Black and White

by Jackie Kessler

  CHAPTER 16

  IRIDIUM

  When walking the streets of New Chicago, give the sewers a wide berth. It’s the city’s worst-kept secret that the sewers are part of what the locals refer to as the Rat Network … and it’s said that gang-related activity occurs in those tunnels on a daily (and nightly) basis.

  The Street-Smart Guide to Illinois, Eighth Edition

  The Undergoths’ tunnels were lit by naked bulbs that hissed and flickered when Iridium passed by.

  Boxer jerked at his tie, chin weaving from side to side. “This place gives me the damn creeps, Iri.”

  Iridium didn’t slow her steps at all, but she created a light globe that floated gently through the dank, stinking air over hers and Boxer’s heads.

  His mouth twisted up at the side. “Thanks.”

  “This guy better not be jerking me around,” Iridium muttered. “There won’t be anything left of him for this purported vigilante if he is.” She cracked one gloved fist against the other. White unikilt, black stockings, black gloves, black boots. Say what you wanted about the rest of the Academy, their Hero Branding and Fashion course was solid. Iridium knew that at almost six feet, in her costume, she looked positively intimidating—and she intended to use that to her full advantage against the Undergoths.

  A solid-steel access door loomed up out of the gloom, flanked by two gangsters in the colored battle kilts and leather vests accented by bolts and other found metals that characterized the Undergoths. Iridium could recite gang lore in her sleep, but all that mattered now were the bullet points.

  The Undergoths were an old gang, populating the tunnels after the waters from the Flood of ’09 receded. They followed a single leader and a council of generals. They tended toward edged weapons, petty larceny, and hit-and-run heists. Far from their Rome-sacking ancestors, the Undergoths were major power players in New Chicago’s criminal faction in only one way: They controlled every tunnel, every illegal access port, every trapdoor and passageway that ran through the ruins of the old city.

  And they stank to high heaven.

  “Stop,” said the gangster in the blue kilt.

  “We have a meeting,” said Iridium, cocking her hip. By her side, Boxer moved his hand to the butt of his plasgun pistol. Iridium held up her hand to him. “I’m sure we won’t need it, Box. These boys don’t look old enough to shave, never mind fight.”

  As New Chicago had rebuilt grid after grid and closed off square miles of ruined blocks, the Undergoths’ territory had grown exponentially. Rival gangs that ran in the sewers and transport tunnels without leave told stories of bodies ripped limb from limb, pipe trees with severed hands for fruit, and screams that echoed for days through the Rat Network. Frankly, Iridium thought their reputation was highly overrated.

  The Undergoth clenched his fist. “Shut your mouth.”

  “I know you’re not being rude to a guest of your leader,” said Iridium. “That’d just be bad for business.”

  “Be quiet and let me pat you down,” he snarled, pulling a Talon cutter from his belt.

  Iridium let one eyebrow go up. Talons were police-issue rescue weapons, designed to bite through the tilithium hides of floatcars and cleave brick like butter.

  “Freudian hang-ups are an ugly thing,” she said. “You should channel that aggression into something productive, like holohockey. Or taking a shower. I can smell you even in this rotten air.”

  “Shut up,” said the Undergoth for the third time, and reached for her.

  Iridium pushed at him, felt her power sizzle against the oily fog of the air, then the Undergoth was encased in a column of light, as if he’d been a statue on a podium in Heroes’ Hall.

  He started screaming almost immediately as the light burned white-hot around him, snapping dully as the Undergoth beat against it. The skin on his face and bare torso started to blister, then to flake away.

  “UV rays,” Iridium told Boxer, when her companion’s lip curled in disgust.

  Boxer shrugged and focused on a lizard skittering along the tunnel’s ceiling, its seven-toed feet tapping out a syncopated rhythm and its rat’s tail swishing as the gangster’s cries floated around them.

  Iridium felt the sweat creep over her again. Just as Jet had to fight to reel in her idiotic shadows, pushing light waves from the nonvisible spectrum was a task Iridium didn’t attempt if she could help it. The further away her power was, the harder it was to grasp. And that left her tired, wrung out, like she’d just hit a punching bag until her legs went out from under her.

