The Cityborn

by Edward Willett

  “Approval confirmed,” Kreska said, though from his tone, he wished he hadn’t had to.

  “Unknown male approved,” the computer said.

  Kreska pushed by Danyl and led the way onto the stairs. The door to the pantry closed behind them.

  They spiralled tightly down to street level and two levels lower, almost as low as the Bowels. For the first hundred meters or so, Beruthi’s “secret path” was much like any other City corridor, though narrower—except, of course, that it was lit by damnable eternals. But then they had to crawl on their hands and knees for twenty meters beneath an insulated pipe through which Alania heard the rush of liquid. The next stretch of the path was so narrow they had to turn sideways, and one wall was alarmingly warm. Strange noises accompanied them: clattering, roaring, pounding.

  After several twists and turns and stairs up and ladders down, Alania had no concept of where they were in relation to where they had started, but at last they reached a small room with a single elevator door and a standard lockplate in the wall next to it. Kreska indicated it. “I can’t open it,” he said. “Try your key.”

  Danyl nodded. He pulled the golden rod from his pocket and inserted it into the lockplate. A light flashed green. “Elevator access granted,” said the familiar City-computer voice, and the door opened as Danyl removed the key from the plate. He blinked at the interior of the elevator. “What the . . . ?”

  A quiescent cleaning robot took up about half of the space, and its various attachments hung from the walls.

  “It’s the broom closet from the hallway outside my room,” Alania said. “Believe it or not.” She felt a strange pang at the sight of the familiar space. She couldn’t really be homesick for Quarters Beruthi . . . could she?

  “Father was clever,” Kreska said, his voice tight. He looked from Alania to Danyl. “I guess this is where I’m supposed to wish you luck. So . . . I hope you succeed at whatever it is you have to do, for Father’s sake. For Mom’s sake.” He paused as if he were going to say something else, then abruptly turned and strode down the hidden passage without looking back.

  Alania turned back to the elevator. “I know how to get from Quarters Beruthi to Quarters Kranz,” she told Danyl. “But as for how we’ll get into it . . .”

  “First we have to get out of Beruthi’s house,” Danyl pointed out. “Kranz must have searched it—might still be searching it. We may not be alone when we get there. Even if he’s done with the search, he may have Provosts stationed there to see who comes calling.”

  “Quarters Beruthi is a big place, and I know every centimeter of it,” Alania said. “If we’re cautious . . .”

  “We’ll still be left with the problem of how to get into Quarters Kranz.” Danyl sighed. “Well, one thing at a time.” He indicated the cleaning closet/elevator. “After you, sis.”

  “I told you not to call me that, bro,” Alania said as she entered. Danyl crowded in behind her.

  The door closed, and they began their ascent.

  I’m going home, Alania thought.

  But as she’d told Pertha, it didn’t feel that way.

  They’re alive.

  The flood of relief Kranz felt as Sergeant Paskal reported what had happened in the northern Middens the morning after Beruthi’s spectacular unplanned demise blotted out many of the details the Sergeant insisted on providing.

  “. . . patrols turned up a capsized submarine . . . Greenskull contacts told me a sentry reported seeing someone, then claimed she didn’t . . . killed another sentry . . . diversionary explosion . . . Provost killed at the Hazardous Waste Holding Tank . . . gained access to the City through the . . .”

  “That’s enough, Sergeant,” Kranz said, cutting off the flow of words. The Provost was clearly flustered to be reporting what he must have assumed Kranz would take as bad news, especially since he knew Commander Havelin was listening in, his face side by side with the Sergeant’s in Kranz’s desktop display. Someone would have to be punished, of course, but that could wait until later. For now, the important thing was that the Cityborn had survived the explosion at Retreat Beruthi and had very kindly delivered themselves back to the City, right where he needed them to be. Now it was only a matter of time before he recaptured them.

  Kranz shot a reflexive glance at the Captain’s medical monitor. Hopefully not very much time. “Thank you, Sergeant,” he said, turning his attention back to the screen. “You’re dismissed.”

