by John Meaney
“Amazing.”
After a while Rix started the engine again and drove on for maybe five miles before taking a glass-surfaced six-lane helical ramp that led downward through the layers of the city. He exited five layers deeper and immediately passed through a steel archway and along an echoing tunnel, until he reached a gateway, where he stopped.
Wraiths passed through the car, flitting back and forth until they were satisfied. Then a human guard approached and checked the documents that Rix held out through the driver's window.
“Hey, Rix,” said the guard. “Usual drill.”
“And my usual ‘no problem.’ ”
“Right.” The guard handed back the documents. He had not looked in the back at Donal. “In you go.”
The great gates parted and Rix drove inside. And as he parked the car and the gates slid shut and internal doors opened, leading deeper into the Power Center, a strange mixture of hot and cold passed through Donal's sternum. When he glanced down, his shirt was glowing.
Thanatos . . .
Not the shirt but the amulet underneath was fluorescing in resonance with whatever energies they utilized in this place.
Inside, Donal adjusted his jacket so it concealed the glow.
Guards and maintenance personnel alike wore dark-green uniforms, so dark they appeared black, except where the lights shone brightest. Several men and women nodded to Rix and Donal as they walked through the complex proper, traversing a series of corridors that Donal would have a hard time navigating by himself.
Finally they reached an elevator platform that reminded Donal far too much of the Energy Authority's installation back in Tristopolis—and the day both the diva and Malfax Cortindo died.
“Don't tell me,” said Donal as they began to descend through the shaft. “The Records section is down with the necroflux reactors.”
A crop-haired woman was riding down with them. She looked up from her clipboard, surprised.
“Not exactly.” Rix smiled at the woman (and Donal noticed how she smiled back automatically, reacting to Rix's charm). “I did think you'd appreciate seeing the power generation before we start, because in fact”—Rix checked his watch—“we're a little early. But we don't use reactor piles.”
The woman was still looking at him.
“My friend,” Rix said, “is from Tristopolis.”
“Oh.” The woman nodded and smiled at Donal. “Welcome to the Power Center.”
“Thanks.”
The elevator platform stopped, and when the doors slid open, the woman stepped out.
“What's your name?” Rix called out.
“Debbie Shantol, in the Tuning Department.” She held up a hand as the doors shut once more.
Rix frowned as the platform resumed its descent. Then he looked at Donal and shrugged. “Sorry. I have a hard time with names.”
“Oh. No problem.”
After a minute, the platform settled and doors opened. Rix went through first, and Donal followed. There were no other staff here as they passed along a stone-walled corridor with a plain-carpeted floor, then another utilitarian corridor.
They came out onto a square-edged stone balcony overlooking a rectangular hall in which hundreds of seated statues were arranged in rows.
Not moving.
They were static, but the figures were not statues.
Instead, row upon row of children with shaved heads, dressed in pale-blue tunics, sat cross-legged. Their eyes were directed straight in front, focused on infinity.
“What . . .” Donal could not understand what he was seeing.
From the center of each child's chest, a flexible glass conduit led down into the floor. Part of Donal sensed waves of—something—passing along those conduits, glowing bright in a color that had no name. The amulet burned against his chest.
Every one of the two thousand children blinked, at exactly the same time.
Dread squeezed Donal's heart. He saw how the children's pale chests rose and fell in synchrony. He knew that if he could hear their heartbeats, they, too, would beat in time. The atmosphere was heavy with cold energies.
Rix's gun hand came up very fast.
Now.
Donal swept his left forearm across as he pivoted away from the line of fire, trapping the sleeve.
The weapon banged, loud in the great echoing space.
There might have been a collective gasp from the imprisoned children, but Donal was deep into the movement, flowing with the necessity of the situation as he fired a knee shot into Rix's spleen, drove the top of his head against Rix's face, and stripped the gun from Rix's weakened grasp.
He clubbed Rix above the eye with the butt of his own gun.
