Authors Note- Welcome back to the fanfic. I'm gonna let you all in on an embarrassing secret. Since the last time I updated this and Kill Kiddo, I've had writer's block. I don't think I've ever had writer's block in my entire life. So I've been walking around with all my crazy robots and assassins and cyborgs in my brain for the past three months, and they're all fighting and doing other stuff with each other that actually freaked me out a little bit. Anyway! Back to story! This is a very special chapter. Not only is it the second chapter in this fic named after a Sin City book, but it is the first time you get to see what Urchin's life was like before her father disappeared! (This whole chapter is NOT a flashback! Only part of it is!)
Disclaimer- Edward, the names Suburbia and South Gate are not mine.
VertiCut: Chapter X
New Suburbia, year 2189 (ten years ago)
The elevator door opens, but the floor isn't aligned. I notice it right away, and I know Asimov notices it too. He's in too much of a rush. He grabs my hand and pulls me forward, and I stub my toe on the uneven floor.
"Son of a bitch!" I yell as Asimov drags me out. I do this on purpose. Asimov is easy to stress out, and easier to piss off.
"Sorry, G—if you could bare with me? If that's not too much?" Asimov spits. "I get to the school, you're not there, I get to the Sacrosanct, you're not there, I finally find you five minutes before your father asked me to deliver you, and Jesus Christ, you and your frigin Street Skimmer. …"
Asimov trails off as we wait for the streetlight to change.
"Me and the fucken' street skimmer are gonna be the death of you." I yawned.
"Keep walking, we're going to be late. And don't swear in front of your father. He'll think I'm teaching you bad habits."
"You can swear in front of him." I say.
"G, I'm really not in the mood for games." Asimov says.
"It's okay, I get it. You swear in front of my dad, but you only smoke cigarettes right before you're around me." I say.
Asimov's eyes widened.
"It smells like you chugged a bottle of mouthwash. That's what makes it obvious, "I furthered.
Asimov slowed his pace now.
"Look…don't tell your father, alright?" he asked, the worried look plastered on his face now evolving to one of fear. It's ridicules how Asimov is my only friend, yet he's so paranoid that I'll sell him out. I start laughing, and he relaxes his face into a smile.
Asimov has dark brown hair and golden eyes. He is a Sony, model Zeta Seven, released in the year 2185. He shares his facial features with ever other Zeta Seven male model. I only guess they all share his design flaw—an addiction to the taste of cigarettes.
As we near Café Iced Wire, Asimov's smile fades and he looks down. A group of kids are taunting another Sony, Model Zeta Ten. Female. This one has blue eyes and long, white hair. The kids are throwing cement rocks at her. I stare daggers at them, but Asimov stops walking. He stares at the floor.
"C'mon. Let's walk around the other street." I whisper.
Asimov nods. We turn to walk away, and I reach out to hold his hand.
And then it happens.
The kid jumps out in front of us. Asimov instantly pushes me behind him, and the kid pulls his arm back. I can only hear the hunk of cement make contact with the side of Asimov's head. He falls to the ground in pain, a ring of blood lining his forehead.
"Fifty points!" the boy screams, lifting his fists in the air. His friends laugh. My anger boils. I reach down and pick up the bloody rock.
"MOTHER FUCKERS!" I spit.
The kid stops laughing. I pull the rock back and get ready to crack the boy's head open.
"Don't do it, G." Asimov whispers. Blood drips down his face and he clenches his teeth. The boy laughs and takes a step towards me.
"Yeah G. don't do it." He mocks.
A hand clamps down on his shoulder.
The boy and I look up. A man in a dark coat stands behind us. He's tall. He has dirty blonde hair, and huge hazel-green eyes. He silently looks at Asimov, then to me. I nod.
"Did you push him down?" He asks the boy. The boy opens and closes his mouth.
"Yeah, but…um…he's a robot,"—
"Help him up," The man says.
The boy silently reaches down and takes Asimov's hand. The moment Asimov is slightly off the ground, the kid turns to run.
"Hey." The man says. He doesn't have to put his hand on the kid to stop him. The gravity of his voice makes the boy stop in his tracks.
"Apologize." He says.
"Oh, c'mon. I helped him up!"
The man raises an eyebrow. He stares at the boy, waiting. The boy looks down. He mumbles sorry. He leaves.
My father turns to Asimov and extends a hand.
"Are you alright?" He asks.
"It's nothing, Angelo." Asimov mumbles.
"Nothing my ass." I mumble.
"That was freaking awesome."
