Genesis (3 page)

“I know, Dad,” Rosie said quickly. “It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not, it’s really not.” He seemed so sad and the wedge in her chest expanded. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know I’m not … doing so well, that I need to do better for both of us. She would have …” His mouth became pinched and he shook his head. “I will do better, love.” He made a small gesture with his hand, like he was brushing something off the table. “One day at a time, eh?” He was pleading with her to understand. She nodded and tried to smile.

Pip leaned back against the wall, watching the man he called “boss”. He didn’t like the Central types, especially not this one with his clean soap smell and superior look. It reminded him too much of how
feral
a Feral he’d become. If he had the choice, he wouldn’t be here, but choice didn’t come into it.

He held out a dirty hand. “You got something for me, boss? I’ve been scouting the fringe all week.”

“And yet you’ve brought me nothing.”

“Couldn’t boss, nothing to scope. Senate’s been quiet this week. No noise on the radar, you know what I mean.”

“There’s always something.” The man shot a quick glance back towards the street.

Pip watched him, waiting. Most liked it when he called them “boss”, made them feel important – sad king of their sad little heap – but not this one. He lived so far under the radar, a deep space probe would have trouble marking him. He didn’t want to be called anything. No name, no trace. Pip suspected the name he’d given him – Riley – was fake.

“I could scope the fringes of Central,” he said. “Hack into the Senate net …”

“Hack?” Riley narrowed his eyes. “How? Where would you get the tech for it?”

Stupid! He could have punched himself. Think smarter. “Steal it.” He crossed his arms, casual. “It’s what I’m good at.”

“Not as good as you think.”

The man’s gaze relaxed a bit and Pip hid his annoyance. The bites on his ankles itched but he quelled the urge to rub at them.

“I did steal something today, a bag from a couple of girls nosing around the Old City.”

Riley was instantly alert. “Why didn’t you say so?’

Pip shrugged. “Wasn’t anything in it but girly crap. But they did have something else, something they must’ve found.”

“And that was?”

“Not sure.” Pip was intrigued to see him so interested. “I only got a glimpse, maybe a box. I couldn’t tell for sure.”

“You should have taken it from them.”

“Might have been more trouble than it’s worth,” Pip said. “The girl pretended she didn’t have it and didn’t appear too eager to give it up. And I don’t like getting rough with girls.”

Riley was silent for a moment, thinking. “It could be nothing, but I still need to know what it is. Did you find anything in the bag, any ident cards, an address?”

“Nope, but they did have a boat. I checked it out – didn’t take it ’cos it would’ve been a hassle to offload, but I remember the dock ident.” He looked meaningfully at Riley’s pockets.

Riley said nothing and just as Pip was starting to think he’d made a mess of it, he pulled a one hundred credit slip from his pocket and held it out to him. “All right, what is it?” Pip pocketed the credit and gave him the ident number then watched while Riley used his com to track it.

“It’s an East-side family,” he said. “Darling Grove.”

“You want me to head out that way?”

“Yes. Have you got the com I gave you?”

Pip pulled it from his back pocket and showed it to him.

“Good,” Riley said. “I’ll send you the address and you go tomorrow morning. Keep your com open so I can contact you with further instructions.”

“No worries, boss. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Pip waited in the alley until the man had been gone for a good two minutes before he ventured out. He sidled down the waterfront, keeping close to the buildings and on the edge of the crowds coming in and out of the game hubs and bars. It was more crowded than usual tonight. One of the gangs was having some kind of party at one of the bar-cum-brothels and every wannabe was out to impress. Enhanced holo tatts and over-stimmed muscles was the look most men and women were parading tonight, and Pip kept well clear of them. Even an accidental bump was enough to send any one of them into show-off mode and turn him into a bloodied pulp.

He wasn’t going to wait until tomorrow to find out more about those girls. He had his own methods, his own contacts that could help him. And he quite clearly remembered what the girl holding the box had looked like. He could tap into the Grid and see what he could find, maybe even track her down. He wanted to have as much information as he could before he talked to the boss again. Nothing killed a profitable relationship faster than useless information and he had more riding on this than just pocketing extra credit. Being a Feral forever was not part of his life plan.

Making for a break in the human traffic, Pip negotiated his way across the road, between the bio bikes and souped-up transports, and headed towards the shuttle stop.

Rosie sat on the seat furthest from anyone else in the shuttle, the box in the pack on her lap. The air was cool but stale, and the shuttle cruised with a quiet hum along its track suspended above the streets. No one spoke. Rosie stared out the window as the crammed housing blocks of the Banks gave way to the wider streets of Central.

She hadn’t slept much the night before and her eyes felt dry and itchy. Nightmares. She still got them every so often. Last night’s had been particularly bad. Her mum, her skin covered in a red rash and peeling with MalX sickness, was reaching out to her and crying for her to help, to end her suffering. Her dad had even been in the dream this time, infected as well. He’d been holding her down, his skin grey and red, peeling off against her as she tried to get away from him to help her mum. She’d woken crying and exhausted.

She rubbed her eyes and stared as a block of apartments with a beautiful curved roof blinked past. The MalX hadn’t only taken her mum, it had taken her dad away as well. At least the person he used to be. Sometimes when she looked at him she glimpsed an emptiness behind his eyes, as if there was nothing left inside and he was holding on by strength of will alone. A will that was failing. It frightened her.

She curled her hands around her pack. Damn the MalX, why was there no cure? Why hadn’t the United Earth Commission done something when the disease first started spreading down from the southern Asiatic States? All they did was spray the mosquito breeding areas – as if that really helped. She’d heard some places near the equator had been evacuated and even some areas of the American Republic had it now.

