of the workers.”
“How did they build it? Surely word would have gotten out about such an undertaking.”
“I can’t say,” said Tazz. “It was not built by any worker I know, and as you can suspect I know quite a few. We just stumbled across it. How it got here is beyond me. Yet I believe there are many more like it under the city.”
“That can’t be,” said Hayes. “It’s too big. You couldn’t fit more than… than ten of them down here, maybe.”
“Maybe. But I once heard that Kulahee had discovered a way to trick space. To make the small large and the large small. I heard he could fit a pachyderm into a matchbox.”
“That’s a fairy tale.”
“So were the machines. But you have a dead one at your feet, sir. After all, you’ve heard the sounds, haven’t you? The pounding? You both must have. Everyone who lives here for more than a few months has.”
Samantha nodded, but Hayes refrained.
“Yes,” said Tazz. “I think that’s how they speak to one another, maybe.”
“Speak?” said Hayes.
“Yes. How they call to one another in the dark. These invisible machines doing invisible things. They sing to one another like whales in the seas.”
“They’re machines. Machines don’t talk, and certainly not to one another.”
“Mm. Yes,” said Tazz softly. “Maybe you’re right. Perhaps everyone who spends too much time down here goes a little mad.”
Hayes and Samantha looked out at the device a moment longer. Then Hayes pointed down to where it met the lip of the wall. A variety of small tools lay scattered in front of a small hutch in the machine’s side. They seemed pathetically tiny next to the enormous mechanism. “You’ve been trying to repair it,” Hayes said.
Tazz nodded sadly. “To restart it, yes.”
“Why?”
“Why? Why not? Imagine what you could learn from it. From seeing one of the secret devices of McNaughton in action. You’d have the power of the sea itself at your fingertips. And they wouldn’t be so superior to us anymore. Cloistered away in their tower, controlling us, giving us simple toys and making millions off of it. When all along the real gifts never know the light of day.” He lowered the lantern and set it on the ground, and the machine was swallowed in darkness once more. Then he looked at Hayes, his eyes wild. “So you understand that when a man of your abilities comes before me, I wonder if you are something that happened, or something that was made.”
“I was not made,” said Hayes. “I’m me. I’m my own.”
“You don’t sound certain. You don’t even know how they make what they do already, do you? You’re like everyone else when it comes to that. Maybe it’s something holy. Maybe they have a single man appointed with the task of going up to the gods and bringing back fire.”
Hayes cocked his head. “That’s a very educated reference. Above most line workers’ heads.”
“I read. I read when I was in prison. I learned about justice and the way the world could be, if we only tried.” Tazz stepped back from the light. He became indistinguishable from the rest of the shadowed stone. “I looked around and saw men who could not go further. Who could not get out. Who knew lives of nothing more than struggle, and starvation, and hate.”
“I’m sick and tired of your fucking rhetoric,” Hayes muttered, so low that only Samantha could hear.
“I learned of how deep the corruption went,” Tazz continued, the faceless voice in the dark. “That it was in the heart of the very city. Every structure, every institution. It was made to keep these men down, to keep them on the lines and in the gutters and in the prisons. I learned how hard our mission would be, and how desperately it was needed.”
“I went to Savron, too, Mr. Tazz,” Hayes said loudly. “I learned a few things myself. Spoke to the boys there, and the guards. They say they don’t remember you at all.”
“What?” said Tazz’s voice sharply.
“They say they don’t remember you.”
“Well… then you’re talking to the wrong people.”
“Hm. Could you remind me what your jail cell was?”
“My what? My jail cell? Why?”
“Just for my records. Just because I’m curious. What jail cell were you interned in?”
The voice was quiet. Then he said quickly, “Cell one-forty-five. South Sector C.”
“Really?” said Hayes, interested.
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
“Because the prison records show that you were in cell one-fifty-five. Right sector, though.”
Tazz was silent. Then he said, “That’s impossible.”
“It’s entirely possible.”
“It’s not true. You’re lying. Cell one-forty-five, South Sector C. Cell one-forty-five, South Sector C. How could I forget? It was drilled into me, every day.”
“Are you certain you were in Savron?”
“Of course I’m certain. I spent five years of my life there, five miserable years!”
“Really? I had heard six,” Hayes said.
Tazz paused. “No. No. Five years. I spent five years. Five years, three months, twenty-nine days,” he said angrily. “Five years, three months, twenty-nine days. You know that. You know that!”
“How would I know that?”
“Because you’re a monster!” Tazz shouted. He stepped back into the light. He was leaning forward, snarling like a wild animal. “I know what you are! I know what you can do! That’s why they have you working for them, isn’t it? Or did they make you? Did they make this… this thing that you are to work for them, like another one of Kulahee’s machines? That’s how they operate, you know. They make what they need. Isn’t that it?
“You won’t listen,” he said. “You never do. Any of you. Every machine and dollar you make is bought with our blood. And we don’t ever get anything. Not even a memory. But one day they’ll remember. One day we’ll make them. We’ll make them remember all of us.”
Then Tazz turned away and walked down the pathway into the darkness. They heard his footfalls but after a while they did not even hear that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
They were left alone in the tunnel. The other union men stood watching them, faces indistinct in the shadows, but Hayes barely noticed, lost in thought. The big one with the wrench lurched toward them and as he neared the stench of gin was overwhelming. A small man in a coat and hat came forward and pushed him back and said, “Easy there. Easy, Barney. Let’s get these folks home, all right?”
He turned to them and Hayes saw it was the man in the gray coat he had seen only a few nights before. He was a ratty little thing with an oversized nose and a wandering line of a mustache. He tipped his hat and said, “I’m Colomb. Mr. Tazz has assigned me the task of making sure you get out all right. Because we’re all peaceful-like, see? Very peaceful. Here, I’ll show you the way.”
He picked up a lantern and led them up into one of the other service tunnels. As they walked Hayes glanced behind them and saw the big guard staring at them, breathing hard. Others joined him, emerging from the shadows and watching their retreat with hungry eyes.
“Can’t believe you brought a woman down here,” Colomb said as he walked. “The idea of it. You’d get all dirty.”
“I’m fine,” said Samantha.
“Why in God’s name would someone do that, though? Must be crazy.”
“I needed someone else to hear,” Hayes said.
