Читать книгу The Lost Puzzler - Eyal Kless - Страница 9

Even with my special sight, it was easy enough to get lost in the twisting streets of the Middle Spires. I kept walking, navigating on a hunch, looking for the signs described by a contact so inebriated she could barely stand up. Just when I was about to give up, I spotted the first of the local gang graffiti I was told to look for. I followed the graffiti signs through a series of short, narrowing lanes that were half blocked by piles of human rubbish the Council had stopped bothering to collect. I walked under two archways, one so low I had to crawl underneath it to pass. Shortly after passing through the second archway, I found myself in a cul-de-sac with a closed courtyard.

There, a group of five men clustered around a crackling bonfire, next to a poorly built wooden cabin. Behind them stood a high wall built to block people from accidentally falling down the vast drop into the lower levels of the city. The wall had a human-sized hole in it. These were the smugglers I was looking for. Now I only had to find out how fast they would drop me.

Four of the men were large; two were visibly enhanced by Tarakan augmentations on their arms, torsos, and shoulders. People called them Trolls. When augmented with the right Tarakan gear and by a skilled Gadgetier, a Troll was a formidable creature, a deadly warrior capable of inhuman feats. But by the look of their deformed bodies, these guys attached the cheap stuff, overused, unmaintained, or pieced together by an amateur Tinker.

The group turned to watch me approach, standing loose-limbed and relaxed since, after all, they outnumbered me five to one. Even so, given I had flaming red dots for eyes, their expressions naturally demonstrated caution. I pulled back my cowl.

“I’m looking for a way down,” I said.

“No problem.” The shortest guy thrust his thumb at the hole behind him. “And since you probably have wings to go with those eyes, it’ll only cost you a fiver.”

His companions chuckled and exchanged a glance.

“Assuming I don’t want to spread my wings tonight,” I asked, “how much?”

He surveyed me again, taking his time, perhaps to see how I handled the pressure. “You carrying anything?”

“Just me,” I replied, opening my cloak to show I was unarmed—which was a mistake, of course. The man—whom I judged to be the group’s leader—smiled to himself.

“Eighty in coin or kind,” he said.

It was absolute robbery and I knew it.

“Thirty,” I countered without thinking, which was my second and nearly fatal mistake. My offer was too low. I was behaving like an amateur, and they sensed it.

One of the other men took a few casual steps to the side, preparing to flank me. “I wonder if you actually could fly,” their leader said, flapping his arms for emphasis. “Perhaps the wings materialize when you’re already in the air? Maybe we should test the theory. What do you think?”

I let my eyes see through them. Their skin faded to transparency, revealing bones and muscle and, more important, knives, knuckle-dusters, power daggers, and stun grenades.

They were already closing in on me, about to pounce, when I opened my own fist to let the one closest to me see the ShieldGuard-issue marked power clip nestled there. The man actually recoiled, and before the others could react further I fished the second one from my pocket and held it between thumb and forefinger, for all to see. The power clips were obviously Tarakan original, two perfect round balls emanating a blue hue that indicated they were fully charged. The clips were the sort that powered many of the artifacts in the city and beyond, even the SuperTrucks traveling on the Tarakan highways, and could only be found deep within the mysterious nodes of the City of Towers. Long ago, when Salvationist crews roamed Tarakan Valley, power clips like these were in abundance, but nowadays things are different.

The easy brutality faded from the leader’s face, replaced by something between calculation and anxiety.

“All I want is to get down to the Pit quickly and quietly,” I said, tossing the clips over to him. He grimaced even as he plucked them from the air. As valuable as they were, being in possession of such items these days was a capital offence.

He eyed me with considerably more respect than before, then nodded and pocketed the items. The clips marked me either as a dangerous and resourceful man or the lackey of such an individual—but either way, a worthy client.

The man nearest the cabin door opened it, darted inside, and returned holding a large, alarmingly rusty metal cage, a mansized version of a singing bird’s cage I once saw in a village’s market fair. He held it with both hands, his face already red with exertion, and handed it to one of the wannabe Trolls, who picked it up with only one hand. As his shoulder brace whined in protest, the Troll tilted the cage sideways, grinning proudly at the show of strength, while his equally large colleague attached a rusty hook to the top and a very long, much-too-thin metal cable. The cage was then slammed down in front of me with a loud bang and more than a few dust clouds.

“Ever done this before?” the leader asked, and chuckled nastily when I shook my head. “Just crawl in—the hatch is quite small, but without your wings you’ll fit in nicely, and hold tight.” He indicated the wooden handlebars inside. “It’s not a long ride, but it’s bumpy.”

“Who’s waiting at the bottom?” I asked as I entered the cage.

“Three to six guys, tops.” He hesitated only briefly before deciding to share a tip. “I’d go with the bearded one. He’s an old-timer, a little wired but a tough Troll, and his metal’s still sharp.”

I nodded and grasped the unpleasantly slimy handlebars, but any thought of letting them go vanished as the cage was picked up and I was shoved unceremoniously through the hole in the wall, feet first.

“Nice doing business with ya,” I heard the leader call as I plunged into darkness.