by E. J. Swift
‘It seems he felt the need to reach out to you. To make a connection. We think that’s interesting.’
Shri wishes Commander Karis Io would get to the point. The sooner this is over, the sooner she can go home.
Home.
Nisha is too young to understand catastrophe, except perhaps in the mood of the house. But the elder two – Kadi and Sasha – their reactions so different, Kadi hard and proud, refusing to speak about it, so very like Taeo – Sasha a storm of grief, tears soaking the sheets, tears Shri felt like pushing her own face into and howling.
‘We think it’s likely that Vikram Bai would talk to you,’ says the commander. Shri looks up, startled. Meet the Osirian? The prospect hangs before her, abrupt and unexpected.
‘He’s in Antarctica?’
‘No. He’s somewhere in Patagonia.’
Shri’s heart, raised a moment ago, now begins to sink.
‘I don’t understand,’ she stalls.
‘We need you to help us find him.’
Shri drives the balls of her feet harder into the floor, pressing down, feeling the muscles of her thighs tense in response. The commander’s words continue with cold inevitability.
‘It will involve a trip,’ he says. ‘We’ll need you to go to Patagonia. Once you’re there, you’ll be open about your reasons for travelling, letting anyone who asks know your intent. You want to find the Osirian. You’ll have back-up, naturally. I suspect we’ll find that he may come to you, rather than us having to find him. The aim is to get you in and out as quickly as possible, so don’t worry, you’ll soon be back home.’
That word again. Shri can feel a ringing in her ears. The air thickening around her. She has a flash of memory: her mother’s warning hand, a pressure on her shoulder, exerted many times, a voice: Calm down, Shri.
‘Bait,’ she says.
‘I’m sorry?’ There is a surprised inflection in the commander’s voice that Shri is certain is a fake. He knows exactly what Shri is here for. An unpleasant thought occurs to her. If they hadn’t concocted this plan, would she ever have seen the Osirian’s holoma at all?
‘You want to use me as bait.’
‘You misunderstand me.’
The last of Shri’s nervousness trickles away. She can feel her rage blooming. The warm haze of it heats her face and neck, encompassing her, armouring her.
‘You want me to leave my children? This is what you’re saying, isn’t it?’
‘I’m sure you realize it would be far too dangerous for them to accompany you. We couldn’t guarantee their safety.’
‘They’ve just lost a parent!’
‘And I’m very sorry for your loss. But you must understand, you are now needed, elsewhere.’
‘No. I’m needed by my children. I’m needed by Kadi and Sasha and Nisha. My baby, she’s not even two years old, and you want to take me away from her?’
‘We’ll arrange the best care. I promise, you won’t have to worry about them.’
Shri feels giddy with anger. She knows she is going to shout and there is no way of preventing it.
‘Are you insane? Are you listening to what I’m saying? This Senate sent my partner away. You did this to him. You. And now he’s dead. Taeo’s dead in another country and I can’t even see his body. And you want to take me away from my children? You have no right – no right—’
‘Perhaps I haven’t made myself clear.’
The sudden coolness in the man’s voice sheets Shri like meltwater. The room quivers and settles. The commander sits in his crumpled uniform, behind his desk, appearing unperturbed by Shri’s outburst. He continues speaking in the same hard tone.
‘This is a matter of national security. You represent the strongest lead we have to this Osirian character, and it is vital that we find him as early as possible. This is your duty, Shri Nayar, as a citizen of the Republic. It’s your civic service.’
The words civic service fall with an inescapable weight.
‘Are you going to refuse?’ the commander asks.
‘What happens if I do? I could go public with this. I bet the media would be fascinated to hear my story, especially after that memo came out.’
But she knows the bluff is pointless. She has seen first-hand what happened to Taeo when he chose to speak out.
The commander holds her gaze.
‘That hasn’t been the best move for your family in the past.’
‘You mean you’ll take me there by force.’
