Excerpt from Chapter 1: The Thief of Numbers

 

After the apocalypse: In a walled medieval-like city, a gifted young woman attempts to rescue the outpost from the dire plans of the ruling, embodied AI. A stand-alone dystopian novel.

 

     In the walled city, major character Tamar is pursuing her normal occupation—thievery—when she has an unexpected and potentially disastrous meeting.

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     Tamar loved a light, pattering rain and a decent fog. It helped her remain unnoticed as she made her rounds. She wore a loose jacket with spacious inside pockets and a nice hood to partially mask her face, should a thing or two go missing in a neighborhood, and in case people recalled a slight figure in rain garb who did not look strictly local. Of course, you couldn't count on escaping the keen sight of a susser. For that you needed stealth and luck, and she had both.

     Waiting in an abandoned doorway, she watched the front door of an elite residence. No one took note of her.

     By her twenty-fourth year, she had perfected obscurity. Since her hair was the color of honey and a bit showy, she kept it clipped short. She wore nothing of distinction and walked with a little slouch that suggested she cared little about rising up the ladder of rank. At numeric 1,008, she hardly merited attention. In crowded places, it was even easier. Among fine folk, she was invisible. Supposing she passed an elan—she had seen one a time or two—she was beneath regard. Which was just fine with her.

     Right on the strike of six bells of the evening, the widow Lucia emerged from the house, leaving for dinner in the City. A rotocab whisked her away, its great wheels throwing muddy water on Tamar's boots as it shuddered by her doorway. With the home now vacant, Tamar made her way down a backway to a rear garden. Tufts of fog rolled through, screening her from the close-packed great houses just off Midway. A swift scan of the mist-clotted garden revealed the outlines of a shed and child's swing set.

     A twist of her all-purpose key, and she pushed the door open. A faint, high-pitched squeak from behind. She turned. Had the swing rocked a bit? Tamar shrank against the doorjamb and watched. This had been the residence of Alban, a man of quality, with an elite rank of 120. Here, the sussers might keep a close iron watch, except that Alban had died and his pledge mate had never risen past 451, her numeric on the day she made vows with him.

     Tamar remained still as a column, watching for movement.

     She had always been lucky with sussers. The metal law that sussers enforced had better targets than minor thieves. Some people, perhaps most, admired them for their work in flushing out misdeeds. They called them guardians. So perhaps the citizenry would one day watch her receive judgment at the hands of a guardian. But she didn't plan to die that way.

     The wind whipped a strand of hair against her wet cheek. The swing moved in the gust. Only the wind.

     Once inside, by the fading light from the windows she noted the quality décor: flocked wallpaper, handmade furniture, the deeply sculpted carpet, and chair seats covered in good, patterned wovens. The widow Lucia wouldn't miss a few items. Moving quickly through the house, Tamar chose her pieces, not so heavy as to weigh down her pockets, but with good value at Pickings and, always, a thing or two for Theo and sometimes Bertrand. She snatched up a set of writing pens, a small decorative box that might fetch a major or two. A packet of embellished playing cards player cards that Theo would like, though he had trouble finding partners who didn't mind losing every game.

     Next, the dining room, yielding nothing to her practiced eye. Ignoring the staircase for now, she entered a spacious den with a finely carved desk and tables.

     An ancestor frame hung on a near wall, showing milky white until its owner might ask to see a predecessor. Tamar had always disliked ancestor frames, unable to shake her fancy that the Silver itself watched through the glass. A childish idea, but she checked the frame again to be sure it was cloudy.

     On a side table, a collection of pottery fragments from the darktime, and next to them, a stack of leather-bound books. Also a dish of coins. Unlike proper shards, they were old, round coins, but valuable for their age alone. She scooped them up. Spreading her kerchief on the table, she twisted them into the cloth so they wouldn't clatter and slipped them into a pocket.

     A dull jolt of sound. And once more, this time resolving into an unmistakable thump of feet. Someone was in the house.

     A row of tall windows in the room gave out onto the backyard. At least she was on the first floor. She darted to the nearest one and tried the latch handle. It didn't budge.

     The thudding sound was odd. Heavy tread, slow and methodical. She knew what it must be. A susser. Her stomach zinged with panic. She tried the latch again, then at the next window. Locked.

     She imagined the metal constable, a few inches shorter than her own height, gears and hinges exposed, its movements ponderous when slow, darting when swift. It would be swiveling its long head from side to side, looking, checking. Little arms in front held with digits pointing down in relaxed mode. Backward-facing knee joints with tensile strength far beyond derm capacity. The obscenely short, heavy counterweight as a tail. The jaws.

     In a moment the creature would enter the room and see her outlined against the window. She moved to the wall between the windows, leaning against the flocked wallpaper. Her hands pressed hard against the wall as though it might take pity and absorb her.

     The susser entered the den. Head moving in an arc from one side to the other.

     When it scanned her for her numeric, it would know she had no business here. It would know exactly where 1,008 was authorized to be. But surely it wouldn't choose to splatter blood in the fine den. She began to shake.

     The susser approached. Raising a short, powerful right leg, it leaned forward and set it down, pivoting in the unmistakable susser stalk. It stopped two strides away.

     Slowly, she turned her right hand from its place on the wall and opened her palm to the susser.

     It paused to read her stitch. Did it cock its head? All thoughts drained away as she stood, hardly breathing. Would it hurt very much if it skewered her with a digit . . . or sliced open her neck . . . the sickening metal eyes . . .

     Then it plodded by, head panning to and fro, to and fro, the hinge on its nearest hip making a faint squeal.

     It was leaving. She lived. It let her go. She could breathe again, and her anger caught up with her. You great, ugly device from hell. You stupid, creaking bag of bolts.

     The creature refused to rise to her insults—which admittedly were only thoughts. It left the room, head held high.

     Why had it spared her? But, lest it change what passed for its mind, Tamar tried the window again. This time the window handle moved, now that she was pushing it in the right direction. Dark hells, for stupid! The latch disengaged and in a heartbeat she was out of the house and fleeing toward the street.

     The evening's heavy drear enfolded her in calming cold. She looked back toward the house to be sure the creature was not following her. Nothing moved. She pushed on, past the great houses looming in the fog, lit windows bright-eyed, and into Midway, where she mixed with the press of workers going home. She passed a guardian depot, its wide metal door now agape to receive a loping susser. The one she had just seen? If so, it didn't stop to reconsider her.

     Why had the susser ignored her? Cornered as an intruder, she had come within an arm's span of the susser's stiletto fingers, but it had not reacted. Could it be defective? The metal constables having defects was a satisfying thought.

     Night deepened as she wound her way home, a route that took her past the towering Wall, its great, quarried stones set in mathematical precision, without crack or flaw though seven hundred years old.

     The glow of the phosphor backway illumined even this remote area, and by that ghostly light Tamar continued into the low quarter toward her squat. No one else was abroad, and she threw back her hood.

     A movement above caught her eye, something outlined against the last of the sun.

     She started in surprise, but it was only a bird roosting on the Wall's parapet. It tucked great wings into its body. An owl. Squat, dark, and fat with bristling feathers, it crouched like a stony gargoyle, perhaps frowning at her trespass.

     As she continued on her way, she heard its eerie call, a soft, trilling hoot.

 

~*~

Find this novel in ebook, paperback and deluxe hardcover at Kay Kenyon’s The Thief of Numbers Kickstarter April 8-29. Retail editions not available until fall. Click here to preview the project before launch date.