by Andy Graham
Nose close to the screen, Chester’s breath left no condensation on it. A clever trick. She fancied she could see a night-copter below — or was it above her? — and hear the muffled thud of its rotors as it scanned the streets. At least the VP wasn’t using a delayed feed. He’d given up on that particular way of trying to unsettle her: flooding the room with daylight while it was dark outside.
She watched his reflection place a picture frame back on the desk. Much as she didn’t want to, she couldn’t help but look. In an otherwise sleek high-tech office, where most of the trappings and accessories were not yet available to civilians, it was an incongruous item. A chipped, wooden frame held a torn photo of a woman and child. A disembodied male arm wrapped round the woman’s shoulders. The boy was clutching the woman’s trousers, hands buried in the cloth.
The VP’s eyes followed hers and a vein on his forehead pulsed. “So, Chester, do you agree with me?”
“No. Bigotry is bigotry, no matter who is putting the boot in,” she repeated, yet again that evening.
“I think of it more as patriotism. Fortunately, the news writers agree with me. It gives them something else to talk about other than murders and coal. We seem to have more of the former and less of the latter by the day.” He grinned and popped a couple of mints in his mouth.
The VP claimed to appreciate a frank exchange of views, saying the mental sparring was key to both his health and that of society. Chester was one of the few people prepared to indulge him in this; he fought dirty. He didn’t have time for the people he considered beneath him voicing destabilising opinions.
“Military recruitment has flatlined,” she said. “Our legions grow weaker by the day. Reversing your immigration policy will give us options.”
“Three reasons. Interesting. The rule of three lives on and strong.”
“I’m not playing a game.”
“It’s all a game. You know that. Here are my three reasons. We are an island. We can’t take any more people in. Our resources and space are limited. I win. Which means you lose. Again. Worse luck next time.” The VP pulled a scruffy black plastic box away from the wall and pushed a sheet of paper into the slot across the top. The machine wheezed as it mangled the paper. He watched it, tugging at the blank sheet to try and right it, like a child with a toy on Midwinter’s Day.
Lost? I’ve won wars. I’m not going to lose a game to a brat. “Limited space? As opposed to those countries on the mainland that have flexible borders?”
He waved a hand dismissively. “They’re not my problem.”
“My mother used to tell us that if you keep dumping rubbish into the neighbour’s garden, the fence will rot and you’ll end up with a bigger, smellier problem than before.”
“I’m sure she did. Tell me, was it she or you who changed the spelling of your name?”
There was a tightening in the pit of her stomach. The VP may be a brat, but he was a dangerous one. “We are a nation built on immigration, our language, our people, even our food.”
“It only takes one spice too many to spoil the soup, Chester.” The paper jammed in the slot. He switched the machine off, mumbling about antiques and museums.
“Since when is isolation stronger?”
“It’s cleaner.”
“Sir—”
He inclined his head to the triangular desk sign on his table. She ignored him. She knew what it said. Flushed with her growing success in the Forum debates, Chester was not in a mood to back down now. She was, however, beginning to think she had miscalculated the depth of his feelings on this issue.
“Tell me, Chester. Why do you want a strong military? Is it just for our defence or are you planning anything the president and I should know about?”
The hairs pricked up on the back of her neck, one by one.
“Whatever nefarious schemes you have hidden under that uniform of yours will have to be carried out without any help from abroad. Those people you are desperate to help can rot like your mother’s fence.”
“We’re talking about real people, not philosophical constructs, sir.”
“Real people cause real damage.”
“Clever theories about why we should not take them in are just window dressing, distractions from the real issues of other people wanting what we want: stability.”
“I said no, Chester.”
“If you would read the analysis again, it states that legalising these people would save on policing and monitoring costs.”
“Chester.”
There was an edge to his voice. She pushed on, caught up in her own enthusiasm, her determination not to lose. “Why not give them swipe cards and a legal status? Make them an active part of society? They would pay back in many ways long-term, not just financially.” Or does the demonising of the foreigner appeal to something baser inside you?
