Jane Higgins - The Bridge

Later that night, when I was flagging and everyone else had gone, Levkova put her head round the door and waved a fistful of paper at me. ‘Nik, you’re a dedicated child. Work through these before you finish. They’ve just come in. I have to talk to Commander Vega. Don’t go till I’m back. And don’t let anyone in.’

I waited thirty seconds, checked the hallway – dark, deserted – and sat down in front of a monitor. Whole minutes dragged by as the thing groaned into life, but at last it showed me an ancient version of an operating system that – hallelujah – I knew: one that we’d learned to dismantle and rebuild until we could almost do it blindfolded. First blood to me.

But once I was in, what to look for? Follow the money, was my first thought, because trafficking had to be one of their big earners, so they’d keep track, wouldn’t they, of money they got from it and who the main players were? I found enough to tell me that money for buying weapons, ammo, fuel, and food was coming in from lots of places: from Southside, from Oversea, though I couldn’t tell what it was payment for, and – this stopped me in my tracks – from over the river. I filed that mentally under ‘ What…?’ and moved on.

I chased a lot of dead ends while the clock ticked in my head, and I tried not to think of Levkova climbing the stairs, walking down the hall, closing the distance between us. The part of my brain that was watching for her was also registering just how easy it was to sit there and read screen after screen of Breken, even though I’d only ever spoken it with Mace, and then only when there was no one else around, over the summer holidays or playing cards in the gatehouse. It was a useful trick, but it creeped me out too. Jono would love it: if he could see me now it would take him about two seconds to conclude that I was a Breken plant, a sleeper.

I tried all the possible names for ‘trafficking’ and ‘children’ that the hostiles might be hiding this business behind, assuming that they wouldn’t call it what it actually was. It gave me nothing. Before I gave up I tapped in ‘trafficking in children’ because there was nothing else to try. The screen filled up: Trafficking in children – penalties for, convictions related to, blacklisted names of known and suspected traffickers and their associates, laws against trafficking and amendments to said laws.

Laws against trafficking. My brain did a flip. Trafficking in children was illegal here.

‘What are you doing?’

I jumped about a foot. ‘Jesus!’ The wrong, wrong thing to say. Lanya of the million braids was looking over my shoulder. I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ and got busy covering my tracks and shutting everything down.

‘Jeitan said you were here. Coly has his hearing. On Thursday. That means trouble for us.’

‘What d’you mean us ?’

‘I mean,’ she paced up and down behind me, ‘Trouble for me if you tell the hearing about my knife.’ She stopped directly behind me. ‘And trouble for you if I tell them you swear like a Citysider.’

‘I’m from Gilgate. What do you expect?’ I switched off and stood up.

She followed me to my cupboard and stood in the doorway, peering at me through her braids. I started on Levkova’s papers. ‘Go,’ I said. ‘Please. How dangerous is this – you standing there and no one else here? If Levkova comes back—’

‘Levkova won’t mind.’

‘Look, I won’t tell them about the knife. I promise. And you can tell them what you like, I don’t care, I just don’t want trouble.’ I put my head down and went to work, hoping she’d disappear before she dumped me in a whole heap more of it.

‘Why?’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Why don’t you want trouble?’

‘Who wants trouble?’

‘Coly. He lives for it.’

‘Well, I’m not him.’

‘No. Who are you then?’

‘No one. I’m no one. I won’t tell the hearing about the fight. I promise. Now, will you just—’

‘Don’t you know what’s at stake?’ She sat down at the table. ‘Remnant are strong here. And getting stronger. They already control the Bridge Councils at Gulls Fort, Curswall and Blackbyre.’ I must have looked blank because she said, ‘How can you not know this? CFM holds the Moldam Council by… by almost nothing – two independent councillors who’ve pledged to vote with them. If Remnant sways the independents, the Council will be theirs. Then they’ll control all the districts east of Ohlerton.’

She leaned over and snatched the papers out of my hands. ‘Are you listening? That’s why they’re trying to shame me. They’ve created a great panic about purity, and this latest so-called scandal will be enough to push the independents their way. Do you want that to happen?’

‘I don’t do politics. Can I have those back?’

‘Everyone does politics. There’s nothing here but politics.’

‘I could be one of these Remnant people, for all you know, so shouldn’t you give me back those papers now and leave ?’

Her black eyes studied me, her long fingers destroyed the staple holding the papers together. ‘You’re not. I’d know.’

‘You’d know. How would you know?’

‘Jeitan says you’re a heathen. And you wouldn’t have fixed my arm. And you’d have reported me by now. And Coly wouldn’t hate you so much.’

That got my attention. ‘How much?’

‘Enough. You should watch your back.’

I stared at her. How had something as simple as food and a bandage turned into a full-blown freakin’ circus?

The door to the main room closed.

Levkova. She stood in the doorway of my cupboard and glared. ‘Don’t let anyone in. Did I say that?’ Lanya stood up and I scrambled to my feet. They bowed that short bow to each other, and Levkova said, ‘My dear, you are surely in enough—’

‘Yes. In enough trouble already. I know. I’m leaving now.’ She headed for the door.

But Levkova put up a hand. ‘Wait. Someone’s in the corridor. Put out the light.’ She closed the door on us and we heard the key turn in the lock. I pulled the string and killed the light. Darkness, but for a thin line under the door. And Lanya breathing an arm’s length away. The door in the main room opened and closed, then Levkova’s voice said, ‘Councillor Terten, what brings you here?’

‘Sub-commander Levkova.’ A man’s voice. ‘Working late?’

‘As you see.’

Boots clicked on the floor as someone paced and stopped outside our door, blocking the thin line of light. Lanya drew in a breath. The steps moved on. She let out a ragged sigh and the beads in her hair made tiny clacking sounds in the dark.

The voice outside said, ‘How long have you worked here, Sub-commander?’

‘Since before the last uprising, Councillor.’

‘Many years of active service, then. You have a well-earned retirement awaiting you.’

‘I have no intention of retiring.’

‘Times change, dear lady, times change. But I forget myself. There is nothing dear or ladylike about you, is there?’

‘I hope not, Councillor. Did you want anything in particular?’

‘I came, Sub-commander, because I expect to remove you from here, very soon. With God’s grace, by week’s end. I came to ask that you go quietly and with dignity. CFM has lost its way and we intend to make that clear to the people.’ More pacing.

Levkova said, ‘You lay great store in the hearing.’

‘I lay great store, Sub-commander, in common decency, which your continued presence here offends. You appear but rarely at prayer, you scorn the modesty of widows, you assume control of affairs that should concern no woman. It’s time for you to return to what is properly yours.’