13
Bad Things
Matteo is tall wisp of a Pink with long limbs and a lean, beautiful
face. He is a slave. Or was a slave for carnal pleasures. Yet he walks
like a water lord. Beauty in his step. Manners and grace in the wave
of his hand. He has a penchant for wearing gloves and sning at
even the smallest bit of dirt. Body maintenance has been his life’s
purpose.. So he doesn’t nd it strange when he helps me apply a
hair follicle killer to my arms, legs, torso, and privates. But I do.
When we’re done, we’re both cursing—me from the sting, him from
the punch I threw at his shoulder. I accidentally dislocated it just by
punching it. I still don’t know my own strength. And they do make
their Pinks fragile. If he is the rose, I am the thorns.
“Bald as a toddler, you frenetic little baby,” Matteo sighs as
properly as one can say such a thing. “Just as the newest Luna
fashion requires. Now, with a bit of eyebrow sculpting—oh, how
your brows are like fungus-nibbling caterpillars—and nose-hair
eradication, cuticle readjustment, teeth whitening on those slick
new chompers—which, if I may say, are yellow as mustard dappled
with dandelions … tell me, have you ever brushed your new teeth?
—and blackhead removal (which shall be like probing for helium-3),
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toner adjustment, and melatonin injections, and you’ll be prim and
rose proper–ish.”
I snort at the foolishness of it all. “I already look like a Gold.”
“You look like a Bronze! A fool’s Gold! One of the lowbred
bastards who looks more khaki than Gold. You must be perfect.”
“You’re a bloodydamn odd lark, Matteo.”
He smacks me. “Mind yourself! A Golden would rather die than
use that slithering mineslang. ‘Gorydamn’ or ‘gory’; and ‘slag’
instead of ‘squab.’ Every time you say ‘bloody’ or ‘bloodydamn,’ I
will smack not your gob, but your mouth. And if you say ‘squab’ or
‘gob,’ I will kick you in the scrotum—which I do know my way
around—as I will do if you do not get rid of that horrible accent. You
sound like you were born in a gorydamn dumpster.”
He frowns and sets his hands on his narrow hips.
“And then we’ll have to teach you manners. And culture, culture,
goodman.”
“I have manners.”
“By the maker, we are so, so going to have to make you forswear
that brogue as well as the cursing.
He pokes me as he lists out my aws.
“Might try adopting some manners of your own, buttboy,” I growl.
He pulls o one of my gloves and slaps me across the face and
takes bottle in hand and holds it to my throat. I laugh.
“You’ll have to get your Helldiver reexes back soon to go with
that gawky new body.”
I eye the bottle.
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“Going to poke me to death?”
“It is a polyenne sword, goodman. A razor, in other words. One
moment it is soft as hair, but with an organic impulse, it turns
harder than diamond. It is the only thing that will cut through a
pulseShield. One moment a whip, the next moment a perfect sword.
It is the weapon of a gentleman. A Gold. For any other Color to
carry it is death.”
“It is a bottle, you daft—”
He jams me in the throat so that I gag.
“And it was your manners that forced me to draw my razor and
challenge you, thereby precipitously ending your impudent life. You
may have fought with sts for honor in that hovel you called home.
You were a bug then. An ant. An Aureate ghts with a blade at the
slightest provocation. They have honor the likes of which you know
nothing about. Your honor was personal; theirs is personal, familial,
and planetary. That is all. They ght for higher stakes, and they do
not forgive when the bloodletting is done. Least of all the Peerless
Scarred. Manners, goodman. Manners will protect you until you can
protect yourself from my shampoo bottle.”
“Matteo …,” I say, rubbing my throat.
“Yes?” he sighs.
“What is shampoo?”
Another stint in Mickey’s carving room might have been
preferable to Matteo’s tutelage. At least Mickey was afraid of me.
Matteo is all insults and jibes, which I wouldn’t mind if I could hit
the scrawny man, but if I did, I know I might break him. Yet for all
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his insults, I don’t dislike him. He reminds me of Loran, what with
his wit and energy, only supplied with Uncle Narol’s grumbling
attitude. I miss them both.
