by Natasha Ngan
Looking out at the world, she felt a strange ache in her stomach. Having spent her whole life surrounded by walls, it was a scene she’d never quite been able to imagine. But now she was outside the city and inside the huge arms of the world, and its size lapped at her like a wave. She felt dizzy. Then she turned, and saw Neo-Babel.
The city was unrecognisable from the outside. A wide grey-black scar across the earth, with the tall, blockish shapes of the inner city buildings rising up behind the walls and crowding the skyline with their beetle-shell skins. Windows glittered in the sunlight.
‘Ugly, isn’t it?’ said Butterfly.
Silver shook her head. ‘Can you believe this?’ She swung her arms wide, laughing. ‘We’re outside Neo. Outside Neo. I never thought I’d say that!’ She whooped. Her voice was swallowed by the space.
Butterfly grinned. ‘Not loud enough.’
He jumped up, letting out a cry, and suddenly they were both punching the air, dancing, laughing and whooping and shouting out at the top of their lungs, giddy with the ridiculousness of it all, the two of them, here, outside the city, away from everything they had ever known.
When she started feeling light-headed, Silver dropped to the ground, smiling up at the sky. She took a long, deep breath. Now she was outside of Neo-Babel, away from the pollution and dirt and noise and people, she could smell the air’s natural scent. It was clean, fresh, sweetened by the grass and trees and sunshine. It was perfect.
She looked over at Butterfly. He’d pulled off his backpack and was reaching an arm round for the zip that ran down the material of his jumpsuit between his shoulder blades.
‘Do you mind?’ he asked, catching her looking.
‘Of course not,’ she said, knowing immediately what he meant.
No sooner were the words out of her mouth when a pair of knife-edge thin wings unfolded from his back. Two tall, arced wings layered over their smaller lower-half counterparts, which had the telltale teardrops of butterfly wings. They were stronger than they looked. Their silicone-aluminium blend gave them strength without sacrificing lightness, though looking at them now with the sunlight shining through them they looked more like a thin film of oil on water than wings.
Butterfly smiled, closing his eyes. ‘I won’t be long.’ A quick crouch and beat of his wings later, and he was off.
Silver watched him fly through the air, getting smaller and smaller until he was just a flick of dust curling on the wind’s waves. Then she lay back down on the grass. She thought how nothing would ever feel as good again as sunlight on her skin and grass under her fingers and the taste of summer in the air. For a while, everything else fell away. Tanaka was still alive. Her parents were still safe inside Neo-Babel. Being here in the Outside was as normal and natural as breathing.
A few minutes later, Butterfly returned. He sat down, running a hand through his brown hair. It was even messier than usual, ruffled by the wind.
‘Good fly?’ asked Silver.
‘Best fly.’
She stared at him. She felt as though something was off, and sat up quickly, realising what it was. ‘You’re smiling,’ she said, almost accusatory.
And he was. Not Butterfly’s usual flash of a smile, but a slow, small one, hovering on his lips like a secret that tasted good.
‘You don’t know how good it felt to be up there,’ he said. ‘No walls, no buildings. No stupid flight director shouting in my ear. Just the rush of the wind and my own heartbeat.’ He nodded at the city, miles away in the distance. ‘It was weird though, seeing Neo from above. Did you ever think about how it would look from the Outside?’
Silver shrugged. ‘I never really thought about it.’
Nobody inside could see much of the Outside. The huge wall encircling the city had no windows or holes. Even the waterfall where the river exited Neo-Babel was covered by it, the wall sitting across its surface like a tightly shut mouth. The tallest buildings in the inner city had a view past the walls, but they were too far away to see much; just the vast, dusty wastelands surrounding the immediate vicinity of the city, which had been chemically dehydrated to make surveillance easier, and the green swathe of distant hills and forests.
‘Do you want to stay here for a bit?’ asked Butterfly.
Silver shook her head. Looking at the city made her think of why they’d left it in the first place, and she felt anxious to find her parents now. She pushed herself off the ground and brushed down her clothes. ‘Let’s go.’
