Steel Sky (9 page)

“The tough thing about a broken seal, y’know,” Ready says quietly, “is that you can never be really sure it’s been fixed. You may think it’s airtight, but really it’s leaking slowly, until one day — Surprise! — everybody wakes up to a blue tongue breakfast!”

The old man crawls to Ready and grabs the hem of Ready’s jacket with both hands, eyes wide with fear. “Please. Please do not hurt us. I swear what I have given you is all I have. Please, I am only a poor man trying to survive!”

Ready turns his head and spits with disgust. “All right. For Koba’s sake, let go of me.” The man lets go and buries his head at Ready’s feet. “I’ll let it go this time, but next time I come ’round you’d better have a little more for me.”

“I will,” the man mumbles into Ready’s feet. “I swear I will.”

“All right, all right. Let’s go, Hoon.”

Ready pushes through the flap separating the family’s room from the rest of the basher boxes. There aren’t many doors in the basher boxes, just holes cut from one space to another. The rooms are built helter-skelter on top of one another, with never more than a few meters of level floor at a time. The rickety walls are built of whatever material is handy: corrugated metal, plastic, cardboard, or even bits of broken glass glued back together.

Hoon giggles as they push through the junk houses. “Good work, Ready,” he says.

Ready says nothing. What kind of a life is this? He wonders if they would take him back at his old job. He wonders how long he could work there without killing himself.

He passes through a hanging metal sheet into a long, dark room lit by a single globe. The floor is sturdy metal. This place was actually
built
. Perhaps it is part of the maintenance tunnels. “Hey, Hoon,” he says, “do you know where the fuck we are?”

Hoon does not reply immediately, and Ready turns around to look at him. Hoon has an odd look on his face, as if the question is outrageous. His big eyes look even weirder in the dim light. With a grunt, he lowers his head and runs headlong across the floor. His head hits the wall with a loud reverberation. The impact makes a large dent in the soft metal.

Ready guffaws. “You crazy bastard! What the hell was that?”

Without a word, Hoon picks himself up off the floor and bashes his head against the wall again. It crumples further with a deep creaking groan. Something in Hoon’s collar breaks, and the glowbands on his jacket flicker out. He slumps to the ground, his eyes shut and his mouth open.

Ready feels a drop of fear trickle down his spine. Even Hoon isn’t
this
stupid. Something is wrong. “Hoon,” he says, keeping his voice soft and level, “what the hell are you doing?”

Hoon gets up again. No, that’s not right. This time Ready can see that Hoon is
floating
up, like a puppet on strings. He swings backward, and now Ready can see it clearly. Hoon’s collar is distended and crumpled, as if someone is holding him up by the collar of his jacket. He is swept forward, and his head slams into the wall one more time. The wall is visibly bowed now, close to collapse. Hoon’s head leaves a long, red streak as he slides to the floor.

“Hoon!” Ready feels sweat tickling his scalp between the rows of his stripecut. He runs across the room to his friend.

He sees the motion an instant before it hits him: a wild movement in the air, a furious rush of elemental force. It explodes in his face, throwing him backward. He lands hard. Bits of broken plastic from his respirator are stuck in his cheek. With his tongue he can feel the sharp edge of one that went all the way through.

The invisible thing grabs him by the collar and swings him around. Ready trips backward over Hoon’s body and collides with the wall. This time the battered wall collapses inward, and Ready lands in the hole, half in the room and half out. Smoke swirls around his head. It’s a chimney vent, he realizes. He can feel the heat rising from far below on the back of his head and shoulders. Ready struggles to get up. With his respirator broken, he’ll suffocate in here.

But before he can pull himself free, the broken metal walls of the shaft contort and lean in toward him in a vaguely human shape. He feels sharp claws pressing against his chest, forcing him back down. A death’s-head coalesces out of the gray smoke, dark eyes burning through it.

The soft, fleshy mouth below the metal mask speaks to him. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you,” it whispers.

He ignores the voice and continues to struggle. Sweat is rolling down his face. His eyes sting from the fumes. If he doesn’t get out of the chimney soon he’ll die.

“I saw what you were doing tonight,” the voice continues. “Those people have nothing, less than nothing. The only things they can hold on to are hope and pride, and you would take even those away from them.”

“Let me up!” Ready screams. The hands do not move. He feels his anger begin to crumble. Fear wells up in his throat. “If you want a cut, you can have it!”

“You don’t understand, boy.” The death’s-head mask leans closer. “You think that money is the oil that keeps society’s engine running, but it’s not. Trust is. Trust in each other is what allows us all to work together smoothly. When you remove trust, the engine cannot function. Fear and suspicion make motion impossible. The engine seizes up and destroys itself.”

Ready tries to struggle free. “You’re crazy!”

“Not at all.” A single metal hand wraps itself around his collar and effortlessly pushes him halfway over the edge, into the roiling vapors and roaring heat.

“Justify your existence to me,” the Winnower says, almost invisible behind the thick, greasy smoke.

“Look,” Ready says, choking on soot, “I don’t know what your problem is, but I never did anything to anybody that somebody else didn’t do to me first.”

“I’m afraid that’s not good enough. If people acted morally only on the condition that everyone around them behave in perfectly ethical fashion, then there would quickly be no ethics at all.”

