David Gunn - Death's head

“Drunk as a skunk,” the gun says.

“Join me,” I suggest.

Franc shakes her head. “The truce is about to end.”

It seems I’m a week out, not that it matters. My metabolism means staying drunk takes real effort and sobriety comes all too soon. Only that’s still not quick enough for Franc.

“You’re needed.”

“The colonel?”

She spits with great accuracy, hitting dead center on a floor tile. Her opinion of Colonel Nuevo made clear, she helps me to my feet.

“There’s a cold tub next door,” says the SIG.

I go in, trousers and all. I must help somehow, because looking at Franc it doesn’t seem possible she could maneuver me over the edge on her own. The water is freezing, and feels even colder when she ducks my head under and holds me down for a couple of seconds.

“You stink,” she says.

“You stink, sir.”

“Ignore him,” says my gun.

Haze has locked himself in the cellar with long loops of copper wires nailed to our side of the door. The wire begins and ends at a fat-wheel battery, which sits on bricks below one hinge.

When Franc finally persuades Haze to release the door, I discover he’s nailed similar loops of wire to the walls on both sides of the stairs. My arm brushes one of the wires, and sparks flare in the blackness. It’s dark, but I don’t need light to know he’s crying.

I strike a match all the same.

Hollow eyes stare at me. It’s like looking into the face of death.

“We need to talk.”

He shakes his head, closes his eyes. I want to shake Haze or slap him, but that’s just my hangover arriving. Anyway, I’m scared of driving him deeper, and I’ve just realized something else.

“You’ve lost your ability to read my mind?”

Whatever he says is below the edge of my hearing, and my hearing is good. He points to a candle, so I light it with my last match. Then he points to a scrap of paper and an old-fashioned pencil. A design for the wires on the wall is scratched on one side. It’s been drawn and redrawn half a dozen times.

Haze holds out his hand.

I give him the paper, then the pencil.

They’re looking for me. His writing is shaky, far worse than the writing next to his drawings of the wires, and that is shaky enough.

“Who is?”

Everyone…

I take a deep breath. This boy saved our lives when he downed a high fighter before it could flame our trenches for a second time. And with that thought I have my answer. “The Enlightened?”

Yes, writes Haze.

“In here?” I tap my head.

He nods, but I already knew the answer.

“We’re going hunting,” I tell my gun.

“About time.” The SIG is sulking because I’ve been drunk and it’s been bored, but it forgives me when I let it select its own ammunition.

“Ceramic hollow point.”

I load a clip with the right shells.

“Flechette.”

The gun doesn’t really like flechette, but we both know they’re useful and anyway the tiny carbon darts take up so little room.

“Overblast, explosive, incendiary…”

I alternate the shells in a single clip, four of each, and slam the final clip into the SIG’s handle. And then, wrapping myself in my coat, I sling a pulse rifle across my back, stuff the SIG diabolo into my belt, and check that I’m carrying a dagger, throwing spikes, and my laser blade.

No one tries to stop me as I make my way across the inner city…My face is known to most Death’s Head officers, and the others take one look at my scowl and decide I must have official business.

“Sven.” Colonel Nuevo stares at me through the bottom of a glass. “I’ve been wondering where you were.”

“Sir…”

We’re in his bunker, because this isn’t an official meeting. So I finally get to see his famous blast walls after all. More blocks of gold than you can imagine. Utterly useless, providing an illusion of protection. We both know that a direct rocket strike would wipe Ilseville Bank off the map, strong room or not.

“I’ve got to get out.”

“Haven’t we all.” He smiles. “Not going to happen, though. Is it?”

“I mean…I’ve got to be allowed into the outer city.”

The colonel pours himself another glass. On his table are a bottle, a glass, a pistol, and a map of the inner city with dozens of pencil lines dividing it into small squares. It looks like he’s been playing one of those games where you block out every hit and put a cross for every miss. No one can have any doubt about who is winning.

“Want to know how many buildings we have left?”

I shake my head.

“Very wise,” says Colonel Nuevo. “No point depressing yourself. Now tell me why I should give you permission to leave.”

“Don’t want to leave,” I tell him. “Just go into the outer city.”

“You don’t want to leave?” He shrugs. “You’re weirder than I thought. Everybody else is desperate to get out of here.”

This is going to be more difficult than I thought.

“The enemy have food,” I say. “And weapons. Okay, not as many as they’d like, but more than us. I want to hit a couple of their dumps, cause some damage before they have a chance to get stuck into us again. And I’m sick of being cooped up in here. I want to kill some Enlightened.”

His eyebrows rise.

“As many Enlightened as I find.” For a second I consider telling the colonel about Haze being NewlyMade, then decide not to complicate the issue.

“The Silver Fist are preparing an attack,” he says.

“Soon,” I agree. “While the ice still means they can cross the river without needing pontoons or bridges.”

“Did I say that?”

I shake my head. “Worked it out for myself.”

Colonel Nuevo raises his glass. “We’ll make a proper officer of you yet.”

“God forbid.”

He smiles sourly. “Let’s pretend I didn’t hear that.” Pulling a sheet of paper from a drawer, the colonel hunts for his official seal and finds it where he found the paper. He scrawls his signature across the bottom and seals it.

“Write your own orders,” he says. “Get killed, see if I care. I can always find another ADC.”

I salute, smartly enough to be insulting.

His comments about my parentage, manners, and lack of anything resembling breeding follow me from his bunker, leaving the captain and lieutenant in the next room wondering what is funny enough about this to make me grin.

By the time night arrives, I’m as sober as the silver moon that hides behind scudding clouds above my head, and my hangover is little more than a faint echo. On the dot of 2100 a dozen mortars arrive from across the river to celebrate the end of the truce, but they explode where mortars have already exploded and the rubble they destroy is worth nothing anyway.

The streets beyond my house are silent as I stamp my way through freshly fallen snow. A militia patrol catch me in their torches, see my uniform, and apologize. We salute each other and I walk on, moving toward a pump station with a heavy lock on its doors.

I’ve been watching a sector beyond our wall all evening. The houses are expensive, used by senior Silver Fist and members of the Enlightened. A house two streets back has a three-braid, while a house on a square behind has another. They’ll do for a start.

According to the map in Colonel Nuevo’s office, a tunnel runs from the pump house to a substation in the outer city. I’m about five minutes away from finding out if that’s true. Slashing away the lock, I take a deep breath and steady myself. When I walk out of the substation only one thing must be on my mind…

Killing Enlightened, plus anything else that gets in my way.

Silver Fist engineers have welded a grid across their end of the tunnel, so I wrap fire string around the bars, debate stepping back, and decide a falling grid will make too much noise for me to take the risk.