CHAPTER FOUR—MAPLE AND THE DREGS

Leaning his head back to keep out of the way of her horns, Jon asked, “So what’s with the whole dissection thing? Can’t you just clip it off.”

“Nope,” Maple said as she worked with a pair of tech pliers and tweezers. As an oni, her horns were actually pretty short, but they still posed a bit of a threat while she had her head leaning over his arm. “We want to sever the connection so that your wrist band goes dead…” she trailed off, working, and then added, “Otherwise, they’ll know the wrist band was severed intentionally.”

“A slow dying,” Koto said.

“Exactly,” echoed Maple.

She was a cute girl, a lot older that Koto and Nova and curvy. Jon had trouble keeping his eyes off of her backside while she sat on her knees atop the chair she leaned over. Her red denim shorts didn’t help with that.

She clipped something and the light went off. “Is that it?” asked Jon.

Looking up at him, she smiled. “All done, big boy.”

He raised an eyebrow at that.

“Good,” said Nova, because I’m starving. “We’re heading back to the Dregs. Wanna come, Maple?”

“Sure,” she said, hopping off her chair.

Her little silver trailer was filled with all manner of tech gadgets, stray parts and gear she had collected or was brought. She was a trader, a mechanic and an inventor. In fact, Maple was so valuable around these parts, no one came to steal her stuff, for fear of reprisals.

A lot of local groups offered to take her in, but she had declined them all. She had even declined Koto and Nova’s offer to join the dregs, though part of Koto thought she wanted to.

“I’m a neutral party,” she had said. And that was what maple always said. Koto thought she must have had an engineering background when she used to be one of the green zoners, but she said some things on the holo net that had resulted in a penalization of her monthly monetary allowance by the authorities that be, and like that, she had packed up, severed all her connections and left for the red zone.

Now she was a profitable trader, and out here, considered quite rich. She was invisible to recon bots because her little compound was shielded by thermal dispersion tarps, and among the thousands—no, the tens of thousands—of fires that burned at night while the undesirables outside the city kept themselves warm, she was invisible among the stars of those lights—free.

“So,” she said, looking to Jon. “You really think they’re poisoning the water, huh?”

“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “Not sure why they’d want to, though.”

“I can think of a reason,” she said.

“Let’s talk about it at the Dregs,” said Koto. “I’m starving.”

And they left her trailer, which was situated among a refuse heap of metal scraps and old vehicles that spanned for several kilometers. There were all manner of little alleyways leading into different directions forming a sort of labyrinth. Because of the heat the metal took on during the day, and continued to give off in the night, that also helped to disperse her signature from the recon bots.

But those bots had stopped looking for her a long time ago anyway.

*

After leaving Maple’s place they crossed through the hills for a couple of hours, and the night, though warm in way, did begin to get cold. Jon shivered a little.

“I’m not used to being out here.”

“Have you ever been out here at night?” asked Nova.

“No,” he said. “I can’t say that I have. Aren’t you guy’s afraid.”

“Very,” said Nova and she patted her huge pistol. It made Jon’s look like a toy. He still didn’t have his gun and he wasn’t sure he should ask Koto for it back. Not yet at least, but they took off his band.

That was something.

“No seriously,” Jon said. “Is it not dangerous out here?”

Koto glanced at him. “Of course it’s dangerous. Between scavengers, gangs and rival factions—“

“Not to mention when the green zoners come out here to cause trouble,” said Nova.”

“And that,” added Koto.

“I guess the guns help,” said Jon, glancing about. They were heading back to the road where the lighted billboard was when they had split up earlier.

“But the Dregs,” said Maple. “They stick together. Help each other.”

Jon looked at each other. “Really?”

“Mm,” she nodded. “Sure.”

“What are the ‘dregs’?”

“Oh you don’t know?” she asked, surprised.

He shrugged.

“We’re the left behind,” said Nova. Kids and teenagers who have lost their parents, or who have parents fighting the green zoners. It’s too dangerous to keep them around, so we form dregs clans.”

“Oh, I see,” he said. “So that’s why you’re all a bunch of kids.”

“I’m not a kid,” said Maple.