The gun he'd acquired last night was more familiar, so he drew that now, transferring Rix's gun to his left hand. There was dark movement at the edge of Donal's vision, and he dropped to one knee as he spun and fired once, twice, then twice more as armed guards scattered for cover.
Do you—
Not now, for fuck's sake.
Rix moved behind Donal, so Donal kicked him in the throat.
Then Donal was rolling to one side as a fusillade sounded from the guards. The corridor was a temporary shield and a long-term trap, but he needed the immediate advantage, so he leaped across the balcony and out of sight from the guards.
Now what?
He checked the weapon he'd taken from Rix: a Gladius Armaments .39 Barracuda. Good. One gun in each hand, he aimed out at the hall and back along the corridor simultaneously, while his mind whirled, trying to plan his next action.
A low moan sounded from Rix, failing to disguise the faint running footsteps of rubberized combat boots. Guards ran to new tactical positions.
How many of the bastards are there?
They would use a leapfrog system, one group providing cover as another ran forward. Soon they would be at the balcony and then the corridor entrance. Meanwhile, reinforcements would be coming from deeper in the—
“ALL ARMED PERSONNEL, STAND DOWN! DO NOT FIRE UNLESS IMMEDIATELY THREATENED. STAND DOWN NOW!”
The voice blared from overhead speakers and echoed around the hall where the imprisoned children sat.
“WE RECEIVED A FALSE REPORT; REPEAT, FALSE REPORT. LIEUTENANT RIORDAN IS NOT, REPEAT, NOT A THREAT TO THIS FACILITY. LIEUTENANT RIORDAN, YOU NEED NOT LOWER YOUR WEAPONS, BUT KNOW THAT YOU ARE SAFE NOW.”
It was a persuasive voice. That was exactly the reason why Donal dared not trust it.
After a time, a cough sounded inside the corridor. Donal took aim around a pillar, but the man who advanced was dressed only in dark-green boxer shorts. He looked thin but soft, no kind of fighter. He bore a pale-blue sheet of paper in one hand.
“Um. . . Sir? Can I give you this?”
Donal kept his gaze flicking back and forth, both ways along the corridor. “Put it on the floor, then go.”
“Sir!” The man placed the paper at his feet and backed away, trembling. Then he was around the corner and running on his bare feet, panting as though expecting a bullet in the spine.
Donal placed one gun on the carpet, unbuttoned his shirt, drew the amulet from over his head, and wrapped the chain around his left hand before picking up the gun once more. Then he duck-walked over to the paper note and dangled the amulet above it, waiting for the slightest tingle of reaction, watching for the smallest spark or glimmer from the amulet.
There was nothing from the amulet. These were ordinary words on everyday paper.
Message received from Don F. Mentrassore:
Visitor called Lieutenant D. Riordan is an ally on police business. Earlier information that he was engaged in criminal activity was untrue. Cooperate with this man in every endeavor.
Donal backed away from the paper without touching it and pulled the amulet back over his head. It dangled against his shirt.
“You expect me to believe this?” he shouted to the empty air.
He settled back down, weapons at the ready.
Lau
ra sat back on her heels on a padded blue mat. The stone cell around her was dry. It was also too cold for a human to kneel in while wearing only a skirt suit: too cold for a living human.
Beside Laura, the ethereal form of Gertie drifted. She had abandoned her elevator-shaft duties again. She floated above the silver bars concealed in the floor, bars that extended through the walls and ceiling.
This was designed as a holding cell for temporarily psychotic mages who might damage others by intention or by accident as their hex forces underwent hysteresis and slipped beyond control. But the silver caging had other uses, and with Gertie's help Laura would be able to see sights most humans, including the no-longer-living, could not dream of experiencing.
Gertie's insubstantial fingertips touched Laura's zombie-cold skin, hesitated, then slipped inside. She reached into Laura's brain, inside the visual cortex. Neurochemical pathways swirled with spillover energies from Gertie's wraith parametabolism.