Ready feels broken metal scrape down his back as he is pushed further out. The steel hand gripping his jacket is the only thing keeping him suspended. Bits of ash float lazily around him. “I’ve got kids . . .” he says, looking over his shoulder at the orange light of the furnace far below. “Little Rachel, she’s only three . . .”

“The Hypogeum was originally designed to hold fifty thousand persons. Today it is crammed to bursting with almost five times that number. Fatherhood does not help the community, or make you a better man. Anything else?”

“Uh . . . uh . . .” Ready’s mind reels, and then it suddenly hits him: maybe this psychopath is actually the answer to all his problems. Maybe it’s fate.

“What if I . . .” he says quickly, “What if I . . .”

And then he falters. He has absolutely no idea what to say next.

“I thought not.” The steel hand gives a final shove, and Ready falls backward into the smoke. He is completely lost in suffocating grayness. Only the rapidly increasing heat tells him that he is hurtling toward the furnace. He screams until his lungs begin to burn.

Timeless and strong,
as stone, as steel.
Talons sharper
than the memory of fear.
Conceived in cupidity,
born of brutality,
suckled upon starvation.
Winnower
.

Surviving fragment from

The Book of Equity
, circa 220

BLUESHIFT

Orcus presses his hands hard against the window until his nailless fingers turn white and the veins bulge from the backs of his hands. He leans his massive body forward, the tip of his aquiline nose flattening against the glass, and looks out upon the Hypogeum. The shining towers reach upward, straining to touch him, while the jumble of buildings and causeways between them descend into a poisonous blue haze. Somewhere in that impenetrable puzzle of steel and concrete is a man in the guise of a demon, a man who kills with the grace of a gymnast, then disappears into the crevasses like a cockroach.

Orcus pushes his forehead against the plastic, as if trying to ooze through it, to become one with the city. The situation is absurd. The party to celebrate his children’s nuptials begins in a matter of chronons, yet all he can think about is the Winnower! There is something about that make-believe monster that lodges in the creases of his brain, irritating his most menial thoughts. Worse, the same effect can be observed in the men and women below, especially on the lowest levels. Everywhere Orcus looks, someone is whispering about the Winnower. He is an infection, concentrating the resentment of the city like a blister about to burst.

“Image,” Orcus murmurs, “are you there?”

“Yes, Orcus.” Image’s voice sounds exactly like that of a well-mannered, middle-aged woman.

“Who is the Winnower?”

“I’m sorry. Could you rephrase the question?”

“I’m not wasting my time with a simple subroutine,” Orcus growls. “Image: Access Main System.”

Instantly, the voice changes, becomes richer in a manner that would be imperceptible to anyone without Orcus’s appreciation of nuance. “Why, Orcus, I’m flattered. You haven’t spoken directly to me in over ten years.”

“It’s only because I’m extremely busy. I thought you could help me solve this problem quickly.”

“It’s because of Stone’s death. You’re uncertain. You need to share your troubles with someone.”

Inwardly, Orcus curses. He has always hated Image, the only single entity in the city with more awareness than himself. While Orcus sees every action performed by the Hypogeans, Image sees deeper, into their very souls. It was the Founders who designed Image this way. They saw that maintenance of the Hypogeum’s fragile ecology would require a single simulated intelligence to coordinate its diverse processes, so they created Image, weaving its software holistically into every computer in the city, including the systems that would one day control the cameras. Then, as a safety measure, they programmed Image to monitor the psychology of the Hypogeans, in an effort to keep them psychologically as well as physically healthy.

“Don’t evade the question,” Orcus growls. “Who is the Winnower?”

“You know I am not permitted to divulge personal information about the citizens of the Hypogeum.”

“I also know that you can overrule that prohibition when public safety is at stake. There’s a murderer on the loose.” Then, thinking of the Deathsmen, he adds: “An unsanctioned murderer.”

“Is he?”

“Is he what? Sanctioned?” Orcus turns from the window, intrigued for the first time. “Are you implying that someone is coordinating the Winnower’s activities?”

“Perhaps if you told me what you already know or have deduced about the Winnower, then I could help you a little more.”

Orcus snorts with irritation. He would have tried to have Image destroyed years ago, if it weren’t such an integral part of the city’s infrastructure. “You can’t help yourself, can you, Image? You have a compulsion to delve around in other people’s heads.”

“It’s part of my programming. I am designed to attune myself to the needs of the citizenry so that I may better serve them.”

“Very well. I’ll play your game. As it happens, the Winnower has revealed a fraction of his identity to me already. So far, all of his murders have been committed between chronons four and six, indicating that he lives on blueshift and is playing the Winnower during the time he is supposed to be sleeping.”

“Unless he is on lifeshift red, and goes out during his socialization time.”

“I’m aware of that possibility. I’ve already instructed the Scrutators to notify me of any unusual deviation of socialization during those chronons.”

“Perhaps he is a recently unemployed yellowshifter. Or he could be a quaternary, with no fixed schedule.”

“Stop telling me what I already know! It’s your turn to give, Image. Who sanctions the Winnower? Is he in the employ of my enemies?”

“Who do you perceive to be your enemies, Orcus?”

“Don’t play games with me, you damnable simulacrum!
Who is the Winnower?
”