Title: Lucky Day in Hell
Author: L0C
Rating: R
Summary: How-Beka-Met-Harper, with a twist.
Disclaimer: Andromeda is property of Tribune.
Mama gripped onto the milkman's hand
And then she finally gave birth
Years go by, still I don't know
Who shall inherit this earth
And no one will know my name
Until it's on the stone, whoa...
This could be your lucky day in hell
--Eels "Your Lucky Day in Hell"
Act One
Scene One
Dead asleep.
Dead asleep, past twisting and turning, past the sense of any peripheral stimulus, so deep in his subconscious that if it weren't for rapid movement in his dream-self eyes, one would have thought he was another pale, lifeless corpse of a workhouse child.
Dead asleep, and in his shuttered eyes he could still see the blood dripping down his mother's back as she was murdered, he could see the flutter of insect wings as they gathered to feast on his father's corpse, the pornographically swollen bellies of the starving infants as they sat wailing between the bodies of their parents.
It was a distressing sight to see over and over, so Seamus Harper left the world of the dead in favour of the world of the dying. He woke up.
He woke up in the corner of the subway alcove that was his new home, in the exact same position that he had fallen asleep. He was barefoot, his head shorn and scabby, a perpetual fly twittering around his eyes- the infomercial glamour of the third world.
Seamus rubbed at his sunken eyes and then stared into the ensuing darkness until sight returned.
He pulled the old moth-eaten blue hoodie from under him and fumbled with it, the sound of ancient cotton on cotton was deafening in the silence. He finally got it over his wire frame before he wandered in the stuffy twilight towards Joy's cradle.
The cradle was pitiful, really, but Seamus had built it himself in the weeks past, some busy work with old pieces of scrap metal and clothing stolen from the graveyard. Brendan had set him to it after Seamus showed up on his 'doorstep' alone, really alone, and for the first time in his short life, frowning.
Seamus hadn't intended on staying in the alcove this long, of course, he knew he was in danger, and that he was a danger to Brendan, baby Joy, and all of Brendan's friends who lived here.
He just...wasn't ready.
Joy gurgled up at him and his hollow face allowed for a sickly smile. She didn't smile back, her big blue eyes staring up at him in frightening alertness. It was a look that she most have gotten from her father, who had left her mother and Brendan when Joy was still a scant possibility. That day was the first time Seamus ever saw Brendan get drunk. After that, Brendan had to start working to take care of his sister Joy, and his mother, who used to be a brothel girl. She never had this curious alertness, she never took anything in- she always had a glassy redness in her eyes, and seemed as though she didn't remember her own children.
"How goes it, kiddo?" He leaned down and kissed her gently. She continued to stare. "You're hungry, aren't you?" He asked a little sadly. Joy never cried. She never did anything.
Seamus picked Joy up and gathered his hoodie around her in his arms. It was still early. His day wasn't completely wasted. Then again, time on Earth was sort of relative- day was separated by night by the colour of the light- either a sickening fast-food yellow at night from the ambience and the fires or a depressing grey from the sunlight fighting through the fallout. Those un/fortunate enough to have work in the arms factories and labs had something like twenty hour work days, usually separated by bouts of drinking or ceilidhs or falling down from exhaustion and waking up someplace else. To say nothing of the workers in the mines or the sweatshops- most of the latter were chained for life, most of the former were pulled off the streets for having the ability to walk. Many arms workers would get out of the factory, wallow in a second of freedom, and then be pulled for mine duty.
It was a long walk out of the subway tunnels, past many other oil can fires and alcove shanties. The arms factory where Brendan and Carol worked wasn't that far, though, and Seamus pulled up his hoodie over his face as he reached the surface.
He had to stand outside the back entrance for a while before he was able to get in. It was heavily guarded from unknown kludges like himself, but Brendan had told him to come whenever they ran out of food for Joy. Carol had just lost her newborn and was still feeding, and had taken care of Joy like her own child.
Brendan and Carol came to meet him in a small backroom that the workers used to stow their meager rucksacks and belongings, the few that had any. Carol nursed Joy quietly in one corner while Seamus huddled in another, his hood pulled up around his head.
When Carol was twelve she had stumbled upon a small group of Nietzschean workmasters in a plan to expand on a biological lab, with procedures that would endanger all the workers there. While Carol at the time could not have possibly understood the implications, they still stitched her lips shut with a thin cable so she wouldn't speak a word of it. And she never did.
