“Congratulations,” a voice said at her ear, the tournament director, come to lead her away. “You did excellent, Pax.”
An announcement penetrated her numbness. “– Kuranes, placed 68. Ordshaw’s own, everyone please, give her a hand.”
Two tables over, Dutch McRory was standing, joining in the applause. He gave her a kindly nod and she smiled back. Placed 68. In the money. Stacey Monroe would get paid. A camera crew were hustling through the crowd, waving for attention. She hadn’t done much, but she was a woman, local. A Story. Bowing her head, Pax turned away. “I’ve got to go.”
Avoiding well-wishers and the disappointed camera crew, Pax hurried into the lobby with the tournament director close behind, chatting about her winnings. Couldn’t face this, needed a distraction. She took out her phone and he backed off, no stranger to the odd behaviour of an eliminated player.
It took a few rings before Ward answered this time. Good for her.
“Pax, how’s it going?”
“Yeah,” Pax said. “It’s gone.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Where are you?”
“Underground. Scraping the surface of exactly how corrupt our reporting systems might be. You were right, Pax, there was something – the true novisan patterns were hidden from us, our calculations misaligned somehow. But we’ve got new equipment –”
“As long as you’re straightening things out.”
“That’s an overstatement. Pax, we’ve got creatures a long way from the praelucente. Near the FTC, even – it’s rare for them to come this way. You were right, the blue screens did something.”
“The FTC,” Pax echoed. She saw a big screen over the main desk, the rankings for the tournament updating. Her name right at the bottom: PLACED 68. What was that worth, a couple of grand? A long way from a house, or retirement, or anything more than scratching about to live. The gains she might’ve got with a bit more focus – no, stop thinking of it. She had worthy distractions. “What are you saying? There’s monsters coming for the Fae?”
“I don’t know exactly, yet,” Ward said. “And it’s only getting stranger. Our new equipment, it comes from a private source. Duvcorp – I had no idea of their research. Christ, I’d really like your read on that. When can you come in? Are you still playing?”
Pax dragged a hand over her face, seeing kings and queens and fucking failure. Forget that: monsters were moving towards the Fae. Had the blue screens used their energy to spring an attack? After all these years keeping themselves to themselves? It was a good thing she’d gone bust, wasn’t it? Not answering Ward’s questions, Pax said, “What do you know about Fae energy?”
“What do you mean? They tap into our electric grid, but it’s so minimal we –”
“No, their physical energy.” The camera crew entered the hall, and Pax hid behind a pillar. “What makes them Fae? How do they impact novisan?”
“Um. I’m not aware of the Fae affecting novisan any differently to how we would expect people to on that scale. We trace them using their heat-signature and sound. Their wings create a pattern unique in nature – that’s what guides our shock guns.”
“The blue screens kept us apart for a reason,” Pax said. “The horde goes mad on their account. These things are controlling, and Fae energy makes them lose control.”
“You do have something, don’t you? Where were you before?”
Pax paused. Before, she had a chance at financial independence. Now, where was she? Twisting in the confusion of monsters.
Dutch McRory came around the pillar and Pax yelped.
“Jesus fuck – sorry, hell –” Pax put a hand over her mouth at the older man’s gentle amusement. Great move, cursing heaven before a poker legend. “Mr McRory, I didn’t mean to –”
“My bad, I wasn’t looking to intrude. I only wanted to say…” Dutch held up a business card. “It’d be good to share some hands again, before I leave town.”
Pax looked at the card with alarm, fingers barely daring to touch it. The words come automatically, “Actually. There is a game – this evening.”
“Send me the details.” He smiled and moved away with a light remark, “Back to work!”
“Pax, was that someone –” Ward started.
“Poker, Sam,” Pax replied quietly. Had that really just happened? It seemed less real than the monsters. Was 68 maybe not that bad – she still had a future? Monroe’s game would be big. And the Fae . . . there might be Fae there. Yes. She said, “Listen, I’ve got another game that I need to be rested for. Might lead somewhere good for both of us. We’ll discuss everything tomorrow. Deal?”
