The Seek (7 page)

Kyn thought about the two girls in the line at the club the night before, high on Connect and the prospect of taking an Avenger to their beds. Chattering like monkeys. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘At least you’re no chatterbox.’

‘No, Magister, I am not,’ Mirren said, her face still impassive.

Kyn sighed. ‘There’s lots we need to talk about. But for now, why don’t you show me what you got.’ She motioned to the training mats and started to walk towards them herself. ‘Freehand, okay?’

‘Check,’ Mirren said, following Kyn to the kit box where she followed her lead in extracting a vest and gloves.

Once they were fitted, Kyn motioned for the girl to face her on the helio. It could mimic any surface, and Kyn reached over and touched the control panel, turning the blue matting to ice under their feet. They seemed to be fighting on the ice fields more and more these days. ‘Take your boots off,’ Kyn ordered. ‘You’ll be screwed on this surface in those.’

Mirren did as she was told, with a swift economy of movement Kyn appreciated. Kyn watched as the girl pushed the boots together neatly a little way from the mat and scuttled back into place. She nodded her approval. ‘You move first,’ Kyn offered.

But Mirren didn’t move. She just watched. Very carefully and slowly. She looked Kyntura up and down, took in her stance, her hands, her legs and her face. Then she stepped slowly to the left, moving her weight onto that foot, then to the right. Then she slipped into a lightning fast left-right feign, dashed to Kyn’s left and planted a blow on Kyn’s kidneys with the heel of her hand. The blow winded Kyn, but not nearly as much as the surprise of the attack coming hot on the heels of the slow, deliberate assessment that had preceded it.

Kyn was impressed, but not so much as to ignore the muscle memory that barked orders at her. She snaked out a hand, reached for the one that had assaulted her, and twisted it back on itself, turning her own body at the same time and pulling Mirren forward with a swift yank. As the girl unbalanced, Kyn aimed a kick at the side of her body, sweeping her to the ground with a soft ‘oof’.

But Mirren was up quickly, leaping towards Kyn like a wildcat from the floor, grabbing for the sides of her face, and almost managing to capture them before Kyn intercepted the hands and used them to flip Mirren hard onto her back again. Mirren lay still for a second, seeming to marshal her resources, before one long leg swept out and kicked Kyn feet from under her. Kyn fell to join the girl on the icy mat. The hardness and coldness of the surface winded her, and Mirren pressed home the momentary advantage to regain her feet and deliver a sharp kick to Kyn’s semi-exposed belly.

Enough
.

Kyn grabbed the offending foot, twisted it brutally until the girl yelped and then sent her to ice again. Then she reached down, grabbed her right hand and left foot from behind and twisted them to join each other, the ensuring bone-jarring crunch echoing through the training room. Kyn knew when to bend and when to break, and she stopped short of injuring the girl. She only had two weeks, after all. But she did know Mirren would be in excruciating pain.

Kyn straightened. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Now get up and come at me again. Right now. And never, ever use two hands when you can use one.’

***

He was waiting for her when she reached her quarters, her body weary from three hours training by herself followed by two more with Mirren. While she was willing to bet the girl was twice as sore as Kyn, the last thing needed was boy trouble right now.

‘Lieutenant,’ she said, motioning politely with her head as she waved him aside with her hand.

‘You know, Captain, sooner or later you’re going to have to learn my name.’

‘Why?’ She eyeballed him, injecting into her voice as much sarcasm as she could muster after five hours in the training room. ‘You wanna go to a movie?’

He laughed. ‘No, Ma’am,’ he said. ‘I just — ‘ His easy cool evaporated. ‘I just heard about Pyten. Wanted to check if you were okay?’

Kyn sighed. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, clenching her fists. ‘Unfortunately getting stabbed by a Hydrentian asshole is an occupational hazard for an Avenger.’

He nodded. ‘Yep.’ And his loose brand of cool was back. ‘Helluva first gig, though.’

It was her turn to nod. Suddenly, she wanted very badly to shower and lie on her bunk, thinking nothing.

‘Kyntura,’ he said, moving a little closer and touching her face. The gesture, which might have caused her to twist the arm of anyone else who tried, provided a rush of comfort Kyn found vaguely disturbing. ‘I’m glad you’re cool.’

Kyntura stepped away from his touch but smiled lightly at him. ‘Cool is my middle name,’ she said. ‘Between “The” and “Dancer”.’

