by Oisin McGann
‘I’mmm . . . picking my tune,’ Vicky sang at the top of her voice, ‘from the Devil’s Jukebox!’
‘I’mmm . . . dancin’ in nothing, but a pair of white socks!’ Cleo wailed into an imaginary microphone.
It was a silly, smutty song, and Cleo would have sneered at it if she had been with her friends. But Vicky never tolerated any pretensions from her. They danced around the small room, banging their shins on the furniture and finally falling entangled on the couch as the song ended.
‘Okay, that’s enough,’ Cleo panted. ‘You have homework to do. I’m going out for a bit.’
‘Goin’ for a smoke?’ Vicky asked slyly.
‘No.’ Cleo glanced behind her at the door, in case their parents should walk in at that very moment.
‘Can I come, then?’
‘No – finish your homework. I’ll be back in a while.’
‘When are you going to let me smoke some stem?’ Vicky persisted plaintively.
‘When Dad says you’re old enough to date boys,’ Cleo told her.
‘Damn it, Cleo! That won’t be till I’m, like . . . forty, or something.’
Cleo picked up her jacket and left their apartment, making her way up the four flights of stairs to the roof. It was dark up there, her path lit only by the ethereal glow of the city, reflected off the bottoms of the sun platforms, the crane grid and the glass of the dome itself. Stepping over the vents and low walls of pipes that ran across the rooftop, she settled in her favourite place: in the shadow of an air-conditioner-plant housing that throbbed dully all through the night. The wall of the plant was always warm from the motors inside. Reaching up to a hollow under the lip of the plant’s roof, she found the tin box that held her stash, and, taking it down, she sat on the ledge and looked out at the lights of Ash Harbour while she skinned up a joint.
Licking the feathery rice paper roll to seal it, she dried it with her lighter and then put it between her lips and fired it up. She drew in the smoke with a soft sigh, feeling its rough heat in her lungs. The gentle lifting sensation at the back of her skull brought a content smile to her face, and she rolled her head around to bring on that delicious dizziness. There was a sound of footsteps behind her, and she looked worriedly round the corner of the wall, a drug-induced paranoia rising within her. She became sure that somebody was watching her. Holding the joint hidden down by her leg, she peered across the dark roof, searching for the source of the sound.
A woman wearing a cap and dark overalls and carrying a toolbox strode out from behind the structure that housed the winch for the elevator that hardly ever worked. Waving a small torch around, the stranger knelt down by one of the large pipes that snaked over the roof, turning the wheel on what looked like a valve of some kind. She moved on, bending down once more to do the same on a pipe further away. The woman disappeared from sight round the corner of the stairwell. Cleo let out a wheezy breath and stuck the joint back in her mouth.
As she sat there smoking, a faint sense of foreboding came over her. For some reason her mind went back to the day in the sub-levels, when she had seen the three people dumping the body. And the man she might have killed. His scream still came to her in quiet moments when she was in a funk.
She hardly ever saw work crews on the roof at night. In fact, her parents were always complaining about how hard it was to get anybody in to fix anything in the building. And when they did come up, they used bright lamps, not sneaky little torches. And they made a big fuss, so that everybody would see that they’d shown up. And they wore the maintenance contractors’ light green overalls with the logo on the back. Cleo stubbed out the half-finished joint and put it in her jacket pocket, carefully replacing the tin box back in its hiding place. She headed for the door to the stairwell, wondering if the drug were playing with her mind.
Sauntering down the stairs, she was struck again by the feeling that something was wrong. She stopped at the bottom of the flight, still two storeys up from their apartment. Stepping into the corridor, she stood there silently, trying to figure out what was disturbing her. The diode clusters that lit the corridor were dim, and some had failed completely, but that was quite normal. All around were the small noises of the building settling in the night – clicks and taps and creaks; again, all normal.
