Chapter 7

Alicia was right - Amaya’s place was trashed. Entering her space, Amaya felt a growing sense of violation. Someone had searched all of her flat, rifled through every single nook. As they entered the small living area, Amaya noticed a systematic destruction of her belongings. All of her furniture had been ripped open, the floor dusted with a layer of stuffing. Cabinets, drawers, and closet doors stood open, their content disheveled and knocked about. Her light fixtures had been pulled from the walls, exposed wiring dangling helplessly from their sockets. Though it all, though, the apple spice scent of her air-fresheners seemed stronger than ever, reminding her of the peace that her space held earlier today, but was was gone forever.

Moving to the kitchenette, cans of soup had been knocked on the floor, spices had been spilled, cereals and grains strewn about the tiled floor. Amaya didn’t have that much to cook with, just enough for a couple of meals, but it looked like the stock of a commercial kitchen had been emptied on her floor.

Working down the hallway to the bedroom, Amaya noticed that her carpeting had been ripped from the edges of the floor. Whoever robbed her was desperate to find what they were looking for. As they approached the bedroom, the temperature began to dip. The bedroom door was closed, but Amaya felt the pressure changing as she pushed the door open, requiring less force than usual to open. Amaya was met with a gust of icy wind as the door pulled itself from her grasp, liberated by the pressure release of the open window, and slammed into the wall.

The bedroom was ransacked, too, but Amaya’s sight fixed on the open window. Of all of the destruction of her items, the open window unsettled her the most. The fire escape windows of her residence tower required special keys that were given only to tenants for their unique unit. The other keyholders, however, were corporate security and building maintenance. This limited her suspects considerably, and given the events of the morning, Amaya was certain who was responsible.

Uh oh, that feeling of despair, rising up in her chest like a scream that she could not muster, like an injection of ice in hear lungs that threatened to spread and freeze the rest of her body - here it comes again.

Marcus was dead, Amaya herself was wanted by her company’s para-military security division, and now someone had broken into her place and destroyed everything. Oh yeah, and she’d lost her job. She was falling into her tunnel of dread again - it was growing easier to slip into and harder to pull out of. Her nerves were shot, she just needed it all to stop. She wanted to go lay down and disappear into one of her shows for the weekend, but that was the least productive thing to be done. The ping from her hand terminal, an incoming call, broke the trance. The whooshing of the open window had stopped, Andre and Alicia had closed the window.

Hearing the hand terminal, Amaya’s new comrades positioned themselves on either side of her, looking at the phone. UNKNOWN CALLER. “This can’t be a coincidence, right?” Andre said, touching his right breast to feel for the comfort of his pistol contained in his jumpsuit. He moved to leave the room.

“Where are you going?” Amaya asked.

Catching himself on the door with his left hand and quickly shifting his moment to swing back into the room briefly, Andre said “Somethin’s up, here. I’m gonna’ check on the hallway and make sure ain’t no one gettin’ the drop on us.” Then he swung back out and was positioned at the door, like a dog who thinks they’ve heard the makings of a burglary outside.

“Don’t answer it, girl. No tellin’ who that might be, tryin’ to fuck wit’chu,” Alicia said. “Fact, gimme’ ‘dat phone,” Alicia snapped the phone from Amaya’s white-knuckled grasp and silenced the incoming call. She opened what Amaya thought was a hundred different apps and settings menus, typed a couple of quick strings, and handed the phone back to Amaya. Only sixty seconds had passed. A sad, sympathetic smile at one corner of her mouth, she said “You in some trouble, girl. Fo’teen confirmations of this term-nal’s geo in the last twinny’ minutes. I just turned that shit off and connected yo’ ass to an alt-network, but they be knowin’ where you at. How much trouble yo’ ass in, Q?”

After Amaya had explained the morning’s events, Alicia pulled her hand terminal and dialed a number, disappearing into the other room. “The fuck? Alicia?” Amaya demanded, following her into the other room.

“Girl you need’a get the fuck outta’ here, I’m gettin’ yo’ ass a lift,” Alicia said. Then, into the speaker of her hand terminal, “Yeah, D, my girl needs out…No, my place. Boy I don’ helped yo’ ass that one time when…yeah, make it faster, my man.” She pocketed the terminal and grabbed the first travel-worthy bag she could lay her eyes on. She grabbed Amaya by the shoulder and began to help her gather a small set of items that would get her sustained through a couple of days. “Here, take this. You look mo’ lost than when my daddy kicked my older brother out for dopin’ when he was 16, and sweetie, you ain’t gon’ last long out there if you don’ kick’it inta’ gear.”

Alicia was right, Amaya knew it. Amaya could feel herself withdrawing from everything, but that would have to come later. Alicia had helped her pack some clothes, smaller bags with some nonperishable foods, and some toiletry items that could be salvaged from Amaya’s wrecked bathroom. In the bathroom, Amaya grabbed an orange pill bottle and shook two of her silver-bullets into her hand; Amaya struggled with over-dependence and she’d done well to avoid medication for her panic episodes since settling into a new routine, but fuck that, today was the day of all days to hop back onto the wagon. Swallowing them dry, she added the bottle to her bag. Satisfied that she had everything she needed, she zipped up.

