10. Weaponry
A day passed, as marked by the streetlights. The Creeps, as Paul had christened them, continued to keep watch.
“So,” said Paul as they watched the sentries change places, “perhaps we’ll have to fight our way out.”
You and what army? thought Flame. But Kokalina said, “It does look that way. If only we had a power cell for that gun you found! As it is, perhaps you should make an inventory of any useful items in this place.”
“You mean you want us to sort through heaps of dirty old junk,” said Flame. “What a wonderful idea.” She was feeling tired and irritable, especially at Kokalina – indefatigably planning, effortlessly in charge, and no doubt, she thought, secretly enjoying himself. “I like the way you said we,” she added. “As though you’re going to help.”
“I thought finding a food supply and a way to make protective clothing was helping.”
Flame didn’t answer – she knew her comments were the result of fear and tension, as, no doubt, did Kokalina. She sighed, lit the bulb and went downstairs.
The front room seemed more cluttered than she remembered, the floor a tangle of dust, debris and still intact objects, mainly glass, stone or ceramic, partly concealed by the remains of crumbling pieces of furniture, boxes, books, clothes, and so on. Her first impression of a fire seemed almost borne out in that wood, paper and similar substances had been reduced to something resembling ashes.
They started by turning the dummy to face the wall, which stopped it asking anyone who went near whether they needed any ‘ass-is-tance’. Then they started to sort through the junk – haphazardly at first, but gradually becoming more systematic, clearing a corner into which each examined item was put. Slowly, they stopped making sarcastic comments about the ‘usefulness’ of each find, and only remarked on the occasional item that seemed vaguely interesting, unusual, or beautiful.
Dust rose around them as they worked, prompting them to use the breathing masks the Air Loom had provided. These could be expanded and collapsed in a number of ways, the simplest being to grip what appeared to be a pearl on a string around their necks and squeeze it firmly twice, whereupon it expanded to an almost invisible full-face covering. The sensation of something growing over their faces was weird and rather frightening for a moment – but then they were breathing clean air, and their itching eyes were free of dust.
After a couple of hours, they’d covered about half the contents of the room but found nothing that could be considered useful apart from a few stone ornaments that might be used as clubs or missiles.
The only other thing they’d put aside was a green glass egg full of frozen bubbles, a “Victorian glass dump” according to a label that Flame managed to read before it disintegrated – partly because it was solid and heavy enough to be hurled as a missile, but mainly because she liked it.
They broke for lunch: tomato, lettuce and bacon sandwiches and orange juice from the dispenser. Paul took a toilet break, and when he came back, he said, “I think I’ve found something.”
He led her into the hallway and opened a cupboard door leading into a space beneath the staircase. Against the far wall, at an angle to the floor, was what appeared to be a hatch. It was made of the same apparently incorruptible material as the rest of the building, and had a small dark panel in its centre.
“A cellar?” said Flame.
“Interesting,” said Kokalina. “Let me see if I can…”
The panel lit up. Various symbols appeared and vanished, then after a short while a faint, crackly voice said: “Replacing inert atmosphere – please wait.”
Flame and Paul smiled slightly at each other – more magic – and waited. After a few minutes the hatch made a metallic scraping sound and jumped open a few inches. Inside was a dark space that after a few seconds lit to reveal a small room with grey metal walls. These were lined with shelves on which a collection of items was placed – but these, in contrast to the ones in the front room, looked comparatively new, and when they ventured inside and examined them more closely, they seemed to be intact and not about to crumble into dust.
“This place looks more promising,” said Paul, picking up a statuette from one of the shelves. It had a label attached, which didn’t fall apart as he held it up and read, “Jenny Lind, Staffordshire, 18th Century”
The statuette looked similar to a number they had seen in the front room – and there were a few more on the shelf. Flame saw they were all similarly labelled, and wondered who Jenny Lind could have been – a local hero or minor deity, perhaps.
She idly examined another item, apparently a “Japanese hand-painted ceramic lemon squeezer in the shape of a duck,” then turned to Paul and said, “You carry on here, I’ll take the other side.”
