City on Fire (Metropolitan 2)

by Walter Jon Williams

  “He’s certainly doing his best,” Aiah says, uncertain whether it is her ambition or Constantine’s that she serves. She glances down at her meal and discovers that she has forgotten to taste it; she picks up a fork and wraps a noodle about its prongs, then looks up.

  “I have a hard time picturing what Constantine was like when he was young. He was ... what, thirty when you met?”

  “Just under thirty, I think. And I was just under twenty.” She smiles at the memory. “He was in headlong flight from his destiny— trying for a degree in the philosophy of plasm, forsooth, before bolting for the monastery and impractical religion.” Her bright eyes turn to Aiah again. “Are you still jealous?”

  “Probably not,” Aiah decides.

  “He and I enjoy each other’s company now, but we are both very different people than we were. Not that I wouldn’t bed him if he asked nicely”— a wry look crosses her face— “but I don’t think he’s interested in old ladies like me.”

  “You look younger than I do.”

  “Kind”— a brisk nod— “but untrue. I am practiced at seeming, but by now, inwardly at least, I’m afraid I am become a very constant and unalterable sort of person. In the future I will change slightly, if at all. But Constantine has always been intrigued by transformation— in politics, in plasm, in bed— and your transformation from what you were to what you are to what you shall be ... well, that is what delights him in you.”

  This analysis sends tiny cold blades scraping along Aiah’s nerves, and she wonders how often Constantine discusses her with Aldemar—or with others.

  Amusement dances in the actress’s eyes, and breaks Aiah’s alarm. “Besides,” Aldemar says, “you’re an attractive couple. I can’t help but want the best for you.”

  Aiah wants to ask Aldemar about more practical matters, about why Constantine is allying himself with Parq; but at that moment the maitre d’ sits a pair of Dalavan priests at the next table, and Aiah applies herself to her noodles.

  Damn it.

  After luncheon, Aiah steps to the insect-eye windows and gazes out at the city, at the teeming composition, repeated endlessly in faceted glass, of gray and green that has become her life and burden. Above it roils a flat gray cloud, scudding toward the Palace with surprising speed; and with a start Aiah realizes that the cloud is not a cloud at all, but a plasm projection, a fantasy of images, teeth and heads and eyes and vehicles, all vanishing and disappearing too fast for Aiah to follow, though a few of the icons seem to stick in Aiah’s retina: Crassus the actor, an old airship of the Parbund class, a spotted dog with its forefeet propped on a child’s tricycle ...

  Aiah stares as shock rolls through her. For there, repeated sixfold by the panes of Dragonfly glass, she recognizes an image, a long-eyed profile of a gray-skinned woman, her hair done in ringlets and an equivocal smile on her lips.

  The Woman who is the Moon.

  The image vanishes, folding into something else; and in a moment, the entire plasm display is gone.

  She must visit the Dreaming Sisters, Aiah thinks, and soon.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Aiah wants to cringe as she watches herself on video. “On behalf of the government and the Barkazil community of Caraqui,” the woman on-screen bellows, “I’d like to welcome you all to our metropolis!”

  Senko. Is her voice really that harsh? Tumultuous cheers follow, far more impressive than the cheers at the actual event. The sound has been dubbed in after the fact.

  The chromo is called The Mystery of Aiah. In it, a journalist named Stacie— a woman whom Aiah has never met— attempts to solve the mystery of Aiah’s character and personality.

  “There’s no mystery about me!” Aiah protests when she sees the direction the chromoplay is taking.

  “There is now,” Constantine says, a purposeful light in his eyes.

  Aiah sits on a sofa between Constantine and Aldemar, her hands clutching theirs. The two veteran performers are amused as she shrinks away from the journalist’s attempts to “solve” her.

