Have a lovely day, hope you enjoy, and see you Wednesday.
Darkhelm I - Crone by Mac Clevinger, June 5, 2017
Squaring herself against the door, Myriam forced the full weight of a densely-muscled woman through her heel and into the metal surface around the locked handle of the door, denting its surface and sending an ear-splitting clanging sound through the empty hallway without flinging open to grant her an escape.
“Fuck.”
She took ahold of the door-handle, pulling it taut against the doorframe as she took a breath to steady herself. Her foot ached from failing to kick the door in, and her heart was doing its best to break out of her chest and get as far away from someone marked for death. Was that the sound of blood in her ears, or distant boots getting closer?
Heaving her body, she rammed a shoulder into the door, slamming it against the frame but failing to break the locking mechanism. The discomfort of her foot and shoulder were putting her on edge; she was sure she could hear someone coming closer, but a locked door hadn’t been foretold – she hadn’t prepared for this. The Crone had told her of a path that could be taken, things that may happen.
She knew she had a way out of this, but it was still reliant upon her to keep herself on the path. Or, perhaps, the bridge, but one without railings in which she couldn’t see where the next step was supposed to be, but had to trust it would be there so long as she took the right courses of action.
Myriam shoved a fist into the door, gritting her teeth and glaring at the shining metal. It wasn’t a strong door, and she wasn’t a weak woman, but the scales were just outside of her favor in this conflict. Typical: the district police come after her for falsifying her clearance-codes, and the building she gets chased into doesn’t even let her use them to escape through it.
Planting her thin-soled shoe – one of many purchases she had made to ‘smarten’ herself up – she pushed against the door and sent herself hopping into the opposite wall. She leaned against it, looking around herself. The hallway was a mess, barely lit by the passing taxis and arrows that flew past the windows. What wasn’t rotten was rusted, and what wasn’t broken had long-ago been stolen.
One last visit to the deeps to be reshaped; to be made into a piece that would fit better in the sun-lit cogs that ran the great machine of Darkhelm far from the cluttered, rusted machine in the deeps that sought a never-ending number of spare-parts to replace whatever fell out. One last visit to be reborn by the illicit Reshapers before journeying to a place where her identity wouldn’t be questioned, and her past would be left behind.
A perfect day to get her fortune read, imagining the usual fluff about escaping from the grime and smog infested world to finally be a true prediction. Instead she was told she didn’t belong in the light, that it would reject her as it had them all – that there would be death if she did not abandon her notion, and only Myriam would be saved from that end; though that, too, was contingent on her actions.
She’d scoffed, but here she was. She should have known better than to ignore the Crone – that was a woman with wisdom, with respect that was earned, bought, and traded for throughout several lifetimes that had seen a city with only one level of streets, that remembered life before clearance-codes and identity-shaping. A life of centuries that had ended half an hour ago, and Myriam was soon to follow if she didn’t find a way to get higher.
A passing car shone a dirty, brown light into the hallway, illuminating the stairway that had brought her to this level. There were similarly locked office doors stretching down the corridor, and in front of her stood the only access she had to climb higher. She didn’t have much of a plan, but height was always a benefit in her line of work. Being able to see farther, have options of what building to drop onto, and maybe reach a network-level that could give her access to a whole other world, or at least entry to one of the trains that ran all around the deeps.
She hated being trapped, especially inside a grubby office building with locked doors and long, single, hallways that stretched for the entire length of the building. There was no space for her to move inside most buildings, but outside there were rooftops and walkways that were more receptive to her art. Few people appreciated how easily their security could be circumvented by not being inside the same building as it.
Flashing red-and-blue lights passed the window, a sure sign that she was running out of time. She looked at the door, bouncing on her heels as she turned an idea over in her head. She shrugged and ran to the end of the hall, briefly trying to force the stuck window open before drawing back her elbow and shattering several panes to make a hole for herself.
Glass tinkled beneath her feet, broken shards still tumbling into the clouds of smog several stories beneath Myriam as she hoisted herself onto the window ledge and looked at what she had to work with. A sheer drop lay beneath the last inch of her toes that hung over the ledge she was standing on, an insurmountable gap between her and the building across from her.
