5. Skins and pancakes

Kira.

"Sometimes I just want to go to that bridge and follow you into the water, you know?" I shifted, scanned the barren desert in front of me, removed the rifle's clip and put it back, and shut my right eye for a few seconds to relax it.

"It's not like I want to die or anything." Right eye snaps open, three Skins staggering ten thousand meters away. Deep breath, compensate for the gentle breeze and snap off three shots. None of them fall when the bullets hit their chests – new type. I reload and snap off another three shots, their heads pop like balloons. "But I want to hear someone just…talk. I know what you'd probably say right now. Something stupid like the way you talk is a talent, or whatever."

I swung the rifle to the right and put in a new clip. The desert's sand bit into my elbows – I hate him for this – I threw out all my long sleeved t-shirts because of that cat eyed moron. "'Cos it's so quiet in the penthouse now. Lara lives with me, though. She's always busy nowadays." A Skin dives into a small ravine – new type, they're getting smarter. "Can you imagine she got the job? Lara Harrington – minister of fucking transport."

The Skin peaked over the ravine's edge and I split its head. "Sober for two years now. She kept her promise to me," I muttered. My finger hesitated for a split second and a Skin disappeared behind a worn down wooden shack. "Who knew that Lara was so organized? Guess it's 'cos I force her to be."

The Skin doesn't move out from the shack. I sighed and blew out its knee jutting between an inch wide hole in the wood. Its shriek carried through the crisp desert air and it began running towards me. I let it get close: nine thousand, six thousand, three thousand, and then two thousand meters. I caressed the trigger and sent it to wherever the hell the dead go.

I get to my knees and stretched. I force out the twinge that had set in my neck and swung my cap forward. I shut my right eye – I could feel the strain running down my eye socket. I flipped down my aviators and picked up Dan's. I blew away the light haze of dust that had settled on them; they were still cracked down one lens. I was supposed to go and replace it, but replacing it would be accepting something I don't want to. I put them on my collar and pulled off my fingerless gloves and stuffed them into my trousers.

I disassembled the rifle: new record, ten seconds to take apart and ten more to pack away.

I shouldered my backpack and went to each of the skins. I took pictures of their mouths and cut them open and took pictures of their rotting insides. These things weren't even alive, but they still kept moving. And the newer ones didn't die as easy as the ones two years ago – headshot or nothing for these ones. I took skin samples and brain samples – the skin was harder to cut away. It was like leather, in texture and toughness.

I emptied my last water bottle and ate a food pill. Bland and boring, he'd probably give me hell for still eating these things, but you can't carry around pancakes in forty degree heat for months on end. Maybe I'll make some when I get back.

I straddled my motorbike and headed towards the Gray. The wind whipped my hair against my neck – I needed to cut it. I'd let it grow past my shoulder blades. I needed to check up on the kids in the orphanage. I needed to take apart all my guns and check them. I needed to take out my eye and replace a few parts. It had been straining my head for some time now – ever since he'd fallen from the bridge. I don't get it. Why would it start hurting after all these years because of that?

I needed to leave flowers at his headstone.

I chuckled to myself as I flew through the desert. He'd probably be dumfounded by seeing me cry. Good thing the wind brushed them away and his aviators were looking straight ahead. I squeezed the throttle and let the engine's roar drown out any other intrusive thoughts. I loved the feeling of the wind rushing past my face, the nose and mouth mask I'd bought some time back kept the rest of the desert out of my mouth.

I passed Young Haven and its groaning abandoned structure. The Nomads has steered clear from the Gray ever since I cut down their population. The building was still creepy, though. That and it smelt terrible, bodies piled outside and inside of it. Broken windows stared down at me as I passed, the flicker of a shadow occasionally passing by the green tinged glass. Someone needed to take this place down. Someone needed to blow it up and build something worthwhile.

Into the city now. The city just outside the Gray that is. Never given a name, it had a name, but no one from my generation knew it. Hera probably did, but she didn't speak about the war and what she went through. Enlisted at ten and got out of it at seventeen. And now she owns the West Coast at twenty one. All that off of hard work, alcohol, ruthlessness, two hours of sleep every few days and hate for authority. That hate probably came from how many kids had been forced to join the war effort and had everything torn away. Thank whoever was up stairs that I was born two years later than Hera, Lord knows what she sees when she's asleep.

I came to a stop outside a small suburban house. I switched off my bike and the silence crashed in around me. It was probably a nice house once upon a time, but the white paint was peeling and the door hung off its hinges. I walked up the gravel path, the grass on either side like a jungle hiding children's toys and small skeletons.

I went through the door. Rancid and sour. Musty and thick with dust. I went up the rickety stairs and paused at a door. It was on its hinges, bright pink, decorated with stickers of rainbows and unicorns. I knocked three times and waited.

Three knocks from the other side and the door creaked open. A small face peaked between the cracks and looked at me. It shut and open after a minute of locks and padlocks being snapped and clicked out of the way.

The room was neat. Two beds on either side, one blue or one pink. A little girl with messy brown hair sat on the blue bed, her hair being combed by her older brother. He looked up from his foray into beauty and smiled. It was a lop-sided smile, always lop-sided, never full.

