They have to help us, Coal thought, peering up at that circular shadow in the sky.
An icy needle of rain pelted her cheek. Then her shoulder. Another storm was coming.
The girl limped forward. Some people forged ahead, some fell behind, and some were forever lost. But they were here. They were here.
If they see us, she told herself, they have to help us.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Vector asked. The morning sun hesitated to wash through the window of Legacy and Dax’s cabin, as if it, too, had its reservations about where it would go. Legacy stood inside, her heel propped on the ledge of the mattress, tugging a pair of stockings up her legs.
“Of course I want to do this,” she replied, hardly glancing at the boy. She’d been preparing for this debate since it was issued yesterday evening.
“Are you sure you trust the duke?” Vector pressed.
Dax scoffed loudly, and Legacy shot him a glare. He stood with Vector, scrutinizing her garb. “I don’t see why you need to get all dressed up,” he added critically.
“Because it is a formal debate,” Legacy snapped. “There may be pictures taken. Do you want the common people to associate us always with peasantry and childishness? Excuse me, now, or I’m going to be late. The debate was for Saturday morning.”
Legacy swept past the two of them, outfitted in a high-waisted, three-tiered tail-skirt the color of sienna. It had been years since she’d worn it, and her legs had grown, bringing the hem uncomfortably close to her crotch. Still, it was the only nice thing her parents had packed in her burlap sack. On top she wore a simple white blouse, because she didn’t own any corsets of her own, either. Did it cloy and drape in just the right places? Was she worried about looking sexy? No . . . of course not. And there was also her golden vest, with its buttons which were speakers and its turnkey corsage, otherwise known as Flywheel-2.
Legacy jogged up the short, narrow companionway which led into the laboratory. Inside, Saul was attempting to dislodge his hand from a ball of extremely sticky silk.
“Someone should go –hi, Saul. Someone should go with you,” Vector suggested, following doggedly. “Let me go with you. It’s going to be danger–”
“No,” Legacy said firmly. She gripped the ladder that led into the common area and climbed. “They requested me. I’ll be fine. They promised my safe return.”
“Dax, then,” Vector went on.
“No!” Dax and Legacy belted in unison.
Reaching the top of the ladder and striding through the berth, toward the deck, she glanced over her shoulder and promised, “I’ll be back before sunset. Everything will be fine.”
And everything was fine. At first. The sky surrounding the dome was slate gray and turgid with rain, the air within thick with moisture, but everything was fine. Everything was fine.
Her automaton rickshaw carried her swiftly to the familiar front of CIN-3. An odd throng of townspeople had gathered, but were kept at bay by a small hedge of sentries. Legacy ignored these. It had become strangely second nature to do so. Awaiting her like a committee of servants were the city’s steward (whom she recognized as Hawk Nose, from the centennial), the Duke of Celestine (whom she recognized only from her old bedroom posters of the city), and of course – her heart lunged into her mouth – Kaizen.
Kaizen stepped forward first to receive her. “Legacy,” he said. “You’ll be happy to know that my arms came unglued.”
She couldn’t help but smile, though the expression brought a wince to Kaizen’s face. “And the shirt?” she wondered.
“Destroyed.”
“Exa Legacy,” Duke Lovelace greeted, stepping forward. He swept her hand to his mouth, bestowing thereon a kiss. Legacy gaped. She couldn’t remember this gesture ever having been made toward her in her life. “It is a pleasure to finally make the acquaintance of such a passionate and yet graceful young woman. Even in the township of Celestine, we have heard your name.”
She blushed furiously. “Really?”
“Of course.” Lovelace released her hand with a warm smile.
Claude only bowed.
Kaizen braced her arm, and, for just a moment, Legacy went stiff, as if he might haul her toward a sentry and order her to be properly disposed of. But all he said was, “You look nice. Hey, how’s Dax doing?”
Legacy froze and glared at him, but then the entryway of CIN-3 shuddered open, and its print slot spat card after card after card, all collected by Claude. Kaizen tugged her through the open door, half-smirking, half-wincing, and she fell in step behind him.
