by H J Peterson
“Why here-“
“What’s with the violin?” Hiro asked, nodding to the instrument in his hands. Apparently, she didn’t want to talk about it, not that he blamed her. “I think you might care about that thing more than you would care about a human child.”
He looked down at the violin. “Remember how I told you that I was born in a brothel?”
Hiro nodded. “I fail to see what that violin has to do with that, though.”
Adelric began to rub the back of his neck. Already, he could feel the embarrassment rising up in his cheeks, burning. “Well, my dad was one of my mom’s clients during the war. Some guy named Private Biermann. He died during the battle of Aachtsgart, and he left my mom this violin for some reason.” He ran a hand over the body of the instrument, over wood that had seen much more in its life than he ever would. Over wood with the name of the fatal battle carved into the back. “I don’t really have anything to connect me to him: just my name and this violin.”
He looked up at her. “Besides: I kind of thought this could be my ticket out of the underworld.” He sighed and looked back down at his instrument. “I was right there, you know. I was right there, and it got pulled out from under me at the last second.” He looked back up at her. “Do you know how much that hurts?”
The look on Hiro’s face darkened. Adelric had misspoken: he could tell. She’d lost a lot to get to her position in her life. He didn’t know her very well, but she must have had to fight and crawl her way to where she was at the moment: she was a woman in a man’s world, after all, not to mention the fact that she was a Hanjan. As far as society was concerned, she was the lowest of the low, the bottom of the heap. Every odd in the world had been against her, and she’d still managed to come out on top. And she’d probably had to sacrifice everything to get there.
Hiro didn’t mention any of that, though: it was probably still a pretty sour, fresh memory.
“What was that song you were playing?” Hiro asked, changing the subject.
He hated that question: people never knew what he was talking about when he talked about music, not unless they had a little training, themselves. And Hiro didn’t strike him as the type to know a thing about orchestra music.
“Münster’s Konzert 4, movement 3,” Adelric said, “Eine Kleine Danse mitt der Nacht.”
Hiro frowned, confused. “How the hell do you dance with night? That doesn’t make a lick of sense.”
Adelric shrugged. “People used to name songs weird things. I don’t really get it, either.”
Hiro sighed, annoyed. “Well, I’m up: might as well go over your part in the plan with you.”
His part? What would that entail?
“Don’t worry,” Hiro said. “It’s not that complicated; all you really have to do is follow my lead.”
LI. HIRO
Hiro looked into the mirror, adjusting her coat. The time had come: she and Adelric had spent that day resting and getting ready, and now, it was finally time for them to head for the Überhaus. Hiro had gone over what she and Adelric would be doing a hundred times: she knew the plan like the back of her hand, and Adelric seemed to know his way around things, too. She should’ve had every confidence in the world that she would be able to pull it off without getting herself killed, but she didn’t. She was beyond nervous at that point: she was downright terrified. That would be the first time she’d ever performed a sting operation, and she was scared that she and Adelric would end up as corpses weighed down with bricks at the bottom of the Trübe if things went too far south.
She forced those thoughts out of her head. Focus, she told herself. You know what you’re doing, and so does Adelric. As long as the two of us keep our heads in the game, you’re going to be just fine.
Adelric came to the bathroom doorway, his hands shoved into his pockets, his reflection in the mirror distorted by the slight warp in the glass. “How are you feeling?”
“Just fine,” Hiro said curtly. “What about you?”
“Me? I’m absolutely terrified,” Adelric said. “If Klara figures out what we’re doing, we’re dead. I’ve never been great at convincing her of anything, and I just-“
“Stop thinking that way,” Hiro ordered, more than a little annoyed. “The more you think about shit like that, the more you’re going to psyche yourself out.” She began to put her hair up into a tight bun, wrapping her hair around her hand. “Focus on what you need to do, and we’ll be just fine.”
“Do you really feel that way?”
Hiro paused, sighing. The truth was, she didn’t actually believe that: she knew just as well as he what Klara was capable of. She was a force to be reckoned with; if she found out about what they were doing, she would make them wish they were dead.
She didn’t mention any of that to Adelric, though: he needed a confidence boost, and that sentiment sure as hell wasn’t going to help him.
“Of course I do,” Hiro lied, tying her hair up with a red ribbon. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about what might happen when you can think about what needs to happen.
She put her cap on over her hair and pulled it over her eyes. It was time.
“Are you ready?” Hiro asked, turning around and shoving her hands into her coat pockets.
Adelric nodded. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
The two of them left the apartment and walked out into the night.
The night was dark, the rain pelting down from them as they rushed for the closest metro stop. The rain had soaked the city of Königstadt for a couple of hours at that point, leaving miniature rivers of water racing to the streets’ storm drains. A fog had also rolled in that evening, turning the lights into swirling, writhing tentacles of ghostly yellow light. The streets of the Vergesse quarter were absolutely silent, the over-worked factory men and women that called that place home shut into their decaying apartments, trying to rest their aching limbs enough to be able to work the next morning. The few that roamed the streets wandered like ghosts, their heads down and their shoulders hunched. The way the city was that night made Hiro and Adelric hurry to the metro stop even faster: she really didn’t want to be stuck out on those streets any longer than she had to, and she doubted that Adelric did, either.
