He had watched dumb as she sped his car down Fifth Avenue, right on 142nd Street, then right again on Bakersfield, and finally up the Coronet Loop. As they neared the Hill, the driver began to relax in the idea, somehow, that things were outside his control. He could face that they were about to break taboo and pass the parking lot in a city cab. He didn't know what the consequences would be, but he thought somehow that a person so definite as she was would probably not go back on their word. So he would just get his car back, drive down, and hope for the best.

Presently they drove into the parking lot and, slowing to a controlled speed, crossed the threshold into the Hill. The car rocked as the pavement gave way to the winding rockdirt road that led immediate to a conglom of ramshackle box homes, packed stightly together.

As reality bumped and scraped him along, he lost some comfort and began to wonder vaguely if his cab would survive the trip, and, then, really if even he himself would. He had time for thinking. The Hill was a sacrosanct non-entity, so the rules around it were sacrosanct too, and all unwritten. You couldn't admit to making rules about a place you didn't admit existed, but at the same time, denying its existence required creating and invisibly enforcing many rules. One side effect of this arrangement was that that however you treated the rulebreakers of these un-rules, whatever you did with them, it could all just have not happened.

Ultimately his cab was identifiable, but, he realized in a semipanick flutter, he could at least hide himself. So he unbuckled his seatbelt and clambered uncomfortably down onto his knees behind the drivers'. From this position he could just peek around, about, and out the windshield, which he felt was safer and allowed him to satisfy his curiosity. If he was here, he might as well see. His heart raced.

From here, he watched as the houses first thinned out, then became older, built of blackened wood, multicolored flags hanging from lines tied to most of them. The Hill was a spacious, mysterious gap, somehow just adjacent to downtown but a land unmapped and all to itself.

The road circled, ascending more and more narrowly, until finally the car stopped.

Here at the top was a dome-shaped house, not square like the other houses but with supports made of curved, blackwood beams, walls of copper-plate, and a low white fence encircling a little garden with dead-looking plants. He doubted that they were actually dead: everything here aired that it was well-cared-for.

The woman stepped out and around to the rear window at which he was still chrouchedly peeking out of, down inside the cab. Outside, she crouched down too so they were at eye-level:

"Here is five hundred silvers. If you want another five hundred, wait in the back seat for a half-hour so I can drive your car back down. But you don't have to stay if you don't want the money; it's your cab."

She handed him a wad of paper cash, and he believed it must be real. It distracted him. He relaxed, forgot himself for a moment and thought he might take the week off. Promptly he returned to reality and felt anxious again.

"I'll wait." He said, trying to maintain a low voice but it breaking a little.

"That's convenient."

The woman strode over to the domed house and entered it.

After five minutes waiting in the car, the driver decided it must be safe enough to step outside, so carefully and quietly he opened the door and awkwardly crawled out onto the hardpack dirt. Stepping forward still in a crouch he stood up halfway and dusted his brown pants. He was catching his breath. In the side mirror he was a sight with his stringy black hair disheveled and to one side.

Cautiously relaxing, he stood the rest of the way up and all at once took in the view.

No-one he knew had ever actually crossed over into the Hill. From here he could see the city like he never had before. Normally the sight of the Hill lent it (the city) contour, but here he could see it was otherwise on a flat plain. It was remarkable to see so much of it at once, and it took some time to orient.

After a moment he came back to himself again, felt the anxiety and then felt the five hundred silvers in his pocket and, distracted again for a moment felt on top of the world once more. He breathed in the air and it seemed cleaner here than in the city. He realized it seemed that way because it was. And in another breath, the moment passed.

He returned to the back seat of the car, still muggish though feeling somewhat less the need to hide. He only half ducked-down now, and was still catching his breath.

"Magda."

"Carmela."

"I'm pregnant again."

"Mm. I can guess as much."

The inside of Magda's hut was dim, daylight filtering in through wavy star-patched curtains and epigals of dust. The wooden shelves were filled with so many things Carmela did not understand. She marveled at it like always, and marveled that it was always so much more impressive in focus than in memory.

"You want to induce?"

"It's ready."

"Well, you haven't been wrong yet."

"I'm not wrong. Let's go."

"Ok. Let's see what it is."

Carmela watched Magda walk over to a particular shelf for a moment (she knew which one it would be) and then went and grabbed the dark velvet roll-pillow from the sofa, placing it on the rug on the floor. Next she walked over to the brown chest, its faux-leather covering mottled with water damage, and its faux-brass bindings bent. Carmela opened it and dug beneath a few blankets to find the rubber sheet which she unfolded-laid on the floor.

Sitting down, Carmela leaned against the roll-pillow, her back to the sofa and her legs folded to the side. Magda came over with a treat.

"Oh-- it's a little bit different than last time."

"It's chocolate. I baked the batwort into it. It's a little bitter, but eat up."

Magda fed Carmela three small brownies and sat cross-legged in front of her on the rubber mat. After eating them, Carmela leaned back and looked at the ceiling for a time.

After a few moments, Carmela still staring up, Magda spoke. "Like clockwork."

"Clockwork."

"When did you know?"

"I started to feel something a week ago, but it might have been my imagination. For sure? Only today."

A few more moments passed and Magda spoke again. "We should lift the curse."

"We should." Carmela changed the subject. "Cabbie still there?"

"I'll check." Magda got up and looked out the window, bringing the curtain back with a single finger and peeking out. "Yep, he's there. He has the windows down and his feet up. He looks pretty relaxed."

"Front or back seat?"

"Back."

"Good."

Magda went into the kitchen. "I want to show you something." There was some clanking around in there, and Carmela could see the large-green pokadot kitchen curtains were drawn. When Magda returned she was carrying something covered by a green cloth.

"What do you think it is?"

"You got me."

"Ha!" Magda lifted the cloth up and underneath it was a small stone carving of a fish, leaping out of water.

Carmela smiled and nodded a little. "It's nice."

"Isn't it? I'm still deciding where to put it. You know, I found it in a junk shop in Welter's End. I have no idea how it could have come to be here. It's foreign."

"Foreign! How can you tell?"

"People think a lot of me. Here and in the city. I'm the Hill's all-knowing guardian. But mostly I just have a gut feel. I really don't go on more than that. Well, you understand that, at least."

"Magda."

"Oh sure-- I have my ear to the"

"Ah!" Carmela jolted-sat-up.

"It's kicking in?"

"It's kicking in. Ah! AH!"

"Lay back."

Carmela laid back half only on the pillow and Magda put her hand on her belly.

"Can you tell what it is?" She was beginning to bead sweat.

Magda just shook her head. "I can. You know I always know."

"Don't tell me."

"Of course. But."

"But what."

Magda went serious. "Carmela. We need be careful with this one. Don't twist suddenly or anything like that, alright? And I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to reach up into you."

"Ah fuck, not another one like this."

"Just don't twist suddenly, if you can help it."

"Okay." Carmela's face was dripping.

Magda was up to her wrist in Carmela who was screaming.

"Hold. Don't push."

"Rrrgh! The HELL!! Aa! AAAH!"

Calmly Magda continued. "You'll understand, it has a bend. I have to pull it."

Magda shoved further and gave a sharp wrenching movement and pulled. Carmela looked up at the ceiling and animal-screamed.

And then it was over.

Carmela slumped finally fully back, her neck awkwardly past the pillow so that her head was part upsidedown.

Magda, still kneeling, reached for a towel to wrap the newborn in, a ritual that she knew Carmela needed even though it made no sense.

The room was hot and suddenly silent. Magda paused for a moment and straightened her back, kneeling in her flounced green dress and coverall.

A breath, and then.

Carmela had given birth to a gun.

She began to cry. Hent inclined over and almost into it, the slow gentle sobs of a mother bent in two by love and wrenching despair.

For now, she cradled it, swaddled, in her arms, until after a minute, she passed into involuntary sleep.

When she awoke, Carmela was lying on the floor, clothed again, the rubber sheet gone. Magda was sitting beside her, wiping her face with a wet cloth.

"It's alright. You weren't injured in the delivery."

"That... was a lot of pain."

"Yes, it was... not a good shape. Carmela. Just rest."

"Oh god. I love it so much. It's so beautiful. I hate it. I hate it. I love it. He is so beautiful. I hate it. I love him." She cried more and shook softly, slowly regaining her composure.

After Carmela laid for a while with her eyes closed, Magda spoke: "Carmela. I don't know if you can continue this. You are steel, but this curse is madness. We don't know where it leads."

Carmela looked at Magda, now her expression a cold sardony: "I'm sure it will be fine."

She heaved herself up from the floor, cradling the gun gently as she did. "I have to do this, it needs it soon after birth." With no hesitation she pointed the gun at the floor and smoothly pulled the trigger back until it went off.

The sound was a deafening heart-lept and Magda jumped back, crashing partly into her shelf.

"Carmela! Oh my god!"

Carmela calmly cradled the gun in her arms. "I'm sorry, I knew if I asked you'd say no. I know what's best for it, please don't interfere."

Magda took a moment to regain her composure. She took a deep breath, waited more. Finally she spoke up: "No... this is what I was afraid of. I was terrified that it was loaded inside of you. Carmela. This stops here. We will stop this."

As she said this, there was the sound of a car starting and driving off quickly. Magda went to the window, and Carmela, cradling her gun, stepped beside her. "The cabbie?" Carmela asked as she approached the window.

