Alysha's Fall Read online

  “Do you have work-study programs?” Alysha asked. She couldn’t bring herself to realize that luck had finally deserted her . . . if indeed she’d ever had it.

  “No,” the male answered, honest regret in his voice, “We used to, but they were repealed.”

  Alysha sat because she was unable to move. Something of how lost she felt must have reflected on her face, since the male said gently, “You might try to get work in the city. It’s hard for an undergraduate to find work that pays enough, but sometimes. . . . ”

  A course of action. Alysha embraced it to keep herself from falling. “Where do I go?”

  “The nearest info-stop is a few blocks south of here on Strop Street,” the Seersan answered. “You can go there to ask for job openings.”

  “Thank you,” she answered mechanically, standing. “I’ll be back.”

  The man paused, then nodded. “I hope so. See you soon.”

  She found the info-stop ten minutes later. Alysha planted herself in one of the kiosks, ignoring the spool of people winding in and out of the room. “Privacy screen, please.”

  A soft hum reached her ears from one foot behind her. The displays nicked to life, a sigil scrawled across the screen hugged by the legend, “Terracentrus: Center of the Accord in Summer.” A small white dot flashed on and off in the upper right-hand corner, indicating a ready status.

  Her hands lit on the edges of the display. “How much a year is it to go to the Academe?”

  The computer politely replied, “Cost for one cadet, with room and two meals a day, for one academic year, is sixty thousand fin.”

  Alysha braced herself against the sudden vertigo that assailed her. Sixty thousand fin a year was within the scope of a professional working in her meld, or maybe a particularly hard-working layman, but certainly not a student. Nevertheless, her voice rasped from her throat. “Search for job openings in Terracentrus that might yield sixty thousand fin a year.”

  A few seconds later, two pages scrolled through the display. Alysha watched them dispassionately. When the computer finished, she said, “Eliminate those that require educational honors past finishing school.”

  All of them vanished.

  Alysha stared at the blank screen for several minutes, then roused herself. “Show listing of the jobs that don’t require honors, make more than eleven thousand a year and approach sixty thousand a year. List how much each pays, and where each is located.”

  Only nine entries rolled across the screen. Jaw clenched, Alysha selected a hardcopy dump. When the card dropped from the slot into her hand, she left the building. A few moments with the map given to her by the helpful Tam-illee at the first info-stop and she walked away, chin high. The morning had begun to age, but all of the afternoon stretched before her. In a city so beautiful, there had to be an answer.

  The sun balanced on the horizon, a bloated red disk swaddled in vaporous clothes of lavender and bronze. Its squalid rays pierced the alleys, pulling Alysha’s shadow across Magnate Street toward the opposite curb. She plodded in and out of the pools of copper light; the weight of her head made it impossible for her to stand straight. Her legs dragged towards the ground and her shoulders ached, weighted by bleak despair. She had anticipated winning a scholarship or a place in one of the now defunct work-study programs within hours of arriving to Terracentrus, then being shown her room in the barracks and given a hot meal after orientation. Instead, footsore and weary, Alysha wandered the outermost edges of town. Her meager balance in the bank would do her no good. Since it was already too little to win her entrance to school, she padded down the streets with the sun in one eye seeking a hostelry cheap enough for her to stay the night, possibly several.

  When she’d proven under-qualified for the nine openings she’d found at the info-stop, she’d returned to a different stop and listed the next tier of jobs, seeking any kind of employment. The only kind she’d found open had been those of the lowest pay-rate, barely four fin an hour for twenty hours a week. Earning that much, Alysha reflected bitterly, she might have been able to afford one of the blankets at the Academe, but not much else.

  Some part of her remained unwilling to admit that she had exhausted all her options. As she plodded down the walk, ignoring the façades of the buildings, Alysha idly calculated in her head how long it would take for her to earn enough to pay for a year at the Academe working full-time at one of the four fin an hour jobs. The analytical half of her mind began riffling through the ranks between cadet and captain. Even if she spent a maximum of two years at each rank, it would still be over fourteen years before she made captain. If she skipped school to work for the tuition, it might be years before she had enough. . . .

