Black Hole Sun (17 page)

“Durango.”

“And my last name?”

Fuse scratches his head. “Er, Durango?”

“Durango Durango.” I tap my head like I'm thinking. “Interesting name.”

“Eh,” Jenkins shrugs. “I once knew a Regulator named Peter Peter.”

“What happened to him?”

“Chigoes digested him.”

“Thanks for that pleasant image.” Standing, I remove the armalite from my back. “Ebi, she'll be in range of your sniper rifle once we meet. Keep an eye on her. If anything goes wrong, drop her where she stands.”

“With pleasure, chief.” Ebi checks the safety on her weapon.

“Jenkins,” I say as Jenkins joins us, wisps of smoke still rising off his buttocks, “not a single shot from that chain gun. I don't want to be sawn in half because of your itchy trigger finger.”

“It's not itchy. Just toasty.”

“Jenkins,” I scold him.

“Yes, chief. I promise not to accidentally kill you just so I can cark out the farging rooters who lit my ass on fire.”

“Good man.” I hand my weapons to Fuse. “Watch these for me, no?”

Fuse accepts them, but says, “You're going out there unarmed? Either you're the bravest son of a dunny rat I've ever laid orbs on, or the stupidest.”

“She asked for parlay. You go unarmed. It's our way.”

Fuse blocks my path. “The way of Regulators, sure, but the way of the Dræu is to eat first and grunt questions later.”

“She's not a Dræu,” I say as I step around him and start for the bridge. “It's worse than that.”

“Maybe she's just a pretty Dræu or something?” Fuse calls after me. “The
only
pretty Dræu. How do you know that she won't kill you?”

“Because,” I say without looking back. “I went to battle school with her. She's a Regulator, too.”

Hell's Cross, Outpost Fisher Four
ANNOS MARTIS
238. 4. 0. 00:00

The face of the queen has hardened since we graduated battle school. Her hair is longer, too. Of course. Cadets keep their hair shorn close to the scalp, male and female alike, and the first thing graduates do is stop cutting it. Cadets. That's how I remember her.

Younger. Gentler.

Human.

“Cowboy,” Mimi starts to say.

“Let me handle this, Mimi. Off-line mode, please.”

“But—”

“Off-line mode.”

There's no noise when Mimi goes off-line, but I know when it happens. Like I know when someone's watching me and then isn't.

The queen carries herself like royalty. Shoulders square and level. Chin held just so. A quick flick that sends her curly tresses behind her shoulders. When we're
a meter apart, I call her by the name I knew: “Eceni.”

“No one has call me that since—”

“Since you decided you liked the taste of human flesh? Or since you joined a band of murderers?”

She laughs. It sounds different, too. Deeper. Meaner. “I meant to say, since the end of battle school. Of course, you went by a different name then, too. Didn't you, Jacob?”

“That's irrelevant.”

“Do the rusters think so? I suspect they would find your real name to be very relevant.”

“I am not my father.”

“Obviously not. Else you'd have committed ritual suicide in the New Eden square alongside his other Regulators. Instead, you let them chop off half your little pinkie finger. Ouch. I bet that smarts. Sort of like pulling off a hangnail.”

Unlike the Dræu, who stink of body odor and rotted cheese, Eceni smells like fruit. Strawberries. My god, that means she bathes. Washes her long black hair. Tries to keep her humanity while living among a pack of savages. But how can you stay human when you live among predators?

“Is that why you wanted a parlay?” I catch myself hiding the mutilated hand behind my back. Forget that, I think and make a fist with it. “To rehash old news?”

“I don't, you know? Like the taste of flesh. I'm no cannibal.”

“You just enjoy the company of killers.”

She taps her teeth with a painted fingernail. “You have
the same taste. How many medals of valor did your sweet Vienne own? One for every soldier she's killed, no? What does a girl do with over a thousand medals? Keep them in her dowry chest for her future husband?”

Future husband
stings in a way that I hadn't expected. “Regulators kill for a reason,” I say, almost snarling, “and only because we have no other choice.”

