But she had to find her brother Yuri.
The gate chimed and the anti–grav sphere blossomed open. White–tiled pillars and bridges curved through space, winding miles deep like intricate lace. Silver glitter spiraled in from the glassy surface. Like sequins tossed in the air, the players swarmed through the snowglobe. No one used their real tag in the illegals; the altered dancekill suits shimmered in thousands of authentic–looking patterns. All styles of guns, both legal and not, glinted in the lights.
Katya’s tag for this Game was turquoise glow with scattered gold skulls, which no one would associate with her. No one could shoot for the first two minutes, so Katya zoomed towards the thin silver cloud at the snowglobe’s center. As she bounded through space, the white tiles she touched flashed to her pattern. She could only afford the standard five minute colorlock, but that was okay with her. She preferred to score points by tagging players, not buildings.
She wedged herself above an inverted staircase, readied her shields, and waited for the signal. Not many noobs in this Game, for sure — no wonder the pros played here in secret. Katya stared at her readings, wishing she had come only to play. The Game was seductive. She wanted to immerse herself in the maze — to become a force of pure damage. Unstoppable. For a true player, grayspace was flatland — a useless shadow of working, eating, and counting the seconds until the next Game. Like Yuri always said: only the Game was real. Her whole body hummed. Katya tapped the channels for her favorite soundtrack: Brazen, with purpose (#5).
The sphere flashed. All the shimmering suits thrummed to full power. Lasers cut the glittery air, like rainbow beams of sunlight through a dusty sky. Dancekillers dove from platforms, angling themselves toward better positions, shooting rivers of energy. Several competitors floated idly past, their darkened suits like magnets for tiny robot predators. Everyone knew the nightwolves programmed scavengers to steal the best gear so they could upmod it untraceably. Katya’s gear was expensive, and she’d spotted three scavengers already stalking her.
As shots criss–crossed over her position, she ignited her tracker, hoping no one glommed on the energy. She was in luck. Yuri was nearby, just on the other side of this formation — but he was geared up like crazy. He wore a hackshield and a 400–level fadewall. Even worse, at least eight opponents could shoot his position. Reaching her brother alive would take all her skill. Katya was good, but not brilliant. She’d scored fifth in the Junior League competition at age 17, category bronze — but fifth was still losing.
A blast caught her attention and she glanced sideways. A black bomb smoked on a nearby ledge. Five darkened bodies floated nearby. Black mods were expensive — and permanent. Katya had heard of them but never seen one in action before. They were even more terrifying than she imagined. The scavengers were already stripping the pieces from the wreckage.
Holy shit, thought Katya, steeling herself, they’re actually dead. Not just back in grayspace. She touched the two–minute warning grenade at her hip to reassure herself, then gritted her teeth and checked her readings. She knew he’d hold position — the records proved he hadn’t moved in his last hundred Games nor fired more than five shots. That was why she’d brought the grenade. Yuri needed a lesson. She closed her eyes and focused on her soundtrack until the rhythm thumped through her like a battlecry. Time to solo.
Katya vaulted through the laser fire towards Yuri’s position. Her shields warped as energy blasted her. Someone’s supershot crackled lightning at her feet. Katya aimed at the source and fired. She’d paid a fortune for this modded gear, from a connection it’d taken months to find, and now it was time to see if her purchase was worth it. She wielded her triple–guns like hammers, obliterating opponents where they flew, like a goddess raining justice on the battlefield. She could get ten shots off, in four directions, in half normal time — and her new central blaster ruptured most shields. Game on.
Wildness rushed through her, a power surge unlike any league game, and Katya knew she would never go legal again. Not after experiencing this. For the first time, she understood why Yuri lurked in the illegals, wearing nearly–impervious shields and never drawing attention. This Game made the leagues fade into grayspace. She understood Yuri better, but she couldn’t let him continue here. Not the way he was playing.