“What?” Ward asked. “Wait, what is it –”
“I’m out of the tournament,” Pax said, to an apologetic sound from Ward. “I need this.” Not just for money. Pax stared at McRory’s departing back. Connections, security, Fae meetings. This evening would have it all. “It’s important. And these aren’t the sort of people that’d take kindly to government interference, understand?”
Ward hesitated. “I’d really like you to come in, Pax.”
“I will. Tomorrow. Right now you’ve got to trust me.”
“I do, of course I do . . .”
Pax almost cringed at how desperate Ward was for an ally. Pax wanted to help, after her own problems were managed. Was there some little way to show that? “You’re underground now? Near the FTC?”
“Kind of. We’ve been moving away, checking the tunnels –”
“Move further away. At least until I get a better idea of what’s going on. Don’t do anything to provoke the Fae, don’t go near them.”
“The creatures might threaten them, we could help –”
“The Fae aren’t going to see it as help, Sam. Get out of there. I’ll take care of it.”
After surveying the Bartons’ tidy lawn, Casaria knocked. He turned to watch the house opposite. Casual, hiding his desperation in coming here after he’d found no one from the Ministry at three separate Sunken City entrances, and seen Pax wasn’t home. Anyway, there were months’ worth of debriefs to be done with this family, so it wasn’t unreasonable to drop by.
“Hi, can I –” a teenager’s chirpy voice said behind the opening door. “Oh, it’s you.” Grace, the inexplicably perfect daughter, made cheap ripped jeans and a loose t-shirt look fashionable. Her feet were bandaged and a pair of crutches was propped by the wall.
“Young lady.” Casaria showed his teeth in a grin. “Your parents in?”
With no smile of her own, Grace shifted a foot. “You don’t know where they are? I thought you might be with them.”
Casaria kept the smile. So his instincts were right, and the MEE were in touch with the Bartons and not him. “Of course I know. I thought they were due back, though?”
She looked uncertain, but said, “Do you want to come in? I was making a drink.”
It wouldn’t do to be found alone in this house with this young lady, but it was all he had. Casaria nodded and she used the crutches to swing down the hall. He followed, finally losing the smile as he watched the strain in her movement.
This is why we do what we do, he told himself. A delicate flower like this needs so much protection. Let them think badly of him for coming here, for all he did in the course of his work. His work was necessary.
“This way.” Grace continued to the kitchen. Music played softly from a low-grade speaker. A trashy pop tune, matching the sound system. She added milk to a pan already steaming on the hob, and put a second mug alongside one on the counter. “They said they’d be back by dinner, but I’ve got some macaroni cheese in the fridge anyway, and enough episodes of Culture Snap to last me like a week.”
“They haven’t been in touch?” Casaria asked. “Not said how they’re getting on?”
“Mum messaged an hour ago, actually,” Grace said, pouring hot milk into the mugs. “To remind me about my medicine. But they’re not telling me things. I mean, if I’m really careful Mum might let me look at that”
– she pointed at a book – “but I’m supposed to keep out, otherwise. It’s okay. Rufe will fill me in. Do you like Rufe?”
Casaria wasn’t listening, eyes on the book. The big leather-bound tome of Apothel’s Miscellany, the collected thoughts of a madman. Entrusted into these banal civilians’ hands. And they were off with the Ministry? Had the world turned upside down?
The girl was suddenly in front of him, smiling, with a mug held out. It gave a rich waft of chocolate. He took the drink stiffly. He hadn’t asked for it – likely to give him spots – but her face was insistent. Disarmingly encouraging. He took a sip as she watched, and he offered the slightest nod, which somehow lit her face up with delight. She twirled back to the counter, towards her own drink, using a crutch like a vaulter’s pole.
“You probably don’t have real chocolate at work,” Grace said. “Dad complains about his office; they have a choice between sugar water and shit wa –” She froze, a hand over her mouth, giving Casaria a secretive, cheeky look. “Sorry, Mr Casaria. I wasn’t thinking.”
He mumbled a response behind another sip of the drink as Grace took her own. This young beauty, joking with him, knew his name? He certainly shouldn’t be here. Did she even understand flirting?
