[Original Fiction] Skyward: Chapter 1
Title: Skyward
Author/Artist: Chatham T. Rivers
Rating: M
Warnings: Offensive language, prostitution, and heavy violence.
Summary: Years into the future, private corporations colonize other planets to get the resources Earth needs to keep running. One of these planets is Ataraxia, a planet rich in minerals, technological advancements, and expendable human lives. The Barons float above a polluted, pockmarked surface in biodomes known as the Hanging Gardens. Those unlucky enough to live on the corrupted, industrialized earth find themselves in a day-to-day struggle to keep themselves alive and their families intact in the midst of "slave harvests," gang warfare, and unregulated pollution.
Maran Tanduliya knows how to get by in the Seamie's Neonic District--smile pretty, bend at the waist, show some skin, and keep Dilly close. But when her little sister gets attacked, Maran finds herself stepping into the Districts beyond--and into an overripe world ready to burst at the slightest poke.
The world about Maran and Dilly shifts in red-black glows. The great fans whisk smoke this way and that, away from the rest of the Seamie and into the Neonic District, with its flickering red lights molded into stretched, nubile bodies, dancing and aching.
Maran ignores them. Her eyes focus instead on the streets, on the jobless workers leaning against the wall and sliding their eyes towards her. Men and women wander the streets, oiled up, caked with foundation and eyeliner.
“Dilly, don’t,” she says, and takes Maran’s bitty hand into her own. “I promised you we’d catch butterflies after work.” The ash wisp floats away from them, crumbles as it hits the pavement
“No, Maran, it’s not that. Look.” Dilly pulls her hand free, pointing across the street. A woman leans against a telephone pole. The shadows and red light cut sharp shapes across her body. Her left finger twitches, tapping against the metal. Fast.
“H-h-hhhhellpp,” she says, and lifts her head. One eye looks straight at Maran. The other whirls in its socket, wild and wayward, around around around. “He-helphelphello how may I serve you today how may I. I.” She reaches out towards Maran, milk-white arms and fingers stretching out in a plea. Stretched at the edge, metal tubing and frayed wires glint at them.
Maran’s skin drops and a chuckle echoes off the stained brick. Workers crawl from alleyways, overalls torn and stained. Their grins bare soot-covered smiles, and every now and then a harsh hack breaks the silence.
“Maran, she needs our help,” Dilly whispers.
“Keep your head down, Dilly. Keep walking.”
“Maran-“
“Not now, Dilly, let’s go.”
Hand-in-hand, they walk, heads down and eyes tracing cracks.
“Helpppl, help you, help you, help-“
Metal crunches against stone, and a wild, multi-voiced cheer goes up amongst the workers. Boots thud against the road.
“Make it stop,” Dilly says, pressing her face into Maran’s thigh. “Sis, make it stop. It hurts my ears.”
Maran reaches down and threads her fingers through Dilly’s hair, only frowning at her hand when it comes up covered in soot. “It’s okay, Dilly,” Maran says. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you. That’s not gonna be you. Just keep walking, sweetie.”
“H-hhhhh-help-“
Maran’s fingers lace themselves in Dilly’s hair again. “Not for you, android,” she whispers. “Not today.”
_____________________________________
At least the fans above them run today, and their slow twists cast shifting shadows and red glows. The dark spots make the naked women signs glow even brighter, and the red light made hungry, yellowed eyes glint and gleam. Jobless workers leered from the shadows; Maran held Dilly close, swatting her hand away from an ash wisp. Customers didn’t like dirty goods.
“I don’t like this place,” Dilly murmurs, hiding her face in Maran’s thigh. “Can we go, Maran? Please?”
“Dilly…”
“I’ll give up looking for butterflies and we don’t have to get fried dough today. Please.” Dilly starts wrenching her hand in Maran’s grip, pulling. “I wanna go. I wanna go now.”
“Dilly, what is wrong with you?” Maran tightens her grip, scrunching up her face in as good a frown she can. “Be a good girl, and-“
A gleam catches the corner of her eye and pulls her gaze to a filthy corner. A heap of metal, polymer skin, and glass eyes greets her-bodies in various states of undress, with long, raw gashes showing the wire and metal tubing beneath. They bleed oil on one another, and it gathers beneath them in a spreading puddle.
