EXCERPT
Chapter 3
I wander through Montevideo’s broken
industrial district for an hour before I find the next station, a warehouse
several blocks from the canal’s edge. Headquarters for Lee Chou. Montevideo was once a thriving metropolis,
even after Ruĝa Morto, but now, ruined by rising sea levels and neglect, it’s
practically abandoned. Every building looks the same: Corrugated siding,
graffiti, warnings against trespassing, Closed
by OnyxCorp Authority in a variety of languages and symbols. As I pick
my way through the crumbling streets and refuse, I notice a few stubborn
residents peeking from makeshift doors and windows in rusting cargo containers.
I give one or two a nod, prompting them to disappear without a word.
Every Dua child knows the name Lee
Chou. Tales about unfortunate Dua children have the same moral: Always obey Authority, or Chou will take
you. Follow the curfew, or Chou will get you. Never upset a human, or Chou will
snatch you up. Chou’s reputation as a smuggler and ruthless killer is
fueled by his association with OnyxCorp, which has relied for decades on his
services. The remnants of outdoor enclosures surrounded by chain-link fencing
are scattered throughout the district. Those enclosures are empty now, but over
the decades they’ve confined thousands of Dua, bound for workstations across
the globe, on the Vine, on the moon.
Why would Mama send me here,
straight to the boogeyman’s lair? I can’t begin to guess. You will find Lee Chou in Montevideo. Then you will know what to do
next. Typically cryptic, but it’s the only thing I have to go on if I’m to
make my way to the Vine.
This building is much like the
others, save for a bright green door and the human male perched on a metal
chair to the door’s left. The back of his bald head rests against the building’s
metal siding, and his arms hang loosely at his sides. A weapon of some kind
lies across his lap. His face is leathered by UV exposure. He lets out a
rumbling snore as I approach.
Unimpressive so far, but I’m not
keen on startling him and getting blasted with whatever weapon he has. I stop
several meters away and clear my throat. Nothing. I take a few more steps
forward and kick a piece of metal siding lying on the ground as hard as I can,
sending it sailing into a pile of similar metal debris.
The man leaps, knocks the chair
over, and sends the weapon flying to land at my feet. I bend, retrieve the
weapon, and rise.
“I’m here to see Chou.”
The man shifts from his left foot to
his right. “Now, listen, man. I don’t want any trouble.” His voice is a whisper,
and when he glances nervously back toward the green door for a third time, I
realize why.
“You were asleep on the job.” I
switch the weight of the weapon to my left hand and let it hang, barrel down.
“Frank?” A voice comes from a
speaker hanging above the green door. I glance up, noticing the imager. I wave
at it with my right hand.
The man, the Frank in question,
takes a step toward me. “Look here, NiCIe—” He cuts off when he sees my
expression. “No offense, man, just…give me back the gun.”
“Frank!” The voice is loud and sharp
enough this time to echo through the alley. “Get your ass to the comm!”
Frank gives me a grave look and
backs away toward the door. Without taking his eyes from me, he reaches out,
fumbles for several seconds, and finally manages to locate the comm panel next
to the green door. “Uh, hi. Everything’s ok—”
“Like hell.”
“Well, uh, there’s a, a NiCIe out
here—”
“I can see that. Goddamit, Frank.
One job.” Frank glares at me reproachfully, and I shrug as I adjust the gun in
both hands. “Bring him in.”
There’s a soft ping, and the bright
green door swings open. Frank motions for me to follow him, stops just at the
threshold. “Can I at least have my gun back?”
“Let’s see how this goes.”
Grumbling, he shuffles into the
building. I follow him, ducking slightly to miss the lintel, and am plunged
into sudden darkness.
A hand grabs my left arm and
grapples with the weapon as I am pulled through the gloom. I can make out
darkened figures, and as my eyes adjust, I see a narrow hallway ahead with a
long series of closed doors on either side, a soft glow pooling beneath them.
Ceiling lights blink and buzz, casting eerie shadows across the walls and
floor. Frank gives a final jerk and lets out a frustrated grunt when he fails
to dislodge the weapon.
“He has my gun, Raj,” he says.
“We know.” Another figure emerges
from the gloom, a large human male, his face covered in a grizzly beard. He’s
holding a weapon as well, leveling it steadily at my chest. “What you want,
NiCIe?”
I hold my arms out at my sides, the
shotgun firmly in my grip. “Here to see Chou.”
“He’s wacked out, Raj. Just walked
right up, like the place belongs to him.”
“You wacked out, NiCIe?” Raj’s face
glistens. He’s missing a front tooth.
“I don’t think so.” I nod to the gun
in Raj’s beefy hands. “Why don’t we let Chou decide?”
Raj blinks, narrows his eyes. He
lowers the gun slightly. “You’re different, that’s for sure.” He jerks his head
toward the corridor. “Follow me. Don’t touch anything.”
“He has my gun, Raj.” Frank trots
behind us as Raj escorts me down the corridor to a door at the far end.
“We know, Frank.” Raj clears his
throat. “Stand there,” he says, indicating the wall across from the door. I
back up as he puts his hand against a wall scanner. The door clicks open.
Sudden light tears through my eyes.
Frank, or maybe it was Raj, shoves
me into the blinding room.
“Identify yourself!”
I blink rapidly as a human female
comes into focus, short, not much taller than a Dua child. Her right hand holds
a stunstic, pointed straight up at my head. On her left thigh is a holstered
electristic; her hand hovers over its stock expectantly.
