“Ughhh, dammit, Ash. My head is fucking killing me.”
“Yeah, Wind, that’s what happens when you get a concussion. Takes your brain a while to stitch itself back together. Some parts never do.”
“Gee, thanks for that uplifting response. I feel better already. I mean, I would, except for the brain damage and my stomach trying to eat itself.”
I pull open an access door, rusted hinges squealing in protest.
“We’re all hungry. Just be happy you didn’t have to deal with that shit on the rig… Shhh!”
Instead of the normal welcoming hum of a megaspire, gunfire echoes from above, the sharp cracks of projectile rounds mixing with the deeper thuds of drone-fired suppression grenades. A low buzz underlies it all, the anger of a disturbed hive. I pull everyone into a huddle on the stairs.
“Sounds like a riot,” I say in a low voice, fingers itching for the hilt of my blade.
“I swear we just left this exact scenario,” Jase grumps, folding his arms over his chest. His fingers tap against his scrawny biceps. “Checking local socials. Looks like it’s centered around Southspire and the Rust.” His face tightens. “The nexus of each one looks like a group of Gamers, Ash. Tight clothing, big muscles, moving way too quick. Gamers not responding to much of anything.”
“Because of course the frying pan leads to the fire.” I snort. “Why would we expect anything else?”
“Plan?”
Always to the point, our Slend. I glance over at Jase, the only one of us with working glasses.
“How bad are the riots?”
“Bad. Almost every floor on the Rust is reporting something. Southspire is a little cleaner, but not by much. They’ve got drones everywhere. Looks like they’re sweeping from the top down.”
“Well, at least there’s a small piece of luck. If we hurry, we can still make it out before whoever’s under those hoods hits the cordon.”
“And then what?” Wind asks. “Sawyer’s dead, right? Along with the rig? Call me intolerant, but I don’t think the Theocrophant is going to give a single shit about us.” She tugs angrily at her burka. “Not like we owe them a damn thing anyway.”
I pat her on the shoulder. Sometimes leading is knowing when to defuse a bomb instead of accelerating its countdown.
“Let’s just make it out of here, get to Johnny’s, and get some food. We can try to figure out everything else after that.”
She tugs at her burka again, then lets her hand fall and nods. I turn my attention elsewhere.
“Slend, you take point. This is your turf. I’ll cover the rear. Wind, eyes everywhere. Jase, what’s our quickest route to safety?”
“There’s a couple smaller spires we could pass through, then cut through the edge of Southspire.”
“Bad idea,” Slend says. “Boardshit turf.”
“Yeah, they’d probably be just as happy to break us as some windows. Anything else, Jase?”
“We can head up to Eastspire, but there are a lot of socials coming out of the area between us and the skyway. Snaps of busted stores, trash fires, anti-Hajj graffiti, fights with the drones. Typical riot stuff. Gummies have a moderate blockade on the bridge—socials say they’re letting through people who weren’t actively tagged by the suppression drones—but getting there means going through the thick of it.”
“Great. Just once, I’d like to have a non-shitty choice of options. Just to see how it feels. Slend?”
“Eastspire. Boardshits have lookouts in Southspire. Weapons. Coordinated. Too many.”
“Eastspire it is. Keep your head down, Jase, and keep up. Let’s move.”
We push into the depths of the Rust, Slend leading the way up battered stairwells and through cramped utility passages. Sounds of fighting grow louder the higher we ascend, the maddening hum ebbing and flowing in heavy waves. Eventually, Slend pauses in front of a grimy door.
“Main atrium. Dangerous. Necessary.”
“Can’t we circle around?” Jase asks. “Schematics show—”
“No. Blocked. Rust changes. People add, remove.”
“She’s the one who lives here, Jase,” I murmur. He shrugs, clearly unhappy. I ignore it. “Take us in, Slend.”
She gently pushes the door open, the din of madness now seeming to echo right beside us. A quick look, and then she’s trotting in, Wind on her heels. I give Jase a shove to get him moving, and he stumbles into line. I follow him out, straight into a gummie Preacher’s hell.
We’re on a walkway running a complete circuit along the wall, nearly five meters wide, various doors leading to outer portions of the Rust, a waist-high barrier on the inner edge. It overlooks a vast open space, the center of the building—this atrium’s floor is five stories below, its ceiling six stories up. The Rust was originally designed to have twenty such atriums, each stacked atop the other, each highlighting a different architectural style, but the builders only made it to atrium twelve before shutting the project down, another victim of the Dubs.
This atrium is all concrete slabs and straight lines, a brutal assault on the senses, about as inviting as a fist to the face. Scattered glow panels provide feeble illumination, nearly overwhelmed by a reddish-orange glow from the empty middle. I sneak a look over the railing while we run, staying low—giant piles of trash dot the atrium floor, some smoldering fitfully, others belching sheets of flame upward. Groups of skulking figures weave in and out of sight on the other levels, most with makeshift weapons, some chased by stalking drones, suppression grenades erupting from spindly arms toward their prey, choking chemical fog mushroom-puffing around thrashing bodies.
The noise level suddenly triples, a massive press of bodies surging out of doors on the top level. Screams and shouts intermingle with gunfire and suppression grenades, the mob brought to bay by an unstoppable wall of remote-controlled metal pressing down like a trash compactor. Several figures topple over the railings, screaming as they fall, shrill cries filled with animal terror, and I swallow heavily when they abruptly cut off. The rest of the seething mass roils along the walkway like an overturned ant nest, slamming into and through doorways, a marching wall of drones driving them on.
Slend picks up the pace, not quite an outright run, but close. Jase gulps down air in panting heaves—he’s not prepared for this at all. I’m impressed he’s made it this far. We barrel into another stairwell, legs churning up its steps two at a time. One level passes, then another. Slend kicks open a narrow utility door, an oddly pristine cleaning supply hallway beyond, and then we’re back into the atrium. The bedlam is a wall of sound, close to the threshold of physical pain. Footsteps thud over our heads while more despairing shrieks Doppler past.
Our run turns into a full-on sprint, leaping over unmoving bodies, blood pooling beneath several. Scattered pieces of a shattered drone nearly trip up Jase, and I haul him back upright.
“Thanks,” he gasps.
“Just keep running,” I shout back, eyes scanning constantly for threats. Based on our relationship to the atrium, we must be nearly halfway across the megaspire by now. Slend crashes through another door, Wind right behind her. I push Jase after them, into a twisting residential hallway, bodies and beaded curtains dotting its length.