A heavy silence descends. Commander Karis Io’s face is very still, and whereas Shri’s first impression of the man had been of someone tired and worn, even a little slovenly, now she senses the steeliness, an ability to box and compartmentalize, and she realizes even if this man did have any empathy for her, in the end it wouldn’t matter: he would do his job. That is who he is, someone who does his job.
At the same time it comes to her, clearer than ever before, that this has always been the source of tension between herself and Taeo. This dichotomy between civic duty and what he called ethics, a gap as long as time and just as twisted, and she begins to laugh.
‘You find this funny?’
Shri raises a hand in supplication. She can’t explain. It’s too much, the irony of finding herself here, being coerced to do the exact thing she had always exhorted to Taeo – protecting their fucking country – and finding that in doing so she relinquishes her fundamental reasons for believing it a necessity in the first place. She is to abandon her family. It is not funny, not really, not at all, but having started, Shri cannot stop. Her ribs ache. She feels tears sliding down her cheeks, liberated at last. The face of the commander, at first startled, then taut and pinched as he waits for Shri’s delirium to subside, only adds to the absurdity of the situation.
The commander stands and crosses the room, returning with a glass of water. Shri sips it slowly.
‘You’ll go, then,’ says Karis Io.
‘I don’t have a choice, do I?’
She senses his relief. It’s sour.
‘You have belongings with you,’ he states.
‘Not much.’
‘We’ll provide what you don’t have. Do you have any more questions for me?’
Shri shakes her head. ‘You’ve told me everything I need to know.’
‘You leave tonight.’
‘Tonight?’
‘You can speak with your children through a secure portal. Say your goodbyes. I can’t say for certain how long you’ll be away.’
The commander folds his arms, indicating that the meeting is over.
Dismissed, Shri rises. Before she leaves the room she points to the child’s artwork on his desk, incapable of restraining herself.
‘Think about how you’d feel if someone took you away from your child. You should be ashamed.’
When Shri Nayar has left, Karis Io looks at the penguin sculpture, courtesy of his niece Grace, and considers contacting someone. His parents – fuck no. Friends – no one he could trust with this. His sister, Bia?
Bia, he’d say. Do me a favour and imagine this. Imagine there’s an anthill in your back yard. An anthill, sitting there quietly, with the ants coming and going but no one really noticing because they go about their business, carrying scraps of leaves back and forth or whatever it is they do. One day, someone comes into your back yard and kicks over the anthill. And suddenly, out of nowhere, they’re everywhere. The ants. They’re swarming all over the place, getting in your shoes and socks, climbing up your legs, heading straight for your pants. You had no idea there were so many of them. And the only way to get rid of them is to apply poison, and you’ll need a lot of poison, to the anthill, to the yard, to all the hundreds of thousands of tiny ants. What do you do, Bia, in this situation?
The guilt is getting to him. He could resign, of course. His career in civilian security would be over – fuck, his career might be over completely. He wouldn’t be able to explain his reasons. He’d become the failed eldest child, looked at by ol
der relatives with pursed lips, a cluck of disapproval accompanying his entrance into any family scene.
But he wouldn’t be a part of this.
He moves a holoma blocking the comms and puts in an encrypted request for a Tolstyi account. After a few moments, he is connected, and Bia’s face materializes in front of him, her mouth hanging slack, mid-word, a child’s yellow rucksack slung over one arm. Bia blinks once and redirects part of her focus, the smaller part, to Karis.
‘Karis, is that you?’
‘How are you, Bia?’
‘Yeah, you know, it’s the holidays, isn’t it? We’re all go here – what is it?’
‘It’s—’ He hesitates. ‘Have you got a minute?’
‘Not really, I’ve got to get the kid to practice. Is it important?’
‘No – no, it’s not important. I’ll catch you another time. Give my love to Grace.’
‘I will do.’
Bia’s face and the yellow rucksack blink away. Karis is left staring at the rectangular frame of the door through which Shri Nayar had walked, her shoulders hunched and locked with rage.