“Oh,” Maran says, and Dilly starts whimpering. “Oh, Dilly, sweetheart.” She kneels and cups Dilly’s tiny face, chubby with childhood. Dilly’s face scrunches up, and no tears escape with her bitty sobs. “I’m sorry, sis.”
Dilly’s arms wrap around her neck, tangling in her red hair. “I don’t like this place, Maran,” she says again.
“I know, Dilly. Shh.”
“Can we go?”
“Yeah. Let’s go, sweetie. We’ll go somewhere else today.” She’ll deal with Raffi and her quota somewhere else-Backbone Alley isn’t the only place to make money.
Dilly sniffles and pulls back. “Promise?”
“Promise. In fact-“ she slides her gaze to the pile of metal tubes and short-circuited androids and makes up her mind. “Why don’t we just go straight to the Barrier today? We’ll get a treat on the way there and spend the day catching butterflies.”
Dilly’s smile is bright yellow amongst tired red and ash-grayed streets. “Really? You really mean it, Maran?”
“Really-really, kiddo.” She tweaks Dilly’s nose, a smirk pulling up the edge of her lips as she stands and reaches down. “Come on. Let’s get-“
“You lookin’ for a good time, girls?”
Maran feels some tiny animal writhing and twisting in her gut. Her arms move to Dilly, to wrap her up and hoist her onto her shoulders. Her feet itch to run, kicking up dust-clouds at this oil-dripping voice. Her body, paralyzed, screams at her to do something, anything.
And that’s when a callous-rough hand slaps down on her shoulder and a barrel presses between her bare shoulder blades.
“Sorry, I don’t think you heard me.” He’s gentle, at least, so gentle when he turns Maran around. “I said, you girls lookin’ for a good time? ‘Cause so am I.”
Maran’s eyes slide to half-mast, her lips moving into a pout. His skin stretches tight over his bones, becoming all that holds them together; the whites of his eyes gleam yellow in the gray light. “Well,” she says. “Well all right, then.” Her voice drips honey, low and hot and flowing. “How much are you payin’?”
“Depends. How much is a package deal?”
Ice crystals form in Maran’s blood, and her body stays statue-still. “I’m afraid we’re not a package deal.”
“Does Raffi know that?” He laughs, high and creaking, when Maran blinks. “Oh yeah, sugar, I know your boss. Gets quite talkative about his wares when you ply ‘im with drinks.”
Dilly’s nose presses into her thigh. “Maran?” she asks. “Maran, let’s go. Let’s go.”
The worker laughs again. His snorts are filled with snot. “Don’cha have quota to fill, Loli? You want Raffi to find out you skimped on your duties?”
“Maran-“
“You’ll get an extra hour free,” Maran says, leaning forward so that the tops of her breasts dangle down for his eyes to follow. “I’ll see to it that you’re satisfied in any way.” And here’s the kicker-Maran lets her eyes go wide and soft, her lips pushing into a rosebud plea. “Please, Mister, I’ll be a good girl.”
The worker becomes a statue for a moment, stock-still, and Maran wonders if she’s blown her chance. Dilly’s hands tighten on her corset, her nose ready to puncture Maran’s skin.
At long last, the worker tilts his head on his wrist-thin neck and nods, his smile gentler but filled with hard, yellow teeth. “You’ve gotcher self a deal, Miss Maran.”
“Just let me-“
“I know what you do.” The worker leans against the brick wall, and twig-thin fingers knead his crotch. “I need some time, sweetheart. You just take care of yer business-I know who to go to if you don’t come back.”
“Maran, please,” Dilly says, her voice a thread-thin whimper. Maran’s cheeks flare, and her eyes almost narrow. She smiles instead, squeezes Dilly’s hand so hard her sister whimpers. “I won’t keep you, big boy,” she says, and slips into a side alley, dragging Dilly behind her.
“You promised!” Dilly says when they duck behind a dumpster, “you promised we’d play today, Mar!”
