1
inch, at the apartment door, breathing heavy from five flights of stairs, taken fast. The message that'd brought him from the station was already dying in his hand. Red smear on a limp circle of green fungal paper that had minutes before squirmed clammy. Now he had only the door to pass through, marked with the gray caps' symbol.
239 Manzikert Avenue, apartment 525.
An act of will, crossing that divide. Always. Reached for his gun, then changed his mind. Some days were worse than others.
A sudden flash of his partner Wyte, telling him he was compromised, him replying, "I don't have an opinion on that." Written on a wall at a crime scene: Everyone's a collaborator. Everyone's a rebel. The truth in the weight of each.
The doorknob cold but grainy. The left side rough with light green fungus.
Sweating under his jacket, through his shirt. Boots heavy on his feet.
Always a point of no return, and yet he kept returning.
I am not a detective. I am not a detective.
Inside, a tall, pale man dressed in black stood halfway down the hall, staring into a doorway. Beyond him, a dark room. A worn bed. White sheets dull in the shadow. Didn't look like anyone had slept there in months. Dusty floor. Even before he'd started seeing Sintra, his place hadn't looked this bad.
The Partial turned and saw Finch. "Nothing in that room, Finch. It's all in here." He pointed into the doorway. Light shone out, caught the dark glitter of the Partial's skin where tiny fruiting bodies had taken hold. Uncanny left eye in a gaunt face. Always twitching. Moving at odd angles. Pupil a glimmer of blue light at the bottom of a dark well. Fungal.
"Who are you?" Finch asked.
The Partial frowned. "I'm-"
Finch brushed by the man without listening, got pleasure out of the push of his shoulder into the Partial's chest. The Partial, smelling like sweet rotting meat, walked in behind him.
Everything was golden, calm, unknowable.
Then Finch's eyes adjusted to the light from the large window and he saw: living room, kitchen. A sofa. Two wooden chairs. A small table, an empty vase with a rose design. Two bodies lying on the pull rug next to the sofa. One man, one gray cap without legs.
Finch's boss Heretic stood framed by the window. Wearing his familiar gray robes and gray hat. Finch had never learned the creature's real name. The series of clicks and whistles sounded like "heclereticalic" so Finch called him "Heretic." Highly unusual to see Heretic during the day.
"Finch," Heretic said. "Where's Wyte?" The wetness of its moist glottal attempt at speech made most humans uncomfortable. Finch tried hard to pretend the ends of all the words were there. A skill hard learned.
"Wyte couldn't come. He's busy."
Heretic stared at Finch. A question in his eyes. Finch looked to the side. Away from the liquid green pupils and yellow where there should be white. Wyte had been sick off and on for a long time. Finch knew from what, but didn't want to. Didn't want to get into it with Heretic.
"What's the situation?" Finch asked.
Heretic smiled: rows and rows of needle lines set into a face a little like a squished-in shark's snout. Finch couldn't tell if the lines were gills or teeth, but they seemed to flutter and breathe a little. Wyte said he'd seen tiny creatures in there, once. Each time, a new nightmare. Another encounter to haunt Finch's sleep.
"Two dead bodies," Heretic said.
"Two bodies?"
"One and a half, technically," the Partial said, from behind Finch.
Heretic laughed. A sound like dogs being strangled.
"Did the victims live in the apartment?" Finch asked, knowing the answer already.
"No," the Partial said. "They didn't."
Finch turned briefly toward the Partial, then back to Heretic.
Heretic stared at the Partial and he shut up, began to creep around the living room taking pictures with his eye.
"No one lived here," Heretic said. "According to our records no one has lived here for over a year."
"Interesting," Finch said. Didn't interest him. Nothing interested him. It bothered him. Especially that the Partial felt comfortable enough to answer a question meant for Heretic.
The curtains had faded from the sun. Tears in the sofa like knife wounds. The vase looked like someone had started a small fire inside it. Stage props for two deaths.
Was it significant that the window was open? For some reason he didn't want to ask if one of them had opened it. Fresh air, with just a hint of the salt smell from the bay.
"Who reported this?" Finch asked.
"An energy surge came from this location," Heretic said. "We felt it. Then spore cameras confirmed it."
Energy surge? What kind of energy?
Finch tried to imagine the rows and rows of living receivers underground, miles of them if rumor held true. Trying to process trillions of images from all over the city. How could they possibly keep up? The hope of every citizen.
"Do you know the . . . source?" Finch asked. Didn't know if he understood what Heretic was telling him.
"There is no trace of it now. The apartment is cold. There are just these bodies."
"How does that help me?" he wanted to say.
Finch usually dealt with theft, domestic abuse, illegal gatherings. Flirted with investigating rebel activity, but turned that over to the Partials if necessary. Tried to make sure it wasn't necessary. For everyone's sake.
Murder only if it was the usual. Crimes of passion. Revenge. This didn't look like either. If it was murder.
"Anyone live in the apartments next door?"
"Not any more," the Partial replied. "They all left, oddly enough, soon after these two ... arrived."
"Which means they made a sound." Or sounds.
"I'll interrogate anyone left in the building after we finish here," the Partial said.
What a pleasure that'll be for them.
Still, Finch didn't volunteer to do it. Not yet. Maybe after. Not much worse than door-to-door interviews in unfriendly places. Many didn't believe his job should exist.
"What do you think, Finch?" Heretic asked. Just a hint of mischief in that voice. Laced with it. Just enough to catch the nuance.
I think I just walked in the door a few minutes ago.
The bodies lay next to each other, beside the sofa.
Finch frowned. "I've never seen anything quite like it."
The man lay on his side, left hand stretched out toward the gray cap's hand. The gray cap lay facedown, arms flopped out at right angles.
"Might be a foreigner. From the clothes."
The man could've been forty-five or fifty, with dark brown hair, dark eyebrows, and a beard that appeared to be made from tendrils of fungus. That wasn't unusual. But his clothes were. He wore a blue shirt long out of fashion. Strange, tight-fitting long pants. Dirty black boots.