The Mangrove Suite

by Tim Niederriter

  I blinked at her. “I suppose he didn’t.” I smiled with all the weariness I felt. “The real issue is the travel time, you know.”

  “Why’d you want to see a clean market anyway?”

  “I’m not really sure. I guess part of me is fascinated by them. The cleans, I mean.”

  “I knew what you meant.” We walked to the doorway leading to the open restaurant. “I guess it’s all the ichor, isn’t it?”

  I frowned. Even though I refused to use ichor except on workdays I did sometimes overdo it for shaping scenes and thoughts.

  “You may be right. I suppose you’ve also heard that many of them were previously insane from ichor overdose.”

  “That’s a rumor. I’ve never actually seen an aeon clean someone.”

  I frowned as we walked to a table in an alcove of the ornately gilded square room. She set her purse in one seat, and we headed for the sparse line. They served all sorts of food that would be familiar to people across the country. Fried and scrambled eggs in a tub beside bacon, and on the other side, a large coffee machine dispensed hot water and fragrant mix. Fresh fruit sat along the opposite side of the food line.

  “You don’t have to see it to know it happens,” she said. “Jeth, are you in a bad mood?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t think it’s worth arguing before we have something to eat.”

  She dished up some eggs, then turned to a salad bowl.

  I put a few strips of bacon on my plate, then headed straight for the fresh fruit. A lot of guys my size tried to steer clear of eggs when possible, but I never did. I backed up and took some of those, too. If I was trying to eat healthily, I would have cut out the bacon, but I liked bacon the most. I took an apple and a few strawberries. Then I turned to face Elizabeth.

  “You don’t honestly think I’m trying to argue, do you?”

  “You seem pretty riled.”

  I shrugged. “I guess I had a rough night.”

  “Tell me about it,” she said and headed for the table in the alcove.

  I followed her, still reluctant to tell her the truth about Rain. But I knew I’d need to do it sometime. If Thomas could be trusted with this, Elizabeth definitely could. We sat down across from each other. She looked down at her plate, apparently thinking. Then she picked up her purse and removed a small purple plastic bottle that contained her daily ichor.

  She poured it into the cup at her seat. A lot of memeotects wake up without coffee. The amount of ichor it takes to activate a network is always relatively large compared to simply attaining enhanced senses so the heightening of energy is significant as well. It’s like caffeine, but with less crash and more addictiveness.

  Elizabeth sipped her ichor. “You ready to tell me what happened?”

  I frowned. “It’s the clean market,” I said, then paused, chewing on my thoughts. “I saw someone familiar there.”

  “Familiar? Jeth, the megalopolis has a population of at least a hundred million people, but the market isn’t that far down the canal from here.”

  “It wasn’t someone I knew from the megalopolis,” I said. “She was a girl I knew back in the Green Valley.”

  “You knew her…”

  “Liz, it was never like that.” A stretch maybe, but I didn’t want to get into that with Elizabeth. “We were friends.”

  “Now she’s here, though.”

  “Well, not exactly.” I couldn’t believe I was doing this, but the words kept spilling out. “Liz, she’s been cleaned.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes widened slightly. Everyone knows the cleans used to be people, but nobody likes to think of friends or family going that way and losing their minds. My partner, strictly my business partner, cleared her throat.

  “Jeth, I’m sorry.”

  I clenched my flask in my hand. “Don’t be sorry,” I said. “It’s not your fault.”

  She reached out and put a hand on mine, easing the flask back toward the table. “Jeth, I’m glad you told me.”

  I shook my head. “That’s not all, Liz.”

  She frowned.

  I looked up from her hand on the hand that held the flask. “I bought her.”

  Elizabeth’s hand withdrew from mine. The color rushed to her face. “You bought her?”

  I nodded.

  Elizabeth’s lip trembled. She sniffed in a breath and sat back in her chair. Her gaze moved to the cup of ichor on the table between us. “I guess that explains it,” she said.

  “Explains what?”