Following Little Mae’s directions, they made their way to the nearby settlement. At first they made good time, and Silver found herself enjoying the journey. The undulating landscape of lazy, sloping hills, touched by the ribbon of the river at their bases was beautiful to walk through, and she felt excited about the prospect of finding her parents. Butterfly had estimated they would reach the settlement by nightfall, and that thought kept her moving. But the directions grew increasingly difficult to follow. After a few hours, the green hills and dark swathes of forest turned the landscape into an endless sea of green. Silver couldn’t tell which direction was which. Even the wide black mouth of the city behind them disappeared as they descended into deep valleys.
It was worse when night came. Thick ochre shadows slid across the landscape like spilt oil, until the whole land was cloaked in darkness. When they entered a forest, the trees edged closer and closer. The leafy ceiling began to crowd out even the moon’s light. Strange, night-time sounds cut through the darkness; screeches, rustling, the sudden flappings of birds erupting from resting places as they passed.
‘Let’s try our torches,’ Butterfly said after Silver had tripped over something in the darkness for what felt like the millionth time. ‘Little Mae didn’t say how far out of the city the energy grid covers. We could still have been using it while we were in the tunnel, so they might have some reserve power left.’
But the torches didn’t turn on no matter how many times Silver flicked the switch.
‘That’s just great,’ she snapped, stuffing the torch back into her backpack. ‘Now what?’
‘Do you want to stop for the night?’
‘No,’ she said, walking on quickly. ‘Let’s just –’
The ground beneath Silver fell away.
She screamed, falling for a few seconds before smashing into the hard floor of the earth, her shoulder jarring at the impact, her lungs tightening as they emptied of air. She gasped. Leaves and branches rustled and cracked as she twisted round in pain, clutching her side which had caught the fall. The loamy smell of damp dirt filled the air.
‘Silver?’ Butterfly’s eyes flashed in the darkness. He helped her up. ‘Are you all right?’
Tilting her head back, she saw above a circle of speckled sky, spots of moonlight winking through leaves. ‘Yes.’ She nodded breathlessly, rubbing her side. ‘You?’
‘I’m all right. Give me a second, I’ll fly up and take a look.’
Butterfly pulled off his backpack and reached behind him. His wings whipped out, shiny and silvery in the dappled darkness. He flew up into the air. A moment later, he cursed loudly.
‘What’s wrong?’ called Silver.
‘There’s some mesh material covering the pit.’ He grunted with effort. ‘I can’t get it off.’
‘Can we cut it?’
Butterfly flew down quickly. ‘Good idea.’ He got a knife from his backpack and flew back into the air, but came down after just a few moments. ‘It’s some reinforced material. The knife can’t cut it.’
Silver looked round at the pit. ‘What is this, anyway?’ she asked, walking to one side and pressing her hand against the earthy wall.
‘Looks like some kind of trap.’
‘Whose trap?’
‘The villagers, maybe. To hunt wild animals.’
Silver felt like a wild animal then, trapped at the bottom of some pit with its claggy, earthy smell and the darkness so thick that she could barely see the broken face of the moon far above.
No, she
thought. I’m not an animal. I’m human –
I am an Elite.
She refused to give up. ‘Maybe there’s another way out,’ she said, running her hands along the side of the pit, searching for an opening. ‘Help me check.’
But after half an hour of thorough searching, neither of them had found anything.
Butterfly sighed. ‘Let’s wait until morning. We’ll be able to see better in daylight, and we need to rest anyway.’ He settled down against the side of the pit and pulled out the fold of soft material inside his backpack to use as a blanket.
Silver sat next to him, slipping off her backpack. She brushed dried mud from her hands. ‘Do you think we’ll be all right?’ she whispered. The sounds of the forest seemed to echo in the deep pit, making her feel exposed and vulnerable. ‘Whoever made this trap might be coming to claim their catch.’
