Kaizen closed his eyes. I want. To sleep. This off.
“So, you see, my lord,” Claude reiterated.
“Yes I see!”
“May I offer to you some advice?” Trimpot volunteered. Kaizen had included him in the court against his better judgment. He needed guidance about Chance for Choice, and for that, Trimpot was his man. Or his rat. “On how to deal with this crisis?”
Kaizen nodded, eyes still closed.
“The problem is that the grip on the media has been lost. The CC was always portrayed as unrealistic, and childish, and rash, even insane. That worked really well before Legs proposed such . . . eloquent tenets. She really was a great speechwriter–”
“That’s not advice, Trimpot!” Kaizen yelled. “That’s just criticism! I don’t have a bleeding time machine, do I? The propaganda was good! It worked! It’s over!”
Trimpot sighed. “Yes,” he allowed. “We need a . . . disaster, don’t we? We need a disaster to blame on them.”
“Maybe we should make all mention of the CC illegal? Any bearing of the colors of its logo, et cetera?” Constable Wesley suggested helpfully.
Kaizen cringed and retreated behind his eyelids again.
The chancellor, Jonathan, spoke next. “We must make note for future sessions that I’ve also received inquiries regarding the viability of the CCSS, both as an employer and as a trusted institution. These inquiries made statements such as, ‘Might the Companion Laws be overturned in the future?’ Others wondered at their eligibility status potentially being frozen or reset, their records in the archives being edited or resubmitted, even suggestions that the CCSS protocol be adjusted to allow for walk-ins, complaints, reviews . . .”
The chancellor’s low voice rumbled and became a pleasant burble, a stream, the waterfall, and Sophie was there. Sophie was there without the scar on her face any longer. She was happy now. “I asked the chancellor if I could go with Daddy to Heliopolis this winter,” she prattled merrily. A porcelain doll was in her lap. Its face had a long gash down one cheek . . . “And he said that, technically, I may have existed, but then the monarch came and insisted Exa Legacy and I were both accidents . . .”
BANG!
Kaizen jolted awake, legs spasming, and sucked in a lungful of air. He rubbed his eyes vigorously. The throne room doors were settling together again and Constable Wesley was entering with a militant walk, as if these five men were in fact the culprits he sought. Hadn’t Wesley been there the whole time? What time was it?
“That’s the second workplace riot I’ve been called to,” he snapped. “The city prison is about to be at maximum capacity, Duke Taliko.”
Duke Taliko is my father’s name, Kaizen thought with a sleepy glare. Sunlight was pouring through the arched windows of the throne room.
“Perhaps we can use the dungeon tower on the archipelagos, but bear in mind that it would pose a security risk for you and your family, I’m afraid.”
“Duke Taliko?” Claude ventured cautiously. “While you were –resting –we received a message from the Duke of Celestine, Mont–”
“I know who the Duke of Celestine is!”
“R-right.” Claude cleared his throat. “Montgomery Lovelace,” he murmured, as if he secretly did not believe that the duke truly knew. And in truth, Kaizen had always thought it was Mortimer. “Would you like to hear it now? It came via Hermetic transmission.” He must have only just heard about the militant infiltration of the media outlet earlier in the night, and released the transmission then.
Claude lifted the Hermetic device and depressed its button. The ball emitted light in rhythm with Duke Lovelace’s voice. It was a kind, fatherly voice. Not like how Kaizen remembered Malthus’ voice, of course, but like Kaizen had always imagined a father was supposed to sound.
“Hello, young Duke Taliko,” Lovelace greeted. “Did you know that I had promised Malthus many times that I would visit Icarus and allow him to ferry me about the wonders of your city as I have ferried you about mine? And yet, it did not come to pass until the date of your coronation. I have been visiting the forests of Old Earth which are near to you, holding counsel with some progressive scientists there. Our interview has been curtailed due to unsavory weather, and so I will be approaching Icarus in the mid-morning of Friday and would love nothing more than to visit. I hope that this message finds you in time so that my arrival is not ill-received! I look forward to speaking with you, young Kaizen, on many things. My condolences in regards to your father. Malthus held little as dear to him as he held his responsibility to his people. May your rule be as steadfast. I will see you soon. If this is not preferable, please inform my transmitter promptly.”
