“No, after that,” Nália said, pulling herself to his feet. Wenthi’s feet. She was still disoriented, his body hers, as real as anything she ever knew.
“After was more than just seeing,” Gabrána said.
Ajiñe was on her feet, concern on her face. “Renzi, are you all right? What did you experience?”
Nália took a moment to collect herself, anchoring in Ajiñe’s dark eyes. Renzi. Ajiñe saw her as Renzi, of course. Presumed she was Renzi, and talked to her as if she was him.
She could be Renzi Llionorco.
Wenthi appeared next to her, dressed in his patrol uniform, looking like he wanted a fight. “Stop that right now!”
“I saw . . . everything,” she told Ajiñe, ignoring Wenthi. He was exerting pressure on her, the same as he always did when he forced her down. Before his will had been like a torrential storm, tearing into her, but now it was little more than gentle wind. No power over her. “I saw everything, over the whole country. The mines, the farms, the oil derricks, and the people who were forced to work there.”
“Oh, my spirits,” Ajiñe said.
“I saw all of it,” Nália said, glancing at him. “I saw how they were forced to live. How they were treated. Worse than animals.”
Wenthi stammered, backing down. “It was . . . a horror. The fire. The locked cages. How could . . . how could anyone . . .”
“We need to move,” Nália said, taking Ajiñe’s hand as she jumped out of the cage. “Everyone! Get up! Get up!”
Jendiscira, lazily pulling her robe over her body, came over to them. “Calm down, Renzi. You did fine. You are one of us, now.”
“No, you don’t understand,” she said. She could still feel it. Hear the crackling flames. The searing heat. The fear. People couldn’t escape. “Something is happening, out in the oil fields.”
“We know about the oil fields,” Jendiscira said. “The soldiers who abduct the able-bodied baniz from Gonetown, they put them to work in the fields, in the mines. It’s a horror—”
“It’s on fire!” she shouted. “I saw it, there’s a fire in the oil fields, and—”
“I’m sure you did—” Jendiscira said. “It is real.”
“They’re trapped,” Nália said. “I’m still there in a way. Still with them.” She realized there was a buzz of the sync in the back of his head, with everyone here. Stronger with his cell, but lightly with Jendiscira and Hocnupec and everyone else here, people throughout the city. And the poor, suffering baniz across the countryside. All of them were with her. “I can feel all of it.”
Jendiscira touched Nália, her weathered hand caressing the stubble on Wenthi’s cheek. Nália wasn’t sure what to make of the sensation. “We knew there was something unique about you. Varazina said so. You have a gift with the mushroom beyond the rest of us.”
“Listen to me!” she said. “The derricks are burning. People will die. We have to—”
“Have to what?” Hocnupec asked. “Those fields are over a hundred twenty kilos away.”
Ajiñe was at her side. “And our cycles can do two-forty on a straight run easy. Maybe even faster. If we go now—”
“Go to where?” Hocnupec asked. “To the oil fields?”
“They are on fire!” Nália shouted, though still no one but Wenthi heard her.
“It’s impossible,” Jendiscira said. “The highways are patrolled by military forces. Who also control the oil fields.”
“I’m sorry?” Gabrána said, coming up behind Wenthi. The rest of the crew were with him, shoulder to shoulder. “I thought we were a rebellion.”
“I thought we were the Fists of Zapi,” Fenito added.
“I thought we were here to fight those shiteaters,” Mensi said.
Nicalla came up, joining hands with them. “Wasn’t that the point of all this?”
Spirits, they all loved Renzi.
“That’s me,” Wenthi pressed.
Who you pretended to be, she pushed back. But I could really be that.
“You think you’re going to hold my body forever?”
I can be Renzi Llionorco, better than you ever were. To punctuate her point, she pulled Fenito and Ajiñe closer to herself.
“We are fighting them,” Jendiscira said firmly. “But we have limits. There are dozens of dozens of dozens of soldiers between us and those fields. Dozens of dozens of ours would die just to get there.”
