Finch by Jeff VanderMeer (16 page)

Finch opened his mouth to speak. Heretic said words that sounded
like kith vrisdresn zorn. Snapped his fingers.

The skery wound itself around Finch's legs and tightened. Sudden
tingling paralysis. He could not move away. Could not fall. Choking
on his own breath. The paralysis brought with it an image of an
endless field of dim stars, one by one extinguished. A gulf and a void.
Finch was as afraid as he had ever been in his life. Because he didn't
know what he was looking at, or why.

Try to breathe. Slowly. Breathe slowly.

The skery curled its way up to his chest. Around his neck. It pulled
tight so he was gasping in his motionlessness. He felt something like
sharp leaves or thorns up against his neck. An impression of lips. A
sharp, smoky scent. Half the field of stars had gone out. There was
more darkness than light.

From behind Finch's desk, from a thousand miles away, from behind
a thick wall: Heretic. Saying, "A skery is not as bad for you as what I
could bring with me."

The skery curled back down Finch's body. Released him. He
stumbled forward, hands on the desk to stop from falling. The field of
stars so bright he almost passed out. Then the desk came into focus.
Prickles of sensation came back into his legs. Neck already sore and
throbbing.

"Do you understand me, Finch?" Heretic said. "We can make it
quite clear who you really are. To everyone. Or we can just put you in
the camps. Or we can do much, much worse."

Finch had killed a gray cap once. As an Irregular. Before the Rising.
Out in the confusion of civil war. With a knife and a gun. He thought
about that now, looking at Heretic.

Heretic: "How did Bliss manage to escape you? I expect that in your
report by tomorrow night. You will leave your report on your desk. I will read it. If I am not satisfied, I will visit you. Find ways to convince
me that you are more valuable alive than as a memory bulb. Do you
understand?"

"I understand," Finch managed after a moment. Throat sore. Burying
his anger deep. Just wanting to be away from there. Just wanting to be
somewhere he might fool himself into calling safe.

The gray cap rose. "You'll find Bliss's information in the `memory
hole' by your desk in a few minutes."

Heretic walked toward the back, holding his skery. Rivulets of golden
spores swirled up from his footfalls. Sparkled in the murk like tiny
blinking eyes.

Against all good judgment, against his shock at the skery's touch,
Finch spoke. "What happened when you took the dead man's memory
bulb?"

Heretic half-turned, the look on his face murderous. "I did not eat
the memory bulb. That was another fanaarcensitii. He saw nothing.
He died within minutes, in horrible pain. Apparently, you are very,
very lucky, Finch."

A long peal of that awful laughter before Heretic disappeared
behind the curtain.

Afterward, Finch couldn't sleep. Stomach churning. Couldn't get
rid of a crawling sensation. Half his mouth felt numb. The other
half tingled like a faint electric shock. His legs moved slowly, a
deep ache in both muscle and bone.

Had returned to his apartment to find a note from Sintra shoved
under the door: Can't make it tonight. Tomorrow night. Found that a
bad mood could get worse.

He went up to the roof of the hotel, a fifth of whisky retrieved from
his kitchen, and let a nagging Feral come with him. Carried the cat's
comforting weight, like a purring loaf of bread, in the crook of his left
arm. In his other hand, the file on Bliss.

The stairs above his floor had been so colonized by moss and lichen
that they didn't creak. Dark. Dangerous. But Finch didn't care. He'd
lost his way anyhow, was in need of something sturdier than self-pity.

A hatch in the ceiling where the stairs ended led to the roof. He
switched Bliss's file to under his arm, next to a protesting Feral. Set
down the whisky long enough to push open the hatch without losing
his balance. Picked it back up, and stepped through with Feral. Into
a bracing wind. A wash of stars set against the black-and-greentinged sky.

Except for the bit obscured by the dilapidated sign, Finch could see
the whole city from here. One reason he'd chosen the hotel. The view
from the roof helped him with his map overlay. Made him feel more in
control, being able to see so much from one place. The soldier in him
always wanted the best possible recon.

