thugs. The walk to Plonk’s flat a few days ago had not been a big deal; she needed Zoom, he had zoom, and she did not care at all what people thought of the naked harlot stumbling down the street with glowing blue wings.

I don’t want to be a harlot anymore. I hate this place.

Another car passed the end of the alley. The rain strengthened and the wind grew colder. Staying out in this would be bad for her health, but it took another ten minutes for her to drum up the nerve to stand. She covered herself with her hands at first, but when she reached the sidewalk, she reconsidered. If she acted ashamed, people might laugh and make fun of the situation. If she acted nonchalant, she could seize control. If she seemed desirable rather than embarrassed, it would not feel so bad.

That lasted ten steps.

No sooner did she realize people stared than her hands flew in a desperate search for modesty. Eyes down, she tiptoed forward at a demure pace. A few people called out asking if she needed help. If she stopped, the police would get involved and start asking questions she was both afraid and ashamed to answer. Chasing drugs or planning to murder a nonce, neither were things she wished a discourse with Old Bill about. In her delicate mind-state, she might even blurt about being psionic.

When she ignored offers of help, the mood of the people changed. A woman her age nude in public who was not frantic, not crying, and not making eye contact had to be on drugs. She had to be someone from Coventry. The first voice that called her a whore caused her to cringe from the disgrace of it, and killed a streetlamp. Nothing reined in her emotion. The little thing in the back of her mind leapt into the world, frothing at the mouth. Anna kept her head down, gathering her arms tighter around her body as she put one foot in front of the other, faster and faster, to get away from the horrible words.

“Such a tramp,” a disgusted sounding older man yelled.

If you’re offended, why are you looking?

Anna shrank a little more and a vendomat blew up in a fusillade of sparks as she passed it.

A shrill female voice cried out. “Pervert.”

An air handler two stories above detonated with an electrical zapping sound. Clanging fragments of metal fell to the street, sending some of the Propers scrambling.

A block later, a man shouted, “Put something on, you bloody tart.”

I would if I had anything you tosser!

A great arc of lightning flew from a nearby streetlamp into the puddle below it, followed in seconds by the bulb going off in a report that echoed for blocks.

“She just wants attention, so shameful.”

No, I don’t. Stop watching me!

All the power in a passing car arced from the in-wheel motors to the wet road, leaving it dead in the street. She came to a halt, looking up with the startled realization she could force some of them not to see her. Her clothing could take the form of telepathic invisibility. The gathering of mental energy, and the accompanying grin, dispersed at the feeling of a hand on her arm.

“Do you need hel―”

A man stood right behind her, his coat held out in offer when he made contact. The instant his fingers touched, an intense jolt threw him into the air and sent his body bouncing off the window of a bakery full of stale pastries. The clatter of his hitting the thick resin panel drew the attention of everyone.

Anna backed away, staring at the victim of her accidental discharge. He moaned, still alive, at the edge of consciousness.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Terrified of the police inquiring about an unexplainable assault, she ran, slipping and skidding in the driving rain. Sliding into walls and bouncing off vendomats, she sprinted two blocks over and three down before slowing to a walk. Under the cover of a dark section of street, she came to a halt and tried to catch her breath. Motionless, she folded her arms across her chest and sank into a squat. Anna stared at a trail of water that ran off her nose and fell between her knees to rejoin the small ankle-deep river in which she perched on the balls of her feet.

Freezing water numbed her toes as it sluiced toward the storm drain, the sound of its descent into the oblivion of the sewer louder than the air rushing through her teeth. The wind threw the downpour in her face with each gust, her body wracked with shivers of exhaustion and cold. Anna considered letting gravity take her to the ground, lying there and giving up. Rapid breaths slowed to a calm intake and release of air and the sounds of approaching people sent her back to her feet after a brief rest.

What the devil are so many bloody people doing outside at this hour?

A surge of anger―at herself for chasing the zoom―welled up inside. She forced her shaking body to stand, firing off hateful stares at a cluster of pedestrians snapping image caps of her with their NetMinis. Two of the devices ignited, startling and distracting the crowd. She trudged ahead, unsure where she was heading. The rain left the footpath slippery. She wanted to run, but fatigue and fried muscles added to the numbing cold and made her balance unsteady. Anna forced her legs to keep moving, walking with gaze downcast and hands in place as best she could to retain as much dignity as one of Coventry’s residents could possess.

Derisive stares followed as she walked away from offers of assistance. People here would call the police for finding a woman traipsing about in the all-together, not like the lousy sections of town where street girls did that all the time. If you were poor enough, the cops had better things to do than give you a hard time over it―but they might take a tax. Those girls didn’t mind.

I’m not one of those girls.

She moved up to a trot to avoid as many prying eyes as she could, her hands in a constant battle to shield herself. Bursts of dazzling orange flecks leapt from streetlamp after streetlamp, her thinly veiled humiliation reached out into the world and drew forth a fanfare of blue arcs from sputtering electronics. Anna trailed a cavalcade of fireworks, dead lights, and car alarms for another few blocks before salvation appeared in the welcome blue-green glow of an autocab station. She abandoned modesty for a full sprint.

Under the beautiful dryness of the teal awning, she spent every ounce of willpower she had left to steel her nerves and ignore the small crowd collected to watch her Lady Godiva performance. The aqua colored podium created an unending train of car icons scrolling through a holographic cartoon city from left to right. Their grilles and headlights formed smiling faces intended to be appealing, but even they laughed at her miserable state. One quaking hand exposed a rain-soaked breast to the evil chill of the wind long enough to tap the request button.

For several minutes, none of the crowd said anything; some took vids of her while others feigned shock. She thought of saying she had lost a dare, but her voice hid in a deep dark pit somewhere beneath her self-respect. She positioned herself against the rear wall of the autocab booth, rattling against the cold plastic, and tried to cover as much of her body as she could.

A middle-aged woman, one of the Propers, glared at her and pointed. “What’s the city comin’ to, the ‘ores prancin’ about like this. No morals left, I say.”

Anna’s face burned red and she found herself lunging to lean at the crowd and screaming, “You’re no bleedin’ better for staring at me, ya old cow. ‘Ave a little damn respect and look the other way. I’m tryin to get the hell inside you demic old cunt! I was bloody mugged.”

A gasp swept through the crowd. One by one, their NetMinis and other personal electronics burst in flashes of disintegrating plastic and tingles of blue crawling sparks running down their arms. One man howled as some implanted headware overheated. He clutched the side of his face and stumbled away at a drunken run from a burning piece of metal in his skull he could not evade.

Anna’s back slid down the plastic as she fell into a squat against the green and blue barricade. “Go on then, piss off. Stop staring at me.” The shout petered out to a timid whisper. “Please…” She touched her face to her knees and sniffled.

At a loss to explain why all of their handhelds failed at the same time, and perhaps feeling a tiny bit of compassion, some of the crowd meandered off. Cupping her hands over her mouth, she exhaled through them in an attempt to force some warmth back into her fingers.

As one man started to unbutton his coat, a tiny green driverless car rounded the corner and came to a halt. Its front-end was made to look like a cute smile, and the hubcaps bore yellow happy faces, which landed upside down when it stopped.

The side door opened upward; she leapt through, landing on an unforgiving seat and slammed the hatch closed. She scooted over cold, coarse cloth until she leaned against the far wall, where she curled into a fetal position on the forward-facing seat. Deafening raindrops drummed on the roof, but they no longer nipped at her exposed skin. Another bench faced to the rear, covered in the same cheap fabric without even an attempt at being cushioned: thin cloth over hard plastic. Still, it surpassed wet pavement. Even inside the heated car, she kept shaking. The cold had soaked through to her bones.

“Hello! Welcome to Britain’s Autocab. Where may I take you on this fine evening?”

She tried to ignore the threads of ice crawling down her back, speaking through chattering teeth. “Need to fare on the reverse. Doctor James Mardling, please… of Oxford.”

Huddled in a ball in the back seat of an autocab, she shied away from the faces that loomed at her through the foggy windows, straining to get a peek at the naked wretch. Her humiliation edged toward the realm of rage, but she held it fast, lest the autocab suffer the consequence. This thing had to remain intact. It was her ticket away from a nightmare. She rubbed a hand over her feet, trying to warm them.

A bleary voice murmured from the console two minutes later. “Who is this? Do you ‘ave any idea what bloody time it is?”

Doctor Mardling’s face appeared in hologram a few inches in front of the control terminal. A hand floated into the image, wiping sleep from eyes that widened when he saw her.

“Great Caesar’s ghost! Anna, what the devil’s happened to you? Please tell me you’ve not been―”

“No, no… I just got… Someone pinched my clobber is all.” She blushed and looked to the side at the seat. “I need ‘elp. Please.”

“The hell would anyone steal your dirty rags?” A voice that emanated only from his side of the terminal drew a scowl. “Yes, yes. Bloody hell, I’ll accept the fare.”

“Thank you for using Britain’s Autocab!”

The cheery singsong jingle faded away and the car lurched forward. Anna lay sideways on the seat, fetal and shaking, trying not to give in to the emotional load wanting to come out of her eyes. Doctor Mardling cared. He wanted to help her from the moment he had seen her.

Staring down at her soaked and trembling body, it hit her she might just be in need of some assistance.

ostled about in the back of the tiny car, Anna hid low to the seat in an effort not to give other motorists a show. Amid the alternating pattern of teal and orange squares woven into the light grey fabric, she searched for what she would say to him. The heat had kicked into high, fogging the windows over to an opaque pattern of drifting lights and traffic, blobs of whitish-yellow and red bathed the interior in a color like shining a flashlight through a closed palm.

She curled up on the bench seat, shivering. Up front, the emergency steering controls wobbled as if manipulated by an invisible driver. Tiny nubs in the front dash, they seemed a toy version of the control sticks for normal cars. In theory, they existed in case of a system failure, but in practicality, they were so small as to be all but useless. Why would a corporation spend credits on things only necessary in an emergency?

The autocab spun around a corner. A sudden downhill lifted her weight off the seat, sending her sliding ass-first into the far wall as it pulled a hard right. She crashed down on her back, feet against the roof. Before she could scream, she rolled onto the floor when it jammed to a halt.

“Thank you for using Britain’s autocab. Your travel fare is forty-three credits, paid collect. Have a wonderful morning.”

The single gull wing door lifted skyward, leaking pure white fluorescent light into the cabin. Anna curled into a ball again and stared at the blinding patch of outside, broken in the center by the dark silhouette of a man. He faded into view and reached toward her.

It was James, holding a blanket out for her.

Anna blushed as she sat up, so ashamed of herself she had to cling to the handles to keep from shaking into a spill. She emerged from the tiny, sheltering car into the cold post-midnight air of a subterranean parking deck as frigid as the concrete beneath her foot. At least the air was dry.

He wrapped her with a warm embrace of fabric that tickled at her thighs an inch above the knee. The amazing feeling of no longer being exposed sapped the strength from her legs. James reached for her. Expecting a hug, she gasped in surprised when his arm scooped behind her knees and lifted her up like a babe.

“Welcome to your new life, Anna.”

Quiet as he turned, she leaned her head on his shoulder. The autocab had been kind enough to drop her off adjacent to the elevator, and in short order, they ascended to the forty-second floor. A few people returning home at this hour from various functions and late nights at the office all paused to ask if everything was all right. James made something up about her being robbed down to, and including, her clothes. It felt strange to have people act concerned; none of them knew where she was from.

Hallways, white walls and green carpet, glided by. She stared at the scallop-shell flanges of frosted glass throwing light up to the ceiling in cones every few feet. By all rights, this was a middle-class residence tower, but to her it felt like a palace. Any second now, someone would scream at her for daring to set foot in such a place.

His apartment was darker than she expected it to be, deep browns and burgundy dominated most of the décor. A leaping gazelle hologram galloped across the far wall between the two exterior windows, casting a radiant blue and green light. His maroon couch faced an unpowered holo-bar, its silver shell glimmering with the motions of the illusory animal. If the amount of stuff piled around it was any indication, James didn’t watch videos often.

She floated over the threshold in his arms, gliding past the couch and around past a kitchenette to a tiny hallway with three doors. The first, on the right, led to a quaint room with a single Comforgel bed near a small table. The second, on the left, looked to be his bathroom. She imagined the far door was the master bedroom, but he had stopped at the bath.

James gestured to the shower. “I’ll imagine you’d like to get the smell of whatever refuse you’d been frolicking in off of you.”

Anna stared at the autoshower, filled with longing. “More appealed to the warm of it.”

A pained expression crossed his face as he looked at her. “Yes, you should. Your lips are turning blue. I’ll fetch you a nightshirt.”

He knocked moments later, while she basked in a cascade of hot spraying water. “Shall I leave it by the door or bring it inside.”

Anna put her back to the door, not as embarrassed as she thought she would be. “You can bring it in.”

He entered and left with speed borne of tact, and when she looked to the sound of the closing door, she spotted a large black button-down shirt draped over the sink. After running a double dry cycle, extra warm, she slipped into the improvised dress. Silent as a mouse, she slipped into the soft-carpeted hallway and looked each way. The hint of Earl Grey drifted in from the right; she crept toward it, and found him waiting in the kitchen.

Doctor Mardling looked like he didn’t want to be awake at that moment, but offered a bleary smile and indicated two cups of tea arranged on either side of a tray of small pastries. She took a seat, as did he, and clasped her hands around the cup. It smelled somewhat different from what she had before, and he chuckled at the look she made.

“Hydroponic… I take it you have not had the genuine article before?”

Regardless of how hard she stared at the surface of the tea, she could not see her mother in it. “I have, but it’s been a very long time.”

Clattering rose from her hands. The shaking had returned. She let go of the cup and blushed.

“It’s all right, Anna. That is normal. Your body still wants that drek in your veins. It will pass.”

She took one of the pastries, dipped it, and ate it almost whole. Another one died a dry death in two bites. After a sip of tea, she gazed at her lap, enamored by the black and gold tiger stripe pattern in the buttons while listening to the crumpets’ faint screams emanate from her belly.

“I lost my bearings downtown. Tried to get some more.”

Stretching across the table, he put a hand over her wrist. “That could not have been easy to admit, Anna. Thank you for trusting me enough to do so. You will make it through. The way you are acting tells me you are not proud of yourself.”

“I’ve not been proud of m’self for quite a span.”

A grin crept across his lips in time with the glimmer through his eyes. “You should be. I will help you find the life you deserve. It is my duty.”

Eyes down, she took a long sip of tea and savored the core of heat it created inside her. “Thank you for paying the autocab… I was―”

His hand squeezed hers. “I know. You have accepted at last that you cannot do this alone. You have taken the first step. Your body no longer craves the drug at a physiological level. We need only convince your mind of the truth of it.”

A comforting smile drew a tenuous companion from her lips. She thought about her mortifying walk. “All those people talked to me like I was some kind of piece of rubbish.”

Anger rippled in a flash over his face, gone as fast as it had shown itself. “No, Anna. You are about as far removed from rubbish as is possible to get. You are perfect, more than they could ever hope to know.”

Anna’s blush outlasted the remainder of the Earl Grey. After seeing her attack the tea pastries, he had made her something a little more substantial to eat. Some manner of instant meal with fish; it was not glorious, but it was handy and quick. Whatever the doctor had done to her had given her an appetite again.

Once she had eaten, he led her by the hand to the spare bedroom. She sat on the edge, looking up at him. Memories of the cold trek through the city shivered through her still, and she thought about her emergence from the autocab; naked into the world from a womb of metal and plastic, she had gone straight into his arms.

The Doctor had been there for her.

The amused smile that formed from the way she stared up at him made her blush. This man wanted to look after her, and did not yell or hit. At thirty-five, he was older by about twelve years, but it wrapped him with a safe feeling.

Unsure of what came over her, she leapt to her tiptoes and kissed him on the lips. His eyebrows shot up, remaining there until after she stopped and sank back onto her heels.

“Anna… You know you do not have to trade yourself any more. I am here because I want to be, not because I expect anything in return. You are special, more special than you understand. I will be here for you… no strings.”

She blinked and sat on the Comforgel pad. The weight of her body activated it, sending a ripple of orange-red glow spreading through the otherwise dark violet block. Her mind swam with an attempt to figure out why she had done that as she reclined and slipped under the blanket.

“It’s not that, Doctor. I wanted to.”

On her side, she peered through a curtain of fast-approaching sleep at the man in the doorway. After exchanging weary smiles, he swiped his hand at the wall panel, and the room went dark. Amid the soft glow of the warming light, she lay still, watching as he backed out of the room.

The door and her eyes closed at the same moment. Not having to worry about who or what might interrupt her sleep, she drifted off.

nna sat cross-legged on the Comforgel pad, listening to the clatter of cookware echoing from down the hall. She stared at a modest stack of boxes that had appeared on the little table by the bed during the night. The topmost item was as welcome as it was mocking, a clear plastic packet of black lace undies.

Someone had stolen the last set of such things she owned from the club while she danced. The idea of it repulsed her, wearing someone else’s knickers, but she had not had the money to spare to replace them. Not that such things were expensive, but every credit had been eaten by the zoom monster. Besides, what did she need them for anyway? They would have been on the floor more than on her.

Her hands shook at the thought of chems.

He had done a fair job of guessing her size, realizing how much of a view he had gotten last night brushed her face crimson. She slipped out of the shirt and put them on before plucking the tags off. While appraising how they looked, she caught sight of a mottle of healing red marks on the insides of both forearms, the remnants of derms. It seemed irrational to want to hide them from him, he knew full well what she had done to herself, but she grabbed at the remaining boxes, eager to cover them before he could see the badges of shame.

He had replaced her pants with something similar to what she had lost. Long, baggy, black, and bedecked with an excessive amount of pockets. Cloth, rather than nylon, these were much warmer and did not make the same strange noise when she moved. Another box held a plain white shirt, long enough to be tucked into her belt. Yet another had black socks and a pair of boots that looked less military and a touch more feminine. Despite the one-inch heel, the soles were rubber and would be good for working with Mr. Carroll. The final box contained a long black coat made of synthetic wool.

Putting on everything but the coat and boots, she went toward the clattering and found him nudging two fried eggs off a pan and onto a plate by some sausages. He smiled and motioned for her to sit. Once she had settled in and they both had a mouthful or two, he cleared his tongue with a swig of coffee and gave her a pleased look.

“You scrub up quite well.”

“Thank you for the clothes, Doctor.”

A glimmer of light danced off his fork as he made a dismissive wave. “I could not leave you running about in the buff. Think nothing of it; I hope they are to your liking.” He smiled. “Oh, and please call me James.”

A touch of pink crept through her alabaster face. “I don’t like the zoom you know.”

He took a bit of sausage, nodding until he could talk again. “I imagine not. You seem quite keen on keeping that other little nipper away from it.”

Anna looked up, pausing in mid bite. She could not recall if she discussed Faye with him at length. “Yeah. Sometimes it runs away with itself. Like this thing in the back of my ‘ead. The chemicals kept it in a cage so it couldn’t hurt anyone or shit on me to Old Bill.”

“What exactly does the little imp in your head do?”

She ate a few more bites as if trying to avoid answering. He rubbed his chin, making faces as if he could see the images of her father’s fist in her mind.

“Sometimes ‘lectric things just bugger themselves when I lose control of myself. Like if I get scared, or embarrassed, or cheesed off… things tend to explode. It’s why I don’t have a NetMini; got tired of replacing them.”

“Is it only negative emotions?” He raised an eyebrow. “Would it do the same if you were ecstatic?”

Anna’s lower lip quivered. “I don’t know.”

James made a series of fascinated expressions at her retelling of how things go haywire whenever her emotional state reached a peak in any direction. Nodding his way through her stories of various catastrophic events, he smiled broader and broader as she kept on about working for Mr. Carroll until she had had a close call with strange government men.

“Those chuffers.” James grumbled. “They are officially known as the CSB, Clandestine Services Bureau. They splintered off from MI6 some years ago amid William’s intense paranoia about psionic individuals.”

Anna shivered, rubbing at the side of her neck.

Anger reddened his face. “Yes… The registered are given electronic leashes.”

“Bombs, James.”

He shot her a hard look.

The contents of her plate became quite interesting. “Sorry.”

Dropping his utensils, he reached across and took her hand. “No, no, Anna. I am not angry with you. It is the whole establishment treating us like we are beasts.”

“We?” she whispered, looking up. “You’ve got a nice flat, nice job…”

“Yes. We are very much alike. Although our areas of specialty differ, we are both of the Awakened.”

She nibbled on sausage, speaking between bites. “Wot’s that mean?”

He glanced to the window and smiled, waving a hand around has he orated. “Psionics have been known to mankind for quite a few generations… ever since that Sievert girl in the Colony in 2204. Then you had the Moore twins in Hertfordshire six years later, and that poor Myshkin child who barely escaped Moscow in 2243.”

Anna gasped. “Is it true they shot her?”

James nodded. “Indeed, but she survived. She told the world about the horrible state of affairs for psionics in the ACC. More often than not, they are killed on sight.” He let out a grim sigh. “Sometimes entire families are culled.”

Anna found it difficult to continue eating while he rambled on about stories of the Allied Corporate Council murdering psionics in front of their own families, too terrified of what they might be capable of to give them a chance to speak. Some, especially young children, vanished in the night. Many thought they forced them into secret military projects, but others suspected sadistic experiments searching for way to ‘cure’ psionics out of the human race.

“Can’t say it’s much better ‘ere.” Anna stabbed a bit of egg. “The crown’ll stick a bomb in your head and make you dance like a trained dog.”

“Exactly, my dear, but to get back to my point…” He jellied a piece of toast. “There is something more than simple psionics emerging from the genetic destiny of mankind. The Awakened are a leap forward. We are psionics, yes, but we are much more powerful than the rest. I fear if they discover this, they will become a tad more aggressive.”

“You think? So what makes you believe I’m one of these? I’ve seen about psionics what can make electricity do what they want it to do. I’m not that unique, not special. If anything, I’m poor at it since I can’t control it.”

“Oh, but you are.” His hands made the flatware jump when they hit the table. “Electrokinesis has been documented, but so far in all reported cases, the individuals could only redirect existing electricity along a conductor. They had to make direct contact or touch something metal that also touched someone in order to use it as a weapon.” Scenes of her one-sided battle with the Crossmen came to the forefront of her mind without reason. James leaned closer. “Tell me, Anna. Have you ever made lightning arc through the air without a wirepath? Have you ever controlled the flow of electricity without touching the object it ran through? Have you manipulated enough amperage to kill a man instantly?”

Anna looked at her lap, fidgeting. “Yes.”

“How difficult was it for you to do? There have only been two other recorded cases of spontaneous generation over the past century and both from old men who had spent their entire lives practicing it… In the Colony of course, and what they could do was closer to a stunner. No one has yet been documented who could do what you did.”

“Colony? Which planet?”

He scoffed. “No, not a colony, the Colony. The US… or whatever it is they call themselves now that they’ve stolen Canada too.”

“UCF?”

He waved dismissively. “They’re a bit more lenient on psionics across the pond. I have half a mind to go there so I can continue my work in peace.”

She pushed her empty plate closer to the center of the table. “What…”

A small flat robot slid from a space on the wall and came floating by, collecting the plate, cleaning it, and depositing it back in the cabinet. Anna remained silent until it had once again blended into the white tiles above the sink.

Anna blinked. “…work?”

“I have been researching the brains of psionic individuals, scanned data mostly, tissue when I can get a hold of it. From a structural and genetic point of view, I am searching for what the trigger is to make someone Awakened. I think I found it, or at least the start of where to look deeper.”

He finished his coffee in one long sip, put it back on the saucer, and sighed. “But it has so far proven to be unrepeatable.”

“I don’t want a bomb in my head. I don’t want to be tied to zoom either. It’s gonna kill me. I don’t want to feel so―”

“You are not cheap.” He stepped around the table and stooped at her side. “You are Awakened, Anna. Your abilities are far beyond what an ‘ordinary’ psionic is capable of. That is why you fry things when you get emotional. My research has led me to conclude that children born Awakened have a habit of possessing strange traits that can make their nature difficult to conceal.”

“How many of us are there?”

“Well.” He stood up straight, rubbing his chin. “There is of course, you. I know of one other, a woman, in Britain. I’m of a mind there is one in Japan and one somewhere in the Colony―but all I have to go on are some old files lifted from a genetic research project. There was not much there, something about an attempt to militarize a pyrokinetic.”

Anna stared at her hand. “That’s fire, right?”

“Indeed.”

She felt drawn to this man, this guardian, this protector who shared the same fear―that the government would find out what they were. Anna stood and embraced him, letting him hold her in silence for several minutes before another wave of zoom-trembles sent a spark lapping at the counter from his food reassembler.

“You are not out of the proverbial woods yet with that chemical. You will need support. I would very much like you to stay here, with me, where you can be safe.”

Anna nodded once before looking away and to the side.

“What’s the matter?”

“I can’t leave Penny to wallow in that awful place… or Twee, um, Faye.”

“I’m sure they’ll”―another wave of blurriness rippled through her mind―“benefit from having you as a friend.”

“James… I want to be with you, I’ve never felt so safe.” Her arms tightened around him. “I have to do something for them first.”

Whirring accompanied the small bot as it tended to his abandoned plate and gathered the utensils for cleaning. James glanced at the wall, a faint hint of frown at the corner of his lip.

She stifled another tremble. “Are you angry?”

His face relaxed, his warm breath fell over the top of her head. “No, Anna… I am worried. I do not want you to do anything reckless.”

ine Clifton Hill sat amid a strip of residences that had been rebuilt a few centuries ago, soon after the war. Constructed in an archaic style, the buildings held ten accommodations stacked vertically, each the size of a one-story house. Advertised as ‘full-floor flats,’ they were the purview of the not quite wealthy.

Induced trees sprouted through the footpath, their trunks twisted in an artistic manner through decorative iron grillwork. Branches fluttered in the incessant wind. Rain still came, but it had fallen off to a weak drizzle her new coat shrugged off. Bundled in it, Anna felt like a different person from the one who existed only a night ago. No one so much as offered her a second glance; she looked like she belonged. Her no longer bare midriff gave her warmth, and the presence of underclothes embraced her with long lost dignity.

She had become a Proper overnight.

For many blocks in all directions, patches of pale orange light flickered in the gloom of the approaching storm, a dozen-dozen pictures of Faye in hologram, mounted to any vertical surface someone could find. Little devices the size of a thumbnail projected the vision of a black-haired porcelain doll to the world, smiling in a pose for a class portrait. She looks so different with her hair blue.

Faye Taylor, 13, missing daughter. Last seen two weeks ago. AF851.185CC.9185F.FFBDD. Reward if found. Ͼ100,000.

That was likely her father’s code; like posting one’s name, address, phone number, resume, and bank account number, an invitation to every cyberspace criminal in the world to come sniff you out.

The man must be nuts to post his PID in the open like that, daft or desperate.

Anna stood by one such hologram, staring into the virtual eyes flickering with windblown debris. The ghostly face looked as innocent on the outside as Faye did on the inside, devoid of blue hair and attitude.

A tiny grey car squeaked past her in the street and came to a halt at the adjacent building. From it, a middle-aged lumpy man emerged in a brown sweater and grey slacks. He squinted into the wind, his eyes receding into a face pasty and puffy. Anna recognized him from Faye’s nightmares: Mr. Bell, the man who had stuck his hand where it did not belong.

Anna thought back to the Crossman in the alley and shifted her stance at the remembered touch, the sensation of a cold finger where she did not want it. Latent anger swirled as she stared at the nervous potbellied man leaning through the open door to gather things from the car. He seemed to feel the malice in her stare and looked around like a mouse sensing the eagle before the dive; with each second, his motions picked up speed.

Her gaze shifted to the warm glow in the windows of number nine Clifton Hill, trying to guess which floor the girl lived on, which floor still held the people Mr. Bell tortured by his continued existence.

She drew her coat tight against a building gust of wind, which knocked one of the man’s parcels to the ground. He stooped to retrieve it and she imagined the Crossmen finding Faye, and then felt the man on top of her again, the cold metal refuse bin digging into her hips. Her mind taunted her with what could have happened if she was an ordinary woman out on the blag with her mate’s no-good boyfriend, taunted her with the dread of what would have happened to her best friend if she had no little monster inside her head.

Come off it, Anna. If you were normal, you’d have a loving home and would never have met Penny.

The lamps on the front of Bell’s car blew off in a shower of sparks, sending him scurrying up onto the porch with a high-pitched nasal whine.

How like a pig you squeal.

“Evenin’ Deacon,” said another man, on his way out of the building.

The two struck up a banal conversation, the sort of things middle-aged men in a well-to-do section of London chatted about in passing. The sort of things people with no true worries or no true desire to be friends used to fill the five minutes that fate and courtesy forced them to interact.

Anna glanced at the empty false lawn in Faye’s yard that approximated the place the old pink bicycle had been left in hers. Her father had only beaten her, drunk and angry at how many things she broke. Drunk and terrified of the creature he shared a flat with, and rightly so. The beating that made her fear for her life had cost him his. What could she do to a wretch like Mr. Bell if she could kill her father for merely hitting her?

Mind made up, her knuckles creaked as she stared at the unsavory man scurrying into his den.

Run you fat bastard of a nonce. Your reckoning’s come calling.

She shifted her weight from the lamppost onto her feet, pacing at a stalk towards the gate. The rumble of a vehicle brought her head about to the left in time to see a large black van park a short distance away on the opposite side. Something about it spooked her train of thought away from vengeance and she kept going, right past Bell’s house and down the street.

The van slid out from the space like an orca on the hunt. Anna sped up and took the first corner she could. When the van followed, her mind raced through all manner of possibilities as to who it could be. Some disgruntled corporate from an old job she had done for Carroll, low-level Syndicate thugs looking for a new piece of ass, or most likely, hired freelancers from BT looking to pay her back for the other night on the roof.

Her coat trailed behind her as she ran and leapt a hedge. She cut through a yard to get away from the road. A barking dog joined the chase until another fence jump ended its pursuit with the sound of a sixty-pound animal having an abrupt meeting with iron bars. The street in front of the adjoining property looked free of large black vans, or much traffic of any kind given the time, and she resumed a nervous walk.

Without warning, a mass of black leapt from the shadows and blocked the footpath in front of her. The man was huge, towering over her with shoulders as broad as two of her. Black material even covered his face, save for two opaque round lenses over his eyes and a filter module over his mouth. The pistols, knives, and other assorted devices on his belt were not the sort of thing common people carried―he was an assassin.

She all but ran into him as she clamped both of her hands over her mouth to swallow a startled scream. His lunging grasp at her wrist stalled her backpedal, and left her struggling like a pickpocket who had been nicked.

“Hello, Miss Morgan. We need to talk.”

Terror froze her muscles for an instant. Her head whirled around to the right at the sound of a sliding metal van door. Two other men, also covered head to toe in black, crouched within the glowing red interior. Puffs of fog appeared at the ends of rifles, and a stabbing pain lanced into her back upon two tiny daggers.

A cold burn spread from the points of impact. The man holding her by the arm was the only reason she had not wound up lying on her back. Flexible rubberized material liquefied away from of his bald head, sliding into a matte black metal ring around his neck. She recognized him from the police checkpoint, the other man that arrived with the telepath who probed her.

The CSB.

arkness.

Anna floated amid a void of whispers with no sense of temperature, scent, or weight. Random images flashed through the canvas of her thoughts, inane things like cartoon rabbits and car tires. A grinning blond Arsenal player held his hands up as a crowd screamed goal! Old farms and tractors, planes, people she had never seen before came one after the next. The whispering voices asked questions without waiting for the answer: what time is it, what’s your name, who is that, do you remember your mother, how far a ride is it to the West End from Trafalgar, what did you have for breakfast four Sundays ago?

She felt her lungs lose air, and the moan of her voice rose over the din in her skull. Her toes made contact with a surface smooth and cold, icy metal against the back of her legs. Thin coarse material itched at her chest and thighs, a smock of sorts, and a band of dense fabric had been tied over her eyes. Something seemed to squeeze itself around the top of her head, beneath the blindfold, tight to her skin.

Consciousness returned and she struggled to move. Metal restraints fixed her by the wrists and ankles to a steel chair; softer straps crossed an X over her chest and held her body against the back. Her squirming reawakened tender spots where darts had hit her and she whimpered. Chains rattled as she fought to get loose, shackles biting into her flesh. She rocked as she fought the straps, trying to lean her head toward her hand so she could pull the cloth from her face. Her desperate struggle caused the heavy chair to slide a little.

Swirls of fear and anger followed her realization of being trapped, echoed soon after by threads of pain seeping into her mind. A hot metal headband clamped about her skull as if trying to squeeze through the skin to the underlying bone, the burning intensified with her fear. The little thing in the back of her mind leapt at the walls of a cage, zapped each time it tried to touch the bars.

The more frightened she became, the more it hurt. She threw her weight forward, trying to lift the chair and get onto her feet, but she lacked the strength to budge it. The noise of her battle reverberated into the distance; the cavernous echo suggested she was the only occupant of a massive structure.

She sat there, writhing in her bindings, with no clue where she was. The cavernous space remained deathly silent, save for the clatter of restraints whenever she tried to move. It occurred to her that she had been taken by the CSB. She thrashed against the cuffs again, overwhelmed by the uncontainable need to feel the side of her neck for proof she had not been cut open and rigged with a kill switch. Metal bit into her wrists and ankles. She screamed from pain and frustration.

Minutes later, she sagged limp, out of breath, and ventured a timid, “Hello?”

Her voice reverberated to silence. She could not lean forward at all, and twisted her head about despite the blindfold. The incessant random whispering hammered her mind.

“Stop it!” she screamed. “Let me out! I’m going mad!”

Another burst of energy dissipated in impotent squirming, and she broke down and sobbed. Every time her fear got the better of her, the metal ring around her head delivered such a jolt of pain she found herself drooling. The whispers and random images continued, reaching a point where they changed her fearful struggle for freedom into a manic and desperate attempt to make it stop.

Eventually, the sound of scuffing boots broke through the mental noise. Anna stopped moving, her limbs tensing inward as far as the chains allowed. A sense of bodies surrounded her, and she trembled. Whatever garment they had put on her felt like it covered enough, but being stared at in silence by people she could not see was more intolerable than being naked in a cage. The random whispered questions changed into comments about her height, about her tits, about how cute her hair was. The scratchy voices teased her that she found her helplessness exciting, told her she liked it, called her a bad girl. It needled her as if drawing upon her insecurities and throwing them back at her.

The chair leapt an inch to the rear at her reaction to a cup pressed against her lip. Someone offered her water. It smelled normal, so she drank. When the cup retreated, a soft plastic object entered her mouth and forced her jaw open. Contorting in the chair, she tried to get away from it. Hands grabbed her head from behind, holding her still while a swab danced around the inside of her cheek, making her gag.

The mechanism relaxed, and she coughed. “Who the hell are you people? What is this?”

No one answered.

A spot of cold metal touched her right bicep, below the short sleeve of the smock. She made a fist and gasped as an air-hypo fired, again thrashing in her seat.

“Let me out this instant!”

The anger that followed her shout grew into a scream from the incredible pain the band projected into her head. Her body writhed, shaking with involuntary spasms as four shackles bit into her flesh. When her brain unclenched from the sensation of being cooked, she put together that her ‘little friend’ appeared to be triggering the device every time it tried to do something.

That’s got to be some kind of psionic leash… Damn it hurts.

Attempting to stay calm in her current situation was an order that would have been a tall request of a Buddhist monk. A tear ran down her face as she prepared herself to feel the pain repeatedly. James’s explanation of the Awakened recited itself through her head. She was afraid to mention how her power ran away with itself. It would give her away as something strange. She had to stay quiet―if she could.

Men shuffled about amid the clatter of armor and rifles. Fingers slipped between the black cloth and her temple, and the blindfold flew up and off with a sharp tug. Looming over her, the burly bald man offered a bemused smile and picked at his dark goatee.

She found herself in a prison-yellow smock, handcuffed arm and leg to a rigid metal chair in the approximate center of an old hangar. The floor was equal parts grey paint and rusty smear; the ceiling hung thirty feet in the air, dotted with old gas lamps that no longer worked. Intense beams of light focused on her from a horseshoe of freestanding portables, reducing the dozen or so men behind them to figments of shadow and menace. Anna squinted; they looked like British military, common soldiers.

Some manner of springy cord wrapped around her, the kind of thing she assumed commandos used to rappel down the side of buildings. The entire scene blurred as her head moved, swooning about like the aftermath of a drinking binge. Outside, a hovercar passed overhead, the pale blue glow of its ion drives leaked through cracks in the ceiling, angling as it went by.

Anna’s head sagged forward and she stared at the redness she had fought into her wrists. Digital code-locked restraints blinked back at her, she found it frightening not to sense the current inside them. She twisted her hand, trying to get a better look at the buttons.

“They’re quite secure, Miss Morgan. You’ll not be going anywhere until we’ve had a chat.”

“I have a headache and I don’t even know who you are.” She let her skull’s weight drag it back against the chair to look up at him. “Thank you for at least letting me stay dressed.”

He flashed a two-second smile before all mirth faded. “I am CSB Agent Gordon, and that is a military psi-inhibitor. You may be wondering why you cannot read my mind, assuming of course, telepathy is one of your gifts… This little beauty keeps us on the same playing field.”

His finger tapped the thin strip, sending a reverberating explosion through her head three times. Anna’s hand clanked to a halt an inch above the armrest when she tried to cradle the side of her head in response to pain.

“It will hurt more if you touch it… security mechanism. Anyway, Miss Morgan, you are probably wondering why we asked you to join us at such an ungodly hour.”

“This is asking? I’d hate to see if you made demands.”

“Mind your chelp, girl. We know.” The large man extended his hand to the right as if indicating something existed in open air.

Anna lifted her head, about to inquire about the empty space when a hologram shimmered into existence. A six-foot square panel scrolled open in midair, a hole through reality looking into another time and place. The view looked down from the ceiling into a small room with a round table and chair. A little girl, about twelve, sat at the table looking bored. The only remarkable thing about her was that she had white hair. She glanced up at the camera; bruises on her face brought back bad memories.

“I am interested in your opinion, Annabelle.” He folded his hands behind his back. “Does this look like a little girl who has just seen her father die in a freak kitchen accident?”

The child Anna fidgeted, tapped, and folded her arms. She swung her feet for a moment while scowling at the wall. If anything, she looked annoyed at being detained. When the door opened and a constable walked in, her demeanor changed. She sniffled and wiped her eyes, thanking him for whatever hot drink he had brought for her.

“You’ve had a lot of practice fooling the Met.” The bald man chuckled, leaving the image frozen on crocodile tears. “We’ve been watching you for quite some time. For a while there, we thought you were on to us.”

Red warmth filled her cheeks, the indignity of being caught in a lie. Somewhere behind her, a metal door slid open and footsteps approached.

