Finch by Jeff VanderMeer (5 page)

One man's face held Finch's attention. Salt-and-pepper beard,
creases in his forehead, wrinkles that made him look as if he were
squinting. A red patch on his cheek. Body slumped, then tensed,
against the lurching of the tank. A gaunt hand clutching his Lewden
rifle, knuckles prominent. Gaze turned forward, as if unwilling to
acknowledge the present.

Which had made Finch realize again that these men and women
leaving, they were the same ones who had fought one another during
more than three decades of the War of the Houses, broken only by
armistices, cease-fires, and the dream of empire. The ones who had
brought ruination upon Ambergris in so many ways before the Rising.

Yet they were still from Ambergris, of Ambergris, and even Finch
felt it in his chest, Wyte standing there beside him with his Emily.
Almost as if Ambergris itself was retreating, leaving behind only
ghosts and children. But also leaving a perverse giddiness. A sense of
celebration at seeing such a mighty force. The retreat portrayed as a
new beginning. The lull before the launching of a great offensive.

Even the tanks were part of Ambergris. They'd come out of the
eighty-year-old metal deposits found in eastern Ambergris that had
catapulted the city out of the past but not yet into the future.

Rebel tanks had two turrets: one pointed ahead, one unseen beneath
that pointed at the ground. Specially built to open up and deliver bombs
to underground gray cap enclaves. Once, their rough syncopated song had
been heard all over the city. Juddered through the ground into the walls
of buildings and tunnels alike. Like a kind of defiant echoing growl.

In retreat, though, it was the singing of the troops as they left that Finch
heard, their voices ragged over the rumble of the tanks. Patriotic songs
composed long centuries before. A refrain that had started as a prayer by
the Truffidian monks.

Holy city, majestic, banish your fears.
Arise, emerge from your sleeping years.
Too long have you dwelt in the valley of tears.
We shall restore you with mercy and grace.

City of wounds. City of wounding. For a moment, Finch had felt
the urge to climb up onto one of the tanks, to join them in what was
then the wilderness of North Ambergris. But Finch wasn't one of
them. He'd had no officer to report to. Had bought his own weapon.
Off the books, off the record. An Irregular, fighting alongside other
Irregulars in his neighborhood. Defending their sisters, brothers,
parents, and neighbors against the invaders.

After the last tank had rumbled past, Finch had gone back with
Wyte and Emily. To await the next thing. No matter what it might
be. The need to work. To eat. To have shelter. People were already
telling themselves things might still be better under the gray caps
than during the War of the Houses, at least. Joked about it. Like you
might about a passing storm.

Waiting it out at Wyte's house. By candlelight. Drinking. Laughing
nervously. Trying to forget. Finch's father dead almost two years.

Just after midnight: a sound like a giant flame opening up and then
winking out. A devastating whump, as of something hitting the ground
or rising from it. When they looked outside, they'd seen a dome-like
haze above the north part of the bay. Green-orange discharge like
sunspots. They'd just watched it. Watched it and not known what
to say. What to do. Barricaded the house. Spent the rest of the night
with weapons within reach.

In the morning, a paralyzing horror. Across the bay, when they
slipped out through back alleys to get a clear view: the seething area
that became known as the HFZ, and no sign of anyone alive. No sign
of the tanks. No messages from the rebel leadership.

Thought but not said: Abandoned. Gone. On our own.

Then the realization, as the gray caps began to appear in numbers in
the streets, and as their surrogates the Partials began to help occupy
the city, that the war was over for now. That each citizen of Ambergris
would need to make some kind of peace with the enemy.

Always with the hope sent out across the water toward the HFZ:
that the tanks, the men, might come back. Might re-emerge. That the
rebels were not dead. Destroyed.

Lost.

id-afternoon. A soft, wet, sucking sound came from the
.memory hole beside his desk. Finch shuddered, put aside his
notes. A message had arrived.

Some detectives positioned their desks so they could see their
memory holes. Finch positioned his desk so he couldn't see it without
leaning over. Tried never to look at it when he walked into the station
in the morning. Still, the memory hole was better than the dead cat
reanimated on Skinner's doorstep, message delivered in screeched
rhyming couplets. Or the mushroom that walked onto Dapple's desk,
turning itself inside out. To reveal the message.

Exhaled sharply. Peered around the left edge of the desk. Glanced
down at the glistening hole. It was about twice the size of a man's
fist. Lamprey-like teeth. Gasping, pink-tinged maw. Foul. The green
tendrils lining the gullet had pushed up the dirty black spherical pod
until it lay atop the mouth.

Finch sat up. Couldn't see it. Just heard its breathing. Which was worse.

The gray caps always called them "message tubes," but the term
"memory hole" had stuck. Memory holes allowed the detectives to
communicate during the day with their gray cap superiors. Finch had
no idea if the memory holes were living creatures or only seemed
alive. Fluid leaked out of them sometimes.

Once, impulsive, Finch had crumpled up the wrapper around the
remains of his lunch and shoved it down the hole. Lived in fear the
rest of the day. But nothing had happened. When he'd thought about
it since, it had made him laugh. Heretic, down there, hit in the head
with a piece of garbage. Maybe cursing Finch's name.

Now Heretic's message vibrated atop writhing tendrils.

Finch leaned over. Grabbed the pod. Slimy feel. Sticky.

Tossed the pod onto his desk. Pulled out a hammer from the same
drawer where he kept his limited supply of dormant pods. Split
Heretic's pod wide open. Spraying slime.

Beside Finch, Wyte winced, got up for some coffee.

Disgusted, or was it too close to home?

"There's no pretty way to do it, my friends," Finch called out. "Just
look away." No one acknowledged him this time. Too usual. Even
Finch's refrain.

In amongst the fragments: a few copies of a photograph of the dead
man, compliments of the Partial.