“I know, I know, sweetheart.” Maran’s shaking fingers stroke her hair, hair that needs brushing and why, why can’t Dilly brush her own hair? “I’m going to be right back-“
“Like all the other times? You’re just lying! We’re not going to play with the butterflies, you’re lying again and-“
Dilly’s head snaps to the side; Maran lowers her hand and stares at the white, pale patch of artificial skin. “I’m doing this for you,” she hisses, her blood boiling in her veins, “so that you don’t get sent to the junkyard. Thanks for the gratitude.”
Dilly turns back to her, sniffling, lifting a hand to wipe her eye. It’s dry, of course-Dilly’s tear ducts ran out long ago. Maran reaches out and pulls her close, tight. Dilly doesn’t respond.
“I promise, Dilly, right after this, we’ll go play with the-the butterflies. Just be a good girl and don’t make a sound, okay?”
“Hmph!” Dilly wrenches herself out of Maran’s grip, squatting by the dumpster and poking the ground. Maran’s eyes narrow, her fingernails curling into her fists as she stands.
“Well of course you wouldn’t understand sacrifice,” she murmurs at the little hunched back. “And you never will. It’s not in your nature, is it?”
Dilly doesn’t move.
Maran turns on her heel and walks back down the alley. She doesn’t look back to see if Dilly waves good-bye.
_____________________________________
He’s still waiting for her, lips slick with spit and eyes gleaming yellow. Maran ducks back behind the corner for a moment, combing her teeth over her lips so that they puff up all soft and pretty. She grimaces when her lips tingle - but tingling lips is better than buying lipstick. Or worse, getting plastic surgery.
She just purses her lips instead, swinging her hips and curling her fingers into her palms. “You ready?” she asks, and looks into his eyes. Only his eyes. The yellow’s almost pretty, here, in the gray.
“Yeah.” He smiles, his teeth more yellow than his eyes. “Fuck yeah. Been waitin’ for ya.”
I bet you have. Maran swallows the words and flutters her eyelashes instead, lowering them to the tips of her boots. She doesn’t move - not even when the man takes her head in his hands.
Not even when he pushes her and she surrenders, kneeling, her hands curled at her sides.
“I’ve been ready for ya.” The snarl in his voice slips soft over Maran’s ears. Her fingernails bite into the palm of her hand.
“I’ll make it good, baby,” she says, answering with her own sigh, all ash billowing up from beneath a worker’s boot. She reaches up and cups the front of his pants. “So big,” she breathes, forcing her eyes to go wide and her lips to pucker instead of grimace. “Oh, my, how rude of me to keep you waiting.”
“Fuck,” he hisses, and grabs the back of her head with one hand. She shuts her eyes and opens her mouth when she hears the zipper tugged down.
Don’t be here, she thinks to herself. Take yourself away, Maran. Pretend you and Dilly are in the Big Spoke. Try to scrounge up enough change to get her a new shirt while she laughs and chases the ash-wisps. No, butterflies. They’re butterflies.
Tell her you want to show her something beautiful-tell her if she’s a good girl, one day, you’ll take her to the Gate and help her climb up that sooty-black brick.
Tell her you’re sorry, and that you want her to see the real color of the sky Tell her she’s the most important thing in your life, even when you get mad, and that-
“MARAN!”
A high scream pierces the thick, warm air. Maran’s eyes shoot open, her pulse thrashing against her neck.
Dilly.
Cut wires writhe in her belly. Maran’s knees jolt, springing her to her tiptoes. “I’m sorry, sir, I - I’ll be right back-“
Worker Boy grins his rotted-gold smile. His bone is an iron clamp on her wrist. “Help your little friend when you’re done with mine,” he says. A low, high-voltage hum purrs beneath his dirt-clogged chuckles. “I’m paying for this, bitch, and I’ll get my money’s-“
Maran blinks when fingertips hug her stiletto, glares when her hand whips it forward and presses blood-rusted steel to Worker Boy’s throat. “Let me go,” she says. “Wait here, sir, and I’ll take good care of you when I get back.”
Maran tightens her fingers in the elastic silence. She moves the instant Worker Boy hisses and slides back into the dark-no more than a shadow as Maran plunges herself into Neonic’s back alleys.
Left. Right. Another right. Left, straight, climb that fence. Fists beat against her ribcage, threaten to shatter the bones. “Dilly,” she calls out once, breathless. Again, voice lifting when her shoulder scrapes a wall, “Dilly!”
