The Madness Project (The Madness Method) (58 page)

“He has to!” the kid cried, flushing.  “He’ll get what’s
coming to him if he dan’ listen.”

I let him ponder the frailty of his claim for a moment, then
I slanted him a sidelong glance and asked, “And you think it’ll stop with
Arne?”

“What d’you mean by that?”

“If he’s the sort of man who thought he could off Arne
without any guilt, then he might just be the same kind of man who would do the
same to any worker he decides he doesn’t like too well.  Especially, say, the
workers he might see in this crowd, making him look like a fool.”

“Not a chance,” he said, but his face turned terribly pale. 
“He just thinks Jixies—sorry, mages—aren’t really people.  Hate to say it, but
lots of folks see it that way.”

“And what about you lot?”

“What about us?  We’re plenty human.”

I nodded.  “You ever heard about one of your number getting
knighted?”

“Who’d want to be one of
them?
  High and mighty and
good for nothing.  We dan’ need nobles.”

“What if they decided the same thing about you?”

“But they do need us,” he said.  “They wouldn’t eat if it
weren’t for us and the sweat on our backs.”

I smiled.  “For now.  What happens when it’s not
steam-powered trams instead of chauffeurs, but steam-powered automatons instead
of factory hands?  Or mechanized miners instead of ones of flesh and blood? 
You want to become like the horse?  Just watch, in a few years, no one will be
relying on horses to get them around.  They’ll all be driving in those vutting
motorcars.”

“You think they’ll make machines that can do what we do?”
one of the other workers asked, turning toward me.

“What do you think they’re up to in the Science Ministry?” 
I shrugged.  “Look, it’s no matter to me.  I’m not from here.  But I see how
you lot are treated, not to mention those poor folks who are worse off than you
and don’t have
stavos
to keep them in jobs.  Shuffled off into the
shadows, while the boffins and society folk congratulate each other on their
genius and take all the power and fortune for themselves.  They’ve already tried
to write you out of existence with their laws and what, but that didn’t work. 
Maybe they’ll decide you’re not worth the effort once they’ve made you
obsolete.  Decide you can’t be made proper.”

God
, I thought. 
What am I doing?  I don’t even
believe this nonsense, do I?  Things are bad, but I know where this road leads
and it isn’t good.  But it’s the only way.  Isn’t it?

“They have no problem shipping off troublemakers to the
mines,” I went on, “and everyone knows that’s a death sentence.  And if you really
get on their bad side?  You won’t need to be a mage to go the way of Arne.  You
know why they hate mages?  It’s because mages stand for something these elites
don’t care for.  Something older and deeper and stronger than any of their
steam engines and science.  We know we’ve got to rely on each other, not on
ourselves.  All those machines and all that knowledge…what does it do but
fracture everybody?  Make everyone stand alone, or rely on them and their
science?   But you lot, you’re more like the mages than them.  You stand
together too.  You rely on each other.  You’re stronger that way.  And they’re
dead afraid of that.”

I had other workers clustered around me now, listening,
frowning.

“That’s right,” one of them said.  “Any time one of us gets
hurt, or needs help, first thing Foreman does is drive everyone away who wants
to give a hand.”

“And he or his lackeys take care of the problem themselves?”
I asked.

“Of course.”

“Trying to teach you that they’re the ones to look to,
right?  They’ve got the answers.  They’ve got the power.  But they’ve only got
it so long as you believe they do.”  I paused, for effect, then finished, “If
you realize that it’s you who’re strong…that
you
are the ones with the
power…they’ve got nothing.”

“They
are
nothing,” the kid said.  “All they do is
take our wages and tell us where to live and what to eat and what clothes we
can wear.”

“You’re already getting a feel for what it’s like to be one
of my kind, then,” I said.  “We get told all of that, too, not to mention what
jobs we can do and what people we can talk to.  Do you really think they see
you any differently than they see us?  Contempt is contempt no matter who it’s
aimed at.  Keep the public rich and the workers poor, that’s their motto.  They
don’t want you to have anything.  Certainly nothing that they’ve got.  They
think the whole point of power is to keep themselves powerful and you
powerless.”

“Cursed the Crown,” someone muttered, and a few others
repeated it.

Tarik blushed; I grinned.  “What good is law when all it
does is justify how they treat you?”

“The laws dan’ protect us,” an older man said.

Another said, “They only protect the elite.”

“The king’s supposed to be our voice in the Assembly, but he
dan’ even care,” the kid said.  “The Ministers have got him so wrapped about
their fingers that he won’t do aught to contradict them.  We might as well not
even have a King.”

“Or Ministers,” the older man said.  “They’re the ones who
just want to stay in power.  They’re the ones who want to keep us in the
gutters and the tenements.  We put food on
their
plates and they dan’
let us keep but half of every meal for ourselves.”

“Maybe Kantian’s right after all,” one said, surprising me. 
“Maybe we can’t wait any longer.  Maybe it all needs to change starting today. 
Starting now.”

“Now’s the time.”

“We’ll all end up like Arne if we dan’ act now.”

“The mages knew it all along.  They’ve been trying to warn
us.”

“You knew it, didn’t you?” one asked me.  “You knew how it
would end.  Bring down the State.  Bring it all down.”

“You think that’s the right idea?” I asked, alarmed, but a
few of them actually cheered like I’d been trying to stir them up.  “You want
to take down the State?”

More cheers.

Everything inside of me turned cold.

I noticed some of the police watching the crowd, watching me
and looking as alarmed as I felt, but they didn’t move toward us.  When one of
the nobles started shouting at the workers, I could feel all the energy in the
crowd surge to overflowing.  The police blew their whistles and silenced the
noble, but the damage was done.  Anger simmered through the crowd of workers,
waiting for the least spark to boil over.  I retreated, silently, before the
inevitable happened, and returned to my group without anyone in the crowd
noticing that I’d gone.  Hayli and Jig’s heads poked around the corner,
watching me approach.

