Кейт Форсит - Relics, Wrecks and Ruins - Anthology of Speculative Fiction Short Works

She softened. “I’ll ask around. I still have old friends in the project, real people who were involved in making us. Give me a couple of days and I’ll find out how it worked.”

He reached into his expensive handbag and thrust a stack of greenish paper at her. “Cash. For you. Thank you.”

“So that’s what it looks like. I’ve never seen it before.” She eyed the money. “You should know better, though. I don’t have any use for this.”

He pushed it forward. “I have plenty, she looks after me. Take it.”

“No.” She didn’t reach for it. “But you can do something for me in return.”

His brows lifted.

She turned and released one of her hidden appendages. She sliced a small piece of blanket from the edge, then hot stamped a couple of identification marks onto it. The claw folded back into her abdominal carapace under the robe, and she passed the blanket piece to him.

“I want you to find out what these two women are doing.”

He studied the piece of blanket, running his finger along the clean edge where she’d laser cut it. “You are seriously scary sometimes. I’ll see what I can turn up, I have access to Comrade Zheng’s data.” He glanced up. “Why do you want to know? These are overcity residents. You’re not going to hurt them or anything like that, are you?”

She shook her head, carefully emotionless. “No, nothing like that. I want to make sure they’re okay. They were civilians caught up in a military action I was part of. It was pretty heavy. I want to make sure they came out the other side and went on to live good lives. They were just little kids.”

“I see.” He stashed the piece of blanket into his bag, then shoved the money at her again. “You might as well take this. I don’t need it. Use it for maintenance or something. You can take it to the bank; they still accept it. Load it into your credit account. It’s as good as money. They still have to take it for another year or two, and it’s completely untraceable.”

“Untraceable?” She took it, running her fingertips over the tough, plastic-feeling paper. “No wonder they’re getting rid of it. They do hate things that are hard to find or control.”

He sent her a wry look in return.

After Naoki left, Dot headed east through twisting alleys lit by dim, flickering shop signs. She worked her way through the narrow, muddy lanes toward Fil’s, staying out of the circles of light and avoiding the puddles of acid.

A group of young-and-stupids tried to order her as she passed them.

“Kill yourself,” one of them said.

Another said it at a higher pitch, trying to hit the exact frequency that she would be forced to obey. “Kill yourself.”

She stopped and rounded on them, and they all took a step back. “Did you just order me to kill you? I must obey.”

“Kill yourself!” one of them shouted, and the others grinned with a combination of fear and bravado.

She dropped her voice and moved closer. “Kill you? You want me to kill you? How about a laser cutter through your eyes? Or I just pick you up and break you in half?”

“You’re not allowed to hurt us,” one said, and the others nodded agreement.

She moved slightly closer and released an appendage, waving its bladed tip in front of their faces. “You sure?”

They weren’t. They ran.

She sighed. She was an idiot. If they told the authorities what she’d said, she could lose free-rein privileges and find herself back in a Facility. All she needed now was to lose her sanity and her freedom at the same time. She took deep breaths to calm herself and walked on.

Fil scratched his bloated belly. “You still alive and out of the cage?”

Dot glanced around the dusty shop and the piles of dismembered bio equipment. “Still going. Hit some sweet sunlight today. I won’t need to eat for at least a week.”

“Nice.” He measured some nutrients into a jar. “So, what brings one of the last dots to my corner of the undercity?”

“Naoki—” Dot began.

Sneering, Fil threw the measuring scoop onto the bench so hard that it bounced off onto the floor.

She continued, “—thinks he was backed up. Tell me it’s not possible, that it’s all shut down. Then he’ll be happy and I can go home.” It began to rain, making a clatter on the plastic roof of his workshop. “I need to get home.”

He glanced up and nodded, then down at her, his expression grim. “You can tell him that it’s not possible for anyone to be backed up anymore, but you’d be lying.”

“What?” Her guts froze.

“One of the Cadres up there…” he pointed “…came through with her uniforms and took everything that could be used to backup and copy people. Took enough to start the whole cloning process over again.”

“When?”

“A bit over three months ago.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He shrugged.

“I have to stop her,” Dot said, pacing the cluttered room.

“You can’t break your conditioning.” Fil folded his arms, watching her carefully. “You can only use violence in self-defense or against a designated enemy.”

“If I try hard enough I can, and you know it.”

He spat on the floor. “I don’t want to see anyone else go through what you’ve been through, honey, but don’t throw yourself away trying to stop a Cadre. Stay out of it.”

“What if Naoki really was backed up?”

“The stupid little straightass got what he deserved. Only taking female clients—serves him right. I hope she kills him and has a lovely little clone that’ll do anything she wants.”

“You are scum, Fil,” Dot said.

He spread his arms, revealing armpit stains on his undershirt. “Just like everything around me.”

The rain grew harder. “My bucket’ll be full,” she said. “I have to get home.”

He pointed at her and she recoiled from the insulting gesture. “And stop doing that, too. They don’t deserve it. Your special metabolism wasn’t designed to act as a water-purification plant.”

“They deserve to live. Everybody deserves to live,” she said, and went out.

The rain burnt her back and made the top of her head itch as she tried to stay away from the falls of water sliding between the gaps of the plate. The dome protected the overcity from the acid rain, but capillary action made the water fall from under the plate and drench the undercity.

When she arrived back at her pipe, a small group of tired undercity dwellers were waiting for her. They stood back and let her through, and when she was at the door to her pipe, she spoke.

“Come back in a couple of hours. I have to process it.”

They nodded and wandered off, some settling only a few meters away to wait.

Inside, she filled a large plastic bottle from the acid in the bucket, closed her eyes, and drank it all. Refilled the bottle and drank again, then again.

After the fourth bottle the water came out through the hole it had burnt in her throat and she stopped. She couldn’t stop a small moan of pain. Exactly twelve minutes later her throat had grown back enough to take another bottle.

After thirty minutes she stumbled to lie on the pallet, careful not to lean on her destroyed face and throat. She closed her eyes and let her body regrow and filter the water.

Two hours later she emerged to find an even larger group of undercity dwellers waiting for her. She held a barrel containing purified water. They lined up meekly, each of them holding a container, and she doled the water out to them.

The barrel was half gone when a group of uniforms arrived, making the people scatter. The leader of the uniforms stopped and held out an ID reader towards her. He wore a voice modulator that would make his voice the pitch that she was forced to obey. It would also automatically switch on her bodycam, but only Fil knew she’d made that modification.