She really liked that he got it, and that he turned to go; that he didn’t hang around and press for more. He was lovely — long and sweet, and a warm dose of honey after hours on the ice. But he was just a boy. And they didn’t have any kind of thing.

Still.

‘Hey, Lieutenant.’

He turned back, affording her a great view of his square shoulders and lopsided half-grin.

‘What does your mama call you?’

The half-grin stretched into the full deal. ‘Krysto,’ he said, winking as he went on. ‘Let me know if you ever fancy another dance some time?’ Then he loped away.

Kyn slammed her palm against the entry pad on the doorway and felt cool relief flood her as she spied her bunk. K
rysto
. She imagined Tabi: Kyn and Krysto, sitting in a tree…

Now why the hell was she thinking that? It had been damned Jedro, and bringing up Asha. She worked hard not to think about them, any of them.

And anyway, it wouldn’t have been some young pup like Krysto that Tabi would be pairing with her best friend in the kid’s rhyme. It was always Symon. A smile tugged at the corners of Kyn’s mouth, but she refused to give it any airtime. She yanked her training kit off viciously, striding naked to the shower to pelt her body with hot, hard water and let it try to chase away memories from the past; memories of smiling, brown-skinned boys who smelled like cinnamon and apples.

Think about something else, anything else
.

Think about Kyrsto’s lopsided smile instead.

But it was Symon’s full red lips that danced across her mind. Sweet Symon and his habit of ambushing her and pressing that lush mouth onto hers.

***

‘Go.’ His voice was low and broken
.

‘No.’ They were almost at the woods. They could get there together. Kyn crouched down and tried to drag her mother to standing. But as she did, she could feel the warm wet patch on her mother’s chest spreading, slick and evil. Kyn put her face down to her mother’s, yearning to feel the kiss of her breath against her cheeks as she had every night of her life; every night that her mother had come in to sing songs and kiss her goodnight. But there was no breath. There was nothing. Her mother’s face was cold and wet. And her body was very still
.

Her father crouched beside her. Where a moment ago he had been entreating and cajoling his wife, now his voice was hard. All the fight had gone from it. The edge in it made the twins wail louder
.

Her father had managed to drag them into the darkness behind the out sheds, but the noises were still coming towards them, the crashing and the high-pitched wail. And the streaks of light that had lanced into her mother and brought her down were darting around, looking for them as well
.

‘We need to split up,’ he said. ‘You’ll have more chance on your own. I need to take the twins.’ It was dark, so dark
.

‘No,’ she whimpered. ‘No, Daddy, I can’t.’ The fear and the darkness squeezed at her heart, making it hard to breathe. She didn’t want to go. Not even a tiny bit. She would rather lie down here, next to her mother. Wrap her arms around her and stay with her. Even if it meant bad things would happen to her too
.

Her father kneeled and wrapped strong arms around her. ‘You can, Kyn baby, and you must. We’ll meet up at the Parson’s Nose, you know the one? The rock where we used to fish. Meet there.’

Kyn’s body stiffened. Why? Why would he take the twins, and not her? She wanted to be with him, she wanted to be safe. She could only be safe with him
.

‘You know the woods, baby, you can get away.’ Even in the dark, she saw something in his eyes then. Something that made it terribly clear he didn’t think he was going to meet up with her at the Nose at all. ‘Wait an hour. You got your watch?’ She nodded
.

‘One hour. Then go to the Proctors. Okay? If they’re not in their house, they’ll be in the shelter. The old bomb shelter, you know, Kynny, out the back? Where you kids play sometimes?’ He shook her then, his eyes wide and white in the darkness. Her teeth rattled together a bit at force of the shake. ‘Okay?’

Kyn squeezed her eyes shut against it all. The sniffling twins. The blackness. Her mother, lying so still. And her father, telling her to go. One of the twins shuffled up to her and pressed a wet face against her hand. ‘Kynny,’ he wailed
.

And she knew then. She was not a baby, like they were. She was eleven. Her father needed her to do this. She could do it. She squeezed him hard and then kissed the twins. She reached down one last time and touched her mother’s face, although as soon as she did it she wished she hadn’t. Cold, so cold
.

Then she didn’t look back. She ran towards the black outline of the trees, leaping over the streaks of light that pursued her as though they were bars she was vaulting at Madame’s studio
.

