When he’d made it halfway to the stage, Una appeared at his shoulder and took his arm. “You’re late,” she whispered. “Everyone is waiting.” Before he could ask her what they were waiting for, Una was pulling him to the backstage entrance. The fact that she was also a doll didn’t strike Largo as strange at all, as if he’d known all along that she, like the audience, was an automaton, and that she’d designed and built herself.
It didn’t surprise him that the backstage crew were also dolls. What else could they be? He looked at his hands to make sure that he wasn’t a doll too, but dizzy as he was, he didn’t trust himself to form a definite opinion. Through the morphia haze, the prospect of losing the last vestiges of his humanity didn’t seem all that terrible.
When he finally peeked at the performance on the stage, Largo saw that Remy was there alone. It was startling when he realized that she was still herself and not a doll like everybody else. But that knowledge was tempered by the fact that her performance consisted of her writhing in the seizures that had contorted her body the last time he’d seen her. He rubbed his eyes and blinked. Even though it was Remy, her movements weren’t quite human. She lay on her back and moved so quickly that she was a mere blur of motion. The music from the band was a loud, discordant drone, like screeching tram tracks. Largo pushed Una away and ran to Remy’s side. By the time he reached her she was gone, vanished in a blur of twisted motion.
Alone now on the stage, he looked back into the wings and saw that they were empty. Turning to the audience, he saw Remy again. Hundreds of her. The seats that had been occupied by dolls just a moment before were now all filled with writhing and flailing Remys. The shrill music swelled in volume until he realized that the sound wasn’t music at all, but hundreds of Remy doppelgängers screaming in unison. The sound rose until it bored through his head like a drill. Largo jumped from the stage into the theater and began to run.
He didn’t dare look back, but he knew they were coming after him, all the Remys he couldn’t save. The theater seemed endless and the morphia dizziness made him stumble against the wall. Eventually, he saw the curtain to the lobby. The shrieking voices behind him rose in pitch and volume. Just before he ran into the lobby and to safety, something landed on him from behind and he was buried in a screaming darkness . . .
Largo jerked awake sweating. He checked his watch. Another two hours had passed. He was moving too slowly, burning time he didn’t have. If only the hunter had pointed him to the road. Largo had given him most of his money. He fantasized about all the ways he could get even with the man if he ever saw him back in Lower Proszawa. But the thoughts didn’t last long. From the theater’s stage came a low animal growl. More growls followed from the edges of the room. Largo got up and backed slowly out of the theater. The growling followed him.
When he was outside, four dark forms emerged from the shadows of the lobby. They were doglike chimeras like the ones at the curio hunters’ camp, but bigger. Bitva chimeras, he thought. War dogs. Worse, they were emaciated. In the goggles’ amber light, he could see their ribs and the outlines of their starving skulls. Having grown up in the Green, Largo knew one rule for facing wild dog packs: don’t run unless you have somewhere safe to run to. There was nowhere for him to go in the muddy bog and he didn’t want to return to the theater, knowing there might be more chimeras inside.
The pack bunched together tightly, growling and snapping, pushing him back into deeper mud. In just a few steps, he was up to his shins and barely able to move. One chimera stood at the head of the pack. The alpha, he thought. As it moved forward, the others followed. When it got close enough that he was certain he wouldn’t miss, Largo threw the wine bottle. It hit the chimera on its side. It yipped and jumped back a few feet, taking the pack with it. But they didn’t stay back for long before they closed in on him again. He took another step back and his foot came down on nothing, sinking instead into a deep watery hole. He fell backward and the chimeras sprang in his direction.
Panicked, he thrashed around in the mud. Through the wetness, Largo felt something heavy. It was a pipe. When he got to his feet and when the alpha was just an arm’s length away, he swung at it as hard as he could, slamming the metal into the side of its head. The alpha flailed for a moment and fell, but the other chimeras didn’t slow. Largo ducked and covered his head, but all three landed on him at the same time, knocking him onto his knees. One bit into his bad leg and another into his left arm. The third got a death grip on his coat and was slowly pulling him down. He knew that if they got him on the ground, he was finished.
