City of Cinders

by Kendrai Meeks

  Cindira became a block of ice, even as Scotia blazed next to her. Or maybe it was just the hair. Her best friend’s wavy array of red locks had earned her the nickname “fireball” in their boarding school days.

  Scotia leaned over, keeping her voice to a whisper. Barely. “Weren’t those your ideas?”

  “And my code that made them possible,” Cindira replied. She wouldn’t mention how her marketing plans, saved in her company e-folder until she worked up the courage to show them to her father, had somehow ended up in Johanna’s inbox branded with Kaylie’s name.

  Tybor’s Executive Vice-President droned on. “Kaylie also understands that, while we still hold a dominant share of the luxury VR environment market, our competition increases not only by the day, but by the hour. We need to improve our existing products and create those that will take us into the future. The Kingdom must endure, not for its own sake, but for the sake of humanity. Never forget: it makes possible Tybor’s continued and independent support of GAIA. Yes, one may be the playground of the rich and famous, but the other is the salvation of the poor and voiceless.”

  How dare she invoke Omala Grover’s gift to humanity. There were only two things Johanna longed for: power and money, preferably other people’s. If not for Cindira’s father’s controlling interest in the company, she was certain Tybor would have pulled its support of GAIA long ago. Even after all the good the platform had done, taking most warfare into the virtual world and curbing the destruction of both the environment and societies, Johanna thumbed her nose at its continued existence.

  At least, behind closed doors. Literally. How many times, while home from boarding school on summer break, had she overhead her step-mother’s condescension?

  Scotia squeezed her shoulder. “Don’t worry. She won’t last.”

  “Kaylie’s savvy.” Cindira turned to her friend. “As long as she produces results and keeps The Kingdom growing, she’ll stay in that position.”

  Cindira couldn’t visualize the situation in which Johanna would ever fire her own daughter.

  “You mean as long as she has you there to clean up her crappy code.” Scotia shook her head.

  No doubt about that. Over the last three years, from the moment Cindira returned from abroad and took a job at Tybor, Kaylie did as little as possible, and sloppily when she did anything. Cindira cleaned up the messy code and made it actually work. Because Kaylie was her boss, she got all the credit. Because Cindira feared the fallout of going against her step-family and upsetting her father in the process, she let her.

  Scotia continued. “Call her out.”

  “What, here? In front of everyone?” Cindira shook her head. “Kaylie’s the celebrity face of Tybor. I’d be doing more damage to the company than helping myself. Besides, no one except you and the Kitchen crew would believe me, and they’re not going to do anything that would cost them their jobs.”

  “I wish you had more faith in people, starting with yourself. I still can’t believe you can go into the arena like you did last night and kick serious ass, but turn belly up for the Fifes. Next time you sit down to your station, code yourself a new backbone.”

  “This isn’t the vreal world, Scotia.” Cindira’s meek voice only carried to the redhead. “There, I can be whoever I want to be. Here, I’m just plain, little Cindira Tieg.”

  Scotia swallowed a frustrated laugh. “Just because you can’t code the walls here doesn’t mean you couldn’t knock them down if you tried. If you keep letting Kaylie take advantage of you, you’re going to make her CEO someday. You need to stand up for yourself. Doctor’s orders.”

  “I’m not sure having a PhD in social work qualifies you to...”

  “It does.” Her friend cut her off, and probably would have launched into her boilerplate synopsis of how Cindira’s so-called family needed the intervention of one with her specific qualifications, if the man who pulled to within a few feet of Johanna didn’t swipe away both of their gazes. “Shut the front door, who is that?”

  The stranger stood out, and not just because he was handsome. Such men were a dime a dozen, given Tybor’s affluent clientele and the ease of synth surgery for those of means. His face had a certain level of imperfection that suggested he hadn’t been altered. One eyebrow arced a few degrees higher, a tiny bump on the side of his nose kept him from the type of unnatural symmetry the altered had.

  Like Kaylie, for example.

