by E. J. Swift
“I’ll do it, A, I’ll really hurt you if I have to-”
His body went slack. His head fell to one side as though he was listening intently, and his fingers drummed the ceramic tiles. A repeated tattoo, like hooves. Then he got up without looking at her and walked out of the kitchen. She lay gasping on her back. Her face and body smarted with bruises. She stayed there for twenty minutes, listening to the sounds of her twin evicting her. Second by second, her courage seeped away.
“Miss Rechnov?”
Adelaide opened her eyes. The door was obscured by a pair of black trousers, neatly ironed. The shoes beneath them were highly polished, but looked worn-in, comfortable. Sanjay Hanif.
“It’s Miss Mystik,” she said.
“I apologize. According to official records your name is still Rechnov. Would you care to explain what you are doing here? This is an investigation scene.”
“I’m not on the investigation scene.”
Hanif crouched, bringing his face closer to her level. He had dark eyes. Intelligent eyes, she thought. He was a man used to making quick assessments, yet now he was forced to take the long slow path of unmatchable clues. How could anyone make sense of Axel?
“You tried to get in,” he said, and pointed to a high corner behind her.
“I knew it was locked,” she said. “And I know you have a camera there. I’m not stupid.”
“I don’t think you are, Miss Rechnov. Which begs the question once more, what are you doing here? Some might consider trespassing on Council territory an act of extreme stupidity.”
“I was looking for you,” she said.
Hanif clasped his hands, resting them upon his knees. He balanced easily in such an awkward position. She wondered if this was how he interrogated criminals.
“You have my attention,” he said.
“Axel’s my twin. I have a right to know what you have discovered.”
“I understand. But as I have already explained to your father, the family must be excluded from the investigation until we have ruled out the possibility of foul play.”
“You mean murder.”
Hanif’s face remained still. She wondered if he was aware of the underground activities of people like Lao. If he had any inkling that Adelaide had hired her own man. She wondered whether Hanif knew about the airlift.
“It is customary to explore all avenues. In my experience, well-known people do not go missing for no reason. When was the last time you saw your brother, Miss Rechnov?”
“You’ve seen my statement. A month before Yonna found him gone. He came to my apartment.”
“And you’re positive you did not see him again?”
“Of course I’m positive.”
“Did you come here?”
“No.”
“Did you make any effort to see Axel?”
“No, I-no.”
“Did you ever feel angry with your brother, Miss Rechnov?”
“Are you interrogating me now?”
His mild expression did not alter.
“We both have our questions, Miss Rechnov. You have yours and I have mine. If you do not believe that I wish to solve this riddle because I care about what happened to your brother, at least believe I will do so because it is my job.”
She stared at him. “Everyone gets angry with the people they love.”
“Of course.”
“You should trust me,” she said. “I knew him. The rest of my family had no interest in Axel after he changed. He was an embarrassment to them. A problem.”
“It’s late, Miss Rechnov,” he said quietly. “You should go home.”
He called the lift. She understood that it was for her. Not far above them, the huge wheels started to turn and the cables rushed through their bindings. They waited, each intent on the incalculable drop beyond the glass doors. People said Hanif was a good man. His quiet manner, his level tone, all were suggestive of a man of integrity. But everyone was corruptible, and the Rechnovs had more money and influence than anyone in Osiris. How far could she really trust him?
The roof of the lift swept up. The doors parted. She stepped inside. As the lift started its descent his calm unhurried face vanished, then his torso, and finally his polished shoes.
Adelaide curled up on the futon. The wall opposite flickered with a continuous projection of black and white films, but the sound was off, and she did not really see the images.
A week after her eviction from her home, Axel turned up at Jannike’s apartment where Adelaide was staying. He was distracted. He asked her to come back but she refused; she was scared of him. Axel could not understand why she wouldn’t come back, and she was too humiliated to tell him. After that, the visits stopped. The rift cut like acid.
The Red Rooms were her home now. So she kept telling herself.
Four in the morning and Osiris was quiet. She knew the night’s fluctuating dynamics, the grace notes that marked a creaking machine from the floor above or the generators shifting to beta mode. By four o’clock, Osiris was always quiet.
She refilled her voqua glass. Clean, clear, uncomplicated.
In less than twelve hours, she was due to meet Vikram. Although she had made the appointment with no intention of keeping it, something about his face, his stillness, lingered with her. He was the angriest and the calmest person she had ever met. It was like stumbling upon a ticking device; the horror of what might happen was only equalled by her desire to see the mess. She imagined him waiting at the restaurant tomorrow. Today, now. Had he drawn up a plan of action? Was he running through the arguments he might use?
He’d lost someone too. Mikkeli. The name burned, as though Mikkeli’s vibrancy in life had passed into a flame that needed no oxygen, only a vessel. Adelaide did not know how tall Mikkeli was, or the colour of her hair, but the girl was present with the ghosts circling the city. She hid behind wave crests. She lay supine in troughs.
Axel is alive, Adelaide told herself. Otherwise I would see him like I see that girl. With salt in his lungs and frozen crystals in his hair.
