Daylight Runner (2 page)

“Vultures,” Ana muttered under her breath.

Sol regarded them with disdain. She was right; they flocked to the scenes of disaster like scavengers. It was as if they thought that every death proved them right.

A long black car pulled up, and two more men in suits got out. But these were not businessmen; with them was the mayor, Isabella Haddad. Her face was carefully drawn in official sorrow, her every movement appropriate to the occasion. Sol's father had plenty to say about her too, but Sol thought the mayor was okay, or at least the best of a bad lot. He had little time for politicians or politics. None of it ever seemed to make a difference.

Still, somebody had to say something at a time like this. Haddad would have the right words. Sol stopped for a moment, swiveling to look up at the arm of the crane, to where the wrecked carriage had once been attached. The immense machine loomed over them, its image as a protective giant lost in the fall of the ill-fated carriage. Sol realized he was trembling, and wrapped the blanket tighter around his shoulders, turning away from the mechanical tower.

I
T WAS LATE AFTERNOON
by the time Sol got back to his apartment complex. After making his way up through the maze of stairs and corridors, he opened the door and checked his father's room. Gregor had not come back the night before; it was Thursday, yesterday had been payday, and he had probably spent the night out with his buddies, playing cards or laying down bets at the ratting dens. He would have gone straight back to work and would not be home until later. Sol dumped his bag on the sofa bed and strode into his room, throwing himself on his own bed.

The room was barely big enough for the narrow bunk and a bedside table. The wall was plastered with posters of late-twentieth-century boxers from the golden age of the sport: Ali, Liston, Marciano, Leonard, Tyson, Lewis. Every
square centimeter of space was taken up with his junk: boxing memorabilia, his gloves and weights as well as piles of books and his underused drums.

He stood up again, feeling antsy, restless. The crane accident had him feeling disturbed, and now he couldn't get the last few moments of the doomed carriage out of his mind. Pacing the living room for a minute or two, he decided to go out for a run. Gregor could be hours yet, and Sol needed to talk—either that or do something active. He couldn't stand just waiting around. Changing into his running tracksuit, he slipped on his running shoes, strapped some small weights around his wrists, and left the apartment.

It would take him ten minutes to get out by going downstairs, so he took to the rooftops instead. The sunlight from the dome was already fading, and the city lights were being lit: tall, denceramic posts topped with glass lenses glowing with sewer-gas flames. Denceramic was a ceramic lighter, stronger, and more resilient than steel and was one of the miracle building materials that had made the unique engineering of Ash Harbor possible.

The roofs of most of the apartment complexes were flat and paved. With no elements to worry about, people used the rooftops as gardens and gathering areas, and there were routes that dropped in blocked steps to the first level of streets. It was easy climbing for an agile young man. Even without descending to the street, he could run
for kilometers across the interlocking walkways and clustered rooftops. But he needed noise and life, things to watch to take his mind off the accident. He pulled up the hood of his top and set off at an easy jog, swinging his weighted arms in gentle punches to warm them up.

Music drifted across from somewhere, and he followed the sound. There was a party going on. There was always a party going on somewhere. Ash Harbor was a crowded place, and often there was little to do but get drunk or high and play music and dance.

There was graffiti everywhere. There were three gangs on this block, but these weren't territorial marks, just the usual scribbling.

 

CALL HOPHEAD FOR GOOD BOOZE.

AMANDA YAN GIVES IT UP FOR MONEY.

LIFE'S CRAP, AND THEN YOU DIE.

STOP THE RIDE, I WANT TO GET OFF.

TODD WOZ 'ERE '73. WASN'T IMPRESSED.

WHO ARE THE CLOCKWORKERS?

 

Sol gave that last one a second glance, wondering about it, but kept running. The walls around him were coated with the frustrated scrawling of bored kids tired of being crammed into this city, with nowhere to go but old age.

The music was louder now, and he slowed down, coming to the edge of a roof that looked out onto a small
square lit in moody party colors. Putting his foot up on the low wall while he slowed his breathing, he gazed down at the scene. There was a band playing: a drummer, somebody with an old guitar—a real one—and a few guys on homemade horns. Most instruments were homemade these days. The crowd was in a lively mood, and the music was good, catchy. Sol toyed with the idea of going down, but he contented himself with watching from up in the darkness for a while.

