Chapter 7
Kind of Blue
Jazz wasn't Nia's forte.
Ancerbridge had other ideas though, as it's annual jazz week was in full swing, no matter how many channels Nia flicked through on her radio, she couldn’t escape the blaring sound of saxophones. Sitting next to her, in the passenger seat of the car, Espresso curled up, resting her feet on the dashboard and looking out of the window. The traffic was even worse than normal.
Leaning her head on the window of the stationary car, Nia looked up towards the mountains which stood to the north of Ancerbridge. In the distance, high upon a plateau, she could see their destination; the observatory. A large telescope, supported by scaffolding beams, pointed towards the sky. Nia could see the light reflecting off of its lens. The skies behind the mountain were blue and cloudless, the sun was blaring down on the roof of her old car, and she was getting increasingly frustrated with the clicking of her indicator as she waited for the lights to turn green.
After what felt like an eternity, the traffic before her started to crawl down the main road. Ancerbridge’s streets were usually packed, but today was uniquely busy. Bunting and signs hung between the walls of attached houses and shop faces on either side of the street, all of them a gauche, vermillion red. People twirling ribbons and swallowing fire paraded across the junction ahead of Nia’s herd of cars. Craning her head out of the window, she could just make out a sword juggler and a large, paper-maché elephant costume making up the back of the group.
“Happy Red Day, Espresso.” Nia deadpanned as she gestured towards the obstructing parade.
“It’s so cool that they’re holding it today. Not like we’re graduating and becoming members of the Silverwatch or anything. No, no. Get the elephant costume and the swords out, save some for me!” Nia grumbled as she tapped her foot against the floor of her car.
“Mhm.” Espresso didn’t look up from the magazine she had swiped off of Nia’s back seat.
“You’re killing me, Essie. You’ve got the conversational skills of a cactus.” Nia nudged the car forward a little, crawling an inch closer to freedom. The last of the parade passed over the road, the lights turned green and, with a sigh of relief, the traffic started moving again.
“Just not got a lot to say right now.” Espresso slowly turned the page, studying the list of upcoming concerts. “You’ve circled a few bands here. I didn’t know you liked folk music?”
“I used to live on a farm.” Nia shrugged. The bridge out of the city was in sight, but the traffic was slowing again to carefully pass a large food truck with an open side that dolled myakura – potato wraps filled with steamed meats and vegetables – out to the people on the street. “We’d listen to folk music every night, its old hat by now.”
“Hmm. Fair enough.” Espresso shrugged. “Did you hear about Dusk?”
“No?" The answer was matched with a growl of the old cars engine, her hand reaching to turn down the volume on her radio.
“What happened?”
“My sister told me Charlotte had to rush to his two nights ago, he got shot in the Slouch. Whiskey said he’s in the General Hospital.” There was a slight hint of vindication in Espresso’s voice, as though she had found proof in some banal argument. Nia flicked her gaze over to see her companion’s face, but her mouth was hidden behind a coffee up.
“Shit. Is he alright?” Nia slowly accelerated onto the main road, driving towards the mountainous region at the north of the city.
“Nia, he’s in hospital.” Espresso deadpanned.
“Yeah, no shit, you know what I mean though. Anything permanent?” Nia tossed her hand off of the wheel for a second to flip a middle finger towards Espresso, who rolled her eyes and mimicked the gesture.
“He should be alright, apparently.” She trailed off towards the end, resting her elbow on the window and looking out onto the street. Silence divided them.
As Nia drove over the bridge, the cars ahead of her parted off onto the east and west roads which circled Ancerbridge. As soon as the road ahead of her emptied, Nia accelerated. There was a half hour drive from the City of Ancerbridge to the Strait, but Nia intended to finish it in twenty minutes.
Overtaking the odd car that puttered along the road, Nia rolled the window down.
“Thoughts on the new hair!?” She raised her voice slightly, taking a hand off of the wheel to flick her newly dyed, red hair over her shoulder. “I wanted a new look!”
