Undercity (19 page)

“Yah,” he murmured.

I didn’t hear him leave, but I felt his departure as if it were loss of air behind me.

Up ahead, the line of light widened. A woman’s gruff laugh scraped the night. “Andorian ale, Jak. Pure Andorian. Twenty cases. It’s yours.”

Jak’s voice rumbled. “Might cover tonight’s debt.” He sounded good-natured, but I knew him too well to be fooled. He was pissed. He didn’t want her ale, he wanted her credits. Even so. He served Andorian ale in his casino, and it didn’t come cheap. Braze’s offer might be worth what she lost. Which begged the question, why did an ISC officer have twenty crates of exorbitantly priced ale lying around, available to sell on the black market? You had to import it from offworld.

The line of light widened more, becoming an exit. Jak and Braze stood in the archway, their bodies silhouetted against the sparkling blackness beyond, where pinpoint holos glittered in the dark. Braze sounded drunk and horny. “You come with me,” she said in a slurred voice. “C’mon, Jakie boy.” She put her hand on the crouch of his pants. “You got it, hmm?”

I gritted my teeth, wondering how it would feel to break her oversized nose with my fist. Crunch. Yah, that would be good.

Jak deftly moved away her hand. “See you, Braze. My people will pick up the crates in the morning.”

“Usual place,” she mumbled.

“Yah.” Jak stepped back into the casino. “The usual.” He closed up the entrance, and the archway disappeared like a camera shutter snapping closed.

“Heh,” Braze stood alone in the dark. In my IR vision, she was a hazy red glow.

Max,
I thought.
Stealth mode on my boots.

Done
, Max thought. He sent commands to my ankle sockets, which connected to nanites in my boots. They would tweak the molecular structure of my footwear, softening or deforming the boots as needed to make my footfalls silent.

A glow formed around Braze, coming from a hand lamp. She set off in the direction opposite from where I stood. I waited a moment and then followed, silent and hidden.

Braze took a route with no obvious path, making her way between columns and walls riddled with holes. She was a large woman, most of that muscle. Probably she thought she was walking quietly, but to my augmented ears, she sounded like a herd of ruzik, the giant animals ridden by the Abaj Tacalique. Whatever race had stranded my ancestors on Raylicon had also bioengineered the ruzik using the DNA of several Earth species, including an animal called T-rex that died off eons ago. Apparently enough of its DNA survived to make new animals. So I prowled after Braze the T-rex.

I expected her either to go home, which meant I had wasted my time, or to meet her contacts in the Maze. She did neither. Instead she kept descending, deeper than smugglers usually ventured. They needed access to the surface to move their products, and we were below the canals now, in tunnels cool enough that my vision showed only the dimmest red. The aqueducts were warmer because they were closer to the surface; the cold here usually kept me from coming this deep.

Another light appeared ahead. I stepped behind a tall outcropping and watched Braze approach the light, her body a bulky silhouette against its glow. She stopped and spoke, her voice barely audible.

Max, crank up my hearing,
I thought.

Done.

“Twenty-five crates,” Braze was saying. “And they better all be Andorian. I’ll know if it’s cheaper shit.”

“Andorian ale?” a woman demanded. Her voice sounded like rusty hinges creaking on an antique door. “That wasn’t in our bargain.”

I knew that voice. But from where? It tugged my memory. I couldn’t risk creeping any closer to see better. If either of she or Braze carried biomech in their bodies, they might hear.

“If you want the guns,” Braze said, “then get me the ale.”

“Fuck this,” the other woman said.

“Fine,” Braze told her. “I’m gone.” She turned and headed in my direction.

I stayed hidden.

“Wait,” the other woman said.

Braze paused, then slowly turned. “What?”

“Fifteen crates.”

“I don’t have time for this crap.” Braze told her.

“Fifteen is better than none.”

“Twenty-three.”

“Twenty.”

“Done,” Braze said. “Plus a hundred thousand for the carbines.”

So Braze was selling weapons. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who wanted them. Yah, I recognized that rusty voice. Hammer Vakaar was hulking there in the shadows. She’d beaten the blazes out of me when we were kids, and in revenge, Dig had pummeled her into a pulp. Only she could best Hammer. The rancor between them had multiplied over the years, until gods only knew how much they hated each other now. If Hammer was buying carbines, that meant both cartels were armed with the best ISC had to offer, or the worst depending on your view. The war had just ramped up into disaster.

