Shadow on the Sun (2 page)

CHAPTER 1

Christchurch

ANNOS MARTIS
239. 1. 12. 08:02

 

 

Where are you, Durango? Vienne hits the brakes, and her turbo bike chatters to a halt. She slams the kickstand down in frustration. For the last seven weeks, she's scoured the prefecture, searching for him in every burnt-out, ashed-over town, every old foul-smelling haunt, every ragged refugee camp on the roadside. Now she's at the end of the line, literally, standing on the last bridge into Christchurch, the deserted capital city.

After chaining her bike to a burnt-out battle truck, she walks around a massive hole in the bridge, looking down into the muddy River Gagarin. The bridge isn't the only thing that has been wrecked, she thinks, before a high-pitched sound breaks her chain of thought. She looks up, catching a glimpse of a shadow on the sun before the light disappears beyond the horizon.

Another Crucible strike. Right on time.

“Move!” she yells, and sprints for cover, a cloth knapsack over a shoulder, her long legs and sinuous shoulders working hard beneath a baggy black cheongsam robe with bell sleeves.

Seconds later, a percussive blast rolls across the delta. The bridge convulses, tossing vehicles around in a metallic thunderstorm of sound. Vienne vaults over a burnt-out truck, and as a new hole opens in the bridge, she lands safely on dry land.

“Hope the bike is there when I get back,” she says to herself. “Check that. Hope the
bridge
is there when I get back.”

Vienne knocks the dirt from her sandals. A hood obscures her Nordic face, which is webbed with battle scars, and her blond hair is braided with dozens of black ribbons. She puts an almost dry canteen to her peeling lips. How many people died in the Flood, she wonders. Hundreds? Thousands? News of the Flood came fast across the multinets moments after it happened. Then, in two days time, Lyme overthrew the government, and the news became propaganda.

What became of the dead, no one knows. There were rumors that they were buried in mass graves or cremated in open-air bonfires. One thing is for certain: Theirs was not a Beautiful Death.

“If there ever was such a thing,” she says under her breath, shaking the last drop of water onto her tongue. Once upon a time, she had believed in the Tenets and a Beautiful Death, but now she knows they were fairy tales.

Far ahead, she spots the multinet antenna on the roof of Parliament Tower, the abandoned government headquarters. She looks up at the penthouse, the one she jumped from after performing a one-person shock invasion on the board of directors meeting. Of course, she was wearing symbiarmor, so the fall didn't faze her.

She scans the tower courtyard, half expecting to see Durango's face among the ruins. But her hopes are dashed as they've been dashed every day for the last six months.

She always looks.

Durango is never there.

Empty canteen in hand, she kneels beside a trickle of water coming from a broken, rusted pipe. She rips open a packet of purification tablets, then drops the pills into the water.

From the corner of her eye, she catches a glimmer of movement. Could be nothing, or it could be a Scorpion, one of the feral children who once lived in Favela, a nearby slum. She reaches for her armalite before she remembers that there is no gun.

Not even a holster.

Then she spots the source of the movement. Across the alley, hidden by garbage, a small girl with large eyes is watching her. Vienne shakes the canteen, then presses it to her lips.

“You got chiggers in your brains, susie?” the girl calls. “That stuff's rotgut poison!”

The girl is half her height, with joints so swollen by malnourishment, they look like knobs. “Not anymore,” Vienne says.

“Nuh.” The girl skulks closer, keeping debris between herself and Vienne. “No pill made's going to suck poison out of water.”

“Every poison has an antidote.” Vienne shakes the canteen next to her ear, then offers a sip. “See for yourself.”

The girl inches closer. Her eyes are sunken, her skin freckled with rust-stained mud. Her hands and feet are coated with dirt, and her clothes are in tatters. She cranes her neck. “Don't know that I can trust you not to stick a shiv in my gut.”

“I keep a hunting knife strapped to the inside of my thigh. If I'd wanted to hurt you,” she says, “I could've split your skull when you peeped out of the trash heap.”

“Had lots of practice splitting skulls, have you?”

“More than I'd like.” Vienne extends the canteen. “Take the water. I've not got all day.”

In a burst of movement that's all rags and bones, the girl pounces. She sucks down the water with a ferocity that could only be called thirst if the sun were called a light-emitting diode.

Vienne brushes the dried mud from her cheongsam. “Slow down. You'll make yourself sick.”

“No need to get nargy-bargy, susie. I got ears,” she says, and begins to sip.

“That's better.” Vienne pushes the oily strands of hair from the girl's face and asks, “Where's your family?”

“Gone.”

“You're alone?”

