The Sapphire Shadow

by James Wake

  That expression was barely contained rage. But still.

  “What is that?” Nadine said in a hush.

  Nadia crammed the tube back into her jacket pocket. “No, I did not bring enough to share,” she lied.

  Evelyn raised a hand, one stern finger beckoning. A massive man in a dark suit heeded the call, stopping next to Nadia’s chair and holding out his palm. Knowing what would happen, she ignored him. He barely waited before jamming his hand into her interior jacket pocket—no pretense, no decorum, no concern for appearing to reach down her shirt in front of her own mother. All business.

  He tore the offending object away from her. Nadia put up a cursory fight, again knowing what would happen. She grabbed his hand, yanking and scratching at his knuckles, having as much effect as she might have had on stone. With a spiteful, “Ugh, fine!” she gave it up, crossing her arms and huffing in her chair.

  “As I was saying,” Evelyn went on, her face settling back into her default, plastic sneer, “it might be some time before you are able to speak with your father again. I thought you should visit him before we begin the process.”

  “You mean before you euthanize him,” Nadia snarled.

  “A temporary cessation of life signs,” their mother snarled back. “A necessary step, given the crude state of our preservation techniques.”

  “He won’t really be dead…” Nadine added, so helpfully. “Think of it this way—fifty years ago, ‘dead’ meant the heart had stopped for four to six minutes. Now that number is ten to twelve. Fifty years before that—”

  “Yes, I know,” Nadia said, waving her away. She’d heard it a thousand times. “There used to be no such thing as resuscitation. It doesn’t matter.”

  Evelyn tsked. “It matters very much. The idea of death as a definite state is malleable. We know this.”

  “It doesn’t matter!” Nadia screamed. “Any part of him that mattered has been dead for a long time now!”

  Nadia’s mother rose from her chair, stiff lips pulled back enough to show her teeth grinding together. “Say your goodbye,” she said, pointing to the back of the room. “Then get out of my sight.”

  That she could do. Glaring out from beneath her lowered eyes, Nadia slunk out of her chair, barely feeling the pleasant burn from whatever she had sprayed up her nose. At the back of the room, nestled into a large alcove, was her father.

  An ornate bed dominated the space, carved wood frame and posts, every inch covered in intricate Rococo swirls imitating vines and leaves and flowers. It was surrounded by carts laden with machines, beeping and humming and connected to her father by so many tubes. Scrub-wearing men and women hovered nearby, faceless behind surgical masks, all tapping away at touchpads.

  They would not leave. She knew that already. Strict instructions from her mother. No matter. There was nothing to say, nothing that needed privacy. Her father had been dead for a long time now.

  Her father. He lay in bed, a once huge man shriveled to a pathetic mummy, hands like claws gripping the top of his blanket. Nadia pulled a chair up next to him, her nose itching at the stale sour smell.

  “Father,” she said, quietly, forcing a beaming smile. “How are we today?”

  His head turned toward her, wisps of faded blond hair rustling like spider silk. There was still some sharpness left in his eyes, blue like hers but faded and pale. “Today? Better today. Better now that you’ve…joined me, miss.”

  Rasping, dry coughs. No light of recognition there, only the usual slick smile.

  “Do you know who I am today?” she said.

  “Do you know I am?” he said, his voice fighting for strength again.

  “Arthur Ashpool of course. The one and only.”

  “Damn right!” Her father coughed, his arms straining at the multiple IV tubes dragging along. “And do you know why I’m important?”

  “How could I not?”

  “Well, I know how your generation can be…” He groaned, rolling his eyes, dark blotches drifting lazily through the whites. “Glad to hear a woman your age knows how to appreciate…the founder of this city.”

  She smiled and nodded. Again, nothing she hadn’t heard a thousand times.

  “And they said the Chinese would take over the world, little yellow pricks. Didn’t see Arthur Ashpool coming. That’s for damn sure.”

  Smile and nod. Keep smiling and keep nodding.

