Finch by Jeff VanderMeer Read online

  “Shut up, Finchy,” Wyte said. Still scribbling.

  “I'm not pathologically reporting on evidence I haven't gathered yet,” Finch said, “and they haven't come to cart me away.”

  “You're just lucky,” Wyte mumbled.

  A light green stain began to spread across the back of Wyte's blue shirt.

  Finch cleared space on his desk. Brought the typewriter over. One of the best models Hoegbotton had ever made. A hulking twentypound monster that reminded Finch of just what Ambergris could accomplish back in the day. Hundreds of thousands had been shipped out to cities up and down the River Moth. “Combat-ready” went the slogan, and it wasn't a joke.

  Looked at his notes. Didn't want to tell Heretic about everything he'd found. Not until he knew more about what the words meant. Discounted the symbol entirely. Even though it had burned its way into his head. “Focus on what you can control. The rest is just distraction.” Something his father used to say.

  What could he report that was solid? A few moments gazing into space. Then he started to type. Stopped when he got to a part that bothered him.

  Both memories contained images of a desert fortress. Both memories contained images of falling.

  From a great height? Maybe.

  Finch took a sip of his coffee. He'd washed the cup beforehand to make sure no fungus, visible or invisible, had taken root. Sometimes the gray caps did strange things with the mugs during the night.

  Both memories contained images from the HFZ.

  I think. How would I know, never having been there?

  From analyzing

  “My memory of. . . ”

  both memories it seems certain that the gray cap

  Fanaarcessitti? Fanarcesittee? Always typos in these reports.

  that the fannarcessitti was in pursuit of the man. But I don't know why.

  Then Sintra was kissing him and he was kissing her. Tongue curled against tongue. The salt of her in his mouth. His hand between her muscular thighs.

  A hunger. A need. Something that didn't exist outside the sanctuary of his apartment.

  Recognized the strength of that need, the danger of it, on the way to the station.

  He exhaled sharply. That way lies madness.

  More to the point, he shouldn't even have been on this case. Not many people made the distinction between what detectives did and what Partials or gray caps did. Never do police work anywhere near your own area. Never let the people where you lived know your job. And yet, 239 Manzikert Avenue was only a mile from the hotel. Why had Heretic put him in charge? Didn't trust Wyte anymore? Or was there some other reason? Leaned forward in his chair. Had to make some progress. Just dive into it.

  The man's memories had more coherence than the fannarcessitti's memories. I could not tell if this was because the fanarcesitti's mind had been more confused and disjointed at the time of death or because, as a human, I could more easily read the man's memories.

  Nothing during the experience brought me any closer to knowing the identity of the man.

  I wish the memory bulbs had been more useful.

  But he had seen one person he recognized. He leaned back and thought about Ethan Bliss. What he knew. What he didn't know.

  First, the impersonal. Bliss had fought for Frankwrithe & Lewden during the War of the Houses. Behind the scenes. No one seemed to know for sure what he did for F&L. Secret ops? Bliss had joined the political wing. Risen quickly to become F&L's number one man in Ambergris. Had been instrumental in forging the alliance between the F&L and the Lady in Blue. Then, right before the gray caps took over, he dropped out of sight. Probably returned to his native Morrow, only to reappear a couple of years ago. Because of how Morrow had suffered from the gray caps having cut off the flow of water? Ships suddenly resting on a dry riverbed. Trade disrupted. Drinking water scarce.

  This new Bliss had reverted to spying. Had connections to the Spit. But hadn't made common cause with the rebels, according to Finch's informants.

  Although, when you paid informants in food and clothing, how valuable could your information be? More valuable? Less?

  All of this made Bliss of special interest to any detective who hated foreigners messing around in Ambergris business. Finch could've used Bliss as a snitch, perhaps, but hadn't. He was wary of who Bliss might be working for now. If he worked for anyone other than himself.

  Second, the personal. Bliss had been at his father's house a couple of times when Finch was maybe twelve, thirteen. He could recall looking through the kitchen window to see Bliss and his father in the garden. The smaller man compact, unmoving. His father unruly, animated, throwing his arms about, pointing at Bliss and demanding something. And yet, seeing the two figures there like that, Bliss had seemed in his silence and self-possession to be the one in charge.

