《The Miles Between Cities》


 0 - Raid #042

    We were fifty meters from the enemy now, crawling closer every second, flat on our bellies as rats sped passed in the pitch-blackness of a moonless drizzling mid-autumn night. I was shaking so badly I thought they''d hear me all the way back in Primgrofaine. If anyone noticed, they didn''t care. No one had eyes for anyone but him.


    Regi Raider, the poster boy of the infantry and the best night raider on the planet.


    It didn''t matter that there wasn''t a light for miles around. He had this radiance around him that us regular soldiers couldn''t help but notice. He was two meters away at the very edge of my vision just opposite a frazzle-haired veteran. They were both indistinct black-grey blurs that seemed to merge with the long-rotted corpses all around us. I tried my best to copy their calm demeanor.


    Getting to take on a target with Regi Raider was a lot like getting to vote on what you wanted to eat before making a frontal assault. Say what you may about the Corporation; they usually tried to give us grunts something sweet before throwing us into hell. To say I was terrified was an understatement in the extreme, but underlying all that terror was excitement too. I was going into a fight with a living legend at my side. My hands were shaking with mixed parts adrenaline and horror. We were practically at the sandbag parapets now, and Regi Raider gave the signal. We charged.


    On all sides, it looked like vengeful corpses rising to fight once more, surging through the gaps we''d cut in bladed tangle wire. One figure led from the front, and no one needed to see his face to know that it would be Regi Raider at the head of our silent charge. Weapons of all kinds glinted in the low light: sharpened shovels and axes, sandbag-wrapped clubs and hammers, kinetic and optical rifles with bayonets affixed. We dropped into the mist-moistened trenches and put them to work.


    Trench raids needed to be brutal and lightning-fast, otherwise they''d be destroyed by the overwhelming numbers deep in enemy territory. We speared into the trenches killing as quietly as one could, some lodging shovel blades or axe heads into skulls while I was crushing throats with my hammer. The attack split, diversionary probes drawing attention away from our main force so we could cut deep.


    A single distant gunshot broke the illusion of calm and quiet weapons were stowed for their louder counterparts. Service pistols along with hand-made shotguns appeared from muddied clothes, and grenades had pre-straightened pins pulled for quick use. The clean portion of our raid was done. Now we got to the bloody business of winning the war.


    I threw a shard grenade into a burrow without stopping. Cries and solid shot burst from the hole, slamming fruitlessly into the trench wall before terminating abruptly with my grenade''s detonation. I steadied my pace, spun and shouldered my rifle to finish off those who staggered, stunned and half-dead, from the ground.


    It was horrible what shrapnel in a confined space did to a person, the creature that toppled from its dugout could barely be called a human. The noise it made was a wheezing, mewling cry that forced my throat to tighten. I couldn''t think of them as humans. This was war and they were the enemy! My finger curled and the sound stopped. Compassion had no place on the battlefield.


    Pain seared into my ribs. Something burning hot was driven in from behind and just as swiftly torn clear. The savagery of the blow spun me to face my unseen attacker. It could have been anything in the near blackness, yet I saw enough to know it was a man and thrust my rifle out to parry his next cut. Our rifles clashed, my blade forced to a high diagonal as he scored another shallow cut on my stomach.


    I kicked forward, planting a leg inside his stance and pushed within Lee''s reach, getting an elbow to the nose that nearly drove me back for the effort. The elbow cocked back again and I caught it with teeth, biting hard into the meat of Lee''s forearm while pulling my leg into the back of his knee. He ripped his arm clear, fabric and blood sticking in my teeth. As Lee reeled, I smashed my skull into his. We fell, and I was on top.


    Lee squirmed like a stuck rat, reaching for something I couldn''t see above him in the mud with his good arm. I drove a knee into his guts and he curled inward long enough for me to pull the hammer from my belt. I cocked my arm high to deliver a killing blow just as Lee drove a captured knife into my chest. Pain arced through me but he couldn''t pierce the breast bone. My hammer swung down, Lee''s brains mixed with the blood and mud of the trench floor.


