The Courier (San Angeles) (10 page)

Instead of dropping straight down, I began a slow-motion fall backward. My fingernails scraped the shaft wall as it moved out of my reach. I could feel the inky blackness reach up to grab me . . . to pluck me off the wall and discard my carcass in a watery grave. I pulled at the edge of the open door with my leg, jerking my body in closer. The tips of my fingers felt the cold metal and I leaned in, scrabbling for purchase as the door slid past.

My right foot impacted the floor just outside the door. The dull pain in my calf blossomed into a white-hot sear. My leg collapsed under me. I felt the edge of the door, and I grabbed, fingers sliding between the metal and the crumbling rubber door guard, cutting into my skin. I tightened my grip around the sharp metal lip and pulled. My helmet slipped off my arm and splashed into the dark water below.

I slammed onto the ledge with my hip and stopped, hugging the door with every ounce of strength I had left. Somehow, I’d managed to get both legs into the hallway and a firm grip on the door. My entire body vibrated, threatening to loose me from my tenuous perch. I pressed my forehead to the cold metal, fighting the exhaustion and nausea that threatened to overwhelm me. My legs twitched uncontrollably. I sat there, stunned and unable to move, until light burst in from the tunnel above. I commanded my body into motion, forcing it to obey, and scrambled for the hallway.

The hall was as dark as the elevator shaft. I groped along the floor, looking for the candle and matches I had placed there years ago. If they were gone, I was fucked. Trying to move around in this place in the dark was going to get me lost and dead from starvation.

The candle, wrapped in plastic and covered in dust and bits of fallen concrete, was exactly where I had put it. I grabbed the package and slid on my butt, backing away from the elevator door. My hands shook as I unwrapped the plastic. When I struck the match, it went out almost right away from the violent spasms of my hand. I struck another one and lowered the flickering flame to the candle’s wick. The hallway came into view, revealing the familiar blue-green walls, the paint cracked and peeling. I stood, using the wall for support. It felt slick and damp. I wasn’t sure if it was the wall or from the cuts on my fingers. The candle flame shrunk to a small blue glow. Moving my hand from the wall, I cupped my fingers around the feeble flame, casting the hall in front of me into shadow. The flame grew again, and I limped forward.

If my candle was still here, there was a pretty good chance no one had been in my basement since I had left. That meant my old cubbyhole would still be there, just an old mattress shoved against the wall and a tattered blanket.

I took a step onto my hurt leg and almost cried out in pain. I lowered the candle to the floor and rolled up my pant leg. It didn’t look as bad as I thought it would. As bad as it felt. There were no bullet holes or visible bones, just the beginning of what promised to be a hell of a bruise and small cuts that covered the entire back of my calf. I still wasn’t sure about my ribs. I straightened up and winced as I walked, adding my hip and cut hand to the growing list of pains.

The route to my old home came back to me as I walked, even after all this time, each corner and hallway recognizable in the flickering light of the candle. The old tenant storerooms were just ahead, and tucked in amongst them, my cubbyhole. What I had once called home.

The room was a lot smaller than I remembered it. There was
barely enough room to sit and sleep. The bed, too short for even me, was covered in a thick layer of dust and fine gravel, and probably a whole ton of mouse shit, but right now it was the best thing I’d seen in a long time. Maybe if I shook out the tattered blankets, I could lie down for just a few minutes. I barely had the blankets moved when I fell on top of them, my body forcing me to do what my brain said I shouldn’t.

I sat up, hands scrabbling for my face. A scream pounded my ears. I grabbed something small and furry, throwing it as far from me as I could. The room was pitch black.

Where was I?

I couldn’t see anything.

Panic grabbed me and squeezed tight. I leaped to my feet, pain stabbing my leg, and fell back down. A cloud of dust rose around me and I coughed until tears fell from my eyes.

The pain woke me up completely, and I remembered where I was. The basement. My candle must have burned down to nothing, leaving the room in a cold cover of darkness. I crawled onto my knees, blindly reaching for more candles and matches on the small box I had once used as a bedside table.

I felt the matches and struck one. The remaining candles had been gnawed down to nubbins of wax scattered on the box. Pain seared through my fingertips and the burned out match fell to the floor. I pulled another match from the box, ready to strike it, before common sense kicked in. Walking down here in the dark was suicide. Better to save the matches for when I needed them. I counted the matches in the dark. Five left.

