The Fallen

by Ada Hoffmann

  “Me,” said Luellae, her arms crossed over her chest as she hunched in one of the folding chairs. Luellae was the most standoffish of all the Seven. Her power was moving from place to place, in slantwise ways that filled the gaps in what the airlock itself could accomplish. She didn’t fidget like Weaver did, but it seemed to Tiv that Luellae was always preparing to move like that. To flee or slink away from the rest of the Seven if she needed to. “But you knew that; I’ve told you before. And mine do ask for Savior.”

  Prophet raised a hand, hesitant, still staring off into space. “Mine don’t. Not magic, very often. Never Yasira.”

  “That’s because you’re a meek little waif,” Luellae countered. “And your powers are no good in a fight. They don’t look at you and see someone who can protect them. No offense.”

  Grid shifted, moving ever so slightly in front of Prophet; Picket and Weaver, as usual, followed. Prophet gave them all a strange look, as if she wasn’t quite sure what she needed to be defended from. “Offense taken, Blur,” said Grid. “There’s more than one way to protect something.”

  “I said what I said.”

  Tiv redirected them back to the actual question again, and they went around the table like that, trying to count up numbers of people on each teammate’s daily rounds who did and didn’t want violence. Grid went back to taking notes, trying to tally up vague figures from seven perspectives into something that made sense.

  While watching the other six, Tiv remembered to keep half an eye on Daeis. Given their trouble with talking, Daeis’s opinion could get lost in rowdy meetings like these. If they had something very urgent to say, they could gesture for attention, or grab at a piece of paper and scrawl a word or two – but none of those methods would work unless people like Tiv were paying enough attention to notice them.

  Daeis seemed content to let the others handle this for now, though. When Tiv called on them, they made a gesture and whispered to Splió, who translated it as, “Not many asking for weapons on their end.” But apart from that they only sat back and observed, with one hand petting a small, sea-slug-like being in their lap.

  “You know there will be battles regardless, don’t you?” Prophet murmured.

  There were noises of agreement and noises of doubt. Prophet’s predictions were always worth listening to, but most of them were ambiguous, and it usually wasn’t clear exactly what to do about them. It could be that the Seven would be inevitably drawn into violent conflict despite their best efforts. Or battles could happen that had nothing to do with them at all. Prophet had made this prediction before, but she’d never figured out how big the future battles were, widespread or localized, key to the Chaos Zone’s freedom or costly distraction.

  Eventually, after trying and failing to make the figures line up one too many times, Grid dropped their pencil and pushed away from the table.

  “This isn’t working,” they announced. “We’re better than this. I don’t mean better at plotting violence. I mean we’ve all got advanced degrees in science but we’re talking about a convenient sample of people who were brave enough to broach a topic like it means something. Are we saying the people in the Chaos Zone should vote on it? Because if we are, then we need to figure out how to hold a vote. And if we’re not then comparing the numbers is pointless.” They looked around the table, meeting eyes with Tiv and with each of the rest of the Seven in turn. “Do we want to fight the Gods?”

  Tiv bit her tongue. She knew her answer was “no.” But sometimes being Leader meant speaking last, so she didn’t intimidate everyone else into compliance.

  Luellae tossed her head. “Of course we do. We’re already fighting the Gods. You heard what Prophet said. We’re just doing it piecemeal with little heretical deliveries instead of going on the offensive.”

  “Yeah, but is piecemeal better?” Weaver countered. “That’s the question.”

  Picket leaned forward. “Better question. Wars have strategic and tactical objectives. What’s our objective? Or, if all we do is arm the people who want to fight, what’s theirs?”

  There were murmurs around the table at that – uncertain, speculative murmurs, vague words like defense. Grid snatched another piece of paper in reflex, as if they could start writing all the possible reasons down.

  “If we don’t know,” Tiv said, pitching her voice to carry over the other murmurs, “then why don’t we ask them? Next time they ask, we start asking them questions right back. Let’s make them build the case.”

  There were several nods.

