Finch

by Jeff VanderMeer

  They stood facing each other. Like friends, or enemies.

  “What do you want to know?” she asked. “And why?”

  “Whatever you can tell me,” Finch said. Something that makes you more real.

  She looked out over the shimmering water. “You don't really want to know. There's nothing I can tell you that will help you more than what's already in your head.”

  “What's wrong?” he asked. “What's really wrong?”

  She didn't blink or turn away. But she didn't answer, either. Just took his hand.

  “Do you still want to follow me?”

  She led him past an abandoned factory lit up like a burning ship. As if displaced from the Spit. Windows slick with the spray of rain. Came closer, saw that a neon-red fungus had colonized it. Heard Partials hooting and mocking someone a couple streets over. Even saw a couple of quickly disappearing shadows that might've been gray caps. Part of the risky thrill of finding a bootleg party. Like they were doing something dangerous. Kept his hand on his gun the whole time.

  Finally found the guts of a building whose roof had been blown off. Every inch of its exterior glittered with graffiti. Finch had completely lost his bearings. Was trusting Sintra.

  The weight and sound of the rain lifted off of them. They were sopping, but didn't care. So was everyone else.

  “It was a theater,” she whispered, moving up against him. “I saw a play here once about Voss Bender's life. I saw it with my father when I was fourteen. Afterward, we got ice cream from a sidewalk vendor. Then we took a long walk down to the park. There were so many people around. The night was beautiful. It was one of the first times I'd dressed up for anything. My mother was sick, so she didn't come along. But I spent all night telling her about it.”

  “Stop,” Finch said.

  “A year later, the war broke out again and the park was gone. The people couldn't come out onto the streets. It was too dangerous. My mother had gotten better, but my father had lost his arm to a fungal bullet. He couldn't work for a long time he was so depressed. He'd been a journalist. I knew about my native heritage, but it wasn't until then that I learned more, because my father returned to his roots. It was a way of making himself whole again, I think.”

  “Stop,” he said again. Each detail making her more distant.

  “What about you, John?” she asked. “What do you want to tell me? Is there anything you want to tell me?” Tone between bitterness and sympathy. Maybe even affection.

  “No.”

  “Does it make it better or worse if I tell you these things?”

  Daring him to look at her. But he wouldn't.

  “Worse,” he admitted. Defeated.

  “Because you can't tell me anything back,” she said. “Because you don't trust me. Shouldn't trust anyone.”

  Because then you're not who I need you to be.

  Hugged him then. Whispered in his ear, “Do you understand now? We're alone, John, even when we're together.” Kissed his cheek.

  Didn't want it, but took it.

  “Let's just find the party.” Needed a drink. Bad.

  Down a stairwell. Through a hallway picked clean of detail. The deeper they went, the more light. From gas lamps. From naked bulbs. From flurries of candles unwinding along their path.

  People began to appear out of the half-light. Couples kissing. Sidewalk barbers, driven inside. A man leaning against the wall, offering cigars. More vendors. Wine. Drugs. Food. Candy. Pots and pans. Watches. Fabric. The smell of something spicy.

  Finch bought a bottle of wine with three packets of gray cap food. The man popped the cork for them. Finch handed the bottle to Sintra. She took a manly swig, laughed, pulled him close as if in apology. Kissed him, her tongue in his mouth. Connected to every nerve in his body. She pulled away to hand him the bottle, whispered, “Isn't that better than words, John?” He drank long and deep. Sweet, full-bodied. Exploding against his taste buds. Coursing into his body. Followed by a bitter aftertaste. But he didn't care. He really didn't care.

  Down more stairs. The sounds of the party now muted, now blaring. As if they were getting closer, then further away. They came to a doorway with a black sheet draped across it. A small man with a slurred, gritty voice and dirty black hair took their payment: three food pods and the pocketknife Sintra had brought. Let them through, into light.

  A raised platform, looking down at a huge room that must have been used for storage once. Hundreds of people occupied that space now, the sound of their voices muffled yet deafening. Gray archways surrounded the room. No way to defend the space. From anything. Oil lamps hung from each archway, made a buttery light that created shadow even as it swept away the darkness. A strong smell of sweat.

