Antony should have been quite thankful that Victor’s chosen celebrations involved so many loud and distracting…festivities. The man didn’t want to stop shouting and bragging to everyone that would listen that he was destined to save their crumbling world from the future of desolation they raced toward. While Antony did think his ideas, the ones that got him selected by the council in the first place, were good, he wasn’t sure if getting drunk and high off of opium-wine and shouting at passersby was really the way to sell it.
At least anywhere but the streets of Onyx after dinner, randomly shouting at night would get them fined. But Onyx had carved itself its own spot in the province of Limen to be the hub for anything uncensored and unforgiving. Onyx housed the best casinos, theatres, brothels, dens of all kinds, arenas, sports venues—anything anyone needed to escape daily life and its associated responsibilities. This thriving urban sprawl was where free people all over the province flooded to let go of their daytime statuses and tasks to truly celebrate the intense emotions of life.
A great place to visit, possibly. But for anything else, like raise an angry kid, probably not. And, having been raised on the border of Onyx by his single mother, Antony would agree. He just couldn’t seem to escape it unless he crawled through a mirror.
By the time the temperature dropped to something a little more bearable in this humidity, Antony had successfully toured Victor through half of their chosen itinerary locations for the night. His friend looked genuinely happy, hopeful. He toasted with strangers to the future, to their health, to Umbra as a whole thriving. For a couple of those toasts, Antony got lost in the celebrations.
But while Victor continued celebrating, Antony started to sober. A flirty woman in a flowing, floor-length dress captured his attention, asking for the story as to why Victor celebrated like he just shaved his first beard and earned the right to drink wine without food.
“He, uhm, is a Junior Representative of Onyx now,” he was happy to inform while using an armchair as a crutch. “He’s got—got lots of ideas to, uh, to fix the…energy crisis.” As he spoke, he waved away a bartender’s offer to fill his cup. “Had these—uh, these plans since we were kids. Now he gets to do ’em.”
Gravity made his limbs heavier, so Antony swung around the chair to fall into it with an “oof.” Somewhere behind him, someone began a chant, “Carpe vinum!” as a way to get the attention of whoever held the carafe. Antony raised his cup in cheer, but didn’t join in.
His momentary companion fell into his chair as well, draping her legs over his and an arm around his neck. It took him an extra couple seconds to actually feel the crook of her arm on his skin, though, further justifying his self-imposed cutoff.
“And you?” she asked him as she snuggled into his side. “What do you get to do?” The very question he’d managed to avoid answering all night.
Antony hesitated as he attempted to capture the details of the face in front of him. The lights, purposefully dulled for this time of night, made it difficult to distinguish too many distinct features of any one person, showering rays of different hues to highlight reflective accents carved into the floor and along the mosaic walls. The lavish and colorful decorations were meant to keep people here, ingesting and spending. Likewise, this woman emphasized different parts of her face with different ink stains and designs to keep people staring and giving her attention.
As drunk and melancholy as Antony was, he didn’t have the ability or will to distinguish where her face started and her paintings ended. He instead opted to try and look her in the eyes, only to be disappointed. When he focused on them, a thick, smoky veneer revealed itself, indicating that she was using an illusion to change their perceived color. From physical ink to mental imagery, she covered every part of herself.
Attempting any sort of authenticity at a time like this was bound for failure. Still, he’d give it a try. Maybe repeating Cadence’s words aloud, rather than let them swim silently in his head, would make something different happen.
“I perform on a stage—but I talk…one-on-one,” he said awkwardly, “to people. Big performance, but intimate—” He went to gesture with his hands, but instead ended up sloshing some wine on the ground. “It’s like sharing a language only you two speak.” Dark as it was, he could tell from the woman’s expression that she didn’t quite understand what he was saying. Maybe attempting to recreate a sober moment while drunk off his ass wasn’t a great idea.
“You…teach different languages on a stage?”
Antony decided to give up. “Yeah, sure.” It didn’t matter anyway.
Performing wasn’t exactly a high-end profession here. Whereas in Portland, people admired him—or at the very least didn’t discount him—here, it was just another way of selling himself. Legal, protected by the council, somewhat decent wages, but at the end of the day, it was still his time he sold for rich people to enjoy. People didn’t seem to understand how little difference there was performing on a stage to just talking to a stranger you wanted to impress one-on-one. But at the end of the day, he was the one that wanted to make a living pretending to be someone else, so he was the one worth less than the next person.
As the woman on his lap attempted to maintain some surface level of conversation, Antony raised his cup and knocked back the last remaining contents to the back of his throat. The pergola that sheltered them from the night air was specifically woven with vines and lights twisted around one another until they were hardly distinguishable, bulbs of light and bulbs of plant-matter together. The flowers budded at this time of night, hiding their beautiful petals for when the sun would rise in a few hours.
