Bleak History by John Shirley Read Free Book Online Page A

“They always talk that way. But their recruitment—mo' like enslavement. What this detector now?”
    “Something new. But I don't think I'm mistaken about it. The Hidden has its own energy signature.”
    She nodded. “When we open the gates, it's like canal locks—something has to spill through, into that space, level the energy flow. Power clings to us—and this thing smells it.” She toyed with her glass, tossed her head, making her dreads bob. “That all you know, what's going on? This run-in with one agent?”
    “Pretty much. It's CCA. An agent named Loraine Sarikosca all over me like white on rice. And the detector. Kind of disturbing. They can use that thing to ferret us out, make life hell.”
    “So maybe you want to come over to La'hood, join up close. Quit being a Rambler. La'hood watch your back.”
    La 'hood. That's what she called the New York-Jersey branch of the Shadow Community. “I come over when I need to.”
    “That's more selfishness than solidarity, Bleak,” she said, leaning toward him, eyes glittering. Her accent always thickened when she was feeling emotional. “I've had bad luck with 'solidarity.
    “See, little white boy cheats us out of important resources when he don't come round.” Shoella sipped her beer and put the glass down with a clunk. The table wobbled. “We each got our talents. We got some overlap for sure. But we might need your especiality.” Another Shoella term, especially. “More especialities we have, more we—”
    “More power Shoella has?” he interrupted, his tone casual, but knowing it would make her mad.
    Shoella tensed—but after a moment he could feel her letting it go. It was something he could feel, when she let it go, as if someone had invisibly grabbed him by the shirtfront...then suddenly loosened grip.
    “No,” she said softly. “That's not it, cher darlin'. It's not about my power.” There was a peculiar longing in her voice. Her gaze settled on his, for a moment, and he felt her longing psychically, as palpably as Spanish moss whipped by the wind to trail across his face. “Could be that you and I...with all our differences...are still...” She broke off, looking away. Left it unsaid.
    “Our differences, anyway, aren't that important,” Bleak said. Not sure if the two of them were talking about the same thing anymore. “The Hidden is a field, and wind makes shapes in it...in the apeiron field.” He shrugged. Made a sweeping motion in his hand as he tried to articulate it. “And mind enters the shapes, and sometimes the shapes survive and call themselves spirits...and it's everywhere.” As Bleak spoke, he was aware of someone across the room looking at him fixedly—he could see himself, talking to Shoella, from the man's point of view—one of those men at the table in the other corner. That attention was hostile. He tried to ignore it. “But it's all one thing, in the big field of the Hidden, Shoella. So the especialities don't matter.”
    She looked at him with her head tilted, her dreadlocks bouncing with the motion. “And listen to y'all—hidden depths. So t'speak. Oh, here the man comes.”
    A figure loomed up at the table, and Bleak groaned inwardly, recognizing him. Donald Bursinsky. A refrigerator-size man in a gray hoodie, with a slack mouth and a faux-hawk and tiny, dirty-blue eyes and an ink-pen swastika tattoo on his neck.
    “Yuh the bounty-hunter azzole ahright,” Bursinsky said. “Yuh put me in Rikers jail.”
    “No,” Bleak said, sighing. “No, man, you went to Rikers because you skipped out on bail. You should've shown up in court. All I did was take you back to the system—they decided where you went from there. Just doing what I get paid for.” He saw a second, taller, less substantial man coming up behind Bursinsky, looking over Bursinsky's shoulder; second guy was gangly, with his hand in his pocket.
    Gun in there, Bleak thought.
    “Yuh know I go ahead 'n' kill uh bounty hunter, it ain't like I kill uh