Angel Of The City
Authors: R.J. Leahy
Angel of the City
a
novel by
R.J. Leahy
This is a work of fiction.
The characters, incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events and persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Angel of the City ©
RJ Leahy
Cover by RJ Leahy
All rights reserved
Table of Contents
Freedom breeds uncertainty
; uncertainty invites chaos.
T
he phrase comes to me unbidden as I stare at the graffiti: a crudely painted white letter ‘A’, inscribed within a white circle, symbol of the latest resistance movement. You see them all over the city these days, too many to blame on the resistance alone. Kids playing copycat I suppose, but that won’t matter if they’re caught. Promoting anti-government ideology is a capital crime and offenders can be shot on sight. Age is immaterial. That’s the law.
It
’s eleven o’clock in the evening and the streets are deserted. No, more than deserted—dead. Deserted just means an absence of people, but death has a stench and the streets reek of it. It’s the smell of decay, of corruption and blight. Some places are worse than others, but there’s no escaping it. Unless you leave the city. And no one leaves the city.
Breaking curfew
is dealt with even more harshly than graffiti, but my risk is small. I’m not tagged, so technically I don’t exist. The light from the scanner doesn’t even flicker. I don’t register. I’m a shade.
I could still be picked up on some random video surveillance, but th
ere isn’t much chance of that. This area isn’t monitored closely. Nothing here to monitor except mountains of stinking, aging trash. The seventy-first precinct is the trash capital of the city. Not that the piles are all that smaller uptown, but they probably smell better.
I hear her before I see her, even though she
’s wearing some kind of rubber-soled moc. A slight crack in the knee as she comes out of the shadows. Starvation does that to a body; makes it snap and pop in odd places, even a young body like hers.
She catches sight of me in the glare o
f the scanner and stops, a look of fear in her eyes. Can’t blame her for that. She doesn’t know me from the Director General. Devon would have told her something, but what, that I’m a thief? What of it? There are worse things in this world than thieves. I should know. I used to be one of those worse things.
Maybe
it isn’t me. Maybe it’s the scanner she’s afraid of. If so, then I want to know because if she’s tagged, I don’t want be anywhere near her.
She
seems hesitant, undecided.
What’s wrong bobby, having second thoughts? Whatever your problem, doesn’t seem so bad now, does it? Not bad enough to have to deal with a man like me?
She looks quickly over her
shoulder, back the way she came. For a blink, I think she’ll run. That’s fine by me. I only promised Devon I’d have a meet with her. If she decides to skip out, well, that’s her problem. Only she doesn’t run. She cocks her head and takes a step closer, eying my long leather trench coat warily.
So it
is me she’s afraid of
.
Smart girl.
The fear doesn’t fade completely but she comes near anyway, so near I can smell her and maybe she wants me to. She raises the sleeves of her ragged sweater, making a point of showing me her arms. No tats.
Nice try bobby
, but that can be faked.
Before I can tell her to, she
drops the sweater and pants and steps naked in front of the blue glow of the scanner imbedded in the wall. She’s scrawny, but with a healthier look than most in this precinct. This one hasn’t been hungry her whole life, it’s new to her. Even so, she’s tough. Doesn’t blush or try to cover herself. Just stares me straight in the eye, face like a mannequin.
Not a peep from the machine. Nothing. That can
’t be faked. I ease my finger off the revolver in my pocket and give her a curt nod. She picks up her rags and throws them back on, shivering. It’s cold tonight.
Tagged or not, I want her off the street. If Devon sent her to me, then she
’s trouble—and that means trouble for me.
“
Follow me,” I say.
She
jerks back, startled, but I don’t take it personally. My voice does that to people. Six years on and it still sounds wrong, even to me; too harsh and raspy. But I’m not for complaining. There are worse consequences to back alley brain surgery.
I walk briskly
toward the wall, a bombed out brick façade that is all that remains of the boarding house that once stood here. Under the rubble behind the wall, I slide away a rusted sheet of metal, exposing a short set of steps. Pulling a flashlight from my pocket, I flick it on, not waiting to see if she follows me. I almost hope she doesn’t.
The bottom of the stairs leads to a narrow underground tunnel. They
’re all over the city. Counselors seal them up, but they don’t put in a lot of effort, except near the wall. They’re easy to break into if you know how. Besides, only Panners are stupid enough to go into a forbidden area tagged. Occasionally, if a Counselor needs a few more kills on their record, they’ll crash one of their parties and take out the whole lot, but they don’t enjoy it. It’s too easy. There’s no sport to it.
I reach the end of the tunnel
and spin the dial on the lock. Despite her fear, she’s followed me, her breath echoing in the narrow space. I open the door and let her in. This whole thing could still turn out bad, but I’ve got nests all over the city. This one is nothing more than a place to sleep. If she’s foul then I won’t have lost much.
There isn’t much to the place: one room with a mattress and a spare; a table and four chairs; a lamp and a small room heater. All propane. If you’re going to live off the grid, then live off the grid. No energy signal. Even my watch is wind-up. I light the lamp and the heater and gesture to one of the chairs. She takes the seat nearest to the heater and tries not to be obvious, but I see her lean toward it. You don’t know how good warm really feels until you’ve been cold all the way to bone.
I take a closer look at her. She
’s underfed and pale but she’s clean, even her hair. She’s put it in two braids that frame her face and I suddenly realize that she did want me to smell her—to know. Being clean might not mean anything to some people, but then again it might, and she wasn’t taking any chances with me.
Smart.
I shouldn’t have to do this next step, but I don’t know this kid. And I don’t trust Devon. I pull out a small leather pouch from the table drawer and flip it open. The lamp catches the glint of thin sharp knives.
