The Saffron Malformation (18 page)

             
“Leone,” she said hollowly.

             
He looked at her.  He’d heard that tone only a few times before.  The first and most memorable was when she explained to him that she wasn’t his mother.  Suddenly he wasn’t concerned with meatballs or vanilla soda.

             
“I’m going to be twenty.”

             
“I know.  You’re birthday is soon,” he tried to keep things happy.

             
“And that means I am eligible to enroll in a university.”

             
The boy swallowed hard.  Now he really didn’t care about meatballs and was almost angry she’d brought him out for them.  It was a ruse meant to render him unsuspecting while she planned to tell him something terrible.  It would ruin the meatballs for him forever.

             
“And father insists that I go.  Says it’ll look bad if I don’t.  I tried to tell him, no one knows who I am, it’s Gren and Voz that’ve been in the light, they’re the ones he’s grooming to take his place.  I’m barely mentioned as an afterthought in articles and if any ask we can claim I stayed home to take care of the family, with mother gone.  It’ll look better that way, family values and all but…”

             
Leone was breathing hard.  His eyes covered in tears that bled from the corners of his eyes and rolled over his plump cheeks.  “You’re leaving?”

             
Viona couldn’t help her own tears, which snuck up and poured down her face before she even had a chance to hold them back.  “I don’t have a choice.”

             
She tried to explain, tried to tell him that one day he’d understand.  She had to do it, in part, to keep him safe.  It didn’t matter.  It ended with him screaming at her in the parking lot, their plates of spaghetti barely touched.  “You lied.  You’re a liar,” and the words cut her.  “You and me forever!  LIARRRR!” he trailed off into sobs.

             
He talked to her less and less over the next month.  The day she left for school he barely hugged her and mumbled, “Yeah sure,” when she tried to assure him that she’d see him soon.

             
It was six hours by train to Fralla University, a special school for girls and the furthest respectable one from home—she knew her father had planned that.  He was hoping to get a hold on Leone while she was gone, hoping he could make the boy more like his other sons.  More like a monster than a child.  Viona had fought to keep him away from all that and now she couldn’t.

“You and me, forever.”

She remembered the first time she’d made the promise.  Looking down at him helpless in her arms and remembering the ways her brothers used to torment her.  She thought about the way they’d turned out, the way her father was changing little by little into something twisted and vile.  When she was little he used to be tender with her, used to kiss her goodnight and tuck her in with Sally, her favorite doll in a pretty black dress.  Now he was someone else, someone she was afraid of and he would have Leone all to himself.

On the train she had her own private room.  She tried to drink wine; instead she simply looked out the window at the landscape zipping past at six hundred kilometers an hour and wept.

              Leone was playing a video game while Viona, her long blonde hair pulled back into a tail, cooked dinner for them.  He was seven now and had come for another visit that was supposed to last a week.  She had just turned off the flame under the saucepan when a set of loud bangs erupted from the door.  Viona went instantly pale and Leone looked over his shoulder at her.

She’d had enough of being so far away from Leone, their time reduced to piddly little visits every few months while worrying about him constantly between.  When she picked him up at the train station this time she asked him what he thought about staying longer and just seeing what happens.  He answered her with a smile and jumped into her arms.  They were hoping Richter would come to like not having Leone around, that he would see reason and just let him stay with her.  It wasn’t enough for her anymore, she knew as she knelt on the dirty train station floor holding him in her arms, to just watch him through a screen.

              The door opened and Richter Crow stood nodding.  “Hello Viona.”

             
“Hello,” she managed.

             
He stepped past her and into the apartment.  Leone watched him, eyes wide and heart racing.  “Son,” he said, looking down at the boy.  Then he turned to Viona.  “It’s been months.  Near a year, actually.”

             
“I know,” she began, panicked.

             
“We agreed on one week,” he stared intently at her, the anger in his eyes carrying through his words.  “I submitted to a month, and then another but this is getting out of hand.”

