Atomic Underworld: Part One (8 page)

“That’s
right.”

“Three?”
said another. He appeared pained.

“That’s
right.” Tavlin wished he’d had the presence of mind to throw his gun overboard.
When they searched the boat they would find it, and it might not be too
dissimilar from the one that killed the fishermen, if they were really dead, and
he didn’t see how they couldn’t be if they’d been firing on his attackers but
his attackers were still alive. He’d heard other guns, though. Maybe the people
aboard the pursuing boat had opened up with types of guns different from his
own.

The
guards’ thinking was going along different lines, however.

“Might
be we never saw you,” mused the first one. He eyed the briefcase speculatively.

Tavlin
fingered the blood trickling down his arm. He didn’t have time for this.
Already he felt dizzy. “I don’t have any money. This—” he rattled the briefcase
“—there’s nothing of value here to anyone but me.” He shook his head. Spots
were starting to form in his vision.

“Maybe
Boss Vassas is willing to fork something over,” said the second guard.

“Yeah,”
said another, then added, “If this
hume
isn’t full of
shit.” He peered out into the mist. “
Hud
and Wally
were out there. Wally took his son. If they’re all dead …”

“Shit,”
said the third one. He removed his cap and placed it over his heart. To Tavlin,
he said, “If you killed Wally, I ain’t
takin
’ no
bribe.”

“
I
didn’t,” Tavlin said. “The muggers
did. But just to clear up any suspicion, Boss Vassas will donate something to
your favorite local charity. He’ll even give you the money with the
understanding that you turn it to over to them yourself, if you see what I mean.
I’m sorry about the fishermen—maybe some of them made it. You should send a
patrol out to hunt the ones who did this.” He swayed. “Listen, I need a doctor.
Let’s work this out later.”

They
exchanged more glances. The first one said, “I’ll take ‘
im
to Doc
Sarn
and put ‘
im
up
somewhere. In the morning I’ll send someone over Muscud-way and see what we can
see about Boss Vassas. If ‘
e’s
game, ‘
e’s
game.”

The
others nodded. One added, “And
if’s
not, we’ll have
to start thinkin’ about
pressin
’ charges.”

Another
grunted. “Guess we’d better take a look at the bodies. Maybe someone’s still
alive.”

*

The
first guard showed Tavlin through town toward the doctor’s.

“Welcome
to Taluush,” he said. “I’m Sergeant Wales. Of the Night Watch.”

Tavlin
nodded. “There’s no Night Watch in Muscud. Different sectors hire their own,
ah, guards.” He’d been about to say goons. “We only have one police officer.”

“Yeah.
Mirely
. I know ‘
im
.” He
spat. “Straight as a hunchback.”

“Yes.
Very different from here, I’m sure.”

Sgt.
Wales raised a hairless eyebrow. One corner of his lips hooked upward, and a
glint of amusement shone in his eye. “
Quite
different,” was all he said.

They
passed into the town, and Tavlin beheld strange dwellings he’d never seen the
like of before. They appeared as if they had been secreted or drooled by some
insect. They comprised most of the ground level, and he felt as though he were
walking through some massive hive. They were round, yellow-gray
lumpen
things with no visible apertures. Thick black hoses
sprouted from their sides, and he could hear the chugging of generators.
Taluush was a vertical city, and Tavlin saw that more normal,
human
habitations comprised the upper
levels, with a sort of buffer of shops and hanging plazas separating this lower
level from the sections above.

Sgt.
Wales saw his amazement. “You’ve never been to Taluush before? No? Surely
you’ve heard about it.”

“Just
rumors. Something about one of the old races, but I never thought ...”

Sgt.
Wales gestured expansively to the hive-like structures that occupied the first
level. They were clustered along wide canals, and they glistened in the red
light like giant cocoons. “We’re right on top of the Rifts, y’know? Whoever
built this section of the sewer used a natural system of underground rivers,
and some of them have chasms that plunge all the way down to some underground sea
or lake or
somesuch
, I don't know. Well, the G’zai
lived down there. Still do. In some black ocean, can you imagine? One of the
pre-human races. Never had much doings with us. There
usedta
be a bunch of disappearances, people said they caused them, but who knows?”

