As much they wished, as much as they silently prayed every night, they couldn’t force themselves to forget. They could try, pushing down memories, collapsing them together into an unrecognizable mess. But when they weren’t worrying about them, when they thought their mind was free, the fragments of their past life would inevitably untangle themselves. One day, they would stop trying, in a form of defeated acceptance. But the first day they finally stepped off Mantra for the last time, they would spend every single second desperately ripping away all of themselves.
“3. Begs. 22 broke their helm. 22 cannot come back. 3. Helpless.”
The panic in his voice had sounded sweet once, but like the rest of the murals on the walls of their brain, those shaky sentences would haunt them forever. They had sat here, on the platform bench, looking unblinking at the aerotrain’s door. Their heart was still beating as if they had to fight for survival, but air was finding its way back to their lungs. They never forgot either, feeling the weight of their mask being lifted in that white expanse, accepting the embrace of the void. Seeing the frozen waste of Bangkok in all of its monochromatic luster. They remembered the weight, the pull of a dozen hands dragging them, wheezing and retching, back to Mantra. Some had tried to force their helm back on before entering the hold, but they’d made sure it would never latch on again. And so they had sealed their fate.
“Nola. 3. Begs.”
They hadn’t looked at her, they couldn’t bear the weight. They had spent their final ride to Last Kunlun in a state between life and death, laid face against the metal floor, in the solitary containment chamber. They traveled alongside food and papers, the floor, cold as ice seared itself onto their cheek but they couldn’t move a muscle. Atrophy, exposure, lung collapse, they could feel their eyes drying up. The only thing they had been able to see during the entirety of the way back had been the door and the window it held at the top. An assortment of faces came to see them, none of them daring to enter. They couldn’t discern who had visited them but it didn’t matter, they all fell silent against a higher against, they didn’t need their limp spines to ever look their way again. Enjoy it, make it linger in your minds, this is the last you will ever see of me. Instinctively, their head bobbed front to back, as if to verify they were still alive. Sitting on this lone bench, they could feel the nerves of their body manifest themselves, crying and screaming. Shh, it’s over, it’s over. It couldn’t be any other way. Whether the peddler 3 was begging to would accept or not, they would never step foot inside that machine again. Once they were all gone, once they were alone, they would crawl back onto the tracks, where they had been left, where they belonged, where they were meant to be. For not staying a burden onto anyone else, they were grateful their body had held out this long. It would be quiet, it would be their precious silence, forever far away from the constant whirs and screeches of the aerotrain.
“Calm down, bud, I’ll help out. Surely someone has one hand free to adopt a kid, still…”
Between pathetic wheezes, 3 must have profusely thanked her, as much as a Scavenger could ever thank someone. The worth of that burden was no longer his, and in so, he ended up more free than them. They had no mind for resentment, not anymore, that life was no longer theirs. Fly, fly away like paper in the wind. Their legs writhed in pain, begging for proof that they were still connected to a functioning brain. They lazily begun to swing them, one after the other, in a playful motion. The effort made their stance collapse, slipping from their sitting position into falling on the hard floor of the platform. Their ear, an instant pressed against the ground, heard in full intensity the roar of Mantra’s heart, still pumping as if ready to depart. Without any restraint, they began to puke, hard enough to make their eyes water, where tears hadn’t bothered to form before. They could have drowned there if they hadn’t been lifted up by their shoulders at the last second, leaving the worst of it to stain the rest of their uniform. A remnant of this morning’s ration, a lot of bile and dark stains rolled over their torso, colliding with the machine’s oil.
“Aye aye aye… Hey, come on, you’re not lending a hand?”
“3. Cannot. 3. Cannot touch.”
“Alright, alright, get the fuck away then. Leave this to me, go.”
And so he went. They had crossed eyes, the both of them, in a fleeting moment. Even through his lenses they could tell their irises focused into each others. There was nothing more to say, there was nothing more they could have said. He looked away when he shouldn’t have. It was too late for him to pay attention.