A tan, freckled girl with honey blonde hair walks up to my father. Next to her is a dark boy with shaggy black hair. He looks like he's about my age.
"Hey, Darla." My father and Asimov greet.
"You've got mind control or something, Dr. Rowan. That was kick-ass." Darla says.
My dad smiles as he examines Asimov's cut. Darla watches intently. She's interning for my father for some high-school program. I don't talk to her much, but I know she's smart and that she wants to study robotics.
"Does it hurt?" Darla asks.
"A little." Asimov says.
"We should take care of it when we get to the lab." My dad says. "Darla, you could probably fix it up. If Asimov's all right with it."
"Dr. Rowan," Darla says. "Is…I mean…you think I'm up to it?"
"Why the hell not?" My dad asks. Darla opens her mouth.
"But…I…Asimov? Are you alright with it? I screw up, it's your face." She says.
"I trust you, Darla." Asimov says gently.
Darla puts her hand to her face. The boy next to her clears his throat.
"Oh, um, this is my brother,"—
"HALF-brother." The boy corrects.
"Yes, half-brother, Beckham. Your daughter goes to West Suburbia elementary school, right? Does she know Tin-Tin Pierce?"
"She wears a lot of pink." I say.
"That's the girl. Well, Beck and our other sister,"—
"YOUR other sister." Beck corrects. "My half-sister."
"—His half-sister Lintu are good friends with her. With Tin-Tin. Beck was going to meet up with her." Darla says.
"She wants to see some old movie at the Sacrosanct. She's gonna get all moody if I'm late." Beck mumbled.
My dad smiles, takes out his credit card, and hands it to me.
"Treat Beck and Tin-Tin to a movie." He says.
"But…I thought you needed my help today. And what about Asimov?" I ask.
My dad bands down to talk to me.
"Urchin, you go out and have fun. Let the intern do what she's not paid to do." My dad says, motioning to Darla.
I crack a smile. My dad ruffles my hair. Him, Darla, and Asimov walk away.
"Your dad invented Street Skimmers." Beck says.
I nod and start walking. Beck follows.
"Does your dad call you an Urchin because your hair is all screwed up?" He asks.
"Does your sister call you Beck because you look like a girl?" I counter.
"Half-sister. I asked Tin-Tin about you." Beck says. "She says you're always riding your special Street Skimmer and that one time this kid took her Watchmen backpack and you did this cool thing on your Street Skimmer and got it back for her. But she says you never say anything about it."
"I like Watchmen. I don't like pink." I explained. "I hung out with her once. She tried to brush out my hair."
"She has a lot of old action sci/fi movies no one knows about. It's cool. But then Lintu got her into make-up and stuff. "Beck says.
We walk silently now. I want to talk more about Tin-Tin's sci-fi movies, but I don't know how to bring it up.
"So where's your special Street Skimmer?" Beck asks.
"Asimov confiscated it."
"Your robot?" he asks. "Why?"
"Because I went to the mall and was flying it down the up escalator." I said.
Beck stared at me.
"You're not really a people-person, are you?" he asks.
"I get along better with robots." I say.
-Snip-
New Suburbia: South Gate, Year 2199
Beck swipes his wrist in front of the door. He probably got his key card chip implanted into his wrist. Beck never did tell Tin-Tin or me how much money he got for the hover train settlement. He doesn't like talking about money. Whatever it was, it was enough for him to afford a yearlong lease on a two floor apartment, the time the doctors estimated it would take for Beck to fully recover. We stayed here for a little bit, while Beck was recuperating. It was safe. Warm. Most importantly, close to the South Gate Hospital.
Beck never liked it here in South gate, though. None of us did, but we needed to stay here for him to get better. Beck said it just made him feel sicker. The people here. The spoiled, indulging, decorated rich brats that scoffed at us in the ghettos but bet on the Battle-bot fights that took place there. It wasn't even summer before we cleared out. Beck said he would get better faster on the mattress outside Tin's apartment than in this soulless place.
He did.
"Are the people you rented the place to upstairs?" I ask as I walk in.
"What?" Beck asks. "Oh. Those guys cleared out at the end of the summer, moved back into the dorms or some shit."
"Wait…you mean this place has been empty for two months? That…that's thousands of dollars of cred, right down the drain," Tin-Tin whimpers in disbelief.
Beck merely shrugs.
"…How much money DID they give you, Beck?" I ask.
"Enough," he says coldly. "I'm going upstairs to watch TV."
Beck didn't even wait for a response before walking up the spiral staircase.