The image changed to a floating point of view gliding over sheet-covered bodies. Silver cabinets gave away the reflection of a flying holo-recorder moving through a morgue; the only body uncovered was her father’s. She glanced away, whimpering from revulsion and guilt. The same hands that held her head for the cheek swab, grabbed her again, forcing her to watch. She twisted, biting her lip as her already raw ankles burned.

Zooming in on a hairy leg, the claw-shaped image of a reddened handprint stood out clear on his outer left thigh. Anna squirmed, trying to look away.

Agent Gordon leaned over her, a smug grin on his face. “We know what really happened to your father.”

Images of the three dead Crossmen appeared all around her, the entire hangar shimmered into a holographic recreation of the alley. The soldiers, Agent Gordon, the metal chair, all of it remained as if they had teleported to the street where she had almost been raped. Anna shifted, looking at each body. She got angry at the sight of the one who had been on Penny; the inhibitor burned her hard.

“You really ought to stop fighting,” said Gordon.

Anna’s arms shook, tense against the cuffs, fists clenched near to the point of bleeding palms. “I… Take it off. It hurts.”

“How much of a fool do you take me for?” Images appeared in floating panels around the area, showing her electrocuting the men. Flickering blue lit the walls.

“You don’t understand…”

She sat in a permanent cringe. The black van rolled into the scene like a spectral funerary wagon, stopped, and four men got out. Three walked one each to the Crossmen and unceremoniously put a bullet in their heads with suppressed handguns. A familiar face remained by the van, watching. Agent Gordon stepped through his holographic doppelganger, halting in front of her with a pleasant smile.

“The public can only handle so much truth.”

The entire false world disintegrated in a snow of fading pixels, the dark alley replaced with a pristine silver floor and a modern white-walled room. The man from behind strode into view with a silver case. Nestled within black foam, a silver triangle the size of a thumbnail sat at the front end of a small bit of wiring and a capsule the size of an aspirin.

She screamed, “No!” and thrashed. It did not matter she had no hope of breaking the chains―she tried anyway. “No!” Anna broke into whimpering. “Please don’t… it’ll kill me.”

The big man laughed. “That is kind of the point of them, Anna. Only if you misbehave.”

You don’t understand… It’ll go off on its own.

Sparks crackled around the psi inhibitor as it battled her subconscious tendency to ruin machines at the onset of emotion. The terror in her heart at the thought of having one of those bombs forcibly implanted triggered a neural shock that left her twitching out of control for several minutes.

“That is most unusual,” said a voice out of sight to her left.

The men seemed curious about the effect, leaning in closer to look. The one who kept grabbing her from behind waved some manner of handheld device past her.

Agent Gordon palmed her head, lifting it so she looked at him. “Now what did you just try to do, naughty little girl?”

The condescension in his voice brought her reason back on wings of anger. “Just kill me already. Stop torturing me.”

He squatted in front of the chair, balancing his elbows on his knees, at eye level with her. “I would very much like to ask a favor of you.” He held up a small black box, the size of what an engagement ring would come in. “In return, I’ll offer you what’s in this box instead of what’s in that one.” He pointed at the restraining bomb.

“Tell me what it is first.”

Standing back to his full height, a head taller than the other man, he pondered her request with a thumb to his chin. The thinner agent closed the case containing the implant; her gaze darted to the click of the latch. Fear of the implanted detonator built on top of her dread of the pain that followed spikes of emotion. The harder she tried to stay calm, the more she panicked. It spiraled into a building cycle that sent her into a spastic fit of screaming and yanking on her arms and legs. The whispers in her head made it worse. She could not contain her fear and could not bear the agony that followed it.

“I can’t take this anymore. Please stop. You have no idea what you’re doing to me!”

“All you need to do is agree to help us out, and it stops.” Agent Gordon patted her on the shoulder.

She sniffled, coughing spit through her teeth and trying to regain some small degree of composure. “What do you want?”

“Well, as you know, the CSB operates independently of oversight with wide-sweeping powers in matters involving The Concern. Directive Seven gives us the power to terminate any individual deemed to be a threat to Crown or country.” He poked her in the forehead with a gloved finger gun. “I could do you right here and no one would say boo.”

Anna swayed as if drunk, looking up at him with an unladylike tendril of drool falling out of her mouth. The thrumming distractions in her mind, images and whispered words, chipped at the threshold of her sanity.

“Why can’t you just say psionics? Is it easier to murder people when we’re just ‘The Concern?’”

Agent Gordon flashed a frown of contemplation for a few seconds and nodded. “Yes, basically. I rather think of it as being the poor sot who gets stuck working at the pound, having to put down all those puppies that are unadoptable.”

Anna closed her eyes, trying to ignore the whispering. “No puppy is unadoptable.”

“Dogs then. I s’pose you’re right then, the little ones most often do what they’re told. It’s the ones that bite we have to put down… the mangy ones that live on the edge of town, hiding in alleys and picking through trash. It’s the sick ones who become a menace to society.”

She glared. That was not her anymore. James was going to save her. She stared longingly at the door, trying to bend reality by sheer force of will and make him appear. Her howl of agony rang through the cavernous space, leaving her bleeding from the nose and shaking out of control.

“You really ought to stop fighting the inhibitor, Anna. It’ll only hurt worse and worse.”

Thinking of the earnest look on James’s face, she somehow found the resilience not to crack and admit it was subconscious. The CSB did not know about the Awakened, and James did not want them to.

“It hurts so much. I can’t help it. Make the whispering stop, please.”

“Can’t, lass. That’s what keeps your mind off balance and makes it impossible to use your power. If you try to find enough focus to try, it zaps. Take deep breaths and relax; most people last three days of wearing one before they go insane, you’ve only had it on for three hours.”

“What do you want me to do? Will you let me go if I agree to it?”

He circled her wearing a smug grin. “There is an individual who some of us within the CSB would like removed. With a little help from us, your unfortunate pappy’s death was swept under the proverbial rug.” He spun to a halt with a flourish of his coat. Eye contact. “We want you to solve a problem. Make it look like an accident, the same way you did Daddy.”

“I don’t like killing. That was self-defense. He would have beaten me to death. Can’t you have one of these men do it? I’m not an assassin, that’s your lot.”

“This is a political problem, we need plausible deniability. You have a unique talent that will set things up nicely as force majeure, and even provide his widow with a nice settlement from the company that manufactured whatever appliance you use as a power source.”

“If I do it, you won’t put a bomb in me? What’s in the other box?”

Gordon produced the small onyx cube once more, pulling it open like a clamshell to reveal a half-inch black chip nestled in a crease of blue felt. “Information… and yes, the detonators are necessary with individuals who can influence the mind and control people, subtle things poor saps like me have little chance to resist. Your talents are a bit more overt. I suppose you are not much different from a lunatic with a rifle.” He held out a hand. “Shake on the deal then?”

Even if she wanted to, the handcuffs wouldn’t let her reach where he’d left his hand―on purpose. She glared.

Gordon chuckled, lowering his arm. “I will ensure they make an exception for you and leave you off the books, provided you continue to behave yourself.” A plastic smile twisted his lips. “Perhaps you could continue in our employ.”

She cringed. “I’m not a lunatic… unless you leave me like this much longer.”

“So we have an accord then?” He snapped the small box closed.

“I’ll need to think it over… I’m not a killer.”

He chuckled. “Those blokes in the alley would beg to differ.”

Anna rattled the cuffs as she tried to leap out of the chair. “They tried to… For fucks’ sake, he had his hand on my twat.”

The box containing the bomb dangled before her eyes. “Consider this to be the extenuating circumstance in this case then. It’s him or you.”

Deflating, she sagged. “Not much of a negotiator are you? Givin’ me a choice of one clusterfuck or the other.”

The hovercar went past again, going the other way. She looked up, tracking the shimmer through the cracks. Whispers scolded her for murdering her father, teased her for being a freak, and mocked her for being unwanted. Chattering harpies called her a whore, called her dirty, and taunted her for some tiny part of her brain enjoying the feeling of being tied down. Threads of pain seeped into her head as her emotions careened about with wild abandon. Her impotent effort to get out of the chair fanned the fires of her panic; she knew a wave of torture would follow it and this time it would be unbearable.

Doctor Mardling’s voice drifted out of the tormenting whispers. “You are far greater than they know.”

Anna gathered her faculties and braced her mind against the barrage of images and sounds. It was a self-feeding cycle. The more it zapped her, the more emotional she got, making the shocks come harder. Her search for calm equilibrium swayed back and forth like an over-steering drunk. Hard metal on her skin was a constant reminder of vulnerability. Desperation mounted away from her control. Blood gushed from her nose as she strained; her entire body locked in a vibrating rigor as she shrieked with terror. Agent Gordon lifted an amused eyebrow; the men behind him took a step back.

The thin metal strip around her head erupted in a spectacular arc of violet lightning that leapt through the steel chair into the man holding the ominous case. Subconscious desire to be rid of the neural static flung the energy away in a random direction to the closest conductor. He fell in place, convulsing on the ground as the energy caused a brief flash of his skull to glow purple through his face. Metal fragments rolled down her smock as the restrictive tightness once clamped around her brain dissipated into the awesome feeling of mental freedom.

The desperate surge of power that leapt from her mind called arcs of lightning from one of the freestanding lamps through two of the soldiers. The men flew off their feet amid crackling flashes, slamming into the ground ten yards away, convulsing and moaning.

Anna panted, out of breath from the exertion, and let her weight hang into the cords across her chest. Magnificent silence in her brain brought a smile to her face; the whispers had stopped. Before she could utter a word, Gordon’s head vanished beneath black that flowed out of his collar, up and over it like liquid. He had his pistol an inch from her nose in seconds.

“Please! No!” she wailed, cringing and shivering.

Distant moaning drifted through a minute of silence, the only sound louder than the rattle of handcuffs.

“I must admit, I’ve never seen that before. I’ll give you two seconds to tell me how the hell you blew that thing out or I’m going to put a trench through your brain.”

Anna cried as the cold pistol touched her cheek.

The chirp of electronic firing circuits echoed from the still-conscious soldiers behind Gordon. Anna squirmed, not caring about the painful chafing handcuffs. She tried to curl into a ball, to get away from all the guns pointed at her. Her gaze darted past Gordon to the men with rifles trained on her. She jerked at her limbs, unable to move, gripped with fear the likes of which she had not felt since the night of her father’s death.

The night she thought she was about to die.

Bang. A loud report broke the quiet, right in front of her. Followed by several more pops, and fizzling.

Anna nearly lost her bladder at the sudden noise. She opened her eyes at the sound of mystified cursing. The soldiers no longer aimed at her, they swatted and checked their now-dark rifles. One spoke into a communications link, which seemed not to work. A startled gasp came from her right, low. The man who had been holding the detonator implant was on the floor cradling the side of his face, bloody and laced with superficial shrapnel wounds from the half-exploded box. Bits of white foam snowed through the air around him, mixed with the scent of explosive chemicals and burned plastic. The charge meant to be attached to a brain stem had gone off in his hands.

Agent Hughes put a hand over the silver nub behind his ear, eyeing the destroyed box.

Gordon twisted his gun to look at its side, thrusting out a lip as he appraised the dead weapon. He tucked it back into its holster before drawing a combat knife from his vest and holding the point under her chin.

She tried to raise her hands in a defensive gesture, two chains clicked. “Please don’t kill me. It was an accident!”

“Sir, the prisoner burned the inhibitor… She’s dangerous,” said one of the soldiers. “All of our gear is toast. We should fall back.”

“I’m inclined to believe her,” said Hughes, raising an eyebrow. “You saw what she did in that alley. Even you should admit that was self-defense.”

“Get Wiltshire out of here.” Gordon poked her in the chin, forcing her to raise her head and look away. She pushed herself to the limit of her bindings in a search for distance. He plucked pieces of the scorched headband out of her lap, appraising each with casual curiosity before tossing them one by one to the side. Then, much to Anna’s surprise, he tugged her smock down to cover more of her thighs.

Two soldiers dragged the bloody man away.

“Those things ride up when you squirm.” Gordon glanced to his left. “What do you think?”

“I can’t tell,” muttered Hughes. “Her thoughts are walled off. Feels like a mind block. Of course, if she is doing that, then she won’t be able to do anything else.”

“That was a rather fortuitous accident.” Gordon smiled; he seemed to enjoy the risk. He lowered the knife enough to let her look at him. “I believe you had something to say?”

Anna shivered out of control, taking a moment to find a voice. “Electronics freak out if I get emotional. I’m shitless right now.”

“I kind of got that impression from the trembling, crying, and whimpering,” said Gordon.

“You kind of have that effect on women.” Hughes winked.

Gordon picked his eye with his middle finger.

“It’s why my dad beat the hell out of me. I’d get scared or angry and some appliance would bugger itself. The more it cost, the worse I got it. The night he… I thought he was going to kill me.”

“Going for the sympathy card now?” Gordon sighed.

Agent Hughes gave her a pitying look. “Gordon…”

“I don’t know how I broke that thing you put on my head. It was awful. Maddening.”

Hughes put a hand on her head, tracing his thumb over the burn mark. She cringed. “If her electrical abilities are operating at a subconscious level triggered by emotion, the inhibitor was probably creating an escalating feedback loop. The more it punished her, the more her brain fought back. Incredible.” With Gordon unable to see Hughes face, he seemed genuine in his concern. “I’ve never seen anything like this before, but it was… needlessly cruel. I’m not sure what we’re dealing with here. She’s the first person I’ve ever seen to have abilities that defy conscious control.”

“You’re going soft on me, Hughes.” Gordon clucked his tongue. “Well, Miss Morgan, it seems the Bureau has a lot to learn from you.”

“I don’t think it’s dangerous,” said Hughes. “The involuntary outbursts are simply more… inconvenient.”

“Yes, sir.” Anna stared at her bare knees. This was far more terrifying than a shithead constable wanting to molest her. “It’s why I’ve not got a NetMini. They kept breaking.”

She struggled to get up, fearing they meant to keep her for good. The X across her chest felt as if it tightened, cutting off her ability to breathe; she focused all of her mental energy on staying calm. Gordon held up a placating hand, and put his knife away. Shadows moved behind him, the men shocked by the dying lamps grunted to their feet and staggered away like drunkards. Hughes held up what was left of the detonator implant, eyes wide.

“There are methods other than crude devices to ensure cooperation,” said Gordon with a wry curl to his lip.

“You could always treat us like people?” Anna balled her hands into fists, knees together.

Hughes shifted to hide his face from Gordon.

“We need a problem eliminated in a manner that appears to be accidental. You have three friends who need to stay out of jail.”

Anna froze; what little color her face had faded. The whole chair rattled. “You… No.”

“I’m not talking about normal prison. I’m referring to a shadowy governmental ‘no one ever sees you again’ prison. You know, the places the tinfoil hat crowd insist are real, but we deny having?” Gordon patted her upon the cheek. “And once you’re done, you will work with us if you want them to continue to enjoy the sight of blue sky.”

Tears streamed down her face. She sagged.

“Do we have an accord?”

“Don’t hurt them. Leave them out of this.” She made a fist and yanked at her right arm, scowling at the floor. “I’ll do it. Forgive me if I don’t shake.”

“Excellent.” Gordon waved to someone behind her.

A hand came over the seatback and pushed her head to the left. Before she could get out much of a yelp, icy metal pressed into the side of her neck with a hiss. Cold spread up into her head and down over her chest. Sound blurred, and Gordon’s condescending grin warped into a spiral of color. Agent Hughes’s face slid into her field of view; his hands cradled her head.

His voice chased her thoughts into darkness.

You will be just fine, Anna.

entle rocking lulled Anna into a stupor of comfort. For several minutes after regaining consciousness, she lay on her side like a corpse. Salty air wafted about, creating small whorls of dust over the dull grey-green surface that stretched out along the right side of her vision. The sound of water lapping against thin plastisteel provided a rhythmic backdrop to the intermittent cry of gulls and the distant echoing laughter of men. The smell of saltwater dominated every breath.

Her hand slid over rough cloth, across a patch of coarse traction coating, and onto her face. A stripe of pain circled her skull, tender to the touch like a burn from a hair iron. Anna forced herself into a sitting position. The small rowboat in which she sprawled drifted a few yards from a rocky shoreline. She peered over the side into inky black water, a mirror of the night sky. Her gaze climbed a stained concrete pylon to the underside of the pier a distance above.

It took her a moment to realize she was dressed in her own clothing again. The yellow too-short smock seemed like a foggy memory. Anna gathered her coat tight to her chest, struggling to remember how she had gone from stalking a nonce to sitting in a rowboat. Despite the covering, the air upon the water blew a chill through her bones. Her eyes widened as she recalled who had taken her, her fingers grabbed at her neck with a feverish panic that lasted until she felt no trace of an implanted detonator. She tucked her hands into her armpits for warmth, spotting red marks around both wrists. Agent Gordon’s voice came back to her, threatening to whisk Penny, Spawny, and Faye off the face of the Earth. Arms around her knees, she bawled like a child from guilt.

Kill an innocent man or my friends suffer? Anna wiped her eyes. He’s a politician. How innocent can he be?

Anna leaned against the shallow wall, staring up at the lights of the city. The panic of the past several hours melted away as the little boat rocked with the gentle undulation of the water. Head in her hands, she cradled her skull against her knees and tried to forget the torture caused by the device they had put on her. Motion timed with a gust of wind drew her attention to a clean black satchel next to her. It was as out of place as she, no doubt a gift from Agent Gordon. A twinge of nausea crept through her gut as she rummaged through the contents: a NetMini, a datapad, and a small black case about the size of a large bar of soap.

The datapad, eight by ten inches, caught moonlight in a smear of white across the otherwise onyx surface. Anna tilted it back and forth, using the glare as an impromptu mirror to check her face.

She jammed the datapad back into the bag; it was far too cold and unstable down here to dawdle. Anger and relief mixed. Gordon could have killed her, or put one of those bombs in her, but they had simply drugged her and set her loose. She shrugged out of her coat and ran her hands all over under her clothes, searching for anything out of place: bugs, trackers, electricity where there shouldn’t be. All seemed normal, save for the raw marks caused by the handcuffs.

He must really want that bloke dead if he let me go. She thought of her friends, clueless of the danger she’d gotten them into merely by existing. Gordon, you bastard.

The NetMini was obvious in purpose and she dropped it into her coat pocket before she moved on to examine the small black case. She spun it around in her fingers until she found a release button. It popped open, revealing six small red cylinders with red crosses on the ends. A nervous giggle echoed up from the hull of the boat as she mistook them for some manner of narcotic.

Trembles shook all of the injectors out of the case, sending them clattering to the floor. She stared at them, her mind craving zoom. Anna clutched her arm to her chest until the shaking ceased, and gathered the injectors back into the case except for one. Mr. Carroll had given her some of these once; he called them stimpaks. Each one contained a solution of synthetic adrenaline, base biomatter, and nanobots. The combination could repair minor damage to the body at the same time it provided a burst of energy.

The safety cap went flying at the behest of her thumbnail, and she pulled her sleeve back to expose skin. After a faint hiss, the empty slipped through her fingers to the bottom of the boat with a clack. Icy coldness from the nanobot-laced fluid swam up her arm. Warm tingling circled where the restraints had been, the marks vanished, but discomfort remained. Her toes and fingers were two shades shy of numb and the howl of the wind brought cravings for a warm place to hide. Anna forced herself upright and wobbled, flailing, to the front of the boat.

A rusty ladder led up the side of one of the pylons about ten feet ahead. She fell to her knees and pulled at the mooring line, hand over hand, drawing the tiny craft forward. The wet rope further chilled her hands. By the time the boat thunked against the concrete, her teeth chattered. Anna tossed the satchel over her shoulder and dragged her achy body up the rungs until she could peek over the edge. The dock stank of industry and pollution, though the air was a touch warmer than below. Without the shield of the sunken waterway, the stiff breeze fluttered her coat and hair. She forced herself over the top and hurried out of the gale into the cover of stacked cargo containers.

Light drew her through a maze of enormous boxes to an alley alongside a warehouse. Conversations and the occasional fit of laughter wandered in from the lit frontage. At the edge of the building, she peeked out of the dark and stopped breathing.

A group of about a dozen men in long black coats emblazoned with silver crosses arranged themselves around a loading dock by an old, dead lorry. Some stood at street level, leaning on the platform, others sat on crates up top, and one rummaged through a shipping box in search of an unopened synthbeer.

Quite a few had sunken lines traced over the side of their faces, the telltale mark of implanted neuralware. Here and there, an obvious mechanical eye glowed green or amber; a lime green light within the pupils of otherwise normal looking eyes gave another man away as augmented.

Four women sat among them, wearing the same coats and some sporting visible cybernetic augmentation.

Anna retreated into the alley with a spin, back pressed to the wall. Her memory of the attack sent her sliding down the wet metal until her chest met her knees. Even through the fog of the miserable state she had been in that night, the attack leapt to the forefront of her mind as though it had happened only minutes ago. She held her trembling hands out, staring at them. Guilt came on at the question of what her life would have been like if her father did not beat her for breaking expensive things. How could he have known the more he yelled, the more it happened? Those Crossmen were different; they wanted to pay Spawny back for stealing. They would have attacked her regardless of what she could do―without her power, she would have been helpless.

Anna gathered her wits and stood, thinking she might walk out into the street and away like nothing was amiss. From where she was, she had two choices. Go swimming, or wander past them in plain sight. She glanced up at a broken window two stories overhead, but there was no way to climb up to it. A long exhale came with the hope that maybe they’d leave her alone if she didn’t look at them. Crossmen had more of a reputation for stealing augmentations, turf warfare, and robbery than attacking women, but who could say how they’d react to her alone.

More likely they’ll be after me like hounds on a fox.

Venturing a peek, she squinted at their number. There were thirteen. All things considered, it would be far better to slip away into the night. That number was too many to influence with her telepathic invisibility, which could deal with a handful at most. Making them not see anything would be impossible to maintain.

Anna held her breath and edged into the street, as far away from them as she could get against the right side wall. She moved at a pace as if she carried liquid nitroglycerin in a Dixie cup, hoping not to attract their attention by fast movement.

James’s choice of boot earned him a future kiss; the padded soles made no sound.

Anxiety manifested as sweat, the taste of salt upon her lip. She felt like a mouse sneaking past snakes.

“Hey bitch!”

Somewhere behind her, a NetMini detonated.

“Fetch me a beer,” yelled the same man.

“Sod off,” replied a woman. “Fetch this.”

Voices laughed.

In the second or four it took her to rein in her startlement, two more small things erupted with sparks. They’re not talking to me. She resumed breathing.

“Hey, white.”

The man’s voice so close almost stopped her heart. Anna whirled, finding a tall Crossman a step behind her. She splayed the fingers of her right hand, ready to strike.

“Nasty part of town, this. You shouldn’t be alone, kid.”

She couldn’t move or breathe. Her gaze dropped to her chest for an instant before snapping back up to the man’s face. The baggy coat hid her breasts, her height made her look young.

“I-I’ll be okay.” She forced a smile that lasted only a second. “Thanks.”

“Some nasty business goes on ‘ere at night. Where’s your folks?”

Fingers relaxed, hands stuffed in pockets. “Waitin’ on me. I should go.”

She started away, but his hand clasped her shoulder. Anna froze.

“You sure? Things out here would eat you alive.”

Anna made eye contact and opened herself to his surface thoughts. He thought she was fourteen or so, a runaway. He attributed the terror in her face to fear of a pimp, not that she felt terrified of being so close to him. She couldn’t believe it. He wants me to go home. This is a Crossman?

“S-sorry. I… Friend of mine got attacked by some of your mates.”

The man folded his arms. “Oh, what’d they do to pick a fight?”

“She…” Anna looked at her boots; fear became anger. “They almost raped her.”

“Bollocks. That’s not how we operate.”

His anger made her take a step back. His surface thoughts were… true. The concept of a Crossman committing rape offended him as much as it horrified her. She turned to the side, confused, nauseous. The stink in the air didn’t help settle her stomach.

Impostors?

“Did three Crossmen die a few nights ago?”

“Aye,” he said, nodding. “What’re you gettin’ on about? You know somethin’ bout it?”

“Yeah… I was there.”

He pushed her against the wall, holding her firm, but not hard enough to hurt. “What’s your game, luv? What are you tryin’ to do here?”

She stared into his eyes. His anger waned at the sight of her crying; his thoughts said his confusion equaled hers. Anna explained the events of the alley, leaving out how she killed them, and pinning the deaths on unknown men in black coats. Genuine tears came with her remembering his weight on her back and the cold metal on her bare skin. Her retelling left her sounding like some street kid Penny had taken under her wing.

“Bollocks.” He rubbed his mouth, pacing back and forth. “We’re not like that, girl. Cross-men. We’re the good guys. Vigilantes. We wouldn’t do that, especially not to a schoolgirl.” He pointed at her, finger an inch from her nose. “Somethin’ aint right.”

“Innit.” Anna bit her lip. “I-I gotta go.”

“Gatherers lurkin’ that way,” he said. “I’d rather not leave you alone.”

“It’s awright. I’m little and I know how ta hide. They’ll come after you. I ain’t got no parts installed, they won’t bother me. Look, mate. I’m not a kid. I’m twenty-three… Just short. I’ll be okay.”

The Crossman scowled at the street, obvious in his discomfort with letting her wander off alone. “I don’t like it but, if it’s what you want. Somethin’ ‘appens, scream. We’ll be there.”

Anna gave him one long, confused stare before she walked off. Rows of darkened streetlamps lined both sides of the road, shot out years ago and never replaced. Shadows crept along the ground from the moon, drawn by bodies that lay against old buildings. The wharf district played home to the type of augmented crazies too far gone even for Coventry.

It looked empty, but any one of the dark spots ahead could be hiding an attack. Here, she ran little risk of being violated in the traditional sense; these men wanted body parts. If she had no cyberware to steal, they might take organs instead. Rumors abounded. Some claimed they occasionally ate their victims.

That which terrified most people reassured her. The more cyberware someone had, the more vulnerable they were to her. Confidence gave her the walk of a soldier, and she went two blocks before the hypersonic whine of a vibro-blade powering up sliced the air behind her.

A group of a half dozen creatures that could no longer truly be called men shambled out of the darkness behind an abandoned warehouse. Many stood stooped to one side under the weight of crude replacement arms. Hoses, wires, whirring bits, and glowing eyes leered at her. What patches of living skin remained visible through the spaghetti of tubes glinted dirty and pale. Yellowing teeth bared through grins as they advanced; their posture said they looked forward to the chase as much as the kill.

Anna frowned at the lead man with a blade where his hand should be, at the tip of an oversized metal arm. Amber threads of light swam over him where electricity coursed through wiring both beneath and outside his skin. The power cell in his shoulder glowed like a miniature star and made her smile. She clawed at the air and drew her clenching fist away from him as if pulling at unseen fabric.

Blue lightning flashed out of his body, lapping at the ground and crawling up his face. With a flick of her wrist, he whirled about and fell to the ground; the impact sent crawling sparks searching the wet pavement in random directions.

Anna took a step at them. “Who’s next?”

The Gatherers hesitated; the street hung in quiet stillness disrupted by whirring cyberware and questioning murmurs. Glancing from her to their wounded man, they neither attacked nor retreated. When the injured one gasped and pushed his chest up from the pavement, Anna heard James’s voice in her head.

“You are better than these wretches.”

A snarl escaped her as she reached at him with both hands. A flower of lightning burst from his back, spinning into the sky in a rapid series of blue flashes. Horrendous screaming preceded blood flying from his mouth; his eyes exploded into rivulets of boiling foam. He collapsed to the ground, dead.

She held her arms apart, palms to the rear and fingers splayed. Sparks cracked between her hands and the wet road. Sympathetic azure flashes, manifestations of ionized air, nipped and popped randomly upon all of their bodies. Anna hardened her glare, hoping she looked meaner than she felt.

“One down. Who’s got the next dance?” Run off, you bastards. Don’t make me kill you all.

The others scattered like roaches from the light. She dusted at her coat; little sparks crept over the wool as her hands brushed it back into place. Even if The Gatherers had the inclination to sell out a psionic to the government, Old Bill would shoot them before they had a chance to speak.

Several blocks east of The Ruin, she caught a whiff of food on the air. An all-night noshery nestled in a wedge-shaped building overlooking a three-way intersection. She sent a longing look at it, her initial sadness at thinking of the credstick she had left back at Coventry faded when she recalled the black bag. The NetMini from her pocket powered up, but she gave it a suspicious stare seeing it linked to her old PID.

How the devil long have they been watching me?

With a few swipes of her finger, she was in the financial management section of the GlobeNet, discovering she had a balance of two thousand five hundred credits. The deposit occurred less than an hour ago, and was unlabeled. Hardly a fortune, but it would be plenty enough for a meal.

With the eagerness of a schoolgirl running to recess, she darted toward the glowing windows at the angled corner.

en minutes after taking a seat in a booth at Bennie’s, the warmth of the place reached through the numbness in her toes. Her fingers cradled an oversized cup of orange herbal tea, leeching warmth. Small and cozy, the little restaurant held only three people at this hour: Anna, the waiter, and the man in back working the food machines.

“Whod ya do ta yer ‘ead?” inquired the waiter as he set a sandwich in front of her.

She touched her cheek. “What?”

He traced a line over his forehead. “Dat’s a dodgy sorta burn ya got there.”

“Oh that…” The lights flickered. “I got stuck with a Jiancorp sens-helmet.”

“Ahh. S’wot you get usin’ dat cheap shit. You need anythin’ just ‘oller.”

She rummaged her pocket for another stimpak and stuck herself in the arm with it. Seconds after the initial chill faded, tingling surrounded her head as well as her handcuff marks. Rubbing her ankle through her boot, she scowled at the food. Sudden remembrance of the devil’s bargain she agreed to dulled her appetite for a few minutes with worry for her friends, long enough to take out the datapad and turn it on.

A middle-aged man smiled up at her from the holographic display as she nibbled. Subsequent pages of data sent her into a choking fit that made the waiter run over to check on her. Careless in appearance, she made a deliberate motion to flip the pad upside down by the time he arrived. When he satisfied his concern she was not choking and walked away, she slid it off the table and held it in her lap out of sight.

Lord Connor Thompson, a moderate among the Lords Temporal, was the target of CSB Agent Gordon’s request. He wanted her to arrange a lethal accident for a Member of Parliament. The datapad held maps, schedules, access codes, and lists of names of everyone expected to have contact with him on a daily basis. Every bit of information an assassin could ask for was there, enough to plot infiltration from any number of angles.

Anna switched it off, stashing it as fast as possible into the bag. If she was seen looking at such a thing, the authorities would be after her even if she chickened out. The Gatherer in the alley was a wretch of a creature, a hazard to anyone normal. She felt only a little guilt about killing him, less than the Crossmen who had attacked her and Penny. In light of what she had learned of that gang, a new wave of unease settled in. The idea of murder for money, even if it would keep her two friends and an innocent child out of secret detention, seemed impossible to consider.

I kill him or they hurt the only people I love. No way out. I could just off myself.

On an intellectual level, she knew she should eat, but she did not feel hungry. Anna forced herself to pay attention to the food. Her stare wandered over empty seats and tables to the forlorn waiter half-asleep by a reefer counter full of desserts. Beeps and explosions from whatever game the cook played in the back echoed over the din of a small holo-vid player hanging from the ceiling by the waiter. Reruns of the day’s news dwelled at length on the results of a Frictionless match. Man-U was not involved, so Anna ignored it.

At quarter to three in the morning, Bennie’s had the same sort of somber atmosphere one would expect at a wake. The few people who showed up did not really want to be there, did not care to speak to anyone, and only wanted their meal to be done with. Hours from now, the place would be alive with impatient businessmen, tourists, and a twenty-minute wait for a seat, but now it held a wretched loneliness that seeped into her.

No sooner did she think of Twee than she heard a man’s voice say ‘Faye Taylor.’ Devon Meath, one of the reporters on the BBC news, stood in front of Nine Clifton Hill above the scrolling text ‘Molester Deacon Confesses.’

“…who is still missing. Ordinarily, the BBC does not report the names of victims of sexual crimes; however, Miss Taylor is missing and presumed at high risk. The Met is asking anyone who may have seen the girl to contact them.”

Anna leapt from her seat, jogging to the counter by the image. “Oi mate, turn that up.”

The man reached up and waved past the sensor on the device, increasing the volume.

“I’m here outside the home where, in a startling turn of events, Mr. Nigel Bell, respected deacon in the C of E, has just made an announcement confessing to the fact he engaged in inappropriate contact with a neighbor girl, thirteen years of age.”

Devon glanced over his shoulder at the puffy-faced man on the porch flanked by police. A crowd of citizens gathered on the sidewalk, behind a line of more police. The image swerved left away from the reporter, closing in on the beady-eyed Mr. Bell in his powder-blue pullover.

“I could no longer bear the guilt of what I had done to the Taylor family. I lured their daughter into my flat. Once alone with her, I forced her knickers off and touch―”

The audio cut out, replaced with Devon Meath’s voice speaking over images of a shocked crowd. “Bell is giving a graphic description of his crimes, which we have elected not to transmit out of respect for the victim and her family.

Audio returned with Bell in mid-sentence. “…holo-recorded the entire event for my later use. I have turned that recording over to the Metropolitan Police force, having rendered a full confession.”

The crowd gasped; the video swept over them to capture their reactions. Anna blinked at whom she saw at the rear of the crowd. Doctor Mardling, tweed coat bundled about in the wind that tossed his hair, met her gaze and smiled at the camera as if he knew she saw him.

Constables escorted Mr. Bell down the steps. Two officers held back a furious man, no doubt Faye’s father. The crowd turned, their silent shock morphed into derision as they hurled insults as well as objects. Amid the pelting, the constables stuffed him into a marked car and drove off.

The camera returned to Devon Meath, now flanked by a sobbing man and a woman who looked as though she had recently gotten done crying.

“I’m here now with the missing girl’s parents. Missus Taylor, if your daughter is watching, what would you say to her?”

Anna looked away, unable to suffer the sniveling apology from a mother begging for forgiveness and asking her daughter to come home. Her father, too upset to talk, continued to sob into his wife’s shoulder.

She had to get back to Coventry and take Faye home, whether she wanted to go or not. With the last half-sandwich jammed in her mouth, she mumbled at the waiter to prepare her check and swiped the NetMini past the reader.

After swallowing, she glanced at the door then back to the man. “Where’s the nearest autocab terminal?”

He tilted his head. “Are you all right, miss?”

“Fine… why?”

“Yer ‘oldin’ a mini, why d’ya need a street term?”

Anna stared at the small slab of technology in her hand, feeling acute in her stupidity for a moment. She had gone so many years without one that the convenience of it had slipped her mind.

“Been up too long… forgettin’ meself.”

Her fingers flew over the screen, summoning an autocab to her location. She finished the food by the time the little car arrived. Now realizing she had the ability to―she called Penny once the car door closed.

The third time she got voicemail, she had to concentrate not to destroy anything. Neurotic Penny could not let a ringing phone go ignored; the woman would get the sweats if she left a text message unanswered for more than ten seconds. Anna rattled about the inside of the cab, fidgeting and worrying until it stopped at the edge of The Ruin, refusing to go in.

She ran into the muck, finding it easier to jump puddles using the fragments of old paving without the haze of zoom, and raced for the lone tower block that jutted up from the destruction. Had anything dared surprise her at that moment, it would have been bad for both parties. Worry removed her hesitation about hiding her power; nothing would keep her away from her friends. Ol’ Jack lay on his back in the ground floor lobby, smoke peeling out of his mouth. Two small, metal cylinders as big as shotgun shells stuck to his chest.

Stunners?

Anna grabbed them, gritting her teeth as she shrugged off the crippling electrical shock and redirected the power into the wall. The cannon-like sound of the discharge shook dust off the ceiling. Ol’ Jack drew in a breath, now able to move, and moaned as he sat up.

“Christ on a crutch, Anna… what the feck. How did you touch―”

“Are you all right?”

He coughed. “Someone got me BVR, no idea what…”

“BVR?” Anna helped him prop up against the wall.

“Beyond visual range… sorry. Sniper or something.”

“Shit.” She looked torn between him and the stairs.

When he waved her on and gave a thumbs-up, she ran. Gasping for air after running up a dozen stories, she screamed at the sight of Penny’s door half open. She found her apartment empty; no sign of Faye, the only occupant a small white bear perched at the foot of the bed with zip ties on its paws.

“No,” she yelled, backing up for three steps before sprinting across the hall to Penny’s flat.

Spawny’s hairy ass greeted her as she rounded out of the little access hallway past the bathroom. He lay bent over the couch, beaten bloody and secured hand and foot by plastic zip ties. Penny was on the far side of the couch, naked and hogtied, but did not appear hurt. Anna skidded to a halt on her knees by her friend, holding her fingers a half-inch apart on either side of the plastic. A brief spark melted through the bindings. After freeing her, she hauled the ragdoll of a woman into a hug, patting and shaking her until she moaned.

“Anna?”

She helped her friend stand, guiding her to the bed and wrapping her in a sheet. “What the bloody ‘ell ‘appened?”

Penny swooned in a chemical fog, her arm flopping at the sheet in an attempt to grab it. “We were shaggin’ when we heard Twee scream bloody murder. He got up to go check on her and these men kicked his ass in the door. They came for me when I tried to run. They nicked Twee. Didn’t much look like the filth.”

She brushed green crystalline residue off Penny’s shoulder. A thousand tiny wounds from minuscule needles created a rash-like patch tacky with blood. “No… They weren’t. Are you all right? They shot you with a tranquilizer needler.”

“Little shaken, but all they did was put us out of their way.” Penny squinted. “The devil is that?”

“Solid block of chemical tranq, shaved into shards and shot out of a gun.”

“I’m not gonna ask how you know that.” Penny squeezed, sniffling into Anna’s shoulder.

Anna held her until Spawny moaned. She melted the binders from him and hit him in the back with a stimpak. His bruising lessened, the blood dripping from his nose stopped, and he groaned while crawling down onto the rug to take up a fetal position. A liberal dose of obscenities fell from his mouth as he shuddered. Anna threw a blanket over him, and squinted at the wall.

“Bastards.”

“I didn’t do a fing!” blurted Spawny.

Penny gathered the sheet around and roamed about, plucking her clothes off the rug. “Why would they arrest her? She ‘asn’t left the place since she arrived?”

Spawny dragged himself onto the bed. “Cops smelled sweet meat. She’s probably getting the ol’ pig on a spit right now.”

Penny threw his underwear at him. “How can you say that?”

Anna’s voice came cold and soft. “No. She isn’t. Cops don’t ‘ave ‘er. CSB does. Besides, the cops don’t come in here lookin’ for it.”

“Wha?” Spawny lifted an eyebrow. “That’s a pile of cack, she’s not… um…”

“Like me? No.” Anna shook her head. “It’s got nothin’ to do with ‘er.”

