Undercity (24 page)

“Why so fast?” Her pushing unsettled me.

“Major, good gods, we’re talking about abilities rarer than one-tenth of one percent in the general human population. If that is different in the undercity, we need to know.”

I didn’t want to talk about psions. For some reason, every part of me resisted. But I had to. Even if the three I had already met were the only ones in the undercity, they deserved to hear whatever ISC might offer. I had seen in the military how psions with unshielded minds suffered, how they withdrew from human contact. If nothing else, ISC could teach them to protect their minds so they didn’t crave phorine. Without those shields, it was no wonder they lived in isolation, safe in the darkness.

Lavinda was watching me. “You told me before you would try to bring some people for testing. Are you saying differently now?”

“No, I’ll keep my word.” I’d even taken the first steps. “They might come to the Concourse Rec Center. Make it the bargain we talked about. For a meal and medical checkup, and they let your people test them.”

She nodded. “Fair enough.”

“But before I do this,” I said, “you have to give me your word, on your honor as a Majda.”

The moment she stiffened, I knew I had guessed right about the Majdas. They placed high value on their honor. I had no doubt they were brutally effective as politicians, military officers, and financial potentates, but they conducted their business according to their own code of integrity. She wouldn’t like me demanding her word, but if she gave it, she would keep that promise. I hoped I was right, because I needed to trust them.

Lavinda spoke coldly. “My word on what?”

I met her gaze steadily. “That no matter what you discover in your tests, you won’t force anyone who comes to the Center to stay. Offer them whatever you want, but if they say no, you let them go home.”

For a moment she just looked at me. But finally she said, “Agreed.”

“That’s not all.”

“You enjoy risks, don’t you Major?”

I plunged ahead. “I need your word that you won’t arrest anyone. No matter what you see, you won’t take action.” The riders, if any came, would be sporting stolen or mined tech-mech all over their bodies. Dust gangers would carry knives, dart throwers, maybe even stolen guns.

Lavinda scowled at me. “And why, pray tell, would I arrest any of these people?”

She had to know I wasn’t going there. “I need your word. Or I can’t ask anyone to show up.”

The colonel was scrutinizing me again. I kept my mental barriers in place. After a moment, she let out a reluctant breath. “Very well. You have my word that we won’t arrest, coerce, compel, or detain anyone you bring for testing. This one time, they have full sanctuary.”

I hadn’t realized how much I had tensed until my shoulders relaxed. “Thank you.” I spoke carefully. “I can’t promise anyone will come. They have trust problems with the above-city.” To put it mildly. “But I’ll do my best.”

“It’s a start.” Lavinda extended her arm and I extended mine. We each grasped the other’s elbows, shaking on our agreement. We had a bargain. It was a small thing, yes, a free meal for a few tests, but it was, as she said, a start.

* * *

I found Jak outside the entrance to the cave where I met with the dust knights. He stood leaning against a stone column, his arms crossed, watching me walk up the path.

“Heya.” I grinned at him. “You come to join the knights?”

Jak shook his head. He had an odd expression. Not angry, not exactly. He looked . . . fierce? No, that wasn’t right. He was hiding his mood, and unlike the inestimable Majdas, I was no empath.

“Something wrong?” I looked past him, peering into the cave. I didn’t see anyone.

“Got no people there,” he said.

Odd. The whisper mill would have let the knights know I was on my way. Then again, was it a surprise they stayed away? The cartel battle and the part I insisted they take may have alienated them. Or they may have decided my code was too much trouble. Disappointment washed over me. I hadn’t planned to start the knights, but when they formed, it seemed like a good thing.

“Ah, well.” I shrugged. “Got a lot to do anyway.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I don’t?”

“Come with.” He indicated the path with slagged stalagmites where we had fought Scorch.

As I walked with Jak, I strained to listen for signs of people nearby. Dripping water somewhere muddled my reception.
Max,
I thought.
Can you tell if anyone is around?

Maybe a rider or two
, he thought.
No on else is close enough to detect heartbeats.

