Blackfish City

by Sam J. Miller

She climbed up onto the railing. Not so much farther to go, but here the orderly progression of walls and windows and ledges that had taken her this far broke down. Now she’d need to really scale. Run, leap, execute flawless rolling falls.

  Now the fear took her.

  Turned her feet to ice, froze them to the railing. Filled her bones with lead.

  She shut her eyes. I am not afraid, she thought, but that wasn’t true, and then she thought, I am stronger than my fear, and that was maybe true. She breathed.

  A scream from beside her. Chim, squatting on the railing.

  “Hey, girl,” Ankit said.

  Chim screamed genially. And then jumped.

  Ankit jumped too.

  And grabbed hold of a horizontal bar, the same one Chim had landed on. She let the momentum swing her forward, and at the apex of her swing she bucked her body to extend the arc, landing with a wobble on the joint where three struts met. Chim leaped to join her on it.

  They swung, they tumbled. They were one. Whatever happened, she was not alone.

  A wall blocked her way, and Ankit sped up. Leaped. Took one step and then a second up the wall and grabbed hold of a bar, squat-hopped onto another one. In the space between two stairwells she zig-zagged down, back and forth from one landing to the next, dropping four stories in the space of seconds. She caught herself throwing in superfluous moves—thief vault, Kong vault, cat pass, rotary jump—for the sheer exultant pleasure of it.

  At the end, two stories from the sea, Ankit leaped to the final level without even thinking about it, and for the first time in her life executed a flawless rolling fall. Then she had to wait, laughing, breathing heavy, for the monkey to scamper down through less spectacular means.

  She didn’t feel relieved when they reached the struts and ran the wide circumference of the Cabinet’s lowest level, and finally saw Go’s boat, where Soq was standing on the prow looking for them, and gave them directions for where to aim the ladder to extract everyone else, and climbed aboard to be draped in blankets and offered a steaming mug of something hot and alcoholic.

  What Ankit felt was sadness, to be groundbound again.

  City Without a Map: Press Montage

  From the Brooklyn Expat [in English]:

  Sometimes Qaanaaq can seem like Saturn, ceaselessly devouring its own young—and dooming itself in the process. Blink, and something you love has vanished. Your favorite noodle stall; the karaoke skiff where you went for your first date; the Mongolian cinema where you discovered the work of Erdenechimeg or Batbayar. The high cost of real estate, and the sponsoring nation council’s steadfast refusal to adopt the commercial rent controls supported by an overwhelming majority of registrants, add up to a city where nothing good can stay.

  And yet—some things simply seem . . . permanent. Unchangeable. Essential to the structural integrity of the city’s psyche. As crucial as the grid itself. Some things we’ve been seeing for so long that their absence is simply inconceivable.

  This morning, residents woke up to two previously inconceivable new changes.

  The first was the absence of the rusted old freighter that had been docked on Arm Five for almost thirty years, according to some neighbors. Generally believed to be the flagship vessel and headquarters of the Amonrattanakosin crime syndicate, it had shipped out at some point in the night.

  The second? A hole. In the Cabinet. A smoking flaming wound in the side of that building so widely considered impregnable.

  And according to many witnesses, these two inconceivable disruptions are connected . . .

  From Keskisuomalainen [in Finnish]:

  The drama unfolding in the Cabinet reached its climax shortly after three in the morning. This outlet was one of a handful that was present from the start, from the moment the geothermal heat to the city’s largest psychiatric center went out, and we stayed on-site for the duration, sharing every official communique as Health released it, capturing evacuee responses that contradicted Health’s facile tale of a simple heat disruption, even releasing images leaked anonymously to us by a Health employee that appear to show a team of violent invaders assaulting Safety officers inside the facility—accompanied, we hasten to add, by a polar bear. And we were present forty-five minutes ago, when a loud boom echoed through the Hub and a ball of fire appeared in the outer wall of the Cabinet.

