Eclipse, p.11
Eclipse, page 11
But the Book of Keyes was begun.
Sometimes the universe has a way of testing you. The universe is vast, and ancient, and everywhere. You are very small and you know very little. Of the two of you, it’s the universe that probably knows what it’s doing.
CHAPTER 23
HAEZLE
While Lek’s story had been unclear, Estrel’s was nonsensical. It sounded like the half remembered retelling of someone else’s dream, which in some ways was what she thought it was. Estrel seemed certain that it had happened to him, but couldn’t answer any of Haezle’s follow-up questions to her satisfaction.
There was a machine.
‘What kind of machine? What did it look like?’
‘Like a huge metal cage, with an elephant inside…’
‘An elephant? Was it a shrine of some kind?’
‘No, not a shrine. It was in a laboratory.’
‘What’s a…? Never mind. It wasn’t in a temple? Were you in Ashuana?’
‘No, it was here, in Trinity. The elephant was real.’
‘Real, what do you mean?’
‘Real, not an idol. It was alive!’
‘It… OK, OK, this isn’t relevant. Or possible. What did the machine do?’
‘I don’t think I ever really understood that. It prevented paradoxes, maybe? No, it allowed them and it protected them.’
‘Protected them? Protected them how?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘No, wrong question, sorry. It protected them. Why did it do that? What does protecting them mean?’
‘It allowed them to exist. Alongside the things they would contradict, alongside the things they would break…’
Haezle watched as the colour drained from Lek’s face at this part of the discussion. She was none the wiser, if she was completely honest, but that Lek looked scared was enough.
She realised that there was something else she didn’t know.
‘Who built it? The machine?’
‘Evie Chaguartay.’ Estrel almost spat the words.
‘But she’s…’ Haezle started, before she remembered Estrel was apparently not of their time.
‘She’s…?’ pressed Estrel.
‘She’s a just a little girl,’ said Haezle. She’d seen Chaguartay’s daughter on a channel broadcast. It was a standard Candidate profile piece, all puff and nonsense. The little girl had seemed sweet enough. ‘But, obviously, she’ll grow up.’
Estrel looked twitchy. She was afraid of what he might be thinking at that moment.
‘We’re not going to do anything,’ she said sternly. ‘To her. She’s just a little girl. She hasn’t done anything yet. We’re not monsters.’
She wasn’t a monster, is what she meant. She didn’t know much about Estrel.
‘No, that’s not what I was thinking,’ muttered Estrel, seeming as if that was very much what he was thinking.
‘How bad is she, anyway?’ asked Haezle. Not that she was going to adjust her position, but she wanted to check what kind of potential for evil she was giving the benefit of the doubt to.
‘She destroys the city,’ confirmed Estrel. ‘She tortures people, kills people. She brings Trinity to its knees. We tried to stop her, we’re still trying…’
‘Who?’
‘Me.’
Haezle didn’t follow up on that answer. It seemed to belong with the chaotic nonsense she’d been getting when she’d been asking about the machine.
‘Those are not the worst of her crimes,’ said Lek.
Haezle took him in again. He was still pale, but he looked weaker, too. His eyes had sunk, his skin seemed to collapse under his cheekbones, giving him the aspect of a spectre. He was stooping as well, his neck bent and his head bowed.
‘Are you OK?’ she checked.
‘No,’ Lek intoned, sombrely. ‘And if she had truly managed to do what Estrel says she has done, then none of us will ever be OK ever again. Reality cannot take the strain of that kind of power. We will all be wiped out, blown to oblivion…’
‘What would be the point of that?’ scoffed Haezle. ‘Surely she has aims, has a reason for doing what she’s doing? How’s she going to achieve any of that by destroying the universe?’
‘Maybe she doesn’t understand,’ said Lek. ‘maybe she doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter which. She must be stopped.’
‘Fine, good.’ Haezle felt they were finally all on the same page. Different parts of the page, and trying to read in different directions, but on the same page at least. That would have to do for now. ‘So how do we do that? Stop her?’
