The Atomic Sea: Part Four: The Twilight City

by Jack Conner

  “And if we can’t?” Hildra said.

  They watched the drifting jellies for a long time. Avery kept imaging that the nearest one would pause in its path, would draw over the brownstone and begin to pulse more vividly, and then another jelly would draw near, and another, until the whole school had congregated over the brownstone, pulsing and glowing and squirming. And then they would descend ...

  Chapter 7

  Frederick was hunched over at the breakfast table in the morning, staring intently at the crackling radio that sat before him next to a bottle of beer. Actually, there were several bottles, but only one still held any beer in it. Smashed cigarette butts crammed the ashtray, and the whole area stank of smoke. Frederick’s eyes bulged, bloodshot and insane, and he gripped the beer bottle so tightly Avery, who had just come down the stairs with Layanna, feared it would shatter. An Octunggen news reporter’s voice filled the air, but Avery only half-listened—citywide lockdown, hunt for Layanna. Jellyfish. Nothing new.

  Avery felt much better. He had showered and dressed his wounds, mainly minor abrasions from escaping the limousine, and he was in new clothes—new to him at any rate: he wore one of Edgar’s old outfits. It was a bit loose, but clean. Layanna had asked Fredericks’ permission to go through his father’s closet, and he had given it grudgingly. She still smelled of soap from her own shower, and her hair dripped moisture.

  Janx and Hildra, clean too, were staring out the window, rapt and unmoving. The jellies still drifted, silently, less colorful by day but still as eerie.

  The radio switched off abruptly, and they all turned to see Frederick slowly stand and face them. He moved deliberately, as if trying to rein himself in—as if afraid that if he moved too fast, he might just explode. His expression was murderous.

  “Tell me ... what ... the fuck ... is going on.”

  They all glanced at each other. Janx smiled broadly, showing several of his metallic teeth. Hildra shrugged. To Layanna, Avery said, “It’s your call.”

  She regarded her son for a long minute. “You’ll need to sit down.”

  When Layanna had finished her tale, Frederick blinked at her slowly across the breakfast table over the tops of a myriad of bottles. He was even paler than before. Smoke uncoiled from the ashtray, and the radio, reawakened, crackled with static in the background.

  “So,” he said, slurring his words a bit. “You’re trying to stop the war by taking some device to the sea—the Device—that will disrupt Octung’s extradimensional weapons—weapons your own people gave Octung in the first place. And since our armies are spread so thin, since they’re relying on those weapons, if they’re rendered inert that’ll be enough for our enemies to rise against us. To drive us back and beat us.”

  “That’s right,” she said. “All we need to do is take the Device to the sea.”

  “But only if you can steal it back from the Over-City before they reverse its functions and activate it.”

  She drummed her fingers nervously on the table. “Yes ...”

  “And you can’t even leave the city. Even the airspace is sealed, you know.”

  “Yes ...”

  “Any thoughts on how you’re going do it?”

  She frowned, and a divot appeared between her eyebrows. “We’re working on that.”

  Frederick snorted.

  “How about you, Junior,” said Janx. “You know a way?”

  Frederick narrowed his eyes at the whaler. “Don’t call me Junior, first of all. Second, what makes you think I won’t turn you in? You’re trying to bring down my country!”

  That stopped them. Avery had let himself believe that any sane person, especially the son of a Black Sect member, would oppose the government of Octung.

  Hildra strolled forward, narrow hips rocking, cigarette dangling suggestively from her lips. The scar curling up from the left side of her mouth gave her the permanent suggestion of a leer, but at times it could be provocative. As she approached, Frederick sat up straighter, and Avery could see him compose himself as if to look his best.

  “Tell me, Freddy,” she said. “Why did the Octs take those families yesterday? Why’d they throw them in the transports? They didn’t think they were us.”

  He looked away. His composure dwindled. “It’s hard to believe you people don’t know that. Don’t know what’s going on here.”

  “Well, we don’t.”