And a message.

Pulsing yellow. An egg of living paper. He pulled the egg out of the
shattered pod. Began to massage it until it spread out flat. Kept spreading,
to Finch's surprise. Then began to unspool. Like a long, wide tongue.
And kept on growing.

That was unusual enough for the other detectives to gather round.

"What in the hell is that?" Blakely asked, Gustat beside him. Dapple
shyly peeked over Blakely's shoulder. Albin and Skinner were out on
a call or they'd have been right there too. Anything to waste time.

"Looks like Heretic's given you a long to-do list," Gustat said. Too
young to have known anything but war and the Rising.

Finch said nothing. By now, the pliant paper had grown to drape
itself over both sides of Finch's desk, sliding into his lap. Clutched at
it. Saw the rows of information in the reed-thin, spidery print common
to gray cap documents. He let out a long, deep breath.

"It's the records of everyone who ever lived in the apartment of the
double murder I was at this morning. Going back. . ." He checked as
the paper finished unspooling. "Going back over a century. More."

Pulse quickening. How am I supposed to investigate that?

MORDEN, JONATHAN, OCCUPANCY 3 MONTHS, 2 DAYS, 11 MINUTES,
5 SECONDS-WORKED IN FOOD DISTRIBUTION IN THE CAMPS ...

WILDEN, SARAH, OCCUPANCY 8 MONTHS, 3 DAYS, 2 MINUTES, 45
SECONDS-NEVER LEFT THE APARTMENT EXCEPT FOR GETTING FOOD.
HAD THREE CATS. LIKED TO READ ...

A sudden panic. Smothered by the past. Lost in it.

Tried to get a grip. Wadded the paper up, pocketed the photographs.
While the other detectives gave out nervous laughs. Returned to their
desks. Frightened again.

No one wanted this kind of case.

A sudden anger rose in Finch. Did Heretic really think that this list
would be helpful? It was scaring the shit out of him.

Wyte had been standing behind the others, holding his coffee mug.
Loomed now like an actor from backstage, suddenly revealed.

"A lot of information," Wyte said.

Finch glared at him. Hands splattered with yellow and green.
"Find me a towel."

Wyte put down his coffee, rummaged in a desk drawer.

SILVAN, JAMES, OCCUPANCY 15 MONTHS, 3 DAYS, I HOUR, 50
MINUTES, 2 SECONDS-COLLABORATOR WITH A SPLINTER REBEL
FACTION ...

HUGHES, SHANNA, OCCUPANCY I MONTH, 2 WEEKS, 3 DAYS, 10
MINUTES, 35 SECONDS-KILLED BY A FUNGAL BOMB ...

"Maybe they got it from the old bureaucratic quarter?" Wyte whispered
out of the side of his mouth as he leaned over to give Finch the towel.
Smell of sweat mixed with something sweeter. "Maybe they just copied
it down?" Returning to his desk, receding into the background.

"It's half-encrypted with their symbols, Wyte," Finch said. Tried
to correct for the disdain in his voice. "It contains surveillance
information. They collected it themselves."

From underground. Using a million spore-eye cameras. Somewhere,
he knew, in one of a series of images captured by the gray caps: evidence
of his past that Heretic didn't know about. Finch as a Hoegbotton Irregular
fighting against Frankwrithe & Lewden in the War of the Houses. Finch
standing side by side with F&L soldiers against the gray caps before they Rose.
What he'd done.

Except the gray caps didn't have the time to pore over that many images
unless given a good reason. And Finch hadn't. Only Wyte knew the truth.

GILRISH, MEGHAN, OCCUPANCY 10 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS, 6 DAYS, 14
HOURS, 15 MINUTES, 6 SECONDS-OWNER OF A GROCERY STORE...

BARRAN, GEORGE, OCCUPANCY 2 YEARS, 1 WEEK, 5 DAYS, 7 MINUTES,
18 SECONDS-DIED OF OLD AGE ...

Finch stared at the first rows of names on the paper. The sheer
density of information defeated him.

Kept thinking about the bodies. Saw them lying there on the floor
of the apartment. They dropped in out of thin air.

Why there?

A riddle wrapped in a puzzle. Perversely comforting, that the
memory bulbs might hold the answers.

Never lost.

Bellum omnium contra omnes.

Never lost.

Said it three times under his breath. Wondering if Wyte was staring
at him. Still didn't dislodge an answer.

"Well," Finch said, out of the corner of his mouth, "do you know
what those words mean? Bellum omnium contra omnes?"

But Wyte was done talking to him about the case.

Sometimes the overlay of reality seemed a sham. One day, he would
turn a corner on a rubble-strewn street. Pass through an archway into
a courtyard. Be back in that other, simpler world. When he worked
in the same building but as a Hoegbotton courier. Not as a detective.
When he worked for Wyte, not with him.

Am I dead? he thought sometimes, walking down that green carpet
he remembered from a different city, a different time. Am I a ghost?

Six in the afternoon. Time to leave. He packed Heretic's list in
a satchel and holstered his miserable gun. Watched Blakely and
Gustat put on spore gas masks "just in case." Just in case of what? Just in case there's one fungus in the whole damn city you haven't been
exposed to yet?

A nod. A handshake or two. Muttered goodbyes to Wyte. Then they
dispersed. The night shift would arrive soon. Partial patrols outside
started in only two hours. Curfew. Gray caps lurking. You rarely saw
more than one, but that was one too many. A detective's badge might
help or it might not.

The others headed north, up Albumuth. Wyte was a hulking shadow
hanging back at the rear. Finch went south, but not home. Not yet.
First, he had to pick up the memory bulbs from the crime scene. But
he also had decided not to trust the Partial. Wanted to interview some
of the residents of 239 Manzikert Avenue himself.