by Daryl Banner
It’s a question she does not dignify with an answer.
Yet.
All eleven women sit at the dinner table, still excitedly going on about their latest findings on the streets. The food is brought and set on ornate dishes that belonged to the old Lifted Lady buried in the backyard. Every meal has been this way, feasting on the scraps of the wealthy and dead, like the crows that peck at corpses on the streets.
“A toast,” announces Liggie with a hearty grunt and a lift of her cup of sweet-berry, just as she always does before every meal, just as Mercy expected.
The other women stop their banter at once and lift their glasses, following Liggie’s authoritative lead. The swirling steam of each of their delicious meals bathe their eager, greedy, hungry faces.
Mercy is last to lift her own glass, patiently observing the looks in each of the women’s beady, callous eyes.
Last of all: Liggie’s. “To the Lifted, whose shit we’ve downed for centuries. To the Lifted, whose superior sense of belonging has borne a host of hatred that’s someday soon to pay off. To the Lifted, who have long clutched everything, yet in the end hold nothing. To the Lifted, whose power over us is, at long last, to come to a timely and most final end.” It’s the same toast she gives nearly every night. Mercy could recite it by heart.
“TO THE LIFTED!” shout the rest of the women in sick sardonic pride, like every night, then tip their glasses.
Mercy drinks from hers just as calmly.
The sweet-berry tastes ever so sweet tonight, Mercy notes, closing her eyes as she enjoys her tasty beverage.
And behind her closed eyelids, she hears a choke to her left. Then a gag to her right. Then across the table, a cough and a wheeze and a bizarre, gurgling sound. Someone screams for half a second before silverware is disturbed, a glass is shattered, and then a body heavily drops to the floor, taking a whole plate with it, from the loud and crashing sound of it. There are no words. Only sounds. Only sick gasps and raspy coughs and a handful of wimpy groans and choked, half-hearted screams before faces drop into plates, before bodies slip out of chairs and tumble to the ground, before all Mercy hears is the soft and silent stillness of nothing.
Then Mercy opens her eyes, sets down her glass, and begins to eat her dinner in peace.
Indeed, this steak is cooked to perfection, she notes as she cuts herself a bite from her plate, her knife and fork softly tapping on it. She slips the bite of steak into her mouth, then closes her eyes as she chews and savors the bloody flavor.
Perfection.
Once her meal is finished, including the rose cabbage soup and the crispy noodle salad and the ever-so-succulent sweet bread, Mercy gently moves the hand of the dead woman next to her off her dinner napkin, picks up the fancy cloth thing, dabs her lips, then sets it down and rises from the table.
It’s then that Scot has dragged himself off the floor of the den and managed to get himself back to his feet. As Mercy finishes the rest of her glass of sweet-berry, Scot stops under the archway into the dining room, and his eyes fill with horror. “M-Mercy …” he gasps, surveying the corpses all over and around the table. “M-M-Mercy …”
“They deserved none,” she states, then sets down her glass. “But you did. Hence the low-blow.” She nods at him. “You’ll recover, you big wimpy Lifted.”
Scot brings his disbelieving eyes to hers. He is struck speechless.
“And now,” Mercy announces, circling the table, “we are free to engage in our original plan. Plan A. The one this bitch …” She lifts the head of Liggie off her plate, half the dead woman’s face covered and dripping in thick brown steak sauce. “… refused to entertain.”
Scot slowly shakes his head, eyes turning to glass, horrorstruck. “M-Mercy … w-what have you d-done …? W-What are …” A shaky breath comes out his lips. “What are we going … t-to do now …?”
Mercy lets the head drop. It lands on the plate with a loud and heavy crash, causing the nearby silverware to rattle. “We’re going to ransom the Queen’s stupid mother, that’s what.”
ACT 3
0284 Halvesand
Halvesand Lesser stands at the top of the highest building in the Core.
Halvesand Lesser heard the news just the same as anyone else did: the Lifted City is falling. Everyone beneath it will be crushed to death. Ten thousand innocent souls.