    I rolled off the corpse, sucking in wind and trying to gather my bearings. It''d felt like minutes but only seconds had passed. Individual duals still raged all around me as our grey-garbed force fought off the Green''s ambush with a mix of blades and bullets in extreme close quarters. I scooped up my mud-covered rifle, pain stitching from my cut ribs to my split stomach, hot blood dripping from both. An explosion blinded me for precious seconds as I sat there, willing the low light of night into my eyes. The grenade had cleared a path in the melee and I stumbled into it, doing what I could to help my brothers in arms who were still fighting. I cheated three raiders out of early graves before I saw him again.


    Regi Raider was dancing as he dueled a section of rifles, springing around as if the packed mud was a stone drill square while bodies piled around him. Even with his long rifle, no one got close enough to render it useless. His wide halberd-swings and flourishing spear-ripostes held back multiple attackers at the same time, all the while felling targets. Only once was his swing fouled by a maddened Lee who threw himself into its path and in that second, I thought I was going to see a legend die. Then the frazzle-haired veteran dove away from his own fight, exposing himself to shield Regi Raider.


    Just as the veteran guarded Regi Raider, soldiers of the main force covered him in turn. My magazine clacked empty in seconds and I launched myself into the fray, two fellow raiders at my side. One collapsed halfway through our charge and the other was impaled upon a waiting blade while I landed a heavy slash into the exposed neck of an enemy grunt.


    The butt of a rifle strikes a crushing blow into my shoulder, pins and needles race down my arm a second later. I jerk my knife free and drag a shallow slash across a vertical guard before reversing my swing and spearing up into my new target''s liver. He crumples to the ground taking my rifle with him. A third Lee bears down on me only to be gunned down from my left before I could reach for a weapon.


    Light flashes from behind me and the force of an explosion shoves me to the ground with the corpses. I pull my face from the mud, panting and swatting it clear of my eyes and mouth while I fumble my hammer from my belt with a numb arm. The soil falls away and again I''m blinded by a flash of light. Except this one isn''t a flash, it''s a flare burning overhead.


    For the first time tonight, I can see exactly what''s going on around me. Skirmishes are breaking apart as our raiders gang up on any Green soldier in the square we''re contesting. A glint of metal draws my eyes to the lightweight howitzers entrenched all around us, the objective. Standing on a pile of corpses in the thick of it all was Regi Raider.


    In the flat light of the flare, he seemed larger than life despite his lean build and average height. His short hair, trimmed to stubble at the sides like all Grey soldiers, favored brown more than copper and was slicked with gore as was the rest of him. His fatigues¡ªwhich were more patches than uniform¡ªhad a dozen new cuts and tears, most only deep enough to reveal the tanned skin below held together by an intersecting mass of pale scars. At that moment, I understood why he was called the Red Butcher or the Bloody Bastard. This wasn''t the soldier I''d heard about in the newsletters or seen in our lines. He was a machine with a single function, to deliver death as efficiently as possible all while cast in shadow.


    It was amazing to witness.


    As I watched, he fired two quick shots then without even a glance over his shoulder he leapt from the pile of his own making and took cover behind it as return laser fire charred the bodies. I blinked and missed his near-instant reload before he tossed a severed limb aside, exploited his attackers'' half-second lapse to take a few shots and silence them.


    The gun position fell silent except for three sounds. The burning flare overhead, the panting of the soldiers around me and one last noise that was horrendously out of place amidst the carnage scattered about ourselves. Regi Raider was humming. I had my mud-slathered rifle loaded before I recognized the tune.


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    It was that stupid musical number from the crummy romance movie they always played in the rear. We were fighting for our lives, and he was humming like this was some tedious task that needed livening up. He did so rather poorly but still, it put a smile on my face and made the pain of my flesh wounds seem a little further away. I stood up, wobbled on weak legs and pushed forward. Before long, that stupid tune was softly echoing from everywhere, right along with the cries of the maimed and dying. We hummed a tune of love and life while dealing hate-fueled death, all in darkness¡ª the trench papers would have a field day with a story like this if we made it back.


    Soldiers rushed into action, planting explosives and artillery shells for maximum effect near the guns. The shelling we endured day-in and day-out ensured no one would half-ass our vengeance. Dummy wires and redundant detonators were scattered indiscriminately to ensure that once complete, there would be no disarming the multi-tonne bomb we were adding to every second. Someone was humming in an off-key that grew louder and louder until it finally clicked. It wasn''t humming I heard. It was whistling.