The urchin shrugs. It is a gesture Vienne knows all too well. After the Flood destroyed Christchurch, families tried to stay together, but orphans were left on the roads to fend for themselves. The Tengu Monastery opened its doors to these orphans, and now a place that had become a lonely outpost was bustling with young life.

See that, Lyme, she thinks. This is the price of your war. “May I?” Vienne reaches for the empty canteen. “I'm alone, too.” She stores it in her rucksack. “But I have a job to do, and it's getting late.”

The girl follows Vienne to the next block. “Not thataway!” she shouts. “Folk say Draeu stay there. They'll gut you proper.”

“There's a pleasant thought,” Vienne says. But there are no Draeu left. The miners of Fisher Four wiped them all out more than twelve months ago. The rumors have turned out to be harder to kill than they were. “Thanks for the advice. To the right, then? I need to reach Parliament Tower.”

“No, susie, go straightaway. Tower's eight blocks yonder. Heads up for the Ferro, too. They'll gut you quick as the Draeu.”

“Thanks again. You are an excellent guide. You remind me of someone I once knew.” In her mind's eye, Vienne sees a young monk laughing, the spikes of her pink hair bouncing as she climbs a punching dummy and stands on one foot, her arms spread like wings. “What's your name?”

The girl shrugs. “The Flood washed it away.”

“You know,” Vienne says. “I live in a place where some refugee children are staying. There's food and shelter, if you'd like to come back with me.”

“How I'm to know you won't kill me soon's my back gets turned?” she says. “I'll take my chances with the Ferro.”

Vienne sighs but doesn't argue. She pulls the canteen from her rucksack and hands it to the girl, along with some purification packets. “Use one pill at a time,” she says, “and these will last awhile.” Then she removes her sandals. “These are too big for now, but you'll grow into them.”

“My name's Ema,” the girl says, and, snatching the shoes, disappears down the alley.

“What's the hurry?” Vienne calls. “What are you afraid of?”

“The answer,” a deep voice says, “is behind you.”

CHAPTER 2

Christchurch

ANNOS MARTIS
239. 1. 12. 08:53

 

 

Vienne spins into a defensive crouch, cursing herself for letting someone sneak up on her. You're worse than rusty, she thinks. And it's going to get you killed.

Standing in the shadows, just so that the darkness covers half of his face, is a young man who is neither Draeu nor Scorpion. He's taller than most with wide shoulders, his deep blue velveteen jacket hanging loosely, the cuffs of the sleeves reaching his knuckles. He pretends to examine his fingernails. “What brings pretty girl to Ferro land?”

“Desperta Ferro?” she says. “You're still here?” Like cockroaches, even a diluvial apocalypse couldn't eradicate these pests.

“Nikolai Koumanov, at your service,
lapochka.
” He doffs his cap and makes a sweeping bow. Black curls fall into his face, obscuring everything but his smile.

“What do you want, Ferro?” she says. “And why do you think it's appropriate to refer to me as ‘little pigeon'?”

“
Lapochka
is what Nikolai has always called you.” He pushes his hair back under the cap, revealing a masculine face with thick brows arching over brooding eyes and a square jawline hedged with a goatee. He steps out of the shadows. “Do you not recognize Nikolai? How does girl forget such handsome face?”

“Easy.” Vienne circles to the left. Be cautious, she thinks, he's got thirty kilos of weight on you, and he may not be alone. “I've never met anyone named Koumanov.”

He strokes his goatee. “Nikolai was not Koumanov then. It is Desperta Ferro name, you see.”

Keep him talking, Vienne thinks, and keep moving. Find out his endgame.

“Cat got tongue?” he asks, lifting his eyebrows in a way that he obviously thinks is charming, but makes Vienne's skin crawl.

I
do
know that look, Vienne thinks. But from where? “I asked you before, what do you want?”

“This is Desperta Ferro territory, and Nikolai has come to protect from enemy.” He bows again, a gesture even grander than before. Not grand enough, however, to prevent her from catching the glint of blue metal as he pulls out a revolver. “I asked already—why has pretty girl come to Christchurch?”

“I'm looking for something,” Vienne says, studying the revolver, “that has been lost.”

Nikolai crosses his arms, the barrel of the gun scarcely hidden behind the velveteen fabric of his sleeve. “Is redundant. Girl would not seek thing she has already found,
jaa
? Unless, of course, girl is stupid.”

“What makes you think,” Vienne says, “that I'm stupid?”

He saunters close, walking heel to toe in his boots. “Pretty girls are stupid,” he says, circling her. “Since you are exceptionally pretty girl, so it should follow you would be exceptionally stupid. Yet Nikolai knows from past, such thing is not true.”

