Transference, p.6
Transference, page 6
We all move toward the balcony edge, where we can see the city sprawling underneath us. I’m surrounded by so much beauty, it’s hard to remember to be angry about the condition of life down there. Instead, I’m just seeing the expanse of lights that twinkle in and out. It blends with the night sky that’s shown on our city walls.
My father pulls out his ornate pipe, packs it with tobacco from a pouch, and lights it. The smoke is thick and cloying, and I stand outside of it to not choke.
“It really is beautiful up here,” I say, half to myself.
“Of course it is, son. This is what we’ve earned with our position.” My father sweeps his arm to gesture at the view.
“It would be so sad to be down there in the thick of it, unable to see above it,” my mother says, taking a sip from her whiskey as she stares down. She seems to mean it too, there’s real empathy in her voice, but I doubt she can really picture it.
“Don’t worry dear, with our wealth this family’s position is established for generations. There’s only so much room up here though, and there’s always got to be someone at the bottom of it. We all have our place.”
I’m drinking my whiskey, listening to them. I think it’s delicious, but the taste is reaching my brain from some distance so I can’t be certain. I think I’m angry about what my father is saying, but I can’t be certain about that either. I’m thinking through a cloud. I’m unstable, euphoric and soaring, but confused. Suddenly, my stomach lurches and twists into a knot, and before I can stop myself I lean over the balcony and vomit uncontrollably.
My father pats my back after I’ve finished. “Ahhh son, I could tell you were having a bit too much there. That’s okay, it happens to the best of us.”
My mother grabs my arm. “Come with me darling, we’ll get you to bed.” She leads me back to my room. The sudden nausea dissipates after vomiting, but I’m still stumbling. She puts me in front of the closet, and leaves the room as the robot arms help to undress me. I take a shower in the corner of my room, assisted by another pair of robot arms that scrub and then dry me. Then I plod my way on shaky legs to the soft looking bed.
The bed hits my shins, and I fall into it, face down. The pillow punches me back when my face lands though, and I remember vaguely that I put Micah’s present under it. Seeing that I’m alone now, I pull the package out and open it.
I stare at what I find, uncertain what it is. It’s a tube the length of my forearm with straps coming off at regular intervals. There’s a note from Micah in his gracefully flamboyant handwriting. Be careful darling, it’s sharp. I pick the item up, it looks like something that mounts to my arm. I test the fit against my right arm, and the straps around it come to life and wrap around me. They cinch down, and then the whole thing blends into my skin. I can’t see it, but as I run my fingers over that arm I can feel their ridges.
I flex my wrist backwards, and a long plasma knife springs out from under my arm, sizzling in the air. I leap back from it in fear, and hit my head against the bed frame. Suddenly, I’m completely sober. When I move my wrist back, it disappears. I test it again, and find the angle at which it leaps out. It’s far enough back that it would be difficult to do accidentally, but I’ll need to keep that in mind.
“Holy shit, Micah. What did you think I was getting into?” I mutter under my breath. But then I realize, he might have a much better idea than I do.
I throw the packaging on the ground, and lay my head back down on the pillow. The lights turn off automatically as I do, and my brain drifts. Somewhere in the middle of the night, a shadowy form lurks through the door and jumps up onto my bed. I wake more fully as I realize that Charon is sleeping at the foot of the bed, and I smile. Apparently, he must have enjoyed the duck. I fall back into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Chapter 6
Ispend the next week living monastically. The morning after our family dinner, I find a gym and treadmill at the back of the house. There’s a pool there too, but it seems better suited to drinking and lounging than physical conditioning. In the connected bathroom, I find a strange bed with a metal lid that fully covers it. It hinges open smoothly to show off plush, purple cushioning on the inside. Searching for the product on my screen, I find that it’s designed to massively speed up muscle regeneration and growth.
With a tool like this, as long as I get enough calories and protein, I can train nearly non-stop. I don’t know what I’ll face or what I’ll have to overcome if I ever make it into Sun Gate. I’m not a fighter, besides the little bit I learned at Micah’s, but I figure that strength has practical uses beyond violence. I find a newer fighting drone in the corner of the gym for when violence is required.
My days start with paging the kitchen for a nutrient dense breakfast. I eat it while reading a book from the library and drinking a cup of coffee. The food is often new to me, but it’s always delicious. The books are new and strange, with intoxicating ideas and scenes set in places I don’t understand. I like one full of Greek myths the most, they’re understandable parables and the settings are malleable. They don’t mention a world that existed somewhere else, before the city. The idea of that makes me feel strangely woozy.
After that, I spend six hours running, sparring with the combat drone, lifting weights, and sitting in the regen bed. The work is hard at first, but I soon find myself luxuriating in the feeling of having a strong body. I flex at the mirror in the bathroom and watch my new, growing muscles ripple. The practice with the drone also helps me learn my new body quickly, and the force readout from the drone shows I’m drastically improving in the economy and power of my blows.
