Prophet of the Badlands (The Awakened Book 1) (46 page)

a gotsta see this.” Whisk patted Grey Tatters on the shoulder, pulling him along.

At the far end of the row of crates, Whisk stopped at a battered red shipping container with a dirty cloth blocking the opening. He pulled it aside, revealing a sunken man wrapped in dark cloth laying upon an old cot, covered in blankets. His lips moved in an endless series of inaudible whispers, as if he recited a chant. Every few seconds, his head ticked to the right. Someone had taken the time to decorate the space like a cheap motel room, adding a simple desk and chair as well as a tangle of torn curtains.

“Can ya help Flatline?” Whisk pointed at the man.

Den’s tribe had called Althea pale as a ghost, but they were not used to seeing Caucasians. Compared to this person, she felt dark. Flatline even made Zhar look like she had color.

His skin resembled undisturbed snow, tinged with dark smudges around the eyes. Eyelids painted over with bruise flicked with random spasms that extended down past violet lips through his cheeks. Short black hair dodged around a metal plate behind his ear with several sockets. One still had a length of carbon-caked melted wire hanging from it.

Althea made a pained face at the sight. The surface thoughts rattling around in his mind went in and out, the ramble of a consciousness trapped in a body no longer connected to it. Strange written language flashed through his mind, with as many numbers as letters.

“Ol’ Flatline here’s got Coreburn. Happens to them net-heads what get black iced too much.” Grey Tatters scratched flakes out of his beard. “He used to poke around places he didn’t belong till somethin’ bit him in the ass.”

“He bin like dat fer weeks,” Whisk muttered.

“Hey, Whisk. You ain’t wheezin.”

“Yeah.” He pointed at Althea. “Told ya you gotta see this.”

She stepped over the low wall separating his chamber from the drainage trench, parting the shambles passing as curtains with her hands. Flatline’s entire body shook with an attempt to move, resulting in one eye shifting to focus on her.

An incoherent moan came from him. “Whuyu.”

“I’m Althea.”

His thoughts gained clarity, but remained a mess.

“Wawamnt.”

“I want to help you, if you like.”

“Nob felp me. Whakidgondu?”

“I can try.”

“K.”

An ashen arm slid out from the blanket, fingers flapped in the erratic dance of uncontrolled nerves. She took his hand in her left, placing her right upon a forehead as cold as the ground. Whisk and Tatter leaned into each other to watch, keeping the gathering arc of vagrants out of her way.

“You have metal things in you,” she muttered, and sensed he wanted to keep them. “Um… Okay. They aren’t making you sick?”

“Nmf.” A surge of drool dangled from his lip, a raindrop of translucent slime with a cloud of blood swirling within.

Eyes closing, she searched out his essence. The amorphous forms came to her, withered and small. The brain spot looked like a sack of tiny stones rather than a single blob; a wretched crack that fanned out from the shadow of foreign hardware. Of all the hurts she had mended, never had she seen anything close to this level of damage in the brain. One raider had a knife there, and it had taken a lot out of her.

This one was going to sting.

She glanced at Whisk. “I may sleep after this. Don’t be scared.”

Drawing a deep breath, she knelt, expecting to fall when she was done. After placing her hands on his chest, she projected her influence into his body. One by one, she forced the little shards back together, gasping from the exertion. His arm moved, rising to her hip and holding on. His other hand clasped her arm, then let go.

Minutes passed.

“Imfworking,” he moaned. “Can think… I see angels!”

She felt a hand on her cheek. Caress; it slid down to her chest.

A whispery voice rasped in her ear. “Silver ribbons, light like wings.”

“Dang. He been in the net too long.” The alcohol breath of Whisk’s chuckle floated by.

Minutes stretched to an hour or more.

Her body slackened; his hand held her upright. More pieces drew together; the cracks sealed. Shuddering with the effort, she fed power into him until it hurt. A dribble slipped from her nose, warmth on her lips; she tasted blood.

His hand left her hip and wiped her face. She blinked her eyes open and smiled at pale eyelids no longer bruised. The wagon man had forced her to work until she bled; this time she did it because she wanted to. She tried to say something to Whisk, but had no voice.

She remembered falling backwards onto something soft.

Althea’s consciousness returned in the black and white confines of a cargo box. Fleeting threads of hurt laced through her body, centering on a stab through her stomach. She sat up and wailed, curling into a ball to chase away the soreness. It had been years since she had overextended that far, and hunger had advanced to the point of pain. Her cry drew Whisk, who opened the side like an awning and smiled until he saw the face she made.

“You hurt?”

She dragged herself to the opening, wincing. “So… hungry.”

“Oh. No probo. Bennie just got a pity sack.” He scurried off, returning with a plastic bag soon after.

