by E. J. Swift
“Don’t you think we would have been found by now? If there were still people out there—people on land?”
Linus turned his head, focusing gradually upon Vikram. Vikram sensed him sifting possible responses. As always when talking to Linus, he had that sense of his own insignificance; that it did not matter what Linus said to him, because nobody would ever believe an airlift’s word over a Rechnov’s. Then Linus’s lips quirked in a thin smile.
“I suppose that depends upon whether we want to be found.” He paused. “There’s certainly a multitude of reasons why it’s desirable not to be. Anyway, I could talk to you about this all day, Vikram, but I sense that’s not entirely why you’re here.”
Vikram gave the yellow rosette a last glance. He reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out the envelope. Wordlessly, he placed it on the desk. Linus glanced down.
“It’s from Axel,” said Vikram.
He heard the intake of breath, slight but sharp, that followed. Seconds passed whilst the two of them stared at the envelope.
“I take it you’re aware of the contents,” said Linus.
Vikram nodded. Linus picked up the envelope, took out the letter, and unfolded it. He read in silence. Vikram knew the letter by heart. He could only imagine what magic Axel’s phrases might be working on his brother.
When he had finished, Linus put the letter back in the envelope. Vikram noticed that the other man did not fold it in the right way; some of the creases were doubled back and the shape was all wrong. He pressed his hands together to stop himself reaching out to show Linus how it worked.
“Has Adelaide seen it?” Linus made as if to put the envelope down, then kept it in his hand.
“Not yet.” He saw Linus take note of the qualifier. Good.
“How did you get it?”
He listened to Vikram’s story without interrupting. His face was expressionless. Vikram felt his own unease growing as he continued, but it was too late to back out now. Linus’s face creased in much the same way that Adelaide’s did when she was tending to her balcony plants.
“Why did you bring it to me?”
Vikram strove for the same level of impassivity.
“Adelaide’s helping me because she wants to find out what happened to Axel. If she knows, she’ll stop. I can’t keep this letter but I can’t give it to her.” Vikram shrugged. “You’re the next logical option.”
“You want to watch out, Vikram, you’re getting quite Rechnovian.”
Vikram said nothing.
“I think your assessment of Adelaide is correct,” said Linus. “And I’m inclined to agree with your actions. My sister is doing something useful for the first time in her life—and you, Vikram, you’ve been instrumental in that. She doesn’t need any—distractions.”
“Not even if it means finding out the truth?”
Linus tapped the envelope.
“What does this tell us, really, Vikram? All this talk of missions. Horses. It’s not an answer.”
“But you believe the letter is genuine.”
“Yes.” Linus was decisive. “I do. And for that reason, I think it’s best that I keep it in the family. As they say. This investigation—it’s put us in a very difficult position, as I’m sure you can understand. Axel generated enough publicity in his lifetime. We don’t need any more. This way, the investigation can just… peter out.”
“She’s sure he’s alive,” said Vikram. “You do know that.”
Linus loosened his collar slightly, pulling its tight starch away from his neck.
“Adelaide is sure about a lot of things,” he said. “Besides, as we said—what does a letter prove?” He looked at Vikram directly. “Thank you for trusting me with this. I trust I can show my appreciation in some way—lean on the Council for those extensions to the aid schemes? Perhaps have a look at the flooded buildings?”
“You can do both of those. Will you show her the letter?”
“Of course. In time.” Linus glanced up at the clock. “Now don’t think I’m trying to get rid of you, but I have a meeting to get to.”
“It’s fine. I’ve got places to be myself.”
Linus shrugged on his jacket, tucking the envelope into his inside pocket. Vikram felt the weight of it then; his part in what must now be a conspiracy between himself and Linus. From this moment Vikram would carry that knowledge around with him like a microchip embedded in his brain. It would surface every time he saw an image of Adelaide’s face, or heard her voice on the o’dio. The thought that he would probably never see her in person again hit him with a terrible wave of loneliness.
A low burring noise jolted him out of his thoughts. Linus hooked in an earpiece and slid his Sobek scarab into one pocket.
“Hello?” He picked up a slim briefcase and mouthed to Vikram, “I’ll walk out with you.”
Vikram opened the door and Linus stepped out with him, passing an electronic key over the lock.
“I’ll be there in ten. Yes… I’ve got the whitefly notes.” At the entrance to his offices, he pressed his wrist to Vikram’s. Then he walked away, confident in his pinstriped suit, a man at ease in every way that Vikram was not; with himself, with his place and with his times. Vikram felt his own wrongness like a physical ailment. To the west, he had treated with the enemy, even if it was for their own good. To the City, he would always be an impostor. Only Adelaide had accepted him for what he was, and Adelaide was a liar, and now he had betrayed her and her twin.
35 ¦ ADELAIDE
Boats with black hulls and crudely painted eyes slunk down the border, each vessel thick with Guards. Dark, bulky overcoats and furred hats hid their features, but the men bristled with guns.
Adelaide sat in the stern of the speedboat, hunched over, gloved hands at her chin. She stared determinedly westward through the checkpoint. She had been out here for thirty minutes, watching; she could no longer feel the exposed parts of her face or her feet. Gulls flapped overhead, pale and sharp beaked against the overcast sky. Their raucous calls pierced the cold air. Adelaide did not move.