“Reread the analysis. I think you’ll find you may have misinterpreted some of the details. I think you read ‘would save on’ when you should have read ‘would add considerably to’.”
“I know what I read—” Chester’s eyes narrowed. “Who did you pay to change it?”
“Pay,” he said, smirking, “or encourage?”
“Bribes and threats are not honourable solutions.”
“Neither is feckless leadership when faced with a threat to our great nation. Foreigners are more useful to me on the other side of the border. When they live here, the distinction between them and us gets blurred. That makes it harder to maintain a simple narrative. People feel safe with simple. As a military officer you should understand that. The immigration policy stays. Dredge the Buckets again for more recruits if you need them. In the meantime, remember your duties as military commander. You still work for this government, which means, my dear General, you work for me. Dismissed.”
Chester saluted, her blood running hot when he flipped a casual salute back. How dare he, a civilian, defile the traditions he had no right to?
“Now, if there’s nothing else?” He pulled a screen over and started tapping on it. He flipped through images on the window-screens with a speed which left her slightly seasick. Chester was half-way to the door when he spoke. “Though it occurs to me that I may be able to take another look at the policy.”
“Sir?”
“The changes you made to the military boosted voluntary subscriptions, adding to the annual conscription. Am I correct?”
She nodded slowly. Where are you going with this?
He steepled his fingers and sat back in the one chair in his office. The five window-screens now showed identical blood moons floating crimson in a sea of black. One hung directly behind his head. The glow on his skin and the glint of red on his teeth made him look like a vampire straight from the Old Tales. “I’m not sure I would have used that as a reason to allow you some of your other changes—”
“Then it is fortunate you are neither the ranking officer of the military nor president, sir.”
He took a deep breath in. Steadied one twitching hand with the other. “You want more soldiers—”
“Legionnaires.”
“Puppets.”
“How dare you!”
“Listen to me.” He raised a warning finger. “The Pregnancy Directive. The one-child policy. It has stood for too long. Additionally, some relatives of mine have fallen foul of it. I find myself in the unusual position of being unable to help. The president has already dismissed the idea of a change in the law, but she has underestimated the public mood on this.”
He was lying. But why? Changing the law would eventually give her the troops she craved, but what was in it for him? “And your proposal is?”
“I would insist on at least two children per union and include penalties for fewer and bonuses for more. That combined with conscription would give you an army in a generation, Chester. You and the president are close. Need I say more?”
The VP flipped through the camera feeds until he found the one he wanted. Spring sunshine washed through his office, the flood
of light warming him. It drove away the memories that nipped at him. He punched a button on his screen. One of the window-screens crackled and an image of Chester appeared limping down the corridor. Her armed peacocks followed her in perfect sync, feet clicking on the ground like an officious metronome. If there were ever any trouble, would they be able to do anything in those ludicrous uniforms? Swords as well as rifles, what next? Horses and chariots?
Chester had to be reined in; she was beginning to be as much trouble as Prothero. He could put up with her obsession for resurrecting Brettia, the country that had birthed Ailan, in return for a more efficient army. He was going to need loyalty and numbers for his plans, and her combination of fear and favours seemed to be working well. But this? Her badly disguised power grab was another matter. And once Chester had been ‘encouraged’ to play ball, he had a list of others to take the bat to. President Laudanum. David Prothero. Rose Franklin. Highest on that list was her son, Ray.
21
The Angel City
After a rough chopper ride where sci-captain James hurled three times, once covering Ray’s boots with breakfast, a hike through a mountain forest with more insects than leaves did nothing for the legionnaires’ moods. The occasional twitching branch and unnatural pocket of silence which followed them up the mountain only made things worse.
“Clumsy bastards,” Orr said. “Thought you mountain folk would be quieter trackers.”
