The Atomic Sea: Part Four: The Twilight City

by Jack Conner

“He’s here, Ma. He’s upstairs.”

  For a long moment, Layanna stared off into space.

  “I want to see him,” she said.

  “Not sure that’s a great idea. He thinks you’re dead. Ain’t that a kick? You think he’s dead, he thinks you’re dead. It’s almost funny.” But there was no humor in his voice.

  “I need to see him.” Her voice trembled, and her body appeared on the verge of following suit.

  Frederick studied her. Shrugged. “Never let it be said that I denied my parents their last reunion. Come, I’ll take you to him.”

  He led the way up a flight of narrow stairs, and Layanna started to follow, then hung back. Biting her lip, she turned to Avery and held out a hand. “Would you come with me? Francis? I ... would like you to come.”

  He hesitated, wondering how close he should allow himself to get to her. Once more he summoned the image of those two sacrifices, the young girl and boy kneeling to her, painted faces glowing ...

  He followed, looking around him as he went. The whole brownstone was shabby and poorly maintained, but the shame of it was that he could see a finer apartment under the surface. From the wood paneling to the large stove, from the hot and cold running water to the expensive wallpaper, he could tell this unit had once be a more elegant place. But its heyday was long past, and it had sunk into neglect and squalor. Everything was dirty, chipped, covered in grime and misuse. The closing of the alchemical factory must have truly devastated the quarter.

  Frederick led up a stairway, then down a narrow, musty hall toward a thick oaken door. He rapped on it, then swung the door in and with overly elaborate gestures waved his guests forward. He held the door for Layanna and Avery, and as he passed Avery noticed that Frederick’s veins showed a slightly yellowish tint, and Avery smelled something that was just the merest suggestion of burnt glass.

  A huge four-post bed occupied the center of the room. An old man laid in it, covered in thick blankets.

  “Behold,” Frederick said. “That bed’s the one thing decent we kept in the raids. A beauty, isn’t it? The Collies didn’t want it. Thought it might be contaminated by alchemical poison. Lucky us.” He grunted. “The Collies are the ones that took the yacht.”

  Damn, Avery thought. This was all for nothing. But maybe ...

  When Layanna saw the man in the bed, she let out a gasp. She drew back, just an inch, and seemed to gather her strength. Her eyes took it all in, then her chin firmed and she stepped forward.

  “Edgar ...”

  The man in the bed didn’t move, not visibly, but Avery sensed a sudden tenseness about him. The man was tall and lean and bone hard. A great curving prow of a nose jutted from his long, heavy face, balanced by a sharp chin. His white hair, full and fine, swept back from a high forehead. Despite his advanced age and prolific skin spots, he projected a noble image, and vibrancy blazed in his ink-dark eyes. When they seized on Layanna, it was as if a shock of current passed through him.

  Visibly trembling, Layanna moved toward him. She seemed to be trying to hold back tears.

  “Oh, I forgot the introductions,” Frederick said. “Dad, Mom. Mom, Dad.”

  Avery shot him a dark look, but Frederick had eyes only for his parents.

  Layanna knelt down by the bed. With a trembling hand, she reached out and tried to touch the old man’s face. His eyes blazed savagely, and his whole body went rigid. She stifled a gasp and dropped the hand, but he did not relax.

  “You,” he said, and it was as much accusation as greeting.

  She swallowed. “Yes, Edgar. It’s me. I ...” Again she swallowed. She didn’t seem able to complete the sentence.

  “You’re ... you’re ...”

  Her gaze dropped. “Yes. I know. I let you believe ... But I’m alive, and I’m here. It’s so good to see you. It’s so good—”

  The hand came out of nowhere. One moment the old man was just lying there, the next moment his iron-hard hand swung around and slapped Layanna in the face. He struck her hard—the sound of the slap echoed about the room; Avery flinched at the noise and started to take a step forward, but Frederick stopped him—and Layanna reeled back. Her eyes widened. Her hand reached up to her flaming cheek, where redness was already beginning to show.

  “Get—out!” Edgar shouted, his voice vibrating in fury, as if her mere presence offended him on some irrevocably deep level. “OUT!”

