The Gatekeeper

by Nuraliah Norasid

  There were more houses nearby like Eedric’s with just as many cars, if not more. In each of these houses, there would be a woman just like Suri. Whether Human, Tuyun or Scerean, local or foreign, they were all the same—young, uprooted, frightened and to some degree, Ria considered as she remembered the girl’s easy acceptance of Eedric’s bribe, desperate enough to partake of one transgression or other when the opportunity presented itself. She could sense Suri herself standing by the front door, watching her with fear and uncertainty. Ria allowed herself only the briefest of glances up at the third floor window again. She didn’t know what she expected to see. His silhouette, perhaps. Then she moved, unlatching the small gate and letting herself out.

  She had not noticed before but Eedric’s house was only a few houses away from a forested area. Too sparse to be considered a jungle, but old enough that its dipterocarp sentinels towered like stoic, bushy-haired giants. The area was still an undeveloped piece of land, but already the carpet of ferns before the first line of trees had been cleared, leaving swaths of ugly red-brown lacerations on the ground. But there was something familiar about it and about this whole affair of leaving. The main difference this time was that she was alone. The way that was best and the way it had to be.

  Ria stared down the small road, lined with cars and green garbage bins. Bougainvillea peeked over a few low walls while morning glory cascaded down others. Periwinkle grew in small planters. Clustered ixora and flaccid white hands of spider lily decorated roadside bushes. A collared traac lay curled on the roof of a silver car. At the end of this lavish road, the line of trees waited, pillars holding up a partheneon roof of green.

  She was not sure where the forest trek would take her. From what little she had seen of the modern surface world during the brief period of surfacing and the drive over to Eedric’s house, she could already imagine that the developments that had indirectly been instrumental to her and her sister’s flight to Nelroote had taken firm hold of Manticura. What bits of forest that existed now would soon be torn from the face of the land, to be bled red and flattened. Then these would be built over, to become high rise blocks with their nondescript windows and doors. Or an estate of lavish houses no common folk could afford.

  She didn’t know. All she knew was that spaces for her to hide in were becoming scarcer and scarcer by the day.

  Yet, for much of her life, she had been hidden. First by Barani, then by Eedric. And for what? To protect her. To protect others from her.

  That, she saw, was never going to change. For the world seemed bent on making the same things happen, over and over again.

  To her right, a gur(ma) roc began to bark. Running from one side of the gate to the other, while growling at her menacingly between barks. The roc’s owner came out just she turned to look at it. And all the sleep went right out of him when the last bark burst forth, from a greying animal body.

  And Trace

  Eedric was woken from a dead sleep by a rough shake on his shoulder. He jolted up into a sitting position. His first thought was that Father had found Ria and there would be hell to pay for the two of them. The two police officers standing by his bedside—both large, hulking Cayanese—confirmed his fears. It didn’t take long for Eedric to blink away the last of his sleep to see that they did not appear to be ordinary police officers. They were a little too well-armed: rifles instead of pistols, and equipped with opaque riot shields. They wore full-faced helmets with visors pushed up to reveal steely, dark eyes.

  Ria’s name was on the tip of his tongue but he did not utter it.

  The two officers took a step back and raised their guns to point them at him. His response was to raise his hands in submission. His breathing started to get shallow. He fought to stay his Human self.

  “Where is she?” one of them demanded.

  “Where… Who?” he asked in turn.

  “The medusa. The maid said she was here.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he insisted.

  He didn’t. And he did. His mind was a flurry. Where was Ria? Had she managed to hide? Was she still in the house? Did Suri tell on him? That low class whore.

  The officers didn’t say anything more. The one who had not spoken took hold of him and yanked him out of bed. He was in nothing but his boxers, but they handcuffed him without even offering him clothes to cover himself with.

  “Look,” he protested, struggling against the man’s hold. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t know anything. I don’t even know what is going on!”

  They motioned for him to move.

  “You can’t just come in here like this! Where’s my father?”

  He saw the officers exchange a glance.

  “There is something you need to see downstairs.”

  Dread mixed with disbelief in a putrid concoction. It rose like bile and caused him to reel. They led him downstairs. One by each elbow. There were more people in the house. Some armed officers and a few more others in office attire, wearing lanyards around their necks. Suri was among them, her eyes reddened with hysteria; she seemed ready to break apart as a woman with a clipboard questioned her with slow, gentle words, yet even at a time like this, she sat on the family furniture with the fear and reverence of one who had previously never been allowed to: precariously on the edge, all weight supported on perfectly positioned feet.

  Everyone turned to him as he came down. One man broke free and with his clipboard hand gestured for the officers to take Eedric out to the patio, where a photographer was taking pictures of something in one of the lawn chairs. When Eedric was brought around, he saw that the something had in fact been someone. It was the perfect capture of his father, sitting with his cigarette, too serenely poised for what he must have seen.

  On Eedric’s lips was only denial. Despair rose, causing him to reel. His body went weak. His knees threatened to buckle. A hoarsely whispered “Pa” escaped his lips with the stench of regret.