    "ARTY! ARTY! ARTY!!!"


    We scattered and dropped and dove for cover. We weren''t fast enough to escape. Not entirely. Not all of us. I slammed into an empty shell scrape mere meters from our impromptu bomb and felt two soldiers throw themselves on top of me. The scrape wasn''t deep enough for all of us but there was no time for anything else.


    A salvo of pressure waves battered us and I felt more than heard something crack above me. We moved as a writhing mass of battered limbs, listening with deafened ears for the next round of shelling to thunder down and pulverize us. If it was coming, we couldn''t hear it and we didn''t see it, nor did we see craters around us. The barrage had barely missed, but it had missed, stray shrapnel maiming only a handful of our number. What we saw instead of death was a single man who cast a massive shadow, his mouth moving with unheard words but his arms making his intention clear. Run.


    We spent seconds untangling our bloodied selves before bolting after that man and his impossibly long shadow. Raiders surged from side trenches, shell scrapes and piles of the dead to follow as the flare died and night took us all.


    I made it fifty steps before skidding to a halt in the bloodied mud and spun around, sprinting back towards the guns we were sent to destroy. There should have been redundant detonators counting down already but I couldn''t leave it up to chance. I dove at the first timer-box I could see. It wasn''t moving and even if I could have heard anything, I knew I wouldn''t hear it ticking. I clasped it in my hands and focused on the tips of my fingers, feeling nothing but my own racing heartbeat. My stiff, shaking hands flew over the timer-box before I secreted it back into the heart of our improvised bundle bomb. Light flared and I saw the timer winding down in its hiding place.


    A shadow moved at the edge of my vision. I spun quickly, forgetting that movement would only draw attention to myself and locked eyes with a Green soldier. Lee had his mud-slathered rifle in a low ready. His eyes shifted just over my shoulder to where I had placed the timer box and fixed upon me again. He wouldn''t shoot me in front of twenty tonnes of explosives. That''d be plain stupid.


    Lee''s rifle snapped up and he jerked the trigger as I did the same.


    I felt more than hear the click of a misfire and I squeezed the trigger again, futilely hoping for a miracle. Based on the look of confusion written on my opponent''s face his rifle was jammed too¡ª it wasn''t the miracle I was hoping for, but I took it all the same. I rose from my squatted position and readied myself for another clash. I would have preferred to try and circle around my foe but with the timer at my back, I couldn''t risk it. If he disarmed the detonator, tonight would have all been for naught, the lives of my fellow raiders spent in vain. I needed to kill him and disappear before the clock reached zero. Both of our lives could be measured in just over a hundred seconds and we both knew it.


    I opened with a low thrust as I pressed forward and tried to drive him away from the timer. He skipped aside, trying to circle me with a driving riposte. I shoved low, stomping down and forcing Lee''s attack back. We traded thrusts and parries for seconds, tens of seconds before he changed tactics.


    Lee pulled a hand from his pistol grip, reaching for his rifle''s bolt handle and I slashed at his fingers with my blade. He could have flinched back and avoided the blow but he took the bone-deep cut across the back of his hand and cycled his rifle''s action, chambering a fresh round.


    I darted in on a diagonal, sliding my rifle down the length of his and thrusting for his face, fouling his aim as he skipped backward. I couldn''t keep up with him, my wounds and the mud were weighing me down. I couldn''t keep enough pressure on my attack; blood spurted down my back each time I frantically overextended myself and I could barely lift my feet. Lee darted back one final time, squaring a shot on my chest.


    I could do nothing to stop it. For an instant, I was tempted to close my eyes and accept my fate. To meet death and make my peace with it. I''d been fighting for months, since the day the trade war became a shooting war. That was enough, I could be proud of that. I could finally stop being afraid.


    No! I was no coward! I wouldn''t meet my end with meek acceptance, no matter how inevitable! I wouldn''t sully my honor as a man in my final moments! I was a soldier of the Corporation dammit!


    I puckered my lips and marshaled what little spit I could for my final blow. The minuscule globule didn''t faze my attacker in the slightest. He pulled the trigger, and as his skull exploded to the left, a searing lance of pain ripping through my chest. The flare burned out, leaving me to bleed out in the dark.


    Wheezing air rushed from the two new holes in my chest and blood drained into my lung with every breath.


