Requiem (5 page)

'It is.'

Seline had been
watching a dark spot in the sand for the last three or so
kilometres. It was only when they were almost upon it than she
realised it was a body. It lay crumpled in a charred heap on the
roadside. Bits of bone stabbing through weathered rags.

Seline was back
on Yarfor Station, walking home from the bar. The end of another
seventeen hour shift. The stench of her last client still hanging
off her skin. Tired almost to the point of collapse but still
walking as fast as she could to outrun the smell, to make it home
so she could scrub it off with cold water and a scrubbing brush or
perhaps some sandpaper.

There was only
one main corridor that led to her apartment complex.
The
Valley
it was known as. The Valley was no more than three
metres wide. It was the section of the station were no one bothered
to advertise, where the only light came from the few overhead
fixtures that still worked, glowing a dark red, creating shadows in
every corner and giving the faces of those she passed in the halls
a sort of childish malevolence, as if they were all lighting up
their faces with torches to scare each other. Bodies lined each
side of the Valley, leaning up against the wall, hunkered close
together and slumped over themselves, covered in blankets and the
baggy clothing that every beggar on the station seemed to wear like
a uniform.

Seline passed
these people every day on her way to her apartment at the far end
of the Valley. She could always hold her breath for the first
twenty or so metres but never for the whole length of the
Valley.

The only real
sign of movement in the Valley would come from Reaper. A gaunt,
skeletal man with shrink-wrapped skin and bulging eyes about three
sizes too big for his head. She could hear him asking the nameless
bodies on the floor if they had any 'kidens' or 'liveys' or
'breathers' they'd be willing to sell for a few credits.

Probably the
only person who could tell the dead from the living in that place
was Reaper who would drag off the most recent deaths to the organ
harvesters that he worked for. Seline, however, could never tell if
the people in The Valley were dead or not and if they were then you
could at least pretend they weren't, but here, in the open, in the
light of day, the dead would not go unnoticed, they would call her
name as she passed and make her beg for their forgiveness.

Sear eased off
the throttle only slightly as they passed. Seline turned away, set
her eyes back on the approaching dunes. She became increasingly
uncomfortable and uncertain of herself as more bodies came into
view, laying face down in the sand, partially buried, passing from
horizon to horizon in bleak silence.

'Isn't there
another way we can go?' Seline asked.

'No. It's like
this everywhere,' for the first time, Sear hesitated. '… I'm
sorry.' He accelerated as fast as the bike could manage.

Another half
hour passed and they were approaching the outer limits of the city.
The bodies of the dead became more and more regular. Some had been
draped over with blankets, others were left exposed to be baked
beneath the sun and scrounged upon by wasteland scavengers. Dignity
had been afforded to some in the form of loose collections of rocks
marking the heads of mounds of dirt. Others had been left to crawl
in whichever direction any last scrap of hope or comfort might have
resided, betraying, in their final moments, whatever hopeless
intentions and regrets they might have had.

The scattered
field had become a dense concentration of bodies, forming a
makeshift boundary line before the city. Light reflected white from
exposed splints of bone among the tide of skin and sparse rags of
clothing. Seline could make out the contorted bodies and the pale
red of the dried puddles of blood staining the sand between them.
Above them hovered swarming black clouds of insects, feasting upon
their appropriated meals. The border stretched from left to right
almost as far as the eye could see. The River Styx brought upon the
Earth. Seline wondered how many bodies it would take to complete
the chalk outline of this city.

Seline was
thankful for the goggles Sear had given her and the division they
created between herself and the bodies but the sight was still
something she had not been prepared for. She finally managed to
close her eyes but the stench hit hard against her face, pushing
itself into the pores of her skin, leaving its sooty traces deep
within her nostrils and on the back of her tongue. She covered her
nose to no effect. The cushions of the seat had lost any trace of
comfort. She shifted her weight in the cart which felt like it
would rattle itself loose at any second.

