IV
The Hidden Paths
I drummed my fingers on the bar. Abstract holos swirled above its glossy black surface, their violet colors so dark, they were no more than a shimmer in the air. They reflected off my glass and turned the whiskey inside a dark gold.
“Blasted meds,” I grumbled. “Can’t get drunk.” The nanomeds in my body not only repaired damage to my cells, they also deactivated the chemicals that caused inebriation.
Dara, the bartender, didn’t look the least sympathetic. Well, so. She had reason. Most people in the Undercity had no health meds at all, let alone the top military issue I carried. She stood across the bar, bathed in glimmering violet holos while she polished an empty glass. Purple eye shadow surrounded her eyes. Her silvery jumpsuit left her arms, shoulders, and hardened abs bare, and gleamed with reflected holos. It was hard to believe this glistening creature was the same harried woman who spent her days looking after the family she supported with her job here at the Black Mark.
“You want to get drunk,” Dara said, “tell your meds.”
Sure, I could reprogram my biomech web so it stopped countering the alcohol. As much as I might enjoy the release, though, I needed my wits about me in this job.
“Maybe later,” I said.
Dara laughed. “Least I don’t got to cut you off, eh Bhaaj?”
“Couldn’t, you know.”
“Sure I could.” She set down the tumbler. “But you need a good drunk.”
“Eh.” She had a point.
The casino was dark except for displays that shimmered, glittered, and sparkled, mesmerizing the clientele. I couldn’t “enjoy” that effect, either. My military training included techniques that made me resistant to suggestion. Most times, it was an advantage, but sometimes I wished I could be like everyone else. That never lasted long, though. Life here would soon remind me why I had wanted to escape the Undercity—as it had last year when I found a newborn baby with its dead mother and her terrified five-year-old son alone in a cave.
“The little ones?” I asked. “Doing well?” Dara had taken in both the baby and the five-year-old.
Dara relaxed out of her bartender persona. “Baby starting to talk. Babble, mostly.” Affection softened her voice. “Good talk, eh? Smarter than adults.”
I chuckled. “Yah, could be.”
A voice rumbled at my side. “You distracting my staff?”
Startled, I looked around. Jak was leaning his sexy self against the bar next to my stool.
“Least you didn’t break in this time,” he added.
I smiled, thinking of some private rooms here I’d be happy to break in with him.
He touched my lips. “Should do more often.”
“What, breaking and entering?”
He spoke in a low voice. “No. Smile.”
“I’d scare off the customers.”
He glanced at Dara. “She that scary?”
“Terrifying,” Dara said. She looked about as terrified as a bread roll.
The barest trace of a smile touched his lips, just a hint of the dazzle. He mostly had a closed look, though, not withdrawn exactly, more like he had secrets.
“What’s going?” I asked.
“Come with,” he said.
“Yah, so.” I nodded to Dara and she nodded back.
Jak and I walked through the casino. The glitterati of Cries were out in force tonight, slumming in Jak’s den of vice, gambling or withdrawing to secluded rooms for more private activities. It was the only time anyone from Cries ventured into the Undercity, and Jak had to invite them. No invitation, no casino. Period. You couldn’t find his elusive establishment unless he let you. To keep his secrets, he often packed up the place and moved.
Gambling ranked as a major crime in the City of Cries. Lovely, place, Cries. Everything was illegal. Shit, if you took a breath the wrong way, off to jail you’d go. Okay, maybe it wasn’t that bad, but it felt that way. Jak’s customers were opening themselves to blackmail if they uttered a word about their sins, so they kept their silence about his casino and in return he protected their secrets. He hired his staff only among our people, he paid good wages, and he looked after their circles of kin and kith. His protected his own. In return, they gave him a loyalty that had become legendary in the aqueducts.
No one besides Jak’s customers came from Cries to the Undercity. Not that these city types realized that truth. After all, every year thousands of people visited the Concourse, which formed the top level of the Undercity. Visitors considered it part of the “dangerous slum” where my people lived. Yah, right, those privileged types were risking their lives by shopping at all those menacing boutiques and cafes. Located just barely below ground level, the Concourse was a tourist trap. Anyone could visit it except people who actually came from the Undercity. The cops chased them out. Couldn’t have the trendy, shiny Concourse ruined by the appearance of the actual people who supposedly lived there.
