by Oisin McGann
His gun came up, and as it did so, she jumped out into the darkness. The shot came as a dull thumping sound, not loud at all. The bullet hitting the ladder was louder, spitting sparks at her. Her knees scraped off the top of the ventilation duct, and she nearly fell over the other side, but caught herself in time. Clambering along the top of the duct, every movement amplified by the hollow plastex, she tried to find another way out. The man was coming up the ladder behind her. She couldn’t see a thing, and nearly fell again when the duct turned tightly to the right, and then left again. There was a ceiling a little more than a meter above her, holding the struts for the duct, but it was too low for her to stand up. She kept casting out with her hands on either side for some way off the vent, but there was nothing but empty space on either side. Then she hit a wall.
It was solid concrete. The duct went straight into it, without so much as a finger’s width of a gap around it. There was no way into the vent; plastex was tough, made to last for centuries. She stifled a cry of despair. The man was coming along the duct after her. Reaching out into the darkness, she sought some kind of escape. But there was nothing.
The sound of the man approaching grew louder, and she could see the flashlight strapped to his head, bobbing as he crawled. It was pointing down so that he could see where he was putting his hands. Her mind grasped at something, a faint hope. With the flashlight pointing downward, he couldn’t see anything above him. She reached back quietly and felt the nearest struts that hung from the ceiling. There was a bar crossing between them. It was strong enough to hold her. With painstaking care, she silently lifted herself onto the bar, getting her stomach up and over it. The man was getting closer. Gripping the struts on either side, she balanced herself on her stomach and straightened out her body, lifting her head and feet as high as she could. The pressure of the bar on her abdomen was almost unbearable.
The man’s light came closer, closer, until he was crawling by underneath her. He saw the wall ahead of him and stopped. With his bigger body, he moved with difficulty along the duct, and when he turned to look behind him, he had to hold on to the edges to keep his balance. The bar dug into Cleo’s stomach, and she held her breath until it felt as if her lungs would burst. The man was still looking down at the surface ahead of him. Taking one hand off the duct, he leaned back on his knees so that he could look up. For an instant their eyes met, and Cleo did the only thing she could. She swung her legs down and kicked out at him with all her might.
One of her feet caught his head, and he toppled forward. His gun fell clattering into the darkness and, for a second, she thought he would follow it, but he caught the bottom of the strut and hung on, dangling below her. Her balance gone, she fell back onto the top of the vent. The man was starting to climb back up, with murder written on his face. Pulling the pepper spray from her pocket, she gave him a long blast in the eyes, and he roared in pain, pulling his head away. She tore the flashlight from his head, and fell back on her side. In desperation, she kicked at his fingers, hammering at them with her feet until his grip failed and he fell with a scream into the gloom. Somewhere below, there was a muffled thud.
She listened for a while, but heard nothing more. He could be dead. If he was, she wasn’t sure what to do. Her whole body was shaking, but she knew she mustn’t lose her head now. Strapping the flashlight onto her head, she made her way carefully back along the duct, making as little noise as possible. There was no sign of anybody else. When she got close to the ladder, she turned off the flashlight and slid along on her belly. Waiting as long as she dared, she listened for any sound of the others, but there was nothing. Climbing out onto the rungs, she scaled up to a catwalk that was illuminated by electric lights. Sounds carried down it: voices in conversation, whirring flywheels, music and noise from computer games.
It was a pedal station. People. Normal, chatty, ordinary, unarmed people. She smiled in relief as she walked into the hall where nearly three dozen people were sitting astride cycling machines, pedaling power into the city’s system. Collapsing on a rest couch, she buried her face in her knees, comforted by the drab, dull familiarity of it all.
Sol was on a tram, making his way back to Ana’s and pondering his next move. He knew a few of the places his father went gambling, but he was wary of visiting any of them if Gregor really had run up a big debt.
He thought back to that cop, Mercier, and wondered what he knew. But it was the other one who was in charge. Ponderosa, from the ISS. Sol decided that if these were the men investigating his father, he should find out what he could about them. The tram was stopping near a café, so he jumped off and went inside. He took the nearest available webscreen, where he did a search on Ponderosa. The only information on him was his list of awards; it was impressive. The single picture of him was one where he was shaking hands with Mayor Haddad as she presented him with a medal for Distinguished Service. There was nothing else recorded about him. That figured. Your business was ISS’s business, but their business was their own.
Mercier scored a direct match, though. His past came up, displayed in text files and compressed images. There was nothing remarkable about him; his career had been mediocre, judging by the few medals and awards he had received. Sol decided to check his mail while he was online, and his father’s too.
Sol’s in-box reflected his loner lifestyle. There was a single new message highlighted; he didn’t recognize the address. It looked like a one-off send, the kind people used to remain anonymous. Opening it, he found a short note.
Sol. There are people looking for you—don’t go back to the apartment. Don’t go out alone; stay among people. You mustn’t try to find me, it’s too dangerous, but I’m sending someone to keep an eye on you. So you know who he is, he will be able to tell you your mother’s favorite song. You can trust him. Gregor.
