Beyond These Walls (2 page)

Black turned back to me. “Oh, we’ll be in touch. You can count on it, Indeara.”

Chapter 3

On my way home from the Lair paranoia kept me to the shadows. I scanned the empty streets and walked with quiet steps. Somewhere, just beyond the wall that segregated us genetic freaks from the rest of humanity, an evil grew. I could feel it, almost smell it in the atmosphere.

In the past fifteen years thousands of mutants had disappeared. Simply vanished. Scientists offered evolutionary explanations for the disappearing mutant population, but here, behind the wall, we knew the truth. Someone or something was killing us off, one by one.

Filled with a feeling of impending disaster, I crossed the street to my burned-out apartment complex. It had fallen victim to a firebomb during the first mutant-versus-human conflict. Around the same time the government built the wall. It stood less than one block from my apartment. Late at night I often watched the searchlights reflecting off the concrete and wondered what it felt like to be free.

“You’re it,” a voice called from the darkness of a first floor apartment.

Spinning on my heel, I ducked between the busted ceiling beams and concrete barriers littering the complex. Up ahead, the soft hum of a military hovercraft tickled my eardrums, too far away to be of concern. But I filed it in the back of my mind. Who knew what kernel of knowledge might one day save my life?

I paused in the darkness opening my senses to the night. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light of the moon, I located my prey hiding between twin pillars of brick.

“Bad choice,” I said to my opponent as I crept forward. The shadows concealed her, but not well enough. Worse she’d made one fatal mistake. “What’d I tell you yesterday?” I bent down and pulled her out of the crevasse.

“I forgot.” Her forehead puckered and a small frown crossed her tiny mouth. The whiteness of her skin shone in the moonlight.

“Always have a way out.” I set the child down on the ground and knelt next to her. “Hiding is good, but running is better. Remember that.”

“I will.”

But I knew she wouldn’t. What could I expect from a four-year-old
Luna Noctuabundus
anyway? Besides her waking when the moon rose. I lifted the child into my arms and stood. Curling her fingers in my skullcap, she stared at the moon. “Where’s your mom?” I asked, gazing down at her torn jumper and scraped knees.

“I don’t know.” A tear dripped from her eye. I brushed it away with my thumb. “Men came and she left with them.”

“It’s okay, Caren.” I patted the child’s back. “Nobody will take care of you until she comes home.” I climbed the steps to my apartment as I tried to quell my rage. This wasn’t the first time Mei had disappeared leaving the young child alone. But damn it, she usually returned before moonrise.

Instead of fumbling for my keys I kicked my front door with the edge of my pink boot. “Go away,” a man yelled from somewhere inside. Settling Caren on my hip, I booted it again. The hinges rattled but held. “Open the damn door,” I yelled.

Caren grinned. “You like to make him mad.”

“Shhh, that’s our secret.” I winked at her and slammed my foot against the wood one more time.

On the other side of the door the man said, “Who is it?”

Caren laughed. “Nobody.”

The door swung open and the fiercest of giants stood in its frame, a scowl covering his handsome face. One eye, dead center of his forehead, stared down at us. “You again.” Nobody the Cyclops, and my best friend since the fourth grade, pointed at Caren. “I eat small mutants like you for breakfast.”

“Good. I forgot to go shopping this week.” I shoved Caren into Nobody’s arms and scooted around him, which wasn’t easy, considering he took up most of the doorway and a good portion of the hallway. “So she’ll have to do.”

“What the hell did you do to this kid?” Nobody held Caren out to me by the scruff of her neck. She dangled from his thick arm like a mutated yo-yo. He shook his head, sending her flying back and forth through the air. “She smells rank.”

The poor kid looked even worse, dressed in a faded jumper dress layered with dirt, and a pair of socks with holes in the toes. On her thin arms freckles mixed with small bruises.

“She looks no worse than you.” I winked at Caren as I passed the living room with its gigantic computer screens, and headed into the kitchen. Nobody followed, the small girl tucked under his massive arm.

“Any messages?” I poked through the refrigerator, saddened by its lack of chocolate cake and chilled vodka. Oh well, I’d make do with baloney and a beer. I sniffed the meat. Okay, moldy baloney, but at least the beer was semi-cold.