  “The first…corporate state…” he said, nodding back at her between rasping wheezes. “A new founding father. A real founding father. Founding…father…”

  “Very impressive, Father. We owe you so much.”

  “What a polite young lady.” He looked over again and was actually looking at her, finally. “Oh, and lovely hair! Lillian, did you see the hair on this one?”

  Lillian was not her mother’s name. Nadia did not know who Lillian was, or if there ever even was a Lillian. “I’m glad you like it,” she said, spitefully wondering if her mother was listening.

  He held a shaking hand out to her, trembling under the weight of the tubes attached. Nadia reached out to take it, only to see it drop down and claw at the fishnets on her thigh. Waxy, pale, dry fingers fondling her leg.

  “I’ve always loved brunettes,” he said, giving her a leering grin.

  “Yes, thank you…Father,” she said, delicately picking up his hand and placing it back on the bed.

  “That’s all right, my dear. You can call me ‘Daddy,’” he said, still leering.

  She pinched the bridge of her nose, sighing loudly and dearly wishing she still had the drugs from last night. She hated when he looked at her like that, hated that it wasn’t the first time it had happened, hated that it made her want him to hurry up and die already.

  Her hands clasped tightly over her eyes, digging her shades into the skin of her face until it was agony. Hot tears dripped into her palms and snuck between her fingers. She had thought herself past this, done with it. He was dead. She hadn’t cried last time, hadn’t had to grit her teeth against the quivering of her chin.

  “Nadia?”

  She looked up, blinking out the blurriness. Her father was looking at her, more himself than she had seen in a long time.

  “Nadia? Oh, Nadia, I missed you…”

  “Father?” She took his hands, feeling them squeeze back, warm and tender. “Father, are you alright?”

  “Do I fucking—” he coughed, hacking, his shaking ribs visible even through the blanket. “Do I look alright?”

  “You look terrible.”

  His chest shook again, with weak laughter this time. “My God, look at you. You’ve grown up.”

  “No thanks to you,” she said, smiling, really smiling now.

  “Brat,” he mumbled. His faded eyes scanned the room, wary and haunted. “Is she here?”

  “Of course she is,” Nadia said, huddling in close.

  “Bitch,” he spat, literally spat, yellowish drool dribbling down the side of his mouth.

  Nadia grabbed a nearby cloth to dab it away, glaring at the nurse who tried to beat her to it. “Are they at least letting you paint?”

  “Of course fucking not,” he said, shaking his head. The chain around his neck dragged, leading his hands up to fumble and scratch at it. “I don’t…I don’t like her, Nadia. She scares me.”

  Such simple words. Nadia never could have put it so well.

  Her father’s hands found the silver necklace, feeling along it until they found the pendant as well. A small silver circle, dense with engraved words. Instructions. Just in case. Its face was dominated by larger words, the most important being “Do Not Resuscitate.”

  He wailed, moaned, lips quivering like a toddler.

  “Father, relax. Try to stay calm.”

  “Don’t let her do it!” he said, one hand clawing at her sleeve. The strength he’d once possessed came back; he gripped her forearm until her hand was numb. �
�Don’t let her do it!”

  “I won’t. I swear I won’t,” Nadia said, pulling away, wanting to run.

  “Cold…cold…no…” he cried, shaking his head. “Nadia!”

  “Father, please!” she screamed, yanking his arm, dragging him half off the bed, her hand fast and precise.

  “Let me die! Just let me die!”

  “That’s enough!” Evelyn’s voice cut in.

  Suited men tore her father’s hand off her jacket, then led her a polite distance away from the bed as masked nurses fussed over their unruly patient. Nadia shoved herself away as soon as they let her go, stumbling toward the door.

  “That’s fine. Let her go,” she heard her mother say.

  She could barely see, trying to hide her sobbing behind her shades and blindly make it back to the elevator. Exotic plants dragged on her sleeves as she wove through the lobby until she felt her way through the waiting open doors.

