Under Dark Sky Law

Under Dark Sky Law

“Argon, get off me,” she said.

The man groaned. “Just a few more minutes,
I'm wiped,” he said.

She let out a loud puff of air and grunted,
moving her hips underneath the weight of his sweaty abdomen. “Yeah,
you’re wiping it all over me. Now get the hell off so I can go take
a shower,” she said.

The room was dark, but enough light trickled
in from a few illegal lights around the perimeter of the building
that she could see the spiky outline of the top of Argon’s hair.
Stubble from the side of his cheek scraped against the soft white
skin of her chest, and the sweat festering between them added to
the sticky chafing.

He pushed himself up with his arms, the long
top curl of his bright orange hair falling across his left eye.
“Man, Xero, you’re such a killjoy,” he said and finished rolling
off her. “There’s no hot water right now anyway.”

She shimmied her legs off the side of the
bed, her toes dangling a few centimeters from the dirty floor. The
wood had slowly been deteriorating, breaking apart under the
corrosive environment. A barefoot trip across the planks almost
surely meant at least a few minor splinters prickling your heels.
At least they had wood floors—most people in this district were
stuck with sludge and mud floors that never quite dried because of
the rising water table and landfill debris slowly heaving towards
the surface.

She stuck her tongue out into the dark.
“Yuck, I hate it when you grind your fucking spunk into my goddamn
belly button,” she said. She brushed at the tacky tendrils that
were rapidly drying into a hearty crust. “I would much rather take
a cold shower than just let this shit dry on me.”

Argon flopped on the bed with his arms
sprawled wide like a starfish, with the worn grey sheets tangled
into a ball around his left foot. His toes found their way through
a gaping whole in the dingy sheets and he kicked for a moment to
free himself. “Fuckin’ sheets,” he muttered. “Need to do another
raid and get some better stuff back in here.”

She turned her head around to stare at the
outline of his figure in the dark. “I’ve been saying that for
months. This place is falling apart again,” she said.

He covered his eyes with the palms of his
hands. “Just go wipe yourself off with a wash cloth or something
and come back to bed. I don’t want to sleep next to you while
you’re all cold and wet,” he said.

“Tough titty, fucker. And when I get back,
you better have that shit wiped off real good or you can sleep on
the floor with the roaches,” she said and smacked him hard on the
bicep. He grunted and the sheets rustled underneath him as he
groped in her direction.

She vaulted off the bed to avoid getting
smacked in return, and her feet skidding against the floor a few
feet from the bathroom. “Fuck,” she whispered as splinters slid
into her flesh.

“Bitch,” he called after her.

“Love you too, asshole,” she said and walked
the rest of the way into the bathroom.

They were lucky enough to have tiles for
their bathroom floor. Their squalor was downright old world Beverly
Hills ritzy for this area, but still, the formerly white tiles were
broken and cragged like the surface of an active volcano, spotted
with mold from too many years of excessive moisture and bacteria
seepage. Having running water that was somewhat clean was another
luxury in and of itself, and Xero wasn’t one to bitch and moan when
shit could be way worse. Shit could be far better too, but this was
only a temporary situation. She was of a mind that you had to take
life by the balls and make things happen if you wanted to make
anything change. A few months of a little cold water, mold, and
dirty sheets wasn’t about to stop her.

The window in the bathroom had crusted over
again with river debris, and the door was too narrow to let in any
of the stray light that had snuck into the bedroom. They were all
proficient in wandering around in near total darkness, but there
was something so vulnerable about taking a shower. Maybe it was a
lingering effect of too many horror movies when she was a kid, or
just too many nights of getting jumped in the pits, but she wasn’t
a fan of depriving herself of too many senses or defenses. They
actually had a good supply of votive candles and old school matches
from one of their most recent runs. Deep in the pits there was just
too much CO2 for things to burn smoothly, so they weren’t worth
much in terms of trade commodities, but they were useful for some
moderate home lighting down in the river flats.

Still, she didn’t like wasting things, so
they went without extra light whenever possible. She groped across
the edge of the bathroom sink, knocking some half-used tea lights
into the bowl before her hands snatched a small box of matches. She
inhaled the almost pleasant sulfur sent from the match strike and
lit three of the white tea lights. It wasn’t really enough light to
do anything significant with, but at least it made her feel
moderately better. If nothing else it might help keep Argon from
getting the drop on her if he felt like getting back at her for
giving him shit.

The mirror above the sink was cracked in half
diagonally and the top chunk had long since bit the dust. Flecks of
rust dotted the remaining chunk, and she leaned in close to a spot
that was still mostly undamaged. Her right eye was a clear and
bright green, but she leaned to one side and put the left eye up
close to the mirror. The blood that had seeped into the white part
was slowly fading, but it was still visible, and a healing purple
and yellow bruise ringed the bottom quarter of the orbit like a
puffy half moon. It was a good reminder of what would happen if you
were too slow or lazy down in the pits.

Her neon green mohawk had spikes shooting up
in a frizzy mess in several directions thanks to the aggressive
ride she’d had on the bottom with Argon. He was a royal pain in the
ass, and sometimes a straight up dick bag, but he was always good
for a hard lay, and he played one hell of a mean guitar. The shaved
sides of her head were starting to grow back and she made a mental
note to take care of that on their next run out of the flats. She’d
begun leaving her thick black eyebrows alone except for her slight
unibrow, which she preferred to keep plucked, but that too had
grown back after too many weeks stuck in the shack.

