Feed the Machine (15 page)

“Do you have a bullet?”

Nola scowled at the hasdee and resisted the urge to snap at Silver. It wasn’t her fault. She was always curious and unable to understand sarcasm. She took everything very literally.

“No, I don’t have a bullet.”

“Do you want one? I can make it.”

Nola ate her pap, ignoring the almost-nothing flavor that was somehow worse than zero taste. It was like antitaste. It sucked flavor out until you went under zero.

She turned around to face Silver who was fiddling with something in a metal cage.

“You can make bullets? Since when.”

“Since forever. It’s easy. Gunpowder, case, lead. Boom explosion.”

Nola pinched her nose and squeezed her eyes shut, willing the approaching headache away. She could feel it starting, a pressure in the back of her head, a thudding that would only grow worse as the last traces of alcohol cleared out of her blood. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. A marginal improvement. She knew Silver was lying—even old bullets dug from the Scour wouldn’t fire. Silver might be able to
make
a bullet but it was of no use.

“What are you working on?”

She walked over to Silver’s table. On it sat an enclosed cage of metal with wires connected to it. Inside a bug cracked open, wires connected to the tiny circuit within.

“Found this bug under our house. I’m talking to it.”

Silver typed in something on her keyboard and a flood of random symbols ran across the screen.

“You found it? Is it ours?”

“Fat Man’s.”

Nola’s stomach dropped, her hangover evaporating in an instant as a cold rush of adrenaline flooded through her.

“That’s Fat Man’s bug? He owns it?”

“I think it was spying on us,” Silver said and typed in some more code.

“You have to get rid of it. Put it back together, let it go. You wanna get hung for theft?”

“He doesn’t know it’s gone. I caught it away from the house when it was leaving and put it in my blocker cage.”

Nola paced, gulping air, trying to calm down but it wasn’t working.

“Oh fuck fuck fuck fuck
fuck me
, we have to get rid of it. What do you mean blocker cage?”

Silver tapped her finger on the metal cage.

“It blocks the signals. It’s like, invisible now.”

“Why did you catch it? Why couldn’t you just let it go?”

Silver shrugged.

“Why was it under our house?”

Nola stared at the prone bug, cracked open and connected to wires, feeling like the Sheriff was going to kick the door in any moment. Both of them would end swinging from a rope.

“We can’t have this here.”

“Why?”

Nola didn’t bother answering. She snatched the cage off the table, bug included, pulled off the wires and then dumped the entire thing in the hasdee. An instant later it was gone.

“I was talking to it,” Silver complained.

Nola walked back to the table, kneeling down and taking her sister’s hands in hers. They felt hot—she had a fever again.

“I know you’re curious. That’s good. But you can’t steal bugs and crack them open. Especially not Fat Man’s. Okay? It’s illegal. The Sheriff might have to come and that’s not good.”

She could see her sister studying her face, matching voice and expression and assigning it a value.

“Can I still talk to toasters?”

Nola nodded and let go of her hands.

“Sure. Go ahead. Don’t blow anything up.”

Silver pulled a toaster across the table and expertly cracked the casing open.

“I’d need a bomb for that. Do you want one?”

“No, Silver. Thanks.”

Nola walked back to the hasdee and saw there was only enough left in it to feed Silver. The stolen scraps she’d brought in weren’t enough. She’d have to sneak something at work.

She went out into the other room and cleaned herself the best she could with a trickle of water, a worn hasdee strip and a soap fragment. She was wearing her work clothes—they were skimpy, showing off leg and cleavage and she knew they’d attract a lot of attention as she walked across Cago but what other choice did she have? They were down cold, so fucking close to absolute zero it was time for desperate measures. There was no way in hell she was joining Fat Man’s family.

“See you later,” she said from the door.

Silver didn’t answer, engrossed in talking to the toaster.

Outside it was hot, the late afternoon sun beating down and Nola kept her face down as she walked through town. The hangover was making a sneaky comeback. The brightness was too high, everything too shiny. She passed the Machine, people lined in queues dumping their finds in, getting it to spit out cash or bugs or pap.

She gave it the finger as she walked by. Everyone hated it but they needed it. It was the source of all they had but the silver bugs that killed came out of there too. She saw Raif standing in the queue, holding a bag bulging with scavenged junk. Two years ago when Nola was thirteen and Raif fifteen they’d been together. Like all idiot teenagers out for stupid thrills they’d crept to the Machine in the night and kicked it as hard as they could before bolting off. A hissing silver bug as big as a hand came crawling out, looking around before shuttling back inside. They’d run away, flush with adrenaline and danger, stupid and wild and free.

Then over near the rich part of town they’d crept into a yard covered with synthetic grass and she’d sunk down to the ground with Raif, lifted her skirt and pulled her legs apart for him.

Nola pinched between her eyes and looked away. Raif and soft grass, kisses and gasps in the moonlight was only two years ago but it felt like a lifetime. She’d heard his family was moving to Ebb after Feed and thirteen-year-old Nola would have been crushed by the unfair tragedy of it. Fifteen-year-old Nola didn’t give a shit.

High above, pet birds circled on the breeze. Close to the Machine cats sat on rooftops or stood near their owners, watching any dogs gathered around. Ancient programming told them they were foes.

She walked past a small grouping of shops, all owned by Fat Man. There were all little more than a narrow box, one entrance at the front and a high counter. Only the medicine dispensary held any stock—a few bottles of blue and red on a shelf attached to the back wall. The rest only sold tempcubes made to order. Her stomach rumbled as she glanced in the shop at the end—they sold tempcubes that made steak, fish, lamb, cheese, fruit and other delicious things. There was a servant in there handing cash over the counter. He was given a pale pink cube in return. He stuffed it into his pocket and left the building, shadowed by a thug guard who’d been waiting in the shade.

