That was close to the practice rooms, where Fanning was. I shoved the thought away—no time for it, yet—and said, “Go on, people.”
The crowd was already moving, the leaders maybe a third of the way up the stairs, but my words seemed to make it real. The few who’d been hanging back, visibly debating whether or not to retrieve belongings from their dressing rooms, turned toward the stairs, and the leaders picked up their pace, until they were almost running. That was a new worry, people getting trampled in a panic, but I tried not to think about it. Tin Hau held regular fire and evac drills; surely people would remember the procedures.
#Alarms activated onstage and on all upper levels,# Celeste said, with something that sounded like triumph in her voice. #Lower level one activated at one-third of sites, lower level two alarms activated on the west side only, level three alarms not sounding. House sprinklers are inactive. I am unable to contact Fire Control.#
#Haya.# That was Terez, at last, tying into the system. #Fortune, are you on?#
#I’m on.# I looked at the garbage chute’s closed door, reached out to touch the metal. It was still cool, but the faint, nagging smell of smoke was definitely in the air.
#One of the payload programs seems to have cut our outside lines,# Terez said, #including the hardwired connection to Security. I’ve sent people out to call for help, but the same thing’s fucking up the inside lines. Where are you?#
“The lower dressing rooms, east wing,” I answered. “What do you need?”
#Can you pull the alarms on level three?# Terez said. #I don’t have anybody down there with a skinsuit, and the intercom is out.#
#Everything except basic power is out on level three,# Celeste interjected. #And basic systems are not responding to my codes.#
“Shit,” I said, thinking of Fanning and the others somewhere down there. With luck, they’d been on an upper level—but there was their gear to think of. “Haya, I’ll go.”
As soon as I’d said it, I wished I hadn’t, but Terez was already talking. #Thanks, Fortune. Tune your suit high, Celeste can keep you informed of any changes.#
“Haya,” I said again, and reached for the controls. She was right, of course, the suit’s ability to monitor the house systems would help keep me safe—assuming, always, that Celeste could work around whatever was blocking the system. The air pulsed red, and I lowered the suit level until it was barely a pink glow. More warnings, glyphs and crawl and a faint buzz of audio, flashed at the edge of my vision, but there was nothing there that I hadn’t seen before. #Celeste, can you give me a map of the fire spots?#
#Yes.#
Almost as soon as she spoke, a rough schematic flashed into view. Bright orange glyphs sprouted from the main trash bin, and from the keeping, and the dressing rooms on the level above. That was getting close, and I quickly moved the map out of my direct line of sight.
#I’ll update it as soon as I get new information,# Celeste said, and I nodded.
#Thanks.#
The west stairs seemed to be farthest from the fire sites. I started down them, grateful that the lights were still working—they were a hardened system, I remembered, like the connection that contained Celeste. They were supposed to survive anything short of war, but then, Realpeace seemed to be treating this like a war. I wished I hadn’t left my tool kit on the stage.
I could smell smoke on level two, no stronger than it had been in the dressing rooms, but a constant presence. The alarm was sounding there, and about half the practice-room doors stood open. I hoped that meant that anyone there had already gotten out, and went on down toward level three. The smoke was thicker there, a stink and a faint haze in the air that made my eyes water. You could hear the alarms from the level above, but only faintly, and I braced myself for the noise as I pulled the manual lever. Nothing happened, and I cursed under my breath.
#Celeste. Why isn’t the alarm working?#
#I don’t know—and something seems to be clogging the system,# she answered. #I can barely hear you.#
#Shit,# I said again, and looked down the long hall. There were maybe a dozen practice rooms here, and the same number on the west side, beyond the lift shaft that ran through the center of the building. Unless one of the other alarms was working, I should knock on each of those doors, make sure whoever was in there got out safely. If there was anybody in there, I added silently. Surely anyone on this level would have smelled the smoke, and had the sense to get out. It wasn’t a chance I was prepared to take, and I dragged the schematic back into plain sight. The fire spots were still one level below me, and there was another alarm box by the lift; I would try that, I decided, and see if I could get any farther. #I’m going toward the lift,# I said, and felt rather than heard Celeste’s confirmation before I switched back to normal speech.
