Of Metal and Wishes (24 page)

MY FATHER AND I JOG
down the hall with the stretcher, and I focus on my strides because it feels like my legs have turned to jelly. A group of men waits at the end of the hallway, and they are all talking at once. Ebian waves his arms as we approach, and they part for us. I bow my head. From behind me, I hear a low hiss, and I know it is directed at me. This is Ebian’s crew, the ones who hate the Noor and hate me, too, because I am the Noor-lover.

The door to the killing floor has been propped open with a cattle prod. As we approach it, Ebian says to my father, “We don’t know how to get him down.”

As I turn the corner and peer through the doorway, the first thing I notice is how abandoned it looks, how quiet. My father stops dead and looks up, and so do I.

Mugo is hanging from the meat hooks.

I back up a step. He’s been cut open from neck to groin, and this is not the work of any spider. It’s a neat incision, not a messy tear. His head is tilted back, looking up at the ceiling, like he can’t bear what’s going on below. But really, he’s not bearing anything. He’s obviously dead.

“You need to call the regional police,” my father says to Ebian. “There is nothing I can do for him. When did you find him?”

Ebian speaks from just outside the door; I think he’s at risk for vomiting again. “I was in the cafeteria and heard the system fire up; I came in here because I was afraid of sabotage, and there he was. He was moving, I think. Could he still be alive?”

My father shakes his head and points to the floor below Mugo. His finger is trembling even though his voice is steady. “If his heart were beating, he’d be bleeding. It looks like he was already dead when he was hung up there, because there’s no mess on the floor. Only that.”

“What are you talking about?” asks Ebian as he steps past my father to see what he’s pointing at. I peek around my father’s back. Written in big block letters on the killing floor, in what I assume is Mugo’s blood, it says:

THIS IS TYRANNY’S REWARD. BOSSES BEWARE.

Behind me I feel the heat of the men’s bodies as they crowd the doorway. At first everything is quiet, but then their voices rise slowly, repeating the phrase over and over like a sparking flame traveling along a fuse.

And then it explodes.

“It’s the Noor!” yells one man. “They did this!”

A shout erupts from the knot of workers, and at first Ebian actually tries to calm things down. “We have to call the regional police! This is a murder!”

“They’ll take a day to arrive!” Iyzu is standing at the front of the group, red faced. He glances at me with pure contempt, his lips curled into a snarl. “We know exactly who did this!”

“Call the others!” Lati shouts, his bruised face flushed with excitement. “We’ll search their dorms ourselves!”

The men have become a mob, yelling among themselves, making plans to gather their numbers and storm the Noor dorms.

Then I hear something that freezes my insides completely. “We saw the red one fighting with Mugo this afternoon!”

As the arguing goes on, whipping their rage into a frenzy, I turn to my father, who is ashen faced and wide eyed, and say the only thing in my mind. “I have to go.”

“No,” he says, reaching for me. “This is too dangerous.”

“I have to.” I run before he can grab me.

I don’t even try to plow through the mob, because I know they would stop me. They are so busy bickering and planning, though, that I have no trouble skirting around the side of the killing floor and going through the plastic flaps to the little room between the floor and the cafeteria. There’s no one here except for a few cafeteria workers, including Minny, who gives me a startled look as I run past the empty tables, out to the area by Bo’s altar, around the back of the crowd, and out the door. I lift my skirts and sprint through the square, up the path to the Noor dorms.

I don’t know if they did this. I can’t even begin to think of who would be angry enough at Mugo to kill him like that. Or maybe there are so many people that I can’t think of who wouldn’t. But justice won’t be done like this, with a mob gathering to destroy the Noor.

I wrench the door to the dorm open and run along the hallway, shouting, “Get up, get up!”

The Noor appear in their doorways, peering at me with curiosity. They don’t try to stop me as I barge along. “Melik! Sinan!” I call.

They step out of their room at the end of the hall, and Melik pushes through a few of the others to get to me. “What’s wrong?”

