The Recorder shifted uncomfortably in the seat, restless like a caged grizzly growing angry at its walls. Cristoffel however, she took quick notice of something beside them and reached into a compartment deep into a canvas bag therein. It was as if she’d heard something.
“What do you know of rescue efforts in the Plaza? Of survivors?”
She was still reaching around for something and was distracted because of it, but still grunted, “I’m sorry; but it’s pretty unlikely. You can’t be surprised to hear that.”
“But of rescuers?”
Cristoffel glanced at him, “It’s a nice thought.” She fished an old leather-bound field notebook from a cluttered glovebox and rested it on her lap. Then Cristoffel turned her eyes up to the brightening blue autumn sky as if to find shapes in the clouds.
“There may be people somewhere who would…would run up the stairs into a burning building… maybe someone who’d help carry people out instead of shoving them out of the way…but not here. Whatever is left at Balcister is on its own. If you have to see that, then I’ll show it to you.”
The Recorder was cold and shivered at her words, at her full-on admission of the world in which the two of them live where strangers didn’t take such risks. It wasn’t so much something with which to dispute, but rather to lament that it was so. She soon flipped open the book and slid out a pencil to scrawl hastily written notes, at one time glancing around as if identifying a location. With that done, Cristoffel snapped a rubber band around the book to secure it and slid it back from where it had come.
“I’ve been shot at before. It could be part of whatever’s going on…or it could just be some buck-tooth taking advantage of the confusion. I get that you’re in a hurry; but we’re not going anywhere just yet.”
The look on Misling’s face was that of exhaustion, with his eyes reddening and tired. For a moment, he rested his head against the back of his seat and inhaled deeply, then thought better of it and leaned a bit sideways to scan the streets below looking for a shooter or strange reflection as if he were suited for such a search and would recognize those things should they present themselves.
Cristoffel however, she didn’t spare any time for a look to the streets or the surroundings. In fact, once she’d stowed the notebook away, she pulled from her bag a dusty and streaked can of something and pried its aluminum lid up with a slip of steel hanging from a frayed leather lanyard on her mog vehicle’s door. Misling took a distracted interest in her busy-ness and observed whatever she was about despite the presumed danger of mysterious railgun fire from below. The can was perhaps three quarters full of a beige milky liquid; and drippings from it had dried in pretty jags along the length of the can. With the lid pried up, she spun herself in the swivelseat and unloosed her safety belt to stand and prop her boots against a decorative cornice, ornamented along its perimeter with unusual concrete human heads and faces. The heights were dizzying to the Recorder; but here among the bright building novelties and elements, Cristoffel seemed to be well accustomed and comforted.
She upturned the can and let the beige milk flow over an evil looking sculpted head jutting from the cornice. The head was maybe the size of a man’s torso, perhaps larger; and it wasn’t at all obvious why an architect would place such a work at heights like this. Who would see it? Neither was it clear, Cristoffel’s purpose; and Misling was at once annoyed with her.
“Why are you defacing that figure? What on earth would incite you to pointless vandalism when you are hiding from gunfire? There is no time for this!”
Her forehead rumpled, “Huh?”
Misling leaned in her direction and made a respectable effort to grip the can and take it from her, though his concern for the heights and upsetting the mog stole much of his intensity.
“Back off! Look, sit in that seat and shut up or this trip’s over. You can get out and climb down.”
He watched her with that look, the one saying she was an ass; and tried once more to reach for the can before she could again pour. She smacked his hand and, with blurring speed, pulled from her waist a longknife and touched it between his eyes.
“Touch that can again! Touch me again! I swear I will send you down the side of this high rise! Why are you messing with me right now?”
He pointed at her work, the tan and frothy milk she’d spilled over the haunting sculpted head before them. She rolled her eyes and dismissed him, slipping the knife back into hiding and replacing it in her caked fingers with a brush, its bristles splayed in a hundred directions but still serviceable. Still propped against the architectural pieces on the building’s outside walls, Cristoffel quickly brushed the material into a film fully coating the sculpted head’s outside surface. When satisfied, she poured the remainder of the can from the crown of the figure’s head and allowed it to flow a moment before repeating the brushing.
“Latex, moron. Making a mold.”
Misling stared back at her as if she’d admitted to conspiracy.
“The idiots are going to blow up the city. You know it; and I know it. All this is gonna be gone. It’s heartbreaking. If I capture them, then all this talent, these weird little…beautiful things…they won’t be lost.”
She dabbed the grinning face’s nose again with the brush and waited as if this was something she’d outlined before and had thrown back at her as foolishness. He was only watching, listening.
Cristoffel shrugged, embarrassed, “The hard luck guys that built this city back in the day…they deserve that.”
