Urbis

Crispin was not sure if he was dreaming. The blaster he had in his grip felt real enough. But his surroundings were the stuff of nightmares. He was skulking behind the burnt-out wreck of a bus, looking out at a landscape of urban desolation, on a mild night in the month of Sweetdew, illuminated by a stark spectral moon. He was both hunter and hunted, waiting and watching, playing a game of deadly hide and seek. It was time, he judged, to stop hiding and start seeking.

He edged past the rusting hulk towards the gaunt skeleton of a building where he believed his foe was waiting. It was just about impossible to approach without being seen; there was no cover. He ran, expecting any moment to be cut down by gunfire. But not a shot, not a sound at all, save his own footfalls, disturbed the unnatural peace, and he made it into the building in one piece.

The facade of the building, a patchwork of crumbling masonry, rendered even more grotesque by the cold lunar radiance, offered nooks that he could melt into. There was a slight sound, and his fingers tightened on the butt of the blaster. He pressed the barrel against his cheek and watched as a mangy rat strutted across the open space in front of him, quite oblivious to the panic it had caused.

He climbed a flight of worn stone steps and burst through double doors into a foyer area. An enormous chandelier lay like a shipwreck in the middle of an expanse of chequered flagstones, fragments of cut glass scattered around it like diamonds. Curved staircases three metres broad rose to left and right. Somewhere to the left, a door banged. He moved in that direction, his gaze fixed on three overturned couches which could easily conceal his enemy.

Curtains of filmy gauze fluttered in the lightest of breezes at a doorway whose doors had rotted on their hinges and lay in the dust. With motions more feline than those of the nocturnal stroller he had observed outside, he passed through into what had clearly once been a dining room. There were still place settings on a number of tables, veiled beneath the cobwebs of generations of spiders, and under similarly shrouded racks of undrinkable wine he saw mice soundlessly scurrying.

He proceeded across the room towards the French windows and the terrace beyond, ever on the alert for the slightest telltale sound, the least betraying movement. He paused, retreated into the enveloping folds of heavily brocaded drapes, reached out and lifted the catch on the French windows.

And then there was a slight noise outside. The shadow of the balustrade betrayed a hunched figure standing atop it. In a single rapid movement Crispin sprang through the door, turned and fired his blaster. The figure cried out, teetered for a moment on the parapet, arms flailing, weapon flung aside, then tumbled backwards onto the grassy bank below and lay still.

Crispin remained as motionless as a statue, admiring the haunting chiaroscuro of the scene. Then warily he vaulted the stonework and approached the supine black-clad figure.

Josie lay still. He ran an index finger through the black camouflage paint on her cheek and gave a wry grin. She opened her eyes and gave a grin of her own. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him on the nose. Her lips came away smeared with his camouflage.

“Good kill, mister,” she beamed, as he pulled her to her feet. “Good kill.”

“What is this place?” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

“It used to be a hotel, maybe a couple of centuries ago,” Josie explained. “It fell into decline, it seems, and then into disrepair, and was boarded up and abandoned to await the demolition teams. By some bizarre fluke, they never came: as it turned out, no one was too keen on a site in this seedy quarter. Who knows? This could be the oldest building in the city - there’s certainly not much that’s as old. Our guys unboarded it, fortified it so it wouldn’t decay any further, and now we use it for the kind of training you’ve been on tonight.”

“How come none of you live here? I would have thought it would be ideal.”

“Too visible,” said Josie dismissively. “Way too visible. We like places where our comings and goings are not so easy to observe.”

“What’s next?”

Josie keyed her ID number into the pad on the side of the van. “What’s next? You are keen. Well, it’s empty hand fighting next.”

“Empty hand?”

“No weapons. We teach you how to fall so you don’t hurt yourself, we teach you some basic anatomy so you know where an antagonist’s weak spots are, and we teach you how to defend yourself, how to maim and how to kill. Oh yes, and we teach you how to chop wood with your hand.” Her tone was jocular, but underneath the deadly seriousness was unmistakeable.

Josie set the van in motion. Seedy, that was how she had described it, this part of the city. To Crispin it appeared soulless, as if its builders had gone out of their way to create a desert.

“This empty hand fighting,” he said slowly. “You know how to do that?”

“Oh yes,” said Josie. “Most girls in the Underground are taught it from the time they can walk, more or less. Here, it’s about as essential as knowing how to walk. And from that age, too.” She gestured towards the windscreen. “There are so many whackos out there, it’s not funny.”

“You have... killed?”

“No. I’ve come close a couple of times, though, when I’ve been in real trouble. Both times drunks who heard me singing and thought the lyrics were addressed to them personally. It’s a risky business, singing for your supper.”

“I have killed,” said Crispin. “Twice.”

“You still upset about knifing the Security fellow?”

