The Courier (San Angeles) (5 page)

I raced to the next corner, barely slowing down to take the sweeping turn. The lean on the bike was almost to the point where the foot pegs were scraping on the ground. For the first time, I swore at my choice of knobby-edged tires as they slowly lost their grip on the concrete and started sliding out from under me. I finished the corner and pulled the bike back upright before the skid became uncontrollable. The bike lifted its front wheel off the ground in response to the harsh twist I gave the accelerator.

How could I have missed the obvious signs? Since when did a
goddamn security guard, especially on Level 2, have a clean and pressed uniform to wear? The guys guarding most of the front doors were just hired fucking help. No way they would spend a chunk of their paycheck on shit like that. Were there more of them outside the building? Were they watching me now? My heart started pounding harder. Each shadow became a hidden person, a hand reaching out to grab me. As I sped down the street, the Ambients dimmed to their nighttime levels, and the shadows deepened to murky black pools of fear.

I let up on the throttle and took another corner at a slightly more controllable speed. The thing to do now was to get as far away as fast as possible, but not so fast that they could tell where I was just by the surprised look on people’s faces. I decided on one more high-speed turn before forcing myself to slow down to the speed limit, but I still took as many corners and double-backs as I could to find out if anyone was following me.

What I really wanted to do was pull over and put on my helmet. Then I’d be able to ride with no lights and monitor some of the emergency frequencies to see if these guys had the cops on their side or not. Everything was so corrupted by the corporations, you just never knew. But I was still scared, and there was no way I was stopping just yet. Not until I had more distance between me and the bloody corpse.

After twenty more minutes of riding and transferring from street to street, doubling back and getting to the same spot by a different route, I felt the noose around my neck start to loosen a little. No way someone could have followed me through all of that, not even another courier, and we knew our streets. I took a deep, shaky breath and pulled the bike into a crowded 24-hour Super Store parking lot, turning off the motor, watching and waiting for a few minutes longer before the noose disappeared.

The parking lot had its own lamps, and even with the dimmed Ambients, it was bathed in a glory of light. I tossed around the idea
of hiding down a side street or back alley, safe in the shadows, but something told me to stay where the light and the people were. The place wasn’t so packed I wouldn’t be able to see anyone approaching, but it felt public enough that you would have to feel pretty sure about yourself to attack someone here.

I sat and watched for about five minutes before taking the package out of the helmet and stashing it in my jacket. I put the lid on and dropped the visor, pulling up the artificially enhanced traffic flow. I moved off the standard courier band and started to monitor the police frequency. The police band was borderline illegal, but I didn’t know of a courier without it. All of it, the traffic, the people, the comm band, was the same standard shit. No news about a speeding motorcycle, no news about a murder in the district I had just tried to deliver to. Nothing to differentiate this night from any other.

It made me feel uneasy again. I fired up the bike, watching the battery levels stabilize. I was just about out. It was time to get home. Normally the bike lasted the entire day, as long as I plugged in at some customer sites, and it was always fully charged by morning. Today had been extra long, and I’d used a fair amount of power getting away from the last delivery.

I eased the bike back into traffic and began the slow ride home. I went on autopilot as I navigated the traffic with the help of the visor, and began to go over the events that just occurred.

The security guard brought back memories I thought I had put away forever.

Life was hard after Mom and Dad died. They were coming back home after work later than usual, following the path of least
resistance to our little apartment on the edge of Chinatown. The police said they got mugged by a street gang looking for cash or drugs. Dad tried to be the hero, protecting Mom as best he could. They were both beaten for his efforts, until there was nothing left to hit. The cops came and took me from my home that night. A week before Christmas.

I was thirteen.

I ride past the old apartment a lot, but I never look at it, never stop. As the cops dragged me out, I grabbed for something, anything, that was theirs. Something to help me remember them. I got Mom’s favorite ornament from the Christmas tree by the front door. A real tree they grew in a pot, reusing it every year. The ornament I grabbed was one she got from her mom, passed down from mother to daughter for generations. It was a solid figurine, arms clasped to its chest, holding what looked like a sword, painted entirely gold. Mom called him Oscar, though no one could remember why. I just grabbed for what I could, and got that. I didn’t consider myself lucky.

It took them a few days to find my aunt on my dad’s side, and a few more after that before Auntie and Uncle agreed to take me in. I spent most of the time crying, thrown into a halfway house, huddled in the bottom bunk of a bed that stank like unwashed bodies. When my Auntie picked me up and saw my puffy, bloodshot eyes, she told me the time to cry was over. They took me to their Level 1 apartment and stuck me in a tiny back room, expecting me to get to and from my new school on my own. I’d never been to Level 1 before, and I wished I was anywhere else. Auntie and Uncle worked at the sewage treatment plant. It seemed everyone on Level 1 worked at some treatment plant or another, making things better for the levels above them. Auntie worked the day shift and Uncle worked evenings. I think being apart so much was the only thing that kept their marriage together.

I cried some the first week there, and got a smack in the head for it. I learned then to keep it all inside.

I was too young to work legally, but I managed to bring in some cash by cleaning rooms at the old folks’ home down the street. It was a place full of cranky old women who bitched and complained about everything and men who leered at me every time I bent over to pick something off the floor. The smell of old people still makes me sick to my stomach. I kept as much of the money as I could, hiding it from my aunt.

Uncle Stan was strange. He was tall and thin, and all his bones stuck out at weird angles, making him look like a broken mannequin that had been glued back together by a small child. He always had a bottle in front of him, when he wasn’t sleeping or working. When he got drunk, he got mean, and I quickly learned to stay out of his way.

