Diamond Age or a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

Whatever other steps Nell might take in the time she had left, there was one thing she could do quickly and easily here. She was not entirely sure why she did it, but some intuition told her that it might be useful; or perhaps it was an artistic urge to make something that would live longer than she would, even if only by a few minutes. She began by erasing all of the big advertising panels on the upper levels of the skyscraper. Then she sketched out a simple line drawing in primary colors: an escutcheon in blue, and within it, a crest depicting a book drawn in red and white; crossed keys in gold; and a seed in brown. She caused this image to be displayed on all sides of the skyscraper, between the hundredth and two-hundredth floors.

Then she tried to think of a way out of this place. Perhaps there were airships on the roof. There would certainly be Fist guards up there, but perhaps through a combination of stealth and suddenness she could overcome them. She used the emergency stairs to make her way up to the next floor, then the next, and then the next. Two flights above, she could hear Fist guards posted at the roof, talking to each other and playing mah-jongg. Many flights below, she could hear more Fists making their way up the stairs one flight at a time, looking for her.

She was pondering her next move when the guards above her were rudely interrupted by orders squawking from their radios. Several Fists came charging down the stairway, shouting excitedly. Nell, trapped in the stairwell, made herself ready to ambush them as they came toward her, but instead they ran into the top floor and made for the elevator lobby. Within a minute or two, an elevator had arrived and carried them away. Nell waited for a while, listening, and could no longer hear the contingent approaching from below.

She climbed up the last flights of stairs and emerged onto the building's roof, exhilarated as much by the fresh air as by the discovery that it was completely deserted. She walked to the edge of the roof and peered down almost half a mile to the street. In the black windows of a dead skyscraper across the way, she could see the mirror image of Princess Nell's crest.

After a minute or two, she noticed that something akin to a shock wave was making its way down the street far below, moving in slow motion, covering a city block every couple of minutes. Details were difficult to make out at this distance: it was a highly organized group of pedestrians, all wearing the same generally dark clothing, ramming its way through the mob of refugees, forcing the panicked barbarians toward the picket line of the Fists or sideways into the lobbies of the dead buildings.

Nell was transfixed for several minutes by this sight. Then she happened to glance down a different street and saw the same phenomenon there.

She made a quick circuit of the building's roof. All in all, several columns were advancing inexorably on the foundations of the building where Nell stood.

In time, one of these columns broke through the last of the obstructing refugees and reached the edge of the broad open plaza that surrounded the foot of Nell's building, where it faced off against the Fist defenses. The column stopped abruptly at this point and waited for a few minutes, collecting itself and waiting for the other columns to catch up.

Nell had supposed at first that these columns might be Fist reinforcements converging on this building, which was clearly intended to be the headquarters of their final assault on the Coastal Republic. But it soon became evident that these newcomers had arrived for other purposes. After a few minutes of unbearable tension had gone by in nearly perfect silence, the columns suddenly, on the same unheard signal, erupted into the plaza. As they debouched from the narrow streets, they spread out into many-pronged formations, arranging themselves with the precision of a professional drill team, and then charged forward into the suddenly panicked and disorganized Fists, throwing up a tremendous battle-cry.

When that sound echoed up two hundred stories to Nell's ears, she felt her hair standing on end, because it was not the deep lusty roar of grown men but the fierce thrill of thousands of young girls, sharp and penetrating as the skirl of massed bagpipes.

It was Nell's tribe, and they had come for their leader. Nell spun on her heel and made for the stairway.