The City & the City (37 page)

UNITY
had been half written across the face of the Ungir Hall
which was also the Sul Kibai Palace, so now in dripping paint the building said something nonsense. What passed as Besźel’s business districts were nowhere near the Ul Qoman equivalent. The headquarters of Sear and Core were on the banks of the Colinin, one of the few successes in the attempts to revivify Besźel’s dying dockside. We passed the dark water.

We both looked up at percussion in the otherwise empty locked-down sky. A helicopter the only thing in the air, backlit by its own powerful lights as it left us below.

“It’s them,” I said. “We’re too late.” But the copter was coming in from the west, towards the riverbank. It was not an exit; it was a pickup. “Come on.”

Even in such a distracting night Ashil’s driving prowess cowed me. He veered across the dark bridge, took a one-way total street in Besźel the wrong way, startling pedestrians trying to get out of the night, through a crosshatch plaza then a total Ul Qoma street. I was leaning to watch the helicopter descend into the roofscape by the river, half a mile ahead of us.

“It’s down,” I said. “Move.”

There was the reconfigured warehouse, the inflatable gasrooms of Ul Qoman buildings to either side of it. No one was in the square, but there were lights on throughout the Sear and Core building, despite the hour, and there were guards in the entrance. They came towards us aggressively when we entered. Marbled and fluorescently lit, the S&C logo in stainless steel and placed as if it were art on the walls, magazines and corporate reports made to look like magazines on tables by sofas.

“Get the fuck out,” a man said. Besź ex-military. He put his hand to his holster and led his men towards us. He came up short a moment later: he saw how Ashil moved.

“Stand down,” Ashil said, glowering to intimidate. “The whole of Besźel’s in Breach tonight.” He did not have to show his sigil. The men fell back. “Unlock the lift now, give me the keys to reach the helipad, and stand down. No one else comes in.”

If the security had been foreign, had come from Sear and Core’s home country, or been drafted in from its European or North American
operations, they might not have obeyed. But this was Besźel and the security was Besź, and they did as Ashil said. In the elevator, he drew out his weapon. A big pistol of unfamiliar design. Its barrel encased, muzzled in some dramatic silencer. He worked the key the security had given us, to the corporate levels, all the way up.

THE DOOR OPENED
onto gusts of hard cold air amid surrounds of vaulting roofs and antennae. The tethers of the Ul Qoman gasrooms, a few streets off the mirrored fronts of Ul Qoman businesses, the spires of temples in both cities, and there in the darkness and the wind ahead of us behind a thicket of safety rails the helipad. The dark vehicle waiting, its rotor turning very slowly, almost without noise. Gathered before it a group of men.

We could not hear much except the bass of the engine, the siren-infested putting down of unification riots all around us. The men by the helicopter did not hear us as we approached. We stayed close to cover. Ashil led me towards the aircraft, the gang who did not yet see us. There were four of them. Two were large and shaven-headed. They looked like ultranats: True Citizens on secret commission. They stood around a suited man I did not know and someone I could not see from the way he stood, in deep and animated conversation.

I heard nothing, but one of the men saw us. There was a commotion and they turned. From his cockpit the pilot of the helicopter swivelled the police-strength light he held. Just before it framed us the gathered men moved and I could see the last man, staring straight at me.

It was Mikhel Buric. The Social Democrat, the opposition, the other man on the Chamber of Commerce.

Blinded by the floodlight I felt Ashil grab me and pull me behind a thick iron ventilator pipe. There was a moment of dragged-out quiet. I waited for a shot but no one shot.

“Buric,” I said to Ashil.
“Buric
. I knew there was no way Syedr could do this.”

Buric was the contact man, the organiser. Who knew Mahalia’s
predilections, who had seen her on her first visit to Besźel, when she angered everyone at the conference with her undergraduate dissidence. Buric the operator. He knew her work and what she wanted, that abhistory, the comforts of paranoia, a cosseting by the man behind the curtain. In the Chamber of Commerce as he was, he was in a position to provide it. To find an outlet for what she stole at his behest, for the invented benefit of Orciny.

“It was all geared stuff that got stolen,” I said. “Sear and Core are investigating the artefacts. This is a science experiment.”

