Falling Sky (31 page)

“You'd better hurry,” Claudia says. “Pretty soon what happened on the ground is going to get back to the folks up here, and Ben, you're going to want to be gone with the
Cherub
by then.”

“You go out with Diego,” I tell Rosie. “I'll take Miranda out.”

Claudia stops me. “Are you going to be okay? That bullet is still inside of you.”

“It will keep until we get out of here.”

She shakes her head.

“Besides,” I say. “Rosie has my back.”

Rosie doesn't respond.

“Then I'm going to head back to the
Valkyrie
for a moment. I was able to recover some documents from the plant. I want to make sure they're secured.” She kisses my cheek. “I'll try to catch you before you leave.”

I nod.

Then, staying close to Rosie for support, we head off to the
Osprey
.

The ship's where we left it, thankfully. But when we knock on the gondola door, no one answers. We try again and again, but nothing. I try not to be aware of our time ticking away.

“Goddamnit!” I slam the door in frustration, then look around to see if I attracted any attention. “Where are they?”

Rosie removes a key from a pocket and uses it to open the door. I should've thought of that. I barrel past her, looking in the
Osprey
's gondola, trying to find any sign of Miranda or Diego.

“They're not here,” Rosie says.

“Then where are they?”

“They could be anywhere in the city,” Rosie says. “We need to find them.” What she doesn't say is that they might not be okay. That things could have gone terribly wrong.

“We need to find them,” I say, “but I don't know how long I can keep this up.” Already I feel the Juice wearing off. The pain is coming back, as well as the weakness. My legs are shaking. And I'm starting to feel nauseated. Not to mention I think I'm bleeding through the bandages Claudia put on me.

“Then what do you want to do?” Rosie asks.

“The
Valkyrie
's not far from here,” I say. “Maybe Claudia can help us look. She might have more Juice, too.”

Rosie doesn't look too happy with this, but she knows that three pairs of eyes are better than two. And that I'm not going to last very long.

The dock where the
Valkyrie
is moored seems to be clear of guards or watchers, so I walk over to the door to her gondola and knock on it.

All this movement is shaking me more than I want to admit. Amidst the churning nausea in my belly as the Juice ebbs, I feel something, like hard, jagged ice scouring my insides.

Claudia opens the door and flashes me a surprised look.

“Miranda and Diego,” I begin, then my legs go soft and I'm pitching back, falling. Rosie moves forward, catching me, and together with Claudia pulls me into the gondola.

They escort me to a chair and put me down. Claudia grabs a plastic bottle full of water and hands it to me. I drink some of it, careful not to take too much, knowing it's probably some of her good supply.

“You need some rest and some medical attention,” she says. “Only I don't know that it's a good time for that.”

“Miranda and Diego aren't in the
Osprey
,” I say. “We need to look for them.”

Claudia frowns. “We don't have much time.”

“Which is why we need your help. And maybe some more Juice.”

Her frown deepens. “I have some, but you shouldn't have too much in such a short time. Too much of that stuff will kill you, too.”

“Claudia—”

“No,” she says. “My ship, my call. You're only going to slow us down anyway. And we can't afford to be slow right now. You stay here. Rosie and I will do a quick search and then bring your friends back here. Then you can all get out. Okay?”

“Claudia . . .”

“Just say yes. Or try to stop me.” She flashes Rosie a smug look and then they move toward the door.

As another trembling fit hits me, I realize they're right. “Just . . . hurry,” I say.

Claudia nods, then they leave.

I swear I'm only going to close my eyes for a second. Just one second to rest them, to get the fatigue to relax its grip on me. But I feel like it's longer than that.

What eventually rouses me is Claudia gently shaking me. I grunt and wince as the pain returns, even stronger than before.

“What is it?” I say as soon as I can focus on her face. There's something wrong. I can tell.

“Is it Miranda?” I ask. I can hear the panic in my voice. “Where is she? What happened to her?” I start getting out of the chair.

Claudia pushes me back down and lifts the bottle back to my mouth. “Not Miranda,” she says. She flashes a worried look at Rosie. “Diego.”

“What?”

“I checked with one of my contacts. He was able to confirm that Diego got hauled off by the city's thugs.”

“What about Miranda?”

Claudia shakes her head. “I don't know. My contact didn't know anything about her. She could've escaped.”

“Or she could've been taken, too. With Diego.”

“We have to get him back,” Rosie says.

“It'll have to be fast,” Claudia says. “These boys aren't the gentle types.”

I nod. “You'll have to sew me up as best as you can.”

“You can't go with us, Ben. Don't be crazy.”

“I need to go with you.”

“Ben—”

“If he's being held somewhere, we'll need someone to be ready to get him out of there. On a ship. One person is not going to be able go in after him alone.”

“He's right,” Rosie says. “We need him.”

“Not if he's just going to pass out on us.”

“Then cut me open and sew me up,” I say.

Claudia sighs, then shakes her head. “I suppose it's time I return the favor.”

“Yeah, I guess I have this coming.”

Claudia starts removing my shirt and pulling back the soaked bandages. “At least Rosie had the good sense to let the bullet pass through. You have to do everything the hard way, don't you?”

I try to shrug, but the pain stops me. I grit my teeth. “It's a gift.”

