Fire of the Dark Triad Read online

  He got up from the couch, turned on the lights and went to the table. The mask was peacefully glimmering in the same place where he had dropped it before going to sleep. Hilgor stood still, thinking. He couldn’t take anything it told him as fact. Nevertheless, it wasn’t completely useless. There could be some truth in its data, and he would try to watch for inconsistencies.

  Hilgor took the mask in his hands. This time he studied it carefully, surprised by the warmth and lightness of the material. It didn’t look threatening, but it would lie to him, he warned himself, just like Nick. Hilgor sighed and began to put it on.

  The alarm on his wristband chimed. He started, glanced at the clock and carefully placed the mask back on the table.

  In less than half an hour he was supposed to meet Del at a newly opened restaurant in the Inner Edge District. It was too late to cancel, and he didn’t even want to think about Del’s reaction if he simply didn’t show up. Of course, her displeasure was insignificant in comparison with the gravity of recent events, but somehow it didn’t feel that way.

  He looked at the mask pensively. He imagined the information it held, and his heart skipped a beat. Then he imagined Del’s upset face.

  He started looking through mess in the room, collecting items of clothing suitable for an elegant dinner out.

  In ten minutes he was sitting in his air capsule, gliding high up in the traffic grid. Below him the city looked like an enormous wrinkled sheet. There were no individual buildings, but rather the whole structure was a continuous mold, built for optimization of a complex combination of parameters. Not too far in front of him lay the dark body of a massive lake whose opposite shore was so far away it wasn’t visible, even from this height. Enormous glowing towers of stacked greenhouses encircled the lakefront and went on and on for as far as the eye could see. His destination, the thin strip of land that housed the city’s most exclusive restaurants and clubs, was on the other side, squeezed between the greenhouse high-rises and the water. The location blatantly violated the eco-efficiency law, so a constant air of impending doom and tragic ephemerality hung over the place, unquestionably adding to the ambience.

  He looked at the rearview screen. The shimmering fabric of the city spread out from the lake like a fan and made a dead stop at the bright neon curve of the perimeter wall. Beyond that there was just darkness, dead contaminated desert, extending to the rest of the world – nothing else on Y-3 had survived the nuclear war.

  He assumed that Nick’s ship was probably parked somewhere out there, and his palms became cold and damp at the thought.

  Hilgor arrived at the restaurant door two minutes before the reservation, and it gave him some feeling of satisfaction, a small victory over the chaos of the last day. Del was running late, which didn’t surprise him in the least.

  He sat down at a table and let go for a moment, staring at the black expanse of the lake, periodically punctuated by flashes of sea cow feeding stations in the distance. The reflected lights of the waterfront buildings glimmered peacefully on the low waves. Suddenly, they transformed into the image of the glistening net from his dream. His subconscious wasn’t too subtle, he thought with a slight shiver.

  At that moment, he heard Del’s voice. She was approaching, passionately apologizing to the maître d’, whose expression of politely contained scorn soon transformed into a look of sincere desire to help and serve. Then she guiltily glanced at Hilgor, and looking at the table, muttered an apology. He suspected that she was trying to catch a glimpse of her reflection in the table’s surface at the same time.

  It was an overture to their routine, in which they would fight for emotional and intellectual space, but this time Hilgor decided to give up without much struggle – he was glad to escape his own thoughts, at least temporarily. He sat back and looked at her inquisitively.

  She explained how she had spilled something on her dress as she was about to leave and had to change. It didn’t hold water, however, since Hilgor could see that her outfit, including the smallest detail, was too carefully arranged.

  Del, as usual, had mixed the most outrageously impractical items with austere pieces of the traditional style. The result, for those in the know, was beautifully ironic. The upper part of her dress resembled the standard multi-purpose bodysuit of the old days. Soft gray material, designed for optimal thermo control and durability tightly embraced her arms, chest and waist. But at the hips it exploded with a haystack of fluorescent red and white ribbons. A magnificent red fur scarf was wrapped around her sculpted neck. High-wedged white boots were a direct insult to practicality, and the regulation black wristband with identification chips and radiation meter was studded with large pink stones. Changing her dress would have been equivalent to destroying a fragile collage with a hammer.

