by Lou Anders
Looking back I see the brass plate, silver-white beneath the moon, clear enough to read the words RAFFLES HOTEL.
Beside me, Zenon throws a salute. I can even read the motto on his winged insignia: per ardua ad astra. The Royal Air Force, shooting for the sky.
“Why are you saluting?” I ask.
“It's famous, innit?” Zenon comes from Warsaw. Drunk, he sounds like a Londoner. “The hotel.”
“Bleeding hell,” mutters Fred. “If the MPs catch us, we're in the clink.”
We weave along the road on foot. After some time—God knows how long—we come across a group of local Malays, standing by a drainage hole, pointing down and muttering.
“What are they on about, Jack?”
I rub my face, wishing the world would steady. “Dunno.”
“Come on, Paddy,” says Gordon, who's incapable of calling me Jack. “You've picked up the lingo.”
“Only a little.”
“I'll buy you a whiskey, a wee drop of the…What do you call it?”
“The craythur,” I tell him. “All right.”
I do my best to form the question, but the reply comes rattling back too fast to follow. So I try again, slower, and the Malay uses simple words this time.
“Big snake,” I tell Gordon. “Boa.”
“Down the drain?”
“Yep.”
“Well,” mutters Fred. “Boas. Big buggers.”
“Got just the thing for ‘em.” Gordon, swaying, digs through his pockets. “Anyone like pineapples?”
Zenon shakes his head. Fred stares at him. “What, you don't—?”
But the pineapples that Gordon's pulling out have pins and three-second fuses.
“Oh, sweet Jesus—”
Down the opening they sail, and then there's a massive crump and a silvery cloud of moonlit dust, and I'm on my hands and knees on the road, laughing and cursing with the rest.
For a moment I groan awake, in my silver-gray room hours before dawn. Then I let my head roll to one side, sliding back down to sleep.
The Malays are running away down the road.
“What got into them?” asks Rory, picking debris from his hair.
“God's sake,” mutters Gordon. “We liberated Singapore, didn't we? Bloody Changi. We're heroes of the whatsit. Hour.”
“Right,” says Rory.
“Deserve bloody medals, don't we?”
“But you can't drink a medal,” says Fred.
For a moment we all stop. Fred may have hit on a profound truth. But I wish Gordon hadn't mentioned Changi.
We were the second team into the prison camp, to see near-skeletal bodies, to move through the stench of dysentery and death. One of the ex-prisoners, somehow, persuaded Gordon to hand over his Webley. I guess Gordon wanted to see if the man would head for the Japanese guards, now under our watch, and pick out a particular guard or just try to wipe out the lot.
But the man with shaking sticks for arms turned the revolver to his own head. Gordon was only just in time to swipe the weapon away from him.
A medic caught the man before he fell, fainting.
“Should do the Japs our bloody selves,” the medic said. “Saw off their heads with their own bastard swords.”
I could have stayed in Dungarvan, rode out the war—Ireland is neutral, after all—working in the leather factory, reading my library books in the pub every night. I didn't have to come into hell.
“Come on.” I clap Gordon on the shoulder. “A wee drop of the craythur, right?”
“You're a hero, Paddy.”
“Grand man yourself, Gordon.”
We head back towards the barracks.
It's 3:07 AM by the clock when I haul myself from bed. Outside, the forest remains black beneath darkness. Did I wake because of my dreams, or because something in the real world—?
There.
Twin points of scarlet, glowing in the night.
“Home alone in Stephen King country,” wasn't that what Ian said?
I wait. The scarlet lights remain still. Finally I call, “Patio lights. On.”
Magnesium-white beams flood the exterior.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”
The two cats blink but stay sitting. One is a silver tabby, the other calico. They stare at me for a long time. Then they look at each other, their implants strobing scarlet.
And the patio lights go out, though I did not command this. Sweet bleeding hell.
Shadows slip gracefully among shadows. I think they're heading for the forest.
“Kitchen. Make coffee.”
No more sleep tonight.