The entire district was full of abandoned office-buildings, the successful companies moving themselves higher while the failing companies either moved lower or disappeared altogether. Illicit operations were a standard to be found here, squatting in empty offices, and a few startled groups she had passed while rising through the building were probably taking up the attention of the enforcement officers chasing her.
She’d been on a low network-level, where patrols were frequent and arrests were a common sight. The difference between one level and another was significant, enough so that reaching it could save her, or at least give her the means to get out of sight for long enough to plan her next move.
Around her were other window ledges, each several meters long and separated by a gap that disappeared into the dirty smog-clouds below. A short run that left glass shards embedded in her shoes took her leaping over the gap, landing on another ledge easily and just in time to avoid a beam of light that illuminated where she’d just been standing, coming from within the building.
She didn’t have time; she needed to start climbing. Directly above her, another ledge jutted out from the building, mimicked on either side all the way along the building. If she wanted up there, she’d have to jump away from the wall to catch the outstretched ledge, which meant that if she missed… It was a shame she didn’t have any of her equipment that would make this kind of thing easy, or even an outfit that gave her more maneuverability, but she had to play the hand she’d been dealt.
There were bootsteps in the hallway approaching the broken window. They would notice the shattered glass, then they would see her, and then they would probably shoot her for running. She’d rather fall than be shot – what if it didn’t kill her? It was one thing to spend a night with Protection Enforcement, but a caught run-away? She didn’t want to think about what she’d heard.
Tiptoeing backwards to the edge of the ledge, she eyed up the thin stretch of wall beside the window that led upward to the ledge that jutted out above her. Releasing a deep breath, she used the little space given to her to run and leapt at the wall, planting a foot in the rugged surface and launching herself backwards, bringing her hands up to catch the ledge as it came into her reach.
Her body swung out over the empty air, fingers searching for a definite grip in the stone as the force of the jump tried to pull her away from the building. For all the risk and danger, the moment of not knowing whether or not she had succeeded was her favorite, feeling the streamlined motion of her body after having leapt over a void and knowing that whether she lived or died was purely in her own hands.
She felt free as her body swung, teetering for a moment before falling back towards the building as her hands pulled her up onto the ledge. Grit dug into her skin as she swung her legs up and rolled onto the ledge, soft voices and gleaming lights coursing through the broken window. Carefully, she slid herself the last few inches to be pressed against the window, trying not to make a sound as she removed any part of herself from being seen from below.
Light erupted around her, the shadow of the window’s ledge barely containing her as it swept across her hiding spot along the building’s façade. They knew she was out here, but didn’t know where; easily solved by searching the outside of the building with an enforcement cruiser. She didn’t have much time, and she couldn’t just stay where she was. She had to go back inside.
Gritting her teeth, Myriam eased herself to her feet, watching the searchlight carefully as it swept beneath her. She could see the helmeted officer leaning out of the broken window with a rifle in their hands, the light being shone wherever they pointed it. Far below, the roiling clouds of smog were lit at random by the light, unable to reveal the world beyond a few stories distant.
Vehicles still flew past, casting their own dirty light onto the building as she flung herself across the gap between ledges, sinking to a crouch as she landed to lessen the sound of impact. She wasn’t worried if a driver saw her; it was an idiot who decided to get involved with the enforcers, and idiots didn’t last long at this depth.
Myriam flattened herself against the window and peered through it, looking down a mirror to the hallway she’d been in minutes prior, with two notable exceptions: the way leading up was at the far end of the hall to her, and its door had a soft, blinking red light. If the Reshapers hadn’t lied to her, she should’ve received clearance to open any public door this far down in Darkhelm.
A flashing light at the corner of her vision spurred her on; the blinding red-and-blue lights that turned the walls of fog into colorful displays were approaching from below. She removed her shirt, grimacing as the delicate fabric was bunched up in her hands and used to protect her fist as she punched the panes of glass in the corner of the window. Beneath she wore a white undershirt, matching the sun-starved paleness of her skin.
Voices began to bark orders beneath her, the rifle’s light illuminating the façade on either side of her but mercifully leaving her in the dark, invisible to the officer. She scurried through the broken glass as the sound of crunching metal echoed through the stairway beside her, the door promising to grant them entry much sooner than it would her.
