Osiris

by E. J. Swift

  The back was watermarked. It had an Old World feel to it, pre-Neon, even.

  Something struck him on the cheek. He looked up. Hail. Cursing the weather’s erratic switches, thrusting the card into his coat pocket, he retreated indoors.

  Two guards were approaching down the corridor.

  “Time’s up, kid. Out with you.”

  They marched him back to the lift. Hands folded in front, eyes averted, they accompanied Vikram down the hundred floors, across the mosaic-tiled lobby, past the evergreen trees and down again through the flood control floors. They opened the doors for him to go outside. As he passed, one of them grabbed his collar.

  “Hey—don’t forget to check out your picture in the newsreel.”

  The other grinned inanely.

  “We don’t have your damn newsreel in the west,” Vikram flung back. “Don’t you know anything?”

  The doors hissed shut. Vikram was left at the waterbus terminus, watching the next load of passengers embark in the freezing hail.

  5 ¦ ADELAIDE

  The Rechnov offices were quieter than she remembered. Through doors left ajar or windows with the blinds half drawn, she caught glimpses of her father’s employees. They were smartly but plainly dressed, their workstations clean, uncluttered. These days, amidst the eternal rumours that bits of the City were falling apart, she supposed the company was more concerned with maintenance than creativity.

  Occasionally, seeing her shadow pass, a worker glanced up. Some dropped their eyes, others stared overtly. She hadn’t been invited.

  Her meeting with the investigator was in two days time. What she expected to uncover here today she was not yet sure, only that she was following instinct, and instinct was tracing a path backwards.

  In an empty foyer that smelled of decomposing ideas, she passed the things that had never been built, forever imprisoned behind glass frames. Plans for an underwater shuttle network. A piece of concept art for a hotel like a bubble on the seabed, the date marked in the bottom right corner—Summer 2366. A mere twelve months before Storm Year.

  It was a strange feeling to think that this image was half a century old, its creator probably dead. He might even have been born outside Osiris; walked on land and seen places that no longer existed. Axel had been obsessed with the Old World at one stage, and the idea of rediscovering it. For weeks on end he had pestered Feodor with questions. What had happened to the land? Why had everyone come to Osiris and why could no one leave?

  Feodor, who liked to lecture, told them that Osiris was built because the world was collapsing. Even before the Great Storm, the old lands had been crippled by disasters. Floods, famine, plagues made by scientists, war, drought—earthquakes that ripped the land to pieces. The twins wouldn’t know, but a long time ago there used to be giant discs drifting in the sky—s’lites, they called them. S’lites looked like stars. They took photographs, and connected scarabs in an enormous web spanning halfway across the globe. Back in the Neon Age, said Feodor, everyone knew everything about everyone else in the world. They had machines inside their heads. The sky was full of giant mirrors and cloud spraying monsters. Some of them were planning to live on the Moon. But all that was before the Blackout.

  Now, a city like Osiris, entirely self-sustaining, was a stroke of pure genius (partly by the people on the Osiris Board, but ultimately, said Feodor, by their grandfather and his father Alexei before him, who travelled all the way across the Boreal States on the back of a grain cart so that he could enter the architectural competition). There should have been many more Osiris cities. They could have saved lives. But the city came too late, and when the Great Storm arrived, the few refugees that escaped land’s terrible plagues only confirmed the worst.

  Nobody has ever answered Osiris’s distress signal, Feodor told them finally, because nobody is left to answer. He shook his head, a tired, resigned gesture. He only wished it were otherwise.

  Looking at the faded plans, Adelaide remembered that speech very clearly. It was the only time she had ever supported Feodor rather than Axel.

  She strode down the corridor, purposeful now. She was reaching for the brass handle of Feodor’s office when Tyr stepped out of the adjacent room and manoeuvred himself in front of the door. He must have seen her coming on camera.

  “Feodor’s at a press conference,” he said.

  “Feeding that insatiable desire for publicity, is he?”

