She has no doubt that Carrock and Talus are believers; a month’s worth of closed-door discussions won’t have changed their views. Wroe and Rourke are fence-sitters, but both are driven by economic rather than ethical concerns. After so much expenditure, the cost of so many man-hours, they’ll waver onto the side of supporting tomorrow’s detonation. And with that, Euri thinks, we’ll have the majority. It won’t matter that Yusou is bound to vote against it—or that, even when Armin proposed the idea, Nolasco wasn’t shy in voicing her opposition. She can add her twanging shouts to the ones outside the stadium, for all the effect they’ll have now. Tonight, the ballot will come up four to two. Actually no, Euri thinks. Make that five. Cardea will add another yes to the pile, of course. Just to be on the winning side.
On screen, the Prime Minister holds a sleeping baby while its mother presses her ’wind on the registration paper, to the right of their names.
Once detonation is approved, Euri will need to watch the flesh-and-blood PM closely. After Cardea sends the order, there will be a sliver of time in which to snag the go-ahead before it reaches the staging area. Knowing what an anal-retent the PM is, she’ll probably dispatch three or four copies to ensure the notice arrives on schedule.
D.O.
Delay order.
Now the PM’s passing the baby back, turning to a set of triplets, making quips about their remarkable features. In unison, the three broad-bellied men let loose trumpeting baritones, the brash sound herded and amplified by their identical wordwinds.
A day’s delay will be embarrassment enough, Euri thinks, wincing as the singers send their bloated ’winds up to cloud the dome. Armin’s operation will go off—it must—but not when Cardea expects. If Euri intercepts the detonation order and, say, misplaces it until D+1… . The tension will be unbearable. By then, the screamers will be angrier than ever, the bomb all the more potent… . The blast will be incredible. It will be unforgettable—as will Cardea’s incompetence.
The most important mission in living memory, Euri thinks. Botched by a boxhead.
Her smile fades as the next numbered screamer appears on Cardea’s screen.
“Name?” comes the PM’s canned voice. “Surname first, please.”
“Andrews, Jean.”
The lens focuses on the printed list in front of Cardea, but Euri only needed that short glimpse to recognise her.
“Ah, there you are,” Cardea says, tapping a smudge of letters on the page. “Next of kin?”
“My husband knows I’ve come,” Jean says. “As, I suspect, do my children.”
“Even so, Madame.”
The younger clerks sneak glances at Euri as her mother rattles off Peytr’s details, then hers, then Zaya’s. She ignores them, gaze fixed on the screen. While Cardea confirms the numbers on file match the ones on Jean’s palm, tears sting Euri’s eyes. Smile returning, she straightens in her seat, the warmth of pride burning her chest. She doesn’t want Jean to die, of course she doesn’t. But she is proud to see her go. Proud to see her join the rest of the screamers. Proud to see her fulfilling Armin’s dreams. Proud to see her help end the war.
“You’re too kind for your own good,” Euri would say, each time she came before Armin did. In response he’d grin and keep thrusting, gaze turned inward, a dark line growing between his brows. He worried all the time, Euri knew, rotating her hips the way he liked. Even balls-deep inside her, Armin worried.
“Far too kind,” she’d said as he lay panting beside her. Smoothing his sweaty black hair, she’d kissed the end of his nose. “It will get you in trouble someday.”
“There was a philosopher once,” Armin had replied, after his breath returned. “Not just a thinker, mind you; he was also an experienced soldier. ‘In such dangerous things as war,’ he said, maybe a couple hundred years ago, ‘the errors which proceed from a spirit of benevolence are the worst.’” Armin sighed. The crease in his forehead deepened.
“What’s your point?” Euri had asked, slipping below the sheets. Aiming to distract.
“Nothing,” he’d said, running his fingers through her languid ’wind. “Just—I suppose you may be right.”
The staging area is prepped, the vision on Cardea’s screen promises. The stadium is teeming, inside and under and out: everywhere, there is ammunition, shell casings of concrete and flesh and bone.
“As of midnight, everything will be in position,” she says, hands folded on the boardroom table, pale white. “The screamers are prepared, mentally and physically. The tunnels are ventilated, but standing room is tight—the bowl isn’t much roomier. On-site sources say there’s a slow trickle of last-minute volunteers, but, as it stands, the stage is set.”
