Descending Road - INFORMATION by Dana W. Paxson

INFORMATION

1560 4D

“Fuckinjag fanass!” An Argaz guy with scarred neck bounces up and tries to jump past me and I come up between his legs and toss him into the wall, and a woman, her neck likewise marked, throws a shoulder into me and slams me at the medshop door.

Now, I’m in the Kai Ren Hau Coll, like Nadienne. The colls are just big extended families, and Kai Ren is real tight. All my coll people are hot with a blade and the limbs Chan gave us, and I don’t like casual rudeness from strangers in the street, especially when my face has a migraine. And these two are from Argaz Coll, chasing Nadienne, and that’s motivation, even if I’m zagged at her.

The woman is about a step away when I pitch a leg between hers and she flies twisting onto her face, and the guy thinks he’s behind me and I spin with a bladed hand and spear his gut, and he doubles in time for me to knee his face on the way down. But she’s up at me, dark hair and eyes and that necklace of snaky flesh the Argaz do to their kids, and her blade nearly guts me. She’s way too fast.

Her voice rattles, “I’m gonna kill you, little ratface.”

I back away; she sinks to her knees, and collapses. The guy raises his head, and slumps again. Nadienne appears over the two of them with a long boxy sleep gun in her hand. “You gave me just enough time,” she says.

I squint through the pain’s fog. “Nadienne?” My energy is gone. I lean back against the rock wall.

“Tomas, your face. It’s the bugs again, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Just metal, like always. What do the Argaz want with you?” The words come, even though I want to tell her to go away.

“I’ve got some of their bits.” She nudges the woman with her toe. Bits. Information. My favorite City poet Thringe, she says it like this:

Information:

Stews, boils the City,

Erupts like lava,

Sets my bitch on fire,

Eats rock like water,

Makes lying from truth

And truth from nothing.

She giggles, notches

My ear with her blade.

and I always forget and skip to the end verse,

Information:

Eat it, Mister Cock;

Eat it and sweat bars

Of sweet platinum,

And scream yourself blind.

It’s the one poem my vader didn’t beat into me. I say, “Sweat bars of sweet platinum,” and point at Nadienne. It’s an old game of ours. I hope she’ll still play, and why do I hope?

The guy she hit is gone.

“And scream yourself blind, Mister Cock,” she says, her eyes still on the woman. “You know the other one, where she writes, ‘Trance bleeds me dry, no pyro left for burning?’" She smiles, just the way she used to.

I can’t resist her. “Say more of this one, the middle part.”

She looks over my shoulder. “Not now. They’re here again.” Clatter and hum, splatter and come, the Argaz are back, and on the attack.

They’re at least four, counting the guy who knocked me over, and moving up a side street to the crossing near us, nice and slow, and they shake their shuriko bangles to let us know we’re about to be unpleasantly fucked.

She’s got the gun out, and I look up and say, “No, Deenie. This way.” Footholds up the wall mark a conduit access in the ceiling of the understreet. My zone, my own.

“But, Tomas--“

I grab her ass and push her toward the wall, and she doesn’t wait; she’s already up opening the hatch overhead, and I’ve got my aching face almost up her butt, my legs trembling with exhaustion, when she jumps upward and kicks my head against the rock. Blackness.

A hand grabs my collar and keeps me from falling off the wall, and I weave and grab for the hatch opening and find it, and them my legs come back and I kick and strain and I’m up, and she lets the door down quietly. “Sorry,” she whispers, and climbs ahead.

I bite my cheeks inside to drive away the pain, and we climb silently. The jingling and chanting swell and then stop. So do we. The air is thick in here, in the blackness; rat piss perfumes the rungs and the walls, and loose dust chokes me. We wait. Tears leak in on my scraped facial nerves, burning me deeper. I’m afraid they’ll leak down through the hatch and point me out to the waiting Argaz cocks.

My vad showed me these tunnels when I was seven, after the streetboys beat me for the sixth day in a row. “Learn them,” he’d said through a mouthful of green chaw, “and you’ll always have a step ahead of them.” So I did. I know all the conduit service tubes from here up to Naga and back, and some that lead down to Babiar where the stink can kill you. It killed my little brother Simeon when he was six and I was eight.

