Sorrow Space

by James Axler

  The Hall of Justice was built on an incline with steps leading up to its impressive main doors. Beneath these, twin roads led to its lowest level, which sank to either side of the steps, where matching rollback doors were located, flush to the walls of the building, adorned with the Magistrates Division shield. An underground garage, Kane knew.

  There were several patrolmen about, their faces obscured by the masklike helmets they wore. One pair trudged together down the stone steps, their gait slow and determined. Another waited by the double doors into the Hall of Justice itself, his weapon holstered in a bulging sleeve.

  Kane began to walk around the building, looking for a side entrance. As he did so, one of the wide doors at the base of the structure opened, and Kane was surprised to see three vehicles come speeding out of it. They were two large personnel carriers led by a two-man patrol vehicle that hurried past him. Kane ducked back into the shadows as they sped past on the cracked pavement of the roadway. There were two Magistrates in the patrol car, their faces set grimly beneath their helmets. The twin personnel carriers followed, their design reminding Kane of the Sandcats he and Grant had once used, tank treads over their rear-most sets of wheels. The driving pod contained two figures, driver and passenger, both of them in Magistrate uniform. Behind this, the walls of the personnel carriers were solid armor, with a thin strip of tinted armaglass that Kane’s eyes could not penetrate. He watched as they sped by, bumping a little over the damaged road surface.

  Kane watched them depart from his hiding place in the shadow of an abandoned café’s awning, hurrying away from him in the direction he had come from. Beneath the steps at the front of the Magistrate Hall, the garage door shimmered closed, shuffling down on its greased treads. Once Kane was certain that no one else was nearby, he scrambled across the road, keeping himself low to the ground in a semicrouch. The Magistrate at the top of the stairs took no notice as Kane crept past the front of the building on the opposite side of the street. Kane spotted the service road running to the left-hand side of the Hall of Justice and he headed toward it, scurrying along as swiftly as he could. All around, the winds continued to howl, whipping up flecks of ash and loose gravel from the pitted surface of the road. In the distance, Kane could hear the tinkling sound of broken glass, another busted windowpane being danced across the hard surface of the road.

  Then Kane was opposite the side street, head ducked low to his shoulders, arms pumping as he weaved between patches of shadow. There was a barrier there, operating on a hinge assembly and painted with red-and-white chevrons. The barrier could be raised to allow vehicles through and had a sentry post beside it where the operator would sit. From across the street, Kane could see that the sentry box was empty; this whole ville appeared to be lifeless, Kane realized, so there would be little cause to keep the post manned.

  A swift look around him, then Kane was dashing across the crosswalk, feet pounding on the cracked road surface. Kane didn’t slow as he reached the waist-high barricade, simply hurdled it, one leg kicking out in front of him, the other behind like a pair of scissors.

  Past the barrier, Kane kept running, darting into the shadows cast by the building as a pair of patrolling Magistrates came striding obliviously around the street corner. Kane held his breath as he watched them, their hands pushed deep into the pockets of their black greatcoats. Neither glanced at him. They simply marched past in silence, the fearsome wind catching at the tails of the long coats they wore.

  Swiftly Kane brought himself tight to the far wall, the one that sat opposite the Hall of Justice. This was a service road, the kind used by refuse collectors, he realized. Rainwater streaked across the cracked surface of the road, pooling in little ovals where the road’s surface was uneven. Up ahead there was a fenced-in area where the trash bins would be stored. The fencing was made of tightly placed struts of wood, each standing almost nine feet in height with a sharpened point at its apex. The fenced-in section ran seven feet square, enough to hold maybe ten bins. Beyond that was a door with a step up, set back in a recess in the wall. Kane eyed the door—it was bolted and riveted in place, and the paintwork was scarred and flaking. It looked like a fire exit and, at a glance, Kane would guess that the door was alarmed.

