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  Or cared.

  Australia had always tended to be a coastal country. But since they stopped piping clean drinking water in, the Interior had fallen to aridity and lack of interest. It was a place of feral creatures, snakes and some pretty brutal mining cliques.

  Sto'd skipped out on the co-op and they'd have their own people after him. But he was also media and cop bait, just because he hitched a ride on the wrong bike. Some people are born unlucky…

  My cochlea implant vibrated again. I had to offload this call before my head turned into a tuning fork.

  "Listen, Sto. There's a Prier about to land outside. We need to lose it and find a comm. Your buddy is giving me a headache tapping out my private number." I pointed to my ear.

  He gave me a limp smile. And worse. Watery pale green eyes full of trust.

  Damn it. I hate trust.

  A muffled boom outside sent a wall caving in, and one of the feline's paws bouncing bloodily off my chest.

  That was the first shot.

  On the second, the blackened bench ignited like a bonfire.

  Prier!

  Sto and I hit the internal stairs at a lively gallop, coughing out fumes.

  The Prier's pilot/journo could've easily blown the whole building to bits, so I figured the attack was just scaremongering. Otherwise Sto and I would be like the feline—body parts at all points of the compass.

  I took that as a good sign. They wanted Sto alive. Probably so they could wring ratings on his trial.

  Did I say trial? Make that execution. There'd be no trial for this skinny white boy. Maybe that's why I hadn't dumped him. I'm a sucker for long odds. That's all I'd ever had.

  There were stories around of how the media used to work as "observers" of global events: no interference, objective views—an indispensable news source. Apparently they helped all of the lowlifes in the world get a fair deal.

  Well these days the gloves were off.

  Prier pilots had more firepower at their camcording, acrylic nail tips than the cops and the only people they had to answer to was the network credit assessor. If the media wanted Stolowski dead, then he was fried.

  Judge, jury, executioner, photographer! "Say cheese!"

  "Say what?" whispered Sto.

  He crouched next to me, shaking, in the gutted bathroom of the fourth story. His breathing came in short, chopped-off gasps.

  "Nothing," I mumbled. "Listen."

  We could hear the Prier's propulsion unit whine in the distance as the pilot probed the building.

  "Attention all within hearing. You have three minutes to identify yourself to the Prier before an Interrogator is released. Resistance is against media programming law."

  The message blared out, replaying in several dialects.

  I'd always wondered when that three minutes began exactly. From the end of all the messages or the end of the message you happened to understand? When you worked with no margin for error, like I did, these things counted.

  "Parrish? What's an 'Interrogator'?"

  I pointed to the manhole in the ceiling and started hoisting him.

  "I'll make a deal with you, country boy. When we lose this little piece of aggravation, you and I are going to have a nice long educative chat. That way you might live to see next week. Now, up!"

  This time he did what I told him. Maybe he wasn't a total dead loss.

  That's it, girl, think positive!

  I swung up after him through the hatch, my miner's light skittering along the ceiling like a disco ball, and found Sto baled up by the yowling family of the zirc-fanged feline. I didn't fancy telling them Daddy wouldn't be coming home tonight, so I shot through the ceiling to back the mother off and hurried Sto away along the main beam. I reckoned we had about ten seconds before the Prier's pilot let the 'Terro loose.

  In five, we'd crawled through a roof cut fashioned into a tunnel. It led to the next villa set. In ten, the maison feline imploded.

  So much for wanting Sto alive!

  I counted us through twenty roof cuts, changing direction at random, before I dared to let Sto rest. Then I kept the miner's light on and my back against an upright to straighten the cricks. Being nearly two meters tall didn't exactly lend itself to attic crawling. And my hands were grazed and black with grime.

  "Do you think they're still following?" he ventured. He hadn't complained but his feet were bleeding from snags and splinters.

  "Yes." I could have lied but what was the point? Fear could get you to do things, things that ordinarily you'd balk at, and Sto wasn't exactly Mr. Risk.

  Give the guy a break, Vanish, I told myself. He'd escaped from the Dead Heart.

