“Tonight, in the Lower City. It will be your only chance.”
Maiara’s mind was barely able to process what she had just heard when the door to the room opened with a crash. Two, three, many ocelots suddenly appeared, pointing rifles.
“Release her!” one of them shouted. “You’re surrounded!”
The reaction of the other was immediate. He pushed Maiara forward, walking backwards to the back of the house. That was when she had the first glimpse of the man who would change her life forever.
An old beaten poncho covered the body of the man, who also had a large bamboo hat hanging from his back. There was something else, something that Maiara couldn’t quite place, but that produced a silver flash, the moment he crossed the oblique light that fell on the house.
In one fluid movement, the intruder jumped out the bedroom window, bringing the bamboo hat to his head as he fell. He landed on the sidewalk next to three ocelots that covered the escape route. Without hesitation, he charged, disarming one of them of his rifle and using it to strike the next, right in the stomach. When he fell to his knees, out of breath, he jumped on his back, using it as a platform to fly over the third, striking him in the face with a sharp strike of the sole of his foot. Keeping the momentum, the man threw himself up, landing unscathed on the top of a xudá who was walking by.
At the same time, the other ocelots that surrounded the block gathered round. A few pairs rushed to their black combat quexás, while others mounted their individual autocycles, turning on the klaxons and firing toward the fugitive. The one who had been hit first still helped his fallen comrades when the radio around his waist sounded.
From its speaker, a commanding voice asked:
“Ground team, what’s going on?”
“Perpetrator on the run, sir!” the ocelot replied. “Converging units, I think he’s going to the bridge!”
“Engage command,” the leader of the ocelots, a short, stout man of Zonguanese features, ordered from Maiara’s room. “Block all access there. Get him!”
“Yes, sir!”
Sitting on her couch, Maiara stared at the scene with no reaction. The other ocelots left her home as suddenly as they had invaded it moments before.
“Are you all right?” the Zonguanese asked her.
Even if she could speak, Maiara wouldn’t be able to answer.
“I apologize for our abrupt invasion, ma’am. I’m Officer-of-Arms Hwang.”
Now that she was paying attention, Maiara noticed that his uniform was distinct from the others by details such as the darker shade of blue and the silver stripes that adorned the shoulder pads. He was an Officer of Weapons, also called a lobo-guará.
It was very common for command positions to be occupied by Zonguansese first, second, or third generation, both in Arariboia and Guanabara, and also throughout the rest of the continent.
“We received information that a wanted criminal would be hiding in this region. Our surveillance service saw him when he broke into your house. You were lucky we were around here.”
“Yes…” Maiara felt disoriented. “Yes, of course. Thanks. But…”
The teacher couldn’t think of anything. The rough voice continued to ring across her mind, like an ongoing echo.
“We believe he may have entered here after noticing our presence. Maybe he was hoping to get a hostage, or something.”
Maiara said nothing. The lobo-guará peered into her silent face, noticing how she avoided looking him in the eye.
“Ma’am, what happened just before we arrived?”
Maybe it was the coldness in the inquisitive gaze, maybe it was the slightly aggressive and deeply distant tone of his words, but Hwang’s presence made Maiara uncomfortable.
Afraid, she asked:
“Who was he?”
“As I said, a wanted criminal, ma’am. A killer,” the lobo-guará replied coldly. “Now, please, answer my question.”
Again, Maiara’s instinct told her that there was something out of place. There were many criminals in the streets of Arariboia, but an ambush like that wasn’t something you saw every day. In fact, Maiara had never witnessed such a thing.
Unless he wasn’t just another criminal.
“It’s the Anhangá,” she said, regretting it at once. The officer’s face became even more clouded, which she didn’t even think was possible. In any case, she couldn’t go back now. Nor did she want to. So she insisted, “It’s him, isn’t it?”
“We don’t know his name, ma’am,” Hwang snapped. “He’s just another criminal to us, like so many.”
