Dead of Veridon

by Tim Akers

Her face was bound in an iron mask, fitted with brass around the eyes and along the jaw. Eyes hidden by matte black goggles that flexed and whirred as we stood there, staring at each other. A single thick braid of dark hair coiled down her back. She reached toward me, and put a hand to her belt.

  "Back door," Wilson barked, and we jumped across the floor, toppling narrow tables in our wake. She followed us through the broken glassware, the jangling forks, and the yells of the Badge who were just now reaching the iron stairs.

  Chapter Five

  A Girl in Iron

  BARS LIKE THIS have a lot of back doors. It's sensible. The sort of place where, if the Badge comes in the front door, there are going to be a lot of people who might want out of the building. Quickly. Wilson and I fit this description exactly, with maybe double emphasis on the quickly. The girl was of a like mind, though possibly of opposite intent. I assumed Wilson would just head to one of these many doors. Incorrectly.

  Wilson just ran to the window, snatching up a chair for protection as he went, and plunged straight through. No time to adjust, once I knew what he was doing, so I stuttered to a halt and fell through the open window. Of course, the next window over was a fire escape. Nice, reliable ladder, just out of reach. Wilson snagged it with his spindly spider arms and swung away. I fell.

  Just far enough that it hurt when I got a hand around the iron filigree that lined the second floor. Hurt a lot. The skin of my hand opened up, my shoulder wrenched, and then I swung like a battering ram into the wall. Winded, my grip slick with my own blood, I was sliding down before I could get a better handle. Hit the floor with both boots and my knees crumpled. I curled onto the ground and gasped until my lungs opened up. Wilson landed next to me and started pulling at my elbow.

  "Get up, man. Get to your feet," he hissed without looking at me. I tried to convey the seriousness of my wounds, and how a lot of it was his damn fault for leading me through a window, but all I could get out was a squeaking wheeze. Finally he looked down at me. "Stop screwing around, Jacob. We're very interesting to all the wrong people."

  I looked up and saw the girl, leaning out over the blood-spattered railing. She had her strange eyes on the street below. I followed her eyes. A second group of the Badge were nearly on us. I could hear the ones who had rushed inside still yelling. Our waitress was nowhere to be seen. Typical. The girl looked down at us, almost curiously, then disappeared.

  "Come on," I croaked. "We should be going."

  "I've been saying that," Wilson said. We went in opposite directions, then I stumbled to a halt and ran after him.

  "Remember next time," I yelled after him. "Walls. Windows. Open pits." I spat a wad of blood onto the cobbles. "I need ladders for that sort of thing."

  "You need to learn to adapt, Jacob. Take some risks."

  I muttered nonsensically, because that's all I could think of. We scrambled around a corner and lit off down an alley. The Badge was behind us, clumsily pushing past the stacked crates and rubbish bins. Those jackets of theirs were not made for pursuit. They needed to rethink their uniforms.

  "So who do you think that was?" Wilson asked me as we came out into a wider avenue and I caught up with him. I looked over at him with wide eyes. Still trying to catch my breath after that fall.

  "Talk about it. Later. Now is running," I gasped.

  "Fair enough. But it's an interesting question. I mean, was our waitress trying to get the Badge because of her, or because of us? Or did she send the waitress to get the Badge, to help capture us?"

  "Fascinating," I puffed. "Run."

  "Yes, yes. This way," he said, then darted into a side alley. Again I stumbled to a stop, had to double back to follow. We were going to have a talk when this was over.

  The alley went about ten feet, turned sharply twice, then ended in a high, brick canyon. No ladder.

  "Oh, for the love of gods, Wilson," I was bent over, hand on my knees, trying to find some oxygen that could do the job of completely filling my lungs. "We talked about this. Walls. I can't just..." I fluttered my fingers. "I'm not a damn butterfly."

  "I would never have mistaken you for one. You know, you're really out of practice with this stuff. Like you've forgotten your buddy Wilson here plans for this sort of thing."

  He bounded up the wall, spider arms clattering against the bricks. He disappeared over the lip of the building. A second later a knotted rope coiled down the wall, landing at my feet. Wilson's narrow face and sharp smile reappeared.

