Punishment

[7]

THEY LEFT SYD OUTSIDE the metal container, holding his shirt in his hands. The night was humid and his sweat beaded on his skin. He knew he smelled pretty rank. He wiped under his arms with the balled-up shirt and didn’t bother putting it back on. He knew he wouldn’t be able to lift his arms over his head for at least an hour, and clutching the ball of fabric kept his hand from shaking too obviously. The pain had passed but his nerves were still prickling, like he was balanced on a beam atop a skyscraper, hanging on to the air itself to keep from falling.

“Some knockoff, glitch-brained Chapter Eleven punk of a patron you’ve got, huh?” Egan’s voice called out from the shadow of the container. He’d been squatting in the dirt waiting for Syd all this time. Syd gave a weak smile, took a stumbling step.

In a flash, Egan was at Syd’s side, holding him up under the shoulder.

“I got you, pal,” Egan said. “Come on.” 

He helped lead Syd away from the metal container, through a broken alley and in a wide arc back to the far side of the trash pickers’ lot.

“Why are we back here?” Syd asked when Egan helped him sit. 

“You think I’m just going to let a score like this go?” Egan scoffed. “Never! No Chapter Eleven patron is gonna take this score away from me.”

“Would you just stop with the Chapter Eleven stuff?” Syd sighed.

Chapter 11, one of Egan’s favorite expressions. It meant a bankrupt, someone with no credit, but also someone who liked a matching pair, like the 1 and 1 . . . a girl who preferred girls, a guy who preferred guys.

“What?” Egan laughed. “You want to defend that Upper City knockoff? He’s nothing but misery for you.”

“I don’t care about him,” Syd answered. “Just leave off the Chapter Eleven, okay?”

Egan opened his mouth to crack a joke, then, narrowed his eyes, looked at Syd more closely. “Oh,” he said. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” said Syd.

Egan shrugged. “All the same to me, Syd.” He looked back at the warehouse. “As long as you can watch my back without, you know . . . watching my back.”

He burst out laughing and Syd punched him in the arm.

“In your dreams,” said Syd.

“The only thing in my dreams is inside that warehouse,” Egan said. “Now, you ready for the heist of the century?”

“I would be,” said Syd. “If that’s what you’d planned, but . . .” Syd jerked his head toward the warehouse door. The trash-picker kids were helping load giant spools of wire into a transport truck to haul it out of the Valve. Even in the dark, Syd could see one of them peel the patch off his arm, wave it in the air, and make a rude gesture in their direction.

“Oh man . . .” Egan sighed.

“Guess we’ll get ’em next time, huh?” Syd suggested.

Egan muttered curses to himself, but put his arm around Syd again, to help him make his way back toward the alley where he lived in the back of Mr. Baram’s shop. Syd let his friend vent without interrupting him. He was too worn out to talk and Egan was too upset to listen, anyway.

When they arrived, the shop was shuttered, which wasn’t unusual for this time of night, but the back door that Syd used to get to his bunk was also locked and his key wouldn’t open it. He knocked, but got no answer.

“I’m locked out,” he told Egan.

“Hold on,” said Egan, helping Syd lean on the wall for support. Then he crouched over the lock, fumbling for a minute while Syd stared at his back and tried to keep from passing out. Those EMD blasts had taken more out of him than he’d thought. Not even sixteen and he already knew he was too old for this.

A tweaked-out syntholene addict came staggering out of a nearby flophouse and walked with the jerky steps of someone whose DNA was coming apart, his eyes changing colors, his hair growing and falling out and growing back. He made a gargling sound as he staggered by, and then leaned against a wall three doors down to nod off, oblivious to the world.

“No lock in this city can stop me,” Egan declared, standing up with a flourish. He pushed the door open with two fingers.

“You better keep that to yourself,” Syd said. “If Baram knows you can pick his lock, he’ll have your fingers broken. It’s easier than changing the locks.”

“That old coot? What’s he got against me?”

“Well,” said Syd. “You picked his lock, for one thing.”

Egan didn’t argue with that.

“Good night, E,” said Syd. “I’m really sorry about your heist.”

“It’s your patron’s fault,” Egan grunted. “If it weren’t for him, we’d be rich right now. I swear, if I ever meet that kid, I am going to teach him a lesson he will never, ever forget.”

“Haven’t you figured it out by now?” Syd shook his head. “There’s no teaching these people lessons. Best we can do is survive them.”

"We can do so much better,” Egan objected. “We’re Syd and Egan! We can do anything we want!”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Syd replied.

“Patience, my Chapter Eleven friend.” Egan laughed. “Stick with your pal Egan and you’ll see that anything is possible. Anything at all.”

“Right.”

“I’m gonna get you a date,” Egan declared proudly, turning on his heels and whistling through the grimy alley, practically skipping past the syntholene tweaker.

Syd sighed and closed the door. His workshop at the back of the shop was cool and quiet. His mattress had been neatly made—probably by Baram himself—and all his tools were exactly where he’d left them.

His skin still tingled, like roaches crawling over his muscles, moving his arm hairs from below. He was shuffling toward his bed when he heard a noise from the front of the shop. He went to check it out, then paused, wondering about the locked doors. There were no signs of a robbery, but Baram ran all kinds of strange businesses in here with all kinds of strange characters. Maybe he would not want to be interrupted.

Syd flipped on a projector by the door that led to the front of the shop and he saw a holo of Mr. Baram in the dim light, talking to someone at the front door, which was now open. It hadn’t been open a moment ago. Syd thought he caught a glimpse of metal, a flash of pale skin, but he couldn’t tell. The light was dim, and the figure was already gone. Baram followed him out, locking up the front behind him. Syd was alone again.  

He climbed into bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to ignore the ringing in his ears and the itch of his skin. He had school tomorrow. He needed to rest and do his best. No big scheme of Egan’s was going to get him out of debt. He was going to have to do it himself, one school day at a time.

He took a breath in and let it out slowly, wondering what Baram was up to, who he’d been talking to, then reminding himself to mind his own business. Everyone is entitled to his own secrets.

Although, Syd thought, letting them out once in a while felt pretty good. Maybe Egan really would get him a date and maybe Egan really wouldn’t humiliate him in the process. Who knew?

As he drifted off to sleep, Syd smiled.

Like Egan said, anything was possible. Anything at all.