Deny Thy Father

by Jeff Mariotte

  Sometimes in the evenings as the suns drifted one by one toward the horizon and the winds churned through the twisting streets, the atmosphere in The End was that of a carnival, loud and joyous and full of color. Kyle walked the streets on one of these long twilights. A couple of blocks from home he encountered a crowd spilling out of buildings, jamming the sidewalk and overflowing into the street. Kyle shouldered through the mob, alternately smelling perfume, sweat, roasting meat from a nearby spit, and alcohol on breath and in bottles. Ahead the laughter was raucous and shouts rang out, whoops of delight and encouragement. He couldn’t quite tell what they were shouting about so he kept going through the crowd, past the mostly adult men and women, human and otherwise, who composed it. When he was finally near the front he could see the source of the commotion.

  In a small clearing—the crowd was just as dense, or more so, on the other side of it—two Cyrians faced one another, bare-chested, their loose cotton slacks belted at the waist. They were big and muscular, though one had an enormous roll of flesh that hung over his belt, and both were tattooed, with brilliant splashes of color, yellows and reds and peacock blues and a green that reminded Kyle of forested mountain-sides back home, snaking across chests and arms and backs. A fight, Kyle thought, but the two men were smiling, grinning like drunken fools, and Kyle realized they were drunk but not fighting. This was a different kind of competition altogether.

  A streetlight, rare in The End, cast a circle of illumination over the whole scene. The taller of the two Cyrians, the one with the flat stomach, pulled back his own hair, which fell below his shoulders in thick waves. Where his ear was—no, where his ear should have been, Kyle realized—there was instead a flap of skin that looked like a shaven cat’s ear, punctured by at least a dozen gold hoops all the way around the rim. Kyle decided the fellow must have surgically altered it, since every other Cyrian ear he’d noticed had looked just like human ears. The crowd loved the ear, though, and responded with gales of laughter and shouts of joy. Kyle wondered what he’d missed so far, before he’d been able to see what all the excitement was about.

  The second one, with the gigantic gut, had a bald head and Kyle could see both of his ears. They were studded and pierced but otherwise normal. This man smiled broadly, and then opened his mouth wider, and wider. When it seemed like his head would split open, he stuck out his tongue—or unrolled his tongue, to be more precise, Kyle thought. It was at least thirty centimeters long and bright red, and when he wagged it at his opponent it seemed to be prehensile. At the end of it—which was forked into three distinct points—were three silver rings. The man stiffened his tongue and held it at its most extreme distance, then raised his arms. The crowd, understanding the gesture, quieted, and then the man clapped the tiny rings together as if they were chimes. The bell-like tinkling floated over the crowd, and then was lost again in the thunderous roar of approval that followed.

  Now, glancing away from the main event, Kyle saw that money was changing hands. He had thought this was a fight, initially, and in fact it was a kind of contest. And these people were betting on it. He didn’t understand the rules and couldn’t be sure how to tell the winner or the loser, but the man with the tongue had certainly made some points. As he scanned the crowd—many of whom, he realized, were similarly tattooed and pierced—he recognized a couple of faces. Jackdaw, a human who lived in his building, a man with golden brown skin, a thick, long shock of straight black hair and a beard that strangled his neck and chin like a malevolent hand, stood across from him, on the other side of the contestants. Next to him was Cetra ski Toram, a native of Hazimot but from the nation of Muftrih, half a world away. She was ancient, with cobalt blue skin and long white hair and sunken eyes that always seemed to be looking below the surface. Kyle had never seen her smile but she was doing so now, mouth open in a grin that revealed just how few teeth she had remaining. Behind her stooped form was Michelle, who had never told Kyle her last name, if she even had one. She caught Kyle’s gaze and waved. He returned the wave, but then she was lost again in a new uproar.

  Kyle returned his attention to the combatants in the clearing, and saw that the tall one with the long hair was raising his right shoulder, already huge and bulbous as most Cyrian shoulders were. But this man worked it up, higher and higher, lowering the opposite one at the same time, until his shoulder was higher than the top of his head. The crowd fell silent, awed by the spectacle. There must have been a hundred onlookers now, and not a whisper could be heard.

