They ate on the sofa, Mateo wolfing down the potatoes, spearing the steak with his fork and ripping out chunks. He didn’t eat the cabbage. Lia turned the tv on, dropping the volume and switching on subtitles—some soap opera that she called trash but kept glancing at and commenting on. Occasionally she ate a potato from his plate or put a piece of cabbage in his mouth, adjusting the position her legs often as was a habit of hers. They didn’t talk much. Joe was back in his bowl. Mateo finished his food and collapsed into the sofa, sighing. He felt fantastic.
“You sleepy?” asked Lia.
“No,” said Mateo. “Are you?”
“Nah,” she said. She rummaged around in the sofa cushions and came back with a pack of Whirstirs, flicked open the box and offered one to him. She stretched, elongating her body the way a cat will, and then took her own. They lit up from his finger tip, half watching the television; savouring their cigarettes and resting in silent companionship.
Lia gestured at the far bowl of water by the tv, in which sat a group of five lilies and a water shrub. Mateo sat up, watched as she wove her hand through the air in a specific pattern. In response, the water rippled, then gathered and rose in a stream and made its way towards her. She gestured, flourishing her arm and sending the water around their heads. The glistening ribbon of water reached Joe the frog’s bowl and slipped into it; and Joe approached it—totally incuriously, like a commuter.
Calmly, he hopped into the ribbon of water and started a leisurely breaststroke that took him around the sofa. Mateo stayed very quiet. Few people got to witness what he was watching. When Joe arrived at the sofa he jerked and plopped out of the stream and into Lia's lap. With a final flick of the wrist the water unravelled, coiling back to the first pot like a recalled tape measure. She lowered her hand and stroked Joe. This was Lia's secret. She was vadu.
They sat in silence for a while. Lia passed him Joe, who stared up at him from his palm, childlike. “No,” she said again. “I’m not tired. I’m full of energy.” She watched him closely. It was clear that a scheme had made itself known inside her brain and she was now considering how best to embroil him in it. She grinned, scrunching up her freckles. “You wanna play twister?”
Twister is a game whereby a spun arrow dictates where to place specific hands or feet on coloured dots. It was a game in which they each had no skill whatsoever. But they had a lot of fun and it was a good excuse to become tangled. They played for twenty minutes, often restarting when one or the other inevitably fell over. The game focused Mateo, as he took all things seriously. But it seemed to relax and stimulate Lia, who started talking as they begun and never really stopped; updating Mateo on the ordinary, wonderful details of her week, the gossip of her friends, and the developments in her favourite television soaps. Eventually they accepted their shortcomings and gave up for good, collapsing on the twister mat. Lia debated for a while, very vocally, and decided she had won. She adjusted, smoothing the mat beneath them with the flat of her foot, and nestled her head in the crook of his arm.
“I wish you would tell me what you got up to,” she said. “It’s so mysterious.”
Mateo nodded, remaining silent. Even as he lay there, he knew he never would. He told himself it wasn’t safe, that if she knew she was more likely to get embroiled and put in danger, and maybe this was true. Then again, maybe he was just being selfish. He thought about saying the same thing to her, admitting how he thought about all the things she might do. But he knew she was ashamed of her work, whatever it was, so he didn’t.
“You wouldn’t like me, if you knew,” he said. They stared up at the ceiling. Her only response was the faint, dopey smile on her lips, whatever it meant. “Do you ever worry people will find out? he asked
“That I’m vadu?” He nodded. “Of course,” she said. “All the time. That’s why I have so few friends.”
“I get it,” said Mateo. “It sucks though. It’s not fair. People forget it’s your lot that run the farms. Without the farms, we’d all starve.”
Lia smiled, looking away. “Yeah. But it is what it is. We vadu do the most horrible things, sometimes. I don’t blame them.”
Mateo shrugged beneath her. “They’re just scary,” he said. “Maicha, I mean. People are just afraid. The zus lick the boots of the Executive Branch and no-one hates them.”
“Yeah, sure. There’s no use crying about it. I live a good life. I’m taken care of, I have money, I have freedom. People romanticise the old times because back then everyone loved the vadu. But we were pathetic. Useless.”
