Velvet Dogma

chapter 22



By late afternoon they were almost ready to go. Rebecca enjoyed the feel and freedom of the new clothes she'd been given. She straightened the Nehru collar, then adjusted the pack she carried over her shoulder. They'd given her another change of clothes, as well as a set of handmade combs and a collection of tiny plastic bottles filled with scented oils. The simple one pocket flowered cotton bag hung from her shoulder by a length of braided hemp. She realized that it contained all of her earthly possessions. Looking around at the inhabitants of the slum, she become conscious of the fact that she was the poorest of them all.

Andy, Darshan and herself had spent several hours huddled behind closed doors hatching plan after plan. Darshan used his own POD to access the ID. Andy didn't want to bring any attention to himself right now. He had no doubt his ID persona had been flagged and would be traced if he uploaded, so the less he was on the grid, the better.

At first they'd decided that Rebecca would take the first shuttle east so she could get to the Mammoth Cave complex. Andy would stay behind to organize the gravBoarders for a rescue attempt…that is, as soon as they found where Panchet was being held.

But they scratched that plan when Rebecca absolutely refused to leave without Andy. She just didn't want him out of her sight for too long, so she'd thrown in with Andy in his attempt to save Panchet. She liked the strange little troll and didn't want to see him hurt. Andy was even now speaking with the gravBoarders through Darshan, trying to gain their cooperation and at the same time learn what they knew.

But this was a give and take. Rebecca would help Andy, but he had to help her too. She'd decided that there were two loose ends that she had to tie up—her grandma and Thelma Jones. She knew that Andy wouldn't want her to go, but she'd made her decision and there was nothing that he could do to stop her. Rebecca needed to be sure that the last two people that she knew were all right before she left Los Angeles forever.

With the help of Darshan, she'd discovered that Thelma worked at selling vids at a kiosk on La Brea. Of her grandma, there was no trace, no trace at all. This told her everything she had been afraid to ask. The woman had died and been harvested. When Andy came to tell her, Rebecca begged for a few moments to collect herself.

Even before Rebecca made it to her hut, tears poured down her face. Her sobs couldn't come fast enough. Part of her wanted to die so she could stop running and be with her grandma, be with David. But the other part, the part that had sent her to prison and had allowed her to survive it, reminded her that she wasn't allowed such meaningless selfishness. She wasn't allowed to just throw it all away. The world needed her more than she needed herself. She had a responsibility to society, and if she managed to succeed, would make her grandma, wherever she'd ended up, more proud of her than she deserved.

That left Thelma. Rebecca had no intention of actually contacting the woman. The last thing she needed was another friend of hers dying in front of her. Before it had been accidental. Now that she knew the cause it would be murder, or at best, manslaughter. The difference between the two in the dark side of her heart was as insignificant as an apology to the dead. All she wanted to do was look at the woman and see for herself that she was okay. Then they could be on their way.

Andy left the hut, pulling shut the cinch on a hard leather bag. Inside rested the silica square from Cody Larkins' laboratory. They had an idea about what was inside and didn't dare throw it away. When they got to Mammoth Cave they'd hook it up to the system and find out for sure. He put an arm on her shoulder. "Ready?"

"Does the pope wear a white hat?"

"What?"

"It's a joke. Yes, I'm ready."

Then he grinned as he got it. "Darshan, goodbye and thank you."

"Goodbye, Andy Hoke and Rebecca Mines. Was I not saying that my hospitality is something full of greatness?"

"Yes you did, Darshan." She stepped over to him and hugged him. "Thank you for your hospitality."

He stared at her with an odd look in his eye as she released him. Then he smiled and cried simultaneously. "If you are ever in the slum, Velvet Dogma, look me up. Until then," he waved as they left, "I'll be waiting for you!" Then he turned and was lost in the swirl of the slum.

"It's just us now," Andy said.

There was no need to respond. Instead she spent the next few minutes taking in the sights and sounds of the slum like one might drink water before a great trek across the desert. It was so full of life, so full of color and sound, so full of the pain and joy of living. She felt a tear brimming the edge of her eye, but she wouldn't let it go. She squeezed shut her eye and kept it for another time. She had a feeling she'd need them, and this one was precious to her.

The official entrance to the Slum was where Hollywood Park Racetrack had once been, only it wasn't in Hollywood as the name would lend to believe. The racetrack was in Crenshaw, the reason that the city had never been cleaned up after the Tsunami. Because this part of L.A. had been the cradle of the Crips and the Bloods and the West Coast Gangster scene, no one wanted to see the neighborhood returned to what it once was. The official entrance was marked by a sign that read Los Angeles Emergency Relocation Zone. At one time someone in the city government might have considered this a temporary state, but too many years had passed since the Tsunami. There was nothing emergency about it.

Three pillars rose across the pedestrian path like totem poles. People passed by the pillars oblivious to their purpose. A couple leaned against one, making out. A gravBoarder leaned against another, his hooded lids making him James Dean cool. Three policemen stood off to the left, their eyes watching everyone.

This was the moment they'd worried about. Either the EMP pulse had short-circuited the chips in Rebecca's organs or they were still working and would alert every policeman in the jurisdiction to her whereabouts. All they had to do was exit the slum like everything was normal and hope that the Day Eaters had destroyed the tiny chips.

"Now or never," muttered Andy. He readjusted the bag over his shoulder and strode through.

Rebecca followed close behind. She kept her head down, her eyes fixed on the ground in front of her. She didn't dare look up. If any of the police saw the fear in her eyes they'd stop her for sure.

