The Gardener of Nahi

Chapter 43

Cassidian

I could already see Cyris before breaching the surface.  His dark hair, perfectly placed, meandered like a dancing cobra head above me – distorted by the ripples and swirling current of the desalination tank.  For that reason I had already unzipped my side membrane and taken out my weapon while I was still underwater.  It was therefore the tip of my serrater which broke the surface first, and I aimed it at the man awaiting me while using my free hand to lift my breathing mask over my forehead.

     “I would appreciate it if you didn’t aim that at me,” he said as he approached the edge of the platform above me, his voice echoing out in the large space.  “I’m not armed.”  He was wearing the same simple white business shirt and dark pants as when I first met him, yet now his tie was gone and his sleeves were cuffed.  Arms loose at his sides, he walked as if he were strolling through one of the numerous sky parks of canopy.

     Realizing that we were alone, I dropped my weapon back underneath the waterline and he responded with a question.

     “Where’s the girl?”

     I looked around at my surroundings before answering him, realizing that Lei had been accurate in his depiction.  The entire ceiling of the desalination chamber was lined with large vertical tubes that converged above me like a massive domed ceiling.  It was astounding, actually – the sheer size of it.  While ascending in the water the sense of scale had been lost on me due to the monotonous blue, but now the magnitude of the desalination tower was suddenly apparent.

     The crescent-shaped ledge that Cyris stood on was massive as well – it lined half the circumference of the tank and was elevated exactly ten meters higher than the surface (I knew this since the black tick marks extended past the water’s edge up towards this ledge).  Cyris stood at its center which was also the widest part.  Equidistant from him were two openings – one on either side of the crescent and quite far away.  I had no idea what lay beyond the opposing dark archways, but one of them certainly led to another garage like the one Myria waited in one hundred meters below.  And somewhere beyond that I knew the swarm of blacksuits waited.

     They were listening to us too, I knew then.  That’s why Cyris led off with such a direct question.  He was not asking me as much as telling them that I was alone – that Myria was not with me.

     “She’s dead,” I said flatly, wading towards one of the many ladders under the ledge.  Discarding my fins at its base, I let them sink beneath me as I started climbing it slowly, continuing on with my lie.  “Blue killed her,” I said evenly.  “Right after he spoke to you.”

     I had been expecting Cyris to feign ignorance about Blue’s attack in The Canopy Garden, but was met instead with his candid answer.

     He shook his head while looking down.  “I always knew he was a fucking idiot, but I didn’t see that coming.  It’s because you killed his brother, you know.  Green, as we called him.  He admitted as much to me shortly after he left the ratskeller.”  Cyris met my gaze as I reached the top of the ladder.  “Actually he said he killed you, and that I should only expect the girl.  So I am a little surprised that it’s the opposite situation.”

     “Understandable,” I said.  “When I caught up to Blue he was speaking to you using his commpatch and I made him rip it out.  You were on the other end.  Do you remember that?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he was dead minutes later.  So was the girl.”

     “What happened to her?”