I pay for my coffee and find a table in the far corner. I drop three coins into the music player to give our conversation a little cover and select a torch singer that Emeríann likes but I don’t know very well. The six-inch hologram flickers into shape, a dark woman wearing an elaborate evening dress with a gardenia pinned to her hair.
Three tables over, a man strikes his lighter while another holds a vial of Paradise above the flame. They put their faces into the stream of smoke, inhale hard, then snatch their pocket-viewer and hurry into one of the bathrooms to lagonael. If I had been smart, I would have learned to repurpose old devices into portable viewers. Most of them are the size of a hand and only need a screen and a slot for the vial. It’s not always the best viewing, but if you’re resorting to stealing your sister’s pocket-jukebox so you can lagonael, quality isn’t much of a concern.
Walleus waits at the counter while they warm up his muffins – regular muffins, dry and with unevenly ground flour, not one of those rehydrated, designer ones like on his side of the city – then makes his way over to the table. Before he can even sit down, I start on him.
“We’re in a public space now, so tell me when you turned.”
“Come on, Henraek. I haven’t even had a chance to enjoy this muffin. Reminds me of those ones your mom made.” He smells it, revelling in the sensory associations of our youth, of my mother before she disappeared after she refused to license our property to the resource company.
“Then answer me and I’ll stop asking,” I say.
A slight smile creases his lips. “I thought you wanted to know about Riab’s family.”
“That was my next question.”
“What’s with the inquisition?”
“Morbid curiosity.”
He bites into his muffin, closing his eyes while he chews. After three nearly pornographic chews, I repeat my question.
Eyes still closed, he swallows and says, “Is there anything you’d like to tell me first?”
“No,” I say. “Should there be?”
“You tell me, Henraek.” He leans forward to stare straight through me, the light in the corner reflecting off his eyes in brilliant points.
“I have nothing to hide.”
He hooks a thumb over his shoulder, says, “You’ll excuse me if I go shit myself from laughter?”
“I can wait.”
“Maybe it’s in that vial you didn’t turn in yesterday? Riab’s grandfather?”
I sip my coffee to conceal any expression he could read as guilt or deception, taste the hint of wood bark. I believe the girl at the counter gave me the wrong kind. “Have Stilian check it again. My orders are always correct.”
The hologram sings Hush, don’t explain, then sings it again, again, the player skipping as the electric current lapses, and I begin to wonder if she’s advising Walleus or me.
He looks over, says, “Turn off.”
“Wrong neighborhood, Walleus.”
He reaches over and yanks the plug from the socket. The torch singer freezes with her head arched back and arms curled, mid-climax note, then dissolves into nothing.
“I’ll have him take another look, but it’d better be there. Word around the campfire is there’s something brewing at Johnstone’s. I don’t buy it, and as a fellow member of the Tathadann, I’m not suggesting you’re involved with anything. Maybe someone else is, or two someones. And maybe that’s related to the names on your list,” he says, then takes a considered bite of his muffin, trying to peer inside my skull while chewing. “I can’t get blindsided. It’d be bad for both of us, and anyone else who might be involved. So things need to be where they need to be, and if there’s something I need to know, I need to know it.”
“That statement is the ultimate summation of the superfluous presence of a bureaucracy. You have officially been there too long.”
“You officially need to speak in words I can spell.”
“Walleus, get yourself another coffee. There’s nothing to worry about here.”
He leans back, nodding with his lips sucked in, and unwraps the second muffin before breaking it in half and slipping it into his mouth. I plug the music player back in but my credit is gone and I don’t have any more coins.
“Don’t say I didn’t ask,” he says, holding up the other half of the muffin like the gesture should mean something. “But you and Emeríann might want to lay low for a while. For all our sakes.”
“Why are you eating anyway?” I say. “I thought you were making special pancakes.”
“I was planning to until my kid turned into an asshole.”
“Yeah, well,” I say, sipping at my coffee, “I wouldn’t know what that’s like.”
His eyes flick up, narrowing when they focus on me, challenging me. Maybe my pissing and moaning has become too much for him to bear, but there is no such thing as too much when discussing a family torn from you, and as I prepare to tell him that, I realize he’s actually looking behind me. I turn, and we both regard Greig and Belousz with long, dead stares.
