Saga Read online

  Boom!

  Heads nod. The stars glitter in their earrings and in the moist corners of their eyes.

  Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

  The bass is irresistible now. Everyone is swaying.

  “Don’t fight it.” The singer can read our thoughts. Nor do we fight it, but accelerate the swaying of our bodies in time to the beat. The room is densely crowded, yet I can move freely. Everyone is rocking from side to side in his or her own space. I relish the moment and forget that I am hunted. Here we are. Free. Enjoying ourselves in the hidden spaces of the City. A derelict hospital revived for the night to play host to the disaffected, to those for whom the card system offers nothing but a life of boring work and poor reward. I feel a surge of warmth for my fellow dancers. Then I see her again—the pirate, Cindella—and she is dancing beside Nathan.

  “Love the outfit. I mean, I really love it.” A boy had come up to her.

  “Thanks,” Cindella replied politely.

  “Wanna kiss?”

  “No, thanks. Actually I’m a boy.”

  “No way? No way! You’re kidding, right?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Hey, Cindella.”

  “Ghost!” She smiled. “This is a great party. Worth playing the game just for this.”

  Nathan gave me a wave, not breaking his rhythm.

  “I think we need to talk.”

  “Yes. Certainly.”

  Nathan came with us, still gently rocking his head to the music as we made our way to the door. For some reason, the sense of threat had receded.

  A section of the hospital had been turned into a café for the night. It was the third-floor southeast corner that Athena had designated as our meeting point. We sat at a table near a window, which I pulled up until it was as open as it could possibly be. In an emergency, if I boarded through the space, a slide down the outside wall might slow me enough to manage the drop. Maybe. Carter and Milan had stayed to see more of the band; Athena was on my left, Nathan on my right, and all three of us were listening with amazement to what the pirate was saying.

  “A dragon?” Athena repeated. “You killed a dragon?”

  “Yes, Inry’aat, the red dragon. It took us nearly eight hours.”

  “That’s fantastic; well done.” Nathan patted her arm happily. “What else have you conquered?”

  “Well, with my friends, let’s see.” She leaned back in her chair, and I caught Athena’s eye. She rolled her eyes in mock alarm.

  “A medusa, that was tough. You know what a medusa is?”

  “It’s a legendary creature, half-woman, half-snake, whose gaze turned her enemies to stone and whose hair was poisonous snakes,” Athena replied dryly, like a computer encyclopedia.

  “Right. It was huge, about two stories high. We’d never fought one before and the worst turned out to be her blood. We’d drunk potions to protect against the petrification, so that was fine. But my friend, B.E., he cut off one of her hands and the stuff that came out was horrible, like steaming acid; it did a huge amount of damage.”

  “Thrilling. What else?” Nathan was hypnotized by her. He was leaning forward across the table, his head resting on his arms, with unwavering attention to what the pirate was saying.

  “Tscha! Stop this stupid conversation right now.” Athena sounded cross. “Let’s get back to the police station. How did you make us invisible, really?”

  “I told you, with a potion of invisibility. I guess you don’t have them here. In fact, this is a fairly gloomy world, and I think that, for some reason, it’s making people ill. Today is the first time I’ve really enjoyed myself. Do they have these parties often?”

  It was easy to see that Athena was exasperated, but I found Cindella rather endearing, very otherworldly. And, after all, she had rescued us.

  “About once a month, perhaps every two months,” Nathan answered her.

  “Where are you from?” Athena persisted in her interrogation.

  “Ahh, well, there’s, like, two answers to that, depending on what you mean. See, this character, Cindella, she’s a leftover from a game called Epic. But me, I’m from New Earth. Actually, never mind . . . I’m sorry, just a moment; someone wants me. I’ll try to come back.”

  She sat motionless, her eyes glazed. Nathan began to smile dreamily at her, but I didn’t. What she was saying was nonsensical, and yet . . . I knew there was something strange about our world, something we didn’t quite grasp. Then she was gone, her chair empty.

