The Stray Read online

  I double-checked the directions on the cyber card, but it clearly indicated that I had arrived at my destination. However much I wished that I hadn’t.

  A rusted bell-pull was sunk into a cavity in the wall and, even though it looked like it might come off in my hand, I pulled it firmly.

  I heard a bell jangle somewhere inside. I waited. I paced up and down, looked down the driveway. Told myself that this was my last chance to leave. Perhaps I would have gone. Perhaps. But the door opened behind me, and someone said “are you the trader?”

  I turned around, trying to hide my fear behind a polite smile. I’m not sure how successful it was.

  “I am,” I said. “I’m Kioto.”

  He didn’t offer a name in return, or any kind of greeting. He turned around, and walked back into the house, and I followed on the assumption that I was supposed to.

  He led me deep into the building, through large, empty rooms, down long, shadowed corridors. We went upstairs, and downstairs. I couldn’t have even pointed in a vague direction to locate the front door. In the pit of my stomach, I knew that it was intentional. They wanted me to be lost in here. Not to be able to escape.

  My limbs grew heavy and sluggish with the horrifying realisation that Achi had been right. That I had walked into a situation far too dangerous for me to deal with. I was seriously out of my depth. I was already drowning.

  The man finally stopped, standing back to let me enter the room first. It was dark; heavy, velvet curtains closed across the windows. The walls were panelled in dark wood below the dado rail, with tightly patterned, dark green wallpaper above. I imagined the room filled with bookcases, and dominated by a huge desk. It wasn’t. There was a grotty sofa pushed up against one wall, and the rest of the room was empty. Of furniture, at least.

  The space was packed with men. I felt like I’d walked into some kind of men’s club, or a networking meeting. They ambled around the room, each of them holding a drink, and the murmur of conversation was subdued and civilised.

  The one who had brought me in, led me over to the sofa. “Here she is,” he said.

  The woman lying before me was so thin she made me feel hungry. Her badly-fitted dress draped over her form like half a shroud. Her hair was matted to her head. Her face was shadowed and swollen with bruises. Her eyes peered out from under misshapen eyelids, dilated and unfocused.

  I stepped back from her instinctively.

  “I can’t perform this extraction,” I said. “This woman needs a doctor, not a memory trader.”

  “We have doctors here. She’s fine. Now that you’re here, you may as well do what we hired you to do.”

  “I can’t. I need her to be alert, and conscious, and consenting.”

  “She’s just a little bit drunk. She’s still conscious, and she definitely consents.”

  “And I can’t do anything with the room full of people. We need privacy.”

  “No problem.” He turned to the room, clapping his hands loudly. “Gentlemen, please.” He nodded towards the door, and the men filed out in silence. “There you go,” he said to me. “Now you can get on with it.”

  “No, I can’t. I won’t. This isn’t right. What’s happened to her?”

  “She fell,” he said with a shrug.

  I looked back at her, unable to maintain eye contact with him. My legs were shaking, and I had pushed my hands deep into my pockets to hide their trembling.

  “I can’t do this,” I said, my voice barely a whimper.

  “You will do it.”

  “I won’t,” I replied, with as much authority as I could muster. “She needs to be sent to a hospital. I can’t perform an extraction with her in this condition. I won’t say anything, I won’t talk to anyone at all, just let me take her to a hospital.”

  He laughed, and the sound of it was terrifying. In that moment, I was sure that I wouldn’t be leaving here alive. I thought of my parents, my sister; their bodies buried in a mass grave at Okaporo. Their remains indistinguishable from everyone else’s. Thigh bones mixed with ribs, mixed with spines, and skulls.

  “She’s not going anywhere. And neither are you, until you’ve done what we’re paying you for.”

  “I don’t want your money.”

  He looked at me for a moment, rubbing his fingers against his chin. “I’ll double it,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I’ll double the payment.”

  “It’s not about the money,” I said, although my brain was already calculating it. “I need her to be able to push forward the memories she wants taken. I need her to be awake.”