The sight of these tiny flowers opening up was usually the final alarm to inform people to get shelter, that the sun was about to rise and douse the world in intolerable radiation. In Portland, the sunrise was beautiful and peaceful. In Onyx and on Umbra, the sun emerged for a few hours each day—a few hours of intense, blistering heat that people generally couldn’t handle for more than a few minutes at a time without third-degree burns or worse.
As Antony stared at the pergola and the lights, he found himself wishing to see the petals open. But the sun-fed flowers weren’t safe here, and he’d have to wait until he could steal away to Earth to see any blooms safely.
That wouldn’t be for a long while, though, and it ultimately was up to Victor to determine when stop celebrating and move on with life. Until then, Antony had to keep pretending.
❖
Portland, Oregon saw more of Antony that week after Victor’s celebrations. He didn’t venture out too often, but with his roommate’s suddenly demanding schedule for his first official week as a Junior Representative of Onyx, it felt safe enough for Antony to come out and take a couple extra walks in the icy air under the sun, something he would have never thought he’d enjoy until he came here as a teenager.
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Even when the weather took a darker and colder turn, Antony still spent the extra time through the mirrors indoors, just browsing different stores or sitting and watching the clouds roll by through the window of the coffee shop. Perhaps this was the sort of quiet reprieve he needed, especially after one of the worst hangovers of his life. After putting his kidneys and liver through Hell, a couple quiet days walking along Lake Oswego must have been what his soul needed, because by that Thursday, that melancholic twinge that haunted him since talking with Cadence lessened.
Antony lay on his dressing room couch that afternoon, eyes closed, drifting into a light slumber. He still had a few hours before he had to return home to get ready for work at Gemma Imperii. For that theatre, his script was written for him: introduce various acts and banter with the audience until someone with a name worth remembering walked on.
He forced his thoughts to this theatre, this show. Tomorrow he had his usual seven o’clock performance, and he still couldn’t quite decide if he wanted to specialize it or not.
This week on Earth, people celebrated some sort of commercialized love day. He contemplated trying to match all of his illusions and tricks to that theme, but it didn’t quite feel right. He’d never been in love before, and apparently he was too honest about that. Bellona, his ex, dumped him for refusing to lie to her face about it just last month. And here, with all the advertisements pushing people to express their love and get married, Antony had his doubts about other people’s honesty with it, too. Maybe it was in bad taste to follow a theme he couldn’t even understand.
By the time he’d settled on foregoing any theme for his show tomorrow night, something about the air around him grew tight.
“So is this a glorified napping hideaway, then?” At the sound of another person’s voice, Antony’s eyes shot open. He should not have been able to hear that language—his native language—here. “Bit of a journey for a shitty closet.”
“Vic—?” Antony sat up and twisted around all at once, spotting his best friend pocket a pen made for transporting between mirrors. A high-pitched whine filled Antony’s ears as he scrambled to his feet; Victor remained calm, emotionless, just watching, but it was just for show. The more Antony stammered and stumbled and started and stopped sentences, the more it chipped away Victor’s mask. Feigned curiosity rather than fury and hurt in that sneer.
“So?” his friend continued, his eyes darting around to every inch of the room. “Where are we?” Unfortunately, his eyes fell on the poster for the Magnificent Michael. Antony instantly regretted letting himself put that up a few years ago when he found it. “Port-land.” Victor examined the poster, moving his lips to sound out the unfamiliar words to him. “So, English. Is this because it’s your mom’s favorite language?”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with my mom,” Antony replied immediately. Victor huffed as he turned around, opening his arms.
“Do you see me wearing a sash? I’m here as me. Here because you kept disappearing. And, well….” His eyes drifted around the dressing room; it was clear from the way his lips tightened and softened that he found the sight displeasing. “I learned some new mirror tricks my first week, so I could see that you left all the time. I thought maybe you were sneaking out to see Bellona, but….” Victor’s facade cracked a bit more, brows furrowed, his voice taut and shaky. “I didn’t think you were breaking a Founder’s Law for a nap.”
Victor set his expression in a way to try to hide his hurt, his worry. His oldest friend, often mistaken for a brother with how inseparable they were as kids. The one person it was hardest to keep this all from.
Antony stood frozen and stared at him with every bit of his insides twisting into knots. “Vic, you…you didn’t have to come here…. Put yourself at risk—”
“How long have you been coming here? By yourself?” That was not going to be a question he was going to answer willingly, so Antony remained silent. “Is this about what you told me—about our idea?” The passing thought that because of all the similarities, it would be impossible for those of Earth to ever know someone from Umbra lived here. Antony said it from experience, to test his friend's openness to the concept.
For Victor, he focused on the space and resources Earth was said to have, according to the analysis from scientists. Antony preferred to think about the history that showed there never used to be a divide in the first place, proof of another chance at feeling like he mattered. But when he brought it up before, Victor couldn't get past his anger at the current state of Umbra, or think of anything other than how he perceived Earth as dripping with spare energy they could take for themselves.
Antony shook his head. “Vic, I know you can’t know any of this. Go back home.” He gestured to the mirror. “You don’t know anything, you can’t be—you can’t get in trouble.”
