The Storm of Echoes

by Christelle Dabos

  Ophelia blew on the fog to chase it away from her. She would take advantage of every lead this second memory offered her in order to discover their weak points. It was in Babel that the story of Eulalia, of the Other, of the family spirits, and of the new world had begun. Regardless of the collapse, Ophelia wouldn’t leave this ark before she had dragged everything out of it, down to its last secret.

  She turned on her heels to leave the void behind her.

  Someone was standing right beside her. An undefined shadow due to the fog.

  The area was out of bounds to the public. Since when had this person been there? Had they eavesdropped on Thorn’s and Ophelia’s earlier conversation? Or were they innocently collecting their thoughts on the site of the catastrophe?

  “Hello?”

  The shadow didn’t reply, but it slowly moved away through the fog. Ophelia allowed it to get ahead, then decided to follow it between what could be glimpsed of the deserted stalls. Maybe she was imagining things, but if this nosy man—or woman—had deliberately listened to them, she at least wanted to see his—or her—face.

  The mist-shrouded market, cut in half by the collapse, had an end-of-time feel. An automaton that was supposed to distribute the newspapers but had not been wound up stood as still as a statue in the middle of the square, holding aloft a paper from the previous day. Disturbing, in this silence, were the tiny noises that Ophelia wouldn’t have noticed in normal times. The gurgling of the water along the gutter. The buzzing of the flies around the produce just left where it was. The sound of her own breathing. On the other hand, she heard nothing from the shadow that she was now losing sight of.

  She sped up.

  When a gust of wind cleared the fog, Ophelia jumped at her own reflection. A few steps further, and she would have banged into the window of a store.

  GLAZING—MIRRORS

  Much as Ophelia swiveled her glasses in all directions, there was no longer anyone around. The shadow had shaken her off. Never mind.

  She went up to the entrance of the glazing-and-mirror store. The owner, terrified by the collapse, had left without even closing the door. From inside there came the murmur of a radio that was still on:

  “. . . is with us on the Official Bulletin. Citizen, you are among the rare witnesses of the tragedy . . . a tragedy that plunged Babel into grief yesterday morning. Tell us about it.”

  “I still can’t believe it, and yet, vraiment, I saw it. Or rather, no, I didn’t see it. It’s complicated.”

  “Just tell us what happened, citizen.”

  “I was at my spot. I’d put up my stall. It was pouring as never before. A torrent from the sky . . . from the sky. We were wondering whether to pack up our stock again. And then, I felt a kind of hiccup.”

  “A hiccup?”

  “A very slight jolt. I didn’t see, didn’t hear, but that, yes, I felt it.”

  “And after that, citizen?”

  “After that, I realized the others had also felt it, that hiccup. We all came out of our stalls . . . stalls. What a shock! The neighboring stand, it had disappeared. Nothing left of it, just clouds. That could’ve been me.”

  “Thank you, citizen. Dear listeners . . . listeners, you are tuned in to the Official Bulletin. The Lords of Lux have designated the northwestern district out of bounds, for your safety. They recommend, above all, that you refrain from reading the banned leaflets that disrupt public order. We also remind you that a census . . . census is taking place at the Memorial right now.”

  Ophelia decided not to listen to any more; the echoes disturbed her. This phenomenon, once rare, occasional just two days ago, now affected all transmissions. Before flying off on a new voyage, Lazarus had stated that the echoes were “the key to it all.” But then, he had also told Ophelia that she was inverted, as he was himself, that he explored the arks on God’s behalf, and had created the automatons to contribute to making his world even more perfect. In short, Lazarus came out with all sorts of nonsense, but he did have a lovely home in the center of town that she and Thorn had made their base.

  Ophelia held her own gaze in the mirror in the store window. The last time she had passed through a mirror, she had done an enormous leap in space, as though her family power had matured at the same time as she had. Travelling through mirrors had got her out of a good many impasses, but the world would have been in a better state had she refrained from doing so that very first time. If only she could recall what precisely had happened in the mirror of her childhood bedroom! Of her encounter with the Other, she retained mere crumbs. A presence behind her reflection. A call that had woken her in the middle of the night.

