The Lost Puzzler. Eyal Kless

levels of the city. The wall had a human-sized hole in it. These were the smugglers I was looking for. Now I only had to find out how fast they would drop me.

      Four of the men were large; two were visibly enhanced by Tarakan augmentations on their arms, torsos, and shoulders. People called them Trolls. When augmented with the right Tarakan gear and by a skilled Gadgetier, a Troll was a formidable creature, a deadly warrior capable of inhuman feats. But by the look of their deformed bodies, these guys attached the cheap stuff, overused, unmaintained, or pieced together by an amateur Tinker.

      The group turned to watch me approach, standing loose-limbed and relaxed since, after all, they outnumbered me five to one. Even so, given I had flaming red dots for eyes, their expressions naturally demonstrated caution. I pulled back my cowl.

      “I’m looking for a way down,” I said.

      “No problem.” The shortest guy thrust his thumb at the hole behind him. “And since you probably have wings to go with those eyes, it’ll only cost you a fiver.”

      His companions chuckled and exchanged a glance.

      “Assuming I don’t want to spread my wings tonight,” I asked, “how much?”

      He surveyed me again, taking his time, perhaps to see how I handled the pressure. “You carrying anything?”

      “Just me,” I replied, opening my cloak to show I was unarmed—which was a mistake, of course. The man—whom I judged to be the group’s leader—smiled to himself.

      “Eighty in coin or kind,” he said.

      It was absolute robbery and I knew it.

      “Thirty,” I countered without thinking, which was my second and nearly fatal mistake. My offer was too low. I was behaving like an amateur, and they sensed it.

      One of the other men took a few casual steps to the side, preparing to flank me. “I wonder if you actually could fly,” their leader said, flapping his arms for emphasis. “Perhaps the wings materialize when you’re already in the air? Maybe we should test the theory. What do you think?”

      I let my eyes see through them. Their skin faded to transparency, revealing bones and muscle and, more important, knives, knuckle-dusters, power daggers, and stun grenades.

      They were already closing in on me, about to pounce, when I opened my own fist to let the one closest to me see the ShieldGuard-issue marked power clip nestled there. The man actually recoiled, and before the others could react further I fished the second one from my pocket and held it between thumb and forefinger, for all to see. The power clips were obviously Tarakan original, two perfect round balls emanating a blue hue that indicated they were fully charged. The clips were the sort that powered many of the artifacts in the city and beyond, even the SuperTrucks traveling on the Tarakan highways, and could only be found deep within the mysterious nodes of the City of Towers. Long ago, when Salvationist crews roamed Tarakan Valley, power clips like these were in abundance, but nowadays things are different.

      The easy brutality faded from the leader’s face, replaced by something between calculation and anxiety.

      “All I want is to get down to the Pit quickly and quietly,” I said, tossing the clips over to him. He grimaced even as he plucked them from the air. As valuable as they were, being in possession of such items these days was a capital offence.

      He eyed me with considerably more respect than before, then nodded and pocketed the items. The clips marked me either as a dangerous and resourceful man or the lackey of such an individual—but either way, a worthy client.

      The man nearest the cabin door opened it, darted inside, and returned holding a large, alarmingly rusty metal cage, a mansized version of a singing bird’s cage I once saw in a village’s market fair. He held it with both hands, his face already red with exertion, and handed it to one of the wannabe Trolls, who picked it up with only one hand. As his shoulder brace whined in protest, the Troll tilted the cage sideways, grinning proudly at the show of strength, while his equally large colleague attached a rusty hook to the top and a very long, much-too-thin metal cable. The cage was then slammed down in front of me with a loud bang and more than a few dust clouds.

      “Ever done this before?” the leader asked, and chuckled nastily when I shook my head. “Just crawl in—the hatch is quite small, but without your wings you’ll fit in nicely, and hold tight.” He indicated the wooden handlebars inside. “It’s not a long ride, but it’s bumpy.”

      “Who’s waiting at the bottom?” I asked as I entered the cage.

      “Three to six guys, tops.” He hesitated only briefly before deciding to share a tip. “I’d go with the bearded one. He’s an old-timer, a little wired but a tough Troll, and his metal’s still sharp.”

      I nodded and grasped the unpleasantly slimy handlebars, but any thought of letting them go vanished as the cage was picked up and I was shoved unceremoniously through the hole in the wall, feet first.

      “Nice doing business with ya,” I heard the leader call as I plunged into darkness.

       4

      It was a short but nasty free fall before the cage suddenly stopped, probably just a practical joke, but enough to make me heave the contents of my stomach. On the bright side, throwing up stopped me from crying out loud at the agonising pain the abrupt stop caused my shoulders. After what must have been a short pause—swinging in a cage high above ground tends to distort any sense of time—descent resumed at a fast but bearable pace. I still held the handles tight, as if this could somehow save me if I was suddenly dropped to my death. I decided it was better to look around instead of down. It was easy to spot two of the Tarakan lifts to my far left. They were floating majestically in full artificial light, each carrying dozens of people, propelled by mysterious Tarakan technology. I, on the other hand, was swinging in the darkness inside a rusty cage, my life hanging, literally, in the hands of an oversized and most likely overdosed Troll.

      Another notable difference was that the people on the discs were sheltered by an invisible barrier from the smoke and the heat that rose from below, while I was coughing up what was left of my guts and feeling as if I were being lowered into an oven. I turned my head away from the ascending smoke and looked up. From where I was looking, the tops of the towers above me seemed as unreachable as the stars.

      The low, rumbling noise, a constant feature of the Pit, signalled my descent was coming to an end.

      The cage landed on the ground with a bone-crushing thud. I still managed to retain my grip on the handlebars despite my body’s painful protests. Thankfully, the cage remained upright. Fearing that the cage would ascend before I managed to clear it, I forwent dignity and let my backside lead my body out of the cage.

      Even with my back to the yard I could sense there were people watching me with professional interest. From the edge of my vision I saw a slender figure, perhaps a woman, stepping to a large bonfire, the only source of light in the area. As soon as I was out of the cage she picked up a burning log and waved it several times in the air. The cage jolted and disappeared into the darkness above.

      I took a step and barely managed to stay upright. It was not just the rocking motion of the cage that had made me unstable; the ground was shaking. This was yet another phenomenon peculiar to the Pit. It was called the Downtown Swing or the Newcomers Half-Step—a slight rattle that was enough to make some visitors walk unsteadily or even seasick, and mark them as easy prey for the locals. It was just one of the many reasons why visitor protection was such a big business in the Pit. Walking without it meant you were either competent or a fool, and locals knew exactly how to differentiate.

      The Pit was always a wild place. Years ago the ShieldGuards had full control of most of it, but things have changed. Nowadays it was the part of the city where you had to fend for yourself, or pay for someone to protect your back. Whether coming through Cart’s Way or dismounting from one of the discs, buying visitor’s protection