  This story was major even before the invaders blew a hole in the wall and started facilitating the mass escape of inmates. While we are still waiting on an official response to our query to Heat’s analysis software, it seems likely that this is the greatest geothermal disruption in the city’s history. If criminals bent on getting into the most secure building in the city can rupture the pyramid’s valves and divert heat, how safe are any of us? For years we’ve been told to put our faith in the aquadrones, the multiple redundant defense systems, the engineering marvel of the geothermal cone, but if a handful of thugs can triumph over those defenses, the safe and abundant heat that makes life in Qaanaaq possible at all is called into question. Today’s events may embolden our enemies to launch an even bigger attack, one that could have every one of us looking for a new home or saluting a Russian flag come morning . . .

  From the Post–New York Post [in English]:

  Safety officials maintain that they are awaiting final software analysis before releasing a statement. This statement, when it comes, is unlikely to tell us anything helpful or revelatory. Bot statements rarely do; it’s why they’re even more popular than the ones that human press flacks used to have to type up with their own two hands.

  What is beyond question, however, is the involvement of Amonrattanakosin Group. Their vessel was present in the waters beneath the Cabinet at the precise moment that the outer wall was breached by an explosive detonated by one of the invaders. Footage from countless angles shows them shepherding escapees aboard—an estimated three hundred in total. Whether they were behind the whole thing or merely part of a bigger plan, possibly involving numerous syndicates or other power players, local or foreign, is unknown. Recent violence across multiple Arms has been shown to have targeted Amonrattanakosin assets. If today’s events are merely an escalation in some sick syndicate turf squabble, how many more innocent registrants will be killed or kidnapped as open warfare consumes the city?

  Qaanaaq is famous for its laissez-faire attitude to law enforcement, illegal commerce, and syndicate activity. Most people here seem to like this minimalist style of government, overseen by tolerant machines whose primary concern is for our well-being. Maybe those of us who come from more aggressive nations or cities are just extra-sensitive on the subject, because we have seen what happens when lawlessness flourishes.

  Syndicates think they are above the law. The question to Qaanaaq is—are they?

  Kaev

  The tea steamed in the open air. Kaev poured it out slowly, concentrating, and then he handed it across the table. They sat on the deck of the Amonrattanakosin ship, out on the sea, away from the geothermal vents—unmoored, unconnected to the grid—and that wasn’t even the most unthinkable piece of this scene.

  “Thank you,” she said. She was real. She was a person. She took the mug, then set it down. Pressed both hands against it. Looked at him. Smiled like no one had ever smiled at him, not even Go. “You don’t remember me.”

  Kaev shook his head.

  “And you?”

  Ankit shook hers.

  “You were so little,” Ora said, and her voice hitched slightly. Masaaraq took her hand. From belowdecks, the sounds of laughter and crying and anger and joy; the Cabinet refugees being fed, warmed, hydrated, while presumably Go’s flunkies figured out what the hell to do with three hundred people.

  They sat, the four of them. Around a table on a boat on the open ocean. From inside Go’s cabin Kaev could hear the squawk of multiple radios, a dozen soldiers arguing. Go’s voice, clear and certain as a bell, and probably only Kaev could hear the fear in it. Liam lay on the floor not far from them, unsleeping, curled into a b
all and watching them fitfully. Every bit as uncomfortable and uncertain as Kaev was. Qaanaaq was a long dark smudge on the horizon. Everything he knew was behind him. Kaev knew why he was frightened: nothing would ever be the same again. What he didn’t know was why he wasn’t more frightened.

  “This is so weird,” Ankit said. “I’m sorry, but it is. We go from being orphans to having two parents in the space of days. I was a political drone, a nobody, and now I’m busting people out of lockup, doing family time with people everybody believed had been wiped out.”

  “Of course it’s weird,” Masaaraq said. “We should not exist. We should not be a family. But here we are. In spite of everything they tried to do to us.”

  Everyone’s eyes kept flitting back to Ora. She said almost nothing. Stared out into the distance, and then into her tea, and then at one of them, and then at the cabin where Go was throwing things against the wall. Squeeze her hand and she squeezed back; give her a smile and she returned it. She seemed present. Seemed happy. But who knew how much of her was left, after everything she’d been through?

  “What now?” Kaev said.

  Masaaraq laughed. “Would you believe I have no idea? Thirty years planning for this, building toward this moment, and barely five minutes in all that time to think about what the hell I would do when I got here.”

