Heart of Veridon bc-1

by Tim Akers

  “You look like shit,” he mumbled.

  “You look like an ensign who’s been fucking sheep all night. Let me in, Cal.”

  We went way back. Academy together. Expelled, for completely different reasons, together. I think Cal blamed me at some karmic level for his own fall from the ranks of Pilot. He had settled into a desk job, and I had settled into a life of crime. We both had our moments of envy, but we got along well for all that.

  “Fair enough,” he said, and let me in. His room was a mess, but inspections outside the walls of the fort were infrequent. I sat on most of a chair while he spun up a tiny frictionlamp and scrounged up a largely empty bottle of rum.

  “What’s eating Jacob Burn, at this hour? Unless this is a social call?” he asked, tipping the bottle my way. I shook my head.

  “What are you into these days, Cal?”

  “Debt,” he said with a smile. “And loose women. Less often than I’d like.”

  “I mean professionally. Last we talked about work, you were overseeing requisitions for the downfalls campaign.”

  “So, not a social call at all,” he said. He looked a little glum. “You never come around anymore, just to chat.”

  “It’s because I no longer love you, Calvin. I’m in a very satisfying relationship with a signpost. Now, will you focus for a second and listen. What are you doing these days?”

  “Why do you want to know?” he asked.

  “There’s someone I need to find. A marine by the name of Wellons. Need to know his last assignment, maybe where he is.”

  “Not a lot to go on. But,” he stood up, finished the bottle and tossed it on his bed, then started looking for some pants. “I know where to look. What do you know about him?”

  I produced the ID card. He peered at it, frowned, then distractedly put on his pants with one hand while holding the card up to his face with the other.

  “This should say, shouldn’t it? How’d you get his ID if you’re looking for him? What’d he do, lose it?”

  “Left it behind,” I said. “At a girl’s house. And now the father wants a word, you understand.”

  “Oh, well then, I don’t think I could help you, Jacob. Got to protect my brothers from the angry fathers of the world.”

  “Just put on your pants, Cal. You can help me find him?”

  “If he’s on assignment, sure. I’m in the Registers now. Signing checks, balancing books.”

  “You know a guy named Prescott?” I asked.

  “He’s a twat.”

  “Well.” I looked uncomfortably around the room. “He couldn’t have been that bad.”

  “Says you. Now come on.”

  We went out his hall and down the road a bit. The Registers office was a diminutive brick building with uneven walls and tiny windows. Everyone seemed surprised to see Calvin so early. We went back to his tiny office and huddled around the desk while he flipped through ledgers and frowned nervously at balance sheets. Eventually, he pulled out a sheaf of loose assignment rosters and began shuffling through them.

  “You know, Jacob, I think it’s very odd that you’re doing this sort of thing. Was she a friend of yours?”

  “Who?”

  “The girl. Wellons’s little honey.”

  “Oh. No. I mean, her father and my father. Anyway. It’s just a job.”

  “So you’re getting paid for this? Well. I don’t feel so bad, then.”

  “About what?”

  He shrugged, rolled his eyes around the room. “Anyway. I just didn’t think you were the type to hunt down lost lovers and such. I always thought you were doing, you know. More interesting stuff.”

  I sighed. “I have bills, too.”

  “Hm. Well, if you ever want a job with the Registers…”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  He chuckled, then plucked a sheet out and lay it on the desk. It was an oil stained parchment, a copy of the original document.

  “I suppose this is it, then. Tell your father’s friend hard luck.”

  “What?”

  “He’s dead.” He ran his finger across a line on the sheet. Wellons’s name, ID number, rank. Deceased, two years ago. I looked over the rest of the sheet.

  “These people all died at once?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Special assignment, whole team lost. Let’s see… nothing about where or how. Just dead.”

  There were fifteen names on the list. Marcus was one of them.

  “This guy, Marcus Pitts,” I said, gesturing at the paper. “He wasn’t a military guy.”

  “You knew him, too?”

  “Yeah. I don’t think he was in the service.”

