Ember (4 page)

SIX

An hour passed before I decided I couldn't wait any longer and approached Heng. While he made me wait outside his temporary office, I stood still and tried to keep my anger in check. Liao and Su hung back in the barracks, where I could hear them muttering back and forth in low voices among the chatter of the men.

“Please, she won't live . . .”

The memory bubbled up, making my fists clench. With each passing minute, my sense of urgency grew and with each passing minute I became more and more certain that Heng sat silent and still on the other side of that door, doing nothing except showing me my place. If he—

The kid's contact icon flickered back on. She'd been slipping in and out of consciousness since our first communication, and every time she went under her 2i connection dropped. A beat after the icon lit up, she messaged me.

u still there?

Welcome back,
I told her.

haha
Pause.
what time is it?

You don't want to know.

ur not coming are u

I stared at the door.

I am.

when?

It's complicated. They haven't given the order yet.

y not?

I don't know.

because of the visitor?

The words floated against the flat gray paint of the door in front of me, and for a moment, I forgot about Heng.

What visitor?

i don't know. they said someone's coming. they said they're late.

Why is the visitor coming?

i don't know

I thought about that. Most likely they meant some kind of supplier, or buyer, but could there be more to it than that? The timing of it did seem strange. Did command know this person would be there, and wanted to catch him along with the rest? Or did they want to wait until they were sure the visitor had gone before sending us in?

When is the visitor coming, do you know?

no.
Pause.
it's ok. i think they r shutting down for tonight

Why do you think that?

i heard them before. a lot of them were working, a lot of machine banging and i could smell it.

The cooker?

i can still smell it.
Pause.
i'm so hungry.

I know.

it makes me hungry.

You haven't eaten in days, it's an involuntary body response.

really?

Yeah, don't sweat it.

im starving

You won't starve. A person can go over a month with no food and still live if they get water. You won't be there that long.

While technically I hadn't lied, I felt a little bad saying it. Technically a person could go that long without food, but there were other factors to consider. How emaciated she might have been before they took her, how little water they were giving her, her original size, the stress, the heat . . . I couldn't really say for sure how long she'd last.

You won't be there that long.
My words lingered another second, then faded from the holoscreen. It would be true, one way or the other. She wouldn't starve.

i'm glad you're here

The message appeared in front of me. I didn't know how to respond to that, and when I didn't, she messaged again.

even if you don't make it i'm glad you're here

“Come in, Shao,” Heng called from inside the office.

Hang on.

I paused the chat then opened the door and entered to see Heng seated behind a desk. Through a window to his right I could see that the sky had turned dark. The only light left came from the city and the security floodlights positioned at intervals around the wall. Past its edge, the dust storm now looked like the surface of dark, churning water. Heng leaned back in his chair, the glow from his monitor lighting his face.

“Before you say anything, Liao briefed me. I know why you're here and the answer is no,” he said.

“I'm only requesting further recon. No engagement, just stealth recon—”

“Denied, Shao. The order is for us to hold our position.”

“Sir, there are people in there.”

“I'm not any happier about this than you are, but this came down from on high. Ling got the order from that battle ax Pei Ligong herself.”

That surprised me. Ligong was Governor Hwong's top dog. Why would she get involved directly with this, and why would she give such an order?

I didn't bother to ask Heng. He didn't know, and I didn't think he'd say if he did.

“I've protected you so far because I respect your service to this country,” Heng said, “but Ling wants a strong arm he can use, not someone who questions orders and goes against the chain of command.”

“Sir, I—”

“You initiated contact with a civilian at the factory site,” he said. “I'll keep that off the record—”

“Put it down on record. I'll stand by it.”

“No, it stays off. We hold our position until we receive the order to go in, and you cease contact with the site. Understood?”

I nodded.

“Say it.”

“Understood, sir.”

“If you keep this up I won't be able to protect you. I'll have to relieve you of duty, and you could be looking at real trouble.”

“Understood.”

Heng sighed.

“Don't make me do that. Go, and sit tight.”

I bowed and left the office, closing the door behind me. When I headed back to the barracks, Liao and Su stopped talking and Liao looked up at me.

“What'd he say?” he asked.

“What I expected.”

“Did he relieve you?”

I walked past him, not answering. Xiao-Xing had started pinging the chat over and over, and I picked back up.

hey u there?
she asked.

