A River Called Time

by Courttia Newland

  Capra passed around his offerings, which the four arranged beneath them, trying not to look at each other. The flooring was dimpled metal much like the unit walls, the cold of sodden mud still transmitted through the material of the rug. Capra was at the gas stove. Bowl by bowl, the Lower produced steaming food and passed it over, women first, then men. It smelt glorious, steamed rice and gravy pungent with spices, a sweet hint of heady wine. While he refilled Maolisa’s plate and piled a large bowl high, no doubt his own, Ayizan, Chile and Temujin emptied their packs onto the floor about themselves.

  Slabs of shrink-wrapped meat, smaller packages wrapped in tissue paper. Metallic components and tools that looked lifted from Ayizan’s allocation shelves. Bottled condiments, perfume boxes, packs of incense. Markriss inspected the items his friends laid on the floor without making his attention obvious, lifting his spoon, tasting the food hesitantly. Chile raised a questioning eyebrow. He nodded, eating with more enthusiasm. The others were less keen, but hunger soon overtook their qualms. Capra came amongst them, sitting cross-legged. He placed the bowl at his feet, surveying the items.

  ‘Good, good. Thou has the exact same quality merchandise as those useless wooden-top Corps. Maybe better.’

  ‘We get them from the same source, only they don’t hate us,’ Temujin said, her expression featureless as the metal walls. Capra laughed so hard he almost choked.

  ‘A very pertinent point.’ Retrieving his bowl and spoon. ‘I thank you for your kindness and apologise. I can’t offer you water, as our inferior plumbing might possibly kill you. I have only beer, and the worst of Inner City wine.’

  ‘We’ll pass,’ Ayizan said. ‘You’ve looked after us enough.’

  ‘My pleasure! Thank your stars I’m not doling you food tokens, like those poor bastards you saw outside. They’ll be eating from the vendors, I’m afraid.’

  ‘We appreciate you, Capra, certainly.’

  ‘Mmm-hmm, you’d better. Good stew, right? Yes?’

  ‘Lovely,’ Chile muttered, full-mouthed.

  ‘It should be, the rats grow fat and healthy down here . . .’

  Spoons stopped. Ayizan’s face turned green mid-swallow. Capra rocked with intense mirth, even as Maolisa jumped from her seat.

  ‘Capra! Don’t listen to this fool! I have the packet! Look!’

  A crackle of chattering plastic passed hand to hand. When it came to him, Markriss saw a styrofoam tray, a label, an artist’s image of a plump hen. His stomach rolled relief. He passed the empty wrapping back to Maolisa’s waiting hand, resting his spoon in the bowl.

  ‘Bought it from Corps and cooked it himself this afternoon, he did, waiting for you lot!’

  ‘My wife, the spoilsport! But your faces! Your poor, dear faces!’

  Capra slapped his thigh, thunder-crack loud. No one smiled, not even Temujin this time.

  ‘Vy said you used to drive him crazy growing up. I see why.’

  ‘He can talk! Biggest prankster in Felano, that man was, don’t be fooled! How is the old mule anyway?’

  ‘A lot wiser it would seem.’

  ‘Oh! In my eagerness, I forgot—we must pray. Do you mind?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Markriss said. ‘Especially if this might be our last supper.’

  ‘Ha! Funny! I like this one!’

  Capra closed his eyes, lowering his head and beginning to recite words Markriss knew into his chest. ‘Our Father, who art in Aaru, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done, on Geb as it is in Aaru. Give us our lives, each day we breathe, and forgive our transgressions, as we forgive those who transgress against us. And lead us not into want; but deliver us from fallacy. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, always and for ever. Amen.’

  Maolisa’s voice reached him, monotone in prayer. He whispered with them, all the words he remembered, Capra’s lake-water eyes rising to watch him throughout. The prayer seemed strangely apt, sitting on a chilled metal floor, the heat of food cooling on his lap. Circumstance had power to compress the emotions. He couldn’t imagine the strength of mind it took to live in the darkness of the city beneath theirs, tasked with the captaincy of many. Markriss thought of all the things the Lower must have seen as captain of the underworld. He was unable to fathom how Capra had kept his sanity.

  Silence as they shovelled, spoons raking bowls. Despite the teasing it tasted good, Capra eating with an intensity that encouraged them to match him. Done, he leant back, exhausted.

  ‘Better. Now tell your news.’

