SILVER: Acheron (A River of Pain) (The SILVER Series) (2 page)

Chimera have no sense of self, and most definitely do not know what it’s like to be afraid for their life.

If not Chimera, then … human? How could that be?

For the first time in longer than she can remember, Silver feels uncertain. She’s been taught that uncertainty is the precursor of mistakes, and mistakes—in this world—are very often fatal.

Persistent crackles.

“Silver?” Agitated. “Don’t make me come in there,” Red threatens.

A single drop of liquid—a tear—falls from the naked woman’s eye and rolls down her cheek. That’s another tell-tale clue about her genetics: Chimera can’t cry. They lack tear ducts, instead having altered ducts that produce a milky white fluid used to clean their face. Able to express the fluid from these ducts at will, Chimera routinely rest on their haunches and pass their front feet over their eyes to smear the goo about themselves.

So, the tear settles it, and Silver finally responds to Red.

“Prepare the truck. I’m bringing in a live one.”

“That’s not our order, Commander. Save that for the day shift.”

“It’s not Chimera.”

The airwaves fall silent while Silver takes off her jacket and covers the naked woman, giving her some small sense of comfort.

Red can think of only one other possibility: “Human?”

Silver is full of doubt.  

“You tell me.”

********************

Silver meets Red—so named because of her long, auburn hair—outside in the street, by a large armored truck. Even though the city is cloaked in the depths of night, Red, completely blind, still wears her trademark dark glasses. She’s the same age as Silver, but she looks older—more refined, perhaps. Her face is angular and sharp, and such features are a match for her cool, crisp personality. Other senses heightened to compensate for her blindness, her auditory and olfactory abilities are really quite remarkable, and she ‘watches’ Silver’s approach, curious to inspect the creature she’s retrieved.

Silver lays the woman down in the back of the truck, and Red steps in to run her fingers over the woman’s face and enough of her body to establish that she is female.

“Where did you find her?”

“In a pack of Chimera.”

Red brings her face close to the woman huddling beneath Silver’s jacket and sniffs the air around her. An abrasion on the woman’s left shoulder is seeping blood, and Red can sense the wound. She smears the woman’s blood onto her fingertips and focuses on the scent of it.

“Not human,” she concludes.

“Chimera?”

Red shakes her head, her determinations uncertain. “I don’t know.”

“Some help you are,” Silver scoffs. “The Chimera were starving to death, but they didn’t touch her. It doesn’t make any sense.” She looks around the empty street. “Where are the others?”

“Alex is on his way here. Oz and Jax are—”

An explosion several blocks away momentarily distracts her.

“Blowing stuff up, apparently,” she finishes with a sigh.

Silver takes Red by the shoulder, the strength of her grip making clear the seriousness of the decision she’s about to make. “We keep this between us.”

Alex approaches them from the shadows, Silver watching him from the periphery of her vision. He’s several inches above six feet, with dark hair and deep, brown eyes. Refusing to shave on a daily basis, he’s rugged and prickly and undeniably eye-catching.

“Just the three of us. Understand?” Silver presses to Red, trying to ignore her stomach’s impromptu acrobatics which began the instant she caught sight of Alex.

“Harboring an enemy and failing to report such an enemy to the government is an act of treason, punishable by enforcement,” Red warns.

Enforcement is nothing but a fancy word for the ugly Amaranthian brand of capital punishment. No lengthy trials and no verdict by a jury of your peers—just the Banishment and Enforcement Council, proclaiming your guilt and delivering your sentence by way of a vote. A unanimous decision is not required. Eleven board members vote for the only two sentencing options available in Amaranthe’s poorly constructed judicial system: banishment to the Fringe District, or enforcement.

Alex catches the last part of Red’s sentence as he reaches the truck, and lights up a much needed end-of-shift cigarette.

“Who’re we talking about?” He spots the naked woman in the back of the truck. “Oh, no.”

The woman flashes her violet eyes at him.

Startled, he stumbles back a few paces and drops his cigarette onto the wet ground.

“Is that what I think it is?”

Silver is quick to jump to the woman’s defense. “Red says no.”

“I’d query that.”

Alex tries to compose himself and steps closer to the truck. The naked woman’s body tenses with fear as he reaches out to her, and slides his hand underneath her only protection—Silver’s jacket. He grabs her left wrist and draws it out for all to see.

No scar.

Not tagged.

Ergo, “Not human.”

“Not from the city anyway,” Silver concurs.

