Sun

by J. C. Andrijeski

  Whatever his real story was, I supposed it didn’t matter now.

  We had to find the Listers. Then we had to get the hell out of here.

  That’s all that mattered now.

  Like Revik and Balidor, I couldn’t bring myself to leave the Listers behind, despite the risks, and not only because an ugly death awaited them if we did. If we truly could only send the Listers through those Barrier doors, we couldn’t afford to leave a single one behind.

  Shadow and the Mythers had killed too many already.

  Even so, I’d be lying if I said the idea didn’t scare the shit out of me. Whatever passed for a prison in this city, I knew it would be a nightmare of security measures, and probably guarded by more of those blank-eyed seers with the bloody collars.

  I was so focused on thinking about this––using another part of my consciousness to draw down light from the humans of Rome to replenish Revik––I didn’t notice when Cass walked up on my other side. Before I’d fully taken in that she was angling to get close to me, she leaned into me and spoke, her voice low, probably to keep from distracting Revik and Balidor.

  “Any luck in finding them?” she said.

  Realizing she’d heard some portion of my thoughts, I frowned.

  Then, thinking about her actual question, I realized it was a good one. I hadn’t looked for the Listers yet, and I should have––or ordered one of the others to do it. Still thinking about this, I gave her a bare glance, then exhaled in defeat.

  I had to drop my shit out here. I couldn’t keep up some petulant tit for tat with her, not with everything going on, not with what just happened. Not now.

  “Can you look?” I said, focusing down the corridor. “My sight’s still shit from the pregnancy.”

  At her silence, I gave her another glance, in spite of myself.

  Her eyes had widened, as if she couldn’t believe what I’d said.

  Then, her full mouth firming, she nodded.

  I watched in fascination as her irises slid out of focus.

  I couldn’t help but stare.

  I’d never known Cass as a seer. Menlim had her the whole time she made that transformation from being my human best friend in San Francisco into the Formidable War, scourge of the free world and lap dog of the Dreng. We’d had her collared and stuck in a tank compartment the whole time since.

  Despite feeling her light in doses here and there since this trip began, it was still strange to see her operating as a full-blown seer.

  Her eyes clicked back into focus a few seconds later.

  She looked at me, frowning.

  “Did you find them?” I said.

  She nodded, once. “Yeah.” Scowling a bit, she glanced past me.

  I thought at first she was looking at Revik, then realized she was looking at Balidor.

  “He’s going to hate it,” she added sourly, exhaling and blowing up her straight bangs.

  “FUCK THESE FUCKING piece of shit pig-fuckers,” Holo muttered near me, under his breath.

  I glanced over, quirking an eyebrow.

  Holo didn’t bother to return my stare.

  He didn’t look at Cass either, who glanced over from my other side. Holo’s fingers gripped the stone bench where we sat, white-knuckled as he stared down at the dirt floor of the arena below us. He scowled at the moving figures down there, his mouth growing harder.

  I knew exactly how he felt.

  Truthfully, I couldn’t really let myself go there right now, though.

  We’d resurfaced from the underground caves about two hours earlier.

  Thank the gods, no one had been waiting for us by the boat.

  No one waited for us at the mouth of that underground river, either, not even when we popped out from under the same hollowed-out building along the banks of the Tiber.

  All of us were on edge, despite our on-the-fly, definitely high-risk operational plan, designed primarily by Revik, with input from Balidor and me, as well as Illeg and Dalai. We’d spent about an hour doing pre-work, avoiding troops on the street as we refined our approach, including coming up with disguises and gaits that didn’t match the aliases Atwar provided us.

  Then we split up the team.

  I got Holo, Cass and Feigran.

  I was honestly amazed Revik let me go anywhere without him, especially now. I was especially amazed he’d let me come here essentially alone. Apart from Holo, I was pretty much on guard duty with the other half of the Four.

  From next to me on the stone bench, Cass grunted.