             
“I know but-”

             
He slapped her and she was stunned.  He’d never hit her before, not even a spanking as a child.  “I don’t have time for your bullshit.”  He looked at Leone who sat trembling on the floor, tears in his eyes.  Viona was his protection from this man and now she was dismissed with the palm of his hand.  “Get your things,” he barked.

             
“Wait,” she pleaded.

             
He glared at her.  “I indulged these visits out of pity because you can’t get a life of your own and how do you pay back my kindness? With kidnapping,” he snapped at her.

             
She was crying, not from the slap but the fear of Leone leaving with this man.  “Please.  Look, listen.”  He was staring at her but waiting so she spoke.  “I found this two bedroom for the same money you gave me.”

             
He looked around at the apartment and nodded, “A sty in a disgrace part of town.”

             
“Maybe but there’s plenty of room and good schools.”

             
“Not the Academy.”

             
“I know, but you didn’t want to send him there anyhow and the ones here are good as well.”

             
“Get your things or they’re staying here,” Richter snapped at his son.

             
“Please,” Viona cried and stepped toward him.  “Just let him stay.”

             
Richter glared at her.  “Why is it so important to you?”

             
“Because,” she had nothing else to say.  What might come next would only anger him further.

             
“I’ll tell you why,” he offered.  “It’s because you don’t respect me, same as you don’t respect your older brothers.  Its why I didn’t want a girl to begin with, you all think you know so much.  Why?  Because you can be mothers?  What is it with you bitches and your uterus’, you think because you have one you know what’s best for him?” he asked stepping to Leone.  He spun to face her.  “You think you can do better than me, you’re just a child playing house.”

             
Viona shook her head, “No.  I love him.”

             
“I don’t?”

             
“I didn’t say that.”  ‘Careful Viona,’ she warned herself as she saw the look in his eyes.  This wasn’t an argument of facts, it only mattered who won at the end.

             
“He’s a toy to you.  A doll, something to be dressed up and-”

             
“That’s not true,” she yelled, realizing that wasn’t treading careful.

             
It didn’t surprise her when Richter grabbed her throat hard enough to make her gag.  “Next time you interrupt me I’ll rip the voice out of your throat.”  He stared into her trembling eyes for a moment then let her go.

             
Viona coughed violently and nearly threw up, probably would have if he had come after dinner.

             
“Get your fucking shit, I’m not telling you again,” Richter shouted at the boy.

             
“Please,” Viona begged, sinking to the floor as Leone rushed to get his things from the bedroom, tears flowing down his cheeks.  He didn’t dare give them a voice.

             
“Look at him.  I can’t believe I let this go on as long as it has, you’ve turned him into a fucking pussy.  Well I’m putting a stop to it, no son of mine is going to be like this, no more visits.”

             
“He’s all I have.”

             
Richter’s eyes snapped to her and flared.  “All you have?  Then you have nothing you ungrateful little cunt.  I did everything for you, put you through the best schools, bought you anything you could desire.  I even pay for this bullshit apartment you rented with delusions of kidnapping my son,” he shouted as he bounced a fist off his chest.  “You could have had everything and anything.”

             
“I just want Leone,” she shouted.  “Keep the rest and let me have him.”

             
He kicked her square in the ribs and sent her doubling over.

             
“I warned you and now you know I’m serious so I’m going to warn you again.  You’re going to go through the University.  You’re going to graduate.  I’m going to get you a respectable job that won’t embarrass me or your brothers and if I ever even hear you mention thinking about Leone, I’ll stick him someplace you’ll never see him again.  A boarding school for wayward kids perhaps.  Boy like him,” he said looking down at Leone, “How long you think he’ll last in a place like that?”

             
Viona looked at Leone and wept.  Leone went toward her meaning to hold her, to curl up in her arms like he had so many times before.  Richter snatched his arm before he could and pulled him away.  “Say good-bye to your sister,” Richter said.  “Maybe you’ll see her again, if she comes for the holidays.”