There was the soft, undercurrent hum of the air-conditioning system, which channelled ‘fresh’ air through the living quarters packed into the apartment block like the cells of a vast hive. Vents in the ceiling panels of the corridor showed where the duct ran along above, feeding the apartments on either side. People would have the vents in the apartments closed in the evening; the air fed in could be very chilly at night, and the recycled breeze tended to give everyone colds and coughs. The gas-fired heating system used different ducts.
There was the hint of a strange odour. Standing under the nearest vent, she sniffed the air. Two years of smoking stem had deadened her sense of smell, but she was definitely getting a whiff of something. Cleo walked further down the corridor, inhaling the air from another vent. The odour was stronger here, and her eyes opened wide with alarm as she recognized what it was. She knocked on the nearest door, and a sleepy-faced man looked out.
‘There’s a gas leak!’ she told him. ‘Call the . . . the caretakers, or somebody.’
He was about to retort, but instead he waved a hand in front of his face and drew a breath in through his nose. His expression changed to one of urgency.
‘I’ll make the call,’ he told her. ‘Let other people know, will you?’
Cleo started knocking on more doors, calling out to alert people. The smell was getting stronger in the corridor, but it still hadn’t reached into the apartments. She came upon the sealed box that set off the fire alarm, and stared at it, hesitating. Was it that urgent? They’d had gas leaks before and there had been no evacuation. And the alarm system was electric; could it ignite the gas? To hell with it, she’d always wanted to do this; she smashed the face of the box with her elbow, and jumped as the alarm went off.
Suddenly she thought of her sister and started running. There had been too many false alarms in the block; people were moving too slowly. Nobody was taking it very seriously – there were even people complaining about the noise. The stink of gas filled the stairwell; it was definitely coming through the air-conditioning system. It could be filtering through the whole building, whisked on by the fans. She bounded down the steps, swinging round the rail as the stairs cornered, descending at a breakneck pace. Slamming through the door onto her floor, she raced down the corridor. Residents were milling around, wondering at the alarm. Some were already hurrying towards the stairs. They could smell the gas too.
We’re two storeys down, Cleo thought to herself, and I can still smell it. It’s right through the building. Victoria was leaning out of the apartment door, looking around in confusion. Cleo waved her arms at her sister.
‘It’s right through the—’ she started to yell, and then there was a deafening boom, and a hot blast of air lifted her off her feet and sent her sprawling along the corridor floor.
The ceiling was exploding. Fire burst through the flimsy ceiling panels, exposing the utility rigging of wires and pipes above. In the aluminium air-conditioning ducts there was a rumbling, roaring sound as the ignited gas chased the oxygen along the metal channel, seeking out places to breathe as it burned up the air, searching for more food to feed the growing blaze. The ducting burst all the way down the corridor, releasing gouts of flame; people were screaming and running for the stairs.
Cleo felt a numb pounding in her ears, and scrambled to her feet as a breeze started to blow down the corridor. Smoke was already making it difficult to breathe, and she coughed, putting a hand over her nose and mouth to keep out the flecks of burned debris that filled the air. Vicky was lying in the doorway, blood staining her blonde hair. The blast must have thrown her against the jamb of the door. Cleo called for help, but everyone was rushing for the stairs. She gazed down the corridor in despair
; flame was creeping down the walls, eating the paint, the fixtures; the ceiling panels, supposedly fireproof, were blazing in pieces across the floor. Smoke formed an impenetrable cloud that billowed towards her, driven by the fire’s breath.
Grabbing her sister’s arms, she pulled her into the apartment, kicking the door closed behind her. The explosion had burst through the duct in one wall, and the flames were creeping their way down the couch towards the floor. It was made of the same hardened lino as the ceiling panels. The floor shook as other explosions erupted through the building.
Dragging her sister across the smoky apartment to the living-room window, she quickly unlatched it. There was a fire escape outside. She was already exhausted, her lungs catching on the gritty fumes, making her cough and choke. As she opened the window, the draught of air gave new life to the blaze in the apartment, and it clawed across the ceiling. Cleo cried as she struggled to lift her sister’s inert body through the window. Vicky flopped like an unfeasibly heavy rag doll, flimsy and awkward, but in a final heave Cleo fell backwards through the window, pulling her sister with her. They landed hard on the denceramic grille of the walkway.
