Chapter 19

Alicia sat up in her bed. She was alone and the sunlight shone brightly through her window, sun motes dancing all the way from the window to her bed; she could reach out and grab them if she tried. She lingered in bed momentarily and listened for noises from the kitchen. Pulling the quilt up to her face, she was a child again, when she’d lie awake in bed waiting for her mother to awaken her to the scent of freshly poached eggs, broiled bacon, and almost-burnt-but-not-quite-just-perfect toast. Now, the living area was silent. This wasn’t the home she’d grown up in. No, that had been taken from her long ago. This was just a space. She was thankful for the space, universe don’t strike me down, but it was not home, never had been.

When Alicia was eight, the jurisdiction folk had come for her father. He wasn’t home, of course. Allonz was never home back then. Her mother played the fool and Alicia’s siblings were all too young to incriminate him reliably, but they’d known that Allonz was up to something and the family never got a moment of peace. From that moment, Alicia recalled with uncomfortable lucidity the jurisdictional surveillance teams that would follow her to school in the morning or would track her moments as she went to enjoy an afternoon with her friends. They’d even tried to cozy up to Alicia with a juvenile looking under-cover officers that attempted to befriend and convince Alicia to snitch on her father. The joke was on them, though. She didn’t know shit back then. She knew a hell of a lot more now, though.

She didn’t know everything that her father got up to, but she knew this much: the law did not view him in a positive light. She knew that he financed a lot of illicit activities through the cultivation and sale of herb, and she knew that he had some lefter-than-average political idealizations, but she didn’t learn who Allonz, her father, really was until she graduated her primary grades of school. Her father had only been a small time crook back then, but he’d gotten in with some bad people, or so the detectives had told her. She was due to attend a graduation ceremony at the local shit-hole academy, but her father was late getting home from “work.” Alicia was used to his tardiness, but her mother had seemed particularly concerned about Allonz that night.

Her mother got a phone call and a single tear streamed down her face. “Come on, baby girl,” she’d said, gathering Alicia and her siblings to begin their trek down the promenade to attend the ceremony. “Daddy’s ‘gon try an’ meet us there.” That was the last time that Alicia saw that apartment. Elise had diverted them away from the graduation ceremony and sat waiting with the children in an obscured alley off of the greenspace walkways. They’d sat for what felt like hours, and then Allonz called and told Elise to meet him in a transport at a nearby hub. Elise, once again, gathered up her children and hauled them down the block, through the sweaty crowds and up the tower to the transport hub that Allonz selected. Alicia remembered the elevator’s metallic smell and the sudden aroma of exhaust as they opened up onto the transport hub.

The landing docks were arranged around the central ticketing kiosk and queues. Huge transport ships circled around the top of building waiting for their clearance to land. Every docking port was occupied, but there were surprisingly few people milling about the hub. Whatever this was, it wasn’t a people-moving transport hub. Allonz was watching for them and waved from a rusty trade transport on the side of the platform to their left. Alicia saw him first and tugged at her mother’s sleeve to direct her. Elise grabbed the smaller children and maneuvered her party to Allonz’s dock.

He met them halfway to the dock and took some items that Elise was carrying on her back and embraced her, kissing her softly on the cheek. “Ya’ok, love?” He inspected Elise and the children, tousled their hair and briefly gripped Alicia’s shoulder, a paternal recognition, but nothing more. Alicia wanted to know why she was going to miss her graduation ceremony, but knew better than to ask. This wasn’t the first time they’d been ripped from their lives to seek a safer existence somewhere deeper in the city.

Allonz released his grip of Alicia’s shoulder, only then did she turn to look at her father. He had a bruise around his left eye and his bottom lip swelled, a glitter of blood visible in the corner of his mouth. His ragged appearance stung her somewhere deep inside, something in her chest shriveled and hurt, and she felt a compulsion to ask her father how he’d hurt himself. This, too, though, she knew to avoid. Allonz got defensive when he talked about his injuries, like he felt that the concerned party’s questions were accusations of guilt rather than genuine inquiries of love.

That was the last time they’d had to move, fortunately. The transport took them to a deep under-city building that looked ready to fall over. The rust had grown unchecked and the building smelled like mold. It was damp, cold, dark. After a couple of months, Elise had helped the place to feel more like home, but Alicia needed more. She’d found a work-study program on lower Skyreach designed to lift “needy young adults into prosperity,” and Alicia figured that fit her pretty well. She applied and was accepted, and within another month was living in a small flat with eight roommates, working twelve hour shifts in a repair shop fixing dead transport ships, and was on her way to authentic self-improvement.

