Scarlet

“Do you have any more tomatoes?”



She paused.



The fighter shrank back further into the shadows, looking sheepish. “I’m still a little hungry,” he muttered.



Scarlet imagined she could smell the tomato flesh on the wall behind her.



“I can pay,” he quickly added.



She shook her head. “No, that’s all right. We have plenty.” She shuffled backward, keeping her eyes on him, and reopened the hatch. She grabbed a tomato and a bundle of crooked carrots. “Here, these are good raw too,” she said, tossing them to him.



He caught them with ease, the tomato disappearing in his large fist and his other hand gripping the carrots by their lacy, leafy stems. He surveyed them from every angle. “What are they?”



A surprised laugh tumbled out of her. “They’re carrots. Are you serious?”



Again, he seemed embarrassingly aware of having said something unusual. His shoulders hunched in a vain attempt to make himself seem smaller. “Thank you.”



“Your mom never made you eat your vegetables, did she?”



Their gazes clashed and the awkwardness was immediate. Something shattered inside the tavern, making Scarlet jump. It was followed by the roar of laughter.



“Never mind. They’re good, you’ll like them.” She shut the hatch and rounded to the door again, whisking her ID across the ship’s scanner. The door opened, forming a wall between them, and the floodlights blinked on. They accentuated the bruise around the fighter’s eye, making it seem darker than before. He flinched back like a criminal in a spotlight.



“I was wondering if you could use a farmhand?” he said, the words slurred in his rush to get them out.



Scarlet paused, suddenly understanding why he’d waited for her, why he’d stalled so long. She scanned his broad shoulders, bulky arms. He was built for manual labor. “You’re looking for work?”



He started to smile, a look that was dangerously mischievous. “The money’s good at the fights, but it doesn’t make for much of a career. I thought maybe you could pay me in food.”



She laughed. “After seeing the evidence of your appetite in there, I think I’d lose my shirt with a deal like that.” She flushed the second she’d said it—no doubt he was now imagining her with her shirt off. Yet, to her shock, his face remained serenely neutral, and she hurried to fill the space before his reactions caught up. “What’s your name, anyway?”



That awkward shrug again. “They call me Wolf at the fights.”



“Wolf?” How … predatory.”



He nodded, entirely serious.



Scarlet swallowed a grin. “You might want to leave the street fighter bit off your resume.”



He scratched at his elbow, where the strange tattoo could barely be seen in the dark, and she thought maybe she’d embarrassed him. Perhaps Wolf was a beloved nickname.



“Well, they call me Scarlet. Yes, like the hair, what a clever observation.”



His expression softened. “What hair?”



Scarlet settled her arm on top of the door, resting her chin. “Good one.”



For a moment he seemed almost pleased with himself and Scarlet found herself warming to this stranger, this anomaly. This soft-spoken street fighter.



A warning tingled in the back of her head—she was wasting time. Her grandmother was out there. Alone. Frightened. Dead in a ditch.



Scarlet tightened her grip on the door frame. “I’m really sorry, but we have a full staff already. I don’t need any more farmhands.”



The glint faded from his eyes and in an instant he was looking uncomfortable again. Flustered. “I understand. Thank you for the food.” He kicked at the stem of a dead firework on the pavement—a remnant from last night’s peace celebrations.



“You should head to Toulouse, or even Paris. There are more jobs in the cities, and people around here don’t take too kindly to strangers, as you may have noticed.”



He tilted his head so that his emerald eyes glowed even brighter in the wash of the ship’s floodlights, looking almost amused. “Thanks for the tip.”



Turning, Scarlet sank into the pilot’s seat.



Wolf shifted toward the wall as she started the engine. “If you change your mind about needing a hand, I can be found at the abandoned Morel house most nights. I may not be great with people, but I think I’d do well on a farm.” Amusement touched the corners of his lips. “Animals love me.”



“Oh, I’m sure they do,” Scarlet said, beaming with fake encouragement. She shut the door before muttering, “What farm animals don’t love a wolf?”



Four



The captivity of Carswell Thorne had gotten off to a rocky start, what with the catastrophic soap rebellion and all. But since being transferred to solitary, he’d become the personification of a well-mannered gentleman, and after six months of such commendable behavior, he’d persuaded the only female guard on rotation to lend him a portscreen.



He was quite sure this would not have succeeded if the guard wasn’t convinced he was an idiot, incapable of doing anything other than counting the days and searching for naughty pictures of ladies he’d known and imagined.



And she was right, of course. Thorne was mystified by technology and couldn’t have done anything useful with the tablet even if he had had a step-by-step instruction manual on “How to Escape from Jail Using a Portscreen.” He’d been unsuccessful in accessing his comms, connecting to newsfeeds, or scouting out any information on New Beijing Prison and the surrounding city.



