Like Wax Under Flame:
A Novella
By: Alexandra Pelaez
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2012 by Alexandra Pelaez
Cover design by Alexandra Pelaez
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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This novella is a 23,000 word excerpt from an adult dystopian novel of the same title that is currently in the works. To avoid spoilers, further details can be found in the afterword at the end.
Achtunng Street was not a haven for rape gangs.
At first glance, such a statement would seem obvious. Rape gangs preferred sectors in the varios with the cleanest air. Achtunng Street was located smack dab in Sector 3-G where the Toymaker’s factories spewed a constant stream of fire and smoke to the point where it resembled a never-ending religious ritual. No one survived in Sector 3-G for more than a couple of months unless they had a state of the art nose filter or a breath mask, and a rape gang boss would ass-fuck himself with a crowbar before blowing hundreds of creds on a single one when victims were plentiful on the other side. An average rape gang boss.
Zar, however, was not an average rape gang boss. Screams and pleas alone weren’t enough to satisfy him. He had a fetish for blood, and damn, there was so much in the human body. The first time he cut his first throat it had just sprayed out like a fucking fountain and didn’t stop. It just went on and on and on…
It wasn’t enough. It was thrill, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted, needed, more than a victim. The light of life needed to burn in the bitch’s (or the bastard’s, but he didn’t usually swing that way) eyes before she died. He wanted to feel that light sear the flesh of his face, of his cock. That would be thrill. The thought itself was so thrill, he blew half the gang’s treasury on nose filters that would enable them all to breathe the toxic fumes of Sector 3-G. Here right in Achtunng Street was where his fantasies would come alive because it was one of the only shortcuts to Ander’s Weapons Factory. Abandoned by the Toymaker for over thirty years, it was a goldmine for black marketers. Anyone who wanted to earn some hard creds just had to disable the alarms for a few minutes, grab something, and pitch it to the Crypters or the Pythons. Such a prospect would tempt Zar or a member of his gang into a break-in, but none of them were well-versed in tech hacking. No matter. When they did break-ins, it was a lot more fun to grab some poor bastard flog and cut them until they gave up the code.
The thought of blood made his own collect into his lower areas and he cursed loudly.
“Maybe we should try Uthon Street,” Furst suggested. He was a scrawny thing with spidery hands and bulging gray eyes. “Heard some Toughsluts like to spin around there.”
“Just a few more minutes,” Zar whispered.
“You smell something good, boss?” Kerr asked, grinning like the sick loon he was. “You do, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do,” Zar said, and he did. In that moment, he did smell something.
As if to mock him, it began to rain hard, destroying the scent. Zar swore again before forcing himself to calm down. It was coming. Just because he couldn’t smell it anymore didn’t mean it wasn’t coming. It was coming right at him, and he would get it.
He grinned a grin that could put Kerr’s to shame when he saw a dark figure making its way down the acid scorched pavement. The figure was of medium build and wore a long, hooded cloak, but Zayne could tell from the boot-size that it was a female.
“Signal the others,” he hissed to Furst without taking his eyes off his prey. “Make a circle when I give the code.”
He didn’t hear Furst carry out his order. His prey was continuing to walk down Achtunng as if it were the yellow brick road. Her body was completely wrapped in her cloak, including her arms. That was beyond mudmoor. Anyone who set foot in such varios should have a plasma pistol or two on their hands or belts where anyone could see them. Hiding your weapons meant you were either mudmoor or you wanted to be fucked.
Maybe that’s exactly what she wants, Zar thought with glee. Oh shit, this is gonna be thrill.
Of course, it would be thrill. The reason he was here in the first place was because he had heard rumors from a reliable source that Toughsluts were among those who dared venture into Achtunng Street in the hopes of grabbing something from Ander’s or any of the Toymaker’s abandoned weapons factories.
“I don’t see any weapons,” Furst whispered. “Maybe she’s not a Toughslut.”
“Who gives a shit?” Kerr said with an almost girlish giggle. “We’re gonna—”
“Shut up!” Zar hissed. “I’m giving the code. NOW!”
He jumped from the rail he had been hiding beside and landed on the disposal box a few feet below. He jumped again and landed on the pavement. His knife was already out and pointed at his prey.
“TOUGHSLUT!” he bellowed. “Hey, Toughslut!”
All ten members of his gang had formed a circle around her, jeering and waving their weapons. If Zar wasn’t already hard as a rock, he would have found it suspicious that she was just standing there not moving or speaking, just letting the rain pelt off her form and sudden death mock her from every corner.
Oh, what the fuck. She was a Toughslut, and she was his.
“No one touch her!” he shouted at his gang. He brought his knife up and moved forward.
She still didn’t move or speak. Zar grinned.
“Hey, there,” he whispered. He was so intent, he didn’t even feel the acid raindrops land in his mouth. “Heeyyyyyy, theeerrrrrreeee…”
She remained perfectly still. Zar couldn’t see very well under her hood, but it wasn’t hard to make out the breath mask. He laughed.
“You look like you could use a good nose filter.” He stopped right in front of her. “Take that mudmoor tech off.”
She didn’t move. He inched the knife close to her throat.
“Take it off,” he whispered. “Or I will.”
Don’t take it off, his inside voice begged. Oh, don’t take it off. Let me take it off after you fight, after you bleed…
“All right, then,” he said when he got no response. “Let’s play, Toughslut.”
His hand shot out to grab her by the throat. Then his mind was struck by a shock so great it took him a moment to realize that said hand was now gone, replaced by a cauterized stunt.
An eerie, synthesized voice emitted from the mask.
“Yes. Let’s play.”
The electroknife got him in the stomach before an unseen force knocked him against the disposal box.
What the fuck…?
