Blackfish City(80)
This story was major even before the invaders blew a hole in the wall and started facilitating the mass escape of inmates. While we are still waiting on an official response to our query to Heat’s analysis software, it seems likely that this is the greatest geothermal disruption in the city’s history. If criminals bent on getting into the most secure building in the city can rupture the pyramid’s valves and divert heat, how safe are any of us? For years we’ve been told to put our faith in the aquadrones, the multiple redundant defense systems, the engineering marvel of the geothermal cone, but if a handful of thugs can triumph over those defenses, the safe and abundant heat that makes life in Qaanaaq possible at all is called into question. Today’s events may embolden our enemies to launch an even bigger attack, one that could have every one of us looking for a new home or saluting a Russian flag come morning . . .
From the Post–New York Post [in English]:
Safety officials maintain that they are awaiting final software analysis before releasing a statement. This statement, when it comes, is unlikely to tell us anything helpful or revelatory. Bot statements rarely do; it’s why they’re even more popular than the ones that human press flacks used to have to type up with their own two hands.
What is beyond question, however, is the involvement of Amonrattanakosin Group. Their vessel was present in the waters beneath the Cabinet at the precise moment that the outer wall was breached by an explosive detonated by one of the invaders. Footage from countless angles shows them shepherding escapees aboard—an estimated three hundred in total. Whether they were behind the whole thing or merely part of a bigger plan, possibly involving numerous syndicates or other power players, local or foreign, is unknown. Recent violence across multiple Arms has been shown to have targeted Amonrattanakosin assets. If today’s events are merely an escalation in some sick syndicate turf squabble, how many more innocent registrants will be killed or kidnapped as open warfare consumes the city?
Qaanaaq is famous for its laissez-faire attitude to law enforcement, illegal commerce, and syndicate activity. Most people here seem to like this minimalist style of government, overseen by tolerant machines whose primary concern is for our well-being. Maybe those of us who come from more aggressive nations or cities are just extra-sensitive on the subject, because we have seen what happens when lawlessness flourishes.
Syndicates think they are above the law. The question to Qaanaaq is—are they?
Kaev
The tea steamed in the open air. Kaev poured it out slowly, concentrating, and then he handed it across the table. They sat on the deck of the Amonrattanakosin ship, out on the sea, away from the geothermal vents—unmoored, unconnected to the grid—and that wasn’t even the most unthinkable piece of this scene.
“Thank you,” she said. She was real. She was a person. She took the mug, then set it down. Pressed both hands against it. Looked at him. Smiled like no one had ever smiled at him, not even Go. “You don’t remember me.”
Kaev shook his head.
“And you?”
Ankit shook hers.
“You were so little,” Ora said, and her voice hitched slightly. Masaaraq took her hand. From belowdecks, the sounds of laughter and crying and anger and joy; the Cabinet refugees being fed, warmed, hydrated, while presumably Go’s flunkies figured out what the hell to do with three hundred people.
They sat, the four of them. Around a table on a boat on the open ocean. From inside Go’s cabin Kaev could hear the squawk of multiple radios, a dozen soldiers arguing. Go’s voice, clear and certain as a bell, and probably only Kaev could hear the fear in it. Liam lay on the floor not far from them, unsleeping, curled into a ball and watching them fitfully. Every bit as uncomfortable and uncertain as Kaev was. Qaanaaq was a long dark smudge on the horizon. Everything he knew was behind him. Kaev knew why he was frightened: nothing would ever be the same again. What he didn’t know was why he wasn’t more frightened.
“This is so weird,” Ankit said. “I’m sorry, but it is. We go from being orphans to having two parents in the space of days. I was a political drone, a nobody, and now I’m busting people out of lockup, doing family time with people everybody believed had been wiped out.”
“Of course it’s weird,” Masaaraq said. “We should not exist. We should not be a family. But here we are. In spite of everything they tried to do to us.”
Everyone’s eyes kept flitting back to Ora. She said almost nothing. Stared out into the distance, and then into her tea, and then at one of them, and then at the cabin where Go was throwing things against the wall. Squeeze her hand and she squeezed back; give her a smile and she returned it. She seemed present. Seemed happy. But who knew how much of her was left, after everything she’d been through?
“What now?” Kaev said.
Masaaraq laughed. “Would you believe I have no idea? Thirty years planning for this, building toward this moment, and barely five minutes in all that time to think about what the hell I would do when I got here.”
“What we’d do,” Ora said quietly. But everyone heard her.
They drank tea, all four of them. They touched each other tentatively. Repeatedly. Nervously. Like maybe this was all a joke, a trick, a dream. Kaev slowly felt less frightened. A seagull circled overhead, descending to scratch at flecks of fish guts at the edge of the deck. Ora gasped when she saw it, and did not look away no matter what it did.