1. Prisoner

Of the two shadowy figures who’d stopped outside the cell, awakening her, she recognised only one. Unlocking the door, Sergeant Dart motioned her up from the bunk and out into the black corridor.

Glancing at her small barred window, looking out the Stockade’s hollowed-cliff wall, Tiss saw city lights twinkling in morning twilight. She hesitated, feeling the prisoner’s alarm at any sudden departure from routine.

‘Now, Tiss,’ barked Dart.

She stepped forward, reflexively touching her wrists together to be cuffed.

‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ said the other, who had tousled sandy hair and five o’clock shadow. He was wearing captain’s epaulettes. ‘That will be all.’

‘But, sir, the prisoner–’

‘Is now in my custody.’

‘Sir.’

Tiss lowered her wrists. Her sleep-befuddled mind knew this wasn’t right.

Dart walked away in one direction while the captain went in the other. Tiss, after a moment’s indecision, found herself trotting briskly after her liberator.

‘You’ve had a year, Tiss,’ he stated cryptically.

It had felt longer. She’d tried to ignore the passage of time, finding that marking it only exacerbated her isolation and despair. Only the length of the days or how often she awoke too hot or too cold distinguished the seasons.

The rock-walled corridor was lit at intervals by bright licht bulbs revealing empty cells. This level, reserved for malfeasant watch, was underpopulated. For long stretches of her year she’d been, to her relief, the only occupant.

‘The revolt outside the wall is forgotten. The Scattered ringleaders were identified and dealt with.’ He didn’t glance at her as he spoke. ‘Few even remember you were there, Tiss, let alone that you stepped out of line.’

Forgotten perhaps, but unforgiven. Two years for refusing to do her duty.

He pushed open a door and they entered a stairwell made of broken curves of white stone. It was cold and she was only wearing her grey prisoner’s shift.

He led her down. ‘Hit your father pretty hard, I understand. A decorated former officer having to see his daughter in here.’

‘He stopped coming after two visits,’ she said.

He slowed, his grey eyes surveying her for the first time. ‘Too much for him, was it?’

‘I told him I didn’t want to see him.’ This wasn’t strictly true.

‘Right.’ The man smiled to himself as if it confirmed something he’d heard.

They’d argued, as usual. Her father had wanted her to retrospectively admit the charges, which would have commuted the sentence by a year. She’d told him she’d nothing to admit. He’d said she’d betrayed and shamed him. ‘Ah,’ she’d said. ‘This is about your wall drinking buddies.’ He’d not been back.

‘Name’s Hatchett, by the way. Captain.’

‘Of what?’

He smiled again. ‘They said you had a sharp tongue.’

Who said? She really didn’t like this. She was shivering in the cold.

He cleared his throat. ‘I’m heading up a new division, recruiting staff from all over the watch. People who’ve worked the wall, narcotics and others who’ve spent time around Smyths and Foundry. Douaniers too. I’ve got squads seconded from Special Assignments. A real mix of talents.’

She thought for a moment. ‘You’re going after illegal forges,’ she said.

He stopped mid-stride and whistled. ‘They also said you were bright.’

They again. The chill of the stairs was seeping up through her feet.

He continued descending. ‘Illicit HiggsCraft is for sale in markets. Purified Loop seizures are up. Foundry’s Smyths break their contracts and vanish. Unstable weaponry is appearing on the streets. The Council wants something done and I’ve been given the task. I want you to be a part of it.’

‘I’m locked up here at the Stockade’s pleasure,’ she said cautiously.

‘Not if you prove yourself to me.’

‘Did my father put you up to this?’ she asked. Such an intervention smacked of his doing.

‘Your father?’ He shook his head, smiling again. ‘No, this is nothing to do with your father. In a sense, it’s something from your mother’s side I want.’

A cold lump formed in her empty stomach. They knew.

‘I’ve got weapon specialists and investigators but what I haven’t got is someone who knows the Scattered. These forges will be operated by Smyths who came from outside the wall and I need someone they’ll trust if I’m to get to the people who set them up in the first place.’

As a disgraced officer with Scattered blood, she hadn’t believed anyone would take her on, yet here was the watch offering her a position because of it. Had she got it wrong? Was it then a case of forgiven but not forgotten?

They were deep in the Stockade now, running out of stairs. Tiss, having had no real exercise in her year there, was out of breath. ‘So you just release me?’

‘Into my custody,’ he reminded her.

‘I’m still a prisoner?’

‘Not while you’re working for me.’ That smile of his damnably enigmatic.

At the bottom of the stairs, she stopped. She was freezing in her shift. Ahead of them was a set of wide double doors under a sign reading: GARAGE.

‘I won’t do it unless I’m freed,’ she announced firmly.

Hatchett was already striding through the doors. As they swung to, he called, ‘You know the way back to your cell.’

2. Shadow

The first glimmerings of daylight could be seen through openings in the stone concertina doors at one end of the garage. Patrol vehicles – armoured chariots, street schooners, battle wagons – were parked in tidy rows around the sides. In a corner, vehicles undergoing maintenance exposed their steaming innards. Occupying the middle of this large open space were four street schooners, parked in a line. Their sides were open and gear was spilled over the floor. Around each schooner, squads of armoured watch efficiently prepped for what – to Tiss’s wide eyes – looked like a raid.

