A River Called Time

by Courttia Newland

  Finally, they collapsed onto the L1 surface. Aife had been right. On either side, brick buildings stretched high, a two-metre distance between walls. The ambient noise of the sleeping city played in Markriss’s ears. Blue streetlights were soft water. He lifted his head, bathed.

  ‘Alright, let’s do it.’

  Chile at his side again, gratitude for her presence swelling his heart. He dropped his head, taking in the sight of his friends. They looked terrible, beaten and dishevelled, dressed as they were in too-large jackets, clunky boots, eyes rimmed black, tired. Defeat settled on their shoulders like the ash they’d stumbled through, weighted by grief. Xander hoisted the strap of a rectangular cloth bag Aife had given him, lifting it over his head, arranging it at his hip. Markriss swallowed, turned away. No way they’d pull this off.

  At their feet, Aife sank back into the ground like a being of legend or fable, one hand grasping the panel, which she pulled to a close over her head, welling eyes disappearing as she gestured a farewell. The illusion could not hold. They had been there, had seen. Walking Inner City streets would never be the same now they knew what lay beneath them. Enormity clutched Markriss’s heart, gripping until he hardly breathed. They’d sought to liberate themselves and their allies. If the consequences meant the place below their feet continued to exist for many more lifetimes, he would never forgive himself.

  They left the narrow stretch of alleyway to enter the awakening main street, striving for normality. The light above phased through the pre-set beginnings of the rotation, a spectrum that came with the arrival of early dawn, first deep purples, then the growing flush of red, a saturation of yellow. They kept their hoods raised, heads low, staying close to each other, moving aside only to let others past, avoiding faces, speaking to, or glancing at each other. Markriss found that, contrary to his earlier trepidations about how they might stand out in this affluent zone, Ayizan’s planning had been wise. Early morning Inner City was the dominion of menial workers: engineers, cleaners, those who fixed the plumbing, or baled rubbish into trucks, or took the children of others on school runs; those who fetched, hefted, scrubbed, delivered, served. As such, the Outsiders were camouflaged. They looked exactly like those they walked amongst. Even Ayizan’s limp was commonplace for those hailing from the poorest zones. Injuries and disabilities were everywhere they looked.

  Menials dressed in oversized, oil-patched jackets that often hid the person they protected. All-in-one jumpsuits. Old and battered shoes were gaping maws, the boots much like theirs. Women in threadbare cardigans, thin hooded coats. Paper masks across the lower portion of faces. Amongst them, the homeless, the drug-addled, those who’d hardly slept a full hour. All waking to greet the day.

  And so they walked, tired and stumbling, much like those at their sides, unsure what the hours stretching before them might carry, not daring to wish for anything more than sleep at the end of their day, that restful peace of oblivion.

  12

  They arrived as Day-Lites bled yellow, allocation windows became illuminated, and familial noise seeped onto the empty street. Chatter, clinking utensils. The odd burst of laughter, squealed delight. It felt more conspicuous to walk the pavement of a zone in this Quarter, where the builds were not terraced but detached, with gardens of grass, children’s climbing frames, sometimes central fountains bearing winged cherubs spitting water. One of the gardens was dominated by the outspread branches of a cherry blossom, causing Chile to slow in wonder, tugged by sweet petals and perfume until she remembered all that had occurred. Her eyes narrowed, furrows etched across her brow.

  There was no one on the street at that hour, a blessing. They opened the waist-high gate, taking the stone pathway that led to a two-storey allocation, giving thanks for the height of a carefully pruned hedge enclosing the doctor’s garden, hiding them from view. Ayizan gave a furtive knock at the door, with a discernible wince. Markriss pressed the tape around his sides with tentative fingers. They waited, heads low. A dog’s bark caused them to jump, searching the vicinity before they realised it had come from inside the allocation.

  The door opened a slim crack. One half of a gaunt face, the other blocked. Dr Amunda’s mouth fell open in surprise.

  ‘Ah!’ A pause, no one sure what to do. ‘You must come in. Yes, come!’