Only later would it become clear what happened at just this point, as the two of them perched high above the streets in hiding and the creamy latex settled gently on the statue…the fear of harm and the desolate and lonely sense that old and important things could indeed one day vanish. Only later would it make sense what was going on in the Recorder’s racing mind as he understood Cristoffel and saw around him a city of illimitable purpose and depth, gorgeous and strange, familiar and ridiculous…and it cast into a fire like dried leaves. “Fear above all - capricious kings”, the Salt Mystic had once exclaimed; and with the chilling autumn winds and haunting doom of hidden men firing slugs at them, the Recorder perhaps saw then more clearly than ever that lunatics were in charge.
“We are leaving.” His tone was cold and severe, quite unlike him.
On her face, for just a blink, was a flash of disappointment that he didn’t share with her just then, that it didn’t make as much sense to him as to her, before she noticed he’d changed something very slightly about how he spoke just then.
“Did you just-?”
Zing. Another shot pulverized a corner two arm-lengths from them, indicating the shooter had moved or perhaps had a partner. Cristoffel quickly leapt into the vehicle and, without securing a belt, kicked up the anchor and shoved the stick forward and to the right. They turned the far corner of the building so quickly, the mog’s wheels popped off the wall slightly before snapping back into place on the far side, frightening Misling out of his mind.
She strapped herself in and scanned beneath them and the surrounding buildings, “He’s moving or something. Need to go now, I agree. Not sure how though – we’ll have to drop a bit to get anywhere.”
Misling’s eyes were wide, for he saw the problem with lowering closer into range. Cristoffel was quickly eyeing any and all escape routes, understanding they would have to in fact jump from the walls of this building to another in order to get away without going very low. There was a wide, gradually sloping steel roof arcing downward on an adjacent building perhaps within reach. When her eyes settled there, the Recorder only grimaced fiercely and settled deeper into the swivelseat, gripping sharply.
“Hold on!” With that, she backed the mog lower and to the very edge of the face to which they clung, till the flights rested hard against the concrete corniceworks, inhaling deeply and squinting her eyes with adrenalin and focus. Another zing poked a hole through the vehicle’s front hood; and the Recorder reacted by shutting his eyes – mayb
e soliciting some reserves of courage from someone in his Pool, which is said to be possible. Either way, his eyes stayed shut from the moment the vehicle sped from that corner till it launched in freefall and ultimately locked onto the steel roof close by and slipped around another corner.
“Oh, no.” It was then, the smoke caught Cristoffel’s eyes; and she braked to more fully understand what was happening. Her voice was suddenly lifeless, at once losing the lilt and ease with which she’d only just then spoken of beautiful things. Misling straightened his back, even loosening the security belt in order to get his head higher to more fully see what was before them.
“Wasn’t a shooter at all.” She rubbed a finger roughly against her right temple.
In the distance, in the direction from which those railgun slugs had come, there was flame and fury, shrouding gray and white buildings in bright sparks and pulsing shockwaves. Dark clouds of Black Fire swelled and blossomed like poison tea flowers as speeding mogs darted and clashed and quicktanks thundered in the street. Pulverized fragments of city peppered the brightening blue skyline.
“It was stray fire. We’re not just at war. We’re in it.”
Misling broke from the surprise before Cristoffel and rested his hand gently on her shoulder. She faced him with panic and anger, perhaps not expecting from a Recorder the sort of determination and reserve he was giving back. When he spoke, it wasn’t with a nervous squeak or soft fear, but rather commanding.
“Balcister. Now.”
She pointed her wet right hand, palm up, gesturing toward the swelling Black Fire clouds and smoke, the swirl of Doniphan’s assault, signaling that was their direction should they continue. Though her eyes were clear she wanted off the hook for this, something was holding her to his decision one way or the other. It’s not even clear now what that was; but it is what happened.
He settled back into the swivelseat and secured his belt, “Stop for nothing. Please.”
Cristoffel at last secured herself as well and shoved the controls forward as if she were slaughtering an animal. It wasn’t important to say anything – they both knew she was going to stick to this or she’d have turned back already. The two of them bounced and jostled as their vessel rushed along the outsides of the financial buildings leading out of the Spooks, dropping lower and remaining shielded on far walls as much as possible. She was angling to the east of what looked to be the hottest part of the battle but still not too far out of their way.
She shouted without turning her head, “Reach into the compartment where I got the brush.”
Misling held a climber’s grip on the door’s handle and cautiously slipped open the glovebox, “For what purpose?”
“You’ll figure it out.”
At a sudden shift, he jammed a shoulder against the back of his seat, losing his fumbling hand’s way in the jumbled mess of the deep storage hold. He slid aside thick cloths, a gamebox and a handful of packaged bars of granola and at once froze his searching fingers – surprised at the unexpected shape.
“You feel it?”
A carbine - small and compact, the sort used by light infantry or gateway guardians. The Recorder’s physical hands had never once touched such a weapon, though many in his mind had and with them, done terrible things. He did not withdraw, but rather gently pulled it from beneath the settling clutter. The cloths fell back like the curtains of a play. He watched the side of her face only a moment; and she didn’t turn to see. There was nothing to say – they were headed where such a weapon was needed; and she had one. He examined its russet brown shielding and the palm-length trigger within the armlets. It wasn’t new and had been through such times as this.
