Ninth City Burning by J. Patrick Black

Author:J. Patrick Black
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-08-17T10:43:13+00:00

THIRTY-SIX

KIZABEL

For the rest of the evening, my mind is a scribbly black cloud of resentful wrath. The crew on HeavensHammer gives me a wide berth as I bash bits of armor back into place, while Lady, sensing my dark, choleric state, forgoes her usual cheeky greeting when I return to the workshop, posting her revised gwayd schematics without a peep. I growl ferally for several minutes before collapsing into an insensate coma, awakening hours later feeling more coherent but no less irate.

As soon as I get my hands on the Project, though, the inclement weather inside my skull begins to clear. Working on the Project is like that: I can’t keep a bad mood going. Before I know it, I’m securely in my groove, sealing broken gwayd canals and singing along as the Clash1 echoes through my workshop, while Lady putters around in the guise of a CE 1950s housewife—an uncharacteristic show of solidarity for my cleanup efforts, though only a token one as she remains unsullied by the rigors of manual labor, shuffling nimbly in high heels and pearls, lavender dress spotless beneath a crisp white apron.

I have the Project hoisted up by his armpits—an undignified pose but better than the way I left him—and am perched atop his head when from below comes a strange, ringing sound. I look down to see Lady, leaning on a vacuum cleaner2 with a telephone3 wedged against her chin. “Hold on, I’ll ask her,” she says, then calls up to me. “Hey, Kizabel, there’s someone here to see you.”

“Who is it?”

“Her name is Rachel Ochre,” Lady says, without having to inquire by way of telephone. “She came by a few times while you were out, too.”

I can’t think of anyone I know by the strange name of Rachel Ochre, but then it hits me: the Amazon. That giantess I had to lead around all day, looming behind my tour of Sixth-Class cadets. “Tell her I’m busy.”

Lady mutters into her telephone, then calls to me, “She says she’ll wait, if you don’t mind. She seems like a very polite girl,” Lady offers, since she can tell I’m annoyed.

“Fine, fine. Tell her I’ll be there in a minute,” I grumble, and proceed to dismount and conceal the Project.

I’d forgotten how pretty she was. To the extent I concerned myself with Cadet Rachel Ochre at all, the image in my mind was of the brawling, slavering barbarian Imway described—quite at odds with this tall girl in her immaculate gray cadet’s uniform, hair done up neatly like an artifact of antique brass; even the dark birthmark on her neck is more of an accessory than a blemish. And not a drop of drool anywhere.

“Hello, Miss Kizabel,” she says, tentative, words colored in her noco accent. “May I come in?”

However friendly she looks, I’m not about to let her anywhere near the Project. I lean against the door, blocking any view of my workshop. “Let’s talk here. You realize it’s practically 0400, don’t you?”

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” she says bashfully.

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