“No sir, I don’t.”
“Millions. And this next year, if things hold together long enough, it might be closer to a billion. Can you imagine that kind of money?”
He could. He could calculate it in sap, and it made his head spin. But he lied. “No sir, I can’t.”
“It’s more money than you could spend in a lifetime of trying. However, at the moment, the city is spending it almost as fast as we can earn it. You came here from the Vaults, yes? Well, you must’ve seen the place. It’s a wreck, from top to bottom. The hoses that keep our air breathable”—he waved a hand to indicate even what was in the room, right at that moment—“are in desperate need of maintenance and repair. Likewise, the ceilings are caving in at the spots where water collects and the land is damp, and foundations are settling all throughout the walled-off blocks.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying Seattle is falling apart, and I am rebuilding it from the basements up. I can’t do it all at once, and I can’t do it cheaply—not like Minnericht did, when he carved out his hasty little empire a decade ago. But here’s what really frightens everyone: The threat of structural collapse isn’t my most pressing problem.”
Yaozu’s face had settled into some very serious lines. Behind that mask of professional concern, Rector imagined he could see a nervous sparkle of something else. Not fear, exactly. Something lesser, but sharp.
“Then … then what is? Your most pressing problem?” Rector asked.
Yaozu leaned forward, wriggling yellow lights from the fireplace glinting off his spectacles. “Other people. People like you, Rector—though not you, personally. I’m prepared to believe that you’re a young man at loose ends, hunting for a place to belong. I might be wrong, but right now, we’re all operating under good faith, are we not?”
“Yes sir, we absolutely are.”
“Excellent. Now, when I say ‘other people,’ I mean sellers, dealers, vendors, chemists, and pharmacists who want a piece of the sap money. They know Minnericht is dead, and if there’s one thing I must grant the man, it’s that his reputation was more solid than his city. Since he’s gone, word has gotten around. At best, people sense a vacancy at the top of the power chain, and they wish to fill it. At worst, they wish to come plunder what’s left of his empire, and leave the city to rot.”
“And you don’t want either of them things to happen.”
Yaozu sat up straight and smiled indulgently, like Rector had learned a new trick. “Yes! That’s precisely it. I don’t want either one of those things. And your new friends don’t either. Now, as for me … am I well-beloved beneath the streets? No, not at all. In fact, a fair number of people down here would be happy to set me on fire. But the smart ones understand that I’m doing them a favor. I’m spending my own money—”
“Minnericht’s money,” Rector blurted out, then cringed. It’d flown out of his mouth before he could stop it.
Yaozu let it slide. “Minnericht’s money, if you prefer. Regardless, I am restoring the city. This place is an investment. I want it to survive.” He settled back in his seat again, slumping slightly as if this whole business wore him out, but it was all fully, miserably necessary.
Rector cleared his throat and said, “Well then, I hope you stick around.”
“Me, too,” Yaozu said, and the words were weighted down with cynicism. Without brightening, and without unslumping, Yaozu continued to speak in a low, firm voice. “The dead are our watchdogs, Rector Sherman. We cannot afford to let them fade into myth or memory. I need to know how they’re getting out, and although I have other men assigned to this task, you are in a unique position to be of service, and I hope you will seize this opportunity to prove yourself. The Doornails will talk to you; they will let you come and go, and ask questions. Your two friends Ezekiel and Houjin can be of great assistance, insomuch as Captain Cly or Briar Wilkes will let either of them out on a long enough leash.”
He hesitated, then went on. “And then there is the native woman, Angeline Sealth. She would as soon push me off a cliff as tell me the time of day, but she’s a remarkably useful woman in her way. It’s entirely possible that she knows the streets better than anyone else alive. I am in no position to ask for her help, but you are.”
“I already talked to her,” Rector said. “Met her in the Vaults. She gave me some cherries.”
“How kind of her,” Yazou said, drolly. Then he rose to his feet and removed his spectacles, folding them again and setting them atop a book. “You’re a salesman, Rector. You know how to talk to people—in fact, that might be the only thing you know how to do. So that’s what I want you to do. I want you to explore. And one week from today, I want a full report of what you’ve learned.”
