The Girl in the City (6 page)

Leah glanced past Derricks towards the woman. She’d spotted Leah and was picking her way between the tables, trying to hurry without drawing attention to herself.

Derricks was still talking. “I knew a guy once. Stug, we called him. Boy, could he put away his alcohol, let me tell you. I tried to have a drinking competition with him, once. It did not end well—believe you me, Leah. Anyway, when he was young—older than you, Leah, but not by much—he managed to find a gun from way back. He always said he’d found it in a cave but I never really believ—”

Leah tugged on Derricks’ arm. “Mr. Derricks, I need your help. I have to get this back to my dad as soon as I can, but that woman over there, the one with the scar, is trying to take it from me.”

Finally shutting up, Marc looked at the woman moving across the mealspace towards them. He frowned. “She doesn’t look very friendly. Did you steal something from her, Leah? Because I know your dad doesn’t approve of stealing, although some people say scavenging—”

“No, I didn’t. You know me, Mr. Derricks. I’m ‘good people’.”

She smiled up at Derricks. He always called them that, it was one of his pet phrases.

“Aye,” said Derricks, “you
are
good people. You take after your mother. She was a wonderful woman, your mo—”

“I know,” said Leah, glancing nervously towards the woman and twisting her shoulder to remind Derricks he was still holding her. “Can you help me?”

Derricks nodded slowly. “Aye, I can.” The woman was almost on them, just a couple of tables away, when Derricks finally let go of Leah. She darted away, shouting a quick thank-you on the way. Leah headed towards a narrow gap between a stand selling some sort of soup and a woman with a battered table covered with equally battered paperback books.

As she reached the stands, Leah looked back towards Derricks. She could see him, still standing in the middle of the mealspace, still talking. He’d stopped the woman by blocking her route between the tables and was clearly giving her an earful. The woman was ignoring him, trying to peer around Derricks to see where Leah was going, but he was a big man, and he kept moving to block her view. Leah smiled and promised herself that she’d find Derricks and thank him properly once this was all over.

As soon as Leah was out of sight of the mealspace, she turned right. Ahead of her, a group of brown-robed monks drifted through the market, dispensing blessings over the stalls, the vendors, and any customers that strayed too close. She walked beside them, using them for cover.

One of the monks noticed Leah. He smiled softly and waved his hand over her in a complex series of curves and slashes that seemed utterly random to Leah but clearly held great meaning to the monk. Leah smiled, awkwardly, and blushed a little. If the monk noticed, he apparently didn’t care, and he moved on to another drive-by blessing.

Leah stayed with the monks until she reached the eastern exit. There was no sign of the woman with the scar as Leah pushed her way through the plastic sheets that served as a door and stepped out into the City streets, but she still didn’t feel safe. She wouldn’t until she’d got her father back.

It took her a few seconds to work out where she was. She didn’t recognize the street at first, then she spotted an abandoned church. She remembered its crooked steeple from a trip to the market with her father. Leah took off in the opposite direction, running down the street and into Pepper Alley, a narrow gap between two buildings that always smelled of spices.

Halfway down the alley she slowed, searching for an access point that would lead into the tunnels below the City. She found one eventually. Someone had placed a large metal drum on top of the cover, and she almost walked past it. Leah grunted as she pushed aside the lurid green barrel. Liquid sloshed around inside, and she hoped the fluorescent paint didn’t signify anything too toxic. With the barrel out of the way, she was able to pry open the cover. She took one last look to make sure she wasn’t being followed, then clambered down into the tunnels.

She was in an egg-shaped side passage, one of the many tributaries that wound beneath the City. The tunnel was relatively dry, although it stank of rotting food and less savory substances that Leah didn’t want to think about. Breathing through her mouth, she followed the tunnel until it met a second, larger passage. This one had a fast-flowing river of waste running down its center and smelled even worse. A metal walkway ran along the edge of the tunnel, and thankfully the water was low enough that Leah could move along it without getting her feet wet. She’d been caught in the tunnels during a rainstorm once, and the experience was not one she wanted to repeat.

As she walked, Leah scanned the walls. She was looking for the public works symbols that would tell her exactly where she was under the City. When she finally spotted them, they gave her a measure of comfort. She was on a secondary route, but it would still take her to the edge of the City, where it would join the network of tunnels she usually traveled through. From there, it would be a simple matter to get to her secret room and hide the circuit board. Then she could work out how to get her father back.

Forty-five minutes later, with the circuit board stashed inside the safe in her secret lair and the key tucked into her sock, Leah crawled out of the drainage tunnels and began zigzagging through the city. She couldn’t just walk up to Transport and demand they release her father—that much she knew. If she had the circuit board with her, they’d just take it. If she didn’t, they’d arrest her and make her tell them where it was. She needed help—adult help. But Derricks was right—she couldn’t trust the traders her father dealt with. They’d see nothing but a stack of unis the moment she showed them the board. She needed to find someone she could trust, and there was really only one person that filled that particular requirement—her friend Cait.

Cait lived with her mother on the eastern side of the city, where the rich people lived. Not that Cait’s family was rich. Her mother worked for one of the wealthiest families in the City, and they provided Cait’s mother with a house so that she would be nearby whenever they needed her.

