Red Litten World

by Alexander, K. M.

  Someone began to throw trash at the cops on the cannery stairs, which only infuriated them further. I could see the crowd thinning near Twenty-Third Avenue, so I pressed on. Shoving people out of my way, fighting to get to Twenty-Fourth.

  But then I saw it.

  A brick. Flying.

  It sailed past me and struck the tusked police officer. He grunted and then crumpled backwards, a stream of blood drawing an arc in the air as he fell. A hush settled instantly over the crowd. A second of silence. Then the sound of a wet crack as the back of his head smacked against the cement stairs.

  Then, as if on cue, the armed cops raised their rifles and began firing wildly. It all went to hell.

  It was a stampede. People were knocked over as the crowd was driven backwards by the rifles. Everywhere voices. Shouting and screaming. People collapsing as police struck them down. Gunshots boomed and echoed and the smell of gunpowder was heavy in the narrow street.

  A kresh near me went down, moaning. A dauger woman to my left screamed and crumpled next to a dead dauger man with a silvery mask who was missing a portion of chest and stomach. I willed myself to look away.

  I pressed on, trying to keep my head low. I was struck in the face by an elbow and kneed in the back. I kept my eyes low, I kept moving. It was hard to know which direction I was heading in. People swarmed around me, pushing, pressing, crushing.

  My right knee was knocked once, then twice, by someone trying to crawl his way out. Each knock sent sparks of pain through my leg. My chest felt like it was on fire, and I wondered if the stitches had torn.

  More gunshots boomed from behind me and I flinched, and dropped to a crouch.

  I saw a maero fall, struck in the shoulder. His blood spattered the ground and he grunted and then growled, pushing himself off of the cement and rushing back into the throng.

  It was a massacre. Blood spattered everywhere, it filled the air. More bricks were thrown. A burning bottle crashed next to the advancing wall of police. Smoke began to fill the air, collecting along the ceiling. People began to gag and then choke.

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. These were desperate, hungry people and the cops were now shooting them as they tried to run. People began to fall all around me. Too many. Too many people. Nearby an old anur collapsed, blood welled from his thigh. I slowed, then leaned in and lifted, half-supporting and half-carrying him to the edge of the crowd.

  “T–thank you,” he rasped. He pressed himself against the brick wall.

  “Will you be okay?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at the wounded still writhing in the street.

  He nodded, pressing a hand to his leg. I turned to go back for more wounded as people in red armbands rushed the police on the cannery stairs, tackling one of the armed guards and driving him to the ground. They began to kick him and stomp on his chest, his arms and legs.

  I stood, shocked and stunned. I felt powerless, helpless. I was one person in a sea of insanity. What could I do? So much carnage. So much death.

  The rifle was ripped away and the Breaker who now held it blew away the other cop before succumbing to gunfire herself.

  It didn’t stop them. Other Breakers joined in and a few began to smash open the cannery doors. Their mouths shouted in joy but they were inaudible under the screams of the wounded and dying.

  “You’re all under arrest!” boomed a loudspeaker. “Stop what you’re doing immediately.”

  The noise brought me back. I ducked and rushed back into the crowd. Trying to find more wounded.

  People around me were noticing that the cannery doors were open and many abandoned fighting to move towards the entrance. Alarm bells were ringing inside the building, adding to the din.

  Around me the crowd pressed. People were knocked over, driven beneath the surge. I bent, moved to help another human, but she pushed me off. Her eyes filled with anger. The crowd was beginning to fight with each other, pushing and clawing to get inside. I saw two human women beat one another bloody. I watched an anur stab an old dimanian in the back as she rushed past him, eager to get inside.

  I stumbled back, my mouth hanging open.

  A dauger in a pair of dirty overalls emerged carrying an armload of cans, and she was pulled down by the crowd. I could hear the muffled slaps and strikes of flesh on flesh mixing with the screams. More gunshots, the sound of shattering bottles, the scent of blood and smoke in the air.

  The world was red: burning and bloody.

