The Best of World SF by Lavie Tidhar (children's ebooks free online .txt) 📕

spotted the strap holding the orthopaedic arm. She gazed at the artificial limb for some seconds, which seemed an eternity to Naima.

‘Come on. I haven’t got all bloody day to play babysitter to Rats.’

Naima followed her, while behind her the ranfleros were already celebrating the loot they expected to get.

INTERMISSION

If the Rats called it the Cesspit, it wasn’t because of the refuse, but because of the people. Because the rubbish had reclaimed the land, in some parts with more enthusiasm than in others, but wastage was to be found everywhere, the spawn of memory, cadavers of functionality. What differentiated that place, which other maras called souk, zoco, bazaar, roadstead, market, was the complete lack of scruples of its visitors, who pursued a single aim: make some kind of profit, usually at the cost of others. It wasn’t the strongest who survived in the entrails of the Cesspit, but the person who made the transaction first, who got there before any potential competition. If you weren’t fast enough, someone else would take advantage of you, and you would become the merchandise. In that place, even nightmares could fetch a price.

Naima had been there with Sibilo a couple of times, but had hardly ventured any further than the first few stalls bordering on the zone controlled by the Rats where several homies endeavoured to place their merchandise. This time, with Dimi, she entered the maze of crowded alleyways, keeping close to the figure in the hooded jacket, black and worn-out like the rest of her clothes. They kept The Thing in a grubby rucksack slung over Dimi’s shoulder.

The story goes that once upon a time there were also places like this, but where people didn’t make a living from rubbish. Who could believe such nonsense? Fantasies like every stall was carefully placed, one beside the other, that people strolled around, stopped and chatted and even stepped aside to let others pass, that customers and sellers greeted each other with a smile… Why, some go so far as to say that the stallkeepers sold fresh food, vegetables recently harvested, and healthy animals fattened up and looked after to be consumed in clean-smelling homes. Rubbish was hidden away because no one wanted it, incredible though it may seem. Everyone wanted to get rid of it, to deny its existence. Because once something had been utilized, consumed, enjoyed, it had no right to exist anymore. This fairy tale has been doing the rounds for many, many refuse collections.

This was a free zone, an area where all the maras had equal rights; it was, in addition, the only point of contact with the colonies, the urban spaces which deceived themselves claiming they were still cities, but which suffered continuous energy cuts, shortages of most products, and an exponential increase in the crime rate. The moment someone dared to put a foot in the alleyways of the Cesspit, they became just one more item of merchandise, likely to be bought and sold. Naima knew this full well, and that was why she did what she had done ever since she could remember, which was to convert herself into an invisible being. She knew she must never catch anybody’s eyes, or brush against any passer-by, and that she must move away if anybody approached her directly.

She had stuffed the strap under her old winter coat because Dimi had forbidden her to wear Sibilo’s leather jacket which would have given them away at once as members of the Rathole. They made their way to the second-hand stalls, trying to avoid the junkies clutching their tubes of glue. Hookers swung their hips suggestively to attract clients, regaling them with toothless smiles, throwing kisses at them, touching their augmented lips – matching their pneumatic breasts – with broken nails. Thugs hung around the kiosks of the usurers, who smelt of fear and salt, while dealers did their bartering swarming around the exchange stalls, combining their shouted offers with sweating armpits.

Recycled neon strips emitting an insipid glow advertised the betting shops, behind whose doors could be heard the muffled sound of psychomusic inciting people to bet. Naima copied Dimi, and stuffed a piece of cork into each ear in order not to hear the sounds coming from those dens. Only those who worked in the Cesspit were immune to them. Parts of motors were to be seen everywhere, and circuit boards hanging in rows from the roofs of the booths, huge coils of metal cables, foul-smelling cabinets to recharge batteries, repair stalls, stores for plastic and cellulose, and shelves cluttered with batteries.

Several recycling company agents passed beside them, leaving behind a trail of perfume and disdain, and Naima had to hold on to a post of luminescent moss to maintain her balance. Her movement was so abrupt it dislodged her ear plugs. She noticed that the ground seemed to be vibrating, accompanied by a melody. She turned round to see where it was coming from. It was a viscous sound that stuck to her volition like flypaper, an invisible canvas that wrapped her in a yearning to try her luck in a game of chance. Her only desire was to enter the place the psychomusic was coming from, sell her orthopaedic arm, prostitute herself, or let them remove some internal organ she could use to gamble with. A hand grabbed the collar of her jumper, and forced her to walk straight ahead. She tried to break free, but when at last she managed to, the sound of the surveillance drones and the shouts of the dealers had drowned the hypnotic music.

An exasperated Dimi was gazing at her.

‘I haven’t got time to wipe your ass, understand, you snotty-nosed brat? Be more careful, because if you fall into one of those holes you’ll never get out again. Or, at least, not as you are now, which isn’t that much, in any case. And I don’t intend to go in to pull you out.’

Naima nodded ruefully, and ripped a strip off her T-shirt which