Unwelcome Bodies (28 page)

So many light years away, the billions of people of Earth had been dead for centuries, and they’d only now found out.

They’d been dead long before the City had started picking up the transmissions. They’d redefined their culture around a ghost planet.

Would the City mourn them, now that they knew they were dead?

He walked into the apartment and saw Lenore staring at the Wall, flipping through all three channels as the Hindenburg explosion played on each one. “They’ve been showing this on an endless loop for the past few minutes. It’s weird.”

Mauro must have worked fast.

“When are they going to give you guys some new work so we can watch fun stuff again?”

“Never,” Seph said.

“What?”

Well, at least he could be the one to tell his wife the news.

“Lenore, Earth’s gone. They’re all dead.”

She gaped at Seph, then her eyes flashed with seeming understanding. “Good one. That’s really funny.”

“I’m serious, Lenore. The entire population of Earth has died. There aren’t going to be any more broadcasts.”

“That’s…” She turned to the Wall and flipped through all three channels again. “No, it’d be the top story.”

“They’re not going to tell us about it, Lenore. They’re going to keep us in the dark about the whole thing, just like they always do.”

Lenore clutched her hands to her chest. “Seph, no. Tell me you didn’t sneak up above the seventh floor.”

“I went down, Lenore. They can hear everything down there.”

A small squeak escaped Lenore’s throat, and she dashed for the washroom. He ran after her, but she slammed and locked the door before he had a chance to stop her.

“Lenore? You can’t hide from this. Lenore?”

He could hear murmuring, heard her spelling his name, and their address.

“Lenore!” He pounded on the door. “Lenore, don’t!”

But it was too late.

Adrenaline spiked through his veins, and he threw himself at the front door in a desperate attempt to escape.

It was locked.

Seph smacked it in frustration, and stood back, shaking, hands balled into fists by his sides, waiting for the inevitable to happen as Lenore sobbed and apologized from the washroom.

It didn’t take the Caste Police long to arrive. “Seph Allele, you’re under arrest for disseminating information unauthorized to your caste.”

Before he could say a word in his defense, they fired a stun blast at him and the world went black.

* * * *

“Well, well. So you’re the foolhardy little Paintclad who went down below.”

Seph struggled toward consciousness and blinked into the blinding light. His arms and legs were strapped down, and when he tried to open his mouth, his lips would not come apart.

He drew in a ragged breath, and with a shock, realized it was pulling into his lungs through a hole in his throat.

A shadow fell over him, and he stared in horror at the naked form of an Unadorned staring down at him.

In a panic, he cast his gaze away, knowing it was too late.

“That’s all right,” the Unadorned said. “We allow a bit of latitude on these occasions.”

Seph stared pointedly at the far wall and probed at his lips with his tongue.

They were sealed shut.

“You shouldn’t have talked,” the Unadorned said. “You certainly won’t be talking anymore.”

Seph felt panic rising in his chest and tugged helplessly at his restraints.

“You really thought it was up to you to spread information to your caste that the Empress above, all bless Her name, had decided was not appropriate for you to know? We expect this kind of behavior from the Masked. They have no more discernment than children. But you Paintclad, you dependable, industrious Paintclad, we expect more from you.”

In the edge of his vision, Seph saw the Unadorned turn away, and he flicked a quick glance in his direction, his curiosity getting the better of him. He’d never seen an Unadorned in person. His body was nude, hairless, the light glimmering off of his oiled skin, throwing the planes of his body into sharp relief.

Seph looked away, terrified his latitude might have already expired.

“Mauro Oligo is dead,” the Unadorned said. “We had to make an example of him. His body will be displayed prominently on all Walls until tomorrow’s Evening Bells, along with constant news reports denouncing him as a traitor to the Skinless Empress. However, the Empress has decided to let his story stand. In Her wisdom, She has decided that all the castes get to know the same information about the demise of Earth.” He leaned in, his face mere centimeters from Seph’s, his hot breath reeking of berry water. “But don’t let that swell your head, Paintclad. We both know She couldn’t have been influenced by someone as low caste as you.”

