by Josh Vogt
“I’m not afraid of you,” she cried. “I’m not!”
Ben turned in place, searching for the spray bottle. Hearing the panic in Dani’s voice, he held a hand out her way even as the dust devil closed in.
“Focus and control,” he said. “Don’t let it frighten you.”
“I’m not frightened!”
“Just gimme a second …”
The spray bottle had rolled under the nearest sink. Ben jammed the core into a pocket and lunged for the bottle just as the dust devil went for Dani again.
“You mother******!” she screamed. “You got me DIRTY!”
Her voice rose into a keening, and Ben braced himself.
The power burst out of her in uncontrolled shreds of Pure magic. Every light bulb and fixture exploded at once. Jagged forks of lightning shot out from the sockets and arced into metal fixtures and stall walls.
Twin strikes hit his water-encased hands, stinging the fingers. Ben yelled and shook them to release the liquid gloves. They splashed to his feet as the room flashed purple, yellow, and green.
A spear of lightning pierced the dust devil. It split the grainy body and connected with a black orb in the creature’s chest.
Two cores? No …
The body drew back together as the dust devil twitched and jerked. Ben sensed the power flowing into it, like a river refilling a cup. Some outside force maintained the creature’s form despite Dani’s overwhelming attack.
In another strobe-light flicker, the dust devil’s body expanded into a giant face. Each eye as big as Ben’s head, it looked like a generic mask with a bland collection of features. The mouth opened, a tongue of sand formed, and a moan reverberated out like constipated cow.
“Mmmmooommoo …”
Ben shielded his eyes from cutting particles. “Who are you?”
Features twisted into an agonized theatre mask.
“Ppammommoo …”
The face vanished, the remaining core shattered, and the dust devil flew apart, spattering the walls. Lightning continued streaming from outlets and sockets with increasing fury. A sharp smell of ozone filled the air and singed his nostril hairs.
“Dani, that’s enough!”
Her wail cut through the fizzing and cracking. “I can’t stop it.”
“Try!”
“******, I am!”
Ben dropped to his knees as the electrical storm rose to a peak. With a final sputter, the lightning vanished, leaving the restroom dark except for a faint wash of illumination from the hall.
After he caught his breath, he took a physical inventory. Aside from stinging hands, bruised knees and aching arms, he felt intact. Mostly. The smell of burnt hair wafted through the bathroom, and his knuckles were suspiciously bare.
“Ben?”
“Here.” He coughed and struggled to his feet. “You okay?”
A sniffle. “I’m … fine. What just happened? Why did that thing attack me? What did it want?”
He wiped over his sweaty, grit-plastered face. “I can’t rightly say.”
Her snort pinged off the walls. “You don’t know? Great. How long have you been doing this again?”
“Hush it and lemme think.”
Glassy blotches covered the walls where the dust devil’s remains had hit. Ben touched one, and then jerked his hand away.
“Hot,” he muttered.
Carl wobbled in his version of Duh.
“Did you see the face?” he asked Dani. “Did you hear the voice?”
“Um, maybe? I’m not sure. I’ve seen and heard too many weird things lately. Now I have to add walking piles of murderous dirt to the list.”
“They’re called dust devils. But it shouldn’t have existed. Not like this. It’s impossible.”
“Why?”
Her hand found his arm, but he knocked it away. He didn’t think any of the dust devil’s attacks had broken his skin, but he couldn’t see well enough to tell.
“Go get cleaned up,” he said, waving her to the sink.
She reared back. “No way. Do you know how many infectious microorganisms are in tap water? Coliforms. Clostridium. Giardiasis. That’s not even considering all the corroded pipes it runs through, or all the toxic chemicals they pump in, trying to kill the bacteria in the first place. Might as well drink sewage. I need pure water.”
“Suit yourself.” He plucked the bottle off his belt and started to unscrew the top.
She raised a fist. “Don’t you dare hit me with Carl again.” She fished a packet of wet wipes out of a pocket and started cleaning muddy streaks off her face and neck.
