City on Fire (Metropolitan 2)

by Walter Jon Williams

  “Impossible,” says Faltheg the banker. “Besides, the police already have a budget.”

  “I concur,” said Constantine.

  Hilthi sighs, throws up his hands. “I want these abuses to cease,” he says.

  Aiah, relief flooding her at this escape, finds herself looking at Constantine, whose head is turned toward the triumvirs at the head of the table. There is a smile of cold satisfaction on Constantine’s face, and Aiah wonders why it should be there, what there has been in this matter of the Militia that has pleased him.

  She doesn’t get a chance to ask, and by the time the meeting is over, she has forgotten to.

  VOTE LIBERAL COALITION— FOR DEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM!

  After the meeting Aiah takes a bite of lunch, then returns to her office— and there, as she turns into her receptionist’s office, is the feeling again: a lift of the heart, a surge of warmth through the soul. Another visitor from home waits in Aiah’s reception area, a blaze of scarlet and gold among soberly dressed job-seekers. Aiah drops her briefcase and folds the short, sturdy woman in her arms. “How are you?” she says. “How is everyone?”

  Khorsa busses her on both cheeks. “Very well. Esmon and I are going to be married next month.” Esmon is one of Aiah’s many cousins.

  “Congratulations! I know you’ll be happy.” Aiah looks at the hopefuls waiting for their interviews, all of whom are trying not to look curious, a difficult act because they’ve probably never seen a Barkazil witch before. Khorsa’s long dress is alive with color, and she wears a red turban decorated with gemstones set among geomantic foci.

  The hopefuls, Aiah thinks, will just have to wait a little longer for their interviews, and she tells her receptionist to hold all her appointments. Then she fetches her briefcase and shows Khorsa into her office.

  “You’re the second Barkazil face I’ve seen this week,” Aiah says as she drops into her office chair.

  “Well,” Khorsa says, a dubious look in her eye, “I may not be the last.”

  “Are more of the family coming to look for work? I need people with specific skills, you know, and I don’t think many of the family would qualify.”

  “More than that,” Khorsa says. “I’m afraid, well, it’s a religious thing.”

  “Oh?”

  Khorsa should know religion if anyone does: she and her sister run the Wisdom Fortune Temple back in Aiah’s old neighborhood of Old Shorings. The temple is a place where people come for small magics in hopes of healing the sadness and misfortunes that come with being human, and Barkazil, and Jaspeeri, and living in a place like Old Shorings. Khorsa deals with plasm; her sister Dhival goes into trances and talks to spirits.

  Aiah had helped them out once, when Esmon was beaten by Operation thugs because Khorsa wouldn’t buy their bootleg plasm. Aiah had used twice-stolen plasm to deal with the situation— stolen once from the Jaspeeri authorities, and then again from Constantine— and she’d been terrified every instant.

  “What sort of religious thing?” Aiah asks. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “No thanks. Do you remember Charduq the Hermit?”

  “Charduq? Of course.”

  Charduq, the fixture of Aiah’s girlhood, still— last she knew— on his fluted pillar at the Barkazi Savings Institute. She had waved at him, she remembers, as she fled the city. He was one of the last sights of home.

  “I suppose I should start by saying that you’ve become sort of famous back in Old Shorings,” Khorsa begins.

  Aiah is startled. “How?”

  “Lots of people know what happened. The police interviewed anyone who had anything to do with you, and you have a large family, and ... well, they talked.”

  Alarms clatter through Aiah’s mind. “What did they say?” she asks carefully.

  “Well, nobody really knows anything,” Khorsa says, “so they just make things up.”

  “That’s comforting!” The alarm is getting louder.

  “But they know you had access to illicit plasm. They know you used plasm to help the temple out when the Operation was after us, and they know you were involved with Constantine’s activities. They know the police were interviewing a lot of people about you, and they know that you’re here in Caraqui now, in what seems to be a pretty influential position.” She gestures with her hands, taking in the Aerial Palace, the Owl Wing, the view through Aiah’s windows of the city below, the plasm tap visible on the wall, available whenever Aiah feels the need...