And then cackles rattle off the ash-colored walls. The clouds above glow red, the Garden’s hum nesting in Maran’s marrow.
“So you get the left eye, I get the right. Deal?”
“I should get at least one extra gear for that chip!”
A choked cry catches Maran’s ears, rip her eardrums with a six-year-old’s choking wail. Maran’s feet pound cotton puffs into the air. She chases the sound down a narrowing corridor, past a crumbling brick wall, taking a sharp left-
Maran freezes, joints wired into stillness and belly filled with a dropped sack filled with broken concrete.
Dilly lies framed and askance against a dead end. Two men curl over her form, fingers filthy and flexing. One thin, bony palm presses down on a blue box with buttons all the color of the rainbow, and Dilly would have loved playing with that-
Would love it if she weren’t twitching on the ground, eyes spining three-sixties in her sockets. Maran’s mouth falls open as black oil churns, burning the walls of her stomach and climbing up into her throat.
One of those men laughs, plunging fingers into Dilly’s tiny socket. Her voice tangles in her throat, her mouth falls open-
-And just as she finds her voice, the man yanks, taking Dilly’s right eye with it. Only one eye now, spinning, spinning into oblivion. Maran’s hand flies up to her throat, trying to lock the boiling oil in, but it won’t stay, won’t stay down-
Maran falls to her knees. Two heaves, and she spews bile all over the filthy concrete, ash turning to mud beneath her mouth. Her skin crawls when bony fingers squeeze her shoulder and rub her neck.
“Sorry you had to see that, miss.” Maran whirls around and comes face-to-face with a face set with premature wrinkles, framed in grime. A bony hand scratches the back of a blond head as Maran shoots to her feet and backs herself against the wall. Her right hand fingers her stiletto, faux ivory rubbing against her finger pads.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” His fingers reach out for her, still slick with Dilly’s oil. “Was it yours? We can pay you-we just want the parts. How does four, five hundred credits sound?” His voice braids itself up with a cocky strand, his smile skewing into a smirk. He reaches out, fingers spread and palm facing upward. “That should be enough to cover what you-“
Maran’s first slash takes care of his pointer finger. He still grins when she slashes a clean line down his throat, hard, and blood spurts out all over her corset. Blue darkens to death-purple, a flock of butterflies flitting away on the sky of her outfit.
He wobbles, and she kicks him in the gut--down he goes, pile of tenant bricks, grinning as his eyes roll up into his head.
“What the fuck, you bitch!?” The other man stands and pulls out a dagger, teeth bared and eyes alight. “What the--”
One. Maran shoves herself into his face. Two. He goes off-balance, wobbling on his heel.
Three.
She shoves her stiletto into his gut, slashing upwards, deep. She cuts even when she snags on bones, and the fucking pervert oozes, oozes out all over the floor, like a blooming flower.
Maran’s spasming, her remaining eye turning in her socket. “Mmmmmar-Marmarmarmaranmaaaaahelp-”
“Dilly.” Maran feels blood dripping down her cheekbones and off her face. “Dilly, I never told you the color of the--”
She swallows the knife-edge welling up in her throat. She slides to the back of Dilly’s head, pressing a button, and shuts her eyes as Dilly goes limp in her lap. Her pointer finger trembles and misses three times before catching on Dilly’s eylid, lowering it over her remaining eye.
She squeezes her own shut and bows over Dilly’s limp, limbs-askance corpse, pressing her face into synthetic hair so she won’t have to look into that empty socket.
“You did this.”
Maran doesn’t look up. Her arms tighten around Dilly’s body, muscles coiled and liquid, ready to jump, slice, anything this bastard throws her way. “You bitch,” he hisses, and Maran primes herself, all lit fuse and nitro in a tiny glass bottle.
“COG-LOVER!” Worker Boy screeches. His footsteps pound out a fading rhythm on the alley walls. “MURDERING COG-LOVER DOWN THIS WAY!”
Maran takes Dilly’s eyeball into her hand. It’s softer than she expects-more like jelly than she thought.
Before Worker Boy can come back, Maran plunges forward and lets the shadows swallow her. One word circulates through her heartbeat and gives her feet direction:
Cillia.
I will be posting the other installments on my fiction journal, chatham_rivers, but figured that this was as good a place as any to pimp it.