“Dozens of dozens are dying there,” Nália insisted. “I can still feel them.” It was just a faint shadow, but that connection still held. The screams, the burning flesh, the scent of death, she felt it all.
“We need to go,” Ajiñe said.
“We can’t do anything for those people,” Hocnupec said. “Assuming your visit was real—”
“It is,” Jendiscira said calmly, placing a hand on Hocnupec’s bare chest. “Renzi is much more attuned to the mushroom than any of us.”
“So listen to him!” Ajiñe pushed.
“It’s not a matter of believing him. It’s what we can do.”
Nália couldn’t believe her ears, even though they were Wenthi’s. “What does Varazina say?”
“The speakers are quiet. She’s not saying anything yet.”
“Well, let’s call her—”
“That is not how it works, child,” Hocnupec said. “She leads us in grace. We do not demand of her.”
“That sounds like some bullshit,” Wenthi said.
As much as she hated the idea of it, Nália found herself agreeing with him. There was something rotten about that.
“You’ve all been through an extraordinary experience,” Jendiscira said. “And we welcome you into the circles with us. But clearly you need some time to process and settle your emotions. It’s very normal.”
“But—” Nália said.
“Take them back to their hideout,” Jendiscira told a pair of people. “Let them calm down, and I’m certain Varazina will reach out to us soon and guide us on the proper path.”
54
Nália watched Wenthi’s avatar as they all rode in the back of the truck. She knew where his thoughts were at. He wanted to regain control of his body. But he was also tracking their route. Even now, she noticed—and Wenthi noticed as well—there wasn’t complete openness with the Fists yet. They were put in the back of the truck, the canvas closed.
“You don’t think that’s a bit odd?” she asked Ajiñe.
“Maybe a little,” Ajiñe said. “But an open truck with the six of us in the bed? Bait for the patrol. Especially with them still riled up over the fuel raid the other night.”
“Yeah, I think it’s less about keeping things secret from us, and more about being safe,” Mensi added.
Gabrána came over, caressing Nália’s leg. “You seemed pretty spooked back there. You can talk about it if you need to.”
“I want to know what you all experienced,” Nália said. “None of you felt what I did. None of you saw it.”
“I’m curious what you felt,” Fenito said to Nicalla. “I mean, I know for me, it was a full-on fuckfest. All the rest of us were all in it, so was Varazina, so were the old folks of the inner circle. People I ain’t even met before.”
“Yeah,” Mensi said. “It was . . .” He chuckled ruefully. “It was a lot more than I was ready for. I think I . . . I kind of lost myself in the waves and waves of the rest of you. And, honestly, I don’t think I’m going to be able to get hard again for the rest of the season.”
“Same,” Fenito said.
“Renzi isn’t having that problem,” Gabrána said, her hand moving to Nália’s crotch. Which was more than Nália wanted to deal with right now. As interesting as it would be fully engaging in the pleasures of Wenthi’s body, in complete control of it, her head wasn’t in that.
“Not now,” she said. “No, it was the same for us .
. . for me. But then at the height of climax—or the apex of the coming upon coming, I suppose—it was almost like I left my body.”
“My body,” Wenthi said absently.
“But more, it was like I connected to everything, at a level beyond anything I had ever experienced. Like I was in sync with everyone who had ever used the myco, and the great mushroom itself.”
“The great mushroom?” Ajiñe asked.
“It’s all one lifeform,” Nicalla said quietly. “It’s older than anything else in the world, its tendrils and fibers spreading under the land.”
“You knew that?” Nália asked.
“I . . . felt it. While you were all scrumping each other, I was communing with the life force of the mushroom. And Varazina. We were one with the mushroom itself. I’ve never been more at peace.”
“So you didn’t feel us all fucking?” Gabrána asked.
“I was aware of it, but I didn’t experience it. I was also aware of being something beyond my own humanity.”
“But you didn’t feel the suffering, the fires, any of that?” Nália asked. “That was just me?”
