Novel Excerpt #1 It was a dim scuffling, a tiny, tentative sound that promptly ceased. It set her on edge, though. She shot a quick glance at the street behind her. It was deserted, a dim tiled expanse that crawled between the slick walls and hulking supports of buildings. The air smelled damp and mildewy, with a metallic tang. It hung in a squalid fog over the street. Ari scratched at one of the massive tiles with her toe. She lacked the education to know who had tiled the streets here, hundreds of years ago when people still walked the ground. The few tiles that were visible through the accumulation of caked black dust bore an overlapping circle and diamond pattern.
She thought she heard the whine of a hovercar, somewhere off to the right. No, behind her. It died away, and the first level slid back into silence, except the occasional dripping of condensation off a building support, or the scrabbling of a scavenger animal in a garbage heap. She walked on, winding with a purposeful stride through the murk of the streets. It seemed somehow darker here. She thought perhaps a streetlight somewhere behind her had shorted out, taking with it the marginal safety it had lent. It happened sometimes, down here. She shivered. The air was not cold; in fact, it was muggy in a thick, dank, choking way. It was polluted with black dust, the residue from the railshuttle system's engines.
It was only natural that a city of billions, a system government seat like New Lessak City, should have a darker side, should have a bottom. All those buildings had to grow from somewhere. But it was not uncommon for a citizen to live his entire life in NLC without ever having seen the bottom. The door alcoves lining the street were streaked with black grime. The streets had no names, because there was no one reputable enough down here to care what they were called. The politicians liked to gloss over the existence of the lower levels. It didn't bother Ari. She had first claimed these streets as her own when she was an eleven-year-old runaway. She knew which ones curved back upon themselves. She knew shortcuts: up corroded ladders and through grates that led to round wet tunnels. She knew as well that there were some streets people occasionally did travel, and tonight she attempted to stick to those. The pub Zpov had mentioned was two districts over, a brisk walk.
The streetlight behind her went out. Ari blinked, her eyes adjusting. The dark had acquired a greater density. She picked up her pace, thrusting her hands hard into her pockets. She had grown up on the first level; she was not frightened of it. And yet there was something sinister twisting through the air tonight, an uneasiness that made her legs twitch with adrenaline, as if they wanted to run. It was her imagination. I will not look behind me, she thought fiercely. It was better not to. The petty robbers who hid in the alcoves tended to pick victims who displayed symptoms of uncertainty. They didn't usually bother people who looked as if they knew where they were going.
She froze. No, those were definitely footsteps, the round echoing kind that booted feet made.
There was a popping sound, and the streetlight abreast of her went abruptly dark. She heard the sizzle of the power shutting down. She increased her stride almost to a run-walk. I will not look behind me, she thought. I will not look behind me. I will not look behind me. The darkness was warm and stifling. Ari's heartbeat pounded hotly.
She heard more steps, careful ones, as if someone was trying to pretend he was not heavy.
Ari dodged sideways, under an archway, down a concrete ramp that was slippery with some kind of green mold. Instead of flailing her arms and panicking, she kicked off with her back shoe. She skidded down the ramp, jumped off, and took off down the alley. It was barely a three foot wide space between two buildings. She heard a short yell of frustration back in the street, an exclamation that was swiftly cut off. She ran, her elbows churning. If she was right, there ought to be--
Yes, there it was: a great rusted ladder that began at chest height and continued up the wall of the building, disappearing into darkness. She gripped the bottom rung in both hands, and hoisted her legs up with a grunt. Her shoes scrabbled against the wall until she got a foothold. She glanced back down the alley. The footsteps pounded closer. She clenched her lips together, pulling her body up and reaching for the next rung. Her hand closed around it. There was a ledge on the second level, a ledge with a square hole in it. She climbed nimbly up through the hole, slid her bottom across the platform, let go of the ladder, and stood. Beside the platform there was a broken window.
She heard a gruff voice swear below, and grinned. Apparently her pursuer wasn't in the best of shape. She threw one leg over the windowsill, and vaulted inside. Dusting off her hands on her pants, she dashed across the room toward the door. It led to a dim shadowy corridor with a black gaping well at the end. Stairs, she thought. She clattered down them, flinging herself around the corner at the landing. She counted the flights. Two, three, four...
