by Ada Hoffmann
She stepped through, not into the thoroughly looted wasteland of shelves that actually lay within, but into an airlock. A clean steel space, rectangular and bare, like a closet. The door swung shut behind her. She exhaled carefully: this place carried the same underlying Outside eeriness as the Chaos Zone, a prickle below her skin that had become as familiar as sore feet, but the feeling here wasn’t as strong as on Jai.
The people that the Seven worked with knew they got around this way, but it was best to be careful. It was best to make sure that the angels, in particular, couldn’t see them doing it.
Dr Evianna Talirr had built this airlock. One of her many accomplishments was the construction of portals allowing instantaneous travel across space. Most of Dr Talirr’s portals resembled the ones that the Gods built, although the underlying mechanisms were stranger. But this airlock was her masterwork, a meta-portal. One end of it connected to Dr Talirr’s abandoned lair. The other would synchronize with any mundane door in any place the user visualized – or as close to what they intended as it could – and it would stay there, opening only to them and the people they willingly brought with them, until they returned.
The airlock was how Tiv and her team traveled so quickly between dozens of cities, across a wide and dangerous fifth of a planet with its infrastructure in tatters. The airlock, much more than any magic, was Tiv’s power.
The inner door opened, and Tiv walked through into the lair. No longer Dr Talirr’s lair, but theirs now. It was a cavernous, windowless space, and it had once been full of Dr Talirr’s half-finished projects, machinery and equipment strewn every which way. It really was every which way, even the walls and ceiling; gravity worked oddly here.
In six months of living here, Tiv and her team had remodeled a bit. They’d replaced the harsh, bluish lights that once washed out the room with warm, full-spectrum, dimmable ones. The tangles of incomprehensible wiring had been carefully packed away. A few devices, the ones that actually worked, sat cleaned and polished in their own nooks: an ansible, an old-fashioned non-sentient supercomputer, and the power generation and life-support machines that hummed under the floor. Plus one odd broken thing at the very far end of the room, a twisted metal something on a dais. Yasira called that device a prayer machine, designed to facilitate communication with Outside, and she had broken it herself, early on, before Tiv could work up the courage to use it.
In the remaining open spaces, Tiv and her team had made a home. A few private rooms, cubicle-like and clumsily decorated, dotted the lair at odd angles. But most of the team, traumatized from long isolation, had elected to sleep in the open instead. A central area, not far from the airlock, held their nest of ragged blankets and beanbags, hammocks and futons and cushions, a riot of softness and color and mess. Beyond it stood the working area where they organized. The team had started calling that area the “war room”, even though they were opposed to war – it was half a joke, and half maybe some suppressed frustration on their part. Tiv strode towards it, ready to record her activities for the day.
Five of the team were still out making their rounds. Daeis Jalonevar – a pale, squat, quiet Anetaian who went by the code name of “Keeper” – had been indisposed today. They sat more or less where Tiv had left them this morning, holding silent court in a pile of blankets with an armful of the squirrel-sized, bug-like Outside creatures who infested the space. Daeis had difficulty talking much, but they had a special affinity for Outside monsters, and could communicate with them mentally on levels unparalleled by anyone but Yasira herself. In turn, the smaller and more common of the monsters had become Daeis’s friends, and Tiv knew that they were now attempting to comfort them.
Splió spi Munu – code name “Watcher” – had made partial rounds but had returned early to care for Daeis, and he sat there now with a lethargic hand on their shoulder. Splió was a Gioti man with tousled hair and a cynical grin, who was usually seen around Daeis when not out working or sulking by himself. He looked up as Tiv walked into the space, and hauled himself up on his feet to greet her.
“Hey,” she said with an attempt at a smile. Tiv usually had more energy than most, but she was tired today.
“Hey, Leader. That bad, huh?”
“The usual. Everyone’s trying the best they can.”
