“
Fuck it.” One of them kicked the dead man. “Not even a jack on him.” He was almost bald; what hair there was left on his head was wispy and grey, though his face didn’t look that old. His clothes were filthy and riddled with holes. He wasn’t wearing any shoes.
His fellow nodded, stood, and scanned the street, his expression far too thoughtful.
“He didn’t overdose though, did he?” This junkie looked healthier. He still had hair, for one thing, dark and speckled with grey. He even wore shoes, mismatched, but surely better than none. “Ever seen an overdose with a head like that?”
I leaned back from the window as the junkie stared up at the building.
“You’re saying someone beat the shit out of him, and took his stuff?”
“
What else do you think happened? He, what, beat his own brains out on the street then threw his wires in the gutter?”
A pause.
“He coulda done it the other way, threw his junk first—”
“
No one breaks open the back of their own head on the floor!”
I leaned forward again, peered down. The junkies were pacing the street, kicking at doors, looking through windows. I held my breath as they knocked against the old, wire-frame door beneath me, and it gave way.
Voices echoed up from the floors below. “So, maybe they are still close by, you reckon?”
“
I swear, you say one more word and I’m going to blow your fucking brains out!”
“
But that’s why you’re looking around, right? Think they’ve still got his wires and jacks?”
“
I’m not kidding. One more word, I introduce a bullet to your brain. I’ll buy them fucking dinner.”
I stared around the room. I might be able to hide in the bathtub, if I hunched down tight enough. But they would see the bedding; all they had to do was glance inside the room as they walked past. Then surely, they would come hunting. And my son was in here, propped up against the wall, a thin blanket the only thing between him and these two violent men.
But I didn’t have my suit, and I didn’t have pions. So I tore a long, thin pipe from the wall, tucked my left hand—encased in silex bath—into the folds of my loose shirt and held the twisted, rusting weapon out in front of me. I stood, facing the doorway, bare feet braced against the floorboards, stance as strong as I could make it. And watched as the junkies emerged from the stairs.
There was something strange about them, something I hadn
’t noticed while they were out on the street. They seemed to…waver. Like waves of heat rising from their skin, encasing them. But when the floating dust of ages passed through the oddly shifting air around their bodies, it changed. Some suddenly shone like tiny, trapped stars before falling to wink out on the ancient floorboards. Others snapped into deep darkness that buzzed around like flies. Some even grew large, long, and dropped, slithering, alive, to the junkies’ shoulders.
I shook, a little, but held my ground. The Flares these men had connected themselves to were Pionic, I knew that. They were bursts of energy capable of rewriting reality. So maybe I was seeing the residue effects? But if that was true, then what was it doing to their insides? No wonder the man Lad had killed had looked so unhealthy. This was what happened if you wired yourself to a Shard? No matter how hard Crust and her teachings were, could this be worth it?
I swallowed against the silex in my throat. Wasn’t the same thing inside me? Killing me?
“
We ain’t gonna find anything here,” the bald and unhealthy looking one said. There was a certain weakness to his knees, a wobble in his gait that made stair climbing difficult. He clutched the railing, hauled himself up, and didn’t even bother to brush newly formed wiggling worm-like creatures from his shoulders. One sprouted legs and skittered away, inside his clothes. He didn’t seem to notice. “Reckon we go back and—”
The sarcastic and healthier one turned on him. He drew a gun from the back of his pants with a single, smooth movement and pointed it at his fellow
’s face. “What did I tell you?” he hissed, and used the tip of the gun to wipe away the creatures on the first junkie’s shoulders. “Fuck man, at least clean yourself up!”
The stupid one flinched back from the gun in his face, and as he did so, he saw me. Our eyes met for the long moment it seemed to take for him to realise I was there, then a look like wonder, and hunger, crossed his face.
“There’s a woman,” he said. “And she’s glowing.”
The sarcastic junkie paused.
“What?”