  “Death and destruction!” gasped Athena.

  “Interesting.” Nathan’s voice was surprisingly placid; perhaps he felt as I did. As if we were on the verge of resolving questions we hadn’t even realized had been unsettling our minds all this time.

  “What’s going on?” Athena muttered to herself.

  “You know what I think?” Nathan sat up; his movements were languid, like those of a cat stretching.

  “I’m surprised you can think, you’re so infatuated with her,” Athena replied snappily.

  Nathan just smiled. “I think two worlds are somehow colliding, ours and theirs. That there is a conjunction of some sort, and people are slipping through from theirs to ours.”

  “But not the other way around?” I asked.

  “Oh come on, Ghost. He’s just rambling.”

  “Not yet. But wouldn’t it be great to go to a land of dragons and magic?”

  Cindella reappeared. “Where was I?”

  “I’m going mad.” Athena sighed.

  “No, young lady, you are not, but the Dark Queen is.” A voice from hell. Not the fiery part but the chill depths. At our table was a very old man; the skin on his bowed head was translucent, blue veins snaking through it. I stood up to flee, knocking over my drink, staggering away toward the open window. The shark was sitting at the table, and his dead eyes were on us all. How had he come so close to us unnoticed? There was something about this man’s presence that did not accord with my usual sense of the world around me. I find it hard to explain. Did you ever test your blind spot: the blurry region created as a result of the back of the eyeball having an area without photoreceptors? It seemed to me that this man inhabited a blind spot even when I was utterly focused on his every move.

  “Who are you?” Cindella turned to him, while I held my board tightly, seeking the reassurance of it, clinging to my means of escape.

  “My name is Michelotto.” He splayed his thin, aged fingers on the table surface, as if to tell us not to be afraid, for he was unarmed. Nevertheless, I was shivering. Athena glanced at me and could tell I was suffering. “I am a servant of the Dark Queen, and I seek your assistance against her.”

  “Ahh, great. Is this a mission?” Cindella looked pleased.

  “If you like.” Michelotto nodded, a painstaking movement. He drew a labored breath. I was not fooled; those infirmities were deceptions. “For your own sake, and that of all of your friends, your people, you have to kill the Dark Queen.”

  “Excellent, it is a mission.”

  “Come with me now; she wishes to speak with you. I shall pretend to be guarding you, but when the opportunity arises, strike her down with all the might at your disposal.”

  “How exciting.” Cindella got up and rested her hands on the hilts of her weapons. “Do you all want to come, too?”

  Athena shook her head, flabbergasted. Michelotto gave me a long, hard look, and I shuddered. “No chance.”

  As if with great effort, the elderly man stood up and extended his hand to Cindella.

  “Bye, everyone.” She waved to us. “I hope I see you again.”

  They walked out of the room, and the world righted itself.

  “Who was that creep?” Athena commented.

  “Yeah. There’s really something disturbing about his presence.” Was it just me or had Athena and Nathan felt the cold darkness that surrounded him as deeply as I had?

  “Do you believe they are really going to kill the Dark Queen?” asked Nathan.

  �
�I haven’t the faintest idea,” Athena replied unhappily. “My mind is spinning so much, and I haven’t taken a thing.”

  Just then, Milan and Carter came over, hot, sweaty, and jittery from having recently taken some jeebies.

  “Wow, that band was amazing. Can you look up their name, Athena? We’ve gotta go see them again.” Carter was full of energy.

  “What’s with the long faces?” asked Milan.

  “Two worlds are colliding, and people are crossing over, bringing their magic with them. One day we will get to see theirs: they have dragons and medusas and pirates,” answered Nathan happily.

  “Rock ’n’ roll!” Carter and Milan slapped knuckles.

  Chapter 12

  REFUTATION AND THE BOOT

  My thoughts were like the party, a jumble of colorful but strikingly different themes mixed up with each other. Call it what you like, we had just seen another demonstration that Cindella was magic: the way she had appeared and disappeared. Then there was Michelotto. My inchoate fear now had a name. All evening, I had sensed a hostile presence, somewhere in the shadows, yet when he had shocked us by speaking, he had been seated at this very table. I prided myself on my awareness of the world about me; never had anyone come so close to me undetected. How had he done that?

