by Zamil Akhtar
Back in the wedding hall, Kav gazed at the double-doors that led outside. He pinged time service. 20:15. Might as well get to the station early. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to kill the only hope I have.
His legs took him to the door, away from the sheikh, the festivity, the blushing bride and her groom, and all the overjoyed faces.
Outside, the plaza was empty of people. There was peace in the breeze and silent sky.
“Kav, you done?” A girl’s voice.
He turned around. There was Saina, up on some balcony. Against her chest, slept little Emmi.
“Yeah, I’d better go catch my train. Why aren’t you inside?”
She started down the balcony steps. “Crowds aren’t my thing. So, did you talk to the sheikh?”
Saina had a dress on to match her eyes — glazed red, patterned with gold flowers. A red-gold shawl wrapped around her neck and shoulders.
“Yeah, obviously wasn’t her. Stupid of me to even think it.”
“Actually, I saw him before he came in. So I asked him too, just in case. I guess if she died seventeen years ago, and was his teacher, she couldn’t be the one.”
See, I knew it. Layla has to be alive, that was her I saw onboard the 409. I have to head to SADB. “Oh? Another thing I owe you for.”
She shook her head. “You owe me nothing.”
“Chickies!” The little girl was awake. She pointed at something over Saina’s shoulder.
Around one of the fountains in the plaza, waterbird chicks fluttered about. The size of grown chickens, their yellow feathers seemed to be steaming.
Saina swung around to look at them. “Oh, how cute!”
But why was steam sizzling off their feathers? Well, it was a swelter of a day.
“They must be hot, in this weather,” Kav said.
“Kav, listen. You wanna exchange frequencies? Just in case you’re ever in town, you should message me.”
It was a strange feeling, to exchange frequencies. He felt hers — it was red like her eyes, a warm red. His was green, deep and cold.
“Peace, Kav.”
“Peace.”
“Bye bye Mr. Kav,” little Emmi said.
Kav smiled as wide as he could and waved goodbye. She waved her little hand back.
By now, Kav was long gone and Emmi was energized. She ran around chasing waterbird chicks that had no hope against her. The one in her grip squawked and chirped for freedom. She cackled as she made it zoom through the fountain water.
Will I ever see him again?
Saina was surprised to find a Kav-sized hole in her heart. The forlorn boy had added excitement to her life. But more than that, she felt a tingling warmth about him that filled her chest and arms.
She shook it off. Now, it was time to take Emmi back inside, back to the festivities, back to the crowd.
“Come on Emmi, auntie Aliya definitely wants to see you.”
The girl seemed happy that someone wanted to see her. She splashed the chick down and ran into the hall ahead of Saina.
Saina followed her inside. Immediately, she noticed Nizan Uncle sitting at one of the tables, heaviness on his face. Just then, she received a message from him.
Girl, where are you? I need to talk to you.
She went to him. “Yes, Uncle?”
He took her to the side of the room.
“I knew we shouldn’t have left him,” he said. “Oh Nur.”
“What? What happened?”
“It’s your uncle, I’ve just heard from a messenger, he’s hit a fever...and he may go today.”
“Go today?”
“Nur may take him today.”
Oh Nur. The next breath barely came out of her lungs.
“We’ve got to head back,” Nizan Uncle said. “Don’t tell anyone here, okay? It’s not right to ruin their happiness, so let’s just go back. We’ll tell them later.”
“But Aliya should know. They were close.”
“Okay, tell her. I don’t know. You’re thinking clearer than me, so you do what you know to be best. But the last train down that way leaves in under an hour, so we’ve got to go. See him at least one more time.”
Uncle Fahmi. Oh Nur, no...
Jetting out the levtrack was air so hot Kav felt suffocated. How did these things work? About thirty feet across, this metal track somehow kept ships that hovered over it in the sky. Was it magnets or something?
The officer who interrogated Kav tapped his shoulder. “Your twicrys is standard military type, but the commander here says that’s not enough to grant you security clearance for the ride to SADB.”
