She shifted her weight and stood from the cot, quickly changing from her Underground attire into something more fitting for a meeting with a Vice Artificer. She tossed a black robe over the top that would protect from some of the sludge as she crawled her way out of the system of tunnels. With one last glare towards Rat-livier, she left.
The process of climbing out from their substation was not a pleasant one. Nearly one hundred feet of ladders were between her and the manhole that led Topside. As she pulled herself up each rung, she questioned if the alliance would really offer any benefit, considering what she would be giving up. She paid dearly for her line on Blight crystals; it wasn’t a resource she wanted to share, let alone allow to spread into hands she didn’t control. If the Artificers weren’t careful, she’d be revealed and targeted—and Mystics forbid the crystals started being used by the general populace.
She nearly turned back a half dozen times before she reached the manhole. If it wasn’t for the memory of crying children, she would have.
A small group of Prin Guard jumped as she emerged from the Underground. They pointed their spears at her, until they mistook her for a child.
“What brings you up, Grimer?” One of them jeered.
“A girl’s work doesn’t stop because of fighting idiots.”
They all exchanged glances and shrugged. Of course they would assume her work was the typical work Underground children did at the age she appeared to be. She let them think it as she took off her pack and cloak, shoving the robe into the bag and slinging it back on. She made an extra show of rubbing her face clean. Little girls have to look nice for their Topside buyers.
The guards snickered and let her walk past.
She headed in the direction of the market, a common location for children to meet with their ‘benefactors’. Once she was out of sight, she took a hard left towards the new Artificer Guild building, just outside States Row.
A few of their own stood outside to guard the place. They let her in without question. A dark-haired woman stood inside, her vibrant blue eyes looking her over. She appeared to be a pureblooded Illara, except for the hair. It spoke to some mixed blood, likely far in her family’s past. Despite this, she wore the robes of an Illara Source-caster, beautifully embroidered. The rejection of everything but her Illara side spoke to the violent and racist past of Sunterra; Terran blood in her lineage had not been a choice.
Time doesn’t change much, just the groups that fight.
The Topsiders called themselves enlightened, accepting mixed families now. But, the fact was that all the hatred had just shifted to new targets. The Topsiders against the Grimers. The Pact against the Xenai.
Tani smiled, reaching out to offer her hand to Dom.
Dom nodded, rather than taking her hand. “This way.”
She turned and walked from the foyer. Tani tried to contain her sense of wonder at the building. The walkway opened up into a large domed section, wooden support beams creating a nine-point star pattern. The seating and decorations all echoed the pattern of nine. Nine tufted armchairs placed around a table. Nine paintings hung on the walls. How they had pulled this together so well in the few months since being given the building was beyond Tani. They must have way more connections than Tani had thought.
Dom led her down a hallway opposite the foyer. Here the hallway branched out to each side, the attached paths curving back around in a half circle. Doors were on each side. If she could walk the halls and count, she expected there to be nine of them. Dom turned left and led her to the last door on the right.
The room was large, with western facing windows that covered the entire curved wall and had some view of the mountains over the tops of other buildings. In the middle of the room, a giant desk sat, the wood stained and finished in a luminous satin. Some of the immaculate detail was missing from the carvings along the edges, likely from being sanded down and given fresh stain several times. No one sat at the desk, but Dom led her to the couch that sat across from it, “Sit. He’ll be in soon.”
Tani nodded at Dom’s back as she retreated from the room.
“Well, alright then.”
She dropped her bag off her shoulders and let it slide down her arm until she could grab the strap and gently set it next to the couch. As she sat, the couch enveloped her, letting her sink into it until she felt like she was becoming part of the thing. The velvet-like fabric was smooth and changed colors from green to purple as she pushed the fibers in different directions.
A man cleared his throat and Tani found an Illara man, eyebrow raised, standing next to the couch. She offered a sheepish smile, “Hello, I’m Tani.”
“Conlan.” Unlike Dom, he offered his hand and Tani shook it without attempting to free herself from the all-consuming sofa. “I’m glad you could make it. I’d offer some tea, but our supplies are running low. Would you like some water, instead?”
He looked genuinely sorry, but Tani still distrusted it; she was pretty sure if she had been a Topsider, he would have offered the tea anyway, “No, I’m good.”
“Great.” He stepped around the desk and sat. “Now, Dom tells me that you might be able to get us some samples of the Blight Crystal? Have you done any work with them yourself?”
“I have a few animal experiments going, to see if they will help my work. I can send over some documentation, if you are interested in what we have done so far. My sample supply is very limited, so the best I can offer is a few small stones per month.”
Conlan smiled, “That will be more than adequate for our own research. I assume, however, you will want something in return?”
Tani nodded, “The fighting between the factions puts my project in great danger. My patients can’t get to me for their surgeries and many of them will die if they don’t have their procedures done soon.”
Conlan sighed and sat back, “We cannot let the BloodSmiths steal from us without penalty to help your little project.”
