A slightly unreal aspect to it. Watching it from afar. The Spit so tiny. Each boat a sliver. A toothpick. Rocking on a vast sea. The tyranny of distance. A few boats had become unmoored and were drifting across the bay. Aimless. Half on fire. Were Stark and Bosun still on the Spit? Desperately moving from boat to boat. Making for shore. Finch didn’t think so.
Wondered if Wyte was watching somewhere or still dealing with his condition.
The sky between the towers had become darker, shot through with shades of amber. In the backdrop: a flock of strange birds and the silhouette of an island that shouldn’t exist.
The people around him were talking about the green light.
“Getting rid of that nest of spies. Should’ve done it a long time ago.”
“No friends of Ambergris. No friends at all.”
“But what’s next, then? Where does it stop?”
Finch looked over at the HFZ. Violent strands of strobing orange-red fungal mist rose into the sky. Like an infection running rampant. Remembered the hill he had stood atop with the Lady in Blue. The image came back with a vividness that took over his vision for a moment. A roiling mass of particles. Discharging light until a steady humming glow suffused the city in a kind of dawn. There came in reply from the city a hundredfold bestial roar.
“Why do they ever do anything?”
“They’re all dead by now. Or dying.”
Could the Lady in Blue be both right and wrong? Could Duncan Shriek be alive but the towers have some other purpose altogether? Under that sharp blue sky, he didn’t know the answer. What if he was bait? A distraction? Once again, the disconnect hurt him. Between what she’d shown him and Ambergris as he knew it. An ethereal beauty that no longer lives here. A dream to believe or deny. A vision as different for him as it was for Wyte or Rathven.
“The city fighting itself. Pointless now…”
The Photographer came up next to him. Binoculars hung from his neck. He carried a small pouch by the drawstring. “Breathtaking, isn’t it?”
“No,” Finch said. “No, it’s not. It’s fucking awful.”
The Photographer said, “Just look at the way the water reacts. Look at the patterns.” Almost giddy.
An orange eruption of flames over the Spit. Accompanied by spirals of black smoke. Another blast. Another. The building didn’t shake as much now. As if used to it. Or as if Finch were.
“When did it start?”
“Twenty minutes ago? Suddenly most of the workers climbed down from the top of the towers. They’re at the base now, still constructing something.”
A sudden spark of hope hit him hard. Hadn’t realized he still had the capacity for it. “So they aren’t finished yet.”
“Almost. And so is the Spit.”
Finch stared sharply at the Photographer. But there was no hint of triumph in him.
“It’s a strong warning,” the Photographer said. “They’re clearing the way for something.”
“I wonder what they’ll do when they’ve finished off the Spit,” Finch said, almost to himself.
The Photographer pointed to the east. “What’s missing?”
The other camp dome was gone. Had left behind only a kind of ghostly white outline, broken by mottled gray. With that lack, the greens of the Religious Quarter burned even stronger in the sunlight. And through that entanglement lay the distant echo, the distant shadows, of cupolas and minarets. Like a dream. Like a trap. Was Sintra watching from there even now?
“Fuck.”
A new phase of the Rising.
The crowd had begun to realize the roof might be dangerous. Thinned out. Just a few left. A woman in her fifties dressed in a bathrobe, arms wrapped tightly round herself. A couple in their twenties who had never, Finch realized, known anything but war or the Rising. Three old men in their best clothes, watching solemnly.
Better for most to hunker down in their apartments and not see the end coming. Or go out onto the streets in one last gasp of defiance. Against what?
The towers continued to pound the Spit. A white smoke had overtaken the black smoke. It looked now like the thick green spheres slamming into the Spit were dissolving into a cloud bank or a thick mist.
“I have something for you,” the Photographer said. Put the pouch in Finch’s hand. “It looks just like a memory bulb, but it isn’t. Keep it with you at all times.”
Finch stared at the pouch. Stared at the Photographer. Taken completely by surprise.
The Photographer said, “If you aren’t caught, you’ll need it for your mission. If you are caught, take a bite. Just one bite.”
“And then what?”
The Photographer’s face was as blank as the side of a wall. “There will be nothing left of you. Nothing they could trace. Nothing they could read.”
Nothing left. No pain. No concealment. Nothing.
“We’re changing, too, Finch. There’s no one under my command who hasn’t been altered in some way. The question is how much you change. Change too much and you’re no different from Shriek, no different from a gray cap. And then even if we win, we lose.”
Instinctively tried to give it back to the Photographer. The man stepped away, hands shoved in his jacket pockets.
“Don’t talk about this in your apartment,” the Photographer said, as if nothing had happened. “Don’t write down anything while in your apartment.”
“Why not?”
“The message last night left intruders. We can’t run interference on them without leaving a trail.”
Didn’t even bother to examine that, turn it over in his mind. Just one more intrusion in a life littered with them. No anger left to shed.
The Photographer continued: “Later today someone else will approach you with the rest of what you need.”
Assuming I’ll do it. But standing there, pouch in hand, it seemed impossible he wouldn’t do it. The only way out. To take control of the case before it imploded. Let it not be a case anymore. Let it be something else.
“I always thought it would be the madman out front,” Finch said.
A thin smile from the Photographer. “He’s just a madman.”
“Do I need to stay here?”
“Follow your usual routine. You’ll be followed. We’ll know where you are no matter where you go.”
After a pause: “Does Rathven know?”
“No,” the Photographer said.
“She’s not even your sister, is she?”
“Goodbye, Finch,” the Photographer said, and stuck out his hand. A stronger grip than he’d imagined, and more final.
He wasn’t coming back.
“What about your photographs?”
“You can have them if you want them. I don’t need them anymore.”
Then he was gone, walking down the stairs.
In the bay, the towers had fallen silent. There was just the heavy wall of black smoke from the southeast shore. Already he could hear the sound of angry voices from below. Could see, at intersections far below, crowds gathering.
Finch stood there awhile. Looking out over the city. Not sure whether to believe he held its future in his hands.
2
At the station, Blakely had barricaded the door with a couple of filing cabinets and an empty desk. Finch slid through a narrow gap that Gustat quickly closed behind him. Blakely had the smell of whiskey on his breath, masked by coffee. The flushed face of someone trying desperately to get drunk for a long time. Behind him, Gustat was fiddling with his radio, with no luck. No sign of Wyte. Or Albin or Skinner.