  Frowning when I realized she’d heard my thoughts, I turned my head. It annoyed me, even though I knew it wasn’t rational that it should. Sitting this close to one another, she probably couldn’t help but overhear me, unless I actively shielded from her.

  “What?” I said.

  “You. And Revik. You really are pieces of work, both of you.” Exhaling, she quirked a penciled eyebrow, along with full, red-lipsticked lips. “He didn’t leave you alone. I’m your bodyguard, Al… like it or not. Your hubby made that crystal clear.”

  I let out a grunt of my own. “Right.”

  Revik would trust Cass to keep me safe roughly when hell froze over.

  Cass rolled her eyes, seer-fashion.

  “He didn’t exactly put it to a vote,” she grunted. “He said if I didn’t, he’d break Balidor’s neck.” Scowling when I jerked my eyes back in her direction, she looked away, muttering, “I think his exact words were, ‘we’ll conduct a little experiment on that nascent life bond between the two of you. See if you die when he does.’”

  Turning her head, she gave me a flat look.

  “So yeah… pretty sure ‘trust’ didn’t have much to do with it, Al.”

  I gaped at her, unable to help it.

  Revik wouldn’t kill Balidor. Never. For any reason.

  Cass grunted again, louder. “Because he’s so fucking rational when it comes to you? Sure, Al. Keep telling yourself that. Not like you married a mass-murderer or anything.”

  Tilting rose-colored sunglasses down over her eyes, she leaned back on the wide stone bench, propping her upper body up on her elbows, her legs dangling over the side.

  That time, she didn’t bother to return my gaze.

  Still frowning, I forced my eyes off her, too, staring down at the sand-covered arena below where we sat.

  From our disguise-hunting earlier, I wore a hoodie, thick eye makeup, high-heeled boots, and a few basic prosthetics to change the bone structure of my face. Revik and I brought extra prosthetics with us, thinking we might need them if our cover got blown, since both of us would more likely be on the security channels than the rest of our group.

  I applied some of those prosthetics to Cass in the tunnels below Rome, since there was some chance her ID might be circulating by now, too.

  Revik did the same to Feigran.

  Between that and blood patches, at least we had the Four covered.

  The rest of our team went more basic, using face dye, virtual reality contacts, wigs, and local clothing, all things we could purchase or push out of local merchants once we reached one of the shopping districts in downtown Rome. Revik also pushed one of the merchants to sell us new headsets, along with an illegal virtual program that should help disguise our internal organs, gaits and skeletons well enough to fool the scanners in most security flyers.

  It looked like the black market was alive and well in the Myther capital.

  Even without prosthetics, Holo was barely recognizable.

  He wore a blond and black streaked wig, indigo contact lenses under blue-mirrored sunglasses, brown lip and eye-make up and a dark blue, metallic suit that looked nothing like anything I’d ever seen him in before.

  The whole get-up was so not-seer, I couldn’t help but stare.

  He looked like a young hipster stockbroker or tech entrepreneur, especially with the expensive handheld wrapped around his wrist, the brand new headset, several gold rings in his ears, and his purple-dyed, leather Italian shoes with b
right blue socks.

  I looked more like an overaged skater chick who turned tricks on the side.

  Cass looked similar to me, but more clubby and expensive in high-heeled pumps, red leather pants, a dark lace top and cropped leather jacket. She wore a blond wig and large hoop earrings, in addition to a wraparound organic bracelet that coiled up past her elbow.

  Feigran looked weirdly old school Italian compared to the rest of us.

  He also looked weirdly normal.

  Maybe to counteract his crazy, Balidor and the others dressed him more conservatively, in a dark brown suit, red leather shoes, a diamond tie-pin, brown socks, a cream-colored dress shirt and dark red tie. His hair was dyed black with some spray Revik found, and slicked back, and he wore a single diamond earring to go with the tie-pin.

  No one put make up on him, apart from the prosthetics.