Sol looked around warily. Memorizing the address, just in case, he quickly deleted the message and closed down the mailbox. He was standing up to leave when the screen suddenly flashed white, and words in large, black block capitals began to float into view. At first he thought this message was being aimed directly at him, but all around the café, people were giving exclamations of surprise or disgust. The message was appearing on every screen: THE MACHINE IS DYING, it read. IT IS BEING EATEN FROM WITHIN. DO YOU CARE ENOUGH TO ASK WHY?
Sol looked out the windows of the café and saw that the same message was on the adscreens on the street outside. That meant it must be all over the city. Then, all at once, it flickered and was gone. Another message appeared, this one a standard screen-card from the Online Police with the city’s crest; accompanied by an authoritative voice, it informed everybody that the city’s web systems had just been subject to a virus attack. Normal service would be resumed presently, and the culprits would be tracked down and prosecuted.
In a machine city coordinated by computers, viruses were a big deal. Anybody caught writing or sending them could expect a long stretch in prison. The Online Police could shut down whole sections of the city in search of a suspect if they needed to. It made the illegally posted message all the more intriguing. What did it mean? Sol thought. “Being eaten from within”? Hefting his bag onto his shoulder, he made for the tram stop.
Ana was in the apartment when he got back, making a lunch of spirulina pie and promeat. She had made enough for him, and he mumbled his thanks as he took the plate. Avoiding his overattentive gaze, she coughed and sat down on the couch with her own food.
“The funeral for the two men in the crane accident is tomorrow,” she told him. “I thought you and the others might want to go.”
Sol nodded. He didn’t care much about the men who had been killed, and he hated the Earth Center ever since his mother’s and sister’s funeral, but he might be able to find out more to help put his mind at rest about what had caused the accident. The image of the smashed crane carriage was still fresh, and the incident ate away at his brain.
“The police called,” she added quietly. “They want to speak to you again. Prope
rly this time. I’ll go with you. We can do it after the funeral.”
“Was it the CIS?” he asked.
“ISS. That man Ponderosa.”
The funeral procession was long, stretching back along the street. One man had been Muslim, the other Unitarian, and so there had been two separate services, but the bodies were carried in the same procession through the streets to the Earth Center. It was the tradition in Ash Harbor for those who died together to be recycled together.
Sol walked alongside Ana, careful to keep a discreet distance. His feelings for her had been getting steadily stronger since moving in with her, and sleeping just one room away from her was driving his imagination wild.
The open-topped hearse pulled up to the steps of the Earth Center, and each coffin was taken on the shoulders of six men up the steps to the hall. At the end of the hall, past the rows of seats, was a conveyor belt leading through some curtains. Behind the curtain was a hatch. The hatch opened into the inner workings of the center. The coffins were placed on the conveyor, and everyone took their seats. The lighting was in atmospheric spots, pitched perfectly for the somber air of the place. The families were up at the front, and one widow was weeping inconsolably. In the high-roofed hall, her cries had a horrible, distant, hollow sound that made Sol think of a soul lost beyond reach.
The Earth Center was made of concrete and soil. Placed in aesthetically pleasing formations along the reinforced concrete wall, clear plastex panels held large sections of deep brown earth—such a precious thing now that permafrost had rendered the soil in the outside world virtually lifeless. They were reminders that bodies had always been given back to the earth, an attempt to make recycling more palatable. Corpses had to be recycled; nothing could be wasted in Ash Harbor.
A speaker said a few profound words that Sol paid no attention to, and then the sound system started to play some piece of classical music, and the coffins began to creep toward the curtain. They brushed through the parting and disappeared. The widow let out a long, sorrowful wail. Sol got up and left before the crowd could begin making its way to the door. Behind the curtain, he knew, the bodies would be removed from the coffins, which would be used again before the day was over.
Out on the steps, he found Cleo sitting and smoking a joint of stem, holding it hidden in her cupped hand. She glanced back at him, licked her finger and thumb, and hurriedly put it out, slipping it into her pocket.
“You left early,” she muttered. “That’s a bit rude, isn’t it?”
“Don’t like crowds,” he said.
Cleo sniffed and nodded.
“Why aren’t you inside?” he asked.
“Don’t like funerals.”
He sat down beside her; she didn’t seem to object.
“I can’t get that day out of my head,” he said to her. “I thought this would help.”
“Me too. Still couldn’t go inside, though; it would do my head in. You think too much about where we are and where we’re going and the Dark-Day Fatalists start to make sense, y’know?”
Sol smiled, and then was struck by a memory of something his father had said once. Sometimes, Sol, when things get really bad, I think they might have a point. They seem to have more peace than the rest of us. Maybe they really do have some of the answers.
“Might be worth checking out,” he murmured to himself.
“What?” Cleo frowned at him.
“Nothing. Just talkin’ to myself. Haven’t been right in the head lately.”
“That’ll be all the boxing.”
Sol’s face darkened. “You’re one to talk, smokin’ your brains out with that crap—”
Cleo held her hands up in defense. “Sorry, sorry. Jeez, you take things seriously.”
“It’s been a rough week,” he said apologetically. “I’m a bit on edge. It just seems to be one thing after another….”
