Debris

17.

Devich said to me, "It will be nothing like the last one."

"I don't see why I have to go anywhere. Whether or not it's like the last one." At least Devich wasn't insisting on dressing up again. I supposed I should be grateful for small blessings.

Devich, at my shoulder and reflected in the mirror, kissed the curve of my jaw. "Because you are my saviour. And news of the debris incident is running over Movoc like fire through dry grass. You are at the centre of that, although you don't seem to be able to understand that without outside prompting. These people want to meet you, these people want to thank you."

"You want to show me around to them, you mean. Your saviour." I didn't fancy another night pinned under glass.

"Can I help it that I happen to have a beautiful saviour on my arm?"

"Don't call me that, Devich."

"But it's the truth."

I frowned at him through the glass, but already knew I would give in. The smug smile on his face told me he knew it too.

I owed Devich. I felt it in my core. Never mind his saviour rambling – that was my duty. When Barbarian and Comedian had thrown me from my home, I should have searched for him. I should have told him I was not hurt. And memories of his limp body in my arms evoked so much guilt. Because if he hadn't come to find me, and if I hadn't saved him just in time, he could have died in that attack like his assistant had, and never known what had happened to me. That I had only abandoned him because I had no choice. Going along with another of his social gatherings would have to do for now.

"Fine," I acquiesced with a scowl. "We're not staying long, though. And I'm not changing clothes."

"Of course!" Devich squeezed my shoulders and turned from the mirror. "This night is about you."

I really wished it wasn't.

"Let's hurry, then." Devich was already in his coat, scarf and gloves. He held out my jacket and waved it at me.

"Why the rush?" It was strange, that Devich who planned and cultivated me last time was happy for me to leave as I was. I still wore the clothes from an Olday of collecting. While the morning had quickly given us more than enough debris to fill our quota, so the clothes weren't dirty or sweat stained, they were functional, not fashionable. Worn for searching the streets of Movocunder-Keeper, for hours of walking.

"Earlier we get there, earlier we can leave. Isn't that what you want?"

I shrugged, and allowed him to fit the jacket over my shoulders. What did I care how I looked for these mysterious friends? That was Devich's concern.

We found a landau so quickly I suspected it had been waiting. Maybe Devich had known I would give into him. I was making a habit of it. Again, we rolled into the centre of the city. But this time we passed the grand manors and continued deeper, to the tightness of buildings at the edge of the bridge.

"Where is this gathering?" I asked, voice frosting the coach window.

"We'll be there soon."

I scowled at Devich lounging in the seat opposite. His shoulder was out of its bandage, although still stiff. "Not an answer."

He laughed. "You wouldn't know the place, Tanyana. So it's not going to make any difference."

Finally, the coach drew to a halt in a dark alley. I stepped out onto cold and slippery stones, but refused Devich's hand. Buildings towered over us like a forest of dull windows and gargoyle heads. I shivered. These buildings were not constructed of cement and bricks. Sandstone and slate, old handprints and chiselled initials. Older than the revolution, these were. Like Proud Sunlight yet darker, somehow. Where my university had the Keeper inscribed into its every corner, this place seemed to prefer the Other. The grotesque instead of the beautiful.

"What is this place?" I whispered to the dark night. Lamps shone at the end of the alley, but no light disturbed the ancient stone.

Devich swung himself up to the driver and said something I couldn't hear into the man's ear. The driver nodded, and directed the coach to the end of the alleyway. There, he lowered the coach to the street, and relocated to the cabin itself. Waiting again.

"Excited?" Devich hooked his elbow gingerly into my arm. Fearing for his shoulder, I didn't pull away.

"Should I be?"

With a grin, Devich led me to the shadow of a wide awning. He knocked with a large, oval metallic knocker. I looked up as the sound echoed. More gargoyles hunched over the door, stone eyes watching me. The door opened, light burst from the room beyond like a prisoner desperate to run.

I recognised the servant in the doorway, though he was not wearing gold this time. He nodded to Devich and me, and stepped back to let us through.