Augh, and there, just inside the foyer, was Dyna Logan. She was dressed to the hilt this morning, in a silken, corseted gown of flowers, all in tones of crimson and cream. Her brown hair was fastened to the top of her head in a bun the size of a medium cake, and her face was rouged and powdered to compete even with the porcelain porter.
“Exa Legacy,” she greeted acidically. “It’s been too long.”
Legacy ignored her. It was probably the only thing Dyna truly couldn’t stand.
The entire group – Dyna Logan, Exa Legacy, Kaizen Taliko, his reduced guard staff of two, Duke Lovelace, his guard staff of five, and the steward, Claude, all piled into the automaton’s paternoster.
“Fl-fl-floor, please,” the porcelain porter requested.
“Third,” Dyna muttered, examining her ruby cuticles. “Do you know how many listeners my program had by the end of Thursday evening, Exa?”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Almost eight million. That’s practically the entire population of Heliopolis.”
“You’re welcome?” Legacy replied. Dyna seemed smug about it.
“No one said thank you,” Kaizen muttered. “Those listeners were the citizens of Monarch Ferraday. He’s probably going to want my throne. My throne, or your head.”
The couple shared a significant gaze as the paternoster lift lurched to a halt and rolled open. “Third fl-fl-floor, thank you, have a good day.”
There was that damn drink cart again. Legacy seriously considered offering herself a beverage. For the first time, she was a legitimate guest in this establishment.
Maybe another shot of Invigorate the Heart.
She glanced at Kaizen, who, for all his coy hints that he was aware of Dax now and his sullen comments about an imminent, forced resignation of his title, was still so beautiful. Those obsidian eyes. The hair like silk. That was Kaizen . . . elemental.
“Would anyone care for a free beverage before the debate?” Dyna asked.
“I’d better not,” Legacy answered.
Kaizen cleared his throat. “Same,” he replied.
“Well!” Duke Lovelace chuckled. “I wouldn’t mind having something to clear the head, if you’ve got it?” Dyna motioned to Calm the Nerves, but the duke frowned and shook his head, holding up a hand. “No, no, not that . . . mind-muck. Do you have any Cunning?”
Dyna gave the foreign official a grim appraisal, eventually yielding her impress. “I’ve got a personal bottle,” she answered. “It’s in the studio.” With a flick of her wrist, and offering to get nothing for the steward or the sentries, she led them farther left, toward the studio. “My apologies for the door,” she explained. Its hinges were clearly damaged, and it moved with a brittle shimmy, whining. “We had a break-in this week.”
Their hostess offered Duke Lovelace her bottle of Cunning – a deep azure, and he seemed most appreciative for it – then snatched up her microphone and wrenched the ON AIR lever, launching easily into a memorized string of announcements, the date, the time, her name, the station, and et cetera. “We have the pleasure to bring you a once-in-a-lifetime listening opportunity. As you all know, a challenge was issued across the radio waves yesterday, inviting Exa Legacy to defend the standpoints of Chance for Choice in a proper debate with our own new duke, Kaizen Taliko, who I have explained, multiple times, was simply waiting for the proper political climate to mention the death of our former duke and coverin
g up nothing! He will be aided by a visiting dignitary, the Duke of Celestine, Montgomery Lovelace! All right, and as per the parameters set forth last broadcast, the citizens of Icarus themselves will be the ones offering the questions. Our broadcast bot is standing by to intercept your queries.”
The debate had just begun when Dyna drifted to the back of the studio, cupping her rose pin to her ear and listening intently. When its message was complete, she strode forth and snatched her microphone back up.
“I apologize for this interruption,” she said, though she clearly could not have been happier. Her eyes were shining, as if this had just become the best day of her life. “Citizens, alert: the city of Icarus has just entered a state of emergency.”
