The Creative Fire: 1 (Ruby's Song) (27 page)

41: Countermoves

Ruby followed KJ through the door he always used, Ani hard behind her. The door led to a smaller room that held strange equipment: pulleys and ropes and weights. A round handrail lined mirrored walls. Of more interest, six people stood along one of the walls, wearing the same loose, flowing red robes as the woman who was now teaching KJ’s class. They stood almost as still as statues. Their eyes fastened on Ruby.

They looked interested, almost fascinated. They also had something like KJ’s calm.

She felt sure she’d never seen any of them before.

KJ led Ruby and Ani through another door and into a hallway, leaving the strangely dressed reds behind. Peacers. Whatever. Why wasn’t it ever really clear who her enemies were? Hell, maybe KJ was her enemy. She didn’t think so, but how could she tell here?

The hallways led through two locks, taking them out of the separate pod into a place Ruby had never seen. KJ’s footsteps were almost impossible to hear, and Ani’s were barely louder, so it sounded like Ruby walked the corridors by herself. She tried to do it more quietly, but that slowed her down and Ani shooed her forward, loud again.

They weren’t quite running, but KJ clearly wanted distance from whatever he’d seen. By the time he stopped in a nondescript galley, Ruby had lost track of the turns they’d made.

“What happened?” Ani asked as soon as the door shut behind them.

“Sylva. And a group of peacers I don’t like. Ten. Coming in the doors at the wrong time for class.” He looked directly at Ruby, his eyes so calm she wanted to fall into them and be held there. “Triangulating on you.”

“Fox warned us,” Ruby said.

“Is this because the grays attacked?” Ani asked.

“No one attacked anyone,” KJ replied. “But yes, it has to be a countermove to our move last night.”

“Our move? Who is
our
?”

“Joel planned the action last night.”

His voice was so matter of fact she couldn’t tell whether or not he approved of Joel or of the decision or even of her. Maybe he didn’t have any emotions.

He switched subjects smoothly. “I’m going to check for a capture order.” He wasn’t carrying a journal. None of them were. He slid a slender drawer out from under the table and tapped on a surface. A screen flicked on and he held his hand over it, still, waiting for acknowledgment. The screen gave a soft beep.

Ruby stepped close. What she saw looked a little like a journal home menu, only thinner, and the choices were different. Her fingers itched to play with it.

KJ’s hands practically caressed the slender interface, the flow of his fingers and palm placing pressure as precise as the drills he ran them through in class.

“What is it?” she asked.

“A communication tool.”

“No. I never would have guessed.”

He laughed. “I heard you had a smart mouth.”

“I’m just tired of being treated like anything I learn will be used against me.”

“Funny. We live that way here. Is it kinder down on the level you came from?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, then.”

“Maybe it is kinder there,” Ruby shot back.

He squinted at the device, paying closer attention than he had been.

She bit her lip, watching him. Words flowed across the screen, just barely too fast to read from her angle. She held her silence.

He looked up, frowning. “There is a contact and detain order for you. But they have to find you first.”

“And tha . . . your access—it didn’t give your location away?”

“No.”

She swallowed. That wasn’t possible. “Ix.”

“Won’t know.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Ruby spotted a broad grin on Ani’s wide dark face. “How do you make something Ix doesn’t know about?” Ani asked.

“Magic.”

“You lie,” Ruby teased him. “Teach me?”

“We better hide you first.”

Not fair. She’d just gotten full access to her hab! “Hide me from the reds?”

“Not all of them. Just the worst.”

“Where? Can we go out? I want to see my friends. Are you working for Fox? Why are you helping me?”

He ignored her questions. “Follow me.”

Five minutes and two turns and two doorways later, he opened a door wedged between shelves in a big storage room. She hadn’t recognized it as a door until KJ opened it and a puff of damp, slightly stale air assaulted her nose. The opening was so small she expected a privy or more storage, but instead a very skinny hallway threaded between this room and the next. KJ turned sideways and slid into the narrow opening, gesturing for them to do the same. Ruby fit smoothly, but Ani was just enough bigger and thicker that she had to squeeze through the narrowest spots.

They turned a sharp corner and went up seven metal stairs, still sideways. Although they were barely moving at a regular walk, albeit sideways, it felt like running away. She had her songs, and Fox for whatever he was worth, and her own access. This was the wrong thing to do. “What can they do to me?” she hissed.

