The Last City

by Nina D'Aleo

  The commander closed his eyes and mouthed some words. Bellum appeared before them and Silho froze. She held her breath. The witch looked one way and then the other and flew straight past them.

  Copernicus exhaled deeply and Silho whispered, ‘What happened?’

  ‘An illusion,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to get back to the hide.’

  He grabbed Silho’s bare hand and she flinched. The skin was scorched and blistering.

  ‘It didn’t work,’ she said. ‘I can’t . . . think.’

  ‘Say the words, Brabel,’ he instructed. ‘Claude animus meus. Keep saying them.’

  Silho focused on the sound of his voice and found her control.

  Shawe staggered up and moved unsteadily beside them. ‘What’s the plan to get back to Nureyev?’ he asked.

  ‘The river,’ Copernicus said. ‘It cuts through Castlereagh several blocks up.’

  ‘You want to swim down forty levels?’ Shawe said. ‘We’ll never make it.’

  ‘Would you rather stay here?’ Copernicus said.

  A distant wailing Skreaf curse ended their conversation. Copernicus supported Silho and the three of them broke into a run, soon coming to the T. Sypher Bridge that crossed over the Asher River on that level. Silho stood beside the commander, staring down into the roaring black rapids.

  ‘How will we know when we’re close to the hide?’ Shawe yelled.

  ‘I’ll know!’ Copernicus shouted back.

  ‘You – halt!’ a voice rang out.

  Silho jolted and spun around. A squad of soldiers had turned a street corner and spotted them. Copernicus grabbed her hand and dragged her over the edge of the bridge as the soldiers opened fire, crumbling the place where they had stood. Silho felt the terrible, helpless rush of falling, then they were smashing down into the river.

  The current caught them and flew them downstream. Silho struggled to keep her face above the surface, choking and coughing, the water stinging her eyes. Copernicus pulled her onto his back and she clung to his shoulders. The water swept them through Castlereagh and its adjoining suburbs to the pipeway waterfall connecting the level with the one below it. They crashed over the edge and plummeted down the terrible drop. The water pummelled them, trying to trap them below its deadly surface. They made it up to the air and the river dragged them onwards. Silho completely lost track of time and distance, her muscles burning and then falling numb. Finally she heard the commander yell, ‘Dive!’

  Silho sucked in a deep breath and Copernicus hauled her under. She pushed her body beyond its limit, using every last ounce of energy and strength to cut through the current down to stiller waters below. There, she stared around with blurred vision, and heard a clunk and a grinding sound. Hands pushed her through a hole and she dropped into a pipeway filling fast with gushing water. She panted and clung to the sides of the pipe. The others dragged themselves in and Shawe sealed the hatch above them. They trod water, their ragged breathing echoing in the darkness. After a moment, Silho heard Shawe take in a deep breath and dive under. He resurfaced soon afterwards and the water level receded until they touched down on the metal base of the pipe. Silho saw where Shawe had opened another hatch, which led out. The gangster and Copernicus clambered through, but Silho paused to look back the way they’d come. They were bruised, broken and exhausted, but the fact they were still alive after facing Bellum – it seemed almost too easy to believe. Fear whispered soft sinister words in her ears.

  ‘Brabel,’ the commander called for her.

  She turned away and dragged herself after the others.

  32

  She couldn’t see for the suffocating smoke, or breathe for the sulphuric flames burning all the oxygen out of the air. She crawled, digging her nails into the ash-covered dirt and dragged herself forward. Zakiah was lost somewhere in this burning hell.

  ‘My baby.’ It was a scream that only managed to come out as a whisper.

  Everywhere strange men with bloodline marks of big, winged lizard-like beasts fought the demons that had kept her people imprisoned for their whole existence. Before her disbelieving eyes these men were reducing the ever-living Skreaf to ash, then exhaling fire from their mouths. Through the veil of smoke she saw him, her little boy, just ahead of her – standing, crying, one hand in his mouth, the other clutching at his own shirt. A winged shadow appeared in the sky above her baby. It plummeted down towards the infant. She ran.