  Only the limit of your imagination, her father had whispered to her, just before the Senator slapped stun-cuffs on him and hauled him away to face the Executive Committee. Your power is controlled only by that, Iridium.

  “I’m … sorry …” the Undergoth moaned. He sank to his knees, red as a summer sunset all over his exposed skin.

  “You’re damn right, you’re sorry,” Iridium said. She let go of the ultraviolet throbbing along just beyond her eyes and turned to the other Undergoth, who had watched the proceedings with the childlike expression the Academy had taught her to associate with hash chuffers. “You want to try and pat me down, big boy?”

  He gulped. “N-no, ma’am.”

  “Good lad,” said Iridium. “Take us to see who we’re here to see, before we’re late. Being late is very rude, I hope you know.”

  Boxer whistled under his breath as he stepped over the burned Undergoth. “Who pissed in your corn product this morning, Iri?”

  Iridium favored Boxer with a tight smile. “I’m just not in the mood. Never am, for gangs.”

  “Who is? Especially for these freaks,” Boxer muttered.

  The Undergoth banged on the metal door with the side of his fist and it rolled back to reveal a much older tunnel, rounded at the top. Construction halos were spiked up at intermittent intervals along the tunnel. Iridium had to bend over, and the hulking gangster ahead of her was hunched almost double.

  A greenish light gleamed ahead, and the tunnel opened up into an old water main, the exchange an arched chamber that housed a few fires and makeshift shelters from metal and old sheets of plast. Green plas burners gave off steam like the smoke of a funeral pyre, and the only sound was the low hiss of static. An Undergoth sat at a bank of pirate radar controls, twisting dials between hits on a junk pipe.

  “Radar transmission,” said Iridium to Boxer. “Jamming the sweeps from up above.”

  “This way,” murmured the Undergoth, pushing aside a curtain made of chains. “Alaric is waiting for you.”

  “I’m all aquiver,” Iridium muttered as she stepped through.

  Behind the curtain, a skinny figure with long, white limbs like tentacles and black hair like a grease-stained waterfall reclined on a lopsided chair made from bones. Animal or human, Iridium couldn’t tell, but she pulled her power a little closer and felt Boxer close in behind her.

  “Iridium,” Alaric rasped. “Nice to finally meet you.”

  “What’s your problem, Alaric?” Iridium said, as a hulking Undergoth blocked her path. “Afraid of little old me?”

  “Everyone in Wreck City with any sense is.” Alaric smiled, revealing filed teeth. “Come closer. Hugo, stand aside.”

  Iridium came to a stop a few feet from Alaric. If his black kilt and the bolt through his eyebrow wouldn’t stop most people, his pointed teeth and smell would.

  “As I told your associate,” said Alaric, “we down-dwellers seem to have acquired ourselves a vigilante admirer.”

  “Not in my grid, you didn’t,” said Iridium. “Freelance justicers know to take their issues elsewhere, if Corp doesn’t tag them and put them in Blackbird.” Or get them as kids and send them to the Academy, which was exponentially worse.

  “Oh,” said Alaric, stretching his mouth into a wider grin still. “But I have proof.” He sat up straight and moved his leather vest away from his heart, pointing at the twin black marks there. “Come closer, Iridium.”

  “She can see fine f
rom right here,” said Boxer.

  “No, it’s all right,” said Iridium, looking at Alaric. “He knows what happens if there’s a misunderstanding.”

  Alaric wheezed a laugh. “Indeed I do. Hugo, go get me a chuffer It’s damper than a whore’s ass after she just rode a waterslide.”

  “Show me,” Iridium said, stepping to the Undergoth leader. He reminded her of a spider, crouched in the center of a wispy, rotted web.

  “It caused me great pain. I won’t lie to save face,” he purred.

  Alaric’s chest was red and swollen, and a mark like a lightning bolt had been burned into his pectoral, cauterized fast so that the flesh had gone black and dead. It was too stylized to be a lightning bolt, Iridium realized—more like a pictograph that you saw around power stations, warning of high voltage.

  “This is supposed to convince me that you had a run-in with a vigilante?” Iridium said.