“Lock you away. Kill you. Accuse you of treason.”

“What have I done wrong?”

“You exist. People like you.” After a moment he added, “No. That’s not it. They don’t like you. They adore you.”

“What?”

“Don’t play stupid with me,” KJ said. “I’ve watched you and Fox mold your image. You’re trying to get people to love you. And that’s scared some of the people who don’t. Fox has done a nice job making you, but he won’t fight for you if they take you. There’s too much at risk for him, and he’s playing a larger game.”

“He loves me!”

“So you’re naïve as well as mouthy,” KJ said, a soft laughter riding his voice with the words, softening them so she simply felt stupid.

“She’s not!” Ani said.

“You, too?” he responded with a question.

Ruby wished she could see his face. “What makes you think Fox won’t fight them? He did once.”

“He’ll fight that hard again. Maybe harder. But he won’t risk getting taken out of the game. He wants his own bit of the running of the
Fire
.”

“I know that,” Ani said.

Ruby grimaced. “So some of the people in power are scared of me? Really? A dirty little slip of gray?”

“Sarcasm doesn’t make you sound smarter.”

Ruby bit her lip, keeping a smart-assed reply inside. After they went down another flight of seven steps, using a flimsy looking handrail, she said, “Ani thinks everything is sweetness and light,” keeping her voice kind, lightly teasing, at least as best as she could.

“I do?” Ani asked. “I’m scared for you right now.”

“But you don’t think the reds you know would beat up the grays I know.”

KJ turned to face them in the passage, still too narrow for them to walk side by side. “Stop.”

“What?” Ruby said. “Arguing?”

He held up his hands and whispered. “Talking. People might hear us through the walls.”

She nodded and they want back to scooting quietly sideways. A few times she heard voices on the other side, faint and too fuzzy to understand. Dust made her want to sneeze.

Being quiet had some advantages; she could think. They’d gone a long way through hidden places. Whether or not these narrow halls were hidden from Ix, they were hidden from most people. Someone had built them that way. And if KJ really could talk to people and keep it from Ix . . . and who had he been talking to anyway?

Why was she following him, and where was he taking her?

And who had built these passages?

At one point she whispered a question. “Is Dayn okay?”

“Probably,” KJ said. “He’s a survivor. Doesn’t come to class often enough though. He might have pulled a muscle buying us time to get away.”

Ruby laughed and they continued, dust tickling her nose so she sneezed a few times.

KJ stopped. He leaned down and whispered, “Now. When the door opens, follow me. We’ll be back among people, and in a very short time, we’ll catch a train. You’ll follow me and sit behind me and say nothing. Look like you have been here before and like you know what you’re doing. In fact, if you can, look very, very bored.”

“Bored,” she whispered.

“Very bored.”

Ani placed a reassuring hand on Ruby’s shoulder. “I’ll look bored, too.”

Ruby nodded. “Great. I love being bored.”

The door opened in front of them and they came out into the back end of a galley storage room full of racks of carefully stowed dishes and cups. A thin layer of dust suggested it wasn’t used much, although KJ held a silencing finger to his lips.

The other door in the room led to a hallway behind a galley and then into a train station.

Ruby forced herself into a casual stroll and then had to pick up a little speed to catch up with KJ. So not
that
bored.

The train car was nearly empty. Two men wearing blue sat in the front with their heads together. Ruby slumped beside Ani in the back, KJ sitting just ahead of them, blocking any direct view from the doorway.

No one followed them.

When the door closed, Ruby let out a long sigh and slumped further, taking a deep, exhausted breath. Every muscle in her back felt tense, and her legs were sore from the sideways walking. Maybe it would be a long train ride.

It wasn’t.

She and Ani followed KJ through even more turns and rooms, passing two people dressed all in green, as well as a blue. Ruby did her best to look bored, even though it had dawned on her that between KJ of the smooth moves and Ani the tall, with the almost-black skin, she was the least likely of the group to draw attention.

The last door that KJ opened led into a small hab sized for the elderly, like the one where Owl Paulie had lived on gray. One room, a tiny kitchen unit along the wall, and a bedroom and bathroom.

“Where are we?” Ruby asked. “What level?”

“This is where we will hide you for now,” KJ said. “But you must stay ready to move.” He stood against the wall, folded his arms, and closed his eyes.

