Convalescence Part 4

There are good days and there are bad days, and after a while the two fuse together into a single bright thread as time loses what little meaning it had in Iron City. Life is reduced to struggle with only two constants. Pain is one, of course, always waning but never far from mind.

The other sits perched in your windowsill on a stormy Tuesday morning, soaked to the bone — as the saying goes. A thunderclap rouses you dead tired from another night of half-sleep; even after weeks of healing, you could rarely fight a full eight hours through the aches. Cursing their persistence, you fling your covers aside and rise from bed a bit quicker and a bit surer than yesterday.

Alita drops down into your room with a sodden thud, big grey Motorball bag slung loose around her shoulder. The dour expression on her face warms up in an instant when your eyes meet, though a tinge of disappointment lurks beyond the cheer.

"Lousy weather, huh? I was really hoping we could meet up with everyone at the plaza course, but...I don't know if it's such a good idea in this downpour."

"And yet, you brought all the gear."

She unzips the bag and there it is, as requested: full Motorball regalia for two, plus a few extra pads she must have intended for you. Saku's mocking voice fills your head, but you were never one to care about appearances on the track. Besides, you doubt even he would be so uncouth considering you had near enough died last time.

"I had a feeling you wouldn't let a little rain spoil your big comeback."

"I'll be fine, seriously. It's just going to be the five of us, for starters."

"Six, actually."

You pour yourself a cup of yesterday's stale coffee and toss it in the microwave; it seems you'll be needing an extra shot of energy today.

"Really? I'm surprised Eiserne could find the time. Isn't her third match tonight?"

"Fourth, and still perfect."

There's a competitive edge now to Alita's voice you find absolutely adorable. She sets the gear bag aside and takes a seat on the sofa, faint pout now puffing up her cheeks. You think better of teasing.

A pitiful beep registers from the microwave, itself no stranger to the specter of death. You had been planning to replace it before the accident, but now you couldn't bear the thought. Kinship with an appliance — you blame the concussion and grab the coffee.

"Well, she'll be up against it this time; it's No Rules Tuesday, after all!"

"You know that's not real, right?"

You laugh and nearly spit out your coffee, which would be just as well considering you've never had worse. Alita throws a pad at you from across the room that impacts harmlessly against your thigh. Playfully feigning injury, you join her on the sofa where she wastes no time snuggling up against you, warm and impossibly dry. There's still a hesitation in her contact, like she's handling the fine porcelains down in Market District without a credit to her name. You're hoping a good Motorball display will convince her of your health.

Rain makes for fine drama, anyway.

***

"Just a peach of a day, ain't it? Oh, you sure know how to pick 'em!"

Bandana flapping in the gale, Saku pokes his head out from the cover of the cafe as you and Alita pass under the bridge approaching the plaza. Somehow the sky had opened up even further since leaving your apartment; rain lashes your skin as it rides whipping winds down Iron City's corridors. Try as you might, you can't manage to come up with anything resembling a retort before Alita drags you along. Another point for Saku, and his face tells you he knows it.

The rest of the crew is up ahead, putting the finishing touches on a very wet Motorball course. There's Vela, casting a venomous look in the cafe's direction, and Greaser, carrying a fifty-pound rail block like you would a bag of potatoes, and...

You freeze. Alita glances back and forth with obvious concern before putting the pieces together.

"That's right. You haven't seen Eiserne since..."

"...since she went full-body. Huh."

It's all very obvious — how else could she have become a pro player? — but you can't deny feeling a subtle pang of horror when gazing upon her sleek new cybernetic form. You knew people who had undergone the procedure after massive physical trauma necessitated it, but to voluntarily throw your body away over a game? Over anything?

Alita tugs you forward again, this time hard enough to send pain rocketing up your arm from the tender elbow ligaments that still begged for a few more days of healing. That was unlike her, you think, and then you realize you had been staring. And Eiserne had been staring back.

"Not bad work, yeah? Vela sourced the body and Cavasso over on 34th did the job for a cut of this year's winnings. He was always sweet on me."

"Cavasso? Not Ido?"

She gives you a strained look like you'd just asked a damned stupid question, which you had.

"You think Doc of all people would spin me a total-replacement over Motorball? Sure that head of yours is set straight?"

"Not entirely, no."

A chill begins to set in as the three of you join Saku in the nearby cafe. Greaser waves off your invitation and tweaks the ramps this way and that until he has them right back where they started. Strange guy, but he had a knack of getting it just right even if it took him twice as long.

Aside from your group, the cafe is well enough abandoned. The barman lounges back by the drinks with his feet kicked up and a newspaper to pass the time, grasped by a cheap-looking cybernetic hand short a few fingers. Sitting in a crooked lean against one of the pillars is a busker you had seen around that part of town a few times before but could never pin a name on. He wore an oversize suede suit as poorly as you would expect from the kind of busker still plying in the middle of a storm. You watch for a tick as he works a surgery on his quaint little string instrument. You couldn't pin a name on that, either.