  The reporter interviews various figures from Aiah’s life in Jaspeer, including Charduq the Hermit, still on his pillar, who cheerfully proclaims her the redeemer of the Barkazi, a claim that Khorsa’s sister Dhival, in full sorceress getup, is all too happy to confirm— she has talked, she says, to spirits on the matter, and they confirm Charduq’s assessment. Old chromographs from Aiah’s school career are displayed, and some of her teachers from the prep school to which she’d won a scholarship are interviewed, teachers willing to testify as to her brilliance. Aiah remembers the praise during her girlhood as being far less fulsome.

  “Aiah’s family declined to be interviewed,” the narrator reports, managing to imply they fear Aiah’s disapproval and vengeance. Aiah is relieved beyond words ... the very thought of her mother babbling away on video is terrifying, and Senko only knows what she would say. But if the family actually had been approached— which Aiah is inclined to doubt, as she has heard nothing from them— they had closed ranks against the outsider.

  Aiah had broken Jaspeeri laws, and her family knew it. No indictments had ever been filed, but there was no sense in giving the prosecutors information. The section on her life in Caraqui is a hash of suggestion and demented fantasy. Aiah can’t even take it seriously enough to shrink from the image presented. There are hints of her great influence in the councils of power. “Aiah has single-handedly broken the gangsters’ control of the Caraqui economy and their hold on the people,” the chromo intones, and follows with jittery camera shots of police actions and of disheveled Handmen being led off to justice. Images of Karlo’s Brigade are mixed with suggestions that they are soldiers loyal not to the regime but, personally, to Aiah. There are pictures of Barkazil neighborhoods, which Aiah recognizes from faspeer, but they are ingeniously mixed with images from Caraqui to suggest that a large Barkazil community is in place here, and that Aiah is their unquestioned leader. Supposed Barkazil immigrants, allegedly drawn to Caraqui by Aiah’s personal magnetism, are shown being welcomed by Caraqui officials.

  “She is our commander,” Alfeg says. He looks quite natural and comfortable on camera. “She fights for her people, her nation. We are here to serve her.” Two of the department’s total of four Barkazils, looking far less comfortable than Alfeg, sit in the background and nod stiff agreement.

  “Aiah has transformed this metropolis,” Khorsa confirms. She has forgone her witch dress and appears in the conservative gray suit of the professional mage and member of the PED, albeit with one of her glittering jeweled foci pinned neatly to her lapel.

  “I can’t think of another person,” she says, “who could have so totally destroyed such a huge, malevolent, and emplaced organization as the Silver Hand.”

  “I haven’t destroyed it,” Aiah points out, but Aldemar hushes her.

  There is a short diversion from the chromo’s relentless pursuit of its subject while the narrator embarks on a brief biography of Great-Uncle Rathmen and points out that his money is financing the current insurrection.

  And then Khorsa is back, smiling brightly. “Of course Aiah is Constantine’s lover,” she says.

  “No!” Aiah cries in horror.

  Constantine glances at her sidelong, and a smile touches his lips. “If I can put up with this,” he says, “you can.”

  Aiah watches with increasing dread as the chromo plunges into her relationship with Constantine. That few of the details are correct doesn’t make it any less horrifying.

  “He was besotted by her the first time he saw her,” reports a talking head, alleged to belong to one of Constantine’s friends. “She’s his secret general— his good luck.”

  “What is the point of this?” Aiah demands.

  “It will make you interesting,” Constantine says. “Few will care about some shadowy figure in the Caraqui government, but revealed as my lover you will become the focus of millions.”

  Aiah sinks hopelessly into her seat. “I don’t suppose there is any
point in protesting,” she says.

  “Well,” Aldemar offers, “it’s true. The gist, anyway. You are lovers, after all. And you do chase criminals, and you are a Barkazil.” She gives a tight-lipped little smile. “It’s much more true than most of my publicity.”

  Aiah looks at Constantine. “What does Sorya say about this?”

  Constantine’s answer is matter-of-fact. “Sorya is the head of the secret service. She doesn’t want publicity. Whereas publicity, the more sensational the better, is exactly what is required for you.”

  The chromoplay drags on to its conclusion, and Aldemar gives a satisfied smile.

  “Satisfied with the edit?” she says. “Other than the few rough spots?”