Chapter Six
The wide, glass freight lift was settled onto the ground, waiting for whoever might next ride it into the basement of Taliko Center. Inside were already five crates, one stack. It was waiting, but not for them. It was locked.
Coal 106 advanced on the crowd of workers who had already arrived, not so hampered by Venus fly traps as she, all pounding on the doors as if this would shatter them. They swore at it as if this would loosen its doors, the open sesame of another world. But Coal, who felt mortally wounded just now, her hands and feet both stinging, her chest pinging with every inhale, didn’t have the strength to waste on emotional displays. She stood and stared. She let the dead end wash over her in all its details, its unfurling ripples of other dead ends to come. The supervisors would come for the survivors, she knew. What would happen to them, then, she did not know. Were they even worth anything alive as disobedient slaves?
Coal stood and let the hopelessness fill her up. The sky above, hovering so dark and near to them. The mists creeping. The glass elevator, taunting them with its seeming openness.
These weren’t cables. Huh. From a distance, it’d always appeared to be cables by which the city above was tethered. Or, rather, they weren’t just cables. There were also grids of metal to encase the elevator in a shaft, as well as small, wiry ladders for repair work to be done thereon.
“It won’t open,” someone moaned.
“Then we climb,” she snapped, grasping a rung.
Can’t go back.
The years of intense labor had prepared her for this moment.
With each swing and hook of her cracked knuckles, she hauled herself vertical another foot. The falling rain, though it served to numb her hands, was also invigorating and graciously kept her awake. She might have died if she had let herself. Every time she was tempted to say that it was enough, just like those long hours in the coal shaft, she merely instructed herself to shut up and push this husk of a body for two more minutes, ten more minutes, another hour. That piece of her, perseverance, had not been the result of chemical manipulation but the child of nurture and nature combined. Coal retracted a hand and bent the icy fingers, stimulating the nerves just long enough to last one more minute. One more foot. As she did this, without conscious thought, she glanced down.
Old Earth sprawled below, made pale and indistinct by mists. From here, she could see it all, but only in the vaguest way: dark threads, probable shadows of road, and a pock arching up in the distance: the dome? But the lot was lost on her, as were the movements of its cargo and the ant-like flutter of its humans. Coal could take solace in that her inability to see them noted a likely inability to see her. Still, nausea and vertigo gripped her. If it were not for her need to carry on, she may have let herself hang there and breathe, might even have slowly succumbed to her exhaustion and the culminating intensity of this great escape. However, there were others below her whom she could see. Others climbing. And if she fell, they would lose their balance, or lose their hope.
So Coal only allotted herself the indulgence of a breath, that familiar pinprick of agony in her lungs, another flex of fingers, and she forged on. Above, she could see it. The sweeping black circle of the underside of that city in the sky, there, not too far ahead now, and open. Open. A square of gray in the flat expanse of black. Coal swung and hooked her knuckles around the next rung, hauling herself upward. The rain against which she had to squint still served as a balm to her aching joints and muscles.
When she reached the square hole in the bottom of that place in the sky, battered by winds too, now, which numbed her fingers and trembled her lips, wrenching herself inside and collapsing . . . it seemed a cruel joke. It seemed like the vacant lot outside of the N.E.E.R. dome, but inverted. Now, rather than outside, surrounded by marsh and low sky, all the crates were inside, bordered by high walls. Other miners had already reached this room and moved through it, leaving the door open behind them. More spilled up from the freight lift shaft behind Coal, too.
In a dream-like wonder, Coal advanced out the door and up the stairwell, pushing open another door into . . . a magnificent ballroom. She was suddenly very aware of her wet smock, muddy and reeking of the marsh.
And it was filled with people. They looked like the people that Coal had seen, from time to time, in the fields along the roads of Old Earth, testing the soil or discussing with the older crew members from her unit. These people wore curious things like hats and waistcoats, seeming so smartly put together.
A woman in a boned corset, her auburn ringlets pinned up, stared at Coal in a mixture of shock, revulsion, and curiosity. “Who are you people?” she whispered, as if Coal were the strange one. As if this shining expanse of amber-colored floor, arched windows, and top hats weren’t the terrifying aspect of the scene.
