Her father had managed to drag them into the darkness behind the out sheds, but the noises were still coming towards them, the crashing and the high-pitched wail. And the streaks of light that had lanced into her mother and brought her down were darting around, looking for them as well.

  ‘We need to split up,’ he said. ‘You’ll have more chance on your own. I need to take the twins.’ It was dark, so dark.

  ‘No,’ she whimpered. ‘No, Daddy, I can’t.’ The fear and the darkness squeezed at her heart, making it hard to breathe. She didn’t want to go. Not even a tiny bit. She would rather lie down here, next to her mother. Wrap her arms around her and stay with her. Even if it meant bad things would happen to her too.

  Her father kneeled and wrapped strong arms around her. ‘You can, Kyn baby, and you must. We’ll meet up at the Parson’s Nose, you know the one? The rock where we used to fish. Meet there.’

  Kyn’s body stiffened. Why? Why would he take the twins, and not her? She wanted to be with him, she wanted to be safe. She could only be safe with him.

  ‘You know the woods, baby, you can get away.’ Even in the dark, she saw something in his eyes then. Something that made it terribly clear he didn’t think he was going to meet up with her at the Nose at all. ‘Wait an hour. You got your watch?’ She nodded.

  ‘One hour. Then go to the Proctors. Okay? If they’re not in their house, they’ll be in the shelter. The old bomb shelter, you know, Kynny, out the back? Where you kids play sometimes?’ He shook her then, his eyes wide and white in the darkness. Her teeth rattled together a bit at force of the shake. ‘Okay?’

  Kyn squeezed her eyes shut against it all. The sniffling twins. The blackness. Her mother, lying so still. And her father, telling her to go. One of the twins shuffled up to her and pressed a wet face against her hand. ‘Kynny,’ he wailed.

  And she knew then. She was not a baby, like they were. She was eleven. Her father needed her to do this. She could do it. She squeezed him hard and then kissed the twins. She reached down one last time and touched her mother’s face, although as soon as she did it she wished she hadn’t. Cold, so cold.

  Then she didn’t look back. She ran towards the black outline of the trees, leaping over the streaks of light that pursued her as though they were bars she was vaulting at Madame’s studio.

  She was at the Nose within ten minutes. And at the Proctors, alone, an hour later. Alone.

  Except for Symon. He sidled up to her in the shelter. ‘You okay?’

  ‘Yep,’ she sniffled, shaking her head at the cookie he held out to her.

  ‘Dad reckons it’ll be over soon,’ he proclaimed, his cheeks pink in his brown face. ‘We just need to wait out the noise and light. Then we can go check on your folks.’

  Kyn thought about Symon’s father. Her own mother had always thought Mr Proctor was mad, with his apocalyptic fantasies and his bomb shelter. ‘No point,’ Kyn whispered. ‘They’re all gone.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ Symon said, taking her hand and turning her face to his so she could see those soft brown eyes. ‘You don’t know anything, not yet. Not for sure.’

  She nodded. ‘Maybe.’

  The shelter was completely dark, and Kyn felt like she was becoming darkness herself, like it was seeping into her skin, populating her. How could she ever live in the light again, after tonight? After her mother, and probably her father. And the twins. The thought of their tiny, perfect faces was more than Kyn could take. She turned her face to Symon’s shoulder and pressed it against the softness of his sweater. She knew he would understand, better than anyone. Kyn never liked to cry. Not if she scraped her knee, not if she fell off her bike. Not if some kid called her a name. Symon didn’t say anything, just let her sob quietly, privately, against his jumper.

  And then he was there. Mr Proctor. The one Mama had always called Paranoid Proctor.

  ‘Kyn.’ His voice was soft. ‘You okay? You need anything to eat?’

  Kyn looked up, and suddenly Mr Proctor looked different. He didn’t look like the same foolish conspiracy theorist he had always seemed to her. His big, craggy face looked safe and welcoming. He was Symon’s father. And Tabi’s. He was keeping them all safe in his shelter, while the world went to hell outside.