“Why’d you come here?” I asked Jak. Nowadays he was far more interested in his casino than dust gangs.

“Dunno. Seemed a good idea.”

I’d seen this mood before with him, closed and hard to read. It happened when we first made love, the day he lost a close friend, and the day I left for the army, all times with emotions he didn’t want to talk about.

An unwelcome thought hit me. “Dig. They found her body.”

“No, not yet.” Jak took me toward another cave. I went with him to the entrance—and stopped, frozen in place.

“The other cave was too small,” Jak said.

People filled this one, a cavern twice as large as where we had trained before. More than twenty-five people had come, and others were probably hiding in the walls. Even as I formed that thought, a young woman dropped from the ceiling and stood in the back of the group, arms loose by her side, cyber implants showing in the circuitry that curled along her neck like a tattoo.

The children from before had all returned, including their leaders, Pat Sandjan and Biker from the Oey gang, along with Runner and Rockson. Both the father and daughter from the deep-down were also here, with lenses protecting their eyes. A gang in their late teens stood at my right, two young women and two young men, reminding me so much of Dig, Jak, Gourd, and myself, except these kids had scar patterns on their arms, a gang tat worked into their skin. Four adults had gathered by the wall on my left, half hidden in the shadows, men and women in their twenties, wary and impassive, their faces toughened by their years.

Everyone stood waiting to see what—if anything—I had to offer. This was pure undercity, no Cries influence. What would happen if we could harness the energy and self-imposed discipline of the gangers, the riders, and yes, even the punkers? I didn’t have an answer, but as I walked into the cavern, I felt a chill. Something was happening here, something important, if I didn’t screw it up.

Jak stood at my back. I knew he wasn’t here to train. Whatever his reasons, his presence offered a show of support. He was taking a risk, because if my ideas fell apart, it would reflect badly on him. He was known throughout the undercity and a great deal of his influence came from his reputation, which had become so notorious that even the Majda police and their inimitable Chief Takkar knew about him. It meant a lot to me that he stayed.

I hadn’t expected adults to show up. I couldn’t work with them like with the kids. Then how? As an army officer, I had been in charge of many soldiers their age. A big difference existed with this group, however. Nothing required them to be here. This much was clear: whatever I did next would either earn their loyalty or turn them away.

I straightened up into military posture and paced in front of the group. Although I stopped in front of a line a children, I was looking over their heads at the four adults lounging by the wall. I couldn’t see them clearly in the dim light, but I didn’t think they were all gangers. For one, the rider who had dropped down from the ceiling had joined their group. I looked them over, and then I walked the other way, toward the gang of older teens. When I finished giving them the once-over, I went back to the center and considered the entire gathering.

“So,” I said. “You think you’re dust knights.” I gave a snort. “Not that easy.”

The younger children stood proud, because they knew they were already knights. I held back a smile at my seven-year-old knights. The teens I had asked to act as leaders were another story. They looked over the new people as if they were sizing up potential recruits, fourteen-year-olds appraising hardened gangers twice their age. Even so. They earned that right when they organized the knights to spread the warning about the cartels. The army trios had brought stragglers to safety, and I was grateful for their help, but it was the knights who had sent the population to ground. The only ones who missed the warning were the two Down-deepers I found during the battle, and they stood in front of me, hale and healthy instead of buried under tons of rubble.

I raised my voice. “You want to be dust knights? We aren’t here to play. Knights train. Every day. They follow the Code. Got no time for the Code? You aren’t a knight.”

No one spoke, but the older gangers weren’t lounging against the wall anymore. They looked pissed. At me.

I called out to the group, drill sergeant style. “Ready to follow the Code?”

The children who had already done this before shouted in unison. “Ready!”

“Ready to train,” I said.

“Ready to train,” they called back.

“Ready to honor to Code.”

They didn’t hesitate this time. “Ready to honor the Code.”

“Dust knights protect!” I called. “Protect all!”

“Dust Knights protect!” They made their
Knights
sound like a title. “Protect all!”

