Hearts of Oak

by Eddie Robson

  This, Iona realized, must be Clarence. Now that she saw him, he did look familiar: the ship’s pilot had owned a cat like this.

  Another citizen made its way to the front of the crowd and stood behind Clarence. It held the severed forearm of a citizen with various robotic brain components plugged into it. Iona realized it would be wise not to let on that she knew what it was.

  “She’s a criminal,” Clarence continued, addressing his loyal citizens. “She plotted against the king and she was involved in the fire—”

  “I know what you are,” said Iona, knowing it might be dangerous to let him know this but she wanted to see his reaction. She added: “And I know what you’re trying to do here.”

  “She is to be taken alive,” Clarence continued, ignoring her. “I have an appropriate sentence in mind for her and her associates.”

  “What, burn us alive like you did Alyssa?”

  “No, imprisonment. We’ll have to design and build a prison, of course . . . I’d offer you the job, but . . .”

  “You need us, don’t you? Otherwise you’d have gotten rid of us years ago—”

  “I don’t need you.”

  “Then we’re useful to you. You take over other people’s bodies—if anything happened to that one, you might need a spare.” Iona’s thinking on this was evolving as she spoke. “But if you could switch to one of our bodies you’d have done it by now. It’s the cage, isn’t it? It keeps us all alive, stops us from aging—but it also means you can’t leave that body. You’re stuck as a cat. So you’re keeping us alive for when you get out.”

  Cats can’t shrug but Clarence created the impression of shrugging nonetheless. “You’ve worked it out again, then. I wondered how long it would take.”

  “What do you mean, again?”

  “You’ve done this all before. The city was a great deal smaller then. But it was so long ago you’ve forgotten.”

  Iona wasn’t sure if Clarence was making this up. Was he just trying to make her think she couldn’t possibly beat him? That he would ultimately win no matter what she did?

  “You could just agree to help me voluntarily,” he went on. “That would be easier for all of us. I am trying to get us all out of here, you know.”

  “Help you? You killed my colleagues back on the ship—you nearly killed my wife and then almost drove her mad with suspicion and fear. You’re not getting out of here. I can promise you, we’re not—”

  “Have a care, Ms. Taylor—I reiterate that I don’t need—”

  Then there was a commotion behind Clarence, farther up the stairs. Someone was pushing past the ranks of citizens, moving through them before they had a chance to react. Clarence turned just in time to see the king striding in his direction. Iona had never seen the king at such close quarters before: as Saori had said, he was human like the rest of them. And yes, she did recognize him as the pilot of their ship, the one who had owned the cat.

  “You little bastard,” said the king, bearing down on Clarence.

  Clarence shrank back. “Your Highness, I’m dealing with a mass insurrection—it isn’t safe, you must return to your—”

  But the king ignored him, reached down, and grabbed Clarence by the scruff of the neck.

  “Careful,” Saori warned, pushing her way down the steps behind the king. “He’s a murderer, remember.”

  Clarence hissed and spat, swinging his claws at the king, who held him at arm’s length and flinched at each vicious swipe.

  “He can’t do anything,” said the king. “He’s just a cat.”

  “Get him off me!” said Clarence, appealing to the ranked citizens, who were still dumbly awaiting an order.

  “No!” said the king, turning to those same citizens. “I order you not to do that.”

  But the citizens obeyed Clarence. They started to move.

  “This way!” Iona shouted, pointing downward.

  Saori and the king hurried down the steps toward Iona and together the three of them ran. The king still held Clarence by the neck and the cat still struggled to free himself. The king grabbed his legs and tried to hold him. The citizens had a steadier step and were gaining—but Iona heard footsteps coming up toward them—

  More reprogrammed citizens were climbing the tower. Iona weaved between them and the king and Saori followed. The reprogrammed citizens were outnumbered by those loyal to Clarence but crucially their intervention slowed the loyalists down.

  “I can’t hold onto him much longer,” the king said as he tried to keep the furious Clarence away from his head. The cat had made several deep cuts across his face. “I’m going to find a window and throw him out.”

  Clarence yowled and hissed.

  “No!” shouted Iona. The reprogrammed citizens were still passing them on the steps. She weaved around them as best she could but she was slower than Saori or the king. “The fall won’t kill him—we need to trap him somewhere while we get out—”

  Iona stumbled on a dismembered citizen body, falling awkwardly. She may have been preserved by the cage but she was still a good deal older than the others. She was slowing them down.

  Saori stopped to help her stand. The king turned and looked up the stairs, Clarence still struggling in his hands. He saw the citizens bearing down on them. The ranks were moving swiftly and they would inevitably catch up.

  But then the king’s face broke into a grin. “Wait—yes,” he said. “This way!”

  The king ran through the door that led to the eighth floor. Iona and Saori had no time to ask or even consider why. They followed him.

  * * *

  Once Iona and Saori were through, the king slammed the door behind them, put the bolt in place, and then turned and looked around.

  “Aren’t we stuck in here now?” said Saori.