I move over to the counter on one side of the gondola that is secured to the wall and I lay myself down on top of it. It's not the first time it's been used for medical reasons. Or others. Claudia disappears and returns with a bottle. I recognize it as some seriously strong rotgut that I picked up a while back, back before the raiders took over Gastown. It's the color of rusty water. She holds it out to me and I flip off the cap and take a long swig. It's harsh, and it goes down my throat like whirling blades. But as the acid taste fades, a torrent of warmth follows it and I can feel the alcohol swim out into my muscles. I take another swig, then another, and then I lie down.

“Try to make it quick,” I say.

“I'll do my best,” Claudia says.

I roll over onto my stomach, and Claudia hands me a wooden stick, which I slot into my mouth. We both know the drill. I did the same for her back when she first got her scar. It seems like another lifetime ago.

As the knife pierces my skin, cutting through to where the bullet is lodged, I focus on that memory and call it to me.

It was back when Claudia was running with us—after the night we'd had sex, but before she'd got the
Valkyrie
. That's a different story—an epic story—but not the one that's flooding through my pain-filled mind.

Dad was at the controls of the
Cherub
while Claudia and I were on the ground, preparing to forage. Our target was a fancy apartment building in Seattle. Dad had read about it in an old magazine, of all places. The article had mentioned how this was one of a slew of new buildings that used biometric locks on all the doors, even those on the stairs and elevators. “Biometric locks mean that Ferals can't operate them,” he'd said.

“But then how do we get in?” I asked.

“Through the windows. We can smash through those. We just check out the apartments, see if there's anything there.”

“But what if the security has failed after all this time?” Claudia asked. She was always pointing out flaws in Dad's plans. It was something he hated, but it was valuable. I used to get a big kick out of it.

“It may well have,” Dad said. “But I know the ways these things work. I've seen enough security systems in my time. If they're off, they stay closed.”

So it had seemed worth a look. We brought the
Cherub
in, and while the lower windows seemed to be completely smashed in, and thus off-limits, the upper windows seemed mostly intact.

So Claudia and I went down on the ladder and smashed our way into one of the rooms, a living room, from the looks of it. We got in without any problem, but as we were brushing glass off our coats, we heard a loud engine, and gunfire.

Looking out the window, we saw another ship—a rigid—firing on the
Cherub
. Dad began to pull away.

We had a plan for this, of course. If the
Cherub
took fire, Dad would pull away, get to safety, and then come back for us when he was able. Our job was to find a safe place to hole up and forage for what we could. Seeing as we were in the building, it seemed like that wouldn't be difficult. I was even excited by the idea of the two of us having some time alone together, with Dad not being around.

It's not that I didn't care about Dad's situation—of course I did—but I knew he could outrun that other ship. He'd done it before. And as I've always said, the
Cherub
is fast. He knew the tricks, how to take advantage of the terrain. I was sure he'd be fine.

Of course, safety first. We started exploring the apartment. Everything inside was covered with a thick layer of dust, muting the colors of the furniture and the artwork that hung on the walls. It was largely untouched, and already I saw some valuable salvage—a computer, for one. Other electronics. Plenty of books. We walked into the kitchen. Loads of pots and pans. Again, valuable for their metal content. It was, in any terms, a score, and it was just the first of many apartments.

Claudia looked at me and smiled. I smiled back. Then she kissed me. I kissed her back. We escalated in that way.

I know what you're thinking—it was unprofessional. And it was. But we were quick about it. And we got on with our business. And I didn't feel badly about that at all.

We gathered together everything we wanted to take, moved it by the window, and then Claudia said, “Should we try for another?”

I shrugged. “Why not? We have to wait for Dad anyway. Might as well make the most of our time.” There were, of course, other ways to spend our time. Reading, talking, fucking our brains out again, but we were high on the score and it was singing in our blood.

“What about the doors?” I said.

“The locks won't work on the inside,” she said. “We can prop this one and then see if we can get in anywhere else. If not, we come back here.”

“What if there are Ferals in the other apartments?” I said.

She shook her head. “Anyone trapped in here when the Sick came down would have died off long ago. We should be fine.” And it made sense. So, like she said, we opened the front door and propped it open with a sturdy chair. Claudia ventured out into the dusty hallway and I followed closely behind.

We tried the next apartment door and it wouldn't open. It appeared as if Dad had been correct. But Claudia wanted to try a few more, so we tried the next one, and the next one. It seemed that Dad's hunch was right and we felt secure enough, so we were making noise and laughing.

Claudia was just walking up to the next door when we heard a snarl, and a shape flew out of the doorway and into her. I saw an arm flash out, and Claudia was falling back.

Even back then I had been programmed on how to respond to Ferals, so I jerked out my pistol and fired across the corridor. Once, twice, three bullets, four, until it dropped to the ground.

I ran to Claudia.

She was reeling, leaning back against the wall of the corridor. And when I saw her, I almost backed away. The Feral's long nails had torn her face from her cheek to her forehead. Blood gushed everywhere and I wasn't even sure if her eye was still okay. I reached for her.

“It got me,” she gasped. “It got me.”

I wanted to hold her, to go back for water, to do what I could, but my upbringing overrode all of that. So I turned to the open door where the Feral had appeared from. And I saw why the door had been open. Someone had wedged it. When the Sick came down, when people were trying to escape, someone must've not wanted their doors to be locked and they wedged something wooden underneath it, and it had stayed that way all these years.

I pushed into the door, which smelled of Feral, and I took the place room by room, my body on fire, my veins pulsing with my racing heart, adrenaline sparking through my body. It was a similar apartment to the one we'd seen, but it was wrecked. Glass was broken. All the belongings had been shredded or mishandled. Ferals had been here. But it seemed like none of them remained.