"Wonderful host you are!" I yelled after him.
Edward walks in, and Tin-Tin closes the door behind him.
"Last time we were here, Beck was just getting his stitches off," she says.
"Beck keeps all his clothes in the first bedroom, right?" I ask.
"I'm pretty sure."
"Edward, why don't you sit down in the room and rest for a while?" I suggest. "I'll go get you some water, and we can find you some clothes."
Edward nods.
Tin-Tin follows me into the kitchen. As I open the door, she stops and grabs my hair.
"Did you hear that?"
"What?" I ask.
A shrill scream cuts through the air.
We run down the hallway. Edward walks out of the open door.
"What was it!" I ask.
"There was somebody in there," Edward says as he moves past us.
Tin-Tin shoots me a worried look and quickly follows after Edward. I flick out my switchblade, and go into the room.
"HEY!" I yell.
My eyes adjust to the light in time to see the baseball bat come swinging at me. I duck and shank the guy in the forearm. The man drops the bat and clutches his arm in pain.
"Shit!" He yells.
"Who the fuck are you?" I demand.
"LEAVE HIM ALONE!"
Somebody's behind me, and this time I'm not quick enough. She grabs a fist of my dreads and pulls me to the ground. I kick her feet out from under her, and grab for her neck. She punches me, and hard. I kick her as she claws at my face.
"Get. The. Fuck. OFF ME!" I scream.
The girl stops scratching and stares at me. I look back at her. She's got platinum blonde hair, and a long jagged tattoo that looks like barbed wire spirals down her left arm. There are about ten piercing on each of her ears, not to mention the ones on her eyebrow, chin and nose. She looks me up and down, and frowns.
"Oh my god." She whispers. "Urchin?"
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?"
Beck runs into the room. The girl (who is only wearing a bra and a pair of boxers) yanks the blanket off the bed and wraps it around herself.
Beck widens his eyes in disbelief.
"DARLA?"
The girl's face goes red.
"Um…hey, Beck." She says.
The man on the floor moans.
"This would probably be a good time to go, Darling?" he says.
"Shut up." She whispers.
I've seen Beck angry before. Most times, he lets his fist fly. But I've never seen him so mad he was shaking. He breathes in deeply.
"Weren't you living down in the projects?" he asks. His mechanical voice quivers, as if it might erupt into an inaudible screech at any time.
"Um, I was. But…"
"But now you're living here." Beck finishes for her.
From outside the room, a door slams loudly. I swear I hear the beep of it locking as Tin-Tin speaks.
"It's fine Edward. I'm sure Beck and Urchin took care of it already. 'Sides, it ain't safe outside at night. Hey, wait! Edward!"
Edward walks past the door and glances in. Darla stares at Edward, and the man grabs onto the bedpost and pulls himself off the floor, leaving a trail of blood behind him.
Edward takes off down the hall. Tin-Tin runs past to him.
"Tin-Tin?" Darla calls.
Tin-Tin pokes her head into the room.
"Yeah? Darla! Hi! I really can't talk, I kinda have to…"—
Edward walks past her again.
"EDWARD!" she called down the hall. "C'mon—I just locked that door!"
Beck and me exchanged looks.
"So…" the guy with Darla says."We're all cool with the guy with knifes for hands?"
"He's my brother!" Tin-Tin shouted from the kitchen.
"Brother?" Darla asked.
"Half-brother." Beck said. He beat me to the punch.
"I didn't know Tin-Tin had a half-brother." Darla said.
"With knives for hands," The man adds.
"You wouldn't know," Beck said acidly. "He was in the Industrial Abductions. Tin-Tin and her family though he was dead."
"Holy shit," Darla whispered.
"So how come they didn't…um…fix him?" the man asked.
"Because there's a big vein in the way." Beck yelled, his voice vibrating. "Oh, and by the way—who the fuck are you?"
"That's my friend Hacks. Me and him…we're kinda hanging out." Darla said.
"In my apartment." Beck clarified.
"Okay, maybe we should just go." Darla said.
Darla picked up a pair of jeans from the floor and pulled them on. She went up to Hacks and examined his cut. All the color had drained from his face. He glanced over at me.
"Girl has got some reflexes, Darling. So how bad is it? Be a bad idea to show my face around a hospital." He mumbled.
"Screw the hospital," Darla said. "You can make it back to the projects. I'll fix it in the lab."
Beck snorts.
"The LAB?" he says questioningly.
Beck glances at her, and I get a better look as well. What I thought was a tattoo of barbed wire is now clearly a scar. A scar that bares the impression of a very…creative weapon.