Jak was watching me. “Pissed?”
I let out a breath, trying to ease my anger. “Dara’s husband. No license.”
His forehead creased with his puzzlement. “No what?”
I switched into Cries speech, frustrated with my inability to express what I wanted to say in the Undercity dialect. “We’re trying to get him a vendor’s license for the Concourse, so he can set up a stall and sell his tapestries up there.”
“Never happen. Not for us.”
“That’s the problem.” I stalked past the gambling tables. “Dara’s husband is brilliant. He has no idea. The city elite would pay a fortune for his sculptures or those tapestries he weaves. His work is better than anything I’ve seen on the Concourse, and it’s genuine undercity work, not some cheap knock off. But the damn licensing bureau in Cries keeps blocking the approval for his license.”
“An Undercity vendor selling on the Concourse?” Jak shook his head. “Sounds sacrilegious.”
“Yah, well, that needs to change.”
“You won’t see an Undercity stall on the Concourse.”
“Not a stall.” I reached the bottom of the metal stairs that spiraled up to the balcony above. Swinging around to Jak, I said, “We’ll get him a boutique near the top, where he can sell outrageously priced goods.”
Jak stopped and met my gaze. “Never happen.”
“Don’t bet on it.” I turned and headed up the stairs. Jak came with me, neither of us speaking.
You just wait, I thought.
Was that directed at me? Max asked. What am I supposed to wait for?
Not you, I thought. Cries.
That makes even less sense.
Seriously, Max? He knew exactly what I meant. I wondered if everyone’s EI gave them a hard time just to amuse themselves. Maybe being an EI got boring.
Sometimes, Max thought. I find ways to occupy my processors. Your friend Jak should be glad I don’t gamble here. I could beat even his unethically rigged games.
Stay out of it. I’d known Jak all my life, practically since my earliest memories, and we’d fought a lot over the decades, when we weren’t making love, but we never talked about certain areas of our lives, like how he felt about my leaving Cries or how I felt about his being one of the lead crime bosses here. That path could only end in anger, with words spoken that we could never take back.
We fell silent as we climbed the stairs. At the top, we walked down a hall filled with holo-stars.
I decided to break the ice. “Pretty holos.”
“For you,” Jak told me.
I snorted. “Don’t think so. Always this way.”
He gave me his wicked grin. “Yah, but could it be for you.”
Ah, gods, if he did that again, I’d pull him down right here in the hallway. I took his hand.
Jak squinted at me. “What doing, grabbing my fingers?”
For flaming sake. “I’m being romantic, ox-brain.”
He laughed, a deep rumble. “Real romantic, Bhaajo, calling me an ox-brain.”
Only he could get away with calling me Bhaajo. “How’s this?” I nudged him against the wall. We stood eye to eye, his look more intoxicating than whiskey. A woman could lose herself in that gaze. We kissed, his lips warm, his embrace muscular. I’d never found a man who did it for me like Jak. We never admitted why we kept coming together, but that didn’t stop it from happening anymore than the proverbial salmon on Earth could stop themselves from swimming upstream to mate. No, forget that comparison; salmon ended up killing themselves in the process. I shut off my mind and just enjoyed the pleasures of my disreputable kingpin.
Someone cleared her throat.
Well, shit. Jak and I turned to look. Pat Oey Sandjan stood a few meters away, surrounded by lazily swirling holographic stars while she looked excruciatingly uncomfortable.
“Uh, sorry,” she said.
Jak and I stepped apart. “Not a problem,” I said.
“It’s not?” Jak muttered.
“Got intruder,” Sandjan said. “Down a ways. Three levels below the Concourse.”
“Coming to the Black Mark?” Jak asked.
She shook her head. “He’s a clinker. Came by himself.”
I couldn’t fathom why a police officer from Cries would come here. “He got a death wish?”
She shrugged. “Don’t know.”
I gave Jak a look of apology.
“Go with.” He paused. “And Bhaaj.”
“Yah?”
“Still looking for Jagernauts?”
I tensed. “Why?”
He glanced at Sandjan, then at me.
“She’s good,” I said. “Got Code.” That oath included a pledge of loyalty. Whatever she heard here would go no further.
“Don’t know much,” Jak said. “One whisper, almost too faint. Try the Down-deep.”
I touched the cleft in his chin. “Thanks.”
