Winterbay by J. Barton Mitchell Read Free Book Online Page B

didn’t survive the journey or the training to become one, it was a particularly brutal thing to force a child to do.
    “ Make me?” The tone of contempt was back in Reiko’s voice. “When I first came here, I was twelve years old. My brother, Jason, he was eighteen. First month we slept in the streets, over in the lower residential ward. One day I woke up and Jason was gone. Just like that. I looked everywhere, asked everyone, but he’d vanished. He had debts, big bad ones to big bad people, and I found out what happened to him after the scumbags he owed money to grabbed me. He’d hopped a Landship to Currency, they said, told them they could have me as payment, use me however they needed until they felt the debt was paid. They made it clear it would be a hell of a long time before that happened.”
    Mira could hear Reiko slowly becoming emotional, but it wasn’t with sadness or regret or fear; there were no tears, Mira was sure. Instead, there was a growing rage. Mira could understand. Reiko had been abandoned by someone close to her. Betrayals like that left scars, deep ones. Instinctively, Mira’s thoughts turned back to the person she’d left at Midnight City, presumably trapped in a Gray Devils cell. She wondered if Ben felt the same way now as Reiko did then.
    “One day they used me as a messenger to Armitage,” Reiko continued as they pushed through the streets. “Had me bring him his cut of their trade action. It was weird, seeing him. A full-grown man, his face aged and lined, just sitting there, head buried in some ledger. I’d tried to escape the night before, for the fifth time, so I was pretty banged up. When I came in, he looked up, glanced me over, then looked right back down without saying anything. I set his cut on his desk and started backing out, but he stopped me, asked about my bruises, asked if they hurt. It was funny. Wasn’t until right then I realized I’d stopped noticing the pain. It didn’t have the same effect it used to. I’m still not sure why really, but I told him that. Armitage looked back up and studied me again, and then he wrote something on a piece of paper, gave me back the cut I’d brought him, and told me to give it and the note to the ones who’d sent me. An hour later … I was eating a meal, a real meal, back in that office with him.”
    “He told the kids to leave you alone?” Mira guessed.
    Reiko shook her head. “He paid off Jason’s debts, all of them, gave them back their cut. We’ve been together ever since. So to answer your question, no. He didn’t make me go to the Helix. He asked me. And I said yes. Because I’d do anything for him. He was there when no one else was, even when he didn’t even know me. Wait here.” Reiko moved abruptly to the side and left Mira in the street alone to ponder the story. It certainly explained a lot—her devotion to Armitage, her fierceness, her cunning—but as rosy as she tried to paint it, it was still a sad tale.
    Mira watched Reiko walk to a huge freestanding wall made from the timbers of what used to be an old basketball court. Lights flashed there in a strangely hypnotic way, and groups of kids stood around it and stared. It was probably twelve feet high, and mounted to it, in various ways, were dozens of old televisions and computer monitors. Large screens, small screens, old tube sets with rabbit ears, monitors …
    One after the other, every few seconds, each screen flashed something new: images from the World Before. Pictures of landmarks, famous ones even Mira could remember. The Statue of Liberty. The Lincoln Memorial. Big Ben. The Eiffel Tower.
    There was more mundane imagery, too. Highways jammed full of automobiles. Airplanes flying in formation. Sporting events Mira couldn’t recall the names of. People in line at a movie theater.
    The images flashed, one after the other, and Mira couldn’t look away. The weight of each picture hit her in the same affecting way. She moved closer, letting the