Sarah Zettel - Reclamation

Blast Kethran. Blast the Vitae. Blast my ambitions and blast the Nameless for forcing them on me.

When her head stopped spinning, Aria raised her eyes. The bright white lights and red-and-gold street signs proclaimed that this was one of the quarters where the First Families lived. In the middle of the Amaiar Division, it was close enough to the entertainment and stores that they didn’t have to take buses to get out and busy themselves with their fellows. In her work-stained clothes, she’d quickly be spotted and told to prove she had a need or a right to be here.

Already, faces were turning toward her with quizzical and hostile glances. But there were no Vitae either in front of her or behind her.

They’re not quite ready to chase me through the streets yet, obviously. Aria knuckled her bleary eyes.

“All right now, Stranger.”

Aria jerked her hands away from her eyes. A yellow-jacketed man walked through the gate in the fence and approached her until she could smell the stink of peppers on his breath and see the glint of authority in his brown eyes.

Aria levered herself away from the fence and had to stop herself from dropping reflexively onto her knees.

“You sick?” he asked. “Been robbed?”

“No, sir,” she croaked, trying to stand up straight. “Just lost.”

“Then you get yourself found.” He pointed toward the octagonal pillar of a public communications console, “Or I’m calling a security team down here to clean you off my street.” He tapped his ear meaningfully.

Aria licked her dry lips. “Yessir.”

When you can’t go back, you must go forward. Aria shuffled forward and peered into the gaudy twilight, trying to find a sign or a monument she recognized. If you can tell which is which.

The comm console loomed across her path. Aria teetered up to it and rested her weight against its smooth side. She stared at the blank screen and gently lit keyboard.

Aria’s hand trembled as she reached for the keys. She’d seen a lab assistant use one of these when he was going out for the evening. He’d called up the public system with a special nonsecured code…

I know the code, I know the code. But it would not come to the front of her mind where she needed it.

Oh, blast. Her hand dug into her pouch and closed around the smooth skin of the stone.

The boundaries of her memory burst with a rush of sensation that left her knees weak. She knew the code in an instant. She clung to the stone, savoring the freedom, and it was only with a wrenching effort that she made herself let go.

It felt like a massive hand pressed against her mind, squashing all her thoughts flat. She blinked stupidly at her fingers and wondered what they were for. The pillar squeaked against her skin as she slid closer to the ground. The hand pressed harder. Exhaustion helped it. Her fingers flexed idly, and she remembered. Slowly, one key at a time, she typed the code in.

The black screen brightened and showed a man with clear eyes and an angled jaw. “This is a special notice for all voting members of the First Families. Report to your section hall immediately for a special vote.”

What does it mean? She wondered. The hand was reluctantly lifting away, sparing her room to think, and just enough strength to straighten up again.

The man’s face faded away, leaving Aria staring at a black screen again. She hadn’t done enough. Her hand dropped to her pouch and her head started to swim.

No. She gritted her teeth. Not again. I won’t have any strength left. Hunger began to gnaw at her. She struggled with her unaided memory. Her fingers clutched the leather pouch and squeezed until her fingernails began to bend. With her free hand she touched the keys. Nothing happened. She tried a new sequence.

This time the screen lit up with the stylized lines and patterns that made up the city map. A crooked red line worked its way from where she stood to Perivar’s home. She found a key marked PRINT. A paper copy of the map slid out from the slot above the board.

For the briefest moment, Aria wished she was in Narroways. No one could have followed her there, never mind found her. She knew the alleys and the catwalks better than the rats. The Notouch would have sheltered her without question and given her any help she needed, knowing she would do the same for them one day. She would have had no fear of spies or betrayal, and if the night was cold and unpredictable, at least she could breathe the air and keep her balance as she ran through the streets. She could have told her direction by the placement of the walls and wouldn’t have needed to hunt around for street markers and struggle over their meanings.

Iyal had been wrong about that much. She couldn’t read very well. She just looked and saw and let the stones sort it out for her later. Except now there was no time for that.

With the map gripped in her fingers, Aria staggered forward.

Back home, the children swarmed all over Kiv, demanding the news. He deposited Ere in their midst to let her relay it.

“Perivar?” he tapped his translator. “I need to open the housing.”

“Sure, fine, go ahead.” The tone of the live voice under the translation was furious.

Kiv slid the housing back. On the other side, Perivar paced back and forth, kicking his chair when it rolled in his path.

Kiv retracted his neck at the sight. “What’s happened?”

“The Vitae have gone gods-high crazy, that’s what’s happened!” Perivar kicked the chair. It ricocheted off the map table and toppled over, its wheels trying helplessly to get purchase on thin air. “They’ve kidnapped Eric Born!”

“What?” Kiv all but pressed his snout against the membrane.

“I just got a message from Dorias…from an AI Dorias created…” He stopped and knotted his fingers in his hair. “They didn’t even arrest him; they just took him. And now I got word from Iyal they want Aria Stone, too…what is with them?”

“I don’t know,” said Kiv. “They just tried to bribe me to deliver Aria Stone to them if she ends up back here.”

Perivar froze. “What did you tell them?” he croaked at last.

“There was not much I could say.” Kiv related what had happened at the Embassy. At his knees, he could hear Ere giving the same story to her siblings, almost syllable for syllable. Kiv dropped a hand onto the back of Ere’s neck. “Into the other room, all of you. I’ll be in in a moment.”

Ere whistled quizzically, but Kiv shook her neck. Ri and Sha wrapped their arms around her, dragging her with them in a complex knot. Dene and Ka bounded along behind them and made a great show of shutting the door.

Kiv wrinkled his snout and turned his attention back to his partner. Carefully, Kiv told how he had suggested that Perivar might come work for the Shessel, leaving out Gov’s origin and his smell.

“What do you say, my partner? There’s good money to be had from the Shessel.”

For a moment the tension in Perivar eased. “That sounds good, Kiv. Let the Vitae and the Unifiers and the Diet fight this out on their own.” He picked the chair up and set it back on its wheels. “But I can’t just leave Eric…” He leaned heavily on the chair back. “I don’t owe him anything, but I do,” he said to the floor. “He could have used me a thousand times over, but he didn’t. We agreed to keep quiet and we did until the Vitae decided they could start playing games.” Perivar looked at Kiv from under his fringe of disheveled hair. “I’ve got to at least find out if there’s something I can do. It’s my responsibility. The U-Kenai’s coming into port and I’ve got to meet it. Can you open the channel yourself?”