  “Sounds like passing the buck,” said Splió, “but I’m in.”

  “They’ll already have a case,” Luellae countered, a dark expression in her eyes. “They’re not stupid. And when they see us asking, they’ll know that means they have a chance. There’s no going back once we start asking that.”

  “But we’ll be getting better asks,” Picket countered. “With more info.”

  Tiv chewed her lip. Luellae had a point. But people like Yonne Qun were going to keep asking and asking anyway. Tiv didn’t like it, and she didn’t want to arm them, but she needed to start listening more to their reasons. Their needs. Maybe Tiv’s team could meet those needs another way.

  “Then we’ll deal with that when it happens,” she said firmly. “All in favor?”

  It was unanimous except for Daeis, who often abstained anyway. They moved on to the next orders of business: scheduling concerns, sorting out who was bringing which items where. Tiv focused on sketching out a proper plan for the week, and she tried not to imagine what would happen the next time Yonne Qun asked her for something.

  Three Months Ago

  “I’m not sure if these are any good,” said Akavi, meekly upending a sack of potentially edible fungi onto Yonne Qun’s coffee table for inspection, “but I feel like I’m getting the hang of it. Practice makes perfect, right? I’m sorry it’s not more.”

  Akavi was, of course, in disguise. This was one of half a dozen stable cover identities she’d established in recent months, a woman in her early twenties with a supposed gift for food production, matching that of Qun’s daughter, Genne. She’d been charmingly inept following Genne through the fields and trying to copy her techniques, and then before her next visit she’d brought a few of Genne’s own creations back to Elu on the Talon, instructing him to analyze them on a molecular level and to print something similar with minor cosmetic changes.

  She and Elu had fallen into a useful rhythm. Akavi did the fieldwork and Elu was logistical support, creating clothes and items and whatever else she required. Aside from the fact that they’d started to kiss each other now and then, it was just like working together on any normal mission. Elu was used to Akavi’s long absences for fieldwork, and to focusing on his own work without her, and after a bit of awkwardness the two of them had simply fallen back into that rhythm for now. He’d done a good job with the fungi; they looked very real.

  “These are amazing,” said Genne, bending her broad-cheeked head down to inspect them. They were nodules, mostly, blue and violet with a spongy mushroom-like texture, mottled with jaguar spots. “Where’d you get so many?”

  Akavi focused on the blood vessels in her face until a slight blush appeared, and she covered her mouth, looking abashed by the praise. “I guess it works better when I’m alone. Want to try?”

  Pathetic, the way both of them nodded, their microexpressions displaying easy acceptance and trust. Once one of the Chaos Zone’s loosely organized miniature societies accepted you, you were accepted: trusted without question, no matter how erratic your behavior, so long as you contributed something, didn’t steal, and weren’t violent. Helped without question, if help was possible to give. Some individual groups had stricter rules, and of course there were a few bandit gangs that had chosen to roam and raid. But, by a large margin, most survivors had avoided that life, instead choosing mutual trust and aid. Most people knew it was the only way they’d truly survive.

  It made Akavi’s job astonishingly eas
y – and, no doubt, the jobs of other Vaurian angels who’d been assigned to this mess. It was a wonder such angels hadn’t rounded everyone up already. Akavi suspected that it was an issue of scale. Unquestionably there were other Vaurians around, on similar trajectories to her own. But given that there were literally millions of heretics on this planet, those spies were better spent on monitoring and influencing their chosen groups than on capture.

  She picked up one of the mushrooms and took a bite. Yonne Qun’s collective believed in that rule, at least: those who grew the food were responsible for sharing in any unwanted effects. The mushroom wasn’t bad. On the squishy side, but hearty and sweet; dried, it would likely improve. Yonne and Genne followed suit, and Akavi watched their smiles of pleased surprise. She made a mental note to mention this to Elu.

  “Look,” said Genne, “if it works better when you’re alone, go ahead and be alone as much as you want. These are great. Do you think you can make more?”

