Fall of the Iron Gods, page 22
I eat the salty and spicy snack and lick my fingers one by one. This area is familiar but changed. Most of the snack shops and gadget walk-ups are gone, empty. Small drones buzz around doing what they’ve always done, taking in and organizing data for Solace. Luckily, my lenses will block them from reading my identity, and I sit very still as they go by. Less movement, fewer problems. But as the machchar pass by, a swarm of flies billows in their wake. I wave my hand at them involuntarily and something bites me. I look at my hand, where a small piece of metal sticks out of my skin, red blood pooling in a biological response. I remove the splinter like a stinger and inspect it. It’s similar in shape to a flying insect or paper airplane, but made of metal and is the length of a grain of rice.
“Stay away from those nano-fliers. Tricky to extract from your eyes.”
“Nano-fliers?”
“Yeah, they tag everything. Nasty bugs. So,” she begins and takes a swig of her water can. “You stop by for a snack or something else? Not that I mind either way.”
“Both?” I smile. “Can we go somewhere to talk, away from all these bugs?” I drop the nano-flier on the ground and grind it to metal scrap under my foot.
She gets me, or at least I think she does. “I have five minutes.”
I follow her down an alleyway and into an abandoned office building. We duck under dead cables and wires from another era. Puddles of ocean water on the ground make it tricky to walk, but I don’t think the electricity is live. Maybe it was an old medi-port station, now stripped of everything it once contained.
“I’m curious, Ravni. What’s your hustle down here?”
“My hustle?”
“I don’t know what’s happening in the Liminal Area anymore. There were some deals made between the Lords of Shadow, some with the Red Hand. But I guess what I’m asking is—”
“Who do I work for? Do I have any alliances?”
I feel stupid the way she puts it. “Yeah.”
“No, I’m self-employed. My crew was taken.” She straightens the collar of her jacket.
“I’m sorry. What happened in the tunnels? Why did the guardian grab you?”
“It’s a long story.” She leans against a wall. “The tunnels go all over the city. I’ve been using them to transport IDs. I know every bit of that place. But sometimes I have a run-in, and they’re getting worse. A bribe is usually enough. I always find a way around though. I’m afraid . . . this place won’t last much longer. The new guardians don’t think of us as human.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a guardian that looks organic but isn’t. We think it’s a type of robot. It’s not sentient, it’s just a machine. Central is crawling with them now.”
“Replacements or augments?”
“One hundred percent synthetic. Though I’ve never gotten too close to them, thankfully. They’re linked to the SAP, to maintain peace in the region. They go beyond Central. I’ve heard they’re being approved for the whole Province. I remember the prototype at the AllianceCon. Looked like a girl but turned out to be a fully weaponized synth. It was called A.R.I.”
“I heard about her.” Sumi was right.
“It, not her. Yeah, well these new synths are even worse. Stronger, meaner, more metal and weapons. Peace through terror and death.”
I consider what this could mean for Central and the world. If the SAP replaces their guardians with synths, it could signal a shift in power from human controlled to machine. Remote-controlled police force or even an AI-controlled machine. I wouldn’t put it past the Province to design guardians that think and act without much human intervention. Haven’t they been on this trajectory all along? Beginning with the drones and neural-synchs. What else have they been doing with all the data they’re collecting from their precious populace? Quantifying how to control them even more efficiently, from afar.
Ravni clears her throat. “Think I saw that on a T-shirt once: Solace: Terror and Death, or was it Peace and Pain?” She laughs an uncomfortable laugh.
“They should hire us in their public relations department,” I say.
A shadow travels across Ravni’s expression. “It’s a police state now. Tossing people away for small infractions with no warnings, and no one says a thing. We are all disposable. Even Uplanders.” She runs her hand through her hair. “Taru, it’s best to go back to wherever you just were for the past few months before it all goes to hell.”
She knows how long I’ve been gone. Does that mean she’s keeping track of my whereabouts? No, couldn’t be. The room’s thick scent of mold, ocean water, and things forgotten rises around us, and I’m suddenly nervous. “Do you want out? Of here, I mean,” I ask, daring to be so bold.
She chuckles. “If I had the money to get my ass on a transport or onto the Mokṣa, I’d be anywhere but here today. I’m not sentimental about this garbage heap. It can sink for all I care.” She flips off the walls and buildings and everything. Everything but me.
“What if I could get you out of here?” My heart aches knowing what I’ll be asking her to do. What if she says no?
“Out of the goodness of your heart?” There’s a small dimple at the right corner of her cheek.
“We need someone like you on a mission. It’s dangerous, but you’d be helping the cause.” Words are sometimes so cheap and cheesy, and I immediately wish I’d chosen less dorky ones.
“I’m not a fight-for-the-cause type.”
“I get it.” I’m so stupid for thinking she’d jump on a chance to hit them back. “Sorry I bothered you.”
Ravni stretches her arms up and over her head. Her cropped jacket lifts, and her stomach is exposed for just a moment. There’s a bedroll in the corner, a pile of cans beside it. She stacks her empty water can on top. This is her house. This is where she squats. It’s awful, even by Downlander standards. She’ll catch the Fever or die of pneumonia, or get harassed by the machchar so bad that she’ll end up in containment again and again, until . . .