"I guess he thought it might not be worth the return fare after all."

"I guess so. Well. I'll walk."

"Stay for a bit, a snack will gooden you up. You're in no shape."

"I can't really argue with you but I don't think I should stay here."

Carmela started to move, but buckled over. Ignoring her body, she continued hobbling toward the door, anyways.

"No, no stop. Look. If you insist, let me wagon you."

"Really." Carmela sighed deeply, in pain. "Okay." She sat down on the floor, collapsed-exhausted. "Thank you. That's very generous."

"Just let me pull it from out back. We can stop and shoot juice at Darien's."

"Mm-hmm. That does sound nice." Carmela was gently rocking her gun in her arms and staring at it, at a half-sit, leaning up against the shoe-bench by the door.

It had been a shamble to lift Carmela out of the house and into the pull-wagon, but now that they were safely sunny rumbling down Coilspring Road that wended down the Hill that centered the Forgotten Zone, Carmela allowed herself to rest.

She looked up at the sky. It was a pale blue and the clouds were puffy, they beamed a nice disposition into her. She had her arms outside the rails and was propped adequately on pillows. The gun was sleeping warmly in her lap. She looked and adored it. Magda was hitched up to the two long poles that led palaquin-style from the vertical midpoint of the cart. Its boards were natural wood and smooth, the thing worn down from ageless use, but tended to, its wooden metalband wheels riding on greased bearings, perfectly rolling wheels a perfect round, save the bumpy road. She felt a pax, a peaceful reshing. She knew it was part hormones but gabled warmly in it now.

They continued down in silence, Magda knowing Carmela and the process well enough to know where she would be, now. She had only had to wagon her once before (that was the second time; then it has been a wrench, large but not a hard birth) but over the past year the curse had brought her and her together. No-one else understood what Carmela was under.

The first time had been a qunut. This was still was one of the stranger ones, because Carmela did not love it long. A simple shape, an almost-platonic solid, meant to be used in the manufacture of large watercraft, to join three screw-coils together in one tightenable junction. But just a hard metal nut ultimately, and roundish, so not hard to birth. At the time it came out, Magda had felt a mix of revulsion and anger at who had done this, and after an argument where Magda demanded she come clean, Carmela finally explained that Justinian had cursed her for refusing to co-operate The Company, and Magda suddenly felt that Carmela's story of becoming pregnant with a manufactured object was a tangible, painful injustice that must be righted.

As for when it came out, Carmela had somehow seemed surprised but, in the way a parent expecting a girl might find out that they had a boy instead.

Since then, and counting the wrench, she had given birth to inanimate objects five more times in Magda's living room. Always objects of manufacture, always black in color, always metal. Always about the same size. But only now, with the gun, dangerous. If Carmela could give birth to a gun, then would she necessarily survive her next?

Magda thought these thoughts, and others, while she carted her friend slowly down the Hill in the Forgotten Zone.

"You should watch out." Darien the Juicer stared at Magda and Carmela. "You keep gettin' hurt up there, it'll come a time ol' Magda can't do much'n."

Carmela noddded but didn't try to reply vocally. She just wanted her juice and to get out of there. Standing there she felt now that if she could hold the crystals now in her hand, she could control them well enough to run them into the right blocks for the investigation.

Seeing how tired she was, Magda stood aright and squared to his shoulders: "Darien, your business is juice, and good thing too since it's sweet as all slice. But you mind that, and whatever else you have on your side, and not ours. Girl's had a day, you can see."

Darien was puzzled for a second, then smiled. His cupola hat was streaked with a gold zigzag and when he tilted his head, the shallow diagonal matched the ground plane exactly, and this pleased Carmela a lot for some reason. She spoke up, drifting back: "Thanks for the juice, Darien."

"The juice always makes me feel so good, Magda." Carmela and Magda had moved several minutes in silence after leaving the juice stand, drinking thoughtfully from their green straws.

"Me too." Magda pulled the cart with one strong arm, her juice now almost done. She set it down and stretched her back.

Picking it back up she saw from the corner of her eye a short person in a black robe passing, their face covered in a triangular heating grille. People often wore masks in the Forgotten Zone, but this caught her attention as being menacing. She turned to Carmela in the cart and handed her her juice, not breaking gaze with the short being. "Hold this."

Magda stepped boldly over. "Hey. You! Come here!" The short being ignored her, shuffling along. "I said come HERE!" Magda ran quickly over and touched the shoulder of the black-cloaked person. They turned around. "I haven't seen you around the Zone before. I like to know my Hill-- so tell me your name and what you're here for and maybe we can be friends."

The being had stopped when Magda touched their shoulder, but didn't turn around. Suddenly, they struck backward with their elbow and jabbed Magda in the ribs. She doubled over, and they ran off. The edge of the road here was limned with houses on one side, but the other was a grassy hock and they ran for that, bounding into the spry bushes on an inelegant jigging waddle.

Magda stood up slowly, clutching her side. "Ow!" She limped back to the wagon.

Carmela crawled out of the cart, shouted: "You ok!?"

She nodded from a hunch, then signaled for Carmela to wait, then approached close enough for speaking before replying. "Yeah, I'm fine, just banged me a bit unexpected. Gottam! It's been awhile I been taken unawares like that, or any had the bolder to try."

Magda leaned up against the side of the cart, still clutching her ribs. "Please." She gestured her juice with her eyes and Carmela handed it to her.

While Magda slurped the last hollow dregs noisy from the straw, digging it squeeching into the corners of the cup, Carmela looked around. Near to them, on the house side, a woman in a long brown skirt and a lovely tan tunic was holding a broom, staring at them. She looked like she must have been sweeping down her stoop and so Carmela realized she must have seen the whole thing.

Magda opened her eyes and tilted her head back down from the sky, and then in a moment followed Carmela's gaze, and her thought.

The woman walked over while they watched her. Just out of comfortable speaking range, she half-yelled: "Pardon, but I saw that. Are you alright, Mum?"

When she got closer, Magda replied: "Kind of you. I'll be fine. But I would still like to know who that was, moreso now."

"Oh, I seen him before. I never talked to him but his name's Chatt, or so they say."

"Who's they?"

"Oh, the shopkeepers by Seller's Plateau. They say he comes up and buys metal scraps, pays too much for them, but says not enough words about it, so's it's makin' 'em uneasy."

"I see." She paused. "Any shopkeep in particular?"

"Talk to Tany, he's the one that said his name to me."

"Thank you. While we're talking, need anything? I like to help when I can."

"No, thanks mum. Can I get you a thing? Water?"

"Ah, no, I just had a juice. Thanks. I'll be on my way in a bit, don't let me interrupt you."

"Okay. If you change your mind, knock my door, okay?"

"I'll do that. You thanks."

The woman nodded, smiled halfly and walked back to her house, leaving the broom on the not-yet-swept stoop and going inside.

"Well, what you do think? Are we in shape, either of us, to go diving into the bush after that one who now had a few minutes head start? I admit I'd like the challenge, but talking to Tany seems easier." Magda turned to Carmela.

"I have nowhere to be. Let's find him."

"Right-o." Magda gestured Carmela into the cart, and set her empty cup inside.

"You sure you're alright" Magda just nodded so Carmela climbed inside and sat.

Grabbing the handles, Magda yelped and clutched her rib. "Sun downit! That hurts! Ok for now I guess I'm wrecked too."

Jesemin was the lady's name, Magda had learned she she hobbled over to her door and asked if she could pull the cart. The woman was more than happy to help Magda, and had lithely gripped the handles, the combined weight of Magda and Carmela no suffering for her strong back.

They turned around and continued back up the hill for a time, then branched to the Seller's Plateau. The path narrowed and passed through a thicket of spindly allspice, and for the first time they lost sight of the city distant, this spot being one of the most treed in the entire Forgotten Zone, which was mostly barren dirt and scrub.

The Plateau was one of the most pleasant places, home to Jake's-- a large coffee shop, several stands, a gear-seller, silk-seller, suit-seller, and, among others, B'yen, a tiny coffee shop, directly across Jake's. Unlike most of the Forgotten Zone, the plaza was bricked in, an upgrade paid for by the sellers, and had public seating and shade. All that was missing was a fountain, but that was of course an impossibility here.

As they reached the plaza proper, Magda asked Jesemin to stop, and she crawled lumbering out of the cart. "I'll be a minute. You said it was Tany?" "Yes, that's the one over there." "I know him, but I haven't talked to him before. Thank you." "No whit!"

Magda straightend herself up remarkably and paced the short distance to the metal shop, which was really a tiny bit of alley between the suiter's and the gear shop, but had been remarkably finished. The wares extended deep-in but the shop was narrow. "METAL - BUY N SELL." A functional sign.

"You Tany?"

"The same, ah. Mum! Nice for you to visit my shop." Tany recognized Magda instantly and stood up from his stool to greet her.

"Can I pour you a tea?" He had a kettle on a small burner behind the counter, and Magda could see he was reaching for something underneath, presumably teacuppish.

"No need. Sorry to barge in without any proper business. I had a question about someone."

"Let me guess. Funny little guy all black-cloaked, metal grill all over his face? That's Chatt, or so he calls himself."

"Ah, yes. Him. Do you know where he lives? I mean Hill or city?"

"Oh. Well, city, I'm sure of it. He normally comes up the steep path and just cuts over. So there's no-one who lives from where he comes. Knowin' it makes me queasy that he doesn't come in the main way, though he'sn't the only one who does that, a'course."