  Maybe that wasn't his idea though, maybe…

  The dendrons in my brain fired and forged a connection. No wonder leather-and-chains Dark had blushed at the sight of Mei's dimply butt. He was a country boy as well!

  With uncanny timing the vibration started up in my ear.

  "Sto?"

  He stared at me, eyes red-rimmed. If he cried again, I swear this time I'd toe-tag him for anyone who wanted to hawk his bodyparts.

  "We're going to go down now and find a comm. It'll be more confusing for the 'Terro that way. Other humans to sort through. You never know, we might lose it altogether." It was hardly a convincing speech. But I suddenly had the urge to talk to Sto's hulking friend. Right then, nothing in the world seemed more important.

  Chapter Seven

  "Where have you been?"

  "Listen, you stupid hick," I hissed into the comm at Dark, "what in the great frigging Wombat's name do you think you're playing at? You're turning my head into a tune-up parlor."

  I could feel Sto trying to see around my shoulder but I blocked him out with a sharp elbow.

  We'd lobbed into a villa chock-full of Mueno clones. Greasy food-littered rugs covered the floor and bundles of feathers and fur dripping with fresh blood hung from ceiling and doorway.

  A smell to forget.

  With a little persuasion and some fancy finger language that bridged our dialect gap, they'd agreed to my using their comm. For money. Right now they crowded behind us in a semicircle of curiosity and suspicion. Not many visitors came in via their roof!

  "What do you mean, 'hick'?" His aftershave complexion wrinkled into a frown.

  "I mean, why didn't you tell me you'd come from the country?"

  He ducked his head as if he was thinking quickly. "Would you be spreading it around if it was you?"

  Patience isn't—would never be—my virtue. I lowered my voice to the barest whisper, though I felt like shrieking at him. "Well, what about telling the dope that's running blind trying to protect your mate?"

  "Sorry." He gave me an odd grin, like something I'd said was really funny.

  The conversation had gone about as far as I had time for; something told me the 'Terro wasn't far away. "I've gotta go."

  "Where are you?" he demanded.

  "Why?"

  "Our deal, Parrish. I want to adjust it. I've found somewhere safe for S—our friend. Can you meet me at the south boundary of Tower Town tomorrow?"

  Adjust it? What kind of talk was that?

  He frowned like he was wrestling with a difficult problem. Probably how to untie Mei's bondage knots, I thought nastily.

  "Things have changed for us," he said.

  "Me too," I allowed.

  "You'll meet me then?"

  "Yes," I said. And I cut the link.

  I paid one of the Mueno clones with the second last of my loose cred and made a signal to them that we'd leave through the downstairs door. Sto pressed up heel-to-toe with me again, closer than my shadow.

  How I hate clingy men!

  We edged out of the room and down a small flight of stairs. The clones crowded behind us at an even less comfortable distance. A whisper of fresher outside air cleared my head as I eased the heavy door open.

  Nearly outta here, nearly-—

  Until a young turk amongst them shouted. A palm screen glowed in his
hand. The familiar One-World news jingle blared through its tiny speakers followed by a description of Sto.

  Typical frigging Tert! Typical frigging world! A filthy-poor voodoo squat with chicken guts for curtains, zero furniture and someone owns a micropalm.

  I yanked the door hard to get us out of there in a hurry. It set a heavy-duty cluster of spirit feathers free from the top of the doorjamb. They fluttered down onto the top of my head. Fresh blood from them spattered my face. I tried to wipe it and succeeded in spreading it across my lips. I spat the taste away. But it was on my tongue.

  The Mueno clones froze in their tracks, knives out, like a bunch of waxworks. There was something in their faces that I didn't like.

  Awe.

  A sensation crept over me; a fire that began on my lips, ran down into my stomach and along the length of my body as if I was being burnt from the inside out. As quickly as it ignited it faded, leaving me edgy and scared.

  I tore the feathers from my hair and kicked them away. It made me feel better, until the Muenos fell to the floor, chanting.