Her parents took the news well enough. Allonz told her he was proud that she was making choices for herself, but hoped that she understood that she always had a place back at home. Her mother cried and disappeared to her bedroom for an hour, but came out afterwards and told Alicia how proud she was. And so it began. Alicia worked her way from a scrap mechanic into a finesse for tweaking the coding of pilot routing systems in cargo transports. When she fixed a coding mistake that adjusted routing times to improve the efficiency of transport schedules, a recruiting agent noticed, and then she was in a starter program with TechSalve, and had steadily improved her position ever since. Starting as a base level programmer, she learned a variety of coding languages and was soon entrusted with encoding entire fleets of transport vehicles. When she met Amaya Queenie, Alicia had just moved into a flat all her own, financed by TechSalve, and was on top of the world.

Now here she was again, in the same cold moldy unmarked flat. Probably was never even zoned as a living space. After her time in the machine shops, Alicia recognized the space as a previous industrial space of some sort. The fumes of exhuast, combustion chemicals, and repair tools for fusion drives leave a lingering coppery smell, almost like blood and garbage, that she always would remember, and every time she came home to visit she remembered her time in the shops. Twelve years had passed. She’d done her part as a daughter, but professional obligations kept her busy and visits became less frequent. Thinking back on the last couple of years, Alicia could count on just two hands the number of times she had come home. She’d been so close to her family as a child, and now her cousins, brothers, even her parents felt a little like strangers. Guilt. That was the feeling, wasn’t it? Alicia built a nice cushion of a life for herself while her family had toiled in the filth of the under-city.

It didn’t matter, really, her parents were their own people. She’d chosen a different path, and they hadn’t blamed her. Where her father took issue with the rules and regularities of society, Alicia found grooves and means to exist within. Isn’t that what subsequent generations are supposed to do, after all? Where Allonz had failed to acclimate, Alicia had survived, even if she hadn’t thrived. Allonz’s fear of legality became Alicia’s ability to maneuver within it. But, had any of it mattered? Over a decade of work, probably meaningless now that she’d conspired in the murder of that fuck-head corpo security officer.

Alicia sighed, back in her bed now, out of the vast tunnels of her mind. You’re not five anymore, A. Time to get to work under her own volition. Pulling herself from under the warm quilt, Alicia gathered herself for the day. The prevalence of sunlight indicated that it was well into the morning, but that suited her just fine. Saturday’s are for sleeping in, aren’t they? She gloated to herself. No more early mornings for her - she woke up with the sun, thank you very much. When she was younger, Alicia dreaded the early mornings with her father, accompanying him to who-knows-where to deliver a generic manila folder or to pick up an equally generic folder of a similar shade of manila. Now, though, she had the agency to set her own wake-up alarms.

It was unsettling, though; the silence from the kitchen. Her mom should have had breakfast ready by now. She finished dressing and closed the blinds of her bedroom, the abundance of sunlight was suddenly oppressive and the room smelt of musky wood and stale linens, like the countless empty apartments they’d packed up and left behind. The empty space of a living hole carried a unique smell, of both hope and dread, and Alicia remembered the unique musk of each space they’d inhabited, however briefly. She grabbed her hand terminal to message De’Ante before she left her room. Gimme’ a ride?

Alicia was relived by the smell of the cooling breakfast as she entered the kitchen. Her mother had prepared breakfast, after all. She grabbed a plate and sat at the table to eat and listened to the building around her as it woke for the day. Her cousins would be awake soon and her aunties and uncles would be planning their days. She could even hear uncle Attumbraiding her niece’s hair now, the telltale Ouch, daddy! broke the contemplative silence of her morning. Alicia didn’t mind. This wasn’t home, but it was home.

Her hand terminal buzzed, De’Ante confirming that he would swoop back to the house to giver her a ride. Damn, bro, early morning? Alicia finished her breakfast as the first of her family filtered into the living room. Auntie Kellen gave her a playful push, “Bitch, you still he’uh??” She laughed as she grabbed a plate to sit down next to Alicia.

Alicia’s face dropped as Kellen’s joke penetrated to an unanticipated layer. I can’t go back to my apartment. Alicia realized, with a sudden panic, that her connections to Amaya Queenie would likely draw her in to whatever investigations were to come or were already ongoing. Alicia had known the risks with helping Amaya, but the deeper implications were now revealing themselves in Alicia’s mind. The morning had been a wild ride, already, but then again, trips home always combined feelings of nostalgia, anxiety, dread, and joy in such a strange mixture that Alicia knew how to navigate. This, though, was a new feeling. She was homeless, transient, on the run.

“Well, Auntie Kellen, I’m not sure I can go anywhere else for a lil’ while, bein’ honest,” she said, her face now solemn and contemplative. She stared into the empty and wondered where her father, Amaya, and Andre were. “You seen daddy or my friends this mornin’?” She asked.

“Nah, sweets, all I seen was yo’ momma heading back to her bedroom earlia’ this marnin’.”

