Jack in the Box

When I arrived in Jamenta that afternoon, I was already running before the dust storm. The Weather Bureau had been tracking it for three days but had failed to anticipate a change of direction, putting it on course for the Coastal Towns. Out in the desert, I had been taken by surprise, caught out by the vagaries of the weather. With little more than two hours lead time, I would have to find shelter.
Babel’s twin sister is perhaps better known as a haven for smugglers and black-marketers. It is here that the convoys make their last stops before heading inland, so I wasn’t surprised to find that preparations for the storm had already been made. The hot winds that came flurrying out of the desert had always been regarded as harbingers, conveyors of arduous times, of loss or just plain old bad luck. The inhabitants of the Coastal Towns had long become accustomed to the idea that not all that came out of the deserts was welcome.
In town, the streets were empty, windows had been shuttered and warning sleeves flew from the highest roofs, already restless in the preliminaries, already whistling.
Whilst the initial flurries of dust and sand began to find their way down into the narrow boulevards, I found shelter at one of the hotels that lined the waterfront.
Quite a number of people had had the same idea that afternoon. Traders from the convoys, a couple of Trade Police eyeing up proceedings, a pair of Unionists sitting quietly in one of the alcoves towards the rear of the lobby, even some boat people, out on shore leave. The noise coming from the lobby was approaching a cacophony as people fought to consult the hotel’s comm system, desperate for weather reports or satellite readings, trying to work out when they would be able to resume their journeys.

By late afternoon I had lost all hope of getting back to Babel before nightfall. The storm had settled in. The hotel had become the last bastion of calm on Earth, or so it seemed, and even that was only relative to the chaos outside. Restless, I took a room so as to avoid the usual storm party that these situations always led to.
The afternoon had ended prematurely. There was nothing to do but wait it out.
The sound of the sand blowing up against the walls set my teeth on edge. I heard the crack and whistle of heat lightning as it struck the periphery somewhere beyond the town. The noise was insistent, piercing. Unable to shake it from my mind, I went to the window, opened the shutters slightly and peered outside. Dust swirled, translucent and spectral, a boiling chaos that moved like a rebellion through the town. Drifts of sand were already blowing against the shop-fronts, resonating upon the glass, beating a percussion. The overhead wires, strung between the buildings, were thrashing like whips.
Beyond the roofs and terraces, the town lay bleeding in the red half-light, desolate and ghostly. The buildings appeared as shadows upon a silk screen, maquettes, two-dimensional mock-ups, devoid of detail. The wind howled its vague threats, given voice by the warning sleeves.
Downstairs, the party was beginning to get out of hand. I heard a first, then a second, then a third crash of glass before the inevitable shouted threat of throwing whoever was causing trouble out onto the blistering streets. These situations always seemed to bring out the worst in people. I was in no mood for such mischief. The dust coupled with the sickly light had left me lethargic, uneasy and irritable.
A commotion on the other side of the door caused me to start. There came a muffled half cry, followed by a load thump that made the wood creak in its frame. For a moment I wondered if somebody was trying to get in. Obviously the revelry had now spread throughout the building. I wondered what would be left of the place by morning.
I got up, listened for anything further, then opened the door just in time to catch the old man as he collapsed silently to the ground.
He was about fifty years of age, a Unionist, his tanned skin patterned with lines of age. He wore a formal sand jacket and a light coloured pair of desert trousers, and with sudden shock I realised that he was bleeding. A rapidly spreading patch of blood stained the back of his jacket. His mouth worked the air, but no sound came. I leaned closer, straining to hear what he was trying to say.
“The Blue Lady,” he murmured. Then without further sound, his head fell limp and he slipped away.
I felt for a pulse, looked around for help, must have called out, automatic reaction taking over. The hall was empty. My voice sounded weak, swallowed by the static whisper of the storm and the sound of music emanating from the party below. I looked again. Something watery ran up and down just beneath the skin, adrenalin perhaps. Something wasn’t right.
I turned, just in time to see the shadow detach itself from the wall at the far end of the corridor, a flicker of light, a distortion really, the unmistakable signature of a Chameleon suit. Then it was gone.
I got up to give chase, charging headlong down corridor. At the far end I caught a momentary glimpse of movement on the stairs, heard the door that led to the roof garden, as it slammed shut.