“I have no idea how close he is,” Claude clarified. “But it bears the timestamp of one minute prior to our reception of it. Of course, by airship, this would still take him an hour or so to travel, and if you wish to return the message in the negative, he will certainly not dock at the palace as he intends. Though, being on his airship, he’s likely not heard yet of Exa Legacy’s speech.”
“I’m sure he’s heard; that’s probably the real reason he’s stopping here,” Kaizen countered. “It’s an airship, not another planet.” But he craved the guidance of the experienced duke. It was better than the inevitable reception he’d be providing an embittered monarch next week. He was certain the man must have already set off in an airship for Icarus. And the most modern of airships could travel fast . . . “Let him come,” he went on, focusing again. “Let me see his transmitter.”
Kaizen depressed the device button and spoke into the flickering beam of light. “Duke Lovelace,” he addressed. “Thank you dearly for those kind words. I look forward to the time we’ll spend. The guidance of an experienced superior is . . . would be . . .” Kaizen’s eyes went unfocused as he imagined himself a duke famed for fumbling away an entire monarchy within, what, a week’s time? “. . . greatly appreciated.”
The airship of Duke Montgomery Lovelace was prepared to moor on the exterior archipelagos dock within a few hours, as it so happened. Named The Greatness of Celestine, this was the only airship Kaizen had ever seen that had actual flora onboard. Vines traced over the rigid blimp, which was vibrantly colored with a mural: a sunset and a child and a bird on his finger. Its gleaming gold propellers whirred to a halt as it anchored and bopped in the gentle winds of the Friday afternoon.
The cabin swept wide, and a ladder of silk and pearl tumbled down. The Duke of Celestine was grand, but not in the abrasive manner of Neon Trimpot, or even his own father, Malthus Taliko. Duke Lovelace was grand in the way that clouds were grand. He simply was breathtaking, and had invested no effort in the nature of his being. He wore a tufted top hat of pale lavender and a silken suit of deeper purple. Unlike Malthus, Lovelace’s smile was genuine, and his wrinkles were those of laughter rather than frowns.
Kaizen, with Claude in tow, promoted to primary advisor by default, received Duke Lovelace on the exterior dock of the main archipelagos island. Whipped by the gentle, chilled winds of the Friday afternoon, the older duke approached and stuck out his hand to be shaken.
“Duke Taliko,” he greeted warmly. “It’s such a pleasure to see you again so soon. How has the dukedom been?”
“Not quite what I expected,” Kaizen replied.
Lovelace smiled sympathetically. “That is, regrettably, what I hear. There was some movement from the rebel faction only yesterday? A broadcast of sorts, I’m told?”
Kaizen darkened. “Yes,” he said. “We had a rebel broadcast which, in short, defined the principles of the sect and threw a harsh light on the aristocracy itself. It . . . it was . . .” Kaizen searched for a term to vilify this course of action, but could find none. After all, had Legacy lied? Had she lied even once? “. . . not good,” he finished lamely.
Lovelace nodded. “I may have a solution to your quandary,” he said. The three men – Kaizen, Lovelace, and Claude, followed by a retinue of servants – turned to stroll back toward the doorway that wo
uld lead from the exterior dock to the interior of the archipelagos dome. “We meet with the rebels at CIN-3,” Lovelace suggested. “This Legacy? The one in the broadcast?”
“Yes,” Kaizen verified with a pang. “That’s her.”
“Issue a public invitation to her. Welcome her to the City of Icarus News-3 station with the promise of total safety, the promise of her safe departure, and host a debate there as soon as possible. The people will all listen. And let us present the salient points of the monarchy, so that her perspective is not without combat.”
“Hmm.” Kaizen had to admit that he liked the idea. And not only because it would restore the integrity of the monarchy. He hadn’t seen Legacy since that fight, and it . . . would be nice to see her again. He wondered how much time she was spending with Dax, now that they were on the run together. Dax . . . who had dreamed up that entire catastrophic coronation plot. A coronation I only agreed to in order to save HIS damn girlfriend!