Hiro couldn’t breathe until the two of them reached the Baumerplatz metro stop, a couple of streets over from their ratty apartment they’d been using for the past couple weeks. Of course, she knew that they weren’t exactly out of the woods just because they’d gone down the stairs to Vergesse’s main station. Baumerplatz Station was infamous for the muggers, pickpockets, and scam artists that worked down there. As the one and only place in Vergesse where more than three lines in the Königstadt metro stopped, there were plenty of targets for those sorts of people, and Hiro was rather determined to not end up as some bastard’s mark.
The gun shoved into her waistband suddenly felt much heavier as they walked over to the ticket booth. She had a nasty feeling that she was going to need it way before she was planning on it.
The woman behind the ticket counter, who was protected by a sort of cage made out of closely packed brass bars, seemed a little tense, too. The second she saw them, she went on high alert. Hiro had the feeling that she had a finger on the panic button every ticket counter had, in case something happened.
“How can I help you?” she asked.
Hiro slapped five marks down on the counter. “Two tickets, round trip.”
The woman took the coins and pulled them back into the safety of the brass cage, counting them up. “Will you be going beyond zone one?”
Hiro shook her head. “We’re staying in the city.”
The woman put the coins in the register and pulled two blue tickets from one of the many rolls of colored tickets behind the desk and stamped them with the day’s date and the time. “Papers, please.”
Both of them produced their identification papers, holding them up for the woman.
She squinted at them, looking for any tell-tale signs that they were forgeries, then pu
shed the tickets under the cage at them.
“Please follow all rules and regulations of the Königstadt Metro,” she said. “Any rule breaking can lead to your tickets being voided, or suspension from the metro in its entirety. Please show your tickets to the Königstadt Transit Authority Police on the train.”
Hiro and Adelric nodded their thanks, and they headed off down the corridor to the proper platform.
Baumerplatz Station was an absolute maze. Every neighborhood in Königstadt had a hub, but by far, Baumerplatz was the most overcrowded, dirty, horrible station of them all. Every stall in that station–built for street vendors to sell their wares so the streets above them wouldn’t get too packed–was filled, and there were even people trying to sell things outside of the designated stalls. Of course, those people were usually Magyaran gypsies, and had things set up so they could pack up and run off the second the metro police came strolling through. Hiro and Adelric ignored the sickening smells and deafening cacophony of Baumerplatz Station, pushing their way through the throngs of people, keeping their hands on their wallets and their tickets. They headed for the stairs that lead for the KM-3 line, which stopped at Überhaus Circus, the roundabout right in front of the Überhaus’ plaza.
Hiro sighed, a little relieved, as they made it out of the main thoroughfare of Baumerplatz Station.
“You still have your wallet and your ticket?” Hiro asked as they headed down mere stairs, passing right by the corridor that lead to the tracks that went to Weinberg, the university, and Königstadt Zentrum.
“Of course, I do,” Adelric said. “I know how to keep pick pocketed.” He looked over his shoulder at where they’d just come from. “Why is it so busy down here, still?”
“Everyone’s coming home from Factory Row,” Hiro said as they reached the bottom of the stairs. They reached another intersection, and went into the left tunnel, which lead to the tracks that went to Überhaus Circus and Geldmarkt, the financial district. “There’s cheap food down here, and even cheaper beer: a lot of them come down here to eat, then bring some back to their families.”
They went up the stairs at the next intersection, which would get them on the right side of the tracks of the right line. They went down another set of stairs and ended at the proper platform, where a couple people also waited for the next train to arrive.
The two of them sat down on one of the benches that lined the concrete wall of the station. Hiro still found that she couldn’t relax: she didn’t think she’d be able to relax until that whole mess was over with and she was back in her own apartment.
Adelric, however, didn’t seem worried about any of that. He just looked around the station, his eyes wide. It was as if he’d never been in a metro station, before.
“Adelric, stop gawking,” Hiro whispered to him. “Heavens: you’re acting like you’ve never taken the metro, before.”
“That’s because I haven’t.”
Hiro found herself giving him a look. “What? You’ve lived in Königstadt your whole life, and you’ve never taken the metro?”
Adelric shook his head. “There wasn’t a coin to spare. I preferred walking everywhere to not having dinner.”
That had to have been one of the saddest things she’d ever heard. Metro tickets were not at all expensive: as long as you stayed within the Königstadt city limits, tickets cost two marks per person, round trip, for 24-hours. Back when she and her brothers were fresh off the boat from Hanjai and struggling to get by, she rode the metro every day to get to school. Meaning Adelric had grown up not just dirt poor, but homeless.
That made Hiro feel terrible. She knew full well what happened to kids on the street: if you didn’t have something you could sell to someone–be it your body, your fists, or anything else people might find useful–you died. She’d examined enough bodies of kids that couldn’t pull their weight in one way or another at the police academy to know that they didn’t exactly get granted good deaths, either. The fact that Adelric–that skinny, can’t-lift-his-own-body-weight twerp–had not only managed to survive that world, but was on the verge of making it out of the life, was amazing.
