Chapter 11
The buildings were different here. De’Ante had driven them from near the center of Skyreach with its polished towers reaching to the heavens and its colorful holo-ads permeating every line of site, but now they were in what seemed like a jungle of metal beams. The buildings had a cruel metallic sheen that implied reliability, but at the sake of one’s enjoyments of their surroundings. Residential towers, industrial waste centers, Service Buildings, endless gray rectangles reaching to the sky. This was a great place to get lost, that was for sure, but this was a terrible place for Amaya to grieve the loss of her brother. The dispassionate, colorless horizon taunted Amaya; we are what your future has become.
An unfamiliar, disembodied voice broke the contemplative silence, a blend of Caribbean and Southern influences in its inflection. “Y’all comft’able back there?” De’Ante was looking into the rear-view of the transport and Amaya realized it was him who had spoken. He was wearing black shades and a black surgeon’s mask over his face with a dark shirt and black denim pants. A black cap with the word NO, emblazoned in white, was flipped backwards on his head. Amaya wondered if the bill of the cap ever bothered him when he tried to sit back while driving.
“Yeah we’re good, but I think Andre could use a more appropriate bandage than some jumpsuit fabric, if that’s a thing we could manage.”
“A fella’ sure wouldn’t spurn some painkillers, too, since we’re askin,” Andre added, reaching for an imaginary cap to tip in thanks. He was still bleeding from his face and arm from the gunfight at Amaya’s apartment and his pale face had a slick sheen of sweat. His words seemed a strained, but he was keeping his spirits up. His wounds weren’t fatal, but he had to be in pain and in some minor shock. They’d make sure he could lay down soon. Amaya wasn’t sure about De’Ante, but Alicia had seemed to trust him, so it was all she could do to go with it for now.
“Get ch’all all fixed up at the crib, and for that pain, my man, try this,” De’Ante said, reaching his arm into the back to hand over a small red device. Amaya recognized it instantly, as one recognizes an old friend that they haven’t thought about in years, but is always happy to see - a puffer. She hadn’t messed with the stuff since she got Marcus locked away. Andre put the device to his lips and inhaled, the herby smell of vaporized terpenes filling the interior of the transport as he breathed out. “Make you forget’chur pain real quick, my man,” De’Ante encouraged.
“Whew-ee. Haven’t hit one of these since I started drivin’, damn sobriety tests and all. Guess I ain’t a driver anymore, though, huh,” Andre said. With a single puff, Andre’s eyes were already reddening and his inflection was taking on an additional level of whimsy. “Hope I don’t gotta’ shoot nobody again any time soon.” Must be some good stuff, Amaya thought, a laugh finding its way out for the first time that day.
“Y’all better not shoot nobody when we get there, that would put an unfot’unate damper on our introductions,” De’Antesaid. “Almost there.”
Amaya checked the time on her hand terminal. They had only been traveling for about forty five minutes, but at the speeds that De’Ante was driving they must have gone over two hundred kilometers. The scope of Skyreach boggled her mind. “Where are we going, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Got a safe place fo’ our operation, keep it ‘way from pryin’ eyes, ya’ feel?”
“How can you be so certain it’s safe?” Amaya asked.
“Babygirl, we been runnin’ ‘dis game for five year now, ain’t no one wise to us,” he responded.
“Game? What game would that be?”
“That’s the kind’a question that’a get you poked, my girl,” this time it was Alicia who spoke, the hint of a laugh coloring her words. “There’s a lot you ain’t know ‘bout my past, girl. We gon’ have us a talk when we get up to some peace n’ quiet.”
“Y’all buckle up, now,” DeAnte suggested. He turned the car sharply and swung low through a rusted opening in the side of one of the towers. Zipping further down and into the interior of the tower, Amaya could only make out the silhouette of the guts of a stripped industrial waste center. Her work at TerraHarvest had educated her on some of the lower level employment opportunities that they offered the lower classes as a good will gesture to the community. Her holo-textsfrom the company had come remit with grand illustrations of stainless steel vaults with top-line filtration, extraction and incineration technology. The machines would have been ten or twelve feet in heigth, but this tower was barren.
De’Ante began to slow the car and Amaya noticed that they were approaching the lights of a landing pad. “How far down did we go?”