He landed on his side in a crumpled heap. The Toughslut thrust out her hands and all ten rape gangers were hurled in opposite directions. She grabbed Kerr and yanked him up just in time to block a barrage of plasma fire from the others. When Kerr resembled little more than a charred strip of bacon, she pushed him aside. She was safe however. The gang’s guns yanked themselves out of their owner’s hands. They hung in the air for a moment, emitters aimed straight at their owner’s faces as if they were alive and wanted to savor the looks of stunned horror in front of them.
They all fired at the exact same moment. The gang members collapsed on the ground in perfect synchronization.
The Toughslut glanced around before heading straight for Zar. He got an eyeful of her black boots before she knelt in front of him.
He grinned at her.
“Entities, when did Toughsluts get so fuckin’ hot…?”
She extended her hand and made a fist. The air slowly drained out of Zar’s lungs. The process was long and agonizing, but oh, so, thrill.
*************
Dane blessed her breath mask. It was bad enough that the sick bastard wouldn’t stop grinning, not even when tiny rivulets of blood started to trickle down his chin. No wonder he had chosen Achtunng Street. Apart from the Babes who ran the area, not many a human being dared to venture here. Only the crazy, the desperate, or the strong would be so bold. This motherfucker had obviously been hoping for the latter. Dane had never encountered a masochistic rape ganger, but she was highly satisfied with the outcome. She clenched her fist, willing the telekinetic hold she had on his throat to increase in power. It was a real shame she couldn’t draw it out longer.
Ah, well.
His neck crayed. Disgusting as his grin had been, he emitted a very gratifying choke before keeling over. Dane glanced around at her handy work, sending out a mental probe to each of the gangers. They were all dead and her instincts told her it was time to go.
The rain began to beat down harder, but Dane still wormed her way to the back entrance of Ander’s. Moving through the airshafts, she would be able to spot fellow scavengers from a safe distance and kill them if she had to. Her telepathic senses were strong, but they weren’t infallible. She hadn’t survived to the ripe old age of nineteen by being careless.
After disabling the alarm and checking the status of her oxygen, she climbed into the shaft. Forty-five minutes and she would be out of fresh oxygen. Thirty-two minutes and the security systems would be activated. No matter. She would be out of here in less than twenty minutes.
At the end of the shaft, she sent out another mental probe. No one was in the basement. Good. That would shave off at least two minutes. Removing the grate, she jumped down below. The fall was over twenty feet, but telekinesis wasn’t restricted to moving just objects. She landed without a sound and wasted no time in exiting the basement, all the while sending out small mental pulses. A single strong probe would have been enough to scan a hundred square feet, but Dane was well aware of the consequences of using too much power too soon. She took the stairs, moving slowly around the corners. Just three more flights and…there.
Dane put her gloved hand on the locked door and closed her eyes. Instead of darkness, the inner workings of the lock’s mechanisms filled her mind with perfect clarity. A psychic was never blind, even in the darkest night. If Dane’s physical eyes ever lost their ability to see, it would make no difference. After several gentle pushes and nudges in all the right places, the door opened. Dane sent out a brief probe before going in.
The room itself was vast and nearly pitch dark, but Dane had been in here enough times so that instinct was the only thing she needed to rely on. Stopping in front of the large, metal locker against the far left wall, she placed her hand on it and repeated the same process as she had before with the locked door. Thankfully, the tech behind the locks in Ander’s wasn’t the new wetware stuff that was becoming very popular very fast. Those were an absolute bitch to cray, even for a psychic. With a click, the locker opened. Dane wasted no time in filling up her bag with BQ-76 power cells. Tiny, but valuable to those who specialized in sonar rifles. The Crypt Keeper would pay top creds for them.
Dane closed her bag before she could give into the temptation to get greedy. Only mudmoor rooks thought they could get away with carrying a heavy load away from an abandoned weapons factory in Babe territory. Dane sometimes heard a few rooks boast about how they were going to pull off the ultimate raid in the hopes of impressing some horny Toughslut. She never bothered to correct them. People that mudmoor deserved whatever they got.
Attaching the bag to her belt, Dane made sure to relock both the locker and the entrance before heading down the stairs. She briefly glanced at the time and saw that she had been here for almost seventeen minutes. It looked like she was going to beat her last time. A small mental probe told her the basement was still deserted. So, not only did she not have to kill fellow scavengers, she was going to beat her time, and get away without a fuss.
Dane stopped in her tracks at the entrance to the basement. She clenched her fists against a tidal wave of rage. She knew what too much good luck meant. It meant that one way or another, everything would go to shit. That was the way her life worked. It was the way the world worked.
Relax, her survival instincts whispered. Just do what you’ve been doing since the day you were born. Eliminate anything that gets in the way. You have the power.
I have the power.
Psychic energy buzzed at her fingertips. In this world, power was all that mattered, and she possessed power beyond the imaginations of humanity. So long as she had power, she would always survive.
When the buzz reached her feet, she began to run. One hundred feet, seventy-five feet, fifty feet—
“Leaving so soon?”
Dane’s hand extended the moment she heard the voice, fully prepared to block any gunfire headed her way. Unfortunately, no gunfire came.
A brilliant beam of white energy connected solidly with Dane’s side, knocking her several feet away. Though it was like being rammed by a tube, the first thing Dane experienced was a terrible numbness that quickly faded into pain. Head spinning, ribs screaming, she tried to get up, but fell back down. Footsteps sounded to her left, growing closer with each passing second.
Be still, her survival instincts told her. Gather your strength, but appear weak.
“That thing on your face. What a hideous contraption. Do you wear it because you wish to look intimidating?”