Author/Artist: Chatham T. Rivers
Rating: M
Warnings: Offensive language, prostitution, and heavy violence.
Summary: Years into the future, private corporations colonize other planets to get the resources Earth needs to keep running. One of these planets is Ataraxia, a planet rich in minerals, technological advancements, and expendable human lives. The Barons float above a polluted, pockmarked surface in biodomes known as the Hanging Gardens. Those unlucky enough to live on the corrupted, industrialized earth find themselves in a day-to-day struggle to keep themselves alive and their families intact in the midst of "slave harvests," gang warfare, and unregulated pollution.
Maran Tanduliya knows how to get by in the Seamie's Neonic District--smile pretty, bend at the waist, show some skin, and keep Dilly close. But when her little sister gets attacked, Maran finds herself stepping into the Districts beyond--and into an overripe world ready to burst at the slightest poke.
The world about Maran and Dilly shifts in red-black glows. The great fans whisk smoke this way and that, away from the rest of the Seamie and into the Neonic District, with its flickering red lights molded into stretched, nubile bodies, dancing and aching.
Maran ignores them. Her eyes focus instead on the streets, on the jobless workers leaning against the wall and sliding their eyes towards her. Men and women wander the streets, oiled up, caked with foundation and eyeliner.
“Dilly, don’t,” she says, and takes Maran’s bitty hand into her own. “I promised you we’d catch butterflies after work.” The ash wisp floats away from them, crumbles as it hits the pavement
“No, Maran, it’s not that. Look.” Dilly pulls her hand free, pointing across the street. A woman leans against a telephone pole. The shadows and red light cut sharp shapes across her body. Her left finger twitches, tapping against the metal. Fast.
“H-h-hhhhellpp,” she says, and lifts her head. One eye looks straight at Maran. The other whirls in its socket, wild and wayward, around around around. “He-helphelphello how may I serve you today how may I. I.” She reaches out towards Maran, milk-white arms and fingers stretching out in a plea. Stretched at the edge, metal tubing and frayed wires glint at them.
Maran’s skin drops and a chuckle echoes off the stained brick. Workers crawl from alleyways, overalls torn and stained. Their grins bare soot-covered smiles, and every now and then a harsh hack breaks the silence.
“Maran, she needs our help,” Dilly whispers.
“Keep your head down, Dilly. Keep walking.”
“Maran-“
“Not now, Dilly, let’s go.”
Hand-in-hand, they walk, heads down and eyes tracing cracks.
“Helpppl, help you, help you, help-“
Metal crunches against stone, and a wild, multi-voiced cheer goes up amongst the workers. Boots thud against the road.
“Make it stop,” Dilly says, pressing her face into Maran’s thigh. “Sis, make it stop. It hurts my ears.”
Maran reaches down and threads her fingers through Dilly’s hair, only frowning at her hand when it comes up covered in soot. “It’s okay, Dilly,” Maran says. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you. That’s not gonna be you. Just keep walking, sweetie.”
“H-hhhhh-help-“
Maran’s fingers lace themselves in Dilly’s hair again. “Not for you, android,” she whispers. “Not today.”
_____________________________________
At least the fans above them run today, and their slow twists cast shifting shadows and red glows. The dark spots make the naked women signs glow even brighter, and the red light made hungry, yellowed eyes glint and gleam. Jobless workers leered from the shadows; Maran held Dilly close, swatting her hand away from an ash wisp. Customers didn’t like dirty goods.
“I don’t like this place,” Dilly murmurs, hiding her face in Maran’s thigh. “Can we go, Maran? Please?”
“Dilly…”
“I’ll give up looking for butterflies and we don’t have to get fried dough today. Please.” Dilly starts wrenching her hand in Maran’s grip, pulling. “I wanna go. I wanna go now.”
“Dilly, what is wrong with you?” Maran tightens her grip, scrunching up her face in as good a frown she can. “Be a good girl, and-“
A gleam catches the corner of her eye and pulls her gaze to a filthy corner. A heap of metal, polymer skin, and glass eyes greets her-bodies in various states of undress, with long, raw gashes showing the wire and metal tubing beneath. They bleed oil on one another, and it gathers beneath them in a spreading puddle.