  Blinking, shaking, Layanna rose to her feet, stared down at him one last time, seemed about to say something, then spun about and left the room, brushing past Avery as she went. Avery cast one last glance at Edgar, noted his brimming eyes, like a glacier melting under heat from some volcanic vent, and followed her out into the hall.

  “Layanna! Layanna!”

  She stopped at the landing. Her shoulders shook. Avery couldn’t see her face. She had it tilted down and cradled it in her hands. He reached out to squeeze her arm, and she let him. This close to her he could hear her sobbing, but just barely.

  Frederick approached. There was a swagger to his walk. Avery wasn’t sure what it was at first, but then he realized that some ancient revenge had just been satisfied. The mother that had abandoned Frederick had just been punished. Avery wanted to hate him for it, but found that he couldn’t. As much as anything, Frederick was the victim in all this.

  “This way,” Frederick said. He showed them past a closed bedroom that must be his—a strange smell issued from it, suspiciously redolent of burnt glass—past the common bathroom, and into the far bedroom: small, stinking of mildew and in need dusting.

  “You can stay here tonight,” Frederick said to Layanna. When she wouldn’t look at him, he told Avery, “You and the others can stay downstairs. No bedrooms, but there’s couches. Well, there was. Guess there’s just one now.”

  “We’ll manage,” Avery said. “Thank you.”

  Frederick studied him, then grunted. He turned on a lamp and peered at the grimy walls and filth-coated windows. “Seen better days. Guess we just don’t care anymore. What’s the point, eh? They’ll get us sooner or later.”

  “They?”

  “Sure, you know. The Collies.”

  “The Collossumists?”

  “Who else?”

  Frederick sort of shuddered then, and it had nothing to do with fear of the Collossumists or anything else; by the way his eyes twitched Avery knew it was drug-related. Avery noted that his eyes seemed more yellow around the edges than they should have been.

  When the twitching ended, Frederick gulped down a deep breath. “Uh, Mother. Look. About Dad ...”

  In a tight voice, she said, “No. It’s—I understand. I—I’m so sorry.”

  He paused, seemed on the verge of saying something else, then sniffed. “What’s this all about, anyway? Why are you here? I’ve been hearing about you for weeks, I guess. The Black Bitch, is it?” He almost smiled. “I’ve been calling you worse for years. They should’ve come to me for names. Anyway, I never believed she was really you. You were her. Whatever.”

  She didn’t answer, and he grew edgy.

  “Just tell me, already,” he said. “What’s going on?”

  She was no shape to go into it, though, that much was obvious. He seemed to understand, for he simply sniffed again and turned away. “Amuse yourself,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ve got ... things.” Then he was gone. Avery heard the bang of his bedroom door. Layanna jumped at the sound. Avery had little doubt what he was doing; already he would be donning the gas mask to heat the powder, mix it, and prepare his hit.

  Avery studied her back, which still hitched.

  “I’ll go check on the others,” he said. “Give you some time.”

  He started to turn away but felt pressure on his hand. He looked down to see her gripping him tightly. She stared at him out of red-rimmed eyes, and tears coursed down her cheeks. It was the first time he’d seen her cry like this.

  He tried to resurrect the image of those two sacrifices, of the young boy and girl kneeling before Lay
anna, begging to be eaten, but, despite himself, the image began to fade.

  “Don’t blame them,” she said, her voice ragged. “Frederick and Edgar. They hate me because of what I did. I deserve it.”

  He hesitated. Don’t. Let her go. Remember the boy and girl.

  “Can I ask what happened?” he said.

  She didn’t speak at first. He took her to the bed and sat down. Gingerly, seeming afraid, she reclined next to him. The bed was hard compared with those at the palace.

  He squeezed her hand and gave her a reassuring smile. She was very beautiful with her deep blue eyes and tear-stained cheeks, her blond hair cascading over that red palm-print above her jaw. Her full lips trembled, then stilled as she bit down. There was no hint of the monster about her now. She was human and vulnerable.

  In a calm, authoritative voice, the same voice he used with patients, he said, “Tell me.”