I threw myself up the stairs, flung the door open and promptly recoiled.
The sand stung my eyes. The wind screamed, filling the corridor in an instant, plucking at my hair, my clothes. I tasted the acrid salt dust, felt its heaviness in my lungs. I staggered, coughing uncontrollably, my eyes half closed to the tempest. The roof space was empty. I took a step forward and heard the door slam behind me, knew in an instant that I had blundered straight into a trap.
A blow to the back of my neck sent me reeling. I let my limbs go limp almost on instinct as I hurtled over an ornamental table, sent chairs and decorative pots scattering. From the floor, I glanced back in time to see the outline of my assailant, formed by the swirling dust like a shape blown out of glass, made indistinct by the chameleon suit’s optical systems. The figure made a gesture and I heard the singing whine of an explosive grapple. In a second he was gone.

Back in the hall, news had travelled fast. A crowd of storm revellers had gathered around the body. Several were sobbing, in shock, comforted by friends or people they had only just met. The hotel proprietor, aided by his managers, was in the process of going through the dead man’s pockets. He rolled up the man’s jacket sleeves and I saw the bright splash of tribal tattoos, the marks of rank and privilege. I felt a pang of empathy. A Unionist death on premises would almost certainly attract scrutiny, regardless of blame.
Two of the Unionists I had seen in the bar earlier pushed to the front of the crowd. They were large men, jagged and durable like stones, probably islanders, sporting obvious side arms beneath their Djellebas. I hadn’t expected a challenge so quickly.
“This man is ours,” one of them said, in a heavy accent, “You will leave the body to us.”
To his credit the proprietor wasn’t about to be threatened on his own turf. He straightened himself, looked the islander in the eye.
“What I say here goes.” He said, “We’ll wait out the storm and then the authorities will be called. He can be laid out in the cellar. It’s the coolest part of the building.”
For a second I thought a more formal challenge might about to be issued. The islander was armed after-all, a fact that couldn’t have slipped the proprietor’s notice. Instead he backed down, made a sign of agreement and stepped back to rejoin his compatriot.
A stretcher appeared from somewhere and the body was taken downstairs, the two Unionists leading the way, heads bowed in respect.
A little later the manager’s assistants went through the crowd, taking statements. I told them what I knew, what I had seen. They took my name, promising further questions when the authorities arrived, advised me not to leave the hotel before then. The dead man’s room was sealed. People drifted back to the party downstairs, an added air of nervousness now tainting their conversations.
Back in my room, I stood over the sink and washed the dust from my eyes. The water ran orange, the colour of the storm outside. I thought again of my assailant, knew that there was no way I could have distinguished the wearer. The chameleon suit had done its job only too thoroughly.

At 03:30 I was woken by my silent alarm. Outside, I could hear the sand rushing up against the walls like sparrows, like a million tiny claws working away at the walls. Winds rose, buffeting the shutters.
Quickly and quietly I slipped on some clothes and made my way down to the lobby. The party was over now. Drunken forms littered the darkness, sleeping in most cases where they had fallen. Their sounds were submarine noises in the dark. The air down here was murky with dust that had found its way inside, spiced with the tang of alcohol.
At the bar, things had obviously got out of hand. The crunch of glass under foot told me everything I needed to know about the rest of the night’s events. I picked my way through the gloom, careful not to waken any of the sleepers, and headed down into the cellar.
They had left the body resting on a mattress. Aside from this, the cellar was empty. This alone struck me as curious. Usually, when Unionists were laid out in this way they were accompanied by an honour guard of one or two tribal members, sentries who’s job, whilst primarily ceremonial, was to make sure that nobody interfered with the body. Perhaps in this case the deceased was a member of a rival tribe, or as was more likely the case, an outcast.
I lifted the man’s sleeves looking for the tattoos I had glimpsed earlier, but found only scars. Evidently the tribal markings had once been there, but now they were criss-crossed with a harlequin pattern of raised welts and swellings. I wondered if this act of disassociation had been self-administered, or if it had in fact been some form of unusual punishment. Tribal expulsion wasn’t exactly rare, but stripping a man of his markings was a more permanent act of ostracism, one that made sure he would never find sanctuary in the embrace of a rival Union.
