Suited

by Jo Anderton

  The suit wanted to leave them here, in the dust of a ruined world. Because collectors waited. Weapons did not.

  “Tan?” Lad matched my pace, cast his worrying gaze to my crossed arms and the fingers digging into my skin. “’Leksey thinks you should sit down because you must be tired after yesterday.” He drew a breath “There is nothing to worry about. Bro is strong. He can look after himself.”

  Kichlan? Was that what they thought I was doing, fretting for Kichlan all alone in the Mob-infested city above? True, he and his team had returned to the surface despite my best attempts to convince them to do otherwise. Perhaps that would have made more sense. Perhaps that would have made me a better person, worthy of his love. But I tended to agree with Aleksey – ’Leksey, Lad had decided to trust him, then – and believed Kichlan could handle himself.

  Or, I could go to him. Just climb the ladder, break the door, then out into the city, Mob and the veche be damned! I didn’t even need to climb if I just gave in.

  I shook out my hands, tried to make the fight inside me look like nothing but a need to ease sore muscles.

  “I am okay, Lad. Tell Aleksey I am just not very good at doing nothing.”

  He nodded, serious. “He would believe that.”

  Lad did not leave immediately. He hesitated, half-turned, then remained by my side. “Am I being a good Half, Tan?” he asked, fidgeting as he walked. “Fedor says I’m very important, because there aren’t very many Halves any more. He says that long ago everyone, even pion-binders, knew about Halves. People used to listen to them and do what they said, because Halves could talk to the Keeper, and everyone loved the Keeper back then. Halves had power too, all of their own, different from pions and debris. But it’s like this street, now. All buried. All broken. Almost gone.” His fretful, intense eyes met mine. “But I don’t have any power. And bro used to listen to me, and Miz, Uz, Tash and Sofia too, but I don’t think I ever told them anything important. What if I’m not good enough at being a Half?”

  I swallowed a sudden, sharp anger. Damn Fedor. This was the last thing Lad needed to worry about right now. “Lad.” I took his hands, and calmed his fingers. “I think you are a wonderful Half. You always tell us what the Keeper says, even when he is crying, even when he is scared or upset or not making any sense. He is lucky to have you. We all are.”

  He frowned. “But I don’t have power, Tan. What power am I supposed to have?”

  I sighed. “I’m sorry, Lad, but I don’t know. No one does, not any more. Not even Fedor. That must have been a very, very long time ago. So long no one can remember.”

  He looked to his feet, his expression glum.

  “But we can’t worry about that right now. We need to focus on the present, not the past. We need to help the Keeper now, do the best we can. And we can’t do that without you. We need you, Lad. You will help us, won’t you?”

  Lad straightened his shoulders. “I can, Tan. I will not worry about old things. I will do the best I can. I will be a very good Half.”

  I watched his back as he returned to the domed room. Then I sat by the legs of one of the Keeper statues. I placed gentle fingers over one of the bands on my wrist. The symbols struggled there, surging and crowding under my touch. But I could still feel him. Lad, his symbol so solid and strong.

  I wished Fedor would leave the past well alone. What did it matter, really, what Halves used to be and what power they might have had? It made as little difference to us as the old Unbound society did. We had to survive the here and now. The past was gone.

  By the time Aleksey and Mizra made their next attempt, I was walking again. Fingers still pressed to the symbols, marching in tune with the flux of the suit, the rise and flow, the tugging.

  Mizra came first. I almost did not hear him.

  “You need to sleep,” Mizra said.

  “Concerned for the child, are you?” I asked him, with more acidity than he deserved.

  Mizra shook his head. “Tanyana, I wish you could have understood. We were only ever worried about you. Just as we tried to help Sofia, we try to help you.”

  “Why? What business is it of yours?”

  “You are our friend.” He placed a hand against his side, against the scar beneath his clothing, where he had once been joined to his twin brother. “The world isn’t fair, Uz and I can’t fix that. But we will still do what we can, and offer support to those who need it. To those we care about.”

