“City Two East doesn’t have a zone. We’d know about it if they did.” Edda is impatient. “Besides, even if we are, they’ll come for Erquist. His kin won’t let him stay missing.”
“They will come for us,” Erquist says. He’s growing a ragged beard. It’s almost the same colour as his skin. From a distance it looks as if his face is starting to fray. “For some of us. But the rest of you will be saved as well. It wouldn’t be fair to leave anybody behind.” He sits next to me for a few minutes as if he’s about to tell me something important. All he says is, “The only question is when. It depends on what information they have. If there’s any ambiguity they could easily go to the wrong place, or the wrong time. But I’m sure any ambiguity will be resolved quickly enough.” It’s a variant of what he says most days, a Happiness inspirational talk delivered in a flat monotone. When he finishes he goes back to his room. We won’t see him again until it’s time to eat. Li wonders if he’s having a breakdown. I tell her he was just the same at the resort. “He rarely left his room then.” “And did you think that was normal?” Li says. “Do you think he’d have had that job without his connections?”
The Theater an der Wien is about the same size as the Second Theatre in City One West where, as a child, I was once taken to see a City Day festival, a series of speeches about how we children would have to learn important lessons from those who came before us. My parents were still alive then, though as usual they were working away from home. I remember them telling me how lucky I was to have seen City One West: my mother had seen it twice and wanted to move there. I couldn’t see why. For them it probably meant better work and accommodation. For me it meant being forced to listen to speeches. I replay the audience noises and stop the recording before the music starts. I need to save energy.
“Or it was an accident,” Li says. “We lost the link because the Millies panicked. Or the war actually broke out. Think about it. We lost the link because of the start of the NEE…”
“Not this again.”
“Is it dead? I think it’s dead.” Edda holds up a worm. It’s about seven centimetres long, limp as a piece of string. “It must be dead.”
Li peers into a pan. “It might be stunned.”
“It’ll die soon.” Edda holds it up higher, drops it into her upturned mouth, swallows with a gulp and sits very still. “What does it taste like?” Li asks. Edda jumps to her feet and runs out of my line of sight. I hear the sound of her retching. Li laughs, then coughs. “If only we could fry them.” Salt, oil: she lists the things we don’t have. Pepper, spices, onions, aubergines, cultured pork and mycoproteins, night apples, breads…
Edda throws the worms out of the door. She claims the small heap is still there two days later: nothing else had tried to eat them.
The United States is a neutral country, so American should be a safe cover. Their Embargo Act doesn’t harm Austrian trade, and there’s even some relief President Jefferson didn’t use the Chesapeake incident to declare war on the English, who are still in Spain, fighting the French. American should not attract attention.
“What happened to your leg?” A man I don’t recognise is standing over me, chewing on an energy bar. We are the only people in the room. I try to sit up. They’ve come, I think, finally, we’re safe. Then I recognise the uniform. Thinner now, with a tangled grey beard, the younger of the two Safeties stands over me, eating one bar after another. His uniform is filmed with grit. His NVU covers his eyes. “Going south,” he says, as if talking to somebody else in the room. “Found a tunnel, one k south. Must lead somewhere.” He throws another wrapper at my feet. “Don’t know how you stand this,” he says. “Rain, rain. The noise would drive me mad. And it stinks in here. Who died, Joe? Are we sad they had to go? Found a tunnel. Six metres wide. A place to live, a place to hide. One k south. A track but no train, but a track means what, sir? A connection. Don’t know where it leads, don’t care. Anywhere’s better than.” He shuffles as he stands. “I’d take you but you’re not fit for transport. Too sick to stand, too heavy to drag. Not a good source of protein. Dead weight. Better off alone, anyway, without. Backstabbing so-called. Trying to. In your sleep. I walk alone beside the track, remember that one? I walk alone beside the track. Other people hold you back.” He walks away, singing softly.
“Couldn’t you have tried to stop him?” Li is the angriest. “You’re the one with the augs.”
“He can barely stand,” Edda says. “And the man was probably armed. Besides, Erquist was here as well.” Erquist is still in his room. We haven’t seen him all day.