             
Viona cried harder and said, “I’m sorry.”

             
Leone shook his head, fighting his tears as hard as he could.  He knew now what she’d meant that day at Digo’s when she said she did everything she could, that she had no choice and he felt worse for yelling at her and shunning her than he had for anything he’d ever done.

             
Viona watched Leone disappear behind the closing door and when it shut anguish rushed on her like a wave.  She hated her father.  Before she’d known he was too powerful to fight.  Now she’d learned he was too crazy as well.

             
They kept in contact, talking through screens on a daily basis but they didn’t plan to see each other again.  Neither of them spoke of their father but they knew he meant what he’d said.  He would put Leone someplace terrible if they tried and there was nothing she could do about it.

             
Viona made a decision one day after class.  She was sitting at a café picking at her lunch when she realized she had to let go.  She wasn’t going to get Leone, she could only hope now that she’d taught him enough strength to survive what was ahead.  “You and me, forever,” was a dream she had to wake from if she meant to keep them both safe.

Nails and Tails

             
Sprawled across the front seat with his sheet stuck to the dash, Quey let the cruise drive handle the road while he caught up on some episodes of his favorite shows.  After a while he realized he wasn’t paying attention to what he was watching and switched the computer to music.  He chose something soft, without lyrics and stared out at the passing landscape.  It was strange and more than a little daunting for him to think about how much of his life he’d spent watching the road go by.

On the long drives it was always hard not to think of Cal.  He’d been more than a mentor but he was also one of the old folk.  He’d had a handful of years on Quey’s parents and that meant he remembered the world that was.  He often
stared out at the horizon with a certain look about him that said everything his words never would.  What happened?  How did it come to this?  And maybe most important of all, what’s left to do but press on?

             
People who remembered were like that, always solemn about the state of things, but Quey had grown up with it.  It was all he knew and so he took it a little easier.  Some of the older ones, the ones more than just a few years his parent’s senior had deeper trouble.  They preached about the end of the world and spent their lives branded as doomsayers.  Many were collected and sent to live in institutions.  Now, it seemed, they should have been listened to rather than locked away.

             
Without his wanting it to, his mind touched on Rain.  He tried to let the thought go but it was there now and there was nothing he could do about it.  Sighing, he sat up and pulled his computer from the dash.  He accessed a search engine on the Planetary Network and typed Rain into the search bar.  He could have simply said what he wanted to search for but as a whole he found talking to computers was a novelty that quickly lost its luster.

             
After hitting enter he got a ridiculous list of hits, none of which seemed to have anything to do with a young woman who sold jewelry out of a van.  That gave him an idea and he added Jewelry after Rain and hit search again.  Nothing useful.  Apparently she was exclusively a roader, which was odd in this day.  Even Pickens and Zaul had a fucking website and moonshine was supposed to be illegal… well frowned upon at least.

             
He laughed at the strange little loophole and the grayness that existed in something that was supposed to be as black and white as law.  Just goes to show nothing about life is really certain, and there’s no real way to be sure of what anything is or what it means or even maybe what it’s supposed to be.  That applied to him as well.  So many years spent listless and lost with survival as his only friend and now it was gone, or at least missing in action for the time being. And so where did that leave him?  Towing a robot around the main continent of Saffron as he made his little rounds, hoping at some point in the not to distant it’d tell him how long before he dies, and in the meanwhile he was caught up in pining over a random encounter with some woman who’s name he doesn’t even know that hadn’t even lasted a day.

             
Quey sat slumped in the front seat tapping his fingers on the face of his sheet, the wheels in his head spinning relentlessly.  He wanted to stop thinking about her.  Ironically a girl named Rain was the only bright spot that had graced his life in years.

             
An Idea came to him and he typed, ‘A girl named Rain,’ into the search bar, which brought up something interesting.  A site on the web titled, ‘Does anyone know the girl named Rain.’

