SILVER: Acheron (A River of Pain) (The SILVER Series) (5 page)

“I said I was hungry. I didn’t think you were coming back.”

“Since when do you talk?”

Fear compelling her back into muteness again, the woman looks back at Silver in silence, her strikingly bright, violet eyes slowly filling up with tears.

Finally, “Why aren’t you wearing your uniform?”

“I don’t work for them anymore.”

Silence.

“Does that mean you’ll stay this time?” the woman sounds hopeful.

Silver doesn’t answer, and the answer wouldn’t mean much even if she did. She’ll stay, but not out of choice. The woman accepts her silence as a small win; an opportunity for coercion, at least. She slips in beside Silver and wraps her cold, bloody fingers around Silver’s warm hand.

“If you stay, I’ll tell you everything.”

All Mad Here

‘Everything’ is a subjective term.

If you’re a planetary scientist, everything you know about the universe could take years to impart upon even the most erudite of students. However, if you’re Joe Nobody from the local bar, everything you know about the universe could be written upon the coaster you just barfed all over.

In this case, Silver learns, when the skinny naked woman says ‘everything’, what she really means is that she’ll break down and cry for two hours straight about how she can’t even remember her own name.

Awesome.

Silver sits and Silver listens and she’s bored, but it’s a welcome distraction. Sitting together on a lopsided bed, she tries to fathom the extent of the woman’s memory loss.

“Nothing? Not even your name?”

The woman shakes her head. “I don’t remember anything from before the night you found me.”

The night Silver found her, she was soaking wet, stark naked and hiding in a pack of Chimera. That was strange, in and of itself. Chimera will eat just about anything, but they didn’t lay so much as a toe on her. Not even a scratch on her delicate, porcelain body. She was in perfect health, albeit underweight.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Silver scrunches up her face into a frown. “One of my men almost shot you that night. Why didn’t you speak up?”

“I was frantic. I think I half wanted him to pull the trigger, to tell you the truth.” She backhands some snot onto the cuff of Silver’s jacket. “What made you stop him?”

“I kill monsters—not people.”

“I thought I
was
a monster.”

Silver doesn’t know what to say to that. It’s true, she’s not human—she can’t be—and yet … she bears the form of a human female. She’s a bundle of soft, pink skin wrapped around a petite, bipedal skeletal frame. Chimera are quadrupeds, with grey, leathery sacks of skin draped over their ugly, twisted bodies.

This naked woman has thumbs; Chimera have dew claws. Chimera also have little nubbin tails, but her ass is just an ass, perfectly proportioned to the rest of her. She thinks and she speaks; she has intelligence and comprehension. Chimera don’t—they’re thick as two short planks. Nothing but a bunch of mindless freaks, capable only of eating, shitting and fighting—often at the same time.

In Silver’s mind there’s only one or the other, and nothing in between. She is either human, or she is Chimera. On the one hand, there’s her appearance. On the other hand, there are the remains of a crow on the bedroom floor.

No matter how she tries, Silver can’t get the two things to mesh inside her mind. Even if she could, there would still be the problem of her eyes ... her bright, violet eyes.

Chimeran eyes.

Exhausted, the woman eventually falls asleep, curled into the fetal position, her head resting on Silver’s lap. Chimera sleep this way, too, their extremities all tucked up beneath them to preserve their heat, huddled together for extra warmth.

So conflicted—so emotionally battered—Silver can’t even entertain the thought of sleeping. She’s hungry, and there’s no food. She’s thirsty, and there’s nothing to drink. If she’s going to keep herself alive, she’s going to have to be proactive. A human can go weeks or months without food, but water … only days, at most.

Mental priorities begin to come together in her brain.

First, find a source of water.

Second, procure food.

Third, generate income.

Fourth, complete the first three without getting killed.

Slipping quietly away from the sleeping woman, Silver tries the faucets in the theatre’s kitchen. Much to her surprise, water is pumped out, and she cracks a smile. Easy, she thinks.

She should know better.        

One sip and she almost gags.

Salty.

Of course, the Fringe District’s only piped water supply is siphoned directly from the ocean, and unlike their Sentinel District neighbors, they have no desalination facility.

Damnit.

She spits in the sink, trying to get the bad taste out of her mouth.

