Ashes of the Fall Page 5

  Maybe that’s how he liked it.

  Wearing only a towel, I walk back to the kitchen and stare at the dummy camera in the corner. There’s nothing else inside. I push myself onto the kitchen island, cold granite stinging slightly against my bare legs, and look around.

  “Who were you, Matt?” I say to the empty room. Nothing answers. For someone so good at reading people, my only hero is inscrutable. That’s the problem with heroes, though. Your vision is always corrupted by the reality. I try to think why I even loved my brother so much when I was younger.

  It was something he said to me, right before he left—before Chancellor Tanner’s men took him. I’d come home with a bloody nose. Black eye. Dirt covering my face. Total ass-whipping. I was crying, snot running down my face. Neither of our parents were home.

  Matt was sitting at the tiny kitchen table, around which we had squeezed four chairs, and looked up at me. Didn’t ask what happened. Just nodded.

  “They used to kick my ass, too,” he said, offering me a wet rag. I wiped my face with it, and it stung. I couldn’t answer him, because I was still sniffling, and I was embarrassed that I might not be able to talk at all. So I looked at the floor. “Hey.”

  Which is when I looked up.

  “The Circle kids, they might think they’re better,” he said. “Might be stronger. But could they survive here?”

  He pointed at the crumbling plaster on the wall, which made me want to cry more. Illuminating the chasm between us and them, confirming that we were trash.

  “You’ve got the fastest tongue I know,” he said. “Defend yourself by outthinking them.”

  He didn’t tell me I was small. I was. That I shouldn’t fight. I grew, sure, but not to anything big. Maybe a buck fifty now.

  Then he stared back at his cereal, floating in water instead of milk, and stopped talking. Shy again.

  But to me, that was all I needed. The next day, I went to school, and when the kids said I had to suck dicks I was so poor to survive, I didn’t cry. Or fight them—and lose. I looked at them, and I told them they were all so obsessed with dicks, they probably had their own club called the Circle Jerkers.

  After that, in secret, everyone called the Circle kids that, until we graduated school at sixteen.

  They stopped fucking with me.

  I slide off the counter, shaking the memory away. It’s silly enough, how important that was back in the day—the encouragement, how being called a cocksucker was like being thrown in social jail—but it matters when you’re eight.

  And it mattered more once he disappeared, and I was left on my own.

  In a way, I am Matt Stokes, because Matt Stokes helped create me. For better or for worse. There’d be plenty of people who’d want to kill him for that.

  With nothing useful in the apartment, I get dressed in the hoodie and sunglasses disguise again, and decide on a secondary plan: that yes, meeting Carina for drinks is my best remaining way out of this mess. It’s four o’clock. I told her to meet me at six.

  I wasn’t planning on going. But that’s the nice thing about having multiple irons in the fire— sometimes one comes in handy.

  I head out, hit the elevator, and walk out into the dying light. Hailing an auto-cab, I punch in the address to the Razor’s Fire Pub. The screen blinks with a flashing warning. This district of New Manhattan is currently considered unsafe. The scroll warns of “increased terrorist activity.”

  The Lionhearted are out in force, spreading the word that these natural disasters were God’s punishments for our repeated sins.

  Which is a good thing, because that’s exactly who I need help from.

  May God help my filthy soul.

  There are guards on every corner in this district. For New Manhattan, I guess this qualifies as the slums. For me, coming where I’m from, it registers as upper-middle-class. The kind of place where I could find a mark or two among the discontent.

  The kind of place I’m meeting a mark who is discontent.

  I sit at the bar of the Razor’s Fire Pub, taking in the smells and the sounds. A bit of a dive, with chipped wooden counters and a certain stickiness to the floors that suggests they haven’t been scrubbed recently. The aroma of hops and sweat swirls around me.

  I order a beer, I hit the touchscreen link authorizing the payment, and the keep looks at me.

  “I need you to take off your sunglasses, sir.”