They started to look through the items, and quickly put aside a few potential and actual weapons. According to the printed labels, these were two “brass Heemskirk candlesticks, Holland, late 18th C”; a bust inscribed “Николай Александрович Тихонов, Председатель Правительства Российской Федерации (1950-1956)” which had lost its label (those might act as clubs or thrown missiles); a “Highland dirk, with silver mounted foil-backed citrine stones, c1780, €2-3000” and a “Nsdapi forestry cutlass, the blade etched with deer and a dog stalking a fox, in a brass mounted black leather scabbard, c1950, blade 33cm”.
After about an hour, they had examined everything and amassed a pile of potentially useful items, which they took upstairs and laid out on the bathroom floor.
A cast iron pitchfork.
A pair of garden shears.
A box of revolver cartridges (without a revolver).
A thing called a sai, which resembled a garden fork with three wicked fifteen-inch prongs.
A cleaver.
A “Ridgeway’s patent hedge trimmer”.
A Highland dirk.
A long-handled iron plate called a salamander.
A steelyard balance.
A cutlass.
A cavalry sabre with an ornate guard.
An awl.
A brass telescope.
A pair of brass candlesticks.
And another gun, though a flintlock pistol that Kokalina dismissed as useless without ammunition – “and even if you had some, it would most likely explode in your hand.”
Which would, he now revealed, probably be the fate of most of the metal items, since despite being stored in the vault in conditions that were designed to prevent the corrosive effects of air and moisture, they would still most likely have become brittle with age.
“We had to find out what’s available,” Kokalina said. “It’s possible that at least some of them will have retained their strength. Also, there’s a small chance that one of these items will turn out to be a microcopy.”
“A what?” Paul asked, peering through the wrong end of the brass telescope.
“A replica which copies all the features of the original down to a certain scale, but removes all flaws below that level. A microcopy is relatively indestructible – it doesn’t have any of the tiny cracks that normally cause metal to fracture, and the surface has an invisible coating that allows the appearance of authentic surface defects without allowing oxidation.”
“So how do we know?”
“Put on a protective suit, go into the small bedroom, and strike the bed with each item in turn. If they disintegrate, the armour will protect you.”
Paul started with the pitchfork. He went into the smaller bedroom – Flame glimpsed a curled shape lying in the corner as he closed the door. A moment later she heard a metallic crash and a startled yell.
Paul opened the door holding the handle of the pitchfork. He touched the brim of an imaginary hat. “Thanks, Koko. This suit’s amazing. What next?”
“The garden shears.”
Soon, Paul had destroyed most of the items. The sai, the dagger and the sabre had remained intact, as well as the salamander, the steelyard balance, the candlesticks and the hedge trimmer.
“So we might have a few old weapons we don’t know how to use,” commented Paul, peering through the bedroom window at the cowled shapes sitting in the street below. “Better than nothing, I suppose. If only we could get the gun to work.”
“I was hoping we might find a power cell,” said Kokalina. “But unfortunately everything in this place is too old to use a SQAM energy source.”
“Oh my God!” exclaimed Paul.
“What?” said Flame.
“That bloody may-I-be-of-ass-is-tance thing! It moves around and say things – it must get power from somewhere!”
“That’s a very good point, Paul,” said Kokalina slowly. “Let’s ask it.”
Flame looked at the gun with distaste. “It does what?”
“Talks,” said Paul. “Look – I mean, listen. Gun – how much charge do you have left?”
A brisk, tinny voice came from the short black barrel. “Point five one three percent capacity, sir. Four point four six seconds at full output.”
Flame frowned at it. “What do you do?” she asked.
“I am an ultraviolet laser, ma’am. I deliver a peak output of…”
It gave a host of meaningless specifications. Paul looked thrilled. “It was the power cell from the mannequin,” he said unnecessarily.
“Another talking machine,” she said. “How many seconds did you say?”
“Four point four six seconds at full output, ma’am.”
“That doesn’t sound very long.”
“You don’t need full power,” said Paul. “The Creeps aren’t wearing armour.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” said Kokalina.
“Well – yes, true. But anyway, this changes everything, again.”
“Yes, you did very well,” said Flame.
“I suggest we get a good night’s sleep,” said Kokalina, “Tomorrow we should study the enemy, find their habits and weaknesses, and formulate a plan of attack.”
