Heart of Granite

by James Barclay

  ‘It’s in hand, so be patient. Gather your strength and your luck; you’re seriously going to need both and even then your chances are pretty slim.’

  ‘Thanks for the pep talk.’

  Krystyna chuckled. ‘I almost like you, kiddo. What’s up?’

  Max realised his expression must have changed, because he’d paused to think ahead for the first time since he’d left Landfill.

  ‘I’m just wondering if was worth the bother of escaping.’

  ‘Your options are becoming depressingly clear, are they?’

  ‘I’m dead whichever way I turn, aren’t I?’

  Krystyna waved her hand to disperse some smoke. ‘It’s not quite as clear cut as that.’

  Max raised his eyebrows. ‘Really? I’m surprised Kirby’s so dead set on finding me. Might as well let me take Martha and go then I’ll die in the desert and he can blame the Fall.’

  ‘Believe me, he’s far more scared that you’ll survive it.’

  ‘What? No one survives the Fall.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘You should probably explain that,’ said Max sharply.

  Krystyna took a long drag on her cigarette and chained another one before stubbing the end out.

  ‘Look, back when the Fall was a new phenomenon it threatened the whole ERC programme. There were tests done that led directly to mind-shielding technology and prolonging the active service of drake pilots. But they also suggested that the Fall wasn’t a death sentence, that it was the ongoing process of mixing alien and human DNA. It was never a surprise that transition affected the human brain.’

  ‘So what’s wrong with that?’

  Krystyna gave a dry laugh and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘It depends where you stand. If you’re a scientist, it’s fascinating and demanding of further research. If you’re a pilot it means longer in the pouch. But if you’re a humanist, it’s playing god to wage war. A pilot who went through the Fall wouldn’t be completely human any more; none of us knows what that means. And all the test subjects died, so further direct research was suspended. We’ve continued researching the ideal conditions for the Fall, just using existing data to model Fallsurvival.’

  ‘“We”?’ he said and noticed her hands were trembling.

  ‘I was part of the team, Max. I truly don’t know whether to be ashamed or proud. We lost lives but we discovered so much.’

  Max felt a cool anger growing. ‘Yeah, and you’ve ended up in this stinking bone lab and never see the sunlight. I’d say there was more shame than pride and there bloody should be. Lab rats, right?’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Everything I heard in Landfill. It’s not the Fall that sends you mad, it’s losing your drake that does it, made worse by the drugs they give you. Or perhaps they’re wrong in there. Perhaps that’s part of the madness.’

  ‘Oh boy, you got stuck in with a real live one, didn’t you?’

  ‘Leitch. He knows the drugs are killing him but he takes them anyway. Diana called herself a “lab rat”. And that’s right, isn’t it? Someone’s passing data to you, aren’t they?’

  Krystyna paused and picked a shred of tobacco from her lip. ‘Yeah, but it isn’t how you think it is. All I’ve ever done is try and help drake pilots live.’

  ‘Lucrative business too, eh?’

  ‘Go fuck yourself, Halloran, you know nothing,’ spat Krystyna. She pushed away from the table, snatched her pack of cigarettes and tapped another one out, which she jammed between her lips and lit from the lighter in her apron pocket. She tapped her chest. ‘I’m the one true ally you’ve got, kiddo. Get back in your box and stop mouthing off about things you don’t understand.’

  ‘So make me understand. Why did you leave?’

  ‘Landfill, Max, why else?’ Krystyna sighed. ‘Look. Public opinion went hard against the mixing of alien and human DNA so that coward Corsini made a big show of shutting down the Fall research programme and diverting all the funding— ha! — into finding a cure for what can’t be cured. And that left all the Landfill victims being experimented on with incredibly dangerous shit to halt symptomatic advance of the Fall.’

  ‘Great. So rather than stand and fight, you scuttled off to make a load of cash making drugs yourself.’

  Krystyna snorted a laugh and Max looked past her to see Jola standing in the doorway to the living area. Sharmi levered her way past Jola, wandered over to the coffee machine and poured a couple of mugs.

  ‘We left the ERC to come here and develop heaters. Still the only drug that actually helps pilots suffering early Fall symptoms,’ said Sharmi. ‘And keeps them flying.’