  “I’m meeting someone.” I drink half the glass before I even bother to look up. I can see he’s already raising his hand, about to call for the bouncer. On a day like today, he wants to stamp out any sign of trouble before it starts. Any association or hint of sympathizing with the Lionhearted is dangerous. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  I put the mug down with a very definite thud.

  His hand hangs in the air. “Your sunglasses.”

  I take the clear keycard out of my pocket and slide it across the pockmarked wood. “That good enough for you?”

  “Drinks are on the house,” the keep says, almost shitting himself, “it’s an honor.”

  “I have my eye on you,” I say as he runs away, before I throw him into solitary forever. With a smirk to myself, I stare into the beer’s flat foam. He’ll leave me alone for the rest of the night. The door swings open, and I turn to look, drawn in by the chiming bells.

  It’s the gatekeeper, the girl from before. Here, just as I expected. Her eyes dart around the room, from the pool table to the glowing juke, finally to the bar. I flick two fingers at my side, casually catching her attention. She looks terrified, but excited, that I came.

  I don’t blame her. If I set her up—a sting—this’ll be her last hour alive.

  She sits down two seats from me and orders a vodka, neat. Then she starts talking.

  “Nice disguise,” she says in a nervous whisper, looking straight ahead.

  “You’re terrible at this,” I say, sliding over the seats, taking control of the frame. I look at her eyes, deep into them, like no one has done before. Brown, with flecks of gold. They match her hair, shoulder length, which shimmers in the soft light. High cheekbones, nice chin, long eyelashes. Would be really pretty, a stunner, if she brushed up a little bit. For starters, the clothes are a little too loose. The makeup a little messy—trying, but not quite there. Pretends she doesn’t care, secretly pissed that it doesn’t come out right. “You know, every guy in this bar looked at you when you came in.”

  This is a lie. No one looked. Not because they wouldn’t fuck her brains out—they absolutely would—but because everyone’s glued to the television screen, drinking away their sorrows while they wonder how the hell their lives are going to get worse from this chain of destruction out West.

  I’d tell them for free—famine, respiratory problems, more cutbacks, more government control—but I’d very much like for my head to remain attached to my body.

  Carina blushes and her gaze drops to her drink. “No, they didn’t.”

  “You’re right,” I say, “I lied. But I noticed.”

  “I hate you,” she says, but it’s with a smile. Now she’s on the hook. Baited.

  “What’s your name, again?” I remember, but it makes it seem less important. I need something from this girl, but I can’t let her know that. She figures that out, I’m blown.

  “Carina.”

  “Matt,” I say, almost surprising myself with how easy it rolls off my tongue. I take off the shades, really looking into her eyes now. I take her hand and shake it, holding it a beat longer than she’d expect. “I’m glad you came.”

  “Not like I had a choice.”

  “You could’ve turned me in,” I say. “But you didn’t.”

  “You would’ve turned me in.” Her voice rises and she looks around the bar frantically to see if anyone noticed. But the keep is the only one within earshot and he wants nothing to do with
us. I could douse the place in gasoline and he’d pretend I was doing him a favor.

  A heavy rock ‘n roll track plays in the background. A trebly guitar solo rips through the mix, full of distortion and dive bombs and empty bombast, but little else.

  “I needed to see if I could trust you,” I say. “I picked you out, from all the gates. Because I knew you were loyal to the cause.”

  I almost throw up when I say that word. It sounds phony, even to me. But I manage to keep a straight face. Inside, I’m wincing, like I just tasted something bitter. She starts chugging her drink, the clear liquid dripping down her cheeks. I smell the nail-polish remover aroma of grain alcohol.

  I gently take her wrist and pull the drink from her hand. It’s already empty, but it’s the gesture that counts.

  “God help me,” she says, her fingers instinctively going for the chain around her neck. It doesn’t have a cross dangling from it—that would be idiocy—but it’s a symbol. “I don’t even know you.”

  “Sure you do,” I say. “I’m part of the Inner Circle.”

