Soft and dark like a murder of crows,
I water them with this sweet blood,
Redder than the rose.
~Mallarctaian Voodoo Hymn~
Portias Espesaia
The world was always dark.
For as long as he remembered, Alberto Boisseau had lived in the twilight of Portias Espesaia, the capital city of Mallarctaia. It was always twilight here, the heavy industrial smog belching from the factories, casting a pall over the entire city. By day the city was lit in a burnt-amber half-glow as the sun filtered through the poison clouds. Close to the centre of the vast, sprawling urban decay the light changed to the baleful sodium glare of ornate streetlights and the neon maze of business.
Away from that, though, even the skyscrapers were half-lit, some completely dark and abandoned death-traps with only the most desperate existing within them. Some of the old factories were dark too, crumbling, poisonous, radioactive monoliths of past industry. The newer factories were different though, sprawling miniature cities of buildings, towers and smokestacks. The corporations lit them in bright white light but the thick smog turned even that brightness into a sickly yellow, green and red.
Alberto worked in a corporation once, the floor manager of a factory which employed six thousand people. The factory manufactured armaments—uranium depleted rounds, missile casings and strange, armoured plates that he guessed were for ships or tanks. He was luckier than most as he didn’t have to work on the machines themselves—safety gear was minimal and what there was of it wasn’t available for everyone. Every week they lost a few men and women to the machines, or to sickness from the chemicals and radiation or to suicide. He was lucky.
And then he wasn’t. A machine had ground to a halt and a small, incredibly sharp bold had shot off and struck him in his hand. The pain, the hot searing pain had been overwhelming. He remembered the blood vividly.
They’d stopped the blood with makeshift bandages and then one of the managers had arrived, as usual. They always seemed to know when an incident occurred and exactly where to turn up. He couldn’t remember the man, although the safety gear and gas mask made it difficult in any case. All he’d remembered was a gloved hand pointing at him. Your turn.
He’d fought as the security men had dragged him off. He pleaded with them, he wanted them to know he’d still work, he’d still work through the pain, his hand would get better... but their inhuman metal gas mask faces had ignored him.
He was on his own now. On his own in the streets. The bandage around his hand was yellow and red and he knew that the poison from the wound was seeping into his body. The hand had stopped hurting a few days ago, the fingers blackening. There wasn’t much time left.
He was surprised he had survived this long. He had killed and eaten the smaller stray dogs, rats and other vermin that infested the streets of the city, hiding in the rubble from the gangs, the military and the security teams. Especially the cannibals. He’d seen them sometimes, dismembering each other or sometimes chewing madly into their own flesh. At times they were in small groups, but usually by themselves, some modicum of shame and a sense of horror at their deeds keeping them from forming any community. He’d seen them pick over the corpses that would be thrown into the street from the backs of trucks and military vehicles.
Even in his delirium he swore never to join them. Better to eat the flesh of vermin than to eat people.
The wound sapped him of strength though. Every day it was harder to move, harder to scavenge. His clothes were grimy, ripped and stained with blood, urine, faeces and chemicals. The water he drank was poison too, the acidic pools formed by rain.
He was hiding now, not bothering to look for food. Waiting for the pain to finally end. He vaguely remembered the lessons his mother had taught him—the gods who had walked the land before the corporations. Perhaps he would see them when he died.
There was a crunch and a groan. Despite his exhaustion he tensed up, looking around. He’d made it to a low, half-demolished building that may have once been an office of some sort. There were plastic remnants of furniture, corroding metal fixtures and decaying concrete walls. He’d leaned up against such a wall, trying to stay out of the wind and out of sight.
There was someone there, on the other side of the wall. Someone had seen him.
He willed himself to move but his body failed to respond. The fear felt dulled in his stomach, an old feeling that was as much a part of him as the hand that was rotting away. He closed his eyes and felt oddly at peace. Whoever it was would finish him off, even if they took their time. It wouldn’t last forever. It wouldn’t last this bleak eternity.
There was a click and then light, bright blinding white light shone straight into his face. He gasped a ragged breath and squinted his eyes open into it. The light shifted down and through the glare he saw a gas mask, a gloved hand and... was it a gun?
The figure knelt in front of him and pressed something to his lips. To his shock he realised it was a plastic bottle full of water—clean water. He drank greedily, the cool liquid flowing down his parched throat.
The gas mask was pushed up with a gloved hand. The man’s face beneath it had thick stubble but wasn’t diseased or emaciated. The eyes were bright, intelligent and gentle and the man’s expression was kind and concerned, if tense.
There was someone else, holding the gun. Yet it wasn’t a gun... the barrel had glass over it, darkened glass. Whatever it was, it looked delicate, sophisticated, expensive.
The man spoke in English. “Hello. My name’s Jonathan. I’m Chimaean.”
He’d heard of Chimaea, of course—a country close to Mallarctaia but a world away. A world without poison and radiation and smog.
“I work for the New Sydney Times... Chimaean media. And I want you to tell me your story...”
And with the last hours left in his blighted life, Alberto told his story.
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