Z 2135

by Wright, David W.

  Everyone they passed on the streets was suspect to Fogerty: a crook, dirtbag, or mouth breather, whatever that was. Fogerty seemed like the sort of City Watcher Michael and others were right not to trust—an officer who probably caused more trouble than he prevented.

  The other cop, Carson, was nice. He reminded Adam a little of Michael. He was very tall and very skinny. He had a long neck and a soft voice. His eyes seemed smaller than the rest of his face, and while he only spoke one word for every hundred of Fogerty’s, Adam wanted to hear all of Carson’s.

  After they left Municipal they cut over to Commuters, across the Exurban, and through the manned checkpoint into The Dark Quarters—the scariest part of City 6, by far.

  Since everything with his dad, Adam started having more varied nightmares. Before that, his bad dreams always had been about The Dark Quarters; they’d started when he first saw The Quarters as a setting on some of his favorite shows.

  While many parents and authority figures used The Dark Quarters as some sort of cautionary tale or to tell their own children how lucky they were in comparison, Adam’s parents never did. That didn’t stop him from obsessing about the place from an early age.

  Adam remembered in school hearing about a kid born in The Quarters; he was so deformed that no one would claim him. Apparently the boy found people who would care for him a day or two at a time, but no one to love him or take him in permanently. Worse, The State wouldn’t allow him in the orphanages because of his deformities. The State didn’t believe in helping weakness thrive. It was far more merciful, according to the One True Leader Jack Geralt, to allow nature to thin the herd of the sick and dying. That was the only way to build the overall strength of The State. And what was good for The State was good for all.

  The deformed boy, over the years, grew bitter and angry. Eventually, he started killing people, and—for reasons nobody knew or understood—began eating them.

  He was known as The Dark Quarters Cannibal, and became one of the most notorious Darwin Games contestants of all time. The moment Adam heard the cannibal’s story, he dreamed of getting lost in The Quarters, searching winding alleys for his parents. Adam would run through his dreams, every time ending up at the end of a dead-end alley. He’d hear the cannibal whistling, humming pleasant tunes as he cornered his victims. Adam always managed to wake up just as the killer was raising a blade to stab him.

  The dreams had plagued Adam for most of his life, until the ones about his father started late last year.

  Now, to go into the very place that was the source for so many of his nightmares had him feeling both apprehensive and eager to put the childish fears behind him.

  Adam remembered something the Chief had said that made him wonder how a kind man like Keller could be so cold.

  “There will always be a need for a place like The Dark Quarters, Adam. We could clear it tomorrow and it would grow back in a month, slowly at first, until it was swollen again, fat on its vice. It is already what it needs to be. The City can’t take care of everyone, not without hurting the many. Would you rather have a small family where you could feed everybody and keep them happy, or a large family with everyone starving?”

  “A small family,” Adam had said.

  “Exactly,” Keller agreed. “And that is why places like The Dark Quarters must exist, so the people who deserve happiness can find it.”

  Looking out the windows of the Watcher van, Adam started to get a feel for what Keller was saying. While City 6 was hardly a paradise, it was leaps and bounds above the squalor running rampant in The Dark Quarters: tall, filthy buildings shoved so close together they seemed like some sort of elaborate scheme to defy gravity; bags of trash everywhere the eye could see; and people who looked so dirty, neglected, and haunted, Adam was sure they’d plague his sleep for years to come.

  If Keller was right, and there were really only two choices—some people happy and well fed while others were cast to The Quarters, or everyone barely living—Adam supposed he was glad he had the better life. Still, as he looked around, he felt guilty that others suffered for his meager prosperity.

  Carson pointed to a parking lot up the street, crammed with cars. There was a man with a large rifle standing guard in the lot. The man wore some sort of uniform. It wasn’t City Watch, but still looked official. “We’ll park there, then head out on foot. You ready?”

  Adam nodded. He couldn’t wait.

  “Just stay with us and you’ll be fine. We won’t let anything happen to a Lovecraft,” Carson winked.