Ruby flopped onto the narrow bed and lay spread-eagled, staring at the ceiling. Ani looked down at her, silent, worry creasing her brow. Ruby closed her eyes, needing a moment to be inside herself. Ever since the day the sky fell, she hadn’t been alone in the park, hadn’t felt open spaces or sent birds flying across the sky.

There were people trying to hide her and people trying to find her. She’d just gotten control over her hab, and now that had been taken away. Forces she still didn’t entirely understand swirled around her, comprehension just out of her reach. If she let things stay this way, let herself be led from place to place, she’d lose her sense of direction entirely. But if she stepped away, she might be captured, or worse. The one time she’d left Ani’s side, she’d needed Fox to save her from Ellis.

Ruby opened her eyes and looked closely at Ani. “It’s time I stopped letting people tell me what to do.”

Ani blinked at her, looking taken aback. “We had to leave.”

“No.” Ruby stood up and looked Ani in the eyes. Ani took a step back. “That’s not what I mean. But I’m tired of waiting until there’s no choice.” She leaned back against the wall, remembering the way Fox had shown his power through looking unconcerned the day he brought her here from gray. She knew now that he must have been very worried, but he hadn’t shown it. She crossed her arms and smiled at Ani. “It’s not about you at all. I’m talking about Fox, and the people who tell you what to do. I’m talking about Colin and KJ and the others.”

Ani looked confused, so Ruby took her hand and opened the door. KJ turned to look at her, his face blank. She hadn’t picked the easiest person to start with. “I’m not going to just do what I’m told anymore.”

KJ looked serene.

“I need to know who is chasing me and who is protecting me. I need to understand who hates who and why, and what the various sides want. What is Colin’s role? How does he relate to Fox? What does this Garth, who runs Ellis and Sylva, want?”

KJ remained still, watching her. But he stopped teasing her and gave a tiny nod.

42: Acts of a Messenger

Onor and The Jackman walked side by side down a maintenance corridor that ran under the galley row in logistics. The underside of logistics looked worse than the underside of gray. Scuffed walls and banged-up pipes, dirty signs on the wall, graffiti here and there. It smelled like a noxious mix of stale water and bleach and oil. Perhaps there was no Penny here to care enough to force an apprentice to do a good job. “Where are we going?”

“It’s your turn to take a message. You’ve seen Joel. He’s on green today, and you need to tell him that we’re setting up the meeting for three days from now. Tell him it’s all good.”

“What meeting?”

The Jackman smiled. “Messengers should never have the whole message.”

“But you know it,” Onor said. “And you won’t tell me.”

“You’re safer if you don’t know. We’ll be past the time of secrecy soon.”

Onor swallowed back the words he wanted to say. The Jackman wasn’t running things, and had to do as he was told, just like Onor. At least he wasn’t living in a bunk and dodging cleaning robots anymore. He had no job except to do what The Jackman said, and to train, all of which meant he was more exhausted than ever before, but happier.

This would be his fifth time trusted alone with a message, and the first time he’d been told to find anyone important like Joel. “I’ll be happy to. When do I leave?”

“Now.” The Jackman gave him directions and then a fierce, sharp hug that smelled of sweat and worry and stim and beard, and felt so like a father’s hug that Onor gasped.

At the next turn the two of them split off in separate directions.

It didn’t take Onor long to get to the door The Jackman had directed him to, and in moments more he had donned the suit he found waiting there and gone through a double hatch to pick up the maintenance cart he’d been instructed to push along the corridor on green.

The detailed planning that supported the simple movement of messages was almost scary. No one he knew seemed to have more than bits of information—like he had—and yet things lined up. Things he needed waited for him; doors that needed to be unlocked were.

The command level was so small it could fit inside one of the pods in the outer ring. Once inside, the level felt empty to him. Hushed, as if the work of commanding the
Fire
required the kind of thinking there was never time for on any other level.

He found Joel walking through a corridor, which was exactly what The Jackman had told him to expect. The timing was uncannily perfect, unless of course Joel had been pacing and watching for him for a while. Not likely; there was no sign of frustration on his face.

Joel recognized Onor as the messenger, since he stopped and asked Onor how his day was going even though his eyes didn’t show any recognition of him.

Onor stammered out, “The meeting will be three days from now,” and then sounded more confident as he added, “It’s good. It’s all good.”

Joel accepted the message quietly, and Onor waited in case there was a message for him to take back.