That was a platitude Tiv had begun using often. No one needed the hanging buts spelled out: everyone in the Chaos Zone was trying their best, but conditions were awful. The Gods’ relief efforts weren’t keeping up with their needs, but any attempt to meet those needs in another way was punished severely. Everyone on Tiv’s team was trying their best, but they were only nine people, eight of whom were mentally ill enough that it affected the kind of resistance they could run. Even their heretical abilities were no match for what was out there.
It had been even worse when the Plague was new. In those first few terrifying weeks, it had just been Yasira and Tiv, alone against the world, and Yasira had been so ill that it sometimes felt like Tiv was on her own. The other seven, shambling into the lair one by one during the latter half of the Plague’s first month, had been a surprise. They were former students of Dr Talirr’s, like Yasira; they’d been captured by angels, just like Yasira, and they’d languished in captivity until Yasira’s magic set them free. Yasira had meant for them to go home to their families, but all of them, through some mysterious Outside homing sense, had instead found their way to her doorstep. All of them had offered their loyalty and their help.
Tiv could use all the help she could get, honestly.
“They asked you for weapons again,” said Splió. “You’ve got that look.”
Tiv abruptly started walking again, towards the war room, and Splió followed. Daeis seemed content for Splió to leave; they quickly turned their attention back to their Outside pets with a small smile. “We don’t do weapons. We are a non-violent resistance movement. We agreed.”
“Yeah, I know.” Though some had agreed more than others. Splió had been on the fence. Tiv had been the one who put her foot down, who’d refused to consider any other option. She might be a heretic now, but she wasn’t that far gone.
The war room was neither a room nor a place for planning war. There would not be a war if Tiv could help it.
What the war room did have, once Tiv passed the living nest and crossed the makeshift barrier dividing the two areas, was a large table and a set of even larger whiteboards and easels on which the team’s plans could be coordinated. Schedules, maps, lists of needed supplies. Incident lists. Tiv took a black whiteboard marker and methodically checked off her six cities. Then she moved to the incident list and hesitated, reluctant to write down what Qun had told her.
She lowered the marker and sighed, looking at the floor. Splió was still watching.
“The angels are shooting children,” she said without looking up. “At the border.”
“Eh, well, it’s not like arming the children’s gonna help.”
Splió’s primary mental health symptom, during his captivity, had been depression. He’d perked up a bit once he was free, but he still carried a lethargic cynicism which sometimes annoyed Tiv. Other times – like now – she found it strangely comforting. She gave him a warning look; she didn’t want him getting too morbid. “They wanted arms for the adults, not the children, obviously. It’s still…” She sighed shortly. “Fighting any way they understand isn’t going to help them, and they know it.”
Splió raised an eyebrow. “Then why’d they ask?”
Tiv looked back down at the table, squaring her shoulders. “Mr Qun asked me to ask Yasira.”
Splió gave a long whistle out through his teeth. “Good luck with that.”
People were always asking after Yasira, clamoring for another miracle. Tiv usually rebuffed them. Yasira had so little ability to deal with the world right now. There was no sense bothering her with wasteful or greedy or impossible requests. She’d say no to those, if Tiv gave her the choice, and then stew in guilt about it for weeks. It wa
s rare for Tiv to actually pass a message along – much less a violent one.
She didn’t know why she’d said yes this time. She was stewing in guilt, too, maybe.
Splió shifted, leaning against a small partition strewn with tacked-up maps and notes. “Well, let all of us know how it goes, Leader.”
Tiv wasn’t sure if what she saw in Splió’s expression was resentment or frustrated hope. Some of the students were raring for a fight.
“I’ll let you know,” she said.
He detached himself from the wall and wandered back to check on Daeis. Tiv raised the marker, refocusing on the incident list, and jotted down a quick recounting of what Qun had told her. The list was already long, a thick easel pad with most of its pages used up and flipped over. Someday soon, she and Grid and Picket would have to go back through it and find a better way to organize the information.
She capped the marker and set it down, then tidied up a bit to steady her nerves. Realigned stacks of paper, wiped away jots on the whiteboards that were no longer needed.
