‘What about a Fen?’ Jude muttered. ‘You’ll never have to think for yourself again.’
‘No thanks,’ Eli said. ‘Not much into fairy-breeds.’
‘You used to like me,’ Diega smiled at him, fluttering her purple eyelashes.
‘Yes, but that was before I knew you,’ Eli said.
Diega laughed.
‘It’s just this problem I have,’ Eli said.
‘Which one?’ Diega teased.
‘The talking thing. When I’m with you – my friends – I’m fine, but when I’m with a girl, suddenly I’m back to square one, talking gibberish or saying the opposite of what I mean. And I’ll usually end up stealing something from her,’ he said.
‘Well, we might as well just take you out the back and shoot you – you’re no good to any of us,’ Diega said. She stood, too impatient to wait for the drink to be brought to her. Another Ohini Fen soldier bumped into her and greeted her in Fenlen.
‘
Dazzl.
’ He offered her his drink as a sign of friendship.
‘Commander Santana.’ She saluted him, then took the drink.
The Fen soldier, Santana, glanced down at their table and, unlike most people, deliberately met Copernicus’ eyes. There was no nervousness in his steady stare; instead Copernicus saw the complex, multifaceted emotion commonly given the entirely uncomplicated title of
respect
.
‘Commander Kane.’ Santana saluted him in full view of everyone even though they were equally ranked.
Copernicus responded with a nod.
‘Hi,’ Eli piped in.
Santana’s eyes shifted down to the imp-breed. ‘Hello,’ he replied.
‘I’m Eli Anklebiter,’ Eli said and extended his hand.
‘Santana.’ The Fen slapped his hand in the Ohini way. He leaned down and said, ‘Eli, your commander there,’ he looked again into Copernicus’ eyes, ‘is a great man.’
‘Thank you.’ Eli took it as a personal compliment.
Santana nodded. He straightened up, spoke to Diega again briefly about how much she had riding on the game, then left.
‘He seems nice,’ Eli said.
Diega sat down with her drink and said, ‘He’s not
nice
, he’s a sniper and he was team leader on my first job, which was also the first time I worked with our
great
commander.’ Diega locked eyes with Copernicus and the corners of her lips quirked upwards. ‘You remember, right?’ she said, speaking to him as though he was the only one in the room.
Copernicus nodded. He didn’t forget anything, but if he did, this wouldn’t be something that would slip away so easily. It was year-cycles ago, before he’d made commander, while he was still pushing his way up in Homicide. He had been hunting the same serial killer for months and finally tracked him to his hideout. He’d gone in and done what was usual for him – find the victims or their corpses and apprehend the perpetrator, or make
him
a corpse. Santana wasn’t working the case, but he was personally attached to it. One of the abducted women was his wife. Copernicus had uncovered the hideout and stormed it just before the perpetrator had ended her. The superiors had ordered him to wait for backup. He had not waited. So, in Santana’s eyes, he was a great man, but to others he was a freak and a liability. Either way he was unfazed. He was who he was and opinions were like mouths – everybody had one.
His mind skipped from history to present, back to the case they were now working. He met Diega’s gaze again and he saw she was thinking about the same thing. Like him, Diega lived to work; their life-paths demanded it. He tuned out of his thoughts and into a conversation between Jude and Eli on how to fix the busted lock of Jude’s front door in his apartment at Headquarters.
‘Hey, turn that up!’ someone yelled from the bar.
The pedal-ball game had paused for half-time and the holo-screen was broadcasting a news update. Complete silence engulfed the diner, save for the food sizzling and the wail of music from the backroom. A full-size hologram of former Oscuri Tracker Commander Oren Harvey stepped out of the screen and stood in midair while the newsreader spoke.
‘
Tomorrow marks the fifteen year-cycle anniversary of the disappearance of Commander Oren Harvey, hailed as our era’s greatest soldier. Her countless acts of service to the state and people of Scorpia have directly and indirectly saved billions of lives and continue to do so to the present day. Harvey’s final act as Commander of the Oscuri Trackers was the capture and arrest of the city’s most evil serial killer, Englan Chrisholm.
’
An image flashed up of Chrisholm’s ordinary, even pleasant, face and the crowd erupted into a storm of booing and hissing. A general shushing overcame the sound as the newsreader continued to talk. ‘
In the year-cycle of the Everdark, Chrisholm, a famous artist, was convicted of the savage torture and murder of over ninety children.
