James Decker - Fallout

hi

I gave him a little wave and felt a surge from him. Excitement and a rush of happiness that made my throat burn even as I smiled. I missed it. I really missed it. In spite of what I knew about them, nothing quite compared to that connection and when I quit the program it had left a void behind I hadn’t been able to fill.

His surrogate saw me looking and smiled back at me, bouncing him a little in her arms. I put a block on him before he messaged me to death, and we both slowed down as Vamp continued on.

“You’re a surrogate,” the woman who held the little haan said. She had dark circles under her eyes.

“Was.”

She didn’t ask what happened. Most people who left the program were booted out because of a failed imprint. She saw the look on my face, though, and nodded toward the kid.

“You want to hold him a minute?”

I nodded. She handed him over and I held him to my chest. He felt cool, and I thought his next feeding must be soon. He put his little arms around my neck, and as his stream of happiness and contentment flowed into my mind, I felt my eyes start to get wet.

“He’s cute,” I told her.

“Yeah.”

I wanted to hold him longer, to feel that connection longer, but I made myself hand him back, giving his bald head a stroke before letting go. The connection dwindled, and then he cut away to reconnect with his real surrogate.

“Looks like he’s keeping you pretty busy,” I said.

“Sorry?”

“You look tired.”

“Oh,” she said, looking down at the floor a little embarrassed. “No, I’m just… I’m having trouble sleeping.”

“I remember.”

She looked me in the eye, and her expression changed. She kind of looked back and forth a little and then lowered her head toward me to whisper in a conspiratorial voice.

“Did you hear the message, too?”

The question surprised me so much that I just stared back at her. After a moment, her lips quivered like she might cry. She swallowed and then forced a smile back onto her lips.

“Sorry,” she said. “Never mind.”

“The foreigner,” I said, and it was her turn to stare. She shook her head, backpedaling. Any contact with the foreigners at our borders would land you in prison, but I could see it on her face. She’d heard them trying to reach us through the mite cluster, in our dreams.

“Sam?” Vamp called from down the hall.

“Keep your pants on, would you?” I called back, but when I turned back to the woman, she’d moved on. She hurried around the corner, and before I could even try to go after her, she’d gone.

I hustled to catch up with Vamp as he reached Dao-Ming’s apartment and punched him in the arm. When I knocked on the door, Dao-Ming answered. Behind her I saw Jin sitting at the tea table.

“Hello,” she said. “Alexei is just getting his bag. Please come in.”

The first time I’d ever seen Dao-Ming and Jin had been in the scrapcake plant where the former Hangfei governor, Hwong, had sent us to be turned into black market street meat. After we managed to escape, we’d been on our way out and I handed off some supplies we’d found to Jin, who had taken charge of getting the other prisoners back to Hangfei. Dao-Ming had been with him, standing near him and shaking in spite of the heat. Her long hair had been plastered to her neck and shoulders, and as I approached them she’d stared through the tangles like some kind of wild animal. When she realized I’d freed her, though, she’d crossed her arms over my back and pulled me close, pressing her lips to the side of my neck and trembling. She’d looked so scared, back then, almost like a child, mute, as she chewed on her thumbnail.

Not anymore. Now her hair and clothes were always perfect, and neither her faint wrinkles nor the thin, white scar that ran across her neck did much to detract from her good looks. She always had this glint in her eye like she might lash out and cut you or something, and she made both Jin and Vamp nervous sometimes, but I’d spent time in chains too, waiting to die, and I got Dao-Ming. I liked her, and Alexei loved her.

Jin, next to Dao-Ming’s beauty, came off a bit homely with a gaunt face and bushy eyebrows. His thinning hair was a little tousled, as usual, maybe because the only time I’d ever seen him comb it was with his fingers, and his face was shadowed by his perpetual stubble.

Jin told me once that Dao-Ming had never been the same, after her time in the scrapcake plant. Because the people shunted over from Hwong’s prisons had them so backed up, Jin and Dao-Ming had both been stuck inside those cages for months. They’d been given the barest minimum to keep them alive before butchering and never let out, not even once. She’d been positioned so that the butchering blocks were in plain view, something I understood all too well. I’d endured weeks, not months, and it still haunted me.

Vamp and I stepped into the apartment, and Jin waved us over to him. He reached into his jacket pocket and removed a flash drive, which he held out to me with two fingers.

“It’s all set?” I asked, taking it.

“The completed video is five minutes and thirty-four seconds long,” he said. “Once the broadcast begins at the Xinzhongzi protest I don’t think even Vamp will be able to keep control of the signal any longer than that, but it should suffice. It doesn’t include everything we know, but it covers what is most important. The people will know the truth about the haan.”

“And you’re sure I can’t be recognized?” I asked.

“Your face can’t be made out,” he said. “And I’ve altered your voice to the point where no identification can be made. With your hair so short, they may have trouble even determining sex.”

I couldn’t say that sounded like any kind of compliment, but the last thing I wanted was for anyone to recognize me, since airing an illegal broadcast would pretty much land you in prison and this one would be about as illegal as they came.

Alexei came from around the corner, his thick Pan-Slav hair bushy around a pale face. He’d turned nine a few months ago, but he seemed little even for his age. When he saw me, he waved.

Hi, Sam, he sent over the 3i chat.

“Out loud,” I told him.

“Hi, Sam.” His Mandarin was getting better, but that accent…

“Hi, Alexei.”

“Lex, you ready to roll?” Vamp asked.

Alexei nodded, putting his little backpack over one shoulder. I could see the cuff of the gonzo robe peeking out from under the flap as he passed by to go see Vamp, and I gritted my teeth.

“Don’t worry,” Dao-Ming said.

“I don’t like it.”

“Nor do I,” Dao-Ming said. “Don’t worry. One way or the other, this will end.”

“I just don’t get it. I mean, his mother was killed by a haan. He should hate them, not worship them.”

“Maybe it’s a way to come to terms with it. It will be better if he disassociates himself with them of his own accord. If he doesn’t, Dragan will take care of it.”

I hoped that would be true, but I wondered. In reality, Dragan had ended up butting heads with gonzo church members and even their leader, Gohan Sòng, himself over this, with the only result being getting into trouble and pushing Alexei even farther away. His status as a security officer took him only so far. Gohan had connections that went way over his head.

“Dragan doesn’t need any more bullshit.”

“Then I take it he still doesn’t know of our plan, then?” she asked.

“No.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

“No. Better he can tell security he didn’t know, if he has to.”

“Then we meet tomorrow night at the protest site?”

“Tomorrow night.”

“Good-bye, Alexei,” Jin called. Alexei, still at Vamp’s side, waved back.