I pause my training only for a high calorie lunch, which I take on the veranda that adjoins the library. In the artificial sunlight, the city looks much different than it does at night, when the darkness cloaks everything in beauty and twinkling lights. During the day, the city looks dirty and malformed, with a haze that drifts up from the sewers and settles over the Boroughs. The seams in the wall are clear from here, I can focus and see the gaps in the panels of the artificial sky. Rise too high and you’ll see the gaps in the sky, shall I also singe my wings by getting too near the sun?
The night after our family dinner, my father joins me on the veranda for his lunch. He spends most of the day shut in his office. From what I can hear from the door, he orchestrates buying goods for one price, and then selling them for a higher price. There’s yelling and bartering involved, like a shopkeep that plays puppet master to all the city’s shopkeeps.
“Training for a war in there, son?” my father asks as he sits down with me. A waiter trailing him sets down a tray of lunch and sparkling mineral water, bows, and leaves.
If only he knew how close to true that is. “I’ve discovered there’s a great joy to be found in growing myself, father. I’m planning to spend my days training my body and my mind, it’s wonderful to focus on something like that instead of destroying myself.”
At this he nods, and takes a contemplative bite from his lunch. He takes a sip from his mineral water, and pats his mustache dry with a pristine, white napkin.
“When I was young—younger than you are now actually—my father died. Did you know he had died so early? Stabbed by another Cloudspire jealous of his position. It was such a waste. I raged against the world, and myself, after that. I thought I’d drown in my depression, most days I wanted to. I spent nearly all of them dangerously drunk, picking fights in Meadow Hearth. I lived for the days when I would find another Cloudspire down there, and get a chance to pummel them. For a time there was only the drink, and the destruction.
“And when I look back at it now, I see someone that was hurt by the world, and wanted to hurt it in return. When you’re young, passions and anger come so easy, everything is so visceral. I’m telling you this so you know that I understand being self-destructive, but there’s no way to heal by doing it. Your mother pulled me out of that actually, but that’s a story for another time. I’m so happy to see you growing yourself instead of destroying yourself.”
I’m shocked by the sympathy in his tone. Here is a man that ardently believes society is laid out appropriately, and feels no remorse for those on the lowest rungs, but he shows such an understanding for his son. There’s more humanity up here than I expected, and it makes me feel another pang of guilt for taking his son’s place, for not letting this family properly grieve. But the amount of pain I’m causing here is nothing in comparison to the rampant suffering of the Boroughs. I can’t let this distract me.
“Thank you, father. It’s been a journey to get here, and I know it’ll continue to be hard at times. But I’ve started to find joy in the process again, and the reward from that is immense.”
He nods again, and finishes his lunch. Patting his mustache dry again, he says, “Well get back to it then, you’ve been resting for long enough!” At this he chuckles, and then returns to his work.
By the middle of the week, my body is noticeably more taut, and it bulges in new areas around my shoulders and chest. I’m in the middle of a particularly hard set of press exercises when a porter interrupts me.
“Sir, a letter courier at the door for you. He insists the letter must be handed directly to you.” The porter sounds irritated at this, likely from having to interrupt me for what seems a trifle.
A letter? Who even knows I’m here at this point? I follow the porter back to the main entrance, wrapping a towel around my bare shoulders to mop up sweat on the way. The letter courier is sitting directly inside the front entrance, he has been allowed no further inside the house. He’s a mouse of a man. Short with a jutting nose and a pinched face, his brown hair is tied back into an orderly ponytail.
The courier bows deeply before leveling indifferent brown eyes at me. “Sir Allen Cloudspire, a letter for you from my master, Darius Cloudspire.” He extends his hand, in it a wax sealed envelope with an embossed DC.
Leave it to these Cloudspires to send wax sealed letters by courier when they could just as easily message each other on their screens. Showing some disdain, I snatch the letter from the courier and rip it open, placing the envelope into my porter’s outstretched hands while I open the letter. It’s wine stained, and the handwriting comes from a shaking hand. Darius is living up to his reputation so far, he must be a complete mess.
Dear Friend,
I hear you’ve risen from the grave and returned to your familial home. I’m certain they’re ecstatic for the return of the prodigal son. How proud of you they must be. I wonder what hole you disappeared into for so long, and just how cold you must have been.
I received an invite to your family’s ball, I’m sure this is mostly an attempt by your vulpine mother to substantiate certain rumors floating around about my family. We shall be honored to take this invitation, and I cannot wait to see your smiling facade soon.
Warmest Wishes,
Darius
I stare at the letter, my hand trembling and breath caught in my chest. I feel chills running down my back as I reread the letter. Fuck, he knows. He must know. And he’s going to try and expose me. I crumple the letter in my fist, and stuff it into my pocket as my resolve builds back.
I’m dimly aware that the courier has said something to me. I look back up to him. “What’s that, man? Speak up.”
He actually clicks his heels together, and straightens his back at my aggression. “Yes sir, shall you be writing a response?”
“Tell that buffoon that I’m a new man, and I’m not interested in resurrecting old friendships. If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll let this die. I will not write that message down, I expect you to deliver it verbatim.” The courier colors fiercely at this slight against his employer, and after bowing, leaves hurriedly through the door.