The following days had felt like a daze, the concussed state they’d entered the city in had prevented the grand arrival that they’d sometimes dreamed of. City Hall had heard their plea, through the eloquent mouth of their benefactor, the cloth peddler. High City people, their eyes fixated on them, dissecting their body with their opinions. Some had stayed silent but their gazes still spilled on their shoulders like tar. In the end, they became one of them, one of the many, a citizen of Last Kunlun. The machine marched on, far away from them now but they still heard its heartbeat. They had left their uniform behind, Magnolia taking it away from them, but they still felt the etches on the fabric against their skin.
“Do you want a new name?”
They couldn’t remember his face, the Pillar of Life, the one who needed to look at them in the eyes to accept them into the city. The question had been kind, even then they knew that, but something in them held on. They were trying so hard to make everything go away, what would even be left once they were done? The perfect renewal, the grand arrival, what was promised once they would close their eyes, who would it belong to? They must have shook their head, for they couldn’t remember uttering an answer.
“You can always change it later, just come back to me if you want.”
Kindness, selflessness as a purpose. Radiant and free. Magnolia and the Pillar of Life extended their hands to them, and they couldn’t remember how to use their fingers to feel another one’s skin. Screaming nightmares, obsessive impulses to sleep on the floor, refusing to go out of their room. Hours bleeding into days, they could still smell the air in Bangkok. Had they left themselves in that silent street? Would they be forced to live as this discarded husk until all sense and reason melted together in an unrecognizable mess? Once again they were being dragged by the shoulders, and into a shower.
“I planned on just waiting for you to shit out the angst but we’re switching gears.”
They didn’t even think about resisting. Magnolia was inspecting their body like they’d seen her do with the packages the Scavengers lent her. Under running water, she used her thumbs to check her gums and jaw, slicking their hair backward to get a good view of their face.
“How do you have such perfect teeth with that freakish lifestyle… makes me wonder if 3 isn’t a hunk below all that oily armor. And those eyes, hm?”
They looked at hers, blue and green weaved into each other in perfect harmony.
“Don’t see that kind of intense green often. You don’t think you look good with the hair like that?”
Magnolia scooted over so they could have a full view of their naked body. Stains of wear, like those on their uniform, were still burned into their body. A mark of pride, they could still hear, a proof of belonging. It meant nothing to them, it never did. Focusing on their own face, they could finally see themselves. Short of a revelation, the sight let them relax their shoulders and muscles. The face wasn’t pitiful, they looked as angry as their soul had felt. It was theirs after all.
“No? Yes? No?”
“Yes.”
“Peachy, I’ll get you some gel once you’re out, you’ll see it’s just as good. Not letting you choose your colors yet though, don’t doubt me.”
They wouldn’t have felt like arguing unless she planned on keeping them naked. Deprived of their uniform that might’ve well served as another skin, they quickly realized that the sole of their feet wouldn’t take kindly to city shoes. Even without voicing a complaint, Magnolia must have seen them wince. Her solution had been to bandaged the entire foot up to the ankle, acting as a makeshift cast as if they would be learning to walk for the first time.
“It’s still not going to be comfortable but better get used to it sooner than later.”
The days they had spent in their room hadn’t offered the silence they had longed for. The district they’d been housed in was always buzzing with chatter, even at its quietest hour, the constant noise had just taken another form. They had dreamed, in a state closer to hallucinations, that their ears would get clawed out by the hands grasping at their shoulders, yet they still wanted to hear.
“Back straight.”
They straightened their back.
“Eyes up.”
Cleared up by the gel in their hair, they looked up to her.
“Onward.”
Magnolia opened the door to her apartment and she let them through into the city. At the dead of night, sounds crashed all around them, more than once they flinched but Magnolia would pass a finger on their spine, prompting them to stand as tall as they could. They had no idea what she was trying to prove but they marched on, trying to decipher the crashing waves of noise. Overlapping music, instruments they’d only heard from so far away onto the docks of Freeway, shouts and screams of exasperation and delight. Did anything carry more meaning than their own life? Was everything all around them as clueless as to their purpose? Walking through the streets of Yama, everything around them was purely existing, exploding into myriads of facets and fading away as fast as they could see them. The more they walked the denser the crowd around them got, an unstoppable flow of faces, each heading in different directions. Instinctively, they held onto Magnolia’s sleeve.