  They parked the van with Hech, the man with the rifle who promised to keep a “real good eye” on it. The way they joked around with one another, Adam figured they’d been parking with Hech for a while.

  For 15 minutes they walked The Quarters. Unlike his grousing in the van, Fogerty stayed mostly silent save for an odd grunt or to correct something Carson said—never the specificity of his words so much as how he said them—while showing the Cadet “The City’s seedy underbelly.” He told Adam that he would probably be doing most of his early Watcher’s work in The Quarters, and pointed out the crumbling tenements, decaying like the addicts inside them. He said they were getting through most days strung out on Crash, an illegal street drug that clung to The Quarters like paint to walls. It was cheap and kept users hazed for days, helping them forget the despair in their lives. The drug numbed them, pleasantly at first, then not so much until it eventually fried their brains and left the users for The City’s incinerators.

  Adam was surprised by how many people he saw buying, selling, and taking the drug out in the open, just like he was surprised by half-naked women walking or hanging out windows of some of the rundown buildings. It seemed like everything was for sale in The Quarters, whether it was drugs, stuff (most stolen or refurbished trash, Fogerty told him) from homes turned into storefronts, or people themselves.

  At the end of their walk, a tall man with skin stretched so tightly across his face it looked like paper, sold something from a crate called Beans—advertised in large block letters on a cardboard sign behind him.

  “What are Beans?” Adam asked Carson.

  “Nothing you want anything to do with.”

  Fogerty said, “They’re dream pills. But you never know what you’re gonna get. You could get a dream where you’re surrounded by blondes and doing stuff in their mouths, or you could get one with zombies. You never know, Kid. Beans are Russian roulette with your sleep.”

  Adam couldn’t understand there being so much illegal activity, right in plain sight. They were Watchers. Even though Adam was only a Cadet, it was their job to put an end to the bad stuff. But there was so much, and they were walking right by, watching rather than Watching.

  “Why aren’t we stopping them?” Adam asked, his voice low. “And why aren’t they afraid of us or hiding their bad stuff?”

  Fogerty said, “What, you gonna kill one roach so another hundred can skitter out from a rock?”

  Carson looked over at Fogerty with a roll of his eyes and said, “Killing one in plain sight doesn’t bring the others out from a rock, and even if it did, at least you got one.” He turned to Adam and set a hand on his shoulder. “Great question, kid. I once wondered the same thing. Why do you think it’s the way it is?”

  Adam looked from Fogerty to Carson. Fogerty had a point, about the roaches.

  “Because there’s too many?”

  “That’s a part of it.” Carson smiled. “See, there has always been crime, always will be. It’s in people’s nature. No matter what we do, or what sort of laws we pass—no matter how high we build our Walls or how hard we work to keep monsters outside—we’ll always have some inside too. We can never stop all crime. That’s impossible, and every society before ours has made the same mistake by thinking they could stop it. We can’t do that, not ever.”

  He took a look around—even just talking, Carson was every bit City Watch, and he never seemed to let his guard down. Satisfied for the moment, he continued.
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br />   “But what Jack Geralt figured out that no one ever figured out before is that the best way to stop crime is to let it happen, but keep it in a part of The City where it won’t affect the majority. The Quarters affects a relative few; they’re all gated in like animals, and that’s best for all of us. We patrol The Dark Quarters to make sure nothing too awful is brewing, but as long as people aren’t killing one another or plotting against The State, City Watch leaves the drugging, gambling, and whoring mostly alone.”

  Adam heard the Chief in his head: No one ever finds themselves in The Dark Quarters entirely by accident.

  “Then why are we here? Why are there so many Watchers assigned to The Dark Quarters?”

  From what Adam knew so far, patrols in The Quarters were mandatory for most new Watchers. Some (like Fogerty) never left. Special Assignments were rare, though the Chief promised that Adam was equally rare, and that he probably wouldn’t have to spend much time in The Quarters.

  Carson was about to explain, but Fogerty cut him off.

