City of the Falling Sky

by Joseph Evans

  Seckry stood absolutely still, praying to Gedin that it was just a whisper of the wind and not the noise of a human.

  But there it was again. A short outing of breath, like a whimper, a sob.

  He was shaking, terrified that he’d been caught. He stood where he was, waiting for someone to grab him. But they didn’t.

  Just that same short cry again, with a snivel this time too.

  Seckry turned around slowly, and there, in the darkest corner of the mud patch, he caught a glimpse of a figure, illuminated briefly by the undulating glow worms.

  It was a girl. How had he not noticed her while he had been digging?

  “Hey,” Seckry whispered softly, and the girl flashed her eyes at him. They were large and dark, eyeing him widely with fear and confusion.

  “What are you doing here?” Seckry asked, and he looked away quickly as he realised that she was completely naked, huddled in the mud, hugging her own knees close to her chest.

  There was a long silence before she said, “I don’t know,” in a weak voice.

  Who was this girl? She couldn’t be an Endrin employee, she was too young. Seckry wasn’t certain, but he thought she must be around the same age as him, fifteen or sixteen.

  Right then there was a crack in the air, like a thunderbolt, and floodlights started bleaching the complex.

  That was it. He had to get out.

  “Come on!” he said urgently, and grabbed the girl’s hand to help her up. She slipped on the boggy surface, and struggled to get back to her feet again, her knees shaking as if her legs had never been used before.

  With a bit of help, Seckry got her over to the manhole, kicked off the cover and hoisted her down.

  Seckry’s fingers were tingling. He had never been aware of touching someone’s skin as much as he was now. He could feel her soft, damp flesh under his palms, slipping and sliding from the slimy mud. As he held her tight to keep hold of her, he could feel the tendons of her muscle tissue and the bones in her arms.

  He jumped down himself, slid the manhole cover back into its place and waded as fast as he could through the sludge of filth until they came out into the river.

  Seckry dragged the girl up onto the bank and into the cover of some corrugated metal sheeting. He took off his jacket and wrapped it around her. She was small, shorter than Seckry, and the jacket draped down to her knees.

  They waited in silence for as long as they could manage. There wasn’t a sound.

  When Seckry realised no one was coming after them he took a deep breath.

  What was he going to do with this girl? He couldn’t leave her here. She was petrified.

  “What’s your name?” he asked her.

  Her eyes searched around and she shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  She was trying to cover her legs, aware that they were exposed, but Seckry wasn’t looking at them. He was trying his best to avert his gaze from her eyes. They were so large and deep, so round and dark that they were almost like a baby’s, taking in the world for the first time.

  Seckry knew they had to leave. Even though they couldn’t hear anyone, Seckry was sure there’d be Endrin guards scouting the perimeters by now. There was only one thing he could do.

  “You’ll have to come with me. You can’t stay here.”

  The girl nodded shakily.

  “I live over the other side of the city, do you think you can walk to the monorail station over there?”

  She nodded again.

  They made their way to the stop as quickly as they could.

  As the monorail approached, Seckry saw that it was being serviced by the same attendant that had been on his outward journey.

  “Hello again,” Seckry said meekly as they boarded.

  The attendant looked at Seckry and then the girl, then at Seckry again.

  “Good night on the machines, eh?” he said suspiciously.

  “Um . . . yeah,” Seckry said.

  Luckily he didn’t give them any trouble, and when they arrived at the flat, Seckry turned on the shower as quietly as he could and gave the girl a towel and some spare pyjamas of Leena’s that were lying around. She thanked him and Seckry closed the bathroom door. After she had finished, Seckry jumped in the shower himself.

  It was only then that he had time to reflect. What had he done? He felt sick with fear and regret. What if they had him on security camera? And what was the girl doing there in the mud? Would Endrin be looking for her?

  The worst thing that plagued him now was that he was going to have to explain to his mum why there was a strange girl sleeping in the spare bed. He was going to have to tell her that he broke into Endrin.

  When he got to his bedroom the girl was fast asleep.

  He lay down on his bed quietly and watched her. Seeing somebody in that bed seemed strange and out of place.

  He eventually laid his head on his pillow and tried to get to sleep, but his mind wouldn’t rest, and it was only at five o’clock in the morning that he drifted off.

  Seckry woke to the sound of shouting.

  “Who do you think you are? You lead my brother on, lure him into your little trap so he can get cornered by that horrible boy and now you’ve managed to seduce him again! Wait a minute . . . those are my pyjamas!”

  Seckry’s eyes flashed open. “Leena, no!” he shouted.

  He scrambled out of his sheets and stumbled into the living area.

  “This isn’t Natania!” he exclaimed.

  Leena was stood with her fists clenched and her mouth screwed into a vicious snarl, staring intently at the poor girl he’d found last night as though she was about to rip her to shreds with her fingernails.

  “This isn’t Natania! This isn’t Natania!” Seckry repeated, jumping in front of his sister before any damage was dealt.

  “What on earth is going on out there?” shouted their mum from the bathroom. They heard the shower stop and some ruffling of towels before Coralle opened the door in her bath robe and saw the three of them.

