The Cityborn

by Edward Willett

  Danyl sighed. “I’ll take it.”

  “I thought you would,” the boy said. He held out his hand. Danyl unbuckled his belt, slipped off the holstered slugthrower, and handed it to the boy, who attached the holster to his own belt. “Any more ammo?” he said.

  “No,” Danyl said shortly. “It’s at the bottom of the River. Now take us to Bertel’s.”

  “Follow me,” the boy said. He turned around and led them back down Singapore Street and across the mouth of Bombay Boulevard. Men who had watched them suspiciously before quickly turned away this time. The boy led them to another ramshackle wooden structure and through a door Danyl doubted he would have spotted on his own. “Almost there. It’s straight down the hall, up the stairs, third floor.” The boy smiled again, sharp teeth gleaming against his upper lip, and patted the slugthrower. “Thanks for this.”

  Danyl felt a strong desire to shove those sharp teeth down the boy’s throat, but the girl still held her beamer ready, and she wasn’t smiling.

  “If it’s any consolation,” the boy said, “Bertel’s has a strict no-weapons policy. We would have confiscated your weapon anyway.”

  “We?”

  “Bertel’s our mother,” the boy said. “We’re the bouncers. And we’ve been expecting you. Prime told us you’d be coming.”

  “What?” Alania said.

  Danyl’s fists clenched. “If you were going to bring us here anyway, why go through this charade?”

  “For fun.” The boy grinned. “This way.” He led them down the hallway to a narrow staircase and up it two floors to a wooden door that opened to a push. Danyl, with Alania behind him and the beamer-armed girl behind her, followed him down a dark corridor with walls made of wooden planks roughly nailed together. At the end of the hall, a beaded curtain hung across an archway through which came the smell of baking bread. Danyl’s mouth watered, and he heard Alania’s stomach rumble; he glanced at her with a raised eyebrow, and she gave him an embarrassed smile.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Long time since we ate. And that stew on the boat . . . blech.”

  “Blech,” Danyl agreed. Since that sad meal on the boat, they’d capsized, waded ashore, climbed a mountain of trash, distracted Provosts, sneaked into the Bowels of the City, made their way to First Tier . . . and been easily taken prisoner by two teenagers. Which was way more embarrassing than Alania’s growling stomach.

  Danyl had pictured Bertel’s Bar as a filthy hole-in-the-wall where the down-and-out came to drink away their troubles. But what they found on the other side of the dangling beads was a small but clean room with four round tables and a bar of polished wood, glowing in the light of yellow lamps. Danyl stared around. “I don’t get it. How can this place have a clientele?”

  “Our clientele is . . . select,” said the girl.

  “What my daughter means,” said a woman, coming into sight behind the bar through another beaded curtain, “is that Bertel’s Bar is open by invitation only.”

  Danyl studied her with interest. Thin, almost gaunt, with sharp features Danyl could absolutely see echoed in the faces of her children, she had the largest, strongest-looking hands he had ever seen on a woman. Her red hair, just beginning to show gray, was piled carelessly atop her head. She wore a clean white apron over a worn green dress . . . and over both, a belt bearing a holstered slugthrower, twin of the one he had been forced to hand over to her son. Probably is its twin, he thought. Erl was one of the Free, and she must be, too. How many sources of weapons can they have?

  “My name is Elissa Bertel,” the woman said. “Prime told me you would be coming and to hide you until he arrives.”

  Danyl shook his head. “He’s not coming. He’s dead.”

  He didn’t expect the reaction he got. The woman went pale and clutched at the bar. “No . . .” Behind them, the teenagers gasped.

  “It’s a lie!” the boy shouted.

  “It’s true,” Alania said, turning to them. “We saw him die.”

  The girl sobbed. Danyl glanced back to see her head buried in her brother’s shoulder, her beamer hanging loose at her side. The boy’s face had gone as white as Bertel’s. What’s going on?

  Alania put two and two together faster than he did. “He was your father, wasn’t he?” she said softly to the youngsters, then turned back to Bertel. “And your husband.”

