Impact Velocity (The Physics of Falling)

by Leah Petersen

  “Oh?”

  I kept working on the tiny device in my hand, not looking up. “Yeah. It was going to be a milestone year, for us anyway.” I glanced at Jonathan, only to look away again at the compassion on his face.

  “It’s fifteen years since he gave me those cuff links for our birthday. That was the day I realized that what had been puzzling me about him was that he really was as genuine as he seemed. He had this great sense of humor and really saw me as a person.” I shrugged. “I had cuff links made for him this year. With his real initials, not the official RK. These have PDK on them.”

  “Peter Dawes-Killearn,” Jonathan said quietly. I just nodded.

  “On the island I was thinking that if I ever got them back, I’d give them to Owen.” I looked up at the gray ceiling. “I won’t be giving Pete anything at all this year.”

  “Nonsense.”

  I stared at Jonathan. He huffed a laugh, shaking his head at me.

  “You never see these things, do you?” He pulled my hand away from the device when I tried to start working on it again, to avoid his eye. “This year you’re giving him a gift that’s more profound than anything you could have put in his hands. You’re reclaiming his empire and giving it back to his daughter. You think that’s not a good birthday present?”

  I smiled, though tears prickled my eyes. “Yeah. I suppose you’re right.” I dropped my eyes back to my work. “Too bad he’ll never know about it.”

  ***

  The rest of the day and through that night we assembled devices, and as quickly as we finished them, Lady Chou handed them out to volunteers, sending them off to the imperial planets that could be reached within five days. Whatever Blaine did most of that time I didn’t know, and didn’t try to find out. We were allies in this, even partners of a sort, but it was an uneasy alliance still. I tried to remind myself to be wary, not to forget all the things he had done to me, but it just felt like too much effort.

  I was turning away from the worktable, too tired to see the tiny pieces anymore, when Blaine approached with Jonathan shadowing him.

  “I’d like to have a device too, if there is one available.”

  “There is. Why do you want one?” I looked him up and down. “No offense, but I just don’t see you wading into a crowd of commoners wearing a Jacob Dawes suit.”

  He coughed in amusement. “No, I think that’s stretching this new accord rather more than is possible.” He sobered. “There is another role I can play, one that no one else can. But it will require stealth to get where I need to be.”

  Lady Chou stepped closer, giving me an incredulous look when I didn’t turn him down right away. “You’d trust him?” she scoffed.

  I gave Blaine a long look before I nodded. “I trust him to put Owen’s welfare above everyone else’s, including his own. And since we’ve established that Owen and Molly are a package deal, that means my daughter’s safety is one of his highest priorities. Yes. I trust him.”

  “You realize that with one of those devices he could betray you. Profoundly. As profoundly as he’s helping you now.”

  I held Lady Chou’s gaze. “I know.”

  I picked up the device I had just finished and handed it to him. “You’ll need to replace the image we loaded with whatever it is you need. The kids here can help you with that.”

  “Thank you.” He frowned at me, as if puzzled. “Aren’t you going to ask me about my plan?”

  I hesitated. “Do you need me to know?”

  He examined me for a long time. “It’s like every time you open your mouth you surprise me.” He grinned. “That’s probably not a good thing, if we’re to work together. Yes, you’ll need to know what I’m doing.” He laid out his plan and I nodded as he spoke, impressed and relieved. He gave me a grave nod of respect before he walked away.

  I turned back to Jonathan. “Well, I’ve just put my biggest assets into the hands of my oldest enemy.”

  Jonathan had a funny smile on his face.

  “What?”

  “You’re really getting good at this, aren’t you?” he said.

  I blinked. “Well that’s not what I expected you to say.” His smile widened. “I thought that was me being stupid.”

  He huffed a laugh, shaking his head. “The only thing you’re ever stupid about is knowing whether or not you’re being stupid.”

  I think I’m going to spend a few days in Mexico soon. Maybe next week. Kagawa’s making all kinds of plans for his big projects. Apparently, this requires me to approve funding. I don’t know why I can’t do it from here but he’s asked me to come.

  You’re not as afraid of Mexico as you used to be.

  Maybe.

  You can’t fool me.

  Do I really have money somewhere that’s mine just for Mexico?

  I’m going to tell Jonathan you asked that.

  Please don’t.

  iv45

  I was heading for my bunk but I stopped, turning on my heel and re-entering the control room. Lady Chou was easy to find and it occurred to me she was always there when I looked for her. When did she sleep?

  “I think I’d like to stay outside for the night, in the tunnel. With the others.”

  Lady Chou’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean in the main tunnels, with the residents? Why?”

  I appreciated very much that she hadn’t called them ‘the unclass,’ and it said a lot about her and what she was doing here that she hadn’t. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  Rather than waste a blinder, I disguised myself the old-fashioned way. I wasn’t the first one here to go into the tunnels in disguise, and they had a collection of wigs and the appropriate clothes for the role I would play. Since I was too easily recognized, I chose a wig of long dreadlocks that fell in my face and added to that a wide strip of cloth tied like an eye patch around my head. Jonathan frowned as he helped me with my disguise but said nothing.