  Her eyes freeze, holding my gaze, widening. Like she’s expecting a swarm of SC Agents to pop out from the woodwork and yell surprise, Big Brother’s been watching all along. But all that happens is the keep washes his glasses, and the rock record flips to a slow blues number.

  I snap my fingers below the counter, and her eyes follow to the card. She still doesn’t say anything. I don’t think she can.

  I whistle for the barkeep, and he comes running, although hardly enthusiastically.

  “Yes, sir,” he says. “Anything. Take the bottle, sir.” He grabs three top-shelf liquors and puts them on the bar in front of me.

  “The same for the lady,” I say, ignoring his offering, “and a double whiskey for me.”

  “Of course, my apologies, sir.”

  He pours the drinks, averting my gaze. I finish the beer, cheerily looking around the room like I give no fucks at all, while I think a few steps ahead. I press Carina too hard and she’ll crumble. She’s got potential, but it’s delicate. Like me, when I was eight—the right kind of encouragement is necessary.

  If I’m going to survive the next couple of days, I’ll need two things. The means to get rid of a body, and a way to locate these engineers, since I probably won’t be able to jet out of New Manhattan before being summoned by Tanner to deliver the HIVE beta.

  I take the entire double shot all at once. Maybe not the smartest call, since it’ll dull my senses. But it’s important to make things look casual, like I’m actually on her side.

  “Look, Carina, I’ll let you in on a secret,” I say, leaning over confidentially, “if that’s all right with you.”

  She nods and manages to say, “Okay.” Her hand is clenched around the second drink like a life preserver.

  “The Inner Circle—the entire government, really—we’re having problems. And now, after what happened today…let’s just say that I think I’m backing the wrong horse. These disasters are no good, and they leave us really vulnerable to a coup.”

  “Treason?” she squeaks out. “I just don’t see what I can do for you. You’re—you’re…”

  She can’t even wrap her mind around the fact that I’m Inner Circle.

  I smile, try to set her at ease. “You don’t want to, you can leave.” I throw a sideways nod at the front door. “Meantime, I’m gonna hit the bathroom. You make your choice, won’t be any hard feelings.”

  I slide off the stool and head into the toilets. They’re cleaner than you’d expect for a place like this. Only minimal piss on the floor, not too much written on the walls. Apparently Jenna’s a slut, so there’s that.

  I sidle up to the urinal. A BathDoc screen asks me if I want a full lab work-up done for a hundred credits. I ignore it and stare at the ceiling. Don’t need to know my protein is low right now. If something’s off, it’ll kill me in three years.

  The barrel I’m facing, it’ll kill me in less than three days, if I don’t get this scared girl to help me out. I finish, wash my hands, and look at the man in the mirror. It’s enough like Matt that I almost think he’s alive, staring back at me.

  Or maybe it’s just that I look haunted, eyes bloodshot. I know why the sledding is hard here in the Razor’s Fire, why I can’t close faster with an easy mark—I look desperate. The con is right, the words are smooth, but I look ready to break.

  Splashing water on my face, I try to get the redness out of my eyes. Take a little cologne from the dispenser, it charging me sixty-five credits for the privilege. Spray it on my neck, take off the hoodie, tussle up my hair.

  She hasn’t seen Matt’s picture. No need to stay hidden. The barkeep, he won’t say anything. A man like Matt, coming down here, it makes sense he would be in some sort of disguise. Wear a wig, dye his hair. He just wants me gone.

  I push out, into the bar, and Carina’s still on the stool, nursing her third glass of vodka, apparently trusting me enough to drink on my dime. Or the keep’s, since he’s picking it up.

  “You’re kind of cute,” she says, shyly, looking at the floor between glances. “Without the hoodie.”

  “I need two things,” I say, getting right into it, skipping over the compliment like I’ve barely heard it, “I got a list of names. Your people can find ‘em, without anyone knowing?”

  “We’re like rats,” she says with a giggle. Drunk on liquid courage. “We can slip in through the walls anywhere.”

  “You can’t get hammered,” I say, “this is important.”

