by John Meaney
Perhaps I should have stayed to—
“Is this seat taken?”
“No. Please, sit.”
The woman was pretty, her eyes bright and her glossed lips parted, as if permanently. She smiled at Donal.
Donal closed his eyes.
He allowed himself to drift as the train began to move. Still with his eyes shut, he smiled, hearing a faint “Hmmph,” and the sounds of someone getting up to find another seat.
After a while he opened his eyes. Outside, bands of blackness crossed the indigo sky, an effect that Donal had never seen before. Things would change as the train neared Silvex City.
He settled in place, feeling relaxed, knowing there were hours to go before the Glass Planes became visible.
Overhead, the sky was a solid black in which yellow stars were visible. Underneath, the ground was about to drop away, by thousands of feet, as the train approached the Maximal Scarp.
The edge of the drop appeared to run on forever. Donal leaned against the glass. Here and there, narrow curved lines reached out across the gap.
“Oh, shit.” It was the young woman who'd moved seats away from Donal, looking for fellow passengers who might actually pay attention to her. “I hate this part.”
Someone else began muttering prayers, or possibly curses.
The train edged forward.
After a time, clunking sounds rocked the carriage. When Donal looked downward out the window, there was nothing but air, and a tiny landscape far below.
Craning his head, he could not quite make out the overhead rail they were now traveling under. But off in the distance, miles away, another brightly lit train was making a similar journey, crawling beneath the five-hundred-mile curve of the rail, currently downward. At some point, it would arc upward, beginning its ascent.
It was awe-inspiring. It was frightening. But eventually, Donal got used to the view. So did most of the other passengers, judging by the amount of business the steward did, serving from his refreshments trolley. Or perhaps that was due to the small bottles of hard liquor he sold.
A long time passed before Donal could make out the Glass Planes. When he did, awe returned.
The gigantic Planes were horizontal, stacked hundreds of feet apart, supported by titanic glass columns. How many square miles each Plane stretched for, Donal did not know; but each was capable of supporting a city in its own right.
Despite Temesin's joke about country bumpkins, Silvex City was vast. Donal watched the glistening city grow larger, trying to ignore the increasing groans from the locomotives dragging the train up the steepest section of the overhead track.
There were many competing theories, held by different churches and academicians, about the origins of the Glass Planes. One major church taught that the Planes were a natural phenomenon, though how natural processes might produce regularly spaced glass squares on such a scale was beyond Donal's comprehension.
Splendid lighting made the buildings even grander than they already were.
“At last,” sighed the young woman.
The overhead track straightened out, and the train crawled level above the glass ground, on the final stretch. Impatient passengers were already pulling down luggage from overhead racks. Soon enough, they pulled into Terminal Station.
Temesin had grown a moustache.
He was waiting—narrow-shouldered, expensive moleskin coat, unlit cigarette in his thin-lipped mouth—to meet Donal at the top of the diamond ramp ascending from the platform. They shook hands. Then Temesin led the way across the magnificent concourse, to the first escalator, formed of levitating glass steps, which bore them up to the airport level.
Temesin stopped in front of a coffee shop that Donal remembered from last time.
“Tell me,” said Temesin, “that I look dashing.”
“Uh, sure. Like always.”
“Fuck off.”
“I should act like something's different?”
“Definitely not. You want coffee?”
“Mind you, if I had a pet caterpillar, I'd keep it at home, feed it on black cabbage, whatever. Carrying it around on your upper lip, that's a bit obsessive.”
“I take it that's a no for coffee.”
But Donal noticed, as they crossed the polished concourse floor, following the signs for restrooms, that Temesin made no return wisecracks about changes in Donal's appearance; and that was more than a point in Temesin's favor.
Last time they had met, Donal had been alive.
Inside the men's room, Temesin and Donal stood by the sinks waiting while the sole other occupant washed his hands, gave the two of them a sidelong look, and picked up his case without drying his hands. He walked out quickly.
“I'm glad I don't live here,” said Donal. “And that you don't have a reputation to care about.”
“Maybe my wife will stop bitching about my salary, and just divorce me.”
“So how much do we need?” Donal reached for his wallet. “I've got plenty of dinars, and I can change more florins.”
“Pay me for the airfare,” said Temesin. “Later. Four seventy-six for the both of us.”
“I can afford to pay for more than—”
“Just the airfare. Right now, I need you to give me your gun, because I am a law enforcement officer who's allowed to carry firearms on board, and you're not.”
“You want the shoulder rig, I'll have to take my coat and jacket off.”
“Hades, you want I should turn my back?”
“And promise not to peek.”
On board the aircraft, Temesin insisted that Donal sit by the window.
“I might need to take a pee.”
“I'll try not to get excited if you squeeze past me.”
“Honestly, I don't—”
“And take these.” Temesin was holding out a pair of shades. “For later.”
Donal took the dark glasses.
“For wearing outside?”
“You got it.”
“That is so fucking insane.”
“I know. And Aurex City isn't even on the Lightside.”
