City of Ruin - Mark Charan Newton [31]
‘So what’s Lutto want us to do then? Kill a load of innocent protestors?’
‘Kind of – but from within. Business leaders have asked politicians to help them out as times are tough, and they don’t need this kind of unrest. They fired a hundred men for organizing action just a few weeks ago – illegally, according to what laws we do have – but soon things are going to get out of hand. And the portreeve doesn’t want it either. He’s offered special tariffs and subsidies and tax relief to businesses to keep them here in Villiren – part of that free market thing, I’m sure! – and this unrest just interferes with his grand plans for development. So Lutto comes to us, as usual, to help out. Treats us like business leaders because we do what we do well. There’s a lot of money up for grabs, here, same as the Scarhouse Massacre two years back.’
The banHe made wide eyes at him.
‘Exactly,’ Malum said. ‘We didn’t have to do another job of the kind for a long while after that. So we’re meant to join the protests and kick up a bloodstorm inside the movement. Claim that unions are nothing but violent thugs, good for no one. Not only does it get rid of the key troublemakers who stop private industries from fattening up their wallets, but it means others won’t want to get involved with unions. Less solidarity, you see. People just get on with their work. This is all part of Lutto’s long strategy, his campaign for free democracy.’
‘What, so stopping people from having any control over their lives and their work conditions is a free democracy now? Who changed the fucking definitions?’
‘Welcome to Villiren, Dannan. Anyway, they get to vote, right?’
‘Between two or three men who are indistinguishable from one another. Anyway, Lutto always wins because he’s got the most money – and our support, too.’
‘Yeah, I know all this shit.’
‘You seem to know a lot,’ the banHe remarked, genuinely impressed.
‘Just because I’m a thug doesn’t mean I don’t read any books. But, anyway, we’re part of this now – so can I guarantee him some of your men for the job, too?’
Dannan sighed deeply and contemplated a response. ‘How many you got involved?’
‘ ’Bout a hundred, but there’ll be best part of a thousand protesting.’
‘I’ll throw in a hundred as well. Enough yeah?’
‘Should do it. I’ll send on the details to you on time and location. We already got a couple of men undercover with the unions at the moment.’
The banHe nodded and inhaled on his roll-up and continued looking around him.
Malum walked away with the intention of fading into the cityscape.
EIGHT
‘Shit.’ Beami pressed her head into her hands. Then, through strands of dark hair, she regarded the mess lying on her desk. Hybridization: the dangerous art of combining relics – also her area of expertise – and if she had tried to activate this particular blend she might have blown herself to pieces. That was because two copper sections of a charged Foroum relic didn’t want to fit into this theoretical structure. A hundred different pieces of metal were scattered across the desk, so she scooped them all up and shoved them in a box waiting to one side. Leaning back in her leather chair, she groaned despondently. The Nantuk Development Company would have to wait another few months for its demolition device, which she hoped would be able to age stone so rapidly that it would become instant dust. In a room full of traders and government officials – even the portreeve himself – she had announced this as an improvement on what she’d developed before, and as representing by far the safest stage in the evolution of remedial work. They could, she promised, clear unsafe buildings within a day. Lutto’s eyes had lit up and he spoke of a tempting subsidy.
But today’s shoddy results had aged her a good few years. The bloody theory was there, all the equations blazed across the bits of vellum pinned on her wall like the graffiti of intelligence. So why wouldn’t it work?
Stupid fermions. Stupid eigenvalues. Stupid ancient mathematics.
A lantern faded