Yeah.

what happened you dropped off

What happened was that I'd basically been ordered to leave her there. I'd been told that she was expendable, and that her life would most likely be thrown away to serve some political purpose I didn't have any window into. Just like I'd known it would be.

Nothing happened.

ur not coming r u?

I didn't come to any sort of profound decision. I didn't feel like I came to any decision at all. When the time came to decide if I would follow the order like I always had, or fight it, I felt like I'd taken a hit off one of those Zen cigarillos. I just kept walking. It wasn't until I approached the equipment lockers that Liao sat up on his bunk, and even Su began to look concerned.

Yes, I am. I'm coming.

I opened one of the lockers and grabbed an armored jacket, shouldering it on and cinching the straps. I grabbed a weapon and holstered it.

“Shao, what are you doing?” Liao called. Behind me, I heard the office door open and Heng shouting from down the hall.

“Shao, stow that equipment! That's an order!”

I headed out of the barracks and down the hall toward the stairwell that accessed the wall's topside. Heng caught up with me at the end of the corridor, the others clamoring in after us, and clamped his hand down on my shoulder.

“I said stow it, Shao.”

I shoved his arm aside and pushed open the stairwell door, then started up.

“Shao, wait!” Heng called.

My radio chirped as I reached the landing and stepped out into the night air. When I didn't respond, Ling's voice issued from it.

“Shao, goddamn it—”

I switched off the radio as Liao came out the door right behind me and sprinted past to cut me off.

“Wait just wait a minute.”

He moved in front of me and held out his hands but he stopped short of physically grabbing me.

“Shao, you can't just run in there by yourself. Are you crazy?”

“Then come with me.”

“I can't.” I moved to skirt around him and again he blocked me. “It's not that simple.”

I pushed past him and headed out to the main lot where the security vehicles were lined up. But when I tried to open the door of the one closest, the panel flashed red. They were being kept locked down. Headquarters would allow access remotely only once the official order had been givenA row of airbikes for travel along the wall were active, though. I hopped onto the closest one.

“Shao, wait!” Liao called from behind me. I hung the mask around my neck, then the bike sprang up a few inches, hovering as I fired up the graviton emitters.

“Wait!”

I locked in the coordinates and launched straight up into the air. The wall dropped away, and the silver surface of one of the graviton lens shells streaked past in front of me until it curved away as I cleared the top.

“Pilot of the vehicle that just launched, return to the lot immediately and—”

I switched off the radio and took off over the giant ball of the lens. Once I was clear I pulled the mask on and let the bike drop down toward the ruins below. I could make out the stumps of buildings, shattered down to their bottom few floors, and cracked streets that had been filled with rubble, crushed vehicles and broken glass. They were more than just ruins though, the whole place still existing in some kind of weird flux. Gray dust and ash swirled between the fallen skyscrapers, whistling through cracks and empty windows. It formed a churning fog that covered everything, stuck in some kind of perpetual storm. As I fell closer to the haze, I could make out chunks of rubble that sprang up off the ground to hover in clusters before falling back down again.

dragan?

I'm coming, hang tight

now?

I'm on my way right now

I picked up speed, ash building up on the windshield as it was peppered with smoke and black grit. In the rearview mirror I could see a wake of swirling dust stretching away behind me.

So much for low profile. Still, they wouldn't see it from inside and that's where they'd stay. If one of them decided to leave, that would be another story, but I didn't have much of a choice.

The coordinates put the factory just up ahead, and as I closed in I spotted some kind of beacon through the fog. It flashed red, letting them know where to stop. I slowed, wiping ash from my goggles. I tried to spot the landing pad but I couldn't see anything except the light bleeding through the haze. A gust of wind buffeted the bike, and I had to nudge the emitters to keep from drifting.

Where the hell are you hiding?

I heard the shot before I spotted the other vehicle. A heavy boom, a shotgun blast, rose over the roar of the wind as half the airbike's windscreen exploded and sheared off. Pellets peppered my body armor as a vehicle appeared from out of the smoke, stirring a wake behind it.

It whooshed by over my head as I came to a full stop and spun the bike around to see one of the scrappers had taken an airbike up to intercept me, a two-seater with stripes of neon yellow light-paint running down the length of it. He glided to a stop not far away and raised his shotgun to fire again.