“Oh,” Maran says, and Dilly starts whimpering. “Oh, Dilly, sweetheart.” She kneels and cups Dilly’s tiny face, chubby with childhood. Dilly’s face scrunches up, and no tears escape with her bitty sobs. “I’m sorry, sis.”
Dilly’s arms wrap around her neck, tangling in her red hair. “I don’t like this place, Maran,” she says again.
“I know, Dilly. Shh.”
“Can we go?”
“Yeah. Let’s go, sweetie. We’ll go somewhere else today.” She’ll deal with Raffi and her quota somewhere else-Backbone Alley isn’t the only place to make money.
Dilly sniffles and pulls back. “Promise?”
“Promise. In fact-“ she slides her gaze to the pile of metal tubes and short-circuited androids and makes up her mind. “Why don’t we just go straight to the Barrier today? We’ll get a treat on the way there and spend the day catching butterflies.”
Dilly’s smile is bright yellow amongst tired red and ash-grayed streets. “Really? You really mean it, Maran?”
“Really-really, kiddo.” She tweaks Dilly’s nose, a smirk pulling up the edge of her lips as she stands and reaches down. “Come on. Let’s get-“
“You lookin’ for a good time, girls?”
Maran feels some tiny animal writhing and twisting in her gut. Her arms move to Dilly, to wrap her up and hoist her onto her shoulders. Her feet itch to run, kicking up dust-clouds at this oil-dripping voice. Her body, paralyzed, screams at her to do something, anything.
And that’s when a callous-rough hand slaps down on her shoulder and a barrel presses between her bare shoulder blades.
“Sorry, I don’t think you heard me.” He’s gentle, at least, so gentle when he turns Maran around. “I said, you girls lookin’ for a good time? ‘Cause so am I.”
Maran’s eyes slide to half-mast, her lips moving into a pout. His skin stretches tight over his bones, becoming all that holds them together; the whites of his eyes gleam yellow in the gray light. “Well,” she says. “Well all right, then.” Her voice drips honey, low and hot and flowing. “How much are you payin’?”
“Depends. How much is a package deal?”
Ice crystals form in Maran’s blood, and her body stays statue-still. “I’m afraid we’re not a package deal.”
“Does Raffi know that?” He laughs, high and creaking, when Maran blinks. “Oh yeah, sugar, I know your boss. Gets quite talkative about his wares when you ply ‘im with drinks.”
Dilly’s nose presses into her thigh. “Maran?” she asks. “Maran, let’s go. Let’s go.”
The worker laughs again. His snorts are filled with snot. “Don’cha have quota to fill, Loli? You want Raffi to find out you skimped on your duties?”
“Maran-“
“You’ll get an extra hour free,” Maran says, leaning forward so that the tops of her breasts dangle down for his eyes to follow. “I’ll see to it that you’re satisfied in any way.” And here’s the kicker-Maran lets her eyes go wide and soft, her lips pushing into a rosebud plea. “Please, Mister, I’ll be a good girl.”
The worker becomes a statue for a moment, stock-still, and Maran wonders if she’s blown her chance. Dilly’s hands tighten on her corset, her nose ready to puncture Maran’s skin.
At long last, the worker tilts his head on his wrist-thin neck and nods, his smile gentler but filled with hard, yellow teeth. “You’ve gotcher self a deal, Miss Maran.”
“Just let me-“
“I know what you do.” The worker leans against the brick wall, and twig-thin fingers knead his crotch. “I need some time, sweetheart. You just take care of yer business-I know who to go to if you don’t come back.”
“Maran, please,” Dilly says, her voice a thread-thin whimper. Maran’s cheeks flare, and her eyes almost narrow. She smiles instead, squeezes Dilly’s hand so hard her sister whimpers. “I won’t keep you, big boy,” she says, and slips into a side alley, dragging Dilly behind her.
“You promised!” Dilly says when they duck behind a dumpster, “you promised we’d play today, Mar!”
“I know, I know, sweetheart.” Maran’s shaking fingers stroke her hair, hair that needs brushing and why, why can’t Dilly brush her own hair? “I’m going to be right back-“
“Like all the other times? You’re just lying! We’re not going to play with the butterflies, you’re lying again and-“
Dilly’s head snaps to the side; Maran lowers her hand and stares at the white, pale patch of artificial skin. “I’m doing this for you,” she hisses, her blood boiling in her veins, “so that you don’t get sent to the junkyard. Thanks for the gratitude.”
