11

Some Zone street

Lawrence leaned forward as he walked, listening to the conversation in front of him. He had managed to unload Kel’s neighbor’s pipe onto the Prophet, who was now carrying it in some deep pocket he’d emptied of sodje bottles.

“If you came all the way down here lookin’ for Brian, I guess there must be somethin’ real wrong with him,” Kel said to Dok. The weather was warming up, and the melting ice left by the sleet storm had turned the ground to gravelly mud that stuck to their shoes and fell as sticky clumps as they trudged on.

“Well, yes,” Dok said. “I think Brian would be better off seeing me. But really, these folks needed a place to stay. Since I had some follow-up business with Brian I thought maybe he’d be a good choice.”

“You got any other people you can go to like that?”

Dok shook his head. “I can’t bring this group to anyone else. Look at them.” He shook his head. “There’s no place.”

Kel was silent for a while, except for the crunch of his glass-bottomed shoes in the gravel.

“Brian gonna die, Dok?”

Dok cocked an eyebrow, giving Kel a curious, sideways glance.

Kel straightened. “‘Cause me an’ Brian, we watch each other’s back. He’s pretty good at it. Don’ wanna find nobody else to do the job.”

Dok nodded. “All I know is that I shouldn’t have let him leave.”

“There’s an open market over there,” Eadie said, pointing. “Let’s head that way.” She stepped past Lawrence, walking quickly and leaving him behind. Kel took a few quick steps to catch up with her. Dok and the Prophet ambled along in the middle, and Lawrence and Old Fart brought up the rear.

“Sir?” Lawrence said quietly. “Did you see Eadie in that fight? The way she kept swinging that stick, even after the guy’s head was already mush? And that howling noise she made. I know she’s under a lot of stress, but … do you think Eadie’s … you know, crazy or something?”

“Remember, Lawrence,” Old Fart said. “People are out to get each other, even in the world you and I come from. Here in the Zone, where there’s so much poverty, people’s actions and motives are simply more transparent. All their energy is channeled into the struggle to meet their most basic needs, and they’ll do whatever they have to do to survive, to protect themselves and their families. And they know everyone around them is in the same boat, fighting the same fight, every single day. That’s why Eadie seems so different. She lives like this all the time.”

They walked a few more steps in silence. Old Fart chuckled. “So, yes. In our world, Eadie is crazy. But in this one, she’s perfectly adapted to her environment.”

They entered the market, a vacant lot transformed into a warren of vendors where oil lamps and candles illuminated tables of clothes, junk, and food. Eadie and Kel had stopped at a table near the entrance. Most of the objects for sale there had obviously been harvested from old garbage dumps. Displayed on the table in front of Kel were a little bottle of liquid and some sheets of yellow paper.

“Like him,” Lawrence said, indicating Kel. “He’s suited to living here, too, judging from the way he fought back in the building. But he wouldn’t make it in our world.”

Old Fart laughed. “I saw him living in our world, sort of. He proved himself very resourceful … but of course, he’d never survive an office job. He’s too wild to live among people like us and we’re too tame to live among people like him.”

“Bad news for us, then, since we are living among them now. What’s that Kel’s putting on the table, sir?”

“A ring he pulled from one of the attackers. During that fight, Kel took advantage of every opportunity to fill his many pockets. He even managed to collect his lighter and pipe before we escaped the fire. Like I said, very resourceful.”

More customers came to the little stand as Kel haggled with the woman behind the table, shaking his head and pointing to a relatively new-looking sweatshirt. She grabbed it and put it between them, shaking her head and showing him a readout from some machine she’d used to scan the ring. She then shifted her attention to another potential buyer, commenting about the quality of a nearby item.

Kel turned away, curving his arm around Eadie’s back. Lawrence smiled a little as she stiffened and took a step sideways. The crowd dissipated. Kel and Eadie were only a few steps away from the table but it suddenly seemed as if there had never been a crowd there at all. The woman called to them, agreeing to Kel’s offer of the ring, and they turned back.

“Did you see that, sir? The way all those people collected when Eadie was facing the table, and then she walked away and all of a sudden it seemed deserted? Now there’s a crowd gathering again. It’s weird.”

Old Fart put his hand on Lawrence’s shoulder. “Maybe you were focusing more on Eadie when she was facing this way and you didn’t notice the crowd as much.”

