The Golden City

26

Maya sat in the crowded waiting room of the Brick Lane medical clinic and glared at the wall clock. Her appointment had been scheduled for 11:00, but she had been kept waiting for almost forty minutes. Now she would have to hurry across the city to meet the train arriving at Euston Station.

It was annoying to be in an over-heated room filled with shrieking babies and old ladies pushing walkers. Like most Harlequins, she had always seen her body as an instrument for doing things. When she was sick or injured, she felt as if a disloyal employee had let her down.

A Bengali woman wearing a pink smock entered the room and checked a list of names. “Ms. Strand?”

“Right here…”

“We’re ready for you now. “

Maya followed the nurse down the central hallway and into an examination room. When five minutes passed and no one appeared, she took out the random number generator hanging from her neck. Odd means stay. Even means go.

Before she could press the button, there was a knock on the door, and Amita Kamani hurried in carrying a manila folder. The clinic physician looked flustered; a rebellious strand of black hair had broken free and was touching her forehead.

“Good morning, Ms. Strand. Sorry to keep you waiting. Any improvement in the leg?”

“No change.”

Maya had worn a skirt that afternoon so she could avoid the indignity of a hospital gown. Sitting on the edge of the examination table, she reached down and ripped off her bandage. The wound was still swollen and oozing blood, but she refused to show pain. It gave her some small satisfaction that Dr. Kamani looked concerned.

“I see. Yes. That’s somewhat disappointing.” The physician took some disinfectant and fresh bandages out of the cabinet. She pulled on latex gloves, sat down on a stool near the table and started to bandage the wound. “Any problems with the medicine?”

“It made me sick to my stomach.”

“Did you vomit?”

“A few times.”

“Any other problems? Dizziness? Fatigue?”

Maya shook her head. “I need some more antibiotics. That’s all.”

“You can pick up a refill on the way out. But we need to discuss certain issues.” Dr. Kamani applied one final length of medical tape and stood back up. Now that she was no longer sitting below Maya like a shoe-shine boy, she appeared to regain some confidence. “We still don’t know what’s wrong with your leg, but it’s clear that you should adopt a healthier lifestyle. You need to stop traveling and avoid stress.”

“That’s not possible. I have certain obligations.”

“We all have busy lives these days, but sometimes we have to listen to our bodies.” Dr. Kamani checked the folder. “What exactly is your profession?”

“That has nothing to do with my leg.”

“You need to talk to a specialist.”

“I’ve had enough of this.” Maya’s sword was hidden in the carrying case lying on the table. She picked it up and slung the strap over her shoulder. “You’re bloody useless.”

Dr. Kamani stood a little straighter. Her eyes widened and her nostrils flared as if she were about to smash a tennis ball back across the net. “And you’re pregnant, Ms. Strand.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Well, it’s true. I ordered a full range of tests, and that was one of them. The pregnancy is probably why you feel sick to your stomach. “

Crazy thoughts pushed through her mind. Maya wanted to be surrounded by enemies at that moment so that she could draw the sword and slash her way out of the room.

“When did you last have sexual intercourse, Ms. Strand?”

Maya shook her head.

“Do you know who the father is?”

She felt paralyzed, frozen within that moment of revelation, but her mouth moved and sounds came out. “Yes. But he’s gone away.”

“Of course there are alternatives if you want to terminate the pregnancy. I usually ask patients to think it over for twenty-four hours before they make an appointment.”

Dr. Kamani reached into the door rack and pulled out a pamphlet with the words It’s Your Choice on the cover. “This pamphlet explains the various options. Are there any other questions I can answer?”

“No.” Maya checked the time on her mobile phone. “Right now, I’m late for an appointment.” She slid off the examination table, brushed past Dr. Kamani and hurried out of the clinic.

Alice Chen and one of the nuns from the island were arriving in London, and Linden had told Maya to meet them. She found an unregistered taxi parked across the street and climbed into the back..

“Euston Station,” she told the driver. “I’ve got to be there in ten minutes.”

As the car jerked forward and headed down Brick Lane, the moment in the examination room returned to her with all its power. She was pregnant with a Traveler’s child. At that moment, it felt like being in a plane crash-an instant of comprehension followed by confusion and pain. What should she do? Could she tell anyone? She was angry and sad, happy and defiant before the car reached Whitechapel Road.

If this had happened to Mother Blessing, the Irish Harlequin would have demanded an abortion that afternoon. She would have removed this accident growing inside her-destroyed it like a tumor. The Harlequins’ power came from the simplicity of their lives, the single-minded ferocity of their obligation. The body was a weapon that had to be maintained.

