The Velocity of Revolution

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  “Thank you,” Wenthi said quietly, taking the plate and moving away from the table.

  “That was bordering on insubordination,” Lathéi said. “I’m quite cross.”

  “Don’t make anything like a scene, Lath,” he said. “Please.”

  “It was very rude.”

  “And it’s very possible someone in her family, or someone she cares about, is locked up right now because of me. So let her have her anger.”

  “You’re too kind,” Lathéi said.

  Oshnå came over, taking a moment to kiss Wenthi on the cheek before kissing Lathéi with a bit more fervor. “This party is the worst, dear.”

  “It really is,” Lathéi said. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Apologize to him,” Oshnå said.

  “I am sorry, Wenthi,” Lathéi said.

  “It’s good,” he said. “We’re good. Always. You got me out of my room, at least.” He took a bite of the taco, and it was excellent, just as he remembered. Izamio’s gifts in the kitchen had not diminished over the years.

  But yet it wasn’t quite as good as the ones from the cart in Circle Hyunma. Somehow they lacked—

  He wasn’t sure.

  Mother came over to them, her face completely unreadable. “Wenthi. I’m so pleased to see you, safe and well. I trust you’re eating well?”

  “It’s all lovely, Mother.”

  She looked over to Lathéi with a hint of a scowl. “Do you have any further theatrics planned?”

  “I didn’t know honoring my brother was theatrics.”

  “It’s a matter of appearances. There is a proper way to do things. We don’t want to make our friends uncomfortable.”

  Wenthi couldn’t hold his tongue. “Our friends who are here, at least. Friends like Ocullo are quite uncomfortable.”

  “Who?” Lathéi asked.

  Mother took Wenthi’s wrist and squeezed. Her eyes flashed with a dozen emotions. “Wenthi, darling, I imagine you and I have quite a bit to speak of.”

  “That’s a bit of an understatement.”

  “Then let’s not make a spectacle of that,” she said. “We should go to my study. Come along.”

  62

  Mother’s study had always been her sanctuary in the house—on the far end of the upstairs hallway, with a heavy wooden door and cast-iron latch. Wenthi—as well as everyone else—had always been expressly forbidden from going in there when she was working. There was even a dumbwaiter and a pneumatic tube to the kitchen so she could send requests and receive meals without disruption. Wenthi could count on one hand how many times he had even stepped foot in the room.

  One side of the room was dominated with bookshelves and a plush couch. Mother gestured for him to sit while she went to the small icebox under the desk and retrieved a pair of Dark Shumis. With practiced ease she poured two glasses with ice and a splash of whiskey and a wedge of lime. Wenthi chuckled to himself at the idea that the staff must always be making sure that she had freshly cut lime wedges at the ready. Nothing too good for the Root of the Tungét branch.

  “So,” she said as she handed him the drink and sat on the couch as far away as she physically could, “you’ve remembered Ocullo. I had been thinking you had forgotten about those times.”

  “I had,” Wenthi said, sipping the drink. Perfect and sweetly rich as always. “But then I met him.”

  That got her eyebrow up. “How did you manage that?”

  “Well, like you said, the right name was crucial to the mission. Everyone has people, and by giving me the name ‘Llionorco,’ folks presumed that he was mine. My shock was finding out he actually was.”

  “Someone actually brought you to him? Out in the 23rd?”

  “Well, given that part of what the Fists of Zapi actually do is smuggle stolen fuel and food to the baniz in the 23rd, it wasn’t much of a step farther.”

  “Why do they—”

  “Because those people are starving. Ocullo is starving. The dozen kids he lives with are, too. Someone has to take care of them. Spirits of every ancestor of ours know the Alliance isn’t. You aren’t.”

  “I am doing what I can,” she said, a tremble of anger in her voice. “And I’m stopped at every curve.”

  “Why did you arrange for me to have my father’s name on this mission if you didn’t expect someone to make that connection?”

  She sighed and took a sip. “Hubris. Vanity. Maybe just to give you a small chance to honor the man you never got to know.”

  “So is it all true? My father was baniz. And you were part of some subversive movement to eradicate the castes?”

  “Every generation has their movements,” she said. “Then they either fail in their ambitions, or compromise their ideals as they gain power.”

  “That’s bullshit, Mother,” he said. “What was your compromise?”

  “You hadn’t figured it out yet?” she asked. She put down her drink and looked at him, really looked right at him for the first time since they came in here. Her eyes were welling with tears. “It was you.”

  That was impossible. “Me? How did you—” He was so flustered, he couldn’t even figure out what the question he wanted to ask was.

  She sat down and took a long slug of her drink. “I’ll start at the beginning. Between the first two Transoceanic Wars, it was kind of a magical moment where we really thought anything was possible. We were finally, after generations, our own nation free from the Sehosians and Reloumic and everyone. We had a chance to define what that was going to be. But it was also chaos. The Prime Families, the caste systems, these were structures that already existed. People wanted to fall into them because, frankly, people are always hungry for things to ‘return to normal’ as easily as possible. Especially people for whom those structures already provided power and comfort.”

