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
