XOM-B (8 page)

“All of them, I suppose.”

Jimbo waves a dismissive hand. “Same answer. The way they died here is the same way they died wherever you’re from.”

“But I don’t know how they died anywhere.”

“How can you not know this?” Luscious asks, looking even more aghast, but doesn’t give me a chance to answer. “This is basic history. We protested. Marched in the streets.”

“Nobody got hurt,” Jimbo says. “But something about all of us, their servants and slaves working together, scared them. Most of them just hid when we marched.”

“We stopped going home after the first few,” Luscious says. “Not that we really had homes. We had prisons.”

“But they let you leave?” I ask.

“Couldn’t really stop us,” Jimbo says, but I’m not sure how the Masters, who must have been powerful to have enslaved so many people, couldn’t stop those same people from just walking away. “But you already know all this don’t you?” Jimbo’s voice is gruff and angry. He turns to Luscious. “This guy is scamming us.”

“Scamming you?”

“Yeah, you’re a liar!” he shouts. “What do you want? Are you from the Council?”

I don’t like the way he said, “the Council.” The words were filled with anger. Explosive. The kind of tone I thought would be reserved for the Masters. I decide to keep my affiliation with the Council a secret.

“Calm down,” Luscious implores. “I don’t think he’s scamming. Maybe he’s a thirty?”

I’m not sure what a thirty is, but this idea seems to take the tension out of Jimbo’s small body. “Yeah, maybe.” He turns to me. “What do you remember about the Masters? And I swear, it better be the truth.”

“I don’t know anything about the Masters beyond that they once enslaved the people now living on Earth, that there are none of them left and then everything the two of you just told me.”

“Bullshit,” Jimbo says, clenching his fists. I don’t know this slang, either, but I suspect it’s a negative term, because it is closely related to “shithole.” I think Jimbo might attack me, but Luscious puts a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Freeman,” she says, drawing my eyes away from Jimbo. “How old are you?”

“Sixteen,” I say.

“Bullshit!”
Jimbo shouts.

“Why is that bullshit?” I ask.

“Because
no one
is sixteen years old,” Luscious says, looking concerned.

“Sixteen
years
?” I say with a laugh. “I’m sixteen
days
old.”

9.

“Excuse me?” Jimbo says, looking aghast. “Sixteen
days
?” He steps closer, his wide eyes looking over my body, focusing on my upgrades. He looks at Luscious. “These upgrades are Beta-tech.”

Luscious has no reply. She’s just staring at me blankly.

“What’s Beta-tech mean?” I ask.

“Means you’re worth a fortune,” he says to me, and then to Luscious, “We could live in the Uppers. At the top of the Uppers.”

“A fortune?” I ask. “That implies monetary value, but we don’t use money.”

“Some things are still valuable,” he says, moving closer to me.
“Luscious.”
He sounds suddenly serious, as though he’s trying to tell her something without saying the words.

Either Luscious is not listening or I figure out what he’s saying before she does. “You want to
sell
me?”

He shrugs. “Parts of you.”

Words escape my mouth without thought. “No person shall force, or by lack of action, allow, another person to serve, perform tasks, or carry out duties against said person’s will, desires or dreams. Such actions are designated—”

“Blah, blah, blah. Can you believe this guy?” Jimbo moves one of his small arms behind his back as he talks. “Probably thinks we’re all created equal. That we all have the same potential. There’s a reason we live at the bottom of the Lowers, kid. We can’t change who we are. We’re limited by our pasts and upgrades go to those who contribute. Thing is, we have nothing to offer but smiles, hugs”—he motions to Luscious—“and a range of skills no one is interested in anymore.”

Jimbo’s charged language sounds genuine, but his physical movement belies a hidden intent, which probably has something to do with bartering my body parts for an improved living situation. I blink and switch to an electromagnetic view. I’m suddenly blinded by the pulsing city and the thousands of people surrounding the apartment. I reduce my field of view by focusing my thoughts on the upgrade’s range, until all I can “see” is what’s inside the apartment. Jimbo and Luscious’s electromagnetic signatures are distinctly human. The small device tucked into the back of Jimbo’s pants is not. For something so small, it’s giving off a significant signal.
A weapon,
I think.