Occasionally, when she was very drunk, Adelaide wondered if other cities had been like Osiris. If other great metropolises ate away at sanity by hurling people through their gates, more and more people, an overdose of life, until the crowds became drugged with their own gluttony. She studied photographs of lost civilizations and touched the imprints of the people in them and in her head she moved them to Osiris and watched their faces change. And sometimes she moved herself from Osiris to those long gone places and watched a different Adelaide walking on streets. That Adelaide had the same eyes, lips, hair. She had the same indolent walk. But the ground was different. It pressed onto her feet and sometimes it tripped her and sometimes it hurt. But she felt it. She knew it, with the witless intimacy and the trust offered only to a stranger.
Ground-dreams. Everybody had them. Adelaide poured herself another splash of voqua. Osiris was clever. Osiris made you think too much.
She sank back against the cushions, her eyes half-closed. The projection played out its muted scenes. Vehicles with silent wheels and boats that flew. Moving stairways held rivers of people. Their eyes forward. Their eyes all-knowing, knowledge in every part of them, injected into their blood, in the machines that lived in their heads. Now steps lead to a door: a house with four walls. How functional. Trees leaning out of the ground. Wind moving the arms of the trees, the vehicles rushing past them, careless of the ground, of roots or earth.
The whirrs and tics of everyday life in some other world. Worlds, she reminded herself, that had failed.
Out in the ghost-sea, the girl Mikkeli breathed. She had a message for Adelaide. Don’t give up. Keep looking. Follow the silver fish.
/ / /
In the morning, a whim sent Adelaide across the city to see Linus. He was in a meeting when she arrived. She busied herself reading the news headlines on her Surfboard. Home Guard arrest key Juraj gang members in all night fire battle. Council announce budget increase for we
stern perimeter reinforcements… The moving text made her dizzy. She stopped reading.
After ten minutes her brother appeared. He escorted her directly to his office, glancing around the reception area as though she might have inflicted unmentionable damage in the short time she had been waiting. The room was smaller than Feodor’s, but meticulously organized. She supposed this was the impression Linus wanted to create: geometric and clinical. His walls were covered with incomprehensible graphs.
Linus sat behind his desk and indicated the chair opposite.
“To what to I owe the pleasure, Adelaide?”
“Sarcasm already? You know I am still very angry with you, Linus.” But she didn’t want to talk about Tyr, and added quickly, “Any Council gossip?”
“We steer clear of that.”
“Oh.” The chair had wheels. Adelaide used one foot to propel her in circles, aware that he was watching her. “I wonder why you do it,” she mused.
“I’m not going to explain myself for your entertainment. You have no idea what’s going on in Osiris.”
She paused spinning. “Have you and Vikram formed some sort of conspiracy?”
“You’ve met him again, have you?”
“I had a visit.”
“And?”
On the Neptune, a long-finned angelfish swam forward until it filled almost the whole of the oval oceanscreen. Its mouth opened and an envelope floated out.
“You have Reefmail,” said Adelaide.
“So I see.”
The angelfish swam back and forth.
“Seems important,” Adelaide commented.
“It can wait. When did you see Vikram?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m not going to help him.”
Linus propped one arm on a filing cabinet. “He’s right, you know.”
“Of course you think that.”
“Look, you and I have grown up with this divide. But that’s not an excuse to accept it. Our parents’ generation won’t talk about it, they feel too guilty. It’s up to us.”
“They’re the ones that did it, Linus, let them sort it out.”
“They’re tired, Adelaide.” His voice was earnest now. “They can’t imagine a way to reverse that decision without a massive backlash. And they’re right, it won’t be a smooth transition. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.”
“What, you want to integrate now?”
“I think we should demilitarize the border, yes.”
“And get us all killed,” she scoffed.
“I didn’t say it’s not a risk. But we’re sitting on a time bomb. Remember the riots three years ago, all those people killed at the desalination plant. A plant, I might add, which is now functioning at forty per cent.”
Adelaide looked ceiling-ward. There was no dust here, no places for small creatures to hide. “Are you trying to scare me, Linus?”
He sighed. “Maybe I am. But there’s an even bigger issue at stake. Even you must know what it is.”
She fell quiet. The Neptune hummed. The angelfish still swivelled around the flashing envelope. She could not resist a glance at the window, where misty rain sheened the glass.
“You mean this idea that the weather’s changing,” she said finally.
“So you have noticed something.” There was a shift in his voice-surprise? Satisfaction?
“People talk. I’m not convinced. Anyway, grandfather hasn’t said anything and he’s been here longer than anyone. He’d know.”
Linus rapped the wall graph behind him. “Facts, Adelaide. This proves it. We’ve been experimenting-making forecasts. Not far ahead-but it’s often accurate. That’s a sign that the atmosphere is settling.”
“Is that what they’re doing above my apartment? Weather telling?” She looked away. “Doesn’t seem right.”