  “No,” said the king and walked on through the room. This had once been the kitchens. They’d been used for preparing his meals when the tower had been half its present size, but it was now twenty-three floors away from his quarters and by the time his food got there it would be lukewarm, so these kitchens had been abandoned and new ones installed farther up. The old kitchens had never been repurposed.

  In the corner near the exterior wall was a stone oven. The king opened the oven door. Clarence realized what was happening: he hissed and spat and threw himself around wildly.

  “Help me!” said the king.

  Iona and Saori joined the king at the oven. Iona held the door open while Saori helped subdue Clarence. The cat tried to bite and scratch them but they managed to push him into the opening and the moment the oven was clear of human hands Iona slammed it closed. There was no latch on the door so she kept her hands pressed against it while the king and Saori pulled a large, heavy table across the floor and lay it down so the top held the oven closed.

  “Now what?” said Saori, panting. The citizens were battering on the door of the old kitchen and the bolt wasn’t that strong.

  The king pointed to the window. “That way.”

  Iona looked across and realized, of course—this entire side of the tower was covered in scaffolding. She wasn’t sure if she was up to making the descent but the noises coming from behind the door and inside the oven compelled her to try. Without hesitating she followed the king to the window as he moved a chair over to it and climbed out. Iona stepped out after him.

  Iona wasn’t scared of heights and visited building sites all the time, but she’d never had to traverse one under this kind of pressure. She hurtled down ladders and across gangways, looking for handholds and keeping away from the open sides.

  On the third floor, Saori, following close behind Iona, landed heavily on a weak plank and her foot went through it—she was stuck. Iona shouted for the king to wait. It was only then that she realized she didn’t know his name.

  The king saw Saori struggling and immediately doubled back to help.

  “What was your name before you were the king?” Iona asked him while they pulled Saori’s foot free of the broken board
s.

  “Steve,” he said.

  Of course it was.

  By the time they reached the bottom Iona felt giddy from running back and forth across the scaffolding, and when she tried to race around to the entrance she was barely able to go in a straight line.

  At the entrance they found Victor still waiting on the step, holding the key. He was jittery, he could hear something was going on in the tower and his relief at seeing them was evident. He started to ask how they’d gotten outside without first coming through the front door before realizing they didn’t have time and it didn’t matter: all that mattered was they were here. He asked if they were ready.

  “Yes,” said Iona.

  Victor attracted the attention of the nearest citizen, milling around looking for someone to reprogram, and said to it in a clear voice: “You are dead.”

  When the citizen heard this specific trigger phrase it started to walk through the city, repeating it loudly. While it did this it placed its wooden palms together and rubbed them against each other rapidly and tirelessly. It took a minute or two for this action to start a fire. Once the fire caught, the citizen headed into the nearest building so that would catch fire too.

  The trigger phrase passed from citizen to citizen, across the city, and they all reacted the same way. The fires spread quickly and because everybody was occupied with starting the fires there was nobody to put them out. Iona worried the plan might be too effective, leaving them insufficient time to escape. It was by no means clear the key would work anyway, it hadn’t been tested. But the important thing was to destroy the city and its citizens so the Poramutantur couldn’t get out.

  If they died, well . . . they had all lived too long anyway.

  Iona, Victor, Saori, and Steve ran through the burning streets together—the first time the four of them had been together in as long as they could remember. Something about it felt right to Iona—they belonged together. Of course there had been many more crew members on board the Mull of Kintyre, so they might only have been on nodding terms during the mission itself. But after the crash they must have been thrown together, fighting for survival. They felt like a unit, and they were finally working as one.

  The heat from all the fires was building up and they had to keep running but Iona was tiring. She took a moment to rest and glanced back over her shoulder at the tower. People had always assumed King’s Tower was her proudest achievement but that wasn’t true: she preferred buildings with function and the tower actually did very little. The fire was surging up it at a considerable rate.

  Steve saw her looking and he stopped and turned to look too. It had been his home since he’d been made king—a position he’d only been given because the ship’s cat belonged to him and this made him the easiest person to manipulate.

  As they watched, the base of the tower weakened to the point where the structure could no longer support itself. Once it started to lean it all happened very quickly—people talk of large buildings collapsing as if in slow motion but that’s not what this was like. It fell away from them and was gone almost in the blink of an eye.

  Iona and Steve looked at each other. He looked bewildered, panicky: he hadn’t yet come to terms with what had happened. But Iona felt nothing. If anything she felt relief.

  Victor and Saori were shouting at them to keep running so Iona and Steve turned and carried on. Smoke was washing across the streets and they had to trust they’d set off in the right direction because they couldn’t see where they were going. Iona only realized they’d reached the edge of the city when she felt the grass under her feet. Eventually the smoke cleared and they were climbing a gentle ridge toward the woods, at the top of which they allowed themselves to stop, turn, and look.

  There was nothing to see except fire and smoke. In the blaze the city had lost its shape. The place they’d lived all this time—the only place any of them could clearly remember—was gone and none of them knew if they could get to anywhere else.