Pink was meat.

Nola’s stomach grumbled and her mouth watered as her mind brought the memory of meat. The last meat she’d eaten had been at work, Burl experimenting with making salami and he’d given her a slice.

She swallowed the saliva and marched on, ignoring her hunger.

“Hey Nola! Hey!”

She glanced at the boy calling out to her. Jimmy Trudeau. Eighteen years old, he worked hauling barrels for Burl. They were heavy so he was all muscle and sweat, ridged arms and a lanky body. They barely saw each other at work—Jimmy had to work in the day—but Nola liked him, liked him a lot and so she totally and utterly ignored him.

“Hey, wait!”

She suffered to stop for a moment. He slid to a stop next to her. He was wearing overalls, undone to the waist. He was a half-and-half just like her, a bit darker though, his skin warm caramel, his eyes a deep blue.

“What are you doing after your shift?”

Nola crossed her arms and gave him a withering look.

“Going home to sleep.”

“Come out to the other side. We’re going grass sliding. A few of us are going.”

“I’m busy.”

“Oh, okay.”

He ran his hand through his hair, at a loss for words and Nola tried not to look at his arm, bulging with muscle. Tried not to imagine him wrapping it around her waist.

“I’ve gotta go,” she said, shaking her head and continuing on her way. Jimmy was a moron. A handsome, beautiful, muscley moron with strong fingers and blue eyes and just the right amount of stubble. In another time and another life she would have gone with him to the rich side of Cago but not now. Not when the Rose family was so goddamn cold.

She had something to steal. She had no time for fucking.

On the surface, Cago looked the same but she could feel the tension in the air. Feed was in two days and that meant everyone’s quotas subtracting another three sixty-five. The gates would be locked, no scavenging on Feed and everyone would gather at the Machine, rich and poor alike. She could feel the weird mixture of fear and carnival atmosphere. On Feed there would be cheap food for sale, people drinking, a night of freedom and bondage renewed.

She passed the Sheriff walking around with that thudding solid tread of his, a grim look on his face. His deputies were out too—walking around, making their presence known on the wealthier side of Cago. The closer Feed came, the more thefts rose as the desperate stole anything not nailed down then dumped it in the Machine, hoping to get their quota paid off.

Every step from west to east across Cago, the buildings incrementally improved. No paint to peeling paint. Peeling to weathered. Weathered to pristine. Cobblestones appeared, bubbling the ground. Windows grew larger.

Nola turned a corner and looked at Fat Man’s palace. That was the only good word for it. What had started as a large building at the east end of town had grown year on year in line with his wealth. It was three stories tall, pure white marble steps leading to gigantic redwood engraved doors. The stairs were flanked by pillars of polished concrete. There were endless windows and balconies. It was surrounded by a spiked fence manned by guards and attack dogs.

To the right of it was a jumble of buildings: storerooms, sleeping quarters and who knows what else. That was where Fat Man’s extended “family” of virtual slaves lived and worked. Although that part of Cago was public streets, no one went walking there without Fat Man’s permission. The law didn’t even go down there. To the left of his palace were more buildings owned by Fat Man that bled out to the Gold Door, his pub and adjoining that, his brothel.

Nola looked away and hurried on but not before seeing a familiar flash of blond hair move at a window, leaning out to look at the street below. Nix, her former friend who’d gotten her the job at the Wire Pub and then was caught stealing. Burl fired her and somehow that became Nola’s fault—he wouldn’t have done it if Nola hadn’t been there to pick up the slack—and so their friendship shattered. Nix’s family was down cold too and so she’d gone to Fat Man and ended up in his brothel.

Everyone gets fucked Nola. Least I’m getting paid for it
was the last thing Nix said to her.

She turned another corner and stopped in the shadow of the building, catching her breath. She couldn’t arrive for seduction sweating like crazy. She looked down the street and saw her target standing in the shade of a building. Garrick, tall with a bald head, just under thirty but trending to fat just like most of Fat Man’s guards. He made sure they ate well and in return they aped him, shaving their heads and developing double chins.

Nola fixed her clothes, hiking her skirt and pulling her top down, adjusting her homemade hasdee fabric bra, moving cleavage into view. Then she slipped off her thin underwear and stuffed it in a small pocket of her skirt.

She took a few breaths, calming herself and looked Garrick up and down. He wasn’t bad looking but he was a thug. Dumb and violent and cowardly. Only brave in front of his friends, only in a group when they outnumbered their victim. He might not throw the first punch but he’d kick someone on the ground. After working him for three weeks Nola knew Garrick would never ascend the thug ranks. He was a dumb stupid cog who could swing a stick and stand in one place.

But he was a dumb cog who carried a storeroom key.

She had no idea why some of the guards carried keys to the very rooms they were supposed to be guarding. It was good fortune to be seized.

Garrick looked up the street at her. He moved a little further into the building’s shadow as though he was afraid he might get caught.

“It’s just a game, it’s not real, it’s just a game,” Nola repeated to herself. Then she closed her eyes and thought of Jimmy. His arms, his chest, his dark skin. A wide smile full of white teeth. She imagined stepping closer to him, kissing him, that moment of scrabbling at clothes, pulling at fabric, down into the synthetic grass, so soft and cool.

She felt the heat between her thighs, her body responding.

He would kiss her passionately and she would run her fingers over his callused hands, feeling how rough they were. She would wrap her legs around his body, pulling him close, gasping.

Nola opened her eyes, feeling dizzy and then set off down the street. She stepped into the building’s shadow to join Garrick and saw him move back, glancing around.

“No one can see us,” she whispered. She stepped closer to him. He smelled like cooking oil. Fats heated and left to cool, to drift through a room, clinging to his uniform.