Zotikas: Episode 1: Clash of Heirs by Rob Storey, Tom Bruno Page B

scanned the stairs and
lacked the purposeful demeanor of workers going home or party-goers heading for
an alcoholic destination.
    From Vel-Taradan and past the multitude of House
edifices, the route was always up. Most people, traveling to the topmost plaza,
would have taken the tram that ran up the underside of the Stair.
    As he finally neared the top, Kieler found the
deepening shadow of a terraced café. Here he shed his beard, work clothes and
shambling gait to emerge in a finely tailored, grey cut of cloth trimmed in
black suitable for a Bintle financial clerk. House Bintle had, from the time of
Velik, run the banking system. Now corrupt, family members and functionaries
were quite common on the Garrist Ring.
    He reached into the breast pocket and placed hexagonal
eyeglasses on the bridge of his nose. Now he was Niven Wensith, his hair short,
his walk the stiff, cocky and brisk stride of a confident, drab accountant
needing to get to the Charlaise building for some final business before the
closing at full dark.
    As Rei finally retired, its fading beams settling into
the western sea, Kieler gained the promenade at Garrist Ring. Garrist was a
toroid of the highest rising financial structures. A wide walkway circled the
inner gap, allowing pedestrians an inspired view straight down to the Plate and
an equally inspiring view of the void-piercing spire that supported the
Executive Chair's Palace.
    That spire stood directly before Kieler as he topped
the stairs and was taller by far than even the sky-scratching structures
surrounding it on the Ring.
    In contrast to the purposely expansive Plaza Floreneva
below, Garrist was imposingly vertical. Between the spire and the inside
promenade of Garrist was a dizzying, empty gap from the greatest heights of the
city straight down to the very Plate itself. Kieler admired the engineering but
loathed the hubris.
    There were two standard approaches to the palace of
the EC; first, a narrow bridge in front of the Grand Stair spanned the gap
(over which ran the FamTram), and second, access to the palace above could be
gained by coming up the center of the ancient spire from the depths below. Both
choke points were heavily guarded—not so much to prevent deviants like himself
from causing mischief, Kieler realized, but to keep the untrusted competing
houses from getting too ambitious.
    Kieler, however, had devised a third way.
    He turned right and angled toward the Charlaise
building a quarter way round the Ring. This alone would throw the Cortatti
grevons off his scent. To them, the only way to Kieler’s inevitable destination
was across that single span. He noticed to his great satisfaction a man leaning
against a newsstand reading, who glanced up at him, saw the bored expression of
an overworked, hope-drained financial pawn fixed inanely on Kieler’s face, and
look back down. Despite his intentionally minimal disguise, the proper
countenance conveyed the proper profession.
    Out of his peripheral vision, Kieler noted at least a
half dozen men more interested in who approached the bridge than in what they
were doing that evening. He had to tightly stifle a grin. Others waited at
building corners, in arched alcoves, or at shop windows. Either Kieler was
paranoid—or egotistical—or there were a lot of Cortatti goons determined to get
him.
    The sky was darkening and would soon be lit with the
fireworks that marked the beginning of the New Year’s Eve celebration.
    The incognito sentinels thinned out significantly as
he left the bridge behind. Without falling out of character he relaxed
mentally. He would make the Charlaise Building, headquarters of Bank Bintle. It
was with that thought that he noticed something disturbing—some one, actually, leaning spiritlessly against the right side of the Charlaise
Building. His tail from the tram was ahead of him.
    With forty paces to go, as used to pretending as he
was, as much as he had practiced, he slipped out of character.
    His pace must have