The Renegades (The Superiors) (26 page)

For
a moment, he considered carrying Cali across the city while he searched, but he
quickly decided against it. If she still meant to run, she would not do it
while fifty meters above the ground. Leaving Cali with food and all their
possessions, he began to cross the rooftops nearby, the strange sensation that
he moved over a dome above the city becoming stronger as he leapt from building
to building, moving swiftly without cargo to impede his progress, but mindful
always of his stiffening fingers. Perhaps overconfidence on a jump would not
kill him, but it could kill Cali. In the weeks it would take him to heal from a
severe injury, Cali would starve or die of exposure, trapped on a grimy rooftop
in the sprawling urban landscape.

Finally
he reached the area of town that did not heed the coming dawn.

In
this area bordering the service sector, neon lights flashed, snapping hungrily
at the last bits of darkness in the sky, and pools of artificial darkness
emanated from blackers with smooth, swanlike necks on black poles. Some of the
buildings here, like the rest of the city, had advertisements scrolling across
the sides, although these were of a more pornographic nature. Many buildings
were bare, made of old-fashioned brick, decorated with only suggestive figures
of neon to convey what delights awaited within. A moving image captivated
Draven’s attention, and he watched for a few moments, unsure how to react to
this almost-forgotten stimulus. He blinked a few times and turned away,
startled a bit to realize how long it had been since he’d lain with a woman.
For two years, he’d seldom had time to think of one, and, driven by his
obsession with finding Cali, he’d never so much as considered seeking one.
After affording it a momentary pause, he dismissed the thought, having heard
the rude words from those who frequented the street below. He hadn’t time for
that kind of desire.

Turning
away, he retraced his course to find Cali. She lay asleep, huddled under a
blanket, inside a sleep sack, with a backpack for a pillow. Draven knelt and
touched a tiny droplet of water that had formed on her cheek where an errant
snowflake had fallen and melted while she slept. She looked so fragile lying
asleep in the snow, her cheeks wind-burned red, her chapped lips slightly
parted, a wet patch above her upper lip where her nose had run and she’d not
had the presence of mind to wipe it away.

Cali’s
eyes opened, but she did not react to finding Draven watching over her. She
simply sat, and shivered, and drew the blanket tighter around her shoulders.
When she’d eaten and readied herself, Draven hoisted her onto his back and
carried her through the maze of buildings he’d traversed earlier. They stopped
to deposit their possessions atop a squat brick building, covering the bags
with snow as a precaution. Before leaving the privacy of the rooftop, Draven
pressed the aspen dagger into Cali’s hand. She took it without comment and hid
it inside her jacket. Together they descended the brick wall and reached the
street.

“Stay
close,” Draven said, letting her slip from his back. She staggered before
regaining her balance.

“Yeah,
okay,” she said. “Where are we going?”

“We’re
going to get a room, and it won’t be the loveliest place you’ve been,” he said.
“But it will have a shower.” He slid his arm around her waist and steered her
into the street, such acute awareness of her humanity filling his mind that he
couldn’t imagine having ever forgotten it for so much as a fraction of a moment.
As they turned out of the alley, every head turned, nostrils flared, eyes
probing and greedy. A few people stepped back as they passed, expectant
expressions on their faces, as if Draven and Cali’s procession was as staged as
the shows on display in nearby windows. Others stepped forward to taunt or make
lewd gestures as Draven hurried Cali past.

“Hey,
pretty little plaything, look what I got here for you to play with.”

“I’d
like to play with you...”

“Look
at him, thinks he’s all that for showing it off...”

“—sick
pervert does that to—”

“—kind
of bloodbagging freak—”

“—tasty
treat for someone tonight…”

Draven
tightened his arm around Cali, his fingers gripping the soft spot between her
hipbone and ribcage. “Mmm mmm mm, sure do look tasty,” said a thick-waisted man
in ill-fitting pants that matched his skin tone too exactly for comfort. “Maybe
I can get a taste of that sweet meat.” He broke away from the pack loitering
near the brick wall and sidled onto the sidewalk in front of Draven, twisting
his chin to one side as if to ease the tension in a stiff neck. Cali flinched
against Draven, catching the front of his shirt and pulling him closer. Draven
opened his jacket enough to show the Deactivator he’d confiscated from the
trackers. The man cursed and grudgingly ceded the walkway, his resentful gaze
following them as they passed.

