by Moira Crone
“You steer for a while.”
I had to learn. I assented, my balance slightly better. He scurried to the stern where the poles that held Serio’s fishing nets stuck out, but there weren’t any there right then. He found a thin white cord I think was used for mending. I saw him take a piece of the chicken he’d offered for breakfast and tie it to one end. Watching him, I turned the wheel by mistake. He noticed. “Hey, look out. She’s listing. Due East.”
Next thing I knew, he was back at the helm holding a living silver thing in his chubby yellow hand. Water dripped over the seat beside me. He offered me some, saying the words, “Drum, delicioso!” He produced the complicated knife again from one of his pockets. With its sharp paring blade, he tore the skin off the fish while it was still alive. With another, he separated the meat from the bones, dug out the intestines and lungs, and sliced it in cubes which he put on the board above the dials. Then he tossed down the bloody head and spine, which landed on his boot, and said, “Take your choice.”
I had been watching with great interest, I was ashamed to note. But at the last minute, I managed, “No.”
“Can’t hear you,” he said.
“Naa hungry,” I said. The tendons of my neck vibrated.
“How can you not be hungry?” he asked.
I knew the fish was cold from the water. Its sharp circle eye looked at me now from the wet deck. Those little dices of pink flesh. Places under my tongue started to sting. But I couldn’t sink like that. Bad enough the new friend I’d made. What would my Heir benefactors say?
“Really?”
“YESH A FASHT,” I said through my teeth, wishing it was easy. “So-kay, I see.” Then he sat, a little sad, and ate the fish himself, raw. He chewed each morsel for a very long time, made grand work of it. I would have left, but it was the only place on the boat that had any roof. If I went below deck, I might have been sick—the cabin stank, and there was a chop.
“You been readying all your life, huh?” he said when he was finished.
I nodded. “Boun’ry ti—”
“Boundarytime? You old enough? When you start out? What age?”
I held up five fingers.
“What you do?”
“Sims.”
“You earned enough at those? I don’t believe it. You some kind of star?”
I nodded, proud, remembering those years of applause, the thick faces of my Heir fans, their marvelous feathered headjobs, their braids and jewels. Bravo, they used to say, Encore. He doesn’t stink!
He turned to me full face as if something startled him, though he kept the wheel steady. “I hear those cops in the Customs House say there was a problem? With your Trust?”
Finally, my awful news flowed like dark ink into my brain. My Trust. “No,” I lied. What was he doing, following me? Reading my mind? But that was the thing—it all came back—day before yesterday, at Port Gramercy Customs, the officers pulled up my records to harass me. I begged them not to—I pleaded, got them mad. The humiliation.
“It’s okay?” Pressing was Serpent’s mode.
I nodded. But it wasn’t okay.
“Well, well. Glad to hear it.” He looked ahead again, changed the subject. “See that land? New Orleans Islands. Beautiful, still, don’t you think? Bella, like Venezia, hah?”
Far on the horizon, I could make out the outline of the old Sky Rail Station, the marvelously high wall of the Museum City. It would only be hours now, and I’d be home. But what would I find there? And who or what, exactly, had claimed my future?
We sailed on.
*
5:30 PM October 12, 2121
New Orleans Islands, Northeast Gulf De-Accessioned Territory,
U.A. Protectorate
PONTCHARTRAIN SEA-RIM SKY RAIL
CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
BOATS: DETOUR BAYOU ST. JOHN LINK TO
NAPOLEON TRENCH/PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK
ENTERING NORTHEAST GULF DE-ACCESSIONED
TERRITORY. U.A. PROTECTORATE. SUBJECT TO
SECURITAS PATROLS.
HAVE VISAS, ID’S, ENCLAVE CARDS READY FOR
INSPECTION
It had been two and a half years since I’d seen the city and at that time, the Sky Rail system had still been working reasonably well. Now it was half-submerged. The Y-shaped supports for the cables were poking up from the waters like deformed, yellow trees. Seagulls and brown pelicans were perched on every artificial branch. We passed what was left of the station platform and saw two bulb-shaped gondolas lying on their sides on it—humongous, rusted onions, the gray blue sea slapping at their hulls.
