Suited (33 page)

That was a terrible thought.

“If Lad had not torn me away from a technician’s life, with his violence and his needs, I might have been one of them. One of the technicians who worked on this suit. I might have been like Devich. Lying and manipulating, all to create this weapon. This abomination.”

I shivered at the word. If I was the suit and he thought the suit was… No. I would not go down that path.

“If it had not been for Lad,” I answered, instead. “Would you have become a technician in the first place?”

He had no answer to that. And it was all meaningless anyway.

I stooped, collected my woollen shirt and slipped it on, not bothering with the remnants of my uniform and shift. The material felt heavy, and strangely itchy. It had been a long time since I had worn anything but the uniform against my bare skin. “There, now you know,” I turned as I buttoned the shirt. He was staring at me, his eyes unfocused, his expression distant, “what this is all about.”

He blinked. “It has been doing this for a while, hasn’t it? Gradually taking you over, inch by inch.”

“Yes.”

“Are there more?” He glanced down to my stomach, then legs. “Were you hiding them from me? That night, in the dark. Is that why you drew the curtains? Is that why you…” He couldn’t finish, just lifted his hands and rubbed his palms and took a deliberate step back. “Even then, you couldn’t trust me.”

I said nothing, because really what was there to say?

“Why are you still here?”

I drew back, unsure. “What do you mean?”

That expressionless, statue-like look returned to him, and he crossed his arms. “You should not be here, with us. You know what they are trying to do to you, you have known for so long, and still you remain in Movoc-under-Keeper. Right where the veche can find you.”

“You want me to run?” I wished for anger, or indignation, anything to push down the lump forming in my throat. “What good would that do? The national veche will find me, no matter where I go.”

“They might. But you would have more of a chance to escape them if you flee than by staying in this city with us.”

I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. “But the Keeper, the doors! Kichlan, he needs my help.”

“You said it yourself, the Keeper is broken. We should not have listened to anything he had to say.”

“But Lad said–”

“Lad doesn’t need you any more. Remember?”

His words left me unable to speak.

“So get out of this city. Would you rather die within its walls, or become the veche’s weapon, than take a risk and leave? Tanyana, you have to get out. Leave!”

I stepped away from him, forcing my hands not to clutch, not to fidget, willing my face to be as calm and unemotional as his. “Is that what you want?”

He shook his head, let out an exasperated laugh that showed no shadow of mirth. “Do you really care about what I want? I worked so hard to show you how I felt, and just when I thought you might be listening, you might understand and you might even feel the same way, I learn you’ve been lying the whole time. I thought you just pushed me away, but you never even let me get that close!”

“I… No. That’s not–”

“You have made it clear, Tan, how much you trust me. So save yourself while you can, and leave me in peace.”

“But–”

“Can’t you see? I don’t want you to stay! It hurts to look at you, and remember what Lad did to save you. It hurts to look at you, and know you are keeping secrets, lying to me, that nothing we did that night was even real. So go. Make a sensible decision for once, and leave this city while you can.” With that he turned, and headed back to the chamber.

Somewhere, something was dripping. A constant, pinging noise that echoed lightly from the stone and ruins. It was not a good sign. A leak from a rill or effluent above us could wind a weakening track through the stone, and bring centuries of earth down onto the street..

Why had I even remained in this city – above and beneath – for so long? Perhaps, because like every good Varsnian, I was enslaved by my duty? The basis of the Novski revolution was more than just his circles, his amplification of pion-binding strength. It was that each binder, no matter how weak or how strong, had a role, a place in his society. From the lowest working to produce light in a factory, to architects and enforcers, each citizen of Varsnia had an obligation, a duty, to use what skills they were given in the role that best suited them.

When I lost my binding skill, my duty was to collect its refuse. And even as that role changed – to hapless experiment, to Keeper’s aide, to emotionless weapon – I had tried to fulfil it. But was it really my duty, my obligation, to become the monster the puppet men wanted me to be?

Did I not have a duty to myself? To my unborn child?

I collected my jacket from the ground, and put it on. The sound of my feet joined the drip, drip, drip as I made my way to the ladder. I stared up its length. The trapdoor was closed, not that I couldn’t break the lock.