“Keep both hands on the wheel.” Espresso raised an eyebrow at Nia, only acknowledging her comments once she acquiesced. “Yeah, the hair looks good, red suits you.”
Grinning, Nia nodded and fished a pair of sunglasses out of her pocket, flipping them open and putting them on, the world was painted gold. “So, we’re getting our first star today! Are you excited?”
Espresso shrugged. “Yeah, I guess, I don’t see why we have to do it on top of the mountain though…”
Nia slowed down slightly as they reached the incline. About half of the drive to the observatory was fun, whizzing along down a straight, open road. The other half? Not so much. Slowly but surely, Nia turned her rusty truck around the corners of the mountain road, climbing higher and higher up above the city.
“I don’t know how you aren’t excited.” Nia broke the silence as she came to a stop in front of an old, stone bridge which crossed a collapsed section of the path; waiting for the truck on the other side to pass her by. “We’ve spent eight years training for this.”
“I just don’t like the heights.” Espresso muttered, facing away from Nia and towards the endlessly tall wall of stone to their left.
Nia laughed for a few seconds at the confession, rolling her window back up. “Really? I didn’t know you were scared of heights.” The driver of the white truck gave her a wave as he passed, then Nia started slowly driving across the bridge. “Don’t look down, you’ll hate it.”
“Can you shut up about how high up we are?” Espresso seethed, covering her eyes with her hands.
“Okay, okay, you should be fine now.” As Nia exited the bridge, she saw the tops of white, stone buildings cresting over the incline before her. They had arrived at the Strait.
The Strait was everything that Ancerbridge wasn’t. Cracking her window ajar, Nia took a deep breath of the fresh, mountain air as she slowly cruised down the long street. Each shop was bespoke, there was one tailor, one watch maker, one cobbler, one blacksmith, one for everything.
A large window in the face of each building exposed their exquisite interior, as well as the fineries of their patrons. The people of the Strait didn’t just wear suits and shirts, they wore ‘their’ suits and ‘their’ shirts, no two people were truly alike in style. The place reeked of money. The deeper she drove into the belly of the beast, the more resplendent the architecture became. What had started as little shops with apartments built into the floor above them became grand manors, Yponislan chapels and parks that faced off of the cliff and out towards the city built beneath it.
“Why do they wear such stupid hats?” Nia queried her silent companion.
Espresso looked at her in confusion, then shook her head and faced back out of the window.
As they reached the latter half of the Strait, the accursed ‘Red Day’ festival came back to haunt them. A massive hotel rested against an outreaching ridge of the mountain face, beneath the plateau which held the observatory. Upon its front, in embossed brass, read its name; ‘The Ozymandias.’ A decadent carnival poured out from the golden gates at its entrance.
Dozens of stalls and party goers filled the street at the end of the Strait. The women carried champagne and cigarettes in long holders. They wore scarves draped around the elbows of their eternally bent arms and dresses with tailored patterns of ivy or humming birds or ruby dust. Matching their extravagance, the men had donned suits with serrated lapels, jewelled cufflinks and a subtle lining which marked their originality. There was but one marker of their mutual affiliation, a golden pin in the shape of a sword was affixed to their clothes, right above their heart.
“Vellichi…” Nia mumbled as she slowly lined her car alongside the street.
“Let me guess, you don’t like them?” Espresso deadpanned at her companion.
“You do?” Nia cringed at her friend in disbelief.
Espresso shrugged and shook her head. “Not what I said.”
Nia parked the car on the side of the road. “We’re gonna have to walk from here. The crowd’s fucking huge.”
“Sure.” Espresso tossed the magazine into the back of the car, swinging her feet off of the dash board as she opened the passenger door and stepped out.
Nia followed suit, stopping only to open the back door and fish out a tattered, blue jacket. “Wait up.” She jogged for a moment to catch up to Espresso, who had already taken off along the street.
While walking along the last section of the Strait, a half dozen people with trays of champagne or small, Yponislan snacks stopped at different intervals to offer the pair something to eat or drink. Nia turned each one down with a wave, while Espresso picked occasionally at the Lanura; balls of pork on a stick, stuffed with rice and diced carrots.
