Boneshaker

“Being here’s not so bad,” he argued with a sardonic grin. “Just look at this palace!”

“It is bad, and you know it as well as I do. So why do you stay? Why would you live here — why would anybody?”

Swakhammer shrugged and finished his beer. He chucked the mug back into a crate and said, “We all got our reasons. And you can make it down here, if you want to. Or if you have to. It’s not easy, but it’s not easy anyplace, anymore.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“Anyway, there’s money to be made. There’s freedom, and plenty of opportunity if you know where to look.”

“From what? From how?” Briar asked. “From looting the old rich places? One day, that money will run out. There’s only so much you can steal and sell inside the walls, or so I’d think.”

He shifted on his feet. He said, “There’s always the Blight. It’s not going anywhere, and no one knows what to do about it. If you can’t turn a buck off the sap, then it really isn’t any use to anyone.”

“Lemon sap kills people.”

“So do other people. So do dogs. So do angry horses, and diseases, and gangrene, and birthing babies. And what about the war? You don’t think the war back east kills people? I promise you this — it kills them by the score, and it kills more of them than the Blight does. More by thousands, I bet.”

Briar shrugged, but it wasn’t a dismissal. “You’ve got a point, I’m sure. But my son isn’t going to die in childbirth, or in war — not yet, at least. At the moment, he’s much more likely to sicken himself to death with that stupid drug, because he’s only a child, and children do stupid things. And please understand, I’m not accusing you of anything. I understand how the world works, and I know plenty about doing what you must in order to get by.”

“I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“I’m not asking you for one. But you seemed mighty ready to offer one in self-defense.”

He pushed at the chair and gave her a look that was almost a glare, but wasn’t quite. “That’s fine. As long as we understand each other.”

“I think we do, yes.” She rubbed at her eyes and scratched at her thigh, where the little cuts from the window were itching like mad; but least they weren’t bleeding anymore.

“You hurt?” Swakhammer asked, eager to change the subject.

“Just a few cuts. It wouldn’t be so bad except for the gas rubbing in it. You don’t have any bandages around here, do you? I’ll need some for decency’s sake, if nothing else. My pants are going to come apart before long, so I could use a needle and thread, too.”

His crooked-toothed smile warmed its way back onto his face. “Sounds like you need a secretary, or a nice hotel. I’m afraid I can’t give you much along those lines, but now that I’ve decided where to take you, I think we can get you patched up.”

Briar didn’t like his phrasing. “What do you mean by that? Where are you going to take me?”

“You’ve got to understand,” he said. He shouldered his armor and stuffed his mask up under his arm. “This is a… well, let’s call it a controlled community. It’s not for everyone, and we like it just fine that way. But every now and again, someone drops down off an airship or wriggles up from down by the water, wanting to make a change. People get the idea that there’s something valuable in here, and people want to get their fingers in that pie.” He cocked his head at her mask, and at the bag and rifle that were sitting on the table beside her. “Get your stuff together.”

“Where are you taking me?” she asked more urgently, wrapping her fingers around the gun.

“Sweetheart, if I was going to do you any trouble, I would’ve taken that away.” He pointed at the Spencer. “I’m going to take you to your daddy’s place. Sort of. Now come on. It’s afternoon now and it’s getting dark, and it gets even worse out there when it’s dark. We’re walking underneath the really bad parts, but this time of day, everybody and their brother is dropping down into the tu

“Is that bad?”

“It might be. As I was going to tell you, before you distracted me, we’ve got plenty of problems down here already. That’s why we have to watch the new folks so closely. We don’t need any more trouble than we already got.”

Briar felt somewhat refreshed, but not much reassured by the conversation’s faintly sinister turn. She shouldered the rifle, slipped her-self through the strap of her satchel, and stuffed the mask inside it. Her father’s old hat fit much better without the mask, so she put the hat back on rather than tie it to her satchel.

She told him, “All I want to do is find my son. That’s it. I’ll find him, and get out of your city.”

“I think you underestimate the trouble a woman like you can cause without even trying. You’re Maynard’s girl, and Maynard is the closest thing to an agreed-upon authority down here.”

She blinked hard. “But he’s dead. He’s been dead for sixteen years!

Swakhammer pushed aside a leather curtain and held it for Briar, who was now more reluctant to let him follow her. But there was no graceful way around it. She took the lead, and he dropped the curtain behind them both, casting the corridor into darkness except for his lantern.

“Sure he’s dead, and it’s a good thing for us. It’s hard to argue with a dead man. A dead man can’t change his mind or make new rules, or behave like a bastard so no one will listen to him anymore. A dead man stays a saint.” He tapped her on the shoulder and handed her the lantern. “Aim this over here so I can see.”

As if he’d forgotten something, he held up a finger that asked her to wait. He ducked back through the curtain and reappeared a few seconds later, chased by the smell of smoke.

“Had to put out the candles. Now bring that up close.”

Next to the leather curtain a long iron rod was propped against the wall. Swakhammer took it and threaded it through a series of loops at the bottom of the leather curtain.

“Are you…” Briar wasn’t sure how to ask the question. “Locking the curtain?”

He grunted half a laugh. “Just weighing it down. The more barriers we keep between the undersides and the topsides, the better the air stays; and when the bellows kick on and off, they blow these curtains all over the place.”

She watched him work, paying close attention. The mechanics of it all fascinated her — the filters, the seals, the bellows. Seattle used to be an uncomplicated trading town fed and fattened by gold in Alaska, and then it had dissolved into a nightmare city filled with gas and the walking dead. But people had stayed. People had come back. And they’d adapted.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Just hold the light. I’ve got it.” The curtains were anchored and bound by the rod, and he jammed the rod’s end into a groove beside the doorjamb. “That takes care of that. Now let’s go. Keep the light if you want. Go straight up here, and take the right fork, if you would, please.”

Briar wandered through the damp, moss-covered hallway that rang with the distant, perpetual drip of water. Sometimes from above, a thud or a jangling clank would sound, but since her escort paid the noises no attention, she did her best to tune them out too.

“So, Mr. Swakhammer. What did you mean when you said we were going to… to my father’s?” She looked over her shoulder. The jagged lantern light gave the man’s face a hollow, haggard appearance.

“We’re going to Maynard’s. It used to be a pub, down on the square. Now it’s the same as everything else here — dead as a doornail — but down in the basement there’s a crew of folks who keep the place ru

“Do you think so? Really? But he was trying so hard to find his way back to Levi’s house.”