Krisha
Note: Thanks to dear DD for remarks and brushings-up of this. With any luck, Crysi's will be next. She's the one I owe Tov's continued existence to. ^_~ (He is annoying.)
--
His jacket worn ragged, soleless boots silent on the pavement, the wiry figure slipped across Aleksander into the overhang of the Vranats Hotel. It was irony these days. Someone had let the sign hang since an end no one could remember--or would recall. In fading Cyrillic letters, ostentatious, it read XOTEIL BPAHAU`, metal rusting and its corners dinted in. Its name implied a crooked, past-sinister decrepitude now. Hackers, once-moneyed drifters with once aristocratic names (they said), and the res skinners owned its stripped suites.
It was a place you could meet the detritus of both sides--Vostok and Zapad. No man’s land.
As long as you didn’t worry much over switchblades and slit throats.
With a glance over his shoulder,the slight young man pushed past the dim-reflecting glass doors. He didn’t worry - by his look. Irony, sharp as his clothing was ragged, hovered in the flick of his gaze and pallid features.
He took the stairwell, ignoring the half-gaped lift door and shattered glass beyond it. Glass cracked under his feet all the same, sprinkled over red carpet worn rust-blood brown and on the landings of rotting wood . Three flights up, he stopped.
The window over the landing was hairline shattered and half-boarded up, off-kilter with its right still hung in black drapes and its left side bald. In the blurred light, the floor lay scattered in debris. If a corpse could be considered such. The stiff figure curled tight into the corner had its head twisted back, and white shirt stained all down the front a colour not too different from the carpet.
“Ouch,” said the young man.
But he didn’t hesitate longer. He took the next three flights, two steps at a time, tugging every few seconds at his gloves. The gloves, fingers too short, didn't fit.
Finally, he swung off the stairwell, knocking through a one-hinged door into a door-lined corridor. Dim, what numbers remained on their doors were hardly legible: some hung by a tack while others left only a shadow. The carpet, cigarette burnt, was teal where it still had colour.
“Hey.” In the shade of one cracked doorway, a fissure-faced man leaned, all lines and scarcely any age in his cragged features, blue eyes bleared. “Hey,” he repeated, giving the young man a bleared once-over glance, “Looking for somethin’ good?”
The young man’s expression turned pointedly sardonic. “Hey,” he echoed, “Maybe, right?… wouldn’t have anything to do with you though.”
With a grimace, menace dulled by disoriented gaze, the man vanished back into the room. And at the same time, the last numbered door swung open at the end. A scatter-eyed man peered, uneasily out of it, dishevelled brown hair and dishevelled gaze matched perfectly to his rumpled shirt and hands, tight over door-frame, twitching. He was younger than the bleared fellow, smooth face stubble-rough and wariness still light.
“That was stupid,” he said, “Stupid, Hell, Tov. Jus’ come in, all right?”
“Stupid?” said the young man, “Hey--he was-” he paused, “Your door’s lost its number.”
“Just come in.”
The room was long, narrowed by lack of light and clutter. A slit-cushioned sofa lay beneath the covered window; mismatched table and chairs crouched in the far corner, lit only by wafer-thin comp. screen. The man snapped the door shut, dead-bolted and tapped four digits swiftly into a keypad.
“Beautfiul place,” said Tov, deadpan, “Safe though, right?”
The man sunk into the chair near the computer. “I hope so…’has been anyhow. Gavno,” he turned sharply to the screen. Fyodor, scrolled across, in the Latin and then in Cyrillic.
“Ought to say Fedya.”
“Computers don’t work on nicknames,” said the man vaguely, “You know? Hell, what did you want?”
“Teller wants.”
“Aidan Teller?” His hands faltered, still over keypad. “Zapad?”
“Sure, say it out loud, Fedya.” Tov slid down into the chair nearest, propped booted feet on the table. Fedya’s gaze never shifted.
“I can’t do it. I can’t do it, all right?”
“Good hacker can do anything,” Tov was expressionless.
Silence held then, for a computer-humming moment; and Tov stared at the ceiling.
“…Barons again…” muttered Fedya at last, “Drev’s looking, y’know. Recruits.”
“Ha.”
“’S not funny.”
“Hey--life’s amusing. Maybe.”
“You’re not…” Fedya cursed. “Half the suspension bridge on Vosotok, down in the games again. Y’see?”
“Heard.”
“Frick and Drev’ll take the city, or one of them…”
“Teller?” interjected Tov.
Gaze distanced, Fedya focused on the scrolling numbers; and stopped them with a sharp tap, two keys.
When he spoke, it was against a waver in his own voice and beneath the comp. set's gentle hum.
“And what do you do when you’re trapped, and you don’t know which way from up,” he said, “what do you do if you can’t get out?”
Tov looked blank. “Er, hey… You can always run, right?”
Silence.
“Into a wall?” Fedya asked, “Hell--into a gun muzzel?”
“Lies are easy to dodge,”
“Yeah, I… But walls aren’t.. What do I do?”
“Don’t,” said Tov.
“I can’t,” Fedya leaned over the keypad, biting his lip, “I can’t help if I do!”
“Ha. Well, you can die then.”
“No! God, no…look,” his fingers hit arbitrary keys, quivering, “No, listen. I can’t die. I can’t stand it, trapped trapped in a corner and I’ll be bleeding. Bloody all down--bullet holes in my head.”
“Shut up.”
“What do I do?” Fedya was pleading now, consciousness lost on computer, on the room; he tried to find a steady gaze. Tov pointedly looked away. “What do I do? You never get caught, y‘know, never. You’re always --always ahead. How?”
“I run faster. Hell--serious?…” Tov grinned. “Hey, maybe it’s just luck, right? Maybe I’ve got, ah, some bloody lucky star.”
“No. No,” Fedya shook his head, “There’s something else, da? Puzhalsta, droog, znayu shto…shto-ta sluchilas--”
“In English,” snapped Tov
Fedya drew aimless lines all over keys without depressing them.
“How?”
Tov laughed, sharp. “Ever wonder, hey, if maybe I don’t know? ever wonder, if…what if it just happens?
Fedya watched the computer screen, worried features drawn in pallid light. “I. Hell. Things don’t just happen, you know? Don’t…’cause they need the right start-up, need the right letter first, the right thought. See, I type it. And there.
“Don’t just happen…”
“Hell.” Tov glanced back at the ceiling. “Ask God then.”
“He wouldn’t answer,” said Fedya, bleak.
“Oh, ha--really, think so?”
“You got to tell me, Tov.”
Tov jerked to his feet, a chill shadow breaking flippant irritation just a moment in his gaze. “Teller’s got answers, da? Go talk to Teller--hey, he’ll talk.”
“He doesn’t run like you.”
“I don’t run,” Tov grinned, “Just know where to step off.”
Gender:
Points: 10092
Reviews: 459