  “We’re here because it teaches us to look criminals in their ugly fucking faces, and looking criminals in their fucking ugly faces teaches us to be ready and recognize our enemy better. More important, we can contain the threat in The Quarters before it spreads out to the places that matter.” Fogerty jerked his thumb in no particular direction, indicating Municipal, Commuters, and all the rest of City 6.

  They crossed the street, their van now out of sight. Adam was starting to feel claustrophobic, like the tall, dark buildings were closing in around him.

  Fogerty stopped in front of a small market, and looked at Adam, “We’re going in here, so just keep your mouth shut unless spoken to, got it?”

  “Got it,” Adam said with a nervous gulp. He looked at the storefront, a shoddy looking place with a boarded-up window and bars over the glass door.

  They entered the shop and Adam looked around, trying to figure out why they were stopping here. Though old and poorly stocked, it seemed like a regular business, unlike the many crate-shops lined up along the streets.

  The shelves had barely anything on them, mostly food rations and small, seemingly random household items. The overhead lights were a low blue, and hummed as they flickered. They passed a worn payment counter and went into a hallway so narrow it felt like the walls were closing in. Carson nodded at an ancient, dark-skinned man with a foot-long beard, sunken eyes, and hands shoved inside his long dark coat. He sat on a stool in front of an old wooden door with peeling purple paint,. The door once said something in big black letters, but the letters had long ago faded, leaving Adam with no idea what they might have read.

  Fogerty stepped in front of Carson and rapped his knuckles hard on the door in a pattern—once, twice, then once again.

  The door opened immediately following the final knock, and Adam found himself looking up into the yellowing eyes of a giant black man with teeth that looked as big as playing cards and hands the size of melons. His hair shot out from his head like a helmet; he had more than anyone Adam had ever seen—thick and black, made from a million tiny curls. He was dressed in what looked like a giant sack—burlap stitched together—as if nothing else could possibly fit him. His pants were dark, with lots of pockets like the ones City Watch wore. His boots looked City Watch too. He looked from Carson to Fogerty, from Fogerty to Carson, and finally down at Adam. He laughed. The sound was giant, a bellow, and seemed to flicker the thin blue lights as it thundered the market.

  Fogerty asked, “What do you have for us this week, Marquis?”

  The giant ignored Fogerty, his eyes on Carson. “Who’s the kid?” Without waiting for an answer he drove his jaundiced eyes into Adam’s.

  “You wanna be City Watch?”

  He bellowed more laughter, deeper than the first time. Adam had no idea if the man was usually so jovial, or if it was something specifically about Adam that he found amusing. “If you’ve got smarts,” the big man said, “which I can see in your eyes that you do, then you’ll grow up to know two things: tinkle flower tastes good and you should eat it whenever you can—you do that and do it right, ladies are forgiving of most things—and life is far more lucrative on this side of the gates. Don’t let either of these baton twirlers tell you otherwise.”

  Marquis finished with another laugh, then crossed his arms across his chest, as if waiting for one of the Watchers to challenge him. Adam wanted to ask what a tinkle flower was.

  Fogerty said, “Yeah, but the kid’s not a degenerate.”

  Marquis stood like a troll, seeming to stretch the entire width of the doorway. “See how they treat me? And after all the business I steer ’em?”

  “What he means to say,” Carson turned to Adam, “is that we have an understanding with Mr. Marquis. He gives us information about people we should maybe look at; we pretend he’s another outstanding entrepreneur, and not earning undocumented credits from misery.” He turned back to Marquis. “So, what’ve ya got for us this week, Marquis?”

  “Well that depends on what you’re looking for,” he said, arms still crossed at his chest and still looking as if he were as wide as the doorway. “There’s plenty as usual, but like always, our time together is short. I suggest starting with specifics.”

  Adam was surprised to see a criminal from The Quarters talking to a Watcher like he wasn’t afraid, almost like he was the one in charge of them.

  Fogerty seemed tired, like he hated Marquis. Carson seemed to think he was funny, and wore a half smile he’d not lost since the giant first opened the door.

