Spike stuck just his head inside the door. "Mom?"
No answer. Good. She wasn’t home. If she were, she would give him work to do. Not work around their apartment; that would be for later, when the daylight was gone and she didn’t want him on the streets. No, she’d send him to Kao’s to stock shelves, or to the Finneys' to see if any more painting needed to be done, or anything else where she thought he could pick up a few woolongs to bring home.
He hadn’t minded doing the work at first. After all, his mother worked, too. He understood they were poor now, although he didn’t mind that nearly as much as his mother did. He was happier moving out of the big house, where every room had some memory of his father. And he loved it here at the tenement. Sure, there were bugs and rats and dirt, and people who smelt of liquor sleeping in the stairwell, and never enough to eat, but there were also a lot of other kids his age, something he’d never had before outside of school hours. They were interesting kids, too, a lot more interesting than the ones in the other school, and they knew a lot of cool things to do, like how to pick pockets and hustle pool.
But he knew his mother hated this new life, so he started out, when they first moved here, eager to help her in any way he could. He was young and strong, after all, and the man of the house now.
That willing attitude wore off swiftly. His mother pushed him too hard, for one thing. She always had something for him to be doing, before school, after school, and on weekends, and then chores around the apartment in the evenings. He suspected some of that was her attempt to keep him from hanging around with his new friends, but after about a year of it, he actually found himself looking forward to the days he had homework, which was an appalling realization. What sealed his rebellion, however, was the silver bracelet. His mother had brought none of her jewelry with her, so naturally he asked about it when he saw the bracelet on her wrist. She didn’t seem to think anything of it when she told him she’d just bought it. "It’s merely a trinket," she smiled, "but pretty women like to have pretty things."
Yes, she was pretty. Yes, she deserved pretty things. But by then he had a good idea of what that bracelet cost, even "wholesale" from the back room of the local pawn shop, and when he did the arithmetic to translate that into hours of work he’d have to do to buy it — in other words, work he’d done so his mother could buy it — the total really pissed him off. From that day on, she had a harder time finding him for all the tasks she drummed up for him.
Since he never knew when she was going to be home or not, he went straight to his bedroom and worked quickly. First muss up the bed, just a little, as if he’d come home tired and taken a nap, to explain why his homework wasn’t done yet. Then spread his books out on the desk, so it appeared that he’d been interrupted in the middle of doing the homework and that he’d need to pick it up again when he came home. He took the time to scribble a few notes on a pad next to the books. His mom never missed a detail. One last look around, and he ran to the kitchen to stuff his jacket pockets with bread, meat and cheese. Then he let himself out, locked the door, raced down the stairwell, peered cautiously through the so-called security door, saw the coast was still clear, and ran up the street, ducking into the first alley.
Safe from being spotted by his mother, he perched on the back fence of his friend Roach's building, stuffed the meat and cheese between slices of bread, and ate it all ravenously, save for a couple of scraps that he tossed down to the ancient yellow dog that belonged to Roach's landlady. Nobody ever got enough to eat around here, and that included the dogs. Then he waited, knowing Roach would have spotted him by now but that Roach, too, had to sneak out. Finally Roach came trotting up the alley, yelling at him, "Get down from there before my ma sees you, dumb-butt!" Punching playfully at each other, the two of them headed out to round up as many of the rest of their gang as they could for an afternoon of fun.
He forgot to watch the time and headed back late, almost dark. He knew he was going to be in deep trouble. As he hurried home he concocted an elaborate tale to explain why he'd been gone all day and was coming back without so much as a woolong to show for it. By the time he trotted up the stairwell, he had it all worked out, complete with appropriate facial expressions. But his luck was good and he could save it for another occasion, because when he let himself in, his mother wasn't home yet. Grinning with relief, he raided the kitchen once more and scrounged up dinner, eating it while he made a halfhearted stab at his homework.
