by David Gunn
‘What’s that for?’ Anton asks.
‘Breakfast.’
Pulling a dagger from my belt, I check its point.
Not sure why I’m bothering. It’s as sharp as it was when I put it away. And I’ve honed the edge so sharp that flesh cuts like paper. I know that from the trickle of blood on my wrist when I draw the blade across my thumb.
‘Keep the fire burning,’ I tell Leona.
She nods, still buckling her belt. ‘Sir . . .?’
I turn back.
‘You want company?’
‘Work best alone.’
She grins. ‘Right you are, sir.’
‘Leona. You know how to cook?’
‘Yes, sir . . . I think so.’
‘How about using a knife? Any good at that?’
When she nods, I throw her my blade which she catches cleanly, and tell her to kill something edible and cook it. Then I go take a piss of my own.
That night sees us descend to the low plains, beginning a run that will take us to the slopes of Farlight. We pass villages and small towns, goats eating rubbish on dumps beside the road, and small children who wave.
The older ones spit.
Sergeant Toro asks if I’ve seen the city before and seems surprised when I say yes. He’d be even more surprised if he knew the story behind my arrival.
Farlight is a sprawl of a city trapped in the bowl of a long-dead volcano. To enter by road you take a track that snakes up the volcano and drops into its crater. Slums cling to the highest slopes of the inside edge. The air there is fresh, but water’s rare and so are jobs. The rich bits of Farlight huddle on the floor. The really expensive bits circle Zabo Square and the cathedral.
A virus hit that area years back.
Imagine blowtorching a toy city until the biggest buildings start to melt, then letting them set again. That’s what the boulevards around Zabo Square look like. Debro has a mansion there. Aptitude’s ex-husband had one also.
Until I burnt it down.
‘Ready?’ I ask.
Everyone nods.
We fire up our bikes.
The blacktop gets better the closer we get to the city. But the road still twists and turns viciously. And we waste hours running parallel to our old path, only heading in the opposite direction and fifty paces higher. With the next stage of our route switched round again and fifty paces above that. Our pegs grinding sparks as we navigate hairpin bends.
Any army that tried to take Farlight using this road would be hacked to pieces before they reached a third of the way up. In all of this, our lights only show the narrowest sliver of blacktop.
As one hairpin leads into another, it occurs to me we’re going to hit a bigger problem and hit it soon.
‘What?’ Anton demands when I pull us over.
‘We’re going off-road.’
He wants to protest that on-road is dangerous enough.
Sergeant Toro is watching. As we wait, his eyes flick to the corner ahead, the strip of road beyond that and the road above. He keeps his opinions to himself and his engine running.
A man after my own heart.
‘Want to tell him why?’
‘Roadblocks,’ the sergeant says.
‘We can talk our way through,’ Anton insists.
‘And if it goes wrong? You happy for me to cut their throats? We might as well send a message saying we’ve arrived.’
Sergeant Leona goes still.
Maybe she’s not used to people openly discussing the slaughter of Farlight’s finest.
‘So,’ I say. ‘Since we can’t kill them . . .’
Anton nods reluctantly.
Chapter 17
The city spreads out below us. So vast it froths up from the volcano floor right to the crater’s edge. A tiny speck in the middle is the cathedral. The gap in front is Zabo Square. You can parade an army there. OctoV has done it.
Just not in my lifetime.
Beyond the square lies an area of big houses, then the river. This is not a river at all. It’s a closed-system ribbon lake that cuts the city in two. Although the two pieces are not equal in size and it’s years since the river has flowed.
We stand on the eastern rim.
Around here, the caldera rises too steeply for anything but shacks on stilts to be built and scabs of bare rock show where some of those have toppled onto shacks below, sending them crashing onto the buildings below that.
Leona is looking around with a smile on her face.
‘Never knew it was so beautiful.’
That’s one way of putting it.
In a small square below, barrio dwellers are putting up stalls and unloading three-wheel tuktuks. A woman I know has a stall there.
