No Zones of Breacher City

Chapter 1
The Hero

The alleyway was dark. A dark that is difficult. Not to relay or imagine, but simply impossible. Even when you close your eyes the darkness that greets you is an old friend. The afterimages, the familiar internal wondering, all is friendly and known. It is alive with activity that is normal. A human mind has limited understanding of the dark because of this. A darkened room, even completely without light, leaves open eyes with the flutters in their own vision, things imagined, imperfections in the lens or material in the liquid of the eye. To have a darkness completely without these familiar features is not just a dark. It is something outside the entirety of experience, shared or individually, of humanity. Such a dark reaches into the mind in a way as to remove these familiar things. Knowing that it has done this the dark becomes both completely alien and an intrusion, a violation. This was the darkness of the alleyway save for one, stubborn, imperfection.

Lightning in a bottle. Not in thought or some great revelation, but literally. A small string of electric light, contained in glass, struggled to remain in a dark that should not be. It didn’t flicker, it fought. Arching back and forth between two tiny copper fingers. As one, jagged, line of white light died another was born. It stayed true but seemed to dim with each renewed effort. If it ever was completely lost Master Sniffer Genesee knew the dark would consume him.

Behind him was the softer yellow glow of real light. Light not threatening to fail. He stood on the edge of it craning into the dark. He could see shapes, shapes he knew from long reliving this moment. The dim white glow of the struggling light showed a young woman’s face. Just the left side. Her eyes dropped and her jaw hung slack. Her hair, he knew to be golden, was gray as was the rest of her. Skin, eyes and teeth, all gray. Above her was another half face. This face he would never fully remember. Its features blurred, all save the eye. It pierced him. A tiny black orb that reflected the failing light like water. In the center, a minute globe of pure white. The eye of a cat caught by a light in the darkness, but so much smaller. A human eye would widen in the dark, but this one seemed to narrow.
“Reach in and take her.” The eye encouraged, the voice dripping with desire. It wanted Genesee to have her. But it also wanted him. It didn’t offer him the girl. It offered him a trade.

Genesee woke covered in cool sweat. He didn’t jump up with his wakefulness but simply opened his eyes to the world as it was. The thin sheet that covered him was drenched. He peeled it back and extricated himself from his damp bed. It had become a ritual for him.

He stripped the sheets from the bed and bundled them up. He could have wrung them and gotten a fair amount of water out as a result. Instead he opened his balcony door and set them down. He took up the top sheet first and flung it in the cool breeze. It spread out with the wind and he rested it over the railing then secured it with two of the four clamps he’d acquired just for this purpose. He did the same to the bottom sheet. All his sheets had rust stains from the clamps. He didn’t care. He returned to his apartment and moved through the main room to the kitchen wall. He ground beans for coffee then made a fire in the small cooking stove and set water to boil. All of it part of his morning ritual.

He’d realized rituals were important when something you couldn’t explain tried to claim your life. If you gave into it, changed things, it would start to own you. You’d do things because it wanted you to rather than what you truly wished. He’d nearly succumbed to that after the dream that made him a hero. He’d started to believe he was one. Even after the first night of the dream he’d thought he was one. The dream was just something that would pass. Leave him in time as new experiences replaced it. He no longer saw it as a nightmare as he had that first night. It was a dream, one he would have for the rest of his life.

He turned to the bookcase that flanked his small sitting area near the balcony door. His place was small but above, above most anyway. He liked to see the sun. It was part of his reward. The reward he accepted despite his misgivings. He looked to the only shelf of the bookcase that mattered. The shelf that was directly even with his eye line. On it were three items. In the center was the framed medal, in a glass case that stood up at an angle. He stared at it, ignoring the two other items for the count of thirty heartbeats. During this time he reread the small letters of the inscription. Awarded for Imperial Valor above All Call. Below the words was the official seal of the Emperor. With his heartbeats counted he looked to his right.

A single bronze, white and black plaque held the likeness of the one he’d rescued. He had difficulty seeing the image. His dream memory always overlapped the image with the girl from the alleyway. He kept his eyes on it, unblinking. If he blinked it would reset the effort. With fixed eyes the image that was there came through. A girl smiling. Happy. Some mornings took longer than others. With the smiling face as his reward he looked to his left and the final object on his shelf.

