The City of Mirrors
Page 195
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She was still having difficulty bringing her mind and her body into alignment, to forge the proper chain of command. Everything seemed delayed and out of sync. The voice seemed to emanate from everywhere around her, as if the air were speaking. It flowed over and into her like slick oil, lodging with cloying, buttery sweetness at the back of her throat.
“Would it be too obvious to say how long I’ve waited to meet you? But I have. Since the day Jonas told me of your existence, I’ve wondered, When will we meet? When will my Amy come to me?”
“My Amy.” Why was the voice calling her that? She discovered the sky. No, not the sky: the ceiling, far above, and on it the image of the stars with gilded figures floating among them.
“Oh, you should have heard the man. How guilty he felt. How sorry he was. ‘Jesus, Tim, you should see her. She’s just a little kid. She doesn’t even have a proper last name. She’s just some girl from nowhere.’ ”
The backward stars, thought Amy. As if the heavens were being viewed from without, or were reflected in a mirror. She felt her thoughts attaching to this notion, and as they did, new ideas began to form. As if stumbling from a dream, her mind began to open to her circumstances; memories were rising to the surface. An image entered her mind: Peter, his body airborne, crashing through a plate-glass window.
A dark chuckle. “Not really funny, I suppose, when you put it in the context of a few billion corpses. Still, the whole thing was quite a performance. Jonas missed his true calling. He should have been an actor.”
Fanning, she thought.
The voice was Fanning.
And everything came slamming back.
“I waited so long, Amy.” A heavy sigh. “Always hoping that my Liz would be on the next train. Do you know what that’s like? But how could you. How could anyone?”
She struggled onto all fours. She was in the west end of the hall. To her right, the ticket windows, barred like cells in a jail; to her left, the shadowy recesses of train platforms. Shrouded windows, both behind her and to her right, pulsed with a febrile glow. Ahead, at a distance of perhaps a hundred feet, stood the kiosk, topped by its pearlescent clocks. A man was standing there. An altogether unremarkable-looking man, wearing a dark suit. He was positioned in profile, back erect and chin tipped slightly upward, left hand tucked casually in the pocket of his suit coat, his attention aimed at the dark maws of the tunnels.
“How alone she must have felt at the end, how afraid. No words of comfort. Not the touch of a hand for company.”
Still he did not look at her. All around her, the virals trilled and stroked, flexed and snapped. She had the sense that they were kept at bay only by the thinnest of invisible barriers.
“ ‘I have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.’ That’s T. S. Eliot, in case you were wondering. An oldie but a goodie. When it came to existential exhaustion, the man was one smart cookie.”
Where was Peter? Had the virals killed him? What of Michael and Alicia? She thought: Water. She thought: Time. How much had passed? But the answer to this question was like an empty drawer in her brain. Moving just her eyes, she scanned for something to use as a weapon. But there was nothing, only the virals and the inverted heavens and her heart beating in her throat.
“Oh, I had my books, my thoughts. I had my memories. But those things only take a man so far.” Fanning paused, then said, with more directness, “Consider this place, Amy. Imagine it as it once was. Everyone hurrying, rushing here, rushing there. The appointments. The assignations. The dinners with friends. How gloriously alive it was. All our lives, the one thing we never seem to have enough of is time. Time to work. Time to eat. Time to sleep. Time to love and be loved before it’s time to die.” He shrugged. “But I digress. You came to kill me, wasn’t it?”
He turned to face her. His right hand, now revealed, held the sword.
“Just to clear the decks, let me say that I don’t hold it against you in the least. Au contraire, mon amie. That’s French, by the way. Liz always said it was the mark of a truly cultured person. I never had much of a knack for languages, but with a century to kill, you get around to trying new things. Any preference? Italian, Russian, German, Dutch, Greek? How about Latin? We could do this whole thing in Norwegian if you’d like.”
Close your mouth, Amy’s brain commanded her. Use the silence, because it’s all you have.
Fanning’s face soured. “Well, your choice. I was only trying to make a little small talk.” He gave a backhanded wave. “Let’s have a look at you.”
More hands upon her: a large, smooth male and a slightly smaller female, with a wispy diadem of white hair on her otherwise featureless skull. They seized her by the upper arms and whisked her forward, her feet skimming the tile, and dumped her unceremoniously to the floor.
“I said gently, for fucksake!”
Looming like a thundercloud, Fanning stood above her, his aura of merry confidence replaced by jaw-clenched rage.
“You.” He pointed the sword at the large male. “Get over here.”
A spark of hesitation in the creature’s eyes—or did she imagine this? The viral scuttled forward. It dropped to its knees at Fanning’s feet and bowed its head submissively, like a subdued dog.