She hadn’t seen his face yet, but that deep, gravelly voice was as loathsome as any rape ganger. For hurting her, he had already signed his own death warrant, but having that kind of voice meant she would make him suffer if she had the time.
“Not that it matters,” he continued, still coming closer. “You’re young, aren’t you? Young and incompetent.”
Good. He was a talker, a gloater. Meaning that he was mudmoor. Dane closed her eyes, focusing her strength. She made sure her body language radiated helplessness and pain.
“It’s always best to eliminate you abominations when you’re young. The true depth of your filth has yet to come to fruition.”
Though she was playing a role, Dane absorbed every word he was saying. Unfortunately, his words only served to spiral her. ‘you abominations,’ he had said. No one knew of her powers. Anyone who saw them died. She always made certain of that.
Enough, her instincts ordered. You have an enemy that evaded your mental probes. He has power to kill you. You must kill him.
Yes. She must kill him.
Suddenly and seemingly on its own accord, Dane’s body was lifted off the floor until her feet were dangling several inches above it. Through her breath mask, she finally saw her enemy. Not his entire face, which was somewhat disappointing. He was wearing some kind of dark, creepy ninja cloak and a veil to shield the lower half of his face. At least she could see his eyes: cold, greedy, power-hungry. In his extended hand was a thin wand-like tech that was pointed directly at Dane’s heart. Was it some kind of energy weapon?
No time to be baffled. You must kill your enemy. Ask questions once he is dead.
“I’ve heard the legends,” he whispered. “If they hold a grain of truth, you should be able to crush my throat simply by thinking about it.”
Asshole, if you only knew what I could do to your entire body…
“But it seems your abilities have dwindled over the centuries. Not surprising.” He sighed. “It truly is a shame to gain a promotion from delivering the head of something so pitiful.” Dark eyes narrowed. “But abominations are abomin—ACCCKK!”
Whatever was holding Dane in place vanished. Her feet hit the ground and she thrust her hands out, knocking her enemy into the opposite wall. She clenched her fist, willing his neck to cray into a million pieces. five seconds later, it did.
Dane didn’t waste a moment. On pure instinct, she grabbed the wand-like tech and fled before she gave into the temptation to search the corpse for further goods. What she had would keep her going for at least three months once she sold it.
Once well clear of Ander’s, she took the two-hour long tube ride to her home in the Under Rail. Once a hideaway for American soldiers during the occupation of World War III, it was now owned by the Crypters. If you paid them solid creds for rent, they wouldn’t send a horde of Reapers to cray the flesh from your bones. But the fear of Reapers didn’t keep everyone from trying to thieve your slot. If you wanted a home in the Under Rail, you had to be strong and smart enough to keep it. Eight years and seventy-four corpses later, Dane knew she would be able to call the Under Rail home forever. She made her way to the end levels and keyed open the rusty, battered door labeled YF-9942. The first thing she did after locking herself up was to remove her breath mask. The tech was heavy and uncomfortable, but necessary. Without it, one trip to Sector 3-G would guarantee the growth of tumors in her lungs in as little as a month.
Next she assessed her injuries. Bruised ribs, aching sides. Nothing a little muscle rejuvenator wouldn’t fix. She swallowed some and then started sorting through the power cells on her bunk. As she did, her mind strayed to her latest assailant along with the weapon she had stolen from his corpse. Taking it from her belt, she examined it with delicate fingers. It was thin, long, black, and felt like it was made from wood. Who knew how it worked. One wrong move and she could be blown to the varios of Harlow.
After not spotting a switch, a compartment, or even a vocal grate, she ran a jigger over it for ten minutes. Nothing. A weapon like this was worth a fortune, but she couldn’t sell it until she knew how it worked. Maybe some gullible, mudmoor rook could be suckered for a few creds, but Dane never settled for less than she deserved for her hard work. And the owner of this particular tech had nearly taken her life.
The owner. He had known what she was. And he seemed to believe that there were more of her.
Dane grimaced. Three years ago, she had tested herself for mutagens, thinking they were the cause of her powers. But the tests had been negative. There wasn’t a trace of mutagens or radiation in her bloodstream. She was just a plain old freak. A powerful freak, but a freak all the same. And after the tests, she refused to believe that there could be more of her. She was alone.
Her assailant was dead so obviously he couldn’t tell her where he got such mudmoor ideas. But he also mentioned that said mudmoor ideas weren’t his alone. His mindless babble about legends and centuries and getting promotions were irrelevant. He may be dead, but if others knew about her, that could mean real trouble. Going back to Ander’s to search the corpse for leads was out of the question. Any pals of his could be waiting for her right now. And conducting a personal search could alert them. It was always best to let her enemy come to her, so watching her back all the more thoroughly was the only option. Well, that and killing anyone who got too close to it.
She placed the wrapped up tech aside and began sifting through the power cells. Twenty were thrill, ten were mudmoor. Dane cursed herself for not giving into a sliver of greed. The sale of twenty would keep her going for only two months. Psychic powers or not, it was dangerous to hit one of the Toymaker’s abandoned weapons factories more than once every four months. Well, she could ask the Crypt Keeper if the wand-like tech was worth something. Someone like him would know, and he knew better than to try to cheat one of his best providers. Gathering up the power cells and the wrapped up wand tech, she began to suit up in her Toughslut outfit, which consisted of tight leather pants, a bright pink bra, and a short leather jacket. For aftereffects, Dane added some pale pink lipstick and some gold eyeliner that brought out the green flecks in her hazel eyes. Skin cream wasn’t necessary. Acne problems had yet to come, and even if they did, medicine like that was more than affordable in the black market. Toughsluts were proud of their flawless skin as much as they were of their scars.
Toughsluts.
