Hearts and Stones (Celta HeartMate) Read online

  They waited a good five minutes before Pizi blinked and opened her eyes wide. I can see! SEEEEEEE! she broadcasted.

  Levona flinched, not knowing whether Pizi could be heard by anyone else or not.

  You are very pretty! Levona thought Pizi purred but couldn’t hear her.

  Thank you. Levona knew herself to be attractive enough for a twenty-two-year-old woman, had never had trouble getting sex partners.

  I like your eyes, they is green like Mine!

  A bluer green than Pizi’s, and Levona’s eyes contrasted with her dark hair and Asian-Latina heritage too much for her own liking. Time to go. Be careful of the grid.

  I can see and whisker-sense the grid!

  Step in between the squares if you can. Vary your pattern, weave across the corridor.

  I will! You do not follow My steps.

  I won’t.

  The air thickened with scents of tech and water and humans instead of dirt and weeds. They moved deeper and deeper into the CentralConglom system’s tunnel webs under the dull light of the century bulbs every twenty meters.

  Heading into the city churned emotions in Levona. For the last couple of years, she’d lived mostly on her own, with little contact with others … and none at all with psi mutants … in the mountains and canyons of Colorado.

  Still as she sensed life buzzing above her, she acknowledged that she did miss the city, her hometown. She liked the feel of many people around her, the bustling human energy.

  They wouldn’t go as far as the innermost city. Too many traps there, and too watched, even in mostly forgotten tunnels. As light as she was, Pizi would set off alarms. Ancient Denver itself functioned under an atmospheric dome raised to protect people when humans poisoned the Earth. For the last century, they’d been clawing back to create a cleaner environment, but Levona still thought it touch-and-go.

  They turned a corner and Zzzzapp!

  The electric bolt hit the wall next to Levona’s ear.

  “Halt!” A woman in a rough onesuit held an electrozap pointed at Levona.

  Not a guard, a tech. Outside Levona’s reach. “Run, Pizi!” she shouted. Pizi screeched, and the woman glanced away.

  Levona leapt, grabbed the woman’s electrozap with her right hand, snatched it away. Levona’s left hand applied pressure with the ring on the woman’s inner wrist.

  The tech yelled, her fingers opened.

  Levona thumbed the electrozap setting level from highest to lowest and shot the woman below her ribcage. Her scream cut off, and Levona awkwardly lowered her to the ground, hearing her own panting.

  Standing and trembling, Levona studied the electrozap. Illegal, and with a political sticker on it reading “Go forth and kill mutants.” No way of telling whether the weapon included a geo-find nanochip, but the woman probably had such an implant.

  Great.

  As Levona got out a cleanser and wiped away her fingerprints, she noticed Pizi place a paw on the woman’s forehead. Forget, Pizi whispered and sent a vibration into the woman’s skull.

  Levona jerked straight, let the weapon fall into a trickle of water crud in the narrow gutter in the middle of the tunnel. “That’s wrong. We don’t do that, Pizi!” She flinched as her high-toned words bounced loud off the stone walls of the passage.

  Pizi turned her lambent yellow shaded green eyes to Levona. It’s done. She won’t remember Us. She wanted to KILL Us. We don’t allow that.

  All right. First time Levona experienced pragmatic cat behavior. What to say? We are friends and companions. Please consult with me if you want to do something like that again.

  Big eyes. Something like what? Telling a person to forget? That helps Us and doesn’t hurt them.

  Levona wasn’t so sure.

  Tell You when I want to touch peoples, too?

  No.

  Not hurting her. Pizi stood and flicked her tail. I will tell if I will hurt someone.

  That sounded like a concession, but Levona doubted the statement. Pizi did what she wanted. She gave up. You want to ride in the knapsack?

  No. I will watch My step.

  We need to exit as soon as possible. We’ll backtrack and come up a different way at a place farther than I’d planned.

  Okay!

  Shouldering her pack, Levona called up the map in her head and retreated to a tunnel along a twistier path that would keep them as hidden as possible.