"Well, really that's reassuring. I like to know my Hill, you know."

"'Course, mum. But that's not all, in fact he was just here."

"What was he doing? What is he like?"

"Oh, it was same as he always does. He came asking to buy something really specific that I don't have. But this time, was a little unnerving."

"Why's that."

"I almost don't wanta say." He paused and Magda's smile reasurred him-- or else, her raised eyebrow intimidated him. "He uh, well he wanted a gun."

"A gun. By god, god."

"Oh, mum! Don't go forming the wrong idea. I only have scrap metal, parts'n that. I'm not dealing in anything 'llegal, well I suppose in the city law we're all 'llegal in that we don't tax in, but you know what I'm try'nta say. I just have the scrap back there."

"Oh-- I believe you. I'm just... well let's just say it's a real coincidence and leave it at that."

Tany looked puzzled but Magda just waved her hand.

"Alright. Hem. Okay-- if you don't mind I just want to know a couple more things. When did he first come? And what other things did he ask for?"

"Oh, it was awhile back. I remember I saw him first, because he came up the steep path and it made me uneasy then, as it still now. Anyway, said he was looking for me, me specific. That wouldabin April, so six or seven month back."

"I see." Magda was drawing inward. "And what did he want the first time?"

"A... a qunut. S'odd. Real odd. In fact, almost I might've had a qunut!"

"What is it?" Carmela was concerned because Magda was walking back to the cart so briskly, her face a wince of concentration.

"We should go. I don't know but this grill-face fellow is linked to what's going on with you. But he comes here, was here not long, so let's move so he doesn't know." Magda hopped coldly onto the cart and Jesemin, seeing her serious, turned it about face, returning toward the forested path.

When they were partway into the brush, Magda spoke, forgetting her rib pain, Jesemin now sweating while she pulled the cart. "So this character, this Chatt, he comes by and asks to buy things from Tany. About every month."

"So?"

"Today he asked for a gun."

Carmela paused for a moment, a lump rising.

"And his first ask, do you want to guess when?"

"No, I don't want to guess."

"It was about 6 months ago. And do you want to know what he was after, of all things?"

"Magda."

"That's right, a qunut. A qunut. Carmela, we have to find this Chatt." She stared straight ahead as Jesemin pulled the cart even faster, until they were totally clear of the plateau and back on the main road.

Carmela returned to the city by cab, this time just a normal cab ride, Jesemin having deposited her at the parking lot, the sort of between-space where cabs could come and line up without really leaving the city, but where they were in practice, if not on legal border, inside the Forgotten Zone. Magda's usual grit had by then overcome her bruised ribs and she had quickly but unevenly gone back up the hill at a brisk walk with the now-empty cart, thanking Jesemin but refusing her offer to pull.

She promised Carmela she would ask around and contact her back in two days. In the meantime, Magda said, Carmela should lay low, maybe even stay with someone if she knew who could take her.

And so Carmela went to stay with Harvvy. Carmela knew that not too many people knew about their thing, because at the time Carmela had been private about it, too embarassed to admit to it, even though she found him magnetic. Harvvy hadn't liked that, but in his usual mode, had endured it. Almost a year later she still felt some regret. She knew he had to call him, and she felt bad about that too.

He let her in, and they walked up the thin straight staircase to the second floor, where he produced a small black key fitted into a door on the landing, crossed the common area studio, and entered the closet that was his personal space. Inside was a black leather couch and his string art, glowing neon in the black light.

Carmela limped to the couch. "Thank you, Harvvy. I didn't... treat you well. Last time we saw."

He breathed in. "Right. Carmela. I know. Look, I don't mind being a friend. You don't have to dance these things around on me, I can tell you need help right now. I'm not here to collect on what happened before, I'm not here to make you feel bad or good about it. You're a friend first and before, and a friend last and after."

Carmela remembered why she found him so compelling, but also why it was never going to work. "Thanks... Harvvy, that is... reasonable of you. And you're right, I need help now."

"Look. This isn't a huge favour, I'm helping you because of course I would help you."

"I understand. But still... thank you."

"You're welcome."

There was an awkward pause while they stared at each other; well, Harvvy stared intent at Carmela but Carmela sortly avoided his gaze. She turned and laid her body down on the couch.

She closed her eyes, and Harvvy sat at his desk chair and spun around to his work. He had cords laid out in four colors: yellow, orange, teal, and sea blue. He was staring intently and moving them into different arrangements.

Carmela rested for a spell then raised an eyelid cautiously-- she was surprised at the tenderness of Harvvy genuinely ignoring her, letting her recover. She wasn't expecting that. She closed her eyes again and this time fell asleep.

She dreamed about a green ladder that led up and up.

A shoulder was moving; it was hers. A hand was moving it; it was Harvvy's.

"Carmela. Carmela."

She opened her eyes and felt she had been sleeping for eepaz.

"Wha..."

"Sorry. I'm just letting you know that I'm going to sleep. I put a blanket on you. I'm sleeping on the floor next to the couch here. I just wanted you to know."

"Oh. Thank you. I'm going to go back to sleep."

"Yes. Don't leave the privacy closet, other people are here now. If you need to use the washroom just wake me."

"I'll be fine."

"Ok, good."

She fell back into a sleep, now dreamless or with dreams too deep to sense.

There were birds chirping, and she could feel fresh air slowly move around her. In a sudden she remembered where she was, and after wresting through a panicked instant where she thought back to her being hunted, possibly, she calmed herself somewhat and opened her eyes.

It was morning, clearly. Harvvy was sleeping on the floor next to the couch, facing away from her. His black t-shirt fit him tightly and she thought about how chiseled his back was.

Because of the trifold to the privacy door, light was able to stream in, and she knew it was daylight. She had no plan for the day. She wasn't sure if she should leave but she did have to pee.

She leaned over and shook his shoulder to wake him up.

It turned out that by then everyone had left for work, so there were no complications with her leaving Harvvy's closet. He had small cereal boxes and a small carton of milk in the minifridge, and made some coffee on the burner. She didn't ask why he wasn't going to work, or how he escaped the city's work roster.

She hoped he wouldn't ask who she was hiding from, but he did.

"You don't have to answer if you really can't. But I want to know, I want to help."

"No, it's okay. I owe it to you."

"You don't."

She paused. She really did owe it to him.

"Listen. This is going to sound weird, but I'm going to tell you the truth." She continued slowly. "For the past 9 months, every time my period is due, I've been giving birth to... inanimate objects. Metal objects." After a long pause: "It takes place over a couple of days."

Harvvy just sat and looked at her, not doubting her sincerety but also, she thought, maybe searching for clues that she was putting him on or otherwise making an elaborate joke.

"Listen Harvvy. I know it sounds like I've got some kind of psychosis, but it's real. I've been going to the Hill-- you know I'm friends with Magda, there-- and she's been sort of midwifing for me."

"Oh. Okay." He held his expression, without disbelief but, too, without belief; really just a listening: "Go on."

"So far it's been disturbing, but now it's worse, Harvvy. Yesterday, I gave birth to a loaded gun."

Harvvy was silent. His face was kept a step back from deadly serious by a swirl of confusion.

"I don't have time to ask you to believe me. We have to solve this because I don't know if by this time next month I will give birth to something that will kill me. We have a lead. Someone named Chatt. He comes up the Hill but he doesn't belong there. He wears a mask, so maybe he doesn't really belong in the city either, or maybe he takes it off, here. Regardless, it turns out he has been asking up at the Hill for metal things, and they are the same things I've been giving birth to."

She stopped to let him process.

Then Harvvy looked at Carmela and something fell in for him: "It's a curse."

"Yes."

"Your boyfriend."

"No."

"The Haixen are the only ones who can do this kind of thing. You know that."

"I don't know that."

"Really."

Carmela was quiet. Of course it was the Haixen, Justinian. Who else? He had shown her magick twice to impress her, multicolored flaming skulls encircling her in the Jet Room of the Ten Tower, and when that didn't convince her, when she argued it was holograms or other tech, he took her an hour out of the city to a mountaintop and turned a single thorned rose to metal, and then to dust. She could see him with his black silk gloves and perfect circles for eyes, those darkpin lenses that he always stared out at her from under, that he could instantly bid unfade so she could see him when he wanted her to, that he could close up for comedic effect or for casual intimidation, or maybe just to hide his vulnerable side, or else maybe create the illusion of one; she could see the intricacies of his fingerwork and hear him grunt quietly as he drew the circles around in the air, thick sweat working its way down his face. No small trick-- and so, so obviously not fake-- if she was brave enough to face what she knew she believed.

"I don't know that."

Magda was tramping hard. She had tracked the gammer down fourteen alleys, talked to trashy people more times than felt useful (these people whom would not seem out of place in the Forgotten Zone, but whom, in the city, working against their own interest, she found repulsive), hidden from the police once (she had a fake roster card, well she had twenty, but she was Magda, and at least fifteen percent of cops would know her on sight), and knocked on four doors (all dead-end leads, but one was a housemarm in unusual slippers, and that had seemed worth pursuing-- some other time-- in its own right.)

She wanted to give Carmela something to hope for, and fast. She had seen so many slip into despair when faced with too much mental trauma, too many questions leading only to heavy closed doors. She didn't let that on her watch. Or tried not, more like.

