6. Vesper
VESPER
When I was barely fifteen, I briefly became a Spine Jacker.
I was lean and small, and that meant I could fit into a lot of places others couldn’t.
There were narrow crevices I could shimmy into and find components no one else had ever reached before.
I became popular fast and it was an easy enough way to earn some credits and Harrow Bars.
While Dox was focused mainly on deliveries at the time, I was—at least I thought I was—making a killing.
For the better part of a month, we weren’t hungry at all.
I remember thinking that we were winning, that we were doing something right.
And then I slipped on a ledge fourteen stories above the concrete and jagged metal.
I’d pushed myself and gone higher in an abandoned sector where the metal was more decayed.
The dwarf star at our center degrades things faster the higher you go, and I’d gone higher than most were willing to go in the sector.
I knew the good stuff was up there, stuff that would feed us for a year, so I climbed and climbed until my arms were shaking.
I shimmied out on the ledge, my toes balancing on a beam too narrow for my frayed shoes. I reached for a hand hold and missed.
As I fell, I hit sharp edges and rusted metal.
Luckily, there were things to hit that slowed my decent so I hadn’t broken anything, but with each hit, I’d been given a new wound.
My arms hit a particularly large metal point and my skin was sheared right off along my forearm about an inch wide and a foot long.
The burning had made me scream, but the pain kept me curled in the fetal position for a week while it attempted to heal.
We’d used our last credits to buy medicine that made it hurt worse, but kept me from getting a nasty case of Wire Bite.
The scar is raised on my forearm now, a reminder to never step higher before I’m ready—and sometimes not at all—but I still remember the way it had felt to have my skin flayed off.
Stepping into the Harrow Gate is like that. Except instead of just my forearm, it’s my entire body.
I grit my teeth against the extreme pain first, trying to hold it in rather than let it explode.
I know once I let it out, I won’t be able to stop it.
But when my skin peels from my body and knives start stabbing into my chest and twisting, I can’t hold it back anymore.
My teeth open. The shriek that rips from my body is so primal, it vibrates in my bones.
Deep in my chest, the pain intensifies and then the sensation of something tearing out of me takes over.
I reach up, expecting wetness against my fingers.
Surely, with that pain, someone just ripped my actual heart out, but my skin is whole and solid.
Unmarred despite the lingering echoes of agony across my skin.
Where I press my hand, a bright light starts to flicker and then float away where it stops in front of me.
It’s so bright, I have to squint at it as I try to figure out what it is.
As the light becomes more apparent, I realize that I’m not flying through the air or dangling by my skin like I’d assumed.
The pain starts to ebb completely and leaves me feeling raw and .
. . incomplete. I rub at my chest where the light had come from before looking down, just to doublecheck there really isn’t a gaping hole there.
My hands are shaking, reminding me that I didn’t imagine it. Even my skin feels raw.
The light in front of me begins to flicker and I cover my eyes to shield against the onslaught of brightness.
It lasts for a few long seconds, growing brighter and brighter until I can feel the heat of it.
And then it starts to dim again, until I lower my hand and squint again, realizing it’s no longer just a light at all.
It’s a coin.
It spins slowly, golden and pristine, shinier than even the untarnished metal deep inside Dross.
There are words inscribed on it that I can’t catch while it spins.
Frowning, I reach out toward it, hesitating just in front of it in case it’s a trap of some sort.
When nothing happens, I carefully wrap my fingers around it.
No alarms shriek. No one appears to yell at me.
The metal is strangely warm. I’d expected it to be cold when there isn’t a dwarf star to warm it.
It’s smooth and perfect, as if brand new.
As soon as the coin is wrapped in my fingers, the air starts to shimmer in front of me.
I narrow my eyes and then leap back when the shimmering turns to something else.
A large black box, taller than I am, rocks back and forth as if it had been shoved forward.
Slowly, it stops moving, and I take a hesitant step forward again, trying to figure out what it is.
Clearly, it’s some sort of machine, but I’ve never seen one like it before.
It’s mostly square, all hard corners and box-shaped.
There’s a shiny black glass on the front of it, inky and black.
Lettering covers the top of the machine, spelling out “The Harrow” in bright red letters.
They light up as I stare at them, as if there’s a light behind them.
Beneath the black glass, there are a series of buttons and what looks like some sort of red lever.
On the bottom of the machine, it’s mostly blank except for a small glowing red square that says, “insert coin.”
“What the fuck is this?” I say out loud, flinching when my voice echoes and sounds louder than I expected.
The black glass comes alive at my question, a little jingle announcing the beginning. My eyes widen as a little picture of a man appears on the glass and starts to . . . move.
The little man is made up of squares, but even with the lack of detail, I can see he’s wearing a tiny red hat and blue overalls.