It was a term coined hundreds of years ago when the rape gangs began to haunt a nation ravaged by war, directly in response to a prostitution boom. Countless desperate men and women put on whatever frilly clothes they could scavenge and dove into a business that got them a few creds and even fewer good scraps. Until they had a fatal encounter with a rape gang. The vast death toll encouraged the majority to find other ways to survive. But the minority had a different idea: they fought back.
Legend had it that a group of war veterans who had turned to prostitution developed a unique fighting style and used it to defend themselves against the rape gangs. They stuck together, their greatest weapons were their own bodies (an irony not lost on anyone), and God help any rape gang who encountered them. Their burnt, crayed open bodies could be found scattered all over the sectors. Their heads on the other hand received a more special treatment; stuck on spikes in the most brutal of varios with the veteran’s signature words burned into their foreheads: I WAS FUCKED BY A TOUGHSLUT.
The fighting style never died so it was safe to assume the veterans passed it down to their line, who passed it down to their line and so on. Whores forever roamed the streets, but it was the Toughsluts who were the lifeblood of the prostitution rig. They cleansed the sectors of rape gangs and pulled the business strings like a mafia don living in the shadows. Maybe they did have a real leader. No one knew, and if they did, the Toughsluts would ensure it stayed that way.
Dane herself wasn’t a Toughslut due to her own choice. Four years ago, she had been approached for training after a Toughslut spotted her slashing the throat of a rape ganger who tried to fuck her on a public street. The Toughslut had promised that she wouldn’t have to whore herself out. There were plenty of other positions available. A part of Dane had been tempted. Only a rook would say no to learning new survival skills in this ravaged, shitty world, even one who possessed psychic powers. But in the end, she declined knowing that she would have to obey some form of authority. And Dane followed no word but her own. She never would be a Toughslut, but it was useful to dress like one. People were more likely to leave you alone if you had the outfit and the attitude of a Toughslut. Dane had both.
Once physical preparations were complete, she glanced over herself in the mirror. Light brown skin and cheekbones accented, check. Lips full but uninviting, check. Eyebrows brushed to add a sharpness to her scowl, check. Hair all gathered in the back…blank box.
Dane reached behind her head and pulled out the butterfly comb that held her hair in place, but she didn’t start grooming herself with it. Instead, she examined the teeth. While far from filthy, more than half of them were flecked with small amounts of skin flakes and a few smudges of oil. That wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all. She went to the bathroom and turned on the faucet. Water took care of the skin flakes almost immediately, but the oil was a different story. She glanced around the bathroom and soon found that all the soap she had left consisted of three tiny crayed pieces melting on the damp shower holder.
It would be at least a week before she could get another bar of soap. The amount she had right now would last three showers at most, and Dane showered every day. She detested dirtiness to the point where going without a bath that involved both soap and water for even one day put her in murder mode.
Her hand immediately snatched up the biggest piece, which was half the size of a cred coin. In her haste, she almost knocked the other two pieces off the shelf down to where the drain dwelled, open, dark, and ready swallow anything it was fed. Without so much as a backward glance, she made the comb rise in the air. Opening her hand, the soap floated out of her palm and toward the comb at a slow, gentle pace as if the comb were a skittish lamb. It touched the tooth on the far right end first, moved up and down, up and down, slowly, carefully. The process was repeated with the other teeth. Up and down, slowly, carefully; a lover desiring to bring their partner to climax through prolonged, tender buildup. Once the teeth were slick with imminent cleanliness, the soap slid up to the large butterfly ornament at the top of the teeth. It roamed over each piece of blue-jade stained glass that decorated the ornament individually, refusing to leave until the one before it was slick and shiny. Once finished, the soap, barely half its previous size, glided over the butterfly’s center; a polished round ruby. The gem was as real as could be. If Dane sold it, she could probably pay rent for a year.
The soap’s pace over the ruby made its previous one look like a mutt horse race in comparison. Even after it shone in the light, the soap continued to move. And as the ruby shined brighter, the soap grew smaller. Dane didn’t care. She knew she wouldn’t be able to stop until the soap was reduced to nothing but the thin white smear it was currently trailing. It would be worth it. Just to see that beautiful fiery red glow ever brighter, brighter, brighter—
Click.
The ruby popped off the butterfly.
PING.
It bounced in the basin.
WOOSH!
It fell down the drain.
Dane didn’t hear the roar of animal rage and anguish the tore itself from her throat with such force that it could have rendered her temporarily mute had it been even a decibel louder. She grabbed either side of the basin with her hands and thrust her head down with the manner of a madwoman who believed she could fit it through the tiny hole and grab her lost possession with naught but the teeth in her mouth.
Fortunately, she had something far, far better.
Locking her gaze on the fading red glow, her mind reached out and grabbed.
The hold was tight, and she immediately loosened it once she was certain it was in her grasp, lest she break the gem. It shot up from the drain, twinkling. Dane snatched it with her physical hand and held it close to her heart, breathing deeply. Once reasonably calm, she retrieved a small vial of plasglue from the counter and applied it to the small depression in the middle of the butterfly. The ruby then nestled itself inside, safe and secure. Plasglue was all but indestructible. This would never happen again. Dane wouldn’t let it.
She cupped the reconstructed comb in her hands, always unaware of the way her features softened whenever she examined it. Staring at the stained glass butterfly, especially its glorious red center, was the only thing in the world that made her experience a personal comfort that bordered on happiness. She couldn’t explain why, but she felt a genuine connection to it. A connection that wasn’t a weakness because the comb wasn’t a person. It couldn’t hold her, kiss her, or converse with her; but more importantly, it couldn’t hurt her, betray her, or kill her. It was her safe friend. Her only friend. The only time she took it off was when she slept. If anyone tried to take it from her, she would telekinetically cray every bone in their body (save from the neck up) and throw them into the Under Rail’s furnaces.