“Hello? Anybody here?” I pounded on the first two doors, zigzagging from one side of the hall to the other, and got no answer, kept beating on doors anyway without result. “The place is on fire! Hello?”
Still no answer, and I was beginning to think that everyone had gone already. The smoke caught in my throat, thicker now, and I doubled over, coughing, until it cleared. #Celeste? What’s the status?#
For a minute, I thought she wouldn’t answer, but then the schematic reappeared, a new orange dot flickering at the far end of this corridor. I swore again, afraid for the lights, and ahead of me the lift lights came on, warning that the door was open on the far side of the well.
“Hello? Bitha, Nonnie, you still here?”
“Fanning?” I couldn’t believe the relief I felt, hearing his voice, and a figure stepped around the curve of the lift shaft.
“Fortune?” It was the lead guitarist, Li, and I waved in answer. “What are you doing here?”
“Terez sent me to be sure everybody got out,” I called back, and Fanning peered over Li’s shoulder.
“I think we got everybody. Come on, we’ve got to get Nonnie’s board.”
As I got closer, I could see more people in the west corridor, a stocky woman and Dhao and a man I didn’t know, shoving a wheeled console toward the lift. The air was very smoky now, and warmer than it should be, and I saw Li staring down the length of the hall.
“Bitha, you checked the end rooms, right?”
“I did.” That was the man, his voice muffled by the neck of his shirt. He’d pulled it up over his nose and mouth, and I shivered at the reminder of the taggers on my security cassette. “They’re clear.”
“Thank God,” Fanning said, and jumped to help lever the console onto the lift platform.
I checked my map again, hoping that Celeste was keeping it updated. “Then if there’s nobody left, we should get out of here. Celeste says there’s active fire beyond the end wall.”
“Shit,” Dhao said, and gave the console a final shove. It rolled all the way onto the platform at last, and we crowded in after it.
“The power can’t last,” Li said. Her eyes were red with the smoke, and she rubbed impatiently at them.
“Better hope it does,” Dhao answered, and closed the lift doors.
The air in the lift shaft was cleaner, and I allowed myself a sigh of relief, looking around for a node. It was where it should be, right above the car’s control board, but the little bead was dark, and even when I looked directly at it, I felt no sting of connection. Still, the lift was moving, and I looked at Fanning again.
“You’re sure everyone’s out?”
He nodded, and the stocky woman said, “We’re sure. I checked, and so did Bitha.”
“We were the only people planning to stay,” Fanning said.
“So what happened?” I asked, and felt the platform shudder under my feet.
Fanning licked his lips, bracing himself against the side of the car, but answered steadily enough. “We smelled smoke and tried to warn the house, but the connections were down. The alarms would only work for a couple of minutes, they just kept resetting. We got everybody up, and then Lentino Jan went to tell the house staf
f while we went back for our gear.” He shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. “There’s stuff there we can’t afford to lose.”
I could have been trapped down there, looking for people who’d already left. I shoved that thought away, and closed my eyes, trying to feel Celeste’s presence. There was nothing, just the brown dark and the smell of smoke, though I couldn’t tell if it was here with us, or just clinging to our clothes and hair. The lift was still rising, though, and I opened my eyes to see the bead flicker and flash to life. Sensation flooded through me, welcome and overwhelming all at once, the adrenaline surge of the emergency warning, flashes as the warning crawls and the maps updated themselves—more fires now in the east side, but still on the lower levels—and then the pulse of an urgent identification program and something like pain at the bottom of it all, as though the system was aware of its failing parts.
#Celeste?# I said, and didn’t care who heard.
#Fortune. You should leave the lift as soon as possible. I cannot guarantee power to that line much longer.#
#There are six of us in here,# I said, and Dhao looked at me.
“Two more levels, and we’re at the street.”
#Two more levels,# I repeated, and heard Celeste sigh.
#I’ll try.#
“Trouble?” Fanning asked, and I tried to smile.
