“Sorry… I didn’t think it would start so soon.”
“The mad scramble for the crown?” McKinsey slides into her chair, setting the coffee down on the desk in a spot marked by a series of ring-shaped blots from past mugs. “When something like this accident happens, it’s anyone’s guess how the dice will land and Rick knows that. I only let him in because Vicky canceled today’s appointment. I’ve been meeting with her, strategizing how to boost her image. She wanted to be a star like Delilah. I tried to get the point across that we make our own luck. That a brand can’t be pulled out of thin air.”
For a moment, I’m unsure if McKinsey is talking about Vicky—or me.
McKinsey waves me to the chair on the other side of the desk. “It’ll be different now, of course. Vicky’ll step into the lead role in Mrs. Montag and the spotlight will propel her into the Top Thousand, maybe even the Top Hundred. She’s no Delilah, though. I can’t see her making it into the Ten. She may be wonderful on the stage—I really have no idea one way or the other—but her everyday personality is simply too bland.” McKinsey gives the frank assessment without apology. She retrieves the hankie from a pocket and blows her nose—not, I realize, in sadness. “Allergies,” she explains. “Plaster dust in the sculpture club I’ve just joined. How did the talk with Bodi go?”
“Terribly. I don’t think he believed me. At best he suspects me of incompetence and at worst of wanting revenge because Delilah passed on giving me the Discovered-by-Her brand.” My mind is still on how quickly Rick swooped in to demand Delilah’s place.
“It’s Bodi’s job to be suspicious of everything and everyone,” McKinsey says. “He’s just being thorough. We’ve never had a Tenner gone in the blink of an eye and certainly not the number one.”
The starkness of the phrasing stills my voice for a moment.
“And my job is to tell people the truth,” McKinsey continues. “And the truth is that Maintenance doesn’t want the blame for the accident—but the blame has to land somewhere…” She trails off grimly. After a look at my face, she adds, “Take the rest of the day off. Go home. Keep the Commons out of your head.”
I sit at my desk for a while doing nothing. Around noon, I get to my feet and pass Wayne in the hallway, by the kitchenette. He’s eating egg salad. “Hey, Scottie, could have used your help cleaning up—the square is done but we still have all of the garden. Why did you have to go talk to Bodi? I’m hearing rumors… Scottie?”
I just keep walking and into the elevator.
At Housing One, the street is cordoned off with rope, with only building residents allowed on the other side of it. Kick-standing my bike, I push through the gathered crowd, bracing myself, but there’s nothing to see on the ground—no dark stains or pieces of broken railing. From the way people are craning their necks, I figure out that Delilah must have landed on the roof of the Oyster, where the eatery extends out of the building; its doors display a CLOSED sign. On the top-floor balcony directly above, a chunk of the railing is hanging precariously—the reason for the safety rope.
Against McKinsey’s instructions, I have Cece plug me into the Commons. The thoughts from those in close proximity, the gathered onlookers, are the strongest. “Poor Delilah, did anyone see her fall? … My friend in the Security Office says NO … They found her in silk pajamas, up there on the roof of the Oyster … You don’t think— Nah, it’s not the curse. Someone messed up, wiped the Maintenance alerts! … Who, Vicky? … No, Vicky said it was an Agency intern, don’t remember her name … How INCOMPETENT of the intern …”
An odd sensation descends on me as I watch the scene through the mental curtain of comments—that I’m part of an audience for whom everything has been carefully staged: The broken railing. The gathered people. The security rope. No, not an audience—rather as if I’m an actor standing in the spot marked for me on a stage.
I shake off the feeling and leave the square behind me.
6
From the other end of the couch, where she’s sitting cross-legged, Lu tries to reassure me. “If you say you didn’t wipe the alerts, then I believe you, Scottie.”
“Seconded. Obviously.” Dax joined us on his lunch break and brought sandwiches for everyone. I forced myself to eat, even though my stomach’s churning. Lu’s early shift had been cut short because of the accident and the three of us had met up in her room.
“Well, you two might be the only ones.”
“If you ask me, it’s clear why it happened. Gemma Bligh’s curse.” Lu has a bit of a superstitious bent.