Eadie glanced back toward them, her eyes shining in the lamplight.

Annoyed by Old Fart’s insinuation, Lawrence made himself look around the marketplace. It was getting rather late, approaching a time when civilized people would be finishing their work and going to bed, but there were still a lot of shoppers. Moving among them were four men in black suits.

“Sir,” Lawrence said hurriedly. “Excuse me, but I need to speak to Eadie right away.”

Lawrence ran to Eadie’s side. “Eadie? I just saw four Unnamed Executives on the other side of the market. They might be here for some other reason, but not many giant corporations have an interest in this part of the Zone, especially at this hour. We know of one that does.”

Kel sneered, stepping between Lawrence and Eadie. “Oh, get the fuck outta here. Like she’s supposed to believe there’s four fuckin’ gunbugs after her. Shit.”

Lawrence tilted his head, looking around Kel. “Eadie, I think we should get out of this place. Now.”

Eadie nodded, her face blank. Lawrence pointed to an alley off to one side and Eadie headed toward it. The rest of the group followed her.

The dim orange light from the closest lamp made a flickering triangle on the ground at the mouth of the alley. Beyond that, it was completely dark. Kel stopped, squinting into the blackness. Lawrence guided Eadie past him, gently placing a hand on her shoulder, which she shrugged off. Kel grabbed Lawrence’s shirt, stopping him.

“No way outta there,” he said.

“What?”

“No way out. Look at the sky. See? It’s lighter than the walls. You can see the walls all come together up there—there’s no space to show a street or a gap between the buildings. Even if the buildings got doors, they all gonna be locked. No way outta that alley.”

Lawrence stepped backward, jerking his shirt from Kel’s grip. Eadie cautiously made her way into the dark area. “We’ve got no choice,” Lawrence said. “She has to be out of sight right now.”

Everyone slunk into the alley, eventually congregating along a wall on the other side.

“Told ya,” Kel said. “No way out.”

Lawrence felt behind him. “There’s a big trash bin here. We could hide inside it if we could get it unlocked.”

“Old Fart, come over here a minute, would you? I think I found a way.” Eadie was looking upward. Against the lighter sky in that direction, Lawrence could make out the outline of an old fire escape. “Give me a boost, please, sir,” Eadie said.

“Eadie, you can’t reach it. At my school we had fire escapes like that and they’re a lot higher off the ground than you think.”

There was a clanging sound above and then a series of clunks. “Ugh,” Eadie said. “Look out down there!”

Her stick clattered to the pavement next to Lawrence. He reached to pick it up but it zipped toward Eadie before he could close his fingers around it. “Another boost, please,” she said.

She tried a couple more times. “I need someone’s coat. This sweatshirt’s not long enough by itself.”

“Here, Eadie.” It was Dok’s voice.

After a slight pause the stick made its clanging and thumping again, finally lodging itself in the ladder, which came down with a loud, protesting groan. Eadie untied the coat, dropped it onto Lawrence’s head and scrambled up the ladder. Lawrence pulled it off, gagging on its smoky smell.

Everyone climbed up to the roof. Lawrence was last. Eadie was already peering over the short wall along the edge, down into the marketplace. “There,” she said, pointing.

The Unnamed were still moving back and forth through the stands. “See?” Lawrence said. “They’re searching everywhere, even under the tables. But they’re not looking at anything on display. Clearly they are not here to shop.”

On the roof

“That’s some fucked-up story you got,” Kel said. He meant it, too. Not many people had gunbugs and Feds looking for them.

Kel ripped a small section of the paper he had bought and rolled it into a ball.

“Yeah,” Eadie said. “But I knew you’d understand. I think you and I see the world the same way, you know?”

Kel shrugged, smoothing out the ball on his thigh.

“So where did you learn to fight like that, Kel?”

He rolled the paper up again, this time into a tighter ball. “Learned to walk by walkin,’ learned to talk by talkin.’ So, you know, learned to fight by fightin.’ How ’bout you? Where’d you learn to fight?”

“I guess I’m still learning.”

She turned, looking at the others. Kel looked up, too. The student fuck was off in a corner of the roof, talking with Old Fart, probably about how great it was to go to school and kiss ass in an office. The wino they called Prophet was drinking. Dok was lying down, resting, because that made sense.

