‘Don’t go changing no locks on me again, all right? Nearly pissed in my shoes when I couldn’t get that door open.’
‘Meroka,’ Fray chided. ‘There’s a child present.’
On the other side of the door was a short tunnel, and at the far end of the tunnel was a room, much smaller than the main vault, which Fray had turned into his bolt-hole. It had metal doors leading out from it, the same kind they had already passed through. There were a couple of beds laid out on the floor, several crates stacked up around the beds, a couple of folding chairs, a card table. Quillon looked into one of the open crates and saw ammunition, packets of clinical-grade Morphax-55, candies, bottled water, cigarettes and alcohol. The place smelt inhumanly stale, but he supposed that was to be expected. Fray hadn’t promised them the heights of luxury.
Quillon sipped at bottled water - it had the gritty taste of collected run-off - and helped himself to one of the cigarettes. He had removed his coat and hacked away at his sleeve to expose the wound, but although he was unconcerned now about anyone seeing his wing-buds or the increasingly skeletal condition of his anatomy, he preferred not to draw attention to the chest wound. There was enough blood on his shirt from the arm wound to hide the evidence of it anyway. It could have been worse: the bullet had gouged a bloody trench through what little muscle bulk he retained, but it had left no trace of itself behind. With Kalis’s help he had staunched the bleeding, sterilised the wound, stitched the skin and applied a pressure pad and dressing. When it was done he shrugged the coat back on again, forcing his arm into the sleeve with difficulty. A knot of pain, hardening with each breath, told him that the chest wound would not be so easily treated.
‘You good, Cutter?’ Meroka asked.
‘I’m good.’
She shared a slug of Firebird with Fray, while Kalis and Nimcha declined the offer of anything to drink.
‘Meroka’s right - we can’t stay here now,’ Fray said, sorting through one of the other crates, his drink in the other hand. ‘Tulwar’s men will find their way down here eventually, if only to figure out what happened to the last bunch. There’ll be more of them, and they’ll have bigger guns. But that’s fine - Malkin and I were about ready to check out anyway.’
Malkin blinked. ‘We were?’
‘Oh, yeah.’ Fray finished his drink and slammed the glass to the ground. ‘Place stinks like a shit-tip anyway. Pardon my language.’
‘It’s about time we told you about Nimcha,’ Quillon said, beckoning the girl away from her mother. ‘She’s the reason we came here, Fray. She’s the reason Tulwar tried to have us killed.’
‘I thought he set you up with the angels.’
‘That was just incidental. I don’t doubt they made it worth his while, a trade-off of some kind. You give us Quillon, we’ll let you keep Neon Heights. For the time being.’
‘So what does Tulwar have against Nimcha?’
‘Show him,’ Quillon said.
Nimcha reached up and removed her hat. She stared at Fray for a few moments then turned around slowly, presenting the back of her head to him, exposing the baubled star where her hair had been hacked away by Spatha.
‘Right...’ Fray said, on a falling note.
Quillon asked, ‘You know what this means?’
‘Kind of.’
‘And your opinion on the matter?’
‘You wouldn’t have brought her here if you didn’t think there was something in it. Right, Cutter?’
‘She can do it,’ Meroka said. ‘Make the zones change. I’ve seen - felt - it happen.’
‘There’s something in her head,’ Quillon said. ‘Machinery, I suppose. Machinery made of living matter, shaped from the moment she was conceived. But not like any machinery in our experience. I met a man called Ricasso while I was outside - he’s studied the zones and contemplated tectomancers and what they mean. I don’t think I understood all of it, but from what I can gather, the things we make - even the things angels make - aren’t very good at adapting to zone changes. They’re too clunky, too rigid. Living things make a better job of it - we’ re squishier, as Ricasso put it, more able to adjust to changes in the cellular grid. I think the stuff in Nimcha’s head must be like that as well.’
Fray looked sceptical but interested. ‘What stuff?’
