Blightcross: A Novel

by C. A. Lang

  Then it came: a screeching whistle to which every skilled worker answered by dropping his current work, removing his helmet, and forming a line at the exit. The noise snapped Capra from her meditation, and for an instant, she strained to remember where she was and what she was doing, and she gazed at the factory floor, head slightly askew and eyes wary.

  “I know it would be nice to go with them, but we have two more hours left.” Tey emptied a bucket into a trough of black sludge. “Besides, they’re just going to drink their dinner and become loud. The smell will not improve either, I’ll wager.”

  Capra handed her broom to Tey. “Just a second or two, all right?”

  “What?”

  She spotted Laik among the workers and bounded after them. In her path was one of the vats of glowing orange inferno, and a blast of heat baked her face. Damn, these short breaths. Something was different, because she would never become winded so easily. Would she even pass the army’s physical standards test now? She had the disturbing feeling, as she huffed along after Laik, that were she to try the ten-minute run, she would fall on her face, or at the very least, double her time.

  “Laik,” she said, trotting alongside the man. His face was black and shiny.

  “Get back to work.”

  She wanted to grab him by his overall straps, but held back. “You are on the board, is that right?”

  He sighed and rolled his eyes and prattled on in monotone, “If you really must raise some issue, go to the clerk at your barrack and request form 23-C.” He met her eyes. “But I would advise against it. Someone like you should think twice about crying to the authorities.”

  She pulled him out of the lineup, and was surprised when he offered no punches or public humiliation. “I can make it worth your while. We both know I am not going to stay here for long.”

  “I know. But I have debts, and I want your wages. I also want to fuck you silly, and will probably call in that debt before you leave.”

  She growled.

  “There, there. That’s what I like.”

  “You pig.”

  Laik put his hand on her waist. “I have personal connections to Sevari. I can have you in his torture dungeon in the time it takes you to scrub the privy after I shit in it.”

  “Personal connections, eh?”

  “You think I am going to let one of his mindless Freedom Corps jackasses take you in, and conveniently forget that I was the one to capture you? Never.”

  Another worker chuckled on the way past them and knocked Laik with his shoulder.

  “Now get out of here. You leave before I’m done with you, and you’re as good as dead.”

  He shoved her into a pillar, and she gasped from the impact. “See you tomorrow at lunch, Laik.”

  But he was too far away to hear. Just as well—it would have more impact if she took him by surprise.

  “But why Blightcross, is what I wonder.” Tey crossed in front of Capra, hands on her wide hips.

  Capra simply shrugged and dipped her mop into the pail of brown water.

  “Well, really, why are you hiding here?”

  By now, Capra imagined that Tey had constructed a composite of her, based on morsels of conversation, rumours, and observations. The woman’s questions had become more specific, and like this one, referred more to the things Capra had not said that both implicitly acknowledged.

  Capra pushed her bucket across the tiles, leaving dark streaks, and paused to stifle her gagging before going to work on the next lavatory stall.

  “You could be a dancer in the Orvis Dunes, or a courtesan. How did you end up here, a pretty thing like you?”

  She cringed, and not from the mess in front of her, but at the things she had told Tey. Maybe it had been a mistake to talk about random things like her most embarrassing moment at the academy as a teenager—a complete bastardization of one of the most famous ballets from the continent, and the ensuing five years of humiliation it caused.

  After hearing that, Tey’s suspicion faded, and she began to act strangely... as if they were friends.

  Friend. Now a foreign concept, since Dannac wasn’t exactly the kind of man with whom one could gossip and joke around, and the only friend who had meant anything to her was back in Mizkov. It felt strange to garner such interest from Tey.

  “I could never be a dancer. I screwed the performance up, remember? I fell three times, and gave the boy who was supposed to catch me a broken nose. Not good.”

  She had left out the part about practising for six hours each day for the next three years and performing it again flawlessly. It was probably best not to appear arrogant among simpler people.

  Tey snapped her fingers. “Aha—it’s treasure, isn’t it?”

  “Pardon?”

  “The people who used to live on this island... there is gold buried somewhere in the factory. It has to be true, because if anyone catches you digging for no reason, they haul you in and you never want to touch a spade again.”

  There was something sickening about the way the limp wet mop sloshed and sucked at the floor, and there also was the dilemma about whether the smell was worse than the possibility of tasting it, should she try to avoid the odour by breathing through her mouth. She wrinkled her nose and took shallow morsels of air.

  “I want you to know, I won’t say anything. I probably said that before, but heaven knows turning you in won’t make my life any better.”

  She stopped. “Well, thanks. You are... a good friend.”

  The only trouble was, did she deserve one? Not even a note to Jasaf, not even a goodbye, just wait for the damned explosions to distract everyone and run westward.

  And Capra had not looked back.

  She wondered what Jasaf was up to, if she were still in their unit. Her mandatory service would be almost finished. Damn—she should have asked Alim about her when she had the chance. Maybe rekindling the old days would have been powerful enough for him to abandon his chase and let her be.

  Out on the factory floor, the sounds of hundreds of men’s feet tromping around in unison boomed through the walls.