  He allowed the door to swing further open, blindly reaching for the dog at his ankles, which bounded towards them with unrestrained glee. Quickly, they filed inside one after another. The hound was staring up at them, tongue dangling, slim and quick, black, short fur, bright brown eyes, flopping ears, an inquisitive damp nose probing each crotch that passed. It jumped, trying to taste sweat on their skin, Amunda pulling it by the collar and closing the door behind the last to enter, Xander. At Amunda’s instruction, difficult to hear over the frenzied barking of the dog and the doctor’s shouts for quiet, they moved through the passage, past a flight of stairs to their right, a gleaming modern kitchen, then to the left into a modest back room where Markriss imagined the doctor might receive patients.

  Ayizan, Temujin and Chile took the only available seats, Ayizan groaning, nursing his leg. Xander and Markriss rested their backs against the wall. The room was a neutral brown, three paintings hung, one of flowers and the others generic Outer City landscapes. Markriss swallowed hard, observing his scuffed boots. The barks grew mute, didn’t cease.

  They watched the doctor limp to his desk, shallow panting with every step. He was short, bow-legged. Pale green Eurasian shirt, earth-brown corduroy trousers. He turned to sit behind the desk, his white beard trimmed close to cheeks and chin, the edges of silver glasses catching window light. Bending, he opened an unseen desk drawer, pulling out a plump bag of piahro dust, tobacco, rolling papers, which he placed on the desktop, gnarled hands on either side.

  ‘Smoke, anyone?’

  They looked at each other. Markriss approached the desk, taking everything in one hand, shamed by crusts of dirt smeared on the heel of his palm and trapped beneath his nails like henna.

  ‘Take what you like, I have more.’

  Markriss thumbed a sheet, cupped it in his hand and rolled. The crackling paper reminded him of distant fires, of holding Chile’s hand in the centre of their street, burnt substance filling his nostrils. Vyasa’s screams.

  ‘Apologies for Apnu,’ the doctor continued. ‘I hope you don’t mind her. She’s quite friendly, and I need her around these days.’

  Silence. Amunda cleared his throat.

  ‘It’s terrible what’s happening in your Quarter. I only knew you weren’t dead because the Corps kept on killing. It lasted the whole night. They probably haven’t stopped, it’s just got quieter.’

  ‘What do you know?’ Ayizan’s eyes were brilliant in the murk that encircled them.

  ‘Just what they say. You can imagine what that’s worth. They claim your bombs destroyed the top three levels of 1322. Combined concussive force or something like that. None of the security guards were harmed, though they say there was one casualty. A janitor.’

  Quick glances between them. The promise had always been that there would be no menial casualties. For all, that was the only way the mission could go ahead. They wanted the zone onside, not against them. Markriss tried to see misgiving in Ayizan’s expression. He remained solid as ever, unfaltering, a captain to the last.

  ‘And what about the Quarter?’

  Even his voice was steady, Markriss noted, although Xander avoided looking at him, the younger man focused on the tufted carpet floor, jaw working.

  ‘They’ve cordoned off the zone, nothing in or out. I heard people tried sending bots out to record what was happening, but they were destroyed miles from here. You could hear it sometimes. The drones, assault vehicles, the killing.’ Amunda’s fists clenched; the doctor hadn’t realised his physical response. ‘What on Geb were you thinking? What did you hope to achieve?’

  Ayizan held his eyes. Amunda’s ticking watch filled emptiness.

  ‘He’s been shot, doctor.
We need to get the bullet out.’

  Markriss lit his splint, glaring at the elder.

  ‘So have you,’ Chile reminded. Pain surged, the swollen ache returned.

  ‘OK. I’ll look you both over, get you situated, and then you’ll tell me what you’re going to do. You’re welcome to stay as long as you need. That OK?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I’ll just set up the room. You’ll have to wait a moment.’

  Markriss listened to the old man shuffle past to the door, exhaling smoke towards the ceiling. He passed Ayizan the splint.

  The doctor saw Ayizan first, while the others waited in the medium-sized room. They were gone for a frustrating length of time, and as the others milled, fighting impatience, light from the window grew broader, the ambient noise of the local community increasing. Slamming doors, calls goodbye. The patter of children’s feet making their way to school. Brief moments of stillness in their wake, until the next family left, and the next. Collective departures peaking as the last scooter grumbled by, a parent shouted at their child to stop at the curb, the final depreciating thuds of a pitzball, the chatter of teenage friends becoming as distant as the space between those inside that room, and the community beyond.