“What
are they doing up here, then?”

Tavlin
and the sergeant were passing over a bridge between concentrations of the
cocoon-like dwellings, making for a ramp that spiraled toward the upper levels.
Though weak, Tavlin couldn’t help but look over the side of the bridge into the
water, imagining the bed of the cistern chamber, a natural lake bed if the
sergeant wasn’t bullshitting him, and the black rift that led down gods knew
how deep to some prehistoric sea. Ancient seas linking up with sewer systems
linking up with the strange energies of the Atomic Sea ... it would all make
for a heady brew. He didn’t want to imagine the creatures that might live in
it, that might have developed a
culture
in it.

“We
trade with ‘em,” Sgt. Wales added.

“
Trade
? What could you possibly have to
trade? Do they even have hands?”

“Oh,
you’ll see them, you stay here long enough. They come out sometimes. But yeah,
we trade. They have certain chemicals our alchemists use. Maybe they secrete
them, or spit them, or, well, I don’t know and not sure I want to. Our
alchemists grow all sorts of weird plants in our gardens. You’ve heard of the
Gardens of Taluush? Well, the G’zai trade for our blooms and fruits. Maybe they
eat ‘em, use ‘em in their rituals, whatever. We use their chems, they use our
greens, we try not to kill each other.” He rolled his shoulders. “Been this way
for a long time.”

“We
have something similar in Muscud, with the Ualissi, but they stay in their own
quarter. They’re part aquatic, too, but they’re from some chain of islands near
the equator—or they were. The islands vanished long ago, destroyed by some
enemies of the Ualissi, I’ve heard, and the Ualissi scattered to all corners of
the globe, always seeking out the darkest corners they could find—in hiding from
whoever did it, I suppose.”

“I’ve
heard of the Ualissi. The G’zai don’t like them. Old foes of some sort, though
not likely the one that sank their islands.”

“You
get along with the G’zai?”

“We
try. They’re not like us. There’s always some in town, though—their ambassadors
or merchants. Workers. You’ll see.”

Wales
showed Tavlin up the spiraling ramp, which led up a thick tower constructed of
scrap metal, wood, debris and lots and lots of wire. Rooms like caverns opened
from it. The towers of Taluush rose up to the ceiling, all connected by swaying
bridges and ropes and chains. Some ropes and chains held aloft large platforms
upon which people congregated, but for the main part Tavlin saw activity in the
shops and taverns. Actual dwellings seemed to be clustered higher above, as far
as the human and human-like inhabitants of Taluush could get from the G’zai.
Looking down, Tavlin saw that there were doorways mounted in the top of the
G’zai’s hive structures, and the sergeant informed him that the hives were
filled with water; the pipes and hoses Tavlin had seen created a suction that
pulled up the water from the cistern lake; other pipes purified it. The G’zai
came and went via entrances in the hives’ bases and tops. Tavlin looked for the
G’zai themselves but saw nothing but mutants and the occasional uninfected
human ambling about the city.

Traffic
was slow this early in the morning, but it was starting to pick up.
Lamp-lighters brightened the lamps already lit and sparked others of whiter
hue, bringing an illumination not unlike dawn to Taluush. Music crackled from
cobbled-together radios, the signal poor through so many layers of concrete.
Tavlin knew Muscud boasted a radio station, a little one-room affair, but he
didn’t hear the familiar tones of Raging Marv, so maybe the signal didn’t
reach.

He
clutched his wound with his right hand, feeling blood seep between his fingers.
Meanwhile the fingers of his left hand, which held the suitcase, steadily grew
numb. He supposed he was leaving a trail of blood behind him.

“Here
we are.”

Sgt.
Wales showed him into one of the yawning openings on the tower, under a sign
that blinked on and off:
CL
NIC
, one of the
letters burned out. It smelled of mold and antiseptic, and the light in here
seemed a sort of green, the walls an unpleasant greenish-yellow. A fly buzzed
about the ceiling lamp.

A
receptionist with fish-lips and seaweed hair looked up from her dime romance.
“First one of the day.”

“Is
Doc
Sarn
in?” Wales asked.

“This
early? But there’s a nurse.”

