by Oisin McGann
“We have to meet Maslow,” he told her.
“Honey, there are boys who’d kill to be where you are now.” She rolled over and looked at him.
I know, he thought, peering through the gloom at imagined faces in the patterns of the musty fabric. I have. “Come on. Get up; we have to get going.”
Sol had been glad to have Cleo with him yesterday—to have someone to share the danger—but now it made him uncomfortable. You couldn’t take the same kinds of chances when you had to look after somebody else.
With the flashlight switched off, Sol climbed the ladder to the top of the shaft, reached up, and carefully lifted the grate slowly, raising it just high enough for him to peek out. The factory’s high windows let in enough of a glow from the gas lamps outside for him to see. A foot landed right in front of him, another swinging over his head, and he nearly dropped the grate. The feet strode away past him, making for a door in the near wall. A man, moving stealthily, switched on a flashlight and shone it into the adjacent room. Sol risked a glance in the other direction. Another man was shining a beam of light in among the mill’s machinery.
His breath caught in his throat; Sol eased the grate back into place again, looked at Cleo, and put a finger to his lips. He pointed frantically downward, and she immediately started descending the rungs. Following close behind, Sol kept lifting his eyes to check above him. In his haste to climb down, he stood on Cleo’s fingers, and she stifled a yelp, drawing in a hissing breath. Footsteps sounded above them. Cleo scrambled to the bottom of the ladder and ducked away out of sight. A flashlight beam shone through the grate, catching Sol in its light.
“They’re down here!” a voice yelled.
Sol dropped the last two meters to the floor of the storeroom just as the grate was pulled aside. He saw a gun drawn and heard the thud of a silenced shot, but the bullet went wide, sparking off the floor near his feet. He was out of sight in the darkness now, and he had a light to aim at. Pulling his pistol from his pocket, he flicked the safety off, leaned out under the shaft, and fired two shots straight up at the flashlight beam. There was a cry, and the flashlight fell, trailing a streak of light down the shaft until it smashed on the floor at Sol’s feet.
“Let’s go!” he said breathlessly.
They took the door to the utility tunnel, which led them out into a high-walled courtyard illuminated by gaslight: flames flickering in the glass tops of tall poles. There were doorways in every wall, and an open ceiling, which looked out onto the level above. Sol chose the door opposite them, slamming his shoulder into it and charging up the stairs on the other side.
The stairs led out onto a walkway around a light-well, some seven or eight meters wide. A scream from above made them look up, just in time to see a young woman plummet past them, her screech Dopplering down around the walls of the well. The bungee cord attached to her feet pulled taut and stretched, then yanked her back up toward them, bouncing her off the wall. She wailed and then laughed hysterically. Far above them, voices whooped with encouragement, people grouped around the rim of the well. Thrill seekers looking for an illegal rush. Cleo and Sol hurried along the walkway, around the light-well to the tunnel on the other side.
This tunnel took them through to a section of the hydroponic gardens. Rows upon rows of deep-walled trays held myriad plants, an exotic array of strange-shaped leaves and insanely colorful flowers. This was no farm; this was one of the conservation gardens tended by botanists who one day hoped to repopulate the planet’s ecosystem. Sol and Cleo heard footsteps running on the light-well walkway behind them, and they set off again, rushing through the foliage, the air filled with wild, scintillating smells. There was an elevator at the far end. They had reached the wall of the city; the elevator would take them up through the gardens on the crater wall.
Sol slapped the button to call the elevator and turned with his back to the doors, aiming his gun at the door they had just left. Cleo got a terrible sense of déjà vu, and as the doors opened, she fully expected to see one of the Clockworkers standing there, ready for them.
The elevator was empty. She pulled Sol in and hit the button for the highest floor.
A tall man with graying hair burst into the garden at the far end just as the doors were closing again. The elevator started to move.
“Well.” Cleo panted. “We’re getting…to see…a lot of the city.”
Sol found a purple flower with prickly leaves caught in the collar of his jacket and offered it to her, still struggling to get his breath back.
“Oh, how sweet.” She smiled. “Nobody’s ever given me a thistle before.”