Braze and Vakaar talked a few more moments, working out where they would make their deliveries. I knew the place; it was near the Maze. Vakaar obviously intended to make a preemptive strike against the Kajadas, who had no idea their targets had turned the tables. Braze wrested a guarantee from Hammer that no fighting would begin until she left the undercity. After that all bets were off. Damn! That left me less than one hour to get out the warning. I couldn’t turn off my jammer to comm anyone, not yet. The moment I lost my shroud, Hammer’s spy tech would pick me up, and then I was dead.

As Braze and her contact parted ways, I caught a better glimpse of the other woman. Yah, that was Hammer, with her thick, short neck and large head. I froze, not even breathing.

When they were both gone, I took off.

* * *

The aqueducts passed in a blur as I ran. Other runners went with me, some visible, some not, but none could keep up with my enhanced speed. They were doing relays, sprinting hard for as long as they could, then passing the job to someone fresh.

I headed for the cavern where I had trained the dust knights earlier today. It was empty when I arrived. I slung off my pack, tore it open, and switched off the jammer. The moment I dropped my shroud, I became visible to everyone, including Chief Takkar. It was a risk, but I had no choice, and I was close enough to the surface now to set up a direct link. Takkar was my contact, but I had no time to deal with her. I thumbed my gauntlet comm and paged Lavinda Majda.

No answer.

Max,
I thought.
Do I have the right link for Colonel Majda?

It is one she used with you
, he answered.
I don’t know if—

A familiar voice crackled from my comm. “Majda here.”

“Colonel, this is Major Bhaajan.” As I spoke, two dust knights dropped from the ceiling to the floor. I continued talking. “An illegal transfer of ISC guns is taking place right now in the aqueducts. When it finishes, Vakaar is going to attack Kajada. Both cartels are armed with tanglers and laser carbines.”

Pat Sandjan and the Oey cyber-rider strode into the cave, breathing heavily from running. I nodded to them as I spoke to Lavinda. “We need your help,” I told the colonel. “But not in the fighting. We need soldiers to protect our people.”

Lavinda didn’t miss a beat. “Major, if a battle is about to start under Cries, you damn well better bet I’m sending in soldiers to fight.”

More of the knights were slipping into the cave, stepping out from behind rock formations or dropping from the ceiling. They stood watching me, the stranger in their midst doing the impossible, speaking directly to a Majda colonel.

“If you send troops against the cartels,” I told her, “you’ll have a bloodbath. Only one thing could make the cartels join forces when they’re bent on annihilating each other. That’s a common enemy. You. They won’t care who gets in the way. If your people kill even one of the drug punkers, it will be even worse. The fighting will explode onto the Concourse, even above ground. Innocent people will die. Many of them. Families.” I looked around at the knights. “Children.”

She spoke firmly. “I will not stand by and do nothing.”

“I’m not asking you to do nothing.” I kept my voice calm so she would listen. “We need help. Send troops to protect our people.” I thought fast. “Don’t send them in uniform. Dress them as if they belong to the undercity. That won’t fool anyone, but they’ll be seen as less of a threat.”

Silence.

Listen, please,
I willed her. Takkar would tell me in no uncertain terms what I could do with my ideas, but with Lavinda I didn’t know, except that she was undoubtedly notifying someone of my warning.

The colonel’s voice crackled. “Major, what you are asking me to do amounts to standing by while the two cartels try to wipe each other out.”

I sent a silent apology to Dig. She and I had chosen our paths, and however strong our bond, those roads had taken us apart forever. I just hoped it wasn’t too late for her daughter. To Lavinda, I said, “It’s the only way to keep them from wiping out everyone else.”

“Wait,” Lavinda said. “I’m getting a message.” After a pause, her voice snapped out of my comm. “The Cries police tell me they would know if this war was brewing, and they say the slums are quiet.”

Yah, right. “Colonel, trust me,” I said. “I know how things work here. Trouble is coming.” The dust knights were gathering around me, even more than the last time they had come here, all of them listening. I had to get these kids to safety. “Send protection, and let the cartels hammer it out between themselves.”