From somewhere inside the building she heard a monster roar, and fire exploded through the windows two storeys above them, showering them with glass and burned fragments of people’s homes. Cleo cowered over her sister’s head and shoulders, screaming in terror. They were three storeys up, and the only way down from the fire escape was by a sloping series of ladders. Despite being more than three years younger, Vicky was almost the same size as her big sister. Cleo doubted she would be able to carry her down a ladder.
‘Vicky!’ she cried, gently slapping the younger girl’s face. ‘Vicky, you have to wake up! C’mon! Wake up!’
Vicky’s eyes opened, but remained glazed over. She did not even lift her head. Cleo coughed and cursed, ducking down as flames came through their living-room window. Hauling her sister along the fire escape towards the ladder, she frantically tried to work out a way down. She was vaguely aware of sirens, but was enveloped by smoke. There was just her, Vicky, the fire escape and the blaze. Another explosion ripped through the building above her and she flinched, waiting for more glass, or even a wall to collapse over her. With no strength to carry Vicky down the ladder, Cleo climbed on herself, and pulled her sister’s body after her. They fell heavily, but Cleo was able to hold on long enough to take the full force of Vicky’s weight before she dropped onto the lower walkway. Vicky’s left hand was bent back at an impossible angle: the fall had broken her wrist.
Cleo was breathing in heaving coughs – she had no more air left in her lungs. The world spun around her head as she crawled towards the next ladder, gripping her sister’s other wrist. She gagged as she leaned over the edge and, lifting herself onto her knees, she finally blacked out, teetering forward over the three-metre drop towards the ladder, and falling headfirst into the arms of a fireman.
Section 15/24: Knowledge
ANA KIROA EMERGED from the ISS headquarters feeling cold and hollow. After three hours of being grilled by Inspector Ponderosa, she wanted to go home and have a shower, to clean the stain of this place from her body. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. These men were enforcing the law; protecting innocent people from the criminals. Solomon and his father were wanted in connection with murders, but every name, every piece of information Ana had given to the police to help find the fugitives had felt like an act of betrayal. Held in a small room with Ponderosa and his bullying henchmen standing over her, asking the same questions over and over again, shouting at her, making vague threats; she had wanted to stand her ground, to show that they didn’t intimidate her. But the only thing that stopped her breaking down in tears as she walked out was the desire to be clean, and to be wrapped up in Julio’s warm embrace.
‘Ms Kiroa?’ a voice called after her, and she looked round, fearful that they were going to call her back.
It was Mercier, walking up behind her, his overcoat folded over his arm. He had not taken part in the interrogation; Ponderosa had sent him on his way as if he were some lowly patrolman.
‘Can I give you a lift home?’
She wanted to tell him to get lost, but it was a long tram ride back, and a car would get her there faster. She shrugged. He waved to a nearby car and it drew up; that sergeant, Baiev, sat behind the wheel. Ana let Mercier open the door for her.
‘We’ll have you back in no time,’ he told her.
Ana was about to make an acidic remark about him being Ponderosa’s delivery boy, but the cowed expression on his face as he spoke stopped her short. He climbed into the front, and Baiev pulled out into the traffic. The police radio crackled with abbreviated messages every few seconds.
‘I’m sorry if Inspector Ponderosa seemed a bit hard on you back there,’ Mercier said from the passenger seat, glancing round. ‘He’s a dogged investigator, one of the most respected men on the force; but his methods can be somewhat . . . insensitive, at times.’
‘Aren’t you capable of handling this case on your own?’ Ana asked. ‘How many inspectors do they need to run things?’
Mercier did not answer immediately, staring out at the road through the windscreen. She could see his doughy white hands resting on his knees, the nails neatly clipped. In his nondescript suit, with his officious manner, she was struck again with the image of the policeman as a bureaucrat, a career paper-shuffler. He looked back at her again, his flabby chin folding into wrinkles.