Then she took a breath and walked up the lair’s wall, halfway around its radius, to a private chamber that hung upside down relative to the war room, enclosed and dark. The door was barely decorated in spite of Tiv’s best efforts, just a blank wooden slab with a knob. She knocked, and when there was no answer, she quietly eased it open and slipped into the small room where Dr Yasira Shien, the visionary heretic and miracle-worker called “Savior” by most of Jai’s Chaos Zone, lay in her rumpled bed, unmoving.
“Hey,” said Tiv in the darkness, and Yasira stirred. She didn’t look up, but she moved a hand spasmodically to push against the bedspread, as if she was thinking about it.
This was one of the bad days, then.
Tiv probably wasn’t going to ask about weapons today.
Yasira was a Riayin woman Tiv’s age, with the same fine dark hair and petite features as Qun and most of the other survivors. She’d never been large, but she was thinner now than when Tiv had first known her, the result of months lying around with an angry mental illness and no appetite. She was pretty in an unstudied, uncared-for way. Her narrow face wasn’t visible in her present position, pressed against the pillows as she lay flopped on her belly, with her long hair spreading everywhere in a careless tangle.
Tiv walked forward and knelt beside the bed, leaning her head against the bedspread. She ached to touch Yasira, pull her in close and cuddle her, like they’d used to before any of this Outside stuff started. But touching Yasira, especially without a warning, wasn’t always helpful anymore. Tiv mostly did things like this instead, making herself unthreateningly present and soft.
“Eat anything good while I was out?” she asked.
“Mmph,” said Yasira, which meant no.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so. Drink anything?”
Yasira made a more equivocal noise at that one. She’d probably had a few sips of water at some point, then gotten annoyed with having a body and stopped.
“All right,” said Tiv, “I’m getting you a glass of water and a pile of toast, ‘cause you’re going to feel better after you eat. You want anything special? Jam? I think we’ve still got some chocolate butter left, unless Weaver ate it.”
“Not hungry,” Yasira mumbled into the bedspread.
“Yeah, that’s what you always say, and then you feel better after you eat. Genius brains need food. What else is going to fuel all those gears turning?”
“’m not a genius anymore.”
“Nuh-uh. None of that. You know exactly what’s wrong with you, and it’s not a lack of brains. Stay here, okay? I’m gonna be right back.”
She heard a resigned groan behind her as she slipped back out of the room. Pouring water and making toast was the work of only a minute; it required shimmying up a rickety ladder to the odd upside-down space that served for a kitchen in the lair, with a Bunsen burner for a stove and entirely too little fridge space for nine people. They were always filling up that fridge and the pantry next to it, then running out in a day or two and having to make yet more errands from the airlock for groceries, most of which were stolen like the rest of their supplies. Or paid for with stolen credit chits, which was ethically the same.
When she made it back into the bedroom, Yasira hadn’t stirred any further.
“Hey, I got the food,” Tiv announced. “You want to eat?”
“No,” Yasira mumbled, face down.
“Well, too bad, ’cause you can’t get out of it that easily. I’m just gonna sit here and watch you until you eat the toast. You know how this works.”
Yasira did, and so did Tiv. It was another twenty minutes of coaxing before she had Yasira sitting up in bed, her hair falling over her face, tentatively reaching for the plate of food. The first bite was like pushing a pair of repelling magnets together, but after that Yasira calmed somewhat, as usual. She gradually started to chew and swallow in more of a rhythm.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured between bites. “I shouldn’t be so difficult. I mean– I’m glad you’re here.” She looked up and her gaze briefly flicked against Tiv’s. Yasira had always been autistic, and her capacity for eye contact was limited; she’d never stared into people’s faces soulfully the way some did. But she’d liked looking at Tiv, back before the Plague, in the ways that were easy for her. The briefness of the glance was comforting, familiar.
What wasn’t as comforting was the way Yasira stiffened, a second afterwards, and seemed to change her mind again. That had been happening too much lately, a seeming disorganization of thought. Yasira’s speech definitely hadn’t skipped around this way, before the Plague. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. I mean–” She set the plate down with a clunk, half-emptied. “You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be fucking weighed down with me, Tiv, you need–”
She cut off again, and Tiv tapped the plate, handing it back to her to finish. “Don’t cuss. And don’t pretend I don’t want you here with me, okay? We’ve talked about this.”
