Small-Minded Giants

by Oisin McGann

  ‘I can’t tell you how many accidents I’ve seen; some caused by carelessness, bad management, cutting corners – being cheap. And some caused by sabotage, to remove some small, independent competitor that threatened big company profits. Or because the bosses needed to get some of their property out of the way, and the city council wouldn’t let them.’ He looked at Cleo. ‘Like an apartment block. Or sometimes the sabotage would be to remove somebody who was causing trouble. Like staging a crane accident.’

  ‘You know Francis Walden was murdered?’ Sol asked. ‘And the other guy, Falyadi?’

  Smith nodded.

  ‘Walden was a safety officer, Falyadi was an accountant. They came to us because they’d discovered that Schaeffer was running the Clockworkers. They said they could get proof. We originally thought that Schaeffer was making a bid to gain complete control of the Machine. We didn’t have a clue; he’s been in control for years. Haddad and the other politicians are just puppets for these industrialists, but Schaeffer’s the most powerful of the lot. Walden and Falyadi had accounts that showed Clockworker funds, and we were going to release them over the web. Schaeffer got to them first.

  ‘The myth is that the Clockworkers exist to protect the Machine. But it’s exactly that – a myth. They’ve been around in one form or another since Ash Harbour was built, and they have one job: not to protect the Machine, but to maintain the status quo. They make sure the control of the Machine stays in the hands of a small and powerful elite. It’s as simple as that. People like Schaeffer think they have the God-given right to run our world and they’ll use any means to keep it that way.

  ‘The crazy thing is, they’re destroying the very thing they’re trying to control. With the way things are wearing out, this city might last another hundred years. Meteorologists say the ice age could last another six centuries . . . maybe much more.

  ‘You know we used to have engines, oil-driven machines, for restarting the Heart Engine if it stopped? For saving us from extinction! The only things that could have jump-started our city if its heart failed. The city council used up all the oil, and broke up the machines for parts.

  ‘And every accident the Clockworkers create brings the Machine closer to grinding to a halt, and us all freezing to death. Schaeffer and his cronies, they’re fighting over who gets to steer the ship . . . while it’s sinking.’

  He ground his teeth.

  ‘Even if everything could be fixed up properly, the Machine won’t last for ever. The DDF are dedicated to finding other ways to survive.’

  Cleo and Sol continued to stare at the macabre scene below them.

  ‘My God,’ Sol muttered. ‘No wonder you’re all suicidal.’

  Sol gripped the edge of the work table he was sitting on and gritted his teeth. Smith pushed the needle into the edge of the wound in his neck, pulled it through and drew the thread out. He pushed the point into the other side of the small gash, making Sol whimper.

  ‘I’m sorry we’ve no anaesthetic,’ Smith said. ‘Even the hospitals can’t get hold of enough these days. Try not to tense up too much, it pulls it open.’

  Sol drew a sharp breath in as the needle went in again, his knuckles white as his grip tightened on the table. Smith wasn’t a doctor, but he apparently had some experience in dealing with wounds. Sol’s had to be stitched, or he would keep losing blood. He was close to passing out from the pain. Cleo was away in some other part of the building, talking revolution, making new friends and searching for stem.

  ‘Are they hiding my dad here somewhere too?’ Sol asked the engineer.

  ‘No. Sorry.’

  ‘Would you tell me if they were?’

  ‘Not unless he said I could, no.’ Smith dabbed away some blood with a dressing. ‘But like I said last time, I don’t know where he is.’

  ‘You wouldn’t tell me about all this back then.’

  ‘Because of Maslow. I didn’t know who he was, but I could guess what he was. I’ve seen him around; him and his kind.’

  The needle drove in again, and Sol screwed up his face, his whole body tensing. He could feel the thread being pulled through the edge of the scored tear left by the bullet. To try to take his mind off the pain, he looked around at the room they were in: an office with a desk, a worktable covered in electrical odds and ends, and some cupboards. It had a hidden entrance in the library wall, behind a bookcase. Not exactly original, but it worked. One wall of the secret room was lined with small shelves holding thousands of data cards. The other three walls were covered in printouts of photos – accident scenes: dead faces, factory floors, offices, city streets, even a few of the daylighters’ depots.

