3. Cherry
3
CHERRY
B one-tired from my shift at the New Toronto shuttle engine factory, I let myself into my gloomy apartment. I closed the door. Then I locked it. Then I deadbolted it.
Then I dragged a chair in front of it.
It had become my new ritual. Ever since last month, when I’d missed the interest payment on my loan for the first time.
None of Magnus’ men had come for me. Yet.
When they did, I was pretty damn sure that a lock or deadbolt or chair wouldn’t do anything to stop them. But at least it might buy me a little time, or at least make enough noise to give a girl some warning.
Never should have taken that loan , I thought bitterly, shaking my head at the dumbass six-months-ago Cherry Dawson who’d gone to a fucking crime boss to make rent instead of figuring something, anything else out. A small voice reminded me just how tough that month had been. A parts shortage had led to a factory shut down immediately after a rental increase. To top it all off, this had come directly on the heels of Mama’s death, which meant our household income had been slashed by more than half, since she’d had more seniority at the factory than me and had made a much better wage.
If Mama could only see me now. Her only daughter double-locking the door and shoving furniture in front of it to keep the loan sharks at bay just one more night. She’d be just as pissed at six-months-ago Cherry as I currently was.
I may have been just trying to stay afloat on a sea of stinking shit at the time. But now my boat had a hole and I was fucking sinking in it.
I sighed, taking out my Old-Earth-style cast iron pan, the only thing of Mama’s I had left that I hadn’t yet sold. At this point I knew I needed to sell it too, but nobody on Terratribe I, humanity’s oldest industrial colony planet, would likely have any use for the hunk of iron. If someone did buy it, it would probably just be melted down for its base metal. The thought of losing the seasoning my Mama, and her Mama, and her Mama before that had lovingly built up on the surface of the pan made me woozy with a sorrowful sort of fear. That feeling was far worse than the terror of angry mobsters at my door wanting their money back.
I left the heavy black pan to heat on my small apartment stove and turned to my fridge for a protein block to fry up for my dinner.
But I never opened it.
Because I heard someone else trying to open another door instead.
I froze, my heart swelling all the way up to my throat as my apartment door’s handle rattled. Whoever was out there didn’t bother with that strategy long. Once they figured out it was locked, they switched tactics. A buzzing hiss was soon followed by the sound of sizzling, and I watched in horror as a moment later the entire handle fell to the floor, laser-cut right out of the door. The laser’s beam went to work along the edge of the door after that, melting through the deadbolt.
I stood there staring, paralyzed in a way I’d always assumed I wouldn’t be. I thought that when this moment came, I’d be ready for it. That I’d have some semblance of a plan besides stand there and gawk as a hardened criminal comes to gut you like a factory rat.
The door swung inward with sharp force, as if kicked. It sent the chair toppling, and that shocked me into motion, breaking whatever stupid spell I’d been under.
The fire escape.
I just needed to get to the window in my bedroom. Then I could get down the fire escape.
Only problem was that my apartment was twenty-two stories up. By the time I climbed all the way down, somebody could take a lift down and beat me there.
And that wasn’t the only problem, it turned out.
The other, much more immediate issue was the massive mountain of a man who was already shoving through the open door. He got between me and my bedroom before I could even take a step.
“I know I’m late,” I said in a rush, stumbling backwards as if putting some space between us would actually do me any good now. My back hit the front of the stove. “I just need a little bit more time.”
“Magnus is not a patient man,” he said. His voice cracked with the typical gruffness of a man who smoked a lot of the stimulant-laced, synthetic testosterone drug T-dust. “You pay right now. Or you come work off your debt.”
“Work off how? In one of Magnus’ drug houses?” I questioned frantically. “Because I can promise you right now that I won’t be any good. I failed New Toronto High chemistry.”
The man tilted his bald head, cracking his neck loudly before casting a coldly calculating eye from the top of my head to my toes.
“You’ve got a halfway decent face,” he grunted. “And a more-than-decent body. He’ll have other work for you.”
Uh oh.
I fought the urge to cross my arms over my chest, instead nodding my head over and over again like the antique bobble-head doll on the desk in the shift manager’s office at the factory.
“Alright!” I squeaked. “Um. Alright. How very, er, generous of Magnus. To allow me the chance to work off my debt! Let me just… Uh… Get my things…”
I moved as if to walk into my bedroom, my mouth going dry when I thought of the fire escape’s bars so tantalizingly close. But the goon didn’t budge.
“No things,” he said. “We go now.”
Well, that sure as hell was not happening. I hardened myself with the resolve that no matter what happened, I was not leaving this apartment with this man.
Not alive, anyway.
Maybe he saw something change in my expression, because his eyes suddenly narrowed and he lunged for me.
Growing up in the manufacturing district of New Toronto on Terratribe I was by no means a cushy experience, and I could scrap with the best of them. But this meathead had at least a hundred pounds on me, not to mention the effects of the muscle-swelling, fury-inducing T-dust. I had to be smart and I had to be quick.