Nobody winced, grabbed the meat from my hands, and tossed it in the trash with a scowl. I rolled my eyes and popped open the beer. It tasted like paradise after the long day I’d had.

After the run-in with Black and Brown my night had not improved. I’d broke two nails clawing out the eye socket of a deadbeat Druid, and had slipped on a pile of elf shit. Sometimes my job sucked, but then again, so did living in a refrigerator box under a bridge and pawing through trash bins for half-eaten TV dinners.

Speaking of sucking.

“Your Grandfather left you a message.” Nobody set Caren on the kitchen counter and gestured to a computerized message board hanging on the wall next to our bug-eyed cat clock.

I nodded, but made no move to read the missive. After all, it was always the same: Take your rightful place in the family business. Which would’ve been more appealing if the business wasn’t Resden Enterprises, the leading research and development corporation in mutant obliteration.

To be fair Granddad had no idea what I was, nor did he know his precious daughter, Emily, had fallen in love and married a mutant. My parents had concealed the truth for years, and I saw no reason to ruin their deception. But for whatever reason, thirteen years after my parents had succumbed to the mutant plague; my Granddad hired a hunter to find me.

Luckily Nobody and his computers stumbled onto the hunter’s quest for information, and had warned me in time. With Nobody’s help and a few bribes, we erased my real mutated life and created Indeara 2.0, my successful, worldly, non-mutant persona. That seemed to satisfy my grandfather, or so I’d thought.

Until now.

In the past month, through various boards and chats, Grandfather sent seven messages, each sounding more desperate than the last.

Nobody lifted the lid off a cookie jar, which drew my attention to the present. He pulled out a whole wheat, raisin, and yogurt chip cookie. “Caren, are you hungry?”

She took the cookie from his hand. Her teeth sliced into it and she grinned, cookie crumbs tumbling down her jumper and onto the floor. Nobody picked up another cookie and held it out to me.

“No thanks.” My lips curled even as my stomach growled with hunger.

“Your loss.”

“Why not just eat the woodwork instead?” I shrugged. “Tastes the same.”

Caren finished her treat and hopped from the counter. “Can I play Cyborg 8?” she asked, referring to the computer game Nobody was currently developing. The same damn game I’d been warring with for four months. A hateful, evil game developed by my roommate just to torture me. A game Caren would probably solve before sunrise.

Nobody scratched his chin. “Bath first then game time.”

She frowned, pointing at the controller in my hand. “But Indeara doesn’t have to take a bath.”

“Honey,” Nobody said. “Indeara is not a role model for femininity. As a matter of fact, from now on whatever you see Indeara doing, you do the opposite.”

I put my feet on top of the kitchen table, sucked down the rest of my beer, and let out a burp. “What? Are you saying I’m not girlie? I’m plenty girlie!”

Nobody raised his eyebrow. “Is that an eyeball stuck to the bottom of your boot?”

Chapter 4

An hour later, stuck on level five of Cyborg and buzzed from too much beer on an empty stomach, I plopped onto my living room sofa, and watched Nobody and Caren solve the next twelve levels. Stupid game.

“Two cops came into Ivan’s today,” I said, kicking off my boots. Nobody grunted, his attention focused on saving the world from winged unicorns armed with Ricen bombs. “They were looking for Quinn.”

He dropped his controller and slowly turned to face me. Caren frowned, but took advantage of his distraction and shot his character in the head. “I kilt you.” She pointed at the screen, and sure enough, Nobody’s Cyborg lay in a puddle of sparks and metal, its curly blonde hair splattered red with blood.

“Go take your bath.” Nobody lifted Caren from the floor and shoved her toward the bathroom. Once she was out of earshot, he faced me. “Quinn? Ex-lover Quinn? Love of your life Quinn?”

I laughed. “Don’t be so dramatic. Yes Quinn.” A frown creased my forehead. “Poor Ivan. It’s one thing to disown your kid. It’s another to stand by while the HOA plots to kill him.”

“That’s family for ya.” Nobody nodded to the blinking message board and my grandfather’s message on it. “Whatever happens, blood is blood.”

“Not always.”

“What’re you afraid of?” He gestured to the nine-millimeter strapped to my thigh. “One little old man?”

“Mind your own business.” I tossed a cushion at his big, ugly head. “Curiosity killed the cyclops, or maybe it was my knife through your gut?”