"Devich?" I hissed as we marched down a long corridor. "What's going on?"

We entered a warm room, redolent of smoke. Even though the lights brightening the walls were obviously pion-generated, a fire had been lit in an ornate fireplace of dark stone, mounted by more gargoyles. Candlelight danced above wooden tabletops, with iron embellishments on the corners and long benches. The room was full of faces I knew. Old men, all of them. The veche inspector. The debris enthusiasts. Not dressed this time in their finest suits, but in strange, dark cloaks tied at the waists. The whole setting made me shiver. There was something so wrong about the mixture of pion-generated light and flame, about these ancient, wealthy men dressed so strangely.

And I didn't want to be left in the middle of it.

"My dear." Vladir Sporinov extricated himself from the small throng and approached me, hands outstretched. "You made it here. We are so glad."

I forced myself to smile at their soft, general murmur of approval.

"See." Devich slipped his arm from mine with a level of dexterity he had not been able to show until now, and nudged me a few steps forward.

"And I heard you saved our young Devich here."

A round of applause broke out. The circle was tightening, the faces menacing in their closeness.

"Yes," I answered, suddenly hot beneath clothing and uniform.

"Good choice. A wonderful young man to, ah, save."

I blushed in the wake of indulgent laughter.

Then it started up again. The questioning. Was it tiring, such constant collecting? How did I coat myself in silver like that? Where did I find the strength to lift a man from the rubble and carry him to safety?

I deflected as best I could, answered the easy ones, and wondered why they were all here again, questioning me. How did they know so many details? Had Devich told them everything he could remember, or had they been there too, watching, like the Other-blasted puppet men had done? Where had Devich gone? He'd evaporated into the sea of dim light and weathered faces.

One old man wrapped a hand around my upper arm. "Did it hurt?" he whispered, voice grating. "When the debris picked you up. When it knocked you back. Did it hurt?" He leaned forward, mouth slightly open, as though he would suck in my answer like air.

"Y-yes," I floundered. Had I told Devich about that? Had he seen it, in his half-sighted pion-binder way? I couldn't remember, I just didn't know.

"But your suit helped you, did it?"

My suit? It had, yes, and it had done so almost on its own. How could he know that, this old binder?

"Came to the rescue? Worked well?"

Vladir unwrapped the old man from my arm, one strong, resisting finger at a time. "Come now, Kadjat, not too hard. Let's be nice to the dear collector while we can."

Kadjat hesitated for a moment, before breaking into a grin. "Oh, yes."

I found myself shivering as Vladir led him away, flushing hot and cold in the close room. More eyes, so close, more hands. Someone stroked the suit around my neck. I flinched away, and the chuckling rose again.

"Did you feel strong?"

"Did it feel good?"

"What did it feel like, that suit all over you? Warm? Nice? Or did it hurt?"

"Did it hurt?"

"Did it hurt?"

"Why do you care?" Finally, I shouted at them, hearing terror in my voice I couldn't control. These ancient faces, this taste for pain, was far more frightening than planes of debris that could throw a building from its foundations. This was twisted; this was cruel.

It reminded me of the puppet men.

"We're just interested in your progress, dear girl." One of the old men, tall and thin, most of his body hidden in his strange clothes, stepped out of their circle. "We have a lot invested in you."

"A lot?" I sharpened my gaze on him. "You're all part of this, aren't you? You and the puppet men." They laughed at that. My pulse quickened, I could feel its pressure in my head. "Worked well? Other damn you! You don't need me to tell you about the suit, you know about the suit. Why are you doing this? What is going on?"

"Now, now." The veche inspector, again. His face creased like worn leather as he smiled an impish smile. The same look he had given me at Grandeur's construction site, on the day of her fall. "You should be proud, little girl. It was an honour to be chosen. To secure Varsnia's future."

I could feel the suit in my veins, feel it surge hot like my anger. As I tightened my hands into fists I was certain the symbols would be spinning faster, glowing stronger, ready to work with me, ready to show these men how powerful I was, how wrong they were, how little I cared for their honour. Varsnia could go to all the Other's own hells.

