by J D Cortese
A grating noise woke him up from his daze. He was tempted to stand and look over the car's trunk, but a reflex stopped him—maybe there wasn't enough charge left in his suit, and he was visible, or worse, tangible to the Hawks' weapons.
The Hawks were extending a huge roll of barbed wire, using a wheeled robot whose engine was so noisy it would send any onlookers running into the abandoned streets that spread away from City Hall. The Hawks’ closing shop for the night meant Sarinda and Agdinar weren’t going to have an easy time seeing, much less entering, the DND Building's defenses.
Agdinar turned to Sarinda—she was sound asleep, her head lowered in an awkward angle in need of a good pillow. There was no point in waking her up; they were stuck, trapped in an unplanned stakeout for the night.
He touched the shoulder control of Sarinda's suit. A brief red flash started there and pushed through her arm. He felt the heating working, a sweet sense of warmth in a night when they might see some frosting before dawn.
His hand reached for Sarinda's arm and waited an instant before placing it over her forearm. He stayed like this for a few minutes.
* * *
During the night, the Hawks regressed toward an ancient time, turning into the tribes who once kept fires at night all over Manna-Hata, the legendary island of hills that one day would be Manhattan.
Agdinar could see a fire near the wire fence, and the flickering lights of what should be—because of the spread and lack of synchrony of the flashes—another two. Other than that, only shadows. The scene could have been close to what Founder Rugust might have witnessed hundreds of years earlier, when their shiny machines floated all over the island, terrifying the natives as they saw the Towers been built.
“I slept too much. You should have woken me up.” Sarinda was sitting astride, stretching her body against the car.
“No point in doing that. I haven't seen an opening we can use.”
“Did they close shop for the night?”
“Nobody entered or left the building,” Agdinar said. “Well, nobody I can see. But we are too far away to peek over the steps.”
Sarinda looked up and over the car's hood. The building loomed over them, even more in the dark, a ghostly gray mass of marble-like walls. Too big to be conquered by two amateurs. Her next question was predictable. “Do you think we can get inside during the night?”
“No,” he said, feeling the cold on his lips. “I'm exhausted; it has been quite a long day. Let me rest for an hour, please.”
“All right,” said Sarinda. “Let’s wait a little longer.”
Agdinar scooched his body away from her and let Sarinda take the better position for keeping the building in sight. He just sat, pretty much like she had done a minute earlier, and signaled to her he was out.
A minute later, he was the one sleeping.
Until a crash and yelling startled him out of sleep. It was the shadowy time before the sun broke over the city’s skyline. Agdinar didn’t feel the cold, protected by the thermal suit, but he could see a dusting of frost covering the nearby cars.
“What was that?” he said.
“Don't know. It came from—”
Her sudden silence put him on alert, and Agdinar knelt on her right.
There was a group of Hawks walking near the thick wall of barbed wire. One of them had a big head of white hair; the others were wearing their hoods, turning all of them into black shadows. Two armed guards, who stood in front of the older guy, were holding the shoulders of a heavyset, bearded man. Agdinar couldn't see them well from their post behind the car, but the way those hands grabbed the front man from either side didn't forecast a bright future for him.
The old Hawk spoke, and his voice carried easily to their hideout. “You know you have to go; it's the rules.”
“But I didn't know,” the guy being held said, both yelling and pleading. “Nobody told me she was that important.”
Sarinda visibly tensed, both hands on the car's hood. They didn’t need more words to be sure those Hawks were talking about her friend.
“You should have told me.” The man subdued by the two guards again tried to turn and face the old Hawk, but the Hawks sidelining him didn't allow it. “I followed the rules,” the big guy yelled.
Agdinar didn't see him in the soft blue clarity, only felt the fear in his words.
“Not this time, you didn't.”
“Please, Rychar, give me a chance.”
“I have decided that we won't. You are no longer one of us.”
The barbed wire started to open, as if alive; Agdinar couldn't see any mechanism that would explain the motion.
“Leave, now,” the old man said again, with a husky voice that somehow projected as if aided by a voice center.
The two guards released the man, and he hesitated before starting to walk toward the fence. It was still dark enough for the wires to look like a slithering line of fog.
Sarinda looked at Agdinar; it was a look of worry, as the expelled Hawk was coming in their direction.
The Hawk leader—he had to be—signaled the two guards to move away. He raised his left hand, holding something white.
There was a flash, and a soundless explosion.
A cloud of dark mist covered the walking Hawk.
Agdinar barely had time to see the man fall forward all the way to the bottom of the stairs, but his suit noted that half of his head was missing.
“I think it's time to go back,” the old Hawk said.
“But his body…” one of the men got to say.
“I said that he's no longer with us.”
The group retreated and disappeared into the building, while the body started to burn more intensely. It soon disappeared into a white cloud that rose to the perfectly blue sky of a new day.
