Undercity (28 page)

Digjan walked forward.

Lavinda stayed at my side, but she didn’t interfere. When Digjan reached the table, she threw a hostile glance toward Singer, who was watching us. Then Digjan pulled off her carbine and set it next to Singer’s guns. With no more ado, she strode back to her place by the wall.

What followed next felt surreal, and it could only happen on this day where everything had turned upside down. They all came forward, all the punkers and gangers, and one by one they piled their guns in front of Lavinda. They were making a statement for each other that had nothing to do with the colonel, finally agreeing, after the carnage of battle, that at least for today, it was time to stop killing. I knew what they meant, but I also knew what I hoped Lavinda would see. They were returning stolen property.

These kids weren’t the ones who had smuggled the guns; Commander Braze hijacked them, Scorch bought them from Braze, and Dig stole them from Scorch. Lavinda was no fool; she knew these fighters hadn’t come here to give up their weapons. I doubted they had returned all the guns; tanglers were easier to hide than carbines, and far fewer of those lay in the heap on the table. No matter. They had returned the visible weapons. Digjan probably didn’t realize it, but the moment she laid her carbine on the table, she made her hopes to join the army a possibility again. Instead of flaunting stolen ISC property in front of a colonel, she had recovered it in service of the army. At least, I hoped Lavinda would be willing to spin it that way.

The chaos of our arrival was calming. More volunteers arrived, carting in supplies. Children were laughing, especially the younger ones, who must have thought this was the most amazing lark, free food and a parade, all with more friends to play with than they had seen before. Somewhere a baby wailed and a boy grunted as a doctor gave him an air-syringe shot. The testers were working now, too, doing Kyle exams. A boy and girl ran through the Center, knocking over chairs. Before the harried volunteers could object, one of the Dust Knights grabbed both kids, admonishing them to behave. Everywhere, the Knights quietly organized the crowd, undertaking duties I hadn’t given them, though I would have if I’d realized the need. They kept the children reasonably well behaved, a feat probably no one else here could have managed. The Knights were part of the undercity, and the other children listened in a way they wouldn’t do for the Cries authorities.

I spoke to Lavinda, indicating the three recovering bliss users, who had sat in one corner while they nibbled at meat rolls. “You should test them for Kyle traits. They were addicted to phorine.”

Lavinda beckoned to Duane Ebersole, who was seated at a nearby table, administering tests to a young man. Duane glanced at us, then offered a snap-bottle to the youth. The kid shrugged, but the moment Duane left the table, the boy took the bottle and downed its sparkling water in gulps.

When Duane came over, Lavinda indicated the phorine users. “Make sure you check them.”

He nodded. “I’ll take them next.”

“Can you tell if anyone here is a psion?” I asked.

Duane glanced at me, then at the colonel.

“Go ahead,” Lavinda said.

“I can’t give specifics yet,” he said, “but we have a rough idea.” He took a breath. “Of the twenty-four people I’ve so far tested, eight are empaths. One is a telepath.”

Lavinda stared at him. “What did you say?”

Duane met her gaze, and I could see the shock underlying his outward calm. “My results are the same as what the other testers are recording.” He motioned at the room teeming with people. “Colonel,
one-third
of these folks are empaths. Five percent of them are telepaths.”

“That’s impossible,” Lavinda said. “Did you check your equipment?”

“Thoroughly. We all have.” He let out a breath. “The results are genuine.”

I had no idea what to say. Over thirty percent empaths, when in the general population, empaths were at best one-tenth of one percent. That meant the undercity had three hundred times more empaths than normally found among human beings. And five percent telepaths? If only one in a million people were telepaths, that meant the undercity rate was
fifty-thousand
times the normal occurrence among humans.

I spoke in a low voice, finally understanding. “Our ancestors went under the city because their minds couldn’t take the flood of human emotions drowning them in Cries.” Yes, I saw. The isolation protected us. Over the ages, deep within the canals, my ancestors had lived, loved, and interbred, concentrating the psionic traits of ancient Raylicon.

Lavinda spoke quietly. “I don’t know if this is the greatest crime ever committed here or our greatest miracle.”

Both,
I thought.

A silence fell over the Center. Conversations died down and even the small children went silent as people looked toward the doorway. I turned—and stiffened.

