Driftmetal

by J. C. Staudt

  When the first pulser round hit me, on the other hand, it felt like someone had wrapped me in electrical wire and stuck me in a toaster. My bones lit up like fluorescent bulbs, and my skin crawled with those little robotic spiders that have sewing needles for legs. Two more rounds hit me while I was still in the process of collapsing, igniting my body in their electromagnetic agony.

  Vilaris heard me fall and came back. He came back for me. Lifted me, dragged me to my feet and carried me, firing flecker rounds over his shoulder while we charged down the hallway. Someone hit the alarm as we rounded the corner. A siren wailed, loud and long and keening. The elevator lay ahead, our gate to freedom.

  I hurt. All over. It’s just like the cops to put you in the worst possible pain you could be in without doing any real damage. I’d been hit with pulsers before, mind you. The miner’s thugs had used them on me earlier in the same night I escaped from the hovercell. That hadn’t been my first time getting pulsed, but gouge my eye out with a rusty fork if it hadn’t hurt more than the time before.

  It was the worst feeling in the world, getting pulsed. Worse than getting crackled. It felt like your body was in the process of being melted down for scrap. Knowing you’d be back to normal in an hour or two didn’t make it any better. At least a flecker knew how to sear the flesh off your bones. At least a laser could burn a real hole in you. A pulser was little more than a hallucination of pain—the most powerful hallucination I’d ever undergone, including the ones I’d undergone by choice.

  “Hold on, Mull. Not too much farther,” Vilaris was saying.

  Somehow my augmented eye had zoomed itself all the way in, and my unenhanced eye was trembling like a coin on a train track. Trying to see anything felt approximately as effective as using a snow globe to look through a kaleidoscope with the lights out. The sound of footsteps echoed around us, and Vilaris was dragging me into the elevator and trying to figure out how to get us to the bottom. I leaned into the glass, my head swimming and my legs wobbling like jelly. The doors slipped shut as customs officers raced down the hall after us. Then we were descending, and I was putting my back to the window and reaching for Vilaris.

  “I promise that after tonight, I will try not to ask you to do this ever again,” I said. “Hug me.”

  Vilaris gave me his usual look of bewilderment.

  “Come here and wrap those big sexy arms around me, Vilaris, curse you. I don’t have time for your games.” I leaned hard against the window and planted the bottom of my foot against the glass.

  Vilaris took a step toward me.

  I yanked him in close, whispered in his ear. “Pretend it didn’t happen this way.”

  My heel port snicked open. The solenoid jackhammered the window, and an instant later we were floating downward on a bed of crystalline shards. I felt the grappler chomp into the elevator ceiling and let the winch loose, Vilaris’s startled screams and desperate, scrabbling arms worrying over my pained body.

  He held on, heavens help him. Held on until I squeezed the winch tight and set us down like a couple of butterflies landing on a flower. Butterflies with rocks strapped to their ankles, landing on a flower made of the ground.

  The winch was screeching inside my arm by the time we slammed down. Friction smoke was pouring from the wrist port as I ejected the wire and freed myself from Vilaris’s bear hug. I could hear the alarm ringing faintly through the open elevator shaft far above.

  A group of customs officers came toward us. Vilaris pulled me into the crowd. Whatever they called those tunnels and dark rooms where they brought people who didn’t pass muster, neither of us wanted to wait around and find out. We were shuffling through a crush of bodies, ducking around baggage trains and pallets of building materials and carts full of wilting produce. Then we were in the airfield, darting through the maze of ships and campsites. My legs still felt like jelly and my head was pounding. It was only Vilaris’s constant guidance that got me back to The Secant’s Clarity without curling up into the fetal position and crying alone in the dark.

  “No way we’re going up in this thing again,” I said as we entered the control capsule through the gash in the Clarity’s hull. “We have to find another ship.”

  “That’s what we just got back from failing to do, isn’t it?”

  I draped myself over the pilot’s chair, my body still throbbing like a sore thumb. “What we tried to do was buy a streamboat in good condition from a rich person who took good care of it. What we’re down to now is finding any ship that flies, and getting off Mallentis before the cops find us.”