“‘Bout three hundred levels or so, ‘bout seven thousand feet, five tier checkpoints, and fifty fo’ horizontal miles,” De’Antesaid casually, embellishing the inflection of each number of obstacles he had navigated them through.
If that was true, then they must have been near the base of Skyreach. Amaya had learned about the engineering of the cities in her early schooling, but like most, the intrigue of what kept hundreds of millions levitating in the air traded seats with life’s monotonies, and Amaya had stopped wondering. This close to the actual base of the city, though, her childhood she marveled at the seeming impossibility of Skyreach. Not just Skyreach, but twenty-nine other cities across the planet, too, miraculously floating in the air. Sure, those responsible for the maintenance of the cities could rationally explicate the magic of the hover, but to Amaya, that childhood wonder would always remain.
“How are we from the bottom?” she asked.
“Probably just a hundred levels, giv’a’take?” De’Ante guessed. “Don’t know fa’ sho’, go much lowa’, you hit detention zones or ‘bandoned levels. We don’t go lowa’, ya’ feel?”
De’Ante parked the car and pressed a series of button to kill the engine and interior cabin lights. As she stepped out of the car, Amaya smelled the damp musk of the old abandoned building. Amaya’s bangs blew from one side of her face to the other as a cool breeze rushed out to the opening on the other side of the complex from which they had entered. “This way, y’all,” Alicia said, gesturing for Amaya to follow. Andre had stepped out and was stretching his calves against the side of the parked vehicle.
The landing pad was brutally constructed of scrapped rebar and cross-patched metal. Along the perimeter a series of alternating red and blue lights shone dimly, and a white NO was inlaid in lights underneath the metal of the pad. The room itself was the depressing concrete that constituted all basic constructions of the city, always with the idea that the ownership would turn the space into an enviable workplace for their laborers, but rarely evolving beyond the impersonal chalky gray and uninspired porcelain furniture. The only decoration in the room was a poster featuring a prominent corporate icon, no one from TerraHarvest, so Amaya couldn’t place the name. We all have the power to do the right thing, it encouraged. Whoever had left this place long ago had decided to take everything, kitchen sink included, but left their motivation to do the right thing. That or they had enough to leave behind for the next tenant.
A door stood open in the corner of the room. Its top hinge had rusted apart and it hung loose into the ground so that De’Ante had to grab the door off of the ground to pull it closed behind them before letting it fall to the ground again with a loud thump. The sound echoed across the tiled floor as De’Ante led them further into the complex, the patter of their footsteps like the sounds of distant construction hammers slamming into their targets, five laborers working in unison but swinging to their own pieces of the project.
The occasional wall sconce provided some light, but they were infrequently placed and dimly lit. The Amaya of five hours ago would have noped right the fuck out of this building - the old horror holos that she and Alicia had binged endlessly on the weekends had her that much. Now, though, she might as well have been one of the characters she’d seen devoured for choices that Amaya and Alicia had shrieked at them not to make. She had no choice but to continue into the mouth of whatever monster was waiting for her. Like the characters that she had pitied, she was stuck playing her part.
Before Amaya was able to come up with another metaphor for her predicament, De’Ante grabbed a sconce in the wall up ahead and pulled hard. It rotated downward and a flimsy plastic ladder slowly lowered itself from the ceiling, like a house cat slowly uncurling from its spot in a sunlit window to welcome their housemate back to the den. Serious spy shit, Amaya chuckled to herself. Alicia went up first, and De’Ante raised his arm in signal for Amaya and Andre to follow.
Amaya went up first after Alicia, Andre and De’Ante closing up the group’s ascent. As they neared the top and Alicia climbed into the chamber at the top of the ladder, screams erupted. Amaya jumped at the loud shrieks, but as she listened, she realized that these were shrieks sounded happy. Relieved, Amaya finished her climb and entered the chamber she had watched Alicia disappear into.
Her eyes needed to adjust to the light, but when they did she noticed that this room was significantly brighter. Light strips lined the space where the ceiling and walls connected to brighten every corner of the room. There were fifteen or so people gathered around Alicia chattering excitedly, a few children tugging at her pant-legs. Auntie Alicia, Amaya thought. The idea warmed her heart. As far as she’d known her, Amaya had never heard Alicia mention friends or family, so it was a relief to know that there were others who cared for her, since Alicia tended to spend so much time taking care of everyone else around her. Amaya briefly recalled a few weeks prior when another neighbor from their hall had forgotten to pay their rent and were being removed from corpo-housing. Alicia had stood in the door and paid the debt right in front of the dumbstruck oversight officer’s gaping face. Sure, they’d needed to pool their resources to keep Amaya and the neighbor fed, but that’s what you did for your neighbors.