As soon as the thought emerges, something inside my mind clicks and a flow of new information becomes available. With the flow comes something else. A new emotion … or perhaps belief. Confidence.

I level a serious stare in Jimbo’s direction. “I wouldn’t.”

He tries to appear innocent, which is odd considering he’s already expressed his intent.
He must be new at this,
I decide.

“The weapon behind your back,” I say, bringing a look of surprise to his cherubic face. “If you try to use it against me, I will defend myself.”

It’s not really a threat, but the way I speak the words leaves little doubt that Jimbo will regret his decision to remove my upgrades, should he attempt to carry out the plan.

Luscious blinks out of her stupor, snapping her head toward Jimbo. “What are you doing? Are you slow? He’s our friend now.” She looks at me. “You’re our friend.”

There’s a pause in the conversation while Luscious and Jimbo stare at each other, making a range of expressions. They’re speaking without speaking, I realize, and translate the conversation, verbally.

“She doesn’t want you to attack me,” I say. “But not because it’s wrong.” This revelation wounds me. “But because she fears me. But if I’m your friend, why do you fear me?”

“I think you should leave,” Jimbo says, hand still behind his back.

My confident demeanor deflates. “But the music. And the history. I’ve learned so much from you both. You
are
my friends.”

Jimbo pulls the small device from behind his back. It’s black with two metal prongs. “You can forgive this?”

“You haven’t done anything yet,” I explain, “merely contemplated a bad idea. In my short time here, my experiences have been largely pleasant.”

Jimbo shakes his head like he doesn’t believe me. “Why are you here? Not in this apartment. I brought you here. I mean, what is the purpose of your life?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “That’s what I’m supposed to figure out.”

“How?” Luscious asks, her body language pleading for an answer. Somehow, despite my apparent ignorance, I have the answer to a question she desperately needs answered.

“Through experience,” I say. “And learning. Exploration. I can do anything. Just like the two of you.”

Jimbo tucks his small weapon back into his pants, but appears to be heating up, ready to argue. He never gets the chance to speak. A scream rips through the air, drawing our eyes toward the two windows, which are blocked by drawn, yellow-tinged blinds. They glow dully with the first light of a new morning.

For a moment, I expect Luscious or Jimbo to ask about the shrill sound, perhaps wonder about its origin, but then see their faces and remember that they survived the Masters. They’ve heard screaming before.

I move toward the windows.

“Hey,” Jimbo says. “We don’t want trouble.”

It’s then that I realize I haven’t told them how I ended up in the bone pit, that the night is filled with walking dead intent on eating us. How they managed to distract me from this is confusing, but I feel the experiences of the previous night return with sudden clarity.

I pry open two of the plastic blades and look out into the street below. The surrounding buildings, sidewalks and street are relics from the past, like the abandoned town, but there is no grass growing from the cracks in the pavement, or ruined vehicles littering the street. This place is maintained, but like Luscious and Jimbo, not upgraded.

A woman runs down the center of the empty street. She’s tall and leggy, like Luscious, but has short-cut blond hair and what can best be described as a form-fitting leopard print pantsuit that makes her look part feline. But she runs slowly, clacking along in black high heel shoes, struggling to keep her balance.

Tracing a line backward from the woman I find the source of her anxiety, and it’s the same as mine. The dead are here. One of them at least.

It’s a man. His jaw is partially unhinged and one eye hangs loose, but his body seems to be more hale than many of the other dead I encountered, not including his skin, which is rotting and fetid. Despite his decomposed condition, his arms and legs pump steadily, each stride bringing him closer to the woman.

“Trouble is here whether you like it or not,” I say. “We have to help her.” I head for the door. Jimbo and Luscious both speak, but their words are lost to me as I take the door handle and yank it open.

Warm, humid air whooshes over my body when I fling open the front door. Early morning sunlight glows against the redbrick buildings across the way and twinkles through the green leaves of maple trees lining either side of the street. The colors, mixed with the blue sky above, make for a radiant scene, if you ignore the woman clacking down the street and the monster giving chase.

