The Cityborn

by Edward Willett

  Alania felt a surge of loathing, of hatred, that surprised her. In four days she had gone from fearing but respecting Kranz to detesting and despising him. So many people had died because of him. So many people had suffered—were suffering—because of him and the Officers he led. It was time to put an end to it, whatever that took. Even if it brought the whole City down in chaos, it would be worth it if it meant the end of Officer rule; whatever came afterward would have to be better. The people would never go back to this broken, stultified system once they were free to make their own choices.

  For the first time, she understood why Danyl had agreed to allow himself to become Captain.

  Spika shouldered her weapon and went to a station in the corner, a standard information terminal connected to the public network. It flickered to life at Spika’s touch, rather to Alania’s surprise. “Location,” Spika demanded.

  “You are here,” said a female voice, the familiar voice of the City that Alania had heard every day of her life until the last three days. Danyl and Alania joined Spika at the terminal.

  “Got it,” Spika said, staring down at a map, where a blinking green light marked their location. “Maintenance Block 12.”

  “Staffed?” Danyl asked, and Alania knew why he asked; if the City were operating as it was supposed to, it would have been.

  Spika snorted. “If it were, the Bowels wouldn’t be the Bowels. I squatted down here for a while before I went on to the Middens. In three months I saw maybe two maintenance people and twice that many robots.”

  Danyl nodded. He studied the map, tracing his finger along it to the central elevators. Spika’s eyes followed the movement like a bird of prey tracking something small and edible in long grass. “Heading up?” she said.

  Danyl grunted. “Tenth.”

  “Prison break? Bold. You got a plan?”

  “I’ve got a plan. But you’re not coming with us, so . . .”

  Spika shrugged. “Just curious.”

  Alania stared at Danyl. Tenth? Then she understood and approved. He doesn’t trust her. “Where are you going?” she asked Spika.

  “I’ve got a friend’ll take me in,” Spika said. “After that . . . I’ve got my own plans.”

  “Which are?” Danyl said.

  “You’re not coming with me, either,” Spika said.

  Danyl laughed. “Fair enough.” He zoomed in the map. “There’s a stair up to First not far away. We’ll stick together that far, then split up. Okay?”

  “Works for me.”

  The door opened at their approach, letting them into a corridor whose lights flickered exactly once, then went out with a sense of finality, leaving them to navigate by the dim green glow of emergency eternals once again. But they didn’t have far to go before they found an exit, and it, too, slid open at their approach.

  They stepped into a stairwell and climbed half a dozen flights to a door. Though it might have been locked from the other side, it wasn’t from theirs, and they pushed it open and stepped out into a dark alley. Faint illumination came from around a corner to their left; to their right there was only darkness. The exit closed behind them and vanished into smooth metal.

  The alley was roofed with corrugated steel maybe two meters over their heads, and across from them the dim light revealed a wall made of rough brick. Alania stared from one to the other. She’d known the original City plans she’d studied wouldn’t match what the City was like now, but she hadn’t expected anything so blatantly out of place.

  “City maps like the one we just accessed don’t count for much down here,” Spika said. “Not much left of the original walls and structures. It’s mostly a maze built from whatever workers can smuggle in or grab from the trash before it hit the Drops.” She rapped the far wall. “Brick’s kind of unusual. Lots of old metal like the ceiling over our heads. Lots of old plastic wall panels. Sometimes you’ll see plastic sheeting or even cardboard or paper.” She flashed them a grim smile in the gloom. “Watch yourselves down here. Provosts don’t pay much more attention to what happens on First than they do in the Middens. Thanks for the access. I’m out of here.” Then she turned and loped away, disappearing around the corner of the alley.

  Alania heard footsteps running toward them on the other side of the corrugated-steel ceiling and looked up as they rattled overhead, afraid for a moment the whole thing would collapse on their heads . . . but it held. The footsteps hurried on.

  She glanced at Danyl. “You lied about where we’re going because you think she’ll betray us.”

  Danyl nodded. “At the first opportunity. We were her ticket into the City, but now we’re just salvage—something she can sell. And she’s desperate, or she will be soon enough. The Greenskulls have tentacles in First and Second, I’ve heard. If they figure out she got up here . . .”

  “If they do, they’ll be looking for us, too,” Alania said.

  “Yeah,” Danyl said. He drew his slugthrower. “So let’s find this Bertel’s Bar. It’s supposed to be safe. Then we can figure out how to get up to Thirteenth.”

  “Without Beruthi?”

  “He’s dead. If this is going to happen, we have to do it ourselves.” Danyl sounded angry. “What else can we do? If Kranz gets us, you’re going to be made Captain, and nothing will change. If I can make myself Captain, then maybe I can make them change.”

  “You hope.”

  “Of course I hope. I’m not sure about anything. But Beruthi said this key can get us anywhere, even to Thirteenth. And he said the process of becoming Captain is automated. If we get there, maybe we can figure it out. At least we have to try.”

  Alania wished she could disagree . . . but she couldn’t. They were on their own, but they still weren’t free from the machinations they’d been part of since before they were born. “Maybe this Bertel will know something that can help us. But how do we find her?”

