Early Riser

Meet Aurora

‘That was the shittiest piece of mentoring I’ve ever heard,’ said a voice from across the room. It was a woman sitting with some workers in HiberTech uniforms, also waiting for the train. She had silver-streaked black hair tied up in a loose ponytail and a pale complexion that was almost creamy. Her battered combat fatigues displayed the shoulder stripe of the 4th Arid Legion, her twin Bambis were rigged for a cross-draw and around her neck was the dark burgundy pashmina worn by those who had served in the Ottoman campaign. Most notable about her, however, was her left eye, which looked blankly off and up – but her right eye stared at us all with a curiously unnerving intensity. She was knitting what appeared to be a bobble hat.

Logan stared back at her, momentarily shocked.

‘Well, well, well,’ he said at last, ‘if you’re here, Aurora, then who’s guarding the gates of hell right now?’

‘That’s hardly original,’ said Knitting Woman, getting up and walking closer. ‘How’s non-married life suiting you?’

Logan’s face fell. I was assuming this was the Aurora who was the head of HiberTech Security – the one who didn’t get along with Toccata, or seemingly with Logan either.

‘You had no right to do what you did, Aurora.’

‘Cry me a river, Logan. You and Toccata? It would never have worked out and we all knew it. I was doing you both a favour.’

‘Jealous, were you? Jealous that someone might have preferred Toccata over you?’

Fran and everyone else had muttered excuses about ‘laundry’ or an ‘important call’ and rapidly vacated the tearooms.

‘Jealous?’ she said. ‘Of what you have to offer? A second-rate Consul and a third-rate vaudeville act peddling fourth-rate advice to a fifth-rate Novice?’

The Chief stared at her for a moment. There was something odd about the exchange, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Logan was holding back, thinking, pulling his punches. Until now, I didn’t know that Logan and Toccata were to be married. This added a new dimension to everything.

‘What do you actually want, Aurora?’ asked Logan. ‘Must be something pretty big to have you crawling out from under your rock.’

‘I wanted to know what you’re doing heading into Sector Twelve. Considering past events, it’s something of a rash move.’

‘I was delivering a nightwalker,’ he said, ‘I thought my fax made that clear.’

‘You could have sent anyone to do that. There’s nothing going on in Sector Twelve, Logan, just a deluded Chief Consul trying to rekindle some long-dead embers from a doomed love affair.’

‘Why are you so concerned about Toccata all of a sudden?’

Aurora thought about this for a moment.

‘Because despite everything, she’s like a sister to me, and sisters hold together, even with our disagreements.’

They stared at each other for a moment.

‘In any event,’ she said, ‘HiberTech need Tricksy nightwalkers for Project Lazarus. Particularly like the one your thicko Novice has lost – you need to go and get her back.’

‘You want her, you get her back.’

‘Because you can’t?’

‘She’s dead, I don’t like you, you didn’t say please, I can’t be arsed, it’s cold outside – take your pick. You have no jurisdiction over me during the Winter.’

He was right over jurisdiction, but it didn’t much matter. Mrs Tiffen was his responsibility, and since Aurora could make serious trouble for him, he would have to go and look for her. Logan glared at me, then at Aurora, then had another thought and gave a soft smile that I felt uneasy about.

‘Okay,’ he said, ‘this is a terrific opportunity for a Graduation Assignment. Worthing here is tasked to find your precious dead woman. Once that’s been achieved – or not – and if Charlie is still living, we will both travel to Sector Twelve. Whilst there, I will meet up with Toccata – without your meddling.’

‘This is bollocks,’ said Aurora, taking a step closer, ‘and to relegate important work to the level of training exercise is grossly irresponsible.’

‘It’s not Slumberdown for another thirty-two hours,’ I ventured, ‘and I’ve not spent a single minute in the Winter. I’m not sure I’m ready—’

‘You’re ready when I say you are,’ snapped Logan, ‘besides, you lost her, you can get her back. This is now your operation. Win and you get to be a Deputy Winter Consul, fail and you’re minding breedstock. So, what’s your first move, Bright-eyes?’

It was like being back at St Granata’s, being given some impossible task to perform – such as getting on the Great Hall’s roof without a ladder, or making a soufflé with cauliflower instead of eggs, or trying to stop the Ford girls from squabbling.

I took a deep breath.

‘I… need to follow a lead I’ve established.’

He pressed a finger hard into my sternum.

‘Wrong.’

‘It is—?’

I was interrupted by two muted blasts from the train whistle. It was five minutes before the last train to Sector Twelve.

‘Exactly,’ said Logan. ‘You need to delay the train.’

‘How do I do that?’

‘Your head on the rails?’

‘Seriously?’

