Undercity Read online

  The wall next to me began to shake.

  Ho! I broke into a sprint just before the wall shattered. Up ahead, another part of the wall blew out, sending an avalanche of debris into the canal. I skidded to a stop a few meters away and spun around to look back the way I had come. The collapse behind me went all the way through to the other canal, leaving a giant hole. The battle was louder, and the flash of lasers in the other canal came again and again. A great crack sounded from above me, and I jerked up my head to see fissures running along the ceiling. I backed away, step by step, until I ran into the rock fall behind me. More fissures appeared in the ceiling.

  “Gods almighty,” I muttered.

  You should get out of here, Max thought.

  No kidding. I turned and clambered over the remains of the avalanche, going as fast as I could manage while rocks shifted under my feet and clattered into the canal. On the other side, I slid down to the midwalk. A groan of moving stone came from behind me and I looked back in time to see the roof over the midwalk bowing downward. It suddenly broke, and great chunks of red rock smashed down onto the midwalk. Dust flew everywhere, turning the air into a purplish haze.

  Run! Max thought. Get out of here!

  I raced away, down the midwalk. If even my supposedly emotionless EI was getting excited, I was in trouble. Up ahead, more of the wall crumbled, leaving another gaping hole through to the other canal. As I neared the debris, a woman scrambled through the opening. Laser fire flashed, just missing her head when she threw herself flat on the rocks. The beam flashed across this canal and hit the opposite wall. On this side, the rocks from the fall shifted under the woman and some tumbled into the canal. She scrambled down to the midwalk, jumped to her feet—

  And it was Digjan, Dig’s daughter.

  She stood there, her hair a wild mane of black curls, all hard muscles and a fierce scowl, a carbine clenched in her hands, and dust covering her clothes. A red cloth with the Kajada ruzik was tied around her bicep. Madly beautiful in a way the above-city would never understand, she looked like an ancient warrior. The Majda’s might think of themselves as the heirs to the Ruby Empire, but in this moment, I had no doubt where the genes of those barbarian queens found expression.

  She raised her carbine and sighted on me.

  I whipped my gun up faster than she moved, but I had no intention of shooting her. I fired at her weapon instead. She was smarter than her friend, the girl whose carbine I had slagged, and even as she raised the gun, she threw herself to the side so that my bullet hit the rockslide behind her.

  “Why shoot me?” I yelled. “I warned you all that Vakaar was coming.”

  Digjan jumped to her feet, her carbine still trained on me. “What the fuck do you want?”

  “To get you out of here. If you’re caught fighting for the cartel, you’re army career is done.”

  “Fuck the army.”

  I waved my gun at her. “What, you only know that one word? Fine, fuck the army. Give up.”

  “Shut up!” she shouted at me.

  “Damn it, Digjan, I can sponsor you in the army. But not if you screw up here.”

  The ancient battle lust burned in her gaze, and I knew she was too far gone to reach. “Got a code,” she said. “Protect Kajada. Kill Vakaar.”

  I clenched my gun. “Vakaar will kill you.”

  “I got no fear of measly Vakaars,” she snarled. “Only loyalty to Kajada.”

  “No,” a gravelly voice said. A woman pushed her way through the opening in the wall, and rubble cascaded around her as she stepped onto the midwalk.

  Dig.

  I stared at her, this woman who had been my closest friend until the day I left the undercity. She stood as tall as her daughter, with the same muscled physique and hair, that same antediluvian ferocity, but the decades had hardened her face and weathered it with scars.

  “Go,” she told her daughter. “No fight.”

  “No!” Digjan’s expression blazed with energy. “I fight the Vakaars!” She lifted her gun in a salute to her mother. “For Kajada. Always.”

  Dig, who never showed emotion, watched her daughter as if her stone-cold heart were breaking. “Kajada values your loyalty above all else.”

  Digjan raised her chin. “Yah.”

  Quietly Dig said, “And Kajada releases you from your oath.”

  “What?” Her daughter stared at her in disbelief. “I won’t desert you!”

  A deeper, more ominous rumbling started somewhere far behind us, not in this canal, but in the one with the battle. Someone shouted, their voice panicked.

  “Go,” Dig told her daughter. “Go with Bhaaj.”

  Digjan’s posture stiffened. “Only a coward would leave.”