I launched my bike straight up just as the blast struck the side of the chassis. Fiberglass cracked and sprung away as I stopped so suddenly I almost flew up off the seat, then drew my pistol to take aim at the man below.

Rather than try and maneuver away from the shot he just fired two more rounds, more or less blind. Stray shot thunked against the tail of the bike but most of it went wide.

I squeezed the trigger and saw him jerk back in his seat, but I couldn't see where the bullet had struck him. I lined up a second shot and fired just as he opened up his bike's emitters and sent it rocketing straight toward me.

I dropped back down toward the dust storm, ducking low as his undercarriage tore off the other half of my windscreen. As soon as it passed, I spun around again and pulled back on the control stick. Something wet and cold chilled the side of my leg as I soared back up out of the cloud, following the flicker of yellow light-paint through the haze. When I spotted him silhouetted against the glow, I drew a bead on the middle of his chest.

He'd started back toward me again, picking up speed as I fired three rounds. He jerked back and his bike sputtered, slowing as his hand slipped off the stick. I veered out of the way as the two-seater whipped past, then drifted another hundred yards or so. It stopped, hovering just above the storm and I could make out the shape of the man's body hanging limp to one side, a boot stuck in one of the stirrups.

The chill on my right leg got worse, while at the same time the seat underneath me turned hot. I looked down and saw fluorescent green liquid spraying from the end of a severed hose which had been exposed by the shotgun blast. It was coolant, and without it the graviton emitters were overheating. In seconds, the housing turned hot enough to scald me.

I eased the emitters down to idle, climbing onto the seat to keep away from the worst of the heat, when the computer override cut the power altogether.

The inert bike dropped out from under me, and I fell down after it into the swirling cloud below.

SEVEN

Underneath the storm the sounds of Hangfei were drowned out by the low moan of wind from above. The air had to be at least thirty degrees colder down there. The steamy heat of Hangfei which hovered just above one hundred degrees disappeared and cold, almost frosty air whipped down the street around me.

I picked myself up off the ground, refitting my mask and tightening the straps. The bike lay on its side a ways behind me so I made my way back, and heaved it upright again.

I climbed on and attempted to start the engine but with the coolant gone, the computer refused to spool the engines since they would just overheat and burn out, if they didn't outright melt through the housings. I tried one more time anyway before giving up and stepping away from the bike.

Ash churned in a cloud above me, whistling down the broken street overhead as I found my flashlight and turned it on. The beam cut through the fog a little, but not very far. My boots crunched over rubble and powdered glass, the sounds swallowed by the moaning wind as I brought up the marker on my brain band's holoscreen. I'd been close, close enough to see the landing pad. It couldn't be more than a block or two away, if I could find a clear path.

Vehicles still clogged the streets, blackened, burned out hulls that had fused to the blacktop. When my flashlight beam passed over one of them, I could make out a grinning skull, and a pile of bones in the driver's seat. Through the blown out doorways of some of the wrecked buildings I saw more remains littering the floor inside, but it looked like anyone caught outside had been vaporized.

Ash had begun to build up on the mask's goggles, and I wiped it away with my glove.

Xiao-Xing, how are you holding up?

Pause.
k.

Stay with me, I'm almost there.

where r u?

My transport came down in the rim but I'm near the landing pad, I'll get there it'll just take longer.

u crashed?

Yeah I had a run in with
—

u suck

I know. I'm
—

The chat cut out as a current of wind gusted down from above and rippled through my clothes, kicking up so much dust the flashlight's beam reflected back only a foot or so in front of me. My hair stood on end, as the rubble and grit around me floated up off the ground. My body grew light, but the field didn't get strong enough to lift me. In the distance, though, I heard the groan of metal as a wrecked vehicle closer to the field's center rose up off the blacktop.

A few seconds later, everything rained back down into the street, sending gravel skittering around me. I heard a loud crash ahead as the car crunched down onto the blacktop, and the chat picked back up.

Sorry,
I sent.
Interference. The way ahead looks clear, I'm going to
—

The ground underneath me crumbled away, and I fell, dropping the flashlight. I flailed in midair, and then came down hard on my back with a wet splash. The flashlight landed next to me, the beam pointing down a tunnel, ahead.

what's wrong?
she asked. I stood, dripping cold, gray sludge, and picked up the light. I aimed the beam up above me and saw the hole, too high to reach.

