Finch
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Finch

A thrilling standalone from the Author of 'Annihilation'

Jeff VanderMeer

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eBook - ePub

Finch

A thrilling standalone from the Author of 'Annihilation'

Jeff VanderMeer

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About This Book

From the Author of Annihilation, now a major Film adaptation starring Natalie Portman. Shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award, the Nebula Award and the Locus Award. AMBERGRIS: 239 Manzikert Avenue, Apartment 525. Two dead bodies lie on a dusty floor. One corpse is cut in half, the other is utterly unmarked. Only one is human. Ambergris is occupied, ruined and rotting. Its buildings are crumbling, or mutating into moist and hostile new life forms. The population is brought to its knees by narcotics, detention camps and arbitrary acts of terror. And for motives unknown, the new masters of the city want this bizarre case closed. Now. With no leads and one week to conclude his investigation, Detective John Finch is about to find himself in the cross-hairs of every spy, rebel, informer and traitor in town. And what he discovers will change Ambergris forever...

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Information

Publisher
Corvus
Year
2011
ISBN
9780857893574

CONTENTS

MONDAY
1
2
3
4
5
6
TUESDAY
1
2
3
4
5
WEDNESDAY
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
THURSDAY
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
FRIDAY
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
SATURDAY
1
2
3
4
5
SUNDAY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE BOOK

MONDAY

Interrogator: What did you see then?
Finch: Nothing. I couldnā€™t see anything.
I: Wrong answer.
[howls and screams and sobbing]
I: Had you ever met the Lady in Blue before?
F: No, but Iā€™d heard her before.
I: Heard her where?
F: On the fucking radio station, thatā€™s where.
[garbled comment, not picked up]
F: Itā€™s her voice. Coming up from the underground. People say.
I: So what did you see, Finch?
F: Just the stars. Stars. It was night.
I: I can ask you this same question for hours, Finch.
F: You wanted me to say I saw her. I said I saw her! I said it, damn you.
I: There is no Lady in Blue. Sheā€™s just a propaganda myth from the rebels.
F: I saw her. On the hill. Under the stars.
I: What did this apparition say to you, Finch? What did this vision say?