  I turned away from him. Perhaps I had judged him harshly, seen what I wanted to see, misread his concern for me as a desire to tell me what to do. It was too late now, anyway. I could hardly book surgery with Edik with the Mob on my trail.

  Aleksey gave me enough time to start pacing again, before he tried.

  “You really should rest,” he said, matching my pace.

  “I don’t trust you,” I hissed at him, “and I’m not going to talk to you. So don’t even try. Just leave me alone.”

  “Come now, Tanyana, won’t you hear me out? It’s for your own good.”

  I spun, and my suit unwound a fierce, sharp blade before I could control it. But I didn’t even get close to him. Aleksey raised one of his own, just as fast, just as sharp. He blocked me.

  His expression remained calm, reasonable, despite our swords. “What have I done to deserve this?”

  Shaking, I withdrew my suit. It fought the whole damned way. “I don’t even know you. And you know more than you should, you work your suit far too well, and I’m not a fool. I won’t let another person betray me.” Not another Devich, Tsana, or Natasha. “So just leave. Get away from me, and my team. Go or I will– I will kill you!”

  Aleksey shook his head, expression hurt. “You don’t have it in you to kill me, Tanyana. And anyway, I’m only here because I care about you.”

  I started pacing again, striding away from him. “Just go! Leave me alone.” He was right. No matter what the veche drilled into me, I was no weapon, nor had I ever been trained to use one. Could I really kill him, like I had killed the Hon Ji Half? Would I let him force me to do that again?

  “I only care about you, Tanyana. I only want you to make the right decisions, to choose the right side, to keep yourself safe. Please, remember that.” Then he left me in peace.

  I half expected Natasha to follow in their wake. But although she might be a Hon Ji spy and apparently well-equipped assassin, she was still Natasha. One failed attempt to convince me was enough for her.

  I was left alone again, with the suit and the statues. Was he with me, the Keeper? Following at my heels and worrying in his own, otherworldly way? I did not trust the suit enough to check. I feared that if I allowed it to slip metal over my face as I had done so many times before, I would not be able to regain control.

  “What do you want from me?” I whispered into the darkness. Into the stones.

  Freedom. The answer came in the twitching of my muscles, in the whirring of symbols. Freedom, and dominance.

  “You won’t get it,” I hissed the words, choked over them. My throat was tight. My lungs full. My tongue thick. “Not over me.”

  Stalemate.

  It was difficult to breathe. I placed hands on my abdomen, readying for the attack. But none came.

  “This will get us nowhere.”

  Agreement. A softening. I leaned against a statue of the Keeper, cheek close to his chiselled one and relaxed my clawed hands. “I will not give in to you.” And yet, I had never known strength like the suit gave me. There was power in its silver and in its secrets. It tried to kill my child; it tried to take me over. But still…

  Thoughts of Natasha came unbidden. Fighting the Mob, the veche. The puppet men. What had I said to her? We have a common enemy.

  I straightened. “We are powerless like this. Divided, bickering over one body. Unless you want to stay down here, hiding, we will need to fix this. We need to come to an understanding.”

  Curiosity.

  I stepped back from the statue, ran a hand over the half-face of t
he Keeper. That poor, broken soul. We had been doing this wrong from the beginning, following the Keeper on his desperate quest to stay alive, returning paltry caches of debris to him. Even joining the Unbound and attempting to raid laboratories. It was doomed from the start. I’d understood that, even while I tried to convince myself otherwise, cursed like a march through the Other’s neverending hells.

  I should have known this from the moment the puppet men appeared in Grandeur’s graveyard. Or earlier, as soon as I’d realised Devich had betrayed me. The first moment the suit drew its own swords.

  We could not help the Keeper. I could not close his doors, I could not maintain the balance between worlds. Such grand designs were the products of his shattered mind. I had to accept my role; I had to come to terms with what the puppet men had made me.

  I was a weapon. Weapons do not create; architects create. Weapons do not protect; guardians protect. Weapons destroy.

  But maybe that was not so terrible. After all, we had a common enemy.