“Of course. It’s going to be close.”
Even as I spoke, the lights flickered. I heard the other man swear, saw Li’s whole body tense, but the lift kept rising. We had reached the subbasement, and then the basement; if the lift stopped here, we couldn’t rescue the console, but at least we could probably climb the shaft to safety. I could smell smoke more strongly now, and the vent fan had stopped: not good signs. The lift lurched, and the lights faded, dimming to half-power, the node winking in and out. I swore, softly, and Dhao’s hand hovered over the emergency brake.
#Celeste—# I said, and the lift lurched upward again.
“Made it,” Dhao exclaimed, and hit two controls at once. The doors opened—we were on the plaza level, where the lift opened directly into the service alley—and at the same time the lift dropped back about a handsbreadth. More red light flared, and I realized the emergency brake had held.
“Where the hell is Fire Control?” the stocky woman demanded, her voice half a sob, and wrestled the console around toward the door. “And how the hell am I going to get this out?”
Willing hands reached for it, and some of them were holding gray screws. I scrambled out of the lift cage, trying to get out of their way. Fanning and Li followed me, and behind us the stocky woman and her friend heaved the console out of the car.
The service alley was full of people, some waiting at the lift entrance, more at each of the doorways that led into the Empire’s back corridors, and the trafficway itself was crowded with piled equipment, instruments and costumes and unidentifiable crates and bundles strewn across the paving. I looked around for a connecting node, found one belonging to the cookshop that shared the mouth of the alley. The time appeared, and a menu glyph: less than fifteen minutes since I’d gone looking for the smell of smoke. Not a long time, but surely Fire Control should be on its way. I swung around again, looking for a Tin Hau node, found one over the lift door. It was lit, and as I met its line the sensations washed over me.
The air turned blood red, darker than before, pulsing with the beat of the alarms I could faintly hear sounding inside the Empire. My skin crawled with pins and needles, my joints ached with the strain of holding the failing systems together; my ears were filled with the high-pitched squealing of the raw connections, and then with the buzzing of Terez’s voice.
#—clear. Fortune? Any word from Fortune?#
#Fortune is outside,# Celeste answered.
#Confirmed,# I said quickly. #And level three is cleared.#
I heard what sounded like a double sigh over the rattle of the connections. #Thank God,# Terez said. #Celeste. Any luck with the foam sprinklers?#
#No luck,# Celeste said. #I think the system has been turned off at the source.#
#Shit, fuck, and damn,# Terez said. I heard her take a deep breath. #I can confirm Fire Control is on the way.#
Faintly, I heard sirens, the familiar tritone growing rapidly louder, and said, #I hear them, Rez. They’re coming.#
#Good—#
Whatever else she would have said was drowned in a pulse of static that hit me like a slap across the face. My eyes teared, blurring the node, and my skin stung as though I’d been on the surface, in the sun too long. I gasped for breath, and Terez said, #Fire in the stagehouse. Fire in the stagehouse and in the mezzanine. Everybody out now. I repeat, everybody out now. There’s nothing you can do, so get out now.#
#Terez!# I shouted, but it was Celeste who answered.
#She’s out of reach. The stagehouse is on fire in three places.#
How the hell could it spread so fast? I wondered, and answered my own question. Realpeace had to have planted bombs, some sort of device, that was the only possible answer. #Celeste. Get yourself out of there.#
There was a pause, the static singing along the wires of my suit, and when she spoke again, her voice was small. #I can’t. The outside connections are down.#
And the headbox was in my dressing room. “Celeste!” I cried aloud, and lunged for the nearest door. Someone caught me, a tall man, midworld, who spun me back from the door.
“You can’t go in there, you’ll get yourself killed.”
“Everybody’s out,” another man said, and I shook my head.
“Celeste?” Fanning said, his voice sharpening, and the tall man looked at him.
“The ASM said everyone was accounted for.”
Fanning shook his head. “It’s a construct.”
“Fan—” I stopped abruptly, even now not wanting to say more, and Fanning shook his head again.