‘The book.’ Lek nodded. ‘The book has the answers.’
‘The Book of Keyes?’ sighed Haezle. ‘The book that we’ve just spent the last hour despairing over because, somehow, possibly because of the actions of a woman from the future in her insane quest for power, has had the contents of its pages wiped from existence?’
Lek was already halfway out the door at that point. He’d moved quickly for someone who had appeared so frail.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I wrote it once,’ snapped Lek. ‘I can write it again.’
Haezle was certain he’d said “write”, which she knew couldn’t be correct. She’d followed him out of the room and down the corridor, Estrel in tow. She had meant to ask him to clarify what he’d meant, thought she could do so as they walked, but she found herself too scared to do it and so she asked nothing and she learned nothing.
Something was wrong with the book. That was what they had to focus on now. Everything else could wait. She’d probably misheard him, anyway.
So they’d set off for the cellar. But then Onu Lek had got lost, and seemed unable to find the correct location. Even now that they were there, she wasn’t convinced. Haezle had no reason to believe that this wasn’t the cellar where Lek had first encountered Keyes and begun his trial. Given the way he was looking around vaguely at the walls and ceiling, she also had no particular certainty that it was.
There were dozens, maybe hundreds, of similar cellar rooms underneath the sprawling structure of the Citadel. There could be several more outside its perimeter, pushed out and closed off by the ever shifting ground which undermined Trinity.
Perhaps it hadn’t been the best idea to build the city on top of a plague pit. They weren’t quite in the Catacombs yet, but it was only ever a crumbling foundation away. Estrel pottered around the cellar, making thoughtful noises.
‘Anything the matter?’ Haezle asked him.
‘No, no,’ Estrel replied absentmindedly. ‘I mean, maybe. This place, it seems familiar…’
‘At least it seems familiar to someone.’
Haezle shot a glance at Lek, who was on his hands and knees, running a finger between the flagstones. She looked back at Estrel, who was facing the giant rack of wine bottles attached to the far wall.
‘I think I’ve been here before,’ he said with renewed certainty.
‘OK,’ said Haezle.
She didn’t find this as surprising as it seemed she was meant to, judging by Estrel’s tone of voice. He was from the future, fine, but he was also from Trinity. There was nothing to say that he hadn’t been here before. Of course, he could have just been to one of the other many similar cellars instead.
‘No, I mean, I think it’s important. I think…’
Estrel stopped and turned, gazing around the dusty room, up to the uneven ceiling. He swept his eyes across the thick wooden props that were stopping it from falling on them, for now.
‘I think this is the last place I was…’ he said, and then he spun on his heel and went back to inspecting the wine bottles.
‘What does that mean?’
‘The place I reset,’ explained Estrel, without explaining anything. ‘When I looped, before someone else took over. Before Lek brought me back.’
‘Before Lek…?’
‘Not this one.’
‘Ah.’
Haezle watched Estrel point at the bottle in the top left-hand corner of the rack, and then count his way across. One to the right, seven down, then another six diagonally towards the opposite corner.
He took a step forward and removed the bottle he’d settled on, twisting it around and inspecting the label.
‘You need a drink?’ asked Haezle with a note of sarcasm.
‘No, I’ve found a message.’ Estrel held the bottle out in front of him.
Haezle took it, bringing it close so she could read it. The original print on the label was a faint purple and borderline unreadable, but someone had scrawled a new message over the top in black marker.
THE ECLIPSE IS THE END.
Underneath that was a symbol of some sort. It looked like a moon, half in light and half in shadow. There was a sword across the middle of it.
‘What does this mean?’ she asked. ‘Who’s it a message from? The handwriting is terrible… Look, these are obviously Es but they look more like Fs…’
‘It’s from me,’ said Estrel. ‘It’s a message from me.’
‘Another you? A you from another dimension?’ asked Haezle, handing the bottle back. Another puzzle that needs figuring out, she thought. She didn’t have time for cross dimensional riddles.
‘No,’ said Estrel. ‘It’s from me. From actual me. This version of me. Different time, same place. I was here, and I wrote this so that I’d find it. It’s an Echo.’