  Thought, too, that Bliss might've been in one of the photographs he'd burned before becoming Finch. But Bliss was one of many visitors. During the few peaceful years, there had been lots of parties at their house, with people from both sides.

  Finch had seen Bliss give speeches, too. One, in front of the Voss Bender Memorial Opera House, to a crowd of almost ten thousand. He'd looked striking in an evening coat and tails. A chestful of honorary medals that made you notice the glitter more than the man. Urging cooperation and common cause in that silky voice when, just a year or two before, behind the scenes, he'd caused House Hoegbotton so much grief. Bombings. House-to-house battles to clear insurgents. Fighting in narrow streets where tanks were no help, but where F&L fungal bullets worked just fine.

  Third, whatever the gray caps knew about Bliss, if they knew about Bliss. Finch couldn't remember pulling the file on him. He'd have to put in a request. Which he hated doing. Couldn't know what Heretic would “request” in return.

  Took out the form anyway. Wrote in what he needed. Under “subject,” he filled in Ethan Bliss's name and a few others. For cover. If Finch put in his report that he'd seen Bliss in the dead man's memories, Bliss was as good as dead. Or would want to be. And Finch couldn't be sure what it all meant until he questioned Bliss. Which wouldn't happen if Heretic got hold of him first.

  Why the hell was Ethan Bliss in the memories of the dead man?

  Typed:

  Perhaps a fannarcesitti would be more useful in reading the man's memories?

  What would a gray cap see? Baiting Heretic gave Finch a grim satisfaction. Gray caps hated eating human memories. Almost as if there were a taste, a smell, that repulsed them. Finch couldn't recall Heretic ever eating one. Could human memories harm a gray cap?

  It is not entirely clear that these deaths are murders, rather than accidental. The two may have died somewhere else and been brought to the apartment. Residents of the apartment building have no additional information. Rumors that two people lived in apartment 525 cannot be confirmed.

  Just covering himself in case whatever game the Partial was playing went south. Yet, stubbornly, couldn't bring himself to mention the scrap of paper. Despite the fact the Partial knew about it. Had the Partial told Heretic? Maybe. Maybe not.

  Finch pushed his chair away from the typewriter, hands behind his head. The report made no sense. Composed of smoke and shadows. Doubted Heretic would find it convincing. What did it mean that the dead man had spoken to him? Another thing he hadn't put in the report. Some instinct had warned him against it.

  Ripped the paper out of the typewriter carriage. A mechanical tearing sound loud enough to make all the other detectives turn toward him in one motion that seemed choreographed.

  What the hell are you looking at?

  Realized he'd said it out loud.

  Jammed his report into a pod, along with the request for files. Shoved that down the memory hole gullet. Choke on it.

  A minute later: a sound coming from the damn thing. Incoming.

  The pod. The tendrils. Hammer. Egg. Extraction. A message from Heretic.

  Finch by Jeff VanderMeer

  STAY LATE TONIGHT TO MEET

>   “Fuck,” Finch said.

  “Is it bad?” Wyte asked.

  “Why do you always ask that question?”

  “Why is the answer always yes.”

  “Then you shouldn't ask it.”

  Staying late always unnerved him.

  Have to get out of here.

  “Come on,” he said to Wyte. It would do Wyte some good, too. “We're going to go talk to Ethan Bliss.”

  If they could find him.

  On a table near the desk in his apartment, Finch has a map of Ambergris from before the Rising. It covers the whole table, renders the city in perfect detail. He has no idea what it's made of. Never tears. Never wrinkles. His father had given it to him when he was thirteen. “You'll never need another.” Made a mark on it with a green pen every time he sent his son on an errand to a new location. Insisted Finch take the map with him everywhere. Even though it was heavy. Even if Finch had been to a place before. “The streets are shifty. I want to make sure you don't get lost.”

