Archon's Queen (22 page)

Anna looked up. “You okay? Did he…”

Penny sobbed, shaking her head. “No. You? Are you all right?”

“Just fingers. I’ve ‘ad worse from the Filth. I’m tired though.”

Penny shivered hard. “These aren’t constables, just street trash. No one’ll miss ‘em. Don’t get all wound up.”

Spawny scratched his head. “Kinda odd Crossmen―”

“Pen…” Tears streamed from Anna’s eyes. “I didn’t throw up ‘cause I killed ‘em. It’s the zoom. I feel like shit and a half. I…” She covered her face with her hands. “Not the first time.”

“Bugger me,” wheezed Spawny.

“Oh, my God, Anna.” Penny crept closer. “You should’ve told me. That Carroll bastard is bad news. He’s put you up to this, has he?”

Anna hung her head, like a child who got caught nicking cookies. Even if her friends were now terrified of her, at least she could live with herself knowing she had spared Penny from rape. She expected them to cringe against the wall to get away from her. It caught her off guard when Penny flew onto her, sobbing, squeezing, and showering her with thanks.

Spawny rolled flat on his back. “Cold, wet alley’s kind of comfortable ta be honest. P’raps I’ll replace me bed with wet pavin’. Could get used ta this I fink.”

Penny moved to his side, helping him sit up. “Bugger. I can’t carry both of you.”

Anna wiped bile from her lip with the back of her arm. “I’ll be okay. I’m just… It’s been a long time since I cut loose like that. Feels like I got hit by a lorry and then par boiled.” She glanced at small burns on her clothes. “Not quite the perfect control I used ta have.”

Spawny coughed up more blood, glancing up at the scuff of an unseen step. “We best shoot off.”

Penny hauled Spawny upright and dragged him along. Anna staggered behind them. The thought of what the trio must look like, sober Penny and her two drunken friends, made Anna laugh.

“That’s a bit psychotic, innit?” Spawny gurgled.

“We look like a pack of drunks.” Anna fell to all fours when she chose to cover her grin rather than grab the wall. “Just, we look a mess.”

A few blocks later, they huddled together in a dim booth at the back end of a small restaurant. She went through six cups of coffee before anyone spoke.

“Quaint lil’ noshery, this.” Anna’s attempt at a smile lasted a few seconds.

Penny stared. Anna could not read the look: fear, pity, or shame. Perhaps all.

“That’s why I started on Zoom. Workin’ for Carroll got the CSB up my arse. I figured I could use it to keep the involuntary bit under control, but when Tommy got shot… I just…” Patterns reflected by overhead lights shimmered in a hypnotic ballet upon the surface of her coffee.

Penny reached across the table to hold her hand. “It’s awright hon, doesn’t change a thing. I’m actually happy for ya. All these years, I thought you’d been nonced.”

Anna shivered. “No… My dad beat the shit out of me, never that. As shitty as he was to me, I think he’d ‘ave still killed someone who tried to do that to me.”

“S’right. Not a fing. I seen worse.” Spawny stretched back in his seat. “This one time, Ol’ Bill hucks a great honkin’ flash grenade at the lot of us. I’d taken a spill in this wild punch up and landed on me arse. The bloody fing bounces and lands right on my jubblies, but it don’ go off. Was a dud. S’were I got me name.”

Anna hid her face as the waitress set a plate down. “Bit o’ luck that, no doubt.”

The interrupted conversation became polite smiles and nods at the food-bearer until she had gone out of earshot.

“You got me by the short and curlies now,” Anna said, and took a bite of her sandwich. “Either one of you could get outta Coventry if you sold me out to the Crown.”

“Bugger that.” Penny squeezed her arm. “No way in hell. Besides, you ain’t got em ta getcha by.”

Anna blushed.

Spawny perked up, keenly interested in the topic shift. “Oi, really?”

They all laughed.

Plates and cups rattled with a shiver rumbling through Anna’s body. Withdrawal―like the Four Horsemen―was coming, and it would be a right bitch and a half. All she had to do was make it through the job for Mr. Orange, and then she could crawl in a hole and die for a few days. Maybe, she thought while glancing at Spawny, she would let him fix her to the bed after all.

For her own safety, of course.

“She’s roight. Gub’mint don’t much like people even known about that sorta thing. They’ll bag and tag us all. We give you up, we fuck ourselves.” Spawny tapped himself on the chest. “An’ no one fucks me, not even me.”

Penny made a face at him.

He slithered over the table, voice dropped to a whisper. “Havin’ none of that, Pix. We’re bezzy mates.”

n the shadow of a dozen gleaming office towers, Anna huddled under the awning of an autocab station, ignoring the digitized voice asking if she needed a transport for the fortieth time. The rain came in waves so thick the wind made an aurora borealis of water in the sky. Mesmerized by the pattern against the silvered windows of the immense structures, she lost time watching the ephemeral serpents dance.