No, it was Rask‘s cocks who killed him, chasing him off into the tubes just to hear him crying and lost, laughing at him. I’d gone after him and when I figured out where he’d gone and heard his voice so far down, I went down after him and tried not to think about the smell, but I passed out, and when I woke up I couldn’t hear him any more and I was choking. He never came back, and our vad beat me for half a day.

No sound for a long time. “Let’s keep going,” I whisper.

“Where?” she whispers back. Her foot scrapes, feeling for the next toehold.

“It leads up to the next level, where there’s a Y. Take the left branch and you’ll come out at a closet. Wait till I’m out.” The next level up is where Armana lives. That’s where I want to go next.

“So what’ve you got?” I ask her in the closet, one level up, in the dark. We’re about ten strides from the nearest street, side by side and leaning against the stone wall, our shoulders touching. I’m shaking from fatigue.

“It’s a ravel. I think it’s got Argaz codes in it, but I don’t know what they are.”

“What’s a ravel?”

“It’s a memory device. You hear this song, but you can’t forget the rhythm patterns in it. It’s a whole story, but the accents and the words work together into some kind of code. The receiver can lay it over a second ravel, and pick out the code from the two.”

“Like it’s masked.”

“Yeah.”

“Does Georg know?”

“Not any more. He’s dead.” A deep breath in the dark. “This is mutework.” She says the City Security Force phrase just like she uses it every day. What has Nadienne been up to?

This dark place seems too tight and I want to be on the street in the light. “Let’s get outside.” I move toward the street end of the closet and listen. “Who gave you this code? The Argaz?”

Nadienne doesn’t say anything, just breathes behind me. Footsteps pass. I unlatch, pull back the door, and check the street. Not much light, but no one coming. We exit.

“Come on, what’s this about?” I turn and face her.

“I found it on a tunechip on a table at Warr‘s, after Georg and I left you at Zill‘s. I saw it and jacked it, and it started, and I couldn’t stop listening, and when it ended I could do it all from start to finish, not one mistake.” She looks surprised, reliving it.

Warr‘s is a favorite Argaz place: deep greens, cumin smell, glowlit with hard seats. “So how’d you know it was a…"

“Ravel? Georg explained it.” She stops and puts her fist to her mouth, shaking her head, green-gray eyes large and limpid. “I went to get a drink and when I came back he was sitting there dead with a threadwire from the ceiling around his neck.” Her mouth jitters for a moment, like she wants to cry or talk and can’t decide which.

Threadwire: an Argaz stunt. “You still got the chip?”

She feels with two fingers behind her ear, frowning. “No. Whoever killed him must have grabbed it.” She shakes again.

“What did the blues say when they showed up?”

“I didn’t wait for them.”

“Why Georg?”

“I can’t say.” Mutework. She’s been working for the blues, and here I am up to my skull in pyro, enough to send me to the mines forever. And Skinny Georg was sucking on the blues too. So now she comes back to me.

I feel naked, and angry. “Look, I’ve got to rest. I want to see Armana, and you can come with me and keep out of sight for a bit while I rest up. All right?”

She hesitates, then nods. Wheels are turning, and I know I’ve got to watch her. But I’ve got to watch Armana too, so I’ll set them up one on the other. “Armana owes me much metal, and I don’t entirely trust him. Keep your eyes open.” She nods again. That was easy.

I rattle Armana‘s doorwatch a few times, and he finally opens up and lets us in, greeting us with a fake yawn as we move down the corridor to his cute mainroom with its furry yellow furniture. I take soft-eyed olive-skinned Armana aside in his silky blue robe and tell him to watch out with her and where’s my fucking metal you two-way prick? And then I stagger into his little study and fall across the padded divan he keeps there, and the eiderdown starts its lullaby in my brain and that’s all for now.