This time try would be enough. She still had 10 hours or so before she would need to call on Carmela. She tramped on.

Rounding another alley between the countless high buildings, this one brick, even, she passed a yellow door. This was close. The clue here had been that a cabby had known a cabby who had seen a guy take off a metal face, and a newspaper seller had known that cabby because that cabby had always bought his newspaper at his shop, and the newspaper guy had seen metal face walk down an alley, and when Magda had walked down that alley herself she found someone sitting in trash who said he had walked in the direction of Squareseeker Quad, and questioning everyone there had proved pointless (tight lips), but at a vegetable store nearby she overheard a shopper conversing with the teller (it had been good she wanted the carrots) about a strange short guy she sometimes saw at her shop, which was a metal shop, and how she thought he must live on Elkingerstrasse. That had been lucky but up til then had been the easy part, it turned out, because nobody wanted to explain where Elkingerstrasse was, or at least not to Magda once she asked. But she kept trying and eventually somebody didn't care, and told her.

Magda openly hated the city. Everyone doing their own thing, but disagreeably, and ever for someone else. Everything inefficient and democratic. At least on the Hill, there was an order. She was the queen, but was not only her as liked there being an order. And "queen" was really just code for "problem solver", as she saw it. Democracy was a madness that inflamed peoples' senses of self importance, rightness, and just generally expanded their perception of their own capabilities until everything fell apart into a dysfunctional heap, the lowest-common-demoninator scrabbling up any real power, lording it over ordinary people, who believed they were the ones winning. Silly, disgusting, spitworthy even.

The yellow door had looked odd to her, and it was a tiny bit open. So half on a hunch she decided to just go on in.

The door opened into a kitchen. A fat woman in a yellow dress and a blue apron, fringed with lace, was at the sink. She looked at Magda and smiled. "One sec, I'll call 'im. Chadt! Chadt! Anotherah yer friends is 'ere!"

Magda pushed right in past her with a "'Scuse me" and headed out the opposite door leading past the kitchen into the house. Down a short hall, she was in a nicely furnished living room, no tech in sight however, and a bannistered staircase to her right, curving back and to the right again and upstairs. She grabbed the handrail and ascended. At the top was a paper chandelier the exact shape of a radish, but orange (so, maybe supposed to be a carrot). There was a landing here and three doors down the hall. She looked left, then right, then left again as one of the doors opened.

The man looking at her had a smile on his face, not of benevolence (in any measure) but of pure avarice. But she didn't notice this: she was by now focused with crystal intent on the holy douglass.

As the man looked back, his complexion dawned as he realized that Magda was not the whom he was expecting, and then dawned again as he realized who she was and what she was probably there to do. And by then, she was coming at a run.

He lenched himself away from her and towards the door at the end of the hall, awkward step-bursting through it to reveal a room full of old furniture, covered with torn cellophane and bedsheets. Magda was half the distance to him but he was already opening a window and crawling through head-first to a small roof gable. Magda made it to the window and poked her head out, craning it around and up to the left just in time to see a black sneaker-sole flippeting out of view. By his direction he was headed for the rooftops; not the local rooftops, but the flat black rooftops of the mini-mall hazeling. If he made it there, sight lines above and below would block easily, and Magda knew he would be lost to her, maybe for good.

There was no other option but to run, and while every statistic said he would beat her handily in a physical competition, the reality of Magda's life meant something else.

Thinking back she could not remember much about the lunches she ate as a teenager. It wasn't relevant now except she liked to think of her body as a layer cake, packing everything she ate, processed, and exeprienced into a tighter molayer, enveloping the rest. So the peanbut butter and the jam sandwiches (assuming they be that) aten in grade 7 were buried in her and she could draw on them now, a powerful foundational core for the chase.

Her sinews and bones held this kind of strength, prepared since then, impossibly resilient, regenerated scar tissue over old injuries; muscles that knew how to fling her, and a heart-lungs system slower to wake than one in a twentysomething, but deep as an ocean to power it all. Magda did not look it but she was a cream machine.

She took a quick step back and vaulted feet first out the window, arms pressing her body forward and flat.

Outside, she turned. There periwinkle stars on the tile here, beautifully done-up. On one of them, just a one, was a starchild, seated on the moon. She felt blessed and bouyed by its unexpected beauty, and immediately bounded away from it.

He was not prepared for her speed. A near second later, at the far end of the plane, she collared him inside her elbow, and reaching her front leg forward, swept her right heel backfast, swipp!!-ing his legs out from under, so that only her firm and instance grip on the back of his shirt failed his face hitting the tile and ruining it. He squirmed and squiggled to get out from her clutches but her firm knee to his back and a lightning fast reach had him pinned, wrestling-style, cheek smooshed to the side against the cold tile.

With her free hand, she pomped him on the shoulder.

"What gives! What gives! Who you work for, eh?" She asked him, out of breath and annoyed.

He only grunted.

"Speak!" She twisted his arm a bit. A bit away from his face was rusty iron water-grate; not a dry shallow rust but wet, solid, a final state of rust in the city. Intended rust. The grate was there on the roof to let the water in, so it could drain out. She dragged his face over to it so she could cheese-grater it a bit, to make him talk.

As she did, he twisted with supreme effort and broke out of her hold. She flipped over. He clambered on all fours away from her, stood up and turned. Magda didn't wait to stand up, but spun her body toplike and pushed off somehow with her hands on the cold tile, reaching with her toe to trip him as he spun, catching his foot just.

He lost his balance facing her and started to fall back, but her tiny toe trip had only unbalanced him, was not enough to topple him right over but had left her terribly compromised. He caught himself first, swiftly kicked her head, and then ran off.

It took her a very long moment to shake it. Then she reached behind her belt, under her second skirt, pulled out her extraordinarily illegal wire-guided taser, and from a sitting position on the roof, shot him easily.

60,000 volts of electricity surged for 1.5 seconds and left him in a heap, about 5 meters away from her at the other side of the roof from where he had originally tried running.

Magda yanked hard on the tazer, pulling out the hook she knew will have embedded about a half-centimeter into his skin (a telltale mark, but it couldn't be helped) and hit recoil on the side of the gun. Once recoiled, she put it back behind her into the carefully molded holster, and covered it up.

Only then did she catch her breath. Wiping sweat from her now-pained face with her shooting arm: "What a goddamn mess."

She sat, then stood up, sorely, and marched over to him. Gazing down, she grabbed his limp form by the scruff of the neck, then reached her arms under his in a hug-carry, and finally with a stretched-out grunt sloughed him over her shoulder. It did not seem possible that she could carry him, except to her, who knew she could, barely.

With effort she got him back into the room that led onto the roof, but as she tossed him in, his body roiled back awkwardly and she worried for a moment she had broke his back or neck. "Achg, crap." She climbed in to the room and kneeling next to him felt her index and middle fingers to the back of his neck and down his spine. Not a thorough or very reliable examination but it would have to do. She breathed a sigh of relief and stood up again.

She dusted herself off. A yell came from downstairs. "Chakky! Whut's gone on then?! I heart a bumpin'! Need I come up?"

Magda did an impression of a young pathetic man, dropping her voice a register and gravelling it to a fierce whine: "It's fine mom! I'm just moving furniture."

A short pause, and then: "Oh oh-kay. Don't break nothin'!" Magda paused for a second, self-angry she had gambled on "mom" but amazed even for her that the bluff had worked.

"Now to tie you up." she muttered to herself as she began to turn, twist at the waist to-and-fro looking around the room. She took a quick couple steps over and quietly as she could, closed the door. Cellophane.

After several minutes of careful lifting, peeling the cellophane sheets back and twisting them, she had Chad trussed up to a chair and gagged too. She knew the hypervolts would only keep him knocked out for a bit longer, but wondered if she could wake him up.

She stepped back and slapped him, SS-MACKK!, and hard. Immediately she was worried that it would be audible from downstairs but it was satisfying enough that she thought it worth trying again. SS-LAPP!!

She felt that ought to do it. Stepping back she regarded him, couldn't believe someone in the city was having the audacity of messing with her Hill, and it felt so out of place especially that one as obviously as pathetic as this was involved.

"Uhhh. Mmff." Indded he was coming to. His head lolled a bit and he took his surroundings. Finally he saw Magda, and she could see things crystallize for him, his entire face deformed in fear and agitation, framing the two perfect and too-wide circles that were his eyes.

She stepped to his face quietly:

"I just have one question for you, and if you answer, I'll leave and never tell it was you who told me. So listen, because you only get one chance to answer: who sent you into my Hill to buy things?"

The man started to make muffled noises and something in his eyes spoke fear above defiance. Magda grabbed him the neck.

"Good. Now I'm going to un-muffle you, and you're not going to scream, are you?"

The man shook his head vigorously, beads of sweat splashing Magda a bit.

"You'll tell me what I want to know."

The man nodded his head just as vigorously.

"Then we have a deal. After you tell me, I'll leave. Don't worry, I won't leave you tied up like this."

She reached behind his head and with her small knife cut the twisted plastic that made up the gag.

The man seemed to stutter for a little bit, as if he had lost his tongue or it was too dry to talk. But it was only a moment before he could spit out a name:

"Afrika Zan."

Magda paused a second. She wasn't expecting that.

"What..."

"You said you would let me go when I told you, now let me go."