1

Finch, at the apartment door, breathing heavy from five flights of stairs, taken fast. The message thatā€™d brought him from the station was already dying in his hand. Red smear on a limp circle of green fungal paper that had minutes before squirmed clammy. Now he had only the door to pass through, marked with the gray capsā€™ symbol.
239 Manzikert Avenue, apartment 525.
An act of will, crossing that divide. Always. Reached for his gun, then changed his mind. Some days were worse than others.
A sudden flash of his partner Wyte, telling him he was compromised, him replying, ā€œI donā€™t have an opinion on that.ā€ Written on a wall at a crime scene: Everyoneā€™s a collaborator. Everyoneā€™s a rebel. The truth in the weight of each.
The doorknob cold but grainy. The left side rough with light green fungus.
Sweating under his jacket, through his shirt. Boots heavy on his feet.
Always a point of no return, and yet he kept returning.
I am not a detective. I am not a detective.
Inside, a tall, pale man dressed in black stood halfway down the hall, staring into a doorway. Beyond him, a dark room. A worn bed. White sheets dull in the shadow. Didnā€™t look like anyone had slept there in months. Dusty floor. Even before heā€™d started seeing Sintra, his place hadnā€™t looked this bad.
The Partial turned and saw Finch. ā€œNothing in that room, Finch. Itā€™s all in here.ā€ He pointed into the doorway. Light shone out, caught the dark glitter of the Partialā€™s skin where tiny fruiting bodies had taken hold. Uncanny left eye in a gaunt face. Always twitching. Moving at odd angles. Pupil a glimmer of blue light at the bottom of a dark well. Fungal.
ā€œWho are you?ā€ Finch asked.
The Partial frowned. ā€œIā€™mā€”ā€
Finch brushed by the man without listening, got pleasure out of the push of his shoulder into the Partialā€™s chest. The Partial, smelling like sweet rotting meat, walked in behind him.
Everything was golden, calm, unknowable.
Then Finchā€™s eyes adjusted to the light from the large window and he saw: living room, kitchen. A sofa. Two wooden chairs. A small table, an empty vase with a rose design. Two bodies lying on the pull rug next to the sofa. One man, one gray cap without legs.
Finchā€™s boss Heretic stood framed by the window. Wearing his familiar gray robes and gray hat. Finch had never learned the creatureā€™s real name. The series of clicks and whistles sounded like ā€œheclereticalicā€ so Finch called him ā€œHeretic.ā€ Highly unusual to see Heretic during the day.
ā€œFinch,ā€ Heretic said. ā€œWhereā€™s Wyte?ā€ The wetness of its moist glottal attempt at speech made most humans uncomfortable. Finch tried hard to pretend the ends of all the words were there. A skill hard learned.
ā€œWyte couldnā€™t come. Heā€™s busy.ā€
Heretic stared at Finch. A question in his eyes. Finch looked to the side. Away from the liquid green pupils and yellow where there should be white. Wyte had been sick off and on for a long time. Finch knew from what, but didnā€™t want to. Didnā€™t want to get into it with Heretic.
ā€œWhatā€™s the situation?ā€ Finch asked.
Heretic smiled: rows and rows of needle lines set into a face a little like a squished-in sharkā€™s snout. Finch couldnā€™t tell if the lines were gills or teeth, but they seemed to flutter and breathe a little. Wyte said heā€™d seen tiny creatures in there, once. Each time, a new nightmare. Another encounter to haunt Finchā€™s sleep.
ā€œTwo dead bodies,ā€ Heretic said.
ā€œTwo bodies?ā€
ā€œOne and a half, technically,ā€ the Partial said, from behind Finch.
Heretic laughed. A sound like dogs being strangled.
ā€œDid the victims live in the apartment?ā€ Finch asked, knowing the answer already.
ā€œNo,ā€ the Partial said. ā€œThey didnā€™t.ā€
Finch turned briefly toward the Partial, then back to Heretic.
Heretic stared at the Partial and he shut up, began to creep around the living room taking pictures with his eye.
ā€œNo one lived here,ā€ Heretic said. ā€œAccording to our records no one has lived here for over a year.ā€
ā€œInteresting,ā€ Finch said. Didnā€™t interest him. Nothing interested him. It bothered him. Especially that the Partial felt comfortable enough to answer a question meant for Heretic.
The curtains had faded from the sun. Tears in the sofa like knife wounds. The vase looked like someone had started a small fire inside it. Stage props for two deaths.
Was it significant that the window was open? For some reason he didnā€™t want to ask if one of them had opened it. Fresh air, with just a hint of the salt smell from the bay.
ā€œWho reported this?ā€ Finch asked.
ā€œAn energy surge came from this location,ā€ Heretic said. ā€œWe felt it. Then spore cameras confirmed it.ā€
Energy surge? What kind of energy?
Finch tried to imagine the rows and rows of living receivers underground, miles of them if rumor held true. Trying to process trillions of images from all over the city. How could they possibly keep up? The hope of every citizen.
ā€œDo you know the . . . source?ā€ Finch asked. Didnā€™t know if he understood what Heretic was telling him.
ā€œThere is no trace of it now. The apartment is cold. There are just these bodies.ā€
ā€œHow does that help me?ā€ he wanted to say.