CHAPTER 24
LAGRANGE
I can see that he’s got something, Stam Chaguartay. He’s got this crowd in the palm of his hand. To be fair, if you come to Administration, stand in the foyer of their building and give a long and detailed speech about your plans to develop a whole new public transport system, they’re going to give you their undivided attention.
He’s got an idea to build an underground railroad. He reckons he can take ninety per cent of the traffic off the streets, close the TransWays and turn them into green spaces. He’s pitching a pastoral paradise inside the city walls. It sounds lovely.
It’s obviously bullshit. You can see it in the faces of some of the Exec. Ernold Toun is fuming, and I don’t think it’s because he’s only just launched his shiny new fleet. Not only because of that, anyway.
You’ve got to be careful tunnelling under Trinity, surely? The very existence of the Catacombs, which were never built to be the subterranean labyrinth that they now are, demonstrates that, I would have thought. They just kind of collapsed into being, taking the lower cellars of the Citadel with them. It wouldn’t be good if that happened to a tunnel carrying train passengers.
That doesn’t seem to bother the assembled masses of Administration staffers. It’s a big new project, with a massive budget. It’s their job. I get it. The sound of their sighs of relief drowns out the dog whistles about putting the “hard-working people of Trinity” first and protecting their “birthright privilege”.
I don’t know what their “birthright privilege” is meant to be, and I’m not aware of anything of the sort being under threat. He’s mentioned “illegal” immigration twice. I don’t know what that’s meant to mean, either.
I turn away. I’ve had enough of this. I can’t imagine this working once anyone gives it more than a moment’s thought. He’s an outsider, Chaguartay. Ironically, he’s a foreigner, an immigrant himself, albeit one with a strong case for having contributed significantly to his adopted home thanks to the massive investment he’s made in the manufacturing sector.
I expect Borate and Drayen will expose this nonsense. It’s unlikely that Chaguartay will get an opportunity to debate them in person, not publicly, anyway. It’s rare to get a third-party Candidate and Chaguartay doesn’t even have a party, not a recognisable one, certainly not one with a presence in the Dome. Chaguartay himself doesn’t have a seat in the Dome. He’s starting from so far back that it’s inconceivable he’ll get anywhere close to the mayoralty.
Still, he’s hit a nerve. That’s probably to be expected in this economy. We need a boost; we need some hope. I guess that’s all these guys are doing; indulging in a little hope. I can’t blame them for that.
I turn away from the crowd, and as I do so, I feel the vibration on my hip from my Com. Tapping my earpiece, I join the channel.
‘Lagrange,’ I mutter, confirming my presence without talking over the stream of chatter.
‘Sim, where are you?’
The chatter stops abruptly. It was mostly Greaves giving a running commentary on the security situation. They have eyes on the entire crowd, watching out for the slightest sniff out of place. It’s a big operation for a non Dome member.
It’s not normal procedure, but then Chaguartay has kind of ripped up the rulebook here.
‘Behind the Candidate,’ I say, reporting my position, ‘one o’clock, second-floor balcony…’
‘Perfect,’ says Greaves with an audible note of relief. ‘I’ve got a blind spot. Can you see the back of the crowd?’
OK, Greaves is supposed to have eyes on the entire crowd. Seems like we’ve not fully pushed the boat out for Chaguartay after all.
‘I can,’ I confirm. ‘What are you looking for?’
‘Two men, black shirts? Probably not standing together. I think they’re trying not to make it obvious.’
‘Make what obvious?’
I can see one of them, standing back from the main crowd, arms folded. He’s regarding the assembled staff, not looking at the podium. I can’t see anything that suggests he might carry a weapon. He’s not wearing a jacket, his sleeves are tight, the line of his trousers seems uninterrupted. I’m a long way off, though, and looking down on him.
‘I see one,’ I report. ‘Do you need me to get closer?’
‘Hold back until you see the other,’ advises Greaves. ‘I need to tell Mortimer where to go and he’s stuck backstage, running through corridors, right at this moment.’
