Vikram woke to a morning that was almost colourless in its brightness. He stretched, gradually persuading his reluctant limbs to leave blankets that were warm with body heat. The window-wall was wet with condensation and he wiped a patch clear. His hand came back dirty with grease.
In a couple of months, ice would freeze the window-wall shut. Days would come when he barely left the flat. He had let the place go. Mould sprouted in a corner of the ceiling and meandered down the walls. The tiny room pressed on his sanity.
With a jolt, he remembered that today was different. Today he was going east. Into the City.
His heartbeat quickened even as he tried to relax.
Can I really do this? Do I even want to?
You don’t have a choice, he told himself firmly. He’d screwed up the order when it was delivered by hand-reading its solid formal prose had filled him with rage. But later he’d smoothed the letter out, read it again, thought about the implications. He’d wanted a political opportunity and here it was. Clearly it was no coincidence that after twelve months of writing letters, he had been granted an audience with the Council less than a week after the execution-but that did not give him an excuse.
The mayhem surrounding Eirik’s death must have struck a chord with the City as well as the west. Vikram-what was left of Horizon-was finally being taken seriously.
He made himself as presentable as he could, washing with cold water from a bucket and pulling on the best clothes he possessed. He used his knife and a sliver of mirror to shave. Brown eyes glanced back at him, a tiny scar above the right. Wariness was their resting expression. Couldn’t change that if he tried. His coat was a shapeless affair that would not impress anybody, but he was damned if he would sacrifice warmth for appearance. In any case, the coat came with Vikram, or Vikram had come with the coat. Somebody once told him it belonged to his father, and it might have done, but it might have belonged to some anonymous figure who had no connection to him at all.
He wound a scarf around his neck and rooted through his bag for gloves. He found only one. It seemed impossible to have lost the other amongst so few belongings, but time was tight and he had to leave without them. On the way out, he noticed again that the lock was weak.
It was a long trek downstairs. The lower lift had failed last month and so far nobody in the skyscraper had managed to lure out an engineer. The stairwells and corridors were busy. People sat smoking on the stairs and lounged in empty door frames, idly reiterating yesterday’s conversations. He smelled the distinctive aroma of manta. Eyes grazed Vikram as he passed. He kept his watch hidden beneath his sleeve. He could have flogged it for several hundred peng or a few City credits, but he loved the watch and he wouldn’t give it up until he was desperate.
Ten floors down, he banged on an even less secure door. There was no response. He banged again, and this time heard an answering curse and someone staggering across the room. The door opened and Nils peered out. His eyes were bleary. A week-long beard shadowed his jaw.
“Vik. What are you doing here? It’s morning.”
“I’m going to the Eye Tower,” Vikram said. “To speak to the Council. The order came through two days ago, remember?”
Nils looked surprised. “I thought you weren’t going to go… I mean, after…”
Neither of them said Eirik’s name.
“I changed my mind,” said Vikram shortly.
“Oh. Okay.”
“You coming?”
Nils yawned. “Think you might be better off on your own.” There was a crash from the floor above. Nils winced and roared, “Shut the fuck up!” He turned back to Vikram, forced a laugh. “Floor twenty-six. I’m moving to twenty-nine, I hear they’ve got a working shower. Anyway, good luck, I suppose. You nervous?”
“Not exactly. What can they do to me?”
“Wouldn’t like to guess. Send you underwater?”
“Tried that already.”
The light-hearted tone fell flat. Nils’s fingers curled around the doorframe.
“Well, let me know how it goes. I’ll catch you later.”
The door shut. Another crash came from upstairs, followed by a yell. Vikram jogged down the remaining twenty-five floors to ocean level. He thought about Nils’s reaction. He wasn’t sure that his friend was entirely happy with Vikram’s decision-he hadn’t said so, not outright, but there had been an ambivalence in his eyes that was unlike Nils.
Outside, the cold punched him like a Tarctic wind. He cinched the belt of his coat tighter; the buckle was broken and it kept slipping. The floating deck that encircled each tower shifted beneath his feet. A man was shouting that his boat had been blocked in, but nobody could find the owner of the vehicle responsible. Squinting in the bright light, Vikram made his way to the east side of the decking, where a vandalized signpost marked the waterbus stop.
The queue jostled around him. As the decking rose and fell on the swells, those waiting kept their balance as one. He found himself looking at other people more carefully than usual. They were all ages and all heights, because the majority of westerners were unemployed, surviving on handouts from the City and their wits. Under hats and hoods the odd Boreal face stood out amongst the southerners, but they were all dressed the same, bulked up with as many layers as they could beg, borrow or otherwise acquire. Could he tell the Council that people had to steal clothes in order to keep warm, or would they assume that everyone in the west was a thief?
A cry went up as the waterbus was sighted. The surge forward knocked him off balance. He suppressed the desire to shove back and used the momentum to inch his way past a mother clutching a child in each hand.
The ticket collector stood wide across the boarding gate. The waterbus pulled in with tantalizing slowness. Vikram saw a girl in a yellow scarf duck under a man’s arm and sidle around an old woman. His heart jumped with the thought that it was Mikkeli, before he remembered, again, that it was impossible. The ticket collector braced himself as he unlocked the barrier.