"Was it you?" I asked between gritted teeth. "You had no other reason to be there. Did you knock me from Grandeur? Did you set this up from the beginning?"

Then Devich reappeared. He stepped out of shadow, face blank, closed, guarded.

"Time?" He reached for my hand and I snatched it away.

"Answer me!" I shouted at the old men, turning to face them all, and found Vladir right behind my shoulder.

"Going already?" His smile was reasonable, a terrible mask surrounded by hunger.

"No! Answer me, I deserve answers."

Devich reached for me again, this time clamping his hand around my elbow and holding harder than I could have believed. "The debris collector is tired." His voice was as empty as his face. "She has had another long day."

"I'm sure."

Silence settled over the gathering. It set my skin prickling.

"Well, you've been entertaining," Vladir told me. "I think we'll miss you when you go."

We'll miss you. I'll miss you.

If the old men were behind this, if they were pulling puppet strings or even watching just for the fun of it that meant Devich… Devich who had convinced me to meet with them both times. Devich who always just happened to appear at the worst possible moment. Devich who seemed to know details I couldn't remember telling him. Who suited me, who listened to me, who had supported me… was a lie. Everything he was, everything he had said.

If these old men were behind everything, then so was Devich.

I let Devich help me into the waiting coach in a daze. We sat in silence as it glided into the night. But not for long. "You're one of them, aren't you?" I turned to him, still too shaken to shout, to rail, like I knew I should. Like I wanted to. "What are you doing to me? Did you know the truth all along?" I swallowed bile. The thought that everything – that the love he had shown me, that the love I had shared with him – was all a lie made me sick to my stomach. "Was this all a game? Did you plan it?"

His blank expression did nothing to ease the tension clutching at my voice. "Don't be angry with me."

"How dare you! Did you get yourself hurt just so I would rescue you? I cared about you. You knew I did."

"I don't want you to be angry with me. Not now."

"Why, Devich? What happens now?"

The coach jolted to a sudden stop and I was thrown against the seat opposite. Devich, less agile, let out a weak-dog cry as he slammed into the door and slid to the coach floor. Face bloodless, he gripped his injured shoulder, gasping for air.

"Are you-?" I stopped myself. Did it matter if he was hurt? Instead, I pushed myself from the seat, focusing at the same time on the suit that had sprung to cover my legs and arms. Gradually, it retreated.

"What happened?" Wincing, Devich hauled himself from the floor. He leaned back in the seat, hand gripping his shoulder so hard his knuckles were white.

I glared at him. "That's what I want to know." I forced open the door on my side, gripped the rails, and swung myself up beside the driver. "What's going-" But I saw it. The driver's hands wove pointless patterns in the air, tugging at pions that wouldn't respond. Because the street was flooded with debris. It rolled down the stones in waves, like the Tear had burst its long-held banks and was flushing darkness into the city.

"Other," I whispered.

"It won't work!" The driver, panicked, clutched at the sky. "They won't listen."

I glanced at my suit, cool, slow, dim. No emergency. So what was this? "It won't. There's too much debris."

The driver flinched. He too, it seemed, knew of the accident at Devich's building.

Accident? I shook my head. Was this just another test? Another trial set up by Devich and the veche and their puppet men? But how did they set the debris off? Debris wasn't pions, it couldn't be controlled. At least, not that I knew. And maybe there had been a way, in that history Yicor so lamented. Perhaps it had survived, as twisted and undermined as the language of the symbols.

"Don't worry, it's not going to kill us." I wanted to reassure him, but what could I do to explain the difference? No planes were attacking, no chunks of Movoc-under-Keeper dropping out of the sky to kill us. This was sludge, passive, horrible. But where had it come from? And why now?

"Can you do something?" the driver asked.

I considered standing in the middle of all that, sweeping it back with suit spread wide. I didn't want it touching me. Not again. "There's too much, I don't think I can."

