A River Called Time

by Courttia Newland

  Markriss drifted from one section to another, trying not to be angered, to keep calm. Capra had hinted as much, still this was beyond any stories he’d been told. To see it was to witness the soft grip of injustice, and yet he knew this wasn’t the worst example of privilege the Ark had to offer.

  He moved towards the office area and desk. Over his head, unobtrusive but there, Capra warned, were pencil-thin cameras. Markriss thought he couldn’t be seen—they believed the tech hadn’t been developed to record bodies on the astral plane—although for people moneyed enough to own a penthouse suite in their place of work he couldn’t be entirely sure. This was all new territory. The mission was the Outsiders’ trial, Markriss their lab rat.

  He saw what he’d come for as he hovered above the sheer metal desk and array of personalised keepsakes—a desk-slide programmed with a selection of 3D family photos, a mini pitzball figure complete with hoop. Relieved, worry lifted. The 1322 schematics took pride of place on the desk, every level secured beneath a sheet of plate glass. Every desk, unit and office on every floor accounted for. Just like Capra said.

  Glancing at the desk-slide, a studio picture of three children became the trio on an indoor rock climb, arms thrown wide and beaming, dissipating into snowfall pixels and replaced by a close-up shot of a woman, her serious expression. She wore baggy jeans and an old T-shirt, was holding an oil-blackened spanner. An upended bicycle stood in the background. Her hands were smudged with oil; she was probably fixing the chain. The woman looked somewhere off camera. She seemed dream-like, unaware the photo was being taken, lips parted, on the verge of speech. Markriss didn’t know why he was drawn to her. She reminded him of someone he couldn’t place, someone he’d met. The woman was arresting, that was true, yet this was something else. He knew her.

  One slow pixel at a time, the woman dissolved into the lanky, suited figure of 1322 CEO Jex Myatt. Suit and tie, award held high above his head in mid-congratulatory shout, blond fringe falling across one eye.

  He calmed, put the woman from his mind. Lowered his astral form until it hovered centimetres from the tiled floor. Staring at the schematics, he allowed the image of each floor to fill his vision, each line and room, not pushing, eyes flitting from section to section, level to level. It might have taken twenty minutes of focus and concentration—he wasn’t sure, time was difficult to track on the plane. Adepts were known to miscalculate, over- or undercompensating. He forced himself to wait, viewing each level until they had sunk in, closed his eyes and released his astral body, falling through the floors to leave the penthouse as still as it had been before his arrival.

  The persistent tick of water pipes, a gentle tattoo. Sharp pain in his hands, as though they had been cut deep with his knife. He looked down on himself, chin pushed against collarbone, remembering he still gripped the rose crystal. Markriss let go, solid weight tumbling across his thighs onto the mattress. He sat up quick, scrabbling for the orange medi strip on the podside, threw a leg over the sleeper side, climbed out and nearly tripped over his feet as he bounded over to their small desk cluttered with textbooks, notebooks, a loose collection of pens and a potted aloe vera Chile had nurtured for months. He tried not to notice the dry earth—it would have to be watered another day. He had a few minutes at most before he ‘cleared’ and the memory of the schematics was lost. He pushed aside the items on the desk to make space, laid a sheet of white paper flat, took up the nearest pen and thrust the medi-visor across his face so the plastic strip covered his eyes. It snapped around his head with the sound of a breaking rubber band, tightening, each end clasping his temples. He turned the visor online. A loading start-up, the E-Lul logo, a whirl of percentages. The bass tone of completion.

  He thought-scrolled through options, selecting ‘Synch View / Playback’. The screen grew bright.

  A digitised version of the desk materialised in front of his eyes—the landscape rectangle of paper, his grasped pen—and merged with the visual of his jump. First his head moving in all directions on the street outside 1322, the glisten of black tarmac and reflective glass. Playback excluded audio, so the low buzz of dormant machinery was missing, yet the picture was clear and solid, just as on the plane. The latest incarnations of Mediswear, 4 gens and beyond, provided a range of simulated transmutations, tracked dreams, recorded, digitally stored and replayed meditations, and, using synch-mode, enabled users to manually recreate objects, people or experiences they’d encountered during jumps.