Chapter 12
Even after seeing the man killed by the Hawks, or precisely because of the fear the scene had instilled in them, Agdinar and Sarinda looked at each other in silence and started to drift from car to car, approaching the front of the haphazardly built barrier.
It was time to get Tysa or give up.
There were only twenty yards between the first car, an old Japanese SUV from the time when electric cars were rare, and the wall of layered barbed wire. Luckily for them, after the shooting nobody had remained by the entrance.
The way Agdinar’s viewer rendered Sarinda visible, she looked like a green cutout of a person. And he must have looked the same to her—a purple-tagged, manipulated copy of himself.
Nobody got used to being invisible, and each step felt like he was a thief risking being discovered. He didn't have to tell her that; from Sarinda's uncertain steps, he knew she was feeling it.
“Stop,” he said, before she got too close to the wires, so thin they looked like a blurry wall of opaque glass. “Let me change to transiency. And remember to stop again after crossing, so I can turn it off.”
“I know, the batteries may run out.”
“Yes—so, be careful.”
He grabbed her hand, and a wave of orange light drowned them. He knew, as he felt it come, it would bring a nauseating feeling. And seeing her through green-colored glass wasn't that reassuring either.
“Hold on. It will pass.”
“God, this is intense.”
“Sorry, nothing I can do about it. But you'll see, it feels better after you cross something.” And without giving her a second to digest this, he took her hand and dragged her into and across the broad wall of dangerous spines.
“That was…tingly. Give me a second.”
Agdinar was familiar with the tingling; the sensation would lead to a strong wave of nausea and a stomachache. He wouldn’t tell her the worrisome reason, how atoms didn't like to be shuffled between universes to pull magic tricks. Dicing and sorting them was like throwing their bodies into a blender. There was nothing they could do, and the Watchers had survived it for millennia; so at least it was safe, if uncomfortable.
He deactivated the transient
cycler and looked away while Sarinda bent and vomited. While watching the sunrise, he wondered if those fluids would stay invisible; if the suit's AI would care enough to maintain the complete illusion of their absence from the world.
Agdinar started to climb the steps, and he made a gesture for her to follow. He was leading but didn't want to be there at all.
As he turned back a second time, he saw her eyes, glaringly green on the imaging mask of his eye-viewer, and he knew that he didn't care anymore. He was going to stay with her no matter what.
The DND Building had a large central venue at ground level, and they hid behind one of its columns. Sarinda's suit flickered on his monitor, suggesting low levels of charge. There wasn't much he could do about it, considering the problems they faced ahead—rushing back to the AV for a recharge would make them void all their gains. Worse, the newly generated suit she was wearing might be defective.
He didn't want to even consider that.
“Why don't you ask your friend Dearn about Tysa?”
“I can't. We're right under scanning beams coming from a Tower City building. As soon as I contact him, we will be detected." In truth, Agdinar was the one who would be detected, but she would be heading for complete erasing.
“I guess we are alone on this one.”
“Yes, we are. The most probable hiding place for Tysa is upstairs, in one of the old offices.” He wasn't going to tell her that he'd heard Hawks talking in their comms about the new prisoner—about the things they wanted to do with her. Thinking about them was giving him a headache.
“All right,” she said. “So, how do we get upstairs?”
“We can't use the elevators. In close quarters, our invisibility might fail.”
“Any other little problems to consider?” Sarinda had a nagging face that didn’t match their ordeal.
“My scanner shows forty-six Hawks on this level alone. We are going to bump into some of them, no matter what.”
* * *
As soon as they left their hiding spot behind the Greek column, they moved very slowly. They were acting reflexively, afraid about being seen, while fully knowing they were invisible. They still mustered the will to enter the open space at the center of the hall.
Two guards were walking straight toward them.
They froze, forgetting the mantle of their invisibility.
Even Agdinar stumbled a little—those Hawks were big guys. One of them was eerily tall and had a bushy red beard. The other lacked either beard or any visible hair, while compensating with such broad shoulders they looked unnatural.
They didn't move as the Hawks approached, and one of them brushed Agdinar's leg as he passed.
Agdinar was happy their suits still worked, because after the likely initial scare of two people suddenly appearing next to them, those two dangerous guys would have taken them captive—or worse—in an instant.
The departing footsteps faded as the guards moved toward the building's entrance.
“That was close,” Sarinda said, her voice trembling.
Another nervous ghost answered to the air. “Shh! Be careful. For sure they can’t see us, but they can hear us.”
Agdinar kept watching the stairs and the two heads—the one below bald, and the other, above, bulgingly red—as they disappeared over the threshold.
When Agdinar turned back to check on Sarinda, at first, he didn't notice the problem.
Then, he did.
It wasn't just how he could see her but that he could see her in natural colors.
The green cast was gone.
She was visible but hadn't noticed.
Unfortunately, the cameras that monitored the building did.
An enormously loud alarm started to shake the entire floor.
Chapter 13
Before Agdinar could cover the distance to Sarinda, who stood farther into the building's central hall, Hawks had started to come from all directions, even from the staircases. And the two Hawks who had wandered outside before turned around and came back, each step faster and more rushed.