  Calvin shrugged, looked over the paper. “Well, he died in the service.”

  “And there’s nothing about what these guys were doing?”

  “Nope. Special assignment. Probably running drugs or something morally negligible like that.”

  “Can I get a copy of this?” I asked.

  “Absolutely not.” Calvin took a pen and clean paper out of his desk, set it next to the deceased notice, and pushed them both towards me. “It is against regulations for any official document of this service to fall into the hands of civilians. Especially criminals like you, Jacob Burn.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Of course.”

  I started copying names, starting at the bottom, to see if there was anyone else in this special detachment that I recognized. I noticed the death notice was authenticated by good old Angela Tomb. None of the other names struck a bell. They were all sergeants, even Marcus. I stopped at the last name on the list. Coordinating officer. Captain Malcom Sloane.

  The foyer to my building was quiet. The entryway was draped in layers of threadbare carpets, each one thinner and older and moldier than the one beneath. The paint on the walls cracked. Weather up on the Torch’ was hard on architecture. It was hard on everything. The building creaked in the wind that would blow up the crags and howled into the too-close sky. Hard to sleep in this wind. People in my building came to bed drunk, or so tired that hell itself wouldn’t keep them up.

  Mostly zepdock folks lived here, managers or protocol officers who could afford the luxury of sleeping near work. This place was about as cheap as this district got, unless you were wearing the gray and had a barracks to flop.

  The Torchlight had started as a tiny fort on the spit of rock just downriver of the city proper, a sentry post to watch the river. Time and market forces, along with the sudden dominance of the zepliner in the course of Veridon’s ascendance, had made this real estate valuable. The Torch’ had been absorbed into the city, connected by the wide avenue of the Bridge District. Space was at a premium, and expensive. This whole building was strapped precariously to the sheer cliffs of the Torchlight. The walls creaked in the wind, but the views were spectacular.

  I stayed here for business. My money was in the docks, in the people I knew from my time in the Academy, people who hadn’t washed out, people who were now officers and gentlemen of the line. For every Commodore who hated me, every instructor who wouldn’t care if I washed up dead on the Reine, there were three old friends. That was my money; old friends and the tolerance that came with a Founder’s name and a father on the Council. Even a father I hadn’t spoken to in five years.

  Hadn’t been enough to keep me safe last night, I thought as I eased into the foyer and checked my box. The carpet here smelled like river water had soaked it into mold. It smelled especially rank this morning, or maybe that was me. I walked up the creaky old staircase to my room on the third floor, near the end. I bolted it once I was inside, stripped and lay on the bed. That smell was definitely me. I wanted to sleep, but here wasn’t safe. I probably shouldn’t have even come here, now that I stopped to think. I’d just been running away from whatever had taken the Summer Girl, away from the Tomb Estate on the Heights and its complications. Whatever was going on up there, I was out of my league. All the way down the mountain I had thought about it, about the gun and the photo and
that… thing. The Girl. I didn’t know which one I had killed, the girl or the thing she had become. What the difference was, for that matter. And what any of it had to do with the Glory of Day and the artifact-cog. The Cog that I had left…

  In Emily’s apartment. I sat up sharply, remembered where I should have gone first. I stood up and started to pull on clothes. I must have slept, because I didn’t hear the man outside my door until he was picking the lock.

  I froze, one leg in my pants, the other in mid-air. My balls socketed themselves and I dropped my belt and quietly crept to my jacket and the gun. I got it out just as the door was opening.

  It was Pedr, one of Valentine’s runners. He was a short man, and thin, with a head that was a little too big and cheekbones that were so thin and sharp they looked artificial, like he had a trick skull that was coiled to spring through his pale skin. He saw me and dropped his lock pick.

  “Oh. Oh, fuck,” he said.

  “Oh fuck indeed.” I stood there glowering at him, not bothering to cover my nakedness or the pistol in my hand. He averted his eyes and tried to shuffle out. I pulled him into the room and shut the door. “What’s happening, Pedr?”

