Everything Fails. T Van Santana

like cud, his eyes focused on the holo.

      “See, Daddy …” Wendy tried again. “I told you. They’re nice.”

      He let out something like a snort. Like he knew me. Like he knew my kind. My sort.

      I tried to be nice, like Wendy wanted. But I knew his fucking kind. His sort. One of those stern motherfuckers out there on the orderly nets, cleaning up chems and corruption on the frontier worlds. Worlds like ours, the Jung. The Big Nasty.

      “I ain got nuthin’ to say,” he said.

      That made me laugh a little.

      Wendy cut me with her eyes, like they’re saying, “I will kill you, motherfucker, if you ruin this for me.” But she didn’t say anything.

      I went quiet, looked at my nails, painted glossy black.

      Wendy nudged me.

      “Sorry,” I said. I cleared my throat, put on my most respectable tone. “Uh, hello, sir. It’s nice to meet you.” I extended my hand, even though I was in the foyer, and he’s over on the fucking couch.

      He looked down at his pistol, then in my direction, but not right at me. Then back to the holo.

      “C’mon, Daddy,” Wendy said. “Be nice to them. I really like this one.”

      His eyes swished around in that stern-ass skull, like there’s something trying to happen that just can’t. “I ain got nuthin’ to say,” he said again. Then, to deepen the contradiction, he added, “Have a good night. Be safe.”

      Wendy sighed, then swept up her leather jacket. “C’mon, bitch, let’s ramble.”

      I shrugged. “Suits me.”

      I followed her out, gave one last look back at the old man. “Have a good night, sir,” I said.

      He chewed a bit more, said nothing.

      I let the door close quietly behind me and caught up to Wendy at my car.

      She sat on the hood, smoking a cigarette and digging a drink from her purse. “I swear to fucking god,” she said, “I can’t win with that old bastard.”

      I clicked on the car. I wanted her ready to fly if that old bastard changed his mind about letting us leave together. He hadn’t, but I didn’t know that. He’d already put me in the nets. But I didn’t know that either. So I was half uptight for no reason and relaxed for a bad reason I didn’t yet know. Kina how it goes.

      Wendy flipped the smoke around. It’s red where her lips were. “Smoke this.”

      I took it, smoked it.

      “Why can’t I fucking find anything in this goddam bag?”

      “It’s giant,” I said.

      Her eyes narrowed. “And?”

      “And giant bags don’t have a lot of organization to them. Gotta get a small bag.”

      She put her razored fingertips toward me. “Oh, is that what I have to do?”

      I put the smoke between her fingers, carefully. “Yep.”

      She pulled the smoke in, held it, then blew it all over me. “Well you know what you have to do …”

      She put her boots apart on the hood of the car.

      My blood heated up, and I looked over my shoulder at her house. “Get in the car first.”

      She shook her head.

      My blood cooled quick at the idea of that fucking gun that knew me, knew where to find me, and blah blah blah.

      “Wendy, c’mon …”

      She took another drag. “I’m waiting.”

      I flipped the car’s lights off.

      “Unh-uh. On.”

      I sighed. “Gimme a fuckin’ break.” I turned the lights back on.

      She shifted some, then slid toward me as I approached.

      “You’re gonna get me fuckin’ killed,” I said.

      “That’s the idea.”

      8 | Three Dark Spots: The Plant

      “We need you down at the Plant.” It’s Rabbit.

      “Why?” That’s me.

      “Danielle. She’s gone fuckin’ nuts.”

      I cut the wheel, turned the car around, opened him up as far as I could. He screamed in obedience but didn’t go much faster.

      “What happened?” I asked.

      “Shit, I dunno. We was sittin’ ‘round drinkin’ and shootin’ the shit when she took to mumblin’ ‘bout salvation and damnation and shit like ‘at.”

      “We?”

      “Me and Penguin and Danielle.”

      “Where’s Tij?”

      “He’s with Veta, tryin’ to get it on. You know how that usually goes.”

      I did.

      “And the Reptile?” I asked.

      “Who the fuck knows. He wandered off ‘bout an hour fer we came out here.”

      “All right, sit tight. I’m almost there.”

      I brought the car around and set him down easy in the tall weeds.

      “We have landed,” Vengeance said. That’s the name I’d given the virtual intelligence program that I installed after my mom had given me the car. Hers had been named Bessie. As cool as it was having a monotone VI named Vengeance telling me what was going on, the child in me secretly missed the gentle tones of Bessie.

      I blew open the door, climbed out, lit up a smoke, batted at the bugs on my legs.

      “Well don’t you look purty,” Rabbit said as I got close. “Nice dress.”

      “Shut the fuck up. Where is she?”

      He nodded with his head. “Over there.”

      Behind him was the ruined CoDex Milk Plant—or just the Plant, we usually called it. We went there to get fucked up and break shit. Sometimes to make out.

      I went to the front wall. It was broken open with dangerous pieces of steel sticking out at angles.

      Rabbit grabbed me by the waist and hoisted me over the wall and into the plant.

      “I can do it, asshole.”

      He put his hands up, smoke hanging from his lip. “Shit, I know. Just helpin’.”

      I glared for a second longer, then stomped over to the landing where Danielle was crouched like a fucking gargoyle, teeth bared.

      I looked around at the walls covered in strange symbols and luminescent fungus.

      I took a drag. “How long as she been like this?”

      “Like I said, ‘bout an ‘er.”

      “You didn’t say,” I said.

      “I didn’t?”

      “Nope.”

      Rabbit scratched his head. “Well shit. Then ‘bout an ‘er.”

      Danielle snarled, then said, “Welcome to salvation through damnation.”

      I wasn’t shaken. I took another draw of smoke. “What made you call me?”

      “Shit, she’s yer best friend.”

      I was her best friend. Horace was my best friend. But I didn’t clarify.

      “You