Eleven
Rector did not like the idea of homework, but he was happy for the clean slate and the chance to earn favor with the most frightening man in the Sound, so there was that to keep him warm at night. Unfortunately, he was too tired to feel much of anything beyond exhaustion, except the nagging need for sap—and the aggravating proximity of sap, which he was absolutely not allowed to have. At this time.
He wandered in the direction he thought the lobby might be in, but turned out to be wrong. He tried another hallway and learned he’d made another incorrect choice, and soon it became woefully apparent that he was lost.
He was not alone, though.
Men came and went around him, past him, and sometimes bumped right into him. Rector was absolutely not interested in a fight, but conversation might get him somewhere—so he looked for someone who might be friendly … or at least not actively hostile.
With no idea where Houjin was or if the kid had even stuck around, he was short on allies—but eventually he found an oversized room at the back of the Station line.
More like a hangar than anything else, the vast, open space was filled with balloons. They weren’t flying balloons, and they weren’t the sort that worked with an airship: They were collection balloons, stuffed fat and round with Blight. The balloons stretched and rolled, the seams of their treated canvas straining and squeaking as men bundled them up like bales, then stacked, shoved, and pushed them into a holding corner. They lumbered together like barrels, ready for processing.
At one end of the room, a small clot of workers wearing oversized gas masks moved swiftly and smoothly, driven by the confidence of long habit, despite the dangers of the substance they managed.
Rector fiddled with his gas mask, but didn’t put it on yet, in case he didn’t have to. He didn’t draw any closer than was necessary to call out, “Hey fellows…?”
Three of the five men turned to look at him. One of those failed to show any further interest and went back to his task, but the other two kept staring at him, so he went ahead and asked the rest of his question.
“Where can I find James Bishop?”
One of the masked workers nodded and said, “Next hallway down. Try the second door on the right.” He gestured with one thickly gloved hand, then turned back to the valves at his station. He drew one of the bulbous bags into position and located its release stem before hooking it onto a set of pipes.
Rector was fascinated. If he’d had any more energy, he might’ve stuck around to ask questions. These were the source sacks, their contents almost certainly collected from the deepest Blight-hole, down by the old financial district. Every pathetic little powder-runner knew that much. Rector also knew there was some system, or apparatus, or device … something that concentrated that soup-thick air down to something thicker still, until it could be poured like water.
Raw, unrefined Blight.
He’d never seen it before, and a lingering curiosity made him want to. But no, the exhaustion wouldn’t let him. He struggled to recall the directions he’d been given mere seconds ago and remembered enough to find that other hall, and the second door on the right. There wasn’t really a door there at all, which was fine by Rector, who knocked on the wall beside it to announce himself.
A dark-skinned man looked up from a desk covered in small glass vials and pots, many of which were bubbling effervescently. The lower half of his face was covered with a blue cotton bandanna, but even with this treacherous work, he didn’t bother to put on a gas mask.
“Hey there, Bishop. You look like you’re ready to take up train robbing.”
James Bishop pulled down the bandanna so it sat around his neck. He pushed his chair back and viewed Rector with no small measure of surprise. “Wreck, what are you doing inside the wall?”
Rector grinned, and hoped it didn’t look forced. “Working. For Yaozu.”
“Really.” Bishop said. It was a counter, not a question. “Yaozu.”
“That’s right, the man himself. I’m on a mission, but that mission don’t start until morning, and I’m not sure where I’m supposed to go tonight, or what I’m supposed to do. And the truth is, I’m god-awful tired.”
“Not to mention a bit banged up, by the look of you.” He pointed at Rector’s leg.
“Yeah, I had a hard time getting inside. Fell down a chuckhole.”
“Brilliant.”
Rector was determined not to take offense. “Well, it was dark and all. Anyhow, here I am. I thought maybe I’d look you up, see if I could bother you for a little favor.”
Bishop scratched at a spot behind his ear where the goggles he often wore had rubbed a track in his curly black hair. “I just bet you did.”
“It ain’t no big favor, I promise.”
“They never are.”
Exasperated, Rector threw his hands up and limped into the room uninvited but unopposed. He found an empty chair and flung himself into it. “Man, I don’t know why you’ve got to be like that. I’m tired, and I need a place to bed down for the night, and I don’t know hardly anybody down here.”