Her guns were everything she’d dreamed of, but her armor failed the test. She took heavy losses in her legs, so many hits that even her 300–ultrashield collapsed. Her legs darkened as she tried to push off an overhang; off–balance, she crashed and ricocheted upwards. She arched her back to dodge another blast and dove roughly towards Yuri. No chance of surprising him now. If he fired, she was done for. She hoped that even in the chaos, he’d recognize the hidden sig she broadcast. She tumbled towards him, her waist and torso darkening to oblivion.
She struck a wall hard and grabbed an outcropping. For a moment, Katya felt as slow and heavy as a grayspacer, interacting in real time, where moving and talking happened as if through mud. The nightmare soaked her mind with sludge, and then drained away in a wash of color. She hung onto the corner where she’d crumpled, with her two glowing arms atop a knocked–out body. Her tracker hummed against her neck as she looked up. Yuri bounded towards her like a moonwalker, authenticating her secret sig.
Katya, what are you doing here? he typed, the familiar font drifting across her screen. This is the deadly Game.
Just like him, never noticing his little sister had grown up. Katya air–typed, I’ve come for you, Yuri. You have a problem. You’re always in the Game.
His text dripped a scornful font. Should I stay in grayspace then? That hellish place full of unwritten rules, which gives status to the unworthy? At least in the Game I know where I stand.
No, she accented firmly, but you’ve grown timid. You lurk in corners and watch the crossfire. You no longer play the Game; you just hide here.
What difference does it make how I play? I’m here. Don’t you remember, Katya? All the nights I taught you to dancekill. The Game is all that matters and you know it. So what if I spend every waking hour here? Why shouldn’t I? This is my life!
Katya closed her eyes, remembering those vivid nights dropping through zero–gee, hugging the training pillars, shooting targets like fish leaping from water. Her big brother catching her, guiding her, holding her hand. He taught her to win. In the Game, life’s blandness fell away, the hodgepodge of manners and society that ultimately meant nothing. The Game was where she felt alive, so bravely explosive in a world that finally made sense. Yuri was right — the Game was what mattered. And nothing was worse than watching Yuri coast through the Game without playing, like a ghost unable to haunt the living.
Yuri, you’re no longer alive. You’ve built your own private grayspace here in the Game.
She tugged the grenade from her hip and pulled the pin. Black smoke curled around the pair of them.
What did you just do? he asked with dagger text.
She smiled, though he couldn’t see her face. Two minute warning. Game on, Yuri.
Yuri cursed in a barbed–wire font. You murdering bitch! Goddammit!
Katya rolled away before he shot her. His blast fired over her head. She fell off the wall’s side, clutching at tiles. Overhead Yuri soared, his guns sweeping toward her, as she scrambled into a deep tiled archway. She watched on radar as Yuri zoomed away, as she expected. He knew the Game deep down. He would kill as many opponents as he could before he died himself. That was what a grenade was good for: waking people up. And now Yuri was thriving. Alive again, playing the Game.
Katya dug in her heels and defended her position. She wished she could be with Yuri about two minutes from now, when he realized he was still alive. She couldn’t afford a real two–minute warning grenade, but this replica worked just as well.
Inside Hides the Monster
Damien Walters Grintalis
HIDDEN BY THE SHADOWS, THE DYING siren crouches on a rooftop, her wings curled protectively around her body. Each time the
door across the street opens, a swell of music rushes out, like a bird escaping a cage. To Lygeia, the notes taste of desperation. Of fools and folly.
A sign above the door reads The White — A Circus of Extreme.
Lygeia wrings her hands together. She shouldn’t be here — it isn’t safe this far inland — but she can’t bring herself to move away. No one can see her. Still, she curls her wings even closer and peeks through the dark feathers. Even here, she can hear the water of the harbor, a gentle lullaby that reminds her of what she is and where she should be.
Her mouth twists. Should be?
Humans no longer answer her call, no matter how loud she sings, no matter how hoarse her throat becomes. She presses one hand to her side where pain lives beneath her sea–cold flesh, an ache that will only grow worse as it spreads, a hunger than cannot be assuaged by mere meat. The stories about her kind say they sing to lure, to charm, and when their captives sleep the sleep of a spell so ancient it has no name, the sirens tear them to pieces. But the stories never say why.
