Veneer (25 page)

As the light got closer, Deron noticed he was breathing faster. Something about the enclosed space was sparking a biological response, making his muscles ache with apprehension. He had to concentrate to bring them in line, but the thought of taking deep breaths didn’t seem right in the tunnel. There were probably bugs flying around, little gnats or flies that he could suck in through his nose. The thought made him clam up and pull his shirt up to his eyes as a barrier. In the distance, he saw open land and broke into a run.

The first thing Deron noticed about the new environment was the clear horizon. Spinning in place, he gazed at the outside walls of Easton. The tunnel had taken him underneath and now he was in the open.

Panic set in and he stumbled.

No one goes outside the walls. And even if they could, they shouldn’t.

There are bad things out there, he thought, recalling the warnings of childhood. Things like plants that would poison you just for looking at them or animals that would rip a human to shreds for fun and sustenance. The three F’s of the outland were Flora, Fauna, and Fallout. Even if he could survive the local hazards, there was still the radiation. He could never outrun or outwit that. It was just there, sucking the life out of him, maybe even now.

Get out, he thought. If you can’t see, get out of my city.

The trail had led him out of Easton and towards his death. There was nothing for him to do out here, no path that wouldn’t lead to radiation poisoning.

Deron dipped his head. He kicked idly at a rock and watched it tumble along the dirt a few feet before coming to rest next to an arrangement of pebbles that looked suspiciously like an arrow. Examining it closely, he found it was pointing away from the wall, maybe thirty degrees to the left. There were no glinting clues to guide him—just a bent line that promised nothing.

After a glance backwards, he began to walk.

Deron tried to enjoy the freedom of being outside, of seeing a horizon with no razor wire, and of breathing crisp air that hadn’t passed through any factories or restaurants. His mind wandered as the quarter mile turned into a half, then a full. Units of measurement passed without acknowledgement and the only way he could gauge his progress was by how small Easton got and how much effort it took to draw another breath. He fought through it, pushed himself to keep going and not give up. But eventually his body failed him enough to make him pause and rest against a pile of rubble that looked like evercrete but seemed immovable.

All night, the horizon had remained static, full of silhouettes of small plants and discarded junk. It reminded him of a veneer in the way its invariance betrayed its realism.

Then, one of the silhouettes moved, making his heart beat out a tempo so intense that it actually pained him. Deron narrowed his eyes, tried to bring the distant image closer. There was no denying the shadow moving under the moonlight. It was a smallish figure with a walking stick in one hand and some kind of disc in the other. It moved slowly as if it had no particular destination in mind. Still, it was coming towards Deron, towards a confrontation he might not survive.

There were stories about raiding parties and ambushed travelers taking the road to Paramel or Sonora. Whether they were true or not didn’t really matter; the moral was always the same.

Never trust an outlander.

At a hundred yards, the figure’s body language changed. Its hand went up in the sign of a greeting, but Deron remained suspicious. He didn’t move, relied on the shadows of the rubble to keep him hidden.

“Hey,” called a boy’s voice over the diminishing gulf. He sounded excited and soon enough his smile became visible. “Finally!”

At close range, Deron became more optimistic that he could hold his own in a fair fight. His opponent was shorter but a little stockier. Even though his heart was about to explode, he still had the option of running away.

“Can you see?” asked the boy.

“Of course I can see,” replied Deron, clenching his hands into fists. He thought about how vicious Russo had looked during their last meeting and tried to channel the same aggressive posture.

“I’m Valentin. What’s your name?”

“Deron.”

“You gonna hit me, Deron?”

“Depends.” He felt foolish trying to sound tough. “What are you doing out here?”

Valentin’s smile shifted but remained friendly. “I’m here for you, for anyone that’s free of the veneer.” He put his hands on his waist and looked back the way Deron had come. “This is like, my tenth time coming out here. I was beginning to think I’d never get one.”

“One what?” Deron took a step backwards, unsure what to make of Valentin’s subtle claim.

“A defector. A fugitive.” Valentin scratched his chin. “Outcast?”

“I left on my own,” said Deron, proudly.

“Sweet.”