“Some noise is useful to flush out the prey,” Brooke replied and that was the cue for James to puke up what food was left in his stomach. From that moment, the banter between Nascimento and Orr became more bitter, Brooke’s put-downs more acerbic. After a lengthy argument revolving around the words ‘dick’, ‘Bucket Head’, ‘Nasty’, ‘Cloud People’ and countless variations of ‘fuck’, Brooke pinned Orr to one of the large white rocks dotting the slopes. Aalok sent her to march with the sci-captain. It gave Ray the chance to escape James, who looked, as Nascimento had pointed out, ‘as if he had just thrown up his own arsehole’.
At one point, Ray thought to surprise one of their stalkers. The unresponsive figure turned out to be a wooden statue. Bearded and bare-chested, it had odd looking carvings all over its broad body. In one hand it held a rock. The statue was fiercer in its stillness than many of the posturing thugs with their cartoon-like bestiality they’d all run into in the past.
They walked, scrabbled, slipped and trudged closer to the Donian capital. The closer they got to the Angel city, the more statues they saw: men, women, children, even the occasional dog, fierce and patient. Then the sun started its slow fall to the horizon, the ground levelled out and the tree line stopped. A few scarred stumps struggled out of the crisp white ground beyond the forest’s border. Past that was a wide expanse of open grass cut toenail-short. Towering above, on top of three large, terraced semi-circles was the Angel City.
A crack of sticks behind them announced the arrival of their watchers. They were barely visible in the gloom. Some were on foot, others in the trees. One dangled from a branch, hanging one-handed.
“At last,” said Orr. “My grandmother could’ve made less noise dragging her coffin out of her grave than this lot.”
The Angel City was balanced on a large plateau. One side was walled off by a sheer rock face up, the other hung precariously off a sheer rock face down. A palisade loomed high around the village. Carved spikes glared at the sky. Spaced out between the spikes were motionless figures. Some were no more than heads. A few had helmets on. Watching. Waiting. Around the base of the palisade was another ring of statues. Some stood, most knelt. As different as they were to each other, they had some features in common. They were twice the size of a normal person, carved naked, and their faces were contorted into tortured expressions that sent a chill up Ray’s spine. “Not into guests here, are they?” he said.
“It’s not big enough, that’s why,” Nascimento replied. “There’s no space for anyone else. It’s more of a shed than a city. Where’s the rest of it?”
“Underneath us,” Aalok replied.
“Great,” Nascimento muttered. “Tunnels. I’m not built for tunnels. Is that where the angels live, Brooke?”
“Something lives down there, Jamerson, but not them. The angels that go down those tunnels don’t come back. Neither do the people.”
The expression on her face killed Nascimento’s retort.
“We’re still in Ailan, right, not Mennai?” Ray asked.
“Technically, yes, but you may want to keep comments like that quiet,” Aalok answered. “The Donian tribes took shelter here during the Great Flood and never left. They didn’t take kindly to having their ancestral lands carved up arbitrarily when the legions came knocking.”
Brooke’s face was impassive.
“You’ve all been briefed. Remember, when we get in there, follow my lead.”
“You’ve been here before, sir?” asked Orr.
Aalok nodded. “About fifteen years ago.”
“Sixteen,” said Brooke, so quietly Ray wasn’t sure he’d heard it.
“We go in, make our request to enter the mountain, and I mean request, Orr,” Aalok acknowledged the other man’s scowl with a raised eyebrow, “and hope we can get out as quickly as General Chester seems to think we can.”
“If she says it’s possible, don’t see why we shouldn’t be able to. She’s a clever fucker,” said Nascimento. “Practically won the Second GTC on her own. Should’ve been made field-marshal by now.”
“‘Marrying the modern military to the glory of the past.’” Orr did a passable imitation of Chester’s voice and limp.
“If you two are talking about your general,” said Aalok, “I suggest you do so with respect. Any questions?”