Halvesand Lesser looks up at the dark, ominous underbelly of the Lifted City as it drops toward him. He never imagined he would witness what it looks like for the sky to fall.
Halvesand Lesser will be a hero today. He will save the lives of tens of thousands. Their fate rests in his hands.
Halvesand Lesser will stop the thing.
Halvesand Lesser lifts his mighty hands up toward the sky as it falls. There is no neck armor inhibiting him. There is no pain in his throat. There is only Halvesand Lesser and the sky. That underbelly of the city, it is nothing but another train with no headlights.
And it rushes down upon him.
Faster.
Faster, still.
And then—
Boom. The Lifted City lands upon Halvesand’s palms. It’s been stopped in an instant. He has saved the world he knows.
But the City is heavy. The City is so heavy and Halves is so light. His feet sink a bit, the roof beneath him threatening to open up under him. No, Halvesand demands. I am the hero. The world depends on me. I must stop the thing.
His feet sink more.
His hands are beginning to shake.
Halvesand Lesser makes a quick calculation, then inclines his head and aims his back toward the falling city.
His hands give way.
The Lifted City drops onto his back, then stays, steadied.
Halvesand Lesser carries the world upon his shoulders. Every part of his body trembles. Every muscle screams at him. Every second is agony worse than when he tried to speak, worse than when Mercy’s knife punctured his neck, worse than when he first heard the news that his brothers were killed.
Yet still, he holds on.
Halvesand Lesser is a hero, but he cannot hold the Lifted City upon his back forever. At some point, he will need to let go. At some point, once all the tens of thousands of citizens have fled to a safer place far from the reaches of the city crushing them …
Once his mother has fled to the edge of the ninth …
Once his brother and Ennebal have run away to have their baby, Halvesand Lesser’s nephew, may he live a long life …
Once everyone he knows and loves—as well as the thousands he has never met and will never know and is dying for—climbs out from under the falling doom …
Then Halvesand Lesser will let go.
They will remember me.
The Lifted City is getting so heavy. It is so heavy upon his back. I stopped the thing, and they will remember me.
A tear escapes his eye as he thinks on his loved ones. The tear that races down his cheek does not burn. I remember tears that didn’t burn. I remember food that didn’t hurt. I remember turning my neck. I remember speaking.
Halvesand Lesser will be the hero of Atlas, the whole city upon his shoulders.
I am Atlas.
And when all the tens of thousands are finally to safety, and the only person left is Halvesand Lesser himself, city upon his shoulders, the half-crumbling roof at his weary feet, it is then that he will be joined by Anwick and Lionis. They hold the city on their backs with him. “We’re here for you, brother,” says Anwick proudly. “Yeah, we’d never leave you alone!” agrees Lionis cheerily. “You’ll never be alone again.” “Never, ever!” “You’re our brother, Halves.” “Brothers, always.”
It is the greatest, most immeasurable feeling, to be reunited with his lost brothers after all this time, and for them to be with him until the very end. Yes, this is exactly how an end ought to be.
“Are you ready?” asks Anwick, not a speck of fear in his voice.
“We’ll do this together,” states Lionis proudly.
Halvesand Lesser feels stronger than he’s ever felt in this final moment of his life.
“On the count of three …” sings Anwick. “One …”
“Two …” counts Lionis encouragingly.
BOOM.
Halves flaps open his eyes and sits up.
Where is he? What happened? Where did his brothers go? Is the city still on his back? Did he let go?
Did I let go?
He blinks five times a second, confused, the world spinning, and then he drops back down.
“The neck-brace boy is awake,” comes an unfamiliar voice at his side. “You really knocked him out good, didn’t you?”
“It’s fine,” comes a smooth male voice, perhaps the face behind the black silk scarf. “He’s subdued, and we’re nearly there.”
Nearly where? Halves tries to sit up again, dizzy.
“His name is Halves,” says Cope tersely. “Not ‘neck-brace boy’. And he is a hero. He can end all of you. He’s survived—”
“Do we need to iterate a few more times that we are all allies?” asks black-scarf again. “We fight on the same side, brave child.”