As they neared the end of the flight, Temesin pointed across Donal to the window. Along the horizon lay a greenish-blue glow, a color of sky that Donal had never seen before. He remembered his lessons in the orphanage with Sister Mary-Anne, but this was real, a reminder that the Earth was a giant sphere floating in space.
“That's the terminator?”
“Carry on going in that direction, and the whole sky's the same as over Aurex City.”
“I can't imagine what that is.”
“You'll see it soon enough.”
Twenty minutes later, the engines changed pitch, causing Donal to tense. Then the airplane banked right, and forward of the plane, everything was bright.
“Hades.”
A brilliant white heptagon of light shone in the sky, surrounded by blueness, tapering off to purple, then indigo.
No one else on board the plane seemed shocked.
“It's incredible,” whispered Donal. “Beautiful.”
“Put the shades on,” said Temesin. “And don't stare at it, or you'll go blind.”
“Huh.” Donal looked at him. “Is that like what the nuns used to tell me, about keeping my hands above the covers?”
“No, it's literally true. On the Lightside, you can go blind in seconds.”
“But how do people get around?”
“By not looking directly up at the Sun. Or in Aurex City, not at the Mirror. You look at everything else, but not that.”
Donal turned to the window once more.
“How can they not look? It's amazing.”
“Come on.” Temesin leaned across him, and pulled down the blind. “You'll get used to it, once we land.”
“Impossible.”
Then there was a whine as the undercarriage descended, and they began their approach. Donal looked around the aircraft. Light shone through the windows on both sides now. He raised the blind a little, and saw a lands
cape rushing past beneath: purple fields, a silver river, then the speeding grayness of the runway.
The plane bumped three times as it slowed, and then it was taxiing into place.
“I guess we're still alive,” said Donal.
It was an ill-phrased remark for a zombie to make, but Temesin just nodded.
“Wait till you see. If I wasn't such a sophisticate, even I might be impressed with this place.”
After waiting for most of the other passengers to disembark, they walked to the exit, and Donal stepped through onto the top step. The movable stairs were locked in place, quite steady, but he felt unbalanced. The sky was so bright, it looked vast, and he felt as if he were going to topple.
“Steady.” Temesin held his shoulder. “Take a deep breath.”
I don't need to breathe.
But Donal followed Temesin's advice, shaking his head as he looked across the runway and terminal buildings once more. He began to descend the steps, one hand on the rail for balance.
Then they headed with the other passengers to Arrivals. Apparently, two people traveling without proper luggage were not suspicious when one of them was a police officer. Security personnel waved Donal and Temesin through. In seconds, Donal was staring around the interior of a glass-sided building that shone with the light.
But the amazing thing was, the light came from outside.
From the sky.
“You're wrong,” said Donal. “I'll never get used to this.”
“Yeah, you will. Come on. The taxis are this way.”
They were different, like everything else. Every cab was mostly iridescent blue, yet unique. Some shaded toward metallic green at the edges, others toward red. The drivers smiled politely, and spoke with soft cultured voices.
Donal was definitely not in Tristopolis.
The first driver, standing on the sidewalk next to his cab, said something, but Donal wasn't paying attention.
“Flixton Lawns,” answered Temesin. “Is that okay?”
“My pleasure, sir. Please do climb inside.”
The driver held open the rear door, and Temesin got in. Donal paused, glanced obliquely up at the heptagon of white light high in the sky, and shook his head. He climbed in beside Temesin.
“The Mirror's held up by Aurecian mages, right?”
“Sure. Reflects light that would otherwise miss the Earth, and directs it down.”
“I can't imagine any other city that could manage that.”
The driver got in and started the engine. A green glass partition divided his compartment from the rear, where Donal and Temesin sat.
“There probably isn't one,” said Temesin. “They say Aurecian mages are the best. Weird, but brilliant.”
Donal lowered his voice, as the taxi turned onto a wide white boulevard.
“And you think the Black Circle is legit here? I mean, being an official body or something. With proper standing, providing services that everyone knows about, that kind of thing.”
“No.” For the first time, Temesin sounded offended. “I definitely do not.”
“That's bad news,” said Donal.
Temesin's long face twisted into a strange expression.
“How can you say that?”
“Because anyone who can hide their activities from mages capable of that”—Donal pointed toward the sky—“is even better than I thought.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
Outside, the surroundings changed to clean, lovely suburbs with crisp blue lawns and shell-like houses. Prosperous-looking people were washing cars, chatting to one another, wearing dark glasses against the pervasive glare, smiling often.
Inside the taxi, neither Donal nor Temesin felt like talking.
A pink path led to a front door that opened before they knocked. A stocky man stood there squinting, and he was a cop. Donal knew it immediately.
“Temesin, you old bastard. And you must be Riordan. I'm Hayes.”
“Good to meet you.”
It was strange for Donal to remove dark glasses when entering a house. It was strange for the world outside to be bright and the interiors to be dim, inverting normal reality.
“Through there, the front lounge.” Hayes pointed, a blunt-fingered gesture, revealing the thickness of his wrist.