Ari burst out into a long subterranean room that displayed the flickering light of several small trash fires. A few straggly-haired people glanced up in surprise from where they were prodding their sizzling food with long poles of scrap metal. The rest paid no attention. Eight or ten shacks crafted from sheets of metal were propped against the walls. Walls of junk had been built to seperate one resident's territory from his neighbor's. Two aliens were gambling with a kind of twenty-sided dice Ari didn't recognize. A gang of teenaged kids bragged and postured in the far left corner; their jabbering voices echoed belligerently off the low ceiling. Ari ran down the center of the room, dodging between two fires. "Sorry," she gasped. 'Sorry!" She leaped over the aliens' game, her arms flung out for balance.
"Hey!" one of them protested.
At the other end of the room, there was a giant round pipe half-covered by a metal grate. She squeezed easily past the grate, and ran several steps. Her shoes rang on the metal. The pipe ended so suddenly she almost missed the drop. She jumped two feet to the floor below, and steadied herself. And there it was: a set of metal stairs that spiraled up through the damp ceiling. She felt elated at her luck. She had half-expected those stairs to have corroded years ago. She dashed up them, feeling the hot strain in her calf muscles. The stairs swayed and creaked. Three, four, five... She crossed the room, hopped out the half-open door, and was back on the street, or rather an alley down which she could see the street less than twenty feet away. The streetlights were still out. She doubled over and panted, bracing herself against the cool steel wall with one hand.
"Hisssst!"
Ari whirled around. A kid sat perched atop a pile of discarded metal, squatting as he balanced himself on either side with capable but grubby hands.
"They's chasers down there, lady," he hissed, launching himself from the pile. He landed on his feet with a slap.
"Chasers!" She grabbed his sleeve. "How many cars?"
He struggled in her grip, and scowled. She tugged him closer; she could smell the ripe onion reek of his unwashed clothes. "One car. Six chasers."
"Shit," she whispered, glancing back at the dark main street. "That's not good."
"No cha," said the kid sarcastically, eyeing her with scorn from behind a curtain of stringy brown hair. He wore skinny pants and a patched jacket that was a dubious shade of red, with scattered grease stains. He or some other kid had used a black pen to draw patterned bracelets on the skin of both wrists. One earlobe and his right nostril bore tarnished rings that looked like they'd been created from bits of junk. He appeared to be around ten.
Ari didn't have time for attitude. "Listen, can you tell me where they are?"
"Sure I can, lady." He wriggled from her grasp, shooting her a dirty look as he jerked the wrinkle out of his sleeve where she'd seized it. "Do I wanna? Not as much, yeah?" He returned to his crouch.
Ari rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here," she said, shoving a crumpled .2K note at the boy. His eyes did not widen, nor did he express gratitude. The money disappeared with a practiced grab into some hidden pocket in his scant clothing. He rolled to his feet and trotted down the alley, waving a hand that boasted dirt-encrusted fingernails.
She followed him. His steps were light, and he moved quickly for someone with such short legs. He turned right down a connecting alley, then shortly made another right. He stopped there, glancing over his shoulder at her. She could see the dark open street looming at the end of the alley.
"Here?" she asked. He jerked his head and gestured ahead.
"I ain't go no closer, see," he whispered. His smudged round face was defiant, as if daring her to accuse him of being scared.
She prodded the kid. "Go on, get out of here."
Ari watched his back as he scuttled down the alley with a slight limp, his tattered heels kicking up black dust. He dropped to his knees, slipped between a tumbled brick wall and a sheet of corrugated metal, and was gone. She had been a kid like that once. She had even felt a sad little thrill that she was still able to understand his slang. It was hard to conceive of now... it was a scummy, dirt-encrusted jumble of years that existed as a haze within her brain. She supposed she had built up a block. The dead parents whose faces she may have actually remembered, or may have compiled from flashed scenes of actors from motion pictures she'd seen as a kid. The foster home, the window she'd escaped through, the ladder that led down to the first level... She remembered those ladders. She surmised they had been used for maintenance, or perhaps as fire escapes, long ago before the lower levels were abandoned. She shook her head. She wasn't a street kid anymore. She wasn't a kid at all.