  “Very well satisfied, thank you,” Constantine says.

  “I told you Umarath would get the job done.”

  Aldemar releases the second spool on the big commercial etching belt, picks up the red plastic belt, then puts it in its battered metal case.

  “Who is this reporter?” Aiah asks.

  “She’s not a reporter, she’s an actress,” Aldemar says. “Stacie used to be on Metro Squad— ever watch that? She phoned in her performance from Chemra.”

  “So she didn’t actually interview any of these people?”

  “Oh no. There wasn’t time. We had three units shooting picture, and Umarath put the whole thing together in the editing room.”

  “It’s so ... intrusive,” Aiah says. “And horrid. And all the facts are wrong, too.”

  Constantine cocks an eyebrow at her. “Would you rather it told the truth? You must have broken a hundred laws working for me in Jaspeer.”

  “That’s not what I meant. It’s showing me as a celebrity’s favorite fuck.”

  “Oh no.” Aldemar shakes her head at this, and her reply is perfectly serious. “We would have been taking that tack if we’d mentioned you were Constantine’s lover first. But the image we chose for you is that of the secret mastermind operating behind events. The sex is a validation of your status. It’s not that you’re important because you’re Constantine’s lover, it’s that being Constantine’s lover confirms the fact that you’re important.”

  “This is too sophisticated for me.” Aiah shakes her head. “Politics is so...” She gropes for the right word. “So solipsistic.” She looks at Aldemar.

  “And so is show business. It can create a reality that has nothing to do with anything real.”

  A touch of sympathy enters Aldemar’s tone. “If you do not like the resulting image, you may alter it in time— give an interview, release a statement, commission another documentary, whatever you like.” The sympathy fades. “But let the video do its work first. For the moment, communicate with the public only through the press assistant we will provide for you.” She smiles. “In time you may find that you like what this does for you. It will open a lot of doors.”

  “But will I want to walk through them?” Aiah asks. Aldemar only shrugs.

  “I think the video will do quite well for us,” Constantine says. “It plays right to the mind-set created by the other side’s propaganda— which, much to the annoyance of our government, has always maintained that I am the real power in Caraqui, and the triumvirate my puppets. This chromo is aimed straight at a target which I think it is almost certain to hit.”

  Aiah looks at him darkly. “Landro’s Escaliers,” she says.

  Constantine’s expression is satisfied. “Indeed.”

  SPIRITUAL RENEWAL PARTY

  FOR VICTORY, FOR MORALITY, AND FOR THE HOLY, PARQ

  Aiah’s computer terminal hums, and grinds, and wafts a scent of ozone; and then its oval screen displays the message SCAN NEGATIVE. INITIATE NEW SCAN?

  The Dreaming Sisters are not to be found anywhere in the ministry’s plasm records, or anyway not as such— it’s not that there’s no record of them, but that they probably have some other, more official name used in the files. The Arch-Revered Order of Transcendental Plasm Suckers, or something...

  Aiah shuts off her terminal, hearing that little disappointed whine of the gears cycling down, and then sets her receptionist, Anstine, to work on it. That, after all, is what he is for.

  Half a shift later the file appears on Aiah’s desk. Society of the Simple, 100 Cold Canal. A modest name; a forbidding address.

  Aiah opens the file, sees the totals, and frowns.

  The huge aerial displays that Aiah has seen since her arrival in Caraqui used enough plasm to cost tens of thousands of dinars. Yet the Society’s bills are modest, a few hundred dinars each month.

  Which leaves open two possibilities: either their building is so big that it generates all the plasm they need ... or they’re stealing the stuff.

  She presses the intercom button on her commo array and speaks a moment with Anstine, asking him if he’s sure... Oh yes, Aiah is assured, the Society of the Simple is every so often the subject of news and video reports— those big aerial displays attract public attention; all Anstine had to do was call up the information on the Interfact.

  Aiah puts the headset over her ears and makes some more calls. A boat, a pilot, some bodyguards, and an inspection team.

