Gemsigns

by Stephanie Saulter

  Their conviction that they were at best victims of a mix-up and a cover-up, and at worst of a full-blown conspiracy, was made sharper by their firmly held view that gems were a subnormal subspecies to whom few ethical boundaries should apply. They had been active campaigners against increased regulation of the gemtech industry, and had drawn much ire as a consequence. They became convinced that there existed a double agent, some insidious enemy at whose identity they could only guess, who had inflicted a gem child upon them in a twisted scheme of sabotage and revenge.

  This outlandish tale gained little traction, especially since embarrassment and suspicion made them reluctant to share it widely. Plus the child’s alleged abnormality was inconsistent, unpredictable, and generally held to be impossible. They knew better. They found their way, eventually, to GenPhen.

  Henderson found no traces of proximate engineering in the genome either, but spotted evidence of the boy’s ability almost immediately. It made their story far more believable. The most sensational prototype he had ever heard of had fallen inexplicably into his lap. He suggested that all the parents’ problems, including any lingering taint from the unfortunate affair, could be made to disappear from their lives along with the child. They would have to disappear themselves, of course, change their identities and start again elsewhere. There was money for that, a massive transfer from the Bel’Natur conglomerate for whom he acted as proxy. The firm would become the boy’s legal guardian and would never trouble them again. They took the deal and fled.

  By the time Henderson looked up from a careful, weeks-long examination of his latest subject, the world had changed. The Declaration took him completely by surprise. His interim report had generated an enthusiastic instruction to proceed; now no one at head office would acknowledge his existence. His staff had gone. He found he had few remaining contacts in the crèches, and they advised him to run. The gravity of the situation became suddenly, chillingly clear to him. But he had resources of his own, homes in different countries, funds in myriad accounts. All he had to do first was get rid of the child.

  Exactly how the boy came to be left on the doorstep of the Squats was never clear. The most charitable interpretation was that it was Henderson’s attempt to anonymously hand him over to his own kind. But the condition in which he was found, muffled, drugged and dehydrated, meant he had been far more likely to suffocate than survive.

  The gems took him in, hid him for fear that Bel’Natur could use the release from his norm parents to reclaim him from the authorities, rehabilitated and reared and loved him. It was also they who figured him out. Through means left unclear they retrieved the entire datastream of his previous history, recognised the thoroughness of the earlier work, and went looking for an answer that fit the evidence. Aryel Morningstar herself narrated a brief summation.

  ‘Gabriel carries a heritage sequence that used to be associated with a high risk of schizophrenia. Thanks to the gene surgery performed on the pre-embryonic cells of his great-great-grandparents, this is no longer the case. The junk code that might have made it difficult for him to distinguish his own consciousness from others’ has been stripped out, and the core sequence has been freed to express itself. His ability to perceive the thoughts of people around him is a naturally evolved trait, but it was the Syndrome-safety engineering of the past century that has enabled it to be expressed beyond infancy.’

  She had attached her own study as proof, different elements commissioned from a series of black-market labs, correlated and compared with archive databases from mental hospitals and paranormal research units. But that was not all she included.

  His original genome analysis was also there, along with the GenPhen report addressed to Bel’Natur. Henderson’s recorded summary was there, directed to Felix Carrington, with the timestamp proving delivery. The vid that Eli had already seen was there: the child without voice or memory, the burns and bruises and binbag wrapper. And finally his birth parents, their norm lineage confirmed by genetype, accepting the offer and signing him away.

  All of this Aryel Morningstar gave to Eli Walker. And Eli Walker gave to the world.

  *

  Aryel stood, her back to the glass wall beyond which the city slipped away, Gabriel in her arms. She had ignored Mac’s knife, and there before the doors had simply plucked him away from the man who had taken him from Gaela. The boy had clamped on to her as he had to his mother, arms and legs wrapped around the folds of her cloak. Every now and then she glanced up, her gaze sweeping the crowded cubicle; catching James Mudd’s eye, looking across to the other lift where Donal had slumped to the floor, checking the display that counted off the levels as they ascended. But mostly she kept her attention on the child.

