“Why don’t you remember more about yourself?” Giovanni asked Clef. “If you were a person, why do you still think and act like…well, the key?”
“Why is bronze not like copper, or tin, or aluminum, or any of the rest of its components?” said Clef, sniffling. “Because they have all been remade for another purpose. The key looks like just an object to you all, but on the inside it’s…it’s doing things. Redirecting my mind, my soul, to act in a certain way. And because it’s breaking down, I…I remember more of myself.”
“And this is what Tomas Ziani is attempting,” said Gregor. “He is attempting this grand remaking of the human soul—only he is failing, over and over and over again. And he is willing to fail more, with over a hundred people.” He looked at Sancia. “Now we know. Now we truly know what’s at stake. Will you try to stop it tonight, Sancia? Are you willing to rob the Mountain?”
Sancia took control of her body again, like a hand sliding into a glove.
<To prevent something like me from ever happening again…> said Clef softly.
She shut her eyes and bowed her head.
27
Nightfall, and Berenice, Sancia, and Gregor skulked through the Commons south of the Candiano campo. Sancia’s blood buzzed and boiled in her veins. She often felt jittery before a big job, but tonight was different. She tried to stop glancing at the Mountain in the distance so she wouldn’t remember exactly how different it was.
“Slow down,” hissed Berenice behind her. “We’ve got time before the barge gets here!”
Sancia slowed and waited. Berenice was walking along the canal, holding out a fishing pole and dragging a small wooden ball through the waters by a string. Sancia could see the capsule drifting along underneath it, but just barely. It seemed to be floating well—which was a relief.
“I want time to make sure that goddamn thing works,” said Sancia. “It’d make an unfashionable coffin.”
“I take offense to that,” said Berenice. “It’s a knock against my craftsmanship.”
“Now is not the time to hurry,” said Gregor, lumbering along behind Berenice. “Carelessness begets many graves.” He was wearing a thick scarf and wide hat, to keep as much of his face hidden as possible.
Finally they came to the fork in the canal, where the delivery route broke off from the main branch. Sancia looked along its length, spying where it passed through the Candiano walls beyond. “The barge should be carrying a delivery of mangos,” said Berenice. “Which is why I brought this.” She held up a small, unripe mango, and turned it over to reveal a small hole in it, and a switch within. “Inside is the anchor that will pull the capsule along.”
“Clever,” said Gregor.
“I hope so. It should be difficult to notice. When the barge passes, I’ll toss it aboard.”
“Good,” said Gregor. He looked around. “I’ll go to the Candiano campo now to set up the anchor for the air-sailing rig.”
“Make sure you’re in range,” said Sancia. “Otherwise I jump off the side of the Mountain and plummet to my death.”
“Orso gave me an exact cross-street for its position,” he said. “It should be in range. Good luck to you both.” Then he skulked off into the night.
Berenice looked over her shoulder at the rosy face of the Michiel clock tower in the distance. “We have about ten minutes. Time to get ready.” She pulled the wooden ball back in, adjusted something on it, and held it out over the sloshing waters like someone trying to entice a crocodile to bite.
The waters at their feet bubbled and churned, and the black metal plating of the capsule slowly surfaced.
“Oh shit,” whispered Sancia. She calmed herself, and knelt down and opened the hatch.
“I’ll help you in,” said Berenice. She held out a hand and steadied Sancia as she awkwardly climbed into the capsule, which suddenly felt terribly small.
“God,” said Sancia. “If I survive this, I’ll…I’ll…”
“You’ll what?”
“I don’t know. Do something really fun and stupid.”
“Hm,” said Berenice. “Well. Why don’t we go get a drink, then?”
Sancia, sitting in the capsule, blinked. “Uh. What?”
“A drink. You know—the fluid you put in your mouth, and swallow?”
She stared at Berenice, mouth open, unsure what to say.
Berenice smiled slightly. “I saw you looking at me. When we were moving from Commons to campo and whatnot.”
Sancia shut her mouth, hard. “Uh. Oh.”