The next morning Dancer tries to rename me.
“You will be the son of a relatively unknown family from the far
asteroid clusters. Soon, the family will be dead in a shipping
accident. You will be the lone survivor and the only heir to their
debts and poor status. His name, your name, will be Caius au
Andromedus.”
“Slag that,” I reply. “I will be Darrow or I will be nothing.”
He scratches his head. “Darrow is an … odd name.”
“You have made me give up the hair Father gave me, the eyes
Mother left me, the Color I was born to, so I will keep the name they
granted me, and you can make it work.”
“I liked it better when you didn’t act like a Gold,” Dancer
grumbles.
“Now, the key to dining like an Aureate is to eat slowly,” Matteo
says as we sit together at a table in the penthouse where Dancer rst
showed me the world. “You will nd yourself subjected to many
Trimalchian feasts. On such occasions, there will be seven courses—
appetizer, soup, sh, meat, salad, dessert, and libations.”
He gestures to a small tray laden with silverware and explains the
various methods for eating with each.
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Then he tells me, “If you must urinate or defecate during the
meal, you hold it in. Controlling one’s bodily functions is expected
of an Aureate.”
“So these namby-pamby Goldbrows aren’t allowed to shit? And
when they do, I wonder, does it come out gold?”
Matteo slaps my cheek with his glove. “If you’re so eager to see
red again, let your tongue slip in their presence, goodman, and
they’ll be happy to remind you what color all men bleed. Manners
and control! You have neither.” He shakes his head. “Now, tell me
what this fork is used for.”
I want to tell him it’s used for picking his arse, but I sigh and give
him the correct answer. “Fish, but only if the bones are still in the
dish.”
“And how much of this sh are you to eat?”
“All of it,” I guess.
“No!” he cries. “Were you even listening?” His small hands clutch
his hair and he takes a deep breath. “Must I remind you? There are
Bronzies, There are Golds. And there are Pixies.”
He leaves the rest for me to nish.
“Pixies have no self-control,” I remember aloud. “They take in all
the treats of power, but do pissall to merit them. They are born and
they chase pleasure. Righto?”
“Prime, not righto. Now what is expected of a Gold? Of a Peerless
Scarred?”
“Perfection.”
“Which means?”
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My voice is cold as I mimic a Gold’s accent. “It means control,
goodman. Self-control. I am permitted to indulge in vices so long as I
never permit them to usurp control. If there is a key to
understanding Aureates, it is found in understanding control in all
its forms. Eat the sh, leave twenty percent to indicate its
deliciousness did not overpower my resolve or make slaves of my
tastebuds.”
“So you were listening after all.”
Dancer nds me the next day as I practice my Aureate accent in
the penthouse’s holomirror. I can see a three-dimensional depiction
of my head in front of me. The teeth move strangely, catching my
tongue as I try to roll my words. I am still becoming used to my
body, even months after the last of the surgeries. My teeth are larger
than I initially thought them. It also doesn’t help that the Goldbrows
speak as though they’ve had golden shovels stuck up their
bloodydamn stinkholes. So I nd it easier to speak like one if I see
that I am one. The arrogance comes easier.
“Soften your r’s,” Dancer tells me. He sits attentively as I read
from a datapad. “Pretend as though there is an h in front of each
one.” His burner reminds me of home and I remember how
ArchGovernor Augustus seemed in Lykos. I remember the man’s
serenity. His patient condescension. His smirk. “Elongate the l’s.”
“Is that all the strength you have?” I say into the mirror.
“Perfect,” Dancer praises with a humorous shiver. He claps his
good hand on his knee.
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“Soon I’ll be dreaming like I’m a bloodydamn Goldbrow too,” I
say in disgust.
“You shouldn’t say ‘bloodydamn.’ Say ‘gory’ or ‘gorydamn’
instead.”
I glare at him. “If I saw myself on the street, I would hate me. I
would want to take a slingBlade and carve me from pucker to
stinker and then burn the remains. Eo would puke to look at me.”
