Maximum Offence (18 page)

Except the soldiers can obviously see the boy, because a small man points and the man next to him raises a rifle . . .

The small man shakes his head.

They’re wearing camouflage. Sandy uniforms, with grey patches that make them stand out on the dark strip of compacted rubbish that makes up the road from the dump. The boy could warn the Rats. All he has to do is shout, or toss that stone. Or start making his way down the slope, that would get their attention soon enough.

Only why would he bother?

When he can’t find a proper answer, the boy asks himself the question he always asks when he can’t find an answer. What would Maria want him to do? Only the smoke rising from his village says that what his sister wants probably doesn’t matter much any more.

As the Rats near the bend, the small man nods to the man beside him who says something to someone else. The man he talks to drops to his knees and sights along a scope above a barrel. His weapon is longer than those of the others.

His first shot takes Rice through the head.

Brains and bits of bone spray out as a passing slug sucks sticky matter and splashes it onto the face of a girl behind. The boy sees it happen, although he knows that has to be impossible.

Rice dies still holding his stun gun.

The girl falls still trying to wipe jelly from her face. After that, everything happens too fast for the boy to follow. Although the result is never in doubt. Smoke from the gunfire drifts uphill, adding its acid stink to the smell of the dump. When it clears the boy can see clearly what has happened. All the Rats lie dead and one of the soldiers is taking the stun gun from Rice’s hand.

A trick, the boy realizes. The machine probably told them exactly where Rice was.

When someone shouts, the boy looks up. It takes him a couple of seconds to realize the soldier is shouting at him. Instead of hiding, he stands. His sister is dead, his village is burnt, and the soldiers are back.

Doesn’t much matter what happens now.

The boy remembers little from the time before Maria became his sister. He only knows it wasn’t good. She found him, she took him in and she fed him. All he had to do in return was obey her rules. Don’t lie. Keep your promises.

They weren’t even that difficult.

A dozen rifles track him down the slope. When the boy reaches the road, one of the soldiers gestures him closer. The man has blue eyes and sandy hair and smells of alcohol. As the man steps forward, the boy notices he is swaying.

‘You’re drunk.’ The boy says it without thinking.

Behind the man, someone snorts.

‘Yeah,’ the man says bitterly. ‘Some of us have consciences to anaesthetize.’ Pulling a silver flask from his pocket, he flips its lid with a practised flick of his thumb and swallows a large gulp. As an afterthought, he wipes the top and offers the flask to the boy. ‘Want some?’

‘It’s OK.’ The boy looks puzzled. ‘What’s a conscience?’

‘Something that’s meant to stop me doing this.’ The man takes a pistol from his belt and puts its muzzle to the boy’s head and pulls the trigger. A dry click tells them both that the gun’s misfired.

‘Third-rate technology,’ the man says.

The boy is not sure what it means, so he shrugs. He could try to run, he could try to fight. He is as big as the man shaking the pistol. In fact, he’s bigger than half of the men standing around him. But what’s the point?

‘You killed my sister,’ he says.

The man nods. ‘We killed everyone. That was our job.’

Behind him, the soldier who snorted begins shaking his head. As if knowing this, the man with the pistol turns. ‘You saying it wasn’t?’

‘You’re here to re-establish the rule of law.’

‘By killing people.’

‘That’s not . . .’

‘Yes it is,’ said the man. ‘We get to kill people. You get to watch. That’s what
observer status
means, doesn’t it? All the excitement, none of the guilt.’

‘
Lieutenant.
‘

The one talking wears a flak jacket. He isn’t armed, and something about his voice puzzles the boy. It sounds foreign. Of course, they all sound foreign. But it also sounds . . .

‘You’re—’

Yanking off her helmet, the U/Free shakes out her long fair hair and removes a pair of dark glasses that have been hiding her eyes. ‘Well,’ she asks Lieutenant Bonafonte. ‘Are you going to shoot him or not?’

The lieutenant scowls.

‘You have operational control,’ she reminds him.

‘In that case, no . . . I’m not.’

Paper Osamu nods slowly. ‘Interesting choice,’ she says.

