Blackfish City(24)

The woman who leads them has been transformed. Whatever wretched old crone she is, in whatever miserable crevice of Arm Seven or Eight she resides, she has left all that behind. Right now, she is magnificent. A monster.

“You guys can get the hell out of here right now,” a thug hollers at the half dozen journalists lazing on the bleachers. “Unless you want some of this, too.”

“Let them stay,” the woman says, and from her accent they know she is the original article, straight New York, by way of the Dominican Republic, been here a week or twenty years, it doesn’t matter, she’s had so little actual conversation with her neighbors that the city can put no fingerprint on her voice. “They should see this. The world should see this.”

Still. Most of them leave.

“But they could call Safety!” someone says, making ready to pursue them.

“They could call Safety without moving an inch,” she says. “But by the time Safety gets here, our work will be done.”

Their target has not moved since their arrival. For why else could they be here, if not for the Killer Whale Woman? She stands there, watching them, and the journalists will report that she is smiling.

Imagine her beautiful. Imagine her stout and muscular inside her leathers and furs. Imagine someone so strong that if you knew she was on your side, you would never be afraid again. And if she was coming for you, you would know all you needed to do was wait.

“Surround her,” the woman says. “Don’t let her get to the bear.”

Several members of the mob notice it for the first time. Chained to the wall, getting to its feet, bristling with rage at the smell of so much anger. And now the smell of so much fear. A couple of people yelp. One runs.

“Your kind is not welcome here. You are an abomination. A profanation of the human being as God made it, in His image. He made us distinct from the animals for a reason. Your bond with that savage beast in chains over there is sin, and that sin is why your people were wiped out.”

At the word abomination, their target moves for the first time. She raises the weapon that has been resting at her side and takes hold of it with both hands. It is taller than she is, walrus-ivory handle and a slightly curved shaft that might be ironwood or might be the rib of the most massive of whales. At its end, a blade like a lopsided crescent moon, fatter at the bottom than the top, its edge broken up into hooks and barbs.

Some of the journalists capture photos of it. Some of them are filming the whole thing.

“Why have you come here?”

Someone hurls a pipe. Hard. Her motion is effortless, so slight that some people don’t even see it, the most minimal shift of the weapon to deflect the projectile without striking it head-on in a way that might damage her blade. The effect on the mob is obvious, immediate. Mouths open. Feet shuffle. For the first time, the courage of a violent crowd begins to crack. They are not invincible. Their target is not helpless.

It has the opposite effect on their leader. Or perhaps it is their fear that makes her braver. Her chest swells. She steps closer, into range of the weapon.

“You are not welcome here,” she hisses.

“She can’t understand you,” someone yells. “You know they’re afraid of technology. She doesn’t have an implant.”

At this, Killer Whale Woman laughs.

This, too, startles the mob, so much so that hardly anyone notices that she has struck out with her weapon. Only their leader’s scream, several milliseconds later, alerts them that something is wrong. Her right hand is lying on the floor, being baptized in a cascade of arterial blood. The smell of it makes the polar bear roar.

“Get her!” someone shouts, and the crowd closes in on her. Their dehanded leader staggers away to the far edge of the platform.

Pipes and chains swing. Pause the video, zoom in, slow it down, you can see the ballet unfold. Two men rush forward first, side by side, so close a single swing decapitates both of them. A woman attacker crouches low, coming in from the side, and catches a high kick that knocks her backward. The swing that lopped off two heads reaches its graceful end, and already the orcamancer is pulling it back, shifting her hands to the center of the shaft, ramming it back, expertly striking the rib cage of the man trying to run up on her from behind. Bones break. Their sharp edges stab into organs.

People stand in the doorway—athletes from other levels of the Platform, and the standard stream of curious Qaanaaqians who come every day to visit their mythical visitor. Fifteen screens are focused on the action, capturing every instant of it.

The polar bear stomps its forepaws against the ground. The whole hall echoes with the metal ring of it.

“Gaaah!” someone shouts, or at least that’s how their desperate, inarticulate cry will be rendered in the Post–New York Post. Before it is finished she has thrust her weapon forward and its blade has pierced his throat, one barb catching on his spine, and she swings it to the right to shake him free, bringing his body into the path of one of his comrades, who trips over it and tumbles to the floor and has one arm severed by the now unencumbered weapon.

A gunshot. The screech-whistle of a ricochet, and then another, more distant, as the bullet vanishes into the gloom of the Platform’s lowest level. And then a curse, for, as so often happens with the aging firearms of Americans, the igniting gunpowder has caused the barrel to explode in the hands of its user.

But the sound of it causes the orcamancer to pause. Her smile stops. She looks from face to face, hand to hand.