  Exhausted now, they dragged themselves on through the woods and found their way to the window. The attention of the figures had been attracted by the fire. None of them were doing anything about it: it was hard to tell if they were even concerned, or if they were just observing. Perhaps they assumed this was normal, that the life cycle of the human was to build a vast city and eventually burn it down.

  When the humans got out—if they got out—they’d have to deal with the figures’ reaction, whatever it might be. The figures might simply shoot them. From their point of view they were just animals escaping their cage.

  Iona was at the back of the group when they arrived at the window but she made her way to the front and Victor handed her the key. They’d agreed she would be the one to open the door, or at least try to. The door wasn’t visible but Iona knew where it was—about a meter to the left of the window. She stepped over to the blank wall, raised the key—

  And a dark, perfectly straight vertical crack opened in the wall, about two meters tall. It grew wider until it was enough to walk through. Standing in the doorway was a figure.

  Iona hadn’t used the key yet.

  The figure was pointing something at her, something that might be a weapon; Iona couldn’t tell. It was black and looked like a twisted tree root.

  The four humans froze. Iona felt sure it was about to kill them.

  It didn’t kill them. It took a step back, making space for them to come through. Behind them the city was burning, the smoke was seeping out through the doorway.

  Iona walked out of the cage.

  12

  THE FIGURE KEPT WALKING backward, its attention fixed on the humans, pointing the twisted black thing at them.

  “Is it a weapon?” said Saori to her colleagues in a low voice that broke into coughing.

  “Let’s assume it is for now, shall we?” said Iona. All four of them had just been running as fast as they could through a smoke-filled environment. They all needed medical attention but the chances of communicating this to the figures seemed slim.

  In the meantime the door of their cage was still open and smoke was seeping through it and there was always the chance of the Poramutantur getting out. Iona ushered the others forward and said to the figure, “You must close the—” before the door closed behind them.

  Iona breathed out: their primary goal was achieved. Now to see if they could stay alive.

  The room they were in was dark and lined with dimly lit instrument panels. Either the figures didn’t need much light to operate or they’d kept the lighting levels low so the inhabitants of the cage wouldn’t be able to see what they were doing in there.

  The figure kept walking backward. None of the four humans made any sudden movements. None of them wanted to startle the figure. Iona was aware her attempts to read its body language might be completely wide of the mark—its social signifiers were probably very different from her own—but it seemed as though it didn’t trust them. This reading of the situation seemed to be consistent with how it had kept them in a cage for hundreds of years.

  Two other figures were in this room and they moved to walk behind the one who’d let them out. Like the first figure they walked backward. (Unless they were actually walking forward? She had to take care not to make assumptions.) The humans kept moving toward them, keeping the distance between them more or less the same.

  “Are they leading us somewhere?” Saori murmured between coughs. She was sounding pretty bad and Iona was wondering about her own condition. The cage had been keeping them all alive. Things could be very different now that they were out.

  “Should we stop walking and see what they do?” asked Victor.

  Iona was about to agree when one of the figures operated a control and the door to the outside opened. The figures kept walking backward, out through the door. The humans followed.

  * * *

  Outside it was cold. Not very cold but colder than the humans were dressed for and cold enough to sting their smoke-irritated airways. The city had no
seasons and its weather was consistently mild. Iona had only ever been aware of changeable weather as a dream concept: she had dreamed of storms, for example, and snow, but never experienced either. The sky above them was gray and cloudless and the sun hung low, shining weakly at them. It seemed to be morning here. In the city it had been afternoon.

  They were walking along a pathway made of something that looked like concrete with a layer of rubber on top—materials that were familiar to Iona but which she had not seen for as long as she could remember. She felt surprised that she recognized them at all. The ground on either side of the pathway was stony and scrubby. The earth was a very dull, faded violet color.

  The pathway split off and went in several different directions. Each fork of the pathway led to a large dome, maybe fifty or sixty meters high, with a smooth, dullish, off-green surface broken only by a small door. From where Iona stood she counted eight of these domes—quite possibly there were more out of sight—and she noted the thing she had just stepped out of was one of them. What Alyssa had said was true—the dome they’d been in was larger on the inside. Iona felt fascinated and wanted to know how it was done.

  She wondered if she would get a chance to ask.

  The three figures who had led them outside were still backing away. They addressed each other in noises that were presumably their language: a series of low, clicking sounds. When they reached the first fork on the pathway they stopped.

  The humans took this as their cue to stop, at which point Iona fully appreciated how tired she was. She had a terrible headache and the adrenaline was no longer enough to prop her up.

  “What now?” said Steve, who didn’t sound healthy either. Victor tried to reply but broke into coughing before he managed to say anything intelligible.

  There was movement at the edges of Iona’s vision. The four humans turned to see six figures hurrying across the ground between the pathways. The humans tensed, assuming an ambush was imminent. But instead the six figures all poured into the humans’ dome before closing the door behind themselves.