Joel merely said, “Thank you.”

Very well
. Onor continued down the corridor, counting doors, trying to memorize everything he could about command. The Jackman collected every bit of intelligence Onor brought back, taking notes on a special journal that he never let out of his hands.

Footsteps made him look up. A tall, lean man in red approached him quickly and gave him a startled look. He was young and dark: skin, hair, and eyes. His face looked hard.

Onor turned away from him, a reflex to red, and then forced himself to meet the man’s eyes and nod, doing his best to look like he belonged and had a place to go. A job. He hoped the stranger didn’t see him shaking.

The man looked past Onor.

Onor continued the way he had been going, looking down at the cart and trying to escape further notice. All the planning in the world couldn’t scrape the gray from his bones; his disguise was too thin for conversation.

He didn’t hear the man walk away, but when Onor turned, he
had
taken a few steps. It dawned on Onor that the man had made no sound. None. To do that, he must be trying very hard. Even here in green, where everything was softer and cleaner than anywhere else, Onor’s footsteps made soft thuds that would have been louder if he’d been moving fast.

The man had apparently decided not to worry about Onor. He was hurrying toward where Onor had talked to Joel.

Whatever was happening, he shouldn’t act. He didn’t know. Except it felt wrong. Joel’s back receding, the stranger moving fast and so stealthy. Before he could finish thinking the situation through, the wrongness of the man caused Onor to call out, “Joel!”

Joel, far enough away to look small, turned and in one fluid move flattened himself against the floor.

The man fired a stunner down the hall, the fast and silent release of the beam frightening. Onor kept the cart between him and the man, who had turned to look at him. The assassin was turning his gun hand as well.

Onor shoved his cart, glimpsing Joel standing up behind the red. Onor’s attention returned to himself as the cart slammed into his hip. He shoved it back at the man and ducked behind it, a stunner shot missing him. He pushed off from the wall, slamming his shoulder into the cart, giving it as much momentum as possible.

The cart pinned the red against the wall but left his hands free. His arm came up, pointing back at Joel this time, and then Joel was on him, slamming the arm into the wall so the stunner clattered onto the cart.

Joel pulled the assassin free of the cart and threw him to the ground on his stomach. Joel glanced back up at Onor and barked, “Hold him.”

Onor practically tripped over the cart, kicking stunner and cart both out of the way, and threw himself onto the man’s back below where Joel had his arms pinned, reaching for the man’s free arm and twisting it up. Aric’s training began to work Onor’s body, giving him the balance and strength to keep the man down.

Joel whispered, “Finish it.”

The man bucked under Onor and he tightened his grip, glancing up at Joel. “What?”

“Stay on his legs,” Joel said, and then straddled the man across the back, standing. He gripped the man’s head and the man screamed “No!” before his breath was cut off.

The crack of the man’s neck drew a horrid taste to Onor’s mouth, and his hands shook. It didn’t matter now; the man didn’t need to be held down anymore.

He hadn’t been more than a few years older than Onor.

Joel stood and calmly picked up the stunner from the cart and looked it over, then pushed a button on the stock. He shoved the gun into his pants and looked at Onor. “Thanks. How did you know he meant to hurt me?”

The only thing Onor could think to say was, “He was walking wrong.”

Joel nodded, looking more closely at Onor now. “You’ve training.”

It wasn’t a question, so Onor didn’t answer it. He asked one instead. “What do we do about him?”

Joel looked down, showing no apparent remorse for ending the man’s life, but also no triumph or happiness. More a weariness. “We’ll leave him. It will be a message.”

Onor swallowed and returned to the cart, not entirely sure what he should do next. Run away? Walk back down the corridor with the cart as if nothing had happened? Look after Joel, who did not appear to need any looking after?

Joel watched him, surely seeing the uncertainty on Onor’s face. In fact, he was looking very closely at Onor, examining him, thoughtful. “Haven’t I seen you before? On vid?”

“Probably at Owl Paulie’s funeral. I met you underground once, too. After a training. But I doubt you remember that.”

“You’re gray?”

Onor nodded, sure that would earn him a dismissal.

“Would you like to work for me?”

Onor glanced down at the man on the ground, his eyes sightless and staring at the side of the corridor. He swallowed hard, shaking, perhaps only from the adrenaline of the fight. He had The Jackman expecting him. But Joel was in the middle of everything. “Yes.”