  “Like you,” Wenthi said.

  “Like my whole family. Especially my grandmother, may her spirit wail in darkness. But for people my age, there was this carefree sense that the old rules didn’t have to matter. The castes might still exist, but for us they were just a name to describe ourselves. We lived and loved and celebrated everything together. Ocullo might call it a movement, but it was nothing more than young people who wanted to experience life and have a good time without having to listen to any rules.”

  “So not a rebellion or dissident group?”

  “We weren’t actually trying to change anything. Oh, we shouted and made noise, but—” She laughed, hard and mirthless. “Not in any way that would have an effect. I’ll hand it to these rebels you stopped; they were active. All we did was decide how the world ought to be, and pretend like we had already done it just by pissing off our parents. Just buzzing on the mushrooms and fucking each other.”

  “You were using the mushroom?”

  “Mushrooms,” she said with a firm distinction. “So many people were losing their minds over what happened in Nemuspia, but your father knew differently. He had this whole idea about using the different mushrooms from all over the world, that they granted different abilities in each part of the world, in harmony with the character of their peoples. He was convinced that blending strains could open up new doors in our minds, change the world.”

  “That sounds like Doctor Shebiruht’s garbage.”

  “She’s a monster, but her ideas aren’t completely wrong. The . . . the difference between her and your father is he practiced his beliefs with humanity. He—” Her voice caught for a moment. “He talked about helping people be better. He fought against the castes because he believed that people, like the mushroom, could achieve greater things by combining together and unlocking the best of us.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  She reached across the distance and touched his face. For once, for the first time he could recall, he saw love and tenderness in her eyes. “That you, my beautif
ul boy, are a result of his work. We—we conceived you while using one of his mushroom blends together.”

  “You made me?” Wenthi shouted. “Like I was your science experiment?”

  “No, no,” she said, gesturing for him to be quieter. “It was never our goal. But when we found out I was pregnant, he had hoped that you would be a stronger, more connected person as a result. But at the end of the Second Trans, when the Unity realized what his work was, they destroyed him, destroyed his work, every trace of it.”

  “Every trace but me.”

  “Because I protected you. Haven’t you realized?”

  “What am I supposed to realize?”

  “Why do you think when the war ended, and I was full-bellied with you, I took my place with the Prime Families? Why do you think I made sure you were declared rhique? I traded favors upon favors to get people to go along with it. I had to do whatever I could to keep you safe. They wanted me to claim my role as the Root of the Tungét, give the whole system legitimacy. I went along with what they all wanted. If I hadn’t . . .”

  It made a sick sense to Wenthi, as much as it curdled his stomach.

  “Well, now I understand.”

  “What do you think you understand?”

  “The whole time I was on the mission, I had to use the mushroom—”

  She gasped.

  “Which you should have realized I’d have to,” he continued. “But when I did, I unlocked deeper and newer parts of myself, found levels of power no one knew were possible. I had first thought that was because of what Shebiruht did to me, syncing me with the Enapi girl. That our connection had opened new abilities up because we were paired together. But it was me, wasn’t it? I had those abilities because you and my father did the same things to me as Shebiruht had done to her victims. Like when she made Penda Rodiguen into the weapon she was. And you knew about that, right?”

  “I—” she said haltingly, but Wenthi wasn’t done.

  “You knew that woman was alive in her fancy apartment prison, that she was made by that witch. That Shebiruht was still putting daily work into keeping her, I don’t know, functional? Which let her play with the hearts and spirits of the people who believed in her? And for what, Mother? What goal of yours, what dream did you have for this country that keeping her alive would help? What good do you even think you’re doing?”

  Mother was very quiet for a long period, and then a weak, hoarse whisper came out. “Did you say Enapi girl?”

  Wenthi had no idea why that was what she had taken from his tirade, but he answered. “Yes. The dissident that Shebiruht jammed into my brain, synced me with on a spirit deep level, and messed with every thought with? Her name was Nália Enapi.”

  Quietly, she said, “Your father worked with a young woman named Zenisa Enapi. She volunteered for a few of his tests.”

  “Did you know what I was capable of? What Shebiruht was going to do? What this mission would do to me?”

  “I didn’t,” she said, tears in her eyes. “They just said you were perfect and you needed to serve. You represented a potential for leadership in the patrol, so that our people could eventually take charge.”

  “They do like that line, don’t they?” Wenthi said. Not that he believed the Alliance had any real intentions along those lines.

  “I was sternly reminded of my duties and kept in the quiet. I pushed my authority as far as I could just getting that name on your papers. Which was just . . . some small bit of rebellion I had left in me. And for your sake, for Lathéi and Aleiv, for the . . . stability of the country . . . that’s all I dared to do.”

  He remembered something she had said the last time they spoke, of how the Alliance was livid about the fuel that was stolen. It was obvious to him now, so clear he didn’t know how he hadn’t seen it before. The Alliance went through a pretense of “rebuilding” the country they had devastated in at least two wars, if not the generations of occupation and colonization that had preceded them, but only so they could take the oil. That’s what it was all about, all they cared about. Not the people, not the ideals they professed. They kept the undercastes hungry, and the overcastes comfortable, and kept them hating each other, so no one would notice what they were really doing.