His attempt to chuckle sent a dry, alcohol-tainted wheeze over her face. “Here, tek two. Lookin like ya could use it.”

A pair of clear clamshell cases landed on the derelict cloth between her ankles, each containing a round, beige object. She picked one up, looking it over for a moment. The scent of meat came through the carton. Althea bit it, gnawing on something hard.

Plastic.

“Hah!” The creases around Whisk’s eyes deepened. “Open ‘em first. You sure Querq ain’t a different planet? How the hell you ain’t never seen a cheeseburger afore?”

“What is it?” She fiddled with the offering, stymied by the container.

He took it from her and pinched the edge, popping it open. “Almost fresh.”

It did not have a chance. The second one went faster than the first.

“Guess’n ya like ‘em.” Whisk handed her another. “Night man at Cyberburger gives us a pity sack sometimes, round midnight. Whenever the vat’s too low ta keep for the mornin’. They’d chuck it otherwise.”

“It’s good.” She licked the taste from her fingers.

Her voice drew a dozen bums to her little house. Word of Flatline had gotten around, and they had come as they always did. One by one, she tended to them despite that it hurt to call on her gift so soon. Finding herself in her usual role felt comfortable in a depressing way. Even the great City-Beyond-the-Fire followed the laws of nature. These men prayed to her once she had cured them of everything from broken fingers to sores to odd things that made them cough squiggly sicks onto the ground. Their adulation brought with it a familiar sense of foreboding.

“I shouldn’t stay here.” She sighed. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Whisk was perplexed. Once the line of injured homeless had dissipated, Flatline sauntered over with a cheeseburger in each hand and one in his mouth.

He sucked the mouth burger down in one gulp. “Holy shit, I thought I was fucked. I don’t know what the hell you did, kiddo, but I owe you big time. What do you mean, get hurt?” He jammed another burger in his mouth. “Fuck, I’m hungry as hell.”

Althea reached for one more from the bag when no one was looking, chomping at it as if she had to eat it before the theft got noticed. “Bad people always come to take me away. They will hurt you to get me.”

Flatline looked her over. “You’re a Scrag, aren’t ya?”

She nodded.

“Badlands rules aren’t city rules. Yeah, we got our gangs here, but they don’t do the whole takin’ slaves thing. Cops get their panties in a knot about that.”

“What’s panties?” She tore a piece of burger off.

“That…” Flatline pointed at her as he chuckled through his last burger. “Is a conversation I am
not
having with a ten-year-old. The cops don’t much like that, either.”

“I’m twelve,” she grumbled, wondering why she bothered.

“Oh, yeah, that’s
so
much better. Hey, I guess you don’t need my services seein as you’re from the shitsmear, but if you ever do, just ask.”

“What can you do?” She rubbed her belly, finally full.

He offered a rube’s explanation of what a net pirate does, trying to frame it in a way a kid from the Badlands might grasp. When she still had cluelessness stamped on her forehead, he sighed. “I sneak around a digital world, grabbing information people are willing to pay for; information other people don’t want found.”

“Can you find my mother?”

“Doubt it if you’re from the Badlands. They don’t have much in the way of computers out there. Not sure I could help.”

She thought about the memory in the old man’s mind. Her blue clothing looked more like what the people in this strange city wore than anything from the tribes. Althea stared at Flatline, sending the image of the pale-faced woman into his head.

“Whoa…” He stumbled away, holding a hand to his forehead. “That’s fucked up. Is that your mom?”

She looked down. “Yes.”

“Well, okay. I can try. You know what her name is or anything else I can use?”

“No.”

“Well…” He laughed. “I’ve had less to go on for other jobs, and you did bring me back from the dead. The least I can do is try. Might take me a couple days to get my hands on a deck and get back into the swing of things. As soon as I got somethin’, I’ll come find ya.”

“You’re not going to hurt yourself, are you?”

Flatline shook his head. “No. Fuck that. I ain’t goin’ anywhere near a grade six corp-net again. Not till I get my hands on some Icevest softs.” He turned to Whisk. “Hey man, if you see a pizza delivery bot come out of nowhere in a few hours, you’re welcome.”

Cackling with glee, the strange man in black danced to the end of the drainage channel and climbed the ladder, singing.

iping tears from her face, Althea climbed out of her metal box and squinted at the setting sun. Three days had passed since she had crossed the gates of fire, and no amount of bawling would get her back to Karina and Father. It was time to do something more than sit around feeling sad. The stiff breeze channeling through the drainage path blew icily through her clothing and tossed her hair about her face. She wandered among the fragments of a dozen shattered lives stacked around the repurposed boxes and shipping containers that formed this enclave of the unwanted.