“He took all the energy bars!” Li moves around the kitchen, coughing and picking things up, pans and broken plates. We all have coughs now. Li’s is the worst. “Half of our protein.”
“He’s welcome to that.” Edda squeezes my hand. “It’ll probably choke him.”
“And five litres of water.”
“We can spare it.” Edda looks up at the sky. It’s still raining. It’s dry on this level but the smell of damp rises from the one below. “What did he say about a tunnel?”
The first musicians file onto the stage. There’s a conversation in the box to the right: a woman’s voice asking if it’s true, another woman saying it isn’t. They complain about how Old Fritz has gone completely to pieces. He’s always had it easy, one of them says. At the first knock… The first woman says something about poor Hans. He’s feverish, half the time he doesn’t know where he is. Could it be typhus? My leg starts to ache at exactly the place where the scar used to be.
“It wouldn’t be giving up,” Edda says. “I’ll stay here with Spens while you and Erquist find this tunnel.”
“And what if we meet the Safety?”
“Stay behind him. It shouldn’t be hard. He’ll be a long way ahead of you by now.”
“I’m not going anywhere near that madman. Why don’t you go? You’re used to the NV. You know how to use the cutter.”
“So does Erquist. And you could learn in half an hour. Erquist, what do you think?”
Erquist doesn’t say anything. He hasn’t said anything for days. He doesn’t even cough in our presence, though we can hear him at night.
Li does cough. Then she laughs. “I can look after Spens as well as you.”
“It’s not just that. It’s that we don’t know who’ll be at the other end of that tunnel. We don’t know how they’ll respond to people like us.”
“Meaning?”
“People with augs. We don’t know where we are. We don’t know when we are. We don’t know what level they’re at. At least you and Erquist might look normal to them.”
“Thanks.” Li coughs again, violently. It’s as if she’s coughing with her entire torso, every internal organ making its contribution. “Listen to that. He’ll hear that coming. And how long is this tunnel anyway?”
“We don’t know.”
“There’s the point. I’ve looked south. I can’t see anything on the surface. We don’t know where the tunnel is. We don’t know how long it is or what condition it’s in. The only thing we know about it is that there’ll be a madman in it. Hey, we only know about the tunnel because a madman told us it exists. He might have imagined the whole thing. We’re better off here. If they’re coming for us, this is where they’ll come.”
“You’re always saying they won’t.”
“It’s better than a tunnel to nowhere. I’m staying here. And so should you. If they’re coming for you, this is where they’ll come.”
Li takes a bowl down to Erquist’s room. On the way to his room she has a fit of coughing and spills half of it. He doesn’t open his door when she knocks. She leaves the bowl on the floor outside. “He said he liked it better cold.” The next morning the bowl is still there, untouched, and Erquist is not in his room. After a search Edda discovers the NV unit and cutting tool are missing. We’re stuck on the surface now, and she can’t open any more doors. I crawl into one of the rooms behind the kitchen. It’s noisy: at night the wind whistl
es through the pipes, and, when the wind drops, I can hear Li coughing. I go through the pockets of my clothes. I’m sure there’s a painkiller I’ve missed. I go through my pockets over and over again.
The strings start to tune up. The woman in the next box raises her voice. “What I can’t understand is why there aren’t insects. All we’ve seen are the worms. There aren’t even spiders.” Her voice is distinct. She could be talking directly to me. “There was an empty section near my second mother’s rooms, an empty tunnel and some old offices. We used to play in them, you know, Three-Minute Warning, Rats and Moles. There were spiders everywhere.”
Edda tips the warm mush into my mouth. “We’ve found another box of protein. Water’s getting low again, but we have enough for another few days. Once you’re better we’ll see what supplies we can carry and start walking. We’ll head west. There should be something out there. Once we know where we are… It’s a shame you can’t go out yet. There are sunflowers not that far away. They look beautiful. Li thinks we can use them.” Li goes out every morning, before it gets too hot. She avoids the heat as she used to avoid the rain. The weeds she gathers are yellow or pale brown and seem to be drying up. It doesn’t improve their flavour.