  ‘Yeah, so you’re part of the problem!’ shouted Max, images of Diana, Leitch and all the Landfill inmates crowding his head. ‘You’re profiting from the misery of pilots . .. you’re like fucking leeches on their brains, sucking out anything useful and casting the husks aside. They die in horrible pain, screaming at the walls in soundproofboxes for fuck’s sake!’

  ‘So what?’ yelled Jola right into his face.

  ‘I . .. it’s . . . what do you mean so what? What the fuck kind of an answer is that?’

  ‘You’re all drake pilots! You knew the end when you signed up. And while you’re dying you provide incredibly useful information for people like me who are still doing the original research.Fuckwit.’

  Jola moved back a pace and glared at him. Max focused instead on Krystyna while he tried to unscramble his thoughts.

  ‘What about the pilots in Landfill now?’

  ‘There’s nothing we can do for them,’ said Krystyna. ‘They’re lost and all the medics can do is make them comfortable and gather data to make better treatments . . . some of which comes our way.’

  ‘They should put them to sleep, it would be kinder.’

  Krystyna blew more smoke. ‘Yes, it would. But we can’t be seen to be killing our heroes now, can we?’

  Max shuddered. ‘What about all the other drugs you push? Some sort of altruistic motive behind them too, is there?’

  ‘Sure, we make money selling drugs for all sorts of needs but we have to in order to buy the materials to continue our research. I’m not trying to pretend we’re angels, we want money like everyone else. But we also want to find the formula to keep a pilot in the pouch while he or she goes through the Fall in relative safety. That’s what we came to the ERC to do. We’re getting closer but we’re still way off.’

  ‘I’ve misjudged you a bit, haven’t I?’ said Max.

  ‘Maybe a fraction,’ said Sharmi.

  ‘Believe me, none of us want this but without Landfill, we wouldn’t get the raw data and without that, we can’t devise the silver bullet that lets you all Fall and closes the wards across the fleet for good.’ Krystyna smiled. ‘And what a fucking shit storm that’ll create. Can’t wait.’

  ‘Can’t help me though, can you?’ asked Max.

  ‘We are helping,’ said Sharmi.

  ‘No, I mean, after I leave. I’m going to go through the Fall, aren’t I?’

  Jola shrugged. ‘If you stay with your drake, it’s inevitable. Or you can leave your drake to die in the desert. But when it does, you’ll get your mind shredded while you’re dying of thirst under the blazing sun. Or we can take you back to Kirby and you can have your space in Landfill back again.’

  ‘No drugs you can give me for any of that, then?’

  ‘Like I say, we’re not there yet.’ Krystyna touched him briefly on the shoulder. ‘And I won’t lie, alone-in-the-desert isn’t ideal conditions for successfully negotiating the Fall.’

  ‘Heaters?’ suggested Max.

  ‘You’re going to Fall. All the way, probably quite quickly. Heaters can’t help with that.’

  Max stared into his coffee mug. He was fighting a sense of unfairness and part of him wished for blissful ignorance. He thought Valera would have handled all this much better . . . but she’d have done everything differently. He suddenly fervently wished he’d kept his stupid mouth shut. Too late no
w.

  ‘Any advice, then?’ he asked.

  ‘Jeez, kiddo, who knows? Everyone else has died trying. Could be mental frailty, could be physical frailty. Post mortems showed all sorts. I dunno . . . believe in yourself. Trust yourself.’

  ‘You’ll come to terms with it,’ said Sharmi. ‘Right now, you need food, fluid and sleep. Follow me.’

  Max pushed himself to his feet, hungry, despite his Landfill feast, and exhausted now both had been mentioned. The living area was really tight. A tiny bathroom and another doorless room, just big enough for three single cots.

  ‘Going to be tight fitting us all in there,’ he said, nodding at the bedroom. ‘I’m happy to share, mind you.’

  Sharmi regarded him from really rather beautiful blue eyes. ‘You have got to be fucking kidding.’

  Chapter 25

  My dad said that we always underestimate the length and consequences of war. He said we never learn and that the young always pay the price because we have to hold the guns and do the flying. I’d like to see my dad again but I never will, will I?