I can hear Walleus swallow on the other side of the table and wonder if they did too. He and Belousz exchange a quick glance.
“We need him,” Greig says to Walleus, indicating me.
“I’m sitting right here. You can address me.”
He gives me a disgusted look, then turns back to Walleus and repeats it.
I tap my wrist, an archaic gesture that we still do for some reason. “I’ve got a job in ten. Sorry.”
Belousz doesn’t even blink his eye. “If Lady Morrigan wants you, Lady Morrigan gets you. So,” he exhales, “as we said.”
Pressing my fingertips against the mug, feeling the give of flesh against the cooling porcelain, I estimate how hard I could smash it against his head before it breaks, then take a deep breath and push my palms against the table to rise.
Walleus grabs my wrist to stop me.
“Is this moving on?” I say to him. “Because it looks the same to me.”
He does not look at me nor the two men, but instead stares through them.
“Were you following us?” he says. The words leave his mouth but his teeth do not part. He barely glances at Greig, but from the way Greig tries to conceal his flinch this is not a tone he uses lightly. Still, Greig remains silent.
“Don’t ignore me,” he says.
Greig pulls back his shoulders to stick out his chest, some new kind of confidence I haven’t seen in him, then nods to Belousz for back up. “By the order of Lady Morrigan, we need Henraek.”
I say, “It’s fine,” quickly to Walleus then stand and push my chair into Belousz’s legs twice, waiting for him to move before I put it all the way under the table.
“Appreciate your company,” I say to Walleus, “but you can’t dodge the truth forever. Light shines on everything, no matter how hard we try to hide.”
“Henraek, you have no idea,” he says. “Make sure your orders are filled.”
I walk out the door, waiting for Belousz and Greig to catch up.
When they come up on either side of me out on the sidewalk, I ask what the hell they want. And when they answer, “We need you to get us inside Johnstone’s,” my blood turns thick with anxiety. I never thought the Tathadann could move so quickly. I wonder how long this word has been going round their campfire.
“I thought that burned down,” I say and continue walking, calibrating the amount of ignorance I can plead without it becoming obvious. “Even if it didn’t, they’ll cut me if I walk in there.”
No response.
“It’s a little early for me, but I’ll take us to a better bar, OK?”
Greig looks toward Belousz, but receives no answer. Finally, Greig clears his throat. “I have information that–”
“We’re thirsty,” Belousz says. Greig shoots him an angry look.
“Don’t sit down. I heard you can get a staph infection from their chairs.” I pause in front of a barter store at the corner, the walls long faded from rich brown into something closer to a scab. Sinewy dried meat hangs behind wrought iron bars in the window, partially obscuring shelves of canned goods and liquor brewed in bathtubs. I scan the dirty sidewalks for Emeríann as we wait for a line of cars to pass. Someone bumps my shoulder, spits at my feet and calls me a traitor. I start after him but Belousz holds his arm out to stop me.
“Stop with all the theatrics,” Belousz says. “I’ve got a headache and my sinuses are clogged.”
I ask if he’s tried ginger to help with that.
“I don’t feel like dealing with your crap or listening to your chatter, is what I’m saying.” He presses against his cheeks with his fingertips. “Shut your mouth before I stick my boot in it.”
I breathe deep through my nose and quell the urge to end him here in the street. In this neighborhood, they might not even notice. At the right time of day, they might even join in.
In the alley behind us a man gathers a handful of old papers, some pieces of wood, the discarded insulation lying around, and throws it all in a dented trash container, then collects more.
As the last car passes, I get ready to cross until I hear the hint of a whistled refrain. Hush, don’t explain. Half a block down, Emeríann winds through passersby on her way to Johnstone’s. Ringlets of hair bounce and sway as she walks in time with the song.
Greig nudges me in the back, suggesting that I don’t want to delay them, so I cross to the opposite side.
Belousz grabs my arm in the middle of the street. He points a crooked finger. “It’s that way.”
A soft-top convertible honks at us but Belousz doesn’t respond. The guy yells out the window and I only stare at Belousz, willing him to break eye contact. Another honk, more yelling.