“Do you want to know what I think?” Grace asked. “Rufe’s fun, but he needs to separate the stories from the reality. His dad might have been the same.”
“Is he here?” Casaria asked. Surely they hadn’t enlisted that bum Rufaizu, too?
“No, he went with them. I’m the only one too young. Old enough to get kidnapped by fairies, though.”
Was anyone but him not involved in this? “Who did they go with exactly? Where to?”
Grace’s eyes focused in realisation. Casaria forced his smile, but wasn’t feeling it. Her face didn’t shift. Was she going to scream?
“They left you out, too, Mr Casaria?” Grace spoke softly. He gave a dismissive snort, but had no immediate rebuttal. “They keep asking me if I’m okay. Like, do I have bad dreams or something? I told them it was nothing. My dad lived through this stuff over and over, I just had a few bad days. And I was fine. This” – she held up a bandaged foot – “wasn’t even an injury. Too much walking, that’s all. I mean, yes, it was scary, but I’m not gonna stay scared, am I? I’d rather get over it.”
Casaria said nothing for a moment. Was she making a point? He had a bad foot, too. She’d got over her fears, he should too? But he didn’t have fears. “Is that what they think? I’m not fit for work?”
Grace studied him for a confused moment. “I wasn’t . . .” Then her face became very serious and she put her mug down. “Mr Casaria, is this to do with Ms Ward? I think they are with her. But listen, there’s this guy in my class, Luke Merrick, he spent months talking to everyone but Claudia Newman, and when they finally got together, it wasn’t even worth it. They split up like three weeks later. You like her but are worried because she’s your boss? I’d just get it out there, if I were you.”
Casaria’s eyes were wide with . . . something. Shock? Anger? The cheek of this brat – the presumption – the same nonsense Pax had spouted. He lowered his drink to admonish her. But hesitated. What if Sam Ward was keeping him at bay out of similarly misguided awkwardness? Perhaps the girl was right.
11
“Stinks to heaven and hell,” Letty told Edwing, pacing what little floor space her dark hideout permitted while Flynt watched with his arms folded. “The Dispenser’s one thing, but that weed? Your new strains of dust? The glowing shit going into pipes – Pax was onto something, wasn’t she? There’s more behind Val’s tricks than keeping us under lock and key. Connections to the Sunken City she’s hiding.”
“All the more reason to approach this diplomatically,” Edwing said. Letty had expected a berating for their little break-in, but he’d come with quiet concern rather than anger. He’d spoken softly to Flynt, worried he might’ve been hurt. It was all good. They’d gone more or less unseen; the first guard wouldn’t identify them, the engineer was too cowardly to raise a storm. And Edwing was looking forward rather than back. “If there’s a connection between dust production and those tunnels, bringing it brashly into question could see us connected to the humans as a threat to our society. Raising treasonous suggestions. We can’t risk undermining Valoria until we know what the connection is.”
“You need to undermine the fuck out of her right away,” Letty said. “She’ll destroy the Dispenser – the only drastic thing you could do would be not storm in and secure it. Drum up a mob and pitchfork your way through!”
Edwing looked to Flynt and the scout said, “I could get a couple dozen guys –”
“All we’d do is expose ourselves,” Edwing said. “She could say she was testing it in private, ensuring it was genuine, or safe. She would hide anything truly implicating her before we got in.”
“You were there,” Letty said to Flynt. “You get the need to act, don’t you?”
“I get it,” Flynt replied, looking to his brother. “But we’ve gotta act smart, don’t we?”
Letty took that in unhappily; an echo of the comments she made to her own boys. They might’ve simply broken into the FTC and settled here under the radar, if she hadn’t always been trying to do things right. That’s what this kid wanted. She shook her head. “Maybe fast beats smart, right now.”
“Short-sighted as ever, Letty,” a low voice said, as a man entered. Edwing stayed Flynt’s hand going to his pistol, as Letty recognised their guest, from long ago. Smark, pear-shaped and bald with swollen facial features; his loose suit was greasy in patches, perfectly fitting to his yellowing skin and an array of jewellery hanging from his left ear, chosen for size rather than elegance.
