Steven Harper - Dreamer

“I’ll decide when I’ve had enough. Just fill the bowl.”

“If you throw up, do it somewhere else,” the seller warned. But he filled the bowl.

Kendi slurped up the sweet, floppy confection. Still more sugar rushed into his system and he was starting to feel like a hummingbird on caffeine, but he didn’t care. He had started lunch with three sticks of beef shishkebob and followed them with grilled hot peppers, a plate of tangy red kelp, and two cups of plankton-in-broth. His stomach was aching and bloated, but he ignored it. He also ignored the little internal voices that told him he wasn’t acting a proper member of the Real People, who practiced balance and moderation in all things.

We knew of the Dream long before Irfan Qasad and her ilk, they said, and we knew of it because we lived in balance.

Kendi stared down at the bowl, then left it on the noodle seller’s counter and walked away. The sounds and smells of the market rushed around him like a dirty wind. Sejal was not his nephew. Utang was not on Rust, had never been on Rust. He had failed to find his family again, Ben remained distant, and Ara was still keeping him in the dark about something. Kendi wandered through the market, sugar singing through his veins, rebukes of his ancestors ringing through his head. What could happen next?

Naturally at that moment his implant flashed and outlined Sejal ahead of him in the crowd. Like Kendi, Sejal was wandering through the market, hands thrust into his ragged pockets. This time, however, no excitement thrilled through Kendi. Sejal was an intellectual exercise now, a puzzle to solve. Some instinct told Kendi to hang back and watch instead of approaching Sejal directly. Obeying it, Kendi faded back and followed.

“Post Script,” Kendi sub-vocalized. “Are you there?”

“Communications are currently unmonitored,” answered Peggy-Sue. “Do you wish to alert someone or leave a message?”

“No. End communication.”

Kendi continued shadowing Sejal. This time, however, he paid less attention to where Sejal was going and more attention to how Sejal interacted with his environment. The boy earned admiring glances from several people and a look of open greed as he passed the stall of Mr. M, the man who had the long row of slaves in his basement. There was no denying Sejal was handsome, with those blue eyes that contrasted so sharply with his black hair and brown skin. His clothes were a bit small for him, and they showed off a well-shaped body that would continue to develop as Sejal drew closer to adulthood. If Sejal was aware of his looks, however, his walk didn’t show it. He stayed hunched into himself, ignoring everything around him. Kendi slid through the crowd of shoppers. Sejal paused at a corner, then took up a position against one wall. Kendi moved out of the people stream to observe him.

Sejal underwent a minor transformation at the corner. He stood straighter and a look of cool indifference dropped onto his face. A slight smile stole across his lips, and he hooked a thumb in his pocket. Kendi furrowed his brow and halted between two stalls. What did Sejal do on the corner all day? And what had the goons in the alley been after him for? Wasn’t Sejal afraid they’d come back?

Most of the passers-by ignored Sejal, as he ignored them. But finally a man who looked to be in his late forties approached Sejal. They conversed at length, and Kendi’s heavy stomach tightened. This was how the encounter in the alley got its start. This time, however, Kendi didn’t see any heavies moving in.

Sejal and the man walked up the street together and Kendi followed, more curious than ever. Eventually the pair entered a seedy building Kendi recognized as a cheap hotel. Kendi, in fact, had brought rent boys here to establish underworld “credentials,” and the place rented rooms by the hour for those who were so inclined.

The implications for Sejal’s presence there were obvious.

“He can’t,” Kendi whispered. But even as he said it, he knew Sejal could. It explained the too-small clothes and the time spent posturing at the corner. The alley goons must have been representatives from the local houses wanting to “discipline” a freelancer who was moving in on their territory. Kendi stared at the hotel in shock, wondering how he could have missed something so obvious. Why hadn’t Ara told him? He couldn’t imagine she didn’t know. Maybe she’d figured Kendi already knew about it or had forgotten to mention it after his arrest. A lot had happened and it may have slipped her mind.

Abruptly Kendi’s gorge rose, and he barely managed to make it to an open sewer grating before the contents of his stomach came up. The crowd made a hole around him but kept on with business.

After the nausea passed, Kendi hauled himself to his feet and managed to stagger to a spot on the sidewalk where he could watch the hotel. He still felt a little sick. He also felt a great deal of outrage.

Balance, he thought. Balance and moderation. Anger will not help here.

And why was he so angry? What was it to Kendi? It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen this sort of thing before. He had paid for rent boys himself.

Yes, but they had been adults, consenting and willing. And they had been before Kendi’s arrest and his sentence to time in the Unity Kendi pushed the thoughts away. According to the Unity records Ben had conjured up, Sejal was sixteen, old enough to be considered an adult on many worlds. The man had not forced Sejal into the hotel, and Sejal was, presumably, being paid.

Still, it bothered him. He sat on the sidewalk and fidgeted. He was considering seeing if a nearby stall owner would sell him something to take the sour vomit taste out of his mouth when Sejal’s client emerged from the hotel. Kendi blinked and checked the time on his ocular implant. Only thirteen minutes had passed.

That was fast, he thought. Most people want to take their time with Kendi’s stomach abruptly tightened. What if the man was one of those sick monsters who got his erotic kicks out of strangling or stabbing people? What if Sejal was lying dead or injured in that hotel room?

Kendi was scrambling to his feet when Sejal emerged from the hotel. As Kendi watched, Sejal took up his customary position on a nearby corner. Within moments, a woman approached and they went into the hotel together.

Business is good today, Kendi thought, suddenly cynical.

The woman left twenty minutes later with Sejal exiting a few minutes behind her. Sejal went back to the corner and, ten minutes after that, went back inside with another woman.

Okay, this is weird, Kendi thought, curiosity piqued despite his other emotions. What’s his game?

Six men and three woman in Unity guard uniforms pushed their way through the market crowd and stormed toward the hotel. Kendi bolted upright. It was a raid.

“Mother, a call’s coming in for you,” said Ben’s voice over the intercom. “It’s Chin Fen.”

Ara sighed and tapped the console in her quarters. “Thanks, Ben. Patch him through.”

A moment later, Fen’s wrinkled face appeared on the console screen. His expression showed suppressed glee. They exchanged greetings, and Ara was a bit surprised when Fen got straight to the point.

“I did some checking on Vidya and Sejal Dasa,” Fen told her. “And I thought you might like to know what I found.”

“Definitely,” Ara replied. “What’d you dig up?”

Fen briskly cleared his throat. His manner was no longer that of a lovelorn puppy. He had instead become an efficient colleague. Ara wondered briefly if he had realized that she didn’t find obsequiousness attractive and was now going for professionalism.

“Vidya Dasa doesn’t exist much of anywhere,” Fen said. “The earliest record I could find of her goes back only sixteen years ago, when she moved into her current apartment. She registered a birth certificate for one Sejal Dasa. That’s pretty much it-no tax forms, no employment listings, not even a shopping excursion. I only found a few sporadic mentionings of her in other people’s records-mostly her son’s-but no real information on her. She’s lived at her current address for sixteen years, she pays her rent on time, and that’s it.”