“Now that we’ve got the numbers counted, do you foresee any change in outcomes?” Wroe asks, one last time. Cardea shakes her head. To prove it, she runs through a series of projections they’ve all seen before.
The stadium flattened, eight city blocks around it razed. Overhead, a ceiling of ash pressing down, impenetrable, smothering. Ghosts blurring the streets. “Dust storms,” Nolasco claims, and Carrock rolls her eyes.
The stadium replaced by a bottomless cavity, a round hollow stretching for miles around. Greys roiling from the depths, snapping and eddying like wolves. “Steam,” Yusou says. “A release of subterranean gases. Human life will be unsustainable.”
The stadium gone, the parking lots brown with soil. The horizon free of scaffolding and cranes. In the distance, clean brick towers overlooking structures of steel and smooth concrete and glass. Crumbled buildings remain in the foreground, monuments to the past flocked with green fuzz. “It’s mould,” says Rourke, leaning close for a better look, face streaking with reflected light. “Maybe lichen.”
“No,” says Talus reverently. “It’s grass.”
The image flickers as Cardea blinks from channel to channel, but the essentials remain unchanged. The screamers have done their job. There are patches of blue above the skyline. Gold spills from gaps in the clouds. People rush from place to place because they want to, not out of fear.
Armin’s dream, Euri thinks, wiping the mist from her eyes. His usurped dream.
“Right then,” says Talus, looking from the grey world outside the bank’s window to the sunny picture on Cardea’s screen. “Shall we vote?”
“What do you hope to accomplish?” Euri had asked. “You know, after.”
Armin had rolled onto his back, lit a packed-herb cigar. He puffed silently, mouthing smoke rings, breaking them with a finger. Dropping like hail on the pillow, his ’wind revealed what Armin couldn’t express aloud. Snuggled up close, Euri could only read about half of the words.
Just that… . An after …
By morning, it was decided.
The small council dispersed well before dawn, taking cabs in the rain back to the suburbs, gathering their families in the dark, packing bags, quickly fleeing to the outskirts. Not abandoning the city altogether—the senators will need to be visible in the aftermath, stalwart in photographs, standing by their devastating choice—but not lingering in the CBD, either. After the meeting, Cardea’s driver docks outside the bank, the car’s tires sloshing through rising floodwaters, its electric engine eerily quiet. Diary in hand, Euri follows the PM onto the cold leather seat in the back. Inside, she shakes fat drops from her ’wind and prepares to press whatever briefings Cardea offers into her calendar.
The trip is a short one: the bank is two city blocks from Parliament Square, and Euri’s small apartment is four blocks beyond that, past the central markets and the ugly university, squatting on a rocky outcrop down by the dwindling river.
“A team of photographers is scheduled to archive the new façade today,” Cardea says, using a handkerchief to smear condensation around on her faceplate. “I’d like to go ahead with the appointment, if possible. At this stage, their images will be much clearer than my projections, and good reference detail will be invaluable once—if—we need to rebuild.”
Eur
i nods. Gov’t house is miles away from ground zero, but who’s to say how far the bomb’s debris will fly? If the screamers work their ’winds into the frenzy Armin had hoped for, the blast could very well reach this far. The manse’s new fascia could be shredded to pieces by volatile fonts, sharp stems and counters, burning ascenders and legs and descenders. But it won’t happen today, if things go according to Euri’s plan—so when Cardea says, “They’ll need supervision: will you still be around later this afternoon?” she smiles and replies, Of course.
There’s no time for sleep, she thinks after the PM drops her off, wishing her a good night. The vote has been cast, the session closed, but the order has not yet been despatched. A staff of Pigeons and mentalegraphers is kept on site, Euri knows—Armin employed them well when he was in office—so it won’t take long for Cardea to send her little birds flying. Euri’s got an hour, tops, to get into position. It’s enough, she tells herself, hurrying down to her building’s exclusive showers. In the past, she’s made it to gov’t house and back in forty minutes, with a vigorous fuck in between. It’s got to be enough.