Electrical humming announced the arrival of a spherical advert bot the size of a soccer ball hovering along as it tried to sell various bits of rain gear. The plastic-coated Chinese paper umbrella perched above it at the end of an articulated metal arm gave it the look of a massive cocktail that had gone off wandering. Glistening amoeba of reflected streetlamp light morphed through white stylized dragons upon the red canopy. The orb turned to face its central lens at her; deep within it, a faint haze of violet grew brighter. A sweeping pattern of laser-light shone through dust on the glass as it searched for a NetMini to see what it could sell her.

She stared, as much as one can lock eyes with a four-inch lens, waiting to see what it would do. Dozens of distinct trails of water from the parasol broke into sprays for seconds at a time as it rotated with rapid precision to scan her. Anna mused to herself how sad the orb must be; she imagined brows over its one great eye, despondent it could not find a mini’s beaconing signal anywhere on her. If it had lips, it would surely pout.

With a whirr, it drew closer and nodded down to raise the actuators directing its projector. A selection of umbrellas shimmered into view upon a white holographic pane, bathing the area in a soft glow.

Occasional raindrops fell through the display, glinting like fallen stars.

Something about this poor forlorn sphere of metal made her sigh. She almost felt bad, as if it were a young boy forced to hawk wares in a storm. It pivoted a few degrees to the side, simulating a head tilt as it switched to raincoats for a moment.

“Not bad, little thing. You almost seem like you’re worried about me.” Anna sighed, staring up into the downpour through the clear awning of the autocab port. “Sad that only the robots care about the little things anymore.”

The orb drifted to the left and tried to hold its small umbrella over her head too.

“Bother that, it’s so small. You’ll short out if you get wet inside.”

A sad digital whine was more than the sense of her projected sentience could bear. She surrendered twenty credits from her stick, ordering the least expensive umbrella on its list in the hope of making it feel better.

It continued floating at her side, trying to shield her from the rain where the awning was too narrow. Anna squinted at it.

That’s odd. Little buggers usually race off after they suck credits outta ya. What’s its game? Does it think I’m going to buy something else? It almost seems… concerned.
Was its
concern
for her something other than attempting to endear itself into selling more?

A man’s voice overpowered the monsoon. “Evenin’, you Pixie?”

She turned, glancing at a nondescript man in a shiny coat. Black on the shoulders, sleeves, and grey in the middle, it covered him from neck to shin. His eyes radiated orange light, as if the eyeballs had been replaced with bulbs. Glowing spots on his shoulders appeared to be responsible for a faint blue dome-shaped field above him where the rain wisped away to steam before it could strike his short, dark hair.

She figured him to be a little older than her, twenties still, but closer to thirty. A black metal case in his right hand gave him the feel of a government agent, but he lacked the air of superiority they often wore with it. She glanced at him and lifted an eyebrow. The orb offered him umbrellas.

“You must be Mr. Orange.”

“Indeed.”

He gave her the up and down look, picking at Spawny’s borrowed denim jacket to appraise the smallness of the woman underneath. Anna tensed, not wanting him to discover she caved in on the way here and had three derms of zoom in her left pocket―just in case. The rainy night kept her shivering from seeming out of place; she lost track if it came from the rattles or if she really was freezing. The cold sweats looked like the effect of being out in the rain.

For once, she felt glad it poured.

“You’re a wisp of a thing, lass. Not quite what I was expecting.”

Anna tried to remember what it felt like to be confident and straightened up. “I will admit to being a little rusty, but this isn’t the sort of job I’d have taken before. Too basic.”

He leaned back, appraising her with a finger tracing his cheek. “If I’ve learned nothing else, it’s not to trust my eyes. Shall I take your nervousness as a warning?”

She shivered again, not knowing which of two potential causes to blame. “Feck. Don’t mind me, I’m on edge tonight.”

The umbrella-bearing droid circled in, aiming its ads at Mr. Orange.

“Bugger off.” He swatted at it.

It zoomed off, careening around the corner of a building a block away, where it peeked out like a frightened dog. She frowned at it, finding herself feeling sorry for a thing that had no soul. Another bot, this one long and boxy, glided up. Mr. Orange leaned back and tucked a hand into his coat.

“Keep your hair on, the wee one guilted me into orderin’ an umbrella.”

He relaxed. His hand did not leave the coat until the flying rectangle spat out a small extending umbrella and rocketed off. Once it had disappeared from sight, he let his grip fall away from whatever waited beneath the folded wool.

“Right then. I need to get up to the top of that one.” He pointed at an office bearing the logo of British Telecom.