He swung the pipe at the chimera on his leg and managed to knock it off. But he couldn’t reach the animal on his side. He hit the dog on his arm awkwardly. It yipped and growled but didn’t let go. As he reared back for another swing, the wet pipe slipped from his fingers and flew into the dark. By then, the alpha was back on its feet. Its gait was unsteady, but it came right at him.
There was a familiar pressure under his arm as the chimera on his side tried to pull him down, but for a second his panic lessened enough that he was able to think again. Largo reached under his coat and pulled out his knife.
He stabbed the chimera on his arm first and caught it in the throat. It fell thrashing into the mire. He caught one diving for his leg, driving the blade deep into its spine. Rather than fight the chimera that was trying to pull him over, he threw his weight forward and got an arm around its neck. He stabbed it blindly, over and over again. It snarled and yipped, its jaws snapping. But it finally let go of him and fell over.
Largo was facedown in the filth when he heard the alpha behind him. He tried to stand, but the mud held him firmly in place. All he could manage to do was roll over onto his back and hold the knife out just as the alpha slammed into him. Its teeth closed on his injured arm, but the bite wasn’t as vicious as he’d expected. Then he saw that his knife was halfway into the animal’s chest. Largo let the chimera hold on as he pushed the blade in up to the hilt.
The chimera didn’t make a sound. When its bite loosened, it tried to grab him again, but couldn’t. Soon it slumped over beside Largo in the quagmire. He lay on the ground for several minutes, trying to catch his breath. When he could move again, he dragged himself out of the deep mud to where he could stand. The chimeras lay around him in a semicircle and when he was certain that they were all dead, he put his knife away. Sure that the noise would have attracted any other chimeras hiding nearby, he went back into the more solid ground of the theater and fell into one of the seats.
All that waste. Creatures like that born in laboratories, bred to do nothing but kill. My chimeras would be different. They would have been, at least. Smart, beautiful, and surprising. Like Remy.
He was bleeding from his arms, leg, and side, but he decided the injuries weren’t bad enough to stop his search. Mostly, he was in pain. He took four drops of morphia and lay back in the theater seat, trying to gather himself. However, the act of getting out the morphia made him remember something. He reached into his right coat pocket and found Rainer’s pistol. I could have stopped the chimeras before they even touched me, he thought. Then he began to laugh.
When Largo opened his eyes, he realized that he’d fallen into an exhausted sleep.
Goddammit.
He started to check his watch but he knew it would only frighten him. Whatever else happened, he had to keep looking. Once he got to his feet, he found the withered tree between the hill and school and headed for it once more.
Less than an hour later, he realized that the hill he’d used as a sightline wasn’t really a hill at all. It was the top of a deep bunker. When he reached the edge, he fell onto his stomach and peered down inside.
It was an astonishing sight. Spread out in the interior of the bunker were orderly rows of trucks, juggernauts, and cannons. Workers cannibalized broken equipment and used the parts to repair other vehicles and weapons. Disassembled bombs lay in pieces along one wall near rows of war Maras. Another Mara emerged from the back
of the bunker, but not like any Largo had seen before. It was immense, as tall as a two-story building and as broad as a juggernaut. Workers directed it to a wrecked truck, which it picked up and moved across the bunker as easily as an adult picking up a child’s doll. Where do they get the power to run all this? he wondered. As he moved around the edge of the bunker, he got his answer. Inside the ruined school, and under layers of cargo nets, were a series of huge plazma generators.
Largo went back to the bunker and watched the people at work. There were no slaves down there, he was certain. These people are well trained.
