Walter Williams: City on Fire

Aiah sighs. “Yes,” she says. “If that’s what you want.”

“Gangsters, Miss Aiah,” Constantine reminds. “What in Jaspeer you called the Operation. Here they are the Silver Hand, and they are a threat to us and to the New City, and they must be destroyed. Destroyed completely. And it is best to do it as soon as possible, before the Handmen make…” He frowns. “Inroads. Inroads into the new structure.”

Aiah thinks of the Operation, the street captains with their stony, inhuman eyes and their utter, perfectly human greed. Their dominance was difficult to avoid; they had injured her family, and her hatred for them had burned long.

Damn Constantine for reminding her.

“I’ll do it, if that’s what you want,” Aiah says, “but only if you want it really done.”

His brown eyes challenge hers. “I said destroyed. Did I not?”

She nods. Fists clench at her sides, nails digging into palms. “Yes,” she says. “I can do that.”

He looks down at the gold ashtray in his hands, and her gaze follows his. His massive hands and powerful wrists have twisted the ashtray, turned it into a half-spiral of yellow metal, all without visible effort. He holds it up and smiles.

“Too malleable,” he comments. “I find myself disliking the useless ostentation in this place more and more.”

Aiah looks at him. “I will bear that in mind, Metropolitan.”

A knowing smile dances about his lips. His arm flies out, and the ashtray gives a little metallic keen as it skids across the tabletop. It strikes another ashtray with a clang and knocks it to the carpet before coming to a halt, spinning lazily on the polished wood.

“I will find you an office,” Constantine says. He takes her arm, guides her to the door. “We can postpone discussions of salary, and so forth, for the moment. Budgets,” he smiles, “are in flux. But I will assign you an apartment here in the Palace. I want you close by.”

His hand is very warm on her arm. Close by, she thinks, yes.

“Congratulations on your revolution, Metropolitan,” she says.

Constantine opens the door. “We have had only a change in administration,” he says. “The revolution is yet to come.” “Congratulations, anyway.”

“Thank you,” he says, and smiles as she passes through the door.

LIFE EXTENSION WHAT’S WRONG WITH LIVING FOREVER? REASONABLE TERMS—PRIVACY ASSURED

Constantine leaves Aiah to underlings who don’t quite know what to do with her. But by the end of first shift Aiah has an office in Owl Wing. It has a receptionist’s office (sans receptionist), a rather nicely finished metal desk complete with bullet holes, and a communications array that doesn’t work. An Evo-Matic computer sits in the corner, brass with fins, but it requires a three-prong commo socket and the office isn’t wired for them. The plastic sheeting tacked up over the window booms with every gust of wind.

The carpet is nice, though. Gray, with black patterns that look like geomantic foci.

From this office she will direct a team that as yet does not exist, that has no history, no personnel, no records, no budget; but which nevertheless is charged with a task of awesome complexity and importance.

Gathering plasm. The most important element of power, because it can do anything.

Mass transformed is energy —the most fundamental difference is not one of matter, but of perspective. And mass, in the right configurations, can create energy.

That’s plasm.

And the science of configuring mass so as to produce plasm is geomancy.

And because plasm exists in a kind of resonance with the human will, it can be used to create realities—create almost anything the human mind can conceive. Cure disease, alter genes, destroy life, halt or reverse aging, creep into the human mind to burn every neuron or, more subtly, to turn one emotion into another, to create love or hate where neither existed before. Plasm can knock tall buildings down, move objects from one place to another, build precious metals from base matter. Or create base matter from nothing at all.

In Constantine’s system of thought, plasm is the most real thing in the world. Because it can make anything else real, or it can take something that exists and uncreate it.

Making something real from nothing would now seem to be Aiah’s job.

Create a police force.

What kind of magecraft is necessary for that? Absurd.

Aiah tries, sketching idly on paper, to make plans. It’s usually easy enough to find out who the big thieves are, but discovering where they keep the goods is another matter.

You have always exceeded my expectations.

After a few hours, she wants to spit the words back in Constantine’s face.

She throws down her pen, stands, paces the carpet while the plastic rattles in the wind.

Welcome to Free Caraq —she thinks. Why is it up to her to fill in the missing letters?

And then Sorya is standing in the door, and Aiah’s heart leaps.

“Hello, missy.” Sorya walks into the room and holds out Aiah’s bag. “This was brought from your hotel.”

“Thank you.” Aiah takes the offering. The cinders in the back of her throat make her cough.

Deliberately, Sorya’s green eyes rove the room. There is a languid smile on her lips. She is balanced like a dancer, hips cocked forward, blond-streaked hair framing her face. She usually clothes her panther body in brilliant colors, apricot or green silk, the coiled muscle and curve of breast and hip garbed brightly as a flower… but at the moment she wears a green uniform with no insignia, a faded military greatcoat with brass buttons thrown over her shoulders, a peaked cap set with deliberate nonchalance on the side of her head. Not a flower, but something else.

A mage, a potent one. A warrior, a general. Powerful and intent on growing more so.

“We paid you well for your services in Jaspeer,” she says. “I was under the impression we had said good-bye.”

“The cops were after me.”

“That was careless of you.” She arches an eyebrow.

Sorya turns, walks to the door, pauses deliberately, and looks at Aiah over her shoulder. “Let me take you to your suite in the Crane Wing.”

Aiah clears her throat, finds her voice. “Don’t you have a more important job to do?”

Sorya gives a lilting laugh. “I am providing orientation to a valued colleague. Please come.”

Aiah follows. Sorya leads Aiah down a corridor with a shallow outward curve, a design feature presumably intended to enhance plasm creation.

“I’ve been appointed head of the Intelligence Section,” Sorya says.

“Drumbeth’s old job?”

“Colonel Drumbeth was military intelligence. I’m civilian, under the Ministry of State.”

Aiah feels a tightness in her chest. “Head of the Specials, then.” The old political police, infamous for their torture and brutality.

“We are going to be renamed the Force of the Interior, I believe.” Sorya throws the words carelessly over her shoulder.

“The commanders of the Specials will be debriefed—they are valuable only for their information, and once that is extracted, I expect they will be tried and shot.” She flashes a cold smile over her shoulder. “Their crimes were real enough, and the population expects no less.”

Sorya comes to an elevator, presses a button. The elevator door is polished copper, and Aiah can see her distorted reflection looming over Sorya’s shoulder—tall skinny body, brown skin, corkscrew hair pulled back in a practical knot. A gangling, hovering, uncertain form, quite the opposite of Sorya, with her perfect body, her exotic dress, her dancer’s poise and ruthless assurance.