Gears of the City (25 page)

“Who’s Shay?”

The soldier shook his head, irritated, eyes still firmly shut—”I don’t remember, some man on the Mountain, they tell me to bloody hate and I do it. Rifle, pack, special issue, like in the old days. What old days? I don’t fucking know. I never signed on for this. Up the Mountain. And then all I remember is … shadows. Wire. A flash, like a flash of dark. Bumping lost in the dark into my men. Then I was running down that street, screaming.”

He opened his eyes. “I knocked you down, didn’t I? That was you? Sorry, love. I thought it was all a big cruel joke. After the War this is all gone. Rubble. That’s all I remember. Now it’s all back again.” He smiled and closed his eyes again. “If I can remember my name I’ll go down the factory, get my old job back. Go down the nearest League Chapterhouse, say,
reporting for duty, sir. Went on a bit of a bender. All all right again.
“

A shiver ran down Ruth’s spine. “You were a Know-N …”

The rusty barn door screeched open, and there were boots on the concrete floor below. She heard Zeigler’s voice, full of false cheer, saying, “Good afternoon, officers, is this company property, sorry, sorry, just poking around a bit, bird-watching, yes, I’ll just be …”

A young man’s voice drawled, “Shut it, you old fool.”

She recognized the voice: it was Siddon, the young Know-Nothing who’d stood guard on the Museum the night before. He sounded tired, angry.

She put a hand over the soldier’s mouth. He opened his eyes in shock. “Stay quiet,” she hissed. “I don’t care if you were a Know-Nothing. These boys aren’t your friends anymore. Not after what you’ve seen. Right? Yes?
Quiet.”

His eyes were full of hurt and confusion and fear.

The men below—it sounded like three, four of them—poked around the junked machinery, the rotting hay bales, the old dry oil drums, and the stagnant water barrels.

She looked all around for an escape from the loft, but there were no windows, no places to hide, and it was only a matter of time before one of the Know-Nothings below came clanging up the ladder—in the end it was Siddon.

He shook his head. He glanced at Ruth for a moment, then away. “I didn’t see you,” he said.

The soldier reached for his rifle and Siddon came quickly up over the edge of the ladder, lunged forward, and put his black boot firmly down on the weapon’s stock. The soldier snatched his bruised fingers back, and looked up with a stupid, trusting expression on his face. His bloodshot and tired eyes took in Siddon’s boots, his long black coat, his collars and cuffs, his black cap. “Hey—don’t I know you?”

“Leave him alone,” Ruth said. “He’s just not well, a bit mad,
he’s no trouble, he’s been stealing chickens, that’s all, so we came to tell him to …”

Siddon ignored her. He looked at the man at his feet and horror and loathing crept palely over his face; he breathed deeply and swore under his breath and his eyes went blank, flat, distant.

Two more Know-Nothings rose up over the edge of the ladder, and—while the soldier tried to say,
wait, I’m one of you, the League, I think I remember, what Chapterhouse are you from
, the two of them lifted him up roughly by the shoulders, and Siddon stepped forward and, not looking at him, stiffly not looking, eyes trained up at the shafts of light that fell through the ceiling, slit his throat.

The other two Know-Nothings let the body go.

“Oh, fucking hell!”

“Covered m
fucking blood.”

“What about her?”

Siddon shook his head. “She didn’t see anything, she didn’t hear anything, she’s not one of
Them.
Local girl. I know her. Nice girls, no harm in them, bit mad. Father was mad. Leave her, all right?”

He turned and smiled at her, wiping off his knife.

She slapped him as hard as she could in the face. He staggered, his lip bled; it wasn’t enough.

“You son of a bitch, Siddon. Why did you do that? Why did you
do
that? He wasn’t any harm.”

He still had a patronizing smile on his face, even as he dabbed at his bloody lip with his sleeve. “It’s not for you to decide, Ruth, you know that. This is the way things are. He was a ghost. A monster. He shouldn’t have been here. You want to live in
his
world, instead?”

