Killing Gravity by Corey J. White

Author:Corey J. White
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I come to, and my head and foot are throbbing just off beat with each other. When I try to open my eyes, the right one doesn’t want to cooperate. There’s a migraine splitting my head just behind my left eye, but it’s less from the punch and more from the mental jujitsu. The migraine is familiar, almost like an old friend—one that you actually hate, but whom you keep seeing out of some misplaced sense of loyalty—but the black eye is a new sensation, and I can’t stop myself from poking at it and wincing in pain.

“Good, you’re awake. Have you cooled off yet?”

I look around the room, trying to find where Sera’s voice is coming from. The walls are made from a white plastic or synthetic fabric. They glow faintly, scaring the shadows away.

“Where are we?”

“This is my home. I hope you wiped your feet before coming in.”

I don’t remember Sera’s sense of humor being so terrible, but I know she’s joking because half the floor is caked in mud and the other half is covered with an ancient threadbare rug, already being eaten away by Ergot’s mold.

The furniture looks as though it’s made from the wood of the local trees, and the only visible metal in the prefab-kit home is the heater/oven standing in the far corner. That corner is the one place where moss and mold don’t grow up the walls in constellations of black spots—the heat from the oven one final refuge against the damp.

The house is one of those portable, collapsible structures favored by nomads, the military, and, by necessity, refugees.

Sera’s near the oven, slicing mushrooms. Even if the shopkeeper had seen her, he wouldn’t have recognized her from my description. Her hair is gray now—light gray, nearly white—and looks like it hasn’t been brushed since I last saw her, with one thick dreadlock forming in the back, and the rest of it unkempt and visibly knotted. Her skin hasn’t taken on the Ergot-gray yet, but it’s already paler than I remember her. The theta symbol still covers the back of her hand, moving smoothly down and up with the blade. The other arm is prosthetic now, coated in some sort of thick polyrubber to keep out the damp.

“Why did you do it?”

“Knock you out? Because I needed to calm you down.”

“Not that,” I say.

“Are you hungry?”

My stomach churns, but I say, “Answer the fucking question.”

She tsks. “They didn’t teach us language like that at the facility. I’m not avoiding the question, Mariam; you’ll get your answers in good time. But first, are you hungry?”

“Yes,” I say, quietly and begrudgingly.

“I’m making mushroom risotto. It’s not great, I’ll admit that much, but the rice and the mushrooms will be fresh; can’t grow much else on Ergot.”

She takes a few more minutes in the kitchen. Once the pot is on the stove, she comes over and takes a seat opposite me. Up this close I can see the lines on her face that go with the gray hair, and the dark pockets beneath her eyes.

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