Feed the Machine (19 page)

She tipped out the bugs onto the body. They started nibbling away at the dried flesh. Within ten minutes it was done—they were full. As they returned she picked them up and put them back into the bag.

It was organic material that would later become pap. They weren’t Scabs, hunting people and eating them. They weren’t shit-eaters any more than they were cannibals.

Nola knew it was true, like the clothes she was wearing weren’t the bloody clothes from last night. It was hard to convince yourself when there were so few steps between shit and pap or bloody fabric and clean.

She covered the body as best she could, laying the flat sheet of metal down, piling junk atop it. If any bugs found it they’d eat it down to nothing. Then they climbed down the pile and walked back to Cago. Nola made Silver put the tablet away so no one else would see it. Silver probably hadn’t stolen it—she rarely left the house—but that didn’t mean she obtained it legitimately.

Hello dived down from above and landed gracefully on Silver’s shoulder.

They parted ways at the gate, Nola giving Silver strict instructions to go straight home. Silver didn’t argue. She’d perked up in the Scour but as soon as they were inside the gates she’d gone flat. Her nose was running and she kept coughing.

There were a few people at the Machine, queued at the multiple screens and chutes. There were ten on each side—forty in total and most of them were vacant at this time of day.

Nola found a free screen. It blinked and then her name appeared.

Rose, Nola.

She ignored the quota that appeared. She took out the collar and held it close to the screen.

It flickered again and changed to Secat, Yan.

“Fuck yes,” she whispered and put the collar back in her bag.

The Secat family lived in the center of town in the strip of houses between middle poor and middle rich and that meant they could pay. There was always a reward—customarily one hundred dollars at least. She could dump most of it into the quota and maybe afford some medicine for Silver. They’d get closer—only need a few bucks and between her mother carting shit and Ash coming back with hopefully something good, they might just make it.

Then tomorrow, the day before Feed, she could vanish, go to Char maybe. Get away from Fat Man’s thugs or any law that might have something to say. Maybe the whole family could go. Get away from this shithole.

Nola kept her head down as she passed deputies but none of them called out. One of Fat Man’s thugs even looked directly at her and then away.

She scurried through the town, pushing away the
why
of it. Maybe Fat Man had cleaned up the dead body. Maybe Carter had died. Maybe Garrick had kept his mouth shut. It was a long line of maybes…

Nola soon reached the Secat family home. She knocked on the door. A moment later Lanta Secat opened it a crack and peered out.

“Yes?” she asked, her voice a whisper.

“Mrs. Secat, I found Yan’s body today in the Scour. I retrieved his collar for you.”

She pulled her pack off and took the collar out. Lanta stepped out of the house and closed the door behind her. She was a small woman, coming up to Nola’s chin. She’d always been chubby—as most of the middle rich were—but now she was thin, her face narrow, her collarbones jutting out.

She took the collar from Nola and ran her bony fingers around the outer edge. Nola waited for her to speak but all she did was stare. Feeling awkward, Nola slipped her pack on and cleared her throat.

“Um… I need you to pay the reward,” she said.

Lanta looked at her in surprise, as though she’d forgotten she was there. Then her face fell and she resumed looking at the dull silver collar.

“I… I can’t. I can’t afford it.”

Nola blinked and looked over Lanta’s shoulder to the front door. Real wood. That alone was worth twenty bucks if she cut it up and threw it in the Machine.

“His quota will add to your family total for seven years until this collar comes back. How much is that? Seven times three sixty-five? You can’t afford it?”

The anger was rising, mixing with panic.

“I’m sorry,” Lanta repeated.

Nola stepped forward, her fists clenching. The fear was getting the better of her. Was she about to punch a widow?

“We’re absolute zero on Feed unless you pay me the reward. I need it.”

Lanta stepped back and opened the front door, letting Nola see into the house. It had been stripped bare. The floorboards were gone, ripped away, leaving only dirt. The house was empty, giant holes torn in the walls where they’d ripped away as much as they could to throw into the Machine (or their hasdee) without the place toppling down on them.

Nola walked in, brushing past Lanta. Every room was empty. No furniture, no pictures, nothing. Only one room held anything—the same shitty pallet beds their family slept on and a tiny hasdee, standing no higher than her knee.

“I’m sorry,” Lanta murmured from behind her.

Nola turned around, fury bubbling. If Lanta was chubby like before she might have hit her. Now she’d break like a sparrow made of glass.

“Why are you still living here? Sell this house, move to the slum—don’t tear this place up and ruin it.”

“It belongs to Fat Man. He says that even if we leave, we have to keep paying for it.”

It was a common story. Fortunes were always rising and falling. On the way up Fat Man was happy to take your money. On the way down, he insisted on taking it still.

Nola could feel the anger lodged in her chest. She wanted to shout and scream at the sobbing woman. Wanted to punch her and smash the house down. But what use was it? She had nothing to give. The beds were worth next-to-nothing. She didn’t have some hidden fortune under the dirt. Was she going to tear the front door off and take it as her prize?

“He’s about five hundred meters outside the fence. I covered him but I can’t guarantee bugs or hazels won’t get him. If we’re still free day after Feed I’ll take you to his body.”

She turned and walked out of the ruined house, slamming the front door behind her.

Chapter 29

Ash

Time passed with Ash doing his best to obey the strange message etched into the underside of the trapdoor. Raj was still unconscious, his wound clotted—Ash suspected the crossbow bolt might have been dipped in a sedative. It seemed unnatural that he didn’t wake and the longer he remained like that, the less chance he had of surviving unscathed.