“Who are you?” The woman’s grey hair
is pulled back in a sleek ponytail, and she pushes her lips together in a
small, thin line. She runs her eyes up and down the length of my body, and
their implants flash briefly as they catch the light.
“My name is Caen.”
“And just what the hell are you
doing here, Caen?”
“I’m looking for Lee Chou.” She narrows
her eyes and presses her wrinkled lips together in a frown. “Word is Chou can
get me to Buenos Aires.”
She takes more careful aim with the
stunstic. “The maglev can get you to Buenos Aires. The tunnel can get you to
Buenos Aires. You don’t need Lee Chou to get to Buenos Aires.”
“Not without attracting Authority
attention.”
Her hand moves to the electristic.
“Who sent you here?”
I take a deep breath. “Lenore.”
A wave of confusion moves over her
brown-skinned face. “Lenore?”
“My mother.” I swallow down the lump
that’s suddenly formed in the back of my throat. “She says Lee Chou is the best
forger in SoAm.” The room behind the woman comes into focus now. It is bright,
airy even. Not at all what I would expect in this desolate place, in this
crumbling building. “Is he here?”
The two henchmen behind me chuckle.
The corners of the woman’s mouth turn up slightly, but she doesn’t lower the
weapon. “Ah, yes, the infamous smuggler Chou, responsible for millions of NiCIe
children disappearing from their beds and forced into slave labor. That Lee
Chou? Why would your mother send you to O
Diabo?”
“I’m wondering the same thing
myself.” I try to smile.
The woman regards me for a few
seconds more over the stunstic’s barrel. Slowly, she lowers her arm. “How is
your mother, Lenore?”
“She’s dead.” I’m surprised to see
shock and dismay pass over her face.
“So that’s why we haven’t heard from
the Paysandú station,” Raj says quietly behind me.
The woman shakes her head as she
cuts him a glance. “You’re Lenore’s Earth child?”
“I have a sister—” Then I realize what she’s
just said. “Earth child?”
The woman closes the distance
between us in a few steps. Her eye implants engage in soft flashes of light as
she scans me up close. “Hm. Perhaps.” She steps back, holsters the stunstic on
her right thigh. “It took my father years to develop his reputation for
ruthless NiCIe hunting. A reputation that is supposed to keep nosy people from
poking around here. Lee Chou is dead. I am now Lee Chou.” She waves at the two
men. “I’ll take it from here.”
“He has my gun,” Frank says.
“So he does. You gonna take it from
him?”
Frank gives me a seething glance.
“He’s bigger than I am,” he says
sullenly.
“Raj, take Frank out to the yard and
show him how to do his job. Again. You can have your gun back,” she says, “when
Raj says you can. Out.”
“Come on, kid,” Raj says, tugging at
Frank’s arm. Frank casts one more angry look my way before he disappears into
the corridor outside.
“I’d appreciate your putting that
away,” Chou says, indicating the weapon I’m still gripping in my left hand. “I
doubt you’d need it anyway, right?”
I sling the weapon over my shoulder.
Turning to face Chou, I clear my throat. “So, can you get me to the coast,
undetected?”
She narrows her eyes. “I offer my
services for the right price, and to the right people.”
“What’s your price?”
“I don’t think you’re the right
people.”
“What’s your price?”
She places her hands on her hips.
“Six thousand credits.”
“I’ll give you four.”
“For four, I can get you within five
miles of the coast. I trust you can swim.”
“My mother implied there was a debt owed her.”
Chou reacts as if she’s been struck
across the face. “There is,” she says slowly. “Why would you want to go to
Buenos Aires? If you aren’t registered, you won’t be able to get work, or food,
or shelter—”
“I need to get to the Vine.”
Chou scoffs. “I can’t get you to the
space elevator. It’s out of the question.”
“But you know someone in Buenos
Aires who can.”
She frowns. “I haven’t spoken to
that asshole in four years.”
“But you do know the Captain.”
“Captain
my ass,” she mumbles. “You’re better swimming to the Vine. His isn’t the most
reliable station, you know.” She sighs, then motions for me to follow her to a
small circular table piled with flexscreens. The room is spacious and neat,
with wallscreens covering the room floor to ceiling, projecting scenes of old
Earth. An old NutriPrint model stands in a corner next to a modified
Re-Claimer, obviously a knock-off from a now-defunct OnyxCorp competitor. Chou
picks up a flexscreen. As it comes to life, she clears a space on the table,
puts it down, and stretches it by the corners until it is about a meter square.
“Captain
Abebe was here last time I checked.” There’s a trace of bitter sarcasm in her
voice. She points to an area southeast of the city labeled Ensenada. “Here isn’t anywhere anymore...Ensenada, La Plata, the
Canal...it’s all abandoned.” She pushes out with her fingers to zoom in. “I can get you here, the mouth of the Canal,
but I won’t go further. You’ll have to make your way to this location on foot.”
She touches a square on the grid that features dilapidated warehouses and
housing units next to the Arroyo del Saladero; the location glows a soft
orange. She touches the corner of the flexscreen, and it snaps into its
original size. She hands it to me, and I roll it into a small cylinder, fitting
it neatly inside an inner pocket of my tattered jacket. “The Corporation is
everywhere over there, even in the abandoned sections. There are bound to be
drones and maybe even an old Authority model for good measure. If you get past
them, you must deal with Abebe, who trusts absolutely no one. Especially me.”
“Should I mention you at all?”
“I’d
like to see the look on his face when he hears my name. That would be worth
losing 6000 credits alone.”
