City of the Falling Sky

by Joseph Evans

  “It’s time for me to take you to the emporium,” Tenk said to Seckry that Saturday morning, and Seckry’s face lit up. He had been looking forward to buying his own avatar ever since he had first got in Henrei’s Friction pod, and now he had money to spend, a lot of money to spend, he couldn’t wait to start his Friction experience. It would also take his mind off the Blacklear, which had been confusing and worrying him since he had received the letter.

  Seckry invited Eiya along, but she had already planned to go to the Skyfall City Library to do some research on Endrin, so Seckry and Tenk took the monorail to the city centre and bought a couple of milkshakes at the entrance.

  The emporium was huge, even bigger than Seckry had imagined. The outside was flooded in blue neon light and filled with holograms of avatars running around, jumping through the air, floating, buzzing, and flickering in and out of focus.

  “Hello boys,” said a girl who was sporting a pair of luminous green socks. “Welcome to the emporium. You been here before?”

  “Not me,” said Seckry. “My friend’s gonna show me around.” He turned to Tenk, but Tenk was licking his dry lips and staring at the girl as though she had hypnotised him.

  “Come on, Tenk,” Seckry laughed, and pulled him away.

  “Mate, I’ve never seen her before,” Tenk said, glancing back at the entrance. “They used to have this fat guy outside to greet everyone.”

  “Maybe you can show her how good you are at Friction one day. I bet she’d be impressed.”

  Tenk nodded, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “Yeah, she would, wouldn’t she?”

  When Tenk lost view of the girl, he showed Seckry the different sections of the building. When an emporium assistant became free close by, Tenk called him over.

  “My friend here is new to Friction, can you get him sized up?”

  “Sure, no probs,” said the assistant. “Hey, Jerro, slide me over a fitting booth.”

  A big tubular booth that seemed to be hovering just above the floor by some kind of magnetic force slid towards them. The man grabbed a handle on the side.

  “Step in.”

  “What do I do when I’m inside?” Seckry asked.

  “Nothing. Go on. You can take your milkshake in with you if you like.”

  Seckry stepped in. He took a sip of his milkshake and as he did so an array of blue laser beams scanned over his body.

  “That’s it, we’re done!” said the assistant, loudly.

  “That was quick,” Seckry said, stepping out and slurping the foam at the bottom of his cup.

  “Yeah these things are great, used to take ten minutes each person about three years back. It was a nightmare on the weekends. Well, you’re all sized up, here’s your fitting info card. Looks like you’re a group F – G. Just slot this card into the back of your avatar and he’ll match your dimensions.”

  “Thanks,” Seckry said.

  “Here, I’ll show you the avatars,” Tenk said excitedly, and dragged Seckry into what seemed to be the centre of the emporium.

  It was an enormous circular space with walls that were made of hundreds upon hundreds of curved plasma screens, each one sporting a unique avatar.

  There were also a few people wandering around in zip-up avatar costumes, including some kind of female animal that was having her tail yanked by a couple of overexcited children.

  “This half, here,” Tenk said, “are the uni-fit avatars. And over there are the fitted ones.”

  “What’s the difference?” Seckry asked.

  “The fitted ones are organised by size. That’s where all the organic avatars are, the animas and humanoids. They’ll be linked up to your limbs the same way as the training dummy was in the training program. The uni-fit ones are where you’ll find all the mechas. The mechas work in a different way. They’ve got seats inside them, and your limbs aren’t synced up. When you’re in your friction pod it’ll feel as though you’re sitting inside the mecha’s cockpit kind of thing with all the controls and levers and buttons in front of you.”

  “But Basher . . . he’s huge,” Seckry noted.

  “He’s muscular, yeah, but he’s the same size as me in terms of the length of my arms and legs and that. Muscle doesn’t really count in Friction, it’s an aesthetic thing. But you have to get the lengths right. Basically, you couldn’t have a four foot three guy floating in his pod linked up to a five foot nine avatar. It just wouldn’t work. The Friction system links all your joints up to the avatar’s so you’d end up flailing around on the floor like an overturned spider, trying to get your balance.”

