Windswept (23 page)

One-Eye had a good minute-and-a-half head start on us, but I had the benefit of being pissed off. I did my best breaststroke, always keeping the spatter from the glow marker in sight. Bloombeck must have sprung for a high-visibility job, because it was the only way that thing could have shed any light in the pitch black of the pipes. I didn’t have time to see what kind of line we’d jumped into, but the visibility was good enough for me to guess we were in a water main. At least the fluid wasn’t as chunky as it had been on the way in.

this is stupid,
Banks texted me.

Who said I should have gone with Bloombeck in the first place?
I replied.

damn

The toxic-piss glow of the paint spatter began to grow larger; it took me a second to realize that One-Eye had stopped and that we were gaining on her. I dug the heels of my gloves and boots into the walls; the crushed palm crab shells had enough grip to slow us down. Banks bumped into me, and I told him to follow suit.

why stopping?

I don’t want her to know we’re here
, I replied.

There was a muffled bang, then something zinged past my face.

think she knows.

Fuck it, I thought, and let go. A few more shots flew past, but I kept my belly low enough to the pipe’s bottom to dodge them. That didn’t keep me from getting a crack on my back from the butt of One-Eye’s submachine gun; even with the rebreather gear to soften the blow, it still hurt like hell. One-Eye jabbed again, but I spun my feet up and gave her a kick to the shins. Even with the rush of water, I could hear her howl. I managed another kick, this one up and into her chest, before she swung the business end of the gun into my face.

I bit the switch for my headlamp, and the sudden burst of light drove her back, but not so far that her boot couldn’t make contact with my chin. It was just a glancing blow, but it was enough to double me over. One-Eye brought the gun to my face, but all she got was the
click-click
from the empty magazine. She took another swing at me, but I was ready this time and launched off the bottom of the pipe and wrapped my arms around her midsection. We floated free, the current strong enough to bounce us around the inside of the pipe as we whaled away at each other.

I reached for her back, trying to unhook any hoses or lines, but her suit was self-contained. Mine, of course, wasn’t, so when she yanked the main feeder line for my rebreather out of its socket, I had no choice but to kick free and fix my air. I hadn’t done this kind of thing since EVA training back in B-school, but I kept my panic down, got the line back in place, and saw that my air supply was...

“Warning,” said the Univoice inside my helmet. “CO
₂
concentration at eight hundred parts per million.” I looked at the strip on the bottom of my mask; it was hovering between yellow and red.

That couldn’t have been right. I tapped the glass, then remembered that the strip wasn’t a gauge with a needle. I dug my hands and feet into the pipe, and Banks bumped into me a few seconds later.

think air going bad
, he texted, then sent me a picture of the inside of his mask. His strip looked like mine.

I spun Banks around and shined my headlamp on his rebreather pack. Everything looked fine: the lines were good, the connections were solid, all the ports worked, the filtration packs were in place and fine...except for one corner of a label flipping in the water. I managed to get a gloved finger underneath it to peel it away. Underneath was the original label with an expiration date from twenty years before I was born.

“Uh-oh,” I said, loud enough for Banks to turn and give me a stricken look.

problem?

Jilly’s gear was in slightly better shape; her filter had only expired last year. I gave her a pat and a nod.
A bit. We need to leave.

how long we got?
texted Banks.

Not enough
, I replied, looking downstream at the faint yellow blob from the glow marker.
Follow her.

no time for revenge

No, you dummy, she must know a way out
.

she?

Just go!
I kicked us into the current, keeping one eye on the glow stain and the other on the filter gauge, now diving into shades of orange.

My hands bumped into the sides of the pipe. We had gone so far that the mains had trunked off into smaller local lines. There was still enough room to swim, but I could feel the ribs of the pipes every time I took a stroke, my gloves bumping off the caneplas with hollow
thunk
s. I had no idea how far we’d gone, but the fact that there was no light ahead meant we were nowhere near an exit. It also meant there was nowhere for One-Eye to go. She was close enough that I could see her outline lit up by the ink. I wasn’t sure if I could throttle her, but I was ready to give it a shot.