“Yes!” Claude piped, meanwhile. “Perhaps even some sort of agreement could be reached between these people and your lordships?” he went on. “After all, we would want to see a happy populace, wouldn’t we? Should not real concerns be truly addressed?”
“Of course,” Lovelace agreed. “Of course the debate would be an honest gauge of the situation from the perspective of the common man. Let us admit, Duke Taliko, that you and I may not have the same experience of a factory worker or someone who takes issue with their potential Companion’s eligibility.”
Perhaps not as much as you might think.
“I’ll issue the challenge immediately,” Kaizen said, leading Lovelace and Claude into the dome. “And I’m sorry, Montgomery, for the state of the castle grounds. Without our staff of automata, perhaps it has fallen into disrepair.”
The moon had risen long ago, and it was late on Friday night. The people of Old Earth crept from their units, one by one, congregating like droplets of moisture in the sky, ready to fall. They had been waiting for this night three nights now. The passage of time, the cycle of a day, had suddenly become massively important to each of them. The streets of the dome were dark and empty, as was typical, but the vacant lot beside the dome was bustling with the activity of their elderly overlords.
Charlene Fenton stood before a bleeping forklift, watching it maneuver beneath a crate of flattened mushroom patties. N.E.E.R. had been her livelihood since she’d turned sixty-five three years ago, and she’d come to enjoy its challenges. Malthus had been correct. It was just like the work she’d done in the industrial territory. Feed-time. Brief crises, easily averted. There wasn’t much to it. She was proud to say she’d lived a full life in service to Icarus. She’d had her single mandated child with her single mandated Companion. Charlene Fenton was a sterling example of a perfect citizen. She’d accepted the results of her placement test and gone to work in textiles management for forty-five years. She’d never questioned the one hundred square feet of her unit, nor the diet of synthetic vitamins. When arthritis settled into her bones and the stairwells of the factoryworks became too much for her, long after her husband had died of cancer and left her with little by way of savings, Malthus had been willing to cut a deal.
Charlene took a sip from her small glass of Invigorate. She was addicted to the stuff. Made her feel young again. Sharp and strong.
She shifted a suspicious glance toward the dome, dark and unmoving.
For the past three years, this had hardly qualified as real work. The majority of her days were spent alone, in an apartment more spacious than the one she’d inhabited in Icarus, and the food was decent – sometimes even real. The pay was livable. Occasionally, she would drive a trolley to pick up a work crew at some random mine. Or perhaps she would be on wash or laundry or shot duty. But the kids really looked after themselves.
Until last Thursday night.
These mindless drones were only operational due to weekly injections of a cocktail to numb objectionable thought.
And last Thursday night, two entire vats had been shattered.
Charlene had tried in vain to get in touch with the earl – who was apparently the new duke – and been reassured by the treasurer that supplies were en route. They still hadn’t arrived, though, and the longer the kids went without these chemicals, the more dangerous it became. She’d already caught some talking to each other. Even walking around outside of their units. They seemed to have more energy, and Charlene knew. Charlene knew there was a difference. She could see it in their eyes.
“Fenton, can you come over here for a second?” Wallace asked. He’d been driving the trolley here for almost ten years now. “Just need you to look at this. The weight was off, so we took a look, and –Do you know why . . .?”
Charlene edged toward the opened crate of mushroom patties and saw what lay within.
Black, corded pants. A white t-shirt, speckled with grease stains. Hooded jacket. And boots. Patched ankle boots with deep tread and spurs.
“Huh,” Charlene replied. She was fishing one of the boots from within when Wallace belted an oath and started running.
Charlene whirled in the direction of the commotion – all of the supervisory and freight crew seemed to be infected with it – but had to shoulder through the horizon of silhouettes to find the source of their distress.
Dozens of workers – wearing those simple gray smocks, rebreathers, and no shoes – were pouring out into the night. Their destination appeared to be the tether which bound Icarus to the surface of Old Earth.