  Fogerty sighed before finally saying, “We had a body on Third and Clover Wednesday. So far no one knows shit.”

  “Working girl? Redhead, no eyebrows?”

  “Yeah,” Fogerty said. “Exactly. Got anything?”

  “Might wanna look at Little Mitch. He was bitching all over The Quarters about his little firestarter done fucking him for cash.”

  “Little Mitch—that a pimp or a john?”

  “John?” Marquis barked. “Bitch has the wrong equipment to interest Little Mitch. No, he was her pimp.”

  Adam wasn’t sure what a pimp or john was, and was even more confused by the “equipment” comment. He wanted to ask Carson for clarification, but thought it best to keep his mouth shut and not embarrass himself. He was so excited to be here, among adults—City Watch and criminals—saying real things in real places, that he definitely didn’t want to remind everyone he was still a naive kid.

  Fogerty, still all business: “I’ve never heard of Little Mitch. Where can we find him?”

  “You won’t have to look hard. Little bitch,” he said with a massive chuckle, pleased with his own wordplay, “is always lying about at the Orient. Good luck catching him not all fucked on Crash. You’ll be lucky to get a sentence.”

  Carson huffed, “Anything else? Underground?”

  “No, ain’t heard dick since you all busted last month’s party. It’s mum in The Quarters. Give ’em time. They’ll start back. Always do.”

  “True that,” Carson agreed. “They always do.”

  Now it was Fogerty who rolled his eyes at Carson.

  “It was a pleasure doing business with you, sirs,” Marquis said, still smiling. “And hey, kid, you ever need a gig better than the loser-fest you’ll get thrown as a Watcher, come back and see old Marquis. I’ll hook you up. Innocent face like yours, that’s a lot of credits in not a lot of time.”

  Marquis winked. Carson stepped in front of Adam.

  “He ain’t interested,” Carson said, sharply, as if Marquis had gone too far.

  Adam wasn’t sure if he was being complimented, joked with, or threatened, so he laughed nervously, feeling dumb.

  Marquis closed the door without another word. The Watchers turned—Fogerty in front—then left the market and walked back down the block to their van.

  Adam paused while climbing into the van. He turned to Carson. “What did he mean about my innocent face making lots of credits.”

 
; It took too long for Carson to find the right words. He stuttered twice, then Fogerty cut him off. “He meant men would pay to fuck you in the ass.”

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Carson looked at Fogerty, angry.

  Fogerty said, “What? The kid wants to be a Watcher, he can’t be naive and stupid forever. Right, kid?”

  Adam nodded. Fogerty was right, though Adam didn’t like being called stupid.

  Fogerty started the van, nodded to the man with the rifle, and pulled into the street. Adam decided to ask what a pimp was.

  Fogerty laughed. “You’re about to see for yourself.”

  The van fell silent. A few minutes later they were pulling beneath an overhang in front of another dilapidated building. The overhang had lit-up lettering that read Orient Hotel, every letter burnt out except the i and the e in Orient, and the t in Hotel.

  As they got out of the van, Adam thought about asking them what a tinkle flower was, but figured he’d been the butt of enough jokes already.

  Chapter 20 — JONAH LOVECRAFT

  “Sutherland will be pleased,” Katrina said, turning back toward Jonah’s door and leaving his room. She walked down the hall, Jonah a tentative step behind, already wondering if he had made a mistake by agreeing to infiltrate City 6 to rescue Liza, even if it also meant a chance to check in on Adam. He wasn’t about to let that show, though.

  “Thrilled I can please him,” Jonah said, bothered by Katrina’s affection toward Sutherland, and not quite sure why. He drained the edge from his voice and added, “I’m glad we’re doing this. It feels right, I think.”

  I think.

  Katrina led Jonah to Sutherland’s chambers. The man looked up as they stepped through the doorway. He seemed neatened, refreshed. Almost rosy, from drink or exercise, or perhaps a bath. He didn’t look surprised to see them, smiling at Jonah as he welcomed them into his company. He nodded at Katrina and she slipped out, closing the door behind her.