Ghosts come like bots, their gray coats long, thin and clean. Their faces are masks, with eyes dark, like oil. A stretcher follows, automatic, as they move on the screen. Harmony trembles but she stands, her fear frozen behind open eyes. They pause beside Orion. Then they kneel. They gently lift him and place him on it. There is a moment of silence while they just stand there, and then they start to move away. The thick glass door opens quietly, breaking the illusion. She scarcely moves, just back a half step, politely.
People are coming toward her. Sayd is with them. Their eyes come together. “I,” he begins to say, stopping before her. Others are moving around them now, with sweat making their downturned faces shine. Sayd steps closer, pulls her to him, and she falls into him. Speaking low at her ear his breath warms her cheek. Holding her tightly, he whispers, “Harmony . . .”
What is it? She does not open her mouth.
He breathes, “This can’t be real. This isn’t right.”
No, Sayd.
Pushing out of his hold she looks up at his face. Her vision is blurred with such pain that she only sees in him his brother. Without his color, or his augmentation, the cheeks are the same, the lips are the same. Her lips form the words, Where’d they take him? Harmony moves past him, just a few steps into the arena and stops.
Day hurries from the bleachers but the crowd is slow, in knots. She pushes into an overfull elevator. People are whispering. A tall man on her right is covered in short dark brown fur. Spiral horns ascend from his scalp. Something in his face is equine. When the doors part Day runs, but the hall is long and wide.
Turning a corner, sighting Harmony coming forward she slows. Day looks down as she passes.
The announcer, having changed into a stark black suit, penetrates the quiet with an empty voice, “In honor of our soldado caido, the tournament will be postponed. Sonya Lei, in our audience tonight, will be taking the stage for a concert. Meanwhile Channel Xero will be airing all new developments in this,” he pauses, measured, “tragedy.” At his cue the volume begins to rise around her, people talking, moving, uncertain for just a moment and then quickly surging louder.
The sun is a silent fireball falling from the sky as Harmony comes through the gates of the Coliseum. Purple clouds gather thinly above, in its wake. People are all around, unaware of her. They move before her in an empty haze—bright as sunlight on shattered glass. Harmony shades her eyes and walks forward. A camera whizzes by above her, then another. A few people on the lawn are looking at her. Impotence shears through her heart. Her feet just go.
Time stutters and wheels around her.
Finding herself at the rail station, she boards the first car. Nearly home she pauses at a Q, gets a gray bottle of vodka, takes it with her. She rides the elevator to the top of her building. There are stairs that lead to the roof, cold. The gray door opens before her, and there is blue sky. She feels the sun pouring out again.
Azad is not there.
Alone she walks to the edge of the roof, in her black raincoat, holding her bottle in one hand. Halcyon expands around her.
Unscrewing the two pieces of the security bottle cap, from the edge of the roof she flings them with her wrist, spinning them into the air. They whistle through it and fall, separating in mid-arc, glinting orange in the late rays of sun. For a second she worries that they might hurt someone. That’s impossible.
She shakes her head. She sees a sweeper way down below, a dark oval on the street. The edge, of glass, is sharp. Vertigo gives her warning, and she takes a step back, looking up at the sky.
They did not protect him. Orion, she pleads. Those assholes just took you away. What weakness. I couldn’t follow. With a slow pull from the bottle poison catches dry in her throat. She removes her raincoat, dropping it at her feet. It curls around her ankles.
The wind has picked up, crawling up her shirt, over her arms, around her waist and past her face. She welcomes its cool touch. A raindrop descends from the clouds to her forehead, as a tear rolls down her cheek. Soon it will be echoed by a hundred thousand more. Right now she just kneels, staring as if hypnotized.
Despite her longing, not for a second did she think that he was done. So young. The shock that dams her eyes has no hold on the sky. From out of nowhere, thickening clouds reflect darkly in the platinum towers. A chilled undercurrent comes in on the breeze, and the ocean storm just begins to open again. Harmony shivers in the raindrops but does not move from her knees.
These games we make of life. All of the things that add no meaning. Give no warmth. We sell ourselves away. So cheap. She laughs, in love. Just fools, chasing sunshine.
Reality is a liquid thing, she feels. There is no truth. No hope. Is there even love? The future just washes away. Anything you can gain will fade. It will leave you so drained. She lies back on the hard, flat roof, staring up into the sky. The bottle tips and rolls aside, gulping air. The wind pours over her and runs through her. It says,
Come with me.