Born Hero Page 11

  “David,” she said, straightening up into proper posture, “I didn’t see you there.”

  “Sorry,” David said. “I … I would have helped you with that bag, but you surprised me.”

  She smiled and smoothed her dress. “I’m guessing you couldn’t stay away either, huh? Better to sit and wait here than sit at home.”

  “Precisely. I’d pace a hole right through my floor.”

  She snickered at that.

  David nodded toward her desk. “What’s in the bag?”

  “My gown.”

  David shook his head. “Gown?”

  “My gown for this evening?” Mercy said, rolling her eyes.

  “What’s wrong with the one you’re wearing?”

  “I couldn’t wear this to a formal dinner,” Mercy said with a little laugh. “It’s not proper. Come now, you’re just messing with me. Where’s your formal suit?”

  “Well … I mean, I planned on just wearing this.” David said, feeling some color rise to his cheeks.

  “What?” Mercy placed her hands on her hips and laughed. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that you can’t wear a business suit to a formal dinner?”

  “No.” David looked down at his father’s tattered old suit. “At least not for a long time now.”

  “David, I’m so sorry. I’d quite forgotten your situation in life.” Mercy’s face was as pink as a pull of taffy.

  “It’s alright. I have it better than some. It might be my only suit, but it’s one more than a lot of people have.”

  Mercy smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. She looked away and absently brushed some dust off her hang-up bag. “Why don’t we go get you one?” she said, looking up again, emerald eyes sparkling.

  “A gown?” David asked, raising his eyebrows.

  “No, silly—a suit … a formal dining suit. We have plenty of time before our dinner with Johnson.”

  “Well, I don’t know. I … well …”

  “What’s the matter, David?” she asked, a devilish twinkle in her eyes. “Afraid to go shopping with me?”

  “No, never, but … I can’t afford to buy a suit.”

  “And you don’t have to,” Mercy said. “I’m buying.”

  “I couldn’t possibly let you do that.”

  “David, I avoid speaking of my family heritage. But the truth is, I come from a good deal of money, and I have more than enough to buy my friends a gift or two.”

  David shook his head, but it was a feeble effort. He wanted a new suit with all his heart. “I can’t, Mercy. I can’t accept charity. I’ll accept it for my mother, but not for myself. If I go down that road, living off the benevolence of others, I’ll never learn to provide for myself.”

  “Who told you that?” Mercy asked, brow furrowed.

  “It’s something my father used to say.”

  “Oh. Well then, I won’t buy it for you. Consider it a long-term loan.”

  “What?”

  “Come on, get your things.” Mercy walked toward the door, her blue dress swishing with every step.

  “But I—”

  “Are you going to make a lady get the door for herself?” she asked in an admonishing tone.

  “No, ma’am,” David said, jumping up and rushing to the door.

  She took his arm, and together they walked toward the orbital transportation dock. But as they neared, Mercy pulled him down a different corridor.

  “Where are we going?” David asked.

  “To catch an air-taxi,” Mercy said with an obvious look.

  “Air-taxi? Why not the orbital sky-liner? They’re free.”

  “That will take hours. Not to mention they smell.” She wrinkled her nose and tossed her hair.

  David found himself smiling at her, but he wasn’t really sure why. Mercy had never been this casual before, but then again he had never been with her in anything other than a work environment. She was playful, like a puppy out on a walk, or maybe it was the other way around. Easy laugh, easier smile, more genuine—this was the true Mercy.

  As they walked, David looked around at the foreign corridor. He noticed a lot less day workers and security guards and a lot more aides and representatives. As they rounded a corner, the hallway opened up into a wide glass room with a dozen lines to a dozen glass doors. Every few moments one of the gates would open with a hiss, and cool, high-altitude air would rush in as those departing swapped places with those arriving. In this manner air-taxis offloaded and loaded at a steady pace. The room echoed with the hissing of the doors and the rush of cool wind. Indeed, it was a good ten degrees colder than the rest of the orbital.