Serpenthead maneuvered our tub with some skill, into the Trench. He knew his way, even with so many landmarks under water. In a little while, we passed a few hipped roofs peeking out, what was left of the old shore homes. Not long ago, they’d been handsome, on their high stilts, and the Sea of Pontchartrain could wash underneath in tidal surges. Water birds—egrets I guessed—flew in a low V formation over our heads. It was clear they thought of this place as their exclusive territory now. Once, it had been for people, only.
A mile or so inside, we came upon our first occupied house, and then our second, then a row of five. These were really just the tops of old two-and three-story houses—Outliar compounds. No enclaves here. I made out the rotting, fan-shaped attic windows of the tall Victorians, the humps of the camelbacks. It looked as if the occupants had moved into the upper rooms, and turned eaves into living space, former upper balconies into front porches, abandoned the flooded lower floors, and managed to seal them off. Ringed by rails and gates, which served as the lounging spaces, docks, and security perimeters, these rickety homesteads could be taken for stationary houseboats. On the gatepost of one, the sign: “Leave a Wake, You Won’t Wake.” And the skull and bones.
When I had been through here last, those houses stood on muddy patties of land, still fending off the sea most of the time. Now they had succumbed. Yet the occupants had not fled. Their very existence was illegal, in a sense—here, no one persecuted them exactly, but no one helped them either.
Lazarus had always complained the problem was the territory had been let go by the United Authority years back, but they never allowed it the freedom they’d promised. “Always some limbo,” he’d say. True independence was not the fact.
I was totally depressed about the question about my Trust. Why had Lazarus not answered? This landscape didn’t help. When we came to a wide expanse of water, the Broad Marsh, Serpenthead stopped, pushed in the throttle, and said, “We are almost on empty, and we’ll use the current here.”
The motor stopped chugging so we drifted. Suddenly everything was quiet. A little past the open water there were houses again—rougher, more fortified. Outliar camps surrounded by high fences, guarded by bigger dogs. No water birds here. On a few of the houses, the balcony columns were wrapped in barbed wire mesh forming the cages for fuel tanks.
I could hear things from inside now—human shouts, guitars, the rough harmony of semi-wild dogs, the rattle-roar of generators—a cacophony, almost pleasing over water. I was sorry when we had to accelerate to veer into the Tchoupitoulas Canal. From there we cut into the Old River at the Napoleon Segue.
“Bandits this way,” he shrugged. “Different neighborhood.”
We glided past the great floodwall of the Museum City. It was guarded by sentries, Securitas. I’d never gotten inside, but I had heard of the wonders there. In my heyday as an actor, many of my fans lived in those mansions, but they never actually invited me in.
The light was getting low. I was tired. Of course, I had not eaten. The pain in my jaw, my ear, and my neck was a little worse. I went to the cot below decks for a few minutes, put up with the stench.
I must have dozed, for I startled when Serpenthead said, “The Quay, Malcolm. Coming up.”
I climbed the stairs. The setting sun bit at my eyes.
It took me a while to realize what I was seeing, for the water reflected the lowerin
g sun, flashing orange and blue and gold. But then something sorted itself out. It was wet and shining as the water, but smooth. It might have been the flat back of a sea monster for it had something like scales. Then I saw the “scales” were paving slates—it was a curving road at the edge of the Old River. Big thick poles the size of children poked up from it. When we were close enough, Serpent threw a rope over the head of one the pylons, and called it “a bollard.”
This was a busy place. Around us were other craft—boats with bigger wheelhouses, several with multiple swivel seats for fishing. Along the slate road were stalls and stands selling provisions.
“But where is the Quarter?” I asked. Surely it had to be nearby.
“Sunken Quarter,” Serpenthead called out. “Over there.”
But I looked and saw nothing, save for a pointed narrow tower, which stuck up out of nowhere. For a second I thought this “Quarter” might be made up. There were so many stories about it, it might as well be. “I don’t see anything,” I said.
“Over there, and down,” Serpenthead said, excited.
I looked.