  But the Cyrian wasn’t done. When his shoulder could go no higher, the weird muscles that Kyle had never quite understood seemed to bulge and separate, and then his entire arm dropped off. The crowd roared, and Kyle realized it was an illusion, but barely. A thin stalk of gristly muscle still connected arm to shoulder, but that was all. His hand hung almost to the ground, and in fact, his fingers stretched and picked up a pebble, which he then threw at his opponent, bouncing it off the man’s round stomach. A chorus of cheers and laughter greeted this act, and the tall Cyrian reeled his arm back in.

  Kyle saw money changing hands again. Apparently, from the snatches of conversation he heard, this would be a hard stunt to top. “But wait,” some said. “Lefeertsin isn’t done yet.” Kyle had gathered that the fat man was Lefeertsin, and the thin one Gal. Their names, he thought off-handedly, match their sizes.

  Gal stood, recomposed now, and accepted the congratulations of his fans with a proud smile. He looked like someone who believed he had already won the match. But Lefeertsin apparently disagreed. He stood up to his full height, which wasn’t much shorter than Gal, and hoisted his vast stomach up with both hands, fingers digging into the soft flesh there. Then, much as Gal’s shoulder had, the rolls of flab seemed to peel themselves away as if each were controlled by its own independent musculature. Kyle was reminded of a flower opening, although only in two directions, with some petals lifting up and others falling away. When the stomach rolls had finished, the crowd fell silent again. There, in the center of the stomach now that the extraneous fat had cleared itself away, was a giant eye, at least the size of Kyle’s hand from fingertip to wrist. It was bright green and seemed to have all the parts of a regular human eye. There were gasps from the crowd, but no applause yet, as if something more were expected.

  Then Lefeertsin let out a loud belch and the eye winked at Gal.

  The crowd went mad with delight. Spectators cheered and laughed and danced, or simply stayed in place and hopped up and down. A cry of “Lef! Lef! Lef!” started up, building and building. More money changed hands, as Lefeertsin was the obvious winner now, but no one seemed chagrined to have lost or especially delighted to have won, beyond the enjoyment they took in the performance itself. People bumped into Kyle, and one Cyrian woman hugged him to her abundant bosom, then released him with a pinch on the rear.

  Kyle was starting to push through the mob, trying to get to Michelle and the others, when the mood suddenly turned. There was a hush and smiles were replaced in an instant with scowls. On the edges of the crowd, people began to melt away into nearby buildings. For a moment Kyle didn’t know why things had changed so suddenly, but when he looked in the direction nearly everyone else was, he understood.

  Rolling down the street toward them was a squadron of police vehicles. Armored officers ran behind the vehicles, shields up, energy weapons at the ready. It looked like a war, like an invasion, more than a police action.

  Someone grabbed his arm and Kyle started, so intent was he on the oncoming police. “Joe, come on. Let’s go!”

  It was Michelle, her brow furrowed with anxiety, her eyes narrow and frightened. “Michelle, what’s…?”

  “Let’s go,” she repeated urgently. “Now!”

  “But…were we doing something wrong?”

  She tugged at his arm again, then released it and started to back away. It was obvious that she was leaving, whether he went with her or not. Behind her, Cetra and Jackdaw waited with a couple of others Kyle didn’t know.
She had given Kyle the chance—more of a chance than the others seemed comfortable with, judging from the worried expressions on their faces—and either he’d take it or not. Michelle met his eyes once more and then turned to run. “Wait,” Kyle shouted, but he ran after them.

  He had expected Cetra ski Toram to be slow, but the old woman surprised him with her speed and agility. As they rounded a bend Kyle glanced back over his shoulder. Behind them, many of the people in the crowd either hadn’t been able to run away in time or had chosen to stand their ground, and the police were tearing through them. Their energy weapons emitted bright blue bursts that vaporized flesh and bone, and everywhere they shot, blood splattered. People were screaming, begging for mercy, but the police showed none. Those who weren’t shooting used their shields as rams or clubs, chopping and bashing with them. Some of The End’s residents tried to fight back, but they were outnumbered and outgunned.

