Windswept (21 page)

“Burned?” said Banks. “That makes no sense.”

“Well, what about the Big Three does?” I said.

Bloombeck licked his gums and grinned. “You wanna see what I found out?”

God help me, I was too excited to think about what would happen next to stop myself from nodding.

“I got Jimney – you remember Jimney? – I got him to tell me where the burn room was, and I found all kindsa goodies there.”

My enthusiasm flickered. “I’ve already been on one wild squid chase because of Jimney.”

“Yeah, but that wasn’t because of the paper,” said Bloombeck, digging in his pockets. He held up a handful of paper flakes. “There’s tons down there. Piles of paper scraps as big as me. I couldn’t fit into the maintenance hatch, but I could reach in a bit, snag a few nearby bits.” He grabbed my hand and sprinkled the flakes into my palm. I shuddered from Bloombeck’s slimy touch, and it only got worse when he moved the flakes around with a ragged thumbnail. “Jimney says the piles are organized by day, so I figure we through them, find some that have
your
name on it, see?”

My excitement now died as I flicked through the flakes in my hand. One or two looked like they had bits of my name, a PAD here, a MEH there; the rest were gibberish. “I don’t see how this all points the finger at WalWa,” I said, closing the flakes in my fist, which I fully intended to ram right into Bloombeck’s nose until Banks took hold of my wrist. He pried open my hand and scooped the paper shreds into palm.

“This bit came down right before I got pushed out,” said Bloombeck. “You put ’em together, you might get a chop, something you can against the ones on the Public. You put this together, and who knows what you’ll find?”

“Garbage,” I said, looking at Banks, who was now shifting the flakes around like they were building blocks. “I’ll find a big pile of garbage.”

“But it’s all from the bigwigs,” said Bloombeck, giving me a self-satisfied smile. “Jimney says the high-level execs have their own dedicated chutes. He has to take special care to make sure they don’t get clogged. That’s where I found this. And that should be more than enough to hold up my end of the bargain.”

“The only thing you’re going to hold up is a shattered jaw,” I said.

“How much more was there?” asked Banks.

“A pile as big as–”

“–as big as you, yes, yes,” he said. “How much?”

Bloombeck puffed his lips and exhaled, like it was a brutal effort to remember. “About up to here.” He held his hand up to his chest, reconsidered, then brought it jowl high.

“How old was the pile?” asked Banks.

“From a week ago.”

“Take us.”

“What?” I yelled. “Banks, no, no way in hell are we gonna–”

“Look.”

Banks blinked, then stared down at his hand. He shifted the pieces around his palm, moving them like parts of a jigsaw until they fit perfectly. The resulting fragment said TRALEE, with a timestamp from two days ago.

“That’s a neat trick,” I said. “They teach you that in law school?”

“Kind of,” he said.

“Send me that picture,” I said. “I might need it to help my case.” I sat back in the booth. “Jimney overheard some execs and some goons talking about the
Rose
. They knew there was trouble with the crew. They also got out to the drop site way pretty damn fast.” I looked at the reassembled pieces again. “How did they know you were going to Breach?”

Banks furrowed his brows. “You don’t suppose…?”

Bloombeck’s eyes widened. “Ghosts!”

“No,” I said. “We’re still not big enough for Ghosts to hunt here. But WalWa got wind of it, and Saarien’s crossed them more than I have. They wouldn’t be stupid enough to write an invoice for the hit, but there might be enough circumstantial evidence to clear me.”

Bloombeck nodded. “Just what I was thinking, huh? Come on!”

“Come on where?” I said, but Bloombeck had already bounded out the door. Banks, Jilly, and I followed.

In the damp glow, Bloombeck huddled over his cargo bike, a rig that brought new meaning to the word “filthy.” A beat-up two-stroke engine hung onto the drivetrain like some kind of rusty parasite. A few small bags of paper flakes crammed in the front box with stacks of reeking scuba gear. Bloombeck peeled a tattered environment suit off the pile and held it up to my body. “This should fit you,” he said. “You still got a diving cert right?”

It took me a moment to realize what horrible thing he had in mind. “You’re not serious,” I said.

“Hey, there’s a lot in there,” he said. “I figured it would be better to have you decide what comes out, you know, to be more efficient.”

