by Adam Rakunas
He thought, then nodded.
“And were they still serving two-for-one at the Stoneways Lounge?”
He nodded without thinking.
“Three hours,” I said. “We were on the way back from the bars.” I blinked a few pictures, debated sending them to Soni. This far under, there probably wasn’t any signal. That also meant she couldn’t track me, but I’d probably have a hell of a time explaining why I’d disappeared for a bit.
Banks blinked a few pictures of his own. “You still think this was Saarien?”
“Not anymore,” I said. “I think it’s Ghosts.”
Banks straightened up. “Here?”
“It’s the only thing that fits,” I said. “At first, I thought the weirdness in Steelcase was Saarien trying to scare me off, but then he and a bunch of people turn up dead.” I nodded at Jimney’s corpse. “This seals it for me. Ghosts are meant for sending messages, and there’s no stronger message than a bullet to the head, even if it’s just for a small time stoner like Jimney.” I sucked at my teeth. “I just wish I knew what it is that got their attention.”
Banks hmmed. “Maybe it’s you.”
I snorted. “You know, as much as I like to think WalWa’s Board of Directors has me on some Most Wanted list, I think it’s something bigger. Sending a Ghost Squad just to slap me around? If anyone would have their attention, it would’ve been Saarien. His headcount is… was a lot higher than mine. Plus, he never failed to miss an opportunity to get on the air about the Struggle, about how the Union was going to smash our corporate overlords and liberate humanity from Indenture and servitude.” I shook my head. “Too bad he was such an asshole.”
I walked up to the incinerator grate and saw a space in there big enough for Jilly to snake through. “We need to see what’s in there. Might help us figure out what’s got WalWa so riled up.”
“You’re not going to send Jilly in there,” said Banks.
“You’re right,” I said. “I should just call WalWa and tell them to come down here and investigate the body in their incinerator. Which we found by breaking into their facility. Maybe their Ghosts will come down here and invite us up for tea and biscuits.”
“It was just a suggestion,” said Banks.
“I’m game,” said Jilly, giving the burned skeleton a wayward eye. “Just to get me away from… that.”
I handed her the caneplas bags and watched her shimmy up the ladder and into the incinerator room.
The designers had been safety-minded enough to install ladder rungs out of the pit. I climbed to the top to peek into the burn room and marvel at the monument to bureaucratic waste. Waist-high drifts of paper shreds surrounded Jilly, and more flakes floated down from a dozen vents. I held out a hand and caught the remnants of some WalWa report, no two shreds alike.
The floor was tilted toward the grate – not so steep Jilly was in danger of falling back in, but just enough for her to work. She hustled back and forth, bringing us flakes until Banks declared a pile worth scooping up. She stuffed as much into a bag, then flipped it back to us.
“This is a gold mine,” said Banks as he whipped open one of the fifty-liter bags. “Evidence reconstruction always fascinated me in law school. Peeling bits off dead hard drives, finding data veins in dried-out organic DBs – and the paper, man. Even when paper shreds are burned, you can pick up all sorts of ink and pen impressions – stuff that’s still legible.”
“So, what, you’re going to sift through all of these and do that little trick with your pai?”
“Sure,” he said, “This kind of thing is relaxing.”
I shook my head as I caught another bag. “What makes you think you’re going to find anything good?” I said.
Banks picked up two handfuls of paper, blinked, then dumped them on the ground. He went through the pile for a minute, then showed me three fragments, all with WalWa executive chops next to Evanrute Saarien’s name.
“So WalWa was gunning for Saarien?” I said.
Banks shrugged. “We’d have to go through a whole lot more to find out for sure.”
“Then let’s grab all we can,” I said. “I can hand all this over to Soni, and maybe it’ll be enough to clear me.”