  “Well,” Alaric said, “I didn’t brand myself with this symbol. We don’t deal much in light and heat down here.” He sighed and moved a hand through his greasy hair. “I was at an entry point to the Rat Network, minding my own business, when your typical black-clad figure of justice swooped in, assaulted me and my underlings, then disappeared after he’d given me a warning.”

  “About what?” said Iridium. “You Undergoths aren’t exactly criminal masterminds. No offense.”

  Alaric laughed softly, like steam boiling against skin. “I’m just passing information and seeing if aid will be given.”

  “Let me guess. You boys get tired of holding flashlights for the streeties and decide to get a piece of the pie? Because I admire enterprising spirit, I really do, but if you’re surprised that you’ve attracted a vigilante, then you’re in for further rude fucking surprises down the road.” Iridium tapped her finger against her chin. “Or … you’ve got someone holding your bankroll, someone a justicer would actually be upset about.” She leaned in. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re a bunch of errand boys, just like the Squadron.”

  Alaric stopped smiling. “You’re a bright one.”

  “Certified genius,” said Iridium. “Now, are you wasting my time or do you have something to offer?”

  “Like what?”

  “Get out of Wreck City, and I’ll look into rousting this man in black. Divorce yourself from this new sponsor, because he’s obviously more trouble than he’s worth. Go back to crawling around in the dark. It’s what you’re good at.”

  Alaric sat forward, propping his skeletal elbow on his equally skeletal knee. “Or you’ll what, Miss Firefly?”

  Iridium finally returned his smile. “Or I will come down here and personally put the power of the sun down every filthy hole that you freaks call home. I’ll make it so damn bright, your eyes will burn out of your head. I’ll light up the Rat Network like Yuletide Eve. And then there really won’t be much use for you anymore, will there, Alaric?”

  Hugo, who had reappeared holding a junk pipe made from an empty cola bottle, made a move toward her, and Iridium formed a strobe around her hand, light snapping.

  “It’s all right,” said Alaric. “Hugo, no need to be cross.” He considered Iridium, who kept the light high, spilling brightness into corners that hadn’t been touched by it for a very long time. More bones glowed under the strobe, and more eyes than Iridium felt entirely comfortable with shone.

  “You don’t need to be thinking about this for such a long time, Alaric,” she said. “Everyone on the surface knows Wreck City is mine. You and your pasty band really want to test me?”

  “No,” said Alaric slowly. “No, I don’t believe we do. Go roust this vigilante, Iridium. We’ll stay out of your grid.”

  “And knock off whatever got you attention,” said Iridium. “It’s clearly not worth it.”

  “Have a pleasant journey back to the light,” Alaric said, reclining on his throne.

  Iridium turned her back on him, a move she wouldn’t pull with many gang leaders, but Alaric needed to be taught that she wasn’t afraid of him, filed teeth and bone throne or no.

  “Come on, Boxer,” she said loudly. “Let’s get back to where you can’t see the air.”

  “Good luck, firefly!” Alaric called after her.

  Iridium turned on him with a bright gaze. “I may need a lot of things, but luck’s not one of them.”

  CHAPTER 17

  JET

  Intrepid Reporter Still Missing

  Headline from New Chicago Tribune, October 30, 2112

  Hello, Joan.”

  “Hi, old man,” Jet replied, the code sounding smooth, natural. Night wanted a clean channel. Grinning broadly at the screen, Jet said, “It’s nice to hear from you.” As she spoke, her fingers flew over the vidphone’s touch pad, tapping a specific sequence of keys.

  “I had a few minutes free, so I thought I’d say hello.”

  That meant to hurry. She tucked a stray lock of blond hair behind her left ear, brushing her fingers against her lobe as she did so. Then she bit back a grimace. She’d taken her comlink out hours ago; Ops wasn’t perched in her ear, ready to listen in. One final tap on the keypad, then she dropped the overeager smile. The line was secure. “Clean channel. Go ahead.”

  Night’s face also shed its uncharacteristic smile. “Good to know you’re home, safe and sound.” He stared at her, and even from the flat monitor and without the benefit of his retired cowl, his gaze was piercing. Night’s eyes were brown like the darkest of chocolate—not hazel, as Jet had once believed with all the adamancy of a schoolgirl crush—and his pupils seemed to absorb light. His gaze wasn’t wrong, exactly, but something about it made most people uneasy.

