Чарли Андерс - The City in the Middle of the Night

“Just. Don’t,” I spit. “Never again. I don’t even understand why you care so much what some stupid rich people think about us. You can tell them whatever you want about your part, but you don’t get to turn my execution into party banter.” My own breathing sounds like a giant rusted machine. “What I went through after they took me away, it still hurts. I have to work so hard. You have no idea. Even I sometimes forget just how hard I keep working, to stay at peace with it.”

“Okay. I’m sorry.” Bianca pauses. She swings her puffy arms, almost hitting the gray-brick wall. “But you know, it… happened to me, too. I watched them take you away, and I blamed myself. Because I mean, it was all my fault. I stole three stupid food dollars. I’ve imagined myself putting that money back before anyone noticed it was gone, a million times.”

I never thought of how guilty Bianca must have felt. I only made it through everything in one piece by telling myself a story of how I had saved Bianca, and she would be fine. But of course she must have felt like garbage.

“I get that,” I say aloud. “I know it wasn’t easy for you, either. But… it’s not the same thing. You don’t know. There’s no way you could know. You weren’t there. You can’t understand what I went through after they took me.”

“But there were some good parts to what happened to you too, like you got to work for Hernan. And I was the one who had to live with—” Bianca must be able to see the scream building inside me, because she catches herself. “You’re right. Okay. I can’t even imagine what you went through, and I still don’t understand this connection that you have to those creatures.” She puts her arms around me, covering my face with her billowing shoulders. “I keep thinking how brave you must be, to have survived everything, and then still save all of us on the ice.”

I look into a neon puddle. “I don’t know if I survived or not. I feel like part of me never came back from the Old Mother. Like I’m here, but I’m also still there, too.”

“Like the memory won’t let you go. Like the past becomes an optical illusion.” Bianca takes a deep breath, not letting go of my neck. “I think all you can do is not blame yourself for how you feel, and be aware of things that bring the memory back. Take care of yourself. Okay? And I promise, I won’t talk about your real-life trauma in front of other people. That topic is off-limits from now on.”

She lets me go, and I take a long look at her, in her crimson satin, turned strange colors by the reflected sign from a nightclub close by. I nod, slowly, and clasp her hand with mine, as if to say that we are bound together by more than just the past.

When we get back to Ahmad and Katrina’s place, I’m swaying on my feet, but Bianca is still on a high. She can’t own the biggest party in town, and then just sleep. I keep trying to imagine if the shutters are up or down back home. I almost wish I hadn’t given Rose my father’s timepiece. The confusion, the lack of shape to my sleep, is almost as bad as the sleeplessness, and I feel like I have lightsickness, even indoors.

“We can sleep later!” Bianca pulls my arm toward the door. “This is Argelo, remember? We’ll sleep when we damn well feel like it.”

Ali is dozing in the corner. Ahmad and Katrina trudge to their own bed and draw a curtain, but Bianca keeps jumping up and down. “Let’s go out to the Knife. We’ve had our coming-out party, and now we need to be seen in all the best crowds. Come on. Let’s go dancing!”

I just stare, because she must be joking.

“I get it,” she says at last. “You can’t shake off the Xiosphanti mind-set. You’re still internalizing all the nonsense they taught you at home, and there’s a wheel inside your head that won’t ever stop turning. But don’t try to hold me down.”

At last Bianca agrees to climb into the storage area, and we peel out of our complicated outfits. We lay there, with Bianca squished against my chest just like in the Couriers’ sleep nook. I dream of riot cops and ice, same as always, but Bianca wakes me, thrashing and yelling, “I have to warn them, they need to know,” over and over. This is what she said to me in Xiosphant, right before the end.

When I wake again, she’s already gone, and I’m still weary. But I feel the weight of the bracelet on my wrist more than ever, and my arm keeps landing in the direction of evening. I’m sick of being trapped in my own skin, and I crave that experience of going outside myself, when I let go of my memories and sink into someone else’s. I can almost feel the softness of the tendrils, and smell the faint residue they leave behind. Those rare occasions when I remember a happy dream, it’s always about venturing inside the midnight city. So I get up and put on the warmest clothes I can find.

When I slip past the last ramshackle buildings before full night, I still see nothing but faint snowdrifts, and the frost still tries to drain the life out of me. The extra layers of clothing feel useless, and I can’t see which way is daylight. This is the farthest I’ve ever been into the night on my own, and I’m already too cold to move.

As I walk, I’m remembering the party, and how I finally got to be a part of something that Bianca always did on her own back in Xiosphant. And she burned me, but then afterward she opened up to me at last. I hope this is the beginning of the two of us sharing everything.

Just when I’m about to turn and go in the opposite direction of the bracelet’s pull, I spy an indistinct glimmer in my torchlight. A Gelet tilts her body until I see her pincer flex, right in front of me. I try to speak, even though the air chills my mouth. “I came out here as soon as I could. It’s been complicated. I’m sorry I didn’t bring anything for you this time. Next time, I promise.”

I hear something move, somewhere behind me, but then it stops.

The big claw closes around my mouth and nose, like usual, and—

—I’m in the Gelet city: the giant vaults and galleries, struts of ice and iron and stone, machinery deep beneath our continental shelf. I see clearer than ever that the Gelet city is alive, with a heart of fire from inside our mountains, and a mind made up of the shared memories of every Gelet who’s ever lived there.

But this time, I’m not one of the Gelet, crawling inside their own city. I’m there as a human. As myself. I see Gelet leading me down the walkways, and everyone comes out to greet me. This isn’t a memory, it’s a vision of something that they hope will happen. Like when Rose asked me for copper, except more detailed, as if they’ve thought about this a lot. The Gelet are celebrating my arrival, as though I’m a friend who’s been away a long time, and I’m rejoicing too, at being someplace safe—

“You want—” I stammer as this Gelet pulls away. That vision of myself in the midnight city lingers, as real as my own senses. “You want… me to come live with you. You’re inviting me. But I mean, I wish, so much, but… Bianca. She’s my friend. You met her, or a few of you did, and she needs me—”

The frozen air shatters. The Gelet falls backward, and my searchlight reveals a dark line sticking out of her side. I hear men shouting in Argelan, like they have glass in their throats.

I reach out and touch a harpoon, from one of those harpoon guns, and then the Gelet shakes, and the harpoon flies off her. I feel hot ink spatter my hand. Not ink. Blood. “No, no. Please. No, please no. I’m so sorry.”

The voices get closer, men and women, shouting. I hear them call to me.

“Run!” I hiss. She flees into the darkness. A jolt of light from some huge lamp blinds me.