    Someone was standing over me. I''d already made my defiant last effort. I didn''t have the energy for another one.


    "Did the detonators get armed?" He asked solemnly.


    "¡­Yeah." I wheezed.


    Then he hoisted me up and moved under my shoulder while I tried to cough up my ruined lung, I could feel it rattling inside me with every breath. In the low light, I saw my savior''s face in profile. I tried to put a grin on my face but I couldn''t manage one.


    "Quick¡­ Timer." I wheezed.


    My dignity was put on hold as Regi Raider dropped low then wrapped me over his shoulders like a sack of carrots. He was shaking under me, neither of us were large soldiers but he was undoubtedly the smaller of us. That didn''t stop him though, he kept moving through the trenches and closer to No Man''s Land beyond. I thought we might make it.


    Right up until the timer ticked to zero and it felt like I''d just been hit by a train. The angle and force of the explosion carried me over his head and into the reinforced trench wall like a kicked rat. Half of my body screamed in agony. The other half, just below my ribs, didn''t feel anything. It took some time to shake off my stupor and when I did, the colossal size of my failure dawned on me. We''d finished the mission and were so close, we''d almost made it.


    I''d almost made it.


    It wasn''t befitting of a soldier to weep but as I sat there, spine broken, coughing out more blood than air and in such pain as I''d never known, I didn''t care. Two clean paths marred the filth and paint covering my face. Two thoughts circled each other in my mind. I had failed, and I was going to die.


    Light burned my misty eyes. More artillery was raining down in No Man''s Land, probably killing the raiders who had manage to escape the trenches. It wasn''t fair, I should have been braving that killing wasteland with them. Dying broken and alone was just too cruel. It was either that or capture, and I knew I wouldn''t be captured¡ª even if that meant hugging a grenade to make sure of it.


    Something stirred from the mass of corpses in the trench around me. He could have been any one of the millions of soldiers fighting in this war, but he wasn''t. He was Regi Raider. His hand went from a weeping gash in his flank to a limp disfigured shoulder. He spared a look around quickly before wrenching his arm back into place with an audible pop and a muted grunt of pain. With halting steps, he closed on me, an average man casting impossibly long shadows in the night.


    "Come on. We need to move." He said.


    "Back-"


    "Yeah, we''re going back."


    "-broken. Legs-" I sucked in a long wheezing breath and spasmed from a coughing fit.


    "¡­It is." Regi confirmed. "Do you¡­ want it to stop?"


    He was so close he blocked out all the light around me. I was a mess, I didn''t need to see it to know. The look in his eyes told me everything. I knew I was dying. I didn''t want to die, but that wasn''t an option now. Quick would be better. I didn''t say anything, breathing was too hard. I nodded weakly.


    Regi Raider readied his rifle. Something about him changed, or maybe it had always been there and I just hadn''t seen it before. He looked so incredibly drained, so depleted, like there was nothing left inside of him. The legend I''d seen before was gone. All that remained was a soldier on the verge of collapse, bloodied and breaking down too slowly to notice. It wasn''t right for someone who couldn''t be a day over eighteen to look so drawn and defeated. It wasn''t right for me to ask him to do what he was about to do. He leveled his rifle at my head, and I gurgled out my final breath.


    "At least¡­ not¡­ alone."


    "It''s my fault. I''m sorry." Regi said, sounding so damned old for someone so young. "I''ll do better next time."


    I closed my eyes, and the pain disappeared.

 1 - Grey City Streets

    I don''t remember what started the war. All I remember is one day, a loaf of bread cost less than 10 GSaC and the next it cost over 50. I was too young to grasp what it meant but one day we were at peace, then suddenly we weren''t. I never heard of one big thing that boiled over and exploded into conflict. No one got assassinated. No borders were crossed in force. It was just an event of the day, like storm clouds on the horizon or a cold snap in the wind. The war just became another constant of life and faded into the background in no time at all.


    I stared up at the hydroponics towers hoping for something new, but the skyscraper-sized banner ads flicked between their usual topics. The cycles started with several images of foreign soldiers wearing the green fatigues of AISF doing heinous things paired with text I''d never bothered to read. Then after a few dozen products and services, the loops closed with workers in grey coveralls looking forcefully happy with their jobs in addition to pages of corporate vacancies. I didn''t need to read the lists to know where all those jobs would be. The Stacks always needed farmers.


