The Naked World

by Eli K. P. William

  Soon the plateau ended at a ledge, beyond which was a disposcraper valley, its gradually inclining slope disturbed by jutting corners and occasional pits. Amon scrambled down against the many climbing up, sidestepping the protrusions and crouch-hopping carefully down drops until he reached the valley floor. This was a winding, elevated alley lined with buildings all constructed of defective rooms—doors on the ceilings, the steps of stairs separate and scattered across different sides, convex or concave walls that resisted attachment to each other, the usually cubic shelters squashed into parallelograms with holes in them—the bodies of babies shriveled up like sundried fish littering the deformed ledges he passed.

  Through a serrated rip in a wall, Amon spotted a packed feeding station several stories below. In one corner, children with bloated bellies were eating handfuls of Fleet powder from a heap, hungry ghosts hovered around them them with famished eyes, and plump crows filling the surrounding ledges jostled each other eagerly. Seeing no drones patrolling, he was tempted to approach and try his luck with the two vending machines poking up above the slow-shifting headscape … until the red wings of the SampleQuito receding into the sky flashed before his mind’s eye. He was so hungry and thirsty, he imagined himself sneaking around to the back of the machine and somehow busting open one of the pipes so that he could drink the raw sports drink components and meal replacement ink it pumped in. But as all crashborn kids learned from their mothers, he would be no better than a lost sailor drinking sea water, for the ink would be in a chemically indigestible state until the machine processed it. All he would achieve was to disrupt a food source for his fellow bankdead during this famine and bring the wrath of the CareBots even more surely than his finger inserted into the machine. Wiser to find Xenocyst as soon as possible and ask for rations when he got there.

  So he continued upwards, climbing a series of pegs in an uneven cliff, his limbs feeling weaker and weaker as he hoisted his weight up the leaning walls, his head light in the putrid petal-dense air. Soon he reached a series of warped roof islands and bounded from one to the next, careful his feet didn’t slip into the numerous holes on top, seeing the dark forms of shattered bodies in the shadows far below. The blather of many voices and coughs became progressively louder as he proceeded until he reached another ledge, where he found himself looking down upon one of the Road to Delivery’s main arteries. To his surprise, the crowd was thinner than usual, leaving numerous patches of empty space between them, and he guessed that word was spreading about Delivery being closed. Not far above them but a dozen meters below his vantage, a DazzleMoth and two DusterFlies fluttered, and Amon made sure to stay hidden behind a horizontal shaft that spanned the road as he crawled across on his belly, gripping stairs to steady himself against the rightward slant of its wall.

  On the other side, Amon looked back during another flakefall lull, and through a crack between two stacks of shelters to the west, he spotted Opportunity Peaks in the distance, halting in surprise when he saw a scrap of sky through its once-monolithic form. An asterisk of blue filled a hole in the middle of the mountain, just below where the slopes diverged towards the two summits, as though it had been smashed by the blow of a great battering ram, and the uprooted left peak was leaning on the right one. It looked ready to collapse at any moment, and Amon could see the lower ridges darkened with squirming dots, hordes of survivors surely, perhaps enacting a ritual of lament. Did Kitao’s snitching do nothing to save them? Amon wondered, befuddled about what might have happened and unable to rejoice at the apparent success of their plan when he thought of the innocent souls that been cloistered inside.

  Then, triangulating the location of the mountain with where he remembered Delivery to have been, he was able to determine the direction of Xenocyst with some confidence and charted an easterly course straight for it. Once he had his bearings, it was less than half an hour before he reached familiar territory, and although this part of his journey was the hardest slog of all—tripping, stumbling, and lurching his way along step by grueling step—he felt a faint twinkling of hope amidst his utter misery, fatigue, and despair, that he might survive and see his other friends, even if Rick never would …

  But when Amon had crossed one of the allied enclaves and at last clambered up to the wall overlooking the buffer canyon, he saw that the border of Xenocyst had been devastated too, and stood there stunned as even the suggestion of hope fled. Caverns of cross-sectioned buildings gaped in various places along the curving length of the outer wall where massive hunks from five to twenty stories had been torn right out and lay shattered on the floor of the canyon. Many of the broken shelters lying in the heaps of debris had not even begun to flake, which told him that this was not the result of regular dissolution but of some other cause. As he descended the stairpaths through the still-raging petal-blizzard, he saw bodies in the rubble, sprawled atop or buried with parts sticking out. Some looked as though they had been crushed by the buildings, some shot with bullets, patches of their blood and vomit staining the ground. These appeared to be the signs of a battle, and one that had ended very recently, as some locals were still picking through the waste for bits of cloth, food, and other valuables; more crows lined up patiently on the surrounding ledges.