“Should you be taking that?” Nia asked, waiting to reach a polite distance from the servers.
“Why shouldn’t I?” Espresso covered her mouth as she spoke, careful to finish her mouthful before replying. “It’s amazing.”
“You’re about to join the Silverwatch, you can’t go taking food from the Vellichi.” Nia stressed her voice slightly as they broke away from the crowd and started walking up the final incline towards the observatory. There was a couple of hundred feet of empty ramp ahead of them, which looked as though it led straight into the blue skies above.
“Why? It’s not like they were convicted of anything.” Espresso stashed the stick of her Lanura in her pocket.
Nia stopped for a second, her mouth hung open in shock. She remembered the stress that Sil had gone through a couple of years ago as he paced up and down their kitchen ranting about a smear campaign meant to discredit one of the Silverwatch’s wounded members. It had taken her a few months to pry the details out of her mentor. Fraudulent drug records, bullshit testimonies from corrupt police officers, a stacked jury. All to convince the public that Detective ‘Dusk’ McLorne was an insane man.
“Do you have any idea what they put Dusk through?” Nia tilted her head. “Seriously? Do you have any idea?”
Espresso met Nia’s appalled shock with lidded eyes and a bored tone. “That guy’s fucking crazy. He tried to stomp my face in over a test-match. He’s obviously lost his mind. They took Chelone to a court of law and he wasn’t convicted. He’s a free man. I don’t buy into all these conspiracies about him being a secret tuner.”
“I can’t believe—”
“I’m not having this out with you right now.” Espresso cut Nia off as they reached the top of the ramp. “We’re here.”
As the duo crested over the slop and onto the plateau, they came face to face with a meagre crowd, no more than twenty civilians. Though they wore finery, Nia was comforted to see that it was the common cloths and fabrics that graced Ancerbridge’s streets, as opposed to the resplendent garbs which defined the Straits behind her. Walking through the group, Nia smiled and nodded cordially to the visitors. She and Espresso made their way to the front of the observatory, where they saw Ashara and Kaiser sharing conversation over coffee in paper cups.
“Hey.” Kaiser nodded to the pair.
“Hey man, how’s the burns?” Nia waved.
“Nothing serious, shower stings a bit.” Kaiser shrugged, earning a narrow glare from Espresso.
“Hi you two.” Ashara nodded. “As I was saying, Emile is getting here in about an hour. He’ll do a speech, at which point you three will come out, get your first-star badges, and mingle with the public for a bit. There’s food and drink if you want it, but make sure you’re inside the observatory lobby in about 45 minutes, okay?”
Kaiser scratched his head and yawned. “I’ll skip the PR stunt.”
Before the older man could raise his qualms, Nia piped up. “Sounds good, Ashara. What do we do in the meantime?”
“Pinch food, have a walk, go down to the Red Parade, I don’t really mind so long as its not causing any problems.” Ashara shrugged, looking out into the crowd of civilians. “You three are about to dedicate the rest of your life to protecting these people, it won’t hurt you to make friends with them too.”
Espresso nodded, then looked over to him. “Thank you, Sir. I’ll be sure to introduce myself.” Giving him a polite nod, she looked over to Nia. “Thanks for the lift, by the way.”
“Oh, sure, should I come with—” Nia’s voice fell flat as Espresso walked off into the crowd, introducing herself to people and shaking hands. “Alright, never mind.” Turning to Kaiser, she nodded towards the observatory. “You wanna come check out the inside with me?”
Kaiser was already walking towards the sandwich table. “Nah. Thanks though. Lemme know if you find anything worth checking out.” He called over his shoulder, already headed toward the food stalls.
“Then there were two.” Nia chuckled as she looked over to Ashara. He had taken out a notebook and was occupying himself by thumbing through its pages. Nia stared at him, an awkward feeling taking root in her chest.
“You’re gonna burst a blood vessel if you keep staring like that. What’s up?” Ashara took a deep breath as he closed the notebook, turning his full attention to Nia.