She was at the Nose within ten minutes. And at the Proctors, alone, an hour later. Alone
.

Except for Symon. He sidled up to her in the shelter. ‘You okay?’

‘Yep,’ she sniffled, shaking her head at the cookie he held out to her
.

‘Dad reckons it’ll be over soon,’ he proclaimed, his cheeks pink in his brown face. ‘We just need to wait out the noise and light. Then we can go check on your folks.’

Kyn thought about Symon’s father. Her own mother had always thought Mr Proctor was mad, with his apocalyptic fantasies and his bomb shelter. ‘No point,’ Kyn whispered. ‘They’re all gone.’

‘You don’t know that,’ Symon said, taking her hand and turning her face to his so she could see those soft brown eyes. ‘You don’t know anything, not yet. Not for sure.’

She nodded. ‘Maybe.’

The shelter was completely dark, and Kyn felt like she was becoming darkness herself, like it was seeping into her skin, populating her. How could she ever live in the light again, after tonight? After her mother, and probably her father. And the twins. The thought of their tiny, perfect faces was more than Kyn could take. She turned her face to Symon’s shoulder and pressed it against the softness of his sweater. She knew he would understand, better than anyone. Kyn never liked to cry. Not if she scraped her knee, not if she fell off her bike. Not if some kid called her a name. Symon didn’t say anything, just let her sob quietly, privately, against his jumper
.

And then he was there. Mr Proctor. The one Mama had always called Paranoid Proctor
.

‘Kyn.’ His voice was soft. ‘You okay? You need anything to eat?’

Kyn looked up, and suddenly Mr Proctor looked different. He didn’t look like the same foolish conspiracy theorist he had always seemed to her. His big, craggy face looked safe and welcoming. He was Symon’s father. And Tabi’s. He was keeping them all safe in his shelter, while the world went to hell outside
.

‘I’m fine, thank you, Mr Proctor,’ she sniffed, pulling her face up from Symon’s sleeve and trying hard to wipe it discreetly. ‘Thanks for…for having —’

Mr Proctor put a hand on Kyn’s arm. ‘Shh, Kyn,’ he said. ‘Don’t be silly. We’re all in this together. And once it’s done, we’ll go see what’s happened, with your people.’ He didn’t try to tell her it would all be okay. But something about his presence was enough. ‘And Kyn?’

Kyn looked up at him, so tall and certain. ‘Yes?’

‘Call me Pietr. You kids are all going to have to grow up now.’

The dreams would not leave her alone tonight. They chased her through every elusive microsecond of sleep, taunting and haunting. Her quarters were too small, too spare, too clinical. If she stayed, she’d go mad.

Kyn turned on the shower. Hard. Her second shower that night. The water usually managed to chase some of it away, bring her back to her body. Take her out of her mind, force back ancient history. But no chance tonight. She rested her head on the cubicle in front of her, letting the water course down her back, and tried to think about something that wasn’t death and pain and obliterated worlds. It was pretty hard to do.

Then that face came to her. That slow wink, and that lazy, easy ‘let me know if you feel like dancing again some time’. She stood up, stabbing the shower button. Well, she did feel like dancing. She sure did. Not with him this time, not the kind of dance he had in mind with that lascivious wink, but a few hours of dancing might be just what she needed to chase away the demons.

She was at the club in twenty minutes. The same routine: dress, mask, vibro…and Connect. It was hard to do it without the Connect. Hard to just let go and give in to your body. Hard to see these other writhing, undulating bodies as brethren instead of threat. With the Connect, she could just about manage it. She popped two purple pills and followed them swiftly with a whiskey chaser.

If it were possible, it was even busier tonight. The dance floor was lit with strobing green and white, and the mass of bodies spinning under their attention resembled a single beast. It writhed and slid and leeched sex and movement. It was alluring and dangerous. She wanted to go up and stroke it, but she knew it might suck her in and never let her go. Kyn shook her head to dispel thoughts of beasts. She’d seen too many things to let her imagination have any kind of head. Things only half the people in this place knew about. The men. The Avengers.

But then she saw something else, from the corner of her eye. Her conscious mind may not even have registered it, but the Connect did things to you — joined things you had seen to parts of your sub-conscious. It made links.
Guess that’s why they called it Connect
. And Kyn knew better than anybody here how to look for patterns. And how to listen to them when they made themselves known; even if only at the edge of your consciousness.