  I retreated, stepped back and away, feeling stunned and numb.

  The wall of cops had stopped their advance and instead let the rioters tear each other apart. Men and women so desperate for food that they were fighting and killing one another.

  Then I noticed the figure. Standing above the fray on the balcony of a building across from the cannery. Its robes billowed around it as it stood, unmoving, watching with that haunting silence I had observed so many times before. The black-hooded gargoyle turned. It looked directly at me.

  FIFTEEN

  JUST LIKE THAT, THE GARGOYLE WAS GONE. I blinked. I had seen them pull a similar trick before but never so suddenly. I swallowed and looked again. My eyes weren’t lying—the thing was gone.

  I stood on my toes, tried to see if I could spot any more of their pointed hoods in the crowd. Nothing. Just the swell of people. Was its presence somehow connected to the riots, or was it merely observing and passing messages?

  Police in riot gear were overwhelming the crowd. Arrests were now being made. I could hear the sound of sirens. I moved away from the mass in front of the cannery. My breathing was sharp and a numbness washed over me. I collapsed, my back to a brick wall. I tried to catch my breath. This was madness. First, the march to the cannery, then the assault on the police, and then seeing everyone turn on each other. The hunger madness had spread like a wild fire. All-consuming.

  A bloodied dimanian couple came around the corner and collapsed near me. They were wearing heavy coats and gloves. The man had a knit cap with two holes punched through for his sizable, twisting horns. His lips and right eye were bleeding. The woman seemed unscathed.

  “Why did they shoot like that? Why?” the man cried. Big tears ran down his face. The woman tried to console him, mumbling words of comfort as they caught their breath.

  “Brick,” I finally managed to say. “Someone threw a brick.”

  The man looked up, shook his head. “No. Why? That doesn’t make sense.”

  He was clearly in shock. His hands were shaking.

  “We were down on Twenty-Second,” said the woman. “We stepped out of the shop to see what was happening and just... got swept up. So many people...”

  “Is he shot?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Glass. Someone threw a bottle. He’s okay. The cut’s shallow.”

  “The police are going to round up anyone who sticks around,” I said, pushing myself off the sidewalk. “You should go home, or find a place to hole-up.”

  “But we didn’t do anything.”

  “Why did they shoot like that?” the man asked again, dazed. He looked from me to the woman with a confused expression. “I don’t understand.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said to her. I watched as more people emerged from around the corner. Some were bloody, others coughed and stumbled.

  I could hear the bullhorn-enhanced voice of an officer shouting orders. A few more gunshots followed and the couple jolted.

  “This is a mess. Get out of here if you can.”

  The woman nodded and helped the man to his feet.

  I got moving myself.

  The chapterhouse was a small shop with a wide door and no windows. A small neon sign depicting an open hand with a knife resting in its palm glowed green. It was the only thing that delineated this storefront from the other blank doors that lined the street. Had I not known the mark I would have missed the place altogether.

  I pushed through the door and entered a small lobby. A reception counter occupied the opposite wall and
next to it was a door. If this was on a lower level there would have been a partition separating the counter from the entryway, protecting the receptionist from unsavory visitors. But Level Six wasn’t the lower levels. It was the unofficial start of the elevated levels of Lovat, where the poorest of the rich lived.

  The place was simple, plain—nothing overtly nice or shabby. It had a well-worn feeling, scuffed and smoothed by time. Very unlike Argentum with his silver mask and finely tailored suits. A lone plant wilted in a corner next to a set of brown leather chairs. The walls were covered with wood panels. A few photos hung in wood frames that blended in with the wall behind them. Men and women of all different species smiled out of them in muted tones of black and white. Small brass plaques had been mounted below them.

  “What the hell is going on out there?” said the maero woman peeking out from behind the countertop. She had short black hair and soft features. A pair of big gray eyes flashed concern, looking from me to the door. Standing, she rose to her full height, which wasn’t very tall, at least not by maero standards. She was only a head and a half taller than me.

