CHAPTER 16

A rush of cold air met Lexi outside, and she zipped up her jacket. The sun had sunk low. At night, Foundation’s club districts were bathed in neon radiance and the enclaves glowed like beacons, but this far out on the fringe, there was nothing to stop the streets being enfolded by gloom: a kind of darkness Lexi hadn’t really seen since her childhood.

Fortunately, her vision aug had kicked in, and she could see the street in shades of silver and gray. The trade-off was the pale white light that would now be shimmering across her irises. It tended to scare the shit out of people.

Isaac Landon Hill proved no exception.

“Fuck!” He fumbled for his pocket, apparently forgetting he’d handed his knife over to Amity, and pressed himself against Callie’s van.

“Relax, Hill. It’s just me and my sexy cybernetic eyes. What are you doing? I thought you were scared to be outside.”

“You was all fighting.” Isaac remained flattened against the van. “Didn’t want to be around trouble.”

Poor guy—his life had trained him to see danger in everything. Even two kittens quarreling in the street would probably have spooked him. “Don’t worry. This won’t affect you.”

“Did you break up with your girl? Riva?”

For some reason, the question left Lexi unutterably sad. “Maybe.”

“She looks at you all the time. Even when you don’t notice.”

No way to respond to that. Lexi joined Isaac beside the van, standing as near to him as his body odor permitted. “What’s your next step?” she said. “Score another hit?”

Isaac stared at his feet. “Didn’t think about that yet.”

“You want my advice, don’t skip out. They’re good people.”

“Skipping out is what you’re doing now, though.”

Perceptive for a junkie. “That’s different. I don’t need the help. Now get inside. If you’re not quick, Amity might not let you back in.”

“Which one’s Amity?”

“The blonde who looks like she’s digesting glass.”

“Oh.” Isaac shuffled to the door and looked back, his face half-concealed behind a lank curtain of hair. “She’s looking at you all the time too.”

He was gone before Lexi could think up a retort. She oriented herself, choosing as her landmark the fractured finger of a distant tower, and began walking. The pavement passed beneath her wandering feet as she fell into her stride.

Project Sky. It was nice to finally have a name. Calling it a suicide chip had always been too morbid, especially as touching another mind could often be an experience of overwhelming beauty. Those first few weeks, probing every person she met… God, what a trip it had been.

But it had become a burden too. Respect for privacy had been ingrained in her from childhood, and Lexi had soon decided not to abuse the chip. Outside of emergencies, she used it only against gangsters, who manipulated other people daily and fully deserved to be exploited in turn.

Still, sometimes people spilled, and she couldn’t help but read them. Riva was right to be afraid. Yet Lexi wanted nothing more than to make her feel safe. To be a comforting presence.

The contradiction hurt.

Fuck, it was dark. And freezing. What was she doing out here? This city was dead, and she was just another insect scuttling through its guts…

As a teenager, she’d listened to Kade and Ash discussing history, politics, and philosophy. Only one topic had interested Lexi: the queer movement, a rights crusade brutally crushed in the twilight of the twenty-first century. Ash and Kade had shown her videos and articles. She’d watched footage of marches, riots, speeches. Camps. Purges.

Queer. A word with tarnished origins as a slur, but unlike so many slurs, it had a meaning that a victim might wear with pride. Different. Strange. In this fucked-up world, who wouldn’t be proud to be either?

Ash had been obsessed with poverty, and Kade with eco-socialism, whatever the fuck that was. But as far as Lexi was concerned, the planet was already fucked, and its occupants had always been fucked. Humanity was taking its final ride on the blasted ball of rock it had screwed and wasted. What was there left to save?

Still, it would be better not to plunge into that abyss alone…

The shadows moved, and Lexi took a frantic swing. A hand caught her wrist. “Calm down,” said Amity. “I’ve broken enough arms for one day.”

“How did you know I was gone?”

With her imposing stance and physique, Amity was as intimidating on this abandoned road as any nocturnal thug might have been. “Isaac pointed me in the direction you’d fled. If he hadn’t, I suppose I might not have caught you in time.”

“The bastard sold me out.”

“More likely he saved your life.”

Their words, even spoken in murmurs, seemed far too loud in the hush of this shadowed street. Amity waited, her green eyes patient, while Lexi tried to regain control of her startled body. She took a deep breath. “Did he tell you what happened?”

“I know you’re running from Riva. Maybe you think it’s easier on her, but you’re wrong. She feels safer with you there. We all do. Even me.”

“You? I find that hard to believe.”

“I take comfort knowing I’m not watching over them alone.”