  “I just, I thought.” He sat on the bed and clammed up. He twined his fingers in his lap, twisting the ends of his dirty cuffs over and over. I set the revolver on my tiny desk and resumed getting dressed.

  “You thought.” I finished with my pants and pulled out the most nondescript shirt I had. I watched him while I buttoned up. “What did you think, Pedr?”

  “Nothing. Just that you’d be up at the Manor, still. Rain and all.”

  “Thought you’d roll my pad while I was on the boss’s business?”

  He winced, looked at me sidewise. Nodded.

  “Okay. So, really,” I sat next to him on the bed while I fixed my socks and pulled on my boots. your “That’s story? Honestly? You were going to rob your boss’s weapon of choice.”

  He looked down at his feet, twisted his cuffs. He might have nodded. “Sure.”

  “You’re a little shit, Pedr, but you’re not stupid.” I stood up, took the gun and leaned casually against the hearth. “Who was it?”

  He sat and squirmed and looked like he wasn’t going to answer. I leaned forward and popped him across the jaw, just enough to knock him off the bed. Big head like his, it didn’t take much force to put him off balance. He whimpered then scooted back up.

  “Someone told you to break into my room, Pedr. If I search you, if I can hold my breath long enough, I’m going to find some money. A clean, shiny roll of crown that you haven’t had a chance to filth up yet. Right? If that happens, if you don’t talk and I have to search you, and I find that money, well. I’m going to get loud. I’m going to wake the neighbors up, breaking things over your god damn head, until you do talk. Right?”

  “That’s not what I want, man.”

  “That’s not what any of us want. My neighbors included. So let’s sit here, and let’s talk.”

  He snorted, rubbed his face and neck, then dug into his coat and threw a roll of coins onto the bed. A lot of coins.

  “Keep it,” he said. “I didn’t know the guy.”

  I smiled and pushed the coins around on my bed with the barrel of the pistol. “Sure you didn’t. But you saw him. That’s where we’re going to start.”

  Pedr shrugged. “Big guy. He was… he looked like something official.” He glanced up at me. “Looked like money.”

  “Your money guy, was he in some kind of uniform?”

  “No. No, but he looked like he could have filled a suit, you know. Like he’d be comfortable in uniform.” His eyes found mine. “Kinda like you.”

  “Like me. And did he…” I stopped. There were footsteps on the stairs. They stopped outside my door. I whispered. “You expecting backup?”

  Pedr’s eyes were wide. He shook his head and squirmed up over the bed, standing up with his back against the far wall.

  “Stay quiet.” I stood by the door, behind it. Whoever was in the hall had stopped moving. I could hear him breathing. He had heard us talking, no question. He turned and started down the stairs, fast. When he was gone I turned back to Pedr.

  “I’m about to throw you out there, man. With whoever that was. Sure there’s nothing else you want to tell me?”

  He blanched, but shook his head.

  “Okay, well. Go get the hell out. And if you ever take money from someone who isn’t the boss, to break into my place or follow me or anything. Well.” I walked over and patted him on the shoulder. “I’m not going to do a damn thing. But I’m going to tell Valentine that he’s got rats in the walls, and we’ll just see what he does.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Sure thing, Jake.”

  “Sure thing. Now go.”

  He left fast, scooping up the money from my bed as he went. I listened to him clatter down the stairs. I hadn’t gotten all the answers I wanted, but there was only so much he’d know. People like Pedr make a living out of not knowing, not seeing; just take the money, do the job, forget about it. I understood. I finished dressing, tucked the Glory revolver into my shoulder harness and went out.

  They found me on the Pauper’s Bridge, two of them. There was a third, up ahead, who tagged me when I tried to run. They were Valentine’s boys, people I knew. They didn’t act too familiar.

