Hurley snickered, at which point Paloma’s continued silence caught Imbra’s notice. The tall kid, fifteen at best, had more anger wound up in his wiry frame than the Darwood twins combined. For the Darwoods, Imbra knew this was all domination sport, but in Paloma, Imbra sensed something deeper and more dangerous. He tried to remember the kid’s lineage, but the local labor pool had always been built on comers and goers—most itching for just enough work to take them to the elevator, and from the elevator, to the stars. But most never made it, and then things got desperate. People cut corners and other people all the time—too much to recall every bad deal, every civvie who lost a friend or family to one bad bridge project or another. The hardness of life in the valley blurred memories at their edges. The crystal Imbra had been hooked on since childhood didn’t help much, either.
“A little, actually.” Imbra spoke lightly, a smile fixed on Tripp. “Remember, fear’s all about adrenaline. No adrenaline, no fight-or flight. So when they stopped the signal that starts the whole business, they did me a bit of a service. Sure, go on, give me the beating of my life. Can’t really stop you, but those mind games won’t work, either, so you might as well get started. Maybe in the ribs, though? I still sorta like this face.”
Tripp smiled back, but he wasn’t pleased. “You were shit before you went into the courts, Dash, and the stink on you’s even worse now. Don’t go putting on airs.”
Imbra shrugged and was about to reply, when a swift boot heel to his stomach drove all the breath and a fair bit of spittle out his mouth. Imbra doubled around the impact site and turned to catch a glimpse of Paloma, already advancing for another stomping, this time to the chest. The kid was pure rage as he moved, the wildness of his kicks and punches a sure sign that he hadn’t done much proper fighting, but before Hurley and Tripp could pull Paloma off, Imbra had at least pieced together some of the kid’s complaint from the rare word flung between blows. Mother—Murdered—Lowlife—
Oh right, thought Imbra, vaguely between strikes. Her.
With no heightened blood pressure, no rush of heat in his muscles with the release of fat-cells for future energy, no surge in lung capacity, no loss of hearing or vision to focus his efforts on the immediacy of response, Imbra experienced the beating acutely, his body surprised by each vividly felt blow. At one particularly hard hit, which flung him from the creeper, the back of his head bouncing off the gravel, Imbra wondered if his body would even figure out when it was dying, and if maybe that was what was happening now. But then he heard the Darwood twins—“Easy, settle down, Pal, that’s enough”—and the sudden stillness of air and light and shadow all around him gave Imbra pause for breath.
He coughed and spat out a tooth while above him the three men conferred.
“Hey—he dies, and anyone finds out, you’ll get the same treatment, understand?”
“But he deserves it.”
“Sure, Pal. Sure he does.” Tripp clapped a hand hard on Paloma’s shoulder. “But you kill him and that’s it, see? Keep him around, though, knowing his place, and we’ve got it made. Dash here’ll always be on hand to fix our rides, or pull our freight, or give us that sweet little hovercraft whenever we want it. Besides, putting him in the ground won’t bring her back, so what’s the point—the waste and the risk of it, you know?”
Paloma’s hands curled into fists as he stared down at Imbra. “Some worlds, they put garbage like you into holes in the ground, and they leave you there for years.”
Tripp sighed. “Yeah, yeah. And the state pays for it all, and no one gets anything out of it, and everyone’s still pissed when the assholes get out with time served. Trust me, Pal, this is better. Social justice with a little on the side for us keepers of the peace—you, Hurl, and me. Right, Dash? You gonna contribute now, for once in your sorry excuse of a life?”
Imbra sat up slowly, arm braced at his ribs; another mouthful of blood hucked to the ground. “Could’ve just asked, you needed something realigned. That head of yours, maybe.”
“Nah. Tripp’s a believer in even trades.” Hurley bared a grin with wide gaps, teeth lost from too much time in the pits. “Body work for body work.”
“Speaking of which—” Tripp tipped his head to the garage. “We’re taking Bullet for a spin. Loaner ’til our main rides get spiffed up. You don’t mind, do you, Dash?”
Imbra nodded to a shelf through the open door. “Keypass, top drawer. Knock yourselves out. Preferably into a lava flow.”
Tripp whistled. “That’s not very nice, Dash.” Hurley approached Imbra as if to further the point. Imbra eyed Hurley’s boots, then the rest of him.
“No, I guess not,” said Imbra, meeting Hurley square in the eye. “Not fair to Bullet, going down with the likes of you.”
Hurley was smarter than Paloma about his blows, and the ones to Imbra’s hip ricocheted through Imbra’s bone, sure to leave a deeper ache and more persistent bruising. But Tripp had the hovercraft out soon enough, its silver coat glinting in the midday light, and Hurley was quick to join him up front. Only Paloma lingered by the ballast tractor, where Imbra had propped up himself against one of its wheels.
“You should be begging for your life,” said the kid. “Like she did.”
“No—she didn’t.” Imbra took a ragged breath, the ache in his chest starting to constrict in ways even the declaw couldn’t prevent. “I was higher than you’ll ever know, but that much is true. I just—I panicked, kid. I already had the goods but I hit her anyway—hard—and I ran. Still, she