“Jesus, this environment suit probably has rabies,” I said. “Forget it. There is no way in hell I’m following you into the sewers.”

“But there’s so much!” said Bloombeck. “A pile of paper shreds taller than me!”

“And just as full of crap,” I said.

“The paper doesn’t lie!” said Bloombeck.

“Unless it’s meant to,” I said.

“I dunno,” said Banks. “It might be worth digging for more.” He had reached into the bags for paper, and blinked, then shifted the paper around again, holding up the fragments: SAARIEN CONTRACT APPROVED FOR TERMINATION.

I sighed. “Shit. Now we’re going to have to follow Bloomie up the pipe.”

“We?” said Banks. “I don’t see my name on that receipt.”

“You kept me from beating the hell out of Vytai Bloombeck, which is one of my inalienable rights,” I said. “And for that, you owe me.”

“Should I wait here, boss?” asked Jilly.

“No, my dear, because you’re coming, too.”

“Oh, shit, no,” said Jilly, backing away. “I don’t swim.”

“And I don’t do enclosed spaces,” said Banks.

“Then you can find a rock and cave in my skull now,” I said, “’cause if you leave me, I’m just as dead. I need you, Banks, because you’ve got probably got more recent EVA experience than I do. And you, Jilly, ’cause I’ll likely need your skinny ass to get into the burn room.”

“No way,” said Jilly. “Not if you pay me–”

“An even grand right now,” I said. “No bullshit.”

Jilly took a breath, and said, “Well, I guess I can learn.”

“It’s easy,” I said, looking around the alley, “you just–”

A truck rumbled past, and, at first, I thought it was Papa Wemba, off doing another compost haul. Instead, its driver was a thick-necked man, a giant, really, like a goon out of his armor. As the truck turned the corner, the canvas in the back flipped up in the breeze, and a woman stuck her head out. The truck backfired, but I knew I heard her shout my name before she disappeared back into the truck.

It was Jordan Blanton.

I ran after the truck, but it disappeared in the traffic.

Banks jogged after me. “You OK?”

The Fear laughed and laughed.
You couldn’t help her when she was alive, and you sure can’t do it when she’s dead.

I walked past Banks back to Bloombeck. “Let’s go before I change my mind.”

Bloombeck gave me a jowly nod, then kick-started the bike to life. “I’ll be at the intake filters on Mercer in ten minutes.” He puttered away.

Banks wiped the sweat from his face. “You sure about this?”

“No,” I said, climbing into the tuk-tuk. “But this all I got now. I don’t have the time to wait for the police to follow their procedures.”

Banks wrinkled his face. “Why not? We under a deadline?”

The Fear laughed and laughed.
Oh, you are so past deadlines now,
it said.
So far past.

“In a manner of speaking,” I said, tapping Jilly on the back. “Let’s go, kid. Take all the shortcuts you know.”

The most important course I took in B-school was Public Facilities Treatment, an elective on the Colonial Management track. Sessions met six days a week for six hours a day starting at six AM. My other classmates all thought I was nuts, saying that no one was supposed to learn anything in B-school, that we were just supposed to make connections and form relationships and blah blah blah. I agreed with them, for the most part, but I knew that having more than a passing understanding of modern sewage control would probably look good on my CV.

I thought about this as we hunched over a manhole next to the water treatment plant. I fought the sudden urge to be as heavily armed as possible as Bloombeck hefted a crowbar; the seal cracked, and the thick reek of fermenting shit slapped me. He pointed to me and said, “You’ll probably want to lock up that environment suit now.”

“I should have done that when you first showed up,” I said, giving the suit a once-over. It was an old-fashioned step-in job, two sealed zippers on the shoulders and a snap collar that snugged around a rubber-hooded rebreather mask. It was a little tight over my street clothes, but that was a small price to pay for keeping it away from my skin. No matter how clean Bloombeck swore it was, I was sure I’d have to get revaccinated as soon as I got home.

I pulled on the helmet and clicked it shut. The suit’s simple air meter, a rainbow strip at the bottom of my field of vision, came up all green. The Univoice echoed in my ears, reminded me to double-check my seals and that failure to do so would absolve Liao Consolidated Manufacturing Concern of all blame.

As I checked out Banks’s gear, he said, “I should remind you that I’m not a fan of enclosed spaces.”