Darla helps Hacks up, and they start for the door. Hacks mumbles obscenity, Darla stares at her feet.
"What would Dr. Rowan say, Darla?" Beck asks. "What would Urchin's dad say?"
Darla glances up at me.
"Sorry." She says as walks out of the hall.
-Snip-
The loft upstairs has a giant window pane, one that lets you see down the street to the mall and the hover trains and even the projects. Edward and I sit together on a sofa, looking down at it all.
"She deals Battle-Bots?" Edward asks me.
I nodded.
"No other way she could get a scar like that." I say.
"I thought …robots couldn't hurt people."
"Not when they can help it." I say. "But I'd imagine that when they're strapped down and have someone cutting them up and stitching and wielding hot metal to them…they might flail unintentionally. She's probably been doing it for a while."
Edward twitches his fingers. I continue.
"Beck always said she was getting into trouble down in the projects. But I didn't…she worked with my dad, you know? She loved robots. She even testified for us when they took Asimov away. Shit, her and Asimov…they were close. Almost as close as him and me were." I said.
"It's sad." Edward said. "When people change."
"When they change for the worse, anyway." I agreed. "…Edward?"
"Yes?"
"I've wanted to say this for a while." I say. "I'm sorry I've been out of it, these past few days. I've had a lot on my mind. After getting that paperwork…and going to the Sacrosanct…it brought back a lot of memories. It reminded me of Asimov…and my dad. How much I miss him. Both of them."
"It's all right." Edward said.
We both look down at the floor.
"You like Dwight." Edward stated.
I smiled.
"Yeah. I do. I didn't tell Addy this, but he talked to me. He said stuff other then 'human'. A robot shouldn't be able to do that after they've been scrambled." I said. "Besides, he kind of saved our asses there. Without him, Addy wouldn't have helped."
"Addy is very weird." Edward said.
"He's a fucking screwball but…he's on our side, unlike Beck's sister." I yawned.
Edward stared out the window.
"Beck doesn't like me…does he?" Edward asked.
"He's like that to everyone. He's gotten very…protective of Tin-Tin and me since after his accident. He don't mean anything by it. He covered for us pretty good, so hey…it's a start."
A door downstairs slammed. Tin-Tin ran up the stairs.
"Is Beck awake?" She demanded.
"Out like a light." I said, pointing back to a closed door.
"He's asleep." Tin called down the stairs. "But Urchin's here!"
"Who is it?" I asked. Tin-Tin smiled at me like a maniac.
"You ain't gonna believe it, Urchin." she said giddily.
A girl walked out of the spiral staircase, and Edward scooted closer to me. The girl was tan and freckled. She wore a pair of dark blue jeans, and a black dress with buckles up the side and violets printed on it. Her long black hair was tinted blue, and she had it woven into some fancy pony tail with braids and black feathers.
She smiled.
"It's been a while, Urchin." She said in a soft voice.
Holy Shit.
"Lintu? How…how did you know we were here?" I asked.
"Darla called me and said you were all here. I didn't know how long you'd be staying, so…"
She trailed off as she glanced at Edward. Her grin grew wider, and she turned back to Tin-Tin.
"Is that him?" She asked.
Fuck. Darla may have believed Edward was Tin-Tin's half-brother, but Lintu? Lintu had grown up with Tin. They'd still be trying to pin me down and fix my hair if Lintu hadn't come to South Gate.
"Yeah. It's him." Tin-Tin said.
Lintu walked towards us. Edward had moved so far behind me, I was almost sitting in his lap. Lintu glanced down at Edward's hands briefly, but then refocused on his face. He stared back at her.
She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.
"It's great to meet you, Edward." She said. "I sincerely hope you will think of me as a friend."
She then threw her arms around me.
"Urchin! You look so pretty!" She said, losing her act of maturity.
When I didn't return her hug, she drew back and looked at me.
"C'mon. Where's my hug?" She asked.
I couldn't help myself. The way Darla had changed…it had put me on high alert.
"Do you know something?" I asked, gesturing to Edward.
"I don't know much." She said. "But what I do know…it's safe with me."
Tin-Tin smiled from behind Lintu. I reached out and hugged her back.
"Thanks." I whisper.
Hurray! I can write again! I would like to thank all you people who reviewed and encouraged me to keep at it. I also want to thank Mipochici. Writing another chapter for V for Insanity with her turned my brain back on. So I hope you all enjoyed that. Any comments, questions, suggestions, I love to hear anything!
Write on!