Finch by Jeff VanderMeer (30 page)

they still cannot make their mirror, their glass, work properly.
And, then, on the Silence:

You learned it wrong. That's not what happened. It didn't
happen like that ... They disappeared without a drop of blood
left behind. Not a fragment of bone. No. They weren't killed.
At least not directly. Try to imagine a different answer: a sudden
miscalculation, a botched experiment. A flaw in the machine.
All of those people. All twenty-five thousand of them. The men,
the women, the children-they didn't die. They were moved.
The door opened in a way the gray caps didn't expect, couldn't
expect, and all those people-they were moved by mistake. The
machine took them to someplace else. And, yes, maybe they
died, and maybe they died horribly-but my point is, it was all
an accident. A mistake. A terrible, pointless blunder.

Also, mentions of the symbol from the back of the scrap of paper:
"Manzikert had triggered the Silence, I felt certain, with his actions
in founding Ambergris. Samuel Tonsure had somehow catalogued and
explained the gray caps during his captivity underground."

Throughout, Finch caught a refrain by Janice. Didn't know if it was
Duncan's refrain echoed by Janice: No one makes it out. And near the end,
with Duncan apparently lost underground again, this sentence: "There
may be a way." What the woman had said to him when he'd blurted out
bellum omnium contra omnes.

No one makes it out. Yet There may be a way. Janice had thought
Duncan meant metaphorically. Spiritually. Maybe it was literal.

Couldn't help thinking of the words on the scrap of paper in Shriek's
hand: Never lost. Like a call and response. There is a way. Never lost.
Was that what he should have said to the woman?

Absently, he petted Feral, who'd leapt onto his lap, nudging his head
up against Finch's chest. Tossed back another shot of whisky. The alcohol
had begun to numb his shoulder. It also helped push worry for Wyte into
the back of his mind.

Returned relentlessly to the facts.

A man last seen alive a hundred years before turns up dead in an
apartment he once lived in. There's a dead gray cap with him. The
gray cap has been cut in half as neatly as if he'd been killed in a
slaughterhouse.

The dead man is Duncan Shriek, former discredited historian and
explorer of the underground. The Stockton spymaster Stark believes the
apartment holds a rebel weapon, but the only thing left in the apartment
is the body of Shriek.

Stark kills all of Bliss's men, but leaves Bliss alive. Bliss travels through the
city using doors that aren't doors-doors that when you come out the other side,
it is the future.

And Shriek, the center of it all, believed the gray caps had built a door to
another place, and the Silence was a result of that door malfunctioning.

Finch took out the photo of Shriek the Partial had given him. Stared
at the photo on the dust jacket of Cinsorium & Other Historical Fables.
Hadn't looked at either that closely before. Not like he was looking
now. Shadows of light and dark in both. Framing a man with eyes shut,
eyes open.

Who is he? Who was he?

Eyes Shut had a beard made of fungus. A hard face. A well-preserved
quality to it. Weathered in the way of someone who has lowered his
head into the wind too many times. Eyes Open had a close-cropped
normal beard. A kind of naive quality to the face. The smile perhaps
too self-satisfied. The look of a martyr-in-waiting.

Eyes Shut's smile was that of someone with a secret.

oken by a sudden shifting of shadows. A vague awareness of a
figure. A sound like a thousand soft gunshots. Dreamed he'd gone
down the hole behind the station's curtain. Into the underground. Found
the gray caps there. Sleeping on their sides. Heads down like resting
silverfish. Heretic and the skery lying peacefully on a mattress made of
curling ferns. Finch went to join them and immediately exploded into
spores. Was everywhere and nowhere all at once.

Finch had a headache. Mouth felt thick. The sound: a thunderous
rain. A woman knelt in the gloom beside his bed.

"Sintra."

The sharp smell of grass and water on her skin. Wanted to fall into
her. Hold her like he was holding onto Bliss as they fell into darkness.
Not caring in that moment what Rathven had told him.

But couldn't decipher the look on her face. Somewhere between
watchful and sad. Made him hold back.

"I could've been anyone," she said. "You're too trusting."

Teasing: "But you're not anyone."

Sintra rose and dropped something onto the bed. He picked it up.
The extra key to his apartment.

"Keep it." Offered it back to her.

"No," she said.

Frowned, kept holding it out to her. "It's yours. Not mine." Disturbed
by her now. Calm disrupted. There are doors and there are doors.

"Someone broke into your apartment," she said. "I don't want you
to think it was me. Keep the key. Maybe I'll take it back later."

Finch turned on the lamp next to the bed. Could see her clearly. A
white blouse that revealed the curve of her breasts. Black pants that
ended in stylish boots she must have bought long ago. Over that, a deep green trench coat ending at the knee. And still that expression
on her face. Almost grim. Almost frowning.

Lowered his arm. The key felt cold and small in his palm. Made him
weak to think of her without it.

"Are you sure?" Couldn't risk more than that.

"Yes," she said. Folded her arms.

He got up. Reached out to touch her hair. She pulled back.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't want to stay here," she said. "I want to go out." Not looking
at him.

So this was how it would go down. What could he do but let her.

"Okay, so we'll go out, then."

"You don't have to," she said. As if suddenly undecided. Thought he
understood. But he felt reckless. They'd only gone out twice before.

"I want to." And he did. Wanted to be out in the world. Even if that
world was completely fucked up.