“Of course, you do. That's what the Tenets say, and we must only do what the Tenets tell us. The Dræu have rules, too, Jacob. They're just more simple and easier to remember.”

“What rules would that be?”

“Eat, drink, and take whatever you want.” She chews the tip of her fingernail, the same way she did when we were in battle school. “And what I want is treasure.”

“Then you came a long way for nothing. These folk don't have enough water to drink, much less some treasure.”

“Reckon I'll have to kill them all to find out.” She runs a hand down my arm. “Your symbiarmor's looking a little worse for wear. Too bad. You always looked so sharp in a uniform. And not so bad out of it, either.”

She winks. It makes me want to chunder. But she moves closer. Lays a delicate hand on my shoulder. “Know why I stopped wearing symbiarmor, Jake? It makes you lazy. You start thinking that nobody can hurt you, and you stop paying attention to the details.”

“Like what?”

“Like the fact that I just stuck a shiv into your gut.”

I look down. A blade sticks out of my armor.

“Didn't even feel it, did you,
mon cher
? You won't feel it the next time, either, except it will be in the base of your skull, where your symbiarmor can't protect you.”

I pull out the shiv. Toss it over the side of the bridge into the gorge. “You sicken me.”

“What is it, Jake?” she whispers into my ear. Her breath is warm and moist against my face. “Can't believe I'm the girl you loved? Is it so hard to believe that people change? Look at you. Once upon a time you were the privileged son of a CorpCom CEO with the makings of a great general. Now you're leading a
dalit
davos protecting a group of rusters who would strip your body for coin if they had half the chance.”

I shrug. “It's true.”

“Glad to see that you've come around. Now about that treasure—”

“It's true,” I say. Take her by the shoulders. Push her away. “That you're not the girl I knew. She was a damned good soldier and a human being.”

“I'm still a damned good soldier, Jacob.” She smiles. Skips around me. “I married after you dumped me, you know. A CorpCom golden boy with a pretty face and a thick bank account. Guess where he is now.”

I stare straight ahead. “No thanks.”

“I fed him to the Dræu. It was easier than divorce.” She presses her back against mine and giggles. “You know, I have friends. Powerful friends who can do almost
anything. Anything like free a sick old man from the gulag.”

“Impossible.”

“Everything is possible, Jake. You of all people should know that. After all, you're above average intelligence.” She twirls around me, the hem of her dress rising about her knees. She moves like water, her dress like growing rings. “Far above, from what I read.”

“What have you read?” I steel myself against her. She's sparring with me, just the same as if we were fighting with knives.

“Just a little information in some old files I found. Isn't it kind of creepy having another person in your brain? Sure there's room in that big head of yours?” She leans into my chest and brushes my lips with hers. “Get me the treasure, Jacob Stringfellow, or I'll feed you to the Dræu after I bring this mine down around the rusters' heads.”

I flex my jaw. Turn my lips into a thin, hard line. Push her gently to my side. “I think that's an empty threat.”

“Try explaining that to the rusters, Jake.” She taps me on the nose, then turns heel. “They know all about the Dræu and empty threats.” As she walks away, her skirt sways with the rhythm of her hips. I watch until she's halfway across the bridge.

“Awake up, Mimi,” I say. “Record her biorhythm signature.”

Precisely thirteen point six seconds later, I feel Mimi's presence. “Done, cowboy.”

I stand on the bridge, arms folded, acting like Janus guarding a toll bridge.

When Eceni reaches the safety of her soldiers, she turns and shrieks, “Cowards! Fools! Know this! You have one day to surrender the treasure to the Dræu. Or we shall kill you all, starting with your anointed savior, Jacob Stringfellow.”

Laughing, she grabs the launcher and fires a mortar into the ceiling. Behind me, the miners scurry for shelter. Rock rains down on me, bouncing off my suit. It feels like an avalanche.

Hell's Cross, Outpost Fisher Four
ANNOS MARTIS
238. 4. 0. 00:00

The infirmary is small, clean, and comfortable, and it stinks of alcohol and bleach.

I knock twice and wait to enter.