A small, rough, stone pedestal sat there. It was a little taller than half a finger and just as wide. The shaping was crude and unpracticed. He’d worked the stone himself. It was of the native stone. A hard stone, mostly dark gray in color with glints of gold, yellow and green in it. The little crystals within the stone shown in the limited morning glow that reached into his rooms. At the top of the pedestal was a slight indentation, far more carefully sculpted. Within it was set a single black wire. It showed rough carbonizing on both ends and scattered throughout the rest of it. It was the filament from the light in the alley that had led to his meteoric rise.

He’d ordered the light fixed after the hubbub of his success had subsided. He’d gone personally with the engineers to see it done. When they’d removed the filament he’d asked for it and they’d given it to him without objection. It would have found a life discarded into the sea if not for his request. This one thin strip of metal had saved him that day and saved the girl.

The dream never ended as it did in the waking world. He’d had his steam pistol readied in his right hand when the eye had offered the girl to him. He’d shot the creature. Shot it right in that one eye and dragged the poor child free of the dark. She was no ordinary girl. If she had been they wouldn’t have sent him. Even as important as she was, few made any real attempt to find her. Finding her had required going down. Way down.

Genesee looked away from the shelf having remembered how the dream should end. He needed the reminder. The week immediately after his heroic rescue the dream had nearly convinced him he’d never even drawn his weapon. It was then that he’d set up the shelf. He’d already had the medal and the likeness. The last step had been finding that light, that filament that had refused to go out. The stubborn bit of engineering that had saved them both.

The whistle of his kettle woke him from his memories and he made his morning drink and went about readying himself for the day. Once dressed he left his lodgings. A place in a tower. Low in one but still a housing well above his station. All because he was a hero. He reached the lobby after taking the stairs. He liked to walk and he knew who operated the lifts and preferred to avoid them.

“Morning Master Sniffer Sir!” The doorman opened the way for him. He grunted in response. He was never good at the little pleasantries of life. He was greeted with the still unfamiliar scents and sounds of New Town. A scaffolding work to rival the Imperial Capital. He looked down a catwalk and saw one of the three towers in the distance, its top hidden by a low cloud that had just rolled in off the sea. It was going to rain. Genesse preferred rainy days.

Rain has a way of cleaning up a city. Yet it could cause more clutter and filth if a city didn’t prepare for the rain. The city of Breacher had prepared. When the rains came, trash as large as a man’s fist could be washed away into the depths below. In this way Breacher City was cleansed with the frequent rains of being a coastal city. The only city, town, or settlement of any kind, on the entire continent.

Chapter 2
Being a Hero

“Morning Geny.” The wake officer greeted him as Genesee entered the Imperial Authority building. Some enjoy their place of work. Most people find it awkward at first but soon grow into the family. Yet some never really find a fit. Genesee was that way.
“Mornin’.”

“You should really find a hobby man.” The wake officer dismissed him as he made his way into the pens of the office. It was a wide floor with private offices on the two long walls and the central area filled with desks and filing cabinets. The government loved its paperwork.
“Getting a new ringer today Geny?” One officer joked. Genesee ignored him.

“He’ll probably get the pick of the litter! Bring him up to be a good little hero, saving natives down below.” A few of the officers chuckled at the called jest. Genesee didn’t know who it had come from and didn’t care. He continued back to his office. It was at the left corner. Their division executive officer had the right corner and the Chief of Sniffers had the large office between them.

Genesee was very orderly. He set his long coat onto the hook next to the door. He never carried a pack or file-holder with him. It wasn’t good to mix one’s home and workplace together. If he had to work late he’d stay at the office. Having a bigger space than he’d had before his heroism had afforded him the room to put in a small cot. When the case demanded it he slept there. It wasn’t ideal, as he didn’t have his shelf and couldn’t set his sheets out to dry. To combat this he’d set up a large oval bucket under the cot and a change of clothes in the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet. He replaced them at need, smuggling the wet clothes and top sheet out in the bucket after all but the next shift’s wake officer had left for the night. He didn’t know if his night sweats would be grounds for readjustment but knew not to bring it up and take the risk.

He took his seat and opened the same file he’d opened for the last three days. A Low Town resident had been killed. A businessman. He owned a restaurant, a general store, and a receiving house for goods. He was a wealthy man for Low Town. Yet such a killing would likely have been left to the Low Town Militia. Little more than vagabonds masquerading as a policing force with the Emperor’s approval. They were completely inept and had never solved a case. Unless one looked to paper. On paper they solved every incident. They’d already solved the murder, until Genesee intervened.

