The Last City

by Nina D'Aleo

  Her hands twitched, wanting to touch the walls, to delve into the memories of the house and extract the truth of this terrible night. The craving flared unbearably and she flipped back the cap of one of her gloves and reached out. A sudden feeling of being watched stopped her. Through the window, she saw that the trackers had gathered beside the front gate and the commander was looking in directly at her. Silho swallowed, shaken by the second close call that night.

  She hurried for the door and pushed out of the room into the parlour, now crowded with grey-uniformed forensic investigators. They swarmed around the body. A short, round man she took to be B.L. Jenkins stood barking orders. Mrs Parkingham and the Androt maids were gone, possibly taken by guardians to another room to give their statements. Silho reached the door as the yellow-eyed hologramographer was arriving. They brushed past each other muttering hello and goodbye. As she stepped out into the night’s warmer air, she also saw the human-breed guardian from the first scene standing by the door. They nodded at each other and she hurried back along the path towards her team. She glanced into the darkness of the garden, feeling eyes watching her.

  She reached the others as Jude was finishing a long-range body-heat sweep.

  ‘Nothing unusual,’ he said. ‘No one injured.’

  Silho forced herself to speak up. ‘There was a spot of, I think, blood on the windowsill in there.’

  ‘This?’ Jude asked, as SevenM brought up a hologram he’d taken of the window and the smudged Androt blood.

  Silho nodded, surprised that she hadn’t noticed him taking the shot earlier.

  ‘We have actually done this once or twice before,’ Diega smirked. ‘Unlike you.’

  ‘Actually, Diega, this scene is Silho’s second scene – so that’s twice. Why don’t you give it a rest, or people will start to think you’re jealous,’ Jude challenged.

  Diega’s eyes widened with shock and anger.

  ‘Alright, let’s move to a clearing and take off,’ the commander intervened. He stepped down onto the road and headed back the way they’d come.

  Silho and Eli both hurried after him, leaving Jude and Diega to follow. Even with distance between the two groups, the tension between the pair was palpable. Silho felt grateful to Jude for standing up for her, but couldn’t help but wonder why. Was it just because he was a nice guy or did he want more from her? During the year-cycles of military training, she’d managed to keep to herself, but with the tracker team being so small and tight-knit it would be difficult to remain distant. She had to talk to them and let them into her life to a certain extent, otherwise they might become suspicious, but she could never let them get too close. The fact that Jude seemed so genuine and caring wouldn’t make keeping him away any easier. And then there was the commander. How was she going to keep up her front when he left her permanently stammering and blushing, torn between hoping he was looking at her and desperately trying to avoid those eyes? The pounding in her head intensified, and she only just stopped herself from grabbing at the pain.

  Fortunately, Eli again provided a distraction. He took a frame from his pocket and activated the holo-screen inside it. It displayed a still hologram of four Androts. Three of them Silho recognised as the maids from the house, the one that had showed them in and the two from the parlour; the fourth was an unknown machine-breed man.

  ‘Ada, Joy, Zoe and Kry,’ Eli read from the near-invisible tag on the side of the hologram. ‘I swiped this from the room.’

  The commander took it from him and held it up to his face.

  ‘The missing Androt’s barcode is 939993,’ he said, sounding as though he were committing it to memory. He handed the picture back to Eli. ‘Run a face and barcode search on it when we get back to Headquarters,’ he instructed. ‘See if we get any hits on this Kry.’

  Eli’s stomach gurgled and growled. ‘I suppose there’s no chance of a break?’ He looked up hopefully at Copernicus. ‘The brain does function better with regular rests.’

  The commander considered it then conceded, ‘A short break.’

  Eli grinned and skipped. Silho looked back over her shoulder. Diega and Jude were still trailing behind exchanging brief, angry words. Behind them the shadows of the trees stretched across the streets and, within their twisted darkness, a silhouetted form stood watching. Silho’s senses jolted. For a moment she thought it was a Midnight Man, one of the most dangerous types of spectral-breed, but when she blinked, the form vanished. Unable to trust her own eyes, she turned away and said nothing.

