Ghosts of Koa, The First Book of Ezekiel (13 page)

When she allowed herself to walk away an hour later, her limbs were still trembling.
Happy now, Baba?
The sour thought drove a frown into her face. She didn't want this, any of this. The war, Koa, Majkata-- none of it. But as the shadows of Koa and the Cabal had continued to grow across the world, she realized she
had
to practice, every day, just in case. Besides, Majkata helped her maintain control
--
and that's what Baba cared about most.

She looked to the gymnastics station, and for a moment, she allowed herself to smile. Finally, it was time to be Ezekiel.

First, the uneven bars. She fluttered from one bar to the other, her body straight but limber, her joints hinging the contortions of her body to one another. Controlled yet supple, she became a dark ribbon beneath the lighting. She moved to the balance beam: mount, front handspring and then back, front, front, back, dismount. She repeated, rolling round offs and slow cartwheels into her routine.
 

Lastly, to the wooden floor and mirrors, where she took a moment to cool down and stretch. Then in her worn ballet slippers, Zeika started small, practicing the five positions. She changed to pliés, degagés. Then she moved to point, executing chaînés, pirouettes, fouttés. Another hour fell off the clock, and her silken movements evolved: front two-knuckle punch, roundhouse kick, chaîné. Crescent kick, triple chaîné, crescent kick, foutté.
 

She grimaced as her Majkata awakened, threading itself into her routine. The same curve of the foot, the same precision, the same muscle memories. Ballet, Majkata, and gymnastics-- they polluted each other, using
her
as their dumping ground. Even if she and her family did make it into Demesne Seven, no dance school would ever take her. Her forms were too impure. Too Civilian.

I'll never be a dancer. Just some twit twirling in the dark.

But until Manja woke up at least, they were safe here, in the warm halls of the Guild of Almaut.

The rickety old shopping cart creaked in complaint as its battered wheels rattled against the wet dirt and concrete. As another rumble rolled through the heavens, the cart trembled in tandem, its metal pelican's beak bulging outward with the heavy packages stacked inside it. The rain came down hard across Zeika's poncho, and she gritted her teeth as she pushed the cart, her load feeling heavier today than it ever did before. Delivery was the longest part of her circuit, and it never got any easier. Especially on the rainy days.

"Shit!"

Zeika stumbled on some loose debris and nearly fell until she tightened her grip on the cart. She found her footing again, but just as she was about to push on, she paused, allowing her aching muscles to breathe. There was no reason for this. She was an athlete, as fit as they came, and yet her whole body was trembling beneath her plastics. She hadn't noticed how weak and achy she felt until now. She'd been so busy, the food had been so little for so long. She thought she could just push through it today, but...

Manja's little hand alighted on hers and squeezed, and when Zeika glanced at her, the girl smiled. No words. They always had to listen out for oncoming looters and APs, so they never spoke on the circuit. Manja maintained a lookout as she sat in the front baby seat of the grocery cart, holding a tattered child's umbrella over the both of them. Apparently, though, looters weren't the only things the girl was looking out for.

Zeika smiled back at her, Manja's bright eyes somehow sapping away the pain in her body. She braced herself and continued on, choosing to focus on Manja's wrapped knee instead of the long road ahead.

An entire two days had fallen off the calendar before she and Manja could leave the Guild of Almaut. Manja had needed more time for her knee to heal up, putting them a whole night behind their schedule. But Zeika didn't mind it. Manja always came first. Always.

After pushing the cart for what felt like ages, they finally came upon a housing settlement that looked much like their own. This one, however, was couched away inside a dilapidated donut shop and laundromat. Zeika rapped on the door.
 

"
Quien
?" A sweet accented voice filtered through.

"Me."

A chain of five locks opened one by one until the reinforced door was released and swung open. A warm, sumptuous smell wafted out into the street, settling into Zeika's senses. Garlic, pork, beans, sweet plantains. Mrs. Cartegena was at it in the kitchen again.
 

