Twenty-Five
The morning we’re finally ready to go, I come downstairs to find Ky standing mostly naked with sword in hand, while Spike watches from the safety of the stairs.
The thin ribbon of blade shivers through the air, then goes completely still, almost invisible edge-on.
Ky has shoved the kitchen table against one wall so she can practice forms, snapping from one position to another and then freezing in place.
She wears only shorts and a cloth bandage wrapped around her chest.
Spike looks on without daring to blink. I’m not sure if she’s falling in love or getting religion.
“Good morning,” I say.
Ky whips a cut around so fast I can hear the air shiver, then mimes sheathing the blade at her empty side and looks up. Her skin is covered in a fine sheen of sweat. When she spots me, she smiles.
“I take it you’re feeling better?” I say.
“Much.” She takes a deep breath and lets it out. “Sorry if I’ve disrupted your morning, Spike.”
“Can I try?” Spike blurts out.
“Not right now,” Somi says from the doorway. “We’ve got dough to fold.”
Reluctantly, Spike tears herself away. Ky touches a control on her sword hilt, and the blade folds back on itself, sections clicking into place around the oval guard.
“Ready to go?” she asks me.
“Getting there. You may be a little underdressed.”
She looks down at herself. “I didn’t know it was a formal occasion.”
I hold up a section of my scavenging armor. “Trust me on this. The Heap is ninety percent sharp edges.”
“Have you got some that’ll fit me?” she says.
“Bits and pieces. It won’t be comfortable, though.”
“I’ll survive.” Ky cocks her head. “You’re not going to suggest I stay behind for my own safety?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“I knew there was a reason I liked you.”
The Heap shudders with a distant impact, rumbles passing through the junk beneath our feet. I pause a moment, but no junkquake follows.
“You really just hope nothing falls on you?” Ky says as we start moving again, casting one wary eye up at the Asshole far above. “That’s the whole plan?”
“Not much else you can do,” I tell her. “There’s usually some time between drops, actually, so we’re safer now we’ve just had one.”
“Safer. Not safe.”
“Nothing’s safe about the Heap.” I shrug. “But the odds of it hitting you directly are pretty small.”
“Very reassuring.”
“What you really should be worried about are slides and quakes. If a big piece lands nearby, the whole pile can come apart. Imagine this”—I gesture to the surrounding landscape of twisted chunks of concrete, broken shards of metal, and miscellaneous glass fragments—“rolling right over you.”
“Honestly I’d rather not.” She shakes her head in wonderment. “What is all this stuff?”
“I would have thought you would know better than I would. Hod is closer to Above than we are. You even get visitors.”
“Once every five years, and they never talk to anybody. Or at least not to anybody I know. Maybe the heads of the Council families know more.” She tries to rub her eyes, and her gauntlet clunks against her mask. “This thing is hot, you know.”
“Sorry. Yours isn’t well fitted.” Though in truth it’s warm and muggy inside my own mask, too. We’d borrowed Ky’s gear from some old stuff Somi had once used. It’ll keep sharp edges from her skin, but it doesn’t have the extra armor plates I’ve sewn into my own outfit.
[Report: tunnel located. Currently unoccupied.]
Good. Watch the far end, we’re coming through.
“Star says we can cut through a tunnel here.” I point up ahead. “Saves having to climb that ridge and down the other side.”
“Lovely—”
“But tunnels mean Twisted. So stay sharp.”
We hike to the entrance. It’s a big one, high enough that neither of us has to stoop. The floor is compacted junk, smoothed out by the passage of something big and heavy.
“Stars,” Ky breathes as she looks around. “You weren’t kidding.”
“About what?”
“The Twisted.”
“You thought I was kidding?”
“No, just”—she touches the wall—“hard to believe until you see it for yourself.”
[Danger: movement spotted. Coming our way.]
“Something’s coming.” I point at the tunnel exit. “Hurry up.”
We break into a jog. Then, after another update from Star, a run. My heart is beating fast—we’re pretty deep now, close to the center, and the Twisted are big and nasty. This tunnel doesn’t have any side branches. If we get stuck in here, we’ll end up smeared against the walls.
[Query: should I divert it?]
Nearly there. My mask is fogged with my panting. Nearly—
I stumble out into the light again. Ky is close behind, and I grab her hand and duck to one side, putting a chunk of protruding concrete between us and the tunnel entrance.
Seconds later, the junk starts shaking again.
The Twisted has the classic centipede shape, a long, narrow body with legs sprouting in random directions.
Gleaming discs of optics are studded throughout like flat black jewels.