‘Then we’ll have to deal with them when they come,’ Butterfly answered, his voice quiet. He paused. ‘We’ve got our knives.’
Silver opened her backpack and felt around inside until her hand clasped the cold metal of the knife Butterfly had packed. She pulled it out. Moonlight caught on the long blade. Her hand tightened around the handle. In the morning, they’d find a way out of this trap. And if they didn’t have until then, and someone came for them before –
She clutched the knife close to her chest.
Nothing would stop her from finding her parents.
15
The Temple of the Fat Wives
That night, Akhezo made his way down to one of the central slides of the skylung to the building at its base. He shot out of the bottom of the chute and crashed into the wall opposite it, his landing softened by a pile of old mattresses.
‘You’re late.’
Domino stood in the corner of the room. He wore his usual clothes; a greasy set of tunic and robes, moth-bitten and tattered, with worn leather sandals. Akhezo scrambled to his feet.
‘As you were told yesterday,’ Domino started, turning to leave the room, ‘you’ll be overseeing an information transaction between Cambridge and a Council member tonight.’
Akhezo followed Domino quickly, eager to impress. A couple of days after reporting those Council snobs to Cambridge and he still had to keep pinching himself to believe everything that was happening. He’d expected a reward, but he’d thought it would be something along the lines of a new pair of trainers. Not a rank upgrade within the Pigeons to Cambridge’s personal assistant on a top-secret project, the Pigeons’ final flight, and jobs as important as the one tonight.
Neve hadn’t been happy. She’d spent hours pleading with Domino for a part in the whole thing.
‘Everyone will be needed soon, just be patient, you little rat!’ he kept saying, and that would shut her up. But as soon as Domino’s back was turned she’d send Akhezo a scathing look, her eyes dangerous slits.
The truth was, Akhezo had been meaning to tell Neve what’d happened after he returned from Cambridge’s quarters, but when he’d found her waiting in his room, her face glowing with anticipation, something had stopped him. A slithering feeling in his stomach and a voice that whispered, Why tell her? She doesn’t deserve it. You found them. You reported them to Cambridge.
Domino led Akhezo down a corridor to a large hall dappled with moonlight. When the skylungs were still running, this building would have housed offices and service rooms. Now they too had been taken over by plants, seeds from the skylung dropping through the cracked roof and springing up a forest amid the metal and plastiglass. Slivers of silver worked their way through the foliage.
‘I was thinking,’ started Akhezo cautiously as they crossed the hall. ‘In an information transfer, what sorta things can the Council really tell us? I mean, why would they give anything at all? Couldn’t they just take the information by force? Just asking out of curiosity, of course,’ he added quickly. ‘And since you’re the person who’s in the know around here …’
Domino slowed his pace and Akhezo grinned. Flattery; it worked every time.
The old man scratched his backside. ‘Well, it won’t harm for you to understand the theory. Here, boy, help me with this.’
They had reached a small workers’ room at the far side of the hall, beneath which was the entrance to the tunnel that led from the skylung to a quiet part of the Limpets. It was the only route the Pigeons used to leave the skylung. They pulled at the rusty metal hatch in the middle of the floor and it swung open with a loud metallic screech. Domino lowered himself down into the darkness. Akhezo followed, stepping onto the ladder rung and shutting the hatch above him. At the bottom of the ladder, he jumped onto the staircase leading to the tunnel.
‘See, the Council can’t go round threatening its entire people,’ explained Domino as they started down the staircase. His voice was so wheezy from exertion that he had to stop for breath after every few words. ‘Well, it could, but it wouldn’t last very long, and the Council wouldn’t want to upset everyone and end up being thrown out into the wastelands now, would it? No. The Council has to be careful. Rule by force for too long, and that force would be turned against them. Therefore, they prey on the ones that can’t fight back and no one cares enough to fight on their behalf – Limpets rats like you.’
Akhezo bristled at this but bit his tongue. The shifting shadows in the stairwell seemed to seep into his mind, darkening his thoughts. You useless old man, he thought, staring at Domino’s back. Just one push and you’d fall down these stairs and crack your rotting old head.