He walked out into the lit hallway with her a few steps behind. He hated leaving such a mess. It went against all his training and what pride he had left in his work, but something more important had come up.
As they piled the equipment back onto the cart and headed out, Ben let thoughts tumble free.
“Dust devils are Corrupt constructs. They don’t just pop out on their own. Someone’s gotta create them and send ’em out with a purpose. Plus, they never travel in less than pairs, never attack randomly, and sure-for-shootin’ do not—” He retrieved the unbroken core from his pocket, “—have two cores, one Pure and the other Corrupt.”
“Cores?” Dani echoed, as she dug a wipe into an ear.
“Yup. Any spell or construct has to have a core of power that the caster makes, usually by channelin’ raw energy or with some fancy ceremony. Otherwise they gotta maintain constant focus or the spell puffs away. With constructs, sometimes the core is an actual physical thingamajig. Somethin’ you can tear out and smash up. Other times, it’s like … like a psychic knot that you gotta find and snip.”
“Oh.” She plucked at her gloves, pretending to adjust them, but he still noticed the slight shake of her hands. “So if there were two cores, one Pure, one Corrupt, what does that mean?”
“It’d mean somethin’s terribly wrong. It’d mean the dust devil was rigged by someone using powers from both sides.”
“So? You can’t be bi-magical?”
He shook his head. “It’s impossible for the opposin’ energies to mingle. They destroy each other. I ain’t never experienced somethin’ like that before. Far as I know, no one has in the history of the Cleaners.”
They pushed out into the back lot and trundled the cart over to the van. Dani rubbed a wipe over the back of her neck as she spat on the asphalt.
“Now what?” she asked. “Go clean some grout and get attacked by mutant termites?”
He waved to the cart. “Help me get this secured. We’re gonna go see the boss.”
***
Chapter Seven
Dani craned her neck to look up at the building Ben drove toward. They’d come back downtown, a few blocks south of the Sixteenth Street Mall. The skyscraper he navigated underneath sported a national bank logo, windows shimmering in the sunset.
“This isn’t where we left earlier,” she said as she continued picking dirt out of her hair. Forget a bath. After the dust devil’s attack, she needed a blast from a fire hose.
Ben cleared his throat like a cat readying a hairball. “’Course it ain’t. There’re entrances to HQ all over town. Some are for emergencies only.”
“Is that what this is?”
“Princess, there’s a fine line between emergency and catastrophe. We ran over that line and left it bleedin’ on the pavement about ten miles back.”
“Oh.” She grabbed the armrest as he took a hard turn. “So this guy we’re going to see …”
“I’m goin’ to see him,” he said. “You will tech’nicly be in his esteemed presence, but be a good girl and keep quiet, okie-dokie? This is way over your head.”
“What am I, janitorial eye candy? Give me a break, Gramps. If I can wrap my mind around calculus, I can handle a little office politics.”
He grunted, a noncommittal noise that let her chalk up a point for herself.
“Am I supposed to kowtow and kiss his feet?” she asked.
“There are no stupid questions, especially about things I have no clue about. How else am I going to learn?”
His laughter made her bristle. “Permission is always stupid to ask for.”
“Why?”
“’Cause if someone says ‘no,’ you can’t claim ignorance later.”
The van rattled to a stop. Trying to show initiative, Dani hopped out, jogged over to the elevators and hit the call button. Right beside the elevators, a large window looked in on an untidy office, dimmed lights, and a Back-In-Twenty-Minutes sign suction-cupped to the other side of the glass. She checked over her shoulder as Ben joined her.
“What floor?” she asked.
He pressed a hand against the window. Dani squawked as a translucent face thrust out of the glass, defined by deep-set eyes, a trimmed beard, and sharp nose. It studied them both before fixing on Ben. When it spoke, its voice sounded far off, as if coming down a long tube.
“Your business?”
Ben pointed at the ceiling. “I’m here to see Destin … er … the Chairman.”
“You have no appointment.”
“Since when do I need an appointment to talk to my own boss?”