  “Not husband.” Bertel’s mouth twisted. Tears glistened on her cheeks. “How could he be? He was an Officer. But we loved each other.”

  The girl continued to sob.

  Danyl felt an unfamiliar pang of shame. “I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly. “I shouldn’t have been so blunt.”

  “You had no way of knowing,” Bertel said. “And even if you had, there’s no soft way to break such news.” With visible effort, she straightened. “How did he die?”

  “Provosts came for him at his Retreat,” Danyl said. “He planned to give himself up, sure he could talk his way out of any charges. He surrendered, but something went wrong. A Provost shot him, and then his security robots . . . blew up everything. There’s nothing left.”

  The girl’s sobs cut off, and she stormed around in front of him and Alania. “And who the hell are you?” she snarled through her tears. She pointed the beamer at his face. “Who the hell are you that my father should die for you?”

  “Stand down, Pertha,” Bertel snapped. “You know Ipsil told me they were coming.”

  Danyl met the girl’s eyes steadily. “Your father worked for twenty years to get me right where I am now,” he said softly.

  Pertha glared at him a moment longer, then her eyes flooded with tears again, and she lowered the beamer and moved to one of the tables, where she sat down heavily. Her brother, dry-eyed but grim-faced, went to her and draped his arms protectively over her shoulders.

  “We don’t know what Ipsil intended,” Bertel said. “Do you?”

  Danyl hesitated, not sure what he should tell her. He settled on, “Not exactly,” which was certainly the truth.

  “There must be a second-in-command,” Alania interrupted, and Danyl shot her a look of gratitude. “Someone who will take over as Prime?”

  Bertel shook her head. “Not inside the City. Second to Ipsil was Erl. If you could get back in touch with him . . .”

  Danyl shook his head. “Erl might be dead, too.”

  Bertel’s shoulders sagged. “Then the Free Citizens has been decapitated.”

  Alania looked at Danyl. “What do we do?”

  “I don’t know,” Danyl said. Anger bubbled up in him. “How the hell am I supposed to know? Until three days ago, I didn’t know anything about the Cityborn, or the Free Citizens, or Beruthi, or—” His voice choked off.

  “Do you know anything about what he intended?” Bertel asked quietly.

  Danyl took a deep breath. “Only in broad strokes. I know I have to get to Thirteenth Tier. After that . . .” After that, I don’t have a fucking clue. Except that I’m supposed to become Captain. Whatever that means.

  “Thirteenth?” said the boy, staring at him. “That’s impossible.”

  “Not according to your father,” Danyl said.

  “But . . . why?” Bertel asked. “To kill the Captain?”

  Alania, to his relief, stepped in again. “What did Beruthi tell you about us?”

  “Very little,” Bertel said. “But . . .” Her eyes flicked past them, at her children. “I know you were his ward on Twelfth Tier, while you”—she nodded to Danyl—“were raised by Erl in the Middens. I know you are called Cityborn. I know the future of the City hinges on you. But how that can be true . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t have the slightest idea.”

  Then we can’t tell you, Danyl thought. For your protection . . . and ours. “Can you get us to an elevator that will take us to Thirteenth Tier?”

  “No,” Bertel said.

 
Danyl’s anger rose again. He felt his fists clench . . . and then a soft touch on his arm. Alania gave him a warning look and shook her head slightly. “Why not?” she asked, and her tone was far softer and more sympathetic than he could have managed. All he could think of were the Provosts who might be closing in on them even now.

  “No elevators go to Thirteenth from the lower Tiers,” Bertel said. “As far as I know, nobody knows how to get to Thirteenth Tier except the First Officer.”

  Alania gasped. “Oh . . .” she said. She gave Danyl a wide-eyed look. “It’s in his house! Quarters Kranz. Where I was being taken when this all started. That’s the only access to Thirteenth. It has to be.”

  Danyl snorted. “So all we have to do is to get to Twelfth, break into Kranz’s quarters, find this special elevator, and somehow make it to Thirteenth . . . without Kranz noticing?” He rolled his eyes. “Perfect.”

