‘Yeah.’
‘So, tell me what’s going on.’
‘Going on?’
‘In DGAP, Larinan. What are your father and brother up to? Why so many changes all of a sudden?’
‘What changes?’
‘Don’t play dumb. We know more about what happens in the upper levels than you can possibly imagine. We know, for example, that three days ago your father cancelled all fieldwork. Patrols, research crews, the lot. We also know that security in the DGAP building is suddenly tighter than it has been in centuries. We know that the Prelature has clamped a gag order on any webcasting that even mentions DGAP, unless it’s released through official sources. We know that yesterday afternoon something stirred you up enough to make you run from DGAP and almost get yourself blown up as a result. We know all of this is happening, Larinan. What we don’t know is why. And that’s what you’re going to tell us.’
‘But I’m just allocated because my father was sick of me sitting around doing nothing. I’m a copygen. He doesn’t trust me with anything important.’
The only sound was the distant groan of the dome swaying slightly against its stem. Then Gregor sighed.
‘I’d really hoped we’d be able to do this like civilised men, Larinan.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t lie to me. When you live among liars and thieves you quickly learn to tell when someone is speaking a bunch of shi – it’s how you survive. And right now, you’re lying, and you’re not even very good at it. We’ll try one last time – what is your father currently doing in DGAP?’
Lari’s mind raced. ‘Why do you want to know?’
‘That isn’t your concern. All you need to worry about is telling me everything honestly and truthfully.’
‘I told you, I don’t have a clue. My father doesn’t trust me. Why should he? I’m just a kid.’
Gregor nodded slowly and for a moment Lari thought he’d managed to convince him. But then the shiftie glanced at one of the guards.
‘Go.’
The bodyguard slipped into the gloom. While they sat waiting for him to return, Gregor regarded Lari steadily.
‘You really should tell me what I want to know, Lari. It’ll make things so much easier on all of us.’
‘Why is it so important?’
‘Because knowledge is power, Larinan Mann. That’s a free lesson for you. The more you know, the more power you have.’
‘Power to do what?’
‘To change things, Lari. Or to force those in authority to make the changes you want. To change all this …’ Gregor gestured at the crumbling dome. ‘To force the people with the resources to share them equitably. To pull the rug out from under people like the Prelate and your father and leave them with no choice but to fix the mess they’re making down here.’
At that moment the bodyguard returned, dragging a struggling figure behind him.
‘Kes!’
His friend’s wrists were bound behind her back and her mouth was gagged. Even through the gag, Lari could hear her abusing her captor as he hauled her roughly across and threw her to the ground. Lari started to get up but wasn’t halfway out of his seat before the girl shoved him back.
‘There’s no point in heroics, Larinan. It wouldn’t do any good. I gave my word that you wouldn’t be harmed and I always keep my word.’
‘Then what’s Kes doing here?’
‘I didn’t make any such promises about your friends.’ From somewhere inside his clothes Gregor produced a flat, smooth disc. It sat comfortably in the palm of his hand, a faint red glow coming from a diode in the centre. ‘Do you recognise this, Larinan?’
A sick knot clenched in the pit of Lari’s stomach. ‘It’s the thing you used on the woman in the res-rec dome.’
‘It’s called a pacifier. Security division developed them several decades ago, but they don’t tend to use them on the upper levels, so I don’t imagine you’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing one. Not first-hand, at any rate. Would you like to know what it does?’
Lari didn’t answer, and Gregor continued on regardless.
‘It’s a neurological transmitter which, when triggered against exposed skin, uses referred pain to stimulate every pain receptor in the brain. Not a pleasant experience, I’m sure you can imagine. Security uses them to stop riots and subversive activities down here in the underworld. Very effectively, I might add.’
Gregor nodded towards Kes.
‘Now, unless you’d like me to demonstrate my little toy on Kesra, you’d better start telling me the truth.’
