Chapter 17 #2
“I think I’ve screwed up,” he tells Lulu.
They retreat from the platform, and then they retreat again, forced out to the fringes of all the places a Gehirner can be around here.
Until they’re right up at the edge, pressed against a grating.
On the other side of which is … the place they don’t go.
The human world. Feet passing by on streets that a night shift of rats—or maybe roaches—scoured of litter and grime.
The shade of the green buildings, cooling and pleasant.
The sound of big, slow voices speaking real human languages, the exemplars that the argots are just boiled-down forms of.
Skotch hears his breath ragged in his ears.
“How’re you doing, Lulu?” he asks her.
“Swell, Skotch. I’m good, I’m fine. I’m, you know, it’s exciting.
I’ve never done this. I’ll have so much to tell him, when I get back.
Only…” And she doesn’t say the next words, because if she asks him, I am going to get back, aren’t I?
that might compel him to answer her, and maybe she doesn’t want to hear the honest truth right about then.
She’s huddled into herself, feathers plushed out for warmth but still shivering. The sight of her moves something in his gut, like a wire. Anxieties his neurology never evolved for.
“Okay, so,” he says. “I’ve got a plan then.”
Her head bobs, maybe a nod, maybe not. And it’s her fault, in a way. On his own he’d never dare this, but if things go dreadfully wrong then it’s on his head, not hers. That ring about her leg might just mean she makes it home anyway.
It’s not much of a ray of sunshine but it’s all he’s got.
There are humans out there, going about their big, ponderous business.
And sometimes humans, too, need to get across the city.
There are no private vehicles allowed on the streets of central Neuwien, not even the electrics that took over decades ago, after someone finally worked out a long-life green battery.
Instead, there’s a whole aboveground network of trams that means a human can just hop on, hop off, go anywhere within city limits.
There are whole Gehirner guilds devoted to keeping the system running, Skotch knows.
He’s had some contacts amongst them, which means he has a little understanding of how the autonomous carriages are designed.
“We’re going to break Rule One,” he tells Lulu. “But real quiet like. And hope nobody notices.”
There’s a hatch, underneath the tram carriages.
Maintenance access only. It’s where the Gehirner get in, the works shift that goes over every one of them every two days at the depot.
Because it’s a big part of Rule One that human life in the green cities is seamless.
Step on, step off. Nobody wants a tram breaking down, or an annoying groan of machinery, or the lights flickering even once.
But in the works of a moving tram is not a safe place to be. Skotch remembers the warnings, from his contact at the depot. More than one Gehirner hitchhiker has gotten themselves fried. There’s only one safe place to be, while the carriages are gliding about their railed business across the city.
It’s where the humans are.
There’s another hatch. It leads up from the works straight into the interior of the carriage. It’s used by the cleaning crews at the depot. It’s intended to be opened only when the conveyance is properly unoccupied and off its route, for obvious reasons.
All regular Gehirner transport out of the Ratlabs’ territory are going to be watched, maybe even controlled, by the calculating eyes of the rats. But the human tram network is something they won’t fool with. For exactly the same obvious reasons that Skotch shouldn’t fool with them.
Skotch’s life has pushed him beyond the territory of “obvious reasons.” He finds a road hatch—again, for nocturnal cleaning, as discreet as possible, and waits until he hears the soft hum of an electric carriage pause above him to let humans on and off.
Then it’s up with the road hatch, bundle Lulu through.
Locate the hatch on the carriage underside and slide it open.
Bundle Lulu through that, her claws flexing weakly as she tries to help him.
By then the carriage is moving off. He doesn’t even have time to close either hatch behind them, but they’re on a timer and will do the work themselves.
Around him, the air sparks. His pelt frizzes with static and the tines of Lulu’s feathers shiver. He scrabbles above them, hoping desperately that they’re not about to bring the wrath of the world down on themselves.
Even though it’s not ever to be used when the carriage is filled with humans—let alone actually underway—it’s still discreet.
Positioned under a seat, in fact, so that when Skotch shoves his head up he sees only feet.