I started going through his accoutrements. I didn’t shock me to find that he carried no identification. More and more I was beginning to fix in my mind the impression of this man as a refugee, an exile.
I checked his jacket pocket and noticed a band around his neck, a length of black leather cord. I retrieved it, amazed that nobody had done so already. Tied to the end was a key, heat stamped with a single number, his hotel room key.

I let myself into the room on the second floor and closed the door behind me, making sure that nobody had followed from below. I left the light off, not wanting to alert anyone who might be passing by outside, no matter how unlikely given the weather.
The room was stuffy, still hot from the day, musty from the storm and fact that it had been shuttered since the middle of the afternoon. The light from the street lamps outside was more than enough for me to see my way around. Orange blades sliced in through the shutter slats, casting the wooden furniture and fittings in a fire glow, capturing dust motes as they drifted upon the dead air.
There didn’t appear to be anything out of place. Whoever he was, he had been travelling lightly. One small travel-sack rested at the foot of the bed. It contained only two pairs of clothes and beneath, a coolant suit, neatly folded, recently used. The recesses of the pump unit were choked with sand. He had obviously arrived at the hotel after I had, once the storm had begun in earnest.
The drawers in the bedside table were empty, as was the en-suite bathroom. Evidently, the travel bag and the clothes that he had died in were all he had brought with him.
With the vague sensation that I was pushing my luck, I turned to leave. My eyes fell upon the mattress, lingered over something that protruded there, half hidden by the fold of the sheet. I retrieved it, took it over to the light.
It was a small box, evidently an item of importance, made of black wood and inlayed with a complex pattern finished in oyster shell or Calcine. Something inside quivered, feathery like the coiled potential of clock springs. I turned it over, saw the switches, the dialogue panels that stretched around three sides, realised at once that I was holding a Restraint box. Now at least I could begin to speculate as to why the dead man in the cellar had been travelling alone.

Back in my room, I checked that the Restraint’s readings were correct, then placed it on the bedside table. Nothing happened. No sound emanated from the dialogue panel, although I got the distinct impression that there was something there, the ghost of a sound perhaps, a whisper or the sharp intake of a breathe behind the dust filter.
“I’m assuming that you’re not an A.I,” I said, “neither do you appear to be a Construct intelligence. Restraints aren’t built with that capability.”
No response. Perhaps the box was broken. Perhaps the dead man had damaged it in some way. There would be no way to tell without opening it up, something that went above my technical knowledge.
I got up, went to the bureaux, poured myself a drink, made a show of carrying on with my routine. This, finally, elicited a response.
“You’re going to regret what you have done this night.” The voice was female, a surprise, sensuous and languorous, given an electronic timbre by the box, a metallic distance.
“So you are functional?” I said, “Do you have visual capability or is it just an audio in there?”
A light on the top of the unit flickered, instantly illuminating the room with its soft, blue, glow. A holographic image slowly unfolded, unwrapping upon the air like a genie, a curl of smoke, a vapour, twirling and eddying until it assumed what I recognised to be the shape of a young woman, dressed in a traditional tribal wrap-around. Although she could still be considered beautiful, the playback was obviously old. Distortion had crept in. Rogue holoforms flickered in and out of view, a remnant perhaps of the Restraint’s previous tenant.
“The Blue Lady?” I said.
“My name is Lady Sarasa May.”
“And you’re a Cryolin.”
“A name I have not heard for a very long time.”
“You’re the first I’ve had the honour to encounter. When were you interred?”
“My memory serves the last one hundred and fifty years.”
“A long termer. And in the tradition of Cryolin method, your body was placed in cold storage whilst your mind was transferred into this Restraint?”
“A punishment to fit the crime, or so the thinking goes.”
With the kind of grim fascination that a person could hold for an instrument of oppression, I had to marvel at the technology. At over a century old, the Restraint appeared in perfect working order, regardless of the morality behind its purpose. How the Lady Sarasa’s mind had held up though, was something that remained to be seen.
“Who was the man carrying you?”
“A trusted assistant. I am under no obligation to answer your questions, Sam”
“You know my name?”
“Of course. I referenced the hotel systems when we arrived, saw your name, recognised it immediately. Tell me, do you still hold a candle for failed causes?”
I smiled, knew what she was inferring, recognised the question for what it was, a barbed comment on the state of the Government Construct programme. Her attitude was typically Unionist in that respect.