“Right or wrong, it’s going to happen. It has to, for what must follow. What I was telling you before, at your Rose affair-no, don’t sigh, it’s not a joke. Osiris has a very real problem. There are many things in this city we can make-we can grow foods and medicines and bioplastics, our Makers produce complex parts-but there are crucial things we can’t. Like bufferglass. Solar skin. Those are Afrikan technologies, and we’ve used up our reserves. Now there’re reports that the water turbines are breaking down. Next time a hyperstorm hits, it could do terrible damage, not to mention making a serious dent in our energy capacity. Our only option to repair this damage would be to leave the City.”
She turned back, shocked.
“Leave the City! Are you insane?”
Linus looked pleased with himself. Perhaps he was just trying to rattle her.
“On the contrary,” he said. “I have never been more serious. We will have to renew expeditions.”
“What about the storms?” she countered. “Even if you designed this amazing weather teller, how would a tiny expedition boat escape the storms? It would be ripped to pieces.”
“As I said before, Adelaide, the climate is adjusting. It’s a natural process. Besides, Teller portents favour journeys. The political time is right, and the necessity is there. Sooner or later, the Council must acknowledge it.”
“But there’s nothing out there. There’s nothing to find.”
“You’ve taken Osiris doctrine too much to heart. This is my contention with Council policy. Education should be about stimulus, about questions, not rote. We shouldn’t stop asking. Or hoping.”
“Hope is a fool’s errand, Linus. You’ll only alienate people when you can’t deliver what they want.”
His lips curved. “You sound like Father.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, I couldn’t be less like him.”
She was thinking of the last communications ever recorded before the Great Silence. They had arrived by boat. A refugee had carried the images all the way from the northern hemisphere, on a Neon Age hologram that now sat in the Museum. It might be upsetting, the teacher had warned them. But every pupil has to see. Otherwise you will never understand.
It wasn’t the images of destruction so much as the last radio broadcast that Adelaide always thought of: the voice, quietly desperate, speaking knowingly to people that would never come. Everyone in the class cried. The teacher was crying. Even Axel, if he wasn’t a boy, would have been crying. Everyone except Adelaide. She had suspected then that something was wrong with her. She couldn’t cry; she could only watch the images of those doomed people unfold one by one and feel hollow inside. Something had died in her that day. Maybe Linus was right-it was hope.
“Adelaide? You must see my point.”
“You’re deluding yourself, Linus. Everyone loves the idea of land. But it’s only an idea. It’s-what did Second Grandmother used to say-over the rainbow.”
He looked at her sympathetically, and she knew they were chasing different shadows.
“We have to find out,” Linus said. “It’s imperative that we know what is left. We must think ahead.”
“No-one will listen to you.”
“They will. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but eventually. Because unlike you, a lot of people share my hope.”
“Poor fools.”
He laughed. “You’d fight me all day. I wish you’d understand how influential you could be. If you only converted that cynicism, people would follow you.”
“You want me to lie.”
“No.” Now he sounded troubled. “No, I don’t want that.”
Idly, Adelaide tapped the desk. “It wouldn’t be a problem. Technically I’m a very convincing liar.”
“Incorrigible.” Linus fell silent, as though he had reached the end of his persuasions, and yet they had not quite achieved the conclusion he had sought. For a moment Adelaide felt sorry for him. She had never considered his belief in an outside world to be quite so integral to his character, but there it was, in blunt appeal, inextricably woven into the fabric of his political career. It struck her as odd that he might spend years campaigning for something so dreamily insubstantial.
She felt the same, nudging impulse that had brought her here.
“I’ll meet Vikram,” she said. “But I make you no promises.”
“Don’t underestimate what you’re embarking on.”
Adelaide stood and sent the chair wheeling under the desk with a backward kick of her heel. “Brother dear. When have you ever seen me in over my head? We may have different methods, but I’m quite as capable as you. If not more so.”
He gave her a crooked smile. She saw a flash of Axel in his face. Something in the way the eyes creased. She was so accustomed to warring with Linus, she tended to forget they shared a genetic code.
“As always, that alarms me more than anything else,” he said.
“I’ll send you an invite to the next soiree. I don’t expect to see you there.”
“I’ll ensure that my schedule is full.”
She nodded. Linus, at least, understood that collaboration was not reconciliation. At the door she paused.
“One thing, Linus. If you’re so worried that we’re running out of bufferglass, why would you support repairing towers in the west?”
He smiled. “Think about it. The thinner our resources are spread, the sooner the crisis looms…”
“And the sooner you can push for your expeditions.” She thought about it. “Yes. Clever. But it won’t work, you know.” It had been a successful whim, she thought. Linus thought she was doing something worthwhile, so he would keep quiet about her affair with Tyr. Neither had he guessed Adelaide’s agenda. What with Lao’s refusal and her abortive meeting with Hanif, she had realized it was impossible to get into Axel’s apartment. Impossible without help, that was, and if necessary, someone who could take the fall.
She checked her watch. If she hurried, she’d only be forty-five minutes late for Vikram.
16 VIKRAM
“Good afternoon, sir. Do you have a reservation?”
“Yes, it’s under Adelaide Mystik-or Rechnov, it could be Rechnov.”
“Ah, Miss Mystik,” said the waiter, drawing out the syllables as if there were many things he could impart about Adelaide. “Yes, she’s reserved for two o’clock. She isn’t here yet, but if you’d like to come through?”