  Temujin’s eyes drifted, body statuesque. She had slipped into a place no one could go; if they spoke, she ignored the speaker, or stared through them. Chile’s arm rested around her shoulder, gaze fixed on the fluffed grey carpet. Bored, Xander took a spot by the doctor’s desk, opening the cloth bag given by Aife. He picked at the contents one after the other, turning the objects this way and that with his fingers, holding them to the light, putting them back on the desk and shuffling them like a dealer immersed in a game of Find the Lady.

  The items were five slim plastic cards, white fading into overcast grey, portrait photos of each of them in the upper-right corners, six-digit numbers stamped across the centres followed by three capitalised letters, the first of their surnames. The laser tag was a series of raised bumps in the lower left, carrying all the resident’s personal details.

  Markriss walked over to Xander, blocking the view of their cards from the women, and bringing measure to his voice, speaking low.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  The young man seemed confused. Markriss touched the centre card in the pile. Vyasa. Xander drew in sharp breath.

  ‘Shit.’ He glanced over his shoulder, palming the card and sliding it into his bag, a trickster in reverse. ‘Kriss, man, I’m sorry . . .’

  ‘I know this is hard, you’ve still got to think, Xan. All the time. We don’t get days off.’

  ‘I get it, I totally get it. I’m really sorry.’

  ‘Put them away. All of them. And don’t get them out again until I tell you.’

  He returned to the only available seat, collapsing. Chile searched his face and he shook his head quickly, shut his eyes. Imagined reaching for Vyasa instead of priming his body to leap.

  He hadn’t known. Truthfully, he hadn’t known.

  He wriggled on the wooden seat, irritated and itching almost at once. Sat on the furthest edge, eventually the floor.

  After half an hour more, Ayizan came into the waiting room. Pale, favouring his good leg. The bullet was out, he said. Dr Amunda had stitched him up and warned there’d be a scar. As long as he rested and kept the wound clean, he’d be fine.

  ‘Your turn,’ he told Markriss, unsmiling.

  In the confines of Amunda’s makeshift clinic, formerly a podroom from what little he could tell, Markriss lay on the large bed, naked from the waist up, eying the blank white ceiling. A radio played gentle kora. The room glowed with reflected light, the sole window covered by white canvas. Amunda seemed to have lost the urge for conversation, apart from mutters as he surveyed and chose instruments, busying himself between a metal rack and the injury itself. He produced a large-barrelled needle, raised it to his eye.

  ‘You’ll get this for the pain and then I’ll clean and stitch. Shouldn’t take a minute. OK with needles?’

  ‘No,’ Markriss replied as it pierced his flesh. He sucked inwards, chill fluid entering the vein.

  When it was done, they returned to the waiting room. The atmosphere had altered. It was clear Temujin had been crying, and perhaps the others too. Eyes red, no one could look at him.

  Amunda positioned himself behind the desk, false smiling at Xander, who perched on the opposite corner, hands in his pockets, one leg raised on the mahogany surface, the other steady on carpet. Markriss leant against the wall, tension clenching his jaw. The after-effect of fatigue and the injection made his head swim. His stomach clenched, rolled.

  ‘So what now?’ Amunda said, after time passed.

  ‘We stick with the plan.’ Chile looked resolute, fierce.

  ‘The plan will get you killed.’

  ‘We stay here too long and they’ll kill you too. You don’t know how many neighbours saw us walk this block and come to your allocation.’

  The doctor leant back in the chair, fingers entwined.

  ‘Let me worry about that, it was always going to be the risk. I’d rather that than have you all dance into their party like fools.’

  ‘We appreciate what you’re saying,’ Markriss said, ‘though we don’t have a great deal of choice. We’ve had a great job done on IDs and clearance. As long as we keep our heads we’ll get through.’

  Taking stock, all of them thinking.

  ‘Might I see one?’

  Markriss inclined his head at Xander. The young man took a card from the bag and passed it over.