“I am not asking that you do. However, I have two requests that will help me—the first, is that you keep the fighting away from my lab. Your people go down there, they can choose where they go before the fighting starts. If you can keep the fights away from me, I can figure out how to transport patients in. Second, I will need some reassurance that any further thefts will not result in the Blight crystals being taken by the BloodSmiths. They have to be secured someplace that they won’t go.”
“I already have a secret place for the crystals being set up. The first request may be a little harder to fulfill. We do choose where we go down and the fights start close to that location, yes, but as you know, the situation becomes quite fluid after that. I can’t promise that as it goes on that it may not end up close to you, without compromising the safety of my own men trying to get back our stolen property.”
“Well, you will have to figure it out,” Tani said, staring into his eyes as she leaned forward and undid the strap on her pack. She pulled a piece of cloth out and tossed it onto the desk, “Until you do figure it out, that is all I will provide. I will have two larger samples for you in a month, assuming you find a way to do what I asked.”
Conlan reached across the desk and grabbed the cloth, unfolding it to reveal a small red gem, no larger than a pea.
“If we can get a plan in place to keep your lab out of the fray, can you bring more before the month is done?”
“I can bring one of the larger samples in two weeks if the fighting stays completely away from the Tech Quarter. Starting today.”
Conlan sighed, but he lifted his hand, holding the gem, and nodded, “We will work on it. Thank you for bringing this.”
Tani stood and reached across the desk, offering her hand again. He took it.
Tani barely noticed the crowds thinning around her as she left craft row and wandered back to the Underground entrance. She was already thinking up routes to ferry some of her most critical patients that would avoid the fighting. A lot of the routes involved taking the long ways to exits and then going
Topside to the entrance near her lab. She wasn’t sure how feasible it would be for the bedridden patients. They would have to rig some sort of device to lower them down the utility holes, and that would be hard with the Prin Guard standing around the entrances.
Of course, more mobile patients like Olivier would be able to get down the ladders themselves. He was still in a holding pattern while she collected more data on the damned rat. It had been days since she last responded to him. She would have to make the call to trust the Artificers would hold up their end of the deal, or wait to see if they did. Waiting really wasn’t an option.
She smiled when she got to her entrance; the Prin Guard had mostly left, except for one, who was asleep against a building. It might just work to resume operations. Glancing over at the guard every few seconds, she pulled the cover off and slid down onto the rungs. He didn’t seem to notice her.
The little bastard lived, scurrying around, eating some carrots that had not been in the cage when Tani had left the lab. She couldn’t shake the feeling of something being wrong, but she also couldn’t postpone responding to Olivier any longer. She pulled out her LightTab and opened a message to the encrypted address Olivier had provided when he messaged her a few days ago:
Animal test still shows no sign of negative side effects. If you can get to my lab today, we can proceed.
The victory of squeezing all her critical patients in for surgery was short-lived. They had barely finished with the last patient when the videos started showing up. It was horrible, and it was all her fault. She couldn’t stop watching them. Over and over again, she laid in her small room on her cot and watched the videos spreading on the SatNet of Undergrounders using Blight crystal amulets. Dolores hadn’t spoken to her since the videos started coming out. Vin was... well, he was being Vin. But, a little too Vin. Dolores was equally annoyed but was still speaking to Vin and not to her, even if it was only to tell him to shut up and go hide in the steam vents. She resented his intrusion into her completely valid depression. He was a few loud bursts of stupid antics away from being punched in the face. Tani would like to launch a chair at him, but she wasn’t sure she could throw it hard enough to satisfy herself. Plus, a punch would hurt her too, and she deserved it.
After all, she was the one that meddled in things she didn’t fully understand. She was the one that supplied the Artificers with their cursed stones. She hadn’t expected them to break the things up into tiny pieces and sell them. She should have. She didn’t trust anyone, why did she start with them?
She heard the flap to her room open a little and was sure if she looked back, Vin’s head would be floating in it. He’d have some food in his mouth and he’d make a goofy face at her when she glanced at him. She didn’t look. Soon, she heard the sound of the flap again and retreating footsteps. A small victory. She still didn’t know so many things. What motivated the Artificers to spread the Blight crystal when they knew less about it than she did? What was going to happen to Olivier? Was his implant of the Blight crystal just another experiment that would backfire on her? Had she created something worse than what was going around on the SatNet?
It was too much to handle. She tossed the LightTab onto the floor, not even cringing when she heard the glass clatter on the floor. There was no shatter afterwards. It would be fine. She closed her eyes and was soon fast asleep.
Tani still couldn’t open her eyes. She felt like she had been asleep for ages. She groaned in her cot, rolling onto her back and squirming her back as she stretched her limbs. She blinked at the ceiling until it began to sharpen and the small amount of light sneaking into her room was no longer blinding.
She laid still for a moment, fully awake and enjoying the emptiness in her head. No thoughts or ideas flying through her mind at speeds that would make an aeroplane seem slow. The mornings were always so peaceful—before she lost the comfort of her heavy blankets and her calm was replaced by sound, people, and responsibility. The world would trap her into reacting and forming plans that would be destroyed by the constant churn of everyone around her. She would have to focus on survival as soon as she stepped out of her room, so she stayed in her cot. She radiated heat and felt parched. I’ll get up in a minute.
