FORTY-ONE: James

Siobhan asked Arous to meet her at the RabbitHole, which was a little café in the middle of the City on the Rio Luz.

“Meet me in one, two, three nights. Don’t be late. Don’t get lost. Walk straight to the middle of the City and walk down stream. Or take a hovaxi.  I’m sure you can afford it.”

            “In the meantime, Octavius, I guess I’ll just stare out the window with you.” Arous walked to the window and placed her hand on Octavius to pet him. He rubbed his face against her.  “What do you stare at all day from your window seat.”

            She looked down and saw a little boy staring up at her.  He raised his hand.

            “Who’s that?”

            Go find out.

            She stared at Octavius and he stared back.

            “Was that you?” he double-blinked. “It better have been.”  She looked down and the boy was walking away.

            “Open,” she commanded the windows.

“Wait!” she yelled down at the boy but he kept walking briskly down the street. Hovaxis and hovehyocs were zooming up and down the street.

She ran down the stairs because the lift was too slow.

“I’ll never catch him.”

He’s in Burton’s.

“How do you . . . never mind.”

She stopped at Burton’s Cornerstore.

 A little boy who looked about four or five years stood on his tiptoes just in front of her at the counter. She burst into the store.

“Good morning, Mr. Burton.”

“Good morning, sunshine,” he said looking up to smile then back to the boy. “What’d you want, kid?  Hurry.”

“Five of those whopper stoppers for a quarter,” said the boy.

“Show me the quarter, kid.  It’ll take him a year just to dig around in his pocket for it,” he said to Arous with a smile.

The child wrenched a fisted hand from his pocket and uncurled his fingers to display the eagle exhibiting his magnanimous wing. 

“Here you go.  Now, get on out of the way,” slamming the jawbreakers down on the counter hard enough to break the glass countertop.  Mr. Burton looked up smiling.

“How are you today Miss Arous? Any luck finding your mother? A young looker like you shouldn’t have any trouble getting anything in this city.”

“No luck. Yet.”

“Well, you let me know if you need anything. I may seem like a simple store owner to you but that’s just a disguise. I’m very well connected.”

Odd, she thought.  Doesn’t he wonder why I’m here or what I want? Why does he always seem so . . . helpful. And how he’s always so concerned about . . .

“My mother.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s nice of you to always be so concerned about my mother.”

“Well,” he said, assured of his guileful charms. “I take pride in the City and want to help strangers the best way I can. Isn’t that the way of the Universe, Miss Arous? To help those who need since we are all connected. All the same.”

“We’re not all the same,” she said looking at the boy who stood looking at her in the window. “Evidently.”

“There are exceptions,” he said. “You learn fast for a Sticks-dweller.  Underlings aren’t the same as Citizens even if they live above ground.”

“I’m not from the Sticks,” she corrected him. “I’m from Alippiana.”

“That’s right. I’m sorry,” he said still smiling. “You must find this air awfully drying.  I see you had a sauna installed the day after you go here.”

How does he know?

“I don’t miss much, Miss Arous. In fact, I don’t miss anything.” His lips were spread across his face but his eyes were no longer smiling.

“Can I also get five of those jaw breakers for a quarter? And this half gallon of cream should be enough.” She had grabbed the half gallon out of the case beneath the counter.

“That cat of yours sure does drink a lot of cream,” he said, then continued just above a whisper. “Odd though, I’ll tell you. There have been quite a few Spartan Guard patrolling this area over the last couple of days.  Especially since you brought that cat of yours home.  I’d keep him away from the windows if I were you. He looks suspiciously large, I’ll tell you.  Nobody’s supposed to have them genetically altered cats.  Not even Citizens of the City.  And you’re no Citizen. You have a beautiful day now.”

He bid farewell to her as if she were the last ray of sunshine at the end of a crisp, cool day.  She heard the bell jingle as the door closed matching the polite timber in his voice.  Jawbreakers in hand, her feet quickened to catch up with the boy on the corner.  The hyoc-hoveh stopped. The large hovering bus was opening its doors to the line of ten of which the boy summed the end.  She would just catch him.

“Hey!”  She held out her hand with the small bag that matched his.  He looked up in blank surprise.

 “Hey kid, you getting on or not?” the hyoc driver barked and the boy got on the bus.

The boy looked at the driver, then looked back at her.

“Wait,” said Arous looking at the driver. “You can wait until he gets on.”  The driver stared at her.

Skin-dancer magic goes far in the City, she thought.  Great Skin-dancers wrapped you up in their stories, you’d believe anything, even that you needed to wait on a little boy.

“You should listen to the voices,” he said to her.

“What?” said Arous.

“You’ve blocked them and they’re only trying to help you.  That’s what Octavius says.”

“How’d you know his name?”

“Listen,” he said, then cocked his head as if listening to something. “You don’t know what happened to the boy.”

“What boy?” she said then remembering why she had followed him. “Who are you? And why do you stare up at my window?”

He guffawed as if amazed at her question.

“To say good morning to Octavius, silly, on my way to work at the Temple.”  He turned and hopped onto the bottom step of the hoveh-hyoc.

“You do know I’m not the only one who watches you, don’t you? They watch you from the steam. And the Spartan Guard. The ones with mirrored, red-rimmed glasses.  Most can’t see them. I can because I know them. You can if you watch. Watch out for them. The Miasmen, people think they’re myth but they’re not. The man -” but the hoveh-hyoc door cut off his words though his lips continued to move. Arous thought she saw a glimpse of panic, as if that was what he’d really meant to tell her all along.

She watched the hologram on the back of the bus as it floated away: South Wall to River Center.