Suited

by Jo Anderton

  Then Lad said, “Says he hurts and you are all ignoring him and you should all stop talking and listen to him instead.”

  I blinked myself back to reality, feeling flushed and sore and embarrassed. I watched a blush rise along Kichlan’s neck, and it was good to know he felt the same. Such a strange connection.

  Lad was standing close to his brother, his hand hovering above mine, making patting motions without actually touching me. He looked worn, grey. The hem of his shirt was caked with blood.

  There was so much blood. Would we ever truly be clean again?

  “I think the cracks have stopped growing,” Mizra reported from somewhere I couldn’t see. “No more poly failing either.”

  “Lad,” I said. “Will you speak to the… To him, for me?”

  He hesitated, placed his bloodstained hand on mine. “Yes.” Some of the colour returned to his face. “I will.”

  “Thank you.” I smiled at him, and managed to coax a small one out of him. “I will talk to him, please tell me what he says.”

  Lad squeezed my hand.

  I addressed a patch of air just behind Lad’s ear, deciding I didn’t much care if the Keeper was actually standing somewhere else. “I couldn’t tame it,” I said. “I couldn’t calm it. And I know tearing it away from you is probably the worst thing I could have done, but I hope you understand that I didn’t have a choice.”

  Lad tipped his head. “Says: the door is closed now, but it is a scar and it won’t heal.” He paused. “And some other stuff. Sorry, Tan, he talks and talks and I can’t understand everything. Some of it isn’t real words.”

  Kichlan’s hands tightened around me.

  I swallowed down bile through a thick-feeling throat. “Tell him: I wish that was not so. But I couldn’t let the debris kill Lad, and I couldn’t let it kill me.”

  “He knows. He is sorry too.” A longer hesitation. Idly, Lad stroked the back of my hand with one finger. “He will do like you asked, Tan. Says he doesn’t have a choice, he thinks. Next time he needs to talk, he will tell me. Won’t ask me to follow. Won’t shout. Will just tell me, and I tell you, but you have to put your suit on straight away. Is that okay, Tan? He says: straight away.”

  “Yes, that’s okay. I understand. Straight away.”

  I watched Lad for another moment of silence, before he said, “Think he’s gone away.”

  Where did the Keeper go to lick his wounds? Part of me wondered if he followed us constantly, just quietly, watching from his dark world.

  I was gradually becoming aware of sounds and lights flickering around us. Voices, high with fear or concern. Then, strangely, Natasha soothing, reassuring, sounding very much in control.

  I lifted eyebrows at Kichlan. “Imagine that,” I said, with a grin.

  He hands softened as he chuckled. “Indeed.”

  And Lad laughed too, though he couldn’t have understood us, and tightened his grip on my hand.

  For a moment, everything felt right in a way I knew I’d missed, but hadn’t realised how strongly.

  “Alarms have been sent, apparently.” Natasha’s head leaned into view. “We’ve got a small crowd gathering. If it’s not too much trouble, and your hands aren’t too ah... full, I would love some help trying to keep the crowd away from the sudden crevasse of doom.” She flashed a wild grin.

  Lad burst out laughing, and pressed his hands to his face.

  It was about time I moved, too.

  “All right.” I flexed, wincing. At least the ache was dimming. My suit still spun, though it did so with a sluggishness I’d never seen from it before. “I can take a hint.”

  With Kichlan helping and Lad holding onto my hand in a way that was rather less than convenient I eased myself from Kichlan’s lap. Standing was a little difficult, but Sofia appeared by my side and gripped my elbow to hold me steady. She glared at Kichlan and Aleksey.

  “Off you go, help Natasha,” she said. It was not a request.

  “Even looking like this?” Kichlan waved a hand at his damaged face. Lad made a little uncertain noise.

  “It should give them a pretty good reason to stay back.”

  Kichlan and Lad slumped away. Aleksey, who seemed to catch onto these things quickly, didn’t bother arguing and headed in the opposite direction.

  “You need to sit down,” Sofia told me, once they were out of immediate earshot.

  “But I just stood up.” I, of course, hadn’t learned that particular lesson so well.