Cali
still clutched Draven’s shirt in a clenched fist, as if she’d like to burrow
inside his clothing. With her arms tight around him, she stumbled against him
as she walked, but she refused to release her grip, though her awkward position
slowed their progress. When they reached the end of the street, Draven steered
Cali around the corner. This street featured wider walkways, an attitude of
invitation rather than hostility, and attire that clearly advertised the business
of pandering that took place there. A row of women leaned against a brick wall,
seemingly oblivious to the graphic scene taking place on the screen covering
the upper half of the building. Nearly all the women began striking inviting
poses the moment Draven turned onto the street.

“Hey,
baby, you want some of this?” one of the girls asked, bending so the string of
feathers she wore strategically wrapped around her top half fell forward and
exposed her exactly symmetrical breasts. The sidewalk swarmed with similar
girls, artificially perfect shapes clad in anything from formal eveningwear to
synthetic knock-offs of Enforcer uniforms to stick-on stars and body paint. If
Draven had been hyper-aware of Cali’s humanity on the last street, this one
only increased his discomfort. He had the absurd urge to cover her eyes and
spare her the provocative prostrations of the performers.

“Ooh,
let me see what you got,” said a lovely brown-skinned girl wearing a gold band
wrapped around her chest and one around her hips that resembled underpants. She
sidled up to Draven and ran her long gold nails down his arm. With her huge
cloud of black ringlets circling her head all the way to her shoulders, she
reminded him of an old partner from some years ago. But her hair, worn loose in
front of anyone who wanted to look, struck him as so obscene he couldn’t fathom
being aroused by her. It seemed to reach for him, somehow more blatant and
aggressive than the cascading hair of some of the others. “This here’s what I
got,” she said, sliding her hands slowly down her body and smiling with her
shiny lips and gleaming white teeth. He stepped away so her hair wouldn’t graze
his face.

“I
got what I need,” Draven said, hurrying along with Cali, who craned her neck to
watch the girl over Draven’s shoulder as she retreated, laughing, to her spot
along the wall.

Draven
pressed Cali to him, although she’d dropped her hand from his shirt and seemed
more interested in the women calling out to Draven than in him. “Are you
scared?” he asked into her ear.

“Not
anymore,” she said, turning her head away to look at a girl wearing a bodysuit
made of red netting and a feather headdress. “Who are these people? They’re all
really nice to you.”

“They’re
mistresses.”

“What’s
that?”

“They
are paid to be…nice.”

Relieved
to have her attention for a moment, he hurried her past a man standing on the
walkway watching as two women displayed in a window demonstrated their sexual
prowess. He welcomed the next woman’s attention, as Cali seemed captivated by
her and didn’t glance at the window they’d passed. “Ooh, you are one fine
looking man,” the woman said. She stood a head taller than Draven in her heels,
and she approached to rest her elbow on his shoulder as she walked beside him.
Her blonde hair hung down her back, secured at the nape of her neck with a
silver clip that matched the shimmering fabric of her scanty garment. “What you
doing down here? I know you ain’t gotta pay for it. Hell, I might pay you.”

“Thank
you,” he said, pulling away. “But no thank you.”

“Mmm,
damn, and polite, too. What’s this you got here? If it ain’t a homo-sapien. Hey
Shyla, com’ere and looka this. He brought hisself a little friend.”

“You
should let her pay you,” Cali whispered, as a woman with curves to spare and
long black hair tottered over on shoes that could serve as elevators. “Oooh, I
like that,” she said, before Draven could respond to Cali. “I’d even give you a
discount, you let me have some of that. Hey, I ain’t opposed to no
sapien-loving. I’ll do you both, price of one.”

“Do
what to us both?” Cali asked. The girls of the morning began laughing and hooting
and calling her cute. She held back as Draven pulled her away, nearly dragging
her along.

“Don’t
talk to them,” he said, lowering his voice to speak into her ear.

“Why
not?”

“It
encourages them.”

“To
do what?”