  “So Basher’s an anima avatar?”

  “Yeah, animas cover any avatar that’s a form of creature or beast. And Tippian’s Apocalyptia is a mecha. A blummin’ great beast of a mecha.”

  “And humanoid avatars look like human beings, right?”

  “Yep. You can be a barbaric warrior guy or a robed priest and all kinds of things like that. Timotho Rothren, though, the Southern Slayers captain, he actually commissioned an avatar designer to make a replica of himself. When he’s in the game he’s just a digital version of himself. How vain is that? Some people have just got way too much money, man, I’m telling you.”

  Tenk showed Seckry that each part of the room was split into segments relating to size, and then sub-segments of male and female. When they found the F – G segment Seckry stepped back and admired his options.

  There were grisly, angry looking humanoids swinging balls on chains and fierce looking animas roaring and howling and scratching within their screens, amidst others. But one seemed completely disjointed from the rest. He was an anima that looked half human and half cheetah, dressed in cloth trousers and a sturdy jacket, with a bow and arrow on his back. The most unusual thing was that, unlike the rest of the overconfident avatars, he was standing absolutely still, surveying Seckry with a steady, silently confident gaze.

  Seckry looked away. He had never before experienced a digital video game character looking back at him with such realism. It was almost like the avatar was understanding how overwhelmed he was by the choice on offer. Seckry met his gaze again and the avatar gave a short, silent nod in greeting.

  Suddenly Tenk turned his attention to a crowd of excited people at the centre of the space. They had been steadily growing in number as they had been talking and now there was someone unveiling a group of standalone screens before them.

  “Oh Gedin,” Tenk exclaimed. “It’s not . . . it’s not the Hammer . . .”

  “Introducing–” shouted the man who was at the centre of the crowd, “–the Hammer Brothers!”

  Tenk’s eyes went wide with awe.

  “Seckry! They weren’t supposed to be released until next year. They must have brought the date forward. Why didn’t they mention it in last month’s Friction Fanzine? Seck, you have to buy a Hammer Brother!”

  “Let’s take a look first,” Seckry said, and they made their way through the cheering crowd until they could get a view of one of the large screens.

  The Hammer Brothers were a collection of five grisly looking humanoids wearing spiked black armour and wielding deadly, blood stained axes.

  “Seckry, look at them, the Brothers are calling you. They’re calling your name, just look at those beauties.”

  One of the Brothers cocked his head and spat a gob full of green mucus away from him before snorting like a pig and waving his axe aggressively.

  Seckry wasn’t sure. They looked powerful and mean, there was no doubt about that, and if he bought a Brother, he doubted a Golboro would dare stamping on him again. But for some reason, he turned his head and his eyes met those of the silent cheetah-archer again, who was watching the commotion of the emporium with his steady gaze.

  Seckry made his way out of the crowd and caught the attention of an assistant.

  “Excuse me, what can you tell me about this one?”

  “Anikam?” the assistant said, putting his hands on his hips. “An interesting one, this guy. We got him back
about . . . oh, it must be around two months ago now. Don’t get much interest in him. Not a very lively one to be honest. Doesn’t seem to want to show off his skills like the rest of them. It was a bit strange when we got him delivered actually. Most avatars are produced in batches, with a few variations on the same model, like the Brothers here. But not Anikam. He came boxed on his own. Only one size, only one edition. You gotta be a pretty special avatar to be singularly boxed like that, but strangely enough, you’re the first person to ask about him. Bit of an enigma.”

  “I’ll take him,” Seckry said, and he knew he’d made the right choice.

  Tenk complained to Seckry about leaving the Hammer Brothers behind the whole time he was buying Anikam, but as they left the emporium Tenk was distracted by the welcome girl again, who gave them a cheeky wink and handed them both a flyer for some pre-order deals.

  Eiya was in the living area when Seckry arrived home, jotting down notes and flicking through ancient looking, leather bound books.

