Damaged Worlds: A Multi-Author Dystopian Science Fiction Boxed Set Rejecting “This is for your own good...” by Louise Marley & Cat Rambo & Janine A. Southard & Cecilia Tan

Author:Louise Marley & Cat Rambo & Janine A. Southard & Cecilia Tan
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: caper, Dystopias, spaceships, boston, heist, Space Opera, druids, london, hive queen saga, fathomless abyss, Science Fiction, clueless teenagers, Musicians, ceridwen's cauldron, science fiction caper, welsh science fiction, wales, award-winning, Seattle, druids in space
ISBN: 9781633270084
Publisher: Martian Cantina
Published: 2014-11-14T00:00:00+00:00

Part V

“There’s a new kind of junk around,” Herman said. “Costs an arm and a leg, but they say one fix will see you set for life.”

That sounded promising. “Have you tried it?” Bill asked.

Herman shook his head. “Haven’t even seen one yet. They say some people who use them go crazy, too. but don’t they always say that? Hooch will leave you blind, sweetsmoke will give you the staggers, given long enough.”

“Where does it grow?”

“That’s part of the mystery. Comes up from somewhere deep, deep down. Somewhere so far that most people never go there. There’s wild things down there, if you go far enough, you know. Things that don’t exist anywhere else.”

“Have you talked to anyone who’s taken one?”

Herman shook his head again. “Just rumors so far,” he said. “But give it time. Everything comes to Watershed soon enough. These things … dream eggs? I bet they’re already here somewhere.”

They were walking through Watershed, looking for marks that night. If you caught someone drunk or drugged, you could pick their pockets, take their gear. You could see the marks sometimes, their pockets turned inside out and their shoes gone, taken to be stolen.

This evening, the Sunstrip was just a distant gray line. The streets smelled of burned wool and coal smoke.

They watched a man stagger through a square with the heavy step of someone who’d been drinking. Bill and Herman exchanged glances as he swayed over to flop down on a bench. His buttons were silver, each one worth a jug of hooch if not more, and his hat was trimmed with odd feathers of a kind Bill had never seen before. He gave them a suspicious glance then leaned back in his seat, tilting his face up to the wall before his eyes closed and his chin dropped, plunging him into sleep.

They waited a few moments. He snorted and gurgled in his sleep, twitched restlessly as they made their way over to him. A geniod in a window far above watched them, but clearly had no intention in intervening with whatever they wanted to do.

Bill sat down on one side, Herman on the other. With the gentleness of a lover, Herman slid his hand into the other’s pockets. Bill didn’t watch; he kept his stare on the street. Far above, the geniod’s pale face shone like an opening.

The man jerked and twitched as Herman’s hand emerged with a pouch. His eyes flew open. “Thieves!” he shouted. “Murder! Robbery! Assassination!”

They ran across the plaza with the genoid watching and the man shouting behind them.

Later, after a long and drunken night, they stood on a balcony, looking out at the Abyss. Bill had never been in a house before where the inhabitants were wealthy enough to live here, on the edge, where they could constantly be looking out at that void. If he had been living here, the house would have been stripped bare within a few days. He would not have been able to resist the lure of that space—he would have thrown in everything the house held, just to watch it fall.

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