"Yes yes. But... first I just want to be clear. Afrika Zan, socialite and showrunner for R.E.M. Inductive Manufacture, supposed mafia connectero, this Afrika Zan sent you into my Hill to buy things?" She said this slowly.

"Yes, yes! Now let me go!"

Magda paused a moment, and seemed to mount to a new reality. "Fine, you can go. But tell me this first: where did you meet him?"

"I don't know. I was out collecting scrap in the alleys downtown and then boom. I woke up in a leather room and Afrika Zan was sitting across from me. I recognized him right away. I hardly caught my breath of it! He said to go and ask for a thing, I can't remember what, from the pawn on the Hill and I was supposed to drop it in a can by seventh and fourth, you know the one."

"I don't."

"There's a can there. Well I've done it six times now. I go ask for a thing, each time something different, and I'm supposed to drop whatever I get from the Hill pawn in the can. But I've never actualy got anything. That's it. Now let me go!"

"Afrika Zan." Magda whistled a bit. "Well. Can't say I don't like a challenge, then!"

The phone rang.

Harvvy and Carmela had been sitting, reading from Harvvy's paperbooks. Harvvy's eyes widened as he looked at Carmela. She inhaled slowly.

"Do you want me to answer?"

Carmela nodded. Harvvy reached over for the black handset and picked it up, punching answer.

"Harv, is it. You don't have to talk if you don't want to." The voice was a silken baritone, like a wise father from fiction, terrifying in fact because it shouldn't exist. "You have her. I want her. Stay, one hour only, and I'll let you alone." There was a pause, and by now Carmela was standing gathering her things, the voice injecting her. "Oh, and. Carmela, I know you're listening. I won't harm you." The last, spoken so matter-of-fact, as in, don't be silly.

With a click the line was dead.

"We have to go, now." Carmela's voice was quiet in dread.

"I'm coming with you."

"Yes let's go."

Carmela grabbed her bag while Harvvy reached underneath some binders that were stacked under his desk and got his shoes: brown pull-on slippers. Carmela's own shoes were low brown K'cickers, she had to sit on the couch to get the elaborate laces tied. Harvvy finished first and went out into the main room, closing the curtain behind him.

Carmela stood up and straightened herself out.

Magda was walking swiftly away from the flat with the yellow door where she had arraigned Chatt. The alleys here were narrow, white stucco walls with black drainpipes running down, no fire escapes, but inexplicably a few black-railed balconies, half a foot wide, looking out onto others, identical, a few feet away. The windows were smoky and Magda could sense and smell the cooking that was happening above, kitchen noises too falling down on her.

After a time she entered a city park, all the time thinking. She hated the parks the least about the city, and it was a good place as any to collect her next move. She had told Carmela to hold out for two days, but it hadn't been quite one and she had this nut cracked-- so she was a little self-impressed.

But she was hungry, and starting to think less clearly. One fix for that was the sandwich vendor she knew would be there, mandated and organized by the Work Council. She passed the iron gate and entered an oval walking track, then turned right because she could see a large group of people performing rhythmic stretching as a group toward the left. There was a speed-walker approaching her, and she greeted him friendly. Only about two things could wreck her plan now, and one of them was being recognized by someone clean.

She continued to walk briskly around the oval, the evening mugg gaining on her as time settled into dusk. She could see the north exit alongside a busier street, and next to it the vendor, as anticipated. She approached and bought her sandwich, outwardly a perfectly calm old woman.

Carmela and Harvvy were shuffling down the sidewalk in front of Harvvy's complex, nervously flipping looks back and around, terrified that Justinian's thugs would be watching them.

After a short time in silence, Carmela spoke: "Either he found out earlier and sent someone to watch us before he called, or he called us as soon as he found out about us, because he thought you would buckle."

"I almost did."

They were both breathing a little heavily. It was not a busy sidewalk, but a lady with a small dog was passing them, nodding them a half-wry smile as she passed.

"Yeah. Ok. That's ok. But-- here's it. I know him well enough. He will not think you are brave enough to try and bolt with me like this."

"I hope you're right."

"He's such a bastard though. He can't catch us, and he will be angry that you didn't just do what he wanted. Honestly, maybe you should have."

"Hey, well."

They turned the corner. A bus was approaching. "We should get on."

"Yes."

Magda was in another taxi, and the driver was eyeing her suspiciously, which she hated. She finished the last bite of her sandwich and decided she needed to throw him off balance.

She rolled down her window and dumped the wax paper out.

"Hey! Lady! I could get a fine. But."

"But what."

The driver was silent.

Coldly and firmly, Magda intoned: "You don't try anything with me, you hear?"

He looked away, and she could smell defiance.

"I said you hear?"

The driver pulled over to stop, and flipped his radio terminal to the emergency channel.

"Aw fuck." Magda opened the still-moving cabdoor and kicked it open, the driver reached for the lock, Magda heard it clunck, but it was too late.

Afraid the driver might try to accelerate now that she had the door open, she lept out.

She could feel her ankle twist as she rolled onto the street, but her adrenaline and her conditioning pushed the pain out of mind almost as fast as she had realized it. The other part of her training, the part about being old, made a note not to push it or she knew she would pay the price. Miracle-jumper or no, she could only be as frail as the most robust human.

She got up controlled to one knee and stared at the cab. It stopped, half turned, more than 10 meters ahead of her. She got the rest of the way up, and pointed. The cab sped away.

"You! Another one. I hate taxis."

Surveying quickly where she was, she decided her best chance was simply to hike the rest of the five kilometers or so to her destination. The road at least was now suburban, everyone in their house or away at work. She wouldn't be noticed here, and the cabbie might not have even made the call. She calmed herself and got to it.

Jungle trees leaned over the boldly-painted white line delineating the road-shoulder, small grassy plants cracking through. An oncoming lane and one going her way-- this was about as windy and as hilly as roads got in the city, and she felt more at home for that.

She knew the house but she had never been there in body. Afrika Zan lived in a hill estate, large if not sprawling grounds, a wide square bungalow with a fish pond out front. The Rubelbees were not actually a distant suburb, just a spacious, exotic, and costly one. The people who lived here were all mostly famous personalities, people who wanted to splash out for a house not just to live in but to be seen living in. Afrika occupied this mightily, throwing parties for foreign diplomats which it would be inappropriate for them attend, so that when they did anyways it would seem he had the reins of power over the city government. He did not, actually, but the perception served him well, as did so many other perceptions about him.

Well no matter, Magda thought to herself-- your parlor tricks won't work on me. We'll find out how much the brick weighs by weighing it, and get its dimensions with a ruler. She had strong reason to believe Afrika Zan was all bluff no blow, but she still feared what she was about to do a little bit. After all, anything could go wrong at any time, that was just a law of the universe.

The abandoned streets here were eerie to her, lifeless but for chattering birds high up in the trees that overhung. A white car passed her, its occupants— a man and a woman— breaking from their preoccupation to send her a dirty look you don't belong here who are you from their luxury moleather seats.

She ignored them, mostly, and as it turned out they were the only car she saw. For her it was just an all-uphill hike along the narrow streets, an hour or so, relaxing under other circumstances, until finally she spied the branch she knew would take her to Zan's abode.

She straightened herself a bit, found a fresh reserve of energy, and inhaling deeply stepped across the street and into the yet-narrower laneway.

Ten Tower was in the respite district, a conglomeration of steel manufacture and smelting etching chemical-- particularly Amax, since selenium was so abundant in the carrow that lay only a hundred miles east.

The bus ride was fifty minutes from the central depot, but the bus they had originally boarded was not inbound to there, instead it was a tendril route winding up a blackpaved and hot road to a hiking trail. They realized their mistake when the bus did not enter the main east-west highway but instead took an unexpected left-turn down a peasant alley, winding its way through a sparse and beatup workclass povel (one stop only, in fully ten or so minutes.) After that stop, they quickly discussed and decided the best course was to disembark and hope for a return route.

The bus then traveled for another full nine minutes before reaching the next. They disembarked in front of a church, its white stucco wall meeting in an open iron gate, the words "Rose Garden Amphitheatre of Heavenly Father" across its arch way.

There was some commotion inside the courtyard, and they could not help but peer. A woman was beating her fists into her white, poofy gown and shouting at a man dressed all in black, with a black circular cap-- presumably the priest. It was possible to make out the entire discussion.

"You fain would give them a proper funeral, to save face? Unbelievable!"

She shouted this, but the priest cooly replied: "It's simply that the incident cannot really be blamed on the city government, and also that there is no benefit to the families in raising such a fuss. Surely you..."

She cut him off. "So you admit it! Relinquish your staff, scobold!"

"My staff is my sheapherd's wand, I hold it to keep my flock safe. I pray that you, an owing begethel, will come to see my actions are right in this light. I do what I do to protect our community."

"You protect aught but ye, scobold! Arf! But I canst see it's unworth to parl you more!"

The woman stormed away, heading toward the gate where Carmela and Harvvy stood. She noticed them, and the fire glare in her eyes made them scootle along and pretend they had not been eavesdropping.

As she passed, she did not turn to look at them but walked up the road to where the bus had left them prior.

"Let's find the other stop." Harvvy looked at Carmela, who gazed back at him.

"I wonder what she was talking about? I can't remember any accidents or anything where a bunch of people were killed, not recently."

"I agree it's wierd."

He looked genuinely surprised, seated in his yellow robe, eating his bowl of rice. But in a moment he regained his composure.