  Amunda raised the ID to the light, squinting. Brought the plastic close to his nose, even sniffed it. He ran his fingers over the surface, ducked beneath his desk and rose with a portable reader, squat and blue, then let the ID rest at the base of the machine, peering at the read-out.

  Markriss raised his eyebrows, waiting. He was lightheaded, hollow. The first test.

  ‘Where were these done?’

  Markriss shifted, eying the ceiling.

  ‘Remarkable job. I halfway believe it.’

  ‘L3 here we come.’ Ayizan’s good cheer made a partial return. No one laughed.

  Amunda gave the card back. Laid his palms on the desk.

  ‘From your mouth to Ra’s ears,’ he said. ‘I think we should eat.’

  Hours after Day-Lites faded, the street outside was silent as the Blin. Zipped close in a sleeping bag on Dr Amunda’s living-room floor, Markriss and Chile forced their bodies against each other, lips and hands gliding hot flesh, roaming every inch. Xander and Ayizan had taken a guest podroom upstairs. Temujin had retired to the waiting-room floor not long after they’d eaten. Amunda worried about leaving her alone, although Temujin had insisted, promising she would allow the doctor to administer a strong herbal sedative for the night. The medicine was brewed from hot water and honey, piahro mixed with unknown plants Amunda wouldn’t disclose. Within the hour, when Chile entered the room to check on her, she was sleeping.

  Tracing bone and muscle, desperate for the other, they removed what little clothing was left—his underwear, her glasses—shifting their bodies until he climbed onto her, and she slid open to allow him. Grasping, gazing into each other’s eyes, lips pushed against mouths with frantic violence, or against the skin of each shoulder, neck, collarbone, Chile doing what she could to avoid his wound. Nipping skin, tasting soap and sweat, jaws tight, straining to remain quiet, grinding teeth when they found the right place, forgetting their avowed silence, letting go. Listening to the room tick as they returned to their bodies, reason seeping into consciousness, alive, aware.

  He rolled to one side, the pounding beneath his ribcage suddenly prominent. With the flash of pain came those foreign images: hands clasped around the unyielding neck, fingers depressing flesh into small craters, the opening gateway. Veiled sunlight, a droplet of blood. Shuddering in the darkness, a film of sweat contracted into dry, pimpled goosebumps on Markriss’s skin.

  Chile pushed herself bene
ath an arm, nose buried in his chest.

  ‘Man stink,’ she whispered. Chuckling.

  ‘I showered, you saw.’

  ‘Need to again.’

  Head shaking, he smiled a little. Beneath the closed living-room door, a gap no bigger than ten millimetres from where they lay, came a spurt of breath, snuffling, a patter of claws. Chile tensed, holding her breath until it was gone.

  ‘Can’t believe he’s got a dog.’

  He placed a hand over his eyes, appreciating the full darkness it afforded.

  ‘Chileshe . . .’

  ‘He better get rid of it. You better tell him.’

  He took his hand away from his face.

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘I’m not taking any more chances. Tell him to send it away or I will.’

  Markriss pulled Chileshe to him and kissed her temple, lips caressing baby hairs. Wishing it all away.

  They stayed with Amunda three more days before Ayizan said it was time. By then, Markriss was struck by how accustomed they had become to being around the doctor, grateful for his calm manner and home-cooked food, his steady hospitality, the warmth of his home.

  There wasn’t much they could do with their time except help to keep the house tidy. Chop vegetables for dinner, offer to brew tea. Xander had taken to doing repairs, fixing a bolt on a broken kitchen cupboard door, restarting the ventilation unit in the bathroom, unblocking the pedestal sink. As instructed, Ayizan rested his leg with his foot raised on a spare seat, and was often to be found in the living room, face hidden by a hardback text borrowed from Amunda’s extensive library, or the battered pages of Markriss’s Book of the Ark. He slept for many hours, waking to brood without interruption, even when someone entered the room. Markriss worried about his state of mind; he hardly ate, his cheekbones protruded, and his locks had become greyed, old rope. On the second morning he came downstairs, hair cut to the scalp, locks hefted in a swollen carrier bag, asking if the doctor could bury them in the garden when they left. It was shocking to see him that way. Though they knew his intention was to match the photo ID, and the shave had been planned from the beginning, Markriss was still disoriented by their removal.