Maiara didn’t know what to think. The mere notion that a wanted assassin had been there, in her home, had already completely disturbed her thoughts. That this could also have any connection with her father, whatever the connection was…
“He grabbed me,” she finally said. “And told me to shut up or he’d cut my throat. Then I…I just froze. I think that was when you came in. Sorry, I really can’t…”
Maiara chose to lie. After all, the consequences of revealing that there was some connection between Anhangá and her father, considering his infamous past, were too complex to be measured at once.
It’s about your father. The echo persisted in her mind.
At best, her life would be ruined once again. At worst, well, that was the problem. It was impossible to anticipate what might happen once the killer’s puzzling words came to light.
For now, she had to remain quiet.
She needed to find out for herself.
But first, she had to get that man out of her house. Hwang didn’t look away from her for even a second, like a jaguar watching his prey. He stared at her as if he could steal from her eyes the answers he sought.
“It’s all right,” the officer said at last. “If you remember anything else, please let me know. I’ll keep some men on this block as a precaution.”
Leaving these words in the air, the Officer-at-Arms left the house. Maiara felt the air returning to her lungs and, in a gesture of relief, buried her face in her hands, wiping the sweat from her temples.
Night came, but the teacher knew that trying to sleep would be useless. Her heart hadn’t yet regained its normal rhythm, and the curious glances of passersby at her window only added to her anguish. The hunger for discovery turned her inside out. She had no choice.
She needed to know.
* * *
Lower City.
So Arariboia’s southern outskirts were called. A part of the city not as prosperous as the port sector, it had become, over the years, a gambling den and a center for clandestine trades, bartering and prostitution. The region suffered from a lack of authority, and the energy grid, which had already been hampered by the decrease in rainfall in recent years, did not reach the homes of its most deprived population. Many ended up resorting to the illegal supply of batteries sold in Guanabara.
Maiara couldn’t remember ever being there. Men and women of libertine aspect wandered through the streets, some of them crossing the teacher’s path, silent like solitary shadows, others walking in noisy bands to and fro, disappearing into the darkness of alleyways that stank of garbage, cheap booze, and perdition.
However, the dirty atmosphere didn’t frighten her. Her mind was oblivious to the unhealthy environment surrounding her. She could only think of the events of that afternoon, of the mysterious thug named Anhangá and her father.
For a long time, that had been an open wound in Maiara’s life. The stigma of being the daughter of a purged man haunted her throughout childhood and adolescence. Maiara never knew her mother, dead upon her birth. Her father was all she ever had. Once a man respected for his wisdom and one of the brightest minds at the service of the Center for Climate Studies. One day, however, Yunru Zope, his great research partner, disappeared without a trace. Officers from all over South Tenoque were deployed to investigate, but they didn’t have to look hard.
Maiara remembered it as if it were yesterday. The throng crowding at the door of their house, her
father with his back to her, while the ocelots surrounded him. At last, the confession. Zope’s successes in his work for the Center had piqued her father’s envy and the two ended up fighting. Then one night her father had lured Zope to the beach, under the pretext of clearing up the quarrels. His plans, however, were different. That same night Ubirajara killed Zope, throwing his body into the high tide, making thus the ocean itself conceal the evidence.
Over time, Maiara’s sadness turned into hatred for the one who should have been watching over her, but who, by his own actions, had been condemned to the most unworthy fate of all. She felt betrayed and remembered the good moments they had shared, the smiles, the walks, the puzzles, all this only increased her pain. So, she conditioned herself to keep only that living memory, the moment of betrayal. She tried to forget his face, but it was an almost impossible task. Even here, so far from home, Maiara stared at her own dark face in the reflection of a dirty windowpane, and the legacy in her eyes showed she was plagued by memories she’d rather forget.
She had already wandered for another hour, looking for she didn’t exactly know what. For a moment she wondered, by the gods, what she was doing there. If, on the one hand, the teacher questioned how insane she would be to attend to Anhangá’s request, on the other, she longed for a signal, something that would show that she had made the right decision and that she was now following a discovery, her great driving force.