  “I offer you a bargain.” I turned, stared at the thin sliver of lamplight emanating from the crumbling rock tunnel. Lad was right, wasn’t he? I should do what was necessary, risk anything – even myself – to look after my team. To help those I loved. “Obey me, work with me, and I will give you a fight. A true challenge.” Could I trust the debris inside me to keep its word if it agreed? “We are a part of each other, we need to get used to that. But if I can trust you then, only then, I will set you free.”

  A thrill of exaltation. Not triumph. Just pleasure, just loosening, just the need. I gasped as it flooded up from ankle to neck, from wrist to wrist. Oh that strength, that power. The endless silver and the shining light!

  It was me; I was suit. Together, nothing could stand in our way.

  Not even the puppet men.

  “Can you be patient?” Every last inch of me shivered with the effort of drawing the suit in, of forcing it to wait. “Soon. Soon.”

  I should have seen it from the beginning. The puppet men had made me into a weapon. I was not a guardian, as the Keeper was. I was not a spy like Natasha or a revolutionary like Fedor. I was not a Half, or a protective brother.

  So I would show the puppet men just how strong a sword they had fashioned. And I would stop them. Destroy them. Every last one.

  When he returned that night, Kichlan brought Volski and Zecholas with him. Fedor brought his Unbound.

  Light scattered across the rundown room from several oil lamps hung from corners of broken stone. Yicor, Fedor, Valya and more of the Unbound crowded the lower level. Behind them Aleksey, Mizra, Natasha, and Lad sat on their temporary bedding. With them were Kichlan and his team. The sight of him caught my breath, he looked so haggard.

  “The veche has declared martial law,” Volski said by way of a greeting. “The city is being shut down. Shielders on barricades along the Tear River. The bridge has been closed to traffic, ferries requisitioned and services slashed. Mob march the street.”

  “They say we are at war with the Hon Ji,” Zecholas said.

  “Debris collections have been suspended,” Kichlan said. “We are unnecessary, apparently, in a time of war.”

  “They will start recruiting soon.” Zecholas met Kichlan’s suspicious scowl with one of his own. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they find another job for you. A military one.”

  Volski nodded. “They will need support units. Metal workers, light and heat binders, even cooks.” He and Zecholas shared a look. “Architects.

  As a critical centre I had never been called to sapper duty. An architects’ ability to construct large, secure structures was crucial during war, as were their powers to destroy. We were also adept at smoothing roads through otherwise unpassable territory, even recognising and clearing hidden, and most of the time explosive, pion bindings left behind in abandoned fortifications or factories. I knew of critical centres who had spent time training with the military for such occasions, adding an extra bear badge to their shoulders in the process, and kopacks to their rublie. But the military tended to prefer circles with male centres, and I had no interest in arguing with that policy.

  I had a dim memory that Zecholas, however, had served with soldiers in the colonies. One of his earlier circles – of six, I thought. From the look on his face, something firm but worried, I thought I might be right.

  I sighed. There were more jobs for debris collectors in war than he realised. At least those of us with the correct equipment. “So why are you here?” It wasn’t the friendliest of greetings, no matter how pleased I was to see them.

  Zecholas snorted. “What do you think? So soon after we set off their laboratory alarm, broke in, and found – I’m still not entirely clear on what we found. A day later and suddenly we are at war?”

  “We suspect there are ulterior motives to this sudden military take over,” Volski filled in the gaps. “So we came looking for you.”

  I couldn’t stop a grin. “The veche says we are at war, and you think of me?”

  “We met Kichlan on the way.” Volski allowed himself a dry smile. “He told us what happened. We suspected this had something to do with you. Now we know we’re right.”

  Natasha had slid from her bedding to haunt the shadows between lamps. But I wasn’t going to contradict them.

  “The veche are forcing our hand,” Fedor said. He watched me, eyes clear of hatred and anger. It almost seemed that desperation had brushed that all away. “Either we hide down here until we starve, or we fight back.”

  “How do you intend to do that?” I asked him. “Stand in the street and shout dire predictions? ‘Fear for everything?’ The Mob won’t listen to your talk of the Keeper and the opening doors. And the few inches of steel in your bones is the only weapon you have.”