  6

  Everything about this man disturbed her. His bleached white shirt and off-centre bow tie, clean hands with dirty nails, encouraging smile, uninterested eyes. How could she trust a walking contradiction?

  ‘What are your thoughts, Ms Keets?’ The man leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped in front of him. Ev’r studied his pose, weighed and judged the alignment of his limbs and found it counterfeit – not a true gesture of professional concern, but an imitation of learned behaviour. This is how you act when you’re a doctor.

  ‘On what?’ Ev’r replied. The chains constricting her body were attached to the magnetised table, holding her prisoner in her chair.

  ‘On what we were just discussing.’ The psychic analyst spoke with a surface tone of utmost patience and an undercurrent of antagonism. She wasn’t playing by his rules. This was where she was supposed to break down and tell him what was wrong with her, diagnose herself and make his job easier, but, in truth, even if she had wanted to speak, she wouldn’t have known what to say. What she felt had no description anymore. It was a formless misery, a shape-shifting apparition of feelings, an illusive suggestion of thought – intangible, untraceable, incurable – unless, of course, it became possible to raise the dead.

  ‘That folder,’ she said, looking at the portfolio lying on the desk beside the doctor’s outstretched hand. ‘Looks like dragon hide. It must have cost you a fair coin.’

  ‘It did,’ he conceded with a dip of his head.

  ‘And yet you’ve spilt food on it.’

  A vein twitched in the doctor’s neck. Four hours into the session, four minutes to mid-dark, and she hadn’t given him an inch. He leaned forward over the metal table.

  ‘Ms Keets, I don’t think we’re making any progress.’

  ‘I agree,’ she replied.

  ‘Then what do you propose we do about it?’

  ‘You’re the doctor – you tell me.’

  His right hand involuntarily clenched into a fist. ‘I cannot help you if you are not willing to help yourself.’

  ‘Then you can’t help me,’ Ev’r said with finality. The fluoro light above them had begun to hurt her eyes.

  ‘If you cooperate with the state and give indication of knowledge, things will be better for you,’ he continued.

  Ev’r retreated into a dark and silent room in her mind. Things – he meant death. At least Copernicus Kane, though she hated him with all her being, had the backbone to say it. It was a choice between death and death more appalling, but what they didn’t know, even though Kane had detected a change in her internal body structure, was that long before the state would have the chance to take her life, she would become a Ravien and they would be forced to exterminate her by the quickest means possible. Her last dose of antidote had completely worn off and the nausea was gone, but now she felt the beast she was becoming pulsing in her chest. A blackness was spreading out from under her fingernails, and a meaty stench polluted her senses. It wouldn’t be long now.

  Ev’r stared at the chains binding her arms to her sides. The imp-breed soldier, Snack-size, had tied her securely but not cruelly, and the chains didn’t feel so foreign against her skin. Captivity wasn’t a stranger. It had long been an enemy, but she’d grown to understand that the captivity she hated had defined her. It had given her a purpose, a goal to reach, enemies to hate. It had destroyed and reformed her so many times that she was little more than a composite of the scars it had given her, painful truths it had
taught her and years lived one day at a time, second by second. Inside captivity, she had known who she was and what she wanted – only to be free. Yet once free, she had lost herself, known nothing. She was no one. Her thoughts crept back to the asylum, where she had left her memory-self cowering outside the black door with the inscription, ‘Thou Shalt Not Enter’, scratched across it. She had ignored the warning back then and she decided to ignore the warning now. There was nothing left to lose.

  Ev’r’s memory-self pushed her weight against the doors of the witch’s quarters and they opened inward, slow and heavy. She stood on the threshold of a room. It smelt strongly of urine. Its many barred and grimy windows looked out across the desert to the immense Boundary Wall in the far distance. Rays of sunlight lay ragged on the floor. Ev’r cried out; it felt as though it had been year-cycles since she’d seen the suns. She started forward then stopped abruptly. A tall man stood by one of the windows, looking out through a patch of glass wiped clear. The mark on the back of his neck displayed his high military rank and the dark line crossed over it exposed his dishonourable discharge. She studied his broad back and powerful arms, large rough hands held at his sides. His wrists were scarred and he was swaying slightly. He sensed her presence and turned. Recognition rushed through her and she inhaled sharply as it twisted a knife in her gut.