  Now that they had their prize and were on their way, now that there was no more chance of being stopped, the godgang had gone surprisingly quiet. There was no shouting, no bluster, no abuse. They ranged around the perimeter of the pod, looking from Aryel and Gabriel to the Newsbeat team as though they could not quite believe what they had accomplished. Mudd wondered if their presence there, the knowledge they were being streamed live to the planet, was what kept them in check.

  His young colleague with the vidcam, a lad only just past his apprenticeship, was trembling and Mudd took hold of the equipment to help steady it, muttering a reassurance. Based on what, he did not know. Newsbeat’s generally negative stance on gems was not nearly radical enough for the godgang; there was no guarantee they would get out of this alive either. Aryel Morningstar caught his eye again, and he glanced down at the vidcam’s monitor, tapped it, then slid his tablet out of his pocket.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Mac. Edgy.

  ‘That –’ he pointed at the monitor – ‘it’s not working properly. I need to make sure the picture they’re getting is clear.’

  He babbled on as he pulled up the stream, asking questions which Mac did not answer. The headline flowed past. He did not have to feign surprise. He looked up at Mac and cleared his throat. ‘E-excuse me.’

  ‘What? We’re not live?’

  ‘Yes we are. It’s fine. There’s just something else that’s come in on our feed … about this boy …’ He held the tablet out to Mac. The godgang leader glanced at it for a moment, then pushed it away.

  ‘Lies. All lies.’

  ‘How do you know? It says there’s proof—’

  ‘Shut up.’

  The other men shifted and muttered to each other. One of them said, ‘What is it, Mac?’

  ‘Says this abomination is really a norm kid.’ Mac snorted.

  The men looked at Gabriel, noting once more his lack of gemsign. Aryel Morningstar met their eyes levelly over his small, sandybrown head.

  ‘They say he doesn’t really have powers?’ another man asked. He sounded uncertain.

  ‘Oh, he does. A norm with powers, ‘parently. Natural ones.’ He shook his head at the idiocy of such a claim, while the other men added their own sounds of derision. James Mudd tried again.

  ‘How … how can you be sure it isn’t true?’

  ‘How? How?’ Mac brandished the knife. ‘’Cos humans don’t have powers. Only the children of God and the spawn of the Beast. And if you want to know which one this is, there’s your proof right there.’ The knife waved at Gabriel. ‘No child of the Lord would cling to an abomination. No human child neither.’

  ‘But—’

  Mac pointed the knife at him. ‘You are here to witness. Not to speak.’

  Aryel Morningstar made a sound that could have been a sigh, or a gust of silent laughter. Her blue eyes closed for a moment in acknowledgement, or resignation, and she shifted Gabriel’s weight slightly. Then her eyes opened again, and she did sigh now, and look at the display, as though they could not arrive soon enough.

  *

  Eli and Gaela stood in front of the window-size screens on the plaza. He had grabbed an emergency blanket and wrapped it and his arm around her shoulders, trying to lend comfort and support, but he felt he might be lean
ing as much on her as she on him. She was shaking, hands clenched beneath her chin, her breath coming in sobs. Masoud was nearby, pacing in a tight circle, growling into his earset as he tried to get the lifts halted. All around them police and paramedics milled, keeping the crowd back, everyone staring impotently at the screens. Teams had already run inside, but there was no hope of getting to the terrace in time.

  They watched James Mudd’s exchange with Mac. Eli found he was not surprised at the outcome. He knew he was terrified, panicked and powerless, and in that strange paralysis found himself noticing things with an acute, almost painful intensity that was new to him.

  The moment they got into the lift Aryel had started doing something with her hands. It was a subtle, small movement. She had clasped her wrists, forming a sling for Gabriel to sit in. Her fingers moved carefully, first the right hand doing something to the sleeve of the left. Then she stopped, shifted her grip, and began on the other side. He saw that she must have undone some hidden fastening, for the fabric gaped open around her left wrist.

  His earset buzzed. For an insane moment he hoped it was her, but on the screen she silently checked the display again and brushed her lips across the top of Gabriel’s head.