  He killed the connection before the Sergeant could finish his salute and turned his undivided attention to Commander Havelin. “Do you have a name for this missing Greenskull sentry, Commander?”

  Havelin nodded. “Spika Constant, sir. We’re already searching for her on First. She lived there for many years, so we’re monitoring known contacts and haunts. We should have her soon. The other two may well be with her—”

  “No, I doubt that,” Kranz said. “They’ll try to lose themselves in the general population. I know our security camera coverage is . . . spotty on First Tier, so we’ll need more boots on the floor. I want a thorough search of the Tier and Provosts stationed in all public spaces, especially around the Core. Arrest them on sight, but carefully—it’s vital that they’re captured unharmed.” He sharpened his voice. “You hear that, Commander Havelin? They must not be harmed. I don’t want a repeat of what happened to Beruthi.”

  “Understood,” the Commander said.

  “Keep me apprised,” Kranz said. “First Officer out.”

  The screen blanked. Kranz leaned back in his chair, thinking hard.

  He was glad Beruthi had sent the two Cityborn back to the City, but why had he done it? Why put Alania back within easy reach of Kranz?

  Of course, he’d expected to still be operating in the clear as Lieutenant Commander Beruthi. Which meant his original plan must have involved smuggling the two of them into his own quarters. But from there . . . what?

  There could be only one explanation. Beruthi intended to replace the old Captain not with Alania, but with Danyl. Danyl, whose nanobots had been programmed for years by the docbot Beruthi had modified. Kranz had programmed Alania’s nanobots to rewrite her memories and personality once they were fully activated, turning her into a new Kranz. Beruthi must have similarly primed Danyl, but his goal must have been to keep the boy as quiescent as the old Captain, allowing him to seize control as the new First Officer.

  Kranz knew well enough how hated he was in certain circles of the City, and even among the Officers: hated because of his methods, hated because of the power his family had wielded for generations, hated for his wealth. He didn’t mind that hatred; he preferred to think of it as respect. Even the Officers did not know what every Kranz knew, the truth burned into them by the nanobots carrying the memories of the first First Officer Kranz. They did not know that only the strong and steady hand of the First Officer and the armed power of the Provosts kept the City and the Heartland from collapsing into chaos. They didn’t know just how narrow was the knife’s edge on which their very existences balanced. Only the Kranzes knew the truth. Only the Kranzes knew how heroically and selflessly Thomas Kranz had acted when he overthrew the Captain and set himself up as the City’s ruler. It hadn’t been because he sought power but because he sought safety, security, and stability for the City’s then-sleeping citizens. He had allowed them to Awaken into a world that worked rather than into chaos and uncertainty.

  Once Alania became Captain and she received the Kranz programming, she too would know the truth, would know how important it was to keep tight control over the fragile society humanity had established in the City and Heartland. With her as Captain and First Officer rolled into one, stability would be ensured for another five hundred years. Even the resentment directed at the Officers would ease once the City was restored to full working condition.

  But if the Captain died before she could be replaced . . .

 
Old nightmares ran through Kranz’s head, nightmares passed down from Thomas Kranz, nightmares from before the City stood in the Heartland: fighting, blood, fire, memories of the revolution the original Kranz had led to save all the then-sleeping inhabitants from certain disaster, fears of what would happen if the revolution failed. Thomas Kranz, with regret but without hesitation, had killed his best friend during the fighting. That fierce sense of duty, that determination to let nothing stop him from doing what he knew to be necessary, flowed through Kranz’s veins, too—as it would soon flow through Alania’s.

  Beruthi had known about the Kranz nanobots, but of course he did not share the Kranz memories. Clearly he hadn’t understood, as Kranz had foolishly hoped he would. Beruthi must have seen Kranz as nothing but a dictator weakened by the death of Falkin, the failure of the cloning unit, and the degradation of the Kranz nanobots—ripe for overthrow. And so he’d had Danyl abducted and raised by Erl and made sure the third usable Cityborn baby was killed. And then—the cold-blooded rationality of it was something Kranz could almost admire—he had raised Alania for Kranz himself, always planning to have her removed from the equation before Kranz could make use of her, clearing the way for Beruthi to install Danyl as his pet Captain.