Supplier of used weapons.
Cheapest price on the planet, guaranteed.
Beyond the little market is a row of rotting houses, built from stonefoam and fibreboard. I own one of the largest. Golden Memories. My bar and brothel . . .
Paper Osamu, UFree ambassador to this edge of the Spiral, told me they were designed to last less than fifty years. Seven hundred years later they’re still going. She knows stuff like that. The UFree like to study primitive peoples.
In my case, their ambassador liked to fuck them also.
That flat patch of dirt beyond is the Emsworth landing fields. A rotting square of concrete and scrub, edged with crumbling warehouses.
It was here OctoV first landed.
A bronze statue near the gate shows him in a bulky space suit carrying a helmet. He’s wearing primitive gravity boots and has an air scrubber on his back.
It is unlike any other statue of our glorious leader. These show him as he now is. Aged fourteen, in cavalry uniform, with elegant ringlets falling to his shoulders, and a sabre belted to his narrow waist.
Sven?
‘Fuck . . .’
‘Sir. Are you all right?’
I’m on my knees, fighting the urge to vomit. Around me the hard edges of the city fade to leave static in my mouth.
Sergeant Leona’s speaking.
Hers isn’t the voice I hear in my head.
Is that you?
Waves of nausea rock me.
We’ve been here before. In my head is the voice of the only man General Jaxx will bow his knee to . . . Mind you, it’s been a while since you could describe OctoV as anything approaching human.
That’s not kind.
The words fade and with it the nausea.
Leaving me on my knees, being watched by Anton, Sergeant Leona and Sergeant Toro. Anton looks worried. Toro looks shocked. Leona’s expression is harder to read.
Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I push myself to my feet and spit.
‘What happened?’ Anton asks.
Makes me realize he’s never seen me do that before. ‘You don’t want to know,’ I tell him. Only he does, and so does Sergeant Toro.
Can see it in his face.
‘Wetware.’ That’s the most I’m going to say.
Toro’s stare hardens.
Wetware is illegal. It’s also favoured by the metalheads. Since the Enlightened want us dead as badly as we want them wiped from the face of this galaxy, and it’s only fear of the U/Free that keeps us from slaughtering each other, owning a symbiont is close to proof of treason.
‘The general knows.’
Shouldn’t have said that. I’m supposed to be ex-Legion.
‘Did some work for him,’ I say. ‘Like you. Nothing special . . .’
The sergeant smiles sourly. He thinks he knows what nothing special means. It means I only just came out of it alive. And I have more sense than to talk about it to him or anyone else, ever.
Five minutes from here is a brothel, with wide beds and fresh food, alcohol and girls who’ll be only too happy to help us relax, or not . . .
As I said, I own the place.
Keeping it safe, and collecting their cut for keeping the neighbourhood safe from outsiders, are the Aux, my team.
It takes effort
to keep walking. The turn-off to Golden Memories is deserted at this time of the morning. In the distance, a girl with blonde hair splashes water from a pail across a pavement outside.
Looks like Lisa to me. She could be settling the dust or washing away last night’s vomit. Depends on the evening everyone had.
Anton’s staring around him.
‘God,’ he says. ‘This is grim.’
Sergeant Leona catches my eye. Doesn’t look bad to us.
The houses have doors, roofs and windows. Most of their glass is unbroken. All right, the cats are thin, and the only dog we see has three legs, but it’s alive, and the cockcrow from a yard behind says chicken is still on the menu. There are cities where cat is what you get served. And the only reason you get cat is that all the dogs have gone.
‘What?’ Anton demands.
‘Just thinking . . .’
He opens his mouth and shuts it again.
All right, I know. Thinking makes me bad-tempered.
I lead them away from Golden Memories and down a narrow lane that skirts the landing field. Somewhere along here is a hole in the mesh. Unless someone’s mended it. They haven’t. Not sure who would anyway.