  This was it. Lunch time.

  “Tey, I’ll be back in a bit. Can you cover for me? Say I cut myself and was at the nurse’s station.”

  “You don’t get to use the nurse’s station. None of us do...”

  “Tell them it was really bad. They have to understand.”

  “They will not—”

  Capra dropped the mop and darted to the shop floor, where the men had gathered in a circle, the same as yesterday. She skirted around their sweaty, broad backs, waiting for the fights to begin. One of the ladies had said something about matches during the evenings, but since it was difficult to leave the women’s barracks without attracting attention, she thought the afternoon fights were the best opportunity.

  Perfect—Laik was full of sandwich and wild urges again, and entered the circle. A smaller man came from the opposite side of the clump. The smaller man started the fight with a blow to Laik’s kidney. Laik reeled, and returned with a lunge. He brought the other into a headlock, and seconds later, the man dropped to the ground like Capra’s soggy mop.

  The men grumbled amongst themselves:

  “Boring.”

  “Gut him, Laik!”

  “I seen better fights between cats.”

  She waded through the crowd, ignoring their crude comments. She emerged inside the circle—the inadequate woman at the very heart of the men’s exclusive enclosure. She steeled her gaze and didn’t wait for an invitation to shove Laik into one of his underlings.

  “You stupid whore. Get out of here, this is for men only.”

  “I am in the circle, Laik.” She punched him. The men laughed.

  “You hit like a girl.”

  “Thank you.”

  He lunged again, his form eclipsing the glowing strands of pouring metal beyond the ring. She dropped to the ground on her elbows and hoisted herself up to kick him, and he flew into the spectators. But this time, i
nstead of waiting for him to come again, she flew at Laik and rammed her knee into his rib cage.

  The crack of his bones sent a chill through her, but also a childish satisfaction.

  Now his face gleamed red, and he clasped his hands together and smashed her in the jaw. “I don’t know what you think you’re getting here, slut, but you will regret it.”

  Her vision filled with a sparkling blizzard. The next instant, his bulk flashed into view and pinned her shoulders.

  Now the men hooted, as if they had never seen a real fight between members of the opposite sex. He chortled and punched her.

  Crack.

  Crack.

  A delicate note of blood on the back of her tongue.

  He paused. “You must be mad, woman.”

  Crack.

  She caught his hand. “Where is it?”

  “Where is what?”

  “Sevari’s collection. That’s all I want to know.”

  Her arm began to shake. “What do you want with Sevari’s bizarre obsessions?” As if offended even by her choice of transgressions, he bared his teeth and grabbed her throat. “You make no sense to me. You come here to hide from someone, try to best me, and all because you want some worthless scribbles and sculptures?”

  She choked and sputtered. Blackness encroached on her vision. Her hands flailed, and she instinctively went for the hidden switchblade. She manoeuvred the blade against his belly, jabbed him just enough to make him stop.

  Laik looked down. His maniac grin softened. “You’re a cheat, too.”

  “I know what you do here. I heard it all. I have no idea how corrupt your bureaucracy is, but I know that the women are far too timid to tell anyone, on the off chance that rape and assault against a worker is actually legal in this godforsaken pit.”

  “You can’t prove anything.”

  “Do you want to take that chance? There are ways. Suppose they interrogate you with truth serum. There are many ways to catch scum like you.” She pushed the blade harder. “And the only reason you are still here is because they are too afraid to talk.”

  “You still cannot prove anything. And you are guilty of more crimes than I am.”

  It was true... it sickened her to hear it, but she knew every bit of it was the truth.

  “Jorassian? What are you waiting for?”

  They had nothing. They lived in huts, they lived in the harshest, most undesirable areas of the new Valoii homeland. Their eyes showed fright—never mind that they also blazed with vihs. It was the Ehzeri equivalent to flinching, and you do not answer a flinch with a volley of phosphorus grenades...

  She gritted her teeth and felt the knife dig into Laik’s flesh. “Forget it. This ends now, and you give me what I want, or I kill you.”

  There was a silence, as if the crowd had heard the remark. Laik’s thick arms relaxed for an instant, and Capra struck him with her elbow. She then pressed the knife against his throat.

  “So you...” He licked his lips and stuttered. “So you cared nothing for those women, then? I will keep doing as I please if you leave this place to find your treasures. You would be willing to let me continue to do that, if I just gave you what you wanted? Is that right?”

  “You sheepfucking bastard...”

  “You’ve done it dozens of times before, Jorassian. Move out!”

  It wasn’t right.

  But that kind of recognition is meaningless when you do it anyway.

  “Yes. Come on, slit my throat, you cunt. Answer to the Corps, answer to Sevari’s expert torture surgeons—you won’t make it two steps from my body. I am sure they can show you the stupid mystical garbage you risk your life for from the comfort of a spiked mattress.”

  So killing him was out of the question.

  “How many have you killed? Hm? Just for a few pistres? Did you pose as the nanny and fuck the overworked father and take him for all he was worth, then kill him? Things like that?”

  She wanted to tell him the truth—that she had killed no one since leaving the army, but decided not to downplay herself. “Where is it?”

