Steel Sky (25 page)

More discharges, louder than before, crackle through the comm.“Got him!” someone shouts. “We hurt him this time!”

“Are you sure?” Horsen demands.

“Oh, yeah!” the voice replies. “I nearly knocked him loose! He’s still moving. He’s over the top now, but he’s hurt!”

“Follow him! I’ll try to intercept him!” Horsen scrambles as fast as he can through the tunnel. All the anger and frustration is washed out of him. Rushing adrenaline makes him feel lighter than air. He is going to get his chance after all.

At the end of the duct he overrides the airlock and pushes his way through the webbing. He emerges onto a true roof. A gentle breeze dries the sweat on his forehead. Glancing upward he is blinded by the Sun. It is almost directly above him, and much closer than he is used to. He hurries across the rooftop. Office workers below look up, startled by creaking of the clear plastic under his footsteps.

He consults the map. He is only a few hundred meters from the alley where the fighting took place. According to the map, the area above the alley is a wide jumble of adjacent factory rooftops. If he is lucky, he can intercept the Winnower there. If the Winnower is injured then perhaps Horsen will be able to bring him in alive. But Horsen hopes lethal force will be necessary. He hopes it very much.

By leaping gaps and tightrope-walking along pipes, Horsen is able to make his way across the rooftops. Finally he reaches the building he is looking for. Century-old footholds are dug into the concrete wall. The cement crumbles under his feet as he struggles over the edge, his legs heavy with exhaustion, his lungs burning. He is tempted to rip off the respirator in order to get a real lungful of air.

Despite his exhaustion, he is grinning with anticipation as he scans the area for the Winnower. The rooftop is covered with small structures, sheds and pipelines, making dozens of places where the Winnower could hide. Ventilators belch out waste fumes. The heat of the gases plays havoc with Horsen’s infrared imaging.

Suddenly, in the corner of his vision, he sees a bright shape sprint across an open space. Horsen has just enough time to discern a crouched figure bristling with spikes before it disappears behind one of the sheds. The computer confirms that the figure has no visual component. “I see him!” Horsen shouts into the comm. “Converge on my position! We want to surround him!”

Making sure his gun is fixed on the highest setting, Horsen runs after the figure. The helmets were not designed to accommodate the eyebands, so he has to keep turning his head in all directions to get a complete view. The small buildings are close together here, and Horsen’s vision wavers in the heat. He tries to listen for footsteps, but all sound is drowned out by the noises of the factory below and by the general hum of the Hypogeum. Echoes bouncing off the inside of the dome converge on him in waves of sound and pressure.

As he turns a corner, movement attracts his eye. Three of his men emerge from a stairwell in one of the small buildings. They huddle just outside the door, looking around. Suddenly one of them shouts, “There he is!”

Horsen looks where the man is pointing and sees an infrared silhouette only thirty meters away. The figure is obscured by undulating waves of heat, but Horsen feels sure it is the Winnower. His back is turned to the men. He does not move.

“Hold your fire!” Horsen whispers into the comm. “He’s mine!”

Horsen cannot believe his luck. The figure seems totally unaware of him. Grinning so hard his teeth hurt, Horsen raises his gun and peers through the viewfinder, lining his target up in the cross hairs. The figure, perhaps alerted by the sudden movement, turns toward him, his cloak billowing around him as he moves.

That’s odd
, Horsen thinks as he pulls the trigger,
I don’t remember the Winnower wearing a cloak
.

The beam from the gun screams forward, burning the air. It hits the figure low, in the leg, with a crackle of static discharge and the wet
thud!
of bursting flesh. The electromagnetic pulse knocks out the figure’s blender momentarily, and the figure becomes visible. His black cloak is torn to shreds by the blast. Glistening blood spreads across the dark cloth. He has been hit just below the left hip. It was only a glancing blow, Horsen sees, but at the high setting it was strong enough to break bone and tear flesh. The empty, black-garbed face turns toward Horsen and regards him for a moment before the blender reactivates and the figure disappears again.

“Shit,” one of the men whispers, his voice hoarse with fear. “You hit a Deathsman!”

The men back away from Horsen, not daring to look at him. Where the figure was standing, drops of blood appear on the ground. They fall with disconcerting regularity, hitting the ground with a soft pop before the dusty concrete sucks them in. Drop by drop the blood draws a trail leading away from the men. The air stinks of ozone and burned flesh.

Horsen stands with his mouth open. His gun is still in his hand; his legs are still spread in an aggressive posture. The other clops push back toward the door. No one looks at him.

“Well, how was I supposed to know a Deathsman was up here?” he shouts at them. “How was I supposed to know?”

The men jostle each other in their effort to squeeze into the door. No one speaks. One of the men pulls off his helmet and throws it to the ground. It hits the concrete with a hollow sound and rolls around briefly before settling, dented, on its side. The door slams shut behind them.

“You can’t blame this on me! I couldn’t have known!” Horsen cries, stumbling after them. “What the hell was he doing up here anyway?” But the rooftop is empty, and his voice is lost in the hum of the city.

LAST WISHES

The door to the Sensorium swings open while Dancer is still ten meters away. That is her father’s way — to always be a step ahead, to make it appear as if no event, no matter how insignificant, is unexpected. It has the intended effect, making Dancer feel small and powerless. The games Orcus plays with the rest of the world he plays twice as fiercely with his own family.

Ducking her head, Dancer mounts the narrow steps of the Master Sensorium. The door swings down behind her like a huge mouth swallowing her. It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Around her, continuously changing images swirl. Bits of people’s lives jump in front of her, then disappear again: a tearful young woman consoled by a collection of chatters; a young couple, the woman with green hair, sleeping with their arms around each other; a clop, his head surrounded by a large unwieldy helmet, standing alone on a rooftop, screaming.