It suddenly seemed absurd to be standing enveloped in cold shadow, surrounded by streets as bleak and final as open graves. More absurd still to be away from their company. She missed Zeke’s carefree crudity, Riva’s shy demeanor and husky voice. She even missed Callie Roux, that frustrating creature of contradictions—sometimes a lively, dimpled imp, more often a pouting thing with dark, sorrowful eyes.

And Kade. That patient, articulate, forgiving son of a bitch.

“Take me back,” said Lexi. “I’m not sure where I’ve wandered to.”

“I can see that.” Amity took Lexi’s hand and squeezed it for a startling instant. “Don’t let me lose you again.”

* * *

Callie was sitting on her bunk, a pair of earbuds plugged into her head, a pillow held between her knees and chest. She looked up and plucked out an earbud, leaving it hanging. “You okay? I was wondering where you’d gotten to.”

“Just went for a piss.” Lexi kicked off her boots, flopped on her bunk and stared at the blotched ceiling. “Go back to your music.”

“I’d like to talk about it, though. About you and Riva.”

“You said it yourself. I don’t give a shit about her.”

“I was wrong then, and you’re lying now. I saw the look on your face when she ran out. It was all I could do to keep from crying.”

“Why do you care?” Lexi didn’t mean the remark with any cruelty—it genuinely made no sense. “All I’ve ever done is make you miserable.”

“Back at the junkyard, when she saw me trembling, the first thing she did was try to comfort me.” Callie hugged the pillow closer. “She’s so sweet and so lonely, and you were making her happy until now. That’s why I care.”

There was no way Lexi was going to let this feel-good moment punch through her darkness. “And I don’t make her happy anymore, so it’s up to you. Go visit her room, put on some bad music and grind on her for a while. I bet that’d cheer her right up.”

“No chance of that. She wouldn’t even let me talk to her. Told me she needed time. I felt so useless.”

“So? You’re a smuggler, not a therapist.”

Callie twisted the wire of an earbud around her index finger. Fidgety kid, always playing with something. “You’re really upset, aren’t you?”

“No. I’m a pitiless cyborg. All I feel is an urge to destroy humans.”

“She cooked me up some food earlier to test out the grill. It was amazing. The best meal of my life. And while I was eating, I caught her watching me, smiling, like she was so proud and happy to have fed me. It made me get this tight feeling right in the center of my chest. You feel that same way about her, admit it.”

Lexi sighed. “Here’s a little secret. I don’t take disappointment well, and that’s why I’m a colossal bitch. Not because I don’t care, but because it hurts too much when I do. Now you know.”

“We can still go talk to her. You and me. We can make it right.”

There was a soft rap at the door. Both Lexi and Callie sat up. “Come in,” said Lexi, her heartbeat gaining pace.

The door opened to reveal a subdued Riva. Streaks of mascara under her eyes suggested she’d been crying, and guilt washed over Lexi, leaving her insides unsettled and her mouth dry.

“Hey, guys,” Riva said. “I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

Callie’s cheeks dimpled. “Oh, chickadee. There’s nothing to say sorry for.”

Lexi patted the empty space beside her. “C’mon, get over here. Close that door behind you.”

As Riva crossed the room, Lexi looked into her eyes. Riva held her gaze. The relief that followed was as overwhelming as it was unexpected. Lexi hadn’t realized how much she’d feared losing that small intimacy. Nor had she anticipated how much it meant to be trusted.

“Don’t just stand there, Latour,” she said. “There’s plenty of room on this bed for that skinny body of yours.”

Riva reclined on the mattress. Lexi put an arm around her thin shoulders and drew her closer. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, babe.”

“I know,” said Riva. “But I was scared.”

Callie flopped to her belly, still clutching the pillow, and began to kick her legs. “I hope you’re feeling a little better now.”

Riva’s smile was forced—not even a flash of happiness in her pale eyes. For the second time, Lexi had put this woman through the wringer, and the thought of it sent a sharp pain through her throat and into her chest. “Callie,” she said. “Put some music on.”

“Music?” said Callie. “You mean the music you hate?”

“Yeah, put it on.”

Callie switched on her little portable stereo. Music poured out, an ear-melting deluge of sound.

“Riva,” said Lexi. “See that tin on the side-table?”

“Sure.” Riva reached for it. “Candies.”

“Callie found them down here. They’re a hundred years out of date.”

Riva laughed and unscrewed the lid. “Really?” She held a pastel-shaded sphere to the light. “Did either of you try one?”

“We weren’t brave enough,” Callie said. “It could mutate us.”