“Everyone needs an appointment to meet with the Chairman. Especially you.”
Dani heard something pop, and realized it was the knuckles of Ben’s fist.
“Step out here and say that, washer-boy. Just ’cause you watch the streets from up high don’t mean you get to spit on my bald spot when I walk past. Now you gonna admit me or am I gonna report you to your superior?”
“My superior is Ascendant Francis, who gave specific orders that you were not to be allowed access to the Chairman unless you went through him.”
“He said what now?” Ben’s voice roughened.
The glossy eyes blinked. “I’m only acting under orders, Janitor. If you shatter this junction, it will come out of your pay.”
Ben rapped the pointy nose with his knuckles. A sharp chime echoed through the garage.
“What don’t come out of my pay these days? Listen, Destin told me he’d be available in case I encountered serious trouble, so unless you wanna be responsible for keepin’ vital information from the Chairman, you’re gonna go to him lickety-split. You’ll tell him I’ve discovered an imbalance—a big, nasty one, too. And you’ll tell him I ain’t leavin’ until he hears me out.”
“I will have to alert Ascendant Francis of your presence.”
“Fine. Do that. But see what Destin says first.”
The face withdrew and left the window unmarred.
Dani licked dry lips. “What was that?”
Ben’s shoulders remained tensed. “Window-watcher. They guard and maintain the glassways. They also wash the windows of buildings in areas of operations. Keeps the paths open.”
“Glassways? Paths?”
She hated how tall he was compared to her. It made her feel small and ignorant whenever he looked down at her, especially with his current impatient expression.
“Patience is a virtue, a’ight? You’ll learn as we go. You’ve already been exposed to more in a day than I was in my first month.”
The window-watcher’s face reappeared. “Come through.”
Ben stepped forward, leaving Dani to stare as his body passed into the window and vanished without so much as a ripple. She reached out to test the surface. As she did, his wrinkled, knobby hand shoved back out, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her through.
She stumbled into a bright hallway with white walls, ceiling, and floor. She blinked away the glare as Ben entered another set of elevator doors at the far end. He turned to wave her on.
“Will you quit dallyin’? I’ll leave you here until I’m done, if that’s whatcha want.”
She ran and slipped between the doors just before they snicked shut. Inside, silver walls gleamed and a golden light shone down on them, pinning their shadows beneath their feet. The cab hummed and shivered as it … ascended? Descended? She couldn’t tell. She kept glimpsing movement out of the corner of her eyes and checked around for more faces and figures until Ben nudged her with an elbow.
“Stop starin’. It’s rude.”
She opened her mouth to retort, but his distant gaze told her he wouldn’t hear or care about any insult she might sling his way. So she frowned at her feet until she grew uncomfortable enough with the long, silent ride to try for small talk.
“This boss we’re going to meet …”
It surprised her when he answered. “Destin. Destin Felsman. He’s Chairman of the Board and he’s given his life to the cause of Purity.” He said the last part the same way one might say, “He has a fondness for running over kittens.”
“That’s bad? I thought everyone here fell into that category.”
“Well …” Ben picked at the grime under his nails. “He takes things a little further than most. For instance, Destin don’t shower when he gets up in the mornin’. He has an entire decontamination room with sonic scrubbers and a flash chamber that strips off a layer of skin. Better than coffee, he says.”
She felt a rush of eagerness to meet this mysterious Chairman. Maybe they had more in common than she’d anticipated. “Does he … uh … ever let anyone else use this room?”
“Kiddin’? He wouldn’t dare let any grunts near the place. Wouldn’t want us leavin’ our sorry stink around, wouldja, Destin?”
She glanced around the elevator again. “Um … is he listening?”
Ben squinted into the light. “Yup. We’d be there already if he didn’t have so much fun givin’ visitors full-body scans. Just one more way the upper crust likes to remind us of our place on the food chain. Ain’t that right, boss?”
“Always a pleasure, Benjamin.” The tinny voice sounded from everywhere at once.