  “Release me.”

  She had released him, apparently, but from where had he emerged, and in what form? No one, as far as she knew, neither on Anima nor elsewhere, had reported the arrival of an apocalyptic creature.

  Ophelia stared wide-eyed. Something didn’t make sense in the mirror in the store window. She saw herself wearing her scarf, when she knew for certain that she had left it at Lazarus’s house. Babel’s dress code forbade her from wearing any color in public and she hadn’t wanted to draw attention to herself. She then noticed that this wasn’t the only anomaly in this mirror. Her gown was covered in blood, her glasses were in pieces. She was dying. Eulalia Gonde and the Other were there, too, with no precise form, and everywhere, everywhere around them, there was just the void.

  “Your identity papers, s’il vous plaît.”

  Ophelia turned from the vision, her heart on fire. A guard was holding out an authoritarian hand in her direction.

  “The district is out of bounds to civilians.”

  While he was examining the false papers, Ophelia glanced again at the mirror in the store window. Her image had returned to normal. No more scarf, no more blood, no more void. She had already experienced, when living in the Pole, being tricked by illusions. First a shadow, then her reflection: had she been prey to hallucination? Or worse, manipulation?

  “Animist of the eighth degree,” the guard commented, handing her back her papers. “You’re not a native of the city, Mademoiselle Eulalia.”

  Patrolling this close to the collapse made him uneasy. His long ears twitched, and twitched again, like those of an agitated cat. Each descendant of Pollux, Babel’s family spirit, possessed an overdeveloped sense. This guard was an Acoustic.

  “But I do have accommodation,” Ophelia replied. “May I return to it?”

  The guard looked hard at her forehead, as though searching for something that should have been there.

  “No. You’re not authorized. Didn’t you hear the announcements? You have to go to the Memorial for the census. Maintenant.”

  THE SIGNATURE

  The birdtrain was packed. But Ophelia was still shoved in by the guard before the doors closed. She couldn’t change position without squashing a babouche. It was boiling hot, and the smell of sweat was stronger than the smell of the giant fowl on the roof, which was itself pungent. Somewhere, a baby was screaming. Everyone around Ophelia seemed to be suffering from the same confusion. Why were they being taken to the Memorial? What was this sudden census all about? Was it to do with the landslide? Despite all the anxiety, no one dared raise a voice. If Ophelia went by the dress code, crammed in here were Totemists, Florins, Seers, Heliopolitains, Metamorphosers, Necromancers, and Phantoms, men and women from all four corners of the arks, as was so common in Babel. Every invention in the city was the fruit of their combined family expertise, starting with this birdtrain they were all suffocating in, which was taking forever to get going.

  If they were nervous, Ophelia was even more so. She had no desire to take part in a census, not with false papers in her pocket and an apocalypse to prevent. The reflection in that store’s mirror, whether she had imagined it or not, had shaken her.

  Flattened against the glass of the door, she gazed at the crowd outside.
A tradesman was tying up his carpets on a trolley, an old lady was maneuvering a small van loaded with children, and a zebu in the middle of the road was stopping the traffic. It wasn’t just from the district affected by the landslide that everyone was running away; it was from the precipice, the void. People were scared. Ophelia didn’t blame them for that. The Other could have been any one of them . . . She was supposedly linked to him, but she wouldn’t have recognized him along a pavement.

  An automaton riding a bicycle suddenly appeared. It was a singular spectacle, this mannequin without eyes, nose, or mouth pedaling straight ahead while a rasping, gramophone-like voice boomed from its midriff:

  “I PULL YOUR WEEDS, I POLISH YOUR BRASSES, I MEND YOUR BABOUCHES . . . BABOUCHES . . . AND I NEVER GET TIRED. HIRE ME TO PUT AN END TO THE SERVITUDE OF MAN BY MAN.”