A woman had walked into the room. She resembled the drug punkers, but in the way that a grown desert-lion resembled its cubs. This was no throwback to the barbarian queens of our past, this was the real thing. She stood as tall as Lavinda, as muscled as Singer, as scarred as Ruzik, and as implacable as Scorch. She looked like she had been through hell. Her clothes were burned, her right arm was obviously broken in several places, and gashes covered her body, crusted with dried blood, purpled by bruises. She held a primed carbine in her hand, ready to shoot, with the snout pointed at the ceiling. She had a tangler in her other hand, also drawn, pointing at the floor between mine and Lavinda’s feet. She stood there like an avenging demon come to exact her price for the devastation of her empire.

Dig had survived.

The soldiers did what, for them, was the only logical action. Two moved to guard the table with the guns, preventing anyone from retrieving them. That meant Dig was the only openly armed cartel member in a room with both Vakaars and Kajadas. Either the cartels had been larger than we thought or not as many had died as the army believed, because I counted the insignia of at least five Vakaars, including Singer, and four Kajadas, including Digjan. Right now, with one violent sweep of her carbine, Dig could slaughter the surviving Vakaars before they had a chance to move. The soldiers would fire, but I had no doubt Dig had better biomech than any of us. She could move fast enough to achieve her goal before she died. That she would kill many other people in the process wouldn’t stop her if she were furious enough over the destruction of her cartel.

Lavinda tapped her comm and spoke in a low, fast voice. “Takkar, get me a unit—”

“No.” I laid my hand on her wrist and prayed people didn’t get court-martialed for touching Majda royalty without permission.

Lavinda moved away her arm, but she stopped speaking.

“Colonel?” Takkar’s voice came out of the comm. “A unit of what?”

With her gaze on Dig, Lavinda said, “Wait, Captain.”

Dig continued watching us. I tilted my head toward the wall where her daughter stood with the other two Kajada punkers. Dig glanced that way, and Digjan nodded to her mother, her body tensed. Dig inclined her head, and I understood her unspoken message to her daughter.
Wait.

We all waited. The soldiers in the room kept their hands on their guns.

Dig walked forward, limping badly. It looked like only sheer determination kept her going. She came on, approaching Lavinda and me. One of the soldiers stepped closer to Lavinda, but the colonel shook her head and the soldier stopped. Everyone was watching that carbine Dig had aimed at the ceiling and the tangler pointed between our feet.

Dig approached steadily despite her limp, but I knew what it cost her. I knew her tells. She was in excruciating pain. Gods only knew what had happened to her when the canal collapsed or how long she had been down there before she crawled free.

She didn’t come directly to us. Instead she went to the table with the guns. A soldier stood in front of the piled weapons, blocking her way. She looked at him, her face hard. We all tensed as she lowered her carbine—

And handed it to the soldier.

Gods above. Had that actually happened? I watched with disbelief as Dig also gave him her tangler. I hoped the people here realized the freaking miracle they had just witnessed, that Dig Kajada willingly surrendered her weapons.

Dig turned and spoke to Lavinda in her rasping voice, her words strained and careful, for she was doing her best to use above-city speech rather than undercity dialect.

“Colonel,” Dig said, “I understand that anyone who comes here, for this one day, has got sanctuary. No matter who they are.”

I could almost feel how badly Lavinda wanted to deny those words, how much she wanted to clap Dig into the technological version of irons.

The colonel said only, “That is correct.”

Dig tapped a panel on her gauntlet and spoke into her comm. “Bring them.”

In response, a Center volunteer from outside walked through the sunlight streaming into the center—and he brought with him three children, a boy and two girls ranging in age from about six to twelve. Canal dust covered them, their clothes crusted with blue and red powder as if an avalanche had buried them. Bruises and gashes covered their skin, but none of them looked seriously hurt. Someone had protected them from a rock fall, and though I couldn’t have said how I knew, I had no doubt that person had thrown her own body across theirs, taking the brunt of the rocks.

Digjan inhaled sharply, and the children glanced at her. The smallest, the boy, gave a cry of recognition and started toward her, but the volunteer holding his hand drew him back. Instead, he brought the children to us and they all stood there with Dig.