THE CREEK IS WIDE AND MUDDY AND AN ANCIENT TIDELINE reveals that the sea was once higher. Steps have been cut in the side and jetties lashed together. A system of buckets drags water to a slide at the top. From here, irrigation channels carry it to the fields on Hekati’s valley floor.

Turns out the sea is not salt.

Rusting rings on a sea wall tell of barges long gone. A crumbling maze, mostly no higher than a child’s hip, shows where offices once stood. Stonefoam is cheap and easy to use, but it needs upkeep. It has been centuries since anyone tried to preserve the harbour buildings. Probably decades since there was much left to maintain.

The sea stinks.

It is not sewage, because fewer than three thousand people now occupy a habitat built for several million. And ninety miles of water can cope easily with the effluent from that number. Rancid algae cloud the shallows.

The days are hot and the nights cold on the coast. Both are less extreme, however, than in the mountains. A few boats hug the shore.

They are small, with triangular sails that carry them up the coast during the day. At dusk, they moor for the night if they want to continue. Or turn, and ride the opposite wind down the coast again. Either choice will take you back to where you started.

At the creek’s edge stands a huge cube.

Its sides are unpitted and its edges sharp. If gods built gun emplacements, this is what they’d look like, right down to a long slit that looks north. Twice the height of a human, this slit takes a whole minute to walk from one end to the other; and every year a new gang of boys rappel down from the cube’s roof, only to discover the blackness inside the slit is unbreakable glass.

Those who sail the sea say there’s another cube on the opposite side of Hekati. It’s identical, but for the fact its slit faces south. Both cubes have cities on top, and both cities are reached by mud-brick steps, making them easy to defend.

Enyo, the city here, is roofed with sheet metal. As many as thirty houses are still in use, which means ten are ruined and used only by goats. The streets are narrow, with abrupt turnings. Others lead off the cube’s edge with no warning.

Defence against attack. Although how anyone can mount an attack on a city that drops into the sea on three sides and can only be approached by narrow mud-brick steps on the fourth . . .

Well, it’s obvious.

You scale the sides or use the steps. One will exhaust you, and both will lay you open to bullets and arrows and spears, as well as dropped rocks and pebbles flung from catapults. It is a poor city, Enyo . . . But a safe one.

In the middle of Enyo is a square. Here you find the largest houses. All have three storeys, and one house has four. Unlike the others, this house has its shutters closed against the afternoon heat.

The attic of the four-storey house stinks of goats and dung, smoke and shit. That’s not unusual. The whole of Enyo stinks of goats and dung, smoke and shit. What is unusual is the fire burning in one corner. It’s piled high with smouldering herbs that choke the air and make a young woman’s eyes sting. She’s naked to the waist, barefoot and wearing combat pants hacked off at the thigh.

She has small breasts, dark nipples and a leather sheath fixed to the small of her back by a complex webbing harness. Scars criss-cross her abdomen. Removing the webbing would make her cooler, but she’d rather die.

So she leaves the dagger in place, despite its hilt being hot enough to hurt when it touches, which is every time she turns.

It’s late afternoon and she’s exhausted.

Others offer to take her place, and quickly learn to mind their own business. She shits in a bucket, eats only what is put in front of her and shaves between her thighs, under her arms and across her skull each morning. The young woman barely notices she is doing any of these.

‘
Paper
.’

The word comes in a croak from the bed. That’s where a naked man is tied. As the young woman turns, the man jerks against his ropes and falls silent, his fingers bunching into fists as his eyes glare at someone she can’t see.

‘
Paper
,’ he repeats.

Spitting into the fire, the girl turns her back and leaves. She shuts the attic door with a slam. I know who she is. Know who that figure on the bed is too.

It’s me . . .

———

With the coming of that knowledge I cease to be able to stare down on wild birds as they circle above the city. And I lose my ability to stare through roofs into the rooms below. With this loss comes sleep. When I wake, it’s to a greyness that has no edges.
This is death
, I think.

Someone laughs, and it’s a tired and bitter laugh. ‘So,’ says a voice. ‘You’re back.’

‘Lieutenant Bonafonte?’

‘Haze, sir.’

Should have known. ‘Where am I?’

‘Which bit of you?’

‘The real bit.’