Every person living within Amaranthe is tagged with a small microchip, inserted in the left wrist. A blue microchip is given to those living in the Sentinel District, and a black microchip is reserved for those banished to the prison district—the Fringe. Anyone working for Omega, including Hunter and Police Division employees, gets a platinum tag. Equipped with GPS trackers, these pimped out tags grant the owner the enviable ability to pass from the Sentinel District to the Fringe District, and anywhere else they please.

Alex drops the woman’s wrist and she huddles herself back up under the jacket, keeping a wary eye on him.

Alex’s expression is tundra cold. “Shoot it.” 

Silver moves in front of him and pushes him away from the truck.

“Are you out of your mind?!”

“Are
you
?!”

“She’s not Chimera.”

“It doesn’t matter what she is, just put her out of her misery.”

Red jumps in between them. “We report her to Omega. Let them take care of her.”

“Take care of her?” Silver spits back at her. “They’ll destroy whatever humanity is inside of her, and then they’ll kill her.”

“So what do you propose we do with her? It’s Omega’s procedure to search all of the trucks upon arrival back in the city, so smuggling her inside is just not an option. Not for those of us who want to live.”

Silver thinks fast. “Service passages. The ones used during the First Reclamation, exploiting the Old World subway system. I can use them to get her into the Fringe District without being noticed.”

Alex throws his hands up.

“No way!” Outraged. “The entire tunnel network is scheduled for demolition, and it’s already been prepped with C-4. I can’t let you do that.”

That rubs Silver up the wrong way, instantly. “Excuse me?”

“It’s too risky.”

“Bullshit. I know a place in the Fringe where she’ll be safe. It’s an old theatre. I’ve been there before.”

“So you take her there and then what? Volunteer yourself for enforcement?”

Silver refuses to be swayed by Alex’s rigid condemnation of her idea.

“I just need to buy some time. Get her talking; find out where she came from.”

“If this ever got out …” Alex shakes his head, ruffling a hand through his hair. “You’d destroy everything we’ve ever worked for.”

“Same goes for a lot of other things.”

She loads that comment and fires it at him like a ballistic missile, referring to the intimate nature of their personal relationship with one another—strictly forbidden by Hunter Division law.

He understands the inference, but “This is different, and you know it.”

“Fine, then.” She takes out her loaded gun and offers it to him. “You think you know best?”

He eyeballs the gun with hesitation.

She pushes it toward him. “Take it.”

Reluctantly, he does as he’s told and takes the gun while Silver grabs the naked woman by the ankle and pulls her closer. She hauls the woman up and out of the truck, orienting her stark ass nakedness toward Alex—and to the barrel of the gun.         

The naked woman tries to turn away from the weapon, but Silver won’t let her. She takes the woman’s hands and holds them firmly behind her back, never taking her eyes off Alex.

“Do it!”

At her order, Alex aims the gun at the woman’s head, his finger on the trigger.

Squirming for freedom, a tear rolls down her cheek.

Agonizing moments pass.

He hesitates, releasing the trigger and lowering the gun while Silver, vindicated, pushes the woman back inside the truck.

“I thought so.” She closes the back door of the truck and grabs her gun back from Alex, fishing the truck keys out of her pocket. “Call for Oz and Jax. Ride back with them.”

Alex shakes his head, his expression firmly stuck on ‘not a chance’.

“We’ll wait for you.”

“No. They’re watching our tags. My absence will look suspicious enough.”

Alex holds steadfast. “I’ve got your back, you know that. I’m not going anywhere without you.”

“Wait,” Red calls out to her, believing she’s solved the problem. “Use the signal blocker.”

She digs around in the back of the truck, looking for something. Eventually, she pulls up a small handheld device, looking triumphant.

“No.” Alex snatches it from her. “I told you—it’s still just a prototype.”

“Well, let’s find out if it really works.” Red snatches it back.

Alex grabs for it forcefully, yanking it right out of her hands. “Don’t touch my things.”

Silver steals it from him. “How does it work?”

He tries to take it back, but she successfully withholds it. Without thinking, she turns it on and releases a loud, ear-piercing shriek of static.

Instinctively, she drops the device to cover her ears and it clatters to the ground, landing squarely in a puddle. “Geez!”

Alex retrieves it from the ground and fiddles with it until the shrieking stops, and a green light on the top of the unit begins to flash.

“It’s just a handheld radio. I modified it to tune into the frequency Omega uses to monitor the GPS in our tags, and then broadcast its own scrambling signal.” He hands it to Silver. “In theory, if you’re standing within range of the broadcast, it’ll disrupt your tag signal so that your location can’t be targeted.”

“In theory?”

“It’s untested, but the logic is sound.”

“Good enough.”

“But hurry, this prototype has limited battery life. I didn’t design it for use—not yet.”

Silver nods. “I’ll meet you back inside.”