She
rang a bell. A figure stepped out of the back room and Tavlin felt warm, firm
hands guiding him forwards. He was distinctly faint now, and everything seemed
faded, washed-out. Sgt. Wales’s voice seemed to come from miles away.

Tavlin
was shoved onto a bed, and the nurse rolled up his sleeve. When that didn’t get
the sleeve up far enough, she produced a pair of scissors, but Tavlin waved
them away. He only had one set of clothes on him. Reluctantly, she helped him
out of his leather jacket, then his shirt.

It
was as she bent to analyze his wound that he was able to focus long enough to
get a look at her, and when he did he thought he had passed out for sure.

It can’t be ...

She
was far away, in one of the distant cities Maya had mentioned. She was gone,
far gone, and there was no getting her back. And ... a nurse?

She
crystallized before him, becoming real.

Their
eyes met.

His
heart stopped. Then, slowly, started. His head swam.

“Sophia
...”

“Yes,
it’s me, you son of a bitch. Now what have you done to yourself?”

“Easy,
now.” He winced as she sewed up his arm. He had lost a good deal of blood—the
bullet had nicked a vessel—but she had sewn it up without Doctor Sarn’s help,
for apparently he was sleeping off a drunk somewhere, and she was closing up
the wound herself. With a little too much relish, he thought. “Go in a straight
line, for Gam’s sake. That’s crooked as a con.”

“You’re
drunk.”

It
was true. She had no anesthetic except for a bottle of cheap vodka, and he
drank with his free arm while she operated. His head reeled, and he felt
nauseous.

“Who,
me?” He blinked. “Where’s the sergeant?”

“You
didn’t notice? He left awhile ago. Said he had to go check on your story.”

Tavlin
burped. “Let him. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

She
raised her eyebrows, and as he looked once more into her face he was reminded
how beautiful she was. She had been even more beautiful in her prime, back when
he had met her and courted her, but she was still lovely now, after years of
whoring, addiction, recovery, one disastrous marriage, and Jameson ... She had
blue-green eyes, dark red hair that normally fell in curls to her shoulders but
which was tied up behind her head at the moment, wide full lips and a slightly
upturned, impish nose. Her cheekbones were high, bold, her neck long and
slender. She had strong hands and a strong, slender, womanly body, now covered
in a stained nurses’ uniform that was covered in patches and scratches and
looked handed-down.

Her
eyes were steady. “If you’ve got nothing to hide, what’s in the briefcase?”

He
smiled, feeling the vodka. “My laundry.”

She
sniffed, went back to sewing. “Stolen money, probably. Or your gambling
proceeds, not that there’s any difference these days. I’ve heard about what
you’ve been up to.”

“What
have you heard?” Except it came out
Whaddaoo
‘
eard
?

She
didn’t look up, but he felt a sharp tug. “You’ve been cheating the uppers.
Getting kicked out of club after club.” She gave another sharp tug, and he
tried to resist a wince.

He
downed another sip, but slowly this time.

“Well?”
she said. “You don’t have some smart answer to that?”

He
said nothing.

She
sighed. One more sharp, painful tug, and then she rose and rinsed off her
hands. The doctor’s office used a heavy filter for its water, and it was
actually clear enough to see through, though Tavlin still wouldn’t touch the
stuff.

“Well?”
she demanded with her back turned to him. “What are you doing here, shot up and
with some mysterious laundry case?”

“The
usual. Favor for Boss Vassas.”

“So
you’re back in the racket, then?”

“I
didn’t say that.”

“What
did you say?” she said.

“Favor.
As in temporary.”

“It’s
gonna be permanent, you catch another bullet.”

“I’ll
remember that.”

He
mounted to his feet, feeling the shaking in his legs. How far could he go?
“Thanks for the treatment. I’ll come back when I can pay you.”

“I
don’t want your money. I never did.”

“I
guess not. You coulda made much more if you hadn’t married me and started
giving it away for free.”

She
turned her head to him. “Maybe I should start collecting back-payments on that.
It was never a real marriage anyway.”

That
stung. As if aware of it, she looked away. He grunted, knocked back one last
swig and set the vodka down. “Tell Sgt. Wales I’ll find him.”