The glow stain stopped and hovered. I had no idea if One-Eye was lost or catching her breath, and I wasn’t about to stop and ask her. I grabbed the bottom of the pipe, crouched and kicked off as hard as I could, which is why it hurt like hell when my head smashed into the grate.

It hurt even more when Banks and Jilly piled into me moments later.

I bit on my headlamp, and One-Eye looked back from the other side of the grate. We stared at each other, and then she knocked on the metal bars and shrugged before kicking away.

“No,” I said, then banged on the grate. “NO!”

save air
, texted Banks.
need to backtrack.

I banged the grate again and watched One-Eye disappear into the murk.

padma we need to go NOW

All right
, I replied.
Back up.

trying

Try faster.

We shifted back a meter, but the current was so strong that we were sailed downstream the moment we let go of the ribs of the pipes.
This is going to take forever
.

don’t have that
, texted Banks, and he sent me a picture of the inside of his mask. The strip was now touching red.

I pushed upstream, lost my grip and slammed back into the grate. My mouth clamped around the controls for my headlamp, cranking up the lamp’s intensity, and I realized just how cramped it was. So tight, all the ribs covered with slime and streaks of black mold and the water rushing past, and this horrible noise filling my helmet, like someone had cracked open the seal and let all the water in Santee City pour in to drown me. The air, now foul with carbon dioxide, burned my nose, my eyes, my throat, and I felt so tired. I could hear The Fear roaring in approval, and I just didn’t care any more. I sagged, and the last thing I saw before I closed my eyes was the meter diving deep into the red. I heard the Univoice utter some kind of warning before I slipped out–

–and then someone jabbed me in the ass so hard I thought I’d been shot.
PADMA
came one text in the biggest type available, my name hovering in front of my eyes like a message from on high.

I looked at Banks and Jilly, then took a breath. The air tasted less evil. I looked down towards my chin and saw a line snaking away from the front of my helmet toward Jilly’s. She gave me a thumbs up, and I grabbed her shoulder. Good girl.

you ok?
Banks texted.

I took another measured breath, then answered,
How’s your meter?

bad

The three of us combined our hoses, slurping a little clean air from Jilly’s system. I tapped on the grate again; it was locked in place, and the lock had been spotwelded. One-Eye had done a marvelous job trapping us. I wondered what kind of engineer she’d been. I wondered if anyone would find our bodies and bother to avenge us.

Ideas?

swim back?

Not enough air. Kick out grate?

Banks gave it a go, then shook his head. Then he texted
you hear that
?

What?

getting louder

I turned as best I could. There was a definite increase in the sound, but I couldn’t tell if it was because our hearing was going, along with our air, or if the water was moving faster. More and more particles floated past us, and then the current got strong enough to knock us back into the grate.

the tide
, texted Banks, and a crushing wave smashed into us, shoving Banks into me and me into the grate with enough force to squeeze the air from my lungs. The pressure kept growing, and I was pretty sure I was about to pass out (and pretty pissed that this is how it would end), when there came a squealing sound, like metal giving way, and I saw One-Eye had missed welding one bar in place. It scraped as the pressure from the oncoming tide pushed us back, and I twisted around and kicked as hard as I could. Banks and Jilly saw what I was doing and joined in, all three of us driving our boots into the grate until it tore away.

We sailed through the murky water like corks over a waterfall. I tried to get a grip on the pipe ribs, but the current moved too fast. Jilly flew away from me, the hose snapping loose, leaving me with another helmet full of foul air. The Fear came roaring back, but, no, I was not going to give in. If I was going to die, goddammit, I was going to do with my eyes wide open, even though, God, it would have felt so nice just to fall asleep…

And then I flew. I wasn’t hallucinating: I sailed through the air, through space, surrounded by a billion stars against the purple-black sky, something I hadn’t seen since the last time I went up the cable, a feeling so free and wonderful and–

I smashed into the ground. Banks and Jilly smashed on top of me. And about a billion liters of water smashed us and swept us away.