The elevator jolted to a stop. The doors opened on an enormous office, devoid of almost any features beyond white marble walls, floor, and ceiling. An expanse of gold carpet led down to a stainless steel desk topped with a glass slab, with pearly obelisk statues and crystal paperweights spotting the surface.
The window wall behind the desk provided a view of downtown, with an array of pebbled rooftops, gray alleys, asphalt and rusting steel moving up to the horizon where the sun nestled among the mountaintops.
In between the gleaming desk and the gritty city beyond, a white-suited figure sat in a leather chair, head bent over shuffled papers.
“Ever think you guys take the whole white and shiny motif a little too far?” Dani whispered. “I mean, I get the symbolism, but isn’t it a little cliché?”
Ben chuckled. “Sure. But it’s always easier to reinforce the stereotypes. Problem is, when you work your entire life buildin’ an image, you start to believe it whether it’s true or not.”
Their rubber boots squeaked until they reached the carpet. She couldn’t smell a thing—aside from herself, that is. In fact, the absence of all other smells seemed to increase her own odors, making her uncomfortably aware of dried sweat, toilet water, burnt hair, and the lemon scent of the wet wipes. Her nose wrinkled and she itched to get her gel out, though she suspected it’d do no good.
This discomfort grew as they neared the desk, and she suddenly had the urge to fall on her knees and beg to use the fabled decontamination room.
Have some dignity, she told herself.
Dignity? Let’s start with getting clean and work up from there, herself replied.
The man she assumed to be Destin looked up as they arrived. He wore a three-piece suit identical to Francis’, minus the fedora. His thin blond hair was combed to one side, not a strand out of place. The paleness of his skin made his blue eyes stand out startlingly bright, the only handsome feature in an otherwise plain face. He also wore white gloves, and a white rose stuck out from his lapel. When he spoke, his voice came out clear but colorless, as if any strong emotions had been scrubbed away along with his outer layer of skin that morning.
“G
ood afternoon, Benjamin. When I said to contact me if you ran into any trouble, I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon. Or in person.”
Ben made a sarcastic salute. “Heya, boss. I’d give a ‘hello’ kiss, but I didn’t bleach my lips recently.” He plunked down on a corner of the desk, ignoring Destin’s pointed look at where the grimy jumpsuit smudged the glass. “Wanna tell me what’s up with usin’ Francis as a guard dog?”
Destin set aside his silver pen. His fingers left no prints on its gleaming surface. “I am unaware of Ascendant Francis taking on any such function.”
“That right?” Ben asked. “You didn’t tell him to turn me away if I didn’t come here without an appointment?”
“I gave no such instruction. Ascendant Francis does understand the value of my time, so perhaps he is being over-zealous in encouraging that same respect in others. What I wish to know now is whether I was wise in allowing you to interrupt my work. You spoke of discovering an imbalance?”
Ben pulled out the clear orb he’d retrieved from the dust devil and rolled it over to Destin, who stopped it with tip of his middle finger.
“What is this?” the Chairman asked.
“I really gotta tell you?”
Destin cupped the orb in his palm. “It appears to be a Pure core. Is there any reason I shouldn’t already consider this a waste of my time?”
“It’s a Pure core I tore out of a dust devil.”
The Chairman’s thin, platinum blond eyebrows pinched together. “Impossible.”
“And that was right before we cracked a second, Corrupt core in the same creature.”
Destin leaned forward and eyed Dani. “We? Is this true, Ms. Hashelheim?”
“Uh, as far as I know.” She swallowed against her dry tongue. When had she become so nervous? “This thing attacked me while I was … cleaning toilets. That,” she pointed at the crystal orb, “came out of it.”
Destin set the core down with a click. “Interesting.”
“Interesting?” Ben echoed. “It’s enough to make me wish I didn’t have an ******* to **** outta. If someone is out messin’ with combined energies, then it could be worse than the time Peters lit that gasbloat on fire. And the two cores ain’t the only thing. Dust devils are constructs, right? They need someone to kick ’em into gear.”