Muted lights from the buildings to either side. Like he saw them
through a black curtain. Even the two towers seemed dulled, the
emerald glow humble. A few sparkling clouds of spores, in blue
and yellow, danced far out in the sky, to the south. Otherwise,
just the inward-focused white of the camp domes, balanced to the
north by the humming glitter of orange-green HFZ. The air didn't
carry the smell of mushrooms. As if a fresh breeze had come from
outside the city.

A tall figure stood near the edge of the roof, looking out. Finch
stiffened, making Feral hiss. He groped for the gun he had left in the
apartment, Feral jumping from his arm. Then Finch realized it was
just the Photographer, Rath's brother. The man who liked to take
pictures of water and ran a black market store out of his apartment.

Finch had seen the photographs. Stacked up next to the cameras.
Plastered to the walls. Blown up, miniaturized, blurry, in focus. On
anything that might serve, or re-serve, as contact paper. As if the
Photographer looked for one particular thing in the water. As if not
interested in water at all, searching for something he hadn't found yet.

A fifth of whisky was enough for two.

The Photographer turned as Finch approached. A slow, unconcerned
motion. Finch had never seen him anything other than calm. Or
maybe his mood was always resigned to whatever new thing came
next. Didn't know what had happened to him in the camps. Didn't
know much about him at all, except that he trusted the man. Which
made little sense. He was so clearly damaged. So indifferent to Finch's help in getting him out of the camp.

The Photographer nodded.

Finch passed the bottle to the Photographer. The man took a sip
and handed it back. He stared at Finch with an unreadable gaze. A
white face and a watchful mouth, with an upturn to the lips that
could make him look devilish. The eyes and cheekbones didn't
match the mouth. The eyes were almost vacant, except for a deepset glint. Finch thought of that glint as curiosity or obsession. The
high cheekbones gave the Photographer an aura of deep or deeply
denied suffering.

"Anything new out there?"

"A few things." His voice a thin reed.

"Anything I should know about?"

The Photographer shrugged, looked out at the night. "More activity
at the towers, just a little while ago. An emergency? Quickly solved,
if so. Nothing there now. A few spore discharges to the west. Can't
tell if they're human or mechanical. But not much, no . . . What
happened to you?"

An involuntary snort. He must look as ragged as he felt. The
Photographer had never asked after his health before.

"I came across something that didn't like me," Finch said. No desire
to share the details. Thinking about how he had to hold out for
another day before seeing Sintra again.

The Photographer nodded as if this made sense. Returned to his
contemplation of the view. Didn't care much for small talk.

Slowly, stiffly, Finch lowered himself into a chair. A few feet away,
Feral was munching on something he'd caught.

A couple light bulbs hung near the rotting sign. The outer arc of their
light just barely caught the edge of the chairs. Enough to read by.

Eyes adjusted to the dim light, Finch began to go through Bliss's file.
Two laughably old photographs. One so dark it was just a silhouette
with a hint of jaw leering out of a smudge. The report itself was brief,
pithy, in the spidery script of gray cap transcriptions. Translated from
their original files. Which took what form? Probably were worse things
than memory holes down below.

Finch already knew most of what was in the report. Bliss's rise within F&L ranks. The compromise with Hoegbotton. The alliance
with the Lady in Blue. But he was somehow surprised that the gray
caps knew it. Made him wonder about the extent of their intel before
the Rising.

Buried in the middle of the report, Finch found a list of aliases under
which Bliss had operated: Charles Dinley, George Graansvoort, John
Letcher, Grant Shearwater, Dar Sardice. And, most improbably, jasper
Marlowe Anthony Blasio. A typo? An error in the transcription?