There's a silence now, aside from the wind and the rain which is hardly fair to count. Without walls to separate inside from out, the rich scent of the weather, tinged metallic as ever, flows freely through the cafe just as the scent of coffee would on a busier, drier morning. You breathe deep with lungs that finally allow it, then realize everyone is waiting for you to say something.

"What?"

You're surprised to hear Vela's voice next, cutting the wheels from Saku just as he had opened his mouth to undoubtedly say something sharp.

"Certain you're good to go? If you head back to Ido's with so much as a scratch on you he'll chain you to the bed."

For obvious reasons you had kept Ido in the dark about today's little scrimmage. You weren't exactly fully recovered from your injuries, and even that didn't much matter anyway. You'd be drawing dead looking for his approval to get back on the track.

"I'm good. We'll take it nice and easy today, and besides, Alita's brought plenty of extra padding to stuff me in. You could roll me out with Eiserne and the big boys tonight and I'd probably make it home in one piece, give or take."

On cue, Alita drops her gear bag to the floor like the footfall of a Centurion. A single wavering twang fills the cafe, loosed by a rather startled busker who mutters an obscenity under his breath, while the barman simply gazes over his newspaper with weary eyes. Sometimes it seemed she forgot how much power was in that body of hers.

With another brief lull, Saku rises to his feet and you're sure as anything he's going to take his shot. As ever, he manages to surprise you.

"Well, gang's all here. Why don't you come clean with us, man? We paid that goon a visit, guy with the metal hand, remember? What was his name again, Vela?"

"Full House."

Saku snaps his fingers.

"That's it, Full House. I knew it was somethin' dumb. Yeah, so anyways, paid the guy a visit, roughed him up a bit, gave him the business, you know, as we do."

You exhale and sit back deep in your seat. Figures.

"I've got some stupid fucking friends."

"Hey, I ain't sayin' that's not the case. But the poor guy had to get a new hand on my account and I just want to know if there was a reason for it. That's all."

You loved Saku and Vela like siblings, but they had a thuggish side to them you knew Alita despised. One of these days they'd push too far and get themselves marked. Alita has a look in her eyes like she's counting the days, and you decide for Saku's sake to end this conversation quickly. That'd be a first.

"I told you that guy had nothing to do with it, you dope."

"You also told us a little tumble off the highrail broke half the bones in your body, so forgive me if I don't see much truth in any of it."

The busker in the cheap suede starts strumming his strings and whistles like he expects a fight to break out. He didn't know you two well enough. This was Tuesday casual.

"I'll admit I fed you a line on that one. And it wasn't my best work."

"No shit."

"Are you two done?"

For the first time in a strange while, Alita speaks, and all the ears that had tuned out your spat with Saku suddenly stand at attention. Even the barman is looking past his paper.

"I took him out. Eiserne got me clean and I lost my cool."

As she says it, it sounds even to you like the biggest lie of all. Saku looks at Alita, then back to you with such a look of incredulity it's hard not to laugh.

"She took you out? She did?"

"Whiffed on the killshot and cracked me crossfire in the ribs. That's how it happened, man. It's Motorball."

Thinking two steps ahead, you ready yourself to tackle Alita in case Saku's next words set her charging at him.

But there's nothing. Nothing but rain and wind that blows the tension right out into the plaza. Vela sucks air through gritted teeth in silent sympathy. A pensive scowl contorts Eiserne's face as if to say, "yeah, that makes sense". One of these days she'll forget her own name after a race. And Saku...

"Well, shit. Should have said so in the first place. Vela, you still got that guy's hand, Big House or whatever?"

"Full House. And yeah, it's back at my place. Couldn't rope a buyer."

"I'd say we ought to return it before the match tonight. Might even bring flowers."

You were damn lucky to have friends who made it this easy to clear the air. Otherwise you'd have all killed each other a long time ago.

The one now closest to murder, surprisingly, is Alita. After Greaser calls everyone out to the track, you hang back to have a word with her. The feral look is back.

"I hate him."

"I do too, most of the time. But he's close enough to family that I take the bad with the good."

She clenches her fists tight enough to crush stone.

"And what's the good?"

"He's a bit like you. Reliable."

You thought to let the words marinate, but Alita's lip begins to arch in a way that compels you to explain yourself, fast.

"Okay, look, I know he's rough around the edges, I know that. There are things he and Vela get up to that make my stomach turn, things that'll probably get them both killed some day."

"Have they ever tried to involve you?"

"Never, not once. Not me, not Eiserne, not Greaser. They do what they do because it's all they've ever known, and it's kept them going this long."

"If you're trying to explain what Saku and I have in common, you aren't doing a very good job of it."

Your eyes flit about the cafe as if the words you seek are etched somewhere in the stonework.

"If not for him, I wouldn't be alive. That kind of reliable."

The disgust drains from her face in an instant, replaced by something halfway between surprise and curiosity.

"Sounds like a story."

"It is. Ask him about it sometime."

You give her a reassuring pat on the shoulder before skipping off into the storm.