by Isaac Hooke
Jacob raised his chin proudly. "We've used the Control Room to get in touch with mayors across the world, and told them how to modify their guillotines to remove collars rather than heads. It's as simple as dulling the blade. Humanity is fighting back with lightning across the world. The bitched are becoming the unbitched, the collared, free."
Tanner frowned. "Free. That's a loaded word. And I'm not sure it applies here. Free to die, maybe. But you've finally achieved your endgame, I guess." The New User agenda—uncollar the world. That would bring a whole new set of problems down the line, not the least of which was premature aging.
"So young," Helen said to Jacob. "Yet he talks like a man with twice the years."
Jacob pretended she hadn't spoken, and he stared at Tanner with those penetrating eyes. "Endgame? Yes, I have achieved it, at that. But I do wish it were under better circumstances."
Tanner tapped his chin. "Three hundred men. What about ordinary gols?" Tanner remembered the supply gols he'd seen.
Jacob sat back. "We have around fifty."
"Can they be trusted?"
"It seems a bit strange, having gols at the headquarters of the Resistance, doesn't it? The thing is, the Direwalkers make no distinction between humans and ordinary gols. Either you're Direwalker, or you're not. Reports came from across the city that the fighting classes, the gol guards and so forth, were the first to fall against the Direwalkers. Defended us humans to the end, to their credit. Most of the gols we have are from the labor classes—tailor gols, banker gols and whatnot. Not the best fighters, and they can't summon lightning, but they are resilient. Good fodder for the front ranks during our attacks. A couple have the gol mind disease. Do you want to meet them?"
"That's all right." Tanner didn't think he'd use them. He just couldn't trust a gol, Direwalker or not. "When do you plan on making the assault on Jeremy's mansion?"
Cap finally spoke up. "Tonight. We're launching every single uncollared man we have at Jeremy's estate." Cap seemed so proud of himself. Tanner remembered how badly he wanted to take over the city while he was still in charge of the Black Den. Did he actually think that dream was attainable now, with Direwalkers rampaging everywhere?
"There's a slight problem," Tanner said. "Jeremy has... well he's changed."
"Changed?" Cap arched an eyebrow. Cap's striking resemblance to Hoodwink was distracting. Tanner thought of what the children had told him about the unregistered clones, and he wondered if Cap and Hoodwink were among that lot—the system formed your representation on the Inside based on the DNA of your body on the Outside, after all. And if Cap and Hoodwink were of that lot, what did it mean?
"Well, how has Jeremy changed?" Cap pressed.
"Because of the Dwarf, Jeremy's basically invulnerable," Tanner said, knowing he couldn't tell any of them about One. They'd never understand, not even Jacob, who knew all about the Outside thanks to Ari. "You won't be able to kill him with any of your weapons. Not fire swords. Not pipe bombs. Not lightning."
Cap glanced at Jacob, then Al. "I don't believe a word of that. Just because you come highfaluting in and out of our world don't mean I have to trust everything you say."
Tanner shrugged. "You charge Jeremy's mansion tonight, you die. All of you. If Jeremy doesn't get you, then one of his minions will. The four-armed Direwalker Brute, maybe. Unless that's what you want? You remember Brute, don't you?"
Cap didn't answer.
"That's what I thought. But there's another way to bring Jeremy down. A better way." Tanner paused for effect. "We send in a crack team of twenty men and put a trackable collar on him."
"Trackable collar?" Cap said. "As in, the collar you bitched the Dwarf with?"
"The very same. Once the collar is on, we send Jeremy past the Forever Gate with the help of the children. We push Jeremy across the last barrier, he dies, and I return with the survivors to the city."
Jacob leaned forward, frowning. "You'll never get close enough to collar Jeremy. Not with only twenty men. Jeremy's mansion is patrolled by Direwalkers at all times, and more are coming out his gate every second. Don't expect to use the White Poultice to pretend to be Jeremy or one of his minions either—finding dealers of the illegal face-changer is now impossible because of the fighting."