  “He’s delivering a statement on the west. They had a westerner in the Chambers this morning. Someone has to put a positive spin on it.” Tyr surveyed her blandly. “He’s not due back any time soon.”

  “I can wait. In here.”

  She took a step forward. Tyr did not move. They faced one another, close enough to see blemishes, lines, embryonic beneath the skin. Close enough to touch. Green stilettos put Adelaide almost on a level height with Tyr. A clump of his hair stuck out over his forehead, light brown, streaked with honey. She fought the urge to push it back into place. Her own resolution was mirrored in the set of his jaw, the slight contraction of the irises. His eyes were the colour of dusk, and held its ambiguity.

  Stalemate suspended them for a few seconds. Then Tyr shrugged.

  “Your call.”

  “Thank you.”

  He opened the door in a twofold gesture, pushing it ajar, and as she stepped forward holding it there before opening it all the way. Adelaide ignored the bait.

  “I’ll take a coral tea,” she called over her shoulder. “Strong. Plenty of ginger.”

  “I know how you take your tea,” said Tyr.

  The door swung shut, cutting him off.

  Adelaide looked about, remembering. The room contained the accumulated possessions of three proud and quite different men, none of them able to erase the presence of their predecessor. Alexei’s bookshelves squeezed between Leonid’s maps, their edges neatly aligned. The floor was dwarfed by Feodor’s huge table, itself covered in architectural drawings, and beneath or in places upon them, in tea glass rings. Adelaide slung her handbag on top.

  She crossed the room to the Neptune. Its oceanscreen showed deep sea beyond the submerged island and the Atum Shelf. The image was three-dimensional and opalescent. It seemed to pulse. There was no sign of the city’s underworld: no plateauing pyramid bases, pipelines or energy turbines; nothing to reveal human intrusion at all.

  “You old-fashioned fool,” Adelaide said aloud.

  She placed one hand flat against the activation strip. Nothing happened. The Neptune must be programmed to respond to Feodor’s fingerprints. She tried the drawers to his desk. They were also locked.

  Tyr entered without knocking. He had been working with the Rechnovs for some years now and had acquired certain family privileges. Feodor trusted him implicitly. Tyr gave her an incalculable glance and placed her teaglass on a table beside a leather armchair. He stood there until she moved away from Feodor’s desk.

  Adelaide lifted the glass to her nose, inhaling the steam as ritual dictated, then blew lightly across the liquid. They surveyed one another without pretence.

  “Do you have a Surfboard?” she asked.

  “A Surfboard? No.”

  “I thought there might be some reading material to occupy those of us who have to wait upon Feodor.”

  “I’ll suggest it to him,” Tyr said.

  When he had gone, she seated herself in the armchair, and hooked one shoe across the opposite knee. Her foot jiggled. She waited. After a moment she grew bored of waiting, and crossed the room to the sideboard jammed against the bookcase. She relieved it of one of the more expensive raquas and poured herself a triple measure.

  She went to stand by the maps, the raqua in her right hand, untouched. Most were plans of Osiris, but there was was one that showed the Old World land masses. It was a beautiful and very rare object. Adelaide traced the outlines with one finger, thinking of Axel’s questions.

  It was stranger than she had expected to be here. She remembered when she was younger occasi
onally visiting the premises, feeling awed by the vastness of her father’s territory and the operation he commanded. This office had seemed like a sanctum then. The twins’ four feet had dangled over the edges of the chairs. The adults discussed complex matters whilst the twins whispered; the room was thick with the shadows of their long gone whispers.

  Her eyes flicked to the Neptune again. Over two weeks had passed since the Service of Hope, and there was no further information about Axel. If Feodor knew anything—via Sanjay Hanif, or independently—the clues would be on that machine. Adelaide was not sure exactly what those clues might be. She was not even sure, yet, of what she suspected.

  She heard noises from outside, voices followed by urgent footsteps. She ran her tongue over dry lips, suddenly nervous of what the meeting might bring.

  The door opened to admit her father.

