by J D Cortese
It was all for show, but Agdinar had to make his point. The policeman laying on the floor had seen Agdinar using a weapon unlike anything anyone had.
There was no further need to kick the fallen guy. He talked.
“They have control of the police. And the Major is in on the conspiracy. It's all a ruse—they have us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don't hurt me. We are just following orders to return the Major's daughter.”
“Orders from whom?”
“Don't...” The policeman flinched and grabbed his abdomen at Agdinar’s fake attempt at another kick. “The Hawks,” he said, “they're behind everything.”
Agdinar had an urge to really kick the guy, but he just stared at him. “Are you sure about this?”
“They are...they have,” the officer was still trying to say something, so nervous his words sounded like gurgling, “they want to have the Major under their thumb.”
Agdinar knew, or at least had started to know. He was now sure that the Hawks’ trying to get Sarinda in the park had been a well-planned kidnapping. But, what would they want from the Major?
He was ready to keep torturing the policeman, when someone entered the corner of his vision.
“Let him go,” Tysa said. She was standing next to him, and her voice sounded like a command. “You can't keep hitting him like that,” she added.
Agdinar was too stunned to talk. “They wanted to kill us.”
“We didn't...we...” The policeman sounded hurt by each word he said.
“You shut up and count your blessings,” Agdinar said, joining his hands so the fallen man knew he was considering blowing him away like a leaf. Since the policewoman hadn't shown back up from her trip to the bushes, the guy stayed quite still and on the ground.
“Please, let him go,” Tysa said again.
“He can tell us where they took Sarinda.”
“No, I can't,” the policeman added. “Not after they take her to Command.”
Agdinar looked at the fallen officer, now sitting astride on what was once the middle of the walkway and holding his chest to control the pain. He wasn’t going to get anything more from him.
“Let him go,” Tysa said again. “He's useless.”
As happens many times with true conflict, its logic defies analysis. They stayed a minute in silence, trying to come up with a winning answer, and then both walked away from the officer.
Agdinar thought having Tysa with him was lucky. He would have hit that policeman over and over, with his boot and with the power field. It was unlikely the man would have survived it for long. His anger was a deep, disruptive emotion unlike anything he had experienced in his past life as a Watcher. He turned to the bushes and saw slight movement. At least, he hadn't killed either of them out of anger. The policewoman would take care of the other officer.
Agdinar and Tysa started to walk toward the rail, near one of the glass platforms that at one time had allowed visitors to stand seemingly in the air, watching the Hudson past the West Autocarway.
Agdinar thought that Dhern should have been back from his spy mission at Tower City. But it was a complicated operation, even for his powerful friend: making himself undetectable; hitching a ride with an AV that had strayed a little too near the surface; and then, gathering information in the city, slowly and deliberately hacking the core computers. He smiled at the idea of Dhern sneaking into one of the AVs he had been regularly stealing.
But then Agdinar stopped, suddenly confused and unbelieving of what he was seeing.
Tysa had also stopped, a few steps ahead, and turned to face him.
And, incomprehensibly, she was holding a shiny, silver-looking small gun.
It was pointed at his head.
Chapter 28
Tysa stretched her arm and the gun begun to shake. But her aim at Agdinar’s head was sound, and he reflexively raised his arms.
“Don't move,” she said.
“Are you with the police?”
“Not really. Think, you have all the elements to solve this little mystery. You were just too trusting to find the answer earlier.”
She was right. He hadn't considered all the little weird things about Tysa, assuming that she had been with Sarinda and he should take care of both of them.
Tysa, whose parents had been killed by the police, wasn't going to be working for them.
She was quite anti-government and had argued with William, a good friend, about the wrongness of his views.
And, if she didn't work for the police but somehow had directed Sarinda to a dangerous stroll in Central Park at night, she had to be collaborating with the kidnappers.
She had been relatively well-treated in captivity, with only superficial cuts after her capture.
Tysa wasn't so much a mystery as a mishandled clue.
And betrayal always comes from the inside.
Judas had come this time to work for the Hawks.
The Hawks had been calling the shots of this operation. They had been doing it for years, probably before Sarinda and Tysa became friends.
If they had ever been friends.
* * *
Tysa guided him closer to the viewpoint platform, and Agdinar didn't need mind-reading implants to know she was pondering the need to kill him.
“You've been quiet,” she said.
“I don't understand you. Don't you want to save your friend?”
“If it would be that easy. I have a prior commitment.”
“Prior?”
“I meant that, first, I have to avenge my parents. Sarinda was just an opportunity, and I took it.”
“So, you don't care what happens to her.”
“I do, a lot. I truly love her. My deal with the Hawks is that she'll live. Her damnatious father, not so sure.”
Talking about Sarinda had affected Tysa, and Agdinar considered, and then discarded, the possibility of making a move. “I saw the police taking her away,” he said. “They may have their own ideas.”