Maiara didn’t have a clue.
Suddenly she felt a hand on her hip and watched, out of the corner of her eye, a tiny figure disappear into an alley. A street urchin had stolen her money and run.
“Hey! Stop thief!” she shouted, running after him, but right then she chided herself for her naïveté.
After all, who would help her here? The drunkard in the gutter? The old man who showed her a malicious, toothless grin? A prostitute with her nostrils burned by opium? As far as she knew, that could be the boy’s family.
The chase led her into an alley, where someone had abandoned a huge rusty battery. There was no way out, except for a small hole in the wall that looked like the back of an old shed.
“That’s really great,” she mumbled, trying to see something beyond the fetid darkness of the passage.
A snap behind her caught her attention. As she turned to the entrance to the alley, her heart froze. Half a dozen haggard-looking boys surrounded her. Each one wore bone earrings in their ears and noses, and displayed a disturbing austerity in their eyes, as if they were up to their necks in a very old grudge.
Sons of Palenque.
It was in places like the Lower City that a good many of the heirs of the Lost Empire congregated. For a moment, Maiara thanked the gods for not having any Nahua ancestry. She was a legitimate Tupi-Guarani and hoped that this would increase her chances of leaving this place alive. After all, her chances of escape were small. All she could do was bargain or die fighting. Surrounded, she was surprised at how naturally this last notion had crossed her mind.
That was when steps behind the wall of muscular Mayan youths announced the approach of someone. In his hands, the elderly man carried Maiara’s stolen packet of bills, but she paid little attention to it.
“It can’t be…” she whispered in awe. “You’re…”
“Dead? Yes, my dear.” Yunru Zope smiled.
His hair was gray, as was the thick beard on his face. Still, Maiara easily recognized him. How many times had she seen that face printed on leaflets, right next to her father’s, illustrating the tragedy of a man’s death at the hands of his best friend?
“How is that possible?”
“If you’re here, Maiara, perhaps you already know the answer. Perhaps, deep in your heart, you always knew that your father could not be the terrible man your accusers claimed him to be.”
Maiara felt her legs weaken. Chaotic winds were blowing in her spirit. It was impossible to think clearly. Countless questions were lost in the confusion of thoughts, in the revolution of infinite uncertainty.
“I know you’re confused, that’s good. It means that your mind hasn’t closed completely yet. Otherwise, you would feel anger and not doubt, as the intolerant do.”
“Stay away from me!” Maiara threatened, noticing the older man’s approach.
“It’s all right.”
“What’s going on here? Who are you?”
“All I can do is tell you a part of the whole. Ubirajara is innocent. At least he’s innocent of the murder charge…of my murder. As for the rest, as to what is about to happen… Well, I don’t know about that. It all depends on your idea of innocence, I think.”
Old Zope’s gaze seemed to be lost within himself. There was a deep fear in his words that made Maiara question the man’s lucidity, as well as the reality of it all.
“Was my father innocent?” she asked, trying to placate her inner storm. “Was it all a lie, something to frame him?”
“Yes, it was. A scheme planned by your father. See, Maiara, Ubirajara wanted things to happen just like that. He wanted to be sacrificed.”
This was incredibly absurd. Who in their right mind would choose to be banished to Xibalba? Unless her father was mad, like that old man in front of her appeared to be.
“You’re lying! Tell the truth!”
“I’ve already said that I can only tell you a part of the whole. The rest you will have to see for yourself. It’s the only way.”
“Way for what?”
“For you to believe. To understand why your father did what he did. The importance of what we discovered together. Which will change everything.”
For a moment the wind ceased, and a clear sky opened in Maiara’s soul. In this sky, she saw the face of her father, sharper than she believed she could ever see again. He smiled at her.