  “Regardless.” She leaned closer to me. “You’re shaking; I can feel it through your uniform and your clothes. Don’t try and hide these things from me.”

  She had a point.

  Sofia led me to one of the stalls and helped me sit on it. The hard poly edges weren’t comfortable, but it was certainly easier than standing. I watched as Natasha, Uzdal, Mizra, Fedor, Aleksey, Kichlan and Lad formed a rough circle around the cracks and what had once been the centre of the market square. They held back a peering crowd of pion-binders. People who could not know what had just happened here, or what was causing the dramatic holes in the earth, only that it had involved a lot of noise and a group of debris collectors. Since we saved their city we, and the work we did, had suddenly become a lot more interesting.

  I shuddered at the very thought of those cracks and the emptiness that had created them. Why would anyone want to stand closer?

  “What’s wrong? Are you cold?” Sofia touched my shoulders, my forehead.

  I shook my head, even as nausea tickled my stomach. “Do you think the pion-binders will be able to fix those holes we made?” I asked, knowing she could not answer.

  Sofia stared into the market place. “They’ll bring in architects, won’t they? Like you were, once?” She waited for me to agree. “Then they should be able to do it in a snap.”

  “A door opened there. It’s not just debris weakening pion binds. The doors destroy everything. Probably the pions themselves.” I had no way of knowing that, of seeing it or proving it. But I was certain it was true. That was the only way, surely, the doors could bleed nothingness into our world. By destroying the pions that made us.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Neither do I.” And suddenly, the nausea stopped tickling, and my stomach rebelled. I was able to twist away before I threw up what little food I had eaten, all over some poor market trader’s stall.

  “Tanyana!” Sofia rubbed my back. “Is it that bad?”

  I lost the battle again, and ended up dry retching. I really hadn’t eaten much, and that can’t have helped. A few gasps, coughs, spits and I managed, “It will go away in a moment. It always does.”

  She stilled. “It always does?”

  I shrugged, and wished I hadn’t actually said anything. I wished I had some water too. “It’s nothing.”

  “That’s just not good enough, Tanyana.” She did not exactly dig into my back, but the pressure of her fingertips increased noticeably. I didn’t like the sound of that tone. “What are you saying? Just how much throwing up are you doing?”

  “About as much as you were doing a moment ago, when you first saw that body.” I glanced up. Her face was set in a seriously unimpressed expression. “It’s only natural. The door, the debris, the body–”

  “You said, it always does. You should be looking after yourself better than that. Kichlan cares about you.” She hesitated.

  “Kichlan? What’s he got to do–?”

  She squeezed onto the poly beside me, crossed her arms and leaned close. Her feet didn’t reach the ground. I resisted the urge to lean away. “And Lad needs you, doesn’t he? Separated from his brother, you are the one he relies on. What would happen if you suddenly couldn’t help him, if you let yourself get so sick you couldn’t collect at all?”

  I blinked at her, a little shocked. “Oh, that’s a bit extreme, don’t you think? I’ll feel awful for a few bells, maybe, but it doesn’t last all day and I’m certainly not getting any worse.”

  She tucked a strand of h
er long brown hair behind her ear. Several of them had come loose from their tight bun and floated wispily around her head. She’d have hated that – Sofia preferred neatness and order – so I didn’t mention it. She couldn’t have done much to fix her hair now anyway. “So you’ve been feeling, what, generally ill? The usual Movoc winter illnesses?”

  “Oh yes, it’s probably just that.” I tried to laugh it off. “You scared me, bringing Lad into it like that.”

  “Strange, though, to get them so late in spring. Tired all the time?”

  “With the veche breaking us up, and the Keeper dragging us around and yes, taking responsibility for Lad, what else would you expect?”

  “How long has this been happening?”

  Another shrug. “Moon, maybe a bit more.”

  “You should take better care of yourself.” She patted my knee, but her eyes were sharp, calculating, and searched my face. I was sure she could see every moment of doubt, every scar played in lines and shadows and sallowness across my skin. “And your stomach.” She gestured loosely, fingers brushing my jacket over my abdomen, and I could not stop myself from flinching. “Nausea and pain? Have you been eating?”

