“Am I being released?” Cerlos asked. “Is that where the trucks are going?”
“No,” said the guard. “Get over there.”
“It’s a mistake!” Cerlos shouted. “I’m supposed to—”
That was met with a rifle butt across his head. Cerlos crumpled like a street puppet with its strings cut.
“You got a problem?” one guard asked Wenthi.
“To the hut?” he asked. “Heading over.”
He walked over, noticing most of the prisoners coming off the train were being loaded into trucks, including Cerlos, being dragged over there by two guards. Only a handful were coming into the hut with him.
“Name?” a bored-looking guard asked as he approached.
“Llionorco,” he said. “Renzi Llionorco.”
The guard looked through her files, then got up and went into the back room. She emerged a moment later with a crate.
“Llionorco, Renzi. Personal effects. Go in that niche over there to change, then come sign out for final release.”
Wenthi took the crate and went into the niche. He stripped out of the prison whites and started to put on the provided clothing. Hard, raw denim pants, once dark blue, but with black stains and more than a few white distress lines and impending holes. He pulled them on, but struggled to button up all the brass buttons.
Which was odd. They were his. They felt like his.
Except they weren’t. They were Nália’s; that’s why they were tight on his waist, loose on the hips. The pull shirt and denim jacket fit decently enough. He was about the same height as her, if not quite as curvy.
The boots he barely managed to get on. Those were too damn tight.
The rest of the personal effects included a cycle helmet, keys, and ration cards to go with the ident cards he had already received as Renzi Llionorco. He pocketed those—
Something felt wrong.
He switched pockets, putting the keys on the left side pocket, cards on the right. That’s how they were supposed to go. He wasn’t sure where that came from: Nália’s own memory, or just that the pants had white lines of wear that matched the shape of the keys in the left pocket, and the square outline of the cards on the right. Apparently Nália was so habitual, she had worn patterns in the pants.
He came back with the crate.
“Sign here,” the desk clerk said, handing him a paper. “Here’s housing vouchers, since you have no residence or kin listed. Failure to find housing and employment to pay rent within twenty-five days will result in immediate return to prison.”
“Right,” he said. “Anything else?”
“You have the keys to the cycle?”
“Yes,” he said.
“It’s parked in the holding lot at Circle Uilea, by the 14th Senja headquarters. Here’s a claim ticket. Holding lot closes at five sweep on the naught, so you better get over there. Failure to claim your vehicle before end of day will result in it being sold to auction.”
“No!” he shouted, though that came more from Nália.
“Don’t shout at me,” she said. “You best get moving.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. He left the hut out the front door, now as Renzi Llionorco, newly released prisoner. A few of the other releasees came out with him.
“Where you headed?” one asked him. About Wenthi’s age. Pretty, muscular boy in a swarthy, jifozi way.
“14th Senja,” he said. “Got to get my cycle.”
“You’re lucky they held it for you. Most folks get it auctioned straight off.”
“Is that how it goes?” Wenthi asked. “First time for this.”
“Third.”
“Third?” Wenthi asked, hoping he sounded impressed. “How’d you manage that?”
“Tories, always on me, you know?” The man said it like it said it all. “Did you get a bed tonight with your cycle, or you need one?”
“I was planning on working that out after I got my ride. Housing vouchers.”
“Housing vouchers are shit,” the guy said. “Ain’t hardly a place that’ll honor them. I know a spot in the ’hez that you can use them at.”
“If it’s near Uilea, perfect.”
19
The Patrol Center for the 14th Senja—
[Miahez.]
—for Miahez loomed over Circle Uilea. It stood on a steep hill, which dropped down to a fenced concrete lot, right before the circle.
“Shitting eyes all over us, huh?” Wenthi’s new companion asked.
“Always watching,” Wenthi said. They approached the lot gate, manned by a pair of black-uniformed patrol.
“Well, look who it is,” one of them said, putting his hand on his baton casually. “It’s Nasty Ren. Thought you were out of my hair.”
It was Paulei putting up a good show.
“I know you, friend?” Wenthi asked.
“Oh, I know you,” Paulei said. “I was on patrol in Tofozaun a couple years back when you pulled that business.” He came in close to Wenthi, grabbing him by the lapels of his denim coat. “You now in Ziaparr?”
“I’m just here for my cycle.”
Paulei turned to the companion. “And you’re his friend? He your new muscle?”
“That’s Mad Pack Parnez,” the other one said. Wenthi didn’t know her. “How’s your sister, Parnez?”
“Partinez,” Wenthi’s new companion said quietly.
“Whatever,” the female officer said. “You two came to turn yourself in or something?”
“Save us a bit of trouble,” Paulei said.
“Hey, I’m a freewalker,” Wenthi said. “Unless you want to make some business to haul me in over.”
“Maybe I do,” Paulei said.
“Then do it,” Wenthi said. “Else give me my cycle.”
“Ease down, Jéngka,” the lady said. “You got an impound claim?”
Wenthi handed over the ticket. Paulei snatched it from her hands. “I’ll take him. You keep an eye on this one.”
“I’ll keep both,” she said. Paulei grabbed Wenthi’s arm and dragged him through the gate onto the lot.