  Mikal’s voice came into his ear.

  ‘Where’s Gaela?’

  ‘She’s here. She’s right here with me. Are you seeing this?’

  ‘Yes. I’m with Bal.’

  He pulled the ‘set off and slid it over Gaela’s ear. He caught a snatch of Bal’s voice, weak but steady, as she pushed it into place.

  ‘Gaela? She can do it. Aryel can do it.’

  Do what? he wondered, and watched her right hand slip out of view, unhurried and unnoticed, the sleeve withdrawn into the black density of cloak. There was a bunching of the fabric beneath Gabriel’s seat, and the hand reappeared through a slit, a centre seam he had barely noticed before. The entire garment seemed bigger, wider, the huge lump of her shoulders more swollen and tumorous than ever. She was breathing deeply and evenly, like a diver preparing for descent.

  There were only a few floors to go. She murmured to Gabriel and crouched suddenly, as though he was slipping from her grasp. She was back up before the men could react, grip once more secure, but now both sleeves were gone, both hands emerged from the lengthening slit in the cloak, Gabriel’s legs were tucked under it and the fabric billowed loose around her own. Mac stared at her, frowning, as though aware of a change but unable to pinpoint it. He was opening his mouth for a challenge when the lift slid smoothly to a halt. The doors pinged open, and the cold wind of the terrace blasted inside.

  *

  Over at the Bel’Natur building, Zavcka Klist stepped out of her own lift and ran for the perimeter walkway. Her eyes still scanned the tablet in her hand, and she barely managed to dodge the people and furniture in her way. Startled looks followed her. A few called out. She ignored them.

  She had left the others behind at the Conference, had already half decided to burn her files and simply walk out, disappear, watch from a distance while Felix dug himself into a deeper and deeper hole. She could see that the plan was doomed. Bel’Natur could survive its failure; in all likelihood she would not.

  What had flashed onto the streams in the last ten minutes looked set to change her prospects. Exactly how depended on what happened in the next two. She skidded into the corridor and slammed up against the glass, staring across the gulf at Newhope Tower.

  *

  Rollo had been thorough. The doors leading into the building from the terrace had been locked using a command programme no one had ever seen before. Faces pressed up against the glass, service staff and office workers shouting soundlessly, hands slapping and fists pounding. To no effect. Mac cast a cool glance over them, and turned away.

  They had intended to shove Aryel out of the pod, but found it unnecessary. She sidestepped them and strode ahead as if she owned the place, into the biting cold and clear blue and crunching frost underfoot. The godgang crowded after, the men who had ridden up with him dragging Donal from the other lift. James Mudd was seized by the elbow and chivvied forward. The vidcam kept pace beside him. The operator had stopped trembling but his lips were bitten hard together to keep himself from crying out.

  She reached the centre of the terrace and spun to face them, the cloak swirling around her braced legs. The sudden movement checked the men and they shuffled to a stop. There seemed to be nothing but sky behind her, arcing up into the infinity above their heads, an azure amphitheatre fit only for gods.

  On the ground Masoud stepped in close on Gaela’s other side, teeth bared at the screen, growling, ‘The barrier’s mostly clear, for viewing, but it’s nine feet high, they won’t be able to— Oh shit.’

  Because they had thought of that, of course, and two thirds of it had been cut away, down to the metal railing fronting the Perspex, the gap barely hip high and wide enough for two.

  The men moved forward, slowly but deliberately, as though testing her, and she moved back, once more keeping the distance constant. They were holding Donal just in front and to the side of the vidcam. Eli could see his bound and bloody hands in the foreground corner of the frame. Ahead of him Aryel was getting perilously close to the gap. She seemed to be murmuring something to Gabriel. But then she glanced up without raising her head, a sharp blue flicker from under smooth bronze brows, and Donal’s hands clenched.

  The image on the screen began to tremble again. For the first time there was a sound from the operator, a sobbing intake of breath. James Mudd said, ‘You can’t expect us to … we can’t …’

  ‘Keep shooting.’ That whiplash voice, and the image steadied. The men stopped, looking at each other and at her, muttering their confusion.