With her hand in the pocket of her tattered, blue coat, she ran her thumb over the surface of the little white card that had been left in her room a few days prior. She had nailed down her window and replaced the lock in the door, but there had been no sign of the aforementioned package… If she told him, what would he say? Nia caught herself studying his increasingly deadpanned expression, before pushing the note into the depths of her pocket, flicking her attention towards the observatory. “Do you know if there’s anyone in there today?”
Ashara looked over his shoulder towards the building. “Not to my knowledge. Its open, technically, but only this evening. I think I saw cleaning staff in there earlier? You’re fine to go have a look.”
Nia nodded quietly. “Awesome. Fourty five minutes, right?”
“Fourty five minutes.” Ashara nodded.
Nia quickly walked past him, pushing it open and stepping inside.
The lobby was walled with a cool, blue stone. Silver lighting lined the wall, along the floor, low enough that the ceiling started to shift and meld within the darkness. The room was nearly empty, save a few cushioned seats, an un-manned ticket booth and another glass door that led deeper into the building. Nia excitedly strode off into the dark.
Pushing though the door, Nia started walking into an echo-y, black hall. The second her feet touched the ground, however, circular lights built into the floor activated and shone pallid beams up to the ceiling; affording confidence in travel without dispelling the ambient shadows within the building.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Following the path to its end, Nia stepped into the observatory’s main hall. There was a large stage which stood in front of a black curtain. She remembered Sill telling her stories of how projectors would shine a map of the stars onto the screen. She had always wanted to see them… Before the stage were rows and rows of plush, foldup seats, giving the hall a similar structure to a cinema. Two yawning stairwells sat at the west and east flanks of the room, with plush dividers ahead of them and a sign which read ‘Staff Only.’ Sighing in disappointment, Nia failed to find any trace of staff working in the observatory today.
Turning to leave, she paused for a second and looked back at the staircase. If there weren’t any staff… How would anybody know if she took a peak upstairs?
Smiling to herself and creeping towards the stairs, Nia stepped carefully over the velvet rope that hung across the stairwell’s entrance, ensuring that she did not disturb it or leave any trace of her intrusion. Walking up into the dark, she saw a pair of old, metal doors with little windows in their face. Looking through the glass, she made sure that there were no workers loitering in the wings before pushing a door open. A horrid scraping noise echoed through the corridor as Nia cracked the door ajar and slipped through it. Immediately, she tucked herself around the corner of a support pillar held her breath. Only after 20 seconds had passed did she peak her head around to look down the hall.
Unlike the visitor’s areas in the ground floor, the observatory’s architects had made no attempt to preserve the somnolent lighting in the worker’s wings. Harsh, yellow lights hung overhead in a hallway walled and floored with the kind of metal that clanged and rang with every step Nia took. There were electric cabinets and doors to kitchens, offices and supply cupboards stood like soldiers along either side of the hall. Nia crouched a little as she moved down the wing, paying close attention to the bulletins on the wall which held calendars, notes on the employee of the month – an acne faced young man – and procedures in the event of a fire. On the little, white document titled ‘Fire Escapes,’ was a map of the observatory. Forgoing a fear of being caught, Nia studied the paper.
The observatory was constructed of four stories: A ground floor with the auditorium and screen, a set of workers ‘wings’ and offices on the floor immediately above – where Nia now stood, an academic library and a set of studies immediately above her, as well as the projector room, and finally the main telescope room above that. In the event of a fire, external stairwells were accessible from the west and east wings on each floor, blah blah blah… Dismissing the safety regulations, Nia tapped the projector room on the floor plan and instantly started moving towards the next stairwell at the back of the wing, ignoring the remaining offices and supply rooms.
Heading up the next flight of stairs, then through another short corridor, Nia found herself walking into the aforementioned academic library. In the centre of the room were old, mahogany desks, while dozens of bookcases lined the walls. Sections on stars, moons, comets, their impacts on the tide, even gravitational theory papers that Nia had recognised from her time in the academy. The empty room was a treasure-trove of knowledge. Nia checked her watch. She still had plenty of time. Walking over to the books, she flicked through a few titles before finding a non-threatening looking piece on moons and satellites. She pulled out an old chair from beneath one of the desks and dragged it over to the bookcase, sitting for a while to read in the silence of the library.