"Didn't expect you to be coming so early," he said. He went back to detangling his sister's hair, she didn't look up at me, and she was staring at two dolls and moving them around.

I dug through my backpack and brought out the vacuum sealed bag of several portions of beef, vegetables and water. "I got the call from Hera." I put the bag on a pink desk with a cracked mirror on it.

Frustration flickered across his face. "I don't get why you have to go back to her. She isn't any good."

I turned my back to him. "I don't know when I'll see you next, so I'll be sending someone from the orphanage to bring food out here from now on."

He grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. "Or, and give me a chance, you could stay here and not go back to killing people."

I shrugged off his hand. "Can't do that. And besides, I've just come from killing Skins."

He shook his head, his shaggy brown hair swaying. "Skins don't count. Doesn't it feel better not killing people? If you go to the Gray you'd just be killing people again."

"Ray-"

"Remember when we sat on the porch and talked for hours a couple weeks ago?" he pressed. "We watched the sun set and everything. You said you felt better out here."

Frustration now, "Look. I need to go." I started back down the stairs.

He jumped down the stairs and blocked me from leaving. "What are you even killing for? You have enough money. You can just…stop. We can stay out here and…"

"And what?" I snapped. He didn't respond and I pushed past him. I walked back down the gravel and got back on my bike.

"There's no one in the Gray that's good for you," he shouted. "All the guys there are murderers and drug addicts." Down the gravel and standing in front of my bike. "I know that you had some sort of thing going on with another guy. But he probably wasn't any good for you. He was at Young Haven, and only the worst of the worst go there."

"Ray. Get out of my way or I'm going to run you over," I growled.

He said, "C'mon, Kira. You know deep down he wasn't good for you. He was the damn Stray after all. And everyone knows the stories around him."

I put my hand on the gun strapped to my thigh. "Get the fuck out of the way."

"What about-"

"Dammit, Ray," I shouted, my voice echoed down the empty suburban road. "It was one fucking night and I was," thumb and index finger millimeters apart, "this close to blowing my head off and I just needed something so I didn't pull the trigger."

His shoulders slumped. "So it was a mistake?"

I glared at him.

He nodded and looked up at the dying light of the sun hiding behind the horizon. He blinked away tears and shrugged. "Okay. Fine. Leave, have fun killing people for someone who kills kids for fun."

I switched on the bike and revved it to drown out the rest of his self-righteous speech. He'd been a Rogue before Dan had come to the Gray. He was one out of a few hundred that left the Gray after we took over from the Council. They didn't like the way Hera ran things, they wanted small things like staying in the old territory and continuing their dreams of being part of some hardy group of outsiders. Short sited. He wanted to live day to day with nothing to aim for, wanted me to stay here and do nothing but drink apple juice and talk for hours.

Dan had also been short sited, but by the end he'd wanted to help us for the long term.

I left Ray in the middle of the road, shouting and screaming at me. I sped up and left his shouts to get swept away by the wind. Pointless trying to fight with him, I was going back to the Gray, and I had my own things to deal with.

Past burnt out school buildings, past old cars, past bones tossed behind shop corners, and past the road that faded back into the sand of the desert. The Gray's glow was pulsing in the dusk now. I could feel its pull, it looked like the cities from hundreds of years ago. The cities with glowing lights and towering glass structures. Hera wanted something more than just the Gray, but she never said what. But at the rate the Gray was growing, she'd devour the city behind me and then Young Haven.

I broke into the housing blocks that she'd built. A village used to be here, and now kids were well fed and running around – fire flies dodging their small fists.

My bike broke onto the Gray's concrete. I weaved through electric and gas guzzling cars. Passed hoards of people posing for pictures, past bots buying groceries for the people too lazy or busy to get them themselves. Wait, no. Not food, food pills.

I screeched to a halt in front of a food stand. A Rogue I vaguely recognized was arguing with the vendor.

"Hey," I barked. They both looked at me. "What's going on here?"

"Hey, K," the Rogue said, he rubbed the stubble on his small chin. "This bastard not listening to me is what's going on."

"You," the vendor pointed at me. "You're friends with Hera. Tell her that we can't sell freakin' food pills! We need to make credits out here!"

A chorus of agreement from other vendors. A few civilians also joined in, shouting their hate for food pills. A few silent chants for Hera to be taken out of power burst through the air, too.

I looked at the frustrated Rogue. "Why do they have to sell food pills?"

A girl with green hair broke through the crowd. "'Cos we're all going on a diet. Now, the rest of you, go back to…whatever." They all swore and groaned at Saia. She said, "Have a great night." Quieter, "Pricks."

She hugged me. A little too tight but I welcomed it. I wasn't so touchy on germs any more. But for a split second, my eye picked something up from her.

"Saia-"

She pulled away. "Man, am I happy to see you. Like what you've done with the hair, didn't like the whole short hair act you had going on."

I ignored her jab and stored away what I'd picked up from her. "Food pills. What's going on?"

She leaned in. "Really bad shit."

"Gatekeepers?" I whispered.

"Gatekeepers."

I instinctively touched the aviators around my collar. Pancakes would have to wait.