My porter is smiling deeply at how I’ve dealt with the situation. “Thank you for your time, Master Allen.”
I return to the gym with a renewed fury boiling inside me. My wrist is itching to flex and unleash the invisible knife paired to it, but I restrain myself in case someone sees. There’s a rage inside me that I’ve never felt before. A churning thing that threatens to boil over and explode. I know it’s Allen’s anger seething in me, but instead of squashing it I lash my own righteousness to it and let it burn. I will not be stopped by some drugged dilettante, what I’m doing is too important. If that fool rises against me, I will put him down.
I take my lunch in the garden on the day before the ball. I’ve been dwelling on Darius’s letter, and the thought of meeting Dorothy tomorrow night. A mixture of anxiety, hope, and fear swirls inside me as I walk into the garden, and sit at a sublime table that is shadowed by large ferns. Dappled sunlight streams through the leaves, sleepy by the time it reaches the pages of my book. There’s a calmness rooted in this place. I breathe into it and feel my internal tension loosen.
A noise from the other side of the garden breaks my concentration, and I wonder who it could be. Someone is humming idly, peacefully as they work. It’s a song I know, somewhere so deep inside myself that I can’t place it. The song lifts me though, and forces a smile on my face. I set my book down on the table, and go to find who hums it.
I navigate meandering paths in the garden, coming upon several dead ends. The humming grows louder at times, and quieter at others as I move towards and away from the source. It’s impossible to see over or through the dense foliage of the garden, so I strike out blindly along paths that I believe will take me there, only to lose my direction. The last path I try is lined with cherry trees in bloom and their smell overpowers everything. The air is thick and heavy with a flowery sweetness like honey. The path twists and turns, and then opens suddenly into a wide, patterned flower bed. My mother sits in the middle of it in a work-wear jumpsuit, dirt up to her elbows, and a wide brimmed hat on to shade her face. She looks up to me and smiles as I walk into the flower patch, careful not to step on anything.
“Hullo darling, you found me, the monster at the center of the maze,” she says, setting down a hand spade and smiling at her own joke.
“Good afternoon, mum. What are you doing digging around in the dirt? Couldn’t one of the house staff maintain the garden?”
She pats a stool near her, and I come to sit at her side. Turning to face me she says, “Darling, as a little girl I watched my mother tend to a flower bed and asked her the same thing. And she taught me that to care for these delicate beauties brings peace to the soul in a way that just observing them never can. It makes you pause, and help something so small that an errant step could end its life. I learned the craft from her, and when I miss her I come out here to work. I’ve always hoped that one day you’d show an interest, so I can show you the same peace.”
I’m touched by it. This woman has wealth that I could not comprehend even months ago, she seems primarily driven by outward appearances and societal standing, but there is still some side of her that relishes this small joy.
“Well these clothes are already sweat soaked, so no harm in getting them dirty as well. What are you planting today?” I kneel in the dirt next to her and she smiles so warmly that my heart cracks open, and I smile back. She passes me a spade and we toil in the dirt together, planting new pink carnations.
“What was that song you were humming, mum?”
She smiles inwardly. “That was a tune that I sang to you when you couldn’t sleep, and it’s the same song my mother sang to me when I couldn’t sleep. I don’t know what it’s called, the lyrics must have been forgotten long ago. But it’s lovely all the same, I’m glad you recognized it.”
It’s a strange thing, these memories that float inside me. At times I feel like I am her son, at times I feel completely separate from this world.
We work together as the light fades, and she continues to hum.
As I lay in bed that night, I can feel something shifting inside me. There’s a strangeness in this house that defies my expectations. I had vilified these people before I came here, and in large their passions and drive are what I expected. My mother’s vanity, and my father’s greed are what I anticipated finding. I did not expect to find their compassion and sympathy.
I wrestle with the duality of it. Are they representative of this high society, or an anomaly? Could they be taught to not take advantage of the poor, could they be convinced to change society organically? Or are their other instincts too overwhelming? Is taking advantage of them wrong when the amount of injustice I could correct is so great?
Charon is annoyed at my shifting around, and with a low growl he stands from his spot at the foot of the bed, stretches, and plops down away from my feet. I reach out and scratch his head, and he presses it firmly against my palm.
Go to sleep, it is late, his voice box hisses eerily in the dark room.
“You’re right boy, and a big day tomorrow.” I snap my fingers in the darkness, and a robotic arm delivers a small vial of sleeping solution to my waiting hand. I drink it down, and hand the empty container back to the darkness. And as I close my eyes, the world is already fading.
Chapter 7
The ball is decidedly not a small affair. Since before I rose, the house has been in commotion. Porters and wait staff decorate the rooms, stringing garlands and lights to set the mood. A new chandelier is installed in the main foyer, and for hours after I find myself admiring the way it gleefully tosses flashes of light. The cooks have been hard at work since dawn. The magnificent smells from them saturate the house until finally my mother orders all the windows and doors opened. She flits through it all, directing the commotion as her nightgown flutters around her shoulders like she’s some matriarchal wraith.
