Mitwa

Chapter One-2

“I know,” Hjalmar said. “I’m Earth-born myself, I know the shock you’re feeling. It’s been years since I felt it, but I remember it well. Like I said, this place has been overrun with riffraff. Chandi V is still a proper corporate satellite. It’s not like this place at all.”

“About that,” Omesh began, for although he hadn’t lied when he said he was going to Chandi V, he hadn’t meant exactly the same place Hjalmar was thinking of. It was getting awkward not correcting the misconception. But Hjalmar was already heading down the stairs, hands in his pockets. Omesh picked up his trunk and tried to hurry after.

It was a long way down; he lost count of how many staircases, each more crowded than the last. When they reached the bottom they were in the thick of it. People pressed up against him, some shouting into his face, apparently selling things, but he couldn’t focus on the words. Then Hjalmar was back at his side and the people fell away, giving them a little bit of space.

“Do they know you or something?” Omesh asked.

“No, I’ve never been here,” Hjalmar said. “I’m not sending out the ‘please take advantage of me’ vibes you are, though.”

“So, where are we heading?” Omesh asked.

“A spice trader on the far side of the station,” Hjalmar said.

“Is there a tram or something?” Omesh asked, trying to look around. The sight of all those people was still too stomach-churning.

“We’re hoofing it,” Hjalmar said. “This way.” He disappeared into the flood of people, and Omesh took a breath and plunged after.

The trunk was actually a help to him; the effort of keeping it close at his side, rolling over the seams in the floor and through puddles he didn’t want to think too much about, let him narrow his focus and tune out most of the crowd. But not all of it; he soon became aware that a group of boys was walking with them, seeming to stroll casually, munching on sorry-looking fruit or passing a careless hand over some stall’s wares but always maintaining a sloppy circle around Omesh and Hjalmar.

“Hjalmar,” Omesh said in a low voice.

“I see them. If we stay in crowded areas they’ll probably do nothing.”

“Probably? But you know where we’re going, right?”

“My maps seem to be outdated. There have been some significant structural changes. I can steer us mostly in the right direction.”

“Can your contact send us help?”

“He’s going to consider getting us off this scrap heap favor enough, I’m afraid,” Hjalmar said. “Some people are easily swayed by my family name, but this fellow isn’t one of them.”

“You’ve been talking with him?”

“Messaging.” An exuberant vendor lunged at them, waving something roasted on a spit that Omesh had the sudden fear was rat, and Hjalmar brushed him aside, catching Omesh’s shoulder again to make sure the two of them were staying together in the pressing crowd.

Then the people around them began to thin out and they found the long passageway blocked by stacks of shipping containers.

“What’s this?” Omesh said. “I thought this atrium space went all the way around.”

“It’s supposed to,” Hjalmar said with the barest hint of a frown. “This is new: an apartment complex.”

“People live in there?”

“Lots of people.”

“Can we go the other way?”

“Not at the moment,” Hjalmar said, and Omesh noticed the ring of boys had become a line blocking off any retreat.

“These kids are goondas, aren’t they?” Omesh said. “I mean gangsters. Hoods.”

“I know what goondas are,” Hjalmar said, “and yes.”

“So where do we go? Into the apartment complex?”

“That’s almost certainly their territory,” Hjalmar said. He looked around slowly, as if he were scanning the image for some software in his head to analyze.

“We’ll be seeing what’s in that trunk now, I think,” the tallest of the boys said, tossing an apple core aside.

“It’s just personal stuff, nothing of value to you,” Omesh said.

“You know what I value now, do you?”

“Omesh, let them take it so we can be on our way,” Hjalmar said.

Omesh was about to object, but he noticed something glinting in the tallest boy’s hand. At first he thought it was a knife; then he saw it was just a piece of scrap metal. Then he saw how the piece had been sharpened to a fine edge and went back to his first assessment: knife. All the boys had them; some were smaller than others, and some had handles covered with layers of duct tape, but all were honed to a sharp edge.

“That’s a wise decision,” the head boy said. “But we’ll be needing everything you have on you as well.”

“There you’re out of luck, I’m afraid; I haven’t anything.”

“I doubt that very much,” the boy growled, and with a jerk of his head he sent two of the other boys closer to investigate. They moved cautiously, but when Hjalmar made no attempt to keep them away, they grew bolder, patting down all the places where pockets might be before turning back to their boss with a shrug.

“Hey Rocco, his clothes might be worth something,” one of the others said. “Personally, I like the shirt.”

“They are nice,” Rocco agreed. “A bit too nice. This fellow thinks he’s too smart to walk through our part of the station with money on him. But he’s not so smart as all that. He doesn’t need to have money on him; he is money.”

“Huh?”

“Ransom, you i***t. Tell me, boy: who’s your daddy?”

“You’d be wiser to let me go,” Hjalmar said, perfectly calmly.

“You’re going to be difficult?” the boy asked, brandishing his knife.

“I’m going to be very difficult.”

“Fine. Boys, let’s get off the street, shall we?”

