Aliens: Vasquez E-Book

V. Castro

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 467

Beschreibung

A groundbreaking Latinx Aliens novel by a rising star Latina author, featuring the fan-favorite character PFC Jenette Vasquez from the hit movie Aliens and the family she is forced to leave behind. "Look, man. I only need to know one thing: where they are." PFC Jenette Vasquez on LV-426 Even before the doomed mission to Hadley's Hope, Jenette Vasquez had to fight to survive. Born to an immigrant family with a long military tradition she looked up to the stars, but life pulled her back down to Earth—first into a street gang, then prison. The Colonial Marines proved to be Vasquez's way out—a way that forced her to give up her twin children. Raised by Jenette's sister Roseanna, those children—Leticia and Ramón—have been forced to discover their own ways to survive. Leticia by following her mother's path into the military, Ramón by embracing the corporate hierarchy of Weyland-Yutani. Their paths converge on an unnamed world, which some see as a potential utopia, while others would use it for highly secretive research. Regardless of what humans might have planned for it, however, Xenomorphs will turn the planet into a living hell. Sarcastic, sexy, and action-packed, Vasquez brings generational heritage into the Alien universe in an explosive way.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

Part 1

1

2

3

4

5

Part 2

6

7

8

9

10

11

Part 3

12

13

14

15

16

Part 4

17

18

19

20

21

Part 5

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

Acknowledgements

About the Author

THE COMPLETE ALIEN™ LIBRARY FROM TITAN BOOKS

The Official Movie Novelizations

by Alan Dean Foster

Alien, Aliens™, Alien 3, Alien: Covenant, Alien: Covenant Origins

Alien: Resurrection by A.C. Crispin

Alien 3: The Unproduced Screenplay

by William Gibson & Pat Cadigan

Alien

Out of the Shadows by Tim Lebbon

Sea of Sorrows by James A. Moore

River of Pain by Christopher Golden

The Cold Forge by Alex White

Isolation by Keith R.A. DeCandido

Prototype by Tim Waggoner

Into Charybdis by Alex White

Colony War by David Barnett

Inferno’s Fall by Philippa Ballantine

Enemy of My Enemy by Mary SanGiovanni

The Rage War

by Tim Lebbon

Predator™: Incursion, Alien: Invasion

Alien vs. Predator™: Armageddon

Aliens

Bug Hunt edited by Jonathan Maberry

Phalanx by Scott Sigler

Infiltrator by Weston Ochse

Vasquez by V. Castro

The Complete Aliens Omnibus

Volumes 1–7

Aliens vs. Predators

Ultimate Prey edited by Jonathan Maberry & Bryan Thomas Schmidt

Rift War by Weston Ochse & Yvonne Navarro

The Complete Aliens vs. Predator Omnibus

by Steve Perry & S.D. Perry

Predator

If It Bleeds edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt

The Predator by Christopher Golden & Mark Morris

The Predator: Hunters and Hunted by James A. Moore

Stalking Shadows by James A. Moore & Mark Morris

Eyes of the Demon edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt

The Complete Predator Omnibusby Nathan Archer & Sandy Scofield

Non-Fiction

AVP: Alien vs. Predator by Alec Gillis & Tom Woodruff, Jr.

Aliens vs. Predator Requiem: Inside The Monster Shop by Alec Gillis & Tom Woodruff, Jr.

Alien: The Illustrated Story by Archie Goodwin & Walter Simonson

The Art of Alien: Isolation by Andy McVittie

Alien: The Archive

Alien: The Weyland-Yutani Report by S.D. Perry

Aliens: The Set Photography by Simon Ward

Alien: The Coloring Book The Art and Making of Alien: Covenant by Simon Ward

Alien Covenant: David’s Drawings by Dane Hallett & Matt Hatton

The Predator: The Art and Making of the Film by James Nolan

The Making of Alien by J.W. Rinzler

Alien: The Blueprints by Graham Langridge

Alien: 40 Years 40 Artists

Alien: The Official Cookbook by Chris-Rachael Oseland

Aliens: Artbook by Printed In Blood

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ALIENS™: VASQUEZ

Print edition ISBN: 9781803361116

E-book edition ISBN: 9781803361888

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: October 202210 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© 2022 20th Century Studios.

V. Castro asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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Dedicated to all the Castro women in my familyand my beloved daughter

El riesgo siempre vive. The guts to take a risk is the dream,even if your corazon must become as combustible as a grenade

PART I

JENETTE

1

2171

“VAS-KEZ, you dumb fuck!”

Jenette didn’t respond.

“Whatever,” he continued. “Here, your name is Recruit. If you’re good enough, that is. Now move!”

The man who assumed he was Jenette’s superior flicked his eyes from her breasts to her sculpted arms, then to her face, giving her the type of look she’d received all her life.

“You won’t make it.”

“Who do you think you are?”

The patronizing glare rolled across her with the pressure of a two-ton space rover, bone crushing. She stepped into the elevator that would take her to the training pit. The metal doors closed, leaving her in a vacuum of silence with only her reflection staring back. Her brown skin shimmered from the sweat that managed to escape the red bandana across her forehead.

Before this moment she’d been on the scantest of MRE rations, had hiked every day for five hours, and stayed up writing a paper to the court arguing why she deserved a chance in space.

Take all those self-destructive tendencies and take aim, mujer, she told herself. The tattooed teardrop next to her eye appeared to slide in the dim light. All she had in this life was the woman staring back at her. Neto’s words echoed in her mind.

“Us against the ugliness in the world. You think they want any of us to make it? If they did, we would see it. Nah, we fucking take it any way we can,” he’d said. “They protect their territory like they the gangbangers. Believe that. Put it on your waist and in your piggy bank.”