Kel stuffed the paper ball into his pipe, taking out his new vial of nicotine. This bottled shit was so much better than homemade ’teen, made with clean oil so there was no funny taste or headache. No more homemade anymore since his three jars of bacteria burned up in the fire. He pulled his last packet of THC crystals from his pocket, bent the paper lip of the envelope and dumped them into the vial, recapping it and shaking. Finally he put two drops onto the paper ball.

He set the pipe down carefully, keeping it upright, and took his lighter out from under his shirt, where he had tucked it against his stomach. It was warmer but still not warm enough, so he rubbed it between his palms.

Eadie started talking again, something about rules and money. She kept showing him his old notebook but he managed to block her out and concentrate on aiming the lighter. He flicked it over and over, producing a few sparks at a time—it lit! He sucked hard on the pipe, pulling the tiny flame onto the paper, puffing to keep it lit. He took a drag and handed it to Eadie, stem first.

“Better to share than to have it go out,” he said.

“Thanks.” She took a drag and gave it back to him, coughing. “Thanks so much for this sweatshirt, too, Kel. It feels really nice, even with the weather warming up.” She coughed again.

He took another drag on the pipe. “You’re not doin’ it right, is why you’re coughin.’ Gotta suck the smoke into your mouth first, then breathe in through your mouth. Mix the smoke with regular air so it’s not so hot, see?” He demonstrated, then handed it over to her. She tried again, this time doing it right. He took it back one last time but there was no more smoke.

He leaned back against the short wall, closing his eyes and letting the ’teen-HC work its magic. Eadie started back in talking about the notebook.

“I can see what you meant here when you said it all had to be destroyed, you know? You’re right. We’re all prisoners, in cells we built for ourselves. Humans live in this totally unnatural world now, sealed off from nature, letting ourselves be fed and clothed and housed by companies … those who are lucky enough, anyway. And since we’re not lucky enough, those other people get all the resources and leave us with nothing. It’s the same thing our species has done to every other living organism on the planet. We’ve killed off everything but a few rats and cockroaches, and even those we trap and convert into sterile nutrients for bacteria farming.”

She sounded angry. Of course she was angry, with a fucked-up story like hers.

“But now it’s not humanity in charge anymore.” she said. “It’s the companies who control the world, operated by increasingly terrified slaves. Everything that happens on Earth now is driven and controlled by corporations, from creating life forms to recycling garbage, and they give nothing for free. You and I have nothing they want. So how are non-corporate people supposed to survive out here all on our own?”

She paused. Kel opened his eyes just enough to see her face. She was smiling, but she looked sad. “We’re not supposed to survive. We humans either kill ourselves serving them from the inside, or kill each other fighting for scraps out here.”

Kel closed his eyes again. “Never saw nobody get all nuts on plain ol’ ’teen-HC before.”

She laughed like he had said something funny. “I noticed you break things as you go by,” she said. “Not that there’s much to break around here. But I think I know why you do it. It’s like breaking down the walls that hold us in, chipping away at them little by little.”

Kel shrugged. “I break shit because then it’s like it’s mine, you know? Like, when you buy something, you get to do whatever the fuck you want with it, right? Use it, keep it, give it away, sell it … even break it for no damn reason. So there’s all this shit out there, an’ I know it won’t be mine, like, ever. But I can act like it’s mine, right? I can do one of those things. I can break it, and that means it’s like it’s mine.”

She said nothing. When he looked she was staring at him, with her eyes all narrow like someone trying to decide if she was being ripped off. She reached, pinching two fingers around the packet of paper in his hand.

“Can I read this?” she asked, pulling. “There’s still plenty of light coming up from the market.” He pulled back carefully, making sure none of the pages pulled off the string that tied them together.

“You already got my other book. Why you want this one?”

She kind of squinted at him again. Like judging. She looked down at the pack of papers in his hand, which she was still pinching. “Once you burn this, then it’s gone. I just want to read it, appreciate it for a minute before it’s lost forever. Is that all right?” She looked up. Her eyes were sparkly and deep, like a really clean glass of water.

He let go.

“Thanks, Kel.” Her voice sounded funny in his ears, like it was crawling through them with little feet. “I’m really sorry your notebook got burned.”

He shrugged. “Ah, there’s other books.”

She leaned closer. Her eyes opened wider. “More? You wrote more? Do you have them here?”

“Uh, no. I don’t have more.”

