Ghosts of Koa, The First Book of Ezekiel (23 page)

"Wiiiintertiiiiime. And the living ain't easyyyy..."

Zeika smiled, as Manja's lulls swept around the Forge. The duffel bag rustled as the girl packed the orders away, but her movements never cut into the silk of her little voice.

"Bombs are jumpiiin', and the smog's so hiiiigh! Oh our Daddy's goooone, and Mama's seen better daaays--"

Zeika snorted with laughter. "That is
not
is how the song goes!"

Manja giggled and dropped four rolls of toilet paper into another duffel bag. "But, it's true!"

Zeika shook her head, feeling a sudden rush of love for the girl. She was really too smart for her age, and somehow, in the midst of death and madness, she had picked up a sense of humor, one that was a couple sizes too big for her.

Manja labeled and tied off the Lim order and moved on to packing another. Her sweet tones mixed with the deep strokes of Zeika's hammer, creating a familiar but unusual harmony in the belly of the Forge.

Still, the cryptic, bloody letter bit at the back of Zeika's mind. Who was "they"? Koa, or someone else? Who sent the note? Had someone intercepted Munch mid-flight, or had this come from someone in Munch's assigned demesnes? Munch usually did his rounds between the Fifth, Sixth, and Eighteenth Demesnes.
Someone
had wanted that last message to get out. But why to her? Was it their last attempt at an S.O.S., or did they want to contact her specifically?

And even if it was an S.O.S., it came too late.
 

The blood on the letter looked days old. For all she knew, it'd come from one of the Civilians of Lot 12, the first lot that had gotten hit, the one Mr. Cartegena told her about.

She shook her head, finally giving up the attempt to understand the note. There was nothing she could do about it, and her family was leaving the Protecteds anyway. No matter what happened, Manja still had to be raised. Zeika still had to work. If the world really was going to hell out there, it would have to wait. Koa had already invaded. It couldn't possibly get any worse.

There'd been a sudden tornado warning in the Seventh, but other than the weird weather news, Caleb hadn't gotten squat from his teams. Days had passed since he'd first dropped new information on them. Either they were on a perpetual lunch break, or they had just turned off their radios altogether.

He shook his head, fully intending to file reports of insubordination if these bastards didn't do their jobs. They could hate him all they wanted, but stopping Koan terrorism was more important than bruised egos. Even the higher-ups of the Alchemic Order would agree to that.

Caleb sat down to go through the dossiers for anything he missed. He had compiled info from the Special Forces Tacticians in the Sixth and Seventh and combined it with his own from the raids. While he'd come up with many interesting leads, he wouldn't be able to do much else or strategize until his triads came back with their bits.

Then again...

There was still that dark-eyed girl from Lot 3, the one that Merconius, had been protecting. It wasn't just that he'd seen her before. There was something about her eyes. He'd seen that hard gaze somewhere before.
 

"Maybe..." He got up and started rifling through three boxes of tapes on his desk. Two-week's worth of security recordings from the Lakeside Diner, installed at Veronica Webb's request. He'd just finished watching the first week, taking notes as he did, trying to create a timeline of events. He'd wanted to avoid researcher bias, and so he'd steered clear of starting his video analysis with the day of the bombing. In his experience, the answer was always in the smaller data points rather than in the bigger ones. But maybe now was the time to break the seal. Maybe if he worked backwards, he'd find something. He popped in the most recent tape, the one recorded on the day of the bombing.
 

The video of the Lakeside Diner looked normal. Three waiters worked the floor for the customers that were filing in. Business men, construction workers, local Joes and Janes stopping in for drunken breakfast. Mostly Azures, but nothing special. When a shuffling Azure girl swayed in, however, Caleb raised an eyebrow. She had come in through the back, walked by several onlookers, and then sat on the floor, smack in the middle of the eatery.
A couple of people started over to her, seeming to want to help.
 

Oh wow.

The girl was convulsing. Caleb sat back slowly as he watched a flurry of terror fly through the diner. A few customers went for their phones, most likely to call the ambulance. One man even ran over and laid the girl down, trying to hold her still as she spasmed-- and then the man leapt back at something seemingly horrific, something that Caleb didn't understand until he zoomed in.

Sutures. At the girl's eyes and mouth. They ran from ear to ear, as though someone had completely separated the girl's lower jaw from the upper and then had sewn it back on.

What the...

The customer was screaming for help. His plea was muted on the video, but by the way the man slumped to his knees, Caleb knew it had been shrill and desperate.

The girl's throes became more violent, and he thought he could see her body begin to expand. Her fingers and joints bent weirdly, contorting in jerky snaps as something bubbled up from beneath her flesh, swelling her limbs, tearing the skin. Her hood was now thrown back, and her cheeks were filling up, the flesh of them ripping away from their stitches.

Static filled the screen. The video had cut off at 11:41 pm... the exact moment of the bombing.

No. No way.

He felt himself go numb. Pieces were beginning to fit together, and still, his mind couldn't accept it. He went back through the tapes, still shaking off the chill that had just laid itself on his bones. He needed to go back through more video, to see what had lead up to that day.
 

Something clicked.
 

That girl from Lot 3. He knew where he had seen that dark and placid gaze before. She was a waitress at the Lakeside Diner.

In the first week's footage, she had been on the security camera one day and had looked directly into it. While she couldn't have known it was there, the camera had caught her face at a clear three-quarter profile. Same jawline, same hair, and those eyes. The fire in her gaze could melt rocks; it couldn't be replicated anywhere else. But then, why hadn't she shown up in the Civic Order's face recognition databases? Weren't all Civilians required to be registered?

Caleb got up, grabbed his coat, and headed out the door. Registered or not, it was her. And she was the only witness, that he knew of, who was still alive.