It was his informers—he like all Besź politicians had them—who had told Buric that investigations had occurred into Sear and Core, that we were chasing down the truth. Perhaps he thought we had understood more than we had, would be shocked at how little of this we could have predicted. It would not take so much for a man in his position to order the government provocateurs in the poor foolish unificationists to begin their work, to forestall Breach so he and his collaborators could get away.

“They’re armed?” Ashil glanced out and nodded.

“Mikhel Buric?” I shouted.
“Buric?
What are True Citizens doing with a liberal sellout like you? You getting good soldiers like Yorj killed? Bumping off students you think are getting too close to your bullshit?”

“Piss off, Borlú,” he said. He did not sound angry. “We’re all patriots. They know my record.” A noise joined the noise of the night. The helicopter’s engine, speeding up.

Ashil looked at me and stepped out into full view.

“Mikhel Buric,” he said, in his frightening voice. He kept his gun unwavering and walked behind it, as if it led him, towards the helicopter. “You’re answerable to Breach. Come with me.” I followed him. He glanced at the man beside Buric.

“Ian Croft, regional head of CorIntech,” Buric said to Ashil. He folded his arms. “A guest here. Address your remarks to me. And fuck yourself.” The True Citizens had their own pistols up. Buric moved towards the helicopter.

“Stay where you are,” Ashil said. “You will step
back,”
he shouted at the True Citizens. “I am
Breach.”

“So what?” Buric said. “I’ve spent
years
running this place. I’ve kept the unifs in line, I’ve been getting
business for Besźel
, I’ve been taking their damned gewgaws out from
under Ul Qoman noses
, and what do you do? You gutless Breach? You protect Ul Qoma.”

Ashil actually gaped a moment at that.

“He’s playing to them,” I whispered. “To the True Citizens.”

“Unifs have one thing right,” Buric said. “There’s only one city, and if it weren’t for the superstition and cowardice of the populace, kept in place by you goddamned
Breach
, we’d all know there was only one city. And
that city is called Besźel
. And you’re telling patriots to obey
you?
I warned them, I
warned
my comrades you might turn up, despite it being made clear you have no business here.”

“That’s why you leaked the footage of the van,” I said. “To keep Breach out of it, send the mess to the
militsya
instead.”

“Breach’s priorities are
not
Besźel’s,” Buric said. “Fuck the Breach.” He said it carefully. “Here we recognise only one authority, you pissing little neither-nor, and that is
Besźel.”

He indicated Croft to precede him into the helicopter. The True Citizens stared. They were not quite ready to fire on Ashil, to provoke Breach war—you could see a kind of blasphemy-drunkenness in their look at the intransigence they were already showing, disobeying Breach even this far—but they would not lower their guns either. If he shot they would shoot back, and there were two of them. High on their obedience to Buric they did not need to know anything about where their paymaster was going or why, only that he had charged them to cover his back while he did. They were fired with jingo bravery.

“I’m not Breach,” I said.

Buric turned to look at me. The True Citizens stared at me. I felt Ashil’s hesitation. He kept his weapon up.

“I’m not Breach.” I breathed deep. “I am Inspector Tyador Borlú. Besźel Extreme Crimes Squad. I’m not here for Breach, Buric. I represent the Besźel
policzai
, to enforce Besź law. Because you broke it.

“Smuggling’s not my department; take what you want. I’m not a political man—I don’t care if you mess with Ul Qoma. I’m here because you’re a murderer.

“Mahalia wasn’t Ul Qoman, nor an enemy of Besźel, and if she seemed to be, it was only because she believed the crap
you
told her, so you could sell what she supplied you, for this
foreigner’s
R and D. Doing it for Besźel, my arse: you’re just a fence for foreign bucks.”

The True Citizens looked uneasy.

“But she realised she’d been lied to. That she wasn’t righting antique wrongs or learning any hidden truth. That you’d made her a thief. You sent Yorjavic over to get rid of her. That makes it an Ul Qoman crime, so even with the links we will find between you and him, nothing I can do. But that’s not the end of it. When you heard Yolanda was hiding, you thought Mahalia’d told her something. Couldn’t risk her talking.

“You were smart to get Yorj to take her out from his side of the checkpoint, keep Breach off your backs. But that makes his shot, and the order you gave for it, Besź. And that makes you mine.

“Minister Mikhel Buric, by the authority vested in me by the government and courts of the Commonwealth of Besźel, you are under arrest for Conspiracy to Murder Yolanda Rodriguez. You are coming with me.”