For a moment, Charlene was tempted to be upset. But she’d been alive long enough – hell, she even remembered the first days of New Earth, when the domes first rose into the sky and selected their citizenry – to know that things would always work out, one way or another. She went with the flow, and the path of least resistance always worked out. When the government of New Earth had selected her and her parents, she had not fought for those they did not select. When the Companion exam had placed her with a complete stranger rather than her boyfriend, she had not fought for the boy then left behind. When N.E.E.R. came to her and “offered” her a job, she had not fought for the comforts of an urban environment. And she would not fight now.
“It’ll be fine,” she said aloud. “There’s fresh rain on the ground. They’ll never make it through the swamps.”
Coal ran with a vigor that she had never known in all her years of menial labor. Joints, ravaged over the course of sixteen-hour days and ten years, groaned and snapped as she raced through the thick algae of the marsh. Her compatriots surrounded her, invisible for the lack of contrast and rendered visible only by the plumes of stagnant water kicked up in their wake. The sky overhead, still low and full, hinted at the possibility of another swath of thunderstorms. Although the delinquent orphans had no way of knowing this, the sun had already risen and would never break through the wall of dark purple and gray cloud coverage. Not on this day.
The sound of screams attracted Coal’s eye away from the focal point of her dash, and she whirled to see a vague white blob – almost a shadow itself – rearing into the air with an inhuman shriek.
Coal didn’t investigate further. Her newfound curiosity could only go so far.
But now she turned back with sharp eyes, made wary by the realization that death by exhaustion and malnutrition were not the only modes of leaving this earth. There were also giant . . . tubular . . . beasts.
A mangrove root arched up from the muck and caught Coal by the ankle, driving her down into the depths face-first.
Sopping, the silver-haired girl lunged up from the waters and scurried from them, as if more monsters were within, and as if she were not already submerged to her ankles. The brackish waters dripped from off her nose and chin, into her eyes, almost obscuring the hulking shadow in the sky
Still, they moved. Even though there were other shadows moving with theirs, delicate and swift, a chorus of screams, exclamations of horror, no one stopped. No one could stop. They had no choice now. There was
no returning to the dome from whence they came, nor the safe stupor which they had unanimously abandoned.
Not far now, Coal thought, hearing another shriek rip the air behind her. You can make it. You can make it. And there –they will have answers. They must help, when they see us! When they know what they’ve done!
A syrupy perfume fluttered beneath her nose, a note out of key with the symphony of odors, and she had to wonder what it could have been. Why were they forced to eat those chalky, bitter pills if such sweet things were growing wild?
Coal broke through a hedge of bone-white dead trees, and there was the source. A cluster of the things. They were flat, pink fruits, fringed in a jagged green spine. They smelled so sweet, but she knew she didn’t have the time to pluck even one, and instead she moved to push through the tangle of vines to which they were attached.
The vines gave way easily, but a droplet of the fruit’s juice dribbled onto Coal’s exposed hand and bubbled there, hissing. Coal reeled and screamed, collapsing back onto another vine. Its bulb swung down, snapping shut, and she realized with a thrum of terror that these were not fruits. These were flowers. But these were not flowers, either. They were monsters. The flat and pink spades were opened mouths; the jagged spines of green, teeth. And the fragrant juice was a corrosive saliva.
Another snapped at her face, and if she had ever grown out a lock of hair, it surely would’ve been singed off. Kicking, thrashing, she broke through, collapsed into another swollen puddle, and staggered to her feet again.
Can’t stop, she told herself. There is no going back.
The carnivorous swamp flowers fell away, and Coal was running free again. There were fewer escapees now. Much fewer.
But the thicket of marsh had been cleared, and what lay beyond was open field. Laced in dead mangrove roots and waterlogged, but open. Open.
Still, Coal ran. Even though each breath felt like a stab in the chest, she ran, because the monsters she knew best would use this road to approach. Her feet finally came free of the mud and the water, padding tenderly on shattered asphalt. This was the road, she realized. This was the road that they used. In the distance to the left was the hulking mess of a forgotten city, and in the distance to the right was the line that anchored that land in the sky to them, as a parasite will attach so subtly to its host.
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