  He looked down at her. “Awake, huh?” He stepped past me, grabbed her by the shoulders, and shook her roughly.

  “Stop!” I screamed. The tears that I’d been holding back finally broke free. “Please, stop,” I sobbed. “You’ll hurt her. Haven’t you done enough already?”

  “Enough?” He dropped her back onto the sofa and looked at me. “Well then, why don’t you make it all better, and take her pain away?”

  I stepped back, rubbing the tears from my cheeks. “I can’t do this.”

  He stepped towards me. “I will double the money. Or, do you want more? It’s nothing to us. We just want you to mend her.”

  “There’s no mending this.”

  He stared at me for an uncomfortably long time. If I had any idea where I was, if I even knew which floor I was on, I would have turned and run. I actually considered it; taking my chances in the labyrinth of the house. After all, I was already looking at the Minotaur. Did my escape really rely on doing what they wanted? I looked down at the woman, pushing aside thoughts of what might have happened to her. Pushing aside thoughts of what they might do to me.

  “If you don’t do it,” the man said, “we’ll find someone who will. Someone untrained, someone careless. Someone who will dig into her mind and tear it to pieces. You know what happens then, don’t you?”

  I nodded. I’d seen it for myself. The rooks had taken us to see a man at the Iwoyo colony. I’d been young, but I had never shed the memory of him. Cowering in the corner, babbling, his eyes flicking left and right, but never resting on anything. He had had his mind ripped apart by a trader. It had been done as an act of revenge, and the result was permanent. Irreversible. Horrifying. Yes, I knew what a careless trader could do.

  “She will not be leaving this house with all of her memories,” he said. “It’s up to you how many she has left.”

  I was stuck. I’d walked into this with arrogance, and naivety, and now, I was caught between performing a cruel and evil act, or allowing an even crueller one to occur. Which left my hands cleaner? Perhaps I didn’t deserve clean hands. Perhaps they hadn’t been clean since the ashes of Okaporo had blown across my skin. Perhaps they’d never be clean again.

  I nodded quickly. “I’ll do it,” I said. “But, I need to do it alone.”

  The man smiled a smile that filled my stomach with ice. “Good girl. I’ll wait outside.”

  I knelt next to the woman, reaching my hand into my bag. I touched my pebble first. My pebble from Okaporo. I shook my head. I couldn’t call the High to help me with this. If I called in the High, I called in my ancestors. My parents. I couldn’t let them see me doing this.

  My body burnt with rage, and with shame. I was branded by it, and I knew that I’d carry the mark forever. This couldn’t be washed away. Not this.

  I placed one hand on her stomach, and laid the other on her forehead.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’ll be gentle.”

  I stepped into her mind as if through an open door. A door that led me into horror.

  “I’ll take away your pain,” I whispered. “It’s all that I can do for you. I’m sorry.”

  Her eyes flicked up to mine, and, for the first time, focussed. They were bright, sharp, eager. “Help me,” she whispered.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what else to do.”

  Her hand snapped around my wrist. “You�
��re not the first. You won’t be the last to do this.”

  I nodded, slowly taking my hands away from her. “What can I do? Should I call the police?”

  She shook her head. “It won’t do any good. Several of them are here already.”

  I thought for a moment. I thought of Okaporo, of my parents, of the taste of ash on my lips. I stood up.

  “I’ll leave you with your memories,” I said. “But you need to take that anger, and that hatred, and you need to fight back. You need to escape. If you have any hope of doing that, then you need to remember what they did to you. Can you do that? Can you fight back?”

  She smiled. “I think I can. Yes. I can do it.”

  I nodded, stepping away from her. “You need to pretend. Pretend you don’t remember, otherwise they’ll just hire another trader. A worse trader.”

  “I’ve been pretending for a long time,” she said. “Just taking myself away, somewhere else.”