  “I hate to say it, but we’re going to have to ask for directions.” Danyl looked after Spika, then turned in the opposite direction. “Pretty sure we don’t want to follow her. This way.”

  Of course, since Spika had headed for the light, “this way” moved them deeper and deeper into darkness. It was daytime, so presumably the City’s normal daylight illumination beamed down on the Tier from the ceiling, but if so, none if it penetrated to where they were. The only light came from the far end of the alley, where Spika had fled, until they came to a sharp left turn. Once they rounded it they were in utter darkness, navigating by feel, but after a few steps the corridor turned right again, and they saw more light—just a crack of it, fitful and flickering, outlining a makeshift door made of corrugated metal like the ceiling.

  The door had a wire handle and swung in their direction. Danyl cautiously pulled it open, and they found themselves peering into a courtyard. Though two stories high, it still wasn’t open to the Tier ceiling lights; again, there was a ceiling of corrugated metal. A single flickering light fixture hung up there. The corridor they had been in was a lean-to attached to the brick structure that had surprised Alania when they’d entered the Tier. The brick continued to their left.

  To their right stretched the metal wall in which their exit was located. Someone had scrawled the word POISONERS across it in green paint.

  “Well, that’s comforting,” Alania said.

  “Gang sign,” Danyl said. “Probably.” He kept his hand on his holstered slugthrower as he slowly turned to take in the rest of the courtyard.

  Across from them rose a wooden wall with multiple windows shuttered with metal. To their left, the gap between the brick building behind them and the wooden building in front of them had been sealed with a sheet of black plastic. The only exit from the courtyard appeared to be a door into the wooden building directly across from them. It stood slightly ajar, and brighter light gleamed through the opening.

  “That,” Alania said, “looks like a trap.
”

  “Everything in this place looks like a trap,” Danyl said. He glanced over his shoulder. “We could go back the way Spika went, but if her first order of business is to sell us out . . .”

  Alania looked at that too-inviting door. Then she looked at the plastic sheeting to the left. “Got a knife?” she asked.

  Danyl followed her gaze. “I like the way you think, sis.”

  “Thanks,” Alania said. “And don’t call me sis, or I’ll have to call you bro.”

  Danyl grimaced. “I see your point.” He shifted the slugthrower to his left hand, drew his belt knife with his right, and handed it to Alania. Then he took the slugthrower in his right again. “You do the honors. Probably a good idea to be ready with this, just in case.”

  Alania nodded and walked over to the sheet of plastic. Embossed letters on the metal plating of the floor read “London Lane”—the names of the streets on Twelfth were marked the same way. London was a city that figured prominently in many Earthmyth stories—those old tales had provided a lot of the City’s street names. Alania had always wondered why.

  The plastic sheeting glistened with condensation. The air must be cooler on the other side. She put her ear to the damp plastic, listening for voices or movement. She heard neither. She glanced at Danyl, who raised the slugthrower. “Go ahead.”

  She lifted the blade he had given her and stabbed it through the black membrane. It slid in easily, and she swept the knife down, opening a long gash. No one shouted or shot at them, but she stepped aside to let Danyl and his weapon go first. He pushed the opening wider. “Looks clear.” He stepped through and disappeared.

  Alania followed and found herself at last in a proper Tier street—or a segment of one, anyway—with Tierlight glowing down from four stories above, brighter and bluer than Twelfth’s. To their left, the blank wall of the brick building, two stories high, ran down to the street into which Spika must have exited, while the wooden building ran the other way. The wall across from them was the pitted metal of some original Tier structure, its windows spray-painted black.

  A cold breeze blew through the street, swirling dust along with it, and Alania shivered, her clothes still damp from the rain they had slogged through as they climbed the trash mountain and the dunking in the River before that. An old man hurried by, eyeing them warily and altering his path so that he stayed well out of their reach. Alania realized she was still holding the knife and passed it back to Danyl, who sheathed it. He’d already holstered his slugthrower.

  “It’s cold,” she said. “Environmental controls must be screwed up along with everything else.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Danyl said. “First time in the City, remember?” He looked up at the ceiling. “That’s the only thing that looks the same as the virtual City I explored in our simulator.”

  “None of these weird buildings were in mine, either,” Alania admitted. She pointed down the street. “Let’s see what’s at the other end of this wooden one.”

  They walked down the narrow lane. Alania heard voices ahead of them, and without a word, she and Danyl slowed, stopping at the corner of the building to peer into another courtyard. Just past this end of the wooden building was a space crammed with . . . well, hovels was the only word Alania could think of that seemed appropriate. The small shelters made of scraps of lumber, plastic, metal, and cloth clung to the base of the wooden building. There was a building made of plastic wall panels across from it, and the metal Tier wall rose off to their right. Alania gave it a close look in case it had security cameras on it, but there were only a few broken supports where cameras or other equipment might once have been perched. Wary eyes watched them from the shadows of the rickety shelters. The few people in the open turned to stare at them, faces closed and unfriendly.

  “They don’t look like they’re likely to give us directions,” Alania said. She looked up the side of the building across from them, a weird structure with balconies and stairs jutting out at odd angles. Her eyes briefly met those of a small girl staring down at them. The girl squeaked and disappeared.