  Ev’r jolted upright, violent coughs racking her body. She gasped and hacked until she managed to clear her lungs. Once she could breathe, she took her hands away from her mouth and saw they were black with soot. It reminded her of what she had just seen in her vision of the past – the way to destroy the Skreaf lay in Silho’s bloodline. She staggered to her feet and a shattering pain shot through her body. Ice-cold agony seared in her jaw, the pain bending her double. Though her mouth hung open, she couldn’t make a sound. Eventually, the torture subsided and she was able to straighten, feeling the light-headed euphoria that comes after the passing of severe pain, but she knew it would be back.

  Ev’r rapidly processed her surroundings, trying to orientate herself. The last thing she remembered was the Androt survivor, Lao, saying they were almost at the hideout. Where she stood now was a functional space, devoid of any personal touches or comforts. There was a chair tucked under a table, a computer system and a plain bed mat lying flat and straight in one corner. No effort had been made to break the concrete monotony of the floor and walls. Ev’r scanned the room and her senses spoke to her. This area represented the deliberate and focused deprivation of someone who wanted nothing – perhaps even drew strength from it – and that was unusual. She moved towards the desk and rummaged through the hard files that were stacked alphabetically beside the computer system. It was a collection of works by the philosophers, sociologists and psychic analysts considered to be the greatest of the era, among them Axis, Pelterbelt and Neridium. They were heavy intellectual works that few people read and, of them, even fewer understood. Once she had started into a Neridium manuscript about the continuum of life patterns and had emerged several hours later with a dry mouth and a jumbled mind. Whoever owned this room, the person who thrived on nothing, also thrived on knowing – to the point of self-torture.

  ‘Activate,’ she said to the computer system and it sparked to life, displaying files on a holo-screen. She selected a file entitled Writing – my, and opened one of the file’s many documents, one named Always be. Writing flashed up on the screen.

  She whispered the words, ‘He said, let it be Music Man, play a song for me; Let it roll Music Man, rock and roll for me. Stay a while Music Man, stay and laugh for me; Always be; Never go; Never end the show; It must go on; Endless, seamless, streams of dreams; It seems the seams are splitting without you here; He said I fear myself without you here; I hear you laughing, humming, saying something, singing something, something for me; Forever be, Music Man, play a song for me . . .’

  Ev’r caught movement out of the corner of her eye and turned towards it.

  An Androt man stood in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest, his face still, his expression unreadable.

  ‘Obviously no one taught you the rudeness of rifling through other people’s personal effects.’ He pronounced his words precisely. His voice was the kind that carried with little effort, the kind that gave authority to unproven words and made others believe. The Androt man looked Ev’r up and down, and she heard, loud and clear, the meaning between his well-spoken words. She was an ignorant, ill-bred scullion who wasn’t worth the air she breathed. Straightening up to her full height, she looked him directly in the eyes.

  ‘This poetry – it’s very good. I can see influences of the theobaldist and the neo-classical movements in its choice of rhyme and rhythm. Whoever wrote it knows their stuff. So who did write it? Obviously it wasn’t you.’ She looked him up and down and said with her eyes – because you’re just a slave, machine-breed. And he heard her – loud and clear.

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nbsp; He took the counterattack with a perfunctory nod of his head and entered the room. He stepped deliberately, moving in a wide circle around her, sizing her up. While he studied her, she studied him back. He was muscular and heavy-limbed. And extremely attractive. She would have liked to add the disclaimer for a machine-breed, but that would have been a lie. He was attractive without limits, and in a dangerous sort of way, the way that couldn’t be pinpointed exactly to one feature or another as it was a combination of everything. In the kind of way that would instantly disarm people and make them want to like him. But she wasn’t fooled so easily.

  He stopped moving, squared up to her and said, ‘The great Ev’r Keets. I’m honoured.’

  She dipped her head to him now and replied, ‘The deliberately anonymous Kry. I’m on to you.’

  He clenched his teeth hard, but again took the hit with the slightest of nods. In the moment of his movement, Keets saw a flash of his Androt barcode below the collar of his shirt – 939993. Androts were not permitted to wear shirts with collars. She added defiant to the list of his characteristics she was mentally compiling.