  When I stepped out into the corridor again, Lady Chou gave me a long appraisal, finally nodding her head once. “Yes, very good. The eye patch covers quite a lot of your face. I wouldn’t recognize you if I wasn’t looking for you.”

  I grinned at Jonathan who only met my gaze grimly. “Be careful.”

  “Of course.” I waved at him and followed Lady Chou to a marked door.

  “This will take you into a deserted side tunnel. Where it connects to the main tunnels it looks like the debris piled up there is impassible, but on this side the empty crate is clearly marked. You can simply crawl through it to the other side. It shouldn’t matter too much if you’re seen. Just take note of which one you came out of, because it’s not marked on the other side. When you come back, there’s a pad by this door that looks like it’s broken, but if you scan your thumb it will open.”

  I grinned. “So I’ve already been granted access among the Resistance, then?”

  She gave me a puzzled look. “You’ve always had access among the Resistance.” I sobered. Her smile always looked pinched and painful, but the one she gave me in parting looked like less of an effort to produce.

  Everything was exactly as she’d explained and I was quickly out in the main tunnels, crawling out of what looked like a sealed crate when it closed behind me. One or two people cast incurious looks at me and went back to their own concerns. Lady Chou had told me to go first to one of the blanket stations and I found one not far from where I’d entered the tunnel. A pleasant looking woman, wearing the uniform of a duchy employee, met me at the counter.

  “Are you new here?” she asked. I nodded, wanting to use my voice as little as possible. She smiled. “Well then, let’s get you some things.”

  She turned aside and returned with a thick gray blanket, unadorned but soft and warm. “Everyone gets a free blanket. You can return it at any time for a clean one. If you continue down this way,” she pointed further down the tunnel, “you’
ll find the kitchens and sanitary stations. One meal a day is free, and one shower a week. Any more can be purchased with vouchers you earn down here in the laundries or kitchens, or on various cleaning and maintenance crews. Or you can earn credits above on the work crews.”

  I must have looked slightly stunned because she patted my hand. “You must have been out there a long time if you’ve only just arrived.” I nodded again, not quite sure what she meant. “Well, it’s nice here, warm and dry, and you’ll have everything you need. The clinics are always free, no matter how many times you need them. And credits earned above are credits good anywhere in the empire. If you take work up there, you’ll automatically get a shower credit for each day you work and an additional meal provided on-site. If you want, you can take less pay in exchange for getting on the waiting list for a home above.”

  She gave me a sympathetic look for my confusion. “A portion of what you would otherwise have earned will go toward the down payment for when your name gets to the top of the list. It’s a good plan for a man like you, if you haven’t a family yet. By the time you settle down, there will be a place of your own for all of you.”

  I’m not sure I could have spoken then even if I’d known what to say. My throat was tight and I struggled to keep tears from my eyes. I felt a disorienting mix of pride, grief, and gratitude. It was one thing to have affected these changes from afar. It was quite another to be here, asking for help and getting it, from a woman who didn’t seem to care if I was the part I played: unclass, destitute, and alone.

  I nodded thanks and turned away before I could be overwhelmed by the realization that, in a way, that was actually true. I had nothing that was my own. Assuming I made it out of this with my head still attached to my shoulders, nothing separated me from homelessness and poverty now except those who were willing to help me. A lot like it was for the people down here.

  I wandered down the tunnel in a fog. The tunnels had been built to bring troops and police into Abenez, and were wide enough to accommodate military vehicles. Now, the broad corridors created places to live. The parking areas had been converted to the soup kitchens, clinics, laundry, and distribution centers. The floor along the edges of the tunnels had been lined with sanitary padding, the width of two men lying shoulder to shoulder. It was here, with their meager possessions and materials salvaged from above, that the people of Abenez who had survived the great fire built their homes in their homelessness.

  It wasn’t long before I realized that everyone down here was elderly, or else a child with a scattering of young adults. There were more children than the younger people here could account for. As I watched them, it became clear that this was some sort of communal childcare arrangement. The few not-quite-adults and the elderly ones were watching the children as everyone else worked above. I didn’t see anyone able-bodied who wasn’t occupied. Occasionally some passed by but they wore badges identifying them with the laundry or the clinic.

  Soon, people began to trickle into the tunnel, becoming a steady stream of workers returning from above. I watched them rejoin their families or detour to the sanitation stations or kitchen. A sweaty, dirty man joined a family near me and a boy and girl pounced on him, hugging him and chattering about their day. I looked away.

  For the rest of the evening I simply sat in place and watched the huddled families, wandering lonesters, or groups of twos and threes. They had their own character, their own purposes, but none were hostile to any other.

  I knew too much to believe this was just a sense of shared community. I began to recognize in a few of the pairs passing by from time to time that there was a security force down here too. But they weren’t outsiders brought in to impose order on an unruly populace. They were from down here too, just performing one of the necessary jobs to keep their makeshift city running, like the laundry or the kitchen.