How she ended up with it would always remain a mystery. She had been on her own for as long as she could remember, and even those memories were incredibly blurry. And despite everything she had been through, everything she had done to survive, the comb had never fallen out. It had never abandoned her. But someone had to have given it to her. Someone had to have cared enough to bestow such a gift…
The sudden tightness in her throat made her grip it in self-recrimination. This was weakness. Weakness was something to be ignored, and if you couldn’t ignore it, you loathed it enough so it burned itself from your mind until there was nothing left but the will and the drive to survive. After ensuring the comb’s safety, Dane dug her fingers deeper into her own flesh, but that only caused her eyes to water.
Tears. Weakness.
She released herself and telekinetically hurled several items across the room, screams tearing themselves from her raw throat.
No one but myself. I need no one but myself.
She channeled her power, gathering it at her fingertips and let it flow through her. When the weakness was purged she was left with a migraine, but it was worth it. And she sure as hell deserved it. Weakness was more than unforgivable, it was the only sin in existence.
Dane calmly washed her face before reapplying fresh make-up. She picked up the comb and slowly ran the teeth through her shoulder-length hair dyed a bright, medium gold. The comb’s caress soothed her battered mind and she closed her eyes, embracing the sensations. Tangles gone, she gathered her hair behind her head and slid the comb in it. Taking a deep breath, she gave her appearance a quick once-over and deemed it satisfactory.
It was past midnight, meaning the Crypt Keeper was wide awake and ready to do business. Slinging the sack of power cells over her shoulder, Dane headed out the door.
It was easy to ignore the leers of would-be patrons that followed her as she walked down the street. So long as they kept their hands to themselves, their neck bones could remain in one piece. Fifteen minutes later, she arrived at The Kitchen without running into trouble. Her survival instincts gave her holy hell for it, but she was somewhat disappointed that no one had tried anything. Nothing purged weakness better than a good kill. Maybe she would take a leaf from the books of several Toughsluts and go searching for a rape gang later, but business came first. The flashes and sounds coming from The Kitchen indicated that the Crypters were already busy dealing and haggling.
Being the smart, sensible guy that he was, the stocky doorkeeper only leered at her once before letting her in. Dane sent out a small mental probe to judge the amount of violence inside before stepping through the doorway. Decades ago, The Kitchen had been one of many shelters that surfaced during the war. Of course, it hadn’t really been a shelter. You went in and if your clothes were dirt-encrusted enough, you got a piece of stale bread, a plastic bowl of stone cold soup, and then you were thrown out on your ass. As the war dragged on, what was left of the government distanced itself further from the cities and towns turned gang varios before dissolving completely. Now the only law of survival was to get on good terms with or join whatever gang you could. No one lasted long in these times without being a part of something.
Except me, thought Dane.
The building was pitch black save for the occasional flash of multicolored lights. If you wanted to do real business with the Crypters, you brought your own light or hoped to the Entities that you could make your way without bumping into anyone. It was the Crypters’ way of weeding out the rooks. They never had anything good to sell and their blood smelled like shit. Dane continued to softly probe while she picked her way through. For the second time, she cursed her weakness from before. Defeating that ninja-whatever bastard at Ander’s had drained her enough already. Couple that with purging weakness and she could easily die if trouble found her again.
No matter. She would survive. She always survived. All she had to do was sell the power cells, ask about the wand tech, and get out.
She sent out another probe and ignored the pain splitting her head. The Crypt Keeper was just a few feet away, and he was busy. With a Python. After sending out one last probe, she smiled.
There’s my trouble.
Dane eased the knife inside her coat out of its sheath and timed her footsteps to the loud noises that constantly erupted around her. Three…two….one…zero.
“Ahhh! Motherfuck ittttt--!”
“It’s my turn now,” Dane hissed in a low gravelly voice. Her arm tightened around the creature’s neck and she pressed the blade deeper into his scaly flesh. “Then again, I’ve only branded ten tonight. Want to be number eleven? I’m not really fussy about who I brand.”
“You Toughslut bitccchhhhsssssssss!” The last syllable was drawn out in an inhuman hiss. “I’ll skin you aliveeeeeee-hsssssssssss.”
Dane wasn’t surprised. Pythons always gave the most mudmoor, unoriginal threats. Their only redeeming quality was that they always carried them out. When they were able to.
She inched her lips closer to a shrunken, flattened ear.
“So you do want to be number eleven. Thrill.”
She pressed the knife deeper, drawing blood. The Python lost it.
“Lord Keeeeepppperrr! Sssssstop thissss crazzzy biiiitcchhhhssss! We have a deaaallllllll!”
While still clutching the knife, Dane extended her index finger and drew it horizontally downward in front of the Python’s face.
“You’re absolutely right.” A low, deep voice came from the darkness across the table. “We do have a deal. Are you interested in a new one?” Without waiting for a reply, he continued. “Tell me where your phonobug is and my Reapers won’t cut it out of you. No? Don’t want to tell me? As you wish.”
Five Crypters relieved Dane of her burden. The Python was dragged away, his threats and cries of terror drowning in the distance.
“And don’t call me Lord Keeper. It sounds so…Old World.” A dark chuckle.
Without being asked, Dane took the now empty seat and dumped her bag onto the table.
“Twenty power cells.”
No reply.
“Did you hear me?”
“Forgive me, yes,” the Crypt Keeper replied. His polite tone was a stark contrast from the hisses of disapproval surrounding him. Both he and Dane ignored them. “But there is something very wrong with this picture. What is that, Dane?”