Dar Sardice proved the most interesting. The other names had
been ways of disguising movements across checkpoints within the
city. Dar Sardice had been used much earlier, during Ambergrisian-
Hoegbotton campaigns against the Kalif. "Dar Sardice" had been
Frankwrithe's man keeping an eye on the progress of the war. From
behind the Kalif's supply lines. The cover? Independent merchant
and businessman. With an established trade route that cut through
over eight hundred miles of desert dotted with fortified towns. The
whole Western Front. Against which the Ambergrisian Army had
thrown itself with unparalleled ferocity. From which it had eventually
retreated. "It was just too large," his father had said once. "It was
overwhelming. The wide, hot, empty spaces. The strangeness of the towns.
The fact we didn't speak the language." Left a trail of broken, bombed
equipment behind. Trucks. Tanks. Mortars.

A desert fortress. A fall from a great height. Ethan Bliss as Dar Sardice,
turning up in every major theater of a desert war. Then appearing again
not long after as F&L's man in Ambergris. Popping up in the dead man's
memories. Had disappeared when cornered, after having been nailed to a
wall just a few minutes before.

Was he looking at a secret that should be obvious? If so, it eluded
him the more he tried to pin it down.

Beside him, the Photographer stirred. "I am going to go back inside.
Do you need anything from me?"

"Just information," Finch said, and downed some whisky. He enjoyed
the way it spread out from his throat, his stomach. Settling him as it
mixed with the afterburn of the cigar.

"What kind of information?"

On a hunch, feeling like his back was exposed: "Seen anyone strange around the hotel recently?"

The Photographer replied with a kind of odd regret, as if speaking
out of turn: "Yes, I have."

Suddenly more alert: "Describe them?"

"Two of them, today. They came separately. The first I saw around
noon. A tall Partial. He was on the stairs when I saw him. Coming
down." A look of disgust on the Photographer's face.

The same Partial?

"Coming down from where?"

"I don't know. I was on the fifth floor. He was coming down."

Could've been anyone. Could've been here for any reason. And nothing
he could do about it.

"The second?"

"He stayed outside the building. It was late afternoon. A bald man.
Dangerous-looking. He talked to the madman by the statue. Didn't like
what the madman told him. Then looked up at the windows for awhile.
He stayed off to the side smoking a cigarette. Got impatient and walked
into the lobby for a moment, came back out, and left almost right away."

A description that matched what Bliss had told them about Bosun,
Stark's muscle. Which meant they'd had watchers on Bliss's place.
Watchers who had identified Finch incredibly fast. Now they were
checking out where he lived. He didn't like that. Didn't like it at all.

Definitely time to have a talk with Stark.

"Tell me if you see them again? Or anyone else who doesn't live here?"

The Photographer nodded. Then he was taking long strides to the hatch,
as if he suddenly needed to be somewhere. The hatch creaked open, and
he was gone.

Off to Finch's left, Feral was stalking something new around a
couple of wooden boxes. Finch went back to his whisky. Wondered if
Bliss/Dar Sardice leading them to Stark meant Stark would lead them
back to Bliss. And who was Stark, then? Just another Stockton man,
or something else?

All the while trying not to think of the skery. Curling up his leg.
Wound around his neck.

Failing.

I: When did you first decide to contact Stark? Before or after Bliss?

F: I was just investigating two deaths. Following orders.

I: And to you that meant scheming with all of the city's enemies?

F: No, that's not it at all. That you-

[screams, garbled recording]

F: Why did you do that? Why? I'm talking. I'm talking.

I: But you're not saying anything.

n their way the next morning to track down Stark ...

Wind and spray of rain against Finch's face as they sped across
the bay toward the Spit. Glad of the cool water soaking his hair. But
he had a hard time keeping the filter-mask over eyes, nose, and mouth
from clouding up. It itched, made him sweat. Made Wyte, as he turned
toward Finch, look like something meant to frighten children. But
better safe than dead. Even the gray caps didn't know what lived in
the air above the bay, the water corrupted by runoff from the HFZ.
Tiny assassins. Cell disruptors and breath-stealers ...