  It occurred to me only now that Cass was monitoring his light, along with mine, Holo’s and her own. I couldn’t exactly argue the point, since I couldn’t see well enough on the ground to do much myself, but I didn’t find it all that reassuring, either––no matter how many threats Revik may have lobbed in her direction.

  I still had no idea how, or how well, Cass had even been trained.

  For that reason, along with others too numerous to count, I continued monitoring the four of us from my higher structures as well as I could.

  As for where we were, I was still adjusting to that fact, somewhere in my mind and light.

  I could feel Cass was too, even though she’d been the one to direct us here.

  Unlike what I would have guessed, the Listers weren’t imprisoned inside the bowels of Vatican City, shackled in some cave under St. Peter’s Basilica, surrounded by human skulls or the graves of dead priests or whatever.

  Rather, they were locked in an iron cage on the main arena of the Roman Coliseum.

  They’d actually rebuilt the fucking thing.

  Now that we were here, now that I was seeing it with my own eyes, I couldn’t stop staring around at all of it, lost in the details of the stadium around me, and its newness, despite the age of the original structure. If I ignored the flyers, clothing styles, holographic ads and giant, liquid vid-screens, it felt almost like being transported back in time.

  People filled the stands around us, what must have been fifty or sixty thousand of them.

  Most seemed pretty dug in for the day and night.

  They brought seat cushions, pillows, blankets, coolers, handhelds, sandwiches, fruit, bottles of wine. Some had umbrellas and hand-fans for the heat. Some brought pet dogs. Some carried oversized noisemakers and wore wide-brimmed hats. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits, and a hell of a lot of them looked drunk, even though it couldn’t have been more than four in the afternoon. Most of the alcohol appeared to be home-made, even the wine.

  We weren’t quite in the nosebleed seats, but somewhere in the middle, edging towards the higher stands, but still relatively close to the oval-shaped and sand-covered arena. We managed to get seats directly across from what used to be the emperor’s box, maybe because most of the day’s “entertainers” performed primarily for the occupants of those box seats, making the seats around and behind them more popular.

  That fact occasionally put us at an odd angle for viewing.

  Of course, the days of emperors and their royal courts were no more.

  The leaders of the Myther cult filled those plush seats now, lounging on cushions as they watched the day’s events.

  Even now, an hour into our vigil here, the vastness of the stadium––and just the reality that it existed at all––still pulled my eyes. There were modern touches to this newer version, of course. Liquid screens hung in the air above the highest seats, suspended beneath a dark red awning that rippled like an organic, blocking the hottest rays of the afternoon sun. When walking in here, we’d gone through blood-prick turnstiles and flyer scans, passing more liquid screens.

  We bought our tickets via headsets at a stone building in the park area just inside the main gate. From the store owner Revik pushed, we learned they still used a form of credit-based system, although it was limited to official transactions for the most part.

  Everything else was either gold chips or bartering.

  Walking to the coliseum itself, we passed through a wider park, where they’d erected a stone colossus statue like what existed during Roman times, placing it in the center of an oval lawn at the end of a shaded avenue lined by trees.

  Instead of Emperor Nero or the god, Solis, however, like the original stone forms, the statue now depicted a naked man with a coiling, dragon-like tail. His wide, reptilian eyes stared down at us from between massive stone wings, his legs slightly apart. I couldn’t help noticing they’d made the statue weirdly well-endowed.

  Entering the coliseum was like walking into another world.

  Stone arch after stone arch made up the round corridors.

  At each level, those corridors were filled with vendors hawking everything from souvenir shirts and hand-made bracelets to an amazing variety of homemade foods and drinks. Unlike the stadium area itself, the food kiosks and vendor stands were basic, many of the latter consisting of a blanket spread out on a low table or even the floor.

  It reminded me more of what we’d seen at that outdoor market in Dubrovnik.

