Daylight Runner (11 page)

I
T WAS THE WEEKEND
after Sol Wheat had gone missing, and Cleo was holding a party. Their class's high spirits were not a poor reflection on Sol's popularity; in fact, his street-cred had taken a substantial leap upward since his disappearance. Where once he had been a surly loner with no real friends, now he was a fugitive on the run from the law. But the party, despite being named after him, was more for the benefit of his peers. Cleo took party themes seriously; she considered them a vital element in maintaining her sanity.

Living in a city surrounded by crater walls and roofed with a dome, teenagers faced a life that offered no wider horizons, no travel, no escape from life in the Machine. They all feared the onset of the dreary life of drudgery that
would begin as soon as they left school—unless they happened to be among the lucky few who would get a few years' postponement in college. Cleo was certain that this was their most important time, before they were dragged into that abyss of work and routine. It was their only chance to be themselves with all their might.

Wild parties were a citywide phenomenon, a natural reaction to a life where people's very survival depended on the bulk of their species getting up and going to work every day. But Cleo knew that even parties could become routine. If their celebrations every week were reduced to getting drunk and falling home in a near stupor, they would cease to serve their therapeutic purpose. So she tried to give each party an identity. This way, whenever they were telling their post-party stories, the event under discussion could be referred to by name—like when Faisal had accidentally hooked up with a transvestite at the “Suicidal Student Teacher Party,” or the time Amanda had thrown a full punch bowl over the head of that guy who had called her a slut at the “Ten Days of Darkness Party.” Great times.

This was the “Where's Sol? Party.” Everyone had to bring a means of finding Sol. People came with binoculars, or a magnifying glass, or a web-search list of ratting dens. Amanda had even brought a disc of late-twentieth-century boxing matches to see if Sol had somehow traveled back in time and was in the audience. With the rest
of the Matsumura family away visiting relatives, Cleo had provided the venue—the roof of her apartment block—and some stem soup with boxing-glove-shaped croutons. Enough of that and anybody who really wanted to see Sol probably would. Most people brought gulp as well; the mixture of the two drugs could very well stop them from being able to see
anyone
ever again.

Having finished playing a good session with the rest of the band, Cleo and the other members of Freak Soup had handed over to another local group, and she had immersed herself in a very drunk conversation with Ubertino. Dressed in a singlet and baggy trousers, with her hair hanging loose and her feet bare, she was sitting with her legs dangling off the ledge of the roof while he sat with his back to the dizzying view, huddled in the folds of his long khaki trench coat.

“That's exactly right!” she declared over the music, jabbing his leg hard to make her point. “That's exactly right! Exactly! Iced Breeze has never, ever had anything to say with their music. That's why the damn Internal…whassernames—”

“Climate,” Ube supplied.

“Freakin' Internal Climate want them. Because they're no
threat
. We're a threat. They're scared of us—of anyone with attitude! If Freak Soup got up on that stage, we'd wipe the…the…the—”

“Floor.”

“The floor. We'd wipe the floor with those snot-nosed, boy-band posers. I mean, what do they even sing about? Love? Heartache songs? What do they know about heartache? They're fourteen! It's like toddlers moaning about puberty!”

Ube exploded into laughter just as he was going to take a sip of his drink. It splashed over his face, and he wiped it away with his sleeve, grinning. She stared at him with her hazel Asian eyes and giggled. She loved it when it was like this. If he wasn't more into boys, she'd have dragged Ube off to the dark end of the roof any number of times. But this was great, the way they were.

“That's right!” He nodded, turning serious. “We sing about stuff that affects people. Real stuff.
That's
what we're about. About
life
.”

“Right!” Cleo jabbed his leg again.

Ube was sure there would be a bruise on his thigh in the morning. He moved it a little farther away, because she was only getting into her stride.

“We're a voice of the people! And if Internal Climate doesn't want some conflict…Well, they're goin' to get it! We pay them to provide us with a service, and then they sell us a line about how we should be grateful for them, and they try telling us how we're supposed to live our lives, just 'cos…'cos…'cos…”

“Just 'cos they
own
everything.”