What a puffed-up, foppishly dressed, overly dramatic butt! No wonder their revolution never got started. “It would be stupid to continue this conversation.” She turns to leave. “You are only wasting my time.”

“Stop!” Nikolai blocks the alley. “Why such rush?”

“The thing I seek is not here,” she says as Nikolai flashes a smile that's meant to be charming. “Step aside, please.”

“Until
lapochka
pays toll,” he says, making his brows dance. “I cannot.”

She slips her hands into her sleeves. Her fingertips find the knife. Let him show his hand, she thinks. Then she remembers that this is a game she's not supposed to play anymore. “What toll?”

He taps his lips. “Pretty girl must kiss Nikolai, right here, on lips.”

“Is that all?” She wonders why they always make it so easy. “Plant one on the lips?”

“For now,” he says. “If kiss is very good, then perhaps we talk seconds.”

“Fair enough.”

He puckers up as a sly smile that screams “you asked for it” slips across Vienne's face.

The art of a perfect punch is fluidity. In order for the hand to move swiftly, both it and the arm must remain relaxed until the nanosecond before contact. Then as the fingers curl to form the fist, the muscles flex, becoming rigid, and the energy generated flows through them the same way that a hammer transfers energy through iron and into the anvil.

Vienne's fist cracks Nikolai in the mouth. As his head snaps back, she spreads her arms, arching her back, and brings her right leg up to kick Nikolai across the alley.

He slams against the brick wall, where he lies dazed, a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.

“Who's the little pigeon now?” she says, before realizing that he's out cold. She takes the canteen from his belt, unscrews the lid, and shakes water on his face until he sputters and moans. “How's that for seconds?”

“Not so sweet as Nikolai had imagined.” He spits out blood. “I bite tongue.”

“Serves you right. Count yourself lucky you can still talk.” She shakes her head. Maybe it didn't serve him right. All the hours of meditation the past few months, all the healing sessions with Ghannouj, and she's learned nothing. “Sorry about the blood,” she says. “Hope it washes out of your jacket.”

He grabs her ankle. “Wait! How do you not recognize Nikolai? We serve in same army. I was Regulator, like you.”

“I'm not a Regulator anymore.” She pulls free of his grasp, noting that he has all five fingers on his left hand. “And you were never like me.”

 

A few blocks later, Vienne enters the Circus, a roundabout in the middle of Christchurch, which leads her to the ruins of Parliament Tower.

After tying a kerchief over her face, she enters the lobby.

Inside, it's dark. She pulls a beeswax candle from her rucksack, lights it, then pushes open the mud-jammed fire door. The stairwell is full of dirt and cobwebs. She begins to climb.

When she reaches the top landing, she sees that the open door is marked with
DESPERTA FERRO!
The writing is new, the ink freshly smeared through the mold on the surface.

What's the point? she thinks. There's nothing left worth fighting for.

On the penthouse floor, the carpet is also black, but its color comes from being scorched by fire. The fire is long since out. The stink of it, however, still lingers, and she wonders if the smell is real or just her memory.

“Focus.” She draws in a breath of toxic air, then winces. “It's real.”

Down the hallway, to the left, she finds the room she's been looking for. She shoves the door aside and enters.

The walls and ceiling are ashed over. The windows are blown out. Dirt, debris, and dust cover everything. For an instant her head swims: The room is on fire. She's on her knees. A man with a broken arm stands nearby. Someone is screaming.

“No, Vienne,” she whispers. “Focus. The here and now. The here and now.”

Closing her eyes, she presses her palms together and focuses her chi. The images in her mind fade. From a pocket, she pulls out a small vial punctured with tiny airholes. She unscrews the lid, and a single bee emerges.

At first it crawls across the back of Vienne's hand, and then onto the sleeve of her robe. After a moment, it flies to the blown-out window and lights on the sill. It seems as if the bee will fly out the window, summoned by the winds, but then it straight-lines across the room and settles on a pile of debris, buzzing loudly.

Vienne carefully pushes the debris aside until she finds a shaft of plain-looking wood that means the difference between survival and failure for the monks and the beehives that they maintain.

Here is your staff, Ghannouj,
she thinks. She'll return it to the shrine in the Tengu Monastery, and her last act of penance will be done. Maybe then she can be rid of the guilt that hangs on her like a suit of ragged clothes.

Holding the staff, she walks to the window and looks down. Months ago, her brother fell to his death from this window, washed away by the same flood that destroyed Christchurch. In that moment everything changed.

She looks out across the broken back of the city, past the river delta, and into the far-reaching sky. The plume from the Crucible strike is rising with the clouds. She wonders why, even in her imagination, she can't find the one face she yearns most to see.

“Why can't I find you, Durango?” she whispers. “Where have you gone?”