  Maximus Halloran.

  Max was partway through an early breakfast when Krystyna’s p-palm beeped and she gave them all the thumbs-up. The HoG was still moving but with dawn only an hour away, she would stop soon, the tail would arc up and the flight deck lower from the cavernous belly. He had time still, but he had to leave his rather strange sanctuary with the heater girls.

  Max was a bundle of nerves, a most uncomfortable and unusual experience.

  ‘They’ll be expecting me to make a break for it, won’t they?’ he said.

  ‘Yes. Don’t think about it,’ said Sharmi. ‘Right, here’s your suit. We’ve taken the locator chip out but don’t go putting it on until you’re in the pen or they’ll know something’s up – the suit’ll ping them an error message.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Max, taking the suit. ‘What’s that for?’

  Sharmi was holding out a sheathed scalpel. ‘You’ll need to excise your drake’s coms and locator chip or they’ll be able to follow you wherever you go. Do it as soon as you can.’

  ‘Right, yes, great idea, thanks.’

  Sharmi smiled. ‘Not just a brilliant scientist, eh?’ She pointed the way to the exit. Max got up and they started walking. ‘You know where the tunnels will take you right? Any questions, now is the time. Beyond that, it’s up to you.’

  ‘They’ll have drugged, Martha, won’t they? Sedated her or something.’

  ‘I’d be surprised if they didn’t,’ said Krystyna.

  ‘What?’ Max stopped in his tracks. They were heading down towards the plastics Blammer, Stephane Marsan, who had his own access tunnels. ‘How can I fly a sleeping drake?’

  ‘As it happens, there are many things the ERC ignored when they stopped the Fall research and opened the Landfill programme instead. Trust me, when your minds come within range, it won’t be the problem Kirby expects it to be.’

  Max turned to face her full on. ‘Thank you, Krystyna, and you, Sharmi. Maybe if I’m successful, you’ll be able to get out of here and into a proper lab.’

  ‘Don’t go dissing our lab,’ said Sharmi.

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Good luck out there, kiddo,’ said Krystyna.

  ‘Give my love to Jola.’

  The two heater girls laughed.

  ‘Only if you come back and clear up her puke,’ said Sharmi.

  ‘Get lost, Max,’ said Krystyna. ‘Marsan’s expecting you.’

  Max trotted into the Frenchman’s lair and pulled up short. It was like falling into some demented dream of times gone by. Plastics of every hue and shape hung from the ceiling on wires or were stacked on shelves or piled on the floor. Much of it was in broken pieces, difficult to identify but there were a few bits that were almost whole or obvious enough by shape or colour. Light and monitor casings, partial mouldings from tables and chairs, poles, a complete and surely ancient computer keyboard, clear covers . . .

  ‘It’s more a museum than a warehouse, no?’ said Marsan, appearing from behind a particularly unruly stack of what might have been paper file folders.

  ‘What the hell do you do with all this stuff?’

  Marsan’s smile was warm and knowing, revealing remarkably white teeth that were somehow at odds with his stubble and the untidy shoulder-length curly black hair that framed his grimy face.

  ‘More valuable than diamonds.’ He shrugged and pointed the way to go. ‘To some people anyway. Everything in here is saved from the recyclers, the murderers of historical artefacts in the name of the military.’

  ‘It’s just bits of old plastic. Mostly broken old plastic.’

  Marsan shook his head and kept Max moving quickly through the room. ‘You’re a philistine. This is a museum. You’d remould all these treasures to keep the C.A.C. looking pristine, would you?’

  ‘I don’t know but I mean, what do your buyers do with this rubbish?’

  Marsan shrugged. ‘Mostly it goes off the behemoth with whoever bought it and sold on to collectors back home, wherever home is. I’ve seen mosaics, framed pieces, sculptures . .. all sorts. You think it’s rubbish? You should see what I sell my rubbish for. Doesn’t matter what it looks like, it matters that it’s rare. You’re in the wrong business.’

  ‘I’d agree with you but I couldn’t live in this hole.’