I have to relent first and glance down the road. Emeríann now has almost two blocks on us but is still two blocks from the bar. “I must’ve gotten turned around.”
The horn blares and I take four long steps to him, reach inside the passenger window and grab him by his ascot. “Tell it to honk,” I say.
“What?” His hands remain on his lap, likely out of shock. The engine idles, dials and numbers flashing on the autodrive display.
I stick my head inside the car and pull his face to mine. His skin is so pale it’s tinted blue, and he is definitely in the wrong neighborhood. “Tell it to honk at me one more time.”
Greig says something I can’t make out, him and Belousz coming toward me.
“Do it,” I say to the man. Emeríann should be a block from the bar by now. She’ll soon walk inside and lock the door behind her before retreating into the back room to evaluate the latest plans with Forgall. The bar will be empty and ordinary.
Hand shaking, the man touches his mouth with manicured nails and meekly says, “Honk.”
I almost laugh, then slam his forehead into the dashboard, breaking open his brow and loosing rivulets of blood. He shrieks and presses his palms to his face to staunch the bleeding. He screams drive and the car jerks away. I pull my arm out before the window frame breaks my elbow and fall to my knees, the wheels barely missing my outstretched fingers.
Greig throws himself aside as the car passes him. Then Belousz, with his feet planted firm, cracks the guy in the side of the head with his fist. The man yelps stop and the car’s brakes lock, causing it to swerve onto the sidewalk and crash through the plate glass window of the barter store. Through the shattered glass I can hear the owner yelling, though I don’t know if it’s directed toward us or the vehicle perched in the meat display.
Belousz yanks me up by the elbow.
“You done yet?” The tone of his voice hasn’t changed and it pisses me off that even now I can’t get a rise from him.
“He deserved it. He was wearing an ascot.”
He shoves me forward then beckons for Greig to hurry up. Greig’s fussing about the store but Belousz only grunts. I try to slow my pace but the two flank me on both sides and force me along. Taking the sidewalk at a brisk stride, passing buildings and banks and shops, all various shades of faded maroon and cracked umber indicative of the neighborhood, we’re in front of Johnstone’s within a minute. There’s no name painted on the heavy wooden door, no hours or rules for entry, no obvious markings that would make the building a rebel bar. Here, if you don’t know then you don’t know.
Behind us, a crowd gathers around the barter store.
I pull the door gently, in case. It rattles in my hand. “Guess it’s closed,” I say.
Belousz and Greig cup their hands above their eyes as they peer in through the front window.
I hang back a couple feet, casually wandering to a position where the shadow of a streetlamp falls over the window. Above me is an advertisement for goggles the resource workers in this neighborhood used to wear, painted on the cement wall years ago and faded by the weather. Something is rotting back here, the vicious tang heavy on my tongue, and I hope it’s a discarded lunch. I catch a vague outline of someone at the bar drying glasses. Even from back here it’d be hard to mistake Forgall for Emeríann, him being a good foot taller and wider, especially when he bellows something at the two onlookers.
They ignore him and spend another moment peering inside. Greig says something to Belousz that I can’t understand. Belousz shakes his head, says, “He’s right. They won’t let him in.”
“Then what good is he?” Greig says.
When they turn, I have my hands clasped before me, channeling indignant at having my time wasted as much as I can.
“Still thirsty?” I say to Belousz.
“Dying.”
I clap my hands once. “Well, if you gentlemen are done chasing ghosts, I’m going to go do my job that I’m now late for. If Lady Morrigan has a problem, you’ll be hearing from her.”
“Where are they hiding it?” Greig says.
“Hiding what?” I say.
“There are no scarves,” Belousz says to him. “You might want to adjust your report.”
The muscles of Greig’s jaw tense and flex. “This is a rebel bar and you damn well know it.”
“Look at all the buildings. Nothing’s new, nothing’s painted bright, or even repainted in the last twenty years,” I say. “It’s a working-class neighborhood. They’re just normal people getting by.”
“You can call a brick a bunny rabbit,” Greig says, “but it’s still going to give you a concussion when someone throws it at your head.”
“That’s lovely.” I clap my hands again for some reason. “But I don’t know what to tell you.”
Belousz glances over his shoulder once more, then nods toward me. “I believe him.”
