“I hate to ask that of you, Ash, but the medications and equipment we’re using aren’t cheap, especially out here. I think they’ll work, eventually, but rebuilding someone’s psyche isn’t easy.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Especially when I have to make up most of this as I go.”
“It’s okay. I know we’ll get there. See you next time.”
He nods, face intent on his faded viewscreen, and I make my way back to the reception area to collect my things.
What a shitty day.
8
[Feels and Reals]
Outside the clinic, an incoming message flashes in my glasses. Jase. I tap my acceptance, and a small static picture of his face appears in the corner of my vision.
“Watcha got, Jase?”
“Nothing I want to talk about over the ’Net. You heading back?”
“Yeah, be there in fifteenish.”
His face disappears, and I frown. Jase’s voice sounded… frightened, something I’ve never heard from him before. Calm, angry, irritated, tense, yes, but never frightened. Great.
My glasses blink again. It’s Wind, voice this time. I open it.
“What’s up?”
“Slend and I just overheard some boardshits in Arthuria. They were talking about you. Making jokes about the ladder coming down, whores falling hard, ‘Humpty Dumpty’ cracking apart. Nastier than their usual crap.”
“Any specifics?”
“We tried to press them on it, but they logged. Be careful, Ash. Something felt off.”
“Okay, thanks, Wind. I’ll keep an eye out.”
I close the connection and set out from Highrise, pushing my way through the midday lunch crowds, hands in my hoodie pockets, thoughts drifting back to Mom’s latest breakdown.
She tried to kill me. Just like Brand. That punch would have shattered my sternum. Ahhh, Mom, why can’t you be the way you were before?
Memories from when I was a kid come rushing in, threatening to overwhelm me.
Mom and Dad laughing on the couch, Kiro toddling around in nothing but a diaper.
Late afternoon sun streaming through our apartment’s broad windows, green vertical-farm tomato vines swaying in the wind, the smells of Dad cooking needlefish wafting from the kitchen.
Mom slowly walking me through her katas, adjusting my childish legs and arms into the proper positioning.
Stop. You know where this leads.
Dad trying not to cry as Mom walked into the troop carrier, my hand clutching his, Kiro in his other arm.
Long nights at home, lips dry and cracked from water rationing, but pushing my body through the katas, my talisman to bring her back.
Losing myself in hapworlds, alternate realities, escaping Dad’s clenched lips at the nightly casualty reports on the viewscreen news, his attention locked on the crumbling death of everything normal. The day the atomics went off, jolting a semblance of sanity back into the world.
Joy at Mom finally being back home, confusion at the darkness in her eyes when she’d retreat into the bedroom with a bottle of alcohol. The small box hidden in a dresser, stuffed full of medals—a treasure chest of poisoned gold.
Let it go. You have to let it go.
Arguments that only grew louder and angrier, until one day Dad wasn’t there anymore.
Mom arrested for assault, two gummie security officers in critical condition, another three dead. No mention of a trial. Whispers of “attempted morality violations.”
Visiting the mental confinement ward, all bare walls and flickering lighting, a thrashing body strapped to a bed. Doctors who clearly didn’t want to waste their time on a broken relic of the past. Kiro retreating deeper and deeper into hap, refusing to come out of his shell.
Fleeing the dryburbs, Mom fooling the tests long enough to get herself released.
I can’t let it go.
Another breakdown, secdrones smashing down our megaspire apartment door in the middle of the night to drag her to another confinement ward after ten bodies ended up in the blue, one a relative of the Theocrophant.
Ghosting to pay the rent for a shitty room, whittling myself away, fifteen minutes at a time, all to keep my family alive.
Visiting a three-by-five in the Rust, Mom covered in her own filth, eyes wild, teeth bared like a cornered animal, living in a world no one else could see.
Putting all my rage and anger into Infinite Game, the only escape I had, hate and pain thrown back as I climbed the leaderboards—the audacity of a woman daring to conquer a man’s world…
Snap out of it. You can’t change the past. You can only try to fix the now.
I pause in the middle of a skyway connecting Highrise to the Brown, one of the newer concrete types, motionless spheres between the fluorescent panels shining overhead. My instincts are screaming at me, like when the lava exploded under my feet during the encounter with Hammer.
Something isn’t right here…
It hits me. There aren’t any people on the bridge, and it’s the middle of the day. This skyway should be packed with bodies. I look up to the end of the bridge, hands dropping out of my hoodie to my sides, but it’s just as empty as my palms. I step forward, seeking the safety of the Brown, then halt, rocking on one foot. As if in a nightmare, five heavily muscled men step around the corner, blocking off my exit. They take a step forward, moving as a group.
I spin around, the mundane sound of the climate control like a rushing waterfall in my ears, and another group materializes, closer this time. A line of seven more men in formfitting clothing stand at the other end of the bridge back to Highrise, massive arms crossed beneath bulging pecs. One of them is slightly in front of the others, his short blond hair spiked up over bronze skin, black-faceted AR glasses covering his face like an insect’s eyes. His nose is purple and swollen, like he ran into a wall face-first, and he holds himself stiffly. I look over my shoulder. The other cluster of five still block the far end, slowly creeping closer. I tap a quick command, but my AR glasses return only static. Short range comm jamming. My heart begins to pound, adrenaline offering its familiar embrace.
The one in front speaks, his voice dripping with malice. “Hey, Ash. Fancy meeting you here, all alone like this.”
“Mikelas. How’s the nose? And the nuts? You borrowing a new pair from these idiots? What did it cost you to clear the skyway?”
He flushes, bruised tissue going a darker shade of purple.
“See, it’s attitude like that that makes me enjoy what’s about to happen to your cunty little face.” He raises a hand, and the group behind him starts walking slowly toward me, their arms now swinging loosely at their sides, empty smiles under their dead eyes. “You’ve been atop the leaderboard too long, Ash. Gotten a little too cocky. Me and the boys want to fix that. Give someone else a chance in the spotlight next league. It’s only fair. And lucky for us, we met someone last night who had lots to say about you.”
No…
Mikelas nods.
“That’s right, Ash. Seems your baby brother isn’t too happy about how you’ve been treating him, and we were real sympathetic. Lent him quite the ear, me and the boys. Heard all about your daily routine, what it’s like to be the world’s greatest Gamer.”
Goddammit, Kiro.
My hand falls to my blade.
“If your ‘boys’ take another step toward me, I’m going to neuter every last one of you. I am not in the mood for this shit right now, Mikelas. You want to send me gore-porn messages? Fine. Psych-sec. You want to come at me in the Game? Whatever. You know what’ll happen there. I’ll take your gear and scrap it for fun. You keep coming at me in the real, try to track me down, and you trick my brother?” The blade slides into my hand. “You already lost your looks. This time it’s your nuts. You and your boys. Walk. Away.”