  He wound forwards, past Ninka and the lift area, up through the succession of floors until he was at the penthouse level, hovering above the desk. Paused screen. Enhanced view.

  And traced what he saw.

  First Markriss headed to Temple, and when Ayizan couldn’t be found amongst the rapid vibration of high-level activity, he crossed the Poor Quarter in case he’d returned to his allocation. The night buzzed energy, the zone alive with all manner of gatherings on every block. Smoke and sizzling meats combined with a thick vapour fog, dulling the strung glow of prayer lights and the monotone of block chatter. Blade tucked into the small of his back, Markriss strained to see into every dull corner and allocation doorway. When retribution came it would be swift, without sign. If there were enough attackers, or he was inattentive, he wouldn’t survive.

  The street was quiet, although the square had been too. Outside Ayizan’s allocation door Markriss scanned terrace roofs for movement before he rapped his knuckles against the metal three times, turning to the street. Parkour runners not only trained their bodies and ferried narcotics, some killed in service of zone road teams. Guns were heavily prohibited in the Ark, although with the right software they could be 3D’d, or much less commonly smuggled inside vaginas or rectums, even stomachs. Murders of that nature were costly in more ways than one. They were expensive, easy to track by Corps, normally ending with the prompt disappearance of the perpetrators. ‘Stormers’, the cheaper alternative, worked with a knife or machete strapped to their backs. They swooped down to ‘storm’ their target, deliver the blow, and were climbing walls and racing along roofs before victims even realised they’d been hit.

  A restrained snick behind him, the opening door. He followed its casual sway, entering the cool room and pressing the door closed behind him.

  Ayizan was eating at his small coffee table. Iris sat cross-legged in his sleeper, a bowl clasped between her hands, watching a movie he couldn’t make out on the big slidescreen. Orchestral music and very few words. Pale moonlight washed her face. Markriss kept his expression neutral, taking a little longer to wipe his feet on the doormat, acting as if he’d met Iris in Ayizan’s allocation every day for years.

  ‘Yes, Teacher.’

  ‘Yes. Hey, Iris.’

  ‘Hi, Kriss,’ she called, eyes trapped on the screen.

  The two men pressed the fleshy sides of their fists together, brisk nodding. He sat opposite his friend, sighed. Ayizan seemed more tired than usual, eyes heavy, body sagging at a disjointed angle. He lay on his right side, dragging his spoon around the bowl in search of the correctly sized portion.

  ‘How’s it going over Temple?’

  ‘On track,’ Ayizan muttered around food. Markriss only just heard him over the chewing. ‘We’ll be ready. Decorations mostly done, systems wired up. Just gotta do lights, food, get drinks . . .’

  ‘Important stuff.’

  ‘Damn right. We got beer; but the shops are low, of course. They’re accommodating us.’

  ‘So they should. All we do for them.’

  ‘Exactly. They’re lucky they got stock at all. Zekey’s gonna perform.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Nice.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Sleepy grin. ‘How about you?’

  Markriss looked towards the podroom, hesitant.

  ‘Don’t mind her. Go ahead.’

  He waited until Ayizan nodded, impatient, and dug into a back pocket to produce a clutch of folded papers. Opened each, one by one. Smoothed the paper flat with a palm, looked them over, kept one back and pus
hed the rest over the table.

  ‘That’s everywhere including the upper penthouse.’

  Ayizan moved his bowl aside to lean over the schematics, eyes flitting from sheet to sheet, jaw moving. He paused to pick something from his teeth before his concentrated gaze returned, jumping from one piece of paper to another.

  ‘They’re brilliant. Didn’t expect them to be so good.’

  ‘I had a bit of a mental block with the last jump I think, or maybe it took more effort, but I’m clear now. Ascension was no problem, no issues with the tether. Nothing.’