  Nothing was said, but she knew that he didn’t buy the stain excuse. She was just plain late. Hilgor had scored a point for free. Now he just had to maintain the advantage.

  “Any news?” she asked, after quickly ordering a designer drug cocktail. “You didn’t answer my calls all day.”

  He hesitated for just a second before answering, “No, just the usual stuff. Sorry, it was very busy. A lot of voting is going on in the unit. It’s important as you know. Good ideas could get lost if we’re not careful.”

  He smiled again, not very warmly, but she didn’t notice, taking a tall white glass from the waiter’s hand. As far as Hilgor could tell from the drink’s name, it was a mix of mild hallucinogens and stimulants. Normally, he would comment on it, but today he just … let it go.

  Del sipped the drink and closed her eyes. When she opened them, there was a glint of excitement that he hadn’t noticed before.

  “I need to go outside the Wall tonight. I have an order from an old customer.”

  Hilgor dropped some elaborate appetizer utensil, which he had been absent-mindedly twisting in his hands.

  The waiter interrupted this promising beginning, bringing menus to the table. They were printed on real paper, which, together with all-human service, was supposed to emphasize the exclusive air of the place.

  “Let’s order first,” she said quickly, “it’s not as bad as you think.”

  Hilgor stared at the menu, unable to concentrate because of a wave of irritation. “We agreed,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “But look, there’s nothing wrong with it. I go over the Wall, pick up a good piece, write a review and release it to the common market for purchase – it’s perfectly legal.”

  “Right,” said Hilgor, “and then you upgrade your boat or something like that a month later as usual. And nobody will ever suspect anything.”

  “Hard to prove,” she said quickly.

  “Useless,” he muttered massaging the bridge of his nose. Then he looked up at her, “Del, fine, your agent license will be revoked, you know the price. But it’s simply not safe behind the Wall. Look, I won’t try to stop you from your shady business in the city. But forget about the Wall.”

  “It’s not dangerous,” she objected. “Don’t be so paranoid. You just assume that it’s bad there. But there’s no official information about it. And I go there, I know that it is safe … if you take precautions,” she looked straight into his eyes. He was silent.

  “Excuse me for a moment,” she said and sighed with exasperation. “Order for me, when this grand waiter comes back, please. Anything is fine.” She got up and headed to the restroom.

  Watching her move, Hilgor was reminded of a creature with the body of a fragile deer and the eyes of a hungry mountain lion.

  Hilgor had met Del two years ago in a swimming pool where she was unsuccessfully practicing platform dives. Later, they could never remember how exactly, she got involved in this temporary and uncharacteristic activity, but he had helped her that day and they had gone to dinner later. She had a fantastic body, natural joie de vivre and a sharp if slightly brittle intellec
t. Of course, they had looked up their compatibility data in the personality matching system and then decided to ignore the disappointing results, joking that a general disregard for the rules was at least something they had in common. In any case, neither morals nor common sense stood any chance in the beginning of their romance. She opened a door to a world he never knew existed, the exhilarating world where everything was bright and delightful and sensuous and where the air itself was permeated by the magic of her presence. It felt precisely like love was supposed to feel. It probably was love.

  But things had not been going well recently, and sometimes he thought that there was nothing left between them except for constant tension and sparks of irritation. Hilgor’s pet peeve was Del’s perfect ability to destroy his inner universe by randomly bursting in with her unrestrained energy, noise and disorder. He had to pick up the pieces and glue them together after each of her unceremonious intrusions. She didn’t care about the fragile objects in his mind. He wasn’t sure she was even aware of them.

