Nyxia Unleashed

by Scott Reintgen

  I nod my understanding. I’m an only child. Always wanted a brother, but America put rules in place before I was born. A second child comes at a cost in most countries these days, and China was the first to lead the global push to curb overgrowth.

  Longwei explains he couldn’t avoid the stain of his birth. Before he had even taken his first breath, he had condemned his family to poverty. And they’d been thanking him for it ever since. I end up talking a lot about Pops, and I realize he’s the one who taught me how to live a certain way, how to be a person who does the right thing. I learned some of it on my own, but I could have gone in a lot of different directions if he and Moms hadn’t given me a good shove from the start. But Longwei, he never got pushed forward. Only pushed back, held at arm’s length, left to figure it out on his own.

  “My brother was very good at things,” he says. “They always told him that.”

  “You’re very good at things,” I remind him. “You were first on our ship.”

  “Yes,” Longwei says. “But I was first in many things at home too. My family didn’t really notice, because I was always second to them. No matter what grades I received, no matter what scholarships I won. I was the second. I was the family curse.”

  “You’re not a curse,” I say. “Longwei, you’re not a curse.”

  He looks up at me. “That’s why I came. When Babel chose me, I thought it would finally be a demonstration to my parents. I was chosen. I promised myself I would succeed and restore my family’s wealth. And when I came home, they wouldn’t see me as the second son. But then I heard Roathy talking in the first days of the competition. Do you remember?”

  “Of course. It’s hard to forget.”

  “They didn’t choose me because I was better than my brother,” Longwei says, voice tight. “They chose me because I was poor. I was the second-place son. I was broken, and they knew they could control me because of it.”

  “That’s why they chose all of us. You’re not the only one.”

  Longwei smiles at that. His eye looks like a kaleidoscope staring out from the pit of nyxian black. It’s healed well. I watch as he runs a determined hand through his front sweep of hair. “Would you agree that Babel sees me as loyal to them and not you?”

  “After everything on Genesis 11, yeah, they probably think that.”

  “So would it be a surprise to Babel or Defoe if I joined them, when the time comes?”

  I shrug. “No, they’d expect it.”

  “Good,” Longwei says. “They will make war. I’m certain. So I will join them when it begins. It’s easier to kill something the closer you are to it. Just remember this conversation. If the time comes, I will go with them. I will lie to them. But you will know the truth.”

  Longwei is trusting me with his secrets. It makes me uncomfortable. Not because I have someone’s secret to keep, but because someone thinks to trust me at all.

  “Why me?”

  Longwei looks at me. “You are a man of honor.”

  His words humble me. “What will you do? Once you’re with them?”

  Longwei’s eyes narrow seriously. “I will blow things up from the inside.”

  Longwei walks with a new confidence now. It’s not the cocky pride he had on Genesis 11. It’s more of an assurance, a destiny. I walk beside him and feel the same thing. When the time comes, we know who our enemies are. We’re not helpless, either, because Babel gave us tools to fight with. They made us into weapons. It will be their downfall.

  It takes a while to gather the entire crew back in the main reception area, but by the time we’re all walking down the stairs, our chosen guests have already arrived. Axis finds me in the crowd. He didn’t look noticeably dirty before, but a shower’s still done him some favors. He’s even combed his thinning hair stylishly to one side.

  “Genesis,” he says in greeting. “Good to see you again.”

  I nod back to him. “Emmett. My name is Emmett.”

  “A good name,” he says. “A strong name.”

  “Thanks. The escorts said something about a famous chef. Do you know who it is?”

  Axis looks offended. “Scarving! Only the best chef in Sevenset. And a better soul than he is a cook too. Every month he holds lotteries. No charge to enter, just the effort of putting your name in the selection. The chosen eat at his restaurant free of charge. Even if he’s busy hosting the wealthiest in Sevenset, he makes time for us too. He’s not one to stand on ceremony.”

