Archon's Queen (11 page)

“Thank you.” She offered a pleasant smile.

“Been three months since your last visit with the doc. You’re due up for another psych eval.”

“There’s been a bother with the authorization; I’m just waiting for NHS approval.”

It was a lie, but a believable one. Half the room behind her moaned in a shared complaint about the agency’s pace.

“Hope they get that sorted for you. Need a shrink to sign off on your dole, or you’ll have to get a real job.”

“I understand.”

The limp sense of indignation at yet another person belittling her barely registered. Better they thought of her as a freeloader or a harlot than they learn what she really was. She shied away from holographic posters on the walls, asking “concerned citizens” to identify potential psionic terrorists so the government can keep everyone safe.

“Right then, through the door on your left.” The man closed his window, vanishing through a small access way.

When the door slid open, she followed him into a cramped exam room. A sleepy nurse waited by a paper-covered table. Anna shrugged out of her coat and climbed onto it amid crinkling. She lied her way through questions about drug use, enduring another light in her eyes and other discomforts of an abbreviated physical. Once again, Penny’s skilled hand at makeup covered the red squares on her arm. Any medtech who cared could spot the derm tracks with ease. In this place, they only wanted to process people fast. During a few prior visits, the techs gave her sympathetic looks, silent offers of help. No one wanted to deal with the proverbial paperwork of filing a report about her using. Toward the end, the wide-bodied nurse came at her with a portable medical scanner, touching it to the skin of her bicep.

Anna closed her eyes, cringing from the mild burn caused by the flickering electrical discharge. Silicon smoke hazed the air between the three of them, and she sat in silence waiting for the public assistance man to tell the nurse not to bother with the drug test.

He took a step closer. “Crikey. Are you all right?”

Being it unclear whom he addressed, both women answered with a yes.

Anna smiled, rubbing her arm where a small red dot remained from the burn.
Please… Skip it.

“Spose you’ll need to fetch another unit then?” He nudged the nurse toward a rear door with his eyes.

Terror.

LED lamps in the ceiling exploded all at once; flashing sparks lit the subsequent darkness for seconds afterward accompanied by a lingering
buzz
and reek of ozone. The gunshot like sound of the failure sent everyone in the waiting area to the ground.

The assistance man yelled, pulling Anna to the floor as if to shield her. “What the bloody hell was that?”

“All the others are in use in the other rooms. We’ve been losin’ one a month lately. Damn cheap Paki machines.” The nurse grumbled and smacked the dead scanner.

Backup lights filled the room red. The man gave Anna the once-over and shook his head.

“Bugger it then. You don’t look strung out. Don’t let me find out you’re on somethin’, luv.”

She offered a demure smile. “Wouldn’t dream of it, guv’na.”

dvert droids massed around the public assistance office, like flies searching for the perfect spot of turd to settle on. Whenever someone left, they suffered a bombardment of ads for a block and a half, until the droids gave up and returned to the throng. Walking astride, the two women headed to a small sidewalk café.

The pair seated themselves and ordered the least expensive breakfast they could find after scrolling through a menu terminal at the center of the table. Anna leaned back in the chair and turned the credstick over in her fingers, staring at the glowing digits on its end with a frown.

“Five twenty-five. What do they expect anyone to do with that?”

Penny spoke between the noises she made at the boy whilst trying to feed him some of her eggs. “They’d give you double if you popped one out. Still, for one person it’s not bad for two weeks.”

After some quick mental arithmetic, Anna blurted. “Are you serious? The cheapest food I can get is about twelve credits a plate. Three times a day for two weeks, almost all of it… Five hundred or so―”

“Five o’ four to be precise.” Penny swabbed synthetic mayo on a thick chip and tossed it in her mouth.

Anna used a chip to scoop mayo out of the little serving bowl. It almost didn’t taste like they had been reassembled at a molecular level from the same bland paste.

“Still.” Anna stuffed the credstick into her pocket. “That leaves me Ͼ21 for rent, clothes, travel, and whatever else.”

“We don’t pay rent, you don’t travel, and you’ve worn the same outfit every day for six months. I’m astounded that skirt isn’t walking on its own.”