“They’re further away than we thought, and they might not be sunflowers.” The woman in the next box keeps talking. “Liesl walked for half an hour yesterday and didn’t seem to get any nearer.” The orchestra is onstage. The audience has starting to settle into their seats. “It won’t be long now,” a different woman says. “Two days, three at most. Then we can go.” The first woman says something I don’t catch. “It’s a choice between dying slowly and dying quickly,” the other woman tells her. “This place is killing us. It’s actually killing us.” The first one replies, “I thought you wanted to stay.” They argue in low voices. The hall is already cold and will get colder still when the heating fails. I’ve brought a good coat, but it might not be enough. There’s laughter from the stalls. We wait for the composer.
A bottle of water has been left within reach. It’s half full, warm to the touch. The temperature reminds me of the cups in Coffee Monarch. I drag myself deeper into the shadows of the room. My leg has stopped burning. Now I can’t feel it at all.
“I heard something.” A woman’s voice, dry, as if from disuse. “I think there’s someone here.” She’s speaking Modern. It isn’t Li or Edda or the Viennese woman who asked about Old Fritz or poor Hans.
I turn my head. From the light coming through the half-open door of the storeroom it’s early afternoon. The door opens wider. A woman is silhouetted there. She pauses, steps back. “It stinks in here.” She takes a deep breath and crouches at my side. I recognise her almost immediately. It’s our client and not. She’s older, in her sixties at least. There are lines around her eyes, her cheeks have hollowed and her hair is grey and cut in a style that looks like a punishment. This is new: so far the people I’ve imagined look the same as they did before we came here: Li’s skin isn’t blotched; Edda isn’t bone-thin; Erquist is clean-shaven and scrupulously neat. The woman puts a hand on my brow. It feels like ice. She pulls it back quickly. “I think this one’s alive,” she calls. I can hear footsteps in the next room drawing nearer.
“What is it?” A man’s voice. It’s not the Safety. It’s definitely not Erquist. This is also new. In the past, when I’ve dreamed of rescue, people have come alone.
“He’s still alive.”
There’s the shape of a man at the door. “If he can talk, ask him where the others are.”
Our client looks at me carefully. She seems reluctant to touch me again. “I don’t think he can talk.”
“Are you sure he’s alive?” The man moves nearer. “It stinks in here.” He’s in a uniform I don’t recognise. He stands behind our client, looking down at a device in his hand and then at my leg. “He could be a nomad.”
“You rely too much on those machines. Look what he’s wearing. He’s one of yours.”
“He’s not Ko Erquist. He’s definitely not Edda Lang. Those are my primary concern.” He’s turning to leave when something on the device troubles him. He stoops for a closer look and shines a torch in my face.
“He’s one of yours.” Her voice is thick with contempt. “Your civilisation.”
I recognise him almost immediately. It’s Riemann. He’s about thirty, younger than I’ve seen him as an adult. He frowns and leans in still closer. “Can you hear me?” His tone softens slightly. “How long have you been here?”
“You’re wasting your time.” She stands up stiffly and backs away. “I don’t think he can talk.”
“He might know something.” He holds a water bottle to my lips.
“Your important people were here,” she says from the doorway. “They must have left him behind.”
“Don’t go too far.”
“It’s one accounted for.” She steps out of sight. “Your important people can’t be far away.”
“Spens?” It’s as if Riemann was waiting for her to leave before he used my name. “I know you’re weak, but I need your help…”
You head for the door to the surface. After the stink of the hot, windowless room you need to be outside. As you cross the main room you notice a bundle of cloth under a chair. You can’t say what makes you stop to pick it up. You tell yourself it might contain some clue to where his missing people have gone, although you don’t need a clue. If they haven’t died here they’ll be heading west, like the boys who escaped from home under the old courthouse. Always west, towards the setting sun.
Why were they here? You’ve asked the question before. An accident, he answered each time. You didn’t trust him.
The cloth turns out to be a jacket. You hold it up by the shoulders and let it unfurl. It’s heavy. From its size it belonged to the man in the back room. The weight isn’t evenly distributed: one side is heavier than the other.