Dax gets in a response first. “The curse caused a plumbing leak?”
“No, curses can drive people to do things.”
This takes me aback a bit. “What, you think she jumped on purpose? Suicide?”
“Well, I don’t like to say it, but you never know with a curse.” Lu says the last bit in a wide-eyed whisper. “I poked around a bit in the Knowledge Repository and mummy curses used to cause all sorts of havoc—deadly infections from mosquito bites, arsenic poisoning, and yes, suicide. What if Gemma Bligh’s curse is just as strong?”
“You’re saying Delilah climbed the railing intending to jump—but it buckled under her?” Dax is on the floor, working on his own sandwich. He adds, “Seems unlikely, but I suppose it’s possible.”
“I hope I’m wrong,” Lu says worriedly, “because if I’m not, it’s not over by a long shot—not with a curse like this.”
Well aware of my own shortcomings, I don’t want to poke fun at Lu’s credulous streak. Knowing that her shift would have started at six, I ask, “Were you there when she was found?”
Lu nods. “Because she landed on the roof of the eatery, none of us saw her…her body on our way in. One of her neighbors spotted it from her own balcony. I wish we had seen her… Because you know the worst part? That she was lying there all alone above us while we prepped the kitchen and baked rolls and peeled potatoes… Around seven we heard raised voices and went out to see what the commotion was. Jada stayed to watch the body being wheeled away, but I didn’t want to look.” Lu gives a shiver.
“I’m going to give Bonnie a ruby to help push her up,” Dax comments. “If she gets enough rubies, she can jump over Rick. I think she’ll make a better number one. Rick’s always struck me as being somewhat vacant, if you know what I mean.” He finishes the last of his sandwich and folds the wrapper, then continues with an unexpected remark. “I wonder if Delilah’s chip survived. It’s a long way down from the eighth floor.”
I almost reply that Bodi said it did, when it strikes me that Delilah’s chip might have sustained damage that could account for the Maintenance alerts going missing. Which would help me, but I can’t see why Dax cares.
Dax scratches behind his left ear in the spot where we all carry a tiny scar. “Depends how she landed, I suppose. You don’t think?”
His eyes go low-left and Lu’s and mine do as well. Cece, people map. Does it still show Delilah? I’m expecting the medical examiner’s office but the map zooms onto CC Central, in the basement of Town Offices One, and a couple of orange dots shuffling around a stationary ruby-red one. The unit taken from Delilah still has a nice strong signal. So much for that theory. It’s eerie, as if Delilah is still alive, going about her day, and stopped at CC Central on an errand, making me heartily wish this was the case.
“Haven’t you ever thought about how we’ll run out of everything one day, including ConnectChips?” This answers the question of why Dax cares. He adds, “I’m no expert, but my guess is that they’ll sanitize the casing and wipe the memory, then reuse the unit if they can.”
Lu gives another shiver. “Do you mind if we change the subject? First, though…” She reaches over the arm of the couch and digs something out of an old wooden chest where she keeps knick-knacks. She passes me an ancient-looking and slightly smelly rabbit’s foot. “Here, rub this for good luck, Scottie. To lift the blame off you.”
I dutifully rub the foot.
Evening finds
me in my room. It’s smaller than Lu’s and fits just four pieces of furniture—a bed, a standing lamp, a corner table with a water pitcher and a potted plant, and a dresser. On top of the dresser are my prized possessions: the copy of The Seattle Times, a snow globe, and the newest addition—the invite I took to Delilah on the last day of her life and which she gifted to me. My single window lets in the sounds and scents of the street. Poking my head out allows a glimpse of the Cascades, dark triangles crisscrossed by Dome structural beams and lit up by village hearths here and there. Cece, we’re in trouble.
What kind, Scott?
The kind where people think I messed up. I admit I had a moment of doubt in Bodi’s office, that I might have made a mistake and wiped the Maintenance alerts and when Delilah went out onto the balcony and leaned on the railing, it broke… But I’m sure that’s not what happened.
Then why are we in trouble, Scott?
Delilah’s gone.
She fell.