The boatman gave her an exasperated look.
“Miss, haven’t you seen enough?”
“No.”
He folded his arms, sighing loud enough for her to hear.
Every waterbus that came out of the west was stopped. Each time, the officer in charge boarded the waterbus and forced its passengers to form a line. He walked the length of the line, pausing in front of some passengers, barely glancing at others. The officer carried a stick with which he rapped the decking in time to his footsteps, and she could tell by the dull contact sound that it was made of metal.
Beyond the checkpoint and the border net, western pyramids and scrapers rose grim and sallow. Faded graffiti covered the towers, layer upon layer, angry slogans and figures like manga cartoons, frozen in action—mid-leap, mid-punch. Their oversized eyes followed her across the border.
Further in, she could make out more boats, or things that had been coaxed to float, rafts and metal basins, clustered around the bases of the towers. There were shapes inside the boats and propped up on the deckings. Their movements were slow and laboured. At first she did not realize they were people. They moved like another race, one long lost and forgotten.
This was it. The last place.
For the first time since that day, she allowed the execution scene to crystallise in her memory, looking at it without flinching. Looking at it from Vikram’s side.
“We’re going across,” she told the boatman. He stared at her as if she was crazy. Perhaps I am, she thought. Crazy like Axel. He’d have to be crazy to come here, and she knew suddenly that her instinct was right.
“I’m afraid I can’t go any further, Miss.”
“I’m ordering you to take the boat across.”
“Miss, with all due respect, I’m not going to. Your father would have a fit.”
“My father can go hang himself.”
“Your father’s orders come above your own, Miss Rechno
v. There’s no way in Osiris I’m taking you into the west. Do you want to be shot?”
She wanted to hit him for the way he was looking at her, defiantly, insolently, but more than that—as though she was something to be contained, even pitied. She clenched her teeth.
“I have to cross the border, Foma.”
How long they might have argued for in the bitter cold, she would not find out, because another dispute, louder than theirs, carried over the water. A waterbus had stopped at the checkpoint. The shouting was between the officer and one of the passengers. Adelaide could see those not involved fidgeting, the other passengers anxiously, the Guards with a twitching impatience.
Uneasily now, she watched as the officer hauled the passenger out of the line and off the boat, onto the jetty. He jerked him along the decking and thrust him onto his knees.
“Miss, miss, we should really go now.”
Foma shook her shoulder gently, but she felt it with the force applied to the passenger.
“Miss, you don’t want to see this.”
The officer lifted his stick, high above his head. It cracked through the air. A scream was quickly muffled. The officer leaned over to wipe the weapon against the man’s coat. He stepped away, twisting his wrist.
At a sign, four of the Guards gathered around the man. Systematically, they delivered a series of kicks and blows until he shrivelled against the decking. At first there were no sounds other than that of impact. Then he began to shriek.
It took barely a minute, and his face was no longer recognizable as a face.
One of the women on the boat turned away with a moan of horror. A Guard marched her to the rail and pinched her chin, forcing her to watch. Adelaide saw the woman’s body convulse as she retched.
“Miss, come on. Let’s go.”
The boatman reached for the ignition, but Adelaide put her hand over it.
“Wait.”
The officer in charge raised a hand. The beating stopped. The man’s howls grew shakier. The officer stepped forward, put the muzzle of his gun against the man’s head, and pulled the trigger. Two Guards took the wrists and ankles, and slung the body into the sea.
The dead man floated, his ruined face to the clouds.
“Miss, can we go now?” Foma’s voice had lost all its anger; now it was pleading. Adelaide nodded, numbly. She felt the boat gear into life, knew there must be something she should do, but was incapable of finding words or means. As the speedboat whirred away, three or four seagulls began spiralling downwards. Knowing their intent, she clamped her hands over her mouth, suppressing a noise of horror and disgust that one reborn soul could do that to another.
/ / /
Adelaide opened the balcony door and shut it quickly behind her before the rush of cold could change her mind. Clouds hung low in the darkening sky, their bellies distended with unfallen snow. She sensed the City holding its breath, and held hers with it.
It was unusual for Tyr to want a meeting this early in the evening—Jannike’s birthday celebrations had barely begun—but she was glad of the opportunity. She had made a decision: she was going to tell Tyr everything. About Lao, about the airlift and the vault, about Operation Whitefly. It was a relief. She had to tell someone, and she had alienated Vikram. But she didn’t want to think about that.
Once she had told Tyr, they could work out what to do next.
The balcony door opened and shut again behind Tyr. He did not have a coat either.
“We’ll catch our death,” she said with a smile.
Tyr walked slowly across the balcony and stopped a metre away from her. They were both shivering. Adelaide took a step toward him.
“You’re sleeping with Vikram, aren’t you?”
The question caught her off-guard. She had assumed he knew; she had not thought he would ask.
“Yes.”
“How long have you been seeing him for?”
His grey eyes watched hers. She tried to mirror their blankness. He knew her face so well. They had learned one another like books by rote; a dip of the head, a blink, could act as code.
