Osiris (osiris project)

by E. J. Swift

  Ten floors down there was a glow under Nils’s door. For several minutes Vikram stood in the corridor, uncertain and not sure of the reason for it. Finally he knocked. The door opened and Nils gave a roar of surprise.

  “Vik! Wondered when you’d turn up. Come in, come in. Meet Ilona. Ilona, sweetheart, it’s Vikram, I told you about him, remember?”

  Nils’s room was a pool of warmth. He had a heater burning, an unusual extravagance. Vikram realized it must be for the benefit of the girl. She was enveloped in one of Nils’s jumpers. A bleached wing of hair fell across her face.

  “Hello,” she whispered.

  “Hey,” he said.

  Nils hauled him into the room and shut the door by leaning on it. Vikram realized his friend was on the way to being drunk.

  “Have a drink, have a drink. We’re celebrating tonight, aren’t we Ilona?”

  Ilona did not say anything more, and exactly what they were celebrating was left unclear. Vikram sat on the floor and took the proffered bottle. Greasy papers were balled up in the corner, but the smell of food couldn’t quite mask the stale ash and human reek beneath. He had never noticed those things before. He had a sudden desire to join Nils in his inebriation. He took a draught from the bottle.

  “I just went up to the old place.”

  Nils gestured to a corner.

  “Your stuff’s there. Figured you might not be back for a while so I broke in before anyone else did.”

  Vikram looked at the little bundle. His salt tin was there. He felt a flush of guilt.

  “Thanks,” he said gruffly.

  “Don’t be stupid, you’d have done the same for me.”

  “I should have been round weeks ago.”

  “Been busy, from what I heard. I knew you’d be along sooner or later. C’mon, have a drink, tell me how it’s been going.”

  Seduced by the rough edge of the liquor and the heater’s warmth, Vikram filled Nils in on the past six weeks. Ilona maintained her silence, watching him from behind the dyed curtain of hair. There was something about her, something obvious, that was eluding Vikram.

  “What do you think?” he asked, when he had finished. “Have we made any impact?”

  He was eager to recruit his friend. Straddling two communities was a lonely position; he needed allies. Nils, with one arm draped around Ilona’s shoulders, looked thoughtful.

  “It’s early days.”

  “That doesn’t sound positive.”

  “No-it’s just… It’s going to be a hard winter, Vik. Of course people need food and shelter. But there’s so many of them now, I mean, where do you even start.”

  “I think people are scared to ask for help.”

  “And Adelaide Mystik-that might have been a good thing and a bad thing. She’s a bit of a joke this side of town. I mean, you know that, right.”

  “Nils, I needed her.”

  “Sure, it was the only way.” Nils leaned forward, his eyes glittering. “But there’s talk, Vik. First the fishing bans. One of our boats got gunned down by fucking skadi last week for so-called illegal hunting. They didn’t even have any fucking fish. Skadi raided a tower last night, said there was a threat to the gliding race but we all know that’s bullshit. Now there’re rumours of another kelp shortage. You’ve got contacts now, you tell me Vik, is it true?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t heard.”

  But if it’s true, he thought-then we’re already too late.

  “You want to help? I could use a good man, Nils.”

  Nils hesitated. “I’ve got-a few things to take care of.” Vikram waited but Nils did not elaborate. Instead, he reached forward to punch Vikram on the arm. “Keep a hotspot for me, though.”

  “I will.” Vikram was disappointed. He glanced at Ilona, who dropped her eyes. “I should be getting back. You have company.”

  Nils squeezed the girl’s shoulder affectionately. “I do.”

  They stood up. Vikram noticed, at waist height behind Ilona, a large hole hacked into the wall. Copper wires dangled from it. Vikram pointed.

  “What-”

  Nils waved a hand. “Oh, that, that. Trying to find a vein.”

  “Well don’t fucking electrocute yourself.”

  “No.” Nils scowled at the hole. “Got the wrong damn spot. Current’s to the left.” He put a hand on Vikram’s shoulder. Vikram felt his friend’s weight, too light for a drunk man. Nils’s eyes were beginning to glaze.

