Debris (29 page)

  When Kichlan stopped again to check his map I realised I wouldn't have had to. My fingers, my suit, already knew the way.

  I peered through heavy rain to the symbols he had splashed across a wall, that mesh of unintelligible figures I had been told had no meaning. Beside Kichlan, on his map, was a long, wiggling line. I walked fingers up from my own position, and sure enough, there it was. I scanned the ground. Beside Kichlan, mere inches from his shoe, a gutter had burst. The symbol buzzed like an insect as I saw it. Nearly invisible in the darkness a torrent of water gushed down the edge of the street, weaving its way like an imitation of the figure on the wall. On my wrist.

  Realisation was a breathless kick to the gut. The symbols were the map. All of them. They were the streets, the buildings, the dips and bumps in the road. And all we did was follow two of them. What could we do if we understood everything on the map, if we could read the city on the back of our wrists?

  But Kichlan and the collectors didn't know about this map. Devich and the technicians didn't either. So who had put it there, who was keeping us all in the dark about the power of the suit on our wrists?

  And why?

  "This way." Kichlan called against the beat of the downpour and the rush of hidden water. "We're close now!"

  "Bro!" Lad, ahead again, straining to be moving like a dog against a leash. He pointed to an alleyway curtained by rain and spray. "Found it, bro! Found it!"

  Kichlan flicked his wrist, and the map disappeared. "I'll trust you before any map, Lad."

  Grinning so widely his teeth were clear in the muted light, Lad started off down the alleyway. We followed, and my fingers vibrated, suddenly warm. Below them a symbol was growing strong, vibrant. Another dot under a hill, but not me. I was still there, still clearly marked and separate. The hill was crossed by two vertical lines either side of the dot.

  It took me a moment to realise what I was seeing, what the suit and my guided fingers were following. This new figure moved along a thin path, a clear patch between the mess of other signs that made up my wrist band. And I was following.

  I glanced between Lad's back, half obscured, and the cipher tugging on my arm.

  He had his own symbol.

  Kichlan didn't exist on my wristband. Neither did Sofia, Natasha and the twins. Only Lad. What was special about Lad? Why did he have a symbol all of his own?

  Then the alleyway ended, and my hand slipped from my wrist unnoticed.

  A fat, squat building sat like an ill toad on the other side of a wide street. The lights were dark here, no longer even flickering, and figures ran, frantic and hard to see, in front of the monstrous work of architectural torture.

  Debris leaked from its every pore.

  "Hurry!" Kichlan drove us forward.

  The debris was watery this time, like the rain had diluted it. No sails arched darkly, no growths bulged from the side of the building. It ran instead, oozing from windows, from doors, from the gaps between brickwork and cracks in cement. There was something sickening about its liquidity, its runny porridge texture. It looked fetid, like it should stink.

  "Other," Mizra hissed.

  Kichlan rushed forward. The rest of us crossed the street hesitantly. Even Lad eyed the debris with a squeamish expression.

  "Who's in charge?" Kichlan called. Fingers pointed, curious faces met ours in the unnatural dark. But even in the cloud cover, even with the rain, I could see their exhaustion, their horror.

  Judging by the rough numbers I could see, there were at least two other debris teams here. Possibly more. How long had they been fighting, to look so tired? And yet the muck kept coming, kept rolling out of windows, through the cracks of doors. Was anyone trapped inside, a factory worker who could not know what was happening? Could it hurt, to be covered in debris like this? To breathe it in, unknown? Would it undo the pion systems within a body, unravel blood from muscle, muscle from bone?

  We had to stop it. I didn't want to find out.

  "Eighth Keepersrill, Section ten," Kichlan was telling a man with greying hair and defeated, sagging shoulders as we reluctantly caught up.

  The man nodded. "Don't know how much of a difference you'll make, but it's good to have help." The sound of his voice, the shake and the fatigue, made my bones ache.

  "Have the veche sent more jars?" Kichlan asked, his face set in a convincing show of determination.

  "On their way."