  The errands? Collect letters. Drop off packages. Say a single word or phrase. “Shipping lanes.” “The weather is too cold for this time of year.” “Mr. Green says you are a lucky man.” Never to the same people. Old, young, male, female, each one with secrets behind their eyes. He played it like a game. Delighted in the mystery of not really knowing the rules. Then he'd return, a human homing pigeon, to their house.

  “Official business,” his father said. He held an important position for H&S because he was a war hero. Anyone could tell that from all of the photographs of him fighting against the Kalif, and from the people who came over to visit. Some of them wearing funny hats and uniforms.

  But by the time Finch was seventeen, his father had stopped sending him on these errands. He'd felt discarded. Hadn't understood then that his father had turned to others when Finch began to ask questions. When he began to have a sense of the secrecy behind his missions. A tallish, dark-haired, serious boy with few close friends his age, taught at home by his father. Those journeys across the city had meant a lot to him.

  But he'd kept the map, used it for his new job, which his father had gotten for him. Courier for Hoegbotton business interests. Running invoices and shipping inventories between the main offices and the warehouses at the docks. Sometimes, if the conflict heated up, if F&L cut off certain roads, he had to find alternate routes.

  Trade “has to keep on an even keel, no matter what,” his boss Wyte liked to say. Wyte, seven years his senior, with an office in the brick building on Albumuth they'd both work at after the Rising. Even then Wyte had seemed too large for the world around him. Desk too small. Him too clumsy. But to Finch he'd been the height of authority.

  The map shows that brick building, with a green mark by it. It also has detailed views of the Bureaucratic Quarter, the Religious Quarter, and what had unofficially been known as the merchant district before the wars. Albumuth Boulevard, the great snake wending its way through almost every part of the city. The valley that had been the home of so many citizens. The docks. The swampland to the north.

  A view of Ambergris that had remained essentially unchanged for centuries. Had survived early incursions by the Kalif, the cavalry charges of Morrow back when it had a king instead of the F&L. Had even survived the Silence.

  But could not survive the Rising.

  The gray caps have a kind of see-through paper. A slight greenish tint, barely noticeable. It feels light as a leaf, but is very strong. Finch has stolen two sheets of it, taped them together to form an overlay to his old map. On this overlay he charts the changes he has observed, using a dark pencil that he can erase at will.

  In the evenings, when too restless to sleep but too tired to read, Finch will turn on the light in the study. Or use a lantern if the electricity is out. Review the overlay. Search for what he knows has been made different again. Then render a section bare with handkerchief and water. Build it up again, redraw it all. A change in the lip of the bay. Or in the HFZ. A row of houses that has burned down. A drug mushroom that erupted from the pavement. A new gray cap house or cathedral.

  Lately, he has been charting the retreat of the water. Right after the Rising, the canals from the bay into Ambergris had been like the fat fingers of a grasping hand. Now they are withered, the “thumb” almost dry, the others shriveling. Like his father's blue-veined hands in the clinic near the end. A disease he'd picked up early in life, fighting the Kalif. It got into his lungs first, and spread. No cure except death.

  Remapping takes the kind of concentration that empties out the mind. In the old house, before they became vagabonds together, his father had created something similar in his locked study. Much bigger, with even more detail, laid out across a huge table fit for a banquet. Color-coded to show Hoegbotton and Frankwrithe territories within the city. Green and red. Along with blue for those narrow reefs of neutrality. Over time, his father would chart weapons depots on that map. Troop concentrations. Hidden storehouses. Usually Hoegbotton but some Frankwrithe positions, too. His father's overlay was actually a black sheet that perfectly hid the map. And a tablecloth over top of that.

  How many guests invited into that place had been served drinks on that table, never realizing what was hidden beneath?

  At seventeen, mad at his father for no longer using him as a courier, Finch had stolen the key. Started sneaking into the study when his father was out. Found the map. He used to stand there, it naked before him, and memorize the progress of the war in his head. It looked like lively abstract art. Symbols in search of context.

  Finch doesn't draw directly on the old map because he doesn't want to forget the past. Hopes that one day that lost world will return. The overlay is only temporary, he keeps telling himself. Even as the changes become more and more permanent.