He didn't worry when it got full dark. His mother kept her own hours and didn't explain them to him. But once the sky was black, he was drawn irresistibly away from his books and to the livingroom window. From there, in the distance, he could see the winking flashes of ships taking off and landing at the distant spaceport. He would sometimes stand and watch them for hours, wondering what kind they were — if only they lived closer, he would know, because his father had taught him every make and model there was — and imagining where they were coming from and why they'd come to Mars.
Because he was standing there, he saw the car come up the street. He would never have heard it, that's how quiet the engine was. He just saw the glaring arc of the headlights as it came around the corner, and then it purred to a stop right in front of his building, a huge car, with six doors, a car so big it wouldn't have fit in his bedroom. The driver, a young man in a suit, got out and opened the back door closest to the sidewalk. To Spike's astonishment, the driver reached forward and handed his mother out. She turned to speak briefly to someone still inside the car, laughed, then strode into the building. Spike stood watching blindly as the car pulled away, not wanting to listen to what his brain was saying about what his eyes had just seen.
One of the advantages of hanging out with his friends was that he'd acquired an education in areas of knowledge that weren't taught in school. One of those areas prompted him to put a conclusion to what he'd just seen, an ugly conclusion.
His mother came up the stairs, let herself in, saw him, and grinned. She pulled her banking card out of her purse and held it up, the red numbers flashing at him. "Hey, kid! Dream tonight, and tomorrow we'll go grocery shopping and get you whatever you want to eat. Anything, you name it."
He couldn't believe she was so casual about it! "I wouldn't eat anything bought with that money."
His tone startled her as much as the fact that he'd just said he wouldn't eat something. "What do you mean?"
"I saw you come in. I was standing here at the window. I saw the car, and the guys."
A small, puzzled furrow appeared between her brows. "Yes? So?"
"Come on, Mom! It doesn't take a genius to figure out what that was all about! I'd rather starve than have my mother be a whore!"
She stared at him for a moment, taking in what he'd said, calculating what to do about it. The next thing he knew, he was flat on his butt on the floor, against the wall on the opposite side of the room.
She'd hit him! Neither of his parents had ever laid a hand on him in his life, and his astonishment was so complete, blood from his nose and mouth was making red patterns on his shirt before he even realized that he'd been hit. Even more astonishing was how fast she'd done it. She had hit him three times, but he'd never seen one of them coming. He gaped up at her, too stunned to make a sound.
She grimaced and disappeared into the kitchen, reappearing in a minute with a wet towel wrapped around some ice. She knelt beside him. "Here, put this on your nose. Get out of that shirt and let me put it in cold water, or it'll stain."
"You hit me!"
"You called me a whore. Never do that again."
"No, ma'am." No way. No matter what he thought, that word was definitely not coming out of his mouth again.
She read his expression and sighed. "It's not what you think."
"No, ma'am."
"Stop that. I'm not going to hit you again. Get up and let me get that shirt off. Did I break your nose?"
"I don't know."
"Let me see. No, take the ice away and let me see. Hold still! No, it's not broken. That's good. All right, put the ice back on it. Keep the towel under your chin so you don't bleed all over yourself."
She took his shirt and disappeared into the bathroom. With the resilience of the young, he was already beginning to come up with a horrendous tale (which did not involve his mother) to explain the condition of his face to his buddies. He was even regretting his nose wasn't broken. That would have been really interesting, to have a broken nose. Like a war wound. The guys would have been impressed as hell.
But when his mother came out of the bathroom again, he was brought back to reality with a crash, and he glared at her. She sighed again. "Come over here and sit down, and I'll explain."
Her exasperation, more than anything else, made him think he might be wrong about what he’d thought. But he wasn't prepared to admit it. "I'd rather just stay right here," he said sullenly.
She grabbed a handful of his hair and dragged him to the couch, pushed him onto it, then folded herself into the chair opposite, crossing her long legs. He rubbed his head and made his second mistake of the night. "Shit, Mom, that hurt!"
