Dusk (32 page)

As the lev descended to where Jang was
standing, Tanner kept his eye on the men on the float to make sure
they didn’t have any twinges of heroism. Had he really been reduced
to a common levjack?

No.

These men would go home to their families,
and eventually they would get over whatever shock they were feeling
at the moment. It may have been a little selfish, but it was
miniscule next to whatever fate awaited them all if they stayed.
There was no guarantee whatever life they might have outside the
custody of their captors would be better, and there was no
guarantee that they would not be captured again, but at least, on
the outside, they could have the illusion that their fate was their
own. An illusion that these frightened men in front of him already
had. So, as the lev set down next to the entrance, and Uzziah,
assault rifle blazing, came backpedaling through the front door,
Tanner swallowed his distaste for this whole situation.

And then, by the time the magistrates monitoring the
parade had figured out something was amiss, Jang was already
raising the lev to the upper dock at a speed that pinned Tanner and
Uzziah to the dragon’s back.

Dr. Villichez stood in the midst of the chaos, briny
water cascading over him as grown men, educated men, who after
weeks of confinement and bewilderment had been reduced to their
lowest common denominator, had lost what little composure they had
left. He stood, unable to move, horrified by the degenerating
humanity around him. Dr. Winberg had been ushered around the corner
by two soldiers, while two Flying Monkeys held Villichez, Dr. Cohn,
and Dr. Murphy at gunpoint. Dr. Cohn stood, his hands clasped on
top of his head, whimpering among the bodies of unconscious guards,
some stirring as the cold sprinklers whelmed them back to
consciousness. Dr. Murphy had sat on the ground against a wall, his
mind taking him to a place he could actually bear, oblivious to the
commands for him to stand. There was a clamor inside the stairwell,
and there was some sort of commotion at the edge of the dais that
Cyrus had leapt over using the guard commander’s head as an anchor
point. The second guard had turned his attention over the dais, and
had aimed his gun at something when Villichez heard dogs barking.
That was when the gunfire started.

Torvald and Toutopolus had scooped up Davidson with
alarming ease and were already through the doors to the dock when
they heard the barking. Whatever miracle Cyrus had in the works had
not happened yet, and as the three uberhounds bounded down the
corridor toward them, Toutopolus wondered if it ever would happen.
He had fumbled the black box and had almost dropped it before
pressing the blue button to charge it. Then, as the uberhounds had
fanned out in the lobby to flank them, Milliken had stepped back
through the doorway, and he had a rifle.

Milliken had been raised in Navarre, an
autonomous province in Spain next to the Basque lands of Euskal
Herria. Navarre had been reluctant to join the Uni, and Euskal had
vehemently opposed unification. In an attempt to get them to come
crawling to the Uni for help, Spain had introduced monkeys into the
ecosystem of the Basque lands that resisted. His father ran a
chicken lab on the Euskal border where chickens were pod-raised for
research and consumption. The lab had good countermeasures against
rodents and vermin, but Fringe monkeys learned fast, and they were
persistent. Assault rifles had been completely outlawed by the Uni,
but it didn’t matter so close to the Fringe. Milliken had learned
at an early age how to use one, especially against groups of
attacking animals, and here, as he had disengaged the safety, he
had raised the rifle. He had rested the butt against the inside of
his arm, and he had remembered to aim low, two steps in front of
the rushing animal, and he had pulled the trigger.

He had fired three short bursts, putting one
of the animals down. The other two, apparently programmed to
respect guns without startling, had recoiled and then had fanned
farther away from each other.

Milliken turned to his left and fired another burst
into the hound still circling away from the initial volley.

As the hound rolled through a spray of its
own blood, Toutopolus noticed a soldier on the dais taking aim at
Milliken. Whatever edict had been issued that had made so many men
with guns resort to using these ridiculous lightning boxes most
certainly had been lifted now. Toutopolus took aim, not even sure
how to aim with this overgrown lev bay opener.

Cyrus heard muffled gunfire as he rushed the door.
He told himself he should turn around, go back to the dock, but his
legs, his shin stinging with each step, kept him moving toward the
door as he pressed the blue button on the black box.

Villichez watched the guard in front of him,
Colfax he believed, focus on some order from his earwig and then
flip a switch on his rifle. The soldier next to him had flipped the
same switch on his own weapon and had tensed his body as another
cadence of gunfire had rung out. The second soldier had taken aim
over the edge of the dais, but his body had flown back toward
Villichez, a sparkle of blue dancing across his face and neck.

That was when the door to the stairwell flew
open.