As Nia flipped through the book, stopping to admire each graph and illustration, she let her mind drift and wander, until her appreciation of the author’s research was purely subconscious.
Nia thought back to a particularly warm, summer’s night, not long after she had met Sil and arrived at his farm. They were laying on the roof, atop a blanket, eating burned pizza. Sil had been rattling on about the Silverwatch for hours, explaining the intricacies of it to Nia while she sat and gazed up at the stars.
Once he realised that his adopted protégé had stopped paying attention to his dribble, he nudged her. He must have asked her some question, because the next thing she knew he had softly thrown an empty can of beer at her, gently bouncing it off of her head with a hollow twang. She remembered whipping her head around to him, eyes wide, only relaxing once she saw his smile. Without thinking, she blurted out a question, asking how the moon stayed up in the sky without falling. It had been like slotting pennies into a juke box machine. The second the words left her mouth, Sil stated lecturing again.
They had shared lots of nights like that. Nia smiled as she thought back to them. She remembered thinking about that night under the moon for a while, especially when she had first activated her Resonance. Sil and her had been playing catch as the sun was setting, and after challenging her to throw the ball as high as she could, she took aim at the moon. Arcing her arm back to throw the ball, she had heard her Hum for the first time. They never did find the ball, much to Sil’s chagrin.
Nia thought back to the months she had spent on the farm after Sil first found her. They must have been somewhere in Talgara. Each day was spotted with clouds that drifted uniformly north. They would slowly dredge together over the city each night, then dissipate at the following dawn. Their travel overhead peaked around noon, where the sun seemed to vanish behind a blanket of grey. By nightfall, they had completely disappeared, leaving the sky an unpolluted cosmic tapestry. The dance of the stars above her had been etched into Nia’s mind ever since those months following Sil’s arrival into her life. She softly chucked as she thought back to the first weeks that she had spent in Sil’s flat in Ancerbridge. She used to cry and stomp each night when the clouds rolled in. After a while, she had gotten used to the rain and thunder that came in each night. Though, sometimes, when she closed her eyes, she still saw the moon and stars that hung above her on those sacred nights…
Nia’s reminiscence was interrupted by the sound of metal scraping against metal. Checking her watch, her eyes widened. There were only twenty minutes left before she needed to be back in the lobby.
Quickly stacking the books back onto the shelf, Nia jotted down the title of the one she had been reading and powered off, determined to see the projector room before it all kicked off.
She strode out of the library and into a well-lit corridor with a single, wooden door sat in its middle. She remembered the layout of the empty hall from the fire-escape map that she had checked earlier on. She swung the door open, then walked into the darkness of the projector room.
Slapping the wall twice, then thrice, she eventually found the light switch and flicked it on. A soft, orange glow filled the room, dim enough and high enough not to disturb the auditorium below it. Along the side of the room were stacks of large reels, each with a date on them. Nia thumbed through until she found one dated July 2nd, her birthday, and slotted it into the projector’s feed. It was a struggle to figure out how exactly to turn the machine on, but after a few cautious pokes she heard it whir to life.
Beams of blue light shone from the front of the projector, into the auditorium below her. Leaning against the glass, careful to ensure that her shadow did not cover the projection before her, a warmth spread in Nia’s heart as the tapestry of the night sky splayed out over the screen. Tracing her eyes over certain constellations and clusters of stars felt like meeting old friends, she assumed. Some smaller details that had faded from her mind leapt out at her. She embraced them all as her family. Caught in total rapture, Nia studied every minutia, every little detail, of the artificial night that poured forth from the projector. Slowly, the projector’s reel captured the drifting and dancing of little comets as they waltzed through the blue. Watching them again after so long caught on the strings in Nia’s chest, not enough to make her cry, but certainly enough to dredge a lump in her throat.