  “What we’d do,” Ora said quietly. But everyone heard her.

  They drank tea, all four of them. They touched each other tentatively. Repeatedly. Nervously. Like maybe this was all a joke, a trick, a dream. Kaev slowly felt less frightened. A seagull circled overhead, descending to scratch at flecks of fish guts at the edge of the deck. Ora gasped when she saw it, and did not look away no matter what it did.

  “Seagull,” Ankit said. “Ugly creatures.”

  “I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Ora said.

  “Ora was bonded to a bird,” Masaaraq said, and Ora whispered with her: “A black-chested buzzard eagle.”

  “I think I remember that,” Kaev said. “It’s faint, but I feel like I remember seeing it circling the Cabinet. A long time ago. Roosting up top.”

  “She stayed with me for the rest of her life,” Ora said. “Fifteen years.”

  “And then?” Masaaraq asked. “What happened then?”

  Ora said nothing.

  Shouts from the cabin; an alarm sounded. A boat, coming from Qaanaaq.

  “This can’t be good,” Kaev said, standing up.

  Soq emerged from the cabin. Startling, the fondness that gripped Kaev when he saw Soq coming. The love for someone he never knew existed. This is what family is. What family does. Was it magic, some supernatural quirk of DNA recognizing its own? Or did humans simply spend their whole lives so steeped in the mythology of this primal thing called family that the emotions were already there, one-way relationships waiting for the people who would one day step into those slots?

  “Is that Safety?” Kaev asked.

  “That’s Go’s transport,” Soq said. “She’s going to pay a visit to a certain Martin Podlove.”

  Kaev sat down, clumsily poured another cup of tea for Soq.

  “Thanks,” Soq said. “What’d I miss?”

  “A brazen invasion, explosions, death-defying feats of true scaling brilliance,” Ankit said. “Also, this is your grandmother. Soq, meet Ora.”

  They shook hands. Awkwardly. Soq frowned at the old woman’s face and asked, “Have we met?”

  Ora smiled. “Not directly. I’m a friend of a friend, perhaps.”

  “Hey, yeah, cool, I get it,” Soq said, with the exaggerated smile you give someone you suspect might be quite mad.

  “Yours?” Ora asked Ankit.

  “Mine,” Kaev said, and then laughed. “I mean . . . not mine . . . Soq belongs only to Soq. But I’m Soq’s father.”

  “This will take us all some time to get used to,” Ankit said. “But back to Martin Podlove. I knew the guy. The one who killed his grandkid? I’d been working with him on research into the breaks. Fascinating fellow. So knowledgeable. But angry. And sad.”

  Soq laughed. “Well, then. If that’s your friend, I may have some bad news for you.”

  The door to the cabin opened. Go came out first, followed by soldiers. Marching a man who moved in shuffling little steps, because he was extremely old or because his ankles were bound like his wrists. Or both. Probably both. Soq said, “That would be the bad news I mentioned.”

  “She’s going to give him to Podlove?” Ankit asked.

  “Maybe,” Soq said. “Probably. I’m holding out hope that it’s just a trick to get close to the guy in his office and gut him like a fish, but the chances of that are looking slim. I’m going along for the ride.”

  Kaev watched their mouths move, heard the words, didn’t hear them. None of this mattered. He felt Liam inside his head, a calming beacon of mammalian wisdom, of animal objectivity, guiding him clear of the rocks. Words were useless, dangerous, dishonest. He loved these people and he wouldn’t let anything happen to them. He got up and lay down on the floor beside Liam.

  “You look like you’re part polar bear yourself,” Ankit said, smiling down at them.

  “That’d mean so are you.”

  “I’m all monkey, baby.”

  When she laughed, so did the ugly little capuchin that had been hiding behind her.

  When Liam snarled at it, so did Kaev. Then everybody laughed. Except Masaaraq.

  “Don’t mind her,” Ora said with a laugh, her smile radiant, and how could she be so sane, so whole, so happy, after everything she’d been through? Kaev wanted to lie in her lap and stare at her face forever. “She was always like this. A hunter. Out in the wilderness all the time. Killing things. Even when she was with us, she was somewhere else. Worrying about what might happen. You know how predators are.”