In a few moments blue shapes swam across Laura's vision and she gasped.
“What is it?”
*Can you make out images?*
“No.”
*Wait. Things will settle.*
“Oh. There.”
An ovoid shimmering field of blueness became sharper in Laura's vision, or perhaps in her mind's eye. There was no longer much distinction to be made between the two. And inside the blue—
*Can you see her?*
“Xalia, yes. I see Xalia.”
*There.*
Laura understood little of wraith forms, of the incredible complexity that remained invisible to humans, because so little of the wraiths existed in the three spatial dimensions that humans are used to.
But in vision there was somehow understanding. Laura realized that the bright bands of whiteness running the length of Xalia's floating body were a healing phenomenon. Strange hex waves resonated back and forth along her body, mending the rips and tears that force fields around Vilnar's offices had caused.
“Xalia . . .” The whisper was involuntary, and Laura winced as a wave of pale color passed across Xalia's form.
*Don't try to communicate.*
“No. I'm sorry.”
That had been one of the conditions of this viewing, but Laura's reaction was natural. She could tell how much pain Xalia was in.
How much pain Commissioner Vilnar had caused her.
*It's best you withdraw now. Leave her to heal.*
“Can I—”
*Right now, Commander.*
“Yes. Take me out.”
Then the visions were rippling, growing inchoate and strange, and there was an odd feeling of sadness as Gertie's insubstantial fingers slowly slid out of Laura's brain, leaving her alone once more, trapped in her usual almost-human perceptions.
“Thanatos.”
Some time after Laura withdrew from the trance, a faint knock sounded on the heavy metal cell door. Through the view window, face half hidden by the thick bars, she could make out the silhouette of Alexa's head.
“Yeah,” said Laura. “Come in. I'm done.”
*Yes.*
Gertie was sinking down through the floor, elongating her form to avoid the hidden silver cage bars.
“Thank you—”
Then Alexa came in, followed by Viktor. Gertie was already gone.
“What's up?” Alexa was staring around the cell. “I wasn't sure what you were up to, only that you were in here.”
“Seeing Xalia, with a bit of help.” Laura gestured vaguely around the cell. “Tapping into wraith frequencies.”
“How is she?” asked Viktor.
He was clutching a sheet of paper that bore an official-looking insignia.
“Healing,” said Laura, “but unable to speak. What's that you've got, Viktor?”
“It's a telegram,” answered Alexa, unable to remain silent. “A military 'gram.”
Few people knew that the military maintained its own network of shielded cables, along which ultra-high-speed protected sprites could flit with encoded messages. Laura had only seen such a telegram once before.
“Who's it addressed to?”
“Us. You and the rest of us.” Viktor meant the task force. “It's from Harald, the silly bastard.”
Laura ignored the paper and looked at Viktor's face. “What's he saying? And why military?”
“He's called in favors with his marine buddies,” said Viktor. “The guys he keeps in contact with—you know how he is.”
Alexa and Laura both gave tiny smiles. Harald's networking skills were legendary.
“And?” prompted Laura.
“He says, SORRY I FUCKED UP STOP MAKING AMENDS STOP H.” Viktor put down the telegram. “I can't believe him.”
“What do you think he means? What's going on?” Laura looked from Viktor to Alexa. “What is it?”
“Harald thought Donal was a snitch,” said Alexa. “Working for Vilnar to spy on us.”
“What?”
“Well, it was a reasonable . . .” began Viktor, then: “No, it wasn't. Why didn't he say anything to me?”
Alexa touched his arm, then turned to Laura. “It's all right. I straightened Harald out on that score. He knows Donal is on our side.”
Laura processed sudden doubt in Viktor's gaze.
“Oh, for Thanatos's sake, of course he's on our side.”
Viktor swallowed.
“Alexa thinks . . . Harald set some kind of trap for Donal in Illurium.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah. Harald took off from the hospital at high speed after Alexa confronted him. Took the Phantasm.”
“So where's he headed?”
