by Nik Korpon
I don’t know any of these people but could figure out who Forgall’s parents are based on family resemblance alone. The people beside them, I don’t know and don’t care about.
It’s the hundreds of other people that worry me. Walking through the rebel supporters is like piecing together all the lost jigsaw pieces from the Struggle – remnants of my old platoons, men I fought with, boys we trained who are now men – and all those old pieces form the image of a broadsword balanced above my neck. The members of the Tathadann that I see here are probably gathering on me as well as civilians. Watching who is collected in groups and what their connection is to the Struggle. Noting who I talk to and for how long, our gesticulations and mood. All of it observed and documented to present to Morrigan. I wonder if they’ve heard the chatter about Daghda too, if Greig is keeping it as a present for Morrigan. Or if he even knows they were married at one point.
Seeing how massively I’m outnumbered, and that my only safe connection to these people has promptly walked off, I figure now is a good time to make my exit.
Somewhere in my grey matter, I picture another lump floating on the lake, smaller than my current swollen body because I never allowed myself to become fat and complacent. I see Henraek and Emeríann – together – standing up to their knees in the water, giving a good shove to make sure I get all the way into the middle, then Emeríann giving Henraek the last drag of her cigarette before flicking it in a cinematic arc that ends on my gasoline-soaked body. The flames scorch birds flying over and all these people crowding around the lake cheer, trumpeting me off to Nahoeg or wherever we end up.
Only a small portion of the people here really know Forgall, maybe a couple dozen more from Johnstone’s, more by his reputation. But none of that matters. They don’t care that they don’t know how he cooks dinner or what his favorite song is. They know he was one of them and they’re out here because they are all them, and once – once – I was them too. I could call on people I didn’t know and they’d answer. I could trust a neighbor I hardly knew to care for my deformed newborn because we were them. The old woman who lords over me now would slit my throat as easily as give my job to someone else, and be as bored by either. I could disappear or show up with Henraek’s head on a stake and all she would do is preen her feather headdress. For shit’s sake, I had one friend missing an eye who might have been planning to have me killed, and I have one friend missing a soul. I have a broken child and a hidden child. There’s no longer a them, only me.
So I weave my way through the park. Around fistfights. Past semicircles of citizens thrown on the ground with their hands lashed behind them. Sidestepping groups of younger teens huddled together who are sure as hell going to hurt someone. I keep my eyes down the whole time to avoid being marked as an enemy to be drawn and quartered, my arm protecting the memory viewer in my jacket. Twenty feet to my left, a uniform pushes two young men, both with a look of desperation and anger I recognize a little too well. They split and head different ways, but I know that maneuver too and they’ll meet up in five minutes, probably with another ten people on either side of them. Planning. Watching. Waiting.
I’m almost out of the park when someone bumps into me. I put up my hands, saying my apologies, then hear a quick scoff.
I look up and see the man who replaced me when I took over my own platoon.
“Goerde,” I nod.
“What are you doing here?”
“Paying my respects.” I gesture toward the lake. “He was a good man.”
“You knew nothing about him.”
“I knew him longer than you did, Goerde. Don’t forget who trained your soldiers,” I say, reminding this prick that I – and everything I taught him – am the reason he’s still alive.
“You don’t belong here,” Goerde says. “And you don’t get to say goodbye.”
“I’m being polite. Calm down.”
“Leave now or I yell rat.” He extends his arm, indicating everyone around us. Three people behind me watch us, elbowing those standing beside them to cue them in on the action. A low murmur spreads. “You want to see what’ll happen?”
I bite the inside of my cheek, then nod. “Glad to see you, Goerde.”
“Eat my dick, traitor.”
“Will do, Goerde. Will do.” I give him our old salute then head for my waiting car before he yells and gets me lynched.
* * *
The car weaves in and out of traffic, settling into a hypnotic rhythm, making the hectic city feel a little calmer. Vendors call out and hock their goods. Waiters drape checkerboard tablecloths over wrought-iron patio tables and turn on the holograms. Men scrub down the sandy walls of Tathadann-backed businesses. A florist fills her buckets with prism flowers.
A hunched over man totters down the street, leading a horse that pulls a half-full cart of vaguely fresh fruit and rotting vegetables behind it. The young boy with him circles the cart and collects money from the people who can’t afford to buy produce from an actual market where they won’t get a communicable disease. Every time the boy moves to the other side, one of the alley rats – real and figurative – makes a move for the fruit and he tears back around, swinging a long, sharpened stick.
Farther up, a family of four rides matching bikes on the side of the road in a display of nuclear affection that makes me want to either cry or crap my pants. The little girl’s pigtail bows even match the streamers flowing from her handlebars. As we pass, I catch a glimpse of the dad’s face – the treasurer of the Tathadann – and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him exiting a bar where they project male fisting videos above the liquor.
If I wasn’t about to meet with the woman who might be plotting to kill me with little idea of how to get rid of the other man who might be plotting to have me killed, I’d go so far as to say it’s a nice day out.