  “Why you don’t want to talk to me today. You slept with her, didn’t you?”

  “No, nothing like that!” My face heated up, and I scowled. “I did not sleep with her.”

  “You didn’t?” She crossed her arms. “You expect me to believe that?”

  “It’s the truth! She stayed in the Mangrove Suite last night. Thomas took her there.”

  She flushed despite her scowl. “You may want to rethink that phrasing.”

  I shook my head, fire coursing in my blood. I raised the flask of ichor to my lips, then hesitated. “I thought you were grateful I told you. I couldn’t lie, you know.”

  She nodded but didn’t look at all mollified. “Fine.” She drained her cup of ichor.

  I downed the contents of my flask. The energy of the ichor flowed into me, and my senses heightened. I reached out with my mind, feeling the mental presence of Elizabeth and the cooks and waiters. My feelings expanded, giving me the sense of filling up the room, then the building, then the city.

  I reached into my mind, knowing my eyes were glazing over visibly, but also knowing Elizabeth was doing the same because of the aura that built around her mind, heavily woven and beautifully intricate.

  Every mind has a different sense to it, different aptitudes and weaknesses, and they present as different forms and senses in the mental world.

  I set my hands on the table and felt the hardwood beneath my palms. It pulsed with the mantle of the earth far below the surface, but here it almost made the polished tree remains feel alive again. More alive than ever because now they seemed to be breathing. The feeling of new life was normal, but every time it took a few minutes to recede.

  My mind’s willowy expanse brushed against the finely crafted fortress of Elizabeth’s. She blinked and her eyes returned to normal. I tried to normalize as fast as I could, but in the meantime, I built an image of the clean market and sent it to Elizabeth through the network we formed locally through our proximity to each other.

  I chose the images that showed the bizarre objectification of the cleans, the dancers, the sellers in their perfume-laden stalls.

  Then I normalized with a hiccup. “Sorry,” I said, “but I couldn’t leave her like that.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “I don’t really understand, but I’m glad you didn’t try to keep her secret.”

  I put a fist to my chest and took a deep breath, trying to still the incessant hiccups that threatened to disrupt my entire mentality. Finally, the sensation of unrest in my diaphragm faded. “I appreciate it. I wouldn’t lie to you, partner.”

  She nodded again, but her smile from earlier was long gone.

  Warnings

  The mental alarm normally embedded deep in my subconscious went off about five minutes after Elizabeth and I finished breakfast and were on our way out of the restaurant. It did not blare harsh sounds but spoke in the gentle voice of Nageddia, the aeon owner of Lotdel Tower. She lived near the tower. and it was her responsibility to inform the tenants.

  “A rogue star has been sighted in the local district. Please use caution when leaving your buildings.”

  Elizabeth glanced at me and mouthed, “A rogue star?”

  I shook my head. “I dunno.” Rogue stars could be any sort of inhuman monster from beyond the city, outside of any aeon’s control. When they infiltrated, they could kill a lot of people who got too close unless the aeons stopped them first.

  The message repeated a few more times, but th
en fell silent. Elizabeth and I headed for the elevator down to the first floor. “You think it’s actually dangerous?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I doubt it. There are thousands of aeons in the megalopolis, not to mention all the purifiers and the Teloite guards.”

  I nodded, but I didn’t like the names she brought up. Purifiers were human but invested with the right to act as police and inquisition in the megalopolis. The Teloites were even worse as far as I was concerned, a gang of extremists, both human and aeon, acting as extra-jurisdictional law enforcement. Aeons used their own ichor to boost their physical strength and vitality so they could be a match for most rogue stars.

  My ichor let me connect to networks for news, so I did as the elevator moved down to the first floor. The voice of the Grand network’s newscaster, Peter Harrison, echoed in my mind. “The rogue star sighted in the Central Megalopolis is likely some kind of creature composed by the beast forces across the sea. It may have physical powers at its command. Do not approach any unusual individuals. The rogue star is reportedly capable of creating very convincing disguises.” Peter had a harsh voice for delivery in general, and today was worse than normal. Each word sounded as though it had to be scraped off the roof of his mouth. His company evidently wouldn’t let him change it or mask it with emotions or other feelings, even though that would be simple over the network.