Hatchett was heading for the squads. She trailed behind, struggling with the uniform he’d found for her in the locker room. The purple leather was worn and cracked, and in places was patched badly. It smelled of grease and sweat.

Hatchet had said the squads came from Special Assignments. ‘Tight, strong units superior to the sum of their parts,’ he’d informed her as she’d dressed. ‘Shock troops, very tough.’ She recalled her father telling her that after the Scattered overran the city back in ’62, SA units had been responsible for pushing the beggars back to their camp outside the wall and then torching much of it in revenge. ‘Right bastards,’ he’d called them approvingly.

The squads were armoured: light slateplate wafers strapped to torso and thighs and schistmail sleeves. They carried licht rods, wet-web pistols and pellet carbines – the top end of permissible weaponry for street deployment.

Hatchett led her to the schooner at the rear. Its squad of five fell silent at their approach, concentrating on loading up the schooner.

A bearded man stepped forward. ‘Captain,’ he said.

‘Sergeant Galippe,’ said Hatchett. ‘You’re currently a body short. This is Corporal Tiss who has just signed up. She’ll be shadowing you this week.’

Corporal? One moment a prisoner, the next promoted out of her former rank.

Galippe raised an eyebrow but shook her hand without pause. ‘Glad to have you with us,’ he said. The rest of the squad were staring and whispering.

Hatchett peered over at the other schooners. ‘You ready, Sergeant?’

‘Just about, sir.’

He nodded. ‘I want the Corporal to sit in on this one, Sergeant.’

‘Sir, I’m not sure that’s–’

‘I want her to see what we’re doing. Your shadow. Understood?’

‘Sir.’

Hatchett went and spoke to a blonde-haired Sergeant in the lead schooner. Galippe smiled sourly at Tiss and briefly introduced his squad. A man with a small head on broad shoulders wiping his carbine with a rag was Officer Ghant. A short, stocky woman was Bass. A rangy boy with red hair and an idiotic grin was called Hoole – he insisted on shaking her hand. At the back hulked Heel, wide and solid as a wall, slow but precise in his movements.

Galippe had barely finished before the blonde Sergeant hollered ‘Mount up!’ They located some schistmail for Tiss and then climbed inside the schooner and slid the doors closed. The vehicle’s steam dynamo whined as the driver, in the cab up front, took them out of the garage at the rear of the convoy and they slipped through deserted early-morning streets.

‘Hear you served on the wall,’ said Galippe.

It was extremely cramped with six squeezed in here. She stared out a small grilled window at the street. ‘Ten years,’ she said, knowing what was coming.

‘Aven’t you also been doing time upstairs?’ said Hoole. ‘What for?’

‘I disobeyed orders,’ she said, ‘putting my fellow officers at risk.’

‘Bad career move,’ said Bass with a shake of the head.

‘Too afeared to shoot a few damn Scattered, I heard,’ persisted Hoole.

‘You got sympathies that way?’ Ghant asked her.

‘I like the Scattered more than I like the wall,’ she admitted.

‘Clever, ain’t she?’ said Hoole. ‘Cowards always talk so damn pretty.’

Bass struck him on the arm. ‘She outranks you, fool!’

‘I’m just messin’.’ He sniffed. ‘Woah. Somebody stinks in here. Ain’t me.’

They were showing off, trying to intimidate with this display of how tight they were as a unit. She’d heard it before. Her father’s wall buddies Victor, Willie, Doc and Max had been like this whenever they’d come round. Yet for all the talk of the glory days serving on the wall and their silly private jokes, she’d known – even then – that what had fleetingly tied them together was already lost. Only with her, an audience to witness it, did their camaraderie have any real meaning. It was a way of hiding the truth about themselves.

‘So,’ said Tiss to fill the silence, ‘this a raid?’

Galippe nodded. ‘A house. De Brogile Lane. Bordering Chemytown. Captain says they’ve tracked consignments of Loop smuggled through the wall. Place is suspected to be a Loop refinery. A big one.’

Grey streets slid by, occasionally lit up by rainbow-hued feuer lamps.

‘We’re being dropped two streets away,’ said Galippe. ‘Along with Sergeant Fitz’s squad, we take the rear. Sergeants Tafft and Kline will hit the front. We’re going in the basement and we go up, securing each level behind them. We’re support, today. Triple check your targets.’

As soon as they stopped, the side doors were hauled open. Ahead, the towering DeadAir barrier was a dark cauldron holding in Chemytown’s swirling vapours. As she stepped out, Tiss was passed a carbine by Bass.

‘You don’t want to be bare-arsed,’ she said.

Ghant leaned over and took the carbine out of Tiss’s hands. ‘And I don’t want to get shot in the backside.’

‘How ‘bout you take this?’ Heel held out a lichtrod. In his enormous hand it looked as unthreatening as a pencil.

They ran single file down the street. Heavy rain had started to fall, drops bouncing off the pavement. Tiss, at the back, was soon wheezing. The boots pinched her toes and loath as she was to admit it, she was scared.