SECOND AFTER SECOND
of astonished silence. I stepped slowly forward, past Ashil, towards Mikhel Buric.

It would not last. The True Citizens mostly had not much more respect for we who they believed were the weak local police than for many other of the herdlike masses of Besźel. But those were ugly charges, in Besźel’s name, that did not sound like the politics for which they were signed up, or the reasons they might have been given for those killings, if they even knew about them. The two men looked at each other uncertainly.

Ashil moved. I breathed out. “Fuck damn,” Buric said. From his pocket he took his own small pistol and raised it and pointed it at me. I said, “Oh,” or something as I stumbled back. I heard a shot but it did not sound as I expected. Not explosive; it was a hard-breathed gust of breath, a rush. I remember thinking that and being surprised that I would notice such a thing as I died.

Buric leapt into instant backward scarecrow motion, his limbs
crazy and a rush of colour on his chest. I had not been shot; he had been shot. He threw his little weapon away as if deliberately. It was the silenced blast of Ashil’s pistol I had heard. Buric fell, his chest all blood.

Now, there,
that
was the sound of shots. Two, quickly, a third. Ashil fell. The True Citizens had fired on him.

“Stop, stop,” I screamed. “Hold your fucking fire!” I scrabbled crabwise back to him. Ashil was sprawled across the concrete, bleeding. He was growling in pain.

“You two are under fucking arrest,” I shouted. The True Citizens stared at each other, at me, at the unmoving dead Buric. This escort job had become suddenly violent and utterly confusing. You could see them glimpse the scale of the web that snagged them. One muttered to the other and they backed away, jogged towards the lift shaft.

“Stay where you are,” I shouted, but they ignored me as I knelt by wheezing Ashil. Croft still stood motionless by the helicopter. “Don’t you goddamn move,” I said, but the True Citizens pulled open the door to the roof and disappeared back down into Besźel.

“I’m alright, I’m alright,” Ashil gasped. I patted him to find his injuries. Below his clothes he was wearing some kind of armour. It had stopped what would have been the killing bullet, but he had been also hit below his shoulder and was bleeding and in pain. “You,” he managed to shout to Sear and Core’s man. “Stay. You may be protected in Besźel but you’re not
in
Besźel if I say you’re not. You’re in Breach.”

Croft leaned into the cockpit and said something to the pilot, who nodded and sped up the rotor.

“Are you finished?” Croft said.

“Get out. That vehicle’s grounded.” Even through pain-gritted teeth and having dropped his pistol, Ashil made his demand.

“I’m neither Besź nor Ul Qoman,” Croft said. He spoke in English, though he clearly understood us. “I’m neither interested in nor scared of you. I’m leaving. ‘Breach.’” He shook his head. “Freak show. You think anyone beyond these odd little cities cares about you?
They
may bankroll you and do what you say, ask no questions,
they may need to be scared of you, but no one else does.” He sat next to the pilot and strapped himself in. “Not that I think you could, but I strongly suggest you and your colleagues don’t try to stop this vehicle. ‘Grounded.’ What do you think would happen if you provoked my government? It’s funny enough the idea of either Besźel or Ul Qoma going to war against a real country. Let alone you, Breach.”

He closed the door. We did not try to get up for a while, Ashil and I. He lay there, me kneeling behind him, as the helicopter grew louder and the distended-looking thing eventually bobbed up as if dangled from string, pouring air down on us, ripping our clothes every way and buffeting Buric’s corpse. It tore away between the low towers of the two cities, in the airspace of Besźel and Ul Qoma, once again the only thing in the sky.

I watched it go. An invasion of Breach. Paratroopers landing in either city, storming the secret offices in their contested buildings. To attack Breach an invader would have to breach Besźel and Ul Qoma.

“Wounded avatar,” Ashil said into his radio. He gave our location. “Assist.”

“Coming,” the machine said.

He sat back against the wall. In the east the sky was beginning faintly to lighten. There were still noises of violence from below, but fewer and ebbing. There were more sirens, Besź and Ul Qoman, as the
policzai
and
militsya
reclaimed their own streets, as Breach withdrew where it could. There would be a day more of lockdown to clear last nests of unifs, to return to normalcy, to corral the lost refugees back to the camps, but we were past the worst of it. I watched the dawn-lit clouds begin. I checked Buric’s body, but he carried nothing on him.