I fought to get upright, pushing against what felt like pudding until I was on my feet. Then I wrestled with the collar on my helmet until it clacked open. The rotten air rushed out, replaced with a thick funk of green and jungle rot. I had never smelled anything better in my entire life. As I caught my breath, I saw a wall of swaying shadows move toward us, but then my eyes adjusted and I saw they were cane leaves moving in the wind. We were in an irrigation ditch for a cane field, somewhere in the middle of the kampong. Twenty meters upstream and three meters above, an outflow pipe gushed from a dirt mound, our exit route from Thronehill.

I found Banks in the mess, on his ass, up to his waist in muddy water, his helmet dangling down his back, the hood still caught in his suit. “God, I feel like the whole world just farted on me,” he said.

“Poetic,” I said, helping him to his feet. “You OK?”

“Other than the world-fart thing, yeah,” he said, looking around. “You know where we are?”

“Hell, yeah,” said Jilly, getting to her feet. “This is home.”

I cracked a cane shoot and sniffed the inside; it was sweet and oily, with a charcoal tang beneath. “Industrial,” I said, looking up at the lights of Thronehill and Santee City proper twinkling on opposite sides of the horizon. Above us was a smear of stars and the faint blinking warning lights on the lifter’s tender rings. “Which means we’re a good hike from Brushhead.”

I blinked up a clock: eight-fifteen.
Three days in a row
, chuckled The Fear. My vision swam, and I sank to the ground.

“You OK?” said Banks, helping me up.

“Just dizzy,” I said. “All this fresh air.”

“You think we should call anyone?” said Banks.

“Nah, I got this,” said Jilly. “We can hoof it to my parents’ place, catch a ride into town.”

“You sure they’re going to let you go back?” I said, my head spinning.

Jilly puffed out her chest. “Hey, I’m Union now. They don’t have a say.”

I chuckled and nodded. “Good answer.”

“But shouldn’t we still call?” said Banks. “I mean, we’re being chased by people with guns.”

I shook my head. “We’re out of range.”

“Of what?”

“Everything,” I said. “Most of the cane farmers out here are Freeborn, so they don’t have pais, which means they don’t want data towers in the middle of their land.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “The Union and the Co-Op have been trying to get some out here for years, but no go. ‘We’ll communicate the way God intended us to,’ they’ll say, ‘in person.’”

Banks looked at Jilly. “No wonder you left.”

“It wasn’t
that
bad,” she said. “I’m just sick of cane.”

We shed the suits and tucked them and the bags of paper shreds in the cane. I made sure to pull out one of long-expired filter cartridges for evidence to be used against Bloombeck for future lawsuits and ass-kickings. “I should have known better,” I said, putting the cartridge into the cargo pocket on my thigh. “Whenever Bloombeck gets any kind of gear, it’s going to be so third-rate it’s not worth using. The man lived to peck through garbage and resell it. When he lived downstairs from me, he sold me a toaster that would catch fire after every fifth slice of bread.”

“How do you know?” said Banks.

“What do you mean?” I said, pushing my way into the cane. “I counted. This was back when I’d first Breached, and–”

“No, I mean how do you know he didn’t do this on purpose?”

I looked at Banks; his face was stone still, all traces of the Grin gone. I couldn’t help but laugh. “Are you serious? Bloombeck, trying to off me? What good would that do him?”

Banks shrugged. “You don’t think he’d find some kind of angle to–”

“Look,” I said, putting a hand on Banks’s sunken chest. “Vytai Bloombeck is a conniving sack of crap with the IQ of a sponge, but he is
not
the kind to commit murder. He doesn’t have it in him. He runs whenever there’s a whiff of violence. Christ, he can’t even thumb wrestle without wetting himself.” We walked on. “That one-eyed bitch, on the other hand...”

“What one-eyed bitch?”

“The one who was shooting at us,” I said, then told him about what I saw in the burn room and in the sewer.

He crinkled his brows and said, “I didn’t see
any
eyes.”

“
I
did,” I said. “Your pal, Ellie, was the one shooting at us.”

Banks looked at me, then laughed so hard his eyes watered. “That’s good, Padma. I was afraid the air had gotten to your brain.”