  Kyle stood there, rapt. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. None of those people had been doing anything wrong. Even if the competition had been illegal for some reason, no one had been hurt by it. It had been a party, a street fair, improvisational theater. Michelle tugged on his arm again. “If you stay here, you’ll die like those others,” she warned him. “Please, Joe, come with us. It’s the only way.”

  He shook his head as if by clearing it he could make the horrific carnage go away. But it didn’t. The street ran with red and blue blood, mixing into vibrant purples, black where it vanished into shadow.

  “Yes, okay,” Kyle said. He felt detached, in shock. As he ran hand in hand with Michelle he expected the Tholian flashbacks to start up again. But they didn’t. This fresh horror was bad enough on its own. Out of the light, they kept running, past buildings so dark and silent they seemed already to be mourning the fallen. Finally, Jackdaw led the way into a building Kyle had never seen before, a collapsing wretch of a place with boarded-up doors and windows. Jackdaw entered through a side door, where a flat object Kyle only recognized at the last moment as a bed leaned up against a gaping doorway. Jackdaw and Michelle slid the bed far enough over for them to gain entry, and then they pulled it back into place, disguising the opening from the outside.

  Inside, they were met in a small, poorly lit room by a handful of others. Kyle recognized a couple of people who he had noticed in the crowd outside, and who must have run here faster—not bothering to wait for him. The other two he had never seen before. One was human, two Hazimotian, and the last barely humanoid but of no species Kyle had seen before. It had what was recognizably a head and what seemed to be legs in the correct places, but that was all he could make out; the rest was a gelatinous blob that seemed to have other life-forms moving about beneath it, like fish swimming in a thick semi-opaque sea.

  Michelle clung again to Kyle’s hand. “This is Joe Brady,” she said to the others. “He’s new here.”

  “And you brought him with you because…?” one of the Hazimotians asked. She was a female, from either Stindi or Wachivus, Kyle guessed, though without much certainty. Not Cyrian, for sure. Her voice was deep and threatening, and she looked as if she’d as soon shoot Kyle as admit him into whatever inner sanctum this was.

  “Because he wasn’t part of what happened out there and I didn’t want to see him die for no reason,” Michelle said. “Besides, I trust him.”

  Kyle was surprised by that pronouncement. He liked Michelle, but their relationship was superficial at best. She barely knew him, really. As if she could read his mind, she turned to him and said, “I size people up quickly, Joe, and I have a lot of faith in my own instincts.”

  “What…what the hell was all that about?” Kyle asked. He flailed his arm back toward the direction from which they’d come, as if anyone could see the carnage from here. “And what is this place? Who are you all?”

  “Easy now, Joe,” Jackdaw said. He was a small man, whipthin and nasally, and his thick mane of black hair seemed like it should belong to someone else. He talked fast, as if trying to get too many ideas out at once. “One point at a time, okay, and we’ll get all this cleared up. You’re a guest here, you know.”

  “I appreciate that,” Kyle said, still agitated from the attack and wondering what was going on. “I’m just not altogether sure that I’m a guest by choice.”

  “I had pegged you as a survivor, Joe,” Michelle said with a frown. “If I was wrong, I’ll be disappointed.”

  “You have no idea.” Kyle tried on a grin but it didn’t quite work. “I definitely qualify on that count.”

  “Well, if you hadn’t come with us, you’d probably be dead,” she said. “So you should just count your blessings and let us explain things to you.”

  “Have a seat, all of you,” one of the Hazimotians who had been here from the beginning said. This one, a male sitting cross-legged on the bare tile floor, looked Muftrihan, like Cetra, but much younger, with pale yellow hair and tiny black eyes. “You’re making me nervous, looming around like that.”

  The others had been sitting on ramshackle chairs, which were the only furniture in the place. It looked like a meeting room more than a dwelling, but with walls that had been shredded by time and misuse and a rough-hewn floor that squeaked with nearly every movement. The air was close and musty smelling. Jackdaw and Cetra took chairs, while Michelle and Kyle joined the Muftrihan on the floor. Kyle couldn’t bring himself to relax—his heart was racing, epinephrine pumping, and he remained tensed to spring up and run at the slightest provocation. Fight or flight—he recognized the sensation well.