By now, Maya was late for the train, but she followed the rules she had learned from her father. For Thorn, a place like Euston Station was an “Argus trap”-a high-intensity surveillance area named after the guardian character in Greek myth that had a hundred eyes. Euston was a particularly dangerous location because it was on the northern boundary of the congestion tax zone, so cameras took continual images of car license plates. University College London and the bones of Jeremy Bentham were only a few hundred yards away from this central point. If the dead philosopher stepped out of his glass case and sauntered down the street, he would have been a prisoner of the electronic Panopticon.

Maya got out of the taxi, walked down Euston Road and entered Friends House, the Quaker religious center. Standing in the ground floor reading room, she could make an initial evaluation of the station. The front entrance had over a dozen cameras pointed at the bus area and the war memorial to the “The Glorious Dead.” In an emergency, she would have simply run the gauntlet and hoped that the Tabula mercenaries would be delayed in traffic. But there was usually a safe way in-even Argus had been defeated.

She went back outside and hurried up Barnaby Street on the east side of the station. The trash-covered sidewalk led her past King Arthur’s Pub, a betting parlor and a shop called Transformation that sold clothes to cross dressers. Two identical male mannequins were in the window, one with a suit and bowler hat and the other with a blond wig and a red silk cocktail dress. THIS COULD BE YOU, proclaimed a sign. Not bloody likely, Maya thought. An image flashed through her mind of different display: A pregnant young woman standing next to fierce looking twin with a flat belly.

Barnaby Street merged into a traffic ramp, and she followed it up to an enclosed delivery area on the top of the station building. There were only a few cameras in this area-all of them searching for car license plates-and she followed the concrete ramp that led down to the central concourse. The concourse was lined with shops, including two Burger Kings, two W.H. Smith bookstores, and two Marks and Spenser’s. Perhaps that was a clue to the future-hundreds of stores that were basically the same.

An announcement board told her that the train from the ferry port at Holyhead had just arrived on track six. Maya passed between two shops to tracks seven and eight, and then peered down through a thick glass window that overlooked track six. Passengers from the Holyhead train were hurrying toward the main concourse: an East Asian family with strollers, three teenage girls with braided hair and backpacks, and a middle-aged couple maneuvering a large wheeled suitcase.

It didn’t look like Alice Chen was on the train. When Maya changed her position, she saw a police officer entering the station, followed by two paramedics pushing a stretcher on a gurney. This way, the officer gestured. Track six. Follow me.

She checked her knives and shifted the sword carrier so that she could draw the weapon easily. Pretending to search for a passenger, she strolled down the platform for track six. The police officer was there, standing on the steps of the fourth train car. As she passed by the windows of the car, she saw that the paramedics and two train conductors were crowded into the third compartment.

Maya reached the end of the platform as the paramedics reappeared with one of the Poor Claires strapped to a stretcher. The nun was unconscious, but alive. So where was Alice Chen? She waited for someone to escort the little girl off the train, but the two conductors and the police officer followed the gurney out to the concourse. It was clear that that no one was searching for a lost child.

Maya took out a mobile phone registered to a homeless man in Brixton and called Linden. “I’m at the station,” she said. “I was supposed to collect the package, but the situation is not as expected.”

“Is there a problem?”

“The person in charge of delivery was unconscious and taken away by paramedics.”

“And the package?”

“Not on the train.”

“What is your current situation?”

“Our business competitors are not in the area.”

“Don’t put yourself at risk. This is not our obligation.”

“I realize that, but-”

“Leave the area immediately and return to the office.”

The called ended, but she didn’t leave the platform. This is not our obligation. Yes, her father would have said the same thing-and a year ago she would have followed his example. But Gabriel had made her aware of another level of responsibility. It felt like Linden was imitating the Brethren at that moment. He wanted her to be part of the cause and ignore the individual, follow the rules and betray the deeper knowledge within her own heart.

Her mobile phone rang again, but she didn’t answer it. A stiletto appeared in her left hand as she boarded the train and hurried down the corridor to the fourth car. The third compartment was empty-no sign of a struggle-but she noticed something on the scuffed floor.

Kneeling down, she picked up two fragments of a sea-smooth piece of driftwood. A policeman would have never understood what the fragments meant, but Maya knew instantly. She had made pretend weapons like this when she was a growing up-measuring sticks that were supposed to be swords and pencils held beneath her sleeves with rubber bands. When she fitted the pieces together, the driftwood looked like a dagger.