“Your man died in my arms?” I said. “He entrusted you into my care. Your name was the last thing he uttered.”
There was a pause from the box.
“Cal Romano.” It was a lament of sorts. Certainly it sounded sincere, although with the absence of readable body language, other than that provided by the hologram, there was no way to tell if it had been rehearsed, a programmed response or something deeper.
“Which tribe are you from?” I said.
“It matters not where I am from, where I call home, to whom I owe allegiance. I am stateless. I have no tribal commitment.”
“Which would explain why you were travelling alone, without honour guard or retinue.” It was a statement of fact rather than a question. “That is why your man is currently laying in state below us, with nobody to look over him.”
“Not all tribes require twenty four hour watch over the deceased.”
“Still, I imagine a hotel basement wasn’t quite what he had in mind.”
The shutters rattled in the squall. A curtain of dust fell from the ceiling, gracing the hologram’s fine features, glistening like a collection of stars. The Blue Lady flickered, then stabilised.
‘Tell me about Cal, “ I said, “He was exiled?”
“What would make you say such a thing?”
“I inspected his body.”
“You seem to be working up quite a head of disrespect.”
“There was no disrespect involved. If you want to accuse anybody, accuse those who thought it best to dump his body, unguarded, on an old mattress.”
The Lady turned her face away, obviously unused to being spoken to in such an impertinent manner.
“Why were you running?”
“Who said anything about running?”
“You must know that you will be hunted?”
A laugh, or as close an approximation as the box allowed, emanated from the speaker grille.
“It was my Union who forced me out. All this time, I have been hopeful of a reunion with my other self, a reconnection with my body. But now I find that it is not to be. It will never happen. I will always be a prisoner, a spirit, a cold wind in an empty box. That is why you find me helpless like this, in the depths of my own self imposed exile.”
I frowned. “What are you saying?”
“Cryolin method demands that the body be placed into cryogenic freeze after execution. The mind is surgically inserted into a Restraint to wait upon a day when the body might be reanimated. Three months ago I learned that my Union chose not to complete the freezing stage. Instead, without my knowledge, they had my body mummified as a holy relic. For the past one hundred and fifty years they have been parading it around, taking it out to the towns of the faithful, showing it off like some curio, like some little leathery mannequin. Can you even imagine your body being reduced to little more than a spectacle, to little more than scrapple? Can you imagine your bones slowly crumbling to dust and not only knowing, but being forced to confront that fact every day of your god-forsaken, existence?”
I remained silent, unsure whether to cry or laugh at the absurdity of the situation. Here was a woman, influential and no doubt powerful in her lifetime, who had been reduced through punishment to nothing more than an inconsequential voice in a box, a diminutive scolding toy, wheeled out to entertain the crowds; a curio indeed.
“So you’ve declared independence from your tribe?” I said, “An act punishable in itself.”
“I have been a prisoner for too long. I yearn for freedom. With the destruction of my body that freedom is no longer a viable option. I must settle for the freedom that comes with death. Cal was the only person willing to help me, the only person who could have organised what was necessary.”
“He had to,” I said, “He had no other choice. They removed his tattoos, destroyed them with scars. There was nowhere for him to go. No tribe would have accepted a man with such a past.”
“He knew what he was getting into. He knew what the consequences would be if we were caught.”
“Wait, are you saying that Cal was killed by his own Union? Is that what happened?”
There was a moment of silence from the box, an affirmative answer if ever there was one. A question had been playing on my mind. Now it seemed more imperative than ever.
“Who were you before?” I said, “There must have been a reason for what they did.”
“Has there ever been a reason strong enough to justify this, to rationalize my internment?” The hologram looked away. “I was a Bio-tect,” she continued, “a dignitary yes, but also a scientist. I designed life, structured the organic, shaped it into something more than what nature alone could achieve, made it into art, living art. This was the reason for my incarceration. Intellectual thought nourishes public opinion. Those who had endorsed my work turned against me, denounced the artificial as abomination, turned against all that we had achieved.”
“And the Restruct riots followed.” I said.
“My work was denigrated. I went on the run, sheltered by a close circle of advisors and trusted associates, eventually betrayed by those very same people, dragged back to the territories of my tribe and in a fitting move, incarcerated within this Restraint, a device more suited to failed experiments, life studies gone awry.”