Dane didn’t need her powers to tell her there were at least ten guards right next to the Crypt Keeper. If she wasn’t so weak, she could have crayed all of their necks in less than three seconds. Then again, such a strong telekinetic push would leave her reeling for at least ten seconds. More than enough time for the other guards to take her out. But what caused her to abandon her murderous wish was a probe of the Crypt Keeper himself. He too had an implant. A bomb. Directly in the bone of his sternum. Like all the other gang leaders she encountered.
Calming herself by going through every foul word she knew, she answered coldly, “I never sit down. I just dump whatever tech I have in your lap, you pay me, and then I go away.”
“Quite so.” The Crypt Keeper chuckled knowingly as if he were well aware of Dane’s fantasies.
“For someone who hates Old World talk, you sure like to slurge in it.” Dane smiled. “Guilty pleasure?”
“One of many.” He slowly rose to his feet. “Follow me, Dane. The noise here is getting a bit…troublesome.” He chuckled again.
She could have just grabbed the bag and ran, but the only other gang who would pay top creds for the power cells were the Pythons, whom she loathed almost as much as the rape gangers. And, her survival instincts ever so helpfully inputted, she needed to know what that wand tech thing was along with the identity of that mysterious assassin.
The darkness hid her winces as she used her powers to follow the Crypt Keeper without bumping into anyone. One touch and the touchee would tear her throat out. That is, he would try. But Dane was keen on saving the scrap of stamina she had left.
At the end of a long hallway, the Crypt Keeper opened a door and stepped aside.
“After you.”
She really, really could snap his neck now. No one toyed with her and lived.
Survival. Survival.
Dane stepped inside. Barely two seconds later, the door slammed shut and a plasma gun cocked behind her.
“I hope you’re aware that you owe that Python your life,” he whispered. “And that I have a reputation for paying my debts. I don’t like being patronized in front of my men.”
Dane slowly turned around. It was slightly more lit here, so she didn’t have to rely on her psychic senses to see the Crypt Keeper’s robed form. The plasma gun in his outstretched hand was pointed right at her forehead.
“And I really, really don’t like threats,” Dane whispered back.
The gun didn’t waver. “You could kill me. Stranger things have happened. But are you willing to bet your life that you can escape? I know how much you value it.”
“You,” Dane’s voice dropped to a hiss, “don’t know shit about me. So fire that gun or give me the creds for the cells. You’ve got five seconds, Keeper. One…”
He lowered the gun.
“Huh.” Dane smiled slightly. “Knew I was going to skip right to five, did you?”
“The screams of your body language are going to render me deaf soon enough.” He chuckled softly before turning on the lights. Dane blinked rapidly.
“Forgive me. I should have warned you.”
She blinked again, but this time it was out of shock that the Crypt Keeper’s hood was lowered. She had seen the faces of Crypters before: so thin and skull-like they would give the Phantom of the Opera a run for his creds. Papery skin stretched so tightly over the cheekbones, it looked as if it could split simply by smiling. Dark eyes sunken into black pits of sockets. A hollowed nose. Slicked back black hair. The Crypt Keeper possessed all of these physical qualities, though they were far more extreme than those of his underlings.
What a miracle of genetic manipulation, Dane thought.
“You look like you want to say something.” The Crypt Keeper smiled revealed blood-red gums and yellow, pointed teeth.
“I wouldn’t take off that hood in front of a Python,” Dane said. “They consider themselves the kings of genetics. Wars have been started for less.”
“That they have,” The Crypt Keeper said before sitting at his desk. Apart from two chairs, it was the only furnishing in the entire room. “You want something more than payment, Dane. I’m very curious as to what it is. Please take a seat.”
“Why bring me here?” Dane demanded.
“To save your ungrateful life,” The Keeper grated out. “At the rate your mouth was running, it was threatening to tear itself from your face. And as I said before, I don’t like being patronized in front of my men. Now sit down and tell me what you want or get out.”
She did sit down, and told herself it was because she could sense that he wasn’t interested in her pride. Fine. She would ask him and then she would leave. Reaching into her jacket, she withdrew the wand tech, unwrapped it, and placed it on the desk.
“Know what this is? If you don’t, then jig it.”
The Keeper carefully picked it up and examined it. Dane remained silent. Patience was one of her virtues when it really mattered.
“Where did you get it?” the Keeper asked after several minutes.
“I found it,” Dane said.
“And what does it do?”
“Can you tell me what it is or not?”
“So far it appears to be nothing more than a wooden stick. But obviously it isn’t or you wouldn’t be questioning me right now.” Something sly and knowing gleamed in the black depths of the Crypt Keeper’s eyes. “You saw it do something extraordinary, didn’t you?”
“It did do something pretty thrill,” Dane said.
“And what ‘thrill’ something did it do exactly?”
“It created some kind of status field. Strong enough to hold someone in place.”
“And who was its former owner?”
“I found it.”
“Don’t insult my intelligence, Dane. If you don’t know how it works, then you must have seen it perform this extraordinary status field.”
“I don’t know who its former owner was,” Dane snapped. “He’s dead. That’s all.”
“I see.” The Keeper reached under his desk to retrieve a jigger. He ran it over the wand tech for several minutes before placing it back in its wrapping. “Well, I’m afraid I can’t help you. It appears to be nothing more than an ordinary piece of wood.”
Dane stared at him. She couldn’t tell him what that assassin had said. It may lead to answers, but she would have to kill him afterward. But she could at least give a physical description.
“The previous owner was dressed like a ninja and wore a veil over his face. Sound familiar?”
The Keeper frowned. “That doesn’t sound like the uniform of a gang I am familiar with. Perhaps he is simply a rogue assassin. They aren’t uncommon, after all.”
So, should would have to solve this mystery on her own.
Fine by me.
She tossed the sack of cells onto the desk.
