He limped across to his sink and turned the tap. The last of the water dribbled into his cup.
The head-height cupboard doors were all open, revealing empty water bottles and a full stock of tinned goods, courtesy of the city. A stack of disordered packets of dried food had been thrown into the back of another, and he looked at these, and slammed the door, and wondered again if maybe he should just live his life in the dorms like so many of his kin, all drained and sitting and waiting around for their turn to jump from the ledge of life. At least then there’d be canteen food cooked up.
“You’d fucking like that,” he said. No, you’d rather I jumped from sundown; oh what a mess those girls would have to clean up.
This was all Elissa’s fault. He ought to carry her to sundown and throw her from the top. He imagined her crumpled, bloody stain of splattered bones on the polished tile of the hacienda, and wiped sweat from his brow. Smelled the dense odour of his body sweat as he lifted his arm. If it hadn’t been for her, he could be standing beneath one of the city’s showers right now. In an apartment that overlooked this shit-hole, rather than being the one trodden on.
He opened the door and stepped out to escape the thick musk, and to stretch his leg. Keep off it, the nurse had told him. And so he had. But it had seized up and each step sent sparks up his left side as he hobbled on the splinted knee supports. He fell into his deck-chair and looked out to where the canyons would be, but the distance was too far to see them. His hoverbike had failed him and so he felt no remorse that it was sitting idly against the rock, where a thousand years would barely turn it to shades of rust. Retard Joe’s bones would have turned to ash by then.
Damn, he stank. He had to get some water, but he’d never be able to carry enough for a shower. The thought of pulling his trailer piled with brimming water bottles added sweat to his sweat. His leg would not like that. He could requisition a delivery but that meant walking to the well. His leg would not like that, either. If only they had a pool in the southside as they did in the north, casting its chlorine cloud over the rooftops in a five-hundred metre radius.
If only the useless pile of junk hadn’t failed him, he could have ridden across, parked in the bay of the pool, and spent the afternoon letting the water clean and cool him. As it was, he needed to reapply for his final Liberty Trial run, and then wait to be assigned a new hoverbike.
The irony of all this, of course, was Elissa. She’d only visited once. He’d been fixing the awning that doubled as a solar sail, propped up on a gazebo of his creation and stretched across to the front of the shack. Made for nice shade and kept his radio alive. She’d have been here to help him if things had been different.
She’d appeared from the haze, boots clomping, carrying an oversized backpack. “How’s it going?” she’d called. “My name’s Elissa. What’s yours?”
He didn’t need that kind of condescension – had enough of it in the orphanage, or more specifically, from the faces that he met whenever they were allowed to mix with the public. “What do you want?” he’d asked.
“I’m just doing the rounds,” she had smiled lopsidedly. This was what, two or three years ago? “Making sure everyone is okay and if there’s anything I can do for anyone?”
“What’d you do that for?” Standing on a stool with a screwdriver poised to turn, he’d looked down with lines frowning across his face.
“I work at The Crank. I see a lot of brothers–”
He turned back to the awning.
“– and know how down you can get. I know it’s difficult, sometimes, so I just wanted to show you have a friend, if you needed one.”
He met her smile with another smirk. “Well ain’t you a queen. Maybe you should be a ruling matriarch instead of one of the other useless lot.”
Elissa took a step back as Rohen took a step down onto the dusty plains.
“I don’t need your pity, love. You lot, born free and unscarred, you don’t know how lucky you have it.”
“My father was a brother.”
“He was? Then where’s your mark?”
“I’ve never got one.”
“Ahhh,” said Rohen, this time returning the lopsided smile. “I see. You get your kicks like this eh?” He stepped closer. “Is this what you want?” He wiped the hair from his brow to reveal his tattooed name. “What else did your father do? Did he walk a little like this? Dear old daddy. Did he love you? Did he love you reeeeaaal good?”
Elissa reached a hand around to the seat pocket of her jeans.
