42 – Floating Free

  Addie, eyes closed, lips pressed into a thin line of intense concentration, focused on the Dust she could feel in the matrix that ran through her veins. She couldn’t feel the matrix. She couldn’t tell it was in her veins; she just knew that’s where the microscopic filaments had been installed when she’d gotten her Dust reactor. She growled, frustrated at the intrusive thoughts; why was she thinking about her Dust matrix? She was supposed to be feeling the Dust! She tried again, focusing, clearing her mind, embracing the warm, fuzzy sensation she always felt when she “touched” her Dust.

  It had always been like that, even when she was a little girl, and she’d first begun to play with Humpty on those special occasions when her mom would get him out and tell her stories about her grandma. Her mom would talk about how Florence Quaid made a name for herself during the AI wars and afterward when Persephone destroyed or trapped the other AIs and the Aurora Gate fell. As she listened, Addie would hold Humpty and delight in the way he’d hover over her lap as she felt him through that thin, warm ribbon of invisible stuff that tickled her arms and fingers as she stretched her senses into the little drone.

  Sitting there, locked in a small room, trapped by mysterious operators and bangers, Addie used that same sense, that ability to touch the Dust in her body with her mind, and carefully nudged that fuzzy, warm stuff through the matrix to her right hand, gathering as much of it as she could in her palm. The manual she’d been desperately studying said she was supposed to spread the Dust out as thinly as possible, like jelly on a piece of bread, her skin being the bread and the Dust the jelly.

  Having read the chapter twice now, she’d come to realize why her hand had been “fading” for years now, but only her hand. It was because her reactor didn’t hold enough Dust to accomplish more than that. When she was younger, and it first started happening, she’d had an even smaller reactor—the one her dad had given Tony. That was why only a finger or two had been “fading.” Even so, even with the limits of her reactor, if she could just pull off the fade on purpose for once, she’d be able to slip her hand free of the shrink-cord.

  The manual she’d gotten was badly outdated, but she didn’t know if something more recently written would help. The instructions weren’t clear because every “Dust adept” had a different way of describing how it felt to fade. They all agreed that you had to surround yourself—or your limb, in Addie’s case—with Dust, but that was where the instructions became vague. Some said you should let yourself drift, imagining you’re floating on gentle waves. They described it like being at the beach, but Addie couldn’t relate, having never left the Blast. Others said you should imagine a gentle breeze lifting a leaf off a concrete slab.

  There were a dozen other analogies and testimonials from different Dust adepts, and they all seemed helpful, but Addie’s problem was that she was struggling to maintain her concentration. She kept hearing noises outside the door—clanks, muffled conversation, motors, rattles—and a nasty little voice in the back of her mind kept asking her, “What if you pull it off? What if you get out of these shrink-cords? What are you going to do then?”

  The truth of the matter was that Addie was terrified. She’d been taken. Someone had grabbed her right outside her home, and they were not nice people—a stupid thought, probably. What kind of nice people would kidnap someone? At first, Addie thought it was Boxer. They were angry about what she and Tony had done at Royal Breeze. That didn’t feel right, though. If it were Boxer, would they be using operators and bangers? She supposed it was perfectly possible, but what would they gain? Why would they hold her like this? Why would the operators be arguing about “checkpoints?”

  Every time her mind drifted down that road, asking questions she couldn’t answer, Addie would start to spiral as the gravity of her situation became more and more apparent. Nobody knew where she was. Tony had seen them take her—he’d called out a warning—but how could he find her? He didn’t know anyone in the district. Was she even still in the Blast?

  The presence of a Dead Boys banger gave her some hope that she was. “Dead Boys,” she muttered, new fears dancing on frigid claws through her mind. They were notorious for their cruelty. How many people had she known who’d disappeared only for family and friends to whisper about the Dead Boys, shaking their heads in dismay? The Dead Boys and their rivals were the main reason Addie wouldn’t walk around the NGT building after dark.

  As she caught herself falling further down rabbit holes of panic, Addie reminded herself that the banger who’d tried to feed her hadn’t seemed all that bad. He’d been just like a Helldog in most respects. She tried to stay rational. She tried to remind herself that banger gangs cultivated scary reputations. People outside her neighborhood probably said the same things about Beef and his boys. The truth was that most bangers were just petty criminals. “Right,” she muttered, forcing herself to close her eyes and focus again.

  She repeated the process with the Dust again, smoothing it into a thin layer around her hand. It was fuzzy and warm, kind of like a glove of static energy that clung to her flesh and bones. Would she be able to see it if she opened her eyes, like when she’d seen Zane manipulating gravity? She’d never seen Dust when her hand disappeared on its own. Was it still inside her, even though, mentally, she felt like she was wrapping it around her hand? It had to be, right? Each time she failed, she found it inside herself again. It was a moot point; she couldn’t easily look at her hands anyway.