She had no
intention of asking Sear to stop so let the jostling motions of the
bike run their course. As was her custom, the reality of the
situation was inadvertently pushed into the back of her mind. The
haze of her forgotten memories would try to lay claim to another
part of her world but the dam they had formed had begun to crack
and weaken beneath the pressure. The dam would hold for now, still
strong enough to at least dull the ever sharpening edge of
reality.

'We're almost
in the city now,' said Sear.

Seline opened
her eyes. The River Styx had been cleared.

'The bodies you
saw - they've been dragging them out here and all around the outer
limits of Sinn for years now,' said Sear.

'Why?' Seline
asked dryly.

'It's hard to
say. Some kind of message to NeoCorp, perhaps. The Warlord has
grown bolder, more malevolent in recent years.'

'What did these
people do to deserve this?'

'They became
the subject of his pity.'

'Have you met
him? The Warlord.'

'No. It's hard
to find people that actually have. Most of what I've learned has
been subjected to the usual conflations of rumour and hearsay.'

Seline scanned
the approaching city. It hadn't been levelled yet, not like Vale. A
massive billboard beckoned to her from above the first of the low
lying rooftops that formed a sharp and immediate boundary with the
sand dunes. A message had been crudely painted over an image that
Seline couldn't make sense of but they were just close enough for
Seline to make out the words.

'WELCOME TO
SINN CITY. PROPERTY OF THE DOWNFALL WARLORD.'

Seline imagined
what the Warlord might look like. A hulking figure, scarred from
head to toe with dirt and grit worn right into dark leathery skin.
As she tried to picture a face she noticed, in the distance, a man
staggering from out of one of the derelict buildings that lined the
city's edge. He was naked. His head was hanging low. Another
clothed and masked man walked several metres behind. The second man
raised his arm, with what looked like a gun clenched in his fist.
It was aimed directly at the back of the first.

'I suggest you
look elsewhere,' said Sear.

The gunman
stopped walking and stood still for a moment. Seline looked down at
her knees and the thin lines of black stitching running down the
inside of her pant legs. Even over the sputtering roar of the bike
she jumped at the crack of gunfire.

She looked up
again. The man turned and disappeared into one of the alleyways,
leaving the corpse laying face down on the ground. They were almost
at the first line of buildings. A painfully stark division between
desert and civilisation.

As wide as the
streets were they were still forced to constantly weave between the
upturned cars and trucks that littered the city like the carcasses
of mechanical animals. They were now in the midst of some kind of
suburbia. Houses too large for the time and world they inhabited
occupied each a worthless patch of dirt. They had long since lost
their pride and bathed, now, in century old pools of their own
waste. Like Vale, young sand dunes were piled up on the south-west
sides of every wall and building. The place looked empty,
unbearably sparse, and almost as repetitive as the dessert she had
just crossed. Far in the distance she could make out some old style
skyscrapers still standing, still idly surveying their domain.

A high concrete
wall ran along the right side of the road. Painted upon it in what
she hoped wasn't blood were the words 'Sick Heart River'.

'Is that what
they call this place?' she asked.

Sear looked at
the words. 'It is now. A long time ago it was called 'Warm Springs
Road'. I'll always admire how poetic your species can be.'

The bike came
to a stop. Sear took a foot from the peg and placed it on the
ground.

'This is your
stop,' said Sear. He pointed off to the left. 'Follow this street
around and take the second left. That's the road you want. Keep to
the centre of the road and stay away from the alleys.'

Seline removed
her goggles and stepped hesitantly out of the cart.

'I assume when
you're done here you'll be looking for a way out,' said Sear.

'I don't think
I'm in any position to decline any offer that you might have.' She
immediately kicked herself for sounding so desperate.

'How long do
you plan on taking?'

'As short a
time as possible.'

'I know someone
who can help you get back to Vale. It might take a few days to
organise though.'

A few days in
Sinn would be a few days too many. Seline kept herself from sighing
to avoid appearing ungrateful. 'How much will it cost?'

'There's a flat
rate of about twelve hundred credits but it could be more depending
on your reputation with NeoCorp. Any chance at control is a chance
they'll take, and they're very touchy about who comes and
goes.'

'I got here
easily enough.'