It started happening just before my fourteenth birthday.

The first time, he accidentally walked in on me while I was taking a bath. He apologized really quick and left, but I saw him take a furtive look at me in the mirror before closing the door. I caught him looking a lot more after that, but never when my aunt was home.

The second time was in the bathroom again. The door didn’t have a lock on it, and I started making sure to be in there only when Auntie was home. She went out for groceries, and he walked right in on me, his eyes red and bloodshot from too much booze. He just stood there and stared. I remember trying to cover myself up, reaching for a towel to pull over me. Then he just turned and left, went into his bedroom and closed the door. I got up out of the tub and closed the bathroom door before drying off and getting dressed. When Auntie got home, I got in trouble for the wet bathroom floor.

After that, he got braver. He would help me with my homework,
always managing to touch me when he did, his thigh on my shoulder, his arm on the front of my shirt when he pointed stuff out to me. I tried to talk to Auntie about it, tried to convince her what Uncle Stan was doing, how he made me feel when she wasn’t home. But she just called me a slut and pushed me out of the room.

The next time he did something, it was a cold and dark Saturday. The Ambients had failed that morning, and the work crews hadn’t arrived to fix them up yet. Uncle Stan cracked open his bottle about five minutes after Auntie left. I stayed in my room pretty much all the time now, the homework I used to do at the kitchen table spread out on my bed instead.

He just walked right into my bedroom, not bothering to knock on the door. I sat up, the pen still gripped in my hand. He took the pen away from me and shoved my hand into his pants. I just sat there, scared and confused. I was fourteen, I knew what was in my hand, knew what was happening. I felt the fear creep up my spine and settle in the back of my brain, cold and hard like the steel fence around the schoolyard. I remember the strong reek of alcohol, and my homework had been corporate history—the First Corporate War in 2074, big corporations fighting amongst themselves to control more of the world. It’s strange how memories associate themselves with events.

When he was done, he pushed my hand away and zipped up his pants. His words were slurred almost beyond recognition, but the threat was as clear as could be. He stumbled from my room, leaving me to throw away the destroyed homework and to start again.

I took the memories and locked them away with the tears.

Two months later, I ran away. I waited until Uncle Stan was passed out on the couch, packed all the clothes I could fit into my school bag, and walked out the door, more scared than I’d ever been. Before I left, I wrote a note to Auntie and hid it in the box of pads in
the medicine cabinet. Uncle Stan would never go anywhere near them. Then I found every bottle in the apartment and poured them down the drain.

Getting Uncle Stan’s wallet was the scariest part, but it gave me a bit of a head start once I was out of there. I’d grabbed the sharpest knife in the kitchen and held it while my other hand reached into his pocket. He was so drunk, he never even noticed.

I hadn’t been back since.

Being fourteen and alone on Level 1 wasn’t safe, but I was scared the police on Level 2 would find me and take me back to him, so I stayed. I spent the first few nights hiding under piles of rubble and garbage, shivering from either the cold or fear, when the gangs got too close to me. When the money I’d earned and stole ran out, I scavenged for food, eventually resorting to licking out whatever was left in the bottom of empty cans I found, when the hunger took control of who I was.

By the time I found my hole, I was ready to do almost anything to eat. I’d crawled into a depression in the debris of a collapsed building, part of me wanting to hide for the night, part of me looking for a place to die.

Under the trash at the bottom was a deep hole. I squirmed into it. The hole turned into a tunnel so tight I wasn’t sure I would have fit if I’d had any food in me. It eventually opened up, dropping me into the subbasement of the collapsed building. I don’t know how long I crawled through the blackness; I don’t know what kept me going, or how many times I woke up, pulling myself from the edge of insanity. I’d like to think my mom and dad helped guide me to the storage lockers. Some of the doors had been busted open by the force of the collapsing building. Inside, I found bottled water and tins of fish in oil. I ate and drank until I threw up before passing out.

I’d found a place where I could survive.

“What do you mean, got away?”

Quincy pulled the comm unit away from his ear and sighed. Sure, Jeremy was his boss, but sometimes he didn’t seem too smart. “I scanned her and the bike.” He already knew who the courier was, but past experience had taught him to never give away all his secrets.

“Send me the information,” Jeremy said.

“Already on its way.”

“Good. Gather a team and get ready for my call. I want that package back.”

“Yes, sir.”

Quincy closed the connection and watched the corner the courier had disappeared around, a small smile on his face, before turning back toward the Innotek building.

Paul still lay on the floor, slowly rocking back and forth with his hands on his crotch. It looked like he was breathing again, so he’d probably be all right. Too bad. The asshole screwed up, and should pay for it. He walked into the building and lifted Paul to his feet.

“You let her get away.”

Paul’s breath still came in short gasps. “Me? You’re the idiot that let her get into the stairwell.”

Quincy let go of Paul, dropping him back down to the floor. It was true; he had given her the opportunity to get away, hoping for the added thrill of the chase. He figured he’d corner her by the elevator, but she was faster than he thought she would be.

No matter. It was Paul’s job to stop anyone from entering or leaving the building. And Paul fucked up.

He looked down at Paul and smiled again, placing his heel on Paul’s outstretched fingers. “If you ever talk to me like that again, you’ll join our friend upstairs.” He twisted his heel, feeling the knuckles pop like ripe grapes. He could almost hear the sharp crunching of bones through Paul’s screams.

Quincy stepped back, still looking down at Paul. “Take care of your hand while I get a team together. We’re going after her. We’ve got her ID number, we’ll be able to track her. It’s only a matter of time.”