“To
solicit us.”

“What’s
that? They aren’t bothering us, are they?”

“Yes.”

“Why?
What do they want?”

“They
want our money.”

“But
they said they’d pay you.”

“She
didn’t mean it. You have to pay them.”

“Is
that why they all look so pretty? So you’ll pay to talk to them?”

Draven
chuckled. “They don’t want to talk. If you pay, they’ll do
that
with you,”
Draven said, nodding to a wall ad depicting a particularly tame scene for the
moment.

“Really?”
Cali asked, craning around to look again. “Why?”

“Because
that’s their job.”

“You
have to pay a fee to mate with a woman?”

He
laughed again. “You don’t have to. But you can.”

“But
why would you, if you can do it for free?”

“That’s
always been my opinion on it.”

“I
don’t understand.”

“Don’t
concern yourself. Things are different for Superiors.”

“But
why?”

“Oh,
I don’t know,” Draven said.

“What
do you mean, you don’t know?”

“If
you simply must know, ask me when we’ve found a room and I’ll tell you.” Draven
brushed off two men in skimpy vinyl shorts and a more persistent, burlier man
in skimpier shorts. A curvaceous man in a tight purple dress approached them as
they reached the end of the street. He looked a bit confused as his eyes moved
from Draven to Cali and back.

“You
looking for anything I can give you?” he asked, doubt evident on his face.

Draven
hesitated. The man could report him, but he’d likely have time to move out of
sight and regain the roof before Enforcers arrived. “A room,” he told the man
in purple. “For only us.”

The
man looked over his shoulder at the nearest mistress a few meters away, then
silently held out his hand, palm up.

“I
can’t pay you,” Draven said. “Please.” He held up his own hand, fingers towards
the bright morning sky and palm facing out, and brought the thumb and little
finger together. “Third to Third,” he said, his last entreaty.

The
man’s lips tightened and he hesitated, then nodded down the adjacent street.
“Maxine’s,” he said, and turned back to his corner.

“Gracias,”
Draven said, taking off at a brisk pace. He ignored a woman lurking in a
doorway looking too hungry for Cali’s safety. Only the desperate would stay out
in daylight much longer. Draven pushed Cali inside the darkened doorway of the
building the man in purple had indicated. The stench of diseased sapiens, filth,
drugs and dirty sap greeted them in the entrance. Draven ignored it and slid
his hand up the back of Cali’s neck and held her in front of him. “We want a
room,” he told the woman at the desk. She looked up from filing her artificial
fingernails.

“Oh
yeah? What kinda mistress you looking for? Curvy cowgirl? Dominatrix diva? A
tight little virgin whore?”

“No
kind. I already have mine.”

The
receptionist set her nail file on the edge of the desk. “Wait, so you want a
room without anyone in it?”

“Yes,
and I want privacy. No interruptions, all day. No matter what.”

The
woman looked at Cali and then Draven. “A’right. That might cost you extra.”

“No,
I want it for half price. Give the sap in the room to someone else, charge them
for the other half of my room. Someone will pay for double play.”

“Regular
rate.”

“A
fool’s not among them,” Draven said. “I know how this works. I’ve done it
enough.”

“A’right,
half price.” The woman reached for Draven’s hand but he pulled back.

“An
old fashioned key,” he said.

The
woman gave him a sullen look. He stared her down, his eyes steady and his jaw
set. Not even a legal Superior would check into a room like that with his ID
scan. As an Illegal, it would sign his arrest warrant. “As I said…A fool’s not
among them.”

The
woman looked like she’d say something, but instead, she reached under the
counter and brought out a clear card with the metal coding showing through. Draven
caught it from her hand before she’d set it on the counter. She gave him a little
sneer and looked at Cali in disgust.

“I’ll
pay in the evening,” Draven said. He grabbed Cali’s arm and dragged her down
the hall.

“Ouch,
that hurts,” she said, pulling at her arm. “Let go.”

He
slid the key into the slot and thrust the door open with his foot, pushing Cali
into the room so quickly she stumbled against the door. Closing the door behind
him, he caught the insolent look on her face. She stood rubbing her arm and
glaring at him. “You hurt me.”