Lifel1k3 (Lifelike #1)(55)
“They have a working subway here?” Eve asked.
Ezekiel nodded. “Salvaged from the ruins of the original city Armada was built on. It’s the easiest way to get to the Tanker District. The upper decks are like a maze.”
“How we gonna pay for tix?”
Ezekiel sucked his lip, glanced at the Freebooter bullyboys. “That is a problem.”
Cricket’s mismatched eyes rolled in his bobblehead. “Magnificent plan, Stumpy.”
“Well, in that department, I got us covered.” Lemon reached into the pocket of her dirty cargos, flashed three shiny credstiks. “The ride’s on me, kids.”
“Where’d you get those?” Cricket groaned.
“I was cutting pockets in Los Diablos before you were a subroutine, Crick. Weekend crowds are always the fizziest, and these mainlanders ain’t the sharpest.”
Lemon led the quintet past the Armada thugs, who seemed keener on watching the chemgirls stroll by than doing anything close to their jobs. Flashing a stik under the scanner, she opened the turnstile with a flourish and a bow, bumping fists with Eve as she brushed past. Ezekiel consulted a nightmarish map that looked like it had been scrawled by a drunken madman with a hundred different-colored inks.
Eve squinted at the chaos. “What are we looking for?”
“The Gibson,” Ezekiel murmured. “Tanker District … Ah, there it is.”
The lifelike led them down to Platform 4, their motley crew joining the rest of the evening crowd. Eve was a little overwhelmed by it all—the heat underground was unbearable, sweat burning her one good eye. Everything was filthy with ash and dust.
She looked down at her hand, at the thick bands of electrical cable around her. She imagined she could feel the currents in the walls, hear the hum of the power surging through the flickering lights and along the rusted tracks before her. The platform was packed with people, headed home after a hard night’s crush. She wondered what they’d do if they knew what she was. Who she was.
Polluted.
Deviate.
Abnorm.
“You okay, Riotgrrl?” Lemon asked.
Eve nodded slow. Sighed. “Yeah.”
“Listen …” The girl chewed her lip. “We gotta talk later, you and me. Serious, like.”
Eve looked at her bestest. Lemon’s face was a little pale under her freckles. Her usual jokester demeanor nowhere to be seen. Instead, she looked genuinely worried.
“… Okay.”
Eve heard the squeal of corroded brakes. The rumble of the tracks. A rustbucket subway train shuddered to a halt at the platform, squealing and shrieking. Its cabin was skinless, its modified electric engine open to the air, wrapped in long tangles of dull copper wire. The whole train rattled and hummed like it was about to explode. Its driver wore black goggles, the Armada bandanna covering his mouth caked with grime.
“Awwwwwl abawwwwwd!” he bellowed. “All stops to Downtown, step up!”
Eve and her crew bundled into a rear cabin with blown-out windows. A young girl in an Armada bandanna cranked the doors closed behind them. Eve plopped down on a plastic seat scuffed and scarred by decades of penknife poetry; Ezekiel placed Kaiser on her lap. Looking around the cabin, she saw a rough-and-tumble crowd. Cybernetic limbs. Shadowed eyes and stim stares. A man in an electric wheelchair slowly trundled past, a sign hung around his neck that read VETERAN. He had no legs. The winged sun and shield of a Daedalus infantryman was tattooed on his forearm. The wheelchair reminded Eve of her grandpa.
Except he wasn’t my—
The train began moving. Ka-chunka-chunking along the tracks. Dirty air howling through broken windows. Eve chewed her lip, wondering how she was going to break the news to Lemon. Wondering where Ezekiel was taking them. Thinking of that cell, her family, waiting to hear shiny boots on the stairs.
Glancing into the crowd, she saw a man at the other end of the carriage. He was a big guy, dressed in a long black coat and oldskool cowboy hat, a white collar at his throat.
He was looking right at her.
Eve met his stare without blinking. Rule Number Four in the Scrap: Never look away. Never show the weak, even if you feel it.
The man held her gaze, his eyes a shocking shade of pale blue. And ever so slow, he lifted a finger to his hat, tipped the brim.
“Ezekiel,” she murmured.
The lifelike glanced up, eyebrow raised.
“That guy.” She nodded. “Black coat. Black hat.”
“… The priest?”
“Yeah. He’s creeping on me.”
The lifelike stared across the cabin. The man inclined his head and smiled the way she figured sharks used to smile at seal pups before the oceans turned black. But he didn’t move. Didn’t fuss. Maybe he was just the harmless kind of creepy… .
The train began slowing, brakes grinding in a chorus of awful, off-key screams.
“Tanker District!” bawled the driver. “Tanker District c’here!”
“This is our stop,” Ezekiel said.
The train ground to a halt, spitting Eve and a few dozen others onto the platform. An old lady pushing a trolley full of spare parts. A logika with a faulty dynamo, hobbling and wobbling. Ezekiel stepped off with Kaiser under his arm, the blitzhund’s tail wagging. Eve searched the platform, looking for the priest in the thinning crowd. She saw ancient billboards on the walls. Plastic models and plastic smiles. The train doors hissed closed, and the metal beast lumbered off down the tracks.