  Coming out of my building, I looked up at a clear morning sky. The storm had finally passed, and the zepdocks were busy. Had one of the ships gliding above me carried word from the Heights, or was it still storming at the higher elevations? Couldn’t tell from here. I was still thinking about that when I made my tail, shortly after I joined the traffic on the Pauper’s. Big guy in an old suit, too formal for morning traffic, but the suit was too ratty to mark him as money. An affectation. I hated strong boys who played dress up. I made the second guy five steps later, loitering not ten feet behind the first. Playing too close. Wanted to be seen, maybe. He was in the same get up, black vest suit that was going gray at the cuffs, too many watch chains and monocle clasps.

  The Orrey boys. Following me, acting like they didn’t see me ten feet away, when I had dinner with them the day before my little trip downfalls. Imagine that.

  Thing is, the boys had chosen their spot well. Pauper’s is just a big bridge, despite all the shops and cartstands along the way. No alleys to duck down, no sideroads to loop through. One way in, one way out, and a fifty foot drop into the Ebd river below. The whole place groaned underfoot; a tangle of chains and wooden arches kept the place up. It wasn’t safe, but it wasn’t going to fall down today. There were crowds, but the boys weren’t trying to stay hidden at all, so there was no way I was going to get enough people between us to lose them.

  I took the only out I had. I ran. I put my elbows into the crowd and crawled my way through. The boys stayed on me, not hurrying up. They spread out, in case I tried to double back, but they didn’t try to keep up. Still didn’t look at me, either. It was like they didn’t care if they lost me once I got to the end of the bridge.

  I looked forward, forgetting the boys. If they didn’t care what happened once I got off the bridge, it could only mean that I wasn’t getting off the bridge. I saw the trap, a guy in front, waiting. Not someone I knew. He wasn’t as big, but his coat fell unnaturally over his shoulders. I drifted right and he drifted with me, like he was a kite on a string. He was going a little slower than me, getting closer with each step. I slowed down hard, nearly stopping. The guy behind me stumbled into my back, fell on his ass. Whatever the guy had been carrying, a bag or basket of fruit, scattered and rolled in oblong patterns down the cobbles. He was swearing as he stood, but the tail to my front was having similar problems. An old lady had dropped a jar of coffee and was yelling at the tough’s unturned back. I shot forward and to the side, my fingers brushing the pistol in my coat as I passed him. I risked a look over. Under his coat there was a lot of metal and the tiny whirling dance of gears and flywheels. He looked up at me, unconcerned, his eyes d
ead stone pits. I pushed hard on the crowd and broke into a lull in the traffic, an open courtyard between rivers of pedestrians. I dashed across, squeezed between a sausage vendor and a closed stall and got off the bridge.

  Fourth guy. He put a hand on my chest, the palm wide, his other arm hidden behind him. He looked me right in the eye and smiled.

  “Burn. Where you headed?” He said. It was Cacher. Friend of Emily. Good friend.

  “I don’t know, Cacher.” I looked back to see the Orrey boys and the metal guy amble up. “Where am I headed?”

  It wasn’t one of the quayside warehouses, so that was okay. Whatever was going on, it wasn’t that bad. The third guy kept really close, his eyes dead. Other than Valentine, this guy was the most metal I’d ever seen. His face was a steel plate, the eyes pitted ball bearings that looked like river stones. However he saw, it wasn’t the way I did. Just his jaw and teeth were original issue. When his coat flipped aside there was more, a plain of tiny gears spinning through their cycles. Most of it was probably just for show, but I made a note to never gut-punch this guy. Probably lose my knuckles in the grind. He kept those dead eyes on me.

  The others were real casual, like we were buddies out for a walk. Hell, we were buddies, of a sort. I didn’t always like to be around Cacher when Emily was in the room, but we all got along well enough.

  “Boss could have just arranged a meeting,” I said. “My appointment book is open.”

  “I figure he just did, Burn,” Cacher said. He grinned. His teeth were lined in black gunk, drippings from the cassiopia he had tucked into his cheek. “An urgent meeting, I figure.”

  “Fair enough. Still.” I shrugged. They had taken my gun, chuckled as they read the inscription on the service piece. “Coulda been more direct about it. You make me feel like I did something.”