  He turned back to the trash area, analyzing it more carefully. A wide gate ran the whole length of the boxed-in section, designed to open out on one side to allow full access to the trash cans within. That meant there had to be a way to get the trash in there in the first place, Kane realized, most likely a door on the inside of the fenced-in area. He eyed the sharpened points of the fencing again, weighing the options in his mind.

  It was guesswork, of course, assumption and supposition.

  His life as a Magistrate had trained Kane to think through situations logically, to assess risks and to know how to draw reasonable conclusions about a situation. The only life they had found since they had arrived in this ville had been the Magistrates, and it had been Mags who had chased after Grant. He and Baptiste had checked a half dozen of these buildings and all of them were deserted, the only life remaining was in the form of skeletons and old video recordings. But the Magistrate’s Hall of Justice was abuzz with activity, Mags and vehicles bustling about.

  “Heaven knows who they’re looking to prosecute,” Kane muttered, eyes still on the tall fence around the litter bins.

  If Grant was anywhere, it would be here. Brought in for questioning, maybe, or medical attention. Or on a slab in the morgue, a dark voice whispered in the back of Kane’s mind. Ignore it, Kane told himself. Live in the present.

  Kane shrugged out of his tailored jacket. It was streaked with dirt now, from clambering down the side of the hospital and from crouching in the grass by the lake, speckled with dirt and frayed fibers from the other places he had been and the skirmish with the dead Mag. Kane turned the jacket around, putting his arms in the reverse ends of the sleeves so that the open front of the jacket was toward him, a little like a straitjacket.

  Kane stepped back, walking foot over foot until he was as far back down the alleyway as he could get. There were windows above him, overlooking this service area, but there were no lights up there, no one looking down through the smeared and ruined windows that he could see.

  Kane glanced down to the street end of the alley, confirming that no one was coming. Then he began to run, the jacket reversed over his hands in front of him, feet pounding against the chipped tarmac of the road, boots splashing in the puddles.

  Kane ran at full speed, legs blurring as he sprinted toward the fenced-in area, the jacket swinging back and forth as his arms pumped like pistons. Three steps from the fence, Kane kicked off, leaping into the air and scrambling up the wall, driven upward by his momentum. He reached forward with his right arm, slapped his palm hard against the wooden spike that topped the post there. The jacket had bunched under his hand just as he had planned, creating a makeshift cushion as he pressed against the sharpened point.

  With a grunt, Kane drew his body up, reaching over the fence with his left arm. Kane grunted again as the inside of his left elbow slammed against one of the pointed posts and was once again grateful for the protection granted by the rolled-up jacket. Kane’s booted toes clattered against the wooden struts, and then he was over, swinging his whole body above the fence that barred his way, legs clearing the pointed posts by little more than an inch.

  Kane sailed over the fence and crashed down an instant later on the large, wheeled bins that waited inside the trash corral. He winced, conscious that he was making a lot of noise as he rolled across the top of the bulging bin, bounced from its surface and tumbled into an identical trash can that stood beside it. Then he was no longer moving, and he pulled himself to a graceful halt atop one of the tall bins. His jacket was still caught on the railing, and when Kane pulled at it one of the sleeves tore. He had his shadow suit beneath his shirt, so he wasn’t about to get cold.

  Kan
e looked around him, the echoes of the hollow bins still loud in his ears. There were six large trash receptacles inside the area, each one almost as tall as a man, leaving just enough floor space for a single person to step into the fenced-in area to dump the trash. The area had not been emptied in months, Kane guessed, judging by the stink of the bins and the lopsided stack of bulging black bin sacks that lay strewed across the tops of the bins and the ground below.

  The area was almost a perfect square, with fencing on three sides while the fourth wall was made up by the side of the justice building itself. There was a door set into the wall, with a grille over the window and a metal clip fitted below the handle. The metal clip could be affixed to the wall by a padlock, but the lock was missing.

  Kane eased himself down from the trash can, dropping down among the bags of garbage. Several of them had split, and the stench of rotten food was heady in the air. Oddly, Kane noticed, there were no flies buzzing about. He had already noted the lack of insects in the ville, but seeing trash strewed about like this without the accompanying hum of insects’ wings felt odd, almost surreal.