What was also interesting was that, aside from hard hats, very few of the workers wore any protective clothing at all. Largo was certain that a group this organized wouldn’t work without suits because of laziness or neglect. They know something, he thought. Had the plague transformed into something milder, as Venohr had said? Or was it something worse? Maybe the plague stories were a ruse. A bedtime story to scare away the bay patrols and the curious. In the Green, they’d used stories about ghosts and cannibals to keep out snoops from other districts. Were these people doing the same thing?
It seemed to Largo that a group as organized as the metalworkers wouldn’t bother with slaves at all. Clearly they had power and plenty of Maras. Any work that people didn’t want to or couldn’t do, they could teach an automaton to perform. Besides, after the fiasco with the curio hunters and his new injuries, the idea of sneaking in somewhere so well run felt suicidal.
He took out the map and looked for other camps. There were two more to the north along a nearby road. He limped along the road, but the going was slow and he didn’t want to take any more morphia and risk falling asleep again. Gritting his teeth, he walked on, amusing himself by imagining Branca trying to explain his disappearance to his bosses. Maybe he’d claim that Largo had been carried off by slavers too. Would the Nachtvogel believe a story like that? He doubted it and was delighted by the idea of Branca desperately sending more and more minders into the city to find him. Soon there won’t be any ordinary people left. Just bullocks and the Nachtvogel scouring the morphia dens looking for me.
His good mood made the walk to the first camp easier, but it died quickly when he saw that the place was deserted. Following the map farther north he found the remains of the second camp. It was nothing but charred timbers; burned and decomposing bodies were scattered in the muck. The nose and rear fins from a bomb—recently exploded, judging by the smell—lay among the carnage. Other unexploded bombs were strewn in the mud nearby. Nothing moved and the place stank of rot and decay. Largo checked his watch. Thirteen hours had passed.
How long was I in the fucking mud back there?
The map showed more camps farther north and some back east toward the curio hunters. But he knew that on foot, and moving slowly, he’d never find them and make it to the wharf in time. There was only one more camp he might be able to reach, and he’d have to hurry to get there and back to the boat.
To Largo’s great surprise, the last camp was even stranger than the metal works. And the smell was staggering.
A large crew of men were digging up a vast cemetery. They tore open the ground with excavating equipment and stacked dead bodies in piles twenty feet high in some places. Trucks laden with more corpses rolled down nearby roads and dumped their cargo before turning around and heading out again.
None of the workers wore protective suits, though most wore gloves and breathing masks to keep out the stink. Largo covered his own face with his sleeve to keep from vomiting. The crew seemed well organized and he didn’t see any women at all. No Remy or Lucie, he thought. At least not here.
Largo made his way around the edge of the camp to one of the roads where the trucks were bringing in bodies and followed it into the wilderness. He was off Steinmetz’s map now and traveling blind.
The road curved through the remains of a district of the city. The pavement had been torn off the top, revealing bricks underneath. Largo walked past toppled high-rises and empty shopping districts. The walls of the standing structures were pitted with bullet holes and bomb damage. Crushed trucks and burned-out juggernauts lay everywhere. He followed the muddy tire tracks deeper into the ruins.
Just past a bleak stand of scorched trees, Largo found the corpse truck. The workers looked like the ones he’d seen at the larger camp. They all were men and wore breathing masks, except when they had to talk to one another. Smaller vehicles brought in more loads of bodies and dumped them by the corpse truck.
Largo had never thought about the sheer number of people who must have died here during the war. The population of Lower Proszawa was over a million and High Proszawa had been easily twice as large. That, coupled with all the soldiers, meant that he might be surrounded by a million or more corpses.
But why would anyone want them?
Before he had a chance to speculate, a familiar sight caught his eye. While workers loaded bodies onto pallets that were taken to the large corpse trucks, what actually moved the bodies was a long line of Black Widows. They were covered in filth but unmistakable. Largo hid behind the trees, watching the smooth precision of the workers and the Widows. More professionals, he thought. Like all the other equipment, the corpse truck was covered with muck and ooze. But the receptacle on the back was high enough that the mud only went halfway up. There was a design visible just above the dirt line. It was a bull’s head over a gear, surrounded by fire. Largo tapped his goggles to make sure they were working properly, but when he looked again, the design hadn’t changed. It was the carving he’d seen on the front of Baron Hellswarth’s desk, his family crest and the emblem of the armaments company.
