Rylan sat down and began tucking in. “So shoot, what ya got for me that’s so important?”
“What, no small talk?”
“Clarisse, I think we’re past the small talk right now, don’t you think? Look, I just wanna put my feet up and chug on a beer and drift away into the land of the abyss, so whatever you came here to say, just say it.”
“I guess that’s a no,” she smiled. She could be so infuriating. If she wasn’t so pretty… hell, the whole history of events would never have happened and she wouldn’t be sitting there right now, grinning at him.
Rylan sighed, stood, and sat next to the window. He watched her watch him in the reflection.
“What worries you most about it?”
Here it was. “It’s what you’re not talking about.”
“Like what?”
“Like I couldn’t do something like this and then just carry on as if nothing happened. I did this, they wouldn’t just rap me on the knuckles and chalk it up to some mistake on my part. I wouldn’t just lose my job, I’d lose my life. No chances, lowcase. Ain’t worth the risk.” The bristles on his cheek were like sandpaper. The burn on his cheek still stung.
“The disruption to lives wouldn’t be worth it, you know. You know this, Clarisse. I don’t know what you’re doing hanging around with a guy like this Corbin. I’d expect better of you.”
A trainlink whipped silently by the window. Clarisse appeared by the glass and leaned against it.
“I’d expect more of you,” he repeated. “The light suits you by the way. Hides your despair.”
“I’m not despairing Rylan; I get it, I do. But if you’d just come to a meeting I think you’d change your mind.”
“Perfect reason not to.”
“We found something.” She cocked her head, chewed a mouthful of Chinese, and swallowed. “That’s kinda what kickstarted this whole resurgence. Down in the reservoir, we found a machine.”
“A machine?”
“A vehicle, or at least the parts. They washed up down in the cavern and when we put them back together again, it looked suspiciously like a submarine.”
“A submarine? What’s that?”
“Geez, you really ain’t one for the link, eh? Sub… marine… as in underwater.”
“What are you saying?”
She sat down in an adjacent armchair and put her feet up on the table. “I’m saying, we found an underwater transportation vehicle of unknown origin. Just think about that for a second. Think about what it could mean.”
“It means you got some kids down there playing around. Probably float to the surface any day now.”
“Come on. Nah ah. Nope. Security’s too tight for that, and you know it. Where’s that beer you promised me?”
“Fridge.”
Clarisse fetched two beers, cracked them open, and passed one to Rylan.
“Thanks.” He finished chewing his mouthful then took a long, deep gulp, realising just how badly he’d needed it. “That seems a little far-fetched.”
“Hey, I’d show it you myself but the authorities grabbed the evidence pretty quick, you know. Got second best though.” She brought up the holo-controls in the armchair and switched the window monitor on, and connected her chip.
“Ah, want to relive our together times?” asked Rylan.
“Without your permission you’re just a shadow.”
“So you saved it? I knew you were sentimental.”
“Just shut up and watch.”
On the screen, the dark crevices of the cavern appeared, with the black mirror of the reservoir loping side to side as Clarisse walked around to a pile of glinting, metallic objects. Teodore stood to the side dragging a sheet up the embankment. “The dredger pulled them up,” he said. “Destroyed it in the process.”
“But what is it?” Clarisse’s voice sounded deeper than the reality, and hollow; similar to the tone of someone’s own humming in their head. The ‘camera’ bent down to near ground level. Her hand reached out and picked up a circular hatch valve.
“Don’t know. I mean, whatever it was, the quality of the metal wasn’t great. Got minced to pieces by the dredger like scissors through paper.”
“Looks like it had a steering wheel.”
Teodore reached out for the hatch valve. “Hmm, looks like a steering wheel but the way it’s attached here – look,” he showed her the reverse. “It was a locking mechanism.”
“So it had a door.”
“I’d say so, yes.”
“Wow. What would something with a door be doing down here?”
A spotlight suddenly illuminated everything. Rylan noted Clarisse’s scowl as she replayed this moment: a boat swooping in on them with two bright headlights glaring at them – the screen went white momentarily before the shape of a hand shaded the lens in her iris camera. An alarm blared out and then a voice on a megaphone boomed; “Stand back. Back away.” Then “Move.”
“All right we get the picture,” mumbled the past Clarisse. Present Clarisse said; “The authorities took over at this point, which went as you would expect.” She disconnected the feed. “They erected barriers and we all had to get back to work.”
“Did they release an official statement?”
“Something about a fallen gangway from years ago that only just now got dredged up.”
“Is that possible?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Does shit fly?”
“If gets flushed.”
“Exactly. They were hoping this incident would just wash away.”
Rylan was silent for a moment while he processed the information. Clarisse got up and fetched another two beers. The day-lights outside were dimming, casting the room in a greater and greater darkness until Clarisse activated the wall lights.
“You really need to take better care of yourself,” she said, those doe eyes of hers looking at him with something close to pity. A far cry from how she used to look at him. She nudged some disused cartons with her foot, and sent an empty synth-bottle clashing into another. “So, what do you think?”
“Who else knows?”