“To live with honor!”

“To live with honor!”

“Never abuse that honor!”

“Never abuse that honor!”

I had ended the code at that point the last time, but now I added my own version of what the deep-down recruits had told me they heard.

“No drugs!” I said. “No bliss, funk, hack, dot. Nothing!”

Most of the younger children shouted, “No drugs!” but the older recruits just stared at me. The taller youth in the gang of older teens gave me an implacable gaze. Scars traced along his muscled biceps, a crisscross pattern of lines. All four of the gangs had those scars, but his were more extensive. He would be their leader. If he didn’t agree to the code, none of them would.

I spoke to directly to him. “You want to be knights? Then swear to the Code. No Code, then you leave. Now.” It was a harsh demand for a population where euphorics were as common as food, but if they wanted to be part of this, they had to make that vow. I didn’t want drugs destroying what we were building.

The response came not from the scarred gang, but from the four adults across the cave. One of them came forward, not the rider, but the other woman. People jumped out of her way, stumbling back, clearing a path. I stiffened as she walked into the light. She was huge, taller even than me, and all huge muscles. A scar slashed across her face, and her left arm had embedded tech-mech that looked like it connected to her neural system. Those implants could give her an augmented strength as much as my own, at least for that arm. But she wasn’t a rider. Her ragged clothes were scorched by fire. A laser shot couldn’t have hit her directly or she wouldn’t be here, but a backlash must have caught her. Damn. She was a punker from the battle.

I faced her with a hard gaze. If I showed any sign of weakness, that was it. The knights would never follow me if I couldn’t stand up to the punkers. I didn’t know if she was Vakaar or Kajada, but it didn’t matter. Either she accepted the Code or she left. I didn’t care squat about how large, intimidating, or violent of a killer I faced. If she didn’t swear to the Code, she was out.

She stood there, staring at me, her gaze impassive. I stared back. After she considered me for several moments, she spoke in a gravelly voice, her words carrying throughout the cave.

“No drugs,” she said.

Gods almighty. She had agreed. A sharp intake came from someone in the cave.

I nodded to her and the punker nodded back, each of us barely moving our heads. With that, we agreed to a pact as binding as my handshake with Lavinda. The punker stepped back, rejoining her group, two dust gangers and the rider. Probably the four of them had joined together after losing members of their own circles.

I spoke to the group as a whole. “No drugs!”

This time the call came from everyone, ragged but firm. “No drugs!”

“Dust Knights train! Every day!”

“Dust Knights train!” They all yelled with extra gusto. “Every day!”

Hah! They liked that one. Cries tykado teams, watch out. Training the knights would take some figuring out, given they were at such different levels and ages. I could set up groups, with the more advanced helping the less experienced. For the youngest, I didn’t want them fighting so much as learning a way of life that would give them a sense of purpose and confidence. Someday they might become martial arts wizards, but for now my intention was to provide a community they could depend on for guidance and support.

“Dust Knights learn!” I called. “Read. Write. Numbers.”

That brought another hesitation. They didn’t answer all at once, but one by one, and then in ragged groups, they did all call, “Dust Knights learn! Read! Write! Numbers!”

Okay, that one would be more difficult to implement. I still had to find a way to make that work, but we would figure out something.

I regarded them steadily. “Dust Knights don’t lie!”

That brought an even bigger hesitation and more uneven response. “Dust Knights don’t lie.”

“What?” I shouted.

“Dust Knights don’t lie!” they shouted.

“Never betray the Knights!” I shouted.

“Never betray the Knights!”

I stared at them all, my gaze hard, “Never murder!”

They looked back at me, silent. Most if not all of them had probably lost someone they loved to violence, including the cartel battle. If I swore them to an oath against murder, I was taking away their vengeance. They knew what I meant by murder; it didn’t preclude killing in self-defense. Given how fast news traveled through the whisper, they would all know by now that I had killed a Vakaar punker yesterday. But if I didn’t make the ban on murder part of the Code, I could be creating an army of assassins by giving them such rigorous military training.