  ‘I’m fine, thank you, Mr Proctor,’ she sniffed, pulling her face up from Symon’s sleeve and trying hard to wipe it discreetly. ‘Thanks for…for having —’

  Mr Proctor put a hand on Kyn’s arm. ‘Shh, Kyn,’ he said. ‘Don’t be silly. We’re all in this together. And once it’s done, we’ll go see what’s happened, with your people.’ He didn’t try to tell her it would all be okay. But something about his presence was enough. ‘And Kyn?’

  Kyn looked up at him, so tall and certain. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Call me Pietr. You kids are all going to have to grow up now.’

  Chapter Four: Dancing Queen

  The dreams would not leave her alone tonight. They chased her through every elusive microsecond of sleep, taunting and haunting. Her quarters were too small, too spare, too clinical. If she stayed, she’d go mad.

  Kyn turned on the shower. Hard. Her second shower that night. The water usually managed to chase some of it away, bring her back to her body. Take her out of her mind, force back ancient history. But no chance tonight. She rested her head on the cubicle in front of her, letting the water course down her back, and tried to think about something that wasn’t death and pain and obliterated worlds. It was pretty hard to do.

  Then that face came to her. That slow wink, and that lazy, easy ‘let me know if you feel like dancing again some time’. She stood up, stabbing the shower button. Well, she did feel like dancing. She sure did. Not with him this time, not the kind of dance he had in mind with that lascivious wink, but a few hours of dancing might be just what she needed to chase away the demons.

  She was at the club in twenty minutes. The same routine: dress, mask, vibro…and Connect. It was hard to do it without the Connect. Hard to just let go and give in to your body. Hard to see these other writhing, undulating bodies as brethren instead of threat. With the Connect, she could just about manage it. She popped two purple pills and followed them swiftly with a whiskey chaser.

  If it were possible, it was even busier tonight. The dance floor was lit with strobing green and white, and the mass of bodies spinning under their attention resembled a single beast. It writhed and slid and leeched sex and movement. It was alluring and dangerous. She wanted to go up and stroke it, but she knew it might suck her in and never let her go. Kyn shook her head to dispel thoughts of beasts. She’d seen too many things to let her imagination have any kind of head. Things only half the people in this place knew about. The men. The Avengers.

  But then she saw something else, from the corner of her eye. Her conscious mind may not even have registered it, but the Connect did things to you — joined things you had seen to parts of your sub-conscious. It made links. Guess that’s why they called it Connect. And Kyn knew better than anybody here how to look for patterns. And how to listen to them when they made themselves known; even if only at the edge of your consciousness.

  What was it she had seen?

  Kyn focused hard on the dance floor as the Connect and the whiskey and the music tried to lull her into letting it go. The beast was beautiful; made of so many bodies. There were men and women in various states of dress and undress, touching, moving, spreading love and connection with their fingertips. And in the centre of it all, the thing that had caught Kyn’s eye: a girl. A girl like all the others, in a mask and wearing a vibro. Hard-bodied and perfect, moving to the music under the strobes. She could have been just like any of the others, out to snag an Avenger, except for two things.

  Firstly, she was moving like no-one Kyn had ever seen move before, or at least not for a very long time. Fluid and graceful. And…Kyn looked for what it was that she had noticed. Expert. That was it. Although she was adapting and playing with them, her moves were the result of training. And they were technically perfect. Someone had taught this girl ballet, against all the rules. And she was damned good at it.

  Kyn was almost certain no-one else in the club would notice. The girl wasn’t out there doing ballet. But if you knew the art, you knew that she did too.

  That alone was enough to make Kyn stop and take notice.

  But then there was the second thing.

  Kyn knew her. She recognised the lines of her body, the shape of her breasts. The way she held herself. Kyn was an avid student of the human body. It was how she had stayed alive in so many situations when so many others hadn’t. She studied the intricate physical nuances of the people and creatures she met. And she had stood in front of this girl and imprinted on her mind; the better to work with her and perfect her.

  It was Mirren. A long purple bruise stood out in sharp relief on one long leg — the result of their training session earlier in the day. Kyn was surprised the girl could walk, let alone dance.

  Kyn sighed. What the hell was Mirren doing here?

  And what the hell should Kyn do about it? What could she do about it?

  It was illegal, but that wasn’t so much the problem. All the Avengers here were doing something forbidden. But no-one would care. They were boys, about to go off and fight, probably die. They were permitted a little look-the-other-way indulgence. And there was anonymity in their unity.