“Look up.”
And they did. The gaping maw of the Grande Gate lit only by the inside of the Hull and the buildings of Versal and Yama, stood sentinel over them, tall like nothing else they’d seen around Terra. The hand they’d used to grasp onto Magnolia gripped tighter, their legs feeling liquid. Magnolia once more held onto their shoulders, preventing them from falling on their back. In the wake of the stampede of people, they would’ve gotten trampled to death before even comprehending what they’d seen. Their head tilting almost ninety degrees, they couldn’t even make out the top of the gargantuan wall, yet everyone around them acted as if it was a part of themselves, as natural as nails growing back.
“What do you say we enter the belly of the beast?”
They could have screamed, pleaded a refusal, but they followed. Steps upon steps into crooked alleyways and buildings that threatened to tip over. A dire, overpowering smell of excessive superposition. The abundance of stimuli, the never ending stairs, the fire they felt under their feet made their deep rooted rage boil in their blood.
“Can we… stop?”
Magnolia looked back, seemingly unbothered. Their body felt on the brink of collapse and she looked right as rain, an accumulation of bile forced them to spit.
“We’re almost there, come on, you need to toughen up.”
They spat again, this time intentionally closer to her.
“I can feel my feet bleeding… It smells… awful…”
“Fucking.”
They looked at her, confused, momentarily taken out of their anger.
“If you want to add some punch to what you’re saying, you curse, if you don’t know what or whom to curse, just invoke that.”
“What are you even teaching the kids, Nola?”
A human was looking down on them from their balcony, bottle in hand, pointy teeth bared in a strange grin.
“Why don’t you mind your own fucking business?” Magnolia shouted up, and then to them, “See? It brings something more to it don’t you think?”
The human at the balcony bellowed in laughter, leaving them disarmed, their hands slumped and their back fell forward.
“Back straight!”
“Urgh…”
“Curse!”
“Fuck…”
“Louder!”
“FUCK!”
Magnolia and the human at the window exchanged respectful claps that made them feel embarrassed.
“Now we keep going.”
“Fuck…”
They couldn’t even focus on the origins of sounds reaching their ears anymore, every inch of their nerves harassed by the pain in their legs and feet. Thirst and hunger finally caught up to them as well, only enhancing the perpetual discomfort. The inescapable smell of the entire place forced them to climb with their nostrils almost closed, decreasing the air reaching their lungs and tiring them even faster.
“Fuck…”
“Fuck who?” Magnolia asked as they both kept climbing.
“Fuck you…”
“Fuck me? What are you saying fuck me for? You have other demons.”
“Fuck 3.”
“Yeah, fuck that lanky prick right? What else.”
“Fuck 9.”
“Ooh, don’t know that one.”
“Fuck Mantra.”
“The whole thing, huh? Okay, okay.”
“Fuck… fuck…”
“Hang in there.”
“Fuck my parents.”
This time Magnolia didn’t follow up with anything, reaching a convex balcony, fraught with chairs, tables and people. Lights came from everywhere around the outer perimeter, they couldn’t see much further up aside from the stars. Magnolia kept walking, pushing her way through the crowd to reach one of the lit buildings, entering it under an insignia that they couldn’t read. Once inside, she pushed through to a counter, waving at them to follow quickly.
“You’re gonna go back outside and find a table for two, if there isn’t one free just idle around some people that look like they’re on their way out? Got it?”
They nodded tiredly, slugging their way back out, struggling to make their way through the lively crowd. Forced to clash and collide with so many bodies made them want to hurl, unable to ignore the smell of everything. Sweat, dirt, alcohol, herbs, grease, phosphorus. As unpleasant as it was, this cocktail of smells was different, almost alien, to what they’d always known. Back onto the balcony, they scoured the place and found two nearly departed chairs surrounding a table still amassed with bottles. Not intent on searching for a better opportunity, they sat, groaning loudly. They ignored the empty bottles and suspicious puddles of liquid on and around the table, it was not even a problem they could discern. Their feet felt like ash, their nose was still itching and they could sense every bead of sweat rolling on their back. Yet there was calm, like when they’d been subjected to the shower, an inevitability in their own place in the world that they simply accepted. Even if they were probably bleeding from the back of their ankles and that they’d suffer unspeakable muscle pain later, it was better like this.