Vikram pushed a few peng into the ticket collector’s hand and fought his way into a place at the prow. On the landing stage, a squabble broke out among those left behind. As the waterbus angled around the circumference of 221-West, Vikram saw the man who had complained about being blocked in, crouched in his own boat, in the process of setting loose the offending vehicle. He was striking at the chain with a pickaxe.
The waterbus nosed into the main channel of the waterway. Vikram huddled over the rail watching the spit of spray. The western quarter of the city had never been finished, and when he glanced up he saw clumsily made, open bridges connecting building to building. Many of the graffitied towers were ringed by boats, homes to the very poor. On the outskirts, boats lined up like dominoes. Nobody could say for sure what was concealed within the rotting hulls. People went to the shanty-boat towns for drugs or women. They didn’t always come back.
He had to find a way to describe all of those problems. For months, he’d been composing a speech in his head. Now the carefully arranged lines were void. Events had overtaken him. He had to focus on the things that could be changed. He had to ignore what they had done to Eirik.
It was Drake who had told him to start writing again. Gotta have a purpose, Vik. Gotta have something to do. The subject of most of Vikram’s letters, and his primary focus today, was to ask for a winter aid programme. The most important thing he could secure would be repairs and insulation in the worst of the buildings. In winter, cold killed as many people as starvation. The last riots had been sparked by the City holding back food reserves. He would ask for kitchen boats too. And for restoration work to begin in the unremembered quarters.
How would the Council react? Would they deny the situation, pretend it was less severe? He was ready to argue.
He tried to recall Eirik’s advice, so readily available at the time, now distant through time and suppression. Eirik would have known exactly what to say.
At Market Circle, the hub of the western quarter, the ocean was almost invisible under its cover of boat traders and traffic. Vikram ducked as a gull skimmed low overhead. It came to rest atop a fry-boat selling hot squid, where many of the birds gathered, shuffling. Their cries pierced the clamour of human voices-selling, haggling, shrieking-that pursued the waterbus as it barged a way through the congestion.
People carried on. They had no choice.
On the other side of Market Circle, the waterbus began to lose passengers. It chugged past greenhouse towers and a recycling depot. Down a waterway clustered with rusting houseboats was Desalination Plant W-03, around which the decking bobbed quietly, as though nothing had ever happened. Still Vikram imagined he heard the splash, and he kept his eyes forward. They were approaching the border.
By the time the waterbus was in weapon range, only five people remained on board. Nervously, Vikram felt in his pocket for his day pass and the letter detailing his appointment with the Council. His ID had stood up to previous scrutiny, but he could never feel quite safe.
A narrow gap in the border mesh, barely wide enough to squeeze a waterbus through, allowed a clear glimpse of the glittering City. The checkpoint jetty ran out from the base of 774-West. Skadi boots rapped the decking. The skadi cradled their rifles with the loose, easy attachment one might assign to a fifth limb. They laughed and joked amongst themselves, but when their attention went westward, their expressions lapsed into something between inscrutability and a strange taut hunger. Vikram glanced quickly around and saw that the other passengers were trying to look as blank and dull as possible.
“Papers.”
There were two inspecting officers. The first vaulted the waterbus rail and strode across the deck. His coat, heavy and black, swung deliberately free, revealing both a hand pistol and patches of storm-flecked camouflage. He checked the driver’s licence first. The rifle muzzle fell lazily at his side. Vikram was intensely aware of it. When his turn came, he held out his ID and the letter in silence.
The officer read it, his eyebrows raised. He let out a fat laugh.
“Council, eh?”
Vikram nodded.
“What the hell d’you think you’re doing there?”
Vikram was not sure if it was a rhetorical question or not, and judged it best to keep quiet. But one of the passengers gave him a tiny nudge, and when he looked up he found the officer still staring.
“I’m giving a presentation,” he said.
The officer laughed again, but with less humour this time. “Fuck presentations,” he said. “And fuck the Council. Or maybe that’s what you’ll have to do. Fuck them.” The idea clearly amused him, and this time his mirth was shared by a couple of men on the jetty. “You’re wasting your time, terrier,” he declared, and offered Vikram a jab in the thigh with his gun before ambling on to the next passenger, a young girl. Vikram had passed.
But there was a dispute over the girl’s papers, and they were delayed for twenty minutes while the officer sent one of his subordinates to make a call. He filled the time by pointing out targets for his men-a floating crate, a resting seabird. Shots crackled sporadically. The bird rose with a squawk of alarm. The skad who’d missed swore. It was typical of a skad to shoot birds for entertainment.
Vikram tried not to look at the men too closely, wary of recognising or being recognised. There was a large part of him that wanted to. The part that did idiotic things. The part that followed naked impulse.
Witnessing the execution had been more than stupid. It had stirred up old grievances that he had barely begun to control. He folded his arms, squeezing with his fingers until it hurt. He had a chance with the Council. And they had to listen-now, they had to listen.
The man came back with the order for clearance. Frowning, the second officer, still seated in a deckchair on the jetty, beckoned him over. The two conferred. Then the second officer pointed.
“You. Over here.”
His target was unclear, and the five passengers looked nervously down. He beckoned.
“You. Woman in the green scarf. Here.”
“That’s you, gullhead.” The officer still on deck hauled the woman out of the line. “Off the boat.”
“My papers are in order,” she protested.
“That’s for us to say.”
Vikram kept his eyes on the deck.
“What’s wrong with them?”
“Get off, bitch, and you’ll find out. Or do you want me to throw you off?”