  “Did you find anything useful at the library?” he asked cheerfully.

  “A couple of things . . .” she said uncertainly. “I managed to get a copy of the History of the Great Continent, which mentions a bit about helitonium in the Klaxion times, and another one called Endrin: the Rise to Superpower, which chronicles Endrin’s journey to the top. The only thing is, I can’t seem to find any link. There’s nothing about people believing in the existence of helitonium in modern times and there’s nothing about Endrin’s Divinita Project.”

  She closed the book and a puff of dust wafted into the air.

  “It was interesting reading about the two guys that founded Endrin though . . .”

  “You mean the guys that made those artificial babies?” Seckry said.

  “Yeah, they were both infertile scientists who knew each other while they were working at some other research facility and they decided to form their own company called Endrin in order to research more into the process of creating artificial life. Neither wanted to adopt because they knew it would be someone else’s child that they were raising, but they both wanted sons, and they convinced themselves that they’d be able to create their own sons in their lab using some kind of synthetic substances. They had a team working on it and somehow they managed to create two babies. It said that they raised the two boys in their building and they actually grew to the age of about sixteen before dying of extreme medical difficulties. The two scientists both committed suicide together shortly after, and the remaining team formed what we now know as Endrin. It’s haunting isn’t it?”

  Seckry shuddered.

  “My mum reckons that my dad used to go pale when anyone mentioned it on the news, and to be honest, I think he’s passed it on to me, it just makes me feel uncomfortable thinking about babies growing in a lab.”

  Eiya was silent for a moment, then she said, “Seckry . . . you’ve mentioned your dad a few times but I don’t know anything about him . . .” She trailed off, her voice unsure and unsteady.

  Seckry had never talked about his dad with any of his friends before, he had never felt comfortable enough to do so. But with Eiya he was completely at ease. He felt as though he could tell her anything. Maybe it was because she was also so unsure about her past life.

  “I haven’t seen my dad for nine years,” Seckry said. “I don’t really remember what he looks like, only what my mum’s told me. He just disappeared one night. Mum says it was like he vanished from the face of the earth. Every photo of him was gone. Every photo of him and mum, every photo of him and Leena . . . and every photo of him and me. There was no trace of him.”

  “Wow . . .” Eiya said softly. “Just like that . . .”

  “No explanation, nothing,” Seckry said.

  “Do you remember anything about him? Anything at all?”

  “I’ve got this vague picture of him in my mind, though I don’t know whether it’s from my own memory or descriptions of him from my mum. He’s tall with long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. What I remember most though is picking berries with him. My mum says me and him used to go out all the time into the ellonberry fields and collect ellonberries for her to cook with.”

  They didn’t have time to talk about it for much longer, as they’d been given a substantially large piece of inverse mathematics homework by Mr Cookrook which was due in first thing on Monday morning.

  As Seckry was trying to work out the square root of 67498, he noticed Eiya was humming. She was doing it very quietly but Seckry could just make out the familiar tune.

  “Lifted Light?” he said suddenly.

  Eiya’s lips curled into a guilty smile. “I hope you don’t mind. I listened to a few of your CDs earlier. That one stuck in my head. The . . . Broken Motion, is it?”

  “Yeah, that’s one of my favourite songs!” Seckry said enthusiastically. “Do you like it?”

  “I love it,” Eiya said, sitting up. “When it first played I repeated the track, it was my favourite one on the album.”

  “No way!” Seckry said. “It’s mine too, even though most of the fans prefer Send Room, which they released as a single.”

  They chatted about The Broken Motion for about half an hour, in which Seckry invited Eiya along to the Broken Motion gig that was coming up, before remembering again that they had a lot of homework to do.

  During the middle of that night, while Seckry was in the midst of a field with his dad once more, Seckry felt something warm and soft touch his arm. His eyes flickered open to find Eiya kneeling beside his bed with a torch in her hand.

  “Seckry,” she whispered. “Look at this.”

  She was shining the light on The Broken Motion’s first album, Looking for Tomorrow.