  That line of thought brought her attention to the pain in her wrists. The shrink-cords were biting into her skin, grinding against the bones, constricting the vessels. Her hands felt swollen, and they ached, throbbing with each thump of her heart. Gritting her teeth, growling softly, she tried to imagine what Tony would say. “Come on, Ads,” she muttered, making her voice deep, “focus! You got this. What’s the big deal? It’s just a little pain.”

  As silly as it was, imagining him sitting beside her on the cot, encouraging her, helped. Addie squeezed her eyes shut, spread the Dust, and then, despite her lack of experience with the reality of it, she imagined she was floating in the ocean, a white beach nearby—something she’d seen in vids. She pretended the air was clean and fresh. The only time she ever tasted real, fresh air was when a big storm was blowing toward the city, so that was what went through her mind—clean air with a slight ozone tang. She imagined blue skies and the gentle caress of waves that lifted and lowered her in a soothing rhythm.

  Without any warning or any buildup, Addie’s right arm fell away from where it had been bound. Instant cramps, coupled with relief, shot through her shoulder as she pulled her arm forward and held her hand in front of her face—no, not her hand, just her wrist. Her hand was elsewhere. “Yes!” she hissed, trying to be quiet but unable to contain the flood of pride and excitement. “Now what?” she whispered, looking around the room.

  As she stopped focusing, her hand reappeared with a surge of pins and needles reminiscent of when a limb might “fall asleep.” She flexed her fingers, licking her lips, looking at the door nervously. Should she try to free her other arm? “Think!” she hissed, imagining Tony was there watching her. Tony! She looked to the wall where the black triangle lurked, a tiny red LED blinking at its center. If she could turn it off, she could get a message out. Her location sharing would work again!

  With a grunt of pain, Addie turned further and looked at her bound wrist. The shrink-cord that had held her wrists together was pinched to a thick metal pipe by another one. “Oh.” She grabbed her wrist with her free hand, and with all her weight, she tugged, sliding the shrink-cord that held her out from under the one securing it to the pipe. A giggle of incredulity escaped her lips as she lifted her two hands—free. Without wasting another second, she crawled to the end of the cot and slapped her hand onto the black triangle.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Just as she’d practice alone in her room, just as she’d done to Tony, startling a string of cussing out of him, she channeled a thread of Dust through her matrix into her hand and then pushed it out. With a sizzle, a blue spark, and a waft of smoke that smelled like burning plastic, she fried the little device. “Yes! JJ, hurry, message Tony. Share our location!”

  “I’m sorry, Addie, but the interference in this location has not lessened. I’m unable to reach the city net or any local nets.”

  Addie stared at the little black triangle. The LED was out—she’d definitely fried it, but… She whirled, scanning the room. Was there another? For the first time, she looked closely at the security panel beside the door. Sure enough, a tiny circle winked at her with the faintest translucent gleam, mocking her with its presence. A camera. Of course her kidnappers would be watching her. They’d seen her free herself. They’d seen her fry that little triangle. They weren’t storming into the room because… Because why? Because they’d expected her to do it? They were testing her?

  As she connected the dots, unsure if she was being paranoid or logical, the door beeped, clicked, and opened. Addie braced herself, lifting her clenched fists, determined to make them work for whatever they wanted from her. To her surprise, she recognized the man standing in the doorway. Tailored gray suit; stylish, purple-and-black necktie; polished shoes that gleamed in the fluorescent light; and perfectly coiffed, blonde hair overtop bright hazel eyes—it was Zane.

  ###

  Tony sat on a stool behind Bert’s sales counter, his leg propped up on another. He was trying to hold still and let his nanites do their work. He’d done a number on the joint—a torn posterior cruciate ligament, torn meniscus, and a fractured tibial plateau. His nanites could repair the damage, but they couldn’t reconnect the PCL and mend the tissue if he didn't hold still. So, he’d been forced to quell his urgent need to do something and be still for an hour or so. He had to trust Beef and his network of bangers to find the van and the operators who’d taken Addie.

  He'd forwarded the recording Nora had made of the kidnapping, and Beef had run with it—drunk but enthusiastic in his desire to “kill the sellout hollows who’d messed with his girl.” When the banger said that, it had stung a little, hitting the right nerve. Tony had been called a hollow or “hollow man” plenty of times; street tuffs like Beef often saw operators as soulless mercs, out for the bits and lacking loyalty.

  The tough-to-swallow part of that pill was that it had been true once upon a time. Tony had felt it—his lack of humanity, his robotic efficiency in completing jobs for Cross. Honestly, that feeling had been the gap in his armor that had allowed Emily in, allowed him to listen to her and consider her proposal. He heard her voice again, soft and smooth, as they lay in bed, blue chem-smoke drifting toward the ceiling vent, “We should do it. We should run. They’re never going to erase your debt, T. Let’s just go.”

  His AUI beeped, startling Tony out of his reverie, and he shook his head, banishing the haze of painful memories. His nanite management suite had an update, so he focused on the tab, expanding the window. A three-dimensional model of his knee rotated before him, and he saw the yellow color-coding on his torn ligament. The model showed it in one piece again, and the fact that it wasn’t red meant the nanites were making good progress. His meniscus was already shading toward green, and his cracked tibia was stitched with a web-like lattice of microscopic repairs.

