Blackfish City(65)

“These walls are thin. Most Qaanaaq construction is. Because heat is always so abundant and inexpensive, thanks to the geothermal vent, they don’t need to build for retaining warmth, correct?”

“Correct.”

“So it would get very cold very fast.”

“Correct,” Soq said, breathing in and out as slowly as possible. “And I’d be willing to bet that if the heat went out in a place like the Cabinet, it wouldn’t be long before the protocol AI told them to start evacuating patients.”

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Masaaraq said.

“There’d be a lot of chaos.”

Masaaraq nodded, and then turned to Soq suddenly. She stood. She unhooked her bone-bladed staff from her back and aimed it at Soq. “Come here.”

For a second, Soq froze. Then they stood up, stepped forward.

“Give me your arm,” Masaaraq said, cutting a curved line into the back of her own forearm, midway between elbow and wrist.

Smiling, unafraid, Soq did.





Ankit


Protesters, outside her office. This happened from time to time. Ankit smiled at them as she entered.

You fools, she thought. Don’t you see how little this matters? How little power Fyodorovna really has?

But you could never say that. Because they wouldn’t believe it, would think she was just ducking responsibility, and because if they did believe it, the whole facade of Qaanaaq’s flimsy democracy would come tumbling down.

Her whole body felt wrong. Arms too short, legs too long, head too heavy. Pains and aches leaped from spot to spot. She carried the monkey with her, asleep in its cage. Dream figures flexed in her peripheral vision. Waves of lethargy came and went. Ankit stood there, watching the protesters from the far side of the glass. Signs and chants in English. She recognized Maria, the woman who’d wanted Fyodorovna to do something about the orcamancer. She carried a sign that said SAVE OUR SISTERS. She didn’t look to Ankit like a fundamentalist nut job anymore. She looked like someone who had suffered greatly, who wanted to stop that suffering for someone else. Also, she had only one hand now.

“It’s alive,” Fyodorovna said, unsmiling, when she turned around and saw Ankit standing there. She was outside her office—never a good sign. Talking by the alghe machine with the scheduler. Which meant she was really stressed out. “We hoped you were dead. Then you’d have an excuse.”

“What happened?”

“Come.”

Ankit followed her into her office and sat. Fyodorovna’s face was stern, rigid, taut. She explained, but Ankit knew it all already. The trite rote statement of concern Fyodorovna had asked for, sending thoughts and prayers to the mourners, demanding Safety step in and stop the violence—Ankit had never released it. So in the eyes of her grid rat constituents, Fyodorovna was insensitive to their suffering, deaf to their grief. And they were not happy about it.

A bottle struck the office’s front window. Both bottle and window were polyglass, and neither so much as cracked, but it had the desired effect.

“Call Safety,” Fyodorovna said.

“On it.”

“They set fire to a rug shop boat,” the scheduler said. He was a fey and timid thing and seemed excited by the impending violence.

“Outlets are predicting riots,” Fyodorovna said. “And look at them! They look ready to riot.”

“There’s no riots,” Ankit said, then put a lot of emphasis on: “Yet.”

“They’re pre-rioting.”

“That’s not a thing.”

Fyodorovna sniffled. Ankit could sense it, her irrational fear, could follow it down the mental pathways where it was leading her. Precisely the mental pathways Ankit had hoped she’d follow.

Chanting, now, from outside. It gave Ankit a giddy feeling: This is my doing. I can make things happen. She asked Fyodorovna: “What do you want to do about it?”

“Call Safety.”

“I did. They’re on their way.”

Fyodorovna’s knuckles were white around her mug. Better if she suggests it, Ankit thought. If I propose it myself, she’ll fight the suggestion.

“Do you feel safe here? Or anywhere on the Arm?” Ankit asked.

“Of course I feel safe here.”

“Would you feel safer someplace else?”

Her boss exhaled and sat. “Yes.” The word seemed to lighten her load. It had slipped out, and now the decision was made for her. “I think maybe we should look into Protective Custody.”

“You’re sure?”

Fyodorovna nodded, and her eyes were wide and helpless and frightened in a way they’d never been before. Ankit felt bad for having pushed this poor fragile creature into such a terrified corner. But more than that, she felt elated, in a way she hadn’t since those moments when she’d take a shot of pine-and-apple rotgut before heading out on a night of scaling.

“I’ll call the Cabinet,” she said. “The process will take a little while. They might be ready for us this evening, or it might take a day or two.”

Fyodorovna nodded. Mute with fear, probably, from imagining what awaited her.

We’re good, Ankit scribbled, and sent the message to the cheap screen she’d loaned to Masaaraq. Come and get me.