“Don’t go talking to me about enclosed spaces, Mr I-Can’t-Do-Hibernation,” I said, and put his helmet over his still-protesting face. “You still remember your EVA orientation?”

Banks shrugged. “As long as something tells when I’m running out of air, what’s there to remember?”

“Not much else,” I said, moving to Jilly. The smallest suit Bloombeck had was two sizes too big, and she looked even more like a kid than ever. “You ready?”

“Shouldn’t I take a class or something first?” she said, waving her arms in the air. The suit bunched up around her elbows.

I pointed to the colored strip that lined the bottom of his mask. “Ignore the Univoice, and just watch this meter. If it starts to turn yellow, that means your rebreather filter is starting to fail.”

“And then what?”

“Then you tap us on the shoulder and do this.” I put my hands to my throat. “One of us will give you an extra line to breathe. Don’t panic. You’ll do fine.”

“I want a raise,” said Jilly.

“Don’t we all,” I said.

Bloombeck handed us several fifty-liter caneplas bags. “For evidence,” he said, trying to give me a wink.

“This feeds into the city mains,” said Bloombeck as he climbed into the manhole. “It links up with the lines for the main WalWa building. I marked off a route for us.”

“How? By smearing shit on the walls?”

Bloombeck pulled a glow marker off his suit’s belt. “I have
some
sense,” he said with a little snarl.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” I said, grabbing the marker from him and spinning him around.

“What are you doing?”

“Making a breadcrumb,” I said as I drew a giant X on the across the back of Bloombeck’s helmet. I made sure my filter gauge was still all green, went through the suit’s checklists (safety straps, multitool, lights), and into the dark we went.

The temperature started climbing immediately. All that water rushing through those pipes, all that air pushing down from the surface, it was a wonder we didn’t bake like salt ducks. The suits would help keep us from overheating, but not enough to stop us from sweating. I knew The Fear would try to make an appearance, but there was something to be said for putting oneself in danger to help with focus. That, and my curiosity about Bloombeck’s discovery were enough to stay on task.

The glowing X floated in front of us, and soon we passed a series of luminous green arrows that sent us under sweating pipes and into ever-darker tunnels. “This is just like being back on the
Rose
,” said Banks through his helmet speakers.

“Everything here probably came from a ship like yours,” I said. “Most of this stuff was cannibalized from old hulks the Big Three dropped down the gravity well. No need to kick perfectly good equipment across the stars when there’s already stuff in transit that you could write off.”

There was a clang, and Banks yelped as he clutched his foot. “Yay for recycling.”

I turned back to Jilly, who gave me an OK sign. Her hands only shook a little.

We stopped in front of a rusting pipe, just a little wider than Bloombeck was round. Bloombeck cracked the access port, and the stench of all of Brushhead’s shit plowed into us. “This is the line I followed to the Ward mains,” said Bloombeck, tying off the rope to a pipe fitting. “You keep following the arrows, and you’ll get to the burn room. Make sure to wait for the tides in there; they flush the system every sixty minutes, and you don’t want to get caught in that.”

“You sound like you’re not coming with,” I said.

Bloombeck’s breathing, already labored, got faster. “You don’t want me slowing you down,” he said, gulping down air and handing me the other end of the line.

“Maybe not,” I said, grabbing him by the shoulder, “but I definitely want you to help us haul out whatever we find in there.”

“But I already gone up there–”

“Then the second time will be even easier,” I said, clipping the carabiner to his belt and shoving him in the pipe. He was consumed by the current of filth.

“This is bad,” said Banks, eyeing the pipe.

“That’s why you’re going next,” I said, hooking a carabiner around the pipe before locking it around his belt.

“Oh, fuck, Padma, are you kidding?”

I clipped another carabiner on the line, right behind Banks, then hooked the next one onto Jilly. I locked the end onto my suit. “Just remember this the next time you make a deal without consulting me, Counselor.”

“OK, OK, I take it back, I owe you big time–”

“Goddamn right,” I said, and pushed them both into the pipe before following them into the abyss.

The air scrubbers on our suits were Type One, the kind you use for cyanide mines, but the mind can overpower the best of Big Three tech. I could swear traces of fermenting shit wafted through, just enough to make me gag. I tried not to think about what kinds of evil we were swimming in as we zipped along the line.