“Attack,” said Flame, as though he’d said something obscene.
“I realise you’ve had a lifetime of being told you should treat others custodially. I too find the idea of fighting distasteful; but this is a situation where we have to forget such scruples.”
“Yes,” said Paul, with what sounded suspiciously like eagerness.
“First thing tomorrow we’ll make backpacks, and use the food-fab to create all the supplies you can reasonably carry,” said Kokalina.
“You said we should get a good night’s sleep,” said Paul. “Do you sleep, too?”
“Yes, although it’s a more voluntary process for me than for you. I only need to do it occasionally, to allow maintenance processes to operate; and sometimes it’s desirable to shut down my consciousness to conserve energy.”
Flame blinked at his reflection in the window. “And do you dream, Kokalina?”
“I do.”
But she couldn’t bring herself to ask the next logical question – what do you dream? For suddenly, for no reason that she could put her finger on, the thought of what he might answer terrified her.
Flame opens her eyes and sees a white-walled room. She is lying on a bed, surrounded by equipment on wheeled stands. A large oval window in a sloping wall looks out onto darkness.
A large, dark-skinned woman wearing a white uniform nods at her and then at someone behind her, holds up a hand with three fingers raised.
The person behind her clears his throat. Flame looks around, sees a seated man with grey hair that contrasts with his olive skin. The woman leaves without a word.
The man dips his head. “Greetings, Flame-sama.” He glances around. “I believe you are already familiar with Kyūshū Spindle. I have little time, so I will be quick. I am Sada Kentarō, a Gold Dreamer…” He looks away for a moment. “Recently retired, or so I believed. We have taken the risk of contacting you because there is one thing you must stop doing immediately, for your own safety.”
Flame frowns. She feels odd. She knows she is temporarily in someone else’s body, but this time there is something different. “What is that?” she asks in the same language Sada Kentarō used, a language she wouldn’t normally know how to speak. Her voice comes out deep and hoarse.
“Dreaming,” he replies. “For your own safety, you mustn’t do it while in the lands beneath the Shroud.”
She shakes her head, looking around for a mirror. “I haven’t…”
He nods. “You aren’t aware, perhaps. But you have attracted unwanted attention – we have sensed something…”
The Creeps, she thinks. Maybe I found the booth by Dreaming, and opened the door to where we are now…
“You’re right, I must have. But if I hadn’t… .”
Sada Kentarō bobs his head as a woman’s voice calls, “One minute, Sada-sensei.”
“I understand,” he says. “However, it is dangerous. You have, I assume, attracted something.”
She nods.
“You must try to defeat it without Dreaming.”
“Then how?”
“Forty seconds,” calls the voice.
“You have the resources, Lady Flame. You need to remember…”
Without warning, she doubles up, racked by harsh coughing. He hands her a glass of water. After a few seconds she looks up. “What’s wrong with me?”
He looks down. “Nothing. It is the body we have given you.”
“What about it?” She looks at her hands, which are thin, almost like claws.
“Please forgive us. It was a dying wish…” Seeing the alarm in her eyes, he quickly adds, “Don’t worry, he has more than – ” he glances at a clock – “twenty seconds. But we do not. You have our message, and the Tetrarch can advise – that is to say, Kokalina…”
“Disengaging,” calls the woman’s voice.
And she is awake, back in their refuge.
“So,” said Kokalina. “Aside from the gun, our armoury consists of the sai, the dirk, the sabre and Calgium’s sword, all of which appear to be strengthened copies. Plus we have a few items that might at least make useful missiles.”
Their protective suits had backpacks built in, and Kokalina had worked out how much food and bottled water they could reasonably carry. This would reduce the supplies remaining in the place significantly, but not completely – as Kokalina said, it could make a useful stopping place if they ever had to return.
Paul seemed to be filled with a sort of relaxed tension, as though he found it natural to be anticipating battle; but Flame was finding the prospect increasingly frightening.
“I still don’t see how we can fight them,” she said slowly. “I mean, I can’t – I don’t know the first thing – even if we did know how to use these swords and things, they have those poles with hooks on. They’ll be able to hit us before we can get near them.”
“We have the gun,” said Paul. “Shoot a few, and the rest will run away. They don’t know it’s almost out of power.”