Lari stared at Kes. Over the top of her gag, his friend’s eyes were pleading. But he couldn’t get the image of the girl – that skinny, helpless, captured Darklands child – from his head. Whatever reasons Gregor had for wanting to know about DGAP, Lari knew that right now he was the only protection that girl had.
And the pacifier didn’t actually kill, just… hurt. That’s what he hoped.
Gregor sighed. ‘Can’t make up your mind, Lari? Perhaps a demonstration will help.’
Gregor stood and walked over to Kes. ‘I do apologise for this, Kesra. I hoped we’d be able to avoid this situation entirely, but it would appear that your friend has other ideas.’ He turned to Lari again. ‘Bear in mind while you observe your friend’s suffering, Lari, that I’ve set the device for its lowest possible intensity. We have a long way to go after this …’
Slowly, almost gently, Gregor held the flat disc against the bare flesh of Kes’s shoulder.
‘Wait …’ Lari said, but Gregor shook his head.
‘Too late, Larinan.’
A flat ‘crack’ rent the silence and even through her gag Kes’s scream could be heard. Her face stretched into a rictus of pain, and her whole body convulsed once and then went limp.
‘Bring her round.’ Gregor spoke in his usual, calm voice. ‘Then we’ll go again.’
‘You can’t!’
‘Watch me. Unless you’d like to answer my question. What’s going on in DGAP? What is your father up to?’
Gregor’s bodyguards splashed water on Kes’s forehead. She moaned softly through the gag as she slowly came back into consciousness.
‘I won’t wait, Larinan.’ Gregor’s eyes became tiny slits. ‘We can do this all day, if that’s what you want.’
The guards hauled Kes on to her knees, one of them supporting her.
‘I can’t tell you.’
Gregor turned and tossed the pacifier to the girl.
‘Again.’
‘Isn’t there something else I can do? Something else you want?’ Lari pleaded.
But the masked girl didn’t hesitate. She placed the round weapon on Kes’s shoulder and once more the still air was shattered as Kes screamed through her gag and passed out again.
Gregor stood over Lari for a couple of seconds, then leaned down to stare deep into his eyes.
‘The information, Larinan. That’s the only thing I want from you. For now.’
The only sound was the strangled sob of Kes’s breathing as Gregor’s henchmen woke her again. ‘I’ll count to three, Larinan. Then Kes gets another taste of the pacifier. One …’
There was nothing for it.
‘There’s a girl.’ Lari’s voice was barely a whisper.
Gregor leaned even closer, the twisted wreckage of his ear so close to Lari’s face that Lari could smell the man’s odour – a faint, garlic scent, bitter and stale.
‘Go on, Larinan.’
Lari drew in a ragged breath and closed his eyes, and as he spoke he tried to keep the image of Kes being tortured in his head, instead of the vision of the little girl in the white room.
‘A few days ago they brought a girl in from the Darklands …’
Sometimes the lights are softer, sometimes brighter, but never is there darkness, not in here. He comes only in the hard light. It shimmers off his suit and she can see herself, distorted, in the expressionless curve of his face.
‘What’s your name?’
She just stares at him, evenly, silently.
He always asks.
She never answers.
Gregor sat motionless in the gloomy foyer.
He had to think.
But it couldn’t be true. None of it. Surely.
In a few moments Jem would be back and she’d have questions and she’d want answers. But Gregor wasn’t certain he’d be able to give them to her. If what the Mann boy had just told them was true, everything was different now. Completely. It couldn’t be, though.
Could it?
At his feet, Kesra groaned again and Gregor knelt and removed her gag and gently undid the bonds that secured her wrists.
‘Did it work?’ Her voice was shaky.
‘It worked. You did well, Kesra. How are you feeling?’
‘Shi. My head’s about to burst.’
‘That’ll pass.’ He helped her slowly to her feet and eased her onto his chair. ‘Just sit for a few moments and let your body wake up again.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Larinan?’
She nodded.