  “Good luck,” I said, but it seemed horribly inadequate. “I really hope you make it,” I added, but it was just as hollow.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  I nodded again, turning away from her. Gritting my teeth, I walked over to the door, and pulled it open.

  “I’m done,” I said to the man outside. “Pay me, and I’ll leave.”

  “That was quick,” he said. “I thought you people did all your praying and humming and woo-woo whatever.”

  “Not this time,” I said. “I didn’t want to dedicate this.”

  23

  KIOTO

  I looked up at the sign, lazily swinging back and forth in the wind. I couldn’t bring myself to walk inside. I couldn’t face them. I was so ashamed. I winced at the thought of Achi telling me how stupid I’d been.

  I turned my head towards the mountains. I couldn’t go back to the colony either. I couldn’t face Akikai or Nahaya. I’d done it for them, but they wouldn’t be pleased to hear that.

  I’d broken every code that I’d ever been taught, and it wouldn’t matter that I didn’t actually complete the extraction. I was going to. I was willing to. The codes were sacred; they protected both the trader and the client. Worse than that; each colony had it’s own specific, unique code. I had betrayed Okaporo. I may as well have burnt it to the ground myself.

  I looked down at my hands, trying to rub away the smudges of ash that I imagined across them. But I knew I’d never rub them away. I knew that they were permanent.

  I silently said “goodbye” to the exchange. Half of me protested that it was just for a while. But the other half, the quiet half that rarely spoke, but basked often in the glory of being proven right, that half knew that I could never return. I’d betrayed Achi, too. And he had looked after me so compassionately.

  I’d drop him a message later, just so that he knew I was safe.

  As I walked away, I heard the bell above the door jingle. As I turned the corner, Achi called out my name. All I could think was that I no longer needed to message him.

  I rented a room in a small guesthouse. There weren’t many that rented rooms to traders, but I’d heard lots of the visiting women mention this guesthouse in the exchange.

  Its welcome mat displayed the trader symbol; an eye with three lines cutting down through it. Our traditional scars. Tracing down from our eyebrows, to our cheekbones. One scar for the names of the High, one for the names of our ancestors, and one for our own name. So that we can never forget who we are. Where we come from.

  I was greeted by the overly-friendly ‘Shu-Shu’; a woman who didn’t seem to realise that there was, generally, an accepted time limit on shaking hands. She kept hold of mine all the way up the stairs, reluctantly letting go of it in order to unlock the door to my room. I suspected, if I hadn’t moved quickly enough, she would have taken hold of it again.

  “Thank you,” I said, attempting to usher her out as politely as I could.

  “Don’t forget,” she said, “dinner starts at six, but the kitchen closes at eight. So you want to be down by half seven at the absolute latest. Absolute latest,” she repeated, with a wag of her bony finger. The manicured nail protruded shamelessly beyond the fleshy tip, painted in such a bright red, that it reflected a flash of it on the wall.

  “Thank you,” I said again, herding her out of the door. I closed it behind her, breathing deeply.

  Outside the small window, across the road, an auto-car stop picked up passengers. I wanted to go back to Kagosaka. I wanted to see Nahaya and Akikai, and have them tell me that everything was going to be alright. That I hadn’t done anything wrong. That they would have made the same decisions. But it was just a fantasy.

  I turned back to the small room, and wondered how long I would be living here. I had nothing more than the clothes I was wearing, my altar items, and a cyber card loaded with enough credit to start over. That, and a heavy heart. I could barely stand upright with the weight of it.

  “Shit,” I said aloud. And then again, louder. “Shit!”

  I had unleashed something, and there was no putting it back. Throwing myself onto the bed, I smothered my face in the pillows, and unloading screams into them. I pounded my fists into the mattress, and kicked my legs like a child. I cried. I cried until my throat was stripped raw, and the tears had carved two canyons into my cheeks. And then, I slept.

  I was woken by a gentle knocking on my door. I rubbed my eyes, looking around, memories piling back into my head. It was dark outside, the shape of the windows mirrored onto the carpet in acid orange.