“You can’t go in, Cissy. The whole place could go. Listen, Fire’s on its way, they’ll take care of it—”
“The stagehouse is burning,” I said. “Let me go.”
He looked up then, and his eyes widened. I spun in his hold, looking up after him, and saw the first curls of smoke, fat and black and ugly, oozing from the little windows at the top of the house.
“They won’t get here in time,” I said. “You’ve got to let me go.”
He tightened his hold on my arms. “You go in there, Cissy, you’re dead.”
I looked around, found another node above this door, and let the chaos wash over me. I could feel Celeste struggling to hold the house systems together, could feel the power fading, the static and the sense of her cutting in and out as the fire reached the feeder lines. #Celeste,# I said, and knew she couldn’t hear. I hung on to the node anyway, willing her to escape, to find some way out, feeling the destruction stabbing through my bones. The haze of static blinded me, a coarse screen across my vision; I could find no sense in the flashes of light and the sounds that filled my ears. And then the node went out, and I was left alone. I sagged in Fanning’s grasp, too numb to cry, and the sound of the sirens was suddenly deafening.
“Clear the alley,” an enormous voice said. “Clear the alley at once, people, and get this crap out of here.”
“Come on, Cissy,” Fanning said, and shook me hard. “You got to help me.”
I managed to nod, took the carryall he shoved into my hands and slung it over my shoulder. He handed me a heavy cylinder that I guessed was a drum case as well, and I staggered obediently after him out of the alley. Behind us, Fire Control moved in, just that minute too late.
Tin Hau Plaza was jammed with people, come to see the Tin Hau Empire’s last and greatest show. There were at least a thousand of them, crowded together behind the Security barriers, and I could see grim-faced techs in Air Supply vests looking from them to the theater. The air was unusually hot and lifeless: Air Supply would be regulating the intake as carefully as they could to keep from feeding the fire. People were shouting orders, smoke-roughened voices di
storted by projection mikes, but I couldn’t be bothered to listen. I set the drum case down beside the overburdened sled that held the rest of Fire/Work’s gear, and turned to watch the end of the destruction.
Fire Control had brought up a couple of floaters, were running a line from the plaza’s foam system to the Empire itself. There was a tank truck as well, with half a dozen lines running from it, and people in white heat-armor were manipulating hoses and running into the main doors. Smoke was streaming from the top of the stagehouse, spilling out between the columns, and I could taste the burning metal on the back of my tongue. I could see flame now, too, hot and hungry, and something was moving behind the display screen that topped the main door. I frowned at it, unable to imagine what it was, and the glass exploded, fragments raining like black ice onto the pavement. I ducked in spite of myself, hearing screams behind me though we were well back of the line, and the flames rolled out, an enormous cloud of fire, turning to thick smoke at the top of the cloud. The floaters darted in, training their nozzles on it, but the fire seemed to absorb it with ease. There was more shouting, and the armored figures began to retreat back out through the main door. I counted them as they came out, one, two, four, seven, all that I’d seen go in, their armor stained and blackened, and then something moved behind them, little more than a shadow in the smoke. For a second, I thought I’d miscounted, that it was one of the firefighters, but the flames from overhead glinted off metal, and the silver karakuri staggered through the doorway. Its skin was fire-blackened, the right side of its face distorted, that eye dark and empty, but it was still moving, pulling free of the smoke that curled around it as though it wanted to keep it in. The firefighters fell back, startled, and I saw the bronze behind it, and then the gold and the copper, leaning on each other’s shoulders. They were all scorched, all marred, and the copper’s left hand was shrunken and deformed, as though it had been held in the flames, but they were all there. And the transformer was with them, too, rolling clumsily on five wheels, the sixth lost somewhere in the inferno, and behind it, around it, was a swarm of miscellaneous karakuri—floor cleaners from the stagehouse, meter-high domes topped with a single working arm; a food-service cart, its covers warped and stained; a trio of messenger-karakuri, connection consoles on thick metal legs; even a handful of the little house rovers that checked the physical plant after house, scurrying at the others’ feet and wheels.
Dreaming Metal Page 32
