Free Code Noir by Marianne de Pierres

tight breaths.
    We crossed a parcel of space where the concentric arcs of a villa set converged. A lifeless, solitary tree poked a craggy finger through plas-sheet roofing.
    I knew the place. I’d wasted bodies here. Animals who thought raping a child with no arms was sport.
    I realised my mistake in coming this way. Too late - my knees buckled and the neons dotted black and grey before my eyes.
     
    . . . I smelled bloody ichor. Felt the escaped heat of the dying bodies rising like steam around me. My limbs ached with growing pains.
    Why would I need to grow? Why would I?
     
    Roo doused me with a hatful of water.
    I spluttered and coughed. ‘Where did you get that?’
    He gestured to a puddle under a corroded downpipe.
    ‘C-contaminated,’ I chattered. Shock? Fear? Cold?
    ‘Didn’t know what else to do. You was . . .’ He trailed off, gesturing to my mouth.
    I touched my chin. It was slick with water and saliva. Nice one, Parrish. Frothing at the mouth in front of the children .
    ‘That happens again, you just watch my back. It’ll pass.’
    He nodded, clearly spooked.
    I stood up. ‘You tell anyone, Roo, I’ll cut your processor out. Understood?’
    He nodded again.
    At least he’d lost that bored expression. But what had replaced it?
    I talked to him a bit more after that, trying to gauge the effects of my mind flip. He might be a walking armoury but his heart and head belonged to a child.
    ‘How do you know Larry?’ I asked, slowing until he had to walk alongside me.
    ‘Larry’s always looked after us kids. Gives us work. He reckoned Doc Del Morte must have been pasted. Reckons if he ran into him he’d shoot him.’
    That wasn’t likely to happen. Del Morte had been chased out of The Tert long before my arrival. ‘What do you reckon?’
    ‘I think I’m kinda cool.’ Even in the darkness I could sense his pride in his mek. ‘Larry’s dim. He don’t know what it’s like to be me.’
    ‘What do you remember about it?’
    ‘Not much. The Doc bought us here ’fore we could talk.’
    ‘So you might have family out there somewhere?’
    He shook his head firmly. ‘Nope. My family’s here.’ He banged one artificial arm against the other. ‘Get real, boss. Nobody out there would want me now. Here at least I got respect.’
    I stifled a sigh. I knew what he meant. There was no going back for someone like Roo.
    Or me.
    I wondered how long he had left to live, before the interface between his mek and bio parts rotted his tissue function. From what I’d heard it was a pretty individual thing. No one seemed to know how to stop the chemical bleed, and no one cared to find out. Del Morte had invented a new type of cancer and he wasn’t around to take the rap for it. Roo wouldn’t live to be an adult. I was glad he was proud of himself. It was all he had.
     
    We found Pas at home some time after midnight. Clad in voluminous, dirty silk pants and a red sash, he sat on the steps outside his villa set holding night court over a ragged line of Muenos who clutched icons and grievances to their breasts.
    Our footsteps brought knives out in all directions. But Pas seemed unphased.
    ‘Oya!’ He gestured exuberantly as if expecting me.
    Perhaps he was. Muenos watched their boundaries closer than anyone else in The Tert.
    A murmur of appreciation went through the crowd. I was famous here for a few things. None of them particularly glamorous. I’d killed a canrat called The Big One. Blown its testes off. I’d also had the sacred feathers land on me while I was trying to get the shite away from a voodoo love-in.
    Somehow both those things converted into an amalgam of their legends. To the Muenos I’d become the human incarnation of Oya, warrior spirit, goddess of this and that, guardian of the gates of death.
    The upshot of it was a lot of bowing and scraping on the part of the Muenos and some pretty damn tedious ceremonies.
    I’d thought about chucking in my role as the preferred deity, but Pas had been