“Oh, I don’t know—”
“How long?”
“Couple of weeks.”
“You’re lying.”
She lowered her eyes strategically.
“It’s just a diversion. It’s over.”
“He stays here. You stay with him.”
She felt her way carefully around this iceberg.
“He’s a westerner. It annoys Feodor more.”
“I see.”
“I don’t think—”
“No. I get it.”
A tiny snowflake whirled out of the sky. Another chased it, then another, and another, and all at once they were surrounded by a maze of swirling shapes. They landed cold darts on Adelaide’s face. They blew onto Tyr’s scarf and the sleeves of his jacket.
“I can’t keep doing this, Adelaide.”
She saw his lips moving, but they did not seem to match the words that came out. It was not really Tyr talking. The person who replied was not really Adelaide.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you and me.” He sounded almost gentle now, and that made him more distant because the Tyr that she knew had no need for softness.
“We have to stop,” he said.
“But there’s no need,” she said. “Tyr, why—”
“Adelaide—” His voice broke her name. “The terms of our agreement—I can’t stand by them any longer.”
He looked away. Now the flakes were coming thick and fast, a sheet, then a quilt of snow, and there was nothing to see, only her and Tyr at the centre of a shaken paperweight. She reached out and touched his sleeve. It was thin and wet and reminded her of blood. She thought of the western man dumped off the jetty, felt herself caught in that same hopeless motion.
“Why not?”
He moved his arm away.
“Because—I love you, Adie.”
She tried to read his face, to unearth some aggression there, anger or blame, something strong that she could grasp with both hands and fight. She found only sadness.
“But you can’t,” she said. “I’m not that person.”
“Then I am. And I can stand the pretence, I can stand the lies—I’ve enjoyed that game, I don’t deny it. But seeing you let someone else into your life—I won’t do that.”
“What, you think he means something to me? He doesn’t. None of them do. Only maybe—he reminds me a little of Axel. That’s it. That’s all.”
You mean something to me. The thought, dormant at the back of her mind, suddenly clarified. But she could not say it.
Tyr sighed. “Let’s face it, Adie. We can’t be together. Even if you wanted it, we couldn’t.”
“Don’t say that. We can do what we like.”
He gave a helpless smile.
“I’d lose my position. Feodor would disinherit you. I’m his spy Adie—you know that. You’ve always known. Every month I write him a report. What you’re doing, who you’re seeing. Lies, years and years of lies. He finds that out and what then?”
“I don’t know.”
“I do. Then nothing. You want to get a job, run away to the west? We’re creatures of habit, you and I. We like our lifestyles. We’re both too selfish to give them up, and anyway, what compensation would there be for you.”
There was an ache in her teeth and in her ribs where her lungs constricted. It was the cold. It was the cold.
“I can’t care about anyone,” she whispered.
“That’s right. You can’t care about anyone.”
He sounded infinitely weary. It made her see them both standing there, the snow settling on their hair and faces, resting on her eyelashes, in the corners of her eyes, where new snow was being made in hot, brittle flakes. He was going to walk away. He was going to abandon her.
“I need you,” she managed. “There are things I have to tell you.”
She felt flooded with the weig
ht of it, almost frantic.
“Tyr, please—for stars’ sake—”
“You’ve had years to tell me anything you wanted, Adie. What could there possibly be left to say? Listen, I’m sorry it’s early. I knew I had to talk to you, I wanted to be lucid when I did.”
On his right temple was a tiny scar; she knew it was from a childhood accident but she did not know what the accident was. She knew everything and nothing about him. She had run out of time.
“And what now? We both go back and—pretend?”
“Like we always have. You’re a good enough actress, Adie.”
“But you can’t—you can’t just walk away.”
“I can,” he said. “And I will. One of us always has.”
He lifted her chin gently. For a long time he gazed at her face. Then he pressed his lips lightly to her forehead. She closed her eyes.
“Goodbye, Adelaide,” he whispered.
She didn’t hear him go inside. Her head was full of the sound of snow. The City had never seemed so cold and unyielding, and all at once she hated it.
“Adelaide! Where were you? We’re about to leave!”
“I’m ready, Jan.”
“Come on, everyone, we’re moving out! Got a shuttle to catch and a pool to find!”
“Everyone follow the crazy woman.”
“Out everyone, out, out, you too Adie, OUT!”
This wasn’t meant to happen.
They went to the Strobe. The first liquid cascaded into her mouth like oxygen as the music bombed her skull. She kept it on her tongue. She wanted to burn. Then she swallowed and swallowed until the glass was empty. She lifted her glass and the server leaned over to refill it. She repeated the ritual twice. When she swam away from the bar, the world was the way it usually was—bright and shifting. A boy dressed as a puff-fish snorkelled past. The sight of the ruptured scales made her feel nauseous. She found Jannike on a pink plastic float. Jannike slid off the float and they water-danced. Two reeds. Her limbs weird in the water. The music was phenomenal. Someone gave them fin-shaped pills which they put on each other’s wrists and licked off. Her vision fizzled. The music grew louder. Quieter when she slipped underwater.