Story List	SURPRISE ME	Author Page
USER SURVEY	PUZZLE ME	MAKE ELM MARK

HOVER Lucida Bright BARE	HOVER Lucida Bright FULL	HOVER Palatino Linotype BARE
HOVER Palatino Linotype FULL	HOVER Times New Roman BARE	HOVER Times New Roman FULL
PAD Arial BARE	PAD Arial FULL	PAD Lucida Bright BARE
PAD Lucida Bright FULL	PAD Times New Roman BARE	PAD Times New Roman FULL


	INFORMATION 1560 4D “Fuckinjag fanass!” An Argaz guy with scarred neck bounces up and tries to jump past me and I come up between his legs and toss him into the wall, and a woman, her neck likewise marked, throws a shoulder into me and slams me at the medshop door. Now, I’m in the Kai Ren Hau Coll, like Nadienne. The colls are just big extended families, and Kai Ren is real tight. All my coll people are hot with a blade and the limbs Chan gave us, and I don’t like casual rudeness from strangers in the street, especially when my face has a migraine. And these two are from Argaz Coll, chasing Nadienne, and that’s motivation, even if I’m zagged at her. The woman is about a step away when I pitch a leg between hers and she flies twisting onto her face, and the guy thinks he’s behind me and I spin with a bladed hand and spear his gut, and he doubles in time for me to knee his face on the way down. But she’s up at me, dark hair and eyes and that necklace of snaky flesh the Argaz do to their kids, and her blade nearly guts me. She’s way too fast. Her voice rattles, “I’m gonna kill you, little ratface.” I back away; she sinks to her knees, and collapses. The guy raises his head, and slumps again. Nadienne appears over the two of them with a long boxy sleep gun in her hand. “You gave me just enough time,” she says. I squint through the pain’s fog. “Nadienne?” My energy is gone. I lean back against the rock wall. “Tomas, your face. It’s the bugs again, isn’t it?” “Yeah. Just metal, like always. What do the Argaz want with you?” The words come, even though I want to tell her to go away. “I’ve got some of their bits.” She nudges the woman with her toe. Bits. Information. My favorite City poet Thringe, she says it like this: Information: Stews, boils the City, Erupts like lava, Sets my bitch on fire, Eats rock like water, Makes lying from truth And truth from nothing. She giggles, notches My ear with her blade. and I always forget and skip to the end verse, Information: Eat it, Mister Cock; Eat it and sweat bars Of sweet platinum, And scream yourself blind. It’s the one poem my vader didn’t beat into me. I say, “Sweat bars of sweet platinum,” and point at Nadienne. It’s an old game of ours. I hope she’ll still play, and why do I hope? The guy she hit is gone. “And scream yourself blind, Mister Cock,” she says, her eyes still on the woman. “You know the other one, where she writes, ‘Trance bleeds me dry, no pyro left for burning?’" She smiles, just the way she used to. I can’t resist her. “Say more of this one, the middle part.” She looks over my shoulder. “Not now. They’re here again.” Clatter and hum, splatter and come, the Argaz are back, and on the attack. They’re at least four, counting the guy who knocked me over, and moving up a side street to the crossing near us, nice and slow, and they shake their shuriko bangles to let us know we’re about to be unpleasantly fucked. She’s got the gun out, and I look up and say, “No, Deenie. This way.” Footholds up the wall mark a conduit access in the ceiling of the understreet. My zone, my own. “But, Tomas--“ I grab her ass and push her toward the wall, and she doesn’t wait; she’s already up opening the hatch overhead, and I’ve got my aching face almost up her butt, my legs trembling with exhaustion, when she jumps upward and kicks my head against the rock. Blackness. A hand grabs my collar and keeps me from falling off the wall, and I weave and grab for the hatch opening and find it, and them my legs come back and I kick and strain and I’m up, and she lets the door down quietly. “Sorry,” she whispers, and climbs ahead. I bite my cheeks inside to drive away the pain, and we climb silently. The jingling and chanting swell and then stop. So do we. The air is thick in here, in the blackness; rat piss perfumes the rungs and the walls, and loose dust chokes me. We wait. Tears leak in on my scraped facial nerves, burning me deeper. I’m afraid they’ll leak down through the hatch and point me out to the waiting Argaz cocks. My vad showed me these tunnels when I was seven, after the