  “So, what’s up?” Milan pulled up a chair, running his hand through hair, which was damp from the sweat of the recent exertions, causing it to stand in clusters of spikes.

  “That Cindella again. She was just here, talking very strangely, and then she disappeared for two minutes before coming back. I mean, really disappeared: right in front of us one moment, gone the next.” Athena sounded glum. She didn’t glance up from the crystal screen that she had unrolled. “The forums are filling up fast with discussions about this kind of thing. It’s happening everywhere.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen it, too, here, but I thought it was the jeebies.” Carter laughed. “So, what’s it mean?”

  “It’s wonderful, it’s exciting,” Nathan sighed in a near whisper.

  “Ghost, the boys are wasted on psychs and jeebies. They’re no help here.” Athena turned to me. “Do you have any sensible ideas?”

  “You remember the way she talked?” I waited for Athena to nod, to check she was listening and her attention had not returned to the computer. “I think she belongs to another world, one where they are playing a game with magic and pirates. She thinks our world is like that; she doesn’t understand that this is real.”

  “I know she thinks like that; see how she just got up to go and kill the Dark Queen? But is it a kind of madness in her, or is she really from another world?” Athena’s eyes were moist; she was really upset. Her fingers above the screen were trembling.

  “Kill the Dark Queen?” Carter banged his hand loudly on the table. “That’s my new girlfriend you’re talking about getting rid of.” He glanced at Milan, who nodded approvingly.

  “Yeah, the Dark Queen has the hots for Carter.”

  “Damn right she does!” Carter bellowed with enthusiasm, sharing a big smile with Milan.

  “Hey, Athena?” Milan leaned back in his chair, watching her carefully.

  “What?” She was still flicking restlessly through scientific discussion groups, as if she might find the answers that could stop her world from falling apart. It was disconcerting to see her so lost.

  “Let’s forget all this philosophy and get together? You and me, while there’s a great party going.”

  This got her to look up. You might think from what he had just said that Milan was all bravado and testosterone. But I understood what he was doing; it was his way of expressing sympathy for her distress.

  “Firstly, although you are not as stupid as you act, you are not my type. Secondly, I can honestly say I have never felt as miserable as I do right now. I just want to go home and sleep, in the hope that when I wake up, the world will be back to normal.”

  “I still don’t see why you’re so sad.” Nathan spoke softly but intently. “This is an opportunity; this is new; it means change is coming.”

  “Yeah, I feel like that, too.” I caught her eye.

  “I don’t think . . . it’s just . . . think it through. If she is from another world and actually is playing a game, what does that make us? The change that you are talking about could be that it turns out we don’t exist. That nothing is real. That everything ends.”

  “We exist. Self-awareness contains its own proof of existence. Then there’s the fact we have appetites, desires—especially Milan.” Nathan’s delicate hands gestured as he talked, a kind of repetition of his points in a private sign language. “We have intelligence, especially you. And our world exists, too.”

  “Does it?” Athena muttered. “What if those people in the chat forums speculating that the world is all illusion are right?” She gestured at the unrolled screen.

  “Thus I refute them!” Milan put his foot on a chair and shoved it across the floor; it toppled with a crash, earning us a great many disapproving looks for having disturbed the relative calm of the room.

  “Sorry, folks, sorry, a bit overeager there.” Milan got up with a wave and put the chair back.

  “Sit down, you fool!” Athena hissed.

  “But you take my point?” He settled down again but was still animated, full of energy.

  “What’s your point?” she asked patiently.

  “I’m Milan, right? I know that. I’m kinda cool and sexy. I know that, too. But suppose I’m not sure about everything else, maybe my senses can’t be trusted. Then you have to kick stuff and see what it feels like. If you can kick stuff and feel the effects, it’s there. Kicking, it’s the only way to get answers.” He gestured as if to say, There you are, simple.