“Twenty cells. Three hundred creds.”
The Keeper took the sack and tossed a dirty envelope on the table. Dane counted the money. Three-hundred fifty creds. She tossed the extra chips back onto the table before pocketing the envelope and getting up.
“I didn’t miscount, Dane.”
She glared at him. “You can count, but you can’t see. I’m dressed as a Toughslut. Not a charity whore.”
He held the chips out to her. “Not charity. Compensation for not being able to assist you. Also thanks to you, the Pythons remain ignorant of the secrets of my Reapers, remember?”
“But you saved my life, remember?” she sneered.
The Crypt Keeper’s bony jaw clenched.
“Dane, take the money. You’re many things, but you’re not a fool.”
You know you need it, hung in the air between them. It was true, especially because of those ten mudmoor cells. If she took it, she would be able to cut her losses.
“You owe me nothing,” the Keeper continued, a hint of exasperation in his voice. “All I want is to pay my debt.”
She probed him, felt his emotions.
Her hand reached out as if to take the creds. When she saw the triumph in the Keeper’s eyes, she brutally slapped them out of his hand and marched out of the office. A rare, true smile touched her lips in response to the splutters and curses of indignation behind her.
*************
Deep sleep had always been the best method of recovery after using too much psychic power. With her head feeling as though it would literally split in half at any moment, Dane knew she would have to deep sleep for at least twenty full hours before she could even think of bending a spoon again. She inwardly raged at the thought of being helpless and immobile for that long, but then reminded herself that she deserved it for her weakness.
Going into her bathroom, she retrieved a bottle from the cupboard that was no bigger than her thumbnail. Deep sleep. One of the most thrill forms of white drip zest to ever grace the planet. If she drained the entire bottle, it would knock her out for almost two weeks. Her body would pneumo, but her mind would be filled with bliss within bliss within bliss.
Or so she heard. Heavy users of deep sleep were also highly short-term users. Being the antithesis of a mudmoor, death freak, Dane stuck the tip of a needle into the vial and then re-dunked it into a cup of water. While no one had ever tried to cray open her door when she was under deep sleep, she always made sure to rig it with four beetles. Beetles were nifty little techs that could emit a strong electrical field when activated. Even if some mudmoor rook managed to cray the door down, he would fry on over a hundred thousand volts. She kicked off her boots and secured her comb. Only after she was sitting on her cot did she drain the cup.
She was out within seconds.
Under pain of death, she would never admit what an Entities gift the stuff was. It was deep sleep to some, but to Dane, it was plain old sleep. In exchange for their tenth birthdays, street brats like her needed to learn how to condition their bodies to need as little sleep as possible. Only after growing strong enough to defend their own keep, or endurant enough to survive a gang initiation could they afford to indulge in such a luxury. Dane was a special case, however. After setting up shop in the Under Rail, she discovered she was incapable of falling asleep. It had pleased her at first. Her psychic powers would keep her going. Humans needed sleep, not her. But as the weeks dragged on, she could no longer deny she was as human as anyone.
Pity.
After her first experience with sleep, Dane discovered that it was the most treacherous of all weaknesses. Not because it was a necessity, but because of the curse it brought forth: dreams. And now in the throes of sleep, the curse was once again extracting its vengeance.
She’s in a brilliantly lit room. The lights are blinding, but she can’t turn them off, not by herself. Her body is so small, so fragile. She can only flail her limbs helplessly and cry. She cries louder when the brightness increases. It pierces right through her lids to stab her sensitive eyes without mercy. Her cries increase. She wants the lights to turn off…wants them to turn off…NOW!
They do. All at once. But the crashing sound that follows makes her cry all over again.
A pair of warm hands picks her up. She’s still disoriented from exposure to the blinding lights so it’s impossible to make out the face. All she can really see is a brilliant red blur. But she knows the face is kind, proud, and loving. The hands bring her close to a body and embrace her.
“Well done,” a voice whispers. “Very, very well done.”
She’s still in pain, but that doesn’t matter. So long as those arms keep holding her. So long as they’ll never let her go…
Several dreams always follow, and they’re all the same in the basic sense. She’s small and helpless, the environment is uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s too cold or too hot. Sometimes she’s surrounded by large objects that scare her. But she can make it all better. All she has to do is want it enough. That’s what the voices tell her. They’re distorted, and she can’t understand exactly what they’re saying. The meaning’s clear, though. If she wants something to move, the power of her will can make it so. She always does make it so, and the arms always hold her afterward. The faces always smile. Different faces, different arms. They always hold her and they always smile at her. Only that brilliant red blur remains constant, but that doesn’t matter. She’s surrounded by pride, by love. This is where she belongs.
Dane didn’t jolt or gasp upon her return to consciousness. She merely stared calmly at the ceiling, while she broiled on the inside. Not with sadness, but with anger. No matter how minimal the dosage of deep sleep she took, she could never escape the hallucinations. And it wasn’t the hallucinations per se, it was how fucking real they felt, as if they were actual memories. She hated herself for not being able to dismiss such a ludicrous notion. Her early years after she tumbled out of the womb of the nameless whore who had borne her were incredibly blurry. She probably would never know where she came from or when she first discovered her powers. Not that it mattered. The fact that she had survived was all that did. For thinking even for a moment that those hallucinations could be memories, that there were once people in her life who loved her, she would deserve every ounce of abuse her survival instincts bestowed on her.
And therein lay the problem. They never did abuse her. Not for that. And that was why she would never be able to stop wondering. That was the curse of sleep: it always reminded her of the chink in the armor of her otherwise indestructible, infallible survival instincts.