They all shook their heads.
“Let’s go.”
A creaky wooden ramp ran up to the hill fort, cutting through the terraces. A deep trench in the first terrace had traces of a thick black liquid on its sides. A matching trench in the second was filled with garish flowers that were out of place in the frost. None of them needed Brooke’s warning not to get too close.
The planks bent and warped as they walked. “There’s a fucking pit underneath us,” said Orr, peering through the cracks. “And it’s got big-arse spikes at the bottom.”
Nascimento moved over to the edge of the walkway, trying hard not to obviously walk on tiptoes.
As they approached the top of the narrowing ramp, Aalok spoke to his squad. “Every time the 10th Legion has been here before, we’ve been invaders, enforcers or executioners. We’ve always had numbers on our side. Now there are only six of us and we need the Donian people’s help. Remember that. Behave accordingly.”
The gates were bolted and barred. Orr’s finger hovered over the safety on his rifle as an older man and woman stepped from the ragtag group of waiting people. The rest of what Nasc muttered was an ‘unwelcoming party’ watched. One man tossed a rock from hand to hand. Lying on the ground between the villagers were several large dogs, their triangular ears twitching. Above and behind the legionnaires, most of the figures that had been watching from the top of the palisade turned out to be hollowed out wooden statues. Sitting in and between some of those statues were more Donian people, armed with anything from bows and spears to rocks and what looked like old, bullet-firing rifles.
Aalok laid his weapons at the feet of the couple. The rest of the squad followed suit. Orr, eyeing the people around them, was more hesitant.
“Captain Aalok,” said the Donian man who stepped forwards. He had the weathered, thick-fingered look of a man who had worked outside all his life. “The years have been kind to you. And you’ve been promoted. Not to major, though. Your old demons still haunt you?”
“My demons are some of my oldest friends. You’ve been promoted, too, Karaan.”
“Selected. Not promoted. We earn our place here.” He stroked the white handle-barred moustache embedded within his greying beard. “We’re not so lost to your art of genetics th
at we believe the skills of leadership are passed on from parent to child.” The tone of voice was probing, challenging.
“My father was a nurse, my mother a teacher,” Aalok replied. “Some of us still have to earn our place.”
Karaan nodded, conceding the point. The man who had been playing with the rock stood up and his dog rose with him. The villager’s face was the colour of a winter morning with a sneer to match. He couldn’t have been much younger than Brooke but the stubble across his head showed more white than anything else.
Nose to nose, he eyeballed each legionnaire in turn, a gleam in his pink-tinted pupils. He smirked when James took a step backwards, and smiled broadly when Orr moved forwards to press the rim of his helmet into his forehead.
The woman standing next to Karaan called out words Ray didn’t understand. The Donian man backed down, muttering something Ray hoped he hadn’t understood. The ghostly-skinned man made an elaborate, mocking bow to Orr, and moved on to Brooke. He waved his hand in front of her face. Her vision never wavered. He whispered something into her ear. She didn’t react. He spat on the ground in front of her feet and, when she still didn’t move, he made to kiss her on the cheek.
She spat in his face. “Get your hands off me.”
He wiped the spittle off his skin, teeth bared. Dodged Orr’s clumsy grab for him and twisted away. The hackles rose on the dog’s neck as a shiver ran through the watching crowd. The older woman yelled something. The villager smirked at Orr and swaggered back to his friends, dog by his side.
“Back in line,” Aalok said quietly. Orr was fuming. Brooke, once more, stood as still as one of the Donian statues.
“Are you here to kill us?” Karaan asked, smoothing his beard into a fine point. Ray got the impression the gesture was to hide his smile. “Or return one of our children?”
“We have a request,” replied Aalok.
“Yet another request from the government of Ailan. We are popular at the moment. Yet this time it is sent by an armed squad of special forces rather than ambassadors and scientists. Diplomacy at its finest.”