  His map is a crude facsimile of the original. He has only the dark pencil to record the changes. Nor can his map chart the changes in the people around him. Or tell him what to do next.

  One day, his father surprised him in the study. He stood at the door with a guarded look on his face. Finch stared back, frozen. There seemed to be nothing he could say. His father walked up. Put the black sheet over the map. Replaced the tablecloth. Muttered, ,This didn't happen." Took the key from him. Escorted him out.

  They never talked about it again. But in that moment of shock, when Finch heard the door open, it burned his father's map into his head. Every detail. Every nuance. And even now, looking at his own map, the overlay, he sees it. Sees that room.

  Knows every inch of Ambergris. Even the parts he hasn't yet visited. Even the parts still changing.

  Finch by Jeff VanderMeer

  3

  racking down Bliss took three tries. Wyte had an address for a townhouse Bliss sometimes used for meetings, in an old Hoegbotton stronghold southeast of Albumuth. Finch could still see the slashes of faded paint on the pavement, left by groups of Irregulars. Who knew how old the marks were? A code that told a secret history of the city. Gray cap passed by here Tuesday ... Food and ammo in the second house on the left ... Stay clear of this intersection after dark.

  They found the house on a street that had once been part of a wealthy district. Trees lined the sidewalk, but not a leaf on them. Gravel where grass had been. Silence all around. The houses to either side derelict husks. A burned corpse with no arms right on the steps. Which should've told them Bliss wasn't there. Flies had settled on the torn-up face like a congregation. A slender whiteness had begun to push up through the black. Stalks of fruiting bodies. Rising. In another twenty hours, nothing would be left.

  “Nothing inside,” Finch said, coming back out.

  “Let's visit Stanton,” Wyte said.

  Stanton, one of Wyte's druggie snitches, lived a few blocks down. Behind Stanton, Finch saw a tarp draped over a soot-gray alley mouth. A bundle of his possessions to one side. A crumbling brick he used to protect himself at night. Before the Rising, Stanton had been a banker. Or, at least, that's what he'd told Wyte. Proba
bly an addict then, too.

  Wyte always kept a few extra purple mushrooms in his overcoat pockets. Stanton, in a kind of makeshift robe, clung to Wyte like he was the drug. Wyte a plank of wood in the River Moth and Stanton trying to stop from drowning. Except all he ever did was drown.

  “Where'd Bliss go?” Wyte asked Stanton.

  The thirty-year-old Stanton lifted his gaunt, balding head. Red-eyed, wrinkled face. “Down by the abandoned train station. Four streets over. Corner of Sporn and Trillian. He was just there yesterday.”

  Wyte put three purple mushrooms in Stanton's hand. Stanton received them like they were worth more than one day's relief. The huge red mushrooms that dispensed the drugs stuck to a strict schedule. Monday and Friday. Stanton had already gone through what he'd gathered the day before. Finch didn't think he'd last another month.

  When they left Stanton, he was trembling under his pathetic shelter. Eyes wide open and dilated. Gone someplace better. Someplace temporary.

  The train station was empty. But way in the back, under the shadowed arches populated by pigeons and bats, they found a gambling pit. Almost a grotto, for all the fungus surrounding it. Fuzzy clumps of muted gold and green hid the entrance. Cockfighting. Card games. Betting black market goods.

  Not much of a conversation. Wyte stuck his gun up against the lookout's cheek. Convinced her it would be better just to lead them in. The hardened men and women they surprised, lantern-lit and reaching for knives or guns, thought better of it, too. But they had a hard time restraining the roosters. One fire-red, the other a muted orange. Razor talons moving like pistons.

  A heavily muscled man in his twenties who had done some piecework for Bliss gave him up, quick. Called Bliss a slang word for foreign. Even though the muscled man looked foreign himself. Seemed to dare any of the others to argue with him. They didn't.

  Wyte and Finch receded into the gloom. Shoved the lookout inside. Barricaded the door from the outside with a couple of heavy rusted barrels. Hoped there wasn't a second entrance. But knew there always was. Got the hell out before anyone could start thinking about an ambush.