Prophet of the Badlands (The Awakened Book 1) (45 page)

“No kids.” He slammed the knob-less door in her face.

She stared at the vibrating panel, the hard music louder in her memory than the air. With an incredulous glance, Althea peered at the shin-deep puddle, the falling rain, and the lonely, trash-filled alley. How odd. They had not tried to lock her up or take her.

They simply threw her away.

lthea trudged away from the place with the awful sounds and strange people and stood. The rain clad her in cold, and she moved as best she could around the micro-lakes collected in the alley. Her skirt grew heavy from the falling water, and she kept a hand on it to prevent it from slipping over her shapeless hips. The wet strands did little good against the gusty winds that tore down between the great metal towers. A doorway with a tiny awning gave a semblance of shelter against the rain, and she curled up in the hollow against the wall.

Longing for the presence of Karina behind her and the warm dry bed, she sobbed. She had so been looking forward to her bath and the touch of her sister washing her hair. Her tears vanished into the rain that dripped from her hair and ran down her legs. The water fell from toes curled over the edge of the step into yet another puddle. She wanted to know why the world was so mean to her.

Why would it not allow her to be happy?

A dog barked somewhere in the night and a boot splashed in a puddle nearby. She lifted her head at three men barely past being called boys, squinting to see her. They appeared in black and white due to the darkness; dressed in what looked like leather coats and heavy boots. One had an entirely metal arm; another had a wire sticking out of the side of his neck. All of them had guns and devious smiles.

“Hey, kid. You got any left?” The one with the arm nodded at her and made a strange gesture.

“You look cold. We can warm you up.” The wire-boy grinned at her.

“Any left?” She lowered her feet back into the water, ready to stand.

“Whatever you’re on.” He tapped his finger just below his right eye.

“I don’t have any medicines.” Bracing her hands against the wall, she stood in a slow, nonthreatening way.

“We got some stuff left if you’re lookin’ ta forget whatever ya ran from.” The third one held out a handful of small colored squares, pills, and things that resembled the stimpak.

“You ever get it on with a tween before?” The metal arm patted his friend on the bicep.

Wire-boy gave him an uneasy look. “Dude… wrong.”

Althea’s eyes locked on the oldest and widened. She knew his emotion and turned, bolting off through the puddles without a sound.

Screaming only drew more predators.

Alleys, trash, and buildings blurred past. She didn’t look back to see if they bothered to chase. While trying to take a hard right over the wet plastisteel ground, her feet slid out from under her and dumped her on her tailbone, sending her into a spinning slide that ended face-first in the side of a huge trash compactor. She lay stunned as the boom reverberated among buildings. A mountain of trash fell on her, and she froze like a fawn in the light. Her cheek and backside throbbed in time, and she forced the pain out of her mind.

No movement, no breath, no crying―only listening.

Distant cars hissed over the rain soaked ground, the flying ones hummed overhead, other musical noises floated in the air, but no pursuing boys with metal arms and nasty thoughts found her. Tucking her knees to her chin, she let herself cry, wondering how she would escape this place and get home. People, she could bend to her will, but she had no power over the metal beast of a city.

Sleep came without warning; its brief respite from the world was interrupted an unknown time later by a hand around her ankle. Calloused fingers tightened about her leg, pulling her into the street. She stayed limp, playing dead.

“Aww hell.” A man’s voice sighed into a wet cough. “This damn city gets worse every day. You can’t be oler’n ‘leven or so. What kinda sad ‘scuse for a person could do this?”

A stench burned into her throat: vomit, urine, general filth. Coarse hands rolled her onto her back and laid her arms across her chest. Dry fingers brushed a gentle caress over her forehead.

“Dumped in the trash like…” He sounded like he was crying.

Eyelids parting, she looked up at a man covered by several torn coats and the smell of months-old alcohol. He had pulled a woolen cap from his head and held it over his heart, muttering with closed eyes about some guy named Art in a place called Heaven. His face darkened with grime upon skin the color of burnished leather.

She sat up and tugged at his pant leg. His eyes flew open. The man yelped, throwing his hat in the air and stumbling backwards as he scooted away with the fright of ages on his face.