  ‘What’s with all the photos?’ he asked.

  ‘We carry out investigations of accidents,’ Smith replied, his attention focused on his stitching. ‘It’s part of what we do. We also advise unions, find whistle-blowers, provide information for the media. But we try to keep a low profile; it’s not a good idea to be seen as a threat. As I’m sure you know.’

  Sol winced as Smith gently pulled the thread tight, closing the edges of the wound and tying a neat knot.

  ‘That’s you done and dusted,’ Smith said as he taped a fresh dressing into place over the injury. ‘Try and take it easy – don’t move your head too much.’

  Solomon was hardly listening. He was staring at a photo of the workshop in his father’s depot. Some of the daylighters were standing over a lathe; blood was visible on the controls. His father was in the picture, in the forefront, the only man in his crew who did not wear a beard.

  ‘One of your dad’s mates lost two fingers when the tool-post on the lathe broke,’ Smith informed him. ‘Metal fatigue. They’d warned the company about it. Nothing was done.’

  ‘When was this taken?’ Sol asked, staring at one of the faces.

  Maybe Smith hadn’t noticed; the man looked different with a bushy beard.

  ‘About two months ago. Why?’

  Sol swung the door open and walked out.

  ‘Sol? What is it?’

  ‘Thanks for the stitches,’ Sol muttered. ‘I’ll be back in a few hours.’

  ‘You can’t go out!’ Smith called after him.

  ‘I won’t be long.’

  Sol was striding quickly away. Cleo, who was in one of the adjacent rooms, heard their voices and hurried out.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

  ‘I have to meet Maslow.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ she told him.

  ‘No. I’d prefer it if you stayed here.’

  ‘No, listen. You know all those black and white messages we’ve been seeing on the screens? Somebody here was doing that – they write the viruses and post them on the web. I’ve had an idea—’

  Sol shook his head in disdain. Posting messages on the web. They were good people, and they’d already begun to earn his trust. But was that really the best they could do?

  ‘I want to talk to Maslow about it,’ she persisted.

  ‘That might be a problem,’ Sol said as he reached the door to the spiral staircase.

  ‘Why?’

  Sol slammed the door in her face. She heard his footsteps descending the stairs, and then he was gone.

  Section 21/24: Heroism

  THE HIDEOUT WHERE Sol had arranged to meet Maslow if they got split up was a short walk from the Dark-Day Fatalists’ building, but it took him nearly an hour to reach it without being seen. He wondered if he would ever again be able to go outside without constantly looking over his shoulder. Tucked away in the attic of a deserted sewage-treatment facility, it was a back room with a small window that looked out on the roofs beyond. The unused sewage works below still pervaded the air with a faint but perpetual reek; as he picked the lock and slipped inside the building, Sol could see the end of a row of tanks, where workers had once sieved the foul gunk. There was a lot they could make from sewage: fertilizer, health products . . . It was even processed and made into a nutritious food. Since the city’s inception, the p
oorer people in Ash Harbour had been eating the city’s crap.

  The room was at the top of a rickety, neglected staircase. He locked the door behind him. Behind a loose panel in the wall of the small room was another of Maslow’s stashes. Along with a bag of emergency supplies, there were four weapons wrapped in burlap: an automatic pistol, a revolver, a stubby sub-machine gun and a short-barrelled pump-action shotgun. Sol rolled out the bundle, slipping the automatic and some spare clips into his jacket pocket. Then he took the shotgun out, loading it with ten shells. It would make bigger holes. He pumped it, chambering a shell, and sat down on an empty crate. He sat with one knee up, supporting the shotgun’s stock, which he kept aimed at the door.

  Time passed, slowly. He waited with determined patience.

  After nearly three hours he heard soft, uneven steps on the creaking staircase, and then the gentle scraping of a metal pick in the old tumbler lock. The door opened cautiously, and Maslow shuffled in, clutching his hip. The left leg of his trousers was soaked in blood. Supporting himself by using a short scaffolding pole as a crutch, he looked even paler than usual. Sol levelled the shotgun at him. Maslow looked dismayed, but not surprised.

  ‘You’re holding that all wrong,’ he grated.