  Mirren was different. She had no tattoo yet to advertise her status as an Avenger, if indeed she made it through training at all. But if one of them later recognised her — one of her trainers, or one of her classmates, or one of her crew…Kyn shuddered. It could go very badly for her. She was already different. She needed to be careful.

  And she was young. Seventeen. And she was, Kyn had to admit it to herself, kind of different.

  But what to do? Kyn could hardly front her without outing herself.

  So she watched. And as she did, she realised she wasn’t the only one.

  In that same way that her sixth sense for the many moods of the human body had alerted her to Mirren’s presence at the club, Kyn became aware that the ex-Avenger who stood at the door was watching Mirren too. It was the same guy from the last time Kyn had been here, wearing the black stump of his ruined arm like a badge of honour. He sported facial tattoos like those favoured by Posteri warriors; a great, drooling creature snarled out from one half of his face. And it was clear to Kyn that he liked what he saw as he ogled Mirren. She watched him watching Mirren charge — saw his tongue dart out quickly to lick his lips as he followed her perfect moves.

  She tried to assess the man while not eyeballing him straight on. He was jumpy and taut, ready for action. His hand bunched and unclenched in turn, and he stretched his neck to the side repeatedly, like a boxer preparing for the fight. He was on something, but it sure as hell wasn’t Connect. Connect made you loose and happy, a danger to no-one. This guy looked like he had a chip on his shoulder the size of a Termeritian boulder, and he was cruising for some action.

  Fuck.

  As Kyn watched, he moved towards Mirren on the dance floor, angling towards her, determination announcing itself from every cell. He stopped only to whisper in the ear of another, younger guy, who smiled broadly, nodded abruptly, and stepped over to the doorway post the guard had deserted.

  The big amputee pushed into the dancing beast, and the crowd seemed to part before him; something about his size, perhaps, or the dangerous edge to his body that the dancers were probably registering on some level but not even aware that they were responding to. The beast parted before him and he was at Mirren’s side in moments.

  She was dancing slower now than she had been when Kyn had first spotted her. Kyn could see the leaden effect of the Connect on her movements. Her arms were extended to the roofline, her hips swayed in time with the crooning electronic notes, and her feet kept seductive time. The guard from the door slid in behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and swaying against her, leaning down to nuzzle her neck as she danced. Kyn watched Mirren lean back in to him, imagining how good his height and bulk would feel to neurones that were firing off on Connect and keen to French kiss the world. He was an impressive physical specimen, even with his injury. Shirtless and clad only in the black pants and boots of the Avenger station uniform, his white chest rippled muscle and old injury.

  Kyn did not know him, so he must have been retired over ten years ago. She placed him around forty. Too old for Mirren. As a general rule, the only Avengers over thirty who were still alive were injured ex-Avengers. She thought about Jedro. Or management. Or Magisters. She watched the man grind into Mirren’s back and buttocks, and she noticed again the staccato edge to his movement that made her sure he was not on Connect. He was on something, but not Connect. Too old, and too experienced, and too hardened. And tonight, too jumpy. The last thing anyone needed was a man like that, full of whatever he’d taken, taking a shine to you. Let alone a seventeen-year-old girl who’d just lost her family and then taken a beating on her first day of training.

  Kyn sighed and settled back in a nook in the wall, drawing herself behind a coolie to watch. The ex-Avenger’s hands were running over Mirren’s buttocks as if he was checking the firmness of a Tyverian Moonfruit. They started to knead and squeeze, then his hands slipped around to the front of Mirren again, working their way up the inside of her short dress. Mirren leaned back into him as he did it, savouring the feeling of those big hands on her. Kyn could only imagine how sore the girl’s gluts would be tonight, after the number of times she had fallen on the ice-mat today. Were those hands offering some comfort to the parts of her that were sore and sad?

  As the music changed pace, the man picked her up and held her above the crowd, looking up at her with blazing eyes. He was one of the only people in the place not wearing a mask, and it was easy to see the intent written all over his face. Mirren arched her back in the lift, seeming to enjoy the elevation and the feeling of flying. She held out her arms and circled the room with them. When the ex-Avenger brought her down, he didn’t let her feet touch the floor, but wrapped her legs around his hips and strode off the dance floor with her. Again, the writhing beast parted for him, and Kyn was reminded of some god striding off the floor with his prize.