With
that, he staggered from the clinic. She didn’t stop him, didn’t say a word.
Outside it seemed colder than it had before, even with the added press of
people and the brighter lights. Her words echoed in his ears, and he felt
something clench deep inside.

How could she say that?

He
tried to shrug it off. Briefcase in hand, he marched away from the clinic, but
it came out as more of a prolonged stumble. People eyed him with distaste as he
passed them. Even down here, it was too early to be drunk. The briefcase seemed
heavy. He thought his curiosity was making it even heavier, the weight of all
his expectations. Although in truth he didn’t know what to expect. The
Octunggen, if that’s what they’d been, had stolen strange, ancient jewelry,
maybe other things, and they had done something to them at the factory in
Muscud. If the contents of the briefcase represented the fruit of their labors,
it could be very valuable indeed.

Tavlin
decided he would catch up with Sgt. Wales later. If word didn’t arrive from
Boss Vassas, Tavlin would have to chew the slug and pay the cops himself, if
they really demanded it (and since there was no one else to be held accountable
for the murders and he was partially responsible, they might), and the doctor’s
office, too. He still had half his gambling proceeds. The other half rested in
the lockbox in his room at the Twirling Skirt ... along with one other, very
important item. At any rate, he’d prefer not to use his own money if he could
help it.

He’d
need to use a little, though.

He
lurched into a hotel, which comprised a section of one of the twisted
scrap-heap towers, like functional junk art—about five floors, from what he
could tell, with windows and terraces jutting out irregularly from it and a
blazing neon sign that proclaimed
THE LAVISH
. With high hopes based on the name, Tavlin entered
only to find a rundown, seedy dive, albeit with colorful if tacky trimmings.
Pink chairs, gold-leaf-framed mirrors, once-expensive carpets that should be
burned for public health, a chandelier sporting more cracked crystals than
whole ones. The man at the counter snored loudly, a big fat hairy fellow with
bristling sideburns. A light spattering of wine-colored spots on his cheek was his
only visible mutation. He jerked awake when Tavlin rang the bell.

“Gods
be cornholed!” he said, eyes popping open.

Tavlin
grinned what he hoped was an appropriately seedy grin. “Room for the night.”

“Bit
early, innit?”

“You
complaining?”

The
man eyed him up and down. “You can pay?”

Tavlin
always separated his cash into different pockets in case they got picked, and
now he reached into one and flicked a few coins on the desk. They made
satisfyingly loud noises as they rolled and plinked.

The
desk jockey watched them as if they were alien things. “Surface money.”

“You
won’t take it?”

A
slightly cagey look entered the man’s face. “Oh. Well. I suppose ... just this
once ...” He scooped the coins off the counter and counted them, seeming to
savor every chink and rasp. He glanced up with guarded interest. “Just the one
night?”

“We’ll
see.”

For
the first time, the man smiled. He leapt to his feet, snatched a key off the
wall behind him, and said, “Right this way, sir.” He showed Tavlin up a flight
of stairs, which was tight and winding. The boards trembled underfoot, and the
air stank of rot. The deskman showed him to a room on the third story. The door
swung into a small, somewhat crooked chamber whose window frame actually
crooked in the opposite direction from the rest of the room. Fleshy, peeling
wallpaper adorned the walls, and the heart-shaped bed took up most of the room.

“It
vibrates,” the man leered.

“I’m
sure.” Tavlin tipped him, and the man grinned wider.

“Let
me know if there’s anything you need. A girlie, maybe. Or a boy. And we got
things inbetween and others, too. There’s this bearded squid-thing, and I mean
to say—”

“Thank
you.”

The
man frowned, shrugged and left. Tavlin closed the door after him. Then, with no
further ado, he locked the door and flung the briefcase on the bed.

“Now,
let’s see about you.”

A
thief before a gambler, he tackled the lock with skill. It had been made
sturdily but not sturdily enough to resist an experienced burglar. Tavlin
unlocked it in minutes, and then, barely containing his excitement, pried it
open. The briefcase yawned like a great mouth, shadow falling away only slowly
to reveal what was inside.