  Mostly old women and children sold sticks of meat and fruit, dried plums, popcorn, cheese and meat sandwiches, wine and grain alcohol in paper cups, small salads, fudge squares, bread, pizza, french fries, and small cakes with pink or chocolate frosting. I didn’t see any kind of refrigeration, and all of the cooking stands used gas or even charcoal fires.

  As a result, the corridors under the stands got smoky, hot and claustrophobic. Despite the smoke, insects filled the air, drawn by the food.

  Due to the proximity of the toilets, they also smelled.

  The stadium was mostly full by the time we got there. To get a better idea of what we were walking into, we bought a virtual program from a sweaty man for a bartered gold chip. Using the same currency, we also bought four pairs of virtual eye-glasses to operate through our headsets, along with dried meat, water, fruit juice, bread, cheese, and dried apple slices.

  Holo spoke and read Italian, so he was able to translate the program for me and Cass. According to him, the first event started at eight that morning, and the last would go well into the night. The killing of the Listers would happen over dinner.

  After that, there was some kind of modern circus with acrobats and animals. Then the hand-to-hand combat matches between humans would begin. Those would run until the fights finished and a final winner was announced, which Holo said the program estimated at around midnight. I noted that the grand prize in the human fights was a herd of fifty cattle and some amount of credits I didn’t know the value of.

  Although it wasn’t the last thing on the schedule, the killing of the Listers was billed as the main event.

  We saw more souvenirs being sold related to Listers than for any of the fighters, athletes, or entertainers. In the corridors beneath the stadium, vendors hawked everything from bits of Lister clothing to vials of their blood and cuttings of their hair––all of which were apparently seen as holy relics by the denizens of Rome. Handmade miniatures of the scaffold, complete with whipping posts and chains, sat on a table next to full-size replicas of whips, brass knuckles, and knives used by the executioners.

  One booth even sold costume executioner hoods next to sun hats and shades.

  I saw kids running around in those, shrieking in delight.

  Using my light to push the seller into looking away, I swiped a pair of brass knuckles and a whip, sliding them easily into my bag.

  I saw Cass notice and frown, but she didn’t say anything.

  According to the program, after the Listers were killed, the ceremonial leaving of the Myther leadership would take place.

  Presumably, with their religious leaders gone, the nighttime crowd would watch
a circus with their kids, then drink themselves stupid while they watched other humans hack one another to pieces for the remainder of the night.

  I only hoped most of the kids fell asleep before the final events started.

  Then again, given the rest of the day’s entertainments, maybe it didn’t matter.

  The Listers were already on display, naked inside an old-fashioned iron cage directly under the box seats containing the Myther leaders. Near them, and directly across from the emperor’s box stood the scaffold covered with wooden posts and decorated with iron chains.

  Hungry and gaunt-looking lions guarded the Lister cages, chained so they were just in reach of the iron bars. The lions paced, periodically snapping and snarling. They lunged for the Listers whenever one stuck an arm or leg through the bars, or sometimes for no reason at all.

  As for the box seats, they were draped in red and gold cloth, filled with rows of wide, padded chairs broken up by low tables. Seers lined the walls, standing without expression, wearing the bloody collars and wearing all black. I’d already checked out the area with my light and felt OBE fields around the box itself, as well as some kind of field that felt like it had more of a Barrier component.

  Using the virtual binocs, I could see servants moving about among the wide seats, filling glasses and cups, bringing plates of pasta, sandwiches, nachos, and pizza, even fanning some of the leaders’ sweaty faces, or giving them foot or shoulder massages.

  Every human in those box seats looked to be male, wearing dark brown or black monks’ robes. Like the man who led the soldiers underground, each of them wore robes decorated with a large, three-spiraled triskele symbol.

  Perhaps unsurprisingly, all of the servants appeared to be female.

  So far, I hadn’t recognized a single person we saw inside those box seats.

  I hadn’t recognized any of the Listers, either, but I noted at least a handful were seers. I’d counted four who couldn’t have been more than eighteen years of age, if they were human.