streetboys beat me for the sixth day in a row. “Learn them,” he’d said through a mouthful of green chaw, “and you’ll always have a step ahead of them.” So I did. I know all the conduit service tubes from here up to Naga and back, and some that lead down to Babiar where the stink can kill you. It killed my little brother Simeon when he was six and I was eight. No, it was Rask‘s cocks who killed him, chasing him off into the tubes just to hear him crying and lost, laughing at him. I’d gone after him and when I figured out where he’d gone and heard his voice so far down, I went down after him and tried not to think about the smell, but I passed out, and when I woke up I couldn’t hear him any more and I was choking. He never came back, and our vad beat me for half a day. No sound for a long time. “Let’s keep going,” I whisper. “Where?” she whispers back. Her foot scrapes, feeling for the next toehold. “It leads up to the next level, where there’s a Y. Take the left branch and you’ll come out at a closet. Wait till I’m out.” The next level up is where Armana lives. That’s where I want to go next. “So what’ve you got?” I ask her in the closet, one level up, in the dark. We’re about ten strides from the nearest street, side by side and leaning against the stone wall, our shoulders touching. I’m shaking from fatigue. “It’s a ravel. I think it’s got Argaz codes in it, but I don’t know what they are.” “What’s a ravel?” “It’s a memory device. You hear this song, but you can’t forget the rhythm patterns in it. It’s a whole story, but the accents and the words work together into some kind of code. The receiver can lay it over a second ravel, and pick out the code from the two.” “Like it’s masked.” “Yeah.” “Does Georg know?” “Not any more. He’s dead.” A deep breath in the dark. “This is mutework.” She says the City Security Force phrase just like she uses it every day. What has Nadienne been up to? This dark place seems too tight and I want to be on the street in the light. “Let’s get outside.” I move toward the street end of the closet and listen. “Who gave you this code? The Argaz?” Nadienne doesn’t say anything, just breathes behind me. Footsteps pass. I unlatch, pull back the door, and check the street. Not much light, but no one coming. We exit. “Come on, what’s this about?” I turn and face her. “I found it on a tunechip on a table at Warr‘s, after Georg and I left you at Zill‘s. I saw it and jacked it, and it started, and I couldn’t stop listening, and when it ended I could do it all from start to finish, not one mistake.” She looks surprised, reliving it. Warr‘s is a favorite Argaz place: deep greens, cumin smell, glowlit with hard seats. “So how’d you know it was a…" “Ravel? Georg explained it.” She stops and puts her fist to her mouth, shaking her head, green-gray eyes large and limpid. “I went to get a drink and when I came back he was sitting there dead with a threadwire from the ceiling around his neck.” Her mouth jitters for a moment, like she wants to cry or talk and can’t decide which. Threadwire: an Argaz stunt. “You still got the chip?” She feels with two fingers behind her ear, frowning. “No. Whoever killed him must have grabbed it.” She shakes again. “What did the blues say when they showed up?” “I didn’t wait for them.” “Why Georg?” “I can’t say.” Mutework. She’s been working for the blues, and here I am up to my skull in pyro, enough to send me to the mines forever. And Skinny Georg was sucking on the blues too. So now she comes back to me. I feel naked, and angry. “Look, I’ve got to rest. I want to see Armana, and you can come with me and keep out of sight for a bit while I rest up. All right?” She hesitates, then nods. Wheels are turning, and I know I’ve got to watch her. But I’ve got to watch Armana too, so I’ll set them up one on the other. “Armana owes me much metal, and I don’t entirely trust him. Keep your eyes open.” She nods again. That was easy. I rattle Armana‘s doorwatch a few times, and he finally opens up and lets us in, greeting us with a fake yawn as we move down the corridor to his cute mainroom with its furry yellow furniture. I take soft-eyed olive-skinned Armana aside in his silky blue robe and tell him to watch out with her and where’s my fucking metal you two-way prick? And then I stagger into his little study and fall across the padded divan he keeps there, and the eiderdown starts its lullaby in my brain and that’s all for now.