  Tony gingerly flexed the joint, pleased to find much of the swelling already gone; his nanites had immediately interrupted that physiological response to the injury. “Can I walk on it?” he asked.

  “I’m assessing the latest data from your nanites. One moment.”

  Tony glanced through the dark storefront to the storeroom door. He hadn’t told Bert what had happened. He hoped the older man was sleeping because Tony didn’t want to add a panicked father to his list of headaches. If all went well, Bert could wake up in the morning, maybe a little hung over from his self-indulgence, but none the wiser regarding Addie’s troubles. If all didn’t go well… Tony shook his head. He didn’t want to think about that possibility.

  “Your knee will support light use. Your nanites anticipate it to be at ninety percent within the hour.”

  Tony quietly and carefully lowered his leg, gingerly testing his weight on it. It felt okay. Sore, but no more blinding pain. He quietly walked over to Bert’s gun case and opened the bottom cabinet, fishing through the stacks of ammo boxes. He found a pack of “Thunderload” polymer .40 caliber bullets and a box of generic electro-shotgun pellets and liberated them, mentally writing Bert an IOU. After that, he quietly padded through the store, out the front door, and locked up. Ammo boxes in hand, he strode across the street to get his guns.

  On the way, he had Nora check in with Beef, who told him he had a guy working on jacking into the district’s traffic cams, something Tony would have thought of but been utterly unable to accomplish. Even back in ’Hattan, he would have had to hire on a specialist for something like that. With hope in his chest, he loaded his guns, stuffed the pistol in his waistband, and set the shotgun on the charging pad built into his kitchen counter. His AUI told him the batts were at twenty-three percent, but it would fast-charge up to eighty in five minutes.

  While he waited, he drummed his fingers on the counter and fumed. He wanted to be out there, combing the streets, hitting up his informants, shaking down the local clubs and fixer dens. The problem was, he didn’t know anybody in this damn district. He’d be spinning his wheels. There were close to half a million people in the Blast, and most of them were in arcologies and housing stacks where bangers wouldn’t exactly like a stranger poking around. He folded his metallic fingers into a fist and thumped it on the counter.

  “If this is that spark punk trying to sell her down—” he started, grinding the words out through clenched teeth, only to be interrupted by a flashing light on his AUI.

  “Priority call, Tony. It’s Beef,” Nora announced.

  “Take it.” A window opened on his AUI, and there was Beef—his square-shaped head, heavy jowls, and dark eyes filling the window. He looked angry, but then, he always looked angry, especially when talking to or looking at Tony.

  “Corpo-rat, we got a hit.” He spat something to the side, and Tony was grateful the image generator didn’t use its predictive algorithm to portray whatever was flying out of his mouth. “Got that van slipping into a parking structure down on Boxer Avenue, only a mile from the NGT building. That’s Dead Boy territory, and I can’t get cleared by the shot callers to make a move. If we go in there, it’s just gonna be you and me, rat. You still down?”

  “You kidding me? I’ll go alone if I have to. Send me the loc.”

  “Spin down, hotshot. I’ve got a couple of my boys snooping around, sly-like. The garage is one thing, but we gotta see where they took her. Get your ass down near the NGT, and I’ll hit you with a meet when I get a fix.” The window closed, and Tony snatched his shotgun off the counter. On the way to the door, he stopped and dug through one of his boxes, pulling out the faded jean jacket he’d bought at Salvage Styles the first time Addie brought him there.

  Pulling the jacket on, he said, “Nora, call me a cab.”

  “On it, Tony.”

  Downstairs, he locked up the shop, then stood on the curb, gun on his shoulder, glaring around, wishing he’d been just a little faster, a little more ready when those assholes nabbed Addie. He felt guilty and stupid, but most of all, he was angry. Even if whoever took her didn’t plan to hurt or kill her, she had to be terrified. She didn’t deserve that. She was one of the nicest people he knew.

  “Selfless,” he grunted, his brain finding the word he’d been fishing for. She didn’t do shit for herself. She was always thinking about her dad or the neighborhood or how she could help someone else. How many people were like that anymore?

  “Cab incoming, Tony. Two minutes.”

  Tony looked at his map and saw the yellow car-shaped icon approaching, so he began walking toward it. His hand twisted on the taped-up, truncated shotgun stock as he walked. His mind was busy imagining Addie tied up somewhere dark, scared, alone, wondering what was happening. He didn’t want to think of that, but it was better than…other things he might imagine. Things like what he’d seen in the Black Jade’s walk-in cooler. He gritted his teeth and forced his mind away from such images. It wouldn’t be that—it was the head-hunter. It was Zane trying to make a buck selling her. Addie would be all right when they found her; she had to be. “But he won’t be,” Tony growled as the cab pulled up.