The Unadorned stepped back and ran his hand along his scalp. “The access hatch in Oligo’s shop has been permanently sealed to keep any other Paintclad from getting the bright idea to head down a level to spy on their betters. And we performed a thorough sweep of Old Town and sealed several other hatches that had also been illegally uncovered. We killed a dozen random Masked as well for good measure, starting with the woman who led you to the pipes, and deafened most of the adults. That will give us time to figure out how to sound-proof the pipes before a new generation of troublemakers reaches adulthood.”

Madlie was dead. Because of him. Mauro, he’d wanted to die, but Madlie… And they’d deafened how many… He felt his stomach heave and fought it down before its contents spilled out of his throat.

“You will report to Mauro Oligo’s shop by Dawn Bells tomorrow morning,” the Unadorned said. “People must see you in your new state. An example must be made. And you will put your special talents to good use in reminding the Paintclad both to honor their station, and to remember the price for insurrection.”

The Unadorned left the room, and a Paintclad woman entered and loosened Seph’s restraints. She gestured to her throat, to the hole in it that mirrored Seph’s, and pointed to a small, metal device strapped just under her chin. A tinny voice emerged from it. “I’ll show you how to feed yourself. Talking again will take practice.”

He was given a feeding tube and shown how to lower it down to his stomach through the hole in his throat and pour mash through it. He was given his own talk box and shown how to work his mouth behind his sealed lips to transmit the proper impulses to the box to generate speech. And he was taken by police escort through the curfew-emptied streets, Mauro’s bloodied face gaping at him from every Wall, to his apartment.

Seph stood in the doorway, his gloved hands pressed to his sealed lips, and started shaking.

And then he saw the black-clad man on the sofa, his shoulders hunched beneath the fabric of the high-collared jacket.

The man turned, his paint smeared beyond recognition, but there was no mistaking the face beneath it.

Roland held up his gloved hands, gloves that were covered in paint. “How the hell am I supposed to do this? I can’t even touch my face. I can’t—”

Seph dropped his hands from his lips, and Roland’s mouth fell open.

“What did they do to you?”

Seph shook his head, hands balled into fists, his talk box making impotent squawks as his breath whistled out of his neck.

Roland staggered to his feet. “By the Makers, Seph. I—” He tore off his gloves and reached out to touch Seph’s sealed lips.

Seph flinched back, and Roland yanked his hand away.

“Sorry. Sorry.”

Seph gingerly fingered the hole in his throat, then slid down the wall as his knees gave out.

Roland knelt beside him, his blue eyes peering out from the painted mess that was his face. “Some Paintclad ratted me out. Your face was splattered all over the Walls, and they went to the Caste Police and said that they’d seen us fucking every night in Old Town. They said they’d demote my entire family if I didn’t talk. Does that…does that hurt?”

Seph wrapped his hand protectively around his throat, then dropped it in revulsion when he felt his moist exhalation against his gloved palm.

Roland poked his own face, and stared at the fresh paint smudge on his fingertip. “We can take this off inside, right?”

Roland helped Seph to his feet, and they stood together under the sonics. As the paint was sung off of both of their faces, Roland smiled sadly and said, “I was right about what you looked like under all that paint.”

Seph ran a finger along Roland’s lower lip. They’d taken his jewelry, leaving him with tiny holes on either side of his mouth, like the string of tiny, empty holes in both of his earlobes.

Such a stupid thing to fixate on, considering.

They spent the night curled up around each other in Seph’s too-small sleep cloud, Seph drifting in and out of sleep, his dreams filled with mouthless screams.

Order woke them a few hours later, well before Dawn Bells.

The first day of his public humiliation was about to begin.

Roland tapped his own earbug and paled. “Order says I have to go with you.”

So Roland was to be publicly humiliated as well.

The sleep cloud descended to the floor, and Seph took a deep breath through the hole in his neck and walked to the washroom to take his first good, hard look at his new face, at the thick band of scar tissue cementing his lips together, at the gaping hole in his neck.