    If my parents and teachers had their way I''d already be a stack grower, just another glassy-eyed zombie shambling under UV bulbs. Maybe if I wasn''t allergic to the happy pills that came with basic provision, I would have fit the mold and been just fine with my lot in life but that wasn''t me. I didn''t want to fit the mold. I didn''t want to end up like my parents and spend my entire life working in hydroponics doing pointless jobs so menial and repetitive that any drugged-up idiot could do them with their eyes closed.


    I''d turned fifteen at the start of spring just last month, and now that I was done with all five years of minimal education, everyone seemed to agree that I had my whole life ahead of me¡­ so long as that life was either spent working the Stacks, or getting an agricultural trade so I could maintain the Stacks, or going to a factory to make parts for the Stacks. I''d rather throw myself from the Stacks than work them for the next seventy years¡ª at least then I''d get to be outside and feel the smog-laden wind in the seconds before the end.


    The banners finished their cycle of ads and started anew; even the screens were stuck in the same old patterns, repeating an endless loop until someone made something new for them. Nothing ever changed here. The whole city was filled with farmers who couldn''t even rotate the produce they grew unless some bureaucrat in his ivory tower changed the production quotas. Every day was the same, and every single day in this grey city was spent waiting for food to grow.


    I took a bite of the not-quite-ripe onion I''d snatched on my way out the door. Why John insisted we eat them instead of a better tasting, more nutritious fruit was beyond me. Most of his choices were. The ''calorically-adequate'' produce of the Stacks was the only thing I ever seemed to eat growing up¡ª just another dull constant in my stagnant life.


    I walked nowhere in particular, hoping for a change and knowing I''d be disappointed. I wished I had real food, but real food was too expensive. If I stayed in the Stacks, I''d only get to eat the least of what I grew since the best was always shipped off-world for sale. I still had a growing week (ten whole days) to decide what I wanted to do for the next seventy years.


    How was anyone supposed to know what they wanted to do for the rest of their life by the time they were fifteen?


    "One day, I''ll get off this rock." I said aloud.


    Fat chance of that, I was more likely to be psychic. I wasn''t born into money which meant I had to settle for the bottom rung of society and live off the scraps. That''s what they really meant when they said to be grateful for what you had. My mom liked to use all sorts of stupid expressions like that when she was stone on happy pills, but she never thought about what they actually meant. At least when she was high, she wasn''t whining and wheedling and crying like she did the rest of time. And John¡­ I tried not to remember what the bastard who called me his son was like when he wasn''t drunk.


    Shift change had caught up to me, the empty city streets flooded with rush-hour commuters. The multi-layered walkways of Primgrofaine were suddenly packed and everyone had somewhere to be except for me. The mag rails zoomed by underfoot and overhead while I loitered among those who couldn''t afford rail passes, a ghost in the crowd. Most wore the standard grey coveralls of the Urban Cultivation of Horticulture Solutions Corporation; after all, the UCHS owned the Stacks and damn near everything else in this miserable grey city. If there was a single job on the entire planet that wasn''t for the Corporation I''d never heard of it, and the Corporation certainly wasn''t advertising for rival corporate arcologies.


    Through the press of bodies, I saw something out of place. He was a thin man in a black three-piece suit with an overarched back walking fast and talking faster into a glossy handheld that reflected black light. I almost missed the augmented attendant in an equally sharp grey suit who kept pace behind him in the throng of humanity, but something glossy and metallic covering one of their hands caught the neon light from a banner ad.


    I followed after them pushing against the flood of my fellow man. The bionics alone had to be worth more than I would see in a lifetime of working the Stacks, no matter what job I got. Whoever the thin man was, his stature put him above someone who could afford them. He wasn''t just another corporate pawn, another one of the million farmers. He was a company man.


    If I could work for him I might be able to get off this shitehole of a planet¡ª or at least make enough money to eat some real bloody food every now and again. I tailed the atypical pair for most of the morning, catching snippets of his one-sided conversations. There was something about tariffs and taxes and trade, which all went over my head, but there was another thing he kept repeating.


    "¡­We need more than malnourished farmhands. We need soldiers¡­" That caught my attention.