  Amon made his way across the canyon floor, avoiding the piles where he could and climbing over them when necessary, wondering who could have done this. He could only think of the tales he’d heard of demolition dust. But he had always thought that the Charity Brigade used it to crumple rows of disposcrapers in an orderly fashion, whereas here the damage was random and many shafts still stood only partially destroyed, with some of the residents curled up in their exposed rooms. In other words, it didn’t look like Charity Brigade work at all. It was more like what Amon would have expected from the Opportunity Scientists, though they should have been reeling from the attack on their holy mountain, presumably at the hands of the Brigade, and weren’t supposed to have such an arsenal, which was perplexing. For it seemed possible that one of them might have heard the details of Xenocyst’s rabble rousing and come to exact their wrath, but surely not both of them, and surely not together … ?

  As the guards took Amon through the Xenocyst compound towards the Cyst, he realized he was actually glad to have them there. Though he had made a big ruckus at the checkpoint, he now found the interior of the enclave confusing, as the havoc wreaked on the border extended inside as well and the slumscape had been radically transformed from the previous day. The buildings that had lined his familiar routes were blasted beyond recognition or lay in fragments, while roombuds blossomed rapidly along his path into new buildings according to some hastily devised city pattern. Even when he did spot some alley or roofway that he remembered, he lacked the focus to connect it to where other paths should have been and reconstruct the map in his memory as he staggered along, his vision blurry, barely awake, fallen into a daze of famished exhaustion and shock, his awareness blipping into oblivion for a second now and then so that he kept having to remind himself where he was upon awakening. With the two guards periodically glancing over their shoulders at him and muttering about him in concern, Amon hiked over mountains of debris, leaped the jagged maw of busted gaps in roofways, sometimes crawling through keyhole apertures in tottering shafts leaning into each other, nearly falling over when someone in the crowd bumped him even slightly, mumbling delirious nonsense to dissipate the pulses of regret that surged through him. If not for his escorts urging him along, he might have simply thrown himself down in a shattered rubbish-filled alcove and never gotten up, letting the flakes bury him like soft snow. The devastation here was his fault, everything was his fault …

  They passed several of what had once been some of Xenocyst’s many checkpoints. These were tunnels and lanes built intentionally tight so that a small number of guards could hold off a large horde of intruders in a crisis, and shelters could be thrown up to blockade them if necessary, turning the compound into a maze of well-defended dead ends. The fighting se
emed to have been particularly intense around these bottlenecks as they had all been blown wide open, the neighboring buildings utterly decimated.

  Yet soon, the signs of destruction began to dwindle and sections of the old slumscape that were intact appeared increasingly, so that Amon could finally tell where he was: not far from the Cyst. Still, the atmosphere felt unlike what he’d grown accustomed to. Passersby kept their heads down and slunk by nervously without meeting his gaze, while other men and women stood stationed on ledges with assault dusters, the fraught air like a bent pane of glass ready to snap. It amazed Amon how much change a place could undergo in a single night—especially one that had been tended carefully to remain stable for so long in spite of slight shifts that were constantly occurring.

  Soon they reached a small alley-side entrance to the Cyst flanked by two guards holding assault dusters. Amon’s escorts gave a password he’d never heard before and took him in, up the condo’s dark staircases that he had walked countless times during his duties. The regular bustle of incoming supplies, outgoing waste, and staff coming and going was more sparse and sporadic than usual, though sentries with dusters were everywhere.

  When they got to the eleventh floor and his guides kept ascending, Amon stopped on the landing. “We’re not going to the Council Chamber?” he asked.

  “Th’ councilahz are out en their districtz ovahseeing th’ reconstruction,” said Lefty. “Thez supposed t’ be convening latah th’z evening. We’ve been told t’ take you t’ th’ library entil then t’ eat and recupret.”

  “Great,” said Amon, the idea of getting some food and rest immediately vanquishing all his other worries, though the next instant they were back. “But isn’t there some way I can take my meal to wherever Hippo is? I want to know what happened to everyone else and I need to give him my report.”