Flame looked at him, shocked, and was glad when Kokalina said, “I am averse to killing them. From a moral perspective, their behaviour is governed by the harshness of their environment; from a practical perspective, we don’t want to become enemies with anyone if we can avoid it. On the other hand if it’s a question of them or us…”
“They don’t look like they want to make friends,” said Paul.
“There are still a few possibilities open to us. We might think of more once we have studied the enemy – which is your next task.”
“They haven’t moved for hours,” said Paul. He was sitting on the counter by the deactivated assistant, pushing a little wheeled board, on which a painted skull grinned from amidst painted flames, back and forth beneath his foot.
“True.” Flame bit into an apple. “But I don’t suppose they’ll just let us walk out. That is, assuming we really have to…”
“As we’ve already discussed,” said Kokalina, “our supplies will last another couple of weeks if we’re careful – which, if we wait that long, would leave us nothing for the journey to Irin Druk. So yes, we do have to. On the other hand, we can pick our moment. For a start, we aren’t leaving until you’re fully fed, rested, equipped and provisioned. Speaking of which, you’ve been watching the guards for several hours. We have some idea of their movements now, so I suggest we wait another day, to make sure we thoroughly understand their routines…”
“What movements?” asked Paul. “They’re asleep, for Lawsakes! This could be our best chance, right now.”
“They might be pretending,” said Flame.
“In my opinion, it’s too soon for them to have grown bored and inattentive,” said Kokalina. “In another couple of days you might slip out unseen, but if they appear to be asleep, it’s either a conscious trick or a habit of long periods spent lying in wait.”
Paul shrugged, frowning. “If you say so. But if we lose our only chance…”
“You have to think of it as a game,” said Kokalina quietly. “Then it isn’t so scary.”
“A game.” Paul glared at Kokalina in a way Flame found disconcerting. “Oh, yes, of course.” He jumped down from the counter and stumped upstairs, taking the glow bulb.
Flame sat in the dark until the oily light of the street lamp reasserted itself, casting yellowy-orange rectangles onto the walls, furniture and piled junk.
“Besides,” said Kokalina, after a few minutes, “if we don’t leap head-first into danger at the first opportunity, we might actually come up with a sensible plan.”
Flame smiled and placed her apple core on the window ledge. She realised, to her surprise, that she rather liked Kokalina.
“Ready?”
Flame peered through the window. They had watched the guards pace back and forth for an hour – then sit for a while – then gradually ease into more relaxed positions. And now, for the third ‘night’ in a row, they had lain motionless for over an hour.
She and Paul were about to re-enter the nightmare – but it was, at least, at a time of their choosing. They had discussed this moment endlessly, considering every conceivable alternative.
Since the buildings were terraced, they’d tried to dig through the wall into the one next door, but without success. Likewise, the floor of the ground level was impenetrable. There was an attic, the door to which Kokalina managed to open, but it proved to be empty, the walls and roof similarly impenetrable.
Apart from that, the junk in the place didn’t seem up to disguising them as Creeps, supporting an attempt to get from an upstairs window to one next door or opposite, or building a hot air balloon…
And the back exit was guarded, with the guards sleeping (if that’s what they were doing) with at least one resting against the door – something they had neglected to do at the front, it seemed.
Flame and Paul were fed and rested, their cuts and bruises healed, clad in their currently silvery grey armour, and armed with several weapons, including a gun that seemed confident of its own powers.
Flame tried not to let her voice tremble as she grasped Paul’s hand and whispered, “Let’s go.”
There was a faint clunk as Kokalina released the lock. They waited a few breathless seconds, but there was no further sound. Paul slowly turned the handle and eased the door open (he’d removed the bell).
The figures lying by the lamppost on the far side of the street remained motionless. Flame and Paul knew that they’d been on shift for six hours, and still had one to go.
Paul opened the door a bit further, glanced to right and left. He nodded.
Flame put one hand on his shoulder. The other held Calgium’s sword, not that she knew how to use it. A sai, a knife and the candlesticks hung from loops in the belt of her armour. Paul held the gun, had a knife in his belt, and the sabre in his backpack.
She squeezed his shoulder, and they stepped outside.