Ninth City Burning

by J. Patrick Black

  “So what’s up with Sensen?” I ask once we’re out of earshot. “She’s acting like I ate the last nonfat yogurt.”

  Imway glances back to the table, where play has slowed somewhat to allow the 126th to mutter among themselves. “Oh, yeah, right,” he says. “That. Not important.” He smiles rakishly. “Certain people don’t think you should be hanging around anymore—can’t be trusted with our equi after what happened.”

  The way he says “certain people” leaves little doubt that Sensen is one or all of the “people” in question. “What happened,” I can only assume, is a reference to one of my cadets breaking Sensen’s nose. There wasn’t any lasting damage, though for a while Sensen was rather entertainingly disfigured. Why this should reflect on me is anyone’s guess.

  “You’ve got to admit it wasn’t your smartest move,” Imway says, once I have solicited his opinion on the matter. “Bringing those cadets in here, with all this valuable Legion equipment. Pretty immature, if I had to describe it.”

  “Immature?” I scoff. “Are you serious? This from the guy who destroyed an MSR just to make some kind of macho point?”

  Imway sighs the sigh of an exhausted adult beleaguered by stubborn children. “The situation was out of control, Kiz. I had to regain control. I don’t expect you to understand.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s not supposed to mean anything. You just don’t know what it’s like to have people under your command. I’m responsible for my ’drille, and—”

  “And because I can’t pass my stupid leadership quals, you think I don’t know what it’s like to be responsible for people.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “I’ll have you know I was hosting a really excellent tour before you started beating up one of my cadets.”

  The accusation makes him flinch, I’m pleased to see, but it doesn’t slow him down. “She’s a noco, Kiz, and she was holding a grudge against me from when we captured her tribe out in the valley—her tribe that had been out there for months, attacking the city. If you’d given any thought at all to the people you were leading, you might have guessed she’d cause problems. Or did that big brain of yours just happen not to notice how one of your Sixth-Class cadets was—I don’t know—pretty obviously not twelve years old?”

  “Sure, fine, but how was I supposed to know you would start a fight with her?”

  “She started the fight, not me.”

  “Great excuse, oh exalted leader. Is that the sort of responsibility they teach you in the Legion? ‘She started it’?” I perform this last statement with an exaggeratedly infantile whine. “You’re an eques, Way. You should be able to handle some random noco without burning down most of the Stabulum in the process.”

  He shakes his head, sighing another of those the-life-of-an-adult-is-a-thankless-one sighs. “Listen, I already got a citation for conduct. I don’t need you mad at me, too. Let’s just forget about it.”

  I’m not quite ready to stop being mad, but Imway chooses this moment to unleash one of his more charming smiles. He possesses conspicuously greater than the usual allotment of handsomeness, an endowment of fine-tuned physical refinement that seems neither reasonable nor fair, cutting a shining and burnished figure that brings to mind a sculpture of some BCE pagan god—Apollo or Ares, maybe—trimmed in silver spectacles. A soothing fog settles over my mind, convincing me that I don’t want to fight with Imway, that I am eager to see us on good terms once again. This is how almost all of my arguments with Imway end, and most of the time, I’m seriously pissed off with myself a few hours later, but somehow even knowing this ahead of time never seems to matter. “Sure, fine, great,” I say.

  “And I’ll let you keep working on FireChaser, of course,” he adds magnanimously.

  That breaks right through my dreamy little interlude. “Excuse me?”

  “FireChaser,” he says, as if I could possibly forget what his equus is called. “Some of the others—you know, they don’t think I should let you work on her anymore.”

  “Let me work on her?”

  “Yes, right, after—but like I said, forget about it. I’m squad dek, and I make the calls, so that’s the end of it.”