  “Really? You are that shallow? These poor abused women mean nothing to you?”

  She swallowed hard. “I am no good to them as your slave or hunted by Sevari.”

  “If that makes you feel better about yourself...”

  She pressed the blade into his skin, watched a sliver of blood creep from his skin. She then released him and skittered back. “It’s over.”

  The group’s voices rumbled again. From what she gathered during her jostling through them, half were impressed with her and made fun of Laik, the other half thought she was a diseased, disturbed woman and that Laik ought to have finished her.

  The factory seemed to spin, and her sight was still blurred. As soon as she hit the wall of sewage reek in the lavatory, she made a mad sprint for the pot she had just cleaned.

  “Capra?”

  It was Tey.

  “Concussion. I’ll be okay.” Another nauseous wave came, and she was reminded of her experience aboard the flying boat.

  The stall darkened, and Capra assumed it was just Tey coming to her aid anyway. “Really, Tey, just one more and I think it’ll be done.” Another flood of bile in her mouth—

  “I know a man who works at the Pavilion of Machines just outside of Redsands.” Deep and gravelly, gravelly like her own voice at the moment.

  She wiped her mouth and turned around. Once she realized that it was Laik, she reached for her knife again.

  “Relax. I am an honourable man, Capra.” There were a few seconds of a strange silence. “This man designed and maintains the mechanical fire giant at the pavilion. He talks a lot, if you catch my drift. His name is Tilas Feyerbik.” Laik’s eyes darted around the room.

  “Laik, I...”

  “Get out of here. Say nothing about me, the information I gave you, or your overblown accusations. Take the back way out. I have arranged for the guards there to be indisposed for the next while.”

  “You’re scum, and suddenly you become this noble gentleman?”

  He shook his head. “Unwritten codes. Perhaps your society is too honest with itself.”

  “Men like you are respected, while the real men are ridiculed and singled out?”

  “Get out. You have your information. Your eyes are clearing up—I didn’t hit you hard enough to send you to the surgery. That is not our intent when we fight.”

  “I don’t believe that. Not for a second.”

  “I never asked you to.”

  Never one to question when things turned in her favour, she shoved past him and found Tey wrestling with a handcart whose wheels squealed under a load of cracked parts. Tey stopped and looked mortified after she saw Capra’s face.

  “Oh no, you look like you’ve been through the ringer. What happened?”

  Capra touched one of the cuts on her jaw. “Nothing, really. Look, Tey... I have to go.” She thought of the day she had left the army. At least she barely knew Tey, and they had little in common.

  “So soon? Why?”

  “Just... for a while. I promise to come back.” Though her voice said otherwise, and Tey didn’t appear to buy it either.

  “But where are you going?” Tey’s eyes brightened. “Found whatever you were looking for?”

  Capra slid her hand through her damp hair. “Get out of here, Tey.”

  “What?”

  “This city. Get out. Go north, to the resorts.”

  “But they pay much less there.”

  “This place takes more than it gives, Tey. You have to realize that.”

  Tey scoffed at the comment and waved. “Sure, for a petty middle-class woman like yourself. But I know what the real world is like.”

  The woman’s insight surprised Capra. Perhaps she should have kept quiet. She hurried past the lake of molten metal and through the metal-grated halls to the side exit, just as Laik had told her. For once, she took his words at face value. His voice had dripped with resignation, and she
knew it wasn’t a trick.

  Victory? The voice of a beaten man?

  Dannac would say: “It had nothing to do with you challenging the little order they have in the factory. It had everything to do with your incessant nattering and stubbornness. Some people can only handle so much insistence that Capra knows all.”

  The monotonous road out of the Redsands area only made her relive the past two days. Tey would be okay. It was incredibly self-absorbed to think that everyone she left behind would suffer from her absence.

  Wasn’t it?

  Raid after raid, Alim became more weary of the ridiculous rumours that wasted his time.

  I saw her at a bistro, serving shalep.

  She’s my next-door neighbour. Very noisy at night, you see. I would love for you to remove her.

  Part of the problem was that there were so many Ehzeri here, and to the Blightcross natives, Capra’s olive skin and dark eyes belonged to the entire immigrant population. They would describe her vaguely, and of course sneer at the mention of what they thought was a “big nose”. Alim began to wonder if these people saw others as caricatures, as if under some bizarre hex.

  He paced in Sevari’s office alone, waiting for the Leader to return. The old-style, arched window let in the city’s dusty light, and from here Alim traced the pipeline; massive cords of sinew stretching far into the desert. Parts of it disappeared under the sand and emerged miles away, like stitching.

  “Alim,” Sevari said, heading for his big leather chair. “How goes it?”

  “You’re late.”

  “More paranoia among the workers. Bodies, bodies... You know how it is. Everyone thinks they’re going to be next, as if the entire universe is out to get them.”

  Alim thought to ask about these strange murders, but Sevari’s casualness meant it was probably best not to ask. Accusing the man of murder, or at least being complicit by inaction, would do little to help the situation. “Your intelligence section has given me a few reports. I have followed up on many of them.”