Karis hadn’t always lied, because he hadn’t always had this job, and secrecy had not been a part of his contract with the Republic. But he had found it easy, at first, at any rate. And soon enough the lies expanded into other areas of his life, not just where he worked but his home, his past, the things he had seen and done. He enjoyed it at first. It tasted sweet. And now, truth be told, he can’t remember a time before the making up of things, can’t get a feel for that other man.
Ants. Thousands of ants, scurrying about in confusion, unaware of their peril. A Bokolu is lurking nearby, but a Bokolu has excellent camouflage. By the time it strikes, it’s far too late.
PATAGONIA
THE ALASKAN IS unperturbed by the blindfold. Darkness is contentment, roaming the intricate labyrinth of her own thoughts while other senses test for the mood of those around her. It is always the little giveaways, molecules of sweat, sour to the nostrils, or a primitive, hormonal waft of excitement, that tell her what she needs to know. She can hear the effort in the shortened breaths of the man pushing her chair, and reclines back further into it, having no inclination to give her driver an easy ride.
When they remove the blindfold she finds herself in a rustic cabin opposite the man she has come to see. The cabin is warm and she can smell coffee. The Osirian is brewing a pot on a camping stove. Dark and skinny, he is. A face that might have been considered good-looking before the redfleur had its way with him, and by the looks of it the virus has had quite the party. She has a sense about him straight away: a sense that he has done things, morally ambiguous things, a man familiar with violence. The Alaskan’s nose tickles uncontrollably. She snorts and pulls a crumpled handkerchief from her sleeve, blowing vigorously into it.
‘Went to visit a friend of mine in Fuego Hospital and I’ve picked up a dozen bugs. They love me. The bugs. They like to feast.’ She lets the word linger, savouring it, considering its implications. ‘But you don’t need to worry about that, do you?’
The Osirian laughs. A relaxed laugh, which surprises her. She realizes she expected him to be more like Taeo Ybanez, the Antarctican, whose desperation was never quite concealed despite his evident intelligence. Taeo Ybanez had never had to struggle. This one is different. This one screams trouble at fifty feet. The Alaskan likes that.
‘Don’t worry,’ says the Osirian. ‘I’ve caught plenty of colds. Plenty of – bugs, as you say.’
‘Survived them all, did you? Never stopped to wonder why? Never stopped to think you might be a genetic freak?’
Her directness does impress upon him this time, she thinks. The Alaskan laughs herself then, long and hard, rocking forwards and back in her chair, the phlegm coagulating in her throat as she fights for her breath. The pollen, she thinks. It’s the fucking pollen.
‘If you are, by the way, I can give you some advice,’ she adds, when the convulsions have stopped. Her eyes are streaming. She extracts the handkerchief once again and swipes it across what is left of her eyelashes. ‘I don’t doubt Mig’s told you some nice stories about nirvanas. How is my boy? Proud of yourself for stealing him off me, are you?’
‘He never belonged to you,’ says the Osirian evenly.
‘That’s where you’re wrong. He did belong to me. You look like someone who should know about debt, Señor Nameless. Don’t think I’ll forget this any time soon.’
‘He came of his own accord.’
She notices the slight stiffening of his body. Interesting. He cares about the boy.
‘He betrayed me,’ she says.
‘And you look like someone who should know about betrayal,’ he replies.
‘Touché.’
She laughs again. The laugh forces an ache to her ribs. She isn’t used to so much movement. Her muscles are in remission.
‘I don’t care what you are,’ says the Osirian. ‘Nirvana, or whatever it’s known as. It’s not important.’
‘Easy for you to say, of course you don’t. You’re from a place that shouldn’t exist. Common word has it you’re a cannibalistic fish. Why should you care if my ancestors survived the Blackout?’
‘Cannibalistic?’ He sounds curious.
The Alaskan nods solemnly. The absurdity of it, she thinks. The dreads of the uneducated never change, and yet they are right. Deep down, when it comes to the dark spaces, the distillation of the soul, what is left but the animalistic? Hunt, eat, fuck, shit. She taps the arm of her chair.
