The contracts in her bag slapped heavy against her thigh as Rajah jogged along the rim of the pit in the center of the crossroads. Groans of the dead and the near-dead wafted up from below and quavered in the suffocating moist air. Her head throbbed.
“I want coffee.” her husband said petulantly, side stepping the bludgeoning claws of a burly zed. “Let’s go to the Depot.”
She turned towards him to agree, perhaps some caffeine would subside the persistent pounding in her head, but a white face was rising out of the darkness behind him like cream in a cup of hot brown and all she managed was a gasp instead.
“Eyes open, mouth SHUT!” the masked figure lunged, weapons smashing through muscle and bone like a hot knife through butter. Donnie fell backwards and she dove after him as he fell, the pain behind her temples rising in a surge of panic that pulsed down her limbs in to the tips of her fingers. A cresting wave of energy slithered from her palms, slammed into his chest, seized the edges of ragged flesh and shoved them back towards each other with a wet sound.
“Get UP!” she hissed as Donnie and the would-be-assassin stared at each other. Power crackled in her fingers as he scrambled up, a high pitched ringing throbbing in her ears in time with her pulse, rapid and sharp. Donnie was fast and his words even quicker. She couldn’t hear what was said, but a few hasty lines of dialogue and the masked attacker faded back into the shadows. They stood staring into the darkness for long minutes while their breathing slowed.
“Your smooth talking keeps almost getting you killed.” Rajah hissed. Donnie shot her a bemused look and a wan smile.
“I didn’t say anything! But really… I do want coffee.” he whined, brushing off her concern along with the dust on his suit.
“This is just a courtesy conversation.” Alela folded her arms and glared at him from beneath her white hat. “We can just as easily wait until Brat’s contract runs out and then hurt you.” Beside her, the lipstick-smeared Yorker slapped her weapon into her palm.
“You’re not going to get an apology from him.” Rajah snorted into her coffee, the bitter brew reducing the ringing in her ears to a dull roar and the pain in her head to a low pressure. “I know it’s frustrating, but that’s just how things are for people like us – like him.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?” Brat growled, “That he doesn’t care?”
“I just understand it, is all.” she shrugged, “In our line of work, playing both sides is expected. You can accept it and work with it, or get on with it. Are you upset because he did it, or because you wanted him to care?”
Brat’s face twisted in a sneer, “I don’t expect him not to be shitty, but he might feel sorry about it. Care even a bit.”
They all turned to stare at Donnie, stoically pouring dark brew into delicate china cups.
“Donnie, name one thing that’s important to me.” Rajah called out. He turned a blank, cold gaze on her. “Uhhh.”
Alela snorted disgust. “That’s your wife!”
Rajah shook her head, pressed further, “What’s the thing I hate the most. The thing I won’t touch.”
“Oh! Crystal Candy.” Donnie beamed, as though he’d performed a magic trick.
“See, he remembers stuff.” Rajah said, as Alela and Brat stared nonplussed, then admitted, “He just doesn’t care.”
“Isn’t that fucked up?”
She stared into her coffee for a second, poked at the feeling with a tentative finger, but it was just dead, receptive flesh. Had there ever been a part of her that felt something there? So many betrayals, so many disappointing relationships. Maybe once, long ago. When she had just been another girl in the Winn household. When all she wanted was to exist in California Adventure’s shadow and avoid a slow climb up Amaretta Surprise’s black pyramid. When she’d loved and lost, and then lost herself for good.
“I think it’s just honest.” she said slowly. “I’d rather know where someone really stands. And now that you have that information, it’s up to you to decide what you do with it.”
Donnie slowly poured his cup of coffee. Silence stretched in the Depot.
“Are you just gonna leave it like that?” Alela broke the moment, stepped to the table fists balled, “Don’t you feel anything?”
Donnie’s head jerked up, mask gone. “No.” Gone was the ever present smile, the ready laugh and goofy shrug. He stood still, met her stare with a blank one. “I don’t care.” He turned his back.
Brat flinched as though struck, then nodded to herself. Alela turned to look at her. “Well then.” A resolute look passed between them, holding the promise of future violence.
Rajah coughed softly, put her cup down on the table, and caught Brat’s eye. “Just know wherever the chips fall, you and I will have to sort it out between us as well, after.” the threat was mild, delivered with a smile. The Yorker showed her teeth in return. “Certainly.”
“Off to a meeting.”
“Oh? Going with me?” Donnie looked up interestedly, slinging his satchel over his shoulder.
“Unfortunately no, a business contact for my contract-holders.” Rajah shrugged apologetically. “I’ll see you after.” Their steps parted outside the Depot door and she strode into the darkness.
A short ways out of town and she came to the rickety walls of a makeshift hospital, its tin roof gleaming in the moonlight. Her heart sank, trepidation creeping in at the edges of her mind, making her jumpy. Not again. She knocked and the door swung open, revealing the tables and robes laid upon them.
“Are you Archibald Montgomery?” she whispered, all too ready to head back out into the darkness.
“I am. Please join the other patients.” the man gestured brusquely, hat shadowing sunken cheeks and dark circles. Bile rose in her throat as she hung her armor on a hook and slipped the filthy surgical gown over her clothing. Her hands were shaking, it hadn’t been that long, had it? Yes, the headaches were worse, but she could have gone a few more weeks… Still a contract was a contract.
