Motus, page 7
Corun stepped from his tunnel, pushing through the large chunks and smaller drifts of slag until he emerged into the blinding light of the main tunnel. The headlamps of the board members’ assistants were distinct from his carbide lamp. They had the same illumination as a streetlamp, but without the tangle of wire. When he asked an assistant about them at the start of shift, she told him it was battery-operated. Corun was familiar with batteries, though they had only ever been a novelty for the rich, who had plenty of electricity with which to charge them. In a city so small, batteries served little purpose when a power cable was always nearby. If not for the price tag and power requirements, they would be a boon for every miner and hauler.
As soon as he was clear of the tunnel, Corun stepped aside to allow a line of haulers to pass. Rhyo was among them; Corun couldn’t imagine what had compelled his friend to volunteer.
As the haulers began shoveling the large mounds of slag into their wheelbarrows, Corun took a long draw from his canteen. The weight of the drinking vessel felt heavier than it had at the start of his shift, despite it being nearly empty, and it trembled as he brought it to his lips.
“Have you found anything yet?” Chairman Bertran asked, keeping his distance from Corun as if the dust on his clothes were a contagious disease. “An artifact, perhaps? A clue about our ancestors’ culture and customs?”
Corun had in fact found something, but considering the sheer amount of detritus that littered the floor of the Reardistrict, he’d thought little of it.
The chairman came forward as soon as he saw Corun reaching into his pocket, eagerness shining in his eyes. His assistants flocked around him like chicks around their mother quail.
Corun pulled a small bone from his pocket. It was dirty, discolored, and only a few centimeters long.
The chairman of the board seemed to think it an artifact all the same, daintily picking it up from Corun’s palm and transferring it to the much cleaner palm of an assistant. As he leaned in to examine it from all angles, he spoke quietly under his breath.
“Quite fascinating. A bone. We have burned all our dead—man, woman, and quail—since the Great Famine. That dates the tunnel to at least then. The laboratory will be sure to pinpoint it more precisely.”
Corun could have saved them the trouble. It was obviously the thigh bone of a quail. He had seen enough of them discarded with the rest of the litter on Third Street. He’d collected them for a while in leaner times to boil for a bone broth. The idea that it was all picked up by a well-meaning shareholder before the slag heap could overtake it was laughable.
“Quickly,” the chairman continued. “Tell the haulers to sift through the tailings. They must be meticulous and judicious.”
“As if they’ll know what those words mean,” said one of the assistants. He received an elbow in the ribs for the comment, but the board member to whom the limb belonged chuckled in agreement.
The haulers’ labors dramatically slowed as they picked through the slag one handful at a time before dumping it into their wheelbarrows. Their efforts were not without reward, however, and soon a hauler emerged from the tunnel, squinting at the bright lights as he held out a fragment of a brown-and-green leaf. Frozen and long-since deprived of water, it crumbled slightly as one of the chairman’s assistants accepted it.
The assistant was soon surrounded by board members, all leaning close and talking among themselves. Corun was close enough to overhear the chairman.
“This is a soy leaf, not seen since the Great Famine. But we must be sure. Have it delivered to the lab.”
The shape of the board’s scheme slowly unfolded in Corun’s mind. He’d known there would be some deceit involved, but he hadn’t expected it to be so obvious. They’d never intended to learn anything from the mines, but rather from the laboratory and Archives, where they had complete control of the results. Results that would confirm the narrative they wanted.
As if he needed any more evidence, Director Wolfram, who had been observing from a distance until then, doubled down.
“I think we can narrow the date down even further,” he said, glancing at the last of the empty-handed haulers emerging from the tunnel. “Lack of evidence is evidence in and of itself. These tailings, if ours are anything to go by, should be positively littered with trash and scraps of paper. Yet there is nothing of the sort. There can be only one explanation. These tailings must have been compacted before paper was commonplace. That dates it to at least two hundred years ago, the founding of the paper mill and the Archives themselves.”
This pronouncement seemed to make the board members’ entire day spent socializing in the mines with biscuits and orzo worth it. They laughed and gave each other congratulatory slaps on the back.
Corun could only shake his head. He didn’t know enough of Motus’s history to refute Director Wolfram, but he doubted it was as straightforward as that. Luckily, he knew someone who did. More urgently than ever, he wanted to be done with this little charade and meet up with Cassi.
Corun rolled his shoulders, hefted his pickaxe, and stepped back into the mines. He had only just reached the wall of slag and adjusted his grip on the pickaxe when he heard someone else enter the tunnel behind him.
“Have you been able to decern its heading?” said a voice as cold as the slag itself. It echoed in the narrow confines of the tunnel and made Corun unconsciously tighten his grip. Behind him, Wolfram ran a finger down the wall as if he’d never touched anything so fascinating as slag in his life.
“I’m no compactor,” Corun said, pulling down his cloth mask. “But if they operate anything like miners, they swing at a downward angle. See how the slag slants here?” He held his hand parallel with the strata on the left side of the tunnel wall. “My guess is the compactors were facing this direction as they worked.”