Five meters.

Ten.

Then twenty meters through and no flashing lights. No sirens or platoons of rushing policemen. Or were they waiting for something.

Andy stopped at the corner of a dilapidated brick building and spoke with a pair of gravBoarders. She recognized them. One was Pony who'd taken her before and the other was the boarder who'd driven Andy. She thought his name was Scoundrel.

Andy beckoned for her to hurry over. "The Good news is your chips are inactive. The bad news is that they're looking for us here. See that thing up there?" He pointed to what looked like a rectangular megaphone on the wall facing the slum exit directly above them. The mechanism was brand new, the metal glistening in the sunlight next to the mottled and crumbling brick.

"What is it?"

"Biometric reader."

A machine that compared facial and body features to database constructs. Damn! They had to have her on file. It was only a matter of—

The three policemen turned towards them. Rebecca could see the lens of their PODs rotating as if they were zooming in on her. They chucked their coffees down and headed towards her, their hands unlashing their batons.

"Damn. I thought we'd have longer. Pony?"

The gravBoarder nodded, flipped the board down to hover, then hopped aboard, the fiber-optic cables locking into his calf inputs. Rebecca didn't need an invitation. She'd done this before. Grabbing his shoulder for balance, she hopped aboard, shifting her arms at the last minute to encircle his chest.

The gravBoard leaped forward through the crowd. A man shoved a woman out of the way of their ballistic ride, barely escaping being run down as Pony adjusted at the last second.

"Stop—Rebecca Mines. Stop!"

She didn't turn around. She didn't have to. She wasn't going back. Not now. Not ever.

Pony banked off a parked car, shredding the window with the anti-grav energy. He spun left onto Century away from the airport, then took an immediate right onto Crenshaw. Six lanes wide, most of the traffic was comprised of commercial transports and public transit. There were very few private autos—those went through the tubes.

Which was wonderful, because Andy had gone no more than a block before a police cruiser jerked onto the road behind them. It cycled its siren to unbearable decibels, then poured on the speed. Public and commercial vehicles the length of the road pulled to the side as if they were controlled by a central computer, leaving the road in front of them relatively clear.

Pony and his partner took advantage of this. Just as the cruiser got close enough for her to see the green eyes of its driver, the gravBoard left it like it was standing still. It went so fast, faster than she'd ever even contemplated, that she couldn't see. She was blinded by the buffeting wind—one infinitesimal wrong move and they'd become atomizing particles in a universe of pain.

She didn't know how long she'd closed her eyes, but it couldn't have been more than a few seconds. The gravBoard slowed almost to a stop, her weight pressing against Pony's as momentum pushed her forward. Across the width of the road to their front was a glimmering wall of iridescent purple. She could see police cruisers waiting for them on the other side, the policemen standing ready with batons tapping against their open palms.

"Anti-grav shield!" Pony cursed. To their left was a four story post-Tsunami apartment building. To their right was a retaining girder for the skyway and twenty foot high fence separating them from a subdivision of post-Tsunami homes hardly better than the ones that had been swept away.

"What about up there?" she pointed to the roof of the building. The shield rose four stories, but she bet that Pony could jump it if given the chance. On the other side of the shield was an old fashioned billboard with a walking rail in the front. She gauged it to be about two stories high.

"How?" he turned and gave her a crazed look.

"The stairs!" she laughed at his expression. "What? Are you afraid?"

He didn't respond, instead just took off toward the front of the building. Who was the crazy person now? The front door was open to the entryway, but that was as far as it went. The stairs were the type that went up half a flight, then redoubled on themselves. Pony didn't hesitate. He spun the gravBoard and hit the first flight of stairs at running speed. What became immediately evident was that gravBoards weren't meant for stair travel. Every third one the board lost power and thumped hard to the ground. Plus the incline worked against them so that by the time they were between the second and third floors, the gravBoard was slower than walking speed. Finally Rebecca hopped off and ran up the stairs ahead of him. Pony popped up his gravBoard and followed, quickly catching up with her as they pounded toward the roof. The service door at the top of the stairs opened onto a flat roof without any raised lip or pipes protruding. After one look, Pony hovered the gravBoard and grinned. That was all Rebecca needed. If he thought they could make it, then they could.

Andy and his driver burst through the door seconds later out of breath and heaving. "Are you crazy?"

"We're going to jump it," she said happily.

"You are crazy!"

"Didn't you ever want to be like Evil Knievel?"

"No!"

"So sad then." She hopped aboard Pony's gravBoard, turned to blow Andy a kiss, then shot across the surface and into the air. She didn't mean to scream. It came naturally. Instead of fear, though, it was the yee-haa of a Wild West cowgirl. They hit the walkway hard, wrenching it partially free from the billboard. Pony managed to slow them down enough to gather his balance, then he gave the gravBoard one more burst of speed as they shot into the air again.

"Hold on!" He flexed his knees and lowered himself.

Rebecca followed suit, gnashing her teeth together in anticipation of the impact. This time she didn't scream.

The gravBoard erupted like a sparkler. Her knees came up to her chin. Blood snapped from her lips. She let go of Pony and hit the ground so hard the air left her body. She felt her arms and legs pummeling the earth but she had no control over them. She tumbled into the side of a police cruiser, denting the polymer construction. Agony flashed through her as the road shredded her skin in a dozen places. She glanced back, dazed from the pain, and saw Pony explode atop his gravBoard, the wave of energy slamming into her and knocking her out.