  "Good." Kichlan slipped the bag from his shoulder and tossed it to Uzdal. "We'll do what we can with ours to begin with."

  "Can't imagine you'll be much use." The collector gave a weary shrug. "But feel free. "

  "They're a pleasant lot," Mizra murmured as we moved away.

  "They've been here a long time," Kichlan told him. "Can you blame them?"

  "And we've had a nice little jog in the rain, have we?"

  "Not now, Miz," Kichlan said, voice firm. "Now, we need to do what we can to help these teams. They're exhausted, and could do with some relieving." His eyes flickered to mine. "I think we should follow Tanyana's advice."

  "You do?" I asked, before I could stop myself.

  "Well, you managed to control the outbreak last time." He nodded. "Yes, we're going to do this your way."

  Sofia rubbed her upper arm and shoulder, pointedly, but Kichlan pushed on regardless.

  "Everyone spread out. Let's see if we can scoop this up and start pushing it back. I'm willing to lay kopacks down that there's a main body mass inside the factory, somewhere this is all coming from. And I think if we collect that, we'll have this place clean in no time. Tanyana, come with me. The rest of you, see what you can do."

  I followed Kichlan as he ran to the front of the building. A large, slatted wooden door was rolled up and debris surged from the entrance in thick waves. Most of the collectors were concentrated before it. Their suits shone like dull silver as they caught the debris in great shovels, then passed it back, where it was dispersed and sealed away in jars. But the debris kept rolling, and the collectors kept shovelling, and I realised they could end up in those spots, collecting, forever.

  "This is not working," I murmured to Kichlan.

  "My point exactly." He glanced around at the sorry lines, the slushing dark muck, and the ever-growing pile of full jars. "We need to get closer. Right to the front."

  I kept close as Kichlan pushed his way through. "So, this happens a lot, doesn't it?"

  "What does?" he asked.

  "Emergencies." I waved my hand. "Buildings and factories under attack. Like this."

  "Actually, no." Kichlan gave me a sorry expression over his shoulder. "You've had an unlucky run."

  "So two in a row like this is a bit strange?"

  "Very strange, more like it. Usually you'd go more than thirteen moons and a day without a crisis half the size of these two." He grinned. "But then, you haven't been having the best luck, have you?"

  Luck. Was that what it was? "You could say that."

  We came to the front line of collectors. A middle-aged man, with thick hair plastered to his skull and neck, blinked at us through the rain.

  "Here to help?" he asked. He scooped as he spoke, the motion automatic, and twisted at the waist to pass the debris he had collected to the line waiting behind him.

  When Kichlan didn't answer, I said, "Yes." Kichlan was staring at the debris, his hands loose by his sides, suit retracted.

  "Well, we could use the help. First call came at breakbell and I've been here since. They've been calling other teams all morning. Not that you'd know it was morning... hey!"

  Kichlan had stepped past the front line. Debris surged over his feet like mud.

  "What's he doing?" The collector paused in his shovelling. "We need to hold the line!"

  "Tanyana," Kichlan said, ignoring the collector. "Shall we?"

  I nodded, and waded through the debris to stand at his side. It was warm, where it brushed over me. The strangest feeling. Touching but not touching, like wind if it had weight and heat.

  "Hey!" More collectors were shouting at us now. "What's going on?"

  Behind us, the lines faltered.

  "Can you mesh our suits together, the way you did with Lad?" Kichlan asked.

  "Don't see why not." Except I had no idea how I'd done that, and less of an idea if I could do it again.

  "Let's try, then."

  Together, Kichlan and I raised our hands and spread our suits out like a shield. The edges of silver touched at first with a screeching, metal scraping against metal. But then they softened, grew pliable, and sank into each other.

  A strange shiver rattled through Kichlan as the same thing passed through me. I remembered Lad's hand on my arm, the connection between us, the whispers I had heard. Kichlan felt entirely different. Where Lad had been open, too open perhaps, Kichlan was closed. His suit became mine, but there were no whispers, no hints of the voices in his head. Did I feel the same, or could he hear my doubts clear as if I was shouting them?