  He got up and finished the last drops of his drink, then left the glass, still damp with condensation from the ice, on her wooden desk and went to the door.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Home, in the 9th Senja,” he said. “I would say that’s where I belong, but that’s a lie. It’s all a lie. But maybe the truth will come to me.”

  63

  Wenthi returned to his room, desperate to sleep. He had pushed out any possible bedmates for the night, including, and especially, Paulei, stripped out of the gaudy suit Lathéi had dressed him in, and fallen down into a deep sleep in minutes.

  Dreams brought him to Circle Hyunma, the scattered wooden tables around the taco cart, in the shadow of the memorial statue. He sat alone at one table, the scents of the taco cart taunting him despite there not being anyone cooking or serving. At the table farthest away, he could see his compatriots in the Fists of Zapi: Ajiñe, Fenito, Gabrána, Mensi, and Nicalla. They were eating and laughing and talking and touching hands, but everything they did felt muted and far away, like the air between him and them was a thick membrane.

  He called out, but they didn’t hear him.

  He shouted again, but they didn’t react.

  Then a train barreled through the circle, smashing them and their table, leaving nothing but wisps of smoke in its wake.

  “You betrayed them.”

  He looked and saw Nália, almost hidden behind the statue, almost out of sight.

  “I did my job,” he said, moving toward her. But as he did, she slipped away. Always staying on the other side of the statue, just enough exposed that he could see the edge of her.

  “You betrayed your blood.”

  “That’s bullshit,” he told her. “I don’t owe anything to blood.”

  “What do you owe to, then?” she asked.

  “If anything, I’m owed,” he said.

  “You are owed,” she said. “Nix xisisa, we have paid too much.”

  “I’m owed explanations. Owed the truth.”

  “You already know the truth,” she said.

  “You as well,” he said. “And what are you doing with it?”

  “Trying not to die,” she replied. “What any of us are trying to do. But what are you going to do to survive? Let all of them die? Let me? Let things continue as they are?”

  “Are . . . are you really here?” he asked. It occurred to him that this wasn’t a dream—he had awareness and agency that he never had in his dreams. “Nália, what’s happening?”

  “Sinking,” she said. She melted into the statue, her body becoming one with the concrete and metal. For a flash, he felt her pain of solid flesh dripping away. Losing herself drop by drop.

  “Please, Wenthi.”

  Wenthi sat up in his bed, covered in hot sweat despite the room having its usual late-autumn chill. He stumbled over to the water tap and drank two glasses before he realized that his bottle of pills sat on the sink. The pills he had been prescribed to complete his disconnection from Nália.

  The pills he had forgotten to take when he went to sleep.

  He opened the bottle and without hesitation, dumped the remaining pills down the drain.

  64

  Getting to Northsprawl involved passing through several checkpoints. Wenthi rode through the 9th, 8th, and 7th Senjas, crossing into Hightown through the Mangzei Crossing, winding up and down the hills of Moraiko—the quiet 18th Senja mostly populated by the rhique who didn’t have Intown living privileges—and stopped at a taco stand to buy a bag full of tang chickens, crispy pork, and Ureti beef. He ate one of the chicken tacos before riding off again—fin
e, but nothing spectacular—and then went across the bridge, out of the city limits. The whole affair would have been easier if he had worn his uniform and rode his official cycle; he would have had less hassle. But that would have obviated the purpose of going.

  No one he was going to wanted to see him as a patrol officer.

  Once he was in Northsprawl, though, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t sure where he was going, and asked one kid if he knew where the Llionorcos lived.

  “You are shitting tory?” the kid asked.

  “Do I look like one?” Wenthi responded.

  “Shit, yes,” the kid said.

  So wearing civilian clothes had made little difference.

  He rode through the dirt streets of the Northsprawl for half a sweep before spotting a familiar face.

  “Hey, Tyeja!” he called as he rode up. She was walking out of what mighty charitably be called a carbon shop, wearing a dirty cotton shirt, knee-cut denim, and no shoes. He wondered how she could stand walking here, with the scattered stones and broken glass, with nothing covering her feet.

  “Shit,” she said as he came to a stop. “What’s your roll, cousin?”

  “I came out looking for your place, but I didn’t know where it was. Been riding about this part of town for a while.”

  She looked at the bag on his cowl. “What’s that there?”

  “Tacos from a joint across the river. Thought I shouldn’t come empty-handed.”

  “You’re a good thinker,” she said with a warm smile. She got on the cycle behind him. “Straight that way, hang left at the blue sign.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He took her back to the hovel, where a half-dozen of the kids were sitting around outside. Wenthi realized he had ridden plenty of patrol shifts where he had spotted a scene just like this, and had threatened the kids with arrest if they didn’t “find somewhere to be.” Which was ridiculous, and he couldn’t think of a way to justify that.

  “Look here,” Tyeja said as she got off. “Our cityside kin brought us tacos.”