"Magda. The queen bee herself. What trouble is old Afrika in now, that you visit me in person? You can't be watching my show, there's no T.V. up on the... what do you call it? The Hill?"

"You laid a curse on my friend. You can fix it, or you can suffer now."

"A curse? Wait. Could it be... do you believe it Magick, Magda? I wouldn't take you for the kind! I'd always pinned you as an unbeliever, a modicum."

"Cut it, Zan. Your guy spilled the beans on you, look: I don't know what you think you're doing, making, whatever-- but find someone else to make it in. Carmela is off-limits, strict."

Afrika just clicked his tongue and looked down. "Miss, Murs, Magda. I don't know whose tree sent you barking up me, but you really have the wrong fellow. Let me convince you."

Magda cold stared him a moment, then: "Fine."

At this, Afrika lept from his chair, Magda's gaze tracking him like a lioness. He took a step on the marble floor to a small end-table where a black device sat. Picking it up, he showed it in his palm to Magda. "No tricks. Just... a remote. I want you to watch my show, you see, my queen..."

"I don't want this."

"Just watch." His voice was calm and quiet. Magda nodded.

Afrika clicked the device and the tapestry that had been behind Afrika's chair parted and revealed behind itself a panel TV. He was standing to the left, half-facing it, half-facing Magda, and he crossed his arms and poised himself back a notch.

The display was a whirldivine cacophony of yellow, orange, green, black, purple, triangles spiralling around each other to the sound of buzzing electric baghra-rock. A voice intoned, in a draculan rasp: "Afrika, Zan. Afrika, Zan, Afrika, Zan! AFRIKA... ZAN!" and with that the echoes dripped into the crescendoing tele-ditty, now just finishing. It was obscenely garish, hard to watch, harder not to. Magda knew that was the point.

The same daemonic voice continued. "People of the city, prepare yourself. Afrika Zan is... HERE!"

The image of Afrika strode onto a stage, pastel-colored curtains behind him, a table set out. The studio crowd, real or not, awed and cheered for him, he calmly stood in this for a moment, then stepped towards them, put his hands up, not even talking, and they instantly and impressively hushed.

The Afrika on-screen intoned, in his rhythmic and quick persona: "Acolytes as you know I answer only to your requests and this day we have been given FIVE people who all made the same request and do you know what that is do you know. Today these five people want to eat MEAT!

"YES meat is forbidden that is what we all know but some would think our ancestors knew better and did they they did. But I ask you then what I say WHAT if you could eat meat but only after it entered your belly what THEN?

"I will perform the transubstantification and I will turn maeil protein into honest real meat MEAT before your very eyes and into the gutterals of our five YES five participants.

"Now WATCH!"

Five meek individuals stepped onto the stage. The first, a short man in a blue button-up and dark pants, black shoes, slim and not ugly, but shy, stood deer-in-headlights facing the audience.

"Your name sir."

"My name"-- his voice cracked-- "is E'Evendy Sawain."

"E'Evendy. You wish to eat meat?"

A pause, his gaze lowered. "I do."

"Yet you know it forbidden."

A curt and somehow confident "yes.", eyes looking up, this time no pause.

"Clear your conscience for have it you SHALL yes but not from a killing but from the magick of AFRIKA ZAN!"

The man looked balanced between anticipation and fear, eyes wide and somehow uncertain, about to cross a threshold, and publicly for it.

"Fear ye not, E'Evendy! See with your EYES, the maeil bar!" Afrika produced from behind himself a white, circular plate, larger than would be useful at a dinner table, but smaller than a platter. On it was a single unwrapt maeil bar, brown-grey with the peanut chunks lending texture showing, and next to it the yellow wrapper, torn casually yet laid neatly so that MAEIL PEANUT could be read.

"Now, trust you, it is delicious. Un SO! Eat it NOW!"

With that, Afrika sort-of half stepped forward, his robes swooping a moment behind him, and with two hands offered the plate to E'Evendy, who was now visibly shaking.

Afrika smiled, a smile to inspire confidence, nodded slightly. There was a pause, the audience silent, the man taking too long. Afrika whispered, "Go then, eat it..." and finally the man's hand reached out, a pale thing in it's blue sleeve, and took tenatative fingerhold of the maeil bar. He brought it to his mouth and began to bite it off, Afrika nodding encouragement as he did, then anther bite, and now he was visibly sweating, but not just that, also visibly crying. In another moment, he finished the bar, awkwardly pushing the last bite into his mouth, crumbs caught on camera, one landing on his blue sweater and sticking.

"Good, good! Now, swallow." Afrika strode across the stage to what, on the Television looked to Magda like a child's nighttable, white with yellow drawers, circular knobs. He opened the top drawer, and pulled out an item like a small grass hand-broom, something Magda could not really place, tied with red strings throughout. Afrika strode back to the man.

"Swallowed, have you?"

The man paused, then nodded. "Y-yes. I have."

"Good. Now let me lift your shirt." Afrika looked for a moment to the man, then lifted his shirt.

He lifted the mans shirt and begin to pat his tummy with his right hand, the strange broomlike object held now in his left, which rested with a flourish on his hip, fanning upwards.

Afrika intoned: "Wheeble-wheeble! How, now! Wheeble-wheeble! How, NOW!"

Suddenly he brough the small broom to the man's tummy and made a quick one-two sweeping motion across it, then with a flourish threw it behind him and immediately clapped his large, immensurate hands behind him, as though standing at attention.

The man instantly doubled over as if in pain, holding his stomach.

Afrika faced the camera, which obeyed perfectly into a closeup of his gigantic smile: "Worry not for him! The pain he feels is temporary, a slight wrenching when the meat was created! It will subside!"

He turned back to the man. "How do you feel?"

The man just nodded, slowly stood up. As he did, his countenance appeared changed.

"You, have just sampled, what mankind has not been permitted to sample for hundreds of years. You have eaten MEAT!"

"I have eaten... meat!" The man confidently, proudly intoned. He looked relieved.

Afrika turned back to the audience, now bubbling into a roar. "He has eaten MEAT!"

A spiral graphic began to flash itself up.

The image in the television disappeared with a click as Afrika flicked a button on the remote.

"There do you see? What do you say?"

"Well I say this is stupid and you are clearly some kind of scam artist, is what I say."

"Magda. You understand me perfectly. But now, why are you here again?"

When Carmela had asked the bus driver, "do you go to Ten Tower" he had just scoffed at them and said, "not particularly, no." Twenty minutes later, though, and they realized that wasn't quite true. The bus would not go right into the Respite district but its loop point was the north end of Central, which was almost close enough to walk.

This trip was only about 20 minutes, and now the bus driver shut down his engine and looked back at them, the only two on the bus.

"If you want to get to Ten Tower, just catch the four-four-seven over there. It should be here in a few minutes. This is the end of the line here, unless you want to go back."

They disembarked and as they were crossing the depot the bus marked "#447" pulled in. They boarded it without a word and sat down while it idled for a few minutes before its scheduled departure time.

In the awkward silence Harvvy asked: "What are you going to do there?"

"I'm not sure. Kill him, probably."

Harvvy paused, and whispered, "Kill him?"

"I'm not sure."

The small notty deisel engine on the minibus started with a choke and then proceeded directly into Respite. Most buildings here were single storey manufacturing gigs with huge footprints, usually many city blocks. In the center of Respite was Whole Park, a large, circular, treed, landscaped garden with brooks, bridges, benches and meandering paths. This was meant as a place for everyone who worked in the industrial park to take their breaks. And just to the north side of the park was Ten Plaza, and then behind it Ten Tower, 85 stories gleaming black glass, obelisk-like, an overleaning thumb on the district.

There weren't many stops in Respite, because the plan was relatively compact, a single loop road. The third stop was the east entrance to Whole Park, which was designated "Whole Park/Ten Tower". They got off.

Here it was windier than in the city, being nearer the plains and away from any tall buildings save Ten Tower itself. A handful of mature trees had been planted in Respite when it was opened, and were now all fleecing their leaves in the sunbright breeze. The park was empty.

"No-one's around, I guess because it's Sunday?" Carmela reasoned out loud, after they had walked a few dozen steps together in silence.

"That makes sense, but it's... more abandoned than I would expect even given. It's fishy, you think?"

"I do think."

They continued on, again in silence, the peaceful atmosphere cockled by birdcalls and the ocassional louder rustling as the wind picked up. As they neared Ten Tower they became overawed by its spiraling glass mecaspheroid twists-- ubiquitous and plain in pictures but aweing in person. The sky appeared upside-down in its curves.

After five minutes, unable to look away, they reached the three small steps that boundaried twix the Park and Plaza, and ascended them into Ten Tower's ethotic shadow.

"It's so... black." Carmela walked forward looking up at it, saved in her stupor from any worry of tripping by the perfectly flat, clean white cement square.

"Yes..."

They approached.

"Carmela, you really have to think about what you're going to do, here."

"I know. I don't know."

The were both still staring up. Harvvy somehow shook himself from the gaze of Ten and stopped, touching his hand on her shoulder. "Carmela, stop a second." She stared some more, then shook her head as well.

"Sorry, thank you. Huh. Wow, okay, this is all a bit reckless at this point isn't it?"

"We can't just walk in there like this."

"He probably already knows we're here, the plaza must be blanketed with eleceyes."

They stopped and looked around the plaza. It was all of a sudden crystalline that the quiet here was nonnatural.

