Glad I’m alive.
His words spread salve on my battered body and mind. I leant into him and a deep, deep weariness rolled over me - the sort that you knew would stay with you for a lifetime. A tear sputtered down my face onto his chest. ‘The ch-change . . . what did I look like?’ I whispered.
He touched the line of scale on my face. ‘This. Your whole body was like this. You were you, but with a covering of . . .armour.’
I turned the image over in my mind. My own private skel. Cockroach. I tried to laugh but a violent shaking overtook me. I couldn’t stop it.
He held me tightly until the worst of it went away.
‘But I feel the same inside,’ I said at last.
His arms tightened. ‘I’ll get Anna to work on it straight away. We’ll find a way to beat it.’
A wave of gratitude flooded me.
He took my chin in his hand. ‘But you must come and live with us. It’s better that way.’
I nodded. I could see the sense in it. It just wasn’t how I’d dreamed we might make our peace or be together, but he was right. ‘I have to go home first. Settle some things.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
I shook my head. ‘No. But if I get crazy in the meantime, you have my permission to hunt me down and shoot me.’
We shared a grim smile.
I wanted to stay where I was, getting drunk on his kindness, but something drove me to unclasp his arms. Habit. I slowly climbed to my feet, holding out my hand. ‘The dagger.’
He gave it to me this time without argument.
I wiped Tulu’s blood off it. There didn’t seem to be anything else worth saying, so I left.
Chapter Twenty
Outside the villa Twitcher bodies littered the pavements like bits of scrap. Ike’s death had tangled their primitive rewiring and set some against each other. But it didn’t account for all of them.
I trod warily back towards the canal, swinging the Cabal knife in a warning arc before me, advertising its presence. It kept the bestial shapes in my peripheral vision crouched behind corners and ducking down below balcony rails.
The Cabal would need more than one small dagger if they were going to take back this land.
Around me the flood had subsided, leaving a messy tidal sweep of dead bodies. I stopped looking at faces after the first few and climbed to the roof of a villa a row back from the canal. A handful of Cabal warriors camped on the other side by a fire. They sent the raft for me when I signalled them.
The crossing was slow even though the tide had fallen. On the other side they’d fashioned a pathway across the spillover to avoid the poisonous residue.
I navigated the planking and walked up to them with a curt nod of appreciation. They didn’t welcome me into the circle where they sat sharing smoke and talking softly. Doll Feast had been right about them - theirs was a men-only club. And I no longer had any desire to be a part of it. I dropped the dagger in the circle and kept walking.
I found Glida-Jam waiting not far from them. She sat cross-legged in the morning shadows of the vine-strangled villas, cradling Wombebe. Her eyes were swollen from crying.
I couldn’t look at her.
Wombebe wriggled free and galloped to meet me. I knelt into the ma’soop’s embrace, taking time to gather my thoughts and memories.
She chattered in broken words, trying to tell me about everything at once. Then she broke off. ‘Tug?’
I shrugged. ‘Not sure.’
She closed her eyes as if seeking his trace in her mind. ‘Tug gone. Roo gone,’ she said sadly.
I turned to Glida. ‘I told Tug to wait and get people on to the rafts. But then I thought he came to me when I . . .’ I said, confused. ‘It felt like he healed me . . . somehow.’
Glida listened without comment. Without the forgiveness I craved.
Depression descended hard. My body count climbed still. The karadji. Tug. Loser. I didn’t understand why they did it. Why they risked themselves. Plainly put, I wasn’t worth it.
‘Why did Roo come back?’ I had to know that.
Glida’s lip quivered. Her utter desolation hurt me far worse than the physical pain I’d suffered.
‘Not follow you. Find doctor,’ she said.
Of course! Roo wanted to see Del Morte again.
My arrogance and lack of insight amazed me. I should have known. But then I didn’t have titanium arms and legs and artificial organs. I didn’t know what it was like to be Roo, or the ma’soops. My deformities had been purely on the inside - until now.