“You bastard, Siddon, you hypocrite. Monster? He was only a man. He was
lost.
Monster? I know what you’re guarding in that Museum. I know what kind of monster you’ve got down there.” Siddon flinched. She realized it was stupid to go on, but she couldn’t stop herself: “I’ve seen it, you bastards, you’re not even honest, why are you keeping that thing, why … ?”

She trailed off. She was shaking. Siddon and his colleagues looked suddenly pale and nervous, as if they’d been caught stealing from petty cash.

“Fuck it then,” Siddon said. “Let’s take her in. The old man, too.”

Threats-Fire and Smoke-
An Awkward Dinner-Weapons-
Pursuit

Arjun

S
orry about last
night,” Basso said. “How’s the bruise?” Basso was a tall man—taller than Arjun—and he stood too close, as they walked together across the lawns of Brace-Bel’s estate. He had the ropey build of a man who was made to be thin, but started every morning with chin-ups, and press-ups, and dumbbells. He was pale and hollow-cheeked, scarred and unshaven, and he smiled a lot. He wore a single golden earring. Sometimes he tugged self-consciously at it. Otherwise his manner of dress was entirely ordinary; unlike the others, he wore no costume.

“I’ve had worse,” Arjun said.

“All a bit of a misunderstanding.”

“In fairness, I
did
break in, Mr. Basso; I can’t complain.”

Basso seemed delighted by this. “No harm done, then!”

Basso
leaned
against things. Somehow even while walking he managed always to be leaning, smirking, glancing idly around in odd directions, as if making a note of vulnerabilities and valuables.

Basso asked, “How’s the old street?”

“Carnyx Street? I don’t really know. I was only there briefly. It was the only place in this city I have liked.”

“How’s Thayer and that lot?”

“I met only Thayer. He is a ruin of a man. But somehow you seem unscathed by Brace-Bel’s traps, Mr. Basso.”

“I’m a lucky lad. Shame about Thayer. A good man.”

“Is it true that only Ivy understands the devices?”

“I don’t know that that’s your business.”

“What did you do before coming into Brace-Bel’s service, Mr. Basso?”

“I
know
that’s not your business. No offense.”

“No offense taken.”

“You and me, we’re in the same boat,” Basso said. “Ruth and Marta asked you nicely, right? They went all misty-eyed? They told you how much Ivy meant to them, how wonderful she was, how wonderful the city used to be? How when Ivy was back they’d all go somewhere wonderful together and you could come, too? How they’d escape everything ugly, and you could come, too?”

“Not really,” Arjun said.

“What
did they
promise you, then?”

“They saved my life. I know no one else in the city. They only had to ask.”

Basso—who was leading Arjun across an unweeded and wild tennis lawn—shrugged. “You’re not a bad man, Arjun. The Low sisters are good women.”

“There was also the matter of a prophecy, in which Brace-Bel was mentioned. For personal reasons it is important for me to be here; I can’t explain why.”

“Huh.” Basso stooped and lifted an ancient mossy yellow tennis ball from the weeds and tossed it in his hand. “Is that so?”

“Why did you come to work for Brace-Bel, Mr. Basso?”

“Ivy had a word with me.”

“Ivy seems to be more the mistress here than a prisoner.”

“She’s a clever one, all right.”

“What did she promise you, Mr. Basso?”

“Maybe she only had to ask nicely.”

“Is that true?”

“Where are you from, Arjun? Brace-Bel thought you were from his time, his city. Is
that
true?”

“Yes. We met once or twice. We didn’t know each other well.”

“Small fucking city.”

“Few dare the Mountain. Fewer find the way. There is a certain … community. Among the obsessives one meets the same people again and again. It’s not so strange.”

“Do you know the way back?”

“No.”

Basso sighed. “That’s a shame.”

“I went up on the Mountain. They took my memory of the path back. It seems they have defenses.”

“What’s up there, then? What kind of forces? What’ve they got in the way of weapons? Everyone says there’s going to be a war one day. Our bosses want what they’ve got or their bosses are just sick of looking down on us. Are they getting ready for war?”