It thunders past us and into the tunnel, easily four meters long, crunching and grinding through the junk.
“Still think I was kidding?” I ask.
“Stars above,” Ky says, breathless. “Was that Rotwurm?”
“Nah. Rotwurm is supposed to be a lot bigger.”
“Oh.”
We trudge farther. According to rumor, Rotwurm’s domain is centered on a junk mountain just to one side of the main impact zone.
Supposedly the whole structure is shot through with the thing’s giant tunnels.
The peak looms ahead of us now, getting steadily larger as we navigate through broken concrete and metal.
“You swear by the stars, too,” I say, after a while.
“I guess. It’s just something people say.”
“But you’ve never seen them?”
“Seen what?”
“The stars.”
“No,” she says. “I told you, only the Council members and the Lift Guard get to go above the cap.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Why would it bother you?”
“All this amazing stuff is just… up there. Stars, clouds, trees, the moon, all of that. And we never get to see it. Somi says he could die happy if he got to see the stars.”
“What if they’re nothing special? Just lights hanging overhead, like we have down here.”
I frown. “I think the stars are a lot higher up than that. Hundreds of klicks, at least.”
“What good is a light that far away?”
I don’t have an answer to that. We walk in silence for a while.
“The thing about Hod,” she says thoughtfully, “is that everybody looks down, not up.”
“Why? To gloat about how wretched everybody else is?”
“More like because they’re afraid of joining you. It’s easy for families to fall from grace. They lose their wealth, their influence, and they get torn apart by their rivals. Everyone’s walking on a narrow beam, and the lower tiers are the spiked pit under our feet.”
I snort. “Forgive me if I don’t have a lot of sympathy.”
“I’m not asking for sympathy, just trying to explain. Everyone’s too busy holding on to what they’ve got to worry about what’s overhead.”
“Maybe being at the very bottom gives you better perspective,” I say. “Nowhere to look but up.” I come to a halt. “I think this is close enough.”
The mountain looms in front of us. I can see several tunnel entrances from here, and there must be more all over the slope.
“You’re good on the plan?”
“I remember the plan,” she says. “Still not sure I think it’s sane.”
“It’ll work.” Probably. Maybe. “Twisted are big and mean, but they aren’t smart. They don’t think, they just react to things. It makes them predictable.” Up to a point, anyway. “Just don’t wait too long.”
“Likewise.”
“And you’re sure you can make these work?” I hold up my leather satchel, which contains four of the new BLAST weapons. Ky has an identical pack.
“I’ve got it,” she says. We did a few tests of my creations on an abandoned junkpile near the bakery, which is now a distinctly different shape. Hopefully it will be enough to deal with Rotwurm.
“All right.” I pull my mask up for a few seconds, taking deep, calming breaths. “Follow me.”
I creep down a Twisted’s tunnel like I’ve done a hundred times before, except that this tunnel is wide enough to drive a cart through.
The sides and floor are slippery-smooth, metal and concrete polished by Rotwurm’s comings and goings to a fine sheen.
There are junctions and intersections, side passages curving up and down.
I choose my route basically at random, trying to worm my way closer to the center of the mountain.
Star walks beside me, his gleaming new legs clicking with well-oiled grace.
I’ve modified his body with bulbous hatches on the underside, making him look for all the world like he’s gravid with a clutch of eggs.
It’s ugly, and it gives away what he’s hiding; the next version is going to conceal everything behind a smooth armored shell. But that’s for the future.
Ky glances nervously into every tunnel entrance. She has one hand on her sword, though I’m not sure what she thinks the weapon will accomplish against Rotwurm.
This is probably far enough. You’re ready?
[Assessment: I am ready. It is you I worry about.]
Don’t think I’m up to the challenge?
[Reassurance: it is not your fault. Flesh is simply inadequate.]
Laugh it up, bolt-bucket. Your next body is riding on making this work, you know.
[Agreement: hence my unflinching optimism. If you die, do you think Ky will take me in?]
Star gets most flippant when he’s nervous. I pat one of his arms with a clang and point down a side passage.
“Okay,” I say aloud. “You wait here with Star. Earmuffs on.”
“Earmuffs on,” Ky says.
We both pull broad protective ear covers up over our helmets.
Our first test of the new weapon left us both half-deafened, and I don’t want to risk that here.
Once they’re in place, all I can hear is the rapid thumping of my own heart.
Ky mouths, Can you hear me?, and I shake my head and give her a thumbs-up.
She gives a nervous grin and puts her hand on Star’s carapace, and I turn and keep walking down the tunnel.