  “We haven’t received ordahz bout reporting t’ Hippo,” said Lefty. “Our job ‘z ‘t take you t’ th’ library.”

  “Someone else’ll be along,” said Righty. “They’ll explain the situation.”

  His awareness too foggy for him to argue, Amon nodded and followed them, going up more stairs and hallways lined with sentries. Presently the door to the library was there on his left and Amon crossed the threshold. He sighed with relief when he saw the stacks still standing there, his sanctuary intact, the familiar caramel-dust smell of old paper soothing him like nothing else. Then his eyes went to the tray of food and drinks on a low coffee table, his tongue suddenly swimming in saliva despite his great thirst, the ache of hunger in his belly so intense he thought it might sprout teeth and devour him from the inside.

  “Is any of that for me?” Amon asked.

  On the wooden tray was a glass of water, a bowl of multi-grain rice, a bowl of miso soup, and a small oblong plate carrying a piece of grilled salmon. There were also several tiny dishes holding a raw egg, a dollop of natto mixed with strips of nori, a few slices of pickled daikon, and a yokan for dessert. Wholesome comfort food, of the kind he’d rarely enjoyed even before he cash crashed.

  “Help yourself,” said Righty, and Amon hardly heard him say, “We’ll be back shortly,” so ensnared was his mind by the sight of the food. Almost tripping over his own legs to clear the several paces to the coffee table, Amon flopped butt-first onto a spot on the leather couch before it and poured the water down his throat. Then he picked up chopsticks of black glossy wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl and began to dig into the rice. He hardly tasted a bite of it, having just enough peace of mind to note that scarfing this fine meal too quickly was a waste but not enough to slow down. Just as he was chewing the last few morsels, a man wearing a brown-and-black silk kimono came to take the tray away and replace it with another carrying more of the same dishes.

  “These are for me too?” Amon asked, looking up at the man, who nodded with a solemn expression before bowing and leaving the library. Amon set into this second meal with gratitude and relish. By the time he had finished off about half of it, though he could easily have eaten two or three times more, he felt his urgency to feed temporarily sated and lowered his pace to savor the taste a bit more. He was sipping at the last of his second miso soup when an exquisite voice called, “Amon!”

  Barrow had just come through the doorway and was approaching Amon, holding a colorfully lacquered teapot and two teacups.

  “Barrow!” said Amon, happy to find another familiar face after so much had changed.

  “Wonderful to see you safe and sound!”

  “You too. Have you heard from Vertical and Ty? Are they alright?”

  “Thankfully, yes. Both of them arrived safely yesterday evening.”

  Amon breathed a long sigh of relief. “Where are they now?”

  “Resting.”

  “And the rest of the crew?”

  “One of your saboteurs has gone missing, and a woman from Ty’s crew is in the hospital here, being treated for tear dust.”

  At these final two words, gut-wrenching sorrow filled him.

  “What about Rick?” asked Barrow, as though he sensed the source of Amon’s pain. “Is he with you?”

  Amon shook his head ruefully, squeezing his eyes shut with his jaw clenched to hold back tears.

  “Has something happened to him?”

  “Drones. They overdosed him on tear dust … I was with him this morning when he passed away.”

  Barrow cringed with a look of profound regret, furrowing his broad forehead. “I’m truly sorry to hear that. I know he was your close friend and, during our short acquaintance, I saw what a strong-willed and talented young man he was, much like you. Why don’t we have a cup of tea and talk about this further?”

  “Yes …” Amon couldn’t think of anything more inviting than a cup of tea to banish the autumn chill that lingered in his bones, and just the mention of it made him sink deeper into the couch, only a thin line of restraint keeping the weight of his exhaustion from dragging him down to sleep now that his belly was full. Barrow sat on the couch across from him, setting the teapot on an aquamarine-fish-against-indigo textiled coaster and two handcrafted ceramic cups straight onto the table. It was then that Amon noticed Little Book standing by the shelves staring at him, and gave him a nod. He wanted to ask where Book was, but knew Little Book had no way to answer without Book there to interpret and, as a jumble of horrible scenes from the mission began to flicker in Amon’s recollection, a different question leapt to his lips. “Does anyone know what happened out there?”