There was leeway enough for her to smile, though Seamus sometimes got the impression that smiling was painful for her, and she ate by taking a small, mushy portion on a finger to one of the gaps and sucking it through that way.
She didn't eat any worse than the rest of them. It just lasted a little longer.
"You cold, Shay?" Brendan asked casually, wondering, not for the first time, why Seamus kept himself hidden away in plain sight.
"No, no, I'm fine. I, um....I'm going to work on the well. I'll see you 'round later, 'kay?"
"Take care of yourself," Brendan said a little softly as Seamus slithered out, avoiding their employers.
Seamus had taught himself to read when he was about eight, thus ruining him for any practical work the Nietszcheans might have wanted. Eventually he came across maths and sciences and, in his own mind, was elevated from the world of manual labour and into one of the academics, the guys who sat around smoking pipes and discussing philosophy. The idea of sitting around smoking pipes and discussing philosophy was never particularily appealling to him, it was still far better than the previous alternative. He would stay up late, when they still lived in the refugee camp outside of the old city, and stared up at what passed for stars, dreaming up a life of wealth and simple comforts beyond his grasp. One night, a night like any other, he decided that he would make those dreams come true, a decision that others in his situation might deem arrogant.
He started teaching himself more and more, feeding his curiosity at every step, often getting himself injured along the way. He built makeshift computers for the refugees, devices to help diagnose the sickly, until he built himself up a little bit of a reputation.
And for one in his life station, reputations are never good to have.
After his parents were murdered, and after he lay low until he assumed that they assumed he was dead, he came out from the shadows and started picking up the pieces of his dream again. His hope hadn't died, his spirit, his ambition- if anything, the death of his parents added fuel to the fire. He had only started with Joy's cradle, when he was still in shock, then went on to tinker with shelters, and old vehicles. He would only give his name as Seamus, as the Nietzscheans would remember the name of the family they had slaughtered so deliberately. At least, one would hope they did. Other times he used the name Zelazny, to throw other people off, until he got so confused as to what lie he was telling whom that he stopped answering to any name, unless it was Brendan or another of his friends.
His most recent project involved digging and building a well for the town, near the shanties where Ubers only frequented if they *really* wanted something. Seamus was hoping to hit clean groundwater, but he wasn't stupid in his hopes. An easily accessible supply of water would be a godsend either way, diseased or not.
Seamus had figured it out on paper, or in his head anyway, but he wasn't sure on the depth. He had spent the last two days digging, which was a feat that he had sorely underestimated. He was still only halfway to his calculated depth, and he stood staring at the hole in the ground for a little while before he started digging, getting a little discouraged. Then he shrugged it off, and said to himself /there's plenty of time to be discouraged when I'm dead/ and he started digging.
He had been digging for about an hour when he took his hoodie off, his emaciated little fifteen-year-old body covered in a sheen of sweat when a Nietzschean came up silently behind him, with all the cold calculation of a cat stalking it's prey.
"Kludge, what are you doing?" Seamus honestly jumped. The Nietzschean stood behind him, towering formidably, and glowering like looks could kill. God knows what he was doing there.
"Um, I..." Seamus thought quickly. "I'm digging a grave for my brother, sir. He died this morning."
The Uber didn't go away. He stood there, staring at Seamus' face for an inappropriately long time.
"You look familiar, boy. Did you ever live in the refugee camp in Cambridge?"
"No...Sir. Inner Boston, born and bred." He risked a disarming smile and tried to look as stupid as possible.
"What is your name?"
"Shay." Seamus looked away, back down at his hole.
"Can you read?"
"No."
The Nietszchean actually reached out and took Seamus' chin, which caused the boy to twitch a little, and studied him more carefully.
"We're looking for a kludge about your age who calls himself Harper. He can read and write, and is a complete troublemaker."
Seamus gripped his flimsy shovel towards himself a little more tightly. "I'll tell someone if I hear about him," He said softly.
"See that you do," The Uber fixed him with one more withering glare, and then disappeared down the streets to make someone else's life hell.
Seamus could only stared after him. /Oh, shit/ he thought. /I'm screwed, I'm screwed, I'm screwed./