  Her face gets serious. “I know, I know. I laugh when I’m nervous.” She plays with her hair.

  “I picked you for a reason, remember.”

  “Because you saw me out of everyone else?”

  Yeah, sure, whatever, I think, but I say, “And I’m never wrong.”

  “I can find out about the names.”

  “I’m sending you the schematic now,” and I move her hair gently away from the back of her neck I feel a slight buzz in my fingertips, and she sighs a little, and then the list is sent over to her HoloBand. Ready for her brain to access.

  “This is kind of big,” she says, “I’m running out of room.” Carina says it with a little pout that reminds me that her life is still small. Concerned with zettabytes of storage, interacting with friends over HoloNet. Hopefully I won’t get her killed—or worse. But then, she made a choice, throwing in with the Lionhearted.

  I’m all for freedom of expression and spiritual outlets. But when the Man becomes God and outlaws any others, you kinda gotta go along with the dog and pony show and get in line. Didn’t any of them actually read the Bible? The Romans were pricks.

  “They give us the fancy models,” I say, not knowing how much storage Matt had on his band, estimating it somewhere around a metric fuckload, “perks of the job.”

  I say it with enough disgruntled grit to sell it. That’s all real, though. I flag the barkeep, get a refill on my whiskey, drain it.

  Carina gestures for another drink, but I cut her off, and then touch her shoulder lightly.

  “We got work to do,” I say, leading her to the door. She follows, leaning into my chest. I hail down an empty auto-cab.

  She puts her head on my shoulder when we get into the vehicle.

  “Can you send that list over your people’s network?” I say.

  “The Lionhearted don’t use HoloNet,” she says, staring at me like I’m stupid, “all paper. That’s how I know I could trust you.”

  If only she really knew.

  Carina stumbles out of the auto-cab, insisting that I stay within the confines of the vehicle. I do as I’m told, peering out of the tinted glass in futility for a couple minutes before directing my attention to the screen.

  This gray-haired bastard has had a long day. The wrinkles are showing beneath his make-up—they haven’t had the opportunity to s
lather on more. Full-on firefighting requires constant vigilance. They use their best and brightest for stories demanding damage control, but by the footage, anyone with a brain can tell that this is an issue that no amount of propaganda can fix. The ash cloud has spread well past Wyoming, now, the entire Northwest is a pile of jumbled dominos, and the police have been putting down minor uprisings throughout the day in New Manhattan—supposedly the safest city in the whole world.

  I tap the screen and Old Silver Fox’s voice pipes in low, like a friend whispering in my ear.

  “Circle officials indicate that reports of significant crop damage are unsubstantiated. Please do not engage in food hoarding. Any such behavior, or individuals caught marking up products for resale outside of official channels will be subject to severe penalties.”

  The charade continues. I wonder how long it can last—like Chancellor Tanner in his shimmering tower, the whole illusion is about to come tumbling down like a house of cards. Tapping the screen with my knuckle, I lean back into my seat, enjoying the silence. Old Silver Fox keeps blathering on, but I’m not listening.

  The day’s been so busy, I haven’t thought about Slick or my old crew back in Seattle. They’re probably dead, and for a second, my chest crushes inwards, and I can’t breathe. Which is why I haven’t thought about it. You want to survive in this business, you gotta compartmentalize. Friends have come and gone before, and they’ll come and go many times before I die.

  One time, it’ll be my turn.

  Still, Slick’s the only mentor I ever had, the guy who taught me everything after Pops passed—damn. I sneak a glance at the screen through slightly blurry vision, tell myself it’s from the liquor, and hope that somewhere in that maelstrom, Slick and my boys made it out.

  I’m not too optimistic, though. The door clicks open, and I wipe my eyes.

  “You miss me,” Carina says, her hands getting dangerously gropey for someone who believes in chastity, her hot breath heavy with booze, “I did what you wanted. They’re running it down now.”

  “I don’t want the engineers hurt,” I say, moving away as she nibbles at my lip, “just find where they live.”