  About then my courage deserted me. I turned and fled, running and running, with a gut full of terror and the prickle of voodoo at my back. I ran till my lungs refused to breathe and my legs turned to burning lumps of flesh. I ran till a pain in my side forced me to stop and huddle in a dark corner like a frightened kid.

  Only then, did I remember Sto.

  * * * *

  I hate spirit shit.

  You don't see so much of it around Torley's or even the south side of The Tert. The Slag, though, was full of it. Voodoo, animism, satanism, tek worship.

  And then there's Cabal Coomera; although I like to think of their brand of spirit wisdom as something more pure.

  I'd sure never felt anything like that sensation before. And the taste in my mouth. No matter how hard I spat, it wouldn't leave.

  And now I'd lost Sto.

  I figured I must have run at least ten klicks, down narrow side paths and through crumbling courtyards, none of it in a straight line. I checked my compass implant and worked out the direction I'd come from.

  Who was I kidding? Nothing on earth would get me back in that villa. Not Sto, not his hulking, hick friend.

  No one.

  Nix.

  Hell, they'd probably just anoint Sto with chicken blood and welcome him into the fold. The 'Terro wouldn't be able to distinguish him from the rest.

  The 'Terro… damn!

  Giving Sto up to the voodoo Mueno clones was one thing, but letting a media 'Terro take him was another. Besides, I kinda liked him.

  I sighed heavily.

  With gloom stealing the last of the daylight, I hiked it back in the direction I'd just come and tried to ignore the sinister shadows lurking on the edge of my vision.

  Running at night in The Tert is a recipe for disaster—things changed constantly. An empty walkway one day may be home to two families the next. Pretty soon I was forced to slow, hindered by the dark. I fretted for Sto's safety. What would they do to him before I got back?

  Bug-filled fluoros haloed light onto small sections of villa walls here and there; sometimes a plastic imitation candle lit a brief stretch of cracked pathway, or curtains leaked yellow pinpricks of light outside. Mostly, though, it was plain dark. I resisted doing my lighthouse impersonation by switching on my miner's light and moved along as quietly as I could.

  The humidity climbed rapidly with the onset of dark, settling upon everything like a warm, sweaty hand. Moisture collected and ran off rooftops, spitting dirty raindrops on me.

  Just to top off my general troubles, The Slag night noises started up, scary enough to send any self-respecting weirdo crawling back into their hole.

  I fingered my pistol, listening to the screams, the fights, the chanting and the inhuman grunting—once I thought I heard a baby crying in a high-pitched, totally unnatural wail—but about three klicks from the spot I'd run out on Sto, a real commotion erupted.

  I stole around the edge of a villa set to find a shadowy, circular space, occupied by—what looked like from the outlines—benches and tables. A single straggling gum tree rose above them thrusting up branches that resembled fleshless fingers. From what I could tell, at least ten or more villa sets spiraled out from the space like the spokes of a wheel.

  Sheets of plas covered most of the area, blocking the night sky. A tiny glint of stars leaked in where the tree had fractured the makeshift roof. By the sounds coining from near the base of it, someone was in bad shape.

  I don't buy into other people's problems. The Wombat knows I got a bucketload of my own. So I crouched down to assess the best way to skirt the perimeter unseen and vamoose.

  Two voices and a victim, screaming.

  "The bitch razored me! Cut my fucking dick!" yelled one.

  The other one laughed roughly. "Yeah, like she could find it… move over… I've got two of 'em."

  The victim whimpered, weak and desperate, like a drowning puppy. The sound caught in my chest, stopping my breath. The fact that I comprehended their strange dialect didn't register. The only thing I understood was rape.

  Understood. Smelt. Felt. Hated.

  Relived.

  Without taking a step I left that dank space in the middle of The Slag and faced Jamon's 'goboys again. But this time my hands weren't tied, my legs weren't pinned…

  They didn't even know I was coming.

  Wading in like the fists and feet of justice.

  Afterward, blood thundered through my body.

  I didn't feel bad. Or good.

  Something tapped my thigh. Someone.