The trunk strap was ripped from Omesh’s hand and one of the smaller boys carried it into the maze of passages between the containers, holding it high like a war trophy. Two more boys grabbed Omesh by the arms and propelled him after. He twisted and fought, but the wiry boys were stronger than they looked. He managed to look behind him long enough to catch a brief glimpse of Hjalmar passively following, hands in pockets.

Omesh hoped he had a plan. But he didn’t look like he had a plan.

The boy with the trunk ducked inside one of the shipping containers and the others followed. The space within was larger than Omesh had expected; the dividing walls between three containers had been removed to leave a meeting space for a gang ten times the size of the group that had kidnapped them. A large gang that broke into packs to prey on the crowds in the station marketplace ... it made sense. It also made Omesh feel sick to his stomach. They were already outnumbered, and if they’d ever had any intention of taking Omesh’s trunk and letting him go on his way, it looked like that was a thing of the past now.

The boys holding him dragged him across the room and pushed him down into a chair of sorts; it looked like it had been made hurriedly from pieces cut from one of the missing container walls. Then his arms were pulled painfully tight behind him, and one of the boys lashed his wrists together with a plastic zip tie while the other used more zip ties to secure his ankles to the legs of the chair. The raw edges of the chair legs bit deep into the flesh of his calves and his bonds were so tight he could feel the blood flow being cut off.

“Shirt, please,” Rocco said, and Hjalmar carefully unbuttoned it and took it off, holding it out to the boy who had said he liked it. Rocco snatched it before the other could take it, though, shooting Hjalmar a look of annoyance before running probing fingers over every inch of the fabric, examining the seams and the collar most closely.

“You won’t find any chips there,” Hjalmar said, but that only made Rocco search again even more thoroughly before tossing the shirt aside in disgust.

“Pants,” he said with a commanding gesture.

“I have no identification on me,” Hjalmar said.

“Pants.”

“I do have identification in me, but I rather doubt you have the technology to access that.”

“This gets inside things,” Rocco said, waving his shiv in front of Hjalmar’s nose.

“Yes, but if it gets inside my skull, where my ID is, I rather lose my value as a ransom victim, don’t I?”

“No one puts an ID chip inside someone’s skull,” the boy scoffed.

“It’s not just an ID chip. But that is where it’s located.”

This didn’t seem to mean anything to the gang members, which struck Omesh as extraordinarily odd. Everyone on Earth knew about brain chips. They were held out as the ultimate reward for those who worked their way up the A&MC ladder. Omesh himself had spent his entire life up until three weeks ago studying hard to someday earn one himself. These kids acted like they didn’t even know the technology existed; more, like they had never even imagined it.

“It’s in his forearm,” one of the other kids said. “That’s where they inject it.”

“You mean here?” Rocco asked, and he slipped the point of his handmade knife under Hjalmar’s skin. Hjalmar growled in pain but still made no move. Omesh was beginning to find him more than a little creepy.

“Can’t you just tell them your family name?” Omesh asked. “They’re not even on this station, so what difference does it make?”

“None at all,” Hjalmar said with a crazy grin that seemed to even creep Rocco out. He pulled the knife out of Hjalmar’s arm and stepped back, regrouping. Hjalmar looked around the room, his eyes finally stopping on his own shirt in the hands of the boy who had wanted it. He snatched it out of the boy’s slack grip and wrapped it around his bleeding arm, holding one sleeve in his teeth as he tightened the bulky bandage.

“Anything worth anything in the trunk?” Rocco asked, and Omesh realized for the first time that the smallest boy had snapped off the lock and was going through Omesh’s things. The clothes his mother had so neatly folded away were strewn everywhere, his handmade computer was in two pieces on the floor, and the boy was holding in his hands a shiny paper kite.

“This is pretty cool,” he said, turning it around in his hands.

“It’s useless,” Rocco said, stomping over to peer inside the trunk and check the lining for hidden compartments himself, but there was nothing more. This was all Omesh owned. The kite was a surprise; his mother must have slipped that in when he wasn’t looking. He had spent months designing that kite with the intention of flying it at Uttarayan, but his sudden departure had spoiled those plans. Now he’d never fly kites again; there was no wind in space.

The sudden wave of homesickness overwhelmed him. He had known he was leaving the most perfect place in the solar system and life would never be so good again, but he had never expected it to get this bad, this quickly. He hadn’t even met his uncle yet.

“They’re both worthless,” one of the other boys said with just a touch of recrimination.

“No, that one’s not,” Rocco said, pointing at Hjalmar with the still-bloody shiv.

“He’ll never talk. He didn’t even scream when you stuck him. I don’t think he’s entirely human.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” Rocco snapped. “Maybe he can’t be hurt, but I doubt the same is true of his friend.”

He seized a fistful of Omesh’s hair and yanked it back with such force it brought spots to Omesh’s vision. Then he pressed the wet blade of his knife to Omesh’s throat. It was only there for a moment, and Rocco never said a word, although Omesh was certain that more threats and demands were meant to accompany the gesture. Instead there was a scuffle, a grunt, and a shrill scream.