"We're moving, Zeika. Today. To the Island. You and Manja need to get down here now, okay? Run. Don't walk."

Only four days had passed since Baba had told Zeika to clean out the Forge; Mama's call was early and unexpected. Furthermore, the details were different. She'd thought they'd be meeting Baba on the mainland of the Sixth, but now the Island? Before the Collapse, the Island had gotten zero respect as a borough, but now, it was a cosmopolitan mecca, Azure-occupied, and one of the most stable areas of the Sixth. Even so, it was the last place she expected Baba to pick as a safe haven. They didn't have much money, but more importantly, Koa hated Azures. Living among them, especially amongst the richest and bluest, was like painting a target on their foreheads.

Still, Mama's voice had sounded so urgent that it put movement into Zeika, and she was already rolling out of the hammock to gather her and Manja's stuff.

"Manja? Come on, baby, we've gotta go see Mama."

"Mm?" The little one rubbed her eyes, looking as though she were about to cry.

"We're leaving to a new place, remember? We're moving today."
 

Zeika put on a big smile, one that she had been saving ever since the raid attack nearly a week ago. She knew that once Baba had made up his mind to leave, no border control in the whole world was going to keep him from moving his family. He had found a way, and they were finally going to get out of this hell hole.

Manja seemed to understand that too because she brightened and shot up in her hammock, sleep sliding off her face. Without a single word of complaint, she hopped out and got moving. She took her tutu'd teddy bear, which Zeika had gutted and re-sewn into a new backpack, and she began to pack up her "Manja stuff", including her machine books and her last dose of medicine. They had packed their things days ago, just in case something like this happened.

Zeika did one last look over the nearly bare Forge, stuffing a little over a thousand dollars into different parts of her clothing as she did. She hadn't sold all the inventory, but she'd been working non-stop for four days straight, flipping every and anything she could. At first, customers had been nervous about stockpiling food and supplies. They were afraid it would attract Koa. So in order to move a lot of the smaller things more quickly, Zeika had slashed prices and put on a fire sale that had cost them most of their inventory, including most of their food supply. The hardware had moved the quickest.

Now, the nearly bare shelves and hammocks held mixed feelings, a sense of freedom and a sense of loss for the life she had lived until now. Her purpose had always been to 'get out' of the Fifth Demesne, but she never would have thought it would end like this.

Things will get better, eventually.
Right?

As if to answer, Manja's warm hand slid into hers. Zeika smiled at her, at the hope in the little girl's eyes, knowing that this was the right thing to do. Even if they were afraid of what lay ahead,
Manja
needed this. And Manja always came first.

"Come on, kiddo. Let's go see Mama and Baba. They're missin' you a whole lot."

Manja's smile widened, and Zeika led her out of the Forge, leaving it behind for the last time.

Five in the morning. Burke had just woken up, and he'd barely been able to scratch his crotch before his doorbell rang. Stalkers from Satan's tea shop wasn't enough, apparently. Now, he was getting house calls at the crack of dawn. What the hell.

"What?!" He snarled as he yanked open his door. "And in God's name,
why
?"

"Councilman. I bring great tidings, friend."

Burke scowled. It was a great tide, all right. A tsunami of snake oil and bullshit had just spilled onto his mahogany floor, and in the middle of it stood Sal Morgan. He leaned against the doorframe, hands in his pockets, grinning like a sideways ass crack.

"No, goddamnit," Burke snapped. "I already told Billings 'no' once, and I don't want to discuss it again-- HEY!" He stumbled back as Morgan slithered his way through the door. Burke slammed the door closed and followed Sal down the hallway.

"Lovely morning for a visit with an old friend, yes?" Sal barely looked over his shoulder as he made his way in.

"What in blazes did I just tell you?" Burke trailed Sal's clicking heels into the kitchen. He frowned, surprised that the tax collector even needed to walk. As greasy as Sal was, Burke half-expected him to just glide over the wood. "I already powwowed with the rest of the Council on this. The motion's too radical."

Sal didn't respond. Instead, he opened Burke's cabinets, took out a pair of coffee mugs, and began to peruse the large pantry.

"We don't have nearly enough evidence to warrant it," Burke continued, eyeing Sal. "And even if we did--"

"Dark or light?"

Burke frowned. "Excuse me?"

"Your roast. Do you like it dark or light?" Sal lifted two cans of Burke's most expensive beans.

"Roast my fucking ass, Sal. Don't make coffee, because you're not a guest. You're leaving. Now."

Sal shrugged and chose the dark roast. "I will do nothing of the sort, my friend. You made a mess. It's time to clean it."

"Bullshit it is."

"The ghosts of war, the Articles39 were
your
ideas. Ideas upon which Koa has capitalized--"

"You have no right to roll those stipulations back. The Civilians will have nothing left!"

"--ideas that the Order have not yet forgiven. You and your little poodle, Luke, are walking on some very shaky ground before the Halls of Deis. And before the eyes of your precious Civilians as well, if rumor be true."

"An honor I owe to you," Burke muttered darkly.

"Such honors are my pleasure to bestow, Councilman, to those who forget their lineage. It's a strange thing, lineage. While it is long forgotten by fallen, rotting apples like yourself, it is never forgotten by the tree or its roots."
 

Sal's back was still turned to him. He was grinding Burke's beans. His goddamn 300-hundred-dollar-a-pound coffee beans.

Burke tore his eyes away from the coffee grains before more homicidal thoughts set in. "Right. Nasty apples. And?"

"My point is that the Order's memory is long and unyielding. The only question is whether its memory of you will be fond, to burn eternal and glorious... or if it will be foul, to be spurned and purged from the pages of its great history."

Sal finally turned to face him, the coffee pot behind bubbling softly. His grease was gone, replaced by a face that was now flatline. Games were over, apparently. Now it was time for the real meeting.