“Oh, what else you need?” Kav asked.
The officer stood still to send a message. “Come with us.”
They took him to a room with a glass ceiling. The glass amplified the sunlight, making Kav dizzy.
Sweating, he loosened his neckline. “You have to keep it so hot in here?”
The officer motioned for him to sit on a bench. There was a raggedy man seated there. Had the guy showered in the past week? He smelt like fish, which Kav didn’t mind, so he settled next to him.
“May I please go now?” the fish-smelling man said.
“Keep quiet!” the commanding officer replied. His belly bulged out of an overly tight belt as he paced around the room, going through paperwork and talking with his subordinates.
Tired of staring at the CO’s belly, Kav turned to the fish-smelling man. “What you here for?”
The man was so still he seemed asleep, eyes half open. “I just wanted to see my brother who lives here in Qindsmar. I don’t have no money, so I snuck on a train. Of course, they caught me. It’s been three weeks and they won’t release me. Every day, they bring me in here so I can sit in the heat, without any water — to punish me.”
Kav wasn’t sure what to say. “Well, you shouldn’t have snuck on a train.”
“I just wanted to see my brother. I said I was sorry for that. I don’t want to die. If they don’t let me go, this heat will kill me.”
“These people are pigs,” Kav said, “but they ain’t that bad. They won’t let you die.”
The man slumped forward. “They will. They hate us Almarians. I didn’t do anything so bad. I don’t deserve this. My brother said he’d pay the ticket, but they won’t listen. Every day, they take me out and make me—”
“Shut the hell up!” the CO growled.
Kav wanted to say something on the man’s behalf, but what if that hurt his chances for “security clearance?”
The fish-smelling man stiffened and sulked. Of course, the Continental Army had been just as bad in Keldan. They abused the Keldanese all the time. Minor offenses were punished with severe beatings, and sometimes even death.
Kav rose from his seat. “You lot are all the same!”
The CO and his subordinates stopped what they were doing. “You got something to say?”
“How will we ever defeat the Haemians with people like you fighting on our fronts? Monsters who take joy in causing unneeded suffering.”
“Oh? The fish thinks we Shirmians are monsters?” The CO smirked. “Isn’t it your people who’re killing each other every day, unable to tie a string together without wanting to off the other?”
“That’s because you Shirmas, who can’t conduct for your lives, sit around and fatten your asses while stealing twicrys from our oceans.”
The CO wiped sweat off his face and took a drink from a canteen of water. The water went down his throat in huge gulp-gulp-gulps.
“Hahahah! Sit your ass down. You sound just like your terrorist friends, who are so scared to fight us, they attack schools instead.” The CO bellowed a laugh; his subordinates laughed with him. It became a room of laughter.
“You all are clowns,” Kav said, “straight up clowns.”
“Security is security. Wait your turn, or I’ll throw you in a cell, and you can rot in there. A rotten fish!”
More laughs. Behind it all, Kav heard the shriek of a levship c
oming to a halt.
“Oh! It seems the ship has arrived. Now, my fish friend, as soon as we perform the security checks that protect this wonderful city, we’ll deal with you. A promise is a promise!”
More laughter. In Keldan, the Continental soldiers would never laugh or smile. Perhaps it was because Keldan was a place of fear, where they died in droves against the might of rebellion, against militant groups that could actually stand up to them. Like Sons of the Deep.
The room was emptied except for Kav and the fish-smelling man. Something had changed; he noticed he was no longer feeling hot.
The fish-smelling man gazed through the glass panel, eyes and mouth gaping.
“What is it?” Kav peered through the glass. It was just the sky. There was no sun.
The man looked like his sockets would explode. “The sun is gone!”
And then everything went dark. Kav rubbed his eyes. “Did they cap the glass to lock us in?”
The fish-smelling man panted. “No! Something has devoured the sun!”
Noise erupted. Running, gasps, and shouts came from outside. Kav tried to remember how to get to the door in this darkness. He stumbled, banging onto the tiled floor.