Figures that he’d be nowhere useful. Thank the Creator that I’m here.
‘OK,’ I say. ‘What are we concerned about here? This one doesn’t look like he’s carrying a weapon.’
‘We don’t know,’ confesses Greaves. ‘Maybe nothing, but they’re not meant to be here. They’re not Administration personnel, they’re not with Chaguartay’s entourage. They’re just kind of lurking, for want of a better description, and it’s making me twitchy.’
Greaves usually only gets twitchy with good reason. That’s enough for me. I scan the crowd again, looking for the second guy.
A door bangs to my right and I throw a glance to check who it is. I half expect to see Mortimer stumbling out, blinking into the light. It would be typical of him to have got so lost that he’d ascended two flights of stairs without noticing.
It’s not Mortimer. It’s a teen dressed in a black shirt who, on seeing me, turns abruptly and disappears back the way he came.
I’m already giving chase. I make it across the balcony and to the door before it’s finished swinging shut. My hand is to my ear. I’m yelling at Greaves that I’m in pursuit. I hear him curse before he agrees with my snap judgement, and he barks orders at someone else to locate Mortimer and to get him on the tail of the other man.
I cut the comms. I don’t need to be distracted like that. My quarry isn’t as far ahead of me as he should be given the head start he had and he’s having to actually open the doors I’m able to barrel through behind him. I catch up to him at the stairwell, shoving him in the small of the back and pushing hard, pinning him to the rail. I’ve got him trapped under my weight, so I know he won’t fall, but he will have felt that he was about to as he was shoved forward and his torso bent over the two-storey drop.
I grab his arms and hold them behind him, pulling him back from the edge and slamming him hard against the wall behind us. He lets out a groan.
‘Got you,’ I say, exhilarated by the chase and the opportunity for some mild violence. All in the name of apprehending a suspect, of course. Nothing gratuitous. It’s cleared my head, though, got the blood pumping.
‘I didn’t do anything!’ yelps the man.
That’s a giveaway. If turning and running the moment you see an Authority agent isn’t a strong sign that you have been doing something that you shouldn’t, immediately denying having done that thing, before you’re even accused of having done it, is.
I keep his arms twisted up his back with one arm, while I pat him down for weapons with the other. I’m using my weight to stop him from breaking free, leaning on him, pressing his face against the wall. It’s less of a pat and more of a rummage.
He’s not armed though. I pull some cuffs out of my pocket and clip them, with my free hand, around his wrists, which allows me to back off enough to spin him around.
He spits in my face. That’s not friendly. I knee him in the bollocks.
‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ I snarl, ‘which you are evidently aware of because you tried to run away from me. You can tell me all about what you haven’t been doing now, or I can take you down to Authority and you can tell someone else. Doesn’t matter to me…’
I tap my ear again, rejoin the comms channel.
‘Sim!’ cries Greaves. ‘You get him?’
‘I got him, the disgusting little toerag,’ I confirm. ‘He’s not armed, he tried to run…’
‘Any idea what he was doing on second?’
‘I don’t think he had time to do anything on second. But he’s carrying nothing. Literally nothing. Not even a Citizen’s License.’
‘Right, so he’d come to take something?’
This is a good question. Maybe he had. Stupid time to come and steal from Administration, though, the very morning it’s crawling with Authority.
The teen laughs. This is very irritating. He can’t hear Greaves, so I assume that it’s in response to my comment about him not carrying anything.
‘What were you hoping to steal?’ I ask him.
He shakes his head, grinning, despite the pressure I’m exerting on his upper ribcage with my forearm.
‘You don’t get it,’ he gasps, as I push the air from his lungs. ‘It’s coming. You can’t stop it. Everything is going to change. Fade to black…’
I don’t know what he means by this, but it’s fitting because that’s the moment he does, indeed, black out. It’s not the most constructive thing I could have done, I reflect, as I let him crumple to the floor at my feet. I’m going to have to wait for him to come to before I can take him anywhere now. But it was immensely satisfying.