“You’re one of the Dregs?” he asked.

“No,” she said with a smile. “I like to help out from time to time.”

“And eat our food,” said Nova. She turned and smirked.

“Hey, you invited me.”

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“So what is for dinner, then?” asked Jon.

“It’ll be good,” Maple said with a smile and she raised her eyebrows. “Trust me.”

*

Lifting the spit to his nose, Jon made a face. He wasn’t feeling so well about this strange mystery meat. “It’s what now?”

Maple took a bite of the meat from her own and chewed. Before she even finished, she smiled and said, “Mutaral meat.” She nodded with his little stake. “Try it.”

All around them were cook fires and children of almost every age, ranging from toddlers to kids in their later teen years. And there might have been a few adults that didn’t include himself and maple as well.

The pit, or the Dregs’ base of operations as they seemed to like to call it, consisted of a troglodyte pit that had been dug at the center of a natural ravine where rocky outcroppings were situated above to further protect from the weather.

And inside there were shacks and awnings and little dividers. In the center of the pit was a water pool and all around it lush green plants flourished, some of them bearing fruit.

“Not more!” one child said to a smaller. “You can’t keep picking the fruit.”

The meat did smell good, and set Jon’s mouth to waters. In his hand he held a plate with an assortment of other foods, some of it clearly canned. There looked to be a bit of fried bread like stuff as well.

The flamed crackled and orange-yellow light flicker over them all. Experimentally, he tried a small bite and chewed. It was tough, rubbery stuff, but the taste wasn’t bad—not bad at all.

“Yeah?” Maple said, nodding with a smile. “It’s good, right?”

Jon smiled and took another bite. “I don’t know what a mutarl is, but it’s not too bad.”

Across the troglodyte, a boy played an old guitar while a girl beside him pounded a drum with a slow ponderous vibe that create an atmosphere around them all. As the children laughed, played and ate like pigs, Jon couldn’t help but smile.

“They’re all family to each other here.”

He looked at her, but said nothing.

“Most of their parents are dead or fighting in resistance cells. They get on, though.”

A girl walked by and the gun on her back made Jon do a double take. He pointed. “She can’t be older than seven or eight.”

Maple shrugged. “It’s how life is out here.”

“I never…”

“You never imagined it was like this?”

He nodded. Jon wasn’t sure how to feel about it all. A part of him felt sorry, for these children and the kinds of lives they were leading. What kind of life required a kid to pick up a gun?

But they seemed happy.

No, they seemed…

Free!

Maple looked at the cop—or ex-cop rather. She wondered what he was thinking about, but when she tracked where he was looking to, she saw Kawa, and Mairu speaking. Koto and Nova were also there.

That was where Kawa and her brother lived. Light from inside could be seen, but Karu was not up and about. Still sick then. He was pretty bad before, but Kawa had said he was getting better.

But that was over a week ago.

And he wasn’t the only one.

She saw as Jon looked at her.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She forced a smile on her face and took a bite of the canned fruit from her metal plate. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”

“So Koto runs this plays?”

Maple looked at him with a raised eyebrow and nodded. “I guess. I’m not sure the dregs really have a specific leader, but Koto and Nova tend to be the ones to get things done. They risk their lives pretty regularly to bring back food and things.”

“Is that what they were doing when I met them at that mall on the outskirts of the green zone?”

“Yeah,” she said with a nod. “A food run. That Iruno-Co Shopping center had been hit by a couple gangs all in one night without warning. They were there after the fact. I almost went with them, but I had some things I had to do today.”

Jon nodded. “I don’t know what to do.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m one of you guys now, but I’m not one of the dregs. What do I do?”

She shrugged. “You find your way. You could join a gang or a resistance cell.”

That didn’t sound good at all, and he must have made a face, because Maple continued.

“Not liking those options.”

“Not really.”

“You have a lot to learn,” she said, and set her plate down. Then she stalked over to Koto and the others and joined their conversation.

Jon watched, noticing that most of the kids were human, but there were some oni and demihumans present as well.

Simply from their body language, Jon could see that there was concern among them, so he went to them, and feeling a little embarrassed and intrusive, he scratched the back of his neck and said, “So uh… is everything all right?”