“Yeah,” he replied, nodding at the unfamiliar expression. “Do you live out here?”

“Not here,” said Valentin, looking around in disgust. “You’ll see.” He extended his arm in invitation.

Deron took one last look at the dot of a city. “Do you come out here every night?”

“No,” he explained. “We have shifts. It’s a long way, but you only have to do it every few weeks, so it’s not bad. Just have to stock up.” He gestured to his backpack. “It’s like going for a long walk. You’re just the icing.”

All Deron could do was nod.

“You thirsty?” Valentin handed over the disc. “I’ve got my own flask. I only get to drink this if I don’t find anyone. My dad says it has extra vitamins and stuff in there, but you can’t taste ‘em.”

“It’s good,” said Deron, after a quick swig. The texture was different than what came from the faucet at home.

“So what’s new in Easton?”

“You’ve been there?”

“No,” replied Valentin, visibly saddened by the admission. “I was born in Dos Presas.” His accent slipped for a second as he pronounced the name with a Spanish flair. “My dad says even if I get in, I wouldn’t be able to see anything.”

“You don’t have the magic,” said Deron.

At that, his new guide smiled and changed the subject. “We should go. It’s a long walk back home and it’s not gonna get any warmer until the sun comes up.”

Deron shrugged, felt himself caught up in the torrent that flowed under Valentin’s feet. So many pieces of the puzzle had just fallen into his lap and he hadn’t had a moment to arrange them properly.

The trail led outside. There were people outside, people that came back looking for others with Undersight. Then what?

Though Valentin was leading him somewhere, he hadn’t said anything about what they would do when they got there. There were no possibilities that jibed with what they had taught him about the outland. Valentin was young, but he had survived the radiation so far. And it hadn’t made his dad sterile.

So many lies, he thought.

“So,” asked Valentin, after a long silence, “tell me about yourself. Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Yeah,” said Deron. “Her name’s Rosalia.”

“What does she look like?”

Something caught in Deron’s throat. “I don’t know.”

Principal Ficcone pulled Sebo out of the crowd as soon as he stepped through the front doors of Easton Central. His curt
come with me
didn’t suggest a good mood.

Sebo was surprised by the early morning ambush, but his lingering grogginess kept him from puzzling out the impetus. Instead, he simply followed the principal away from the flow of students towards his office. His secretary opened the door for them as they approached and that’s when Sebo saw the two uniforms waiting inside. He shot a look at Principal Ficcone, but the man’s veneer was impassive. Ushering him into the room, he instructed Sebo to sit down.

Settling into the leather chair, Sebo wanted to ask what was going on, but the principal left the room abruptly and the two uniforms didn’t seem inclined to speak with him. Every question hung in the air unanswered, met with a stern look and a warning to sit quietly. After a few minutes, he gave up trying to get information out of them and switched to listing all of the possible reasons why the cops would want to talk to him, or worse, arrest him. His mind cycled through his recent transgressions, arranging them in descending severity, but nothing came close to breaking any important laws. Then, like a smack to the face, he flashed on the answer.

Deron.

Worst-case scenarios began to play through his head, aggravated by the silence coming from the uniforms. If they knew something, they weren’t telling. Unlike Sebo, they had the resources to mount a proper manhunt, to do much more than ride the trams until two in the morning looking for someone who wasn’t there. All night, he had circled the lower half of Easton, watching the crowds get progressively smaller, watching his optimism dwindle in the reconciled twilight.

By the end of the night, all he had to show for his efforts was an ache in his back and a desire to sleep until July. Then, when he did rest, he found himself again on the hunt, spying Deron from the tram but losing him on the double-take.

After Sebo turned his attention inward, the uniforms drifted to the window and started mumbling about the attractive girls passing through the front plaza. As far as they were concerned, guarding Sebo was secondary to ogling the young flesh on display outside.

“Did you hear about Barber?” asked the larger of the two. His hand seemed glued to his Blackjack, the hefty black baton hanging from his belt.

“Who?” The other officer was slightly shorter than his counterpart, but his muscles bulged distinctly under his uniform.

“You ‘member that rookie we met at Poe’s weekend before last, when we busted up that party?”