“Mugo’s been murdered. They think one of you did it. There’s a crowd and they’re gathering more. They’re coming for you.”

I watch him carefully, but he gives me nothing to hold on to, no sign of innocence or guilt. He simply lifts his head and shouts in Noor, and all of them stop for a second, staring at him. He waves his arms to set them into motion and pushes Sinan ahead of him, then grabs the sleeve of one of the older Noor and barks an order at him. The older Noor puts his arm over Sinan’s shoulders and whisks him down the hallway.

Melik turns back to me. “We’re going. There is no way we will find justice here.” He pauses, like he’s at war with himself, like for once he is not sure of his words. And then he just says, “Go.”

He hustles me down the corridor toward the exit, but the Noor are knotted together in the narrow space, tossing one another supplies, shouting instructions back and forth, all trying to go at once. Melik and I are all the way at the back, and we are trapped. He spins and looks around him. “I have to get you out,” he mutters.

From the front of the building we hear the first sounds of fighting, shouts and cries and heavy thuds. Melik pushes me behind him and backtracks.

“Do you think you could fit through one of the windows?” he asks.

He puts his arm around me and swings me into one of the rooms as the fighting outside goes on. It sounds like the entire ramshackle building is going to come down around our ears. If the mob thought they could roll through the Noor like a tidal wave, they were very mistaken.

Melik yanks on the metal frame of the window, but I will never fit through that tiny space. “Don’t,” I say. “It won’t work.”

He snaps something in Noor and grabs for my hand, tugging me back into the hallway. Most of the Noor are out, but the sounds of men fighting are right outside the door. It’s a full-scale riot. The factory square is a battleground.

“Stay behind me, and when we get out into the open, run,” Melik says, and leads me toward the stairwell.

That’s when we hear the crash behind us.

The mob has found another way in, through a window, maybe, or a back doorway. Iyzu and Lati are at the front, and their gazes immediately land on Melik. Their eyes are alight with viciousness as they shout for the others to seize him, and when I see what’s in their hands, I know it is all but over for us.

They are armed with the sparking electric cattle prods from the killing floor.

Melik sees them too, and with a new urgency he shoves me forward again as they charge down the hall. We make it to the front stairs, and I feel the cool night air on my face. Melik’s hands are on my waist, and just as I am thinking we might actually get out, he jerks away from me. Iyzu has caught up with us. Melik evades Iyzu’s first jab with the cattle prod and punches him in the jaw. Iyzu’s head snaps back, but he jerks the prod up as Melik descends on him. The shock sends Melik arching backward, his mouth open in a silent shout that echoes like an explosion in my head. He collapses onto the landing, and Iyzu jabs him with the prod again and again, then presses it into Melik’s shoulder and doesn’t let up. All I hear is the flopping of Melik’s limbs; he is unable to make a sound. The acrid smell of burning cloth and flesh fills the stairwell. I dive for him, only to be ripped away by Lati.

“Bring them both to his room,” says Iyzu, and he steps back to let the others drag Melik, who is limp and twitching from the voltage running through his body.

Lati wrestles me along the floor, my feet barely touching the ground. He twists my arm behind me, and the shearing agony makes me scream. “I’ll break it if you keep fighting me,” he says, and clutches me against him so tightly that I have trouble breathing.

The men dump Melik on the floor of his room. Ebian walks in, somber faced. “Search it,” he says.

And they do, tossing around the Noor’s possessions, their meager clothing, their sleeping pallets. Melik is lying facedown, and all I can do is watch him, will him to keep breathing.

One of the workers stands up abruptly, holding Melik’s sleeping pallet in one hand. “Found something,” he grunts, and points to the floor.

There lies a small book, one I remember seeing him read the night I came to his room to check his stitches. On its cover I can easily read the title in block letters: THE PRICE OF TYRANNY.

Next to it lies the bone-handled knife, blood crusted over its razor-sharp blade.