“See, hot tip for when fuckers don’t take their bottles back…”
Magnolia had found them and gripped the discarded bottles by the muzzle with one hand, displacing them to another nearby table with the people surrounding it not conscious enough to even notice her approach.
“Make it someone else’s problem.”
With her other hand, Magnolia safely landed two large bottle and a closed bag on their own table. Without thinking twice, they grabbed one of the bottle tightly and began to chug as if their life depended on it. As fast as it went down, the liquid burned their torso from the inside, making them cough relentlessly.
“Easy, easy,” Magnolia chuckled, “This isn’t water for you, yet.”
They shot a thousand more silent curses from their eyes onto her but kept coughing with as much dignity they could muster. Their attention went to the bag that Magnolia handed over to them.
“It’s just food, the good kind.”
Rummaging through the bag, they got a handful of meatballs, covered in so much herbs the smell overtook their senses instantly. Too tired to make use of the distrust growing against Magnolia, they ate.
“I gave you something similar at home, but in that room it was like you weren’t even conscious, eating just to eat, shitting just to shit… Good to see there’s still something kicking in you.”
As they chewed, their eyes fell on the stars. The night sky was dimmer, more polluted than the immaculate purity they would be seeing far out on Terra. But out here, the stars were the only lights left. In this city, stars rose from the ground, limitless, free.
“22.”
They looked to her. The name was still theirs, for all of its worth.
“What do you want to do now?”
“I dunno,” They answered, their mouth still full.
“I’m asking because I want to make myself very clear, you are not going back to what you’ve been doing the past few days. I don’t mind you staying but if you do, you’re gonna need to kick the fucking attitude and move your ass.”
“What do you know?”
“What’s that?”
“You talk like you have something to teach, what do you even know about me? What do you know about what I escaped? Every minute, every hour, every day I felt like I was suffocating. I was the only one, they looked at me like I was wrong, like I was insane for feeling like this. You know what they thought? That I needed to adapt, that I needed to focus, that I needed to… It’s done. I’m done. I can do what I want. You can’t tell me what to do. Noone can tell me what to do.”
“That’s right. So what will you do?”
“I don’t know! Everything around here smells like death, everything is too loud, everyone is disgusting and you drink sewer water, I don’t know what I can even do…”
“You could paint, you could go break shit in the Caldera, you could copy me in a vain attempt to surpass my genius… you could fall in love.”
“Love?”
“Hm hm… You’ll understand when you’ve been around here longer.”
“This sounds like smoke, playing with coal would be more interesting.”
“But that’s exactly it, you see? You only need to look around, everything is so fickle and unabashed because as far as anyone is concerned, tomorrow might not come. Those around us drinking themselves unconscious, they might have already done so yesterday to miss the Sunrise, they might do it again tomorrow. No revelation, no higher purpose. That’s what it means to live here. However you’re wrong about something, this whole place? The Hull, Last Kunlun itself, it smells like life, not death.”
They’d finished the bag without even leaving one for Magnolia. Their feet still felt like they’d been seared against a furnace. They started to dread the inevitability of a walk down. The Sun hadn’t started to gray out the sky, the hour of night was anyone’s guess. They had wished for it, prayed to it, to take them while they couldn’t think, draped in their restless sleep. Now they hadn’t any prayers left. That day in Bangkok, the Sun had risen once more and they’d made their choice, taking the plunge themselves. Now here they sat, alcohol rising to their brain and their belly full like it hadn’t been in a long time.
“How long do I have? Until I have to find something.”
“All the time in the world.”
High above them, the Pride of the Hull rode on its way, lifting up dozens of well inebriated passengers, their dissonant music reaching the balcony. 22 wouldn’t get used to the taste or the effects of alcohol, they wouldn’t find much appreciation for meatballs with herbs, but they would remember, unconsciously, the steps they’d taken that day. On a different day, under a different sky, they both sat across from each other, digesting the overtly copious meals you could find in the restaurants near the Plaza. The terrace they dined in was part of one of the busiest and oldest establishments in the city, one 22 had been delighted to be invited in by Magnolia. They had spent the entire dinner confiding in her the discoveries of earlier. If they wouldn’t share that knowledge as the Knight, they needed to at least talk to someone else about it, just to make sure they hadn’t dreamed it.