  Yes, handsome, but his presence still made her wary. Cindira took note of a silver band around his wrist. An antique watch? Since the proliferation of comques a generation before, the analog timepieces had all but died out. Unlike his face, his attire appeared engineered. Not dressed in a way to grab attention, but an effort to avoid it. With his slate-colored suit, pressed white shirt, black leather belt, and solid black tie, he'd mastered a monochrome palate. The scheme had backfired on him at Tybor, where employees were encouraged to dress in the bright, flashy styles of the social elite to give clients the impression that they were “not only welcome to join The Kingdom, but already part of it.”

  This man had the appearance of someone who came from money but wanted to hide it. The way he stood at the front of the lobby, but off to the side, almost as if he needed to keep a line of sight on Johanna and the employees milling about but not be near neither suggested a tactical assessment on his part.

  “Is he a member of the board?” Scotia took half a step forward, vying for a better view. “He looks so familiar.”

  Cindira shook her head. “I know the board members.”

  Scotia’s overly-freckled nose wrinkled. “I know I’ve seen him somewhere before, but I’m terrible with faces. Trust me, that is not a face I’d want to forget on purpose. I wish I had your sharp memory.”

  “No, you don’t. It’s a blessing to be able to forget things easily.”

  The awkward level inched up as Scotia rode out the subtext. In their silence, they refocused on the tail end of Johanna’s speech.

  “...and I know you’ll all join me now in officially congratulating Miss Fife on her new position.”

  A polite round of applause, short lived, tapered off. The lobby began to empty, each of the workgroups flowing towards their area of the tower. Cindira knew she needed to get back to her workstation in the Kitchens—a new batch of specialization orders had come in and she’d be coding till doomsday—but something about the way the curious man lingered forced her to do the same. She'd stay until she couldn't avoid being noticed.

  “Cindira?”

  She gave Scotia’s elbow a little tap. “You, um... go ahead. Even if she’s evil, she’s still family. I should say something, or Johanna will make sure my dad knows how rude I was.”

  “You know what I think of that, right? But whatever, you’re a big girl. I, however, have to go.” Scotia leaned in closer to Cindira’s ear under the guise of trying to hug her friend. “In prison, this would be where I shove the shank into your pocket so you could take care of her.”

  “Love you, too.”

  Luckily, Kaylie’s inner fandom, a hobnobbed collection of sycophantic residue feeding off each other’s counterfeit glee, flanked the rising star, giving Cindira a shield of invisibility as she crept up to the edge of the gaggle.

  “Oh, Kaylie!” One of them squealed, positively shaking with glee as she presented a hand. “Department Head! What an honor.”

  “It is,” was her snide, curt reply. The soft-skinned hand drew back as soon as it could be done without looking like a snap as she examined her nails and added, “Isn’t mine the position that Omala Grover once held?”

  Johanna’s hands clawed her daughter’s shoulders as she snaked her arms around her. “Don’t be silly, dear. I have Omala’s old position.”

  As she was both the Executive Vice-President of Tybor, and Rex Tieg’s wife, Cindira couldn’t be sure which of the two Johanna currently laid claim to. Neither sat well.

  Cade whittled himself from the crowd, pushing forward in an effort to get to hi
s sister’s side. Kaylie’s twin was gray where she was bright, almost as if he’d grown pale living in her shadow. Cindira remembered having that thought the first time they’d met as children, in a time when she’d give herself over to fantasy and poetry about the wonders of the world. Kaylie was the sun, and Cade, silver moonlight. Hauntingly handsome in his own way but given to silence and sulking. Cindira had once pictured the twins in the womb looking like some sort of infantile yin-yang. He’d never been as hostile to her as the two women had, but there was a bit of sinister in his silence. Cindira suspected his motives–especially as she’d grown into womanhood. Forget the fact that they’d been step-siblings since she was nine and he, fifteen. Much worse went on inside The Kingdom, she’d heard.

  He paused on the outer orbits when he saw her, smiling and laying a hand on her shoulder. “Cindy.”

  “Cade.”

  A world lay between what she wished she could say and what her tongue would agree to. Did you see me last night? What were you doing there? Were you spying? For my father, or your mother? But this was hardly the place to discuss such things. Cade might have even more wiggle room in his life outside of Tybor than she did, but neither had anything to gain by others knowing they’d been at the same hackdome the night before.