  “Well, who do we have here?” She said quietly, and she looked to Seckry for answers.

  “Uh . . . she’s . . .” Seckry didn’t know what to say. The girl didn’t even know her own name. “She’s lost,” Seckry eventually said. “I left the house late last night to do something and I found her. She was lost and alone. I said she could sleep here, she had nowhere to go. It’s a long story.”

  “Oh, my dear,” Coralle sighed, and she took hold of the girl’s hand. “Of course, of course. You’re more than welcome.”

  Coralle flashed Seckry a look that said, ‘What were you doing out at night?’ and then returned to the girl.

  “Where do you live?” she asked.

  The girl opened her mouth half way as though she were about to speak, but she closed it again, and her eyes turned downwards.

  “She’s having a little trouble with her memory,” Seckry explained.

  “Oh, you poor soul. It’s okay, my darling, You stay here as long as you need.”

  “Thank you,” the girl said, with a grateful smile.

  Leena’s rage eventually calmed after that, and she left for work in silence. Coralle made a fuss of getting the girl some decent breakfast and insisting that a nice cup of tea would probably bring her memory jogging back.

  When Coralle was about to leave, she called Seckry aside.

  “I have to go to work now, but will you be explaining all of this to me later?”

  “Yeah . . .” Seckry said guiltily. “I’ll explain everything later.”

  Seckry was left alone with the girl in the kitchen.

  “I’m sorry for this,” she said, shaking her head. “I won’t be here when your mum and sister get back. I’ll leave in a moment.”

  “No,” Seckry said quickly. “You don’t have to leave. My mum really doesn’t mind you being here. She’s always genuine when she says things like that. She loves looking after people.”

  The girl smiled.

  “You can stay here at
least until you start remembering. Otherwise, where will you go?”

  The girl laughed briefly. “I don’t know.”

  They sat in silence for a while, and Seckry decided to make himself busy so that he wouldn’t keep staring at her large, watery eyes again.

  While Seckry was plonking plates into a sink full of bubbles, the girl said, “I’m not sure if I’ll ever remember.”

  Seckry stopped and turned around.

  “It just . . . It just seems like there’s a complete void.”

  “I’m sure it’ll come back to you eventually,” Seckry reassured her, but he had no idea if this was true or not in all honesty. He had found her naked on a patch of mud in the Endrin complex. What in Gedin’s name had happened to her there? Why was she even there in the first place?

  They spent the rest of the morning watching cartoons on the television. They sat in silence, although the girl giggled during an episode of Tommie Tiger. When the midday news came on Seckry made them both a salad sandwich and they sat on the sofa, eating.

  Leena’s clothes were too big on her and she looked lost in a pile of fabric.

  “The place where you found me,” the girl said quietly. “What is it? Where was I?”

  Seckry put down his sandwich. Her face was becoming less fatigued now, and she had keen curiosity in her expression.

  “It was in the very centre of the city, in the private grounds of a science research organisation named Endrin.”

  “Oh . . .” the girl said. “What were you doing there? It looked like you were digging something up.”

  “I was . . . uh. Well I wasn’t supposed to be there. I’d broken in to get some worms for someone. They said they’d pay me a lot of money if I did it.” He shook his head. Seckry was about to say how much he now regretted breaking in at all, but he stopped himself as he realised she might still have been cowering naked in the mud if he hadn’t helped her get away.

  “The earliest thing I can remember,” said the girl, “is the smell of soil. And then opening my eyes and seeing you.”

  Seckry felt his face go red as he recalled her naked form again. She must have been embarrassed too because she turned her head down and avoided his gaze.

  “Thank you for getting me out of there,” she said eventually.

  Seckry decided to pass some time by showing her some video games. They lay on separate beds and took it in turns to beat arcade mode on a couple of beat ‘em ups.

  “Whoever you are,” Seckry said, “you must be a pretty good gamer. You’re amazing at this.”

  “It does feel familiar,” the girl said ponderingly, as she defeated the final boss for the second time. “Oh, look! I’ve made the leader boards.”

  Seckry smiled but immediately felt awkward. The leader board was asking her to type in a name for the records, and she was just staring at the screen, lost in her own thoughts.

  “I really have no idea who I am,” she said.

  After a moment, Seckry thought of an idea.

  “Would you like to have a temporary name? Just for now, you know? Until your real name comes back to you.”

  The girl looked at him, and he saw sadness in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” Seckry said straight away. “That’s a really bad idea.”

  “No, it’s not,” the girl replied, and she smiled. “I think I’d like a temporary name. What do you think would suit me?”

  “Hmm . . .” Seckry thought. “I think it should be a name that means something to you. Can you remember anything that you like? Anything at all?”

  “It’s really strange. I remember smells and tastes. I can picture things and places. But . . . nothing links to anything else.” The girl thought for a while. “Is there such a thing as an ‘eiya’ flower? I don’t know where or when I ever came across it, but there’s a flower I can see in my mind, a little white one with a lovely smell.”