Ash cleared away junk, digging down as he pulled it out piece by piece and flung it behind him to clatter down the hole. He’d tied Raj with his own rope to a broken concrete beam so if he did wake he wouldn’t roll over to land in the pit of spikes. Ash had sent Raj’s bugs down there, lighting it—no bones but the spikes were stained with old blood.

He had four of his own bugs, slow and stupid compared to Raj’s, currently building a small hasdee. If Raj could wake for even a minute he could tell his bugs to obey Ash. As it was, he was stuck with slow bugs that moved like they were walking through cold mud. The hasdee was almost complete—as soon as it was, he’d put Silver’s tempcube in and update what it would process. They had no food and their water was running dangerously low. But they had bottles of piss and stored shit that could be turned into pap.

“Take that red piece there,” Kin instructed, crouched next to Ash.

The piece of metal was thin and flecked with only a few remaining spots of red. Ash could usually guess what something had been in the past. This was generic junk, the siding from something long lost. He took hold of it and pulled.

“Easy,” Kin whispered.

The junk above them creaked a warning. Ash pulled at the metal—never jerking at it (a sure way to cause an avalanche) and finally it came free. The junk settled and quieted.

“See anything down there yet?”

He tossed the metal out behind him, throwing it over Raj’s prone body. It clanged away into the depths.

Kin twitched his whiskers and sniffed at the small hole Ash had dug in the junk.

“There’s something different down there but I don’t know what it is. It smells sweet.”

“Maybe it’s chocolate.”

“Pull that sharp bit next.”

Ash grimaced as a spike of pain lanced down his face. It seemed to dive into his flesh, ripping into his throat on the way down. He touched the wound. His skin was hot and seeping liquid. He pressed his fingers against it, willing the pain away, not caring his hands were dirty. It made no difference now—infection had taken root. The only thing that could save him now was a bottle of heal. Something strong, blue at least.

“Sharp bit, now,” Kin repeated.

Behind them one of the bugs chirped. The hasdee was complete. It was small, unable to hold more than maybe two hundred grams at a time.

“Let’s do this first,” Ash said, his tongue swollen in his mouth. He edged out of the hole and over to his pack. It was ruined, barely holding together. In a small front pocket he found Silver’s tempcube, a pale brown dot in the center. He slipped the cube into the hasdee. The screen flickered and then started counting from zero.

Ash sat there watching it, Kin alongside him gently swishing his tail. Past sixty, past seventy.

It bricked out, the number frozen at seventy-seven.

“Eat that down and make me another one,” Ash mumbled. He turned around and pulled himself back to the dig-site.

It made no sense to dig down. If the message hadn’t been there Ash would have dug upwards, pulling metal down, trying to find his way to the surface. He’d almost given up half a day ago but then Kin advised he could smell something.

Whatever this sweet thing was, it had to be something amazing or they were dead.

“Sharp bit,” Kin said.

“Sure,” Ash said, reaching for it. That was where they were now. On the spikes, death pressing in on them. Silver’s cube had failed so he might have to drink piss to survive. As for food… the bugs might find a few scrapings of organic matter down here but hardly enough to make even a single pap cube.

Unless.

He glanced at Raj, unable to stop himself. His friend was still alive and so the bugs ignored him. But if he died then he’d become a big chunk of organic matter ready to be recycled.

Ash turned back to the hole, a tear of precious liquid slipping down his nose. He licked it off his lip, tasting salt and dirt. He couldn’t risk wasting a single drop.

He gripped the sharp metal, careful not to cut himself. His wound throbbed again and his mind went away. How a message to him came to be carved into the bottom of a trapdoor didn’t matter. Nor what he might find when he dug down further. He had a mindless task and he applied himself mindlessly.

Chapter 30

Nola

“Would you like another beer my dear?” Nola said to herself from behind the bar.

“Certainly,” she replied and poured herself another.

Nola stood behind the bar like the captain of a ghost ship lost in a raging sea. The wind was howling outside, the rain crashing down and overhead lightning flashed, the boom of thunder running fast behind it.

The Wire Pub was empty and had been all night.

Nola finished pouring the beer, tipping it too early and frothing too much head but she suspected her customer (herself) wouldn’t mind.

“Hey Burl, is it okay if I eat more of your food?” she said in a quiet voice after she took a gulp of beer.

“Oh yes, it is. Go right ahead,” she said back to herself, mimicking him.

When Nola arrived at work, she’d found Burl had locked himself in the cellar, shouting out through the door that he was working and not to be interrupted. He’d left fried pap and a spicy tomato sauce behind the bar with a note on it: “$1 per bowl.”

The bar was empty and Nola promptly served herself a bowl and gulped it down.

Getting the go ahead from her imaginary boss, Nola ate another bowl, not even bothering to rush. She didn’t know what was wrong with Burl but he clearly wasn’t coming out of the cellar anytime soon.

When she’d arrived at work she’d been bouncing between fury and despair. A night and a day, two opportunities to get warm and both collapsed in front of her. The fury came and went, spread over Danton, Carter, Garrick, Jarrah and Lanta Secat, starving thin in her ruined house. Then despair followed. A better throw and the Machine would have gulped down the platinum. What would Jarrah do then? Take her in for theft? It was a hanging offense. But he’d let her go and she suspected he might have done the same even if he’d caught her paying off her quota with stolen goods.

As soon as Nola realized Burl intended to stay locked away, she’d served herself a beer and dulled the sharp edges that seemed to be sawing at her mind from both sides.

The fury still returned but with decreasing strength.

“Why the fuck didn’t Lanta Secat have any bounty money?” Nola asked the empty bar.

Outside the thunder boomed, shaking the windows.

“Why the fuck didn’t Ash fucking come with me to steal the fucking platinum?”