  “Anyway. We won’t abandon you. If it all goes wrong, there’s backup. You should know that, Vik.”

  A tremor crossed Ilona’s face. It was so fast, Vikram thought he might have imagined it. Her hair obscured any expression.

  “Backup?”

  His friend offered only a lazy smile.

  “Always,” he said. “What d’you take us for? Night, Vik.”

  Vikram angled the water directly onto his face, powered drops battering his eyelids and cheeks. He turned the temperature up one setting, then another, until it was almost too hot to bear. He emerged ready to embrace what remained of the night. Adelaide had called and he’d told her to come over.

  A Sobek o’vis lay in its box. Linus Rechov had sent it to him as a home warming gift. Vikram poured himself a mug of chilled water and settled down to unpack its mysteries. He had unrolled the screen and attached it to the wall when Adelaide arrived. The flickering images provoked a squeal of excitement. Vikram swilled out his only other mug and opened a bottle of raqua whilst Adelaide settled on the lone square of carpet.

  She pointed to the anime; a human diver with scaled skin undulating through still water.

  “They asked me to do the voice for that.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “It was when Axel-when he started forgetting.”

  Vikram sank into the sofa and muted the o’vis. They clanked mugs.

  “How was the race?”

  “Oh, predictable. I won some money. It might get you another boat.”

  There had been one collision, she said, the wings got tangled but nobody died. She gave a little hiccoughing laugh when she said this, and he wondered if she was ever scared going to the races, after what had happened to the Dumays. As she talked her eyes roved the room, checking for changes.

  “New salt-tin?”

  “Old salt-tin,” he corrected, and in answer to her raised eyebrows, “I went back to the western place.”

  Adelaide clapped her hands and drew her legs into a lotus, her attentive pose. “You went back! That explains it. I knew you were preoccupied.”

  “Mm.”

  “Was it strange? Ghosts of the past?”

  “A few,” he acknowledged.

  “You never did tell me what happened to her.”

  “Who?” Vikram stalled.

  “Your friend,” she said. “Mikkeli.”

  It sounded odd, Keli’s name, on Adelaide’s lips. She pronounced it like a talisman.

  “She was shot,” he said. “The skadi killed her.” He glanced at Adelaide. The lamp’s shadow bisected her face. He was inclined to talk, but he looked away again. “It was towards the end of the riots. The Guards were driving us back tower by tower. They’d cut off the lines to a desalination plant. Everyone was worn out, we knew they’d won, though nobody wanted to admit it.”

  He stared at the folds of the curtain.

  “Anyway, Mikkeli said we’d try one last thing. If she could sneak in and turn the supply pipe back on, we could make a final push. It was a mad plan, but Mik was like that. Me and Nils both said we’d do it, but she insisted she had the best chance, and she was usually right. She got inside the control tower. The rest of us were nearby, waiting for her signal. I was meant to be getting her away. It was before dawn so everything was grey, you couldn’t see much. I waited, but no signal came. And then she appeared.”

  He saw it again. The way he saw it almost every night in his dreams. He watched Mikkeli exit the tower and walk to the edge of the decking. Her yellow hood obscured her face. In
one hand she had a gun. She stayed there, motionless. Why didn’t she move? She was exposed.

  Mikkeli’s hands lifted, very slowly, to her head. She still clutched the gun. He realized what was happening. Someone else was on the decking. They had Keli hostage, but she wouldn’t give up her weapon. What was their plan? To flush out the rest of the rebels? But Keli would have a plan too; she always had a plan. Vikram urged his boat closer.

  It was the music he heard first-an assault of bass driven metal. A motor boat skidded around the corner. It was thronged with skadi. Their guns were a fifth limb. In the predawn light they seemed to dance, all five limbs contorting in crazed shapes. The music splintered the cold, cold day, like breaking glass. Gunshots cracked. Mikkeli dropped instantly. She toppled into the water and gunfire peppered the sea and her body. The skadi hurtled on with whoops and cheers.