  ‘Ismail?’

  The man narrowed his dark eyes.

  Ev’r studied the face she’d seen every day growing up and found only traces of the boy he’d been. Pain and anger had carved his features into sharp relief, though his lips still curved in the way she remembered. She stepped forward slowly. There was something bestial in his expression that said to move quickly would be a mistake.

  ‘Ismail, it’s me – Zingara.’

  He blinked, his stare drug-heavy and full of torment. He turned fully around and the aggressive lines of his face began to smooth out. Her eyes passed over the thick scar across his neck. It looked like a failed beheading. Around the scar were red marks like love bites, and down his chest, in the line of his unbuttoned shirt, she saw the burns of electrodes, tracks of needle-stabs and weeping sores of symbols re-carved in his flesh day after day. These were signs of experimentation and torture. Anger choked her. Who had done this?

  She held out her hand, but he just stared at it. So she reached for him and took him in her arms. The touch of him and smell of his skin was so familiar it burned inside her. When she pressed her face against his chest, his heartbeats sounded faint and uneven. He kept his arms at his sides, unresponsive. Ev’r mumbled some words, a mind-clearing enchant the Mocking Witch had taught her. Ismail’s body jerked. She pulled away and looked into his face, where comprehension struggled through the haze.

  ‘Zara?’ he whispered, his words still slurred. ‘Is it you? Are you real?’

  Tears overflowed from her eyes. Ismail had been the only one who cared for her, the only one she’d loved. They had planned to escape together. She’d waited at the place they’d decided on – waited and waited and waited. He’d never shown.

  ‘Where were you? Why did you leave without me? You promised,’ she sobbed.

  Ismail shook his head. ‘Your father had me arrested. I couldn’t get back. I tried – I swear I tried so hard.’ His dark eyes misted over and they clung to each other, rocking, trying to find some comfort in this nightmare.

  ‘Where am I?’ he finally whispered.

  ‘O’Tenery Asylum,’ she told him.

  ‘Asylum?’ His eyes widened.

  Sounds of nearing footsteps echoed in the corridor outside the forbidden door.

  ‘The witch!’ Ev’r gasped and turned towards the door.

  ‘No!’ Ismail grabbed her arm in his cold hands, terror stretched over his face. ‘Don’t go! Don’t leave me!’

  ‘I won’t. I’ll hide.’ Ev’r’s eyes darted around the room and she saw an ornate wardrobe in one corner. She ran to it and threw herself inside, closing the door behind her and peering through the keyhole, just as the Mocking Witch appeared in the doorway. The hag’s eyes roved suspiciously around the room.

  ‘Why was this open?’ she demanded of Ismail.

  He wisely stood unmoving and silent, staring back out the window as though nothing had happened.

  Ev’r’s chest heaved, her heart crashing, as she watched the witch close the door and move in on Ismail. The woman reached up to his shoulder and turned him to face her. He kept a neutral expression, though his dark eyes lifted for a second to the wardrobe where Ev’r hid. Ev’r held her hand over her mouth to stop its trembling. The witch stood gazing at Ismail and a lascivious smile spread over her vile face. Her eyes glowed with lust and she dragged his face towards her, her lips quivering with the anticipation of pleasure. Ismail closed his eyes. Ev’r stared, boiling with an emotion so mixed it was unnameable. Ismail was her childhood love. They had kissed under bridges, under tables, under beds and under everything two kids could hide under, until they and their love were too big to hide anymore. And here he was, drugged and helpless, abused and tortured – by the witch. Ev’r had confided in the witch about Ismail – described him. This evil woman knew exactly what she was doing, and exactly to whom she was doing it.

  Before the Mocking Witch could kiss Ismail, Ev’r kicked out the wardrobe door. It snapped off its hinges and flew halfway across the room. She stepped out as the witch spun towards her.

  ‘Zingara!’ The hag emitted a horrible shrill cry of shock. ‘Get out!’

  Ev’r stood her ground and stared the witch straight in the eyes.