He recognized the guitarist: it was Cleo. She was pretty handy on those strings, and was leading the singing of some raucous, anarchic anthem. At the center of the pack, as usual. She was rarely without a boyfriend—there were rumors she'd had a girlfriend once too, but he suspected it was just gossip. Music was such a social thing, he thought. Musicians always seemed to have loads of friends. In boxing, you had your teammates, the guys you trained with, but it was different. At least for him. To stay sharp, you had to keep training separate from everything else.

He turned away from the square and started running again. After climbing over a firewall, he descended some steps, balanced along a jutting wall, and then climbed down a ladder to the uppermost street. Watching the world around him from inside his hood, he ran for another half an hour, taking a winding route home. The evening light was gone, and the busy streets were lit only
by store windows and the gaslights. He climbed to the roof again, taking a different path back to his apartment, one that led to the single window in the living room.

Climbing inside, he unstrapped the weights from his wrists…and was immediately aware that there was someone in the darkness with him. Bunching up in a defensive stance, he ducked away from the low light of the window, but it was too late. He felt a blow of something hard and heavy across his left hand, knocking away his guard and sending shooting pain through his wrist. From somewhere, there was the scent of an acidic aftershave. Striking out with the weights in his right hand, his knuckles brushed against the fabric of the man's jacket. A foot came down heavily on the back of Sol's knee, and he realized he had two opponents. As he fell to his knees, a hand grabbed his hair, pulling his head back, and a fist landed square on his nose. Pain burst across his face. Something hit the back of his neck, and he crumpled to the floor, stunned. He was dimly aware of two men clambering out of the open window, and then there was silence.

He lay there for some time, tenderly clutching his broken nose, his eyes full of tears. As he waited for his head to stop spinning, he took a woozy glance around the room. It had been completely ransacked.

“Dad'sh goin' to go nutsh,” he muttered.

 

“You've been broken into,” the police officer confirmed. “Sure as shootin'.”

“I know,” Sol acknowledged sourly.

He had an ice pack in each hand: one held to his nose, the other pressed against the back of his neck. His voice sounded as if he had a cold, and every time he moved his head a furry headache rolled around inside it. The officer, who had introduced himself as Carling, had made a cursory examination of the door, the window, and the overturned room before delivering his verdict. He did all the talking in an official, monotonous manner, as his partner gazed out the window.

“Anything missing?” he asked, his erasable notepad out.

“Not that I can see.” Sol looked around. “I think I scared them off. Look, aren't there tests you're supposed to do? Fingerprints and stuff?”

“Nah, they'll have been wearing gloves.” Carling shook his head. “We get called out to break-ins like this every day. Nothing to look for.”

Sol scowled. “Thanks for dropping by, anyway.”

“Not sure I like your tone, son.”

“Sorry, Officer. I'm sixteen. It's the only tone I've got.”

Carling chuckled drily. “Wife an' I used to live in a place like this, had a window just like that one,” he mused. “Got broke into five times.
Five
times! And me a cop. We moved out, got an internal apartment, no windows. Haven't been broken into since. Place isn't as
nice, no natural light or nothin', but it's
safer
, you know what I mean?”

Sol stared at him over the ice pack. “So, what you're saying is: if we moved to a worse apartment, if we didn't have any windows at all, it'd be harder to break into?”

“You've got to have security, son,” Carling told him.

“By that reckoning, then, if we didn't have any doors into the apartment either, we'd be completely safe.”

“That's being a bit extreme, son.”

“We had to wait four years to move to a place with a window. We kinda like it.” Sol took the pack away from the back of his neck and looked at it. There was a little bit of blood on the cloth.

“That bent out of shape?” Carling nodded toward Sol's broken nose.

“I think it's just the cartilage,” Sol muttered. “I'll have my coach look at it tomorrow—he sees these a lot.”

“You should think about personal protection, then. Pepper spray is good—not that I can officially recommend it, you understand, but it's not illegal, you know what I mean?”

Sol was going to point out that he was a pretty handy boxer, but then remembered that he had been floored without getting in a single blow. So much for all his training.

“I think we're done here, Jim,” Carling said to his partner. Then, looking one last time at Sol: “Stay safe, son.
There are some real nut-jobs out there.”

“Yes, sir.”