  Things always seem worse after a big change, I reminded myself. And yesterday, I found Rebecca. If that wasn’t a big change I didn’t know what was. Elizabeth glanced at me. “Are you okay?” she said. “The network news doesn’t seem all that bad.”

  “I need to go into work today,” I said. It was true, but more than anything I wanted to be able to say the opposite. “Omasoa wants to see how productive we can be.”

  “She’ll understand if you’re late. Aeons aren’t monsters.”

  Funny saying, that. “I know what you mean,” I said, “but this is important.”

  We stepped into the elevator. Elizabeth hit the controls for the first floor before I could do anything. I glanced at her. She smiled at me. “You could use a head start. If anyone does, you need the help today.”

  Normally, I thought Elizabeth would make a great newscaster or network branch. She really did have a way with words sometimes. Too bad this wasn’t one of them.

  “Thanks,” I said. The elevator doors closed in front of us, and we rode down to the first-floor entrance.

  I stepped out of the elevator, and Elizabeth took it back up. I made my way to the front doors. They stood open, and I shivered at the breeze blowing through them. As I approached the doors, I found myself looking out into a cloud-covered city, as if bulging gray curtains moved through the air above the earth.

  Wind blustered through the streets, carrying the first drops of a rainstorm. I pulled my coat around me and headed out into it. My every other thought turned back to Rebecca, still in the Mangrove Suite. I would have liked to see her again and talk to Thomas before I went to work, but I didn’t want to do anything else to make Elizabeth angry with me.

  Across the street, to the train station, I walked. I was late for the first train of the day, but only twenty minutes shy of the second. The warning on the network had rattled me a bit. A rogue star of all things. Star was another way people sometimes referred to aeons, but a rogue could hardly be anything but one turned into a beast and crossing the wasteland or the sea. I did not dare activate my network connection to surf through information because of the warning.

  Silly, I thought, as I waited on the bench at the train station lit by veins of glowing blue that crept across the concrete ceiling. It’s not as though a rogue star would be looking for me. I tried to relax as I picked up a newspaper from the stand and paid with my cred card. The print news aggregated plenty of information left untouched or buried in the mind networks. With computers remaining highly disliked by aeons in general, and considered less than reliable with any aeon around, I suppose people saw the wisdom in reverting to the older form of distribution.

  My fingers turned the pages absently. I skipped over a section of local obituaries to read the news of the war in the west. Beasts preyed on the opposite ccoast’s megalopolis far more than they ever approached us here in the east. In general, I was glad for it, but I couldn’t help but look it up. My older brother, Luke, had moved out west just a few weeks before I followed Rebecca east. He’d gone to become a journalist, and he’d had stories published across the country by both memeotects over the network and print papers.

  The train whistle blew as it pulled into the station. I rose from the bench, folding my paper as I went. As I approached the train to board, a voice came from behind me. Ryan Carter. “Jeth, wait up!”

  I turned as skinny little Ryan sprinted across the terminal. His bag banged into his side with every dashed step. He stopped before me, breathing hard. He looked at me with a grin. Then together we boarded the train.

  “Morning,” I said.

  “Pretty good, yeah,” he said. “You hear about the rogue star?”

  “How could I miss it?” I said. “I suppose that’s why you’re working at the office today?” Ryan was a defensive analyst at a technical combat company near where I worked in the area north of Lotdel Tower.

  He nodded vigorously. “Yep, gotta protect the city and all that.”

  I shook my head. “What would you do if you ran into a rogue star yourself?”

  “Call for backup,” he said without hesitation. “I’m an analyst, not a soldier.”

  I grinned. “Good attitude. I wouldn’t want to face down one of those monsters either.”