Her eyes watched the floor-counter anxiously as she pulled the flower off its stem and held it to her nose.
“How did they find us?” she wondered aloud.
“I don’t know. Some security camera we missed—maybe somebody saw us.” Sol checked his ammunition. He had reloaded with ammo from Maslow’s holdall; there were eleven rounds left in the gun, and thirteen in a spare clip. It gave him little reassurance: the Clockworkers were much better with guns then he was.
“This is going to keep happening, isn’t it?” Cleo said quietly.
Sol spared her a grim glance before turning to glare at the floor-counter.
“Why did they make these things so slow?” he muttered.
A bell pinged and the doors slid open. Sol raised his pistol, and an old woman waiting to enter let out a piercing shriek as she found a gun pointed at her face.
“Sorry, sorry.” Sol held up a hand apologetically as they rushed out.
They ran on. Sol shoved the gun back in his jacket pocket and searched desperately for somewhere they could take refuge.
“Where are we going?” Cleo called through heaving breaths.
Sol didn’t answer. They weren’t far from the West Dome Depot. Wasserstein and the daylighters would help him, he was sure of it. But who there could he really trust? There was no way to be sure. Apart from Cleo and Ana, there was no one in the city he trusted now.
“I’ve got to…stop,” Cleo said from behind him. She was getting a stitch, her hand clutching her side. “Look, we don’t even know…where we’re going. Sol! Stop for a minute.”
They stumbled to a halt, leaning on the railing of the promenade floor. Cleo coughed several times, and drew in long, labored breaths. Sol grimaced.
“That’s the smo—”
“Don’t!” she snapped. “Not another word!”
There were people walking past them, out for a stroll, or avoiding the crowds on the start of the work cycle. Cleo clutched Sol’s arm. There, coming from the direction of the elevator, was the man with the graying hair. Dressed in a dark-colored casual suit, he had a hawkish, drawn face and the same pallor as Maslow: a black man who did not spend enough time in the light. His hand was inside his jacket, his eyes fixed on them, shouldering past people walking the other way.
Cleo and Sol turned to run and saw a police officer coming from the opposite direction. Sol looked over the railing, frantically seeking a way down. There was nothing, just a hundred-meter drop to a wider balcony floor stretching out beneath them. The cop was making his way over to them. The Clockworker on the other side was slowing down, hesitating.
“There’s enough room to get around,” Sol said from the side of his mouth. “We could rush the cop, maybe get past—”
“Maybe we should ask him for help.”
“He’ll take us in, Cleo. They’ll know where we are. It’ll only be a matter of time—”
“Excuse me, folks,” the police officer hailed them, coming over. “But I’m going to have to ask you your business up here. Could I see some identification, please? Nothing personal, y’understand. It’s just with all the suicides we’ve had jumping from here over the last year, we need to check everybody out.”
Sol and Cleo looked back toward the Clockworker. He was hovering a few meters away, pretending to enjoy the view of the city.
“Hello?” the officer prompted them. “
Some ID, please? Now?”
They made a show of rummaging through their pockets.
“I don’t seem to have my card on me, sir,” Sol replied. “My name’s Lennox Liston. My dad’s a daylighter. He works up here. I’m not suicidal—things are going great.”
“I’m Aretha Franklin,” Cleo added. “I’m with him. We’re very happy.”
“That may well be,” the officer said, “but I’m just going to have to check you out. If you’ll come with me, we just need a webscreen—there’s one along here.”
Sol and Cleo exchanged looks. This wasn’t working out. But the Clockworker did not seem to want to act while they were with the police officer, and neither of them was ready to give up this temporary safety. They followed the cop to the webscreen on the wall nearby. He punched in a code and spoke into the microphone. “Officer Meredov: Identity Search. Liston, Lennox, and Franklin, Aretha.”
“Searching…,” a toneless voice replied.
The screen flashed and flickered abruptly, then blanked out to a featureless white. Heavy, square type faded in, growing to fill the screen.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” the cop exclaimed. He sighed in exasperation. “This is getting beyond a joke!”