His sentence drifted to an end as he saw a Filipino man coming up the steps toward them. The Pinoy stopped in front of them and looked down at Sol. Sol immediately knew that this was a hard man. His shoulders bulged into his jacket, and his frame looked as if someone had packed a hundred kilos of muscle into a sixty-kilo body. The jacket looked baggy enough to hide weapons. Sol had been expecting someone like this to show up sooner or later. He thought of the gun sitting in his school bag back in Ana’s apartment. It hadn’t seemed right to bring it with him to the funeral. He self-consciously touched his broken nose.
“Solomon Wheat?” the man asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m looking for your old man.”
“Join the queue. I don’t know where he is.”
“Word is that he’s wanted for murder.”
“That’s the word all right. Funny how it gets around.”
Sol was looking at the man’s hands. The knuckles were misshapen with scars, but the man’s face looked like it had never been touched. They were telling signs to a fighter. The man noticed how he was staring and raised the backs of his open hands in front of Sol’s face.
“He owes my boss money. He made a foolish wager, and now it is time for him to pay up. If I have to use you to get that money, I will. Do you understand? You do understand, don’t you?”
Sol nodded, his mouth suddenly dry.
“Good. I’ll find you again soon. Have a think, make a few calls if you like. Know where your father is before I find you again. Understand?”
Sol nodded again.
“Good.” The man walked back down the steps.
Sol gasped, not realizing he had been holding his breath.
Section 8/24: FUGITIVES
CLEO SAT IN HER local library, staring at the webscreen. After her close call in the lower levels the previous day, she had been watching the news for any reports of missing people in that area. She had not dared to tell anyone yet, in case the killers came looking for her. The one she had knocked off the ventilation duct could well have seen her face. Which would only be a problem if he was still alive. She didn’t want to face the thought that he might not be.
There was nothing in the news reports about any murders. Feeling a little disappointed, she went to log off. But her search for news in that area had turned up one interesting snippet: BURST DRAINAGE TANK CAUSES FLOOD IN FILIPINO DISTRICT, the headline read. And then in smaller type below it: DRAINAGE WORKER MISSING. FEARED DROWNED.
Remembering the scummy water that had flowed down the streets the day before, she scanned through the article. The flood had caused the electricity substation to shut down; that explained the power cuts she had experienced. There was little information on the female worker who was missing. The woman had been working in the area where the tank had burst. They were still clearing the flood debris, and a search was under way for her body.
Cleo finished reading and idly searched for more on the accident. What was it one of them had said before they all came after her? They’ll be able to identify us when news breaks about the job. She wondered if the “job” had had anything to do with the flood…or the woman going missing. She remembered too what Ube had said. If you messed with the Machine, the Clockworkers would come for you. There seemed to have been a lot of accidents happening recently. Maybe they weren’t accidents at all. Putting her fingertips to the webscreen, she thought about the crane wreck. It was still giving her nightmares. Could these “accidents” be sabotage? And did that mean that the Clockworkers were taking action? Stepping in to do away with those who interfered with the workings of the Machine?
Whoever they were, whatever was going on, it was way beyond her. She had homework to do and songs to write. Worrying about sabotage and assassins was not on the school curriculum, and she had no wish to disappear. Cleo knew there were times when the wisest thing to do was to mind your own business. She logged off and went to find her friends.
Sol regarded the body with a queasy feeling of nausea, and decided there and then that if he should ever consider suicide, jumping from a great height would not be the method he’d choose.
Standing with his father on the street, far below the DDF platform from which the man had fallen, he looked around at the crowd that was gathering. Everybody wanted to see the corpse. A fall from two hundred meters up was a pretty certain way of offing yourself, Sol mused. But some vain part of him would object to what happened to his body when it hit. Pills were iffy: you could vomit them up and end up surviving, but then die slowly from liver damage. And hanging or drowning or slashing your wrists just sounded agonizing. But looking at this man’s body, he definitely ruled out throwing himself from the top levels.
He knew from boxing how the skin could split under impact, that blood could splash as the flesh burst under pressure, but he’d never seen it on such a scale before. The man’s body had been reduced to jelly by the impact, the bones completely shattered. The abdomen had exploded across the surface of the street, spewing organs and blood like the contents of a water balloon.
“Look at the clothes…his hair,” Gregor said in a low voice. “He was just a boy. It just got too much for him.”
They both looked up at the platform high overhead. Suicide was becoming increasingly common. Even the city’s policy on birth control—only two children per family—had been suspended because of the sheer numbers of premature deaths over recent years. The DDF claimed it was all a symptom of the people’s growing despair. They claimed that the authorities were in denial, that the Machine’s days were numbered.
“Psychos.” Sol snorted. “Stupid psychos.”
“No, don’t think like that.” Gregor shook his head. “Just because you don’t understand somebody doesn’t make them stupid. The Dark-Day Fatalists don’t encourage suicide; they just attract a lot of chronically depressed people, folks who can’t manage on their own. They think the DDF might have answers, but they’re just like any religion: it’s all about what you believe. And they believe the Machine is going to carry us only so far before it eventually fails. Either that suits what you think or it doesn’t.”