’
The air around the holo-screen filled with holograms of children’s smiling faces. ‘
Chrisholm was executed for his crimes, survived by his daughter, Enie, who, weeks after his arrest, died in a fire at the custody house where she was being held, despite Commander Harvey’s efforts to save the child.
’ An image flashed up of paramedics stretchering out a body covered by a white sheet.
‘Burn baby burn!’ One soldier yelled out to cheers and applause before there was more shushing.
‘
Soon after this event, Commander Harvey was seen leaving Scorpia, never to return. So the question remains – what was the fate of the soldier, the commander, the hero Oren Harvey? Tune into
Newsdirect
tomorrow night for a full exploration of the life and deeds
of Oren Harvey. In other news . . .’
Copernicus glanced at Diega. She was still staring at the screen, her jaw clenched, skin flashing vivid colours. General babble resumed to full volume and the waitress returned with their food. Eli jumped into his with both hands. Jude tasted the soup and grimaced and Diega slid her meal around her plate, but didn’t touch it. Copernicus inspected his and saw a distinct line of prickle-like boar hairs all along one side of the steak. He shook his head in disgust, but wasn’t overly surprised.
He considered offering the slab of meat to the others, but Eli seemed to be the only one with an appetite, and as he’d told Copernicus the first time they’d met, Eli never ate anything that once had a face and feelings. He pushed the plate away and waited.
As soon as Eli finished his meal, Copernicus threw the coin on the table and they left the diner.
Outside, the street swarmed with people, mainly military personnel on their way to and from work. Copernicus stood surveying the passers-by, locking on to various familiar body-heat signatures then skipping to the next. He saw a group of scullion-gypsy women and girls standing on a corner of the street, begging for money. Copernicus watched them for a moment as they played out their show, their faces and bodies pushed into practised poses of neediness and desperation. Memories of what the carnival scullions had done to him when he was a child threatened to replay in his mind but he blocked them out.
On the other side of the road a band of Androts and smaller machine-breed robots worked to repair a long strip of street that had collapsed down into parts of an underground passageway dug in the early history of Scorpia to allow the then emperor to travel unseen between Palace Sirenseron and the stadium to witness the gladiator fights. Watching the machine-breeds work reminded Copernicus of something he needed to ask Jude. He turned to find the Ar Antarian standing close by, also watching the Androts, his expression troubled.
‘Jude.’ Copernicus spoke with a lowered voice so that only he would hear. ‘I need you to send SevenM to track Christy Shawe. I need a location on him.’
With no perceptible communication between the Ar Antarian and his robot, SevenM dropped from Jude’s shoulder, landed on the ground with a click of his eight dextrous legs and scuttled away into an alley. Copernicus nodded thanks, but Jude didn’t see. His eyes were fixed on something over the commander’s shoulder. Copernicus turned. Silho stood on the footpath, swaying on the edge of collapse. He moved swiftly to her and grabbed her arm before she fell. She instinctively pulled back, but he held her firmly. Her arm was very hot under the bandage, a heat unusual for her Nightcat and Ivory Condor bloodlines.
Jude and Eli rushed over as well.
‘Are you okay?’ Eli asked her.
Silho nodded, but Copernicus shook his head.
‘Brabel, that’s enough,’ he ordered. ‘You’re no good to me with concussion. You should have admitted your state of injury the first time I asked you. It’s unprofessional and I’m not impressed. You’re dismissed from this shift and the next. I’ll evaluate you when you come in on the third.’ He released her arm and Silho stepped back, pain clouding her eyes.
Diega came to join them. ‘Did you give Eli the fluid samples from the first crime scene?’ she asked.
Silho looked up with dismay.
‘Where are they?’ Diega demanded.
‘I must have left them there,’ Silho admitted.
‘I don’t believe this!’ Diega didn’t bother to hide her anger and disgust.
‘I’ll go and get them,’ Silho offered in desperation. She staggered and almost fell again, making her new communicator slip out of her pocket and clatter to the ground. Eli grabbed up the machine for her and clipped it onto her belt. He stood by her side, looking up at her with concern.
‘No point,’ Copernicus said. ‘The forensics would have taken them. We’ll have to wait for their report.’
‘
Kitcher
,’ Diega swore in Fenlen.
‘I’m sorry,’ Silho whispered.
‘She’s sorry,’ Diega mocked her.
‘Eli, take her home,’ Copernicus said.
Silho lowered her eyes to the ground, and Jude said, ‘You did really well tonight, Silho, and tomorrow’s a new day.’