  She let out a breath, and it was as if all the resistance escaped from her in that one exhalation. “I left them,” she said. “Long, long ago. When Frederick was just a boy. I told you I had lovers. I never told you I had a husband. In fact, I had other husbands before Edgar. I could never live with them, of course, not for long. I had duties on behalf of the Temple to perform. We had to keep it all secret from the Collossum, my husbands and I. If the Collossum had found out I’d married ... even unofficially ... that I’d had children! ... Edgar and Frederick would have vanished overnight, and I would never have been seen again on dry land. Maybe ever.”

  “Is Frederick ... I mean ...” He made himself smile. “No tentacles?”

  She smiled back, but it was fleeting. “No. I made the choice early on in the pregnancy to seal the dimensional doors to him, to keep him human. It was the only way. Had he been ... other ... we could not have kept it secret, and the Collossum would have killed him as an abomination. He’s fully human, just as I am on this plane. But that doesn’t mean anything. I’m his mother. Human or not, alien or not, I should have been there for him. All those birthdays I missed, all those scraped knees, headaches, broken hearts. His life. His life, Francis.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She wiped tears out of her eyes impatiently. “It grew too painful for me. I’d seen it all before. My loved ones growing old. Dying. Sometimes slowly. Edgar was an alchemist, and a great one. When his company relocated him to Ayu, I used the distance as an excuse to begin fading out of his and Frederick’s lives. Oh, I hated myself for it at the time. I used to watch them through the windows of their house—this house—crying to myself and telling myself that it was the only thing to do. I couldn’t bear to watch more loved ones grow old and die.” Angrily, she said, “I was a coward! I felt myself growing too close to them, maybe closer than I’d ever felt before. I wanted to be with them. With them, Francis, do you understand? I wanted to abandon the Collossum for them.”

  She mashed her eyes shut. “This was back when things were really heating up, back when the war we’d prepared for for so long was finally beginning to take on concrete shape. And, of course, this was when I, and a few other like minds in the Temple, began to see our work as evil, and I had no time for love and family after that. Moreover, I could not afford to draw attention to myself by sneaking away secretly more than necessary to confer with members of the Black Sect, and so I had no choice but to abandon Edgar and Frederick.” She opened her eyes and regarded Avery soberly. “Of course, that was only part of the reason. It was my love for Frederick and Edgar that prompted me to help found the Black Sect. But ... it was also the reason I couldn’t stand to be with them. I created some story about being killed in an experiment mishap and had one of my colleagues in the Sect tell them I had died painlessly and swiftly. Somehow I always suspected Edgar knew the truth, that he guessed, but I’m not sure. Frederick never knew. I watched his life from afar, wishing so much that I could be there for him. He was only nine when I left.”

  She wiped the last of her tears away. “Just before I set out on this mission, before I left Octung to search the cities of the deep for a way to build what would come to be called the Device, I read that Edgar had contracted a fatal illness through his work. He was still working, old as he was, right up till the poison took him. He ran his own independent lab, as the company had folded by then. I was so proud. Of course, I knew. I knew he pushed himself so hard so he wouldn’t have to think of me. At any rate, I thought he’d died. I even mourned him. When we came today, I expected to find Frederick, but not ... not Edgar.” She stared at Avery fiercely, and she seemed on the verge of breaking down again. “I don’t know if I can face it, Francis. I don’t know if I can face him.”

  He squeezed her hands. He didn’t know what to say. “I’m here for you.”

  That was all it took. Tears came to her eyes—they didn’t overtake her, but they came, just under the surface—and she shot forward. Wrapped her arms about him. Caught off guard, he embraced her.

  Then, very much to his surprise, she lifted her face to his and kissed him. Her lips shuddered. As he reached out for her, he realized that so did her body.

  For a moment, he held himself back. This was all too sudden. He had only just rejoined her. After everything that had happened, Avery wasn’t sure what to do. But then, his own hands shaking, he began to unbutton her blouse.

  “Wait,” he said suddenly, drawing back. “Sheridan—”

  “I don’t care.”