“I guess,” said Mateo. “That’s such an impossible world anyway. Ancient history.”
Lia poked him playfully in the chest. “I know why you’re upset, Mateo. You would have been top dog. The Fire Kings, ha! Now look at us.”
Mateo frowned. “A little twist of fate, and everything changes.”
He didn’t say anything more. He could feel Lia's sadness, somewhere in the way her body clung to his and in the tone of her voice. She might pretend otherwise, but Lia was deeply ashamed of being vadu. They all were. That’s why it was so rare to know one like this, outside of their maicha. Usually they only hung out with each other. There were even secret communities where vadu could spend time among their own, and young people could meet to form families and so on. He didn’t know much about it. Lia didn’t talk about stuff like that, just like she never spoke about work, but he got the sense she hadn’t known her parents. It didn’t matter. It might seem like they were different, but in many ways they were the same. They both needed a chance to exist away from their communities. Choosing, rather than falling into place like everyone else. He gave her a squeeze.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“You wanna go for a ride?” he asked.
“Oh my god, YES.” She gasped. “Will you take me? Oh please, I’d love to.”
“Sure,” Mateo chuckled. “Haven’t I taken you before?” Lia scowled. He knew perfectly well that he never had. He pulled her to her feet. “Come on. Though, I’ve got a weird bike at the moment so it might be a little bumpy.”
“I don’t care. I’ve been in this apartment all day. Take me out. We can catch sunrise!”
They got dressed, Mateo putting his mostly bloodless jeans back on and making sure Lia wore clothes which would protect her skin if they did fall off the strange bike. They took the elevator down, Mateo insisting she wear the helmet, and they drove off.
“Where do you wanna go?” he called back?
“Anywhere.” She said. She bumped him on the shoulder with the top of her helmet. “No, one of the parks. Somewhere we can see a nice sunrise.”
They drove around the city aimlessly, Mateo taking it easy at first and then speeding up as he grew comfortable with the strange bike. They had time to kill before sunrise. Zone Six was oddly empty. He didn’t see a lot of cars. Even the late night bars were shut by now. There were no police patrols, no mumbling, addled homeless. They drove through the darkness, not rushing, soaking in the rare quietude of a city which so rarely stopped. They passed the Gougsu Industrial Yard where Sevit worked, glowing dimly with the fire of the machines. They went through Tenhip Dru, a posh upper-middle class suburban area with nice restaurants, and waved to a middle aged man opening up his bakery. They drove past garbage trucks, already up and clearing the cans for a new day of trash. But mostly they rode around empty quiet streets, saw nothing, and in doing so felt secluded and special.
At 6:00 there came the first, ever so subtle signs of light filling the city. Mateo turned the bike down Yoonuzk St. He figured they’d drive to Tipana park, which had a tall, slopping hill on one side, and they could enjoy a good view of the Jayu Financial District for sunrise.
They only made it about halfway down Yoonuzk when there was a loud, ripping sound in the air. A moment later came the the tell tale vroof of zus flight. He glanced up, feeling self conscious, and heard Lia gasp. A bright yellow cable had appeared in the sky, weaving around itself to form a net and glowing so brightly it illuminated the street. As he watched a figure collided with the cable-net and was stuck in place, shaking back and forth. The figure was half a mile high and yet Mateo could see him clearly, a dark, green skinned monster with long bat ears and a segregated steel tale with a silver point. He watched as the figure pulled back his shoulders and fire ripped out of him from all directions—rhata fire, which Mateo recognised, but bolstered somehow by the powers of a Mantle. The yellow netting disintegrated around him and the figure flew forward, using no visible powers of propulsion. Lia squeezed him tightly from behind. “MANTLED!” she whispered, unnecessarily.
Mateo nodded. Inside, he was panicking. Were they here for him? Probably not but still they had to leave, and fast. If the monstrous cape was flying around like that without using any visible power, he was powerful. If Mateo had been on his own, he’d just gun the bike and ride back to Sedum Ward. But with Lia he couldn’t risk that.
