Undercity (23 page)

XX

The Code

Lavinda Majda paced past the black lacquered table, her tread silent on the rug, her boots sinking into the blue pile. An untouched decanter of wine and two goblets sat on the table. I stood by the wall, too tense to sit. I could go to prison for what had happened today, the battle in the aqueducts. The air smelled faintly of expensive incense, just that barest hint of elegance, so different from the scorched smell of the canals.

The colonel stopped pacing and faced me, imposing in her uniform, her black hair pulled away from her face. “One of the trios I sent down there ended up in the fighting.”

I tensed, fearing the worst. “What did they do?”

She spoke curtly. “They are soldiers. They fought.” When I opened my mouth, she held up her hand. “In self-defense, Major. They were attacked. They left their attackers unconscious and Major Ebersole called for the medics. He said they found you a few minutes later.”

Duane? That meant he had fought for his life only moments before I saw him. And he hadn’t said a word. “Are they all right?”

“They’re fine.” Lavinda stood watching me, and I stood watching her. The silence stretched out until it felt like an elastic band pulled too tight, ready to break and hit me in the face. Then she said, “Major Ebersole agrees with your analysis. He believes that if my troops had deliberately engaged the cartels, the death toll and destruction would have been much worse.”

I let out a breath. If her experts agreed with me, I might not go to trial after all. “Do you know how many died?”

Her laserlike focus never wavered. “We’ve found nine bodies so far. My people are working with yours to dig out the remains. At least fifteen cartel members were involved in the fighting. Maybe more. We can’t tell for certain because they had shrouds.” She scowled. “Stolen tech.”

No surprise there. Military tech-mech was in big demand on the black market. I wanted to ask about Dig. Had they found her body? The question was burning a hole inside of me. But I kept my mouth shut. Digjan had gone to the refuge set up by the army, but she hadn’t revealed she was the Kajada heir. I had no doubt she was helping the army dig out bodies. I just hoped she didn’t have to unbury her mother.

Lavinda was waiting for a response, so I said, “Given what the cartels make off the drug trade, I’m not surprised they can afford black market tech.”

Anger sharpened her voice. “Never mind if they destroy priceless ruins in their greed.”

That was her biggest concern, the
ruins?
“And the people.”

“Those people brought it on themselves.”

I stiffened. One moment, I was almost ready to trust Lavinda, and the next she destroyed that trust. I had no polite response, so I said nothing.

After a moment, Lavinda said, “The problem with being an empath is that an ability to sense another person’s mood doesn’t tell you why they feel that way.”

She was trying to read me again. Screw that. I safeguarded my mind like a warrior using a shield to fend off weapons.

“You’re furious,” Lavinda said. “Why?”

“I can’t imagine why,” I said coldly. “You just implied that losing the canals was a greater tragedy than the people who died.”

Her voice hardened. “Cartel members died. Criminals who caused the destruction or deaths of untold numbers of people.”

A part of me agreed, the darkness that took grim satisfaction in seeing the cartels decimate each other in their furious grab for power. But many people lived in the undercity, not just punkers, and however much I hated the cartels, their members were also human. In Dig’s death, I had lost my oldest friend, the blood sister who stood at my side without fail no matter what happened. Lavinda might never understand why I felt as if Dig had saved my life that day she helped me escape the orphanage, but I knew.

I said only, “The cartels aren’t the only people in the aqueducts.”

“My troops found the civilians,” she said. “As far as we know, they suffered no casualties.”

By civilians, I assumed she meant people not involved in the battle. “How many?”

“Nineteen, mostly children or young adults.” Lavinda rubbed her chin. “When you add that to the fifteen or so cartel members fighting in the canal, that comes to at least thirty-five. We hadn’t realized so many people lived down there.”

Thirty-five? I wanted to say,
How can you have no fucking clue?
But I kept my mouth shut. It wasn’t only them. We didn’t want Cries to notice us any more than they wanted to see the poverty beneath their gleaming city.