When I turn to go, she places her hand gently on my shoulder. A wave of energy sparkles through my body. She says, “Just tell me real, do we get to blow something up?”
“Yes, definitely. We need help with the tunnels and an explosive to break into Solace Axiom’s lab for intel. Our contacts have money. Enough for you to get out of here and set up nearly anywhere else in the world with a new life.” She looks at me, then at her bed, then back at me.
“You should have started there, kid. The endgame is always more tantalizing than the business side of things.”
Kid? So, am I just a child to her? I crumble to sand. “You in?” I push through regardless.
“Yeah, I’m in.”
28//ASHIVA
Never enter a room without knowing at least one exit and having a detailed snafu plan. Masiji would tell me that during training in the Narrows, and General Shankar had his own crass way of conveying the same lesson during a training session a few months earlier.
He’d whispered, Consider everything could be a trap, and everyone is an asshole and wants to stomp on your still-warm guts. No wonder he’s so crabby: his worldview is informed by mayhem and war.
The rock dwelling is dark, but my magic eye adjusts immediately, brightening to a green-toned night vision. But then, a flash explodes from the rear of the room, and I’m blinded for a few weighty moments until my sight returns to normal. When it does, I realize I’m standing in someone’s home.
“Apologies, I like it dark inside. It calms my mind,” a woman’s voice calls out. A lantern swings from the low ceiling as though it was recently bumped when turning on. “Welcome to the Outland. Please have a seat. But first, disarm yourself.”
A man behind me waits with his hands out expectantly. I give him everything external and detachable that I possibly can: knife, gun, electro-pulse baton. Then I place my arms out to the sides and spread my legs shoulder-width apart. He pats me down gingerly and takes several steps backward, as though he’s getting out of my striking range.
“Queen, she’s replaced.”
“Not detachable,” I say with a smile and show her my SynGen.
The Queen is sitting down, and her clothes don’t reveal her physical capabilities. For all I know she’s like General Shankar and me, twenty-plus percent augmented with replacements. My opti-link searches the room for heat, electricity, anything, but it’s dead quiet aside from the fire. Either they’re just that good, or this room is truly one hundred percent analog.
“Leave us,” the Queen says.
“But she’s weaponized, madam.”
“I don’t think she’s here to kill me.” She turns back to me. “Please sit. You can call me Pari or Queen, whatever you prefer.” The woman is beautiful, with faint scars that scratch the surface of her face, like a tiger had clawed her cheeks from left to right. Her light green eyes against her dark brown skin are remarkable gems. She wears a gold chain that drapes from her earrings to her nose ring. Her confidence suggests she’s around Masiji’s age, but she could be younger or older. What might her expertise be as lead transporter, as a master smuggler? General Shankar didn’t share much with me. I’d assumed he would be in this conversation. But he’s giving me space to try my hand at diplomacy.
“Yes, exactly, Queen,” I reply, trying to relax my posture as I sit with her on the floor. What am I to her? A soldier in training, tense, dirty, hardened by the journey? “My crew, we just have a question. We mean no harm.”
The man nods. The woman waves him away. She hands me a small cup of warm tea that smells like flowers from heaven. But I don’t sip it. I don’t know what she’s put inside the glass. My thirst is killing me, though, and I want desperately to guzzle it down.
“You crossed the Barrens, which means you have something very important on your mind. Not many people cross it, and fewer survive without a guide. Most think it’s an empty wasteland, something to fear. Like a moat between the neocities, crawling with crocodiles ready to snatch you up.” Her laughter is a crisp, sparkling light. She wraps her fingers around one of her many necklaces that cascade around her neck. “The Province makes sure to project fear.”
“The Barrens isn’t exactly hospitable.”
“No, perhaps not. But misinformation is a weapon that can strike as fast and as deadly as a nuclear warhead.” She presses her fingers to her mouth, bangles jingling. She sips her tea and looks at me.
I take a drink, and she looks pleased. It’s sweet, tannic, and warm. Keep it short and simple. “We crossed the Barrens to meet with you. We are hoping to hitch a ride to Central on one of your cargo rigs.” Maybe I can do this after all.
Her eyes search me for truth, I think. No weapons, no tech, just flesh and eyes and intuition. We sit in silence for a few moments. Though the silence begs to be filled with words, I don’t offer any more information. Keep it basic, that’s what General Shankar taught me. And it’s all in the details.
She wraps a beautifully embroidered shawl over her shoulder. “I need something from you in return,” the woman finally says. She looks at me closely, at my necklace. Taru’s gift.
“We can give you one thousand marks and a returned favor when called,” I say.
She waves my words away gently with her long and graceful hands. Her gaze is curious, almost loving. “Make it two thousand, and you’ve got a deal.”
General Shankar and I had arranged to go up to six, so it might be a steal. “Done.” I reach my hand out to her and she takes it. Am I actually becoming good at negotiations? Or is she setting me up for failure?
She holds it and pulls me closer. “What’s your name, girl? Your real name.”
“My name? I . . . Ashiva.”
“That’s an interesting name. Did your crew give it to you? Or your parents?”