  Including Jet. But she was too tired—and, to be honest, too off-center with Bruce right there—to be intimidated. Besides, Night was many things to her—her onetime mentor, her former proctor, a current colleague and even, sometimes, a friend. But he wasn’t her father.

  She said, “I had to get ready for the Goldwater show.”

  “Yes. I saw you. You let Wurtham get to you.”

  He’s lucky I didn’t punch his capped teeth in. “Sorry,” she said demurely. “I should have handled myself better.”

  “Indeed. And I expected your call earlier today.”

  “I just got back.”

  Okay, only minor stretching of the truth, that. She’d been just about to do something incredibly stupid with Bruce, but then she would have called Night.

  Thank the Light he’d called when he did. Had she really been about to kiss Bruce? A man she didn’t know at all—a man who worked for her? Just thinking about him made her body do very unsettling things. She noticed peripherally that Bruce had come into the kitchen to stand just out of view of the vid, but easily within her eye contact: unobtrusive, but ready in case she needed him. The perfect Runner. With such sensual lips …

  “I wouldn’t have called you again if it weren’t important,” Night said, his voice brusque.

  At that, Jet stopped thinking about Bruce and instead focused entirely on the vidscreen. “I know. Is everything okay?”

  His eyes narrowed, and Jet suddenly felt like she was a twelve-year-old at the Academy. “Let’s see. Besides letting the head of Everyman fluster you so badly that you stormed off the set of the most popular talk show in the Americas, you also allowed a rabid to escape, along with e-seventy-five thousand in digichips, after publicly declaring you had to rein in a villain.” His dark eyes glittered with anger. “What do you think, Jet? Is everything okay? Or are you in so far over your head that a life preserver is pointless?”

  “I did have to rein in a villain,” she said, more than a little defensive. She hated having to explain herself. “She got away.”

  “Mayor Lee’s having conniption fits over the aborted ceremony. All the vids caught him floundering. He’s full of so much self-righteous ire, Everyman’s thinking of recruiting him for the cause.”

  She rolled her eyes. Freaking politics would be the death of her. “It’s not like I snuck
out to go dancing,” she said. Not that Lee would have noticed if she had quietly slipped away; the mayor was so full of himself that she was surprised there’d been room for her on the stage. But the police officers would have ratted her out. Loudly.

  “I know, but you made him look bad.”

  Deep breath. Hold it. Release. Now, speak without shouting. “I did no such thing.”

  “Worse, you don’t even have a rabid to show for it.”

  “The paperwork’s all been filed.” She shot a meaningful look at Bruce, who nodded. Translation: Yes, all the forms are in order. Thank the Light. That would have been all she needed after this fiasco: getting cited for breaking code.

  “Jet, understand that you humiliated the mayor—”

  “I was doing my job.”

  “—and now you can’t even prove you went after the bad guy. Yes,” he said, cutting her off before she could speak, “I know, you filed the reports. But anyone can do the actual filing, and Runners have been known to elaborate when persuaded by the right extrahuman.”

  That stung. “I’m not a liar!”

  “I know that. But the mayor …” Night shrugged. “He’s a little one-track minded. It’s an election year. He’s out for blood. Or headlines. He’ll take, either.”

  “My skinsuit reeks from where I got hurled into the Dumpster,” Jet said, seething. “Maybe we can use it to prove my word.”

  “He’s not interested in your innocence. You know that. And he’s calling in favors. Threatening to pull New Chicago’s sponsorship.”

  Damn Iri to the never-ending Darkness.

  “He’d never do it,” Jet growled. “He was all but declaring his undying love for me this afternoon.”

  “And now the honeymoon’s over, and divorce is on the horizon. This is serious, Jet.” Night paused, and Jet steeled herself for the worst. “The EC’s toying with putting you on probation.”

  Fury shot through her. “What?”

  “Corp doesn’t want to lose New Chicago’s resources. The EC will do almost anything to keep Lee in their pocket, including sacrificing you.”