“Yes. I thought it’d be wise to maintain professionalism at the time, but”—she looked around at the filthy, reeking canal—“this is not terribly professional.”
“Why?” asked Sancia with genuine surprise.
“Why ask?”
“Yeah. No one’s ever really asked before.”
Berenice struggled for the words. “I…suppose I find you…refreshingly uncontained.”
“Refreshingly uncontained?” said Sancia. She wasn’t at all sure how to take that.
“Let me put it this way,” said Berenice, pinkening. “I am a person who stays inside of a handful of rooms all day. I do not leave those rooms. I do not leave the building, the block, the enclave, the campo. So, to me you are…quite different. And interesting.”
“Because,” said Sancia, “I’m refreshingly uncontained.”
“Ah. Yes.”
“You do know,” said Sancia, “that the only reason I go to all these places is so that I can steal enough to buy food, right?”
“Yes.”
“And you know you seem to usually have enough firepower in your pocket to literally blow down a wall, yeah?”
“True,” she said. “But I never did any such thing until you came along.” She looked up. “I think that’s the barge.”
Sancia lay back into the tiny capsule, pulled out a scrived light, and turned it on. “I’ll think about that drink. If I survive, that is.”
“Do,” said Berenice. Her smile faded. “I’m going to submerge the capsule next, and then plant the anchor. Hold on.”
“All right,” said Sancia. Then she shut the hatch.
* * *
<Huh,> said Clef as she sat alone in the capsule. <Well. That didn’t go how I expected.>
<Yeah, no kidding. I—>
She didn’t finish the thought—her belly swooped as the capsule abruptly descended, sinking to the bottom of the canal. “Oh shit!” she whispered. She could hear the water gurgling and bubbling all around her, the sounds magnified in the tiny, tiny capsule. “Shit, shit, shit!”
<Don’t worry,> said Clef. <This thing has been well built. You’ll be fine. Just breathe normally.>
<Will that relax me?>
<Well, yeah. It’ll also mean you won’t run out of air.>
She shut her eyes and tried to breathe calmly.
<You ready, kid?> asked Clef, excited. <We’re going to crack the biggest safe in the world tonight! Bigger than a whole damned city block!>
<You sound pretty excited for a dead guy.>
<Hey, I’m technically not dead—just dying. I have to get my fun where I can find it.>
Sancia sighed as she heard the barge drifting through the waters above them. <Trapped in a casket under the water, with a dead man trapped in a key. How the hell do I get myself into these situations?>
There was a gentle tug, and the capsule started slowly trundling forward, scraping along the bottom of the canal.
<Here we go,> she said.
Sancia lay there, listening to the sound of the capsule scraping along the mud and stone, and waited.
An hour passed, maybe two. She idly wondered if this was what being dead was like—If this thing sprang a leak, and I died in here, would I even notice?
Finally the capsule came to a stop. She said, <Clef—anything up there?>
<There are rigs aboard the barge—I guess the whole barge is a rig, really. I think they’re unloading it.>
<Then this is the place. Let’s hope no one’s fishing right where I’m coming up.>
She hit the switch on the door of the capsule. The metal canister slowly, awkwardly bobbed to the surface.
Sancia cracked the hatch and took a quick look around. They were floating next to a stone walkway running along the canal, just south of the Mountain’s dock. She flung the hatch open, scrambled onto the stone walkway, shut the door behind her, and hit a switch on the front. The capsule silently sank back down to the bottom.
She looked around. No one was screaming or raising any alarms. She was dressed in Candiano colors, so she didn’t look unusual, and there was only the barge crew nearby, unloading on the dock.
Then she saw the Mountain.
“Oh…Oh my God,” she whispered.
The Mountain bloomed into the night sky just ahead of her, surging up like smoke from a forest fire. The thing was lit up brighter than a magnesium torch, spotlights shooting up along its curving black skin, which was dotted with tiny circular windows, like portholes on a ship. The sight set her guts fluttering.
Somewhere up there is the thirty-fifth floor, she thought. That’s what I’ve got to break into. And that’s where I’ll fly from. Soon.
<The garden,> said Clef. <The door. Hurry.>