“Uh… are those cars?” Ursie stammered, overwhelmed by what she was seeing.
“Not really. Not in the classic sense. These are more like oversized sewing machines with wheels. They run on electric motors and are really only good for lazy people who can’t be bothered walking short distances – which is pretty much everyone in Lux. Around here they call them Autos.”
Even though Knile regarded them with disdain, Ursie couldn’t help but be awestruck by the machines. Like everything else here, they glistened as if they’d been washed only half an hour ago.
“Stop gawking,” Knile said out of the corner of his mouth. “You look like some kid who just arrived here out of the slums and has never seen an Auto before.”
Ursie blinked and dropped her eyes. “Sorry. But I kinda am.”
“Sure. Just don’t let them know that.”
They reached a place with white tiled walls and floors and Knile led her just inside the entrance, out of sight of those on the avenue. He reached into his backpack and pulled out the blue dress that he’d bought down in Gaslight and offered it to her.
“Head into the restrooms here and get changed. Lose the coat, we won’t need it again.”
Ursie made no attempt to take the dress. “You serious?” she said, incredulous.
Knile raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to complain about everything I try to put you in?”
“Well it’s just that we’re running for our lives here, and that thing–”
“Have I made a bad call yet?”
She pursed her lips. “No.”
“Then go do it. Meet me back out here in five minutes.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s getting on to noon. We’re down to less than eight hours left. We have to keep moving.”
Ursie took the dress and looked at it doubtfully, but she did as he asked, moving inside the restrooms in search of some privacy, finding the facilities just as clean and shiny as everywhere else in Lux.
Even in here the place is spotless, she marvelled. It’s like no one has ever even used it before.
She opened the doors to one of the stalls and went inside, peeling off the coat and dumping it on the floor. She shrugged out of her jeans and blouse and then stood there looking at the dress, not quite knowing what to do with it. She’d never worn something like that before, never even dreamed of it, and now that she looked at it, she realised she didn’t want to wear it. It wasn’t her. She was going to look foolish in it, no question about it. She understood that Knile wanted to use it as a disguise, to fit in with the others here, but there was no way that was ever going to work. They’d see through her in the first second. They’d see her for the grubby little street urchin she really was.
She reluctantly stepped into the dress, then struggled with the zipper at her back – once again something she was unaccustomed to – and then she gathered up her satchel and headed back to the entrance, avoiding looking at herself in the huge mirrors that took up the whole of one wall of the restrooms.
When she got there, Knile had transformed into someone else completely. He was wearing the suit he had bought in Gaslight, but that was only part of it. His posture had changed as well. It was more erect, more proper, and even the expression on his face was one of haughty indifference. Dangling from his left hand was a fancy-looking suitcase made of calf-skin leather.
“Where’d you get that?” Ursie demanded.
Knile jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “A boutique two doors down.”
“You got dressed in the suit and went luggage shopping, all in five minutes?”
“I’m a man. We don’t waste a lot of time on things like that.”
“So I see.”
Knile hesitated. “Uh…” He made a circular motion with his hand over his face. “You need to wash up a bit. You look like your head has been used as a chimney sweep.”
Ursie touched her fingers to her cheek self-consciously, vaguely aware that feeling had returned to her extremities after her time in the freezer.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Make it quick, please.”
Ursie turned and shambled back into the restroom like one of the condemned heading toward the gallows. She was going to have to face it now, she knew. She was going to have to look at herself in this awful get-up.
The mirrors loomed close before her, and she slowly raised her head. It wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it would be, but it was still bad. The dress wasn’t a great fit, too baggy around the chest and too tight at the hips, but it wasn’t a total train wreck. The colour was good on her at least, she noted grimly, and there was something pleasing about the style. Still, all things being equal, she’d rather be back in her jeans again.
She turned on the faucet and allowed the water to dribble onto her fingers, then looked up at her face. Knile had been right. She looked as though she’d just crawled through a garbage tip. She dabbed at the grime on her cheek, rubbing out a patch of pink, then continued scrubbing around her mouth, her neck, and then the other parts of her face where the dirt was thickest. At one point she heard Knile clearing his throat noisily outside, and she realised she must have been at it for longer than she’d thought. She used a luxuriously soft hand towel that hung on a nearby hook to mop up the moisture on her face and then got moving again.
Knile regarded her sceptically when she returned.
“Better. I can actually see some of your face now, but still not great.” He shrugged. “And the hair is a write-off, but it will have to do. We’ll make it work.” He opened the suitcase and held out his hand. “Give me your luggage.”
Ursie placed a hand protectively on her satchel. “Why?”
“Because if people see you lugging that flea-bitten piece of garbage around, they’re going to think you don’t belong here. They’ll get suspicious.” He sighed. “Come on, Ursie. Do you really think I’m going to rip you off after all we’ve been through?”
Ursie stood there for a moment as if weighing up that question, then stepped forward and offered him the satchel.
“Of course not.”
Knile took the satchel and dropped it into the suitcase, then closed the flap and hoisted it into a comfortable carrying position.
