where they were heading, about the blackouts. Each porter left unhappy. And hopefully, empty headed.
Pieter had been right: The stairwell was singing. It vibrated with the march of too many feet. Those who lived above were generally moving upward, away from the blackouts and toward the promise of power, of warm food and hot showers. Meanwhile, Knox and his people mobilized behind them to squelch a different
At fifty-six, they had their first spot of trouble. A group of farmers stood outside the hydroponic farm lowering a cluster of power cables over the railing, presumably toward the small group they had seen the last landing down. When they spotted the blue coveralls of Mechanical, one of the farmers called out, “Hey, we keep you fed, why can’t you keep the juice on?”
“Talk to IT,” Marck replied from the front of the queue. “They’re the ones blowing fuses. We’re doing what we can.”
“Well, do it faster,” the farmer said. “I thought we just had a ratdamned power holiday to prevent this nonsense.”
“We’ll have it by lunchtime,” Shirly told them.
Knox and the others caught up with the head of the group, creating a jamb by the landing.
“The faster we get up there the faster you’ll get your juice,” Knox explained. He tried to hold his concealed gun casually, like it was any other tool.
“Well how about giving us a hand with this tap, then? They’ve had power on fifty-seven for most of the morning. We’d like enough to get our pumps cranking.” He indicated the trunk of wires coiling over the railing.
Knox considered this. What the man was asking was technically illegal. Calling him out on it would mean delays, but telling him to go ahead might look suspicious. He could sense McLain’s group several levels up, waiting on them. Pace and timing were everything.
“I can spare two of my men to help out. Just as a favor. As long as it doesn’t get back to me that Mechanical had shit to do with this.”
“Like I care,” the farmer said. “I just want water moving.”
“Shirly, you and Courtnee give them a hand. Catch up when you can.”
Shirly’s mouth dropped open. She begged with her eyes for him to reconsider.
“Get going,” he told her.
Marck came to her side. He lifted his wife’s pack and handed her his multi-tool. She begrudgingly accepted it, glowered at Knox a moment longer, then turned to go, not saying a word to him or her husband.
The farmer let go of the cables and took a step toward Knox. “Hey, I thought you said you’d lend me two of—”
Knox leveled a glare harsh enough to make the man pause. “Do you want the best I got?” he asked. “Because you’ve got it.”
The farmer lifted his palms and backed away. Courtnee and Shirly could already be heard stomping their way below to coordinate with the men on the lower landing.
“Let’s go,” Knox said, hitching up his pack.
The men and women of Mechanical and Supply lurched forward once more. They left behind a group of farmers on landing fifty-six, who watched the long column wind its way upward.
Whispers rose as the power cables were lowered. Powerful forces were merging over these people’s heads, bad intentions coming together and heading for something truly awful.
And anyone with eyes and ears could tell: some kind of reckoning was coming.
There was no warning for Lukas, no countdown. Hours of quiet anticipation, of insufferable nothingness, simply erupted into violence. Even though he had been told to expect the worst, Lukas felt like the waiting so long for something to happen just made it a fiercer surprise when it finally did.
The double doors of landing thirty-four blew open. Solid steel peeled back like curls of paper. The sharp ring made Lukas jump, his hand slip off the stock of his rifle. Gunfire erupted beside him, Bobbie Milner shooting at nothing and screaming in fear. Maybe excitement. Sims was yelling impossibly over the roar. When it died down, something flew through the smoke, a canister, bouncing toward the security gate.
There was a terrible pause—and then another explosion like a blow to the ears. Lukas nearly dropped his gun. The smoke by the security gate couldn't quite fog the carnage. Pieces of people Lukas had known came to a sick rest in the entrance hall of IT. The people responsible began to surge through before he could take stock, before he could become fearful of another explosion occurring right in front of him.
The rifle beside him barked again, and this time Sims didn't yell. This time, several other barrels partook. The people trying to push through the chairs tumbled into them instead, their bodies shaking as if pulled by invisible strings, arcs of red like hurled paint flying from their bodies.
More came. A large man with a throaty roar. Everything moved so slowly. Lukas could see his mouth part, a yell in the center of a burly beard, a chest as wide as two men. He held a rifle at his waist. He fired at the ruined security station. Lukas watched Peter Billings spin to the floor, clutching his shoulder. Bits of glass shivered from the window frame in front of Lukas as barrel after barrel erupted across the conference table, the shattered window seeming insignificant now. A prudent move.
The hail of bullets hit the man unseen. The conference room was an ambush, a side-on attack. The large man shook as some of the wild fire got lucky. His beard sagged open. His rifle was cracked in half, a shiny bullet between his fingers. He tried to reload.
The guns of IT loosed their own bullets too fast to count. Levers were held, and springs and gunpowder did the rest. The giant man fumbled with his rifle, but never got it reloaded. He tumbled into the chairs, sending them crashing across the floor. Another figure appeared through the door, a tiny woman. Lukas watched her down the length of his barrel, saw her turn and look right at him, the smoke from the explosion drifting toward her, her gray hair flowing like more of it wrapped in a halo around her.
He could see her eyes. He had yet to shoot his gun, had watched, jaw slack, as the fighting took place.
The woman bent her arm back and made to throw something his way.
Lukas pulled the trigger. His rifle flashed and lurched. In the time it took, the long and terrible time it took for the bullet to cross the room, he realized it was just an old woman. Holding something. A bomb.
Her torso spun and her chest blossomed red. The object fell. There was another awful wait, more attackers appearing, screaming in anger, until an explosion blew the chairs and the people among them apart.
Lukas wept while a second surge made a futile attempt. He wept until his clip was empty, wept as he fumbled for the clasp, shoved a spare into the butt, the salt bitter on his lips as he drew back that bolt and let loose with another menacing hail of metal—so much stouter and quicker than the flesh it met.
21
Bernard woke to shouting, to his eyes burning from the smoke, his ears ringing with a long-ago blast.
Peter Billings was shaking his shoulders, yelling at him, a look of fright in his wide eyes and soot-stained brow. Blood stained his coveralls in a wide rust-colored pool.
“Hrm?”
“Sir! Can you hear me?”
Bernard pushed Peter’s hands away and tried to sit up. He groped about his body, looking for anything