Josie steered the van into an alley. Visible in front of them, like a curtain across its entrance, was a section of wall, floodlit and brilliantly coloured. When they emerged from the alley into an open space, Crispin found himself looking up at a magnificent mural, some three hundred metres long and sixty high. He gaped, open mouthed in astonishment at a tableau vibrant with life, peopled with countless vivid and realistic portraits, rich with gem-like details culled from everyday experience, with the ever-present cerulean sky as the backdrop. The van cruised slowly across the plaza so that Crispin could absorb the details of the immense spectacle. As they drew closer, he noted with disappointment that the bottom couple of metres had been marred with graffiti.

“No holograms, no techno-gimmickry,” said Josie. “Just paint.”

“The artist?”

“I knew him,” said Josie. “He died.”

“Oh. What from?”

“A good old fashioned heart attack. On a whopping scale.”

They stopped for a while to admire the work that had gone into turning a mundane wall into an artistic gem.

“It’s beautiful,” said Crispin.

“It is, isn’t it?” Josie agreed. “It took a bit of string-pulling to get the lighting, but there are one or two sympathetic souls on the local sector council.”

After a few minutes, they drove on.

It was late when they got back to the warehouse, nearly midnight, but there was another need for the van. As soon as it returned, Charlie and Mina began loading it with urns of hot soup, a couple of flashbake ovens and stacks of pre-packaged food.

“This is our good deed for the night,” said Mina, toting a couple of bulky bundles out of a storeroom. “It’s also part of our cover. If anyone comes across us here, we have to look like we do something legitimate.”

“`Anyone’ being Security?” said Crispin.

“Or anyone in their pay,” said Mina.

“We’re ready to leave. Do you want to come with us, and meet some of the folk on the bottom rung of our society?”

The adrenalin was still coursing through Crispin’s veins from his shooting practice. “Yes,” he said.

He found Josie standing beside the van, waiting for him. They were going to give her a lift to her apartment, and there was no place for her to sit other than on Crispin’s knees. Not for the first time, Crispin wondered if this was accidental, or if it was all part of a scheme to throw Josie and himself together at every opportunity. He cursed silently and tried to ignore the prompting of his hormones, until they got to Josie’s apartment. There, they waited for her to appear at her lighted window and wave to indicate that all was well. Then they drove on.

They passed along dingy, unlit laneways until they came to the base of a lengthy curving viaduct and parked under one of its towering arches. Ahead of them they could see figures gathered around a blazing bonfire. At first the silhouettes showed no sign of moving, but as Charlie and Mina began to unload the van, they began to shamble towards it, but shied away from the intrusive glare of its headlights.

Between the van and the fire was a large pool reflecting the dancing flames. It spread over almost the entire width of the arch, leaving just a narrow track along which the derelicts picked their way with utmost care. And when he got out of the van, Crispin understood why. The pool gave off the acrid stench of urine.

At the back of the van, Charlie was doling out soup and trays of solid food, and Mina was distributing sleeping bags.

“They’re made of recycled paper,” she explained to Crispin. “A rare touch of benevolence from the captains of industry to those quite significantly poorer than themselves. They’re actually very good. They last a long time, and they’re warm. So I’m told. I’ve never actually tested one.”

Crispin was aghast at what he was seeing. “Who are these people?”

Mina shrugged. “Essentially, they’re the ones the city has decided it doesn’t need. They’ve all fallen by the wayside for one reason or another. And there they remain.”

More than fifty men and about ten women came out of the shadows, took their rations and quickly melted back into those shadows.

“More men than women,” said Crispin.

“Many women have another option,” said Mina. “Selling themselves on the streets. Though I’m not sure which is worse, this or that.”

Charlie put the empty urns into the van. “That’s it,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

“Yes,” Crispin agreed, shaken to the marrow by what he had seen. “Let’s.”

As they drove away, Crispin became lost in his thoughts. Those “other options” for women nagged at him. “You people pay money for sex with women you don’t know? Strangers?”

“Some of us,” said Charlie.

“And that’s what Tana is doing now?”

“Without a doubt,” said Mina. Crispin looked shocked. “Sorry, but that’s the truth of it.”

Back at the warehouse, Marlon was watching the late night news on TV. “Bad news,” he said as Charlie, Mina and Crispin trooped in.

“Huh,” said Charlie, “when isn’t there?”

“The Presidium’s just pushed through new legislation,” Marlon went on. “In the middle of the night, you notice? Big new sector taxes to pay for “the war against subversives”. That means us. And guess what? Three more hospital wards closed in this sector alone. What a coincidence!”

“Well,” said Charlie. “Looks like the Pres really means business.”

“Oh yeah, and Crispin,” Marlon added matter-of-factly, “they’ve found your wife.”