Finch by Jeff VanderMeer (7 page)

Then her voice started coming to the people on the radio stations
of House Hoegbotton and House Frankwrithe, before the Rising. In
those interim years when the Houses combined forces to confront the
true insurgents. The enemy hidden in the ground.

Finch remembers some of those broadcasts. Listened to them with
his father. Near the end.

The Lady in Blue would begin in a low, slow voice. Almost the
murmurs of a lover. Her voice would build in volume and strength.
Until she was exhorting the people of Ambergris to stand firm against
not only the "underground invader," but also against the avarice and
selfishness of its own leaders.

That her voice came from everywhere was reinforced by
background noises in her broadcasts. Many different settings.
Sometimes the sounds of the River Moth behind her. Sometimes a
windy tower. Sometimes a water-clogged basement that she would
claim was actually an underground gray cap stronghold. Often,
she sounded weary. So incredibly tired. And other times strong,
defiant.

Then the gray caps Rose, and Hoegbotton and Frankwrithe alike
became the rebels. Dead. Dispersed. Fled. Lost. But the Lady in Blue
survived, and by surviving she seemed to have again become greater
than herself. Neither the green of the Hoegbottons nor the red
of the Frankwrithe & Lewdens, but all the colors mixed together.
People clung to the hope that she would return in force to save
them. Even though she'd never been more than a voice on the radio
to most of them.

Finch has seen the gray caps' files on the Lady in Blue, of course.
Knows that she was born Alessandra Lewden in the Southern Isles.
Received her education from various private schools in Morrow and
Stockton. Then became Alessandra Hoegbotton in a politically
advantageous marriage arranged during a brief truce between the
Houses. Wife to the opera singer Joseph Hoegbotton, who was shot
dead by an insane rival after a performance. After which Alessandra
disappeared for several years. Until House Hoegbotton needed her
for their latest propaganda tool: radio broadcasts. Across enemy
lines. The disembodied voice of the self-described "Lady in Blue"
coming out of houses and the back rooms of cafes.

Unclear from the files if Alessandra had given herself over entirely
to Cause Hoegbotton. But it didn't matter when Cause Hoegbotton
and Cause Frankwrithe-Lewden came together. The Lady in Blue just
became more powerful. Sometimes, she was the only thing connecting
the two factions.

But fascinating to Finch: her voice coming over the radio had driven
the gray caps insane with anger. At first, they did not understand
this new invention, brought to Ambergris by the busy scientists of
the Kalif's empire. So for a time her voice seemed to come from
everywhere and nowhere. Magically. Or a magic that was beyond
them, unaffected by spores or fruiting bodies. You could not re-create
radio using fungi. You could not spy on it from within.

The gray caps, the files revealed, had spent at least as much time
trying to track her down as preparing for the Rising. But they could
not locate her. They flooded tunnels. Sent spore armies rushing
down remote streets. Blocked off passageways. Still, they couldn't
find her. Which made Finch, even conflicted, admire her, reading
the files. Understanding the cost of being constantly on the move.
Constantly in flux.

Sometimes that cost came through over the radio. A mad howling.
As if the city were a creature gone insane. Capturing the sounds
of warfare. Of demolition. Of fighting with the gray caps or the
Partials.

But for the last several months Finch knows there have been no
radio broadcasts from the Lady in Blue. From Alessandra Lewden. Little or no organized rebel activity anywhere in the city. Meanwhile,
the towers continue to rise in the bay. People grow more and more used
to their situation. Becoming cynical about the Lady in Blue. Distrust
reborn between former Hoegbottons and former Frankwrithes. Even
Wyte's noticed it.

The fact is she hasn't saved Wyte, him, or anyone from six years of
living under gray cap rule.

ome is an apartment in a twelve-story rundown hotel. He'd
moved there six years ago, three months after the Rising, two years
after his father's death. In its day, during the worst of the fighting between
House Hoegbotton and House Frankwrithe, it had become famous as a
kind of sanctuary. Far enough away from the battles to be neutral. Near
enough to the merchant quarter to be profitable. Everybody trying to
make money on the war.

But those days are gone. Outside the hotel, a statue of a dead composer
stands guard beyond the crumbling steps that lead to the gaping front door.
Powder-burned, nose shot off, one raised arm just a stone stump. A raving
madman lives near the statue. Finch has no idea how he survives the gray
caps' patrols at night.

Inside, the lobby is dank and dim and molding. An old crooked
photograph on the wall captures a few signs of the hotel's lost luxury
in a scene from some long-ago party. A strain of pale green lichen has
infiltrated the faded burgundy of the carpet. Gives the floor a spongy
feel and sheds a disconcerting, ghostly glow that leads Finch through
the entrance after dark.

Elsewhere, bulbs burn fierce or dull, like mismatched cousins. Always,
a ghastly yellow haze. A curling faded wallpaper that sometimes
isn't. Smells that change by the hour, dictated by the currents in the
basement. Walls knocked out. Old furniture piled high. A courtyard
through the middle of the hotel. The basement is awash in water, an
intrusion from the River Moth.

Finch knows many of the people in the building by name. A kind
of survival strategy. Strangers mean danger. Like a leftover slogan from
the old days when Hoegbotton gangs purified their neighborhoods
of the "F&L scourge," and F&L gangs returned the favor. He doesn't know how safe his presence makes those around him, but he does his
best. Tries to notice what's going on. Likes to believe he is doing what
his father would've done.