“They did use to do that, beneath the trees in the outskirts, before the dirt became all frozen over. Never knew they were nostalgic about this, sounds like a hassle.”
“I figured maybe you also knew about this whole thing and I’d found another blind spot not even a week after that fuckshit with Farris.”
“Definitely not! Well hidden secret, I’ve lived my whole life between here and Yama and never knew a thing. Maybe my parents did…”
“You never talked about your parents.”
“I remember as much as you do about yours,” Magnolia scoffed, “I’m an old gal, some things fade away whether you want them or not. Maybe that’s why they want themselves in the dirt, so that it remembers the shape of their bodies. How morbid.”
“That’s what I wanted to say then but it didn’t feel appropriate.”
“They would’ve buried you alive! Thus the Knight was finally felled, by soil cultists.”
22 cackled, leaning back against their chair. The Sun was setting, the lights of Last Kunlun were all rising from their slumber. The people hadn’t waited for the stars to take their place to make the night into their own playground. Once you’d seen it as much as them, it was endearing, almost comical how much the Sun’s disappearance invigorated everyone. Every second without it looming overhead was a celebration. Do you feel saddened by this? Or do you accept this, willingly going away to let your subjects dance and sing until your return?
“22?”
“Hm?”
“I need to tell you something.”
“You don’t like the sample I chose?”
“I’m going to end my life.”
Not ready to anticipate. Not enough to understand. For one second they wanted to think they misheard her but her face communicated neither a misunderstanding or a joke in bad taste. They couldn’t feel anything else in their body than a sudden knot in their throat.
“Why?” 22 still asked, as if an answer could satisfy them.
“I made up my mind a long time ago. Here and then, there were days I thought “Well, I’m done.” the feeling was in passing, until it wasn’t, until it took over every single second I was awake. But then I took you in. When I held you on the docks I thought that this was some sort of sign, a last kindness I could muster to prove that I’ve learned my lessons and lived a life worth calling it so. I’d planned to leave you to some people I know from Jie 10 who would’ve happily taken another kid. But you were so… so broken. I thought about leaving you to 3 again. I thought about losing you in the Hull so that you’d have to find your way far from me.”
“If you’re trying to make me hate you-”
“Let me finish, please. I’m saying this because you told me you barely remembered those days, the perks of a growing brain and all that. But I remember everything, I remember exactly what you looked like and the thoughts I harbored at the time. This is something I want to share with you while I’m here. I wasn’t ready to take care of you, I never was, I never looked to have a kid of my own and I hated myself for even holding onto you in the first place. What right did I have?”
“Don’t…”
“I ignored reasons that would’ve forced me to get you into a better home because before I realized it, the thoughts had subsided. It was as if I had never been ready to go at all. Nothing in my daily life had changed, my clients or my work it was like it all made sense again. I don’t know why they came back now, I had to wonder if there is any logic at all. I like… I like to think finally seeing you bomb, spectacularly at that, and get up by yourself was the curtain call. This sounds nice.”
“But I need you, I’ve never-”
“You don’t, not anymore. But I’m happy you did, I’m glad I was the one who held onto you that day.”
The strength in their voice had faded, 22 couldn’t find the words to articulate their distress. It was as if she already left, as if they’d sat in front of a shade. There would’ve been some comfort, in knowing none of this had been real, but the last rays of the Sun, dissipated behind Byzance, didn’t pass through her. Where her eyes had been intently meeting theirs, she was now looking away, following a crowd growing restless in the street.
“Looks like someone managed to take all the attention away from my big moment,” Magnolia smiled playfully.
All around them, chairs were scraping against the floor, shouts growing in intensity and music fading away to let the cacophony of steps form an orchestra 22 paid no attention to. All of the sounds, all of the life surrounding them turned into blurs. She was following the sudden waves of people shuffling out of the terrace, contentment and melancholy painted over her face.
The Knight’s ears were shut as 22 couldn’t look away from her.