Nothing.

I pointed the light back down the tunnel and saw it actually opened up into another collapsed section of road ahead. I started towards it, as heavy chunks of asphalt thudded and splashed down behind me.

According to the marker, the tunnel came out close to the landing pad.

You know, you're pretty brave,
I told her.

i just dont want 2 die

Well, you're holding it together better than most would, and you're not going to die.

promise?

I
—

A dark patch appeared in the flashlight beam ahead, a gap in the side of the tunnel to my right.

Hang on,
I told her.

I approached the rupture in the tunnel wall, and aimed the light through. A cavern had formed on the other side of the hole, a dome of packed earth and concrete over a black pit.

Tracing it with the light, I saw that the edge formed a circle too perfect to be natural. When I peered over the side and shone the beam down the well dropped down into darkness, with no visible bottom. Some kind of bristles, or spines stuck out along the interior of the well, whose walls displayed a honeycomb pattern.

That's some kind of haan structure,
I thought. What was it doing out here in the middle of the impact zone?

what happened?
She asked.

Nothing.
I backed away from the hole. Whatever made it, there wasn't time to worry about it now.
I'm on my way.

I slipped back through the crack and continued down the old sewer tunnel until I reached the point where the street had collapsed completely and I could see a rusted vehicle jutting out over the edge of a rocky slope. I scaled it, and climbed up onto the blacktop where a gap in the ruined structures looked out into a clearing. A red light flashed there from somewhere out of view, casting shadows across the wall.

Ok, I see the way in. Stand by.

I slipped through the gap and sidestepped my way between the two walls until I reached the other side, then stopped to look through. The landing pad looked like it might have once been a factory parking lot. The chain-link fence surrounding most of it had been torn down by falling debris, and the area now sat in a deep pocket of compacted rubble. One building face still stood intact—at least the first two floors did. An electric red light glowed next to a rusted metal door there, flashing. Three airbikes sat in a row on the cracked blacktop near it, but I didn't see any guards.

I drew my weapon and stepped out into the open, moving quickly to the door. I tried the handle, but it didn't budge.

They knew I was there, so there wouldn't be much time. I holstered my gun and unclipped the toolkit from my belt. With the pry, I cracked open the lock's casing and then began sorting through the electronics inside.

dragan?

Yeah?

someone's coming

I tried to pull up the schematic on the brain band but like everything in the ruins the lock was fifty years old and I couldn't find anything. The same company made newer models, but that probably wouldn't help me. It looked like I might have to force the door, which would ruin any element of surprise I might still have going for me.

Who?

2 guys

What are they doing?

She didn't answer. A second later, her connection dropped.

Xiao-Xing?
Her connection flapped, then came back. I tried to bypass the lock using the universal shunt, but it threw sparks, and smoke curled from the housing.
Hey, you there?

Another burst of sparks popped out of the lock casing, and before I could even remove the shunt the door opened and a man dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and a heavy rubber apron stepped through. He had a bandana tied over his mouth and nose.

The guy knew I was there. The second he stepped out onto the landing pad he swung the knife and struck me hard in the side with it. The body armor blocked it, but the tip slipped through the seam and between my ribs maybe an inch before it stopped. I cried out and dropped the kit, scattering tools across the blacktop in front of me.

The guy pushed his palm down on the blade's handle but it had stuck. I twisted away as he jerked it loose, and I drew my pistol.

He'd started his swing, the blade headed straight for my face, when I fired the shot and he stopped and then staggered back. The knife fell to the ground as he clutched his throat, blood gushing between his fingers. I shot him in the chest, and he fell to his knees before pitching forward into the dust.

A burning stitch dug into my side, jabbing in deeper with each breath I took. I couldn't tell how bad the wound was, but blood leaked from the seam in my armor and drops were flicked away in the wind at a regular pace. I had to move fast, while I still could.

The metal door still hung open and I stepped through into the corridor on the other side, pulling my mask off and hanging it around my neck. I took one step, when I felt a faint pressure against my shin and froze as something clicked to my right.

A gust of wind whipped the door open and threw it against the outside wall so hard that rubble shook loose and trickled down from above me. Stone chips sprinkled down onto the floor at my feet where a tripwire caught a glint of light. It had been pulled taut by my step, but not quite triggered. I let out my breath, and eased my leg back. Turning to my right, I found myself looking down the barrel of a shotgun that had been rigged to go off.

