The boy’s teeth were the color of coffee stains. “ ‘Him’? Don’t you mean ‘it’? Damn, check this flesh, sticking up for the fugazi.”
“Fugazi” was slang for “fake.” No one was quite sure of its origin anymore, but the word was a slur used to describe anything artificial—cybernetic implants, bots, synthetic food, you name it. Its short form, “fug,” was a common insult for logika, who were treated on the island as second-class citizens at best, and as simple property at worst.
Tye looked to his boys and waggled his eyebrows.
“These girls gone stir-crazy living out there alone with old Silas,” he grinned. “Prefer the company of metal to meat now. Maybe they haven’t met the right flavor.” The boy grabbed his crotch and shook it, and all his crew guffawed.
Lemon drummed her fingers on Popstick’s grip. “You shake that thing at us again, your sister’s going to bed disappointed tonight.”
The crew all howled with laughter, and Eve saw Tye bristle. He needed to save face now. Bless her heart, but Lemon’s mouth was going to get her into serious brown one day.
“Shut it, scrub.” Tye hefted his stub gun, aimed it in Lemon’s general direction.
“You really want to kick off over this?” Eve watched the crew fanning out around them. “We’re walking away. You can have the salvage.”
“And what’s that in your pack, lil’ Evie? Already scavved the best of it?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Smelling me some lies.” Tye aimed the gun at her face. “Show me the bag, deviate.”
Eve felt the blood drain from her face at the insult, her jaw clench tight.
“Oh yeah, I seen what you done in Dome las’ night,” Tye continued. “News was all over the feeds. Your grandpa might be the best mechanic this side of the Glass. And maybe he’s racked up some goodwill fixing busted water recycs for folks and whatnot. But you think anyone’ll cry if I ghost you right now? Some trashbreed abnorm?”
Lemon lifted Popstick with a growl. “Don’t call her that.”
Tye sneered. “Pony up the salvage, lil’ Evie.”
Eve sighed to make a show of it. With a grunt, she slung her satchel off her shoulder, tossed it onto the ground between them. Lowering the gun, Tye dawdled over and knelt by the bag. Pawing through it, confusion hit him first, disbelief following, realization finally smacking him around the chops as he turned to his boys.
“True cert, juves, this is—”
Three steps and Eve’s boot connected with his face, smooshed his nose across his cheeks. The boy tumbled backward, stub gun sailing into the trash.
“You fu—”
Eve stomped on Tye’s crotch to shut him up, lowering the business end of Excalibur to his head. Pooh arced up his chainsaw, but a low growl made him glance over his shoulder. Kaiser was crouched in the shadows, eyes glowing a furious red.
“Ain’t scared of your doggie, lil’ Evie,” Pooh scoffed. “Bot can’t hurt no human.”
“Only logika have to obey the Three Laws.” Eve smiled. “Kaiser’s a cyborg. Got an organic brain, see? Bigger one than you, maybe.”
Kaiser growled again, metal claws tearing the scrap. Staring at the knives in the blitzhund’s gums, the juve lowered his chainsaw, pawed the teddy bear at his throat.
“Folks gonna hear about this,” he told Eve. “Your name ain’t dirt since last night. I caught talk the Brotherhood’s already heading down to nail you up. Maybe the Fridge Street Crew throws them some love when they come knocking?”
“There’ll be plenty of love waiting,” Eve growled. “Believe it.”
“Eve, let’s go.” Cricket tugged on her boots.
“Crick’s right, let’s jet, Riotgrrl,” Lemon muttered.
Eve lifted Excalibur, swinging it in an arc at the assembled scavvers.
“Any of you scrubs follow us, I’ma get Queen of Englund on your asses, you hear?”
“Don’t need to follow you.” The bottom half of Tye’s face was slick, blood bubbling on his lips as he talked. “We know where you live, you abnorm freak.”
Eve lowered her bat to Tye’s cheek, live current crackling down the haft. “You ever call me an abnorm again, I’ma teach you what the baseball feels like.”
She looked around at the assembled scavs, flashing her razor-blade smile.
“The Chair will now take your questions.”
The threat hung in the air like smoke. Talking true, the same part of Eve that threw down with that eighty-tonner last night was hoping these juves would make a Thing of it. But one by one, she watched the crew deflate.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought….”
Eve hefted her satchel back onto her shoulder. Heart hammering in her chest despite the bluster. And with a sharp whistle for Kaiser and a nod for Lemon, she turned and motored, fast as her oversized boots would stomp her.
Our feathers painted red. Our cheeks wet with tears. Three pretty birds in a bloodstained cage. And Tania the prettiest of them all.
She was the softest of us. The shallowest. It didn’t matter if she wasn’t fierce. Or clever. Or brave. Because she was beautiful. That was enough for Tania.
But there in that cell, I saw the depths of her. Depths even Tania had never swum. When it was all I could do to stop myself flying to pieces, she was hard as iron. Dragging herself to her feet and staring at those four killers in their perfect, pretty row.
A soldier stepped forward, blue eyes and dark hair. Tania didn’t blink.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said.
The soldier didn’t reply.
His pistol spoke for him.
* * *
________
By the time they reached Tire Valley, the sun was almost peaking, and Eve’s fauxhawk was drooping with sweat. She gulped down some water with Lemon, poured the last of it on Kaiser’s head. The air around Cricket’s heat sinks was shimmering, his mismatched eyes filmed with dust. They stuck to the shade as best they could, marching in Dunlop, Michelin and Toyomoto shadows. Black rubber cliffs reaching up into a burning sky.
Grandpa had told her there were automata who worked in Dregs a long time ago, back when what was left of the Yousay still blew smoke about rebuilding. The bots divided most of the island into zones and carted different scrap to designated areas. So Dregs had a Neon Street, Engine Road, Tire Valley and so on. Lemon had told her there was a cul-de-sac somewhere near Toaster Beach lined with nothing but battery-powered “marital aids,” but if it existed, Eve had never found it. For every big stretch of turf in Dregs, there was a gang who ran it. And the Fridge Street Crew was among the dirtiest.