THEY ALLOW ME
to return to the clinic but post guards outside the door. My father and I are both confined here, awaiting the regional police, who must come all the way from Kanong. As I pace the cramped exam room, my father tells me what he knows. Apparently, all of the Noor, including Sinan, escaped the compound and fled into the Ring. They left a few dozen badly beaten factory workers in their wake. The local police are hunting them, but the police are so incompetent and inefficient that my father has no doubt the Noor will be high in the Western Hills by dawn.

Melik is not with them. We were dragged across the compound, and the last I saw of him, Ebian ordered him locked in one of the refrigerator rooms just off the killing floor.

It is hard for me to think right now because Melik’s silent screams are still echoing in my head.

I have no idea what time it is when my father finally orders me to go to my room and try to sleep. He looks like he has aged twenty years in the past few hours, and I know I have done this to him. Judging by the way he is looking at me, I am in a great deal of trouble.

I sit on my pallet and stare. Did Melik really do this? I saw the knife, the blood clotted along its wicked blade. It could easily cut a man down the middle when wielded by a strong hand. And by the way Melik held it that night in the square, it was clear he knew how to use it.

And that book, the one about tyranny, I saw Melik reading it. I heard his words that night outside of the pink-light salon. Strong words, meant to foment a revolution. Was this what he had planned all along? Did the fight with Iyzu and Lati drive him to it? Or did the argument with Mugo this afternoon snap the wire and trigger his rage?

The regional police are coming to figure it out.

I’m not sure the mob is going to give them that much time.

“Bo, can you hear me?”

I hold my breath until he answers. “I can, Wen. Are you all right?”

“No.” It comes out of me as a sob.

“Did they hurt you?”

I sniffle. “Not really. But they hurt
him
.” I can’t hold it in anymore. Melik is too loud in my head, too big in my thoughts. I shouldn’t be talking about this with Bo, but he is the only one I can think of who might help me.

“The red Noor did a terrible thing,” he says quietly.

My heart sinks. “Did you see him do it?” I demand. “How do you know?”

He is quiet for several seconds. “Ebian thinks he did it. So do all his men.”

“That’s not enough proof for me,” I cry.

An exasperated huff flows through the vent. “They found the murder weapon.”

“He’s smart. If he’s actually guilty, why would he hide it under his sleeping pallet?”

“How do you know Mugo was the only one he wanted to kill? The red Noor certainly had the motive, and who’s to say he didn’t want to take out Jipu or Ebian, too? What about those boys he beat up? Maybe he was just getting started.”

I pause, remembering how Melik knew where Mugo and Jipu lived, like he’d looked into it. What if he
was
going after the bosses?

Bo sighs. “He’s aligned with a group of men who want to unionize, which Mugo would never allow. They are naive if they think they will end up anywhere but on a train headed for the camps.”

“You know an awful lot about this.”

“You’re upset with me,” he says.

I scrub my hand over my face. This is no way to talk to someone I want to help me. “No. I’m sorry. I just . . . I can’t believe Melik would do something like this. He seems so much . . .
better
than this.”

Bo laughs, all derision. “He’s a Noor! They’re little better than barbarians!”

“He’s a good man,” I snap. But deep inside of me there is a seed of doubt. Melik is good, yes. But he is also a warrior. He keeps it hidden, but I have seen what happens when his mask falls away.

“You deserve better.” Bo grinds out every word. Then he draws a breath and cools the heat in his voice. “You’ve had such a long day and a horrible night, Wen. Please get some rest.”

“Good night,” I whisper, because I know I have ruined any chance of getting help for Melik from Bo, if there was ever any chance to begin with.

Once again I’m alone in the darkness. I lie still as my father trudges up the stairs and stands over my bed. I lie still as he brushes his teeth and washes his face. I lie still as he creeps into his alcove and pulls the curtain shut, and I don’t move until his quiet snores reach me.