  We don’t know what made the tech come looking for us, whether the faucet alerted, or the grid, or videos, or sound. She might even be a latent mutant and sensed us. And we don’t know if she’s on duty or not, and if so, when her shift ends. How soon someone will come looking for her.

  I will move FAST! And Pizi zipped ahead, much quicker now that she could see, and along the route Levona had visualized. Maybe fast enough and light enough not to trigger the grid.

  Throughout the couple of hours it took them to find the opening of an abandoned culvert, Levona kept her extended senses on high alert, felt herself sweating through her shirt and jacket. By the time she reached the broken concrete exit and crawled through dirt into a gully in a park, her nerves had frayed enough that she curled into a ball and breathed until her heartbeat calmed. She closed her eyes but heard Pizi’s commentary.

  Stranger, shorter grass. It’s softer on My paws! Ooooh, toys! Pieces of paper litter, chased, pounced upon and shredded. Yuck, doesn’t taste good.

  Fur sliding by her nose. Are you ready, Levona? We should go, into the lights and the streets and the peoples.

  They’d hit the city in the early hours of a Saturday evening. Yeah, people would be out. Levona rolled to her feet. Time to change her appearance so she could fit in, from mountain survivor woman to city dweller.

  As an outsider she needed to hook up with a contact of the psi-mutant community to learn the news, what areas of the city were more dangerous than usual, and when they anticipated the next mob attacks on the ghetto. Most of all, to figure out how to get passage onto the starship for Pizi and herself.

  She’d been self-indulgent in taking that break. She couldn’t afford many more moments like that. Think next time.

  Moving to the darkest shadows of evergreens, she stripped and used a cheap cleanse-cloth to wipe down.

  She dressed in her other set of clothes, slightly newer, more citified, and added a hat that would partially hide her face. Used lingering febrile energy for a psi-spell to gather humidity from the air and clean her previous clothes of dirt and grime and sweat and chemicalized mud. Another spell to whip them dry.

  She undid the string tie holding back her curly hair and fluffed waves-curls-friz. She wore her hair long to conceal her features.

  Levona clamped her forged id bracelet around her right wrist and activated it, stood still to see if the update would out her as an illegal. The band held a warning spell that discreetly heated if anything went wrong.

  All okay. For now. She’d make sure just to lurk around, not go anywhere or do anything that required the id to be scanned or shown or verified in any way.

  They moved out. Levona and Pizi slid from shade to shadow and blackness to shade … through quiet neighborhoods of people afraid to come out during failing sunlight and falling dark. Strolled to a busier area of a city, not quite the closest one to the psi barrio, but one where mutants had always kept a low presence.

  People sauntered on the street, glanced at her and away, and she realized her clothes appeared out of fashion and downright shabby. Nothing to do about that right now. No one seemed to notice Pizi, a relief, but Levona wondered why not. She and the little cat were still discovering Pizi’s psychic talents. As far as mutations went, Pizi had jumped a few generations, was an outlier.

  And Levona’s own gifts expanded with the interaction of the cat to prod them.

  The heavy smell of too many people, too much tech, filtered into her lungs, the rise in ambient noise thrummed in her ears, and the pure psychic buzz of people both irritated her nerves and excited them. Instead of being
in the mountains alone, she’d joined other humans in a large city. She swallowed, realizing that though she had no family and no good friends, she’d missed people, been lonely.

  Finally she reached the small business district and the correct street. Here she could find out how to connect with the psi mutant resistance. The mutants had bought the ship, she and Pizi were mutants, and she wanted on board.

  As a safety precaution for both of them, Pizi split off to wander on her own and thrillingly look around.

  Because Levona didn’t know how many previous images the gov might have of her in their databases, she took out a floppy brimmed hat — always in fashion to confound the gov cameras and observers — and let it droop around her face, with a carefully constructed upcurve that didn’t block her vision.

  With each rambling step, she pushed anxiety into the ground so she’d appear casual. Stopping at a food window, she dropped a bill for coffee, getting a standard disintegrating paper cup. From the nearly burning heat, she figured she’d be able to finish this block, cross to the other side of the street, and reach the far corner before the cup fell apart. Meanwhile, she had an extra prop to obscure her face.

