Finch stared back at her. Surprised by her sudden interest. Sometimes he shared details as an act of faith. But not on something that might pull her down with him.
“Down by the bay,” he said. Waited.
Sintra considered him as he’d considered her. Then changed the subject. “Is that why you were crying? Because of what the memory bulbs showed you?”
“Yes.” Propped himself up on an elbow. Shuddered, winced. An aftershock? Pressure in his head. Like his brain had outgrown his skull.
Sintra hugged him. Kissed him. He laid his head against her chest. She scared him sometimes. Both from her presence and her absence.
“Maybe it was a bad reaction to a drug,” she said. “Maybe you inhaled a bad spore.”
Back before the Rising, Sintra said she had been a doctor’s aide.
“Unlikely.” He and his fellow detectives got fed antidotes every few months. One perk of working for the gray caps. He stole extras for Sintra and Rathven. Sintra always took them with her. Never used them in the apartment.
“But it’s over now.”
“Yes. It’s over.”
He broke off the embrace. Feral was cleaning himself in a shaft of light by the window. Sidle was motionless on the windowsill. Drunk on the new sun.
Sintra wrapped the sheets around her and stood up, walked toward the window. Leaving Finch naked and exposed on the bed. Watching her as he put his underwear back on. Remembering the first time they had made love. How he’d checked the sheets, the pillows after she’d left. Wanting to breathe in more of the smell of her. How there had seemed to be no trace of their sex. Only his memory of the act. As if he had entered a ghost.
She turned to stare at him, framed by the window.
“I’ll come back in a night or two,” Sintra said. “That’s not long.”
“No, it’s not long,” Finch said. Thinking of the station. The other detectives. Work fatigue washed over him.
Memory holes and Wyte and Heretic and wanting to scream, to just start shooting.
“Maybe I’ll even spend the night. If I can,” she said. A curious look on her face, like she was testing him. She held her hands behind her back, one leg slightly bent, her body bronzed and perfect to him. “What do you think of that?”
Must have been obvious what he thought, because she couldn’t take the weight of his gaze. Looked away. Leaned down to pick up her knapsack, retrieve her clothes.
Not that he doubted she felt the same. He knew why she kept her distance. The same reason he did.
Except, it’s not working for me.
A long kiss. A final hug.
And she was gone.
All he could feel was the ache in his thighs. The damp spot on the front of his underwear, colder now than before.
* * *
Just once, Sintra left something behind. Finch keeps it hidden in a desk drawer. No reason for him to keep it. But no reason to get rid of it.
Written in longhand, Sintra’s concise notes are about mushrooms, which no longer come with any field guide. Ignorance can lead to death, even though since the Rising the gray caps have kept the streets clear. Personal curiosity? Something to do with the black market? Has she helped someone she shouldn’t help? Given aid to some group the gray caps are hunting down?
Does it make her a spy to have this information, or just pragmatic? Does it make him complicit to keep it, or just sentimental?
This incomplete list doesn’t include fungal weapons. These mushrooms all perform certain tasks or “work” within the city. If any have a secondary or tertiary purpose it is unknown at this time.
(1) Tiny white mushrooms almost like star-shaped flowers—found most often around surfaces where dead bodies have recently lain or where some conflict has occurred. Like the chalk outlines used by detectives pre-Rising to mark bodies? Warnings, or…?
(2) Green “spear” mushrooms with sharp, narrow hoods and long, slender stems—four or five will be found around a building targeted for transformation. Three days after the appearance of these green spear mushrooms, the building in question will begin to look moist or spongy, due to infiltration from below. By the fourth or fifth day, it will begin to crumble. By the sixth day, the building has blown away in the wind. On the seventh day, a new structure has usually blossomed, overnight. This new structure may take any of a number of forms, all fungal-based.
(3) Red “tree” mushrooms with huge caps and strong, thick “trunks” or stems—these can grow up to eighty feet high and are much more resistant to storms and high winds than other kinds of mushrooms. They appear to have a filtration system that gives them stability by letting air pass through millions of “pores.” In a sense, they float. An examination of distribution patterns from any height reveals that they have been “planted” in regular patterns forming rough “spokes” radiating out from the bay, interrupted only by the HFZ and the Religious Quarter. They regularly expel from their gills a smaller, purple mushroom with a strong euphoric effect and high levels of digestible protein.
(4) Purple “drug” mushrooms with ball caps and almost no stems—dispensed from the red “tree” mushrooms, these purple mushrooms are clearly meant to serve as “crowd control” by giving the people of the city sustenance and making them dependent. These mushrooms create a strong addiction by affecting the pleasure centers of the brain. They also create hallucinations intended to pacify, most drawn from happy memories.
Definitely her handwriting. She’s slipped more than one message under his door while he’s out. Tells himself: I’ll throw it away when I know more about her. But nine months have passed since he found the note. She hasn’t told him anything more than what he knew before.
Yet caution loses out when she walks through the door. Remembering how, on days when he’s expecting her and she’s late, the fear creeps aching into his muscles. Finds himself gulping air like water. Thick and heavy. Lost. Never lost.
2
After Sintra had left, Finch fed the cat, grabbed a quick bite, and cleaned off with a couple of pails of once-used bathwater. Fresh shirt, same pants, same jacket. Kicked Feral out to explore on his own while he went down the stairs to the courtyard, then the basement.
Rath’s pale, angular face peered out from behind the door. Evaluating him. Looking for something.
She let Finch in without a word. Through a hallway brightened by walls painted light green. Probably to conceal rot. Then into a larger area with a few chairs, her strange library to either side. Beyond, where Finch had never gone: the start of entropy. The bruises of gray and blue stains spread across the ceiling. Disappeared into the darkness of a tunnel.
“Nothing new, I see,” Finch said.
Rath laughed. “Not that you’d notice.”
Finch brushed by her to sit in an armchair on a blue throw rug. Rising above him, water-damaged paperbacks and hardcovers had been stacked unevenly on warped shelves. The shelves perched on stilts to fend off any sudden rise in the water level. The weighted smell of moisture seemed both fresh and claustrophobic.
“Coffee?” she asked. The usual.
Hesitated, said, “No. Tea, please.” Didn’t know why.
Rath disappeared into the tunnel. Did she have a kitchen back there? Maybe a bedroom. Maybe more books. A whole troupe of clowns. The thought made him smile.