I roll the window closed for the night. I know it wasn’t my fault, so how did she end up dead?
In bed, I punch the pillow in a futile effort to fluff it up and recall the vibe I experienced outside Housing One. Cece, what if someone saw an opportunity in the timing? What if she was PUSHED?
By who?
That’s the question, isn’t it? Something Lu said made me think. If the balcony railing hadn’t given out, I bet a whole lot of people would have jumped to the same conclusion—that the curse drove Delilah to suicide the very night of the eighty-fifth anniversary—the tragedy that Gemma foretold.
I don’t understand, Scott.
I flip on my side and punch the pillow again. I’m talking about murder.
A death made to happen with intent and purpose.
Yes… It’s a couple of minutes until the town map goes dark for the night and I repeat the request I made earlier at Dax’s suggestion. This time Delilah’s dot is gone. There’s a finality to it. I ask, Cece, the Security Office keeps an eye on the map even in the off hours, don’t they? They can’t watch every area all the time. What happens if there’s a crime?
Cece comes back with: Public access to the map is restricted after ten-thirty but, same as in the daytime, there’s a lag of two hours before the data is deleted. A compromise between combating crime and retaining privacy.
I lie with my eyes open for a while, mulling this over. By midnight the square would have mostly cleared out—the band was slated to finish at half past eleven. Bodi said Delilah fell just after one o’clock, presumably long after the other Tenners had left her suite. Whoever it was must have been counting on her body not being spotted until morning—Lu said it wasn’t visible from street level—too late for the security office to confirm that Delilah was alone on her balcony.
A foolproof plan, except for a slight hiccup. The wood rot changed the story—and now there’s an intern to blame, not Gemma Bligh. Someone, somewhere, is thinking that this works just as well.
7
The mountains in my window are shrouded in morning mist. Donning my best set of clothes, I let the Commons chatter fill my mind. It’s been four days and there’s still much grumbling directed at the Incompetent Intern.
Only I’m no longer an intern. McKinsey informed me that I’m on an indefinite break from the Agency. Jobs and Housing has put me on vacuuming duty—the job Oliver left behind—and I’m to start this afternoon.
At breakfast, I’m still on the receiving end of nasty looks and whispers. The staff person spooning out watery oatmeal ignores my greeting and mutters about careless interns and no wonder Delilah denied me the social boost. Though Lu and Dax keep sending me optimistic thoughts that it’ll all blow over, I’m being socially cut.
Onyxes are discouraged by the Code’s section A (Spiteful gems have a tendency to make the giver look bad, so save the grumbling for the Commons or better yet, keep it to yourself) but I’ve still acquired a couple. They’re from Vicky and Evan, as if snitching about my carelessness was their duty despite section A.
At least no one other than perhaps Bodi, who found time to chat with both Lu and Dax about my character, seems to think I deleted the Maintenance alerts on purpose.
I don’t linger over breakfast.
The Edge Garden is where Delilah’s seeding is being held. I’ve never been to a funeral before. In daylight, the garden has a fishbowl view of the outside world: the plain New Seattle sits on, the snow sparkling in shafts of sunlight below retreating clouds; the train tracks traversing it toward greenhouses and faraway domed cities; the Cascade range and the forest to the west. Keeping my head down, I join the mourners congregated in an area labeled Coffee Plants, featuring short, shrub-like trees with shiny dark-green leaves. The subtle scent of the white blossoms wafts over the crowd, a large one. There have been memorial gatherings for Delilah all week—at the theater, in Founders Square—ones I’ve avoided in case I’m recognized, but it feels right to be here today.
I choose an unobtrusive spot, all but hiding myself behind one of the plants.
The Tenners, dressed in black, are gathered at the center of the patch, from where the rows of plants spread out. There are no chairs, so everyone is on their feet. My gaze is drawn to Rick, and not because of his looks. The number two is dry-eyed, his chin on one fist as he gazes into the distance, hair combed to a shine. Just outside the circle, as befitting his number eleven status, is Ben the Birdman; his partner, a man I know is called Austin, taller and more solidly built, is by his side. Ben swipes a thumb along his bare upper lip, as if stroking an invisible mustache.
