Atomic Underworld: Part One (9 page)

Tavlin
entered the whorehouse from the sidewalk entrance, under a sign which ran
PLE SURE GA
DEN!!! GI LS AND MOR !!!
and into a lounge of trashy red hell—dusty red plastic chairs, couches and
red-painted walls. Perhaps it was supposed to look opulent or kitschy, but
instead it resembled an abattoir. At this hour, only two young women lounged on
the couches, and they snored loudly. The madam was actually a skinny,
nervous-looking man with an equally skinny, nervous mustache that continually
twitched back and forth like a rabbit’s whiskers. He wore an albino
alligator-skin jacket (the alligator caught down here, surely) over a black
shirt tucked into blood-red jeans which matched the walls. It was an ugly outfit
that was supposed to be showy, and the poor man looked awkward in it. He looked
just plain awkward, actually, and he jumped at every sound. His eyes flicked
back and forth as Tavlin asked him for a room, but when he saw the color of
Tavlin’s cash the eyes steadied, and he smiled widely, revealing jagged yellow
teeth, and said, “Why, yes, actually we have the perfect room—if you don’t mind
a little noise.”

Tavlin,
dead on his feet, just blinked slowly at him. “I wouldn’t mind a hurricane.”

Five
minutes later saw him in a small room with a view overlooking the towers and
occasionally interlocked stalactites of the city. The sounds of the first john
of the day enjoying a morning
toff
from a room
directly above did not affect his sleep in the slightest, though he did have to
deal with the briefcase first, and his dreams were anything but pleasant.

*

He woke
with a screaming head and more screaming coming from overhead. The ceiling
banged with the rhythms of a rocking bed frame, and moans and grunts and yells
filtered down through the layers of junkyard construction—and it really did
look as if the pieces had come from a junkyard. Numerous hubcaps glittered from
the walls and ceiling by the light of the alchemical lantern, and Tavlin saw
rods of steel and car doors sewn into the fabric of the walls, along with
things that might have been rusted engine blocks, the mashed frame of a sofa,
two-by-fours stolen from a construction site and a chipped gargoyle. Here there
was a broken radio, there half a fan. All mashed together and bound by wire and
luck, like most cities of the underworld. With the noises of what seemed like a
rowdy three-or foursome overhead, Tavlin got himself together and made plans
for the day.

First
he visited a pay washroom down the street—you had to pay for clean water down
here, even if it was stolen through hijacked plumbing from the world above.
Afterwards he ate an egg sandwich with another pollution pill and smoked a
large bowl on a coffee shop terrace that looked out over the city. Activity of
all sorts stirred below, and he saw by the clock tower—carved out of a
down-dripping stalactite, with an ornate stained-glass façade, lit by alchemy
within and inset with wrought-iron numbers and clock hands—that it was late
afternoon. Good. He wondered if the people hunting him had found his
pillow-self yet. Were they even now combing the streets for him? Safest to
assume so.

Traffic
buzzed around him in the café, mutants going about their daily lives, and he
found himself scanning the faces with suspicion. The smells of their foods,
coffees and smokes helped mask their sometimes fishy odors and the musky
fragrance of the alchemical lamps designed to drive back the worse reek of
sewage, and he welcomed them.

The
briefcase by his leg seemed to throb, and with each pulse his headache flared
anew. The container was wrong, its contents somehow abominable. He could feel
its presence by the shrinking of his skin, by the bitterness on his tongue. Its
nearness made him nervous, his palms clammy, his mouth dry. He had only been
able to sleep at the whorehouse by moving the briefcase into the closet and
barricading the door with a chair.

He
loathed it. He
feared
it. He knew he
had to get rid of it.

There
was no way he could tolerate being in constant contact with it, or
near-contact. Also, the risk of his enemies taking it off of him was too great.
Part of him wanted to unscrew the container’s cap and pour its contents into
the sewer, but somehow he sensed that would be a mistake. It might kill everything
in the undercities, or worse. Gods knew what the container actually held.
Octunggen technology and engineering was said to be absolutely otherworldly. If
they had devised whatever was in the container with their skill, coupled with
the stolen jewelry—and alchemy—from some lost pre-human civilization ...