  Through the glass, Ophelia’s eyes met those of a gentleman, sitting on a trunk that was too heavy for him. He had the distraught expression of someone who doesn’t know where he will be spending the night. He shouted at Ophelia, and at the other passengers on the birdtrain:

  “Find yourselves another ark! Leave Babel to its true citizens!”

  Finally, the birdtrain left the platform. Ophelia was all shaken up, and not merely by the bumpy flight. Throughout the journey, she tried hard not to look at the void beneath the sea of clouds. She breathed more easily once the doors opened onto the forecourt of the Memorial.

  She raised her glasses as high as she could to take in this architectural folly, part lighthouse, part library, and so colossal it took up the entire ark—give or take a few mimosa trees. Ophelia had spent days within its walls, sometimes nights, cataloguing, evaluating, classifying, and card-punching.

  Here she felt almost at home.

  Pollux’s family guard broadcast its orders. “Alight, s’il vous plaît! Move along, s’il vous plaît! Wait, s’il vous plaît!” No sooner had all the passengers got off than a flood of citizens, having completed their registration, were replacing them on the birdtrain to return to town. They all bore a strange mark on their foreheads.

  Ophelia became trapped in an endless queue under the blazing sun. She envied the old Water-diviner behind her, going around with that little rain cloud above his head.

  She was stuck for a long time in front of the statue of the headless soldier, which was as ancient as the rest of the place. The Memorial already existed at the time of the old world. It was in this very place that Eulalia Gonde had brought up the family spirits. Was it also here that she had met the Other? Here that, together, they had triggered the Rupture? The Memorial bore the scar. Half of it had collapsed into the void and had since been ambitiously rebuilt above the sea of clouds. Every time Ophelia looked at the building, she wondered how it managed not to tip over.

  Suddenly, she couldn’t see a thing anymore. A gust of wind had slapped an orange leaflet against her glasses.

  WE’RE GOING TO DRINK. WE’RE GOING TO SMOKE.

  WE’RE GOING TO BREAK ALL THE TABOOS.

  AND YOU, HOW ARE YOU GOING TO CELEBRATE

  THE END OF THE WORLD?

  Ophelia turned the leaflet over. A single line was printed on the other side:

  JOIN THE BRATS OF BABEL!

  Fearless-and-Almost-Blameless was dead, but his followers were pulling out all the stops.

  A guard snatched the leaflet from Ophelia’s hands.

  “Enter, s’il vous plaît!”

  At last, she was moving between the doors of the Memorial. As always, she at first felt dwarfed by the gigantic scale of the place, by the vast atrium, the towering circular stories, the vertical corridors of the transcendiums, the reading rooms set up on the ceilings, the terrestrial globe of the Secretarium floating beneath the cupola, and, maybe more even than all the rest, by the multitude of bookcases brimming with knowledge. Then, once this initial crushing impression had passed, Ophelia felt aggrandized by the united message of all these pages, all these quiet voices that seemed to whisper to her that she, too, had the right to make her own voice heard.

  The queue was divided into several branches, stretching to the back of the atrium. The few Memorialists that Ophelia spotted on the floors above moved furtively, glancing down surreptitiously, as though embarrassed by this census being carried out at their place. Ophelia looked for Blaise’s familiar face among them, but soon knew that he wasn’t there: the poor assistant was cursed with such bad luck that he never went unnoticed. There were, on the other hand, many automatons coming and going with portable typewriters.

  She let out an “Oh, no” when, after an eternity, she finally saw the counter her queue was leading to. In charge of it was a tall, slim Forerunner, with tawny hair tied in a messy ponytail.

  Elizabeth.

  This young woman had been in charge of Ophelia’s division. Ophelia liked her singularity and admired her intelligence but found her blind loyalty to the city’s ruling class exasperating. If her false papers did indeed prove problematic, Elizabeth wouldn’t be sentimental about it.

  “You again?” she said, by way of greeting, when Ophelia’s turn arrived. “Welcome to the counter for non-natives of Babel.”