Maeve and Áine are attending to Vienne, who is lying in the bed farthest from the door.

Maeve waves me in.

As I pass the first bed, I see Dame Bramimonde lying there asleep, her face washed clean of the blue makeup, her cerulean dyed hair unbraided and combed out. So that's where she spends her time. I'd assumed the Dame was holed up in quarters making the miners wait on her hand and foot. “Didn't know she was sick,” I say in a hushed tone.

“Lots of things you don't know, Regulator.” Áine draws a curtain around the Dame's bed, and I feel ashamed of myself.

Maeve leads me to Vienne's bed, then draws the curtain to give us privacy. My uber warrior's face is gaunt, pale. Gray
lines under her eyes. She looks frail and wan, almost weak, and I feel something inside me torque. Her hair is freshly washed and combed out, smelling of soap. The wounded heal is bandaged well and elevated. Her toes, poking out of the bandages, are swollen black and purple.

“Nice piggies,” I say, trying to be light and perky, but I feel like the air is catching in my lungs.

Vienne turns her face to the wall.

“The wound,” Maeve says, clearing her voice, “was as clean as you could hope for. The shrapnel went straight through. You got her here fast, so I don't expect much in the way of infection. If something does come up, we've got a good store of antibiotics and debridement larvae on hand. Yes, well, have a good visit. Call for me if you have the need.”

Maeve draws the curtain behind her as she goes. I stand beside the bed. If I had a hat, it would be in hand, and I'd be working it between nervous fingers. When we started this mission, I told Fuse that we wouldn't get hurt. Shows that fortune telling is not one of my talents. Maybe being a chief isn't, either.

“How's the foot?” I ask quietly.

The wall remains the only object of her interest.

“Mimi, how is she?”

“Vitals are normal,” she snaps. “That's all I can tell you.”

Her snappishness annoys me. “
Can
or
will
?”

“Is there a difference?”

“Feel free,” I say with a flash of anger at being treated
poorly by my own AI, “to go into silent mode.”

After another long minute, I put my fingertips on Vienne's arm. It the first time I recall touching her bare skin, and it makes the tips of my fingers tingle. I wonder what it would feel like to touch her face, to feel the soft glow of her cheek on the back of my hand, the velvet touch of her lips on—I clear my throat to clear my head. “Vienne, how are you?”

“I'm alive,” she says, unmoving, “thanks to you.”

I force a fake chuckle. “You mean,
no
thanks to me.”

“Twice you've saved me.” She pulls her arm away from my touch. Speaks in a hoarse whisper. “That means I owe you two life debts. No Regulator has two lives to give.”

“Oh that. Then let's say this one's on the house.” Trying to be chipper again. It fails miserably.

She rolls her shoulder away from me. “There is nothing you have to say that I want to hear.”

“You're still angry,” I say.

Silence.

“This is about Ockham.”

Silence.

“You think I ruined his beautiful death.” And because I would rather provoke a response than be ignored again, I add. “But you're wrong.”

“The Tenets are never wrong,” she snaps, then rolls back over.

I sigh heavily. “The Tenets tell us that dying in the service of your comrades is a beautiful death, and Ockham
would have died either way, serving all of us by allowing us to escape. The fact that I didn't allow the Dræu to eat him alive will not keep him from reaching Valhalla in the afterlife.”

“Your bullet ended his life, not the enemy.”

“So?”

“So he did not die by the enemy's hand.”

“You're splitting hairs, Vienne.” My father's voice rings in my head:
It is the thinnest lines that define us.
“The Tenets say nothing about whose bullet should end a life. If death can be beautiful, then his sacrifice was beautiful. I acted out of mercy. Why can't you see that?”

“It is not your job to show mercy,” she hisses. “It is to be chief.”

I cross my arms. “A chief can't show mercy?”

“Not when it is weakness.”

I feel myself draw back, like I've been slapped. “So I'm weak now?”

She takes a few seconds to respond. Time to chew over her words first. “When it is my time, will you deny my beautiful death?”

So that's what's on her mind. “If there's one thing I know, Vienne, you will outlive me.”