He
found himself staring at the briefcase, fascinated, repulsed. He realized he
had drawn his body as far away from it as he could get without leaving his
chair.

“Enough,”
he said, not caring if anyone heard.

He
rose, paid the waitress, took the briefcase (with a shudder) and made his way
through the city streets, hunting for the police station. He stopped and asked
for directions, then continued on his way, pressing down through the levels
toward the mid-point of the vertical city. He had yet to see any of the
non-human G’zai, though in truth it was hard to tell, with everyone being so
inhuman already.

He
stopped when he saw a group of people congregating around a certain café. It
seemed as if all the traffic on the block had ceased, and everyone had gathered
to the eatery, all pressed together. In fact, Tavlin couldn’t even hear any
city noises any more, or at least very few of them. It was as if the entire
town had shut down.

Curious,
alarmed, he made for the press of people. “What’s—?” he started, but a
lobster-like individual hissed him to quietude, accentuating his request with a
snap of a barnacled pincer. Others turned to glare at Tavlin.

He
realized he was hearing a crackling voice coming from ahead, from within the
press of people. It was a voice from a radio, straining to receive signals from
the world above. It was this voice that everyone was trying to hear. Frowning,
he listened in.

“
... and now action. The Minister’s comments ... wait. I am just getting an
update.” The clipped, crisp voice of the announcer paused, then: “Yes, we have
confirmation from correspondents at the
Nythril
Star
,
backing up what the government of
Sorvelle
has just
confirmed. The army of Octung has indeed invaded Vrusk, the critical Orzafan
border city along the
Rulehain
. Reports claim that
bombers first took out the military base in the
Edrid
region, accompanied by a strange bombing run on both military and civilian
centers that appears, and this is according to numerous eyewitnesses who have
only seen the event from afar—and yet appear to be factual—
the bombs seem to have suspended time in the affected districts.
That’s
right, folks, those in the areas hit by the bombs are now in the grip of some
sort of
suspended animation
, stuck in
the middle of doing whatever they were about when the bombs dropped. They sit
helpless and immobile as the tanks and soldiers and military apparatuses of
Octung sweep down upon them. Octunggen technology has long been rumored to ...”

Numb,
Tavlin staggered back, feeling suddenly sick. He barely heard the announcer
continue detailing the events of the attack until he finished and said, “Here
is a clip from the press announcement by our own Prime Minister Denaris just
fifteen minutes ago.” A woman’s cool, methodical voice crackled over the radio:
“Octung has declared war on Orzaf, and with the eminent fall of Vrusk I
anticipate hearing news of Orzaf’s surrender shortly. This is unlikely to be
the end of hostilities, however. Brace yourselves, fellow citizens. Even now
Octunggen forces are mobilizing along the
Saenth
and
Murascan
borders. This is the news we have long waited
for—and dreaded. Octung has finally launched its war.”

*

Shaking,
Tavlin lit another pipe and continued through the city, seeking the police
station. He was still trembling when he came upon it. The cops were all huddled
around their desk wrestling with a radio when he entered, and as he approached
them the police officer with the screwdriver stepped back from the radio, and
the same announcer’s voice rang out, crackly and hissing but audible: “ ... ‘
epeat
, confirmation has just arrived that the Premier of
Orzaf has suspended all defensive measures against Octung, and an Orzafan envoy
has been dispatched to treat with the Octunggen generals. The centuries-old and
stalwart army of Orzaf, famed throughout Urslin for its cavalry, is, it seems,
unable to stand against the overwhelming military might and sophisticated
technology of the Lightning Crown. Meanwhile I have just received word,
unconfirmed as yet, that hostilities have began in
Saen
.”

The
announcer continued, but the man fiddling with the radio turned down the volume
in disgust. "Fuck this. Fuck it all."