Then she thought of Leticia and Ramón.

It was as much for them as it was for her, even if she’d only held them long enough to give them names. That had been the most difficult battle she imagined she would ever face. Her Mesoamerican ancestors believed that if you died in childbirth, you would be given a warrior’s welcome in the afterlife. She hadn’t died, despite the agony she endured alone, bearing down with her heels in stirrups and hands tearing at the hospital bed sheets. The two babies ripped her flesh as they crowned. So many battles she’d already fought sola. The journey to that test had been worthy of the fabled underworld Mictlan.

Jenette wondered what gods or demons were left to be met in her life. She’d believed she would die in prison, but was released into service to the USCM—the Colonial Marines. In just her first trimester, it had been a machete through her guts when she signed away all rights to her unborn children. There had only been time for one final kiss and glance before they were whisked away. Then came the enforced sterilization process.

Jenette was a warrior, had walked the warrior’s path, even if it was wayward at times where she stumbled with bad judgment. Now in this final test for the Marine Corps, she had to muster all the ganas of every soldier in her family who served before her. In this moment her bones weren’t made of calcium and marrow, but of steel. They would be steel for as long as she needed to get what she wanted.

A second chance.

No fucking way would she die behind bars. Too many like her had lived and died there, in a fungal cocoon of hopelessness for petty shit or things they didn’t do. You want to kill a soul, cage it. Want to show people their place in the world? Four bare walls without real care or rehabilitation can be as cruel as it is a statement. Monsters are created.

Don’t be surprised when jaws snap your neck.

She didn’t like bullfights or rodeos, but she’d studied old video recordings of both, preparing for this battle that would determine whether or not she would make it into the Marines. With matador concentration she held her pulse rifle, and cocked it.

Alright, papi, swing those balls my way.

Like any recruit, she’d had to run a gauntlet of weapon prep, marksmanship, survival skills, physical fitness, and hand-to-hand combat. Every challenge she accepted with her bandana worn low and gold cross shining. Without failing a single one, she’d moved forward in the Marines with the stealth of a dark horse—even when she received recognition in two different rifle competitions.

This challenge wouldn’t be an exception. Jenette crossed her body in the shape of the crucifix and braced for the attack from an android opponent who would be twice her size and programmed to make this anything but easy. The mistake she saw time and time again in this cumbia of “win or lose” was arrogance, the lack of respect for the opponent.

No one was going to make it easy for her. No one would give her anything in this life.

Don’t underestimate the instinct that is survival.

Respect was everything—getting it and keeping it. Now was her time to burst through every barrier and run hard.

The metal door opened. The training pit was dark. The silence was what she imagined space might sound like. Lights began to appear dimly overhead, and the temperature of the room increased to that of a desert at the hottest point in the day. She flicked her eyes to the top of the pit at the one-way glass in the walls, knowing every movement would be watched and judged. The scrutiny on her performance would outweigh the others. This controlled evaluation was meant to test strength, senses, and ability to think on your feet—all in the space of ten minutes.

Doors opened on the opposite side of the room. There he stood. The android was six feet one inch of pure synthetic muscle, holding the same weapon as she. His eyes remained blank, without a flicker of life or sympathy. He only knew the instinct of his programming. A timer on the wall above his head flashed a countdown in red blinking lights. As it hit zero, he would come alive with one intention, to make her fail or give up. But these assholes had forgotten that when you grow up in a system rigged for your failure or to devalue you, you replace skin with an exoskeleton of having nothing to lose.

In her mind’s eye she saw the faces of those who had locked her up, of dead family members languishing in ill-equipped and overrun hospitals, the babies she would never know, the guards who had wanted to rough her up. All of it was butane for her fire-breathing nostrils.

Bulldoze him like a tank. Smoke him. Be the goddamn tank.

Don’t forget you come from soldaderas.

Zero.

Jenette aimed her gun with ease—as if it were an extension of her arm—and fired. The android mirrored her actions, forcing her to tumble to the side to avoid getting hit. Those suckers hurt. Many times, in afterhours training, she’d been walloped courtesy of Drake.

She kept moving and continued to fire as she ran around the circular perimeter, but goddamn he was fast for his size, with speed more minotaur than man. Then again, he wasn’t human. There was no emotion on his face, no tell she could pick up on.

All she needed was one clean shot in the sandstorm of rubber bullets. The two of them couldn’t keep running with the dizzying motion of a carousel. They would make sure of it, because combat wasn’t no game of ring around the roses. In real combat, someone always died.

She stopped abruptly and darted toward the android while taking aim. Her shot hit his left shoulder. The blow slowed him down, with his body jerking backward, but it wasn’t enough to offset his shot to her pulse rifle, which flew from her hands upon impact. It clattered to the ground. Without missing a beat, she grabbed a smaller gun attached to her waist. This time her shot hit the android in the center of his right hand. The malfunctioning digits seized, giving her enough time to take another shot.

He dropped the pulse rifle.

Jenette kneeled for the kill, aiming for the head. One huge stride toward her, coupled with a roundhouse kick, knocked the pistol out of her grip. The bones cracked and her flesh stung with the feeling of a hot iron, but she held her scream between gritted teeth.

It ain’t over till it’s over, motherfucker.

Without hesitation Jenette propelled herself straight into his body. The sudden impact made him stumble back. On her right ankle she had stashed a switchblade, the kind she carried as a kid and the one grandfather Seraphin told her was the weapon of choice for the pachucos of old. Jenette flipped it open then plunged it as deep as she could in the part of his lower belly not covered by the protective vest, then swept it across. He shoved her to the ground while pressing a hand to his body where it was leaking white liquid.

Booming broke out above her head.

Then simulated gunfire.