  Axis nods in the direction of Thesis. I can’t help laughing. I know it’s not right to forget how they’ve treated us so far. Speaker, especially, has risked his life to protect us. But for tonight? I’ll celebrate Axis and my lowly friends. I’ll celebrate the Sixth.

  “So you’ve eaten at Scarving’s before?” I ask Axis.

  “No, I haven’t,” he answers. “Never won the lottery. What you did, that’s the only time I’ve ever felt like I’ve won anything. Thank you again for helping me.”

  “It’s nothing. I was glad to do it.”

  The escorts lead us to a square building with an open-air entryway. A light breeze follows us into the wood-smoked interior. Everything is dark engravings and thick stones. Chairs gather around a circular table so that it looks like the whole restaurant consists of campfires. Unfamiliar, enticing smells rush forward before we’re three steps inside. Axis doesn’t bother with manners. He inhales, rubs his belly, and nudges me with an excited elbow.

  Our escorts keep their promises. What we receive, our guests receive too. But Thesis sends the guests to their own table, asking that we sit around the one at the center of the room. The escorts take a table to our right. They’ve honored our request, but still refuse to soil their reputations in the process. Axis doesn’t seem to notice as he clasps my forearm and pulls me close. “Tonight, I am the richest of men.”

  He grins and follows the other guests. Our table’s a massive circle of tiered stones, centered around an empty pit. Longwei sticks to my side, and I end up with Alex on my other.

  I’m reminded that Alex is missing the one person he actually wants to sit with. He smiles politely but looks tired, like sleep has been more fight than rest these days. It’s not hard to see how worried he is about Anton. We have no idea what’s happening up in space, which only makes things worse. As we take our seats, I make a silent promise to pull him aside at some point and talk to him. He’s my blood brother too, a kinship Babel forced on us.

  Morning sees that the spots beside me are taken and snags the seat directly across from me. One wink from her has me grinning like a fool. The table’s unlike any I’ve ever seen. Tiered and sleek. There’s a thin outer layer of stone right against our stomachs. It can’t be for anything but elbows. The second cut of stone rises a few centimeters and is about the length of my forearm. A third stretches to the center, running off the circular cliff cut out of the middle of the stones. We’re glancing around when a man steps out of thin air, head and shoulders the only thing visible within the pit.

  “Welcome to Scarving’s,” he says. “I, of course, am Scarving.”

  Unlike most Imago, he’s completely bald. His head is shaved and wide, accented by a series of tattoos under his neck. A slash of heat rises, and we watch a flickering red fill the circle around him. “I’ve been informed,” Scarving continues, “that you are accustomed to ordering food at the restaurants you visit on Earth. Government secrets, I know, but I am a man who knows things. So I’ve taken the liberty of printing menus. Please, take a look.”

  A trio of servants whips around the table, dropping off miniature menus. But the slightest touch shatters them. Thousands of little crystals dance across the tables in front of us, glittering under the bright. Azima trails a finger through and gives it a taste.

  “It’s like sugar,” she says, delighted.

  “Apologies!” Scarving exclaims. “I suppos
e you’ll just have to eat whatever I make you. I am not like your cooks back home, I’m afraid. They ask what you want, take your order, and make it. Not here, not at Scarving’s. That is not art. Art is making what you feel and giving it to the audience as it is. So tonight, I will make art. Be my witnesses.”

  With a smile, he begins. I can hear pots banging and knives sharpening. Light leaps and slashes over his face. He spins and turns, dancing around stovetops we can’t see.

  “I like to think of this first dish as an invitation.”

  Smoke has started to drift up. He leans to the left and presses something, and we hear a suction sound. The smoke vanishes, and he continues to work. Turning and talking.

  “I’m a stranger to you, but a meal is an invitation, isn’t it?” He looks up briefly and smiles. “Are you willing to let me lead you into the tastes of our world?”

  He snatches a towel, wipes away sweat, and shoulders it. We watch as he plunks down little saucers and spoons for each of us. He flips another switch inside the walls of his pit, and the stone tables grind to life. The third tier rotates forward as the second rotates beneath it and away. We all lean in to get a look, and end up laughing. Inside the fist-sized saucers, there’s nothing but smoke. It hovers there, hiding what’s beneath.