Dilly turns back to her, sniffling, lifting a hand to wipe her eye. It’s dry, of course-Dilly’s tear ducts ran out long ago. Maran reaches out and pulls her close, tight. Dilly doesn’t respond.
“I promise, Dilly, right after this, we’ll go play with the-the butterflies. Just be a good girl and don’t make a sound, okay?”
“Hmph!” Dilly wrenches herself out of Maran’s grip, squatting by the dumpster and poking the ground. Maran’s eyes narrow, her fingernails curling into her fists as she stands.
“Well of course you wouldn’t understand sacrifice,” she murmurs at the little hunched back. “And you never will. It’s not in your nature, is it?”
Dilly doesn’t move.
Maran turns on her heel and walks back down the alley. She doesn’t look back to see if Dilly waves good-bye.
_____________________________________
He’s still waiting for her, lips slick with spit and eyes gleaming yellow. Maran ducks back behind the corner for a moment, combing her teeth over her lips so that they puff up all soft and pretty. She grimaces when her lips tingle - but tingling lips is better than buying lipstick. Or worse, getting plastic surgery.
She just purses her lips instead, swinging her hips and curling her fingers into her palms. “You ready?” she asks, and looks into his eyes. Only his eyes. The yellow’s almost pretty, here, in the gray.
“Yeah.” He smiles, his teeth more yellow than his eyes. “Fuck yeah. Been waitin’ for ya.”
I bet you have. Maran swallows the words and flutters her eyelashes instead, lowering them to the tips of her boots. She doesn’t move - not even when the man takes her head in his hands.
Not even when he pushes her and she surrenders, kneeling, her hands curled at her sides.
“I’ve been ready for ya.” The snarl in his voice slips soft over Maran’s ears. Her fingernails bite into the palm of her hand.
“I’ll make it good, baby,” she says, answering with her own sigh, all ash billowing up from beneath a worker’s boot. She reaches up and cups the front of his pants. “So big,” she breathes, forcing her eyes to go wide and her lips to pucker instead of grimace. “Oh, my, how rude of me to keep you waiting.”
“Fuck,” he hisses, and grabs the back of her head with one hand. She shuts her eyes and opens her mouth when she hears the zipper tugged down.
Don’t be here, she thinks to herself. Take yourself away, Maran. Pretend you and Dilly are in the Big Spoke. Try to scrounge up enough change to get her a new shirt while she laughs and chases the ash-wisps. No, butterflies. They’re butterflies.
Tell her you want to show her something beautiful-tell her if she’s a good girl, one day, you’ll take her to the Gate and help her climb up that sooty-black brick.
Tell her you’re sorry, and that you want her to see the real color of the sky Tell her she’s the most important thing in your life, even when you get mad, and that-
“MARAN!”
A high scream pierces the thick, warm air. Maran’s eyes shoot open, her pulse thrashing against her neck.
Dilly.
Cut wires writhe in her belly. Maran’s knees jolt, springing her to her tiptoes. “I’m sorry, sir, I - I’ll be right back-“
Worker Boy grins his rotted-gold smile. His bone is an iron clamp on her wrist. “Help your little friend when you’re done with mine,” he says. A low, high-voltage hum purrs beneath his dirt-clogged chuckles. “I’m paying for this, bitch, and I’ll get my money’s-“
Maran blinks when fingertips hug her stiletto, glares when her hand whips it forward and presses blood-rusted steel to Worker Boy’s throat. “Let me go,” she says. “Wait here, sir, and I’ll take good care of you when I get back.”
Maran tightens her fingers in the elastic silence. She moves the instant Worker Boy hisses and slides back into the dark-no more than a shadow as Maran plunges herself into Neonic’s back alleys.
Left. Right. Another right. Left, straight, climb that fence. Fists beat against her ribcage, threaten to shatter the bones. “Dilly,” she calls out once, breathless. Again, voice lifting when her shoulder scrapes a wall, “Dilly!”