I stood and groaned. Every piece of me hurt, from my calf up to my head. Even brushing off the bits of dirt that clung to me brought a wave of protest from my muscles. I stretched and felt the dry blood on my neck crack.

How long had I slept? If the candle was burned down, it had to have been at least a couple of hours. My helmet would have told me, if I hadn’t lost it. What if those bastards found a way in and were waiting for me? At least if they had light, I’d be able to see them.

The guy who tried to grab me this morning. What was his name? Frank. He said he had left his car a couple of streets north of here. I doubted it was still in one piece—the gangs took whatever they wanted. They didn’t usually work during the day though. If the car
was
there, I could grab it and get out of Level 1. It obviously wasn’t safe here anymore. But then what? Run? I’d decided long ago I would never run again.

It was becoming a hard decision to live up to.

I could feel the anger building in my gut, familiar and scary at the same time. For now, I reveled in it, feeding it all the shit I’d been through since yesterday. The anger grew, pushing the aches and pains away. Enough of this fucking running and almost getting killed every step of the way. I needed to turn the tables on these guys, needed to find out who they were and why they were coming after me. I laughed quietly. It
sounded
so simple. And stupid.

I took a step forward, stubbing my toe on the box. My hands reached out ahead of me, looking for the doorway to my room. My eyes played tricks on me in the dark, showing me the outline of the doorway until I turned my head and it disappeared. The doorframe brushed my shoulder as I went through it, and I turned right, stretching my left hand out to reach for the wall, but finding only air. I took a step left and my fingers smashed into concrete, sending a spasm of pain through my cut fingers and up to my elbow. I had found the wall.

I stood there, getting my breathing back under control, and mapped my way forward. Once I found the exit, I’d have to turn right again. Somewhere in that hallway was a pile of rubble I’d created long ago, full of broken glass and sharp steel. I couldn’t remember exactly where it was. After that was a tee, and I had to turn left. No wait, right, I had to go right. Left would get me to the stairs leading to the lower basement. I shook my head. I hadn’t realized how much navigation relied on being able to see. I set off, clutching the matches in my hand.

By the time I reached the tee, I was down to three matches. I struck one and held it up to the wall. A faded black arrow on the wall pointed left, to the sub-basement. I turned right and walked until the match burned down to my fingers.

I was heading to one of my emergency exits. When you were a young girl, hell, just a girl, on Level 1, you had to have an escape route. More than one. A lifetime ago, I’d snuck into an adjoining building and made one.

In the exploration of my hiding spot, I’d found a connection between the two basements. Just a busted pipe running between them, big enough for me to crawl through. The other side had a grate covering the pipe. I’d tried to move it, but it had held fast. When I snuck into the other building, I replaced all the screws holding the grate in place with smaller ones. They held the grate up, but made it loose enough to come off with some effort. That’s what I hoped anyway. Some days, I just lay in the pipe, listening to people doing their laundry, wondering if my life would ever be that simple again. For a while, it was.

The walk to the pipe used to take me a couple of minutes. Today it seemed to take forever. I’d run out of matches, and the pitch black reached into my brain. I saw lights in the distance, darker shadows shifted and hid in every corner. My heart thudded in my chest,
hammering in my ears. I held my breath until spots flitted in front my eyes.

One of the distant lights refused to go out, getting brighter as I walked toward it. I focused on it, watching the dim glow slowly take shape, becoming a faded circle in the darkness. The pipe.

I crawled headfirst into the pipe with a sigh of relief. When I reached the grate, I grabbed it with both hands and pushed. The grate didn’t budge. A surge of dread rushed through me.

I leaned back and threw my weight against it. Nothing happened. Blood rushed to my head and my chest suddenly felt hollow. This had to work, it was my only way out. I was out of matches.

I leaned back and lunged again and again. Each time, the panic rose higher in my chest. Then the grate popped off, its weight almost pulling me from the pipe onto the floor. I lowered it the rest of the way and crawled through the opening into the weak fluorescent light shining through a partially open door. I lay on the floor, breathing deep, staring at the light.

Before I left, I refastened the grate. I couldn’t find one of the screws, but it held in place anyway.

You never knew when you would need one of your old haunts.

From there it was an easy walk up the stairs to the exit on South San Pedro Street. When I stepped outside, the Ambients were still bright, so maybe I hadn’t slept more than a few hours. My stomach grumbled, but I wasn’t starving. My last meal had been at old Kai’s last night.

