Storm Thief (7 page)

The streets of Orokos went deep.

The city sat atop a plateau of rock in the midst of the ocean, and there was nothing beyond it. Over time, it had grown to cover every square inch of the island's surface, except for the sides of the blunt, lonely mountains that thrust up into the sky here and there. They were too steep to build on.

When there was no more space on the surface, the people in forgotten days built upward. They constructed spires and towers and great obelisks of shiny black metal with thousands of chambers inside. But they also dug down, into the rock. They tunnelled out labyrinths of underground waterways, service ducts, and strange chambers whose purpose had long been lost to history. And there were streets down here, long corridors full of apartments, dozens upon dozens of levels. An old superstructure left from a departed time that nobody knew how to maintain.

But whether the city above was basking in the sun or pale under the light of the moon, the Dark Markets were always open.

The market that Rail and Moa found themselves at, some time after they had fled their home, had sprung up in a cavernous Functional Age chamber with a barrel-shaped ceiling. Great branching pillars supported the roof, made of some black substance that was the texture of glistening wood but harder than metal. In between these pillars were dozens of yurts, tents of stiffened fabric that resembled beetles. They were pitched anywhere, and in no apparent order. One end was always propped open, to display the wares within. And in the Dark Markets, everything was for sale.

Rail and Moa trod carefully through the chamber. It was busy at the moment. Gyik-tyuks and rickshaws made their way among the foot traffic, and the noise of conversation echoed dizzyingly all around. Burning globes of sharp white energy fizzed in the air above. They hung unsupported in space, casting their light on the people below.

All walks of life met and mingled here, where the Protectorate soldiers didn't come. There were rich folk, dressed in heavy, dull-coloured robes, for it was considered vulgar in society to wear bright colours or revealing clothes. With them went mercenary bodyguards with thumper guns. There were hooded Ghost Path devotees, who worshipped and studied the hated Revenants. They murmured between themselves, shunned by the crowd. There were victims of the cruel randomness of the probability storms, men and women with odd-coloured eyes or bizarre deformities. There were boys from the ghettoes, their hair and skin dyed in tribal fashions, representing gangs that they belonged to. And there was more, and more after that, endlessly.

Rail viewed them all with equal suspicion. He kept his hand on his satchel, watching for thieves, and made sure Moa had the precious artefact tucked away inside an inner pocket of her dungarees.

She had finally managed to get it off her hand with the aid of some engine oil they had found leaking from an old machine on their way through the tunnels. It hadn't fixed itself to her as they had feared, it was just too tight. She had managed to slip the rings on to her fingers but been unable to get them off again. Once it had come free, the radiance had faded and it had become inactive. But now they treated it with awe, and she kept checking to make sure it was there in her pocket, as if it might disappear at any moment.

At the sides of the chamber were rows of bars and shops. Short, round-mouthed tunnels were cluttered with advertisements and samples of what lay within. Rail took Moa into one that had steaming vats of ribbonfish outside. A balding man in a smock was frying grain-cakes on a griddle nearby. He glanced at them and then returned his attention to the food.

Inside was a low, circular room, hot and heavy with the scent of aromatic smoke. In the centre was a square bar where cooks took orders from the clientele. Rail ordered them both a heaped plate of shark cutlets and pumpkin mash. They arrived with complimentary mugs of cold tuzel, a fiery, spicy drink that Moa loved when she could get it.

They took their plates to a small booth and sat opposite each other. Moa attacked the food with an indecent appetite. Rail was forced to eat much more slowly, lifting his respirator between bites. He hated eating in public, but they both needed a rest and a good meal. It had been an exhausting journey.

“We can't afford this,” said Moa, barely even pausing to speak before putting another forkful of shark in her mouth.

“Bit late now,” Rail said, with a grin that only showed around his eyes. “We're loaded at the moment, anyway.”

“At the
moment
we are,” Moa replied, looking up from her plate. “That's got to last.”

“You need to eat. Let me worry about the money.”

She let it lie at that. She was simply enjoying the taste of real food, and lots of it. Rail watched her indulgently. The times were too rare when he could afford to treat her like this. He knew what she thought of his dreams of becoming rich, of changing the hand that fate had dealt him. What he had never told her was that
she
figured in those plans as well. The rest of the world could take care of itself, but he would take care of Moa. Before anything, before even getting his lungs fixed so that he wouldn't need a respirator anymore, he would see to her. He would ensure that they had a place to live, that they ate a good meal every day, that they didn't have to scratch and scrabble just to survive any more. That was his secret dream. To make them a life where comfort and safety were not luxuries.

He looked around the chamber while she polished off her food, careful not to catch anyone's eye. It was the usual weird assortment you might find in a Dark Market restaurant. They smoked elaborate pipes, drank their drinks and watched the other patrons.

“She'll follow us,” he said absently.

Moa paused, the fork just leaving her lips. “What are you muttering about?” she said, accidentally spraying a mist of chewed-up shark across the table. She burst out laughing and nearly choked on the food she still had in her mouth. Heads turned to look at them, but she managed to swallow and gave Rail a sheepish grin, her eyes still watering.

“You OK?” he asked.

“Just about,” she said, pounding herself on the chest with the heel of her hand. “Sorry, go on.”

Rail looked at her a few moments, concern in his eyes.

“Rail, I'm all right!” she said. “Shouldn't have tried to breathe my breakfast, that's all.” She sobered a little. “You mean Anya-Jacana.”