  Kranz had probably surprised him, coming for Alania on the very day of her twentieth birthday; he hadn’t warned Beruthi about that. Perhaps Beruthi had had a cleverer plan for Alania’s abduction that hadn’t yet been ready, so he had fallen back on the ragtag collection of street thugs from the lower Tiers who had failed so miserably. Or perhaps their failure had just been bad luck. Either way, Beruthi had clearly seen a chance long ago and thrown the dice, hoping to win the jackpot. Now he was dead, but the dice were still rolling. And if something happened to Alania and Danyl . . .

  Without Beruthi, they’re just two young people trying to avoid arrest, Kranz reassured himself. Even if they know Beruthi’s intention, they can’t act on it. They can’t get to the Captain. And without Beruthi’s encouragement, why would they even try? Unless . . .

  Kranz frowned. Perhaps Beruthi, hoping to seize control, had very carefully not told Alania and Danyl what it would really mean to become Captain, and they thought it entailed nothing more than ordering people around. In that case, they might try something spectacularly foolish . . .

  He’d been chasing events for too long. Perhaps he could get in front of them at last.

  He touched the communicator screen, calling up Lieutenant Commander Shaloma Trishel, his Head of Household Security. “Seal the house,” he ordered when the woman’s angular face appeared. “It’s possible two fugitives may try to enter it.”

  “Fugitives?” Trishel said, left eyebrow lifting.

  “Alania Beruthi and a young man. If you see them, apprehend them—gently. Do not harm them. Hold them until I get there.”

  Trishel nodded once. “Yes, sir.”

  “First Officer out.” Kranz killed the connection. He rubbed the back of his neck. There’s only one person who might know Beruthi’s entire plan, he thought. His last attempt to question that individual had been unsatisfactory, but the doctor had held out hope . . .

  He rolled his chair back from his desk. Time to pay a visit to the hospital.

  The journey to Quarters Beruthi took ten minutes, but it seemed to last ten years. Alania knew they were rising through the Tiers, but after the initial upward acceleration, they could have simply been standing in a stationary broom closet. She stared around at the familiar cleaning equipment, remembering that long-ago adventure to Fifth Tier. She’d noticed way back then that the elevator’s only other stop besides Fifth was First, but she’d never imagined the reason why. She had never even considered the possibility that Lieutenant Beruthi, the famously single Officer who seemed to prefer the company of robots to people, might have a lover and two children on the lowest Tier of all.

  She wondered when and how he had met Bertel. How much of Beruthi’s desire to overthrow the First Officer came from his firsthand knowledge of how difficult life was in the lower Tiers?

  And yet . . .

  Alania remembered the other candidate baby, a sister to herself and Danyl, who had been “eliminated.” How could the man Bertel, Pertha, and Kreska had so obviously loved have ordered such a draconian action? How could one reconcile the two sides of such a person?

  His own children hadn’t been born yet. Maybe that would have made a difference.

  Maybe. But maybe not. If there was one thing Alania had learned in the past three days, it was that people were complicated.

  She looked at Danyl, who held his slugthrower in both hands, pointed at the floor. She read his tension in the way the muscles in his neck stood out. “We’re going to come out in a third-floor hallway,” she told him. “There’s unlikely to be anyone there.”

  “Unlikely isn’t the same as impossible,” Danyl returned shortly, which of course Alania couldn’t argue with, since it was true.

  Finally she felt a change—they were slowing. Danyl aimed the slugthrower at the door.

  They stopped.

  The door opened.

  Nobody shot or even shouted at them.

  Danyl took a quick look into the hall, left-right, then stepped back into the closet/elevator. “Clear,” he said. “And wow. I had no idea people lived like this.”

  “Like what?” Alania squeezed past him into the hallway. It hadn’t changed in the slightest. Well, why would it? You were still living here just four days ago. Which was objectively true but subjectively hard to believe.