  The train started moving as we found seats. It was sparsely packed. Not many people who had jobs in knowledge went to work every day because of the network and most of the time they wouldn’t want to if they knew a rogue star was roaming the neighborhood. Hopefully, the train would take us clear of danger zone. Where there were more aeons, things would surely be safer.

  I leaned back in my seat and opened the newspaper.

  “Anything good in there?” Ryan asked.

  “Not in particular,” I said, going back to my search for any news on the western war. I found what I was looking for a few seconds later, between an article on a new generator heart maturing out at the Aeon Heights west of the more packed parts of the city and an ad for a network I didn’t recognize.

  “The western forces pushed elements of a beast unit back toward the interior.”

  “The war again?” Ryan said.

  I glanced at him.

  He shrugged. “You were reading about the war last time we ran into each other on the train.”

  “My brother’s out there.”

  “But he’s not a soldier. He’ll be fine, Jeth.”

  “I guess I’m not so sure about that. Luke once went to poke a hornet’s nest. Literally. And he didn’t even use a stick.”

  Ryan laughed. “Bet that gave him some interesting lumps.”

  I smirked. “You have no idea. But my point is, Luke doesn’t have a lot of common sense.”

  “I get what you mean.”

  “Well then.” I shook my head. “You can see how I might think he’d go diving into danger when he really doesn’t have any need.”

  Ryan nodded, still smiling from his burst of laughter. “Really, a hornet’s nest? You gotta be kidding me.”

  “I wish.”

  “Your brother wishes.”

  “Well, I was right next to him.”

  Ryan’s palm flew to his forehead. “Somebody should have put a leash on you two!”

  I shrugged. Rebecca had told me I’d be better off not following Luke around after that. “That was Green Valley life,” I said.

  “I bet.” Ryan spoke between wheezes of mirth. “Do any of you middlers think before you act?”

  “Not in general.” I thought of Rain who had once been Rebecca, sitting in a sweetly perfumed room in the Mangrove Suite. That was one piece of information I wouldn’t be sharing with
Ryan or anyone beside Thomas and Elizabeth, if I had my way.

  The train lurched at its next stop. The doors on either side of our car slid open. Through one of them, a bearded man in a button-down shirt and blue jeans stepped. He shook his head fitfully, possibly from an over-consumption of ichor. Sometimes people went overboard, and if one did that too much, one could end up cleaned. Like Rebecca. The more I thought about her, the more I considered the possibility that things could have happened exactly that way.

  My fingers tightened together, tearing the sides of the newspaper where I gripped it.

  “Woah, Jeth, what’s the matter?” Ryan asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just thought I might lose my grip.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “If you say so.”

  The doors slid shut, and the train started moving again. I watched the man who’d just entered, more and more sure he had overdosed on ichor. He rubbed his palms against each other, then pressed them both to his forehead. His eyes quickly turned glassy from network access. He stood like that for a minute or two, stock still, hands pressed to his forehead.

  Then he let out a gasp of air and collapsed to the floor of the train car.

  Ryan was out of his seat in one instant and by the man’s side in another. He checked the man’s pulse immediately, a trained first responder. I rose more slowly and looked around the train car. “Is anyone here a doctor?”

  None of the other half a dozen passengers answered except with looks of nervousness in their eyes.

  I knelt beside Ryan and the fallen man, who I then saw was breathing. “He’s not dying?” I said. The ichor overdosed man on the floor of the train could be a threat to all of us on board if he turned into a beast.

  “He’s already mad, most likely,” said Ryan, “but the ichor he overdosed on will turn him into a beast if we don’t move quickly.”

  “I understand.” I accessed my network even as I spoke. My mind reached through space and time, and I signaled the universal distress call to the aeons. The nearest visible aeon mind gleamed in my mental sight, two dozen blocks across the city at our destination, Omasoa, and even she could not stop a train in motion. I cut the network connection. “This isn’t good,” I said. “How long do we have?”