Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales Paperback(51)

“Yeah,” says Shiloh. “Why is that?”

“I imagine this wolf was a very charming wolf,” replies Nix, brushing her fingers through the child’s bangs.

Skycaps launch alone.

Sending out more than one warm body, with everything it’ll need to stay alive? Why squander the budget? Not when all you need is someone on hand in case of a catastrophic, systems-wide failure.

So, skycaps launch alone.

“Well, I would never talk to a wolf. If there were still wolves,” says Maia.

“Makes me feel better hearing that,” says Nix. A couple of strands of Maia’s hair come away in her fingers.

“If there were still wolves,” Maia says again.

“Of course,” Nix says. “That’s a given.”

Her lips move. She reads from the old, old book: “Good day, Little Red Riding Hood,” said he. “Thank you kindly, wolf,” answered she.

? 164 ?

? Caitlín R. Kiernan ?

“Where are you going so early, Little Red Riding Hood?” “To my grandmother’s.”

Nix Severn’s eyelids flutter, and her lips move. The home-away chamber whispers and hums, manipulating hippocampal and

cortical theta rhythms, mining long-and short-term memory, spinning dreams into perceptions far more real than dreams or déjà vu. No outbound leaves the docks without at least one home-away to insure the mental stability of skycaps while they ride the rails.

“You should go to sleep now,” Nix tells Maia, but the girl shakes her head.

“I want to hear it again.”

“Kiddo, you know it by heart. You could probably recite it word for word.”

“She wants to hear you read it, fella” says Shiloh. “I wouldn’t mind hearing it again myself, for that matter.”

Nix pretends to frown. “Hardly fair, two on one like this.” But then she gently turns the pages back to the story’s start and begins it over.

The home-away mediates between limbic and the cerebral hemi-spheres, directing neurotransmitters and receptors, electrochemical activity and cortisol levels.

There was once a sweet little maid . . .

Shiloh kisses her brow. “Still, hell, I don’t know how you do it, love.

All alone and relying on make-believe.”

“It keeps me grounded. You learn the trick, or you washout fast.”

The skycap’s best friend! Even better than the real thing! Experience the dream and you might never have to come home.

The merch co-ops count on it.

“You could look for other work than babysitting EOTs,” whispers Shiloh. “You’ve got the training. There’s good work you could do in the yards, in assembly or rollout.”

“I don’t want to have this conversation again.”

“But with your experience, Nixie, you could make foreman on the quick.”

“And get maybe a quarter the grade, grinding day and night.”

? 165 ?

? The Road of Needles ?

“We’d see you so much more. That’s all. And it scares me more than you’ll ever know, you hurtling out there alone with nothing but make-believe and plug and pray for waking company.”

Make haste and start before it gets hot, and walk properly and nicely, and don’t run, or you might fall.

“The accidents—”

“—the casts hype them, Shiloh. Half what you hear never

happened. You know that. I’ve told you that, how many times now?”

“Going under and never coming up again.”

“The odds of psychosis or a flatline are astronomical.”

Shiloh rolls over, turning her back on Nix. Who sighs and shuts her eyes, because she has prep at six for next week’s launch, and she’s not going to spend the day sleepwalking because of a fight with Shiloh.

. . . and don’t run, or you might fall.

The emergency alarm screams bloody goddamn murder, and an

adrenaline injection jerks her back aboard the Blackbird, back to here and now so violently that she gasps and then screams right back at the alarms. But her eyes are trained to see, even through so sudden a disengage, and Nix is already processing the diagnostics and crisis report streaming past her face before the raggedy hitch releases her.

It’s bad this time. It doesn’t get much worse.

Oma isn’t talking.

“Good day, Little Red Riding Hood . . . ”