“My name is Cope, and I am older than I look.”
“Yes, older by a few months, no doubt. Take a right. Yes, here,” he instructs someone, perhaps whoever is driving—Forrest or Bee, most likely. “Then continue on.”
“If we are your allies,” comes the old, annoyingly patient and calm voice of Lord Liaff, “then might I inquire why you are holding us hostage, sir?”
“Necessary precautions,” he answers flippantly. “I mean, we’re coming out of a time of anarchy, yes? It is with peaceful intentions that we enforce control. Just like Guardian. You ought to be used to the treatment, not that it’s often turned upon your like. Worry not. You are headed precisely where you need to be. Another right,” silk-face instructs. “Soon there.”
Halves keeps still as his consciousness returns to him, despite the throbbing at the right side of his head where he’s certain some sort of blunt object struck him. Now that he has fully come to, he feigns still being lost in his dreams of holding the city on his back. He keeps quiet as the dead and listens.
“You are an educated person,” states Liaff. “Yes, I can always tell. The tone of your words. A skyborn professor has had his way with you. Were you studied at the Westly or the Eastly?”
The whole cabin draws silent, no one speaking. Halves feels the tension between them, only made worse by how obliviously polite and conversational Liaff is being. The Privileged have so little sense of danger; they think themselves invincible by their bottomless pockets.
Then, much to Halves’ surprise, the silk-face answers: “Westly.”
The Charmer, whose voice is only recognizable by how unlike Bee and Forrest she sounds, bristles near Halvesand’s head. “You’re a Lifted? You never told me!”
“It’s never been a bit of anyone’s business,” he answers plainly, his words still muffled by the silk. “The very authorities we serve are Lifted, too. Or did you forget?”
“Of course I haven’t. But …” She huffs. “I’ve told you everything about myself. I figured you ought to afford me the same courtesy.”
“Reciprocity is the death of all relationships. This for that. Scores for each lover. I give you a fuck, you give me a fuck. If we aren’t even, we’re unhappy. It’s all a bore. Can’t we simply be as we are?”
“Selfish and secretive, you mean?” she returns lightly.
“Take a right here,” he instructs instead of acknowledging the Charmer’s attitude.
Halves feels darkness fall over the caravan, even with his eyes closed. Soon, tiny lights begun running across his eyelids, perhaps streetlamps, or lanterns, or stripes of tunnel light, if they are nearing the Core. He fights two or three temptations to crack open an eye and answer his own questions.
Then Cope does it for him. “The sewers?”
“Waterways,” states silk-face.
“But they will terminate at the edge of eleventh. No Waterways run into the twelfth. All the paths are caved in or sealed off.”
“So adorable,” sings the Charmer near Halvesand’s head. “These fools who know nothing but what they’re told.”
Cope scoffs at her. “It’s a fact! It’s a plain fact!”
“Then if you’re such a fan of said facts, you might enjoy a story about a certain Queen in our past,” says silk-face. “Long ago, she fled to the twelfth to escape the wrath of her husband, the King of Atlas. Little did she know that the twelfth was going to explode. Pity.”
“She had a Legacy of muddlement,” adds the Charmer.
“To keep anyone from finding her, she cast her Legacy all over these parts of the Waterways as she escaped to the twelfth.” Silk-face lets out a short, joyless chuckle. “Sad thing is, her Legacy was a touch too strong. Now—even centuries later—anyone who tries to head to the Abandon will grow confused, lost, and always end up at a dead-end or circling back toward the eleventh. If you linger here long enough, you’ll lose your mind. Or so some say.”
“Unless you know the exact path,” adds the Charmer.
“Yes. Knowing the exact path is key,” he agrees. “Take a right.”
Cope doesn’t seem to respond, as Halves hears nothing after those words. Only the gentle hum meets his ears, soon mixed in with a muted rushing of water outside their craft. Waterways, wonders Halves behind his eyelids. I knew of the tunnels beneath our feet, but never pictured them as big enough to hold a whole chrome caravan.