Guess I at least owe Plonk for getting my clothes back.

Pushing her plate to the side, Anna flopped face down on folded arms. “They treat us like such trash, but they don’t give us a chance. We don’t pay rent ‘cause we can’t. Where else would we go?”

“There’s always the Moon.” Penny grinned.

“Bugger that.” Anna leaned to the side, nibbling at her food.

“Buggerat!” yelled the little boy.

Anna rubbed her arms. Withdrawal started in the form of full-body aches, as though her skeleton had bruised everywhere.

“You could always get a proper job. You’re always so miserable whenever you come back from the club. Why do you do it if you hate it? Carryin’ food to tables can’t be as demeaning as wagging your chesticles at a room full of drunken men.”

“They’re not
that
small,” Anna barked, pulling her jacket closed over her breasts. She calmed in a few seconds, and shrugged. “Blake don’t care if I’m high, don’t ask questions, and I don’t have to think about it.”

Penny held a piece of toast up for the boy to gnaw on. “Those tits won’t last forever, hon.”

The child waved his arms, yelling ‘tits’ at the top of his lungs, drawing horrified looks from pedestrians.

Anna pouted, folding her arms tighter over her chest.

“What’s really on you then?” Penny leaned forward. “Please, tell me.”

“Look, even if I was able to hold it together without the chems… I’m hopelessly onto it. I’d need a doctor to get me off it now and…” She gazed down, teasing the fake omelet with a plastic fork. “I just don’t have the strength. I want off it, but… I’m too weak.”

“You’re not weak. I’ll help you through it. What are you afraid of?” Penny squeezed her hand.

Anna looked up with a hurt pout. “It’s more than the chems. I stopped workin’ for Carroll after a close call. I don’t want you to get involved, a nasty bit of business.”

“Organized?” Penny’s eyebrows climbed her forehead.

“Tits,” shouted the boy again, clapping.

“You’re a bit old for that, mite.” Penny placated him with jellied toast, and ordered a glass of milk.

“No, not Syndicate.” Anna leaned close, whispering. “Government nasty.” Her blood ran cold.

Penny’s face shifted from fear to concern. Minutes of silence passed as they finished eating.

“I’m…” Anna glanced to the left.
There’s no way in green Hades I’m going to cage dance sober.
The mere thought of being locked in that thing again made her shiver.
If imma gonna kick this shit, I need to find my old groove. I need practice.
Pedestrians smeared into an ever-shifting mass of color. “Gonna take a walk, get somethin’ nice for Twee. Take the lil’ bugger home. Don’t want you getting’ caught up in it case the blag goes pear shaped.”

“Blag?” Penny whisper-shouted and stood, gathering the boy, and stared down at her shoes. “Anna, please don’t do anything stupid.”

“I won’t.” The women exchanged a hug. “If I’m not back by midnight, don’t call the cops.”

Penny’s eyes watered. Something cartoony on a passing advert bot drew the child’s eye and he wriggled, pointing at it and yelling, “
Main chaaaati hoon
!”

“Oh come off it, I’ll be fine. The zoom’s gone… I got me head back on.” Anna caught her reflection in the café window and shied away. She looked too thin.

Penny waved her NetMini. “Vid me if you need anything.”

“Heh.” Anna turned out her empty pockets. “If I can find a public; you know mine keep breaking.”

Anna figured she had about four hours before the lack of chems started to hurt. This was the less than pleasant time where she had to work to rein it in. She’d had enough practice at the bone-ache stage to muddle through. Another hour or so, and the flu-like mess would start.

With hands tucked in her pockets, she went in the direction of High Street, not paying much attention to the route. At the sight of a familiar warp in the footpath, she glanced up and came face to face with her old home; the edifice of plastisteel and false wood slats floated there as though she had walked into a waking dream.

Number Six Woodseer Street looked as it did when she had last seen it, a modern construction with six mushed-together flats crammed into a giant house. She recalled her father once bragging to his friends about getting into a place built after 2350, a task somewhat difficult to do that close to the heart of London. She had lost track of the date. The last time it mattered at all what year it was, she still had a bed full of dolls and a warm place to go home to at night. That had been 2403.