He’d changed as soon as he saw the footprints in the dried mud around the doorway. You expected him to contact the medical transport. They’d need to know his people were not in City Two East. He’d dismissed the idea. Let’s account for them first.
I thought you were here to take them back.
I have to account for them first.
In the right-hand pocket you find a flat, grey box. You turn it over in your hands. There is no obvious opening. It’s a second or two before you recognise it: exactly the same as the one you carried to the 21st. The surprise or the heat makes you feel faint. The ceiling overhead is glass, dirty in places but still transparent. There’s no doubt that what’s overhead is the sky. The heat reminds you of the punishment work at the insect factory. People fainted all the time. They’d be dragged out, have water thrown in their face and, if they revived, they’d be pushed back in to work until they fainted again. You were always proud that you’d never fainted. You’d seen the signs in others; when you recognised them in yourself you slowed down as much as you dared or found some excuse to go to the storerooms, which were cooler.
It’s a protocol issue. It involves information. I don’t know what kind, I don’t need to know.
You go along the short corridor where a tide-mark is a sign of recent flooding, up the stairs towards the surface. By the side of the door is a small heap of dead worms. They’re just beginning to rot.
Officially, it was an accident.
For a moment you’re surprised you’re not in the city. You expected to see a crater: instead there’s only open ground with dun-coloured grass. You remember you’re in the other place, the one whose name you can’t remember, and not in it, but on it. A day’s drive away. The secret place. The place with the zone.
It was, it turned out, on Riemann’s chart. He knew there’d been something here, but didn’t know what it was. A secondary target.
You lean against the wall, taking deep breaths.
They’re well connected. Their kin wanted them recovered. Safety agreed. And Awareness seconded me to Safety.
You look at
the thing in your hands. The name comes back: a Dolman box. Signature lock. You’d carried one exactly like it. First an extemp had taken it away, then Riemann, the old Riemann. You can still remember the sense of failure in that shop as you stared at the local’s phone, not daring to make the call. And for what?
There are official orders and the things they tell you at the last minute.
Riemann’s important people must have left the box behind. If he’s here because of information it might be in this box. Maybe they’d told the man in the back room to guard it. They’d waited to be rescued and, when the rescue didn’t come, they’d abandoned him. Had they meant to come back? Had he known they wouldn’t? He’d obeyed orders, remained at his post. A good subordinate. You’ve known people like that. They look at you adoringly, with angry, fevered eyes until you tell them what to do. You’ve been a person like that. What do you want me to do? Is that all? It isn’t enough.
I was told to account for them.
Once it was simple: there was your city and the Number Cities.
You turn the box in your hands, half expecting it to open. It feels the same as the one you were supposed to deliver to Picon. You wonder what happened to it. It was never mentioned at your trial. Perhaps it couldn’t be: the Riemann you’d met in the 21st had taken it back with him. Perhaps it’s in a storeroom somewhere, labelled and forgotten, or about to be labelled. Perhaps somewhere in Five South the old Riemann will find a way to open the box without destroying the contents. You can imagine his disappointment at finding nothing but orders to a man who would have ignored them anyway.
What happened to Picon? Did he die in the 21st? He wasn’t mentioned at your trial. You assumed he betrayed you. Somebody had. As soon as En Varney returned from her trade mission she was taken into custody. You were put in a cell and left there. No questions, no contacts. You lost count of the days: more than you spent in the 21st, or the insect factory. Then longer, until you thought you’d been forgotten. The trial came as a relief. You showed no regret and admitted no guilt and expected it to end in your death but at least it gave you something to watch. No mention of Picon, your principal contact. No mention of Riemann. It lasted for months: you remember it as a single event, one long afternoon of listening to summaries of circumstantial evidence and refusing to answer questions. Karia Stadt, guilty of sabotage, murder and whatever else they could add to the list. Dozens of Number City workers, Alexander Metzger, Miko Halaz, murdered by persons unknown on your instructions. A representative of the Assistant Director testified that you had disobeyed explicit orders and affirmed his government would not protest a death sentence.
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