I touched the scale on my cheek. Soon I might get a lesson on how people really treated outsiders. The thought didn’t thrill me at all.
Billy Myora detached from the Cabal group and came over. Gone was the three-piece suit. His body was adorned in the ochre and white markings of tribal status. Seems, maybe, I’d saved someone important after all.
He regarded the three of us with a grave expression and spoke in a formal tone I’d never heard him use before. ‘We plan to take our land back now. You have had a part in this, Parrish Plessis. Consider this . . . payment.’ He handed me a platter roughly fashioned from a palm tree pod.
On it was dry food, a tube of drinking water and some grisly bio-mesh nesting in a chunk of bloody flesh. They’d hacked the wetware from Ike’s head.
I knew what the mesh held, but my heart didn’t even miss a beat.
‘It’s too late,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘There was that risk.’
Risk? I turned away, toward the canal, dismissing him. I’d had enough of the Cabal and their secrets. I hoped they could save Mo-Vay, I truly did. But they could take their goma and smoke it.
I noticed Loyl climbing off another returning raft. He joined the others and they made room for him with hand slaps and approving noises. The politics of the Cabal were beyond my reckoning.
As for Loyl and I, we’d done with circling each other. He had the lead now.
I stayed where I was, sharing the food and water with Glida and Wombebe and staring across at the sickness that had overtaken Mo-Vay. It was an invasion a bit like the one in my body.
The flood had left a crystalline residue over everything it had touched.
The irony of it amused me. The copper wastes that had first poisoned the canal had saved us. Hopefully they’d be barrier enough until the Cabal could figure out a way to clean the place up. And they would. I had faith in that. Maybe it was the only thing I had faith in.
With a sigh, I lay down in the shadows of the villa and went to sleep.
A day later I began my trek back to Torley’s, Glida-Jam and Wombebe with me, Glida withdrawn, Wombebe scared and excited. A Cabal warrior shadowed us at a respectable distance. I didn’t know whether to be gratified or annoyed so I ignored him.
Ahead of us Mo-Vay refugees streamed all the way to Tower Town, a straggling procession of human need that the locals weren’t too welcoming towards.
By the time we reached the fringes of Tower Town, fights and fear haunted every alley and corner. I should have intervened but my heart was aching tired like my resolve. I badly wanted to see Teece before things got worse with me. I had to say thanks and sorry and whatever else came into my head. Right now, I had no time for anyone else’s need but my own.
What did that make me?
As selfish as Loyl Daac!
I couldn’t quite cop the comparison, so, with the deliberation of permanent exhaustion, I waded into the next fight I saw and took issue. A group Mo-Vay types and some of Daac’s devotees, head to head over chow. The Mo-Vays were trying to buy meat with hair and skin samples. The vendors didn’t get it.
‘It’s not currency,’ I said, waving their samples back.
The M-Vs looked at me confused. Abscessed foreheads, skin like grated meat.
‘Ahh’ve seen yu,’ said one of them.
I sighed. ‘Yeah. Probably. But it’s still not currency here. We use credit. Real money.’
I held my own spike out
so he could see it. ‘Our world is different. You work for yourselves now - not Ike. You work for real money. Then you buy.’
In other words, get a job, scud!
The banality of the idea sent a frisson of hysteria through me that, once started, might never stop. I hugged myself tight to control it.
The vendor spat on the ground and rubbed the stock of a worn sawn-off meaningfully. ‘Buy or move on. You’re bad for business,’ she said.
My patience slipped. I didn’t like her attitude, so I wrenched the shotgun from her grasp and fired it off. ‘Dis has blown wide open. Cut these people some slack. They’re homeless . . . refugees,’ I said.
My scowl took in the line of food karts and the gathering crowd. I brushed the styrofoams and meat ladles from the top of the kart and climbed on to it.