  What kind of life does she have to look forward to? Alania thought, and then, guiltily, Bet it doesn’t include lavish birthday parties.

  The street continued to the left, so they did, too. They crossed a new street sign: Bombay Boulevard. The hovels continued as well, choking the boulevard to a narrow lane. In places, the metal was covered with trash and liquids Alania did her best to step over or around, not through. Not everyone hid from them, but everyone’s eyes followed them. “I don’t like this,” she muttered to Danyl.

  “The street up ahead looks busier,” Danyl said. His eyes flicked from side to side as they walked, and his hand rested on his slugthrower, but nobody approached or spoke to them.

  A few moments later they emerged onto Singapore Street. For a block in either direction, First Tier looked almost like the more utilitarian parts of Twelfth Tier—as long as Alania ignored the garbage blowing along the streets, the precarious-looking balconies, and the pungent blue liquid dripping from somewhere high above, which formed a steaming puddle flowing sluggishly down a crude drain that had apparently been cut in the floor with a hacksaw . . .

  Actually, it didn’t look like Twelfth Tier at all.

  A few shabbily dressed people hurried along the street, heads down, not meeting anyone’s eyes. There were shops of a sort, selling—or more likely bartering—used clothes and housewares, and there was one food store that seemed to traffic entirely in mealpaks like the ones they’d unenthusiastically consumed on Beruthi’s boat. The shop structures were only slightly sturdier than the hovels in the street they’d left behind.

  A woman approached from their left. Danyl placed himself in front of her, and she pulled up short. She wore a shapeless black dress, her hair tucked up under a white scarf. “Hi,” Danyl said. “Can you help us?”

  The woman’s eyes flicked left and right. “Don’t hurt me,” she whispered.

  Alania stepped to Danyl’s side. “We’re not going to hurt you. We just need directions.”

  “City map,” the woman mumbled. “Information station. Next block.” She stepped to one side to go around them, but Alania moved in front of her again.

  “We’ve seen a City map,” she said, keeping her voice as friendly and nonthreatening as she could. “It wasn’t much help. We’re looking for Bertel’s Bar.”

  For a moment it looked like the woman would answer, but then her gaze flicked right and her eyes widened. “Ask him,” she hissed, then darted past before Alania could block her path again.

  Danyl stared after her. “Ask who?”

  “Me,” said a voice from behind them. Alania’s heart skipped two beats and then started racing. She whirled, as did Danyl, to find a young man looking at them from an open door that had been closed seconds before. “I can take you there.” He smiled. His incisors had been sharpened to points, turning his grin feral. “For a price, of course.”

  Danyl’s hand had flown to the slugthrower; he kept it there. “What price?” he snarled.

  “That nice little piece you’ve got on your belt,” the young man said.

  Danyl’s hand gripped tighter. “Why would I give it to you?”

  “Because if you don’t, I’ll burn you down where you stand,” said another voice behind them.

  Alania whirled again.

  A teenaged girl stared calmly at them, a beamer in her hand.

  TWENTY-NINE

  DANYL WAS A hair’s-breadth away from drawing his slugthrower when the boy spoke—and therefore probably a hair’s-breadth away from dying, since the girl with the beamer would have sliced him down before his own weapon cleared the holster. The young man—who looked to be a couple of years younger than Danyl and Alania—came around in front of them and allowed his pointy-toothed smile to grow even wider. “This is my little sister,” he said. “She has a beamer. All I’ve
got is a knife. So you see, I need your slugthrower to make us equal. Sibling rivalry and all that.”

  Danyl very carefully removed his hand from the slugthrower’s grip.

  Alania was looking from one to the other. “I can see the family resemblance,” she said slowly, and Danyl could see it now, too. Although the younger girl didn’t have the boy’s sharpened incisors, the rest of her face was just as lean and predatory . . . and both, though he couldn’t say exactly how, seemed strangely familiar to him.

  “Look who’s talking,” the boy said. “You two twins?”

  “Um . . . kind of,” said Alania. She looked at the girl’s beamer. “If you want the slugthrower, why not just shoot us and rob us?”

  Don’t give them ideas, Danyl thought, but like Alania, he knew something else was going on besides ordinary robbery.

  “We don’t steal,” snapped the girl with the beamer. “We barter.”

  “Right,” the boy said cheerfully. “I’m offering you a business transaction. I show you the way to Bertel’s Bar, you give me the slugthrower in exchange. Deal?”

  “What if I turn it down?” Danyl said.

  The boy shrugged. “Then I offer a different deal. You give me the slugthrower, my sister doesn’t shoot you. Still a business transaction.”

  “How is that different from robbing?” Alania demanded.

  “If we were robbers,” the girl said, as if explaining something to a very dim child, “I would have shot you two blocks ago, when we first started trailing you.”

  “If we were robbers,” the boy said in the same tone of voice, “this encounter would end with you dead and stripped and us alive and richer.”

  “That’s still one possible outcome,” Alania said.

  “Yes,” the girl agreed. “But only one. Since we are barterers, not robbers, we are offering you an alternative outcome—one in which you do not end up dead.”