“Just us,” Wenthi said, though he was only giving them a portion of his attention. The truck came to a stop, and she could feel he had mentally mapped out where the Fists headquarters was. She could still lightly feel Jendiscira and the others, and she was certain he could as well. He was taking advantage of the fact he wasn’t tied to his body right now, figuring out what his mind could sense when it wasn’t held back by flawed, solid flesh.
And most troubling was an odd sense of calm emanating from him. He was ready to wait. But he was also concerned about the fires, and the baniz people dying out in the burning fields of oil.
He must have sensed her feeling that off of him. “We could make a call, you know. Send official help.”
Nália didn’t want to speak out loud, so she sent the thought at him. Like the patrol would save them. Or the nucks.
His resolve quavered a little.
Nicalla was going on. “I felt . . . I didn’t feel any specific individual suffering. But I did have the sense of pain from everyone out there in the country.”
The canvas opened up. “You’re all home,” the Fists who drove them said. “I saw a lot of patrol out there, more checkpoints than normal. Be careful, maybe lay low.”
That riled Nália up. “How can we lay low when people are dying out in the country—”
Ajiñe grabbed her and pulled her into the tenement. “Thank you, we’ll be ready when you call on us.”
Nália let herself be led inside, but she was still upset. “This is wrong. This is what we should be fighting for, and we’re not . . .”
Ajiñe stopped her from talking by kissing her, which reminded Nália of the peculiar sensation of being Renzi, the masculinity of her own mouth and face and hands.
“What was that for?” Nália asked.
“To bring you back down to the ground,” Ajiñe said. “I understand you’re upset, but . . . if you saw it, surely Varazina did as well. We were all connected to her, communing with her power.”
“Did she?” Wenthi asked. “Were we really?”
“What do you mean?” Nália asked.
“We know she sees everything, knows what’s going on, which is how she reaches us.”
“Oddly singular in direction,” Wenthi said. “Did we really commune with her? Or what she wanted us to feel?”
“What was she to you?” Nália asked the rest as they settled into the bomb-out. The crew all looked like they were ready to sleep right then and there, which was understandable. As agitated as she was, the body was tired to its bones. Surely the rest of them were. “How did you see her?”
“Like a human manifestation of the spirits that watch over us,” Gabrána said. “A woman of absurd beauty, but—”
“Natural,” Fenito said.
Mensi continued. “Like she was one with the land and nature and—”
“Connected to me,” Ajiñe said. “Like she knew my every secret and—”
“Loved me anyway,” Nicalla said.
Nália had felt all that as well. But yet—
“A little too perfect,” Wenthi said. “I was sucked into it as well, but now . . .”
“Right,” Nália said.
“But why do you have this deeper connection?” Gabrána asked. “They all said they knew you were stronger with your power, which is strange.”
“You took control of my body on the highway,” Ajiñe said. “I’ve never known anyone to do that before.”
“I’m not sure,” Nália said. Was it Wenthi who was special? He didn’t feel like a tory that night he arrested her. He was able to slip under her senses, get right up to her.
“Shebiruht said I was very interesting, too,” he said. “But maybe part of it is that it’s us, synced and stuck together permanently, with more and more speed. A fluke.”
“Whatever it is,” Ajiñe said, pulling Nália over to the mattress on the floor where they were all lying down—even Nicalla—“We’re happy you’re with us. We’re all going to do great things together.”
The radio sparked on, and Varazina’s voice crackled through.
“Fires are burning in the oil fields. Your people, your blood, your sisters and brothers and cousins, are dying. They are slaves under the boot of occupation, and we will bear it no longer. Rise up, my friends. This is the moment. This is the time. We will bear it no longer. Rise up, take to the streets. Beat back all who hold you down! For Zapisia! For me!”
“Did she just—” Ajiñe started, but Nália didn’t hear any more.