  Michelle touched Kyle on the knee. “You’re upset, Joe, and probably scared. I don’t blame you a bit, and I’m sorry we had to run away from there before I could give you any kind of explanation.”

  “Obviously there was a certain urgency to it,” Kyle admitted.

  “That’s right. But now that we’re here and relatively safe, I can do the right thing. First, introductions are in order. You already know Jackdaw and Cetra ski Toram, I believe. This,” she said, pointing to the Muftrihan on the floor, “is Baukels Jinython.” She gestured in order toward the first Hazimotian woman who had spoken, the woman; then the human male; and finally the unidentifiable one. “That’s Melinka, Alan, and Roog. As I told all of you, this is Joe. He lives in my building, and I believe he can be trusted.”

  “He has to be now,” Melinka said. “Or killed.”

  “She’s just joking,” Michelle assured Kyle.

  “No she’s not,” Melinka responded.

  “I can be,” Kyle told them all. “Trusted, I mean. But I’d like to know what I’m being trusted with. And I’d like to know why the police came in and started killing people.”

  “The two issues are interrelated,” the bulbous creature introduced as Roog said. Its voice was low and phlegmy, but if it had a gender, Kyle couldn’t ascertain it from that. “We are, you might say, a group that meets from time to time to discuss certain political issues. And the police were killing because that’s what police do, especially here in The End.”

  Kyle could hardly believe what she was saying, even though he had seen it for himself. “The police do that? Aren’t they supposed to uphold the law?”

  “They do,” Michelle says. “But we’re not supposed to be living here, and congregating inside The End is definitely against the law.”

  “So it was okay for them to just move in and start killing? I didn’t see them trying to disperse the crowd, or make any arrests.”

  “In other parts of the city they would have, okay, but not in The End,” Jackdaw pointed out. The little man moved constantly, his leg twitching, fingers tapping. “Rules are different here. Life is cheap, okay?”

  “They’re right, Joe,” Michelle told him. She sounded sincere, but everything he was hearing was so outrageous he wasn’t sure what was real. “They don’t like us being here, and they use any excuse they can to try to drive us away.”

  “Away where?” Kyle wondered. “I thought this was pretty much where people went wh
o don’t have anyplace left to go.” He’d been living here for many months, and though he’d heard horror stories, none of them had been as bad as what he’d just seen. Police here seemed to have a habit of picking on individuals, but he’d never seen or heard about an organized attack on a whole neighborhood.

  “It is, okay, that’s the thing,” Jackdaw agreed. “But you have to understand the power structure here, Joe. The rich like to be rich, and they don’t want a bunch of poor people running around making things unpleasant for them. That’s what we are in The End. The lowest of the low, as far as they’re concerned. They can do whatever they want, and get away with it.”

  “So the authorities know about this? Condone it?”

  “Joe,” Michelle said. “We’re giving you the shorthand version here. If you’d like, we can talk all about the socioeconomics of it later. The gist is, the division of rich and poor here in Cyre is an enormous gap, more of a chasm, with less and less middle class all the time. The very poor, which is most of those in The End, are considered disposable in order to make room for the new poor, which used to be the middle. The authorities wouldn’t really mind if a plasma bomb wiped us all out, except that it might be a bit of a public relations problem. When they catch us breaking the law, though—even a ridiculous law—they have no problem with killing as many of us as they can.”

  “That’s crazy,” Kyle muttered, shaking his head. “It makes no sense.”

  “You’ve been here long enough to know better than that,” Michelle reminded him. “You know about the gulf between the rich and the rest of us.”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “And you have heard of other altercations. The one last month, when seven teenagers were shot by the cops? Remember?”

  “Of course. I just hadn’t put it all together into a pattern yet.”

  “It’s a pattern,” Alan said, the first time he’d spoken. His handsome, lined face was grave. “Just not a pretty one.”