“
There.”
Then the gun was pointed at me. I remembered what Lad had said about silex exploding, about festering splinters of brass and crystal, or direct blows to the head and chest. But still, I lifted my makeshift weapon higher, and the Flare within me brightened, casting its fluctuating weave between us.
“Get out of here,” I said.
The gun shook slightly.
“She’s wired.” When he laughed, I realised the unhealthy junkie barely had any teeth left at all. “Can’t see the cables, but she got to be. Look at her glow!” He tried to move toward me, but his partner held him back.
“
No,” he said, his voice tight, low. Far too thoughtful for my liking. “No, she’s got no wires at all.” He approached me, slowly, gun still lifted. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The junkies entered the bathroom, and I stepped back, unwillingly. They split up, circled me. Strange things were happening to the floor at their feet. Wood splintering one moment, mending the next. Water oozing out of dry boards. Copper wires flecked with silex rose like charmed snakes. I backed toward the corner with the tube, determined to keep my body between them and my son. There was no way I would let them find him.
“Where’s your connection, little thing?” the man with the gun asked. “Did you kill that man out there and take his junk? You using that to glow so hard?”
I didn
’t answer, just waved my pipe in front of them.
“
That silex?” The stupid one muttered. I glanced toward him. He was closer than I had realised, and I nearly tripped to keep distance between us. “In her neck, and arm, glowing like that. Is that silex?”
“
You know, I think it is. And not just any silex, there’s a Flare in there.”
The way they spoke, it was like they had forgotten I was here, even as they pushed me into the corner and trained that gun on my head.
“Fuck, there is. She’s not connected, she don’t need to be! She’s a Shard, all on her own.”
The sarcastic one laughed. My feet knocked the tube and it rattled against the wall, the sound thankfully muffled by the blanket it was wrapped in.
“Is that what you are, little thing? You a Shard? What if we wanna wire you? Would you lie there, just lie there, and take it? Or do we have to tear that silex out of you first?”
“
Never wired a girl before.”
“
No!” I swung my pipe at them. The stupid one skipped back, and his partner laughed. “Get out of here!”
In one quick motion, the sarcastic junkie pocketed his gun, stepped forward, and grabbed my pipe. He yanked it from my hand, and threw it aside.
The tension in my clutching grip sent tiny cracks up through the silex in my arm. Light spilled out in fitful bursts, colouring their hungry faces.
“
Amazing,” the idiot gasped. Before I could even try to move away he had wrapped arms around my waist and pressed the side of his face against my neck. “That’s strong, isn’t it?”
His companion nodded. He grabbed my right arm, yanked my shirtsleeve back and peered at the newly formed cracks.
“Surely it is.”
They did not look afraid of the death, the undoing, leaking into this world from beneath my skin. I saw, in their ravenous eyes, none of the fear and horror I had seen in programmers
’.
“
Don’t you know what that means?” I gasped. The junkie’s grip was tight, I could barely breathe against his arms. “This Flare will unmake you, if you stay here. If we don’t repair the silex, it will kill us all!”
Sarcastic twisted his lips in a dry smile.
“Think we’re scared of a little changing?” He grabbed a handful of the strange creatures from his shoulders and held them right in front of my face. Leeches, I thought, just like leeches. Except in the waves of heat from his skin they were changing, ever changing. From living things, to dust again, one to a tiny perfect flower that crawled away on fat white hands.
“
Already happening.” The stupid junkie’s breath, so close to my face, was rancid.
I struggled against their hold, I tried to kick. All I got for my trouble was cracking along my waist and in my ankle.
“Hush.” Sarcastic wiped his hand on his pants then gripped my chin. His touch made my skin itch.
“
What will you do to me?” I whispered.
“
Don’t tell me, that with all that light inside you, you’ve never been wired?” He pouted a fake expression of regret. “Now that’s exciting. To be first.”
A harsh chuckle close behind my ear.