“May I help you?” a tall, slender blonde girl inquired. Coal gazed up into the terrifying visage of bone-like pallor, a queerly jointed hand extending. There was a key in her back. There was a key twisting in her back.
“Yes!” the auburn-haired woman responded. “This child –it just came out of the stairwell! It’s – There are –Some have even gotten out into the street! These people are unidentified and could be dangerous. We must –Look at them! Alert the duke!”
“Access denied,” the monstrous woman replied, tilting her head toward the auburn-haired woman. Coal fell back one step. Another. “Initializing emergency signals to Icarus City Police Department, reception.”
Blinking back her horror at this macabre scene, Coal whirled and dodged the staring crowd of onlookers. Most of them edged from her with the same expression in their eyes as the auburn-haired woman, as if she were highly contagious, but a man in gloves lunged for her. She twisted from the seeking hands, falling with a scream, and her legs lashed, kicking at those gloved hands, still seeking. She thrashed back onto her feet, his raised, gloved hands still seeking.
“Wait!” the man cried. “Stop right there!”
We have made a terrible mistake, Coal thought, pausing only to hack up a gray marble of phlegm as she broke through the foyer and into the courtyard. Pedestrians reeled from her as she moved forward, glaring after her when she’d passed. The buildings gleamed, even without the sun to fall across them. The streets were thronged with trim, metallic vehicles, their drivers encased in bell jars.
Her eyes swept the ground and found a brown-haired man of glass twitching at her feet, sparks coming out of his neck. He seemed to be damaged. He, too, had a key in his back, slowly turning, and his mouth clattered opened and closed in a silent scream. Beneath his skin, rather than bone and blood, were bronze plates and churning gears.
“Hold them!” someone cried from within the foyer. “Hold them for the constable’s men! They’re on delay!”
Coal glanced over her shoulder and saw a scuffle breaking out between her gray-garbed brethren and the citizens of this strange city. Without hesitation, she bolted into the narrow byways beyond, careening blindly through the convoluted business district and pausing only when she crashed into another suit or gown, staggered back, and drove forth again, hacking and dizzy.
We have made a terrible mistake.
Vector had known when Legacy had left Albatropus that morning, something would go wrong. He couldn’t explain
this specter of dread in a sensible manner which might satisfy Dax or Saul, much less Rain, but there it was nonetheless. These chilling vapors had passed over him from time to time in the past, and he privately trusted them; there’d been these whispers of ice on the morning of the coronation, as well. But they had never been as strong as all this. He’d already called his parents to ensure that they were both all right. He’d checked all his ship’s gauges. Everything seemed . . . fine. Everything, except the tempest brewing over the dome, but who could be blamed for the rain?
When all this was decided – everyone was healthy, everything was fine – Vector prepared his suspenders and slacks, his waistcoat and a gun, tied his shoes, and set forth from the ship. “Where are you off to?” Gustav wondered aloud, glancing up from the game of cards which he played with Dax. Hard at work on the revolution. The radio played, and that was enough.
“CIN-3,” he answered.
“Why?” Dax stood immediately. “They haven’t even come on the air yet. It’s just the weather man still.”
Vector hesitated. “I have a feeling,” he explained. “I just have a feeling.”
“I’ll come too,” Dax said, advancing toward the common room exit.
“Oh, come on,” Gustav muttered, rolling his eyes. “Really?”
“What?” Dax snapped.
“We’re in the middle of a game!” he cried. “And it’s like, come on, man. You just want to go because . . .” Gustav trailed off, glancing away.
“Because what?” Dax said again.
“Because your little girlfriend is meeting up with that hunky duke over there,” he explained.
Dax’s deep blue eyes turned stormy above his rebreather and he trod back to his seat, snatching his hand up from the table. He didn’t say anything more, and Vector didn’t wait for him to follow.
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