‘I don’t know. But put it this way: if you don’t delay the train, I will punch you five times hard in the head.’

‘Once would probably be enough as a punishment.’

‘You don’t need to be punished, you need motivating. And not getting punched five times is a terrific motivator. Take my word for it.’

‘I’ll be making an official complaint about this,’ said Aurora.

‘Yes, why don’t you?’ said Logan, and picking up his jacket, he made for the door. ‘Don’t fail me, Worthing.’

‘I’ll try not to,’ I said, wondering how I could do anything but fail – and surely, this was actually his intention. Aurora stared at me with her one eye for a moment, then sat down at the counter next to me.

‘Don’t fail any of us,’ she said in a kindly tone, while placing her warm hand on mine. ‘HiberTech and I will be grateful if you succeed, and the gratitude of either would be in itself a valuable commodity. Oh, and listen, I didn’t mean it when I called you “thicko” and “fifth rate”. It was only theatre. Kind of in the moment – and it pissed off that ballbag Logan. Good luck.’

‘Oh – right,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’

I grabbed my bag and the bouzouki and ran to Platform Three, where clouds of vapour were billowing from the locomotive as the driver vented excess steam into the chill air. I found the freightmaster in the second carriage, fast asleep.

Moody’s eyes flickered inside his closed lids while he murmured: ‘Mrs Nesbit, please, leave me alone.’ It was a little unnerving: asleep in public was okay, asleep and dreaming in public was not really socially acceptable. I like to think of myself as fairly broad-minded, but even I felt a little uncomfortable.

‘Hey,’ I said, shaking his shoulder. His eyes opened wide and he suddenly looked terrified.

‘You don’t want to leave the rocks!’ he yelled, grasping me by the arm so hard I almost yelped with pain.

‘What rocks?’

‘Leave the rocks and the hands will get you,’ he said in something of a panic, his eyes swivelling to the left and right faster than I thought possible. ‘You don’t want to be buried alive and… I am Don Hector!’

‘Everything’s fine,’ I said, ‘and believe me, you’re not Don Hector.’

‘How do you know?’

‘You look nothing like him – and he died two years ago.’

‘He only died in the real world,’ said Moody, ‘not in here.’

He touched his temple with his fingertip.

‘Eh?’

‘Damn,’ he said, suddenly recovering his composure. ‘I’m sorry. Fatigue. We’ve had some losses recently, and, well, I’m running treble shifts.’

‘What was that about being buried alive?’

‘Nothing. Blue Buick.’

‘What?’

‘What do you mean: “what”?’

‘You said blue Buick.’

‘I did? What if I did?’ he replied defensively. ‘Who are you anyway, to cast aspersions on my sleeping habits?’

Logan had mentioned blue Buicks when he told me about the viral dream. If Moody was organising freight this late in the season, he would certainly have come from Sector Twelve.

‘Anyway,’ he said, clapping his hands together, ‘ready to go?’

‘No,’ I replied, making a mental note to report all this to Logan, ‘I have to repo a nightwalker and I need you to hold this train for me.’

Moody stared at me with a half-smile. Punctuality was the guiding principle to which RailTecs pledged their lives. Often, quite literally.

‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘and how would I do that?’

He knew how to delay the train; he didn’t need to ask. All we were really talking about was the price.

‘How about a Favour?’

When you urgently needed something from somebody in the Winter, the only true currency was influence. A Favour was simply general assistance – a no-quibble cash advance, parking ticket quashed, hundredweight of pasta when you were skint and a few pounds too light, that kind of thing. But even so, Moody wasn’t impressed.

‘With all due respect, Deputy Consul,’ he said, ‘a Favour from you wouldn’t buy me a pork scratching in Sector Twelve.’

I thought about being punched in the head five times.

‘A… Debt, then.’

The freightmaster raised his eyebrows. A Debt was bigger than a Favour by a factor of fifty. For a day or two you could have a Consul pretty much in your pocket.

‘You must want that Vacant pretty badly,’ he said.

‘A lot depends upon it.’

‘Okay, then,’ he said with a short snorty giggle, his demeanour changed, ‘you’ve got yourself a deal. I’ll recheck the loading; probably take me an hour.’

I thanked him, ran off to the station exit and found the taxi driver waiting for me. Comically, he had vapour rising from his bald head. Mrs Tiffen had been taken to the John Edward Jones Dormitorium, about ten minutes’ drive away.

‘That’ll be fifty euros,’ said the taxi driver when I asked him to take me there.

‘I’ll pay when we get back.’

He turned around to look at me.

‘You’re a Novice, trying to repo a Tricksy walker from a Footman in a Dormitorium out in the Scorch?’

‘Yes?’

‘You’ll pay in advance.’

I sighed, handed him a fifty, and we set off.