  "Th-thanks, lady? You OK?"

  With difficulty I tracked the voice. Had it been there before?

  In the barracks?

  "You go. Someone will come look for them. Them's Plastique boys."

  Plastique boys?

  The present crashed back. Two unconscious bodies lay at my feet.

  The voice persisted, "Nobody ever done nothin' like that for me before."

  I looked around. A young, small girl with ragged hair peered back. She had no arms.

  "I had to." My voice sounded strange, distant, like someone else. I'd just beaten two strangers most of the way to death, with my bare hands, on their body heat.

  The girl smiled wanly, hopefully. "Glad you did. Otherwise I be dead now." She tapped me again on the thigh and I realized she used her foot, not her hand. "You get out of here. I show you how. Put hand on my shoulder. I repay."

  I did as she said.

  She led me away from the blood, like a dog with a blind owner, down the narrow spaces between crumbling walls and into a makeshift hut hidden beneath a flight of rusted stairs. I squatted inside by the weak light of a solar torch while she cleaned blood from my hands with a wet rag, squeezing it into an old hubcap. Her feet were stained with it. Meticulously she wiped me, again and again, till the redness on my hands was gone.

  My knuckles felt busted and swollen. I'd used my hands when I could've razored them—that's why they were alive. I was grateful for that at least. Revenge didn't make killing feel better.

  She disappeared out of the kennel dragging the hubcap between her toes.

  When she returned she gave me an uncertain look. Under her eyes seemed bruised. They reminded me of Doll.

  "Where you from, lady? I never seen you round Rosa before."

  "Rosa?"

  "Villas Rosa."

  Villas Rosa. The Slag slums. The slums in the slums.

  Hysteria welled. I found myself talking quickly until it subsided. "I'm from Torley's on the north side. I'm protecting someone. A red-haired guy. Something… happened. He's back aways, two or three klicks. I've got to get him. Now!"

  The uncertainty on her face changed. "It is you," she whispered with dawning excitement. "Me thought it must be."

  "What do you mean?" I demanded. "Who do you think I am?"

  Yeah, some sort of weird question to ask an armless kid living in a dog kennel in the nav
el of a slum.

  But under the grime and the bruised eyes she seemed sure of herself.

  Lucky her.

  "Media's chasing you. And 'Terro. It's on Common." She nodded to a small, battered netset.

  Anyone could broadcast on Common Net. It was like a CB with visuals. All you needed was a kit, some regular sunlight and the right frequency.

  "Muenos talk, talk." She made gestures with her toes like a mouth opening and closing. "I listen. Muenos say the one who wears the Feather Crown will save 'em. They's singing for you now."

  Wears the Feather Crown? Uggh! The taste of blood amplified in my mouth.

  I forced myself to think forward, past what had just happened, the men I had beaten. I felt shaken, yet, strangely, no remorse. "What's your name?"

  She shook her head in answer. Her eyes settled on mine. Gray and oversized in a thin face framed by clumps of matted brown hair. She couldn't have been more than eleven.

  I tried again. "What do you call yourself?"

  "No one talk me. No one call me."

  No one talk me?

  Call it a girl thing, but to live in a world where no one ever spoke to you… I couldn't help myself. "Well I'm talking to you. I'm Parrish. How about I call you… Bras."

  Her face flowered into a look I'd seen recently and hated. Trust.

  I stifled a groan. Sto was already one problem too many. Much as my heart bled for this kid, what could I do for her? How many kids like Bras were there in The Slag?

  "Bras know where you find red-hair one. Bras help you." She took delight in saying the name I'd given her, rolling the sound over her tongue.

  I reached out and touched her gently on her thin shoulder. The fabric felt stiff with dirt, the useless sleeves long since torn off. "Thanks Bras, but it's dangerous with me."

  She pursed her lips stubbornly. "Bras belongs you, now. We eat, then find red one."

  She fumbled in the corner of the hut under a pile of rubbish and unearthed a half-eaten scrap that once might have been a pro-sub bar. Solemnly she handed it to me with her foot. "You chew first."