'Only because
it was convenient for them at the time.'

She hoped he
was just being dramatic. 'All I need is a ride back to Corporate
Zone 1. I should be alright from there.'

'Good. Because
that's all I can offer.'

Seline looked
down at her feet, shuffling in the dirt. She felt or rather hoped
there was more left to say, some string of words that would shake
away the confusion and insecurity, that could somehow ground her,
explain the fear and nausea in the pit of her stomach. She looked
down the street.

'Has it always
been like this?' she asked.

'Always? I
don't think I could say.' Sear thought for a moment. 'But... some
Yurrick argue that what is happening now is simply a by-product of
basic human behaviour – an extension of some kind of innate
tendency within your species.'

'… You
disagree?'

'I think what
happened to your civilization was an inevitable outcome not simply
of innate tendencies but of values and of circumstance. Sinn simply
doesn't make any sense without proper context. If things seem
overly simple then it usually means you're missing something.'

'Yeah...
Thanks... I'll keep that in mind.'

A gust of wind
passed through the street. Tumble weeds gently rolled and bounced
through the expired river duct.

'Meet me at the
Chrischo bar at 17:30,' said Sear, interrupting the meditative
silence. 'It's just beneath the old radio tower in a place called
The Oasis.' He pointed several blocks away at a pale building
standing with a perceptible sense of self-pity about ten stories
high. On its roof was a satellite dish that had been broken so it
looked like a crescent moon. A collection of thin metal antennae
stood bent and twisted next to it. 'It will take about thirty
minutes to walk so take that into account.'

Seline thanked
him for the ride and said she'd meet him at the bar around
18:30.

'17:30' he
corrected her. 'Perhaps you should write that down.'

'I... no I got
it now. 17:30. I won't forget.'

He nodded,
started the bike. His dark eyes lingered on Seline. She looked
back. She could see something of herself in those eyes. She wanted
to reach out and peel the darkness back. In that brief moment she
would have given her right arm again for just a glimpse of what lay
beneath.

'I hope you
find what you're looking for,' Sear finally said.

Seline nodded,
squinted through the clouds of dust disturbed by the patchwork
tires as Sear rode off and out of sight. She looked around, caught
between a vague memory and the desire to escape. Everything seemed
so distant like the world had been submerged in water.

The sun hovered
restlessly in the sky. The low lying mountains to the West were
melting into the horizon through waves of heat. Seline wanted to
remove her jersey but decided the sunburn wouldn't be worth it.

After walking
at a slow, cautious pace for some minutes, she noticed out of the
corner of her eye a figure bobbing up and down behind a low
concrete wall. An old woman stood up. A ratty grey cardigan was
draped over her body, held in place only by a frail, gnarled hand
and the jagged angles of a bent, defeated spine. Seline stood still
as the woman made her way out from the dirt yard towards Seline.
Grey tufts of hair sprung from her head between sunken liver spots
that were eating away at her thin, loose fitting skin. The whites
of her eyes had consumed any trace of colour that might have once
decorated her sight. The milky white screens shifted from left to
right, deciphering one shade of black from another. With her mouth
slightly ajar, her tongue nervously darted across her lips. She was
making a low hissing noise as she passed. She stopped about a metre
away from Seline, shifted her weight, turned slightly and continued
her course. She wandered aimlessly across the street, rocking
awkwardly like a grandmother clock that had long since lost its
rhythm.

Seline walked
for another block, encountering the same grim images with every new
step. Partially fossilised bodies waddled past her, seemingly
oblivious to her presence; which she was somewhat grateful for. As
she walked along the edge of the road she came to a small chapel
nestled uncomfortably between two stoic, square faced buildings.
The tiny church was in surprisingly good shape. A thin layer of
white paint still coated its skin and two thin vertical panes of
frosted glass sat upon either side of the large archway doors. At
the crest of the roof was a broken and half collapsed cross. Seline
heard a voice echoing from within. Hoarse yet strong and utterly
determined. She stood and looked into the church from the road. Her
eyes tried to adjust to the darkness inside.