Diega laughed unpleasantly.
Eli took Silho’s arm and led her away. Copernicus watched them move towards Headquarters where Eli’s transflyer was parked.
‘I don’t like her,’ Diega said beside him, echoing her previous sentiments. ‘She’s incompetent.’
‘She’s new,’ Jude argued. ‘She’s nervous.’
‘Don’t defend her!’ Diega snarled. ‘We’re talking about people’s lives here! There’s something seriously wrong with that girl – I’m telling you.’
Copernicus looked back to the disappearing figures and narrowed his eyes. He didn’t need Diega to tell him there was something wrong with Brabel; he already knew that. The question was – what was it?
8
E
li led Silho across the rooftop parking lot of Headquarters. They passed a member of the Dog Squad and his canine partner conducting a random search around the crafts.
‘Hello, Bill, hello, KC,’ Eli greeted the human-breed soldier and his dog.
Bill, struck mute by a blow to his head during his time as a lower ranking guardian, nodded in greeting. His dog, KC, tilted his head to one side and watched Eli with sharp, yellow eyes. He licked his lips. Eli often snuck food down to the soldier dogs while they were on duty at Headquarters. He knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help himself. They always gave him
that look
and he couldn’t resist. Since childhood, he’d wanted a pet dog, but first his gran’ma hadn’t allowed it, and now his otter, Nelly, was completely against the idea. The little creature glared at him from inside his pocket.
They reached his transflyer, an antique exo-craft named
Summer Holiday
. He had restored the flyer’s shell, ripped out its existing mechanics and replaced it with a hybrid engine he had designed using what he considered the best parts from a variety of transflyer makes and models. The result was a craft that everyone expected someone’s hard-of-seeing grandmother to be driving, with the kick and thrust of an elite racer. He enjoyed it when arrogant or stupid pilots gave him a hard time for flying slowly. Then he could take off and leave them shocked and rocking in his jet stream. He’d added on a variety of mods, some of them useful, like the chameleon wash-over that gave him camouflage mode, some of them not so useful, like the back massager that tickled and made him laugh so much he couldn’t see through his tears.
Eli slid the starter flash from his pocket and unlocked the craft, then hurried to the passenger side and pulled open the door for Silho. A million chocolate wrappers and tech parts avalanched out onto the ground.
‘Sorry about this.’ He grabbed them up in armfuls and dumped them into the back. He shoved everything else off the passenger seat and dusted off the fabric. Nelly darted out of his pocket onto the seat. When he tried to lift her away, she nipped him.
‘Sorry, she gets very jealous of other girls,’ he tried to explain to Silho as he wrestled with the furry otter.
Silho held onto the side of the transflyer to keep herself upright, and Eli gave her full credit for the fact that even though she’d been embarrassingly dismissed early from her first shift, she was still trying to pay attention to what he was saying instead of slipping into a trance of self-pity and ignoring him. Eli managed to grasp Nelly and stuffed her into her safety carriage at the back of the craft. She sat clinging to the bars, puffing out her fuzzy cheeks and chattering furiously.
‘If you please,’ Eli made a sweeping gesture for Silho to enter and smacked his hand on the transflyer door.
She murmured her thanks and ducked down into the craft.
Eli ran around the back, cursing and shaking his stinging knuckles. He jumped into the pilot’s seat and wrinkled his nose. The craft smelt like someone had passed a lot of gas, leapt out and shut the stench inside.
‘Wet carpet,’ he tried to explain. He gave a nervous giggle and hurried to turn on the air. The engine ignited and the motor purred into life. The craft lifted up until it was hovering higher than the other parked transflyers, then Eli extended the flight wings. He restrained himself from explaining to Silho all the small details of his creation. If she was like most of the girls he knew, such information would cause her to lapse into a coma of boredom within seconds. He swooped the craft upwards and away from Headquarters to where a line of transflyers waited to merge onto the main skyway of the level.
‘You live on Level 502 – Angelstown, right?’ he asked Silho.
She nodded. ‘Forty-five Hall Drive. Thank you for taking me home.’
Eli smiled at her, and his eyes were drawn to the tiny pictures partially covering her neck and chest. They were separate but joined. They were like something he’d seen before, but he couldn’t place where.