  “As much as you want,” said Akavi. That, too, was how people in the Chaos Zone did things now. Money was only for certain situations, such as trade between communities. For everyday necessities, one gave as much as one could and took as much as was offered. “As long as some monster doesn’t get me, I guess.” She scowled; that kind of bleak humor was how people here did things, as well. “Or an angel.”

  Genne leaned forward. “Do you think the angels will really crack down? On people like us?”

  “I’m positive,” said Akavi, who knew no such thing. “I hear whispers about it all the time. Where else do you hit a group like us but by going after the food? Where it hurts.”

  “I just can’t believe they’d be that cruel.”

  Spreading rumors like these wasn’t the most important part of Akavi’s plan, but she knew it would be the modus operandi for other Vaurian agents like her. The Chaos Zone was already in disarray. Its citizens could be dissuaded from the useful kind of organizing by keeping them paranoid, dividing cells from each other and pushing them to reckless acts – for which they could be further punished or, in the best case, destroyed.

  Of course, Akavi couldn’t spread enough rumors to turn the tide of Jai’s nascent rebellion by herself. Her true plan was far beyond anything the Quns would have access to. She needed revenge against Yasira, but Yasira wasn’t easy to access. She didn’t make the rounds talking to survivors in person the way Tiv Hunt and the Seven did; she seemed to have gone into hiding completely. And the Seven seemed to have some ability that detected and rooted out Vaurian angels when they got too close.

  So Akavi wasn’t trying to get into the lair. Not directly. Instead, she had suborned one of the Seven in another way. She spent her time, when that contact wasn’t available, practicing her skills in places like this. Doing as the rest of the Vaurians did. That would be useful for many reasons; in particular, it would keep Akavi informed about the development of a very complicated, volatile situation. But Akavi’s true plan was to apply those skills to the Seven themselves. The Seven were the key to how all of Jai’s multitude of rebellions coordinated across distances. If they could be turned against each other – full of distrust, competing for power – it would all fall apart very neatly.

  And then, without the little support network that she’d so blithely assembled, Yasira would be forced to come out and meet Akavi herself.

  She’d have her revenge. It would only take time.

  “I hope you’re right,” said Akavi, hugging herself pensively. Genne was an optimist, a girl young enough to believe that if her heart was in the right place, then the Gods might turn a blind eye to her heresies forever. Her father knew better. It was Yonne – at whom Akavi was careful not to glance directly – who would absorb this message, frightened for his daughter as only a father could be.

  These people meant nothing to Akavi. The revenge that she craved was for sins vastly larger than the Quns’ petty heresies. But it was still satisfying, until such time as she could see her contact among the Seven again, to manipulate them in such little, plausible increments to their own destruction.

  Now

  On her first assignment of the day, Tiv found herself creeping through a disused train tunnel near the heart of the city of Dasz, alongside a man named Sedajegy Utridzysy Akiujal, one of the few community leaders whose trust she’d earned from the Stijonan part of the Chaos Zone. Akiujal was a gray-haired man with stooped shoulders and a stern, intense demeanor who occasionally broke into an unexpected wry giggle. He’d mentioned weapons – on the day’s very first stop; Tiv was really not having any luck at this – and she’d asked, nervously, the question her team had decided on. “What do you want them for?”

  Akiujal had scowled across his living room table at her. “Defense, of course. Weren’t you listening?”

  Tiv had leaned in. Her Stijonan was terrible and he didn’t know any Arinnan or Riayin, so they’d been speaking Earth Creole, both with atrocious accents and frequent misunderstandings. “No, I mean, what are your objectives? I’m going to be honest with you, Mr Akiujal, people have been asking us for weapons more and more and we’re starting to want to know why. I know that you fear for your safety, but that’s not enough reason by itself. What are you planning to defend – a location? A group of people? A team while they do a specific task? My team does not fight and my team does not give out weapons. But maybe there is some other way we can help you, and we won’t know that unless we know your objectives.”

  Akiujal’s scowl had deepened, and then he had abruptly straightened, gesturing to her. “Come with me.”