“I don’t know.”

They walked for a while longer.

Basso said, “If Ivy wants to help you, she’ll help you. If Brace-Bel wants to help you, he’ll help you. Do you understand? But if you’re here to steal from them, it’ll be my job to break your neck.”

“I understand.”

“Don’t be here to steal Ivy away, or I’ll kill you.”

“I understand.”

“Here she is, then.”

Basso pointed out across the lawn to a stone shrine, where Ivy sat, in a simple white dress, legs folded, apparently waiting impatiently. Her head was tilted up toward a little black device in the shrine’s low ceiling, from which a distant muttering voice could be heard.

I
vy Low, my name is …”

But she stood, without looking at Arjun, without listening to him, and strode over to Basso.

“Basso,” she said. “There are men at the gate.”

“Sorry, Ivy. I was looking for this bloke, like you asked me.”

“That’s all right,” she said. “I heard them talking, over the listening-tubes. They’re scared to come in.”

“Who is it?”

“Know-Nothings. That pest Maury again. They’re here about last night’s explosions. They have questions.”

“I’ll go talk to them.”

“They want to know, did we see anything? Did we hear anything? Did we see anyone fleeing the scene?”

“Well, Miss Low, did we?”

“We did
not
, Mr. Basso. The whole household was fast asleep at an early hour. “

“Understood.”

“Don’t let them talk to Brace-Bel. You know how he is. Say he’s ill.”

Basso nodded and walked off down the garden path.

Arjun had been studying Ivy’s face. She was eerily similar to Ruth, but a Ruth
narrowed
, somehow, perfected, stiffened— machine-tooled to a fine degree of precision. Perhaps it was the eyes, or the charged elaborate curls of her dark hair; perhaps it was the way she stood.

“Ivy,” Arjun said, “your sisters sent me …”

“Shut up a moment. Let me take a look at you.”

“Ivy …”

“A ghost. A visitor. You don’t look like much. Do you know the way out, then?”

“I don’t know. I don’t …”

“You don’t remember. Yes. I’ve heard that story before. The Mountain, the fall, its awful defenses. Poor old you. How did you get there?”

“Ivy, your sisters miss you.”

“Did I ask about my sisters? How did you get there? How do I get
out?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well—
think.”

I
t was midafternoon when she let him go. His head reeling from questions and her sharp voice, he walked back across the lawns.

Out of long habit he’d tried to mislead—but he couldn’t lie to her. She was a great deal cleverer than he was, and impatient.

He couldn’t tell her what she wanted to know either. He didn’t have the answers. All he had were handfuls of mad images, some scraps of music.

You’re a mess
, she said.
Go get something to eat. And
think.
I’m not done with you yet.

He tried to find Stevie, but she seemed to have hidden herself. He took some bread and cheese from the pantry. Mrs. Down forbade it, but he defied her. He ate in the library, which was silent, and echoing, and in fact largely empty of books; it was not an Age for books. The pride of the poor collection were three copies of Brace-Bel’s own works, scavenged presumably from flea markets out in the city somewhere. One of the books was a scholarly edition of
Brace-Bel’s Collected Letters
, full of condescending annotations by a Professor Kay S. Pooler, who’d lived and worked at some intermediate time between Brace-Bel’s own life and these last days of the city. Her notes tried to explain Brace-Bel’s times by analogies to her own now-almost-equally-distant times, and the main effect of the fat hardbound volume was to leave Arjun headachy and disturbed. He reshelved it and went for a walk.

I
n the late afternoon a thin grey smoke was still visible over the top of the Hill. Arjun watched it from the second-floor windows on the landing of the great staircase.

Something in the wreckage of the night before still burned. The handiwork of the black-masked men lingered awkwardly, outstaying its welcome.

“Who are they?” Arjun asked.

“Huh?” Basso, who’d been at work on the stairs, rested his broom on the banisters and came to the window.

“The men who did this. Four men in black masks came running past and …”