Checking her watch, she grimaced. Only five minutes left. She needed to stop spacing out. Hah. ‘Spacing out.’ She smiled to herself, making a note to offend Sil with the pun the next time she saw him.
Turning off the projector, Nia carefully placed the reel back in its housing and started her walk back through the observatory’s back rooms. She had really wanted to see the telescope room… There would probably be time later, though…
Caught in her own memories, Nia had stopped making a sneak out of her self-guided tour of the building. She walked down the stairs towards the east-wing, humming. As she entered the metal corridor, her eyes widened and met the gaze of a man in a worker’s uniform. He had unkept stubble and hooded, green eyes. Nia focused on the bridge piercing, just below his brow. It had been done at an awkward angle, and now the black spike that the man wore poked slightly into the skin above his right eye. It looked frustrating. He pushed a jostling drum of equipment, with mops and brooms poking out of the top, and gave Nia a confused look as he carried on down the wing towards her. Nia swallowed in embarrassment and kept walking too. Only speaking as they drifted near to one another.
“So, uhm… What you got there?” She nodded to his drum of mops.
“Oh, you know, bombs and stuff.” The man chuckled as he slapped the head of a mop. “Sight-seeing?”
Nia clenched her eyes shut in embarrassment. “Yeah, sorry. I didn’t leave any mess, though.”
“Hey lady, I don’t care. I just clean.” The man chuckled and pushed passed her, opening a supply cupboard and moving the drum of equipment inside.
“Thanks. I’ve got to go, have a good one!” Nia smiled and waved at the man as she reached the stairs that led down to the auditorium.
“You too!” The man smiled back.
Audibly sighing as the awkwardness came to an end, Nia heard the man release a ‘phew’ as she left and chuckled, feeling some kinship.
Walking back through the auditorium, Nia noticed that one of the dividers had fallen down. Detouring from her path to the lobby to pick it up, she looked up the stairs towards the western wing, opposite to where she had been sneaking, to see the door propped open. Through the crack, she saw two or three more cleaners walking. Best not to disturb them. Thanking herself for leaving before they caught her snooping around; she skipped down the dark corridor towards the lobby.
Every step took her closer to the ruckus outside. The light pouring through the observatory doors made Nia wince, though not as much as the thrumming chatter of the massive crowd outside. Sat on the cushioned chairs in the lobby, Kaiser and Espresso seemed almost unaware of one another’s existence. Both of them flicked their attention towards Nia as she walked in.
“Find anything interesting?” Kaiser asked nonchalantly.
“Actually, yeah it was great! There’s a whole library upstairs and a projector room. I didn’t get to see the telescope though… The cleaners came, so I wanted to get out of their way.” Nia beamed a smile at him as she sat down next to Espresso, who shuffled to the other side of her chair to make room.
“Cool.” Kaiser nodded, then turned his attention down the corridor.
Before he could make any further conversation, Ashara swung open the lobby door. “Come on, you three; it’s time.”
Walking out onto the plateau, Nia could only see the very tops of Ancerbridge’s buildings as they poked over the edge of the cliff face. Before her stood a bustling crowd, which seemed to have shot up in size since her escapades in the observatory. She lined up alongside Kaiser and Espresso, scanning the crowd until she spotted Emile.
Everybody in Ancerbridge knew the living legend, Nia was no exception, but something about his appearance failed to live up to her expectations. His skin was tanned and pulled taught over his knuckles as his bony hands clung to the top of a gnarled cane. Although his eyes were sunken into his head, ringed by wrinkles and shadows, they were focused as they cruised over the crowd. The folded sleeves of his white, linen cloaks fell away slightly, revealing faded tattoos along his forearm as he waved towards the new recruits. There was an almost hypnotic quality to his languid movements, but Nia was snapped out of her studies as his speech crested.
Emile’s voice sounded familiar and gravelly, as shredded by smoke as it was matured by experience.