Four other cops were sitting there, in ordinary clothes. Three were human, while the cop in the biggest armchair had a shiny, dark-blue exoskeleton and white globes for eyes. He clacked his mandibles at Donal.
“That's Brint,” said Hayes. “Best man in the department. The other reprobates are Fredrix, Atlong, and Shelbin.”
Fredrix was blond, Atlong dark, and Shelbin had close-cropped gray hair.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
There were maps, diagrams, and brown bottles everywhere. This was a cop's house, with an off-the-books briefing session under way.
“Is that beer you guys have there?” said Donal.
“Sure.”
Alcohol had no effect on zombies, but social activities strengthened teams, so Donal took a beer and found a seat. Temesin did likewise. Hayes found the half-finished beer he'd put down to answer the door.
“This little meeting is costing me a fortune,” he told Temesin. “I hope you're properly Death-damned grateful.”
“You want beer money?”
“It ain't the booze, old buddy, it's the wife and three daughters and a whole day out shopping.”
But Donal was looking at the nearest purpleprint schematic lying on the carpet. The complicated diagram was labeled with a version number, date, and other technical descriptions, along with: Gladius Armaments Exc, Site Alpha, Building 7.
“You guys been investigating Brax Devlin?”
“Could be,” said Hayes. “Temesin, you ain't briefed him for shit, have ya?”
“I thought I'd leave it to an expert.”
“Well, I can understand that.”
“I don't suppose you know any experts?”
Atlong and Shelbin laughed, Fredrix smiled, and Brint clacked his mandibles once more.
“Ha. Ha. Okay, Riordan, we got us an infiltration exercise set up here, and one of us locals might get through, but you'll definitely pass the scans.”
“Scans. You're talking about the main GA site.”
“Sure. You got the motivation to take the fuckers down, and you'll get through the scanfields 'cause of who you are, so it's what you might call ironic, don't you think?”
“Fuckin’ A,” said Shelbin.
Donal looked at Temesin, who was putting a cigarette in his mouth.
“Am I missing something here?”
“Sure.” When Temesin lit a match, a silvery membrane slipped down from the ceiling, forming a column that enclosed Temesin and the chair on which he sat. “Why do you think GA is encouraging zombie killing inside the Federation? Because you know it's beginning.”
Donal had already worked out that prejudice against non-humans was absent here.
“Tell me.”
“ ‘Zombie bones are wild’,” said Fredrix. “It's what they say in Gladius.”
Reactor piles were unknown in Illurium, or at least in Silvex City, where Donal had been before. He remembered the cabled children in the Power Centers.
And he remembered standing by the graveside while men lowered Laura's coffin into the ground. Because she had been spared the fate of ordinary humans.
“You can't use zombie bones for fuel,” said Donal.
“That's right.” Atlong had been silent, observing. Now his voice was deep and certain. “A kind of feedback sets up, sends the necroflux to uncontrollable levels.”
“GA don't build power stations,” said Shelbin. “They make weapons.”
“Weapons?”
“Weapons.” Temesin sucked his cigarette, then blew out smoke. It billowed upward, trapped inside the membranous column surrounding him. “Resurrected bones make shit-hot energy projectors.”
Donal remembered the books
he used to get from Peat's store.
“You're kidding me. Death-rays? That's impossible.”
“Yeah?” Temesin pointed to the window. “You wanna look up in the sky and tell me what's impossible?”
“Shit.”
“Speaking of which …” Hayes burped. “Bathroom break. Back in a minute.”
Brint made a gesture with his foreclaws that Donal couldn't decipher.
“Same to you,” said Hayes.
While Hayes was gone, the others got into general chitchat about spikeball teams. Donal picked up the purpleprint schematics and sat down, working his way through the diagrams, just letting his gaze follow the structural lines, feeling the patterns in his mind.
From upstairs, he thought he heard Hayes muttering to someone, but no reply. Talking to himself.
“Temesin?” Donal held up a purpleprint. “How much of this did Commissioner Vilnar know?”
“A lot.”
“And is there anything specific I should know, but don't?”
“Probably.”
“And you're going to carry on being this helpful?”
“Yes,” said Fredrix and Shelbin together.
“Someone shoot me now,” said Donal. “Please.”
“Later.” Atlong pulled a small-scale map toward him, then held it up. “Delivery convoys travel along this road, GA personnel with military escort. Remember, Gladius Armaments is a bona fide arms manufacturer, with government contracts.”
“So don't go stealing any military secrets,” said Fredrix.
Brint made a scratching sound from some portion of his exoskeleton.
“Then why are you doing this?” said Donal. “You're cops, not government. If Brax Devlin's company is developing nasty new weapons for your country, shouldn't you be on his side?”
“Using resurrected people's bones”—Temesin puffed out blue smoke, and it billowed upward in the membranous column—“is illegal. There are no contracts to research, develop, or manufacture such weaponry.”
“That might be the official line, but—”
“It's also the internal policy,” said Temesin, “of military high command and civilian government. Really.”
So they had contacts that were highly placed, if Temesin knew what he was talking about. Donal wondered about those contacts, and whether he himself was some kind of traitor to the Federation by working with these people.