His rescue of the girl had given him a privilege few had ever known. He gained his apartment, a promotion, a stipend well above his ordinary salary and a boon. He could have his pick of any assignment in Breacher City or the Empire. To the surprise of all he’d chosen Low Town. He was even surprised by this choice. Low Town had never had a Sniffer or any other trained police force. Since he’d chosen the assignment he’d solved three murders out of three hundred and twenty. He knew the number because it was on his chalkboard that hung on the wall against the Chief’s office. Officially they were listed as disappearances. Genesee knew better.

He had no resources but himself and what he could ask of the technicians down in the labs that looked at all kinds of things. No other officer worked with him or wanted to. He had some of the Low Town dwelling imperials in his pocket. Guys that either liked him or he knew something about. He’d also gotten a little network of informants going but it was still a wall down there when talking to the average person. Nobody trusted somebody from above and he was well above now.

A knock caused him to raise his head. His door wasn’t closed. The knocker had knocked on the side. The other officers had learned to do this because Genesee could often tune out voices when he focused on a case.

“New blood coming in. Time to take a look.” The face left his doorway and Genesee rose to follow. He didn’t recognize the officer who spoke. He didn’t follow the others into the lift. He knew how those worked. He took the stairs. It was a long way up. He was well out of breath when he reached the docking level. He opened the door and found the rest of the senior officers standing in ranks awaiting the new recruits. He turned from them and regarded the huge shape that hung impossibly in the air.

The beast before him wasn’t like those in the Empire. The common trading airships were made of fabric and looked like bloated oval balloons. Some were nothing more than just that, balloons, with baskets hung below. This was the mode of travel throughout the Empire. An empire of a hundred islands joined together through the air.

What loomed near the docking bridge that extended out from a platform in the middle of the tower was something else entirely. They named these creations Ironwings. Hulking vessels with hulls of a light metal. Great air ships designed specifically to have the resilience to make the long voyage across the sea. Lesser vessels, more armored, more deadly, could be seen in the sky if it was clearer.

This Ironwing was making a special stop. It would drop off officers, trained in the Empire, then continue on to another tower. It was rare that Ironwings came to the Authority building. Mostly they visited the Combine’s tower or the Military tower. This one would likely anchor at both before it departed loaded with the mineral that made Breacher the second greatest city in the world.

Genesee watched as the lines were flung to the porter teams that tried to grab and hold them. The ropes were as thick as a man’s leg. The cleats they sought to tie the ropes to were equally large to accommodate the massive lines. It was a struggle with the clouds overhead causing updrafts. The teams fought on and none of the officers moved to aid them. They held their ranks. Genesee spit then ran to aid a team that seemed in distress. He took hold of the massive rope by wrapping his arms around it and angled the end behind him, with his hip, near the massive cleat. Two others of the team pushed it, with difficulty, the rope was rigid, around the cleat and finally secured it.

With the line tied on, Genesee let go of the rope. He’d burned his hands slightly but his shirt had suffered the worst of it. The sleeves were nearly bare, much of the threads stripped from them.

“The Hero!” One of the officers jokes. Genesee ignored him. Genesee could let the insults pass him by. There was nothing to be gained from them.

The Ironwing was finally secured with half a dozen ropes and her own power. Huge turbines that angled to keep the hulk steady. She lowered a railed step ladder down to the platform. It swayed from side to side but never left the narrow bridge that extended to it from the larger platform. An Imperial officer descended first with a number of others following behind him. The new recruits, officers, Sniffers from the Imperium. Children to Genesee’s eyes. They’d be shown the way of Breacher.

Genesee knew classically trained Imperial Sniffers would be of little value in the work they did here. They’d learn that the hard way. He watched as the new arrivals made ranks and the Imperial officer greeted the Chief then returned to his ship. The porters struggled to undo the ropes to see the Ironwing off. It was running behind.

Several Sniffers selected men from the ranks in order of seniority. Genesee was the hero and could have selected anyone he wanted. Instead he waited to see who would be rejected. As each newly arrived Sniffer was selected as an apprentice to a Sniffer of Breacher, the ranks dwindled. The rain had finally started and the last few to select did so with haste and not thought. Finally no more Sniffers remained to select a recruit.

“Sorry Geny, guess that’s just your lot.” The Chief sneered at him. The man resented Genesee’s success. That had been clear from the beginning.