“What’d you do?” Jig asked as I reached them.  “They’re
looking a mite antsy now.”

“Yes,” I said.  “Just a bit.  They’re expecting their
foreman to turn on them and let the police take them down.  The police are
twitchy anyway because of the crowd.  When the poppers go off, watch the
coppers react.  It’ll just prove to the workers that no one will protect them,
that they’re next.  They’re already deciding that the State has to go.  They’ll
realize they have to side with the mages.  That should make Kantian happy.”

The last words sounded a bit too bitter, but I didn’t
retract them.  None of the kids seemed to notice, anyway.  They were all
peering around at the crowd now, even Anuk and Coins.  I watched a minute too. 
As I began to hear raised voices among the workers, I realized too late that I
was smiling.  The workers knotted close now, looking less like a random
gathering and more and more like a mob.  My smile faded, and my head pounded,
but I just gritted my teeth and forced it all away.

“All right,” I said.  “We need to get into position.  The
foreman will be here any minute, I’m sure, and that mob won’t last long before
they start blazing up.  Hayli, Coins, need you two up high.  Jig and Anuk, get
in through the back and onto the factory floor.”

“What about you?” Hayli asked, pulling a stray wisp of hair
away from her mouth.  “Where’ll you be?”

“Up front,” I said, smiling.  “Where they can all see me.”

“Just want the glory for yourself?” Jig asked, but he asked
it without any reproach.

Still, Coins punched his arm.  “He’s not after the glory,
you idiot.  Right?”

“If you want to risk getting shot,” I said, “you can come
with me.”

Jig opened his mouth, then closed it and nodded once. 
“Right.”

“Then let’s move out.”

Chapter 13 — Hayli

For a tick we all just stared at Shade, then he flicked his
fingers at us and we scrambled to our feet.

“Watch for my signal,” he said before we bolted, and held up
his fists by his head to demonstrate.

We scattered, chasing after Coins toward the southside wall
of the factory, dodging across the street before the Ministers and coppers
could catch a goggle of us.

“We’ve got to get inside,” Coins said, peering through the
grimy window of the freight door.  He laid his hand gently on the latch and
pressed down, but it didn’t budge.  “Damn.  Locked as a lemon.  No?  Aw hell. 
Right, there’s a fire exit up there.  Prob’ly where the foreman’s office is.  I
can slip that lock if it’s done up.”

I glanced up, but the fire ladder ended some fifteen feet
overhead.  Jig rubbed his hands in the chalky dust from the gravel, and Anuk
stretched his arms over his head.  If Coins could make it, Jig could too, and
though I’d never seen Anuk running walls, he was big and strong enough that I
imagined he’d manage it.  That left me.

“Coins, I can’t climb up there,” I said.

“Sure you can.  Just follow my lead, right?”

He took a three-step running start and launched himself up
the wall like a squirrel.  I watched him open-mouthed until he leapt and
grabbed the bottom rung of the ladder, then I shook my head, tied my satchel
around my waist and Shifted.

From the air I can see the whole of the factory.  A
broken window high on the southside wall beckons me, just wide enough for me to
slip through.  The lads can enter through the door, but they don’t need to
worry about me.  I can scout ahead.

I slip through the broken window and land on a rafter
high over the factory floor.  Deafening in that place is the sound of steam and
grinding engines, and the shouts of a few of the workers who are preparing the
great tram for its first appearance.  It is larger than the older trams, sleek
and black with copper trim.  I have no notion why it is better than any of the
old trams, but that isn’t why we are here.  The tram is unimportant.  The
roaring furnace I see below, that is what matters.  The furnace where a mage
was killed.

I fly to a lower beam to get a glimpse out onto the
street.  Out there the workers have gathered into a close knot, shifting their
feet and clenching their fists as they wait for the foreman.  Shade is in their
midst again, and they all look at him, listen to him. 

Behind me, I see that Coins has gotten the foreman’s door
open.  The lads crouch low and creep through the office to the top of the
stairs, where Jig and Anuk split off and head down to their positions.  Shade
moves closer to the factory door and glances over his shoulder, but I’m not
sure if he can see us.  It doesn’t matter.  He told us to be there, and so we
are.  He has to know that.

Shift back
, Hayli whispers. 
I need to be able to use
the poppers
.

Not yet,
I tell her. 
Something’s wrong.

I can’t tell what it is, just something in my deep
insides that warns me of danger.  The workers seem uneasy, both the ones still
inside the factory and the others gathered outside.  And then I notice why.  A
man not in workman’s grubs has appeared out of one of the downstairs offices. 
He is wearing a cheap suit with his hair slicked back, an oily smile on his
face and venom in his eyes.  Outside, the workers see him and the whole knot of
them shifts around to stare at him.  The socialites and Ministers start to pull
back.  I can taste their terror on the wind.  They know that this will not end
well.

Shade takes a step forward, as if he will face the
foreman himself.  And suddenly, from the corner of my eye, I spot movement on
the walkover.  A man crouches there in a black jacket with a rifle slung across
his back.  As I watch he removes the rifle and shoulders it, peering into its telescopic
sight.  The rifle twitches, swinging back and forth, searching.

Who is he looking for?  Who is he targeting?

The rifle swings toward Shade, and the man’s hand
twitches to the sight, twisting its cap to bring it to focus.

It’s Shade.

He’s going to kill Shade.

I know it with certainty.  My heart patters with terror,
and in my thoughts I hear Hayli’s panicked cry.