There is always a why.
A group approaches, the women in tight miniskirts and mesh and lace tops; the men in ruffled shirts with their hair tumbling over their foreheads. Lygeia’s feathers rustle. Her mouth waters. She leans forward, catches herself, and rocks back onto her heels, her talons scratching on the roof. It’s far too dangerous for her to be so close to so many, yet she cannot tear herself away.
The door opens again and the music emerges. Something about girls and film. Another group draws close, disappears inside. Following the call of the music? But how can they ignore her for this? Her song holds the dulcet tones of a hymn; the beauty of sunrise dancing across the surface of the ocean; the gentle play of wind against skin. This music is filled with screeches and thumps, like angry gulls fighting over a clam. It’s nothing more than noise, grating noise filled with empty notes, a temporary sweetness pretending to be a song, yet even more people are approaching. If she learns how to make these sounds, will they come to her as they once did?
Another lean forward; another rock back. The music makes her head and heart ache. With a grimace, she unfurls her wings and takes to the sky, heading back across the water toward home.
§
This time, she hides in a sliver of darkness between two buildings. Across the street, a young woman pauses and turns, and, for a moment, Lygeia is certain the woman can see her. But no, she’s only adjusting her dress, a shimmering gold bit of fabric that drapes and clings.
The door opens and a snippet of music creeps out, imploring her to relax. Lygeia frowns but hums the melody soft and low while the pain in her side pulses in time. The woman pauses again, glancing over her shoulder. Lygeia hums louder. The woman shakes her head, disappears through the doorway, and Lygeia bites back a snarl. She cannot take what she needs by force. She’s tried. A messy affair, a waste of time and energy, and the emptiness inside remained even as she licked the last traces of blood from her fingers and talons.
§
Lygeia creeps close to a glass pane on the roof. Through it, she sees bodies pressed together in a glittering miasma of color and heat. Women dressed in strips of fabric carry trays to and fro; cigarette smoke rises in curls; contortionists twist on a dais; on another, a man breathes fire. On silken ropes hanging from the ceiling, men and women in gold spin upside down in slow circles with their arms outstretched.
When she places her hands against the glass, the music’s steady, repetitive rhythm thrums beneath her palms. Her lips curl back from her teeth; her talons leave gouges behind.
Just one human. That’s all she needs.
She isn’t to blame; the curse belongs to sirens and humans both. Without a human’s warmth, a siren cannot live, and the only way to draw the warmth is through the spell that weaves inside her song. But they must come of their own volition, and if her song no longer lures…
She growls, low and deep in her throat, snaps her wings open, and leaves the roof behind.
§
On her lonely bed of rocks, Lygeia plucks her feathers one by one, gritting her teeth against the pain, wiping the blood away with splashes of water. Moulting season would make it easier, but she can’t afford to wait. The ache in her side is a steady throbbing reminder, as if a part of her has been scooped out and the wound filled with saltwater.
She scrapes the rough edge of a stone across her talons, wearing them down and down and down. Again, there is blood and pain, but the talons, like her wings, will grow back. She touches a hand to her side. Unless she dies first, then her wings or lack thereof will not matter.
It isn’t fair. She’s never been greedy; she’s only ever taken what she needs to survive and no more. Yes, she’s killed, but not from want, not from cruelty, but to break the bond of the spell. It’s the only way — too much warmth and a siren will die, boiled from the inside out by an inescapable heat. This is why her kind must be careful and lure only one at a time.
Naked, she swims to shore, her back afire from the holes in her flesh. She slips unnoticed onto a boat rocking gently in the marina and searches through it, but the only clothes she finds belong to a man. The third boat she searches holds what she needs — a short dress, tall boots, red lipstick, paper money. She wrings the water from her hair and dresses quickly, listening for voices the entire time. Her exposed legs are indistinguishable from a human’s, but the boots pinch her feet into a shape unlike her own and make her steps awkward. The hurt, though, is not nearly as strong as the one in her side.