"What did you just say?"
Shit! I said ‘shit’! No way he was going to admit it. She’d never let him out the door again. He tried an ingratiating smile. That started his lip bleeding again, which was the best thing he could have done. His mother was far from soft-hearted, but although she would never say it, he knew she was sorry for hitting him when, as he dabbed at the blood, she didn’t pursue his language lapse.
Instead, she said, "The man in the car was nothing like what you thought. He’s one of my employers. He was just being kind, giving me a ride home."
It suddenly occurred to him that he should know what his mother did for a living, and he didn’t. That was weird. All of his friends knew what their mothers did. Sammy Ling’s mom babysat infants all day, dozens of them. Roach’s mom worked at the leather factory three days a week. Tiger’s mother took in sewing and laundry. And so on. Now that he thought about it, he knew what all his friends’ mothers did to bring in the woolongs, but he had no idea at all what his own mother did. "What kind of boss is he?" he asked abruptly.
"One that pays well."
"That’s not what I meant. What does he do? Is he with the Gate company? Does he own buildings?"
She chose her words carefully, because she wasn’t in the habit of lying to him. "He’s a member of a large organization which has interests in a lot of different kinds of businesses."
He knew what that meant. He’d heard that description almost word for word at Sammy’s house once, and Sammy had translated it for him. "He’s a syndicate boss, then, right?"
She stared at him. "How did you get so cynical, so fast?"
"He is, right? Which clan?"
He could almost see her thinking, making her decision on how much to tell him. "That doesn’t matter. I work for a number of them," she said finally.
His mother worked for the syndicates? Wow. He wondered if he dared tell his buddies. The temptation was huge — they’d be a lot more impressed by that than by a broken nose — but on the other hand, talking about the clans could be dangerous, even for a kid. And there was still that other thing. "What do you do for them?" he asked.
She rolled her eyes at his tone. "Believe it or not, there’s a lot a woman can do for the syndicates other than… well, what you’re thinking."
Not from what he’d heard. "Like what?"
"Too many to list. But just to give you a few examples, we can be couriers. No one ever suspects a woman with a make-up bag. We act as negotiators and go-betweens, because most men see us as harmless."
Most men don’t get punched in the nose by you, then.
"We can carry recording devices without them being noticed. We can deal cards. We can create timely distractions. We can get into the ladies’ room without stirring up a fuss. We can even…" She stopped, and an odd, cold little smile curved her mouth. "Well, that’s enough, you get the picture."
"You do all that?"
"That, and more. I have a lot of contacts from before I married your father, and lately I’ve been calling in some markers. With any luck, we’ll be able to move out of this dump sometime soon, get a decent place."
He sat up straight. "But I don’t want to move! I like it here!"
"I know. That’s one reason we’re moving. I don’t want you to like it here. You’re better than that." She leaned forward. "Let me see your nose."
He pulled the towel away, trying hard not to look at how red the white cloth had become.
"Good, it stopped. Come on in the bathroom and I’ll put something on that lip."
"Will it hurt?"
"Of course it will hurt. It wouldn’t be good for you if it didn’t hurt."

Spike believed his mother when she said that she was working for the syndicates but not as a whore. And he knew she was sorry for hitting him. But neither piece of knowledge made him feel better that night, as he lay in bed, hands linked behind his head, unable to sleep. He was still a kid whose face hurt, whose mom had become almost a stranger, and who was going to lose all his friends.
He could hear his mother moving around in the livingroom, humming. The sound was like an itch in his mind, one that he couldn’t scratch. He got out of bed and got dressed again, quickly and quietly. Then, with great care not to make any noise, he slid his window open and looked out.
His window overlooked an alley, and he was three floors up. Too far to jump down, as he’d long ago decided. The fire escape on his side had fallen away from the building the year before they’d moved in, so there was no escape that way. Even the pins which had once held it were rusted almost completely away. However, the fire escape on the other side of the alley was still there. The gap was a really long one, though. He’d never had the guts to try it before.