  “The Central Authority’s taken hundreds of thousands. Millions. Not just here but all throughout Urslin. Even Octung, although only in the poor areas and places where there are still religious hold-outs, non-Collossumists. So many have gone missing ... At first we didn’t know what it was, neighbors would just vanish, but then we began to hear the reports that they were taken to certain ... facilities ...” Frederick pulled a hand across his face. “For a long time we didn’t know what went on there. Experiments, we knew, if not what kind, but there was more. Now rumor has it now that the Collies have been force-feeding unprocessed food from the Atomic Sea to the people there.”

  “But the infection kills as many as it changes,” Avery said, horror-stricken. Absently he touched his face.

  “Oh, but it’s even worse than that. They feed them the rankest, foulest of the foods. They’ve developed ways to make eating the stuff less dangerous, you know. When you accept the Sacrament, it’s relatively safe. Compared to what it used to be. The Collossum came up with that to encourage conversion, but the process isn’t cheap, and for the criminals and heretics taken to the camps—well, too bad for them. They’re force-fed the rankest shit without any safeguards, and they’re left to die—wallowing in cramped, squalid conditions, stinking of death—or change.”

  “Countless must have died,” Hildra said, her voice raspy.

  “Oh, it’s a lot,” said Frederick. “Gods know how many, but it can’t be small. What gets me is—so what? So they’ve gone to all this trouble to infect these poor bastards, what can they do with ‘em? They’re not loyal. They’ll hate the Collossum even worse now.”

  “Cannon fodder,” said Janx. “That’s all they’re good for.”

  “No,” said Layanna, and everyone quieted to hear her. “That’s not why. Well, that’s not all of it. Remember, the reason the Collossum want to infect humans is because only beings with extradimensional elements can be used as food for my people. Sacrifices.” She paused. “I didn’t know that the Collossum had decided to pursue that plan, the plan of forced infection. When I left, many were still arguing for triggering the rise of the ngvandi, for letting them descend on the Octunggen once the war was done, although most were still content with allowing Octung to be our instruments on this world. There were talks about making the Sacrament more widespread and encouraging its implementation through the culture. Many thought that would spread infection too slowly, though; if Octung was going to serve us in the changed world, all the Octunggen needed to accept it.

  “Thus some put forward the idea of forcibly converting the nonbelievers and the conquered, creating a caste system. Those of true faith who accepted the Sacrament willingly would be the masters, while another, larger underclass who’d been pressed into accepting it would serve them. And all would serve us, of course. At the time I left the Great Temple, all these plans were still in the air, and the voices who supported unleashing the ngvandi once the war was over were the loudest, if not the most listened-to. In a way, this plan is better.”

  “Better?” spluttered Hildra. “How can you say that?”

  “The ngvandi, the disaffected mutants living outside the bounds of civilization for centuries—they have forgotten how to be human. This way, the infected will remember. They will maintain their civilization even as they transform within it, some willingly, some not. And their place as the servants of the R’loth will keep them secure. It is really quite elegant.”

  They all fell silent as they contemplated this. For his part, Avery could not believe Layanna could be so casual about the deaths of millions. Not just casual, but even compli
mentary to the implementation of it.

  Frederick shook his head. “Anyway, that’s where they took those people. To the facilities. Any day I expect them to take us, too.”

  “I’m so very sorry,” Layanna said.

  Frederick shrugged. “I cope. I get by. Me and Dad.”

  Hildra flicked the ash off her cigarette. “How do you cope, Junior?”

  He didn’t tell her to stop calling him that. He sort of smirked. “Oh, I just do. Maybe you’ll see. Maybe you won’t.”

  Avery cleared his throat. “At any rate, Frederick, I hope you see that we can help you. We’re trying to stop the very people, or beings, that are doing these things. If we can activate the Device, we can topple the government, eradicate the Collossum.”

  “But can you really do it?”

