Freedom by Kirkpatrick Jay

Author:Kirkpatrick, Jay [Kirkpatrick, Jay]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2013-03-09T11:00:00+00:00

Charlie

11:45 a.m.

CHARLIE pulled the sheet across the opening behind him and crossed the three steps it took to reach the front door, which was propped open in the hope of catching some errant drift of breeze. No chance of that, of course. Even if a breeze had sprung up, against all logic and God’s grace, it would never make it through the maze of shanties to here, not to this one, his home for something like twenty-five years.

He’d stopped counting.

He stood just inside the door, staying in the shade, and squinted out at the rectangle of painfully blue sky above the shanties across the alley. White towers of the City punctuated the blue, distant and unreachable as stars. Charlie dug a partly smoked spicer out of one pocket, lit it, and took a drag, trying to remind himself why he didn’t just give up and die. It’d surely be the easier option.

There was Eve, of course, but he could kill Eve too. Then maybe they could both find some peace. One way or another, something had to change. It was just getting too hard to stay alive here in the Outside, and with no way to get into the City, their options were just crap fucking limited, that’s all.

He turned his head at a sound from inside the shanty—a cry that shuddered into a moan and then vanished—then went back to looking out the door. Evie was getting worse. No denying that, either. She’d been pretty much stable for five or six years after they threw her out of the City like a piece of garbage, but for the past two years it’d been a steady downhill drag. Now Charlie was even having trouble getting her to eat, when he could manage to score decent food.

It was just too much. No, all told, murder-suicide was beginning to look like a really doable plan. So it was a quirk of fate worthy of a Hollyvid when a messagechick on a scooter drifted up to the shanty just as Charlie had started trying to think of how he could get his hands on a weapon.

“You Charlie?” the chick asked.

“Who wants to know?”

“Got a message. For Charlie, friend of Patrick.”

“That’s me. Hand it over.”

“How ’bout I get paid?”

“Less you want fucked, I got nothing to give you, sweetcheeks. Sorry.”

She snorted, pulled a tight-folded piece of paper from a pocket, and handed it to him. “Already been paid. Worth trying, though.”

“Need an answer?”

“Didn’t ask for one. Zoom on.”

Charlie waved a hand at her, stepping back into the shanty to unfold the paper curiously. He read the short note through once, read it again, then stepped back to the door and stared across at the white pinnacles of the City. “I never thought you’d really come through,” he whispered.

Folding the note carefully, he tucked it deep into his least ragged pocket and pulled the sheet back to crawl onto the mattress with Eve.

“Hey, Evie,” he said gently, stroking the thin, haunted face, her once-thick black hair.

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