  In the back of her mind, she kept track of Pizi, who behaved like a regular stray cat, though, as a stray, she would be shot by any passing military or police. The cat intently explored the gaps between the shops, and portions of the alleys behind, crossing half a block ahead of Levona in a dark area.

  Levona stayed one step behind a clump of people her age — early twenties — like she was part of the group and lagged behind, head angled down as if focused on her coffee so she’d finish the drink before the cup fell apart into soggy paper.

  The three-meter-tall graffiti wall began on her right, and she strove to remain relaxed. Cameras would be recording her, and some of the street musicians or dancers would be gov agents.

  With a sidelong glance, she gazed at the gaudily decorated concrete that the mutant psis — as well as other outcast groups — used for coded messages. Drawings and street art; words, phrases, and scribbling by many hands in a swath of tints and patterns swept across the surface, or pinched tight in tiny spaces, dazzling with intense emotions and the pop of color.

  Now to look for the secret message of where and when and who she could meet from the underground psi resistance to ask about the ship.

  She sent a splash of power across the width. Nothing showed up in the designated location.

  Had to stop, now, within scan distance of the part of the wall behind her. She stumbled, dropped her coffee, swore when the cup hit the ground and splatted into paper strips, expensive liquid spreading across the pitted sidewalk. She squatted to pick up the sodden cup shreds. The lovely scent of lost coffee brought tears to her eyes that she couldn’t afford if she had to search the wall for information.

  Levona turned her head and summoned enough energy to pulse mind power at the wall behind her. Nothing.

  Her heart began to beat faster, louder in her ears than the electric violin across the street, and the shuffling of dancing feet.

  Had she been too long away from CentralConglom? Too out of the loop of tenuous connection with the mutant psi folk? Probably. Get moving. With one last swipe at the gritty sidewalk with an equally shredded tissue, she gathered the final strip of cup, and stood. Walked slowly to the next recycle canister, muttering to herself, straining to keep the psi flow at the wall. Finding the right message from the right group shouldn’t be this difficult.

  She slumped, scuffing the ground, acting peeved for anyone who watched … and felt a tingle ahead of her near the top of the wall, not in the previously stipulated spot. Pausing to stare at the concrete slab, pretending to study the beautiful Arabic calligraphy at her eye-level, she saw what she’d hoped to discover. One black glyph of the manipura chakra, then the glowing-psi symbols of a green lotus and a quick flash of … not the green triangle she expected but a brown knot.

  The mutant contact tonight would be at The Frigid Rush coffee shop. Date and place known. The knot indicator of the person, Levona didn’t parse. And didn’t know if names or symbols had changed or whether this was a new liaison in the last two years.

  She had old code phrases, of course, but the real identification of one mutant to another was flashing a bit of psi power.

  If she didn’t recognize the go-between … she didn’t know what she’d do. Have Pizi sniff the person and hope Pizi could sense honesty? That Levona herself could?

  Not hesitating in stride, she walked past the end of the wall, touched the popular “lucky spot” with her knuckles like most everyone else, and continued on. When she reached the end of the small neighborhood business section Pizi joined her as the buildings became bungalows and night settled into the city.

  Where We going? asked Pizi.

  Levona visualized a map with The Frigid Rush marked on it, no more than three kilometers away. You pick the route, she told Pizi mentally.

  If someone watched them by chance, Pizi’s choice of path might throw off a person. Or their wanderings would not seem purposeful to cameras and keep them under observation. As long as Levona hadn’t been recognized as a mutant.

  Whee! Pizi gave a hop and shot Levona a happy look from clear eyes and trotted to the yard of what looked like an empty house and back to the alley and north and … thirty-five minutes later Levona entered the darkened coffee shop and Pizi slid in.

  Levona glanced around the dim place and figured only those with psychic power that heightened their sight would be able to see well. Several couples groped each other and two pairs sexed in different corners.