“These are my children,” Dig told Lavinda. “Do I have your word that you will treat them as you treat everyone else here?”

“Yes,” Lavinda said. “You have my word.”

Dig continued in her ragged above-city speech. “They were taken by Vakaar during the combat and caught in the collapse of the canals. I ask that you see to their medical condition. Feed them.” She took a rattling breath. “And you test them for the emotion and thought hearing. All of them. Completely.”

“We will do that,” Lavinda said. “For you, too, if you wish.”

Dig nodded. Then her eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed like a great stone column in the aqueducts crashing to the ground.

“Dig,” I shouted, dropping to my knees next to her body.

People were running to us. Digjan called her mother’s name, and then she was at my side, crouched next to Dig. Medics pushed their way past us and lifted up the cartel queen. I followed as they carried her to a pallet at one of the medical stations. People were everywhere, hooking Dig to monitors, paramedics calling, the doctor injecting her with gods only knew what.

“She’s failing,” someone yelled.

I stood back with Digjan, barely breathing while the medics worked. Gourd came up on Digjan’s other side and Jak stood with me. I felt as if I was seeing it through a haze, everything slowed down.

A voice cut through the chaos, low, rasping, unmistakable. “Fuck that, let me die in peace.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I grabbed Digjan’s arm and we pushed our way forward. As we knelt next to the pallet where Dig was hooked up to monitors and lines, Gourd and Jak crouched on the other side. Dig’s other daughters knelt by Jak, near their mother, and the boy squeezed between the two of them.

Dig looked up at her oldest daughter. Then she looked at me. She took Digjan’s hand and crossed it with mine, laying her daughter’s palm on top of my knuckles. She spoke to Digjan, her words barely audible. “You see this Bhaajan person? Great pain in my ass.”

“Stop talking,” Digjan told her. “You need to rest. Recover.”

Dig scowled. “Not argue with me, just once, Daughter.” She shook our joined hands. “Bhaaj is a great ass pain, yah. Bhaaj is also good. You be like her, Digjan.
Like her.
Not me.”

Digjan gripped her hand. “You won’t die.”

Dig glowered at her. “You won’t argue.” She glanced at me. “Always, this jan argues.” Her voice was fading and her eyes closed, but nothing hid her satisfaction as she said, “Vakaar is gone.”

“Hammer is dead?” Digjan asked.

“I kill.” Dig opened her eyes. “Your father is avenged.”

Digjan’s voice cracked. “Mother—”

“No more cartel,” Dig told her. “You take it over, I’ll come back from the dead and whoop your damn ass.”

“Don’t die,” Digjan whispered.

“Little son, little jans.” Dig reached for her other children and they clutched her fingers. Dig let out a breath, sighed once, and closed her eyes. The monitors stopped beeping and gave that horrible siren scream of death.

I was vaguely aware of the medics pushing me away so they could work on Dig. I rose to my feet and stumbled back, but nothing changed. The machines kept up their death wail. Digjan and her sisters and brother stayed with their mother until the other two Kajada punkers drew them away. The medics pulled a sheet over Dig, covering her entire body, including her head. Digjan was kneeling on the ground, rocking back and forth, holding her brother and sisters. The other punkers knelt with them, holding Digjan and the children.

I couldn’t take it anymore. Dig had been a monster. Why was I breaking apart? I spun around and strode away from them all. I was aware of Lavinda in front of me. She was trying to say something, but I couldn’t hear. I shook my head and kept going. What could I say? Oh sorry, Colonel, I neglected to tell you that my oldest friend, the blood sister I swore my life to when I was three years old, also happened to be one of the undercity’s worst criminals.

I walked into the light streaming through the doorway. Then I was outside, among the others who had come up from the undercity. Many had crowded around the door, watching the scene unfold. They parted and I strode past them, past the doctors treating patients, past the testers doing exams. Soon I was running in long strides that took me away from the Center. I had to escape. I followed side streets that wound between market stalls, then went farther, past shops closed for the noon sleep, until the sounds of the Center faded behind me. When I reached the wall of the Concourse, I sank down with my back against the white stone barrier, an empty shop on either side, and sat with my knees drawn up to my chest and my forehead on my knees.