“Oh.” She lifted the packet of papers up into the light and stared at it for a long time. Then she turned a page and flipped the packet over and sat still like that again. Then she skipped over the next three pages.

“What’s wrong with those ones you skipped? You said you love to read an’ shit.”

“Kel, I do love to read, but that doesn’t mean I want to go reading old tables of numbers.” She turned her eyes on him.

“Oh, yeah. Right.” He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. He knew she was still watching him. She stayed quiet for a really long time. Then she clucked her tongue and he heard the pages rustling.

“There are some pretty interesting articles here,” she said. “Even though they’re really old. The page you ripped to smoke has an article about population. Listen to this: ‘Estimates by leading statisticians say that the world’s population will top eight and one-half billion people by the middle of March. With world stocks of raw materials approaching or having already reached minimum subsistence levels, and poorer areas of even the most advanced cities regressing towards what is essentially a new Stone Age, population issues—’

She rustled the paper a little more. “Then it’s torn off.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m surprised you’re not more interested in this. This article was written when there were exactly half as many people in the world as there are now. It explains the miserable state of civilization these days. But I understand if you’re not really in the mood to discuss this stuff. You must be totally wiped out from all the fighting and walking.”

“I’m not wiped out. I’m savin’ my strength, is all. If we can get up here, then they can get up here. So maybe we gotta be resting more an’ talking less.”

She went back to reading the papers and didn’t say any more. She turned a page, then another one.

She sniffled. She breathed out in shaky breaths.

Crying?

He sat up. The paper she was looking at had a picture of sporting goods.

“Uh, listen,” he said. “I didn’ mean to sound like I didn’ want to talk to you, or that you were stupid or anything. I … I didn’ write that notebook.” She kept looking down at the paper. He cleared his throat. “I don’t really write or read too much.”

She nodded. Tears fell on the picture but his other pages stayed dry. “I know that,” she said.

“You do?”

She nodded again. There were more tears on Kel’s paper. “I figured it out.”

“Oh. Well, sorry about makin’ you cry an’ all.”

“You didn’t.”

“Oh. So what made you cry?”

She flicked her wrist, hitting the picture with the backs of her fingernails. “It’s this ad,” she said. Her voice was shaky. “It reminds me of my dad. And a really, really bad day I had once when he was still around. I’m sorry—it’s dumb.” She pushed the paper at him.

He wiped the tears on his pant leg. She was still crying. “So … your dad played sports? I thought only rich guys played sports.”

She sniffed, breathed out. “Not all sports. Just golf.”

“Really? I hearda golf. They used these sticks to hit little balls into nets or something.”

“Into holes in the ground. I think the nets were practice. They played the real game in big, open fields.” She shook her head. “But I don’t think my dad ever got to do that. He went to those places with the nets but that was all. At least when he was working at the bank, he did.”

Kel blinked. “Your dad was a banker?”

She nodded. “My dad was one of those people.” She nodded towards Lawrence and Old Fart. “Both my parents were. But then he got fired. He said something bad to his boss, or did something wrong … I don’t know. But he got fired, and then my mom had to quit the company because they held it against her.” She shook her head. “My mom and dad decided to buy a little store after they got booted from company housing. You know, one of those where you live up above the store?”

Kel nodded.

Eadie looked around, leaning closer and lowering her voice. “And it should have been at least kind of a success. Nobody in the Zone can afford a synthesizer, so they have to go to a store to get pre-synthesized stuff. My parents bought this little shop with a great synthesizer and two apartments above, so we could live in one and rent out the other. But they were Golden. And it was a neighborhood of stupid white people.”

“But I thought Gold types could go anywhere.”

“To spend money, sure. But not to live.” She held up the yellowed paper. “Back when this was printed, corporations employed people of all the different races, you know. Color didn’t matter as long as you were a valued component of the company. The corporate types all sent their kids to the same schools, because they were the best schools, and those kids grew up together to be corporate types, and they all intermarried. Racial identity had become a thing of the past in the corporate world by the time the gene splices were developed to make us all Golden.

“People who somehow ended up on the outside, without the right employer to take care of them, have gotten a tough deal. They’ve had to watch the big companies getting larger and richer and more powerful while their families have grown poorer and sicker and more desperate, and there’s nothing they can do to improve their situation. Who could blame them for resenting the insiders, for not trusting Golden people like my parents?”