The temperature decreased rapidly, accompanied by a simulated rainstorm. The lights strobed across the pit. This was their way of saying “Are you going to win or lose? You decide… now.”

The android took the opportunity to strike again, but this time she was ready to end it. When he lunged for her, Jenette drove her boot straight into the hole in his belly. He pushed closer, ignoring the boot in the cavity of his midsection as he grabbed her by the neck. With her opposite leg she attempted to kick him as hard as she could anywhere her foot would land, trying to rupture his wiring or something. The water made her boot slip.

Thanks to the bandana her vision hadn’t blurred. Her wounded hand was all but useless, however, and already beginning to swell. Jenette could feel her windpipe closing as his fingers constricted around her neck. It was now or never. No way would it end like this—nothing and no one could grab her by the neck. She squeezed her abdominals hard to lift her closer to the android. She still had the switchblade in her good hand, and with one hate-fueled swipe she caught him across the throat.

White paste flooded from the gash. His face contorted from the damage. His grip softened. Jenette took that moment to grab his wrist and pull him to the ground, securing his torso with one knee as he convulsed from his two wounds.

“Adios,” she said as she dropped the knife and yanked out the cables inside his neck. White liquid flew into the air and splashed across her face and chest as sharp electric shocks ran through her fingertips.

The lights went up and the shower ceased. A robotic voice spoke.

“Congratulations. J. Vasquez. You are the victor and have successfully passed your final evaluation. Please make your way through the open doors.”

She lifted her gaze to the tinted rectangular window at the top of the training pit and nodded. With her good hand she stowed her switchblade in the left thigh pocket of her fatigues. You couldn’t go wrong going back to basics, your roots.

Every muscle ached as she lifted herself from the ground. Her mouth was a cottonfield beneath the blazing sun.

*   *   *

Drake greeted her when she stepped out of the elevator, standing with the rest of the recruits waiting for their evaluation. A large screen in the holding area showed each showdown. He gave her a large grin as she walked out. It was nice to have a friendly face after staring down an emotionless android.

“I knew you had it in you,” he said. “You made that shit look easy… I can’t wait to get a crack at that dildo. He won’t know what the hell hit him.”

“What choice do we have but to make it?” she said. “This is it for me. No plan B and no trust fund—and careful with that ‘dildo.’ He has some moves. You might get fucked if you don’t stay on your game.” Jenette rubbed her neck, hearing her voice strained from the android’s grip.

“Don’t I know it, sister. You ready to celebrate tonight?”

“Hell, yes,” she said. “Let me shower first and get this hand wrapped. Tell me when and where?”

“Will do. I’ll send you a message later. We’re gonna get lit tonight, like the good ole days.”

She gave him a confident smirk. “Good luck, man.” Then she slapped his hand, even if the reverberation made her want to wince. Don’t let nobody see your pain. Don’t let your own sweat sting your eyes, otherwise you won’t be able to see, and that’s what your enemy wants. They want you to be blind. ¡El riesgo siempre vive!

Abuelo Seraphin always had the good advice.

A commanding officer stopped her before she could make it out of the waiting area. If she hadn’t known better, he could have been the brother of the android she just destroyed. “Vasquez, you did major damage to the android with that switchblade. No one knew you had it on you. It’s not USCM issued.”

“No one said I couldn’t improvise,” she replied. “Send me the bill.” He stared at her without expression.

Then he reached into his pocket. “You showed creativity, tenacity, and that you’re a hell of a fighter. Remarkable strength. Here.” He handed her a square patch with “USCM” embroidered on it. “Welcome, Vasquez. You’re going to the stars.”

“Thank you, sir!”

“We are your family now.” He turned on his heels to return to the observation chamber, where he would watch the rest of the evaluations.

Jenette’s heart galloped. It was just a patch made from cloth and thread, yet the weight of it could carry her places she never imagined.

She walked back to her training quarters with head held high, feeling like a Roman gladiator. In the bigger scheme of things, they were all pawns to benefit the higher-ups orchestrating wars, politics, and “building better worlds,” as they put it. Pure entertainment for the new gods, puppet masters stitched from the flesh of dead soldiers and colonists, the strings forged with gold coins and credits.

Gangbanger, she had been called. The whole system was rigged by a gang of suits. Everyone belonged to a gang in this world, wanting only to protect their barrio.

*   *   *

Jenette pressed the button to close the door to her tiny efficiency quarters. Her wobbly legs managed to make it to her single bed before giving way for her body to crumple, now that the adrenaline had faded. Her boots had to come off, but suddenly she lost all energy to move or control the sobs escaping from her chest without warning.

Eyelids fluttered, hoping they would set free the overwhelming emotions in that moment. She removed the sodden red bandana from her head, Abuelo Seraphin’s bandana. She brought it to her eyes and squeezed them shut. Her hands clutched it until her knuckles went white. She had to keep her palms to her face to prevent the brown mask of bravado from slipping off with her sweat and tears. Tears and sympathy were a luxury not reserved for her type. Her injured hand didn’t register the pain with the explosive fission escaping from her heart. She needed something to remind her this moment was real.

There would be nothing more to prove.

One door of destiny shut as another opened.

She had done it. No one believed she could or would—just another Brown number in a white jumpsuit when she signed on the dotted line to be released early for a murder she hadn’t committed. She’d sacrificed it all and only had herself now.

Wiping her tears, Jenette exhaled. With the overwhelming emotions purged as much as she would allow, she pulled off her combat boots. There were no more tears from her eyes except the one permanently marked on her face.

Jenette removed the switchblade from her pocket. It was still wet with the white mucus from the android. Back in wartime 1940s Los Angeles during the Zoot Suit riots, you were either a zoot suit-wearing pachuco called a gangster with a switchblade, or a military man fighting the good fight. Blood from both spilled during those riots. Jenette—where she came from and who she was—possessed the spirit of both now. She was a Marine, but she also remembered that street life.