  Fedor scowled. But again, I had the strangest impression that he wasn’t angry at me. His fury, his frustration, his suited blades, they all had a new target; the veche occupying the streets.

  “Of course not.” His hard eyes scanned the room, resting on Volski, on Zecholas and even Kichlan. He stared at Lad the longest, and I clenched my hands into tight fists, my suit bands spinning. “With the tools we have available.”

  “Tools?” Zecholas tapped his chest and looked affronted.

  “What would we have to fear from the Mob if their pion systems fail?” Fedor licked his lips, the corner of his mouth twitching as though he was trying to contain a manic grin. “From Strikers, should they fall from the sky? What use would Shielders be, with nothing to build their barriers?”

  “You want to release debris again?” Volski asked, looking incredulous.

  “We tried that already,” Yicor whispered. “We were very nearly killed.”

  Fedor nodded to me. “This time, I will listen. We will do this Tanyana’s way. With her circle, with her collection team.”

  “You’re a fool.” Kichlan turned away and held the rough stone of the wall. His fingers reddened with the strength of his grip, his knuckles strained white. “What makes you think they will not know? That they will not be there, waiting for us, ready this time with worse than a room without doors?”

  What indeed? They knew, the puppet men. They watched and they tested and they laughed. But that was exactly what I wanted, wasn’t it? A tight room, deep underground and me, and the puppet men. And my suit.

  “I will not wait down here to die! I will not give myself to them without a fight!” Fedor railed.

  “Then run!” Aleksey snapped. “Are you broken? When the veche send Mob after us we should not wait and we should certainly not march foolhardily into their arms. We run, curse it! We run.”

  “Coward!” Fedor hissed.

  “He makes a good point!” Mizra leapt to Aleksey’s defence.

  “Fedor is right,” I said, in between their breaths. And I nodded, and crossed my arms, and drummed my fingers, anything to ease the excitement, anything to smooth away the tension inside. “We need to fight.”

  Mizra paled and slumped back
against the rocky wall. “You can’t mean that. Not after everything that’s happened.”

  Aleksey shook his head violently. “Tanyana, haven’t you listened to anything I’ve had to say? This is not the choice you should be making. You don’t understand these people and what they are capable of.”

  “Oh, but I do.” Better than he did. “That is why I know.” I glanced around the room. “There is nowhere safe from the veche. We can hide, but they will find us. Even here. We can run, but they will chase us. No matter where we go. So we fight.” I met the grim triumph in Fedor’s eyes. “Because it is all we can do.”

  “No!” Kichlan released the wall, half-staggered toward me. “This is dangerous, too dangerous.”

  “You will risk a lot, going out there,” Natasha murmured. “Certainly more than yourself.”

  “Tan is right,” Lad said, and I knew Fedor and I had won. Because silence settled over us and Kichlan turned his face away and I knew that if Lad was with me, his brother would have no choice. And where Kichlan went, so his collecting team would follow. “We should have listened to her last time.” Lad nodded to himself. “And times before that.”

  “Thank you, Lad.” I felt no guilt for using him like this. The suit grew tight.

  He wrinkled his nose. “Don’t like it down here, anyway.” He leaned close to me. “Smells bad, Tan.”

  Aleksey slumped. “I won’t be able to help you. Not any more.”

  Natasha watched me from her shadows.

  Kichlan paced. He paced, as Lev and Fedor planned in whispers. He paced as Valya found bedding for Volski and Zecholas and a space to sleep. The circular room seemed suddenly crowded with plotting and muttering and Kichlan pacing feet echoing from the fallen stone and unstable supports.

  I allowed Lad to lead me to my makeshift pallet by a tumble of broken wall.

  “Tan, you should rest.” He patted the blankets.

  “You will need it.” Kichlan was suddenly close behind Lad’s back, his face a mask of oil-lit fury. “That’s right, sleep, Tanyana. Nice and peaceful. Need all the rest you can get if you’re going to lead my little brother into danger!”