I ducked underneath it and stepped over the tripwire. The corridor's tiled floor was covered in some kind of black grime, and the walls looked like they'd buckled from the weight of the collapse. Cracks ran down through the drywall, and the ceiling bowed down low enough that I had to duck under the spot ahead just to get through. Electric carpenter lights dangled from hooks, their cables trailing down the length of the hall, and I followed them. As I crept down the corridor, the 2i connection came back up.

Xiao-Xing?

can't

Stay with me. Do you remember which way they took you?

don't know

I know you're scared but I need you to focus. When they brought you in, do you remember which way they took you?

couldn't see

I followed the trail of lights down the hall until I came to a junction. More lights had been hung there, heading away in either direction.

Do you remember anything? Sounds? Smells?

She paused.

r takng wmn 2

She was losing it. I stopped at the junction and listened. I could make out the distant hiss of steam, but with the echo it was hard to tell which direction it came from. I sniffed the air, and caught a faint whiff of cooking meat.

Scream,
I sent.

?

Scream once, as loud as you can.

I listened and heard the shriek. It sounded far off, but it came from my left for sure.

I turned and started down the corridor, passing what might have been office doors on either side as I went. Most were jammed shut when the structure shifted, and some had fallen away completely to reveal compacted rubble on the other side. As I ran, the sounds of machinery and the occasional hiss of steam grew louder. The meat smell became so strong that, in spite of myself, I had to swallow saliva. Up ahead, the hall opened into a large open space where big, inert machines stood in rows. I could see lengths of cable still on tracks where the machines had woven layers of wire around them, armored transatlantic fiber optics. The machine grease had been covered over the years in a thick layer of dust and ash.

A shadow moved ahead, and I stopped at the doorway with my back to the wall.

“So, what are you going to do with them?” a man asked. Someone, a child, sniffled and sobbed.

“Does it matter?” a woman responded. When she did, a faint light flashed against the far wall and I saw the shadows of at least two small children.

I ducked into the room and hunkered down behind one of the cable spooling machines, using the rumble of machinery to cover the sound. When no one reacted, I peered around the side.

A man stood there, dressed in a black rubber apron that covered his blood stained shirt. He had a machete in one hand, the blade propped back over one shoulder. In front of him, three scrawny, naked children, two boys and one girl, stood next to a haan.

For a second I thought I had to be seeing things, but there was no mistaking a haan for a human. Even in the low light I could make out the pair of big, glowing eyes, and it wasn't just a haan but a haan female, something I'd never seen in person before. Unlike the males she wore only a sort of cloak that hung down over her back, with nothing underneath. Her eyes, smoldering red surrounded by a corona of gas-flame blue, lit the inside of her skull where the shadows of the two brains were visible. She stood as tall as the males I'd seen, but had a lither, more elegant body. Her heart pulsed between a pair of translucent breasts, and inside each of them I could see a network of veins and nodules. Her figure looked on the surface to be more delicate than even a male haan's, but something about the way she held herself made me suspect that might not be true. She had no fear of the man in front of her, and seemed completely at ease as she held the little girl's hand in hers.

“You going to eat them?” the man in the apron asked.

“Of course not,” she said, her voice box flashing in the dim light.

“Then why are they so valuable?”

“Why do you care?”

The guy in the apron got mad, then, his brow lowering.

“Because I want to know. So tell me, or the deal is off, maggot.”

“It is too late to cancel the transaction.”

The man moved closer, and pointed at her with the tip of the machete. She didn't even tense.

“Maybe I'll keep them, the ration tickets, the money, and use you in the next batch. How's that sound?”

I took aim with the pistol, drawing a bead on the man's head.

“They will be taken to child services,” she said, her voice calm. “If they have families, they will be reunited with them. They know only that they were abducted but have no idea where they are or how they got here. Nothing will be traced back to you.”

I kept my aim on the man, ready to shoot, but he lowered the machete a little and laughed.

“That's it? You're spending all that just so you can send them back home to starve?”

When the haan didn't answer, the man shook his head.

“I'll never get you guys. Not if I live to be a hundred.”

“I don't doubt it. Are we free to go?”

“Sure, go. Have fun starving on the street, you little shits.”