    Whoever this thin man was, he was a somebody and where he walked people noticed. He was a tree of importance amidst the uniform fields of monotonous no ones. As he went from building to building, I waited outside, lurking with the dregs of humanity. He never stayed in any of them for too long. After the third repetition, I noticed that his attendant had acquired a rigid case. After several more visits, the attendant walked out with a second case in her other hand, and they both headed toward the magway.


    I jumped the ticket regulator (making sure to keep my CIN-chipped left hand clear of the transaction sensor rather than pay the 15 GSaC for a seat) and crammed into the rail car after the thin man. I tried not to betray my interest in the pair while getting my first good look at them up close. Everything about them was a world apart from me, from their well-pressed suits to their polished black shoes and even the handheld the thin man constantly spoke into. They had more than I ever could if I didn''t get out of the Stacks. The only thing I shared with the slender man were the dark bags under both of our eyes. In all other regards, I could have been comparing rhubarb to carrots.


    The attendant sitting beside him adopted a vacant stare that seemed fixed at some point in the distance only she could see. Now that she was sitting nearby I could tell she was definitely a girl¡ª more of a young woman really. Despite her genderless clothing her face was softly feminine. Her cybernetics showed on the outer side of her left hand and up the back of her neck. The metal stylized to look like a flat set of exoskeletal bones. If the movies I''d snuck into were to be believed, it was probably some kind of feedback or data transfer piece of tech. The tech on her head was more subtle and complex, anything that close to the brain had to be, if the movies were true. It looked like a bundle of wires running over and plugging into her spine. The bundle got thinner the further up I looked until the remaining wires splayed apart like veins in a leaf and lodged into her skull.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    As she turned to exchange words with her counterpart, I saw a blocky chunk of metal poke up from her loose collar. As her pixie-cut black hair moved under the light, I caught more flashes of her cybernetics while her gaze shifted my way. Her lightly-tanned skin was only a shade darker than my own and her rich brown eyes could have been those of any other girl on planet.


    I was lost in those eyes for a few seconds before she gave a small smile from full lips and waved at me. The shifting light caught on the otherwise unseen ridges decorating the plates of her hand. I waved back dumbly before I could stop to think.


    I''d never even talked to a girl my own age before, let alone a grown company woman. What was I supposed to do now? She was so far out of my league I wanted to curl in on myself and disappear as her eyes panned over me. She followed my gaze, looked at her augmented hand then patted the seat next to her. Since dying on the spot wasn''t an option, I crossed the train and sat beside her awkwardly.


    Compared to the two of them in their suits I was nothing but a dirty, malnourished street rat. Being this close to her made me conscious of everything I didn''t like about myself, like my slim build aside from bloated pockets of baby fat I couldn''t seem to get rid of. My greasy hair was longer than hers, and I could never keep it clean for more than a day. I could smell my breath and regretted that the only thing I''d ate today was an onion. I wanted to move further away from her and hope she had an extremely weak sense of smell, but I''d already sat down and the way she was looking at me held me prisoner.


    "I''ve seen you following us all day. Normally people aren''t so curious about my augments. Do you like what you see?" Her voice had a rich, husky tone that made me think of a singer''s paired with an air of command. She was definitely used to people listening to her and from her first word, I was enthralled.


    She held up her hand, letting the chrome dazzle me. I wasn''t an expert, but even I could tell the craftsmanship was exceptional. Every thin plate mimicked the underlying bones of her hand and there was a myriad of engravings that mimicked the natural shapes found in plants, each one flowing naturally from one plate to the next. I''d never seen something so high-tech and so ornately practical, the art bringing the entire piece together more so than the mass of circuitry and electronics underneath. It was beautiful. My eyes worked themselves up her arm, taking in the not-so-subtle curves of her well-fed body in profile, ending on her face.


    She was beautiful.


    "I-It''s amazing," I stammered, "where did you get it?"


    "My department provided it to optimize my workflow some time back. Now that I''ve had it for several years, I can''t imagine living without it. I wish everyone could upgrade."


    "Me too."


    "Is that so¡­" She searched my face as she spoke. "It would seem we''re kindred spirits then, a rare delight. Most people have become quite technophobic this past decade. The Synthetic Revolution hardly did any favors for the transhumanist crowd. Small-minded thinking like that will make recapturing the golden age an impossible dream, but I digress. How old are you, young man?"