             
Quey touched the link and the page popped up with a picture of Rain standing next to her van with her arm above her head and her hips cocked as if she were a model on a game show displaying a prize.  He smiled slightly.  It was good to see her again.

             
Scrolling down he saw dozens of posts, some with pictures, some without, and some had video, but none of them shed any light on the question.  Mostly they were accounts of where she was seen and personal experiences with her.  Quey shook his head, so many other boys just like him, silly with infatuation and desperate for another taste.

             
Near the bottom of the page he saw a link claiming she had a page on Saffron Scene, a social networking site.  He stared at it for a long time and then shut the computer off.  If she wanted to talk to him he was easy enough to find.  And if she didn’t he was being foolish.

             
Along the road ahead he saw the turn off for Fen Quada—his next stop—was going to be in one hundred and sixty eight kilometers.  Quey adjusted the speed of the rig, bringing it up to an even one sixty and settled back against the seat.  He would be there in about an hour and he smiled.

             
Fen Quada was one of his favorite places to stop.  He knew the locals and liked more than a few of them, but that wasn’t the only reason.  Dusty was there and it’d been more than a handful of months since he’d seen the old dog.

             
Quey remembered meeting Dusty as a teenager, both of them a product of the camp.  Some might call it an orphanage, but camp or facility was more accurate.  It was a sterile place with all the hospitality of a death ward in a hospital.

             
They didn’t waste money, the corporate government, on wayward children.  The camp facility was as much as they were willing to do and if you escaped and kept clean you were let be, but if you survived out of the pockets of others and were caught they sent you back and put you in the lockdown for a while.  They didn’t prosecute you because you had no assets the state could seize and, in general, it was cheaper to cut the people you’d stolen from a check than it was to hold a court proceeding.  A person, Quey had found out more than once in those days, could be angry as a hornet until he got a few extra dollars in his pockets.  Then whatever wrong he felt had been done to him stung a lot less and suddenly seemed forgotten.

             
When he’d first gotten there all Quey could think of were his parents.  He remembered lying there as a kid, trying to understand.

             
Anger seethed through Quey as he watched the landscape streak past without shape, just a blur of color gliding past the window at a fast click. 

             
Fucking transports.  They crammed people in, fitting as many rooms on those things as possible and both his parents had come from modest means.  They couldn’t afford top of the line accommodations so they had to settle and settling meant a room near the cell disposal center, where burned out fuel cells were processed.  They knew.  Blue Moon, Last Sun, Zin Jo Aun, Lelvatee, all of the corporations knew exactly what they were doing, they just didn’t care.  Blue Moon and the CEO of Saffron were going to let this planet die under the feet of nearly three billion people and they probably had a means of profiting by it, just like they had with his parents.  They sold those cabins near the fuel cell disposal center to poor families at more than any of them could afford and without regard for what might happen to them.

             
Quey remembered watching his mother’s eyes, focused on him as she struggled for her last breaths.  Even at fourteen he could see her understanding of who he was swimming in and out of her mind as her hand gripped his one minute, and then relaxed the next.

             
Growths were the problem, but they were different from tumors, not terribly but enough so they couldn’t safely be removed.  See they didn’t grow as a single mass, they started like roots and then budded into a mass.  Because his parent’s generation was the first to experience this phenomenon the doctors didn’t discover the condition until it was too late.  They could remove the growths but the roots were impossible to dig out and that meant the mass would grow back.  They tried therapies and treatments that worked on cancer cells but again, these were different.  In the end there was nothing they could do but make people comfortable.

             
That’s what he thought on at night back then, weather in the facility or on the streets with Dusty.  He remembered thinking about how he didn’t want to take the aptitude test when he was sixteen.  He didn’t want to see what talents he had that could be used to make Saffron a better place, because the truth was it wasn’t about that.  It was about making Blue Moon more profitable.

