by Oisin McGann
Sol left it on. The diodes ran off electricity drawn from his own body, and would not run down. They huddled under the blankets, neither speaking for a time.
‘We need help,’ Cleo said again. ‘What if they killed Maslow?’
‘They didn’t.’
‘How do you know?’
Solomon didn’t answer, staying quiet for a time. Then: ‘So what kind of a name is Cleopatra Matsumura, anyway?’
‘Cleopatra’s Egyptian, like the pyramids. You know – the big triangular stone things we learned about in history? Matsumura is Japanese Asian. Samurai warriors. Karaoke.’
‘Oh.’
‘So what kind of a name is Solomon Wheat?’
‘Solomon was an old Jewish king. Famous for being really smart. Wheat . . . That’s not our original name, it used to be Wiescowski, or Wiekovski or something. Eastern European Jews weren’t too popular when everybody started moving south in the big freeze, so my great-great-great-great-something-something grandfather changed it to “Wheat” so he could get work. It’s from a place called the Ukraine. Cossacks. That Chernobyl disaster. It was one of the first places to freeze over.’
‘Oh.’
Cleo looked down at the patterns of leaves and flowers on the fabric beneath them. It was rough to the touch, and there was little give in the barrel-sized rolls, but she snuggled in the furrow between two of them, tucking her arm under her head as a pillow. She was exhausted, and in no time at all she was asleep.
Cleo awoke, cold to the bone, in pitch-blackness. Her befuddled brain was still recovering from a nightmare about faceless figures with syringes and it took her some moments to remember where she was. Her hands explored the strange, humped shapes around her.
‘Sol?’ she whispered. ‘Solomon? Are you there?’
‘Yeah,’ he muttered back, from less than a metre away.
‘Can’t you sleep?’
‘One of us needs to stay awake while the other sleeps,’ he said. ‘To keep watch.’
She crawled over to him, shivering. Throwing her blanket over him, she crept in under his, huddling close to him. He tensed at first, but then relaxed, shifting his body slightly to accommodate her. His skin felt much warmer than hers. Putting her arm over his chest, she pushed her face into the crook of his neck. Her body gradually stopped shivering, and she wriggled up closer to make the most of his warmth, letting him slip his arm under her head.
‘Don’t get the wrong idea here,’ she murmured in his ear. ‘You’re not my type. But I’m cold, I’m scared and I’m strung out. I just need something to get me through the night.’
Her lips started on his neck, kissing him under his ear, and then on his jaw, and his cheek, before finally opening over his mouth. Sol pulled the blankets over them and wrapped her in his arms. It had been so long since he had held anyone close, and opening up to her thrilled and frightened him in equal measure. He was no longer on his own . . . and he no longer had just himself to worry about.
Section 19/24: Hunted
SOL WOKE WITH a jolt. He had not meant to fall asleep – at least not until he was sure Cleo was awake to keep watch. A faint light filtered down from the shaft above. Cleo had a wristwatch, charged from the static on her skin. He checked it: half-past eight. They’d slept longer than he’d intended, but seeing as they weren’t dead, or being dragged off to some secret sub-level prison, he had to assume they had not been discovered.
Cleo moved under the blanket beside him, and he cradled her head against his shoulder. He turned onto his side and stroked her face.
‘Hey, we have to get up.’
She opened her eyes and blinked.
‘It’s still dark,’ she muttered sleepily.
‘It doesn’t get any brighter down here.’
She groaned, and tucked herself into him.
‘Tch. Don’t wanna go,’ she moped in a baby’s voice.
‘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 torch 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 torch 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 downwards, 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 down to the bottom of the ladder and ducked away out of sight. Torchlight shone down through the grate, catching Sol in its beam.
‘They’re down here!’ a voice yelled.
Sol dropped the last two metres 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 torch-beam. There was a cry and the torch 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 metres 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 towards 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, round 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 colourful flowers. This was no farm, this was one of the conservation gardens, tended by botanists who one day hoped to repopulate the planet’s eco-system. They 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 lift 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 lift was empty. She pulled Sol in and hit the button for
the highest floor.
A tall man with greying 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 standing 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. Solomon 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, laboured 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 greying hair. Dressed in a dark-coloured 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.
She and Sol turned to run, and saw a policeman coming from the opposite direction. Sol looked over the railing, frantically seeking a way down. There was nothing, just a hundred-metre 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 round,’ 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 policeman 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 towards the Clockworker. He was hovering a few metres away, pretending to enjoy the view of the city.
‘Hello?’ the patrolman prompted them. ‘Some ID, please? Now?’
They made a show of rummaging through their pockets.
‘People your age are at particular risk, y’understand. All those issues to be resolved. Disputes with your parents, bad skin, exams, dating . . . All those hormones getting you worked up and confused – I know it’s tough being a teenager. We were all there once, y’know.’
There was no one else around now, just the cop, the Clockworker and them.
‘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 patrolman 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 policeman, and neither of them was ready to give up this temporary safety. They followed the patrolman 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 cosh down on the back of the patrolman’s head. The cop 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 paralysed by the assault on the policeman.
‘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 would let them go 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 daylighter’s 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 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 w
as pulling on a suit over his huge frame. Solomon 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 Solomon.
‘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 to himself. 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 swivelled 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 scraped 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 lowlife 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.
