The City of Mirrors

“How alone she must have felt at the end, how afraid. No words of comfort. Not the touch of a hand for company.”

Still he did not look at her. All around her, the virals trilled and stroked, flexed and snapped. She had the sense that they were kept at bay only by the thinnest of invisible barriers.

“ ‘I have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.’ That’s T. S. Eliot, in case you were wondering. An oldie but a goodie. When it came to existential exhaustion, the man was one smart cookie.”

Where was Peter? Had the virals killed him? What of Michael and Alicia? She thought: Water. She thought: Time. How much had passed? But the answer to this question was like an empty drawer in her brain. Moving just her eyes, she scanned for something to use as a weapon. But there was nothing, only the virals and the inverted heavens and her heart beating in her throat.

“Oh, I had my books, my thoughts. I had my memories. But those things only take a man so far.” Fanning paused, then said, with more directness, “Consider this place, Amy. Imagine it as it once was. Everyone hurrying, rushing here, rushing there. The appointments. The assignations. The dinners with friends. How gloriously alive it was. All our lives, the one thing we never seem to have enough of is time. Time to work. Time to eat. Time to sleep. Time to love and be loved before it’s time to die.” He shrugged. “But I digress. You came to kill me, wasn’t it?”

He turned to face her. His right hand, now revealed, held the sword.

“Just to clear the decks, let me say that I don’t hold it against you in the least. Au contraire, mon amie. That’s French, by the way. Liz always said it was the mark of a truly cultured person. I never had much of a knack for languages, but with a century to kill, you get around to trying new things. Any preference? Italian, Russian, German, Dutch, Greek? How about Latin? We could do this whole thing in Norwegian if you’d like.”

Close your mouth, Amy’s brain commanded her. Use the silence, because it’s all you have.

Fanning’s face soured. “Well, your choice. I was only trying to make a little small talk.” He gave a backhanded wave. “Let’s have a look at you.”

More hands upon her: a large, smooth male and a slightly smaller female, with a wispy diadem of white hair on her otherwise featureless skull. They seized her by the upper arms and whisked her forward, her feet skimming the tile, and dumped her unceremoniously to the floor.

“I said gently, for fucksake!”

Looming like a thundercloud, Fanning stood above her, his aura of merry confidence replaced by jaw-clenched rage.

“You.” He pointed the sword at the large male. “Get over here.”

A spark of hesitation in the creature’s eyes—or did she imagine this? The viral scuttled forward. It dropped to its knees at Fanning’s feet and bowed its head submissively, like a subdued dog.

Fanning raised his voice to the room. “Everyone, are you listening? Are you hearing my words, goddamnit? This woman is our guest! She is not a piece of luggage for you to toss around as you please! I expect you to treat her with respect!”

As he raised the sword, Amy covered her head. A crack, followed by a grinding sound and then the thump of something heavy hitting the floor. A wet stickiness splashed the side of her face and, with it, a rotten smell, as if a door had blown open onto a room of corpses.

“Oh, for the love of God.”

The viral was still on its knees, its headless torso folded forward to the floor. Dark, rhythmic spurts were convulsing from its severed neck, forming a glossy pool on the floor. Fanning was staring at the front of his pants with revulsion. His suit, Amy realized, was rotten and threadbare. It hung on his body with the unstructured looseness of rags.

“Look at this,” he moaned. “This is never going to come out. They’re like pets, the mess they make. And the stink. Just god-awful.”

It was absurd, all of it. What had she expected? Not this. Not this whirlwind of instantly changeable moods and thoughts. This man before her: there was something almost pathetic about him.

“Well, now,” he said, and smiled nonsensically. “Let’s get you to your feet, shall we?”

She was hauled upright. Fanning stepped forward; from his pocket he produced a handkerchief, flapped it open with a flourish, and dabbed the blood from her face. His eyes seemed both close and far away, peculiarly magnified, as if she were observing them through a telescope. On his cheeks and chin was a dusting of whitish beard; his teeth were gray, dead-looking. He hummed tunelessly as he went about this chore, then took a step back, lips pursed, brow furrowed, examining his handiwork with a slow nod.