“You’re young still,” Dancer laughs. “God, I sometimes forget how
young.” He takes a ask out of his boot and downs some before
tossing it to me.
I laugh. “Last time I drank, Uncle Narol drugged me.” I take a
drink. “Maybe you’ve forgotten what the mines are like. I’m not
young.”
Dancer frowns. “I didn’t mean to insult, Darrow. It’s just you
understand what you’re to do. You understand why you’re to do it.
But you still lose perspective and judge yourself. Right now you
probably get sick looking at your golden self. Righto?”
“Righto there.” I drink deep from the ask.
“But you’re only playing a part, Darrow.” He twitches his nger
and a hooked blade slips from the ring on his nger. My reexes are
back and quick enough that I might have shoved it up into his
throat if I thought he meant me harm, but I let him swipe the blade
across my index nger. Blood wells out. Red blood. “Just in case
you need reminding what you really are.”
“Smells like home,” I say, sucking on the nger. “Mum used to
make blood soup out of the pitvipers. Not half bad to the truth of
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it.”
“You dip axbread in it and sprinkle in okrablossom?”
“How’d you know?” I ask.
“My mum did the same,” Dancer laughs. “We’d have it at
Dancetide, or before the Laureltide when they’d announce the
winner. Always squabbing Gamma.”
“Here’s to Gamma.” I laugh and nish another swig.
Dancer watches me. The smile eventually slips from his face and
his eyes grow cold. “Matteo’s to teach you to dance tomorrow.”
“Thought you’d be the one doing that,” I say.
He thumps his bad leg. “Been a while since I’ve done that. Best
dancer in Oikos. I could move like a deeptunnel draft. All our best
dancers were Helldivers. I was one for several years, you know.”
“I gured.”
“Did you, now?”
I gesture to his scars. “Only a Helldiver would be bit so many
times without drillBoys around to help pull the vipers o. Been
bitten too. Got a bigger heart for it, at least.”
He nods and his eyes go distant. “Fell into a nest when xing to
repair a nodule on the clawDrill. They were up in one of the ducts
and I didn’t see them. They were the dangerous kind.”
I see where he’s going with this. “They were babies,” I say.
He nods.
“They have less venom. Much less than their parents, so they
weren’t burrowers bent on laying eggs inside of me. But when they
bit, they used all the evil in them. Fortunately, we had antivenom
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with us. Traded some Gammas for it.” In Lykos we had no
antivenom.
He leans toward me.
“We’re tossing you into a nest of baby vipers, Darrow. Mark that.
Admissions testing is three months from now. I will be tutoring you
in conjunction with your lessons from Matteo now. But if you do not
quit judging yourself, if you continue to hate your guise, then you
will fail the test or worse—you will pass it and then slip up and be
found out while at the Institute. And everything will be squabbed.”
I shift in my seat. For once, there’s another fear in me—not of
becoming something Eo would not recognize, but a more primal
fear, a mortal fear of my enemies. What will they be like? I already
see their sneers, their contempt.
“Doesn’t matter if they nd me out.” I clap Dancer’s knee.
“They’ve taken what they can from me already. That is why I am a
weapon you can use.”
“Wrong,” Dancer snaps. “You’re of use because you’re more than
a weapon. When your wife died, she didn’t just give you a vendetta.
She gave you her dream. You’re its keeper. It’s maker. So don’t be
spitting anger and hate. You’re not ghting against them, no matter
what Harmony says. You’re ghting for Eo’s dream, for your family
that is still alive, your people.”
“Is that Ares’s opinion? I mean, is it yours?”
“I am not Ares,” Dancer repeats. I don’t believe him. I’ve seen the
way his men look at him, how even Harmony pays him deference.
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“Look into yourself, Darrow, and you’ll realize that you are a good
man who will have to do bad things.”
My hands are unscarred and feel strange when I clench them till
the knuckles turn that familiar shade of white.
“See. That’s what I don’t get. If I am a good man, then why do I
want to do bad things?”
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