Torq

Novel Excerpt

The 1st Cog

On the day his hero died, Rand Roberts was fighting, as usual.

They were three-to-one against him, which was typical. Sometimes the odds were four-to-one or even five-to-one. But never one-to-one.

Not since he'd been maybe ten years old.

They fought in the Bowels, amidst the miles of tightly packed tunnels, drops, and naughts that filled the lowest levels of the Machine. Down here, where the only light came from mysterious, glowing symbols that marked some of the walls, people like Rand fought other people like Rand, sometimes for scraps of food or clothing.

And sometimes, just for the sake of fighting.

Today, it was over a ludling, what the upperfolk would call a little boy. The three stainers had found him and surrounded him, ready to hand out some serious hurt. That was when Rand stepped in to – express his disapproval.

And, as was his way, expressing disapproval involved walking up and punching the first stainer dead in the face. No warning at all. Just Rand's fist and the lud's nose.

Rand didn't believe in self-defense. He never let another fighter swing first. If blood needed drawing, then he drew it. And when someone hit the floor, Rand made sure it wasn't him.

The stainer reeled with the blow and groaned, which alerted the other two. The second lud was both taller and older, maybe twenty — middle-aged for the Bowels – thin and wiry. He charged at Rand, throwing a wide punch that was both badly executed and strategically stupid. Rand stepped into it, caught the stainer’s bicep in his fist and squeezed.

The lud wailed like a steam whistle.

Then Rand delivered a left cross that dropped him, before turning to face the others.

This particular naught was fairly remote. It was too deep in the Machine for anyone to actually live here, maybe by turning one of the surrounding gearboxes into a flop. Even bowels rats, like Rand, rarely squatted this far down. Too little light and too many grabbers. Still, it was part of the Bowels, so he patrolled it, swinging by here at least once each day, looking for trouble.

This time he’d found some.

A naught was simply an empty space created by the juxtaposition of a few of the countless gearboxes that filled the Lower Machine. These gearboxes came in all sizes, from fist-sized to large enough to hold a thousand luds. Some of the bigger ones were emptied out and used for flops, chapels, businesses, and – up in the Middle where there was room – factories. But down here in the Bowels, where no one lived, most were derelict, turning red from centuries of rust. The walls of this naught were nothing more than the outsides of the surrounding gearboxes. The floor was the roof of another gearbox, and the ceiling the underside of yet another. The Machine — the Lower Machine anyway — was constructed of thousands of these ancient gadgets, all pressed close together and piled one atop the next.

Most gearboxes were crammed with old cogwheels, some tiny and some huge, all of them frozen with age. Who had built them and what function they’d once performed was a mystery that the starving lowerfolk had long ago stopped trying to solve.

All anyone knew for sure was that the giant Machine – the only world anyone had ever known – was broken.

The stainer that Rand had slammed first recovered himself, wiping at his bloodied nose. His cheeks reddened, which made his stainer mark, a blotchy tattoo covering one whole side of his face – like a stain – show more clearly.

“This ain’t got nothing to do with you, Roberts!” the lud exclaimed. “Finders keepers!”

It was a common enough philosophy in the Lowers, though Rand couldn’t imagine applying it to the beating and possible deading of some poor ludling that you happened across in the Bowels. But what little compassion stainers had extended only to other stainers. In a way, Rand couldn’t blame them. Luds and lasses joined the stainers for the relative safety the gang offered. Fact was, if they weren’t so ruthless to other lowerfolk, Rand might have left the stainers more or less alone.

As things were, however –

The lud lunged.

At the same instant, the remaining stainer attacked from Rand’s flank.

One went high and the other low — a fist and a foot. A coordinated move and not badly executed. It might even have worked, if Rand hadn't taught himself how to counter it years ago.

Rand smoothly caught both the first stainer's wrist and the second stainer's ankle. Then he pulled and sidestepped, letting their two foreheads connect with a sound like empty oil drums clanging together.

Both luds wobbled, their eyes crossing.

Then they went down, the fight – such as it was – over.

Satisfied that the immediate threat had passed, Rand headed across the naught to check their would-be victim.

The ludling huddled in a corner, where the smooth walls of two different gearboxes met, more or less perpendicularly. His dark lowerfolk eyes were locked on Rand. He looked maybe nine years old, though the ludling probably didn’t know for sure. Rand didn’t know how old he, himself, was. Sixteen seemed likely. But maybe he was fifteen or seventeen. He'd never celebrated a birthday and couldn't have named the date if pressed.

“You solid?” he asked.

The ludling didn’t reply.

“Did you get hit on the head?”

The ludling gestured no, his eyes wary.

Rand understood his distrust. In the Bowels there were mostly only two kinds of people: those who suffered and those who caused suffering. Prey and predator.

“What's your name?” the ludling asked, wide-eyed.

“Rand Roberts.” Then Rand added, “I'm not going to hurt you.”

“Rand Roberts?”

“Yeah.”

“That's your name?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure?”