Jilly jammed the executive pile into six bags and stuffed them down the chute. Jimney’s skull was still there, smiling away, and I made a note to add it to my statement as soon as we were safe in Brushhead. Soni would be pissed about my little excursion, but, technically, she didn’t say anything about underground trips violating my bail bond. I clipped up to the line and thought about how all this would be worth it in a few months’ time, right after the first batches of my rum sat nestled in their racks, hidden away from prying eyes and greedy hands. I would banish The Fear for the rest of my life, and then spend my days selling Old Windswept all over Santee, hell, all over Occupied Space. It was a sweet thought: all this work paying off faster than my Indenture ever could have, and with better food, booze, and sex to boot. I could feel the breeze wafting through my Chino Cove lanai already, the quick air of the sea rushing past my face–
–or was that someone shooting at us again?
A pipe burst with a clang as a dozen blasts drove me to the deck. I stole a peek above me, only to duck as I spotted four figures in environment suits aiming honest-to-Buddha submachine guns. Bullets danced off the ductwork, clanging around until they came to a halt. I rolled to the open sewage pipe.
Banks, Jilly, and Bloombeck joined me. “The price just went up!” yelled Bloombeck, clipping himself to the line. “You’re buying me two cane farms!”
“Then you can kiss my ass twice,” I said, snapping a carabiner through my belt. The shots rang off the pipe, a few actually piercing the rusting metal. “You got the bags?”
“Are you kidding?” yelled Banks. I looked through the access hatch: our piles of evidence still sat by the door to the incinerator. “Leave ’em!”
“No!” I yelled back. “I have gone through too much bullshit today only to get stopped because someone wants me dead!” I unclipped from the line, fought my way over Banks and Jilly, and rolled back out of the pipe.
Wave after wave of bullets zinged past me as I crawled to the bags. The door was completely exposed, and the shooters knew it: a small forest of holes grew right where I had to go.
I wondered what the chances were of them scoring a lethal hit. Maybe they’d only pierce a leg, and I’d be able to drag myself through the sewers and home before sepsis sank in. I crouched, ready to sprint, when a bullet clanged into the bulkhead I was cowering behind.
Then there was a muffled roar, and the thud of hobnailed boots. I looked behind and saw a squad of armored WalWa goons kick their way through the grate and leap down the incinerator shaft. One of them got through the door before a bullet to the chest knocked him off his feet. The rest of the goons answered with cries of “Freeze!” and a volley of riot foam. The rounds splatted against the piping, turning into frothy stalactites. It was enough to spook the shooters, who ducked behind a junction box and popped the muzzles of their guns over the top to fire blind.
I grabbed the bags of paper scraps and scrawled giant Xs on them with the glow marker, figuring if we lost hold of the things in the line, at least we’d see where they were going. “Get these back to the Hall!” I yelled to Banks and Jilly as I threw the bags at them.
“What about you?”
A spurt of foam hit my arm, and I flicked it away before it could expand and harden. “I’ll get home somehow! Just get this out of here!”
There was a fresh volley of bullets, enough to drive the goons back to the burn room. The shooters leaped out of their hideyholes and bolted for the other side of the room toward an open access port. “Oy!” I yelled, my helmet’s speakers crackling, “assholes!”
One of the shooters turned, and my headlamp light bounced off his helmet. But then he turned his body so the glare vanished, and I could have sworn the shooter wore an eyepatch. The shooter looked at me, and I saw a criss-c
ross of angry scars and faded ink on his – no, her face.
Holy crap: it was One-Eye.
I roared and threw the glow marker, since it was the only thing I had available. It bounced off her shoulder but left a spatter of ink. She fired another volley, then leaped into the access port.
I leaped over the pipes, dodging a fresh round of foam shots. As I crawled toward the access port One-Eye had used, I saw Banks fighting his way toward me. “Get back to the Hall!” I yelled.
“And go with Bloombeck? No way,” he said, hunkering down next to me.
“I can take care of myself, thanks,” I said.
Jilly hunched behind Banks, bags strapped to her belt. “I would like to go home, now!”
“Me, too,” I said, grabbing the front of her suit and clipping her to the line around my belt.