“What about you?” she asked when the clouds covered her again. “Why did you do this, disappearing like this… Letting my father be convicted of a crime he wasn’t guilty of?”
“That was my share of the sacrifice.” Zope nodded, serene. “I would have gladly gone in his place. But Ubirajara insisted. For you.”
“Because of me?”
“Of course. After all, I had no one. I never had children. I’d have no one to trust to do what your father expects you to do. Now you must go. We acted as we did to make sure that nobody was following you. Even so, the ocelots are watching you. They won’t take long to get here.”
“No, no… I have so many questions. No one knows I’m here.”
“They do. They’ve been watching you for days. Since he started.”
Maiara stopped. It was obvious. A bamboo hat, a silver reflection. Anhangá. He wasn’t the one the guard was looking for that afternoon, and it wasn’t by chance that they came so quickly to her house. They were already there, waiting for him. Which could only mean that they knew he would seek her out. But why?
“What does all this have to do with me?”
“Your father’s research, the discovery he sacrificed to protect, continues exactly where he left it. Waiting for you.”
With that, Zope pointed to the east, where a powerful spotlight, shining white as a beacon, illuminated the pinnacle of the Guanabara Tower.
“They don’t know what your father discovered. Ubirajara made sure his secret would leave with him for Xibalba. At least until you were ready for it.”
“It’s been so long…” Maiara stared at the Tower on the other side of the bay. “Whatever my father left is gone now.”
“Ubirajara was a man of forethought, Maiara. Don’t make the same mistake as those who condemned him. Don’t underestimate him. Now go, before they find you here. Go, for your father, for me. For all of us.”
In such a situation, many would say they felt the world revolved around them. For Maiara, it was the other way around. Everything around her seemed static, frozen in an ultimate moment of full lucidity. She felt like a lost child, and as such she longed for her father’s hand to guide her in the next step.
Deep down,
maybe that was exactly what she was doing.
“Wind activity,” Zope whispered to her as he left the alley. “That’s what you should look for up there. Don’t forget it.”
With her heart lost at the crossroads of fear and gratitude, she replied:
“May the gods protect us.”
The old man just smiled.
* * *
All the time between the haunted farewell in the Lower City the night before and the end of that school day seemed to her little more than a lucid dream. The words she said to the kids in her class didn’t sound like hers. Maiara felt distant, as if she had become a mere spectator in the theater of her life.
Her eyes reached the top of the Tower and the memory of a distant, sunny morning filled her thoughts. Her father had just opened the access door to the huge terrace and she, a little girl, had just had the best day of her life. She remembered the cold in her belly as she carefully traversed the walkways between the lightning rods and the cells of attraction, reaching the parapet of what at the time she thought was the top of the world.
This was the first time she had revisited those moments, for…a very long time. One last perfect day with her father. From then on, everything gave way to uncertainty, fear, shame. Now, however, everything had changed once more, and Maiara felt remorse for trying to forget how happy they had been back in the day.
Zope was alive. Alive. Anhangá had been right up to now. Everything she’d believed was a lie. But why? Why would Zope and her father plot such a thing? The former had told her that she needed to see it to believe it. Maiara didn’t know if it was true, but there was no other choice.
With any luck, she’d be home before the Rain.
* * *
The security inside the complex was rigid. Half a dozen armed officers guarded the entrance hall, not to mention dozens of others scattered among the thirty floors of the Tower. Except for exceptional cases, that entry was used only by groups of visitors duly awaited and registered. Fortunately, for Maiara, she was an exceptional case.
Once considered a symbol of the progress and triumph of divine wisdom, the Guanabara Tower guarded within it the largest library of the city-state. As a teacher, Maiara had the right to study the tomes stored in there. Naturally the most delicate items were restricted to the High Priesthood. Maiara only hoped that the work of her father, a self-confessed murderer, wouldn’t be included in such a category.
Solarpunk: Ecological and Fantastical Stories in a Sustainable World Page 17