The woman’s face crumpled. As she climbed over the rail Vikram saw her hands were shaking. The officer followed her onto the jetty and waved the waterbus on. As he turned away, Vikram saw that his scarf was deliberately wrapped low to reveal the eye tattoo on the back of his neck.
The driver let out a ripple of curses as soon as the boat was out of earshot, whilst the other passengers grumbled. Vikram watched the forlorn figure of the woman left behind growing smaller. She was arguing with the officer. He hoped they wouldn’t hurt her. They always had that hunger in their eyes. As the waterbus crossed over the border, he had to fight back creeping tendrils of fear. The last time he had been at the mercy of Citizens, they’d put him underwater.
The old song came to him:
They’ll put you underwater where the sun will never rise
And the mud will take your tongue because you’ve told too many lies
The mud will eat your fingers and your toes and then your face
And then you’ll lose your head and disappear without a trace.
He knew what it was like to disappear.
“I’m half an hour late now,” one man said irritably. Yet again, Vikram checked his watch.
The passengers retreated into silence. Trust was a risk: best stick to your own problems. Vikram returned to the rail. The morning’s brightness had already dissolved and a fine rain was beginning to fall, dampening his clothes. The cold burrowed deep into his gloveless hands.
He watched a covered ferry glide past. The boat was in good repair, but passengers looked cross and miserable with their lot. Glancing up, Vikram saw the preferred highways: shuttle lines weaving from scraper to scraper, another network every twenty floors, all interlinking to form a vast, complex web. Within their translucent skeins, shuttle pods moved like beads of mercury on a string. He tried to imagine what it must be like to cross the city in one of those tubes, the feeling of enclosure, of privilege.
Ahead, the terminus was in sight. Vikram took a second waterbus, and within minutes found himself walking up one of the ten platforms which extended from 900-East like the points of a star.
The Eye Tower was the tallest skyscraper in Osiris and the most magnificent. Vikram had only ever seen pictures of it. Upon entering, he was thoroughly scanned and searched. Vikram showed the letter once again. Released into the building, he climbed two empty floors. It was a standard flood control device, although he saw no signs of water intrusion.
At the lobby, he stopped.
The riot of colour before him was giddying. Sunk into the floor was a vermilion mosaic, reflected many times over in the gigantic, gold-hued mirrors. Coniferous trees stretched up into the open core of the tower. Vikram stood on the mosaic tiles, under the trees, gazing up at the rough patterns of their bark, the slender needles that looked like tufts of hair. He touched one. It pricked his finger. It was real.
Surrounding the central lifts was an aquarium, two metres thick and fat with wildlife. As high as Vikram could see, the spiralling stairways and balconies looked in upon its undulating creatures.
He stepped into the lift with a bundle of people. He was the only one dressed in outdoor clothes. After initial glances at him, the Citizens averted their eyes diplomatically, one woman patting down her pale pink blouse as if it might have been dirtied by their brief proximity. As the lift swept upward he watched the fish floating in their glass jail. They were every colour of the rainbow: beautiful, darting things, but Vikram had an instant antipathy to the aquarium. It was still a cage.
He checked his watch furtively. In just under an hour he would be delivering his statement, persuading the Council that west Osiris was not just a convenient scrap heap, but a valid part of the City’s society. Could he describe the daily life of westerner? How could he explain freezing to death to people who had never been cold? The question occupied him all the way to the hundred and eleventh floor, through further security checks, into reception and within eyeshot of the vast doors to the Chambers, which were flanked by four uniformed guards.
He waited for nearly two hours before they admitted him. A receptionist told him that talks had been going on since ten o’clock, but offered no explanation for the delay. She showed him to a quiet room with a bowl of fruit piled luxuriously high and a machine that pulped the fruit to a juice. He peeled an orange. Its scent filled the air. He ate the fruit slowly, remembering that the few times Mikkeli had been able to get an orange, she insisted on removing the peel in one long coil whilst they all waited for a share, intoxicated by the scent.
“They’re ready for you.”
The interruption startled him. A woman stood in the doorway, looking expectant. She took his arm and steered him carefully, as if she expected him to break and run.
“The speaker will announce you,” she whispered. “Then you can speak. You have a presentation prepared?”
Vikram nodded. Of sorts. “I wasn’t given much notice-”
“I hear you’ve been writing letters for quite a time! I’m sure you have plenty to say. Turn and smile, will you?”
She swung him around. There was a flash. Vikram realized he had been photographed. He winced instinctively.
“That’s great, Syrah,” said a young man with floppy hair. They moved on.
“After your presentation, do not speak. The Council will debate. You don’t speak. Understand?”
“But what if I-”
“It’s protocol. Understand? It’s very important that you understand before I let you in there.”
He forced a smile. “Don’t speak. I get it. Thanks for the briefing.”
“You’re welcome.” She brushed his jumper down. He was acutely aware of its fraying edges and the grease he couldn’t wash out. “You look-oh well. You first.” She gave him a little push.
When he walked into the Chambers, his shoes cast hollow echoes. The room was round and windowless, formed entirely of pale stone with a smooth, polished texture and darker capillaries. Slender columns supported an empty balcony running its circumference. The ceiling arched up and up into a perfect dome. There were paintings on its panels, of sirens and dark-finned fish. He had never seen anything like it, and the thought that he might never again made him sad in a way he did not recognize.