The paved road I discerned wasn’t a road at all, or a proper bank. It was the wide top of a huge, encircling barrier. We had pulled up to the top of an amphitheater, a bowl, the irregular perimeter that held back the Old River.
Below, the wonder.
What I saw first were bronze roofs with steep dormers. Next, the crowns of palms, which I’d never seen from above before—lush, green blooms. Underneath, buildings with bright shutters. The old cathedral, an ancient edifice, in the middle. Its spire pierced the horizon, the one structure taller than the level of the Quay. It alone caught natural light. Everything below in that valley set into the water had already descended into an almost garish, electrified night. All of it gleamed, for it was coated in glazes. The city itself seemed to be made of porcelain, like something kept in a cabinet for a giant’s delight. I felt I was breaking a law, coming to visit this place everyone in my boyhood talked about in whispers.
“Now, you know how to start this without me?” Serpenthead took out the spiral wire he fashioned from a scrap he’d picked up on the boat, to be the “key,” and offered it to me. “You have the controls down?” He pointed. “Throttle, clutch, compass, tachometer, fuel? Got it?”
I wasn’t listening. I was distracted by the creatures on the stairs. Throngs out for a promenade at early dusk. Very strange.
“Malcolm, pay attention,” he said, the back of his hand patting under my chin. I didn’t even object.
Many on the Quay wore masks, others, elaborate head jobs. And some appeared to have claws instead of hands, wings coming out of their backs. I had heard about Altereds—they weren’t a new species. Nats and even Nyets were resculpted by doctors into these creatures. I knew Heirs leased them, even bought them, and paid for the surgeries called “re-designs.” I had heard they were banned in some parts of the U.A. proper. One spread his purple wings not fifty feet from me. He was a fellow about my height, very skinny, his teeth long and grey and sharp. I could see where the tendons had been attached, the fine detail. He’d surrendered himself to become a work of art. Someone had once described such elaborate transformations, before—told me about the strange parties in the Museum City he got to attend, from the time he was very young—
“Something, huh?” Serpent asked. “You wouldn’t see me getting a scalpel, or a graft—”
I groaned aloud. I suddenly realized who must have caused the problem with my Trust.
Serpent thought I was in pain. It wasn’t ordinary pain. He seemed to care. “Look, I will go get you the fuel. Okay?” He actually looked sad.
“I’m going with you,” I said, my jaw stabbing me as I spoke. I wasn’t going to be cheated by Serpent too.
“I am just getting over there, and coming back.” He came in close, looked me over. “You should see yourself—ear all bloody, one half of your face twice the size of the other. You sure you want to run all round? You don’t have such great balance, you noticed? Don’t you hurt?”
Serpent was climbing onto the Quay from the rear of the boat now, the fuel can in his hand. I followed him. “I’m coming.” I had to get that fuel, go up to Lazarus and straighten this thing out. I knew who was tampering with my life. Lazarus wasn’t even aware, probably.
Serpent’s fat hands were on the bollard he’d tied us to. Little birds with bent beaks scurried out of his way when his big boot landed on the slates. When I reached up after him, the pain shot down my already-aching arm.
“Hey, Malcolm,” he spoke quietly, gently.
“I have to stay with you,” I managed.
He closed his mouth and wagged his head. “Come on, then,” he said. “Time’s wasting.”
I followed, with a new sense of purpose, and the marvels of the Sunken Quarter before me, gleaming.
II
April 21, 2111
Audubon Foundling House
New Orleans Islands, Northeast Gulf De-Accessioned Territory,
U.A. Protectorate
“Malcolm, dear, I want to talk to you about your mate, Ariel. He’s got some problem with O. Please, go spy and tell me what.” Lazarus had pulled me into the hall at lunch to tell me this.
I believed I was special by this time. Best actor among all the boys. A rising favorite in the Sims, much in demand. Eleven years by count. Peak of my popularity.
“What can we do?” Lazarus asked. “He’s rejecting his holder!”