Placing the switchblade on the bed, she messaged Roseanna the good news. A photo flashed on the screen, of two small children covered in mud, playing with a litter of baby pigs.

Roseanna responded immediately.

As if there was any doubt!

Can’t take it away if it wasn’t yours to begin with, Jenette thought.

She belonged to the Marines now, likely the only family she would see in the flesh until the day she died. At least she had her homie Drake with her. Small blessings and shit. She stood up and ran her fingers through her short hair until they touched the nape of her neck.

Damn it felt good.

Time to shower, get her hand seen to, then raise hell—or maybe just the roof that night.

2

2166

As far back as Jenette could remember, she had always wanted to be a soldier. Her father, her great-great-uncle Roland who was buried with a Purple Heart for his service in Vietnam, her grandfather, and great-grandparents, all with roots that began as farmworkers on Earth, moving farm to farm like many Mexicans emigrating to the US hundreds of years ago.

“¡El riesgo siempre vive! That is what my grandmother would say to me,” Seraphin told her, “and what she heard from the women before her. Did you know the military could be for you, too? You have a distant relative who was a soldadera and fought in the Mexican Revolution. Those soldaderas were a bad group with their rifles and bandoliers. Chihuahua, watch out!”

Abuelo Seraphin liked to repeat this story time and time again. “People risk their lives and the lives of their children for a chance at something more. It’s a story told across Earth for centuries, and it carried people into space. There has been much tragedy, so many lost in the oceans, rivers, and deserts, but also there is hope. Never lose your hope even if you lose your way.”

Her grandfather said this while polishing his old combat boots with a round black-and-gold tin of black polish and an old T-shirt made into a rag. His memories and nuggets of wisdom also were shared while he tended his garden of chilis and squash, a red bandana across his brown forehead. His pride had continued long after he retired, and he was buried with all his military gear.

Most of the men in the family joined the military to be educated through the GI Bill. The cost of everything on Earth was sky-high, even back then. Someone had to carry on their military tradition, the slow bachata toward upward mobility wherever it could be found.

Growing up in Los Angeles, Jenette had liked making forts, playing guns, watching ancient reruns of G.I. Joe or She-Ra. She’d tease her sisters, brother, and cousins with insects and small animals while the children did their homework in a silent circle at the kitchen table. She captured centipedes, and crickets squirmed in a jar as she crept up to unleash them on the table. They all roared in fright, and she with laughter.

“Jenette, I’m telling! You’re so necia all the time!” they would whine. Her mother, Francisca, stood by, giving her a look of disapproval.

“Why can’t you be like other girls?” Mother said. “Look at Roseanna and Carmen. Come with me. If you can’t behave, I’ll keep you busy with the housework.”

Despite her mother’s protests, Jenette would run around the house, imagining new worlds with monsters to kill. This earned her the title of Disaster Master. She would walk into the kitchen to see a broken toy in her mother’s hands.

“Did you do this? You want your father to work himself to death trying to provide, when all you do is cause trouble by breaking things. You will clean all the bathrooms for a month.”

The only time she wanted to sit still was at Easter.

Cascarone time.

For months Francisca would gingerly break the eggs at the top end, creating a small opening to allow the slimy contents to slip out before jumping from the heat of a pan sizzling with red chorizo fat. The shells would be rinsed then placed upright in an empty egg carton. The eggs with jagged mouths lined up on the counter until there were rows and rows of them. Sometimes spiders or flies would find their way inside and crawl in and out. The sight made Jenette shiver.

A few days before Easter it would be time to dye them different colors, fill each one with confetti, and cut squares of tissue paper to be glued at the top.

The great annual Easter cascarone fight would ensue. Jenette stalked the house with a carton tucked beneath one arm looking for unsuspecting victims. The element of surprise was essential. No one was safe from having a cascarone smashed hard on the top of their head. Her victims expected to be picking confetti and eggshells out of their hair for days.

Nothing was ever safe in her wake.

Abuelo Seraphin’s favorite granddaughter was shaping up to be a big bad Marine.

*   *   *

A quinceañera, a tradition for hundreds of years, was the last thing Jenette wanted when her mother Francisca brought it up on her thirteenth birthday.

“You are now a teen, and in two years we will have the most amazing party for you!”

“I’d rather die than have one of those,” Jenette responded, “like a doll or a little pet you dress up for your friends.” Her mother didn’t speak to her for days after that.

To add insult to injury Jenette took her defiance a step further. All her life she had kept hair that fell to her waist. The traditional dolls she received from Mexico had two braids with ribbons interwoven with the hair, long black yarn tied neatly to the sides and wearing a traditional dress to the ankles. Her mother and grandmother loved the thick tendrils that had been a family trait for generations.

This beautiful hair was cumbersome, so she cut it all off.

Jenette did not want to be one of those Barbie dolls presented at girl parties—the ones suspended in the middle of a pan with the dress made from cake and topped with piped pastel icing in the shape of flowers. Barbie was only released when every morsel was eaten, and only crumbs remained on her bare body.

“Jenette, por favor! Why did you do this?” The gasp from her mother’s mouth, followed by a shake of her head and the pious crossing of her chest, told Jenette she would never hear the end of it. “I should have stopped Seraphin putting all those ideas in your mind.” How would she ever find a husband now, her mother seemed to cry.

She didn’t give a shit. She loved the feel, the same freedom as the guys.

Jenette was already at a disadvantage, being a Brown female with no family name or fortune, so why not make her life easier? Jenette wanted to be accepted as the best of the best, with the ability to smoke an enemy as fast as any of the men. And despite what her mother might have thought, the short hair looked good.

