Debris

"I'm sure."

Silence settled over the gathering. It set my skin prickling.

"Well, you've been entertaining," Vladir told me. "I think we'll miss you when you go."

We'll miss you. I'll miss you.

If the old men were behind this, if they were pulling puppet strings or even watching just for the fun of it that meant Devich… Devich who had convinced me to meet with them both times. Devich who always just happened to appear at the worst possible moment. Devich who seemed to know details I couldn't remember telling him. Who suited me, who listened to me, who had supported me… was a lie. Everything he was, everything he had said.

If these old men were behind everything, then so was Devich.

I let Devich help me into the waiting coach in a daze. We sat in silence as it glided into the night. But not for long. "You're one of them, aren't you?" I turned to him, still too shaken to shout, to rail, like I knew I should. Like I wanted to. "What are you doing to me? Did you know the truth all along?" I swallowed bile. The thought that everything – that the love he had shown me, that the love I had shared with him – was all a lie made me sick to my stomach. "Was this all a game? Did you plan it?"

His blank expression did nothing to ease the tension clutching at my voice. "Don't be angry with me."

"How dare you! Did you get yourself hurt just so I would rescue you? I cared about you. You knew I did."

"I don't want you to be angry with me. Not now."

"Why, Devich? What happens now?"

The coach jolted to a sudden stop and I was thrown against the seat opposite. Devich, less agile, let out a weak-dog cry as he slammed into the door and slid to the coach floor. Face bloodless, he gripped his injured shoulder, gasping for air.

"Are you-?" I stopped myself. Did it matter if he was hurt? Instead, I pushed myself from the seat, focusing at the same time on the suit that had sprung to cover my legs and arms. Gradually, it retreated.

"What happened?" Wincing, Devich hauled himself from the floor. He leaned back in the seat, hand gripping his shoulder so hard his knuckles were white.

I glared at him. "That's what I want to know." I forced open the door on my side, gripped the rails, and swung myself up beside the driver. "What's going-" But I saw it. The driver's hands wove pointless patterns in the air, tugging at pions that wouldn't respond. Because the street was flooded with debris. It rolled down the stones in waves, like the Tear had burst its long-held banks and was flushing darkness into the city.

"Other," I whispered.

"It won't work!" The driver, panicked, clutched at the sky. "They won't listen."

I glanced at my suit, cool, slow, dim. No emergency. So what was this? "It won't. There's too much debris."

The driver flinched. He too, it seemed, knew of the accident at Devich's building.

Accident? I shook my head. Was this just another test? Another trial set up by Devich and the veche and their puppet men? But how did they set the debris off? Debris wasn't pions, it couldn't be controlled. At least, not that I knew. And maybe there had been a way, in that history Yicor so lamented. Perhaps it had survived, as twisted and undermined as the language of the symbols.

"Don't worry, it's not going to kill us." I wanted to reassure him, but what could I do to explain the difference? No planes were attacking, no chunks of Movoc-under-Keeper dropping out of the sky to kill us. This was sludge, passive, horrible. But where had it come from? And why now?

"Can you do something?" the driver asked.

I considered standing in the middle of all that, sweeping it back with suit spread wide. I didn't want it touching me. Not again. "There's too much, I don't think I can."

I swung back down into the cabin. Devich, still holding his shoulder, was hitched up against the opposite door, breathing long, controlled breaths. "Debris," I told him. "Too much of it. Interfering with the driver. But then, I don't need to tell you that."

He just stared at me, face blank.

Then the landau lurched forward and I was flung outside again, my hold on the rails the only thing keeping me from falling into a sea of debris. I clambered back to the driver's seat.

"It's moving!" Sweat shone on his face from flickering lamplight as he fought for control of his pions. "Slowly, but it's coming back."

Sure enough, the tide was receding. But something in that disturbed me more than the debris had in the first place. "Get us going as soon as you can, as fast as you can."

"I will." The driver sucked at his bottom lip in his concentration.

Debris brought us to a halt three times before the coach could take me home. Once, when it had wrapped itself tightly around a lamp and throbbed, like a terrible insect sucking the light away. Then debris dripped from the window of a high apartment, onto the heads of a crowd that had gathered in the street, oblivious of what they were showering in, knowing only that the lights wouldn't stay on, the sewage had backed up, and the heating had died.

Each time the landau sagged to a halt and the driver struggled to get it moving again I looked to my suit, but it remained calm, quiet. No maps, no warning lights. No emergency.

I watched Devich as we finally made it home; still he showed no emotion.

"Goodbye," I said, trying to set my voice as hard as I felt. "I won't see you again."

Devich shook his head, he opened his mouth as though to speak, and for a moment I thought I saw something spark in his eyes, some terrible desolation. Then his face clouded over. "No, you won't."

"Why did you do this?" The words rushed from me, unbidden and foolish. "What are you trying to do to me?"

He shook his head. "You know I won't answer you."

"Bastard. Other take you."

He released a great breath and looked away. "I'm sure he will."

I yanked the handle down and pushed the door open with my foot. As I teetered between paving stones and coach floor, I looked back at him. "Then at least tell me this." I waited for him to look up again. "Why me?"

A shudder ran through him. He winced, touched a hand to his shoulder, but held my gaze. "Just bad luck, Tanyana. Bad luck."

I leapt from the coach and slammed the door on his Other-forsaken face. As I watched it lurch away, with debris tugging beneath it, my suit remained still. Quiet.

I did not sleep that night. Debris raged through the streets in a wild stampede, sending Movoc into chaos, and I watched from the top of the stairs. Half-repaired buildings fell. Lights stuttered on and off in a violent dance across the city. The enforcers were out, carrying gas lanterns, emptying buildings one by one. They wouldn't wait for a repeat of the last disaster.

Where were they taking everyone? Where could be safe, with waves of debris rolling through the streets? I couldn't wait to find out. Valya wouldn't listen to my entreaties as I tried to convince her to join the evacuation.

"Nowhere to run," she told me, her expression haunted.

Nowhere but the sublevel, and my collecting team. So that was where I went. Kichlan and Lad were already there, though I had no idea how early the bell was. Their anxious faces greeted me. I lifted a hand and said, "Good morning." What else could I say?

"Not a good day," Lad said with perfect seriousness. "Not a good day."

Watching his sweat-slicked face, I wondered what the voices were telling him. And how could I ask him without Kichlan knowing?

"Have you seen it out there?" Mizra burst into the room, cradling debris in great scoops on his hands.

"That's a good idea." I stood, extended my suit and offered to take some from him. "I should have thought to do that."

Mizra hesitated, his energy and my words battling with the cold distance he was trying so hard to maintain between us. Eventually, he allowed me to pinch a large chunk that had started to float from his pile.