Fix and Find 1.1

Fix ran along the dark alley between the bright spires, his footsteps as silent as he could make them. Down here, the shining walls were caked with grime; a perfect metaphor for his experience with the Courts. This was another of their twists, he knew, he’d grown up in their clutches and had seen it happen before to others, but he was loyal. He’d never thought it would happen to him. He’d done nothing to deserve it.

Now, betrayed, he was the one running.

He should have turned himself in. That’s what his training said he should do. But something in him rebelled, something even he hadn’t known was there. He knew exactly how dangerous he was, and he knew they’d never let him live if he did, so he bolted.

This was Cloud Court territory, where the spires rose as high as their namesakes, and the royals were born in shining chambers carved of the clear, prismatic crystal this court alone knew how to make, and never set foot on the ground. Their people lived under them, miles of levels, each one dimmer and poorer. He was most recently contracted by the Garden Court, who’s castles sprawled over more land than any three of the other courts combined, but only climbed because the land under them did. It smelled like roses there year round, and the halls were full of sunlight and lush green things--a stark contrast from the mid-day shadows here, where all the light was taken up long before it reached the ground.

He ducked into a doorway, down a hall, into the lift.

He’d been sent to kill a girl who lived in this tower, and he knew generally where she was. That information had been part of his mission brief, and scrolled across his vision as he traced the route to her. He didn’t know what she’d done to get the Garden Court’s ire, but he had never broken a contract, and even betrayed, he would complete it.

They’d find him and kill him, and he wouldn’t go out on a failure.

The last thing he would do would be his job. It’s all he had. That, more than his impending death, is what bothered him: he had things to do, and none of them would get done now, none of his lost things would be found.

The lift went up for a long, long time. The spacious upper level lifts didn’t go below the royals’ levels; this was a small, cramped, slow, commoner’s lift, and it moved as if it were being cranked by people rather than the silent ancient machines that had built these towers. He still had the mud from the ground on his shoes; people of the Cloud Court almost never walked outside and it would mark him as a literal outsider. The opposite of a Clouder. Even the bottom-level people here would know on sight.

He’d have to move fast.

Once the lift halted, he pushed the doors open when they didn’t open themselves, and darted down the corridor. This was Air Tier, above the ground but still in shadow, and the whole hall was lit with a diffuse glow that probably had little to do with sunlight and a lot to do with how the walls conveyed the cold light of phosporescent false skylights on every third floor. This wasn’t one of those thirds, and the light was pale and chilly, bright enough to see by, but not bight enough to make details clear.

The only detail he needed, though, was the door number, and those were large and elaborately drawn on each door, a remnant of older times when the whole tower was richer.

He kicked open the door and slammed it behind him, dropping the bar down to hold it closed.

The girl he was looking for turned toward him far more calmly than most did when he busted down their doors with a massive gun and a kill order, and she hardly blinked as he advanced on her until the barrel was only inches from her head.

He hadn’t known she was a Garden Courter herself. The pink-red feathers and birds tattooed all across her chest and back, all down her skinny arms, made that abundantly clear, and she hadn’t done anything to hide them. Nor had she hidden the bruises on her pale skin or the general lack of cleanliness in the room around her. She didn’t look like a resident so much as a prisoner.

It gave him pause, and he didn’t pull the trigger.

Her hair was pink, too, shaved on the sides and flopping over one eye; the visible one was an unnaturally bright blue. Garden Court mods; probably bionic, likely linked into the Wave. He had the same model. His feed told him she was special, but the details were vague, intentionally locked or redacted. Another pause.

Maybe she was important enough to buy his freedom.

Maybe she was like him.

"I knew you’d come some day," she said. "What’s your name?"

He didn’t usually tell people his name. It surprised him when he said "Fix."

"Here to fix me? Who have I pissed off this time?"

She was too young to be so bitter. He didn’t say anything, because he was, too. That’s what the Courts did to their "charges".

"Garden Court."

"Hm. Haven’t heard from them in a long time." She turned away, waved her hands over a control on the computer half behind her, and he moved the gun an inch closer to her head--but still didn’t shoot.

"What did you do?"

"All sorts of things." She snapped her head back to the door, and he saw her eye-light flicker with a flood of new information. "They’re here."

Fix looped around behind the girl and got his free arm around her neck before the door was busted open a second time, the bar splintering into pieces like it was made of something other than the heavy wood it had seemed to be when he dropped it, and dug his gun into the girl’s ribs as two men shoved through the narrow door. She didn’t fight. If anything, she waited.

The first man, he knew. Once, a few hours ago, he’d been his partner. "Collins."

"Fix. Leave the girl. My contract negates yours."

"The one that wanted you to kill me? How’s the leg?" Collins stifled a grimace and made a show of walking normally; he knew even with the healers’ work, he’d done more damage than the few hours since they’d seen each other could repair. It was a bluff. He shot him again, and the man went down for good.

The other man, huge and imposing, stepped over Collins and came at them faster than someone his size should have been able to. Fix fired three shots into his chest, and it barely fazed him, and before he could crank the gun’s strength up, his massive hand was around Fix’s shoulder and kneck and he tore him off the girl and tossed him into the unbreakable crystal wall.

Fix had been made sturdy enough not to black out, but the impact still made his ears ring and bright white spots to slash into his vision, like a strobe light. He staggered upright. He saw the henchman grab the girl. Saw a flash of red-pink light. Something zipped through the room like a small tornado, the man screamed, and then he finally got his head cleared and found the girl standing in the middle of a spray of blood that had once been the massive attacker--with not a drop on her.

"What happened?"

"He shouldn’t have touched me."

"Why didn’t that happen to me?"

She looked away from the gore and smiled, a real, sweet smile at odds with the mess all around her. "You weren’t going to hurt me."

"You don’t know that. I was sent here to kill you."

"I don’t need to. They do." She lifted her arms and turned them elegantly, the way dancers do, to show the birds and feathers had all shifted into new patterns, the edges of the lines bright and sharp as if they’d only just been etched into her skin.

"What are you?"

"I find things. Like you, for instance. You’re going to help me get out of here."

He wanted to be angry--none of this had been in his brief--but all he saw was an opportunity. She was wanted alive now; that meant someone needed her, and that meant he could use that as leverage. Plus, he needed something found. He wasn’t going to die today.

"If I get you out, you’ll have to pay me."

"I don’t have money. I’m a slave. Unfortunately." The way she said it hinted at there being more to that story than he’d initially thought; he filed that away, too.

"I don’t need money. I need information, and I need a certain lost item."

Her smile grew wider, and the daring in it made him like her more. "That, I can do."

Fix grabbed her hand before he thought better of it, and was belatedly glad to see that her tattoos stayed where they were. They ran further down the hall, away from the lift that had brought him here, the same one that had alterted his persuers where he was, and into the maintenance halls that most residents barely knew about. She was barefoot and the ground was littered with debris, but nothing cut her feet. She ran as quickly as he did.

His readout gave him a general idea where to go, which turns to make, but hers was far more detailed. She corrected his turns, pushed him against the wall when guards or sensors would have seen them, got them out without a single hitch.

How had she ever been captured?

But now, they had to find somewhere to lay low; he filed the question away for later, and led them into the subway below the city, then into the lower, illegal transport tunnels below that, and further down still before coming to a room with a six inch door and stolen power that he knew for sure was off the records and should keep them safe for long enough to come up with a plan.

Now that he had a new purpose and had decided he wasn’t ready to die just yet.