Tanner grinned. "I have a plan. And it doesn't involve the Poultice."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Breath misting, Tanner, Briar, Cap, and Al walked with purpose along the main street of Highbrow District.
All four of them had ordinary-looking fire swords belted to their waists, and wore capes with flaring collars attached to their long black coats. Centered on each coat was the embroidery of a curved tooth dripping blood. The seamstresses had put extra care and detail into those, basing them on the design found on actual Direwalkers.
Tanner had the children adjust the flags of the four avatars—via the Control Room—so that any Direwalker which scanned him or his companions would detect a fellow Direwalker. The children had also replaced the records of the four of them with false information, to offset any facial pattern recognition. And they'd even lengthened Tanner's canines, a painless procedure that none of the others had agreed to, which meant that if the companions were stopped, Tanner would be the one doing the talking.
He preferred it that way.
Tanner had insisted on personally preparing the way for tonight's raid. Cap and Al had offered to join him, and Briar, well, he had definitely surprised Tanner by volunteering to come along. Tanner had almost refused Ari's uncle, firstly because there weren't any fat Direwalkers, though he supposed he could explain that away, and secondly because he didn't think Briar had the fortitude for this kind of work. But he'd been wrong about the man before. Briar had infiltrated Jeremy's mansion as a Revisor, after all.
For the sake of Ari's memory, Tanner had let him come. They were headed to Briar's second house after all, and the man might prove to be of some use yet.
Beside him now, Briar held his head high and wore an outer mask of calm. He kept his hand on his sword hilt. The act was almost perfect, except for one thing.
"Briar." Tanner said, keeping his voice down. "Briar!"
Briar started as if drawn from some deep internal dialog.
Tanner nodded at his sword belt. "Don't squeeze your hilt so hard."
Briar looked at him blankly. "Mmm?"
Tanner pointed. "Your sword hilt!"
Briar glanced down, and when he realized that his knuckles were white around the sword's haft, he loosened his grip and smiled sheepishly.
Tanner sighed. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to let him come along.
Above, the sky was overcast and threatened a storm. Tanner searched for ravens, but didn't spot any. The gol birds acted as scouts for the enemy, and were probably being put to use in the attacks against the Safe Houses.
The streets in Highbrow hadn't been shoveled for a while, thanks to gol neglect, though much of it had been reduced to snowpack by the Direwalker foot traffic. Estates flanking the road had their gates knocked open and their doors broken in. Tanner saw the bodies of a dead husband and wife at the threshold of one of the houses, their rich silks blackened with blood. It was telling that no one had robbed the clothes from the bodies—everyone was too busy hiding or dying. Most of the residents had moved out of Highbrow weeks ago anyway, when the Direwalker sightings near Jeremy's estate first began. Though there would always be holdouts no matter where you went.
Holdouts. He'd passed one of the so-called Safe Houses on the way here, a makeshift pile of broken furniture defended by lightning-wielding men. The fighting was so intense that the bodies of the dead, men and Direwalkers alike, had started to form additional barricades. It wasn't a pretty sight. Similar fighting was probably happening at this very moment in cities across the world, and he had to wonder how long the resistance would last when the supply of Direwalkers was infinite.
He saw the origin of that infinite supply just ahead. An endless column of Direwalkers marched from Jere
my's estate. Those Direwalkers followed the street that led to the Line A transit center, where they would take their choice of portal hops to cities throughout the world. Tanner had considered helping Jacob bomb those transit centers, but he realized the effort was futile because One could just repair the destruction.
A tall stone fence hemmed Jeremy's estate, but the wide gate at the front allowed Tanner to see the mansion beyond even from here, fifty paces away. When Tanner and Ari had escaped the mansion with the Control Room, Briar's bomb had decimated the entire front side of the place.
But today the facade was perfectly restored.
"Impossible," he heard Briar mutter beside him.
Tanner kept his men on the far right side of the street, and none of the Direwalkers in the emerging column paid him and his companions much heed other than a few cursory glances.
So far so good.