  “Your maid said you brought a medusa over and you sheltered her here for a span of several days,” the man with the clipboard said. He was completely impassive, scrutinising Eedric as he spoke. “This morning, the medusa was seen passing through the dining area there before leaving the house. Is this medusa an acquaintance of yours?”

  Eedric continued to stare at the statue. His own eyes wide and mouth open as if he were the one to look upon Ria’s gaze rather than the older man. He was on his knees, body immobile from shock and encroaching sorrow. In a stretch of more than twenty years, he had never felt more affection for his father than he did then.

  He didn’t fight it when the officers hauled him up again. He let them march him through the house and to the outside. Out on the road was a chaos of civil defense vehicles, police cars and civilian vans. Near each of the latter, spiffed-up news reporters stood, speaking into microphones as they stared into cameras held by their videographers. Civil defense officials were at various front doors and balconies, breaking locks and climbing in through open windows. Beyond all the activity, every house was seized in unnerving stillness. Not a single one of his neighbours was present among the discord. Eedric didn’t have to look to know why.

  They offered him a shirt and a pair of pants after his arrival at the detention centre. The centre was situated at the end of an old and long road, deep in an undeveloped piece of forested land. There had been a sign at the beginning of that road; too spick and span and over-designed for the nondescript, single-storey white building they eventually drove him to. Its perimeter was walled in by tall mesh that reminded him of chicken wire, topped by whorls of barbed wire. At intermittent points along the wall stood a guard tower, each with two sentries—one looking out, the other in.

  Eedric had sat alone in the back of the van. And alone he’d had time to play the stone image of his father over and over in his mind, as he grasped for a reason as to why Ria would do such a thing. Why she would betray him after all that he had done—and risked—for her. Shock gave way to questions before
plummeting into despair and then rising to anger. He should have known better than to give himself over to the wiles of tainted women. For all of its lack of passion, safe was a far better option than the dangers of sun-filled eyes. Safe was what he could have been if he had not gone down that spiral staircase that day, and if he had never gone back like he was told.

  By the time the van rolled into the detainees’ checkpoint, Eedric was tearing at his face and his hair, banging his head against the enforced walls to bruising, and weeping angry tears unbecoming, he thought, of a man: face crumpled up ugly, nose running snot into his mouth of painfully clenched teeth.

  He was searched, and his details taken down. He was fingerprinted, photographed and blood-typed. Because he was a survivalist, his irises were scanned for the records as well. Everything he’d once had to conceal was now open to an organ of justice and preserved for posterity.

  They put him in a room without windows, walls painted a light blue, one wooden desk in the centre with a laptop already set up. He was commanded to sit. His wrists were bound and someone offered him water, one of those factory-sealed packets; they had even poked the straw in for him.

  Two men came in. Both again in office attire and lanyards. One of them was the Human man from his house, still with the same scrutinising stare. He sat across from Eedric and pulled the laptop to him. The other, a Scerean, stood by the door, a handheld voice recorder and pen poised to note everything he was about to say.

  “Okay, Mister Jonathan Shuen,” the one across from him said. “I am First Investigator Fents and this is Second Investigator binSonda. We have a few questions for you and you are required by law to reply accurately. Are you clear on this?”

  Eedric stared back at him before managing a nod. He was aware of the Scerean officer in the corner behind him, and no doubt every centimetre of the room was being monitored.

  The investigation went on after that:

  When did he bring the medusa to this address? Exact date— What day was today?

  How did he know her?—They talked.

  Where did he know her?—Main chamber. Catacombs.

  In what capacity are they acquainted?—They fucked. How about that?

  What were the events prior to his illegal sheltering of a fugitive?— Eat peanuts. Watch sunset. Sister fucking crazy, tried to kill him.

  Fents perked up at that. “Sister?”

  “Her sister.”

  “Can you give us a description of this sister? Also a medusa?”

  “How the fuck are they supposed to be sisters if she’s not a medusa?”

  Fents didn’t flinch. Just kept typing, the laptop keys keeping at steady clacking pace.

  “You said she tried to kill you. How?”

  Eedric glowered at the man and spoke slowly: “You saw how they kill. You don’t have to ask me how.” He leaned back in his chair and he saw again the image of his father captured in stone. Remembering it shook him again. Less belligerently, he replied, “She might have tried to. Ria stopped her.”

  “Ria?” Fents spoke up, nodding with some interest. “Is that her name?”

  A new pain bloomed in Eedric, only to be exacerbated by Fents turning the laptop to him so that he could see the video on the screen. “Is this her?”

  Eedric didn’t think he could handle seeing her face. She might not have been there to kill him, but in not being there and in leaving traces of her presence, she might as well have. But the screen did not show her face immediately. Rather, it showed CCTV footage that they had somehow got hold of in that short period of time. An indoor camera, likely installed to keep an eye on the maid, and it showed the living room from one of his neighbour’s houses.

  A man was looking through his work bag. A woman stood near him, clad in an oversized T-shirt. They appeared to be talking when something caught their attention from out of the camera’s line of sight. The couple only had time to peer in that direction before they froze into stone. A blur went past them and moved to some far room. It was only a few minutes later when Ria’s familiar figure sauntered back into the living room. She did not even glance at the couple. Instead her attention was focused on the sofa as she ran her hand over it, seemingly enthralled by the material that covered it. When she was done with that, she walked slowly to the front of the room and peered up, looking directly into the camera.

