Revolet Fenriel made herself into the most important person in Quayside for one reason. Nobody in the city behind the wall cared what happened in the outers. As long as they produced the goods and showed up to work on time, nobody would even ask a question.
The first time Revolet killed a man she was nine annum old. It was an accident, but she was able to eat and stay warm that night. She stole his food and his blanket, though she threw out the blanket in the morning. The man had sand-fleas living in the hole-filled mess of batting, and the bites were not worth the transient warmth. For a week, she hid from everyone expecting someone to come looking for the man’s murderer. A week after the fight where she wrestled the scraps from him and tripped him so that he fell just right to break his neck, Revolet was back on the narrow street where she had abandoned his corpse. He was still there where she left him, and his stench had only grown. That was when she knew that nobody was watching her. Nobody was watching anyone.
After that, Revolet pushed every boundary she could. She kept pushing but nothing and no one her ever did stop her. By the time she reached her important twelfth celebration, she had an organization of clever whelps and starter villains at her command. She had carved out most of the Quayside neighborhood’s low-outs zone at the bottom of the hill where most of the actual excrement naturally flowed. It wasn’t enough. She kept working.
Her biggest heist was a revolution among the outers. The train was nearly fully loaded the morning she hit it. Revolet was sixteen then.
“Bari. Go.” Revolet hissed his cue. Bari was a capable eleven-annum boy with strong hands and good grip. The boy slipped between two train cars and hopped up on the hitch, yanking the latch-pin out of the hole that kept the cars from disconnecting. The pin hit the gravel below the train with a dull thud. Diversion set, Revolet thought. He climbed quickly to the roof of the cargo car, waving at a few of the passengers in the adjacent car sipping something hot from glass cups. Keep moving, Bari.
“Kuth. Go.” Revolet’s voice carried without sounding like words. The girl ran out from the deep, early morning shadows that covered the platform on the cargo end of the loading dock.
“Wait! Wait!” She waved her arms wildly at the train’s captain. “Stop.” The man with the crimson hat at the helm of the engine ignored her.
The next step is ready.
The engine lurched forward, slamming its force against the first car, loaded full of boxes of raw metal from the mines and smelters. That car lurched and yanked on the next car, that one full of a mix of doses and clothing sewn largely by the residents of Quayside. That car in turn tugged against the next cargo car, which released from the passenger car that came next.
The passengers looked around at each other in shock. Bari waved at them from the top of the cargo car where he lay on his stomach. Stupid, Bari. Stupid. He knows I’m not helping him when he gets caught. Then the real shouting began. It started with Kuth.
“I told you! You don’t listen. I said to stop. There was a prank but nobody listens to a girl trying to help. I tried.”
Men shouted at the captain with his hat now crooked, after nearly knocking it off leaning out of the window to see what was happening. Perfect.
Revolet smirked to herself. She leaned, affecting innocence, facing the rising sun on a post supporting the roof of an adjacent three-story stucco building. It was tied for the tallest building in Quayside, and situated right next to the train station. Revolet managed to take it over a few months previous with her crew and a few well-placed bribes and murders. The murders were more effective. She looked up as the sun rose at the best view in Quayside.
Besides the view of her crew extracting tens of thousands of doses from the train thirty yards away, Revolet enjoyed a clear view of Hatra from below. The city was a marvel in its way, but Quayside was hers. This job would solidify her position atop the ladder of power in the section of the Outers to the west of the old sea wall. The old Yeoman Stone sat atop the end of the wall, casting a shadow that could predict the beginning and the end of the seasonal dust storms. Everyone knew that when the dawn shadow of the Yeoman fell on the city-side edge of Rathboen Rock that spring storms were over. That was this morning.
Kuth explained loudly that she saw a little girl climbing on the passenger car. Good girl, Kuth. Bari slipped down the other side of the third train car and unhitched it. Then he slipped underneath the car and climbed into the under carriage. Nice, Bari.
The city rose above her to the left and behind the train station. Ahead of her to the east the sun rose just above the old sea wall. The effect of the deep, early morning shadows made Quayside a perfect place to run a late-night racket. Every morning was perfect for sleeping in. The wall curved away and toward the city, signifying the dividing line where the docks used to sit a thousand years before, when the sea port she now lived on the bottom of were the busiest port on the great body of water. Hard to imagine now. The top of this building would have been under twenty meters of water.
She glanced back. The train’s pilot and his crew had stopped the train and reversed it to re-connect the passenger cars.
This will be fun.
The brakes slowed the train engine, and the first two cargo cars, but Bari’s most recent work meant the third car released and continued rolling on its own — very slowly — toward the passenger car. Passengers screamed and tried to run away from the runaway car crawling at them like a twenty-ton cripple begging for a spare dose.
Revolet looked up at the long shadows from the Downpods on the face of the bluff, rising above the eastern side of the city. The city was waking up, unaware of what they were losing. The fops in the mansions at the top of the city couldn’t see all the way down here. They didn’t want to. The loss of a hundred thousand doses wasn’t going to hurt them at all. I bet they can’t see past the pods, and never leave their shiny prison on the hill. If only they knew they were the ones in the cage, I wonder what they would say. Nothing. I bet they wouldn’t have words.
She turned toward her neighborhood, the lower part of the outers below the train, nestled in the shadow of the wall and Rathboen. Sounds of morning filtered up past the ruckus from the train to her left. The cool morning air chilled her and raised the little hairs on her arms and the back of her neck. This is right.
The passengers were only slightly shaken. The cars were reconnected. The captain had already soothed the passengers and returned to the front of the train on the platform on the side opposite of Revolet. On the near side of the train, six of her bigger thugs switched boxes of medicine for boxes of tiny pebbles. She watched them slide the door shut and disappear into the shadows that led to the hole in the fence, half a building down from where she stood atop the building enjoying the sunrise.
What a beautiful city. I’m so glad I don’t live there. These are my people and we’ll all make it through the summer at least with these doses.
She looked down over her fiefdom. Quayside is mine now. She looked back up at the train, and scanned the length of it.
All the hitches were connected. Bari made a gesture with his finger at the train from his new perch in the shadows on the platform.
Revolet’s gaze reached the captain. He noticed her looking and scowled at her. She smiled and waved a friendly hello.
This is right.
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