  Ayizan spoke of their continued appeals on behalf of the Weston family, the reluctance of the Authority to even reply, let alone take proper responsibility for the murder. The block politics of road teams, some of whom Capra was familiar with, and the younger teams that had sprung up since the years he’d been inside. Westings, so many during the blackout, perhaps more after. The gathering, a moment’s restoration of faith. The down-trodden feel of the zone as a whole, complacent despite their continual work with residents. Here, gravel scraped Ayizan’s voice. Head hanging, body arched. In those moments he seemed too tired by far, on the verge of ruin. Markriss didn’t know what to make of that, although he’d felt it too, fatigue at the intransigence of their lives, the inevitability of westing without bringing peace to the souls of others like themselves. Those musings kept Ayizan awake at night, Markriss knew, as he had been years before he found the spiritual sciences. For his friend, things were harder. Something else had gripped him during that time.

  Surprising Markriss, his old friend began to talk of the confrontation with the Mansion road team. All three stiffened, acute, watching Capra’s response.

  He cleared his throat, releasing their gaze for the first time. Chile’s head fell as though she slept.

  ‘Bandyo’s team?’

  ‘He’s captained for the last two years or so, yeah,’ Ayizan said without emotion.

  ‘Which of you retaliated first?’

  ‘Us.’

  Lips pursed, Capra found Markriss.

  ‘How’d you feel about that?’

  Awareness of his aching fingers, the solid feel of the machete in his palm. ‘Not good. I understand it’s necessary, but not good.’

  ‘It’s unfortunate for sure, but there’s little you could have done. They put you in a place you couldn’t win, robbing on your square. You never know, Bandyo might see it that way.’

  ‘Do you think we could’ve parlayed?’

  A bestial snort. ‘Not with him.’

  Chile shifted on her rear, eying floor patterns. Capra followed Markriss’s eyes. Sighed.

  ‘OK, well. We should get down to business, shouldn’t we.’

  They collected bowls, getting up unsteadily. Maolisa took everything, waving away their protests. They loitered, unsure until Capra led them to the next-door unit.

  ‘Come, come, this way.’

  Waiting until they were all through, Capra pulled a length of rugged grey and brown speckled cloth over the door in violent jerks. On the other side, a small double bed, plain and sagged. A slim, pale woman sat near biscuit-flat pillows, eyes gleaming as they caught sight of her. Hair short, limp and blonde, she resembled Maolisa and wore a thin black trenchcoat made of contrasting materials sewn together. Leather, cloth, corduroy. Bird-wing coattails spread behind her.

  ‘You don’t use sleepers?’ Chile said, looking around the room. ‘I haven’t seen one since we got down here.’

  ‘No, we don’t use them.’ Capra seemed wary. ‘I thought you all would approve.’

  ‘We do, we do. It’s just strange not to see them at all. Only these things.’

  She toed a bed leg. To Markriss, she seemed fearful.

  ‘They’re not good for you, family. You know that already, but the full extent?’ Capra tutted, shook his head. ‘Those things don’t just control and record your astral pathways, that would be bad enough. They’re collectors of kinetic energy. It’s a greater percentage of how the Ark is powered, along with the solar panels on L4.
Up there at least.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ Ayizan said. All four stared at the Lower.

  ‘Oh, deadly. Take the Day-Lites, for instance. The kinetic electricity gleaned from pods—at least 1.5 million of them, mind—go into these huge generators we have in the gantries which power mirrored plates set within a series of shafts built into the roof of every level. When the mirrors turn, they catch outside sunlight and bounce it from one to another, down the shafts, until it reaches the relevant level. All of those are powered by the kinetic energy of sleepers. It’s a bit creepy to think of them siphoning from humans that way, and the main reason we don’t use them down here.’

  ‘Ra.’ Markriss was cemetery quiet for a moment. ‘We didn’t know. Right?’

  Capra examined their expressions of shock. He cleared his throat.

  ‘Anyway, I’ve got stories that’ll straighten your hair if you gave me enough time, which of course we don’t have. You’ve met Aife, my daughter? I forget these things sometimes.’

  They exchanged muted grunts.

  ‘Hotep.’ Aife’s voice was deep, the word clumsy on her tongue. She looked at her boots, cheeks reddening.

  ‘We can talk freely. Paul’s waiting outside so he’ll let us know of any surprises.’

  Opposite Aife, beside a small metal cabinet, stood a row of four humped canisters. Dull, squat, nondescript. Grey verging on blue, scratched and dented. They reminded Markriss of tiny fire extinguishers, or scuba tanks.