But he sure did appreciate the suggestively naughty, if heavily filtered, pictures.



He was scrolling through his portfolio on the 228th day of his captivity, wondering if Señora Santiago was still married to that onion-smelling man, when an awful screeching disrupted the cell’s peacefulness.



He peered upward, squinting at the smooth, glossy white ceiling.



The sound ceased and was followed by shuffling. A couple thuds. More grinding.



Thorne folded his legs atop his cot and waited while the noise grew louder and closer, hiccupped and continued. It took him some time to place this new strange noise, but after much listening and pondering he was convinced it was the sound of a motorized drill.



Maybe one of the other prisoners was remodeling.



The sound stopped, though the memory of it lingered, vibrating off the walls. Thorne glanced around. His cell was a perfect cube with smooth, shiny white wall panels on all six sides. It contained his all-white cot, a urinal that slid in and out of the wall with the press of a button, and him in his white uniform.



If someone was remodeling, he hoped his cell would be next.



The sound started again, more grating this time, and then a long screw punctured through the ceiling and clattered to the center of the cell’s floor. Three more dropped after it.



Thorne craned his head as one of the screws rolled beneath his cot.



A moment later, a square tile fell from the ceiling with a bang, followed by two dangling legs and a startled cry. The legs wore a white cotton jumpsuit that matched Thorne’s, but unlike his own plain white shoes, the feet attached to those legs were bare.



One wore skin.



The other a plating of reflective metal.



With a grunt, the girl released her hold on the ceiling and fell into a crouch in the middle of the cell.



Resting his elbows on his knees, Thorne tilted forward, trying to get a better look at her without moving from his safe position against the wall. She had a slight build and tanned skin and straight brown hair. Like her left foot, her left hand was made of metal.



Stabilizing herself, the girl stood and brushed off her jumpsuit.



“I’m sorry,” Thorne said.



She spun toward him, eyes wild.



“It seems that you’ve stumbled into the wrong jail cell. Do you need directions to get back to yours?”



She blinked.



Thorne smiled.



The girl frowned.



Her irritation made her prettier, and Thorne cupped his chin, studying her. He’d never met a cyborg before, much less flirted with one, but there was a first time for everything.



“These cells aren’t supposed to be occupied,” she said.



“Special circumstances.”



She surveyed him for a long moment, her brows knitting together. “Murder?”



His grin grew. “Thank you, but no. I started a riot on the yard.” He adjusted his collar, before adding, “We were protesting the soap.”



Her confusion grew, and Thorne noticed that she was still in her defensive stance.



“The soap,” he said again, wondering if she’d heard him. “It’s too drying.”



She said nothing.



“I have sensitive skin.”



Her mouth opened and he expected sympathy, but all that came out was a disinterested “Huh.”



Drawing herself up, she kicked the fallen ceiling tile out from beneath her feet, then proceeded to turn in a full circle, surveying the cell. Her lip curled in annoyance. “Stupid,” she muttered, nearing the wall to Thorne’s left and placing a palm against it. “One room off.”



Her eyelashes suddenly fluttered as if dust were stuck in them. Growling, she smacked her palm against her temple a few times.



“You’re escaping.”



“Not at this very moment,” she said through her teeth, roughly shaking her head. “But, yes, that is the general idea.” Her face lit up when she spotted the port in his lap. “What model portscreen is that?”



“I haven’t the faintest idea.” He held it up for her. “I’m putting together a portfolio of the women I’ve loved.”



Pushing herself from the wall, she snatched the portscreen away and flipped it over. A tip of her cyborg finger opened, revealing a small screwdriver. It wasn’t long before she’d undone the plate on the underside of the port.



“What are you doing?”



“Taking your vid-cable.”



“What for?”



“Mine’s on the fritz.”



She pulled a yellow wire from the screen and dropped it back into Thorne’s lap, then sank cross-legged to the floor. Thorne watched, mystified, as she tossed her hair to one side and unlatched a panel at the base of her skull. A moment later her fingers emerged with a wire similar to the one she’d just stolen from him, but with one blackened end. The girl’s face contorted in concentration while she installed the new cable.



With a pleased sigh, she shut the panel and tossed the old cable next to Thorne. “Thanks.”



He grimaced, shrinking away from the wire. “You have a portscreen in your head?”



“Something like that.” The girl stood and ran a hand over the wall again. “Ah, that’s much better. Now how do I…” Trailing off, she pushed the button in the corner. A glossy white panel slid up into the wall, ejecting the urinal with smooth precision. Her fingers fished into the gap left between the fixture and the wall, searching.

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