Carmela began, "Maybe we shoud..."

Suddenly, from everywhere and from nowhere, a megaphone voice, the voice of Justinian: "Just come inside." Carmela and Harvvy both jumped out of their skins. As they did, the voice continued to echo across the enter Respite.

"Look. Come inside. I sent everyone home. It's labor day."

Carmela looked at Harvvy and nodded. "It's Justinian."

"Of course it's me!"

"Fuck!" Carmela injected, provoking the immediate booming echoing laughter of the disembodied voice of a twilted loudspeaker Haixan.

Harvvy looked terrified but also suddenly focused. "Ignore what he says, ignore that he can hear us. What do you want to do?"

Carmela paused for a second. Justinian was talking, mocking them, but somehow Harvvy's green-brown eyes held her and kept it blocked out, filtered out and relegated to the signal processing part of her brain, just noise.

She paused a moment. "Let's go in."

"Okay. I'll back you up."

The entrance had 8 glass doors, framed in black steel, arranged in pairs. Between each pair was luxury cement-- Ten Tower was not a glass tower, but a brutalist outcrop of unusual height, cement flanges out-of-time reaching up its entirety, uniform tall slender windows between.

They entered a door at random. It was hinged incredibly smoothly for such a large door. Inside, the lobby floor was more luxury textured cement, organic spatters competing and creating an asymmetry that was pulled together only by its supreme shine. Toward the back of the lobby was an atrium centered by a large fountain, to the right were the elevators and before that a reception desk, unstaffed but with viewscreens behind it cycling security camera video of the courtyard, pedestal, atrium, rooftop, and lobby. The video feeds were unexpectedly high-quality, as were the displays, and Carmela knew that it was because they were meant to showcase the building, a subtle vanity of its designer.

They walked a straight line to the elevators. Each had a semicircle atop, a sun motif with square-chiseled rays, all in burnished brass, extending out. In the center was a striking, mechanical digitial display indicating the floor. Carmela could see the numbers dropping above one of the elevators, a tumbler turning into shadow and then suddenly reappearing with the next-lowest number, gradually down until it read "M".

The doors opened, and Carmela and Harvvy both took a deep breath and entered.

"I'm calling Magda."

"You better be fast." but Carmela already had her phone out, and didn't hear.

Over at Afrika's, Magda was dawning that she had been took, and when her phone rang she answered it like a whip.

Instead of hello, she got to it: "Dear. I think I've let you down. I chased a bad lead. Where are you."

"Magda, we are at Ten Tower. It's Justinian. It has to be."

"Justinian?! Shit. Well he pulled one over on me, I found his man but he sent me somewhere... else. Wait. What are you doing at Ten Tower? You need to get out of there!"

"It will be alright. I have a friend with me."

"Listen, Carmela, we need to regroup. Get out of there if you can."

"Sorry, we're already in the elevator. It's opening. I'll be alright."

"I'm on my way."

Carmela buried her phone in her purse, anxious that Justinian would see, if he wasn't already watching them in the elevator.

It opened directly onto the penthouse.

The floor here was the same polished concrete as the lobby, but with bolder yellows, reds, purple splashes, and a darker tone overall. A few steps in Carmela could see wine bottles sitting on the floor, and several pairs of shoes next to them. The coat closet was mirrored and to the left, and beyond it light shone from giant kitchen windows that were partly out of view.

"Come to the living room, Carmen."

Carmela looked quickly at Harvvy who looked back at her. They paused.

Justinian continued to speak to them from down the hall.

"It was my dream to control the flow of time without the use of money. In the end, money was necessary."

Carmela stepped forward past the entryway and down the hall. To the left was the kitchen, to the right, the living area. It was a large apartment but not excessive, modest for someone at Justinian's power.

Harvvy tracked close behind.

"I so wish you had come alone, but at least you didn't bring your little hill-witch. Well, that part at least I didn't need to pay anyone, I just sent her on a little errand."

Carmela stepped into the living room. Justinian was sprawled on a white couch amidst a mess of plates, clothing, books. On the floor was a large 3 dimensional maze of metal spirals, framed in cyan plastic; Carmela saw it briefly but did not know what it was for, but her blood and brain were now riding adrenaline and cutting out all unnecessary detail, so things that didn't immediately parse were stored for later processing.

In one motion she reached into her bag and drew the firearm and pointed it at Justinian and pulled the trigger. Fire lept and a resounding BANG! There was no hesitation; her brain had set her body on rails the moment she started down the hall-- but somewhere in this planned movement Harvvy-- Harvvy! had injected himself, throwing himself at her and pushing the gun away.

"No! Carmela, what are you..." Harvvy and Carmella staggered and she pushed him away, as he akwardly grabbed for her arm. Justinian was diving off the couch, naked shock on his face, all confidence evaporated, as Carmela tripped and fell into the mess of things. Justinian had his fingers out and in panicked fear was starting what Carmela knew was an incantation and she aimed from her unbalanced half-crouch past Harvvy and fired again BANG! this time catching Justinian square in the chest, everything in the room appearing to draw itself into a tunnel for Carmela as she continued to fall backward.

Justinian fell on the floor gasping for air, and blood began to soak the white wool shag he had in the middle of his living room. Carmela had fallen mostly over but caught herself with her arm, and she struggled to get up as quickly as she could. Again she pointed the gun BANG! and Justinian half-groaned, half-screamed, and again BANG! and suddenly she was shiverring and dropped the gun and fell to the ground shaking uncontrollably.

Harvvy had fallen to the opposite wall and was now on the floor, underneath a stippled cerulean abstract that hung on the wall separating the living room from the kitchen. He stood awkwardly and caught his breath, stunned for a moment, unable to unravel what had just happened.

"Carmela!"

She was weeping heavily now, hyperventalating as she forced her face into the carpet and released a primal scream that woke something in Harvvy and changed him. He went over to her.

"We have to get away from here."

Carmela stood up and looked at Harvvy and her face was wide-eyed. She nodded. "The gun..." was all she could manage as she looked at him, still hyperventilating but coming to her feet. "Put it in your bag. Let's go." She nodded and did that, and they left. Harvvy took one more look around the room, but avoiding looking at Justinian, scanning to see if they were leaving anything. They started down the hallway, Harvvy supporting Carmela. "Wait. Stay here." She nodded.

He went back to the room and quickly scanned for the shell casing he knew would be there. He reached down and grabbed two, then the third, and jammed them deep into his shoulder bag. "I got the shell casings." "The bullets." "Shit. Nevermind, we can't do anything about that, we have to go."

They left the apartment and pressed the button for the elevator. The calm smooth unhurried motion of the elevator door seemed absurd, but they stepped inside normally and Harvvy pressed down.

"Our fingerprints will be all over this, hold on." He reached again into his bag, and pulled out a small packet of wet wipes. He wiped down the panel. The elevator reached the main floor and the door opened up, and Carmela and Harvvy stepped out of the elevator.

A few steps away, Carmela suddenly bolted back to the elevator. "The doorknob!"

She pulled at Harvvy and it dawned on him: "Shit!"

"What do we do?"

They both paused for a second, looking at the exit to the building and then back to the elevator door. "We have to go back." as Harvvy said this, the elevator door began to close. Carmela was in reach and managed to jam her arm in it; it opened smoothly. Harvvy jumped in after her, and using his wet wipe this time pressed penthouse.

The elevator crawled upwards, another inexplicable calmness inside of their madnesses. The door slid open, and Harvvy ran to the doorknob. He wiped it down.

"Did we touch anything else?"

A pause. "No. No. ... No, I don't think so. Carmela, let's go!"

Carmela was starting to get a hold on herself, but this meant she was posessed with the panick to escape. Harvvy ran back to the elevator and used the wet wipe to press M, then the >|< button. It obeyed in elongated time.

On the main floor again, they stepped and walked quickly out of the elevator, then halfway to the main doors they burst into a run. Harvvy used the wipe to open the door and then cleaned the handle, and they proceeded into the warm, sunlit square and down the stairs. Now, they walk-ran back across the park and to where they knew the bus stop waited.

They sped-walked in silence, Harvvy leading Carmela by the hand.

After a moment, Carmela spoke: "Harvvy. There are cameras everywhere." Another moment. "Harvvy, we're toast."

They walked on, crossing the plaza.

Finally Harvvy, as if lifting a heavy idea, spoke again. "No. Not for sure. He might have turned off the recording. He sent everyone home. I don't know what he was planning to do but maybe he didn't want anyone seeing you come in. So maybe he didn't have anything recording."

Carmela went silent, lost in thought.

Back at the bus stop, they could only wait.

Carmela's phone rang, and she mantis-snapped it out in snapping anticipation. "Carmela. It's Magda. Are you all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine." Harvvy looked concerned, so she ducked the phone and nodded at him, "It's Magda."

"Oh thank god. What happened?"

"We killed him."

"... Killed him. Good girl. How? Well, no mind. Gun I guess. Good. Ironic. Let me think."

"Okay."

A few seconds passed.

"Listen, I'll head your way in a cab. I just learned he sent everyone home. Is that right? I think your Justinian will have had the cameras off in the entire Respite today. It's important you get away without being seen, if you can. "

"That's right. We're at the bus stop."