  Avery nodded with all the confidence he could muster. “We can. We will. But first we need to reach the Over-City. If we don’t, none of that will happen. The war will go on, the Collossumists will continue to enforce the Sacrament and eventually go on to subjugate the world. Is that what you want?”

  Frederick’s lip lifted in what was almost a snarl. “I want those asswipes to die. Horribly and slowly.”

  Avery put all of his feeling into what he said next: “Then help us kill them.”

  Frederick stared back. He seemed to be thinking about it. Smoke curled up from his cigarette, wreathed around the light fixture. Avery waited. Expectation built. Frederick began to nod to himself. He was going to agree.

  Then Layanna, perhaps thinking that some motherly influence would push him over the edge, interjected:

  “Any aid you could give us would be greatly appreciated.”

  Frederick sneered. “I wouldn’t lift a finger to help you, you bitch.”

  Hildra walked around the table and slapped him across the face. Startled, he shot to his feet, knocking the chair backwards. He lifted a hand to strike her.

  “Go ahead!” she said. “Do it!”

  Janx tensed.

  Frederick glared at her, then lowered his hand. “Don’t you do that again, honey.”

  “I’ll do what I like. Treat your mother with more respect. She’s trying to save the fucking world. Maybe she was a sucky mom, I don’t know, I wasn’t there, but she was probably better than mine.” Hildra hesitated, then said, “See these scars?” She rolled up her left sleeve, showing a row of small scars that looked suspiciously like cigarette burns. “My mom gave me these. Nice, huh? Yeah, she was a winner. And these?” She showed off some welts on her right arm, lifting back the sleeve with her hook. The marks were half hidden under a tattoo shaped like a sea serpent. Perhaps it was supposed to have covered them. “Dad gave me these. To even it out, you know. And there’s more, trust me.” She dropped her sleeve. “So lay off your mom, alright?”

  Layanna watched her in appreciation, but also worry. Janx said nothing. He had likely known about it all long before.

  Frederick collapsed back into his chair. His cigarette had gone out, and he lit it distractedly. “Just because your parents were worse doesn’t make her any good,” he said, but the fight had gone out of him. “What do you people expect of me?”

  Layanna glanced to Avery, who frowned, then back at Janx. Janx shook his head.

  After a moment, Hildra said, “How do you get your drugs?”

  “Excuse me?” Frederick asked.

  “You heard me, Freddy. How do you get your drugs?”

  He scowled, then shifted a somewhat guilty look to his mother, as if gauging her reaction.

  “What do you mean?” Layanna asked Hildra.

  “He’s a hophead,” Hildra said bluntly.

  “Shut up,” Frederick said.

  “Wh-what is this?” said Layanna.

  Avery sighed. “I noticed it, too. He has all the symptoms.”

  “What? Symptoms?”

  “The stench of glass, the yellow veins, the buggy eyes,” Hildra said, ticking off the items on her fingers. “He’s on hava or something similar. Trust me. I’ve taken most everything there is to take and been addicted to half of them.”

  “Hava’s a powerful alchemical drug,” Avery said. “Especially popular among the infected population in Ghenisa. Highly addicting. And dangerous.”

  “Fuck you,” said Frederick. “Besides, I’m not just some addict.” He pulled himself straighter. “I’m a businessman.”

  Hildra raised her eyebrows. “So you’re a dealer. It gets better and better.”

  “What?” said Layanna. “What?”

  Frederick scoffed. “That’s right. It must be something for a goddess who’s spent her life in a temple being worshipped to realize her son’s a drug dealer. Welcome to the party, Ma.”

  She just stared at him, mouth open.

  “Anyway,” he said to Hildra, “what’s it to you? It’s none of your business.”

  “It might just be,” she said. “See, way I figure it is this: the black market may be the only thing in town not afraid of Octung. Or at least they’re the ones who’ve found ways around it. Get us to your buddies and maybe they can slip us through the cracks.”

  “And into the Over-City?” Frederick said it doubtfully.

  “Maybe not, but at least into the air. The dirigible marina. We can find our own way from there.”