“Welcome, Smark,” Edwing said. “Letty, this is the Waste Chief, I invited him.”
“Chief now?” Letty said. He had been around before she was exiled, a neighbourhood junker back then. With ready access to human amenities, few public industries really mattered to the Fae: dust production and trade, entertainment, health and education were high up there. A few rungs down were the junkers: people responsible for sanitation and, more importantly, for removing all traceable evidence of the Fae. Letty commented, “For someone who’s gone up in the world, you look worse than I remember.”
“Feeling’s mutual,” Smark replied.
Behind him came a tall, greying woman with a dark suit and the flitting eyes of the perpetually nervous. Edwing said, “And this is Deidre, councilwoman for housing in the bottom third.” An even lower role, really: anyone could manage static living spaces. “Deidre, Letty.”
“The troublemaker,” Smark surmised. Letty’s grin told him to sit on a rusty spike.
“Letty and Flynt entered the vats. They’ve confirmed Valoria has the Dispenser.”
“Entered the vats?” Smark responded incredulously, while Deidre offered hushed surprise: “That’s good, no?”
“It’s not good,” Letty said, “because Val won’t use the fucking weapon.”
“Is that news?” Smark said. “Why should the Sunken City interest us when we’ve got humans on our borders?”
“Val obviously cares enough to avoid the place, you pile of bile,” Letty snapped, then asked Edwing, “What are these pricks here for? This mug used to spend Saturdays hosing down vomit.”
“Letty, please,” Edwing intervened, holding up his hands. “We need to approach this from the top, where we can effect wider change. We need the Council – it can’t just be my voice. Deidre’s district contains our broadcasting equipment, she keeps us concealed while we spread our message, and between Flynt and Smark they have a network of traders. Supply routes, safe passage for our people – none of us can do as much alone as we can do together.”
“Our networks have almost zero movement,” Smark said, “now that her friends have everyone scared.”
“Screw your network,” Letty said. “I could put that weapon in the hands of someone that would actually use it, alone. We give people
a place to go, Val’s FTC loses all its clout. And from there we can figure out what else she’s hiding.”
“Put our weapon in the hands of a human?” Smark countered with disgust.
“One worth a hundred of you,” Letty said. “If Pax doesn’t already have answers, she’ll have people we can talk to. Ways to show humans and Fae can figure this out together. Then Val has to put up or shut up.”
“Or history repeats itself,” Smark said. “Not the first time Letty had a plan involving a human, is it? Last time they miraculously stole from us.”
“That human wasn’t working with me when he took the weapon,” Letty said through gritted teeth. “Because he didn’t trust the Fae to use it.”
“No, I agree with Letty,” Edwing said, carefully. “Building goodwill with the humans, that’s where a better future lies, for all Fae. And I have news of my own, in that regard. Now we’re all here.” From the way he watched Letty, she could tell it was something she wouldn’t like; a reason, now, that he wasn’t so mad at them breaking into the vats. “I have an opening. I received a hailing from Palleday, the revered –”
“Palleday!” Letty said. “She actually met that dinosaur? Found a way to connect? While we’re yakking like arseholes?”
“Pax spoke to him, yes,” Edwing admitted, slowly. “She proposed a meeting. But what Smark says is no exaggeration. Valoria has the city scared. We have no idea what the humans were up to in the nearby tunnels, and I very much doubt it was hostile, but the fear has been stoked. The FTC holds its breath. Even the scouts are grounded. The drain tunnels, the crawl webs, are all alarmed. If there was ever any doubt the Stabilisers knew the secret entrances to the FTC, not any more. Yet I can go, alone. I’ve got enough influence, yet, to leave the FTC on legitimate –”
“Like hell you’re going without me!” Letty flared up, stepping so close Flynt moved to shield Edwing. The one-eyed Fae looked more worried than threatening, determined to hold her off nevertheless. His courage made her look unstable. She forced herself to act calmly. “She’s my human. I need to see her.”
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