“All right,” he said, looking left and right along the avenue. “Let’s go catch a ride.”
33
The man in the grey suit looked to Ursie like someone out of a story book she’d seen as a kid, one with princesses and castles and a happily-ever-after ending. He wore a light grey morning tailcoat with matching grey trousers, a lavender silk necktie and a white vest and shirt. There was a gold pin on his lapel in the shape of a stylised letter ‘L’. His greying hair was cut short and neatly maintained, and upon his face rested a supercilious expression that matched the rest of his attire perfectly.
Ursie had never seen a butler before, but nevertheless she decided that this was one.
“Good morning, sir, madam,” he said, nodding to each of them in turn. “Travelling, are we?”
“Good morning,” Knile said with an oddly posh curl in his accent. “Yes, indeed.”
The butler stepped back and spread one hand out to indicate a row of almost ten Autos sitting on the edge of the thoroughfare behind him.
“Which would you prefer?”
To Ursie, they all looked identical, but Knile made a show of carefully evaluating his selection as if it were of utmost importance that he choose the most appropriate vehicle.
“The third,” Knile said with a little wave of his finger.
“Very good,” the butler said, nodding and hastening over to the vehicle. He swung into the driver’s compartment and started it up, then slowly directed the Auto over to Knile and Ursie, a journey of at most four metres.
“Thank you,” Knile said as the butler disembarked and held out his hand for the suitcase. Knile handed it to him, and Ursie saw the butler’s eyes drop to Knile’s grubby shoes, which were somewhat out of place against the rest of his clothing, but the man made no comment.<
br />
“There we are,” the butler said, securing the suitcase into a small container on the rear of the Auto. “All set.”
Ursie was surprised to feel Knile’s hand clasping hers, and then she realised he was assisting her into the Auto.
“Uh… thank you… sir.”
Knile waited for her to take her seat before assuming his place behind the steering column. The butler resumed his position and inclined his head again.
“Good day.”
Knile wiggled his fingers on the steering wheel, achieving a comfortable position with exaggerated care, then pressed his foot down on the accelerator pedal. The Auto lurched forward abruptly, almost causing Ursie to bash her head on the domelike windscreen. They came to a halt as suddenly as they had started, and Knile cursed. He stepped on the pedal again with the same result.
The butler appeared at the window, a patient and accommodating expression on his face.
“Is everything all right, sir?”
“The accelerator seems to be a bit touchy on this one,” Knile said, embarrassed.
“Would you like a different vehicle?”
“No, no. This is fine.”
The butler stepped back and Knile started off again, somewhat more smoothly than before. They began to coast off down the thoroughfare, leaving the butler to stare after them curiously.
“What the hell are you doing?” Ursie said out of the corner of her mouth.
“Gimme a break. I’ve never driven one of these things before. It’s not as easy as it looks.”
The momentum of the Auto smoothed out and quickly reached top speed, and like the others they’d seen, that was not much faster than walking pace. The two of them sat watching the glittering facade of Lux glide by as the wheels of the Auto squeaked against the polished floors.
Coming from the ruinous land on the planet’s surface, this whole scenario seemed utterly absurd to Ursie, but she attempted to push away the distraction of it and concentrate on the task at hand.
“So what are we doing?” Ursie said. “What’s the plan?”
“There’s a house over by the core of Lux. You could probably call it a mansion. It’s the biggest residence in the whole place. It’s also the only one that spans multiple levels of Lux. That’s going to be our quickest way to move upward through this tier.”
“Are we breaking into the place?”
“No, there’ll be no need for that. There’s always some social event going on there, lots of people coming and going. We just need to blend in with the others and make our way upward.”
“Sounds easy.”
“Not so fast. We can’t just be seen to be rushing through the place. That will attract the wrong sort of attention. We need to measure our pace and go with the flow.”
“Well, I have no idea how to do that. As long as you know what has to happen, I’ll just tag along.”
They came to a cluster of Autos lined up along the avenue and were forced to stop. Ursie craned her neck out of the side of the vehicle to see what was happening.
“What’s this?” she said.
“Traffic jam, I guess. It’ll clear up.”
She slumped back in her chair. “This is stupid. It’s too slow. We could walk faster than this.”
“I told you, no one walks in Lux. If we’re going to blend in we have to do as they do, and that means travelling by Auto.”
Ursie looked around them, still trying to come to grips with the opulence of the place.
“Do you think these people know what’s beneath them?” she said. “Do you think they know about places like the slums?”
“Probably,” Knile said. “I don’t think the problems of people in the slums worry them too much, though.”
The traffic jam began to clear and they edged forward again.
Ursie turned to Knile. “Wilt was right about something,” she said. “You’re resourceful. You could earn lots of creds if you wanted to. Why wouldn’t you just do the easy thing – buy a place here in Lux and live the good life? Why do you need to get off-world?
Knile smiled with thinly disguised contempt.