Sarinda was standing quite exposed amid the commotion, hands propped up as if trying to push away the crowd. Two Hawks pointed their guns at her; many more were pointing with their fingers and talking to their neighbors.
A mob extended all the way to the shadows, shushing and mumbling in surprise.
It didn't help that Sarinda looked so stunningly beautiful, in her black full-body suit and with the long hair waving around as if blown by a wind gust.
This was a crowd of killers, mostly men and all outcasts. She was just a girl surrounded by wolves.
Agdinar thought about activating her suit again using a mind-command, but something was off and the circuits—located on the back and quite visible to him—were only working at the lowest level of energy, not enough to turn her invisible.
Their lights circulated in two yellow patches behind her shoulders, looking like a stylish blueprint for butterfly wings.
There was little he could do, except try to approach and grab Sarinda’s hand, see if he could extend his invisibility to cover her. The energy levels in his viewers were unfortunately reporting otherwise—it was possible that shielding them against radiation while they’d crossed Chinatown required more from their suits than he'd anticipated.
He started to walk toward Sarinda, but it was too late.
The two large Hawks they had met before—the fat red-bearded one and the stockier bald one—were moving to the center of the hall and placed themselves between him and Sarinda. Agdinar could see their guns stuck on their back holsters.
And his mind-alarm was telling him he only had two minutes left of invisibility.
As the Hawks slowly adjusted to a perfectly circular perimeter around Sarinda, Agdinar rested his back against one of the columns, at a loss for what to do.
He had a clear view of Sarinda but couldn't do anything to help her. His suit’s levels were trickling down—he surely didn't have any butterfly wings on his back.
He let go of the invisibility.
It was going to take more than an hour outside to recharge his suit.
Too long. Even a few minutes would be too long.
The circle of Hawks broke at the farthest point from him, and the white-haired leader entered it. On the soft light that percolated from open skylights, Agdinar saw how tall he was, and the contradiction between a short beard, carefully tailored, and a leonine mane of snow covering his shoulders.
“My name is Rychar. Welcome to my home, Sarinda.”
Agdinar was surprised by the warmth with which Rychar had addressed Agdinar’s new friend.
And then, in that instant, he knew he had been wrong—they both had been wrong—about the taking of Tysa.
The Hawks had been trying all along to get Sarinda, the Major's daughter.
And he had come with Sarinda to unknowingly deliver her to them.
* * *
Agdinar stayed behind the column while the Hawks disbanded, their leader walking while surrounded by a tight group of armed protectors, all of them going upstairs and carrying Sarinda with the invisible force of their collective heft. He wouldn't have resisted either, not stuck within a warring ant colony.
A false move and either of them—or both—would be dead.
“Hello.” A soft voice, safely near his ear.
“Dhern, were you around?”
“Yes, my friend. Me, myself, the trusted dog.”
“But I can hear you,” Agdinar said, speaking in a murmur and troubled to have to answer out loud instead of with thought. “I mean, I hear your voice in my comm but not as mental input.”
“Yes, I have been cutting a few of your comm-lines, so you are not discovered by the City. Trying the cheapest links to avoid detection.”
“But, why not a mind-comm?” Agdinar wanted to keep talking, while checking the Hawks that remained idle between him and the stairs. The great hall was completely silent.
“It requires more computational
power,” Dhern said, “and there's a greater risk of being discovered.”
“By my beloved Management.”
“Oh, yes, by them. Although right now you'll be safer in the custody of the Managers than if the Hawks find you here.”
Agdinar had wanted to dart for the nearest inner door, but he decided that Dhern could make itself useful. “Can you tell me where they are going to keep Sarinda?”
“Not without using the Central Core.”
“And how about The Eye? It has to know where she is—and Tysa.”
For all the power of the Watchers' AIs, they hadn't learned to make a decent human laugh. Hearing Dhern's attempt at that, so fitful and inappropriate for the moment, reminded Agdinar of humans who only managed to make forced laughing sounds.
“You're making me now doubt your sanity,” Dhern said in his audio channel, a little more composed. “The Eye? Do you know how much energy it takes to keep it open? If the Towers can detect a mind-comm, using the Eye would make us as visible to them as the Sun.”
“Okay, Dhern, you are right—I wasn't really thinking.”
A pack of Hawks was making its way down the hallway. In a few seconds, he would be discovered.
Agdinar tried to activate his invisibility, only succeeding in making his muscles twitch and distorting the world around him, dripping at the corners as if it were made off fresh paint. It was a sign of exhaustion of the power supply—any lensing effect should have been corrected by the default mechanism.
“A little trouble?” Dhern used sarcasm as a double-edged sword. On that, the AIs did better than the Watchers.
“Well, yes.”
“I still have some magic left.”
The surge of energy in Agdinar's suit was instantaneous, and he felt both pain and vertigo.