Rand frowned worriedly. He thought he'd gotten here before the stainers had started beating on the ludling, but maybe one of them had landed an early head punch.

Or maybe the ludling was just addled.

“I'm sure,” Rand said.

“You're ... big.”

“I know.”

“Really big.”

Rand sighed. It was the first thing everyone commented on. Rand was large for his age, larger than most adults, tall and thick in the shoulders and chest. It wasn't something he'd ever worked toward; it'd simply happened as he'd grown. He took neither pride nor shame from it — though, considering how he spent most of his time, he couldn't deny that it came in handy.

Similarly, while this strange little lud looked small at first glance, his neck was thick and his hands big, which hinted at weight coming to him later – if he lived long enough.

“Your turn,” Rand said. “What’s your name?”

The ludling didn't reply.

Rand waited.

Still no reply.

“You sure you didn’t get slammed?” Rand asked finally.

“I’m sure.” Then the ludling peered around Rand at the three fallen stainers and remarked, “You fight well.”

Rand shrugged.

 “Really well!”

“Thanks.”

“Are they dead?”

“Just hurt. I don't dead people.”

The ludling met his eyes. “Why?”

“You mean why didn't I dead them?”

“Why'd you fight them? Did they want your stuff, too?”

“My stuff?”

The ludling went to another corner of the naught and picked up a satchel. It was old and filthy, stained with the oil that — eventually — soaked all fabric in the Bowels. But then Rand realized with surprise that the satchel wasn’t made of canvas nor burlap, but hide. Genuine leather. No wonder the stainers had wanted it. Rand couldn't remember the last time he'd seen real leather. “Where'd you get that?”

The ludling's expression turned distrustful again.

And again, Rand understood. Some lowerfolk would happily dead you for the barter that satchel would bring up in the Black. And not just stainers, but traders too, factory drudges, and even some priests.

“Don't worry,” Rand said. “I don't swipe, either.”

The ludling considered this. Then he visibly relaxed.

“Where'd you get it?” Rand asked again.

The ludling pointed to a narrow tunnel between gearboxes, Rand didn’t know where it went, but he could tell it went down.

Rand knew the Bowels better than most. While other lowerfolk tended to keep to small localized areas within the Machine – there was safety in the familiar – Rand wandered, going deeper and further afield than almost anyone he knew.

Even so, there were places Rand didn’t go.

Wouldn’t go.

The ludling’s tunnel led away from the Drop, away from the Black and the Middle Market, away from the flops and news criers. In fact, away from everything and everyone.

“How far?” Rand asked uneasily.

The ludling shrugged.

“How far down?” Rand pressed.

“Two or three levels,” the ludling finally replied. “Maybe a half-hour's walk.”

“Two or three levels?”

The Machine, which was the world in which Rand Roberts lived and, no doubt, would eventually die, was separated into staggered, informal “levels.” Each level was nothing more than the roof of the gearboxes below it, just as each ceiling was nothing more than the underside of the level above. Every denizen of the Lower Machine conducted their entire lives within this labyrinth of tunnels, naughts and gearboxes. They saw no sun or sky, ever. Such things were for the upperfolk, those who lived atop the Machine.

Those who ruled.

But even the poorest bowels rat knew not to venture too far down. For, just as there where two kinds of people in the Bowels, there were also two kinds of places. The “good” places, rife with stainers and thieves, were bad enough.

But then there were the Old Places, even deeper than the Bowels. These were ancient areas, left undisturbed for as long as anyone could remember. Venturing there wasn't illegal, as such Uppers concepts as “law” meant little at the bottom of the Machine, but rather were avoided out of custom – and fear.

Terrible things once dwelt down there. Some said, still dwelt.

Yet, this ludling went there?

“You don't have to lie to me,” Rand told him.

“I'm not.”

“You're saying you found a hide satchel in one of the Old Places?”

The ludling nodded.

“Then you're braver than I am,” Rand said with a nervous laugh.

The ludling looked again at the fallen stainers. “There's brave and there's brave,” he replied, which seemed an odd observation for an nine-year-old.

One of the stainers moaned and rolled over, clutching his head, so Rand supposed it was time to go. But what to do with the ludling? Leaving him here was the same as putting him back in a fire. But encouraging him to tag along was an invitation to spend the next big piece of forever rearing him.

Then Rand thought, as he so often did: What would Torq do?

And, of course, there was only one right answer.

“Come on,” he said with a sigh. “Let's go higher. It's not safe down here.”

“Where are we going?”

“We’ll head to the Black.”

“What’s the Black?”

Rand gaped. “You’ve never been to the Black?”

“Nope.”

The statement was ridiculous on the face of it. All lowerfolk used the Black. They had to, if only to beg for food.

“Who are you?” Rand asked, astonished.

The ludling looked guilelessly back at him, his expression touched with awe. It was a look Rand knew. You saved me, so you must be a hero!

Rand sighed again.

He was no hero. The Machine only had one hero.

“Okay, forget it,” he said. “Come on.”