In preparing the manuscript for publication, I have, for that very reason, experienced fresh doubts about making it available. We live in a very volatile time and I would not want this book to be a catalyst for extremism. Nor, I would hope, will readers jump to unsupportable conclusions having read it. I know that many people are clutching at whatever they can to make sense of the odd events that, on certain days, seem destined to overwhelm all of us. My sincere hope is that this book will not push anyone over the edge.
As to the current whereabouts of Duncan and Janice, I must fear the worst, although rumors,2 as rumors will, continue to flourish in the current atmosphere of paranoia and fear.
And yet, despite the strife and violence chronicled and presaged by this volume, the enduring image I have of Janice and Duncan is a peaceful one. It is, oddly enough, of Janice in that room in the Spore, calmly typing away—from the bar folks’ perspective, in a sliver of green light between the doorway and the corridor as once they saw Duncan, but farther and farther away, across green glass and green grass, and fading, fading as the light fails once more.
“When they give you things, ask yourself why. When you’re grateful to them for giving you the things you should have anyway, ask yourself why.”
—Lady in Blue, rebel broadcast
MONDAY
Interrogator: What did you see then?
Finch: Nothing. I couldn’t see anything.
I: Wrong answer.
[howls and screams and sobbing]
I: Had you ever met the Lady in Blue before?
F: No, but I’d heard her before.
I: Heard her where?
F: On the fucking radio station, that’s where.
[garbled comment, not picked up]
F: It’s her voice. Coming up from the underground. People say.
I: So what did you see, Finch?
F: Just the stars. Stars. It was night.
I: I can ask you this same question for hours, Finch.
F: You wanted me to say I saw her. I said I saw her! I said it, damn you.
I: There is no Lady in Blue. She’s just a propaganda myth from the rebels.
F: I saw her. On the hill. Under the stars.
I: What did this apparition say to you, Finch? What did this vision say?
1
Finch, at the apartment door, breathing heavy from five flights of stairs, taken fast. The message that’d brought him from the station was already dying in his hand. Red smear on a limp circle of green fungal paper that had minutes before squirmed clammy. Now he had only the door to pass through, marked with the gray caps’ symbol.
239 Manzikert Avenue, apartment 525.
An act of will, crossing that divide. Always. Reached for his gun, then changed his mind. Some days were worse than others.
A sudden flash of his partner, Wyte, telling him he was compromised, him replying, “I don’t have an opinion on that.” Written on a wall at a crime scene: Everyone’s a collaborator. Everyone’s a rebel. The truth in the weight of each.
The doorknob cold but grainy. The left side rough with light green fungus.
Sweating under his jacket, through his shirt. Boots heavy on his feet.
Always a point of no return, and yet he kept returning.
I am not a detective. I am not a detective.
* * *
Inside, a tall, pale man dressed in black stood halfway down the hall, staring into a doorway. Beyond him, a dark room. A worn bed. White sheets dull in the shadow. Didn’t look like anyone had slept there in months. Dusty floor. Even before he’d started seeing Sintra, his place hadn’t looked this bad.
The Partial turned and saw Finch. “Nothing in that room, Finch. It’s all in here.” He pointed into the doorway. Light shone out, caught the dark glitter of the Partial’s skin where tiny fruiting bodies had taken hold. Uncanny left eye in a gaunt face. Always twitching. Moving at odd angles. Pupil a glimmer of blue light at the bottom of a dark well. Fungal.
“Who are you?” Finch asked.
The Partial frowned. “I’m—”
Finch brushed by the man without listening, got pleasure out of the push of his shoulder into the Partial’s chest. The Partial, smelling like sweet rotting meat, walked in behind him.
Everything was golden, calm, unknowable.
Then Finch’s eyes adjusted to the light from the large window and he saw: living room, kitchen. A sofa. Two wooden chairs. A small table, an empty vase with a rose design. Two bodies lying on the pull rug next to the sofa. One man, one gray cap without legs.
Finch’s boss, Heretic, stood framed by the window. Wearing his familiar gray robes and gray hat. Finch had never learned the creature’s real name. The series of clicks and whistles sounded like “heclereticalic” so Finch called him “Heretic.” Highly unusual to see Heretic during the day.
“Finch,” Heretic said. “Where’s Wyte?” The wetness of its moist glottal attempt at speech made most humans uncomfortable. Finch tried hard to pretend the ends of all the words were there. A skill hard learned.
“Wyte couldn’t come. He’s busy.”
Heretic stared at Finch. A question in his eyes. Finch looked to the side. Away from the liquid green pupils and yellow where there should be white. Wyte had been sick off and on for a long time. Finch knew from what, but didn’t want to. Didn’t want to get into it with Heretic.
“What’s the situation?” Finch asked.
Heretic smiled: rows and rows of needle lines set into a face a little like a squished-in shark’s snout. Finch couldn’t tell if the lines were gills or teeth, but they seemed to flutter and breathe a little. Wyte said he’d seen tiny creatures in there, once. Each time, a new nightmare. Another encounter to haunt Finch’s sleep.
“Two dead bodies,” Heretic said.
“Two bodies?”
“One and a half, technically,” the Partial said, from behind Finch. Heretic laughed. A sound like dogs being strangled.
“Did the victims live in the apartment?” Finch asked, knowing the answer already.
“No,” the Partial said. “They didn’t.”
Finch turned briefly toward the Partial, then back to Heretic.
Heretic stared at the Partial and he shut up, began to creep around the living room taking pictures with his eye.
“No one lived here,” Heretic said. “According to our records no one has lived here for over a year.”
“Interesting,” Finch said. Didn’t interest him. Nothing interested him. It bothered him. Especially that the Partial felt comfortable enough to answer a question meant for Heretic.
The curtains had faded from the sun. Tears in the sofa like knife wounds. The vase looked like someone had started a small fire inside it. Stage props for two deaths.
Was it significant that the window was open? For some reason he didn’t want to ask if one of them had opened it. Fresh air, with just a hint of the salt smell from the bay.
“Who reported this?” Finch asked.
“An energy surge came from this location,” Heretic said. “We felt it. Then spore cameras confirmed it.”
Energy surge? What kind of energy?
Finch tried to imagine the rows and rows of living receivers underground, miles of them if rumor held true. Trying to process trillions of images from all over the city. How could they possibly keep up? The hope of every citizen.