The house wasn’t hard to spot. Part of a decrepit four-storey terrace, its windows had long ago been boarded-up. Proximity to Chemytown and the DeadAir barrier’s frequent leakages had caked its brick walls in a filmy yellow residue.

Fitz’s team had taken up positions on the lefthand side of a junk-filled back yard. Galippe’s squad took the right. Sergeant Fitz conferred with Galippe. She was pointing and shaking her head. Galippe was nodding.

‘Shit,’ hissed Bass. ‘Three doors.’

Ghant nodded. ‘Somebody can’t bloody count.’

Galippe came over. ‘Okay. A complication. We’ve got three back doors, not two. Sergeant Fitz is going to take the lefthand as planned. We’re going to split and take the middle and right. Hoole and Heel, you’re with me in the middle. Bass, Ghant and Tiss you take the right.’ He paused. ‘Remember, secure each level before you take the next.’

Tiss saw Bass and Ghant exchange an unimpressed look.

Galippe checked his watch. ‘Into position.’

Ghant approached the third door – short, narrow, having no handle and resembling a boarded-up window – removing from his pack four feuer globes which he attached to its corners. Green feuer swirled inside the globes. Next he took out a clear rod. A bright line of blue flashed up and down its length.

‘We’re going in ten, nine . . .’

Bass glanced grimly at Tiss. Rain was getting in her eyes.

Ghant pushed one end of the rod into the middle of each globe and stepped back quickly. There were four blinding flashes as the feuer globes burst and flames erupted in fiery lines up and across the door. Tiss looked over at the other doors – like their own they were vaporizing into sparks and smoke.

‘Go, go, go,’ Fitz hissed. And Tiss was following Bass and Ghant through the smoke. She stumbled immediately on steps leading up. Her hand caught a rail, keeping her upright. Coughing, she raced up steep stairs that double-backed as they rose. It was dark: no doors, no windows. She followed Bass and Ghant’s thundering feet. But as she ran, she knew that this was wrong. They were supposed to be securing the basement, supporting those out front who’d gone in a level above them. Instead, they were going up fast and blind.

‘We’re going . . . to get there . . . first,’ she gasped, her legs rubbery already.

‘You spot any doors?’ yelled down Bass.

‘I . . . can’t see . . . anything.’ How many storeys now? Her lungs burned.

‘Keep your guard up,’ said Ghant. ‘Check no one sneaks out behind us.’

How? she wondered. She was staggering trying to keep up, holding the rail.

Yellow light ahead as Bass finally got a torch out and played it across the walls as they went up another flight. Suddenly, the stairs ended at a door and they stopped. Ghant put his ear to the door. From somewhere below they heard shouting and the pop and crack of discharging weapons.

Tiss, her head swimming, lungs wheezing, collapsed on the steps. With her head on her knees she watched Ghant try the door’s handle. It swung out and he stepped around it, pointing his carbine. Tiss shuddered and retched loudly.

‘Fuck,’ muttered Bass, adding: ‘Just hold the door.’ She went after Ghant.

Tiss, humiliated, disgusted with herself, cursed. She wiped her mouth. It took a minute but she got upright on wobbly legs. She pulled the door wide.

The room beyond was filled with alchemycal apparatus on benches and tables. Complicated architectures of straight and coiled tubes, flasks and feuer burners. She saw two brown-robed alchemysts – young, shaven-headed, clearly novices – standing to one side, hands held high. Ghant had his weapon pointed at them while Bass was checking the room was clear.

They could hear further pops and cracks. The others down below clearly unwilling to come quietly. There was a whoosh and a detonation which shook the building. Dust fell from the ceiling. Higgs ordnance. They were putting up a proper fight down there. And we’re trapped up here, thought Tiss.

A door in the corner was flung open, slamming Bass against the wall. A bald man with a grey beard rushed in. He ducked as Ghant swung around and fired a ceramic pellet from his carbine. Glass towers shattered and fell. The man – astonishingly for his age – rolled and was on his feet on the other side of the room. He came up holding a crystalline object which whined.

‘AirBurster!’ shouted Ghant. ‘Down!’

‘Fuck,’ said Tiss, crouching. A blast of explosively released compressed air turned any remaining glass objects into clouds of flying splinters. It knocked Tiss back towards the stairs. Her ears roared, feeling like they’d been boxed.

Blinking, she saw the old man coming towards her. He bled from many cuts.

Where was her licht rod? Her hands felt across the floor as she helplessly watched him approach. He walked with a slight, barely noticeable limp. In the bloody mess of his face, nut-brown eyes bored into her.

Tiss froze, feeling herself shrink inside at sight of him. Terrified now.

The licht rod was in her hand but she couldn’t seem to raise it. Her ears were roaring like the sea in a gale.

The old man, pressing one hand firmly on Tiss’s shoulder, vaulted over her. He thudded down the stairs. A muffled thunder, fading away.

3. Two Taverns

The Golden Mean was a watch watering hole. Tiss had always avoided such places. Spill someone’s drink and you’d quickly be buying a dozen to prevent a ruck. One of her father’s jokes had the truth of it: ‘It ain’t that watch go looking for a fight, just there’s always some guy willing to give you one.’