She inched closer to the narrow opening, which was not much more than a partially blocked hole between two buildings that stretched up and disappeared into murky dark blue. The Interrogators stood hunched in a cluster around a small open hovercar. Its engine whined as it waited in the center of the otherwise empty street. The men were dressed in burgundy, and had the requisite laser pistols strapped slouchingly to each hip. There were five of them. The car had no identifying SSN logo on its black glossy door, but was nevertheless recognizeable instantly to someone who knew. Ari knew these were Interrogators, just as the kid had known. The kids who ran on the lower levels called them "chasers." She squatted against the wall and tried to control her rapid breathing.
The men were talking. Ari only heard murmured scraps of the conversation. "... suspected of Underground activity."
"You really think it's down here?" A cast of skepticism in the voice, that one.
Another Interrogator said something she couldn't hear. "... have to be stupid. The first level? Even the Underground..."
"... thought he saw... the restaurant..." His voice dropped too low for her to understand.
"... till he grabs her, I guess. We'll see then," said the first one.
It was enough. So they had been watching at Shufar's Coin. The creeping paranoia of the previous night had been the result of instinct rather than imagination. She knew she ought to have been terrified, but instead she felt grimly vindicated. She was Ari Kloss, she was sane, and this was her turf. So they thought they could scare her with their little tricks. They thought she would lead them to the Underground? Fine. She could play. Directly across the wide street, beyond the Interrogators' car and slightly to the left, there was a matching alley. Though some of the paths on the first level were blocked by junk, it had originally been laid out according to a grid. She squinted. She thought she saw the outline of one of the giant metal pipes, a round hulk surrounded by shadows in an almost equally dark alley.
Her eyes searched the ground, and seized on a broken brick that lay against the wall a couple feet away. She picked up the brick, curling her fingers around it. She would have to run fast if she screwed this up. She reeled back with her arm, and flung the brick with all her energy. It flew over the main street, sailed into the alley, and hit the metal pipe with a resounding clang. The Interrogators jumped and fumbled for their pistols. The brick clattered for several more seconds as it rolled through the alley, a noise that Ari thought sounded satisfyingly like footsteps, then settled to a stop.
"The hell--?" said one Interrogator, looking back and forth.
"It's her!" snapped another. Ari's heart leapt into her throat, and her fingers shook.
The Interrogators took off into the opposite alley, shoving and jostling each other to squeeze through the narrow entry. Their abandoned hovercar still whined in the street.
Ari spun, her long hair fanning out behind her, and ran.
She sprinted down the alley, her breath jagged in her throat, tearing hot at her insides. She ran, veering around corners and stumbling over piles of trash. Once she clipped her shoulder on the edge of a building. She ran, and ran, and ran, until she reached a street where the streetlights were on, casting dim circles on the empty tiles. She ran past ladders and stairs, strange still shapes she had once revered as slender portals to another world, the world of 'up'. She ignored them, closed her eyes for a flash and saw a skinny girl with wide-set gray eyes and tangled dark red hair. She clung precariously to one of the ladders, perched on the ledge, hugging her own bony knees and gazing at the rungs. "Up is dangerous," Ari wanted to tell her. "Up is not the savior you think it will be." She opened her eyes, and a bead of sweat leaked down from her forehead. It stung. The girl vanished. She ran under the rectangular chunks of shadow cast by light from the city above that shone through the slats of the railshuttle tracks. Trunks and trunks, rising up like heavy legs, their toenails curled and melted into the tiled ground. Steel wall upon steel wall. Imagined horrors lurking in the alcoves. Shadows and shadows. She thought her chest might burst. And then, like a chunk of color dropped dizzyingly out of the dark: a rounded door with glowing red letters over it. The letters blinked and sputtered, and the H was missing. Ari gasped, grabbed her ribs, and stared.
The letters said "Sniper's Heyday Pub," and it was the right door.
Copyright 2005 Sarah L. Tolcser