Victor didn’t move, though. “You’ve been doing all of this on your own? Without me?”
“Vic, go home—”
“No, Tony. Forgetting for a second how you’ve been lying to my face for however long, this is—this is was supposed to be our idea. My campaign.” Victor got louder; and while he doubted anyone heard or listened or cared, Antony still flinched and looked to the door expectantly.
Victor continued with venom in his voice, “I was chosen for the opportunity of a lifetime to make our dream a reality for everyone. I’m supposed to prove that there is a balance of energy to be found in studying Earth. I’m supposed to be creating a proposal with a list of requested resources and personnel to bring to them.” Victor took a step forward; despite the urge to, Antony did not step away. “I’ve been trying to get the time to talk to you this week to bring you in. Now I find you’ve been doing this all behind my back. To what, to take all the credit?” It was almost a relief to hear Victor say that, to admit his fears so quickly. It made it so much easier to breathe. Victor wanted visibility, Antony wanted to blend in. This was the one time their desires coincided.
“No,” Antony started, but Victor interrupted.
“How many of them here know about you? How many deficiente sanguinem know about us?”
“None.” In this answer, Antony regained some of his confidence. This could still be salvaged. He could keep what he had and Victor could have his dream.
“None?”
“None. I’ve just been—they think I’m one of them. They’ve never even suspected I’m not.” He gestured behind him, to the closed door that muffled the majority of a midday rehearsal not too far away on the stage for Rocky. “There’s nothing about us here. We’ve been erased from their history completely.” Possibly not even on purpose, if Antony understood the outrage around the Library of Alexandria correctly. Now how gestured to the poster behind Victor until he turned and said, “Look, they celebrate not being able to explain something they don’t understand, even.”
“This—was this man from Umbra—?”
“No,” Antony said before Victor could create any other wild theories. “But would put on shows to pretend to do ‘magic’ and people paid him for it.”
“And they didn’t—they didn’t kill him?” But his friend hesitated while staring at the poster, his thoughts unfinished before he turned back. “Is that what you’re doing here?” His tone shifted from a fearful defensiveness to something closer to curiosity—though not without judgment.
Now, Antony felt it safe to merely shrug.
“They’re paying me to show them impossible things they can’t explain and are none the wiser. It’s a type of show they have everywhere, all the time.” Victor continued staring at the poster as Antony spoke. “It’s like we thought. They don’t think twice.”
Victor glanced over his shoulder to the standing mirror he walked through just a moment ago.
“Why didn’t you say anything to me?”
“You can’t get in trouble if you don’t know about it. You wanted to be in politics, where they watch your every move. I don’t. It’s…safest for me to not tell anyone. Especially you.” It wasn’t the full truth, but enough to be genuine in the moment. Now wasn’t the time for him to admit that in protecting Umbra from Earth, that he was also, inadvertently, protecting Earth from Umbra.
Victor repeated, “It’s a Founder’s Law….”
“And you had nothing to do with breaking it.”
But his friend didn’t seem to like this reply.
“Yeah, what’s it matter when they march you to the executioner? Or when the deficiente find out and storm us—”
“Think for a second about this, Vic. We were right. About all of it. They don’t know anything about us, we can move amongst them without being noticed, and—and their energy!” Victor’s favorite topic, one Antony didn’t personally care for but knew was important. “They’re powering everything just like us, but without blood! The oil, coal, powering light and no one has to bleed to make it happen.” Antony clasped his hands together in a prayer motion, silently begging for his friend to buy into any aspect of this. Antony all but recited Victor’s arguments from long ago when they first thought to explore Earth, he just had to hope Victor liked to hear it come out of someone else’s mouth as much as he did his own. “Think what our people can do if we stop wasting our blood and energy on stupid shit like rich people wanting their clothes to change colors? What else can we do when we’re not bleeding ourselves dry, putting our energy to something useful?”
“The energy….” Now his friend had fully moved to disbelief, already shaking his head as he considered what was said.
“The sun, the wind—they even use their own movement to produce energy to power their things.” Antony stepped closer to his friend, urging for him to not get lost in thought. “And they don’t die from using it. No one dies from needing wind to power a battery. Can you imagine? It’s your campaign. Right here.”
Victor took a long moment in silence, face contorted in concentration, staring at the ugly carpet that was put in twenty years ago.
Antony lowered his voice and clasped his friend on the shoulder. “Do you understand? We were right, but we just—we can’t just dive into it.” Not like he did nine years ago, careless and without thinking about what it would be like. “And you don’t have to risk your idea getting rejected and being ousted for bringing it up. It’s already here. Proof of concept.”
Finally, Victor glanced up to Antony, his lips pursed as he considered everything. There was still a distinct and palpable tension in the air, a deep anger that wouldn’t go away with just one argument. But amongst all of that, Victor still showed curiosity.
He hummed, the curiosity winning the moment.
“Fine. Show me.”