Blackfish City(57)
Bloody snow. A baby polar bear. An eagle, falling.
Right on schedule, the methane flare came to life. A coil of bright green fire three meters thick. Fill could see the crowds down at grid level. They pointed at his pod. They screamed. They took pictures. He smiled and waved. They probably couldn’t see him. A couple was kissing, oblivious to his existence, his imminent death. The pod ascended into the path of the flare. There was an instant where he could see the flames curl and wrap around his protective sphere, see the ripples rise and spread in the polyglass. Then it burst like a soap bubble, and Fill broke free from his body.
Kaev
The streams showed tear-wet faces, lit candles, hands clutching the possessions of lost loved ones. The ’casts played interviews with sad people and angry ones. The headlines wailed predictably, theatrically, pathetically.
THIRD CONSTRUCTION DISASTER PROMPTS TERRORISM FEARS
RETALIATION AGAINST WHO?
HOW LONG WILL THIS GO ON?
[insert name of interchangeable demagogue-of-the-week]
DEMANDS TRANSFER OF ALL AMERICAN RESIDENTS
Kaev stood on the grid, shuffling through outlets. Unthinkingly, he leaned back into a horse stance. His posture was perfect. The wind could not move him.
Go had given him the basics. Four days ago, some shareholder had lost his damn mind. Martin Podlove, Go’s nemesis. She would not have imagined that he had it in him to care so much about someone, even his grandson, that he’d go on this much of a rampage. She made Kaev watch the video with her, where the old man saw the kid get killed. Watched him wail.
“Of course he thinks I was behind the killing of his grandson,” Go said. “I declared war on him, and now this happens? He’d never believe it’s just a coincidence.”
“Was it you?”
“No,” Go said.
“Would you have, if you’d had the chance?”
“Shut up,” Go said. “He’s coming after me, and my assets. Hard.”
And now: war. Targeting illegal construction sites—her own. Maybe he didn’t care a fig for that poor kid, and his wild savage behavior was that of a cornered rat, or a king who could not let an affront go unpunished.
Most people didn’t know who Podlove was. Everyone saw him, in that horrific drone footage; heard him screaming as his grandson was incinerated. Many outlets made the connection between that gruesome spectacle, broadcast for all of Qaanaaq to see again and again, and the subsequent carnage. But most thought it was a squabble between syndicates, Americans being American, brutal violence the only language they could speak or hear.
Go talked about it a lot.
Kaev didn’t care about any of that. His belly was full. His bear was happy, back on the boat. Slideshows on walls and in windows flashed images pulled from the feeds by bots set to scan for things pertaining to these attacks: prayer vigils, in memoriam sites, the names of the dead in forty different alphabets. Long lines of strong men and women outside Arm manager offices, employment halls. Wild hope in their eyes. Not mourners, mostly. They were looking for work. Construction sites all over the city had shut down. Other syndicate-connected businesses had started to do the same.
The day was cold and the grid was crowded. People stood around looking dazed, or wept together, or embraced. An old woman stopped Kaev and pressed a small black square of fabric into his hand.
“Thank you,” Kaev said, meaning it, wondering why she looked familiar.
“Pray for us,” the woman said, her accent American, and Kaev wanted to ask, Pray for a lost loved one of yours, or pray that you and your loved ones will be protected from the wave of anti-immigrant violence that idiots will soon be unleashing on anyone they can? Instead he bowed his head to the woman and paused to take her in, to truly see her. The worn brown skin and the light in her eyes. The bandaged stump where one hand used to be.
What happened to you, grandmother? What has life been like for you?
The woman smiled at him, a magnificent smile, and Kaev went on his way.
The squares of fabric were such a strange mourning custom. You’d find one, long after, cleaning out a bag or emptying out your pockets, and would have forgotten, at first, how and when it came into your possession, so that instead of making you remember some specific dead person or group of dead people it made you reflect upon mortality in general, your own in specific. Wondering whose pockets your own fabric scraps would one day clutter.
Two scalers descended from a rooftop nearby to meet up with a messenger. Kaev braced for violence, but there was none. They were friends, the three of them, and they laughed together with the loud carelessness of the young.
He had been young once. Had had friends. His sickness had not been so bad back then. They got into trouble, flirted with dangerous girls and boys, did crazy things, formed intense immediate bonds that lasted until the sun rose. Conquered an Arm or an arcade, ran from Safety, accidentally mortally insulted someone.
“What a city,” the doodh pati vendor said, handing him a cup of sweet cardamom-smelling goodness. He pointed to a clumsily assembled nook where fabric flowers and methane candle flames fluttered. There were hundreds of these nooks, all over the city, each erected in memory of someone who’d died as part of Podlove’s war on Go.
And each one made Kaev shiver with proxy guilt. He’d always known Go was a monster, but for years he’d been shielded from the evidence of her monstrosity. And he’d had his hate to hide behind.