After scalding the past few hours from her cold skin, warming her nervous ’wind, Euri slicks her wet hair into a tight knot at the back of her neck. Always prepared, she gets dressed for the workday in case there’s no chance to duck back home after the interception. Her favourite suit is burgundy polyester, the skirt and jacket tailored to fit snugly, accentuating her curves. A gift from Armin; worthy of this special occasion. Flopping from the open collar, the long-looped bows of a navy silk blouse are tied close to the throat. She keeps her hair back, and slips her bare feet into black ballet flats, their soles stitched from the quietest leather.
Wrapped in a crinkled plastic poncho, she splurges on a taxi. Light-handed with his whip, the driver gently clicks his tongue at a mule hauling the little hatchback. The beast slops through fetlock-high water, snorting sprays of rain from his nostrils. The cab chugs along, slower than the flares popping overhead, swimming lazy green trails through the clouds. “Can’t you make this thing go any faster?” Euri asks, tingling with adrenaline.
Mule and driver turn in unison, their sleepy brown eyes yawning, What’s the rush, lady?
When they finally reach gov’t house, Euri directs them to a side entrance, drops too much change in the driver’s wrinkled palm and then dashes up the stone steps. In the small, plain lobby, two guards note Euri’s presence with a nod. Well-used to her late-night arrivals, they return to their game of checkers while she hangs her raincoat and umbrella in the cloakroom. The pair pays little attention to the cluster of security screens on the desk behind them as Euri steps out into the corridor, disappearing behind a sliding panel in the mahogany-inlaid walls.
Armin had entrusted few people with these hidden paths, these walkways between, but he’d known Euri could keep a secret. For three years, they’d been together. Three years and none were the wiser. Three years and she’d been promoted no higher than counsellor. Three years and she’d learned every length and corner of these inner halls, every latch tucked in the moulding, every peephole, every trapdoor, every escape. Three years and she’d used none of them without Armin’s knowledge. She’d never spied through the two-way mirror hung in Verna’s chambers, though she could have, easily, she could have watched him play husband to his childhood sweetheart, his frumpy, raspy-voiced wife. She could have, but wouldn’t and didn’t.
Now she creeps through the dark on the ground floor. Spears of light shine from tiny holes all along the high wall: a constellation of intrigue and mistrust that leads Euri to the Prime Minister’s office. Bolted to struts, a sturdy iron ladder leads up to a crow’s nest eighteen feet up; rungs and shelf alike are worn smooth from use. Silently, Euri climbs to this lofty vantage and peers through a false speaker embedded in the wallpaper just under the ceiling cornice. The office is entirely clad in oak, from the floors to the oblong desk directly below Euri’s perch, to the shuttered side-windows on her left, to the heavily-carved walls and visitors’ chairs—stately furnishings that look clumsy in such a small space. To her right, a single row of stately photographs hangs at head-height, each frame centred in a square oak panel. Facing the desk, a black leather couch leaves little room for the chairs, both of which Senator Yusou has shunned.
Pacing the polished floorboards between sofa and seats, Yusou leaves a mess of puddles in his wake. Earlier, he’d withdrawn from the boardroom at Cardea’s command, disgust and despair greying his features. He must’ve been walking since then, Euri thinks. Moping at the vote’s result, tramping through the rain until the PM could be ambushed well before morning.
His voice floats through the steel mesh, clipped and desperate. Euri releases a tense breath as his words echo her thoughts. “It’s not too late.”
Clomping back and forth, water spilling from the wide brim of his hat, the senator wrings his hands, pleading. “Ashtad, please. Be reasonable.”
From this angle, Euri can’t see the PM’s screen; a harsh crimson square reflects on the desk’s polished surface, then fades as Cardea kneads the muscles in her neck.
“You’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty tonight, Orhan,” she says eventually. “Now go home.”
“Please,” Yusou says, collapsing into a chair, words rushing from his lips in an urgent whisper. “In the past, generals sent retraction orders—encrypted, sometimes, or fragmented symbols. Indecipherable to enemy spies. Bells tolling a predetermined hymn, colour-coded vials dropped from drone ships, a single line inscribed on a Pigeon’s wing: In the interests of a future present, it’d say, or something similar, nothing more. And those in command would know, mark my words, they’d know to call the operation off.”