  "Up, up," he said, then was gone.

  I put a hand around the rope and gave it a tug. It wasn't too far up, but farther than I'd climbed in a while.

  "Not much better, buddy," I whispered. Didn't want him to hear me. Cutting the rope wasn't out of the question, if he got in one of his moods. Arm over arm, feet pressed against the bricks like a mountain climber, I went up. Halfway there, the Badge arrived.

  "You!" they yelled, because there were so many other people they could be talking to. "On the rope! Come down from there!"

  Wilson reappeared, counted heads, and drew his knife. He jerked his head, indicating that I should hurry, because clearly I had been taking my time. This was like a vacation for me. Words, Wilson. We were going to have words.

  "Come down or we'll fire!" one of them yelled. He drew a shortrifle, to emphasize the point. I found that I could go faster. Another of them started up after me. A healthy lad, who had not recently fallen from a window. He was making good time.

  "Come on, come on, son. Up, up!" Wilson spat. My arms were getting numb, and I couldn't keep my boots on the wall. Everything that wasn't numb was on fire. I tried to give him an angry look, but I suspect it came out as plumb exhaustion. He grimaced, sheathed the knife and then disappeared behind the lip of the building.

  A second later the rope shook. I almost let go, but then Wilson's straining face popped into view.

  "Hold on!" he said through tiny, gritted teeth. I held. He pulled with all his many arms and his unnaturally hard legs. Up I went. The Badgeman yelped and fell. The first bullet skittered off the brick just as I rolled onto the roof. Wilson and I lay in a tangle of very many arms. The rope tensed again, and Wilson casually leaned over and cut it.

  "You're in terrible shape," he said. "Getting soft in your criminal ways."

  "Falling from a window does that to me," I said, still trying to get my breath sorted. I took the loose end of the rope in my hand and gave it a shake. "You have these all over the city?"

  "Escape routes? Some. Not as many as I used to. It's been a quiet couple of years for us." He stood, and pulled me to my feet, though I'm not sure I was ready for that much verticality. "Good to be at it again, huh?"

  "Huh," I answered. Dared a peek over the edge, ducked back when all I saw were shortrifles pointing at me. A couple shots went off, but nothing too close. "Well. What now?"

  "They'll go around in a minute. Come up the stairs or something. We should try to get to the next. Huh."

  "Huh?" I repeated. Looked at him, then where he was looking.

  The girl was several buildings over, moving across the roof with a dancer's grace. She came to the edge and leaped, like a gazelle clearing a pond. Beautiful to look at, if not for the mask. If not for the chase. If not for the fact that everything about her stank of predator, not prey.

  "Interesting," Wilson whispered. I grabbed his coat and pulled him away.

  "Interesting later," I spat, and we ran. So much running today. I really was out of shape.

  We went rooftop-to-rooftop for a while, until it became clear that I was the weak link in that exchange. She was fast, Wilson was fast. I was tired. Wilson pried open a rooftop hatch and we clambered down into a shuttered factory. It was set up to manufacture the sort of machinery that cogwork couldn't replicate. The first ladder took us to a catwalk that creaked dangerously under our feet. The factory floor was bisected by machinery that was draped in white sheets and dust. A partially dissected assembly line snaked between the ghost machines. The only li
ght was what little leaked in from the stained skylights in the roof. In that semi-dusk glow, the draped machines loomed in a field of darkness.

  At the prompting of the unstable catwalk, Wilson and I found a ladder down to the main floor. We'd barely touched boot to concrete when we heard footsteps on the shingled roof. I pulled the anansi into the forest of machinery and ducked under some of the drapery. Dust puffed up around us. The floor was littered with dead bugs that crunched underfoot. I tried to not think about the dead body in Crane's room, and its plume of maker beetles.

  The footsteps on the roof slowed, the ceiling beams creaking with the girl's passage. Finally they stopped. Wilson and I sat still, breathing in dust and dead bugs. Wilson probably didn't mind, but I was getting uncomfortable. Minutes passed, and then the footsteps continued. The hatch groaned open, then footsteps on the ladder. The catwalk creaked under her feet.