She was standing with Galippe and Bass, nursing a water. Nearby Hoole, Heel and Ghant were being given a hard time by Sergeant Fitz’s squad. Ghant and Bass had cuts and scratches to hands and face but the rest of the squad looked remarkably unhurt despite the heavy resistance they’d encountered that morning. Not that they were having an easier time of it at the hands of the other squads. ‘Ripe for a kicking,’ Hoole had muttered as they’d left.

Bass and Galippe had tried to cheer her up, saying it wasn’t so bad. But she’d heard a few loud comments that gave the lie to that. She’d fucked up. Four squads to raid a Loop refinery. She wasn’t green. They’d been after something big. They’d seized the Loop, arrested the puffers, taken down the muscle – got everything except the one thing the raid was supposed to net.

‘We know what he looks like now,’ said Galippe. ‘You and Ghant both gave good descriptions. It’s a step closer.’

Tiss nodded numbly.

She kept seeing Hatchett’s face as he’d looked despairingly down the steep stairs as if he was seeing a last and only hope vanish before his eyes. Ghant, Bass, Galippe and Fitz had watched silently. ‘Four months’ work,’ he’d said. ‘Following the trail from Loop dealers on the street back to the lock-up where it was distributed and from there tracked to a warehouse in Galleon and then, finally, here. For weeks we’ve had people watching this house, day and night. We knew it was a big operation. We had their movements down perfectly. And we knew precisely when Tulcas came and went.’ He’d turned, his gaze sweeping slowly over his team to settle on her. ‘He’ll go to ground now.’

Bass swigged her beer. ‘That Loop set up we saw wasn’t street,’ she said.

‘The one Ghant took out?’ asked Galippe.

‘Uh-huh.’

‘You saying what? The refinery was for a forge?’ said Tiss.

‘Guilds get hefty fines for using contraband in Foundry,’ said Galippe.

‘Well,’ said Bass, with a smile. ‘Who says it was going to Foundry?’

Tiss bought a round which the squad had the decency to accept. She was tired and whenever she closed her eyes her cell was waiting there as if this were no more than a dream. Unused to company, she needed space alone to think. It was hard to take in all she’d witnessed today. She wished she could be sure of what she’d seen in the house. She wished she knew what it meant.

‘Where’d the vine root for the refinery come from?’ she asked Bass.

The woman shrugged. ‘The usual place. Smuggled in via the wall. Easy.’

Easy. Her father’d laugh at that. She remembered one night long ago when he, Willie and Doc had sat drinking, telling stories about those they’d caught smuggling Loop. They’d made them sound careless and clueless, calling them idiots and fools. But when she’d worked the wall, years later, she’d seen the smugglers differently. Every single one of them knew the consequences of getting caught but they had still accepted the risks. Most had a family to feed. Desperate, yes, but, she’d thought, brave too.

Tiss tossed back her drink. ‘G’night,’ she said and swept out quickly, knowing the bitching about her could finally get going in earnest.

Out in the street, she breathed lungfuls of the fresh evening air. She didn’t know where she was going, or what to do. She could already feel the walls of her freedom closing in. That look from Hatchett had told her how close she was to being sent back to her cell. The cold air was like ice, freezing in her lungs. She found herself gasping, each breath coming faster and shallower.

A hand gripped her shoulder, and she jumped.

‘It’s okay,’ said Bass. ‘Take it slow. Long, deep breaths. Use your nose.’

Tiss clamped her mouth shut and did as she was told.

A dirigible passed overhead, twin airsacks pale as new moons in the sky.

‘We all have bad days,’ said Bass, when she’d recovered.

‘First impressions,’ she replied, still itching to be gone.

Bass shook her head. ‘It’s the day to day that matters.’

‘I’ve never done this day after day.’

‘Give it time.’ She paused. ‘You got a place to stay?’

Tiss knew she couldn’t go to her father’s. Not yet anyway. She shrugged, embarrassed. ‘Was going to bunk in the Stockade.’

Bass gave her an enquiring look. ‘They keeping your cell warm for you?’

For a moment she thought she’d burst into tears but Tiss surprised herself by barking a laugh, which got a smile from Bass. When had she last laughed properly? It felt good. She felt, for the first time in a long time, alive. Was there something here for her after all? Maybe she could fix matters with Hatchett. Perhaps it was time to prove she could do this – not only to him but also to herself.

‘You busy, Officer Bass?’

‘Now?’

‘There’s a place I’d like to go and I’d prefer not to go there alone.’

Bass smiled. ‘That’s an offer I can hardly refuse. Lead the way, Corporal.’

*

The Elliottician was frequented by the kind of low life that the patrons of The Golden Mean spent too many of their working hours chasing. Hung from the ceiling were braziers etched in alchemycal mathematik whose kaltesfeuer flames blazed blue. At a corner table, Tiss and Bass drank hot wine from cups.

‘If they work out we’re watch,’ whispered Bass, ‘we’ll not reach the door.’

‘Actually,’ said Tiss, ‘you’d be amazed by who’s tolerated in here.’

Bass raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘Just why are we here?’

‘There’s someone I’m hoping to see.’