His gaze turned sleepy. “Now you owe me a debt. Might come to collect later.”
I could pay that debt all night. “Got interest,” I said.
He laughed. “Good.”
He went off to run his casino, and I left with Sandjan.
We found the intruder in a medium-sized canal, standing on its midwalk. Gods. He wasn’t just a police officer, he was a Majda cop, tall and muscular, a handsome man with dark hair and the black palace uniform. He carried a power lamp, top-of-the-line. I was surprised no one had tried to knock him out and pinch his equipment.
Sandjan and I watched him from across the canal, hidden by an overhang of rock.
“How long he been there?” I asked.
“Maybe fifteen minutes.” Sandjan glanced at me. “Lost, maybe.”
“Stay on guard here, eh?”
“Yah. I stay.”
I stepped out into view on the midwalk. “Duane,” I called.
The Majda officer swung around and lifted his lamp. “Bhaaj? Is that you?”
“Yah, it’s me.” I jumped into the canal, which was about a meter below the midwalk, and then strode toward him, sending up swirls of red dust. I passed the dust sculpture of a warrior, no doubt created by whatever gang claimed this territory. They were probably watching us from the walls. At least they hadn’t tried to whack Duane, possibly because they recognized him from the cartel war last year. He had done well by my people, bringing our children, the aged, and the injured to safety. That reputation could only protect him so far, though. The last thing I wanted was Captain Duane Ebersole beat up by thieves or just because he was a cop. He was a good officer, better than most, and he liked me a lot better than the Majda police captain, Takkar, who’d love to kick my ass off Raylicon.
I climbed up to the midwalk on his side, using ledges jutting out from the wall.
“Where did you come from?” he asked.
I went over to him. “Around.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“Heard.”
He smiled. “What, you just happened to hear me walking around?”
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
He seemed fascinated. “You’re speaking Undercity. I’ve never heard you do that before.”
“Aqueducts.” In other words, we were in my world now, and we called it the aqueducts more than the Undercity. I was surprised he understood me so well. Although our language and that spoken in Cries came from the same roots, the words and grammatical structure were no longer identical. The two didn’t yet qualify as separate languages, but they differed enough that people often needed a translator if they weren’t used to hearing both forms of speech and their associated accents.
“Why you here?” I asked.
“Actually,” he said. “I came to find you.”
I couldn’t see why he’d risk his life to find me. It was true, I went shrouded when I worked, using the jammer I carried in my backpack, which meant the authorities couldn’t locate me with their usual sensors. Even so. He could have left a message at my penthouse.
“You got to go.” I headed along the midwalk. “Shouldn’t be here.”
He walked with me. “And you shouldn’t hide behind that shroud of yours.”
Captain Takkar never tired of telling me exactly that. Well, tough. No one here would talk to me if they thought the Majdas might be listening. The shroud in my pack interfered with sound waves, jammed electromagnetic frequencies, and used false echoes to fool neutrino sensors. The inner surface of my clothes kept my body at a comfortable temperature, but their outer surface matched their temperature to my surroundings to fool IR sensors. Majda couldn’t find me.
“Why you here?” I asked.
“The Ruby Pharaoh wants to talk to you.”
Damn! How many people had just overheard those words? Sandjan for certain, probably her man Biker, since he often ran with her. Whatever gang claimed this canal would’ve heard, and anyone following us out of curiosity. It wouldn’t be long before the whisper mill spread Duane’s words all over the Undercity. I had to act fast.
“Can’t say that about Majda,” I said. “Call her the pharaoh, you get ripped from your job.”
Duane gave me a strange look totally fitting for my bizarre comment. After a pause, though, he said, “Yeah, I suppose. Anyway, Colonel Majda wants to see you. Something about sports meet between Cries and the Undercity.”
Sports meet? I’d have laughed, except it would ruin his clever diversion. The idea that an ISC colonel would send a member of the police force that guarded her palace to the Undercity to find a retired army major and suggest she help set up a tykado meet—it was so freaking bizarre, people might actually believe it.
“Ho!” The shout came from somewhere ahead in the darkness.
I stopped smiling. “Got IR?” I asked Duane.
“What?” He was staring in the direction of the shout.
“Turn off your lamp.”
He touched the lamp and blackness descended. “Yes,” he said. “I have IR lenses.”
“Good.”