Eli swerved out and joined the flow of transflyers, masses of people hurrying to get home, or at least as far away from work as possible. Though Eli loved his job, that was one of the downsides of being a tracker – home was at work and work never ended. He glanced at the glowing chronograph embedded in the dashboard of his craft. It was only mid-dark – still half the night to go. He veered off the main skyway into pipeway seven which ran from Level 150, where Headquarters was located, all the way to the murky places of Level 840. He had never personally been below Level 700 and had no desire to. People had a way of vanishing without a trace in the places with no natural light.
Once inside the pipeway, he punched the engine up to hyper-speed and they shot straight downward, the tunnel lights flashing by on either side. Eli looked over at Silho.
‘In three months you’ll be off probation. You can live at Headquarters then if you want to. I do. Jude and the commander do as well. Diega lives offsite with other Fen soldiers. She says we’re too boring for her.’
Silho nodded, barely lifting her eyes, and Eli felt a stab of pity for her.
‘Don’t worry, today was disastrous – I mean, it
was not
disastrous. You didn’t do well – I mean you
did
well.’ He cleared his throat, silently cursing himself, and changed the subject. ‘Your bloodline.’ He nodded to her bandaged arms. ‘Ivory Condor and Nightcat? I read your personnel file. I hope you mind –
don’t
mind,’ he corrected himself.
‘I don’t mind,’ Silho replied, and Eli liked how her soft voice caressed his ears.
‘You’re an interesting mix . . . the birds and the cats usually don’t intermarry,’ he continued.
‘My parents . . .’ She began to explain but then stalled, and Eli quickly rushed in, ‘Don’t worry, I understand – mine too. Glee and Greer – there’s a reason it’s illegal.’ He snorted. ‘Actually, I don’t know whether you’ve heard about this yet, but the Standard and the independent governing councils are discussing implementing more serious penalties for people who participate in illegal breeds. It just produces children with too many problems – like me. It’s not just the talking and stealing thing, I’m actually also allergic to my own saliva. I have to wear this,’ he indicated to the cap on one of his pointed teeth that gradually dispersed medicine into his system, ‘so that my body doesn’t swell up like a balloon and burst.’
Alarm registered in Silho’s eyes and he hurried to reassure her, ‘Don’t worry it’s secure – I hope – just kidding.’ He giggled, but Silho was still looking decidedly uneasy, so he hurried on.
‘But you know,’ he steered the craft out of pipeway seven and onto a shorter westward-bound tunnel, ‘some of the greatest warriors and minds of all time have been illegal cross-breeds. Sometimes an unusual mix can create unusually strong and unique skills and strengths. Of course the downside is that the person is also usually completely insane – but elite nonetheless. There’s just a fine line, I guess, between trying to prevent birth defects and impeding the natural freedom of the different races. I mean, look at what already happened to the Midnight Men.’
Not so long ago the Standard, on behalf of the king, had given an extermination order against any person who was a cross-breed between a Midnight Man and any other race. The Midnight Men were a largely unknown kind of spectral-breed – their title given to them in the absence of anyone knowing their true name and because they only usually appeared at mid-dark. They were thought to feed on the essence of death and were also called ‘Scorpia’s Vultures’ as they tended to stalk people whom they sensed were about to be injured or killed. When the person went down, either dead or close to it, they would attack, finish the job if necessary and then eat their flesh and drink their blood. As a result there hadn’t really been that many cross-breed Midnight Men, due to the fact they tended to rip apart anyone who got near them, but there had been a strange few mixed with other kinds of spectral-breeds, many completely harmless, who had been rounded up and executed. The Standard and its governmentals had feared what would happen if the Midnight Man gene started dispersing more widely into other races. Eli understood their fear, but their methods had been brutal, and he couldn’t help but feel sadness for the slaughtered Midnight Men, and worried that one day the state might also decide all imp-blood cross-breeds were dangerous and have them exterminated as well.
‘Your parents – are they still together?’ Silho asked him.
Eli laughed. ‘I’m not sure they ever were. They both took off a long time ago – left me with Gran’ma and Grampy. They raised me.’
‘Did you like living with them?’ Silho asked a question that, for Eli, had no simple answer.
‘Grampy was a very kind man,’ he said in reply. ‘But he died quite young. He left me an absurdly enormous collection of hats. One night during a storm, a streak of electricity hit the building where I was living and knocked all the hats off the rotating hinge system I’d hooked up to display them. I was sleeping in bed at the time and became buried under this mountain of hats. I almost died – death by hats – unpleasant to say the least.’
