Of Bone and Steel and Other Soft Materials
A Science Fiction Story by Annie Bellet
Copyright 2011, Annie Bellet
All rights reserved. Published by Doomed Muse Press.
This story is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and incidents described in this publication are used fictitiously, or are entirely fictional.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, except by an authorized retailer, or with written permission of the publisher. Inquiries may be addressed via email to
[email protected] This story was originally published in Mirror Shards: Volume One.
Cover designed by Greg Jensen with image from © Stanislav Perov | Dreamstime.com
Electronic edition, 2011
Of Bone and Steel and Other Soft Materials
Ryska froze as the staccato of Kalashnikov rifle fire rang out across the abandoned office complex. The length of copper wiring she’d tugged free of the crumbling wall hung in her hands as she focused on pushing away the memories that threatened to overwhelm her and tried to pinpoint where the noises were coming from.
The rifle fire rang out again, this time accompanied by angry male voices shouting. Not too close, probably coming from across the wide, overgrown square and beyond the low storage buildings near the main road. She relaxed a hairsbreadth and coiled the wire quickly before stuffing it into her bag. Her graphene whiskers twitched as Ryska cued them to a different sensory setting. She’d been running the sensors on low, letting her fingers and ears do the seeing for her while she dug the valuable wire out of the walls.
But with men around, she’d need more than her ears to get free of this place. Ryska mentally kicked herself for not paying more attention when she’d heard the truck noise. She’d figured they were just driving on by.
And where would they be going to? The glaciers? She shook her head. She hadn’t seen anyone out here before and she’d gotten lazy. Lazy might have meant dead. Wasn’t a mistake she’d repeat.
The landscape turned from foggy grey to many shades of blue as her sensors kicked in and the topography was revealed. Further away things were more blue than closer things, and objects with more solidity had more texture, fine lines zigging across them. Her sensors helpfully mapped out the clearest path out of the building with a hazy yellow line.
More rifle fire. Closer. Ryska pressed herself against the wall and rubbed her chilled hands together slowly. Not her problem. She’d get to her cycle and then bamph from this place.
Somewhere, close, a young boy screamed and the memories that Ryska had fought off earlier came slamming home. For a moment she almost called out to him, he sounded so much like Luka.
Ryska let out a shuddering breath. She wasn’t in the lab outside Irkutsk. She was in the old city limits of Tynda. Safe. Free. Unlike Luka or Gregr or Misha or Iosif or... she slammed her fists into the wall, the vibrations emanated out in fine silvery lines as her whiskers picked them up but the physical pain dragged her away from that horrible night of fire and death.
Govna. More shouting, coming from the square, meant that the men with Kalashnikovs were between her and her cycle. She flicked her head to the right, picking up the scrabble of movement just as a small body, outlined by her whisker sensors in shades of red, rolled through the doorway and curled against the wall.
“Hello?” a small, timid boy’s voice whispered. “I need help. Is someone here?”
Ryska bit her lip. It was night, the building should have been too dark for him to see her. She studied the blue landscape around her, discerning windows in the wall facing the square. She didn’t think they had glass anymore and some had been boarded over judging from the lack of air flow and the solid blue coloring. The men outside might have electric torches and flashes could be illuminating the room. That was not good. She had to get moving.
“Please?” the boy whispered again, crawling across the floor toward her. “Help me.” He stank of fear sweat but his voice, his little red hand reaching out toward her, those things froze her.
Luka had reached the tunnel with her. If he hadn’t insisted she go first, he would have been the one safely away instead of her. She hadn’t been able to reach his hand. The damn tunnel had been his idea, he’d wanted to tunnel out of the lab so they could go find the bears rumored to live in the dead forest outside Irkutsk. He’d wanted to touch a bear.
They’d been so young. So stupid. Ryska shuddered but the decision had been made miles and years away. She slid toward the child and caught his hand, his fingers warm and slightly gritty in her own.
“Shhh,” she murmured. “Follow me.” The least she could do was get the kid away from the men with guns. Succeed now where she’d failed before.
Ryska led the boy down a hallway, following the hazy yellow line toward another doorway. She had to get to her cycle. Once on it, she could slip down one of the dilapidated pathways and head into the city, dropping the boy off somewhere with a telephone.
Cold air hit her exposed cheeks beneath her goggles and pressed her whiskers back against her face as they reached the opening. She sent a quick command to the control board implanted in her chest and brought the sensors up to full power. Her kinetic battery would run down after less than an hour of this, leaving her blind again, but she needed to know exactly where the men were and what they had. To get that level of detail, her sensors had to run at capacity.
Even so, the fog of war, as Gregr had jokingly termed it, enveloped the world beyond twenty meters. Within her sensing range, four figures moved across the square. She hardly needed her whiskers to “see” for her with all the noise they made. Their electric torches were outlined in white as they stomped across the square, slashing at the tall, dying grasses with their rifles as though trying to flush out game.
The boy’s hand squeezed her own tightly, as though afraid she might let go. He must be the game. She didn’t know why men with rifles would hunt a little boy, but his fear of them was thick enough to taste. She ducked back into the room as one of the blobs of white flicked her direction.
“If we hide, will they give up and go away?” she whispered to the boy.
Red lines flickered about his head as he shook it. “Those are the mean men who took me. I guess they killed Sergei and his guys. He was trying to rescue me.” A sniffle followed this hushed disclosure.
Great, she’d ended up in the middle of a kidnapping, apparently. Or it had walked on top of her, in reality. The men hunting the boy must have felt comfortable leaving wherever the initial gunfight had happened, which meant they’d probably killed the rescue party just as the boy assumed.
Ryska searched the area beyond the door. There was another building, this one with multiple stories, just ahead. They’d have to dash across the open ground between, exposing themselves for a moment, but the yellow haze said it was the clearest way through and still somewhat in the direction of her cycle.
Crouched in the doorway, Ryska watched the red shapes move toward each other, grouping in the middle of square. Men’s voices drifted to her, too low to make out. No white shone in her direction. Time to go.
She pulled on the boy’s hand and darted out into the open, trying to move as quietly as she could. The boy followed on her heels, still holding her fingers in a death-grip.
Just before she crossed into the light blue of the doorway, Ryska tripped. Her foot slammed into a hard surface, catching on what was probably a cinderblock she’d missed in her dash. She swallowed the cry as she went down hard, barely catching herself with h
er left hand and skittering a foot across the gravel and weeds. The boy went down with her but she jerked him forward, half throwing him through the doorway even as she scrabbled to her knees.
Bullets bit into the wall as she rolled through the doorway.
“Go, go,” she hissed to the boy.
“I can’t see,” he said.
Ryska stood and grabbed at his arm again, pulling him along the yellow line. If it was too dark in here for the boy to see, it would be dark enough to hide them.
“Go around, but don’t shoot the boy, you dolboebs,” a man’s voice called out and she heard feet crunching on the gravel outside. The hunters were trying to flank.
One red blob appeared in the door just as Ryska and the boy ducked into another room. A shout meant he’d seen her.
Ryska took a deep breath. Her heart was racing, the control panel in her chest aching as it drew power for her sensors. It always felt like a wound just beneath the skin when she taxed