“The ones who work with us are Hawks who'd entered the police force years ago. Our people, really.” Tysa had started to lower her gun from Agdinar’s head, and it was now trained on his chest.
Agdinar forced himself to smile and keep talking. “And what kind of friend drove the attack car that almost killed us at StarCoffee?”
“A mistake, certainly.”
Tysa smiled but Agdinar couldn't be sure what she was thinking. He wasn't sure anymore about anything regarding her.
“Now, stay here,” she said. “I'm going to call those 'friends' to come.”
“Don't do this, Tysa.”
She looked at him, with eyes so bright and unblinking they scared him. “Ah, Agdinar, you're so cute. In a different game, we would have played together. It should have been fun.”
This time, he knew how to use his chance. “I know,” he said.
“You do?”
“I was thinking of you only as Sarinda's friend.”
“But—?”
“It's just that now…" Agdinar took one step, and Tysa didn't react at first.
“Are you trying something funny?”
“No—really, I've just told you. I feel...”
She stared at him again and didn't move when he took another step, closing the gap between them.
“Yes,” she said, “I can tell you don't look at me just as Sarinda's young protégée.”
“Maybe we can take a break and think about this.”
Tysa regarded Agdinar's stance, his awkwardness so fitting for a confused teenager, and lowered her gun a step. “Well,” she said, “I do have Sarinda's apartment key codes, and I have already done my part, so there's no need to take this further right now. You’re under my custody.” Tysa was now smiling.
The gun was now low enough to give Agdinar a chance to extend his hand. Tysa confused this with an attempt to touch her.
He fired his suit’s weapon, and the gun took fight. It bounced back on the glass guardrail
and he lost sight of it.
Agdinar was a lot taller than Tysa, and he easily tackled her, pushing her body into the viewing platform. He grabbed both of her wrists and held her against the floor.
He was quite close to Tysa’s face, but he didn't feel that he was overpowering her. With his chest in full contact with hers, he saw how beautiful she was, with large eyes and plump lips. Feeling her breasts against him, he wondered how much of what he'd said trying to fake interest in her was a lie. This was the closest physical contact he'd had with any woman.
There was a second where they kept looking into each other's eyes, and then she smashed her knee against his crotch with considerable energy.
Agdinar writhed in pain, long enough for Tysa to free a hand and slice his cheek with her nails.
The pain was intense, and Agdinar recoiled, stumbling and rolling sideways to a sitting position. Tysa was ready to pounce again, but then she stopped. She might have seen how the red grooves on his cheeks quickly disappeared, while the blood evaporated as his nano-medics repaired the wound.
She moved away from him, seeking the corner of the glass balcony.
“What was that? This isn't—you are not human.”
“I am, it's just that...”
There wasn't much he could add that was anywhere near a truth about his world.
“You are a monster.”
Before Agdinar could explain to her any of that, Tysa extracted a knife from her boot. “You are one of them,” she said, her hand trembling with the knife, “an alien invader. I can believe it; I thought it was a legend.”
She surprised him again by ramming her body against his. The movement was so fast he hit the containment rails behind him.
Before Agdinar could steady himself, he found Tysa holding his right shoulder with a hand and pressing his neck with the knife.
He could have willed his personal shield to activate, but it was hard to estimate how much power would be released and whether she'd get to keep her hands.
“Please, Tysa,” he said, “let it go. Let's talk.”
“No talking. I don't know who the hell you are, and I'm not going to wait until I find out. This time...”
She pressed the knife with the intent to take it all the way to Agdinar's spine. His back tensed, and he felt fear like an icy pillow on his shoulders.
Agdinar slid to give way and then pushed Tysa against the rail. It took her by surprise and the knife left his neck.
He looked over the edge, fearing the fall. The Riverside Autocarway below was brimming with beads of all colors, moving like blood cells in an alien artery.
She came back at him, the knife now low and pointing to his chest.
Agdinar swept her to the side, and she stumbled backwards. He used the opportunity to move two steps away from the platform’s edge. He considered running back into the path, but Tysa was close enough to get to him before he’d reach solid ground.
Tysa stood there, hands stretched to cover both sides. There was blood on the corner of her mouth. She was trembling, overtaken by sheer anger. The hand without the knife signaled her wrist-phone to unfold—an auto-alarm started to beep.
“The police will be here soon. The ones that are our friends. We will wait here until they come.”
“I won't. I'm going to search for Sarinda.”
“Stay there,” Tysa said, the knife again pointed straight at him. But Tysa couldn't see he had activated the shield and the weapon would not work on him.
He took a step to the left, trying to surprise Tysa by walking into the knife.
“Don't move.”
He took another step.
She charged toward Agdinar at full speed.
He decided not to hurt Tysa and disengaged his suit. Grabbing her hand, he dragged her to the platform’s edge. Tysa’s desperation and her violent hits had made him finally forget their moment of attraction. She would kill him, if given the opportunity.