  “Afternoon, Adelaide. What are you doing here?” His gaze took in her, by the maps, and the raqua, as she had known it would. “You’re aware of the time, I presume.”

  “I was waiting. So yes.”

  “Impudent as ever.”

  She sucked in a breath. Three words and she was biting her tongue. Expressionless, she swilled the amber liquid in the glass, watching the moon-shaped tidemark left by the alcohol.

  “To your continued health, Feodor,” she said finally, and drank the contents. Her throat burned. Not just a cheap stunt, but that was a waste of good raqua if it did not rile him the way she needed.

  She sensed her father’s infuriation as he crossed the room to a chair by the table, leaning both hands heavily upon its back. He still bore the signs of a strong physique, though years and work had etched their marks. His face was lined, more than it might have been for a man his age. It was a face that took its time before succumbing to the necessity of conversation.

  “You’ll have to forgive my lateness.” His voice, used to public speaking, sounded trapped in the office. It took on other nuances too—sarcasm, and flashes of contempt. “As Tyr no doubt informed you, I’ve been in the Chambers all morning. An absurdly unproductive session. Hildur Pek has been kicking up a storm about the ring-net, as if anyone is worrying about sharks right now. Then we had some western lunatic speaking. Stars knows where they got him from, I suppose it’s hard to find literates over there. Practically demanded that we demilitarize the border, and Linus—Linus!—supported him, would you believe.”

  “I didn’t come to talk about Linus.”

  “No.” Feodor’s face closed. “No, you didn’t, did you. Well, Adelaide? I’ve had to leave a press conference because Tyr informs me you’ve materialized in my office. I can’t just drop everything to attend to your whims.”

  “Here you are though,” she said.

  The look he shot her was half fury, half despair. Their mutual dependency filled the air, hanging like a veil between them. Feodor, she knew, would never be able to accept Adelaide’s defection from the family. Whereas Viviana, much as she might pretend otherwise, had not been sorry to lose her only daughter. The rift had come as a relief to them both.

  “You made me go to that hideous execution last week,” she said. “Even though I hated it. Even though watching it made me sick.”

  “Stars, don’t bring that up. I’ve heard enough about the damn execution for one day.”

  “I want the keys to the penthouse.”

  “Is that a property request?” he said sardonically.

  “No, Daddy, it’s not.” It was not an affectionate term, and she knew its power. The first tinges of colour crept into Feodor’s cheeks.

  “Then why would you ask for the keys when you know I have handed them over to the committee?”

  “All of them?”

  Feodor’s eyes flicked to the window-wall before resettling upon his daughter.

  “Except for the set which must have been with Axel, yes, all of them.”

  “Don’t say it like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “As if he’s not coming back.”

  “I’m sorry, Adelaide.”

  “Stop it.”

  “It’s been over six weeks. We’ve consulted the most eminent Tellers.”

  “So?”

  Feodor looked sombrely at his hands. She rallied.

  “There must be another set. You would never have given up the only one.”

  His heavy eyelids lifted. “Accuse me of falsehoods if you wish. The keys to the penthouse are with the investigating committee, as requested when we reported Axel’s disappearance. I expect Hanif will retain them until the investigation is closed. Until then, no one is allowed access, not even family.”

  “You’re lying.”

  Feodor gave a faint smile. She cursed herself silently, knowing she had tripped on the most obvious of wires, unable to retract her step. She should have been used to the lies. It was a Rechnov trademark; they talked themselves into belief.

  “Look,” she persisted. “The penthouse is one of our properties. There’s always another way in. That’s one of grandfather’s tricks.”

  “Oh, be reasonable. Even if I indulge your bizarre conspiracy theories, as if I have time to play games about locked doors—do you not think that Hanif will have accounted for such a possibility? If he wishes to seal off the penthouse, I guarantee it will be guarded by more than a key.”

  “And we both know you could get past such obstacles, if you wanted to.”

  Her father gave her a haughty glance.