  A band played in the far left corner. Cello. A drum made from trash can lids. An old accordion. People were exchanging pieces of paper nearby. Probably stories, poetry, artwork. The gray caps didn't care, but the Partials did. Noticed a few silent, large men at the fringes. Probably bouncers hired by the vendors.

  Finch took another swig of wine. The last time he'd seen so many people in such a small space he'd been fourteen and his father had taken him to a reception thrown by the Frankwrithe viceroy three months after an armistice with House Hoegbotton. Stiff and cramped in a suit. His father had introduced him to each dignitary, and afterward, while they were distracted, Finch had snuck into the viceroy's rooms and taken the papers his father needed.

  Recklessly, he crushed Sintra to him, put his arm around her neck, let his hand touch her breast. She turned into him. Shouted in his ear, “Should we go down there?”

  He nodded, and they descended into the chaos. Relaxed into it. Despite seeing the tawdry cheapness of it. Too good at playing a role not to know when another role was being played out in front of his eyes.

  The frantic, almost hysterical dancing of the women. The faces rising toward them mask-like in that half-light. The hesitant rhythm of the band. As if the Partials would break in at any second. How much alcohol everyone was drinking. Quickly, just in case.

  More wine. Another kiss from Sintra. Thought he saw on her face a look close to desperation. Or was it resignation?

  They made their way to the far end. Next to the band. Joined the dancers. A man and woman, both shirtless, careened into them. Disappeared again in a whirl of arms. Another couple up close to each other, slow as the music was fast. The pungent tang of some drug. A smell like incense. The bodies around them became like one body. Only to fall apart, like the limbs in the rebel safe house. Heads. Legs. Arms. Wyte charging out to meet the Partials.

  Finch needed more wine, then. For both of them. Smiles from people around them. A shared secret. Life could be good. If you could only get far enough out of yourself. Abandoning. Forgetting.

  A song ended. As it had ended before, and before that, too. But this time Sintra said, “Follow me.” Led him by the hand into the darkness of a doorway where a lamp had failed. The sudden touch of cold stone. On the other side, a catacomb of rooms. The light from the party already receding. Snuffed out. Men and women had paired off here. Moans, murmurs, a sudden heat.

  They found a section of wall around a corner. Drank the last of the wine. Let the bottle fall, and, broken, roll to the side. She was unbuttoning her white blouse, a wild light in her eyes. He was helping her, suddenly frantic in his need. His mouth was on her breasts. Tongue on her delicate brown nipple. Coming back up to her mouth with his. She gasped. Unbuttoned his pants. His cock throbbing as she took it in her hand. He let out a long sigh. His fingers curled through her hair.

  He pushed her up against the wall. Pulled her pants down. Got his arms under her, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. Slid into her tight wetness. Groaned. Her hand against the back of his head. Her arm around his back. Nails digging into him ecstatically. Thrust hard up into her like an animal, muttering obscenities into her ear. While she encouraged him. His tongue into her mouth. Finding her tongue. Pulling back to look at her sweat-tinged face in the dark. A shadow.
A wraith. Those eyes. She leaned into him, both arms around him, and sucked on his ear in a way that drove him mad. Everything receded to just that point at which he was entering her. Then expanded until he was everywhere at once. Suddenly she came, biting his shoulder and he, snarling, telling her to bite harder. The feel of her teeth on his skin made him cry out, come deep into her. Held there by her long after he was spent. She was spent.

  With reluctance, Finch let her slide back to her feet. Pulled up his pants as she pulled up hers. Buttoned her blouse. Kissed again. Salty and deep. Shocked him.

  They walked until they stood in the archway, staring into the main room. With its loudness. Its light. Its movement.

  “Stay here,” she whispered. “I'll get more wine and be back.”

  “Now?”

  “Now. I need another drink.” She threw her arms around him. Clung to him like a child. Whispered in his ear, “Be careful, John.”

  When she pulled away she looked so vulnerable Finch almost told her everything he thought he knew. She looked like she was receding from him at a great speed. And he was suddenly frightened.