‘She can feel Spearpoint. Or more specifically the Mire, or the Eye of God. She’s like a radio, and the Eye is the transmitting station.’ Quillon winced, as much over his inability to communicate his thoughts as from the throbbing pain in his arm. ‘But it’s not radio, or anything we can even begin to understand. Whatever it is, it’s able to reach through hundreds, thousands of leagues, into the mind of a girl.’
Malkin asked, ‘Why?’
‘That’s the hard part, the bit I don’t think even Ricasso understands. But we have to stop thinking of tectomancers the way we do. They’re not witches, that’s for sure. If that symbol on the back of her head means anything, then it was people like Nimcha - people with whatever gift she has - who made Spearpoint. They built it, for whatever purpose it was meant to serve. They were the architects, and perhaps the caretakers as well.’
Fray squinted. ‘Caretakers?’
‘Whatever Spearpoint is - and after the things we saw in the Bane, I’m starting to have an idea - it isn’t working now. The Mire, the Eye of God, is part of what’s gone wrong with it. The incursion, Ricasso called it: the intrusion into our world of something wrong. The world isn’t meant to be divided up into zones. They’re a mistake, a symptom, a sign that something isn’t right. But whatever’s wrong, it’s been wrong for so long that we’ve got used to it. We’ve been building our world around that wrongness for five thousand years. But it can’t go on.’
‘I kind of liked things the way they were,’ Fray said.
‘So did a lot of us, but that’s irrelevant. The world is dying. It’s getting colder and soon there won’t be enough trees to give us the wood and the firesap we need to keep things running. We have to leave, if only so that we can look back and see what’s gone wrong, and start thinking of ways to mend it. But the zones won’t allow us to escape. We can be as clever and ingenious as we like, but we can’t beat them.’
‘So we’re fucked, is what you’re saying. Not to put too fine a point on it.’
‘No, Fray. We’re not. Because we don’t need to fight the zones for ever. Whatever happened to Spearpoint all those years ago, I think it’s starting to put itself right. Perhaps it needed five thousand years to even begin to heal itself. All I know is that the process has begun, and that Nimcha is part of it.’
‘A kid?’
‘It’s what she can do that matters. What’s in her head, the talent. She’s probably not the only one it’s been calling out to. It’s been going on for generations: inheritance factors shuffling around in the population until they combine in the right way and give rise to a tectomancer. Someone who feels the zones, someone who can make them move. But for centuries - thousands of years even - they were wasted. Spearpoint couldn’t respond to them, couldn’t sense them, and they couldn’t sense Spearpoint. If they did discover their abilities, it was only enough to get them branded as witches and lunatics. But that’s not what they were at all. They were caretakers. Healers.’
‘Gatekeepers,’ Meroka said.
‘Yes,’ Quillon said emphatically, remembering the passage in the Testament. ‘ “And the mark of the keepers of the gates of paradise shall be upon her, and she shall be feared.” But we don’t have to fear her! Revere her, possibly. Respect? Definitely. But fear? I don’t think so. She’s come to save us, not annihilate us. The Mire’s been calling her, seeking her guidance. It’s come all this way on its own, but now it needs a human mind to shape the process of recovery. That’s what she has to provide.’ He paused for breath. ‘That’s why we brought her here.’
Fray widened his eyes, nodded, then rubbed his palms together. For now, at least, his shaking had abated. ‘In which case, Cutter, I guess she’ll want
to meet the Mad Machines. Because nothing happens in here without their say-so.’
‘Are they near?’ Kalis asked.
‘Just the other side of the zone.’ Fray flashed a devil-may-care smile. ‘Hope you’re all feeling up to the crossing.’
As Meroka had told him during their escape from Spearpoint, the zones became progressively more compacted within the structure. A boundary might span many leagues in the open lands beyond the city, several blocks inside Neon Heights or Horsetown, but now the transition between zones might easily be measured in hundreds of spans or less. Fray opened one of the doors leading out of the bolt-hole and led them down another shaft, one that became progressively steeper and more difficult to traverse. At length they came to another opening, and it was here that Quillon felt the first physiological tingles of an imminent transition, over and above the steady pressure that had been present since the last leg of the airship crossing.