  “Yes,” Seckry said. “Yes there is.” He knew the flower. Of course he did. He walked past a garden full of them every morning on the way to school back in Marne, and every day he’d get a waft of beautiful aroma in the gentle morning breeze.

  “I remember that flower,” the girl said. “It’s my favourite one.”

  “Well then,” Seckry said dramatically. “It’s nice to meet you, Eiya.” He held out his hand and she shook it with a giggle.

  “It’s only four letters too,” she said. “Which means it fits into the leader boards perfectly.”

  After a few more games, Seckry realised it was half past three and school would just be finishing.

  There was one thing he had been waiting all day to do. He had to speak to Mr Vance and tell him about the girl.

  “I’ve just got to make a phone call, okay?” he said, and he slipped into the living area.

  He didn’t have the number for the school stored in his address book but his mum had written a list of important phone numbers and tacked them to the notice board above the toaster.

  He whipped out his mobile, dialled and waited for an answer.

  “Estergate Institute reception, Claura speaking, how may I help?”

  “Uh . . . hi, can I speak to Mr Jonn Vance please?”

  “Mr Vance? Can I ask who’s calling?”

  “Tell him it’s Seckry Sevenstars.”

  Would Mr Vance remember the name?

  “Tell him it’s the boy from the alley,” Seckry added.

  “Uh . . . sure. One moment.”

  Seckry was put on hold. After a couple of minutes of classical music the speaker went silent again.

  “Hello?”

  “Mr Vance . . . I’m really sorry to disturb you,”

  “It’s quite alright, Seckry, it’s quite alright. Is everything okay?”

  “There’s something I need to talk to you about. It’s to do with Endrin.”

  “Endrin? Go ahead, Seckry.”

  “I . . . found a girl inside the complex,” Seckry explained, “I wasn’t supposed to be there. I . . . snuck in.”

  Mr Vance was silent for a moment. Seckry didn’t know if the man was going to scold him or not. Either way, he knew he had to tell him. Mr Vance would probably be the only one who could shine a light on who the girl was.

  Eventually Vance spoke.

  “Dear Gedin, Seckry, I don’t know why you would break in to the Endrin complex but you are now in very serious danger.” His tone was more concerned than it was angry. “If you meet me tomorrow after school in my classroom we can discuss the details of why and how, but for now, you say you found a girl?”

  “Yes,” Seckry said shakily. “She’s lost her memory. She can’t remember a thing. She was huddled in a patch of mud and she doesn’t know how she got there or who she is.”

  Mr Vance was silent again for a while.

  “You did the right thing in phoning me, Seckry. Is she with you now?”

  “Yeah, she’s here. She’s gonna stay here with us until things start coming back to her.”

  “That’s good. Make sure she drinks plenty of water. Does she have any injuries, was she hurt?”

  “No, it doesn’t seem like it,” Seckry said.

  “Good. Seckry, this is very interesting indeed. Especially after the discoveries I’ve made today.”

  “Discoveries?” Seckry asked.

  Mr Vance sighed, and his voice trembled a little.

  “The white chip. I’ve been running tests through it for the past two days. I had hit a block yesterday evening, and I thought I’d never know what the purpose of that phantom node was. But I was taking the wrong approach. It wasn’t emitting anything, no power, no information, nothing. I almost thought, for a moment, that it was dud, that maybe I had been paranoid about Endrin and this node had really been a manufacturing mistake. But, Seckry, this node isn’t emitting anything for a reason. It’s a negative. It’s not giving, it’s receiving. It’s reading. It’s gathering.”

  “What do you mean?” Seckry asked.

  “Endrin are searching for something. It’s quite complica
ted, and I wouldn’t even teach my sixth formers this stuff, but, if the white chip picks up a certain element then a signal is sent to the wireless emitter. That signal goes straight to Endrin HQ. They’re waiting for the node to detect that element in the air.”

  “What element is it?”

  Mr Vance breathed out slowly.

  “That’s where things become very strange indeed. It’s not an element listed in the official tables. Its properties don’t make sense, it’s an element that doesn’t exist.”

  “Why would they be searching for something that doesn’t exist?” Seckry asked.

  “Seckry, every academic bone in my body is telling me that this is impossible and if I ever tried to prove this to the fellows of the Science Committee I’d lose my job, but I think I have an idea of what Endrin are looking for.”

  “What is it?”

  Seckry heard Mr Vance shuffling around on the end of the line.

  “It’s not something I even want to talk about over the phone. Can you meet me tomorrow at lunch time? I’ll be in my office, at the end of T corridor on the second floor.”

  “Yeah sure,” Seckry answered.

  “And Seckry,” Mr Vance said urgently. “Do you have a white chip on your arm at the moment?”

  “Yes,” Seckry said, rolling up his sleeve.

  “Take it off, wrap it in a lot of tin foil, and put it away.”

  “What?” Seckry said, aghast. “Even if they’re trying to detect elements in the air, aren’t they still the only thing that’s protecting us from the leaked toxins?”

  “Seckry,” Vance said gravely. “There are no leaked toxins.”

  Chapter Nine

  Interrogation