  ‘Aife rigged these up. I mean, I helped a bit, but this is her design and she did all the heavy lifting, literally. Each of those bottles is equipped with methane compound, a PE-4 block and a wireless trigger with a five-mile radius. It’s an old mobile transistor device, ancient tech. We’ve set it up to work from the Ark’s cell site. Theoretically it’s untraceable. That switch blows the lot, mind; you can’t set them off separately, more’s the pity. We tried to work on that, but neither of us got it. Next time, maybe. Each bottle has a range of 5 to 15 per cent and 1.4 to 7.6 per cent gas to air. That’s the upper and lower flammability limits. Make sure none of your team tamper with them, dent them, release the gas or anything else. Leave them alone, best as you can. You don’t, and one of two things will happen: you blow your whole zone or the trigger blows the bottles and nothing else. Got it?’

  ‘We do, I think. It’s quite straightforward,’ Chile said. ‘Thanks, Aife.’

  The young woman smiled at the walls, revealing oddly straight teeth and twin dimples.

  ‘You’ve got a blast range of about 500 metres I reckon, so make sure they’re spaced out. No closer than two floors apart. You want to take down the landing, not the whole building. If you put ’em too close together there’s a risk of the combined explosion fire-balling and razing the place. Bring that bastard down on us, and I won’t be popular.’

  ‘We understand.’ Ayizan’s sight was focused on the bottles. ‘It’s an incredible risk you’re taking. We appreciate it more than anything.’

  ‘Oh, well, we appreciate the gold, amongst more important things, like real meat. But listen, the only way I could sell this to the council was in the long term. You purge the Authority, we rise. It’s all that matters down here. You see how things are.’

  ‘That’s the plan, family.’

  ‘Good. But take time. This is just the first step. Be careful. Revolution doesn’t happen in a day.’

  ‘We hear you, brother,’ Temujin said, bowing her head.

  ‘We wouldn’t be speaking if that wasn’t true.’

  So many years had passed living as one family, they’d long learned to read each other’s minds. Chile, Temujin and Ayizan approached the canisters, beginning to lift them gently into their open packs, muttering at each other. Markriss put a hand on his wife’s shoulder; as he’d guessed, she carried an extra pack for his use. Chile passed it behind her. He separated the black glossy material, unzipping the inner pocket until it gaped, a toothy mouth. Sliding a hand under the nearest bottle, he raised it as carefully as a sick animal, metal chilling his fingers. Against his own logic, Markriss listened for evidence of its contents; hearing none, he cradled the bottle in the crook of his arm, easing it into the pack. He zipped it up, carefully lifting the weight with one strap, sneaking his arm inside the other until the pack was high on both shoulders. Tightening both, he stood.

  Aife Paorach watched them all from the sagging bed, hunched on lean knees, wiping tears dry with bruised hands, nose red, shoulders hitching. Capra enclosed his daughter in the overwhelming embrace of thick arms, effectively shielding Aife from her work. Her sobbing grew louder, making the others stare. Turned from the sight, she pushed deeper into his chest, immersed in the flesh that made her, aching to recall the child she had once been.

  10

  Beneath the tangerine glow of fading Day-Lites, he sat amongst wildflowers, thickened crop stems and cultivated shrubs. Every few moments his eyes fooled his brain into believing they swayed with the breath of a low, untraceable breeze. Though occasionally air did move within the Ark, it was never enough to goad vegetation from immobility. For the Outsiders of the Poor Quarter, even those not part of their faction, the attraction of the garden wasn’t lessened by lack of fresh air. Residents came to sit on benches in quiet meditation, couples strolled the winding pathway, whispering secrets. Outsiders watered and tended rose bushes, picking various herbs to place in cloth satchels, digging root vegetables to distribute among the most poverty-stricken, or cook in that night’s soup kitchen and the following morning’s breakfast club, each open to all.