  “When was the last time you listened to track four, A Time for Change?” she asked.

  Seckry was confused. “Track four? I . . . can’t remember. Why’s that?”

  “Here,” she said, and handed him her earphones. “Listen to the lyrics.”

  Seckry wiped the sleep from his eyes and placed the earphones on.

  Eiya fast forwarded the track until it reached the chorus.

  Sanfarrow, Darklight, Kayne, the three,

  Who’ll unleash the dark heart, set the demon free.

  Seckry asked Eiya to repeat it, and he listened once more. Darklight? This was a song about Kan Darklight, the president of Endrin, and Seckry had never noticed it.

  “Who are Sanfarrow and Kayne?” Eiya asked.

  Seckry shook his head and got up. “I’ll do a search,” he said, and switched on his computer. He found nothing, though. His search engine just kept telling him he must have misspelled his words.

  “I have the band’s email address,” Seckry said enthusiastically.

  “Do you think they’d reply?”

  “We could give it a go.”

  Seckry quickly typed a message.

  Dear The Broken Motion.

  My friend has noticed that on track four of Looking for Tomorrow you mention two people named Sanfarrow and Kayne along with Darklight, who we assume to be Kan Darklight, the president of Endrin. We are curious to know more about the other names. Could you let us know who they are?

  Thanks a lot

  Seckry Sevenstars

  P.S. Congratulations on the new album, it’s your best to date and I haven’t stopped listening to it since the day I bought it (which was the day it got released!!!) And we’re coming to see you on tour!

  Eiya smiled as he typed the last sentence. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if they reply.”

  They both lay back down but Seckry had no chance of getting back to sleep.

  “I’m wide awake too,” Eiya said quietly.

  “Do you ever remember having a midnight feast?” Seckry asked her.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Food tastes amazing at this time of night.”

  Seckry got some chocolate bars and a bottle of fizzy pop from the kitchen and they sat cross legged on the blankets, s
coffing their faces. Eventually they both fell asleep where they were.

  The next day, Seckry had a single unread message in his inbox. It was from The Broken Motion.

  Dear Seckry

  We’re glad you’re enjoying our latest album.

  In regards to your question, you may be mistaken, as there is no mention of these names in any of our songs. The track listings for Looking for Tomorrow are below.

  Seckry frowned. No mention of the names? He scanned through the track listings they had typed, but there were only twelve songs when there should have been thirteen. They were missing A Time for Change.

  He reread the email again and again, confused and disappointed. The only other piece of text on the page was a quote from one of their songs.

  If you read between the lines, you’ll find the truth at last.

  “They’re denying that it’s even on the album!” Seckry exclaimed to Eiya over breakfast, feeling utterly disappointed that The Broken Motion would lie to him.

  Coralle handed them each a second helping of marmalade lathered toast.

  “They can’t just pretend a song doesn’t exist when everyone’s got the album,” Seckry said, shaking his head.

  Seckry spent the day feeling miserable, and finding it hard to concentrate in any of his lessons.

  At lunch time, Seckry told Tenk about the email.

  “A Time for Change . . . I don’t remember that one. Which track was it again? Track four? Wasn’t track four Living Without Love?”

  “No, Living Without Love was track five.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure!”

  The next day, Tenk brought his copy of Looking for Tomorrow to school and whipped it out during an uneventful lesson with Mr Pegglewim.

  “Which one was it again?” Tenk asked, but Seckry was dumbfounded. There were only twelve tracks. A Time for Change was missing.

  “Never mind,” said Seckry absent-mindedly. “I must be going mad.”

  When he got home he loaded up his email client and reread the Broken Motion email.

  Could it be that his copy of Looking for Tomorrow was different to everyone else’s?

  He was just about to send a reply to them, when he noticed his pointed cursor switch to a hand symbol as he hovered over the middle of the screen. He looked closer. It seemed that there was a slight gap between the listings of track four and five, and whenever he rolled over it, the hand would appear, indicating an invisible link of some sort.

  Seckry reread the quote at the bottom of the message.

