by Kate MacLeod
The wall was more than twenty meters tall, not as far as they had climbed before, but Scout could see that Daisy was beyond exhausted. Putting one foot in front of the other was the most she seemed capable of.
Scout wasn’t eager to try climbing again anyway, especially not without a rope. Each of the blocks was as tall as she was; she would have to grasp handholds with her fingertips and somehow pull herself up . . .
Scout shook her head. It would be impossible. And there was nothing above them but the bottom of the dome, resting without the slightest gap on top of the wall.
The wall had no windows, no doors, no openings of any kind.
The snow was falling thickly when they reached a part of the wall that housed a tram station. It jutted out over the road without supports.
“I wish we could see the doors from here,” Scout said, but even leaning as far as she dared from the furthest curve of the road showed only the side of the boxy station facing her. It was made of similar stone to the city wall itself, and whatever was holding the far end up must have been built into the floor itself. Nothing else was visible.
“It’s closed anyway,” Daisy said wearily. “The storm.”
Scout couldn’t argue with that; the snow was coming down just as densely as it had when they had shut down the trams before.
Still, maybe there was a way to open it from the outside.
“Maybe we should climb up there just to see?” Scout said hopefully.
“If nothing else presents itself we’ll come back,” Daisy promised, sounding even more tired than before.
Scout looked at the way the end of the station jutted far beyond the edge of the road. If she should try climbing out there and fall . . .
Scout leaned out over the edge again. Yep, it was a long way down.
“Okay,” Scout agreed.
The setting sun and the growing storm were making everything so dark Scout had to turn her night vision back on.
Daisy kept her own eyes on her feet, as if she needed to concentrate all her energy on keeping them moving.
Scout was worried that they would have to stop and camp again—she had so been looking forward to being inside the warm city with a belly full of warm food—when the dogs started barking.
They weren’t on the road. It took Scout a moment to realize that the edge of the road was no longer a steep drop-off. Now there were a few meters of steep rock fall before the drop-off, and the dogs were down in it. They were both barking down the same hole.
Scout wondered what sort of animal could survive in this environment, completely exposed with nothing like a food source for kilometers.
Then she noticed the way the dogs’ barks were echoing. How deep was that hole?
Scout carefully picked her way down to the dogs. The larger rocks tipped under her feet, and the smaller ones slid against each other, readily creating mini avalanches with every step she took. She was more than half convinced she would fall off the mountain before she reached her dogs.
Having safely plummeted down to the bottom of the ravine wasn’t making her feel any better about her odds of surviving an accidental fall.
Shadow was gone from sight by the time she reached the mouth of the hole, but Gert was waiting for her, the white tip of her tail a blurred arc as she wagged her entire back end in excitement.
Then Shadow poked his head back out of the hole to look up at her, his fur glowing ghostly in the darkness. Scout fished around in her pockets until she found a light, then bent down to shine it into the space behind Shadow.
It wasn’t an animal warren at all. It wasn’t a naturally forming cave either; not with those perfectly rounded walls.
Then she directed the light further in and saw the dull gleam of metal.
“Daisy!” Scout called. “The dogs found a way in! I think I see a door down here.”
She pulled her head out of the tunnel and straightened up, but Daisy was already picking a way down to her. She moved just as carefully as Scout had.
“What kind of door?” she asked. They both poked their heads in, and Scout directed the light to the end of the tunnel.
“I think it’s an old one,” Scout said. “We should climb in, get a better look at it.”
They had to get down on hands and knees to accomplish it, and they had to crawl in single file—except for Shadow, who managed to squeeze past both of them to be the first one to the door. He sniffed at the green and orange patches but didn’t seem to like what he smelled.
“Rust?” Scout said, not wanting to touch it.
“Some kind of algae or lichen, I think,” Daisy said. “It’s warmer here. Shine the light around the edges, let’s see if there’s a lock or handle or something.”
They carefully examined every centimeter of the metallic hatch, but there was no sign of a way in.
“Fine,” Daisy said, lying down on her back. “I’ll try kicking it down.”
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Scout asked, but Daisy didn’t answer.
The sound of her boots impacting on the metal over and over was like some kind of industrial machine: loud, precisely timed.
And never ending. After dozens of blows, Daisy quit, flopping back to look up at Scout.
“No good,” she said. She looked even grayer than before, and Scout knew she had just burned far too much of her energy reserves.
“You said you had explosives?” Scout said.
“Yes!” Daisy said. “I forgot about those. Stupid brain fog. Yes, help me get this pack off.”
A few minutes later, Scout sat on the road a couple of meters past the tunnel opening, holding a dog tightly in each arm. Then Daisy appeared outside the hole, bounding up to the road in three great jumps that made Scout want to scream with fright. If just one of those steps came down on the wrong rock . . .
But Daisy landed next to her just as a muffled thump shook the ground beneath them, sending a cascade of rocks off the edge of the cliff.
“Should be clear now,” Daisy said, making her way more carefully over the loose rock back to the opening. Scout let Gert go, and then Shadow once Gert was safely inside the tunnel.