“You have saved my life twice,” she says. “Answer me, please. When it is my time, will you deny me a beautiful death?”

“No,” I say.

“Thank you.”

“But I will do everything in power to keep you alive. I don't care how many life debts you end up owing me.”

“Why?” she says. “Why would you do that?”

“Because I couldn't bear it.” I lean in, touch the nape of her neck with my fingertips. “Because I—”

“Don't say that!” She slaps my hand away. Claps both hands over her ears. Squeezes her eyes shut. Doubles over like she's in great pain. “The Tenets forbid it. One eye. One hand. One heart. You can't serve the Tenets with a full heart, if…if…”

“The deuce with the Tenets,” I whisper, “I'd rather talk about ifs.” She pretends not to hear me, curled up in her ball, trying to shut me out, her wounded foot purple and swollen in its bandages, reminding me of the pain she's in. “Talk to me.” Silence. Taking the leg of the wheeled bed in hand, I swing it out so that she is no longer facing the wall. Now she's facing me. “Talk to me, Vienne. We've fought too many battles together to let—”

Her eyes open. They're full of tears. She takes her hands down from her ears. Her voice is hoarse from the pain. “This is all I have to say: You are less the man I thought you were. I am less the Regulator for serving under you. I swore lifetime service, and I'll keep my vow. But now, I've said all I'm willing to say and wish…” She buries her face in the pillow. “Wish you would just leave.”

I return the bed to its proper spot. Take a deep breath.
Nod. Tell Mimi to wake up, since the conversation's over. If only I'd never come into this room. Never let those words
almost
slip from my lips. If I had it to do over again, I would change that. But I wouldn't take back the shot I fired, even if it changes how Vienne sees me forever.

I draw the curtain and walk past the Dame's bed, breathing deep to clear the image of Vienne's face away. Instead, I can smell the soap from her hair, hear her voice clear in my ears, as if she's standing right next to me, whispering my name. My breath catches in my lungs so hard, it feels like I've swallowed something that's stuck. It aches, and I feel myself wince, then try to breathe again. Then I tell myself to let it go, that nothing will ever happen between the two of us. Yet there's that quiet voice, hoping, hoping, hoping.

“Poor little brain,” Mimi says.

“Stow it,” I tell her. “I'm not in the mood.”

“Which mood is that?” she says, mocking me. “Because my sensors say otherwise.”

I huff. “Can't you just leave me to wallow in my own self-pity?”

“Sure,” she says. “Just don't expect me to watch while you do.”

“Okay, Miss Smarty-pants. Mark and track the biorhythms of every Regulator and miner. Let me know if anybody goes anywhere out of range.”

“Affirmative, cowboy,” Mimi says. “Anything else?”

“Negative,” I say. “It's been a long day, so while you're
keeping watch, the rest of us are going to get some sleep.”

“Including you?”

“Including me. I just hope there's something left to defend when I wake up.”

But when I leave the infirmary, Maeve is waiting for me on the arcade, leaning on the rail and watching the children playing hopscotch with Jenkins.

“Seventeen,” she says to me.

“Seventeen what?” I can't handle this right now.

“That's how many children the Dræu have stolen from us. One of them was Áine's little sister.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't know it was that many.”

“There are many things you don't know about us, Durango.” She turns away, and her smock slides down her shoulder, pulling loose a bandage and revealing a thick, purple mass.

“That's a keloid,” I say. I've seen marks like that before. On the battlefield. On my face. On Vienne's back. “That wound is fresh. It wasn't there before. I was on the battlefield the day the Orthocrats turned their mining chigoes loose on us. They killed most everybody and everything in their path, and those they didn't kill ended up with keloids that looked just like that. So I've got a question for you, Maeve.
Where is it?
”

To her credit, she doesn't bother to lie to me. But she doesn't respond, either. Just chewing her chapped bottom lip. Thinking.

“You have a chigoe,” I say. “Show it to me. We've got less than a day before the Dræu come back, and I need to make a measure of the situation.”

Maeve looks into my eyes so intently, it's like she can see Mimi. “Tell me, Regulator. How do you measure infinity?”