Within
lay a canister of gunmetal gray, gleaming dully, strapped to the bottom to
prevent it from shaking. In shape it resembled a thermos, but larger. It looked
heavy. Industrial. Tavlin frowned at it. What had the factory men put in there?
It was obviously something of great import to them. Curious, he reached a hand
toward it ...

At
first all he felt was coldness, radiating out from the canister. Later, he was
unsure of what happened next exactly, but he thought he remembered touching the
canister’s surface, and the burning cold sensation that flowed up his fingers,
through his hand. What happened after that was completely a blur, but through
the blur he distinctly remembered an overwhelming sensation of fear and horror,
and senseless images wheeled through his head. He left his right mind for some
time. He came to himself gibbering and clutching at himself on the floor, knees
drawn up to his chest, in the corner. Spittle sprayed from his trembling lips.
He stared rigidly at the canister, which he could just barely see over the lip
of the briefcase. Gooseflesh prickled his arms, and his scrotum had contracted
so far up into him that it was painful. His teeth chattered, and his stomach
spasmed. If he’d had anything in it, he would have retched.

Knocking
from the door. He started, heart racing.

More
knocking. His eyes swiveled to the door. The banging on it grew indignant, and he
could hear swearing from the other side, a jingle of keys.

Collecting
himself, he stood—shakily—and crossed to the door. He swept his hair back, took
a deep breath, and opened it.

The
deskman, holding a set of keys, glared at him. “Neighbor a’ yours said you woke
him screaming.”

“
Wh
—? Oh. Uh ...”

“Whatcha
doin’?” The man’s eyes left Tavlin, and he scanned the room suspiciously, his
gaze lingering on the briefcase and the canister, narrowing, then moving on, at
last returning to Tavlin, irritated and mistrustful.

By
then Tavlin had collected himself, more or less. “B-burned myself on the
coffee. In the thermos. Sorry I screamed.”

The
man stared. Tavlin imagined his haggard appearance, circles under his eyes,
hair unwashed, fingers shaking, skin whiter than bone, pores clearly visible.
He would look like a junkie.

He
said what a junkie would say: “It won’t happen again.”

The
man grunted, but he seemed relieved at the answer, as if he’d been able to
pigeonhole Tavlin at last. “Better not.” Still he lingered for a moment.

Tavlin
sighed and handed him another few coins. The man nodded without a word and
left. Shaking, Tavlin closed the door after him, then rested against the door.

He
turned and stared at the briefcase.

What are you, now?

He
breathed deep, closed his eyes and counted to ten. Then, opening his eyes, he
marched to the case, snapped it shut, removed it from the bed, and shoved
pillows under the sheets to make a form resembling a sleeping man.

Satisfied,
he crossed to the tilted porthole-like window, which opened under his touch,
and breathed in the heady reek of Taluush: spices and sewage, rust and oil, sex
and musk. It seemed like a long way to the ground, even though it was only a
few stories. Tavlin told himself to man up, then swung himself outside and
scaled down the façade of the hotel, ignoring the stares of pedestrians below.
He clutched the briefcase between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand.
The bullet wound ached when he moved his arm, but it was bearable. The effects
of the vodka were beginning to make his head throb.

He
lit on the sidewalk, glanced around—several mutants stared openly at him, but the
majority were oblivious; this was the underworld, after all—and made his way
through the streets. It was important that the deskman not see him go. That way
he could tell whoever came for Tavlin that he was in his room, where he should
be. When he was some distance away, Tavlin bought himself a sandwich—his
spasming stomach almost heaved it up—and popped a pollution pill just to be sure,
even though the meat was supposed to be mutton, which should be safe.

He
searched for a whorehouse. He tried four before he found one that would take
him in. It was located on a branching outgrowth of one of the junkheap towers,
suspended by cables and chains from the cistern ceiling—so close to the ceiling
that queer stalactites drooped past it, flails sucking on them, armies of bats
just visible as dripping black fruit from the grime-encrusted surface.
Scaffolding supported the sidewalks of the branch, which was known as the
Singh-Hiss, he learned, and mutants kept up a steady traffic on both avenues
that ran along either side, though the sidewalks were too uneven and fragile
for motorcycles, and the branch was not strictly horizontal even though it joined
the tower it sprouted from perpendicularly.