  Alysha stopped and leaned against the wall, gritting her teeth against a surge of despair. When she lifted her head, casting her gaze around the walk, she realized suddenly that she was lost. The sun had vanished past the horizon, and the musty blue shadows of twilight crept too close to her. The lights of the city shimmered over the tops of the surrounding buildings, but they seemed distant compared to the immediacy of the darkness around her. Few lights illuminated the walk, and the façades of the buildings had crumbled into disrepair. Windows whorled with the strange patterns of shattered flexglass obscured the interiors of the dark houses and decrepit shops. Alysha glanced behind her shoulder and then forward again and could find no people within view. As she watched, one of the street lamps guttered into life, its illumination uncertain and variable.

  This was nothing like Blacklight at home. Blacklight had housed the town’s seedier establishments, blurring the lines between legality and criminality, but there had been floods of people moving through it. This deserted place on the edge of dusk struck Alysha to the core, and the acrid, unfamiliar tang of fear bit her tongue. She hurried along the walk, eyes darting from shadow to shadow, heading west toward the next street. She tried to stay within the light of the street lamps, but more of them proved nonfunctional than working and she spent long minutes in the growing darkness, fighting an irrational need to nee.

  When the glitter of lights caught her eye, Alysha let out a long breath of relief and jogged toward it, hoping for an info-stop or a place she could eat and rest. She drew near, catching a glimpse of a front porch flooded with light from overhead lamps. An unremarkable building, its windows had been boarded over and the door tightly shut, but no signs of neglect could be found on its walls. The cracks had been sealed, the grime washed from the arches of the door and the windowsills.

  There was a sign propped up against the window. It read, “WANTED: Exotic Dancer. Average pay 100–300 fin/night. Apply within.”

  Alysha’s heart slowed. She could hear her pulse in her ears, a slow throbbing. She did not recognize her hand as she reached out and touched the sign, tracing the numbers. The dusk had withdrawn, and the light fell down a void within her mind, its last wail a reminder of the definition of “exotic dancer.” She wasn’t listening as she touched the door chime.

  A wolfine face appeared as the door slid back, a heavy Hinichi male with striking yellow eyes. His thick bass sounded like gravel against crete. “Yes?”

  “I’m applying for your job.”

  “You are?”

  Alysha stared at him, eyes unfocused. “Yes.”

  He paused, then stepped away from the portal. “Come in. What are you, Asanii?”

  “No,” Alysha answered absently as she stepped inside. “Karaka’An.”

  “Sweet Savior, but I didn’t see your legs!” the Hinichi said, then laughed. “Tiell’ll love you. Never seen a Kark get so tall, ’specially a fem.” As she walked past him into the dark room, he asked, “Exactly how tall are you, alet?”

  “An even six feet, I think,” Alysha replied, glancing around.

  The Hinichi grinned. “Have a seat. I’ll get the manager.”

  She nodded, barely noticing when he faded from view. She sat at one of the tables near the boarded window, smoothing her hand over its regular surface. The
chairs were supremely comfortable, and her feet ached from the strain of the day. Alysha leaned against the edge of the table. Her mind had been disconnected; it was the only explanation. She had been sheltered as a child, but she knew what exotic dancers occasionally did. Yet when these arguments were thrust upon her mind, all she could see were the numbers on the sign outside. They promised her an education, and the stars. She would do what she must to secure her future.

  Scuffling footfalls alerted her to the return of the Hinichi, following a thin Asanii male. Alysha formed a fleeting impression of a gaunt figure, hollowed cheeks, and a restless, sly anger as he walked to her table. The feline offered his hand in the human greeting, and Alysha slid hers into it and let him shake. His grip’s wiry strength surprised her.

  “So, you saw our sign and want in, do you, girl?”

  “How much money will I be paid?” Alysha asked.

  “Depends on how good you are,” the gaunt male answered. “If you’re okay, you’ll probably get from seventy-five to one hundred fin a night. If you’re spectacular, you might make as much as three hundred.”