  "Did you see an exit anywhere?" Wilson whispered to me. It sounded deafening in the shuttered factory. I shook my head and waited for the footsteps overhead to stop. They didn't. The girl kept walking slowly along the catwalk. Several minutes, and her progress continued. She had to be halfway across the factory by now. The catwalk sounded terrible, the metal pinging and groaning under her feet.

  "She's past us," Wilson breathed in my ear, then scooted a little distance away and pulled the drapery up so he could look out.

  "What are you doing?" I hissed, pulling him back in. He shrugged me off. How was she not hearing this?

  "Looking for a way out. We can't just sit here forever."

  "Maybe we can. Maybe the catwalk will collapse and then she'll stop being our problem."

  Wilson looked thoughtfully up at the ceiling, then shrugged. "I'm not sure that would stop her from being our problem."

  He went back to looking out from under the machine, then slipped completely out. I heard him cross the aisle to another mothballed unit. I sat there cursing under my breath, then followed.

  Either my eyes had adjusted to the artificial dusk of the factory floor, or there was more light in here now. I could clearly see the skeletal framework of the catwalk, criss-crossing the building. There were many machines on the floor that had not been draped, too. They stood out as blacker blacks in the darkness. Glad we hadn't run into any of those on our way to our hiding place.

  Wilson was crouched behind one such machine, his hands lightly on its surface, peaking out around the corner. I got behind him, then stretched up to look over the machine. There was the girl, high up among the catwalks. She was almost to the other side of the building.

  "Can we get back to the ladder and get out of here?" I asked.

  "Not without her noticing. And then we're right back where we were, jumping from roof to roof." He looked at me over his shoulder. "Have you suddenly developed a preternatural ability to keep up with me?" I grimaced, which somehow he saw. "So we need to find an exit on this floor, and a quiet way to get to it."

  I stood up a little taller, risking a look around the factory floor. Lots of these mothballed machines, and a raised track that once moved some kind of product from station to station. Carriage factory? It was impossible to tell in this condition. Worse, all the machinery prevented me from clearly seeing the walls. After several seconds of frustration, I found the closest thing to a door. Pulling Wilson back, I explained.

  "Whatever they made here, it was pretty big. At the end of the assembly line there's a galley door. Fifteen feet tall, with sliding shutters."

  "That's it?"

  "That's all I can see. Best news is that it's on our end of the factory. The line starts down there, where she is. Comes out over here," I said, pointing.

  "Galley door will be bolted shut," Wilson said. "Probably from the outside."

  "You're saying you can't pick a lock through a wall?" I asked.

  "No, Jacob. There's the wall to contend with, and..." he stopped when he realized I wasn't serious. Gave me a look. Probably the same look he gave to things he was about to kill and eat. "Point is, even if we get to it, we can't get through it."

  "You've never worked in a factory, I take it," I said. "There'll be an entrance beside the galley."

  "Like a cat door," Wilson answered. "Fine. That will be more traditionally locked." He peered back around the machine. The girl was standing immobile, facing the wall opposite us. She had her hands open, as though in a benediction. "Strange girl. But I think she'll still hear us."

  "She seems to be pretty distracted," I said. "I think we could make a break for it."

  "Sure," Wilson said. "You first."

  "You're the one who's going to be picking the lock."

  "Which is why it's important that you go first. In case she hears you, you can run off in some other direction and distract her while I get the door open."

  "Seriously?" I asked. Wilson shrugged.

  "I just don't want to go first," he said.

  "What happened to 'Good to be back at it,' huh?"

  "It was better on the roofs. I knew what I was doing." He folded into himself a little and shivered. "This place is like a damn tomb."

  "Tomb," I said, quietly. "Dead bodies. Trying to kill me."

  "What?" Wilson asked.

  "Nothing," I said. Rubbed my face and checked where the girl was one more time. "Nothing. Let's go. Like you said, if she notices me I'll jump off the other way. Get the door open and I'll come around."

  "If who notices," he asked. Nervously.

  "The girl, Wilson," I said, then I noticed the way he was staring past me. Back to where the girl was. Had been. Was gone.