“You all right?” Paulei asked.
“Glad to see you,” Wenthi said. “This all went—”
“Way too fast,” Paulei said. “Yeah. Why is that? I wasn’t briefed on anything other than a temp assignment out in the 14th while you were going under. I’m your point of contact out here.”
“How is that supposed to work?”
Paulei handed him a slip of paper. “Memorize this exchange. If you need me, find a coinphone and call it. And if you can’t talk openly, give an address, and I’ll show up to ‘arrest’ you. What can you tell me about your mission?”
“Try to get in good with the insurgents who are robbing the fuel trains. Headquarters think they’re part of a larger organization that are dangerous to the safety of the nation.”
“They’re probably not wrong,” Paulei said. “I’m gonna push you now so they see.”
“Do it.”
Paulei shoved him hard, knocking Wenthi to the ground. Wenthi jumped up and shook an angry finger at Paulei. “I think that looked really good. You tell whoever at headquarters that I’m going to need a few days just to find my feet in all this, especially with what they did to my head.”
“Your head?”
“Why they had to do this in such a rush. They wanted to do it while that girl was still tripping her myco. I’ve got, like, her in my skull.”
“I don’t get it,” Paulei said.
“Same,” Wenthi said. They walked up to a night-blue Puegoiz 960. “But I’m following orders. This the cycle?”
“It is,” Wenthi said. A surge of joy and pride burst forth when he saw it. From her, a love for this specific machine. “She’s really into this ’goiz junkbash. She made that abundantly clear.�
��
“So, what? She’s talking in your head?”
“More emotion than words. I’m still trying to get a handle on it.”
“But why?” Paulei asked.
“So I can pass as jifoz, I guess. Especially if I use the myco with them.”
“If? Or when?”
“There’s really no way to get in and avoid it,” Wenthi said. He sighed. “This whole thing, I agreed to it because the lieutenant said go, so I did. But my head is a mess. The worst part—”
“It all sounds terrible.”
“You know who did it? Shebiruht. That Shebiruht.”
“What?” Paulei’s eyes went wide. He looked sick for a moment, which Wenthi completely understood. It made him sick to think of that woman even touching him. “Didn’t they, like, execute her after the war?”
“Apparently not. But that’s why I don’t know what exactly to make of this thing they did to me.”
“But they wouldn’t have done it if they didn’t think it was necessary,” Paulei said weakly. “Right?”
“That’s what I’m telling myself.”
“You need me to do anything?” Paulei asked.
“Just keep your ears high,” Wenthi said. He went to get on the cycle.
Something stopped him. A feeling—no, a need. Nália’s need to just admire the cycle, drink it in. No, that wasn’t quite right.
She needed him to do it.
“You’re kidding,” he muttered.
Wenthi had never really looked at a Puegoiz before. He had always thought them—like all locally built vehicles—far inferior machines compared to the Sehosian Ungeke line, or the masterful engineering of Reloumic cycles. Those were pure power, sleek lines of metal that looked like they had been birthed into the world as perfection. Every rivet, every piece would lock together in a symphony of machinery that rendered the marvel of its engineering invisible.
This Puegoiz 960 was nothing like that at all. The engine elements were open and exposed, hoses and dual exhaust pipes running along the chassis, gears and chains for all the world to see.
But it shined glorious chrome on those exhaust pipes, which popped against the deep blue of the fenders and seat, which were all embossed with the sunburst logo of the Rhixan Engine Company, and the 960 etched on the gas tank.
And that engine—he saw Nália’s memory of rebuilding it, swapping out the three-cylinder of the 960 for a 1296’s inline-four, with the hand-rigged rivets and tinstraps keeping it in place. It shouldn’t work, but he knew that it did, and beautifully.
Wenthi got on the cycle, unlocking the starter with the keys.
The engine purred to life, that purr growling its way to a roar. Oh, that was delightful. For a moment, he wasn’t sure if he was the one happy about it, or Nália, but it felt real and genuine to him.
“I’ll be in touch,” he told Paulei.
“Be careful” Paulei said. Raising his voice, he added, “And I better not be catching you pulling any business!”
Wenthi kicked the ’goiz into gear, and with a touch of the throttle was off like a shot. Faster and harder than he expected. He almost threw himself off and nearly skidded out correcting himself. He reached the gate and yanked the brake to a stop.
Even with Nália’s memory, he wasn’t ready for a ’goiz 960 to have that kind of power.
“Partinez,” he said to his new friend. “Get on. Let’s get out of here.”
“Damn right,” Partinez said, getting on the back of the cycle and holding on to Wenthi’s waist.
They roared off; this time Wenthi knew what to expect from the cycle. This time, he had it under his control. It felt natural. Like his.
If he could do the same to Nália herself, he would be fine.
“Where we going?” he shouted over the wind.
“Spin the next circle out to the left, and wind up the hill to the temple.”
“We going to the temple?”
“Nah, that’s just the easiest way to find Urka Dallatan.”
That was a name Wenthi had heard before. The “Aunt of the 14th Senja” was downright notorious.
Good a place as any to start this business.