Tani vaguely remembered waking up and stretching earlier. But, now, here she was, waking and stretching again. She had to get moving. Maybe she should just leave Prin before the hammer fell. Who knows what Stateswoman Shae’s reaction would be to this. Tani may not have a head once the Shae woman traced the proliferation of the crystals back to her—and she would. The woman had an uncanny ability to get information out of people. She may always be a step behind what happened in the Underground, but when she got wind of something, she caught up quickly.
Was it worth fixing herself? Or should she run and let Ayna handle it?
She sighed and swung off her cot, standing then kneeling to pick up her LightTab.
A new video was posted. It showed a little girl, laying in bed, struggling to breathe, the voice over sounded like a young boy. He talked about his sick sister. Tani was tempted to turn it off; she didn’t want to see anything else that she had caused. But, her inner turmoil couldn’t stop tormenting her. It willed her to keep watching, and so she did.
74
Ayna
The giant table in the council room was empty as Kingston lounged across from Ayna. She was surprised to find Kingston alone—it seems the rest of the council had no desire to get the news from the front as soon as it came in. They probably all assumed there would not be any. Kingston sat across from her; the only hopeful one. Their conversation turned to the Blight project, so Ayna placed her Tab into protected mode and reviewed plans for expanding the U Labs with him. He might not be someone she trusted with all the details of the project, but he had built a town from a field, so his input was helpful for the mundane tasks in the project.
After an hour or so reviewing the blueprints Jo had put together for her, Ayna’s aide slid into the room. She was trembling with more sweat than usual. Ayna resisted the urge to send her away. Kingston looked over at the girl. Instead, Ayna spoke as if to one of her children, “What is it?”
The girl nodded to Ayna, “I’m sorry to interrupt—I am not sure what is going on, ma’am, but General Hafi reached out and seemed distraught that you had not yet responded to his urgent message.”
Ayna gave her an encouraging smile, “It’s fine, Erde. I was showing Kingston some project data. I’ll check on it immediately.” Ayna turned and pushed down the smile that threatened to take over her. That Hafi was sending the outcome of the battle was a good sign. If he had lived, then there was a good chance that plenty of others had as well. Maybe even Shara. For all his asking about what had happened, Kingston was remarkably calm.
Ayna waited until Erde closed the door to the council room, then she flipped her tablet out of Protected Mode to receive new messages and notifications. Immediately, an urgent message from Hafi popped up. Then a second urgent message. She clicked on the most recent one. Hafi’s face showed, making Ayna frown. Hafi despised sending video messages. He viewed them as a waste of everyone’s time, unless something was both important and personal. She flicked the display to show it on the screen in the wall.
Hafi’s face filled the room, the display zooming in on his face to fit it from the floor to the ceiling, “It looks like we have an answer—Shara went with a small troop to the nearby SatNet tower. Sergeant Coilsen said it was to transmit some Blight crystal data, but they were ambushed by Xenai. He was the only one who made it back from the tower. I’ve sent another team to investigate, but the scouts have done a preliminary confirmation. I’m so, so sorry.”
Ayna didn’t know why this was so important to her, but the nausea was rising. Her finger trembled as she clicked on the first message.
“I’ve sent out scouts to investigate why the Xenai have not attacked again this morning.” Hafi sighed and looked at things off screen.
He’s stalling.
Hafi glan
ced away from the camera on the Tab, “Something isn’t right. They have never hesitated to throw their soldiers at us, even if it means a massive slaughter. Something has happened but I can’t figure out what.”
Just like that, it had happened. The Xenai had gotten what they wanted. Ayna watched each message several times before a third came in. Kingston stayed quiet, observing the story playing out and Ayna’s reaction to it, but he offered no comfort or advice. Ayna tapped to open the third message. The video download felt like it took ages, even though the States House connected to a tower for quick transfers.
Hafi’s face floated on the wall again and his voice was hesitant and—what is that? Hafi wasn’t looking into the camera, “The troop sent to investigate the tower found the five soldiers dead outside as expected. Sergeant Coilsen said Shara had gone in while the six of them remained outside. The investigative team found lights on in the tower, but nothing else. He said they saw her with something around her neck, like it was subduing her. They took her west from the tower. We have some light tracks we can follow.” Hafi paused again.
It’s fear. Thats what it is.
Hafi gave a direct look into the LightTab camera, the fear and hesitation fading, “Once we confirm that they have retreated fully, I am sending the army home. I intend to go after Shara, unless you have other orders.”
Ayna could hear the defiance in his voice and see it in the slight tilt of his head at the end. No matter what she told him, he would go after Shara. And she would have to sit here, doing nothing. She tossed the Tab onto the giant table and the projection onto the screen flickered and went dark. She wanted to throw the LightTab—to hear the satisfying shatter echo with the tones of her failure. She had been too slow to figure out the Blight crystal and bring Shara home. She shouldn’t have sent her in the first place. Why did she think the crystals were more dangerous?
Song of Sundering Page 42