The woman hassled him forward. He was taken to a podium. Now he saw the austere faces of the Council, assembled in rising crescent rows. The Speaker’s voice boomed from somewhere above and behind him.
“This is Mr Bai, who has requested to address you on some of the issues concerning west Osiris. He speaks on behalf of pressure group Horizon.”
It annoyed Vikram that they labelled it a pressure group rather than a reform group, but as Horizon’s sole remaining representative, he was hardly in a position to argue. From Eirik’s lessons, Vikram knew that the last group to be granted a hearing with the Council was the now dissolved Osiris Integration Movement, and their history was blemished.
As for the title, Vikram had no surname as far as he knew. He had made one up for his previous communications and for the purpose of today. In jail, like Eirik, he had been allotted a number.
“Please begin, Mr Bai,” said the Speaker. Vikram resisted the temptation to turn around.
“I’m not going to speak about Eirik 9968 today,” he said. When he spoke Eirik’s name a flicker of distaste ran around the Chambers, but Vikram’s voice remained steady. That gave him the courage to continue.
“Our opinions will hardly be the same and it seems pointless to resurrect a debate which has already been decided. Instead, I’d like to tell you about the real west-the west you know nothing about.”
He found that the acoustics of the Chambers carried his voice well. After a few minutes he almost forgot that he was addressing the Council, Osiris’s ruling elite. As their faces separated into individual imprints, he tried to force them out of their aloof curiosity. Primarily he spoke about poverty. He told them of diseases that scurried through the shanty towns and raced up the towers, claiming children and adults alike. The people he had seen coughing up their lungs with tuberculosis. The shortages of food and clothing. He described how a man looked when he froze to death. He told them of the hospice that struggled to care for those who had lost limbs to frostbite. He didn’t linger over crime, but told the Council what they already knew, that it was fuelled primarily by the needs of people who had nothing, and would not decrease until they had something. Then he laid out his arguments: what was needed now. An emergency winter aid programme. More accommodation, repair works and insulation for the uninhabitable buildings.
Then, because Eirik and Mikkeli had taught him that unless you demanded everything you got nothing, he tossed in his firework.
“Finally, Councillors, I would like to propose what some of you might think of as revolutionary.” There went the understatement of the year, he thought. “West Osiris is cordoned off from the rest of the city. We are separated from your facilities and your people by a military border. We are practically quarantined. I think the border has been here long enough, and I’m not the only one. It has to go.”
The cries of outrage were rising even as he uttered that last incendiary sentence.
“Is that all, Mr Bai?” the speaker nudged. Vikram heard a few sniggers from around the Chambers.
“And as soon as possible,” he shouted. He glanced back at the speaker. “That’s all for now.” His heart was beating fast. He sat down with no small sense of exhilaration.
“Open to the floor,” declared the speaker.
Furious debate was already under way, but the Council appeared to have certain rules and now one woman stood up to speak officially.
“The very notion of demilitarizing the border is preposterous,” she said. “Mr Bai may not wish to speak of Eirik 9968-indeed I am surprised he dares mention the name-but I shall not flinch from it. The execution was a warning. Why was a warning necessary? Because the west have grown out of control. They cannot maintain order within their own quarter, never mind letting their violent antics rampant on the City.”
Vikram was ready to retort, but she raised her hand and her voice.
“I think one word is enough to reinforce my argument-Osuwa. Two skyscrapers blown open to the elements. And targeting the University-a place of learning, of mutual respect, not to mention those people trapped in the shuttle line where the explosion was set…”
“That was twenty-nine years ago,” argued someone else.
“We learn from history,” she snapped. “It has a clear enough line for us to read. First the greenhouse. Then Osuwa University and the New Western Osiris Front. The one occasion we did lower security, what happened? Alain and Helene Dumay were assassinated in broad daylight at the gliding race.”
“Grete Kaat was a rogue sympathiser.”
“Then we are even more at threat. If a rogue can murder a member of a founding family, just imagine what organized terrorists can do.”
“What about three years ago? You can’t say security was lax then, but it didn’t prevent riots.”
Another man stood up. “The June riots are precisely the reason we have to remain on our guard. Those attacks were completely unprovoked. Civilian lives were lost. We cannot allow any further incidents.”
Disregarding his instructions, Vikram leaned forward, his hands clenched together to stop any other physical movement that might betray him.
“People were starving that winter,” he said quietly. “They were desperate. They’ll be desperate again if you don’t help them. And Horizon is not another NWO, if that’s what you’re implying. Ninety-nine per cent of westerners completely condemn the NWO. So don’t insult us.”
“Mr Bai, you have had your chance to speak. It is now the Council’s turn.”
The Councillor who had spoken gave Vikram a cursory glance. “The westerner seems to be implying further violence is not only possible but probable. And he suggests we open our borders?”
“It’s worth considering the root causes of the June riots,” another voice said coolly. Vikram couldn’t locate the speaker.
“The rioters were westerners,” shouted the first woman. “What more do you need to hear? And they’ve had enough help from us. We have more important problems. The mining station on the north shelf, for a start. I’ve heard reports of serious machine malfunctions.”
“Greatly exaggerated reports-”
“Not from what I’ve heard-”
“The west is under our jurisdiction,” argued someone else. “We have a responsibility-”
“We have a responsibility to our own people, not to put them at risk.”
“Exactly, do we want a repeat of three years ago?”