‘That goes for all of you,’ I shouted. ‘Tell everyone. Dis is contaminated with wild-tek. You go there, you die. It belongs to the Cabal now.’
As if to reinforce my point, the Cabal warrior materialised by the kart, slipping the battered hood of his leather jacket down. Only the punters in front could see him. But it was enough. Word back-burned. The Cabal are here . . .
I felt a tiny moment of gratefulness to the sombre, lean man. I swept my arm wide to include the M-Vs. ‘These people can’t go back. Let them find somewhere to live here.’
‘We don’t want ’em,’ shouted a reply.
‘And who’re you?’ someone else yelled.
I opened my mouth to reply, and shut it again. It was a question I couldn’t answer any more.
I took Glida and Wombebe to Vayu’s old place on Torley’s’ outskirts. The other ma’soops and shaman were there. They greeted us with hot herb tea and a chatter of news. I insisted on the san first and barred myself in there until the water ran clear of blood.
I borrowed some clothes and wished I could stay there and shut the door on the world, but other - greater - needs drove me home.
I took Ness aside before I left.
‘Can you keep the ma’soops here until I can set things up for them?’
She nodded. ‘I’ll try, Parrish. But how will I feed them?’
‘I’ll organise something,’ I promised. ‘Just give me some breathing space. I need a little time.’
She didn’t touch me, but her gaze scorched my mind. What she found there tightened her expression. ‘Time is one thing you’ll never have,’ she said.
Glida was waiting outside for me. Her dejection was the hardest thing of all. I still couldn’t say sorry about Roo. There were no words for it. No words at all.
I wondered if she hated me. I didn’t blame her if she did.
I hated me.
Teece was in my den. He didn’t hear me enter. The Mueno guards at the door had let me through without a word.
I watched his broad back and shaggy hair as he traded insults with Jamon’s tacky bookkeeping icon. I was so comforted to see him I wanted to throw myself into his arms. A sound bubbled up in my throat. Not an attractive one. Somewhere between a moan and a sob.
He swung in his chair. ‘Parrish?’ His voice held relief, surprise, pleasure and something else all rolled into one.
The something else put me off balance. Literally.
I stumbled against the doorframe like I was standing out in a cyclone. I knew I was spent in a way that broked no quick recovery. I badly needed to lie down.
He crossed the space to me in a blink. Taking my weight he eased me out into the living room and on to the couch. His faded blue eyes brimmed with concern.
I held his hand tightly, refusing to let go of it even when he wanted to get me a drink.
‘What have you done to yourself?’ His free hand reached automatically to the dark scale on my cheek. ‘Where the hell is Roo? Why didn’t he come and get me, I would have come and carried you back if I had to.’
Asking about Roo sent my body into convulsions, as if I’d been poisoned, and tears spurted from my eyes. I couldn’t catch my breath to speak. My chest strained to fill with air, but there was none left in my world.
He slid an arm around me as I shook and moaned and shattered into a million pieces. He’d never seen me like this. I’d never seen me like this.
We sat together until the worst of it had passed, then he got up, rummaged in a drawer and came back with a pack of derms. ‘They’re strong. They’ll help you sleep.’
I pushed them away. A measure of calmness had found me now - as it sometimes does, after a storm. I suddenly wanted to talk, where only a short while before I couldn’t.
He sat, his fingers linked in mine, listening intently as I gave him a full account.
‘I called it wrong, Teece. I should have kept them all with me. Roo would be alive if I’d kept them all with me. Or if I hadn’t told him about Del Morte.’
His eyes flashed with anger and compassion. ‘How the hell do you know that, Parrish?’
I shrugged.
‘What will the Cabal do now?’
‘They think they can heal the place. I think they can too.’ I thought of the web-’sect and shuddered. ‘As long as I never have to go back there.’
‘What about Tulu?’
‘Ike is dead and the shamans are free. But she’s escaped back to whoever sent her. Her brain fuel has dried up, though. It’ll keep her quiet for a while.’
