DORIC
We were back in the subfloor food court and I was back in my Pat Mall uniform, only this time Harmony was in her red dress, and standing there holding my hand.
This isn't the night of the riots.
No, she told me. But I want you to look at the boys. She pointed across to those three slinking Pit Rats eating cricket tacos at one of the tables.
What? It's those three again. Why are they important?
Look closely at them.
I squinted at the Rats, but saw nothing unusual. They were just like any other Pit Rats—up to no good, dirty, their clothes stained, their hair greasy.
Harmony was looking at them intently as well. She said: It took them weeks to scrounge enough credits to come to the mall for lunch.
Let me guess: dumpster diving.
Yup. You'd be surprised how many Platters throw away gift digicards when they get down to a few pennies, but collect enough cards and you've got enough to buy you and your buddies tacos.
We were constantly chasing Rats out of the recycling dumpsters. It was bloody dangerous—the haulers would come and lift a dumpster, only to find Rats inside of them.
I know. I told him not to do it, I told him again and again.
Wait? Do you know him, Ann? I gestured with my chin towards the Rat boy leader, thin and wiry, with an arrogant slouch.
No, not him. That's Than. The other one, behind him—the shortest one.
The boy behind this Than was slim, slight, but with some baby fat still around his face. Who is he? He's young.
Travers. He was thirteen.
Who? Then it hit me—Travers as he was two years ago, Oh God. We tasered your son.
I know I felt it when it happened. A buzz.
Yes, I felt it through this memory just before.
She nodded. Through our link. An echo of an echo. Every parent, everyone those boys were linked to felt it when you tasered those kids.
I didn't know. You have to understand, Ann. There was so many of them. We just tasered them; tagged them and let them go. It was my...job. Why didn't they eat their lunch and leave? Why did they insist on going up to the top of the mall?
They wanted to see above the dust, to see the clear sky.
It never occurred to me that the Rats never saw clear sky. But still company rules were company rules. It wasn't my fault. I told her: I was just following orders.
Yes, I know all about just following orders, she replied her voice tinged with sarcasm.
Anger pricked me. That's unfair. That's un...j...
Un, un, what? Unjust? You're going to tell me what "unjust" is?
I'd be damned if I was going to take full blame for the Corporation's failings. I didn't invent the world we live in, Ann. I didn't lease the planet and all its mineral rights to WAVE Corp. I didn't write the trespassing laws. I didn't start the riot. I'm just trying to make an honest living.
I don't want your explanations or your excuses.
Then why did you want to show me this, Ann?
YOU ARE READING
Simoom Rising
Fantasy#1 rule of detectives: Don't fall in love with a suspect Amid civil unrest and unusual dust storms, twenty volunteer aid workers have disappeared in the slums of a mining colony on the planet of Simoom, including the long lost lover of Security Offi...