  I feels him! The one We is to meet! Pizi sent excitedly, and a 3-D room-map flooded Levona’s mind, along with dim sparks and one large yellow glow fading and brightening. Levona pinpointed the table, nearly sighed as she recognized the man by the flickering of a candle in glass, Bartek Coval, a contact for the psi mutant resistance. About a decade older than her, once he appeared wiry, now he looked skeletal.

  He is sick and dying, Pizi stated matter-of-factly.

  Levona flinched. Grief and pity and anger surged through her. Life hadn’t been easy for Bartek.

  After ordering at the counter, and inwardly grumbling that she had to spend money on a second coffee, and more here than previously, she took a circuitous way to Bartek’s table. She noticed nothing unusual in the dark and smelled coffee and a whiff of weed, and human sweat and sex.

  “Hey, Bartek,” she said, slipping down in the chair opposite him, waiting for a shock if he didn’t want to talk.

  Skinny black brows went up. “Levona Martinez.”

  She clenched her teeth that he’d said her full name, even in such an undertone it came over more telepathically than through actual breath.

  “You haven’t been around lately,” he said.

  “Can you talk quieter?” she mumbled.

  A brief smile showing gleaming teeth. “Gov cops and military can’t listen in. Rats take care of any spy bugs.”

  Levona got the impression of a psi-gifted person running those rats.

  “Just like your cat is dribble-pissing on a new ankle-height camera dropped off an hour ago. Cameras go bad in here for a number of reasons. Though, if I were you, I’d run a zip-zap for bugs or spells when I leave.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “Why’re you down from the mountains?” Then he lifted his hand. “No, don’t tell me, I can guess. You saw the starship.”

  “Yes, I want on.”

  “You and nearly everybody else with a hint of psi.” He paused, then shook his head, and his black hair nearly as long as hers swung. “Can’t do it. Our starship that’s sitting in our ghetto can be staffed — crewed — by our mutant psi community here in the city. Seven hundred positions, and they filled up in a week. Should have come down from the canyon eight months ago, sweetness.”

  She found herself grinding her teeth, desperation to get off the planet swirling inside.

  “And we’re lucky
we got a starship. Was supposed to go to the mutants in the AfriqStates, but they’re down for the next wave of colonists.” His words ended on a mocking note.

  Their gazes met. A next wave wouldn’t happen.

  “No room aboard the starship.” She forced her own words through stiff lips.

  “No. Especially not since the ship really showed up and landed.” He sent her a narrowed gaze. “The folk in the barrio have been clearing the whole upper half of our land for the ship for months. Those who did the work, an’ those who’ve strong links in our resistance, and those who have—” he rubbed his thumb and fingers together in the old gesture of money — “all those are in. Also anyone Geek Class. The rest of us are OUT.”

  “But you’re—”

  “—more useful here, on the ground, in the resistance, talking to freaks like you than on their precious ship, they told me.”

  Something in his tone rang like he’d heard words not like the ones he reported, but statements he couldn’t accept, so his mind twisted them. Probably words about his health.

  “I’m sorry about that,” she murmured.

  He stared. “I believe you’re sincere. I’m sorry about me and you and your little cat, too, sweetness.” He paused and curled his hand around his thick pottery cup, steam rose. “Don’t suppose you found lost treasure in the hills, a gold mine, perhaps? Made your fortune, got rich?”

  “No.”

  “Might have found space for you and me and the cat, if you had. Perhaps even a cryonics tube.”

  “Cryonics tube.” Levona’s mind scrambled to fit an image and definition to the phrase.

  “Those who bought the ship are traveling in style. They don’t want to suffer the years like the rest of the generational staff.”

  “Years,” she repeated.

  “They think between seventy-five and a hundred and fifty. There’s living space for a generation or three on-board, that’s why it’s called a generation starship. Those in the cryonics tube will be frozen and awakened after landing on the beautiful new world with no gov who hates mutants. Everyone will be a mutant.”

  “Especially after a couple of generations of breeding with each other,” Levona murmured, but her brain clicked along. All right, she hadn’t thought of a lifetime living on a starship — after she’d had the whole of the Rockies to run around in — or being frozen so she’d live on the planet. She didn’t know what would have been worse.