Tanner led the companions to Briar's second home, a manor just across the street from Jeremy's. The main gates were blown open and the grounds were empty. Tanner crossed without incident to the mansion's front door, which sat askew its hinges. Inside, dead Direwalkers were caught in a trellis of spikes against the foyer's inner wall.
"Any other traps we should know about?" Tanner asked Briar.
The merchant shook his head, and Tanner gingerly stepped inside. He crossed the tiled floor, passing rooms filled with sealskin furniture. He climbed a staircase that had nymphs carved into its balustrade, and when he reached the second floor he led the companions to a bedchamber overlooking the street.
The spyglass he and Ari had used to observe Jeremy's mansion was still here, though it was knocked over. He'd brought another just in case, but the one on the floor seemed undamaged. With a little effort he remounted the telescope and peered into the eyepiece.
Direwalkers emerged in single file from the front doors of Jeremy's mansion across the street. The Direwalkers marched past the frozen fountain and across the tree-lined path of the estate before passing through the front gates.
The children had reported that there was a shield around the entire estate, an invisible dome that reached all the way to the outer walls. It was generated by One's avatar apparently, so the children couldn't inject anything inside the shield, nor move anyone covered by it, until Tanner clamped the trackable bronze bitch onto One's neck and cut off its powers.
Tanner steered the spyglass to the upper rooms of the mansion. The window to Jeremy's bedchamber was draped in blackness, so Tanner slid the spyglass rightward. He paused at another window nearby, this one uncurtained and offering a view into the hallway just outside Jeremy's room.
A new Direwalker appeared in the corridor every few seconds, walking away from the bedchamber.
"As I suspected," Tanner said. "The Direwalkers are coming from Jeremy's bedchamber in the upper east."
One had to be in there, too.
Tanner let Cap and Al try the spyglass.
"This is a good lookout," Cap said. "We'll place a scout at this window when the tunnel is ready."
Tanner didn't disagree. He led the others back to the first floor, and then down a second flight to the unfinished basement, which was made of bare limestone walls, all hard angles.
"I'm not surprised you never finished your basement," Tanner told Briar. "After all the money you threw away on the rest of the house."
Briar shrugged. "Insult me all you wish."
"Wasn't meant as an insult. Just a statement of the facts."
Briar sniffed. "Your barbs are like tickling feathers against the impenetrable hide of my self-confidence. And if you must know, I bought the house for the prestige of having parties on Highbrow Row. No one ever goes to a party in the basement."
"Well, here we are, about to attend the biggest party of them all." Tanner set a tracker on the limestone floor and activated it. A flashing blue light appeared at the core of the metallic sphere. The children would use the signal to tunnel a path to another tracker in the sewers nearby, connecting Briar's house to the underground staging area.
Jacob had wanted to use the preexisting manholes along the streets of Highbrow as the staging area, arguing that there was a tunnel close enough to Jeremy's mansion from the sewers already, and that setting up a new one was an unnecessary risk. But Tanner had overruled him, explaining that a bottleneck like a manhole was no place to launch a sally. The children could've just enlarged it moments before the attack, of course, but Tanner was careful not to point that out. He wanted a safe place to scout and observe before the final attack. And that place was here—you couldn't observe properly from a manhole.
"Time to go," Tanner said. The children wouldn't take long to form the tunnel once they received the signal, but Tanner and the others still had to leave the house through the front door so as not to arouse suspicion.
Tanner was the first to reach the main floor.
A Direwalker was waiting for him at the top of the stairs.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Tanner rested his hand firmly on the hilt of his fire sword.
"You there," the Direwalker said with disdain. "What are you doing?"
Tanner made a point of baring his canine teeth. "We're searching for krub hold-outs of course."
The Direwalker eyed him sceptically. "This house was searched hours ago." The Direwalker gazed past Tanner, and raised an eyebrow when it saw the others on the stairway. "You're all unit leaders?"
Tanner let vitra fill him from the sword, and as the power flowed through him he felt invincible. A surge of recklessness gripped his heart, and it took all his restraint not to draw the sword and cut down the Direwalker right there.