I swung back down into the cabin. Devich, still holding his shoulder, was hitched up against the opposite door, breathing long, controlled breaths. "Debris," I told him. "Too much of it. Interfering with the driver. But then, I don't need to tell you that."

He just stared at me, face blank.

Then the landau lurched forward and I was flung outside again, my hold on the rails the only thing keeping me from falling into a sea of debris. I clambered back to the driver's seat.

"It's moving!" Sweat shone on his face from flickering lamplight as he fought for control of his pions. "Slowly, but it's coming back."

Sure enough, the tide was receding. But something in that disturbed me more than the debris had in the first place. "Get us going as soon as you can, as fast as you can."

"I will." The driver sucked at his bottom lip in his concentration.

Debris brought us to a halt three times before the coach could take me home. Once, when it had wrapped itself tightly around a lamp and throbbed, like a terrible insect sucking the light away. Then debris dripped from the window of a high apartment, onto the heads of a crowd that had gathered in the street, oblivious of what they were showering in, knowing only that the lights wouldn't stay on, the sewage had backed up, and the heating had died.

Each time the landau sagged to a halt and the driver struggled to get it moving again I looked to my suit, but it remained calm, quiet. No maps, no warning lights. No emergency.

I watched Devich as we finally made it home; still he showed no emotion.

"Goodbye," I said, trying to set my voice as hard as I felt. "I won't see you again."

Devich shook his head, he opened his mouth as though to speak, and for a moment I thought I saw something spark in his eyes, some terrible desolation. Then his face clouded over. "No, you won't."

"Why did you do this?" The words rushed from me, unbidden and foolish. "What are you trying to do to me?"

He shook his head. "You know I won't answer you."

"Bastard. Other take you."

He released a great breath and looked away. "I'm sure he will."

I yanked the handle down and pushed the door open with my foot. As I teetered between paving stones and coach floor, I looked back at him. "Then at least tell me this." I waited for him to look up again. "Why me?"

A shudder ran through him. He winced, touched a hand to his shoulder, but held my gaze. "Just bad luck, Tanyana. Bad luck."

I leapt from the coach and slammed the door on his Other-forsaken face. As I watched it lurch away, with debris tugging beneath it, my suit remained still. Quiet.

I did not sleep that night. Debris raged through the streets in a wild stampede, sending Movoc into chaos, and I watched from the top of the stairs. Half-repaired buildings fell. Lights stuttered on and off in a violent dance across the city. The enforcers were out, carrying gas lanterns, emptying buildings one by one. They wouldn't wait for a repeat of the last disaster.

Where were they taking everyone? Where could be safe, with waves of debris rolling through the streets? I couldn't wait to find out. Valya wouldn't listen to my entreaties as I tried to convince her to join the evacuation.

"Nowhere to run," she told me, her expression haunted.

Nowhere but the sublevel, and my collecting team. So that was where I went. Kichlan and Lad were already there, though I had no idea how early the bell was. Their anxious faces greeted me. I lifted a hand and said, "Good morning." What else could I say?

"Not a good day," Lad said with perfect seriousness. "Not a good day."

Watching his sweat-slicked face, I wondered what the voices were telling him. And how could I ask him without Kichlan knowing?

"Have you seen it out there?" Mizra burst into the room, cradling debris in great scoops on his hands.

"That's a good idea." I stood, extended my suit and offered to take some from him. "I should have thought to do that."

Mizra hesitated, his energy and my words battling with the cold distance he was trying so hard to maintain between us. Eventually, he allowed me to pinch a large chunk that had started to float from his pile.

Kichlan retrieved empty jars. As we contained Mizra's collection, Uzdal arrived with more debris. Lad, arms wrapped around his chest, sat on the couch and stared darkly into an empty corner.

"Something's going on." Sofia and Natasha arrived together, balancing debris between them. "Did you see all the debris?" Sofia started decanting.

"Walked through it." I kept an eye on Lad as I answered her. He had started to rock, slowly back and forth.

"You need to look again."