Those were neighbors, though. Neighbors leave, die, or secretly hate you. Friends and family stick by you. Amaya liked to think that she had a friend in Alicia, but it was like Alicia’s past was mired in fog; clear enough that you could understand what you’re seeing, but intriguing enough that you want to know. The minute you shine light on it, though, the reflective glare blocks you out. Alicia had always been friendly, but Amaya could sense that she kept herself distant enough to avoid letting anyone see who she really was. What her reason for doing so, Amaya was at its source.
“Amaya, get’cho ass ova’ here’n meet my folks!” Andre and De’Ante were up the ladder now and joined the rest of the group. Amaya was overwhelmed by the size of Alicia’s family. Her mother and father, three brothers (of which De’Antewas one), two sisters, and cousins, uncles, and grandparents - all of them lived in this abandoned low-level tower. “Y’all, meet Amaya. She my girl from the top. We been in those corp’rit trenches, y’all know what I’m sayin’?”
“Yeah, where they pay for yo’ housin’ and foods? Real tough shit. An’ runnin’ outta’ starch for ‘dem fancy suits’ and shit, fuckin’ travesty” a man ribbed back at her, poking her sides and eliciting a loud giggling Yipe! from Alicia.
“Yeah? And what’chu do down here all day, smoke herb and eat fats?” She laughed, play-pushing him away and then allowing herself to be pulled into a hug.
“And you,” Alicia’s father said, turning his attention to Amaya. “I know you, you a friend to my baby girl. This a bad world, I’m happy to know she gotta’ friend.” He extended his hand and bowed with exuberance. When Amaya reached to shake his hand, he brought it to his lips and lightly kissed the top of her hand. “My name is Allonz, this my prog’ny, Alicia, but you know ‘dat,” he said, winking. “And ‘dis da’ love of my life, Elise. We been goin’ for ‘bout fo’ty years ‘now.”
Struck by the warmth of Alicia’s family, Amaya couldn’t help but feel a pang of loss. Her parents had been gone for several years and now someone had taken Marcus from her. It was hard to dwell on the negatives right now, though. Alicia’s father was cracking jokes and loving on his wife and the rest of Alicia’s extended family were busy with preparations for an impromptu homecoming. Amaya followed the group through the entry room and into a repurposed family room. Mid-wear couches lined the walls of the large room, and in the middle were a series of metal folding tables lined up to form a large dining table with an assortment of mismatched chairs and bar-stools of varying degrees of red and brown encircled the fixture like a circle of monks worshiping their idol.
“Y’all’s made it just in time for some dinner!” Allonz said. “And boy,” gesturing to Andre, “stop bleedin’ in my house. Ophie! Get ‘dis man some ‘ttention.” A young woman broke from the group and grabbed Andre gently by his unimpaired arm and led him to another room to tend to his injuries.
“Thanks, Auntie O,” Alicia said as the woman led Andre away. “Andre in good hands, Auntie O ain’t no doc’, but she helps patch up protesta’s all the time.” Alicia seemed completely casual about the entire day, like she’d been shot at and run from corporate security all in a good day’s fun. Turning her attention now to Amaya, “Auntie Joyce makes some fine s’getti, and girl I know you ain’t eat since breakfast, so we ‘bout to chow down,” Alicia added, just another meal after sending a comrade off to get a bullet dug out of his arm.
Alicia was right, Amaya was starving, and the savory, herby smells coming somewhere in the flat painfully articulated her missed meals. She was tired, too. Painfully tired. Her whole body was starting to hurt as the adrenaline of the day filtered out of her. Her fight, flight, and everything in between instincts had been pushed to their limits for the day and she needed to rest. She could push through for some s’getti, though.
Making small talk with Alicia’s family and sitting with some many loving faces around a non-processed meal was good for Amaya’s soul, but something nagged her still. Why should she be sitting here enjoying family time when Marcus was gone. Something other than exhaustion was bothering her. She couldn’t say why, but her desire to go to Cirrus Prime had grown and she now was now certain that whatever answers she needed, she would find there.