An elbow pokes me in the back, someone threading their way through. It’s Evan, who stares straight ahead as if he’s never exchanged a word with me in his life. Socially cut.
I assumed there would be speeches first, but all of a sudden there’s activity. The mourners in the row I’m in step aside to open a path. Rick, having disappeared out of sight, comes back into view after a few minutes. He’s part of a quartet carrying a black sheet—it sags in the middle, though I can’t see into it—with Rick and Jada in the front and McKinsey bringing up the rear alongside Poulsbo, the number eight. The handyman has gray streaks, a stoop to his shoulders, and a soft step; he’s often asked for help outside his regular Maintenance assignments and I’ve seen him in my own building a couple of times. Poulsbo gives the impression of having accidentally wandered into the Top Ten, as if he opened a door expecting a closet and found a stage instead.
As the procession passes me, I see that the sheet is laden with a powdery ash, white as milk. The expressions of its bearers are somber, tears streaming down Poulsbo’s face. His grief pulls forth my own. Delilah was so many things to me: someone to admire, to look up to, a steady force at New Seattle’s helm. And she believed in me, if only for a morning. My fingers fumble in my pocket for a handkerchief and I encounter Delilah’s invite, which I’ve brought along. Paper, fragile under my fingers, but something to hold on to.
The four stop when they reach the center of the patch and maneuver the sheet so it faces a section of plants that’s been left empty of people. Rick and Jada lower their end, McKinsey and Poulsbo raise theirs; then, perfectly timed, they flex the sheet, sending the pale ash onto the white-blossomed plants and the soil. Back to nature. To distract myself from the sadness of a life abruptly ended, an incident I’m being blamed for, I blink the wet out of my eyelashes and come up with an illogical grievance—the Birth Lab is where Delilah’s remains should have been sent. She sprung up from there, not from coffee plants, of all things.
After Rick and Jada fold the sheet into a neat square, a line of mourners forms to water the soil from a ceremonial can, Vicky scurrying to its front. She’s weeping, hair tucked behind her ears as if to better display her grief—which I know is bogus. As to her new life, I’ve heard that the opening night of Mrs. Montag has been pushed out ten days to give her time to get ready for the role.
I join the end of the line. Everyone’s playing their part and the sensation of
it all being staged descends on me once again. Oliver. He said something… What was it? It was after he stopped babbling about the birds. Not that his spot on the List was needed, but Delilah’s… Bad things will happen, he said—and they have.
Cece, wake up, I instruct, having placed her in sleep mode for the seeding. Communication with greenhouses. It’s via radios, isn’t it, because you can’t send a thought that far? I wonder if Town Offices’d let me use a radio… What greenhouse is Oliver assigned to?
Cece comes back with: Greenhouse Seven. But he is no longer there.
What do you mean? Where is he?
Town Offices lists him as having left for parts unknown.
I let out a hushed gasp at the news. As the ceremonial can is passed into my hands, I send a thought in Oliver’s direction, not via Cece, but out into the universe, wherever he is. Stay safe, Oliver; find your way to a village or another town-dome and a new life. It really is goodbye.
And to Delilah as well. I slosh water onto the soil, then pass the can to the person behind me. Best to leave before anyone points me out, the Incompetent Intern come to pay her respects.
I encounter Rick at the border of the coffee-plant patch. He’s inviting condolences in the form of murmured words, hugs, and handshakes. It strikes me that it must have been agony to have it all just out of reach for so long—he’s been a heartbeat away from Eternal Life for a good decade. Despite me having handed him Agency invitations, he doesn’t seem to recognize me when he stops to shake my hand. “So there’s no one above you now,” I blurt out before he has a chance to walk away. “The number one chair is available.”
“Yes, it’s very sad.” His halo broadcasts a bit of personal news—his conception-day anniversary is today. He turns to greet Sue, who shakes her waist-length hair at him. “Handsome Rick… Samm, come and wish Rick a happy conception day!”
“Rick, we’re doing a skit later tonight if you want in.” Samm’s grin seems out of place at a funeral. “On you know who.”
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