I almost drop my coffee when the doorbell sounds. The sun is painting amber-gold above the treetops now, and I'm getting set for a quiet, exhausted day. But through the door-screen I can see a brown uniform, and the package in the courier's hands. Perhaps Irina has sent me new hardware from the labs.
“Morning, sir.”
“Hi.” I slide the door open. “Do I need to sign?”
“Yeah, could you—?” The courier holds up a qNote then falters, noting the absence of a qPin in my ear. “Oh. Just a minute.”
He starts to unclip a light-pen from his pocket, but I'm ahead of him. The qNote beeps.
“Um…. How did you…?”
“Next year's model.” I take the package from his hands. “I'm trying it out.”
“So where…? Wow. I mean, wow.”
And he walks back towards his chocolate-brown truck shaking his head. I could do with solitude today, but I'd better open the package. Irina only sends me stuff when it's—but it's not from her.
My cousin Deirdre, in County Clare, has sent me—as I find, cutting open the envelope—a red diary marked 1943, and a small cardboard box.
Inside the box is a metal button with embossed initials, RAF, and the motto: per ardua ad astra. And there's a brownish photograph—not just 2-D, but monochrome—of military officers atop white stone steps, while massed troops at parade-ground attention form the backdrop. On the back of the photograph is scrawled: Surrender of Singapore by the Japanese Imperial Army, 1943.
When I open the diary, I read the owner's name: Jack O'Connell. Tucked inside is a covering note from Deirdre, explaining that she found these old things that belonged to Grandpa Jack. She thought I might like them.
I put everything inside a drawer.
Then I carry my coffee outside to the patio, and stare at the forest while the drink grows cold.
Much later, on the couch, feeling washed out, I finally lean back, closing my sore eyelids—
Three large-limbed men, wearing grease-stained tunics that were originally orange-and-burgundy, sat around a small portable stove, sipping hot tea from tin cups. Black oil streaked the steel wall. Overhead, a concertina joint in the corridor ceiling was leaking.
To the Clanking City, such malfunctions were like microscopic cuts or infections. Maintenance crews were the city's antibodies.
A slender man of medium height, wrapped in a black cloak, was waiting in an iron alcove farther down the corridor. Several times, he consulted a small bead in his palm. Eventually he shook his head, and wandered over to the maintenance crew, who were finishing up their break, wiping out their tin mugs with gray rags.
The dark-cloaked man stared at them, then: “Didn't I see you around here a tenday ago?”
A bulky engineer wiped a greasy hand across his stubbled pate. “It's our corridor, ain't it?”
“You mean you live here?”
“Nah.” One of the others spat into his cup, then continued polishing. “He means we work it. Corridor twenty-nine, deck five, fore to aft.”
“But”—the cloaked man looked along the corridor, to where it bent out of sight, then back the other way—“that's twenty miles long.”
“Takes a couple o’ years. Then we starts all over again.”
“There's other jobs that are urgent, like,” volunteers the smallest man. “Iffen the emergency crews can't get there, we lend a hand.”
“Good for you. And you get to see the entire City. Amazing.”
“Yeah?” The team chief shakes his head. “Don't go up nor down nor sideways. Just the one corridor, ain't it?”
“All the same, you must meet interesting people.”
The three engineers stare at each other, then their chief harrumphs. “I s'pose you could say that.”
As the floor lurched—“That's an awkward step, then”—the men automatically adjusted their footing to accommodate the City's gait. From around the corner came a muttered “Bugger.”
A stocky figure clad mostly in green was approaching. His grin was cheery, his shock of copper-red hair half hidden by his hood.
“At last,” muttered the dark-cloaked man. To the engineers, he added, “Be seeing you.”
He strode off to meet his red-haired friend.
The chief grinned and said, “Thinks we don't know who he is, don't he?”
“Yeah,” said the second engineer.
“So who is he?” asked the smallest after a moment.
“Well I don't know his name, do I?”
“Oh.” The small man thought about this. “Who is he, then?”