And then cackles rattle off the ash-colored walls. The clouds above glow red, the Garden’s hum nesting in Maran’s marrow.
“So you get the left eye, I get the right. Deal?”
“I should get at least one extra gear for that chip!”
A choked cry catches Maran’s ears, rip her eardrums with a six-year-old’s choking wail. Maran’s feet pound cotton puffs into the air. She chases the sound down a narrowing corridor, past a crumbling brick wall, taking a sharp left-
Maran freezes, joints wired into stillness and belly filled with a dropped sack filled with broken concrete.
Dilly lies framed and askance against a dead end. Two men curl over her form, fingers filthy and flexing. One thin, bony palm presses down on a blue box with buttons all the color of the rainbow, and Dilly would have loved playing with that-
Would love it if she weren’t twitching on the ground, eyes spining three-sixties in her sockets. Maran’s mouth falls open as black oil churns, burning the walls of her stomach and climbing up into her throat.
One of those men laughs, plunging fingers into Dilly’s tiny socket. Her voice tangles in her throat, her mouth falls open-
-And just as she finds her voice, the man yanks, taking Dilly’s right eye with it. Only one eye now, spinning, spinning into oblivion. Maran’s hand flies up to her throat, trying to lock the boiling oil in, but it won’t stay, won’t stay down-
Maran falls to her knees. Two heaves, and she spews bile all over the filthy concrete, ash turning to mud beneath her mouth. Her skin crawls when bony fingers squeeze her shoulder and rub her neck.
“Sorry you had to see that, miss.” Maran whirls around and comes face-to-face with a face set with premature wrinkles, framed in grime. A bony hand scratches the back of a blond head as Maran shoots to her feet and backs herself against the wall. Her right hand fingers her stiletto, faux ivory rubbing against her finger pads.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” His fingers reach out for her, still slick with Dilly’s oil. “Was it yours? We can pay you-we just want the parts. How does four, five hundred credits sound?” His voice braids itself up with a cocky strand, his smile skewing into a smirk. He reaches out, fingers spread and palm facing upward. “That should be enough to cover what you-“
Maran’s first slash takes care of his pointer finger. He still grins when she slashes a clean line down his throat, hard, and blood spurts out all over her corset. Blue darkens to death-purple, a flock of butterflies flitting away on the sky of her outfit.
He wobbles, and she kicks him in the gut--down he goes, pile of tenant bricks, grinning as his eyes roll up into his head.
“What the fuck, you bitch!?” The other man stands and pulls out a dagger, teeth bared and eyes alight. “What the--”
One. Maran shoves herself into his face. Two. He goes off-balance, wobbling on his heel.
Three.
She shoves her stiletto into his gut, slashing upwards, deep. She cuts even when she snags on bones, and the fucking pervert oozes, oozes out all over the floor, like a blooming flower.
Maran’s spasming, her remaining eye turning in her socket. “Mmmmmar-Marmarmarmaranmaaaaahelp-”
“Dilly.” Maran feels blood dripping down her cheekbones and off her face. “Dilly, I never told you the color of the--”
She swallows the knife-edge welling up in her throat. She slides to the back of Dilly’s head, pressing a button, and shuts her eyes as Dilly goes limp in her lap. Her pointer finger trembles and misses three times before catching on Dilly’s eylid, lowering it over her remaining eye.
She squeezes her own shut and bows over Dilly’s limp, limbs-askance corpse, pressing her face into synthetic hair so she won’t have to look into that empty socket.
“You did this.”
Maran doesn’t look up. Her arms tighten around Dilly’s body, muscles coiled and liquid, ready to jump, slice, anything this bastard throws her way. “You bitch,” he hisses, and Maran primes herself, all lit fuse and nitro in a tiny glass bottle.
“COG-LOVER!” Worker Boy screeches. His footsteps pound out a fading rhythm on the alley walls. “MURDERING COG-LOVER DOWN THIS WAY!”
Maran takes Dilly’s eyeball into her hand. It’s softer than she expects-more like jelly than she thought.
Before Worker Boy can come back, Maran plunges forward and lets the shadows swallow her. One word circulates through her heartbeat and gives her feet direction:
Cillia.
I will be posting the other installments on my fiction journal, chatham_rivers, but figured that this was as good a place as any to pimp it.