‘That’s a tidy little collection of lunatics you’ve assembled. What are you going to do with them all?’
‘I think you probably have some ideas.’
‘You are correct. I do. Antarctica, that’s one of them. And here’s another: back to where you came from. There’s no reason for you to go anywhere else. Which is it?’
He smiles. ‘Perhaps we should discuss why you’re here before I tell you that.’
‘I thought I was here at your invitation, Señor Nameless.’
‘And you accepted the invitation.’
‘I did. I admit, I was intrigued. This is an old country. Everything is old here. It’s an excursion back through time. Have you ever wanted to travel through time, señor? Ever been curious to see how we got ourselves into this kind of a world? What lies did they feed you, shut away in your lost city for all those years? What did they say to make you stop using your heads?’
The Osirian elects not to answer, either because she has insulted him, or because he is smart enough not to respond to provocation. She hopes for both their sakes it is the latter. You would have to be smart, she thinks, to get out of a city that has retained camouflage for half a century. Smart or lucky.
She watches as the Osirian removes the pot of coffee from the stove and pours two mugs. He pushes one towards her.
‘Do you want to work with us?’ he asks.
‘What are you offering?’
‘You left Cataveiro,’ says the man. ‘Mig tells me you haven’t left that city in decades. There must have been a reason. I think you want to go somewhere new.’
The Alaskan shrugs. ‘An easy assumption, but lazy. Cataveiro has nothing more to offer me. For now. Besides, you might have heard, it wasn’t the most hospitable place to be just lately.’
‘So come with us. Help us find a ship.’
‘I can’t find you a ship if I don’t know where it’s going.’
The man meets her eyes candidly and he says, ‘It’s going to Osiris.’
‘Ha! You want to take me to what’s about to become a war zone?’
‘You’d find it an interesting place.’
‘I might, if I weren’t dead.’
‘I suspect you’ll find a way to escape being dead. You seem to have managed well enough so far.’
The Alaskan wriggles in her chair, trying to find a position of equal discomfort between the competing aches in her ribs, her spine, and her pelvis.
‘You’re a
fool if you don’t think the Antarcticans won’t bomb your city into the seabed. If they haven’t already, after that signal went out. They won’t wait for the Boreals to come and reclaim it.’
‘They’d cause an international incident if they did that.’
The Alaskan jabs a finger at the Osirian. ‘Not if you are dead,’ she says. ‘It seems to me that you’re wanted by a lot of people for a lot of different reasons. Perhaps I should have acted sooner instead of letting you slip through my fingers. This little hidey-hole won’t stay secret forever, you know. However loyal your disciples might be.’
The Osirian looks troubled. ‘I need to leave soon,’ he says. ‘It’s true, the longer we wait, the more difficult it will be. And I need a ship. I know you can help me.’
‘Everyone knows I can help them. Not everyone knows what they can do for me. Such is the regrettable inequality of life.’
‘I can’t do anything for you,’ he says. ‘Except for this. I can take you somewhere new. I can give you the chance to see something you haven’t seen before. And… you could help save lives.’
There’s sincerity in his voice, she can’t deny that. But sincerity is a low currency.
‘Is this an appeal to my better nature? Business is business, Mr Bai. Yes, I know your name. Of course I do. You think I’ve been sitting around twiddling my thumbs in Fuego? Now, I’ll tell you my offer. I want Antarctican citizenship. I want a ship to take me to the new world, and a nice house waiting for me when I get there. Do whatever it takes to get me that, and I’ll consider helping you.’
‘Why would I have leverage with the Antarcticans?’
The Alaskan tests the coffee. It’s tolerable. It could use a helping or three of sugar.
‘If you are what they say you are, you’ll have leverage with a lot of people. When you go to Osiris, what do you intend to do? Deals will be brokered. I will need to be a part of that.’
‘Regardless of whether I have leverage or not, I can’t do anything until this is over. The ship has to come first.’
‘We can call it an IOU,’ says the Alaskan.
The Osirian’s face closes down when she says that. She’s stumbled upon a sensitivity.
