Chapter Sixteen: Dissolution — Part 1

Jonathan awoke to see Vertigo sitting near him, her expression cold indecipherable. “How long?” He asked.

“About three hours.” She said.

“Only three hours?”

“Susan was merciful, she could have blown your heart to pieces and let you die.”

Jonathan could not tell by Vertigo’s voice if she would have preferred his death. “Why are you here?” He asked, a gruff growl in his voice.

“Maybe to add insult to injury. I just wanted to see what kind of apology I could get from you. After all, you did try to kill me. Besides, each of us, we have something in common, psychopathic tendencies aside. I’ve never really fit in well here. Susan says it’s because I’m a loner. It looks like you’re going to be a loner too, so Susan thinks I should keep an eye on you – if only to keep you from taking up her precious time.”

“She does? And your family doesn’t worry?”

Vertigo smiled. “My mom is my only family, and you’re very lucky Susan shielded you from her, because if Mom had gotten you in the mood she was in, you would be in pieces.”

“I wonder how your mother would respond to my thoughts right now.” Jonathan’s leer was seductive.

“She wouldn’t mind.” Vertigo said, rising from a sling seat. “But I would.”

As she walked out, Jonathan’s thoughts turned dark. A thousand years might pass before he ever earned her love. Being typically impatient, Jonathan began scheming on how he might gain it sooner. He could have no way of knowing just how much of his brain had been damaged during his encounter with Susan, and since he had no knowledge of his real self, he could only hope any new memories he would make for himself would be more pleasurable in nature.

The dull sky, a mix of cloud and light, gave no warning about the upcoming attack, and though it was on Shadow’s mind, her concerns at the moment were for her crew, and specifically, for the one who was supposed to be able to find her. People around the Hub went about their business, oblivious to the localized apocalypse that loomed a mere couple of hours away. Shadow worried as she traveled the street, her mind on matters of escape and defense. Shadow took a bus to the fifth sector, ninth street and main. The bus had, along one side of the ceiling, wanted posters of criminals thought to be hiding in the Hub. Shadow smiled. Her face was hanging up there among mass murderers and rapists. Her crimes were significantly less notorious, of course, but where they had been less harmful to individuals, her crimes were quite fiscally devastating to society as a whole. Her reward was small enough that it wasn’t worth the risk of confrontation, as the Clan of Storm was still well known for its uncanny survivalist ability. Shadow kept her hat down and her thoughts inward, so as not to draw too much attention to herself, just in case some young bounty hunter wanted to try to make a name for himself by taking down the infamous Shadow of the Storm.

The exact crimes she’d committed weren’t mentioned, just that she was a suspect, which made Shadow giggle. She was wanted for art theft and weapons smuggling, and she had intentionally left a signature at every crime scene, so that nobody else could be blamed for her crimes. Fortunately, nobody bothered to look at the posters. Most of the citizens of the Hub had their own posters hanging on buses in other parts of the galaxy. Shadow’s favorite sector, sector five, kept the poster making business a lucrative one. Sector five was technologically based, its construction jagged and industrial. A lot of shops specialized in legal merchandise, but Shadow wasn’t heading for the legitimate shops. She’d never be able to get weapons for her ship with outstanding warrants for her arrest, and she hardly had time for legitimate business at any rate. Also, she’d never be able to evade taxes, or surprise an enemy with access to registered weapons files, and Shadow wasn’t much for paying taxes or letting others know about her business. She wanted her weapons concealed, just as she wanted her identity concealed. The Hub had no problem helping her with that, as the Hub’s artificial intelligence program concerned itself only with actions that brought immediate harm to its occupants and citizens, not with crimes committed on other worlds entirely, or with laws central to other global organizations.

The bus slid off the main street into a covered stop, a cubbyhole meant to keep riders from being bombarded by rain during Grid’s wet season. Shadow, always alert, noted the pulse and position of every person at the stop. She was one of the last off the bus, as she had chosen to be one of the last on, and lingered a bit, letting the crowd of leavers get ahead of her, just to be safe. Besides a few stragglers still trying to come up with their fare so they could enter the long gray bus and go, presumably, to their jobs, shopping, or home, the covered stop was just about empty. The only potential threat Shadow could sense was too young and too clumsy to cause her any harm, and the beggar was simply too cute for Shadow to feel any real malice toward.

The boy stood near the entrance to the stop, his hand out, begging for shards. As the day was a chill one, he stood in the sun, his brown clothes, to include knitted gloves, soaking up the weak rays of an otherwise gloomy day. The boy had no real need to beg in a city that took the time to care for its homeless and orphans, and Shadow figured it might be simply for attention. Many people would give him shards anyway, as money wasn’t scarce, even in war. He smiled up at Shadow, his eyes like beacons. His heart felt pure to her, and she found herself deeply attached to him, wondering how he might fare when the attack came.

“I wanna buy some comics. Can you spare me a shard?” The boy asked, smiling as brightly as he could manage between shivers.

Shadow looked sidewise at him, perking up an eyebrow. “An honest beggar. Don’t you have some story about how your parents died in the war or something?”

“No, I was dumped here by them when I was a baby. My grandma died a couple years back, so I live on my own now. It’s my day off from school, but I don’t have enough money for the new issues, so I was trying to get a quick penny from the big people.”

“I guess I can help then.” Shadow bent down, reaching for a small bag of shards she kept at her side. She bent a little too low, and the wind caught her hat from behind, tossing it to the ground. Her scarred, bruised head and face forced the boy’s eyes to widen, and Shadow, for her part, did her best to look nonplussed. They looked straight into each other’s eyes for a moment. One of his eyes was a lighter shade of brown than the other, which held just a hint of green in it. To Shadow it was like looking at an eccentric doll’s face, a face frozen not in a smile like most dolls, but instead one who’s smile was frozen in shock, attempting to be polite. The boy finally regained his senses, but still took an involuntary step back even as Shadow reached into her purse for some spare coins. While she fished around for one of the smaller coins, the boy picked her hat up and put it back on her head, then forced his bag of shards into her hand, using his fingers to close hers tightly around it. He held her hand for a moment, as if frozen by electrical current. She could feel him shaking, could smell the mint on his breath as his kiss warmed her cheek. His cheeks, she could see, were flushed with cold, and fright.