“My boy, De’Ante, he’ll be here in another minute or two, he’s gon’ snatch you from the top and take you somewhere safe fo’tha night,” Alicia instructed. “Andre, hallway lookin’ clear?” Andre, using the viewer in the door to look up the hallway at the elevator to make sure no one was coming, gave a thumbs up without leaving the view-hole in the door. For the third time today, someone had helped Amaya to steel herself and find courage to continue moving on. An awful lot of favors that I’ll never be able to repay these fine folks, she thought to herself, as the group prepared to exit the apartment. It was a straight shot to the elevator, then up to the landing pad, and then to safety, for the night at least.

“Got everything you need, Miss Amaya?” Andre asked, unlocking the deadbolt and opening the apartment door into the hallway.

“It’s just Amay-“, was all that she could say. A blast rocked the doorway, splintering wood and metal everywhere. Amaya felt herself thrown back, vision blurred.

Time blinked, and Amaya was now back in her living room, thrown to the floor, Alicia screaming into her hand terminal. Andre had, apparently, pushed them both out of the way and was attempting to return fire from behind the doorframe. For now, the wall appeared to be soaking the barrage of gunfire, but Amaya knew that these walls were too cheap to protect Andre for long. Andre managed to snap a couple of shots back into the hallway. “HOT FUCKING DAMN!”, he yelled. “GOT ONE OF THEM FUCKERS!” He turned back to them, blood was running down from his temple where some shrapnel from the door had hit. “I would now, officially, classify us as ‘in the shit’, ladies,” he said. “Got one, he’s down and they’re pulling him ‘round the corner, I’d say this is our chance to get out.” He fired a few more times into the hallway to sustain his advantage against their attackers.

Alicia had finished coordinating with her contact on her hand terminal. “Nah, shit. D’s comin’ down to us. Q, get to yo’ bedroom and get that escape winda’ open. Andre, get us sixty mo’ seconds!”

“I think we can get that. I counted three of ‘em, think they were comin’ outta’ the elevator when we walked out and decided to end it quick-like. Got one of ‘em on the arm, think they’re workin’ on him now. Not long, though, about thirty more o’those goons gonna’ come on through that elevator. Gimme’ a shout when we’re ready, and I’ll ditch my spot here and hop out with ya’. Y’all get on out to tha’ window and get ready to go.” He was out of breath, but calm. The smell of gunpowder lingered in the room, a thin haze developing from the repeated shots and wood splinters littered the entryway to the apartment and the hallway outside. Amaya could hear screams of pain from the hallway.

Amaya and Alicia ran back through the small space, down the hallway and through the open bedroom door. Amaya began to fumble with her keys to open the window. Finding the right key and forcing the window open, Amaya nodded to Alicia that they were ready. As they both looked back out the window in anticipation of their getaway, a few more shots rattled from the living room. “BITCHASS MOTHERFUCKER,” Andre screamed, it sounded like he was hurt.

As Amaya turned to go check on Andre, a small, sporty black transport car lowered itself flush with the fire escape. The car had a pyramidal nose, and the doors opened suicide-style, like the flashy ground cars of the old world that she saw in her shows. A puff of smoke and the scent of herb and patchouli wafted through the open window into the bedroom. The herb smelled potent and threatened to stone Amaya right there, promising to whisp her away to happier thoughts. “Go get Andre!” Alicia shouted.

Amaya sprinted back through the apartment and yelled for Andre as she made the hallway. She heard a few more shots pop back from the doorway before Andre came running back through the apartment, holding his left bicep, the gun still held firmly in his left hand. His right hand was red and his yellow jumpsuit was brightly staining below his left elbow.

“Let’s get to gettin’, Miss Amaya,” he shouted, as they both ran back to the bedroom and jumped from the fire escape to the waiting transport car. The car zipped vertically down the height of the building and sped through small inter-tower air-space. As far as Amaya could tell, they were going down, down down. She’d never been this far down Skyreach, and the smog was starting to grow a little thicker, like she were descending through a nicotine stained cloud.

Finally, the car made an abrupt change to lateral movement and they were zipping through the lower tiers of Skyreach. Amaya could see the greenspace below speeding by below them, tower after tower zipping by as they left the central business and residential sectors of Skyreach and entered the industrial and low income zones of the lower tiers. Alicia was in the front compartment near the pilot’s controls coordinating with her De’Ante. Andre was in the back compartment, strapped into his seat, attempting a makeshift bandage with some ripped jumpsuit material from the arms of his suit. A low, electronic bass line thumped in time to a hip-hop song from the sound-system of the car, something about how this revolution will be televised.

“Hey, Andre?” Amaya said.

“Yes, Miss Amaya?” Andre replied.

“Just call me Amaya.”

The terminal in Amaya’s pocket pinged. It was a reminder notification - whoever had called earlier had left a voice message.