Page 8 of Fable for the End of the World

“Debts are piling up in the Valley,” he says to the HR director, whose name I haven’t bothered to learn. “Every time a big storm comes in—and the thing is, these people don’t even want canned goods or Mylar blankets or whatever the fuck. They want candy bars and sixty-inch tablets. I kid you not. And they blameuswhen they’re five hundred thousand credits in the red.”

He’s drunk already, slurring his words. He’s slipped from Damish, the language of the City, the language of newscasts and board meetings and political speeches, into English, the informal tongue of the Outliers. It’s what we’re all raised to speak until the Damish consonants and vowel sounds are drilled into us for the sake of job interviews and corporate shop talk. Mostly, we speakin Damish to separate ourselves from the Outliers. When I’m on my Gauntlets, sometimes I have to remind myself to moderate my City accent.

“Cheers to that,” the HR director says, his artificially white teeth gleaming. “And cheers to second-quarter profits up ten percent.”

They clink glasses. I stay quiet, cradling my glass of water. Angels aren’t supposed to drink. We aren’t supposed to have any vices, anything that might compromise our missions. The neural reconditioning means I’m not even tempted. Not by alcohol, not by cigarettes, not by anything the other people at this party are enjoying—or craving.

As I stare into the middle distance with practiced blankness, Visser’s arm slides against my back.

“I hear we might have another Gauntlet soon,” he says.

If he weren’t already slipping back and forth between English and Damish, this is how I would know for certain that he’s drunk. Even the HR director flinches. I seize up, my fingers curling into my palm.

Everyone knows about my last humiliating, disastrous Gauntlet, and everyone knows I haven’t been on one since. The guests around us go quiet, their gazes darting anxiously toward me. As if I’m a mine, rigged to explode. As if I’m going to collapse onto the floor at any moment. Just like I did during the live stream, for every pair of eyes in New Amsterdam to see.

The clip of it went viral, of course. Last I checked, it had been viewed over twenty million times. I’m sure it fills the Outliers witha vengeful satisfaction to see an Angel on her knees for once. And the City folk must watch it out of morbid curiosity—the same thing that keeps them glued to TV shows where garishly horrible fates befall the characters. I’m no more real to them than I am to the Outliers. No more human.

In a flat, measured voice, I say, “Who’s the Lamb?”

More silence. There are a few titters from the other guests, dressed in their suits of gunmetal gray and adorned with glittering silver jewelry. The head of HR gives a quiet cough, clearing his throat.

“I’ve only heard rumors,” Visser says—too loud, oblivious to the discomfiting silence. “A girl in the Valley, her mother with some kind of addiction. It’s always the same, isn’t it? Same old tragic story.”

Yes, I want to say,it’s always the same. Because that’s Caerus’s design, and nothing exists outside of their design.

I take a sip of water, but it burns my throat like acid. The guests return to their conversations, but it seems that Visser’s hand has found a permanent place against the small of my back.

My next sip of water chokes me, and I cough, trying to use that as an excuse to dislodge Visser’s hand. But I can still feel it, hot and clammy through the fabric of my dress. It’s a thin silver nylon, encrusted in diamonds to hide all the places no one is supposed to see. Not just my breasts or my privates, but the scars ringing my wrists and elbows, my neck. A diamond choker covers that old wound easily.

As if on cue, Azrael sweeps over to us. As if he means to rescue me. Just like he did the day of my last Gauntlet, the black Caerus helicopter whirring overhead. I remember him reaching out his hand, gathering me into his arms, and not much after that. They left the girl’s body on the ground, rain drenching her, sinking slowly into the mud.

My heart leaps a little bit, seeing him. I wish it didn’t. I wish the voice inside my head didn’t cry out to him,Save me, please, get me out of here.But it does. It always has.

“Mel,” Azrael says, “having a good night?”

“Yes,” I answer. It’s as quick as a reflex.

“Good,” says Azrael. “And you, Hendrik?”

Visser nods gruffly, his nose in his cocktail glass.

The holoscreen in the corner is playing back the live stream of another Gauntlet, volume muted. Another Angel is running along the edge of a cliff, blue-brown water foaming and churning below. The video drones buzz around her like flies. Her helpless Lamb must be close.

The stream cuts to the live feed from her prosthetic and I see a young man stumbling down the cliffside, his shirt and pants torn. Even though there’s no volume, I can still hear the thrum of his tracker in my ear, the hitch of his panicked breathing.

I turn my eyes away as the Angel lifts her gun. But then she’s here in front of me, not a hologram, not a playback. She slinks through the crowd toward me, her frosty auburn hair looking radioactively bright.

“Azrael,” she says with a demure smile when she reaches us. “Mr. Visser.” When she turns to me, the smile vanishes and her nostrils flare. “Mel.”

“Lethe,” I greet her. “I see we’re celebrating your Gauntlet.”

Lethe’s smile returns, a cold beam of pride. “Last week. Nineteen-year-old boy put up by his grandfather. It took him eighty years, but eventually he reached the threshold.”

Five hundred thousand credits. That’s how deep you can go into the red before Caerus comes to collect. How long you can go on buying until one of the Masks shows up at your door, demanding payment. Demanding a name.

There’s not a Mask in sight tonight. No sleek, featureless silicone with a voice modulator—required dress for all Caerus employees when they’re on the clock. Caerus is meant to be a total meritocracy, and the masks ensure that no one is treated any differently because of their looks, their gender... anything.

Supposedly. Once you get to upper management, though, the masks are cast aside. I recognize everyone in the room, a sea of pale, artificially unwrinkled male faces.

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