  “So they figure you ran the most brilliant chonah of the century,” Khorsa says. “Stole a whole well of plasm from the Authority while you were working there, gave it to Constantine’s revolution, got yourself rewarded with a place here.”

  “It wasn’t that simple,” Aiah says. And it presupposes that Aiah knew all along what she was doing, which she didn’t— in her memories of that period she is far from purposeful, but is filled instead with anxiety, indecision, adrenaline, and terror.

  “I’m sure it wasn’t,” Khorsa says. “But it’s all meat to the Cunning People, you know that. It’s exactly the sort of story we all want to hear, how one of us fooled the cops, fooled the Authority, fooled the Operation, fooled everybody, and got away with it and lived happily ever after. And of course the story of how you fought the Operation on our behalf got all exaggerated, with scores of Operation men lying dead in the street, and they’re saying you won the revolution single-handed and that you’re Constantine’s lover...”

  Khorsa’s brown eyes absorb Aiah’s change of expression in this last remark, and she nods, half to herself, and says, “Well, perhaps not every story is an exaggeration.”

  A flush prickles Aiah’s cheeks. “So I’m a hero in Old Shorings. What’s it got to do with Charduq?”

  “Quite simply, he’s saying that you’re the deliverer. That you’re an incarnate immortal, or the immortals sent you, and your purpose is to liberate the Barkazil people, and give us our metropolis and our power back...”

  “Great Senko!” Aiah sags stunned in her chair.

  “And he’s saying it to everybody,” Khorsa says. “Most won’t believe him, or won’t pay attention, but there are those who will listen. You’re going to be seeing a lot of Barkazils in the next weeks.”

  “Alfeg?” Aiah wonders. “Could Alfeg be one of the people who paid attention to what Charduq was saying?”

  “Old Chavan’s son?” Khorsa thinks for a moment. “It’s a devout family. Chavan is a big supporter of the Kholos Temple and the old Holy Leaguers— wish I had him at my services.”

  “But a rich family like that— even if they are devout, one of them wouldn’t listen to some smelly old street sage, would he?”

  Khorsa hesitates. “I don’t know enough about Alfeg to be able to say. But in my experience, a person will listen to anybody, provided he has the message one wants to hear.”

  Aiah stares for an endless moment at the wall above Khorsa’s head, and then the frustration in her heart boils over. “What am I to do with these people?” she demands. “Even with the expansions my department has less than a thousand people. Most of the jobs require specific skills. Any Barkazils throwing up their lives to come to Caraqui are likely to be the ones with nothing to lose ... They’re just going to end up on the dole here, and the dole in Caraqui is far worse than the dole in Jaspeer.”

  “Not everyone will be without skills,” Khorsa says. “Alfeg isn’t.” Her calm eyes hold steady on Aiah. “Neither am I,” she adds.

  Aiah looks at her. “You’re here to apply for a job?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have it if you want it. But what about the Wisdom Fortune Temple?”

  “We have enough trained assistants to take my place, at least for a while.”

  Despair wails in Aiah’s nerves. “You don’t believe Charduq, too, do you? I can assure you that I’m not an immortal.”

  Khorsa considers this. “I don’t know if it’s necessary that you know,” she decides.

  Aiah turns away.
“I don’t like this game,” she says.

  “The Cunning People need something,” Khorsa says. “The heart went out of us when the Metropolis of Barkazi was destroyed. Even though that happened three generations ago, we still live like refugees. You’re a hero to our people— you can change things.”

  “It’s a delusion,” Aiah says. “And when nothing comes of it, everyone’s going to be hurt.”

  Khorsa looks at her fixedly. “Is what you— you and Constantine— is what you’re trying to accomplish in Caraqui delusional?”

  “I hope not.” Aiah again turns away from the intent glimmer of expectation in

  Khorsa’s eyes. “If Caraqui fails, however, it won’t be my fault. But if every hope the Cunning People hold for me turns to ashes, whose fault will it be? Who will they blame?”

  “Different questions,” Khorsa says, “with different answers.”

  Aiah tastes bitterness on her tongue. “I somehow doubt they will hold Charduq responsible.”

  Khorsa’s voice is soft. “They are coming. I cannot say how many. But they are coming, whether you want them or not.”