“Right! This is a democracy, and just 'cos they own
everything in this whole damn city doesn't mean they can own people! And they sure as hell can't own
me
right? And they can't tell me what to play or what not to sing or…or…or…tell my band that we can't play at our own end-of-year ball! I'm not freakin' standin' for it!”

“That's it!” Ube yelled. “You're right! So what are we goin' to do about it?”

They gazed at each other for a few moments.

“I don't know,” Cleo said, feeling suddenly exhausted. “I'm getting another drink. Want one?”

 

Cleo was on her knees, praying to the porcelain god, and swearing that she would never drink again. As she threw up the last of the contents of her stomach, she tried to calm down, and lifted her head out of the toilet bowl. A sudden gag caught her by surprise, but there was nothing more coming out, so she closed the lid, flushed, and sat down wearily on the seat.

“Oh, God,” she muttered for the fifth or sixth time.

It was after four in the morning, and she should have been comatose in bed, but she had been tormented by a nightmare about the man she had pushed off the ventilation duct, the one she had seen dumping the body. The mixture of guilt, drugs, and alcohol had woken her from her sleep and sent her running to the toilet to be sick. As a result, she was suffering the initial offensive of her weekly hangover before she had enjoyed the benefit of a
morning's sleep. Drinking just wasn't worth this. She stood up instead and looked in the mirror. She was looking pale and haggard. To hell with it, she decided. If you couldn't do parties, what was the point of looking good?

A sound in the darkness of the empty apartment beyond the bathroom door turned her head, and she stood silently, her keen ears searching where her eyes could not. A door squeaked quietly: the living room door. Her mind was back in the gloom of the lower levels, being hunted by nameless armed men with guns. Her breath caught in her chest, and she looked around quickly for some kind of weapon. Her pepper spray was in her bedroom. Casting her eyes over the contents of the bathroom, she found her father's straight razor. She would have preferred something with more reach, but it would have to do.

Opening the blade, she crept out of the bathroom and along the hallway toward the living room. The smart thing to do would have been to hide and wait for them to go away—she was too hungover to be taking on intruders—but her instinct told her that they wouldn't be going away until they found her. Cleo gritted her teeth and kept walking, sure that it would be better to attack than be caught in a corner.

She passed the front door. It was still locked, and showed no signs of being forced. All their windows had bars that they closed at night. Whoever it was had no problem with locks. Holding the razor out in front of her
in tightly gripped, trembling hands, she advanced toward the living room door. There was no sound from the room, but the door was wide open. She jabbed around the door frame with the blade, and then jumped into the room, brandishing the weapon. But the place was empty.

An arm came from behind her, and a hand clamped over her mouth. She let out a muffled scream and slashed at the hand with her blade. It cut through her attacker's sleeve and drew blood.

“Ahh! Damn it, Cleo!” the assailant yelped.

He let her go, and she spun around to see a guy with a butchered haircut and bruises around his eyes standing behind her. He had come in after her, obviously from one of the other rooms. Still gripping the weapon, she squinted in the gloom.

“Sol?”

“Yeah.” He winced, tenderly peeling back his sleeve and pressing his hand to the shallow wound. “Sorry. I just didn't want you to scream, that's all.”

“Then why didn't you just say ‘Don't scream,' you freakin' idiot?” she hissed at him. “You scared the crap out of me! What the hell are you doing in my apartment in the middle of the night? How did you get in?”

“I'll fill you in on everything, all right? But I need to bandage this up with something. And don't turn on any lights—they might be watching the front of the building.”

There was a first-aid kit in the kitchen, and Cleo, vet
eran of a thousand parties, was well used to patching up minor injuries. It was only a shallow cut, nothing serious.

Despite her burgeoning headache, she put on the stereo, but with the volume turned down. Her body did not function properly without musical accompaniment. While she worked, Sol told her what had happened to him the day of the funeral.