“But who cares about them, right?” Kel said. “I mean, if you got money, if you’re inside your ’lectric fence, an’ you got security an’ cops lookin’ out for you, no problem.”

“Yeah, exactly. And people like me were born in that world. My parents, too. But then it all ended for us. We ended up in the Zone—you know, the Stone Age? And you know how it is here. You fight for everything you get. So families have to take care of themselves, protect each other. Extended families, too … and when you extend it farther and farther, race is still a family tie.”

“Yeah,” Kel said. “I can imagine that. Like, this one time I went down to La Guada—you know, that part of town where all the Mexicans are? Supposed to be Little Guadalajara or some shit, but everybody just calls it La Guada?”

She nodded.

“Anyways, I was a little shit.” He held his hand about half a meter high. “Like that. I was seein’ what I could get into, right? An’ these guys came up—two big guys and three little, like me. An’ the big ones got the little ones to beat the shit outa me, teachin’ ’em how to do it, right? An’ then they threw me in a ditch.” He shook his head. “An’ for a real long time I didn’ like Mexicans, right, ’cause those ones did that. But now I figure hey, they were protectin’ their area, you know?”

She stared at him with her lips pressed together. “That’s what my neighbors thought they were doing. People threw rocks at our building and broke all the windows. They wrote nasty things with charcoal on the walls at night, about being oppressed by Golds. Once they even tried to burn the place down. Nobody shopped in the store, and nobody moved in. My parents lost all their money. Then one night a bunch of the men came, blaming my father for some incident they’d heard about on the news. He went out—” she flicked her fingers at the paper again. “With a golf club. But there were too many, and they killed him. Then they took everything.”

She sniffled. “And now I’m here.” She stood up. “Sorry. I need to be away from people for a while.” She moved to an isolated corner of the roof.

Amelix Retreat

A SUBSIDIARY OF AMELIX INTEGRATIONS

 

Reconditioning Feedback Form

Seeker of Understanding

INVOLUNTARY, GRADE TWO

 

Subject: #117B882QQ

Division: Corporate Regulations

 

1. Please describe today’s combat simulation exercise.

We fought to survive, like every other day. I got hit in the shoulder and dropped my weapon, struggling to stay conscious and not black out from the pain. 6T took out the one who got me, disintegrating the A-Heave’s head and shoulders with a long burst of fire. It felt nice, having someone watch out for me like that.

Seazie and CTS (“Curtis”) were the real heroes, though. They captured four prisoners without a single shot by working together to set a trap and lure the Heaves into it.

2. Please share some details of your experience in group therapy today.

It’s funny to think that I’ve never actually met any of them in person. I’ve seen each of them fighting to survive, praising and berating me and each other, and in the throes of granted pleasure, but I’ve never even been in the same room with a single one. Still, there’s no denying their influence. They define who I am here, and I need them.

Burt was leading today. He gave Seazie and Curtis an unprecedented reward: a level 7 for each of them, but not by their own hands. They got to utilize the four prisoners they had taken, who were bound and shaking with fear.

My fear of isolation has been growing, and now I’m also having terrible nightmares. In them, I know I’m in Hell. Real Hell, as in the religious kind, which is really strange, because I’ve never really cared about religion at all before. And I’m alone there, and then these scary creatures crawl out of the night and start to bite and chew the flesh from my bones. And in the nightmares I know that it is real Hell, but it is also the Horde of the Departed, and the monsters are really just the people I have known who Departed from Amelix Integrations, feeding on me.

3. Please consider other events of the day, such as religious services, mealtimes, and interactions with your Accepted advisor, and explain how these experiences helped you grow and change.

There’s this strange image I can’t get out of my mind lately … I even dream about it. It’s a vision of gears turning inside an old-fashioned clock. I wonder if it means my mind is processing my experience and counting down the time until I’m released. Funny, because when I’m conscious, I can’t imagine ever being released from here.

According to our religious service today, God selected me to work for Amelix Integrations. I heard all this stuff a thousand times growing up, but the “God’s will” idea resonates with much more meaning for me now.

If it all comes from God, the slightest disobedience is a sin.

4. Please share any additional thoughts or

comments.

At one time, God’s plan included frogs, fish, deer, raccoons, and hundreds of thousands of varieties of other animals and insects. Now every last calorie on the planet has been converted to human flesh, or at least to human interest. Why did God want all the diversity for millions of years before, if His plan is to have only humans and our genetically-modified “living” organisms now? How can something be “alive” if it was made by humans rather than by God? How can I call myself human when so much of me was manufactured?

