Steel Sky (13 page)

“Hold her tight, boys. You’ll get your turn when I’m done.”

Amarantha swings up her legs and flails them wildly. Her heel catches Second Son just below the ribs.

“Hwaaah,” he grunts, stumbling backward. “Hwaah, huh.” He doubles over, his face turning red with the effort to breathe. “Huh, grab her, hwaah, fucking legs!”

The other two men fall to their knees and wrap their arms around Amarantha’s calves.

“What a, huh, spectacle. Can’t you, huh, idiots do anything right?”

“She’s tough,” one of the men says.

“You have no idea,” Second Son hisses. He pushes the pinioned cape to one side and slips his dirk from its sheath. The long blade glistens in the sunlight.

Amarantha’s eyes open wide in fright. Droplets of sweat flick from her lashes.

Second Son grabs a handful of the fabric of Amarantha’s dress. He slashes the dirk across it, then down. Amarantha holds rigidly still, quivering, terrified that the flashing blade will cut her. But Second Son knows how to use the knife. Amarantha’s dress is quickly criss-crossed with jagged holes, while her skin is barely touched.

“Let’s get down to business,” Second Son says, moving closer.

A change in the air makes him stop suddenly. A jagged shadow in the shape of a man grows across them, darkening the entire passageway.

COURTESY CREDIT

A sensor in the door buzzes as Orel enters the tinker shop. As he winds his way to the counter through stacks of machine parts and obsolete electronics, Gloss pokes his bald head around the door to the back room, a jeweler’s loupe stuck in one eye. “Orel! Good to see you.”

Orel pushes a stack of logic boards out of the way and leans on the counter. “Good fortune, Gloss. I’ve come to make you richer.”

Gloss lets the loupe drop into his palm. “What you need?”

“X-ray vision. Something to let me see in the dark. Sonar. Infrared. That sort of thing.”

Gloss makes a puzzled face and runs his fingers through his goatee.

“What’s the matter?” Orel asks. “Can’t you do it?”

Gloss harrumphs. “Of course I can! It’s funny, that’s all. Had a clop come in a few days ago asking for the same thing. Big guy with a mustache and a bunch of little scars running along his jaw. Had me make him up a bunch of sonar helmets.”

“What did he want them for?”

“Didn’t ask. Not my business. Didn’t take them all, though. Got two left.”

“Perfect,” Orel says with a smile. “I’ll take them both. Oh, and I’ll need recording devices built into them to record whatever we see and hear.”

“Funny world,” Gloss says. He looks over his shoulder into the back room. “They’re not cheap.”

“The sordid matter of finance is not an issue.” With a flourish, Orel puts his ident against the access panel in the counter. “Check it out. This purchase is courtesy of Ms. Kitt Marburg.”

Gloss’s jaw drops as he watches the authorization codes scroll up his screen. “Orel,” he says, “you’re running in some pretty fancy circles these days.”

“That, my friend, is the silver-plated truth.”

THE INEXCUSABLE CRIME

Six faces turn toward the window. The Winnower stands on the ledge, his head low. The light behind him forms a blue-white nimbus around his body. “Step away from the girl,” he says quietly.

The men release her and back away. Amarantha collapses to one knee.

“Don’t listen to
him
, you morons!” Second Son shouts. He sways from side to side, brandishing his dirk at the Winnower. “I’ve been watching you,” he says. “I know all about you.”

“And
I
,” says the Winnower, stepping down from the ledge, “have been watching
you
.”

The dirk sags slightly at the Winnower’s sharp-toothed grin. Behind him, Amarantha scrambles out of the way.

One of Second Son’s men launches himself at the Winnower, tackling him from the side. Effortlessly, the Winnower sweeps the man up over his shoulders and hurls him against the wall. Then, with a sudden twist that transfers his momentum in a different direction, he leaps toward Second Son, knocking his knife arm to one side. His fist smashes into the boy’s plump face. As Second Son falls to the ground, the Winnower plants one foot on Second Son’s wrist. He grinds with his heel until Second Son releases the knife.

The Winnower plucks the pinioned cape from Second Son’s shoulders and tosses it to Amarantha. “Here,” he says. “Take this.” She wraps herself in it and retreats to the corner, watching him with wide eyes.

The two other men rush at the Winnower. Without turning, the Winnower’s claw flashes backward, obliterating the first man’s face in a burst of crimson. His other arm juts upward suddenly, impaling the second man through the chest with the spike on his elbow. He pauses a moment to be sure the man is dead, then flings his arm to the side, throwing the man to the floor.

The fourth man runs. The other three lie silent as blood seeps into the carpet. Second Son staggers to his feet.

Before he can move, the Winnower grabs him by the collar. Amarantha is amazed at the ease with which he lifts the boy, as if he were weightless. “Rape,” the Winnower says, holding Second Son only centimeters from his face, “is the inexcusable crime. A man may steal because he is starving; he may kill to protect his family; but there can be no extenuating circumstances to justify behavior such as yours.”

Second Son is trembling with fear and rage. “Do you know who I am?” he bellows.

“I know what you are.”

The Winnower pulls back his clawed hand, but before he can strike, a bolt of light from a soft gun strikes him in the back. Though it reflects off his polished metal armor, he is staggered forward by the impact, unbalanced. He turns and sees three clops aiming soft guns at him. A second bolt sizzles over his shoulders.

“Don’t move!” shouts one of the clops.

But the Winnower is already fading into the shadows.

TOMORROW HAS COME

The sound of gunfire carries into the ballroom, hushing conversation at the nearest end of the room. The silence spreads like a wave, heads turning in vague apprehension as clops push through the partiers. Doors slam. Bolts are thrown. The acrobats stop their performances, hanging awkwardly in front of the great window. Only the crystal mobiles above the crowd continue their insensate convolutions.