Of course, she didn’t actually tell him any of that: the last thing she needed was him getting distracted.
“Well, then, let me give you a few tips,” Hiro said as the train came into the station. The train didn’t look too crowded, just as she’d expected: at that time of night, the trains that went towards the city center from the poorer parts of the city were usually deserted. “Keep your hand on your wallet, and don’t look at anybody for too long: keep your eyes down, and you’ll probably be fine.”
Adelric turned and gave her a look. “Probably?”
The doors to the metro trained opened, allowing people to get on and off.
Hiro didn’t answer his question. She stood up and quickly got onto the train, with Adelric right on her heels.
“How long do these doors stay open?” Adelric asked as they stepped onto the train.
“Not very,” Hiro said as she took a seat on the bench by the door. As if in response, the doors shut, accompanied by the ringing of a warning bell.
Adelric frowned as he looked over at the door as it clicked shut. “Do they always close that fast? What if it’s really busy?”
“Let’s just say that you learn to shove through crowds,” Hiro said as the metro began to roll down the tracks, again, entering a dark tunnel. “I actually knew a girl that broke her arm on the metro, back in grade school.”
“Seriously?” Adelric asked. “What happened?”
“It was rush hour, and she ended up getting shoved off the train at the wrong stop,” Hiro explained. “She tried to get back on, but she was too late, and her arm got caught in the door. Snapped her little arm right in half, and thanks to the fact that it was rush hour, it took them forever to get her to a hospital.”
Adelric winced, rubbing his arm. It was as if he was feeling what that poor girl Hiro went to school with felt. “Was she okay?”
“They didn’t have to amputate, if that’s what you’re asking,” Hiro said.
The train stopped at the next station, but they didn’t get off: they still had five stops to go.
“Well, then, I’m glad this is my first time down here,” Adelric said as the doors closed, again. Nobody had bothered to get on; they were still the only people in that part of the train. “I probably would’ve gotten killed trying to figure this whole place out as a kid.”
“It really isn’t that bad,” Hiro said as the train began to move, again.
Adelric sighed. “And to think: people think I’m crazy for walking everywhere instead of getting onto one of these stupid things.”
“Oh, that’s not the only reason people think you’re crazy.”
They didn’t talk much after that. Adelric’s eyes continued to wander, apparently trying to memorize every detail of the train car, while Hiro carefully watched the metro stations pass by, paying attention to the names. Rochereux Strasse, Franksterne, Schönestadt; she mentally counted down the number of stations they had left before they had to get off so they could be prepared to get off when the time came.
Finally, the train pulled into Scharnhorst station, where a few people got onto the train. It was the station right before Überhaus Circus, where they needed to get off.
Hiro stood up and moved over to the door as the train pulled out of Scharnhorst Station, taking hold of the metal railing above her head. Almost there.
Adelric got a wide-eyed look on his face as he watched Hiro get up. “W-was that our stop? Why are you getting up?”
“Our station’s the next one on the line,” Hiro said, all too aware of the fact that the other people on the train were giving them looks. “Remember how fast the doors on this thing close?”
That was when he saw the logic behind what she was doing. He stood up and carefully walked over to where she was standing, holding onto the rail like a lifeline. Everyone else in that car was raising their eyebrows, question
ing how a grown man could possibly struggle that much with the metro.
“First time for him,” Hiro explained to everybody else. “The town he lives in doesn’t have one.” She looked back at Adelric as the metro hit a little bump, making the car rock. The poor kid had to struggle to keep his balance.
Everyone seemed satisfied by that: they all turned away and ignored the two of them, just as they would’ve had Adelric not been so new to riding the metro.
Well, everybody except for one person.
The one person that continued to latch onto them was an old man, who stared at the two of them with those sunken, beady eyes, as if just waiting for one of them to make a mistake.
It made Hiro uncomfortable. She was used to having people stare at her on the metro: it was something a Hanjan like herself got used to very quick. However, it was different, that time. She’d gotten used to curious glances from people that weren’t quite sure what to make of her. The look on that face was beyond curiosity, and even past annoyance: that look on his face was one of sheer, utter contempt.
Immediately, she went on edge. She had a bad feeling about him.
“Believe me; he’s a good Vorbereicher boy: the fact that he’s struggling to use the metro isn’t his fault,” the old man said. “I blame the mutt bitch that’s teaching him: you’re just making him dumber with that voice of yours.”
Hiro wished that she could say that that was the first time she’d heard something like that. Sadly, it wasn’t. In fact, that was a rumor she’d heard too many times to count. For some unknown reason, the older generation all thought that just hearing the voice of a Hanjan was enough to make you dumber so you’d succumb to their will more easily.
Of course, that rumor was absolutely ridiculous. Next thing she knew, they were going to start flat out saying that all Hanjans were witches hell bent on taking over all of Vorbereich with their mind control powers.
Oh, wait: they already did.
“Don’t talk to her like that,” Adelric ordered as the train slowed down as it pulled into Überhaus Circus Station.