“Gaaah!” He clutched his fingers to his chest. “Y’aint dead.” The gurgling cough returned. “Praise Jeebus!”

“Are you sick?” She stood and approached him, returning his hat. “I have heard that cough before.”

“Yeah well, livin’ out here.” A fit of phlegm interrupted him. “Least you’s not dead. Thought someone dumped ya.”

She stood next to him, holding his hand to her chest. Sure enough, a shifting blackness dwelled within his life essence. Wanting it gone, her power energized his body and sent him to his knees, convulsing. Once, then twice, then a third great shudder ran through him. He heaved over sideways and retched a glistening glob of whitish-purple slime into the alley. When his muscles again obeyed his desires, he wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve and stared at the sinister mass, carried off into a gutter by the tide of rain.

He blinked. With each unlabored breath, his gaze grew wider. He hugged her and she cringed from the stink. Not wanting him to feel bad, she wished for it to end in silence.

“How’d ya do that one, then?”

She faked slipping into a puddle, sneaking a microbath. “I help people.”

“Kin ya do that again?”

“Yes.” She stood.

“There’s someone ya need ta see then.” He took her hand and scrambled to his feet.

He strode with urgency in his step, almost dragging her along.

“Where are we going?” She gasped, struggling to keep up on the slippery ground.

He giggled with glee. “Ta my home. Someone needs yer help.”

At the thought of a hurt person, she forgave his rush. “What’s your name?”

“Alvin Jones, but people just call me Whisk.”

She blinked at him. “’Cause of your whiskers?”

“Whiskey.” He cackled.

“What’s that?”

“Y’aint from ‘round here, eh? Mars?”

“No. Querq.”

“Never heard o’ that planet.”

Several streets later, she knew what whiskey was and he knew Querq was not a planet. Althea stopped speaking when she noticed he headed toward a round metal cage at the edge of the street. The sight of it made her legs lock, and she slid on her heels the last several inches until he let go of her arm.

“Down here.” Whisk ducked into the cage and vanished over a short wall at the end of the path.

She leaned forward, relaxing as she realized it was only a safety shroud on a ladder, which led to a sunken area. He bid her to follow, taking her hand once more when she climbed down. The space reminded her of a river without water, made of metal instead of sand. A trench led off in both directions, packed with tiny homes made from old shipping boxes and snoring bodies. Tattered bits of cloth drifted in the breeze, hung about like doors and partitions.

Fire licked at the air from a tall cylinder in the middle of the impromptu town, around which a few grimy people huddled for warmth. Traces of rotten food, smoke, liquor, and piss washed past her, punctuated by the ever so rare patch of air devoid of smell. One man stood a distance away, urinating onto a round grating.

“Ol’ Flatline’s been in a bad way for a while. Used ta be some important upsec type till he showed up here.”

She looked up at Whisk. “I will help him if I can.”

“Oi, Whisk!” a gargling voice called out. “Wheredya git the drowned rat?”

“Trash pile, tween 818 and Providence.”

“Prov Street? Damn.” A pile of dark shredded cloth and hair shambled over, reaching for her. “Looks brand new. Who’d throw out a doll like that?”

“She’s a real kid, numbnuts.” Whisk slapped his hand away from her.

“No shit.” He squinted.

Althea tugged at Whisk’s arm. “You got a toilet?”

“Umm.” Whisk made an embarrassed chuckle. “Not really.” He glanced at the grating. “W’aint used ta havin ladies ‘round. There’s uhh, one down that way in the tube wit no grating fer the twos.”

While Whisk and the shaggy man spoke in hushed tones, she crept a few steps away and looked down through a corroded lattice of metal into a pipe she could almost fit in. The air here smelled like the buckets from the raider pens. As she planted a foot on either side of it and hiked her skirt up, Whisk and the other man yelped and whirled away.

Grey Tatters rocked from heel to toe, staring off at the smog. “Guess’n you’re right then. Bout her bein’ real and whatnot.”

Whisk sounded uncomfortable. “Little warnin’ next time, kid.”

When she reappeared at his side, he shook his head at her. She did not understand why they both radiated embarrassment. Whisk had not reacted that way when Tatter used the grate.

She tugged at his arm. “Where is the sick man?”