  Solomon’s aim did not waver. Maslow met his eyes and held them.

  ‘I saw a picture of my dad’s crew today,’ Sol told him. ‘There was only one face I didn’t know – or at least, I didn’t know it up until recently. You were wearing a beard in this photo, but I knew it was you.’

  He kept the gun trained on Maslow as the Clockworker closed the door, put his back to the wall and sat down heavily on the floor, groaning with pain.

  ‘And what did you make of that?’ Maslow asked wearily.

  ‘Remember how you said that Gregor had turned informant, and that his crew planned to murder him?’ Sol said in a shaky voice. ‘Did you really think I’d believe that? Dad would never shop his friends, and as for them murdering him . . . that’s just . . . People just don’t kill that easily. Not everybody’s like you.’

  Maslow continued to stare. Sol glared back.

  ‘You worked on the crew, you knew my dad, but I didn’t know you. You were the last one to see Gregor alive. You’re Tommy Hyung, aren’t you? Aren’t you, Maslow? Dad was a crane operator before he lost his job. He saw somebody messing with the crane from where he was working on the dome . . . He realized what it was, and he tried to warn somebody, am I right? And Tommy Hyung saw him go, and went to stop him. But it wasn’t Hyung who was killed in the piston well. You changed the dental records to protect your identity, right?’

  Maslow let his chin sink down to his chest, but didn’t answer.

  ‘You said you were good at forgery – that was one of the things you did. Could you forge my dad’s handwriting? You sent those messages, didn’t you? So whose . . . whose remains did they pull from the bottom of the piston well?’ Sol uttered the words through gritted teeth. ‘Who was thrown in, Maslow?’

  Maslow heaved a tired, painful sigh and raised his head, his gaze meeting Sol’s.

  ‘Good work, son. You finally figured it out. I killed your dad.’

  ‘DON’T CALL ME “SON”, YOU BASTARD!’ Sol screamed.

  ‘Keep your voice down.’

  Sol’s finger tightened on the trigger. He didn’t care who heard them now. There was a pounding in his ears, and his teeth were clenched, his hands shaking.

  ‘I was just doing my job,’ Maslow wheezed. ‘But something changed the day I fought your father.’

  He winced, and lifted his jacket and tunic to look underneath. Sol saw a dressing taped to his hip. It was leaking blood.

  ‘When I was your age,’ Maslow continued, ‘I wanted to be a hero. Like in the films and comics: a good old-fashioned war hero, or a superhero, fighting crime. I wanted people’s respect, to have kids look up to me, streets named after me. I wanted statues of me erected in the city squares.

  ‘As I got older, I realized life just wasn’t like that. There are no real heroes like in the films. But there was plenty of action to be had, if I wanted it. They put me to good use in the police, and then I went to work with the Clockworkers and that was like being a secret agent. I loved it. But I was getting old, Sol, and I couldn’t see a . . . a good end, y’know? Nobody knew what I’d done; there was nobody outside the circle I could tell . . . I mean, not unless I killed them afterwards.

  ‘I joined the daylighters to break up this union they were forming. I got to know your dad, and I liked him. But when I spotted him taking off after looking down at the crane, I knew he’d seen too much. Imagine what was going through his mind, Sol. Above everything, he knew you would be taking a ride on that crane the following day. He must have been frantic to warn somebody. So I went after him. I lost track of him in the depot for a couple of minutes. Time enough to make a webcall—’

  ‘Which he did, didn’t he?’ Sol cut him off. ‘He called Cortez. Dad knew he could end up disappearing, so he made a mad, stupid bet, because he couldn’t trust anybody, not even the police. But he knew Cortez would look for him . . . for the money. He was that desperate.’

  Maslow nodded.

  ‘I caught sight of him when he left the depot, and I chased him as far as the piston well; he was in good shape – I knew he was going to outrun me. I shouted after him – I yelled that I only had to make one call, and the Clockworkers would come for his son.’

  Maslow stopped and winced as pain stabbed up his side from his hip.

  ‘So Gregor turned back. It was beautiful, Sol, you should’ve seen it – one on one. I had to kill him to silence him; he had to kill me to protect you. To protect you. A righteous battle. He knew what I was, and he still fought me, and goddamn it he was tough. But he failed you in the end. He just wasn’t good enough, not against someone like me.