  If you read between the lines, you’ll find the truth at last.

  Read between the lines? He thought it was a strange quote to have at the end of an email. They were telling him to click this link.

  With a new wave of excitement, Seckry clicked it.

  A new window popped open.

  Hi Seckry

  I sincerely hope that you manage to find this link. We couldn’t think of any other way to get this message to you without it potentially being read by the government.

  Sorry that we had to tell you A Time for Change doesn’t exist. Of course, it does exist, though you won’t find it anywhere these days.

  We were all in shock when we received your email last night. I’m not sure if you realise this, but you have the only remaining ‘true edition’ of Looking for Tomorrow. We’ve actually been searching for it for years but were never able to trace the purchase.

  Just after the release of Looking for Tomorrow, we were arrested by the Skyfall Patrol and told that A Time for Change was an unacceptable track and that it had to be removed from the album immediately. Of course, it was our first album, we were unknowns, so we didn’t make many sales initially, but nevertheless we were forced to have all buyers return the album and we had to issue them new, amended ones. I doubt they even had time to listen to it, which means that you and your friend may be the only ones to have ever heard it. To this day, the Patrol think we had every copy returned to us.

  I don’t know what would happen if you were caught with the true edition, but I’d keep it well out of sight if I were you.

  At the time of writing A Time for Change, we were still in university, and E.J. was studying microbiology. He was interested in the work they were doing at Endrin and he started doing a bit of research into the company. What he found was a gigantic web of greed and corruption that all seemed to stem from the appointment of Kan Darklight as CEO.

  E.J. asked around a bit and found out that Darklight had studied at the same university and had been sighted having heated discussions with the late Professor Holdenbubble about a mythological element named helitonium. Darklight seemed to be convinced it could be extracted from something called an innoya, which we believe to be some kind of root or plant.

  He was also inseparable from his best friends Ropart Sanfarrow and Kevan Kayne, who both later went on to work alongside Darklight as researchers at Endrin.

  When we wrote the track, we believed Sanfarrow and Kayne to be allies of Darklight’s. But it seems that Sanfarrow and Kayne were both expelled from Endrin at some point, and no one has seen them since. Maybe they weren’t as close as we thought.

  Anyway, it’s no surprise that we were arrested over the release of the song – Darklight has the Skyfall City government in the palm of his hand. He’s the wealthiest man in the city. If he doesn’t like something, he gets rid of it. He obviously wasn’t impressed by our track. Gedin knows how he heard about it.

  I hope this has enlightened you a little bit, Seckry. We’re very interested in what Endrin are up to and Darklight is a dangerous man. If you’re planning on doing your own bit of research, we have something that you might find useful. It’s a letter from Ropart Sanfarrow to Kevan Kayne that E.J. found in one of the dorms. A very strange letter. When you’re at our show in three weeks time we’d like to give this to you. Just tell security your name and they’ll let you backstage after the gig.

  We look forward to seeing you.

  Tobi,

  The Broken Motion

  “Eiya!” Seckry called excitedly. “Eiya, come and read this!”

  Eiya, who had been engrossed in a book in the living area, rushed into the bedroom.

  Seckry reread the email with her.

  “Can you believe it?” Seckry said. “Darklight had them arrested for releasing a song that mentioned him.”

  “Extractable from an innoya . . .” Eiya read aloud. “What could it be?”

  “Some kind of root or plant,” Seckry pondered. “That’s the first thing we can look into. And if these two guys, Sanfarrow and Kayne, are still living in the city, I bet they’d be able to tell us what the Divinita Project is. If they were expelled from Endrin they won’t have any ties to the company. If anything, they’ll be bitter about it and want to dish the dirt.”

  “It looks like we might be on our way to finding out who I really am,” Eiya said, and Seckry saw both anticipation and fear in her watery eyes. “And Seckry . . . we’re going backstage with The Broken Motion!”

  It was only when Eiya said it that it actually sunk in. Seckry let out an excited laugh and stamped his feet rapidly on the floor.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Eastern Eidolons