Undercity - eARC

by Catherine Asaro

  The colonel’s voice crackled. “Major, what you are asking me to do amounts to standing by while the two cartels try to wipe each other out.”

  I sent a silent apology to Dig. She and I had chosen our paths, and however strong our bond, those roads had taken us apart forever. I just hoped it wasn’t too late for her daughter. To Lavinda, I said, “It’s the only way to keep them from wiping out everyone else.”

  “Wait,” Lavinda said. “I’m getting message.” After a pause, her voice snapped out of my comm. “The Cries police tell me they would know if this war was brewing, and they say the slums are quiet.”

  Yah, right. “Colonel, trust me,” I said. “I know how things work here. Trouble is coming.” The dust knights were gathering around me, even more than the last time they had come here, all of them listening. I had to get these kids to safety. “Send protection, and let the cartels hammer it out between themselves.”

  “How many people live there beside the cartels?” Lavinda said. “About twenty?”

  I stared at the comm. She thought only twenty other people lived here? Nearly twenty were just standing in this cave with me, and they were all children.

  “It’s a lot more than that,” I said.

  “Counting the drug runners, you mean,” Lavinda said.

  “No. I’m not counting them.” The above-city had plenty of resources to monitor the canals. That they had no clue about how many people lived here spoke all too clearly about our value to them. Yet for all that I raged at Cries for ignoring my people while they lived in poverty beneath one of the wealthiest cities in the Imperialate, it wasn’t only the above-city. We fiercely protected our isolation. We and Cries needed to find a way to work together.

  “Colonel,” I said. “Can you help us?”

  “Are you sure this is what you want?” Lavinda asked. “Protection only?”

  “Yes. I’m sure.”

  Lavinda exhaled. “Very well. We’ll do it your way.” She spoke grimly. “You better be right.”

  I let out a breath. “Thank you. Out here.”

  After I signed off, I turned my jammer on. The knights were waiting, their clothes gritty with red dust. I motioned them closer. Pat moved to the front with the older girl and boy I had pegged as leaders before. The Oey rider stood next to Pat, tall and fit, the silvery tracings of his high-tech tattoos swirling on his arms, as artistic as they were functional.

  I nodded to the four of them and hit the heels of my palms together. “Bhaajan.” They would give me their names or not, but only if they knew mine.

  Pat spoke first. “Pat Sandjan,” she said, not for my benefit, since I already knew, but to show the others she would reveal her name. Unexpectedly, she added, “Pat Cote.”

  Cote. It had to be her true name. It meant shelter, often for those who needed protection. It seemed apt for a dust knight who protected her circle. She also honored me by giving her full name.

  The older girl next to Pat hit her palms together. “Runner.”

  The duster boy followed suit. “Rockson.”

  The Oey rider spoke, his voice resonant. “Biker.” He glanced at Pat and nodded slightly to her. Then he turned back to me and added, “Tim Oey.”

  Another honor, his full name. His nickname, Biker, was a clever play on his status as a rider, a comparison to the sleek cycles people rode in the above-city, those gleaming, low to the ground vehicles that whizzed through the streets, the ultimate status symbol among Cries youth. His name implied he had the same status among the riders. Just as intriguing, Pat’s dust gang took its name from a cyber-rider. It was no wonder she and Biker stood out as leaders; they weren’t afraid to be different even if it meant breaking our unwritten traditions.

  I spoke to the group. “You four will lead the knights.”

  They nodded their acceptance. None of them looked surprised.

  Now for the rest of the kids. I had to phrase this in a way they would all accept, getting them out of danger without making them think I was asking them to hide. I spoke to all of them. “You are the knights. You must protect. Understand?”

  They nodded, the youngest ones with wide, frightened gazes.

  I raised my voice. “Protect!”

  “Protect!” Their voices were ragged, hinting at fear. This wasn’t training. This was the real thing.

  “Got parents?” I asked. “How many of you?”

  Three children waved their hands, cutting the air with a jerk.