Maybe someone owns this field.
Hard to tell, looking at the derelict warehouses around its edge and the fleet of rusting cargo carriers awaiting a wrecking crew.
‘Through here,’ I say.
We push our bikes to keep the noise down.
Sergeant Leona needs help getting her bike through the mesh. Anton assists her, being the gentleman he is. Between them they manage to get the bars well and truly trapped. ‘Out of my way.’
Moving them aside, I rip the wire with one hand and pick up the bike with my other and drag it after me.
‘Wait here,’ I say. ‘Anybody asks, you’re looking for work. If they want to know what you did before this, ignore the question. That’s answer enough.’
I leave them looking worried.
Probably wondering if I intend to come back.
Guess the landing field looks odd unless you’ve seen one before. A mountain of engine parts, endless scuttling bots chewing steel down to dust, more broken tugs and cargo carriers than you can imagine.
The man I’m looking for lives in a warehouse. Since he’s fucking one of the girls from Golden Memories and he knows that I know he’s been drinking on a free tab for the last six months he’ll probably help.
That’s help, without threats being needed.
It’s his kid I spot first.
‘Sven . . .’ he says.
‘You didn’t see me.’
‘Didn’t I?’
‘Absolutely not. You understand?’
Blue eyes look from under a fringe. I was ugly as sin as a kid. This boy lacks the ugliness but his intensity keeps friends away. He’s ripping legs from a bucket of combat bots he drops in the dirt. After a few seconds, the bots uncurl and begin eating their own weight in shaved metal.
It’s the only way to get the bastards to repair.
I taught the kid how to do that.
From the look of things, he’s repaired thousands, because I can see them eating their way through huge sheets of space plating. And a rust-stained circle now surrounds his dad’s warehouse where other cargo carriers used to be.
‘OK,’ he says. ‘I didn’t see you. Didn’t see your friends either.’ He points into the distance where Anton and the others stand.
‘Your dad in?’
The boy nods.
‘Is he alone?’
A grin greets my question.
‘Angelique’s gone home for the weekend.’
He makes it sound like a trip to the country.
Since I know the furthest she’s been from Golden Memories is eight streets, Angelique’s obviously staying with her aunt, who lives in one of the shacks above the market.
‘Here,’ I say, emptying coins into his hand. ‘Buy me a tortilla and get one for yourself.’
‘What about them?’
I nod, and he scurries away.
The stairs to Per’s office are rusty. They also creak. So I’m not surprised to open his door and find myself staring at the muzzle of a Colt automatic. It’s large calibre, with old-fashioned sights.
His finger is on the trigger.
‘Fuck,’ he says, lowering the gun. ‘Thought you were-’ He hesitates, thinks about whether he wants to finish that sentence.
I leave him to it as I look round his room.
A double mattress, a screen fixed to the wall, an old leather chair with a gash across its back, a stack of something that looks like memory boxes, a bucket full of broken combat bots, half of them waving their legs like upturned crabs.
He’s tidied up since I was last here.
A bottle lies on its side.
‘Angelique doesn’t like me drinking.’
‘So you drink when she’s away?’
He grins, an unshaven grin that doesn’t reach his eyes. He’s been on a bender for longer than a single weekend. Which might explain why his son is already up and Angelique’s staying with her aunt.
‘You can feel it?’ he asks me.
I look at him, wondering . . .
‘Static,’ I say. ‘That’s what I can feel. A flat taste like blood in the back of my throat.’
‘Sven,’ says Per, ‘I didn’t mean literally.’
‘Oh.’ Shrugging, I look at him.
‘All the same,’ he says, ‘that’s a pretty good description.’
‘For what?’
‘Whatever’s happening.’ He stares at me through bloodshot eyes. ‘Van Zill’s refusing to pay his taxes. Neen’s not happy.’
Federico Van Zill is a scumbag, would-be crime boss we let live in return for one fifth of everything he earns. Neen you know, he’s my sergeant. ‘Why hasn’t Neen handled it?’