He made his way back to the cemetery as quickly as he could and hid by the side of the road. Black Widows unloaded pallets of bodies while Schöne Maschinen trucks and excavators moved through the graveyard with practiced precision.
Are they all stolen? he wondered. They have to be. What could it profit the Baron to be involved with grave robbery? It was too vile to think about.
Largo sat down on the muddy road. Fourteen hours had passed and he still needed to get back to the U-boat. He was freezing and covered from head to toe in mud and probably worse. He was exhausted and bleeding. And he’d accomplished nothing more than wasting his time and Rainer’s money, dooming himself with the Nachtvogel, and perhaps losing any chance he had to find Remy.
Was this all a folly of ego? he thought. I’m no hero. Look at me, lying in the mud like a child. Worse, Branca was right. I’m a fool, and not even a useful one.
He put three drops of morphia under his tongue and headed south along the road, hoping he wasn’t too late to get back onto Steinmetz’s boat. He had no idea what would happen once they reached Lower Proszawa. All Largo was sure of was that he wanted—he needed—to get out of High Proszawa as quickly as possible.
He made it back to the wharf with half an hour to spare. He couldn’t find Steinmetz or any of his crew, so he went and sat on a crate on the side of the cargo area. He’d be clear of workers and machinery there, plus he was somewhat isolated and that was exactly what he wanted. The thought of having to explain his trip to anyone made him feel angry and sick. The amber chimera light from the goggles was beginning to give him a headache, so he closed his eyes. Several minutes had passed when he felt something sharp in his side. When he opened his eyes, he saw the man with the ridiculous helmet from the curio hunter camp. A woman in a protective suit hung on his arm. She said, “I told you we’d find him here.”
The curio hunter pressed his knife into Largo’s side and said, “Thought you’d got away from us, didn’t you?”
Largo knew he should be scared. He wanted to be scared, but all he felt was exhaustion and indifference. He said, “I didn’t get away. You let me go.”
Red-faced, the woman slapped the curio hunter. “You let him go, you simpleton?”
“I took his money,” he said.
The woman pointed at Largo. “He’s a city man,” she said
. “City men have lots more stuff than just money.”
The hunter turned to him angrily. The idiot is blaming me for his beating, Largo thought. Wonderful.
He said, “Is she right, city man? What else you got?”
The woman slapped him again. “Don’t ask his permission. Just search him,” she yelled.
The hunter wheeled around to the woman. As he spoke, he emphasized each word by gesturing with the knife. “I fucking told you not to hit me like that, Marta, I fucking told you.”
She got closer, sneering at him. “What you going to do, dummes junge?”
“Don’t call me that,” he growled.
“You child!” she yelled.
“Stop it!”
All the fear and fury Largo had bottled up for days overwhelmed him. He bolted from the crate and grabbed the hunter’s knife hand. They fell to the ground, fighting all the way. The hunter thrashed and spit at him, but Largo managed to stay on top and pin the other man with his weight. Still, the hunter was able to bend the wrist holding the knife and jam the tip into the back of Largo’s hand. He screamed and drove his knee into the other man’s crotch. While the hunter was stunned, Largo, furious now, pulled his own knife. The hunter punched him in the side of his head and tried to gouge his fingers into Largo’s eyes. Without planning, without thinking, working simply from pain and rage, Largo drove his knife into the hunter’s ribs. When he realized what he’d done, he expected the man to scream. Instead he went rigid and let out a ragged, gasping breath. He struggled against Largo for a few more seconds, but there was no strength in it. Finally, he lay still.
The Grand Dark Page 34