by Natasha Ngan
Akhezo hesitated. ‘I don’t think –’
‘Chicken,’ sneered Neve.
Without another word, she climbed over the railing and jumped. She landed on the ledge that ringed the deck, clinging to its railing, then pulled herself up and over it. She turned, waving to Akhezo.
‘You annoying little …’ He scrambled over the railing. Just as he was about to jump, a sudden memory flashed into his mind; cold water swallowing him, flooding his lungs. Gritting his teeth, he pushed the memory away and jumped. There was a moment of rushing air before his body slammed into the side of the ferry. Pain jolted through him at the impact. He dropped for a second before his fingers – arms raised above his head – caught the ledge. Hands clasped his, steadying him.
‘Thanks,’ Akhezo said gruffly once he’d climbed over the railing onto the deck.
Neve winked. ‘No problem. Though I think you did it on purpose just to feel my hands on you again. Joking!’ she added quickly, dancing out of reach of his fist, her laughter tinkling in the air.
The ferry took an hour to reach its stop outside the Council District. As they disembarked, Akhezo was sniggering at something Neve had said, but he quickly fell silent as he took in the view.
They were on the outer side of the river’s Inner Circle, looking across at a geometric landscape; wide, straight boulevards set down in troughs between sparse gardens of rocks and stern-looking trees, and glassy black buildings that looked wet in the misty light. The whole place screamed of expense and luxury. Akhezo’s stomach tightened excitedly. Soon, he thought, that’s gonna be ours.
He began walking along the riverside, scanning the edge of the Council District for a way in where they could avoid the guards standing at the end of each bridge. He was so distracted watching them that he walked straight into a figure coming the other way.
‘Watch it!’ hissed the woman he’d bumped into, pushing him off her roughly.
Akhezo’s jaw fell open. The woman was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen in his life. Her green irises were so bright they didn’t look as though they could be real, and her lips were coated in a slick of red that matched her hair. A feathery cape fluttered around her in the wind.
The woman’s lip curled. She grabbed the collar of his top and yanked him towards her. ‘What business could a boy like you possibly have in the Council District?’
Akhezo felt his cheeks colour. Her sweet perfume was making him giddy. ‘I’m here to look for someone who works here, miss,’ he mumbled. ‘Maybe you know him? He’s got this shaved head, like an egg –’
‘A shaved-head?’ the woman said sharply, her eyes narrowed. ‘Was he skinny? Dark-eyed?’
Akhezo nodded. ‘Shifty, too. Eyes always looking round.’
The woman smiled. White teeth flashed between red lips. ‘It turns out I do know who you mean,’ she said, brushing down Akhezo’s top and pinching his cheek. ‘Why don’t you and I go for a nice sweet treat? We can discuss your friend there. On me, of course.’
‘Yes, miss,’ he said breathlessly. He looked round at Neve. ‘My friend’s here too. Can she come?’
‘Of course!’ Still smiling, she motioned to Neve to join them, then took one of their hands each in hers and started forward, walking towards a nearby rickshaw stand. ‘Now, enough of this “miss” nonsense. You are both to call me Ember, understood?’
‘Yes, Ember,’ they sang in unison.
‘Good.’ She gripped their hands tightly in hers, her long black fingernails digging into their skin. ‘We are all friends now. I wouldn’t want you to feel like you couldn’t tell me everything.’
30
Iarassi
The assassin stood in front of Silver, grinning, blood on the tips of his teeth.
She was back in Neo-Babel, on the balcony in Pantheon Square. Her hair had come free of her ponytail and it whipped round her face, stinging where it flicked against her skin. The wind moaned, rushing through the buildings that stood nearby, their windows broken and their insides emptied, like those of the ghost city where the assassin and his guards had captured Silver and Butterfly.
‘I’m not afraid to shoot you this time!’ shouted Silver.
The assassin didn’t say anything. His grin was wide, his mouth black and deep, like a knife slashed through the night sky.
‘I will shoot you!’ She tried to raise her gun but her body wouldn’t move.