“What’ya got there? Maybe a little paddle? Want me to spank your bottom?”
She brought out a piece of paper and stepped forward, holding it out. “I haven’t branded myself because I prefer to have a conversation. I don’t want brothers to look at me, and then turn away as though I’m some kind of leper who mustn’t be looked at. It’s not their fault my father was one of them, and that I’m his daughter. They shouldn’t be shamed for it.” She shook the paper in her hand. “Here, take this. There are sessions run in the palace for the brothers who feel ostracised. Like they have no one to talk to. I think it will help you.”
For a second, he’d felt a flicker of something, of gratitude maybe, or humility, but it would take more than a few straight talking words from some upshot girl to rattle him. He’d taken the paper, and ripped it up right in front of her face. “Fuck off,” he said, and off she did fuck.
But she’d rattled him now.
Defor
est
It stank like shit. Of mould circling up fat layers of bark. Of moss thick across tree roots planted deep into ten or twenty metres of squelching earth. The hydroponic slurry in which the trees waded was thick and green and viscous and ponged like the pigs’ bad breath. Despite all this, it had its beauty; it was the colours of dreams, especially in the flowering season when the few flowers opened their sweetening buds, adding more ingredients to the scented stew. And even when it was just all green, there was still beauty; some nature left in the Agridome for the falling sunrays to penetrate and oscillate.
Sun?
Calix stood on the sturdy moss-strewn roots of a chestnut tree, looking skywards at the slanting rays of sunlight.
There was no sun over Sanctum.
There was no sun.
Just cloud.
And then the clouds came and the forest deforested into the farming paddy fields around Sanctum’s eastern side, where rows of runner beans and tomatoes grew forth from the liquid. He had his waders on, and he had Annora’s hand in his, and together they pushed one foot, then another, left and right, left and right, afraid that at any moment the hydroponic slurry water would suck them down and down and down.
“Don’t let go,” Annora laughed, grabbing his arm and pulling, pulling, pulling him into her, until they almost capsized. He pushed back but he was only small. Not enough strength. This had been a mistake. They should never have disobeyed Kirillion, but there was nothing else to do! And they’d wanted to help! (Okay, really, they’d wanted to get across to the other side and sit and play against the edge of the dome’s wall.) They’d wanted to fart to see what was smellier, them or the dome. They’d wanted to pull wings from dragonflies. Flatten frogs against glass (maybe not Annora). They’d wanted to paint each other green with scum. How was it all going so wrong?
“I won’t,” Calix said.
“Should we turn...” panted Annora, straining. “... around?”
“We’re almost there.” Crossing the irrigation channels, they found footing on the rises, then found water lapping at the tops of their waders in the dips.
Up and down.
The funky water sloshed. The funky water slurried into Annora’s waders and she got stuck, just a few steps from the solid edge that ran around the perimeter. She cried out, suddenly not laughing, suddenly in a panic. “Help me, Calix! I’m sinking!”
“You’re not sinking, Ann. You’re just stuck!”
“Help!”
His own legs were sinking. The
longer he stood still, the deeper he sank. He shucked forward, squelching clear, with Annora clinging to his shoulder. “Hold on!” He was higher now, and grabbed her arm and pulled. The water around her bubbled. This was not how it had gone. He pulled and pulled, until she was up to her waist with water and it boiled up to her chest. She had come free. She had come free. The waders had been left behind, but she had been dragged out on to the safety of the perimeter. The water bubbled on, turning thicker, until slimy green hands had hold of her, counter-pulling, reaching up her sides. They grabbed her plaited hair and her head shot back with a scream. A scream that gargled as she flew backwards with a splash and disappeared.
***
Calix came to consciousness quite quickly, but didn’t open his eyes or make any effort to return to the present. He clung to the dream for as long as he could, for although it had turned into a nightmare, there had been Annora, right there beside him. He could still feel the tugging of his shirt. Her weight against him. That event had been over ten years ago, but the face had been her face as it was the last time they’d been together.