  The features so unique to her, every scar and undulating serpent, came into perfect focus.

  Then the footage stopped, fixed on that face.

  And Eedric couldn’t say a word.

  Lucidity

  Eedric’s eyes sprang open in time to see a new man being shoved into the cell. The door closed with a resounding clank, rattling as it went, like a bad cough. They had not even bothered to remove the man’s handcuffs—closed the door, shutting him in, trapping him. And while he stood there without words—wrists bound, face close to the bars—the guard who’d arrived with him and the guard who’d been standing there watching over the lock-up, walked away, not meeting his eyes while he stared after them. It didn’t take Eedric long to recognise an unspoken plea. The man turned around in panic as someone called out, “Sani.”

  The midnight Cayanese who had been mashing heads with the Tuyun stalked over to Sani. Arms spread out as if in greeting, though the smirk he wore was more menacing than welcoming. Altan or Adhan or something was a big man, even by Cayanese standards. His fur seemed to absorbed the shadows of the underground he was accustomed to, with only a sliver of grey beginning from the top of his brows and sweeping down the back of his head. Altan—Eedric now remembered one of the inmates calling him—had given Eedric one hard look when he was first thrown in but had never said a word to him.

  Sani was tall and lanky, unfortunate enough to have his yun scales concentrated into knobs down his back and to a single arm. He did his best at bravado—chin raised, head held to the side in feigned casual regard.

  “Ah, Sani,” Altan began, “so long never see?”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  Altan nodded slowly, though it was more of a gentle rocking motion of his head than a proper nod. His cronies were at his back, matching his every step. Eedric found himself standing. Some of them saw but no one confronted him about it.

  “Why? You study so high, you cannot speak to your”—he gestured to those around him—“brothers in our language, is it? Okay, okay”— slow nod, slow nod—“no problem.”

  What followed happened fast. Altan pulled Sani towards him by the collar of the young man’s shirt. Their faces were close—Sani’s crossed with subdued terror and Altan’s with outright anger—for a split-second before Altan threw Sani deeper into the cell, as easily as if the Tuyun were made of feathers. Sani staggered and then regained his balance, trying desperately to free his armoured arm from the cuff.

  “You!” Altan bellowed as he rounded on Sani. Two of his men grabbed Sani by the elbows. Sani fought but could not break their hold. Altan gestured once more around him, at the piss-covered walls, the dark faces of the men in the equally dark cell. “This! Is all because of you!” A fist to Sani’s stomach was followed by a brutal uppercut to his jaw; and then Altan grabbed his hair and yanked his head backwards to make Sani look up at him. “You are one of us now,” Altan growled. “Have always been, educated or not educated, living,”—a knee in the gut, once—“and dead”—again—“and your Kak Ria is not here for you to hide behind like a man without balls, eh?”

  Eedric had been about to turn away, somewhat glad that no one thought to blame him for the debacle, but the name caught his attention.

  The beat down continued, and didn’t stop even when Sani was on the ground. When the ringleader was done, the rest descended upon him with almost delirious glee. Someone managed to break open Sani’s handcuffs, which skidded to a stop near Eedric’s feet.

  Sani just let them beat him.

  There was a time when Eedric had stood by and watched the hurting of another. However, such a hazing was usually followed by accept
ance. In some respects, it could be a kind of love—they beat you so you won’t break—the sifting act of finding out who belonged and who didn’t. In many odd ways, it was the one who wouldn’t lay a finger in the name of peace and mercy who was the outsider, disconnected and dispossessed.

  Sometimes to take was to give.

  But it was the sound of ripping fabric that set him off. He remembered from a long time ago: Father, drunk, had demanded that Mama be naked, that Mama be what she had always been: a whore. He’d heard it from his room, late at night. Father had been shouting loudly, on one of those nights when he didn’t care what the neighbours thought. Eedric hadn’t understood then. He understood it now.

  He bounded into the pack. In one smooth motion he grabbed the man who had been straddling Sani’s back to slam the young man’s head into the cement, and threw the offender against a wall. There he lay crumpled, concussed, dead… It suddenly didn’t matter which to Eedric. The others backed away almost immediately, eyes wide and mouths agape. Altan stood his ground, however. He was the only one who could see eye to eye with Eedric in his survivalist’s state. He kept his body bent low in a defensive stance, his fixed gaze hostile but discerning. Where before he had been cautious of Eedric because of what he represented—that untouchable surface life able to reduce people like him to redundancy simply by having the right papers, the right amount of money—he knew then why it was really so, why the surfacer’s blood had smelled wrong, so very wrong from the first whiff. He had heard about the Changer in Nelroote, but he had not been sure this was the man. Now he was.

  Eedric matched Altan pace by pace in a circling dance around Sani’s near lifeless body. The rational part of Eedric told him to speak, but he was beyond speaking; beyond comprehension and comprehending. There was only the call to fight, to…protect what you can protect; the survival of another above your own. And that was all that was truly important.