  “No, actually, I don’t,” Ankit said.

  “I do,” Kaev whispered.

  Masaaraq scooped up a handful of seawater from a bucket at her feet and splashed it in Ora’s face. And then she laughed.

  “She loves you kids,” Ora said. “Always did. Even if she was afraid to show it. Even if she thought that evil spirits might see her happiness and snatch it away from her.”

  “Turns out I was right about that,” Masaaraq said.

  “Know this,” Ora said. “She didn’t come all this way just for me.”

  “Upper America is full of empty towns, empty cities,” Masaaraq said abruptly, uncomfortable—as Kaev was—with all these words. “Our enemies are gone. The warlords keep to the south. We can choose any place we want. Big mansions, tiny cabins, a dozen of each . . .” She looked up, saw Kaev and Ankit’s shocked expressions. “There are settlements there, still. Trade routes. You wouldn’t be giving up civilization entirely.”

  Their mouths did not close.

  Yes, Kaev thought. Yes. Liam raised his head, seeing what Kaev imagined, the boundless expanses of snow and ice, the wilderness, the hunt. His joy doubled, tripled, boosted by the bear’s. Let’s get away from all this human ugliness.

  Ankit shut her mouth and then opened it again. What would she say? What if she hated the idea? Who was this woman? What did she love, fear, hate, crave? Kaev felt his whole future hung on the next sentence that was said.

  “I—”

  Ora interrupted: “We’re not going anywhere.”

  No one said a word.

  “My work here is unfinished,” she said.

  “Your work?” Masaaraq said, letting go of Ora’s hands. “What work?”

  Ora smiled and showed Masaaraq her forearm. Kaev caught a glimpse of a crescent-shaped scar or wound, endlessly repeated.

  Masaaraq’s eyes went wide. She stood, stepped back. When she spoke, it was in a whisper. “You’ve been bonding people.” She clamped her hands over her mouth.

  “Don’t you dare judge me,” Ora said. “And don’t tell me you’ve become so weak you need long-dead superstitions for a crutch.”

  Masaaraq co
uld not answer.

  “You bonded me,” Soq said to Masaaraq. “And you’d just met me.”

  “And me,” Ankit whispered.

  “That’s different,” Masaaraq said, and the terrifying fearless orcamancer was gone from her voice. “You’re family. Both of you. We’re family.”

  “How do you think I survived?” Ora said, and her voice was a viper’s now, a hiss of warning, of pain, of anger. “How do you think I lived so long? How do you think I lasted the decades it took you to come and find me?”

  Masaaraq flinched. “I never—”

  Ora stood. “Exactly. You never. You never had to live with what I lived with. You never had your animal die of old age, of grief, kept from touching you by sixty feet of polyglass. You never had to sense it, flying in endless circles, searching for you, never getting any closer. Bonding to people was the only way to keep from going insane. From getting my brains scrambled back to the mental capacity of a child.”

  Kaev stood up, went to her. Bear-hugged her. Thinking, I would do anything to keep from feeling that again.

  “I’m sorry,” Masaaraq said. “I’m sorry. Of course I have no right to judge you.”

  “I met a lot of sick people in there,” Ora said. “Suffering from a lot of illnesses. Many of them completely baffling to the medical software. And I found a funny thing. When I bonded with people with the breaks? They weren’t sick anymore. They still had it, but they weren’t suffering from it.”

  Masaaraq gave Soq a swift look and then a nod.

  “What is it?” Ankit asked. “The breaks. How does it work? Scientists know it’s delivered by a viral vector, but we don’t know if it actually is a virus. Might be that, or a bacterium or nanites or rogue gut fauna or some combination of those, or something else altogether.”

  “Whatever it is, when you get infected with it—it carries information. Memories. This disease defies everything we thought we understood about how memory works. Somewhere in its genome, the sickness encodes massive amounts of data from the person who infected you, and the one who infected them, and so on, all the way back up the chain. A normal human mind has no idea how to process this kind of information, and it will slowly start to break down. But the nanites that let us bond with animals also let us process their emotions, their imaginations. So when someone with the breaks gets bonded to one of us, the nanites help them survive, handle those memories, control them as well as you would control any others.”