“I don’t understand why your case warranted such drastic action.” I said, “Why punish you at all? Other Bio-tects were sanctioned, forced to find other outlets for their creative skills, but never punished, never publicly admonished. What made your case stand out? What were you involved in?”
“Sedition. That was what they charged me with, a betrayal of Unionist Construct policies.”
I had to remind myself that for the Unions, the Construct cause had always been about power. Terrible actions were only ever carried out in the name of similar causes.
“Quite simply, the Unions regarded the production of life as a gift,” she continued, “a privilege that applied only to them, that somehow elevated them above Government, above those they saw as a loose conglomeration of argumentative fools.
I was part of a group of Union scientists who thought that the Construct could become something more, a way to fix our broken society perhaps, of drawing back together the two disparate halves of what we had become. Quite simply, we saw them as an intermediary, something that could ground us, stop us from drifting further apart.”
“And they punished you for it?”
“We dared to suggest that the Construct could be handed autonomy, that an intelligent being, regardless of provenance, deserved the freedom to think for itself. We should have foreseen that there were those who could only see that as a threat.”
“Small minded men cling on to power in the ways that small minded men have always done.” I said.
“Only I didn’t believe that my Union had such men in its midst until it was too late.”
It was hard to take in. I was used to the usual tribal reticence when talking about the past, about the Construct programmes, about anything that mattered. Talking to the Lady Sarasa was like opening the windows in a long shuttered room, if it was all true that is. There was no way I could tell, not without independent verification, not without consulting the archive in Babel. Her records would undoubtedly be there.
“My achievements were many.” She continued, “Three species of intelligent Construct, two restructed varieties of wild bird, one Madagascar variant Objet d’art, the Watchmen. And more, Sam, more strange and bizarre forms of life than you could imagine.”
“The Watchmen,” I said, “Your design?”
“My idea. Others encoded D.N.A, scribed cognisance patterns.”
I wanted to ask her then, wanted to quiz her on the burning questions that had rested inside me like hot stones in my stomach, wanted to ask her about the message, about the circle divided into three parts that I saw when I closed my eyes each night, about whether that strange and premature attempt at communication on the reserve had been a planned act all along, encoded at the Biology House, or something learned, something evolved. I held my tongue. There was still no certainty that the Unions knew what had happened to me that afternoon, when something within those towers had reached out and touched my mind. Although an exile, the Lady Sarasa was still connected, could still use such information as a bargaining tool amongst her tribal elders, amongst those parties who were interested in regaining possession of her.
“What do you plan to do now your aide is dead?” I said. I hardly expected the Lady to reveal her plans to me, but the answer I got was startling in its indifference.
“Cal’s death changes nothing. He will be repatriated.”
I couldn’t help but wonder if she had chosen that word deliberately, that aggressive word, one that despite its apparent optimism still possessed a certain degree of ambiguity. “My plans remain unaffected.”
I didn’t know why I hadn’t realised it before. Cal, although probably a perfectly capable assistant, was more than likely not the man that a person of the Lady Sarasa’s standing would have placed their complete trust in. The man had been excommunicated after-all, and despite the fact that the Lady was following a similar path, experience told me that old prejudices always gained the upper hand.
“There is somebody else you can rely on.“
No answers came. I got the distinct impression that the entity residing in that strange and exquisite box was sulking, refusing to cooperate now that it had revealed something of the truth.
“I interrupted them.” I said. “Your Union weren’t even involved. They didn’t even know you were here. You arranged to have someone steal you away, someone you could trust to help you disappear completely. Only they went further than you anticipated.”
“You cannot possibly know the truth,” the Lady began, “A man of your position would do well to watch what he says.”
I felt cheated. She had almost had me feeling sorry for her, feeding me the horror story of her life, telling me the things I wanted to hear about the Watchmen.
“Was murder part of your plan all along or did Cal put up too much of a fight? Was there even a place for him afterwards or was he simply a means for you to get from A to B?”
I didn’t like to gloat, didn’t like the sound the words made as they escaped my lips, but a man had died and the Lady Sarasa, despite possessing all the experience and nobility that one hundred and fifty years could endow, sounded suspiciously uninterested.