“But what about the tide?” yelled Banks. “Bloombeck said the currents get too strong, and–”
Riot foam crackled overhead, and he ducked. I clacked a carabiner around Banks, then grabbed them both by their arms and hauled them in. The current grabbed us, and we hurled into the darkness.
Chapter 18
One-Eye had a good minute-and-a-half head start on us, but I had the benefit of being pissed off. I did my best breaststroke, always keeping the spatter from the glow marker in sight. Bloombeck must have sprung for a high-visibility job, because it was the only way that thing could have shed any light in the pitch black of the pipes. I didn’t have time to see what kind of line we’d jumped into, but the visibility was good enough for me to guess we were in a water main. At least the fluid wasn’t as chunky as it had been on the way in.
this is stupid, Banks texted me.
Who said I should have gone with Bloombeck in the first place? I replied.
damn
The toxic-piss glow of the paint spatter began to grow larger; it took me a second to realize that One-Eye had stopped and that we were gaining on her. I dug the heels of my gloves and boots into the walls; the crushed palm crab shells had enough grip to slow us down. Banks bumped into me, and I told him to follow suit.
why stopping?
I don’t want her to know we’re here, I replied.
There was a muffled bang, then something zinged past my face.
think she knows.
Fuck it, I thought, and let go. A few more shots flew past, but I kept my belly low enough to the pipe’s bottom to dodge them. That didn’t keep me from getting a crack on my back from the butt of One-Eye’s submachine gun; even with the rebreather gear to soften the blow, it still hurt like hell. One-Eye jabbed again, but I spun my feet up and gave her a kick to the shins. Even with the rush of water, I could hear her howl. I managed another kick, this one up and into her chest, before she swung the business end of the gun into my face.
I bit the switch for my headlamp, and the sudden burst of light drove her back, but not so far that her boot couldn’t make contact with my chin. It was just a glancing blow, but it was enough to double me over. One-Eye brought the gun to my face, but all she got was the click-click from the empty magazine. She took another swing at me, but I was ready this time and launched off the bottom of the pipe and wrapped my arms around her midsection. We floated free, the current strong enough to bounce us around the inside of the pipe as we whaled away at each other.
I reached for her back, trying to unhook any hoses or lines, but her suit was self-contained. Mine, of course, wasn’t, so when she yanked the main feeder line for my rebreather out of its socket, I had no choice but to kick free and fix my air. I hadn’t done this kind of thing since EVA training back in B-school, but I kept my panic down, got the line back in place, and saw that my air supply was...
“Warning,” said the Univoice inside my helmet. “CO2 concentration at eight hundred parts per million.” I looked at the strip on the bottom of my mask; it was hovering between yellow and red.
That couldn’t have been right. I tapped the glass, then remembered that the strip wasn’t a gauge with a needle. I dug my hands and feet into the pipe, and Banks bumped into me a few seconds later.
think air going bad, he texted, then sent me a picture of the inside of his mask. His strip looked like mine.
I spun Banks around and shined my headlamp on his rebreather pack. Everything looked fine: the lines were good, the connections were solid, all the ports worked, the filtration packs were in place and fine...except for one corner of a label flipping in the water. I managed to get a gloved finger underneath it to peel it away. Underneath was the original label with an expiration date from twenty years before I was born.
“Uh-oh,” I said, loud enough for Banks to turn and give me a stricken look.
problem?
Jilly’s gear was in slightly better shape; her filter had only expired last year. I gave her a pat and a nod. A bit. We need to leave.
how long we got? texted Banks.
Not enough, I replied, looking downstream at the faint yellow blob from the glow marker. Follow her.
no time for revenge
No, you dummy, she must know a way out.
she?
Just go! I kicked us into the current, keeping one eye on the glow stain and the other on the filter gauge, now diving into shades of orange.
