by Ann Denton
Of all the knowledge the world had ever known, this was what remained. Seven little floors of sputtering computers and archivists scrambling to transcribe dying screens to paper. Stained books salvaged from wrecked homes. It was the only fairytale that remained in Senebal, the only distant hope: one day, when the Erlenders were defeated and the river was theirs again, Senebals would delve into these archives and remake the world of their great-grandparents.
Lowe knew better than to believe in fairytales … but it was something.
Lowe was in the archive, but he wasn’t looking for a book. He was looking for a person. Another week and Mala hadn’t made any progress. Ein’s methods of testing were getting more intense. More cruel.
Lowe still hadn’t been able to reach Stelle. Fear was like a snake coiled low in his belly, waiting to strike. He carried his radio with him everywhere. Just in case Stelle made contact. He slipped out of the observation room during Mala’s tests, went to the surface, just to try calling. Tier’s glares followed him down the hall whenever they passed one another.
She’s got to be okay. She’s going to be okay. The mantra applied to both Stelle and Mala. And Lowe recited it with fervor.
One morning, Lowe prowled the archives searching for Klaren’s former assistant. Every Kreis was assigned a Typical archival assistant. The assistant researched mission-critical items. Town populations. Known histories of targets. Local slang.
Normal testing and melting methods weren’t working with Mala. Lowe intended to see what shreds of intelligence he could get from fifteen-year-old memories.
He rounded a shelf of paintings when he heard a scuff and a surprised squeak. A blonde-haired Typical girl turned her back and quickly rearranged her wetsuit. Next to her, Verrukter leaned against the bookshelves and grinned. He did not zip his wetsuit back up.
“Well, aren’t you a mud-breathing little killjoy this morning,” Verrukter smiled at Lowe, wryful rather than acidic.
“Yup,” Lowe quipped. “Patrolling the stacks for miscreants. Success!”
Verrukter laughed. “What are you really up to?” He gave a half wave to the blonde, who scurried silently away, face as red as a beet.
“Looking for Konner.”
“Haven’t seen him. You alright, man? What do you need that old buzzard for?” Verrukter asked.
Lowe didn’t feel like voicing his worries. So he changed topics. “Did you hear about Blut?”
Verrukter’s face fell, and he nodded. “Yeah. Hell of a thing.” He turned to the table full of papers and shuffled through them absently. “I guess we shoulda known,” he said.
“What do you mean?” said Lowe.
Verrukter pursed his lips and blew out a long stream of air. “There was chatter from the slaver township. Erlender magic men were in a frenzy, talking about mucked-up stars from hell. Signs in the water and skin-stealing demons.”
“Skin-stealing …? Shit.” That’d be Blut. Once or twice a Kreis had been caught in a melt. Word had spread like wildfire among the heathens. They’d unknowingly called the Kreis demons for thirty-odd years. But if they were talking about it specifically now, it could only mean they’d seen Blut. Otherwise, the Ancients would have been up in arms with remedial training, secret melting, lectured slideshows, the works.
He melted in front of them. How much did he tell them? Did he play to their fears that he was a demon? I mucking hope so. If the Erlenders know anything about us …
Verrukter continued, oblivious to Lowe’s inner panic. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time. They’re always going on about something. I usually tune it out. I mean, it’s just a coping mechanism, right? Pretend they have control.” He turned abruptly away from the papers and squinted into the archives. “They were scared, though. Paranoid—more paranoid than I’d ever seen them. Home altars had fires going in ‘em from dawn until dusk, burning that awful silver stuff. Like it was the end of the world and they were begging their gods for mercy. They must have sent a hundred people into the radiation zone.” Verrukter scoffed and crossed his arms. He didn’t look up. “I mean. They were crazy, man. Like, loopy-crazy. Not their normal crazy. So, no, I didn’t know he’d switched sides. I thought he’d poisoned the mucking well. Oops! That’s me. Gotta go.”
Verrukter spotted his archival assistant and was gone after a quick clap on the back. Lowe was alone again. He climbed two more floors. No luck on either. He crossed his arms, pushing down his stress.