The crumbling sign on the roof still reads " otel Mur t." Crows
nest in it.

Sometimes Finch hides behind the sign.

Peers out across the skyline, toward the bay, from its shelter.

His apartment was on the seventh floor, but Finch ignored the dirty
marble stairs and the stubborn elevator. Followed the wormy carpet into
a darkened courtyard instead. A snarl of bushes and long grass along the
path. At the center, a ragged vegetable garden of tomatoes, carrots,
squash. Didn't know who tended to it. He turned left, pushed open the
first door, took familiar steps down into the dark two at a time.

Bottom of the stairs. Finch turned right, faced a door at the end of
a stub of hallway.

Rebecca Rathven lived there. He could hear the sounds of water, the
slap of fish surfacing, coming through the air ducts. Mixed, sometimes,
with Rathven's cackling laugh as she read something funny in her
books. On a quiet night, the odd sounds traveled as far up as Finch's
floor. Finch liked the sounds. And he liked Rathven. Found her useful.
Found her interesting. Sometimes in a sinister way.

Who takes a flooded basement as an apartment in a hotel full of empty
rooms?

Finch knocked. Heard footsteps. A pause. An appraisal through the
peephole.

She was used to visitors, but still cautious. People came to Rathven
for information from the past. They came to her if they'd lost the
thread. They came to her to talk. Why? Finch, like most people, had
books, but Rathven had a library.

That library changed with every visit. Rathven kept shifting the
stacks against the inroads of the river. People who owed her favors
helped her create barricades of wooden beams and homemade
sandbags. He'd told her to move, to go higher. But the effort, all of
those books ... she said she would, but she hadn't yet. Might never.

The door opened wide enough for Finch to smell soggy pulp. Trying
to save the unsalvageable. A wavery yellow light crept into the hall.
Rathven's long face appeared, tilted up at him. Startling white skin,
almost translucent. Looked at times like something broken. Then like
something strong. Dark hair shot through with lighter strands. Thick
black eyebrows, hazel eyes, high cheekbones, thin lips curled in a smile.
Blue dress and brown sandals. Finch could never tell her age. Somewhere
between twenty-five and thirty-five. Had never found a way to ask.

"Finch." The word invested with some secret amusement. "Come in?"

Smiled, shook his head. "But I do have something for you. A list.
A long list."

"A list of what? Laundry list? Shopping list? Enemies? Friends?"

Finch laughed. "You should've been a detective."

"I am a detective," she said. The ritual refrain.

"List of names," he said. "People who lived in an apartment where
two murders took place. And you'll love this: it's more than a century
of names."

Not quite a frown, but a kind of quiver to the lips. A caution entering
the eyes. She'd guessed the source. Not hard, really.

Rathven had been in the work camps for three years. Had the brands on
the bottoms of her feet, the red-gold marking of fungus she could hide but
never forget. There was a pulsing sensation sometimes, she'd told him. A
restlessness. He'd never asked what else had happened to her there. Didn't
really want to know.

She helped him because he'd gotten her brother Blaine, who went
by the name "the Photographer," out of the camps and into the hotel.
Dozens of old cameras in the Photographer's fifth-floor apartment.
The man used the cameras to take thousands of photographs of
water. Funded that obsession by running a black market for goods.
Finch bought or traded with him like everyone else. Using gray cap
vouchers, food pods, or salvaged items.

If the Photographer ever cut him off, or Rathven ever stopped
helping him, Finch knew it would feel like a punch to the kidneys.
Friendship or need?

He leaned over, pulled the list from his satchel. Felt tired suddenly,
like he'd stolen something from her but realized it too late. "Could you read it? Tell me if any names are familiar. Maybe from your books."
Would pay her in information and fungal antidotes, like usual.

Rathven took the paper gingerly. Prodded the spongy edges with
one finger. "Only if you tell me why."

"Recent murders."

The color went out of her face.

"Got a piece of paper?" he asked.

She nodded, reached behind her. Handed him an old envelope.
Return address from somewhere in the Southern Isles. Might as well be
some imaginary place now.

Drew the symbol. Handed the paper back to her. "Do you know what
this is?"

A disdainful glance. "It's a gray cap symbol, of course. Very poorly
drawn."

"Can you check it out? I've seen it before. But I don't know what it
means."

"Sure. I don't know how long it will take."

"That's fine . . ." Lingered, unsure how to ask for more. Then just
said it: "Another favor. Memory bulbs tonight. Can you check on
me? Call, or knock on the door if the phones are out? In an hour
or two?" No idea when Sintra would get there. No point taking
chances.

Now came the frown, as he knew it would. But she nodded. "I will.
I will, Finch. Don't worry." Reached out to squeeze his arm. Then
withdrew her hand quickly. As if she'd shown weakness.

He stared at her now. Smiled. Sometimes he felt a closeness with
her he shared with no one else, not even Sintra. She'd never fought
the Rising. She'd just read her books, preserved them. Protected them.
Shared them. Eked out a living making crafts. At least, this was the story
she'd told him. A small part of him still wondered why she'd been taken
to the camps. Or why she'd been let go. "I was too sick to work," she'd told
him. But she'd never looked sick to him.

"The gray caps like to confuse randomness with purpose," Wyte had
said once. But Finch didn't believe that. Just believed they kept the
purpose buried deep.