Ariel had been dubbed too unruly to be in the Sims, so, at Lazarus’s urging, he had entered into a holding contract. His benefactor was a big extra-rich Heir everyone called O. Politically important, we knew. Ariel lived with O for long periods, in luxury. He followed him around on his travels, stayed with him at his glorious resorts, went with him to gatherings in the Museum City, the Sunken Quarter. He had the life of a pet, as far as I could see. The first time he came back, he’d said it was the easiest job in the world. Much better than the lengthy, repetitive comedies I had to act in. But this time he’d come back early from his visit and was upstairs in the attic, refusing to come down.
“Find out what you can,” Lazarus said, his lip twitching, his brow furrowed. Usually his face was smooth as a plate, like other Heirs. I had the impulse to stretch out that overskin, and the prodermis under it, though of course I could never do that.
He shook his head. “Tell Ariel this is nonsense. He has to go back. O is outside right now, calling for him. It’s a scandal, a spectacle. And times are hard.”
I was Lazarus’ confidant, his favorite. I already knew all the laments. Times were hard. There used to be other work for us boys. The Foundling House had a band, and some took up the building trades. Now enterprising enclavers did that work. He looked as if he would cry, which of course he couldn’t, when he said, “All those jobs are over. Sims and holding contracts are all there is, nothing else. So Ariel should be grateful, do as his holder says. Not play the prima donna and ask to be brought back early. Unless there is something he’s not saying—” His unblinking eyes moved around the room. “It’s not as if many doors are open. As if there are any other avenues—”
I nodded. I would go talk to Ariel. I didn’t mind. He was my mate, he used to help me. He was the first one who ever told me about the trick of prologue: he knew very well what it meant, but he only resented it, never mastered it. He liked to tell me we were found together, on the Old River Levee when we were little, both abandoned. I was three or less, he was around five or six. The legend was, we were in a long metal drawer, rusty—some said it floated there all by itself, from a ship wreck, or a boat that sank? Others said we were just stuck up on the bank by some ambitious wannabes trying to break the Procreation Laws and get to Memphis. So it would look like we came in from the Old River. They just weren’t decent enough to leave us at the Foundling House Gate, which is what others did all the time with babies they couldn’t care for. In other words, we were ordinary toss-outs, like most in the Home.
Not survivors of some fancy shipwreck. Ariel insisted we were brothers, said he remembered we were together in some other place. That once, good people took care of us. I didn’t believe. If they were good, then why did they throw us away? Not that I would have liked the life of the desperate independents, grisly Outliars, if that was who our “parents” were—those who scrounged for their slimy victuals, with their mangy dogs, their ramshackle hovels on stilts along the canals outside Audubon Island and the others. If Ariel and I had been born into an enclave, I wouldn’t have liked that much better. They had easier lives, but they were “bound to the wheel.” In the end, they were unlucky.
Obeying Lazarus, I climbed up to our place in the attic toward my mate. On my way in, I saw rats in a nest in the eave, little babies in a row along the side of the mother, a heap still as a carcass, their tiny tongues curled, and making troughs, to pull upon her teats. A few days before, she was running around everywhere, chubby as a little pig. We’d asked Vee the cook to get rid of her, but he said he couldn’t, she was pregnant. I had only a vague idea of the meaning of the word. He said people were all supposed to have mothers somewhere, swore upon it. I thought it was a wonderful idea, but the sight of her here, her young feeding on her body, was truly strange. Her babies eager and pink, and so intent, and tiny, the size of my little finger.
I found Ariel stretched out on his mat, face down in a pillow.
I was about to speak to him, when I heard that voice. “Ariel my dear!”
O had a thick, uneven sound, broader than Lazarus’s, an amplified whisper. I leaned out and took a look. Four stories down, at the edge of the central gate, the Heir calling for his pet. His physique was exaggerated, like a muscleman, the way a lot of them looked that season. Jeremy had only just explained to me that Heirs got a Re-job every two years, that was part of the Trust contract—a fresh new outer layer, a restructured prodermis, a new look if they ordered it. O’s expensive peek-a-boo suit, antique gold, with its thick lapels, had lots of swoosh and drape, so we could see his “work.”
“Ariel, Ariel, come back to me.”
