Michael Flynn - On the Razor’s Edge

“There it is,” said Little Jacques, the pale pigmy who conned the modest pleasure boat that traveled slowly up the stream. Donovan and Gidula looked where he pointed. The magpies with them looked everywhere else. All were dressed in festive river-garb: broad-brimmed sun-hats, water-singlets, flotation belts. The river was a favored playground for those who could afford to play.

“Seems different,” Donovan said as he studied the manicured esplanade along the waterfront.

“Not too different, I hope,” answered Gidula. Little Jacques smiled without turning around.

“Put in over there,” Donovan suggested. “Take it slow and watch for underwater obstacles. There were piers here once, and the pilings might linger underwater.”

Little Jacques said to no one in particular, “I love it when you remember things.”

“I love it,” said Gidula more privately, “ when you remember things.”

“Sometimes memory needs a stimulus.”

“Yes,” said Gidula, sitting back once more. “I know.”

The sign read: NO PLEASURECRAFT DOCKING. Gidula and Donovan jumped ashore while Little Jacques and the magpies stayed in the boat. Donovan shaded his eyes and peered across the river.

“Well?” said Gidula.

“The old sugar plant stood here, and the bank was overgrown with volunteer cane.” He strode north along the esplanade about twenty paces, paused. “Here. I think. When I came ashore, I could still see my point of exit under the bluffs.” He turned his powerglasses across the river and upstream. The bank there was an impenetrable thicket of rhododendron, sassafrass, hazelwood, and Chinese elm. Donovan lowered the glasses. He would have to tell them about the steam tunnels sooner or later, and it looked as if later had come.

“They assumed I used my power-zoot to cross the river as quickly as possible, and so searched along the southern side of the Secret City. They never imagined that a man fleeing for his life would drift lazily with the current for a time. But I knew my destination, and there was no point coming ashore upstream of here. My betrayer knew the destination, too, and guessed where I might come ashore. I don’t know why they never came back to question me further.”

Gidula sighed. “The Names decided that the uprising ‘never happened,’ so it was an embarrassment to have about those who remembered putting it down.”

“Ah. False consciousness.” Donovan placed the glasses in the carry-case. “Most of the city center was in ruins. How did they explain that?”

Gidula stepped back into the boat. “Urban renewal.”

Gidula and Donovan put on a dumb show in case anyone in the sheep pens was gazing in boredom, awe, or envy toward the gleaming towers of Secret City. They disembarked on the right bank to relieve themselves only to have their boat lose power and drift with the current. They scrambled through the brush to catch it. Haha! The discomfiture of the wealthy is ever a source of amusement to the sheep. No need to inform authorities of anything so droll.

Donovan edged inland as he scrambled downstream; and before too long, he found the crumbling exit of a steam tunnel. Gidula, caught in a tangle of rhododendrons, did not notice; so Donovan pressed on—and came upon a second opening! He had tallied six tunnels before he decided he could not plausibly have overlooked them all, and finally informed Gidula. “I don’t know which I came out of,” Donovan said. “They must underrun the entire city of Old New Jösing. If I explore each, I should have a good idea which served the Secret City.”

“We’ll come back later with the others,” Gidula said. “We don’t want the Protectors to wonder about activity along the riverbank.” He was not about to let Donovan roam a warren of tunnels in which he might not be found again. “Steam tunnels … Who would have thought it?”

Donovan ignored him. “The system fell into disuse; MHD plants were redeployed. New construction sealed over the accessways. Once the drainage tunnels were out of sight, they soon passed out of mind.”

Gidula clicked Little Jacques, who was finally able to restart his boat and pick them up.

“And, Old One? ‘Sealed over’ means exactly that. I had to chop through a subbasement wall to gain access. You’ll need drills, poppers, thermastics…”

Gidula patted him gently on the shoulder. “If you could exit, we can enter.”

Shadows and their magpies gathered that evening in shenmats and wearing the tools of their profession. They had tuned the skins to black in honor of the night. At the entrance of each tunnel, they pinged a fix off the satellite, then inside the tunnels where the positioning network was inaccessible they tracked their pathways by dead reckoning off micro-gyros. By superimposing the D/R traces over ground-level maps, they determined that two of the six tunnels led under the Secret City. Donovan and Pyati scouted up each one. Oschous and his own Number One went with him.

The first one was it. But Donovan withheld judgment until checking the second. Then he went back to double-check the first, proceeding uphill until the party came to an ancient flight of stone steps off the tunnel-side, blocked at the top by a deadfall of rubble. Donovan lowered himself on the second step. Pyati went a little farther up-tunnel while Black Horse One kept watch on their backtrail, creating a bracket within which their masters could talk.

Oschous sat beside him on the step, and stroked the fur on his protruding chin. “So. Is this the place?”

“We broke a hole through a subbasement wall. I suppose when they brought the building down the rubble plugged the hole.”

Oschous examined the tumbled avalanche of stone and tile. Then he studied the dead reckoning map. “Officially, there was never a building above here. They leveled the site and infilled with dirt. If we dug through, we’d emerge in a park and frighten some late-night lovers. But now that we have a second fix we can figure out where the tunnel system abuts the Residences.” He clapped Donovan on the shoulder. “Well done, Gesh!”

Donovan shrugged.

“What ho! Why so glum, comrade?”

“Because my usefulness to Gidula is now at an end.”

Oschous made a Brotherhood sign with his left hand. “But not thy usefulness to us.”

Donovan no longer believed Oschous a Brotherhood member, or that the Brotherhood this side of the Rift was not utterly compromised. But neither did Donovan believe that Oschous was ready to dispose of him. The young man in the chlamys thought “the Fox” planned to use him against Gidula—which was fair enough, considering. Donovan leaned toward Oschous. “Be thou not too sanguine that thy battle plan and the Old One’s intentions wend the same path.”

Oschous flicked his hand, as against a fly. “Gidula doth hold but one vote of three. Yea, a wise counselor, but Dawshoo’s voice and mine count for more.”

Was Oschous serious? A dazer could fire twelve pulses between rechargings. Those were votes enough. “Remember that this play did hatch from his egg, and it doth place our leadership in places of Gidula’s desiring.”

Oschous said nothing for a moment, then tapped his positioner and stood. He dropped the Tongue. “Let’s return to the others.”

They calibrated their dead reckoners just inside the tunnel entrance and sent teams out to map the tunnel network. “To maintain surprise,” Oschous told them, “our kill teams must emerge simultaneously at their strike points. Targets must not be given time to spread word. Find exit points closest to—preferably directly into—the Residences.”

“Not the Offices?” asked Domino Tight.