Finch usually dealt with theft, domestic abuse, illegal gatherings. Flirted with investigating rebel activity, but turned that over to the Partials if necessary. Tried to make sure it wasnā€™t necessary. For everyoneā€™s sake.
Murder only if it was the usual. Crimes of passion. Revenge. This didnā€™t look like either. If it was murder.
ā€œAnyone live in the apartments next door?ā€
ā€œNot any more,ā€ the Partial replied. ā€œThey all left, oddly enough, soon after these two . . . arrived.ā€
ā€œWhich means they made a sound.ā€ Or sounds.
ā€œIā€™ll interrogate anyone left in the building after we finish here,ā€ the Partial said.
What a pleasure thatā€™ll be for them.
Still, Finch didnā€™t volunteer to do it. Not yet. Maybe after. Not much worse than door-to-door interviews in unfriendly places. Many didnā€™t believe his job should exist.
ā€œWhat do you think, Finch?ā€ Heretic asked. Just a hint of mischief in that voice. Laced with it. Just enough to catch the nuance.
I think I just walked in the door a few minutes ago.
The bodies lay next to each other, beside the sofa.
Finch frowned. ā€œIā€™ve never seen anything quite like it.ā€
The man lay on his side, left hand stretched out toward the gray capā€™s hand. The gray cap lay facedown, arms flopped out at right angles.
ā€œMight be a foreigner. From the clothes.ā€
The man couldā€™ve been forty-five or fifty, with dark brown hair, dark eyebrows, and a beard that appeared to be made from tendrils of fungus. That wasnā€™t unusual. But his clothes were. He wore a blue shirt long out of fashion. Strange, tight-fitting long pants. Dirty black boots.
ā€œHeā€™s not from the city,ā€ Heretic said. Again, an inflection that bothered Finch. A statement or a question?
Whatā€™s on his mind?
Finch squatted beside the bodies. Took out his useless pen and his useless pad of paper. Above him, the Partial leaned over to take a picture.
The dead gray cap looked like every other gray cap. Except for the one glaring lack.
ā€œI donā€™t know what caused the injury to the other one, sir.ā€
I donā€™t know what caused the leg situation.
ā€œWhen we find out,ā€ Heretic said, ā€œwe will be just as understated.ā€
The exposed cross section, cut almost precisely at the waist, fascinated Finch. He almost forgot himself, poked at the tissue with his pen.
The cut had been so clean, so precise, that there was no tearing. No hemorrhaging. Finch could see layers. Gray. Yellow. Green. A core of dark red. (A question he was too cautious to ask: Was it always that dark, or only in death?) Within the core, Finch saw a hint of organs.
ā€œIs this . . . normal?ā€ Finch asked Heretic.
ā€œNormal?ā€
ā€œThe lack of blood, I mean, sir,ā€ Finch said.
Gray caps bled. Finch knew that. Not like a stream or a gout, even when you cut them deep, but a steady drip from a leaky faucet. Puncture wounds healed almost immediately. It took a long time and a lot of patience to kill a gray cap.
ā€œNo, itā€™s not normal.ā€ The humid weight of Heretic was at his side now. A smell like garbage and burnt glass. Made him nauseous.
ā€œNone of this is normal,ā€ the Partial ventured. Ignored.
Finch looked up at Heretic. From that angle: the pale wattled skin of Hereticā€™s long throat.
ā€œDo you know who . . .ā€ Finch hesitated. Gray caps didnā€™t like being called ā€œgray caps,ā€ but Finch couldnā€™t pronounce the word they did use. Farseneeni or fanaarcensitii? The Partial circled them, blinking pictures through his fungal eye.
ā€œDo you know who that is?ā€ Finch said finally, pointing at the dead gray cap.
Heretic made a sound like something popping. ā€œNo. Not familiar to us. We cannot see him,ā€ and Finch understood he meant something other than just looking out a window.
ā€œHave you . . . ?ā€ Couldnā€™t say the whole sentence. Too ridiculous. Terrifying. At the same time. Have you eaten some of his flesh and picked clean the memories?
But Heretic had been around humans long enough to know what he meant. ā€œWe tried it. Nothing that made sense.ā€
For a second, Finch relaxed. Forgot Heretic could send him, Sintra, anybody he knew, to the work camps.
ā€œIf you couldnā€™t decipher it, how will I?ā€
Then went stiff. Richard Dorn, a good detective, had questioned Heretic too closely. Nine months to die.
A bullet to the head. In that case.
But the gray cap said only, ā€œWith your fresh eyes, maybe you will have better luck.ā€
Heretic pulled a pouch out of his robes, opened it. Finch rose, stood to the side as Heretic sprinkled a fine green powder over both bodies. Couldā€™ve done it using his own supply, but Heretic enjoyed doing it. For some reason.
ā€œYou know what to do,ā€ Heretic said.
In time, a memory bulb would emerge from both corpsesā€™ heads. Did the fanaarcensitii rely too much on what made them comfortable? No autopsies, just mushrooms. But also hardly any experts left to perform them.
Nausea crept back into Finchā€™s throat. ā€œBut Iā€™ve never. Not a gray cap. I mean, not one of your people.ā€
ā€œWe donā€™t bite.ā€ The grin on that impossible face grew wide and wider. The laughter again, worse.
Finch laughed back, weakly.
ā€œWrite down whatever you encounter, whether you understand it or not.ā€
Mercifully, ...

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