  "Oh, hell," I whispered. I stood up. A room full of ghost machines and black shadows, the floor littered with the dry shells of bugs. "Just get to the door. Go."

  "Jacob, this is getting weird fast. Maybe we should..."

  "Go!" I yelled, pulling my revolver out and giving the anansi a shove. He stumbled gracelessly, then gathered himself and skittered off toward the galley door. His footsteps pattered and echoed off the high rafters. Another sound, too. Smooth, even, soft. Another set of feet. Hard to tell where it was coming from.

  "Wilson, quiet for a second. Quiet!"

  "What?" he hissed, loudly.

  "Be quiet!"

  He was. We stood twenty feet apart, immobile, but I could have sworn I could hear his heartbeat. Nearly as loud as mine. No other sound. Nothing. We stayed that way for a half-handful of heartbeats, then I nodded at him to continue. He crept off, much quieter this time. I could barely hear it. And then, footsteps. Over there.

  I pulled myself quickly up onto the machine I had been hiding behind to get a better look. The girl's strange head bounced smoothly into view, moving along the far wall, one hand against it. I took an off-balance shot that got nowhere near her. She went down.

  "Get her?" Wilson yelled from somewhere close to the door.

  "No," I yelled back. "I think she knows we're here, though."

  "Yeah," Wilson answered.

  My eyes were getting used to the light of the factory. I squatted down and moved laterally, edging closer to where I'd seen our lovely pursuer. Away from Wilson, in case she decided to follow the anansi. Give me a chance to sneak up behind her. And if she followed me, then he had more time to get the door open. Quietly, I crept from machine to machine, my feet barely dusting the floor. I held the revolver in front of me and stepped around a corner, sighting into the darkness.

  Abruptly, the revolver was no longer in front of me, and a moment later pain registered throughout my hand. The hand was no longer in front of me, for that matter, and then the pain was in my jaw and chest. Dimly, I recognized the sound of a pistol clattering to the floor and sliding some distance away. Also a boot, moving through the air in a way I usually associate with birds of prey. I was on my back, scrambling away like a crab. She came around the corner. In the darkness the lenses of her eyes glittered like lightning through distant thunderheads.

  "Wilson!" I yelled, although it wasn't as loud or as urgent as I wanted.
I tried to get to my feet while still retreating, and only managed to cartwheel flat on my back. Dust haloed around me and the breath left me. Twice in one day. Good times. I got the heels of my hands under my back and sat up. She stopped, just out of reach, weight on her back heel, the toes of her front leg barely off the ground. Like an insect, a spider, tasting the web. Waiting to strike.

  The lights came on, accompanied by several rolling booms around the perimeter of the factory floor. Smoke rose up. I threw my arm over my head to shield my eyes from the sudden brightness. The girl didn't move, other than to cock her head to one side.

  "Badge!" a machine-enhanced voice rolled out from all sides of the building. "We have the room surrounded and all exits blocked. Come out and submit yourself to the Council's justice!" The words echoed through the building, crashing against each other and distorting in the high places of the factory. Carefully, I got to my feet, never taking my eyes off the girl.

  She ignored me. As soon as the noise of the machine-voice settled down, a wave of crashing boots shuffled through dozens of doors that we couldn't see. They were in the building, all sides of it, from the sound of it. She gave up her fighting stance and stared at the ceiling for two heartbeats. I saw my pistol, under the fluttering sheet of the machine just behind me. Decided not to go for it yet.

  The girl stared at the machine behind me, then the next one, then another. She walked to the last one with stiff determination. She ripped off the sheet that covered it, revealing an antique-looking control panel, all switches and valves and dials that looked like they hadn't been used in a generation. Without pause she began throwing switches, going from lever to lever like it was a memorized routine and she was being timed. The switches threw with a satisfyingly mechanical clack, like primitive musical instruments. She went through a half-dozen complicated motions, then put her hand on a throw-wheel and looked back at me. I had been going for the pistol. I stopped; she looked from me to the revolver, then back to my face. I couldn't read anything in that iron mask. I wasn't even sure she was alive, the way she moved. Like a routine, like a show. Finally she spun the wheel.