‘I’ve sent Jem to mag him back up to his dome. The system lockout on the two of you makes it a little more complex, so she’ll be a few minutes.’
‘What did he tell you?’
‘You didn’t hear?’
‘Not really.’ She massaged her forehead, still groggy. ‘It’s all fragmented. The pain …’
‘I know. I’ve been on the wrong end of it myself once or twice. It messes with your memory for a while.’
‘Did he give you what you wanted? Was it worth it?’
‘It was.’
‘And?’
‘Kesra, you know the rule.’ Even as he admonished her, his tone was gentle.
‘No questions.’ She sighed. ‘Sorry.’
‘Anything you need to know, we’ll tell you. Anything else just puts you, and therefore us, at risk. Especially at the moment. Security agents are already watching you.’
‘I know.’
‘Either way, you should be proud. You made a big sacrifice this afternoon, Kesra. Don’t think I’m not aware of it.’
‘You didn’t give me much choice.’
‘There’s always a choice. It’s just that sometimes the alternatives aren’t what you’d desire. But you’ve convinced me today that you really are one of us. Underground.’
The girl looked at the floor, and Gregor leant over and tilted her chin up. ‘That doesn’t please you?’
‘I’m not sure. Once, perhaps. But what we did to Lari …’
‘We did nothing to the Mann boy today, Kesra. Nothing. The worst thing he’s had to endure this afternoon is a glass of the same water we have to give to our children. Compared with what he put you through …’
‘That was my choice.’
‘It was,’ Gregor agreed. ‘And a brave choice at that. But don’t forget that he could easily have saved you having to make it. I know he’s been your friend for a long time, but that doesn’t change the fact that the two of you still come from very different worlds. Keep that in mind when you find yourself feeling sorry for him. He’s as much a product of his world as the rest of us.’
‘You sound like my father.’
‘Then your father’s a wise man, Kesra Anatale.’
Jem ran back into the foyer, her excitement barely concealed. ‘He’s gone. Back up to the clouds where he belongs. You’re awake again are you, mixie?’
Kes, rising unsteadily to her feet, ignored the girl.
‘I should go. Mum will be wondering what’s happened to me.’
‘Don’t let me stop you,’ Jem said, smirking.
‘Jem, take Kes and get her a mag.’
‘Can’t she do it herself? I thought she was supposed to be some kind of genius at hacking the protocols.’
‘Just do what you’re told.’ Gregor’s voice was sharp. And try and show a little more courtesy while you’re about it. Kesra’s had a hard afternoon.’
‘Hmph.’ His daughter wheeled round and marched out.
‘Thank you for this afternoon, Kesra. It was most… illuminating.’ Gregor reached out and rested a hand lightly on her shoulder. ‘Go back home and rest now, and wait until we get in touch again. You’ll have to make up with the Mann boy, but he’ll expect you to be angry at him for a while, don’t forget that.’
Gregor watched her go. She’d done well. He’d had his doubts about her. Recruiting children was always a risky business, but in this case it seemed to have worked out.
Once she’d gone he sat again. His mind was whirling.
A child. A Darklands girl. The right age too, by the sound of it. They’d finally found her and the fools had brought her here. To Port City. To DGAP. To him.
She existed. She’d lived. Just like Jani always said.
And everything the Mann boy had told him about that ‘entropy scenario’, his mother’s doomsday hypothesis, changed everything too. If people knew about that, if they found out that the Prelature and DGAP had been sitting on something so enormous, so terrible, even the combined security of every skycity in the world wouldn’t be able to stop the uprising.
And now Gregor knew about it too.
The question was, what was he going to do with the knowledge?
He knew what the Underground would expect. They’d want her, one way or another. They’d want to put her on the webs, her and everything she stood for. They would use her to build anger in the lower levels and terror in the uppers. They’d spirit her into and out of every clandestine meeting and rally in the underworld. The shiftie clans would close ranks around her and between them and the movement they’d tear a hole in the sky.