“I haven’t released this footage to the link yet, if that’s what you mean. I’m not that stupid.”
“Corbin knows, I presume.”
“Corbin. A few of us from the reservoir. Some associates of Corbin.”
“You trust them?”
“Yes.”
“You trust Corbin?”
“Absolutely.”
“How’d you find him? Or did he find you?” The beer wasn’t strong enough. His head felt pleasantly numb, not distractingly in pain. As he half-listened to the story about how Teodore half-leaked some of his own experiences in a private link group called AnOminous, thus attracting the interest of Corbin, he got up and poured himself something stronger, returning to his seat with the bottle.
“Corbin’s a lot like you. He avoids the link when he can, preferring a more tangible, private approach. That’s how he first found me; Teodore introduced us after work one day. He also knows the value of the link; the power of persuasion it can have.”
“Who came up with the idea of a submarine?”
“Let’s call it the collective mind. We played back this footage, as well as Teodore’s, and extracted some of the shapes we pulled out. From what we could piece together, it was definitely a vessel of some kind, but not the floating variety. Submarine has just stuck.”
“And what has this collective mind concluded?” He poured himself another shot.
“Something… or more likely, someone… has paid us a visit. From the outside. The inflow pipes are huge, easily large enough to accommodate something of that size. With a passenger. Or two.”
There they were, the needles, pricking their heads through his skull. Skinny dipping into the frontal lobe. Get swimming, boys.
“A passenger, Ry.”
“If it’s okay, I’m gonna finish off this bottle and then I’m gonna lie down, and hopefully I’ll either forget this whole conve
rsation, or come up with a more plausible answer.”
Leaning forward, elbows on knees; “You can’t ignore this. Do you have any idea how hard it has been not to scream this into the link? To tell every face I see? It’s torture. That’s why we need to act, as one, on two fronts: we attack the authority, which is where you come in; and we attack the status quo, which is where Corbin comes in. Begin a narrative, and get the authority to listen to our needs.”
Rylan rubbed the ball of his palm against his temple, shaking his head. “I need to process, and by process, I mean drink.” He toasted her: “To the end of the world.”
Listen
By the time Clarisse left, Caia’s apartment was a splash of colour on darkness, her face mostly hidden in shadow. The day-lights had turned to night, and the temperature had dropped, although her lack of movement for the past couple of hours could have easily been the reason for the chill she felt.
A thin sheen of tension sweat glazed her goosebumps, despite the chill.
Her heart had been hammering for the past half hour as she realised that so many of the things she’d been sent to find out were just falling into her lap.
Her stomach was a farm filled with butterflies as she imagined her call to Kirillion and his words of approval. You’ve done well, yet again.
But what about Calix and the girl?
She bit her lip.
She’d had no luck tracking them down, so far. The odds of these defectors harbouring them now seemed more and more remote, unless Clarisse was still holding back some information. Which was plausible. She’d already scoped her apartment and found nothing out of place; everything you’d expect to find in a single lady’s residence, and no-one but Clarisse had come or gone. The audio sensors failed to pick up any other voices, and heat sig had been null. Corbin especially had not shown himself.
Caia brought up a tracking map and highlighted both Clarisse and Rylan. Neither were much for socialising; locators indicated the last few days had been spent at home, at work, and direct paths between both. Today had been Clarisse’s first diversion for eight days.
Rylan’s snores echoed in her ears, so she removed the in-ears and blinked at the darkness, as though leaving a dream. The chomping sounds of them eating Chinese came back to her, and her belly told her loudly it was hungry.
“First thing’s first.” Her bladder was about ready to explode. In the bathroom, she turned on the light above the sink and splashed some water on her face. Then she sat down to relieve herself.
Get your best thinking done on the crapper, Barrick’s voice echoed in her mind. She envisioned him closing the door behind him as he stepped inside, as he had done in the crawler.
“Not happening,” she said aloud.
Not happening.
“Where are your friends, Barrick?”
They’re your friends too.
She washed her hands and left the bathroom for the kitchen area. She’d left some pancakes from breakfast in the fridge and reheated them in the microwave. She found a bottle of sy-rup in the cupboard and poured it on.
As she ate, her body began to feel her own again. Composure eased back into her being like the sy-rup on the pancakes, and she realised it was too early to go to Kirillion with this: he’d just send his soldiers and they’d all be dead in a matter of days, and she’d be no closer to the location of Calix and this Elissa.
They went down well – the pancakes –her belly sated. With the lights still dim, she settled into the armchair, put her feet up, and listened back to the recording.
Pits
The more Calix discovered about this strange city, the more he despaired that he would ever find Annora. The place seemed so vast. There were so many people. Even if he did somehow find out where she was, getting to her would prove to be a bigger obstacle than the sand mountain.
He let the rain slowly drench him.
It was sweltering, so it didn’t matter. The novelty of it though; he’d seen rain on film back at Sanctum, that apparently fell from the sky. How the clouds could hold water he never quite understood, even after Kirillion’s explanations.