He tried to hold the hand with the knife while their bodies banged the glass guardrail over and over.
As they twisted around the barrier and seemed to float over the street below, Agdinar remembered the flickering floors of his watchstation at Tower City. He had a flood of memories, fearful of the danger he was in.
So much had happened in the last few days, since he had left the Towers. He'd had guns pointed at him. He had been a prisoner in a destitute cell. He had attacked and hurt people, even if to save others and himself.
And now he was fighting for his life.
Agdinar shoved Tysa against the handrail and heard a thud as her head hit the edge. He regained his stance, now steps away from Tysa. She was stunned, and he had time to move even farther away and started looking for a clear path to run.
The distraction proved dangerous, and when he turned back to Tysa, he found that she’d picked up the little silver gun and was pointing it at him again. “This is over,” she said. “You're coming with me.”
He took one step forward.
She pointed the gun straight at his head.
Agdinar turned on the invisibility shield, with only thirty seconds left of power.
Tysa's eyes opened, very wide.
He charged ahead, fully knowing he didn't have enough energy to also activate the transiency generator.
Tysa started to swivel her gun, searching for the possibility that she had missed a sudden escape of her prisoner.
She took a step back, unthinkingly. It was an unforced error on her part.
Agdinar collided with Tysa, her hand with the gun still extended. The impact was greater than either of them had anticipated.
The force of the contact added energy to Tysa's body as it receded.
Agdinar stumbled and started to fall forward.
One of Tysa's feet left the ground, and the gun started to point upwards.
Agdinar, still invisible, fell on her side and briefly held the back of Tysa's leg.
He was on all fours. And she was on one leg, still falling backwards. But her other leg was up as if trying an extreme Taekwondo kick on someone's head.
Her body contacted the glass guardrail and twirled around it.
Agdinar was close enough to the glass floor to see the street just below them, full of trash containers and emptied, abandoned cars.
Tysa’s body seemed to fall slowly, and it crashed first on an unseen part of a garage, jumping away from its wall and getting to bounce on an auto-car's rooftop.
By the time Agdinar had reacted to what he had seen, Tysa lay on the ground.
He knelt near the platform's edge, his hands painfully grabbing the rail above his head.
Tysa was sprawled, immobile, and, for some reason, she reminded him of a drawing he’d seen of a Hindu goddess, her body twisted and with many arms.
He felt a tremor that raised from his lungs and crashed in his eyes. They burned as a line of tears crossed his cheeks.
He had never seen death so close.
And none of the Watchers had ever knowingly caused a human to die.
But now, he had crossed the supposedly uncrossable line.
Tysa was dead. And he was responsible.
He had killed a human from his past.
And, if the Towers ever caught him, he would also sleep for eternity.
In the depths of his guilt, Agdinar understood, for the first time, what sin was.
Chapter 29
He was standing on another balcony, this time overlooking Central Park from one of the few old buildings that climbed high enough from Madison Avenue to be seen from the park's southeastern corner.
Some wisdom from ancient times and long-gone Watchers had brought them to buy a few apartments and buildings for the use of anyone stranded in the lower world.
This might have happened more in the city's past, but now the Carlyle Hotel was one of their last safe spots left in town. With the city nearing its fateful precipice, only one suite was still permanently reserved in the Carlyle, under the name William Robinson.
Agdinar had only fragmented memories of what he had done to make it from the High Line to the other side of the city. They were like vignettes; and they were quickly fading into the past, as if he had been walking for years.
After the accident—he kept calling it that—the police arrived at the High Line’s walkways, and he was forced to skitter away without reaching Tysa. He had then entered the state of desolation that now regularly stopped his breathing; he would often gasp for air and had to remember to open his chest. He had never experienced so much inner pain.
He remembered walking past old brick houses, with stairs on the outside.
He remembered stopping by an old bookstore, crowded by old books from an even older time, which would have been interesting only for old people who, like William, cared for a past New York that was proud of its literary glories.
And then he was standing under the hotel's awning at the entrance. Reading a golden plate with the name of the landmark hotel, letters blurry in his memory:
The Carlyle...A Rosewood Hotel...New York...
Even in a daze, he didn't use his mind codes to open the penthouse door. That would have alerted ground agents from Tower City, and he soon would have been taken prisoner. He thought about doing it, ending it all, but the image of Sarinda came to him over and over, an angel in his mind's eye.
He couldn't do it. There would be no surrendering that day.
* * *
He was crying, but not just for Tysa. She had been an innocent girl, one of many who had been possessed by an ideology of violence. The problem was that it wasn't clear whose ideology of violence it was.
The Hawks? The police? Humanity altogether?
And they, the gods of watching, had stayed as usual away in the clouds, seeing all that butchery without intervening. He was one of them and didn't know why they had done it.
None of the Watchers was truly innocent. The falling of human beings was deeply imprinted in their uncontrollable emotions, perhaps forever written in their genes. And, knowing this, they had kept their distance.