Lad could not be convinced to climb the stairs so we left him huddling into himself. I felt it before we even reached street level. A tightness in the air, a constriction. And heat. Waves of it like a summer day funnelled down the stairs, whooshing with noise and pressure.

Outside was dark. Clouds hovered over Movoc in a swirling mass that had nothing to do with rain. Lights flashed on and off around us. Something rattled against a door down the street and water gushed in a torrent from beneath it. Someone screamed in the distance, over and over like an ineffectual dog's bark.

"What is this?" Uzdal murmured.

I lifted my wrist, stared at the suit. It was dull, spinning slowly. No lights, no map, no call.

"Can't be right."

"Maybe it's the technicians' laboratory?" Natasha ventured. "Maybe they can't call us because it collapsed and that's where they normally do it from?"

Did we really need to be called? I glanced between the faces of my team members and understood their fear. But why were we standing here waiting to be told what should have been so obvious, what should have been so natural?

I had thought about that a lot, as I sat at the top of my stairs and kept my dormant wrist heavy on my knees. Why did we need to be called, to be told what debris to follow, what emergencies to attend? Because that was all we ever knew, and our tools to do otherwise, the things that could have made us powerful, had been taken away. Our language, our rituals, our history. On our wrists we had – at the very least – a map, a way to know where we needed to go, what we needed to do. If we could read it on our own, read it properly, who knew what we might discover? So we had been told we were useless in this bright new world, useless and dirty and not particularly smart. How often did you need to be told something to believe it?

But they were wrong, the veche and the technicians who seemed happy to hold us down. We could be so much more.

At a juncture between two buildings, debris was growing. Like a fungus, a body, it bulged out of bricks and cement. One tendril snaked over the cracked footpath to wrap around the base of a nearby lamp. Light flickered fitfully against the glass like a terrified insect.

An explosion rocked the street. As one, we crouched, hands over heads. Fire leapt from the window of an apartment three blocks away. The same screaming continued.

"We shouldn't be here. Everyone was leaving, as I walked here," Sofia rattled off words as she crouched. "Enforcers were leading them all away. To the Tear. Boats on the Tear. Other, we need to get away."

Lad, panting, crashed into Uzdal's back as he ran from the stairwell. "Bro!" he screamed into the preternatural silence. "What happened, bro?" Clapping eyes on Kichlan he launched himself onto his brother and wrapped his arms around Kichlan's waist. Great tears ran over his cheeks. He gasped in hitching, sobbing breaths.

Kichlan, bent over backwards and struggling for breaths of his own, patted Lad's shoulder awkwardly. "Calm… fine…" he laboured to be heard.

"We go now, bro. Bro, go downstairs. Stay there, shut the door. Wait. Can we do that? Can we do that?"

Fear for everything.

A terrible premonition settled over me, pricking my scalp with a breath of ice. I wasn't going to wait to be told what to do, no matter how low I had supposedly fallen. Even in this bright world debris collectors could be strong. Especially in this bright world, that could create so much, but understood so little.

"Lad." I stepped toward him, shook off Sofia as she scrabbled to hold me back. Mizra and Uzdal watched me like a snake, or an untrustworthy dog. "Lad." I touched his shoulder, drew his gaze and loosened his grip on his brother. "What is it, Lad? What have you heard?"

For a moment he stared at me, blank. Then Lad said, "You know, Tan. I know you do."

"Know what?" Mizra asked, voice high and cracked.

Footsteps. We turned and watched as a man bolted down the empty street. He ran in silence, the only sound his rasping breath and the beating of his feet. They were bare, I realised with horrible curiosity, skin smacking the stones.

"Other's balls," Uzdal breathed.

"Know what?" his brother croaked again.

"Why don't you tell us?" I tried to soothe Lad. The muscles in his forearm shook beneath my hand. "For the others."

Lad released his brother and straightened. "Bad things," he whispered. "He said there would be bad things."

"Lad-" Kichlan started. But his brother pointed at me, and if anything grew paler.

"They are real!" he screamed into the empty street. "Tan hears them too!"

I could truly lose the team, in this moment, if I wasn't careful. I could become another Lad to them, one they weren't too interested in protecting.

