Smoke and Shadow: The Fireweaver, Book 1

Chapter 9. SEVEN

CHAPTER 9. SEVEN

"You are quite sure?" Morejvko questioned the Uruque from Radroc headquarters, shut inside his private office.

A silver tray of pastries and fruits sat on a table in the corner, along with a large pitcher of water, beaded with condensation. The chair he sat in, made of zebrawood and upholstered in Rejkav red velvet seemed out of place in the otherwise austere room.

"I am quite sure. I would not have told you otherwise. Sir." The Uruque, called "Seven" was miles away, and yet his voice was penetrating and cold. Morejevko thought he detected the slightest amount of irritation in the Uruque soldier's voice. He must be imagining it. Seven was a hunk of metal and silicon transmitting zeros and ones. Still, he made a mental note to have the Uruque reset when he returned. And to erase the damned British accent out of his programming. It was intolerable.

Seven continued. "The man gouged my eyes and smashed my ears. Bloody well dismantled me. Took me a while to break through the ties. But he is without a doubt an Anadeim."

It had been years since the government had caught any. Likely if any were caught, word never got out publicly. And if this ever got out...

Did Dej even know what his agent was? Maybe not. The man was an idiot. 

"Say nothing of this to anyone," he told the Uruque, who was now transferring a live visual feed to Morejvko, having just repaired his imaging and sight faculties. He walked through the lower level of the building, giving Morejvko a wide, swiveling view of the bowling alley. 

The fugitives had left in a hurry. Food and supplies left out. Floorboards pried open.

"They are not hiding elsewhere in the building?" Scans from overhead picked out only the huef, a mile west of the highway.

"No heartbeats in range," answered the Uruque, focusing his repaired sensory parts on a radius that covered at least the entire lower level. "They would not hide here. The Anadeim knows I would find them."

"How could they have escaped other than—"

"The tunnels," the Uruque supplied smoothly, his processing landing on that scenario after ruling out other options. The sewer systems were well buffered from the ravages of storms, but they were dark, crowded spaces. And disease snaked greedy fingers throughout them all. 

Most travelers would try to avoid them. Shelter within a cave during a storm was preferable to the tunnels. No one from the cities would set foot in them. Visceral propaganda convinced city dwellers that the sewers held the ones who'd devolved into savagery, cannibalism, and insanity. Those who went in and never came out.

The Uruque pulled up a rudimentary blueprint from the archives, the tunnels appearing as glowing lines floating in his vision, which Morejvko could see also. "These are some the oldest sewer systems, made large enough to walk through—"

"I don't need a history lesson," cut in Morejvko.

The Uruque was silent a moment, considering. If he hunted them through the tunnels, he may never find them. The convolutions would make it difficult for sensing a human's heartbeat, or for sensing anything at all. 

"Your orders, General?" He continued repairing himself, reforming his body parts as though he were merely clearing his throat. Perhaps it was only that his vocal functions were also mending, but it seemed to Morejvko that his question had the slightest sneer to it. But of course that was impossible. Seven was a machine. A killing machine who had served many military officials before him.

Morejvko considered his options. 

"Every tunnel has its end," he said, tapping the arm of his chair with his ring finger. "Can you piece together all the tunnels between Sorchea and Chanette?"

"Of course." It took Seven twenty-nine seconds to locate the builders' original blueprints, and cobble them together to complete a rough network of the tunnels. 

It was like a tangle of Medusa's hair, all glowing lines snaking in endless convolutions. There were so many outlets, but only a few were on the north side of the river where they would likely be traveling to reach Chanette. Still, there were too many for Morejvko to have watched without raising an alarm. 

The Uruque then brought up a live-feed aerial map of the landscape once again. Morejvko watched as he layered the aerial map and the sewer tunnels together, so that they matched up precisely. 

"The huef," he said, but Morejvko knew what he was looking at. A human eye would have missed it. There was the huef, walking in quite a resolute line, looking very much revived, traveling along the lines of the tunnels, due west. But every so often its head bowed low to the ground as if listening intently.

"They are nothing if not loyal," said Morejvko, as the Uruque finished one last repair.