The grip on his hair fell away and Omesh righted his head. He wished his hands were free so he could touch his neck; he felt a trickle there but didn’t know if it was Hjalmar’s blood or his own. The shiv was lying on Omesh’s lap, staining his new kurta. Rocco was now crumpled on the floor, clutching his knee and whimpering as he tried and failed to get up.

The reason for that was soon clear, as Omesh finally spotted Hjalmar dodging the clumsy stabs of two other gang members. He caught the wrist of one, guiding the boy’s own momentum to bring him close and then striking with the speed of a cobra, a short kick that made a horrid crunching sound as it impacted the boy’s knee.

Once there were two people on the floor in as many seconds, the others disappeared. The smallest boy lingered for a moment, tempted by Omesh’s kite in his hands, but when Hjalmar turned to look at him he quickly overcame his indecision, dropping the kite and scampering away.

“Why didn’t you just do that in the first place?” Omesh asked. His neck was twinging every time he moved his head in a way that promised to be worse in the morning.

“I don’t really enjoy hurting people. I try to find other options.”

“To the point where you let them stab you?”

Hjalmar looked down at his shirt-wrapped arm as if he’d forgotten it. “I’ve had worse.”

“It will need stitches. Can you get that here?”

“Sure. With every teenager armed with shivs, I’m sure there’s a robust business to be had in stitches and antibiotics. But we should get to our destination first.”

“And hurry. I don’t think that was the whole gang. They probably just ran to get the really big guys.”

“I agree.” Hjalmar stepped over the boy still moaning at Omesh’s feet and picked up the shiv to cut away the plastic ties. The sudden rush of blood back to Omesh’s hands and feet brought a rapturous pain.

“Take a minute,” Hjalmar said. “I’ll repack your trunk.”

Omesh rubbed at his ankles first and then stood up, taking a few limping steps around. He wanted to be able to run as soon as possible. Hjalmar gathered up the scattered piles of clothing, stuffing them back inside the trunk. Then he looked at the two pieces of the computer.

“It’s all right; I can fix that,” Omesh said, limping over to pick up the kite.

“I’ve never seen a computer like this,” Hjalmar said as he nestled the pieces in with the clothing.

“It’s built from scraps, so I guess you could call it one of a kind.”

“You built it?”

“Yeah. I wasn’t allowed to take any A&MC technology with me, so I built that. Technically it’s just junk, so I can keep it, but it works. Faster than my school tablet, actually.” He leaned down to gently arrange the kite over the top and Hjalmar shut the lid, then used one of the zip ties to hold the latch down in place of the smashed lock.

“I’ll carry the trunk, you just keep up,” Hjalmar said and led the way out of the room.

Omesh came after, slowly at first but more quickly as his feet recovered. He could feel eyes on them as they passed through the narrow alleyways, small children or sometimes women or old men watching them from the dark doorways. No one tried to stop them or even speak to them, but he was sure when the rest of the gang started the pursuit the bystanders wouldn’t hesitate to point out which way they had gone.

Then they were out of the complex and back in the open space of the station marketplace. Back in the crowds and the hundred mingling smells. Funny what just ten short minutes could do to rearrange a person’s idea of what was terrifying and what felt safe.

“Not far now,” Hjalmar said. Then he stopped suddenly, staring off into space.

“What is it?” Omesh asked, looking around but seeing nothing out of the ordinary. “Are you getting a message or something? Is there a problem with your contact?”

“You said you were going to stay with your uncle on Chandi V,” Hjalmar said.

“Yes, about that—”

“There are no scheduled arrivals to Chandi V except my family,” Hjalmar went on. “What’s your uncle’s name?”

“Prakash Goyal,” Omesh said, “but he isn’t a corporate employee. He won’t be in your ... head.”

“Barnacle Town,” Hjalmar said. “You’re going to Barnacle Town.”

“I guess that’s what they call it.”

Hjalmar set down Omesh’s trunk. Then he straightened, his face as unreadable as ever.

“What’s going on?” Omesh asked.

“I can’t take you with me.”

“OK,” Omesh said, feeling anything but. “OK, but can you take me as far as the Dauntless anyway? My uncle is waiting for me there.”

“No, I really can’t.”

“OK. OK.” Omesh didn’t know what else to say. Hjalmar was looking around, his arms crossed over his bare chest. A trickle of blood was worming its way out from under the shirt bandage. “What do I do now? I don’t have any money. And those boys will be back.”

“You’re clever,” Hjalmar said. “You’ll think of something. Anybody who can build a workable computer out of bits from a junk heap can find a way to make a living in a thriving community like this one. They’re all illegal squatters, but they aren’t all out-and-out criminals. You’ll be fine.”

“What? I don’t understand what’s happening,” Omesh said.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I’ve got to go. Good luck.” Then he turned and walked away. He was tall, and he had silver-blond hair; it took a very long time for him to disappear in the crowd.

Omesh Rashid Nasrin had grown up on a farm on the edge of the Thar Desert, twenty miles from the nearest neighbor and more than a hundred from the nearest village. He was an only child, and his parents worked from sunrise to sunset every day of the week, which left little time for them to spend with him. But now, surrounded by people packed around him in all three dimensions, now he felt truly isolated.