“I hardly think an aid programme is going to incite riots.” It was the cool voice, cutting across his colleagues again. Vikram searched for its origin. The speaker was a young man sitting several rows back. He leaned forward to emphasize his point. As he did, the light caught a hint of red in his hair, and Vikram suffered a shock of recognition. He had seen this man at the execution. He had been standing next to Feodor. It was one of the Rechnov sons.
There was a brief silence.
Then someone said tentatively, “There’re no spare resources for that kind of programme.”
“It has nothing to do with the border anyway.”
“Actually, it has everything to do with it,” the young Rechnov said. “I happen to agree with Mr Bai. The border should be demilitarized. However, I would be a fool to imagine that such a move might be taken today, by this Council. Nor do I think that the time is right. First the west needs development and support, and that is where the proposed winter aid programme through Mr Bai’s group comes in. Otherwise we will have another angry mob on our hands-no, Hildur, I am not talking about the NWO, seeing as we have zero evidence to support any current underground activity, I am talking about ordinary people growing angry-angry enough to act-and who can blame them?”
“And where do the resources for this aid programme come from?” A new voice, strong and powerful, spoke up from the opposite side of the room. This time it was easy to locate the speaker. All heads turned towards him. Vikram followed their direction and recognized this man instantly.
Nausea rose in his throat. Had he known, all along, that Feodor Rechnov would be here today? Probably. He hadn’t permitted himself to think about it.
Feodor was an imposing figure; Vikram had seen that before. Now, so much closer, he could see the grey threads in the thick hair, the slightly sallow complexion, and eyes that settled comfortably, with a keen relish, on any opponent, daring them to outstare.
But he doesn’t know me, he thought. I’m an alien to him.
“A simple case of reallocation,” said the son again. “The resources are there, we require only a good mathematician and a little imagination.”
“I see. And may I ask if you envisage the west developing further-perhaps to the same standards as the rest of the city?”
“Is there a reason why not? Is it Osiris doctrine to promote starvation and hypothermia?”
“I take your point,” said Feodor. The chambers had hushed for this debate between Rechnov and Rechnov. If he hadn’t known who they were, Vikram would have suspected he was observing a pair of regular antagonists. It made no sense. “Clearly we are not advocating poverty. Our city was not built with that intent-far from it. Nonetheless, Osiris has changed. We have been stretched beyond our resources, and we cannot offer the west the lifestyle of the City. False hope is a dangerous tool to employ.”
“You’re a defeatist, Feodor,” said the young man. His tone was dismissive, and Vikram allowed himself a small smile.
“I am a realist,” the other replied. “That is our job, to be realistic. To implement the feasible. East and west can never be integrated. Draw up your aid programmes if it appeases your conscience, but I guarantee the consequences will be more problematic than you imagine.”
“Consequences are always problematic. That doesn’t mean we should shy away from action. I tell you, we may choose to forget history, but it has not forgotten us, and nor will the west if we persist in flaunting our ignorance. We have executed one man-the threat, as some would say, has been eliminated. Now is our opportunity to show the west we can be generous.”
The younger Rechnov’s name was Linus, Vikram remembered. He looked more like the infamous sister than the father.
Feodor pressed on. “Do you honestly believe that any kind of integration could be accomplished without mutual tragedy?”
“If it were dealt with sensitively, I see no reason why tragedy should be the result.”
Restlessness pervaded the chambers now. Vikram sensed the debate slipping away into personal territory. Evidently he was not the only one, because the woman who had first spoken stood again.
“It is pointless spending hours going over these issues today when clearly the matter requires further research. I suggest we move onto other items on the agenda?”
A cheer echoed her. Vikram dragged his attention away from the two Rechnovs.
“What do you mean, other research? How much research does it take to see that people are dying of cold?”
“Mr Bai, you have been warned once.”
Half the Council were on their feet, raising their voices over one another as they argued.
“Actually, we’re neglecting an opportunity here. What we really need is a larger budget for the western defence perimeter. Personally, I’d recommend a twelve point five increase.”
“Twelve point five? Eleven should do it.”
“Eleven, twelve. We can discuss figures later. What we’ve got to do is streamline entry procedures. With that kind of budget we can develop waiting zones, double the checkpoints.”
“Exactly. We could even filter some of the allocation into the western task force. Surely Mr Bai will be happy with that.”
“There might be provision for a few places in schools, if it were passed by the parental boards…”
“That’s already covered by the Colnat Foundation-”
“No, no, no. The perimeter’s the important thing, I tell you.”
The speaker leaned over his podium to speak to Vikram. “Thank you, Mr Bai. Your presentation was most enlightening.”
“But we haven’t even started! You didn’t decide anything-”
“Mr Bai-”
The tug upon his arm was light but firm.
“No!” Vikram’s voice came out as a shout. The female Councillor was still on her feet. She turned to him, her face smooth and flat and devoid of emotion. Something about her complete inflexibility dissolved his reserve. “I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “I want to talk about Eirik 9968.”
“Oh yes? Do enlighten us.”
Vikram did not heed her sarcasm. He was only aware of Feodor’s heavy, brooding gaze. But he looked at the woman.
“I want to know why you killed him.”
She gave a little shrug. “I haven’t killed anyone, my poor friend.”
“Then who did?”
“I think you’ll find it was a matter of City justice.” Her lips parted in a flat half smile. “Why? Colleague of yours?”
“I didn’t know him.”