  She kissed him, hot and eager. He kissed back. His hands returned to her buttons.

  * * *

  Avery woke up in terror. Sweat drenched his face and sheets.

  He had gone to sleep during daylight, but it was nighttime now, he could tell by the darkness that seeped in through the drapes. Layanna lay beside him, naked but awake. She had propped her head up on one palm and was watching him in concern. When he recovered his breathing, she asked, “Ani again?”

  He nodded, only half surprised that she knew the nature of his nightmares. He didn’t want to talk about it.

  She caressed his hand. He was certain she wanted to say something like It will be all right, everything will work out just fine. But she had too much respect for him to lie.

  “I need a drink,” he said.

  “I’ll join you.”

  He started to rise, then hesitated. “Layanna ...”

  “Yes?”

  “The reason we came here—Frederick’s access to a dirigible—it doesn’t seem to have panned out.”

  “No.”

  “We can’t afford to waste time. They’re already hunting for us. If Frederick can’t help us, we need to move on.”

  “Where to?”

  He grimaced. “Ayu’s grown too hot for us. We can’t stay here. I think we’ll have to take Hildra up on her offer to steal a swamp boat. We may not have a guide, but—”

  Strange lights bathed Layanna’s face. It was so unexpected that he stopped in midsentence. There was pink, and light purple, and electric green—

  Her eyes registered surprise, and he knew the lights must be appearing on his face, too. They pulsed along the bed and walls, rippling and flowing like the reflection of water. Together Avery and Layanna yanked open the drapes—the illumination had come from outside—and more light flooded into the room.

  They stared outside. And up ...

  “Dear gods,” he heard himself say.

  Layanna’s hand seized his.

  The beings flexed, bulged and drifted against the stars, and occasionally the stars were visible through them. The shapes resembled jellyfish, with long hanging tentacles that swayed slightly in the wind, drifting backward, depending from a huge bulging sac. They pulsed with light from time to time; many seemed to be bioluminescent. Most of their bodies were a sort of whitish, shot through with brilliant, sometimes glowing colors. With no frame of reference, Avery couldn’t tell how large they were exactly, but they were big. Some as big as a house, maybe. Some bigger.

  Footsteps thundered on the stairs, and Janx and Hildra burst into the ro
om, their eyes wide. Layanna covered herself absently.

  “Did you see—?” Janx started, then saw that Avery and Layanna were looking out the window. Avery expected Frederick to show up, too, but he didn’t. He must have been insensible.

  “What the hell are they?” Hildra asked.

  She and Janx joined Avery and Layanna at the window, and together they all stared outside. The phosphorescent beings bobbed through the sky, drifting on the currents of the air, maybe a thousand of them, each one half a mile or more from the next, a whole school of glowing, bobbing aerial jellyfish covering the skies above Ayu.

  “I’ve never heard of such things,” Avery marveled.

  “I know them,” Layanna said. In a tone of regret, she said, “They’re hunting us.”

  “Hunting?”

  “Actually, that’s not quite right. They’re receivers and transmitters for the true hunters. The psychics aboard the Over-City and in the dirigibles overhead are channeling their abilities through the jellies, using them to amplify and focus them, something like the rays in Ghenisa but able to cover much more area. Each jelly represents a psychic scouring a certain area for sign of us. We’re a difficult target for them to track. With all the infected in the city, my extradimensional signature is well-hidden in all the background phenomena.”

  “Can those ... jellies ... find us?” Avery asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Great,” said Janx. “First they fly away with the Device, then they pen us in this godsforsaken city, and now they ferret us out. What’s our plan? Can I ask that much?”

  “Frederick no longer has an airship. I believe we have to venture into the swamps,” Avery began, but Layanna stopped him.

  “Impossible now,” she said. “Like I was saying, the jellies’ abilities will be hampered by all the intelligent extradimensional beings in Ayu, but in the swamp I’ll stand out like a beacon.” She let out a breath. “I’m afraid we’re stuck in Ayu.”

  “Damn,” Janx said.

  “Unless, of course, we can find a way into the air.”

  “Then our plan is the same as before,” Avery said. “Find a dirigible.”