“How many people live there beside the cartels?” Lavinda said. “About twenty?”

I stared at the comm. She thought only
twenty
other people lived here? Nearly twenty were just standing in this cave with me, and they were all children.

“It’s a lot more than that,” I said.

“Counting the drug runners, you mean,” Lavinda said.

“No. I’m not counting them.” The above-city had plenty of resources to monitor the canals. That they had no clue about how many people lived here spoke all too clearly about our value to them. Yet for all that I raged at Cries for ignoring my people while they lived in poverty beneath one of the wealthiest cities in the Imperialate, it wasn’t only the above-city. We fiercely protected our isolation. We and Cries needed to find a way to work together.

“Colonel,” I said. “Can you help us?”

“Are you sure this is what you want?” Lavinda asked. “Protection only?”

“Yes. I’m sure.”

Lavinda exhaled. “Very well. We’ll do it your way.” She spoke grimly. “You better be right.”

I let out a breath. “Thank you. Out here.”

After I signed off, I turned my jammer on. The knights were waiting, their clothes gritty with red dust. I motioned them closer. Pat moved to the front with the older girl and boy I had pegged as leaders before. The Oey rider stood next to Pat, tall and fit, the silvery tracings of his high-tech tattoos swirling on his arms, as artistic as they were functional.

I nodded to the four of them and hit the heels of my palms together. “Bhaajan.” They would give me their names or not, but only if they knew mine.

Pat spoke first. “Pat Sandjan,” she said, not for my benefit, since I already knew, but to show the others she would reveal her name. Unexpectedly, she added, “Pat Cote.”

Cote. It had to be her true name. It meant shelter, often for those who needed protection. It seemed apt for a dust knight who protected her circle. She also honored me by giving her full name.

The older girl next to Pat hit her palms together. “Runner.”

The duster boy followed suit. “Rockson.”

The Oey rider spoke, his voice resonant. “Biker.” He glanced at Pat and nodded slightly to her. Then he turned back to me and added, “Tim Oey.”

Another honor, his full name. His nickname, Biker, was a clever play on his status as a rider, a comparison to the sleek cycles people rode in the above-city, those gleaming, low to the ground vehicles that whizzed through the streets, the ultimate status symbol among Cries youth. His name implied he had the same status among the riders. Just as intriguing, Pat’s dust gang took its name from a cyber-rider. It was no wonder she and Biker stood out as leaders; they weren’t afraid to be different even if it meant breaking our unwritten traditions.

I spoke to the group. “You four will lead the knights.”

They nodded their acceptance. None of them looked surprised.

Now for the rest of the kids. I had to phrase this in a way they would all accept, getting them out of danger without making them think I was asking them to hide. I spoke to all of them. “You are the knights. You must protect. Understand?”

They nodded, the youngest ones with wide, frightened gazes.

I raised my voice. “Protect!”

“Protect!” Their voices were ragged, hinting at fear. This wasn’t training. This was the real thing.

“Got parents?” I asked. “How many of you?”

Three children waved their hands, cutting the air with a jerk.

Gods. Only
three
had parents? Who took care of these kids? I knew the answer, knew it from my own life. “Got sibs?” I asked. “How many?”

All of them waved this time, indicating they had brothers and sisters. They might not be related by blood to those they called their kin, but they were people the knights considered their circle, just as Gourd, Dig, and Jak had been my circle.

“Who rides the mesh waves?” I asked.

Six responded to that one, including Biker, all of them with silvery conduits in their clothes or skin, eyes lenses, artificial limbs, and who knew what else hidden under their rags. Six cyber-riders. Good. They could get out the news far faster than the others.

I regarded them all. “You are tasked with an important job. You must spread the word. All depends on you.” It was true; they were the only ones who could give the warning in time. “Tell your families. Your sibs. Your circles. The cartel war is coming. You have heard this?”

“Yah,” Biker said. “It’s on the waves.”

“And the Whisper,” Pat said.

Good. I was telling the knights something that only Hammer and Braze knew for certain. I didn’t want the cartels to suspect these kids had spied on them. If rumors were already riding the waves, that was enough.