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

she then tore in half to make two balls of cloth for her ears to replace the lost pieces of cork.

Doesn’t she remember? Her head’s emptier than I thought. I can’t understand how she’s forgotten the eyes of the person she’s following. How can she possibly not sense it? Because Dimi has recognized us. I’d bet anything you like that she’s noticed it the same as me. It was only a second, but she fixed her eyes on us in the Rathole. She saw our false arm and came to a conclusion.

The door they stopped at was the same colour as the trays of melted polymers. They entered after Dimi whispered the password, a single word, in the ear of the doorman – who had a quarter of his skull missing – who let them pass without asking questions. The shop was full of sober-coloured rectangles like the one they carried in the rucksack. Two individuals with scars across their eyes were haggling with the tallest, strongest woman Naima had ever seen, who stood behind a coffin that served as a counter. The reflecting bottles cast a pale milky light over the faces of the people there, lending them a sickly air. Dimi approached the counter as soon as the two men left, spitting on the ground and cursing. The tall woman sported a pink Mohican hairstyle, which brushed against the hanging bottles. It was only when she looked up that Naima noticed her glass eye.

‘I need to see Kung.’

The Mohican woman stared at her as if she were speaking a language unknown to her.

‘Kung doesn’t deal with the purchase of material. We’re not going to bother him just for a computer… because that’s what you’ve brought me, haven’t you?’

Dimi removed the rectangle from the rucksack and very carefully placed it on the counter.

‘You think you’re real cool for coming here with one of these. I’ve got dozens of them, but the power cuts are getting more and more frequent, and besides, there have been no updates for years. Almost none of the applications function – and when they do, they’re full of errors and release viruses.’

‘Don’t fuck around with me, Freja! You always say that to keep the price down. This one is clean – I’ve checked it – and the hard disc is brand new. Look at the programs: all the upgrades installed, right up to when the systems crashed. If you want to screw me, I’ll just find another stall. But don’t take me for a prize idiot!’

The woman called Freja opened the rectangle and began to push several buttons.

‘I’m fed up with you lot! Always complaining. I have to give myself a profit margin. This is a business, not a bloody charity!’

Dimi grabbed the rectangle from her and started to replace it in the rucksack.

‘I can’t waste any more time. Tell Kung I want to see him.’

‘I repeat, Kung hasn’t been in this business for a long time.’

‘And drones fly by themselves, do they? Try that one on someone else. I’ve got something that would interest him, but maybe it would interest Palmira more.’

Freja appeared to be making mental calculations while she took a small cube from her pocket.

‘As if anyone’s going to trust a Rat… Fray calling Ku! Can you hear me?’

A strange conversation ensued between the woman and another voice coming from the cube she was holding.

Maybe this would be a good time to make a run for it. I don’t like this at all. We’re not Dimi’s pet… So why did she agree to bring us? No one would swallow that story about not coming with other homies in order to avoid suspicion. Rats visit the stalls here all the time without any problem.

We reluctantly follow Dimi through this stinking basement. The tunnel that comes next is lined with oxidized pipes and mould that was once bioluminescent and now necroseals the walls. Dimi moves like the weasel she is, with self-assurance and agility; it seems she’s familiar with the route. But that doesn’t surprise me, because she never appears on the sea of plastic or soils her hands triaging the refuse. She knows about computers, understands machine language and is able to write it, so that they follow orders, such as to compress the plastic, melt it, convert it into the polymers that we then resell in the Cesspit to intermediaries, who seal it into odourless packages that seem new, and sell to the factories for three times what they pay us. Oh yes, she’s very good at doing this kind of stuff, there in her room in the Rathole, far away from the sewers outside, from the avalanches, from the toxic gases, from the mutated creatures, and from the explosions of containers. She doesn’t have to triage like we do, can eat hot food and have a drink whenever she likes, and sleep on a real mattress, almost new, without anybody forcing themselves into her bed. Aren’t her hands immaculate, without bruises or parched skin? Doesn’t she still have all her teeth? Her face without scars, her nails clipped and clean? Do her clothes stink of humidity and excrement, are her lips cracked and dry? Oh no, I don’t think so. It’s a long time since she knew hunger, that’s if she ever did. She walks around and acts as if the shit we’re living in has nothing to do with her, as if she’s just passing through. She’s a ghost from some colony hiding in the Rathole, God knows why. She never goes out, or at least, if she does, not with anyone from the mara, because they’d snitch on her, and her doings would become talking points for everyone. She’s an opportunistic parasite who lives at the expense of the homies and the Rats, who never gets her hands dirty, never runs risks.

All this ought to be enough to get out of here as fast as possible. Because when you enter unknown territory with someone you don’t trust one little