“So you say.”
“I said I didn’t know him.”
Very deliberately, she crossed her arms.
“I don’t believe you came here about the west at all. I think you came about the execution. What are you after-revenge?” She glanced over her shoulder. “I take it he was searched before you let him in here?”
Vikram gripped the podium.
“I came because there was no reason for that execution to happen and there’s no reason it ever should again-if you fucking do something to help us.”
“How dare you speak to me in that manner!” But Vikram could see that she was delighted at his outburst and it made him angrier.
“Hildur, enough.” Feodor Rechnov cut through the woman’s protests. Slowly, his gaze lifted to Vikram. “I believe this debate is at an end.”
Vikram didn’t care any more. He felt reckless and giddy.
“It was you, wasn’t it? You killed him. You gave the order.”
“I sanctioned a Council decision. You may go and tell that, if you wish, to your friends in the west. And when you do, remind them that the mode of execution is in good repair and that if anyone wishes to follow Eirik 9968, they know where their path will end.”
“He was innocent. He did nothing but fight for the rights of people he owed no allegiance to.”
“Then he and I have something in common. How ironic.”
“You have nothing in common with Eirik. You murdered an innocent man.”
“He was an inciter, a terrorist and a common killer. And if you don’t want to be taken as one too, Mr Bai, I suggest you reacquaint yourself with silence and leave this session. Speaker, I urge this house to order.”
The tug on Vikram’s arm grew persistent. He kept his eyes locked on Feodor; all of his burning rage channelled into one single focus.
“I hope your sleep is haunted by ghosts,” he said.
“Remove him.”
“Mr Bai!”
“I hope they come to you in your sleep and tell you how they died.”
Feodor remained unmoved. Vikram’s minder had an inexorable grip on his hand. Now there were other hands, on his arm, on his shoulders, pulling him away from the podium. In seconds, the faces of the Council were obscured from his view. The clamour inside the Chambers was muffled as the great wooden doors swung closed. Doors like that would never be made again. Vikram stared at this sign of wealth in mute fury, first at Feodor Rechnov, and then, increasingly, at himself.
He had been in front of the Council-and he had lost them. How had he lost them? How had he lost control?
“They never do, I’m afraid.”
“What?”
His minder was still with him. A woman in a narrow suit. She smiled sympathetically. She had no reason to be sympathetic. It felt like pity.
“Decide anything. They don’t decide anything. Try again next month. Persistence can get results.”
“Do you have any idea how long I’ve been writing letters for? How long I’ve been petitioning, just to speak? Twelve months. That’s an entire year. How long d’you think it’ll take to get another hearing?”
She shrugged. “That’s the way it goes. I might say you were foolish to lose your temper.”
“You might say a lot of things,” he snapped.
He realized she was waiting for him to leave, no doubt under instructions to ensure he did not cause a scene. He tried once more.
“I can come back later. Talk to them again. You could help.”
“I don’t think so. Not today.”
“Tomorrow then.”
She did not reply. The doormen were exchanging glances. He strode angrily away, only to hear the woman running after him. “Don’t forget your coat,” she said. “It’s cold out.”
It was a kind gesture but it annoyed Vikram all the more to have to turn around and go back to the cloakroom. The attendant returned his unsightly coat. He yanked it on and heard the lining rip.
Helpless anger rumbled in the pit of his stomach. It was a warning. He knew what that rage could do and there was a reason he had worked so hard to still it. Images he had thought long banished rose up one by one. Mikkeli with a gun. Mikkeli floating. Her body shedding water when he pulled it onto the decking.
Where had those events lead? To a green cell and a flooded tank. Mikkeli was dead. Eirik was dead. And Vikram had sabotaged his one chance in front of the Council. He had failed all of them.
A security guard was walking towards him. Anger wouldn’t help now. He needed strategy. He needed time.
He turned back to the cloakroom. “I have to go to the bathroom.”
The attendant eyed him warily. Vikram clutched his stomach.
“I think I might be sick…”
With a look of distaste, the attendant jabbed a finger. “It’s that way.”
He walked meekly past the guards to the end of the hallway and out through the secondary doors. He was back in the main corridor. There were no windows, just soft lighting and soft carpeting, his worn down boots noiseless upon it.
He went left towards the lifts. No one was about. Fifty metres along was a statue of an early Teller, and just behind it, a small cubic space with glass cabinets housing Neon Age relics on either side. It was said that back then, people had lived to one hundred and fifty years, and they looked the same as they did at fifteen, their skin fresh and beautiful, their organs plucked from their bodies and replaced with newly grown ones. In this way they had achieved immortality, until the Blackout.
He slipped around the statue. The alcove overlooked the interior of the scraper. He could see the shadow of the lifts moving up and down inside the aquarium, people trapped in a watery world. It was a bizarrely pretty parody of imprisonment.
He turned away and studied the cabinets instead.
Engraved and personalised hologrammic device, he read. Twenty-second century, Alaskan.
He thought of Mikkeli’s precious map, pictured Alaska on it. The map had been their great secret. At night they had spent hours poring over the outlines of land, guessing where their ancestors had come from, until Naala found the map and said it was illegal and burned it in front of them. There were no maps in the cabinet.
The Eye Tower’s security was surprisingly lax. He had been searched at the border and on the way into the tower and the Chambers, but for all the Councillors knew he could be part of a larger conspiracy. He could be here to scope out the building. He might have a partner armed with explosives. Evidently they felt confident that he posed no kind of threat.