Colored light from the pictures washes over her father, who sits slumped in the darkness. He does not turn toward her. He does not speak. This, too, is his way. After all, what need is there to speak if everything is already known? His bulk seems melted into the chair.

His silence is designed to make her nervous, to build up tension until she blurts out something that reveals herself and gives him a hook into her.
I must not play his game
, she thinks. She forces down the anger and — yes — fear in her heart. She can only fight his domination if she first controls herself. She must crush all her emotions into a tiny ball, become like him. He lives for control. He breathes, eats, and shits control.

She thinks of an unobtrusive opening: “What’s in your hand?” she asks.

Without turning, he holds it up: a small, red rectangle covered in dust. “A book.”

“Doesn’t look like a book.”

He swivels around. Flipping through the pages, he says, “It’s the old kind of book. The kind they used before the Second Pandect. You have to use your hands to turn the pages, your eyes to read the words, and your brain to understand them. This kind of book is better than what we have now. This kind makes you think. It’s a lost art, thinking.”

Dancer frowns. Her father’s voice is slurred only slightly, but it’s obvious to her that he is drunk. The almost imperceptible lack of coordination in his movements frightens her. Normally her father can drink all day and never show it.

“This particular book is a collection of stories,” he says. “Fiction: that’s another lost art. These stories were collected shortly after the Eternity Riots, retellings of older stories, possibly written by one of the Founders. The story I’m reading is ‘Red Death Mask.’ Some people believe that it’s the origin of the legends of the Winnower.”

Frustration and disbelief explode out of her. “By the Stone, Father! Are you still worrying about
him
? He’s just one man! An aberration! He’s not relevant!”

“That’s where you’re wrong. He’s a critical part of something much larger, a focal point of the anger and frustration of the entire city.” Orcus sighs, looking at the screens. “It seems he’s been shot. That’s the report anyway.”

“Father, we have more important things to worry about than some malcontent in a stolen suit of armor.”

“But he’s not dead,” Orcus continues as if she had not spoken. “No, he’ll be back. I can feel it like a chancre in the pit of my stomach. He’ll be back.”

“Damn it, Father! While you’ve been sitting here reading two-hundred-year-old trash, I’ve been out running myself ragged trying to save this family from destruction! I’ve gathered video to help Second Son in his trial, and I’ve gotten theological experts who will testify before the Prime Medium that the Winnower is nothing more than a deluded charlatan! I’m killing myself trying to bring the Orcus family into the next generation, and you just sit here . . .
masturbating
!” The last words come out almost as a shriek. She had not realized she was so angry.

Orcus slams the book down on the console. The images around him whirl about frenetically in response to the buttons accidentally pushed. The muted sound becomes a deafening babble. Without looking, Orcus reaches behind himself and jabs a button that brings the images back to normal. He turns to face Dancer fully. His eyes seem to glow in the darkness.

“I know very well how busy you’ve been, Daughter. I saw your performance with Second Son.” Again without looking, like a magician performing a trick, Orcus sends his hand rushing across the keys. The room fills with images of Dancer and Second Son, their sweaty bodies rolling together on the floor of their father’s suite. In some of the images she is on top, pinning his wrists with her hands, playing with him, never letting him release. In others, their positions are reversed, he pounding at her tirelessly, her nails digging into his back. In others, their interactions are more complicated. It had gone on for a long time, and it is all there, replaying on the walls.

“You watched . . .
all
of it?” The thought fills Dancer with horror. She had known he would be watching on their wedding night — in fact, she had wanted him to watch, to see that she could control Second Son better than he — but she had assumed he would only watch a little. She assumed he had . . . better things to do.

“Every moment of it.” The emotion in his eyes, though intense, is unreadable. Behind and above him, Second Son raises his head, his open lips trying to suckle Dancer’s breasts, which bob above him, just out of reach. “It was disgusting,” Orcus says.

“I could simply have beaten him into submission,” Dancer says coldly, “but I thought he would be more useful if he followed me voluntarily.”

“Yes, you’ve got him,” Orcus admits with a sigh. All the energy seems to drain out of him. “I tried to prepare him. I let him sleep with Pinky. I took him to the most wanton, debauched women the lower levels could provide. It didn’t make a difference. Somehow you were still his first.”

“I know. He needs me, Father. He can’t manage his own life, much less this family and the Hypogeum. With me he’s actually
happy
, for the first time in years!”

“A woman,” Orcus mutters to himself, “running the Orcus family . . .”

“No one has to know,” Dancer says. The thought that she might actually be winning an argument with her father is the most terrifying thing she has ever experienced. “Second Son can still make all the announcements, all the public appearances. He can be the figurehead. He can take all the credit. By the Stone, Father! Do you think I actually want to run this misbegotten family?”

Orcus looks up at her with weak, bloodshot eyes. How long, she thinks, has it been since he slept last? All around them, she and Second Son are still making love, in an endless, senseless time loop. With a quick slap of her hand she turns off the monitors. She has never been trained in the Sensorium, but she has seen enough to know how to do this. The chamber becomes instantly dark and silent. Only the softly glowing keyboards light their faces from below.

“Do you think I
want
to do this?” she cries, not caring how carelessly the words slip from her. “All I ever wanted to do was stand beside Stone, to love him and support him while he brought glory to the family name again. I never had any ambition of my own. Everything I’ve done is for him, and for the family! You can’t know how much I loved him.”

“Shut up!” her father shouts. “You’re not fit to speak his name!”

“I am! I’m the only member of this family who ever really knew him!”

Her father leans forward in the chair, gripping the armrests, his white knuckles trembling. “If you loved him so much, why did you never shed a tear for him? Why weren’t you there when he died? Why weren’t you by his side when the knackers came for his body?”