‘We’re close now,’ he said.
‘You got that right.’ Fray set down his lantern. ‘Change vector’s pretty steep, just so you all know what to expect. Gonna feel like you’ve stepped from Steamville to Circuit City without taking a breath. Maybe worse than that. Think you can work out the Morphax dose for that, Cutter?’
‘I’ll do my best.’ By lantern light he dug inside his medical bag, sorting through the by now rather depleted supplies until he found the vials he wanted. He doled out pills to Meroka and Malkin, then turned to Kalis and her daughter. ‘I admire your strength,’ he told them, ‘but now isn’t the time to prove your self-reliance. I’ve seen it, and I don’t need any further convincing. But if Fray’s right, this is going to hit us hard unless we’re medicated.’ He demonstrated his own conviction on the subject by popping two of the pills. ‘I’m committed now,’ he said, swallowing them down. ‘I have to cross the zone now.’
Kalis’s expression was one of steely resolve, but at last she nodded and extended her hand. ‘If you think this is necessary.’
‘I do.’
He gave her two pills to swallow, and a third for Nimcha. He watched to make certain they complied. Then he went back to Fray, who was beginning to shake again, his ragged nervous system anticipating the stress of the crossing. Whatever benefits the alcohol had given him were beginning to wear off.
‘You don’t have to come with us,’ Quillon said. ‘You’ve already done enough.’
‘And miss this, Cutter? You’ve got to be kidding me.’
‘You’re not well.’
‘And I’ll be even less well if I attempt that crossing without Morphax inside me. Your choice, of course.’
‘Like I have any,’ Quillon said, unstoppering the vial and palming two pills. ‘You’re the man with the spingun, after all.’
‘There is that,’ Fray said.
They set off again. The boundary came on them more quickly than Quillon had been expecting, and at first the sharpness of the transition was enough to make him worry that he had misjudged the dose. But as they carried on walking, the Morphax-55 began to kick in and take the edge off the worst of the effects, even going some way to dulling the pain from his bullet wounds. He still felt wrong, as if there was a pressure in his head that was only being masked, not alleviated, but it was enough to enable him to function and retain some clarity of mind. He surveyed his companions and saw nothing immediately untoward in any of them. Even Fray appeared to be coping. Perhaps his body still had a few transitions left in it after all.
They passed through more tunnels. By now Quillon had given up trying to guess where they were in relation to Spearpoint’s hollow walls, whether they were nearer the inside or the outside. All he could be certain of was that they had not descended far from the level of the Pink Peacock. The Mire, whatever it was, must still be a great distance under their feet.
‘We’re getting near now,’ Fray said. ‘Not to cause any offence or anything, but when we meet the Mad Machines, it’ll be best if Meroka and I do the talking. Just to break the ice, so to speak.’
‘I’m all for ice-breaking,’ Quillon said. His apprehension was rising like mercury in a thermometer, creeping steadily up the shaft. ‘These machines ... the mad ones - have you been acquainted long?’
Fray seemed to take it as a straight question. ‘Long enough. We only get to deal with two or three of them - there’s some sort of hierarchy. The shallow tunnels are all fine and dandy if you just want to take a few short cuts or get away from the local heat for a few hours. But to go deep - which is what we’re doing now - you have to deal with the things that live down here.’
‘Why isn’t their existence more widely known?’
‘It used to be, but the city authorities were glad to turn a blind eye, provided the machines kept to their side of the zone. Storm shook things up a bit, but not enough to let them break out onto the ledges. Mostly, the authorities just didn’t want to deal with anything they couldn’t exploit or understand. All the cops I worked with knew about them, but they were the thing you never talked about. You’d use them to scare confessions out of people, say you were going to leave them in the tunnels and let the Mad Machines find them.’
‘That’s what parents tell their children will happen, if they’re naughty.’
‘Well, one thing’s for certain: some of us have been very naughty indeed.’