“Gross,” she said under her breath when she
discovered some of Argon’s spunk holding up a chunk of her ‘hawk
like trailer trash hair gel. This was worth breaking out some
actual soap for. They were down to one half bar of genuine soap.
After fishing it out from under the bathroom cabinet, she quickly
tossed the molded wrapper and scraped off a few pieces of fuzzy
blue mold that had taken hold on the surface of the smooth white
soap. She shook her head in dismay—nothing was sacred here, not
even the soap got to escape the effects of the mildew and grunge.
Sometimes she wondered why she even bothered trying to keep things
clean in the first place.

The torn shower curtain was clear with faded
green dots, which was nice because it helped obscure some of the
predictable mold. Whenever they finally left this place behind for
good, it would be too soon before she ever saw another clump of
fucking fungus again. Part of her wondered if they ever really
would be out of here for good. There was something about the place
that kept them coming back again and again. Disgusting as it was,
it was always a little more like home than the pits, but at least
in the pits it was too dry for any spores to take hold anywhere.
What she wouldn’t give to smuggle some bleach out of the
narrows.

“I hear paper crackling in there, are you
using our last bar of soap?” Argon called. “Over a little spooge?
Save that shit for the next time we have to do a sewer crawl for
fuck’s sake!”

“Fuck off,” Xero called back. She turned on
the taps in the bathtub and missed whatever he said after that over
the roar of the water. “If we have to do another sewer run, odds
are we’ll get soap again anyway.”

The water tank must have absorbed a good
amount of the heat of the day because the water was blissfully
warm. It wasn’t anywhere near an actual hot shower, but it was a
small step up from the nipple biting dousing that she was
expecting. Partly to enjoy the unexpectedly warm shower and partly
to piss off Argon, she soaped herself vigorously from head to toe,
working up a big sudsy lather. After she was convinced that their
abused loofah had been rinsed enough to be just this side of
disgusting, she smeared the bar into it and used up almost all of
the soap, smothering herself in loofah induced suds.

With the water going full blast she couldn’t
figure out what he was saying, but she could hear Argon screeching
something out there in the bedroom. She was going to be pissed off
if he barged into the bathroom and ruined the nice shower vibe she
had going on. It was too bad she didn’t allow anyone in the crew to
do Alphamine, because it would seriously chill you out, and Argon
seemed like he was on the verge of tweaking. Until Neptune figured
out a way to take the edge off some of Alphamine’s doping effects
she wasn’t going to let anyone get away with zonking themselves out
with that crap. They say a true professional never does their own
product, and she was a believer in that.

She turned off the water and threw open the
tattered shower curtain. Argon was still causing an obnoxious
ruckus, but she held back a retort long enough to ring the water
from the long green fringe of her Mohawk. After debating whether it
was worth searching for an undoubtedly mildew-ridden towel, she
bent down to look for a one, and was glad she had bothered to light
the candles. Without the water going she could hear Argon giving
off quiet squeaks in between the louder outbursts. Thanks to the
candles she was able to see the skeleton straddling his ass,
strangling him with a piece of wire.

Argon’s face was smashed into the pillows,
and he was using the considerable strength of his upper body to try
and push himself up and away from the bed and the bite of the wire
around his neck. But the skeleton had leverage—caught in a
vulnerable facedown position, Argon was at terrible disadvantage,
and they were locked in a see-saw battle of wills as they pushed
and pulled against each other. If it hadn’t been on obvious
skeleton perched on his back, she would have been turned on by what
might have been a spontaneous sexual encounter. Casual sex was
anything but unusual in these parts, and she had walked in on more
than one unsavory scene involving Argon and choice passersby of
various genders. She was glad for the STD blasters, but taking a
shot of one of those in the thigh was never pleasant. She would
have quit banging Argon long ago if she hadn’t been just as bad
herself.

After a moment of considering whether Argon
might take a roll with a Skeleton just for shits and giggles,
something new, she shook her head once to clear the last water
blobs from her forehead. Even Argon wasn’t stupid enough to fuck a
skeleton, but he was stupid enough to let one of them get the drop
on him.

She forced a jet of air out between her
teeth. “You fucking idiot,” she said. The skeleton didn’t have a
good enough hold on Argon for him to be in imminent danger of
passing out, but with the limited lighting she was worried about
more skeleton invaders hiding in the rest of the house.
Fortunately, Xero was the kind of person that believed in being
ready for anything. They had gone back and forth again constantly
as a group about whether or not it was worth hoarding any firearms
for emergencies. In the last three years the Dome Drones had really
upped their gun monitoring program capabilities, and they had
decided it was too risky to keep any guns in any house that might
be connected to their business. It was a decision that had been
paying off—they had seen many a rival fall without any of them
lifting a finger because even old school six shooters were too easy
for the grid police to pick up these days.

Guns or no, she was ready. She reached behind
the bathroom door to find one of the many weapons she typically
kept stashed discreetly around any of their operations. Given the
sharp nature of most of these implements, she typically would have
tread carefully around these arrays, but once her hand struck blank
wood she panicked. More splinters dug into the calloused flesh of
her palm while she flailed for any of her normal weapons, her eyes
fixated on the battle between Argon and the Skeleton. Sometimes she
wanted to stab that fuck, but she didn’t actually want him to die.
And Neptune was more of a sociopath than any of them—if her pet
chemist were killed Xero would never live it down.

She squinted her eyes and slammed her fist
against the door. “Son of a fucking bitch,” she said. The door was
naked. All of her weapons were gone, and she didn't have time to
think about what might have happened to them. Some heads were going
to roll, and hopefully it wouldn’t be Argon’s. He had a big dick, a
big brain, big hair, and big fingers. Replacing him would be
difficult.