  ‘You and your imp-breed partner are on the United Regiment’s most wanted list. Your friend has been connected to murders all over the city now,’ Kry said.

  ‘I’d rather be hunted by the Regiment than by Skreaf demons,’ she said. ‘How did you escape Fortitude Hill after losing so much blood?’

  ‘I’m no stranger to injury.’ His hand twitched towards his chest and she assumed his shirt was hiding a wad of bandages and partially healed wounds.

  ‘Obviously,’ she gestured around the room, ‘you’re against the system, so why were you serving at that house in suburbia and not out in the Matadori with your outlaw brothers – cutting your barcode out of your neck and plotting an impossible uprising?’

  The Androt swallowed slowly and she knew she’d hit a spot.

  ‘Of all my so-called brothers who have left the city, how many of them have made one inch of difference? None. The problem is here. So I’ve stayed here. And as for my barcode,’ he gestured to his numbers, ‘this is my family heritage. This is who I am. Why would I ever be ashamed of that? Would you cut out your bloodline mark?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ev’r replied, rapping her knuckles on the gold bands covering her scullion marks. ‘In a second, if I thought they wouldn’t just grow back. And if I could somehow rearrange time and fate and be born as any other race, I would.’

  ‘Well then, that’s where we differ,’ Kry said, fixing his deep grey eyes on her. ‘I would never want to be anything but an Androt. I am proud of who I am and what my people are.’

  ‘Good for you,’ Ev’r said dryly.

  ‘Did you know,’ he said, stepping closer to her, ‘that there was a time in history when machine-breeds ruled the world and it was the human-breeds that were our slaves?’

  ‘Is that so,’ Ev’r said with feigned uninterest. In truth, she had studied this time in depth. Treasure hunting and knowledge of history were a married couple. In a test to see how much he knew, she asked, ‘So what happened to them?’

  ‘The same thing that always happens – revolution and war.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked.

  ‘Inequality, poverty, desperation – so few were so rich and so many so poor. Something had to eventually give. It always does. The machine-breeds of that time were as foolish as the Ar Antarians of our time, but a time of change is coming again,’ Kry said, clenching one fist.

  ‘You’ve got that right,’ Ev’r said. ‘The Skreaf have risen and they’re all over the city. Pretty soon, if history holds any truth in the present, we’ll be in the midst of a demon war we can’t win.’

  ‘Demon war,’ Kry snorted. ‘A few random dregs of dark magics and you’re preaching takeover. It’s not the Skreaf who are going to rise up.’

  ‘Let me guess, it’s the Androts – led by you.’ Ev’r sneered, but inside she was checking off his personality traits – charismatic, educated, very intelligent, obsessively self-driven, revolutionary and fanatical. Just the right mix for the leader of a major civil war, someone who could save the Androts from their slavery and degradation – but then who would save them from him? However, it would never get to that. The Androts would eventually fall to the Skreaf just like everyone else.

  ‘Open your eyes,’ Ev’r said, ‘and see what’s really happening around you.’

  ‘They are open,’ Kry responded, ‘all six of them.’ His steady gaze lifted to the ceiling and Ev’r looked up. A scorpion-shaped robot was staring down at her with four red eyes. ‘And I know exactly what is happening.’

  ‘Right.’ Ev’r saw he couldn’t be reasoned with. ‘Good luck with that.’

  She walked to the door and out into a large, concrete basement-like area. From all directions Androts crowded in on her, herding her into the centre of the room and barricading her exit. She studied them. The barcodes of some were still intact, others had been cut out – and every face was set in rage. These were a people right on the edge of complete abandonment, of all-out revolution. They were blood-hungry, but if they messed with her they would get more than they bargained for. She rolled her head from one side to the other and felt a growl building inside her. Kry stood at the door of his room watching the monster crowd he’d created flexing its muscles. His scorpion robot sat beside him on the wall.

