Free Overload Flux by Carol van Natta

be able to kick the addiction if she really wanted to.” He took a ragged breath. “When I was nine or ten, I started going with her to the clinic when he wouldn’t. Toward the end, I had to jump school to take her while he was at work or he’d stop us.” The fingers of his left hand curled. “He got violent when he couldn’t control things.”
    Mairwen had the feeling he didn’t talk about this often, and she had no words for him. When the CPS had gotten their hooks into her, she’d lost everything at once, not by centimeters and days and bruises at a time.
    At the next crosswalk, she gave into impulse and stepped closer to him than usual and briefly brushed his hand with her fingers. She hoped he would understand it as a gesture of comfort. To her astonishment, though he didn’t look at her, he threaded his fingers through hers and gave her hand a gentle squeeze before letting go. She was equally astonished with herself. She didn’t like physical contact with anyone, but with him, not only had she initiated it, she realized she liked the feel of his skin on hers. Danger, hissed her cautious brain.
    As she walked beside him in silence, she experienced a curious sense of emptiness in her chest, almost painful. It wasn’t external, because she’d already opened her senses to take in Foxe and their surroundings, and she’d have felt it sooner. She resolutely set it aside as something to think about later. He was too vulnerable to see to his own safety at the moment. Even if she didn’t know how to ease his pain, or didn’t know if it was even possible, she could at least keep her senses open and extended for him.
    That was why she knew there was a disturbance between them and their destination. Traffic was slowing. She heard people’s feet slowing and the excited murmuring of voices, and smelled fuel, burned lubricant, and hot metal.
    Rounding the corner proved her senses right. A chaotic accident involving a public transport and a traffic column was blocking the far lane on the next block. Emergency responders began arriving on foot, pushing through the offloading passengers and milling spectators. At least the injured were fortunate to be in a medical district. If she and Foxe could get to the parking structure quickly, they had a chance to get out before the street became impassible. Unfortunately, they’d have to push through the crowds to do it.
    She looked at Foxe and was grateful to see that he’d regained most of his customary alertness. He apparently saw the same options she did. “Let’s take our chances with the horde.” Even as he spoke, a damaged lamppost toppled to the ground, adding to the chaos.
    She nodded and fell into step beside but one step behind him, evaluating possible threats as they entered into her sphere of influence. Providing close-in personal security was an unaccustomed use of her skills.
    They were about halfway to their goal, just coming up on a garish chems and alterants shop, when their already bad luck took a nosedive. Something was happening in the shop, something noisy and violent, something they needed to avoid. She grabbed Foxe’s coat sleeve to pull him to the side and around, but they were hemmed in by people and walls and the fallen lamppost. The sound of crashing glass told her they were out of time, so she turned to face the trouble and dropped into full-tracker mode.
    Time slowed...
    A halo of iridescent glass shards showered out from the shop window. A monstrously huge woman, the tallest and most muscular Mairwen had ever seen, burst through it in an explosion of forward motion.
    Her clothes and skin art proclaimed her a hardcore merc, and her grotesquely overbuilt musculature screamed blackmarket ramper. Her face was a kabuki mask mix of berserk rage and gleeful insanity, the result of one too many bad drugs and backstreet bodyshop mods.
    A few hundred milliseconds dragged by before two burly men from the shop came through the opening in pursuit. The