  “You can’t even get to Twelfth,” Bertel said flatly. “Not unless you . . .” Her voice trailed off. “Oh,” she said after a moment, much more softly. “He gave you a key, didn’t he?”

  “An access key?” The boy suddenly released his sister and rounded the table to face them. “You have a high-level City access key?” He spun to his mother. “Mom, with a key like that, we could get out of First. Up as many Tiers as we want. You have money. You could set up the restaurant you’ve always wanted on Fifth or Sixth, even Seventh, maybe even Eighth. You wouldn’t have to—”

  The key won’t do you any good unless you have the Captain’s genetic tags, Danyl thought, but he couldn’t tell them that—and he didn’t have to.

  Bertel silenced her son with a sharp, “No! No, Kreska. Your father believed these two could free the City. We have to do everything we can to make that happen.”

  “These two?” Kreska glared at Danyl and Alania. “They can’t even find their way around First. They don’t have a fucking clue what they’re doing.” His contemptuous assessment so closely echoed Danyl’s own thoughts that it stung. “How are they supposed to free the City?”

  “I don’t know,” Bertel said. “But your father did. He believed they could do it, and he gave his life so they could make the attempt. That’s good enough for me.” Her lips tightened. “Is it good enough for you?”

  The boy stared at her. Then he turned to Danyl and Alania again. And then he . . . wilted. “Yes,” he said. “Of course.”

  “Good.” Bertel stood as straight as ever, though her face was slick with sweat, and her hands still clutched the edge of the table. Danyl knew she must want to retreat and weep and rage—but she didn’t. “Then you will guide them to the elevator in Sector One.”

  “They can’t—” Kreska began, but then he subsided. “Of course they can. If Father gave them a key.”

  “Exactly.” Bertel looked at Alania and Danyl. “Your key will operate all elevators, but the public elevators are of no use to you. They are closely monitored, and the Provosts will spot you the minute you enter one. Even the segregated Officer elevators in the Core are no better.”

  “But this Sector One elevator is different?” Alania asked. She frowned, and Danyl thought he knew why—like him, she must be running over her knowledge of the City’s construction. Sector One elevator . . . oh! He looked at her, and they said, “Maintenance elevator!” together.

  Danyl turned back to Bertel. “But those were shut down ages ago by the Officers for security reasons. Most of the shafts have been cut through.”

  “Not this one,” Alania said. She looked bemused.

  Bertel nodded. “In Ipsil’s father’s day, it only went as far down as Fifth, where the Beruthi factories are. But Ipsil discovered that the shaft was intact below that. As Prime, he thought he could make good use of a private elevator from Twelfth to First, and of course, once we met . . .” She colored slightly, and Danyl knew exactly what kind of “good use” Beruthi had put the elevator to. “He had it secured so he was the only one who could use it.”

  “Except once,” Alania murmured.

  Bertel glanced at her with a puzzled expression.

  “But with this key, we can use it, too,” Danyl said.

  Bertel nodded. “Almost certainly.”

  “Where will it take us?” Danyl asked.

  But this time, it was Alania who answered. “Quarters Beruthi,” she said. “Where I grew up.”

  THIRTY

  PERTHA LEAPED to her feet, her chair toppling backward to crash against the wooden floor. Anger had wiped the grief from her face, though tears still glistened on her cheeks—anger that was focused, beamer-like, on Alania, as was the actual beamer. “You lived with my father every day of your life! I only saw him once every couple of weeks . . . or months. And now we’re sending you back to the home you shared with him? The home where he spent all the time with you that you stole from us?”

  “Not home.” Anger and grief rose inside Alania, too. “Not home. It was never home. It was where I lived, but I got no love from your father. At least you had that!”

  “At least you had him!”

  “I would have traded what I had for what you enjoyed.”

  “Wealth? Comfort? Everything your heart desired? Don’t lie to me.”

  “Everything my heart desired was a father or mother!”

  Pertha opened her mouth to say something else, but her mother’s voice cut her off. “Enough! Your father wanted us to help the Cityborn. He died so we could help them. We will honor his wishes.”