*   *   *

Jenette would have given anything for those harsh words from her mother’s lips, because at least there would be a hug again when her mother’s frustration subsided. It was better than a bunk bed in a stranger’s house.

*   *   *

Without any regard for the small dramas in the lives of everyday people, the world came to a halt for millions.

A gruesome, highly contagious sickness raged through the population before anyone knew what was happening, and before it could be brought under control. The “flesh-eating bacteria,” they called it, and the description fit. The vaccine supplied by Weyland-Yutani came too little too late for many, the priority given to anyone leaving for the most valuable colonies in space, and supplies sent to keep the colonies free from infection. She saw her father Pablo and Seraphin for the last time as they were wheeled into an ambulance, writhing in agony, knowing it would be the only goodbye they would get. No one—barely any of the doctors or nurses, even—came out of it alive or without permanent damage.

Her sister Roseanna was on the front lines of death, and when not in the hospitals she was in a bottle of booze or pills to cope with the stress and to stay awake. One evening in their mother’s home she was slumped on the couch with a beer in her hand.

“Mama, it’s hell out there,” Roseanna said. “I feel like an undertaker and not a nurse. I need Santa Muerte’s spirit to take over me. Otherwise, something else is driving me too fast somewhere I don’t want to go. I can feel it.”

“Don’t be silly, Roseanna. It will pass, and you’re an angel. No more bad talk and no more cerveza. You’re saving lives. After all this you’ll get into that program to be a doctor—I just know it—and then we will have a big party… since this one didn’t want a quinceañera.” She nodded toward Jenette. “It’s what your father would want, too. He worked long hours, but it was to provide. He was so proud of you, even if he didn’t say it enough.”

“Maybe I’m meant for something else.” Roseanna stared at the wall. There was a vacant shadow in her eye as she took long gulps from her beer. Her skin was red raw from the hot showers and antiseptic soap she had to use after a shift at the hospital. “What if I don’t want to be a doctor anymore? They’re just as fed up and overworked…” Her voice trailed off.

*   *   *

Some of the hospitals offered bonuses for taking on extra hours. Two days later Roseanna crashed her vehicle on a run to an emergency call. She was alive when paramedics arrived but placed into a coma for her recovery. No one knew if she would make it.

Jenette wondered what being heroes did for any of her family.

Before her accident, Roseanna stole a spare dose of vaccine, only managing to do so because she was a health worker. Francisca kept it safe in her bra and underwear drawer for weeks while she monitored the news of her daughter. One evening she slid the green inhaler across the dinner table, her fingers trembling, toward Jenette.

“Take it,” she said with sweat rolling down both temples, her skin a plastic sheen of smaller beads of sweat.

Jenette put down her fork of twirled chicken ramen noodles.

“No. It’s for you.”

“Stop being so defiant and take the damn thing!” Francisca raised both balled fists to her chest and took a deep breath. “For once do as you are told. Everything I have done has been for you… all of you. I’ve tried my best to keep you, Carmen, Sandro, and Roseanna out of trouble. One day you will understand how hard it is to stay true to your roots, while trying to reach for the stars, whatever those stars look like.

“We are the people from the soil, it is true,” she said, “but we don’t have to stay seedlings. I just wanted you to be seen as a good girl because we are seen as so many other things. I should know. Maybe trying to keep the old traditions was wrong. I’m sorry. El riesgo siempre vive. I am risking my own life now to spare yours. You have a purpose. Live to see it through.”

The flesh hanging from her cheeks and desperation in her eyes scared Jenette. Her mother had never spoken to her with such fervor—or honesty. Jenette complied, sticking the inhaler all the way up one nostril and inhaling the vaccine in an explosion of burning magma. A single tear rolled down her mother’s face.

“Thank you.” She clutched the hem of her blue T-shirt before running to the toilet. Jenette heard her vomiting in the bathroom, then shuffling back to her bed and the warm comforter that awaited her there.

Two days later Jenette found her under the comforter, no longer retching… or breathing. She held on to the pillow on which her husband had slept, and clutched a family photo album and rosary. Jenette turned away, left the room, and closed the door.

How was this reality?

She couldn’t be left alone in this world.

When her father died, she had cried for her mother’s sake. He had worked more than he spent time with her or her siblings, and always felt like a stranger because of the odd hours he kept as a foreman and lead tech liaison for the android factory. They came from generations of thinking that when times are good, then you have to take advantage of it. Surf that wave because you never knew when you might get knocked on your ass, or the work would dry up. The need for androids never relented, new models were created all the time, yet the fear of “what if” burrowed with the hunger of a parasite.

If Father wasn’t dealing with labor disputes, then it was the day-to-day with the factory.

Now she looked around the house. Everything remained the same, but suddenly it seemed hollow, without any soul. Something had fled from this space she no longer recognized.

Her shock turned to a typhoon of rage for not having any control over any tiny crumb of what her life could or should be. Through hysterical sobs she grabbed up all the plates and glasses on the drying rack next to the sink and threw them to the floor until the shards resembled Easter confetti. Then she turned over anything that wasn’t secured to the tiles in the house—which was everything. Jenette screamed and shrieked with not a soul in range to stop her. Carmen and Sandro were floating in space for the Early Learners Terraforming Program offered by their school, and Roseanna lay in a coma. All others in her family had been claimed by the spinning wheel of fate called death.

When there was nothing left for her to destroy or any voice to scream, she walked into the bedroom to remove the gold cross from her mother’s neck and placed it on her own. She couldn’t have the paramedics stealing it. Before calling an ambulance, she gave her mother’s cold temple one kiss.

“I love you, mama. Thank you. I’m sorry if I didn’t tell you enough.”

What would she have left to cling to?

