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

bit, you feel shivers run right up your spine. It’s an unpleasant sensation because you’re convinced you’re going to end up doing something you don’t want to do, even something that goes against your own proper interests, but you realize it’s going to be inevitable. And you only wish you had the courage to run away from here, and stop zigzagging through underground passages stinking of putrefaction – the atmosphere just as toxic as on the surface, but at least there, up above, it’s all open space and you can always find some spot to hide. I don’t like being enclosed in this underground world that has nothing to do with the Dump. Here there’s no way out, no side exits; you can only advance or go back. I’m well and truly fucked.

The doorway we finally pass through is rusted, with the remains of insects and tiny reptiles stuck to it. It’s cold inside. There are cables on the ground and several desks with computers on them. Dozens of reflecting bottles dangle from the ceiling. With a curious handshake, Dimi greets another shaven-headed figure, also dressed in black and wearing enormous sunglasses. Those who handle computers are all the same, cockroaches who still believe it makes sense to tap all those metallic boxes. What the hell do they hope to achieve if the communication systems are all down? They talk about their damn drones, their crappy flying machines which spy on what other maras are doing. As if good old-fashioned human spies were now useless. They blab on about whether the net is now operational, whether the connections are wide-spread enough, whether there’s enough access to the servers… They speak about the system as if it were a dormant creature that they had to waken. I want to get away from here, breathe in the foul vapours of the inflammable polymers, the aroma of coffee made from the leftovers thrown out from the colonies, which we buy from the body snatchers. And these two keep wittering on, blah blah blah, program, blah blah blah, frequency simulator, blah blah blah, trawling the signal… If Naima turned round, we could retrace our steps through the dank passages and return to the shop run by the Cyclops, the towering woman with the Mohawk hair crest, and one transparent eye seemingly facing backwards: maybe she can see herself from inside with that eye. I’m not afraid of the guy at the entrance, the one with half his skull missing. He’s one of ours – imperfect, unfinished. In reality all the Cyclops are. They all represent the same thing: that the interests of the mara are above all personal ones. That’s why they pluck out an eye, or burn it with alcohol, an exquisite army of incomplete humans that members of other maras can quickly identify. In our case, to make that leap and become a homie, you get the shit beaten out of you. If you survive, you have the right to stay in the Rathole and to keep pets. Many don’t live to tell the tale – and those who do never smile again.

Dimi looks at us while she’s talking with Kung. She gesticulates with those hands of hers, those claws that poke out of her sleeves, and the other does the same; they both raise their hands in the air as if they were flags and they were communicating with them. And our arm hurts, but not the right one, the left one, the one which isn’t there, and we can’t remember if it ever was. It’s strange because we’ve never noticed its absence: I would have noted it if Naima had ever felt it. And Dimi is now mimicking the shape of a globe over her stomach. And she laughs again and Kung bites one of her ears with the easy familiarity of those who have shared a bed and guns.

The sharp prick in my neck takes me by surprise. The pain is unbearable and Naima’s vision becomes blurred, and in this situation I lose all spatial reference. But I can still hear, and it’s all very strange because I’m aware of what’s happening almost before it does. Arms grab her and lift her up to carry her to some kind of vehicle. I know it’s a vehicle because I can feel the bumping and rattling, an irregular trembling that becomes a sudden jump when there’s some obstacle to get over. She is still unconscious, and I can only attain information from the vibrations and the background noises. We spend quite a long time here, with this jolting which is usually very light because we seem to be stationary more often than not. Her being unconscious such a long time is a fucking nuisance, making it almost impossible to keep any sense of time.

She begins to open her eyes when I’ve already sensed that we’ve been taken out of the vehicle and carried into a place smelling of vinegar. In fact, it’s that smell, bitter and sharp, which has brought her to her senses, although she finds it hard to remain awake. They’ve put her in a bed with a mattress and sheets; I’d say clean ones. She sleepily opens her eyes a couple of times, and I can see that the room is white, and there are real lights shining from the ceiling that seem to observe us: bulging eyes, radiance so dazzling it would scorch your eyes if you looked at it directly. Several figures dressed in white crowd round Naima. There are more to her left than to her right, and I know that’s because of the stump. They’re touching her with hands gloved in a ductile plastic; I think it’s vinyl, like the millions of torn gloves that turn up in the Dump. Naima speaks incoherently, and the people in white order her to shut up.

They inspect and prod and measure and examine and compare and paw and fish around and finally stick long viscous needles into