He rolled over in his bed and tried to retain the shape of her eyes and the way the corners of her nostrils flared when she was being snarky.
***
He felt better. A lot better. He still ached like a bitch, though.
Whisper wanted to know if he was up for another walk. She sat at the end of his bed with a hand on his shin. For a moment, he was distracted by the touch; warm and soft, tender, yet motherly. The stillness of the contact was just like a warm compress, nothing more. There for his mind, perhaps.
“I’m not sure. I think I might have taken a turn for the worse. If I sit up straight I go dizzy.”
“That’s a shame.” The hand came off. “I was hoping we could go to the canteen together. There’s a lot of people who want to meet you. A lot of questions they want to ask. I thought the stimulus might prompt a memory.”
“Hmm,” he shook his head. Well or not, that sounded horrible. “Maybe tomorrow.”
He felt momentarily sorry for her. Her eyes cast downwards and to the side, not wanting to meet his, and she picked at her nails.
“Sorry, that just sounds like a bit too much right now.” That, at least, wasn’t a lie. “Maybe,” he had a thought. “Is there a window on this floor overlooking the town? I should probably at least stretch my legs, and I’d like another look out.” Get my bearings.
“There’s one at the end of the hall looking out to the plains.” She tilted her head and squinted subtly at him. “Do you really not remember anything, scrawny man?”
Hadn’t that Quintessa called him that? he thought. “What?”
Whisper laughed and patted his leg. “Just messing with you.” She stood. “We can take a walk. If you do remember anything, you would tell me though, right?” Her eyes crinkled at the corners and warmed to him.
He could lose himself, he thought. What kind of magic was this? He was giddy as he stood, from her gaze or from the rush of blood, he did not know. The whites of her teeth shone between a pair of glistening, pink lips. Beneath her dress –
– escape –
was something he should not think about. She turned and left the room, trailing her scent with her. Air rushed in to fill the vacuum of her space. A blast of reality.
He grabbed his pitcher of water, drank some, and then splashed some on his face.
***
Quintessa’s special perfume tickled her wrists. Stroked the skin of her neck. She felt incredibly naughty for wearing it, but Quintessa had insisted. It will give him a wanderlust for your most private of delights, she’d said with a smile. It makes men quiver. That’s why they are so weak, and we are so strong. We have dominion over their cocks.
“But am I not pretty enough, your Grace?”
“Perhaps,” she smiled. “But this will ensure success and will get him so flustered he will either let his secrets slip, or it’ll rattle old memories in his brain. I’d do it myself, but he is too scrawny for me.”
Whisper didn’t mind, herself. She could see the muscle map of his body where they would reform after a few good meals. She just couldn’t believe that Quintessa had tasked her with such an important job – what an honour! She’d get to serve her Grace, and have fun at the same time!
As she neared the large end-window, she positioned herself between it and the man behind her, knowing the light would create an aura of her gown and silhouette her body against the open sky. She hoped her trailing scent could overpower the perfumes and oils that so vigorously swept the hallways of the palace. At the window, she turned to profile and pushed out her chest ever so slightly.
The stranger was slow to arrive; he kept glancing at the artwork on the wall, paying particular attention to an oil of the night-lit dome by Celestia, and then another of the train-girls basking by the side of the private pool by Junice. He skipped the more abstract paintings, she noticed, with a growing impatience. Graly and Kalinda walked past hand-in-hand, and the stranger followed with his eyes. They giggled and turned the corner.
When his attention returned to the window, she looked away. Look all you want, she thought, and then said, casually “Nice view?”
She felt his presence beside her again and flashed him another smile. Was she doing it right? She’d never seduced a man before. Maybe smiling was too friendly and she should say everything with her eyes instead. How do you make your eyes do the talking?
She suddenly wished she’d taken Frita’s Femininity 101: The Art of the Male Seduction and Subjugation course, but Frita made her feel nervous, and the thought of role-playing made her sick with anxiety.