  Then she was gone. Beyond his grasp. Out into the crowd. Lost. And he was standing there. Alone.

  He started after her. Didn't know why. She was just going to get more wine. Not leaving for good. But a familiar face stopped him.

  Bosun. Entering from the raised stage opposite. Five tough-looking men in trench coats stood behind him. Bosun was scanning the crowd. For him?

  Looked again for Sintra but couldn't find her. Decided to step back into the archway. Out of sight.

  A hint of movement behind him. A hand over his mouth. A sharp pain in his arm before he could react. Falling as the lamps shuffled through his vision, became the scrap of paper pulled from Shriek's hand, bursting into flame. Became the candles on a cake from his eleventh birthday. Began to blow out the candles. And with each, another clue snuffed out. Shriek going dark. Stark's transcript extinguished. His father's face, hovering just beyond the candles. Mysterious. Shadowed. Smiling.

  omeone slapped his face.

  “Wake up. Wake up.”

  Finch opened his eyes. Night. Lying on his back. In the grass. Staring up at a field of green stars. He shivered. It looked nothing like the sky over Ambergris.

  A woman's face blocked out the stars. For a second, in the gloom, he thought it was the woman from the rebel safe house. She had a gun. Didn't recognize the make.

  “You ...” he said, still woozy.

  “Don't make me hurt you,” she said, then stepped out of view.

  Hands roughly pulled him up. They shoved his arms behind him. Handcuffs slid into place. Cut into his wrists. Felt almost as bad as he had after following Bliss through the door.

  “Where am l?” Finch asked.

  “Shut up,” the woman said.

  Wyte, saying to him once, “You know what they say about the rebels? A rebel is just a Hoegbotton who made the mistake of marrying a Frankwrithe.”

  They stood on the side of a grassy hill. Below them, a crushed tangle of tanks and other military equipment. Glistening darkly. The wind through the hundred metal husks made a distant, warped, singing sound. Beyond, he could see the black silhouette, jagged and wrong, of a ruined city. In the middle: a dome of dull orange light.

  “Is that Ambergris?” Incredulous.

  “Shut up,” she said.

  Two men appeared to either side of him. They wore dark pants tucked into boots. Camouflage shirts. Ammo belts. Rifles slung over their shoulders. Military helmets.

  “Or are we inside the HFZ somehow?” Finch asked. His gun was missing from its holster. His mouth was dry. His arms already ached.

  “No one is in the HFZ, John Finch,” the woman said.

  “Why am I here?” Tried hard to bite down on a rising fear. I'm here because I work for the gray caps ...

  “Walk,” said one of the men. Shoved him in the back.

  “We're going to the top of the hill,” the woman said, from in front of Finch. “Don't move too fast, or we'll shoot you. Understand?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I understand.” Understood, too, that Sintra had betrayed him. Realized he'd been expecting that ache for a long time.

  Some of the stars in the sky were moving. Slowly moving back and forth. The wind was very cold. The grass whispered around his boots.

  They reached the top of the hill. In the shelter provided by the ruined wall of an ancient fortress, a tent served as a windbreak for two chairs. A table with a pitcher on it. Two glasses. A couple of dim lamps, placed so they couldn't be seen from downhill.

  A figure beside the chairs. In a long, dark robe. Graying hair lifted slightly by the wind.

  The Lady in Blue.

  Unmistakable. Finch just stared at her. Disbelieving. Forgot his captors shoving him from behind. Forgot the danger he was in. He had never seen her before, and now he was seeing her by starlight. On a hill under a strange night sky. Surrounded by some kind of dead city.

  In the Hoegbotton Irregulars, the promise of meeting her had been held out like a guarantee of better times. As they lay in the trenches. As they went from house to house, rooting out insurgents. As they ate hard, stale bread and molding fruit. Made soup from glue, water, and salt. That whole past life overtaking Finch as they marched him up in front of her.

  She was shorter than Finch. Maybe five-six. Late fifties or early sixties. Thin and in good shape. Wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, across her forehead. Accentuated by the lamplight: a near perpetual wry smile, a sad amusement to the eyes. A look that seemed to say she was here, in the moment, but also a dozen other places as well.