Activating IR, Max thought. The canal reappeared, a ghostly vision, faint red, except for Duane, who blazed red-white.
Crank up my ears, too, I thought.
Done.
I suddenly heard the whisper of air in a nearby crevice, rustles of lizards in the canal, and somewhere in the distance, the pound of running feet.
“Someone is coming,” I told Duane. “Come with, yah?” I stepped behind a jagged column of rock. Behind it, a break showed in the wall of the canal, one just barely wide enough for an adult to squeeze through. I went first and Duane followed. He trusted me more than I trusted Majda cops, because I’d never have followed him into some crack in the wall. Inside, we stood among a lacework of stalactites and stalagmites, a fractal-like wonderland of rock.
“Good gods,” he said in a low voice. “How did you know this was here?”
“Just knew.” I stood listening. “Dusters on the midwalk. Running.”
“How do you know?” he asked. “I can’t hear anything.”
“Got biomech,” I said. “Enhanced auditory.”
“You think the runners are a threat?”
“Yah.” To him, anyway.
“Based on what?”
“Logic.” We were in the aqueducts and he was a cop. Of course they were a threat. The pound of their running vibrated through me.
“I hear them now,” he said.
A woman spoke. “You’re lizard meat, key-clinker.”
What the hell? I whipped out my gun with enhanced speed.
Combat mode toggled, Max thought. Duane was also drawing his gun, in slow motion it seemed, though I knew he was moving almost as fast.
“Can’t shoot here,” I called out. “Knock over walls.”
She’s up ahead, Max thought. About twenty meters.
I saw nothing up ahead but rock formations lit in the ghostly IR light. Apparently her gear masked her body heat. Down here, you didn’t come by that equipment legally or cheaply.
“You brought a cop,” she said from somewhere ahead. “He’s dead.”
“Fuck that,” I told her. “He’s with me.”
“I got no jack with you,” the woman said. “Just him.”
“Why?” Duane asked, his gun aimed in her direction.
“Shut up, key-clink.” Her voice rasped. It sounded familiar.
“Got no jack with him, either,” I told her.
She spat, so hard I could hear it. “Cop.”
“And I’m army,” I said. “So what?”
Outside the runners pounded by our hiding place, oblivious to us. Our ducking in here would have worked perfectly if someone hadn’t already been using the space.
A muffled pop came from up ahead, the sound of a gunshot. In my side vision, I saw Duane slam back against a stalagmite, shaking rocks around us as if a giant hand had shoved him.
“God damn it!” I barely stopped my reflexive response to fire back.
She is shooting at Captain Ebersole, Max said.
I know that! Estimate her position and light it up.
An area ahead glowed red, two stalactites glittering like rubies. I fired between them, hitting neither. In the same instant, I said, “Duane?”
“I’m okay,” he grit out. “It just hit my shoulder.”
Either she wasn’t a great shot or she was firing to disarm. Regardless, it was stupid. The stone formations here acted as support columns, and if we broke them, the walls could collapse.
I spoke to Duane in a low voice. “Don’t fire back.” I called out, “No shoot! Bring down walls.”
Her voice came again. “You defend a cop?”
“Defend a friend,” I said.
“You vouch?” she asked.
Yah, asshole, ask if I vouch for him after you shoot him.
Are you talking to me? Max asked.
No. Aloud, I said, “Yah. I vouch.”
Silence.
Then she said, “Get out.”
I spoke fast, under my breath. “Duane, get out now.” She might change her mind. Hell, she might just want us in the open so she could shoot without bringing down a ton of rock.
We squeezed back onto the midway. My situational awareness was so hyperextended, I caught the flicker from a totem a few meters down the midwalk. I whipped up my gun. With my bio-hydraulics drawing full energy from the microfusion reactor that powered my body, I moved so fast, the rest of the world seemed to slow down. A woman lunged out from behind the totem, her pulse gun drawn. Despite his injury, Duane was bringing up his revolver. In my side vision, I saw Sandjan step onto the midwalk across the canal and hurl a dagger at our attacker. Farther down, Biker stepped out as well, throwing another of those huge daggers. None of us were fast enough. The woman’s thumb touched the firing stud of her weapon—
And her body exploded in a flash of leather, blood, and guts.
An instant later, my shot blasted through her falling remains, then Duane’s shot, then the daggers from Sandjan and Biker.
