Page 49 of Immortal Longings
If Chami managed to jump in, then the body wasn’t doubled, so there was only one occupant before. But there’s no wristband, so this is not a player. Why would a stranger on the streets try to attack Calla? She reaches for the knife that Chami is still clutching, and Chami relinquishes it quickly, letting Calla examine the blade. It looks standard. Could have come from any one of the three weapons shops.
“Chami,” Calla says quietly. “Would you… mind jumping into Yilas for a second?”
Yilas straightens up, concern immediately marring her expression. “She can’tleavethat body, he’ll come back and kill us—”
Calla draws her sword, getting into a battle stance. She doesn’t think she needs to, but she’ll do it to make Yilas feel better. “Trust me. I have a hunch. Can she, Yilas? Just for a few seconds?”
Chami turns a questioning glance to her girlfriend. When—after a few seconds of holding a tight grimace—Yilas finally nods, there’s another flash of light, arcing from the attacker’s body to Yilas. Yilas’s eyes turn from pale green to pink. And the attacker… drops right to the floor, not a fleck of color in his blank eyes as they stare up at the ceiling.
Calla puts her sword away.
“How is that possible?” Chami gasps in Yilas’s body. “This—this—did you see another light?”
“There was only yours,” Calla reports. Though she doesn’t visibly show it, she’s equally flabbergasted. She rubs at her nose, trying to ease an itch that won’t go away. “There isn’t even anyonearoundright now for him to have jumped into.”
A short scream pierces the streets outside, close enough in proximity to be heard over the sirens. Though Calla waits to see if it will come again, she doesn’t make any move to investigate the sound. For all she knows, it could be San-Er itself, screeching a dying call in response to the blaring sirens. Quick as they came, the sirens suddenly stop, and then the silence almost rings louder.
Chami jumps back into the attacker’s empty vessel. She rolls herself upright again with a cumbersome grunt. Meanwhile, Yilas blinks, returning to consciousness, and hastens to kneel down so she can help Chami.
“What happened?” Yilas asks.
“We’ve got a vessel,” Chami explains. “It’s vacant.” Her sweet voice transfers over even with such low vocal cords. Until the wound on her birth body heals, she cannot jump back in. She’ll have to stay as this body—this mysterious, hostless body.
Calla heads for the door, peering out through the glass. There’s no water to be seen. It really was a false alarm. Could it have been a trap, just for her? But then, why would the attacker jump away so quickly?
“If you can,” she calls to Chami and Yilas, “lock the doors and don’t open shop for a few days.” She pushes at the door, facing San-Er again. “I need to get to the bottom of this.”
Pampi plugs her portable desktop into the jack socket, watching the monitor feed. The sirens in San-Er are connected, and it was no trouble to trigger them all by sending a command into a single one. She almost craves more of a challenge, but it is what it is.
She’s turned the sirens off now. She only needs to input her last trigger, using a different feed that will erase the evidence of her remote interference. A low mist has started up on these rooftops, clouding her surroundings. Pampi’s hands fly over her keyboard, string after string of code that she reads only once before sending through.
A door bangs from the other side of the rooftop. Pampi inhales sharply through her nose, taking in the acrid scent of burning rubber. Her code finishes. With a quick glance at the screen, she lets it load for one second more, in case there are stray signals to be caught, then unplugs her monitor and shoves the wire back into the briefcase. Just before the footsteps come within range, she hauls the computer to her chest and scurries off, ducking behind a mound of rubbish and concealing herself against a broken washing machine.
She waits. The footsteps shuffle toward one of the antennas, and Pampi wonders if it’s the building’s maintenance, having entirely ridiculous timing. Then she peers out from her hiding space and sights a tall woman with long hair prodding at the siren speakers.
Not palace affiliated. Not a guard. But this woman looks like she knows what she’s doing, pulling at the wires and refiguring them into different slots.
Pampi carefully eases her briefcase open again, letting the computer monitor blink on. By some instinct, she swipes her fingers across the pad and remotely logs on to her games surveillance. She zooms in on the map, closer and closer until she is looking at surveillance footage of herself hidden on the rooftop, tucked a few feet away from the woman in the black jacket, who now straightens with a pensive expression on her face.
Yellow eyes, gloved hands. There’s an inherent power present in the way she is standing, or else Pampi wouldn’t be paying so much attention. If Pampi knows how to identify anything, it is those who hold power, so that she can squeeze them dry.
Pampi switches screens, pulling up the locational view of the players’ wristbands, and the number57flashes in a little dot right where she stands. Fifty-Seven, star of the scoreboards. Pampi supposes she shouldn’t be surprised it is this particular player who has shown up here.
Fifty-Seven turns around suddenly, as if she hears something, eyes flashing in the gray light. There’s smoke from the factory nearby turning the mist into a heavy smog, so she reaches up to take off her mask, revealing the rest of her face. For the first time, without the pixelation of the screens and the washed monochrome of San-Er’s footage, Pampi gets a proper look at Fifty-Seven, who starkly resembles…
“Princess Calla,” Pampi whispers under her breath in awe. “Howfascinating.”
The palace publicizes a statement. It takes Calla wholly by surprise, unable to believe what she’s hearing. She spent an hour trying to reach August’s phone line without success, and as soon as she gives up and comes home, she gets heranswers on the news instead, where the broadcast is speaking about the sirens. Rather than brushing the matter under the rug and withholding an explanation, as Calla would have thought, the newscaster cleanly reads the lines she has been given.
“San-Er has been infiltrated by rural rebels. They have no identity numbers nor the legal right to be within city limits, but those without morals and rules will always try to disrupt what is flourishing.”
Calla peers into the fridge, sniffing at the empty shelves. The broadcast continues in the background while she shuffles around the kitchen, trying to find something to eat. She retrieves a single egg and cracks it into the heated pan.
“A few casualties in the games have been attributed to these rebels, and today was another attempt. Official instructions from the palace bid us to remain calm. There is no need to worry as the palace guard is working day and night to search for the perpetrators.”
The sun is setting. The evening outside turns from a sad, dingy gray to a dark, velvety one. When Calla flops the fried egg onto her plate and shuffles to the couch, Mao Mao trots after her, purring. Her living room falls dimmer and dimmer, but she makes no move for the overhead lights. She only pushes at the cushions absently to make space for her cat, then sets her plate down. Her apartment consists of the living space, her tiny bedroom, and the tiny bathroom, but there is an even tinier laundry room behind the cramped shower cubicle, perpetually illuminated in varying red and blue and green. The brothel that operates in the building next door directly faces the laundry room’s window, providing enough light for her to see what she is forking into her mouth.
The news broadcast continues. It decides that the troublemakers are only intent on killing players of the games to turn their nose up at the king, that they disrupt the cities’ affairs out of spite. Any civilian who sees suspicious activity should report to a palace guard immediately. Calla supposes there is no harm infeeding the civilians this story. If it’s solely the players of the games being targeted, then there is no safety threat across San-Er.