Then she picked her own way down, stooped so low she was nearly crawling. She had thought the last trip down had been hairy, but it was worse now that they had shaken everything loose. She slid more than once, catching herself each time, but by the time Daisy’s hand closed on her wrist and pulled her into the tunnel mouth, her heart was hammering like mad.
“Let’s not do this again,” Scout said. “I’ve had enough of mountains, I think.”
“Agreed,” Daisy said. “But we did it.” She pointed, and Scout shone her light down the tunnel. The metal hatch had burst in three segments, curving in like the petals of a flower to open the way inside the wall itself.
“Shall we?” Daisy asked.
“You don’t want to take a nap or something first?” Scout asked, only half joking.
“We can nap when we’re back among friends,” Daisy said. “I can make it another hour if you can.”
“Yes, let’s nap in actual beds,” Scout agreed.
“I’d settle for a couch,” Daisy said as she led the way through the blasted hatch, making her way gingerly over the jagged metal. It only looked as soft as a flower.
“I can make do with the corner of a room if it’s warm,” Scout said, making sure both dogs were ahead of her before crawling through the hatch.
The air felt warmer already, and so full of oxygen it flooded her brain like pure energy.
She was supercharged. She could handle anything.
Shi Jian had better be watching her back.
22
The tunnel spiraled up, and Scout knew they were heading in the right direction to come up under the city, but it was a slow, lazy spiral that seemed to go on forever. Even through the thickly padded clothing, Scout’s knees were growing sore from all the crawling.
The dogs kept racing on ahead, out of sight. Scout would call them back, b
ut each time they returned with greater reluctance.
“Any idea where this comes out?” Scout asked.
“I’m actually worried that it doesn’t,” Daisy said. “I have more explosives, but I don’t think we could get to a safe distance in time in these conditions.”
Scout hadn’t even considered that, that their nice spiraling tunnel could end in another sealed hatch.
Or maybe no hatch at all. They might be walled off, an old section no longer needed when the new city was built on top of the old.
No, she told herself. The air and warmth were coming from somewhere. And the dogs were racing forward into the darkness again with an eagerness that could only mean they smelled something they desperately wanted to get closer to.
Scout sniffed the air. She sneezed from the dust their crawling was stirring up, and the chief smell was an old musty odor like she imagined a newly unsealed tomb would have.
But under that, just faintly, she smelled . . . roasted potatoes?
“I see light!” Daisy said and started crawling faster. Scout couldn’t see around her well enough to make out anything but the walls her shoulders were brushing against, but they seemed a brighter shade of gray.
Then she heard the dogs whining, jumping up and down in excitement. Daisy drew to a stop and sat down, and Scout saw the dogs were standing at the bottom of a hole in the low ceiling, light shining down on them like they were the stars of a show.
She could hear sounds: a murmur of voices, the low rumble of a vehicle, all very far away.
“How do we get up there?” Scout asked.
“I can climb that and lower a rope,” Daisy said. She slipped the straps of the pack off her shoulders, then quickly found the other thin strand of rope and looped it around her neck. Then she stood up into the hole, bracing her back against one side and her feet opposite, and just shimmied up the pipe-like space.
Daisy’s body blocked out all the light, but Scout could hear her little grunts of breath as she climbed. Those stopped and there was another sound, a rustle of clothing while Daisy dug out a tool, and then a soft scraping sound.
Then there was a louder clang as she threw back the grate and light once more shined down on Scout and the dogs.
Daisy waved from the top of the pipe, then dropped one end of the rope down to Scout. Scout tied it around both dogs’ vests and gave it a sharp tug. Daisy reeled in the dogs, who yelped in surprise, then squirmed in excitement as they realized they were getting closer to the smells.
Scout cursed herself for not sending the leashes up with Daisy. How far would the dogs run off while Daisy was busy bringing Scout up out of the hole?
The dogs’ bodies blocked out the light again, and Scout listened to the sounds of Daisy hauling them up out of the hole then untying the rope.
Then nothing. Scout looked up into the light but saw no sign of Daisy or her dogs. She couldn’t hear anything either, just the background murmur from before.
Just when she was starting to really panic, the rope dropped out of nowhere, plunking her on the head. Scout put on the pack and grabbed the rope. Daisy was hauling her up, but Scout was all too aware of how run down Daisy was and took all of her own weight she could by mimicking Daisy’s climb up the hole.
Then she was out in the yellowish light, throwing her weight forward as she grasped with her hands. Daisy grabbed a fistful of the back of her pants and hauled her out of the hole, then gently replaced the grate.
Scout looked up to see both dogs looking at her, tails wagging. Then they dropped their heads again, licking intently at the tattered remains of some sort of cardboard food basket.
“You found that?” Scout said.
Daisy looked over at the cardboard. “Yeah. We’re near the marketplace. Someone missed the trash and left most of their fried potatoes behind as well. But the dogs sure enjoyed it.”
“Shame the dogs didn’t leave any to share,” Scout said, her stomach growling. The smell of roasted—or perhaps fried?—potatoes was stronger here.
Now that she was sure her dogs were safe, Scout took a proper look around to see just where “here” was. It appeared to be an alley between two of the tall towers, lit by slightly off-putting harsh yellow lights. The alley was paved with cobblestones that felt slightly sticky, and other bits of trash had drifted against the walls.