“I never knew my parents.”
“So, a protector then.”
“Yes.”
“Are you from the Narrows?”
“Yes, but now that it’s gone . . .”
“We could use someone like you. Someone strong to help with our transport missions. I can’t pay ahead, but we have food, and it’s safe here.”
“I’m not looking for a home.” My home is wherever Taru is. I fidget with the cup. “But we could use time to recover from our journey. It hasn’t been easy.”
“Achcha. That’s fine. As long as everyone is free of the Fever, we don’t turn people away. You’ve clearly had some replacements. I assume you’re Red Hand, nah? I heard what happened in the North. Were you there?”
I can’t hide my distress.
“You were. I’m sorry.” She adjusts her shawl. “The SAP is desperate to clear their opposition before the Alliance Space Colony is fully operational. They’ve gone too far with Axiom.”
“You know about Axiom?” I take another sip of tea. I assumed they were cut off from the world out here.
“Doesn’t everybody?”
There’s something she’s not telling me. “Yes. I suppose it’s hard to avoid.”
I want to go back and rephrase, tease out more information.
“You and your team can ride with the Athena rig heading out to Central. But it’s not leaving for a couple days. It’s a protected route we have never had problems with. You can stay until then, if you promise not to shoot anything or anyone.”
“Thank you.” I begin to stand. “Promise.”
“One more thing. Just out of curiosity, what is your protector’s name?”
I inhale deeply. “She went by many names, but I called her Masiji.”
“A common name for an auntie. There are lots of Masijis in the Slot Canyon Village.” She smiles, but her mind is elsewhere.
“There was only one Mechanic.”
I reach out to shake her hand again, and she grabs my forearm and pulls me closer to her. “Now that’s a unique name.” She looks me over, then calls to her guard. “Give them what they need. Meet with the crew and discuss. They will have dinner with us.”
She turns back to me. “Settle in. We’ll talk more later.”
The guard escorts me back to my crew where I find them surrounding Saachi, who is now sitting up on the cot.
“How do you feel?” I rush to her side.
“Better. Sore. I can’t sense the infection anymore.” She swings her legs off the side of the cot. “Remarkable medicine. They must have spent their lives dealing with the sands. No wonder they know how to treat its injuries.”
“And you, Ace?” General Shankar asks me. “How’d you make out?”
“We’re in. She wants two thousand marks, and it leaves in two days, and we get dinner.”
“Thank god, I’m starving!” Ferric says.
As we gather our things and head out, Saachi uses a makeshift cane they gave her. General Shankar comes up to me and says, “How did it really go?”
“You don’t think I have the wits to actually do something clever on my own?”
“Nope.” He smiles. “What did she want, besides the money?”
“The name of my guardian. I told her The Mechanic.”
His face changes. “What was her reaction?”
“She was satisfied with the information. Well, her heart rate skyrocketed when I told her the details. Then it returned to normal when our conversation was over, when she agreed to the deal. The marks for a ride on the rig. It was easy.”
General Shankar stops, rubs his hand across his scruff. “She knows, then, that we are Red Hand. But what she does with the information is up to her. I assumed they’d figure that out pretty quickly. But we pay for their silence—everyone pays—which is why she’s wealthy out here, the Queen of the Outlands.”
I look over my shoulder, and the woman stares at me with a gaze so fierce and yet so kind that I miss a step. “I wish I knew more about her.”
29//SYNCH
There’s one day that shines particularly bright against the crush of mostly gray memories of my childhood. When I was a skinny ten-year-old and just leaving secondary school after an exceedingly disappointing day of exams that spelled out to my teachers and the powers that be that I would never add up to a politician, doctor, or scientist the most extraordinary thing occurred.
I was standing alone at a crosswalk along Park Prime, my tears having dried in a path of salty tightness on my cheeks after my grades came in. I was waiting for the transport rickshaws to pass, honking as they went. Suddenly, I felt something dust the shoulder of my jacket and then fuss with my hair. A bird. It cooed the warmest warble that almost sounded like “oh-kay?”
It was light gray, small, and its little black beak prodded my shoulder through my jacket. I stood there frozen, in awe of nature approaching me. Me! Of all the unacceptable failures. Me, kachara, as the headmaster called me, a garbage person who wouldn’t end up amounting to much, and whose place in Central should be given to someone more worthy of it. Me. I felt very special indeed. The bulbul was a creature I hadn’t seen in ages. The fledgling’s fluffy young feathers still poked through its chest, showing its youth. It chose me to sit upon, in this vast city full of glorious gardens. How it came to find me, I’ll never know. But I learned one thing in that moment: a fleeting moment of beauty can give meaning to our struggle.
But now I must get to the park by nine.
An Info-Run in the living room casts an uncanny shade of normalcy. Reports from the North American Province show their Colossus is going to usher in a new era when they launch it this week, carrying hundreds of their qualified specialists to the Alliance Space Colony. There are more riots across the Provinces due to drought, rations, and arms dealings. Different groups are rising against the leadership, frustrated by the focus on space and on the automation of their lives. New Fever outbreaks across other continents have caused some Provinces to close off parts of their cities completely.