Lad didn’t need me any more. Had he been here he would have held my hand, he would have given me wisdom wrapped in his simple words, and squeezed his encouragement a little too hard. I could almost feel his palm, sweaty and awkward, cupping mine.

Aleksey had begged me to leave too, before I tried to fight the puppet men and forced his terrible hand. Perhaps I should have listened to him, perhaps I should have decided this for myself, long ago. Given up any hope of a life, of a purpose, and the closeness of those I loved.

It made, I supposed, its own kind of terrible sense. So I climbed the ladder, forced my way through the door, and hurried out of Lev’s empty shop. I set foot again on Movoc-under-Keeper’s streets, truly alone.

It was a very early bell. That shocked me, a little, because Ie had expected to walk out into moon-tempered darkness. Instead, I breathed mist into faint sunshine and the bluish haze of dawn at the end of a frozen night. I gathered my jacket about me, buttoned and tied where I could, and shoved my fists deep into its pockets. I missed the uniform’s warmth, its strangely reassuring pressure across my chest, and wished I had thought to bring a hat, scarf and gloves when I had decided to flee Movoc-under-Keeper and everything I knew.

Where should I start? I hurried down the street, feeling rudderless.

The bell was so early the lamps were still buzzing. They seemed steadier than the last time I had seen them. I supposed the debris we had given the Keeper, and the strength he took from it, was holding more of the doors at bay. How long would that last? And who would help him keep them closed, if I really left? Did he have more Halves, hidden away, to be exploited only in emergencies? What good would they be, if no one knew to listen to them?

A quick assessment of my bearings and I realised I was heading toward the Keeper’s Tear River. Good. Yes, that was a start. I could escape the city walls on the back of a ferry.

Even at this hour, Movoc-under-Keeper was not empty. The sound of many marching feet stopped me. I drew back into an alleyway, pressed myself against night-cold stone, and watched. The street filled with soldiers. Strikers in white, Shielders in crimson, but more than anything, the Mob. So many I could not count them. All unnaturally tall, dressed in black leather and bristling with the handles of pion blades and projectile weapons, they marched as one. Helmeted faces straight ahead, long legs striding in perfect unison, arms tight by their sides, right hands resting on the bears-head sword pommels at their waist.

I shuddered, made to head back along the alleyway and find another way to the Tear, a way that did not involve crossing the Mob’s path, when something caught my eye. At the very centre of the mass of bodies, of the solid colours surging up the street like a tricoloured tide, something shone. Pressed as I was against the alleyway wall I could not see it clearly. But it looked like two, maybe three soldiers clad not in white, not in crimson or black, but silver. Head to toe silver.

And my suit bands spun. Something tired and reduced but still very much alive in my bones, muscles and skin, yearned for those soldiers in silver. More weapons like us. I knew it, could feel it like temperature, like touch, smell it like scent. Another fight, the suit whispered, like Aleksey. But this time we would not allow ourselves to be weakened. This time – and the violent need stirred – this time we would weaken them, we would absorb their strength and take their shine–

Gasping, I tore my gaze away from the soldiers and stumbled down the alley, drawing air deep into my lungs like icy, clearing fire. Fists clenched, I swallowed the thrill, I slowed the spinning bands, I forced the presence with its insidious needs from my mind.

Behind me, someone laughed softly. I spun. The air in the alleyway was hazy, heavy and empty, with the rising mist of sun against cold earth.

There was no one there. The marching of Striker, Shielder, Mob and silver suit rang sharp against the stone. I hurried down the alley, not looking back, not listening for voices or laughter in the haze.

Somehow I made it to the Tear River. There I waited as golden sunlight lanced from the east for a bell, at least, before a ferry came. But it was heading the wrong way. Rather than stand in the cold of the banks for another bell, or two, or three, I flashed my rublie to the ferry master and huddled in the back of the cabin for the choppy ride against the current. The ferry remained almost empty for the entire trip, and those few Movocians who did join me on board huddled just the same, wrapped in thick clothes that hid both face and form. They were fearful of the Mob stalking their streets, nervously talking of war, of enlistment, of spies and the Hon Ji. When I disembarked, my face down, I did not look so different from them, just another cold and worried citizen. I hoped that was enough to keep the Mob’s curiosity at bay.

I didn’t realise where I had decided to go until I stepped off the ferry and headed for Devich’s house.