"
Mis amores!
" The short, squat woman greeted them cheerfully. "Please, please come in. Get warm and out of the rain! And the cart too,
mamita
, just set it right in here."

Zeika whispered her usual thanks as she rolled Manja and their load in.

"My goodness, how many times have I told you to call me Gladys, honey?" Gladys closed the door behind them and locked it again. "Now have a seat. Dinner's almost ready."

"Mrs. Cartegena, you really don't have to--"

"Shut up, Zeika. I said sit down."

Zeika smiled sheepishly and picked Manja up out of the cart.

"Hi, Mrs. Gladys!" Manja twittered. "Is Mr. Anthony here?"

"Yes, sweetie! He's tinkering with his gadgets again! Go get him so we can have dinner."

Shaking off her poncho, Manja ran to the back, calling Anthony's name. As Zeika laid her own wet clothes on the cart, Gladys bussed her down with a towel.
 

"My, my, you girls are out doing deliveries in this kind of weather? You work much too hard!" Without waiting for a response, Gladys ran into the kitchen.

"Rain's not too bad," Zeika whispered.

Plates clattered together in the distance, and Zeika sighed, plopping down on the soft shredded loveseat. She listened out for Manja.
 

"No, Mr. Anthony! Put your robot pictures down and come to dinner right now!" Manja's command boomed from the back.

Zeika rubbed her temples, trying to massage out the hunger pains. She didn't like this, getting too close to the clients. More time spent with one customer meant fewer trades as a whole, and less money. But Manja loved the old couple, and Manja always came first.

Soon, the girl skipped out from the back, followed by Mr. Anthony, who hobbled along on his walking stick. They were chatting; Anthony, about the newest robot arm some Azure had invented, and Manja, about what, precisely, was wrong with it. The conversation took a turn when Manja ran up to her, holding a fuzzy patchwork stuffed bear for Zeika to see.

"Look at what Mr. Anthony gave me!"

Zeika smiled at the old man. "Thank you, Mr. Cartegena. She loves stuffed animals."

"Ah it's a small thing compared to what you do for us!" Anthony smiled good-naturedly. He leaned hard on his cane as he sat himself down in an adjacent armchair.

"Speaking of." Zeika stood and took the first couple of wrapped packages from the top of the shopping cart. "Here's your delivery. Just double check to make sure we've gotten everything."

"Wonderful!" Anthony rubbed his hands together as Zeika set the package in his lap. He unwrapped the plastic and surveyed the collection of supplies within. An assortment of carrot and broccoli seeds, some garlic bulbs, two pints of paint, three spools of black sewing thread, a bottle of water pills, a frozen pork shoulder, a first aid kit... and a Glock 21 with two full magazines.

"Marvelous. Your payment is there by the door for when you leave."

Zeika looked over her shoulder to see that the old couple had already arranged and packaged their payment. They had promised her three-feet of painter's canvas, some dried herbs, a couple of pairs of worn shoes, a small sack of rice and brown sugar, and some woolen hats. By the looks of the package, they had delivered.

Anthony looked up. "The hardware?"

"They work. I've just cleaned them, too. If you'd like anything else, feel free to put it on your order slip." Zeika reached into her robes and pulled out a mini notepad and pen. It was already open to its first page, which read at the top: "Stop 1, New Order, Tu/March, 23, 2155."

Anthony quickly scrawled out a new order before he handed the pad back to her. "You are the angel of Demesne Five, Z."

"We're just making a living. Glad to help anyway we can."

"Shame what those bastards did. The whole Fifth misses your metal." He looked at the cleaned Glock in his lap, making a face. He was glaring at the insignia of the Alchemic Order emblazoned on the barrel, and Zeika could have sworn he was about to spit. "Piece of Azure trash. Wouldn't know firearms from their--"

"
AMORE
!" Gladys interrupted from the kitchen. "Please! The children!"

