The Forgotten City

by Nina D'Aleo

  Diega stepped off the elevator onto ground level. Immediately she recognized a group of Fens from her neighborhood, La Crox, in Estabana. They were playing a game of Briscopa, traditional cards, around a table. She moved closer, but they saw her coming and closed their ranks, boxing her out. She was the bad daughter, the one who had abandoned her parents. She was a disgrace. Even here in this place. It was the hypocrisy of her people – sons could go, do and be whatever they pleased, whereas daughters only did as their parents allowed. A wild boy was a wild boy; a wild girl was a curse and a scar on the family’s integrity. With all her being, she wanted to say she honestly didn’t care what they or any others thought about her, but that would be another lie – albeit one she told very well. Everywhere she went, she always noticed who was looking and who was not, and she never passed a mirror without looking into it and hating what she saw.

  Diega moved away into one of the bars, one with blue lighting and a crystal ceiling. The bartender took her order, holding her gaze for a few moments too long, a smile lingering on his lips. Someone pushed in beside her and put an arm around her waist. She whipped around to shove them off, but saw her friend, an ex-United Regiment soldier named Castana. He gave her an intoxicated grin. She still pushed him away, but only lightly.

  “Dee!” He raised his voice over the pounding music. “It’s been too long. I’ve missed you.” His words slurred into each other, and he slipped an arm back around her. The bartender placed Diega’s drink down in front of them, his smile gone.

  “Allow me.” Castana paid for the drink with a handful of pills – Moonshimmer and Intensity – barter and drugs were fast becoming the fairy-breed currency since the annulment of the sovereign. Diega reached for her drink.

  “Wait,” Castana said. He winked at her and hovered a pill above her glass. Her hesitation was a mere flicker. He dropped it in and she watched it fizz, then drained the glass in one go. Castana laughed.

  “Never change,” he murmured into her ear. He kissed her face, as the pain of her body and mind numbed. This was something that Jude had never understood, despite how close and intimate their relationship had become – she didn’t take drugs to feel high, she took them to feel nothing. He’d never understood her at all.

  Diega let Castana lead her out onto the dance floor where they joined the masses. His body pressed against hers from the front, another stranger from behind. She blinked and they were in the alley outside the club, both of them still pressed against her. Panic filtered through the drug haze. Where was she? Where were her clothes? Where was her mind?

  Both men were laughing – not at her, but it felt like it. She shoved Castana away and landed a kick to the other’s chest, knocking him sprawling. She staggered sideways onto the pavement, her hands closing over her clothes and weapon belt. She drew her electrifier and stood, aiming it first at Castana and then the stranger. Both men put up their hands.

  “Easy, Dee,” Castana said. “You know me. It’s just a bad trip.”

  “Fsx,” she cursed at him in Fenlen. “Don’t trutting move.”

  She snatched up her clothes and kept the gun pointed on them as she retreated down the alley.

  “Sirca,” she heard the stranger say – it meant “crazy”.

  Diega paused just before the end of the alleyway and dragged on her clothes and belt. There was still enough Intensity in her system for her not to feel the welts and bruises darkening all over her skin. Keeping to the shadows, she stepped out into Alamada Square, the center of Estabana. Outside the Helliox everything was far more subdued – an empty street, one small restaurant, with one small family eating inside by candlelight.

  To the left and seven blocks down stood her parents’ house. She hadn’t been there for so long, since finishing her court-ordered military sentence and deciding that she wanted to continue her training as a soldier. She’d gone home that day looking for a new beginning, maybe even reconciliation. Even as she’d climbed the front steps, she’d realized it was bad idea. She’d opened the door, but knocked lightly as well. There were no locks or knocking between family, but she wasn’t sure if she was still that. Inside the house was clean, but colorless – lived in, but abandoned. She found the two of them, her parents, sitting in the glass room, watching the stars. At her greeting, both glanced sideways with gray eyes. They looked like ghosts of themselves. Neither spoke, which wasn’t surprising, but it still hurt.

  She left them and went upstairs to the bedrooms. She pressed open the door to her sister Ariana’s room. Everything was as it had been the day Ariana was taken – from the washed clothes folded on her bed to the homework on her desk. In this room, time had frozen. She wanted to go inside, but couldn’t bring herself to do it – so she went instead to her own room and found it completely bare. They’d thrown away everything. Tears seared her eyes, but she forced herself to walk in, military boots thudding on the boards.

  She went to her hiding place in the cupboard and drew out the box. She opened the lid. Inside was the special bracelet with Ariana’s name inscribed on it – a gift from their father for doing so well at school. Ariana had been effortlessly talented in everything she did, unlike Diega, who had tried with everything she had, but never did as well. That day, the day Ariana had been taken, Diega had felt overwhelming jealousy of the gift, and even more so of her parents’ praise. She’d stolen the bracelet out of her sister’s room before they went out, liking the way it sparkled on her wrist.

  She went down a dark set of stairs and never came back up … The feelings flowed – impatience to anger, from anger to disquiet, from disquiet to fear, from fear to terror … She was gone. The fun sister, the happy-go-lucky sister, the adventurous sister, the smart sister, the beautiful sister … Gone. Forever.