  “You fought with honor,” Dig said. “Great honor. Now go to a better life.”

  “I serve you,” Digjan said.

  “Serve what?” Dig demanded. The thunder of falling stone was growing louder. “Selling hack? Bliss? Funk? For what?”

  “Make you queen of the undercity,” Digjan told her.

  “Queen of shit,” Dig told her. “I want more for you.”

  “Don’t want more!” Digjan shouted. But she looked confused, furious as much because she didn’t know where to put her mother’s words as because she wanted to fight. Great cracking noises were coming from the other canal, and fissures were opening in ceiling above us.

  “Uh, we better go,” I said.

  Digjan never shifted her gaze from her mother. “I won’t leave you.”

  Dig shook her gun. “Go! Now!” Behind her, more of the midwalk wall collapsed.

  “We have to leave.” I spun around—and froze. I could see through the many breaks in the midwalk wall into the next canal. Far in the distance, its roof was collapsing in a slow, relentless wave headed in our direction.

  “Go with Bhaaj!” Dig shouted at her daughter. “That’s my order!” She took off then, scrambling back through the breach in the wall.

  Digjan hesitated only one moment. Then she spun around to me. “We go.”

  Go yes, but where? Debris blocked us in both directions. As the other canal collapsed, it was taking what remained of the wall that separated it from this one and also the ceiling above that wall. The great wave of destruction rolled toward us with relentless speed.

  I had to yell to be heard above the noise. “Down in the canal!”

  Together, we half fell, half climbed down the rockslide left by the avalanche. At the bottom, we ran down the center of the canal, heading straight toward the oncoming destruction. Here in the middle we were far enough from the collapsing wall that we would escape the worst of the falling rocks—I hoped—when we ran past that wave shattering rock. Knee-deep dust hampered our stride, but I didn’t use enhanced speed because Digjan couldn’t keep that grueling pace.

  More avalanches poured into the canal as the roof continued its collapse. The ceiling above us was intact, but rubble hurtled down into the canal from the collapsing wall. The wave approached us, we approached the wave, and when we finally ran by it, rocks thundered around us. When I stumbled, Dig hefted me to my feet. Mounds of rubble filled the canal, and we scrambled over them, grunting with exertion, choking on the dust-laden air.

  A crack sounded directly above us.

  I looked up with a jerk. Fissures were spreading across the ceiling everywhere now, not just above the midwalk.

  “Run faster,” I gasped at Digjan.

  She tried, but she had reached her limit. Thunder roared behind us. Still running, I looked back. Damn! The roof of the entire aqueduct was falling, a new wave of destruction racing after us. In a few seconds, it would bury us in tons of rock.

  I grabbed Digjan’s arm and lunged into an enhanced sprint, literally dragging her forward. My biomech struggled to compensate for her added weight, and she struggled to keep her feet. Behind us, the thunder grew louder. We kept on, desperate, running, scrambling, falling, running, running, chased by tons of rock smashing into the canal.

 
; It was several moments before I realized the thunder was fading. I never paused and Digjan ran with me, gasping for breath. After a few more moments, the thunder stopped. We slowed to a normal run, and I let go of Digjan. Another few moments, and we reached a point where the canal was intact and no rubble blocked our way. Gulping in air, we turned around, walking backward, staring at what had once been a major canal in the undercity.

  “Gods,” I whispered.

  For all the dust that filled the air, nothing could hide the devastation. Two canals had fallen, this one and the one where the battle had taken place. The collapse had only stopped where arches and supports reinforced the aqueducts. Whoever had designed this place had been a genius, able to limit the collapse even of two canals—but beyond those supporting buttresses, that miracle of architecture lay in ruins.

  Digjan spoke in a hollow voice. “My mother.”

  “This wasn’t enough to stop her.” My voice cackled with all the dust. “Your mother is the orneriest hellcat I ever knew. If anyone could survive, it’s her.”

  Digjan said nothing. We both knew the truth. If this collapse had moved as fast in Dig’s direction as in ours, she couldn’t have outrun it.

  “Fighting must be done,” Digjan said dully. “Fighters buried.”

  “Yah.” Some may have survived, but I doubted it was many.

  “Stupid,” she said tiredly. Then she turned and headed down the canal.

  I went with her.

  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 intere
sted. 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?”