‘You know these people?’

‘Quite a few used to live outside. At the wall you soon get to recognise the Scattered who’ll make it in – by whatever means, legal or illegal. You see it in the eyes, or sometimes it’s their walk. They’ve a resolve. They want it and, if they’ve got the nous, they’ll find a way, even if it takes them years.’

Bass was frowning. ‘Wasn’t it your job to stop them coming in?’

‘For every one of them, there’s a thousand who never even try. They see the effort it’s going to require. But the ones who’ll make it, they’re not put off.’

‘If you can identify them, then–’

Tiss shook her head. ‘It’s a calling. They’ll risk everything to get into the city. Who are we to stop them before they’ve even tried?’ She glugged her wine, grimacing. ‘The ones we should be stopping are the Loop-talented. Breaks my heart seeing guild recruitment wagons enter the city, carrying boys and girls off to Foundry, chaining them to their damn forges.’

‘So you met this someone outside the wall. What do you want with them?’

‘The man who got away, this morning.’

‘Tulcas?’

‘I’ve seen him before.’

Bass whistled. ‘That why you did nothing?’

She shrugged, still unable to fully explain it to herself.

‘Why didn’t you tell Hatchett?’

‘It’s complicated. Besides I might be wrong. Or this could go nowhere.’

Bass rubbed her long chin. ‘Should have cleared this with Hatchett first,’ she said eventually. ‘Investigation work’s not for us. We’re the blunt instrument. We do as we’re told.’

Just following orders was every watchman’s get out clause. A refusal to take any kind of responsibility. It was what had led to her father’s unit receiving their medals when they’d held West Gate against the Scattered. They’d been told to hold it or die trying, which they did until long after it was of any strategic value to either side. This was never mentioned officially, and rarely by her father or his buddies. If they’d surrendered or retreated they’d not have suffered days of torture at the hands of those they’d mercilessly fought. They came out of it ruined, broken men: her father invalided out the service, Doc left an insomniac hallucinating through most days and Willie with a rage he couldn’t control. They’d stuck together because the only thing they had left was each other. But, Tiss always wondered, wasn’t a loyalty born from a thing which had destroyed you somehow misplaced?

‘We’ll say you came along as observer,’ said Tiss, ‘to keep me out of trouble.’

‘We’re already deep in trouble. Sarge says Hatchett’s–’

Tiss touched Bass’s arm and nodded towards a tall, black-haired man who’d just entered. ‘Name’s Raven. Outside, he ran a Loop-smuggling gang.’

‘What’s he doing here?’

‘One in a thousand. Hunger in those eyes like you wouldn’t believe. The smuggling was just a means to get in the city. I think he got too good at it in the end, because the people he worked for wouldn’t let him go.’

‘Hey, Raven,’ called Tiss.

The man, by now at the bar, briefly glanced their way. He bought a drink, chatted to a few people and finally came over. He sat with a wary look.

‘You stink o’ watch,’ he said quietly.

Tiss smiled. ‘You just stink.’

Raven smirked. ‘Heard you locked up.’

‘And I heard you escaped the sweep after last year’s stand off.’ She’d known that if he hadn’t been picked up he must have found his way inside. He’d got to be too big a fish out there to hide in the camps for long.

‘What you want?’ His eyes – dark, almost black – were guarded.

‘A name.’

Raven winced. ‘I an’t telling tales.’

‘Oh I think you might,’ said Tiss.

He sneered. ‘You and I an’t ever on the same side.’

She smiled. ‘Not always, but this man was never on your side.’

‘Oh?’

‘You remember Sergeant Corgan?’

His black eyes flashed suspiciously.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘He was a bully. He loved his baton. He particularly liked the sound it made when he used it to strike Scattered heads.’

He licked his lips. ‘Busted him out.’

‘That’s right. His sort have no place in the modern watch.’

‘Years an’ years ago.’

‘Which gave him plenty of time to set up in a field he knew well from the other side: Loop dealing. A game whose players you know well.’

He made to rise. ‘I an’t want anything to do with this.’

Tiss put her arm on his. ‘I remember how he was on the wall. The slightest infraction. He enjoyed dealing in pain. He got you one day, didn’t he? You didn’t turn up to the gate for a week.’

Raven looked away.

‘Calls hisself Tulcas,’ he said eventually. ‘He a big man now.’

‘Big men get taken down all the time.’

‘Not Tulcas. He careful.’ The dark eyes wary.

‘He’s gone into hiding.’

‘Can’t help with that.’

‘A man like Corgan can hide from someone like me, but not from someone like you. You’re still dealing in Loop, Raven. Don’t deny it. You got inside the walls, but you’re too valuable to the people you smuggled for. They made an investment when they brought you in. You’re still theirs.’

He raised a hand, protesting.

‘You’re theirs,’ she repeated, ‘and always will be.’

‘Ave to be man they want,’ he said angrily. ‘Not you want. They want.’

‘Ah,’ she said, sympathetically. What was it they used to say on the wall? Scattered aren’t born, they’re made. As if they had been sent for a purpose. It was just another way of demonising them, of blaming them. ‘So, Corgan. I bet he’s even more of an evil bastard without a uniform.’