I found the car at the corner of San Pedro and Fifth. The car was, surprisingly, still in one piece. Someone had tried to smash the windows—busted rocks lay on the hood and I could see tiny marks on the windshield and side windows. A shattered baseball bat lay near the front tire. This wasn’t an ordinary car. I moved to the driver’s door and entered the code. The lock opened immediately and the
car started. I jumped in and slammed the door closed just before another rock exploded on the glass. I ignored it, adjusted the seat to my height, and drove to the distant up-ramp.

Once I reached Level 2, I went on autopilot. I knew these streets. The taller ceilings helped lift my spirits. When they first starting building the cities up, they’d kept the levels low, whether they didn’t trust their construction or they just wanted us to feel contained. Level 2 had twenty-one-meter ceilings, and Level 3 went right up to twenty-seven meters.

Turning the tables on these guys was a noble idea, but not a very well thought out one. The few hours of sleep I’d managed to get and the fresher air on Level 2 helped to recover some of my senses. Whoever I was running away from were professionals. This wasn’t just a gang member trying to earn points. This was a planned and concerted effort to get me and my package.

The last thought stopped me short and pulled me from my reverie. My package? What the hell was that about? The thing was, it wasn’t my package at all. I was just a fucking courier. Why kill the messenger? Because I’d seen the murder or because I still had the package?

I was really beginning to miss my helmet. I could have contacted Dispatch and told her I was coming in with the delivery. I paused midthought. No, wait. Hadn’t I done that already? The previous day was just a blur.

I fingered the gun in my jacket pocket. Its cool, hard surface scared me, but at the same time, it was strangely comforting. I didn’t even know how to shoot the damn thing. What if I had to use it, and
found out I couldn’t? A picture of Frank’s head, exploded and smeared against the wall behind him popped into my brain, and I jerked my hand out of my pocket. A Taser was one thing, but if I pulled out the gun, I had better be willing to face the consequences of using it. I wasn’t sure if I could.

Something in the car beeped.

It sounded like a comm signal. A surge of panic skittered up my spine and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Oh man, was the car being tracked? Tears threatened to push their way to the surface again and I blinked to keep them away.
Get a grip, girl, pull over and see if there’s a comm unit in the damn car.

Just ahead was a twenty-four-hour Super Store. I giggled. It came out as a high-pitched bubble of almost uncontrollable laughter. This was the same fucking Super Store I had pulled into yesterday, just before my entire fucking life collapsed. I pulled into the lot and found a spot buried in amongst the other cars. I figured it would be tougher for the sniper to get me here. If he was still around somewhere.

I sat in the quiet of the car waiting for another beep. It never came. If there was a comm unit in here, where would it be? The most obvious place to look would be the glove box. Why the hell they called it that was a mystery to me. Did anyone actually keep gloves in there? I popped it open and hit the jackpot on the first try.

Inside the glove box was a sleek new comm unit, all black and chrome and shiny. It didn’t have any corporate logos on it, not even a brand. The unit fit into the palm of my hand and turned on automatically. Sure enough, a message had come in. I stared at the blinking message indicator before placing the unit on the seat beside me. Tucked into the back of the glove box was a plain white envelope. I pulled it out, opened it, and gasped. It was filled with cash, and lots of it. I shoved the envelope into my jacket without counting, looking out the windows to make sure no one had seen it.

I searched the rest of the car the best I could without opening the doors. The way the glass had stopped bricks, I felt a lot safer inside it than out. I didn’t want to lose that feeling. Everything else in the car was clean. Almost factory clean. There wasn’t even a stray candy wrapper under the damn seat. Going through it made me realize how gross I felt and looked.

I stared at the comm unit’s flashing indicator before picking it up. It was locked, asking for the pass code before it let me do anything. I tried the same number I used to unlock the car. I couldn’t believe it worked. I read the message.

Please advise on status of current assignment.

That was it. No signature, no how do you do. The phone had only one other message, dated yesterday. I selected it and froze, my breath caught in my throat.

Displayed on the screen was my picture. It took me a second to place it before I realized it came from my courier license photo. Below the picture were some stats like hair and eye color, height, and a description of my motorcycle.

What I read below that caused me to hold my breath again.

Known places of presence.

It listed most of my regular hangouts, including Kai’s restaurant. But it also had my aunt’s apartment and the old address of my basement hiding place on Level 1. How the fuck did anyone know about that?

The last line said
Confirm Delivery to Level 5 McConnell Park
.

I slammed the comm unit into an inside pocket of my jacket, started the car, and continued on to the depot. Back to plan one: lose the package.