The type spelled out a message in the now-familiar format:
WHY WERE THERE NO REPORTS ON THE NEWS ABOUT THE RIOT AT THE SCHAEFFER CORPORATION’S HQ?
DO YOU CARE ENOUGH TO WONDER?
Both Cleo and Sol were distracted for only a moment, but that was all it took. Suddenly the Clockworker was behind them, bringing a blackjack down on the back of the cop’s head. He slumped to the ground, unconscious, a trickle of blood running from his split scalp.
“Don’t run, don’t shout out, or I’ll kill you,” the attacker growled, his gun steady in his other hand. “Where’s Maslow?”
Neither of them answered, momentarily paralyzed by the assault on the police officer.
“Where’s Maslow?” the Clockworker repeated.
“What’s his game? Why did he turn?”
“I can take you to him,” Sol told him hesitantly. “But only if you let us go once you’ve got him.”
“Sure.” The man grunted. “Don’t try anything funny, though. You’ll get it first, yeah? You’ve got a piece; give it to me.”
Sol reluctantly pulled the gun from his pocket by its trigger guard and handed it to him.
“Right, let’s take a walk.”
Cleo threw Sol a questioning glance. The look she received in return did not inspire any confidence. They were under no illusion that the man didn’t intend to kill them once he’d found Maslow.
With his gun in his jacket pocket, the Clockworker followed them as Sol led the way along the wide balcony to the corridor into the daylighters’ depot.
“Where is he? Where are we going?” the man demanded.
“We arranged to meet up if we got separated,” Sol told him. “He said to wait in a certain place and he’d find me.”
The Clockworker wasn’t satisfied, but he continued to follow them. “No tricks, you get me?”
“Yeah,” Cleo replied. “We heard you the first time.”
They crossed the workshop floor, ignoring the people around them at the machines, recycling tools. After a furtive peek into the canteen and the monitor room, Sol took a left, praying that he was in time. The shift change was at half-past nine.
He was. They climbed the stairs to the exit floor and emerged into the changing room. Thirty men and women were in the middle of getting into their safesuits. Those from another shift were changing out, having just finished their shift on the dome.
“Hang on a second,” the Clockworker said suspiciously.
But Sol kept walking. At the far end of the room, Harley Wasserstein was pulling on a suit over his huge frame. Sol was hoping that he wasn’t wrong about his father’s old friend. He prayed that Maslow had been lying about the daylighters. Harley looked up, and a broad smile spread under his white blond beard as he saw Sol.
“Sol, lad!” he exclaimed. “We thought you’d disappeared! What the hell are you doing here?”
His smile faded as he saw the expression on Sol’s face. God, I’m sorry for this, Sol thought. He stared hard at Wasserstein, whose eyes went cold as they moved from Sol and Cleo to the man standing behind them.
“Hi,” Sol stuttered to Wasserstein. “Is he here?”
“No,” Wasserstein responded, standing up, a full head taller than the other man. “No, he’s not. There’s been no sign of him.”
The Clockworker stepped forward, glaring at the daylighter, and then looked around in confusion. Fifty-nine heads turned to see what was going on.
“What are you playin’ at, kid?” He swiveled uneasily, trying to keep all the daylighters in sight.
“This guy says we owe him,” Sol went on, holding Wasserstein in his gaze. “He’s here to collect.”
“All right.” Wasserstein regarded the Clockworker with the kind of expression he reserved for something he’d scrape off his boot. “How much are you into him for? What’s it going to take to get rid of you?”
“What?” The Clockworker screwed up his face, his hand still gripping the gun in his jacket pocket.
“How much is it going to take to pay off the debt?”
The other daylighters were sidling closer, some picking up tools from the benches. This man was obviously a debt collector who had come looking for Gregor Wheat. Nobody liked debt collectors, and no low-life heavy was going to mess with the daylighters in their own depot. Sol took Cleo’s hand and started to edge away.
The Clockworker saw them move, and for a moment, his attention was divided between them and Wasserstein. His hand was already drawing the gun from his pocket. Wasserstein spotted the movement and lunged forward, enclosing the Clockworker’s entire hand in his huge fist, crushing it into his chest so that he couldn’t fire the gun. The Clockworker wriggled to get his hand free.