 

Infinity, apparently, is measured by taking a secret passage from the Cross, down a flight of stairs through an old air lock, and into an ancient sewer access tunnel. I seem to be spending a lot of my time in sewers lately. Ducking low, we follow the tunnel for a few hundred meters. The path slopes sharply downward, then takes a sharp left turn, and I can see light ahead. Maeve stops at the end of the tunnel. Beyond her, I can see the sheer rock of the gorge, and above that, the bottom of the Zhao Zhou Bridge. I look down and see nothing but infinite darkness. The gorge goes on forever.

“It's a long way down,” I say, staying at least two meters away from the edge. My mouth goes dry. Pulse is increasing. Breath becoming more shallow.

“Breathe!” Mimi says, and zaps my butt with a sly jolt of static.

“Yow!” I yelp in response.

“Quite the view,” Maeve replies, thinking I was referring to the scenery. “Ready?”

“Ready for what?”

“For the next tunnel. It's about fifty meters below this one.” She lifts a climbing rope from the floor of the tunnel.

“Know how to rappel?” she asks as she takes rappelling position on the edge, her voice sounding very far away.

My voice squeaks, “Affirmative.” Rappelling was part of basic training in battle school. They made us slide down more ropes than I can count. “But don't you need a harness?”

“Harnesses are for rooters,” she calls, then drops out of view.

“Maeve!” I drop to my knees and crawl forward. At the lip, I press flat against the ground and pull myself along. From forearm to palm, I'm doused with sweat, and the metallic stink of fear wafts from my armpits. I look down. The horizon pitches to the left. Below, the rope is empty.

“Mimi,” I dare ask. “Did she make it?”

“My sensors are still registering her vital signs.”

“Seriously, does she expect me to follow her? So I'm going to have to rappel, too?”

“The evidence would suggest it, yes.”

“Bugger.”

“Cowboy, may I offer a suggestion?”

“I'm open to anything.”

“Grow a pair.”

“Already got 'em. You of all people should know that.”

“Durango!” Maeve's voice drifted up from below. “Are you coming? You've not turned rooter, have you?”

“I've not turned rooter,” I mutter. “I've always
been
rooter.”

“Keeping going,” Mimi says, encouraging me.

Several deep breaths saturate my lungs—if I stop
breathing halfway down, I won't pass out. Then, grabbing the rope and wrapping my left leg around it, I back over the edge and slide into space. The first step is bad. The second is worse. By the time my body slithers into open air, my mind has gone into free fall.

Vertigo sends wave after wave of nausea through me, and my hands start to lose the stranglehold on the rope. I am going to fall.

“I have you,” Mimi says. “Close your eyes.”

The symbiarmor goes rigid. She has taken control. What happens next is a mystery, because I feel nothing until she gives me another dose of static. When I open my eyes, I'm standing in the mouth of another tunnel. The rope is still grasped in my hand, and I fling it away as I take three hurried steps away from the gorge. My heart is hammering, and I see floaters drifting across my vision. But I'm on solid ground.

“Thanks,” I tell Mimi.

“My pleasure,” she replies. “It is my job to keep you alive, after all.”

Maeve's back is to me. She squatting in front of a very small, very tight tunnel, like she means to go inside it.

“It's a bit tight at first,” she says, and shimmies into the black emptiness.

“You don't say,” I grunt as I try to copy her motions. Impossible. My shoulders are too broad, and I never once in my eight and a half years even tried to shimmy.

“Hurry,” she calls from the darkness.

“Wait.” I climb out of the hole and shuck my symbiarmor and holster. Check to see that the armalite is on safe. Then slide into the tunnel feetfirst and pull the armor in after myself.

The going is actually easy. After the tunnel runs straight for a few meters, it turns sharply to the right and then right again.

“Where are you?” Maeve calls from somewhere down the tunnel.

“Behind you!”

“How far?”

“Can't tell. It's dark.”

“Doesn't matter, either way. You're almost to the end. Watch out, though, there's a bit of a decline coming up soon.”