Roland stood behind him, his skin and lips so pale that Seph thought he was about to pass out. “How do they treat the demoted out there?” he whispered. “Is everyone going to know?”

Seph struggled with his talk box, working his mouth behind his sealed lips, and managed to croak out, “Probably.”

“Fuck.”

Seph turned to the Face Maker.

For nearly his entire life, Seph had shown his pride in the old ways by painting himself every morning.

But now he was expected to use his talents and his mutilation to remind his fellow Paintclad of their place.

There was no pride in that.

He pulled his hair back, and then just as he’d been taught, he held his fingers over the hole in his throat as he leaned into the Face Maker, feeling the whoosh of the base layer, the light tickle of the detail spray.

He pulled his head out and gestured for Roland to do the same.

Roland swallowed hard, closed his eyes tightly, and stuck his face into the Face Maker. When he pulled back out, he crashed to his knees in front of the toilet and emptied the contents of his stomach into it.

Seph touched up his lips when he was done.

“I’ll be fine,” Roland said. “I can do this.”

With shaky hands, Roland helped Seph pour his morning mash down his throat, then they dressed in their identical high-collared black outfits—Seph carefully wrapping a black gauze scarf around his neck to protect his throat-hole—and headed for the door.

Seph opened it, staring at his blue-tinted world, and gripped the doorframe with gloved hands.

Damn the Takers. Damn the Unadorned. Damn the Skinless Empress.

And damn him for not having done more to try to change things before he’d gotten caught.

They took the early crawler to Old Town, sitting close to each other, but not touching. Seph’s gloved hands kept drifting up to his sealed mouth, and every time, he forced them back down into his lap. Next to him, Roland stared up at the sky canal, his expression unreadable behind his paint. Seph couldn’t imagine what he was going through. He suspected the reverse was also true.

The public Walls still displayed Mauro’s lifeless corpse, alternating it with images of an exploding volcano and messages exhorting people to return to the old ways. “Earth was weak! It never deserved our devotion! Only our own traditions will save us!”

As if traditions could stand up to a supervolcano.

Still, Mauro had gotten the job done. The Adorned and Paintclad now knew the truth.

But the Masked had paid the price for them.

As the crawler crossed into Old Town, Seph was amazed at the level of activity so early in the morning. The Empress’s call to return to the old ways apparently had gone out to more than just him. Dozens of vendors were setting up shop, many of whom Seph had never seen before, and as the crawler scuttled past the breadpod vendor, she raised three fingers in a silent salute. A couple others noticed, and did the same.

“What does that mean?” Roland murmured.

Seph shrugged.

The crawler’s driver crooked one finger over her shoulder. When they moved closer, she said, “One finger for each of you, one for Mauro.”

Seph wondered how long it would be until the Caste Police started removing fingers.

When they arrived at the shop, there was already a line of about a dozen people standing outside, all with white base on their faces, all clutching vellums. Persis was among them, and she stepped forward as Seph got off of the crawler. “Order told us to come here this morning,” she said, holding up the printout of her assigned design. “It said you’re supposed to paint us.” She flashed three fingers at him and grinned.

He shook his head and tried to say that he didn’t deserve to be honored in the same way as Mauro, but his talk box wouldn’t cooperate.

Roland clasped Seph’s shoulders from behind and said, “Don’t ask any more of him.”

“I…I just want him to paint me. The fingers…they’re just remembrance.”

“Just flash two,” Roland muttered. “I didn’t do anything.”

Apparently, Seph wasn’t alone in his feelings.

Seph took the vellum from Persis and looked out at the small crowd.

They all looked back expectantly.

If he had any courage, he’d throw this vellum to the ground, refuse to paint any faces, be arrested and dragged off in front of everyone…

…and scare them away from ever going up against the Caste Police ever again.

No. Open rebellion wasn’t the answer. They’d tried that, and it had failed.

If they were going to take the caste system down, they would have to work more subtly than that.

And with a face like his, he no longer was able to work subtly.

Three fingers. Maybe the point was that he and Roland had survived. That they were here, unashamed, displaying their punishments without flinching.