Lisa Smedman - The Lucifer desk

“But you escaped.”

Guilt washed over Pita like ice water. “Yes,” she muttered, looking down at the tabletop once more. “But I came back, later, to see if the others were all right. That’s when I saw the cops cutting them up. And writing the Humanis slogans on the wall.”

“Humanis Policiub?” Chen leaned forward, a hard glitter in his eyes. “You mean fragging cops belong to that drek-eating hate club?’ A muscle worked in his jaw. “Well, it figures. Orks represent sixteen percent of Seattle’s population, but nearly fifty per cent of the prison population is ork. Not only are we arrested and thrown in jail more often, we’re also under-represented as cops. Only one fragging per cent of the Lone Star cops patrolling Seattle are ork. Nearly eighty per cent are human. Those figures have been documented by the Orks Rights Committee. And their numbers don’t lie. Prejudice against metahumans runs long and deep in the Star. Chief London’s going to have a lot to answer for the day the coalition takes over the city. And that day is coming-soon.”

Pita was impressed by all the facts Yao had at his fingertips. He was informed. He was determined.

He stopped talking as the waitress came to clear the table. She was a pretty girl-human-a little older than Pita. But Yao looked at her with open contempt. “Wait until we’re finished eating, drekhead,” he snapped at her.

Pita pushed her bowl away. “I’m done,” she said quickly. But the waitress had already scrambled away.

Yao stood up, motioning his friend forward. He took the trideo camera from him, then spoke quietly to him. Anwar grinned, then loped out of the restaurant.

“I want you to take me to the spot where it happened,” Yao told Pita. “I’ll interview you there, on location, while Anwar monitors the uplink. We’re using a portable dish to go live. Save your story until we get there. That way it’ll sound less rehearsed. When I give you the sign, you start from the beginning and don’t leave anything out.” He smiled grimly as he motioned for Pita to follow. “This could be just the story we need to spark the uprising.”

“Uprising?” Pita echoed, trotting along behind Yao. He walked quickly, threading his way through the crowded corridors. She had to hurry to keep up.

“Look around you,” Yao said, lowering his voice. “The overcrowding, the condition of these tunnels. You don’t think we orks are going to be penned up in the Underground forever, do you? The day isn’t far off when we’ll rise up into the city and push the weaker races aside. When we’ll take what’s rightfully ours and pay the fraggers back for what happened in ‘39. The Night of Rage is going to look tame compared to what’s coming.”

“My parents told me about the Night of Rage,” Pita said. “I was only two, but Mom used to tell a funny story about how Dad made us hide in the basement, then sat at the top of the stairs with his shotgun to protect us. It wasn't until the next morning that he realized he’d forgotten to load the gun. When I was little, I didn’t understand what could have sent him into such a panic. But now I realize he was afraid of the-”

Pita stopped herself. She’d been about to say, “of the metahumaus.” Thinking back on it now, she wondered at her father’s extreme reaction. Seattle’s metahumans had responded with violence to the city’s attempt to forcibly relocate them outside of its boundaries, but that violence had been tightly focused. Their rage-and the burnings, lootings, and attacks it sparked-was triggered by a series of explosions in the warehouses being used to hold the deportees. A militant wing of the Humanis Policlub was rumored to be behind the bombings. Pita knew her father sympathized with the Humanis Policlub, but now she wondered just how deep those sympathies ran. Was her father a member of the racist group, and thus a potential target for the metahuman retaliation?

“Yeah, the Metroplex Guard were even worse than Lone Star,” Yao said, interrupting her thoughts. He glanced at Pita. “You weren’t at the warehouses? Then your family hadn’t been rounded up yet by the Guard when the trouble began.”

“Uh, no.” Pita realized that Yao assumed her entire family was ork. Given the arrogant, hostile tone he’d used when speaking to the waitress in the noodle bar, she was afraid to tell him she’d once been a member of the “weaker races” herself.

“You were lucky, then,” Yao continued. “My father died when the first explosion hit the waterfront. My mother was never the same afterward. She tried to reverse the confiscation order on our house, but the city appealed every court decision, and eventually our money ran out. After that, she didn’t have the strength to do much but sit and cry.

“Governor Schultz glosses over the whole thing now, and talks about our current ‘racial harmony.’ She seems to think the Night of Rage could never happen again.” Yao’s smile tightened. “Well, she’s soon going to find out just how wrong she is. When your interview hits the air, the sparks will fly.”

The Street kids were clustered near the base of the Space Needle, listening to a simsense deck, and it looked to Carla like a Sony Beautiful Dreamer. Two of the teenagers were simming the music directly, via datajacks slotted into their temples. They jerked in time with the music, eyes focused on some distant point as the deck pumped sights, sounds, and other sensory input directly into their brains. The rest of the kids heard only the music that blared from the speakers. Some lounged about, smoking, too chill to acknowledge the driving staccato beat. Others danced, arms flailing, occasionally knocking foreheads together like wild rams. One of the kids-a troll dressed in black leather pants and a Japanese kimono hacked off at the waist-even had the curling horns necessary to complete the picture. Overhead, the night sky was a solid black, devoid of stars.

Carla shouted over the din from the speakers. “Do any of you know an ork girl named Pita? She came looking for me at my office the other day, but left before I had a chance to really talk with her. The last bunch of kids I talked to told me she hangs somewhere down here, at Seattle Center. Have any of you seen her? This is what she looks like” She held out a playback imager. Its flatscreen showed a still of Pita sitting in the KKRU lobby.

The teenagers stared at the imager, their eyes a mixture of boredom and suspicion. “You her social worker?” one asked. By the way his nose flared as he looked up and down Carla’s expensive Armante jacket, he wasn't impressed with her corporate image. Maybe she should have dressed down before trying to interview street kids. But the Armante was bullet-proof as well as stylish.

“I’m not a social worker,” Carla answered. “I’m a reporter. Carla Harris of KKRU Trideo News. Pita had a story for me. A story we’re willing to get behind. Be sure to tell her that if you see her.

The troll stopped dancing and ambled over to stand behind Carla. He loomed over her like a building, throwing her into shadow. She resisted the urge to back away, even though he reeked of sweat. Never let a dog see that you re afraid of him, she thought. It only encourages him to bite.

“Unless you got some credit to spend right here, lady, you’d better just frag off,” he grumbled.

Across the parking lot, a car horn beeped twice. That would be Masaki. He had cut the tint on the windows of his car, and was gesturing frantically inside it.

Carla met the troll’s eyes and smiled. “I’d love to stay and chat,” she told him. “But my father doesn’t like it when I stay out late, and he’s quite particular about which boys I talk to. That’s him in the car over there. Perhaps you’d like to meet him?”