  The story she’d told from then till now was that Ariana had vanished in a crowd, but the truth, which she’d never told a soul, was that in the overcrowded Alamada Square she’d seen her sister walk away with a stranger – and she’d felt uneasy about it. She’d even started to run after her, but then she’d stopped, thinking for once Ariana would be the one in trouble for wandering off, for once she’d be the one their parents yelled at, the one being told she was an embarrassment … And then she was gone, and all the regret in the world added up to exactly nothing. There was no way to bring her back. Because of jealousy, she’d let her sister die.

  Diega had put the lid back on the box and taken it with her, leaving the house without saying goodbye. Her sister had been murdered year-cycles ago, but Diega was deader to their parents than Ariana would ever be.

  Diega turned right and shuffled down the street, passing an overflowing dumpster. All rubbish collection had ceased since war broke over the city. A smashed-up speeder lay among the garbage. Diega went over and wrenched it upright. The engine was completely shot, but that had never presented a problem for her. She harnessed her electrosmith skills and sailed the speeder into the air. She zoomed, flying way too fast, the Intensity making time and space skip around her. Rooftops zipped past, gunfire sounded too loud, and then she saw the AOX building, the meet-up point, flash before her face. She collided with a ledge and crashed onto the rooftop, skidding along the rocks, only her military fatigues saving her skin from being shredded. She smashed into the other side, with the speeder on top of her. Hands wrenched her free from the wreckage and she looked up at Jude, staring at her through his night-vision glasses. His spider robot, SevenM, sat balanced on one broad shoulder.

  “Diega!” He shook her. “What have you done to yourself?”

  She shoved away from him and stood up, limping on a twisted ankle.

  “Are you high again?” he demanded.

  She snorted, sick to trutting death of Jude’s holier-than-thou attitude. He was looking at her like a sickness that needed curing. She started to tell him to mind his own business, but he grabbed the narc-gone spray off his belt and squeezed it full into her face. It was absorbed straight into her bloodstream and sobered her immediately. A mountain
of pain smashed down on top of her. She staggered to the edge of the rooftop and leaned against it, swallowing, feeling as though she was about to throw up. She grasped her anti-nausea serum and downed it, followed by a pain-cancel to kill the ache of her bruises.

  “I don’t understand.” Jude spoke behind her. “You killed the Skreaf. You avenged your sister. Why are you acting even crazier than before? What’s wrong with you women?”

  Diega shook her head. He didn’t understand. Everything was worse now – because of him, because of Copernicus and Silho and because she felt even more lost for purpose than ever, but she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing through her. She just gave a rough laugh and said, “King Jude.”

  He knew how to press all her buttons, but she knew all his as well.

  Jude moved in closer and said with pity that cut straight to her heart, “Diega – I still care about you.”

  Her eyes flickered closed. That was the worst thing to hear – I still care about you. But I don’t love you …

  He kept talking, but she didn’t hear another word, just stared up to the stars, finding among the infinitude of glowing forms the star her parents had made for Ariana and sent into the sky to shine forever. She’d always wanted to make her own star from her sister – but never had. It would mean accepting she was gone. Beyond the stars, the immense forms of other planets filled the night sky, the most visible of them, Bandos, Eumaios and Praterius, said to have once been part of Aquais, struck free by a rogue meteor.

  Diega’s sight dropped down toward movement beside the building. Copernicus and Silho were walking along the street below. Even after all the year-cycles since she’d first met him and after all they’d been through, the sight of Copernicus Kane made her breathless, and she could still see why most people found him so frightening. It was partly appearance – his height and carved stone muscles, harder than any muscles had the right to be, as Eli had once joked. It was also his presence. He radiated an undercurrent of animalistic alpha-male … but mostly, it was his eyes. When they were angry, it was like the entire universal sky blackening over with a storm – the kind no one would ever go out in. It was primal. It was just plain scary, which was why everyone was still calling him Commander Kane even though the United Regiment had ceased to exist.

  She could say she didn’t still love him and want him and fantasize about him, that she wouldn’t drop everything and everyone if he said he wanted her too – but that would be another lie. Those feelings had never gone away, and they hurt more than any physical injury she’d ever had. Hating Silho would be as easy as breathing, if the girl didn’t make it so difficult. She wasn’t conceited – in fact, most of the time she actually seemed completely oblivious to how strong she was, how stunning, how unique. Her Tehron, the shimmer of the star reigning in the sky on the day of a person’s birth, which reflected always from their eyes, was ruby red. Diega had never seen another person with a red Tehron. There were no red stars in the Aquaian sky, which meant only one thing – Silho wasn’t born on this planet. Diega knew all the other Fens saw it too – only her kind could see Tehron – but it was completely taboo to discuss it among themselves and held dire consequences if discussed with outsiders. So Diega kept her mouth shut. Telling Silho wouldn’t change anything anyway.