“Which means the city was tunneling in the opposite direction,” he said, nodding as if he’d already put it together, and without a laborer’s help. Still trailing his finger along the wall of slag, Wolfram continued stepping closer until he stood right before Corun. Corun instinctively turned his headlamp to the side, lest its flame blind or scorch the man. Mere centimeters from his ear, he spoke again.
“What did I ever do to you?”
“I don’t know what you mean?” Corun said, taking a half step back until his heel struck the wall of slag.
“The pamphlets. I want to know what possessed you to write all those terrible things about me. And yesterday? You could have started a riot.” He took in another breath, opened his mouth to continue, then cocked his head. Whatever he saw in Corun’s expression gave him pause. “Except, you didn’t write them, did you?” He let out a snort of amusement. “Of course it wasn’t you. Your mother then, the potter? Or have Ruth and her band of malcontents finally taken their scheming outside their pub?”
Corun gulped. He’d held out hope that nobody besides Rhyo and Hagen had connected the pamphlet with the others found in the Foredistrict. But short of questioning every laborer about Corun’s whereabouts yesterday, Wolfram would have no way of connecting the pamphlet to Cassi. More concerning was his knowledge of Corun’s mother. Though, the idea that she, a woman who hadn’t left her home in decades, spent her nights spreading slander throughout the Foredistrict was laughable. Whatever information Wolfram had gleaned on him and his family had been less than thorough. With any luck, the man’s investigative skills would continue to fall short.
“I’m just a miner who found some slag,” Corun said with all the innocence he could muster.
Wolfram wasn’t falling for it. “Whoever you’re protecting,” he said, his words laced with vitriol, “they can’t hide from me forever. They have caused too much damage, ruined too many reputations for it to go unanswered. The relationship between the board and the shareholders is far more valuable than any of yours.”
Corun’s jaw clenched. He had decided not to envy or cower before these people, and he could make thinly veiled threats too.
“You’re right about one thing,” Corun said, his grip tightening on the haft of his pickaxe. “It would have been tragic if a riot started yesterday. You could have lost everything.”
Corun turned around and resumed swinging at the wall. He half expected to feel the blade of the opal-pommeled knife in his back, but a moment later, he heard slag crunching beneath Wolfram’s feet as the man retreated from the narrow mine. He breathed a sigh of relief.
Alone once again, Corun only had his thoughts to contend with. They proved to be worse company than Wolfram. For the next few minutes, he thought of all the ways the board member could make his life miserable or end it entirely. Mining was not without its hazards, and few would give it any thought if he never made it out of there.
So, when he heard the sound of footsteps again, he spun around, fearing the worst. But instead of compliance officers, Corun was greeted by a familiar face.
“Can you believe all this?” Rhyo said, regarding the slag around them with far more enthusiasm than he had the day before. “This slag could be hundreds of years old.”
“You shouldn’t be in here,” Corun said.
“I’m still your hauler, right? Or are you too famous now to associate with the likes of me?”
“It’s not like that,” Corun said, looking over Rhyo’s shoulder. The headlamps beyond the tunnel were too bright to make out who might be watching. “Wolfram has it out for me, and it’s better he doesn’t know we’re friends.”
“You kidding? That guy loves you. He’s as famous as you are after that little standoff outside Headquarters. He’s the center of attention out there.”
Corun turned back to the wall and gave it a few hard strikes with his pickaxe before the silence drew any attention.
“Just trust me. We can’t be seen talking. I’ll explain everything later.”
He pleaded with his eyes for Rhyo to understand. After a moment of regarding him, his lips pinched together in consideration, his friend nodded.
“You tell him?” someone called from the other end of the tunnel.
“Tell me what?” Corun asked.
Rhyo smirked. “They picked me, at random, to give you a message. They want you to stop for the day. Can’t have you making any discoveries while they’re off to lunch.”
“You’re such a piece of slag.”
“Says the one standing in it,” Rhyo chuckled, even as Corun made to kick some at him.
They made their way out of the tunnel to find the crowd had largely dispersed. The main tunnel was dark but for a handful of assistants cleaning up after the board members. In the distance, he could see a line of haulers with their wheelbarrows full of slag headed toward the distant lights of the city. No doubt going to the lab. Ahead of them, illuminated by bright electric headlamps, were the board members, conversing animatedly. Among them would be Wolfram, undoubtedly thinking up ways to make Corun regret his earlier impudence in the mines.
CHAPTER NINE
“You wouldn’t believe what I heard this morning,” his mother said the moment he entered the studio.
With Wolfram’s threat still ringing loudly in his mind, Corun had gone straight to her studio to make sure nothing had befallen her. She, however, was doing what she always did: throwing pottery on the wheel. This time she refrained from music, leaving the windows open instead so that she could eavesdrop on the conversations of those passing by. From the scowl on her face, the gossip she overheard was not sitting well with her.
“About that,” he said as he doffed his helmet and propped his pickaxe by the door. She didn’t give him the chance to explain.
“First Moveday without having to move the studio in years. You hadn’t bothered to mention that detail when I saw you yesterday. So, when you didn’t show up this morning to move the studio, I asked around.” The shareholders of the Reardistrict knew of Celest’s fear of cave-ins and were happy to pass along whatever gossip she asked for out her window. “They said that my boy, little Corun, had found our centuries-old tailings in the mines, and that he was digging through it for artifacts. Why? Because he was made an honorary archivist by the chairman of the board. Imagine my embarrassment when they asked me how his own mother, of all people, knew nothing about it. What do I say to that?”