“Your powers of deduction bear no equal.” She hissed. The voice came out cold and scathing, and I knew that I had hit a nerve, if such a thing could be said to have existed within that strange and arcane piece of technology.
“Who was it?” I said, “Who did you contact, a rival tribe? A disaffected Union?”
The answer came in a whisper, almost inaudible beneath the white noise of the storm outside.
“The Smiling Man.”
“Privateers.” I hissed. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It had been a long time since I had heard that name mentioned, a long time indeed since his group had shown their faces among the Coastal Towns.
“You know he only operates for himself?” I said, “There is no honour among thieves. What they take, they keep, and what they don’t keep they sell to the highest bidder. I imagine your Restraint would fetch quite a high price. How much would your Union be willing to pay for your safe return?”
“The Smiling Man has operated under their noses for over decade. The only thing liable to fetch a higher price among the Unions than my Restraint would be his head. That is why I requested his assistance in the first place. He was the only man, who given the circumstances, I could afford a modicum of trust.”
I had to marvel at her superciliousness, at her capacity for self-delusion, but however strange it sounded, she was right. The Smiling Man had been a small yet remarkably persistent thorn in the side of the Unions for years. He had no shortage of enemies amongst the tribes. So successful was he at evading surveillance that there had even been claims that he was under Government protection, operating as some kind of officially sanctioned pirate like Sir Walter Raleigh or Richard Grenville. Such claims ignored the long list of attacks that his group had carried out on Government assets.
“The man who attacked me.” I said, “One of his operatives?”
The hologram nodded.
“If you craved death, why didn’t you just have Cal destroy the Restraint, why bother to run at all?”
Again, the box remained silent, unable or perhaps unwilling to answer the question.
“It would be easy if my mind was the only thing that I wished to destroy?” she said.
It hit me then. Death of mind was one thing, but there was still one thing left in the world that I was beginning to believe the Lady Sarasa would want finished above all else: the sad and tattered remnants of her body.
“So you’ve arranged for the Smiling Man to steal your body?”
The silence from the box told me all that I needed to know, that my guess had been correct.
“My Union have persisted in the veneration of my remains for too long. If I am to die, then my death must be as complete as possible. I must be allowed to rest.”
There was an element to that that I could understand. What was it that she was actually demanding, money, riches, recognition? No, the Lady Sarasa’s dreams were of a far more mercurial nature. She was a woman out of body and out of time, stranded, surrounded by people who were too far removed from those who had originally passed judgement on her.
Despite my sympathy for her predicament, I couldn’t reconcile the facts of what she had done, of how she had put her plan into effect. There was still a body in the basement, betrayed and then abandoned by the machinations of an entity that he had come to trust. There was still a storm that howled its gales outside, making itself known with a television static, whisper. The warning sleeves were silent now, unable to handle the high winds that would be filling them, straining them against their rigging.
“Once the storm has passed,” I said, “I’m turning you in. The Jamenta authorities will want to speak to you.”
The Lady Sarasa’s holographic features expressed no look of surprise. In fact, her expression remained unchanged.
“You may choose to do what you may choose to do.”
I was beginning to tire of the Lady’s figures of speech.
“Before this night is out, you will have a choice to make.” She continued, “If I were to tell you that there was a reason for Cal and I to check into this particular hotel, during this particular dust storm, you would feel compelled to listen, your ears would prick up with anticipation.”
“I would have to be convinced that you were telling the truth first.” I said.
“My body is here, in this hotel, in room 43 to be precise.” She paused, just to let that little piece of information sink in, to find its mark.
“A tribal missionary travelling under the banner of my Union is currently ensconced in a room on the floor above us. The Smiling Man will make an appearance before dawn. Even the storm cannot stop that which is inevitable.”
“Then you will be responsible for a second death,” I said, “The Smiling Man will not leave a witness. He cannot afford to let your missionary live. The fact of his continued presence among the Coastal Towns will be common knowledge. And you will be party to it, you will have organised it.”
I didn’t expect any great revelation from the Lady Sarasa, didn’t expect an instant conversion or a sudden realisation of what she had done. What I heard instead chilled me as though a frost had suddenly settled upon the room.
“So it will be.”