Little paths and ladders blink to life above him, and then some sort of brown angry creature appears on top.
The brown creature hits the platform, shaking it, and then starts throwing barrels to rolls down the pathways.
The little man runs toward a hammer that appears in front of him, picking it up and starting to swing.
When he hits one of the barrels just right, little squares explode from it, and silly little sounds echo from the machine.
Cute upbeat music plays in the background that I don’t recognize.
I watch, enraptured, as the little man makes his way up the platforms, jumping over barrels, climbing ladders, until he makes it to the very top.
He closes in on the large brown creature and strikes it with his hammer.
WAH-WAH-WAH-WAH-WAH!
The machine makes a sad sound as the brown creature spins and falls to his death, leaving the little man the victor.
A tiny door opens, the little man leaps for joy, celebrating, and then he disappears inside it.
“Wait,” I say, stepping closer and tapping at the glass.
“Where did the little man go? Come back!”
A bright red rectangle appears in the center of the screen. In the middle of it are the words, “Insert Coin To Continue.” It starts to blink, making a soft beep sound, as if urging me to move faster.
I look down at the coin in my hand, studying it closer and considering putting it in so I can see more of the moving pictures.
Maybe it’s some sort of payment for watching it.
Magic like this wouldn’t be cheap in Dross.
On one side of the coin is a large H inside of a square.
I flip it over and nearly drop the thing when I read the words inscribed there.
Taking a hesitant step back from the machine, I stare closer at the words, making sure I’m reading them correctly before I truly let panic take over.
“Vespera’s Soul,” I whisper, reading the words out loud. The words echo back, as if mocking me.
I rub at my chest again, suddenly feeling the hollow ache there.
I never go by Vespera even though it’s my full name.
I’d long ago dropped the ‘a’ to sound less like some Luxe bastard.
I look around, searching for Dox, but all there is around me is darkness.
It’s only me and the machine. Maybe this is some in between holding area.
I’m clearly not in the Harrow yet. This is some sort of .
. . test? Trick? I’m not sure what this is, but the machine clearly wants me to put the coin in the slot. The coin claiming to be my soul.
It takes a lot to psyche myself up enough to move closer to the machine again.
The coin having my full name on it makes me hesitate to put it in the machine.
If this is really my soul, should I be putting it in some mysterious machine?
I’m not even sure that I believe I have a soul.
I’ve heard the religious zealots talk about it, of course, and Dox certainly believes in some inner thing that makes us who we are.
Me? I think we’re just flesh and bone until we’re not.
If I don’t believe in it, what harm does it cause to put the coin in? It’s probably just symbolic anyway.
Taking a deep breath, I kneel down to the little red square that sits blinking and waiting.
“Here goes nothing,” I whisper. Somehow my voice is even louder than before as I press the coin against the slit and shove it in.
I hear the metallic clank as it falls through the mechanisms and lands inside.
The music starts up again, a cheerful little jingle that I straighten to watch, smiling as the door on the glass opens again. The rectangle disappears and words start to appear in its place slowly, letter by letter, falling from the top of the screen.
“The . . . Harrow . . . awaits . . . you . . .” I read out loud, furrowing my brows. “Okay, but how am I—”
The machine shakes violently and I stumble back, gasping as it starts to rock side to side. I watch, horrified, as it splits in half abruptly. Where I’d inserted the coin, a mouth appears, massive dagger-like teeth lining it. It clacks those teeth together, chomping as if it wants to eat me.
“Nope,” I choke out and whirl, trying to run away from the monster that clearly intends to end my life.
I pump my arms, running as fast as I can move, but when I turn to look behind me, the machine isn’t any further away.
I push harder, but still, I don’t move. The monster machine just watches me, chomping the air, almost as if it’s . . .
“Is that a fucking chuckle?” I hiss, baring my teeth at the thing as I finally stop. “Are you fucking laughing at me?”
The monster grins. When it next opens its mouth, a voice comes oozing out. “I could not resist.”
The machine disappears and in its place is a door just like the little man had disappeared into. It slowly creaks open in a way that has me eyeing it like another monster is going to pop out and threaten me.
“What kind of game are you playing?” I ask it, narrowing my eyes.
“Come inside and see, player,” the smooth voice says.
Well, shit. I can either step through that door and face whatever is on the other side or wait here for Dox. Though waiting here doesn’t truly seem like an option. If Dox made it into the Harrow, she’ll have moved through, looking for me.
“Will Dox be on the other side?” I ask the voice.
There’s no answer. There’s no way to know what I’m walking into.
“Fuck,” I grunt and shake out my arms, jumping up and down as if that will loosen me up for whatever I’m about to walk into. “Your ass better be over there, Doxxie.”
Gritting my teeth, I step through the open doorway.