Enormous human feet, rat-crushers, sandalled or sneakered or wearing shiny faleather shoes.
A crackle of shock nips him from the rim of the hatch, reminding him of just where it is and why it isn’t healthy to remain there.
Honestly not much choice, but this way he has a chance of getting by unseen.
He hauls Lulu up into the shadow of the seat.
The human above shifts—he hears the creak, sees their feet move, one hooked round the other.
The air is full of the low thunder that is human conversation.
Because it’s mostly the local patois, Skotch catches the odd word that’s said the same way in Tiersprech, even after being adapted for the lowest common denominator of Gehirner vocal apparatus.
He is more than aware that he’s a raccoon, scared, filthy, and exhausted, and none of those is a fragrant thing to be—even to a human nose.
All it would take is some offended giant to bend down and look under their seat to see what reeks.
Neither he nor Lulu are little mice, to hide behind a seat stanchion.
“Do you even know,” Lulu says softly, “where this tram goes?”
He doesn’t. He somehow hadn’t thought of that. It was just the tram that arrived, and it’s pointed towards roughly the right quarter of the city, but that covers a lot of ground.
“There’s a display somewhere, that says the route and shows a map of where we are,” Lulu says.
“These humans don’t know how to find their own apartments without a map or a device or something.
He gets lost just going through a door and then coming back out.
” And of course this is an area she knows better than he does: how humans work.
And to a pigeon, finding your way across the city is something she probably doesn’t even need to think about.
Internal compass and the sort of spatial memory that neither Skotch nor a human can imagine.
And some of that is kicking in now, perhaps, giving her an idea of direction and distance despite the unheralded way they’re getting about.
He feels the tram take a turn, so that it’s no longer even heading in the proper direction.
“I’ve screwed up,” he tells Lulu, but she’s pushing past him.
Trying to get an eye past the rim of the seat and the ankles of the sitter.
At first he’s going to pull her back, but she seems to have a definite idea, and that’s one more thing than he’s got.
The pair of them end up at the very edge of the underseat, shoved all the way over to one side so Skotch’s tail doesn’t tickle the human’s ankles.
Lulu pokes her head out, very carefully, tilting it so one eye peers up.
Up towards the carriage ceiling, up along the towering heights of the human travellers, as they read or talk or listen to earbuds or just stare out of the windows.
Over those windows are displays, and mostly they seem to be advertising things, but some of them show a tangled multicoloured wiring diagram.
Or, Skotch realises, maybe that’s the route.
And the carriage definitely has a lot of red to it—just a sort of washed-out rust to Skotch—and one of the routes is picked out in that same shade.
Next to it is a moving display that he eventually understands is a map of the city, seen from above, with a blue dot in the centre that is Where They Are.
These are all sources of information, but he’s fighting to build them into something useful.
“Does this help us?” he whispers to Lulu.
She’s breathing hard, her upturned eye bulging.
For a moment he thinks she’s having some sort of attack.
She’s concentrating, though, and it occurs to him that the top-down view of the cityscape the map shows is information she’s very used to parsing.
A literal bird’s eye view. Strange, honestly, that it’s become the default of humans, who never normally get to see it.
She shudders, slumps back, takes a deep breath. “Yes,” she whispers. “This can work for us. We stay on for … nine more stops. Then we change to the green line. Then three stops. Then we can walk. I think I can walk that far. To get to the Chapel.”
Skotch huddles close to her. “You sure?” he asks, but if she can’t, at least they’re on his turf then. Ratlabs and their influence left far behind. At that point he can improvise, if need be.
He sags down beside Lulu, and looks across the carriage right into the eyes of a human.
It’s a small human. An immature one. It—she?
—he’s not certain of the gender honestly—is sitting on the seat opposite, booted feet off the floor and kicking.
She’s looking straight at him, very wide-eyed.
A raccoon and a pigeon on their morning commute, what’s the big deal?
Or maybe it’s evening. Skotch finds he’s honestly lost track of time, what with all the running and fighting and menaces.