  ‘And as I watched him fall, I realized that he was the hero I’d never been. It sickened me to think that. And that was when I decided I’d take his place. I’d be a hero for you.’

  Sol stared at him, aghast.

  ‘You’re insane,’ he rasped.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what you think,’ Maslow replied. ‘It’s what I’ve achieved that’s important.’

  ‘But you knew I’d find out eventually . . . You helped me find out!’

  ‘It was only right that you did. And self-sacrifice, well, that’s what being a hero is all about.’

  ‘You’re faggin’ nuts!’

  Sol still had the shotgun aimed at Maslow’s chest. It would be an easy thing for him to squeeze the trigger and finish it all here and now.

  ‘Don’t hold it back against your side like that,’ Maslow told him. ‘The kick’ll break your ribs.’

  ‘What happened to your hip?’

  ‘I got out of the hospital after you and Cleo took off, but a couple of them caught up with me. I nailed them, but not before they put a bullet in me. Broke my pelvis – lost a lot of blood. Walking’s a bitch. So you gonna kill me, or what?’

  Sol’s finger was still tense against the trigger. Moving the butt of the shotgun away from his ribs, he braced it better with his arm. He remembered the crane wreck, the broken corpses of the dead men. He remembered the two men, dead and recycled now, who would have tortured him in that little grey room. He remembered seeing Maslow break a woman’s neck, as he himself blindly put a bullet through a man’s face. He remembered the fire in the apartment block, and the riot. Ana Kiroa being bludgeoned into a coma and possibly killed at the hospital. Himself and Cleo being hunted by the Clockworkers, and saved by the daylighters. The perforated remains of the man in the dome’s vacuum. He remembered Smith’s room full of accident reports . . . and he remembered something Cleo had said. The only thing he couldn’t remember any more was what it felt like to be a normal sixteen-year-old.

  ‘No,’ he said at last, looking at the pitiful man in front of him. ‘I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to make you a real hero.’

  It was late, and C
leo was sharing a meal of promeat and veggie-soy stir-fry and rice with Tenzin Smith. They ate in the DDF’s kitchen, the lights low, the only sound the omnipresent, sub-sonic rumble of the city. Cleo was worried about Solomon, and did not feel much like talking. Smith, on the other hand, was pleased to have somebody new to talk to. A social man at heart, he was a reformed alcoholic who needed constant distractions. He was doing enough talking for both of them.

  ‘. . . Now, Natasha, my third wife? She was a terrible cook – she could burn water. Finally left me after I threw one of her meals out of the window. Mind you, she was always a bit of a snob. Came from one of the First Families, didn’t she? Thought she was better than the rest of us . . .’

  Cleo had been unable to score any stem. Now it was all she could think about, and Smith’s nattering was beginning to get on her nerves. Her own food had gone cold too, and she pushed the remains of the rice around the plate, lost in her craving for smoke. They had plenty of books here, and a whole museum given over to the Golden Age, the beginning of the twenty-first century, before they knew the ice was coming. Stupid, useless things like satellite dishes for television, umbrellas, clocks with different time zones, bottles of sunscreen . . . even stuffed animals. But no stem. She frowned as her mind wandered back to the one-sided conversation.

  ‘. . . Embeth, my fifth wife, she could cook up a storm. But she had a tongue that could cut through steel—’

  ‘What did you mean,’ she cut in, ‘your . . . Natasha was one of the “First Families”? We did something on that in history, I think.’

  Smith paused, smiling.

  ‘You don’t pay much attention at school, do you?’ he said, chuckling.

  ‘I can’t really concentrate properly without music, and they won’t let me play my stereo in class. I asked.’

  ‘Ash Harbour took decades to build,’ he told her, shaking his head at what she assumed were the declining standards of education. ‘It was only one of over twenty refuges that went into construction once mankind realized what was’ – he waved a hand over their heads – ‘what was coming. An ice age like the world had never seen. Our lush, green, succulent planet was fast becoming uninhabitable. Some people said we’d done it to ourselves – that our industry had created this catastrophic climate change. Others said it was coming anyway.