Archon's Queen (12 page)

For a moment, she almost missed the beatings.

She leaned upon the well-kept railing that cordoned off the laughably small front yard and stared at the dark square of plexi that used to be her window. Her gaze drifted down to a wisp of pink metal among the ill-tended lawn, settling upon an old bicycle, white tire squeaking around in a pathetic breeze. They’d had a few good years, until the thing got out of control.

“Checkin’ the place out, lass?”

Anna jumped, holding onto the rail to keep from falling. An elder had snuck up on her, quite unintentionally, and clasped a hand over his chest from the shock of her startlement. Wisps of silver hair wavered, threads of cotton held to his scalp by the weight of a tweed cap, toyed with by the breeze.

“Sorry, dear.” He offered a grandfatherly smile, fixing a powder blue sweater back into place over a dark shirt. “Not many come to check the vacant one out.”

She tilted her head, a hand on her chest. “Oh?”

The man shook his head, casting a disdainful scowl at the lawn. “Man what used ta live there wasn’t right in the head. Used ta beat his little’un somethin’ fierce. Poor thing, nae wonder ‘is wife left ‘im. Old Bill’d come here two or three times a week, but they did sweet Fanny Adams about it. Someone should’a done somethin’ for that girl.”

Anna looked up at the black window. She remembered being on the other side of it, shaking from the pain her father had strapped across her backside, staring down at the neighbors, people who had heard the screaming, wondering why no one helped her.

“Aye Mr. Harrison… Someone did.”

He blinked at her, squinted, and then took a step back. “Gor Blimey, is it you? O’ course, it has ta be. How many ladies yer age got ‘air that color.”

She leaned on her elbows, nodding with a regretful smile. “Aye, tis me. I hadn’t realized where I’d wandered to ‘till I saw the place.”

He ambled closer, patting her on the back. “You doin’ okay lass? We all been wonderin’ what happened since…” He fidgeted. “Well, you know.”

The lying came too easy. “Social welfare, put me with some fosters. I got a job on the West End now, acquisitions.”

“Oh that’s jolly for you. Good ta see ya bounce back from that dreadful mess. Edith hasn’t touched the ‘sem since.”

Anna chuckled. Everyone thought the food machine malfunctioned.

She chatted for a bit with her old neighbor, spinning a milquetoast web of fancy about her flat uptown, a fiancée, and a pleasant but boring office job. He did not ask much about her father’s death, only enough to attribute it to a karmic act of the divine since the police had done such a cack-handed job of protecting her from his beatings. After word got out that a man died in the place, it had been difficult to rent it out. The property manager was obstinate and holding out for full value, figuring location would outweigh superstition soon enough. Some part of her wanted to buy it, but there was no way in hell she could afford it.

The thought of squatting occurred to her, followed by an involuntary tightening of her throat; she missed her old life. Her head sagged forward under the weight of lies and shame.

He was going to kill me.
I had to do it. It was me or him.

Anna curled over the rail, trying to maintain the smiling contentment of her imagined life for her elderly neighbor. She worked so hard not to cry, the thing at the back of her mind slipped free of her grasp. The eerie whisper of the wind drowned amid a cacophony of blaring horns, wailing sirens, and flashing lights from two dozen cars along Woodseer Street. Every anti-theft mechanism in every vehicle a hundred yards in either direction went off all at once.

Poor Mr. Harrison nearly died of shock.

orris & Baker was the sort of shop where the working man could secure a bit of pretty for the one he loved. The kind of place carrying baubles considered nice, but unremarkable in a way that lent them handily to pawning. Something too big and rare would be traced; things too cheap were not worth the risk. This place was perfect.

Annabelle leaned against a vendomat a half block away, sipping artificial tea from a bioplastic cup that would be little more than a puddle of glop half an hour after it cooled. Her heartbeat had about returned to normal from the explosion of car alarms; the blast of nerves threatened to undermine her resolve. She gazed through the name of the shop, spelled out in glittering gold hologram above the door, watching patrons with the intensity of a cat waiting for the perfect unobservant mouse.

The zoom no longer clouded her mind. She focused on her purpose, pushing worry of withdrawal out to arm’s length. If she let her emotion run off, it would ruin any chance she had. In order to do this, she’d have to let the little monster half out of its pen. She closed her eyes and inhaled the steam from the Earl Grey―or at least the best attempt possible at Earl Grey via molecular assemblage. Her father had mentioned it once in passing that her mother had been fond of it, but he loathed the stuff.

