ricocheting from every corner, all the screams that Princess never uttered. There are fires licking like red laserlight.
She heaves herself to her feet and runs for the other room. She can see by the light of the burning bed. Daud is sprawled in a corner of the room, and parts of his body are open and other parts are on the walls. She is screaming for help, but alone she manages to get the burning bedding through the hole in the wall.
Outside, the hot tongues of morning are rising in the east. She thinks she can hear Daud call her name.
BODY NEEDING WORK?
WE DELIVER
The ambulance driver wants payment in advance, and she opens her portfolio by comp and transfers the stock without questioning the prices he gives her. Daud dies three times before the driver’s two assistants can get him out of the apartment, and each time they bring him back the prices go up. “You got the money, lady, and he’ll be fine,” the driver tells her. He looks at her nakedness with appreciative eyes. “All kinds of arrangements can be made,” he says.
Later, Sarah sits in the hospital room and watches the doctors work and is told their rates of payment. She will have to make plans to convert the endorphin quickly, within a few days. Machines attached to Daud hiss and thump. The police surround her and want to know why someone would fire a shaped charge at her apartment wall from the building across the street. She tells them she has no idea. They have a lot of questions, but that seems to be the most frequent. Eventually she puts her head in her hands and shakes her head; and they shuffle for a while and then leave.
She wishes she had the inhaler: she needs the bite of hardfire to keep herself alert, to keep her mind functioning. Thoughts hammer at her. If Cunningham’s people had been in her apartment, they would have known that she had slept in the back room, Daud in the front. They waited till the lights went down and she had the time to get to sleep, then fired with a weapon that would smash through the wall and scatter burning steel through the inside. They hadn’t trusted that she wouldn’t tell someone or that she wouldn’t try to use the pieces of knowledge she had gained as leverage for some shifty little dirtscheme of her own.
Who would I tell ? she wonders.
She remembers Cunningham at that last moment in the Plastic Girl, the sadness in him. He had known. Tried, in his way, to warn her. Perhaps the decision had not been his; perhaps it had been made over his objection. What did the Orbitals care for one more dirtgirl when they had already killed millions, and kept the rest alive only so long as they were useful currency?
The Hetman glides into the room on catlike feet. He wears a gold earring, and his wise, liquid eyes are surrounded by the spiderwebs of the old hustler’s dirtbound life. “I am sorry, mi hermana,” he says. “I had no indication it would come to this. I want you to understand.”
Sarah nods numbly. “I know, Michael.”
“I know people on the West Coast,” the Hetman says. “They will give you work there, until Cunningham and his people forget you exist.”
Sarah looks up at him for a moment, then looks at the bed and the humming, hissing machines. She shakes her head. “I can’t go, Michael,” she says.
“A bad mistake, Sarah.” Gently. “They will try again.”
Sarah makes no reply, feeling only the emptiness inside her, knowing the emptiness would never leave if she deserted Daud again. The Hetman stands for an uncomfortable moment, then is gone.
“I had the ticket,” Sarah whispers.
Outside she can see the mud boiling under the lunatic sun. All Earth’s soil, looking for their tickets, plugging into whatever can give them a fragment of their dream. All playing by someone else’s rules. Sarah has her ticket, but the rules have turned on her like a weasel, and she must shred the ticket and spread it on the street, spread it so she can watch the machines hum and hiss and keep
She heaves herself to her feet and runs for the other room. She can see by the light of the burning bed. Daud is sprawled in a corner of the room, and parts of his body are open and other parts are on the walls. She is screaming for help, but alone she manages to get the burning bedding through the hole in the wall.
Outside, the hot tongues of morning are rising in the east. She thinks she can hear Daud call her name.
BODY NEEDING WORK?
WE DELIVER
The ambulance driver wants payment in advance, and she opens her portfolio by comp and transfers the stock without questioning the prices he gives her. Daud dies three times before the driver’s two assistants can get him out of the apartment, and each time they bring him back the prices go up. “You got the money, lady, and he’ll be fine,” the driver tells her. He looks at her nakedness with appreciative eyes. “All kinds of arrangements can be made,” he says.
Later, Sarah sits in the hospital room and watches the doctors work and is told their rates of payment. She will have to make plans to convert the endorphin quickly, within a few days. Machines attached to Daud hiss and thump. The police surround her and want to know why someone would fire a shaped charge at her apartment wall from the building across the street. She tells them she has no idea. They have a lot of questions, but that seems to be the most frequent. Eventually she puts her head in her hands and shakes her head; and they shuffle for a while and then leave.
She wishes she had the inhaler: she needs the bite of hardfire to keep herself alert, to keep her mind functioning. Thoughts hammer at her. If Cunningham’s people had been in her apartment, they would have known that she had slept in the back room, Daud in the front. They waited till the lights went down and she had the time to get to sleep, then fired with a weapon that would smash through the wall and scatter burning steel through the inside. They hadn’t trusted that she wouldn’t tell someone or that she wouldn’t try to use the pieces of knowledge she had gained as leverage for some shifty little dirtscheme of her own.
Who would I tell ? she wonders.
She remembers Cunningham at that last moment in the Plastic Girl, the sadness in him. He had known. Tried, in his way, to warn her. Perhaps the decision had not been his; perhaps it had been made over his objection. What did the Orbitals care for one more dirtgirl when they had already killed millions, and kept the rest alive only so long as they were useful currency?
The Hetman glides into the room on catlike feet. He wears a gold earring, and his wise, liquid eyes are surrounded by the spiderwebs of the old hustler’s dirtbound life. “I am sorry, mi hermana,” he says. “I had no indication it would come to this. I want you to understand.”
Sarah nods numbly. “I know, Michael.”
“I know people on the West Coast,” the Hetman says. “They will give you work there, until Cunningham and his people forget you exist.”
Sarah looks up at him for a moment, then looks at the bed and the humming, hissing machines. She shakes her head. “I can’t go, Michael,” she says.
“A bad mistake, Sarah.” Gently. “They will try again.”
Sarah makes no reply, feeling only the emptiness inside her, knowing the emptiness would never leave if she deserted Daud again. The Hetman stands for an uncomfortable moment, then is gone.
“I had the ticket,” Sarah whispers.
Outside she can see the mud boiling under the lunatic sun. All Earth’s soil, looking for their tickets, plugging into whatever can give them a fragment of their dream. All playing by someone else’s rules. Sarah has her ticket, but the rules have turned on her like a weasel, and she must shred the ticket and spread it on the street, spread it so she can watch the machines hum and hiss and keep
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