"No, no, don't take the bus. Listen, I know Respite really well. If you're at the bus stop I think you're at, you need to head east, there is a brewery and a large parking lot, there will be trucks parked there that are up on blocks. Been that way for years. Look behind you. Do you see what I'm describing."

Carmela looked behind her. "She's asking if that's a brewery. I think I see the trucks."

"I think that's a brewery."

Carmela repointed her voice at the phone. "Yes, I think we're where you think we are."

"Alright, get up, walk across the street and through the parking lot past the trucks. I'll lead you."

Magda's knowledge of the city was unfathomable, surprising even Carmela. She led them through a small hole in a fence, down an area inexplicably filled with fine dirt, across disused rail tracks and through a small forested area. Eventually they reached a freeway, Carmela couldn't be sure which one, but they followed for 10 minutes or so, staying out of sight. They entered a large cemented culvert and passed underneath.

"Good, you're safe now. Listen, on the other side of the culvert, there's going to be a stream bed. Follow it for a bit, there's a knocked-over fence to your right-- they might have fixed it by now-- either way though, just follow the stream bed until you get to the main canal, it's a large flat paved area. I'll meet you there. I have to get off the phone, because I'm getting in a cab and I don't want him to overhear anything. You got it? The walk will be about 30 minutes. But you're safe now, there's no chance anyone will find you where you are."

"Yes, thank you."

As they walked, Carmela could feel both her and Harvvy's hearts slowing. They walked in more silence. The path was a peach-colored gravel, and as they got further from the highway they began to hear less traffic noise and more of nature, birds and buzzing insects, and the cocking of the stream.

The path was in a small gulley, the stream just a few feet lower, so that Carmela imagined it must flood when it rained heavily. However, this arrangement had the advantage that they were almost totally protected from view, the combination of the depression and vegetation growing on either side hiding them.

The fence Carmela had mentioned had been repaired. After some time, they passed under a powerline, crackling-humming faintly above, and could see a line was cut in the forest floor to create something of an access route from the path they were on to the base of the poles. It was heavily grown over, but they could see the remnants of an encampment: a dirty mattress and a shopping cart, faded newspapers and magazines. It looked disused.

As they passed it, Harvvy broke the silence. "I suppose we aren't the only ones who know about this place. Or I should say Magda isn't."

"Honestly, it's a good sign. I don't think anyone would dare camp like this in most parts of the city."

"Agreed."

Harvvy seemed to want to ask something, but sensed Carmela needed time to process things before she would want his thoughts added to hers. She sighed as they continued to walk, and he hunted for a neutral topic.

Presently, the vegetation dropped away somewhat, and at the same time there was a short set of stairs cut into the pathway. The air here smelled sweet, and as they mounted the stairs they stepped out of the vegation. There was a short railing now to their right and the stream bed was paved-in. They were more exposed than before, but could see into the distance all around them. This place was far from anywhere anyone would likely want to be, somehow an in-between space, useful now only to them.

They were facing south, and in front of them, a bit to the right beyond another large patch of vegetation and a suburb of midrise housing blocks, stood the Hill, stark and brown. Carmela though back to when she had given birth to the gun, and before that the strange cylinder, and everything else, right back to the qunut, and how Magda had helped her through from start to finish, and how that made her, really, a perfect godparent.

Suddenly she knew what Harvvy must be wanting to ask. They continued along the path, now formed of broken paving stones, the iron rail too-low to really provide safety to the five or so foot drop down the sheer wall to the stream. Soon, they could see the flat concrete area and beyond it the canal.

"Harvvy." They had been sitting along the Canal for ten or so minutes, watching various birds and debris-- weeds mostly-- float by, and staring at the Hill, the vegation, and the burbs-- everything that comprised their prospect.

This time Harvvy seemed deep in thought, and unwilling or uncertain how to respond.

"Harvvy, you need to understand. Justinian... was not someone we could take chances with. I decided in the elevator. I know why you tried to stop me from killing him, it must have seemed so sudden. I'm sorry. I can't explain it, but I knew what I had to do. it's like I could suddenly and clearly..."

Harvvy cut her off. "No, I understand perfectly."

"Let me finish."

"I'm sorry. I just meant to say, I'm sorry I tried to stop you. I was just not expecting it. But you did the right thing, the only thing."

Carmela paused a moment. "Thank you." She realized she was too tired to describe her reasoning any more, now that she knew she didn't need to. She was grateful for it, and Harvvy seemed genuinely satisfied.

They sat quietly.

Magda had taken another twenty or so minutes, which they gradually had started to pass in calmer, more relaxed conversation. She walked up to them, and they went and met and walked with her along the canal for quite some time, and eventually emerged behind a shopping plaza-- a lumber and building supplies dealer. They walked across the plaza and towards the sidewalk. Trash blew down the street, which was vacant in the midday haze.

As they went, Magda spoke. "Carmela. I was thinking on the way. You should come back with me. Both of you."

Harvvy looked over at Carmela, then to Magda as she continued:

"I think there is a good chance that he had the cameras off, I really do. But I just think, you will have been seen. It will be a high profile thing very, very soon. Someone will make the connection. The bus driver, maybe."

Carmela considered. "We didn't know Respite would be vacant when we took the bus. We must have seemed conspicuous. Ah, Magda."

Harvvy flashed a thought quietly to himself. So this was how people ended up at the Hill. Maybe it wasn't murder-- he didn't think of it as murder, but he knew that is what crime they would be found guilty of-- maybe for most it wasn't killing but it was another crime, something that cut you off and drew a hard red boundary line between your old life and your new.

Magda continued: "I know, I'm sorry. But look, I'll have someone keep tabs on things. It might blow over. It sometimes does. But then. If you're missed..."

"If we're missed we'll be suspect because of that alone."

"You see."

"I see. Harvvy?" Carmela looked at Harvvy.

He inhaled deeply before replying. "I think it's the only way." Something in his voice was wavering, but it was only grief, as he came to accept his new fate, at the unreversible threshold of the moment, surreal, past.

They walked on in silence, passing a school yard, gradually reaching a more residential zone and another strip mall, this one not so abandoned.

From here they called a cab, chatting about other topics while they waited.

Magda suggested they should circle back and get whatever belongings would fit into a suitcase. They had the cab drop them a few blocks over. Harvvy took his notebooks and a small keysynth, some clothes, and the book he was reading. He left his string art. A second cab drove them near to Carmela's place, again, dropping a few blocks off. She had a small box of photos she took, along with much of her clothes, but left everything else.

By the time they had walked a safe distance again, and hailed another cab, the sun was setting, and rainclouds were corning from the southeast. The heat of the day evaporated into grand cumulo that were now passing over the Hill.

The cab was directed to the Hill lot. Like all cabbies in the city, the driver raised an eyebrow at this but complied. The social contract was in this respect reassuring.

And like so they passed silently again through downtown, and by now it was raining and dark.

Harvvy was looking out the window.

The next few weeks were uneventful.

A few days in, when it became apparent that nothing was being publicly broadcast about the identities of Justinian's killers, Carmela decided to return home, before her absence became too hard to explain. Harvvy was still spooked, and enjoying the warmth and sunshine on the Hill, and had fewer responsibilities, so he stayed on, a mini holiday he said. But as he did he felt himself detaching.

Magda enjoyed his company, and she showed him around the Hill, assigned him some daily duties involving her garden, checking on newborns, measuring the evaporation rate-- things that had to happen to keep the place sound and running.

The June breeze made the Hill an almost-paradise, and Harvvy let the days drift, a pin growing in him.

Carmela visited every few days, and became more insistent after two weeks that Harvvy return home, or risk someone keying his absence to Justinian's death. But still he stayed on under Magda's wing, making friends with the people on the Hill and growing fond of his daily routine. The pleasures were simple, if meagre in some ways.

Week seven came and Carmela visited unexpectedly, in the August rain. She knocked on Magda's door and was let in.

"I need to talk to Harvvy."

"He's out back."

Harvvy was lounging listening to a radio broadcast on a rectangular battery-powered radio, aerial up, while the rain pitter-pattered on top of the corrogated roof Magda had set up over her patio.

When he saw Carmela he instantly knew.

"They have your face up. They aren't saying what for but it can only be one thing."

He nodded and sat upright, turning slowly to her.

"Harvvy. It won't be safe for you to come back."

After a pause: "I see. I guess I should have guessed as much. What about you? Are you ok? Did they question you?"

"I don't think they can make the connection; and no they didn't question me."

Harvvy was a sad calm, and said simply, "I'm glad."

In the end, Harvvy did not so much mind living his life on the Hill, an oasis ringed on all sides by the city.

Being here was of course an unexpected turn for his life, and at times he knew and felt that it was a kind of prison, but that kind of circumstance was not unusual for those who lived there. And in the city his life had been drifter, wan. Or so he told himself.

Down deeper, he knew and sometimes faced the fact that his freedom had been big but unsiezed before that day, and now he regretted how little he had done with it. So, he made up for the loss by pacing his now-tighter bounds with more joy and more love for the people in his life, the people Magda gradually taught him to care for.

Since he could never visit the city, he would never really fill for Magda— if that would have been the cards anyway. One distant day someone would, and increasingly it looked like it might just be Carmela, although Magda had other agents who could possibly step into her shoes— but he knew with a whispering certainty that in this place, being a helper was not so unfulfilling.

And so for now, Harvy grew into a kind of contentment, chasing chores on the Hill in the city where plants grew. And that had to, and was for now, enough.

Notes


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