  Instead, he veered off into an appearance of polite conversation. “I thought you’d be taking some time off. Aren’t you overdue for a vacation?”

  “Trying to get rid of me?”

  His smug smile faltered at the veiled jab.

  Cindira continued, “I’d need my supervisor’s permission to take any time off. Not likely to happen anytime soon. The Kingdom is a demanding master.”

  Perhaps drawn by her son’s gravity, Johanna had made her way to them from behind without either noticing. The snake showed just the tips of her fangs. “Greatness comes at great sacrifices.”

  It wasn’t any less true just because Johanna had been the one to say it, and Cindira knew from experience just how much Tybor’s creation expected on the altar.

  “Indeed.” Cindira shifted gears, driving away from the fact that Tybor’s success had come on the back of her mother’s legacy. “I was going to offer my congratulations to Kaylie, but I don’t think her fan club is willing to give her up quite yet.”

  “Yes, well...” Johanna wrapped an arm around Cindira, pulling her into the fold. Such family intimacy was a move her step-mother executed whenever eager eyes were about; employee morale had been suffering before Cindira’s arrival at Tybor three years ago, and the illusion of a big, happy family leading the company proved a successful cure. Besides, Johanna wasn’t about to miss a chance for her step-daughter to genuflect at the feet of her own flesh and blood. “...it is difficult to get the attention of powerful people. Kaylie? Kaylie, come here, please. You see, dear, you just have to—"

  “Ah-hmm...”

  All blinked in surprise at the sound of someone clearing his throat, though Johanna regained her composure the fastest. Cindira managed to shuffle behind Johanna as they turned, but she could still see the particulars. It was him, the man that she and Scotia had noticed. He stood on the edge of their small gathering, his eyes intent but his body retracted, as though asking for permission to join them while daring any of them to deny him. His face would be the vision of any grand sculptor. Up close, Cindira could see a scarred line through his right eyebrow and the slight curvature of his nose that might be a healed injury of another sort. He became aware of her just as her gaze drifted to his gray eyes. The man looked at her, through her, beyond her, as though she were a work of art and he was trying to study her brush strokes. So briefly, and with such intensity that, even without reason, she began to feel like she was guilty of something.

  When he turned his gaze back to Johanna, Cindira took the opportunity to melt back further, while still being careful to remain within earshot. She looked down at the comque on her wrist, making an effort to appear consumed in some message or task.

  “Officer Batista.” Johanna pulled another tissue smile onto her face, a countenance utilitarian and quickly disposed of when finished. “May I introduce you to my family?”

  Cindira’s stomach bottomed out as Johanna said, “My daughter...”

  A moment later, from the corner of Johanna’s eye, Kaylie bounced into view—far too enthusiastic to be natural. No, this introduction had been anticipated, and Kaylie acted nervous as though she’d missed her cue. Only a blind man would miss the way Johanna pushed her blond-haired, brown-eyed progeny forward, as though her daughter was the last line of protection between herself and this strange man. Kaylie presented a candied vision that could tempt a man’s sweet tooth and distract him from the meat of a situation.

  “And my son, Cade.”

  Nevertheless, he was Johanna’s progeny, and well versed in civil engagement. Cade stepped forward, offering the officer a hand and quick nod of recognition. Meanwhile, Cindira waited to see if she would be acknowledged. When she wasn’t, it came more as a relief than a surprise. She should take this opportunity to turn on heel and flee, but then the man spoke, and her feet refused to move.

  “Thank you for allowing me to visit today. It’s such an honor to see where Omala Grover made history.”

  His voice arrested her. She’d heard it before... somewhere? The scent of memories drifted on the breeze and shooed away. Cedar and myrtle, and the sound of ocean waves and screaming gulls... So much for the perfect memory all her fellow code writers credited her with. This man’s voice triggered a tripwire of recollection, and explosion of the past that refused to gain clarity in the lifting smoke. She knew him. Only, she didn’t.

  “Kaylie?” Johanna’s tenuous mezzo brought Cindira back to the moment. “I promised Office Batista a tour of the Kitchens. Perhaps you’d be willing to show him around?”

  “Of course. It would be my pleasure.”