Leah headed away from the merchant zone and towards Cait’s house. The streets were getting even busier now as people made their way to their shifts at the factories to the west or the dozens of tiny shops that had sprung up like weeds around the city. It made it hard for Leah to see if anyone was following her. There seemed to be fewer patrols in the city than normal, and no one was taking any notice of her, but just in case, she circled around a couple of times until she was pretty sure she wasn’t being followed. Whenever she did spot someone from Transport, she changed direction, ducking down an alley or a side street.

Still not sure she was safe but with no idea what else she should do, Leah crossed over the river and climbed the hill to Cait’s house. It was a narrow, terraced building. At one time, it might have provided a view of the river and the parks that ran alongside it, but more and more buildings had sprung up around the house, obscuring the city’s beauty. Now all you could see from the Nichols’ doorstep was a row of matching houses opposite and the silhouette of the factories in the distance.

Leah had visited Cait’s house dozens of times, but as she climbed the steps to the door and rang the bell, butterflies swarmed about her stomach.

Cait’s mother answered almost immediately. “Oh, hello, Leah. I’m afraid Cait’s not here. She’s with her father this week.”

Leah shuffled her feet. “Actually, Mrs. Nichols, it was you I wanted to talk to.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Nichols, and she looked over Leah and down the street. “Well, I was expecting a visitor.”

“I’m sorry, but I really need your help.”

Mrs. Nichols started to object, but she stopped and frowned. “Are you in trouble?”

Leah chewed at her lip. “It’s my dad. I found something, some salvage, and Transport are trying to get it. They arrested him.”

Mrs. Nichols looked up and down the street again, but this time, her eyes were filled with fear. “I’m sorry, Leah. I can’t help.”

“Please, Mrs. N—”

“No, I’m sorry. We can’t afford to get mixed up with Transport business.”

Unexpected anger flared inside Leah. “We need your help. I don’t know who I can go to. Transport will—”

“I don’t want to know any more, Leah. You should take whatever it is you found to Transport. Right now!”

“But they—”

“I said
no
, Leah! And please don’t come round here again. I don’t want Caitlin getting involved in this, either.”

Cait’s mother swung the door shut, and a chain rattled as she locked it. Blood rushed to Leah’s face. She’d known Cait since they were tiny. Leah’s father had looked after Cait dozens of times so that Mrs. Nichols could work extra hours. Leah considered hammering on the door and trying to force Mrs. Nichols to help, but her pride held her back. Instead, she walked away down the street, hands clenched at her sides.

Leah didn’t realize where she was going until she got to the inn Isaac was staying at. It called itself an inn, but it was really just a house that the owners had decided to name “The Free Man Inn” when they opened it up to guests.

It was mid-afternoon by the time Leah got there. There were only four rooms in the whole building, and a hand-painted “No Vacancy” sign hung on the wall next to the front door. Leah paced up and down the street, passing by the inn a couple of times. She told herself she was making sure she wasn’t leading Transport to Isaac, but she knew her procrastination was rooted more in fear than caution.

On her third pass of the inn, Leah heard the familiar hum of a drone. She pressed herself back against the nearest building and tried to look natural. Whatever that meant. The white sphere drifted out of the alley next to the inn. Leah’s throat turned dry. They were looking for her. They had to be—it couldn’t be a coincidence. The drone turned left, its red lights blinking. Leah looked along the street in the opposite direction. She frowned, shifting her head around as though she was trying to spot someone, even though the streets were fairly quiet. She could hear the drone behind her, the sound of its engines so loud it felt as though it was hovering just above her ear. She pushed her shaking hands into her pockets. The whine of the drone’s engine rose in pitch, then began to fade away.

Unable to resist, Leah turned and watched the drone as it swept along the street, climbing slowly above the buildings as it went. The red lights were still blinking, but Leah couldn’t decide whether that was a good thing or not. Surely, if the drone had been looking for her, it wouldn’t have just ignored her, but maybe it had called for support. Either way, Transport weren’t there yet, and she couldn’t afford to wait any longer. Swallowing hard, Leah crossed the street and went into the inn.

The building was cool and dimly lit. The furnishings were simple. Just pale painted walls with a couple of prints of Pennsylvania landscapes hanging on them, three armchairs that had seen better days, and a rough reception desk made from salvaged wood. A young girl sat behind the desk. She was reading a battered old paperback, a science fiction novel about sheep by the look of it. She looked barely older than Leah.

The girl didn’t react when Leah walked into the room, just kept reading. Leah couldn’t see a bell, so she knocked lightly on the top of the reception desk. The receptionist rolled her eyes and looked up at Leah, eyebrows raised.

Leah gave her a half smile. “Sorry. I’m looking for an Amish man, Isaac.”

Leah expected some sort of resistance from the girl, some nod towards guest privacy. But she just looked Leah up and down, directed her to the first room at the top of the stairs, then went back to reading her book. Leah thanked the girl and headed upstairs.

When she got to the room, Leah paused. Her father would kill her for meeting a stranger like this. She wasn’t an idiot, and she’d never intended to come here. But she needed help and didn’t know where else to go. No one in the City would want to cross Transport. They’d all be too scared, just like Mrs. Nichols. Isaac had lied to Transport. He’d broken the law, maybe even risked his life, to help her. And anyway, she could look after herself. She wasn’t a little kid anymore.