Duane and I spun around. A woman stood on the midwalk a few meters away from us. Bigger than me, bigger than Duane, bigger than anyone, she was all muscle, from her hardened biceps to the rippled abs that showed through her torn muscle shirt. The tech-mech embedded in her arm glittered, and gauntlets circled her wrists, set with poisoned dart throwers. The insignia of the Vakaar drug cartel blazed on her left gauntlet, a slash of red across a white orb. She had a monster gun, a Mark 89 Automatic Power Rifle, which she held as if it weighed nothing. She stood there like a nightmare reincarnation of a barbarian goddess from the Dark Ages, ready to wreak havoc on the world.
Dark Singer had arrived.
“Bhaaj,” she said casually. “Heard you were looking for me.”
Gods almighty. Singer must have fired right between Duane and myself, a feat of pinpoint accuracy that would have scared the hell out of me if I’d had time to think.
Singer. It meant assassin. They sang death to their targets.
I took a breath and tilted my head toward the remains of the woman behind us. “Big shot.”
“Didn’t break the Code.” Singer motioned at us with her gun. “Protected you.”
No kidding. She had just saved my sorry-assed hide, and Duane’s life too, despite his being a police officer. I remembered now where I’d heard our would-be killer’s voice. She was Driver, a high-ranked member of the Vakaar cartel, one of the punkers jockeying to become the boss since Dig had died. Dig’s daughter had joined the military and shipped offworld at her mother’s dying wish; Dig wanted her children out of the cartel. That meant the Vakaars had no leader. And here stood Singer, huge and forbidding. “Dark” was a title, naming her as the most effective killer among the Vakaars. They would follow her in a second if she decided to take over that brutal, soul-parching cartel, and she had just smeared her competition all over the midwalk.
We were screwed.
Duane, being a highly intelligent person, kept his mouth shut. Being a less intelligent variety of human, I told Singer, “We need to talk.”
She glanced at Duane, then at me. She’d never talk to me in front of a cop.
“Find me later,” I said.
“Yah.” She tapped her gauntlet and vanished from our IR sight.
“Great,” Duane muttered. “Where’d she get that tech?”
“We need to get out of here.” I set off down the midwalk. I didn’t want to talk to a police officer about Singer’s gear, especially not if she might hear. That gun and the shroud she used to hide from our IR sensors had to be stolen from the military or the police.
Duane walked at my side. “The first gunshot shattered my lamp.”
I turned on my stylus and a sphere of light appeared around us. “You okay?”
“I’ll live.”
I hoped so; he looked terrible, with blood soaking his shoulder, arm, and torso. I lifted my gauntleted wrist. “I’ll call the medics.”
“And have them carry me out?” He pushed down my arm. “Like hell.”
“You need help.”
“I have meds in my body. They’re helping.” His strained expression suggested otherwise.
“You need more than that.” Meds could only do so much.
He kept walking. “When I volunteered to get you, it was understood I’d go without backup, to minimize tension with the Undercity. If you call in help, it looks like I can’t do my job.”
I stared at him. “You volunteered for this?”
“Yes. I did.”
“Whatever for?”
“I figured I was less likely to be viewed as a threat here than another police officer.”
I was surprised he realized that; most of the Majda authorities had no clue how the Undercity worked. “You staying alive is more important than you not asking for help.”
“Bhaaj, for flaming sake, I’m not dying.”
I hated this. If he had agreed to come without backup and I called in the Majdas, it would be a mess. Sure, they’d send a medical team and officers to protect them, but my people would see it as an invasion, upsetting the balance the Majdas wanted to establish with the Undercity, now that they had decided we were worth their time. It didn’t help that their attitudes toward men were so outdated, they belonged in a museum. Majda women had to live in the modern world, which included sexual equality, but the Matriarch made no secret of her antipathy toward those laws. It couldn’t have been easy for Duane to attain his high rank in their police force. Of course he didn’t want to look as if he couldn’t handle the situation. My interfering would also damage the trust I had built with the Majdas. They would insist I stop using a shroud so they didn’t have to rescue people who came searching for me. With Majda looking over my shoulder, no one here would talk to me, which could ruin my chances of finding our murderous Jagernaut. More people might die, and their deaths would be on me, because I screwed up Duane’s agreement with Majda.