23
Henraek
The streets and sidewalks of Fomora are quiet. It’s not surprising, given that we left behind both city center and the funeral of a well-known rebel, but, as I step out of the car, it still strikes me as eerie.
Emeríann changes in the car. Then we load the supplies into two backpacks, slinging them over our shoulders. She takes a deep breath and looks around.
I know I should tell her that Daghda’s dead. But she needs to stay focused on the task at hand. Neither of us can afford distraction right now. I’ll tell her later. When the time’s right.
She smiles. “You needed a minute?”
Goddamn it. I can’t hold this.
“Hey, I’m sorry, but you need to know something.” I force myself to keep going. “Walleus found a memory of Daghda.”
Her breath catches.
“He’s dead.”
She wilts away from me, and immediately I feel terrible. I shouldn’t have said anything.
But then her back straightens, shoulders pulled back. “It doesn’t matter. We don’t need him,” she says. “We’ll take the city ourselves, and no one will stop us.”
I want to crush my lips against hers until we bleed.
“So you’re ready to do this?” I hold her shoulders, as much to comfort her as to feel for any quivering. But there isn’t any.
After a last look at the blueprints, creating a rough mental layout, I fold the plans into my backpack and lead us forward.
The security on this building – the nerve center of water distribution for half the city – is no better than what I saw in Toman’s building, and I get through it even quicker. We wind down cinderblock hallways, the pale blue painted concrete floors chipped and worn in the center. Placards featuring escape routes hang on the wall at every intersection.
Each time we round a bend, I look into the high corners for cameras, waiting for them to pivot away from us before leading Emeríann across the hall. There are fewer guards than I expected, though it’s understandable with resources shifted toward riot containment in the city center.
A few minutes in, we come to the main artery split. I bring Emeríann close t
o me. “Both of these lead to the main store room–”
“So you’ll go left and I’ll go right and we’ll clear both hallways then meet in the middle.” She smiles, self-satisfied.
“Right, but–”
“Make sure I wait for the cameras to move before I do.” She pats my cheek. “Sweetheart, I’ve got this.”
I kiss her hard on the lips, equal parts proud and eager. “Guess I’ll see you there, then.”
We head our own ways.
When I first met Emeríann seven years ago, and when we got together four years later, there were a number of places I never imagined us ending up. Anywhere cold is one. A cul-de-sac, another. Inside the bowels of the main Tathadann water treatment plant would qualify as a pretty close third. Yet here we are, creeping down hallways with a grip of explosives strapped on our backs.
A cough echoes. I stick close to the wall, my palms drifting along the surface, cool and rough on my skin. As I come to the bend in the hallway, I sneak a glance ahead. One door sits on the left with a camera above it. Nothing on the right. And a guard strolling along the center of the floor. Looks like a woman, though not very large. Except for the gun sitting on her hip. She’s fifty feet away from me, and fifty feet from the door at the end, the metal vats of the main storage area visible through the window. I need to move, and move quick.
I wait until the camera begins to turn away from me before strafing along the left side of the hall, sticking close to the wall to stay out of sight. Thirty feet to her. Twenty. The camera reaches the middle point. Ten feet. I can hear her whistling, smell her perfume. There’s an acrid, alcohol-heavy scent to it. Something cheap, like a teenager would wear in an attempt to seem more grown up. The camera points at the other side, begins panning back this way.
I take three long strides and wrap my arm around her neck, cinching her chin in my elbow. A peek up, and the camera pans closer. Her heel swings up, glancing off the inside of my thigh. Two inches and she would have dropped me with the kick. Her nails try to pierce my jacket. I dig my heels into the cement and drag us backward. The door is five feet away. The camera pans, almost on us. Three seconds and we’ll be made. She plants her feet and tries to throw us forward but her hesitation gives me an opening and I launch us back through the door, into a dark room. I can feel the camera passing above us.
Hand wrapped tight around my forearm, I stretch backward, feeling her throat tighten. She pounds her fists against my arm, becoming more frantic as she feels the air disappearing. The cement is cold beneath me. We could not exist in this room, it is so dark. We could both already be dead and simply not know it.
Her fists become softer and I loosen my grip, eventually taking her consciousness but not her life. She did nothing to deserve death. When she’s finally docile, I roll her off me and search the wall for a light. I press my fingers against the underside of her jaw, making sure her pulse is still there. She’s quite pretty, in an immature way. Her hair is braided into twin strands and curled against the back of her head. She’s probably not even old enough to be here legally but wants to contribute, to be part of something larger than her, to feel a sense of purpose and pride.
I leave her be and, at the doorway, wager a glance up at the camera. As it pans past me, away from the main storage room, I hurry out to the door and look through the window. The room is filled with steel tanks, braids of tubes, some cameras and a control panel. Across the room, in a window identical to this, I see Emeríann, her face broad with a smile, her glittering eyes noticeable even from this far away.
