Suited (15 page)

“Don’t touch me,” I managed to gasp. “The suit–”

The suit was jealous. That was what it felt like. Jealous of Lad, as he tried to touch me, so it had taken control – so easily – and pushed him away. But what was it doing inside me, what was this pressure, this pain, what could it possibly be–

And then realisation trickled over me like ice water. Terrible, drowning. Inescapable.

I thought of Sofia, her piercing eyes, her testing questions. And I realised I had not bled, these past two moons, but with the suit and the Keeper and the puppet men after me – Other’s hells! – I just hadn’t noticed.

On the last night I had slept with Devich, after I saved him from the violent debris planes that had destroyed his laboratory, but before I learned that he was, in fact, betraying me. The few contraceptive pills I had left had been stolen with my apartment, and my former life, so I simply had not taken one.

I supposed it was possible. But could I really make such a stupid mistake? Could I be carrying a child – Devich’s child, no less – and not even notice?

If it was true, then what was the suit trying to do? Rip into me, tear me and whatever new life I might be carrying, then heal me with silver so we could get on with our job as veche weaponry? Fight whatever it was the puppet men had built us to fight?

“Enough,” I managed to croak out. “I am not their weapon.” I whispered low, chin pressed to my chest, hoping that my collection team – hovering worried but unsure around me – could not hear. “You are a part of me. Not the other way around. So enough.”

Some of the pressure eased, and I drew in a deep, ragged breath.

“I am stronger than you.”

It was true, for now. This was still my body, more flesh than bright symbol and liquid metal. And I had to keep it that way, somehow, and hold back the ever-encroaching silver.

Retracting the suit was like a flex of deep muscles. Those muscles were stiff and sore when I tensed them, but no matter how they protested, no matter the pain running deep into my spine or the scalding heat across my skin, they responded. The suit slipped away, slow, muddy and thick, to sulk within its bands. But I knew better than to believe it would stay there.

All I had to do was work out how to control it, before the next time it tried to kill my child.

Child
.

My head rang, but that word, that very idea chimed the loudest. Was it really possible?

“Tan!” Lad, wailing, flung himself at me and wrapped his arms around me. He buried his face in my hair and sobbed. “Oh Tan. I’m sorry!”

Gingerly, I loosened his grip and leaned away from his red, wet face. “Why, Lad?” I touched his cheek. My fingers shook. “What do you have to be sorry for?”

“I didn’t look after you–” sniff “–not properly.”

“It’s not your fault.” I allowed him to press his face into my neck and held his head, stroking his back in an effort to soothe him.

“What’s wrong with your suit?” Aleksey asked, face sickly as thin cloud. My jacket was steaming, where the suit had coated me, and the smell of slightly charred cloth rose about my head, bringing a fresh bout of nausea with it.

“Nothing,” I said, shakily. “I’m too tired, I think. Some of my control slipped.”

Aleksey lifted his own wrist and stared at his suit with horror. “It attacked you because you were
tired
? It does that?”

“Yes, if you don’t take proper care of yourself.” Mizra, all scowls and scepticism, took Lad’s hand from my arm and placed it firmly in Natasha’s. “Perhaps we should have warned you.” The thin, usually laconic man had never looked so stern. “Now, Tanyana. Natasha will take Lad back to his brother. I will take you home. After what just happened, you need to get some rest.”

For a moment I considered arguing with him. But I didn’t really have the strength. So I simply said, “Thank you,” and kissed Lad on the cheek.

I caught sight of Aleksey’s face as Mizra led me to the stairs. He watched me intently. Horrified, pale, and thoughtful.

“Sofia was right,” Mizra said, as he unlocked the door and held it open for me. “We thought she was losing her mind when she told us you might be pregnant. Obviously not. That’s what you must have done.”

I’d had to guide us here. Mizra had never visited my rooms above Valya’s house; only Lad and Kichlan knew where they were. As I tossed my jacket and gloves to the floor I was starting to wish it would stay that way.

“Thank you. I’ll be fine now.”

But Mizra stepped inside and closed the door with a slam. I winced. Valya would have heard that.

“Who?” he asked, and I wondered at the venom in his tone. Really, he had nothing to be so upset about. None of this had anything to do with him.

“I really don’t think–”

“Is it Kichlan?”

I had a small choking fit over the very idea.

“No? The technician. What did you say his name was? Devich.”

I nodded weakly.

“Other’s shit.”

“You’re talking about this like we know it’s true.” I sat in one of the chairs around the table and wished he would just leave me alone. “We don’t.”

Colour rose from his pale neck to deepen at his cheeks. He undid the top few buttons of his high-necked shirt. “You haven’t checked? You don’t know?”

“I–” I stared at the floor. “No. I think so, but, no. I haven’t checked.”

“Given the symptoms Sofia described and your suit’s rather extreme reaction, I think you might be right.”