  Kaylie put a lilt in her voice that imbued every word with a slight hint of innuendo. Was there a mission decreed by her mother, or did she just want to bed Batista on the merits of his own physical appeal? At least there, Cindira couldn’t blame her step-sister’s train of thought.

  Officer Batista grinned. “My father was one of the representatives to the first GAIA Congress, and he often told me that that was where the magic behind Tybor’s platforms really happened. I’ve been curious to see it for some time.”

  He spoke of his father in the past tense, something that didn’t escape Cindira’s notice.

  He continued. “That’s where Omala Grover once worked, isn’t it? It would be thrilling to see the place where the world was saved from the brink of destruction.”

  “Hyperbole doesn’t suit you,” Johanna laughed. “All Omala did was build the stage where the players could act.”

  “She did much more than that. Much more. It’s a place where men and women can work out their differences through either diplomacy or warfare, without all the horrific real-world consequences. The thought of countries still going to war – actual war – in real life...the casualties, the damage to our planet...” Batista looked down as if to compose himself. His focus drifted from the women to the watch on his wrist. “If not for GAIA, how much more would we have lost? How much more would I—"

  Something shifted in the air, and suddenly, Johanna’s sacrificial lamb needed to be pushed toward the knife more insistently. “Officer Batista—”

  His attention snapped back. “It’s Detective, actually,” he corrected.

  A detective wanting to learn about The Kingdom? Even Cindira’s own protective instincts flared at that notion. Raising any concern would only cause more problems and draw Johanna’s ire, however.

  “Apologies, Detective,” Johanna bowed her head. “If you wanted an overview of The Kingdom architecture, it might be more effective to discuss that in Kaylie’s office. The Kitchen is nothing more than a roomful of computer stations and code writers, none of whom are particularly good conversationalists.”

  “No, I’m very intent on s
eeing it.” His smile was the kind born of pride, where the corners of the mouth draw back instead of up. “It’s the whole reason I’m here. I hope you understand.”

  “Of course, it’s no trouble. I’d be happy to give the detective a peak.” Kaylie drew her arm through the air, motioning to the elevators, even as Cindira studied the flinch of Johanna’s face from the lilt Kaylie gave the word detective. “After all, the place where we cook up all the code is really the heart of the company.”

  Batista cleared his throat and mimicked Kaylie’s gesture, hooking his arm to hers. “Let’s to it, then, Miss Fife.”

  “To the elevators. We have to go down to the sixteenth floor.” To say Kaylie looked like a fisherman dangling his big catch to the remaining members of her inner circle as she walked by would be underselling the arrogance. Who was this man that she felt like she had to lord the fact they were so close over her fangirls? Was it just because he was someone she hadn’t yet slept with? “If you’d like to follow me, I can—”

  “Eek!”

  Detective Batista’s hand gripped the holster at his side as one of Kaylie’s lingering retinue cried out. Everyone wheeled about on the hooked nose woman of small stature and large bosoms cowered behind a potted plant.

  Johanna swooped about, clicking both heels and her fingers. “Jesus Christ, what was that for?”

  Perhaps the woman had begun to understand the comedy of her overreaction as she squeaked out, “A mouse just ran out of the elevator.”

  The confidence inside Cindira imploded. She drew back into herself, both literally and figuratively. A mouse? Way up here on the twenty-third floor? How did that happen?

  Batista grinned as his stance relaxed. He again offered up his arm to Kaylie. “Don’t worry, Miss Fife. I’m trained in many forms of defense. I’m sure one of them works on rodents.”

  3

  Cindira arrived in the Kitchen via the stairs just moments before Batista and Kaylie. She saw a dozen sets of eyes perk up from behind each bank of monitors when the detective stepped off the elevator. In contrast to the curious stares, Batista surveyed the Kitchen with the kind of detachment and disinterest usually reserved for convenience store deli counters. He took in each station in turn. At intervals of five feet a desk set up that included three monitors arranged side-by-side-by-side, a keyboard, a box of prototyping supplies, a mishmash of personal effects, and a code writer. A cylindrical cell that ran from floor to ceiling served as a central feature of the room, all workstations positioned to face it. Like a Victorian surgery theater, one of the coders had once remarked.