Haze snorts. ‘Your body’s on a bed in Franc’s room. She hasn’t left your side in three weeks.’ He hesitates, and decides to say it anyway. ‘You died.’

Not
almost died
, or
were close to death
.

‘What happened?’

‘Good question,’ he says. ‘The kyp brought you back, probably. Also you heal indecently fast.’

That I know, have always known. Wounds close, bones mend, and sinews knit themselves together. You can take me to the edge of death, and seemingly beyond . . . Given me some of the worst moments of my life.

‘If I’m there,’ I say, ‘what am I doing here?’

You can say one thing for Haze, he understands the question immediately. ‘Piggybacking a subset of Hekati,’ he tells me. ‘Damn near killing me keeping your memories in one piece.’ He is not boasting. His words are too flat for that.

‘Where’s my gun?’

‘Safe,’ says Haze. ‘I’m looking after it.’ The calmness of his answer makes me suspicious. He realizes that, because he adds: ‘That’s all. Nothing more . . . sir. Are you ready to return?’

‘Am I . . . ?’

‘It’s going to hurt,’ he says. ‘Even with whatever makes you mend.’ He pauses. ‘Franc still believes you’re going to die. She’s . . .’

‘I’ve seen how she is.’

‘Yes, sir.’

SOMEONE HAS WIRED MY JAW SHUT AND I’M GETTING WATER through a tube. The sheet swaddling my legs is tied in place with a rope. I can see the rope if I squint hard enough. Although looking gives me a headache.

Haze is right. Being back hurts. It hurts like fuck, and then it hurts a bit more. I would go back to where I was, if I hadn’t just boasted I was ready to return.

‘
Franc
.’

She seems to be ignoring me.

Tapping the side of the bed might attract her attention, but my hands are tied and my strength is gone. I can barely turn my head, never mind break knots. It seems best to worry about that later because Franc is turning towards me. She approaches with all the patience of a wildcat pacing its cage.

Walks straight past. Then turns and walks back. I only realize this when she stands over me.

Her lips are cracked and her eyes ringed with dark circles. A bruise on one leg matches another above her hip. Looks like tiredness has her walking into things. Scabs crust the cuts across her gut, which is hollow.

I know why my jaw is wired when pain explodes across my face. Pavel obviously kicked me in the head as a parting gift. And Franc’s slap is hard enough to make the room blur.

Shooting offence
, I think. Before wondering,
what was that for?

‘Pleasant dreams?’ she asks.

When my eyes refocus, Franc is on the other side of the room, forcing her elbows through the sweat-rotten straps of the singlet she wears under her combat jacket. And then, back still turned to me, she climbs into her trousers and buckles on her boots. She’s made her point.

There are four wires in all holding my jaw shut, and she snaps each, leaving me with a mouthful of blood and lengths of metal sticking from my teeth. Turning my head, as much as the pain will allow, I ask:

‘
Shil?
‘

Has to be the first understandable word I’ve said. Franc’s expression is so dark it makes me think perhaps I was meant to ask something else first. And maybe I was. But then I wouldn’t be me. Shil is Aux, that’s reason enough to ask. ‘Well?’

‘Sergeant Neen went looking.’

Since when did Franc stick
Sergeant
in front of Neen’s name? Since his sister went missing, I guess. ‘He went alone?’

‘No, sir. The colonel went with him.’

Oh fuck . . .

‘When?’

‘Over a week ago.’

‘And the others,’ I say. ‘What about the others?’

‘Rachel’s downstairs,’ says Franc. ‘As for Haze, he spends his life field-stripping that gun of yours. When he’s not sitting over his bloody pad gibbering to himself.’

‘Franc . . .’

‘
Fucking don’t, sir . . .
‘

Maybe being thanked isn’t what she expects. Throws me too. But I died and so did she, back during that idiot test at the beginning of this mission. It gives us something else in common.

All the same, my voice is harder when I say, ‘Cut the ropes . . .’

She shakes her head. She’s about to explain why when steps on the stairs make her move away from my bed. I expect the local caudillo. Some broad-shouldered thug wrapped in a foul-smelling coat and carrying a rifle, probably with a dagger thrust through his belt. Probably my dagger.