  “Go back to Jaspeer. Tell Charduq to shut up.”

  “He won’t.”

  Aiah waves a hand. “Then tell him the time isn’t ripe! Tell him to wait!” She represses a snarl. “Damn it, if I’m an immortal, he ought to do what I tell him!”

  A hint of a smile glimmers across Khorsa’s face. “I can tell him that, I think.”

  She is half the world away from her large and troublesome family, Aiah thinks, and now they pursue her, larger and more troublesome than she ever imagined they could be.

  She notices a new folder on her desk, and knows it contains the results of the security scans performed in the pre-break. She grabs the folder, opens it, pages savagely through it until she comes to Alfeg’s file.

  Clean, she discovers; no police spy, no contacts with the government of Jaspeer. No one’s agent. . . save maybe, in some sense, Charduq’s.

  Right, Aiah thinks. You’re a rich boy— it’s time to spend some of Daddy’s money.

  NEW CITY NOW

  “You’re hired,” Aiah says. “Congratulations.”

  Alfeg looks at her with a questioning expression, eyebrows lifted. “You sound as if you resent the fact you’re hiring me,” he says.

  “There are some services I wish you to perform,” Aiah continues, “in addition to those covered by the job.”

  A frown crosses Alfeg’s bemused face. “I’m sorry? There are conditions to my getting the job?”

  Aiah places her palms firmly atop Alfeg’s file on her desk. “Not officially,” she says.

  “Ah.” He blinks at her for a moment, touches his chin-lace in a self-conscious way, then nods. “What do you wish me to do?”

  “Do you know Charduq the Hermit?”

  The knowing smile dances across Alfeg’s face, a smile that suggests he and Aiah share a secret.

  “Yes,” he says. “I’m familiar with him.”

  “He’s a lunatic,” Aiah says, and watches Alfeg’s self-satisfied little smile twitch away. “He’s telling stories about me that aren’t true, and he’s trying to persuade Barkazils to give up their lives and come to Caraqui.”

  “Ah— he’s—” Alfeg stumbles. Aiah holds out a hand.

  “Let me finish, please,” Aiah says. “Since it seems I can’t stop him from talking, and since it would appear that some Barkazils, at least, are coming— and mostly those who have little to lose, I suspect— I want you to establish an organization for their reception. Help find them work, a place to live, that sort of thing.”

  Alfeg takes a moment to process this. “Will I be receiving any funds for this project?” he asks.

  “No,” Aiah says. “None but what you can raise yourself.”

  “I—” He blinks.

  “And you’ll have to do it in your spare time,” Aiah says, “because you’ll be starting here right away, and we’re all working shifts-and-a-half.”

  Alfeg clears his throat. “Is this some kind of test?” he asks.

  “No.”

  He stares at Aiah, searching her expression for a clue which Aiah refuses to give. Then, after a long silence, he gives an uncomfortable tug to his collar and turns away. “I’ll do it,” he says.

  “Thank you.” Briskly. She hands him a paper. “Your office will be Room 3224, which you’ll share with one or two others. You’ll be in Ethemark’s division— report to him tomorrow at 08:00, start of work shift, for orientation and assignment. Your badge will be waiting at the reception area, northwest gate.”

  “Yes. Ah.” He licks his lips, stands. Aiah rises from behind her desk and shakes his hand.

  “And if I hear from any indigent Barkazils,” Aiah says, “I’ll refer them to you.”

  His head gives a little jerk.

  “Yes,” he murmurs, “of course.”

  WATCH THE LYNXOID BROTHERS . . .

  AS THEY FACE THEIR GREATEST MENACE . . .

  TYROS THE TERRIBLE

  It’s an arrest, one like many others. The suspect is a midlevel plasm seller, probably not a Handman but one of their cousins, whose plasm tap is in a secret room in the back of his apartment. He has been having a party for several days, looks like: there are empty bottles and used glasses everywhere, and the acrid tang of cigar smoke fills every room. There are two girls here, obvious professionals despite their youth, and no sign of the plasm seller’s wife and children.

  Aiah, playing plasm angel, hovers invisibly in the room, along with a pair of her colleagues. They seem redundant: there is no sign of traps or resistance, and the suspect is so drunk he can barely walk.