‘Can’t help,’ he persisted. ‘He squash me flat.’

She leaned forward. ‘He did that once already, remember. Isn’t it time you got your own back?’

Raven considered this, his black eyes inscrutable.

4. Corgan

‘Just one upset citizen reports us,’ grumbled Galippe, ‘and we’re penned.’

It was the last place Tiss had visited that morning – the previous three on Raven’s list had been empty, clearly abandoned months ago – but this one looked less obviously derelict than the others. It was a lock-up located in a group of arches set in the wall, a mile south of West Gate. Few if any of its neighbours appeared to be in any sort of use. The street itself was a dead-end.

Squeezed tightly inside the schooner – parked in an alley round the corner from the lock-up – the squad simmered with ill-concealed impatience. Sergeant Galippe, who’d been persuaded to go along with this only by Bass’s assertion that if they didn’t act immediately they’d lose this one chance to get their man, was growing more restive the longer they talked it over.

‘I still don’t like that door,’ he said. He’d insisted on first seeing the place for himself. Unlike the rotting wooden doors of neighbouring lock-ups, this one’s front was sealed by a wide, thin HiggsStone disc: a solid and costly barrier.

‘It is a big door for such a small dump,’ ventured Bass.

‘Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to keep people out,’ added Tiss, aware that that didn’t prove very much.

‘Then the question,’ said Ghant wearily, ‘is how do we get in?’

‘Licht kanon?’ wondered Hoole.

‘Without knocking a hole in the wall itself,’ said Bass.

‘Suit yourself,’ muttered Hoole.

‘We’ll take the softly, softly approach,’ said Galippe at last. ‘Tiss and Ghant will go knock on the damn door.’

Tiss was aghast. ‘Sir, if he’s there–’

‘Speculation, Corporal. We do it this way, or we head back to the garage.’

She pursed her lips. She didn’t blame Galippe for his caution. They were already in the doghouse after yesterday. He was risking his sergeant’s stripes over this. All so she could make amends for her own failure. The trouble was she was still unsure whether Raven, rather than take this opportunity to avenge himself on Corgan, might instead be trying to get one over on her.

‘What about the back?’ said Hoole. ‘Might he get out that way again.’

‘It’s set in the wall,’ reminded Bass. ‘There is no back way.’

‘Then maybe he’ll come out fighting,’ growled Heel, cracking his knuckles.

‘Well,’ said Ghant. ‘That’ll be something to look forward to.’

‘You’re just a pair of ordinary watch on foot patrol,’ said Galippe. ‘But once that door’s open you keep it that way until we get there. Understand?’

‘Leathers and lichtrods,’ muttered Ghant, sliding back the door. ‘This is just insulting.’

They stepped out. The afternoon was chill and dry, the sky a grey blanket.

‘Ready?’ said Ghant.

‘No,’ she said. Her fingers trembled as she adjusted her purple pill box hat.

‘That’s the spirit.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Hoole called out, ‘gettin’ killed only hurts first time round.’

They turned the corner, walking side by side. Fifty yards away was the lock-up. Ghant was taking slow, measured steps. Tiss wanted to turn and run. She felt terribly exposed, as if they were being watched from a dozen places. The lunacy of what she was doing was strikingly clear all of a sudden. Either Raven had given her a list of no-good addresses – and why would he risk crossing a man as dangerous as Corgan? A lowlife like Raven was more scared of him than he was of the watch – in which case this unauthorised excursion would lead straight back to her cell. Or this really was one of Corgan’s places, and they were about to find out – all over again – how badly his people reacted to discovery.

Halfway there, Ghant said, ‘There is something funny about that door.’

He was right. After a year, a HiggsStone door got cracked and pitted as each opening and closing weakened the licht-infused Higgsfield’s integrity. This one was filthy, covered in mud and soot, but under that its planes and curves were smooth and unbroken. Someone had tried to hide its pristine surfaces.

Ghant had slowed fractionally. They were twenty yards from the door.

‘I think we should turn around,’ he said.

‘But we’re almost there. If they’re watching, they’ll know we know.’

‘They’re watching alright – I can feel it – and they already know we know.’

Her mouth was dry. ‘I’m not turning my back on–’

‘Let’s keep walking. We’ll go pas–’

They were knocked backwards by a blast which blew out the top half of the stone door. Tiss found herself lying painfully in the middle of the street while around her stone fragments struck the ground with thuds and jolts.

She struggled to her feet and hauled at Ghant, who appeared stunned. She glanced at the shattered door and saw a few heads and the snouts of weapons peering out. A pellet pinged the ground in front of her, flicking up sparks.

The shrill scream of a straining steam dynamo told her that the schooner had rounded the corner. The vehicle tore towards them, swinging around and braking to sudden halt so its flank shielded them from the blown-out door.

Projectiles slammed into the schooner’s exposed side with clangs and thuds. The rest of the squad piled out the already open side door.

The driver abandoned his cab and sprinted back down the street.

‘Is he . . ?’ said Bass, staring after him. ‘He’s gone for reinforcements, right?’

‘Could be,’ mused Hoole. ‘Or could be fucker’s just gone.’