Tier wants Mala dead. He’d killed Klaren himself, discovered him in a combat room holding another Kreis against the wall by his throat. The dead Kreis’ son had been in the room and seen the whole thing. Tier had hauled Klaren off to his office, for discipline. But apparently Klaren had attacked Tier. Leading to a brutal, beastlike fight to the death … that’s how the rumors told it. Tier’s hatred for the dead Kreis was palpable. And he’d turned it on Mala. Unfairly.
Fell had forced Tier to spare Mala—of the zero crimes she committed, Lowe seethed—in the hope that they could train her to melt on purpose. If she could wear the skins of Erlender magic men, of Troe’s sons or—Deadwater forbid—Troe himself … she could destabilize them. Could end the war. An option besides Stelle’s suicide mission.
I just have to figure out what makes her melt. What made him melt. Lowe stalked past another row of bookcases.
“Boo!”
Lowe jumped, and a shadow fell at his feet, laughing. “Got ya!”
Lowe smiled down at the little blond mess giggling on the floor. “Hey Beza. What’re you doing here?”
Beza leapt to his feet. “I was transferred here!”
Lowe quirked an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Really,” said Beza, nodding enthusiastically. “Dropped too many loaves of bread, I guess.” He grinned, mischief glinting in his eyes.
Lowe felt relieved. The ladders wouldn’t do Beza much good, but the archivists were soft-hearted. They’d find easy tasks for the kid. “How long you been here?”
“Few days,” said Beza, looking around. “Why are you here?”
Lowe crouched in front of him and flicked Beza’s nose. Beza giggled.
“I need to talk to Konner,” said Lowe. “But while I do … do you think you could rustle up Verrukter’s chatter reports for me?” Verrukter might not have paid attention to what the Erlenders were saying. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t important. If Blut had been there. If Blut had received reports there … if he got notice of Bara’s celebration there … it would have been tight. But he might have been able to take a boat to Wilde township ...
It’s a long shot, Lowe warned himself. But if he could find out who the woman in the woods was, what she said, and if Stelle was compromised, it would go a long way toward settling the piranha gnawing on his gut.
“Sure,” said Beza. “From when?”
“Everything from the day Blut went missing to the night of the Wilde Township attack, two weeks or so ago,” Lowe said.
Beza saluted him. “Can do. Anything else?”
“Yes. I need you to find me everything we have on Klaren the Deranged.”
“Klaren?” Beza asked. Klaren was little more than a story to kids his age, but he knew what it meant. Beza made a face. “Is it ‘cause of that new girl? I heard she melts funny.”
“She does melt funny. But don’t go telling people that.”
“Why?” Beza leaned in close, putting his nose to Lowe’s and squinting. “Do you like her?”
“What?” Lowe sputtered. He felt blood rushing to his cheeks. “No.”
“Ha!” said Beza, and he started jumping up and down, pointing. “You do! I knew it, I knew it! Recruiters always get with their firsts!”
“Says who?” said Lowe.
“Says Alba. She says it’s only a matter of time before Verrukter gets with her forever.”
Lowe kept careful control of his face. “Do you even know what that means?”
“No,” Beza admitted, scratching the back of his neck. “Alba says it
means kissing.”
Lowe sighed, laughing. “Well, she’s not wrong. Could you find those reports for me, please?”
“Sure. I can even probably tell you where Konner might be. Maybe.”
Lowe smiled. Sometimes it was all he could do not to scoop Beza up and tickle the little monster until he screamed. “What’s this maybe?”
“Well … my mom says it’s about time for—”
“Family dinner,” Lowe grinned and shook his head. He’d been planning on asking Beza but decided to let the kid believe he’d pulled one over on Lowe. Lowe sighed dramatically. “I guess I can suffer through one more of those. But every time you get up to get refills, beware.”
Beza grinned. “I’ll just tell your girlfriend to line you out!”
Lowe swung an arm at the kid.
“Ha!” Beza used his cane to swipe at Lowe’s feet. The two squared off into combat poses.
“Tell me what I want to know, and maybe I’ll let you live,” Lowe growled.
