Daylight Runner Read Free

wrecked carriage had once been attached. The immense machine loomed over them, its image as a protective giant lost in the fall of the ill-fated carriage. Sol realized he was trembling, and wrapped the blanket tighter around his shoulders, turning away from the mechanical tower.

Section 2/24 : DEBT
    I T WAS LATE AFTERNOON by the time Sol got back to his apartment complex. After making his way up through the maze of stairs and corridors, he opened the door and checked his father’s room. Gregor had not come back the night before; it was Thursday, yesterday had been payday, and he had probably spent the night out with his buddies, playing cards or laying down bets at the ratting dens. He would have gone straight back to work and would not be home until later. Sol dumped his bag on the sofa bed and strode into his room, throwing himself on his own bed.
    The room was barely big enough for the narrow bunk and a bedside table. The wall was plastered with posters of late-twentieth-century boxers from the golden age of the sport: Ali, Liston, Marciano, Leonard, Tyson, Lewis. Everysquare centimeter of space was taken up with his junk: boxing memorabilia, his gloves and weights as well as piles of books and his underused drums.
    He stood up again, feeling antsy, restless. The crane accident had him feeling disturbed, and now he couldn’t get the last few moments of the doomed carriage out of his mind. Pacing the living room for a minute or two, he decided to go out for a run. Gregor could be hours yet, and Sol needed to talk—either that or do something active. He couldn’t stand just waiting around. Changing into his running tracksuit, he slipped on his running shoes, strapped some small weights around his wrists, and left the apartment.
    It would take him ten minutes to get out by going downstairs, so he took to the rooftops instead. The sunlight from the dome was already fading, and the city lights were being lit: tall, denceramic posts topped with glass lenses glowing with sewer-gas flames. Denceramic was a ceramic lighter, stronger, and more resilient than steel and was one of the miracle building materials that had made the unique engineering of Ash Harbor possible.
    The roofs of most of the apartment complexes were flat and paved. With no elements to worry about, people used the rooftops as gardens and gathering areas, and there were routes that dropped in blocked steps to the first level of streets. It was easy climbing for an agile young man. Even without descending to the street, he could runfor kilometers across the interlocking walkways and clustered rooftops. But he needed noise and life, things to watch to take his mind off the accident. He pulled up the hood of his top and set off at an easy jog, swinging his weighted arms in gentle punches to warm them up.
    Music drifted across from somewhere, and he followed the sound. There was a party going on. There was always a party going on somewhere. Ash Harbor was a crowded place, and often there was little to do but get drunk or high and play music and dance.
    There was graffiti everywhere. There were three gangs on this block, but these weren’t territorial marks, just the usual scribbling.
    Â 
    CALL HOPHEAD FOR GOOD BOOZE.
    AMANDA YAN GIVES IT UP FOR MONEY.
    LIFE’S CRAP, AND THEN YOU DIE.
    STOP THE RIDE, I WANT TO GET OFF.
    TODD WOZ ’ERE ’73. WASN’T IMPRESSED.
    WHO ARE THE CLOCKWORKERS?
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    Sol gave that last one a second glance, wondering about it, but kept running. The walls around him were coated with the frustrated scrawling of bored kids tired of being crammed into this city, with nowhere to go but old age.
    The music was louder now, and he slowed down, coming to the edge of a roof that looked out onto a smallsquare lit in moody party colors. Putting his foot up on the low wall while he slowed his breathing, he gazed down at the scene. There was a band playing: a drummer, somebody with an old guitar—a real one—and a