“The sun has been eaten!” the fish-smelling man said. “Oh Nur, the sun has been eaten!”
“Calm down, we need to—”
Something appeared. Light. Kav looked through the glass. There was a pattern of light. He focused his eyes. It looked like a million fireflies swimming through the sky.
“The Haemians have come for us! The Haemians have come for us!
“Dammit, stop shouting!”
The clamor became ferocious. The same cacophony from Kerb, from that day, played outside. He heard charges set off in the air and the screeching of conduction. Cannon shots. Shouts. Air booms.
Get a grip — I have to get out of here.
And then he heard something he hadn’t ever before. A numbing shriek scathed his ears, like the cry of a nightmare.
With the light left in his twicrys, Kav made his aperture glow enough to see, ran for the door, opened it, then turned around to see the fish-smelling man. In the bare light, he stared silently at the sky.
“You coming?” Kav asked.
He just stared.
Outside, the world had changed. There was nothing recognizable in the pale of the fireflies. Kav couldn’t help but stare, awed by how they covered the sky. Above them, there was the outline of a massive vessel. Could it be the Haemian ship that attacked Ekrah?
No time to think. Kav headed toward a CA levship that hovered above a levtrack, and watched as his comrades of the Continental Army scurried around. A howl and a fissure of light — the levship’s cannon fired at the massive vessel.
And then fire covered Kav’s vision as a tremor roared in his ears. The force pushed him to the ground. Smoked scourged his lungs. He coughed it out and looked ahead.
The nose of the CA levship lay on fire, soldiers on the ground next to it. Some writhed, others were still.
“Am I dreaming? What time is it?”
Kav sat there, weary. He looked at the heavens and saw what he had seen in Kerb, four years ago. The fireflies formed a swirl of light, like the halo of an angel. Could the ship be creating Ouroborus, the same energy pattern that destroyed Kerb and Elkaria?
A message hit his mind.
Kav...help.
The frequency was red, Saina’s red. He replied.
I’m coming. I won’t let it happen again.
CHAPTER 5
DETOX
TRANSCRIPT 0122 BETWEEN MESSENGER 01 and PILOT 01
Merv: Just a little longer, Zauri, and you’ll get through this.
Zauri: If you say so.
Merv: I know this is hard for you, but it’ll be over soon. How’s your balance?
Zauri: Good.
Merv: Does it hurt anywhere?
Zauri: It hurts everywhere.
Merv: After this, we’ll disconnect you and have the doctors take a look.
Zauri: This...this isn’t my will.
Merv: No, it’s mine. If ever we’re to be judged for this, I will take responsibility. Don’t forget that. Now, don’t stop until this ant hill is gone.
When his levship touched down at the South Almaria Deployment Base, Shar was busy eating the last cinnamon bun he’d bought from the bakery in Kostany. Sugary and wet, the treat was filled with icing and made with pride. So sad it was the last one.
He exited the ship and found himself under the sky on an elevated landing track. In front was a bridge that ascended to the unloading terminal. One of the aides carried his luggage, a big Shirmian man who held a suitcase in each hand. Shar continued to munch on the cinnamon bun, bit by bit, to savor his last taste of Devshirme for a while.
“Damn it’s a nice day, right?”
The aide nodded.
Shar took it slow up the bridge, nibbling and dissolving cinnamon on his tongue. From up here, SADB seemed a sad place. This was a backwater base, with old equipment, filled with loafers who wanted to avoid the Haemian front.
So what? Complete the mission, get the damn thing done, and get out. Leaving was already on Shar’s mind, as he filled his mouth with luscious sweet bread, layered with icing and love. Which he almost choked on, once he got to the top of the bridge and looked at the southern sky.
A ship that resembled a whale hovered under the sun. Beneath it was the halo of an angel.
“You see that?” Shar asked.
The aide lugged the suitcases. “See what?” He paused to brush sweat off his forehead and looked up.
“Well?”
He just stared and blinked.