“He's a noble, ain't he? They wrap themselves up in old cloaks and think that makes ‘em one of us.”
The second engineer stared down the corridor at the two cloaked figures. “Wonder what they're up to.”
Then the two men turned and took a starboard corridor, and were gone from sight.
“Boozin’ and whorin’,” said the chief. “They're headed to the Busted Star, ain't they? Lucky bastards.”
“Yeah.”
After a minute, the smallest man said, “So where are we goin’, at shift's end?”
“Dunno about you,” answered the chief, “but I'm going to the Busted Star.”
The second engineer paused, spat into his cup once more, and resumed polishing.
—and I wake, smiling, from my doze. What an odd dream. Perhaps I should take notes.
But my head lolls back and the couch is so comfortable.
Peetro, the dark-haired man, placed one hand on his friend's shoulder. “I don't really like this, Hoj. It isn't the old days. Argul's the responsible leader now. We aren't kids together anymore.”
“I know.” Hoj ran his fingers back through his untidy copper hair. “But I'm serious tonight.” With a grin: “Or as close as I can manage.”
“Shadroth,” muttered Peetro, in a blasphemous invocation of the TriGods’ first name. “So what is it? You really think Vul is a psychopath?”
“What, you reckon our beloved Viceroy is normal?”
“Hmm.” Peetro looked around the dim-lit corridor. A burned-oil smell rose from somewhere. “I think all the High Council treat people like pawns.”
“Not Argul.”
They continued to walk, slowly. After a moment, Peetro said: “I hope not. I hope he's still our friend, particularly if you're trying your hand at scheming.”
“You think everything will be all right if Vul gets his Internal Watch formed? And him at the head of it?”
“Argul won't appoint Vul as chief.”
“What if the only candidates available are Vul's puppets?”
Peetro stopped. “You're sure of that?”
“I think so.” Hoj shrugged. “The bastard's got to General Lanishen. I'm sure of it.”
“Bilkroth,” said Peetro, “and bleeding Vikridor.”
“What kind of language is that?”
“Who cares? Vul's going to turn us into another Broken City.”
Hoj gave another grin, but his gaze was serious. “That's what I've been telling you, isn't it?”
Broken City. Twisted City. Traction. All were names (the last favored by scholars) for the same corrupt, decaying wreckage. Forty years earlier, the Drive Guild had edged the Clanking City close to the atmosphere-bubble's edge, where the foundered wreck lay.
And Hoj had shared an evening recently, buying many rounds of drinks, with two palsied veterans of High Observer teams who had been inside the Broken City. Dressed in clumsy environment suits, they had brought back corroded relics that had endured two centuries of acidic, alien winds.
The men described the myriad motive wheels, wrapped within steel tracks, that had borne the dead city across the terrain, following its own great bubble of oxygenated atmosphere until the disaster. Burn marks and scores, ripped armor plating and torn bulkheads told a confusing story.
Perhaps internal war had—suicidally—destroyed Traction's ability to move. Perhaps catastrophic mechanical failure occurred first, while desperate engineers worked to fix the broken city before the air moved on.
“And the winds”—hand shaking, the old veteran had reached for his drink—“just moaned.”
They'd had precious little to say beyond that, though Hoj had plied them with more drinks until they'd made their staggering way to bed. Hoj appreciated once more the imperative that lay beneath every law and custom of the Clanking City: the city must move.
Now, Hoj muttered: “I could do with a drink.”
“Yeah, me too.” Peetro pulled his heavy cape around himself, though the corridor was warm. “Ah…Balls.”
Ahead of them, above a well-oiled armored door, hung a grime-encrusted star-shaped symbol that might have been brass. From inside, discordant cheering echoed. But beneath the raucous sound, a soft scrape insinuated itself.
Peetro drew out a long dagger.
“What?” Hoj fumbled at his belt, though he knew he had left his dirk at home.
Off to the left, beyond an iron threshold, stood a junk chamber filled with broken iron spars and ceramic joints, discarded bric-a-brac waiting for the Reclamation Artificers. Amid the detritus, metal moved.