  “Some folks rushed the cops guarding the cannery. A cop got hurt. Other cops started shooting. All hell broke loose.”

  “By the Firsts!” she said, nearly shouting.

  I breathed out heavily.

  She moved through the door that separated the back office and crossed the lobby in seconds, poking her head outside and craning her neck to look around. She was wearing a pair of dark blue slacks tucked into leather boots with a matching jacket over a white shirt. Standard business fare.

  She sniffed the air. “There’s smoke. What’s on fire?”

  I slumped into a leather chair. “People were throwing fire bombs.”

  First my heartbeat and then my breathing began to slow.

  Funny. Here, in a Society chapterhouse, I felt safe. I touched my chest and winced, feeling pain flare up from the wound, reminding me why I was here.

  “I wouldn’t go outside,” I said. “The police are everywhere, arresting everyone.”

  She closed the door quickly. “Was anyone killed?” I could hear the concern in her voice. Odd for a woman who ran a chapterhouse for an organization that performed legal murders.

  “Yes. Don’t know how many.”

  “Carter’s cross,” she cursed and leaned back against the door. “This is usually such a quiet warren.”

  A cry came from outside, followed by a bellowing voice through a megaphone: “THIS WARREN IS UNDER POLICE LOCKDOWN. REMAIN INSIDE YOUR HOMES AND BUSINESSES.”

  The woman pushed off the door then turned and looked at it. She seemed to wonder what was happening behind it.

  “How long have the cops been watching over the cannery?” I asked. I wasn’t sure how long LPD would be outside.

  She moved away from the door, sat in a chair next to mine, and considered my question. “A few days? Maybe a week?”

  “Nothing says ‘Come inside, we have valuable goods’ like armed guards,” I said with a chuckle.

  She rolled her eyes. “The city is starving, of course people want to get in there. It makes sense they’d want to guard it. Keep looters out. What I don’t understand is why public employees were watching over it. The Bonheurs own a security company.”

  “The Bonheurs own a security company?” I didn’t know who the Bonheurs were but it seemed like the right question.

  She nodded and leaned close, her voice lowering. “FirstGuard Security.”

  Now that name I knew. FirstGuard was a mid-level caravan company. They generally worked for financial firms or exporters bringing in expensive cargo loads. It wasn’t as big or as well-funded as Frankle or Merck but they did good trade. They were also considered experts in dealing with bandits, something even some of the bigger companies couldn’t boast. So why, with the gear and manpower of FirstGuard, would the Bonheurs rely on LPD? She was right, that didn’t add up.

  “Huh,” I said. “That’s screwy.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Honestly, that whole organization was better managed when Aimé was around. One brother’s a dolt and the other’s a drunk. They can’t agree on anything. I’ve seen them wander past a few times in the last couple of days, heading to or from the cannery. They’ll end up running the business into the ground.”

  “What happened to this Aimé?” I said.

  “You didn’t hear? It was in the papers. Pretty tragic. Aimé was murdered last week. He was smart, clever. Everyone in the warren was excited for him. He finally got the reins of the family business. It was a bright spot for him after his mother was killed.”

  “His mother was killed?”

  She nodded. “Mhm, found dead a few weeks back.” She shuddered. “The papers didn’t say much. I wrote it off as another gilded murder. But, you know, I was talking to a friend of mine—he’s married to an LPD detective—he told me that there was all this... writing on the walls at the scene. In her own blood. Can you believe that? That’s no gilded murder, right? It’s like something from a horror fil—”

  Gunshots rang out. The woman looked toward the door and then at me. She reached out and gripped my arm. “You think they’re killing more people?” she whispered.

  I was still thinking about what she’d said. Another pair of deaths. Same scene. There was something about the levels... Mrs. Bonheur on Seven. Taaka on Eight. Adderley on Nine. I was willing to bet that if we looked further back we’d find more ritual murders tracing a grisly vertical line though the city.