Anthony and Zeika exchanged smirks. Crude as it was, Zeika was grateful for his sympathies. She still remembered last spring, when Azure and Civic government officials had brought their trucks to Baba's gun shop. They had waved cancelled contracts and eviction notices in their faces, and cleaned them out. They'd frozen and seized their assets too, leaving them penniless with the garbage excuse that money gained from "trading with insurgents" was ill-gotten, and subject to civil forfeiture. They'd also forced them to hand over their customer lists, and then they cleaned
them
out too.
 

It had all happened under the Alchemic Order's scorched earth policy: Act 948, the siege of arms. To keep weapons from falling into the hands of Koa, no Civilian could make or bear arms without a special license signed by both Orders. Not a single license had been signed since the siege.

Sal Morgan had given the command in the Fifth, but Councilman Micah Burke had done the dirty work. He had served her and Baba the warrant himself, complete with a steaming side dish of apologies, on the house. "I'm so sorry." Hollow words coming from a long time friend. And yet he had still just hung there like a limp cock as he watched the APs gut their shop and their livelihood. After that, she and Baba had both gone underground. Baba to the mines, and she-- well-- back to what she knew best.

Zeika touched the Azure Glock. It was pretty, at least. If Anthony ignored the frayed magazine and blocky grip, he might be able to forget that it was a junker: a high-priced, low-efficiency scat gat that was bound to jam and have loads of other problems.
 

"They do try their best, though, don't they?" She said, laughing. "I did what I could with it."

"That you did, girl, but no matter how long you toss chicken shit, it'll never turn into a chicken salad, now will it? Nothing fires like an Anon cannon. Every marksman alive knows it, Azure and Civilian alike." Anthony winked at her. "Real craftsmen you and your Daddy were."

She shrugged. "It was mostly Baba--"

"If you expect me to believe that, you take me for a bigger fool than I have patience for. Hush up."

A bashful smile was breaking onto Zeika's face when Gladys came out the kitchen, carrying three plates, one in each hand and one on her head. "Dinner! All weapons of death off the table, please!"

"Oh Mrs. Gladys, this looks so yummy!" Manja announced, taking a plate from the woman. "Thank you!" She dug in.

"Smells delicious." Zeika smiled warmly as she also took a plate from the woman. It was piled high with shredded pork shoulder, sweet plantains, rice and beans, and even a bit of lettuce. Food like this didn't come cheap or easy. She'd know... it came from her Forge.

"Do you have your plastics?" Gladys whisked back into the kitchen, where the glasses began to clink again.
 

As if on cue, Manja hopped up from her meal and went over to rummage through Zeika's backpack to get out their plastic storage dish. Gladys took it into the kitchen. Zeika began to eat, trying her best to savor the succulent shreds of meat even as she forced herself to eat quickly. Much as she wanted to, she couldn't get too comfortable. There were many more deliveries to make and even more things to do when she and the little one returned home. So she balanced her books as she ate, creating an exchange ticket for Anthony's new order.
 

He wanted more vegetables and also some 75-watt light bulbs, some screws, and some green nail polish for Gladys. Below his order, he listed things he was willing to trade. Socks, some old silverware, a pair of spectacles, a couple of old baseball caps, three pills of Viagra...
 

Zeika shook her head. It was amazing how much you got to know a person by collecting their old junk. Now she knew why Gladys was so damned energetic all the time.

She went down Anthony's list, checking off things she'd take from him. She definitely needed more socks. Viagra was in high demand, and silverware was always a good trade staple. She marked the items and also added a requirement of ten dollars petty cash. Tools and hardware would cost more than some sex pills and old nylons. She handed Anthony the exchange ticket.

"Fair?"

Anthony looked over the list and nodded. "Very. A little too good to be true. Are you sure you don't want more money?"

She finished off the last of her meal. "I'm sure."

He looked like he wanted to argue with her, but she shot him a silencing look. The Cartegenas barely had enough cash to cover themselves for the week, much less enough to pay her more money. Their situation was thin.