  “Are you suggesting I break the decrees of the Council I serve?”

  “I’m suggesting you put your son before your work.”

  The nerve above his eye began to twitch. “There is such a thing as integrity, Adelaide. But let’s forget the practicalities for a second and talk about the premise. What in Osiris do you expect to achieve by going through Axel’s belongings? The last time you were there—”

  “Precisely.” She leaned forward. “It’s months since any of us have been inside. I need to see what’s there, if there’re any clues to what happened. I’d have thought you would want to see too.”

  “I’ve no desire to visit.” Feodor shook his head. “It’s a cursed place.”

  “Of course. I forgot.” Her own anger was growing. “It’s an embarrassment to you. My brother is an embarrassment.”

  The colour flooded Feodor’s cheeks.

  “Do you think you are the only one suffering here?” His voice rose. Adelaide swallowed. “Have you considered your mother for one second? Have you spoken to her once since the Service of Hope? You have no idea what it’s like to lose a child. And if you carry on the way you are I don’t suppose you ever will. You might learn something from this tragedy, Adelaide, and address your own lifestyle, instead of attacking other people’s.”

  She was on her feet before she knew it. “Don’t talk to me about my actions! You’ve had nothing to do with me or Axel for years. That’s the way we all wanted it, that’s the way we got it.”

  “Because of your own stubbornness, Adelaide!”

  “You pushed us out—after Axel—after the incident—”

  “I’m not going to dredge this up. You renounced the family name. Your grandfather’s name. And not just you, you had to drag Axel along too—”

  “I didn’t drag him anywhere. You wanted him examined. You were going to do tests. We had no choice!”

  They glared at one another. Feodor’s knuckles clenched white on the back of the chair. She fought for control of her voice.

  “I’ve come here to ask you to help. Axel is my twin. I have to know. Why can’t you see that?” She willed him to understand. To delay a verdict she did not want to make.

  “There are qualified people investigating what happened. And I think, if we are honest, we both know what they are going to find out.”

  “No, we don’t.”

  “Adelaide—”

  “They never found his body.”

  “The earth is full of unburied souls.” Feodor lifted his hands: a gesture of resi
gnation. “Listen to me. It does no good to mull over these things. And besides, this is a delicate situation. Decorum is required. There are procedures. You must not—you will not—start making ripples. Hanif has everything in hand. He will inform me the moment—”

  “Please. I won’t take anything, I won’t touch anything, I just want to look—”

  “He will inform me the moment new information arises. I am sure it will not be long.”

  She fell still. On the Neptune o’screen, the forked tail of a fish disappeared beyond the edges of the frame. She reached out a finger, tracing its exit. Nebulous ideas, suspicions that had led her to this day and this request, tightened in her head and bound.

  “How can you be so confident?” she murmured.

  Feodor shifted his weight, flexing and refolding his hands around the back of the chair. “Adelaide. Perhaps this is difficult for you to understand, having been so close to your brother, but this—disappearance. In some ways, it is not, perhaps, entirely unexpected. The shock is no less, but the mind… the mind can sometimes anticipate, without knowing…”

  Adelaide’s chest constricted with outrage. “Are you trying to imply that he—”

  “No!” Feodor looked, for once, truly scandalized. “Don’t insult me. Axel was still a Rechnov, he would never—Let me finish. I am talking about accidents. An accident… Nothing more.” He took a deep breath, visibly gathering himself. “Now what I need you to do, Adelaide, is give me your word you will take this matter no further. Come back. Come back to the Domain. We will survive this as a family. We must not forsake one another in our grief.”

  “I can’t grieve for someone who isn’t dead.”

  Even as she spoke, she felt a dull flicker of recognition within herself. Grieving was exactly what she had been doing for the past year. But there was no longer time for that.

  Feodor let out a long sigh, as if to say only the deeply misguided could still have hope, and for them, he was powerless.

  “Ask the stars for guidance, if you will not accept mine. And drop this crusade. It will not bring him back.”