  “Kioto?” came a gentle voice on the other side of the door. “Kioto, are you awake?”

  With my legs still unsteady from sleep, I staggered to the door. I leant heavily against the wall, flicked back the lock, and pulled the door open.

  Omoto smiled at me, and my eyes flicked to the bag in her hand. I could smell the food inside, and my stomach called out for it.

  “I brought you something,” she said.

  I resisted the urge to snatch it out of her hand, instead, tightening my grip on the door handle. “Is Achi here?” I asked.

  “No. And he doesn’t know that I’m here, so I can’t stay long.”

  “How did you find me?”

  She rolled her eyes. “There aren’t exactly many places that will give a room to the likes of us. You were not difficult to find at all.” She pushed the door further open with her foot, and swept past me into the room. I didn’t argue. I wanted that food badly, and I wanted the company even more.

  “I’m really sorry,” I said. “Is Achi mad at me?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. Worried, more than anything.”

  “I should have listened to him.”

  “Yes, you should.” She settled herself onto the corner of the bed, and set about unpacking the bag of takeaway food. “It’s nothing special, I’m afraid. Noodles, chips, burger. I wasn’t sure what you wanted.”

  I lifted the burger from it’s box and pushed it into my mouth. “Anything’s good,” I said past it.

  Omoto grinned. “You must have been hungry.”

  I nodded.

  “What are you going to do now? Are you going back to the colony? Pick up that boy of yours?”

  I sighed, swallowing the last of the burger. “I don’t think I can face him after—”

  “Does he need to know what happened today?”

  “I can’t. I can’t look at him every day and know that I’m keeping this from him. He probably won’t even understand why it’s such a big deal. Tradition isn’t so important to them, is it?”

  “That’s not true, Kioto. The men may live very different lives to us, they may have different roles and preoccupations, but they have the same trader hearts. They learn the traditions, and the beliefs, and the importance of their heritage, just like we do. They understand things the same way that we do. We’re not all that different.”

  I picked up the bag of chips. “Sometimes, we feel like different species.”

  Omoto laughed. “That’s just
boys and girls; that’s not specific to us traders.”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure I’ll ever understand them.”

  “You’re not supposed to. So don’t stress yourself out trying.” She patted my leg. “Talking of which, I’d better get going. Before Achi starts to suspect I’m up to something. I have a reputation as a perfect wife to maintain.” She winked at me. “Come back to the exchange, Kioto. He’ll calm down once he sees you.”

  “You said he wasn’t upset.”

  “He’s not. Not really. His pride is hurt. You betrayed him, Kioto, because you didn’t trust him. Trust is so important to Achi. He looked after you, and you didn’t trust him to continue doing that. You have to understand; the exchange isn’t just a business to him. It’s his family. He never had a real one, so he created one. And not everyone gets let in. Not like he let you in.” She sighed, glancing towards the door. “You’re like a daughter to him. He’ll forgive you soon enough, but you have to go to him. He’ll never swallow his pride enough to seek you out.”

  “Shouldn’t I let things cool down first?”

  “No, absolutely not. You need to bite the bullet with Achi. Come to the exchange tomorrow. I’ll smooth things over.”

  I eyed her closely. “Just how angry is he?”

  “Oh, he shouts a lot, but he doesn’t really mean it. You just need to ignore it. He’ll come around, I promise.” She squeezed my shoulder. “See you tomorrow, Kioto.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  She let herself out of the room, and I pulled my knees up under my chin. Wrapping my arms around my legs, I pressed my nose against them. I couldn’t face his anger, or his disappointment in me. I couldn’t face it when it so closely mirrored my own. I wasn’t going back. I’d never see Achi and Omoto again.

  It was hard to believe that I had any tears left, but they came regardless.

  24

  KIOTO

  Four days later, I finally left the guesthouse. I had showered, and put my dirty clothes back on. It didn’t matter; I felt dirty through to my insides. I doubted that I would ever feel clean again.