They had talked about it endlessly, in circles, every day. There were only so many ways Tiv could tell Yasira that she still loved her. She’d spent fourteen months, before the Plague, thinking Yasira was dead. Being together and alive was miles better, no contest at all. What the Gods did to Yasira had broken Tiv’s faith, but Tiv still believed in something.
Yasira picked up the last piece of toast and reluctantly started chewing again.
Tiv knew that Yasira needed therapy from a professional. But there wasn’t exactly a place to get that when you were a heretic on the run. Tiv had done what research she could, had resolved to do her best, but she knew it was only going to feel like treading water sometimes.
But she wasn’t here out of pity, as Yasira sometimes sulkily implied, or out of some misplaced nostalgia for what they’d had. Tiv had hero-worshipped Yasira ever since they met. During the Plague, Yasira had saved a whole fifth of a planet. She’d known – she must have known – that what she did for the people of the Chaos Zone would break her. And she’d done it anyway.
People in the Chaos Zone clung to Yasira’s story like a scrap of hope. And when Tiv looked at the woman she loved, she felt a little of that, also. She, too, felt not pity but awe.
Here is the official story of the Chaos Zone, the one that the Gods tell and the angels repeat:
Once upon a time there was a heretic.
Her name was Dr Evianna Talirr. She hated the Gods and loved chaos. So she made contact with Outside, a realm of unknowable chaos and madness. She summoned a part of Outside into the planet Jai and created an area contaminated with Outside’s very essence. One-fifth of the planet’s surface. More than half of the prosperous country of Riayin, and a tenth of its sister nation, Stijon.
Within this Chaos Zone, all the laws of reality were suspended. Physical matter could not be counted on to retain its shape. Horrific monsters stalked the streets. Millions died. Millions more were stressed to the point of madness. Some lost their identities altogethe
r and took to roaming like the monsters, becoming what we now call the gone people. And many tens of millions were tempted into heresy, attempting to manipulate the Outside effects of the Chaos Zone themselves.
Through the immense hard work and sacrifice of many angels, we have contained the Chaos Zone. We have quarantined it, stopped its growth, and achieved a reduction in the lethality of its effects. We continue to provide aid to those affected and to work towards further improvement.
The Chaos Zone’s existence is the worst affront to humanity since the Morlock War. When we have caught Dr Talirr, she will suffer retribution proportionate to her crimes. In the meantime, we beg the citizens of Jai to remain calm and to hold on to hope. Do not give in to heresy. Dr Talirr wants you to reject the Gods. Do not give her the satisfaction. Do not share in her punishment.
CHAPTER 2
Five Months Ago
Elu Ariehmu, no longer of Nemesis, looked down at Akavi Averis nervously as the other angel stirred on the operating table, beginning to open his eyes.
Akavi was in his true form, that of a Vaurian shapeshifter, delicate and androgynous, with translucent, vaguely metallic-looking skin. His hair was a soft gray-white that had nothing to do with age. His eyes, when they fluttered half-consciously open, were pale, and the lashes around them paler. He had a white blanket draped over him for modesty, and bandages around his forehead where the medical bots had reached in to modify the neural circuitry that made him more than human. He was very beautiful, and even though he was not quite awake, he already looked faintly annoyed.
“How are you feeling, sir?” Elu asked. The bots had indicated that everything went according to plan, but they weren’t sentient, and this wasn’t a surgery in the official angelic repertoire. The principle was simple enough, but if Elu had misprogrammed something or forgotten a crucial detail, he might not know until the telltale symptoms of a mistake appeared.
Akavi made a small nngh sound. The microexpression software in Elu’s visual cortex dutifully logged his emotions: exhausted, in pain, dismayed by his own vulnerability. A second later Akavi collected himself, squared his jaw, and said, “I have no complaints.” His syllables came out slow, slurred with the aftereffects of anesthesia.