The bridge was cleared. The rest had retreated into the lift and descended. Genesse looked out at the individual that remained. He was a true Imperial. His face was round and clean shaven. Dark locks were cut short and held back with a light application of wax. His eyebrows were slim and sculpted. He was young, maybe eighteen to twenty. Young to have finished Sniffer school.

“Guess I’m with you then?” The young man looked Genesee over. Genesee could see from his eyes he wasn’t impressed. He was like all these new arrivals, ready for adventure in Breacher City. How little they knew.

“I suppose.” Genesee watched as the young man made for the lift to ring it to return. “No, we take the stairs.”

Chapter 3
The New World

“These are your offices? In the Imperial University the classrooms were better-” Genesee silenced his apprentice with a raised finger.
“Sorry sir, shutting up sir!” His apprentice said.

“Liking the new blood Geny? Fine Crop!” An officer shouted to him then started laughing.

“Just because I was the last picked doesn’t mean anything. They don’t know talent when they see it. I’d wager I’m-” Once more Genesee gave him the gesture to shut him up.

Genesee knew his wave wouldn’t be enough. “Be silent.” He added, the young man was a talker.

“Geny, I was just joking.” Another officer had made some comment Genesee had missed. He waved the man away and continued into his office.

His ritual that morning had been the same until he’d gotten to the entrance of the Authority building. There he’d found his new recruit who called himself Brew. An odd name but in keeping with the fashion of the Imperial’s higher ups who liked to name their offspring after commoner items. Like possessions. It unnerved Genesee.

“What are you doing?” Brew asked. Genesee had been studying his file of the murder of the affluent Dalarrk, what the natives used to refer to themselves. The Low Town man.

Genesee noticed that Brew hadn’t bothered to close the door to the office. “I’m working.”

“Can I help?”

“Not likely.”

“Well then what am I supposed to do?” Brew protested. “I’m trained, obviously. I can be of value.”

“Not likely.” Genesee lowered his head and looked over his most recent notes. He’d been over the scene but needed more. His limited informants had nothing to give him. He’d need to go down there. Back to Low Town. Back to the No Zones.

Brew interrupted his thoughts. “I’m not going to stand here all day. You don’t even have another chair in here. How do you interview people? Make them stand while you sit? That’s not protocol.”

“I was about to head into Low Town.” He hoped this would intimidate the young man.

Brew didn’t even hesitate. “Let’s get going then!”

“Why do they call it that? Low Town? It is cause of the criminal element that thrives there? My instructors back home said it was that those who lived there were lower than the snakes that infest the main land jungles. Cruel and savage people.”

“That’s not true.” Genesee said. His jaw clenched as Brew continued.

“Of course not.” Brew tossed his hair back as they continued along an avenue leading to one of the major down cases that led below New Town and the Heights they were leaving behind. “I figured they were just people like most right? Just fallen on hard times or and making bad odds because of it.”

“None of that.” Genesee said.

“What’s none of what? What are you saying boss?”

“It’s Low Town because it’s the lowest level. The people…” Genesee knew the tales and propaganda that sold fast on the broad sheets back home. It was hard to explain the complex relationships of the city to one accustomed to the simple explanations of the Empire. Another example of how Breacher was of the Empire but not a part of it yet.

“Everybody knows the story. Old Town is what is left of the original city. Before all the wealth started pouring in.” Brew said as they entered the shade of the down case.

“Military outpost really.”

“Yah, at first. They say it grew faster than the Imperial city. Reaching nearly as many people in just a hundred years or so. What did they call it before all that?” Brew asked.

“Camp Breach.” Genesee said.

“Right, that’s right. The Empires foothold on the new world. Ours for the conquering!” Brew smiled as he spoke. To Genesee the history was a more nuanced one. It wasn’t long before the Empire began treating with the locals. What followed he would hardly have called ‘conquering’.

“That camp became the spearhead that allowed all this to develop.” Brew lifted his arms up as the continued under the bones that held up New Town. The modest Camp Breach had grown quickly. With security it provided came commerce and camp followers. Soon what was a camp became a bustling town. “Of course no-body would have shown up if it hadn’t been for the ore. That’s why we’re here right boss? Brining the Emperor’s peace so the Empire can keep to the skies. I’ve made it boss. I’m proud.” Genesee only half heard Brew speaking of the most valuable substance in the world, the one commodity known only to the vast new world. The native mineral called as Ka Mana in Imperial.