  Gods. Only three had parents? Who took care of these kids? I knew the answer, knew it from my own life. “Got sibs?” I asked. “How many?”

  All of them waved this time, indicating they had brothers and sisters. They might not be related by blood to those they called their kin, but they were people the knights considered their circle, just as Gourd, Dig, and Jak had been my circle.

  “Who rides the mesh waves?” I asked.

  Six responded to that one, including Biker, all of them with silvery conduits in their clothes or skin, eyes lenses, artificial limbs, and who knew what else hidden under their rags. Six cyber-riders. Good. They could get out the news far faster than the others.

  I regarded them all. “You are tasked with an important job. You must spread the word. All depends on you.” It was true; they were the only ones who could give the warning in time. “Tell your families. Your sibs. Your circles. The cartel war is coming. You have heard this?”

  “Yah,” Biker said. “It’s on the waves.”

  “And the Whisper,” Pat said.

  Good. I was telling the knights something that only Hammer and Braze knew for certain. I didn’t want the cartels to suspect these kids had spied on them. If rumors were already riding the waves, that was enough.

  “Spread the word,” I said. “Tell everyone: Go to ground.” I raised my voice. “You are knights. It is up to you! Get your circles to safety.” And in doing so, I hoped they would get themselves to safety as well. Making them responsible for the warning gave them a crucial task. Pat, Runner, Rockson, and Biker were older and full of the blazing energy that infused our youths. Left on their own, they would join the fighting. But they were also leaders. If they agreed to the role, the safety of these children would matter to them. They all became one large circle. These kids wouldn’t be together if they weren’t already attached through whatever complex relationships existed here. Taking responsibility for the safety of their circle could keep Biker, Pat, Runner, and Rockson from joining the fighting—

  And from dying, for without guns, they couldn’t survive against the armed cartels.

  “Pat, Biker, Runner, Rockson,” I said. “Command the knights.”

  “We’ll take care of it,” Biker said. The other three nodded.

  I called out to the rest of the children. “Who are you?”

  “Dust knights!” they shouted.

  I motioned at the four leaders. “Follow your commanders!”

  Thy turned to Pat and Biker. “Dust knights, ready!”

  I spoke more quietly to the leaders. “It’s up to you now.”

  They all nodded. Biker grinned at me. “Got speed.”

  “Good. Now go!”

  With that, I left the cave and set off running through the Maze. Gods help them. Help the children. For I had another duty. I had to warn Dig. If I didn’t, Vakaar would massacre Kajada, leaving Hammer free to take over the drug trade, making it even easier for her to wreck havoc with the bliss-disguised nightmares she sold. I could level the combat field. What happened then was up to them.

  I just prayed the rest of our community survived their rampage.

  XVIII

  The Hidden

  As I ran along a midwalk toward the Maze, I sent out my green beetle to find the closest Kajada punker. So of course it found the thug who had tried to blast me with a carbine yesterday. Bad luck, but I had no idea where to find Dig and no time to locate anyone else.

  The punker is jogging on the midwalk of the canal to your left, Max told me. Just on the oth
er side of the wall that separates it from this canal.

  Good, I thought. How do I get over there?

  My maps suggest a passage through the wall lies a few meters ahead.

  I slowed as I approached an archway in the wall. Unlike many passages here, this one didn’t come from damage to the ruins; it was a real entrance built by the ancient architects to provide access from one canal to the other. I stepped through the archway and walked down a short tunnel to the next canal. We were near enough to the Concourse that this one had a few street lamps. Four gangers were clustered on the midwalk across the canal, and a rider stood farther down, talking into a comm on her tech-mech arm. Spreading the warning, I hoped.

  Looking in the other direction, I spied the Kajada punker up ahead, loping along the midwalk. I followed, easily gaining on her. When I was about ten meters away, she suddenly stopped and spun around, holding up a long blade that glittered.

  I skidded to a halt and lifted my hands, palms facing her. The pulse revolver in my holster showed, of course, but I made no attempt to draw the weapon.