‘And the refugees?’
I took a deep breath and blew it out in a sigh. ‘It’ll be a mess for a while. Some of them will die. But others will find their place here. Everyone needs a place. I think the Cabal might even help them.’
He frowned at my resignation. ‘What about the Priers you saw? What does that mean? And the . . . eyelids.’
‘I think it means we’re not free here at all, Teece. I think we’re living in a maze - a human maze.’ I said the words slowly.
He let out a breath, long and low. ‘It’s not such a surprise to me. There’ve been signs.’
‘Thanks for sharing them.’ I tugged his hair to take the sting from my sarcasm.
‘I was trying to leave the paranoia to you.’ He smiled. ‘Besides, I don’t know that it makes a lot of difference in the end, Parrish. There are always the few truly powerful operators and then there are the rest of us. It’s the way life is. You just have to survive within that and get what you can. It doesn’t matter who they are.’
Anger rippled through me at such impotent talk. ‘Yes, it does. It matters a heap. It’s about intent, Teece. I despise their intent, so why should I screw my life to live by it?’
He shrugged. His arm dropped away and he moved back so he could see my face. ‘There’s something else though, isn’t there? Something you haven’t told me.’
Isn’t that enough?
I coughed and leaned into him. I couldn’t bear to see his eyes when I told him what had happened to me.
Before I could speak, though, the door opened.
Teece sprang up. What the hell was making him so edgy?
‘Teece?’ A female voice, high-pitched and unsure. Familiar.
‘Honey,’ said Teece. ‘Parrish is back.’
Honey? She stepped into the low light of the room. Gone were the fake, multiple breasts and the bikini in favour of normal breasts, jeans and a tee - but the cultured voice and the good manners were still the same.
Tingle Honeybee!
I stared between them, confused, as she ran into Teece’s open arms. She sheltered there like a child, half his size and as feminine as lace. She turned her face from his chest to look at me sideways. There was nothing coy in her expression, only apprehension.
I found I couldn’t do anything to put her mind at rest. I was too stunned.
More than stunned. Heartbroken. How long had I been away? A week?
And yet I, more than the next, knew that time was irrelevant when it came to desire.
‘Get out now,’ I said harshly. ‘Both of you. And make sure the place is locked on your way out.’
I got up, peeled off three derms
and whacked them in my arm like they were spears. Trying not to stagger, I headed towards the bedroom.
‘Parrish, that’s too much! You’ll overd—’
I slammed the door on his aggrieved concern.
I just wanted unconsciousness. Lots and lots and lots of it.
Chapter Twenty-one
Sleep is never long enough.
I woke eighteen hours later with a fiercely dry throat and an argument going on outside my bedroom door.
I levered myself up and sat on the edge of my bed, waiting to see whether it got worse or better. Apart from feeling like it was stuffed with dirty rags, my mind felt normal.
I got up and wobbled my way to the san.
Broiled skin and a new set of duds later, I risked a glance in the reflect. My face was pink from the heat. Apart from that it was the usual. Hair styled à la crown-of-thorns, crooked nose, bent face, sullen expression, scratches brown scale on the bridge of my cheekbone.
Scale! That’s how Daac had described my change.
So what happens now? I wondered. How does it take me? In truth I hadn’t really figured on staying alive this long.
I fished through my pack and found the bloody wetware the Cabal had given me. I needed to wash it and get Merry 3# to convert it, which meant I could no longer ignore the sounds of fist-thumping in my lounge.
Besides I was starving. Several days without much food did that to you.
I threw the door open.
Teece and Ibis glowered at each other across my only table. Tingle Honeybee was nowhere in sight.
The pair took a fleeting moment to show relief that I was still alive before they got back to whatever was eating them.
‘Don’t be such a fool!’ Ibis jibed.
‘I told you we’re not a frigging charity,’ argued Teece. ‘How do you think we’re going to pay for it?’
‘Cool it!’
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