They were right. He didn’t. Not today.
Strategy was patience. Vikram settled on the floor, leaning gently against the cabinet. He would wait.
The City clock chimed three times on the hour; a deep, austere vibration. Vikram started. He’d let his mind wander. He heard what he was listening for: the sound of the great doors being levered open and well-shoed feet hurrying out of the Chambers.
The Councillors spilled into the corridor. Vikram watched them sweep by, oblivious to his presence in the alcove. Feodor passed, deep in conversation, and Vikram lowered his eyes in case a sense of mutual animosity should draw the other man’s gaze. He could not see the younger Rechnov. In the rush Vikram was afraid he had missed him, but then he spotted the sleek, charcoal-suited figure, a heavy coat slung over his arm, the auburn tint in his hazel hair.
Linus was one of the last out and he was alone. Two pieces of luck, which was more than Vikram deserved.
Linus turned right. Vikram waited for the last stragglers to amble pass and hurried after him.
The young man walked briskly, Vikram following a short distance behind. The corridor curved gradually and Vikram lost sense of how far round they had come. Linus went through a set of doors. The skyscraper was even larger than Vikram had supposed. Within its outer ring was a maze of tiny corridors. These too were carpeted, with wall-hung lamps and decorations which Vikram had no time to look at; portraits and long lists of names.
A little way ahead, Linus stopped. He put on his coat and did up each of the buttons and a feather collar. Then he disappeared through a door.
Vikram followed, opened the door and stepped silently out onto a balcony.
He was at least a hundred floors above surface. The skyline was spectacular: a medley of pyramid tops, flat, pointed and asymmetric, swathed in nylon mist. The wind met him ferociously. Another day, he would have admired the view, but today he had no time for it.
Linus was leaning against the wall, his feet casually crossed. A coil of smoke rose from the glowing cigarette reversed in one gloved hand. The upturned collar cut sharp angles across his jaw. Vikram guessed that the coat was lined with feathers too.
He shut the door gently behind him.
“Mind if I join you?”
Linus looked around. Surprise flickered for a moment in his eyes. Then it vanished, to be replaced by a cool, relaxed assessment.
“Not at all,” he said. He had a face that contained both strength and delicacy; the Rechnovs were undeniably a good-looking family.
Vikram took out his own cigarettes. His hands, lacking mittens, had become paws. The cellulose packaging of his cigarettes almost defeated him. His fingertips skidded on the top of the first tube, fighting to extract one from many.
“Shit.”
He saw the cigarette fall before he felt it depart his fingers. It wasn’t as if he could afford to throw them away. He brought the packet to his lips and teased out another with his tongue. The smell of oranges lingered on his fingers.
Linus passed him a lighter. Vikram cupped the flame and passed it back. They stood in silence.
“You must have been waiting some time,” said Linus at last.
“Twelve months.”
The Councillor gave him a quizzical look.
“Since I began writing letters. But that’s not what you meant.”
“No.”
“You’re wondering why I followed you.”
“I could take an educated guess.”
Vikram gestured. “Please do.”
Linus exhaled a thin stream of smoke. In his smart coat, he was well protected against the cold, and he appeared in no rush.
“I’m sorry that your case was not considered. It would appear that the hearing today was something of a formality.”
“You’re on the Council.”
“Yes. Well, in an advisory capacity-that’s all it’s really here for now.”
“Maybe with more preparation-more evidence…”
“Actually, it’s nothing to do with preparation. You could do as much work, amass as many studies as you like. The outcome would be the same. It always has been, ever since the earliest attempts of the WRM-the Western Repatriation Movement, back in seventy-four.” I know who they were, thought Vikram, but he refrained from interrupting.
“Not that the NWO has helped your cause, sadly.” The Councillor paused, apparently musing over the issue. “I’m Linus, by the way. And I know who you are. Obviously.”
“Linus, nice to meet you,” Vikram muttered. Introductions weren’t really his thing; perhaps it was there that he had stumbled. Choosing the wrong name, or something. They pressed wrists anyway, his own skin fish-bone dry with the cold, the material of Linus’s glove smooth and unidentifiable. “I have to ask-why do you say that? About the Council? When you’re on it, I mean.”
“Oh, there’s many reasons. What you’re proposing-radical social reform-it doesn’t really sit with the Council any more. They tried it already.”
“They used to be more philanthropic.”
“They used to be younger,” Linus said. He must be quite young himself, in his late twenties, Vikram thought. Fourth generation, anyway. Linus seemed to sense the scrutiny, because he raised one eyebrow. “You don’t agree?”
“If you mean that age affects resolution and liberality, then yes, I suppose you’re right.”
“You’re what-twenty six? Twenty-seven?”
“Twenty-five.” The age Mikkeli had been.
Linus laughed. “Young, anyway. That’s the thing. You remind these people of themselves a long time ago. They know they lack that conviction now and it shames them. And just in case you’re wondering, the man I was duelling with earlier is Feodor Rechnov. My father.”
Vikram did not mention that he already knew the connection. He was not confident that he could keep his voice free of emotion.
Linus seemed unaware of any tension. “Then again, you have to remember what some of them have been through. What they’ve lost.”
“That’s too convenient an excuse. At least let someone else try.”
“Someone like you?”
Vikram shrugged. “Maybe.”