“That you’re proud your little Corun is so humble?” he said, teeth clenched in a fake smile.
She snorted and turned back to her work, the pottery wheel having slowed to a crawl. As she kicked it back up to speed, Corun set about his chores. He poured the dirty water from the pail where it had been left to settle overnight, revealing a fine sediment. He scooped the sediment into a flat pan to dry by the open window until it was ready to be wedged into clay.
“I am proud of you,” his mother said as he worked. “Just don’t keep anything like this from me again.”
“You’ll be the first to know next time, I promise,” he said with another smile.
After going over the studio with a wet rag, Corun fled to the bathroom to wash. Cassi had only ever seen him covered in rock dust, and he was determined to make a good impression this time around. Unfortunately, it was impossible to be free of the dust entirely, and even the clothes he had set out to dry the day before were discolored by the pervasive grime. He would have to settle for being clean enough.
“And where are you going now?” his mother asked as he made for the door.
“Out,” he replied.
“You promised not to keep secrets from me.”
Corun flinched. “I . . . I’m meeting a girl,” he said.
“Oh?” she asked, surprise forcing a startled laugh out of her. “Ohh,” she said again, this time drawing out the word. “You’re serious. Has this sudden fame already worked its magic on the ladies?”
“I’ll have you know I met her before all this started,” he said. It wasn’t exactly a lie. The girl in question was responsible for most of what had transpired, after all.
“Well, don’t make any bad choices. You don’t have enough savings to afford a duplex or a marriage and child permit.”
“Mom, please.” He closed the door behind him to the sound of her snickering.
Despite only having been there once before, he found Cassi’s residence with little effort, his adventures from the day before ingrained in his memory for better or worse.
He gulped as he arrived at her door and knocked before he had time to reconsider.
The sound of shuffling feet preceded the scrape of a metal latch sliding open. Seconds later, the door squealed open on rusty hinges. Cassi stood on the threshold, illuminated by the streetlights. At least he thought it was her. Her eyes were the same, gray with hints of blues and greens, but they were highlighted by a brilliant blue cobalt oxide powder above her lashes. Her hair was even more lustrous today, hanging in little auburn ringlets around her shoulders. A dress of fine turquoise, studded with polished rocks by the same name, hugged her snugly from her shoulders to her waist, and flared out below in waves of intricately patterned lace. Despite how stunning it looked on her, years of working as a compactor made the fabric stretch tightly over the muscles in her arms and shoulders.
Corun looked around to make sure he hadn’t idly wandered into the Foredistrict, but the small quadruplex was the same run-down building he had seen yesterday. The only difference was the lack of rumbling and dust in the air from the barley mill, with all its laborers taking the day off.
More confused than ever, he turned back to gawk at the girl—no, lady—in front of him. He was surprised to find that she was studying him too.
“I didn’t recognize you without the dust,” she said.
“Is this a bad time?” he asked lamely.
“Unlike you, I had the morning off,” she said, stepping to the side to allow him entry. “I’ve had nothing but time.”
“Undoubtedly coming up with a new scheme,” he said as he entered. The joke was met with a nod of confirmation, and as tempted as he was to be done with all the scheming, turning around and leaving was the last thing he wanted to do. Cassi’s allure was due as much to her intelligence as her beauty, and whatever she had come up with seemed to lean heavily on both of these strengths.
She led him to her table, the same place where they’d spent hours preparing a hundred pamphlets. Her typewriter and all the stacks of paper had been pushed to the side and replaced with a small green-and-gold disk.
“It took some polishing,” she said as she sat on the edge of her bed, her dress flaring out around her like the feathers of a roosting quail. “But it looks as new as the day my father came home with it.”
Corun settled beside her and leaned closer to get a better look at her handiwork. It was a pin, though like none he had ever seen before. A relief in the golden metal depicted a book laid open on its side. The spine of the book formed a circle, and a single page of the book stood apart from the others, curling up as if it were being turned. It formed the distinctive shape of a question mark. The goldwork overlaid a green background with numerous dark green lines turning this way and that and studded with silver protrusions. It was a circuit board, something Corun had heard about but never seen in person. One of many technologies they had lost the ability to replicate over the years. Modern circuit boards were pale imitations of this, incapable of the rumored autonomy their ancestors’ devices once possessed.
“Your father’s archivist pin?” Corun hazarded. She nodded, and he hesitated before asking the obvious question. “It’s remarkable, but what does this have to do with your plan?”
“How else do you think we’re going to get into the Archives?” she said, lifting an eyebrow, as if her intentions should have been obvious from the start.
His earlier reservations twisted into a cold knot in his stomach. “We can’t pretend to be archivists.”
“Who’s pretending? Hundreds of people heard Chairman Bertran declare you an honorary archivist yesterday.”
“And I’m sure if he meant that, he would have given me a pin himself. There’s no way he would let someone like me into the Archives.”