  Two guards in suits waited for her. Naturally. Nadia ignored them. Unable to hold it back any longer, she collapsed against the back wall of the elevator and sank to the floor as she bawled her eyes out.

  Nothing they hadn’t seen before. No reason to even look at her. In her pocket, her fingers tightly clenched a silver chain with a tiny silver pendant, the words “Do Not Resuscitate” engraved on its face.

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Martyr

  The elevator door did not open for her.

  Nadia pried it open, worming the tips of her fingers into the seam until she could bring the strength of her sleeves to bear. The door made a halting series of clunks, trying to close again before lazily grinding open.

  The lobby waited, a brightly lit forest. She did a clumsy, agonizing pull-up to the lobby floor before hearing the elevator car crash-land at the bottom of the shaft. Laser lines crisscrossed the once-sleek black of her suit, catching on ragged bullet holes and marred furrows in its skin.

  They stopped…a dim, flickering red grid on her chest.

  “Working on it!” Tess said. On either side of the lobby, panels of dark glass loomed, anxious movement waiting behind each.

  “Problem?” Nadia said.

  “You might want to start moving!”

  She wouldn’t make it to the doors in time. No chance. Nadia’s eyes darted around for a weapon, an exit, anything that wasn’t back through the elevator. Potted plants stared back at her.

  The dark glass popped into motion, sliding up from the floor…only making it an inch or so before slamming shut again.

  “Ha!” Tess said. “Take that! Finest security system in the world, my ass.”

  Dim motion peeked out at her. Men in white armor stomping and kicking at the panels from the other side. From one of them, the sharp thud of a rifle butt slammed into the glass. Growling voices called out the alarm over the radio.

  “I can’t hold them for too long,” Tess said. “You still want to move. You know, if you plan on getting the hell out of there when you’re done.”

  “Nice of you to keep them safe from me,” Nadia said, ignoring the nervous wavering in her own voice.

  “Har-har. I’ve got the cameras, your mom is still in there with—holy crap, there’s a dead guy up here?”

  Nadia closed her eyes. Her glove rested on the handle of the double doors, one last set.

  “Thank you,” she said. “For everything.”

  “Hey, wait. Hang on!”

  Chin up. Back straight. Show no weakness. For once, she didn’t have to remind herself of these things

  Nadia didn’t even bother with the handle. She kicked the doors open instead, the soft sole of her slipper stinging with the blow.

  They were waiting for her. Not as many as she had expected, though.

  “Evacuate? Absolutely not!” Evelyn screamed, eyes lit up and blind. Her hands were typing furiously at the air in front of her as she paced around the back of her board table.

  Three men in suits. Only three. All that stood between Nadia and her mother. Their guns already drawn, they turned and raised the barrels at her in what felt like yawning, screaming years of time. That whine in her thoughts finally—awfully—broke out into a long, unhinged scream.

  She plucked one of Tess’s makeshift spark grenades from her belt and pelted the farthest suit with it. He went down with a choked gasp as the others shouted at her. She was already diving to the side, rolling and springing to her feet near the second man.

  “No shot!” the last one screamed, blocked by the guard closest to her. “Get down!”

  He didn’t. The barrel of his pistol was trained right at her face. He fired, the bullet passing under her as she shot straight up to the ceiling. She crouched upside down for an instant before diving and slapping her crackling palms to his neck, pinning him to the floor.

  One left. Nadia ducked low as she slid up to the table, keeping it between her and the last gun. She heard the goon stomp over; heard him hop onto the table, ready to plug her full of holes. With a growling scream, she jumped to her feet, grabbed a chair, and swung it into his knees. The table buckled under his weight as he fell, creaking more when she pounced on top of him. She slapped her electrified hands onto him over and over until the only movement beneath her was pained convulsions.

  Only three. After all her training, all her preparation, every faceless thug she’d fought her way through to get here. Disappointing, in a way.

  “What do you want from us?”