  “Tell the camera crew they may not come.”

  If they’re plasm thieves, she’ll arrest the lot of them, whether they spend their days talking to the gods or not.

  Parq’s spy, floating about her department, has not made her charitable toward the idea of religion.

  If they’re not thieves, then maybe they’re something much more interesting.

  LORDS OF THE NEW CITY

  MORE RELEVANT THAN EVER!

  Travel has become less pleasurable in the days since Aiah became famous. Since Constantine wants to keep her constantly in the news, camera crews follow her everywhere, and— as most of her travel consists of walking from her apartment to her job at the start of the day, and then taking the reverse path ten or twelve or sixteen hours later— the ministry, through her press spokesman, exerts itself to find newsworthy things for her to do.

  When she accepted Brigadier Ceison’s polite invitation to dine with him and his staff, the video cameras followed along, and the next day stories appeared in all the media concerning Aiah’s important meeting with Barkazil military leaders. When Alfeg’s embryonic relief organization turned up a few indigent Barkazils in neighboring districts and persuaded them to move to Caraqui in search of employment, Aiah appeared on video handing them their dole cards. When Khorsa’s sister Dhival, imported for the occasion from the Wisdom Fortune Temple in Jaspeer, conducted for any interested members of Karlo’s Brigade “a traditional Barkazil religious service”— there of course being no such thing, religion in Barkazi being as chaotic as it was in most places on the globe— Aiah was on hand to clap her hands to the beat of the drums and nod approvingly as spirits of the air and the afterlife communicated their wishes through Dhival.

  The routine business of her life is suddenly invested with the kind of portentous and highly artificial significance that only comes with heavy media exposure. Her appearances at cabinet meetings become “vital reports on the critical war situation.” Her briefings of PED personnel and military cops prior to raids on plasm houses are now considered “transmitting vital instructions to highly trained strike teams.” And any of her meetings with Constantine— often on thoroughly routine subjects— are now “a discreet rendezvous conducted in the citadel of supreme power.”

  At least she can kiss him in public now, a fact of which she takes intermittent advantage.

  Grooming takes up an ever-larger slice of her life. Every day begins with the ritual visit of the hairdresser, manicurist, and cosmetician. She finds herself fretting over the work she’s missing.

  “It’s your job to look interesting,” Aldemar tells her. “This is work.”

  With the increased media exposure comes increased exposure to danger. She is given security briefings, cameras are set up outside her apartment, and she is forbidden to travel outside the Palace with
out bodyguards. The guards come from a pool available to all government employees above a certain grade— she has no regular guards, as Constantine does—but now she has to become accustomed to looking at the world through a screen of broad, besuited male backs.

  Aiah checks out a boat from the vehicle pool, and after the guards declare it safe from bomb or hidden assassin, she ducks down into the cabin and lets the helmsman take the boat out of the immediate vicinity of the Palace, at which point her guards allow her to come out into the air.

  It is best, Aiah has been told, to assume that all traffic entering or leaving the Palace is being monitored by someone hostile to the government. Aside from the likelihood that there are observation posts in the tall buildings surrounding the Palace, Aiah knows from personal experience that mages working surveillance can be very unobtrusive indeed.

  But any enemy surveillance is limited. Anyone watching will grow tired and bored and soon be overwhelmed by the task. Hundreds of wheeled vehicles and watercraft enter or leave the Palace every day. If nothing intriguing is seen in the boat in the first few moments of its journey, it is unlikely that any observer will maintain interest, and will instead go look at something else.

  After the boat has traveled a radius from the Palace, Aiah is allowed out of the shielded cabin. As hydrogen turbines whine, the boat speeds over bright green water through a residential district of elegant flats. The buildings, about three hundred years old, have sinuous fronts, silver-bright metal alternating with long rows of window glass, and each building is topped with a crystal-roofed arboretum; and Aiah’s heart gives a leap as she realizes she’s out of the Palace again, in a speeding boat, on a bright Shieldlit day, on an errand all her own and none that belongs to the war.