Dressed, Penny abandoned the sheet and put an arm around Anna. “Are you all right, Anna? You seem… different. Don’t think I ever seen ya this, um…”

“Confident,” wheezed Spawny. “Ye look like a cat what’s eyein’ a mouse.”

Penny sank into the couch at Spawny’s side, shaking. The sight of her protector reduced to a shivering, terrified wretch sent sparks dancing up and down Anna’s arms.

“Oh, someone’s ‘bout to ‘ave a bad day.” Spawny blinked.

“I’m sorry.” Anna looked down. “This is all my fault. I won’t let them hurt you again.”

Anna stormed for the door.

“Anna! Wait!” Penny yelled, breaking into sobs. “What’s going on?”

It took every ounce of Anna’s willpower not to turn around. “I have some things I have to do to keep the people I love from being hurt. Don’t worry about me. Protect yourselves. I gotta go.”

nna clung to the NetMini, standing at the edge of The Ruin waiting for the autocab. She had forgotten how much of a lifeline the little devices were. The line of constables eyed her with suspicion. Brown was among them and seemed about ready to have a heart attack. She glared at him.

What are you thinking about, you pig?

Her heart fluttered as she touched his surface thoughts. He knew. The CSB had been here. They told the officers to leave her alone. Hughes told Brown they’d “black bag” him if he touched her again. They showed him how close he’d come to death. He had seen the alley video; he knew what she could have done to him if she wasn’t high. At that moment, he froze like a deer staring down a hunter’s rifle, wondering if she would kill him. Brown tugged at the collar of his shirt, looking like he couldn’t breathe. Her chilling glare sent him scurrying inside like the filth he was. The Sergeant came outside; no doubt to see what had spooked Brown. He tilted his head at her, trotted down the small porch stairs, and approached.

Anna looked off towards London proper. “Good day, Sergeant.”

“Indeed, girl. You look like a different person. Off the poison?”

“Couple days now. I’m trying, sir.” Her anger ebbed. “I’m not sure what they told you, but I’m not dangerous. I just want to be left alone and live like anyone else. I’ve no interest in trouble with the law.”

“That’s good to hear.” He glanced at an approaching pair of lights. “Sorry about Brown. Damn union got involved, couldn’t ship him off. Looks like you’ve a lot on your mind.”

The autocab pulled up and opened its door.

“It’s the CSB, sir. I probably shouldn’t say more. People could get hurt.”

He nodded. “Take care of yourself. Oh, and eat something.”

Anna almost smiled at him as she settled into the car and gave Doctor Mardling’s address. The engines whined as it got underway, and the gentle sway of the ride lulled her into a nap.

A hand on her shoulder jostled her awake. She looked up into blinding bright light. From behind the glare, came a woman’s voice.

“You all right, miss?”

She had fallen asleep; the autocab had parked in the subterranean parking deck of James’s building. When she did not get out, it summoned the police. The fatigue of such a brief sleep kept her emotion neutral as she dragged herself to her feet.

“Sorry about that, I’ve ‘ad a long day.”

The female constable waved something in her face. “Breathe please.”

Anna exhaled on it, making it chirp.

“All right then, you’re not intoxicated. Do you need assistance?”

“Been awake almost twenty hours, constable… Just comin’ ‘ome.”

“Which one’s yours?”

She gave James’s door number. “It’s not my flat. I live with my boyfriend.”

Electronic noises came from another constable a few yards away as he looked her up in the system. He gave a nonchalant nod to his partner, who relaxed. Her file was still clean.

Minutes later, she wobbled up to Doctor Mardling’s door and hit the buzzer. The greyish-white panel slid to the side, revealing a bare chested and weary James Mardling in long flannel pajamas. The delirious frown became a smile at who had stolen him from sleep at five in the morning.

“James! I need help!” She all but tackled him through the door. “They’ve taken Faye. They’re going to kidnap Penny and Spawny as well if I don’t do what they ask.”

He rubbed his eyes. “Calm yourself, Anna. The girl should be able to go home now.”

“You made him confess?”

“Of course.” He chuckled. “Men like that do not develop a conscience at random and give themselves up.” James’s grin fell flat. “I had half a mind to make him embellish what he’d done to her, but his collection of holo-disks could not hold a candle to my imagination. That little friend of yours was not his first.”

Anna fumed. “You should’ve let me kill him.”

He patted her shoulder. “The girl whacked him over the head with a porcelain cat to get away. Gave him a slight bump, less than he deserved; however, I suspect he will get far worse in jail. You need some sleep.”

“James, there’s no time.” She pulled on him. “They took Faye!”

“You… need… sleep.”

His words echoed through her mind in a repeating circle. The next thing Anna knew, she was on the couch under a blanket, boots and socks off. The overcast gloom from the windows offered little clue as to the hour. Fog hung between her ears. She sat up and stretched, momentarily confused by weak red lines around her ankles. Her finger traced the mark, and soreness brought everything back in flashes. Anna bounded to her feet and sprinted towards shifting blue-orange light in the rear hallway.

James sat at a desk of gleaming silver and glass, manipulating images of blobs, atoms, and bits of brain. Holograms floated, twisting and growing as his fingers brushed the light. He was working, though almost everything hovering there went way over her head.

She swooned into the doorframe and wiped her eyes. “What time is it?”

He swiveled around to face her, smiling at the sight of her. “A touch past noon.”

“Oh, shit. Faye…”

On his feet before she could fall, James guided her to a small green bench at the back of his office and took a seat next to her, holding her hands together.

“You were utterly exhausted. Take a breath and tell me what happened.”

“I went back to Coventry Tower to get Faye. I saw a news bit about that nonce confessing, and wanted to bring her home, but the CSB took her.”

“What?” James let go of her and leapt up, pacing. “Why the devil would they do that? It makes no sense for them to pay attention to a small girl. She is neither a political matter nor psionic.”

Anna recounted her brief abduction. The retelling of it sounded lifeless in her woozy state. Nonetheless, the more she talked, the redder James got. By the time she reached to the point where she’d come to on the boat, the look in his eyes was terrifying. He seemed to take notice of her fear and forced a disingenuous smile. She went to him, clinging.

“They want me to kill this man. They said if I did it, they’d leave me off the register. If I don’t, they’ll take Faye, and Penny, and Spawny and shut them away somewhere forever.”

He pondered, at last shaking his head. “No, I doubt they will harm your little friend. We should step up my plan to relocate.”

“James… I can’t just leave her to them, Gordon told me they could do whatever they wanted. They will kill her, I know it… and I can’t leave Penny in Coventry.” Her head returned to his shoulder. “You’ve saved me from that awful place… I want to go with you, but I can’t leave her there.”

Doctor Mardling glanced at the wall. “Lord Thompson is a moderate. He is pushing an agenda of more lenient treatment of psionics. Rumor is that his son has the gift, but no one has proved or disproved it. He represents a true possibility for change, Anna. If he were to die, it could spell disaster for every psionic in the UK.”

“I don’t want to kill him, but what choice do I have? I’m not sure leaving Britain is a good idea… it’s all I’ve ever known.”

“As much as it pains me to leave”―he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper―“it is my home too, after all”―he raised his voice―“it would be less risky for us all.”

“How do you figure that?” Anna gripped the carpet with her toes, feeling lost.

“In the Colonies, the government does not possess the insufferable paranoia of King William. They have psionic constables as well. It would be far easier to get on there and not arouse undue suspicion. Would you not find it a lesser task not to have to hide your nature?”

“Colony? You mean the UCF?” Anna tilted her head.

“Is that what they call themselves now?” James rolled his eyes. “Certainly the little girl is better off in custody than on the street. She is not psionic, so they have no reason to harm her. You should ignore Thompson and take this opportunity to come with me where they cannot reach you. It is sad, but sometimes the world is a sad place.”

“I suppose it might be better there…” Anna wandered back to the sofa and fell on it. “I can’t toddle off to the far side of the pond and leave them in that grotty shithole. She’s always been there for me, I…”

James studied the ceiling for a moment.

“Besides, you’ve eliminated the reason Faye couldn’t return home. I don’t want to leave her to those bastards. There’s got to be something we can do!”

“Agent Gordon, is it?” His hand ran through her hair. “Perhaps there is at that…”

James scurried around his work area, knocking stacked datapads from his desk in a feverish search for a blank holodisk. He popped it into a writer and waved Anna to join him.

“Pull up that chair.”

She padded over, sitting as close as she could. James rested one hand on the optical writer and cradled the other around her head. The warmth on the back of her neck made her shiver.

“Doctor Mardling―”

“James,” he said, smiling.

She glanced down, matching his smile and blushing. “James, what are you doing?”

“I think you should pay Thompson a visit. Now think about your meeting with that tosser, Gordon.”

His words filtered into her mind. Lightheadedness crept over her. James’s eyes seemed to glow as the room around him blurred. Once more, she was restrained in the chair, screaming at the silent echoes around her. The scene played through her memory as if on fast forward, slowing down only when Gordon spoke of his plan for her. When the remembering ceased, her consciousness returned to James’s study. She broke down in sobs, trying to rub the soreness out of her wrists.

James held her tight. “Anna, It’s okay, Anna. Everything will be just fine.”

ord Connor Thompson’s estate sat northwest of the city center, far enough removed that the land allowed a copious front lawn with a reflecting pool. Anna glanced at a massive marble statue of a man on a horse, hanging inexplicably above the water. When it shimmered into a frolicking marble nymph, she knew it to be a hologram; multi-ton statues do not float in midair. Her nerves had gotten the better of her, despite her concealment atop the brick wall. She lay flat on her stomach in the shade of a trio of huge evergreen shrubs at the corner. The perimeter barricade was wide and tall enough to hide her from patrols going past on the ground, so long as she stay prone and motionless. The swaying branches blocked direct view from the house.

For an hour, she remained still. Cold from the bricks seeped through her clothes as she studied the pattern of patrol teams circling the grounds. The rain had taken a holiday for the past two days, leaving the wall and the grounds as dry as they were likely to ever be. According to the datapad, the perimeter was rimmed with sensors, which would trigger alarms if they lost power. If she got any closer, her body heat would give her away.

A private security company operated here, each group consisted of two men and an artificial dog. She had little doubt the hound bot used nightvision and perhaps thermal; the men would be easy enough to get past, but her pseudo-invisibility did not work on things that had no brain.

She slid to the ground outside; convinced going through the yard would be foolish. Off the property, the only observation occurred at the front and rear access gates. The rear offered the best chance of entry, monitored only by a single live guard. After sneaking around the side, she crouched in the shadow of a disused stable and checked the time on her NetMini. If the information Gordon provided was accurate, a cleaning crew should arrive in minutes. Lord Thompson was a backer of the Labour Party, insisting on providing jobs to people rather than machines. Instrumental in the prohibitive bureaucracy on purchasing non-sentient dolls, he made a public show of hiring real people for every function in his estate.

A day and a half of research had taught her the schedules of everyone involved with the estate. It brought her back to her time working for Carroll. As odd as it was to plot the infiltration of a governmental residence, it made her feel alive again. She advanced as close as she could, lurking in the shadowy alcove of a building across the street, waiting. Right on time, a white van whirred into place and pulled into a tiny parking lot by the rear gate. Anna squinted at a post-mounted camera pointed at the area, sensing the electricity inside and forcing it away. Three men and three women in white jumpsuits got out. One man, the oldest looking of the lot, moved to the security booth and got into a conversation with the guard. The others gathered supplies from the rear and side doors. A short Indian woman remained at back end after unloading two wearable vacuums.

The lights on the camera winked out, attracting the attention of the guard to his booth. Anna sprinted across the street during the distraction. She ran up behind the straggler, grasping her around the neck and covering her mouth.

“Sorry, miss. Need to borrow your coat.”

A modest shock knocked the woman senseless. Anna shoved her into the van and climbed in on top of her, pulling the doors closed. While the guard punched his monitor station, grumbling, Anna relieved the woman of her white jumpsuit and cap, and put them on. She smirked at the dark-skinned face on the ID clipped to her breast pocket.

“Oh, this’ll be interesting.”

The woman moaned as she came to. At the sight of Anna, she cowered. “Please, I have two kids…”

“Shh.” Anna covered the woman’s mouth. “I’ve no interest in harming you.”

“Sod it all,” yelled a voice from outside. “Stupid new cameras―oh, wait… there we go. Must’ve been a power cut.”

Anna spun to glare at the wall of the van: racks of cleaning supplies and maintenance parts. She hogtied the cleaning worker with some spare power cords, earning a harsh glare as she taped over her mouth.

“Really sorry about this, but a little girl’s life depends on it.”

Anna slipped out the back doors and adjusted her hat before picking up both vacuums. The other cleaners entered the checkpoint in single file, swiping their ID cards at the terminal before getting waved through. She trotted over to the end of the line, tugging down on the visor. When she got to the machine, she locked eyes with the incredulous security man. Making a brain see a different person was much easier than forcing it not to acknowledge anyone at all.

Her mind thrust itself into his, forcing her pale face and snow-white hair to turn dark in his perception. She hoped he didn’t pay attention to the faint whimpers and banging in the van.

That’s right, Nate. I’m Sajala. See me as who you expect me to be.

The face of Sajala Kaur appeared in hologram to his right as she swiped the card past the sensor. Anna focused on it, forcing the image over herself in his mind. Nate broke out in a cold sweat, shivering. He knew something wasn’t right, but his mind caved, unable to deal with the oddity.

“Are you all right, Nate? You look a bit peaky.”

“F-fine… ‘ave a good shift.”

The gate opened, and she slipped through to rejoin the other cleaning staff. None looked back as they walked in single-file for the servant’s entrance. Anna kept her head down, using the visor to hide from cameras. Once inside the building, she ducked away from them through the first doorway she could reach, into a storage closet.

“Sajala, why don’t you head―” Silence for ten seconds. “Sajala?”

Anna flattened into the wall, avoiding the curious man peering through the window. As soon as he moved away, she tossed the hat and slipped out of the jumpsuit, bundling them together and stuffing them behind a pile of boxes. When it sounded like the hallway was empty, she eased the door to the side and peered out. Sudden motion made her gasp and flinch as a pistol cracked her across the head.

The impact knocked her stumbling back into the closet, where she fell on her ass. One of the estate security people, a tall dark-skinned man in a black suit complete with sunglasses and earbud, pounced on her before the room stopped spinning. He rolled her face down and put the gun to her head.

“Don’t try anything, luv. Hands behind.”

Anna gathered herself, focusing on a disabling shock. Before she could deliver it, a strike to the back of her head bounced her cheek off the floor. Her senses returned as the electric whirr of metal binders locked her wrists at her back. Less-than-gentle hands roamed her body, though the contact was brief and professional.

Fuck.

“No weapons.”

“Roger,” crackled a voice from his ear.

Double fuck.

“On your feet, lass.” He hauled her up by a fistful of coat. “I don’t suppose you’d care to make this easier on both of us and just tell me what the feck you’re doing here?”

Anna put on her most innocent smile. “Sorry, sir. Was a dare from me mates. Please don’t tell my parents.”

He frowned.

She narrowed her eyes, gazing at his crotch. “Hey… It’s just a ‘armless prank. How bout I give you a gobble and you let me go home? Even?”

“What sort of man do you think I am?”

She loosed an exasperated sigh. “A fine, upstanding officer of the law, apparently.”

He shoved her by one shoulder towards the door.

“Sorry.”

The man looked down at her. “You’re a bit past sorry, lass.”

“No, I mean… Sorry.” She gathered a charge at the closest bit of exposed skin to him: her nose.

The spark hit him in the face, knocking him flat. Her eyes watered; the jolt left her feeling as though she had been punched. Anna shook it off and reined in her fear. She tensed her arms, pulling the binders tight to her skin. Sparks lapped at the metal as her brain felt its way through the circuit paths within the device. A shape formed as a trace of amber light in her consciousness. She disregarded the complex twist of circuitry and focused on the contact points of the actuator motor. With a little voltage forced into the right place, they slid open.

It took all her strength to drag the security man close enough to one of the installed shelves and cuff him to it. Smoke peeled from the binders as she overloaded them, ensuring he would be stuck there until someone brought cutters.

They’ll have called Old Bill by now. I don’t have much time. Gordo’s been neck deep in my ass this long… maybe he’ll delay the cops.

She ran out, following as best she could recall the map she had been staring at all morning. The hallway led to the kitchen, dark and empty at this hour. At the far end, she fed the head butler’s code into the wall panel and gained access to the main part of the dwelling. She moved down a well-lit stretch of lacquered wood floor flanked by miniature marble lions, and slipped behind a dark burgundy tapestry at the sound of approaching boots.

Two security men tromped by in silence, trailed by snippets of radio conversation going along in their surface thoughts―they were searching for her. She concentrated on them, refusing to allow them to see her. When they disappeared around the distant corner, she left her hiding place and crept further down until the floor turned from decorated wood to thick carpet. The décor was as much an ostentatious display of wealth as his hiring of so many live servants.

An armored elevator waited right where the map said it would, and the codes Gordon provided worked like a charm. Somehow, he had gotten a hold of a special sequence that also disabled the cameras. No doubt it was a feature Thompson used for clandestine meetings.

On the third level, a less festive hallway of muted brown wood and royal blue carpet went from the elevator to his private chamber. She sprinted past a library, atrium, and several unlabeled rooms, halting outside the office. After a few seconds of listening to muted voices inside, she rolled up her sleeves and burst in.

Anna kicked the door closed behind her and raised her hands. A security man on either side grabbed her forearms as the startled Lord Connor Thomson gaped from behind a mammoth black marble desk.

Anna closed her eyes, sending electricity jumping through where her bare arms made contact with the security men’s hands. Two slabs of unconscious meat fell to the ground, one on either side of her. The fragrance of ozone and boiled cologne entered her nose.

Lord Thompson raised his hands. “W-w-w―”

A feat she thought impossible occurred; his face grew whiter as she approached.

Clutching at his chest, he gasped. “Please…”

She shifted her hips and sat on the edge of the desk, crossing her legs and smiling at him. “Relax, old bloke. I’m not here to hurt you. I came to warn you.”

He sagged down in the high-backed chair, struggling to breathe. “W-who are you?”

“That’s not important.” She peeled one of the leg pockets open; the sharp scratch of the Velcro closure made him jump. A holodisk she dropped in front of him wobbled, spinning ever faster on its way to a halt. “That is.”

Lord Thompson stared at his reflection upon the silver surface, hand hovering an inch away as if it would burn him to touch it. He swallowed hard and pinched the spindle connecting four stacked three-inch platters. “What’s this about?”

“The CSB is trying to have you killed. They want to slip their leash… what little of one there is. As far as they’re concerned, I’ve been sent here to kill you and make it look like an accident.”

“That’s preposterous!” He broke out in a sweat. “What proof do you have?”

She gestured at the disk. “Oh, don’t give me that look. If I were here to kill you, I’d not be talking. I’m not an assassin.”

He poked at his desk, opening a small chamber with a receptacle for the disk. A few seconds after the hatch closed, one file appeared on his screen. Lord Thompson poked his finger through the holographic screen, opening it. Blurry video, crisscrossed with faint blue lines, replayed her memory of Agent Gordon’s chat. The point of view was hers, the image smeared away to fractal patterns every time the inhibitor smashed her brain into pulp. Anna looked away, not much caring to re-watch it for a third time.

When it stopped, Lord Thompson looked at her. “This file… This is quite damning, was this you?”

Her expression gave it away. She could not explain how James had taken her memories and put them on a holodisk; some ability he had with machines combined with telepathy had done it.

“There’s no K-N on this video, how do I know it’s real?”

She looked at him. “My thoughts don’t have a Karsson-Neimand checksum, Milord. It’s a direct transfer from my brain to disk.”

Staring into old grey eyes, she forced tidbits of the experience into his mind.

He tensed, grasping his forehead from a phantom inhibitor burn. “You’re a psionic? You don’t have a tag.”

“I’ll die before I let them put a bomb inside my head. We’re not damned animals. Would you put one in your son?” At the mention of it, his surface thoughts confirmed rumors of the boy’s ability as truth. “I thought not.” She paused a few seconds in search of calm. “A friend of mine believes you are on our side, trying to make things better for us here. Agent Gordon wants me to kill you so he can go on some kind of heretic-burning rampage.”

Swallowing hard, Lord Thompson edged away from the desk. “I see…”

“Do you really think I’m going to harm you? It’s what he wants. It would start open season on every psionic in Great Britain. I’ve come to warn you and ask for your help. You have to stop hunting us like wild animals. We’re people just like you.”

“If… If this is true then―”

A blaring electronic ring all but knocked Lord Thompson out of his chair and stopped Anna’s heart for a beat. The VidPhone flashed with an incoming call. Paralyzed from the shock, the old man stared at it. Anna leaned over and hit the answer key.

There was no video feed. After a second of silence, an eerie female voice flooded the room from speakers mounted in the ceiling.

“Hello Anna… Milord Thompson. You should consider getting down very soon, preferably away from any place you can be seen from the outside.”

Anna glanced from the source of the voice to Thompson and then to the window. In a building across the street, something caught a glint of moonlight.

“Sniper!” Anna screamed, diving over the desk.

She tackled him to the rug, cringing as shattering glass rained down. The crack of a suppressed gunshot chased the sharp ping of a slug bouncing off the marble desk. Anna scrambled onto her knees and dragged him to the right behind solid wall. Panting, she sat with her back to the stone and stared at him.

“That’s a bit odd, Milord.”

“You don’t say?”

“You looked more terrified of me than you do of ‘aving a sniper taking pot shots at you.”

“I’ve been shot at before… I know how bullets work, but I’ve never been alone with an unregistered psionic.”

“Other than your son?” She patted him on the thigh. “I’m easier to talk to than a bullet.”

Two shots tore neat holes through the brickwork between their heads, spraying them with dust.

He pulled her to the ground. “Nonetheless, I think that fellow outside would like to join our chat.”

ord Thompson crawled away from the wall, moving on his own as much as she pulled him “Bugger it all, where the hell is the security team?”

“Sorry about them, Milord.” Anna pulled her sleeves down.

The men lying on the rug moaned as if in reply.

Another shot nipped the back of his coat, leaving a tear in a suit worth more credits than Anna had ever seen in one place. She pounced and held him as low to the ground as possible until the plaster stopped flying. The last two shots landed too close, as if they’d been going for her. Shouting came from outside as security teams converged toward the front gate.

“Guess they’re pissed at me for not offing you.”

He flashed a grim look. “If they kill us both, they can make up any story they damn well care to.”

“Bastards.” Anna froze for a moment. “They were gonna say a psionic killed you and kill me anyway. Even if I’d done what they asked, they’d have done the dirty on me.”

“I do so enjoy politics,” he said, holding up a finger.

The silence made her think the sniper was either repositioning or fleeing. She hauled Lord Thompson to his feet and made to run with him. One of the security men had recovered and lunged at her. He stiff-armed her across the chest, knocking her back over the marble desk. Unable to breathe, she slid through a landslide of office supplies and small gold statues, and hit the ground on her front. He seized her from behind in a bear hug, crushing the rest of the air out of her lungs.

“Get ‘er!” he shouted to his partner.

The other bodyguard flipped a collapsible truncheon out to length and took aim at the side of her head.

Lord Thompson barreled forward, putting his hands on the massive arms around her chest. “Stop it, she’s not the threat.”

The security man’s anger continued to flow through his great biceps into her ribs. Hot breath fell over her head from behind. She squirmed but could not move.

“Dammit Ben, let her down this instant.”

The goliath released his grip and she stumbled forward, sprawled over the desk, breathless and fighting to avoid passing out. Between getting pounded in the chest and squeezed, the room spun. Realizing she lay draped with her ass in the air, in perfect view of the sniper, Anna let her weight take her down until she knelt against the cold marble.

She wheezed, gesturing at the wrecked terminal. “Holodisk―”

Thompson had been ushered out of the room already by the other man. The one who remained glared at her as if he wanted to finish the job. His surface thoughts focused on anger at being made the fool by such a tiny woman. After a momentary stalemate, he shoved her out of the way and almost tore the desk apart in his effort to retrieve the disk. He smashed his fist into the desk several times until finding the right spot to hit to open the reader. With the disk in his pocket, he grabbed her by the shirt and hauled her to her feet.

“Look… Ben, is it? We’re on the same team right now, please don’t make me kill you. You’re huge and I’m tiny. My only chance is to toast your bollocks off and I’d really rather not.”

He squinted.

“Ben…” That same eerie voice emanated from the speakers. “Would you be a dear and turn ninety degrees to the right?”

For no particular reason, he complied. As soon as he stopped moving, a bullet came through the broken window and lodged in his cybernetic left arm with a sparking clank, rather than his heart.

“Thank you Ben.” The vid call hung up.

He grunted and ran through the door, dragging Anna despite her pounding on his natural arm. Once in the hallway, he set her on her feet where a number of other, much smaller, security personnel gathered around Lord Thompson.

Before she could take a step away, he pushed her into the wall and gathered her arms behind her back. Anna sighed as hands patted her down.

“No weapons sir,” said a voice above the back of her head.

Lord Thompson moved closer, waving off the man reaching for handcuffs. “That won’t be necessary, Clive. She could’ve killed me easily if she’d wanted to. What’s going on?”

“Everything is on that disc. The CSB wanted a psionic to kill you to stir up paranoia.” She waited while the guard removed the restraints. “They’re terrified at the thought you might regard us as actual people.”

“Sir, we’ve got reports of hostiles outside. It’s not safe here,” said another man, grabbing at Thompson’s shoulder.

Anna adjusted her shirt back into place. “Seems your security can take it from here, Milord. It would be healthier for everyone concerned if I was nowhere near you. Am I free to go?”

“I never did get your name, miss…”

There was no time to debate the thought. The CSB already knew who she was. Having an ally in Parliament couldn’t hurt. “Anna Morgan, Milord.”

Having little need for stealth, she ran for the stairwell and followed it around a graceful sweeping arc to the ground floor. Tall bay windows offered a view of the utter chaos that reigned outside. Security forces swarmed the grounds in search of the shooter, trading shots with unseen assailants. Anna headed for the main entrance, crashing to an abrupt halt with a fleshy thud against unmoving white doors. A quick psionic tug drew the power out of the magnetic locks and she shoved one side open. When she released her control of the electrical system, the magnet pulled it closed with such a noise some of the men whipped around thinking a shot had been fired.

Two bullets bounced off the porch near her boots, sending her into a panicky sprint toward a row of security vehicles collected in the roundabout by the door. A van, two cars, and three motorbikes sat unmanned in the glare of floodlights. Anna leapt onto one of the bikes and got it moving forward from the force of her impact.

Another shot nicked the left side mirror as she accelerated through the grounds and ducked through the half-closed gate. Hitting the street, she fishtailed her way through a turn and gunned it. High-pitched whining came from both hollow wheels as electric motors spun the treaded rings that served as tires. She picked up speed, and the frame extended. The bike grew longer and lower. Anna leaned forward and tried to remember how to ride; the last time she touched one of these was before she knew what zoom felt like.

“Like riding a bike, right?” she muttered.

Light flashed in the remaining mirror, making her look back and up. A small military VTOL craft, only large enough to carry two people, swerved around a tall building and bore down on her. Black stealth coating ate the light, making the parts that were not windows or weapons seem like a hole in reality. It resembled an abbreviated fighter craft, short and stubby with a fat central body. The side door was open, through which a man leaned with a rifle. Red lights winked from both tips of the ‘V’ shaped tail, and the downward canted wings bristled with rocket pods.

Sweet mother…

Anna wrenched the bike into a hard left around a corner a second before the man fired. Glass shattered out of sight behind her as she whipped around a building. The VTOL lumbered after, skidding through a turn, almost gouging the windows from office skyrises. She screamed as her balance faltered around another corner, a shot skipped off the road behind her. Unable to maneuver so low to the ground, the pilot climbed out of the canyon of office towers where a small mistake would cause a crash.

She accelerated through a straightaway, believing she had lost the plane. A near miss sprayed her in the face with fragments of paving. Too scared to speed up, she hit the brake. Another shot hit the road in front of her. The VTOL vanished behind a glittering tower up ahead as she leaned into a right turn and twisted the handgrip. A sudden burst of speed drilled her into the seat and came close to throwing her through a pack of shrubberies along a central island in the road.

Above, the whine of ion thrusters roared as the plane zipped into view. Two missiles leapt from the wings, riding smoking spirals. Reacting on instinct, she pinned the accelerator. Heat and light splashed over her from an explosion. She gasped, glancing at the mirror as the wreckage of a parked car spun, flaming, into the street.

They’ve lost their bloody minds.

Buildings and streetlamps shot past in a blur of color and shrapnel. Turn after turn, the damnable thing managed to follow. Not brave enough to push the bike farther than she had done already, she searched with wild eyes for anything she could do in order to get away. A couple of blocks ahead, an old red sign beckoned her to an ancient stairway boarded up longer than she had been alive.

Anna aimed for it and ducked her head. The bike shattered through splintering planking as the VTOL swung around into view between two buildings. She feathered the throttle and bounced down stairs into the old abandoned Tube system.

The pavement behind her erupted into a fireball.

Debris blew past her, laced with flames driven by the downblast from the VTOL as it lurched to a halt above the subway entrance. Scraps of false wood clattered on the stairs. Not looking back, Anna focused on the small patch of headlight offering a glimpse into the darkness of another world.

nseen drips broke the silent dark with intermittent chirps. At a standstill, the electric bike made little noise other than emanating a faint presence that made one feel as if they were not alone. Anna turned the headlights over cobwebs, decay, and the dust covering everything on the old train platform. With the advent of autocabs and the maglev trams, the old tube system had been left to the use of whoever was desperate enough to venture down there.

Rumors abounded regarding what lurked below the city. Some held they were simple poor people, much like those in Coventry, who eked out a living in a sort of neo-primitive society separate from the world above. Others claimed various military research projects involving gene manipulation had been exiled down there, but most regarded them as beyond credible. Tales of cyber gangs, organ thieves, mad bot-makers, and everything else one could imagine had circulated at one time or another. What had once been a mover of London’s people had become a mover of London’s imagination.

She slumped forward, resting her forehead on her arms across the handlebars. In a place the VTOL could not follow, she hoped for a moment of peace. If its crew had jumped out, she had some faith the random turns she had made over the past few spans of tunnel had gotten them lost as much as she was.

The sound of splintering wood made her jump and whirl to the rear with a gasp. A vibrating light source slid along the curved wall of the track tunnel. To the right, the clatter of multiple people moving broke the silence. She pivoted the handlebars toward the noise, stunning half a dozen men with the sudden glare in their eyes. Clad in greyish brown rags, they wore a mixture of old cloth, leather, and scavenged bits of metal. Feral, they reacted to the sight of her with growls and blocked their eyes with their arms. Knives, swords, and crowbars gleamed in the light from her borrowed bike.

“Some welcoming committee…”

White tiles exploded away from a column a few inches above her head with the sound of a gunshot. A headlight hovered at the point where the track tunnel opened. Another bike idled there, a large figure upon it.

Agent Gordon’s voice echoed through the stillness. “I thought we had an arrangement.”

A baritone laugh preceded another shot and more tile dust. Yeah, you wanted to arrange me right into the fucking ground, bastard. She twisted her hand and the bike surged forward, pulling a small wheelie as she leapt down to the tracks. Gordon’s headlights came around the curve behind her, gaining. A camera flash of azure lit the tunnel as he fired again and a ricochet pinged above her. Her console flickered, threatening to burn out from her surge of fear.

Old light mounts flooded the shaft behind her with showers of orange sparks as her panic tugged at forgotten power lines. Up ahead, the tube split at a fork; she jumped the tracks and went left, hoping Gordon would flub the maneuver and wipe out. Alas, he kept right on her.

Barricades came at her one after the other, appearing in her headlights seconds before she had to react to avoid them. Whoever lived here had fortified this tunnel against attack; it made her think she headed right into the den of a gang.

Gordon’s headlights vanished for an instant behind a heavy cloud of brown fog and smashing noises. He had taken a barricade head-on and driven right through it.

Weaving around the debris slowed her to a pace not much faster than she could have run, though it had an equal effect on him.

“There’s no point to running, Morgan,” he yelled. “I’ll find you anywhere in Britain you go.”

After a dozen improvised walls, the passage opened up, and she got up to about sixty-five before hanging right and ducking a series of bullets, which sparked off the walls. He fired at an almost casual pace; she imagined him aiming, squeezing off a shot and savoring the sound it made before shooting again. She coughed at the taste of dust and mold, letting go with one hand to try to pull her shirt over her face. A wobble in the steering ended that battle as she slammed both hands onto the grips and slowed down to keep control.

Gordon yelled as he fired, whatever he said lost to the thunderous echo of his sidearm in the confines of the Tube. Anna ventured a peek over her shoulder, at only blinding glare. She screamed when she looked forward again―a hanging cloth came out of nowhere. She drove into it, unable to react in time. It tore loose from the ceiling and wrapped over her, sending her into a fit of frantic screaming and flailing. Terror hit a crescendo that caused her power to leap out of her control. Both bikes flashed with azure clouds of staccato lightning and went dark. Sudden deceleration made her lurch over the handlebars, tumbling head over ass until she hit the curved wall and slid to the ground. Somewhere in the perfect dark, the crash of Gordon’s bike careening through an improvised barricade startled her upright.

Her head throbbed; the total lack of light made her feel dizzier. Gordon moaned. She grasped at the wall, hurting everywhere. As hard as she tried to contain it, she whimpered as she pulled herself upright. By some miracle of luck, she had not broken anything. If I make any kind of light, he’s going to shoot me. Before she could take a step, a headlight came back on, forming a cone in the heavy, swirling dust. A second later, Gordon’s bike lit up a dozen meters behind.

Anna sprint-limped for her ride, tripping over the irregular ground and landing on it. Gordon fired over her; the timing of the miss was too perfect. He’s bloody toying with me. She closed her eyes and projected a bright arc into the nearest fragment of track. The sudden flash made him yell.

He growled.

She did not wait around to see how long he would stay blind, hauling her motorbike upright and throwing her leg over. Her entire body tensed from pain as she twisted the handlebar and shot a spray of gravel and dirt to the rear.

Gordon fired out of the dark; the shot burned a slice of pain over her left thigh from a graze. She curled her body tight to the bike, trying to find the courage to drive faster in such an environment. Artificial light glowed from further down the tunnel, indicating the presence of another station.

Seconds later, the tunnel expanded to a platform. She jumped a stack of wood and swerved across dusty red tiles. The bike slammed through an old trash bin, tearing it loose from the wall and sending it bouncing. Gordon followed her maneuver, destroying the impromptu ramp in a spray of planks and splinters. He weaved for a gap in the support columns and gunned it, coming up along her right side beyond a blur of passing white archways. Air rushing through the openings between pillars created a thrumming sound as frightening as the bullets.

He grinned as if this was the most fun he had in years.

Anna’s gaze darted back and forth from him to forward. Bad timing and a lucky column foiled his next attempt to shoot her. Trying to fire through the archways was like trying to put an arrow through the spokes of a wheel without hitting one. The end of the platform came on fast, and his side was farther away from the tracks.

Gordon sighted over the weapon again, lifting both eyebrows when she hit the brakes without warning and swerved away. Anna’s bike sailed off the edge, falling hard on the track surface with an impact that numbed her tailbone. Behind her, the noise of Gordon’s pursuit came to a sudden halt with squealing tires and the crunch of wooden crates. Her landing did not go quite as well as she hoped, and she wound up airborne over the handlebars before she knew she was in trouble.

Fortunately, she had slowed down enough to where she stopped skidding with mild bruises and a scuffed hand. Added to the pain of her last crash, she came close to giving up and lying there waiting for death. She did not want to think about how many injections it would take to get rid of all the diseases she had probably picked up skinning her hand open here. Hot tears streaked out of the corners of her eyes as she thought of Faye still missing. Growling through clenched teeth, she forced herself up and limped through the column of dusty light from her bike’s headlamp. Gordon’s irritated snarl echoed in the Tube, followed by the clatter of a pile of debris shifting.

He wasn’t dead.

As she threw a leg over the bike, his headlights jumped from the platform to the tracks. Anna got moving again before he recovered enough from his landing to fire, and the next shot went high. Wide-eyed with terror, she risked accelerating to seventy and begged thin air to keep her path free of anything capable of causing a fatal crash.

Grey tunnel streaked past. She dodged the occasional hanging cloth or pile of debris, this section far less fortified by the natives. Another platform passed on the right, but she made no move to go for it. A series of still-working lamps blew out in sequence as she drove by, drawing a frustrated howl from Gordon. She stared, teary-eyed, into the ghostly glow of her headlights while careening through a rightward curve that felt as though it grew deeper.

Headlights behind her crept closer. Accelerating well past her comfort speed, she screamed and clung to the vibrating metal until every muscle ached. She wanted to close her eyes, but could not. The tunnel leveled off and she bounced over a light uphill grade as it curved a bit left. Two circles of wobbling light provided only about thirty yards of warning for death on the ground. Keeping up the focus necessary not to smash into anything had taxed her brain to the point it was about done.

A shot blew off her remaining rear view mirror; a second holed the windscreen and left a burn mark on her right shoulder. Another hit the back end of her bike and sent a jolt through the frame she felt in her clamped thighs. Fear pushed her hand around the grip, tipping the speed up even more.

Once the tunnel showed a hint of straightaway, she risked a peek to the rear. Headlights in the darkness bounced about like a will-o-wisp. Dingy walls covered in grime flashed blue with another blue muzzle flash.

I’m done with this. This is some kind of sick game to him. He’s not even seriously trying to hit me.

She pried her trembling right hand off the grip and held it toward him, opening her mind to her bike’s power core.

The tunnel crackled with the brilliance of day for a split second as a great arc leapt from her hand into Gordon’s bike, sending grasping fingers of blue lightning bursting from several points. Her bike faltered and died, continuing to coast.

In the aftermath of the discharge, absolute darkness enveloped the tunnel. Scraping metal and sparks preceded a wail of surprise, as Gordon’s vehicle became inert. That scream drowned amid the great screeching crash of his motorbike going down and skidding across the dirt. The sound of an armored body tumbling over the old tracks echoed until silence came in the wake of a loud crash.

A few seconds later, her ride came back online.

Unable to see what happened, and unwilling to turn the bike to check, she slowed enough to release her white-knuckle grip and kept going until she found another station platform. She followed a maintenance ramp and emerged amid a small tent city, startling several dozen people who had made a village out of the place. Women snatched children off their feet, stuffing the filthy urchins into tents and reaching for swords and pistols.

Anna waved at them. “Hi. Don’t mind me. I’m just lost; I don’t want trouble.”