  Three hundred. Alysha’s eyes glazed, then she looked up at him. “If you want me, I’ll take it.”

  “Well, then, let’s get on with finding out if we want you,” the manager answered. He nicked a switch, and a stage she hadn’t noticed in the back of the room sprang into view. “Stand up and move into the light, there.”

  Alysha pushed her chair back and threaded through the tables to the side of the stage, climbed four stairs, and stood in the middle of the light. With the glare in her eyes she couldn’t see the two males, though a scuffling of chairs told her ears they had taken seats in the front row.

  “Sun’s backside! You’re tall and thin for your race, girl.”

  She wasn’t sure how to answer, but settled on a clipped, “Yes.”

  “I like that. You fit part of the ‘exotic’ bill. Let’s see how much more of it you fit. Strip.”

  Alysha’s ears nicked back. “Pardon?”

  “Strip, girl, strip. You don’t dance in very much clothing on stage, and rarely with any backstage.”

  She saw stars in her eyes from the dazzling lights, but in her mind she could see a meld of suns stretching between the Alliance and its few neighbors into the unknown. Silently she kicked off her sandals and shed her stretchsuit. Eyes closed, she stood in the spotlight and waited.

  “Verrrry nice. Turn around, slow now.”

  Obediently, Alysha did so, taking wide, flowing steps.

  “You move good, too. Let’s see how much more you can move. Cue some music for me, Daren.” She could dimly see the manager as he pushed to the edge of the stage and addressed her. “I want you to dance for me, girl. And I don’t mean any cute stuff either. Dance like you’re selling your body to a hundred people, and do it dirty.”

  Alysha stared down at him, then nodded before any objections rose in her mind. They came after he’d turned away: that it wasn’t too late to back out, that she had no idea how to sell her body to one person, much less a hundred. As the music started, a sensual song more rhythm than melody, Alysha ignored all protests in favor of one injunction: do it well; do it better than they’ve ever seen before. Get the job.

  She hesitated, calling up the moments in her life that had acquainted her with her own sexuality, precious few experiments that had given her a pleasure she’d found enjoyable but too temporal for her interest. Then she moved her hands over herself, slowly at first. She rocked her hips, dipped into a partial crouch . . . and danced. She wasn’t aware of the time passing, was only peripherally aware of the arousal she forced on herself as the music broke around her ears. All her concentration bent upon the task at hand, and the world spun away.

  The silence startled her back into the present, and a sense of shame flooded her in its wake. Alysha stood uncertainly, waiting for her reception.

  The sound of a chair tipping back, then a basso growl—Daren, the Hinichi. A slow bark came from the table, a sound Alysha parsed abruptly as a jerking laugh from the manager, who said after a few moments, “Rhack it, girl, but you’d get a mattress hard just by sitting on it.”

  A flush ran through her ears, but Alysha paid it no mind. “You’ll hire me?”

  “One test left,” the manager said. “You look good naked. You dance like you were born to. Only one thing left: see that block there? Face it and lean over it.”

  She glanced to the right. The block on the stage reached almost to her waist, a narrow and solid projection. She walked to it and pressed her lower stomach against its edge, then folded over it wearily. Between the long trek and the dancing, she had very little energy left; worse, she hadn’t eaten since early morning, and she felt the gnawing of hunger acutely after her exertions. Her eyes fluttered closed.

  When the AAP syringe hissed against her neck, Alysha jerked upright. “What was that?”

  “Something required for all our girls,” the manager assured her, his hand falling on her back. Alysha suppressed the urge to shake it off.

  “What was it?” Alysha repeated, trying to blink past the glare as the manager left her line of sight and the hand lifted from her back.

  His voice came from behind her as his hands gripped her rump. “A little something to keep you from getting pregnant.”

  Alysha’s eyes new open and she reached for enough leverage to twist away, but not before the male behind her pulled her legs apart and thrust into her. Star-bursts smeared against the inside of her corneas in unexpected pain, and she heard the manager mumble behind her, “Virginal. Very nice. We’ll make it quick then, so we can rebuild it and auction you off this week.”