  Pertha spun to face her. “Why? You’re right, he’s dead. But they have a City access key. With a key, we could have a new life. A better life.”

  “A short life,” Danyl said harshly, while Alania was still trying to figure out how to tell Pertha the key wouldn’t work for anyone but her and Danyl, without telling her more about the Cityborn than it was safe for her or her family to know. “I don’t understand everything that I—that we are, but if we don’t succeed, if we don’t get to Thirteenth Tier . . . I think things are going to go very badly in the City very soon.”

  Pertha twisted around again. “It couldn’t be worse than it is now,” she snarled.

  “Yes, it could,” Alania said softly. “You could lose what you already have. A home. A brother. A mother. A family.”

  “Pertha,” Bertel said, speaking now in a pleading whisper. “Please.”

  For a moment Pertha kept the beamer pointed at Danyl and Alania; then she jerked it down. “Fine!” She glared at them. “But not for you. Not for the Free. Not for some stupid revolution that will never change a thing. Only because of Father. Because I loved my . . .” Her voice broke. She turned to Kreska. “You take them. I can’t . . .”

  Kreska nodded mutely.

  “Kreska, give Danyl back his slugthrower,” Bertel said.

  Kreska silently complied. Danyl slipped the holster back onto his belt without a word.

  “There’s a path to the Sector One elevator through the service level,” Bertel said. “It’s still secure.”

  “You’re sure?” Danyl said.

  “It has its own security system,” Bertel said. “And it hasn’t been triggered.”

  Danyl nodded. “Good. Then let’s get going.”

  “Wait a minute,” Alania said.

  Danyl shot her a look. “Why?”

  She ignored him, going instead to Bertel. She took the older woman’s hands. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she murmured. “So sorry you didn’t have more time to spend with Beru—with Ipsil. So sorry I saw him every day, even if we weren’t close, and you hardly saw him at all. If everything had gone as he’d hoped . . .”

  “In my experience,” Bertel said, her face bleak, “nothing ever goes as we hope.” But then her expression softened. “All the same . . . thank you.”

  Alania nodded, then surprised herself—and certainly Bertel—by giving the woman a hug. She stepped back and
turned to face Bertel’s children and Danyl. Danyl’s expression was unreadable; Kreska and Pertha looked grim. New tears tracked down Pertha’s face.

  “All right,” Alania said to Kreska. “Now we can go.”

  Kreska took a deep breath. “This way.”

  He didn’t lead them back the way they had come but through the beaded curtain behind the bar into the kitchen. A door there opened into a pantry, just a small room with very little on the shelves—a few sacks of flour, some canned goods, salt, a few spices. At Kreska’s touch, the shelves at the back swung aside, revealing a staircase spiralling down, lit by—Alania sighed—the dim green glow of eternals.

  “How was this done?” Danyl asked, staring down.

  “Beruthi Enterprise robots built the whole path without anyone up above being the wiser,” Kreska said. “They were supposed to be doing ordinary maintenance on the sewer pipes and ventilation ducts—which should have raised suspicions right there, if you ask me, considering how rarely we see maintenance done on First. A lot of the way, it’s just a narrow corridor carved out of existing corridors that are now a meter skinnier than they used to be. But in a few places the robots had to get more . . . creative. As you’ll see. Wait a second.” He turned to the right and placed his hand on a glass plate in the wall.

  “Kreska recognized and approved,” said the familiar voice of every computer in the City.

  “Two approved guests,” Kreska said.

  “Please have guests present palm prints for scanning.”

  Kreska nodded at Alania, who put her palm to the plate. “Alania Beruthi,” the voice said. “Recognized and approved.”

  Alania felt a chill that the system knew who she was. But even if this was Beruthi’s own private system, it undoubtedly had access to the City’s central databases, and she had lived openly in the City—well, as openly as her guardian/captor had allowed—for twenty years.

  Danyl stepped forward and presented his palm to the plate. “Unknown male,” the voice said. “Kreska, please confirm approval.”