“Fourty six years…” He spoke deliberately and calmly, only raising his voice to stress the crux of his messages. “For fourty six years, my family has enjoyed the privilege of protecting Ancerbridge, no, Talgara as a whole, from the dangers that crawl through the shadows around us.”
A murmur of approval emerged from the crowd as he spoke. Separated from the crowd, Nia could spot the mixtures of common folk and ‘nobility’ as she examined the materials and details of their clothes.
“There have been highs. There have been lows. Good people have given their lives, and villains have come to prosper. Despite it all, the Silverwatch has stood between you and danger. Every day. Every night. Today, I am delighted to welcome three new young minds into our company.” Emile flicked his hand towards Nia and her companions, and the eyes of the crowd followed right behind. Kaiser turned his head away, while Espresso nodded politely to the crowd. Looking out to the public, Nia took a deep breath and offered an excited wave, earning a few quizzical glances and a few more smiles.
“Helenia Morotsov.” Emile called to Nia, gesturing to an empty space to his right.
Stepping out of her lineup, Nia walked along the front of the observatory and around the corner of the crowd before coming to a stop at Emile’s side. The old man turned to face her, a soft smile forming over his face.
“You look wonderful, Miss Morotsov.” Emile politely took her hand, shaking it as he spoke.
“Thank you, you too?” Nia hesitated a little before returning the compliment, firmly shaking Emile’s hand and looking out to the crowd.
A raspy chuckle escaped Emile as he found Nia’s lapel. “Thank you, Miss Morotsov, but I haven’t aged as well as I would have liked.” When he took his hand away, he left a small, silver pin upon Nia’s jacket. The perimeter looked like a ring of holly, but it was the single star in the centre which caught Nia’s attention.
As she looked down at the pin in her jacket, Nia found herself stuck in place. There was an odd mist in her eyes, a tightness in her chest. She thought back to the long nights in the library, the nerve-wracking exams, the gruelling combat trials. It had all led her here. Optimistically, she craned her head and looked out into the crowd, searching for Sil’s face. She didn’t find it. Regardless, her hand found its way to her lapel, tracing her finger over the points of the star.
“Please, everyone, join me in congratulating Miss Helenia Morotsov!” Emile raised his voice like a maestro’s baton, and the orchestra of the crowd followed along perfectly. Clapping, the occasional cheer, and a sea of warm smiles poured out to Nia, who took a gracious bow.
“Thank you, everyone! I’m really looking forward to working with you all.” Nia flashed her toothiest grin, then stepped back, wiping a tear from her eyes.
As Emile started calling Kaiser to join him, Nia felt a hand on her shoulder. During the commotion, Ashara had silently moved over to Emile’s side of the crowd. Bending down slightly, he whispered into her ears.
“Congrats. Now that you’re Silverwatch, listen carefully. There’s an ongoing shooting at the general hospital. Charlotte apprehended a Crane out there, and found out that there are people en route to launch another attack here. Whiskey is on the way. Wait for her to get here, follow her orders, don’t get anybody killed. Got it?”
“What? Wait? Where are you going? Why aren’t you staying?” Nia turned her head to face him.
Ashara pointed her back into the crowd immediately. “Don’t act surprised. If there are shooters in the crowd, we can’t let them know that we know. I’m leaving to handle a third group attacking the colosseum. Stay here, listen to Whiskey, you’re gonna be fine. Okay?” His voice came through with a stress, but before Nia could confirm he started walking alongside the crowd, filling the silence as Emile fashioned a pin to Kaiser’s hoodie.
“Sorry I can’t stick around folks, got to go put out a fire. I’ll see you all at the Ozymandias in an hour or so?” Ashara spoke casually, as though he had known the star-struck members of the public for years. Breaking from the group, he strode to the edge of the cliff face and stepped off of it without hesitation. Nia could barely make out the sound of his resonance flaring to life, but a moment later she saw him crouched atop a thick cloud, tearing off towards the city.