“He cut me,” complains another voice—the boy, who Halvesand nearly forgot about.
“And you’ll be bandaged,” throws back silk-face. “You came at him with force. Tsk, tsk. You need to learn more diplomatic skills, my friend, lest you and your brother poke the belly of the wrong lion. You know what a lion is, don’t you?” The unsettled silence is an answer. “Really, if I were King, I’d invite a handful of slum children up to the Lifted schools every day. They would learn so much in just a few hours. Atlas would be so much greater.”
“Dreams and words and nothing,” mumbles the Charmer.
“Take another right, then a left around the bend.”
“You have the directions written down?” asks Cope suddenly. “I thought you knew the way. Why are they written?”
The Charmer lets out a long sigh that Halves can feel over the hairs of his arm. “Were you not listening in the least to our story? The muddlement. We’re entering it. None of us will be certain of the way now until we’re there, hence needing the written directions to trust completely.”
Halves is dubious of their claims, as his mind feels completely his own and he experiences no confusion of any kind, but still he stays alert and wary as the chrome carries them onward.
“Yes, it’s certainly true,” murmurs Liaff suddenly. “I sense you are genuinely worried about the muddlement. It is a true thing, my friends. It must be, else their own emotions lie.”
“Keep going about the bend and ignore the next two crossings.”
“Are you certain?” comes Forrest’s voice. “We’ve not ignored a single intersection since we entered the Waterways.”
“Don’t question me. Don’t question anything. Simply obey.”
Forrest sighs. “How many intersections do I pass through?”
“I …” There is a rustling of paper. “Two crossings, yes? Have I given that instruction yet?”
“I don’t think so,” adds in Cope, unasked. “Wait. Didn’t we just pass an intersection already? Is it one more we pass, or two?”
“Keep going. One … One more.”
“Just one?”
There’s a moment of hesitation, and then: “Yes, just one.”
“We’ve already passed three crossings,” complains Bee sourly. “Can you two not count? We have to go back now.”
“No. No,” states the silk-faced man, losing his composure for a second. “No one speak. No one say a fucking word. I’m the one with the directions. Two cr
ossings, then a right. There, we just passed the first one.”
“Second,” mumbles the Charmer.
“First.”
Halvesand, completely forgetting that he was intending to play unconscious, opens his eyes and sits up. He drinks in the view of the Waterways all around him through the slits of glass that line either side of the chrome and the large windshield in the front. It is a stony wonderland of rounded bricks, a tunnel that goes on and on and on, branching out here and there. Down its middle runs a river of water, upon which they’re floating. To the left and right are narrow paths of concrete, occasionally punctuated by a ladder leading upward, or a pipe, or a cold, white-light lantern. Whites, greys, and blues fill his eyes as the rushing sound of water and the hum of the engine fills his weary ears.
“You cut me,” grunts one of the boys tartly, sitting between Bee and Cope along with another boy, both armed with knives and guns.
Halves regards them with a look. Upon closer inspection, the two boys he sees are not completely identical. One has the gash at his shoulder, the other does not and appears a touch fuller in the face. Is that actually possible? he wonders, staring at the like of them. They really are a set of twins, both of whom can multiply themselves?
That would explain how a group of boys charged Halvesand at the chrome while another group of boys captured Bee, Cope, and Forrest with the silk-faced man. Each group of clones was generated and controlled by a different twin.
Still, he knows there has to be some sort of difference between their Legacies. No two people—even twins—have the same power.
“Second crossing? Or have we passed three, now?”
“Turn right,” orders silk-face. “Then onward through the dome and into the skinnies.”
“I hate the skinnies,” complains the Charmer, who then turns her bug eyes onto Halves. “The Waterways are so dark and narrow in the skinnies. I wonder if this chrome will even fit.”
Why the Charmer was speaking to Halves, he can’t say. But soon their curiosities are answered as the chrome passes through a large dome-shaped room of several—at least seven—different tunnels leading elsewhere. Forrest drives the chrome straight toward the one tunnel that looks least inviting: a frighteningly narrow, dark path where the water pours out from.