Lavinda spoke quietly. “Major, only a few days ago, you told me that you couldn’t do your job if I withheld information from you.”

“It’s important.” I would never have known about the phorine, for one.

“That works both ways.”

I regarded her, silent.

The colonel scowled at me. “Put more bluntly, I can’t do a damn thing if you clam up. Maybe we could help the undercity if we knew more of what your people need.”

I took a deep breath. Only a moment ago, I wanted to rage that they did nothing for us. Now she offered an opening. What to say? Regardless of how clumsy I felt with words, I had to speak. She was offering me a chance to help my people. The Cries authorities would never let a crisis this big go unattended. They would send people to repair the ruins and investigate. How that process went could depend on what I said now to Lavinda.

I started with what I had intended to report anyway. “I found three psions recovering from phorine withdrawal. They only took it twice, but they went through hell when their supply dried up.”

She walked over to me. “Were they with the people my soldiers protected?”

“I don’t think so. They were already hidden.”

“We need to test them. Can you bring them here?”

“No.” Even if I had been willing, which I wasn’t, they would never agree to come.

She waited. When it became clear I intended to add nothing else, she said, “Major, if you won’t reveal who they are, my troops will have to search the slums until we find them.”

“If you threaten them that way, their people will hide them so well, you’ll never find them.”

I almost felt what she wanted to say:
We have the resources to find anyone.
The truth of that threat made it even worse, because Cries could have used those resources at any time to count how many people lived in the undercity. They never cared enough to make the effort. Now, when we had something they wanted, suddenly they were interested. The hell with them.

Lavinda spoke quietly. “Major, I would like to work as colleagues. Not adversaries.”

I pushed my hand through my hair, which I had let loose around my shoulders now that the fighting was over. Getting angry was no solution. I had an opportunity here. I could do some good for my people, but if I wasn’t careful, I could also end up causing them harm.

I started to pace, walking past the low table, wishing I had Lavinda’s window so I could look at the mountains. Instead, I stopped in front of a tapestry on the wall. I knew this hanging. I had seen images of it in a museum article when I looked up the Majdas. It was considered priceless. Yet this masterpiece was a pale copy of what I had seen woven by the father in the undercity. His work had more richness, more detail, more technique. The arts of our ancestors had come down in the culture of my people undiluted, with a purity lost to the City of Cries.

I turned to Lavinda. “The undercity isn’t a slum. It’s true our population lives in poverty or on its edge. But we have a community unlike any other. The ruins aren’t the only remnants of the ancient Cries that need protecting. So do my people, our culture, our lives.” I regarded her steadily. “I fear that if your people come into our world, however well intentioned, you will destroy a remarkable community, one unlike any other, without realizing the damage you’re doing.”

“I want to help,” Lavinda said, “not hurt.”

“I know,” I said softly.

She spoke with that intense concentration I recognized now as part of her personality. “We can bring the children without parents to the orphanage and maybe find them families in Cries or on the water farms outside the city. We can set up a Cries school to reeducate all your children. For the adults, we can register everyone from the undercity as citizens of Cries, offer them housing on the water farms or vocational training for jobs in the city, and help integrate them into our culture.”

How could I answer? She had just described our worst fears.

Lavinda spoke with frustration. “Why not? Do your people
want
to live in squalor?”

Yah, squalor, right. I wanted to lash out, but I wrestled down my anger. If I answered badly, I would only hurt my own people and alienate someone who genuinely wanted to help. We needed help, yes, but at what price?

“Not squalor,” I said, instinctively lapsing into the undercity dialect. “Got better.”

“Do you mean they don’t want squalor?” she asked. “Or that they don’t live in squalor?”

“Don’t live in,” I said.

“What would you call the conditions my soldiers saw?” she demanded. “People in caves with no plumbing, no jobs, no easy mesh access.”