She maneuvered through the settlement away from a group of men who closed around with knives and pipes. They might have been simply curious, but she did not want to run the risk of getting jumped down here in the dark. Her tires squealed around the hallway at the far end of the station, leaving the boarding platform behind as she rode through an approach mall. More tents lined the passageway, but she didn’t stop to talk or look at anything.

Anna skidded to a halt at the bottom of a massive non-working escalator to the street. She tried not to think about how much more pain she would be in if she dumped the bike trying to drive up metal stairs. Her legs ached, her thigh and back burned from where bullets grazed, and her hand was on fire from where she had wiped out. Metal piping clattered along the ground behind her, the locals approaching.

After walking the bike back a few paces for a moving start, she eased on the throttle. The motorbike took the stairs with less trouble than she expected, though she still shrieked the entire way. At the top, she accelerated through a small area with a long abandoned ticket counter and a row of vending machines. Rubber squeaked over dusty red tiles; she aimed for another long, shallow stairway for the street, and gunned it. The bike smashed through the wooden barricade, sending pedestrians diving for cover from the cloud of flying debris.

She let off the throttle and slumped over the handlebars. Once the e-bike had come to a stop, Anna slipped off and tumbled to the ground on her back. She lay still for a few breaths, staring up at the stars and savoring the feeling of not being underground. Faces appeared in her view as bystanders approached to check on her.

A man in a black suit stooped down, glanced for a moment at the hole she put in the barrier, and reached to help her up.

“Are you hurt, miss?”

She grasped his hand. “Yes, thanks. I think the damn dodgy GPS gave me a bit of a wrong turn.”

he elevator let her out on the thirty-ninth. Anna glanced through floor-to-ceiling windows at a pleasant view of Finsbury Park to the east. From all the light at the north end, she assumed a Frictionless match was underway. Plodding down a hallway lined with heavy blue carpet, she staggered past bits of silver sculpture composed of numerous free-floating pieces held aloft in magnetic fields. Orbs, triangles, and other constructs no one had invented names for spiraled about in some artist’s attempt to associate moods with shapes.

Apparently, six spheres of ascending size spiraling in a graceful curve equated to serenity, while two pairs of counter-orbiting cubes somehow meant lust. Her head hurt too much to contemplate esoteric philosophy as she fell against the door to apartment 3915. Carroll had been oddly forthcoming with the address. That “you owe me a major favor” smile had her shivering the entire ride here.

As if the impact of her body was not loud enough, she pounded her fist on the door twice.

It slid open with a pneumatic squeak, leaving her falling forward into the arms of a broad-shouldered man with thick black hair. Much of his shoulder and neck area had been replaced with dark metallic cyberware, which gave way to a texture like living tissue halfway down his biceps. He looked quite different without the coat, but familiarity glowed within his orange eyes. The sight of her made him blink.

“Did you take a nosedive off a moving car?”

“Motorbike actually… Twice, in fact. I’m shocked the NetMini is still alive. Bloody thing only survived because I’ve kept it off, I bet. I didn’t want ‘em using it to track me. Orange, I need your help to find someone… I don’t know who else to trust.”

He carried her inside, past a sunken living room where a couch, table, and holovid player waited three steps down from ground level in a pool of grey rug. A kitchenette covered with imitation black marble tiles went by on the right as she floated down a hall to a bedroom where he set her on something soft and warm. He spent several minutes wiping grit out of the abrasions on her chin and forehead, a spritz of Aeroderm here and there erased the damage from her skin with a cold, tingling foam.

Afterwards, he flopped into an oversized chair surrounded by technology. “So, shall I assume you were pursued the old-fashioned way?”

Anna ogled the eight separate display screens that surrounded him like a halo, as well as the rack of components and three individual net decks on the desk behind him. White squares, one inch thick, emblazoned with spirals of concentric lines stood off from the wall on silver pegs of various heights. The three-dimensional effect made the room feel expensive. She moaned, hurting everywhere.

“How the hell do you afford this place?”

“I have many benefactors, only some of whom are aware of that fact. So, please, tell me why you’re here? Did Carroll give you something you couldn’t handle?”

“No. It’s the CSB.”

He had her halfway to the door before her begging made him stop. She hung suspended by one hand holding a fistful of shirt and one in her belt.

“Please, Mr. Orange. A little girl needs your help.”

“Yeah, sure. You’re not that small.”

“Not me. Faye. She’s only thirteen.”

He hung his head and grumbled. “Do I look like a missing kid’s charity? Damn CSB. How can you be certain you weren’t followed?”

“I told you the other night, I’ve done this before. Besides, they are trying to shoot me not stalk me. If they’d spotted me, bullets would be in the air already.”

He carried her towards the door.

“Wait!” She clung to him. “Please… There isn’t much time! I can’t go to Carroll again. The CSB is probably watching him, and if they bribe him well enough I’m done. I don’t know anyone else good enough to find her. They wanted me to assassinate a Member of Parliament. I couldn’t do it. They’re going to kill her to hurt me; I just know it.”

Orange held her for a full minute in the doorway, gazing at the ceiling. “For all I know, you’ve just led the authorities to my damn flat.”

“I will admit to being rusty,” she said, pulling herself up until they almost touched foreheads. “But, I know I wasn’t followed. I lost them underground and I didn’t take an autocab here… I nicked a scooter. There’s no trace. Please, Orange. I’ll do anything you want.”

“Anything?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Well, maybe not take it in the bum.”

He slouched, staring at her with uncomfortable pity that made her feel like a Cov again.

“Don’t look at me like that. I was tryin’ to make light.” She looked away. “Sorry if it wasn’t funny. I’m not in a great mood. If it’s what you really want… Faye―”

“No, Pixie.” He sighed. “Not every man in the world is just looking to use you.”

She cried, keeping her face away so he couldn’t see. Orange shifted and carried her back across his flat and set her on the foot end of a king-sized Comforgel pad. He glanced between her and the terminals, opening his mouth as if to say something, but changed his mind.

Anna gathered her composure. “Does this mean you’ll help?”

“Aye. However, I will call in that favor you offered eventually. It’ll more than likely involve getting shot at.”

“Awright.” She stretched, cringing from sore muscles.

After feeding him all the information she had about Faye, Agent Gordon, and the timeline of when they took her from Coventry, she let gravity take her backwards onto the bed, and waited.

The elaborate chair whispered a soft breath as it reclined. Mr. Orange plugged in to one of the decks and laced his fingers together over his abdomen. Anna stared upside down at a large sheet of paper covered with Japanese writing hung on the wall over the headboard. Traces of the Far East adorned the room. A little pagoda carved from red jade sat by an incense platter in the image of a Samurai. Paper lanterns hung across the rim of the bedroom window and a small door led to what seemed like a Shinto shrine.

“You fancy Japan?”

Orange chuckled. “There’s a lot of high-paying work there. The country is fragmented, corporate warfare is part of their culture, and they have some of the best network security in the world. I enjoy the challenge.”

She remained still, eyes closed but awake, until the pain in her shoulder and thigh became too much. After kicking off her boots, she sat up and undid her belt. With a grimace, she peeled her pants away from the wound and slid them down to her knees. Once she had plucked all the stray threads and splinters from the graze, she flicked the safety cap from a stimpak and pressed it into her skin. Inside of a minute, her thigh was as pristine as if it had never been touched. The synthetic adrenaline caused a wave of pain to cascade through overtaxed muscles.

“Nice tattoo.”

She jumped at the sound of his voice, blushing, feeling a spike of gratitude towards Doctor Mardling for giving her underwear.

“Would you mind?” She pointed at her shoulder with her second to last stim, and held it out to him.

The wire auto-ejected from the socket behind his ear as he got up, reeling itself back into the deck. She rolled over, tensing without conscious thought as his weight settled into the Comforgel next to her and the presence of a man loomed over her back.

“That’s a nasty scrape.”

“Ahhh,” she yelled, biting the covers as he picked debris out of her back. Gasping, she turned her head to the left and let herself go limp. “I’m lucky Gordo is a shitty shot.”

“Who’s Gordo?”

Another scream slipped through clenched teeth as Orange plucked a nugget of rock from her shoulder. She relaxed, whining, once the pain spike passed. “CSB agent.”

“I’ve never met a CSB agent who was a poor shot.”

“Maybe it’s ‘cause we were doing sixty-five through the Tube on bikes. You think―”

She tensed at the touch of the cold metal injector, and moaned when her shoulder filled with the cool fluid. Anna gnawed on the bedclothes as the relaxing chill became itching. Orange’s warm hand brushed over intact skin, sending a shiver down her back.

“Wound’s closed.”

Mr. Orange patted her on the uninjured shoulder. “You definitely got an angel watchin’ out for you. From what I’ve seen, those CSB blokes are all former MI6, most have SAS training. Damn miracle you survived.”

She rolled over, staring up at him. “Maybe he was as terrified of riding a motorbike through the Tube as I was.”

He gave her a shrug. “Or he wasn’t really trying to kill you.”

“What the devil for?”

Orange raised both eyebrows. “You said he wanted you to take out a MoP. Maybe they’ll do it anyway and leave you alive to stand trial for it.”

I gotta get the feck out of London. Oh, James. She shook with emotion, fear, love, and anger. It subsided in a moment with the singular focus of not abandoning her friends.

“Thanks for this, Orange. Mind if I use your shower?”

“Go right ahead, I’ve still got some digging to do.”

“You’re not done yet? Why’d you log out?”

“The pixie caught my eye.”

Anna blushed at the small cartoon head grinning over the waistband of her panties.

She squinted. “Well it is in a bit of a spot, innit? I’m kinda sorry I got it.”

He looked at her for a moment and frowned. “Go get cleaned up. I’ll send your kit off for laundry.”

“Okay…” She ducked into the bathroom and hid behind the door while she stripped.

Leaving her clothes outside, she availed herself of the autoshower. When she finished, she padded over to the door and cracked it open. He lay out cold on the chair, lost in cyberspace, seemingly meditating. Anna clung to the edge of the door, watching him breathe for a few minutes. She hadn’t noticed the four katanas hanging vertically upon the wall behind the monitors before.

Seeing no sign of her clothes, she edged the door open a little more until it hit the plastic-wrapped packet he had left on the ground. She grabbed it, closed the door, and broke the seal, filling the room with the scent of fabric softener and the subtle hint of some manner of chemical. He had used one of the good places; the rips and bullet grazes had been stitched almost to the point where no sign of damage was evident.

Anna put on everything except her boots, wanting to leave them off for comfort while Orange worked. A glance at the window on her way to the bed changed her mind, fearful the CSB might show up at any minute.

He remained motionless for several minutes. Anna got up and paced, then helped herself to the reassembler in the kitchen and made a single serving of coffee. Twenty minutes later, she had about finished it before he sat up and swiveled around. His expression did not fill her with much hope.

“She’s still alive? Please tell me she’s still alive…”

“Yeah.” He pulled the wire out and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. “She’s being held at a high security facility outside the city. The kind of place they use to hold nutter auggies. What exactly did this brat do?”

“Something bad…” Anna stared at the ground. “She met me. The bastards are using her as leverage.”

A tray slid out of one of the black boxes on the rack. He plucked a holodisk from it and tossed it to her. “Well, I got all the information I could on the place, but by the time you get there what codes I could get will have changed.”

“Can I convince you to be a digital guardian angel while I go in?”

His lips parted in a mischievous smirk as he leaned forward. “Will you owe me a second favor if I do?”

“Of course. So what’s the big deal about the tattoo?”

He exhaled, crossing his hands behind his head and sat back. “Well, that’s probably something I shouldn’t have mentioned.”

Anna squinted. “What do you mean? You’ve seen it before?”

Orange yanked a large handgun from under the desk; he hesitated, not quite aiming it at her. “And this is why they round you lot up. Look, I trade in secrets that people kill for. Stay the hell out of my head.”

Anna scampered away over the bed, hands in front as if they would stop a bullet. “Sorry! I only hear surface thoughts… I can’t deep dive.”

His finger left the trigger, causing the firing circuit to go dark. He stared at her for a minute, something between anger and pity in his eyes. His expression filled her imagination with a debate about how easy it would be to clean blood from his bed.

She cringed. “I’m sorry, Orange. I’m desperate. Really, I didn’t look deep. All I got was what you were thinking about right at that moment. I swear I won’t peek again. It’s a habit… Only thing that’s kept me alive sometimes.”

“You wanna know? Okay, fine.” He tossed the gun on the desk with a clatter. “Maybe someday you’ll understand why people keep secrets.”

Orange shoved at his desk, rotating to face his rig. He swiped at a virtual display panel. One of the numerous holo-screens went from flat grey to showing a black box inside a blue frame. His finger poised over a holographic button. Conscience seemed to get the better of him, and he waited.

“Are you absolutely sure you want to see this, Pixie?”

She walked over and put a hand on the back of the chair. Her voice carried a hint of dread. “Yeah.”

His finger pierced the tiny square of light. A video feed filled the frame. A ceiling-mounted camera pointed down from the ceiling of a messy bedroom, aimed at a queen sized Comforgel pad. She squinted at it, sensing something familiar about the horrendous shambles. Shadows moved across the sheets as a door opened, letting light from the hallway leak in. The walls caught dark azure light from outside, and then a pudgy balding man waddled forward dragging an unconscious nude girl with holographic filament wings. As soon as Anna saw them, she clung to the chair to keep from falling to her knees.

Blake, from Bristol City, was carrying the woman she used to be. He paused a step inside the door and gave her a light throttling, screaming about her costing them money all day long and shouting about her lying there like a turd.

“This is what happens to whores who can’t handle their junk,” Blake shouted.

He threw her face-first into the bed, the electronic wings fluttering along with her brief flight. Her body landed limp as a corpse, stopping with a dull splat upon the gelatinous surface.

Looking up at the camera, he adjusted it and whispered to the lens.

“And this is how you make up for the money you lost. Greetings my loyal followers! Tonight we have Pixie for your viewing pleasure. No, the useless bint ain’t dead. She be strung out to hell and back like usual.”

With that, he stripped and climbed on top of her. Anna stared in horror, unable to turn away from the rape of her unconscious body. Orange looked to the side, one hand up to his temple to block his peripheral vision of the screen. From the color of his face, it was obvious he had seen it already.

Blake rolled her onto her back to give the audience a front view and threw her legs apart to the side. The tattoo grinned at the camera. After a minute’s pause for the viewer’s benefit, he was on her again. Blake didn’t even stop when his motion began to knock vomit out of her throat with every thrust.

Anna turned away, shaking. “That’s enough… I don’t want to see any more. Where did you get that?”

“The club sells the videos. I find them here and there in concealed network nodes when I go hunting for data with trade value. Think I found that one in the archives of some investment firm in The City.”

As the lights began to flicker, she forced herself to think about Twee. If she let her emotion out right here, all of Orange’s stuff would fry, and he’d never help her. She knocked some of his things from a shelf while stumbling to the exit.

Her voice blurred through the urge to sob. “Can you delete it? I mean… all of them?”

A pained expression came before a noncommittal offer. “I can try to slap together a hunter construct to track down and wipe the file wherever it finds it, but it won’t be able to touch offline storage, and it could take years to get every copy. You know the ‘net. Once something’s out there…”

She bit her lip. “Please start it. I gotta go. I’ll call you when I get out to the site.”

he sky rumbled with the thunder of unseen lightning. Anna looked up into the reflection of the rage boiling beneath her sorrow. Rain approached, it would soon be no weather to drive a motorbike in. She stashed it in an alley behind Orange’s flat, covering it with enough junk to keep it safe at least for a few days in case she needed it again. Cold whistling gusts sent ripples through her white orb of hair. She stood motionless, a lone piling in the river of people. Intermittent voices, pleasant greetings as well as pick-up lines, churned into an endless din of shuffling feet and traffic.

A great burst of wind and water vapor swept down the street as a maglev tram whisked overhead. The row of silent metal boxes flowed around a sweeping curve, ascending a long ivory thread into the tenth story of a building. Anna observed the world happen as though the city existed without her in it, a detached spectator looking from afar.

She lowered her gaze, catching sight of an orb bot with a red umbrella peeking out from behind a massive beige and brown vendomat. It cringed behind the thousand-pound purveyor of synthetic Black & Tan. She continued to watch the spot until the autocab arrived.

As the car pulled away, the red umbrella appeared over the top of the vendomat, rising until the single lens eye came into view. Once it saw the car leave, it emerged and skimmed along the sidewalk above the crowd.

Her whisper fogged the window. “Damn bloody thing’s after me…”

For several blocks, the orb pursued. High enough not to hit or even be noticed by most pedestrians, it followed wherever the cab went.

Someone’s hacked it. “Autocab, please stop here for a moment.”

“Abort current trip?”

“No. I need some air.”

“Trip pause feature is an additional two credits. Do you accept?”

“Fine, whatever.”

The autocab came to rest along the edge of a circus in the shadow of an old statue. Other cars continued past as the AI in the taxi announced she had five minutes before it would assess another fee. The red umbrella zipped around the corner a few seconds later. She tracked it drifting, waiting and watching until it passed near a streetlamp.

Anna’s arms shuddered as she lifted her palms upward and focused on the lamp. A jolt of power leapt skyward from the exploding fixture, wrapping over the orb and continuing into the clouds. Surrounded by flickering lightning, the small bot emitted a high-pitched squeal of distress as the umbrella caught fire and it wobbled out of control. People on the ground held cases and coats over their heads to shield themselves from falling droplets of molten plastisteel; the concussion of the detonating lamp sent many diving for cover.

Its digital scream grew louder and the orb rocketed forward into a spiraling, flaming corkscrew that smashed into the road. A series of cars ran the fragments down, crushing the orb into progressively flatter and flatter bits. Anna glared at the smoldering junk in the street, watching the chaos no one connected back to her. She wondered if the little thing that showed concern for her had always been them watching her, or if the twinge of guilt at ‘murdering’ it was deserved. She slid back into the autocab, and pulled the hatch down.

“Whoever you are, I hope that hurt.”

Early in the afternoon, the main room of Bristol City stood quiet. It contained only Lawrence the bartender and shafts of dusty sunlight piercing cracks in the black-painted windows. The soft metal song of hanging cages creaking back and forth drifted through the air.

Lawrence wagged his head at her. “Oi, we ain’t open yet. Come back after two.”

Anna traced her fingertips across the round tables under each cage she passed, ignoring him.

He came around the edge of the bar. “Hey, you deaf? I said we’re not open yet.”

They met at the edge of a silver stage with three dancing poles. He got in her face, not yet ready to lay a hand on the small woman in the black coat.

“Sod off, Larry. I got business with Blake.”

“Pixie? Zat you?” He gasped, eyes roaming. “Crikey! You look so different… Oi wait a minnit, didn’t Sanjay give you the sack?”

Two lights exploded in the rafters. She knew he meant fired, but all she saw in her mind was Blake’s naked paunch.

Lawrence jumped away from the fall of glass and sparks. “Bloody ‘ell.”

“Like I said, I got business with Blake.”

He stared at the smoking electronics for a moment, raising his arm at her. “Look, Pix. You know as well as I do I can’t just let you walk in back. ‘Specially after you’ve been fired. Company policy and all, ex-employees might be up to no good.”

“Oh, I’m definitely up to no good.” She flicked her eyes toward him. “Did you ‘appen to know of Blake’s video library?”

“Video library?”

Anna relaxed when Lawrence’s surface thoughts gave away his true ignorance of what Blake did to his girls. “He’s got a holo-recorder rig in his bedroom. He…”

Lawrence slackened his aggressive posture at the sight of a tear on her face. He looked away, shaking his head. “I’ll beat that fucker to death myself.” He punched the bar.

Anna put a hand on his shoulder. “No, Larry. It’s not your fault. I was smacked out. Too far gone to scream. I didn’t even know it happened until…”

“If Old Bill asks, I never saw ya.” He touched her arm as she moved to walk away. “You sure you’ll be okay?”

“Aye. Safe as houses.”

The coldness in her voice made him take a step back. He returned to the bar, muttering, calling himself an idiot for not noticing what his boss did.

Double flap doors to the rear part of Bristol City opened without a noise at the urging of her hand. The air stank of desperation and sex, the grey carpet soaked in both. Crunching over flaked plaster, she stalked the corridor.

Those doorways reminded her of being dragged by a fistful of hair. A dislodged tile in the drop ceiling made her remember where she had stumbled and been encouraged along by his police baton. The water cooler she had fallen into still lay on the floor in the corner; no one had bothered to clean it up.

The women’s dressing room was open and empty. Blake had removed the door long before she had started there. The shower tubes, benches, and lockers sat idle; none of the girls would even be awake at this hour. Anna swallowed the nausea climbing the back of her throat, searching for the one thread of dignity Doctor Mardling had extended for her to grasp.

A shriek came from behind Blake’s door. The gold plate bearing his name brought back the feeling of him using her face to open it. She clasped the knob, trying to sort out if the female screams sounded like participant or victim. The creak of the door drowned below the sounds of sex happening behind it.

One of the new girls cried out in rhythmic squeaks with Blake’s motion. He held her by a black cord binding her wrists behind her back as well as a handful of candy-red hair. The girl’s surface thoughts did not contain the panic of an unwilling participant, though she prayed it ended sooner rather than later.

Anna glanced at the amber threads spreading across the walls, wherever power ran behind the cheap veneer. She found six cameras; their connecting lines all led back to one device concealed in the nightstand.

She flung her arms to the sides and the walls came alive with sparks creeping like great crackling azure spiders around the room. Wires flamed out of the fake wood panels, holo-cams burst into showers of orange flecks and debris, and the nightstand jumped back against the wall with a deep boom before black smoke belched through disjointed doors.

In the aftermath, the only light came from a single beam of sun sneaking through a gap in heavy crimson curtains. The woman screamed as the electrical arcs scuttled around, trying to get her hands loose.

Anna remained in the doorway, her voice cold and lifeless. “Still looking for that raise, Bree?”

Blake shimmied backwards off the bed, turning on her with an angry glower. “What the fuck are you doing here, bitch? Your strung-out ass ain’t wanted. You got exactly three seconds to get out of my face before―”

She did not move, or even look at him. “Before what, pig? You rape me again?”

Bree nodded her hair off her face. “Pixie? Is that you?”

“Get out of here, Bree. You don’t want to watch this.”

Blake pointed at the redhead. “Sit still, whore. We ain’t done yet.”

The sound of an explosion came through the ceiling as one of the air-handlers outside on the roof suffered for his words. Bree squirmed, staring at the stained drop ceiling above the bed.

“This is gone pear shaped, Mister Blake. I wanna leave. Somethin’ ain’t right. Cut me loose.”

He stared through the hazy smoke. The taste of scorched electronics settled on Anna’s tongue. She met his converging eyebrows without blinking.

“I saw the holovid, shitsack. I know what you did to me.”

“Holovid?” Bree grimaced as she fought harder to wring her wrists free. Arousal became mortification; she tried to cover herself with her leg. “You’re recording us?”

Anna glanced at the charcoal lines on the walls, her gaze settled on a scorched hole where one of the cameras had been. “Not anymore.”

The nineteen year old turned her back on him. “Mister Blake, please untie me.”

He palmed her head and shoved her face-first into the pillows. “I said we ain’t finished yet. After I deal with this hag, you’re gonna finish up.”

Blake snatched his police truncheon from the bureau. Bree tried to run when he leaned away, but he hauled her back onto the bed and brandished the weapon at her. The young woman lapsed into bawling. He whirled on Anna. When he raised the club over his head, lightning pooled around her shoulders, spiraling around her outstretched arm, and nailed him in the gut. He flew off his feet and landed on the bed, twitching and gurgling. Trapped under his girth, Bree screamed.

Anna stooped and picked up the baton. Glancing between the smoke wisping off the end and the undulating mass of flesh, she shook her head and threw it to the side.

“Compensating much?”

“Pixie, please don’t hurt me.” Bree thrashed trying to get out from under him. “Please, he said I had to sleep with him or they’d sack me.” She broke into uncontrollable sobs.

No wonder Blake had it in for me. I told him to go fuck himself.

“Bree?”

“Yes?” she sniffled.

Anna patted her on the head. “As soon as he’s off you, run and don’t look back. I’d appreciate it if you kept what’s happened here our little secret.”

The younger girl nodded. Blake shook his head in a search for coherence as his eyes refocused. When he saw Anna, he roared and rolled to his feet. She had little difficulty avoiding him. His clumsy lunge embraced the desk; ripples undulated through his pounderous buttocks and back. Stacks upon stacks of holodisks in small clear cases fell to the ground in a waterfall of porn.

Bree scrambled to her feet, running out of the room after bouncing off the doorjamb. Blake recovered, climbing the desk to get back to his feet. Memory chips and an errant holo-disk case adhered to his gut as he faced her. He heaved great breaths, staring as the stuff clinging to him unstuck and fell one at a time.

“You cost us―”

Another bolt of lightning launched the fat man against the wall; he bounced off the desk, bending it, and rolled to a halt on the rug with smoke peeling from his head.

“I’m not going to allow you to even attempt to justify what you did.”

Twitching hands clutched at the hair on his chest as he tried to move. Tiny sparks rippled along his face, arcing across the thread of drool between his lips. She jolted him again, causing a scream to bubble through thick fluid in his throat. He tried to say something but managed only a weak whimpering gasp.

“I’d considered torturing you until you begged for your life, but I’m a bit pressed for time.”

Lightning wound up her legs, threaded across her chest, and shot down both arms into Blake’s mountainous belly. She leaned into the effort, feeling fatigue crawl through her as she opened the floodgates of rage and sent it flowing out into the world. He clawed at the rug for only a second until his body flopped about in uncontrolled spasms. Self-generated power lent a metallic taste to the air, but was not enough to kill. She beckoned to the flow in the wall wiring, causing a great arc to burst through the paneling. It crackled over her twice, a great blinding whip. Anna pulled the electricity across her skin, forcing it down her arms and into the wretch before her in a long, sizzling discharge that melted a gash in his belly. Foam sprayed from his mouth, his eyes exploded, and the scent of burnt meat filled the air. A charred hole yawned from his chest.

When the flickering blue ended, Anna slumped against the doorway. One droplet of sweat fell off the tip of her nose.

“So, Blake? Was it good for you?”

he countryside flashed by in waves of green and brown. On a real road, among the sparse traffic of the hour, she had taken the bike up to a hundred and ten without even thinking about it. She weaved around a handful of autocabs ferrying commuters out of the city as well as the occasional lorry packed with hydroponics and armed guards. Few people in London owned personal cars anymore. Anyone with a NetMini could call a ride within minutes, even out in the middle of nowhere.

Anna dwelled on the image of fire licking at small round mirrors as it devoured the mound of holodisks. She had ignited the carpeting, destroying the recorded shame of countless damaged women. She did not much care if Larry was able to put it out before the whole club went up in flames; even if he did, it would look like the overburdened electrical system had finally called it quits.

Every so often, she glanced at the display between the handlebars, watching her location update on the NavMap. The spot Mr. Orange had located drew ever closer. Fifteen minutes after turning off the main road, the silhouette of a giant farm complex slipped out from behind a hill against the reddening sky.

The sun sent shimmering waves over the countryside as it sank into the horizon. She had so seldom been away from the decaying old city, the grass, trees, and fields glimmered like an alien landscape. When the magic wore off, she dismounted and leaned the bike against a tree.

The farm complex no longer served as such; rows of hundred meter long hydroponic tanks, stacked six high, sat idle. The robotic arms that used to tend them had not moved in at least a decade. Orange’s data said the CSB had appropriated this facility eight years ago, using it as a prison for criminals with too much augmentation for standard jail. The only lucky break was that they seemed to staff it with regular army. Only a handful knew it was a CSB installation.

Anna sat on the hillside; arms folded over her knees, she sulked. The House of Lords deemed forcible removal of cyberware unethical from individuals not officially declared insane or incompetent. They were so concerned about the rights of killers, but they would let the government put bombs in the heads of innocent psionics. Hardliners even advocated rounding them, and their families, up and shipping them off world.

No wonder her father hated her; she could have gotten him killed. Anna shivered, trying to stop seeing his face the moment she’d electrocuted him. He had thought her power a mere annoyance. “I’m sorry, Dad. I couldn’t stop myself.”

Her pity train screeched to a halt with the sound of Doctor Mardling’s voice. She imagined him chiding her for going down such a path, telling her a father should have shielded and protected his child from the government. No real father would have thrown her to the wolves, or punished her for her greatness.

She smiled through tears, trying to forget the awful video. Thoughts of James pushed themselves over her mind, filling her with a sense of contentment. Her father’s horrified face morphed into James’s, smiling and surrounded by a faint golden aura. The horror melted away from her heart as she became distant from that memory, from the kitchen full of smoke and the smell of scorched flesh. James’s smile broadened. She felt like a real person.

Shame crashed on her with the sound of Blake grunting. She fell to the ground as if his cheese-scented mass crushed her to the Comforgel pad. Anna mused about asking James to take that memory away from her. Her jaw tightened.

I don’t want him to see me like that.

Anna fought out from under the emotional burden, and clutched her wrist. Zoom would make the awful memory of that video go away. Seeing it from the outside would make it easy to think it was someone else, someone other than her. The Pixie was not her anymore; it could all be a nightmare.

No. She spat and swallowed the urge to throw up. I’ll not be any good to Faye or Penny if I get high again. That meant dealing with pain, not running from it any more. She covered her face in her hands, breathing until she calmed down. All she thought about was how terrified Faye must be. Everything wrong with my life can wait.

She took a tiny electronic bud from her pocket and snugged it into her ear. She winced at the insect-like sensation of the cold metal moving, adjusting its shape to fit without gaps. An electronic tingle spread over the side of her head with Mr. Orange’s voice as loud as if he stood inches away. It required no microphone, picking up the vibrations in her skull.

“Signal’s good, Pixie.”

“Call me Anna.”

“Nathan.”

“Hello, Nathan. Just sitting here until the sun goes down.”

His voice carried a smile. “Understood, Anna.”

While waiting for darkness, she observed a dozen men in grey uniforms and black-visored caps patrolling the outer perimeter. Most were on foot, but one had a six-wheeled rover bearing a mounted cannon. Aside from the men in military garb, the complex maintained an innocuous appearance that would cause anyone passing on the road to disregard it as yet another abandoned farm.

By the time the sun went behind the western horizon, she had gotten a fair sense of their pattern. Her jog down the hill slowed as she felt something in the air.

“I’m sensing a field at the outskirt.”

“One moment…” His voice sounded different; grim and deep, it carried a hint of a Japanese accent.

“What happened to your voice?”

He laughed. “I’m in the net now; it’s my avatar modulation. Does it bother you?”

“No. Caught me off guard is all.”

“It’s a trigger field for explosive restraints. I bet the auggies have bombs around their necks or put inside them.”

Anna advanced, chilled silent by the thought of it. Fifteen meters later, he told her to wait.

“Okay, that’s got it. Just nixed the thermal sweep on this sector and replaced most of their security monitoring with a four-second loop of empty space. Go in 3…2…now.”

She darted ahead, bounding through the grass down a long slope before she reached a metal fence.

Electrified, cute.

Anna leapt onto it without hesitation; her power guided the current across her skin without harm. By the time she leapt to the ground inside, the charge had made her feel as though she’d drank an entire pot of coffee.

After a short dash over open ground beyond the fence, she slipped among old hydroponic tanks. This close, they made her feel like a mouse. The stack reached a touch past forty feet tall, each individual row about seven. White metal glistened in the starlight, framing murky transparent plastic coated with ten years of neglect. Most large food producers used orbital farms now, where gravity and space were nonissues. Due to economy of scale, land-based farms had become almost extinct outside of the third world.

She jogged to the end of the row, leaning up against a tank while she waited for the patrol. Due to their spacing, her best bet would be to walk right past one. When the guards came around the corner of a red corrugated building, she latched onto their mental presence and forced their brains to ignore her.

Striding out into the open, she bee-lined for the nearest door. Two soldiers passed within an arm’s length, not even batting an eyelash. Anna ignored Orange’s frantic shouting until she arrived at a grey door.

“Relax, I got a few more tricks.”

“I… I don’t even wanna know how the hell you just did that.” His rapid exhale flooded her ear. “One sec, I’ll get the door.”

She squatted low, keeping her body in shadow as she looked at the code panel. The next pair of guards was due in about fifty seconds. Based on her count, these two would have a live dog. She had never tried telepathic invisibility on an animal before, and had no idea how to make it not smell her.

Come on, Orange.

A pleasant beep and a dull green light signaled the acceptance of the forged code from cyberspace. She ducked inside, closing it as the next patrol walked into view. The room looked like an old storage barn converted into a garage for military rovers.

Nathan’s voice in her head made her jump. “Cameras are off, go now.”

Anna ran through the dark toward a small light on the wall and another code panel. It beeped green a second before she reached it, and she went through into a sparkling metal hallway. The harsh change from dark garage to bright passage blinded her for a moment.

“Left,” he whispered.

Her run began as a drifting fall to the side, rubber soles squeaking across the gloss black floor.

“Duck behind the bulkhead, now.”

She did, squeezing herself into the wall in an effort to become part of it. The sound of voices went past in an offshoot corridor.

“Clear. Take the next right turn and go for the elevator.”

Two silver doors opened in the otherwise featureless grey wall, taking her into a large octagonal chamber with silver grating around a polished black center.

“Sublevel three.”

Her finger flicked at the controls and the room rumbled. A large elevator consisting of a foot-thick slab of plastisteel slid to the level of the floor from below. Four heavy protrusions jutted from three sides of the platform into reinforced grooves lined with gear tracks. It wasn’t hydraulic; the elevator crawled up six-inch deep teeth.

Bloody elevator could lift a tank… and probably as slow as the National Health Service.

“This is a right bit of overkill for a little kid. What the hell did I just walk into?”

Orange snickered. “Cyborg prison, remember? This is the only facility the CSB has complete oversight on. Anywhere else they tried to stash her, some other agency would have noticed. I’m surprised they slipped a little girl in here without anyone saying a word. I bet your friend Gordon is operating a small cadre within the CSB that isn’t exactly playing by the whole rulebook.”

“Probably not even one page.”

The great elevator crept downward. Anna came close to screaming out of impatience. When the doors opened, she edged into another corridor of silver, black, and white. A single row of lamps along the ceiling painted glare spots down the hall in both directions. Two guards walking away glanced at her, yelling and going for rifles at her lack of uniform. Anna raked her hands downward through the air, calling lightning from the overhead lights into them. Rapid-fire flashes connected thin threads of electricity to their skulls with a series of cracks. The woman passed out without a sound, the man managed a weak gurgling howl before he fell. Lacking the time or the strength to drag them anywhere, she secured them in a handcuffed hug before frying every bit of electronics on them. Communications, rifle firing circuit, and binders sizzled and smoked.

“Way to impose a time limit, girl. Next patrol will find them in a hair under four minutes.”

“Sorry. I could’ve just let them shoot me.”

Orange sighed. “Don’t argue with me, run.”

Every ten feet, an armored door stood emblazoned with a four-digit number.

“Crikey, Nathan. These doors would stop an airstrike.”

“Right turn. Go to the end and wait.”

She fought the urge to sprint, moving as fast as she could without creating too much noise. Heavy scrapes and moans came from some of the cells, making her jump. Something smashed into a door from inside; a grungy face appeared in the tiny strip of armored window. A man with a half-metal face howled at her and licked the glass. More whooping and screeching made the place feel like an asylum more than a prison.

Anna’s heart resumed beating. “This is what they call sane enough to keep cybernetics?”

“What’s that? Signal fell away there.”

“I’m okay, at the end of the hall.”

“To your left is a monitoring station with two guards. You’ll need to get through it and go straight; do not turn right at the node. I’d suggest not frying the systems counter. That will set off alarms, and might make it impossible to get the doors open.”

Peeking around the edge, she attached her thoughts to two minds. A slow but deliberate walk took her through an octagonal room with an arrangement of consoles at the center. A man and a woman in green military dress flicked idly among security cameras, sometimes looking in at cells from which a particular lot of noise emanated. They spent most of their time watching hallways.

“What the fuck is that?”

The man’s voice almost stopped Anna’s heart.

“What?” asked the woman.

“There’s a thermal anomaly floating down the hall…” He looked right at Anna. “Should be right there, but there’s nothing.

The woman jumped up, reaching. Her fingers came within an inch of Anna’s face as she leaned away.

“Doesn’t feel warm. Must be that dodgy sensor again. You fill out the IT request this time. I did it last night.”

Anna didn’t even breathe as she edged out of the chamber. She finally gasped for air forty meters down the subsequent hall.

“You have to show me how to do that.” His chuckle reverberated in her skull. “Would come in so handy.”

“You missed a thermal.”

“Sorry. I made it go away.”

“It’s a lot harder than it looks. Can’t run while concentrating. Which one is it?”

“Another ten meters, hook left here. There ya go, fourth door.”

Anna stopped at the indicated point and stood on her toes to peer through the strip of six-inch thick glass. Faye trembled in a ball on the bunk at the far end of a room big enough to park a van in, wearing an oversized yellow prison jumpsuit made for someone much taller. Bare feet poked out from under the loose pant legs, and she hid her face against her knees. Her eyes were red and she had thrown up several times on the floor.

“Sons of bitches. Orange, open this fucker.” Anna smacked the door.

The sound of metal clanging played background to his voice. “One second… one second…”

“What’s the racket?”

“A swordfight.”

“A what?” She blinked. “Did you just say a bloody swordfight?”

“Yep. Security construct found me. Doesn’t much like me being in here. Be just a moment.”

“You’re playing a bloody video game while I’m up to my tits in a military prison?”

“It’s…” He grunted, the sound of clashing blades clear in the background. “Not a game. Defense software.”

After a quick left-right glance, Anna stretched upwards once more. Faye stared at the window, clutching at the bedding with a terrified expression. As soon as she recognized Anna’s face, she shouted. Whatever she said came through the immense door as a weak murmur. Seconds later, muted banging and screaming echoed inside the cell. The only word clear enough to understand was “help!”

Anna clawed at the metal, finding the wait agonizing. After an intolerable seventeen seconds, the door rumbled with a heavy clank and rolled to the side. When the gap became wide enough, Faye squeezed through and wrapped her arms around Anna, trying to speak, breathe, and cry at the same time. She smelled like vomit and cheap food, and couldn’t get a word out between sobs and coughing. Anna held her, patting her back.

“We haven’t time… We have to go.”

“W-what d-did I do? They w-won’t tell me. H-how did you get in here?”

Anna squeezed the air out of her. “I’m so sorry they took you… It’s my fault. They wanted to use you to make me kill someone.”

“I want my Dad!” Faye bawled.

She propped the girl up, holding tight. “Be quiet. I’m going to bring you home, Faye.” Anna wiped tears from red cheeks. “I need you to be strong for me, okay? You can fall to pieces once we’re out of here. We have to run.”