I was surprised by that. “Do suits always do this if their body is pregnant?”

“They’re not usually as bad as what you just experienced, but yes, suits do some strange things during pregnancy. Something to do with the changes in your body.” He shook his head. “Either way, we need to get you to a healer. You need to know for certain.”

“Why?” I couldn’t stop the word escaping and wished I had when Mizra came a half step forward.

“Are you being serious, Tanyana? Because we need to make sure you are all right. You almost collapsed back there.” He pushed up the sleeves of his jacket, obviously getting hot with his growing frustration. “And, because you need to make a decision. What are you going to do about it?”

“Do?” I whispered and felt something cold and hard tighten within me. I had a pretty good idea what the suit wanted to do about it.

Mizra turned, hunched his back at me. “You don’t understand anything, do you?”

“Why don’t you enlighten me?” Anger was slowly rising from that knot in my belly. I was sick of Mizra’s attitude, sick of his assumptions and his belief that he knew more about what was going on in my body, in my life and mind, than I did. “Why don’t you just tell me what you’re talking about, or get out?”

He turned, expression teetering between shock and hurt. “Any child of a debris collector has a greater chance of being born a debris collector. Broken. Like Uzdal and me are broken. Or like Lad.”

That didn’t sound right to me. “Kichlan and Lad’s parents were binders. Were your parents collectors?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Then that can’t be right, none of us had parents–”

“That’s because most children of debris collectors aren’t even born!” Mizra approached me, gripped my hands. “Most children conceived without the knowledge of pions are aborted, Tanyana. And even if your baby is not a collector – if it is not broken – how will you raise it? Going to drag a toddler around the city every day, are you? Through sewerage, in emergencies, to wherever the veche decide to send you? And how will you feed them when the kopacks we earn are hardly enough to feed ourselves? How will you teach them to control pions that you can’t even see?” He released me, and stepped back. “This is your decision: If it is one of us, will you allow it to live? If it is one of them, will you give it away? For its own good?”

I stared at him, horrified. “That’s not much of a decision.”

“I know. But that’s the reality.”

Hesitantly, I placed a hand on my stomach. It didn’t feel any different, I had no way of knowing if pions were flowing, teaching, bonding, or whatever it was that differentiated a pion-binder from a debris collector. Whatever it was that bound us, or left us Unbound.

“Rest,” Mizra said. “On Rest, we will take you. You need to know.”

Numb, I did not meet his eye.

“I’m sorry, Tanyana. I really am. I wish I didn’t have to tell you these things. I wish this wasn’t the way of the world.”

I looked up. Mizra was pale, eyes red as though he had been weeping. “Goodnight,” was all I could manage.

He nodded, and left me alone with the beings in my body.

I stripped down to my uniform. When I rolled it back the silver scars across my stomach weren’t as bad as I had expected. But as I touched them, ran fingers over their edges and pressed in, I realised they were much deeper than they looked.

Someone knocked on the door. I dragged my jacket over my uniform and opened it, wishing again for solitude and the quiet, quiet dark.

Valya stood at the top of her rickety stairs, a steaming pot in her hands. “You have not eaten.”

I took the pot, smelled vegetables and herbs and hoped I did not look as ill as I felt.

“Must be strong,” she said. “You are here to help the Keeper, and he needs you to be strong.” With that, she turned, and began her slow and unstable descent.

I closed the door, placed the pot on the table and watched it cool.

Two days later, when I returned Lad to his brother’s care, Kichlan took my hand. Natasha had accompanied me for the second day in a row, apparently still uncertain about my health. And while Lad was distracted, saying his goodbyes to her, Kichlan whispered in my ear, “tonight.”

I tried not to let anything show on my face, and only gave him a small nod of acknowledgement. He did not need to see my constant exhaustion, my confusion or worry. The old binder part of me – the architect who had worked so hard to rise to the centre of a nine point circle – had grown quite vocal since I realised I could be pregnant. She criticised me constantly, like the buzzing of an irritating insect somewhere at the back of my head, making it even harder to sleep. How could I have been so foolish? I knew better than this. And, worst of all, what would Kichlan think when he found out?

So I nodded, expressionless, and tried to silence her, to push her down until she was little more than a memory. Faint, like a scar.

“Wait for me at Evenbell. I will meet you outside, by the stairs.”

To my surprise, Kichlan’s closeness, the brush of his breath on my ear and the warmth that radiated from his body, shut her up instantly.

Despite everything I felt a strange delight as I waited for Kichlan outside the home I shared with Valya. I had even changed into clean clothes: a fresh scarf, pale shirt beneath my jacket, and the best pair of pants I owned – only two patches on these, hidden at the hem. When he appeared, grinning, bounce in his step, I realised he must feel the same.