“I’ll remember to sleep with one eye open.” Nobody turned his back to me and restarted his game. The sound of unicorn screams and exploding metal filled the room.

******

Sometime in the middle of the night when the moon bounced off the concrete of the wall, I awoke, my body covered in sweat. My heart pounded and my breath came in short gasps, a tingling, like the touch of a ghostly lover arched along my nerves. With an effort of will I uncurled my toes and relaxed against my soaked sheets.

Memories of Quinn’s lean body and tapered hands flickered through my mind, reminding me of the pleasures of the flesh. Pleasure I hadn’t experienced in three long years. Sure, I occasionally dated but no mutant had ever filled the void left in my heart, or my bed. I frowned and quickly dismissed the traitorous fantasy before drifting back to sleep.

The perky voice of my laptop roused me a few minutes later. “You have mail.”

“And you have no soul,” I countered with annoyance. “But we can’t all be perfect.” The laptop remained silent, blinking with computerized condemnation. An email message appeared in my inbox followed by a blaring beep. The bleeping continued until I stomped out of bed and opened my Outlook.

Stupid machines.

Naked and frustrated, I stood in the moonlight glaring at the computer screen as if it held an answer to why I was awake at three in the morning, naked and frustrated.

Damn Quinn.

Ms. Perky computer honked again. “You have mail!”

I rolled my eyes and opened the flashing message. Not overly surprised to see my grandfather, Arthur Resden’s scrawled electronic signature at the bottom.

A perfect end to a perfectly fucked up day.

His message continued in the same vein as the rest he’d sent over the last month.
The family needs you…, rightful place…, etc, etc.
I scanned through it, and stopped at the last sentence. A lump formed at the back of my throat as I slid to the floor.

The old man was dying.

I stared at the computer screen until my vision blurred. My only living relative was dying, leaving me the last of our bloodline. I was alone. The thought terrified me. Grief, the kind I hadn’t experienced since my parents’ deaths, filled me.

Nobody came into my room and put his hand on my shoulder. “When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

I shot him a half-smile. “Not as sorry as dear old Gramps is gonna be when he gets a look at me.”

Chapter 5

Less than five hours later, wearing my favorite abet only dress, I twirled in front of the mirror and frowned. My hair fell in curly ringlets around my face. My lips and cheeks appeared unnaturally bright. Dark brown lines lined my eyes, drawing attention to their eerie green color. “I look stupid.” I gestured to the woman in the mirror, a woman who looked nothing like me.

Nobody shook his head and scooped up a handful of cereal from the box. “Only a little.”

I stuck my tongue out. “At least I only look stupid.”

“Here.” Ignoring my insult he passed me a computer chip no bigger than a dime. My heart thundered in my chest as my fingers curled around it. In my hands I held freedom. Many mutants had killed and died for a small chip like this one.

“It’ll get you through the gate, but won’t stand up to real scrutiny,” he said. “Oh yeah, it’s also only good for three days.”

“Thanks.” I nodded, tucking the DNA passport into my pocket. “The three day rule is awful Mutantrellaish, don’t you think?”

Nobody glanced down at the too small, black stiletto heels on my feet, shoes borrowed from the still missing Mei’s closet. “Not in your case. But be careful, Princess, a coach turning into a pumpkinmatoe is the least of your worries.”

“I’ll be all right.”

A banging outside our apartment drew our attention. Nobody peeked out of the window keeping his large frame against the wall. “We got trouble. Reptoes. Three of them,” he said gesturing to the three half-human, half-lizard gangbangers tearing apart Mei and Caren’s downstairs apartment.

“I don’t need this today. Get her ready to bug-out.” I waved to Caren, who lay sleeping on our couch tucked under a tent of blankets. As a
Luna-child
she cycled through life in sync with the rise and fall of the moon. Any deviation would harm her.

Nobody nodded, dropped his box of cereal, and wrapped the tent around Caren’s small body. Footsteps pounded on the stairs outside. Nobody glanced at me, question in his eye.

“Go. Now.” I pointed to the back of the apartment, and the trapdoor that led underneath the building. From there Nobody could disappear into the underground sewer system and hide forever. Not that anyone with a sense of smell would want to, but it was nice to keep one’s options open.