This wasn’t quite the same. And to be wet, while not beneath a shower head, was about as much as he could handle in the stakes of crazy, unbelievable things he couldn’t wrap his head around. Rain was tangible; something he could grasp – something real.
Everything else was like a dream.
“You’ve come so far, don’t forget,” Elissa had said.
Which was true.
But he was lost.
He couldn’t even tread water at this depth.
He let down his hood and pulled the bandana from his beard to feel the rain in his hair and on his face. Something they called a trainlink zipped silently by high above on a mono-track. And higher still; the towers faded as though scrubbed out, to be replaced by rainbow lights and mist.
In his dreams, he’d been regressing to old memories in lieu of new ones, and changing endings. In the town out on the plains he’d done the same but to a lesser extent; here, the weight of his task was an anvil on his shoulders. The more impossible it seemed, the more he came to accept that he might never see Annora again.
The more he edited history to resemble what could have been.
The kisses that never were.
Memories morphed into fantasies of lost opportunities made right. Against the canvas wall of tent city on top of HQ in Sanctum, light blistered the material orange and red while they lay by the fire, hip to hip, hands hovering in the air making shadow puppets. One bird would peck another; instead of chasing, his bird would devour, hands closing over hers. Hands that would not let go. And before long they would be two fifteen year olds holding hands by the fire. Fingers stroking skin. They would turn to look at each other and...
Standing knee deep in sand with her blower malfunctioning, and sinking further, the wind gusting like it had no right to do. So much sand: even just a few feet away he could not see her face behind her visor. “Hold on,” he’d shouted at her, even though there had been no need with their in-built comm system. “I’m stuck!” she shouted back, panic like he’d never heard before. “It’s okay, I’m here.” Blower aimed ahead, he prayed the storm would not clog the vent. Don’t fail me. He parted a trench between them. The wind tried to knock him down but he placed purposeful foot after purposeful foot, his sand-boots standing firm. He dug her out, making a mockery of the sandquake, until she was able to lift her foot out and place it firmly on the surface. He’d grabbed her, and held her, and felt a rush within; something like being sick, but upside down, but before he could dwell on it too long Barrick’s voice interrupted. “Get your asses back here.” And they got their asses back. Safely inside, instead of joking about saving her life – “You owe me one” – he told her how scared he’d been. He took her aside and told her he loved her.
Any fantasies always ended there, it seemed. With Annora’s voice from nowhere saying “I know.”
I know.
Never I love you, too.
Pancakes
“How’s business?”
Misty looked up from the hotplate. “Rylan! How’s my favourite cast-off? You look tired – everything okay?”
“Fine, fine, thanks for noticing.”
She edged her way out from behind the stove and opened her arms. Unnaturally long, they seemed, but she was a little on the too-thin side. This could’ve made for a cold, uncomfortable hug, but to Rylan, it just seemed as though those arms went all the way around him.
He never even let his own mother hug him like this. Each one from Misty made up for all the ones he’d lost.
“Haven’t seen you for a couple weeks, wondered where’d you got to,” she said, pulling away. “You got some new fancy woman?” She grabbed a damp cloth and wiped it over the hotplate, steam rising into her friendly face and grey hair. “Hungry?”
“As a dog,” Rylan said, taking a seat on the only stool. He folded his arms on the counter-top.
Misty pou
red a ladle of pancake batter over the hotplate and let it sizzle. “Evasion tactics don’t work on me, you know.” Now the batter was frying, all eyes were on him.
“Nothing special to report, Misty. All work and no play I’m sorry to say.”
“Is that right? And what about Clare? Ain’t seen hide nor hair of her for weeks.” Even though she’d been the one to call her Clarisse, she was about the only person who shortened it to Clare.
“You’re daughter, Clarisse, is well, I think. Had a drink with her and her new friend the other night.”
“Friend?”
“Friend. Acquaintance. Lover for all I know. None of my business.”
“None of your business, eh?” She flipped the pancake over. “Why’s you got your lying face on then, eh?”
Rylan knew that people were apt to look to the side when lying, so he made a point of eye contact. Unfortunately, Misty saw straight through this. She always did.
“You get all serious when you’re lying,” she added.
“Do I now?” He leaned back and crossed his arms across his chest. Her eyes bored into him, which wasn’t so bad. Clarisse had the same eyes. He sighed and stretched his arms out. “My pancake ready?”
She scooped it up onto a paper plate and handed it over. “Get it in ya, son,” she said, pouring homemade syrup over them.
As always, the first mouthful exploded, a surge of sweetness. “Tell me this recipe won’t die with you.”
“You’d have to talk to my executive,” she laughed as she poured the batter for the next one. “So, what’s on your mind?”
It wasn’t so strange to be here; he’d used her counsel numerous times over the years, whether venting steam over another fight with Truss or Wally (and their lazy habits), or mouthing off about the authority in general. She was a good ear. A conspiratorial ear if ever he needed one.
“Clarisse. Her new friend. He’s something of a…” how to find the right word. “Revolutionary.”
Misty smiled. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” Flip.
Neon Sands Trilogy Boxset: The Neon Series Season One Page 42