*   *   *

Nobody wanted to feed and look after a teenager. Jenette was sent to live in a foster home.

Roseanna survived the accident, but her blood work indicated a cocktail of alcohol and medication. Instead of facing any time, she chose to be transferred to Texas for rehab and a contract to work in a rehabilitation facility. Even though all the remaining family assets were transferred to Roseanna, taking care of Jenette was out of the question. She could never handle medication, would never be a nurse, but she would be trained as a counselor.

For Roseanna and Jenette, the familiar life they knew was gone in the time it took to sneeze.

If this was it then, Jenette figured, what was the point of anything? If she mattered so little in this world, what did it matter what she did?

Taking risks took on a new meaning.

She was settled in a modest home with nice enough but neglectful guardians, Timothy and Hazel Hall, who fostered a bunch of kids. There she met another teen named Liberty Love, a beautiful girl of sixteen wanting the glamour of gang life, a real buchona with impeccable makeup, thick fake eyelashes, and curves on show. When Jenette asked her where her family was, she shrugged while filling in her plucked eyebrows with dark brown pencil.

“Fuck if I know. My mom died and my dad couldn’t get work after losing his business,” she said. “We used to live large, amiga. He sent me to live with my cousin until he could find his feet again, but all of it fucked with his mind after a while. My cousin gave me to the state when I refused to get a job, so I could give her the entire check. If I’m going to wear some ugly ass uniform with married pervy dudes trying to pick me, then at least I get to keep my dinero. That outbreak, it hit a lot of us hard, fucked us all up gacho. People getting sick without enough healthcare.”

Jenette felt like she had found a kindred soul in grief and heartache, yet they couldn’t be more different. Jenette was more of a tomboy, always causing trouble, running the streets in Dickies and sometimes a slick red lipstick, if the mood struck.

A week later another kid, P-Wee, came to stay. He was a skinny half gringo and half Mexican, too shy to be tough, yet winning everyone with his sense of humor. The three musketeers went to local parties and started mixing cheap vodka with 7UP. Jenette was the homegirl with an attitude, someone the girls wanted to smoke with, and the boys wanted to fool around with because they could tell she was a “wild one.”

*   *   *

“Hey, I want you to meet some friends,” Liberty said. When Jenette looked doubtful, she added, “Don’t we all just want real family again?”

“You don’t want to stay a neutron.” P-Wee pursed his lips and shot Jenette a confused look.

“What does that mean?” Jenette asked.

“It means you don’t belong to any gang. We’ll see what the Inca has to say.”

“That’s a great idea, P.” Liberty leaned over and kissed him hard on the lips. “You know I love how you think.”

“Yeah, you love my weed…”

“That, too.”

Jenette looked on as Liberty kissed him. She wanted something, too.

“Who are these friends?”

“I know I said friends, but I mean familia. They helped me get through the worst of times. I’m in with Las Calaveras. I want to introduce you to them.”

*   *   *

“This is for you,” P-Wee said from the driver’s seat. The music played loudly. “Damn It Feels Good to be a Gangster” by the Geto Boys, the pioneers of horror core rap in the twenty-first century. Liberty Love sat next to him in the passenger seat. Neto was in the back with Jenette.

She leaned toward Liberty’s ear.

“Why do they call him P-Wee?”

“Because when he used to get high, he was obsessed with the old Pee-Wee Herman show. He’s clean now, building his business, and never watches them, but the nickname stayed.”

Liberty wore her tightest jeans and low-cut ribbed bodysuit with a sweetheart neckline. In the sepia of the streetlights and whirlpools of smoke, she could have been a caterpillar sitting on top of a mushroom. No worries and no rushing. Jenette couldn’t help her eyes straying across the beautiful body, the sumptuousness of it.

Jenette had made out with boys before, and liked it fine, but the curiosity to explore a body like her own grew stronger the older she became. Desiring both felt normal. Lust was as amorphous and complicated as an uncharted galaxy, and depending what direction you find yourself floating, it was different for everyone.

P-Wee pulled up to the house on a residential street of large homes that bordered the blocks of Los Angeles projects in a neighborhood that once was called Downey—high-rise buildings with murals meant to inspire, but which had eroded over time. On the opposite side of the street were the blocks of tents where the homeless set up their own hood with whatever materials they could salvage. By day, do-gooders roamed the area, talking about Jesus and the perils of space while handing out clean water and energy bars.

Jenette waved off the residual smoke wafting from the blunt Liberty smoked in the front seat. The grassy scented eddies made her feel lightheaded. Ever since what happened to Roseanna, she hadn’t been one for drugs.

“Hold this.” Neto reached back and placed a small pistol on Jenette’s lap. Her heartbeat ricocheted in her chest with an alien sensation, and she ran her fingertips across the cold metal, an instrument of life and death. There was a vibration of power, even if it was the type that stole innocence. Being in the car with the people she was supposed to consider family made her feel physically less alone, but in that instant the only thing that felt real, or had any weight, was the gun resting on her thighs.

When she was growing up, guns had been banned in their home because her mother always feared they would be stolen or used against them. Even Seraphin had complied.

Finishing whatever he was doing, Neto reached down and took it from her, then aimed it out the open window. P-Wee slowed the car down.

“This is just a warning shot,” he said. “Those cabrons better stop straying into our damn neighborhood. ¡Las Calaveras, pendejos!” he shouted out the window.

“Las Calaveras!” Liberty Love echoed loudly while throwing up a crown with her right hand.

The succession of pops made Jenette jump, then Liberty chuckled at the screeching wheels as they picked up their speed. It was an old car, so the engine roared. She extended the blunt to Jenette, who shook her head, so she pulled it back and took a deep hit. With heavy lids topped with thick black eyeliner and wispy fake eyelashes, she fixed her gaze on her friend.