‘I . . .’ Silho started and Eli saw she was really struggling for a response, the look in her eyes somewhere between amusement and horror. He made a mental note to try to dull down his weirdness.
He said, ‘I ended up putting them in storage. I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away. They were his life’s work. You know what I mean?’
She nodded and he got the feeling she really did understand, that she was someone who had lived a lot longer than her years.
‘But honestly,’ he continued. ‘No one is pure-blood anymore – probably not even the king, and every breed has its own violent past, even the human-breeds. Have you studied their history?’
‘Not so much,’ Silho replied softly. ‘I haven’t really had the chance.’
‘Well then, here’s a million years in a minute,’ Eli said. ‘In the Devil’s age, humans were almost extinct, so to survive they mixed magics and genetics and bred out into non-verbal animal bloodlines, which resulted in their being outcast for several thousand generations.’
He went over an air bump and the green Khaiti diamond pendant hanging on a chain around his rear-vision mirror clinked. The sound drew Silho’s eyes to it. Eli glanced at her, checking her reaction. His religion was a somewhat archaic one and not always accepted. His gran’ma was a staunch believer and had brought him up to strictly follow the laws of the temple. Once living independently, he’d thrown it all away. Then, some year-cycles later, he’d gathered the fragments of his beliefs back together, rearranged them to his own understanding and logic and had held them close ever since. In a way, rediscovering his belief had felt like coming home, though he would still be considered an outsider by other Khaiti followers as his thoughts didn’t exactly line up with their ideology – but that was the strength of them. He had taken the ideas and made them his own, so they were unshakeable by outside forces. Diega had often teased him for his diamonds, but it had no effect on him. He wasn’t alone in his belief of Paradise waiting. Many others, of all different races, believed in variations of the same.
Silho’s expression was neither mocking nor openly interested. Instead she said, ‘I read that green diamonds have the power to drive away creatures with dark intentions.’
Eli nodded. ‘Once a Midnight Man tried to attack me – I held up this diamond . . .’
‘He fled?’ Silho said.
‘Yes, but only after I threw it at his head.’
Silho’s lips curved upwards and Eli saw she was like Diega: beautiful when she was serious and stunning when she smiled. He grinned back, delighted to be finally getting a positive response.
‘Can I ask you a question?’ he said. ‘Today with Ev’r Keets . . .’ Silho’s smile vanished and he could see her retreating back into herself. He quickly diverted his words. ‘I just . . . I just thought it was strange. Keets literally burst out of the Murk and crash-landed into territory she knew we’d be monitoring. That’s not like her. I mean, she’s been travelling in the Murk since she was young. She knows what she’s doing and she’s powerful, but this time – she seems different, weaker. I mean, the commander even said that her body-heat signature has changed. I wonder what that means. Maybe she’s sick. Maybe I should go and see her and offer medical help. The commander wouldn’t like it, but I don’t think anyone should suffer.’
Silho gave a slight nod and turned to look out the window.
Eli spotted the exit to Level 502 coming quickly up ahead and veered the craft into the merging lane. They burst out of the tunnel into suburban airspace and Eli dropped the craft back to normal velocity. He joined a northbound line of traffic heading towards the suburb of Angelstown. Trying to lift the uncomfortable silence, he said, ‘If you look down you’ll see the Ohini Fen boroughs of Estabana and Loquitas. Diega grew up in Estabana.’
He triggered one of the transflyer’s mods and the entire base of the craft became transparent so it felt as though they were riding on air. Below them stretched a rainbow ocean of Ohini Fen and other types of Fens partying long into the night, celebrating the noctus-renium. They weren’t actually nocturnals, but since they never slept, they considered themselves worthy to join in the festivities. In truth, Fens didn’t need an excuse to party.
Silho stared down at the Fen streets, a dark expression on her face. Diega was obviously not her new best friend. It was true, Diega was as tactful as a blunt axe, but she could also be kind and funny. There was another side to her and Eli felt he had to explain this to Silho.
‘She’s a bit tough,’ he began. ‘She means harm – I mean, she
doesn’t
mean any harm . . . really . . .’
Silho looked up at him with doubtful eyes.
‘She’s not always had things good, if you know what I mean,’ he continued. ‘I’ll tell you this, but you have to keep it to yourself. She’d kill me if she knew I was telling you. When she was twelve year-cycles old, her little sister was abducted and killed by Englan Chrisholm. She was one of the kids we saw today on the news. What was the media saying at the time?
Alive no more but forever young
.’