Cyrus had dived at the floor as soon as he
opened the door and had heard the volley of gunfire he had feared
echo through the hall. He could feel the swirling air rent by
bullets coursing over him as he turned and landed on his side. As
his momentum carried him through the water on the floor, he
expected his body to erupt in a fit of convulsions as it reacted to
the bullets tearing into him—but the bullets had all missed their
mark. Then, as he rolled on his back to make himself a smaller
target, Cyrus realized, with horror, what mark they had found.

Villichez’s body shook and then froze. To
Cyrus, he looked like a man who had just had all his loved ones
snatched away from him, watching in still horror as they were
ushered mercilessly into the sunset, never to be seen again. Or
maybe that was what he himself felt. The air was thick, oily, and
things moved in the gel as if gravity itself was stunned. Even the
water cascading from the sprinklers seemed to fall slower, each
drop discernable as it struggled to push its way through the aspic
air. Villichez fell amidst a shower of his own blood, which
stubbornly mixed with the deluge. He outstretched his arms toward
Cyrus, but he could not reach him.

Darius, Xander, the Arcology, even Feralynn,
and now Villichez—the weight of everything he had lost since he had
arrived on this barren lavpool kept his fists clenched, nails
digging into the palm of his right hand, as the corner of the black
box pierced his left palm.

“
Anák na laláki
,” Villichez muttered,
and then his gaze turned inward, as if he had just realized he was
late for some engagement of dire import. The ground hungrily pulled
Villichez down, and Cyrus felt a pressure in his own chest as
Villichez’s blank stare met his on the ground. The gel made the
senses unreliable. Sight wavered, sound muffled, touch and smell
distorted. His senses twisted in on each other, mingled, and Cyrus
felt more than heard the cry that erupted from his own center,
guttural and deep, as he turned to face 43235, smoke issuing from
his rifle barrel in brazen lack of remorse.

Soldier 43235 was over him now, gun pointed
downward, yelling something that Cyrus neither could, nor cared to,
hear. The ambiance of the room was still peculiar, and Cyrus felt
the heat from the barrel of the gun despite the half-meter
distance. The heat drew him in, lifted his left leg from the
ground, and brought his foot into the barrel sending it upward. The
volley that issued from the gun in response to Cyrus’s kick was
muffled by the mire around them. Cyrus swung his left hand around,
jammed the black box into the inside of 43235’s knee, and pressed
the green button.

The jolt knocked Cyrus’s hand away,
debilitating his hand, which was already too wracked with numbness
to matter. The box disappeared into the falling water, but Cyrus
pulled his legs beneath him and stood, wrenching the rifle away
from 43235 as his body collapsed on a useless knee. The collapsing
soldier lifted his hands to defend himself, but Cyrus was already
stepping past him, dipping his shoulder, dropping his knee, and
swinging the rifle, strap still looped around 43235’s neck, with
both hands. Cyrus’s shoulder protested but he ignored it as he
flipped 43235 onto his face. Villichez’s murderer scrambled to get
his arms and legs beneath him and he coughed spraying water from
his nostrils as he reached for another of the black boxes still
attached to another soldier’s belt. Cyrus saw him reaching, but
also saw an errant set of manacles behind him—and the remote on
43235’s belt. Cyrus dropped the rifle and kicked 43235’s supporting
arm from under him. He fell to the ground again as Cyrus moved
beside him, snatching the remote from his belt while simultaneously
scooping the cuffs from the floor. As 43235 tried to get to his
feet again, Cyrus had already extended the chain between the cuffs.
The box was in 43235’s grasp now, but Cyrus had looped the chain of
the cuffs around his neck and had locked the wristlocks together
before he could turn. Cyrus lifted him by the cuffs and threw him
against the wall with his forearm. Cyrus looked 43235 in the eyes,
spreading droplets of water across the soldier’s face as hard
breaths escaped his lungs. Then he pressed the button to tighten
the cuffs.

“It’s not the same when you have to earn it,
is it? Is it?” Cyrus yelled into the soldier’s face as he
frantically scratched and scraped at the chain tightening around
his neck, gouging his own flesh in an attempt to tear the
restraints away. His tongue slipped from his mouth, and his body
twitched in a spasm, and then there was a pop, a sound like someone
dropping a wet rag, and his body went loose.