‘Two days ago Van Zill vanished.’
‘Dead?’
‘Doubt you’ll get that lucky.’
We’re silent, and Per looks down at his gun.
It’s recently oiled, and I’m willing to bet good money he’s field-stripped it and loaded up a few spare clips. Other changes occur to me. The bars over the window for a start.
And those creaking stairs . . .
‘Loosened some bolts,’ he says. ‘To warn me if someone’s coming.’
Nodding at the bottle, I say, ‘Is that because you haven’t killed before, and you’re trying to find the courage? Or you have, and didn’t like it?’
‘The boy doesn’t know that.’
Must be the second, then. When I hold out my hand, he hands me the gun.
The weight’s good, its clips clean and full. The pin dry-fires with a sharp click and the barrel has been pulled through so thoroughly it’s a twist of silvery steel. The broken grip on one side of the handle is recently mended.
All the same.
Pulling a side arm from my belt, I offer it to Per, who looks uncertain. So I put it on the deck beside his empty bottle and add three clips. ‘Explosive,’ I tell him, tapping the first. ‘Take out a truck, no problem.’
He nods.
So I tap the second. ‘Hollow-point. Maximum spread and minimum weight loss. No use against ceramic. But take someone off at the knee and it doesn’t matter what they’re wearing above.’
He looks sick.
Probably because he knows it’s true.
‘Armour-piercing,’ I tell him, pointing at the third clip. ‘A thermite core hot enough to melt steel.’
Per’s looking at a fortune.
This lot would sell to Angelique’s aunt for more than he makes in a month. But he won’t be parting with them. I can see that in his eyes.
‘Take a shower, have a shave, eat something.’
He nods.
‘And teach your boy how to use that.’
Misery twists Per’s face as he realizes I mean his original gun.
‘Alternatively, let him get killed.’
There’s a price to m
y kindness. I want our bikes serviced and stored safely, I want tyres that don’t look as if they’ve been blasted by a shotgun. And I want Per and his boy to keep quiet about my being here. That means he doesn’t tell his squeeze.
Angelique has tits like a goddess, cascades of blonde hair and no inhibitions. Believe me, I know . . . The night we spent together we shared the mattress with Lisa, her cousin.
The one slopping off the steps in front of Golden Memories.
But tell her something when she’s flat on her back and half the neighbourhood knows by lunchtime. She’s a girl who really can’t keep anything shut.
‘Understand?’
Per nods. ‘I owe you my life already.’
Takes me a moment to work out what he means. A while back, I came through here, having just landed, and stumbled over a small boy trying to mend a spider bot. Helping the boy brought his father. Had to fight myself for six streets before deciding not to go back and kill them both.
Because that’s what I should have done.
‘Tell me you didn’t,’ Per says.
‘Do what?’
‘Ride those up the face.’
‘They’re Icefelds. It’s what they’re for.’
‘Sven,’ he says, ‘gyros exist to stop dispatch riders falling off their bikes.’ Per very carefully doesn’t ask the others their names or introduce himself. He simply drops to a crouch beside my bike and sucks his teeth at the state of its tyre, the cracked dampers and the broken fairing. His eyes widen at the sight of the spray and prays.
‘Expecting trouble?’
‘Always.’
‘Ain’t that the truth,’ he says.
If anyone notices Leona rip a piece from her tortilla and toss it down as an offering, they have the manners to keep that to themselves.
Chapter 18
Leona whispers that someone is following. I know that already. One man, who picked up our tail when we hit Farlight’s centre but is still five or six people back. A few minutes ago, he was ahead of us. Before that he was in a parallel street, watching us through shop windows and sightings down side alleys.
He’s good. Although that turned-up collar and pulled-down cap must be a bastard in this heat.
‘You’re grinning, sir.’
‘Fuck of a way to spend my leave.’
She smiles. ‘You want me to do something about our friend?’