Page 38 of Immortal Longings
“We never have fine daylight.” Calla looks up briefly, her bangs sliding away from her face. “San is a city of darkness.”
Anton winks. “Exactly. No one can say it accidentally.”
Calla sighs, though she hardly has time to shoot him down before both their wristbands are trembling. She doesn’t look bothered, pressing the buttons at the top. Anton, on the other hand, blinks in confusion.
“I just came from a ping. It’s too soon.”
“It’s mine,” Calla says. “I haven’t had one all day. You’ve only been triggered by proximity.”
Anton slides his knives back out. He should have caught his breath by now, but his throat still feels tight. Calla glances at him, smiling with menace when their eyes meet, and his throat closes up even more.
“So,” he says. “Are we allies, then?”
“I suppose we are.” Calla pulls her wristband up as she starts to walk, tilting her head for the text sliding across the screen. Anton doesn’t bother glancing at his wristband at all. If someone is heading toward Calla, then they are heading toward him too.
“Watch the puddle, Fifty-Seven.”
Calla glances back. She skirts the puddle, an ear tipped to the city as she listens. They walk past a pharmacy, where two elderly men sit in the corner playing cards. “Must you call me something as crude as my number?”
“My apologies. Would you prefer Calla? Or perhaps Her Highness, Princess Calla?”
“I,” Calla says sweetly, “am going to kill you.”
“I was expecting it eventually, but not this soon—to your left!”
Calla reacts immediately, hearing the change in Anton’s tone as if a switch was flipped. She ducks without looking, narrowly avoiding the arc of a heavy pole-like weapon, which strikes the side of the pharmacy entrance instead.
The player lunges out from the pharmacy, rearing the pole back for another swing. His motions are heavy, powerful. His path through the shop is marked with a trail of fallen bags he’s collided with, the back door he surged through still swinging from the vigor of his entrance.
While the pole swings in Anton’s direction, Calla twists up and kicks the player in the back, sending him off-balance before the pole can land and crush Anton like a paper doll. One end of his weapon drops onto the alley ground with a clangorousthud. Taking the opening, Anton lunges forward, slashing the player’s legs and rolling out of the way just as fast. San-Er is too narrow for fights. It is not fit for puzzling, nor for careful navigation and calculated strikes. It is speed and strength in a quick grapple, and when it comes down to it, two people working in close tandem will always overpower one opponent.
Calla shoves her sword through the player’s stomach. He freezes, losing grip on the pole entirely while he attempts to claw the blade out of him. If only he would glance inside the pharmacy again, he might be able to jump. He might see the two elderly bodies, ready for the taking. Instead, he panics, tries to move away, and Anton has already taken advantage of the pause to reach over and slash the player’s throat.
Anton feels the hot gush of blood on his hand. Feels it creep into every line of his palm, coat his skin as another stain impossible to clean off. He has ended so many lives, put on and washed off layer after layer of red. But these are not his hands, and this is not his body. Maybe there is no need to stop until he is reunited with his birth body, and only then will he start to count the infractions.
The player falls. By the time he hits the ground, he is already taking on the appearance of rot. Anton breathes a long exhale, the alley now quiet. It was a quick battle. He watches Calla shake her sword, getting most of the blood off before leaning down to tap the player’s wristband screen.
“This was Thirteen,” she reports. She wipes her chin as she straightens up again, cleaning the red smeared there. When she sheathes her sword, she looks away too fast for Anton to determine whether he was imagining her odd expression.
“Who are they going to log for this hit?” he asks curiously. “You or me?”
“Probably you,” Calla answers, striding away. “I have too many already.”
Anton hurries after her. “Show-off.”
San-Er is already inventing narratives. The reels play them on repeat: blurry footage of Anton and Calla outside that tiny pharmacy, fighting together like such a well-oiled machine that even August can’t believe they didn’t know each other prior to the games.
He picks up a teacup, his grip tightening. Any other person might have thrown it against the wall. He almost wants to. But he keeps his composure, taking a sip and setting down the teacup afterward, lest the porcelain shatter in his fingers and bring Galipei inside to investigate.
The television screen fuzzes and glitches, the citywide signal hitting trouble. When the large screen in August’s bedroom clears again, the newscaster is relaying the crowd-favorite theory on players Eighty-Six and Fifty-Seven. Through the afternoon and into the evening, they have run down the list of every possibility—from long-lost relatives to foreign agents—but the narrative that has caught the most interest is that of lovers, each of whom registeredfor the games because of depleting funds, not knowing the other had done the same.
August drops into a satin-lined chair. He props his arm on his knee, then lolls his head onto his fist, thinking. San-Er’s viewers are fascinated by the idea of an alliance, wildly entertained over how it might take shape. And first and foremost, that is what the games are. Entertainment. A distraction. Players in the past have never teamed up before, at least not long-term. Anton and Calla are delivering for the masses better than King Kasa ever could.
The reels give Calla ample screen time now that everyone has noticed her lack of jumping too. Enough time has passed since the Daqun for every other player to switch bodies, but Calla’s remains the same. Though her face is always covered by a breathing mask, the newscasters are quick to recognize that same long curtain of hair and red leather coat billowing with her movements. They suspect that she doesn’t have the jumping gene, which is a fair assumption when rarely anyone risks the games without that fail-safe. Calla likely didn’t intend this as a part of her strategy, but the assumption will work in her favor. When King Kasa looks upon the scoreboard and sees that it is headed by someone who can’t jump, he’ll chuckle to himself about this soon-to-be victor with weak qi, unthreatened by the thought of letting them into the guarded palace.
If there is justice in their world, then that unmerited confidence is exactly what will bring him to his death. And if justice does not come, then August himself will hunt it down.
In a smooth motion, August stands and strides toward his door.