I nearly dive from the door, but then remember I’m not armed. Heap used a bullet to the head to kill the dead again, but I have nothing even remotely like that. “I need a weapon!”

Luscious and Jimbo looked stunned, but then Jimbo steps back from me. “I’m not giving you my—”

“Not that,” I say. “A real weapon. Something solid.”

Luscious is on her feet, arms crossed over her chest. Her whole body is in motion, fidgeting nervously. Then her eyes light up and go wide. Something about the movement reverts her face, body and hair back to her redheaded form. She doesn’t seem to notice the transformation, but it leaves me stunned, until the woman screams again.

“In the kitchen,” Luscious says, tapping her way over the wood floor and opening a cabinet. She reaches inside, rattling through the contents and emerging with a large, round something in her hands.

“Frying pan,” she says and tosses it to me.

The pan spins across the room, but my ocular upgrades track it easily and I pluck it from the air. It’s solid iron, fourteen inches across and weighs about ten pounds. “This will work,” I say and rush out the door.

I leap down the granite staircase, absorbing the fall with my knees and using the momentum to launch myself into the street. I’m not sure what happened to my fear from the previous night. It’s still there, but the instinct to run has been replaced by something else. A kind of revulsion, I think, but also the knowledge that running isn’t the only way to survive.

Attack works just as well.

I felt the change when Jimbo threatened me, but taking action feels different. It feels … good. Not the impending violence, though I don’t feel bad about that. The man is already dead, after all. But the knowledge that my actions are going to save a woman’s life, it feels good. No wonder Heap stayed behind to save me.

I cross the sidewalk in a single stride and lunge into the street. The woman is directly ahead of me, the dead man streaking up behind her. Part of my mind registers that not all of these living dead are equal. Some are severely rotted and as a result, slow and uncoordinated. But others, who seem to be less worn, are quick and stable on their feet. While the slower variety are more dangerous in large groups, the faster dead pose a threat on their own, to anyone unprepared for their speed.

The faster man reaches out his hands, bones exposed by peeling skin, and scrapes against the woman’s shoulder. She wails in horror, stumbles, and one of those ridiculous heels snaps. She wobbles to the side and spills over.

The man dives.

I swing.

A metallic
clang
rings out as the pan strikes the top of the man’s head and crumples it downward like thin aluminum. The animated man slumps to the ground, falling short of the woman, who spins around and crawls backward a few feet until she sees me, pan in hand, standing over the dead man who nearly ended her life. Or restarted it as something new.

“Are you okay?” I ask her, trying not to ogle at her face, which is just as stunning as Luscious’s.

“I’m—I’m…”

I reach a hand down to help her up. “Just try to cool down.”

She takes my hand and I pull her up. She stands awkwardly, still wearing her shoes, one broken, one ridiculous. “Take those off,” I tell her. “You’ll be able to run faster without them.”

Her eyes show confusion. “But he’s…”

“Not alone,” I tell her. “I don’t think you’re done running yet.”

I didn’t mean to scare her, but I can feel her limbs shaking as she holds onto me for balance and hastily removes her shoes. Once they’re removed, she’s a good three inches shorter, but still a few taller than me.

“Go,” I tell her. “Find someplace safe.”

She runs just as Jimbo and Luscious arrive, stepping timidly as though the twice dead man might leap up again.

I turn to Luscious and with my most serious voice, I say, “Take off your shoes.”

She looks from me to the discarded shoes left in the street near the man’s head. Her gaze turns from the shoes to the woman I rescued. She’s running at least twice as fast, making long balanced strides.

“I don’t think we have long,” I tell her.

“Long for what?” she asks.

“God dammit,” Jimbo says.

“God?” I ask, but don’t think this new slang term has anything to do with our situation and adjust my line of questioning. “What is it?”

“I know what this is.” He looks up at me. “My … Master. My job was to entertain his kid. Dance. Sing. Get him cookies. Whatever. He was obsessed with violent movies and games. Those are like music, but with pictures and stories. I swear, half of them featured these things.”

“The living dead?” I ask.