He spoke over his shoulder: “There’s a temple nearby, across the street on the far side of Tipana. We’ll hide there, okay?” She nodded, pressing her helmet into his back so he could feel it. Mateo opened the throttle wide and the bike sped down the road. He didn’t look up when he heard combat detonating in the sky, but he could feel the waves of air snapping against him. They were getting closer. If their fight passed through here, he and Lia would end up as collateral—an everyday occurrence in Tinjouki.
Two minutes of terrifying, reckless driving took them to the temple. They weren’t the only ones. A few people exited a car ahead of them and were now pounding on the doors. Mateo jumped from the bike, lifted Lia off, and they ran hand in hand up the stairs and through the doors just as they opened, hyperventilating. The doors slammed behind them and Lia collapsed on the ground. Mateo sat down next to her.
“Pit that was close,” she said, heaving in air. Mateo put his arm around her and waited for her breathing to slow. “SO dangerous. We could have caught a stray just like that and poof, that would be us.” She looked at him, wide-eyed. “Dead.”
Mateo smiled, still holding her hand. “Yeah,” he said. “But we didn’t. Might as well go sit in the chamber with the others. They won’t want us leaving for a while.”
Temples were never built by accident or whim. They were placed at specific, orderly points all over Tinjouki, such that you were never far from one. Some were on the top of buildings, some in the middle of parks, and supposedly some were even submerged deep underground. This one was a fairly innocuous looking building, squeezed between two houses on the residential street across from Tipana. Like all temples it had a bulbous roof striated with thousands of contour lines, and walls that looked like natural rock formations. There was a small foyer, in which they now stood, and a staircase which led up to the temple chamber in the dome above. They climbed the stairs and entered the hushed chamber.
Apparently, a temple is decorated in line with the taste of its olmet. This one was fairly austere, almost casual. It looked more like a dentists waiting room than a place of worship. In one corner there was a set of folding chairs, a coffee table, a side table holding a hot thermo of water with the supplies to prepare tea, and a tv on the ground playing news at a low volume. This was particularly surprising. Mateo had never seen a tv in a temple before. He pointed it out to Lia and she raised her eyebrows. In the centre of the room was the olmet, sat with his legs folded in a trance of meditation. Head shaven, beard long and square, just like all of them. Even from all these meters away, Mateo could feel the vibrations coming up though his feet, ebbing away from the olmet in susurrating, meaningful rhythms. Lia wrapped her arm around his and clung to it, pressing against it with a cheek.
“Do you believe it?” she asked.
“What?” asked Mateo.
“About the sandfalls?”
Mateo shot her a perplexed look. “Of course,” he said. “They show footage of it all the time. Didn’t you see the tv? They’re showing it right now. And anyway, if it wasn’t true, why are all the olmets wasting their lives sat in temples?”
“Because of the Mantled,” whispered Lia. “To stop them destroying the city.”
Mateo shrugged. His thoughts were still on the capes up above. He was worried that Dandelion had sent them after him. “Well, sure.” He said. “That too. But I believe it. There’s an old area of Six called Nipporto which doesn’t have a temple any more. Hasn’t for, I think, 11 years? Already almost every single building has collapsed, and in some of the bad ones they’ve fallen into these deep pits full of sand. Of course I believe it. The only thing I don’t understand is how the city was first built, how we all got here. But everyone wonders that.”
Lia didn’t respond. She just clung to his arm pressing her cheek against it, and they stood and watched the olmet. He didn’t make even the slightest movement. There was the crashing sound of an explosion, like a bomb going off a few houses down, but heard from underwater. Mateo saw the olmet wince slightly, felt the vibrations in the ground thicken and change in frequency.
“Did you feel that?” he asked Lia, resting his cheek on the side of her head.
“What?” she said, sounding sleepy.
“The vibrations, they changed.”
She gave him a funny look. “No.” She said. Then she pulled him over to the folding chairs, and they sat and watched TV. Mateo’s finally read the news bulletin across the bottom. His eye’s widened.
There was an E-level threat at the sandwall.