“Could just be a rat,” said Hoj. “Or two.”
Peetro edged towards the doorway, crouching low, transferring his dagger to his left hand and keeping it close to his ribs. Stretching out his right hand as if to feel the darkness, he advanced with crosswise steps into the junk chamber.
“Oh, darn…” It was a child's voice, a girl's. Junk scraped and tumbled. “Got it.”
Turning his right shoulder forward, hiding his weapon, Peetro straightened up. “Will you come out of there?”
“Oh! Sorry.” Something fell. “I'm coming, sir.”
Out scrambled a young girl, holding what looked like a broken glass brick, covered in dirt. She blinked her orange eyes.
“How old are you?” said Peetro. “What's your name?”
“Um, eight and a half, sir. I'm Shama.”
Behind Peetro, Hoj crossed his arms and smiled. “We're pleased to meet you, Shama.”
“What?” Peetro looked back at him. “We're what? Pleased to meet a criminal. Eh?”
“Sir…” Shama's lip trembled.
Hoj said, “You might explain what you're up to, young Shama. Shouldn't you be at home in bed?”
“Yes, sir. But…Look.” Shama held up the large, broken translucent shard. “Sir, my master threw it out. It's his, really.”
“In a city junk chamber?” muttered Peetro. “It's municipal property.”
“Really?” Shama let her hand drop, and bowed her head to mumble: “I can pay, noble sirs. I have twelve pennies saved.”
Hoj laughed, and clapped Peetro on the shoulder. “This is a thief with a sense of fairness, wouldn't you say?”
“I'm not a thief! My master discarded the crystal.”
Hunkering down, Hoj asked, “So who is your master, child? And why would he discard something, unless it were worthless?”
Peetro slid his dagger back into its sheath. Hoj glanced up at him, then back at Shama.
“Lintral Teldrasso is my master.” Shama clutched the shard. “He's a webmaker, sir.”
“Never heard of him,” muttered Peetro.
“He's apprenticed to Master A'Queran, who—”
“Rultin A'Queran, I know of.” Hoj touched the grimy shard with a forefinger. “Tell me about this, yo
ung Shama.”
“There's a bad flaw.” Shama held up the crystal, angling it so the darkened area was obvious. “My master threw it out.”
“So you said. And why”—Hoj looked up and winked at Peetro, who shook his head—“would you seek to retrieve it?”
“Because the rest of it is beautiful! Can't you see?”
What Hoj and Peetro could see in her hands was a grimy, dirt-caked shard; but what they saw in Shama's orange eyes was the light of inspired passion. Hoj reached inside his tunic, and drew out a half coin.
“As a city councilor,” he said, “I'm paying you to take this crystal away from the chamber. I trust you'll dispose of it properly.”
“Oh.” Shama blinked. “Sir, I'll make the best web you've ever seen, I promise. I really promise.”
“I know you do. Here, take the coin.”
Shama hesitated, then took the money, and backed away from Hoj. Then she curtsied, first to Hoj and then to Peetro. “Thank you.”
“Go on. Get home.”
“Yes…”
“Go on.”
Shama turned and scampered off.
“TriGods’ Blood,” breathed Peetro. “I thought we were worried about saving the city.”
“We did.” Hoj raised himself to his feet. “In a tiny way, we just did.”
I rub my face, and stretch on the sofa. I've designed games before, and they never proceeded so vividly in my daydreams. Whatever the upgrades did for me, they've changed the way I slip into trance, the way I dream.
It's too late to worry about screwing up my mind.
I look around the too-clean lounge. When Yukiko was alive, our few arguments revolved around my messiness. Since her death, I've kept everything polished and lined up.
Suddenly, I want to be among other people.
As I haul myself up from the sofa, I think about the reams of notes I would normally keep about a game scenario, as I dream it up.
Are you kidding?
The internal door to the garage slides open.
You think this is a game?
As I unjack the Bronco and command it to start, I realize that I'm operating devices in a new way. I stare at the outer door and it rises up.