Her heart races as she approaches the door, but she smiles when a man holds it open. If he senses that she’s different — other — he gives no sign. She feels the pull of his warmth, but steps away quickly. Without her song and the spell, his warmth is only a bitter reminder of what she can’t have. Yet.
When she steps into the main room, for a moment she forgets to breathe, to think. She’s spied on humans before, peeking in windows to see bodies writhe beneath tangled sheets, to hear whispers of conversation, but she’s never seen anything like this. There are so many of them. And the noise —
It’s chaos.
Strings of tiny lights are draped across the ceiling, giving the illusion of a star–filled sky. The carpet is a rich turquoise; the walls are papered in a shocking shade of pink. Tables are scattered throughout, all with shiny lacquered tops and red metal legs. Women in short pink and black striped dresses and high heels carry trays of rainbow–colored drinks. The fire–breather is nowhere in sight, but the performers hanging from the silk ropes are twisting and spinning. The contortionists are bent in improbable shapes and on another dais, a man swallows a sword fashioned in a style Lygeia hasn’t seen in a hundred years. People stand shoulder to shoulder, all laughing smiles and brilliantly colored clothing, like peacocks strutting to impress a mate.
She’s never been around so many before. She places one hand on her chest, moves back toward the door, then stops and exhales sharply. Without her song, she’s in no danger. She could stand amid a crowd of ten thousand humans.
The music is so loud she can feel it in her feet, her lips, her fingers. How can they willingly listen? There is no nuance, no subtlety. It’s as brash, as garish, as the clothes they wear. She’s lived for one hundred and fifty years, only to be undone by this? No. She will not allow it. The urge to rend flesh and bone flares hot and bright, but she forces a smile to remain on her face.
This is not her fault. They’ve forced her to this. If they’d answered her song, she would not be here. She would be safe and whole, not mutilated. Her kind should never suffer such debasement. She clenches her fists, swallows her anger.
The music changes and a shower of gold confetti falls down like rain. Like a mermaid’s tears. She holds out her hands, collects the shimmer on her palms. The new song speaks of rapture. She forms the words of the song without a sound, hating each and every one, but committing them to memory nonetheless.
A man steps toward her, his eyes appraising the swell of he
r breasts, the curve of her hips. He moves close and reaches out a hand, but when his skin touches hers, he hisses in a breath, audible even over the music, and draws away, his eyes puzzled. The cold always surprises them. But instead of leaving, he reaches out again. A line of unease traces its way up and down her spine. What was she thinking? Coming here was a mistake. She doesn’t belong with them.
She pushes past the man and heads for the door.
§
Lygeia watches the waves while the pain radiates inside, like an angry flower blossoming under her skin. An empty boat bobs on the water, each swell carrying it further away. Why he landed on her island, she doesn’t know, and when she sang, pouring her heart and every bit of her pain into the song — first her own music, then the noise of the humans — he didn’t fall under the spell.
She pressed her body against his, desperate for the warmth that would not come, and finally, in frustration, she split his skull open with a fist–sized rock. Gulls swoop and squawk, fighting over the remaining scraps of flesh.
She watches the man’s boat drift away. The pain inside grows stronger. How long must she suffer? How long will it take for Thanatos to stake his claim and carry her to the underworld?
§
The man at the door smiles again, whether in recognition or by rote, Lygeia neither knows nor cares. The smile she gives in return feels tight and as awkward as the boots on her feet, but he doesn’t seem to notice. She isn’t even sure why she came, but she still holds a small sliver of hope. Maybe she didn’t stay long enough the last time. Maybe she didn’t listen to the music closely enough.
The gathering place is even more crowded tonight. The fire–breather is back, spitting out long orange plumes, each one accompanied by cheers from the people gathered round his dais. The silk ropes hang empty, but the contortionists are performing their act with slow deliberation.
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