It doesn’t work, but outside, it begins to rain. Peeking out onto a small balcony, Silver lifts her face to the sky and takes in a mouthful of crystal clear, pure water.

Ping!

A notion.

It rains a lot here, and rainwater is drinkable. Not only that, but it’s free.

To the left of her on the balcony, a dilapidated fire escape stairwell provides a direct route to the roof and Silver takes it, snatching some net curtains off the window and taking them with her.

Up on top of the building, Silver looks around for tools, the net curtains slung over her shoulder. Much of the roof is flat, though there is a small storage area at one end and aesthetic peaks at the other. A tarp in the corner of the roof catches her eye, and she pulls it back to reveal a stack of large, steel pipes. Left over from set construction, maybe? Who gives a shit?

Another thought.

The sleeping woman is using rope as a makeshift belt … there must be more of it. With steel pipes and rope, and exploiting roof’s elaborate architecture, she should be able to secure the steel pipes upright. Climbing back inside, she makes her way down to the auditorium and casts her eyes upon the proscenium arch stage for the first time.

Once glorious and majestic, it’s now in tatters. Gilded floral moldings are flaking and dull, and the paint is peeling off the ceiling in chunks. Red velvet chairs are broken and torn, many of them now nesting places for rodents. Behind the stage, Silver finds a craft table. Upon it, the rope.

Score one.

Behind that, she finds a stack of large metal trash cans.

Score two.

Dragging her loot through the poorly lit backstage area, Silver stumbles over a sandbag—a counterweight once used for ballast hoisting set pieces into the fly space above the stage. Squinting in the darkness, she discovers a whole line of similarly weighted sandbags.

Score three.

One by one, Silver cuts the ropes with her hunting knife, sending set pieces crashing down onto the stage floor, the fall completely obliterating them upon impact.

Back on the roof, she positions the four empty trash cans in a large, square formation and fills each of them half full with sand.

Phase one, complete.

Setting the sand aside, she takes the steel pipes and wriggles one down into the sand inside each trash can, using the remaining sand to fill the trash cans to the brim; thus holding the pipes firmly in place.

Phase two, complete.

Now, hunting knife back in hand, she makes six holes in the edges of the tarp. One in each corner, and one in the middle of each end.

Phase three, complete.

Cutting the rope into measured lengths, she feeds one piece of it through one of the corner holes and secures the tarp to the top of one of the steel pipes, drawing the rope back and securing it to the edge of the rooftop for added stability.

Repeat, times three.

Phase four, complete.

With the tarp now secured to the four steel pipes, she takes another piece of rope and feeds it through the hole in the middle of the back edge, pulling the tarp downward into a shallow ‘V’ shape and securing it against the roof. This will help to counter the effects of the wind tearing up and under the tarp, threatening to undo all of her good work.

She does the same with the front end of the tarp, but lower, helping gravity by making a convenient spout.

Phase five, complete.

One last trash can and one last piece of rope, and the rain beating down still. She positions the trash can beneath the ‘spout’ and lays the net curtains out over top of it, securing it there with more of the rope.

Ta-da!

Now, stand back and admire.

A water collection device complete with a basic filtration system, and a non-porous storage vessel.

Soaked through, her hair matted to her face and neck, Silver is quietly proud of herself. If only there was someone around to witness her success. A lover, maybe.

Sadness returns.         

She takes a few scoops of water, quenches her thirst, and washes her face. Dusk is settling in over the city, and Silver knows she must rest before anything else of value can be accomplished. She needs to learn the lay of the land—and fast. She needs to find a viable source of income, and she needs to eat.

First thing’s first, though. She finds an old jug in the theatre’s kitchen and fills it with water from her contraption.

A gentle nudge is all it takes to wake the sleeping woman from her slumber.

“Here, sleepy head.” Silver offers her the jug. “Drink something.”

Eyeing Silver with suspicion, the woman reaches out to take the jug. As she does, she catches sight of an ancient scar on Silver’s right palm. Deep enough to slice through flesh and tendons, and to cause some serious, permanent damage, the wound is conspicuous and intriguing.

Self-conscious, Silver draws her hand back and out of sight before the woman has a chance to ask. “Drink,” she insists, nudging at the water jug.

The woman’s inspection of the cool, tempting liquid comes up favorable, and she takes a few much needed gulps. “Where did you get this?”

“We’ll have water from now on,” Silver assures her.