"I can hear the voices too," I said, softly. "Because they are real."

Lad nodded, his face a mixture painful to watch. Desperate fear and desperate hope, added to a childish excitement.

"This is what I tried to tell you, Kichlan." I turned to him, not letting the mouths around me speak, battering against arguments and hoping I could wear them all down. "What I meant. Lad's voices are real, he's not the first to hear them and he will not be the last. And I have heard them too."

"Are they speaking to you now?" Sofia asked, tone condescending.

I turned on her. "No. I cannot hear them all the time, only-" when I was wearing my suit. It hit home with a force that made my head ring.

"Only when?" She blinked, face falsely patient and lips pursed.

"Lad can hear them all the time." I ignored her. "That's what makes him so special, so good at what he does. He follows the voices when we use only our eyes. And that's why he knows something is going wrong."

"Follows the voices?" Mizra was leaning forward, his expression animated by morbid curiosity. "How does that help him collect?"

"The voices are the debris." I looked at Kichlan as I said this. "And that is why some things should not be changed."

His face was blank, a badly painted mask.

"That's ridiculous," Sofia snapped.

In the distance, another explosion sent flames into the sky. Heating units overloading? Or cooking benches, perhaps. This was the greatest fear of a nine point circle society. This was debris overrunning the city, turning all its complicated systems into chaos, its life into death. What would happen if it was left unchecked?

Kichlan's mask didn't matter. Sofia's acid or Mizra's panic, both were irrelevant.

"Lad." I held his hands in mine, drew his focus. "Do you know what's happening?"

Lad shook his head. "He says this is the end. He says we can't go backwards."

The Keeper. The debris. I didn't understand it, but I had heard it with my own ears, seen it limp in my own hands. The Keeper, the debris. They were the same thing and they were talking to Lad.

Fear for everything.

I shivered. "Where is he, Lad? Do you know?"

Lad nodded.

"Take me there."

"Stop this!" Sofia lunged for Lad's hands. "Where are you going? We haven't been called anywhere!"

But Lad jerked away from her, and still holding my hands nearly lifted me from the ground. "No!" he screamed at Sofia and she stumbled away in shock. "No! Tan believes me, Tan is my friend. It's true. Never lied!"

Sofia fell hard against the stones and this, at least, dragged Kichlan from his distraction.

"Lad." He didn't shout, but his tone cut through the building tears and anger blotching his brother's face. "Don't shout at Sofia and put Tanyana down."

I found the flagstones again gratefully.

"Say sorry to Sofia."

"Bro, I didn't lie! Not ever."

"Say sorry to Sofia."

A hiccup, and a squeeze of my hands so painful I was certain I heard something snap. Lad turned his head to Sofia but tucked his chin in low, and couldn't meet her eyes. "Sorry, Sofia. That I hurt you."

Sofia said, "That- that's okay, Lad." Uzdal helped Sofia stand. She ran a hand over a large wet patch that went down the back of her dress. I realised the stones were damp. It was on everything, buildings, road, skin. Condensation? So much heat from so much debris.

"That's better. Now-" Kichlan worked his fingers around Lad's and gradually pried up his grip "-will you take us there, Lad? Will you take us to him?"

"But Kichlan, we-" Sofia tried again.

"Don't need to be called." Kichlan straightened, firmed his mouth into a thin line. "It is all around us, obvious that this is an emergency. And we have a duty."

My stomach quivered in triumph. Lad was less optimistic. "Believe me, bro? I didn't lie. Not ever."

"I know, Lad." Kichlan glanced at me. His eyes seemed so open, so full of regret, of gratitude and suspicion, it was overwhelming. "Can you show us the way?"

Lad nodded, grinned wide.

"Then we'd better hurry. Before this gets any worse."

Lad set off at his great pace. I hurried to stay close, with Kichlan at my side. I didn't see the hesitation, nor the fearful looks the rest must have exchanged, but at least the rest of the team followed. Although hunched in a group and well behind.

We headed for the Tear.