  In front of the stars a set of lights flashed, growing larger by the second. Diega spotted a craft, something unlike anything that she’d seen before, flying straight for them. Her first thought was Eli. Jude cursed and laughed behind her. She turned to smile at him and he smiled back. Eli Anklebiter – always bringing people together. Loving him was not optional. She just did.

  Eli soared the craft in, grinning and waving at them through the front windscreen, not seeing the unilluminated AOX sign he was flying straight toward. Both Diega and Jude started waving their arms, yelling for him to stop – but he zoomed past and smashed straight into it. The new transflyer ricocheted back, the engines cut, and the craft plummeted to the roof, hitting with a resounding smash. Diega and Jude sprinted together toward the transflyer lying on its side. With the strength of his metal prosthetics, Jude heaved the craft back upright. Eli was hanging half out the pilot-side door, looking dazed. Diega helped him down to lie on the ground, all her personal distress forgotten in the shock of watching her friend falling from the sky.

  “What was that?” she yelled at him, half-laughing, half-upset.

  “You okay, buddy?” Jude asked, kneeling beside him. SevenM’s many eyes scanned over Eli checking for injury.

  Eli clutched his otter, which Diega always called an overgrown rat to tease him, and said in a small voice, “No … I mean, yes … I’m okay, I think.” He let out a peal of laughter, then cut himself short. “Sorry … sorry … I’m just … really sorry – I’ve never crashed before.”

  “Sometimes watching where you’re going is useful,” Diega told him.

  “I thought you were waving to me,” he said, then giggled again.

  “We were – we were waving, as in, don’t crash into that sign.”

  “Maybe something’s wrong with me.” Eli looked up at them with worried eyes.

  “It’s called stress,” Jude said. “Go easy on yourself. We’re all dealing with it – hopefully there’ll be some kind of relief up ahead.”

  Boots thudded toward them, and Silho and Copernicus appeared beside Jude.

  “What happened?” Copernicus demanded.

  “He was waving to us and not looking where he was going.” Diega gave Eli a light, playful shove.

  “Are you alright?” Copernicus asked him.

  “I think so.”

  They all helped him sit up and his otter scrambled back into his pocket.

  “I just …” Eli made a choking sound and burst into tears.

  Jude thumped him on the back and Silho held his hand as he tried to compose himself.

  “I’m sorry,” he snuffled. “I’m a mess.”

  “It’s fine,” Copernicus said stiffly. “There’s nothing wrong with expressing emotion.”

  Diega burst into laughter. “Coming from you, that’s hilarious,” she said. Copernicus was so repressed, controlled and hardened that he could barely smile, let alone cry.

  “You don’t cry,” Eli said to the commander, then found a hankerchief in his pocket and wiped his nose.

  “No …” he said with a hint of discomfort. “Not – outwardly.”

  Diega laughed louder – not outwardly …

  “It’s just you, Eli,” she teased him. “You, pregnant women and small children.”

  “It’s called having emotions, Diega,” Jude said, taking it too seriously as always. “You should try it someday.”

  “Really? Thanks, your majesty,” she snapped back at him.

  “Okay, enough – time to fly out,” Copernicus told them.

  Eli scrambled up and they all climbed into the brand new Ory-5. Diega maneuvered herself behind the steering yoke, letting out the seat, her legs longer than Eli’s.

  Jude patted Eli’s shoulder in the back seat. “Nice work, my friend – once again you’ve outdone yourself.”

  “I would say the same,” Diega looked back at him in the mirrors, “but I don’t want you to start blubbering again.”

  Eli laughed, looking much more like himself, even with the bloodshot eyes.

  Hearing a distinctive snore from his pocket, Diega said, “Overgrown rat still not taking to her cage?”

  “In short,” Eli said, “no. I just couldn’t get her to go inside tonight. Things shouldn’t get too … serious … at the fight-in, should they?” he asked anxiously.

  Diega gestured to Copernicus sitting beside her and said, “For him it will be serious. For us – there’s always the chance of craziness as well, but the rat’s a veteran at this by now. She’ll be fine.”

  Eli gulped, both he and Silho looking decidedly ill at the thought of Copernicus fighting. Diega wouldn’t have admitted it aloud, but she was feeling a similar disquiet at the ide
a. Copernicus himself looked as cool and controlled as always, and Jude just seemed ticked off at everyone, excluding Eli. Diega sensed it was going to be one of those days that she wished was over before it had even begun.

  She started up the engine and Eli said, “Just watch the propulsion, it’s very —”

  Diega took off with a speed that shocked even her, smashing everyone back in their seats. They rocketed toward Sirenseron – the former royal palace, and topmost level of Scorpia.

  Chapter 6

  Croy

  Kullra Fornax

  Nÿr-Corum (The Filter)

  The floating pier rocked with a deceitful serenity as Croy and Darius approached the gathering at the end of the jetty. Croy counted the number of personnel already on scene. They totaled twelve – twelve bodies dropping extraneous threads and fibers, twenty-four boots trampling over tracks, a hundred and twenty fingers smudging prints and contaminating evidence. The Conference had chosen not to listen to her when she’d explained to them about crime-scene integrity. They wanted things done the same way they always had been, even if it was the wrong way.