It can’t be that hard, she thought.
– when the softness had begun to thicken –
If I can’t seduce him even with Quintessa’s perfume, I have no right to be part of her counsel.
And Quintessa would think so, too.
She bit her lip, felt the blood rush through her veins, and placed her hand over his. It rested on the windowsill, and the contact made him turn towards her.
“Are you feeling better now?”
He returned his gaze to the window. “A little. Just trying to take it all in. See if something stirs the memory.”
No, no, no, she thought. Stupid. Why did you ask that? You made a move and then played the nurse card, instead of the lover card.
Keeping her hand in place, she put her other hand around his bicep and leaned in to him, and they gazed out the open window together.
“Kind of beautiful, in a way,” she said. “Of course, I prefer the other view, of the dome. Who wants to look at nothingness?”
***
Calix hummed, lost in this strange, beguiling world. There was the menagerie of scents wafting through the halls, and even the more dour, feety kind of smell coming from the open window, which he took to be the town itself. And there was Whisper’s musk, for he could think of no other word for it – up this close, it reminded him of standing with Annora in the changing room of the crawler in a cloud of white talc, patting their naked bodies dry of sweat. It was so strong, he could barely focus on the task at hand. He wanted – needed – to escape Whisper’s grasp, but the window, though tall, was narrow, and he was still scanning the streets, trying to commit layouts to memory.
There had been the strange paintings too; of opulence, colour, and luxury, even in the more mundane of still-lifes; the static hoverbikes (so similar to his own – would he ever see it again? Would he ever want to return, from this?), the giant water tower, the antenna-covered rooftops: there was the artistic flourish of license. The girls and women who lived here surely lived lives that would be unrecognisable to the people he saw rushing through the streets below.
“Would you like to eat with me, later?” Whisper asked.
She was trying her best, thought Calix. And she was rather beautiful, but when he looked at her he couldn’t see, couldn’t think, past the picture in his mind of Annora, lay out atop the crawler hood w
earing what amounted to her own white dress, just an oversized T-shirt and underwear, prodding his leg with her bare foot. “I think I better rest a bit.”
Poo
l
Shame or no shame, let them look, he didn’t care anymore. If they had such a soft spot for Joe it was nothing to do with him. He had no control over his actions and could not be blamed: point one. Point two: what happened in the Trials stayed in the Trials.
Point three: they could all do one.
Point four: he desperately needed water.
He hobbled the couple hundred metres to Pawl’s shack and slipped him a credit to go chase down a rickshaw. He’d have to watch his credits, for it might be a few weeks before he could return to janitorial duty at the orphanage. That’s if the Matrons even let him back. He didn’t think they had a sentimental soft spot for Fuckwit Joe, but everyone, everywhere seemed to be forgetting the tenets of Determinism.
He’d best get on that, actually. Maybe stop by, on the way to the pool.
No – on the way back. He didn’t want to smell like a toilet.
The rickshaw came swinging by before Pawl returned – cheapskate didn’t even bung for a return trip, probably busy spending his single credit at The Crank – and Rohen stumbled into the back of it. “Northside pool,” he muttered to the cyclist, a fellow brother. He glanced down to his compatriot’s popping calves as the rickshaw pulled away, amazed by how physically the same body could be so different from one to the next, depending on vocation.
Then he imagined the effort behind those calves and turned his thoughts immediately to the hoverbike. He knew if he somehow failed his final Trials and managed to crash his hoverbike again, the rest of his life would be miserable. Not just because it would be spent here, but because he’d have no way to travel the streets, or race across the plains. The one he’d stolen had been taken away from him because it didn’t belong to him. Many people only raced so that they could claim a hoverbike: if they crossed the line it was theirs to keep. They’d lose and never race again, but have the freedom of the hoverbike. Many more thought it wasn’t worth the risk.
Neon Sands Trilogy Boxset: The Neon Series Season One Page 29