  Mac stepped into the arena between them, knife glinting in the sun, and she took a long stride back. The cloak billowed towards him, the centre seam open almost all the way now, only Gabriel’s small arms wrapped around her neck keeping it in place. As the heavy fabric fell back Eli glimpsed a strange unevenness against its inner surface, as though it was lined with something that had a life of its own, something that whispered and moved and had expanded in the last few minutes. There was a hint of textured brown against the black, a massed rustling in the darkness.

  And then, suddenly, he knew.

  Her face was fierce and proud, but her voice as she spoke to Gabriel was as gentle as a lullaby. ‘Gabe? Tuck your hands under my coat. It’s cold.’ She rubbed his back to encourage him, tugging lightly at his arm, and he did as he was told. The cloak hung loose on her shoulders now, and she tightened her grip on his torso.

  ‘Cold?’ Mac’s voice was loud and harsh, a note of hysteria in the sarcasm, his bewilderment finally boiling over into rage. ‘You’re worried he’s cold?! He’s going to be colder in a second.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘He is. I’m sorry, baby. It won’t last long.’

  They laughed at that, and Mac leapt forward. She spun away from him, graceful as a dancer, and ran for the gap. The cloak was half gone in one stride, left behind in two, a black shroud that entangled Mac and sent him sprawling. He had just a glimpse of her back, the impossible limbs sweeping up above her shoulders, a flash of creamy down underside, bronze-bright flight feathers drawn sharp against a searing blue sky.

  Her third step drove her up, into the breach and the clear air. She spread her wings, and jumped.

  29

  Screams on the plaza, watchers recoiling in shock from the screens, where the image jerked and fell sideways and blurred anyway. Amidst the pandemonium, a rippling, reverent astonishment. For the second time that week Eli’s legs threatened to collapse under him.

  Gaela was already sprinting away from the building, head craned back to look. She spotted them instantly, bronze against blue. Eli recovered himself and was beside her a moment later. So was everyone else, dozens and dozens of them now, hundreds, ringing the building, every face pointed at the sky. Aryel Morningstar was high up but descending, sweepin
g down in a wide spiral, holding the little boy tight against her chest.

  ‘She can fly,’ came a disbelieving whisper from somewhere nearby, and Eli glanced over to the speaker, a man tipped so far back he looked as unsteady as he sounded. He staggered a little as Eli watched, arms flapping for balance. His gaze did not shift from the tiny figure high up against the tower, a fixed point, a sky anchor beneath which he swayed and turned. The strange dance swept through the crowd, along with the phrase, a murmuration caught and echoed and thrown up like a prayer from a hundred throats, as though to say it out loud might make sense of what they saw.

  ‘She can fly. She has wings. It’s wings. She can fly.’

  And here and there, begun and bitten off, because that was wrong, ridiculous, had to be, the notion was archaic and impossible, ‘She’s— She’s a—’

  But still it presented itself, rising phoenix-like, rampant now and sweeping up and over the barriers of history and logic. Eli heard it not said in the trailing exclamations, the mouths stopped by clasped hands.

  A new image flashed up on the screens of Newhope Tower, a view from below, one of the vidcam crews on the plaza zooming in. It caught her as she appeared to say something to the child in her arms, her dark hair loose now and blown back from her face. They were more than halfway down, and the crowd fell silent. Seconds that felt like years ticked past, and then there was the dark shadow of her wings over the plaza, and more cries as people shrank back, stumbling out of the way.

  Her feet hit the top of an ambulance first, driven onto the pavement in a show of feeble readiness, and she took a long stride across it to lose speed. Then off, wings spilling the wind of her passage as she dropped, and she stepped out of the air and onto the ground as lightly as she had left it.

  She dropped another kiss onto Gabriel’s head and looked up, eyes sweeping the plaza, wings sweeping the air as she turned. A pile of blankets was stacked in the open bay of the vehicle, next to a paramedic whose knees really had gone. She picked one up and wrapped it around the boy, murmuring something to the medic, stepping clear to look around again.