“You know you’re still a future,” she said. “You won’t be with us until you go on a mission of your own. It could be anything. Then you can shake up with me. Live and die for each other, familia. We can even go to the juntas together. It’s mostly boring stuff, like what’s happening in the neighborhood, dues, who wants to move up the ranks.”

Neto placed the gun on Jenette’s lap again. Poles of light and shadow crossed his face as they sped through residential streets then onto the freeway, where there was little traffic.

“Every gang requires some sort of sacrifice, a test,” he said. “I remember you telling me you come from military. You think those boys don’t do the same here or up there? A uniform or suit, fucking Dickies and tube top like Liberty over here wears, it don’t matter. Dinero, territory, space, food, fucking medicine. Shit’s only legitimate because someone with authority says so—and most of the time that authority is a weapon, or money.”

“Then what makes Las Calaveras different?”

“Because we wear a crown with five points. Love, sacrifice, honor, obedience, righteousness. And every motherfucker will want to tear it off your head. Don’t slip up. Respect your brothers and sisters. Respect your hood. Respect yourself. No cocaine, no heroin, no crack. P-Wee had to learn the hard way.”

“Yeah, I had to take a neck down for five minutes from the meanest on the block,” P-Wee said from the driver’s seat. “Those bruises did not go away quick, but it sobered me the hell up. Can’t make the hood look weak for nothing or nobody.”

Jenette didn’t say anything, rolled down her window to get fresh air in her hair, the beat of the music filling her head like the weed. She wondered where this life would lead.

“How much did you smoke, Neto?” Liberty Love joked.

Jenette turned to Neto. “You going to show me how to use this gun?”

He leaned back and kissed her on the cheek. His lips were slightly dry, but the softness on her skin made her neck go warm. Was it so bad to like both Liberty Love and Neto? The feelings were the same, because in her eyes both were equally attractive, just in different ways. Their bodies capable of different types of pleasure. They didn’t cover those emotions in health class, or the few times she went to Sunday school.

He pulled closer and placed his arm around her shoulders.

“Of course,” he said. “We’re familia, and you need to know how to use a hood gun at some point. Us against the ugliness in the world. You think they want any of us to make it? If they did, we would see it. Nah, we fucking take it any way we can. They protect their territory like they the gangbangers. Believe that. Put that on your waist and in your piggy bank.”

Jenette relaxed her body into the crook of Neto’s arm. There was the faint scent of body odor and knock-off cologne clinging to his Dodgers jersey, but having the warmth of someone else was comforting. There was a sense of safety.

“I feel you. I believe that.”

*   *   *

Jenette celebrated her sixteenth birthday by drinking at a house party while listening to twenty-first century hip-hop in the backyard. It was Neto’s place, and a spread of vodka, Modelo, Coors, and tequila covered a card table along with cartons of fruit juice mixers. The music moved from old school rap to norteño. It wouldn’t be a party without Los Dos Carnales belting out corridos. The stars were out, and they were all feeling good—either high or drunk or both.

Life was beginning to appear normal again for most folks.

Liberty Love and Jenette lay on a blanket in the bed of a rusted Toyota pickup truck without any tires. Whenever Jenette looked up at the stars, she thought of the last real conversation she’d had with her mother. She wondered what Carmen and Sandro were doing?

“I hope we don’t get the cops called on us. It’s getting a little loud.”

“No shit,” Liberty said. “Sounds like people moving into the streets, too. I think the end of summer has everyone going a little crazy, and after a year of bad news and dead bodies.”

Liberty Love rolled toward Jenette and kissed her lips, the heaviness of her breasts pressing against Jenette’s chest.

“I know you look at me,” she said. “I like it. Figure this would be a good birthday surprise.”

“You just doing me a favor then?” Jenette gazed into her eyes, then pulled away. “No thanks. Plus, don’t Las Calaveras have some whack rule about this?”

“Maybe we can change that rule. Also, it’s not like that. It’s a present for me, too.”

Liberty’s tongue was soft. Her mouth slightly sweet and bitter from the alcohol and weed. Her body as supple as Jenette had imagined as she touched it with care.

Sirens wailed, along with the sound of screeching wheels.

“Fuck, I knew it!” Liberty put out the blunt hanging between two fingers she held at their side. “Let’s go.” They jumped from the back of the truck and ran through an alley to reach the street parallel to the one in front of the house. Others had the same idea, and there were other partygoers running down the street, hopping over fences, or jumping into cars parked curbside. Engines customized for noise roared to life.

Liberty hurled forward, face-first to the ground, when someone they didn’t know crashed into her, running away from the police. Blood streamed from her nose and cut bottom lip as she lifted herself from the asphalt. She sat upright and began to cry as she looked down at her blood-soaked tank top.

“Damn it! My clothes, my lip feels busted.” Jenette kneeled next to her and grabbed her upper arm.

“C’mon we got to go.”

A police vehicle silently pulled up and blocked off one side of the street. They had to move fast between houses, or hide. To their right an officer came bolting through the alley, before they had a chance to run.

He pointed his gun at them.

“Don’t you move.”

Jenette put both her hands up. The last thing she wanted was trouble, even though she figured she already looked like trouble to him. All that mattered was getting out of here, and getting Liberty Love to a doctor.

“She’s hurt. We didn’t do anything! Help us.”

“You shouldn’t be here then.”

Jenette looked up and down the street, then to the houses to her immediate right and left. People ran past, caring only about their own skins, desperate to not get trapped in the teeth of the law. Cars roared and shouts rang out around them. She hoped someone was watching between the blinds and recording it all.

Fear made her realize that, despite the people she ran with, she was still just a skinny kid no one wanted—except a sister who couldn’t have her. She became conscious of her own body and Liberty Love’s curves that might be too noticeable to this man who stood before them with a gun, taser, and badge. As a female in fight-or-flight, she realized her anatomy became acutely important.