  “It’s dangerous–”

  “No. Come. I will show you something.”

  Which was how they had ended up in the train tunnel, peering through a mouse-sized crack in the wall at one of the angelic relief stations in the center of Dasz.

  It was dangerous for Tiv to be anywhere near here. She and Yasira and the Seven were the nine most wanted people on all of Jai. She could hide her face to a degree – as she’d done now, in fact, with one of the thick scarves that were becoming the fashion around here. But if any angel caught a glimpse of her directly, their facial recognition programs would blare an alert, and she would immediately be chased with all the forces at that angel’s disposal. She’d had a few narrow escapes like that already. This far from Akiujal’s house, discovery was a probable death sentence: Dr Talirr’s airlock only worked if she could get back to the door she’d arrived by.

  Tiv peered through the crack at the long line of civilians standing out in the hot sun, queued blocks deep for the rations that the angels were handing out. Simple bottles of water, tiny protein bars, thin blankets. Tiv had seen this before. She had been an angel’s prisoner, though not for long, and she knew angels could print feasts’ worth of any food supply they liked. Any clothing, any medicine, any anything, within reason. If their offerings were meager now, that was a deliberate choice. A thing they were doing to put the Chaos Zone’s population in its place. Or maybe, knowing Nemesis, for a darker goal. To keep the people desperate. To provoke them into actions they wouldn’t otherwise have taken – robbery, heresy, violence – and prove to the galaxy that they weren’t worthy of help after all.

  She’d thought about this a lot already. It was one of the reasons why she didn’t want to give out weapons.

  “You see,” Akiujal insisted beside her. “How it is never enough.”

  “They know it’s not enough,” Tiv murmured back. “They want to see what you’ll do when you don’t have enough. They want to provoke you. And you know why the Gods would want that, don’t you? They want to crack down harder, and They’re looking for an excuse.”

  Akiujal chuckled darkly. “What, then, is the virtuous thing to do when we don’t have enough? Give up? Starve? Sustain ourselves through heresy, which will be punished just as viciously as violence? Or we could try to collaborate with the gone people; they’ve been gathering more often recently. They’re up to something, I’m sure. But that wouldn’t be your style either,
would it, Leader? The gone people might fight. They might use blood, or something else you disapprove of, and we can’t have that.”

  Tiv bit into her cheek, refusing to be baited.

  “Watch,” said Akiujal. “I know you have somewhere safe to go at night. Watch more closely those of us who don’t.”

  Tiv stared out through the crack. She watched the expressions of the people in that long, long queue. Some haunted and nakedly desperate; some tired and bored; some greedy; some resentful. A middle-aged woman reached the front of the line. An angel of Arete, expressionless, handed her the same small rations bundle as everyone else, and the woman suddenly exploded into a rage. Tiv couldn’t catch most of the words in the verbal torrent, not at this distance and in Stijonan, but she thought she heard the words five children.

  A pair of angel bodyguards, one in bronze-and-white livery and one in Nemesis’ black-and-blood-red, stepped forward. As expressionless as the one doling out the supplies, they took the woman by the arms and hauled her, struggling, away.

  “There was an organized protest here not long ago,” said Akiujal in Tiv’s ear. “You can guess what happened.”

  “An illegal protest,” Tiv clarified, which earned a snort. Peaceful protest against a mortal government was legal throughout human space, as long as everyone had the appropriate permits and followed the rules. Arete’s priests even encouraged it. But protest against the Gods was, by definition, heresy. The Chaos Zone no longer had any government; just these groups of angels, doing less than the barest minimum.

  “As illegal as everything else we do to keep ourselves alive. The Gods mowed them down, of course. Not only did They shoot the protesters, but as further punishment, They have reduced rations to the city’s full population. That is why this relief station is so pitiful, even compared to what it was before.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Tiv, gritting her teeth.

  If she didn’t want violence or heresy to solve this, then what did she want? People had been asking her this more frequently, and she didn’t have an answer.