Hannu Rajaniemi - The New Voices of Science Fiction

Estelle hangs the necklace around my neck.

“So what do we do?” I ask.

Estelle smiles. “I don’t know,” she says. “But if you listen to the mists, I’m sure you’ll discover a path.”

Because of the collapsed building I take a new route home, a spare air bottle slung over my shoulder so I can make it. I’m tempted to again raise my helmet’s blinder to see if Momma will reappear. But in the end I walk home in darkness, afraid of what the mists might reveal.

Bugdon is ecstatic when he sees me, and more so when I hand him the two bags of seeds I received in trade. Everyone thought the building collapse had slapped me dead.

For the first time at Empire I eat my fill and drink a full bag of fresh water. Bugdon even offers to move my slug inside. But I’m happy where I live. Bugdon nods, satisfied with my answer.

When I finally shinny up to my slug, it’s well after midnight. Ignoring the wasp-buzz racket of Old Man Douger’s snoring I lean out of my slug and stare down below at the white glow of the mists.

I try to see the different spots of time. The different moments of my mother’s life spread across infinity. But instead, I see only a blurry whiteness.

I want to ask so many questions. Do the people who became mists like what they’ve become? Where exactly is this place, or time, or whatever it is?

But instead of asking those questions, I settle on another. “Hellos,” I whisper.

Hellos to you, Hanger , the mists whisper back, their many voices merged into one gasp of sound carried on the wind.

Old Man Douger snorts loudly and I hush up, afraid he’ll hear me talking. After hearing nothing but snores from him for a few minutes, I whisper my question. “Why don’t you simply take us all? I know you can do it.”

The mists don’t answer, and I don’t ask again, afraid someone will hear and cut free my slug and I’ll fall and fall until I have no choice but to discover the truth about the mists.

In the following weeks Bugdon works me hard. He sends all the mist scouts out seeking new trade routes or bringing in fresh seeds and supplies. I think he’s worried about more building collapses cutting off our food lines.

Lots of work means I’m well fed, but it also means there’s not much time to think about what I saw in the mists. And the funny thing is I don’t feel bat-bat. Not like Momma after she saw the mists.

So I sleep, and live, and walk the mists.

Ordinary life, plus mists.

Until Chrysler collapses.

I watch the building fall from my slug. The wind is howling, blowing so hard that Empire moans and shakes and dances like the building is drunk. I poke my head outside my slug to stare at the dull gray morning. That’s when I hear and feel the collapse. I grab my binoculars and watch people screaming as the oh-sobeautiful rocket of a building collapses into a cloud of white dust.

That morning Bugdon calls an emergency meeting. The people of Empire cram into the old visitor’s center on the eightieth floor to hear him speak.

“We can’t trust Empire to last forever,” Bugdon says. “Maybe a few more years, maybe a decade or two. The mists are eroding all the buildings and we’ve gone too long without the serious maintenance and repairs Empire needs to live.”

Everyone nods.

“Maybe we have plenty of time, but we can’t take the chance. I propose we move some of our people to safety.”

As Bugdon says this, people smirk and roll their eyes. After all, there is no safety. There’s nowhere to go but the city and the high-rises.

Turns out Bugdon’s not joking. He points to an ancient transit map on the wall, where someone has circled a spot near what used to be the East River. “I’ve heard rumor of a mist-proof building in Rockefeller University,” he says. “It’s a hangover from the Days-We-Knew.”

I wonder if Bugdon knows that’s where Estelle worked when she accidentally blinked the city to this place. Even if such a building exists, it’ll be suicide to try and reach it. The path to Rockefeller University has never been cleared. But Bugdon is the Super, so people merely nod agreement when he says we’ll send a scout to investigate.

I try sneaking out of the meeting, not wanting to be the scout sent on this death mission, but two of Bugdon’s goons grab me. They escort me down to the fourteenth floor, where we wait until Bug-don arrives.

“Go jump the mists,” Bugdon tells his goons, who tense at the insult but quickly back away before Bugdon makes them do the deed.

Once we’re alone, Bugdon grins. “You’re not volunteering for my mission?”

“It’s a deader’s death. Merely to give Empire false hope.”

“Maybe not.” Bugdon leans close, whispers. “What if I said the mists told me to do this?”

I shiver. Does Bugdon also hear the mists talk? Or is he trying to trick me into admitting that I hear them? “If the mists said to do this, then you do it,” I say.

“No can. The mists want you.”

I want to yell coward. Fake-topper. Scared-ass Super. But Bugdon simply smiles. “I know you didn’t get lucky making it back from the Plaza—the mists helped you. But why? That’s what I don’t understand.”

I stare at my boots, afraid to speak. Bugdon points at the necklace Estelle gave me, which peeks out from under my jumpsuit. Bugdon opens his shirt to reveal a twin of the necklace, with a similar wisp of mist swirling inside each of the dozens of tiny glass globes.

“When did you meet Estelle?” I ask.

“I’ve never been to the Plaza.”

“But the necklace….”

“… was given to me by someone you know,” he says. “This person said the mists want you to do this. That our time is running short.”

I want to run for my slug and hide, but Bugdon hugs me tight and whispers in my ear. “There’ll be no more Supers after me,” he says. “Empire won’t last. But even if the building doesn’t collapse, we can’t keep living like this. You’ve seen it. We’re dying. Our people are merely passing time until we die.”

I nod. I’ve long thought this, as I’m sure others have even if we never speak such heresy aloud.

“Maybe you’ll die,” Bugdon says, “and based on how the mists play with us, you likely will. But if there’s a chance….”

“I’ll go. But if the mists take me, I’m coming back. Gonna haunt you until you do the big swan dive.”

Bugdon laughs as only a true topper laughs. “If the mists take you, I’ll do exactly that.”

How do you divide the mists? How do you divide past from present from future?

As I walk toward Rockefeller University, I imagine myself on that paper map back in Empire, my path separating the mists from what they’ve been and what they are and what all of us might have become if we’d never been pulled from the Days-We-Knew.

I walk blind, using a tap-cane to feel my way through streets which have never been cleared of rubble. I asked the mists to direct me, but for once they don’t speak. I want to raise my blinder but I’m afraid of what I’ll see.

The route to Rockefeller University dances in my mind, but counting steps is impossible because of the rubble. So I feel my way as I drag a sled of air tanks and plug in new air every few hours. It takes me twelve hours to go a thousand feet. Another day to go half again that.

Eventually I’m exhausted and nap for a few hours. I dream about what Momma told me, that I should only join the mists when I’m ready. I wake to bad air and immediately plug in a new tank before stumbling on in a delirium of not seeing.

As I walk, I wonder what our city was like in the Days-We-Knew. A city with countless Empires of people sleeping and dreaming and eating and dying and moving through life. Were they like me? Did they talk but barely understand each other? Did their lives touch on each other but never truly penetrate to the core of who each of us could be?