  ‘You’re a genius.’ Another offer of a raised fist, met by Markriss. ‘Stone-cold genius. We’re blessed.’

  ‘Ah, come on. I’m blessed to be asked.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Ayizan pointed with the spoon. Markriss looked into his lap.

  ‘Oh yeah. Someone I wanted to show you.’ He opened the last sheet, flattening it with his palm as he had the others, taking more time. The woman from the office photo stared at the allocation ceiling, unimpressed. One last look at red curling hair and the upheld spanner before Markriss passed it over the coffee table. ‘Know her?’

  Ayizan studied the picture, rubbing a temple. His lips moved as if whispering.

  ‘This is a really, really good portrait.’

  Shrugging, Markriss sat back. ‘I just pressed merge-pause and copied what I saw. Like tracing.’

  ‘Yeah, but the details. Freckles, eyes, the twist of her mouth. You don’t know her? You sure?’

  ‘Never seen her in my life.’

  ‘Hold up.’

  Ayizan got up and crossed the room. The orchestral music stopped, abrupt as rainfall. Markriss watched him slide his body into the crack of space between his pod and the kitchenette wall, the sheet high for Iris to see.

  ‘Got a minute, babe?’

  Babe. Unusual. He tried not to look surprised.

  ‘Sure, what’s up?’

  ‘Know who this is?’

  A tidal wave of sleep rolled over Markriss. He lay back, legs protruding, eyes closing. The entrancement of the plane and its aftermath were kicking in. He exhaled, tired breath rattling his throat.

  ‘Isn’t this that anchorwoman? Keshni Myatt?’ Half heard, Iris’s voice was gravelly with lack of use or piahro smoke. ‘Used to be Roberts before she married that Ark News CEO. Presents on Ark One.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m pretty sure. My mum likes her, thinks she’s pretty.’

  ‘She ain’t bad.’

  ‘Oh, please.’

  Bubbling laughter, the light smack of a kiss.

  ‘Awesome. Thanks, babe.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  String music began. Bumps and the shuffle of clothes as Ayizan crossed someplace else, performing actions Markriss couldn’t fathom with his eyes shut. Lengths of silence. Mutters of ‘Where is it?’ It took some time for Ayizan to come back and lower into the sofa with a husky sigh. Markriss lifted his eyelids.

  His friend stared at him, motionless, a thick hardback laid on his lap, hands rested on the cover. He thought he recognised the book, it was difficult to tell. The title was shrouded by dim light.

  ‘Good form. Thought you’d ascended.’

  ‘Nah, just recabbing.’

  ‘Very wise. Keep doing that, you won’t have trouble next jump.’ Ayizan rubbed his chin with a cupped hand, the scratch of his beard loud over the music, regarding Markriss with a flat look that seeped inside him, triggering the oddest physical reaction. A need to purge it like the tickle of a cough. An irritation, something to be expelled. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about the kid?’

  Sitting up. ‘What kid?’

  ‘The one who got knifed on the square.’

  Blinking twice. He honestly didn’t know. Consumed with worries? Numbed by the life they led? The kid, the violence, the bleeding, all dismissed. What did that say about him?

  ‘I didn’t think you’d want to know. You’ve got a lot on your plate. The mission, the gathering . . .’

  ‘He got pretty messed up. He’ll survive, even though they almost killed him. Those guys were Mansions, brother. Course I’d want to know. That kid, the guys who attacked him. All of them.’

  Mansion Row. A few blocks east of central Quarter. The Mansion Man road team controlled that area. That was how he knew them.

  ‘We can’t have Mansions attacking us on the square, Kriss.’ He lit a stub of piahro splint, expelling dragonesque smoke. ‘It’s not on.’

  Light trapped in Ayizan’s eyes produced a veiled gleam so vivid Markriss couldn’t see his thoughts. Even his voice was pitched in a shiftless monotone, cancelling any attempt to absorb emotional intent, guess what he meant. It was dangerous for someone. Markriss had no idea who. He twisted to catch an itch in his lower back, wriggling against the chair. The orchestra grew louder. Iris’s bowl clinked and scraped into the silence.