  The Lady in Blue said, “You are, supposedly, John Finch. And I am, reportedly, the Lady in Blue. You have questions, although I may not have as many answers as you'd like. Let's sit.” She spoke with the quiet, weathered quality of experience. Mixed with a bluntness that was nothing like her radio broadcasts. It came as a jolt. Thought for a moment that she might not be the Lady after all.

  His captors uncuffed him. Shoved him into a chair opposite the Lady in Blue. Withdrew out of the light.

  Finch rubbed his wrists. Sitting in the chair a kind of weight dropped onto his chest. Didn't know if it was some after-effect of how he'd gotten there. Or the presence of the Lady in Blue.

  “Where are we? Why am I here?” Aware he sounded weak. Because I am weak. Sintra's scent was still on him. Felt trapped.

  “Where are we?” echoed the Lady in Blue. “Maybe it's a place you know. Maybe it's, to pick somewhere random, a place called Alfar. Or one version of Alfar. Does it matter? No. We could be anywhere. That's one thing you'll learn.”

  She leaned forward, poured a clear liquid from the pitcher into a glass. Offered it to him. He took it but didn't drink.

  “Go on. If I wanted you dead, you never would have woken up.”

  “Maybe you're cruel,” Finch said. But he drank. The water was cool on his throat. Drove away the lingering nausea.

  “Do you know why you're here, `Finch'?” she asked, leaning back. An appraising look.

  “Only you know that.” The way she said “Finch” made him feel naked, exposed. His awe was fading. Replaced by a kind of perverse resentment. This woman had helped ruin his father.

  “Bellum omnium contra omnes,” she said, and the little hairs on Finch's neck rose. “Maybe I say those words to you three times and you wake up from this dream you've been living and remember your mission.”

  “I don't believe you,” Finch said. Waking up to the fact that he'd been kidnapped. That he was in a dangerous situation. She'd hinted she knew his real name. She knew he worked for the gray caps. Knew he'd been at the rebel safe house.

  The Lady in Blue laughed. “Of course you don't, because, unfortunately, you're correct. You're not a secret agent for the resistance.”

  “What do the words mean?” Asking questions meant he didn't have to answer any.

  “Maybe it's in a language from another place,
a place the gray caps don't know about. Maybe we're the only ones who can understand it. `War of all against all,' that's what it means. Though we won't be using it again after today. You've made sure of that.”

  “Never lost is the countersign.”

  “Part of the countersign.” She wasn't smiling.

  “We were just doing our jobs,” Finch said. “We were going to ask some questions and leave. We wanted to stay alive.”

  The wind coming from the city below had faded. Finch could hear strange mewls and moans. Then a sound like a million leaves rustling.

  The Lady in Blue folded her arms. “Maybe we should talk about your murder investigation instead. Such as it is.”

  “You're not the first to be interested.”

  Her smile was as humorless as a knife blade. “Then one more won't hurt, will it? Tell me what you know.”

  Remembered the transcript Stark had given him: “There's a weapon in the apartment where we found the dead man. You, the rebels, lost a weapon there.”

  “We lost an agent there, Finch,” the Lady in Blue said flatly.

  Duncan Shriek.

  “What's his name? The man?” Finch asked.

  A look of profound displeasure from the Lady in Blue.

  “Now that is disappointing, Finch. Disappointing in three ways. First because I don't have much time and you're wasting it. Second because I suppose this means you're going to try to survive by giving me scraps. And third because I'm not your unimaginative little gray cap boss.” Unable to keep disgust out of her voice.

  “You left,” Finch said. “You left all of us behind. We've had to live in that city for six years. Survive any way we could.”

  You abandoned us. Curled up inside that outburst all the bottled-up frustration from nearly eight years of playing a role. A role inside of a role.

  The Lady in Blue nodded as if she agreed, but said, “Do you think we've been having a party out here, Finch? Do you think we've been sitting out here waiting for the end times? No. We've been learning things. We've been gathering our forces. Waiting for the right moment. It's been as hard for us as for you. Harder maybe.”