She had felt the charge, the connection that had activated the radio, the signal that brought the voice to them. And she knew—she knew—that it wasn’t just a message to them. Varazina had spread it wide, talking to every single radio next to every jifoz in Outtown. She had just called them to war.
Almost by instinct, Nália reached out and grabbed that charge, and it pulled her senses out with it, bringing the entire city to her.
55
For a brief moment, Nália could see it all. She touched into the signal on the radio, and her anger connected with Varazina, with Wenthi, which charged through the fungal network beneath her feet, like an electrical grid spreading across the country to every city.
She saw the factory workers and prisoners in Hanezcua, the destitute in Tofozaun, the hungry in Uretichan, the dying in the work camps, the angry in Ziaparr. If they were feeling a touch of connection to the mushroom, Nália felt a touch of them.
She heard Wenthi in the corner of her mind. “Like Doctor Shebiruht said, the very hand of god.” She tried to push his thoughts away, keep them out her experience, but everything she felt was too intense, too powerful, and she could barely maintain her control over the body. She would not yield it to Wenthi; he could wallow in the shit of his impotence.
The anger in Ziaparr was a fire that burned through Outtown. Hundreds upon hundreds of people, mostly jifoz, had heard Varazina, and for them, the suffering of the baniz out here was their own. Their fathers and mothers and side-siblings and cousins, chained and starved and burned and killed.
That anger built and broiled, took form. Jifoz who had been waiting in ration lines at the petrol station, denied entrance to the grocer, had a patrol officer’s finger pushing into their chests, they all, collectively, heard and burned. And burst forth with action.
Sticks and rocks and empty carbon bottles were taken up. Overcastes filling their sedans with petroleum—no wait and no limit—were torn out of their vehicles and dragged through the streets. Shops in the 11th and 12th senjas, boldly bearing signs out front saying LLIPE AND RHIQUE ONLY, had windows smashed and doors ripped off their hinges.
Patrol officers were knocked off their cycles, fists and boots slamming onto their heads. If the people caught the
m, they were torn apart. She saw some try to fight back, hold their ground in the circles they patrolled, but many more raced to the Intown wall, holding lines at the Uzena and Mixala crossings.
It came to Nália in flashes, in waves. She felt the anger, felt jaws snapping and skulls cracking and knuckles bleeding. She saw shouts for justice on Circle Uilea. She saw fires burning on Avenue Nodlion. She saw faces she knew—no, faces Wenthi knew, friends and colleagues and lovers in the patrol—get beaten beyond recognition.
She saw the Henáca boys tearing things up. She saw Officer Andorn bleeding, lifeless, on the ground. She saw Jendiscira and Hocnupec and the other members of the Fists Inner Circle shouting for action, ordering riders and looters toward the railyards, the crossings, the warehouses full of food earmarked for a useless war across the ocean.
She saw Paulei, fearfully trying to guide a pair of llipe youths to Hightown before they were caught by the angry crowds. That brought surges of emotions from Wenthi, screaming with no mouth of his dearest friend in danger.
For a brief moment, she felt pity for him.
Trucks were overturned, blood was spilled, and barricades torn down while bullets, bottles, and burning petroleum flew across the city circles.
All of Outtown had exploded.
And at the edge of all that, Varazina, joyful for the chaos.
That last feeling hit her like a brick in the face, snapping her out of the signal. She came back to her own senses, collapsed on the floor of the bomb-out.
All the crew were huddled around her, holding her close.
“He’s awake,” one of them said. “His eyes are opening.”
“Renzi, hey,” Ajiñe said, touching her face. “You’re all right. Look at me. You’re all right.”
“I am,” she said, trying to get back on her feet. She still had Wenthi’s body. He had been pulled along just as she had; he had no chance to reclaim control. Even his phantom form lay on the floor, dazed and unsteady.
“What just happened?” Fenito asked. “You had a seizure or something.”
“I connected with her signal,” Nália said. “It was liked I reached into her broadcast, and for a moment, saw what she saw.”
The Velocity of Revolution Page 28