Ka Mana was more dark gray than true black, but it had a strange reflective quality. The real prize was that it burned. Far hotter and longer than wood or even oil. A small piece could light a hall four times longer than an oil lamp. The stone was also light, weighing less in volume than oil; allowing it to heat the tanks of an Ironwing at half the weight of oil. Ironwings grew in size as a response, to the monster that had delivered Brew and the other recruits. This simple stone had given the Empire a capability to project power over all the islands that had resisted it and bring them into the fold. There was talk of further islands beyond the western storms. The Empire was ever eager for conquest.

Yet the new land upon which Breacher City was founded, much larger than any island of the Empire, had proved difficult to conquer. The natives didn’t congregate. They offered no cities to take and hold. Swamps, wetlands and jungle forests were the terrain. Armies could not march across this land and settlements couldn’t be easily established. The new land seemed to resist them, sink and swallow them. Breacher was no different.

The military camp upon the shores of a new world grew. As it grew it sunk. To combat this, the best Imperial Engineers were sent to solve the strangeness of the swampy continent. Their efforts were and continue to be beyond parallel. They created a system of pillars. Vast and inhabitable. Atop these massive structures they conceived a city. That city became Old Town. Yet as the wealth flowed, suckled from the untamed land, the city grew beyond even these geniuses. Yet the pillars, known as the Struts, had to be maintained, and expanded ever upward as they inevitably sank deeper.

Not wishing to abandon their stately homes and the businesses that had grown in Old Town, the city was raised. The hollow spaces and scaffolding filled areas became Low Town. Built in and around the newly heightened Struts. As more wealth consolidated among the powerful Old Town aristocracy they distanced themselves from those who had not kept up. Ever higher Breacher rose in great fits and starts. Creating what was now the Heights. Yet all the while the city sank, with the slow plodding determination of natural forces.

Genesee turned away from the strange memory that had called him lower. He wasn’t there anymore. He was something elevated. A hero.
“So this is Low Town? Not as seedy as I was led to believe.” Brew said.

Genesee looked over to a stall that offered a number of wares from the Empire. “This is Old Town.” One could tell the Town they were in by the wares. Though truly the vendors themselves gave away their station. New Town vendors tried to look like the Heights and so on.

“Still not seedy enough. I thought when I was left with you I’d see some deep dark hoino.” Genesee noted the Brew’s use of the Imperial curse word, hoino. The carelessness of the young man reminded Genesee of himself during his early years. Brew continued. “This just looks like a commoner’s market.”

“They are not commoners.” Genesee clipped off the words. Young people never appreciated anything and had no idea that their station, their very lives, depended on these people.

“True. They are of the Last Royals. When we get to Low Town we’ll see commoners. Right?” Brew’s words further angered Genesee but he held his tongue. Genesee himself was a among the Royals, far from a Last like Brew himself. A way to distinguish themselves. To feel superior for no other reason than some distant ancestor long ago was born on Home Isle, the birthplace of the Empire. Some could live in squallar but hold their heads high and spit on those who did not share Royal blood. A fool to Genesee’s eye but time had taught him that few saw the world as he did.

“This way.” He instructed.

“Should I be looking out for crime or suspicious behavior?”

“Not here. My charge,” Genesee hesitated. “Our charge is Low Town.”

“But surely there is illegal activity aplenty here. I’ve only seen one group of officers since we came down and they were playing cards!”

“Get used to it.”

“What? The Imperial Authority governs all of Breacher City. You’re telling me below New Town there is no law?” Brew scoffed.

“It is… limited.”

“What do you mean? Those were officers back there. A dozen of them. Do they not keep the law?” Brew asked.

“It grows less as you descend.”

“Impossible! How is order maintained?”

“You’ll see.” Genesee led them to a small switch back stairwell off the main well. The light above it buzzed. He knew that buzz. The light would soon fail. In a day or a month, nobody could be sure. “Just a moment.”

“What?” Brew objected. Genesee headed to a call station. They were still common in Old Town. Little boxes full of tubes. New Town had maintenance cadres that patrolled and had no need yet for the boxes. He pulled out his notepad and ripped a page from the thick gum that held them together. He scrawled a few words on it, noting the location and the need to replace the light. He put his full name and rank on it.

He’d noticed his rank was rarely enough to get anything done quickly. But his name was known. He was a hero.

He fumbled around on his belt for his keys and unlatched them. He found the key he wanted and opened one of two tubes that had locks. He slid the metal door open and the rush of air from within deafened him. He curled up his notebook page…