about Axel.
When she came back he was gone. He had left the front door ajar. She pounded it shut, purely for her own satisfaction, because she was sure he was nowhere near by and even if he was, the noise would have meant nothing to him. She went for lunch in the Hummingbird Cafe in S-771-E. Jannike was late too and had a tale about a faulty shuttle pod or some other transport problem. They ordered weqa. She remembered choosing the bottle because her staple choice was out of stock, and it was the first time she had read the wine list in several months of patronage. It was likely she had eaten bird.
That was the last time she saw Axel. A month had passed in the way that the months always passed, and sometimes she thought about him more and sometimes less, and then he was gone. It occurred to her, shivering in the glacial air, that it was impossible to say exactly when he had vanished.
She realized now who Sanjay Hanif had reminded her of: it was Dr Radir, the most recent of her twin’s consultants. Radir had failed to diagnose Axel with a condition. He said he had never treated anyone like Axel.
Adelaide let the cigarillo fall. She knew the reason she was out here. It was that nameless thing people did when they felt bereft of decision: waiting, seeing. There was something about Osiris that demanded this act of looking out, perhaps because there was nothing beyond the city to find. It was the behaviour of a fool. She had unearthed a fracture and did not know what to do with it.
One other resource remained open to her.
She took her scarab out of her purse and slipped in a jewelled earpiece. Then she entered the code that she had memorised two days ago. The o’comm at the other end buzzed twice before it was answered.
The voice that responded was curt but unremarkable.
“Yes?”
“My name is Adelaide Mystik. We spoke earlier this week.”
“Yes. You’ve decided?”
“I’d like to go ahead.”
“Very well.”
“You understand that this remains outside of my family’s jurisdiction?”
“I guarantee discretion.”
“Use this number only if you have to contact me. If I don’t respond, don’t speak. The funds will be with you within the hour. Start with the hospitals. I’ll relay Axel’s photograph to your scarab.”
“There are plenty of photographs of Axel Rechnov.”
“Not recent ones,” she said.
There was a pause.
“Send the photograph,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.”
“I want to meet,” she said quickly. “Let’s say Friday, the week after the execution. That should give you enough time. Eleven o’clock at the butterfly farm.”
“As you wish.”
The scarab emitted a tiny beep as the investigator disconnected from the Reef.
Adelaide brought up the last recorded image she had of Axel. He wasn’t looking at the camera. The miniature screen showed his pallor, the way his cheeks caved his face. It showed what remained. She entered the investigator’s code once more. Axel’s face hung there for a moment in profile before the picture blinked and the scarab went dark.
Her fingers fumbled as she put away the scarab, numb with cold. Nonetheless she stayed outside, exhausting the weqa, until the guests went away and she could leave.
2 VIKRAM
Vikram’s watch ticked off the seconds with silent, calculated precision. It was nearing half ten o’clock; the appointed time of Eirik’s death was eleven. Vikram had already been here for over an hour. The boats had gathered early.
His hands were shaking. He clenched them into fists, catching shreds of torn lining in the pockets of his coat. Something had changed when he woke today. A tight band squeezed his chest, constricting the airflow and his heart. He could not have said what it meant; for so long he had felt only a blankness tinged with fear.
He stood at the boat rail of a rusting waterbus anchored far back in the crowd. The Council had chosen to stage the execution near the north end of the border, where four soaring towers cornered an impromptu square. On the western side, the sea was carpeted with boats, every craft jammed with westerners who had congregated, whether to witness a spectacle or out of disbelief that it would be carried through, Vikram could not tell. Apart from a few officials and the skadi, there were no Citizens on the surface. They were all inside, locked away behind window-walls, or listening to a reporter describe the scene on their o’dios.
“Mind if we squeeze in here?”
The man was a head shorter than Vikram, his breath misting in the cold, steering a child of perhaps eight in front of him. Vikram moved along the rail.
“Sure.”
What could he say? He glanced at the kid, a boy, whose expression was open and curious. He wanted to ask the man if it was right the boy should witness such a thing, but to draw any attention was risky. There was always a chance that one of the skadi might recognise him. They did as they pleased, and in the event of any trouble, Vikram’s record would count against him. The thought of going back underwater was enough to bring sweat trickling down his back.
“They say he’s the NWO leader,” said the man. “Eirik 9968. They say he’s number one. What do you reckon?”
“I don’t know.”
He could have said a lot of things. He could have said that he had known Eirik like a brother, once. But between the rumours and the krill speculation and what Drake and Nils had told him, he no longer knew what or who to believe.
The kid pointed to the tank, sat on the deck of a barge a hundred metres away, beyond the front line of western boats. Behind it, the border rose out of the waves, its rippling mesh wet and dripping with seaweed.
“Is that it?” said the kid.
“That’s it.”
“Where’s the prisoner?”
“They’ll bring him out soon.”
Soon. In a matter of minutes, he had to watch Eirik die. Vikram thought he might cry, or shout out, or be sick. If he only knew if the man was guilty or not! He drew in a deep breath. When he exhaled the air came out loud, too loud, the woman on his other side turned her head to look. He had thought that his face was blank, but you never knew what really showed. Vikram had seen fear and horror spark in the most hardened of features: the emotion sudden and unexpected, like electric light in a dark window.
Keep yourself empty, he thought. A pebble at the bottom of the ocean. A bit of kelp. When it’s happened it’s over, done. Then you move on.
That was what the three of them had agreed, him and Nils and Drake. They would go to the execution, because they couldn’t stay away. But they would do nothing. There was nothing they could do.
Eirik’s sentence had finally been announced in early summer, eight months after Vikram was let out of jail. There had not been a public execution since the six Osuwa criminals were shot at the border twenty-eight years ago, for an alleged act of terrorism at the university. Even Vikram knew that Eirik had committed no acts of terrorism. The Citizens were going to execute him anyway.
Was the City actually scared of the west? How could they be, when there wasn’t a single coherent movement or activist group? The west was in chaos, crippled by food shortages and drug trafficking and the continual power failures. The shanty towns were terrorised by gangs who imposed illegal levees and warred continually amongst themselves. Once every few months there might be a straggly protest at the border, mute and seemingly purposeless, but it didn’t take a Councillor to work out that the west was in no position to threaten anyone.