“Might be worth it,” said Lexi. “The things I could do with a third hand…”

Callie rolled to her back, becoming a dreamy sprawl of tanned limbs and auburn hair. “Then go ahead and try one of those nasty candies. Grow all the groping hands you need.”

Lexi took the candy from Riva’s fingers and placed it on the tip of her tongue. Completely tasteless. She sucked it into her mouth, rolled it over her teeth and spat it out again. “It’s like sucking on wax. Gross.”

“I can’t believe you did that,” said Riva. “That thing should be in a museum, not in a mouth.”

Callie grinned. “To be fair, Lexi’s mouth couldn’t get any dirtier.”

Lexi tossed the spit-soaked candy. Callie shrieked as it bounced against her cheek. “Lexi! That’s disgusting.”

“True,” said Lexi. “But it was a fantastic shot.”

Giggling, Riva laid her head upon Lexi’s shoulder, and Lexi tightened her hold on Riva’s waist. Their bodies fitted in such a way as to connect them shoulder, waist and hip, and the motion of Riva’s breath and the warmth of her skin quickly became so sensual—so comforting—that to be parted from her was as horrifying an idea as pulling back a blanket on a winter’s morning.

A guilty thought broke through Lexi’s contentment, and she peeked at Callie. There was enough envy in those lonely brown eyes to rouse even Lexi’s sympathy.

“I like this song,” said Lexi. “What’s it called?”

Callie perked up. “Burned by Injustice. The bass line is catchy, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah. I can’t make out what they’re singing, though. All that growling and screaming. Are there any lyrics?”

“Of course there are.” Callie deepened her voice to a ludicrous rasp. “Burned by injustice! You can’t trust us!”

Lexi raised both eyebrows. “That’s the chorus?”

“It’s the entire song. Those two lines, repeated over and over.”

Lexi laughed. There wasn’t a trace of tension left in her, not one nervous knot, not one lump of remorse. What a great fucking feeling that was.

“You might enjoy the rest of the album.” Callie sat cross-legged and beaming, her mood entirely transformed. “It’s awesome. Right, Riva?”

Riva gave another of her endearingly self-conscious giggles. “Right.”

“There’s this one track at the very end. It’s acoustic, which I usually don’t get into, but it has this amazing riff.” Callie strummed the air, humming what was presumably the amazing riff. “I’ll play it next.”

All it had taken to cheer Callie up was to bring her into the conversation. That was how friendless the poor kid felt. Living out on the edge of Foundation, staring at the badlands, believing she was forever alone…

“Tell us a story, Roux,” said Lexi, and Callie’s eyes lit up further. “What’s the furthest you’ve ever gone in that van of yours?”

“I went way up the coast once. Took me two weeks. Every morning, I stopped to recharge the batteries. I didn’t take the highway, just these old dirt roads cut through the rock. I’d look up each evening and see the silhouettes of coyotes on the cliffs.”

“Was it frightening?” said Riva. “Being so far out by yourself?”

“No, it was peaceful. Sometimes I’d be driving in the shadow of some canyon, and time would seem to stop around me. So silent, you can’t imagine it. There are places in Foundation where it’s almost dead quiet, but you can still hear those shut-in trucks, or a distant generator, or the factories way off. And out in the desert, the old farmland, you’ve got the buzzing of insects and the wind sifting the sand. But down in the canyons, the air is totally still. I’d stop the van and sit a while on some boulder, listening to my own breath.”

“Did you find any towns? Cities?”

“Lots, all swallowed up by dust. Sometimes I explore, but mostly I steer clear. You never know what you’ll disturb.” Callie twirled her hair, an absent mannerism that was quickly becoming familiar. “I thought the coast would be beautiful, but it wasn’t. It’s like a long, chalky graveyard.”

“Don’t get morbid,” said Lexi. “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Tell me about all the cool shit you’re going to do.”

“I’ve always wanted to fly a plane. That way, the mountains won’t stop me. Even the ocean won’t stop me.” Callie closed her eyes and smiled. “Everyone thinks I’m crazy for spending so much time in the wasteland. But until you’ve been out there, you’ve never seen the sky. Those ruined cities, they only make you think of death, but that sky…”

“Do you think you’ll ever go back?” said Riva.

“I hope so. I’d love to hold a girl while stretched out under that sky. Listening to her breath and mine, nothing in the world but the two of us.” Callie brushed her lashes—another familiar gesture. “I’m sorry. I’m such a baby sometimes.”

Before anyone could reply, the door shuddered beneath an inimitable barrage of knocks. “Come in, Amity,” said Lexi, and the door cracked open. “What’s up?”

“I have a call for Callie.” Amity opened the door wider, revealing the phone in her hand. “It’s from Blue.”