It wasn’t an alley people walked down much, Scout guessed. Neither tower looked to have any doors, and the far end of the alley ended at the city wall.
But the other end offered the narrowest glimpse of a street with more pleasant lighting and the occasional pedestrian or two, most carrying bags filled with their purchases. It felt like the middle of the night to Scout, but she guessed it was still early evening by the number of people carrying what looked like covered plates of hot food with them.
It must be that holiday Mary Grace had told her about, the one with the feasting.
“Come on,” Daisy said, putting out a hand to help Scout to her feet. “There’s an information station at the marketplace. Who are we going to try to get to first?”
“The McGillicuddys,” Scout said.
“We can get directions to their place there,” Daisy said. Scout fished the leashes out of her belt pouch and clipped them to the still-distracted dogs. “We should get rid of our coats first.”
Scout took off the pack and then her coat. She had taken off her hat, goggles, and scarf in the tunnel and stuffed them in the pockets. Daisy pulled out the empty sack she had used to carry Gert, put both their coats inside, and handed it back to Scout.
“Won’t we look odd, walking around with packs?” Scout asked.
“Not in this town,” Daisy said. “Lots of tourists coming and going from the port; we’ll blend right in. But wearing coats inside the city would be odd.”
Scout took up both of the leashes, and they walked out to the street. It wasn’t hard to guess which direction the marketplace lay. Aside from being where the package-laden pedestrians were coming from and the food-laden ones were walking to, as well as the growing murmur of voices, the smell of potatoes and roasted meat was like a lure guiding Scout along.
“You know the city well?” Scout asked, watching Daisy tick off cross streets on her fingers one by one as she murmured the names.
“Not really. But I took complete schematics from the city database. Nothing with people’s names attached, or I could save us this trip, but I can find the chief landmarks besides all the streets.”
“Just how long were you here before I got here?” Scout asked. “The Torreses said people had been asking about me. Was it the assassin kids? How did you all get here so fast?”
Daisy raised a hand at the barrage of questions. “Slow down, one at a time. First, yes, I arrived with the rest of Shi Jian’s kids. I was watching them from my hiding place in the walls. Bo was watching them on cameras, which they spoofed, but I was watching them with my own eyes through a grill. I saw them take out the guards and then go out an airlock, and I blended in with them. I still had my uniform, and the procedure called for full masking, so that worked in my favor.”
“Full masking?” Scout asked.
“Just what it sounds like,” Daisy said. “Perhaps you thought you couldn’t see anybody’s face because it was cold? I guess that would be part of it, but Shi Jian sends us on two kinds of missions: missions where we masquerade as kids and infiltrate a place openly, and missions where we’re meant to be invisible. Full masking is for the latter.”
“I guess you didn’t have any missions of the former kind that involved all of you at once,” Scout said.
“No, not until this one,” Daisy agreed. “So I went out the airlock with the others, and I don’t know how Shi Jian did it, but she had an entire shuttle docked there, invisible to any of the ship’s systems. Not like a tribunal enforcer ship, where it’s invisible to the eye but apparent to ship systems; more like the opposite. We all got in, and the shuttle took us to another ship, but we never left the shuttle. Not fo
r the entire trip through hyperspace.”
“Still,” Scout said. “I left first. How did you beat me here? I thought tribunal enforcer ships were state of the art or whatever?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Daisy said. “Whoever Shi Jian really works for, they are leagues beyond the tribunal enforcers or even the Tajaki trade dynasty with their tech. Shi Jian’s body modifications are beyond any of ours or the galactic marshals, and the Tajaki trade dynasty didn’t give her any of that. I don’t think even Bo knows half of what she can do. And this ship was another example of it. We made the trip through hyperspace so fast we beat you by a full day.”
“I don’t like the sound of this,” Scout said. “This keeps happening. I know I’m already in over my head, and yet it always turns out there’s another level above me and I’m even deeper than I thought.”
“I know,” Daisy said. “We just need to focus on one step at a time, and the first step is right here.”
She pointed to what looked like a larger version of Emma McGillicuddy’s desk nook, or rather a series of them, all along the low wall that contained the marketplace. One or two had people standing in front of them, asking for directions or leaning close to consult the map displayed on the angled surface. Daisy stepped up to an open unit but typed in her request rather than speak it out loud.
“I’m getting the directions for the Torreses as well. Just in case,” Daisy said.
“You can remember all that?” Scout asked. Daisy gave her a look like she wasn’t sure if Scout was joking. “You have augments for that too?”
“Too many things,” Daisy said. “But at the moment they’re coming in handy, so I won’t complain too much. The McGillicuddys’ apartment isn’t far from here. We should go around the marketplace rather than through it, though. Better maybe not to be seen.”
“Sure,” Scout agreed, but her stomach growled in protest at being dragged away from those marvelous smells.
Emma would have food. And Scout was sure that her tea would be up to even Daisy’s exacting expectations. Scout hadn’t paid attention at the time, but she was curious now how Emma got around the low-boiling-point-at-high-altitude problem.