“My guess?” Viktor gestured with the telegram. “On a military flight to Illurium. We've got bases there, they've got bases here. . . .Must be flights back and forth all the time.”
“But you can't just hitch a lift on a military pteracopter.”
“No, you couldn't.” Viktor gave a tight smile. “But Harald?”
When the Silvex PD uniformed officers arrived, Donal knew it was time to stand down. A plainclothes detective came with them, wearing an expensive bluemole coat that would have sparked an Internal Security review back in Tristopolis.
The detective said his name was Temesin and that the man who had assaulted Donal would be arrested at the hospital, if Donal would allow an ambulance crew to take the man away.
“You're talking about Rix?” said Donal.
“That's right.”
Donal lowered his weapons to the ground and stood up, arms raised high. Four officers brushed past him, heading toward the balcony.
“He might need a tracheotomy,” Donal said. “But he is still breathing, so maybe not. He had two guns on him.”
A tiny smile twitched across Temesin's face. “Shame he's not good on color coordination, not to mention having two guns of different caliber so they can't share ammo.”
“Yeah, I thought that was sloppy.”
One of the uniforms called back, “He's hit in the trapezius. Artery, but minor.”
Temesin looked at Donal.
“Wasn't me.” Donal shrugged, still with his hands raised. “There was a lot of firing and I was the target. Would someone care to explain why?”
“What I know is—Look, put the hands down, all right?” Temesin made a lowering gesture. “Someone thought you were a saboteur. Then they decided you weren't. If that's confusing to you, then I can only agree. You want to help me out here?”
Donal relaxed, then pointed at the note on the ground. “I was staying at Don Mentrassore's house.” When Temesin's eyebrows raised, Donal added, “Friend of a friend. At least he got me out of this bind.”
“Hmm.” Temesin watched officers and a paramedic mage carry out a stretcher bearing Rix, whose eyes were flickering as the morphoid spell took hold. “Too bad his driver was of the opposite opinion.”
“Yeah. That's what I call a conundrum.”
“You think it was the don who claimed you were trouble in the fir
st place?”
“Maybe. Tell me, Temesin. How important is Mentrassore in this town?”
“Huh.” Temesin rubbed his long chin. “Very rich, and very connected. You think I know every well-to-do businessman's name? This is a major city.”
“You don't like me calling it a town, huh?”
“I'm sensitive.” Temesin grinned, then picked up the weapon that Donal had appropriated from the rail-station predator. He gestured, and one of the uniforms picked up the other gun, the one that belonged to Rix. “All right, I've got this one.”
He slipped the gun into his overcoat pocket.
“And I'll type up the report, Officer Reilly,” Temesin continued. “All right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“ 'Cause I'd make a great secretary.” Temesin looked at Donal. “You want a lift back to Mentrassore's place? Or just a quiet hotel? I've got an aunt who runs a little boarding house, very reasonable . . .”
“Perhaps I'll go back and chat with the don.”
“How did I know you'd say that?”
“Because,” said Donal, “you'd do exactly the same.”
In the task-force office, Alexa finally got off the phone to the hospital administration. On her notepad was the phone number that the switchboard wraiths had rematerialized from memory, while their human supervisor read the digits out to Alexa over the phone.
It was the number that Harald had dialed from one of the pay phones in the hospital lobby, unaware that those calls were routed through the hospital switchboard. To subpoena the city switchboard wraiths and get them to find the number dialed at some random time was a lengthy process, but the hospital monitored calls as a matter of course, just like police HQ—even the outgoing ones.
“It's Illurian,” said Alexa. “Want me to try to find out who it is? Intelligence might have foreign street directories. I'm not sure.”
“Give it to me.” Laura took the notepad. “I'll just call and see who answers.”
She dialed the number, and the voice that answered was stiff and strangely accented.
“Don Mentrassore's residence.”
“Excuse me, I'm trying to locate a Lieutenant Donal Riordan from Tristopolis. He should be—”