  Kicking trash out of his way, Kane stepped over to the door and tried the lock.

  “Please don’t have an alarm,” he whispered.

  * * *

  GRANT HAD BEEN SPEAKING with Roger Burton for over an hour by the time Baron Trevelyan came back for him. The baron had changed his clothes, and stood behind the barred door in a spotless white two-piece suit. Once again, Trevelyan was flanked by four Magistrates whose complexions left a lot to be desired. They reminded Grant of victims of some biological plague, but now he knew their secret. Dead Magistrates, walking under artificial power. It hardly bore thinking about.

  Burton cowered at the back of his cell as Trevelyan stood in the open doorway, vertical bars blocking any entry or exit. “My baron,” Burton said in a reverential whisper.

  Grant winced as the gray-haired man fell to his knees, bowing his head to the floor. The hose that fed a solution of the guilt drug to his brain stretched taut, its metal covering clinking like a struck drainpipe as the man moved his head.

  “Professor Burton,” Trevelyan sneered. “Why aren’t you working?”

  Burton spoke into the floor, his forehead still bowed against it, the hose to the ceiling jiggling as he spoke. “You found a live subject, my baron,” he said. “What was it you wanted me to do?”

  “Live subjects are no interest to me,” Baron Trevelyan told the professor. “I expected you to have worked him into something I could use by now.”

  Burton bowed lower, his head clunking as it struck against the cold, hard floor as one of the Magistrates unlocked the door. “Whatever you want me to do, my baron,” he sobbed. “You need but ask.”

  “Useless,” Trevelyan cursed as he stepped into the room.

  Grant watched from his position on the cot, not bothering to hide his contempt. Without a word, two of the Magistrates crossed the room and placed themselves on either side of Grant.

  “Stand,” Baron Trevelyan commanded in his weasel voice. When Grant ignored the instruction, he elaborated. “You will stand.”

  Grant looked at the genuflecting figure of Roger Burton, realized that should he disobey it was likely that this man would suffer, not him. So, with his hands still bound behind his back, Grant got smoothly to his feet, showing remarkable agility in so doing. As he stood, the Magistrates to either side of him grabbed him by the elbows, ushering him toward the door.

  Grant shrugged away from their grip, glared at them. “I can walk fine,” he growled. “Don’t need you dead creeps pawing at me.”

  Trevelyan made a clicking sound in the back of his throat and the two Magistrates brought their arms back, allowing Grant to exit the laboratory cell under his own power. Trevelyan followed, eyeing the broad-shouldered ex-Magistrate thoughtfully.

  “Unhook the professor also,” Trevelyan added, not even bothering to glance back into the cell. “I shall be needing his services. We launch tonight, within the hour.”

  One of the remaining dead Magistrates plucked an adjustable wrench from its housing in a molded unit just outside Burton’s cell. Then, without a word, the Magistrate stepped back into the cell and took the wrench to the hose that connected with Burton’s skull, working a catch there in a series of violent turns of the wrench. Still crouched on the floor, Burton whimpered, his head yanking back and forth as the hose arrangement was snapped loose of its ceiling housing.

  Standing just beyond the cell door, Grant winced as he heard the hose hiss. The shrill sound was the whine of a tire’s burning rubber.

  * * *

  KANE WAS SCUTTLING AMONG the trash cans outside the Magistrate Hall when the door in the wall began to rattle. He ducked down, hiding as best he could among the discarded garbage bags on the ground.

  Kane held his breath as the door came open with a shunt sufficient to dislodge the nearest of the bulging black sacks. Standing there, framed in the doorway, was a Magistrate in full dress uniform. His helmet was removed and his uniform stained with long-dried blood the color of rust. The Magistrate’s face looked like a skull, graying bone visible through the few strands of flesh still clinging to it, eyes dark pools in the recess of black sockets.