  The entire room glowed with muted light as the orbital currently sat in the middle of a cloud bank. David avoided looking down, knowing that beneath his feet were only a few inches of glass and then swirling mist. But the glass floor hardly unnerved him as much as what was holding his arm.

  Mercy still clung to his arm, his mechanical one, as if it was the right and proper thing to do. Her thin dress looked to be providing little in the way of warmth. For the moment he didn’t mind her proximity, but in a few hours David knew his arm would sweat fluid and soak his jacket, as it did every day. He shuddered to think of the beautiful Mercy grabbing his arm, as a lady should, only to recoil at the touch of sodden cloth. It was a shame; he liked it when she held his arm.

  They were second in line for a taxi now, and David could see the little airships swirling around the dock like a hive. Each was a rear-excess Porter, distinct for its oversized pontoons. They weren’t the fastest or most agile craft, but they had an extremely comfortable ride. As he watched, an air-taxi backed into the little dock in front of the glass door, and an automatic clamp fastened to the back of the craft. But when the rear hatch opened, David sucked in a gulp of air. Eric Himpton stepped out in a burgundy suit and walked toward their glass door. What were the chances?

  The glass door opened, and the passengers in front of David and Mercy stepped through to occupy Eric’s taxi. Eric bumped shoulders with one of them but didn’t bother apologizing. The orbital doors snapped shut behind Eric, and he frowned as he saw David and Mercy. Mercy’s face remained the same as always—pleasant and impassive—but now she gripped David’s arm with both hands.

  “Hello, Mercy,” Eric said, not even acknowledging David. “Stooping a bit low, don’t you think? I would have thought Blythe could find someone else to take the trash out.”

  David had been called much worse than trash, so the comment didn’t bother him—much—but Mercy didn’t look interested in letting it go.

  “Trash?” she said as she looked up at David, eyebrows furrowed. “Now that is embarrassing. How on earth did trash beat your score on the PLAEE?”

  Eric glared for a few more seconds before stomping off.

  David looked at Mercy, but she kept her gaze forward, hands gripping his arm, only the corners of her mouth betraying a hint of a smile.

  The glass doors opened for them, and Mercy squeaked in terror. She ripped her hands from David’s arm as her loose skirt caught the wind and flew up. David did his best to find very interesting things to look at everywhere but Mercy’s general direction.

  “I hate this dress,” Mercy said, reasserting control over her wayward skirts, pinning them to her legs.

  “Really?” David grasped for something to smooth over the situation. “Because, well, everyone else loves it.”

  Mercy shot him a look.

  “I mean … Oh. That was poorly said, I think.”

  Mercy snickered a little, but as they entered the taxi, it was difficult to tell who was blushing more.

  “Royal’s, if you please,” Mercy said to the air-taxi driver.

  They took their seats in the spacious cabin with room for eight. David took note that they sat on comfy leather seats, and the floor was actually carpeted. The docking clamps released and the ponderous craft listed slowly through the sky into the cloud bank below. Unlike Blythe’s Cloud Cutter, which sliced through th
e air like a knife, the Porter plowed the wind, trading speed for relaxation. The all-glass cockpit covered a front third of the airship.

  The windows fogged as the craft dropped into Swollock Season’s humidity. The driver dipped the ship into the low-altitude air traffic lanes in between Capital City’s skyscrapers. David looked out his window at the thousands of personal craft: agile skiffs, delivery barges, an occasional orbital guard ship brisling with chain-guns, and lumbering tugs pulling pontoon crates. Their air-taxi pilot banked around the residential section of the city and into the commerce sector, docking at one of the top floors of a gorgeous glass-and-silver tower.

  “Thank you, sir,” Mercy said, handing the pilot a sterling.

  “Thank you, miss,” the pilot said, eyes gleaming as he touched his cap with the coin in hand.