  I am without words. Thirty seconds or more pass during which all thoughts come in sputtering, inarticulate bubbles of rage, while Imway continues grinning his silly, self-satisfied, stupidly handsome grin, until finally I say, “Listen up, Way.” I advance, poking him in the chest. “I don’t come in here and polish up that equus of yours because I enjoy it. It doesn’t plug some cosmic emptiness in my soul or fulfill me in a hundred magical and ineffable ways. I do it as a favor to you, because we’re friends. Everyone here is prodigiously, overwhelmingly busy, and you know what? I just realized it’s irresponsible of me to waste my time buffing out scratches just so you can have a pretty ride. I’m done. Good luck finding someone else who’ll give a shit about your baby’s boo-boo.”

  Imway doesn’t appear to have heard me. His grin has not faltered; animal magnetism continues to flow from him unabated. “You don’t mean that, Kiz,” he says.

  “I do mean that, Way. Why don’t you learn to do your own work, or better yet, get Sensen to do it? Or that noco—she was pretty good with an MSR. Maybe you could ask her.”

  “Kiz,” he says, cajoling. “Kizmeister. Kizerino. Kizopolis. Don’t be like that. Come on—what did you want to ask me anyway?”

  I’d been almost ready to relent, to give in, because the truth is I do like working on FireChaser. She’s an awesome machine, and it’s strangely calming, tuning up an equus like that, getting her to sing for you. But now Imway has reminded me why I’m here: to ask for his help with the Project. Except now I’m never going to ask.

  I was wrong before: Imway and I aren’t friends. To him I’m just another splatterhead, an interchangeable piece of equipment, my only standout trait being that he can get special treatment from me by flashing that stupid beautiful smile of his like an all-access VIP executive-level badge. I’m 99.999 percent sure it wasn’t always this way with him. There was a time in our not-so-ancient history when we really did matter to each other. But not anymore. Somewhere along the line, I became a brain with a wrench.

  I have no trouble envisioning what it would be like introducing him to the Project, what an insufferable jerk he’d be about it. If we ever did get the thing working, he’d probably just strut around telling people how he’d invented this fantastic equus with a little help from good ol’ Kizabel.

  “Forget it, Way,” I say. “You’re on your own.”

  And so, it appears, am I.

  THIRTY-SIX

  KIZABEL

  For the rest of the evening, my mind is a scribbly black cloud of resentful wrath. The crew on HeavensHammer gives me a wide berth as I bash bits of armor back into place, while Lady, sensing my dark, choleric state, forgoes her usual cheeky greeting when I return to the workshop, posting her revised gwayd schematics without a peep. I growl ferally for several minutes before collapsing into an insensate coma, awakening hours later feeling more coherent but no less irate.

  As soon as I get my hands on the Project, though, the inclement weather inside my skull begins to clear. Working on the Project is like that: I can’t keep a bad mood going. Before I know it, I’m securely in my groove, sealing broken gwayd canals and singing along as the Clash1 echoes through my workshop, while Lady putters around in the guise of a CE 1950s housewife—an uncharacteristic show of solidarity for my cleanup efforts, though only a token one as she remains unsullied by the rigors of manual labor, shuffling nimbly in high heels and pearls, lavender dress spotless beneath a crisp white apron.

  I have the Project hoisted up by his armpits—an undignified pose but better than the way I left him—and am perched atop his head when from below comes a strange, ringing sound. I look down to see Lady, leaning on a vacuum cleaner2 with a telephon
e3 wedged against her chin. “Hold on, I’ll ask her,” she says, then calls up to me. “Hey, Kizabel, there’s someone here to see you.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Her name is Rachel Ochre,” Lady says, without having to inquire by way of telephone. “She came by a few times while you were out, too.”

  I can’t think of anyone I know by the strange name of Rachel Ochre, but then it hits me: the Amazon. That giantess I had to lead around all day, looming behind my tour of Sixth-Class cadets. “Tell her I’m busy.”

  Lady mutters into her telephone, then calls to me, “She says she’ll wait, if you don’t mind. She seems like a very polite girl,” Lady offers, since she can tell I’m annoyed.

  “Fine, fine. Tell her I’ll be there in a minute,” I grumble, and proceed to dismount and conceal the Project.