  Vikram threw himself over the side of the boat. The cold was shocking. The waves fought him as he splashed through the freezing water. He reached Mikkeli at last, wrapped his arms around her body and hauled both of them onto the decking. He put both hands on her chest and pumped. Blood and seawater leaked from her mouth and nose. He put his mouth to hers and forced his breath into her. For an incredible second he heard her gurgle, but it wasn’t her, or if it was it was the last sound she made.

  A gun clicked at his head and he willed the skad to shoot before rage and grief ignited and he moved so fast he caught the man behind him by surprise. Punched him hard across the temples. They fought briefly. More figures spilled from the tower. Hands seized Vikram, wrenched his arms behind his back, shoved him forward until his chin struck the decking. Handcuffs nicked his skin. He heard the words western and scum and he felt their kicks, each a fresh pool of acute pain but he was beyond it, so far beyond.

  Silver bars of frost were already forming on Mikkeli’s lashes.

  “I got her out of the water,” he said. “But she was already dead.”

  Adelaide’s face was intent. Her eyes glistened with tears or reflected light. She leaned forward to put her hand on his knee. “There was nothing you could do.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Sometimes you lose people and there’s nothing you can do.”

  “It was a stupid plan. We should never have agreed to it.”

  Adelaide was shaking her head.

  “Ifs,” she said. “Ifs are no hope. They are the things Osiris has decided cannot be, and yet we dwell on them as if they were ever possibilities.”

  “You talk about this city as if it’s the world.”

  “It is the world.”

  “Your brother didn’t believe that.” He spoke without thinking and Adelaide looked at him sharply. “Why else would he want a balloon?” he said quickly. “He wants to leave. He must do.”

  She said nothing. He felt the weight of Axel’s letter. Tell her. Now’s the time. He needed to ease his mind of at least one burden. On the brink of speech, he paused. But when he spoke, the words altered.

  “I promised Mikkeli, you know. That other people wouldn’t have to die…” He broke off. “I think she might have preferred vengeance.”

  The look they exchanged, a ghost of a smile, was neither happy nor sad. Vikram reached out and pulled her to him. He slipped his hands under the silk of her shirt, over the contours of her ribcage. Her head fell back and her eyes closed. He unhooked the clasp of her bra. It was a body that had never known hunger, had barely known cold. Sometimes he despised her for its ignorance. He kissed the hollow of her throat, her navel, the boundary of lace at her hips. Whilst their limbs tangled and her body shuddered he wondered if his hate might show. In eyes or touch, or distance. In the air between their lips. Only when she was still did he embrace her. He was wide awake and he suspected that she was too, though her eyes remained closed. Neither of them moved.

  The anime had finished. An archive reel played out on the o’vis in black and white.

  Later, when Adelaide had fallen sleep, he carried her to the bed and pulled the covers over her hips. She mumbled something and rolled over. She hated to be held. If he fell asleep holding her he would wake to find she had shrugged him away, as though she feared the slightest and most human of constraints would cage her indelibly. He admired her resolution; he scorned her for not knowing the value of physical warmth.

  Adelaide’s hair was screwed up under her cheek and against the bed. Looking at her, Vikram realized what had been bothering him about Ilona. It was her hair. Bleached, sheerly straight, it had been deliberately cut and coloured. The only place where girls wore their hair like that was on the shanty town boats. Which meant that Ilona belonged to somebody and Nils was playing a dangerous game.

  Vikram rolled onto his side and gazed at Adelaide’s squashed, sleeping face. Now he felt a rush of tenderness. She lay on her front, limbs akimbo, stomach caving into the muddled sheets. He pressed his ear to the hollow between her shoulder blades and listened to the stubborn pulse of her heart. Adelaide was like the rainbow-fish whose tails she said glowed in the dark. The bright things were always hunted in the end.

  “Morning, Vikram.” His assistant popped her head around the office partition. She was bulked up in coat, earmuffs and hat. Her eyelids were heavy with sleep.

  Vikram glanced up from the Neptune and caught sight of the clock. Nine already. He had been in over an hour. “Morning Hella.”

  “Did you see the race?”

  “I missed it, actually.”

  “Oh.” Her expression faltered. “It was interesting,” she settled. “You want a tea?”