Now would be a good time. He got the window fully open and crouched on the sill. Just one big leap, grab the rail, and hang on. It would be fun.
Of course, if he missed, they’d be scraping him up off the floor of the alley with a putty knife.
His mother had taught him a trick once — don’t think about failing, but instead visualize a move as if it had already been done. Crouching there, he pictured himself leaping across, then reaching out, catching the rail, and swinging up onto the landing of the fire escape. When he had it all very clear in his mind, and he was calm and sure, he jumped.
His legs launched him strongly, his hands reached; he saw the rail, watched it come to his palms, closed his hands around it, and held hard. But it wasn’t the rail that he’d aimed for, and his lower body swung under the landing. The edge caught him hard in the stomach. He was wrenched free and fell, but his momentum carried him onto the landing below with nothing more than a hard bump on the head. He rubbed it as he ran down the steps, laughing. He’d done it!
He knew where he was going, and he knew how to get there. He’d planned it all out once, just for fun, on a day he was bored in school. The crosstown buses didn’t run as often at night, but if he just kept going, from stop to stop, he’d at least be heading in the right direction, and he might get lucky and catch one. Not that he had any money to ride the bus, but then, another useful skill he’d picked up from his friends was how to catch a "bumper ride" on the back.
Three buses and a lot of walking later, he reached his destination. The spaceport. For the last half mile he’d just followed the lights. Now he was staring through the fence at all the ships, coming and going, hovering and landing. The really big ones, of course, were at the orbit station, and if he used his imagination just a little, he could almost see the station and even the Gate, out there among the stars. But there were still plenty of ships to see right here on the field, from zip craft to the smaller freighters and system cruisers. While he watched, two zips came in together, weaving in and out of each other’s patterns like a couple of kids playing dodge ball. When they landed, the pilots got out laughing, greeted each other with mock punches, adroitly avoided an angry spaceport official, and headed for the terminal together.
This was definitely his favorite place in Tharsis City. Maybe even on the whole planet.
From here at the bus stop, he wasn't sure which way to go to get to the hangar where his dad's office used to be. That didn't stop him. He flipped a coin and headed left, following the fence. When he found a place under the fence deep enough for a skinny kid to fit, he wriggled through and then trotted onto the airfield. Soon he was at the side door of his dad's old hangar. It was locked, of course, but it was a really old lock, mechanical rather than computronic, and another of those useful skills he'd learned from his buddies was how to get past such things. He wasn't in much practice, so it took him a few minutes, but finally he heard the click of the tumblers, and he opened it and stepped into the dim light, past the boxes of spare parts, inhaling the familiar odors of fuel and oil and metal.
Someone to his left swore, and a hand grabbed his collar. "Shit, it's just a kid!"
He looked at a gun, then the uniform of a security guard, and then up into a face he didn't know. Not too surprising — the guards changed a lot. He grinned. "It's OK. I belong here."
"You do, huh?" At least the guard put the gun away. Spike now had another thing to tell his friends, he'd been threatened with a gun. This was turning into an eventful day.
He tried a grin. "I just forgot my key."
"Yeah, right. If you belong here, then Mr. Thermopolis would vouch for you, right?"
Thermopolis was his dad's old boss. "Sure!"
"Then lets go talk to him. He's still in his office."
Uh-oh. Mr. T might remember him, but he might not exactly vouch for him.
Mr. T was an old man, about 150 by Spike's reckoning, bent, wrinkled, with a spotted bald head. He was brusque, impatient, and demanding. Spike's mother considered him rude; Spike's father said he was the best boss in the world. Therefore Spike was never sure whether to like Mr. T or not. Now he wasn't sure if Mr. T was going to welcome him with open arms, tell the guard to take him off to jail for breaking and entering, or something in between.