Faye’s fear turned to petulant anger. “I can’t. I’m―”

Anna took her hand and pulled the girl behind her down the hallway. Three steps later, Faye stumbled and fell, hitting the ground with the squeak of skin on plastisteel. She got a hand over her mouth to mute the whimper of a banged knee, but when she tried to gather her legs underneath, it became obvious she was hobbled.

Aghast, Anna helped her up, pulling at the oversized jumpsuit to expose the glimmering silver links of a pair of metal binders connecting her ankles. Faye cringed, wearing a growing cloak of shame. Anna stooped and pulled the leggings further, revealing a high security electronic restraint. She cast a disbelieving glance upwards, pondering for a second. A healing bruise on Faye’s lip triggered understanding.

“How many did you hoof in the plums?”

The girl fidgeted her thumbs at the pockets, staring down. “Four.”

“Good for you. At least they’re powered. I can get them off, but it might pinch a bit.”

Anna put her hand on the shackle above the code-entry pad. Her mind mapped the threads of current within, looking for the contacts to operate the drive motor. The circuitry of these was more complex than the ones from Lord Thompson’s staff, but the hasp motor felt the same.

Faye yowled and leapt back, almost tripping over the short chain. “Ouch.”

“Shock or too tight now?”

“Shock… What the fuck did you―”

Covering Faye’s mouth with her other hand, Anna shook her head. “Quiet, sorry, and you’re too little for that word.”

When Faye didn’t come back with a smartass remark for being scolded on language, Anna worried.

She grabbed onto Anna’s shoulders, crying and trying to break the chain with kicks. “I wanna go home, I wanna go home!”

“Hold still!” Anna looked back and forth to make sure no one was coming, and focused again. A second gap in the circuit path proved more fruitful; when she zapped it, the motor revved and threw the hasp open. Faye jumped and flailed, trying to get her other foot away from Anna’s hand as two false zaps made her hair stand up. The girl fell, scooting backwards to get away from the painful electricity, but Anna held on to the loose end of the binders and pulled her close.

She concentrated, ignoring the tugging and whining. The third try worked. Faye gathered herself against the wall, shivering and sobbing. Anna held up the chains and made sure the girl saw them fry. Faye went to cling again, but Anna grabbed her about the wrist and took off at a run. The girl scrambled to stay upright, slipping and sliding on the floppy pant legs. Anna stopped at the corner, peering at the security station. Faye grabbed on from behind, crying into her back, trembling.

“Nathan, still with me?”

“Who’s Nathan?” Faye whispered, on tiptoe to peer over Anna’s shoulder.

“Yeppo, I’m still here.”

She patted the girl’s hand. “The trick I used to get past the sentries on the way in won’t work with a passenger. Got any suggestions?”

“Depends. Lethal or non?”

Anna furrowed her brow, thinking of what they did to Faye, but these two were just grunts doing their job. “Non-lethal if you can. She doesn’t need to see anything more.”

“Who’s Nat―”

Anna put a hand over Faye’s mouth and pointed at the earbud.

“Ten seconds,” said Nathan.

Whirring made them both look up as a circular aperture opened in the roof. An orb bot the size of a human head sank into the room and pivoted toward them. The girl made a pathetic squeak and Anna shoved her against the wall, raising a hand.

His voice vibrated through her skull. “Hang on, I’m the ball bot.”

“Little warning next time, I almost cooked it and Twee nearly bricked.”

Didn’t yell at me for calling her Twee. Oh, no.

Anna rubbed the girl’s back. “You’ll be safe, Faye. I promise. I’m sorry it took me so long to find you.”

The hovering robot zipped around the corner and went off down the hallway. Several seconds later, the sound of electrical arcing and gurgling followed. At the sound of bodies hitting the floor, Anna set off running with Faye in tow. Having shocked the sentries into unconsciousness, the orb spun about the octagonal room in a playful orbit.

Faye looked down at the twitching bodies. “Are they dead?”

“No, hon.”

Nathan cleared his throat in her ear. “You got a bit of a problem, luv.”

Anna made tight fists. “Feck, what now?”

“I think her suit has a chip in it somewhere, they’ve noticed one of the prisoners out of the cell. You got men on the move.”

Anna grabbed the lapel of the yellow prison jumpsuit; amber light glinted from of a network of metal threads.

“The whole bloody thing is an antenna…”

Faye stared up at her with terror in her eyes.

“You’ve got anything on under that?”

“The bastards stole my Dead Ballerinas shirt.” The girl went scarlet. “Just my smalls.”

“Shit. I’m not dragging her around here in her knickers.” She grasped Faye’s shoulders. “They’re gonna catch us if I don’t get rid of that transmitter. I don’t know how much power it’ll take. It might not be pleasant. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Faye shook her head. “I don’t wanna take it off. I trust you.”

“It might hurt.”

“Do it!” Faye rasped, trying to yell at a whisper. “They’re coming.”

Anna took two handfuls of the fabric, channeling electrical power at the smallest amount she could perceive. Faye’s hair shifted, rising to stand on end as the energy increased. Her toes whitened against the floor. She went stiff as a board and convulsed. Two sparks rode down her legs a second before a loud pop and smoke rose from the back of her neck where the suit caught fire. The stink of burning silicon and molten plastic made her choke.

“That’s got it,” said Orange. “Signal dropped.”

Frantic, Anna swatted at the flames while Faye collapsed into her whining, “Owowowowow.”

Anna hugged her. “Sorry.”

Faye fought back tears as she pointed. “Anna! Look ou―”

She turned as a soldier leapt from an opening door. He was on her before she could react, swinging her over and driving her chest into the floor. Stunned by the impact, Anna thrashed impotently as he grabbed a handful of hair and drove her face into the ground twice. She gasped for air; he gathered her arms behind her back and squatted on top of her with a knee between her shoulders.

A sudden fleshy thwap preceded a piteous squeal. The strength holding Anna’s arm down faded. He slid to the side, cradling his crotch while failing at his feeble effort to contain her.

“Five.” Faye folded her arms across her chest, backpedaling with a slight limp that favored her right foot, and shivering.

The soldier went for a stunner, glaring death at Faye. She backed into the wall, whimpering.

Anna took advantage of the distraction and jumped on him. He jammed the taser into her neck and squeezed. Blue sparks danced, crawling up and over Anna’s face.

Faye screamed, sobbing “No!” over and over. The child ventured a hesitant reach, but recoiled from the lights dancing about.

The stunner didn’t slow Anna down. She thrust her arm up, palming the man’s face. All the energy of the device, plus as much as her anger could draw from thin air, burned a handprint into his cheek. He fell in a heap.

Faye swallowed hard, glancing at the twitching body. “Is he dead?”

“No, hon.” Anna dragged herself to her feet and put an arm around Faye.

Boots echoed as a handful of soldiers approached from the right. Another opening in the ceiling released a stationary sentry gun, which pivoted in the direction of the security detail, firing a few shots before they came around.

Orange’s voice flooded Anna’s head again. “I got this… I’ll keep ‘em pinned down while you get on the lift.”

She ran her lungs aflame toward the elevator, which opened at their approach. Between tear-blurred eyes and floppy leggings, Faye relied on Anna to pull her along. Anna dragged her through the doors, diving to the side as two bullets bounced off the wall. Gunfire sent Faye into a shrieking ball on the floor, her screams echoing in the confined metal space even after the elevator closed.

Her face twisted with emotion, she squeezed Anna’s coat. “What now? We’re in an elevator. There’s gonna be a million guys waiting for us when it opens.”

Anna pulled her upright and held on. “I will get you out of here.”

Nathan chuckled. “I got it sorted. Got turrets here and there keeping them occupied. I created a phony tracking signal, so it looks like you’re on the other side of the facility. I’m also flooding their security cameras with awful movies.”

“Awful movies?” Anna shot a confused stare at her reflection in the silver door.

“Let’s just say you probably wouldn’t let that kid watch these.”

“What the bloody hell are you doing that for?”

The sounds of the turret gunfire grew faint as the elevator climbed.

“Increases the distraction effect. Some of the blokes might be more inclined to linger to watch a video of that sort rather than something goofy.”

Faye’s teeth chattered in time with her shivers. Anna wanted to take her mind off the situation at hand.

“That weasel of a neighbor of yours confessed. The filth took him away.”

“He what?” She looked up with blue lips. “Really?”

“A friend had a nice long chat with him and convinced him that what he did to you was wrong. He felt so bad, he confessed in front of the news with the Met watching. There’s nothing stopping you from going home.”

“Are Penny and the idiot okay?” Faye sniffled.

“Yeah, little bruised, but okay.”

Faye wiped her face. “Okay. I wanna go home.”

Anna smiled. “Were your parents always such weepy saps? Ugh, the way your dad blubbed, he couldn’t even speak.”

The girl’s attempt to laugh while crying produced a strange noise.

The elevator opened, letting in the sounds of roaring gunfire, shouting, and alarms. Anna rushed to the right. Twee followed, scrambling on too-long floppy pant legs that became traction-less socks. Sounds of war were at her heels, hounding them back the way she came, to the echoing garage.

Hopping in one of the transport vans was tempting, but she did not know how to drive anything with military-style controls. Besides, the vehicles were huge, slow, and obvious, facts that would make it simple for the CSB to locate them. Anna crept through the blue-indigo darkness, ignoring the hulking machines. She hoped a nationally broadcast return home would keep the girl safe from the CSB.

Anna slid against the wall next to the final door, with a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Faye, outside this door we have to run for about two hundred yards. I have a bike. Whatever happens to me, you keep running.”

“No.” Faye cried again. “I don’t want you to die.”

“If they kill me, they have no reason to hurt you anymore.”

Sniveling, she clamped on and shook her head. “Not gonna leave you.”

Anna nudged the door open far enough to peek. Orange must have killed the lights; outside, the air was so dark it felt solid.

“Perfect timing, Orange.”

She shoved the door open and slipped through.

“Eh? What?”

The door clanked closed behind her and beeped.

“With the outer lights,” whispered Anna.

“What outer lights?” He sounded worried. “Bugger all! Something’s happening to the connection.”

Anna’s heart stopped.

Brilliant light bathed the area, projected from four armored personnel carriers. A row of a dozen soldiers waited in the once-dark, rifles aimed. Faye’s arms encircled her from behind, squeezing tighter.

Anna held her hands up.

welve men stared at her. Twelve little red dots swarmed like bees at the center of her black coat. Eight rectangles of white light glared, searchlights mounted in pairs upon four armored six-wheeled vans. A cold breeze blew across the silence.

Anna squinted at them. She had endured the shame of being despised by her own father. She had been a faceless Cov kicked around by Old Bill. She’d let Plonk use her to score a fix, caring only for an easy way to flee her grey reality. She had abandoned her dignity, prancing naked in front of horny men while Blake treated her like a veritable slave. The thought of his doughy body sliding all over her filled her with such humiliation she no longer cared what happened to her. Out of all that, her only regret was how the innocent little girl clinging to her had suffered because of what she was.

“Twee?” Anna muttered, scarcely audible. “I need you to let go of me and take a big step backwards.”

Faye squirmed around front, putting herself between rifles and her friend.

“No,” she whined, the pathetic sound eerily loud.

“Twee? Do you want to go home?”

“Stop calling me that! Fuckers won’t shoot if I’m on top of you.”

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

Anna lowered her gaze to the ground, raising her hands higher and farther apart. “Then please do what I ask.”

Faye sobbed. The arms around her slackened, and Anna opened her mind. Tiny sparks leapt from one rifle to the next; ammo counters went dark, firing-circuits dead. None of them seemed to notice. They were all too on edge about the monster in front of them.

Faye. Get behind me this instant and keep your eyes shut!

The child jumped at the telepathic shout and dove against the wall behind Anna.

Glowing amber threads swarmed over the vehicles in Anna’s mind, connecting into a brilliant shimmering mass deep inside―the fusion core. A soldier lifted one boot as if to walk toward her surrender. He shook, pointing the useless rifle at her face.

Faye’s crying grew louder. “Please don’t hurt her!”

All of the troops shivered with fear on their faces. Surface thoughts told her they had seen the video of the Crossmen.

The soldier’s boot thundered to the pavement. Faye’s motion scuffed behind her as she curled tighter, knees to her face, a sniffle seemed as loud as a gunshot.

Anna spread her fingers, beckoning to the power within the armored trucks. The eight searchlights wavered and grew a touch brighter. Eleven pairs of eyes twitched at the change in the light. Half of them squeezed useless triggers at the flash. Anna’s mind pulled; another boot thumped against concrete, the rattle of the door echoed as Faye backed into it.

She called upon the monster.

Eight jagged streams of lightning flew from explosions of melting glass as the spotlights died, bouncing in great serpentine streams across the ground and up Anna’s legs. Men screamed. Rifles twitched, and fell abandoned. Hands reached for sidearms, but too slow. The electricity flooded into her body with a surge of adrenaline. Roaring with anger, she flung her arms forward and sent one scintillating arc through the horseshoe of men.

None of them lived long enough to scream.

Blood and body fluids boiled in seconds. Eyeballs burst, skin ignited, and several bodies split open. Random arc spiders crawled among the carnage, fizzling off into the ground as she redirected the unrestrained energy of the vehicles’ power sources through their bodies.

Several seconds of dark silence passed before the troop transports recovered from the severe drain and their headlights came back on. Far weaker than the dead mast lights, they hinted at a mangled pile of bodies dotted with patches of flame. The air drifted with the scent of cooked meat. Faye huddled against the wall, face buried.

“Anna?” The voice behind her sounded weak.

“Yes, Twee?”

“Are they dead?”

She kept silent for a moment. “Good chance of that, yes. Don’t look over there. I’m sorry. They were going to shoot us both.”

Anna stooped over her. The girl shivered out of control, terrified to look. Anna put a hand on Faye’s back, and braced for the painful feeling of going from beloved friend to terrifying monster. The child had been spared the sight of it, but who knew what kind of scars the sounds could leave.

“Do you think I’m a monster?”

Faye swiped at her hands and held on, keeping her eyes closed as she burrowed into Anna’s hug, sniveling, “I think that was fucking brilliant.”

“Come on then.” Anna pulled the girl standing. “And stop swearing.”

Faye blurted a laugh.

Anna kept an arm over her, shifting to put her body between Faye and the carnage. Distant alarms rang out as they ran for the fence.

An hour later, Anna pulled over within eyesight of London, guiding the motorbike to a halt in a small copse of trees. She stumbled away and collapsed to her knees, dry heaving. Faye ran up and rubbed her back.

“Are you sick?”

“I… didn’t want to kill them.”

Faye squinted into the night breeze. “They were going to kill us.”

Anna took out the NetMini and stared at it. If she turned it on, they would find her. “Nathan?”

Silence.

“Did Bell really confess?” Faye sat next to her, tugging at the yellow fabric to shield her feet from the cold.

“Yes. He even turned over a recording he took. No way to worm out of it.”

Faye lurched to the side, her turn to dry heave. Anna held her until the coughing subsided. She raced through panic, shame, and anger and burst into tears.

“I want to die.”

“No.” Anna shook her. “No, you don’t. I know exactly how you feel… Same thing happened to me.” She shared a toned-down story of what Blake had done to her. “Only the police saw yours. He’ll get what’s coming. Don’t let that bastard beat you. Don’t give in to shame.”

“Like you did?”

Anna pulled her tight, patting her on the back. “Yeah… Like I did.”

“Anna?” Orange’s voice crackled over the earbud.

“Nathan!”

“What the hell happened? They cut me off; I didn’t see you get away.”

“I think the soldiers were a bit shocked as well.”

“That’s not at all funny,” he muttered.

“Can you scrub a NetMini? They’re going to be watching for this one. I need to buy Faye some new clobber. Can’t take her into London dressed like this. Old Bill will be all over her.”

“I’m not changing clothes out here in the woods!” Faye’s yelp dropped to a whisper towards the end.

“Lose the NetMini. You’d have to turn it on for me to get it, and they’ll see that. I’ll send something out to you based on our comm signal. Sit tight.”

“Oh, Nathan? Can you do me one additional tiny favor?”

London streets streaked past in various degrees of grey. Anna sank into a fog, oblivious to all but the feeling of shame that crept in behind her receding adrenaline. Whenever the road became dark, all she could see was the Pixie and Mr. Blake. The thought of it made her sick for the rest of the ride.

She parked at the end of the street, glancing at a crowd of news bots hovering in front of Faye’s building. The parents stood on the porch, squinting into the lights. Constables and other people in white uniforms walked in and out of Bell’s home. Too far away to hear, she could judge by his motions that Faye’s father was befuddled at their presence.

“Anna?”

“Yeah?”

“Am I safe?”

They walked, holding hands.

“See all those news bots? The whole of the country’s about to see you come home. They wouldn’t dare go after London’s little darling. They’ll leave you alone.” Anna lost control of a tear or four. “You’re not a monster.”

Faye stopped and gave her a flat look. “I’m not afraid of you. I don’t think you’re a monster. I won’t tell anyone how you saved me, only that you cared enough to do it.”

Self-pity had already formed quite a large lump in the back of her throat, and Faye’s words made it swell. Anna prodded her up to the gate, coaxed along by fingertips in her back.

“Mister Taylor, is it true your daughter was secreted away by the government?” yelled a reporter.

A dark haired woman leaned closer. “Mister Taylor, our sources tell us she was taken as part of some manner of governmental conspiracy against the House of Lords? Do you have anything to say?”

He flailed, waving at them to go away. “I have no idea what the devil you’re going on about. My girl ran away because I was too stupid to believe her.”

Faye pulled at her hand. “Come in and see my mum and pa…”

Anna couldn’t talk. The squeak of the gate made one reporter turn and point, then lights bathed them as a mass of bots whirled around. When Anna saw the look on the face of Faye’s dad, she had to stare at the ground to mask her jealousy. Her father never once looked happy to see her. The man shoved reporters out of the way as he cleared a path to his child and scooped her off the ground into a spiraling hug. Anna’s dad would never have lifted a finger. He would have been happy she’d vanished. Anna felt smaller and smaller as he sobbed all over Faye.

More like an outsider―more like a monster.

Faye’s mother’s joyous wailing pierced the din, raking down Anna’s back in a way that pushed her away at the same time it warmed her heart. Following the lost daughter, the ocean of bright light moved back to the porch, leaving Anna in the dark.

A hornet’s nest of bots, reporters, and two frantic parents roiled on the porch. Anna stood, still as a statue amid a flock of pigeons while a number of constables ran past her and joined the fray. Present and absent at the same time, she felt like a bystander to reality. Faye’s overwhelming happiness shooed her envy off to the side.

A constable’s voice swam through the blur of stalled time, bringing her into the present once more. “Lord Thompson sends ‘is regards.”

She swallowed hard, and waited for the hand on her arm. “It got a bit out of hand.”

“Gordon’s gone rogue. He’s been officially disavowed. Agent Hughes went with him.”

Anna looked over at a middle-aged man in a constable’s uniform; he seemed too athletic for it. “You’re Bureau aren’t you?”

He refused to make eye contact. Hands folded behind his back, he smirked. The hard lines on his face gave her the answer.

“I don’t care anymore. You can do what you want to me. Can we not make a scene in front of her?”

Glancing at the buildings off to the left, he muttered a smidge above a whisper. “Lord Thompson wants to return your favor. We’ll be watching, but as long as you behave yourself, there won’t be trouble.”

Her fingers teased at the soft skin behind her ear. The thought of a bomb inside her brought chills. “I don’t know Agent Hughes. I imagine they’ll be after me.”

A nod, and he squinted down the street to the left. “That is our conclusion as well. Of course, you’ll understand that we cannot offer direct assistance yet.”

“Hughes was that telepath.”

“Correct.” He made it a point to look past her.

The streetlamp above them flickered. “Why not just pop him?”

“Gordon’s removed the man’s code from the system. We can’t arm the bomb. That, and Thompson’s floored a motion to reevaluate that program.”

Her arms fell slack. “I’m sorry.”

His lip hardened. “Some of the soldiers you killed had families.”

“They were going to shoot Faye too.”

At last, he looked right at her. “I respect Lord Thompson’s request, but if it were up to me, you’re too dangerous to be off a leash.”

“Am I much worse than a nutter with a rifle? I can’t muck up people’s brains. It’s secrets they’re afraid of.” She scowled. “If you beat a dog enough, it bites. I’m what you people made me.”

“The Taylor girl will not be bothered. Watch your step, Miss Morgan.” He moved forward into the crowd, once more a mere constable.

She took three paces into the night before Faye shouted her name. The girl struggled to break away from her parents’ arms to come after her. Anna paused, summoning a flimsy smile.

Enjoy your home, Faye. It’s much too dangerous for me to be here right now. I’ll vid you as soon as it’s safe.

Color drained from the girl’s face at the telepathic voice. Her surface thoughts floated through a moment of confusion and fear before she realized what had happened. She did not want Anna to disappear; she wanted her friend to remain in her life. A few drops of rain fell, spattering into the pavement and chasing the crowd inside. The windows glowed from inside as news bots swarmed the door, candles placed inside a giant jack-o-lantern.

You need your parents now, Faye.

Faye shouted, “Please come in, just for a bit. My mum and dad want to thank you proper.”

Anna knew if she looked at the tear-streaked face, she could not say no. She couldn’t bear to be inside a real home. Every breath of air in that place would be a stifling reminder of how her life was a pale shadow of what it could have been.

“Anna! Please!” yelled Faye.

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.

“What are you trying to say?”

“What’s wrong with everyone, Pen? Why does everyone hate me?”

“Well you did kill a dozen men.”

She froze as if slapped. “How do you―”

“A short while after that man came about a job, some other bloke showed up. Said he worked for Carroll. He told us you’d gone off the deep end at some facility.”

“Pen, they took Faye!”

“Who?”

“Twee.” Anna shook Penny by the shoulders. “They kidnapped her, beat you and Spawny half to death and left you cinched up on the floor?”

“I…” Penny sank into the chair. “What?”

“Don’t be afraid of me.” Anna sobbed. “Blake… he…”

“Oh, Anna. Always crying.” Penny hugged her. “I’ll look after you, sprog.”

Anna lifted her head, her tears stopped cold. That was exactly what Penny said the night they decided to stay together.

“What?” She stood. “You’re shaking and covered in sweat. You… You think I’m going to hurt you?”

Penny looked up, eyes struggling to focus. “No. Anna, it might be better for everyone if you didn’t stay at Coventry.”

Startled shouts and explosions echoed from two floors up and two floors down. Anna let Penny go, walking backwards two steps.

“Penny… I thought you were my… sister.” The last word came as a defeated whisper. Anna spun on her heel and flew out into the hallway, blinded by betrayal and sadness.

Penny glanced at the bed. “I was gettin’ a new flat in town, was gonna invite ‘er to join us there.”

Spawny gave her a look as though she had suggested inviting the Devil to live with them. “Are you nutters?”

“I…” Penny touched her head. “That other man that came looking for Anna… He… I felt so strange when he looked at me.”

Anna half ran, half fell down the stairs until she was outside. An unfamiliar chime came out of her pocket; it took her a few seconds to realize she had an incoming call. Mr. Orange’s head appeared in hologram and stared at her unblinking. He seemed pale, robotic.

“Is this a bad time?”

She closed her eyes and looked away, her voice shaky but cold. “What?”

“I found something else you might want to see.”

She imagined her naked breasts bouncing through the air, Blake sweaty and grunting. Her body collapsed over the bike, propped up with her elbows on the seat. “Who’s screwing me this time?”

“The government, I’d say.” Orange’s facial expression didn’t change. His voice sounded rote and monotone. “That man you killed wasn’t your real father. He worked for the CSB.”

Thunder returned, and down came the rain―full and heavy.

rails of water ran along the clear plastic. Little hands poked out of them waving at her. The droplets cheered as they fell into the swirl around the drain. Anna slumped on the floor of the autoshower, having scrubbed herself raw wherever she imagined Blake touched her. She had tried to tell Penny. She had needed to tell Penny. She couldn’t tell anyone else what Blake did to her. Why, out of all the times did that bother her so much? Was being unconscious so different from held down by the authority of a constable?

I could always have stopped them if I wanted to… Blake left me no choice. He…

Her reflection mocked her, moving while she sat still. Pale breasts blotched pink from furious washing, they sprouted mouths and wailed at her for hurting them.

Anna’s head sagged forward as the machine started again. Pelted with hot water and soap, she tried to wash the filth out from inside her. The bathroom beyond the tube shimmered into a chaos of flashing lights and horny men cheering at her for touching herself. The autoshower, the dancing cage, had trapped her again. She cowered, trying to shield herself from their eyes, looking for a spot to hide in a room with clear walls.

Fingernails raked over her breast, drawing blood and breaking her free of the illusion of the club. She screamed at the self-inflicted pain and broke into sobs. Blood swirled in the water over her toes, leaping out into sanguine garter snakes that hissed and dove into the drain. She stared at her bloody hand as if it belonged to someone else, laughing as the trails of red outlined the zoom patch on her wrist.

Sharp burning pain pulled her away from the hallucinations, leaving her thoughts dull and muted. The trip had come on as hard and vivid as her first time. Doctor Heath was right; her brain didn’t know what to do with it anymore. As the rinse started for the fourteenth time, she clutched her knees to her chest and peered with a zombie’s eyes at the dead face mocking her from the glass.

Plonk coalesced through the darkness, his junk dangled over her reflected forehead. “You awright? What was that scream?”

Her skull wobbled upon numbed muscles. She looked at him; naked and shameless outside the shower, he made impatient gestures toward the door.

“Come on, girl. You’ve been in there for hours.”

Clinging like a lamprey, the suckling zoom patch reminded her of making a deal. Flashes of memory came and went; Orange’s news about the man she thought was her father had been the last straw to shatter everything. All that guilt, for nothing. So desperate to get away from shame and sadness, she had agreed to bed Plonk for a zoomer. Her account was empty and someone had pinched the credstick from her flat. A feeble grasp at the handrail pulled her into a kneeling posture, and she found the door release. She crawled into the cold air over tiles that felt like jellies until her shoulder stopped against his knee. He tapped a pair of furry handcuffs against her head.

“Wanna use the darbies?”

She murmured something unintelligible, not caring how he used her. The strength left her arms, sending her into the frigid full-body embrace of the bathroom floor.

When her senses returned to rights, she found herself face down on a warm Comforgel slab. Fire lapped at her left breast, but when she tried to cradle the burning, she found her arms locked behind her and a faux leather and chain leash tethering her by the neck to the headboard. Squirming onto her side, she moaned through clenched teeth as the sticky claw marks on her breast peeled away from the sheet. She cringed, grunting in a brief fight with the restraints. Unable to cradle the hurt, she blew on the damaged skin.

“Plonk? Lemme outta these fuckers.” Ow, son of a bitch. “I’m rather not in the mood. I’m about to blow chunder all over your bed.”

His reply floated down the hall. “One sec luv. Doorbell, prob’ly a client.”

Anna squinted at the doorway, curling fetal from pain. “Did we shag yet?”

Footsteps thudded farther away. “Oh, now who’s in a hurry miss four-hours in the bloody tube.” His voice rose to a yell. “No. You passed out straightaway. Awright, awright, keep your bloody knickers on, I’m coming!”

Electronic chirps preceded the sound of a door hissing open. Anna rolled onto her back, biting her lower lip as she tried to wriggle her wrist loose. Plonk murmured in the other room, his voice interwoven with that of another man he did not appear to know. Anna stared into the simmering grey ceiling, swishing her feet about and cursing him for using the cuffs. She liked the escape of feeling vulnerable and protected; at that moment, she hated herself for it. The more she thought about James finding her here, like this, the more she wanted to crawl into a deep, dark place and never come out.

Her eyes shot open at the thought of Agent Gordon.

She went to leap out of bed, jerked to a halt by the sex-shop leash. She fell flat, gagging from the crushing tightness around her neck. In her mind, it morphed into a choking tentacle. Several painful meetings between her legs and furniture knocked the room asunder as she screamed and thrashed at the restraints. In her zeal to pull away from the bed, she almost strangled herself. Zoom painted black phantoms in the window, evil hybrids of CSB aircraft, and something from the seventh plane of Hell. Black, segmented tentacles whipped and clattered at the glass. Insectoid hissing rattled through her brain. The leash changed shape; the drug made it look like the creature outside had her by the neck. She howled and strained, bracing a foot against the wall. As powerful as the drug was, she believed the hallucination choked her didn’t breathe. Desperate fear for her life caused her to shove with both legs against the wall. The imitation leather hand-loop at the end of the dog chain broke, sending her flying face first into the nightstand.

Her skull bounced off the cheap furniture on the way to the floor. Her panicked screams paused long enough to shout.

“They’re coming! Plonk! Help! Let me outta these!”

Anna rolled around, trying to avoid the serpentine beams of red laser light sweeping the room from the creatures outside. The dangling chain at her neck seemed to be an enormous millipede trying to bite her on the throat, a creature she could not escape. Neon cobra-heads with glowing ruby eyes hissed at her as they wavered about. She fell once more into Plonk’s desk, sliding to the ground in a waterfall of drug paraphernalia, condom boxes, and holodisks. She rolled onto her back, scrambling and screaming as she tried to find her way standing.

Wild with panic, she ran down the hall to the main room. On the way, she tripped over boxes of old useless electronics, stacked junk, and empty synthbeer cans. Tiny VTOL craft melted through the window, becoming cat-sized wasps chasing her into the front room. She ran for the fire exit and the safety of a straight slide to the ground level. The little planes whizzed after her, backing her into the plastisteel door. She struggled to raise her hands high enough behind her to get a grip on the handle. Two fingers touched it when she froze, back against the cold metal, at the realization of whom she saw in the hallway.

Doctor Mardling had found her.

His stunned visage slapped the words right from her mouth and made the creatures disintegrate. The sight of her naked, handcuffed, leashed, bruises all over her legs, beaten bloody about the face and with trickles of crimson streaked dark against her pale breast discolored his face with rage as he glared at Plonk.

Mardling’s voice leaked cold, sinister. “You heard the lady; take them off of her this instant.”

Anna let go of the handle. Her wet skin squeaked over the door as her body sank to the floor. After landing on her ass, she tried to hide her nakedness behind her legs. She wrung her hands about, searching for the derm, wanting to get rid of it before James saw it. It was too late. She read his look: anger mixed with pity. He had seen it in her eyes, how high she was.

“Who the hell do you think you are givin’ me orders? It’s not what you think, mate. She likes it. Turns ‘er right on. Had ‘er spread eagled and―”

Plonk rose into the air, rocketed across the room and hit the wall upside down. Fragments of shelf and plaster dust burst out of the impact point, creating a white cloud in midair. He tried to shout, but something crushed his chest to the point he could not breathe.

“How about I do to your nose what you did to hers?”

Plonk separated from the wall for a second, flipped over so he faced it, and drilled once more into it.

“This is where you learn the discrete difference between an order and a request, you scratter.” Mardling’s words came slow and deliberate. “Code, now.”

“They’re not municipal… Sex toy,” rasped Plonk. “Keys…”

“Well then,” James’s eyebrows flared, the invisible force crushed the dealer into the wall harder for an instant; more lumps of plaster fell. “Get the bloody key.”

With a contemptuous sneer, Mardling turned away and let him fall. Plonk dragged himself along the floor to the bedroom, crimson-faced and gasping for air. Anna cowered as James approached, unable to look at him or cover herself. James took a knee in front of her, gently unbuckling the leather collar. She wanted to curl up and die as it peeled away from the line of bruise her panic had crushed into her throat. James must have been looking at her thoughts, as his angry scowl at Plonk faded to concern. He caressed her cheek for a moment, and stood, tracing his fingers away.

He looked shy of toward her, leaving his hand outstretched. “Come on then.”

“James!” she yelled, cowering into the wall.

Plonk, still in his robe, had emerged from the back with a combat rifle pointed at them. The shot made Anna scream and close her eyes. Plonk’s shuddering gasp made her look. One bullet hovered at a slow spin in midair, a few feet away from James. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his head, a sign of exertion and perhaps a touch of fear. If he had been scared, his expression showed no sign of it.

Anna snarled, pointing her toes at Plonk. The lightning wasn’t listening; the zoom was too loud. “Plonk, you tosser!”

“Christ on a rubber crutch,” whispered Plonk.

Before he could gather his wits and fire another shot, the rifle flipped over in his grip and caught him across the forehead. Plonk went down, cradling his head in his arms as the weapon danced around and battered him.

“Okay! Okay!” He flailed. “You win.”

The rifle careened into the kitchen, falling into the sink among a rain of shattered tiles. Anna shivered against the wall, trying to scoot away from the single bullet smoking upon the carpet. The rug caught fire in a thin stream that raced at her. She screamed until James stepped in front of her, dispelling the hallucination.

Plonk crawled into the bedroom.

He helped her up, and she leaned into the soft warmth of tweed, coarse against her chest. He kissed her with gentle care upon the forehead. She rattled the cuffs, yearning to embrace him.

“I’m sorry, James. I… I’m such an idiot. Your buttons are talking to me.”

He traced a finger over the scratch marks. “What’s this?”

“Bad trip. I needed the pain to snap out of it.”

“Look at me.”

“I can’t.”

“Anna.” He sounded like an annoyed father.

She ventured a reluctant glance into the deep chocolate of his eyes, shivering from shame and cold. She wanted to cover herself, to hide this disgrace, to grab him and hold on so he could lift her out of this pit. Images slid to the forefront of her mind as he searched for what sent her over the edge. Bile rose into her throat at everything replaying itself: the video, Penny telling her to leave, the alley attack, and the message from Orange.

James closed his eyes in a pained grimace.

She pressed herself against him in an armless hug when the mental link ended. He removed his coat and wrapped it around her. His hand caressed her hair as he leaned past her to shout.

“Where’s that bloody key, you twit?”

Amid the sound of heavy things knocking about, Plonk shouted. “Lost guv’na. She must’a kicked it behind the bed when she lost her goddamned mind. You’d think she’d never been leashed to a bed before.”

“Mind your tone, cretin.”

Anna shot a fearful glance at the window, straining against the furry cuffs. “James, the CSB is still hunting me. A rogue agent named Gordon, if he gets me like this I’m―”

She stopped in mid word as he guided her to a seat on the couch and took a knee in front of her.

“Do not worry about that twat Gordon. He will regret the day he tangled with me.” James brushed a tear away with his thumb. “You were doing so well, Anna, it pains me to see you have run back to the chemicals. I do think the normal recovery process is going to take a bit more time than we have been allotted given recent developments. I cannot let you do this to yourself again.”

“I was doing well. I just… It was too much to handle.” She looked down. “They all hate me now. Ol’ Jack, Spawny… Penny…”

He smiled, as he propped her chin up. “Wanted you to move in with her at her new flat, she said leave Coventry, not leave her.”

“How do you know that?” She squirmed, wishing he would stop staring at her.

James smiled. “It did take me a bit of asking around to find you.”

Anna hung her head. The zoom scar on her arm burned with regret.

“Pity, I thought finding out that man you killed was not really your father would have made it easier on you.” James growled at the tardiness of Plonk.

“That made it worse, James.” She sniveled. “I’ve had so much guilt for so long. Finding out it was all bullshit…”

“But…” He lifted her chin. “Your own family did not turn against you. No real father could hate his own child. You might still have family out there, somewhere.”

Her mind raced. “I… never thought about it that way.”

Something crashed in the back.

James looked up again, yelling, “Will you hurry up, man?”

“You stopped a bloody bullet in mid-air. Can’t you break them off me?” Anna shifted and held her arms up.

“I could, but I would rather not break your arms or tear your hands off.” He flashed a cheesy grin.

She trembled. “I need to see Penny.”

“Alas, that is not a particularly good idea right now. For her sake, you should keep some distance for a while. At least until Gordon and any allies of his are no longer in the equation. Now, there is still the matter of your mental addiction. I will not let you turn to that little patch every time you need help.”

“I’m sorry.” She squirmed.

“Found it.” Plonk shouted from the back with a singsong tone.

He held her face in both hands, forcing her to make eye contact. “Do not be sorry, Anna. Be rid of it. I will help you.”

“Okay.” She let him stare into her eyes. “Why didn’t you do this before?”

He leaned in and kissed her on the top of the head. “Because, Anna. If you overcame it on your own, it is rather unlikely you would go back to it. This…” James gave her a sad look. “This could come undone and leave you craving it hard, beyond rational thought. For the time being, it will have to do. Once we get to the Colony, we can go back to a more natural cure. Although, given the medical detox, it is possible one dose will not have done so much damage.”

It did not matter she was as vulnerable and helpless, both mentally and physically, as she had ever been. With him there, she felt as safe as Faye in her parents’ house.

“I trust you, James.”

She surrendered to the eyes that pierced her mind. His face shimmered, lit by a faint aura as he held her. Adoration shone upon his face; she offered no resistance to his telepathy.

An angel, sent to carry me out of this dreadful place.

Scrap by painful scrap, her recollections of being high tore away from the canvas of her memory and spiraled into oblivion. Some scenes wound backwards as they were undone, others simply never existed. The zoom was gone; it could not comfort her any longer.

James would protect her.

The sensation of floating ended when he lifted her to her feet and the cold air embraced her as the coat fell off. The change in altitude churned her stomach, causing her to gasp in an effort to hold back the urge to vomit. He steadied her while Plonk unlocked the restraints. Once she was free, she threw her arms around him.

James stared death at Plonk. “Bugger off. Go teach yourself to fly or something.”

She convulsed in his embrace. The disconnect between what her brain thought and the state of her body brought cold sweat, trembling, and the need to retch.

Doctor Mardling held on with one arm while he collected his coat. “So good of Lauren to remind me to bring these.”

Anna held on to him, eyes closed, as he rifled through the pockets. She stood up on her toes as a mass of coolness spread through her from the autoinjector pressed into her back. While the scratches faded into the milky white of her chest, he pressed a second one into her leg. This one had a blue shell and didn’t feel like ice water under her skin. Thirty seconds later, the sweat stopped, the nausea departed, and the trembles came to an end.

He knew to bring an anti-pak for zoom; am I that predictable?

Plonk shambled off through the hallway, leaving them alone in the apartment. Anna looked down at her nakedness, a stark white shape against the dark grey rug. She blushed ever so faintly and flashed a mischievous smile.

“James, we really must stop meeting like this.” She leaned up and kissed him.

Aside from the pleased smile that followed, he didn’t move. “You are lovely, Anna, but this is neither the time nor the place. I told you already, you do not need to trade anything for my help.”

“But what if I want to?”

Her thumb traced over the spot on her wrist where the derm had been. There was no red mark. She remembered using a drug derm, but no matter how long she stared into space, could not remember what it felt like to be high. After a plaintive glance, she leaned in close and set her cheek against his chest, staring out the window.

“I wanted to dull my mind. It does what it wants when I get excited. I had to hide, they would have found me.”

Patting her back, he leaned his head against hers. “All of that is behind you now Anna. No more hiding from who you are. No more shame.”

She squeezed him.