A
large, round-bellied figure appeared through a doorway—Sgt. Wales. “Hey, I was
listening to that! Turn it back on.”

The
cop with the screwdriver grumbled but complied. The announcer’s grim voice
filled the room once more. Before Wales could become absorbed in his litany of
doom, however, Tavlin approached the sergeant and said, “Have you made contact
with Boss Vassas?”

Sgt.
Wales blinked, as if trying to remember what the subject had been, then glanced
Tavlin over, ran his eyes to the briefcase and nodded. “Aye, it’s all sorted
out.”

“Good.”
That would save Tavlin some money, at least.

Sgt.
Wales frowned at him, then clapped him on the shoulder and drew him aside,
conspiratorially. Tavlin feared the sergeant would try to extract more
consideration from him and mentally tightened his purse-strings.

“Yes?”
He tried not to sound impatient.

“That
girl o’ yours. What’d you do to her?”

“Girl?”
For a wild moment he thought Wales referred to the ghostly figure last seen
chasing him through the sewers. But he instantly realized that couldn’t be
right. “You mean … Sophia? I didn’t do anything.”

“Yeah?
Well, I tried to pay her
fer
fixin
’
you up an’ all. Only she wouldn’t take it. When was the last time you heard of
a dollie like that
turnin
’ down money?”

“She’s
a nurse, not a dollie.”

“They’re
all the same. Me, I like nurses. I like them short skirts. An’ I like a girl
with access to drugs, if y’know what I mean. Medicinal, o’ course. But that
ain’t the point.”

“What’s
the point?”

“I
looked her in the eye, like I’m lookin’ at you now, and she’s
starin
’ back at me, just like you are, and you know what
she says?”

Tavlin
waited, then said, “What did she say?”

“She
says, ‘I wouldn’t take his money if grabbing it were the only thing keeping me
from falling on a bed of rusty nails.’ I say, well, it ain’t his money, it came
from Boss Vassas, and if you don’t want it that’s fine, more for me, and she
says, ‘Keep it and choke on it.’ Now, not too many people can say that t’ Sgt.
Wales, but I let it pass because she’s got knockers that could put your eye
out—and wouldn’t that be a good way to go blind?—but I think you’d better call
on her. Taluush needs a good doctor. It don’t have one, or if it does he’s at
the bottom of a bottle most nights. She’s the best we got, medicine-wise, an’ I
want her in top working order. Only whatever you said to her last night’s got
her all riled up, you know how women are.”

“I
wish I did.”

“Just
call on her.”

Tavlin
changed the subject. "Did any of those fishermen live?"

Wales
let out a long breath. "Little Wally lasted awhile, but ... no. All of 'em
dead. I just came back from calling on Big Wally’s widow. She didn’t take it
well. Husband and son gone in one swoop like that.
Horch
didn’t have no family, no one to call on. No
one’ll
be at his service. Somehow I think that’s even sadder."

"I'm
sorry,” Tavlin said honestly. “Did you catch the killers?"

Wale’s
face darkened. “Never did. By the way ...” He produced a gun from his coat and
passed it to Tavlin, who tensed before recognizing it as his own. “Might want
this back. We tested it. Wasn’t the gun killed
Horch
and the
Wallys
.”

“Would
it have mattered? I mean, with the money from Boss Vassas?” Tavlin was
genuinely curious.

Sgt.
Wales gave him a wounded look. “I’m liable to take offense at that.”

“Yeah,
you’re a regular humanitarian.”

*

Tavlin left
the police station and purchased bullets at a nearby gun store. Everywhere he
went people huddled around radios, if they could get them to work, or
congregated in city squares or shops where runners relayed the latest news if
they couldn’t. Tavlin wondered what Octung’s designs were. They had launched
their war at the same time their agents—if agents they were—reached some sort
of critical phase at the factory in Muscud, culminating in the contents of the
container. Or so Tavlin reasoned it. Were the two connected? Was the Octunggen
presence in Ghenisa part of a larger plan?