The police officers departed, leaving Sol to survey the bomb site that was his home. First the accident at the crane and now this; it had been a hell of a day. The mess was going to take some clearing up, but it would be best to get it done before his dad got home. Gregor would be a pain in the neck as it was, knowing his son had been attacked. Seeing the apartment wrecked too would mean an evening of ranting about the state of the world. That, Sol could do without.

He leaned into the tiny galley kitchen, throwing the sodden ice packs into the sink. Heaving a sigh that made his aching head throb, he started straightening up the living room. With the worst of the mess cleared up there, he went into his father's room and pondered on whether to leave it and let Gregor clean it up himself. Sol shrugged; he would tidy up the big stuff. Bending to right the bedside table, he caught the drawers before they fell out of it and was pushing them closed when something caught his eye. In the bottom drawer was a stack of betting slips from Cooley's, a ratting den in the Fourth Quadrant.

Sol sat down on the bed. “Ah, Dad,” he breathed.

Gregor normally kept his gambling under control; he was always saying you had to keep a firm grip on your vices or they'd grip you. But times had been tight recently,
and Sol knew how the hope of a big win could push gamblers over the edge just when they could least afford it. There were a lot of slips here and no way of telling whether they'd been paid off or not. Sol began to wonder if their two recent visitors had been burglars or debt collectors.

 

“What do you mean we've been withdrawn?” Cleo demanded. “We're the main act!”

“I'm sorry, Cleo, but it's at the request of the sponsor.” The school principal, Mr. Khaled, held his hands up helplessly. “They had someone at one of your performances recently and found some of your lyrics…inflammatory. They said that we'd either have to drop your band or lose their sponsorship. What could we do?”

“You could stand up for your students is what you could do—”

“Now, mind your tone, young lady,” he warned. “It's the students I'm thinking of—all of them. They've been promised this ball, and we're going to give it to them. But we can't do it without money. Internal Climate is our sponsor, and we have to respect their wishes—”

“You have to kiss their small-minded
asses
is more like it!” Cleo retorted.

Khaled's pale brown face stiffened, and Cleo saw the beginnings of a storm brewing. She didn't like the man, but he tried hard to win the students' respect. It was his temper that let him down most of the time.

“I have to go and tell the guys,” she said in a softer voice. “Just out of interest, who's going to headline it now?”

“Iced Breeze,” Khaled supplied.

“Aw, man, not those saps—”

“Get to class, Miss Matsumura.” The principal's tone left little room for argument.

Cleo angrily shifted the strap of her bag onto her shoulder and headed for her classroom. Freak Soup, her band, was the most popular group in the school, which was why they'd been the obvious choice to headline the end-of-year gig. It was going to be their biggest-ever audience, and they'd been really keyed up for it. She was nearly crying with frustration as she entered the classroom. They had Ms. Kiroa for government. The teacher took one look at Cleo's face and just waved her to her seat. Everybody knew that she'd been called away by the principal; now everybody could guess why.

“We were about to have a minute's silence for the two men who died yesterday,” Ms. Kiroa told her. “By the way, if any of you feel you need to talk about what happened, you're welcome to come to me after class. So, if you could all stand…”

Cleo stood with the rest of the class. She breathed in and out slowly, subduing the sobs that wanted to come out. It was so
unfair
. She couldn't believe the nerve of those jerks. Well, if they thought her lyrics had been inflammatory before, just wait until she came up with a
number about this…. She'd write stuff that would make their hair stand on end.

“Thank you, you can sit down now,” Ms. Kiroa told them. “Sol, take your hood down, please. You know I don't like you wearing it up in class. So, to recap on last week, why is it necessary for the bulk of us to travel to work or school on the clockwise route and then complete the circle on the homeward journey?”

Cleo snorted quietly. They'd been learning this since elementary school. Right turns to school and right turns home. Hands went up.

“To generate the kinetic energy for the Heart Engine, miss.” Ubertino Lamont, one of Freak Soup's drummers, spoke up as the teacher pointed to him. “To keep the flywheels turning.”

“Duh,” Cleo mumbled.

“All right, that was an easy one,” Ms. Kiroa said. “And we know that during the working day and early evening, the flywheels are driven by the tram system and by the foot stations. Something most of you can look forward to when you leave school. One hour a day every fourth week. Unless you get to fill some vitally important role, such as a…oh, a
teacher
, say.”