  David offered his right arm to Mercy before she had a chance to take his fake left one, his sleeve already beginning to soak with mechanical fluids. She accepted it with a smile and pointedly grabbed a handful of skirt with the other, this time prepared for the gust of wind that rushed through the open door. Here the wind felt hot and thick, unlike the high-altitude air around the orbital. Somehow the hot air felt as though it pushed with more force than the cold. Cold air would bite and sting, but hot air sapped and drained. The air-conditioned shopping center called them to it as they walked through the sticky smog.

  They stepped through the tower door onto a halo-shaped balcony circling the entire tower, its center consisting of an enormous waterfall. David staggered as he gazed at the opulence around him, yet something about the waterfall was odd. As he drew nearer, he noticed that it flowed all thirty stories, from the ground floor to the penthouse … against gravity. David leaned over the railing, watching the water flow up with lazy momentum. Bioluminescent fish sparkled within, glowing florescent greens, yellows, purples, or pinks.

  “Pretty, isn’t it?” Mercy said from his arm.

  “When you’ve lived at the bottom for so long, you forget how many levels of luxury there are. It’s gorgeous.” After a few more seconds David added, “There is no way I will ever be able to pay you back if you buy me a suit from here.”

  “Now don’t go changing your mind on me.” Mercy exaggerated a groan as she pulled him away from the waterfall and toward a fancy store with a carved marble and filigree sign that read “Royal’s.”

  As they entered the shop, David gawked at the racks and racks of suits in more colors than he knew existed, not to mention just as many more mirrors. A store clerk in a gray suit and sky-blue bowtie greeted them.

  “We are looking for a formal dining suit for this evening,” Mercy said as the clerk favored them with a well-practiced, well-pasted smile.

  “I see.” The clerk looked up and down David. “That is the military semiformal suit from the 3230s.”

  David nodded. “That’s quite right, sir. It was my father’s.”

  “Hmm, yes, and I think it’s seen better days.”

  The clerk walked around David, assessing him with a critical eye. He stretched a tape between his hands that David hadn’t known he was holding and measured his shoulders and arms.

  The clerk said, “Let’s try something over here.”

  He led them to a rack of colorful jackets and held up a bright red one. David tried his best to look pleased. If Mercy was paying the bill, he wasn’t about to be picky.

  “No, definitely not,” Mercy said. “Something that says power and not butterfly.”

  The clerk nodded and moved to another rack, pulling out an all-black jacket with black-velvet piping.

  “Too much power,” Mercy said with a shake of her head.

  She proceeded to say no to the next dozen jackets, all for reasons David didn’t quite understand.

  After fifteen minutes the clerk grew frustrated. “Well, how about you show me exactly what you’re looking for, then maybe I can help find the right size?”

  Mercy clasped her hands behind her back and glided through the racks, heels clicking on the marble floor. She perused a few coats from the rack before shoving them back in with words like “Yuck” and “Ew.”

  “This one,” she said on her fourth rack.

  She walked back to David, carrying a midnight-blue jacket with a black, velvet shawl-collar and matching piping. He wasn’t sure why, but he liked this one. It was impressive yet elegant.

  “Can we get one in this size?” Mercy asked.

  The clerk nodded and walked to a rack.

  “Let me help you with your jacket,” Mercy said, stepping up behind David and loosening it from his shoulders.

  David shrugged it off and paused as he felt a breeze pass through his pants. He’d quite forgotten about the sizable hole in the back of his trousers until he heard Mercy giggle. Whirling around, he put his back against a coatrack. Mercy had a hand shielding her eyes, shaking as she fought against the giggles.

  “Well, at least we’re even now,” she said. “You’ve shown me your knickers and I’ve shown you mine.”

  Then she clapped a hand over her mouth as if to trap the words that already escaped. David couldn’t help but laugh. In the end it was probably much more embarrassing for Mercy, and if she could laugh it off, so could he. But the blush came nonetheless for both of them.

