Muted lights from the buildings to either side. Like he saw them through a black curtain. Even the two towers seemed dulled, the emerald glow humble. A few sparkling clouds of spores, in blue and yellow, danced far out in the sky, to the south. Otherwise, just the inward-focused white of the camp domes, balanced to the north by the humming glitter of orange-green HFZ. The air didn't carry the smell of mushrooms. As if a fresh breeze had come from outside the city.
A tall figure stood near the edge of the roof, looking out. Finch stiffened, making Feral hiss. He groped for the gun he had left in the apartment, Feral jumping from his arm. Then Finch realized it was just the Photographer, Rath's brother. The man who liked to take pictures of water and ran a black market store out of his apartment.
Finch had seen the photographs. Stacked up next to the cameras. Plastered to the walls. Blown up, miniaturized, blurry, in focus. On anything that might serve, or re-serve, as contact paper. As if the Photographer looked for one particular thing in the water. As if not interested in water at all, searching for something he hadn't found yet.
A fifth of whisky was enough for two.
The Photographer turned as Finch approached. A slow, unconcerned motion. Finch had never seen him anything other than calm. Or maybe his mood was always resigned to whatever new thing came next. Didn't know what had happened to him in the camps. Didn't know much about him at all, except that he trusted the man. Which made little sense. He was so clearly damaged. So indifferent to Finch's help in getting him out of the camp.
The Photographer nodded.
Finch passed the bottle to the Photographer. The man took a sip and handed it back. He stared at Finch with an unreadable gaze. A white face and a watchful mouth, with an upturn to the lips that could make him look devilish. The eyes and cheekbones didn't match the mouth. The eyes were almost vacant, except for a deepset glint. Finch thought of that glint as curiosity or obsession. The high cheekbones gave the Photographer an aura of deep or deeply denied suffering.
"Anything new out there?"
"A few things." His voice a thin reed.
"Anything I should know about?"
The Photographer shrugged, looked out at the night. "More activity at the towers, just a little while ago. An emergency? Quickly solved, if so. Nothing there now. A few spore discharges to the west. Can't tell if they're human or mechanical. But not much, no . . . What happened to you?"
An involuntary snort. He must look as ragged as he felt. The Photographer had never asked after his health before.
"I came across something that didn't like me," Finch said. No desire to share the details. Thinking about how he had to hold out for another day before seeing Sintra again.
The Photographer nodded as if this made sense. Returned to his contemplation of the view. Didn't care much for small talk.
Slowly, stiffly, Finch lowered himself into a chair. A few feet away, Feral was munching on something he'd caught.
A couple light bulbs hung near the rotting sign. The outer arc of their light just barely caught the edge of the chairs. Enough to read by.
Eyes adjusted to the dim light, Finch began to go through Bliss's file. Two laughably old photographs. One so dark it was just a silhouette with a hint of jaw leering out of a smudge. The report itself was brief, pithy, in the spidery script of gray cap transcriptions. Translated from their original files. Which took what form? Probably were worse things than memory holes down below.
Finch already knew most of what was in the report. Bliss's rise within F&L ranks. The compromise with Hoegbotton. The alliance with the Lady in Blue. But he was somehow surprised that the gray caps knew it. Made him wonder about the extent of their intel before the Rising.
Buried in the middle of the report, Finch found a list of aliases under which Bliss had operated: Charles Dinley, George Graansvoort, John Letcher, Grant Shearwater, Dar Sardice. And, most improbably, jasper Marlowe Anthony Blasio. A typo? An error in the transcription?
Dar Sardice proved the most interesting. The other names had been ways of disguising movements across checkpoints within the city. Dar Sardice had been used much earlier, during Ambergrisian- Hoegbotton campaigns against the Kalif. "Dar Sardice" had been Frankwrithe's man keeping an eye on the progress of the war. From behind the Kalif's supply lines. The cover? Independent merchant and businessman. With an established trade route that cut through over eight hundred miles of desert dotted with fortified towns. The whole Western Front. Against which the Ambergrisian Army had thrown itself with unparalleled ferocity. From which it had eventually retreated. "It was just too large," his father had said once. "It was overwhelming. The wide, hot, empty spaces. The strangeness of the towns. The fact we didn't speak the language." Left a trail of broken, bombed equipment behind. Trucks. Tanks. Mortars.
A desert fortress. A fall from a great height. Ethan Bliss as Dar Sardice, turning up in every major theater of a desert war. Then appearing again not long after as F&L's man in Ambergris. Popping up in the dead man's memories. Had disappeared when cornered, after having been nailed to a wall just a few minutes before.
Was he looking at a secret that should be obvious? If so, it eluded him the more he tried to pin it down.
Beside him, the Photographer stirred. "I am going to go back inside. Do you need anything from me?"
"Just information," Finch said, and downed some whisky. He enjoyed the way it spread out from his throat, his stomach. Settling him as it mixed with the afterburn of the cigar.
"What kind of information?"
On a hunch, feeling like his back was exposed: "Seen anyone strange around the hotel recently?"
The Photographer replied with a kind of odd regret, as if speaking out of turn: "Yes, I have."
Suddenly more alert: "Describe them?"
"Two of them, today. They came separately. The first I saw around noon. A tall Partial. He was on the stairs when I saw him. Coming down." A look of disgust on the Photographer's face.
The same Partial?
"Coming down from where?"
"I don't know. I was on the fifth floor. He was coming down."
Could've been anyone. Could've been here for any reason. And nothing he could do about it.
"The second?"
"He stayed outside the building. It was late afternoon. A bald man. Dangerous-looking. He talked to the madman by the statue. Didn't like what the madman told him. Then looked up at the windows for awhile. He stayed off to the side smoking a cigarette. Got impatient and walked into the lobby for a moment, came back out, and left almost right away."