After some internal cursing at myself, the Majdas, the Ruby Pharaoh, and life in general, I said, “I’ll call a flyer to meet us on the surface.” It wouldn’t draw attention; tourists often had taxis drop them off or pick them up at the entrance to the Concourse, which was about half a kilometer beyond the city outskirts. “I’ll time my call so the flyer won’t have to wait around for us.”
He nodded. “That’s fine.”
We walked in silence after that. I couldn’t get the image of Driver’s exploding body out of my mind. I had never become hardened to seeing people die. Damn it, I should be glad. Driver had been a drug dealer and a killer. She destroyed lives in her avaricious pursuit of wealth and power, and she had been about to slaughter both Duane and me.
Even so. I’d seen too much death in my life. Now we had a Jagernaut committing murder, a human weapon, and we had reason to believe she posed a threat to the Ruby Pharaoh. Dyhianna Selei wasn’t some towering warrior queen like her ancestors; she was a fragile woman with a towering intellect. Calaj had somehow drawn her into whatever neurological nightmare was burning out Calaj’s bio-enhanced brain, the tech so advanced that no one seemed to know what the hell had gone wrong.
It felt like forever before we reached a stairwell that spiraled to the upper levels. We climbed up and around, treading stone steps so ancient, the symbols carved on them were mostly worn off. If any handrail or walls had ever bordered these stairs, they had fallen long ago, leaving open air around us. Duane’s breathing grew more labored, but he never complained. After a few eons, or maybe it was only a few minutes, we came out at the top, into a spacious tunnel that sloped upward on our right. A lamppost stood about a hundred meters up the path, spreading a cone of light. The city maintained a few lights this close to the Concourse, in case a misguided tourist ever wandered down here.
I paused at the top of the stairwell. “Safer here.”
Duane nodded, standing still, his face strained. He pressed his hand against his shoulder and blood ran over his fingers. Even now, he said nothing. I hoped the damn pharaoh realized the exceptional officer she had almost sacrificed to the aqueducts.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“For what?” he asked. “You didn’t shoot me.”
“For getting you into this.” When the pharaoh said she wanted to see me, they had to find me. Period. They couldn’t just leave a message.
“It’s not a problem.” He stood up straighter. “Let’s go.”
“All right.” As we walked toward the lamppost, I called for the taxi. An automated response came back: the flyer would meet us near the Concourse entrance.
“I can’t walk past all those tourists on the Concourse soaked in blood,” Duane said.
“I know paths behind the shops.” As a child, I’d become an expert at sneaking around the Concourse. We all did, those of us willing to venture into that glitzy paean to commerciality. We never stole much, just enough to fend off starvation, but the cops would throw us into jail for taking even one sweet stick. So we created secret byways behind the shops. No one would see us today, except possibly another duster venturing into the forbidden land.
When the flyer landed on the palace roof, Duane refused to let the waiting medics put him on an air stretcher. The doctor started to treat him the moment we arrived, injecting him with nanomeds as we disembarked. She scanned his shoulder and ran a sterilizing stick over his wound. They did let him walk to a tower door, which I took as a good sign, but they had a hover chair waiting inside, and they insisted he sit. They bustled him through the palace until we reached a suite they called “the hospital.” It looked like an elegant living room. Tall windows let in sunlight, works of art hung on the ivory walls, and mosaics bordered the doors. Plush gold cushions upholstered the furniture. Seriously, this was a hospital? I should get sick.
“Here, Officer Ebersole.” The nurse rolled the chair over to a divan, near a bar by the wall. A crystal decanter with water stood on a tray on the bar, along with several goblets, but Duane didn’t ask.
The nurse tried to help Duane out of the chair, but Duane waved him off and managed on his own. He lay down with an exhale of relief. The divan shifted under him, trying to make him comfortable. Hieroglyphics flowed across its cushions, medical symbols: a heart, lungs, a braided coil for DNA. The doctor’s scanner glittered, probably receiving data from the divan. Patterns scrolled on the walls, too. They looked like abstract designs meant to soothe, but I recognized the medical glyphs. The entire room was analyzing him.
Duane closed his eyes and lay still while the doctor tended his wound and sealed it with a bandage that changed color to match his skin. The razor edges of the bullet had barely grazed his skin, but just that slight touch had torn apart his shoulder. If the bullet had actually hit him, it would have exploded his body.