  The witch curled her lips in a sneer. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’

  Ev’r raised her hands and released a curse with so much fury and force that it blew out the entire wall and sent the witch plummeting to the desert far below. Ev’r jumped after her, riding the wind to where the witch had landed on her feet. The witch screamed excuses at her, screamed that she had saved Ev’r’s life.

  ‘You saved my body and killed my soul!’ Ev’r spat.

  They attacked each other with raw and snarling hatred. Ev’r remembered little of the battle that followed, just that she knew she would never stop until either she or the witch was dead, and as they fought the asylum sank slowly into the ground behind them, the force of their magics cracking the earth. Ev’r recalled only in snapshots of motion, grabbing the witch by the chain around her neck, where she kept a vial of cure-all. The witch had told her of the meetings between the dark sects, all the witches and sorcerers so untrustworthy and murderous that before every sip of drink anyone had taken, they had each poured their own elixir into their cup to save themselves from sure poisoning. Ev’r had twisted the witch’s chain tighter and tighter around her neck until she felt the woman’s strength ebbing under her grasp. Finally she had flung her lifeless body to the ground, the vial of liquid thudding against the witch’s chest. Broken from the spell of hate, she’d turned towards the sinking asylum to see people scrambling out to escape. Ismail was among them. They’d run to each other, into each other’s arms, together at last.

  A cruel blast of sound dragged Ev’r out of Ismail’s grasp into reality, where she lay on a piss-dank floor convulsing and frothing at the mouth, staring up at a weasel-blood human-breed shouting her name.

  ‘Keets!’ the psychic analyst bellowed again, slamming his palm down on the panic button on the table.

  Four guardians burst into the room – one Twitchbak, one giant and two human-breeds.

  ‘She just collapsed. I didn’t do anything!’ the analyst told them.

  The guardians closed in on her, and Ev’r stared up at their faces. Horror shivered through her. Beneath the faces of the two human-breed soldiers, she recognised the same evil she had seen in the desert just before her capture – Skreaf demons. They were already here in the city. They had infiltrated the United Regiment, which meant something big must be about to happen – maybe even sooner than the Ravien change would take her. Death was one thing, but dark magics . . . some things were worse
than death. She needed to get out – now – and as she saw it, the Ar Antarian soldier whom Kane had called Jude was the key. This man had another name. He had a terrible secret. The only thing left to find out was: how far would he go to save himself? Who would he betray?

  7

  Copernicus pushed open the door of Winston Dunn’s diner on Upper Kettle Street, several blocks from Headquarters. The diner was, as always, overcrowded with military personnel, uniformed and plain-clothed, off and on duty. A discordant chorus of sounds assailed Copernicus’ senses, gabbling conversations, clink-clanking glasses, the sizzle and spit of grilling meat, and yells from the crowd watching a pedal-ball match on the holo-screen projected above the bar.

  He entered, triggering the buzzer above the door. Numerous people turned towards him then quickly away, their eyes shifting nervously, their body-heat flaring. The lower-ranking soldiers on duty saluted him. The crowd parted to make a path for him and a murmur followed his back. He headed to the booth where the trackers always sat. It was occupied by two young soldiers sharing fried thistle stalks, talking with their heads close together. Copernicus looked at them and they quickly picked up their plates and shifted to another spot. The commander sat down and used a napkin to brush their crumbs off the table surface. Silho slid into the seat opposite him.

  He could feel her watching him, studying what he was doing. He looked up – she looked down. He looked down – she looked up. To outsiders, it might have appeared to be a dinner date – she a little nervous, never quite meeting his eyes, he leaning forward, perhaps on the edge of conversation. It might have appeared like that, but anyone worth the air they breathed knew appearances were deceiving. This was, he thought, especially true for Brabel. She presented as meek and submissive, but her eyes spoke another story, and though she attempted to keep herself hidden, she obviously didn’t understand that what she didn’t do told him as much about her as what she did do. He had begun to piece her together like a puzzle that would eventually show the true picture of who she really was. Already he knew her tolerance for pain was far above and beyond the norm. He could see her body-heat throbbing, flaring like flames around her neck and head. She was in significant distress from her injury on the breakwall yet her face betrayed nothing – and that said something. Again he thought that her features were familiar.