“Lovely evening for a little reconnaissance, wouldn’t you say?” He produced a parcel from his coat with a flourish. Still warm, wrapped in cloth. Eugeny’s cooking. Valya had, of course, already fed me for the night. But something in Kichlan’s closeness set off my hunger anew.

“Do you know where we are going?” I unwrapped as we walked. Thickly stewed plums encased in pastry, rich with sugar and cinnamon.

He nodded, and I offered him a bite of the pastry. He tucked his hands into his jacket. “Oh no, Lad and Eugeny made that one for you.”

“But I would like to share.”

His look turned sheepish. “I’ve already had three.”

“Three?” I laughed, and devoured it. “How could you possibly eat three of these?”

A wink, a cheeky grin. “Practice.”

Kichlan led the way, keeping to well-lit streets rather than our usual back-alley haunts. But then, we weren’t hunting for debris. It felt strange, to be following him like this, without any jars in hand.

“What did you tell Lad?” I asked. “How did you convince him not to come?”

“I didn’t need to.” He stopped beneath a rusted but legible street sign, before glancing at the old bronze numbers mounted on the walls of nearby buildings. Most signposts in Movoc-under-Keeper were written in pions now, not bronze or smooth, painted enamel. It made navigating around the city difficult for people like us, who couldn’t read them. Some of the richer Rills maintained the old signs and numbers – like this one – as a kind of quaint, historical decoration. Though not well enough to stop them from crusting over. Still, it was better than nothing.

Kichlan had led us closer to the Tear River, down a Rill rather than an Effluent, so the buildings here were of better quality. Apartment complexes built onto the foundations of old, pre-revolution warehouses, contrasting the rough, hand-chipped sandstone blocks with large sheets of river stone, wide reflective glass windows and small balconies hidden by intricate latticework. Little engravings of the Keeper Mountain patterned each of the ancient, sandstone blocks, and had been copied in garish crystal flecked with gold on the new doors and the corner of each street.

I paused briefly to stare at one of those stylised mountains. It was melting, spilling shining, liquefied metal all over the street. Kichlan took my hand and helped me step clear of it. A bizarre sight, especially in what was obviously a wealthy Rill. I’d have expected such a blatant disruption of complex pion bindings to be fixed as soon as possible. But the street was dark – a quick check down and I realised half the lamps weren’t even working – and empty, apart from Kichlan and me. Stranger still.

“Lad didn’t even want to come.” Kichlan stopped and pointed to a door. As gaudily decorated as all the rest, it took me a moment to realise that instead of the usual crystalline screen of a pion lock mounted on the wall beside it, this door needed a key. “This must be the one. Fedor said it would stand out.” He glanced around, then herded me across the street. “Now we wait.”

We huddled together on the stairs of an opposite building, hidden in the darkness of a malfunctioning lamp. Kichlan dug into his jacket again, and this time he produced a small flask. “To keep us warm.”

Mulled wine, so heavily spiced I couldn’t taste the original quality. That was probably the point. I almost choked over the first mouthful, and covered my face with my hands trying to stifle the sound. Kichlan chuckled, took the flask and drank heavily. “There’s nothing like Eugeny’s recipe.”

“I hope not,” I managed to say, around coughs and tearing eyes. “Lad didn’t want to come?” I asked, when I could breathe. “That’s unusual, isn’t it?”

Kichlan offered the flask again. This time, I sipped delicately. “He just said ‘You and Tan should go by yourselves,’ and then told me to make sure you ate your pastry.”

That didn’t sound like Lad. At the very least, he’d want to make sure he fulfilled the duty his brother gave him, and look after me. “Did you tell him what we were doing tonight?”

“Oh, a bit.” Kichlan skirted the edges of any real answer. But he leaned against me as he did so, and the warm pressure of his body was so pleasant in the evening chill that I quickly decided I didn’t care. Time alone with Kichlan was rare. Extremely rare. No Lad, no Unbound, no Keeper or lurking puppet men. Just Kichlan. “Although,” he said, and pressed closer still. “If I realised how enjoyable revolution could be, I think I would have joined the Unbound a long time ago.”

I didn’t think this was really what revolution looked like, but decided not to make that comment. I was far too comfortable to do that. “I thought you didn’t trust the Unbound?”

“I don’t.” He wrapped a gloved hand around mine, entwined our fingers. “But it’s a nice excuse to spend an evening with you. Good food. Good wine–”

“I wouldn’t call that good wine.”

He just grinned “–and you.”

Heat flushed up to my face. He held my hand tighter. He rested a clean-shaven cheek against my hair. He must have shaved before coming to meet me, Kichlan’s jaw was never so smooth by this time of night. What exactly was going on here? I thought we were helping the Unbound return enough debris to the Keeper to seal the doors closed. Why did I get the impression that Kichlan’s mind was on other things?