The Recorder inhaled deeply and surveyed the way before them. Massive plumes of Black Fire still swelled ahead, framed in smoke. They were just then speeding along the top of a covered walk and were much lower than they’d been till that point. He gripped the carbine’s trigger softly, slipping the leather armlets around his wrist and forearm, and shifting himself in order to sit up straighter and to see in front and behind them. They were close enough now to make out the individual mogs racing along the outer walls of the buildings, engaged in vicious dogfights with Alson’s forces. One building in the distance suddenly fell into a white rising cloud, collapsing and carrying mog vehicles and screaming men down to the streets below. Balcister was beyond this.
“We’re going off-road.”
Before he could question her, Misling saw she’d positioned them overlooking a shorter building, possibly a shopping arcade, with a large skylight above an atrium. Misling then noticed what she’d apparently seen - a Doniphan vessel had caught sight of them and altered course to intercept. Misling roughly unsnapped his seatbelt in order to face backwards, extending a quivering arm in the direction of their attacker. He jammed shut his jaw in determination, for this was a touching of violence he’d not till then known.
“Doing it”, she said, as if asking him to disagree. The Recorder, quite inappropriately and like perhaps no other Recorder before him in all the years since the Mystic dreamed up the idea, screamed a warcry and squeezed the palmgrip successively, sending ball lightning bursts out in a flurry towards the Doniphan attacker. It was the same moment that Cristoffel shoved the controlstick forward to launch their vessel into the air and shatter through the arcade’s broad skylight, falling through and forward with incredible momentum, landing safely on a high whitewashed wall painted with smiling advertising faces. The Doniphan followed, for a moment lost in the debris and shock.
“The elevator door. Shoot it!!” Cristoffel shouted.
Misling spun to see what she was talking about and gripped the carbine’s trigger again, actuating the carbon breaker at least ten times in a row and perforating the thin elevator door with balls of elemental fire. She drove at speed along the inner wall, beyond brightly ornamented shelves and bursting shop displays, toward the elevator door he’d decimated and plowed through it. Misling was unable to see what had become of the Doniphan.
Cristoffel drove them along the masonry shaft wall, downward at high speed, into darkness only eased by pale headlights. She was weaving this way and that to dodge cables or electrical boxes, and was staring ahead fiercely. The attacker was either coming behind them or would be waiting when they emerged.
She slowed the vehicle and at last stopped, “I need to think. Do we go back up or keep going? I need to get to the canals. Where did he go?”
Misling rubbed his forehead, trying to catch his breath, “Both are choices a soldier would make.”
“And your point is?”
The Recorder settled the carbine in his lap, “Sneak out a side window before he can call for assistance.”
Cristoffel nodded and positioned them in front of a lower floor’s door mechanisms, visible to them as a thin vertical sliver of light and shapeless motorworks. Misling fluidly punctured the door as before and created an escape on perhaps the second or third floor. Within a few moments of cautious navigation, she’d found a wide display window easily maneuvered open and slipped the vehicle through and outside to the exterior walls again. All around them on the street and below were the black and gray masses of Black Fire: tiny replicating automata making copies of themselves from whatever they landed upon in a nearly uncontrolled chain reaction. It was a terrifying rust which ate flesh and steel alike; and Doniphan had for some reason brought it to Alson’s beating heart.
They made it through a shaded alleyway on the horizontal street to a narrow stairway leading down to the green canal. Cristoffel didn’t hesitate to take them down the steps and along the walls rising on either side of the canal. This wasn’t any safer than where they’d been; but it was at least for the moment, quiet. She looked at the Recorder with eyes wide, disbelieving what had just happened to them.
He watched her as well, not saying anything but sharing the relief.
Then Cristoffel broke out laughing, throwing her head back. She laughed till it was awkward with the Recorder watching h
er. She looked at Misling again, inhaling deeply as if having finished a rich dessert, then leaned in to kiss him fully on his lips. Not knowing what to do with such a thing, Misling sort of narrowed his eyes and tried to pucker a bit to help it along. When she was through, he rubbed his chin nervously and shifted the carbine in his lap.
Cristoffel smiled, “You scream when you’re blowing things up. That’s hilarious.”
He chuckled then…actually chuckled, perhaps for the first time, “You are a terrible driver.”
His smile surprised Cristoffel; and she laughed again. Smiles were fading when he softly raised a finger, signaling that they should go. She nodded and started up again, continuing along the canal walls for some time, unmolested. The engines and blasts of battle were still within earshot all along.
“We’re close. It’s around this next bend.”
He nodded, though she couldn’t see that.
“Are you planning on having me just drop you off or what?” Strangely, when she didn’t get an answer, Cristoffel glanced at his face to see that he hadn’t thought that far into it.
Tearing Down The Statues Page 24