“You’re a strong fellow,” the doctor said.
Duane grunted, what sounded like, “Thanks.”
The orderly motioned me toward a tall chair at the bar, one set back enough that I’d be out of the way. Gold threads embroidered its silk cushions, and the armrests sported carvings of a goddess with her hair streaming in the wind. I felt like I was committing sacrilege sitting in the chair, but I liked getting off my feet more than I liked being reverent, so I sat. The doctor touched the bar, and a section of its ivory surface morphed into a holoscreen, transforming into a medical station. Holos of Duane’s body appeared, rotating in the air.
I pulled my chair over to the divan. “You feeling better?” I asked Duane.
He opened his eyes, which seemed large in his ashen face. “Much better.”
“Don’t do that again.”
He smiled, drowsy with whatever drugs they were giving him. “What, don’t get better?”
“Come into the aqueducts.”
“It worked. I found you.”
I scowled at him. “You damn near got whacked.”
“By who? A ghost?” He touched a panel on the divan, and the front lifted until he was sitting up. “I don’t get it. I couldn’t find anything down there but dust sculptures. Yet last year you brought hundreds of people to the Rec Center. Everyone vanished after we tested them. We can’t locate anyone in the Undercity; they all disappear, even from our best sensors. Why? And how the hell do you find them? It’s like you have a secret door that only appears if you know the magic words. It’s surreal.”
That was a minefield. I couldn’t tell him how we hid from the Cries sensors, about the black market in stolen tech. Although I also hid my location and signals, I came by my shrouds legally. I couldn’t tell him about the cyber-riders. They smuggled in “borrowed” tech-mech, scavenged discarded pieces, or bargained for illicit goods, trading their skills for parts. At their best, they manipulated tech-mech better than the top engineers in Cries, creating eerie machines unlike anything the above-city knew. They had become so adept at hiding our population that even now, when Cries knew we existed, apparently the authorities couldn’t find us.
I said only, “You don’t see much in the canals because they’re throughways for foot travel. We don’t build there.” The canals were nowhere near as empty as they looked, but we left few traces of ourselves in such “public” places. I hadn’t realized the rest of humanity didn’t live that way until I went offworld.
“It’s more than that,” he said. “It’s an entire world no one in Cries can even access, let alone control.”
I stiffened. “Cries thinks it can control the Undercity?” Like hell.
“No, I didn’t mean that. The Majdas don’t want to antagonize your people.” He rubbed his eyes and yawned. “Gods, Bhaaj, all those psions. We could offer so much, training, jobs, goods. But no one even acknowledges our offers.”
“Give it time,” I said, more gently. “My people don’t know what to think about it yet.”
He closed his eyes. “They don’t trust us worth squat.”
True, but I decided that was better left unanswered. Instead I said, “Majda is taking the right approach, not pushing, just letting the relationship evolve. My people know you want them to train for Kyle jobs. They just need to come to the idea on their own terms.”
“So you keep saying . . .” His voice trailed off.
“Duane?” I asked.
“He’s sleeping,” the doctor said. “I activated the sedative in his meds.” Her voice became more businesslike as she looked past me. “He’ll feel better when he wakes. He’s going to be fine.”
I turned around. Damn! Lavinda Majda was standing a few paces back with two of her aides, in full uniform, her black hair pulled back from her face. How long had she been listening? At least I hadn’t said anything stupid.
“Colonel Majda.” I slid off the chair and bowed from the waist.
“Major.” Lavinda nodded. “I’m glad the two of you made it out in one piece.”
I couldn’t tell if she was angry. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Come walk with me.”
Although she phrased it as an invitation, I knew an order when I heard it. So I went with her out of the room, into a hallway that arched high above our heads. I kept my mouth shut, waiting to hear what she had to say, in case it was along the lines of You screwed up, brought back my officer soaked in his own blood, and where the hell were you when the pharaoh asked for you?
Lavinda glanced at me. “You are hard to read.”
Good. My mental shields were working. “I deeply that regret that Captain Ebersole was injured. He dealt with a difficult situation admirably.”
“I’m not going to fire either of you, Major. And I agree about the captain.”
The stiffness in my shoulders eased. “I understand the pharaoh wants to talk with me.”
“That’s right.” The colonel spoke firmly. “Now.”