The lights of the enforcement cruiser were getting stronger, pushing Myriam on as she ran down the hallway. It wasn’t as grimy as that of the level beneath her, but it seemed abandoned. Dust lay thickly on everything, a more natural decay than that of abuse evident on the walls, and no doors beside that at the end of hallway were visible.
Not a network level, but it seemed that the next level was meant for a better class of person than those below, and an intermingling of the two was kept from happening by an empty level and clearance that was supposed to be hard to come by. Glancing at the pattern on her wrist as she ran, Myriam prayed to the machine that it would work.
Voices trickled to her from the other end of the hall, echoed throughout a stairwell as she came to the end of the hall. Relief swept through her at what she found: not another stairwell, but an elevator. She swiped her wrist at the light, turning it green, and imagined being able to get away from the enforcement officers at a rate of entire floors per second while they were waiting for it to come back, unsure of where she got off at.
The doors didn’t open. She swiped it again, heart pounding as she heard the reverberations of an old elevator moving toward her slowly. Okay, not a new elevator, this one probably only moved between the two floors, and slowly, at that, but it would still give her a lead and –
A brief whirring sound that didn’t come from the elevator sent Myriam to the floor moments before the first bullet shattered the nearest window, followed by increasingly more as the enforcement cruiser’s gun sped up. Myriam crawled toward the window, hiding in the corner beside it and the wall while she waited for the deafening sound to end.
The floor in front of the elevator was being torn to pieces, slowly creating a hole dug out with bullets as the first boot turned the corner from the stairs. Fear shot through her, but the figure raised a hand to their eyes, blinded by the flashing lights of the cruiser and distracted by the dozens of rounds it was firing per second.
More uniformed figures joined the first, each of them easing down the hall and trying to catch sight of the woman trapped at the end of the hall. A radio crackled, ordering the cruiser to stop firing and turn off the lights just as the elevator slid open, waiting expectantly.
Myriam waited for the firing to ease off, lunging forward and hugging the wall while bullets still brushed within inches of her body. She slipped into the elevator as the cruiser’s lights turned off and the first shout of surprise at seeing her echoed throughout the hallway, premature shots being fired and boots racing towards her as she pressed the ‘up’ button and the doors slid shut.
She fell against the elevator’s wall and drew in a shaking breath as bullets dented the shut doors but did not pass, the impacts gradually disappearing as she rose. She couldn’t think of a job that had gone anywhere near as wrong as this one had; the enforcer’s reaction when they did trip an alarm was never this aggravated. What the hell? For one person?
Her old crew could’ve dealt with this so much more easily than she could by herself, and if they’d known she was here they would’ve come for her. That wasn’t something you could weigh against your cut of the job, that was a bond no one could break. That almost no one could break, anyways, but she had thought she’d seen the way the gears were turning. She thought now had been the time to break free of one machine for another.
Her role with them wasn’t flashy, but it was something few of the people they worked against thought of. Five floors of deathtraps could be overcome by leaping from an adjacent roof, death bots ignored because they can’t climb, your office with a beautiful view defeated by jumping from a passing car and breaking the glass. These people thought they could control their environment completely, but they never thought about the environment that they were in.
She was the same, in her own way. Being just a little bit blind. Everyone had the dream of living in the sun, of leaving the darkness below themselves, but she’d forgotten that she’d be leaving more than just the darkness behind. There was life down here, she knew that, but she never thought it was contingent on her being there, she thought that she was just another piece which could be replaced from the thousands of spares that the machine keeps around.
The elevator lurched to a halt, and Myriam pushed herself to stand before the dented doors. Her crew was dead; she’d seen the news report on a botched heist while getting her new identity. She hadn’t been there; she’d told them what she was doing, and they hadn’t asked her to stay. They all wanted to see the sun, and they thought she had a chance. The Crone had been right – why didn’t she listen? Too caught up in her own dreams, that’s what it was.
She fiddled with the satchel at her waist while she waited for the door to open, looking at the random things she’d been given by the Crone. Lifesavers, she’d called them; their purpose unknown to the owner until it was time for their use. The key to her survival; yet another thing Myriam hadn’t believed.
The elevator lurched again as Myriam zipped the satchel shut, thinking about the supposed luck of the objects. They hadn’t helped with the door, or when she’d been shot at. What were they supposed to – Myriam’s heart skipped a beat as the realization struck her.
The elevator was going back down.