She was led to an operating table, little more than a bench with a sheet, and laid down. Soon quiet voices filled the room as unseen others filed in. Cold fingers began to part her hair, and she reached up to grab a wiry wrist. “Please, be careful.” Rajah pleaded, twisting to stare into a pair of big brown eyes beneath a red kerchief. Shadows flitted across the woman’s fine features, almost familiar, before she flinched back and gently turned Rajah’s face back upwards. The scalpel slid along her hairline, a familiar burning. Then came the tooth-shuddering grinding of the trepanning tool. Her fingernails cut into her palms and her vision went dark.
“Please, go more carefully. I can’t see.” she begged, her voice joining the quiet panic of her fellow patients. Confused and hurt cries filling the tiny space. Somewhere on the far side of the room she heard a familiar voice, but it subsided before she could pick it out.
The woman working on her was tugging now, a heavy, hard pressure on her skull, then the soft slurp and tear as the first of the psionic crystals worked free by her forceps plinked into a metal tray. A trickle of blood ran hot into her ear. On one of the nearby benches someone was breathing heavily, gurgling.
Suddenly shouting filled the room, and the rattle of gunfire and bullets ripping their way through the shack’s thin, corrugated metal walls.
“Law Dogs! Get down!” someone yelled.
“Get them!” There was a flurry of movement near her head and then she was alone. Outside she heard groaning, and the heavy thwack of weapons on shields. Someone was screaming, then a sharp crescendo and silence fell once more.
Shuffling footsteps moved quickly through the space. A new set of hands wrapped around the crown of her head and once again she felt the sharp probe of metal tools. A man this time, she thought, though her vision was a swarm of fireflies that pulsed in time with the pain. The scent of yucca flowers flooded her nose and she gagged. “That smell…” the person next to her grunted, and there was a loud crack as another crystal was wrenched free. Something was tapping against her chest, and it wasn’t until she reached over with her right hand that she realized it was her left, twitching like a dying rabbit.
“Please go more carefully,” she begged, “It will take less time to recover if you do.”
There was a searing pain between her eyes, three more metallic tings in the tray, and then her vision began to clear. A white mask staring down at her.
“All done.” a firm hand pushed down on her shoulder.
“Thank yo-…” Rajah started to say, then his blade caught the moonlight and the words crawled back through her lips. She tried to move out of the way, lift her hands, do something. Limbs heavy, fingers unresponsive, there was a hard pressure on her throat, then the searing cold of the cut, hard and fast. Something hot was pouring from her mouth, down the white hospital gown across her chest. She was coughing, a sputtering liquid sound. Can’t breathe, can’t brea-…
Her arms fell away from her throat, knuckles brushing the pool of blood beneath her bench. Slowly her corpse slid sideways to land in it with a cold splash.
The light of the Cazadores Parlor inside the Brass Rose was green as bottle-glass, swirling with smoke. The cards in her hand were stained and torn, and the pile of chips on the table was rapidly diminishing. The man taking his seat next to her had sandy colored hair and a great white eye on his forehead. Everyone else at the table was faceless.
“Hello, Raj.” Sun Queen murmured.
“You’re not real.” The response was rote, how many times had she seen him? How many times had he actually been real? Unbidden, she tried to summon flame to her fingertips but it was weak and formed little more than a dim glow.
“You keep saying that.” he laughed, a familiar sound, and the darkness fluttered across the edges of his face in midnight fire. “You don’t need to burn me to make it true.” She turned away and fanned her cards in her hand. Her fingers trembled and the cards slid from them with a slither. She scooped them up and tossed them into the center of the table, folding.
“Why do you keep losing pieces of yourself?” he pressed. “Why let them carve you up?” his hand gently covered her own. She couldn’t bring herself to meet that sharp, kindly gaze so she stared at the blurred features of the others at the table instead, trying to rub sensation back into her fingertips.
“Maybe,” she bit out after a long pause, “I’m still only worth what others will pay for me.”
“There are those who value you for more than that. You’ve got to let them in, Rajah. Let yourself be vulnerable.”
“I did that!” she spat, “and what good did it do me? All of Tes’ lectures about love. All the camaraderie of the Iron Rosie. At the end of it, I am still here and they are gone.” she slumped back into her chair and glared at the apparition. “The more it changes, the more it stays the same. This is what I am, what I will always be. Better to stick to what I know, and be a commodity.”
“Time is not a quota we’re striving to meet.” Sun Queen smiled , brushing her hair away from the gash on her forehead. “Memories are the best things we can give our loved ones. The moments you spend with them are also gifts. You are not a prize to be won, you are a vibrant part of the lives of those who care about you.” The air shimmered with his words, and the tremble in her limbs fluttered in time with it.
There was a tap on her shoulder, and she turned to see a gambler waiting to take her seat. A song began playing on the radio. Sun Queen offered her his hand and swayed with her to the door, humming words they both knew.
“Let them have the real you, Raj. Heaven smiles above me. What a gift here below, but no one knows…” his words lilted into the song, “A gift that you give to me… no one knows…“
“I’ve gotta get back to work.” Rajah murmured, pressing a kiss to that bandaged temple and the mortal corruption beneath it. “We’ll dance again soon.” and slipped out of the gambling den and back to life.
Ain’t no confusion here, it is as I feared
The illusion that you feel is real
To be vulnerable is needed most of all
If you intend to truly fall apart
You think the worst of all is far behind
The vampire of time and memories has died
I survived. I speak, I breathe,
I’m incomplete
I’m alive – hooray!
You’re wrong again
‘Cause I feel no love
Always A Good Bet: A Dystopia Rising Fanfiction Blog 