Each time she had some, she spited him.

The sudden distraction of violet light drew her head to the left. A cat-sized bot hovered at about eye level, projecting a hologram at her of a lingerie advert.

It knew.

Her cheeks flushed crimson. “Damn nosy thing. Sod off.”

Anna shied away from it, the sudden rush of embarrassment coincided with the holo-advert failing to static. Small orange sparks flew from the side as the droid careened off along the street in a whirling spiral, all the while emitting a high-pitched digital version of an agonized scream. The chaos in its wake halted with a metallic thud out of sight around a corner four blocks distant.

She looked down, tapping the toe of her boot against the footpath, dawdling until a short blonde woman caught her eye. The air of credits wafted from her like perfume; not so much she would find this place undesirable, but enough to choose something worth nicking.

Her empty cup tossed into the bin, Anna followed the woman through the door, meandering about the shelves for a moment before stopping at a column-mounted terminal. Various pieces, custom ordered of course, appeared in ten times scale in full holographic glory. Anna pawed at the light, flipping virtual pages and pretending to be interested in ordering something.

The blonde went straight to the attendant and struck up a conversation. Anna’s anticipatory rush came to a cold halt when she remembered the little trick only worked on people, not electronics. She took advantage of her short skirt and exposed midriff as she sashayed around to keep the other clerk’s eyes on her. Unsure if he became excited by the impression of her breasts in the light cloth, or incensed by the fading Manchester United logo between them, she smiled.

Out of the corner of her eye, she examined four security orbs in the ceiling. One by one, she fixated on them until the thing in the back of her head expanded into her consciousness.

Threads drawn in amber light illuminated the wiring in the recorder spheres within her mind. Every wirepath, every shifting mass of electrons racing along their conduits, and the strong surge of the tie to mains power glowed to her, a presence tangible to her thoughts. She stretched over the counter, forcing her breasts tight to the shirt and tugged with her mind at the first orb.

Electricity heeded her call, flooding into the sphere, which sputtered a brief wisp of black smoke, staining the white paint around it. The subdued pop went unheard beneath the din of the eager blonde assaulting the shop worker with an endless prattle of inconsequential details of the person she shopped for. The poor man smiled his way through it, hoping for a sale.

The rumble of a truck passing outside afforded her the chance to zap the second recorder. She waited a moment to see if anyone noticed. Perhaps a man in the back room watching terminals would come running to see why his screens turned to static. Then again, if the store was small enough, they might not have a man in back. The clerk near her leaned closer, staring with greedy eyes at the taut fabric.

“Can I be of any assistance, Miss?”

She acted as though she looked for a gift for a young niece, something cheap that would not create too big an issue if she wound up having to buy it. He retrieved a set of five-petaled pink kunzite daisy earrings. Sixty credits for the pair.

She pretended to drop one out of clumsiness while holding it up to let the light play with it.

“Oh, heavens,” she said, pouring on the ditz. “I’m sorry.”

Turning to face the other counter and the blonde, she bent down to pick it up. When she heard the sound of a knee meeting the counter behind her, she assumed the clerk was leaning up, hoping she bent a little farther.

While he was eminently distracted, she coerced more electricity into the two remaining orbs. The blonde gasped with alarm at the sight of black smoke.

Bollocks!

Anna stood with the earring and flashed an apologetic smile at the dumbfounded clerk. A twitch picked at the right corner of his mouth twice before his lips curled to a grin. The pink daisy clicked upon the glass, and she glared sideways at the debutante about to ruin her entire plan.

When the smoke proved to be a brief wisp and not the start of a fire, the woman lost interest and returned to her chat. Anna exhaled and collected the earrings into the pink satin bed of their case.

She snapped it closed with a sharp pop. “These will do nicely.”

By now, a number of pieces had been laid out on the counter in front of the blonde, mostly necklaces and pendants. Anna walked sideways to the register, appraising them. The attendant helping the woman seemed on edge having that much inventory out in the open, and eyed the woman with suspicion.

Anna handed over the credstick, paying for the cheap earrings. When the man returned it with a bag, she thanked him and walked toward the exit. As soon as he looked away from her, she took a breath and held it, trying to remember how to open herself to the world.
This used to be easy. Come on, like ridin’ a bike, right?
The presence of three sentient minds hovered around her. Her psionic emanation mingled into their thoughts, masking the conscious realization she existed from their perception. To the people in the room, she vanished.