On the roof

“You’ve been over here all alone for a couple hours, Eadie,” Dok said. “You all right?” The market had been closed and its stalls dismantled. A few windows showed slivers of lamplight but most were dark.

Eadie stared down at the street below without speaking. Two gangs, each with roughly twenty young white men, shouted insults and taunts from opposite curbs. Dok watched a while, then cleared his throat. “How long has that been going on?”

“Probably an hour.” Eadie’s voice was breathy and low.

“You sound exhausted, Eadie. You really should be resting now.”

“I told Kel my big secret—that I’m Golden. He didn’t give a shit.”

“Yeah. He’s so fiercely independent, I wouldn’t have expected him to fall into the mob mentality thing.”

She nodded. “He’s the most independent person I’ve ever known. With you and me it’s different. We have to be independent because there’s nobody to depend on. But he could have people, like these gang punks. They’d flock to someone like him, but he seems to just go his own way. I wonder how he’s still alive.”

“Sheer force of will, I’d guess.”

A few more young men joined one of the gangs below. Most carried weapons. Sticks, bricks, bottles and chains were everywhere. The shouts and taunts were getting louder.

“Eadie, I—“

She raised a palm at him, pointing down the adjacent street. There were five Hispanic kids moving cautiously up the street, straight toward the impending combat.

“What’s that? Another gang?” Dok’s voice was a hoarse whisper.

“Not much of a gang,” she said. They were closer now and it was clear: There were two teenagers, male and female, two younger boys that had to be eleven or twelve, and a very little girl who might have been six.

Dok pounded a fist silently against the top of the wall. “When they reach this corner they’ll be right in the middle of the fight. How did they wander this far from home? La Guada’s got to be more than thirty blocks from here.”

Eadie was focused intently on the group, as if her eyes could physically push the kids backward.

“We can’t even warn them,” Dok said. “If we shouted we’d be pointing out where they are. And the gangs would see us, too.”

The Latin kids were right below them now. The eldest male stopped to peer around the edge of the building, quickly pulling his head back and herding his group in the other direction.

Another small group of men appeared, emerging from behind a corner at the end of the block. “It’s a flanking maneuver,” Dok said. “The gang on the other side of the street put those guys in position to attack from the rear.”

“Mex! Mex!” one from the flanking party yelled.

“Look at that!” Dok said. “They don’t even care about flanking the other group now!”

Eadie stood rigid, staring. “Of course not. The other gang’s at least white. Now all the white guys have a common enemy.”

The gang that had almost been flanked moved away, entirely unmolested, from the adjacent street. They hung back as the rival gang swept forward to surround the Latinos.

“They’ll settle their differences after these kids are dead,” Dok hissed.

Kel came up. “What’re you pointin’ at?” He looked down into the street for a moment. “Mmm.”

The Hispanics were directly below Eadie and Dok now, trapped with their backs to the building by the mass of white kids. The older girl grabbed the younger girl, pushing her against the wall. The three boys fanned out around them with the eldest in front.

The white kids rushed them. The eldest Hispanic dodged a club, kicking its owner in the throat. The club fell to the concrete and he picked it up, handing it to one of the younger boys. He dodged a knife, twisting the wrist that held it and raising a knee. The knife hit the ground and he scooted it back to the other boy behind him. A chain nearly missed the eldest’s face. He wrapped it around his wrist and yanked it away.

Kel stared at the fight. “Damn, that one’s good.”

Eadie’s face looked hard and tight as she watched. “You don’t actually think they’ll win, do you?” she asked.

“Naw. Neither does he. See? He’s not tryin’ to win. Just takes out a knee, an elbow. Doesn’t take ’em out for real. Leaves ’em hurt enough one of the others might handle ’em. Dude’s gotta know he’s gonna die, though.”

“Eadie?” Dok said. “Eadie, what’re you doing?”

The stick had appeared in her hands. Dok put his hand on her shoulder. “Eadie—“

She flung his arm off with so much force he nearly lost his balance. “Eadie,” he said. “Look at me.”

She looked at him. A chill ran through Dok and he shuddered, almost staggering. He yielded, not realizing that he had stepped backward until she walked through the place he had been standing. She headed for the fire escape.