“Never!” Beza used his cane to catapult himself at Lowe. Lowe caught him, but pretended the blow knocked him to the ground. He fell onto the rotted carpet, bookshelves nearly touching each shoulder.
“Please, mercy,” Lowe wheezed, fighting to keep a grin off his face.
Beza grinned down at him. “You are the worst actor ever! Stick to spying.”
“Well gee, thanks,” Lowe smiled. Then shoved Beza off him, hard.
Beza only chuckled. “They take coffee one floor up. Some people call them the wheezers.”
“You should call them the lucky ones. We don’t all get to wheeze.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Beza waved him off as Lowe ruffled his hair. “I’ll go grab those reports of Verrukter’s. I’ll put them at your reading station.”
“Great. See you tonight,” Lowe responded.
“I’ll let everyone else know your girlfriend’s coming!” Beza called as Lowe ascended a ladder to the next floor.
Lowe kicked at him in response. “Watch it, trouble.” Beza’s cane whacked the ladder, and Lowe climbed faster, a grin plastered across his face.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Lowe’s conversation with Konner knocked his grin right off. Konner was a crotchety man with the wrinkles to prove he’d frowned every day of his life. He had a disturbing habit of running his hand over his thinning hair, smoothing it into a band across his pate, and Lowe had to concentrate to keep looking at Konner’s eyes instead of that hand.
“He didn’t like to talk. Only business,” Konner responded, when Lowe asked about Klaren’s melts.
“He was one of the stiff ones. Usually the stiff ones don’t make it,” Konner said.
One of his coffee mates behind him snickered, “My stiff ones always make it.”
“And when was the last time you got one ‘a those? Twenty years ago?” another old man snorted.
“Guys,” Konner shushed them.
“Anything you can remember will help,” Lowe tried the friendly approach.
“Not much. Not much. He did talk about focus. Used that word a lot. Power sources. What was his saying? Focus on power sources … He used to mutter it. You know. Like his mantra.” His hand traced over the track of hair. “I don’t know anything real useful …” he paused, and Lowe recognized a memory surfacing.
“Yes?”
“There was one time. He tried to get me to help him sneak a girl in here.”
Lowe cocked his head. Every coffee drinker behind him froze, listening.
“And?”
“Of course, I didn’t,” Konner became defensive. “I know the law.”
“I knew you wouldn’t,” Lowe tried to unruffle Konner’s feathers. He didn’t know the man at all. But he figured it didn’t matter. Konner was as much a by-the-book man as himself. He wouldn’t allow an outsider into the Center.
“When did he ask?”
Konner pushed around that band of hair, sliding it backward. “Before his final trial. He was nervous, I think. He said he needed external stimuli.”
“Well, I guess that makes sense,” Lowe sighed, frustrated. “Anything else?”
Konner shook his head. “You aren’t the first to ask. But I worked with him twenty years. He wasn’t even so much as a ‘Good morning’ kinda guy. Straight to the point. Target. Location. Potential complications. Percentage chance of success.”
“Ok. Well. If you think of anything …” Lowe nodded a farewell, disappointed.
He sat at his assigned research desk with a neat little stack of reports and some still photographs. He flipped through Verrukter’s report.
He skipped most of Verrukter’s own writing, ten pages of patriotic rants. The phrase “mucking Erlender” featured prominently. And then, near the middle, there was a synopsis of the mission Blut had abandoned.
Blut been sent to an Erlender border town, the central hub of their slave trade. Erlender chatter indicated eight slave children had disappeared in the dead of night. No one knew if they’d escaped or been taken.
Blut was supposed to kill a head slaver named Daud (described in no uncertain terms by Verrukter as a “muck-drinking, sludge-hauling, mud-bleeding piece of Erlender shit”). But Blut’s mission directive changed when they discovered one of the missing children was the son of one of the president’s most staunch supporters, the owner of Senebal’s largest flour mill. The mission took on political colors. He was supposed to find the kid. Of course, that hadn’t happened.
Lowe read the transcript with Blut’s last few radio check-ins.