  Kane ducked back as the skeletal Magistrate brought a black bag of trash from the doorway. He proceeded to toss the bag in Kane’s direction. The bag rolled over several other sacks, and something hard inside clunked against Kane’s skull, causing him to let out an irritated grunt. As he did so, the gruesome Magistrate spotted Kane hiding in the litter. Kane seemed to be watching in slow motion as the skeletal figure raised his hand in a smooth, well-practiced movement. Kane knew that movement well and watched helplessly as the automatic pistol materialized in the Magistrate’s bony hand and his index finger crooked against the trigger.

  Chapter 24

  The Soul Eater spit bullets across the trash area with a wail like a sick child. Kane didn’t even realize he was reacting but just ducked down as the first bullets strafed the area, bursting rubbish sacks and kicking rotting debris into the air in rancid explosions.

  The skeletal Magistrate squeezed the trigger again, sending a second burst in Kane’s direction even as Kane leaped out of the way. There was nowhere for Kane to go; all he could do was dive into the stinking trash bags and try to lose himself among them. Kane held his breath, trying to ignore the stench as he pushed his way beneath the garbage. It was dark down there, dark and warm as if he were inside something organic, a womb of trash.

  The Magistrate was alone, Kane told himself, and that gave him a chance.

  The area was so overloaded with trash bags that the Dark Magistrate found a half dozen of them tumbling toward him as Kane moved beneath them. He shoved them aside, took a step into the trash area, whipping the Soul Eater pistol before him. Then a hand reached up from the wealth of plastic black bags, grabbed the Magistrate’s wrist and pulled, yanking him down into the stinking trash. The Magistrate lost his footing, and overflowing trash bags tumbled in his wake.

  Beneath the heap of trash, Kane drew back his other fist and drove it repeatedly into the Magistrate’s face. The Magistrate struggled a moment, squeezing his pistol’s trigger and sending another of those wailing bullets through two bags of garbage above him.

  Then Kane shoved against the Mag, batting him down with his forearm and landing another blow with his other fist. The Magistrate sank down amid the refuse, plunging into the hot, stinking darkness.

  Moments later, Kane reappeared, head and shoulders emerging from the mass of overstuffed garbage bags like a diver coming up for air. Beneath the shimmering plastic waves, the Magistrate had stopped fighting back. Kane still didn’t know what the Mags were, but he was certain of one thing—they weren’t human, not anymore.

  Shrugging the last of the trash from his back, Kane waded through t
he piled litter to the open door of the Mag Hall of Justice. He stood there for a moment, catching his breath and surveying the interior through the narrow gap that the door allowed. Determining that the way was clear, Kane pulled the door wider and slipped inside.

  * * *

  WITH THE SWIFT PROFESSIONALISM born of need, Brigid Baptiste made her way through the ground floor of the hospital. She recalled the turns she had made here with Kane and Grant, and visualized the doors and elevator banks they had passed, searching her mind for possible routes up through the floors of the collapsing building.

  There was no lighting inside the hospital, and the corridors were illuminated only by what ambient light reached them from the open doors into the examination rooms and the wards. And with the sun fading, that light was becoming fainter by the minute. Brigid moved on, holding her fear in check, ignoring the figure she saw silhouetted in the rooms and reflected on the glass windows of the wards. “He’s not here, he’s just a hallucination.” She reminded herself of what Kane had explained back in the media suite.

  Brigid soon found the main staircase. It flared out from behind the reception area a handful of corridors away from where she had entered the building itself. The wide staircase ran through the center of the building. The soft shade of green paint that illuminated its walls had been scarred with blood and smoke, rust-colored streaks marring its surface. Shotgun and radio in hand, Brigid jogged up the stairs, taking them swiftly as she made her way up into the hospital building. Burned signs on the walls gave weight to her theory that it had been a military facility, which went some way to explaining why the place contained a mat-trans unit on its third floor. The walls also featured dark patches where water had seeped in. Brigid kept clear of those damp patches, wary now of any sitting water. The water contained dark memories, she knew—memories that bit back.