“You haven’t worked it out yet, have you, Ursie? All this,” he said, spreading one hand and looking about, “is ending. The Reach is dying, just like the world outside it. In a place like Lux, it might not look that way yet, but underneath the skin… underneath this gold plating, there’s nothing but rust. Nothing but cancer. Something that can’t be cut out or fixed, something that can’t be healed. This place is terminal. In a year, five years, maybe ten, there won’t be anything left alive in here.” He turned to her and looked her square in the eye. “The toxins get into everything, no matter how hard you try to keep them out. Everyone in here is dying. Some of them just haven’t realised it yet.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know the Reach. I know it better than practically anyone else. The air filters have become less and less effective over the years as the pollution outside gets worse. They can’t keep it out of the water or the crops. Not all of it.”
“I think you’re just looking for an excuse to leave. I think you’re running away from something else.”
“Think what you want,” Knile said, shrugging. “I’m telling you how it is. Anyway, right now we have more important things to worry about.”
“Such as?”
“Such as our backstory. People are going to be wanting to chat to you. They love newcomers in Lux. We’re going to be like shiny new toys to them. You’re going to have to mingle, at least for a bit. Can you do that?”
“Mingle?” Ursie said, baffled. “What the fuck is mingle?”
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“Well, what is it?”
“Chat to people. Engage in some smalltalk. Y’know, be charming.”
“Charming?”
“Yeah. What’s the matter? How did English become your third language all of a sudden?”
“Well, what am I going to talk about?” Ursie spluttered. “I have literally nothing in common with them.”
“Be creative. Just say yes a lot and nod your head, and ask people about their clothes and their jewellery. They’ll like that.”
“Whatever you say.”
“Now listen,” he said, his voice hardening. “This is our story: we’re a father and daughter and we just received accommodation here at Lux today. We’ve travelled a long way from the south and we’re weary from our journey. That’s why our clothes are wrinkly, and why we’re a bit dishevelled. That’s why your hair looks so messy.”
“Yeah, thanks.” She crossed her arms. “What else?”
“Obviously we have a lot of creds behind us. We couldn’t have afforded accommodation in Lux without it, but you don’t need to talk to people about how we came by our money. You can just refer to it as ‘your father’s fortune’. Act like the naive little kid who doesn’t know how the world works, they’ll lap that shit up.”
“Okay.”
“Avoid specifics if you can. Just talk about fluffy stuff. These people are pretty superficial and they probably won’t be interested in anything else anyway.”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“That’s about all you need.” He pointed through the windscreen to where a great deal of activity was happening on the side of the avenue. “It’s just up here. Get ready.”
Knile parked the Auto behind the last vehicle in line, and as he and Ursie disembarked, another of the butlers in grey suits hurried toward them to perform the valet service.
“Good morning,” the butler called.
“Morning,” Knile said, removing the suitcase from the luggage compartment.
“Would you like me to take that, sir?”
“No, that’s fine. I’ll manage.”
“Very good.”
Knile and Ursie fell in with a number of other well-dressed citizens of Lux who were gravitating toward an arched marble entrance. Not far away, two Enforcers stood with their thumbs hooked in their belts as they
chatted companionably with a stately old couple with grey hair. Ursie’s step wavered but Knile urged her onward, and together they passed through the entrance without being troubled by the men in black.
“The Enforcers don’t interfere with the nobility up here in Lux,” he whispered. “Not unless they’re trying to use the elevators.”
Inside the arch, Ursie was struck by the lavishness of what she beheld, which seemed to have gone up several notches from what she’d seen outside. Again the floors were marble, but here there seemed to be a swirling gold pattern laid into the material that gave it an even more lustrous finish. Around the walls, intricate statues of cherubs in varying poses had been placed inside recessed arches and lit from above to accentuate their features. Black steel banisters with golden handrails flanked a broad staircase that led up to the next level, and hanging from the ceiling was a broad, glittering chandelier.
“This is insane,” Ursie breathed. Socialites in refulgent gowns and pristine three-piece suits drifted past. They nattered aimlessly and sipped coloured drinks from cocktail glasses as waiters circulated with silver platters of hors d’oeuvres balanced on their fingertips.
“Remember,” Knile said, “don’t stare. You’re a noble. This is just a normal day.”
“Yeah, but it isn’t,” Ursie said, blinking.
“Just don’t let them know you’re thinking that.”
“Welcome,” a man said gaily, stepping out from the crowd to stand before them. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.” His dark blond hair was neatly combed, and he wore gold earrings with diamond studs that matched a ring on his left index finger. He flashed white and perfectly capped teeth as he smiled at them.
“Good morning,” Knile said politely. “I am Remington, and this is my daughter Eve.”
“A pleasure,” the man said, extending his hand. “I am Preston Glover. Welcome to my home.”
“Thank you,” Knile said, shaking Preston’s hand. He glanced around at the partygoers. “What’s the occasion?”
“Pardon?” Preston said, not quite following.
“What are you celebrating?”
Earthbound (The Reach, Book 1) Page 27