But then I’m up. I can’t stand to be still anymore. I slip on my woolen shoes and my dressing gown, and I tread down the stairs so lightly that they don’t even creak. I don’t turn on the light in the clinic; I don’t need to. I know where everything is, and I prepare my supplies and fill the pockets of my dressing gown with the things I might need.

When I’m done, I put my ear to the door and listen.

The guards are outside, and they are breathing heavily. They expect no trouble from us, and it is the deepest hours of the morning. Silently I twist the knob and pull the door open, just a crack. One of the guards is sitting against the wall, his head hanging back, his mouth wide open.

He will be my first victim.

I crouch low and pull a soporific sponge from my pocket, careful to keep it far from my own nose, and slide my arm out the door. The guard twitches a bit as I lower it over his face, but it takes no more than a few seconds for his breathing to deepen even further, for the drool to drip from his gaping mouth. He will not be waking up anytime soon.

I pull the door open a little farther and see the other guard sitting across the hall. His thick arms are crossed over his middle, and his head hangs forward. I am tempted to leave him there, but if he wakes up before I’m back, he might raise the alarm. I emerge into the hallway and close the door behind me, careful to hold the knob and release it slowly, but the click echoes down the hall like cannon fire.

The thick-armed guard raises his head, blinking and confused.

I am caught.

“What are you doing out here?” he asks stupidly.

“I was hungry,” I say, as if that should be obvious. And even though I want to run, I walk straight toward him like one of Bo’s spiders. I am activated and will follow this sequence of movements, this plan I’ve already set in motion.

The guard doesn’t expect this. He expects me to be scared of him, to shrink back against the door like I’ve done something wrong. I don’t. I advance on him without hesitation, and he doesn’t know what to do with me.

“I might have a bun if you’re really starving,” he mumbles, because he reads something on my face that tells him I am serious, that I am not leaving until I get what I want.

“That might do,” I say, and now I am only steps from him. My hand dips into my pocket.

And when he reaches for his satchel, I pull out the syringe and stab it into his upper arm. He jerks, but I’m ready, and I move with him as he tries to evade me, managing to depress the plunger and fill him with opium before he knocks me away. I hit the wall and bounce off, but find my balance quickly and watch him. He will not be coming after me, even though he’s trying to do exactly that.

He lifts his arm and it falls back into his lap. “Whatcha,” he says. “Whatcha munding . . . bicklind . . . purpsy . . .” He falls off his chair and lands on his side.

I put his satchel under his head so he’s not resting on cold concrete.

I’m not entirely heartless.

My guards will be sleeping until someone comes to relieve them, probably at the day shift whistle. I have until then to get what I need.

My footsteps are completely silent as I jog down the hallway. I climb through a shattered window into Mugo’s office. It’s pitch black in here, and I won’t be able to find my way through the maze of piled debris. I pull a candle from my pocket and light it, because it is easily covered and not as noticeable as the bright electric lights. The suite of rooms is in disarray, but I weave around the ceiling tiles and piles of rubble to the inner office. Mugo kept his master key in the locked bottom drawer of his desk. As my candle’s faint light sweeps over the desk, the sight of Melik’s name draws me up short. I hold the candle over the crumpled note.

MELIK,

I NEED TO DISCUSS YOUR BROTHER’S ILLEGALLY OBTAINED WORK PASS AND THE NECESSARY PENALTIES. THIS IS A MATTER OF THE UTMOST URGENCY.

UNDERBOSS MUGO

This is exactly the kind of note Mugo liked to write, the kind that struck fear into the heart of every worker in the compound. And when Melik got this, I’m certain it made his stomach drop to his shoes. Sinan is the most important person in the world to him, and if Melik believed he was under threat, he would do anything to protect him. Mugo would have loved that, to bring Melik low.

The thing is, this note is not in Mugo’s handwriting.