The wind moaned louder. Without taking his eyes off her, the assassin lifted up his arm, pointing it towards the stage across the square, and pulled the trigger.
Silver screamed.
There was the sound and smell of a gunshot, Tanaka’s head bursting open, both impossibly close and far away at the same time, and the assassin’s grin widening, his eyes turning into dark pools of blood, his gaping black mouth forming the word –
‘BOO.’
Silver jerked awake. She winced instantly at the movement, rubbing a hand over the back of her head, which was heavy with a dull ache. The pain threaded itself beneath her eyelids, making it hurt when she looked round, taking in her new surroundings.
She was in a small room, just large enough for the narrow bed she was lying on and the wardrobe against the opposite wall. Butterfly slumped against the bed by her head. He was fast asleep. From outside the room came loud noises; shouts and yells, running footsteps, metallic screeches and crashes and thuds. This can’t be the ghost city, Silver thought. Ghosts are not nearly this noisy.
She reached down and squeezed Butterfly’s shoulder. He woke with a start, a cry strangled in his throat.
‘Hey,’ she said. ‘It’s just me.’
He relaxed. ‘Silver, you’re not going to believe –’
‘Where’s the assassin?’ she interrupted. She pushed herself up and threw off the blanket that covered her. ‘I’m going to do what I should’ve done the day of the parade.’
Butterfly stood up quickly and pushed her back down on the bed. He brushed the hair from her face. ‘You’re not going to want to do that.’
‘He started it all,’ Silver hissed. ‘If he hadn’t killed Tanaka, none of this would have happened!’
Butterfly shook his head. ‘There’s something you need to know, Silver. The assassin – there was a reason he seemed familiar to you.’
She stared at Butterfly, breathing hard. ‘What do you mean?’
But just as he opened his mouth to explain, the door to the room swung open.
‘Hello.’ The assassin stepped into the room, grinning.
Without a second’s hesitation, Silver launched herself at him, but Butterfly grabbed her round the waist, holding her back.
‘Get off me!’ she snarled, struggling against his grip.
Butterfly held her tighter. ‘Just let him explain –’
‘Let me go!’
‘He’s your brother, Silver!’
At Butterfly’s words, she fell still. She felt rigid with shock. The whole room seemed to shrink, spinning closer and tighter until it was just her and the assassin – her and her brother – staring at each other with questions in their eyes, just as they had done that day on the balcony above Pantheon Square.
‘Joza,’ Silver whispered.
His grin widened. ‘You remember.’
She did remember her brother, but she wished she didn’t. She breathed in deeply, unable to stop the furious red that was charging through her. She felt as though she was back at the balcony of Hemmingway House, watching in horror as Tanaka’s head burst open. Joza looked almost identical to how he’d looked that day; brown factory-worker clothes, stubble across his chin. Bright brown eyes that stirred half-forgotten memories deep inside her. She felt sick at the sight of him.
‘I’ll wait outside,’ Butterfly said, touching her shoulder. He leant in closer and added quietly, ‘Please listen to what he has to say.’
‘I’ll try,’ Silver replied through gritted teeth.
When Butterfly had gone, Joza sauntered over to the bed, but after a shar
p glance from Silver seemed to think better of it and backed away, leaning against the wardrobe. He fiddled with his fingers. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Not quite the sibling reunion I was expecting, I’ve got to admit.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘What were you expecting? You left us when I was three years old. You never got in touch with Mum or Dad again. Oh – and then you shot the president right in front of me.’
The grin fell off Joza’s face. ‘If you want an apology for that, you’re not getting one. But I had reasons for the other things. Leaving you all.’
‘Let’s hear them, then.’
Doing a quick mental calculation, Silver realised that Joza must be thirty now. What excuse could he possibly have for abandoning his family for so many years? She’d promised herself never to think of him again. As she was so young when he’d left, she’d managed to convince herself that her faint memories of an older boy hugging her and playing with her in her parents’ apartment were just dreams. Echoes of a life she’d never had.
‘Did our parents tell you much about me?’ Joza asked.