  “What do you want?” she demanded.

  “I need to talk to Dig.”

  “Fuck that.”

  “Fine,” I said. “You give her the message. Tell her Vakaar has ISC guns. Hammer is going to attack. Fifteen minutes. Maybe less.”

  She stared at me. “Vakaar doesn’t have shit.”

  I didn’t have time for this posturing. “Vakaar has plenty of shit. Tanglers. Carbines. Tell Dig. You don’t, Kajada dies. It’s on you. GO!” With that, I took off again, running past her. She tried to threaten me with the knife, but I was already beyond her reach before she even finished turning.

  Max, send the green beetle after her, I thought. Let me know if she contacts Dig.

  She’s running after you.

  She won’t catch me.

  She turned into another tunnel. She’s heading down-city.

  I hoped that meant she was seeking out Dig. Where’s my red beetle?

  At the casino.

  Has Jak folded up the place?

  No.

  Damn! But why would he fold? After being closed for a while, he was probably raking it in tonight. He had no idea what was up with the cartels.

  I headed for the Black Mark.

  * * *

  Jak came around a bend, jogging toward me. How he knew I was coming, I couldn’t have said, but he had always had a top-notch network. We stopped in front of each other, breathing heavily from the run.

  “You got to close the Black Mark,” I said.

  “Why?” he asked. “Got a good night going.”

  “Braze sold ISC arms to Hammer. Vakaar is going after Kajada. Now.”

  He stared at me. “Shit.”

  “Yah.”

  He pulled me to a tunnel entrance behind a curtain of stone. As he moved, he tapped out a code on his belt. Light flickered on a slender conduit embedded in the leather, hardly noticeable. The better the tech, the smaller, and he could afford the best.

  I squeezed with him into the hidden tunnel. “Are you warning the Mark?”

  “Yah.” He pulled me along a narrow passage lit only by my stylus.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Drug-bliss kid.”

  “You found one.”

  He spoke grimly. “More than one.”

  “Where?”

  Jak drew me into a wider portion of he tunnel and pointed to a set of roughly hewn stairs on our left. “Go see the family at top. They took in the baby and the boy you found. Say I sent you.”

  “You’re going back to Mark?”

  “Yah,” He kissed me, quick and fast, then took off running back the way we had come.

  Well, so. No one had ever kissed me before I went into a fight before. I’d figure out how I felt about that later. Right now, I took the stairs two at a time. They wound around like a demented spiral staircase, some parts a natural progression of ledges, others hacked out by humans. In one place, I had to drop to my knees to push past an overhang blocking the way. On the other side, I kept going up and around. At the top, I stepped into a small foyer surrounded by rock. An opening stood across me, an archway tooled out of the stone like a work of art bordered by abstract carvings.

  I walked over and stepped just inside the archway, unsure if I should go further. People lived here. The furniture was sculpted from rock formations with the same artistic beauty as the archway. Plush cushions softened them, embroidered with gold threads. Gorgeous tapestries hung on the walls, all woven in the undercity style, with glowing colors. They depicted scenes of canals and caves, shimmering in metallic threads, red, blue, green, gold, amber. Some showed fanciful depictions of how the aqueducts might have looked in ancient times, running with water.

  “Heya,” I called.

  A man walked out of an inner doorway. He was holding a knife just as long and as ugly as the one the drug punker had brandished at me in the canal.

  “How get here?” he demanded. Somewhere deeper in the home, a baby cried.

  “Jak sent me,” I said. “Said you took in the orphans I found.”

  His posture eased. “You’re The Bhaaj?”

  “Just Bhaajan.” I wondered why he put “The” in front of my name.

  He lowered his knife. “Come with.”