“She won't let us go,” Rail said, brushing stray dreadlocks over his shoulder. “She must know what it is that we've got. She'll not rest until she has it back.”

“Then we should get rid of it,” Moa said, eating again, though a little more carefully this time. “Sell it quickly. Take the money and run.”

He knew she was going to say that, and had his defence prepared. “We can't. Don't you see what that thing is? We're thieves, Moa. And that device . . . well, if it does what it seems to, then it can get us into any place on Orokos. Can you imagine what we could
do
with that?”

“We're not thieves any more,” she protested.

“We are until we can afford to stop,” he said. “If we tried to sell it, now Anya-Jacana is on the lookout, then she'd hear about it.” He trailed off, sudden realization dawning on him. Of course.
That
was how she knew. The Mozgas, not knowing what it was, had been trying to sell it on the Dark Markets. The thief-mistress had heard that they were hawking Fade-Science, and realized how valuable it could be. She had found out where they kept it and she sent Rail and Moa to go and get it. Rail felt stupid for having not worked it out before, but he couldn't bring himself to regret it. Not really. After all, they had the artefact now.

“Listen,” he went on. “That thing is so valuable that half the people in the city would kill us for it. If we tried to take it to the kind of folk who would have the money to pay for it, they'd cut our throats and take it from us. And don't even think about suggesting that we throw it away –”

Moa shut her mouth. She had been about to do just that.

“We
use
it,” he said. “That's what we do. We'd be unstoppable with that thing. We could walk into any vault in Orokos. We could make ourselves rich.”

Moa didn't like that idea. It troubled her conscience. “Rail, I . . . it's still stealing. I mean, stealing to survive is one thing, but –”

“It's stealing from the
Protectorate
,” he interrupted angrily. “Them, and the people who support them, the good citizens of Orokos. You remember them? The people who make us live in ghettoes, who hate and despise us? The people who take our families and friends away to a place that they never come back from? The people who blame all their problems on us and punish us for it? The ones who spit at us for being lazy and useless but who make absolutely sure that we can't work ourselves out of poverty by putting tattoos on our arms that mark us as outcasts?”

Moa subsided, staring at her food.

“They deserve it,” he said.

Moa nodded slightly. “Yeah,” she said.

Rail sat back and watched her for a moment. He hated to play that card. Her own mother had been taken away by the Protectorate.

“What do you think it was for?” she asked. “I mean, in the first place?”

“The artefact? Who knows? Maybe the Faded used it for mining or something, like tunnelling through rock. Maybe it was for spies to sneak in and out of places. Maybe they had a Secret Police like we do and they had all kinds of tricks like that to root out dissenters.”

Moa scoffed. “Why would they need Secret Police? They didn't have any crime.”

Rail made a noise that indicated he didn't really care either way. “So the legends say. You believe everything you hear? Anyway, it doesn't matter what it was for, what matters is what it can
do
. Now, first things first. We need a place to stay, a place that's safe. We go to Kilatas. Even Anya-Jacana won't find us there. Your friend Kittiwake can help us, right?”

“If you think we'll be followed, then we shouldn't be going to see Kittiwake at all!” Moa said, alarmed. “We'll lead them right to her!”

“I know, I know. We won't do that. First we have to be sure that nobody can follow our trail.”

Moa gazed around the room, suddenly paranoid.

“Relax,” he said, reaching across the table and laying a hand on her thin, pale wrist. “They won't catch us. Eat.”

Moa was nervous now, but she ate the rest of her food, and half of Rail's as well, after he insisted that he wasn't hungry.

*

They found a Coder and traded a few power cells for coins and platinum chits, then left the Dark Market, heading away into the winding tunnels. There were whole towns down here in the dark, subterranean communities beneath the city. People who lived their entire lives beneath the glow of the tracklights. They never once questioned where the energy that illuminated the tunnels came from, nor did they consider what might happen if it suddenly all went black. The false light in this dim world was as eternal as the sun to them.

Rail and Moa kept away from the settlements, not wanting to be seen or remembered. Rail knew most of the places they passed, shanties or tent clusters that sprawled across old, empty chambers, but most of them would not welcome strangers. Sewer dogs roamed about, and hobos shuffled past on neverending journeys, passing from community to community, leaning on their sticks. Down here lived other creatures like the Mozgas, subhuman monsters birthed of the probability storms. Most kept to themselves, hiding from the Protectorate, who would hunt them down if they found them.

Rail checked his compass often to make certain that they were still heading in the right direction. He knew where he was going, for Moa had told him long ago where Kilatas lay and how to find it. She never could keep a secret, not from him. But it paid to be sure, in case the route had changed since she had walked it last. Compasses always pointed to the centre of Orokos, to the Fulcrum, the ancient heart of the city. Within the Fulcrum, it was said, lay the Chaos Engine, the source of the probability storms that ravaged the city. The source of the Revenants.

Eventually, they came up to the surface, to the streets, and found that it was dusk and night was falling.

They emerged on a service walkway that ran alongside the West Artery. The sky overhead was clear and cool and spattered with stars. A dozen feet below them, water rushed by, glittering with the lights of the buildings on the canalside.

“Look at that,” said Moa, leaning against the railing of the walkway. She was heady with the joy of being outside again. “Isn't it amazing?”

“Not really,” said Rail, who was more concerned than he showed about being followed, and was eager to get on.

She looked back at him, a frond of black hair hanging over her face and across her nose. “Don't you ever wonder who made all this?” She gestured up the canal, towards the centre of the city. “
Why
they made it?”