“Hmm, ok,” Alicia said dryly. “Thanks, Auntie.” She gathered her dishes, placed them in the sink, and turned on the faucet to begin rinsing.

“I’ll take care o’ those, baby. You go on, findj’ya friends.”

Alicia smiled at Kellen and bent to kiss her on the cheek in thanks. Kellen leaned in to the kiss and wrapped her arms around Alicia and hugged her.

“It’s good to see ya’, baby. We’ve shorely missed ya’ round he’uh.”

“I know, Auntie Kellen. S’good to be back.” Alicia smiled at Kellen. Her auntie looked older than when she’d last seen her. Her course black hair, always kept in up in a paisely bandana, was showing streaks of gray where Alicia could see her hairline, and she was developing the slightest of crows feet in the corner of her eyes. Deep smile lines contoured her cheeks, though, giving her an elevated sort of wise-beauty.

“Yo’ daddy shore misses you, too, know ‘dat?” Kellen asked as she released Alicia was the hug.

“I know, I know, Auntie. I think I’m gonna’ have to stick ‘round here fo’ while, that’s all right wich’yall. I know daddy’lllike ‘dat.” Alicia’s hand terminal buzzed. De’Ante was here to pick her up.

Kellen read Alicia’s body language and knew she needed to go.

“Gaw’on, git!” Kellen said playfully, brushing Alicia away from the table. “Be safe out day’uh, hear?”

“I will, Auntie. Thanks for everything.” Alicia gathered her things into a bag and strung it across her torso. As she moved to the door, a thought struck her, and she returned briefly to her bedroom, adding a bandana of her own and a fabric hat to the bag on her back. Satisfied, she left her room again and made her way to the docking room. De’Ante waved as she entered.

“Where we goin’, sis?” He asked.

“You ain’t gon’ like it,” Alicia said. “I need you to run me by my old place.”

“You mean ‘da place a’crawlin wif’ piggies? Hell nah, lady,” De’Ante accentuated his displeasure with large swings of his arms and a drawn out helllll nahhhh. “You ain’t say you’s was tryin’ ta’ get busted. You can ga’won and do ‘dat on yo’ own. Lee’mee outta’ dat, heard?” He was gathering his things now, having changed his mind about giving Alicia a ride.

“Nah, nah, you ain’t gotta do nothin’, D,” Alicia said, darting in front of him and raising her hands into a pleading gesture. “We ‘gon be in an’ out, you ain’t gotta’ leave yo’ car you don’t wanna’, and if they any sign of cops then we split, yeah?”

“Listen, big sis,” De’Ante said. “I know you wanna’ maybe go back, get some o’ yo’ shit, but ‘dat place is dead now, heard? I picked y’all up from a gunfight, I ain’t ‘bout to drop yo’ ass back into it.”

“Boy, this ain’t no debate!” Alicia raised her voice now and pointed to the transport. “Get yo’ ass in that car and gimme’ a ride back to my tower. We ‘gon go in through the fire escape, you ‘gon wait for me, and I’mma be in and out in two minutes, dig?” Alicia sounded like her father. Might as well be forcing a younger me to get in the car to run an errand.

“Alicia, think about it - they probably up in yo’ space right now dusting for yo’ fingerprints an’ shit. Seriously, you can’t go back. You wanna’ go so bad, drive ya’self.” De’Ante tossed the vehicle’s ignition-fob over to Alicia as he started walking back inside. Alicia caught the keys and pushed them forcefully into De’Ante’s chest as she stopped his exit.

“I promise, D, this gon’ be an in and out thing. I can’t do this by myself, you know that,” she pleaded. Her face was close to De’Ante’s now, she could smell the woody aroma of his cologne mixed with his sweat. He smelled like their father. She smiled, locking eyes.

De’Ante’s shoulders slumped as he recognized defeat. He took the fob and swiveled on his heels and to return to the transport. “Fine, fine, sis. Whatever you need, let’s go get ah’ asses thrown in a detention cell, yeah?”

“We gon’ be fine, D. We see any pigs, we bail, yeah? No unnecessary risks.”

“Other than the one we takin’ by goin’ in da’ first place?”

Alicia signed. Maybe this was too risky, but there were things she needed from her apartment. Things that might help Amaya. Things that might hurt her father if they fell into the wrong hands. No choice, she had to try. Maybe she’d get lucky and they would miss her apartment as a point of interest. Unlikely, she reasoned with herself. No, she was beyond suspicion at this point - she was a conspirator. She hoped for luck that she could get to her apartment before the corpo or jurisdictional enforcement teams ripped through it. Alicia tried to keep the look of doubt from her face; she didn’t think she’d done very well.

“Yep, other than that. Now get cho ass to drivin.”