True fear.

It was why her mother never wanted any of them to walk alone. Now she understood. She didn’t know what to do.

From the house next to Neto’s the screen door slammed open. A group of Las Calaveras charged in their direction with an officer chasing behind, shouting at them to stop. Two shots exploded between the shouting and sirens. So close, Jenette and Liberty Love ducked from the gunshots. Jenette glanced up at the cop who’d had his weapon pointed at them, pulling the trigger.

The body of the pursuing officer and a kid she had seen in the neighborhood thumped to the ground. Both were bleeding from the wounds to their torsos. Muffled moans faded with the flow of blood. Their eyes lost all life, until they stared back at her with the coldness of the merciless elements of space.

The cop looked at Jenette, then to the fallen officer.

His gun was pointing at her.

“You!”

“Fuck you, man. I saw what you did.”

“Shh, don’t say anything, Jenette,” Liberty Love pleaded in a whisper through lopsided lips. “You’ll make it worse for us.”

The cop dashed toward Jenette, knocking her to the ground.

“Stop it!” she shouted. “Don’t touch me!” She tried to push him off with her arms and legs. His bulk overwhelmed her and his limbs were those of a spider trying to wrap her into a web for later consumption.

“Help!” Liberty Love screamed, still bleeding from the mouth and nose. “Someone help us!” The houses were dark, with people minding their own, not wanting to incur the wrath of the law.

The officer pushed his weapon into Jenette’s hands. She grabbed her switchblade from her back pocket and pressed the button hard to open it. Without thought of where it would land, she tried to slice him just enough to get him to move away. It only served to stoke his conviction.

“Now you’ll really rot in prison,” he growled.

He overpowered her by placing a knee between her legs and his forearm across her chest. The pressure made her breasts feel as if they might burst. His body weight made it difficult for her to move. Between sobs, Liberty was still screaming down the empty street. He grabbed the switchblade, tossing it away.

Liberty snatched it from the ground, closing it, then put it in her bra before grabbing the officer’s neck to pull him off Jenette. Sirens made them all pause for a beat, then the officer started to hit Jenette in the face. A police vehicle and ambulance came to a screeching stop in front of them. Two more cops jumped out, and one pulled Liberty Love away.

The cop kept punching Jenette in the face, spittle spewing from his mouth.

“¡Mira! Stop him! It’s not right!” Liberty shouted. “Why is it always us on our asses, having to fight up? Why us? Fucking do something!”

All Jenette could do was attempt to grasp his forearms as her head slammed right to left. She could see her own blood flying into the air, then felt it land back on her face. A paunchy officer with a thick straw-colored mustache stood next to her.

“What the hell is going on, Jason? Get up now.”

The cop stopped his assault to look up. “This punk skank took my gun and shot those two.”

“No she didn’t!” Liberty roared. “He’s lying!” She lunged from the officer holding her back. Her tank top was a mural of mascara black and blood red. “Look what he did to her!”

Paramedics from the ambulance rushed to the officer and young man lying dead in their comingling blood. They didn’t look twice at Jenette with a swelling eye, or Liberty’s broken nose and sliced lip. The mustached officer shook his head.

“You didn’t have to take it this far. Go on. We’ll take it from here.”

The cop, Jason, rose from the ground, releasing Jenette. With one eye swollen shut she took a good look at him. He had a few pockmarks around a forehead topped with light brown hair that receded slightly. Only a few telltale wrinkles around the eyes and mouth to give away that he was an hombre who had worked too long in a job he probably hated, but couldn’t give up. The only power he had—that gave his existence any weight—was this.

Did mutual hate cancel each other out, or did it just accumulate to create something more vicious they couldn’t see? He looked down on her without any remorse.

“Take them both in, and check that one for a knife. She tried to stab me after shooting them.”

Jenette remained silent, having no fight left in her as she stared devoid of emotion at the night sky. Not a scrap of fucking will left. Blood from her mouth dribbled down her chin and rested in the fold of her neck, staining the gold cross she wore. Each blow had done more than inflict pain—there was the fear that this is how she would spend the rest of her life.

How many blows are we supposed to take in one lifetime? she thought. If there was a God, why did it seem like the world she lived in was one big beating into submission. She sat there powerless, the one without a badge, a cock, a gun, money, family, hope. Where is my hope, Seraphin? Where are the spirits of the soldaderas?

I need them. I need you.

Before Liberty was taken away she screamed once more, but this time directly at Jenette.

“Whatever happens, homegirl, keep your head down and take whatever they give you. Don’t make it worse. Just get out. Some of us have to make it. Swear to me!”

Jenette could barely open her lips to whisper.

“I swear it on the Vasquez name.”

*   *   *

The judge had too much foundation and plastic surgery. Jenette could only see her through one purple-and-yellow-ringed eye. The other was swollen shut. Her bones ached even though nothing was broken but her heart.

“You were found with a weapon. A switchblade you gave your friend to hide after threatening the life of an officer.”

“No, I did not give it to her,” Jenette answered. “But yes, it was a switchblade, and the dead officer was shot. I told you it was another officer who did it, his name was Jason. Let me show you who it was. Please believe me. Doesn’t he have a camera on him?”

“The officer in question stated that it was switched off because it had been quiet all evening. His shift was nearly over. There is no proof of what you have told me. It’s your word against his.”

Jenette’s body tensed.

“My word isn’t worth anything?”

The judge stared at her with little concern bordering on boredom. “It’s very clear that you have no direction, so we are going to course-correct for you. You will remain incarcerated. You don’t want to tell us details about the Calaveras? No problem, but this is the consequence for that decision.”