Caine Black Knife

And this, My Love, is where you become My Love. This is where I know you are truly Mine. When you let the grin fade. When you let your eyes go soft, and you let your voice drop like a lover’s. When you say, “That’s what I want.”

“Eh?”

“Administrator, you’re not a real Studio man. Not really.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’m not trying to be impertinent, please, Administrator, but-where did you come from? What branch of Service?”

“Health care,” Kollberg admits reluctantly. “I ran St. Luke’s Ecumenical, in Chicago. But I’ve always enjoyed-”

“Yeah. Everybody does. But listen: popping in a cube now and then isn’t the same. It doesn’t mean shit. Adventures Unlimited is my whole life, Administrator. I have breathed Adventures in and breathed them out since I was old enough to work secondhander gear. Before I was an Actor, I was a student of Acting. Before I was a student, I was a fan. A real fan. Do you have any idea what that means? What it is to be a fan?”

“Well, I hardly think-”

“Fan is short for fanatic. You get it? This isn’t just a hobby for me. Or a career path. This is my fucking religion.”

“Religion.” That liver-colored asshole drops the echo like a soft turd.

You let passion rise in your voice: the iron band that had unfastened within your chest goes red, then white, then melts and burns away. “When you’re a fan, it eats your life. There’s nothing else for you, you get it? Administrator, everything I know came from Adventures-shit, the only reason I learned to read was that there just aren’t enough good real Adventures, so I started reading ones people just made up-then I started reading the shit they based those Adventures on, and-well, I just never stopped. It’s all I ever thought about. It’s still all I think about.”

You turned your face up toward the joining where the ivory ceiling meets the green wall, but you are looking at something I cannot see with your eyes.

“When I was twelve I got in a knife fight with an older kid. All we had were homemade shanks, all point, y’know? I wasn’t even scared; I’d cubed White Fire, Black Steel maybe twenty times, so I let him slash me over the ribs because I knew it’d only hurt but wouldn’t kill me, and I stabbed him in the thigh-just like Jonathan Mkembe, get it? And he ran away. Jesus Christ, Administrator, when I lost my goddamn virginity, you know what I was thinking? I was thinking we were both decent fucks, doing pretty good, considering neither one of us were, y’know, Actors, and I was using pro technique, y’know, because I’d already fucked maybe seventy or eighty women secondhand-and she’d done more than that. . The biggest thing that ever happened to me? When I was maybe ten or eleven years old, I met Nathan Mast. You know who he was?”

Kollberg shakes his head. “I don’t see where you’re going with this, Michaelson.”

“Doesn’t matter. He used to be famous, back before I was born. He was one of Mkembe’s sidekicks for a while. The point is, he was living in the Mission District Sorrows-the Single Room Occupancy Temp flops. He was a broke-down old ragface.”

“Pathetic.”

“Not for me. It was the greatest day of my life. You know why? He was just an ordinary fucking guy. You get it? He wasn’t a god. He wasn’t Superman. He was just like any other Temp ragface. Just another loser.”

“So?”

“So he was just like me.”

Kollberg squints. “Ah.”

“Yeah.”

“And so-”

“And so that was the day I discovered I had a shot at this. I’ve been getting ready for it ever since. I’m not going to fuck it up.”

“Fine, then. I’m very glad to hear it. Now, the garrison commander at North Rahnding is a Knight Captain by the name of Purthin Khlaylock-”

Administrator, you’re hearing me, but you’re not hearing me. What I’m trying to get through to you-without any disrespect at all-is that I know more about this shit than you do. Than you possibly can. That’s nothing against you, Administrator. Adventures are just your job. They’re my whole life. There is nothing in my life I care about more than story. There is nothing I know more about than the difference between a good one and a bad one. You’re betting my life and your future on what happens in the next day or two. Let’s go balls-out to make it the Greatest Fucking Show on Overworld. Come on, Administrator. What do you say?”

Kollberg’s lips go back to asshole. “Are you trying to tell me you have a better idea?”

You draw a long, deep breath. The word inspiration has never been so appropriate on so many levels, for with the air comes your true spirit. Your power.

My Power.

“What I’m telling you is that Caine can’t run away.”

“Eh?”

“I know you’ve gone to a lot of trouble to set up this escape, and I appreciate it-”

“It’s not an escape, Michaelson. It’s a rescue. That’s why you’re not going first- hand until you make contact with the Khryllians-”

“Yes, sir. And if you can get the Khryllians coming, you can have them coming all the way to the city, right? Why bother leaving at all?”

“I’m sorry?”

“What if-instead of supposedly crawling out of the vertical city-I were to supposedly crawl into the city? Deep into the city?”

“I don’t follow.”

“I’m with you on the nobody cares about continuity. You’re right. Fuck logic. It’s fantasy; who gives a shit as long as it juices your shorts, right? So:

what if I were to crawl into, say, where the Black Knives stashed all our weapons. . ?”

Again you bring your voice down like a lover’s. “Think about it, Administrator-think about Caine alone in the dark, surrounded by ogrilloi, yanking out these spikes-then finding the bladewand. .”

Kollberg’s eyes light up. “I can see it. I can see it!”

“So a few extra things could have been stashed among the gear as well, huh? You could manage that, right? Another magick weapon or two, maybe some real Healing salve instead of the fake crap. . a few things that nobody told anybody else they had. Now Caine’s got them all.”

“Right. . right. .” Kollberg frowns. “No, wait, it won’t work-the Black Knives have already distributed your belongings. They’re all over the camp.”

You shake your head in crisp dismissal. You have him now, and you know it; the battle is won. The rest, as you will come to enjoy saying, is mop-up.

“Doesn’t matter. Look, we were after the Tear of Panchasell, right? So other people must have been looking for it too-so I’ve crawled in someplace and passed out among the bones of some centuries-dead treasure-hunters. You can manage some dusty old bones, can’t you? Now I’m armed. Shit, with the Winston scanners, you could locate the Tear itself, can’t you?”

Kollberg’s sideways half-shrug half-nod is a shade too noncommittal.

“Oh.” Your lips might make a smile if they weren’t so thin and flat against your teeth. “You already have.”

“Well-”