Cyrus let the body drop and, as his hearing
became clear again, he heard barking. But not the same barking he
had heard earlier. This was closer and was moving toward him. Cyrus
snatched up the rifle that had belonged to 43235. He had never used
one before, but he knew this one would fire when he pulled the
trigger. As he ran to the stairwell, he heard more footfalls than
he could count. As feeling returned to his left hand, he could tell
his fingers were shaking and they were cold. Cyrus heard the whoosh
of a door sliding open in the hallway at the edge of the dais. It
must have been the door of the observation room, which reduced his
options to one. He flipped the strap of the rifle over his head,
lifted it with his right hand, and as the barking closed in on him,
he ran toward the dais. As he cleared the corner just before the
edge of the dais, he squeezed the trigger of the rifle and fired a
volley down the walkway. He saw khaki forms duck and dodge as he
launched himself, for the second time, over the edge of the
balcony. As he fell, gunfire issued after him. Splinters of plaster
and concrete fell with him as the ground rushed up again, even
slower it seemed. As he landed, he tried to brace himself, and he
rolled. When he stood into a run, he realized his left ankle had
not fared as well as it had the first time—or maybe he just hadn’t
noticed until now.

He saw metal louvers, which had looked like
mullions during the brawl, slowly beginning to close. And even
though he was reluctant to look back over his shoulder, he swore he
saw two uberhounds clear the railing of the dais after him. Then,
gunfire sounded from in front of him and he instinctively shielded
his face. He then realized Milliken and Uzziah had stepped inside
the closing louvers and were firing past him to cover his retreat.
As Cyrus reached the doors, Uzziah and Milliken backed through the
closing louvers, and they leaped onto the back of the float.
Toutopolus patted Cyrus on the back and smiled, but Cyrus had
difficulty returning it. “I can’t believe we made it!” Toutopolus
exclaimed.

“We’re a far cry from done here, son,” Uzziah
said as he checked the clip on his rifle. Jang pulled the float
away from the dock hastily, in response to the ominous looking
assault-lev rounding the corner of the ave behind them.

• • • • •

—
More trouble at school, Dari?

—
When isn’t there?

—
Terry or Genivere?

—
Terry.

—
So what now?

—
He took my Monster Mashup holodeck card.

—
Well I told you not to take your games to
school.

—
Come on Dada, I don’t need a lecture right now.
I already know.

—
You tell Miss Hasabe?

—
Yeah, she said the same thing you did about
having it there in the first place, cuz Terry said he didn’t have
it. Problem is, I told him if he didn’t give it back, I’d pop him
good.

—
So?

—
So, I don’t know. I’m scared.

—
Well, I don’t know if you poppin’ people because
of something you could have avoided is on the axis, but maybe I can
answer your question with a story.

—
Okay...

—
So this monkey walks into a toy store one day,
and the manager asks if he can help him.

—
Wait, why’s the manager talking to the monkey?
Why doesn’t he just tranq him.

—
Because it’s a fable. You remember,
anthropomorphization.

—
Oh yeah, well, I don’t like talking monkeys very
much.

—
Well neither do I, but that’s the story I got.
Savvy?

—
Savvy.

—
So, the manager asks if he can help, and the
monkey says, “Yeah, you got any sweetbars?” And the manager says,
“No, sorry, we only sell toys.” So the monkey says, “Okay,” and
leaves. The next day, the monkey comes back to the store and he
sees the manager and asks, “Got any sweetbars?” The manager is
baffled, but not sure it’s the same monkey. He replies politely,
“No, we don’t have any sweetbars.” And the monkey says, “Okay,” and
walks off. So another day goes by, and the monkey comes in again,
sees the manager, and says, “Hey.” But this time the manager
recognizes him and braces himself, already prepared to be
irritated. “You got any sweetbars?” the monkey asks again, and the
manager loses it. “Look we don’t have any sweetbars, we didn’t have
any yesterday, and we’re not gonna have any tomorrow! If you want
sweetbars, go to a bakery!” So the monkey says, “Okay,” and goes on
about his business. So two days go by, and the manager thinks he’s
seen the last of the monkey, but on the third day, the monkey shows
up again. He catches the manager talking to an employee and tugs on
his shirt, “You got any sweetbars?” And the manager completely
loses his y-drive. “Look you stupid monkey,” he says, “if you come
in here one more time and ask for sweetbars, I’m gonna nail you to
that wall right there!” The monkey looks at the wall, then calmly
looks back at the manager and says, “Okay,” and walks off. Well the
next day, the monkey shows up again, and the manager’s head fills
with steam on sight. “What?” he yells as soon as he sees him. “You
got any nails?” the monkey asks. “No, we don’t have any stinking
nails!” he yells. So the monkey looks at him, right in his eye,
smiling, and asks, “You got any sweetbars?”