James stepped back, leaving his hands on her shoulders. “You will need to use the loo once the shot has collected the trash from your system. Go have a seat and wait for it. Get cleaned up and your kit on, and let us be off. We have much to discuss.”

“James? Where’s Plonk going?”

“How should I know? I would imagine he is on his way to the roof to conduct a practical experiment in applied gravitational attraction.”

“Is that really necessary?”

He scoffed. “After the way he treated you?”

“James.” She put a hand on her chest. “I did it all to myself. Thank you for showing me that. Please, don’t kill him. In some odd way, he’s almost like a friend.”

Fullness spread through her nether regions. She let out an “eep!” and ran for the bathroom. When the most disturbingly uncomfortable event of her life finished, she sat there out of breath.

“Flush.”

The machine obeyed. She had no desire to open her eyes and see what nanobot-purged zoom looked like. Smelling it was horror enough. Too drained to move, she slumped with her elbows on her knees. Not my real father. Scenes of his cruelty flashed through her mind: yelling at first, followed by a tearful apology and hugs. When things continued breaking and she got older, yelling became spanking, then belting, then beating with a closed fist. The apologies faded to fear; he couldn’t stand being in the same room with her. Always, though, he had lingering sadness in his eyes.

That was a total stranger? Anna rubbed her hands over her head and through her hair. Why would he keep me around? Why didn’t he just ditch me in the street or murder me? Legs numb from the toilet seat, she got up and stretched. Was he some CSB agent forced to watch me?

Anna mused over her past as she cleaned up and dressed. She felt bad for the man, but the guilt seemed distant now. Far away as if it had been a bad dream. Each time she reached for it to wallow in self-pity, she saw Faye smiling at her for saving her life.

Head held high, she emerged from the bathroom. Plonk sat on the couch, staring vacant at sportscaster commentary on a Frictionless match about to start.

“Oh, it’s Man-U vs. Arsenal. Can we stay a bit? Arsenal’s magic bastard Pryce is sidelined with an injury, we’re going to smash them.”

Anna’s run for the couch stalled on James’s Arm. “Catch it on the portable, Anna. We do not have the time.”

She flashed an insincere pout, and walked with him to the car. He held the door for her, closing it with a gentle touch once she had gathered her coat.

A musical jingle from her coat pocket broke the silence, becoming louder when she took it out and swiped at it. The face of Mr. Orange appeared with a trace of a smile.

“Pixie… I have some good news. Got about two dozen hunter-killers scouring the GlobeNet for that vid.”

“Um, all right. Thank you Nathan.” Anna cocked an eyebrow as he nodded and hung up, and then looked to her right. “Do you remember me asking him to fetch me a holo?”

Doctor Mardling’s index finger traced up and down over his smirk. “It escapes me. Probably nothing of consequence. I believe you may have asked him to destroy the security footage of you killing that Blake fellow.”

“Oh.” She scowled. “That grotty bastard. He deserved it for leaving me locked in that bloody cage overnight.”

“Yes… Indeed he did.”

old is an inadequate word for the floor Anna encountered the next morning in the cramped bedroom of a small house in the woods, South Snowdonia in County Gwynedd. Frigid approached the issue with more accuracy, though frozen was the closest.

“Gah! That’s fecking―”

The next word took the form of a shrieking leap back into the bed and a frantic scramble for something to put on her feet. She tried to rub feeling back into her toes through three layers of socks.

This place had no electrical connections, only a portable fubox thrumming on the back porch. A handful of lamps were, at the moment, all it had been connected to. The beautiful stone-paved floor was unfit to be trod upon barefoot this early in the morning.

Anna shuffled into the main room in an oversized shirt, panties, and boots. She went over to the pile of supplies James ordered and dragged a heater unit to the center of the room near three finger-thick cables entering under the back door. The wires glimmered with amber light, full of electricity. The interior of the vented black mechanism took on a deep orange glow as a bladeless fan got warm air moving.

She knelt in the stream of heat until the numbness left her bare legs. Still shivering, she fetched the food assembler from the stack of metal boxes. With a grunt, she managed to heft the ponderous machine, wobbled with it for two steps before she dropped it on the table, and slumped over it to catch her breath. The old wooden furniture creaked and slid several inches from the force of the device landing on it, but did not break.

The reassembler, made for camping, operated via internal power with an e-mag like an energy weapon. After some digging through the pile of stuff at the far side of the room, she found the OmniSoy tank and twisted it into place.

She set an empty plate inside the machine, dialed up some breakfast, and took a seat that made her squeal at the touch of cold wood. Clasping her hands over her mouth, she blew hot hair through her fingers while she waited.

At the center of the reassembler, a cloud of robotic arms the size of chopsticks came to life. Droplets of beige OmniSoy paste exuded from their tips as shimmering blue light formed an orb above the surface. The spider legs whirred about, faster and faster, pecking at the spot where food formed out of thin air.

Anna kept exhaling through her fingers as the device printed her breakfast, altering the atomic structure of the slime into eggs, ham, mushrooms, and gravy. Once complete, she pulled the plate out and attacked.

When she’d gotten halfway through eating, a tall woman with blonde hair down to her waist walked in the back door and glided to the sink, her pink satin robe scandalous in its shortness. The pattern of white flowers spread across in a diagonal line gave it an Oriental feel. Wet and barefoot, the sight of her made Anna feel colder in spite of the heating unit three feet to her right. She swallowed what was already in her mouth and cleared her throat.

“Um. Hello?”

The woman turned to look at her. Her skin had the white of new paper, and her eyes gleamed, corner to corner black in their sockets like onyx gems set into the head of a porcelain doll. An inch shy of six feet tall, her generous chest and curvy hips made Anna feel like an adolescent boy. The strange appearance of this woman startled Anna’s chair several inches to the rear.

The odd person laughed, offering a casual wave. “Hello, Anna. I’m Aurora.”

Anna squinted. “Stage name?”

“What?” Aurora cocked her head to the side, thinking. “Oh, no. I don’t do that. It’s actually Lauren, but I go by Aurora to protect my family.”

Anna could not help but stare at the woman’s wet feet and the trail of ice-prints leading to the back door. “Aren’t you freezing?”

Aurora took a large fruit from a box with Japanese markings and drifted to the sink, where she washed it with water from a pail. “The floor is warmer than the stream out back. It’s quite nice in here.”

“It’s positively Baltic out there! You went for a skinny in this?”

The white silhouette sat opposite her at the table. “It looks less ridiculous than wearing outdoor boots with a man’s shirt.” She bit into an enormous peach.

The girth of the thing stalled Anna’s train of thought. “What the devil is that?”

“A peach.”

“Obviously, but it’s as big as your head.”

Nibbling at it, Aurora spoke between bites. “The only hydroponics worth bothering with come out of the NSK. They have these giant artificial islands.”

Cupping her hands to her mouth, Anna exhaled to warm up. “Never heard of it.”

“Nippon Shōgyō-Kumiai, they control all of the commerce between Japan and the outside world. Since the country split into warring provinces, the NSK plays intermediary so they can continue to trade. If you’re going to buy fruit or vegetables and you don’t want reassembled, look for NSK.”

“You sound like an advert bot.” Anna giggled, pushing what was left of her food around the plate. “Well, who are you then?”

Aurora laughed with a haughty air and waved the colossal fruit at her. “Relax, dear. I’m only his friend. We work together. I think I’m a bit too odd looking for him to be honest.”

“You, um, do have a unique presence.”

“You can stare all you like. I don’t mind.”

She likes making people uncomfortable.

Eye contact lasted a minute. “You’re quite pretty. Thank you for making me feel less pale.”

Aurora smiled. “You sleep all day, come out at night, and it’s always raining in London. All you need is some sun. I’m stuck like this.”

“So what do you―”

“Do?” Aurora winked. “I’m a clairvoyant, and a spy.”

Anna froze, fork halfway between plate and mouth. It hit her now where she had heard this voice before. “Lord Thompson’s phone?”

“Good memory. Saw the blighter on the roof across the way about ten minutes before he shot at you. Truth be told, I didn’t expect the call would go through. You know, I’ve a habit of telling James where he can find Awakened. You must’ve had quite the uncertain life, girl. I never saw you coming.”

“Yeah…” Anna looked at her plate. “It’s been… far from fun. So you see the future?” She lowered the fork to the plate, uneaten. “Oh and, thanks for saving my life.”

“No bother at all.” Aurora paused to peck at the massive fruit. “Not all the time, and it’s not always so clear. The stronger the significance of an event, the more warning I get. You were a complete unknown to me at the time. It’s only because James had asked me to watch you that I saw it. I didn’t believe him at first when he said you were one of us.”

Anna resumed eating, feeling a warm presence spread through her at the idea he wanted to protect her. Quieted, she finished off her food and relaxed at the bright green leaking in through the windows. Deep within a grove of trees, the entire place held a pastoral calm that transcended time. If not for the portable technology, the scene could have been a thousand years ago.

Aurora eased back into her chair, putting a heel on the table and then crossing her other leg over it. “It is nice to finally meet you in person.”

“Yes… Does the stove work? Firewood? Wouldn’t mind some tea.”

She waved the peach at the ancient iron stove. “No wood chopped. There’s a hot plate in the oven.”

Anna got up, heading for the oven and dragging the portable cooker out. “So, how’d you two meet?”

“Part of his research with the university. Neither one of my parents were gifted. Mum worked off-Earth on a colony for a little while she was carrying me.”

Anna sighed at the lack of a faucet. Aurora pointed at the bucket of water. “Thanks. What, you’re part alien?”

They laughed.

“No… Who knows what happened. Space radiation, odd effect of gravity or jump travel.” Aurora gnawed on the peach. “For all I know, I could’ve come out like this if she pushed a broom in Manchester her whole life.”

Anna poured three bottles into the kettle. “Are they well?”

“Yes. CSB only arrested me. I think I was sixteen when they hauled me out in handcuffs, in front of the entire street.” Anna gave her a sorrowful stare. “They shut me away in some place like where you found your little friend. Course… I got out straight away. Got grabbed again. Escaped. They started keeping me in a drug-induced sleep.”

“That’s awful!” Anna switched on the hot plate and set teabags into cups. “I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, it’s hardly your fault. Mardling was working with the CSB as some kind of consultant. I still don’t know how he’d convinced them he had no ability.”

“I think we both know that.” Anna winked.

Once again, they laughed together.

“They brought me out of the coma, had me lashed hand and foot to a chair, blindfolded, with one of those damn headbands on. They couldn’t leave it on too long or I’d go nuts.”

Anna fell into her chair, shaking.

“I see you’ve had the treatment, too.

“James talked me into talking… Somehow smoothed things over with them and he was allowed to ‘take me into custody’ from then on out. He was supposed to study me and give them a full report on what I was capable of.” She took another large bite of peach, licking the wounded fruit. “He never quite got ‘round to that bit.”

Anna leaned forward, hushed. “Do you always traipse about in such skimp?”

“He’s seen your goods more than mine, luv. I tend to leave my togs behind when I cross over, got tired of replacing them.”

“Cross over?”

“Have you heard about astral projection?”

Anna shook her head. “No. I’ve been kind of sheltered.”

“Most psionics who can astrally project are able to leave their bodies behind and roam about like a ghost. They can see and hear things, see spirits and whatnot.”

Her eyebrow climbed. “Ghosts?”

“You toss lightning out of your hands and you want to quibble about spirits being real?” Aurora smiled. “Suffice to say, Awakened are quite a bit more powerful. I don’t just send my soul into the other world. Everything alive goes. Alas, I can’t bring objects… clothes included.”

An eerie feeling accompanied a soft thump. Anna looked up to find the pink robe empty, draped over the peach on the seat of the chair. Bolting to her feet, she glanced around at the cabin.

The voice came spectral, echoing and unearthly. “I’m right behind you, hon.”

Whirling, she saw nothing. A gossamer presence traced an icy line down the bare skin on the back of her leg that made her jump forward. “Eep!”

Aurora’s laughter reverberated through the room, the source moving directly through the table to the other side. A trace of light adjacent to the abandoned chair grew into a ghostly apparition of the woman she had been talking to. Within seconds, the image grew more and more opaque until she was no longer transparent. Once solid, she put her robe back on and retrieved her fruit.

Anna blinked.

“Can’t take anything solid with me. That’s how I kept getting away from them, right through the walls.” The peach got a little smaller. “These are really good, would you like some?”

Sinking into her seat, Anna shook her head. “No, thanks. It almost makes sense why they put bombs in us now.”

“Oh they tried that.” Aurora narrowed her eyes. “Bloody thing fell out when I crossed. Hurt like a bitch.”

It hit Anna funny, sending her into a giggle fit. “You can’t have cyberware either? I’m the same… though I’d just fry it and kill myself.”

“Likely, that. You don’t have to worry about it though. James has the CSB right where he wants them. Well, almost. They still exist, so not quite exactly where he wants.”

“Where did he get off to?”

“He’s gearin’ up for something big now that he’s found you.” She glanced up at the middle of the ceiling. “Display on.”

Holographic light shimmered into a terminal screen above the table, two by three feet. Aurora flicked at it with a toe, opening a folder and kicking it apart into individual files. Images of young people, some as little as nine, scattered about the screen. All of them taken from screaming families. Some had been beaten unconscious; men, women, and even children carried away battered and bruised.

“Psionics.” Another bite of peach. “He’s been taking the wee ones out of government care for a few years now; and any of the others who want to go. Alas, none of them are like us… They’re ordinary psionics.”

Anna could not believe what she saw; the level of cruelty in the images hit her in the gut like a fist. Some of the parents had been shot trying to stop the arrest of their sons and daughters. Agent Gordon appeared in a handful of the scenes.

“This is all Gordon’s doing, isn’t it?”

Blonde hair swam about as Aurora shook her head. “No, he’s just a tool. There’s a splinter faction within the CSB that would rather see us all eliminated. A couple of hard-liners want to re-enact the witch-hunts. They’ve got backing from the C of E. Whole group of them think psionics are a sign of the Devil’s power.”

Anna closed the files, unable to tolerate at any more. “So what’s he doing?”

“Gathering them and shipping them off somewhere. He’s told me he wants to create a new society for us. If I had to hazard a guess, he’s considering the UCF. Most of Europe is right out; the ACC kills us on sight. Paranoid bastards. No one knows how China feels about psionics, there hasn’t been much information leaked. As far as the Iranians are concerned, they claim they don’t have any psionics.”

“That’s bollocks,” chirped Anna. “Psionics are one to two percent of the population, there’s no ethnic or geographical preference.”

Anna shrugged. “It’s propaganda. There’s more than one religion that fears us.”

“The UCF?” Anna blinked. “It didn’t seem as though he cared much for it… called it ‘the colony’ still.”

Lauren almost spit a hunk of peach across the table with her laugh. “He’s a condescending bugger sometimes, thinks he’s the cat’s whiskers.”

With closed eyes, Anna hugged herself and thought of his face aglow with the aura.

He is.

Anna shifted in the chair, no longer able to ignore the nagging presence in her bladder. “So where’s the loo?”

“Twenty paces out back.”

“Bugger…” With a look like she was walking off to be shot, Anna got up and shuffled outside.

Aurora remained, smiling as Anna walked out.

She licked the peach. “Four… Three… Two…”

Anna’s piercing scream echoed in the distance.

“Seat’s a wee bit chilly, luv.”

Aurora ate the last of the peach.

runching gravel announced the arrival of Doctor Mardling’s gold Mercedes. Aurora reclined on the porch, still clad in the skimpy robe, playing with the silk belt as the car slid to a halt a few meters away. The door closed with a thunk, and he trudged to where she leaned back on her elbows.

“You are overdressed.”

Aurora winked. “We have a guest, and I’m not planning on going anywhere today, unless you need something.”

“No. Everything is in order.” He glanced back and forth from her to the door. “Why are you outside?”

“Your little Pixie has the heat cranked to the nines. Too bloody hot in there.”

“Do you associate with the dead or are you one?” James shook his head. “You would live in the arctic if you could.”

“Sod it, James. I’m not that bad. She’s got it over thirty eight degrees.”

He sent a thoughtful glance at the window. “What do you think of this one?”

“Well, she’s rather enamored with you.” Aurora stared off into space, silent for some time until a coy grin slinked over her lips. “I think she will make you happy. The chances of her being disloyal are pretty much zero.”

He chuckled, bowed, and went for the door. A wall of heat waited for him inside. Anna reclined on the bed, having abandoned her boots and socks, lost in a video game on her NetMini. James shot a glance at the portable heater as a dirty fork floated up and poked at the holographic controls. Repeatedly stabbing at the downward arrow, he lowered it to a tolerable twenty degrees before the utensil fell to the plate.

The clank made Anna look up. She tossed the handheld to the side and ran to him.

“James.” She wrapped her arms around him. “Is something wrong? You look worried.”

His face settled into sublime calm as he endured her clinging. “Anxious is a better term, my dear. A lot of innocent lives are depending on me right now, yours included.”

She glanced out the window, at trees shifting in a soft, whispery wind. “Do you think we’ll be safe out here in the country?”

“Reasonably, but it is not a long term solution. Your efforts at liberating your former roommate have created a tenuous climate back in the city. This should afford us the luxury to gather ourselves, and for you to settle your mind. Put some clothes on, I have a surprise for you.”

A few minutes later, with one boot on, she hopped into the front room while donning the other to find James by the door with a large metal case in hand. Aurora flashed an impish smile as they went down the steps to the grass.

Behind the cabin, rolling tree-covered hills went as far as she could see in all directions. A hint of a dirt path made its way off to the south, and the air came alive with the sound of birds. She followed him for the better part of twenty minutes into the forest. He commented on the relaxing atmosphere, trying to keep her mind away from everything that had happened in the city. Dense trees foiled the worst attempts of the breeze to frost her bones, and its gentle hiss through the leaves soothed her.

“I missed you this morning when I woke up.”

James massaged the back her hand with his thumb. “Sorry, Anna. It came up out of the blue. I was making arrangements for some of the younger victims of the Crown’s tyranny to leave the country.”

Moved by the thought of broken families, Anna squeezed his arm. “James, it’s so good of you to help those people. It isn’t right how they’re treated.”

He paused in mid stride, turning to face her. “It was not right how you were treated, Anna. I’ll always be here for you.”

A spasm twitched in her forearm, two inches south of her wrist. “I know that now.”

“I hope to help them even more… One day, I will find a way to unlock their true potential. It may not be Earth, but I will find a home for us.”

Their stroll came to a halt at the edge of a modest lake. He nodded toward a decaying wooden pier and the prow of a small rowboat protruding from the water like a shark’s fin. She leaned against him to take in the view, smiling at the tranquility.

“Boat ride is not quite an option. Bloody thing sank fifty years ago. However…”

After setting the case down, he unpacked a large tartan cloth, which he flicked out over the grass. Motorized trays lifted up from inside, sliding out into shelves laden with hors d’oeuvres, a bottle of wine, two glasses, and some small sandwiches.

“A picnic? Really?” She giggled.

Grinning, she flopped next to him as the case projected a holographic arrangement of candles in the center of the blanket. A whimsical smile accompanied a lifted eyebrow as he offered her a glass of wine. She overacted high-society for a few minutes until it was no longer funny, doing a spot-on impression of Princess Daphne.

James muttered about her for a short while, amused by the lengths to which the SIS had to go in order to keep the debutante princess’s post-adolescent wild streak out of the tabloids. As they ate, he worked his way through the conversation and onto the topic of Annabelle Morgan. She felt safe with him, not caring he pried into her life. She held no part of her past from this man; the more she smiled at him, the more he felt like the protector she had always wanted.

“I feel safe with you, James.”

He sipped from his glass, gazing out over the water. “You shouldn’t need a protector. Most of those who have taken advantage of you should have needed protection from you. You are a very capable woman.”

She swirled her drink, lost in the twisted reflection of trees upon the merlot. “I never enjoyed hurting people. I always got it. Even as a little girl, they’d all give me hell for having white hair.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“They called me Ghosty. Everyone thought I was some kind of monster.” Even my… non-Dad. Anna took a long sip, thinking about the man for whom she had borne so much guilt over killing. Why had he always seemed so sad after hitting her?

“No Anna… That is your power. Think of it like a fern too big for its pot. You have got quite a lot of energy, and your head is only so big. You were born Awakened; certain oddities are included with that. Quirks like Lauren’s eyes and skin, or the way you burn things out when you get excited.”

“Can you make it stop? NetMinis get expensive after a dozen.”

His fingers traced over the back of her hand where she leaned. “I was not born with the full extent of my power. I found a way to unlock it. If that is possible, perhaps there is a way to make adjustments. I would want to be careful, however. It would not be worth it to lose your gift. A NetMini here or there can be replaced, you are too precious to risk hurting.”

A bird glided along inches above the surface of the lake, striking at an unseen meal before returning to the trees with a small fish in its talons. Anna glanced down, studying the hand touching hers.

“It’s so peaceful here, James. I’m almost afraid our being here will ruin it.”

He stared at ripples where wind touched the water. “Perhaps. I wanted to offer you the chance to unwind before the storm.”

She leaned up and kissed him, a quick smooch on the lips. Jumping back, she smiled at the astonishment in his eyes, and did it again, longer the second time. He gave in, embracing her with a kiss that rolled onto the ground.

Breath fogged in the air as she ran her hands over his shirt; he seemed hesitant to surrender control of the moment. She kissed over his cheek to his neck. His arm tightened across her back as her warm breath flooded his ear.

“I love you, James.”

She surrendered to the hands that worked her clothes away as she continued to kiss him. Cold air washed over the absence of cloth as she reclined with a grin. He shrugged off his coat and shoes, and threw his necktie to the side with a sly grin. Biting her lower lip, she sat up and helped undo his belt. James leaned forward, lowering himself on top of her. His scent enveloped her; she closed her eyes, reveling in the warmth of his body against her as they embraced. He kissed her breast before his lips glided up to her neck where he kissed her again. The scratch of his goatee upon her skin sent shudders through her legs, intensified by the feeling of the rough tartan blanket scraping her writhing body.

He stared at her with an expression as if lost in a dream. “Are you certain this is what you want?”

Anna pushed and rolled on top of him, her eyes brimming with adoration. She stared down at the face surrounded by a fan of chestnut hair in the grass. His hands slid down her sides, caressing her hips. Anna scarcely noticed the puffs of mist their breaths made, or the frigid air across her back.

“I am,” she said with a breathless rasp.

His grin held a touch of imperiousness as he rolled again so he was above her. She squealed, arching her back, paralyzed by the unexpected caress of frosty dew-laden grass. Their fingers interlaced, palm to palm and he pushed her hands apart to the ground on either side of her head. Her effort to get away from the soaked green only tightened their entwined bodies.

She was his.

Anna gazed at magnificent white clouds floating in an ocean of endless blue. She cried at the sight; until that moment, whenever she had looked up, the sky had always been grey.

Trembling, she moaned in a voice half shout and half whimper as they moved as one.

A few feet to the right, the holoprojector in the picnic case died a brilliant sparking death―not that either of them noticed.

Giving herself in to bliss, she made love for the first time in her life.

Amid a strewn mass of clothes and picnic supplies, they cuddled together wrapped in the tartan. She couldn’t get rid of the silly grin while staring at the dark spot on his nose and his fluffed up hair.

“I rather fail to see the humor,” he said.

He set about fussing with it to make it sit down; when it continued to frizz back up, he squinted at her.

“You are doing that on purpose.”

She bit her lip and acted innocent until he shook his head with a faint chuckle. She snuggled against him, and relaxed the mild current so he could set his hair back to rights.

Anna put a hand over her face, rubbing a sore spot. “The nose to nose bit was an accident. Remember when you asked if it ran away with positive emotions?”

He stopped combing with his hands. “I say, having a romp with you is quite an electrifying experience. Perhaps wet grass was a poor choice of scenery.”

“Puns, James?” She sat up. “I thought you were an intellectual?”

He stretched past her to retrieve the wine and glasses. “I am, but we are on holiday.”

nna’s eyes popped open at the urging of a bladder full to the point of pain. The woozy head of wine passed away into a dull sense of discomfort. Between James and the blankets, she found it quite difficult to summon up the willpower necessary to make the horrible trek outside to the privy.

Country dark was a new experience. For a few seconds after she awoke, she couldn’t tell if her eyes were open or closed; it didn’t make any difference. Snuggling into his warmth, she attempted to go back to sleep, but the need nagged at the recesses of her mind until she sat up with a growl.

After running all day, the heater had taken the fangs out of the chill inside the cabin. The cold had lost much of its paralytic nature, but still stunned a gasp out of her as the blankets slid away. She stepped on her boot while attempting to get up, and tripped into the wall, collapsing on all fours.

“Sorry James,” she whispered.

To her surprise, he had not broken out of sleep. A short crawl left resulted in her head smacking into something hard. She cringed into a ball and muttered swear words into her knees. Her hands felt around at the floor in a search for some piece of identifiable clothing. When it became too uncomfortable to continue bending forward, she made an electrical arc between her fingers for light. In the flickering blue, she grabbed his shirt and stuck her feet bare into her boots. The shiver that came with the cold imitation leather against her legs almost made a walk outside needless.

Anna held the spark out as she snuck out of the bedroom, closing the door behind her so as not to disturb James. His shirt tickled at her thighs as she tiptoed past Aurora’s door to the rear exit. The night air wrapped her legs with a chill so intense it came on as a blanket of biting needles. Her teeth chattered two steps along the footpath, beneath the shifting blues of lightning-lit trees. For a second, she debated letting fly on the grass by the door, but shame won out.

The outhouse opened with a low drawn out creak, leaving her face to face with her nemesis―the frozen toilet seat. Edging into the tiny space, she pulled and latched the door.

“Dammit, Lauren. Why did you keep feeding me tea last night?”

She put an arm through her mouth, hiked up the shirt, and sat. The muffled shriek from contact with something so cold did not carry too far. Relief came at the absence of discomfort, and she sagged forward. The moment of elation ended with a sudden strange feeling. Indistinct amber light wobbled about outside, the sense of it masked by the wall. Anna braced her hands on the cold wood, searching the perfect darkness. When she caught a glimpse of it again, she focused, and her mind created the image of a ten-inch sphere outside.

An orb? She froze. Oh, James! They found us.

She eased herself upright, pressing down on the seat to keep it from making noise. Cold air biting at her legs added to the unknown threat outside, and left her unable to stop shivering.

Through a tiny crescent moon hole, blinking red lights floated amid the black, stopped, and swiveled to face her. Scant moonlight gleamed on the barrel of a gun extending forward like the proboscis of a rabbit-sized mosquito. Her eyes flared. She scrambled electricity within it, and the orb glimmered, encased in a lattice of sparks and smoke. It flew about in a sped up impression of a moon orbiting nothing as it went haywire, spinning about for several seconds before it plowed into the ground and exploded.

She fumbled for the latch. A momentary loss of coordination came on at fear fanned by the sound of a man yelling a distance away. At last, the door opened, and she sprinted through the frigid darkness in the direction of the faint glowing lights on the fubox.

Four times, she fell on her way from the outhouse to the back door, tripping over roots, slick spots of wet grass, and the paving stones. Anna stumbled into the cabin, and felt her way to the bedroom. The two front windows flooded with bright artificial light that sent creeping shadows through the room. Stealth at that point became futile; she sprinted.

Bursting through the door, she flung James’ shirt off and gathered her clothes. She kicked at him while she dressed, pleading in a half whisper.

“James, they’re here. Wake up.”

He moaned; in the passing flash of a searchlight, she made out the shape of his hand rubbing his eyes. “What are you going on about?”

“Orbs… One was about to shoot me in the loo.”

Glass shattered in the main room; James sat bolt upright.

“Damn, they are early.”

Anna gaped at him. “You were expecting them?”

He shrugged. “Of course. I had hoped they would not come calling at this awful hour.”

His chest glowed in the radiance of a small searchlight; another orb, inside the cabin above the table, swiveled to point at them through the open door. Anna thrust her arm out, palm facing. With a loud snap, an arc formed for a nanosecond between it and her hand. The orb went dark, ringing like an out of tune bell when it crashed onto the wooden table. It rolled and fell to the floor with a clang. Anna gathered her coat closed.

“Looks like you have this sorted, my dear.” James reclined as if to return to sleep.

She gasped. “You’re going back to bed?”

He paused halfway to the pillow as true wakefulness came over his eyes. “Damn, there are more than robots out there. We have to leave.”

A shadow across the window drew Anna close. Outside, a row of intense wavering lights lit the grass into daylight. Their constant motion gave the appearance of hovering droids. A multi-legged metal spider the size of a tiny car thrust its forelegs through the window, sending a shower of glass into the room. Her screaming backward leap halted as a second pair of legs grabbed her coat with pincer claws. The two front limbs sprouted eighteen-inch blades, poised to strike at her heart as it pulled her closer.

It froze, the robotic menace shuddering and straining against an invisible force. James grunted from exertion, battling its Myofiber muscles with telekinetic force. Her eyes widened at the spotlight’s gleam along the blades; for a second, she stood without reacting, stunned. At the sound of him growling, she shrugged off fear and grabbed the clamps holding her by the scruff.

Blue sparks leapt from her fingers, swimming around and through the metal arachnid. The entire bot convulsed and crashed against the stone cabin wall as panels exploded off its back. She forced power to the densest mass of fine current she could find―the computer core. Fried to uselessness, the main body thudded to the ground with an impact she felt in the floor. James snarled; in time with his sound of disapproval, the limp legs clattered over the windowsill, out of sight.

As if grabbed by unseen hands, her body jerked to the side as bullets passed through the air where she had been standing a half second before.

Flying into James’s arms, she broke out in a sweat. “No… No… I’m finally happy and they’re going to kill us.”

“Gather your wits, girl.” James squeezed her hand before forcing a patronizing smile. “You may wish to keep clear of windows, though.”

Aurora burst through her door, satin robe unfastened. She turned to speak as a trio of red lasers streaked through the shimmering dust in the air behind her.

Anna yelled. “Look―”

The ivory-skinned woman evaporated into a cloud of silvery mist in an instant, leaving the robe hanging in midair as if still worn. Three bullet holes appeared in the center as it fell.

Anna didn’t have enough time to think as another floating orb came through the window. She induced an arc between it and an unused cable from the fubox. Orange bits of melting plastisteel exploded out of every seam as it went dark. The orb plummeted, landing with a ringing clank, and rolled across the room, where it dented the wall. Anna went for the window again, but he held her back.

“Stay away from the windows. There are snipers. Give Aurora a few minutes.”

“What do you mean?” Anna sank to the floor.

James gathered his clothes. “She has a way with people.”

Gunfire cracked and popped through the darkened woods. Anna crawled through the living room, past the stack of supplies and over the wire leading to the heating unit. She looked back at James with an expression of frightened bewilderment as the entire cabin shuddered and filled with a deafening roar. Windows rattled, silverware and plates on the table vibrated to the side, and small objects fell from shelves out of sight.

Anna shouted, trying to ask James what was going on, but her voice proved no match for whatever aircraft had settled in a few meters above the cabin. The blur of grey and black camouflage snapped her gaze to the windows; from the look of it, six men had hit the roof and rappelled to the ground outside.

Shattering inward, the front door skittered away in several chunks at the arrival of an immense spider droid. As big as an autocab, its flat white hull blocked the entire opening. Evil-looking red sensors on the front end had the appearance of eyes; from beneath small hatch plates, two clusters of three tiny missiles extended upwards in preparation to be fired.

Anna dove away screaming, rolling onto one knee near an unused cable from the fubox. She took a deep breath and grabbed the connector. Power from the portable fusion generator coursed into her, covering her body with a web of shifting sparks. Staccato bursts of light flashed, searing the room into her memory as a series of still images.

Six trails of smoke traced a meter into the room in the blink of an eye; the eight-inch missiles hung in midair, throwing fire and exhaust to the rear, but no longer traveling. James leaned against the wall, sweating, with a wide-eyed stare as his hand shook in a trembling recreation of a constable halting traffic.

His sneer deepened as the alarm left his face, and the fuming projectiles rotated over to point out the door. As he relaxed, they streaked off into the woods where a bloom of gas clouds and loud concussions broke the darkness, the last one accompanied by a man’s startled howl. A soldier appeared in the window for an instant, confused eyes staring out from a gas mask.

“Away,” said James, twirling his finger.

The man jogged off with purpose in his eyes.

The droid shifted about, seeming confused at the misfire. Bladed claws at the tip of its forelegs grasped the frame of the door, crunching into the wood as it dragged itself through. The other legs folded tight against its hull as it forced its car-sized body through the too-small doorway, cracking and pushing stones out of the wall. Another hatch split open along the centerline of its back, sliding down into the body as a rotary cannon came to bear.

Anna drew power from the wire, amplifying it into a two-inch thick streak of lightning that sent the bot into a shaking frenzy of burning wires, twitching actuators, and molten metal. Plumes of smoke filled the air with the smell of scorched silicon as it crashed to the ground in a heap, inert legs splayed out in eight directions.

Two soldiers climbed over it and swung their rifles through the door, making entry as another pair came in the back. Another two appeared at the smashed windows; all six of them aimed at the woman covered in dancing flashes of azure.

Anna’s thumb sank deeper into the socket as her fists clenched. Before she could react, or the soldiers could fire, James’ presence swam through her mind.

She turned her head to look toward the sound of his voice; his arms rose to either side, his eyes flickered with a white glow, and his lips moved in a rapid whispering that gnawed at the back of her brain. The commandos wobbled on their feet, lost in a daze of a telepathic saturation. James had seized each of them, injecting such an amount of different sights, sounds, and feelings they stood there like drug-addled dolts.

Any time you’re ready, my dear. Doctor Mardling’s voice spoke clear through the muted chaos, snapping her out of the fascination caused by the mere eavesdropping of his surface thoughts. As much as I enjoy entertaining these buffoons, I think they are about due for a bit of a jolt.

Anna stood, clutching the wire. Lightning sizzled along the heavy rubber insulation, racing to and from the back porch. She leaned her head back and let power go in all directions with an angry banshee wail.

Jerking and twisting from a rapid-fire electrical discharge, the solders danced in place. A fusillade of snaps, pops, and resonant bangs flooded the cabin. Smaller sparks sounded like breaking twigs, while the big jolts―the ones that knocked bodies to the ground―sent window-cracking booms into the air. Jagged lines of black ash formed on the walls as a stray bolt attempted to follow one retreating man through the stonemasonry.

Anna relaxed and fell to her knees, ready to fall asleep on the floor right there. The texture of braided wire scraped against her palm where the insulation had melted away. Searchlight bots closed in on the front, aiming through the windows at her. Not bothering to stand, Anna growled and focused on the hanging orbs.

Hair-thin trails snapped through the air in a row. One after the next, the floating machines burst in place, electricity leapt from their power cores as she drew it in. Bolt after bolt of lightning came to join the cloud of shifting sparks on her body. Other soldiers creeping up below the droids screamed, scattering to evade the hail of orange flecks and falling debris.

A concussive whump rocked the cabin as the capacitor in the fubox reached its breaking point. The detonation pushed and pulled at the air in her lungs. She dropped the wire and dragged herself up to the wall adjacent to the front door, hiding behind the dead spider to peek outside.

Confusion swept through the soldiers; they shouted between gunshots. Azure muzzle flashes appeared at random in the trees as they fired on each other. One man turned, shooting at the soldier next to him before stumbling back as if drunk. Seconds later, fog coalesced around another man who then froze in place, shuddering and clutching at his head for a brief instant before he raised his weapon at different soldiers. Then, he too swooned with an intoxicated stagger. Some of them moved naturally, others like zombies. Two men in the distance aimed at each other in stalemate, neither seeming to know if they faced friend or foe.

James put a hand on her shoulder, nodding in the direction of the back door. “Go now, quickly. Wait for me about a hundred meters out.”

Anna let him help her stand. “Aren’t you coming?”

He smiled. “Of course.” A brief kiss upon the lips made her eyes flutter. “But there is the matter of my destroyed car, and we need a ride. I’ll just be borrowing one of theirs.”

She nodded, backpedaling away from the windows as two more spider bots outside spun in circles, aiming onboard weapons at the disarray.

Anna started towards the back door, but froze when a soldier hustled through it into the cabin. Lifting her hands with a clawing motion, she flung lightning into his chest. He sailed off his feet, landing on his back and sliding onto the porch in a convulsive fit.

Aurora’s disembodied voice fell like silk through the air. “Damn it, Anna. That was me. Now I have to find another toy. He’s going to be napping for a while.”

The dropped rifle shifted on the ground, pivoting to point at James before it leapt into his waiting arms. His casual glance settled on her with a lifted eyebrow.

“What? Do not tell me you’re afraid of firearms?”

She looked away. “I’m not a great big fan to be honest. Pointed at me, or getting shot by the cops for ‘avin’ one… Neither’s much a bit of fun.”

Splinters rained from a trail of bullet holes inches above her head. James fired at the orb droid responsible, but it evaded him with ease and whipped about to return fire.

He frowned. “Sit still, you little blighter.”

The orb wobbled, emitting an electronic squeal as his telekinesis held it in place and forced its weapon to aim away. A few shots into the stationary sphere reduced it to a shower of metal fragments.

“I could have gotten that…”

He made a shooing gesture at the door. “Save your energy for the big ones, off you go.”

A body hit the cabin outside the rear door, knocking a decorative plate off the wall.

“Anna, don’t kill this one,” shouted an unfamiliar man.

Clad in grey-on-black camouflage, a dark-skinned soldier ducked into the room. Anna could not help but stare at the odd feminine quality to his movement as he took up a firing position at the front wall. He fired a few shots, and laughed.

“I keep forgetting how light the recoil is when I’m wearing a man,” he mumbled.

“She’s creeping me out, James.”

He pointed. Taking the hint, she made it out the door in three strides and ran through shimmering cones of searchlights from above. The air vibrated with the sound of ion drives, a grating techno-growl that sent shivers down her spine. Every piece of grass and leaf tingled with electricity from the ionic downblast.

Two great spots of white light, the main drives of an assault VTOL at least three times the size of the one that had chased her through the streets of London, drifted over the cabin. Smaller vented-thrust ports, one at the nose and each wingtip, hinted at the general orientation of the craft as it turned to point at where she ran. A rectangle of light appeared in the blackness between the main engines; a weapons bay opened with a mechanical whine. From within the white-walled interior, a dual-barreled particle cannon swiveled to take aim.

Are you fucking serious?

Anna’s fingers numbed with cold as blood retreated into her heart. Orange glowing light gathered inside the monstrosity pointing at her. Imminent death broke through her initial shock and let her focus. A matrix of luminous threads formed over the plane; every power connection, every circuit path, and every wire traced itself out in the vision of her mind. No longer black against the sky, the military aircraft glimmered amber, brightest where the power built up in the weapon system.