  We all looked at him, slightly amazed. Well, I was. It wasn’t often Milan came out with anything that sounded so profound. He was absolutely right. That’s how it had been for me, when I didn’t know anything about myself, not even my name. Was I a good person? What should I do? Hand myself in to the authorities? I’d learned the answers, not by introspection, but by action. A few weeks of living unnoticed on the streets of the City, and I even knew what name I should give myself.

  “Speaking of getting answers, isn’t Jay on around now?” Nathan pointed out.

  “Yeah.” All at once, Carter’s face became solemn. “Yeah, let’s find him.”

  The Anarcho-Punk Collective had decorated all the rooms of the hospital for this monster rave, and that included the punk hall, which had a style of sorts. Much less classy than the dance room, of course, but still, it had a particular look, created by competing graffiti and images. The walls had been sprayed with so many slogans and tags that it looked a lot like the aftermath of a mall raid. My guess is that they had let gangs in to do their own thing; there was such a jungle of images. Whoever had been firing yellow smiley faces with vampire teeth had obviously cut loose; those were everywhere. Occasionally your gaze would catch a really artistic piece of work, around which all the slogans and tags ceased, giving it space, respect. There was a creepy old-man punk with his tongue stuck out, for example. It was drawn in white and gray paints and looked a little like that Michelotto guy—assuming that you had stuck a Mohawk wig on him and he was pulling a face at you. On one wall, someone had written, “All you need is drugs.” Then someone else had crossed out “drugs” and written “love.” Which in turn had been struck through for “drugs” again, and so on. They battled it out on a slight curve upward until “drugs” won. I guess “drugs” had the longer arms. Higher still, I saw a series of red-and-black-striped cats, an anarchist Cheshire cat, whose scarlet eyes seemed to follow you. Appropriately, the cat’s body got fainter and fainter, but not its eyes or its slightly sinister grin. Eventually, though, when they were all that was left, even the eyes and the teeth disappeared. You couldn’t help searching along the wall, feeling that somehow the cat was still present, watching and leering. In the mood I was in, it was easy to imagine that the cat was real, and it was
our world that had faded away from it.

  The walls of the room seemed chaotic only while your attention was away from the crowd of punks gathered to hear the bands and admire each other. Here was the truly fecund center of the entire party. An immense crowd that roared and swayed, its colorful surface twisting and swaying like sea anemones in invisible currents. The presence of lots of anarcho-punks meant that beneath the vivid layer of color created by the dyed and spiked hairstyles, the overall tone of the crowd was dark. Black dresses, purple boots, a lot of indigo and violet tops. I wondered how much, unconsciously, even the people here were affected by the value system of the cards.

  Don’t wanna own your make of car

  Don’t wanna own your brand of jeans

  And as for branding food

  That’s really quite obscene

  We just wanna rock

  And we ain’t gonna stop.

  Well, knowing that their name was NoPhuture, you could hardly expect the lyrics to be subtle. The band members were enjoying their moment, leaping around the stage with a great deal of energy, casting their long hair violently from side to side to the shouts of Jay. He was looking good for the show, peroxide spikes for his hair and a spider tattoo on his bare, sweat-covered chest, with the web theme spreading out down his arms and up over his face. A week ago, we, too, would have been thrilled that one of our gang was out there, playing a gig at the invite of the APC. Now we stood at the back, away from the surging throng, watching coldly.

  It was strange being at a monster rave like this, but not being here to party. I had felt like an outsider most of my life, but for reasons that didn’t apply here. This was the kind of event that I should have felt right at home with. But I didn’t.

  When the gig was over, the band members themselves packed up their gear on the stage, while a DJ took over the music. Milan began pushing through the cheerfully sweaty crowd, and we followed. I was right behind Nathan, and it amused me to see his head turn whenever a particularly striking wall image caught his attention. Up at the stage there was a knot of people waiting for the band to come down.