Titan Song by Dan Stout (top 10 ebook reader .txt) 📕

“And the mess of a system we have now, where the wealthy sit around and get richer while the disadvantaged suffer in the cold?” She pulled her lips back, exposing her teeth. “Is that the system you want to protect?”

“I protect people, not systems.” I glanced around the rest of the alley, wary of more surprises in the shadows.

“Don’t kid yourself.”

The Gillmyn turned her head, and I corrected her. “Eyes ahead.”

She complied, and I continued. “So you listened to Heidelbrecht’s notes. That’s a great way to demonstrate how you’re not a homicidal maniac like your uncle.”

“My uncle was sick.” Vandie’s voice was a monotone. “But his heart was in the right place. He wanted to protect people, like you claim you want to.”

I spit out a “Ha” with as much disdain as I could muster. I was pretty sure that I could control the situation for a few minutes more, but trying to watch all five of them simultaneously would only last so long. Eventually one of them would do something stupid.

Still on her knees, Vandie kept talking. “He was sick, and in the end he failed his own principles. He caused more sorrow than he saved. He wanted to protect the status quo. But the best way to help people is never by preserving the status quo. It requires radical change.”

“And you didn’t cause more sorrow than you saved?” She hesitated and I pressed the point. “You want to meet the survivors of your sinkhole? The kids who’re missing a parent or two? Maybe the people without jobs now that their storefront slid into the ground?”

“That wasn’t us.”

I blinked. “That wasn’t you? It’s a coincidence that you’re digging into the thermal vents, and then they collapse. We both know that’s not true.” I squatted, dropping low enough to look her in the eye. “What I want to know, Vandie . . . What’s in the vents?”

She was silent.

“What’s down there, really? Because this idea that you’ve inspired a bunch of roughnecks to become miners for liberty? It’s laughable.” I straightened and stepped back. “What do you have going on? And where did you get the money to do all this? Because the whole point of your little festival was to help you keep the lights on.” I tilted my head. “Is there treasure down there? Did you think you were going to find the Titan, trussed up like in some kids’ book about Titan’s Day?”

“Why not?” she said. “You believe in humans and Mollenkampi, and Haabe-Ieath spending their lives burrowing below ground. Is it really all that crazy that the Titan’s down there, watching, and wishing that we were making better use of his sacrifice?”

There was a shout from down the alley. I held Vandie’s eye. Neither of us moved. I stepped closer. Dangerously closer.

“What’s in the vents?”

“Vandie . . .” The Gillmyn whispered a warning, or a plea.

As the noise and shouts increased, the younger Cedrow sighed. “Don’t you have to read me my rights or something?”

“You’re not under arrest,” I said. “But I got a hunch that when we see what’s inside that building you’re going to be. And how long do you think you’ll spend locked up?”

“Vandie.” The Gillmyn welder again. She’d turned on her knees, staring behind them, as the sounds grew louder.

“Don’t you want to tell me what’s going on? Don’t you want to say it to my face?”

Vandie’s eyes flashed.

I leaned closer. “Just like your uncle.”

She lashed out, fist missing my chin. The big welder half stood, whether to protect Vandie or join in the attack, I never knew. She was brought down suddenly, tackled and handcuffed by Jax and a red-shirted patrol cop. The backup had arrived.

36

I’VE HAD VERY FEW MOMENTS of vindication in my career. Walking into that building was one of them.

The entry looked normal enough. There was a conference room, a chalkboard, shelves lined with cleaning supplies, and a wall covered with ladders. The kind of thing you’d expect from a facility management company. Enough to satisfy any curious visitors, or even workers who weren’t privy to the real reason Vandie had purchased the company that managed the building.

That lay through a door labeled Employees Only. And it opened onto a whole other world.

This was a wider, more open area. The walls were still lined with chests of tools and bins of refuse, but the focus was the monstrosity in the center of the room. Paulus hadn’t been lying about sealing up the entry. There was evidence of jackhammers and broken concrete. Paulus may have wanted to bury the portal, but Vandie had gotten access by buying up the facility management company that controlled access, and she’d used it to give herself access to the vents.

An iron-rung scaffold rose out of the shattered concrete like an oil derrick jutting out of the ice plains. It was almost sacrilegious, just seeing the thing. I didn’t even have it in me to laugh at my partner’s discomfort.

“Oof.” Jax buried his nostrils in the crook of his arm.

Even with the airlock, the whole area was overly warm and smelled strongly of sulfur. It was like being a little kid and putting your face in a home’s entry vent to see how long you could stand the smell.

“The scaffold’s helping stabilize the opening,” I said, “but it’s mostly there to provide that walled-in enclosure.” I pointed at the heavy vinyl tarps draped over crossbeams, a sort of miniature version of the festival tents. “An improvised airlock, to prevent disrupting the service to those around them and raising suspicion.”

“Too bad it’s not helping the smell.”

“It’s not going to stop me from enjoying this moment,” I said. It was everything I’d hoped to find. With any luck, we’d have this wrapped up shortly, and the questions about the mummified bodies would be far less pressing. The kind of thing I could manage to keep from spilling over onto Gellica or myself. I took a deep breath of sulfurous air and grinned. Vandie would talk, maybe