Next stop: Central East
. A pleasant female voice came over the speakers.
Please alight here for Central East
.

The shuttle zipped past the dark glazed windows of an office building and into the station where it hummed before coming to a halt beside a wide platform. Rosie slung on her pack and filed out with the other commuters.

Central East station was one of the main interchanges for the city. Identical platforms, some with shuttles waiting at them, ran neatly beside each other in a long row. Beyond them was a huge cavernous space with shops, gaming booths, electronic ticket counters and waiting areas busy with people.

The low hum of many voices echoed off the high walls, and men and women in suits rushed past Rosie as she followed the other passengers. Mothers dragged children with them and small groups of well-dressed people talked quietly. Most took a wide berth around her and anyone else that looked like they’d come from the Banks.

Rosie didn’t fit here. Her clothes were too threadbare, her skin too tanned – an obvious sign of someone who couldn’t afford the kind of UV protection that came with living in Central.

She walked quickly, her head up and her shoulders prickling, and pushed through the swinging doors and out into the street.

The sky was vivid blue with no clouds, and the air was so dry it sucked the moisture from her lips as soon as she licked them. Even in the shade of the station overhang the heat was like a physical presence, hot vapour going in and out of her lungs.

Central East was a residential area of low hills with views over Newperth. The station was surrounded by a few white-barked eucalypts and large grey boulders. Beyond the sparse trees and baked earth was a grid of housing estates accessed by a narrow street that curved down to the station and ended in a cul-de-sac up against the area’s huge solar energy store.

An estate hoverbus made a low humming noise as it waited for passengers, but it was mostly quiet. At this time of the day the bulk of the population was at work in the city. Smearing some balm across her lips, Rosie approached the bus. It was AI-operated and the doors swished open in a blast of cool air as she reached it.

“Destination?” an automated voice asked.

“Um, Darling Grove,” Rosie said.

“Resident ident, please.”

Rosie hesitated. “I’m visiting.”

The AI was silent for two seconds then a short flash of blue light swept her face from an invisible detector above the door.

“Please be seated. Journey time, four minutes, thirty-six seconds.”

Apparently, the machine didn’t consider her a threat. Rosie sat in one of the eight seats in the oblong bubble-shaped interior. There was a soft whirring sound then the bus abruptly took off, heading up the road towards the estates. They passed a snub-nosed car at the top of the hill then turned right and sped down a long narrow lane that cut through a section of trees and rock. The high wall of Darling Grove estate was at the end and the bus let her out with the terse call of “destination” and a dim chime.

There was no one around as she typed
Shen
and the dwelling number into the keypad.

After a while a black-and-white image of Juli blipped onto the screen and grinned.

“Hi.” Juli’s voice sounded hollow. She waved at Rosie then disappeared again. Rosie stepped back as the huge gate buzzed and, with a click, a small portion swung open allowing her to slip through.

Ahead of her a paved road wound away through the trees and gardens that were so lush, they looked fake. Tubular solar lights were set in sunny patches on either side of the drive and every hundred metres or so was a short pole with a box on top and a number on it, marking the start of a driveway.

Rosie wiped sweat off her face with her forearm and turned down Juli’s driveway. It was quiet except for the occasional sound of a bird or insect, and the heat of the road rose up through the thin soles of her shoes.

She hadn’t known Juli very long. The past year had been her first at the Central school her aunt had found for her – she’d said it would be a good place to have on her resume if she wanted to get into the Orbitcorp Academy. But a girl from the Banks going to school in Central wasn’t exactly popular. Hardly anyone ever spoke to her, which wasn’t too bad; she’d never had, or really wanted, many friends. Her last real friend had been a boy at her old Banks school, but he’d moved away just after her fourteenth birthday. Ever since then she hadn’t wanted to make friends with anyone else – especially anyone in her apartment block, where there was nothing but little kids or gang wannabes. Juli had been new also, and friendly. She seemed less stupid than the other kids, and she and Rosie were at least interested in some of the same things. She’d come with Rosie to the Old City after all.

Juli was waiting for her at the front door when she arrived. Her house, like the others, was surrounded by a wide UV barrier shade and more of the lush trees. Rosie glimpsed a private energy grid through them.

The Banks had one huge grid for the whole area and Rosie couldn’t remember the last time they’d gone more than three days without some kind of power outage. She bet Juli’s family never had one.

“Hi.” Juli was barefoot, her hair tied up in a ponytail. “Come in. Mum’s not home; we can have ice-cream.”

Ice-cream? Rosie had had ice-cream about five times in her life.

She followed Juli through the entrance into the house.

Juli’s home was all one level and built around a central courtyard. It had plaswood floors and big rooms with high ceilings and sliding doors made out of slats that let the breeze through.

“Did you bring the box?” Juli asked as she slid open one of the doors to the hallway and led them towards the kitchen.

“It’s in my pack.” Rosie closed her eyes as a blast of cool air washed over her from the kitchen ceiling fan.

“So what do you want, berries and cream or chocolate?” Juli was at the freezer dispenser.

“Chocolate.”

“Excellent choice.” Juli made the selection and seconds later two wrapped blocks dropped into the dispenser tray. She handed her one then jumped as three loud beeps sounded.

“Juli!” A woman’s voice came out of a speaker and a face appeared on the cool unit’s display screen. “I knew you’d do that as soon as I left. Hello, you must be Rosie.” Juli’s mum’s gaze moved briefly to her.

“Hi.” Rosie smiled tentatively. Juli’s mum didn’t look happy.

“Come on, Mum,” Juli said. “It’s just one ice-cream and it is the holidays.”