‘If the Council can’t get everything they want by force,’ continued Domino, ‘they have to use other tactics. Spying’s one, but that’ll only get them so far. Neo’s a big place, and its people are clever. They won’t take kindly to such invasion of privacy. That’s why it’s illegal to track everyone’s birthchips without an arrest warrant. It’d cause a riot if they did. So some things they do under the guise of better intentions. You’ve heard of their Elites, boy?’
Akhezo scowled. ‘Of course I’ve –’
‘Then maybe you’ve figured out that birthchip streaming conveniently gives the Council permission to take control of the strongest, most intelligent people. Prevent them from fighting for the other side. That’s what the Elites are really – the Council’s lapdogs.’ Domino paused to take a deep breath, clutching the railing lining the staircase. ‘There’s other things the Council can do too to get things without force. For example, maintaining relationships with other powerful individuals and groups in Neo. That’s one of their most important tactics. And the key to it is give and take, see? Neither side of the relationship should think the other more powerful. There has to be respect.’
Respect; it was a strange word. Akhezo didn’t quite understand it. He understood admiration, awe. He felt that way about Cambridge. Sometimes, when the light hit her right, he felt that way about Neve. But he didn’t understand respect. Everyone was born into this world the same. Surely anyone had a right to take what they wanted?
They descended the rest of the staircase in silence. The stairwell at the bottom was cluttered. Piles of boxes and crates were set against the wall, and bikes and a small rickshaw leant beside the tunnel to the Limpets.
Domino climbed onto the rickshaw’s passenger bench. ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ he croaked. ‘Get on the bike, you lazy boy!’
Cycle it yourself, you stupid old man, Akhezo wanted to say, but he swallowed his retort, getting onto the bicycle seat with a sneer Domino couldn’t see. As he cycled down the long tunnel, the rickshaw sliding in and out of the puddles of light from neon strips on the walls, Akhezo thought greedily about how it wouldn’t be long before he was the one in the passenger seat, being driven around by the kind of people he’d never let himself become.
Akhezo stood beside Domino on a docking platform jutting from an inner-city curve of the river. Just two hours’ rickshaw ride away through busy night-time traffic and they were in a whole other world. Akhezo had never been to the inner city before. M
ost of his running assignments were in and around the Limpets, or in the streets of the residential condominiums that crowded the inner edge of the river’s Outer Circle. He’d never even left the Limpets before joining the Pigeons. Now, standing here in the heart of the city, he understood why no one cared about the slums. Who’d waste their time thinking about that place when they had all of this to experience?
Lights illuminated everything in a rainbow glow; boats bobbing on the river, tall buildings interlaced with bridges, the quick flashes of air-trams speeding between them. Weaving through it all were hundreds of people, wearing fashions Akhezo had never seen in his life.
‘The Temple of the Fat Wives,’ said Domino, gesturing to the boat floating on the water in front of them. He snorted. ‘Ridiculous name, but apt. The two women who run it are indeed huge.’
The Temple of the Fat Wives was one of Neo-Babel’s most popular floating shisha cafes. A squat, two-tiered boat, half hidden by a sweet-smelling cloud, it looked like any other shisha boat. It would have been unremarkable were it not for the intricate carvings etched deeply into its smoke-stained plastiwood sides and the delicate minarets adorning its roof. Coloured lanterns were strung across the boat’s outer surfaces, dappling puddles of multicoloured light in the water below.
Akhezo was about to ask more about its strange name when he spotted Cambridge approaching them along the street. He was hunched over like Domino, the hood of a cloak shadowing his face, but Akhezo would recognise those bright grey eyes anywhere.
‘Hey! Cambri—’
Domino clapped a hand over his mouth. ‘Imbecile! Cambridge is in his undercover identity as a Limpets gang-leader. You are not supposed to know him. Don’t even look at him again tonight, you hear me, stupid boy?’