  “Our first test.” Scarving claps his hands excitedly. “Do you trust me?”

  Alex pokes at his. Longwei spoons down into the saucer and lifts up, hoping to remove whatever is inside from the smoke. That doesn’t work. The mist follows, gathering around the spoon, keeping its secrets. We all smile, and Longwei shrugs, then takes a bite.

  His eyes close like the world’s just ended. He hammers a fist against the table.

  “Wow,” he finally says. “Wow.”

  Laughing, we follow his lead. Scarving salutes Longwei’s service, and we all decide to trust him for the rest of our lives. It tastes like a strawberry, filled with some kind of cream and dipped into some sort of hardened caramel.

  “Very good,” Scarving says. “Two points to my friend over here. He’s in the lead.”

  Longwei nods his approval at being in first place. We watch the chef move like a storm within the pit. The work of his hands isn’t in our line of sight, but he twists and turns and dances, describing the next dish while he prepares it.

  “I love to make choices,” he says. “I like to think that every choice depends on the choice before it. And even the choices of others. Our next dish will force you to make difficult choices.”

  He spins to face me. It’s startling, the gray of his eyes and the directness of his stare.

  “I was in the square today,” he says quietly. “I saw what you did.”

  Heat creeps up my neck. A few eyes flicker over to the table of Imago guests. They’re starting courses, laughing like we are. Scarving angles his body to lift a massive block of wood up and out. He sets it down and rotates the stone tiers so the whole thing sits in front of me. There are countless little dishes sitting on the wooden block. Smoked meats, fine cheeses, and seasoned slices of fruits and vegetables I’ve never seen. The smells race upward.

  “As a gesture of my gratitude,” he says, “I give you my highest honor. You may begin the game.” He points down the rows. “Spicy, salted, sweet, and bitter. Enjoy!”

  I eye the offering and end up picking the thing that most looks like bacon. Grinning, I hold it up so the others can see what they’re missing out on. Then I dig in. The meat’s crunchier than bacon, with hints of something sweet in the aftertaste.

  Before I finish chewing, Scarving hits a switch, and the second stone tier begins rotating to the left. Alex startles as the tray of food heads his direction.

  “The rest of you have to think on your feet,” Scarving explains. “Pick one and only one! If someone chooses the food you had your eye on, you absolutely must say, ‘I wanted that!’ ”

  Alex plucks up a thin-stringed vegetable and takes a bite.

  Jazzy makes a face. “Well, I definitely didn’t want that.”

  The table goes round and round, and the wooden block slowly empties with each revolution. Azima’s the first one to try the spicy food. A waiter knowingly rushes forward, setting a cup beside her and pouring some kind of milky water. Azima gulps it down and grins.

  “Tastes like home,” she says.

  I notice that Morning always goes for bitter and Holly only eats meat. Parvin becomes the token sufferer in the game, struggling to make her choice when Jaime picks the food she wanted three times in a row. We each get four bites before the game comes to a close.

  By then, Scarving’s got the next dish ready. Waiters set a pile of black flame-lashed rocks in front of each of us. We’re told not to touch them until the end of the meal. The next dish is seared, with strange crablike claws thrusting up out of the meat. Longwei’s actually snaps at him when he gets too close with his spoon.

  Then there are vegetable trays paired with little translucent balloons. Scarving instructs us to set them over our plates and pop them. Something like helium has us laughing and singing songs in absurd voices. When the balloons run out of air, they pop and splash down over the vegetables. My vanquished balloon tastes like barbeque sauce. Scarving laughs and cooks the whole time, answering questions and making conversation as he creates ten, then twenty, then forty different dishes. Somehow I never feel too full.

  Every new dish is no more than a taste, no less than perfect. At the end of the meal, we’re each given a pair of tongs and a wooden straw. The flame-lashed rocks have sat to the side all evening, burning and flickering. Scarving has us lift the top rock.