  “Unfortunately not. We all have our theories, but no one knows for certain.”

  “And here? What happened to Xenocyst? Who attacked us?”

  “That is another mystery no one on the council has managed to solve. Maybe the Charity Brigade, maybe those OpSci monsters, maybe both as an alliance. I’m sure your experience of the catastrophe can help us to understand this. So what happened to you, Amon? What happened to Rick?”

  Feeling a powerful need to relate the terrible tribulations he had undergone to someone, Amon lost himself in rambling out the events of the past day. He began with everything that had happened since the moment he and Rick had arrived at Delivery, and, by the time he’d reached the part where Vertical started shrieking, two more men wearing kimonos entered. One of them cleared away Amon’s tray while the other brought over a lidded ceramic jar and poured what must have been hot water into the teapot.

  The whole time Amon spoke, Little Book stood to the side between the couches and the shelves, scrawling away on his tablet in the loud way he did when he had something to say, which Amon thought strange because no one there could decipher his code. This led Amon to wonder again where Book was and, faltering in his story, his attention turned to Little Book’s tapping.

  Tappatappa-tap-tatap-tappa … Tappatappa-tap-tatap-tappa … Tappatappa-tap-tatap-tappa …

  Though Amon couldn’t decode the meaning, he realized that Little Book was repeating the same pattern of taps over and over again with a space in between.

  �
�Would you mind taking that somewhere else?” said Barrow. “We’re trying to have a serious conversation.”

  But Little Book was undeterred, and with his eyes cast to the floor he kept on writing noisily away. Tappatappa-tap-tatap-tappa … Tappatappa-tap-tatap-tappa …

  “What are you trying to say LB?” Amon asked, turning to look at the boy. Little Book paused his writing for a second when Amon spoke. Then he looked up at him from the tablet screen and the moment their eyes met he began to tap out the same pattern again. Tappatappa-tap-tatap-tappa … Though the boy’s face was as unexpressive as always, Amon sensed his desire to communicate some message, as though a hand were reaching into his soul, either to leave or to take something. “Sorry buddy, but we just don’t understand that tapping without Book. Can’t you say it in another way?”

  Little Book stayed his hand as though in thought, staring intently at the screen, completely motionless, not even seeming to breathe. Then, he lifted up his digital pen, looking straight at Amon, and traced a shape in the air that Amon immediately recognized.

  “Looks like a crucifix,” said Barrow. “Are you implying that someone needs to be sacrificed, boy?”

  “No. I think it’s the Roman letter T,” said Amon. “Right LB?” But Little Book was tapping out the same pattern again, his gaze back on the tablet.

  “T?” said Barrow. “Are you sure it wasn’t the number ten?” Ten was in kanji.

  “I don’t think so. The horizontal line looked shorter than the vertical line, like in a lowercase t.” And given Little Book’s fixation with clean orthography, Amon doubted this was an accident.

  “Well what does ‘t’ have to do with anything?” The letter T must have connected to the drink “tea” in Barrow’s mind at the same moment as Amon’s because he turned to Little Book and said, “What? You want a cup of tea too, do you?”

  Tea? Thinking about this word, Amon took another sip and savored the taste in his mouth. The bouquet was different than that of the gyokuro Hippo had once served, though no less refined as far as he could tell. Curious, he brought his gaze down to the ceramic cup in his hand. It had a beautiful pattern of vermillion flowers on obsidian blue. Fragrant steam rose from the golden water and the warm smooth thing in his hand suddenly struck Amon as eerily out of place. What were these nice cups and that teapot doing in the library? Hippo’s ceramics had been plain and chipped. And where did they get the new tea leaves? Or the hot water? Or the couch he was sitting on? From his low seat, Amon’s eye expanded to take in the library lobby in front of the stacks for the first time, as he’d been too dazed and delirious on his way in to pay attention to where he was. Various impressionist and abstract paintings now adorned the wall, and a stand had been set up displaying small chests of drawers painted with maki-e. A Persian carpet stretched along the floor and three antique lamps had been placed at equidistant intervals. The plush couch he sat on smelled of real leather and the coffee table glass was glazed in the Qing-style pattern of rolling hills and lake valleys. Here was a cosmopolitan smorgasbord of art and antiques, but none of it felt incongruous, as though each piece had been selected for meaning, color, and design to fit with every other.