  I’d forgotten how pretty she was. To the extent I concerned myself with Cadet Rachel Ochre at all, the image in my mind was of the brawling, slavering barbarian Imway described—quite at odds with this tall girl in her immaculate gray cadet’s uniform, hair done up neatly like an artifact of antique brass; even the dark birthmark on her neck is more of an accessory than a blemish. And not a drop of drool anywhere.

  “Hello, Miss Kizabel,” she says, tentative, words colored in her noco accent. “May I come in?”

  However friendly she looks, I’m not about to let her anywhere near the Project. I lean against the door, blocking any view of my workshop. “Let’s talk here. You realize it’s practically 0400, don’t you?”

  “I’m sorry to disturb you,” she says bashfully. “I’d heard you keep odd hours, and anyway I couldn’t sleep.” She pauses, gathering herself for something, it seems, and says, “I’d like to ask you a favor.”

  That word, “favor,” and this girl’s overall manner of a supplicant seeking the wisdom of some eminent individual, are all that keep me from shutting the door in her face. “Go on,” I prompt her.

  “I was wondering if you would be willing to tutor me.”

  “The Academy has plenty of tutors, Rachel Ochre,” I say, probably playing up my exhaustion a little more than necessary. “I can put you in touch with a few good ones, but it’s not something I do myself.”

  I’m about to step back into my shop, but she actually reaches out to stop me. “Please. The Academy people aren’t about to teach me what I need to know. They’ll insist on me ‘establishing a firm knowledge base’ and ‘achieving a broad and well-rounded education.’” She uses these familiar Academy phrases fluently and without any trace of an accent, a pitch-perfect impression of a Sixth-Class rhetor. “I don’t have time for that. I need to be ready to fight for the Legion, and soon.”

  “And what makes you think I can help?” I say, more put off than ever. “I’m not in the Legion, and you’ve never seen me fight.”

  “You don’t have to fight to know how to fight.” She has become insistent, eager, excited. “You understand, and that’s what matters. Today in lessons, we were discussing Mr. Philosopher Oojtelli’s experiment, and every cadet there knew more than our own rhetor because you had explained it to us. Even I got it, and if you’d seen me in class, you’d know that’s something.”

  I’m flattered, sure. My ego is purring comfortably under this girl’s well-executed deep-tissue massage, but that doesn’t change anything. “Listen, Rachel Ochre—”

  “Just Rachel is fine. Rae, if you don’t mind.”

  “Right, Rae. I’m sorry, but I simply don’t have time to take on a student.”

  “I don’t expect you to do it out of charity,” she says, desperation flickering behind her eyes. “I’ll find some way to pay you back—clean up your workshop, or run errands, or bring your supper from the cafeteria. Whatever you need.”

  “I’m just too busy right now. Between school, and volunteering, and—” I almost mention the Project, but stop myself. “I just have too much to do.”

  Rae is crestfallen. “Will you think about it?”

  “Sure,” I say, feeling guilty somehow. “But, Rae, honestly, there isn’t much for you to do around here.”

  At this point we are interrupted by the clatter of Lady Jane shouting angrily from my workshop. “Oh come on! You cannot be serious!” Her tone is that of a person who can simply no longer hold her tongue. “Are you really going to stand there and tell this girl that there is absolutely nothing she can help you with?”

  Rae’s eyebrows furrow at the sound of my distinct vocalizations emerging from this unexpected vector. She glances in the direction of the voice, then back to me, attempting stoically to retain a neutral expression as Lady continues berating me.

  “This is the girl from the Stabulum, isn’t it?” Lady yells. “Isn’t it? You told me all about how she piloted that MSR, and on her first try. And you’re just going to act like you can’t think of anything she could possibly do for you? Are you insane?”

  “We don’t even know if we can trust her!” I retort, addressing Lady over my shoulder at full volume.

  “Like you’re going to find anyone better!” Lady scoffs. “If she wants to learn badly enough to get you supper, I bet she can keep her mouth shut about certain things.”

  “I do know how to keep a secret,” Rae interjects meekly, obviously bemused at my apparent shouting match with myself.

