Read Online Metropolitan by Walter Jon Williams - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Walter Jon Williams
Tags: Science-Fiction, Urban Fantasy, Magic, High-Fantasy, New Weird, cyberpunk, Alternate world, constantine, hugo award, metropolitan, farfuture, walter jon williams, city on fire, nebula nominee, aiah, plasm, world city
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by tape.
Plasm seems to flush Aiah’s muscles as she drops the manhole back into its socket.
“You’re pretty strong,” the old man says, and sits in his folding chair. “Wanna buy something?” he says hopefully.
Aiah scans the rubbish on the old steel door, sees a few cheap metal lucky charms on metal necklaces. One is in the shape of the Trigram, a useful tool transformed into worthless popular magic. “I’ll take that,” she says. The old man takes her money and she puts the charm around her neck, tucking it into the high collar of the jumpsuit. The symbol of power sits cool on her breastbone.
Aiah asks direction to the trackline station. “Just around the corner,” the old man says, and Aiah thanks the man again and heads for the station. Along the way she scents cooking smells and stops at another scaffold-stall. There’s a pink-cheeked maternal woman behind the counter who smiles at her and looks apologetic.
“Oh, sorry,” she says. “We sold out of the stew, and the new batch isn’t ready yet, and the pigeon’s been on the fire too long and has gone all dry — I’d hate to sell it to you.”
“No problem. Thanks anyway.”
Aiah sees another stall across the street and buys a bowl of soup with pasta and vegetables fresh from someone’s roof garden. It has too much comino, like most Jaspeeri food, but otherwise its warmth and its taste is gratifying to someone who’s just hoisted herself up from the underground with three heavy plasm batteries in her sack.
As Aiah stands by the stall and eats her soup she sees the pink-cheeked woman sell stew and skewered pigeon to three different passers-by.
Aiah feels her cheeks burn.
She isn’t used to being shafted by people who smile so helpfully.
She returns the empty soup bowl to the vendor and stalks toward the trackline station. A group of young Jaspeeri men stand on a streetcorner and watch her in sullen silence. Jaspeeri Nation territory, she thinks. Barkazils not served.
At least, Aiah figures, now she knows the neighborhood, and her place in it.
CHAPTER 5
Two days later it’s Senko’s Day. Aiah has the day off, since Mengene’s moved the plasm search to a lower priority. Aiah dresses in blacklight colors, fluorescent red and green and gold, and carefully arranges her hair in the ideal long ringlets that are too much of a bother the rest of the time. She wears the bracelet with the little etched ivory disk that Gil gave her, and the metal lucky charm under her blouse. Then she hoists her tote on her shoulder and heads for the trackline station. If she can mix her holiday with business, so much the better.
Aiah drags her heavy tote up from the underground and discovers the streets already full. The weather is fine, with only a few light clouds beneath the Shield. Women in bright, flowing gowns pose artfully on balconies. Bellowing men in tufted headgear, bare chests striped with paint, swagger down the street carrying containers of beer and wine. Apartment dwellers have turned their sound systems onto windows and balconies, and the amped sound ricochets along brick and concrete, rattles windows, jumps inside the skins of the revelers. Bass rhythms rock the pavement beneath Aiah’s feet. Aiah finds a grin breaking out on her face, and her steps are lighter despite the tote’s strap digging into her shoulder.
The street is closed to traffic and already strewn with litter. Aiah bobs a zigzag course through people dancing on the pavement, then past a group of stiltwalkers, all dressed as fabulous animals with horns and sweeping tails made of soft plastic foam.
A series of booms overhead, accompanied by dazzling flashes, heralds an advertisement for Lord of the New City . Kherzaki’s huge, determined face scowls down out the sky.
Aiah’s cousin Elda has an apartment overlooking the parade route, one where the inevitable scaffolding has been turned into regular balconies with scalloped wrought-iron rails — a nice place, because
Plasm seems to flush Aiah’s muscles as she drops the manhole back into its socket.
“You’re pretty strong,” the old man says, and sits in his folding chair. “Wanna buy something?” he says hopefully.
Aiah scans the rubbish on the old steel door, sees a few cheap metal lucky charms on metal necklaces. One is in the shape of the Trigram, a useful tool transformed into worthless popular magic. “I’ll take that,” she says. The old man takes her money and she puts the charm around her neck, tucking it into the high collar of the jumpsuit. The symbol of power sits cool on her breastbone.
Aiah asks direction to the trackline station. “Just around the corner,” the old man says, and Aiah thanks the man again and heads for the station. Along the way she scents cooking smells and stops at another scaffold-stall. There’s a pink-cheeked maternal woman behind the counter who smiles at her and looks apologetic.
“Oh, sorry,” she says. “We sold out of the stew, and the new batch isn’t ready yet, and the pigeon’s been on the fire too long and has gone all dry — I’d hate to sell it to you.”
“No problem. Thanks anyway.”
Aiah sees another stall across the street and buys a bowl of soup with pasta and vegetables fresh from someone’s roof garden. It has too much comino, like most Jaspeeri food, but otherwise its warmth and its taste is gratifying to someone who’s just hoisted herself up from the underground with three heavy plasm batteries in her sack.
As Aiah stands by the stall and eats her soup she sees the pink-cheeked woman sell stew and skewered pigeon to three different passers-by.
Aiah feels her cheeks burn.
She isn’t used to being shafted by people who smile so helpfully.
She returns the empty soup bowl to the vendor and stalks toward the trackline station. A group of young Jaspeeri men stand on a streetcorner and watch her in sullen silence. Jaspeeri Nation territory, she thinks. Barkazils not served.
At least, Aiah figures, now she knows the neighborhood, and her place in it.
CHAPTER 5
Two days later it’s Senko’s Day. Aiah has the day off, since Mengene’s moved the plasm search to a lower priority. Aiah dresses in blacklight colors, fluorescent red and green and gold, and carefully arranges her hair in the ideal long ringlets that are too much of a bother the rest of the time. She wears the bracelet with the little etched ivory disk that Gil gave her, and the metal lucky charm under her blouse. Then she hoists her tote on her shoulder and heads for the trackline station. If she can mix her holiday with business, so much the better.
Aiah drags her heavy tote up from the underground and discovers the streets already full. The weather is fine, with only a few light clouds beneath the Shield. Women in bright, flowing gowns pose artfully on balconies. Bellowing men in tufted headgear, bare chests striped with paint, swagger down the street carrying containers of beer and wine. Apartment dwellers have turned their sound systems onto windows and balconies, and the amped sound ricochets along brick and concrete, rattles windows, jumps inside the skins of the revelers. Bass rhythms rock the pavement beneath Aiah’s feet. Aiah finds a grin breaking out on her face, and her steps are lighter despite the tote’s strap digging into her shoulder.
The street is closed to traffic and already strewn with litter. Aiah bobs a zigzag course through people dancing on the pavement, then past a group of stiltwalkers, all dressed as fabulous animals with horns and sweeping tails made of soft plastic foam.
A series of booms overhead, accompanied by dazzling flashes, heralds an advertisement for Lord of the New City . Kherzaki’s huge, determined face scowls down out the sky.
Aiah’s cousin Elda has an apartment overlooking the parade route, one where the inevitable scaffolding has been turned into regular balconies with scalloped wrought-iron rails — a nice place, because
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