“Holy crap.” She shook her head. “This…this is a lot to take in. So where is this guy Maslow now?” she asked.

“He's the shy type, doesn't like showing his face much. Thinks I shouldn't have come here at all. I have to meet him back on the roof. That's the way we came in. I got right in your front door; he showed me how to work locks.”

“If some hoods kidnapped you and…and went to torture you, I mean, that's pretty illegal, right? Just go to the police.”

“Maslow says a lot of the police are in on it. It's not safe.”

“In on
what
? What's goin' on?” It was all fascinating stuff, but Cleo couldn't take her eyes off the top of Sol's head. “You make it sound like there's a big conspiracy—”

“There
is
some kind of conspiracy. I just don't know what. Maslow doesn't talk much, but I know he's the one who gave me the gun—”

“What gun?”

He took it from his pocket and showed her.

“Jesus, Sol. That looks real!”

“It
is
real. Anyway…” He paused. “What? Why do you keep looking at my head?”

“Well, it's your hair, honey. It's just not right. Did you do that yourself?” She was trying not to smile.

“Yeah. What about it?” he snapped defensively.

She glanced at the razor on the kitchen counter. “I think you better let me finish it off for you.”

His attempt to shave his head had not gone well, and nearly a week's growth had made it worse. Patches of stubble and fluff stuck out over the top and back of his head, where he couldn't see it from the front.

“You look like crap,” she told him.

“Ah, damn.” He sighed. “I've been walking around like this for days.”

She led him into the bathroom and sat him on the toilet seat with his back to her. He soaped up his scalp, and then they continued to talk while she carefully shaved the rest of the hair from his head. She had been shaving her legs for a few years and was a lot better at using the razor than he was.

“Maslow said that Dad gave him the scarf and the note and asked him to get me a gun. He hasn't seen Dad since and hasn't been able to look for him because he's been keeping an eye on me. We've been in the basement levels all week. He's showed me how to find my way around, and how to shoot, and how to open locks, and he's been
telling me about the guys who caught me. But not a whole lot, really. He's not much of a talker.

“Apparently, the guys who kidnapped me are part of some crime lord's operation that Dad crossed. He saw something or heard something. Maslow isn't sure. But he says Dad didn't murder Tommy Hyung. He's sure of that.”

“Lean your head forward a bit,” Cleo told him. “There. So what are the police in on? What's the big plot?”

“Maslow's been trying to find out. He says the way they're after Dad, it sounds like something serious. I think it might have something to do with all the accidents that have been happening lately. Maybe even the crane wreck. It was the same day Dad disappeared….”

His voice drifted off, and Cleo wiped some soap off the blade with a cloth, then went back to doing the nape of his neck. He liked the feel of her fingers on his skin, and the way she directed the position of his head with gentle movements of her hands. Sometimes her hips touched against his back, and he closed his eyes and thought of Ana. After seeing his teacher at home, he had thought he would feel closer to her, but instead, it had just made him realize that she had a very full life out of school and she had no intention of including him in it. She still talked to him more like a mother than a friend. Cleo's fingertips brushed against his neck, and his skin tingled.

“It sounds like you're in way over your head,” Cleo observed. “And you're out there on your own with some
guy you don't even know. Who says he's not on their side? Whoever they are. You need to go to the cops. Ms. Kiroa could go with you—make it official.”

“Maslow's for real,” Sol said coldly. “He saved my life. And he's the only person who's doing anything about all this. I'd be dead now if he weren't the real thing. And I don't trust the police. You wouldn't either if you'd been in that interrogation room with them. I don't need their help now.”

“What are you doing here, then?” Cleo sniffed. “I'm assuming you didn't just come to get your hair done.”

She brushed her fingertips over his cleanly shaven scalp; when she pushed them back the other way, it had a texture like very fine sandpaper. Sol turned and looked up at her as she rinsed off the blade and handed him a towel.