Blut: Radiation contamination. And a muck-ton of it. People going into the woods and coming back with arms and legs that don’t work. Just dead-limbed. One guy went in to chop wood. Wouldn’t stop. Just lost his mind. Chopped one branch to nothing then just kept chopping. They put him down. Their priests have tried every spell I’ve ever seen ‘em do. And the mucking smell …
There was a note in the margins, a question mark and the words sitri. Lowe’ stomach clenched. Sitri was a spice they burned, to honor people who volunteered for what they referred to as “medical sacrifice.”
Lowe shook his head, filled with pity for whomever had been burned to appease the gods. The Erlenders believed they’d been skipped over when the planet was decimated by nuclear bombs. Every move they made, they were trying to earn their spot in the afterlife. Lowe knew what kind of afterlife he’d give them if he had a chance. Sludge-drinking fools.
He turned back to the transcript.
Blut: Walking the woods, looking for Daud. Kids. There was a pile of bodies. Faces slashed. Stiff as hell but not blue yet. So they couldn’t have been that old. Didn’t see …Wait. [static] Wh … ell did he come from? What … no … seen … Mucking hell.
(End of Transmission)
“Mucking hell.” Lowe grimaced, pounding his fist on the table. An archivist nearby turned and chastised him with raised brows. Lowe held up his hands in apology. He stared down at the page. Flipped to the next just to be sure. There were no more transmissions from Blut. So whatever he’d seen in those woods was the last thing he’d sent to the Center. The last transmission before Blut turned.
A series of photos followed the transmission. Lowe flipped through them listlessly. I can’t get a break here. Not for Mala. Not for Stelle. His eyes scanned the photos, looking for the woman who’d eluded him in the woods.
She probably contacted him via radio, Lowe grumbled to himself. This is probably a waste of time.
But then his hand hesitated. He was about to flip a photo, and his hand just stopped. A tingle went down his spine. A shiver of anticipation. Of instinct.
Lowe blinked and stared more intently at the photo. There were slave blocks. Erlenders bidding. It was a crowded shot. He leaned in closer to study it. His eyes scanned each face. Until he reached the top left corner.
He gulped. Lowe grabbed the photo and sprinted out of the archive.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“What are you doing?”
Lowe near
ly jumped out of his skin. Fell was standing in front of him at the elevators with her arms crossed, a concerned look on her face.
The elevator opened before he could get his thoughts together enough to speak. Fell gestured for him to get in and he followed her. The elevator had been modified, so that it wouldn’t eat away at the precious electricity the Center generated. A rope and pulley system ran through makeshift holes carved out of the ceiling and floor.
A Typical elevator operator stepped out, giving Fell a formal bow. He held the doors open as Fell and Lowe entered. Fell waved him away, and he slid the grill shut, so that it was just she and Lowe in the suspended metal box.
“I thought we could use a moment of privacy. You looked … disoriented,” Stelle stated, gesturing at the ropes. Lowe set down his photo and helped her grab the cords. Together, they heaved to lower the elevator. It crept downward, as Fell was clearly more interested in Lowe’s response than making good time, and Lowe tried to decide what to say.
He started slowly. No reason she can’t know some of it. “I was following up on Blut,” he said. “I wanted to see if there was anything in Verrukter’s reports that could tell us why he turned. And why he followed me after the attack.”
“To kill you, probably.”
“But why bother? And he didn’t come with any backup. He swam up alone.”
Fell shrugged. “Crazy people do crazy things.”
“He didn’t look crazy,” Lowe said. “He wasn’t … acting crazy.”
“How was he acting?”
“Loud, commanding. He gave orders. They listened.”
Fell paused and the elevator lurched crooked. She righted her side of the rope and pulleys and held it still. She placed a hand on his arm. “Blut was out of his mind to go to the Erlenders.”
“But he didn’t … he didn’t finish his last mission. He just stopped. And we have no idea why. His comm cuts off.” What came up? What made Blut turn? What did he find out? Or … who found him? Lowe glanced back at the photo at his feet. Fear blew like a cold wind through his veins. What was Nal doing there? Why did Blut have a picture of him? What was the President’s man doing not guarding the president?