She shook her head.
‘Then how do you know –’
‘Who you are? When I was young, I had memories about you, so I asked Mum and Dad what’d happened. They didn’t want to lie, so they explained it all. I know that you left and never came back. But they never said why you left, or where you went.’
Joza nodded. ‘They didn’t know that themselves until the night I arrived at Zhangdong Street and forced them to leave Neo with me.’
‘It was … it was you?’ Silver gasped. ‘Wait. Where are they now? Are they here?’ Her heart was racing. This was what she’d been waiting for all this time; to see her parents again, to hold them in her arms. To know that they were safe.
‘It was me,’ Joza said. ‘And they were here. But I’m afraid they went to a settlement to the east yesterday morning with a team of Ghosts to recruit some last-minute help. You won’t be able to see them for a while.’
The relief that Silver had felt disappeared, leaving her cold. ‘So instead I get you?’ She laughed harshly. ‘What a consolation prize.’
He glanced away, his shoulders stiff. ‘Can we walk? It’s easier to explain if you can see …’
‘Fine.’ She got off the bed and moved to the doorway. ‘But this had better be good.’
‘Oh, it is,’ Joza said, grinning again.
Outside the room, Butterfly was leaning against a railing. He turned as he heard the door open. ‘Did Joza explain it to you?’ he asked Silver.
‘Not yet,’ answered Joza before she could reply. He nodded towards the railing. ‘I wanted her to see this first. Thought it’d make her a little less … resistant.’
Silver didn’t say anything; she was too distracted by the view. As she joined Butterfly at the railing, she could see they were standing on a ledge lining the side of a huge hall four storeys high. Every inch of the hall’s floor was hidden beneath people and machines. She was reminded instantly of the central cavern of the Limpets, or even the Stacks, with the balconies running along every level, looking out into the building’s hollow centre. But unlike the Limpets, this place was well-built and organised, and unlike the Stacks, there were no walkways criss-crossing the space. The noise from the hall was tremendous. The whole place buzzed with activity.
Silver turned to her brother. ‘Where are we?’
‘One of the buildings at the centre of Iarassi.’
‘Ia-what?’
‘Iarassi – it’s what this city used to be called. But I can call it the ghost city if you’d prefer. Anyway, come on,’ Joza said, starting down the ledge. ‘I’ll show you around.’
31
The Truth
Joza led them down a flight of stairs to the main hall. He had to shout for Silver and Butterfly to hear him over all the noise as they followed close behind. ‘We hollowed out this building five years ago,’ he explained, gesturing round at the busy space. ‘The windows are blacked out, so from the outside it looks just as dead as the rest of the city, and we’re right in the centre of Iarassi, so it’s easy to spot anyone coming. Anyway, the few times Neo soldiers have come into the city, they haven’t even bothered venturing this deep. It’s a pretty perfect base for us.’
They weaved through the crowded floor, squeezing past a couple of trucks whose large wheels were being pumped. Silver was feeling disorientated by all the activity, the strange machines and equipment people were working on. She wondered what it was they were preparing for.
‘Who’s us?’ she asked.
‘Our anti-birthchip group,’ said Joza. ‘The nickname Ghosts has grown on us – we’re in the ghost city, after all. But really we should call ourselves the Pigeons. That’s the name of the group back in Neo we’re aligned with. We’ve been working with them for the last two years. It was thanks to them I got into the Council District to assassinate Tanaka.’
Silver stiffened at his words. ‘And what did you hope to gain from that?’
‘We needed the Council to be vulnerable. In a state of transition. He had to go to make way for a new regime.’
‘Which is?’
‘We don’t know yet,’ admitted Joza. ‘That’s for the new Council to decide, or whatever governing system comes into power. But what we do know is that it will be one without birthchips. Without walls. Without the destruction of other settlements. A free society. A new Neo.’
They were in the middle of the hall now. The noise pressed around Silver like a physical force, jostling her like the crowds of people moving past. They passed the base of a crane, its driver waving to Joza as they went. Silver felt a surge of anger. Joza seemed popular around here, but where had he been all her life?