  The clerk returned, looking puzzled at both their red faces. He held out the coat to help David put it on, but David opted to take the coat and shoulder it on himself, all the while keeping his rear to the wall. The clerk just shrugged and folded his arms.

  It fit perfectly, better than anything he had ever worn. He smiled as he stepped up to the mirror.

  “Do you like it?” Mercy asked.

  “Very much. But …”

  “But what?” Mercy asked with a frown.

  “My arm will soil it in no time.” David looked down at his mechanical appendage as lubricant dripped from his finger.

  Mercy tapped her lips with a finger. “We’ll be needing the pants too,” she said to the clerk. “Sooner rather than later, for all our sakes.” She gave David a secret smile as the clerk went to retrieve the pants. “When he gets back, you find a fitting room and try on the pants. I’ll be back in a minute.” With that she turned and walked toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” David asked. He was fairly sure the only reason the clerk hadn’t thrown him out the minute he walked in was because Mercy held his arm.

  “I’ll be back,” she said again from outside the entrance.

  The clerk returned with some midnight-blue trousers and David fought to keep the panic from his face.

  “Um, she’s run off,” he said. “Is there a fitting room I could use?”

  “Most women do, sir. Right this way.” The clerk betrayed nothing more than a flat gaze.

  David had just slipped the matching trousers on when he heard Mercy’s voice through the closed door: “David, I’m going to pass something over the door, okay?”

  “Okay,” he said, wondering what she had.

  A second later Mercy tossed in what looked like a long black sock, except it had a hole on both ends and it was made of rubber.

  “Slide that over your arm,” she said. “Then put this on.”

  Now a white formal shirt plopped onto his head. It took some doing, but the rubber sock stretched over his mechanical arm, reaching from his wrist to his shoulder. After that he buttoned on the shirt and jacket. When he stepped out of the fitting room, Mercy stood with two cravats—one black, one silver. She held them to his chest and then threw the black one to the clerk.

  “Nope,” she said. “Silver looks better.”

  “This is amazing,” David said as he pulled back his left sleeve and marveled at the rubber sock. “What is it?”

  “Um … well,” Mercy said as she slipped the cravat around his neck. “It’s a type of ladies’ accoutrement.”

  David looked up with a start, not liking where that was going.

  “Women of a more … robust nature will slide these over th
eir arms whenever they want their arms to appear more slender. They come in most colors and look about like a sleeve to a dress.

  “Oh,” David said, letting out his breath. “I thought you meant a different type of accoutrement.”

  Mercy’s mouth twitched at the corners as she finished tying his cravat.

  “Wouldn’t this make their hands go numb?” David asked, flexing his mechanical arm.

  “Oh they do. But then again, if their hands are numb, they won’t be able to put as much in their mouths, thereby solving the original problem.”

  “That makes rather morbid sense,” David said as he puzzled it out.

  Mercy laughed. “It does. Now … here.” She took a handkerchief from a hidden pocket and rolled it under the rubber sleeve like a cuff. “That should soak up anything that tries to sneak out. Take a look.” She pushed him toward a mirror.

  David hardly recognized himself. His shoulders still slanted and his leg still buckled, but he looked … elegant, less like an invalid and more like a war hero.

  “Do you like it?” Mercy asked.

  “It’s … amazing. I’m never going to be able to repay you … for everything.”

  Mercy looked away and walked toward the clerk. “You don’t have to. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I’m going to try,” David said.

  She shrugged and handed the clerk a coin purse, not bothering to look inside. “Thank you, sir.”

  “You’re welcome, miss,” the clerk said. “Do come and visit us again.”

  A few minutes later they stood at the dock, and as David pressed a signal button to call a cab, Mercy said, “I’m a bit jealous. In that suit you’re going to outshine me. And to think I worked so hard picking out my gown.”

  “Outshine you? That’s impossible. You could put my old suit on and still make the most beautiful women envious.” He shook the bag holding his old suit for emphasis. “Wait … you were fishing for that compliment, weren’t you?”