  Hilgor suddenly noticed that their waiter had been patiently standing next to the table.

  “Sorry,” he said quickly, “two chef choices, please.” The waiter quietly disappeared.

  Hilgor couldn’t explain why he didn’t cut his losses and move on. Perversely, it could be due to the same thing that had bothered him in the first place. Del, with her brightness, her vibe of excitement, was the only outside entity that had successfully competed with his imaginary world. She was his connection to reality, and she persistently dragged him there, away from the company of his abstract creations. He thought that it was probably a good thing.

  She returned and sat down with a collected expression indicating that she was ready for a fight. “You know that it’s more than money for me,” she paused and continued, “do you know, though? You have never been interested in what I do. You don’t care what matters to me.”

  Now she was really upset, and her lower lip quivered. Usually, at this moment, Hilgor would explode with irritation, which would be followed by a bitter exchange and, ultimately, his lonely ride home.

  This time, however, he imagined his empty apartment and the silver mask waiting for him on the table in the dark room. It abruptly sent the restaurant and Del and their fight to the background. Instead, a sequence of very vivid memories flashed through his mind: the cold rain in the empty park, the howling sound of the motor before the imaginary crash, the offer to move to Earth. And then he remembered his helpless thrashing inside the metal net, the dark shade ascending from the abyss and his scream filled with piercing terror.

  He didn’t want to go home. And he didn’t want to be alone.

  “I care about what you do,” he said, taking Del’s hand. “I can ride with you behind the Wall tonight if you want.”

  It wasn’t clear if her face expressed disbelief or shock.

  “I’m serious,” he said before she had a chance to say anything. “But you’re driving.”

  “Are you sure?” she checked his face for any signs of a trick, then sighed and looked away, trying to hide the fact that she was genuinely touched.

  I am a lying bastard, thought Hilgor.

  “We can even leave now, unless you are hungry,” she said hurriedly, obviously worried that he might change his mind. He definitely wanted to get out of there too, away from the polite attention of all-human service.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  They got up, ready to leave, when he hesitated.

  “But your dress … it’ll look strange there, won’t it?”

  “Strange – in that place?” she tried to hide a smile.

  He shrugged, slightly embarrassed. He had never been outside the Wall. How would he know?

  Within several minutes, Del’s air capsule was taking them across the city towards the bright contour of the Wall. She gave him periodic glances trying to make sure he wasn’t still angry with her.

  “Hilgor, there’s almost nothing new coming from the city anymore,” Del was speaking almost pleadingly. “And even if something comes up, there are so many people watching that I have practically zero chance to hit it first.”

  It was hard to argue with that, but there was a fatal flaw in Del’s logic.

  “Why can’t you just stick to your job description?” asked Hilgor almost rhetorically. They both knew why.

  Del had the extremely bizarre and exotic profession of art critic in a society where art was at best ignored and at worst discouraged.

  The rule, carried throughout the centuries, stated that everyone on Y-3 had to perform a useful duty in order to be allowed access to life-sustaining resources. Naturally, the profession of an artist wasn’t included in the list of approved jobs.

  Of course, independent pursuit of art wasn’t illegal, even though it was dubious from a moral point of view. People could even release their work to the market, anonymously and at a nominal price. Officially, Del had an administrative position, enabling the logistics of the sales and writing brief reviews on the submitted pieces to help the public orient themselves in the confusing terrain of art artifacts.

  “I would shoot myself if I had to stick to the job description,” she said with complete conviction.

  Of course she would, thought Hilgor. She was a hunter, a predator. She needed constant excitement and she got it in the murky art underworld that had its own rules, rewards and dangers.

  She scanned incoming pieces for something promising and made purchases on behalf of one of her clients. On the surface this appeared to be an official sale, but it was followed by another transaction, when a satisfied client paid her the black market price. It was a profitable, albeit illegal gig, and Del was extremely good at choosing the right pieces.