  “You’re a mind-reader.”

  “Aren’t I?” she said. Still a bit shy.

  He heard her putting the pot on in their cupboard of a kitchen, and the clink of a spoon as she prepared the glasses with ginger. Hella was another airlift. They were both nervous to begin with. The first week there was a major misunderstanding over transport arrangements for the boat kitchens. Seven crates of squid were lost to raiders. After blaming one another and shouting it out, they seemed to be settling into a rhythm.

  Vikram stretched his arms over his head and felt his bones click. The figures on the Neptune gazed blandly out. He had never dreamed the Council would want so much administration. It seemed pointless in light of what he could be doing; scouting a location for the next shelter or recruiting staff, even handing out kelp rations on one of the boat kitchens. Adelaide said that this was their way of keeping him in check. She was probably right.

  Hella entered with two steaming glasses. She gave one to him and cupped the other.

  “So how was your evening?” she asked.

  Last night’s events seemed unreal. Even Adelaide, whom he had left sprawled on his bed, sex and raqua lingering on her breath.

  “It was a long night, actually. I dropped by the shelter. Mr Argele was there.”

  “Oh, Mr Argele. What did he have to say for himself?”

  “He called Shadiyah ‘young woman.’”

  Hella giggled. “Bet she loved that.”

  “I think she did, actually. How were the gliders?”

  After they’d dissected the race from start to finish, Hella with hindsight, Vikram with imagination, his assistant went back to the other side of the partition. She took off her earmuffs, put in the earpiece, and put the earmuffs back on. The o’comm did not buzz that often. Most of their calls were outgoing.

  He had an inkling that Hella had applied for the position because she could not quite reconcile her good fortune in escaping the mire. It was guts and hard work that had got her out, but that was not enough to shift the guilt. He knew because he felt it too. Every morning, they crossed the border to this cramped fifty-ninth floor office just inside the western quarter. Every evening, they could return to safe ground. Hella led a quiet life. She told Vikram she never saw her old friends.

  Shadiyah called him mid-morning.

  “Your birds have flown.”

  “At least they came.”

  “I hope they don’t get punished
for it. Someone’s going to see the stitches and ask questions. If they take those antibiotics away, he’ll die within weeks. That’s if frostbite doesn’t do for him. Or pneumonia. Or hypothermia. Or the flu.”

  Vikram leaned back in his chair.

  “Shadiyah,” he began. “Why-”

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Don’t ask. I know what you’re thinking. I’ll end up alone, frozen to death, or drowning in some flooded cell. But there’s community here, on our side, if you make it that way.”

  The morning edged onward. One by one, lights in the opposite tower winked off. Vikram thought of Nils, who would probably be curled up with the girl, sleeping off his hangover. He thought about the choices he had made in Mikkeli’s name, in Eirik’s name, and wondered who they were really for, what they really meant. But they were past choices. This was his life now.

  29 ADELAIDE

  Her father’s man Goran was waiting for her in the hall of the Domain. His huge, pudgy hands were folded in front of him. When he smiled she felt every patch of her exposed skin prickle: shoulders, face, the small of her back. That same smile used to curl Goran’s lips each time he discovered the twins’ latest hiding place.

  “Welcome home, Miss Rechnov.” His voice was as soft as ever.

  “It’s not home,” she said.

  “Home is where the heart is, isn’t that the Old World saying?”

  Goran held out a hand to take her cape. She repressed a shudder as his fingers folded around its velvet weight. He led her up the main staircase, past her grandfather’s rooms, and up again. She was struck anew by the richness and secretiveness of the Domain. It corridors were low-lit and full of real wood. They passed alcoves housing shell lanterns, doors with ebony handles, Afrikan sculptures, chandeliers, paintings from Veerdeland and Alaska.

  There were hidden passages too, crawling under and over other rooms like a subterranean maze. It was a mysterious place. Once it had been a magical place, but the twins had promised one another they would never set foot in it again. Adelaide had not been back in six years. She would never have answered this invitation if Vikram had not been there when it arrived. You’re not scared of them are you?