  “I’ll start looking.” Vilaris moved toward the exit, but I stopped him.

  “Where are Chaz and Blaylocke?”

  “Crew cabin, maybe? Or aft, keeping the furnace going?”

  “Never mind,” I said. “You go. I’ll find them, as soon as I can stand up without my knees clacking together like cold teeth.”

  I sat alone, watching traces of firelight dance on the window panes, a cool nighttime breeze blowing in through the gash. My legs were splayed out, my arms hanging over the armrests, my back and neck both as stiff as a winter frost. No position I tried sitting in was comfortable.

  After a little while, I stood and stretched. It felt like my whole body had a headache. A veil of malaise descended over me as I passed through the cabins in search of Chaz and Blaylocke. I found them both sound asleep in the crew cabin. The remote that controlled my sub-signal crackler had slipped from Blaylocke’s dangling hand and was resting on the ground next to his bunk. I snatched it up without a second’s hesitation and shoved it into my pocket.

  I was free. It took me a moment to come to grips with it. I had the remote; it was mine now, and I could walk away. I could abandon this fool’s errand—Blaylocke’s words, not mine—and return to what was important: getting my Ostelle back. Getting revenge on the parents who’d sold me to the Civs.

  Once I had my boat back, I’d throw every last one of those stinking traitors overboard. I could already feel the smooth spokes of her wheel in my hands, feel her deck tremble beneath my feet as the turbines thundered. I could see her skimming across the sky, cutting a knife-line path along a misty yellow morning. I wanted to be there, walking through the clouds. I wanted to shut off the engines and let her glide, let the stream carry us away to anywhere.

  No more thinking about it, I told myself. I’m going.

  I moved for the door, but when I got there, I found I couldn’t go any further. It wasn’t because there was some force field blocking me. Not a physical one, anyway. It was because somewhere, down in the dirty black depths of my soul, a hint of morality was piercing the darkness like an ooey-gooey, compassionate beam of light. If I leave, I’ll be putting an entire city full of people in jeopardy. A city that might be the only true lasting remnant of the species I evolved from. Humans—humans like they were meant to be.

  In that moment, everything in me wanted to leave those stupid primies behind and never look back. Everything, that is, except the one tiny part of me that knew I couldn’t. Curse that part of me.

  “Time to get up, fellas,” I said. “Wakey, wakey. We gotta get off this floater before we’re knee-deep in law-lovers.”

  Blaylocke jolted awake; Chaz shifted in his bunk and opened his eyes. The two men looked at me with bleary, uncomprehending expressions. It was dark in the cabin, so I lit an oil lamp and sat down to wait for them.

  Blaylocke felt around on the floor, in his pockets, under the bed. He grabbed the overhead crossbeam and pulled himself into a seated position. He narrowed his eyes at me, then glanced around on the floor. “Where is it? I know you took it.”

  “Get up,” I said. “Vilaris and I got into some trouble. Pack your things and gather all the food you can carry. We’re abandoning ship.”

  I packed my own bag, then climbed to the deck to look out for Vilaris. He hadn’t returned after another fifteen minutes, by which time Blaylocke and Chaz had joined me above. The crowds below the cliffside elevators were be
ginning to clear out as night descended, and the winds howling through the canyon put a chill in the air. Many of the fires around us had gone out, leaving the twin cities to gleam on their perches far in the distance.

  Seeing my chance, I slipped belowdecks. A rush of warm air assailed me when I entered the furnace room. The potbelly’s slatted iron door squealed as I opened it to reveal the warm embers within. I took out the sub-signal remote and split it open with a chisel, ripped out its guts, and tossed the remains onto the fire. No more crackler. No more listening in while I piss and brush my teeth. They have no choice but to trust me the rest of the way. I threw another shovelful of coals into the furnace and was back on deck in under a minute.

  Vilaris jogged out of the darkness and climbed aboard. “I found a boat. It’s not as big as we wanted, and the crew’s small too, but it’s something. Oh, I should also mention that there are police officers roaming the airfield, looking for us. It took me a long time to get back because I had to dodge them.”