And had she been any other child, Gregor would have agreed. Shi, he’d have organised it himself.
But she wasn’t just any other child. She was Jani’s.
She was Jem’s half-sister.
‘So?’ Jem burst back into the foyer at a run. She’d pulled her mask off and her dark eyes gleamed in the sparse light. ‘Do you believe it?’
Gregor regarded his daughter: twelve years old and so … vital. So alive.
So dangerous.
‘Do you?’ he asked.
‘That copygen couldn’t lie to save his life. I believe it.’
‘So why ask me, then?’
Jem grinned. ‘Because I want to know if we’re going to steal her or kill her.’
Gregor held his daughter’s stare for a long time. ‘I’m not certain. Possibly neither.’
‘What?’
‘You heard what the boy said as well as I did, Jem.’
‘What of it?’
‘If his brother is correct, if his mother was right and the skycities are failing, then anything we do now is just going to speed up the process. And that girl might well be the only way out for everybody, so hurting her won’t achieve anything, and neither will taking her from DGAP.’
Jem’s grin faded. ‘You’re joking, right?’
Gregor said nothing.
‘Dad?’ Her hands balled into tight fists. ‘This is a joke, isn’t it? Yesterday we’re setting off bombs in Port North Central and planning to bring down a dome, and today you’re telling me you think DGAP might be the only way to save the world? What about equality? What about rights for—’
‘There’s no equality if we’re all dead, Jem.’
His daughter studied him for a long time, then said, ‘There’s something you’re not telling me.’
‘No there isn’t. You heard everything I did. Can you honestly say I’ve reached the wrong conclusions?’
‘That girl could be the trigger we need—’
‘The trigger to a gun we’re pressing to our own heads as much as to the uppers’. No, Jem, that girl is nothing more than a scared child who’s been plucked out of her home and thrown into a world she has no understanding of.’
‘So?’
‘So sometimes, daughter, you need to realise that there are bigger things than ideology.’
>
‘I don’t get you, Dad, I really don’t.’ Jem’s eyes were bright. ‘All the years you’ve told me – taught me – that we don’t have to put up with our lives down here, that we can and should fight against it, and now …’
‘If you think about it, you’ll see I’m right.’
‘No, Dad, I won’t.’ She turned and ran to the door, stopping only to glare back at him. ‘I won’t agree with you on this, and the rest of the Underground won’t either. If you want someone to be all sympathetic and nice, and agree with you even when you’re talking shi, then get that mixie back down here, but don’t try it with me. I know when people are lying too, don’t forget.’
‘Jem …’
But his daughter had melted into the gloom, like a ghost.
The waiting room was the most spectacular place Lari had ever visited.
The Prelature was easily the highest dome in Port, located far out on the western edge of the city, so far out, in fact, that its stem was anchored deep below the surface of the ocean, which had flooded inland hundreds of years earlier, drowning that portion of the underworld which once crouched along the coastline.
The room was opulent and huge, even by the standards Lari was used to. Unlike regular domes with their multiple towers clustered around a central common, the Prelature filled the whole structure. The room into which they’d emerged from the maglift was a perfect half-circle, and an enormous plascrete window stretched around them, offering a view that progressed from vast, empty ocean thousands of metres below to the almost equally vast cityscape to the east.
Lari perched on the edge of the padded armchair where they’d been directed to wait, fidgeting. It wasn’t that the chair was uncomfortable, just the opposite, in fact. Like everything else in the room, the chair was luxurious beyond anything he’d ever experienced.
‘Sit still, Larinan.’
‘Sorry, Dad.’
‘He can’t help it,’ Janil said. ‘He probably needs worming.’
At one end of the room, directly facing the private hub which brought authorised visitors directly into the heart of the city’s rule, a receptionist sat behind her console, her attention on the terminal in front of her. Two blue-armoured guards stood either side of the lift doors, portable scanners at their belts, screening anyone who magged in before they’d even had a chance to step out of the lift.
Skyfall Page 24