  “It’s been too slow, recently,” she said.

  Hilgor knew what she meant. Unfortunately, part-time artists didn’t release much, and only a fraction of it was valuable, so competition between buyers was fierce. Sometimes items would be snatched up in the seconds that it took for her to enter the payment information.

  But there was another way. If artists didn’t have access to the submission system, if they lived outside the Wall, Del, in her official capacity, had the right to release their work to the market herself. In this case, she would have to split the black market money with the artist, but she was the one who assigned the timing release.

  “Who are you meeting?” asked Hilgor.

  “I’ve been working with this woman for a while. I first noticed her stuff when she was still inside.”

  “When did she cross?”

  Del thought for a second, “Maybe five years ago. Something like that. She hasn’t been feeling well recently and she needs money to pay for tests.”

  “Is she good?”

  “Very,” the way Del said it; he knew that this artist was the real deal. It meant that Del had found something, both obvious and unexplainable, that had, in her words, some connection with ultimate beauty. He could never understand what she meant precisely, but he knew that this mattered to her the most, and that the money and the excitement of the hunt were mere by-products. Not that both weren’t completely and undeniably enjoyable in their own right.

  The Wall was now looming right in front of them, casting a bluish light on the city structures that stopped just short of it. It was made out of translucent material, designed to pass sunlight to the city during the day and illuminate a nearby area after dark. It was very tall, almost half a mile from its base to the top, and seemed very thin from a distance, almost fragile. Close up, however, it looked like a giant fortress of ice, its surface polished and smooth, except for the tunnel entry holes that led into its glowing interior.

  Hilgor’s eyes searched for guards, or barriers, or checkpoints at the entrances. But of course, he didn’t find any. Everyone was free to go in either direction. The Wall was simply a gigantic shield built to bl
ock and reflect the contaminated winds and radiation from the outside.

  Del pushed a button on her wristband, “It’ll let us know if contamination levels get dangerously high. Ready?” She waited for his nod before sliding the capsule into the nearest tunnel. The tube turned out to be surprisingly long, but so straight that Hilgor could make out the dark circle of an exit in the distance.

  Outside, as far as he could see in the faint glow, the bare low hills stretched out in all directions and finally disappeared into the darkness. Unpleasant-looking shadows of automated decontamination equipment created a regular pattern on the ground, making the scene reminiscent of a pre-war period graveyard.

  The light was growing dimmer as their capsule flew forward, over the empty land, towards complete darkness. Hilgor was about to ask Del if she was lost when he noticed a faint light ahead. They were moving fast, and soon he could distinguish a cluster of white semi-spherical buildings, which resembled a flock of lost sheep.

  “Where do they get energy? Clean water? And food?” Hilgor realized that he had never thought about life beyond the Wall.

  “They buy it from the city.” Del was making a wide turn getting closer to the buildings on the far side of the camp. “Some come with their savings. Some sell their work. It’s cheap to live here.”

  The capsule came to a stop, and Del turned to Hilgor, “You can wait inside, or you can come with me. It won’t take long.” She checked her wristband, “We have about an hour – technically more; but better to be on the safe side.”

  Hilgor opened his door and stepped out onto the dry crumbly soil. He caught himself trying not to inhale the outside air. He pulled himself together and looked around.

  They had parked near the last line of identical white structures. Behind them, to his right, there was an impenetrable darkness like nothing he could ever imagine. He shivered, picturing the enormity of the dead space, thousands and thousands of miles of plains, oceans and mountains. It was more disturbing than he’d expected, so he turned away quickly, relieved to see signs of life in the form of a small village. He was surprised that his memory offered him that archaic term, but it seemed like the perfect phrase for it. A couple hundred small portable homes of a standard round design were huddled together at the base of a low hill, like a herd of animals trying to conserve heat during a harsh storm. This was another image from the past, from some documentary about extinct bison that had walked Y-3 before the war.