Fanning raised his voice to the room. “Everyone, are you listening? Are you hearing my words, goddamnit? This woman is our guest! She is not a piece of luggage for you to toss around as you please! I expect you to treat her with respect!”
“Would it be too obvious to say how long I’ve waited to meet you? But I have. Since the day Jonas told me of your existence, I’ve wondered, When will we meet? When will my Amy come to me?”
“My Amy.” Why was the voice calling her that? She discovered the sky. No, not the sky: the ceiling, far above, and on it the image of the stars with gilded figures floating among them.
“Oh, you should have heard the man. How guilty he felt. How sorry he was. ‘Jesus, Tim, you should see her. She’s just a little kid. She doesn’t even have a proper last name. She’s just some girl from nowhere.’ ”
The backward stars, thought Amy. As if the heavens were being viewed from without, or were reflected in a mirror. She felt her thoughts attaching to this notion, and as they did, new ideas began to form. As if stumbling from a dream, her mind began to open to her circumstances; memories were rising to the surface. An image entered her mind: Peter, his body airborne, crashing through a plate-glass window.
A dark chuckle. “Not really funny, I suppose, when you put it in the context of a few billion corpses. Still, the whole thing was quite a performance. Jonas missed his true calling. He should have been an actor.”
Fanning, she thought.
The voice was Fanning.
And everything came slamming back.
“I waited so long, Amy.” A heavy sigh. “Always hoping that my Liz would be on the next train. Do you know what that’s like? But how could you. How could anyone?”
She struggled onto all fours. She was in the west end of the hall. To her right, the ticket windows, barred like cells in a jail; to her left, the shadowy recesses of train platforms. Shrouded windows, both behind her and to her right, pulsed with a febrile glow. Ahead, at a distance of perhaps a hundred feet, stood the kiosk, topped by its pearlescent clocks. A man was standing there. An altogether unremarkable-looking man, wearing a dark suit. He was positioned in profile, back erect and chin tipped slightly upward, left hand tucked casually in the pocket of his suit coat, his attention aimed at the dark maws of the tunnels.
“How alone she must have felt at the end, how afraid. No words of comfort. Not the touch of a hand for company.”
Still he did not look at her. All around her, the virals trilled and stroked, flexed and snapped. She had the sense that they were kept at bay only by the thinnest of invisible barriers.
“ ‘I have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.’ That’s T. S. Eliot, in case you were wondering. An oldie but a goodie. When it came to existential exhaustion, the man was one smart cookie.”
Where was Peter? Had the virals killed him? What of Michael and Alicia? She thought: Water. She thought: Time. How much had passed? But the answer to this question was like an empty drawer in her brain. Moving just her eyes, she scanned for something to use as a weapon. But there was nothing, only the virals and the inverted heavens and her heart beating in her throat.
“Oh, I had my books, my thoughts. I had my memories. But those things only take a man so far.” Fanning paused, then said, with more directness, “Consider this place, Amy. Imagine it as it once was. Everyone hurrying, rushing here, rushing there. The appointments. The assignations. The dinners with friends. How gloriously alive it was. All our lives, the one thing we never seem to have enough of is time. Time to work. Time to eat. Time to sleep. Time to love and be loved before it’s time to die.” He shrugged. “But I digress. You came to kill me, wasn’t it?”
He turned to face her. His right hand, now revealed, held the sword.
“Just to clear the decks, let me say that I don’t hold it against you in the least. Au contraire, mon amie. That’s French, by the way. Liz always said it was the mark of a truly cultured person. I never had much of a knack for languages, but with a century to kill, you get around to trying new things. Any preference? Italian, Russian, German, Dutch, Greek? How about Latin? We could do this whole thing in Norwegian if you’d like.”
Close your mouth, Amy’s brain commanded her. Use the silence, because it’s all you have.
Fanning’s face soured. “Well, your choice. I was only trying to make a little small talk.” He gave a backhanded wave. “Let’s have a look at you.”
More hands upon her: a large, smooth male and a slightly smaller female, with a wispy diadem of white hair on her otherwise featureless skull. They seized her by the upper arms and whisked her forward, her feet skimming the tile, and dumped her unceremoniously to the floor.
“I said gently, for fucksake!”
Looming like a thundercloud, Fanning stood above her, his aura of merry confidence replaced by jaw-clenched rage.
“You.” He pointed the sword at the large male. “Get over here.”
A spark of hesitation in the creature’s eyes—or did she imagine this? The viral scuttled forward. It dropped to its knees at Fanning’s feet and bowed its head submissively, like a subdued dog.
Fanning raised his voice to the room. “Everyone, are you listening? Are you hearing my words, goddamnit? This woman is our guest! She is not a piece of luggage for you to toss around as you please! I expect you to treat her with respect!”