Usually he made me type his notes, but when he needed to dash one off, he wrote it himself, and his handwriting was tiny and perfect and neat. This note is written in block letters, and there’s a certain flare to them, a boldness, that Mugo’s writing did not have. The
S
at the end of “PENALTIES” is like a lightning strike, stabbed into the page. It is vaguely familiar to me, but I can’t pull the why or where to the front of my mind right now.

I tuck the note into my pocket and pull my father’s scalpel out. It’s a fiercely sharp little blade, and a few years ago, thanks to my intense curiosity about my father’s tiny study in the cottage on the Hill, I learned it is also excellent at picking simple locks. It takes me no time to spring the lock on Mugo’s drawer. I swipe the master key and climb back through the window. I press myself against the wall for a moment, catching my breath and listening hard. The administrative hallway is silent, but people are awake at the front of the factory, near the cafeteria. I hear the low, angry buzz of voices. Probably men waiting for the regional police to arrive or recovering in the aftermath of the brawl with the Noor. They are, no doubt, in dangerous moods. But that’s all right. That’s not where I’m going.

I slide my feet along the floor, sheltering my guttering candle with my hand, and peek through the filmy window to the killing floor. With careful, slow movements I use Mugo’s key to unlock the door. Even in the yawning darkness of the enormous chamber I can see that Mugo’s body is gone. I inch the door open and slip inside, where the dark letters still mar the floor. I raise my candle to read them again, trying to picture Melik writing them in blood.

But as I stand over them, I see “BOSSES”—each
S
is shaped like a lightning strike. I pull the forged note out of my pocket and hold it up, comparing the two.

I think back to this afternoon, how Melik walked in at the exact wrong time. How it happened when a group of men was cleaning up the mess out in the corridor. So many people saw Melik exchanging words with Mugo, saw Mugo screaming at him. Someone lured Melik here for this confrontation. The same person who wrote these words on the killing floor. Maybe the same person—or
people
—who knew he had a bone-handled knife in his possession.

Melik has been framed.

I’m not sure which emotion is bigger, the rage or the relief, but they’ve both sunk their teeth into me. If I’m good—very, very good—this will be the key to freeing Melik. This will be the—

“I knew I heard something!”

I jam the note into my pocket and reach for another syringe, my heart nearly bursting from my chest. I turn around slowly as Lati walks forward, a smug smile on his face. Iyzu is right behind him. “Did you come to try to free your boyfriend?” Lati asks.

Yes.
“No,” I say, taking a few steps back. “But he is innocent.”

Lati laughs. “Innocent.” He says it like a curse. “Wait until I tell the police how he attacked me. How he threatened me and Iyzu with the very knife he used to cut Mugo open.”

“I’m going back to the clinic now,” I say. But Iyzu and Lati don’t move away from the door.

Iyzu shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Did you help your Noor lover, Wen?” He looks me up and down. “Are you just a stupid whore, or are you a murderer?”

“Are you?” I snap.

“Why would we want to kill Mugo?” Iyzu asks with a chilly smile. He walks toward me with a strange, vicious look on his face. I swear, he wants me to pay for the humiliation he suffered at Melik’s hands. I can already tell the price will be very high.

My fingers tighten over my second opium syringe, but I know it’s hopeless, because there are two of them, and both are twice as strong as I am. If I try to use the syringe or the scalpel, it’s more likely they’ll turn one or the other against me. So I reach for the only thing I have left. “Have you ever made a wish to the Ghost?”

Lati and Iyzu stare at me.

“I know you have,” I say. “Has he ever granted one?”

They look at me like I’m crazy, but Lati tries to recover control of the conversation. “Why, did you
wish
to satisfy both of us at once in exchange for your freedom?”

I am choking on my fear. Part of me is tempted to jam this opium syringe into my own thigh, because at least I won’t be awake while they hurt me. But until I’m sure I’ve been abandoned, until I’m certain I’m completely alone, I won’t give up. “I wish . . .” I look around, and then I blow out my candle. “It’s a little too dark in here. I wish for some light,” I say.