  ‘A hole while the war lasts, a mansion when it is over.’ Marsan shrugged again, an extravagantly Gallic gesture this time. ‘Enough, though. We are both busy men. Come, I’ll get you back to the real world.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  There was a poorly-fitting door in the bone at the far end of Marsan’s bizarre storeroom and the stench that funnelled out when the Frenchman opened it was extraordinary. It was hard to identify the odour but old meat, faeces and burnt oil were in there somewhere.

  ‘I’ll take you to the first junction,’ said Marsan.

  ‘It’s not necessary,’ said Max. ‘You probably have some plastic to polish.’

  Marsan looked at him, trying to gauge whether he was being insulted or not. ‘No, I insist. You’re paying for it after all.’

  ‘I am?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Marsan, his eyes sparkling. ‘A lot.’

  He led the way into the flesh tunnel and after a few metres, Jola’s description was proved entirely accurate. The luxury of wall plating gave way to cauterised flesh. The matting beneath his feet was covered in a revolting slime that Marsan was happy to tell him was an antiseptic mixture produced by the behemoth’s immune system. Max had no desire to see biology at work this close up. Even worse, it was soaking through his softies and starting to squelch between his toes.

  ‘We don’t all have the money for bone architecture,’ said Marsan, his voice dulled by the gently undulating flesh surrounding them.

  ‘Or you’re too tight to spend it.’

  ‘Comes to the same thing.’

  The place was a maze and became increasingly more depressing as they headed deeper. The dripping fluid from roof and walls was a background to the desultory sound of voices emanating from side corridors. He heard a screech and some rhythmic moaning along with discordant music. The smell of the tunnels was overlaid by questionable cooking smells and steam and smoke curled around the ceiling and crawled up the walls. Max recognised some harsh narcotic fumes within the complex stench.

  The noise grew as did the brightness of light and the filthy passage let out into a bone space packed with people, goods and stalls.

  ‘You have got to be kidding me . ..’ breathed Max.

  ‘Welcome to the Heart of Granite’s best market place,’ said Marsan. ‘Anything you want . . . drugs, food, clothing, plastics, whores, weapons, your friendly agent can negotiate for it here. Notice anything?’

  They’d paused at the entrance and while Marsan was getting nods, waves and calls of recognition and welcome, Max was attracting far more hostile attention.

  ‘Beyond the fact they all seem to
hate me on sight?’ said Max.

  ‘Why do you think that is?’

  Max had a good look at the forty or fifty people in front of him. All shapes, sizes and ages, all civilians, in dirty, creased or old clothes. There certainly wasn’t much money in evidence here. Or hygiene for that matter.

  ‘I dunno . .. there’s no uniforms here?’

  ‘So you and your fatigues stick out like the proverbial here. Please say nothing and stay with me, or you won’t make it to the other side of the market.’

  ‘Why do you think I’d say anything?’ Max felt a little hurt.

  Marsan favoured him with a tiny shake of the head. ‘Your reputation precedes you.’

  The distance to their destination flesh tunnel was no more than forty metres but it was like walking through an alien society. Max barely understood a word, such was the speed and accent of the barter patter all around him. Deals for drugs, fresh fruit and low grade plastics were being made with great energy, all on behalf of agents and clients within the HoG.

  Everywhere he moved, and always in Marsan’s shadow, the chatter quietened and people stared like he was some sort of freak exhibit. Max did his best not to catch anyone’s eye or react to the remarkable number of elbows and shoulders placed in his path, or the heels that managed to find his toes through the thin fabric of his sodden, stinking softies.

  Marsan, aware of his rising temper, kept a firm hand on his forearm and made plain he was passing through, nothing more. It didn’t seem to make any difference.

  ‘Hey, soldier, remember me when you need a little company.’

  The young manto Max’s left, leaning on a narco’s stall, had deep eye sockets, and a skin infection that was weeping pus from beneath his finger nails. Classic signs of a Regen addict close to the end.

  Max smiled. ‘You’ll be the first to know. And I’m not a soldier, I’m a—’

  ‘Hsssst,’ said Marsan, a beat too late as it turned out.

  ‘Drake pilot?’ guessed the addict. ‘I have special services for your kind.’

  A hush fell, momentary as the whole market place took in the gift that had just walked into their midst. Marsan tugged him forward at a greater pace but the crowd began to press in and the volume grew.