“Run!” the daylighter roared to Sol as others closed in on the hit man with wrenches and ice hammers.
Cleo was already making for the door, with Sol close on her heels. There came the sound of silenced gunshots, and two people started screaming. Then three. As Sol and Cleo hurled themselves through the door and bounded down the stairs, a bullet struck the wall above their heads. The Clockworker was coming after them again.
At the bottom of the stairs, Sol turned left, heading for the utility corridors that ran around the edge of the depot. They offered more corners and cover.
“He can call others,” Cleo said, panting. “They could cut us off.”
As they took another turn, they came upon a low, heavily built denceramic door, and Sol skidded to a stop. There was a readout displayed beside the door: air pressure and temperature. A light glowed green beside the readings.
“We can go through here,” he said, hitting the lock release. “It’ll take us out of the depot.”
The door slid open. It was nearly forty centimeters thick. Cleo didn’t realize where it led until he had closed it behind them, and she had a chance to look around.
“Oh, Jesus,” she gasped.
“They must be doing some maintenance,” Sol told her, watching through the slab of glass that made up the door’s small window. The Clockworker ran past, gun drawn. “We may not have that long.”
They were between the two layers of concraglass that made up the dome. Sloping up from their feet, a vast glass hill interspaced with a grid of denceramic beams stretched into a false perspective as it curved away from them. A symmetric forest of spring-loaded struts separated and supported the two layers, creating a space between them about one and a half meters high, each layer of concraglass nearly half a meter thick. It did not lessen the sense of vertigo they got as they looked down through their feet at the city below. Sol and Cleo were almost able to stand upright, their heads and shoulders hunched.
Ash Harbor had been built into a mountain, the center hollowed out like the crater of a volcano, but all resembl
ance to nature stopped there. The entire city had been built inside a vacuum insulation system, the crater walls hollowed out and reinforced with denceramic, the hollowed sections hermetically sealed and the air evacuated. This was the secret to the city’s capacity for retaining the heat created by the Machine: the people of Ash Harbor effectively lived in a gigantic vacuum flask.
The section of dome in which Cleo and Sol now stood should have been devoid of all air or gases. Somewhere nearby, a work crew must be carrying out maintenance.
“There are doors every hundred and fifty meters or so,” Sol told her. “We can get out at the next one along—it’ll bring us out beyond the depot.”
Their breath was emerging in plumes of vapor; the space was cold, and getting colder. And yet Cleo could feel the warmth of the glass through the soles of her shoes. Putting her hand to the glass above her, she found it was freezing cold. Flakes of snow were already falling on its upper surface. Gold-colored strips of solar cells—invisible from the streets—were attached to its lower surface, to make the most of the daylight. Walking along the glass ledge that followed the circumference of the dome was unnerving, with nothing between the glass and the city streets hundreds of meters below.
Something buzzed past her ear, and blood spattered the strut that Sol was passing—he flinched, crying out, his hand to his neck. Cleo turned and ducked as the Clockworker took another shot. He was about sixty meters behind them, far enough back on the curve for his aim to be spoiled by the dome’s jungle of struts. Cleo was crouched and running now, overtaking Sol on the ledge and grabbing his arm. His other hand clutched the left side of his neck, blood seeping through his fingers. Another shot skated off the ledge near her feet and ricocheted up and down ahead of them. Hard as diamond, concraglass was made to withstand centuries of cataclysmic weather. Ricochets made every bullet twice as dangerous.
Sol was loping unsteadily behind her and was having trouble keeping up. Cleo heard the Clockworker’s running feet echoing around them. A third shot clipped the sleeve of her jacket, making her lose her footing, and she fell sideways onto the sloping glass. Sol tripped over her feet and landed heavily, crying out in pain. Cleo looked back as she scrambled up; the man was less than thirty meters behind them. He had a clear shot now—but he was sprinting full tilt toward them. Sol was back up, and he and Cleo ran together. The door was there ahead of them; by some miracle it was still open behind the departing crew.