They emerged into what was evidently another large vault, judging by the way the acoustics changed and the lantern light fell away without being reflected from adjoining walls or ceiling. The party walked on for some distance until Fray raised his lantern and brought them to a halt. The lantern trembled in his hand, the little flame quivering. When he spoke, it was with atypical reverence. ‘This is where they come. They’ll be here sooner or later, one or more of them.’
‘How can you be sure?’ Quillon asked.
‘Because this is how it always happens, Cutter. You come here. You wait. The machines show up. Now remember what I said about letting Meroka and me do the talking? The one thing you don’t want to do is piss these things off.’
‘What are these machines?’ Kalis asked.
‘Take a guess. I don’t think even they know for sure. Maybe they were put into Spearpoint to keep it running, like janitors.’
‘They’re not doing much of a job,’ Quillon said.
‘Well, you don’t know how fucked it would be if they weren’t around, do you? Maybe they’re the only things that have been stopping this place from crumbling to dust all these years.’
Quillon thought about the broken stump of Spearpoint 2. ‘Perhaps.’
Then he felt a breeze that had not been there a moment before. Fray met his eyes and nodded once. Kalis wrapped her arms around Nimcha, drawing her daughter closer to her. Without a word being said, the little party formed a cordon around mother and daughter: Fray and Quillon on one side, Meroka and Malkin on the other. The breeze ebbed, but in its place was a distant but approaching sound: a continuous metallic clattering. It sounded like garbage being bulldozed down an alley, a building avalanche of junk and debris. Insofar as Quillon had given the Mad Machines any thought, nothing had prepared him for this.
‘Juggernaut,’ Fray said, speaking just loud enough to be heard over the growing clatter. ‘I think it’s Juggernaut.’
‘Sounds like it to me,’ Meroka said.
‘Is that good or bad?’ Quillon asked.
‘Depends what kind of mood she’s in. Juggernaut has off-days,’ Fray replied, then ran a finger across his lips, telling Quillon to zip it.
The machine stopped somewhere in the darkness. There was an oily smell on the air, accompanied by a low, barely perceptible humming. The clattering had all but ceased. Quillon could see nothing, even with the lantern light, but he still sensed Juggernaut’s looming presence. The sense of powerlessness, even with Nimcha at his side, was more intense than he had ever felt in his life.
Lights came on. Quillon squinted against the blue-tinged brightness, striving to see details beyond the glare. They wer
e looking up at Juggernaut, the lights coming from the machine itself, stabbing down at them. Juggernaut was not what he had expected.
The Mad Machine was a towering, teetering pile of animate junk, tall and wide as a four-storey tenement and about as long as a city block. It was just barely symmetrical, like a heap of scrap that had been compacted into a roughly rectangular shape, but with enough gaps and lopsided protrusions to upset any hint of regularity or orderedness. He could see that it was a single entity, of sorts, in that all the visible parts were either articulated or fixed together by some means or other. But there was no sense of Juggernaut having been designed, or even that Juggernaut had evolved in steps from some earlier, more ordered state. It just looked like a heap of trash that had been flung together and which had, astonishingly, spontaneously, aggregated into a kind of building-sized robot.
It did not have wheels or legs or any other obvious means of locomotion, but many parts of it appeared capable of independent movement. It had nothing resembling a head. The lights - which to Quillon had the bug-eyed look of car headlamps, although all of different makes and sizes - had been arranged across its front in an entirely random pattern. He could see no means by which the machine was able to view its visitors, but that it was aware of them was beyond question. He had seldom had the impression of being more intently studied.
Fray was the first to speak. He raised his voice and said, ‘Thank you for letting us come here, Juggernaut. It’s good of you to allow us to come this far. I’m afraid we don’t have much to give you, but you’re welcome to what we have.’
Meroka took Malkin’s weapon in her hands, but not as if she intended to use it. Silently, as if the act had been rehearsed, she and Fray stepped forwards several paces and placed their spinguns on the floor. Then they walked back to the group, all without turning their backs on the machine.
Juggernaut did nothing for several seconds. The humming continued, perhaps a little louder than before. The clattering was also more emphatic. It was almost as if the machine was drumming fingers, thinking things over.