             
Dusty had been on his own longer, since he was twelve when his parents died in an explosion at a mining facility.  He didn’t talk about it much beyond that but Quey suspected corners had been cut, ones that cut into profits.

             
On your own was how it was for the camp kids.  They fed you and people donated old clothes or toys or anything else they didn’t want anymore.  They would school you and offer you work so you could earn pocket money, but you were on your own.  Camp kids were hard and it was a strange balance.  They looked out for themselves and though they didn’t necessarily help each other, they didn’t turn on one another either.  If you were inside those walls, if you’d been inside those walls, you were off limits to some degree.

             
Quey remembered his first day of classes after going to that place.  Some bullies took his lunch in the cafeteria and when he tried to stop them they busted his face.  There were four of them, standing over him and kicking while he turtled and struggled to get away.

It took ten minutes for word to reach the older kids.  Hoz was seventeen and divided his time between working out, girls, and peddling drugs.  He was already set for when the facility kicked him out on his birthday.  He was going to join a raiding gang, driving along the open road pillaging whatever happened in their path.  Angels of the Brood or The Savage Slayers, either one was fine with him.  He was a piece of shit but he was also a camp kid since the age of nine and had the code passed down and instilled in him.

              Hoz and a dozen from his crew found Quey in the bathroom cleaning up.  He grabbed Quey by the chin and looked him over.  “Show me who,” Hoz told him.  Quey didn’t want to be a rat but he knew it was more dangerous to disobey Hoz and his boys so when he spotted the group gathered around a tree outside the building he pointed.

             
The gang approached the quartet and surrounded them.  Quey could see the fear slowly seeping into their eyes as they realized this cluster of thugs was coming closer and had eyes on them.  “You beat up a kid and take his lunch today?” Hoz asked.  Hoz didn’t indicate Quey but since he was standing right there the bullies looked at him.  “He didn’t rat,” Hoz said.  “I made him tell me who did that too his face, said I’d do the same to his balls if he didn’t.”

             
The leader, a tall athletic blonde boy, swallowed hard and wished someone else would speak for once.  “I uh,” he stammered off into sounds.

             
Hoz stepped forward, grabbed the boy by his throat and slammed him back against the tree.  He looked at the bully’s crew but not a one of them moved to stop him.  They were pussies and Hoz hated pussies, especially ones who swarmed and beat and robbed a camp kid just because he was easy prey.  That’s when he told them the code he’d learned from the older boys when he was little, the one that had saved his ass many times before and would save Quey for years after.  “You mess with one of us, you piss off all of us.”

             
The blonde boy was trembling as he was pressed hard against the tree.  He tried to apologize but Hoz and his boys had no mind for it.  They beat the four boys bloody, breaking noses and swelling eyes and splitting lips and cracking ribs until security showed up and pulled them off.

             
Hoz never spoke to him again and Quey knew somehow if he tried to talk to the older boy, even to thank him, he’d be met with hostility.  Quey wasn’t his concern as a person but as part of a group.  They weren’t friends, they were camp kids and that was as far as it went.

             
He told Dusty the story one night, while they huddled together in a tunnel and Dusty told him some of his own.

             
“That’s when I found there’s an entire society underground,” he said.  “Well not necessarily underground, sometimes they use old abandoned buildings that haven’t been demolished yet but it’s there.  A counterculture or whatever.  People who don’t have shit to do with Blue Moon.  They make their own goods and pave their own way through the world and they never look back.”

             
“Bandits?” Quey asked ignorantly.

             
Dusty laughed, “No man.  Tradesmen and the like.  Some of them are called roaders, because they spend their lives on the open road selling what they have for what they can and pickin’ up just enough to keep rolling.  Others are dwellers, they stay in cities and close to civilization.  They like to attach to a place and skim what they can unnoticed.”

             
“Is that what you plan to do?”

             
“I don’t plan shit,” Dusty told him.  “I just know its better than grinding your life away an hour at a time so some executive can get a bonus based on your productivity and buy another fucking vacation home.”