‘Pick your toys,’ yelled Galippe as another barrage hit. The schooner was armoured but not built for sustained punishment. They needed to move soon.

Ghant, upright but rubbing his head, caught the carbine Heel threw at him.

‘Sir,’ shouted Tiss over the bombardment, ‘I counted at least seven in there.’

‘Boss, they’re using the remains of their door as a shield,’ said Bass.

‘Getting killed here,’ hollered Galippe. ‘Heel, can you deal with that?’

The big man had been calmly removing weapons and ammunition from the locker in the schooner’s cabin. He’d made a small pile. Now he leaned in and pulled out a fat, black weapon which was as wide as Tiss and half as long.

She was strapping on armour and stopped to stare. ‘Is that a licht kanon?’

‘Nah,’ said Bass. ‘A licht kanon’s field artillery.’

‘Strict rules about deploying artillery on the streets,’ added Ghant.

‘It looks like–’

‘Then you’re fuckin’ mistaken,’ snarled Hoole.

‘You lot,’ complained Tiss, struggling with her armour, ‘are scary bastards.’

‘S’right,’ grunted Heel, raising the weapon to his shoulder. He leant the barrel against the schooner roof and angled it towards their assailants.

‘Ghant, Bass,’ said Galippe over the bombardment. ‘I want you to go left. Hoole and I are going right. Heel, you keep them busy until we’re in. Then stop anyone leaving.’ He paused. ‘Corporal Tiss, you stay with Heel–’

‘I’m coming.’ It didn’t feel right to lead them here and then hide away.

‘Okay, you keep close to Hoole and me.’

She picked a carbine and checked its pellet magazine, stuffing a spare in her belt. She’d lost her hat and now pulled on a helmet. Despite the spit and crack of the barrage it didn’t feel entirely real. Perhaps she was dazed or concussed.

‘When you’re ready, Officer Heel,’ called Galippe.

Heel leaned into the weapon and fired. A blue slug of rich, unrefined licht slammed into the remains of the door. The stone, its individual particles excited by this immense kick of energy, blazed redly, instantly turning molten and runny. In seconds it had melted to the ground like ice cream in the sun.

‘Go!’ hissed Galippe.

They ran for the wall either side of the spreading puddle of rock. The open entrance was shadowy and no one could be seen. No shots were fired at them.

Tiss had her back pressed against the wall. She looked right and saw Ghant throw a black object inside. There was a pop and whoosh, then he, Bass, Galippe and Hoole ran in one after the other, leaping over the fiery lava streaming in the gutter, accompanied by phuts and pings and cracks.

‘Shit,’ said Tiss, checking her own spring-loaded carbine and following.

Her eyes took time to adjust to the dark. The lock-up was larger than it had appeared from outside and it was filled with all manner of crap. There were barrels and crates stacked against walls, most smashed or ruptured. She saw a tractor with its front all dented, the cab shattered, and around it were a lot of tarpaulin-covered waist-high spherical objects. Debris littered the floor.

Seeing shadows moving ahead and unsure who or what they might be, Tiss ducked down. Her heart banged against her ribs. She wanted to see Corgan taken but she was terrified. She should have remained with Heel. Big, wall-like Heel. There was no need for this. She didn’t belong here. The squad, her own side, scared her. Their tightness a fearlessness, dismissive of any danger.  

She crept around the tractor, seeing the huge ugly shape of what could only be a forge in a corner: a stone gantry, from which hung a metal funnel, pipes and tubes. To its right rose a figure, a woman. In both hands she held a long curved stick whose back end was coiled around her shoulder like a snake. If it was a weapon, Tiss hadn’t seen its kind before. The woman wore goggles that stared coolly at Tiss, who couldn’t seem to bring up her carbine. She pointed her strange stick, which looked like it was somehow a part of her, and smiled.

The woman’s head jerked to one side and she toppled backwards. Tiss turned, having heard a crack-crack behind her, and there stood Bass.

‘Cute bait,’ Bass whispered as she stepped past Tiss to examine her kill. ‘Carrying some weird shit,’ she muttered before moving away silently.

Tiss, feeling useless and now sick, turned away from the body and found herself among the large, covered spheres. She could hear a thick hissing. She pulled back a tarpaulin, touching a smoky-shelled sphere of DeadAir which resembled a giant grey marble. Its surface, she saw, was cracked. Moving, she felt something cold and treacly dragging at her feet. The spheres were leaking, bleeding their dense, heavy air. Was this what the forge was making, DeadAir spheres? But for what purpose? She thought of the concussion and the stone door blowing out. Were they unstable? Had they been assembling a further barrier behind the door, when . . . She stumbled and fell on her hands and knees. The leaking DeadAir was a thick and gooey liquid, clinging to her hands like lumpy mud. She held her breath, getting carefully to her feet. She struggled on through the thickened air, keeping her head high.

Ahead was the forge, its metal funnel cracked. Bright, pale drops of refined licht dripped from the crack to the platform below, whose surface shone with icy brilliance. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end. This area felt preternaturally quickened, as if everything were so vibrant and alive it might fly apart any second. The air hummed with dangerous possibilities.