  “You haven’t met Valya, have you?”

  Another pause. “Have you told Kichlan?”

  “No, of course not. He has enough to worry about at the moment don’t you think?”

  And then the market square lit up, and saved me from the frown gathering of Sofia’s face. Together, we glanced up in surprise. Dozens of lights – like little flames independent of the wick – settled across the market square, surrounding the damage. The watching crowd seemed unconcerned, but without their ability to see how these lights were being created it was unsettling.

  Lad hurried over. “Lights,” he whispered.

  I stood using Sofia’s shoulder to help me up but ignoring her pointed look, as a small Fist of enforcers marched through the crowd.

  “Finally.” Aleksey and the other collectors abandoned their posts as the enforcers arrived. He tried smiling again as he approached me. “Alarms must have worked. First protocol for an event like this is to bring enforcers in. Control the crowd, ascertain if healers are required. They’ll send a pion message back, encoded on the same strands as the original alarm, requesting the appropriate circles.”

  “You seem to know a lot about the process,” I said.

  “Ah,” he said, sheepishly. “Insider knowledge.”

  The majority of the enforcers created the same rough circle as we had, keeping spectators away from the crevasses. Three broke away from the group and wandered the site, carrying large slides and apparently making notes, if their twitching fingers were anything to go by. Another, his uniform more ornate and a large roaring bear’s head emblazoned above his heart, was already talking to Natasha and Kichlan. I wondered how they would explain the Keeper, the door, and the poor Hon Ji Half of whom nothing remained.

  “No healers, unless they think Kichlan needs one,” Aleksey continued. He grinned, winced, and touched his lip. “Or me,” he added. “Then architects to fix the street, excavators to provide raw materials, engineers to re-establish any broken pion paths. Like that lamp, I’d say. When it is recreated it will need to be connected to the network again, so an engineer would repair the path to allow the pions can get through. The usual.”

  When I had been an architect I had known “the usual” quite well. In fact, as the centre of a nine point circle I had often organised it. Not when enforcers were involved, however. My circle created, we did not repair.

  I mentioned none of this, however, and asked, instead, “Insider knowledge?”

  “Ah, yes.” He rubbed the scar on his nose. “Used to be an enforcer.”

  “Before you fell.”

  He nodded, quiet for a moment, his face folded into shadow and free of expression. But it lasted only a moment, before his half-smile returned. “Life as an enforcer wasn’t half as dramatic as debris collecting seems to be though.”

  “Like I said, this is not normal. Debris collecting is dank, dirty, and tedious. It involves long days of walking, crawling and climbing. We don’t usually come across bodies.” Or fight for the stability of the world, I wanted to say, but didn’t entirely believe it.

  The lights strengthened as the enforcer continued to speak to Kichlan and Natasha. Lad, obviously relieved of his initial fear, wandered across the square, trying a little too hard to look casual.

  “Bro is lying,” he whispered as he passed us, hands clasped behind his back, chin tucked close to his chest. “Not telling them about him, or about you.”

  “Oh?” Aleksey did not sound concerned, despite his previous employment, merely curious. “How are they explaining this all then?”

  “Big explosion.” Lad unclasped his hands long enough to make explosive movements. “Like last time.”

  That sounded like a good approach to me. The debris explosions that had rocked Movoc-under-Keeper would still be fresh in the enforcers’ minds. Perhaps it would be enough to prevent any further questions.

  “Are they creating the lights?” I asked Aleksey, as Lad wandered away again.

  He nodded. “One man has that job. Torchbearer. Always harder to keep the peace in the dark.”

  “I can imagine.”

  Finally, the centre enforcer dismissed Natasha and Kichlan with a wave of his hand. They joined us. Natasha looked haggard, Kichlan like he could barely stand. Lad slipped an arm beneath his brother’s shoulder, and I was surprised he accepted the support.

  “They believed us,” Natasha said.

  The rest of the teams closed around us, forming a tight knot of debris collectors as the square filled with pion-binders.

  “You and Kich are very smart,” Lad said, in all seriousness. Natasha smiled at him wanly.