  I look her over, appraising. Lady didn’t see Rae piloting that MSR, but if anything, my post hoc description only downplayed how impressive it was, her operating those tentacles like she was raised part cephalopod. Even Imway would have had trouble pulling that off on his first try. So maybe.

  “I do have one thing you might be able to do,” I say. “Meet me tomorrow at 2300 in Lab 111. And bring your R-102s.”

  Her initial reaction is of almost giddy relief, but then she hesitates. “What are R-102s?”

  “R-102s?” I say, momentarily at a loss for a description. “They’re, um, for swimming. A swimsuit. You would have been issued a pair when you started at the Academy.”

  Understanding blossoms on her face, and she smiles. “Where I’m from, we usually just swim in our birthday suit,” she explains. Seeing my confusion, she clarifies, in a stage whisper, “That means naked.”

  I shut the door, feeling genuinely hopeful, to find Lady Jane grinning at me. “Oh, I like her.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  KIZABEL

  Cadet Rachel Ochre, who I am to call Rae, is waiting patiently for me outside Lab 111 when I arrive at 2317, not at all impatient over my seventeen-minute unpunctuality.

  “I’ve got the R-102s underneath my uniform,” she informs me as I open the laboratory door. Demonstrating sound common sense and logical reasoning, she has brought a towel as well. “Are we going swimming?”

  “We’re going to measure your viatic output,” I tell her. Before us, Lab 111 slowly illuminates to reveal a large, square room, virtually empty save for a shallow pool of water set into the center. The pool is circular in shape and divided into several smaller concentric rings by means of retractable dividers, an arrangement that has the look of a gigantic liquid bull’s-eye.

  Most theories of irrational mechanics posit that, within an umbris, there is an infinite and inexhaustible quantity of thelemic potential. No one has figured out a way to actually prove this, or to measure thelemity directly, nor have we found a reliable way to quantify the ability of a given revenna or revennus to absorb and harness its energy. The only thing we can do, it seems, is measure thelemity’s effects—that is, the results brought about by thelemic manipulation; exempli gratia if someone is manifesting electricity by means of thelemity, we would measure that manifestation in watts; if the energy in question is heat, we would measure in joules, et cetera. Animation, unknown before the war, was first described by Dr. Xiao Jyun Zi, who called the energy used to bring inanimate matter to life “viaty.” The basic unit of viatic power, equal to the energy required to animat
e one cubic centimeter of distilled water, is named the “xiao” after her.

  I am about to explain all of this to Rae, my first lesson as her tutor, when she says, “Oh, for animation, right?” She has already removed her jacket, kicked out of her shoes, and begun working on her trousers.

  “That’s right.” I have with me no fewer than five notebooks of calculations and designs, which I set down on the squat, podium-like structure overlooking the circular pool. “Have you already had your efficiency evaluations?”1

  “No, but we’ve studied it some in class,” she says.

  “Great.” I do my best not to sound like I expected her brain to be more or less blank of all relevant education, which was absolutely the case. I think back, trying to recall what I studied when I was in Sixth Class. “So you’re learning about irregular energies?”

  “Only that one really,” she says, and adds with a self-effacing shrug, “I’m a dud with all the rest I’ve tried.”

  That doesn’t surprise me. Manifesting irregular energies without at least some understanding of the underlying theory borders on impossible. If Rae can animate by instinct alone, she’s an even better prospect than I’d hoped. We’ll see.

  “All right,” I say, once I’ve managed to activate the lab, the circular pool lighting from below with a soft white glow, the clear barrier over the water retracting just enough to expose the center of the bull’s-eye. “Go stand in the middle there. When I give you the signal, I want you to animate as much of the water as you can.”

  The central pool holds 250,000 cubic centimeters of water, covering Rae to the ankles. If she can animate the whole thing, it will be an output of 250,000 Xi (xiaos, that is), or 250 kXi (kilo-xiaos, known informally as “kicks”). I’ll need her to produce at least 4,000 kicks if she’s going to have any hope of getting the Project to work.