Kawa looked at him and she definitely was not okay. She ducked into the hut as Jon watched. No one said anything for a long time. Jon did not want to press. As a cop—as a detective—it was his job to know people, to study their reactions, to know when they were lying or hiding something.

There was something definitely heavy here, and leaning, he caught a glance into the hut where he saw a boy laying down in a mattress. His sister, Mairu dunked a rag into a small basin of water, rung it and put it on his head.

So a fever.

“How long’s he been sick?”

“Weeks,” Koto said, his tone flat and heavy.

Nova turned to him, her movement almost an indictment as she said, “It’s the water.”

He nodded. “Are you sure?”

Maple said, “People are turning up sick all over the place with this fever thing.”

“Do they live?” asked Jon?

Damn, that was insensitive, especially right now.

Nova sighed. “Sometimes.”

“If we can get medicine,” Koto said. “Or a healer.”

“You know of any mages out here?”

It was a stupid question, because of they did, then there would be no need to be having this conversation. The truth was, Jon would have been extremely surprised if there were any mages that these kids knew. They were far and few between.

They shook their heads.

“So, what kind of medicine works?”

“Not normal drugs,” said Maple. “The good stuff—shipped in from off world.”

“Medicinal enchantments and sorceries,” said Jon with a nod, then he sighed heavily. “And if the boy doesn’t get any?”

They looked at him then and their eyes fell.

“Damn,” he muttered quietly, so quietly in fact he hardly hard the word come out of his mouth amidst the laughing and squabbling children. And the guitar and drums didn’t make it any easier.

“We’re probably going to head into the green zone pretty soon,” Nova said.

“Jon,” Koto said, looking up at him. “We could use your help.”

Shit, he thought. It was all such a mess. His entire life erased, his accounts gone, and his green zone wrist band falling to red. He didn’t even have that thing anymore. What was worse, his partner was probably dirty and somebody wanted him dead over those chemicals being put into the river.

And now they wanted him to sneak back into the green zone. It was crazy. But what if the chemicals really were making people sick—killing them off even?

They had to do something to save the kid.

Jon could remember the exact expression of Kawa’s face last night as she looked at him—as she had screamed at him. Her fear and her frustration nearly drove her to do something stupid.

But Jon was a detective, a cop. His job was to help people and to catch the people responsible for committing crimes. A sudden furious anger took him and he felt his own face heat.

By the hells, he was going to help this kid, and he was going to stop the bastards responsible for this.

He nodded. “Yeah,” he said.

“Really?” asked Nova.

“Yeah,” he said again. “I’ll help you. And besides, there’s something I have to do while we’re in the green zone.”

“What is it?” asked Koto.

“Before we pinned Sosai down, I found out the location of one of his safe houses. I still hadn’t reported it yet. Should be untouched?”

“Wait a minute,” said Maple. She put her hands on her hips. “What do you want with some criminal’s safe house?”

“I told you he was planning to blow some place up, didn’t I?”

She nodded, and Koto and Nova at the same time caught on to his intention.

“We’re going to blow up that factory,” said Jon as he made a fist. “There’s something not right about that place.”

“Wait a minute,” Nova said. “I won’t cry any rivers if you blow some factory up, but are you sure? Like five minutes ago you were a cop!”

“Until I was almost assassinated by those cop bots. My partner is in on it.”

“How do you know?” asked Koto.

Jon shook his head. He had no idea, only that he knew she was—he could smell it all over her, Kenn’s aggressive disregard for pursuing leads connected to Sosai, her calls with the captain of the department.

“I just do,” he said. “When are we leaving?”

“Now,” Nova said.

Just then Mairu stepped out of the hut. “Kawa’s staying behind. But I’m coming. I’ll go get Little Bullet.”

They nodded and Jon turned around, ready to leave and set out for the green gone. He assumed the kids knew how to get in easily without being caught.

Hopefully.

“Jon,” said Koto.

He turned and he found the young man looked up at him, a wisp of his black hair shielding his eyes a little. He was holding Jon’s gun with his arm outstretched.

“Take it.”

He smiled.