  They were probably people who had gone to find work above and were given this assignment instead. The building work above was vital, but so was the peace and survival of the refugees in the tunnels. Perhaps more so. We could rebuild. We could always rebuild so long as we survived and banded together.

  I truly was tired, and the weight of all I had seen tired me more, so I concentrated on finding a place to bed down for the night.

  The improvised living areas along the edges of the tunnels were scrupulously clean. I didn’t know if everyone was required to clean up after themselves or if this was the work of cleaning crews. Probably both. When I found an empty space large enough for one man, it was a place that was clean, dry, and safe. On each side of me was a family with small children. Across the tunnel were three old men, their belongings and oddments delineating separate spaces, but they sat together in the middle, joking quietly as they played a game with well-worn cards.

  I settled into my solitary spot between the two families. The children on both sides watched me curiously and openly. One mother held hers back when they would have spoken to me but the other, who had older children and one little girl, smiled at me and I smiled back. The little girl, who looked no more than three years old, made her wide-eyed, careful way to the edge of their space, marked off by a sheet of plastic. She ducked behind it but peered around at me. I lay down, but she took that as a sign that I wasn’t dangerous and crept around the barrier.

  “You sleepy?” she asked. Her words were still muddled with a baby’s inflection, but already I could hear in them the lingering accent of this place, the musical predictability of the vowels. I wanted to make her say more, to see if she rolled her r’s. Molly never had. She spoke the formal and accentless language of power and prominence. I ached a little at the thought.

  “I’m a little sleepy,” I answered quietly so as not to scare her off but not so quiet as to discourage her. She grinned and came forward, plopping herself down by my head.

  “Want to play a game?”

  I propped myself up on one elbow. “What game?”

  “Hide and seek.”

  She spoke as imperiously as a princess, and I couldn’t help but smile. “It’s getting late. And I don’t think your madre would allow it.”

  “I have to ask,” she said seriously, standing to go.

  “Wait,” I said, “how about Silly Words?”

  She frowned at me. “Don’t know it.”

  “You don’t know the game?”

  She scowled and crossed her arms, looking back at her brothers as if this was something they hadn’t told her. I stifled a laugh. “It’s a game I brought with me from far away,” I said. “I bet your brothers don’t know it yet.”

  She beamed, clapping her hands together in excitement. “Yes!”

  Something clenched hard in my chest, and at the same time I felt a smile spread across my face. This was a game I’d learned from Molly’s tutors.

  Standard was spoken all over the empire, but our neighboring states had their own languages, and the empress would need to speak them. So we used the game to help her learn the vocabulary of other languages. I would say a random word, and she would try to answer it with something related but in another language. I was sure I could adapt it to entertain a three-year-old who knew only Standard.

  I explained the rules to her and she grinned. “You first!”

  I pretended to think. “Elephant.”

  She frowned at me. “What’s that?”

  I felt a moment’s pang, realizing it was stupid of me to assume a child living in the tunnels under a ruined Abenez would have any idea what an elephant was. How long ago and far away this life was to me now.

  “Poop,” I recovered. She put her hand over her mouth, giggling.

  “Eduardo,” she replied, giggling harder. From the way she glanced at her family, and the brief smile her mother gave me, I guessed that was the name of one of her brothers.

  I smiled. “Your turn.”

  “Boogers”

  “Brothers.”
>
  She laughed. “Apples!”

  “Feet.”

  She plopped down on her stomach, head propped on her hands, totally engrossed. “Smelly.”

  “Boogers.”

  She rolled over, grabbing my face as she laughed. “I like this game!”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Marquilla.”

  I froze.

  “Like the princess!” she said earnestly, as if I wouldn’t understand. “I’m a princess, too!”

  I took two deep breaths, fighting back my reaction. “I bet you are,” I said, too quiet, too strained. Her mother noticed and moved toward us. “My brother’s name is Jacob,” the girl rattled on. I wanted to hide my face. “It’s the prince. The prince of Mexico!” She spread her hands wide. The title was wrong, but Pete probably would have said the sentiment was right. Before.

  “Yes,” I said, as her mother gathered her up. “I know.”

  “Excuse us,” her mother said. “Mari is too friendly sometimes. She will not learn to leave others to themselves.”

  “It’s all right,” I said, but the woman gave me a funny look, and I knew I wasn’t hiding anything from her, except perhaps who I really was. She smiled kindly.

  “Do you have children of your own?” she asked.

  I nodded, dropping her gaze because there was too much understanding and compassion in it. “Yes,” I managed. “Yes, I do. Just...”

  Her hand was gentle on my shoulder. “You must miss them.”

  I could only nod.

  “It will be lights-out soon,” she said, as if I weren’t losing it in front of her. “And we are all tired I’m sure.”

  “I’m not tired!” the girl protested. It drew a laugh from me, and when I looked up I found the so-familiar indignant look of a toddler and the fond smile of her mother.

  “I’m sure you’re not.” Our eyes met and we both grinned, though mine was watery.

  “Sleep well, sir,” she said.

  “Jacob,” I corrected. She stopped.