S-2873 • L9 Fluxluna • D25 Alonli
"Fluxluna flows in a thread of living water. Alonli lengthens the curve of return. The tide traces silver in clear silence. The story continues whole, in low light."
At nineteen, Akilina lay in bed, running her fingers through the soft hair of the girl beside her.
Blue eyes. Forgotten name.
But that hardly mattered.
She opened the holoscreen and reread, for the thousandth time, the message from her mamochka, Darya Orlov, begging her to give up the idea of moving in with her father.
Akilina, however, would do whatever she wanted.
She loved her mother, but she was tired.
Tired of spending her days among the brothels, of sitting alone at the bar, filling her glass over and over as she watched Darya parade among the customers.
Ever since she had discovered alcohol, everything seemed a little less awful.
Music helped too. Especially when she sang karaoke. Music had always kept her company.
"Your daughter has a good voice, like the Enchantress of Love." That was what someone had once said to Darya, who had been known by that nickname in the bar's heyday.
She was leaning against one of the pillars, watching Akilina, who still had her head resting on a table, barely able to hold the microphone.
Even so, her velvety voice was a pleasure to hear.
"She does," Darya replied.
Akilina had grown up learning to defend her mother from the bastards who mistreated her, the deadbeats and the drunks who crossed every line.
Those assholes did not have to do much to piss her off.
Since Darya had chosen that life, at least as Akilina saw it, the least she could do was protect her.
Though it should have been the other way around.
Well, fuck it.
She opened the conversation with her father. The address was still there. She reread the message. Searched for Khalmer-Yu again.
Nothing. No results.
Fuck.
But she had expected that.
Her father was the head of a Russian criminal organization. He had enough power to erase any digital trace he wanted.
Whatever.
The girl beside her stirred. Looked up and whispered something.
The spell was broken. Akilina just wanted to get out of there. Get in her car and face the six-hour flight between Ulyanovsk and Syktyvkar, where one of her father's henchmen would be waiting to take her to Khalmer-Yu.
They said she was still unfit to know the way to the Vorovskoy mir headquarters.
Akilina shrugged. She would leave the car in any parking lot. If she ever wanted to come back, that would depend on her alone.
"What are you thinking about?" the girl asked. As she adjusted a loose wire in her secondhand arm implant, her wrist locked up.
Akilina looked away. She had never liked that shit. The idea of having something robotic inside her own body felt strange.
That was different from the biochip's nanites. Those she accepted. She even liked the tickling sensations they caused when she sent commands or slid her fingers across the bioscreen's pixels.
As for the rest, everyone could use whatever they wanted. Some implants were even cool.
"Nothing." She got out of bed. Set the biochip to warm her body and picked up her heavy black coat.
Outside, it was thirty below zero.
The girl started getting dressed too.
For a moment, Akilina thought about asking her name.
No. Soon, she would be at the Vorovskoy mir. She wanted to stay detached. Names mattered. She only wanted to remember the ones that truly mattered. And those were few.
"Okay, I'm leaving," the girl murmured, her head bowed.
Akilina remained silent. Pixels danced before her eyes as she plotted the route to Ulyanovsk. She sent the command to Ksava, her car.
When no answer came, the girl finally left.
Blue neon flickered in the room. Too violet.
By the time Akilina noticed, she was alone. Well, it hardly mattered. It would never have worked out. She finished getting ready and filled a backpack with a few clothes and a photograph of herself with Darya. Then she left.
The beige car landed in front of her. The wind from the hyperfans tousled her hair. She had forgotten to braid it, so she quickly tied it into a bun.
The driver's door rose. "Good evening, Akilina," Ksava greeted her.
She liked the voice of that Living Intelligence (LI). What she hated were his unnecessary questions. She almost always left Ksava's curiosity unanswered.
"We'll be there in four hours. An hour longer than expected. There's a snowstorm around Ulyanovsk."
"Fuck."
"Are you angry?"
Akilina rolled her eyes.
Annoying.
Good thing her mother had never connected her to an android. She would have hated sharing her half with another being. Worse still, with a machine.
Even so, she could not deny that the car seemed to know how she felt.
She rested her head against the window. The whitish glass distorted the landscape outside.
Ksava began talking excitedly about some political bullshit.
Akilina had already fallen asleep. Her Crone dissolved in silence to be reborn.