  “They don’t need us any more, do they?” My throat still stung and my pains were deep. A bed was all I truly needed. “Can we leave? We’ve done our job, after all.” Not all those aches were physical.

  “Yes, we have,” Kichlan said. “Sofia, can you put something in that?” He glanced at the bag at her feet, carrying the few collecting jars we had not been able to fill. “Yours too, Mizra. The enforcers think we subdued an emergency tonight. I doubt they’ve ever seen a collecting jar, but let’s try and stay on the safe side. Pretend we collected so much we can barely carry it all.”

  But how would we pretend to the veche, when they came to take the full jars away and found only empty ones?

  Sofia and Mizra hunted for rubbish to weigh their bags down. Physical debris – I thought, with a wry smile to myself – pretending to be our debris.

  I needed to get home. To lie curled around the sickness in my belly, to peel back coat sleeve and shirt and uniform and see just what the debris had done to my arm when it had torn the suit from my skin. But most of all I needed to get away from the memory of the Hon Ji Half falling to pieces in my hands and from Sofia’s too-attentive gaze.

  “Ah, Tanyana?” Mizra pulled me from my distraction with a tense, warning tone. “I think you need to see this.”

  What now? What more would the puppet men throw at me in one night?

  I looked up. There, standing beside the enforcer, was Devich, Volski and Tsana. All three were pale in the floating pion lights, and looked shocked.

  “Of all the architects in Movoc-under-Keeper.” The nine point circle I had once commanded was a well-maintained machine of precision and power. Unless the remnants of my circle had fallen very far in my absence – which I severely doubted – they were not the kind of circle usually called upon fix cracks in a market floor. No matter how deep.

  “What’s he doing here?” Kichlan fixed growling-dog eyes on Devich.

  “Good question.” An architect’s circle was necessary, I knew that, even one so powerful and so out of place, but what was a debris suit technician doing here? “It’s all a little convenient, don’t you think?”

  If anything, Kichlan’s expression darkened furthe
r.

  “That’s the lady, isn’t it, Tan?” Lad piped up. “The lady that fixed our ceiling. All on her own, she did it. Didn’t she?”

  “That’s right, Lad.”

  Around me, I felt the members of my old collecting team sharpen. They knew Devich, they knew who he was and what he had done, and with Lad’s prompting they recognised Tsana as well. I could almost feel their suspicions rise, their alertness increase, as they scanned the market crowds for the puppet men.

  It was a good feeling. I straightened. I was warmed by it, and strengthened by it. I was not alone.

  “Your architect’s circle?” Kichlan whispered.

  I nodded, ran a hand through my short and poorly cropped hair, and approached the members of my once-circle, taking a wide path around the crumbling ground. Kichlan fell into step at my left shoulder. Lad tried to follow, but Sofia and Aleksey held him back.

  “Tanyana?” Volski noticed me first, and his attention drew Devich and Tsana’s gaze. Devich looked even worse than the last time I had seen him. He was thinner, the clothes that had once looked so effortlessly good on him draped loose over his frame. His face was bloodless, his eyes too large and frightened as they met mine. He looked like he didn’t want to be there at all.

  But he was Devich, so it could all be an act. A lie. A pretty extreme one, certainly, but I had trusted him once and refused to do so again. No matter how he seemed to sway on his feet and dissolve into the market shadows like he was becoming one himself.

  Volski and Tsana, however, I did trust. The older man hurried to meet me. He held my hands and peered at my face, sending quick glances up at Kichlan who doubtless glowered down upon him. But Volski was not one to be intimidated, not even by Kichlan on a night as bad as this one. “Tanyana,” Volski said. “You look terrible.”

  I laughed, sharp and sore in my throat, before leaning forward and kissing him lightly on the cheek. I hoped my breath didn’t reek. “I probably do.” Volski was weathered by years of working in the sun and the harsh Movoc wind, his skin roughly lined and darkened. But even at this late bell he was clean-shaven, his silvering hair immaculately styled, his dark, high-necked jacket – a row of bear-head badges shining from his shoulders – perfectly pressed.