"I can go out by myself."

Touched her face with one finger, to brush aside a strand of hair. To
feel the softness of her cheek. Brought her close. Kissed her on the
forehead.

"Let me get some clothes on. We'll go. Wherever you want to go."
No matter how far.

Wouldn't burden her with the details of his day. Wyte erupting from
ruins of his own dissolution to save them both. The mad charge to safety.
The "snow" falling on them both. A whole world of torment he wanted
to leave behind.

"We'll go wherever you want to go," he said again, from the
bedroom as he dressed. Savagely. Like he didn't care. Putting it on her.
Apartment wasn't safe anyway. A solid wall could become a portal. A
man could die and keep dying for a hundred years.

Came back out and made a show of sticking his Lewden in its holster.
Put his arm around her, despite the pain in his shoulder. Opened the
door. Feral shot out through the gap and was gone.

Made a show, too, of locking the door behind them with Sintra's key.

"You look rested," she said as they went down the stairs. "That's good."

Didn't feel rested. Not anymore.

Sintra: "There's a blackmarket party tonight. We'll go to that. I know the
way. There will be signs."

An urgency to the night. A dangerous pace to it. In the sky at some
distance: the green towers, lit up like a glistening festival display. They
rose impossibly high. In another city, at another time, that stained,
blurry light might have seemed romantic.

The rain made it difficult to look for signs that didn't look like signs.
A line of white paint in the gutter. A sudden fracture of light from a
door. A muttered phrase from a drunk collapsed on a corner. At night,
only about half the streetlamps worked. But all across the skyline
phosphorescence draped and bled and hazed in and hazed out again.
Ragged groups of camp refugees were gray smudges. A smoke smell,
and a strong whiff of acidic perfume that came from a blossoming
fungus like a light blue wineglass. No umbrellas. They looked too
much like mushroom caps.

They huddled in awnings. Ran across open courtyards. Hugged the
sides of buildings. Splashed through puddles. Loosened up enough to
laugh about it. Like kids. Like the Rising had never happened. Like she'd
never returned the key.

They crossed a bridge over a canal. Lights from both sides careened
and cascaded through the water rippling below. Stood there for a few
minutes. The rain had let up. Came in waves now, with calm between.
The night had turned cooler.

He took her hand. Took in her bedraggled hair, the way the rain had
moistened her cheeks. Wanted her. Badly. While another part of him
wanted to ask, "How did you know about Duncan Shriek?"

"It's almost a normal night," he said.

"What's a normal night?" she asked. But she was smiling. A little.

"A night when my apartment isn't trashed twice," he said.

"What do you think they wanted?"

"Money, probably," he said. Unable to look at her while he was
lying.

"What about you?" he asked.

"I had a day like any other." She smiled at him. Revealed near perfect teeth. Wondered again if the dogghe skill with herbs helped.

Couldn't take it anymore. "Sintra, what do you do?" Such a naked
question. It split the air like a thunderclap.

She studied him. The light from the canal reflected in her eyes.
Anything from rotted leaves to dead bodies could lie at the bottom.

"I could be anyone, John," she said. "I could be someone you
wouldn't like very much."

"I might have a better idea than you think."

"No. You don't. What if I have three children? What if I'm a
trained assassin? What if I'm a prostitute?" In one swift motion:
she had his gun and was pointing it at him. "What if I'm somebody
who wants you dead?"

Took a step back, had his hands out in front of him. Too surprised
to do more.

But a flick of her wrist and she was offering the Lewden back to
him, grip-first. While his heart dealt with it.

"Point made," he said. Taking it. Swallowing. Hard.

"Maybe I should tell you I'm a spy for the rebels. I think that's what
you'd like me to say, isn't it? But why does it matter. Why now?"

"I don't know," Finch said. Except he did. She'd given back the key.
While everything was falling down around him.

They stood facing each other. Like friends, or enemies.

"What do you want to know?" she asked. "And why?"

"Whatever you can tell me," Finch said. Something that makes you
more real.

She looked out over the shimmering water. "You don't really want
to know. There's nothing I can tell you that will help you more than
what's already in your head."

"What's wrong?" he asked. "What's really wrong?"

She didn't blink or turn away. But she didn't answer, either. Just took
his hand.

"Do you still want to follow me?"

She led him past an abandoned factory lit up like a burning ship. As if
displaced from the Spit. Windows slick with the spray of rain. Came closer, saw that a neon-red fungus had colonized it. Heard Partials
hooting and mocking someone a couple streets over. Even saw a
couple of quickly disappearing shadows that might've been gray caps.
Part of the risky thrill of finding a bootleg party. Like they were doing
something dangerous. Kept his hand on his gun the whole time.

Finally found the guts of a building whose roof had been blown off.
Every inch of its exterior glittered with graffiti. Finch had completely
lost his bearings. Was trusting Sintra.

The weight and sound of the rain lifted off of them. They were
sopping, but didn't care. So was everyone else.

"It was a theater," she whispered, moving up against him. "I saw a
play here once about Voss Bender's life. I saw it with my father when
I was fourteen. Afterward, we got ice cream from a sidewalk vendor.
Then we took a long walk down to the park. There were so many
people around. The night was beautiful. It was one of the first times
I'd dressed up for anything. My mother was sick, so she didn't come
along. But I spent all night telling her about it."