  “How far away is the ship?” I asked. “I’m just wondering if we should try bringing some of the supplies and food with us.”

  Vilaris ran a hand through his hair. In the moonlight, I could see a sheen of sweat glistening on his forehead. “We loaded the Clarity with enough food to last us three weeks. Chaz has all kinds of tools and tech stuffed away in there, too. I don’t see a reason not to bring a little of it, if we can. The ship is further out, fifty yards or so from the aft edge of Mallentis. That way.” He pointed.

  Blaylocke grabbed my arm. “Get inside. Clint, you too. Cops are coming.”

  We hurried down the stairs and into the ship. When I glanced back, Blaylocke was standing on deck with his hands at his sides, fists clenched, taking a deep, calming breath. Chaz was hunkered down in the stairwell, staying out of sight. My fate is now in the hands of a guy who hates my guts, I realized.

  The furnace room was still warm when Vilaris and I entered. The new coals were glowing red above a layer of white powder, and there was a burning plastic smell in the air.

  “What is that?” Vilaris said, wrinkling his nose.

  I changed the subject. “This couldn’t get much worse, could it?” I said. “I’m sorry for being a wanted man. This is more trouble than you deserve.”

  “Gareth won’t give us away,” Vilaris said. “There are times when his being uptight isn’t such a bad thing.”

  Muffled voices came from above, reverberating along the rafters. A smooth, no-nonsense cop’s voice. Blaylocke’s cocksure drone. Another cop. Blaylocke again. “You’re welcome, officers. I’ll be sure to let you know if I see anything.”

  “This is bad,” I said.

  “It sounds like they’re going away,” said Vilaris.

  “They want us to think so. No cop gives up that easily. That customs officer by the elevators recognized me on sight. There must be posters of me floating around all over the place. A reward for my capture, maybe. What would be worse is if some officer up there thinks he hit you with one of those pulser rounds and you didn’t fall down. Either they’ll think you’ve got some sweet new tech that protects your whole body from pulsers, or they’ll figure out you’re a primie.”

  Vilaris’s face hardened. “Okay, screw the supplies. Let’s just lock up what we can and come back for it later.”

  “No arguments here.”

  Chaz was still crouched in the stairwell when I opened the door, clutching the bag he’d packed. Blaylocke was standing on deck, stiff and unmoving, his back to us.

  Chaz looked as scared as I’d ever seen him. More scared than the day I met him, right after he’d found out I was a murderer. “Gareth told the officers he was waiting for his shipmates to get back with food. Said he’d keep an eye out for any suspicious characters that came by.”

  “Why are you hiding?” I asked.

  “In case we had to run.”

  “We do,” I said. “Those cops aren’t gonna give up until they find me.”

  “I know,” Chaz said. “They’re still standing right there. They’re on the bluewave, talking to headquarters about something.”

  We listened.

  The cop was talking in that smug, cavalier way law-lovers so often do. “… airship, approximately thirty feet, lone passenger says he has shipmates who have not returned. Refuses to allow us to search the vessel. Asking permission to board.”

  We all heard it. We exchanged looks.

  “We have to go now,” I said. “The hole in the side of the hull is our only way out from belowdecks.”

  Vilaris stopped me. “What about Gareth?”

  What about him? I wanted to say. I thought for a moment. “How many cops are there, Chaz?”

  “Two.”

  “Vilaris… go down and throw a big pile of coals in the furnace. The Clarity is taking off… one last time. Meet us in the control capsule.”

  I can only imagine how surprised Blaylocke must’ve been a minute or two later when the deck lurched beneath his feet. I was busy below, opening the ballonet valves and cranking the engines to full vertical. I hopped off my chair and grabbed my pack as I felt the ground pull away. When Chaz and Vilaris joined me, we hopped out through the gash and hustled off into the shadows, even as the deck began to ring out with the sounds of the cops’ boots.

  Taking cover behind a nearby airship, we waited for Blaylocke. I figured he’d build up the gumption to disembark sooner or later. It turned out to be sooner. When we saw him hit the ground, we waved our hands and whispered insults at him until we got his attention.