She seized upon the energy, moving it away from the particle cannon and into other systems. Drawing as much as she could from its engines, she forced it places where the threads seemed too narrow to hold it. The VTOL wavered in the air as the developing radiance in the gun faded. A spot of brilliant yellow appeared and the cockpit filled with fire and sparks; the ion drives flickered on and off several times, and the entire upper surface of the plane crackled with roaming lightning. Amid a series of small explosions, fragments and debris rained from the air. The ion thrusters went dark. The VTOL slid off to the side and fell like a brick, smashing through trees on its way to the Earth. It hit the ground on its belly, trenching a channel in the soil before it came to a halt against two now-leaning oaks.

Anna fell in place, too tired to continue standing. Her drop was fortunate as a wave of splinters and shrapnel passed overhead seconds before the concussion of the crash knocked her into a roll. She came to a halt on her stomach in wet grass. Without the plane, the rear of the cabin remained lit only by stars. In the sudden absence of floodlights, she was blind. Her arms felt like rubber when she tried to push herself upright. She wobbled, staring dumbfounded at the fire spreading over the crashed VTOL and the pilot pounding at the canopy.

“Bloody.” No wonder they want to kill me.

Shouts and gunfire resonated from the other side as soldiers, bots, and Aurora combined in a disordered mess. Anna crawled to a tree and used it to haul herself to her feet. She held on to keep from falling as her gaze darted among muzzle flashes, running soldiers, and searchlights in a futile search for James. She whirled, feeling an electrical source behind her. An amber sphere of sensed energy crept up behind her, the two bright points leading the way connected by a visible spark.

She raised a forearm, protecting her neck. The impact of the orb knocked her down, but she absorbed the shock. Her body fed from the current, absorbing it. Fatigue faded. No longer was she too tired to stand.

“Cute,” she grumbled, and grabbed it with her free hand.

At her behest, its power cell discharged with a single intense arc, and she wound up holding all fourteen pounds of inert orb bot one-handed. The unexpected weight fell with a dull thump in the dirt.

Her second wind got her on her feet in time to scream and cross her arms over her face. A soldier came out of the dark, his high feint left her gut exposed. One punch to the stomach put her down on all fours, struggling to breathe. She grabbed his shin, little sparks crawled over her hand, wavering over the armor like whiskers unsure what they encountered.

“Insulated, bitch.”

He kicked her in the side, knocking her over. She lunged into a crawl, barking like a stomped goose as he stepped on her back and drilled her face into the mulch. The chirp of a firing circuit made her scream. Hard metal jabbed into the back of her skull.

Bang.

Anna convulsed, her body lost to primordial terror until a heavy thud struck the ground to her side. Fingers raked wet grass and soil, every muscle tensing at once. She flipped onto her back, the connection between brain and mouth broken. All she could do was babble at the sight of Agent Hughes standing over her, black coat fluttering in the wind of a second nearby VTOL. His huge silver handgun leaked smoke, but was not pointed at her.

“Ba… Wha… You…” She couldn’t stop shaking.

“Lucky you had a gypsy before this got underway.”

She swallowed hard, edging away from the soldier with half a skull left.

“Cee… Wha? Ja…” Tears streamed down her face. “You…”

Hughes put the weapon under his coat and squatted with his elbows on his knees. “It’s a complex mess.” He reached behind his ear and peeled the little metal triangle off, holding it up to show it as fake, a metal slug held on by sticky tape. “What the Crown doesn’t know…” He winked, and pressed it back.

Anna still could not form words as he stood and started to walk away. He paused, glancing back.

“Don’t just sit there, Anna. Your ride’s almost here.”

The glow of spotlights came over the cabin as a second VTOL craft came in low. When she looked back, Hughes had vanished.

She slouched, arms lax at her sides. “Oh bugger…”

Hold on, luv. Do not cook this one. James’ voice flooded her mind. Aurora has the pilot.

Doctor Mardling appeared in the open side door, as casually as if he directed the military operation himself. The plane’s landing struts folded down as the main engines tilted forward to arrest its speed. Its wings grew thick with flaps, a great metal bird ruffling its feathers as it came down in a mud-flinging burst of ions between the outhouse and the little dwelling.

He gathered his tweed against the gale, hanging on as the lower half of the hatch folded down into a staircase. No sooner had his boot hit the first step than two bullets whistled over Anna’s head. Agent Gordon had reached around the corner of the cabin with a large pistol, clinging to the wet stonework.

James snarled and grabbed at midair. Gordon’s pistol shuddered in his hand; Gordon growled with pain and effort. Slipping through his fingers, the pistol jerked to a halt four feet away on the wire connecting it to the side of his head. Howling, Agent Gordon grabbed the cord before it tore the socket behind his ear straight out of his head. His wail of pain mutated into an angry bellow that rivaled the sound of the idling aircraft.

James glared; his telekinetic pull snapped the wire and sent the pistol flying a dozen meters forward.

Dangling from the metal stair, he reached an arm towards her. “Now, Anna, run!”

She glared at Gordon, holding her arms out. Arcs of lightning spanned the air between them, lifting him off his feet and slamming him into the wall with the meaty slap of flesh on stone. He bounced away and fell flat on his chest. Anna spat in his direction and ran for James. She made it three steps before two gunshots in rapid succession preceded blinding pain in her legs.

“Damn, bitch,” yelled Gordon. “That hurt!”

Both of her shins shattered, leaving her flat on her chest and shrieking. She pulled herself an arm’s length forward, struggling to look for the source of the attack. Gordon, propped up on one arm, wobbled to get a bead on her with a smaller backup gun as the liquid black of his suit enveloped his head.

“Aurora.” yelled James.

The VTOL whirled around, bringing the particle cannon to bear on Gordon.

“Now that’s just dirty.” His arm fell limp and he scrambled around the corner of the cabin.

An invisible force condensed around her, tight but not painful, and hauled her into the air. She flailed her arms as if swimming, albeit pointless, and grabbed onto him as soon as she was close. James pulled her into the plane and laid her out on the floor.

“Are my legs off?” She wheezed.

“Bastard. Those boots were expensive.”

“What?” Anna forced herself to sit up. A finger-sized hole went clean through each leg about halfway between knee and foot. The sight of bloody metal floor through her wound turned everything into a blur.

She awoke with James’s hand patting her cheek. As soon as she focused on his face, he smiled. “Stop being a drama queen. It was a small caliber, through and through. Nothing a few Stimpaks cannot handle.”

“Ngh.” She groaned, staring at her legs, bare from the knee down and smeared red. They still hurt as if she had nails through her bones, but looked intact. Anna winced as she flexed her toes and felt around the spot she remembered having holes. It was painfully tender, but solid.

James pulled her upright, helping her through the small troop transport chamber. On either wall, seats rigged with cross-chest harnesses faced into the center. The floor had a seam that gave her the impression it could open to allow paratroopers to drop straight down. He eased her into one of the folding seats and buckled the harness over her.

“You’ll be fine, Anna.” He toweled the blood off her calves. “The bullet went right through.”

“Ouch.” She let her head loll back. “James?”

“Yes?”

“How did Gordon miss me with his smart gun, but put two rounds right through my shins with a holdout using iron sights?”

“You are welcome.”

He started to walk down a narrow passageway to the cockpit.

“James? Don’t be difficult.”

Her arm leapt up without warning.

“Not a great feat of telekinetics to throw off someone’s aim, girl.” He paused. “I am sorry I did not anticipate the pea shooter.”

She beamed at him. “You’re amazing.”

James grasped his lapels. “I like the sound of that. Now rest.”

An Asian man on the left side of the cockpit held a pistol to the head of a woman at the flight controls. Both wore the same drab green jumpsuits.

James hovered behind them, staring at the pilot.

“I’ll need you to give us a lift to Heathrow straight away. Also, be a dear and turn off your communication system and transponder.”

The pilot looked up at him; her movements slow, she had no trace of emotion on her face. “I’ll take you to Heathrow. No comms or transponder.”

“Good girl.” James patted her on the helmet.

Anna grunted as the craft climbed and pivoted. The man lowered the pistol and shuffled around Doctor Mardling into the rear chamber. He didn’t look at Anna when he trudged by, went down the still open ladder, and leaned forward until gravity’s claim on his body was irreversible. White fog exuded from him and flowed back inside as he fell out of sight; the screaming lasted for only a second.

The mist coalesced, thickened, and turned into Aurora, naked and sprawled on the ground. “Damn it’s hot in here. Ugh, who got blood all over the floor?”

James chuckled. “You always were rather good at making entrances, Lauren.”

Anna gestured at the door. “Lauren! What did you do that for?”

“He would have killed you.” Aurora offered a blasé smirk.

Yes, but he’s was no threat now. If we kill helpless people, it just proves them right about us.”

Aurora stood, frowned at the smears of crimson on her snow-white ass, and hit the button to close the hatch. “Are you so convinced they’re wrong?”

“Yes!” She stomped, bare foot slapping on steel, and triggering a feeling like a hot lance through her shin. “Aaagh!” She cradled her leg, whimpering as several lights up front flickered.

“Relax, luv. We’re only fifteen feet in the air.” Aurora stood on tiptoe and stuck her head through the wall, ringed by a collar of white vapor for a moment until she leaned back inside. “He’s fine.”

“Aurora. Please don’t play these kinds of games with me.”

“Indeed,” yelled James from the front. “If she loses control of her mood, we may very well crash.”

The craft shifted as it went upward. Aurora flopped in the next seat, as casual as if clothed. Anna looked away.

“Oh, come on. You used to work in a tittie club. Tell me you’ve never seen these before.”

“That’s not the point.”

Aurora made an apprasing face at herself. “I think they’re rather nice. Don’t you?”

Anna kept looking away. “So you’re going to run around starkers?”

“Got a spare kit for me?” Aurora made a sarcastic face. “Thought not.”

“You’re not going to walk through Heathrow like that, are you?” asked Anna.

“Wasn’t planning on it. Fun as it sounds, it’d draw too much attention.”

Interior lights changed to red night-flight illumination and the craft gained speed. Aurora’s pure white skin took on the color, giving her the appearance of a wingless black-eyed succubus. She offered a pleasant smile and secured the harness around herself.

“I’ll need a favor when we get to the airport, luv.” Aurora winked and crossed her legs. “As you said, I can’t go traipsing about in public like this; I’ll need someone to wear.”

Anna gulped. “S-someone?”

“Would you prefer we kidnap the pilot?”

“N-no.”

“Don’t worry hon. I’ll just be along for the ride. You won’t even know I’m there.”

nna reclined on a lounge chair at the far end of a boxed-in balcony. She glanced down the length of her body, frowning at the black bikini crossed over it. For two days now, she had lain out here in the strange thing called sunlight, and had not succeeded in doing anything more than getting a nasty burn that required a stimpak to be rid of. She almost missed being a creature of the night. Cool vapor settled on her as a miniscule orb bot hovered about, puffing sprays of coconut-scented lotion.

Fluffy clouds drifted through a square of blue sky framed by monoliths of silver and glass. Towers blocked the horizon in all directions other than straight up. The apartment James had secured sat at the corner of one such building, affording a view of two streets’ worth of hovercars and advert-bots at all hours of the day. The sun had shown itself several days in a row, an event in and of itself confounding.

The faint hiss of glass doors opening came from behind. She glanced up and to the left, and rolled her eyes at a figure of arctic white.

“For heaven’s sake, Lauren, you’re outside. Put something on.”

Aurora settled onto the next lounge chair, sitting on the edge before kicking her feet over in a graceful transition to lying down. “We’re seventy stories up, and the hovercars are going by too fast for perverts.” She broke out in a sweat right away.

Anna chuckled. “You’ll knock pilots out of the sky from the glare.”

“Oh, like you won’t?” Aurora winked. “That little strip of cloth isn’t doing a damn thing; you might as well let the girls get some sun.”

“Trashy.” Anna grumbled, squinting at Aurora. “I’ll pass. Compared to you, I’m brown. You want some lotion?”

“You’ve got some cheek, calling me trashy.” Aurora winked.

Anna glared. All manner of justifications for her life flashed through her thoughts, not one of which made it out of her mouth.

“Sorry, that was out of line.” Aurora put her hands under her head. “It won’t matter, I don’t even burn.”

“Yeah… guess we both were.” Anna sent the floating bot over anyway. “Does it bother you being trapped inside all the time?”

Aurora closed her eyes as the tiny sphere covered her in mist.

Her laugh carried a hint of haughtiness. “Oh, I’m not trapped. I just wear sunglasses and claim to have a skin condition. It’s not as bad as you think. Especially in the city here, people are so busy, they don’t notice a damn thing.”

“It’s so hot here.” Anna walked to the edge of the patio, and leaned on the railing. “How can they live like this? Metal as far as I can see.”

The glare radiating from the shimmering city wrapped her with an oppressive heat that drew sweat from every pore. She took four steps to her right, stopping at the corner of the deck, and stared down on crisscrossing lanes of hovercars fifteen stories below; the ground well beyond them had about a tenth of the traffic. Sensing a person, advert bots drifted closer, and bombarded her with skin care products, cold drinks. One presented six images of Anna in varying shades of custom artificial tan. She scowled. It burst into flames and careened into the gloom below.

“So many hovercars…” Anna whistled.

Aurora laughed again. “Yes, well, the UCF doesn’t have a paranoid king. Anyone who has the credits can get one; not to mention firearms are unregulated. Just about everyone carries them here. I saw a little girl with a pink one yesterday.”

“That’s sad.” Anna shivered as she trudged back to her chair, sitting on the edge with her elbows on her knees. “At least they don’t arrest children for being psionic.”

The door hissed to the side as James emerged ahead of a rush of air conditioning. He held a drink in one hand with two others floating alongside. The levitating beverages glided to the women.

Aurora fanned herself. “They may not haul them away in manacles, but the government here watches them close.”

A shiver ran through Anna’s body at the thought. “They don’t put bombs in their ‘eads.” She squinted at James. “Do they?”

He smiled. “Not anymore, though everyone thinks they do.” James raised his glass in toast and took a sip. “It is certainly dreadfully hot. I am surprised to see you outside, Lauren.”

“I meant here.” Anna sipped her drink, savoring the cold on her tongue.

“Oh. No.” James frowned at the sea of endless construction.

Anna’s iced tea vanished faster than she realized. “Why did you pick such a humid place? Really, James, all the way in the south end of East City? Didn’t this used to be swampland?”

“Proximity to our goal.” He pointed at the skyline. “The Colony’s space programme still focuses a lot of resources in this area. The facility is a relic from the days when things getting shot into space could draw giant crowds of spectators.”

Ice rattling in her empty glass, Anna stood. “I can’t tolerate this dreadful heat anymore.”

“Wales was too cold. This place is too hot…” Aurora laughed. “You got a fickle one, James.”

“This place is too hot,” he muttered into his cup.

Beige interior carpeting squished soft and cool beneath her feet in contrast to the coarse hot concrete on the balcony. Anna basked in the air conditioning for a few minutes before she felt the urge to shiver. After wrapping herself in a dark blue satin robe, she flopped on a large sectional couch the color of sand. Soon, James joined her there, and she shifted up against him, leaning into the arm he put around her shoulders.

Aurora walked past in a black robe with a hem at mid-thigh.

“You joining a nunnery?” Anna sat up with mocking primness. “That robe is almost decent.”

“They wouldn’t have me.” Aurora kept going on her way to the bedroom. She paused, smiling as if she imagined the havoc she might wreak in such a place. “James, I’m going to scrub up a bit and do a little snooping around the facility.”

“This is a nice flat,” said Anna. “I thought your money was in a tangle back home.”

“The manager was nice enough to let us try the place for two months without a commitment.” He winked. “Of course, he thinks we paid for it.”

Anna whistled. “Naughty.”

“Well, we won’t be staying on the Colony’s east coast for long.”

“James, it’s 2413. I don’t think the Crown is going to take it back at this point.”

He brushed his hair over his ear. “Perhaps. So, how are you holding up?”

Anna snuggled tighter to his side. “Fine, I suppose. It was a bit dodgy having Lauren sharing my body at Heathrow. T’was like a voice in my head. At least my legs stopped hurting. Why didn’t she turn into a ghost and follow us? Did she just want to make me squirm?”

“I was asking about you.” He placed a soft kiss on top of her head. “But, it’s rather tiring on her to do that. Having a body is a lot less work.”

“And I don’t suffer the random attentions of restless spirits… and other things.” Aurora winked. “And there is the making you squirm bit.”

Anna fussed at his hair and drew in the scent of him. “I don’t know how I feel about learning the bastard wasn’t really my dad. Who was he? Do I still have a family somewhere? Did I ever? Ol’ Jack seemed to know my mother. Where did I come from?”

James brushed his hand over her hair. “I don’t have any of those answers, my dear. It was fate that brought us together. Somehow, you managed to hide even from Lauren. Do not waste another thought on that pitiful excuse for a person. You have to remember you were only defending yourself. You did what you had to do in order to survive. Knowing he was not your own blood should make it easier to cope with.”

“It feels so odd. The way he looked at me after.” Her fingertips teased at the inside of her wrist. “It hit me bad at first, but you know that.” She looked up. “Oh, I was chattin’ with Penny on the vid this morning. She’s doing okay, but I miss her. She wanted me to thank you for helping get her that job.”

“Think nothing of it. The school will keep paying her until she’s dead. She could dance naked and drunk through the halls and they would keep her on staff; you need not worry about her.”

Anna shot him a look.

“I know you care a great deal about your friend. I made some adjustments to a few brains on the board of trustees. Nothing harmful.” He took a sip of his drink. “They all think she is the bees knees.”

She relaxed, settling her head against him. “Are you still sore from the hot tub?”

He drew a breath through a grimace. “The numbness is gone. That little trait of yours is a bit of a nuisance.”

“Is there a way I can control it? I’m rather sick of blowing out NetMinis every time a rat scurries over my foot.”

“Oh, Anna…” His arm around her shoulders squeezed. “You’ll no longer be living among rats. Perhaps there is something, let’s have a look.”

He shifted to face her, drawing one leg up on the cushion, and locked eyes. Lightheaded euphoria came over her, followed by a strange sense of floating away from her body. She fixated on his face, once more adoring the surrender to his presence. He provided the sense of security she had craved for so long. When she had been doing jobs for Mr. Carroll, she possessed confidence and poise, traits starting to come back. With James in her life, in this place free from the CSB, she no longer felt the need to act meek as a survival mechanism.

When her thoughts settled back into the present moment, she noticed a smug smile on his face.

“Did you fix it?”

“Not entirely, although I believe I understand it now. Those who are born Awakened have some modicum of difficulty with their abilities when they are young. Some, like Lauren, experience visually obvious indicators of what they are. Others, like you, have an event or circumstance knock things loose. This is a great deal of power for a little mind to handle.”

“What happened?” She pushed at his chest, trying to squeeze the words out of him.

“You may have been a year or two old when you witnessed the CSB assassinate your mother. There is no conscious memory of it left in there, but given your circumstances and what has happened… I believe that to be the case. The event caused a connection between your emotional state and the part of your brain that governs your electrokinesis. While I believe it is physiological in nature, you may be able to overcome it with mood control such as meditation, discipline, that sort of thing.”

She sighed. “So I’m to become a Buddhist monk then?”

The unexpected quip made him laugh. “Well, that would certainly be one way to go about it, but I think it would be an unnecessary extreme. Besides they have a dreadful sense of fashion. Perhaps when I unlock the secret, I’ll better understand how to adjust such things.”

“What did you do with the detainees?”

A wave of his hand in the air brought a holo-vid screen up from the silver bar mounted to the wall. Endless confusing jumbles of program guides scrolled along the 120-inch screen.

“I sent them ahead with Terrence, who I have entrusted to run things in my absence, to the west coast. Not so different here, is it? Nine hundred channels and still nothing worth watching.”

Aurora emerged from the interior hall, dressed, and skirted the periphery of their vision so as not to disturb them. James wagged his fingers to scroll through the stations, eventually stopping on a documentary about the physiological effects of off-Earth colony life. Anna pulled her feet up on the couch, cuddling up to him and ignoring the brainiac drivel spilling from the screen.

“Where’s she off to?”

“That is the next part of the plan.” He stroked her hair. “The military over here is developing a starship, the largest yet attempted. With that machine, we can rid ourselves of prejudice and find a new home.”

“Are you touched? You’re talking about leaving Earth?”

“Indeed.”

Anna stared at her feet.

“Aren’t you excited?”

“I… Faye was beside herself with tears when I told her I’d left London. She begged me to come back. Penny and Spawny…”

“The girl has her own family, she will find her way. As for your friends, we can take them with us. If they want to go.”

“What do you need me to do?” Her voice came out of her, but she felt far away from it.

“Infiltrate the facility of the corporation responsible for the starship’s construction, and recover design specifications and access codes. The ship is still several years from completion, however. I need to make sure it will be capable of fulfilling our needs, and procure the means to infiltrate it when the time comes.”

She gave him a look as though he’d asked her to shoot her own dog. “Are you sure?”

James pulled her head to his chest. “Of course. Would I ever deceive you?”

Anna smiled and closed her eyes, snuggling tight, feeling as safe, loved, and protected as she ever had.

nna paused against an angled beam of white-painted plastisteel, square and as thick as her body. From where it bolted to the ground, it trailed into an upward spiral before joining the side of the Timmons-Orben corporate headquarters at the fortieth floor. Hundreds more formed a ring around the base of the building, a crisscross of metal in the shape of an inverted hyperbolic cone. Transparent panels set into the grid let sunlight in to an immense round courtyard.

The tower rose through the center of the lattice, a great white needle stabbing at the sky. Hundreds of people flowed to and from the entrance, around several one-quarter scale models of spacecraft, hovercars, and full scale mock ups of ion engines. Anna felt out of place wearing the loose black pants and combat boots she had ordered an hour earlier. Checking the buttons of her snug grey top from right shoulder to left hip, she tugged at the sleeves and grumbled.

I don’t fit in. All these people are wearing twenty thousand credits of designer crap. I feel like a terrorist.

Lauren’s voice laughed in the back of her mind. Well it’s not like we’re here for tea and biccies. It won’t matter in the courtyard. Like I said, they’re all too busy.

Her plain silver mesh belt held one small box at her left hip, a container of imitation white leather the size of a bar of soap. She squeezed it, hoping like hell she would not need the six stimpaks inside.

I should have gone with the white thigh-highs. Anna sighed, and Lauren chuckled. The military boots are what makes me stand out.

Anna shuddered at the oddity of feeling Aurora roll her eyes.

The bloody things you wanted had two-inch heels. You’d fall on your ass if things went wonky.

Two security officers walked into the periphery of her vision. Head to toe in black jumpsuits, armor, and headgear, they tromped around the perimeter with rifles clutched to their chest aimed down to the left. Their approach spurred her into motion before they could get close enough to scan her. Anna stepped out from behind the giant metal ribbon and went into the crowd, walking as if she belonged.

How can you stand it? Lauren’s question almost made her jump.

Gathering herself with a breath, Anna shot an annoyed look in a random direction. Stand what?

Being this short.

Color came to her cheeks. I am not that short! You’re a bloody amazon.

I’m only five eleven, hon. You’re tiny.

Anna got redder. Five eleven is a bloody amazon. Knock it off. You’ll give me away.

Okay, okay. I’m just not used to seeing the world at tit level.

Anna’s left hand reached up and checked the boob on that side.

Little petite, but they’ve got a good round shape.

She grabbed her left wrist with her right hand, forcing it down to her side. Stop groping me! Err… Stop making me grope me! You’re so unprofessional.

But, I’m not a professional, dear. That’s all you. I’m a freak.

Tuning out Aurora’s laughter, Anna focused on navigating. Her eyes darted to pairs of security men monitoring the crowd. Far too many people flooded the place to mask her presence from everyone, but all she had to do was avoid notice by the guards. Anna mingled her thoughts with theirs, forcing minds to disregard her.

Lauren, can you take over walking? Hard to focus; slows me to a crawl.

Numbness came over her lower body as her legs vanished from her consciousness. Feeling as though she floated on a cloud, Anna maintained concentration on the patrollers while Aurora kept her at a brisk walk. Into the shadow of the building they went, under the gleaming archway of white plastisteel and glass. She maintained telepathic invisibility aimed at anyone in a security uniform as the room slid past.

They stopped between a pair of nine-foot tall ferns against a gloss black wall.

Care to hit the call button or shall I? Lauren chuckled inside her head.

Anna reached for the elevator control while keeping the security team oblivious. Doors squeaked apart revealing a mirrored cylinder. Energy filled the air and faint green lines traced a grid through the reflective wall. Having no firearms, blades, or cybernetics, Anna was unconcerned with the scan.

Not having an ID card, however, she pressed her fingertips into the console. Flickering amber threads stretched through the darkness; her mind mapped the electricity in the wires around them.

That’s bloody keen. So pretty… Lauren’s mental voice faded to an awestruck whisper.

Anna glowered at the pattern in the control box, hoping to find a circuit path to bypass the security system. This is so damn complicated… I should have gone to school for electrical engineering or something.

Lauren’s influence made her head turn to stare at five large amber slabs surrounding the elevator cab. Bugger the controls. Can you just tweak the magnets? Go for the 53rd floor.

She looked around at the insane mess of amber wiring and circuits. I don’t think I could figure that out, besides it’ll set off an alarm for a malfunction.

Wait here.

Anna shivered as icy fog rolled out of her body and vanished through the door. A couple of minutes passed in agonizing slowness. Without warning, the elevator got underway; the sudden motion caused her to yelp, stumble, and cling to the handrail. Frigid air crawled up her legs from the floor, and Aurora’s presence forced itself into her thoughts again.

Nice fellow at the guard station decided to send us to the correct floor. No, he’s not hurt.

Moments later, she stepped out into a blue-carpeted hallway.

Duck into the ladies’ loo.

Had Aurora not kept refilling her tea that night, she would not have been awake in the outhouse when the ambush started. Wondering what the clairvoyant was up to, Anna complied without protest. She whistled at the gold-plated sinks with reticulated crystal faucets, feeling ever so much more underdressed for being in an executive washroom. Behind her in the mirror, one pair of legs indicated an occupant in the brown-marble patterned stalls.

Be right back.

Anna clenched her jaw at the momentary sensation of cold air sliding down her legs. Aurora exited her, leaving her clinging to the sink to avoid falling. She felt woozy for a moment until her body adjusted to being in control of itself once more. A female voice gasped and the stall opened to reveal a mocha-skinned security guard wearing Aurora’s haughty smile.

The officer walked up to her, head tilted to the side, and nodded. “Yep, you are short.”

Anna squinted with folded arms. “What’s the point of this? You want to fake arrest me?”

“Hate to disappoint you, luv, but you don’t get to wear handcuffs today. Though, I suppose I could save them for later if you want. One sec.”

Anna blushed and turned away, unable to come up with a good comeback. The officer took off her utility belt and laid it on the sink, followed by her armored vest, which she tossed to Anna.

“Put that on, don’t quibble.” Aurora walked the guard to the back end of the bathroom and sat on the floor. “Hurry up, we don’t have much time. Knock this one out.”

She wriggled into the vest before putting a hand on the guard’s shoulder and jolting her unconscious.

“Damn that hurts.” Aurora’s disembodied voice floated over her from behind. “I figure this one will start making noise in about ten minutes. Go out to the end of the hall and take the first right. You want the corner office. I’ll follow.”

“How do you know all this?” Anna started for the door.

“While you’ve been making kissy-poo with James for the past four days, I’ve been a ghost in this place. Grab the damn gun so you look like a guard.”

Anna ducked through the automatic door and jogged to the end of the corridor before turning right. The firearm in her hands felt like carrying fear in solid form. One bad fright and she could detonate all the ammunition in the magazine. Electronic triggers worked with small sparks instead of a percussive pin; in her hands, it was as good as a bomb. The chime of another elevator opening coincided with her rounding out of sight. Comm chatter in the stolen helmet reported on the abandoned elevator and an unrecognized white-haired woman who had gone into the bathroom. Hearing them coordinate movement made her step up to a run, and she burst through the door of a fancy office.

A startled executive assistant looked up at her, before a single thin spark of lightning between the eyes knocked him senseless. The intense crack shook the windows and filled the air with the taste of ozone. She zapped him without breaking stride, continuing through an interior door to a large corner office. The floor-to-ceiling windows offered a breathtaking view of a cityscape that could have been a mural. White and silver buildings caught the powder blue glow of the sky, while hovercars and advert bots danced like fake snow in a shaken globe. Behind a monolith of black marble serving as a desk, a middle-aged Hispanic man with grey hair looked over a bank of holo-terminals with stunned indignation.

“Who the hell are you? How dare you barge into my―”

A dozen crackling arcs connected her fingers to his desk, destroying every piece of electronica before he could trigger an alarm. He cringed away from the shower of silver dust exploding into the air, reaching for a handgun under his jacket.

It never quite aimed at Anna, as he wobbled in a drunken sprawl and fell over the desk of annihilated components. After a moment, he straightened up, grinned, and tucked the pistol back under his arm before walking out from behind the desk.

“Come on then, luv.”

Anna grinned at the English accent. Several more security officers swarmed past them. She kept her head down, acting like a security guard on escort duty. They greeted the older man in turn as they passed, apologizing for the disruption. Aurora did not speak, offering only nods and grunts. Past a handful of offices and a conference room, the possessed man swiped his badge over the wall and opened a concealed elevator among the imitation marble tiles. This one maintained the faux opulence with gold and black panels and a holographic plant in the back corner.

“How did you know that was there? Can you read minds when you’re inside them?”

Lauren’s laugh sounded wrong in that voice. “No, I went snooping about. Walls don’t stop me.”

The borrowed executive poked at the elevator controls, sending them down several floors to a plain grey-carpeted area full of cube farms. Aurora nodded at people as they passed; most everyone seemed afraid of making eye contact with whomever she had taken. Hooking left at the end, she walked her victim over to an armored silver door.

A tall black man stood up from behind a nearby security desk, giving the executive a hesitant nod.

“Good morning Mr. Alvarez. Is there something I can help you with, sir?”

“I’m conducting a review of the facility. I’d like to check up on the Angel team, see how they are doing.”

The guard stared for a long few seconds. Anna sensed doubt in his surface thoughts. He sensed something ever so slightly wrong with the executive. Aurora’s best lack-of-accent seemed off enough to raise suspicion. The senior vice president, military project division, seemed different to him in a way the officer could not pick out. His finger reached for the door control, hesitating. He thought of pushing the alarm.

“Mr. Alvarez, are you feeling all right?” asked the guard.

Too friendly! Anna shot her thoughts into her friend’s mind. Alvarez is a raging twat!

Aurora leaned at him with a hostile glare as her smile snapped into a flat smirk. “Is there something wrong with the door or are you being a simpleton on purpose?”

“No, Mr. Alvarez, I’m sorry, must be hot in here today.” The guard poked a button, and a pair of reinforced doors rumbled apart.

The executive spun on his heel, a look of alarm on his face.

Anna, count to two and step left.

She obeyed without thinking. Glass shattered as fire scraped the outside of her right bicep; a sniper’s bullet stalled on the security officer’s armor, doubling him over to the ground. Anna’s heart resumed working after she leapt through the doors and collapsed against the walls of a hospital-clean hallway.

Klaxons and red flashing lights erupted everywhere.

Alvarez hauled Anna standing by two fistfuls of armored vest. “Seal the door!”

Lightning crawled up the walls, seeking the threads of circuitry on their way to the motors. The door slammed shut, cutting off an onrush of security officers in the antechamber outside. Anna and Mr. Alvarez exchanged a lingering stare, the silence broken by their heavy breathing and muted fists pounding at four inches of armor.

“What was that?” Anna leapt up, cradling her nicked arm.

“A shooter.” Aurora couldn’t help but laugh at Anna’s expression. “Buggered if I know. It’s outside the plan.”

Raised floor tiles shifted and thunked as they walked over a short ramp through an overpressure hallway and into the secure data room. A dozen workers in white coats looked up like prairie dogs from terminals arranged around a central computing core. The amount of power in it called to Anna like a candle to a moth.

“Freeze!” A man shouted.

A huge brown-skinned figure in armor rushed at them from the left. Anna cringed away from the flash of laser light in her eye, frightened by where his weapon aimed.

“About god damned time.” The exec barked. “This bitch has had me at gunpoint for twenty minutes.”

Her mouth hung open. Lights and terminals faltered. Anna held her rifle out, away from her body in case it went off.

“Drop it or I’ll aerate your skull!” The guard edged closer.

Techies hit the deck.

Anna shrieked and let go of the weapon.

“On the ground, arms apart.”

She spread herself out on the floor and he ambled over, keeping his pistol trained on her until he took a knee at her side and gathered her arms behind her back. While he fumbled for restraints, Alvarez lunged and yanked the stunner from his belt.

“Sir, I don’t think that’s―”

The huge guard blinked in shock as the vice president applied the device to his own thigh and face-planted the ground. Taking advantage of the distraction, Anna shocked the ogre through his grip about her wrist. Trapped beneath three hundred pounds of twitching security guard, Anna screamed and clawed at the floor. A few techies peeked at the three bodies on the ground. She couldn’t pull herself forward, wasn’t strong enough to shove him off her, and couldn’t breathe under the crushing pressure driving her hipbones into the floor.

After an agonizing few seconds, the guard roared to consciousness, sending techies ducking out of sight. He seized her by the armored vest, hauling her up and over his head in preparation to slam her headfirst into the floor. He hesitated, staggering to the left. She fired an arc into his face, which he appeared to disregard aside from changing the direction of his drunken lope to the left.

Then he stopped.

“Sorry, Anna. This bugger’s quite the strong-willed one. You might want to keep a few steps away in case he slips my leash.”

Anna landed on her feet as the big man set her down. She tried not to let her worry show in the form of trembling.

“Took you long enough.”

sing the security officer’s body, Aurora rounded the technicians up in the rear of the data room. Anna followed, retrieving the rifle she had been carrying only to keep anyone else from using it against them. Aurora-turned-guard shook his head at the way she held it.

His aim point shifted from person to person. “Right, which one of you is the project lead?”

The soft technological thrum of the gargantuan computer almost drowned out the whimpering. Anna ducked around the guard and grabbed a Chinese woman by the collar.

“This one’s the project lead.”

The big man smiled. “Love having you along, dear.”

You’re not telepathic?

Aurora shook the giant’s head. “Nope. Well, maybe a slight bit… But I can’t do it from inside someone.”

“Recognized her face from the personnel records.” Anna lied, trying to keep their captives calm by grounding things in terms they could understand.

“Okay then.” The guard dragged the woman to the terminal and tossed her into the chair.

“Kinnel! This dogsbody is strong.” He blinked.

The techies glanced at each other.

Oh, that’s real subtle. Anna smirked at him.

Anna removed a blank holodisk from a pocket and placed it in the terminal.

Aurora had given up trying to conceal her accent. “Access the system and copy all of the design specification documents for the CSS Angel. Schematics, codes, everything.”

With the barrel of an automatic rifle in the side of her head, the tech did as she was told. A three-by-six-foot panel of holographic light spread out in front of them, and a sequence of file icons filled in across it. Anna kept an eye on the other techs, all huddled in a mass of trembling white coats.

One man thought of his three children, another longed for his wife. A dark-skinned woman worried what would happen to her cats if she died today. The man next to her could not wait to go home to his cyberspace gaming habit. Faces of spouses, kids, and pets ran a slideshow through the forefront of their minds. By the time the copy finished, Anna felt sick.

A scream made her jump up. Her gaze snapped to the head tech, cowering from the giant’s raised rifle. Anna grabbed Aurora’s arm, doing little stop the tree trunk of a limb from pointing the gun at the Chinese woman’s head.

“What the hell are you doing?”

He looked down at her. “We can’t leave witnesses.”

The techs growing panic stalled when Anna shouted back.

“No. These people aren’t our enemy. We can’t kill them.”

“If they learn we nicked this data, it will become a big bag of wank.”

Anna felt six inches tall; her pull at the arm lifted her off the ground before it altered his aim. “Do you honestly think they won’t assume we took everything if they find a room full of bodies? This will just give the police a dozen times the motivation to breathe down our necks. We came here to get away from government pressure, not make more. We can’t prove them right about us.”

He lowered his arm. “Still got a bit of the softie in ya, I see.”

The head tech sank to the floor, sobbing and thanking Anna.

“I’m being practical. Killing for the sake of killing won’t help us.” Anna squeezed past him to the terminal. “There’s got to be a way…”

She ducked out of sight behind a wall of neural memory storage cabinets and called James. In a moment, a small holographic head stared up at her.

“What the devil are you calling me for?” He blinked.

“James, she wants to kill all these people. They’re not our enemy. We don’t need the extra attention from the police.”

His lips curled into a patronizing smile, the sort of smile given to a child offering an unwanted gift to a parent. “That’s rather precious of you, Anna. Still plagued with a bit of regret I see.”

“Think about it James. If we leave the room bloody, the cops will come after us for the killing and the company will assume we have every bit of data about that starship you’re so enamored with. That’s what everyone in here is working on, right? If we wipe them out, it’s as bad as telling the cops what we took. I don’t know what to do.”

He pursed his lips. “Yes, I suppose it would be cleaner if they had no recollection of what happened. Very well, transfer the call to a desk terminal and round them up in front.”

“You want them to see your face?”

“Yes, yes. Bring them over.”

“What?” Anna blinked. “What good will that do?”

“Have a little faith, Annabelle.”

She approached a desk, waving the NetMini at it as if trying to fling his holographic head off it onto the larger device. It reacted to the gesture and James’s head vanished and reappeared life-sized over the terminal.

Anna pointed her rifle in the general direction of the hostages. “Everyone come over, look at him.”

The crowd stood, wary of the big man who looked as confused as they did. Once they had all gathered around, James closed his eyes, seeming lost in concentration for a few seconds. When they opened, Anna gasped. The hologram had surface thoughts, as if he was there in the room.

The employees stared at James’ floating head; his widening eyes became fields of white digital snow, hollow grey spots in an otherwise lifelike visage. He looked at them one by one, each individual fainting after a long, pointed stare. He smiled at the tall, thin man who wanted to go home to his video games.

“You will access the system logs and remove all traces of your supervisor’s account logging in today. Do you understand?”

The young man nodded, and hurried off to another terminal.

The static faded back to brown eyes. “My dears, it would be a most excellent idea if you no longer remained in the room when I am done working with these people.”

larms rang through every hallway in the building. Anna shuffled against the tide of employees headed for the exits. In their panic, they all mistook her for one of the security team. Her running in the opposite direction only seemed to reinforce their belief. She hit the stairwell, following Aurora’s suggestion to make her way to the executive parking deck.

Drab grey walls of unpainted concrete passed one after the next as she climbed a dozen flights. The air stank of dust, and the helmet’s visor fogged to a blurry obstruction. Comm chatter buzzed with the search for the white-haired woman who had, according to them, tried and failed to kidnap one of the VPs. They also searched for the source of inbound weapons fire from an office building across the street.