Mr. T looked up from his desk when his office door opened, scowling, and Spike's knees began to shake a bit. "What is it, Williams? I… Spike!"
At least the old guy remembered him. Spike waved hello, resisting the urge to stick his tongue out at the guard when the hand let go of his collar. The guard said, "I caught him breaking in the side door, sir."
"Nonsense. This is Ben Spiegel's kid. He wouldn't do that. The door must have been unlocked. Go check it. You can leave him with me."
The guard didn't argue, but simply left, shutting the door behind him. Spike smiled up at Mr. T, but the smile was getting difficult. Now he felt like a traitor to his dad's memory as well as a criminal, and the first was a lot more uncomfortable than the second.
"What are you doing here, son?" Mr. T asked curiously.
"I was just taking a walk."
"In the middle of the night?"
"That's the best time. It's quiet."
"Would you like to try the truth?"
Spike quickly flicked through what part of the truth wouldn't get him in trouble. "I was taking a walk. Me and my mom had a fight, and I just needed to clear my head." That was what his dad always said, when his parents fought.
"Didn't you move to the District area? That's quite a long walk. In fact, it's a very long walk. That sounds more like running away from home to me."
"I wasn't doing that." Not exactly.
"I'm almost finished here. Why don't I give you a lift home, before your mother starts worrying about you? In fact, I think I'll call her and let her know you're safe."
"No, don't do that! She was asleep when I left."
Mr. T eyed him for a moment, but agreed, to Spike's relief. Then he said, "What did you do to your face?"
He'd been so excited, he'd forgotten all about that. "Fell off the fire escape." That was almost true.
Mr. T just grunted.
Spike loved the drive home. It was a lot easier than walking and bumper riding, and Mr. T had a great car, a Romulus 205X with all the extras. By the time they turned into the District, he'd checked out the entire interior, asked Mr. T about a hundred questions, and knew all the specs. But when they pulled up in front of the tenement building, it stopped being fun. Mr. T saw there was a light on and decided to walk him to his door. No amount of reassurance or coaxing could change his mind. So much for sneaking back in.
His mother must have already figured out he'd left, because she wasn't the least surprised to see him. She smiled and said hello to Mr. T, whom she called Leo, and then frowned down at Spike and said only three words. "Go to bed."
From his bedroom, he could hear his mother and Mr. T talking. He had a feeling he was really in for it now. Maybe if he got into bed, she'd think he was sleeping and wait until the morning to get after him. She'd be cooled off by then. He stripped hurriedly, crawled under the covers, and pulled them up to his chin. When he heard the front door open again and Mr. T saying good night, he shut his eyes and sent his mom a mental command. Go to bed, Mom. I'm asleep.
Of course, that didn't work. She sat on the bed next to him and pinched him. Hard. Hard enough to make him jump and yelp. "You woke me up!" he said indignantly. Might as well try for the guilt thing.
That didn't work any better than the fake sleep. "Too bad," she said heartlessly. "I've just had a long talk with Leo." She frowned at him. "You didn't tell him I hit you. You said you fell off the fire escape."
"Well, I did fall. It was none of his business anyway."
She looked at him a moment, then did something she very rarely did — she stroked his hair. "Leo likes you, you know. He wants to let you earn some extra money working Saturdays and maybe some Sundays, at the space port. Do you want to do that?"
He almost jumped right out of the bed. "Do I want to do that? Are you kidding? Of course I want to do that!" No more carrying things for people, or painting, or cleaning, or running errands. He was going to work at the port!
His mother smiled and held out a handful of coins. "What's this?" he asked when she put them in his hand.
"Bus money for Saturday," she smiled. "If you don't get fired on your first day, I'll give you more."
She left him then, and he threw himself backward into his pillows, gripping the money. So much had happened to him today, he was never going to be able to tell the guys all of it!

copyright by DragonKat, August 2002

Continue the story in Prelude, Part Four

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