Greig might have given himself whiplash turning to his co-conspirator. I appraise Belousz with a long look but can’t get a bead on his intention.
“I’ll sit on it for while, to confirm,” Belousz says to Greig. “You go on.”
Greig does not look pleased.
“I’m going to leave you to it.” I turn and walk away, half-expecting them to call my name or try to stop me. When I get to the corner and they’ve not said anything, I double-time it to Riab’s father’s apartment, anxious at the thought of finishing this job and destroying what’s left of Emeríann’s past.
The same dust, the same soot. The spool with the dandelion and silverware. The room, the city, the life is almost exactly the same as yesterday, as the day before.
The only thing different in the room is the wet, slurping breath of an old man lying in his bed. A depression has formed around the needle mark, like his skull is collapsing. His eyes are open, though it’s obvious they’re merely a fogged window.
The difference between a memory junkie and a memory husk is focus. A junkie stares into the distance, but has a point in staring. He can’t grab what he’s searching for, but he knows it’s written somewhere in the ether. The husks are a complete void. They blink and twitch and occasionally seem to respond to stimuli, but there is nothing behind those movements. Their body hasn’t figured out there’s no longer a reason to move. It might be possible for me to take only part of their memory, but there’s no way to know what you’re harvesting until you watch it, and there’s no easy patch for the hole in their cortex membrane. I figure that if I’m going to ruin someone’s life by stealing what might be his best years, I might as well destroy him completely. Maybe, in some small way, I’m preserving the history of the country; by stealing and distributing memories I’m preventing our history from being completely remolded in the Tathadann image. And by selling those memories for booze money, I’m preserving my liver by pickling it. So, everyone wins.
Either way, this poor man has done nothing to deserve his fate, but not deserving Tathadann treatment doesn’t mean you won’t get it.
A creak in the next room. I hold my knife before me, tipping my head to listen. A grunt and long exhale. Without putting a full foot on the ground, I creep to the edge of the mattress and see a candle flickering in the reflection of a glass on the wire spool. The father sits in a worn chair beside it, his back to me. From the thin crinkle, it sounds like he’s reading a book. Still no sign of the wife.
I try a closer look and he coughs then reaches for his glass, drinking half of it. Another cough and he’ll have to come through here and this will again be more trouble than it’s worth.
I pull out my kit and assemble the vial and needle. No time for the pleasantries of introductions or iodine. Sorry, Riab’s father. Sometimes things don’t work out the way we expect. We should both be aware of that to a lethal degree.
When he turns a page, I take two quick steps forward and slip my arm around his neck, pressing my bicep against his throat. He swings his arms back, one finger catching me below my eye, while his other hand claws at my forearm and his legs try to topple the chair backward. I can’t remember if Riab ever said his father had combat training, but he has good instincts.
I readjust my grip to steady his head and stab his temple.
First shot.
He slackens in my arm, hands slapping me more out of muscle memory than attack strategy. Within a minute he’s a lump of flesh in the chair. I tip his head slightly to aid in the flow. My stomach sinks when I glimpse the cover of the book lying on the ground. It’s an underground book, one that’s not sanctioned by the Tathadann, about how they exploited the Resource Wars to assume power. Of course. Of course.
The fluid barely passes the halfway line before I switch Walleus’s vial for mine. This man, who lives at an address that has popped up on my list twice in two days, whose name made Walleus flinch, his memories are coming with me. In some way, I owe it to him to not let his memories languish along with all the others. The Tathadann’s methods for choosing targets are as arbitrary and varied as their vices, but targeting Riab’s family – and giving the list to me instead of another harvester – this feels like a test of my loyalty. His name will show up in my order to keep them satisfied. But his memories – some that could be used against Emeríann – they will come with me.
As the second vial nears the full line, I slip in a third, turning his head completely horizontal. And though I know it’s ridiculous, I still squeeze his skull as if it was an orange to get out every last drop.
When I’m assured I have everything I can get, I stow away my kit then heft the father up and over to the space beside the grandfather. I place two coal slivers on his eyes, then sing a short verse for him and hope his wife returns soon. And if not, it will be only two more entries on the long list of lives the Tathadann has torn apart.