Cadell cranes his neck, trying to see over the crowd. “What’s going on?”

“Thraso didn’t know,” Thraso says. “Perhaps a Leveller had made a bomb threat.”

A clop — the Director of Security, judging by the decorations on his chest — awkwardly climbs to a stage at the far end of the room. Like many clops, he tends to stumble when not wearing the eyeband. “Attention, everyone!” he shouts into the microphone. “I apologize to the Orcus family for this disturbance, but we have a bit of a situation and I’d appreciate your cooperation.”

As the nervous murmuring of the crowd rises in volume, the clop continues quickly: “Please! No need for panic! Everything is under control. However.” He pauses. “There’s a pickpocket loose in the crowd.”

Around him, Cadell sees partygoers clutch at their belongings and move away from the people nearest them. The acrobats lower themselves to the floor and disappear into the crowd.

“Thraso knew instantly that it was a lie,” Thraso says.

“What?” Cadell says. “Why not?”

Thraso points to the stage, where Second Son’s father is standing behind the clop, uncharacteristically silent. “Thraso noticed that Orcus was on the stage, but not speaking, not taking control as he is wont to do. Thraso thought it was unlikely that such a prominent man would allow this important occasion to be disrupted for something as trivial as a mere pickpocket. Thraso therefore deduced that something much more serious had occurred, something the clop wasn’t telling them.”

Cadell looks around quickly. “I’ve got to go find Amarantha.”

Thraso grabs his wrist. “Thraso urged his friend to stay where he was. Best to let the clops handle it.”

Cadell tries to move away, but the tightness with which Thraso is gripping him makes him stop. “She’ll be all right,” Thraso says.

Up on the stage, the clop has finally managed to quiet the crowd again. “I’m going to ask you all to exit through the main doors here,” he says, motioning with his hands to either side. “Please take your time and move in single file. We have the situation under control. Please use the main doors. Any person who attempts to use any other door will be arrested.”

A new voice rises above the crowd. “That won’t be necessary!”

The heads of the crowd turn toward the voice. The view of the Hypogeum through the great window melts as the figure of the Winnower emerges from the glass like a violent photograph coming into focus. Though dwarfed by the window, the armored figure is still an imposing presence. The crowd backs away, and even the clops hesitate to move in.

“Hold your fire!” the Director of Security shouts. “You’ll hit the glass!” A few of the clops instinctively feel for the respirators on their belts, but most of the partygoers, who would never be so gauche as to bring their respirators to a formal affair, can only look nervously at one another.

The Winnower raises his head to look out over the crowd and spreads his arms wide. “Citizens of the Hypogeum!” he says, his calm voice magnified as though by some built-in property of the death’s-head mask. “You have lived with lies and corruption for so long that they have become insensible to you, as invisible and omnipresent as the air you breathe. And like that air they are slowly choking the life from you. You can ignore the corruption, you can live with it, but not for very much longer.

“You could have stopped the poison before it spread, but you chose to ignore it. You chose to enjoy the spoils of decay and let tomorrow take care of itself. Well, tomorrow has come! I have come. It is time to draw out the poison or die.”

A trace of bitterness discolors his voice. “If you will not take responsibility for your actions, then I will take it for you! From now on, nothing that contributes to the physical or moral decline of the Hypogeum will be tolerated. Anyone who breaks the law will be killed. Anyone who abuses a position of power will be killed. Anyone who advances his own interest at the expense of another man’s happiness will be killed.

“There will be no reprieves. There will be no mercy!”

He pauses, letting the echo of his words die into the silence before adding: “There will be no escape.”

AIR OF DISASTER

The clops have been quietly moving through the partygoers during the Winnower’s speech. Now they form a loose semi-circle in the crowd around him. They wait for a signal, shocksticks drawn. Sparks crackle from sticks held too close to the ground or a body.

For a moment no one moves. Then one of the clops touches a button on his eyeband. As one, the clops rush forward with their shocksticks raised high and a battle cry on their lips. The crowd scatters away from them.

The Winnower’s laugh, unlike his sedate voice, is shrill and unearthly. He swings his fists down behind him, against the glass. The window resonates with a deep hum. The clops stumble to a halt, watching the cracks radiate out through the window from where his fists have struck it. Again he raises his gauntlets and slams them down against the glass. The window groans and shifts with a thunderous crack that carries over the screams of the crowd.

It only takes a moment for confusion to turn to panic. The crowd pushes mindlessly for the exits and for the cabinets where emergency respirators are kept.

Cadell, who has been separated from Thraso by the pressure of the crowd, calls out for Amarantha, but he cannot hear his own voice over the din. Searching for her, he catches sight of Thraso toward the center of the room. His friend has climbed on a piece of sculpture, letting the crowd flow around him and watching the chaos. There is a hint of a smile on his lips as he continues to narrate into his recorder.

In the meantime, the clops have fought through the crowd to the Winnower. One grapples with his legs while another hits him in the head with a shockstick. As the Winnower falls, he lashes out one last time at the glass. Slivers explode as his fist breaks through. Bits of glass rain down on the stunned clops, who cover their heads and run for safety. Huge chunks of the window, larger than a man, break free and ponderously topple. The laughter of the Winnower, invisible under the deluge, pierces the roar of shattering glass.

Sensors in the walls detect the rise in carbon monoxide as the great cavern’s polluted air — the fumatory — pours into the room. Red lights are flashing, alarms ringing. Webbing spreads slowly across the giant window.

The crowd, already out of control, goes berserk. The smell of death, real or imagined, fills their nostrils. The push becomes a stampede. People throw themselves against the locked doors and scream as the pressure of the human wave behind begins to crush them. Cadell lets the crowd carry him, knowing if he fights or falls he will be trampled.