She bunches her hands into fists and pulls them to her chest. Not threatening; protecting. The fear returns in her eyes.
“Easy bobby. It’s just a test.”
“
But I already… I mean the scanner…”
Her accent is subtle; words sharp
and clipped. Uptown, for sure. Delphi quarter maybe, but I can’t quite place it. Definitely not from this precinct though, or even this quarter. “Yeah, I know. You aren’t tagged. This is a different kind of test. For the plague.”
She doesn
’t look convinced. “Will it hurt?”
“
Yeah,” I tell her, without adding that it
has
to hurt, that it’s the pain that draws the nanites to the site. “But only for a bit and it won’t cause you any real harm.”
It takes a minute for her to make a decision. I
’m in no hurry. I just hope she makes the right one. Otherwise, I’ll have a big mess to clean up.
She nods; twice in rapid succession as though convincing herself, then puts her hand out, palm up. She
’s shaking, but I don’t hold that against her. I grab her wrist and hold it down on the table. Hard. I’m not trying to be any crueler than I have to be, but if she pulls away then we’ll have to start again and neither of us wants that.
Taking one of the
knives, I puncture the place where her hand and wrist meet. The most tender area. She lets out a little cry, like a bird, then mashes her lips together. I keep up the pressure, going deeper; hitting nerves along the way. When I look up her face is in a grimace, her eyes closed tight.
“
Go on, if you like. No one to hear you.”
She lets out a scream. I
’m up against bone. I didn’t need to go so far. I’m angry and just taking it out on her; angry at Devon, sure, but he’s not the only one, though he’d be the first name on the list—a list she isn’t on. I pull the blade out from her wrist and grab the vial in the pouch, popping open the plastic lid and shoving the blade in. The blood swirls around, turning the clear fluid pink, not green. She isn’t foul.
I reach for her arm and she pulls it back. I grab it and slam it back on the table. I just want to examine the wound, for shit
’s sake. This wasn’t my idea. I didn’t come looking for her; she came to me. You want to hate someone, hate the Counselors; hate the Ministry. I don’t make the rules, but I have to find a way to live with them. She sees she’s offended me and tries to relax, but she can’t stop the trembling.
It
’s clean. Almost no blood. I try not to feel pride and fail miserably. I’m a professional, not a butcher. She watches carefully as I remove antiseptic and bandages from the pouch and dress the wound.
“
Thank you,” she says, examining the bandage.
And the thing is, I can tell she means it.
She takes a deep breath.
“My name is…”
“
I didn’t ask for your name,” I snap. If this had gone even a little different, she’d be lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood right now, her short life over. Maybe that’s why Devon sent her to me, to see what I’d do; just another sick mind game of his, another test to prove he still owns me. But she doesn’t know any of this and so she thanks me.
I rub my temple as the headache begins
, the thought forming before I can stop it.
I’m tired of living this way.
I
’m thirty-eight years old—one of the oldest people I know. I figure I got an upside of four, maybe five more years. There is no other way to live—not for me. I’m a shade and I’ll die a shade. And yet, looking at her I get an odd feeling, one I don’t know the word for. Nostalgia, maybe.
I pull my hand from my head. She
’s staring at me. “Are you hungry?”
“
No.”
No, of course not.
“When was the last time you ate?”
She looks away.
“Lunch. Late.”
She
’s lying. That alone proves she’s not from this quarter, even without the accent. No kid in the Bonifrei would lie about being hungry. I keep a supply of food in each nest, because—because you just never know. Reaching into the box, I find a wedge of cheese and toss it to her.
Her eyes dilate and saliva forms on her lips, but she doesn
’t move.
“
Go on.”
She reaches
her hand out for it. Delicate fingers, skin flawless like her face. Not a bobby, that’s for sure. No digging through trash for this one, she’s been cared for by someone. She touches the cheese like it’s made of glass. Breaks off a tiny piece and puts it in her mouth, chewing slowly and watching me the whole time.
“
We don’t have all night. Either eat it, or throw it back.”
This time she grabs the cheese and puts her head down, biting and swallowing without chewing. She chokes once or twice but coughs the piece up and tries it again. Doesn
’t bother me. I’ve been there.
When she
’s done, she looks up sheepishly, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. She doesn’t thank me a second time.
Good
.
“
Now tell me your name.”
It
’s barely a whisper. “Pen.”
“
Pin?”
“
Pen,” she says, louder.
“
All right Pen. Devon must have had a good reason for sending you to me. Let’s hear it.”
“
My sister, Abby. She was taken by Counselors three days ago. They took her to the One Twenty Seven.”
So
this was just a game. Devon, you sadistic prick.
I stand and make for the door.
She grabs my hand. “Wait. Please. I need your help.”
I pull
from her grasp and open the door, staring out into the dark tunnel. “Go on then, get out. There’s nothing I can do for you.”
“
Please. I’ll do anything you want. Anything.”
I don
’t have to see her face to know she means it. She’s old enough—by about a day—but I’m not cut that way. “Look, kid…”
“
I’m not a kid.”
I slam the door. Sometimes the anger hits me like that, with no warning. She sees the change in me and jumps up, falling back over the chair and onto the floor, scrambling to get away. I grab her by the neck and lift her easily. She can
’t weigh fifty kilo.
Holding her against the wall, I press my face near hers, so close our lips almost brush.
“Are ya nae? Then look, PEN, Devon’s scoffing wi’ ye. He daes that tae little things like ye ‘cause he’s a sick bastard. ‘Tis th' only reason ‘e would hae sent ye tae me.”