  The military cops cuff his hands behind his back and prop him up while they pat him down. He’s wearing only underwear, and looks terrible: pale, unshaven, with deep circles beneath his eyes and patches of sweat on his undershirt, as if forty-eight hours of hangover had caught up with him all at once.

  The girls stand naked in the corner, under guard. One modestly crosses her arms over her breasts, the other merely lets a cigaret hang from her lips, drinks from her little bottle of whisky, and watches the soldiers with contempt. They are both licensed prostitutes, each with her official yellow card, and though Aiah suspects at least one card misstates an age, suspicion is not quite enough given the department’s wartime urgency, and the two will be released as soon as the apartment is properly secure.

  One of the military cops comes out of the bedroom carrying a pair of the suspect’s trousers. He and his colleagues try to maneuver the drunken suspect into them, a little comical dance ... and then the suspect’s head explodes.

  Aiah stares in shock. The police stagger back, swabbing blood and brains off their faceplates. Red spatters the breasts of the whisky-drinking whore. The suspect drops like a rag doll, leaving a wide streak of blood on the wallpaper behind, and then a cold voice whispers across Aiah’s thoughts.

  —You interfere overmuch with my pleasures, lady.

  Ice shivers Aiah’s bones. Her teeth chatter. But Taikoen does not speak again— he is gone— and Aiah slowly breathes out, summons her scattered thoughts, and makes visible her anima in the cousin’s apartment. She knows what she must do.

  “Did anyone see what happened?” she says, and begins the official investigation that she hopes will never point in the right direction.

  Afterward, Aiah’s had enough.

  She takes off, her anima aimed straight up, rising fast as a bullet away from all this, from death and squalor and endless grinding duty. The city fades, a flat plain of brown and gray and green spread like a lily pad over its level sea. Get enough height, she thinks, and you’d never see the war. She tunes her senses to the air, feels its cool, burning touch as if it were her physical body climbing like a rocket, as if she were feeling the burning wind on her cheeks. She penetrates a layer of scattered white cloud and watches it fall away beneath her, become part of the increasingly abstract landscape below, a new bright element
added to its jigsaw.

  The Shield alone stands above her, barring her ascent— luminescent source of light and life for the world; impenetrable, energy-devouring barrier to the tens of billions crowded on the curved surface below— and as she gazes up at it, a cold anger settles into her. This is what has created her world, this barrier put by the Ascended in the path of humanity, allegedly as a punishment for sins that have only grown more obscure in the ages since. It is carefully sited, this Shield: a little higher, Aiah’s teachers told her in school, and objects could be put into an elliptical path that would circle the globe without falling— more evidence, if any were needed, that the Ascended Ones didn’t want anything or anyone sharing their realm.

  The Shield’s pearly luminescence brightens, grows hot, becomes blazing white. Its power roars in Aiah’s transphysical ears, and she knows it for an enemy. Matter that touches the Shield is annihilated, transformed into bursts of X rays. Plasm, the most powerful terrestrial force, vanishes as if it never were, anima-probes dissolving on contact, giving no information to the mages below and leaving them with nothing but bills for the plasm wasted. Nothing can touch the Shield and survive.

  The sensation of wind is long gone— atmosphere is thin up here. Anger drives Aiah ever upward. Kill me, then, Aiah thinks at the Shield. Annihilate me and prove what a bastard you are.

  The blazing whiteness of the Shield consumes her senses. She can feel its heat, its enmity. She knows it is near, and prepares for the touch of annihilation...

  And then she is through it to someplace else, a place both of darkness and blazing light. To her astonishment she sees the Shield curving away beneath her, a perfect white sphere, its snarling energies intact.

  Her staggered senses perceive mostly blackness— an emptiness so vast, so infinite, that she finds her own reactions, her very being, contrasted into insignificance. And there are structures, spidery things of silvery metal, each flying in the absolute silence of the void, rolling up toward the Pole. . . Without scale she can’t tell how large they are, but she suspects they are huge, each capable of containing a metropolis, despite their appearance of fragility... One, she counts, two, three, four, six, ten; many.