20
The road curved in three pins up the hill, so steep Wenthi thought the cycle might flip back with a rider hanging on. But he gunned it up while lowering the gear, burning more fuel than he would have liked to get up to the temple. As he reached it, two autos—both junkers that dated to Second Trans—buzzed around the curve, astounding him that they were able to get that kind of speed on the incline. He was amazed either of them had that kind of engine power, given that both cars looked like they were held together with paste and hope.
“You all right?” he asked Partinez. The man clutched tight to Wenthi’s waist when the autos buzzed by.
“Just spooked me,” Partinez said as Wenthi pulled onto the curb. He hopped off the cycle to stand in the shade of the temple. “You think they were racing?”
“Be a waste of fuel,” Wenthi said. “You burn enough getting up the slope. I wouldn’t want to do it if I didn’t have to get up here.”
“Yeah,” Partinez said. “This patch of the ’hez is a pain to get to, but that’s part of why the urka likes it up here.”
“This is your patch, not mine,” Wenthi said. Not Nália’s either. She lived at the bottom of the 14th, on Street Farama. He shouldn’t go there at all, he knew. He had her clothes, her cycle. Her neighbors would smell him out quick. No damn good. Canwei had acted like it was a perfect choice, but riding this cycle could be an issue. He needed to think up a story if someone recognized it. And if he knew anything about cycle cats, they would.
“Where are your people?”
“Not here,” Wenthi said. “I had family in Tofo before the purges—”
“Yeah,” Partinez said. “So why come to Ziaparr now?”
“I wasn’t given a choice,” Wenthi said. “I got put on a train and brought here. I’d prefer to take my cycle and ride out to Tofo, but right now I’d run out of fuel before I got to the Southway. So I’m here for now.”
“Feel you,” Partinez said. “Second time out of Hanez, they released me to Uretichan. Hated that town.”
“Never been,” Wenthi said, glancing around the street. Other than the temple—which was a stone fortress looming over a small, quiet zocalo of cart vendors—it was all squat, crumbling houses and shops, crammed on top of each other with narrow stairwell alleys plunging down between them. The one road with the dead-eye curve was the only one an auto could get through up here, as it wound around the temple and split into a fork farther up. There were no proper places to park, but quite a few autos and cycles were on the curb, wedged in wherever they would fit. “I suppose I can just leave the cycle here.”
“Probably,” Partinez said.
Wenthi locked down the engine and pocketed the keys.
“You got any coin on you?” Partinez asked.
“Just the ration cards and housing vouchers.”
“Shit,” Partinez said, glancing over to zocalo. “That taco cart is lighting up my nose, and I’m ravenous.”
“Same,” Wenthi said. He hadn’t eaten anything since the tortas on the four-prop, and that was yesterday.
“Let’s see who’s cooking it,” Partinez said.
“Don’t we need to—”
“It’ll wait,” Partinez said. “My stomach won’t.”
They crossed up into the zocalo, passing the carved niches in the temple wall with the usual skull-face spirit icons and flower garlands around tinplates, clearly from a few generations back, of people dressed in traditional clothes from before even the First Trans.
There was almost no one in the zocalo, save the cart vendors themselves, and three old jifoz folk dozing lazily on the cobblestone.
Towering over the zocalo, almo
st as high as the temple, was a grand billboard on a giant pole—every temple in Ziaparr, even the solemn, dignified ones in Intown, had a grand pole in front of the doors—with a bright representation of several Ziaparrian people of each caste, standing together with broad smiles. “HAPPY TO PAY THE DEBT! GRATEFUL FOR OUR FREEDOM! GIVE WITH AN OPEN HAND!” There were plenty of posters just like that in Intown, but none of them had been as defaced and vandalized as this one had. The faces of the llipe and rhique folks on the poster had been shredded and defaced. And the words “nix xisisa” painted across the official text.
[We have paid too much.]
Partinez’s face lit up as they went to the taco cart, where a weathered woman was grilling onions and chiles and greasy cuts of meat over coals.
“Lajina,” Partinez said. “I hoped you were still here.”
“It’s always me here,” she said tartly. “Where else would I be? Where were you, hmm?”
“Hanez,” he said gravely.
“I thought,” she said coarsely. “You look awful. Too skinny.”
“Help me out about that,” he said.
“What you got?”
“Nothing but vouchers right now,” he said. “About to see urka about a place to sleep, but we can’t do that if we faint first.”
“We?” she asked. She pointed her tongs at Wenthi accusingly. “I don’t know that one.”
“Llionorco,” Partinez said. “He’s all right. Off the Hanez train like me.”
“At least you got off the train,” she said. “Llionorco. You from here? You got people?”
“No, ma’am,” Wenthi said. “Unless you count him.”
“Help us out, zyiza,” he said.
She scowled, but pulled a piece of meat off the grill and dropped it on her board, slicing it with practiced, racing movements. In moments, she had two pairs of tacos rolled, filled with meat, chiles, onions, and spiced tomatillo.
“I’ll put credit onto Miss Niliza,” she said as she handed them over. “You best hope she’s in a mood to deal with you all.”
“Runjé, Lajina,” Partinez said. “Saved lives, you did.”
The Velocity of Revolution Page 10