  “That may just be brilliant,” Avery said.

  Frederick studied Hildra, then his mother, then the rest of them. At last he shook his head. “Impossible,” he said. “It’s impossible. You don’t even know what you’re asking. How dangerous it would be. For me, and for you.”

  “Then you do have access to the air,” Avery said, seizing on it.

  Frederick shook his head again. “I won’t do it.”

  “But, Junior—” Janx started.

  “Don’t fucking Junior me!”

  Mad now, he stabbed out his cigarette and stood to go.

  “Frederick—” Layanna started.

  “Oh, shut it, Mother! You abandon me for thirty years and now you come back into my life just to use me? Just to fucking get me killed?” He made fists at his sides. “Fuck you! And the rest of you, too!” He glared at them one last time and stormed up the stairs, slamming the door after him. Before he vanished, he shouted over his shoulder, “I want you all gone by tonight!”

  * * *

  There was a long silence. They looked to Layanna, but she couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. Avery squeezed her shoulder. Finally she let out a long breath and said, “I’m sorry. If I’d been a better mother, none of this would be happening.”

  “Enough with the bad mother routine,” Hildra said. “You were trying to save the world, you didn’t have time to kiss his ouchies. Whatever. What I don’t get is why he’s blubbering at your feet one minute and kicking us out the next.”

  “He was overcome,” Layanna said. “At first. Now that he’s had time to think about it, he’s let his anger take him over. I ... suppose we should pack our things and start planning our next step.”

  “No,” said Avery.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We have nowhere to run to. Except into Octunggen arms. Or into a vast, endless swamp where you’ll stand out like a beacon.”

  “You got a plan, finally?” Janx said.

  Avery said nothing, and they turned to stare once more out the window, grateful for the distraction. The jellies were oddly beautiful. Hildra and Layanna gathered, too, and the four stared up at the drifting beings for a while.

  Dismay built in Avery. Here they were in a hostile city, hunted by beings both worldly and otherworldly, trapped in a corner while the hunters were getting closer and closer. And Avery saw no way out.

  He crossed to the kitchen, poured himself a dose of whiskey and rummaged through the ice-box, which was small, old and stank of mold. He came up with a hunk of hard bread that didn’t look entirely covered in mold and some mutton that was just on the point of spoiling, but not past it. The Octunggen were obviously rationing food, at least to those not of
the Blood. Another perk of accepting the Sacrament, he supposed. He ate and drank.

  “We can still carry out your original plan, Doc,” Hildra said, as if to lighten the mood. “Contact the resistance. That might still work.”

  “The city’s too unsettled,” Avery said. “The resistance will be hostile toward us. We’d need to wait for days for them to mellow toward outsiders before we could approach them.”

  “We don’t have days,” Layanna said. “The Over-City’s getting further away every minute.”

  “Honestly I was hoping to have come up with something better by this point,” Avery admitted. “I think Hildra’s plan is best. Use the underground. But without Frederick’s assistance ...”

  An atmosphere of doom descended on them. They had nowhere to go, nothing to do. It all seemed so hopeless. They ate and drank, and looked desultorily at the walls. Time crawled by. Avery tried to count the jellies but lost count after two hundred and eighty-three. They moved around too much to make counting easy.

  “You know,” Janx said at one point, reclining on the couch and slurping a sip of beer, “this reminds me of the time ...”

  “Not now,” Hildra said.

  Janx sighed.

  Avery opened his mouth to protest, to encourage Janx to tell his story, then thought better of it. The truth was that he wasn’t in the mood, either. He and Layanna retired to her bedroom, trying to sleep while they could before Frederick’s sundown deadline. It was in the late afternoon, when Avery was deep asleep, that the bombing started.

  But was only when he smelled the gas that he woke.

  THE END

  OF

  THE ATOMIC SEA

  VOLUME FOUR

  FROM THE AUTHOR:

  Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed reading The Atomic Sea: Volume Four as much as I did writing it. Volume Five is available now, and the link is below.

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