  Except Mirren was more than that, and Kyn didn’t know quite what to do about it.

  She watched the two disappear to the corridor where the playrooms lay, and it was clear that Mirren wasn’t objecting to the guard’s plan. Her arms were wrapped around his shoulders, her face buried in his neck. Her legs were still locked around his waist.

  Kyn tried to sort through what she was feeling and thinking. Mirren was a young woman who was perfectly old enough to make decisions about what she wanted to do with her body. She’d just volunteered to join the Avengers — the only volunteer other than herself that Kyn had even known. She’d lost her parents, and she was only seventeen, but on the other hand she could fight better than almost any raw recruit Kyn had encountered, and there was a self-possession and calm to this young girl that told Kyn she knew what she wanted and was not at all interested in anyone telling her that she couldn’t have it.

  It was not Kyn’s place to blast into the middle of whatever these two had going on, and she couldn’t even work out why she wanted to. She started trying to unpick it all. He was old, and damaged, sure, but it wasn’t that. They were all damaged, inside or out. It was the danger of this for Mirren — the danger of her being discovered here, given who and what she was. There was no way she could understand how badly that would play out in the messed-up boys’ club that was Avenger HQ, when they discovered she was the new recruit, and a girl, and a volunteer.

  Avengers kill, and protect, and fuck.

  Avengers don’t get fucked.

  And even with all of that, it might not have mattered, except that it was this guy. This guy who was old and mean and charged on something that wasn’t as safe and lovely as Connect.

  What did he want from Mirren?

  Kyn pushed herself forward off her place at the wall and decided she had to find out.

  She padded down the corridor, scenes flicking before her eyes that were like a do-over of the last time she had been here. Bodies in all their shapes and permutations, coupled together in every conceivable way. Writhing, pleasuring, licking, moaning.

  Kyn conducted a full reconnaissance of the playrooms, but didn’t see Mirren. Her heart rate started to pick up, as she decided she must have missed something, and skipped as quickly and unobtrusively as she could back down the corridor. Again, no Mirren. Where the hell had they gone? Kyn’s eyes scanned the space — up and down the corridor, all the way to the bathrooms.

  Nothing.

  And then. Just behind the bathrooms, the slightest shadow of an entry hatch. Some kind of storeroom, perhaps. Not open, like the others. Impossible to see if they were there, and what was going on. But Kyn’s body was telling she had to go and see. And Kyn’s body was just about the only thing Kyn trusted in the universe. Especially now that Pietr was gone.

  Kyn sidled down to the door. Nothing for it. She lifted her fist and knocked. After a few seconds, a face appeared, and Kyn slid the hutanium toe of her boot into the crack he opened up. Not the ex-Avenger who’d carried Mirren away; another man. Smaller and darker, but with the same meanness wired into his circuitry. And no mask, which Kyn assumed meant he worked here at the club also.

  ‘What do you want?’ The little rat’s voice was flat and nasal.

  Kyn forced a smile onto her face, below her mask. ‘Just looking for a friend,’ she said carefully. ‘We seem to have become separated.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ the rat grunted, making to close the hatch.

  But Kyn’s toe was there. ‘No thanks,’ she said. ‘I just want to check if my friend’s in here.’

  The rat’s features darkened into a snarl, then just as quickly something sly and ugly slid across them. ‘Sure,’ he said, stepping back to let her in. ‘This the little bitch?’

  As Kyn stepped into the darkened room, all her senses alert for an ambush from the rat behind her, she saw Mirren. She was strapped to a black frame, her hands above her head, her dress hanging in two jagged rents on either side of her exposed breasts. Her mask had been removed and lay on the floor. A long red gash ran down one side of her face, and one eye was closed, a bruise forming around its perimeter. She had obviously put up a neat fight. The huge ex-Avenger who had carried her from the dance floor was fastening the buckles on the straps and he turned to greet Kyn like an old friend, a greedy smile splitting his tattooed face. ‘You want some of this action too, darlin’?’

 

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