  “What do you think is happening?” she asked, her fingers digging into my arm, looking over her shoulder toward the door.

  I snapped back into reality, filing this new knowledge away. “Er... At this point they’re probably just shooting to scare people. Get them in line. They were moving pretty quickly.” I thought about the old anur I had helped, I hoped he’d be okay.

  She relaxed visibly.

  “I’m Wal,” I said, offering my hand.

  “Patrice,” she said. “I guess we’re stuck here. You want to get out of the lobby? A bullet could tear through that outer wall. Besides, it’s warmer in the back.”

  She led me through the door and around to the back room.

  The space behind the front counter was long and narrow. A faded carpet lay in the center of the floor, sporting the same symbol of the hand and the blade that glowed above the door outside. Four desks were pushed against the walls, leaving an open path to a small kitchenette and a door labeled “Bathroom” at the back.

  On the right was a long corkboard with the word “Open” written in Strutten on a large piece of paper and stapled to the top. A few official-looking papers hung below, with typed information and small photographs. On the opposite wall was another board, this one with a sign reading “Filled”. More papers hung below this sign. Some way of managing assignments?

  I instinctively looked for a contract with my name on it. I doubted they’d have a recent photo of me, one with the long hair and beard.

  “I’d offer you coffee but, well. There isn’t any. How about tea?”

  “Tea would be great,” I said. “Thanks.”

  I watched as she went to the small stove at the back and placed a kettle atop one of the burners.

  “So what brought you here today, anyway?” she asked, opening cabinets.

  I took a seat in an empty chair and spun around slowly. “Well, the Society has a contract out on me. I was hoping to sort it out.”

  “Oh,” she paused and turned to look at me, the two mugs in her hands dropping slightly. The limp strings that hung over their edges swayed.

  “Yeah, apparently I owe twenty-five thousand lira to a guy named Shaler. I was hoping to get a payment system set up. I tried to hit the chapterhouse in New Holly but I got... delayed. The directory agent pointed me here.”

  Patrice said nothing.

  I continued. “See, with the Big Ninety closed I can’t work. I’m a caravan master. I’ve been doing dock work but that dried up,
obviously. Tried some consulting but it’s looking rocky lately, with the blockade...” I let my voice trail off as the kettle sang. Patrice filled the mugs with hot water, turned, and walked over to me, pressing one of the mugs into my hands. It wasn’t cold in the chapterhouse, but I was still chilled from being outside and the walk over. I took it, wrapping my fingers around the warm ceramic.

  “Why didn’t you work this out with the collector assigned to you?” she asked.

  My memory of the lift flashed. Argentum stalking toward me, the blade hanging in his hand. His one long nail reflecting the light. “I... er... I can do that?”

  “Well, of course. We’re a collection agency. We want to take payments. You realize there’s a huge interest payment associated with a Society collection, right?”

  “Well, I...”

  “Most people don’t, I think that’s part of the point,” she smiled bitterly. I was having trouble figuring out how she felt working here. She was knowledgeable about the collectors’ practices but it seemed the less savory aspects of the process bothered her.

  “I can look up your contract if you’d like. See what we can do.”

  “Please,” I said eagerly.

  She pulled a thick binder with worn corners out from beneath the front counter and flipped it open so it lay in front of her. She looked serene, like a priestess reading from scripture.

  “Who’s your agent?”

  “Rulon Argentum.”

  “Humm,” she said. “I don’t know him, but there’s a bunch of collection houses. He could be based somewhere else. Argentum, a dauger?”

  “Yep,” I said, scooting my chair closer to the desk and looking at the contents of the binder. It was filled with contracts, many stamped “Complete”. Notes had been written in margins and taped to the pages.

  “Argentum. Argentum,” she said as she ran her fingers past names. “Humm...”

  “What is it?”

  “Well...” She looked up at me. “He’s not in here.”

  Patrice closed the book and scooted back from the counter and studied the binder from a distance, thinking. Then she rose and moved to the “Filled” corkboard where she studied the contracts hanging there.