Devich, who had betrayed me. Devich, who I could not trust, but whose child I might be carrying. Why was I even here? Was I such a coward that I could not turn and run without searching for someone to do it with me? Or maybe I just didn’t want to be alone. Now that Lad was gone and Kichlan had turned his back on me.

Or maybe I needed to see him one more time. I needed to be certain that Natasha’s rumour was only that. For Devich, who had betrayed me.

Foolishness, weakness.

Three times I walked the length of his street, from one end to the other, scanning the buildings on the shoreline, the windows darkened by curtains or shutters. No one watched me. No fingers twitched blinds open to spy. No Mob spilled primed and ready from hiding places between houses, from behind bushes flushed with spring, or out from closed doors. Three times before I decided the street was safe.

But still, somehow, not until I had climbed the few steps to Devich’s house did I realise his door was broken, leaning at an unhealthy angle from twisted hinges.

Icy river wind blew through my inadequate clothing as I stared at his broken door. Holding my breath, I glanced around me. No longer an unreasonably early bell but still the street was quiet – too quiet, even for Rest. Not that I knew with any certainty what day it actually was.

Even with Mob in the streets this was hardly normal. Maybe in Darkwater a broken door would be ignored, would be just another on a rundown street. But this close to the river and the bridge? Unless Movoc-under-Keeper was growing accustomed to patches of disintegration and destruction. Or maybe no one thought to complain about the state of the buildings on their street now war had begun.

Carefully, I worked my way under the broken door, and into Devich’s home.

The lights did not work. I hadn’t realised just how dark his home could be. The hallway seemed to stretch far deeper than it should and anyone, or anything, could be waiting at the end. I loosened the bands on my wrists just enough to set them spinning, and went inside.

My suit’s sharp light brought small pockets of the hallway into stark visibility. A three-legged console lay snapped and broken on the floor, beside the shattered corpse of a Hon Ji porcelain vase in a puddle of its own water and wilted Tear-lilies. Further on an oval mirror had fallen from its hooks on the wall, its shards scattered and reflecting my light across the hallway rug. I stepped around them carefully.

The air in Devich’s house smelled old, stuffy. I could feel it like dust settling on my head and shoulders. This was strange, with the front door torn open, and the crisp river air following at my back. No dust motes floated in my suit beams. Last year’s leaves from the plants out the front had been blown inside. But still, when I walked it felt like wading, the air unnaturally thick.

When I turned into the dining room I found chaos. A misfiring light buzzed within a smashed fitting on the wall. A round table had been knocked over, chairs scattered across the room in pieces. A red light blazed from the cook top, signalling a failure in the heating stream and warning that the unit should be shut down. I crossed the tiled floor, picking my way over loose pieces of wood, and bent, leaned behind the unit and poked at pion buttons I could not see. I must have touched one, as the red light flickered, the whole unit made a loud clanking noise, and shut off. How long had it sat here, shining an unheard warning, and fighting to contain the flow of potentially unstable heating pions?

Straightening, I glanced back around the room. A struggle had happened here. The mess the result of many thrashing bodies, of violence. And I had no idea what that meant.

There was no sign of Devich, so I made my slow way up the stairs.

Devich’s bedroom was in even worse condition. Drawers had been torn from his dresser, their contents strewn across the bed and the floor: cufflinks, bears of service, and Devich’s rublie. Pillows gutted, sheets torn, the twin mirrors on his wardrobe shattered. Antique books,had been pulled from their shelves, their leather covers slashed, thick, richly made paper torn. Utterly senseless.

I stooped, collected the rublie. Its lights flickered in an indication that it still worked, but I could not see how many kopacks resided within.

I sat on the corner of his bed in snowdrifts of cotton and feathers. Devich was gone. Was he being experimented on, right now? Had he come to me for help – in his own, useless way – back in the market square? If I had simply trusted him, believed him, taken his hand and hid him the way I did Natasha, or Lad, would he still be alive and whole?

That was the best option. Horrible as it was, horrible as I felt for wishing it was true. I rested my hands against my belly and found myself hoping that was the case.

Because the alternative… The alternative…

My hands tightened so much the rublie pressed painfully into my fingers. It made a kind of squeak, as though it feared I was about to crush it. I eased the pressure.