Muscles laughed. “You mean that little five foot nothing chump? What about him?”

“Censured. Six weeks as a desk jockey.”

“Sheeeit, what’d he do, slap the chief?”

“No,” laughed Blackjack. “He was doing traffic duty at Rio Vista, you know, on the north side?”

“Did he slap a fifth-grader?”

Blackjack put up his hand. “Just listen. Barber’s working traffic, right? And he sees this group of kids walking to school and one of ‘em has this box in his hand.” He mimed the object. “And when Barber looks at the kid, he hides the thing behind his back all suspicious-like.”

Muscles nodded.

“Barber says to the kid, ‘What you got there?’ and the kid, being the genius that he is, says he has a bomb.”

“Fuck all,” said Muscles, crossing his arms.

“Naw, it wasn’t a
real
bomb. Turns out this kid made it out of rubber bands and one of those little ring boxes—I don’t fuckin’ know. But Barber’s a fuckin’ idiot, so he gets all up in this kid’s face and tells him to open the box.”

“So...”

Blackjack lowered his voice. “So the kid starts opening the top and Barber leans in and then the little fucker yells, ‘Boom!’”

“And
then
he slapped him?”

“No, fucking Barber draws his sidearm and points it at the kid and yells, ‘Bang!’”

“He got censured for that?”

“Yeah, well, the kid shit his pants.” He shrugged. “So his parents wrote a letter, of course.”

“Is that true?” asked Sebo.

“Nobody’s talking to you,” reminded Blackjack.

“He should have shot him in the face,” said Muscles, looking out the window again. He stubbed his finger against the glass. “Dig on those,” he said. “I’d punch your mother for a shot at—”

Fortunately, the door behind Sebo swung open, saving him from a degenerating conversation that would have explored the limits of indecency among the ranks of the Easton PD. He turned in his chair, expecting to see one of his classmates joining him, but instead saw Principal Ficcone accompanying a well-dressed man with a familiar face.

“This is Mr. Kahani,” said the principal.

“We’ve met,” said the man. He crossed the room and extended his hand. “Agent Ruiz. How are you today, son?”

“Confused,” replied Sebo. He cast a glance at the uniforms by the window.

Agent Ruiz took the hint and sighed. “Officers, can you please wait outside? I’d like to have a chat with Mr. Kahani.”

They grumbled in response, but complied. As they passed Principal Ficcone, he shuffled awkwardly in place.

“Mr. Ficcone, please, a little privacy?”

“Sure, sure,” he replied, appearing flustered for the first time in Sebo’s memory.

When they were alone, Agent Ruiz reconciled a friendly veneer, “Please relax, Sebo. You’re not in any trouble.” He walked around the principal’s desk and sat down in the high-backed chair.

“And Deron?”

The agent’s eyebrows jumped a micrometer. He pulled a palette from his jacket and reconciled a portal on it. “Aside from the fact that your friend is missing, no, he is not in any trouble that we know of. According to his mother, he left his house sometime yesterday and hasn’t been seen since. Has he tried to contact you?”

Sebo shook his head. “No. Rosa and I—”

“Rosa,” said the agent, consulting his palette. “Rosalia Collier. Deron’s mother indicates she is his current love interest.” There was something detached about the way he said
love interest
, as if it were a habit of the proletariat, a group of which he was no longer a part.

“Yeah.”

“And how would you characterize their relationship?”

Sebo had never really examined it before; he shrugged to fill the moment. Although it was clear why Deron liked Rosa—she had tits, after all—it wasn’t obvious why she liked him in return. “Well,” he said, after collecting his thoughts, “I suppose it’s a normal relationship. They—”

“Are they sexually active?”

Sebo blinked slowly, tapping out
that’s none of your business
with his eyelids.

Agent Ruiz smiled. “Forgive me. I’m just trying to get a clear picture of Deron’s life. Strong hormonal and emotional factors, especially in young men, can often make them behave erratically. If Deron and this Rosa had a falling out or if they argued about sex, for example, then that helps define a psychological profile which, sometimes, can provide clues to a person’s intentions.”