  I followed him through another sculpted archway and into a room with more tapestries on the walls. A lamp with an exquisite glass shade stood in one corner, its colors glowing red, blue, and gold. It was fastened to the wall and the shade was too high for a child to reach. The other corner sported a water desalination apparatus partially hidden by potted plants with blue and red flowers. They grew in modified canal dust. Hand woven rugs warmed the floor, their colors more subdued than the wall hangings, but their artistry just as exceptional. Toys were strewn everywhere, balls, dolls, and holo-readers. On my right, a curtain hung in the archway to another room. The place was uncommonly beautiful, and so utterly different from anything in Cries, it was hard to believe we all descended from the same culture.

  “Nice,” I said.

  The man nodded.

  The curtain rustled as a woman pushed it aside to enter the room. I recognized her as one of Jak’s bartenders. She was holding the baby I had found in the tunnels, and it snuggled in her arms, cooing softly. The curtain fell back into place, then moved again, just enough to let a boy peek out at me. Pack Rat! He looked much less scared and much less dusty than the last time I had seen him. He smiled shyly, then let the curtain drop into place, hiding him.

  I nodded to the woman. “Children doing better.”

  “Yah.” She nuzzled the baby’s head. “Was close for this one.”

  Behind her, the curtain shifted and a girl of about seven walked out. She stepped behind her mother and looked around her, watching me large brown eyes.

  “Three children?” I asked. That was counting the two orphans they had taken in.

  “Four,” the mother said.

  The father spoke to me. “The older girl is a dust knight.”

  So that was why they recognized me. Their daughter must have been one of the three that indicated she had parents. The Cries authorities would undoubtedly cluck with concern about children living in caves, but a home like this could be a wonderful place to live.

  I wondered, though, why their older daughter wasn’t here. “Did she warn you?”

  “Warn us?” the man asked. “About what?”

  “The cartels are going to war,” I said. “You stay here. Be safe. Don’t go out.” This home was well hidden. The cartels had no reason to come here. “She’ll be home soon.” I hoped to the gods that was true.

  “We will stay,” the man said.

  “You come to see the blissers?” the woman asked.

  “Yah.” I hesitated, looking at her younger daughter, who seemed healthy, with clear eyes and well-brushed hair. Pack Rat finally came out of hiding and went to stand behind the girl. He was cleaned up, his face washed, his cl
othes fresh, the desperation gone from his gaze. It would be a long time before he forgot the nightmare of his mother’s death, if ever, but with this family he might heal, as I had healed when I returned to the undercity from the orphanage. I had felt scorned and ignored above-city, worthless, or so I thought, until Jak, Gourd, and Dig became my family and the aqueducts became my home.

  “Your children aren’t blissers,” I said.

  “Not ours,” the man said.

  “We found them in a cave near here,” the mother said.

  The father spoke quietly. “Dying.”

  Was it a bad batch of the drug, or did phorine kill? “I come with,” I said. “To see them.”

  “Yah, we go.” The woman gave the baby to her daughter, who held it with practiced ease. Given that she had no younger siblings until a few days ago, she had probably held the babies of her friends. We all did that in the undercity, everyone looking after the children in our circle.

  The woman took me to a tapestry across the room and pulled it aside to reveal a tunnel with polished sides. Someone had carved shelves into the wall at chest height and engraved their surfaces with graceful arabesques. As we entered the tunnel, she let the tapestry fall into place, leaving us in darkness. My ears ramped up, enough to hear someone run into the room we had just left. A girl spoke, out of breath, saying they should stay home, stay here, away from the canals. I recognized her voice; she was one of the older knights. I closed my eyes, hit with a wave of relief. Even if I hadn’t come, this family would have heard the warning.

  A light flared in the tunnel. The mother was holding a mesh cube that glowed with ads for various above-city vendors.

  “Nice cube,” I said.

  She glanced at me. “Bought it on Concourse.”

  Bought. Not “found,” which meant stolen, or “bargained for,” which meant she traded for it in the undercity economy or on the black market. Bought meant purchased with above-city credits. Jak paid his employees in either credits or food and water, whatever they preferred, apparently enough that she could purchase amenities beyond what they needed for survival. It told me a lot about Jak, all of it good.