The Man between my crosshairs (girl X assassin)

Chapter 28/Levianthan

Another week goes by. I want to point out we wrote this before the adverts for the Mortal Engines came out. All I Can say is the city of Archigram is bigger.  Wow looking forward to that in March.   Thanks again for all the votes and kind comments. You make this serial writing thing truely worth while. RK+Reb. 

After the strange memorial at the last tree, they took off again. At Harry's request, Zoe swapped cars and travelled with Max. Harry had peeled his car's roof back to drive, showing Harry Styles with his daughter. Even from the other car Zoe could see them arguing, but about what, was unclear. Max talked about the company statistics, like most executives Zoe let Jeeves record the info dump for later analysis.

Soon there was something on the horizon. It was bigger than an iceberg on the frozen moon of Europa. It was strangely so huge like a sleeping giant surrounded by busily working Lilliputians. If this was on earth, it would look like the Pharos of Egypt had returned to build a new leviathan tomb on wheels.

"Wow," said Zoe "that's bigger than Kevin Spacey's conscience."

"This is our latest generation crawler." said Max as they approached. "a quarter of a million square meters of floor area. More than the Empire state building."

As they got closer she could see the people and robots working on the machine. The workers looked like flees It was a huge box like an ocean liner which had been designed by Picasso in his cubist phase. Underneath the body was a set of tank tracks. Each wheel was taller than a house on a house using a third house for a lift up. Around them and above, were metal walkways which if anything brought home the scale they were looking at.

They drove passed a huge feet of vehicles, there must be thousands of people working here.

Styles lead the pack and parked in the mile long shadow of the block.

Styles got out of his car and was clearly excited. Zoe looked around. Zoe wanted to make sure where Ryder was so that he didn't have a simple opportunity to kill her. It looked like Ryder was traveling with the brother. Cathey looked like she had been crying in the car, she had traveled with Jerico.

"How do you make these things?" Said Zoe "Do you just start with one lego brick and never stop?"

"We build as much as we can in orbit." Harry said smiling leading them on. Zoe followed him. "then deorbit behind a massive heat shield. We have another block landing in a few weeks. You should come and see that. It's a sight."

They walked into the block. Harry acknowledged people. He seemed more animated on the building site.

"We land near the sunrise and have until the sunset half a year later to get the engines running," Harry said as they passed through a huge engine room. His voice resounded in the cavern of metal around them.  Harry said as they stopped. As guest of honour, Zoe was still with Harry. Ryder hung back out of Cathy's way with Alux.

"What if you don't get it moving?" said Zoe.

Harry frowned. "Depends upon how badly the winter damages the building. It can be a write off, but this one is going to schedule. Right?" Harry looked at one of the construction people. The surprised construction worker nodded.

"See" Harry added.

They climbed up more stairs to get to what would be the lower level travel way.

"This will contain the travelators and so on," said Harry as they passed. He made a good tour guide for the archaeology of te future.

They carried on up the core of the block. They entered the valley, the street between the tall blocks either side. It was quite dead now. A vacant spectre of its future self. Jericho caught up with Zoe. Now empty, apart from the junk the workers left., the street looked quite generous.

"This is the main street" Styles said "this will become part of the backbone. It's quite now but in a few months, this will be full of people, hustle, bustle, life! "

"Can we see some of the accommodation?" said Jericho.

"Sure at the end when we get to the top," said Max.

"No, I meant the mid-level accommodation," said Jericho firmly like he had a plan.

Max looked at Styles. Styles looked back.

"Sure," said Styles walking towards the glass elevator.

"But you've got the realise the problem." Styles said smiling at Zoe, "the city never sleeps, land is expensive so people naturally evolved a routine."

They walked two an apartment block. One flat had two doors.

"This is how we live" said Jericho. They walked into to one room ,to find a kitchen and next door a living room. Styles walked up to one and pressed a button, a row of shelves folded down. Another disappeared.

"You see two or three families will share an apartment at a time" said Jericho to Zoe, then he pointed at the kitchen. "One on gold is out working or at school. While on Alpha, the other sleeps" Jericho pointed into the door. "The others get to live here until it's there turn to go to bed "

Styles pointed to the shelves. "Each family get's their own stuff. The other family doesn't get to see it. We design for a multi-tasking home."

"You've never had young kids have you?" Goat said to Styles. "when I was young I would sleep on the couch until it was time for us to have the bedroom."

"The new beds have auto sheet changers," said Styles.

"That's so reassuring," said Jericho.

Zoe said nothing, this was her battle. She looked around, if she could get him back her killing would be easy.

Styles and Max ushered them out and down the corridor.

"Zoe understand People have lived in this city like this for hundreds of years," Max said, "I grew up like that my self."

"Meanwhile people like Styles price out the poor and make sure people can't buy their own mobile homes" Jericho insisted. "all adds up to the price of some gold shots."

"OK I'm good," said Zoe to Jericho. She looked around, Cathy looked shamed. Ryder was still near Harry's sone Alux.

"Before we go," said Jericho to them as he moved quickly away.

"Hey" said Styles "you're not allowed down there. This place is a building site."

Zoe and the others followed Jericho down. They ended up in a high ceiling space. There was a large wall with many doors with windows all stacked on top of each other. Like a wall made of large microwaves. There were a few ladders on runners and Jericho rushed up and opened on of the doors at the second level at chest height.

"This is how most people live." Jericho said " I know I did after I left university. A huge battery farm, not of chickens but people. Farmed on an industrial scale, by your man here."

Zoe looked into the open door to see a space about the size of a bed. There were three lockers. A screen on a ceiling, a couple of power points. It was a bunk bed on steroids. The ceiling was about high enough to sit up in, at the far end was a window on the world outside.

"We provide the best we can," said Styles.

Jericho looked in "They provided the best cages. I shared mine with two others. Until one of them went crazy."

"Space inside a city is tight," said Styles.

"I don't think Ms Zoe's company cares about how tight things are but on how much risk her company is taking" said Max to Jericho.

"Well that's enough for now. Let's move on shall we?" Said Styles.

They exited the space. Zoe was slightly nervous not at the tension clinging in the air behind her but that she didn't know where Ryder was. She moved back almost randomly through the space behind highly aware of the around her. She had just checked to see if he might be hiding about them when she looked back into the flat and noticed Ryder against the wall kissing Alux. Zoe felt slightly twisted and utterly betrayed. Ryder carrying a gun trying to kill her was one thing but kissing someone else just made her stomach crunch worse than an over wound spring clock.

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