And should I really feel this relaxed? With my suit trying to control me, and the baby I may or may not be carrying, and the broken Keeper, and the quota we could not fill. But all I could really focus on was Kichlan. He made it easy to forget all those things, and I was more than willing to give in.

“Look.” He tucked the flask away, but did not release my hand. “This is it.”

On the other side of the street, a small group of technicians were unlocking the gold-adorned door with a set of large, iron keys. The two bored-looking enforcers with them didn’t seem to notice us, hiding in the shadows, but Kichlan drew me against him anyway. He pressed my face into his chest and held me there, embracing me for far longer than seemed necessary. Finally, when he released me and whispered, “We need to follow them,” I couldn’t care less about the technicians, their collecting jars, Fedor and his Unbound. I would have quite happily remained in Kichlan’s arms.

The technicians loaded their jars into a long black landau that floated low to the ground and travelled Movoc’s twisting streets at high speed. So Kichlan and I ran after them, still joined by our hands, from corner to corner, hugging what shadows we could find. Every time the carriage slowed, even a little, we hid, bodies pressed up against walls, arms wrapped around each other, my face on his chest and his mouth in my hair. Soon, I could hardly breathe, but not from the running, and he was smiling, eyes flashing, wild, excited. Free.

Finally, the landau halted beside a wide, fat-looking building. For all the prodigious colourless wall space the building had only two large doors, their glass windows a pale green. In the moonlight and unsteady glare from a nearby lamp, it looked ugly and sluggish. And familiar. A debris technician laboratory, it had to be.

Kichlan’s smile faded as we watched, still hiding, while more enforcers emerged from inside the laboratory to unload the jars.

“This is what Fedor wanted to know?” I whispered, wishing our frantic chase had not come to an end. I didn’t fully understand what Kichlan was doing, why spying for the Unbound had involved food, drink and his body so close to mine. But I had enjoyed it.

He nodded. “Fedor wanted to know where the jars were taken, and how many.”

I hadn’t counted any jars, or been paying attention to the street names or building numbers as we ran, and could only hope that Kichlan had. “You will tell him tomorrow?”

Another nod, this time silent.

We watched until the landau was emptied, and glided away. Then Kichlan took me home. He did not offer the flask again, and did not speak, but at least he held my hand.

“Will Fedor have another task for us?” I asked, as we approached Valya’s stairs. I had no idea how late the bell was, but no desire to climb those steps quite yet, at least not on my own. “Soon would be good, don’t you think?”

Kichlan glanced at me in surprise. “I’m not sure. He didn’t say. You– you would like that?” He swallowed loudly. “To spend another evening with me?” He coughed, looked away. “For the revolution, I suppose. The Keeper and the–”

“No.” I released Kichlan’s hand, and stepped so close to him our chests were touching again. At first he hardly seemed to breathe, then drew air deeply, slowly into his lungs so the very movement pressed us closer together.

The feeling made it difficult to speak. A lump in my throat, just like his. Foolishness. I was hardly new at this, was I? But with Kichlan, it felt different, unstable. Since he found me wandering Darkwater all those moons ago, lost, bandaged, and swearing at inanimate objects, I’d known many different aspects of Kichlan. From the humourless man who’d judged me before he even met me, to the possessive but loving brother to Lad, the strong collecting team leader and, finally, a friend who believed me when no one else would. I rather liked where we’d ended up. A place of closeness and trust. If I took this down the paths I so very much wanted to tread, I could lose it all with a single misstep.

Like, say, if he learned about my pregnancy.
Possible
pregnancy.

So I shivered, not just with the Movoc chill. It was terrifying, to think that I could lose him. Far more frightening than it should have been. But then I glanced up to the curve of his jaw and the arch of his neck, and before I could stop myself I was touching him, his skin soft and hot beneath my fingers.

“I couldn’t care less about revolution,” the words spilled from me, uncontrollable. “Right now, I just want to be with you.”

He held his breath until I dropped my hand, then said, “Well, then, perhaps we should just spend another evening together anyway.” His voice was very deep, and I could feel it echo through me. Chest to chest.

“I would like that. So very much.”

Kichlan kissed me.

His lips tasted of sweet pastry and spicy wine, and he shook, ever so slightly. I kissed him back, wondering what I tasted like. Not – oh please not – like the suit’s metallic tang.

We kissed beneath a lamp’s weak light. We kissed in Movoc’s cold night air. We kissed until nothing really mattered any more, not revolution, not the Keeper, not the doors, not the life or the death within me. There was Kichlan, only Kichlan, as he always should have been. What I’d wanted for so long, I realised, but not been able to admit to myself.

When we said goodnight, eventually, at the base of Valya’s stairs, I could still feel him on my mouth, my chest, my hands. I carried him with me, and slept well for the remainder of that night. For once, without worry.