‘The ISS have taken the lead role in this investigation. It’s our job to help them where we can,’ he said, but there was a petty tone in his voice. ‘And we are happy to oblige. Isn’t that right, Sergeant?’
Baiev nodded. Ana wondered if the man ever spoke at all.
‘Might I ask’ – Mercier looked back at her again – ‘did the inspector put any questions to you about the crane accident at all?’
Ana frowned. With everything else that was going on, she’d almost forgotten about the horrific day of the school tour.
‘No. Why would he ask me about that?’
‘It’s just that he’s investigating that case as well. It’s nothing, I was just curious. I’m sure your witness statement from the time had everything he needed.’
There was a peculiar orange glow against the dome’s glass over to the south, and Ana raised her head to try to get a better view. She could hear sirens as they approached the Third Quadrant.
‘What is that?’ she asked hesitantly. ‘What’s going on?’
‘There’s a fire on Halske Street,’ Mercier replied. ‘Spartan Hall. There was a large gas explosion. Terrible business.’
‘Spartan Hall!’ Ana started. ‘Some of my students live there! Take me there, please!’
‘I’m sure there will be more than enough people obstructing the emergency services as it is, Ms Kiroa. I think it would be better if we just—’
‘Please! I have to see if they’re all right!’
Mercier gave a resigned sigh and nodded slightly to Baiev. They steered in the direction of the fire, and soon they could see a massive pillar of smoke, lit from beneath by the flames that were devouring the apartment block’s insides. Ana leaned forward between the front seats, stunned by the scale of the inferno. As it rose into sight above the roofs of the other buildings, they could see that Spartan Hall had been devastated. Jets of water from the hoses of fire crews arced over the blaze, but there was little of the building left to save. The car drew up just short of Halske Street, prevented from getting any closer by the police cordon and the crowds of shell-shocked people staring aghast at the gutted remains of their home.
Solomon stood on the walkway above the piston well where Tommy Hyung had died, and watched Cleo’s apartment block burn. Baffled by what he had learned from Cortez, he had gone back to tracing his father’s last movements. Unsure of Gregor’s route to this point, he had picked the shortest path from the depot to this walkway, searching all along the way for clues to his father’s whereab
outs. But he could find nothing. Gazing down at the eight pistons pumping, each one the length of a tram and almost as heavy, ramming down to within centimetres of the floor of the well, he imagined what would happen to a body that fell in there. The noise was rhythmic, harsh and overpowering.
He had not mentioned seeing the Third Quadrant crane to Maslow, unsure of its significance. He only had a hunch, and a weak one at that; Maslow’s patience was already wearing thin, and Sol was acutely aware of his protector’s warnings that he was putting them in danger. And now Cleo’s home was on fire.
The pillar of dense, black smoke could be seen from all over the city, and Sol had soon located the source of it. He could only pray that Cleo had got out.
Fire was doubly hazardous in Ash Harbour, particularly one that produced such a massive column of smoke. With nowhere for the smoke to go, it had to be pumped out by the ventilators. And they weren’t exactly at the top of their game at the moment. The smoke would stain the dome and settle on the city. It would clog the carbon-dioxide filters, and most of the toxic particles and fumes would stay in the air for days, the ash settling all over the area like thick dust. Long after the inferno was put out, it would still be affecting people’s health.
At first he had asked himself if this could be his fault. He had asked her to help, and the Clockworkers had set fire to her home to silence her. But it couldn’t be; nobody would burn down an apartment block just to kill one schoolgirl – that would be insanity. And then he had started thinking about what Maslow had said earlier.
‘You said “Not today”!’ Sol shouted.
‘What?’
Sol swivelled to glare over at the other man, who stood further along the walkway.
‘“Not today”, you said. As in “we can’t go and see Cleo today. Maybe tomorrow”. That’s what you said.’