The reflection from the PM’s helm is enigmatic blue. An obvious shade of indifference, Euri thinks. Cardea won’t risk her career over this.
“I hear your concerns,” she says. “I have certainly noted them. Understand?”
Yusou’s spine straightens as he nods. Hope smooths the creases from his round face, and Euri stifles a laugh. Fool, she thinks. Idealist. This afternoon, when the bomb fails to detonate, naïve Yusou will think he had something to do with it, that his little outburst swayed a Prime Minister’s mind. And tomorrow, when Euri releases the delayed order… . Oh, how she wishes she could see his expression then.
“Now if you’ll excuse me,” Cardea says, standing to escort her guest from the room. “I am due to receive a transmission that cannot be postponed. I will do my best, senator. Mark my words. I am doing my best.”
This is it, Euri thinks, sudden worry gnawing her bowels. A call. She’s going to give the order verbally.
Feet finding the ladder’s top rung, Euri stands. How can she stop the PM from speaking the command? She sits. Maybe interrupting the message will be enough—she stands, primed to run from the hidden corridor and into the office—except now Cardea’s barring the door behind Yusou. Euri sits. Peering through the speaker-holes, she exhales slowly, getting her ’wind in order. Cardea has always been a pedant when it comes to protocol, she thinks, watching as the PM returns to the desk and unlocks a bottom drawer. One by one, Cardea takes out three small flat boxes and aligns them on the slick wood. This is it, Euri decides, relief turning her limbs to gruel. There’s no mentalegraph coming, of course there isn’t; there will be no vocalising this decree. No, it’s not too late—this, now, is the moment.
Hunched over a row of tiny scrolls, Cardea scratches a message on each strip of paper. Without even reading them, Euri can guess what they say: Soup’s on. Verna better holler for her dinner. It took the ministers a whole mind-numbing day to come up with the right phrasing, the right punctuation; now Cardea opens the boxes and ties the carefully-worded ribbons around three identical fob watches. Then she stops. She seems to stare at the clocks for a minute, lids in hand, as if pondering the council’s decision.
Don’t turn coward now, Euri thinks, standing once more. Wrap those parcels in paper and twine—yes, that’s it,
knot them up tight—and now summon the house Pigeon, special delivery …
Cardea follows Euri’s unspoken instructions, to a point. But when the parcels are secreted in a Pigeon’s satchel, Cardea doesn’t ring the deliveryman’s bell. Instead, she takes off her helm and leaves it on her wingback chair. Cloaking herself in swathes of fabric taken from her personal closet, the PM covers her pocked face and stringy blonde hair, leaving the barest slit free for her eyes. She looks small, Euri thinks. Weak. Like one of the travelling women who sell gold jewellery at the central markets. She is unrecognisable, slouched like a beggar, a black rain cape drooping on her veiled shoulders.
Laden with the Pigeon’s burden, Cardea walks across the room—aiming not for the door, but for Euri’s wall. A few seconds later, there’s a quiet hiss of air pressure being released, a door swinging on hydraulic hinges. Craning to see down into the room’s corner, Euri lifts her feet and holds her breath. She can’t make out more than the panel’s top quarter, a shadowed edge that must open into this very rat-run. The hidden exit should be no more than two feet to Euri’s right; if Cardea looks up after she passes under the lintel, there’s no way she’ll miss seeing her crouched above, wordwind lightning pale with fear.
Fuck fuck fuck, Euri mouths, closing her eyes like a child, praying for invisibility. The ladder’s rungs grow slick under her palms. Vertigo latches onto her ears, her skull, her ’wind and swings its heavy legs, trying to dizzy her down.
I’m falling, she thinks, though she hasn’t moved. Through the fast thrum of her pulse, she listens for footsteps or the gentle click of the secret panel closing—then cracks an eyelid as she realises, too late, that the corridor has remained dark. Even when the door slid open, the hallway wasn’t flooded with light.
Cardea hasn’t gone out, Euri thinks, clambering fast as her rubbery legs allow. She’s gone down.
If you want an important job done properly, Armin used to say, do it yourself.
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