  The Temple garden had been a 500-metre square forest of overgrown weeds when they’d first encountered the space. Nobody knew why the school building was abandoned, and no one alive remembered its previous grandeur. Chile saw the garden’s potential as soon as she stepped through the back doors, vines and bushes forming a canopy over her head. She lifted her nose, inhaling, a broad smile rounding her cheeks. Enlisting the help of Vyasa, Markriss, Ayizan and a number of young people from around the Quarter, she spent weeks marshalling the back-breaking job of chopping and shifting weeds, clearing the space, before going amongst residents on the hunt for seeds and plant cuttings. It surprised Markriss to learn how many people grew window-box plants, or turned concrete front yards into flower gardens and vegetable patches, forgoing what little space they had to bring the outside into the Ark. Miniature Edens grew everywhere. Many local horticulturalists believed a large-scale garden couldn’t be grown without direct sunlight. Chile not only proved them wrong, but showed that their hothouse environment in fact stimulated more abundant, healthier growth. Now he knew the truth about the Day-Lites, it made sense. Over time, the Temple garden, started with humble thyme and mint flowers, began to bloom, take colour, releasing odours of jasmine and rose. Potatoes, carrots and courgettes were cultivated. Figs and apple trees lined the furthest end, bearing heavy fruit.

  Markriss didn’t consider himself a herbalist, yet something about the garden drew him, wherever he was in the zone. Away from the space, he smelt mint or felt microscopic green hairs tickle his fingers. He recalled the auric patterns he saw when he bent his head to petals, heard the ‘om’ monotone of insects. Though he often forgot to visit, caught up with day-to-day functions of life, the garden often came to mind, and when he opened the back doors to step into that space, something—weight, pressure, perhaps even his spirit—lifted from his neck and shoulders. He was calmed, at one with the living beings around him. There was a sense of communication between him and the plant world he’d entered, away from technology and the counterfeit nature of the Ark. There, in the centre of the garden, on his favourite bench, the one with a plaque dedicated to his brother’s memory, the stillness of the plants made perfect sense. It was withheld breath, the forward motion of humanity on pause. The closest to the spiritual realm made actual.

  Hands on knees, Markriss breathed silently. Focused by extending webs of connection, their aura and his. His centre shifted from the lower chakras, r
ising to the upper where it filled his throat, heart. He drifted, relaxing, waiting for it to fill his head and third eye.

  Nothing. Eyes stung, his left wrist itched. He allowed the sensations to continue, build in intensity. Outsiders walked by, heads turned towards the surrounding plants, leaving him be. Markriss stared through them. Did they know what happened in the basement?

  Pure thought. He needed pure thought.

  He uncapped a metal water bottle that reminded him of the gas canisters they’d brought to L1 and tipped his head back, sipping.

  ‘Àṣẹ ,’ Markriss said under his breath.

  Solid chill slipped down his throat. Leaning forwards, he poured another mouthful into soil.

  ‘I am because we are; and since we are, therefore I am; Markriss, son of Vendriss, who is son of Idriss, who is son of Mantiss, who is son of Shemiss, who is son of Armiss, who is son of Nepthys, and all our ancestors who precede us. I have taken life. I humbly ask for your wisdom and forgiveness. Àṣẹ.’

  Another outpouring, errant droplets splashing his feet, darkening shoes.

  ‘Ninka, my brother: I beg your guidance and forgiveness. May the souls of the departed and their kin find peace, in this realm and the next. Àṣẹ.’

  He sank into the silence, grateful for the life that surrounded him on all sides, an unseen presence pulling at him, leaden weight. Somewhere close, not ahead, over his shoulder from the direction of the Temple doors. He wanted to remain in meditation and ignore it, hoping they might leave. Instead it vibrated faster, heart rate rising, tense as a clenched fist. Watching. Aura probing, questioning. Young, inexperienced, very little control. Lower energy reaching for his. Sexual? He frowned, relaxing deeper.

  No. Clear red anger. Markriss drew air into his pelvic floor, exhaling, lips rattling a sigh.

  Ah. Renno, son of Io.

  He allowed his shoulder muscles to loosen, stretching his back straight. Opened his eyes. The closest shrub, a Coleus Chocolate Covered Cherry planted on the opposite side of the path, had been chosen especially by Chile in honour of his brother. The outer edges of the leaf were green fire, the inner section dark maroon, while on the inside a pink spectral form arose, like arms spread wide. The plant always intrigued Markriss, the energy of its colouring inspired him. It brought to mind his own physical and spiritual essence; green, the ethereal aura swirling about his body; maroon, his material flesh and bone; pink, the eternal soul housed within his physical form, the centre of being. Colours of healing, moving into one’s task, love. In viewing simple leaves, Markriss became aware that he bore witness to the microcosm in emulation of the macro. He was a vessel on behalf of the universe, pondering its larger existence. Aware of the present in acknowledgement of infinite realities. Chakras spun, shifted. His ka rose, pineal awakened.