  ‘How d’you hear?’

  ‘Dr Amunda. The kid nearly didn’t make it. If the neighbour never had a home theatre he wouldn’t have.’

  They had grown popular in the Poor Quarter, trained doctors and nurses pooling funds to buy used, reconfigured equipment, often lobbying community donations to turn backrooms into makeshift operating theatres—with a lesser degree of hygiene, of course. There had been deaths from infections, and side effects, still residents preferred to take the chance on home theatres rather than wait for ambulance services that rarely came, or tussles with the Authority when they did.

  ‘That’s why I got involved. They were bleeding the kid right on the square . . .’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, you done good.’ A dismissive wave. ‘I wouldn’t ask anything less.’

  ‘Sure?’ Peering, searching for truth.

  ‘Yeah, for sure.’ Ayizan tilted his head towards the podroom. ‘That name mean anything? Keshni Myatt? Jex’s wife?’

  Another switch of topic. Ayizan’s conversational movements often resembled the flight of a housefly. Markriss always wondered if it was a strategy to glean a more honest response. He pulled his mouth down, shook his head. ‘No. I might have seen her on screen, I can’t remember. I stopped watching SS ages ago.’

  ‘Yeah, same as. If she works for Ark News we should try and find out more. That might be our person. Right?’

  ‘I hear you.’

  The level expression, settlement. Ayizan nodded once, patting the hardback on his thighs. The pads of his fingers made soft thuds.

  ‘Been reading this.’

  ‘The Book?’ Stiff nod. ‘How come?’

  Ayizan’s left shoulder jerked, an abrupt shrug. ‘Seemed right. You get me?’

  ‘I do.’

  Ayizan opened it. The book flopped, tired as its owner. Tough skin on the spine had cracked in places, exposing paper flesh. Ayizan removed a thin blue ribbon bookmark, draping it over the cover. It fell limp.

  ‘Hear this:

  ‘Within these walls, we take few things. Clothes, personal belongings, photos of loved ones whether family, friends or pets; precious books, maybe a volume like this; our favourite means of hearing music, digitised or analogue. Our arts, our sports, our trinkets. Our personal effects, verifications of self. Remember this: nothing is more important than what we carry upright each day when we rise from our pods to greet the world. Ourselves.

  ‘Who are we? What do we believe? Who will we miss, what will we miss? How do we cope with the lack of things you’ve never thought of, or had reason to lack? The life we are about to lead is a privileged form of confinement, yet confinement nonetheless—be truthful to ourselves about that. A great many of us neglected to make peace with ourselves before we entered this so-called paradise. Even more thought we had, only to be proven crucially wrong. Gather moments. Cherish each one so we might relive them again, when needed. They may very well save our lives. Work on ourselves on a daily basis, know the best and worst of who we are . . .’

  ‘“For that is the only means of surviving isolation within this mo
st modern of modern cities . . .”’ Markriss intoned with him.

  They wallowed, thoughts entwined, the orchestra fading into lingering strings. Dialogue, a woman’s voiceover.

  ‘It’s like a bedtime story.’

  ‘Willow read to you?’

  ‘No . . .’ Choked, abrupt laughter between them. ‘When I was little, maybe, before my dad came inside, before I remember. Later’—shaking his head—‘not so much. I suppose I just imagined what it felt like.’

  ‘Felt good,’ Ayizan said, the gleam of his eyes more pronounced. ‘Anyway, that stuff is gold dust. Gold dust! To know yourself is to prepare for isolation, you understand? There’s nothing else but that, in the end.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You should read it again. Still got your copy?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Good. Cos I ain lending you mine.’

  He was up again, restless, the spine of the volume shining from the coffee table at a barely readable angle—The Book of the Ark. No author. Markriss picked it up. Ayizan spoke over one shoulder, heading for the kitchenette.

  ‘You drinking yet? I’ve got Xaymacian rum? Golden?’