  ‘Stop! Leave her alone!’ Lao, the survivor, pushed through the Androts, shoving back those who were pressing in too close. His own bird robot, Beak6, perched on his shoulder.

  ‘Kry, she’s a friendly,’ he appealed to his cousin, whose expressionless gaze didn’t waver.

  ‘Zale is back!’ someone yelled out and there was a general murmuring and shuffling as the crowd parted to allow two Androts to help a third, who was limping badly, to cut through the centre of the room to Kry. Ev’r saw the newcomer had been shot in the leg with an electrifier. His melted skin was struggling to reconnect and seal over the open wound, which was weeping white blood. He stood in front of Kry and Ev’r had to admire the strength of the machine-breeds. Kry nodded and the man spoke.

  ‘There was a break-in at the Castlereagh Holding. All the Androts who tried to escape were executed. The United Regiment has now issued a public order that all Androts are to report to Military Headquarters by sunrise; those who don’t will be tracked down and charged with treason.’

  A vein in Kry’s neck twitched, but his mouth remained a straight line.

  ‘Good,’ he said, then addressed the mass of Androts. ‘Our time of hiding is over. Alert everyone. The plan is going ahead.’

  The crowd stirred, excitement buzzing in the air.

  ‘No!’ Lao called out to Kry. ‘The Skreaf are out there looking for you. They’re instigating this round-up of our people to get to you. If you leave here, they will capture you. I saw what they can do. They tortured me! Why won’t you believe me?’

  Kry ignored him, speaking in a low voice to several of the Androts standing closest to him.

  ‘You should listen to your cousin,’ Ev’r said. ‘You go out there and the Skreaf will have you in seconds. Your race is resistant to their curses, but even you can’t stand against them forever. If you come with me, we may be able to protect you.’

  ‘No witnesses,’ Kry said to his men. His gaze shifted momentarily to Ev’r’s and she saw this decision was purely strategic.

  The Androts stomped towards her and she sneered, ‘You think so, do you?’

  And with that she sank into the Murk and vanished from the room.

  Ev’r travelled for a few long, reaching steps, but found she was unable to maintain it, feeling out of control in the spiralling grey. She sensed an uninhabited area around her and stepped back out into reality. Instantly, she doubled over with agony and fell to one side, where she rolled one way and then the other, clutching her chest and stomach, containing her scream to an extended moan behind gritted teeth. The pain eventually lessened, but only slightly. Her whole body was throbbing and she
could smell the Ravien’s raw stench in her nose. Blood trickled down the skin of her throat from the rips in the flesh made by her distending jaw. She grasped at the alley wall beside her and tried to stand but couldn’t, so she slumped to the ground and stayed there, gazing with misting sight out into the street.

  It was almost mid-dark and a group of people were strolling down the footpath, their pace the slower, more subdued rate of people heading home after some hours of partying. A young couple dropped out from the main crowd and stopped under a lantern light. They hugged each other and kissed. The man stroked a hand lovingly through the girl’s hair. Ev’r felt hatred for them, and she felt sorrow for them, and above everything else she felt so very tired, as though she’d lived a thousand lifetimes all in one. With a shaking hand, she drew the Morsus Ictus out of its sheath. She grasped her old friend in one hand, but she couldn’t manage to raise it to her neck. Her arms were completely black. Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes and her vision blurred. The heavy heartbeats of the beast she was becoming thudded in her ears. It was too late now. There would be no redemption.

  33

  Copernicus took stock of his team. The Wraith was missing in action, presumably dead. Shawe had collapsed to the ground. Silho sat hunched in one corner with her head resting against the wall, her arms and hands burned red and blistered. She’d set alight without making any dent whatsoever in Bellum’s strength. Diega appeared controlled, but he knew her too well to believe it. The closer Diega was to falling apart the less emotion she showed, and right now she was completely blank. She avoided looking at Jude, who stood, still handcuffed, on the other side of the room. His expression was calm, but in an unsettling way. Copernicus had seen it before in suicides. It was the serenity of a decision made.

  Of all of them, Jude required his immediate attention. Copernicus decided not to sugarcoat it.