Those who knew Jed Lacey best thought he was merciless. They were wrong. He used his weapon repeatedly before he climbed to the street. That was the only mercy desired or available to the hideously mangled forms who mewled at him in agony.
* * *
The guards at the anteroom of Level 20 were nervous and confused, like everyone else in the City. The lower levels of some buildings had burst upward, killing thousands. Long sections of traffic-laden streets had collapsed, adding their loads to the death tolls. K2 was denser than air, but the swirling currents raised by the explosion had blown tendrils of the gas to the surface in many places. Where the odorless hemotoxin touched, skin blackened and flesh swelled until it sloughed. Red Teams wearing atmosphere suits were patrolling streets that were otherwise deserted by the living.
Lacey pushed through the shouting clot of newshawks. He was gaunt and cold. His suit had been shredded into the garb of a jester mocking the Plague. No one who looked at Lacey stayed in his way.
The door from the Commission Room slid open to pass a uniformed captain in full riot harness. “Max!” Lacey croaked. His fingers brushed the heavy man’s wrist to keep him from leveling the slung needle gun.
“Where the hell did you come from, Lacey?” Nootbaar grunted. The guards stood tense and featureless behind their faceplates.
Lacey grinned horribly. “That’s right, Max,” he said. “Now I need to see the brass—” he thumbed toward the closed door—”bad. I know what happened.”
Nootbaar bit a knuckle. “Okay,” he said, and he held the door open for Lacey.
Commission staff and uniformed police made the room itself seem alive with their motion. Lacey slipped among them, headed for the three desks in the middle. A projection sphere was relaying the horror of a dwelling unit where three levels had sunk into a pool of K2.
Characteristically, it was Lemba who first noticed Lacey’s approach. He spoke silently to his implant. A klaxon hooted and the projection sphere pulsed red for attention. The Chief Commissioner’s voice boomed from ceiling speakers, “Clear the room! Clear the room!”
“What the—” Commissioner Kuhn began, but she too saw the ragged figure and understood. “Did he—”
“Silence!” Lemba growled. “Until the room’s cleared.” The woman glared but accepted the logic of secrecy. Her gown was a frothy ball of red. It was much the same shade that Lacey’s suit had once been.
The door closed behind the last pair of armed guards.
“I’ve done what you wanted,” Lacey lied. But he had done what the world needed instead, protected one seed of civilization against the day when it could sprout . . . “Now give me a pardon for what I did for you. Then you’ll never have to see me again.”
“Nothing was said about a pardon,” Arcadio muttered over tented fingers.
“I did what you wanted!” Lacey repeated. He did not raise his voice, but his eyes were balefires licking the bones of each Commissioner. “Give me a pardon and no one will ever know about it. Even you won’t have to learn.”
“The explosion, the gas . . . ,” Commissioner Kuhn whispered. “All these people dead in the streets—”
“They died!” Lacey snarled. “It was cheap at the price, do you see? You’ve got your city back now, because the scum below blew themselves apart. The ones down there were tougher than you and smarter than you worms’ll ever be—but they’re dead. Don’t clear the K2, just seal all the openings. You’re safe forever now—from Underground. You’re safe from the dead.”
“We aren’t going to turn that loose, are we?” Kuhn asked slowly. There was nothing rhetorical in her question.
“The alternative is to try to keep it caged,” Lemba noted. He shrugged toward Arcadio. “I doubt that would be a profitable undertaking. And we have a great deal else to concern ourselves with at the moment.”
“All those dead,” Kuhn said. “And we directed . . .”
The Chief Commissioner coughed. Neither of the others spoke. “Citizen Lacey,” Lemba said, “by virtue of the powers civil and criminal vested in me by the Charter of this City, and with the concurrence of my co-commissioners—” he looked at each of them. Arcadio nodded minusculy; Kuhn did not, her cheeks as bright as her garments, but she did not gainsay Lemba—”I do hereby pardon you for all crimes, actual or alleged, which you may have committed within this subregion to the present date.”