At the doorway to the seventy-fourth floor, she collapsed on the stairs to catch her breath. After two gasps, her back arched stiff as a freezing mass of heavy air settled on her. Clamping her hands over her mouth to stifle the shriek, Anna twitched and let Aurora in.

Her teeth chattered. Little bloody warning, please.

Sorry, luv. I had to drop the suit somewhere other than the data room to keep the illusion up.

Content to be little more than a presence in the back of Anna’s mind, Aurora rode as a passenger while they continued. At the end of the stairs, she emerged from a door adjacent to a silver elevator and jogged into a lavish corridor of white marble, gold trim, and black carpeting. Glass comprised much of the right wall, beyond which the executive’s café teased her with the smell of food and coffee.

You’re not seriously considering stopping for a munch are you?

Anna kept going. I should, I’d be eating for two.

Thirty meters later, the hall descended at a mild grade to a pair of double doors, which opened at the approach of people. Outside, beyond a small cadre of umbrella-bearing orb bots, a handful of high-end hovercars sat arranged in named spaces. Anna went for the nearest one.

The last two paces to the car went by in a flash as a severe impact caught her between the shoulder blades, driving her into the fender. Stunned with no air in her lungs, she slumped to the ground, wheezing.

Good thing you’ve got that armor, eh?

Whatever had hit her hurt too much to reply, even with a thought.

Aurora took over, dragging her under the car out of sight.

You all right, Anna?

A sniper just nailed me tits-first into a bloody car. How do you think I feel? She curled on her side trying to breathe. Thanks for telling me to take the vest.

The strange sensation of Aurora winking crept through her mind. Be glad they got the good ones. Most vests can’t stop rifle slugs.

Again in control, Anna rolled out from under the far side and sat up.

You’ve any idea how to steal one of these?

Her left arm moved on its own, offering a shrug. Imagine it’s got some manner of biometrics, fingerprint reader most likely. Didn’t you nick a few cars when you were little?

Bloody hell. I’ve never even sat in a hover much less nicked one.

The shivering chill of Aurora’s departure ran down her back, followed by a ghostly voice. “Stay still then, I’ve an idea.”

Anna figured if she could see the man shooting at her, she could force him not to see her. She crept to the end of the car to peek. The taillight exploded from another shot, spraying her with tiny fragments and making her grateful to have taken the helmet. Without a clue where the sniper was, Anna waited. Nerves got the better of her, and some of the nearby cars sparked.

Flashing lights came over the edge of the roof atop a white and black hovercar bearing Timmons-Orben security markings. It glided to a landing a few meters away, bumper to bumper against the car she used for cover. Rather than point a gun at her, the driver waved her over.

Anna tilted her head. “Aurora?”

He offered a hat-tipping gesture at her. “Good guess. It’s easier to steal one that’s already moving.”

“Yeah sure, if you can fly and just possess people willy-nilly I suppose it is.”

The guard feigned shock. “What, you mean you can’t?”

Aurora slid the car sideways off the edge of the roof deck. Several shots clanked in from the unseen gunman, one of which blew out the rear window. Aurora jammed the throttle forward, but the car tumbled end over end as a detonation hit it like a kick in the trunk. The possessed man lost his British accent for a few minutes of shouted obscenities as he brought their plummet into a careening dive a few degrees away from actual control. He shot Anna a glance as if he wanted to punch her, but was too petrified to let go of the sticks.

“What the fuck is going on? Why was there some woman in my head?”

“Look out!” shouted Anna.

He swerved past a support beam, howling as he wrangled the car into something close to normal flight.

Anna held onto the roof handles, staring out the window at the sloped wall of plastisteel and glass that circled the lower half of the building. The car rocketed around in a downward spiral, swaying left to right, chased by its reflection in the surface below.

The console became a blinking mass of red and orange as it erupted with lights and warnings. They bumped and scraped over the edge of the thirtieth floor parking deck, the top level of a detached section of building where the non-executive employees parked.

Anna’s weight crushed into the seat until a collision from below bounced her into the roof. Grinding scrapes shuddered through the frame as it bottomed out with the ground wheels still retracted, and went into a skidding spin. When motion ceased, she ventured a look. They had come to a halt three inches away from the far edge, having slid between two rows of parked cars without touching a single one.

Anna glanced at the man next to her. “Fine bit of flying, that.”

He glared at her, reaching for his sidearm, but his eyes fluttered with Aurora’s presence.

Fragments of acrylic showered the interior as a hail of bullets riddled the driver. He slumped dead over the console. Aurora’s voice moaned from the back seat, grumbling about how much it hurt to be killed. A plain grey hover-van swooped out in front of them, gliding with the side door open. Three men inside continued to fire full-size assault rifles at the car.

Anna ducked under the glove box, arms crossed over her head to shield from the rain of debris. When the firing stopped, her fear morphed into anger. She sprang up in the seat and reached out through the broken windshield. Dazzling sparks shot back and forth between her hands before leaping through the air into the van. The riflemen bailed, sliding down ropes to the parking deck as the interior lights faltered and died. She growled, drawing power out of the car around her to make the arc thicker.

The back end of the hover van erupted into a fireball as the ion drives overloaded. Streamers of lightning crawled along the undercarriage, sporadic blue flashes against the black metal, and it lurched over the edge. Silver windows across the street lit red-orange an instant before the deep rumble of a crash at ground level reached the roof.

Amid the fading growl of the explosion, a metallic clank rang out from the railing where it had gone down. The three men scattered among the cars to take cover as a fourth came up over the side on a grapple hook. Anna crawled out of the wreck, eyes narrowing into a hateful squint when she saw the long shape of a sniper rifle across the back of the muscular figure pulling himself up and over the wall.

One of them popped over a car and fired at her. She dove to the ground, crawling away from a spray of broken glass. Another plinked at the deck behind her in a series of near misses that sent her scurrying up to a full sprint. She stayed low, using parked cars for cover as she headed for the stairwell. A man slid out from under a car, sweeping her feet out. She hit the ground. He was on top of her in an instant. A hand around the visor pulled her head back, and the glint of a combat knife flashed in the corner of her eye. She drove her helmet into his face, buying enough of a distraction to get an arm on his hand and redirect the knife into her shoulder. The point slipped between armor panels and drew blood.

Anna screamed. He rolled over on his back, twisting the knife. She shocked his arm, barely able to concentrate on her power through the agony. It had no effect. Anna kicked as he brought his other arm around and hooked his wrist, scraping the blade out of the wound in an attempt to get it past the vest into her throat.

Insulated suits. She snarled and bit him on the hand, grinding her teeth into the thin material of his glove. As soon as she tasted blood, she let her fear take over. The electric discharge knocked him epileptic, and hit her like a punch direct to the teeth. Boots tromped closer. Disoriented, Anna grabbed at the nearest car trying to figure out which way was up. He roared, shaking off the stun and had a pistol in her face while she was still on all fours.

His grin evaporated to an emotionless line. “Hang on, luv. I got him. Kindly don’t zap the shite out of me.”

The possessed man clicked off a few shots over the roof at someone Anna couldn’t see, and whirled a second before another rounded the row of cars, as if she sensed him coming. The man fired in haste; one slug hit Anna in the face at an oblique angle that glanced away from the visor without penetrating. The protective material splintered into an opaque spiderweb. Anna bounced away from the car, bleeding from the nose and dazed.

Aurora opened fire, walking a line of bullets from chest to head. The soldier staggered back, a spray of red burst from the back of his skull. Anna fumbled to get the helmet off so she could see, and dropped it between her knees. After focusing away the dizziness, she peeked up.

A glint caught her eye; the man with the rifle aimed from the edge of the roof. She screamed and dove for cover.

“Aura, sniper!”

Aurora swung her arm back over the car, the man’s body jerky and zombie-like as he fought her for control. She squeezed off a series of shots, having little hope of hitting him with a handgun at such range, but the attempt was enough to make the sniper duck. Beneath blue muzzle flare, Anna leaned up, staring at the man who had shot her in the back.

For several seconds, she concentrated, building up a charge in the metal parts of the long rifle. The sniper broke left, seeking refuge behind another car. Creeping arcs leapt from the ground to the tip of the barrel. Sparks spewed from both ends of the electronic scope as it fried; the man holding it convulsed on his feet. Lightning crackled and scored the ground for a few seconds until he managed to toss the weapon to the side, drawing the attack with it. He leapt away from the discharge, and rolled out of sight behind a car.

Aurora grabbed Anna’s belt, hauling her around like a ragdoll. She hit the ground on her back, sliding away from the possessed man. Before Anna could ask why she had been thrown, a roar of automatic rifle fire blew through him, spattering blood on her face. Wheezing, he fell to his knees and careened over sideways, struggling to crawl.

The last of the three men from the van shouted from behind a vendomat cluster at the center of the parking deck. Clicking noises gave away he was reloading. “So who paid you off, Paul? I had a feelin’ that damn Brit was involved in something fucked up. He was payin’ too good to help him off his ex-wife.”

Gurgling, the wounded man reached into the air. “Donny, no! Something… controlling… me.”

“You think I’m gonna fall for a line of shit like that?”

Mercenaries? Anna blinked at his surface thoughts.

Donny finished him with a single shot to the head. Ignoring the viscous red seep oozing out from the dead man’s helmet, Anna forced the last mercenary not to see her. Startled, he rushed forward from his cover, swinging in a leftward arc to aim at where he thought she had gone.

“What Brit?”

He whirled, hearing but not seeing Anna a few feet behind him. She sidestepped in case he decided to fire at random.

“Annabelle, Annabelle…” A man’s voice ended a moment of dead calm with a singing tone. “…where did you go?”

She recognized it―Agent Gordon.

The mercenary continued to circle, checking behind the next row of cars. He shivered as he walked into a cloud of arctic air. Fog materialized into the outline of Aurora’s nude form.

“You should have listened to Paul. Something was controlling him.”

“Wha―” He screamed, continuing to howl as he scrambled backwards and fired through an Aurora-shaped cloud of mist.

She laughed the condescending cackle of a high-society woman tormenting the lower class. Her fog-form swam like a mermaid through the air and into his chest. Curling into a ball, he fell thrashing on the ground and shouted, banging his fist into the concrete until his knuckles bled.

Unable to find Gordon, Anna crouched behind the wheel of a van. “You’ve got no backup left, Gordo. They’re still in London, or did you get sacked after Thompson survived?”

Crunching boots moved somewhere nearby. “You’re simply too dangerous to be allowed to remain alive.”

Donny’s head snapped up, his face red but calm. “My word, this one was stubborn.”

Two gunshots came in such rapid succession they sounded like a single shot. The last mercenary’s head exploded into a sluice of gore, chunks, and teeth. Anna stared at the expanding pool of crimson burbling out of the stump of a neck. Aurora’s body fell out of a cloud of fog a few yards away, sprawled on the ground, barely conscious.

“Aura!” screamed Anna.

“Two deaths is too… Wasn’t expecting…” She passed out.

Anna scooted over, jamming a stimpak into her friend’s back in hopes the adreno-stimulant helped. The pale woman didn’t move. She stuck her with a second one before the scrape of a boot made her jump back against the vehicle. Anna whined at Aurora.

“Come on, get up,” she whispered.

“Two birds with one stone.” Hidden Gordon laughed at his own joke. “By the way Anna, I should thank you for sparing me the expense of having to pay those men.”

nna peered around the back end of the car, balling her hands into fists as Gordon strode into view with a large pistol in each hand. Threading her mind into his, she moved as fast as she could while concentrating on keeping herself invisible. A field flickered through his brain, some manner of mental screen that made it more difficult to see his thoughts. Anna broke out in a shivery sweat from the exertion, but forced herself in anyway. Gordon staggered for a moment, touching his skull as if something burned him. She thought back to the inhibitor. His tech isn’t calibrated to our level. I can’t keep this up very long.

Agent Gordon looked to a sudden beeping from his armband display, raising his left arm so he could look over the screen, almost aiming at her with his other hand.

“Well, well. Still playing mind games through a psi screen.” He sighed. “This piece of shit is supposed to keep you out of my head. Learn something new every day.”

The first time he fired, she had the nerve to trust he would miss. When he corrected, her resolve faltered and she sprinted at him, no longer able to keep up the effort to remain invisible. He flung his left arm out and fired the nanosecond the gun went vertical. The slug crushed into Anna’s breast, stalled on the armor, but the impact sent her to the ground, wheezing.

“Like pulling the wings off of flies, or pixies as the case may be.” Agent Gordon offered a sincere smile before turning to aim down at Aurora’s head.

Aurora’s body dissipated into fog as if she were a smoke-filled bubble popped by the bullet. Anna smiled at the sound of the ricochet, cradling her chest and trying to breathe.

“Well that’s just rude.” Gordon faced back to Anna. “I suppose I’ll have to eat the pudding before the meat.”

The fog coalesced around Gordon. He cringed as if experiencing a sudden migraine. Aurora faded in screaming and holding her head. Gordon raised an eyebrow.

“Well, I suppose the bloody thing is good for something.” He grabbed for her, but she zipped down through the floor. “That one’s always been a pain in the ass.”

Sliding backwards, Anna held a hand against her chest where the bullet hit her. Anger got the better of her, and she hurled a blast of lightning into the pistol. Gordon flew off his feet, landing on the ground a short distance away as the smoldering handgun skittered out of his grip.

He remained still for a moment before clasping his elbow and tapping his chin with his right forefinger. “You know, Anna. An insulated combat suit is quite the thing for dealing with people with your particular specialty. That almost tingled.”

Anna hesitated; her heart sank. “Why do you have to do this to us? All we want is to live like anyone else.”

He made a whimpery noise, mocking her. The condescending smirk she imagined hid behind the black material over his face. She sprang to her feet and sprinted past him to the dropped sidearm. He spun, kicking the back of her right foot out from under her as it hit the ground. She went over, sliding on her ass and knocking the pistol farther away. He grabbed her ankle when she went to run again, and dragged her closer.

Anna flipped over, drilling him across the face with her boot hard enough to make him let go, and scrambled in a crabwalk away from him. A chill ran through her as he laughed.

“That legwork might have worked at the strip club, but I’m not impressed.”

Telepathic invisibility forced him look at the armband once more; when he did not react to her, she had an epiphany, realizing it was a motion tracker. Anna froze. Gordon rotated, searching. She could not see where his gaze pointed due to the opaque lenses. His display chirped as her hand slid two inches rearward, and she went still again, letting him run past her.

Anna stopped concentrating on the telepathic invisibility and opened her mind to the electronics on his arm, calling to the sensor’s power cell. It went off in a bloom of sparks and a spray of molten plastic and glass fragments.

Roaring in pain, Gordon took a knee. “That’s gonna cost you, whore.”

Anna jumped on his back and yanked a knife from his belt. She raised it over her head, but he elbowed her in the gut before she could bring it down. The strike winded her and knocked her off him, sending her into a backward stagger. Gordon took a step and she lunged a second time. He swatted her attack away with an almost casual deflection as if he toyed with a child. Twice more she came at him and met similar results; the third time, he caught her hand, disarmed her, and flipped her to the ground.

“Who the hell taught you how to fight?”

Anna’s face reddened as he twisted agony into her shoulder. “No one, you twat. I grew up on the street.”

“Oh, that’s so tragic.” He let go of her and took a step back. “There’s no fun in that. I could go beat up ten year olds all day, but it’s just not entertaining. Come on, get up; grab the knife.”

Anna staggered to her feet, cradling her arm where he twisted it. “What the devil’s wrong with you?”

“I only want this to be fair.” The way his head tilted made her imagine the shit-eating grin she hated so much. “Here…”

He pulled another knife from a vest sheath, and held it in a closed fist. “This is your basic hammer grip, good for newbies like you.” He shifted his thumb along the spine of the blade. “This is a saber grip. When you learn a little bit more, you can employ this with some footwork.” After a brief demonstration of stances and shuffling, he flipped the weapon over, holding it like the first time with the blade pointed down. “Now the icepick grip is advanced; once you know what you’re doing, you can use it with some of the fancier deception techniques, but you give up some reach for power. However”―he tossed the knife and caught it upright―“you’re not even close to that level yet.”

He lunged with a teasing attack. Anna evaded it, but walked right into the foot sweep.

He pinched his temples, shaking his head. “That’s just sad. Get up.”

A crackling azure bolt connected her hand to his crotch for several seconds. He squealed, grabbing himself, and fell to his knees. Anna leapt at him, stepping straight into a jiu-jitsu arm takedown. She wound up kissing the ground with no knife in her hand.

“I was faking. Rubber suit, remember.” He tapped his crotch. “Zap away, doesn’t do a bloody thing.”

Growling, she struggled to crawl away from him, but he held her fast.

“No appreciation anymore. You Covs are all the same.” His backup pistol pressed against the side of her head, above her right ear.

She wailed as it crushed her skull against the concrete.

The sound of a gunshot almost emptied her bladder. Gordon lurched forward, falling on top of her with a loud grunt. She rolled off as he fired to the side in mid somersault, reddening the white shirt of a Timmons-Orben security guard. Two shots struck within millimeters of each other in the man’s heart. Anna sprinted a dozen car lengths before diving into a slide beneath vehicles.

Gordon snarled, scanning left and right. A small advert bot zoomed in, hovering over the dead man, displaying an offer for medical products. Agent Gordon pointed and burst into laughter, which grew more intense as the little machine got a better look at the guard, and the ads changed to solicit various funerary services.

Another security officer emerged from the main entrance, firing as soon as he had a bead on Gordon. From the unsteady gait and sudden expression of confusion, she figured Aurora tried to help and bailed out before this man died too. Anna bolted during the distraction in an effort to put as much distance as possible between herself and Gordon while the security man kept him occupied.

A stark white enclosure forty meters away offered the respite of a door. She found it locked and screamed out of sheer mindless frustration.

Bullets hit the wall, chasing her to the right and under the nearest car.

“Planning to fly off the roof, Pixie?” Gordon laughed. “You’re running away from the door. I suppose you are just trying to keep me busy until Doctor Mardling shows up to save his little sex doll. He is coming, is he not? I’ve got something special for him as well.”

As much as Anna wanted James to save her, being called a sex doll filtered the world red. She sprang up, sending a twenty-foot long arc of lightning into his chest, which slithered around him to the ground. This time he did not act like it did anything, offering only a laugh. Anna seethed. Her anger came in waves mirrored in flickers upon every lamp in the area.

Three cars burst into flames behind her as she raged; great crackling serpents of electricity burned holes through their hoods and coiled around her. Sizzling sparks licked up and down her entire body, channeled it into a blast that flung Gordon off his feet and sent him ass-first through the windshield of a cherry red sportscar fifteen meters away. Smoke and the scent of burned rubber filled the air. At the center of his armor, a palm-sized patch of bare skin stood out where his black suit had melted into his flesh.

“Not so cocky now, are we?” She grumbled, tamping out a small fire on her sleeve.

Near exhaustion, she stumbled over to where he had dropped his gun and came close to falling as she picked it up. She aimed at him. It chirped a ready tone as her finger hit the trigger; she froze when a voice to her right yelled.

“Drop it.”

A pair of security men pointed rifles at her over the hood of another car. Anna rotated her head to stare at them without moving anything else.

“Don’t make me shoot you, honey. Drop the fucking gun.”

She squinted, an action imperceptible to them from that distance. When she erased herself from their sight, they prairie dogged. To them, she had simply vanished. As they spun around looking for her, her arm swung the pistol in their direction and fired. Three seconds and eight shots later, the dying men caught sight of her shimmer back into existence. Anna stared at the readout showing three bullets left. Her arm shook at the realization she’d killed two men.

So easy. She no longer even wanted to touch the pistol. And they’re afraid of us? Any idiot with a gun…

Creaking metal made her turn, but she was too slow to avoid Gordon’s boot. It caught her in the chest, knocking her flat. The gun sailed into nowhere as his fist crossed her face before he grabbed her by the armored vest and hurled her into a car. She sprawled there, motionless, exhaustion from the massive shock and the sudden assault left her head spinning. Fingers in her hair drove her head into the fender twice, before she absorbed another punch or six to the ribs. She coughed up blood, and scrabbled at the painted metal in an attempt to stand.

When he reared back for another round of thumping, Anna shoved herself out of the way, leaving him pounding a dent into metal. She surprised him by lunging toward him, flattening her hand over the hole in his armor. Hot skin met her fingers, and she called on every ounce of her desire to live. The zap left him twitching and slumped on his knees. His left hand grabbed her forearm, breaking her contact seconds before he would have passed out. She tried to recoil away, but his grip tightened to the point where the bones in her arm creaked on the verge of splintering.

His fist smashed downward across her face, drilling her into the pavement. Beaten delirious, she lay helpless as he grabbed her hair and lifted to expose her throat. Her hand flopped at his wrist, a feeble attempt to break his hold before the blade came. At the sound of a longed-for voice, she broke into sobs.

“That’s quite enough.”

James had arrived.

Gordon grunted as the knife twisted its way out of his hand. Anna struggled to look up at her savior; vision blurred from exhaustion and beating. James’s presence let her feel utterly at peace and safe. Unable to speak, her mind managed a weak telepathic whisper before she fell into unconsciousness.

I love you James…

gent Gordon turned to face James Mardling; his head covering liquefied and flowed into a metal ring on the chest plate, exposing a sweat-covered face and a glittering dark metal headband. The two men circled in a manner akin to a pair of gunslingers in the Old West. Anna lay unconscious a short distance away. Her hair and strips of torn shirt blew in the gentle breeze sweeping over the parking deck. The distant warble of alarms lent an almost inaudible backdrop to the sound of boots in orbit.

“Killing her was not part of the arrangement, old boy. In fact, what the hell are you doing here?”

Gordon spat, picking at the hole in his armor. “Neither was this. Your bitch almost killed me.”

James chuckled with a sinister smile. “Well then, she is apparently stronger than I gave her credit for. That, or whatever you said to her got her a bit cheesed off. I thought you SAS blokes had more self-control.”

“We had a deal, Mardling. Thompson’s gone unhinged. They’re calling me a rogue agent now. I’m the one that’s in hiding, not you criminals.”

Genuine amusement spread over his face. “Thompson… Lord Connor Thompson, the only psionic-tolerant moderate in the House of Lords. Do you honestly think I would allow a mundane like you to shift the mindset of Great Britain against us even more? You are deluded. What you thought of as a deal was you simply doing as you were told. I should have been rid of you after you pursued her into the Tube on a bloody motorbike. Are you daft man? She could have crashed.”

Mardling paced, folding his hands behind him as he half turned his back on Gordon.

“Your pet pissed me off in Gwynedd, Mardling. That little zap of hers snapped me out of the fog.”

“Oh, that is most unfortunate.” James sighed. “I had a feeling something was amiss when you shot her. Why did you bother legging her?”

“So she could watch me kill you.”

James laughed as if the greatest joke in the world had been told.

A second grey hover van circled in and landed. Gordon grinned as the side door slid open and five more mercenaries leapt onto the deck with rifles at the ready.

Agent Gordon’s hand crept behind him as he stopped walking. “Psionics are too dangerous; there is no way to properly police them. They could sow chaos and discord, overthrow the government.”

Doctor Mardling’s gaze fell upon Anna; his words took on an undertone of anger drizzled with contempt. “Are those men supposed to be some kind of threat? Gordon, I do believe that knife you are secreting into your left hand would look much better in your thigh.”

The psi screen went into a flurry of blinking; two seconds later, smoke formed a halo around him and the device broke into pieces. Gordon ran with sweat, his trembling arm extended. His eyes rolled up as if trying to stare at the broken headband, clueless as to how it could have failed. Gordon sank the blade three inches deep into his own leg. Terror and pain laced his scream. He staggered backwards, snarling, unable to make his arm pull it loose. Mardling’s eyes shifted in the direction of the mercenaries. He invaded their thoughts all at once and forced their perception of reality to change. Believing the building crumbled out from under them, the men panicked and fell, howling as they hallucinated plummeting to the ground from high altitude. Within seconds, they had all passed out from fear.

James frowned at the blood leaking from Anna’s nose and lifted an eyebrow at the gasping CSB agent. “Give her a twist, mate.”

Gordon’s arm obeyed, and he roared his way down to one knee. “You’re a bleedin’ monster.”

“Monsters haul small children away from their mums in the middle of the night. You are not even a mere psionic, Gordon. You are nothing, and you had the gall to strike one of The Awakened? You were quite lucky we had a bargain, you know, but you show me the folly of my charity. You did quite well convincing her it was too dangerous to stay in London, but I did not give you permission to injure her. Since you have attempted to kill her, I’m afraid, my dear boy, you are simply too dangerous to be allowed to live.”

Gordon leapt for his gun but never hit the ground. A few seconds of airborne flailing got him nowhere. He ripped the blade out of his thigh and hurled it at Mardling’s head. It stopped two inches short, hanging in midair. James turned, waving his hand in a dismissive flick. Gordon flew into the side of a parked van, across the aisle into the rear window of a car, and careened off a light post and over the edge of the roof.

Black-gloved fingers slapped onto the concrete rim, Gordon’s desperate grunt reverberated through the hollow space of the parking deck below. James walked over to Anna, scarf fluttering over his left shoulder. The hanging blade glided along until it came to a halt above the black-gloved hand and rotated point down.

James stared at Anna’s limp figure, his words at a precipice between speech and shout. “No savory pleasure to the imperious man above whose head hangeth the spring-loaded combat knife of Damocles.”

His frown deepened as he forced the knife downward with enough force to spike it into the concrete. Gordon’s subsequent scream did not crack his dour glare, only caused the focus of his telekinesis to shift from the weapon to the hand through which it had been impaled. He shoved Gordon off the ledge, leaving a bloody smear around the blade where it tore through his palm. The screaming fell into the distance, and silence.

Anna rolled onto her back and floated straight up until James cradled her in his arms. As he carried her to the van, Aurora’s nude form stepped out of a cloud of mist. She looked about ready to faint from exhaustion.

He paused at the door, glancing at her. “Would you mind tending to the rubbish, my dear?”

Aurora trudged over to the men, stooped, and took one of the rifles from their unconscious hands. She unloaded the magazine, sweeping automatic fire back and forth through the group. Her skin, the color of new-fallen snow, spattered with crimson until the magazine ran dry.

She sashayed to her waiting ride, vanishing into the astral for less than a full second―long enough to shed the coating of gore.

irst Class accommodations on the inter-coastal shuttle gave them a private room with four large seats, two facing front and two facing rear. James sat to her left near the door while Anna’s window seat offered her a view of the clouds below. Her body ached, though it showed no outward signs of the beating she had received. Lauren, wearing an oversized pair of sunglasses, reclined in the seat facing Anna. Most of her skin hid behind boots, gloves, and a long coat. No one had taken much of any notice of how pale she was at the shuttle terminal.

Anna looked away from the swirling white, ten thousand feet below, and sent a loving smile at James. When she needed him, he had been there for her. Feeling her stare, he lifted his eyes to meet hers and returned the affectionate glance.

“James… why is the shuttle so high? We’re only going to the other coast.”

Mardling rolled his eyes. “Apparently, the rebels have lost control of most of their land. Some nonsense about cyborgs they sent out there to clean things up turned traitor. Funny bit of karma, that.” He chuckled. “The shuttles fly up here to avoid missiles.”

“Rebels?” Anna shook her head, laughing. “Now you’re beating a dead horse.”

“Terrence is doing well in the west. He has already found half a dozen other psionics interested in my philosophy. According to the data you retrieved, we have five years before the ship is completed. That should enable us to get things set up quite proper.”

Aurora shuddered in her seat, sitting bolt upright for an instant before she collapsed again. Anna gave James a worried look; he had no reaction to the writhing figure, as though such episodes were a matter of routine. Aurora slipped into a half-awake state, her arms clawed at the air as if to stop from falling.

Overwhelmed with curiosity, Anna peered into the woman’s mind. The vision saturated her thoughts, pulling her in and trapping her in Aurora’s perspective. They fell through the bottom of the shuttle, sailing out into the sky. Anna screamed in silence, the scene so close to real it triggered primal terror. Aurora sensed it was a dream vision and took control, riding the air currents and following whatever force pulled her down in a graceful curve.

She moved through the clouds far faster than a normal fall; her trajectory flattened out, skimming over cracked desert ground. Scrub brush and weeds rocketed past, followed by the occasional cactus and scrap vehicle. In the distance, a smudge of maroon seemed more distinct than the surroundings, like the one object of color in an otherwise black and white video. Aurora headed for it, and an old wooden wagon made from the trailer of an ancient box truck painted dull red-orange grew from the speck. Tall white letters dominated one side with the phrase: “Magic Healer - 10 Coins.”

Two living horses grazed to the left of it, detached from the otherwise unpowered vehicle. She swung around to the other side where a line had formed, dozens of people. Wanderers, bandits, and the unfortunate souls condemned to the Badlands had queued up from a point defined by a portable metal podium, an item once used to hold sheet music.

Behind it, a dark-haired man his early thirties dressed in the garb of a cowboy pranced about and waved his arm. “Come one, come all, see the great magical healer who can cure you of anything that ails you. Any condition except death can be fixed for ten coins.”

Their point of view glided past him, sliding under where the open side of the wagon formed an awning. Tucked between a small bed wrapped in dingy sheets and a pea-green wooden cabinet sat a tiny metal cage. A little blonde girl no older than seven peered through the bars with eyes that glowed luminous blue. Tears streaked clean lines over grimy cheeks as she struggled to reach through the bars at a dying man on the ground by the podium.

The child wailed at the salesman, pointing at the man. He smiled at her, shaking his head to the negative and patted a fat pouch of coins. The man would die because he had no money; the girl was more upset over his death than her captivity. Aurora gazed at the scrawny waif clad only in grime. For an instant, the girl seemed to look right at them.

Shock at being seen broke her concentration. The wagon, the crowd, and the desert flew into the distance, her point of view sucked up into the sky.

Anna found herself on the floor, wracked with shivers and cold sweats. She felt dizzy and as sore as if she had fallen down stairs.

James helped her into a seat. “Now you know why I wait for her to tell me what she saw. Clairvoyant visions have a rather nasty habit of taking over an eavesdropper’s consciousness.”

Aurora convulsed and gasped in her sleep.

Anna got up on her knees, patting the woman on the cheek. “Hey, wake up. What happened?”

Aurora leaned forward and rubbed the bridge of her nose.

“I just saw… the present, I think.” She squinted at the window. “Yes, it didn’t feel like past or future.”

James raised an eyebrow. “That is quite unusual. You only see the present when something horrible is about to happen, though I dare say I would call that the future.”

“What did you see?” Anna returned to her seat.

Lauren thought for a moment. “Another Awakened, I think. I’m not entirely sure. That child had a strange energy about her.”

Clouds of ill-scented mist rolled through the rain-soaked ground, drifting through rows of pipes running in all directions. The autocab zipped off into the distance, Anna found it confusing they called them PubTrans here; the name would take a long time to get used to. She looked over and up at a row of massive white hyperbolic towers.

She squeezed his hand. “James, is this what I think it is?”

He smiled. “Indeed. We found an old power station in a part of town where the police are terrified to go. It makes a perfect metaphor I think. We are more than capable of protecting ourselves from the local rabble.”

A young man of about seventeen emerged from a four-story reinforced building. Metal stairs clanked as he trotted over to the approaching trio.

“Doc Mardling is it? It’s great to finally meet you in person. I’m Terrence, but everyone just calls me Terry.”

James glanced upward, transfixed for a moment by the eerie lime glow in the windows of the decaying building. He drew in a breath, spread his arms, and levitated all four of them to the roof. Aurora laughed aloud at the face Terrence made. Anna kept her eyes closed until her weight settled onto her feet again. Folding his hands behind his back, James strode to the edge of the wall like an admiral taking command of a new vessel.

The wind picked up, fluttering his hair and scarf as his right eyebrow notched upward into an imperious look of disdain at the city spread out below him.

“Good evening, Terrence. You shall know me as Archon.”

Born in a little town known as South Amboy NJ in 1973, Matthew has been creating science fiction and fantasy worlds for most of his reasoning life. Somewhere between fifteen to eighteen of them spent developing the world in which Division Zero, Virtual Immortality, and The Awakened Series take place. He has several other projects in the works as well as a collaborative science fiction endeavor with author Tony Healey.

Matthew is an avid gamer, a recovered WoW addict, Gamemaster for two custom systems (Chronicles of Eldrinaath [Fantasy] and Divergent Fates [Sci Fi], and a fan of anime, British humour (<- deliberate), and intellectual science fiction that questions the nature of reality, life, and what happens after it.

He is also fond of cats.

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Division Zero, by Matt Cox
(http://j.mp/1ggujIv)

Most cops get to deal with living criminals, but Agent Kirsten Wren is not most cops.

Shunned by a society that does not understand psionics and feared by those who know what she can do, Kirsten feels alone in a city of millions.

Unexplained killings by human-like androids known as dolls leave the Division 1 police baffled, causing them to punt the case to Division 0. She tries to hold on to the belief that no one is beyond redemption as she pursues a killer desperate to claim at least one more innocent soul – that might just be hers.

Bone Wires, by Michael Shean
(http://j.mp/Npsr8B)

In the wasteland of commercial culture that is future America, police are operated not by government but by private companies. In Seattle, that role is filled by Civil Protection, and Daniel Gray is a detective in Homicide Solutions. What used to be considered an important—even glamorous—department for public police is very different for the corporate species, and Gray finds himself stuck in a dead end job.

That is, until the Spine Thief arrives.

Virtual Immortality, by Matthew Cox
(http://bit.ly/1hSXIMP)

Nina Duchenne walked away from a perfect life to pursue a noble idea, but one tragic night shatters her dreams.

Joey Dillon lives on a perpetual adrenaline rush. A self-styled cyber cowboy chasing thrills wherever he can find them, he is unconcerned with what will happen twenty minutes into the future.

Voices from beyond the grave distract Nina from her pursuit of two international terrorists, and send Joey on a mission to find out who is playing games. Joey falls square in her sights with the fate of the entire West City, as well as Nina’s humanity, at risk.

Silent Clarion: Before Starbreaker, by Matthew Graybosch
(http://bit.ly/1QSI3Nl)

My curiosity might get me killed. I thought I needed a vacation from my duties as an Adversary in service to the Phoenix Society. After learning about unexplained disappearances in a little town called Clarion, I couldn’t stop myself from checking it out.

Now I must protect a witness to two murders without any protection but my sword. I must identify a murderer who strikes from the shadows. I must expose secrets the Phoenix Society’s executive council is hellbent on keeping buried.

I have no support but an ally I dare not trust. If I cannot break the silence hiding what happened in Clarion’s past, I have no future. I must discover the truth about Project Harker. Failure is not an option.

Appetizer:

- Book Cover

- Title Page

Main Course:

Chapter One: Sent to Coventry

Chapter Two: Ol’ Jack

Chapter Three: Taxes

Chapter Four: Old Bill

Chapter Five: Acheron

Chapter Six: Manky

Chapter Seven: Bliss

Chapter Eight: Dirty

Chapter Nine: The Dole

Chapter Ten: A Lifetime Ago

Chapter Eleven: Blurred Clarity

Chapter Twelve: Unregistered

Chapter Thirteen: Chivalry

Chapter Fourteen: Bristols

Chapter Fifteen: Chipper Fix

Chapter Sixteen: Blagging the Bullet

Chapter Seventeen: Fog and Rust

Chapter Eighteen: A Moment of Weakness

Chapter Nineteen: Doctor Mardling

Chapter Twenty: Detox

Chapter Twenty-One: Friends

Chapter Twenty-Two: Dancing in the Rain

Chapter Twenty-Three: Delivery

Chapter Twenty-Four: Wakeup Call

Chapter Twenty-Five: Observation

Chapter Twenty-Six: Directive

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Resistance

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Coercion

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Second Opinion

Chapter Thirty: Temporal Shift

Chapter Thirty-One: Fit Up

Chapter Thirty-Two: Tunnel Flight

Chapter Thirty-Three: The Pixie

Chapter Thirty-Four: Wrath

Chapter Thirty-Five: Spare the Innocent

Chapter Thirty-Six: Monster

Chapter Thirty-Seven: A Stranger at Home

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Off the Wagon

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Aurora

Chapter Forty: Acceptance

Chapter Forty-One: Welcome Worn

Chapter Forty-Two: The Colony

Chapter Forty-Three: Ridden

Chapter Forty-Four: Soft

Chapter Forty-Five: An Old Friend

Chapter Forty-Six: Showdown

Chapter Forty-Seven: Dealbreaker

Chapter Forty-Eight: The Future Dawns

Dessert:

- Closing

- About the Author

- Copyright & Publisher

- More from Curiosity Quills Press

Table of Contents

- Copyright & Publisher
- Title Page
- Chapter One: Sent to Coventry
- Chapter Two: Ol' Jack
- Chapter Three: Taxes
- Chapter Four: Old Bill
- Chapter Five: Acheron
- Chapter Six: Manky
- Chapter Seven: Bliss
- Chapter Eight: Dirty
- Chapter Nine: The Dole
- Chapter Ten: A Lifetime Ago
- Chapter Eleven: Blurred Clarity
- Chapter Twelve: Unregistered
- Chapter Thirteen: Chivalry
- Chapter Fourteen: Bristols
- Chapter Fifteen: Chipper Fix
- Chapter Sixteen: Blagging the Bullet
- Chapter Seventeen: Fog and Rust
- Chapter Eighteen: A Moment of Weakness
- Chapter Nineteen: Doctor Mardling
- Chapter Twenty: Detox
- Chapter Twenty-One: Friends
- Chapter Twenty-Two: Dancing in the Rain
- Chapter Twenty-Three: Delivery
- Chapter Twenty-Four: Wakeup Call
- Chapter Twenty-Five: Observation
- Chapter Twenty-Six: Directive
- Chapter Twenty-Seven: Resistance
- Chapter Twenty-Eight: Coercion
- Chapter Twenty-Nine: Second Opinion
- Chapter Thirty: Temporal Shift
- Chapter Thirty-One: Fit Up
- Chapter Thirty-Two: Tunnel Flight
- Chapter Thirty-Three: The Pixie
- Chapter Thirty-Four: Wrath
- Chapter Thirty-Five: Spare the Innocent
- Chapter Thirty-Six: Monster
- Chapter Thirty-Seven: A Stranger at Home
- Chapter Thirty-Eight: Off the Wagon
- Chapter Thirty-Nine: Aurora
- Chapter Forty: Acceptance
- Chapter Forty-One: Welcome Worn
- Chapter Forty-Two: The Colony
- Chapter Forty-Three: Ridden
- Chapter Forty-Four: Soft
- Chapter Forty-Five: An Old Friend
- Chapter Forty-Six: Showdown
- Chapter Forty-Seven: Dealbreaker
- Chapter Forty-Eight: The Future Dawns
- About The Author
- Thank You for Reading
- More from Curiosity Quills Press
- Table of Contents