But it wasn’t a fatal chink, she managed to convince herself. She was already helpless when she experienced that particular weakness, the only thing that made it forgivable. Unlike yesterday. The trick was not to dwell on it. Dreams could be easily forgotten, no matter if they remained the same every single night.
A red glow shone out of the corner of her eye. Dane picked up the comb and stared at the center jewel without blinking for several minutes. It was a ritual she made sure to always follow after waking up. The red blur was the reason she could never make out the faces, and she knew beyond any doubt that said red blur was the comb’s ruby. Even in her dreams, it protected her from weakness, from the temptation to believe in someone other than herself.
She ran a tender finger down the butterfly.
Thank you, my safe friend.
She put it down, sat up, and rubbed her temples. Her head did feel considerably better. To be on the safe side, she reached out and mentally tested the weight of several objects in her room before lifting them all at once. After ten minutes of making them perform an array of complicated acrobatics simultaneously, she deemed herself ready to go out again. And just in time, too. She was starving. Just as she began to gather up her weapons, a knock sounded at her door.
That was a new experience. No one had ever knocked on her door. They only tried to cray it down. Was it a charity whore or was it an enemy who was trying to catch her off guard by knocking? Either way, they would get something for their courtesy. Dane could spare a steel baton to the jaw at the very minimum. She deactivated the beetles and opened the door, raising her plasma gun at the same time she did the latter.
“Hello, Dane. Pardon the intrusion. I have an important message to deliver from the boss.”
It was a Crypter. And judging by the half-smile, half-grimace he wore on his weathered gray face, he was channeling his boss’s oldy politeness under pain of heavy punishment. Dane felt somewhat sorry for him. She loathed phoniness, but he was like her: another human being (for the most part) just doing what it took to survive. So she decided to go easy on him. Without lowering her gun, she held out her hand to take the message. He handed it over in the form of a datapad.
“Read it now, please. The Keeper wants your answer when I get back.”
Dane glared suspiciously at the Crypter, but closed her door relatively softly to indicate that she would open it once she had read the message.
Greetings Dane,
I wish to make amends for our last meeting. I should know better than to insult you.
Dane nearly crushed the datapad then and there, but something told her to keep reading.
You were correct about the Python. He did have a rather sophisticated phonobug inside his person. It was also quite a chore for my Reapers to find. They had to pick through his large and small intestines before they discovered its location.
Dane smiled against her will.
As you know, I cannot let this pass. There is after all a Pact of Trust among the gangs that all must adhere to (I am, of course, excluding those despicable animals who call themselves rape gangers). Since the Pythons have broken that trust in the form of spying, a Crater Event is called for. And I am officially inviting you as the guest of honor. I hope your response is yes since all of my underlings are greatly anticipating your presence.
Yours,
The Crypt Keeper
P.S.
You really should introduce me to the jigger you possess after you get it repaired. Then again, perhaps you would be wasting my time in doing so if it would work so well on a bugged Python but not the tech you questioned me about.
The Keeper would be pleased. That last part had the exact unnerving effect on Dane he had undoubtedly been hoping for. Exposing that Python had been child’s play. She could sense any tech no matter how small or however deeply buried, but the only lie that could keep her secret safe was that she had used a jigger, hence the gesture she made to the Keeper before. The Crypters already had highly sophisticated jiggers, and now the Keeper had very good reason to believe that Dane either possessed one more thrill than anything the Crypters had, or was hiding something very powerful. To make matters even worse, she had asked the Crypt Keeper himself to use his jigger on the wand tech. A jigger she logically should have no use for.
Dane gritted her teeth so hard it hurt. Mudmoor. Mudmoor, mudmoor, MUDMOOR!
The fact that there was no way in hell that the Keeper would ever suspect she had psychic powers did nothing to calm her. In asking him to jig the wand tech, she had all but yelled in his face that she possessed something of great value. Something that could increase his power if he got it.
Was that why he was inviting her to the Crater Event? Was it a trap?
She bit her lip hard. No, the Keeper wouldn’t invite her to a Crater Event and then tell her he was on to her. That was far too clumsy. There were few things she respected him for, and his intelligence was one of them. There were only two other possibilities; he wanted to gloat, and or he was trying to pay his way into one of her holes again. Each one made her want to cray his neck with equal viciousness, but then she reread the last line.
I hope your response is yes since all of my underlings are greatly anticipating your presence.
It was a threat, pure and simple. Even before he had said so outright, Dane had been well aware of how much he hated being publicly patronized. In informing his flogs that she would be coming, he had created a no-win situation. In shunning him, she would keep her pride, but she would also make an enemy of him forever. He would no longer buy her merchandise from which she received two thirds of her total income. He may even send a battalion of Reapers to chase her out of the Under Rail or kill her.
The objects surrounding her began to quake in response to her rage. She took several slow, deep breaths before typing a very curt response onto the datapad and handing it to the Crypter outside. She sat on her moldy sofa and seethed for several minutes before heading out. Thanks to that miserable, lecherous bastard, she had lost her appetite but her food supply was dangerously low. Something her survival instincts would punish her severely for if she didn’t rectify it soon enough.
*************
Buying food wasn’t much of a problem. All you needed was creds or something to trade. Getting food devoid of mutagens…that tended to be a problem. Around the end of World War III, some country or nationality decided to crank up the game by resorting to biological warfare. None of them claimed responsibility for it, which was understandable since it backfired something royal when the mutagens started spreading to every corner of the Earth. They got into the food, the water, the people, and each person seemed to react differently to it. Some remained unaffected, some died, some got a little disfigured, others got horribly disfigured. Because there was no cure, illegal genetic experiments became almost as popular as prostitution. Those who couldn’t get their old faces back decided having a new face on their own terms was better. And then the gangs discovered they could physically resemble what they named themselves after.
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