“Yeah, exciting.”
“
Let me show you.” Sarcastic released me, and pulled back his own sleeve, revealing a filthy arm covered in scars. Some old and white, others fresh and still red and tight. “You looking?” He dug at a ridge of newer scars around the underside of his wrist until the skin peeled back to reveal a small nib of silex. He pinched the silex and drew it out. A long stream of wires followed.
He took my cracked wrist again. I tried to recoil, but his fellow held me tightly. The wires were inside him. And even though these did not kick like insect legs, they were just too close—oh too close—to the suit that had been inside of me.
“This is my jack,” the junkie said, grinning widely. Most of his teeth were missing, and the wavering aura around him made the darkness inside his mouth squirm like it was alive. “Use it to hack into Shards. Shards a lot like you.”
He pressed his silex nib hard against the cracks in my wrist. For a moment we were nothing but crystal, grinding. Then the nib softened, and liquid bubbled up from within me, and they bled into each other, wrapped around his wires, and we were joined, the junkie and I. He tipped his head back and took a deep, shuddering breath.
“Now, we’re wired.”
My Flare flickered. Its light danced along his wires then followed the scars in his arm, shining beneath his skin. Particles rushed within me, filling my head with their pressure. I felt thin, strung out by their movement, like they were wiping me clean inside, hollowing me out. Like I was nothing but a shell. A conduit.
Behind me, the other junkie leaned forward, bending me over. “What’s it like?” he asked, in awe-hushed tones.
“
Pure.” A gasp, a shudder, eyes closed, ever smiling. “Fucking pure.”
He started to change. His teeth grew back. His scars healed. His eyes lost their haunted, unreal look. Then the room followed. The floor became grass, the walls trees, the air so crisp and cool and clean.
“See that?” the junkie asked. His wires were gone too, and he was holding my hand instead. I felt a rush like affection as he smiled at me, like we were close, like we understood each other. I followed his gaze, and looked up. The sky was a hard, brilliant blue. I knew it. It was mine. Movoc-under-Keeper on a Widesky day.
“
Trees are mine,” he whispered. “Saw ’em on a screen, once. They were green. Ground too. But that blue. That blue is yours.”
I wanted to touch it. To lift my hands and plunge them so deeply into that open sky, and stay there, floating, forever. Filled with this lightness, this affection.
Are you sure about that
? something whispered, behind me, and its voice was the rush of pions.
Is that really why you came
?
I tore my hand free and spun. For an instant I thought I saw Kichlan, only as solid as a shadow, but his expression so disappointed it wrenched at my heart. Then the room snapped back to hard, solid reality. The sky was a rotting ceiling, the grass floorboards, the trees walls.
The junkie held his limp wires in his hand, the nib flashing a sharp and warning red. Silex liquid dripped from my wrist like blood, my Flare spluttered weakly.
“
Fucking bitch!” The junkie knocked me to the side. “Couldn’t you bloody hold her still?”
The world reeled as I fell into the corner, slipped on the tube
’s blanket and scrambled desperately to keep it covered. What had just happened? Had I imagined it all?
“
I saw it!” his fellow didn’t even seem to notice he was being shouted at. “Wasn’t even wired but I was there too. Purest Shard you’ve ever found. Fucking wonderful!”
That calmed the sarcastic junkie down. He crouched, grinning again, and in the aura around him I saw blue sky. He smelled of cut grass, and when he smiled, all his teeth were there, white and clean.
Longing, and fear, both fluttered low in my stomach. “Was it real?” I whispered.
“
Of course. Real as the Flare makes it. Changes you. Changes the world around you. Into something beautiful.” He crawled closer. I pressed my back against the tube. “At first. So much more than this shit. You change and change until you can’t tell, anymore, because you’re not real, and the world ain’t real. But doesn’t matter, by then. Worth it, don’t you think? A little light, a little peace, a little green, before you die?”