Nia looked out into the crowd, studying each and every face she could see. If there was a shooter in there, who would they be watching? There were eyes on her, but they seemed softened and bashful, most stares stopped as she met their owner’s gaze. Was there anyone suspicious looking at Emile? Not that she could see…
Kaiser snapped her out of the frantic, but muted, scan as he came to stand next to her. “You alright?” He furrowed his brow in confusion.
“There’s a shooter in the crowd. At least one.” Nia whispered back.
“Where?” Kaiser’s face fell.
Nia spotted a few strange glances in the crowd, and flashed a grin back at them. Once the curious eyes turned back to Emile and Espresso, she whispered back. “I don’t know. Ashara said there was going to be an attack here.”
In the distance, down the Strait, the roar of a motor cycle engine undercut Emile’s speech. A few people at the back of the crowd turned their face towards the Strait, pointing and murmuring to one another. One by one, the people turned to face the noise.
“Whiskey?” Espresso muttered under her breath.
As Nia opened her mouth to question Espresso, Kaiser marched into the crowd, politely but firmly pushing past the people as the screaming engine grew louder. Nia followed his gaze, landing on a gaunt man in a pale, yellow shirt whose eyes were fixed firmly on Emile. Kaiser broke into a run, twisting his body to get by the onlookers without knocking them over. As soon as he lurched into action, the strange man reached his hand into his jacket pocket.
“Get down!” Nia called, running after Kaiser.
As Kaiser bore down on the man, they entered into a race. Nia caught a flash of light glinting off of the barrel of a revolver leaving the gaunt man’s pocket, which quickly pointed towards Emile. Just as the man squeezed the trigger, Kaiser snatched his wrist and dragged the gun up. The sound of the shot spread panic across the crowd, who started ducking and screaming for cover. Kaiser wrestled the gun from the man, sending it clattering to the ground. As soon as it hit the floor, he grabbed the man by the collar and dragged him down after the weapon, kneeling on his chest to restrain him.
“Everyone stay calm!” Nia tried to instil order amongst the crowd, but her voice was drowned out by the engine. A motorbike tore over the top of the path that Nia and Espresso had taken to the observatory, skidding to a halt as the crowd backed away from it. Taking her helmet off, and giving her hair a quick toss over her shoulder, Whiskey Saint-Claire studied the scene, a cheerful, public smile plastered over her face.
“We got him.” Nia called out, jogging towards the gun.
“Okay people!” Whiskey called out. “I hope you enjoyed the show, it’s always nice to see fresh talent, huh?”
She laughed a little as she worked the crowd. Some people were crying, but the majority were splitting their attention between Whiskey and Kaiser, who still knelt on the ground, restraining the shooter. “We’re gonna have to ask you to head down to the Ozymandias, this is now an active crime scene.” Whiskey nodded over her shoulder, pointing to the path which led down to the Strait. “Good news is, they’ve got a good deal going on for drinks today! God knows I need one!” An avuncular wink accompanied the quip, earning a nervous chuckle from her unwitting audience.
An uneasy stillness was spreading over the crowd. “Hey Essie, can you show these people to the bar for me?” Whiskey smiled at her sister, nodding to the silver pin affixed to her lapel.
“Sure.” Espresso nodded, walking away from Emile and towards the front. As she moved close to Whiskey, Nia saw the older woman lean in and whisper something to her sister, who nodded and picked up the pace slightly. Like herded sheep, the crowd drifted to follow Espresso, who led them en mass down the path and onto the Strait.
Once the public had left the plateau behind, Whiskey walked over to Kaiser. “You want some handcuffs? Or are you just gonna sit on him for the next half-hour?”
“Don't have any on me.” Kaiser kept his weight on the shooter, shifting slightly to meet Whiskeys eye. “First day on the job.” He said flatly, though a slight sparkle was in his eyes.
As Nia joined them, she fished a set of handcuffs out of her jacket pocket, tossing them to the man. While Kaiser went about restraining the shooter properly, Nia looked over at Whiskey. “What did you tell Espresso?”
Whiskey nodded towards the observatory, the reassuring smile on her face turning to a steady focus. “I told her to hurry back. There’s supposed to be a dozen more inside.”