The meal was good and the talk around the table circulated a variety of topics and was accompanied by all of the banter and joviality of a big family get-together. As children were dismissed from the table and the adults began to filter off into the variety of chambers that linked off of the main family room, Allonz stood and went to one of the couches lining the room. Grabbing a plastic case and removing a pipe, he loaded some tobacco and herb and sat smoking and talking with Amaya, Alicia, and Andre.
“So what yall’s play here?” Allonz asked the group. “Run from o’sight, hide out, and then what?” He wasn’t disparaging, he was just curious. “Way I sees it, time to start flippin’ somethin’ else if you’s catchin’ this much heat, you feel me?”
“She ain’t runnin’ ‘cause she guilty, dad,” Alicia said. “She runnin’ ‘cause someone tryin’ to kill her and she ain’t done nothin’ wrong. We ain’t got no play here, I just wanted to get my girl to some safety and let her catch her breath without corpo thugs shootin’ at her grievin’ ass.” Alicia had overplayed the grief card and Amaya noticed an apologetic glance in her direction, oof, sorry, that was too far. Amaya blinked back, eh, been a long day for all of us.
“Oh shit,” Allonz said. “Then babygirls, you in some trouble. Corpo don’t mess. They hitters may be hourly, but ‘dembastards don’t forget shit. They ‘gon look for you ‘til they find you, be it a hunnid’ years now on.”
“‘Specially after I dropped one of ‘em,” Andre added quietly, a hint of regret lurking under his drawl.
The group sat quietly for a minute before Amaya broke the silence. “I’m going to Cirrus Prime. I don’t know what’s going on, but I think I might get some answers down there. “ She knew that she couldn’t just walk in and demand to speak to the man who killed her brother, but she had to do something. The thought that Marcus could be killed in cold blood and that she might run and hide made her stomach churn. No, she wouldn’t sit back and be told what to do next this time. When her parents died she had felt a sense of helplessness, like it was something happening to her that she could only grimace and observe. She was older now, more capable; she would learn the truth of what happened to Marcus and she would demand justice from those who had taken her brother from her.
The lone light above the table spotlit the four as they considered what Amaya had said. “I ‘vise ‘gainst it, girlie,” Allonzsaid. Smoke escaped his mouth and nose as he spoke and added to the growing haze of smoky tendrils filling the room, like the fingers of all of the old ghostly inhabitants of the building reaching out to touch the living. “Best ‘ting for you ri’now is to lay low. Catch ya’ breath and grieve,” his rate of speech slowed and the inflection of his deep voice dove further still and he looked them both over gravely, a father to both women in this moment.
“You’re not wrong, but I can’t do nothing. They killed my brother and I’m going to go figure out why.” Her voice was starting to break and she wiped a tear from her eye. “I can’t explain why, but I know something is going on. I owe it to Marcus to figure it out.”
Now Andre spoke again. “Well, I certainly ain’t employed as a driver no more, so consider it my pleasure to escort you through the completion of your journey.” His face was serious. The jovial and joking Andre had been replaced with someone who understand that they’re signing on for a trip they might not come back from.
“Andre, no. You can’t put yourself at any more risk just for me, my conscience won’t allow it.”
“Amaya, let me tell you something about myself,” Andre responded curtly; not quite rude but with hurried sobriety. “I was on probation with my company when I picked up your fare. Six weeks ago, I kicked a young lady outta’ my cab ‘cause she was kickin’ up an awful fuss. I’d had three pukers in my shit in a row and I just ain’t had no patience to listen to her hiccupin’ and guffaws, so I told her ‘Ma’am, I’ve hadda’ bad day, could’ya quit’en down back there?’, and when she didn’t, I kicked her to the curb.” He took a deep breath and took a drink, his eyes were sunken and displaced down to where his plate had been an hour before. Amaya could see him tracing the embroidered fabric of the tablecloth with his left hand. With his right he picked nervously at the bandage on his injured arm.