As she stepped closer to the forge, she saw bodies. Three of them, lying in a heap. Each wore a leather apron and gloves. Two bled from eyes, nose, mouth and ears. The last’s head was obscured by a helmet connected by tubes to the forge. Smyths. Just skinny-limbed kids who couldn’t have had forty years between them. Acned complexions told of Loop’s toxins. Even in Foundry they’d not have been let loose on a forge so young. She wondered what had killed them. She wondered what Corgan wanted with an illegal forge.

The shooting had stopped. She could hear only the hissing and squealing of the ruptured spheres. She saw Ghant and Hoole standing and pointing their weapons at the rear wall. Galippe joined them, shouting, ‘Drop the weapon.’

Tiss stepped to the side and saw Corgan. His beard was bloody and a cut on his head was bleeding heavily into his right eye. His mouth was a grimace and his right arm was hooked tightly around Bass’s upper body, holding her still. His left hand held a clear knife – a diamond blade? – to her bare throat.

‘Get away or I cut ‘er,’ he said.

‘Drop the knife and you’ll live, Corgan,’ Galippe barked back.

The man’s eyes briefly widened at hearing his name. They soon hardened again. ‘If that’s the way you want it,’ he said and deftly slit Bass’s throat.

She convulsed in his arms as blood poured from her neck.

Tiss wanted to scream out, but instead she hugged the carbine to her and breathed in and out through her nose. Control, she told herself. In and out.

‘I give ‘er a minute,’ said Corgan matter-of-factly. ‘Two, tops. Now–’

‘You always were full of shit, Willie,’ said Tiss, stepping forward.

His head snapped round and he peered one-eyed through the gloom. ‘Well fuck. It’d ‘ave to be you,’ he grinned as Bass’s blood streamed over his hand.

‘Father said you’d go one of two ways. All the way to the top or sink right to the bottom.’

‘Your old man.’ He was moving forwards and Bass was stumbling, eyes rolling horribly. ‘After the wall, he’d nothing in him but talk. Just empty air.’

‘Don’t move!’ yelled Galippe.

Corgan released his grip on Bass’s throat, so that more blood gushed out of the wound. ‘While I got her, she ain’t gonna bleed . . . much. So back off.’

Galippe and the others reluctantly retreated, weapons still aimed at Corgan.

Tiss alone kept close. ‘Made no difference which side you were on, did it?’

That got her a weary glance. ‘Guess who paid better?’ he grimaced. ‘But it weren’t that. I served thirty year. Got fed-up of getting called dirty all day.’

‘You were dirty.’ He’d got away with a lot and they’d only drummed him out after he’d physically taken his temper out on a superior officer. That they wouldn’t tolerate.

‘They looks down their noses at you. Yer brass, the citizens, even the damn Scattered. Fuckers look at you like yer shit.’ He smiled. ‘Not in this game.’

Tiss, back among the spheres, went down again. When she got up, Corgan was shuffling past the broken tractor. Bass’s tongue – pale, grey – lolled from her open mouth like a nocturnal animal emerging from its cave.

‘Is that why you were always so angry?’

Corgan pointed the knife at her. ‘Jabber, jabber. Bad as yer old man!’

They were outside. She had to keep him talking, distracted long enough for one of the others to do something. ‘He’s missed you,’ she said.

He was staring past the shot-up schooner. Reinforcements were by now arriving at the other end of the street. He sagged, turning to her. ‘What?’

She was close now – nearly within striking distance of that knife. She’d dropped her gun inside and her hands were cradled protectively against her chest. ‘My father. When you vanished the get togethers soon stopped.’

Corgan stared at her like she was mad. Bass was a dead-weight now, had clearly lost consciousness, and he was struggling to hold her up. He swayed.

The others had fanned out in the street. They each had a clear shot – it was only a matter of time before someone took it. ‘Tiss, stay back,’ warned Ghant.

‘He went to pieces after that.’ She took another step closer to him, to his knife. ‘So did the others. Doc, Max, even Victor. The pain got too much.’

Corgan’s unbloodied eye stared. ‘Catches up with you in the end,’ he said.

Crack!

He grunted and stumbled back, the hand that had been holding the knife a mess of red. Bass slid out from under his arm, slumping to the ground.

Tiss threw herself forward. Her hands clutched at the shifting cloudy mass she’d been carrying and she slowly brought both down onto Bass’s throat. Kneading the sticky, spongy DeadAir, she tried to seal the wound.

‘On your knees!’ Galippe shouted.

The blood kept coming – more, the harder she pressed. It wouldn’t stop.

Crack! ‘I was down, you bastards!’ screamed Corgan.

She freed her hands. Was the bleeding slowing? It looked like it was.

‘Tiss,’ called Ghant urgently, ‘how is she?’

Gasping raggedly, Tiss was checking Bass’s breathing with difficulty.

There was a scuffle and a yelp, then Hoole growled, ‘She dead, you dead.’

Her face looked so pale and still, as if it were carved out of thin bone.

‘Ghant, Hoole, step back. That’s an order.’

The bleeding had stopped. Tiss, feeling cold inside, turned away.

The crack of each shot was like a bolt slamming home on a closed door.

(c) Colin Brush, 2016