“Call it undercity.” I forced myself to speak her language. “It is a harsh life, yes, but also one of beauty and a freedom unlike anything in above-city.” For all I knew, our preference for that life had become a genetic disposition. I had tried for years to deny that part of myself, to live an above-city life. In many ways I had succeeded, to the extent that I might never again live in the aqueducts, but this much I knew: they were still part of me at a level so basic, I could never separate that from what made me Bhaajan. Yes, I had left when I was sixteen, but it had been my choice, not imposed on me from the outside.

“If you try to change us to fit your way of life,” I said, “it will destroy what makes us unique. What we value.” I met her gaze. “And what we value has worth.”

She seemed at a loss. “Then what help do you want?”

That was the crucial question. And who did the undercity have to answer on their behalf? Inarticulate me. I was no expert in diplomacy, negotiation, conflict resolution, or creative solutions to impossible problems. I was just a retired soldier turned PI, rough around the edges, tending to stoicism. I could so easily fumble this opportunity, but as lacking as I might be, I was the only one here to negotiate an answer.

I started with something easy. “For one, help make it possible for business proprietors in the undercity to get a license for sales on the Concourse.”

Lavinda looked startled. “The undercity has business owners?”

I gritted my teeth, then made myself relax and answer in a reasonable voice. “Yes. Certainly. And craftspeople. They could set up stalls or shops and participate legally in the Cries economy.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Legally?”

Oh, great. I was one step away from telling her that a significant portion of the undercity economy consisted of theft, gambling, and illegally hacking the meshes. Smart move, Bhaaj.

“As opposed to the cartels,” I said. Cries city already knew about them. Periodically the city authorities cracked down on the punkers, but usually they existed in an uneasy peace with the crime bosses, even partaking of their vices. That included Jak and his casino. He didn’t kill people, but gambling could also become an addiction, one that had led Braze to supply weapons to the cartels.

“All the more reason to relocate people to Cries,” she said. “So they don’t turn to crime.”

“My people don’t want to live in Cries.” I took a breath. “I’ve been thinking, a lot of ideas knocking around in my head. We talked before about the army. That’s one solution. I’m thinking through other possibilities.”

Her look tuned thoughtful. “What about sports?”

I blinked. “Sports?”

“My soldiers say the young people down there seem remarkably fit.”

“Kids like to form teams and exercise together.” That sounded so much more palatable than
They run in gangs and learn to beat each other up.

“One of my sergeants noticed as much,” Lavinda said. “She thinks some of those kids would kill on the ball court or track teams.”

I almost choked on a groan. Yah, some punkers might literally commit murder if they were let loose in a sports contest with Cries athletes. Still, she had a point. If anything from Cries could draw interest among our youth, sports would do it. I’d have considered the idea if I hadn’t wanted to join the army. We fought for fun as well as survival. Team sports weren’t that different from gang battles, minus the bloodshed, and we were damn good at what we did. Hah! With some prep in tykado and track, our kids could wipe the floor with any above-city teams.

“It’s could work.” I plunged ahead. “Our children need schooling, too, but what works in the above-city won’t work for them.”

Incredibly, she didn’t tell me I was wrong and that our children just needed to shape up and adapt to the Cries schools and discipline, which was how everyone else had responded when I mentioned the problems with our education. Instead, she simply asked, “What would work?”

What indeed? An Earther had once told me about something called unschooling, a form of home school education where students didn’t attend courses, real or virtual. Instead, they learned through their life experiences, including play, responsibilities, curiosity, interactions with kin and apprenticeships with mentors. That sounded similar to the undercity. Maybe I could find answers in their philosophies. We could invite mentors to visit the aqueducts, like Orin, who had let me help on his archeological digs. We’d have to ensure their safety. No one had bothered Orin because my gang protected him. How about the dust knights? They were already codifying my thoughts about learning. If I brought teachers to help, the knights would protect them. With the help of some adults, we might work out unschooling as part of the knight’s training.

“Major?” Lavinda asked.

“I have some ideas,” I said. “They’re a bit rough.”

“We can talk more when you’ve had chance to work on them.” Lavinda spoke firmly. “But regardless, we need to test your people for Kyle traits as soon as possible.”