  Beruthi had always favored a very conservative decor; the hallway was almost oppressive, with its dark wood paneling and thick red carpet. Golden chandeliers provided ceiling light, while paintings and sculptures were set into softly lit niches in the walls between the doors. There were thirteen doors in all, as Alania knew well: eight to their left, four to their right, and the hidden one at the end of the hallway, which opened into the servants’ stair where she had hidden from the watchbot with Lissa and Sandi.

  Alania had never understood why Beruthi needed so many rooms, why any of the senior Officers needed the vast quarters they occupied. There was never a need to stay over at some other senior Officer’s house, since they all lived on the same Tier. Perhaps out in the country at the Retreats and Estates it made sense, but why here?

  Of course, Beruthi hadn’t built this house. He had inherited it, and the only reason he rated such a massive amount of space was how integral to the operation of the City his family had been over the decades with their near monopoly on robotic and computer technology.

  Alania wondered to whom the house would go now Beruthi was dead and disgraced. It should go to Bertel and Kreska and Pertha, she thought, but of course that was impossible. No, it would go to some other Officer, and the infighting to claim it would be intense.

  Or would it? If they succeeded . . .

  Suddenly she heard voices from somewhere downstairs. They weren’t alone.

  “Damn!” Danyl raised the slugthrower.

  Alania pushed it down again. “That’s coming from the main floor,” she whispered. She tugged at his hand and pulled him toward the stairs.

  He resisted. “We can’t go down there!”

  “We’re not going down the main stairs,” Alania said impatiently. “There’s a door you can’t see.” Danyl relented, and she led him toward the hidden servants’ stair, their footsteps muffled by the carpet’s thick weave. They passed the door to her old room, but she resisted the urge to look inside it, not only because of the cameras but because she never wanted to see it again. It belonged to a part of her life as dead and gone as the man who had been her guardian.

  As they reached the end of the hall, Alania slowed. She took a quick look around the corner. The stairs to the main floor were deserted, and no one was in sight. She stepped across to the hidden door and reached for the latch, disguised
as a part of the molding, but before she could touch it, the door swung outward.

  She stumbled backward, shocked. Danyl jerked up the gun. But again Alania pushed it down as she found herself staring into the wide-eyed, terrified face of her lifelong maid and confidante, Sala.

  “Alania?” Sala whispered. “What are you doing here?”

  “What are you doing here?” Alania countered.

  “I can’t . . .” Sala shot a frightened glance toward the stairs. “We can’t talk here. There are Provosts in the dining room. Inside, quickly.” She stepped back through the hidden door. Alania and Danyl crowded in after her, and she shut the door behind them.

  Unlike the rest of Quarters Beruthi, the servants’ stairs did not attempt to pretend they belonged to a house in the countryside. Both the walls and the steps were metal, the lights bright and industrial.

  “Who is this?” Danyl demanded. At least he kept the slugthrower lowered.

  “Sala,” Alania said. “My servant.”

  “The one who taught you to swim?”

  Alania smiled briefly. “Among other things.” She turned to Sala. “Sal, you were fired!”

  “I told you I’d be all right. I just couldn’t tell you why. Lieutenant—Lieutenant Commander—Beruthi only publicly fired me. Privately, he found me a new job in Quarters Praterus.”

  “Sandi’s house?”

  Sala nodded. “The Lieutenant Commander is very kind,” she said. “I know he’s always seemed cold to you, Alania, and I don’t know why, but to me . . . to me, he’s been Captain-sent.”

  Danyl stirred, but Alania shot him a warning look. Sala clearly didn’t know Beruthi was dead, and Alania didn’t want to tell her until she had to. Danyl frowned but said nothing.

  “But what are you doing back in the house?” Alania asked, returning her attention to Sala. “How did you get in here without the Provosts downstairs knowing about it?”

  “I could ask you the same thing,” Sala said.

  “There’s a . . . a secret way in,” Alania said carefully. “One Beruthi told me about.”