ADEM

Versailles City, Oct 22, 3260

Adem hot-wired a delivery scooter to speed up the trip, but Dooley already had a triage area established and was covered in dust and blood by the time his son arrived at the elevator depot. The attack had taken down one of the four lattice towers workers used for maintenance of the system.

“How did you get past the security cordon?” Dooley said.

“Walked. They stopped me on one street so I went three blocks over. What’s happening?”

“Death and destruction. All east of here.” Dooley wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, leaving a dark smear on his fair skin. “The damned tower was three klicks high. I’m just grateful they only took down the one.”

“City’s not doing much to help.”

“We’re it for the moment. Bunch of rubes fresh from a party.” Dooley handed Adem a first-aid kit. “The thing fell across something the locals call the Square. Get in there and see what we’re up against.”

Adem slung the kit over his shoulder and followed the debris. The explosion had gone off at the tower’s base, toppling the structure like a giant tree. Gravity had been kind enough to lay some of it on the roadway. Mostly though, it had fallen into apartment blocks and squats.

Adem climbed the tower’s now sideways framework to get through the fence surrounding the Square. The struts and guy lines, a mixture of aluminum, synthetic-diamond weave, and carbon nanotubes, scraped through the knees of his thin wedding trousers and into the flesh beneath. He took a moment to inspect his wounds and gave both knees a squirt of insta-bandage.

The tower had flexed as it fell, missing a cluster of food carts and smashing through a low wall and into a large garden. Adem followed the destruction past neat rows of vegetables. A hutch full of lizard things had been smashed flat, and the survivors were meeping pitifully to be let out. Adem kicked it open, wincing at the impact through his thin, shiny shoes. The five or six survivors scurried into the plant growth on either side of the impact zone.

“Ought not to have done that,” a woman said. Adem twisted to see who it was and nearly fell against the tower’s lattice again. She pointed at the departed lizards with her chin. “People will be hungry. You cut loose their food.”

“I’m sorry,” Adem said. “They were trapped and–”

“It’s done now.” She squinted at him. “You lost? La Mur is that way. Might want to get back there before folks start looking for someone to blame.”

Adem brushed at his clothes. “I was at a party. My wedding. We came down to help.”

Tears streaked paths down the woman’s dust-caked face. “Help won’t help,” she pointed farther east, the way she had come, “it came right down on the Children’s Village.”

“Show me,” Adem said.

He followed the woman to the far corner of the garden and helped her over the remains of the interior fence. The tower had fallen across a cluster of huts and tents.

“What is it?” Adem said.

“Illicite. We keep them safe when their parents run off or go to prison. Feed ‘em, put a roof over their heads.”

Adem surveyed the rubble. It seemed impossible that anyone could have survived. “How many were in there?”

“Dozens.” The woman’s hands rose to her face. Her fingers were scraped raw, two of them nearly to the bone.

“Let me see your hands.” Adem coated her fingers liberally with insta-bandage and helped her to a seat against the wall. “Stay there and rest.”

He walked carefully into the rubble. Here and there, a small hand or foot protruded from the piles of cloth and wood. Each time, Adem dropped to his knees and checked for signs of life.

“Hello!” he shouted. “Is there anyone here?”

He tugged a handmade stuffed animal from under a beam and held it in both hands. He shouted again. A low cry made him drop the stuffed animal and stumble toward the outer wall. He heard it again.

“She’s dying!” the voice said.

Adem heaved at the rubble and succeeded in lifting a large portion of roof up. The fallen roof had created a small zone of protection where three children crouched: two boys and a little girl. The older boy blinked dust out of his eyes and pointed at the girl. “Her arm. She’s dying!”

One of the children had tied a rough tourniquet around the girl’s arm, which ended in a mass of pulped flesh and bone. Adem checked her pulse. He sprayed the rest of the insta-bandage on the girl’s arm and strapped the first-aid kit’s small docbox to her tiny chest.

“There’s a woman near the garden wall,” he told the older boy. “Take her back to the elevator and look for a man named Dooley. He has red hair. Tell him I’m coming with the girl. Okay?”

The boy took the younger one’s hand and pulled him toward the wall. Adem turned his attention back to the girl. Her skin was gray from blood loss and shock, but the telltales on the docbox said she was stable. It hissed as it administered some drug or other.

“What’s your name, honey?” Adem said.

The girl’s eyes fluttered open. “Chuchu.”

Adem slid his arms under her and lifted. She weighed next to nothing. She leaned her head weakly against his shoulder. “Okay, Chuchu. Let’s get you somewhere safe.”