  It wasn’t her mother. Nadia looked up to see her sister, still decked out in her finest ball gown. Not scared—angry, defiant. Nadia was almost proud of her.

  “Whatever it is, you won’t have it,” Nadine said. “We are not intimidated by you.”

  Misdirection. Movement at the head of the table—Nadia’s mother, reaching into a hidden drawer by her chair.

  That wouldn’t do. Not even thinking, acting out a moment from her deepest dreams, she closed the gap in an instant, dashing on top of the table to snatch her mother’s wrist as she grabbed a pistol.

  There was a struggle, if it could be called that. Her mother was powerless in her grip, growling and straining uselessly. Nadia felt her other hand tense up—felt a breathless instant of undiluted joy at the thought of zapping her, striking her, wiping that sneering hatred off her face once and for all.

  It passed. She yanked the gun away and shoved her mother to the floor behind her throne. Her hands moved on their own. Pop out the magazine, clear the chamber, throw the magazine and loose round in opposite directions.

  The rest went less smoothly. She failed to detach the slide, tried again, then shrugged and tossed the empty gun away.

  “Very brave of you,” Evelyn said, glaring up at her from the floor, “breaking in here to attack an old woman.”

  “You will talk…” Nadia said, drawing Jackson’s gun from her bag. Standing tall atop the boardroom table she’d cowered next to so many times, she leveled the gun at her mother. “…when I say you can talk.”

  Barely able to emote. But it was there, in the eyes. The slight fall of her stiff, plastic lips as her mouth dropped open a millimeter or two.

  She knew.

  All at once, she knew. The woman in charge of this whole wretched city had finally, at long last, recognized her own daughter.

  It was better than Nadia ever could have hoped for. She hopped off the table, not taking her eyes off the lovely sight of her mother, for once, at a loss for words.

  “Now,” Nadia said, advancing. Not toward her mother, no. Around, past the boardroom table.

  Toward the back of the room.

  “I am going to ask you a very simple question.”

  She knew where the hidden button was. Knew exactly where to tap on the back wall to send it sliding open, revealing a dim alcove hiding a tube of hardened glass, wreathed in chilled white vapor. Her father—the frozen corpse of her father—was little more than a blurry shape, now suspended
upside down inside the tube, the dim outline of his head resting near her feet.

  Good. Better that way. Better not to see his face. Still pointing the gun at her mother, she let her free hand touch the glass, something she’d never done before. It was painfully cold, even through the skin of her gloves.

  “You broke into our home,” Nadine said, fuming and indignant, stomping one high heel under her dress, “attacked our guards, destroyed our property, all so you could ask a question?”

  “Stop talking,” Nadia said, emphasizing her request with the muzzle of Jackson’s gun. “Please.”

  Nadine stiffened, the little color in her face draining away. Nadia knew the feeling all too well.

  “Yes, shut your foolish mouth,” Evelyn said. “It’s me she’s here for.”

  “Wrong,” Nadia said. She met her mother’s eyes, knowing all she could see was the blue glow of her moving mask, watching every tiny lack of movement on her mother’s face as she held her left hand high for all to see.

  A silver chain, wrapped tightly in her fist. When she loosened her grip, a silver pendant dangled from her palm.

  “So that’s where it went,” her mother said. “I always knew. Liar. Thief. You’ve always been a disappointment.”

  “Nadia?” her sister gasped.

  They both ignored her. “I told you,” Nadia said, “you’ll be answering my question.”

  “Ask whatever you want,” Evelyn said, “It doesn’t matter. You’re dead to me. You’ll get nothing more out of me than any petty criminal would.”

  Stalling. Of course. They both knew the troopers in the lobby could come crashing in at any moment. It didn’t matter.

  “You might as well go ahead and shoot me,” Evelyn said.

  Nadia moved the barrel of the gun, much to Nadine’s relief. She swung it over. But not toward her mother.

  She aimed it at the tube beside her instead. Pointed it directly at the silhouette of her father’s head.

  That got a reaction.