  She barely smiled, which was typical of her. Her eyelids, thick and gray, half-covered her eyes, like lampshades. Her freckles didn’t succeed in brightening up her pallor. Ophelia was caught in the sun’s rays and looked more Babelian than she did.

  “You’re not looking your best,” Elizabeth said, pointing her fountain pen at Ophelia’s nose as it dripped with perspiration.

  “You don’t look that great, either,” retorted Ophelia.

  It was a bit too easy; Elizabeth never looked that great. She raised her eyebrows a little, doubtless surprised at Ophelia’s informality, but must have remembered that she was no longer her superior, because she cheered up.

  “We’re not allowed to wear makeup. We have to show complete transparency while performing our duties. Hand me your identity papers, then, so I can check your own transparency, Eulalia.”

  “What’s going on? Why have we all been summoned here?”

  “Hmm?” said Elizabeth, without looking up from the papers she was going through. “The Lords of LUX decided to conduct a mandatory census of those who arrived in Babel less than ten years ago. And believe me, that’s a whole lot of people,” she added, gesturing casually at the queues disappearing into the distance. “I volunteered to help out. It’s obviously only temporary; I should find out soon where I’m being transferred to next. I’ve already received several proposals.”

  Right now, Ophelia was less concerned about Elizabeth’s future than her own. Her false papers had been cobbled together by Archibald. A mere stamp in the wrong place could reveal her deception.

  “But why?” she insisted. “Why are the Lords doing a census?”

  “Why wouldn’t they?”

  Ophelia suspected as much. Even having gained her final grade, Elizabeth was no initiate. Like all the Babelians, she was unaware that the Lords of LUX were secretly serving Eulalia Gonde. Ophelia couldn’t believe that their organizing such an extensive survey the day after a landslide was a coincidence. Something was definitely brewing.

  “Elizabeth,” murmured Ophelia, leaning on the counter, “do you know if there were any landslides anywhere other than Babel?”

  “Hmm? Why would I know such a thing?”

  “Because you’re a Forerunner.”

  Faced with her impassive expression, Ophelia felt exasperated. She needed a better source of information. She looked around at the neighboring counters.

  “Is Octavio here, too?”

  It wasn’t just the son of Lady Septima, herself a member of the LUX caste, that Ophelia wished to see. It was mainly someone she could trust—which was pretty ironic considering her and Octavio’s mutual mistrust during their shared apprenticeship at the Good Family.

  “He’s j
ust started on a part-time contract at the Official Journal,” Elizabeth replied. “And it’s not for us to give information to you. I’m going to ask you a series of questions to complete your file; you answer with as few words as possible.”

  Ophelia had to endure an interrogation such as she had never experienced before. When had she arrived in Babel? For what reason had she settled there? From which ark had she come? What was her family power? Was she currently under contract? Did she have a criminal record? Was any member of her family physically or mentally disabled? On a scale of one to ten, how attached was she to the city? Which was her favorite brand of candy?

  Much as Ophelia had prepared herself for one day being questioned on her false origins, answering took all her sangfroid. She did, however, struggle to maintain it when she saw a couple approaching who, by their mere arrival, prompted a respectful silence along every queue; suddenly, people had stopped whispering, complaining, yawning, coughing. Ophelia had only ever seen the Genealogists from a distance, at the grade-awarding ceremony that had taken place right here, at the Memorial, but she recognized them without the slightest difficulty: they were clad entirely in gold. Even their faces and hair were that color. They were smiling as they strolled, close together, hand in hand, as though it were quite usual for them to take a walk in an administrative setting rather than in a park.

  Thorn was supposed to have a meeting with them, but he wasn’t around, which naturally concerned Ophelia. Was he waiting for her, as planned, at Lazarus’s house? She hoped he’d had fewer problems than she had. The Genealogists were accompanied by a young Pharoan girl, who jumped with fright whenever one of them brushed her arm or whispered something in her ear.

  Ophelia tensed up as they moved in her direction. Why, of all the counters in the Memorial, were they interested in precisely the one she was at?