"I'm the only unit leader here," Tanner said.
The Direwalker spat some strange, guttural words. It was testing him by speaking a tongue known only to gols, or Direwalkers.
Some of his restraint left him, and Tanner drew his sword and touched it to the Direwalker's neck. He was careful not to let the vitra ignite it—he wanted the sword to seem ordinary for now. "Enough posturing, unit," Tanner said. "We're doing our jobs. You do yours."
Tanner sensed movement at the edge of his vision, and he glanced down the hall to see another Direwalker make a hasty retreat through the front door. The second Direwalker had obviously seen the whole incident, and Tanner was glad now that he hadn't killed this one. That action could've brought the whole army down on the house.
Tanner pulled back the blade, scowled at the Direwalker, and sheathed his weapon.
"You will answer to my unit leader for that," the Direwalker snarled.
Tanner shrugged. He glanced over his shoulder at the others. "With me, units!"
The Direwalker smirked. "You're trying too hard."
Tanner ignored the comment and led the others into the living room, where he sat himself down on one of the sealskin couches and did his best to make himself look comfortable. Cap, Al, and Briar spread out on the remaining couches and chairs. There was a long coffee table in front of Al and Briar, with an intricately detailed silver octopus as its centerpiece. A scalloped-edged area rug covered the floor in front of the table.
The Direwalker had followed them. It leaned against the doorway, crossed its arms, placed one foot over the other, and waited.
A cadre of seven Direwalkers soon came into the room, taking up positions along the walls. They regarded Tanner and his companions with sneers.
One of them, a Direwalker bigger than the others, moved with an air of command. The unit leader, then. Rectangular-faced, pug-nosed, close-cropped hair, taut features. It carried a large sword strapped to its waist.
"These are the units that threatened you?" the unit leader said to the Direwalker leaning in the doorway.
The other nodded.
The unit leader barked strange guttural words at Tanner and the others, and waited for an answer.
Tanner blinked calmly. He couldn't even begin to understand those throaty words, let alone voice them. "We will talk in the krub tongue."
The
unit leader strode to where Tanner reclined on the couch, and bent over. Its face was only a fingerbreadth from Tanner's. It leered. "Why? What are you hiding?" Its breath stank of rotten flesh.
Tanner's fingers twitched toward his sword hilt. If he killed these Direwalkers he'd compromise this location and ruin his carefully laid plans. He had to use wits rather than violence to get out of this.
The Direwalker straightened, backing off to observe Tanner's companions scornfully. "You're an entire company of unit leaders? Tell me, where are your units? And why are you in this house?"
Tanner steepled his fingers, trying to puzzle out why the Direwalkers thought his companions were unit leaders as well. This Direwalker dressed the same as the other units as far as he could tell. Two of the other Direwalkers even had blades, though the remainder were swordless. The children must have missed some setting in the avatars of Cap, Al and Briar.
"We answer only to One," Tanner said.
The unit leader smirked. "I doubt the likes of you would ever get close to the Great One."
Great One. So that's what the Direwalkers called it. Tanner would have to remember that for future encounters.
The unit leader glanced at Briar with disdain. "You. You're not even a proper unit. What are you doing here dressed like that? Speak up, gol."
Briar swallowed nervously, and glanced at Tanner.
"Don't answer him," Tanner said. He remembered what Jacob had told him about the Direwalkers. They treat normal gols the same as humans. There would be no quarter granted if Briar pretended he was an ordinary gol.
The Direwalker took a step toward Briar, who was visibly trembling now. "Answer me, gol! With flesh oozing off your body in rolls like that, you have no right to that uniform." The Direwalker drew its sword and leaned over the coffee table, touching the blade to Briar's belly. "Answer."
CHAPTER NINE
Tanner shifted his fingers closer to his sword hilt.
Briar abruptly stopped trembling. To Tanner's eye, it looked like something had clicked inside Briar's mind, something triggered by the sword pressed against his belly.