  The last time I ever laid eyes on her, The Secant’s Clarity was putting on a brave performance, making her cumbersome rise from the floater and giving the cops a bear of a time trying to bring her back down. She drifted backward through the sea of ships at rest, bouncing off hulls and masts until she’d risen high enough to clear them. I wondered how long it was going to take those law-lovers to figure out we were using the ballonets for hot-air lift instead of cold-air ballast. Thinking about it still makes me laugh.

  Vilaris led us to the far outskirts of the airfield. We were so close to the aft of the floater that it felt like the stream was going to suck me off the edge if I didn’t keep two feet on the ground. The city lights were distant and diffused, lost in a haze of nighttime clouds. I searched the sky for the Clarity, but either she’d been swept away into the gloom, or the cops had grounded her somewhere in the airfield.

  It was there, on that remote corner of Mallentis, that we first met the Galeskimmer and her crew. She was a beauty of a streamboat, slender and flat-bottomed, with a pair of silver turbines and a single sail for riding with the wind. Nothing close to the size or power of my Ostelle—she was even shorter than The Secant’s Clarity—but for our purposes, she’d serve just fine.

  We had only the clothes on our back and the belongings in our bags. It was a good thing, too, as we soon found out. The Galeskimmer had only one deck and twice as many crewmembers as the Clarity. Now that we were coming aboard, she’d have triple the Clarity’s crew, in total.

  “These are my friends,” Vilaris said when we arrived, flushed and out of breath.

  “Captain Sable Brunswick, at your service.” The voice was strong, bolder somehow than the mouse of a woman who owned it. She was short and thin, all pep and sparkle as she swung down from the deck and gave us a low bow that felt excessive under the circumstances. Her hair was tied back in a simple dirty-blond braid beneath the plumed tricorn she removed when she greeted us. The vest she wore was loose, and the pants that looked as though they had once hugged her slender hips were roomy.

  “Acting… Captain,” said the elderly fellow who emerged after her. He was tall and sinewy, his mouth puckered up tight beneath a snowy white beard, his clothes in need of mending.

  Sable gave the old man a look, her blue eyes as sharp as daggers. “Allow me to introduce Landon Scofield, the Galeskimmer’s quartermaster and a constant thorn in my side,” she told us. “We hear you’re in need of a lift.
”

  She was looking at me, so I answered. “If she’s fast. Looks like she’s got it where it counts.”

  The Captainess smirked. “Who… me, or the ship?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself, lady,” I said. “There’ll be plenty of time for me to tell you how great you are, if you can prove it.”

  “I’ve never been one for games, Mr…”

  I gave Vilaris a sideways look. “Call me Nordstrom.”

  Sable wasn’t fooled. “Well Mr. Nordstrom, I don’t like games, so let’s put it all out on the table, shall we? I think you’d better take a look at this.”

  She shoved a sheet of curled parchment toward me. I took it from her and unrolled it. There I was, WANTED. They’d even included my middle name. I didn’t even know I had a middle name. Thanks to those law-loving parents of mine, the whole stream knew it now.

  “This is a terrible picture,” I said. “Who’d the Civs hire to draw this, a blind monkey?”

  “An imperfect likeness, maybe,” said Sable. “But it’s you, nevertheless. Do you see the number at the bottom of the page?”

  I nodded. It was a big number.

  “Times are hard, Mr. Nordstrom. My crew and I don’t have the luxury of doing pro bono work.”

  “You can pro bono whoever you want,” I said. “That’s none of my business. All I want to know is how much you charge.”

  “We fly for whoever’s paying the most,” said Sable. “Having seen that number there, you now know how much you’re worth to the Civil Regency Corps. Would you care to make me an offer?”

  “That many chips, plus one,” I said.

  “There will be additional expenses if we have to fly you halfway across the stream. Then again, tying you up and waiting for the Civvies only costs me a length of rope and a few minutes’ time. Try again, Mr. Nordstrom.”

  “Give me a moment with my colleagues, here,” I said. I turned around and we huddled up. “They’re your chips, guys. What do you think?”