He imagined the home he would have shared with his wife, a house that he would usually only see late at night or first thing in the morning, at either end of a few snatched hours of sleep. There might have been children, small, chaotic strangers he’d have been too exhausted to ever do more than snap at. There would have been friends. Now that he knew how much their friendship was really worth, he found it impossible to mourn their loss.
It struck Jack that, if Fist had had the life he so wanted, he’d have died in orbit around Mars with all the other puppets. Now that he had a truer sense of Grey’s commitment to him, he could only be glad that he hadn’t let himself vanish into a life that would have lasted for decades longer, but would also have been a kind of death. He hoped that he might have found a way out of it, but wasn’t sure he’d have had the strength. He turned, and walked away from the streets he’d grown up in.
The slow hours passed until the time came to find the venue where Andrea’s fetch was singing. It was hidden down a side street, nestling between two abandoned gas storage cylinders. It took a while for Jack to nerve himself to walk up to the doorway, bring out his InSec card and ask for a ticket. He half-hoped that the doorman would refuse him, that any venue where Andrea was performing would be too exclusive for a parolee like him. But a soft voice hissed ‘welcome to Ushi’s’, then ‘through there’. As he turned away he winced to feel cold, unsurprised eyes burn their lack of judgement into him.
The main bar smelt of failure. There were a few ceiling lights, only serving to make the shadows deeper. The plaster was peeling off one wall, a clotted hint of metalwork visible beneath. Conversations muttered out of the gloom. Several people were fully onweave, staring at nothing. Most were wearing cheap overalls, differentiated only by the weave sigils scattered across them. The bar’s countertop glowed with stale yellow light. A blonde woman stood beside it, apparently lost in thought.
When the barman appeared he looked like a poorly lit ghost. There was a faint smell of sweat as he leant forward. Jack laid the InSec card down and tried to smile. ‘Whisky. On the rocks.’ The barman nodded. There was a clink and a hiss as he prepared the drink. He held out a glass filled with tawnied murk. It was a potent blend, not needing the weave to burn as Jack gulped it down. He immediately wanted another. He was ashamed of the urgency of his craving. This time, he ordered a double.
[ You’re going to end up like Charles if you keep going like that. And I’ll have to suffer through the hangovers.]
‘There’s some entertainment tonight,’ said Jack to the barman. He swallowed. ‘A fetch?’
The barman nodded. ‘Later on.’
‘Do I need any special permissions to see her?’
‘She’s open circuit. Anyone can tune in.’
Jack was relieved. He could use his existing access rights to see Andrea. There was no need for Fist to risk any hacking. The barman moved away. The darkness wrapped itself around him until he was just a shape in the gloom, less substantial than the multicoloured bottles glimmering darkly behind him.
The blonde woman caught Jack’s eye and smiled. She was remarkably beautiful, in the smooth and polished way that corporate logos are beautiful. But he was not here for her. He found a small empty table, tucked away at the rear of a bar, and waited for Andrea. She wouldn’t be able to see him from the stage. He still wasn’t quite sure what he would say to her, if he would even try to speak with her.
[ I’d sooner be drinking piss from a Martian urinal than spending another minute in this dump,] muttered Fist.
[ Just make sure our fetch portals are open. I don’t want to miss her.]
Half an hour or so passed, and Andrea was on stage. She materialised unannounced. There was a small stir in the bar, quiet sounds of movement as a few people turned in their chairs. The spotlight caught her. She’d wrapped a wide, dark scarf around her head to make a hood. Her face was invisible. Jack sat back into the shadows, his heart shocked by memory.
[Aw!] moaned Fist. [She’s covered up. I was looking forward to a bit of skull!]
Andrea wore a tight-fitting dress studded with sequins. She swayed to a recorded backing track, making each one sparkle with unreachable fire. Bleak jazz notes scattered into the air. A saxophone riff drifted by like a kiss. It was the intro to one of her own songs. She leant in towards the microphone. There was the lightest sigh, lost in reverb. And then she started to sing.
[ These people,] breathed Jack, [they don’t deserve her.]
Amplified words drifted through the bar like smoke. They barely touched most of its patrons. Some continued conversations, others flirtations. Others just drank alone, lost in slowly emptying glasses. The blonde woman was leaning against a pillar, distractedly stirring at a cocktail with a bright little paper umbrella. It flashed against her dark clothes. She looked bored.
Jack was the only one to stare at the stage, rapt as Andrea’s singing prowled around him. He lifted his glass and swigged. The harsh taste burnt his throat, pulling him back to the past. In the few short months he’d been with Andrea, he’d sat drinking cheap Docklands whisky in so many clubs like this.
He’d always taken a seat at the back, always entered and left without acknowledging her. They’d put so much care into keeping their relationship secret. Harry had eyes everywhere. Later in the evening, they’d meet somewhere hidden – a cheap hotel or a private dining room – and talk through the evening’s gig, then the day or days since they’d seen each other last. Again and again, Jack found himself grasping for words, never quite able to express how Andrea’s songs moved him. He stopped listening to his store of Homelands sounds. They seemed so insipid when they had to follow the deft, committed power of her live performances.
Jack let an ice cube roll out of the glass and across his tongue, chilling his mouth. The cold pulled him out of his reverie. As he did so, he noticed the faintest light in the air just beside him, shivering around an empty seat. [ By the pricking of my thumbs …] said Fist, giggling nervously.
Jack looked back to the stage, assuming that the light was an effect of the stage lights. But they had dimmed and now glowed too softly in the darkness to reach him. He glanced back at the seat. The light still hung there, faintly suggesting a human form. Jack wondered if there was a glitch in the weave. Even if there was, he shouldn’t be able to pick it up. There was a hint of a sound in the air, something that could have been a word, maybe a greeting. Fist tittered nervously, a sharp contrast with the slow, mournful blues that Andrea was whispering out from the stage. It was suddenly cold. A waitress came by, collecting empty glasses. Jack wondered if she’d respond to the shimmer, but it seemed that she could not see it.
He looked back towards the anomaly. The light was shifting towards him, as if something were leaning in to speak to him. There was the slightest breath, echoing the gentleness of Andrea’s singing. It seemed to be whispering, but he could not make out any words. Then the shape collapsed. A thousand tiny shards of light flashed softly against him. They pooled on the table, in his lap, on the floor, before slowly fading out. It was as if a ghost had kissed him. He wondered if it could have been some new form of fetch. But the dead could not manifest unsummoned and he had no way of invoking anyone from the Coffin Drives.
[Did you see that?] he asked.
There was a pause.
[ I saw nothing,] spat Fist, drawing himself back into Jack’s mind like a snail coiling up into its shell. [ This feels dangerous,] he hissed as he vanished. [ We should leave now.]