“Just couldn’t take the damn cryin’ anymore and all I could smell was fuckin’ puke. So I kicked her right out on the coner’ of some building, like a fuckin’ asshole. Well, turns out that young lady was runnin’ from an abusive husband, and he tracked her terminal and pushed her right from the top o’ that building I left her at.” His voice was uneven and a lone tear veined his cheek. The light above the table accentuated the wrinkles in his face and he looked a decade older. “I don’t let folks outta’ my cab anymo’ less they are safe and sound, ‘specially young women like yourself, Amaya.” He opened his mouth to say more, but decided against it and instead took another drink.
“Andre, I’m not a token for you to atone for past sins. You made a mistake, and you know how to do better from now on, but you don’t me to prove that you are a better person than six weeks ago. You got shot for me, and now I’m in a safe place. I think you have done what you told yourself you needed to do.”
“With all due respect, no I haven’t. I leave you now and you are definately gonna’ get yourself caught before you can make it to Cirrus Prime. You got an idea for how to make it? I do. Let me help you.” He was leaning forward over the table now, both hands outstretched to Amaya across the table. Amaya grabbed his hands and squeezed firmly.
“Andre, I can’t stop you if you want to come, I’d even be honored. But I need to know that you understand what you’re getting into with me. I can’t say I even understand it myself, but I do know that people seem to be after me and they’re willing to kill to get me, so please don’t come along just to satisfy a personal demon.”
Andre squeezed her hands in rejoinder. “Amaya, since I learned ‘bout that girl dyin’, I haven’t felt any real sense o’ purpose. Just been floatin’ from fare to fare. Helpin’ you get away from those goons today was the best I’ve felt in a long time, hell, best I’ve felt that I can remember. Nah, I ain’t leavin’ you now. Somethin’s tellin’ me to stick with you.” He gave a final squeeze and then released Amaya’s hands, picking up his cup and downing the last of his drink. “Now, I believe I need me some rest,” he drawled. “Someone point me to a spot to sleep.”
Allonz snuffed his pipe and rose with Andre. “I’ll see to ya’, ma’ boy.” He put his arm around Andre and led him to a back room as he inquired about Andre’s arm and if he could get anything else for him. Returning from having put Andre to bed, he bid Alicia and Amaya a good night. “Headin’ to bed ma’self, night Alicia. Good to see you, babygirl. ‘Night ‘Maya, nice to meet you. Love y’all.” With that, they heard him pad lightly off to his own bedroom for the night.
“Love you, daddy,” Alicia called after him, careful not to wake the rest of the family. It was late into the night and time for both of them to head to bed as well.
“Alicia…. seriously, thanks. I’d be in a cell right now if it weren’t for you.”
“Girl you know I got yo’ ass,” she said as she leaned into Amaya and embraced her. Leaving the hug, she grabbed Amaya by the head and kissed her lovingly on the cheek. She turned Amaya’s head and looked into her eyes, seeing all of her, just like she always did. “I’m so worried for you, girl. But I can’t go with’chu. You know that, right? You know why I have to stay?”
Amaya felt her heart sink in disappointment. Of course, it was impractical for Alicia to come all the way to Cirrus Prime with her, she had her own life and her own responsibilities to attend to. Plus, if Alicia and Amaya went off the grid at the same time, it wouldn’t bode well for the discreet spot that her family seemed to have found for themselves in the forgotten under city of Skyreach. She hadn’t expected Andre to stick around, but his implacability had given her some hope, however unrealistic, that Alicia might go with her, too.
“Oh, of course,” she tried to hide the disappointment in her voice, but was fairly certain she had failed. “You’ve done so much, already, seriously thank you. I can’t ever repay you, but I promise, next movie night, I’m hosting, cooking, and supplying the drinks.” She took her best friend into another tight hug. They stayed like that for several moments, enjoying the peace of the home and the fading smells of tobacco from Alicia’s father and italian herbs from dinner.
Alicia cradled her head into Amaya’s chest. “Y’all be safe, ya’ hear? You know how to contact me, and if y’all find some real trouble, just call and I’ll send tha’ cav’ry, yeah?” The vibrations from her voice comforted Amaya. She would miss her friend dearly while out doing whatever the hell it was she was about to go and do.
“Time for bed, girlie?” Amaya said, yawning, like it was just another sleepover.
“Yup, come on lady.”
Alicia led Amaya to her old bedroom, and the two fell asleep snuggled together. The white-noise drone of one of their comfort holo-shows streaming from Alicia’s childhood terminal into the morning.