Linus retrieved a silver case from his coat pocket. He took out two cigarettes and offered one to Vikram.
“Thanks.” Vikram slipped his own packet away.
“Not a problem.”
Again the lighter was passed. Vikram cupped the flame and drew deeply on the cigarette. It brought on a rush of light-headedness. Evidently tobacco was rolled stronger in the City, or it had less junk in it.
Linus inhaled gently. There were no lines around his mouth. Vikram wished he could tell what the other man was thinking. There was something unnerving about the controlled politeness, as though Linus were prepared to tell Vikram anything, secure in the knowledge that if he felt the information were even fractionally at risk, he could have the westerner tossed over the balcony without a second thought.
The cold was beginning to penetrate through Vikram’s thinner coat. The preliminaries were over. He would get no clues from a Rechnov.
“I need your help,” he said.
“After today’s exhibition, I suppose you do.” There was no judgement in Linus’s voice, only dry fact.
“You’re a Councillor. You must have influence.”
“Very little, I’m afraid.”
“But you spoke up today. For the west.”
“I did. As you saw, it was a futile case.”
“Then tell me what I need to do. You know these people. I don’t.”
“Oh, I admire anyone who will stand up and take on the Council. But you’re wasting your time.”
“Thanks.” Vikram stared moodily out. “That’s really useful.”
“There are other routes, of course,” Linus continued. “Less orthodox routes.”
“Such as?”
“Find yourself a patron; someone rich and popular.” Linus finished his cigarette. He stubbed it out carefully on the rail. “Someone like Adelaide Mystik, perhaps.”
“Adelaide Mystik? You mean-” He stopped, confused by the oblique reference. “Why would I talk to her? She’s a-she doesn’t do anything.”
“Exactly. Like most celebrities, she doesn’t do anything. Therefore I would imagine she has time to do many things, if approached the right way. And she’s influential.” Linus looked thoughtful. “Yes. Talk to her. Don’t say I suggested it-just turn up as if it was your own idea.”
Vikram felt wrong-footed, but could not pinpoint where or how it had happened. Instead he asked, “Why would a Rechnov support the west?”
Linus’s smile was slow and closed. “An interesting question. One that would require time to answer. I don’t have time. But I do have a query for you. Did you know Eirik 9968?”
“Would it make a difference if I did?”
“Not to me.”
“Well, I didn’t know him. Not to speak to.”
The lie slid easily off his tongue. It occurred to him that if he said it enough times, he might begin to believe it, that knowledge of another person was as frail as mist.
“He was wrongly numbered, I believe. Assigned a 68. He should have been a 65, for Tasmayn. Not that it makes a difference now. Funny the way that our origins are disregarded nowadays.”
The snippet of information could only have been dropped as a test. Vikram kept his face impassive.
“What’s the name of that stone, inside the Chambers?”
“Stone?”
“Yes. The pillars.”
“Oh. It’s called marble. Rather beautiful, isn’t it. Mined in quarries over a century ago. Finally shipped across from Patagonia. Quite a feat.” Linus paused. “Ah yes. This might help you-I won’t need it.” He handed Vikram a card. “Good luck. Don’t freeze out here.”
The door closed on him before Vikram could reply.
Find yourself a patron. Linus’s turn of phrase rang oddly in his wake. Not someone like my sister, but someone like Adelaide Mystik. As though Adelaide were a completely separate entity. It didn’t sound like a recommendation. Then again, what did Vikram know about these people?
He recalled the Rechnovs, gathered on the balcony to watch the skadi execute Eirik. Their family portrait seemed even stranger now than it had done last week. There were four fourth-gen siblings, he knew. Vikram wondered if that had been calculated prescience in light of the later population control laws. Linus was evidently on the Council. There was the other brother, and then the infamous twins. Axel, the ex-jet set boy who’d disappeared. And the daughter. Beautiful, catastrophic Adelaide, who refused to use her family’s name and headed up socialite group the Haze in a whirl of parties and social misdemeanours. Crazy Adelaide, mad like her brother, mad in the way that could only end badly. Last famously captured necking from a bottle at Axel’s remembrance service, or whatever the feed had called it, because the kid was surely dead. And Linus was suggesting that Vikram solicit her help?
Vikram looked at the card. It sat snugly in the palm of his hand, about the size of a playing card, but thicker. The card was red with a pink rose motif, and running across it in gold type was the inscription.
Adelaide Mystik invites you to Rose Night at the Red Rooms, to be held on the second Thursday of the month, attendance after the hour of twenty-one.
The back was watermarked. It had an Old World feel to it, pre-Neon, even.
Something struck him on the cheek. He looked up. Hail. Cursing the weather’s erratic switches, thrusting the card into his coat pocket, he retreated indoors.
Two guards were approaching down the corridor.
“Time’s up, kid. Out with you.”
They marched him back to the lift. Hands folded in front, eyes averted, they accompanied Vikram down the hundred floors, across the mosaic-tiled lobby, past the evergreen trees and down again through the flood control floors. They opened the doors for him to go outside. As he passed, one of them grabbed his collar.
“Hey-don’t forget to check out your picture in the newsreel.”
The other grinned inanely.
“We don’t have your damn newsreel in the west,” Vikram flung back. “Don’t you know anything?”
The doors hissed shut. Vikram was left at the waterbus terminus, watching the next load of passengers embark in the freezing hail.