My hands bumped into the sides of the pipe. We had gone so far that the mains had trunked off into smaller local lines. There was still enough room to swim, but I could feel the ribs of the pipes every time I took a stroke, my gloves bumping off the caneplas with hollow thunks. I had no idea how far we’d gone, but the fact that there was no light ahead meant we were nowhere near an exit. It also meant there was nowhere for One-Eye to go. She was close enough that I could see her outline lit up by the ink. I wasn’t sure if I could throttle her, but I was ready to give it a shot.
The glow stain stopped and hovered. I had no idea if One-Eye was lost or catching her breath, and I wasn’t about to stop and ask her. I grabbed the bottom of the pipe, crouched and kicked off as hard as I could, which is why it hurt like hell when my head smashed into the grate.
It hurt even more when Banks and Jilly piled into me moments later.
I bit on my headlamp, and One-Eye looked back from the other side of the grate. We stared at each other, and then she knocked on the metal bars and shrugged before kicking away.
“No,” I said, then banged on the grate. “NO!”
save air, texted Banks. need to backtrack.
I banged the grate again and watched One-Eye disappear into the murk.
padma we need to go NOW
All right, I replied. Back up.
trying
Try faster.
We shifted back a meter, but the current was so strong that we were sailed downstream the moment we let go of the ribs of the pipes. This is going to take forever.
don’t have that, texted Banks, and he sent me a picture of the inside of his mask. The strip was now touching red.
I pushed upstream, lost my grip and slammed back into the grate. My mouth clamped around the controls for my headlamp, cranking up the lamp’s intensity, and I realized just how cramped it was. So tight, all the ribs covered with slime and streaks of black mold and the water rushing past, and this horrible noise filling my helmet, like someone had cracked open the seal and let all the water in Santee City pour in to drown me. The air, now foul with carbon dioxide, burned my nose, my eyes, my throat, and I felt so tired. I could hear The Fear roaring in approval, and I just didn’t care any more. I sagged, and the last thing I saw before I closed my eyes was the meter diving deep into the red. I heard the Univoice utter some kind of warning before I slipped out–
–and then someone jabbed me in the ass so hard I thought I’d been shot. PADMA came one text in the biggest type available, my name hovering in front of my eyes like a message from on high.
I looked at Banks and Jilly, then took a breath. The air tasted less evil. I looked down towards my chin and saw a line snaking away from the front of my helmet toward Jilly’s. She
gave me a thumbs up, and I grabbed her shoulder. Good girl.
you ok? Banks texted.
I took another measured breath, then answered, How’s your meter?
bad
The three of us combined our hoses, slurping a little clean air from Jilly’s system. I tapped on the grate again; it was locked in place, and the lock had been spotwelded. One-Eye had done a marvelous job trapping us. I wondered what kind of engineer she’d been. I wondered if anyone would find our bodies and bother to avenge us.
Ideas?
swim back?
Not enough air. Kick out grate?
Banks gave it a go, then shook his head. Then he texted you hear that?
What?
getting louder
I turned as best I could. There was a definite increase in the sound, but I couldn’t tell if it was because our hearing was going, along with our air, or if the water was moving faster. More and more particles floated past us, and then the current got strong enough to knock us back into the grate.
the tide, texted Banks, and a crushing wave smashed into us, shoving Banks into me and me into the grate with enough force to squeeze the air from my lungs. The pressure kept growing, and I was pretty sure I was about to pass out (and pretty pissed that this is how it would end), when there came a squealing sound, like metal giving way, and I saw One-Eye had missed welding one bar in place. It scraped as the pressure from the oncoming tide pushed us back, and I twisted around and kicked as hard as I could. Banks and Jilly saw what I was doing and joined in, all three of us driving our boots into the grate until it tore away.
We sailed through the murky water like corks over a waterfall. I tried to get a grip on the pipe ribs, but the current moved too fast. Jilly flew away from me, the hose snapping loose, leaving me with another helmet full of foul air. The Fear came roaring back, but, no, I was not going to give in. If I was going to die, goddammit, I was going to do with my eyes wide open, even though, God, it would have felt so nice just to fall asleep…