‘So that’s what you’ve been doing all these years?’ she asked. ‘Preparing to take down the Council?’
Joza nodded. ‘Though really it started before I left. See, I worked for the Council too. But I discovered something. I was eighteen, and new to my role in the Department of Security. I overheard a senior Elite discussing something he referred to as a Purge, but when I enquired about it I was rebuffed by my colleagues. So, I cornered the senior Elite and asked him about it the next day. He didn’t tell me anything, but it seems he warned the Council about my enquiries, for I was quickly transferred to a different department.’
‘A similar thing happened to someone else,’ said Silver, thinking of Yasir. ‘And your father,’ she added, turning to Butterfly.
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Joza. ‘It’s difficult to keep secrets in a closed city. Anyway, after that I tried to get on with my work, but I just couldn’t forget about this Purge thing. So I started an investigation.’
‘Did you find out what it was? The Purge?’
He slowed and glanced round at them. His face was serious. ‘You and Butterfly experienced one for yourself.’
Silver’s chest tightened. Images flashed through her mind; water and fire, smoke clogging the air. Screams and cries and her own, animal wailing. The heat of the flames as she searched Yasir’s house. A body in Butterfly’s arms.
‘I left the city after finding out about them,’ Joza continued, talking over his shoulder as they walked. ‘It made me sick to think that settlements were outside, defenceless and unaware of what might happen to them. From inside Neo I’d not be able to do much for them, so I reckoned that outside the city I could form some sort of resistance to defend them.’
Silver felt guilty at her quick judgement of her brother. She was still angry at him for abandoning her family, but she heard the compassion in his voice as he spoke of helping the settlements in the Outside. If she was honest with herself, it sounded like something Butterfly would have done.
‘How did you protect them?’ she asked Joza, her voice a little softer now.
‘We had many strategies. Evacuating settlements, monitoring techniques – that sort of thing. We’d only resort to force when it was completely necessary to avoid the Council getting too suspicious. Tha
t’s how the Ghosts grew.’ He spread his arms wide, turning in a circle, grinning widely. ‘You know, I still remember when it was just me. Look at this. Look at this!’
They had reached the other end of the hall. There was a canteen on this side with an assortment of benches and tables, and smoke was unfurling from the cookers against the back wall. The smell of frying food made Silver’s stomach rumble, but she ignored it.
‘What you’ve said still doesn’t explain why you left us,’ she said. ‘You could’ve told Mum and Dad what you were doing.’
‘No, I couldn’t have,’ Joza sighed. ‘I didn’t want any of you to have to lie for me. And I didn’t want you to feel as though you needed to come with me and help too. Of course, if I’d known that you’d become an Elite under the very person who told the Council about my enquiries …’
Silver gasped. ‘That was Senior Surrey?’
He nodded.
‘But how does any of this relate to you taking Mum and Dad out of Neo just weeks ago?’ she asked. ‘This all happened years ago.’
‘I’d like to know that too,’ said Butterfly, who up until now had been silent. ‘You didn’t get round to telling me earlier.’
All of a sudden, Joza looked uncomfortable. He sat at an empty table at the edge of the canteen and motioned for them to join him. Silver took Butterfly’s hand under the table as they sat down. The feel of his skin against hers was the one constant she had now in her life. Everything else seemed to be changing too fast for her to keep up with.
‘Actually, Silver,’ said Joza tentatively, ‘I needed you to leave the city. I knew that you wouldn’t do that for anything less than helping our parents.’
She frowned. ‘You wanted me to leave Neo? Why?’
‘I have a favour to ask of you. And you too, if you’re willing,’ he added, glancing up at Butterfly. ‘See, I’ve been here in Iarassi with the Ghosts for the last five years, working towards this. Everything we did before – trying to stop the Purges, or minimise their damage. None of that was sustainable. This …’ He motioned around at the hall. ‘This is our chance to stop the Council completely. And I need your help to do it. I wouldn’t have dragged you out here and put you through all this unless it was absolutely necessary.’