24
Walleus
Clodhna hums with activity, officers hustling between rooms, carrying folders stuffed with reports. A young man in fatigues follows behind a woman wearing the official uniform, finger held to her ear to engage the tiny comm device. She nods twice then hands the young man a map and points to a spot, shoos him toward the door. Disc-shaped droids skitter between everyone’s feet, polishing the white marble floors. It’s busier than usual, though I don’t know if they’re figuring a reaction to Forgall’s death, planning their own offensive, or preparing for a possible coup. That kind of planning was already above my paygrade, and even farther away now.
This building could turn a sneeze into an avalanche of tanks, but even with all this movement the place is pretty damn quiet. A while back, Morrigan redid the offices with some kind of soundproofing material. One of the guards tried to explain it to me, something about the cells being specially engineered so that the hollow construction would attract sound waves and destroy them, but my eyes glazed over after the third five-syllable word. It kills almost all sound and is only available for Tathadann elite, is what I took away from it.
The woman sitting at the front desk scans the escort’s badge. Her blonde hair is pulled up in a tight bun and held with hair pins that could double as field surgery tools. Four orchids sit on the edge of her desk, each of them as unnaturally white as the houses that fill Donnculan. With a quick glance I clock at least half a dozen security cameras in the entranceway and outside the door looking out over the lush gardens, covering every vantage point. The secretary taps her pencil against her cheek and raises her eyebrows twice at the escort, a gesture that makes him quickly check out the marble beneath his feet and clear his throat.
“This way,” he tells me when his credentials clear. She does not seem the least bit discouraged by his lack of a response.
Floor-to-ceiling mirrors hang every fifteen feet in the hallway, a pair of ravens that look carved from onyx sitting on each of them. A stream of officers marches down the hallway in front of us, headed for the large conference room at the end. The escort stays two steps in front of me the entire time, his demeanor changing quickly if I fall behind. I’m surprised he’d turn his back on me, given that I promised to turn him inside out earlier this morning. In my defense, the hangover has worn off some.
We come to a door halfway down. He clears his throat, telling me I should proceed. I step inside and my feet are silent on the thick carpet. He closes the door and the commotion from the hallway hushes, the blood in my ears the only sound. An ornately carved desk sits in front of the window and it’s about as big as my car. In the corner stands a full suit of antique knight’s armor. An assortment of animal heads rings the upper wall of the office, half of which I’ve never even seen before. I’d assume they were Commander Morrigan’s, as he seems like the type of guy to sneak up behind an unsuspecting animal and blow its head off, but I could easily see Lady Morrigan doing it.
For all the modern advances the Tathadann has implemented in the nice parts of Eitan City, this office itself is very traditional. No holograms, no automatons, no voice controls.
The door opens and I expect to see Morrigan but instead Greig walks in, his hair carefully combed.
“You’re not the asshole I expected to see,” I say.
“She calls, I answer,” he says.
“You’re a great lapdog, ain’t you?” As he comes closer I notice blood splattered on his shoes, nod at them. “What happened?”
He lowers himself into a chair and sighs. “Don’t you worry about it, Walleus.” The self-assured smirk makes me want to stick my hand down his throat and pull his balls out through his mouth. “You know, I was looking around for that authorization. Couldn’t find it anywhere.”
“You were at the Gallery this morning?” I say. He nods. “Then aren’t you supposed to be in Fomora?”
He cocks his head, and I can’t tell if he’s confused because the plebe never delivered the order – in which case I need to beat the hell out of him when I get back – or seeing if I’ll call him out on his defiance.
“I think it’s a little late for Forgall Tobeigh to save himself, but Belousz? You?” He clears his throat and rolls his shoulders.
How does he know about Forgall? Was he creeping around the edges of the Gallery, gathering? Apparently he doesn’t know about Henraek and Belousz, which is a strange advantage to have. My legs are drained from a lac
k of sleep and excess of alcohol but there are only two chairs by her desk, and Greig occupies one, so I stand and stare out the window at the hedges shaped into surrealist animals or something. They remind me of a black and white movie Liella dragged me and Henraek and Aífe to go see. Something about memory or impermanence. I guess it’s kind of ironic that I don’t remember anything about it.
Ten silent minutes pass before the door opens again, Morrigan entering this time wearing a raven-feather headdress that I’ve never seen before, as well as some crushed velvet thing that makes her look like the madam of a vampire bordello.
She’s not welcoming like a madam, though, ordering me to sit without even a greeting. Standing behind the desk, she leans toward me, and the resemblance to a vulture over carrion is intense.
“What did you gather at the funeral?” she says.
“There were some flare-ups, but we handled it–”
“What about Henraek?” she says.
“What about him?”
“Doctor Mebeth reported you two scuffled at the Gallery. And now there are reports that he is tied to the bombing plot.” She stares straight through me. “These two are not related?”
“Last I’d heard, it was Emeríann Daele and Forgall Tobeigh.” I resist the urge to acknowledge Greig beside me, or bash his skull with the heavy lamp sitting on her desk. “Still, I can assure you that you’ve received inaccurate information. Need I remind you of the ice cream incident?”
“It’s early still for jokes, Walleus. If you’re positive, you need to make sure he’s aware of how this looks and what will happen if he continues to operate this way. Now that Greig has dispatched with that vile rebel Forgall Tobeigh–”