  “Now you’ll take the straw and suck in the smoke,” he says. “But slowly.”

  Using tongs, we set the charred hunk to one side. Smoke pools in the empty space, and we all feel a little foolish as we set the ends of our straws in the ring and breathe. Something like mint floods and burns through our mouths. I cough a little, then turn to pat Longwei on the back as he nearly chokes. It feels like I’ve been chewing thirty pieces of gum.

  “Refreshing, yes?” Scarving asks. “It makes the canvas blank again.”

  He’s right. I can’t taste a thing. We all sip at the minty smoke, and Parvin raises a few eyebrows with a joke about getting high. Scarving inquires what she means and looks horrified at the suggestion. “I’m a purist,” he claims. “I want you tasting more, not less.”

  After, Scarving turns to each person and asks their name. He’s kind and serious. He repeats each name like he’s engraving it into a tree inside his head. He asks favorite dishes, notes what worked and what didn’t, nods his thanks. I’m the last one he speaks with.

  “And you?” he asks.

  “My name’s Emmett.”

  Scarving smiles. “And what was your favorite dish?”

  “I liked the balloons,” I say. “Never seen anything like that.”

  “Good,” Scarving replies. “And let me thank you again. It has long been the practice of my restaurant to ignore the rings. I do not care where one comes from, so long as they have a stomach for my food. Everyone deserves to eat, to taste the best thing this world can offer.”

  At the other tables, meals are still being served. I catch sight of Axis, and he raises his cup in salute. I raise mine in return. On our other side, Thesis has a piece of skewered meat held up for Bally’s inspection. The two of them laugh together. I look back at Scarving.

  “You see? It gives me hope,” Scarving says. “Food can give a man back his dignity. So can treating him with honor and respect. In the days to come, this will be our measure. Do we treat others with the dignity they deserve, regardless of where they come from? It will surprise our people to learn lessons from one as young as you, but keep teaching them, so long as you are here.”

  I walk back to our rooms beside Axis and Morning. I keep looking down as we go, because it feels like
I’m floating, like my feet are lifting off the ground. I’ve shrugged off some burden I can’t name. Morning hooks her arm into mine, and I forget where we are and why we’re here, if only for a night.

  My dark is broken by the fine golden edges of a distant square. The color gold always briefly summons Alex’s face to mind. The long curls, the easy smile. I have not prayed for him up here in space, but I have threatened whichever gods are listening.

  Keep him safe, or I will come for you too.

  My vision settles. I glance down at the watch on my wrist. Vandemeer is late. Hands scratch and scrape. There’s a soft curse, then a click. The panel swivels, and light floods into the dark. A narrow face waits there, backlit.

  “Anton?” Vandemeer whispers. “Are you there?”

  I made contact three days ago. I’m glad Emmett spoke up about him; otherwise the mission would have been far more difficult. Our entire plan depended on my main contact, Melissa Aguilar. We hadn’t touched base with her since she handed Morning the sound clip of Requin, right before we launched.

  She managed to get herself promoted, though. I searched the ship logs to get a read on her maintenance routes before realizing she’d been pulled up to the executive communication team. Right next to Requin. That kind of proximity made her an impossible contact. Enter Vandemeer.

  I tap my knife twice on the nearest tube. The sound echoes. I wait in the dark for him to tap back. Five seconds, ten seconds. Three taps sound. It’s clear, then. I let myself drift over to the light. “Vandemeer. Good to see you again.”

  His face is a shadow. “Hello, Anton.”

  Careful to avoid the exposed wires, he shoves two sacks through the gap in the detached panels. I tuck them into the straps of my suit. Vandemeer looks nervous, as always.

  “Is it in here?” I ask.

  “The identification card came from one of the lead pilots. Sorry it took so long. I needed to figure out which one of them was the most careless with their things. They’re all pretty savvy, though, Anton. He’ll notice it’s gone before long. Why do you need it?”