“Have I lost my wits?” Shar said. “Do you see it or not?”
The man dropped both suitcases and ran down the bridge, like a sprinter surging to the finish line. He jumped into the levship, which would probably fly away in the next few seconds, as far from here as possible.
Shar took another bite of the cinnamon bun. So soft, like biting sweet air and water. There was a good bit left, they were big buns. He threw the rest off the bridge for a lucky dog.
“Let’s find the Magus then.”
Magus Asha sat behind a desk, in a luxurious office, reading an oversized book. The book simply floated in the air in front of it. It had been years since Shar had seen Magus Asha, and the strangeness of its form struck him. This Magus was made of air, or shadow, or smoke — something barely there. It was a body of darkness, wearing a blue mask, and it paid no attention to Shar as he strode in.
Always with the games. “That thing in the sky, is that you guys or the Haemians?”
When Asha moved to face Shar, no part of it budged. Instead it reformed in a different position.
“Them,” it said.
The only things real on it were eyeless sockets, on a mask made of porcelain.
“You’re sitting here reading, while the Haemian ship coasts and surfs through the sky?”
“A trifle,” The Magus said, “the Ouroborus will clear away tens of thousands of souls to make way for the birth of new ones.”
“Trifle? Qindsmar will burn!”
“And? The CA stations are being evacuated. You should see General Mehr if you’re interested. We can’t bother with civilians, since no one knows when the Ouroborus will burst.”
Shar wanted to throw the oversized book at the wall. But to go near a Magus like that? A no-no.
“So,” Shar said, “you’re gonna sit here, read your Nur-knows-what book, while a city gets wiped off Eden?”
“Yes. Why do you care? You’ve changed since the Dahma incident, Shar.”
The Magus wasn’t even sitting. It hovered on the chair; there was clearly daylight between its body and the seat cushion.
It looked at him without eyes, just sockets in a mask. “So, how was prison?”
“Better than this shit.” Shar scratched the back of his scalp. The itch seemed insatiable. Stubborn. One of those itches that could go on forever.
Kav could barely see, it was so bright. The sun, eclipsed, did not look down from heaven. In its place, a ring of furious light went round and round — beneath the presence of that massive vessel.
I’m coming.
Saina was here. Somewhere. Spectrum showed her as a red light, burning. The reddest thing in the world.
To find her, Kav ran down stairs to the train platform. Stumbling down the final stair step, he noticed three familiar people standing next to a train: Saina, Aliya, Nizan. He ran to them.
“Get on the train, everyone,” he said.
Nizan was on the ground; Aliya and Saina held his arms.
“He’s...not moving,” Saina said.
“Pick him up, get on the train. Now!”
Torrents of people were packing into the train.
“Our family, the children, we need them too. We need to find them and bring them here.” Saina stepped back. Then she ran away, up the stairs.
“Saina! You won’t make it back! Shit.”
Aliya trembled silently while holding Nizan’s arm.
“Drag him on there, before it gets full,” Kav said to her. “Before it leaves, go!”
She pulled Nizan. His limp body scraped the ground. She squeezed into the train, dragging him, and got in somehow.
Kav wondered: what to do? Get on the train, or find the girl who ran away? Why find her? Known her for a few days, so why risk it all?
He checked spectrum. Saina’s red wind flew away, to death under the ring of light. His feet knew what to do before he did. They moved after her.
Up the stairs, buildings were on fire. His eyes filled with smoke. It blew into his nose, into his mouth, into his throat. He ran down a street, under a broken bridge, onto burnt mud. Hellfire surrounded him as the fire spread. He messaged her.
Get the hell back here. The light’s gonna burn everything!
No response. On the spectrum map, her breeze stopped, frozen two-hundred or so yards north by northwest. Kav ran toward her, keeping clear of the now boiling river.
What was once a park was now a meadow of flaming trees. Saina was on the ground. But she breathed, her hair bloodied. Kav picked her up and held her against his chest. Time to go back to the train. If there was one.