  The second thrust brought her mind barreling back into unison with her body, and Alysha regained full awareness of her situation: she was pressed against a block being raped, but it was her dignity or her future, and if it was the future she wanted she had to let it go on. For a brief instant she felt a wisp of despair, but a violent surge of white anger knocked it aside. It was the injustice; it was the result of a moment’s paranormal vision into the future, of the total cost of her ascension to the stars. It infuriated her.

  On the third stroke, it erupted from her mouth, not an admission of misery or defeat, but a howl of rage. She heard laughter from behind her, felt the man tangle his fingers in her hair and jerk her neck back so that the scream leaped up an octave.

  “You’ll be hard to break. I love the wild ones,” he hissed into her ear. Her eye rolled back.

  A few minutes later, he spent himself and withdrew, leaving her sprawled across the block. He waved an idle hand. “You’re hired, pet. Go backstage and get the others to clean you up, feed you. . . . You’ll debut tonight.”

  Alysha raised her head with effort, trying to push the rage back behind her teeth. She dragged herself upright and found it difficult to walk. Her lower body throbbed, the insides of her thighs slick with fluid. As she moved toward the steps, the manager said, “One more thing . . . you’ll need a stage name.” His hand snaked out of the darkness and caught her chin, and in her surprise Alysha extruded her claws and threw up her arm in a swipe.

  He caught it at the wrist. The Asanii’s grip had all the merciless pressure of a vise, and his eyes flared. “Never,” he hissed, “ever pop your claws at me, pet. Keep them velveted, or I’ll take them. Understood?”

  She managed a nod, and suffered herself to be examined as he tilted her face this way and that. She heard the grin in his voice as he said, “A stage name . . . I think I have just the thing. We’ll call you ‘Steel’, since you seem to think that’s what you’re made of. We’ll see which one of us is right.” He released her wrist and pointed at the door next to the stairs offstage. “That way. Tell Cinnamon to get you one of the ice costumes for tonight.”

  Alysha nodded, suddenly wanting nothing more than to escape the blinding light. She hobbled carefully down the stairs and through the door.

  She expected some new trial . . . not a greeting voi
ced by a solicitous young soprano that reminded her of Meriisa, the young girl that had taken to following her during finishing school. Her first glance dispelled the resemblance. Lushly furred tail swinging behind her, a slim, barely teenaged Tam-illee stood on the threshold of the landing. Two halls formed a right angle with its pivot on the door, and the girl was standing against the hall leading to the east. The red velvet wallpaper outlined her in sharp relief; her pelt was the white of falling snow, her hair a bare shade darker, a misty lemon-yellow curtain that fell over her shoulders in spiral curls. Gray eyes occupied the youth’s face, lips pulled into a worried frown far too adult for her countenance. “Here, lean on me.”

  Alysha stared down nearly two feet at the foxine girl. “You must be kidding,” she managed as the shock of the evening began to sink in.

  “You’re hurt,” the girl said matter-of-factly, reaching out and capturing one of Alysha’s hands in her tiny grasp. “Come on. . . . Honey is waiting in the common room. She’ll make you feel better.”

  Under the earnest gaze of the youth, Alysha began to move, her steps deliberate and stiff. The insides of her belly and thighs felt alien to her; she’d never understood that her body was a vessel, not the way she did now. She felt the girl’s other hand touch her gently on the side, guiding her down the hall as she fought her nausea.

  “My name’s Rispa. . . . That’s what they call me here, anyway, after the Seersan Mist Sister. What’s your name?”

  “Alysha Forrest,” Alysha answered wearily. She tried not to look down at the girl, realizing for the first time that the youth walked as naked as she did. There was something obscene about the tiny breasts with their upturned tips and the soft down of the girl’s lower stomach when juxtaposed against the gaudy velvet wallpaper and the worn wooden paneling on the lower section of the walls.

  “That’s a pretty name,” Rispa said as she pulled the rain-gray Karaka’An into a room where several other women reclined. One or two of them glanced up as they entered. “What’s your name here going to be?”