I forgot for a moment, the storm outside, the body in the cellar, the fact that until this evening my stay at the hotel had been uneventful, an inconvenience more than anything else. I got up, paced the room, almost threw the Restraint against the wall there and then, but stopped myself, aware that I could not possibly have been responsible for the Lady Sarasa’s death. Her Union would certainly demand restitution, and who knew what form that would take.
“The way I see it, you have two choices.” The box began again, “You can either stay here with me, keep me safe until the authorities arrive, or you can leave and attempt to save the man in the room above, warn him of the mortal danger he faces. Be aware though, just as certainly as the Smiling Man will have his way eventually, you will not find me here when you return.”
“What’s to stop me from taking you with me?” I said.
“There is a message waiting in the hotel’s comm system, something I concealed earlier, a little package intended as a last testimony naming he who takes me against my will. All I need to do to activate it is send a signal on a specific radio frequency, something that this Restraint is more than capable of doing.”
“I could destroy you now, throw you out into the storm. Perhaps that is all you deserve.”
“Perhaps. But you have a choice to make and only a finite amount of time to make it in, so tell me, what decision will you take?”
I stood by the door, torn inside. The hologram stared at me, a look of knowing, of sheer cold-blooded planning, in its transparent eyes.
I made the decision, and slipped out of the door.

The halls on the fourth floor were awash with a full palette of storm colours. The lights flickered with every gust. The weather felt more immediate up here, the roof more massive, a vast lid holding back the worst. It cut into the corridor at odd angles forming obstacles that stuck out like cathedral buttresses. The effect was mildly unnerving, although no more unnerving than the distinct impression that I was on my way to discover another body. The wind shuddered past like a juggernaut. Something above, the empty space of the attic perhaps, trembled as it passed.
I knocked on the door to room 43 but received no answer.
I waited, then tried the handle. The door was unlocked. I didn’t need to switch the light on to realise that I was already too late.
By the light of the streetlamps I could see the missionary’s prone form, still in bed. He was quite dead. It didn’t appear as though he had even had time to confront his attacker. There was blood on the sheets, already brown, already dry. There seemed little point in a closer examination. This had obviously happened hours ago. I had probably been too late even before the Lady Sarasa had chosen to reveal her strategy. I almost turned away in disgust, ready to go back downstairs and carry out my threat regardless of the consequences, but there was one more thing that I needed to check, a suspicion that had been nagging away at me all evening.
I found the reliquary still laying where the Smiling Man had discarded it, a wooden box, inlaid with ivory and gold. It was smaller than I had imagined, although I soon realised why.
It was difficult not to laugh when I looked into that little wooden container. In a way I must have known all along, or at least suspected. I was reminded of the old medieval tales, where even the smallest scraps of saintly bones were said to have retained their divine properties. Holy relics indeed. This too contained a relic of sorts, but only in the truest sense of the word. Of the Lady Sarasa, only three scraps of bone remained, browned and pitted to resemble petrified shards of varnish stained wood. None of them were more than three inches long. I could almost picture what had happened, almost imagine her tribe dragging her body around until it had fallen to pieces, or trading the individual parts, scrap by precious scrap for land rights, territorial permissions, the trappings of power that such things could procure. And all the while the Lady Sarasa, imprisoned in her Restraint and going slowly insane, had been fixated on the past, on the remnants of what had been, on a version of herself that had ceased to exist almost as soon as her transformation had been complete.
I closed the lid, replaced the clasp, only too aware of the tragedy that had unfolded here. The tribal missionary had been murdered for little more than scrapple, as the Lady herself had so eloquently put it. She had misled us all. I could imagine too the Smiling Man’s rage upon discovering that he had been deceived. I was only surprised that he hadn’t destroyed the box.

True to her final words, the Lady Sarasa was nowhere to be found when I finally returned to my room. Whoever had been in had obviously been watching my door, waiting until I had left, preferring anything other than a direct confrontation, fearful of damaging the Restraint, the one thing that could still prove useful. Obviously, upon discovering that he had been had, the Smiling Man had fallen back on a secondary plan, still able to take possession of the Restraint and its manipulative occupier. I wondered then if it had all been a giant ruse, a Unionist plan to draw the Smiling Man out into the open, to trap him into a position where the Unions had the upper hand. If so, it had failed spectacularly. Two people were dead the Lady Sarasa, the bait herself, was lost. I dreaded to think of what fate the Smiling Man would invent for her.