  "Lower!"

  I glanced down. Debris was oozing from a gap between our suits and the ground. We grew them until only a trickle remained.

  "They can collect that." Kichlan clenched his teeth; his eyes were hard and focused. "Let's start moving."

  Feeling oddly light compared to the weight Kichlan seemed to be carrying, I walked beside him and helped force the debris back into the factory. It pushed against us as we advanced, but had none of the energy of last time. It did not crash like lightning against us, but merely tried to ease itself past us, like cupping a gentle trickle of water.

  "Come on," I thought to it, I whispered in my own head and hoped Kichlan truly couldn't hear. I was wet, already tired, and shaken. All I wanted was for the debris to move easily, to retreat to its source and wait for us to collect it.

  Murmurs behind us.

  We came to the rolled-up door and were forced to pinch our suits in to fit through. I waited for the explosion, for the debris to roll through the gaps we made, for it to surge to sudden life as it sensed weakness, and carry us along with it.

  Nothing happened.

  "What's going on?" I whispered to Kichlan.

  "Kichlan!" a voice called, echoing.

  With a quick glance between us, Kichlan and I lowered the shield so we could see over the top. The factory was almost empty. Debris lay in patches of the floor, puddles after a storm. But of the fountain that had spewed forth from the doors, windows and cracks, there was no sign.

  "What did you do?" Uzdal was clambering in through a window. He clung to the steel bones of the building and peered down at us. "Where did it go?"

  Kichlan was just as shocked. "I have no idea."

  Uzdal surveyed the cement walls and steel structures around him and began gradually climbing down. "I just got up here, was about to try and squeeze the debris and–" he mimed an explosion motion with his free hand. His right arm was wrapped tightly around a thick, loadbearing shaft "–it was gone."

  "We walked inside..." Kichlan raised his eyebrows at me.

  I replied, "Don't ask me. I've got less idea than you do."

  "Kichlan? Tanyana?" Sofia called from the other end of the factory. She was crouched behind another wooden door, only rolled a few feet up. "What happened?" With a wince, she crawled her way through.

  "Trying to work that out." Uzdal finally made it to the factory floor. He patted rust and dirt from the front of his jacket. They turned to mud on his wet clothes and hands.

  Gradually, the other team members appeared. Lad and Mizra came together, descending from the second floor on metal stairs that rang loudly in the empty, cavernous room. Natasha ambled in through the front door.

  "The teams outside are looking spooked," she drawled. "They really want to know what you've done, and why it worked so well."

  Kichlan, apparently sick of the same question, rounded on her. "For the last, the final, the absolutely I will not repeat myself ever again time, I do not know!"

  Her face set into a sullen cloud, the same colour as the sky outside. "First time you told me, you know."

  I approached one of the larger debris puddles. It bubbled as I crouched beside it. How long before it started growing again?

  "You might as well tell them to come and collect this mess up," Kichlan said.

  "Your messenger now, am I?" Natasha grumbled, but still turned to leave the building.

  Gingerly, I extended a thin dirk of my sharpened suit toward a particularly large bubble.

  "Still need to find where all the debris came from," Kichlan said.

  I popped the bubble.

  
Are you pleased?

  I snatched my suit back so quickly it slammed into my wrist and pushed me to the floor.

  "Watch yourself." Mizra chuckled.

  But I didn't respond. Instead, I turned my head until I could see Lad. He was smiling, a happy, contented smile that widened when he caught my eye.

  "Likes you," he said. "Listens to you."

  I gaped at him.

  "That's lovely, Lad." Kichlan dismissed his brother's rambling. "Now where do you think we should go?"

  His younger brother pointed to the floor. "Down."

  I returned to the bubbles. Underground made sense, yes. It was all bubbling up from underneath.

  "Right, down we go. Anyone see some stairs on their way here?"

  I sat up. Again, I carefully extended my suit, this time as the usual tweezers. My hand shook as I pried a slightly more solid selection of debris from the puddle. I brought it close to my face, frowned at it.