    "Fifteen. I actually wanted to ask your friend about his work once he finished his call. That''s why I was following you today. Do you know if his division is hiring? I haven''t settled on what I want to do for a career yet."


    "So that''s it then¡­ Travis''s department is actually being downsized."


    "Oh, that''s too bad." I said deflated.


    The electric hum of our traincar filled the air between us. I looked for anything I could say that would let me keep talking to this woman and failed. I opened my mouth dumbly but no words came out. She raised an eyebrow at me, then seized the initiative¡ª saving me from my own social ineptitude.


    "Aren''t you going to ask me?" She said with a smile that would have struck me dumb if I wasn''t already.


    "Ask you about what?"


    "Any number of things would be fine I suppose. I find young men are often so full of questions. But if you''re just going to sit there like a daft mute, it would seem I''ve read you wrong." Her voice shifted to a faintly jaded tone. I knew what was coming, but I forced the question regardless.


    "Do you have a boyfriend?" I blurted out.


    For a second, she didn''t react. The first hints of dread sank into my limbs while I waited for her to reject me. How could she not? Compared to her I was nothing, just another no one with nothing headed nowhere. Her lips curled, and I thought she was about to burst out laughing at me. That would be a first, yet no less than I deserved for chasing someone so far out of my league. A moment more and her smile flattened, though it didn''t entirely disappear.


    "By the strictest definitions, no. I am single but you could say I''m married to my work, and it doesn''t leave me much time for romance¡ª much time for anything like a personal life, really. I''m a victim of my own competence." She turned to gaze longingly out the window as we neared a rail junction. "These little escapades of mine every harvest moon are the closest thing to a day off I can manage."


    "I never realized company life was so busy." I offered, hoping she''d keep talking.


    "For most, it isn''t. My own competence is to blame. There''s simply no one else I can trust my work to. I foolishly made myself indispensable early in my career and now I''m reaping what I''ve sown."


    "That sounds lonely. It must be difficult." I said sympathetically. "Maybe you could use an understudy or an aide?"


    Her lush lips curled again. I hoped she was about to laugh at my naive suggestion instead of laughing at me.


    "Are you volunteering your services, young man?" She asked without turning her gaze from the window.


    "I''m not sure I''d be any good as a secretary, but I''d do it if I could work with you."


    The hint of a smile she was wearing vanished instantly, and she stared at me intently. The hard shift had me expecting a slap in the face and silently praying she wouldn''t use her metal hand when she did.


    "What about for me? Not as a secretary but as a soldier? Or perhaps a spy? A bodyguard? An assassin? At the risk of sounding banal, would you be willing to die for me?"


    Our traincar was slowing down and her counterpart, the thin man, was already standing. This sounded like something straight out of a movie but I tried to take her seriously. Being a bodyguard might be nice if I could work with her or people like her. I was physically built more like a spy with my plain features and unassuming stature. If I slapped on some coveralls, I could have been any of the faceless millions working in the city. I didn''t think I could be an assassin, but it was better than being a farmer. All of them sounded like they''d get me out of the Stacks at least. If I had to work for her, then maybe one day I could work with her. Maybe one day, I could be her equal.


    "I''m not really sure¡­ Either way, with you or under you, I''d do my best." I said resolutely.


    Our car jerked to a halt in a hard braking action. Her counterpart held an overhead bar to steady himself but she was made of steel and never swayed. Her eyes pierced into me, the force of her scrutiny held me firm, like a rodent pinned for dissection. Before she''d been searching my face but now it felt like she was looking into my brain or maybe something deeper still.


    "I quite think you would." She concluded. "I''ll have someone send you an email within the week. Impress me, and maybe one day you will be under me. What was your name young man?"


    "Reginald Reid, Ma''am."


    "A good name, any relation to Patrick Reid? No, you wouldn''t be. Shame, he was an excellent soldier." She effortlessly took up her cases, the metal floor buckling under her polished shoes as she stood.


    "Can I get your name? Miss¡­" She briefly smiled like there was something dreadfully funny about my question.


    "Mallory Brennan, and yes I''m that Mallory."


    She gave me a playful wink as if that should mean something to me before departing. The doors slid shut and the traincar was moving eastbound on its circuit, leaving me to wonder just who that Mallory Brennan was.