I managed to dodge his hold – barely – before I wound my foot up for a colossal kick right between his legs. But, shit , it wasn’t anywhere near as effective as it should have been. Whether the T-dust had shrivelled his balls so damn much that I hadn’t made good contact, or the drug’s signature rage had left him impervious to pain, the guy didn’t fall to his knees howling the way I’d hoped. But he did lose his balance a little. And when he got tangled in the sideways chair legs on the floor, he did go down on one knee at least.
But I still wouldn’t be able to run past him to get either to the front door or the bedroom. And he was already trying to get up, taking a few seconds to swear at the chair and smash his fist down upon its hapless form.
Fan-fucking-tastic. Not only had I managed to not incapacitate the son of a bitch, I’d pissed him right the hell off. Six-months-ago Cherry looked like a goddamn genius compared to current Cherry.
Keeping the man in my sights from across the tiny kitchen, my hands moved blindly over the counter behind me, desperately searching for a knife. In my panic, I couldn’t remember if I’d gotten a knife out yet to slice up my protein block or not. The fact I couldn’t feel a handle or the naked bite of a blade against my scrabbling fingers was not a good sign.
But I did find something else. The now-warm handle of my cast iron pan.
I didn’t stop. Didn’t think. I made a fist around the gritty metal and swung it forward as hard as I fucking could.
It connected beautifully, smashing the guy directly in his piggish, angry face just as he was trying to rise from the floor. Stunned, he sailed over to one side. Before one meaty hand flew up to his face, I had time to see the fresh, furious pink of a burn across his cheek and forehead as well as the crimson froth of blood pouring from his nose.
And then I was running. Right out the apartment’s door and into the hall. I nearly took out Mrs. Calloway, and as she dove out of my way I nonsensically called out, “Thank you!” instead of saying sorry the way I normally would have if I hadn’t been absolutely on fire with terror. Somewhere behind me, just as I slid into the lift and slammed my hand against the close doors button, came the blood-drowned, nasal bellow of a man with a now-crushed nose.
“Repayment plan is off the table, you fucking cunt! You’re going straight to the bottom of Lake New Nipissing!”
The lift doors creaked shut, locking me in with myself under the harsh white light. I stared at my reflection in the grimy metal doors. My blue eyes looked absolutely massive with panic, my long brown hair coming loose from its braid. My face was very white, but not quite as white as the knuckles of the hands that still squeezed tightly to my cast iron pan.
The lift plunged downwards. As it did so, I made plans. Frantic, messy, half-formed ones. I had to get off-planet, that was for sure.
But go where? And with what fucking money?
The pale woman with the bloody pan looking back at me didn’t have an answer.
I tore my gaze from her, swallowing against nausea, my eyes roving over the advertisements bleating their tired slogans out from the lift’s screen panel to my left. I’d seen them all before, the familiar colours and words bleeding into each other.
Until suddenly, a new advertisement flashed.
The colours were so different from the preceding greys and whites that I found myself blinking against the change. The screen was lit up as if with sunlight, the kind of sunlight that never shone that brightly in New Toronto. And the scene it showed definitely wasn’t one from Terratribe I. No, it was a landscape of rose-gold cliffs and warmth. Tufts of yellow grasses waved prettily in the foreground and an idyllic little house sat in the distance, so charming and rustic that at first I thought it might be an image of Terratribe II, the pastoral, agricultural colony planet.
But text flashed, golden and looping, dispelling that idea instantly.
Zabrian males want brides! read the advert. Find your new home and husband on the ranching outpost planet of Zabria Prinar One!
And then, the magic fucking words.
All bridal travel and expenses covered in full by the Imperial Justice Committee of Zabria.
I could get off-world and someone else would pay for it .
And all I had to do was apparently marry a Zabrian, whatever the hell that was.
Adjusting my grip on my pan, I took my comms tablet from my pocket and scanned the code on the screen before it blipped out of existence. The data downloaded, and I stared in shaky wonder as a paid-for ticket to Elora Station suddenly appeared in my data folders.
Elora Station. That was a fantastic fucking start. The human-run commerce station was a good distance from Terratribe I. I had no doubt that Magnus had contacts on the station, but hopefully I wouldn’t be there long before I shipped off to this Zabrian outpost place.
I tucked my comms tablet back into my pocket. This was the only lift in the building, and even if that big guy took the stairs five at a time I knew I’d beat him to the bottom. But I still had to move quickly. I’d go straight to the New Toronto shuttle bay with my ticket and get off-world tonight.
I caught another glimpse of myself in the doors’ reflection and grimaced. I didn’t have a bag. Or money. Or even a change of clothes to get rid of my oil-streaked factory uniform.
But I had Mama’s pan.
A ticket.
A chance.
And if I had to marry some unknown alien to make good on that chance, well…
The grey, choppy surface of Lake New Nipissing flashed, cold and unwelcome, in my brain.
Well, it certainly beat the alternative.