Chapter 43: Ribbon
Fred was the second to speak after the broadcast ended.
"If this is legitimate—" He stopped. Started again. "Six nations. That's not a regional arrangement. That's a restructuring of how enforcement works across a significant portion of the world's GDP."
"The US alone," Emma said. She was still sitting very still. "How does something like this get agreed to without — there would have been votes, hearings, public record—"
"There would apparently have been congressmen who tried," Fred said quietly. "You heard what the broadcast said about compliance guidelines already being active. This wasn't decided last week."
Emma looked at her band screen. The tournament interface had returned, the Laughing Kid's grinning face sitting there with complete indifference to what had just played through the speaker.
"Is this real," she said again. More to herself than either of them.
Leon had not said anything. He was sitting against the timber wall with his band resting on his knee, looking at nothing specific. Emma glanced at him. He looked the way people look when something is too large to process through the usual channels — not blank exactly, just suspended.
"Leon," she said.
He didn't respond immediately.
Then he put his hand to his head.
It was sudden enough that both Emma and Fred noticed the change before he said anything — the way he shifted, the hand going up, the quality of stillness that replaced the earlier suspension. It didn’t look good.
"Hey—" Fred started.
Leon slid sideways and went down.
Emma was on her knees beside him in seconds. "Leon." She put her hand on his shoulder. "Leon."
His eyes were closed. Breathing, she could see that, but completely unresponsive. Fred had moved to the other side, checking his pulse with two fingers against his wrist.
"He's got a pulse," Fred said. "Strong enough."
"Leon." Emma's voice had gone tight. She shook his shoulder once. Nothing. "What just happened, he was fine, he was just—"
Fred looked at the band on Leon's wrist. The display was unchanged. No medical alert. No extraction signal.
"We need to decide fast," Fred said. "If he doesn't come around in the next few minutes we should consider forfeiting and calling for extraction."
Emma looked at Leon's face. The cost of forfeiting was significant — the CPP penalty, the locked registration amount surrendered, everything they'd been running for since that morning. She was already calculating it and hating that she was calculating it at the same time.
“ Lay him down flat and splash some water on his face, if he still doesn’t wake up, I’ll forfeit”
The graveyard had no weather.
No wind, no light source that Leon could identify, just a flat grey illumination that came from everywhere and nowhere and made everything look like it had been pressed flat. Headstones in rows, irregular spacing, some leaning. Ribbons on each grave — draped over the stones, some tied, some just resting.
The two figures were already there when Leon arrived.
He recognised the first one immediately. Three hands — two on the left, one on the right. The right hand's index finger had a ribbon tied around it, the knot elaborate and tight. He could see the name written along the ribbon's length now, small and precise like handwriting from a long time ago.
Lucas Clomen.
The name landed with a weight he hadn't expected. He knew that name. He knew it from a corridor on a private island six years ago, from the sound of something cracking wrong, from a nightmare that had come back intermittently ever since. The memory arrived all at once but he suppressed it this time.
The second figure was identical in form — three hands, same proportions, same posture. But its right hand's finger was bare. No ribbon.
It was standing over a particular grave, and it was reaching down.
Leon watched it pick up the ribbon from that headstone. Two left hands working together, lifting it carefully. He could see writing on this one too.
Harry Davies.
He didn't know that name. He didn't know why that made it worse.
The second figure held the ribbon up, examining it the way someone examines a thing before doing something permanent with it. It began moving the ribbon toward its right hand's finger, both left hands working the knot.
Something turned over in Leon's chest. He couldn't have explained it if asked. It wasn't logic. It was closer to the feeling of watching someone reach toward a stove and knowing the element is on.
Leon moved impulsively.
He crossed the distance and grabbed the ribbon with both hands and pulled.
The figure didn't let go immediately. The ribbon stretched, then tore — a clean diagonal rip leaving each of them holding a piece.
The figure turned.
It had no lips. The skin where the mouth should have been was smooth and uninterrupted, like something had been removed rather than simply absent. Its eyes were gone too — the sockets occupied instead by the continuous slow movement of tears tracking down over blank skin, running without source or stopping.
When it spoke the voice came from somewhere that wasn't a mouth, distributed and wrong, like hearing something through water.
...hath the Aether... chosen defiance... against the will of his master...
The sound fractured between words.
...to obstruct this death... is to stand against Iris's design... you who are bound... know the place you occupy...
It looked at him.
Leon woke up.
The first thing he registered was Emma's face about thirty centimeters from his, and the expression on it, which was not one he'd seen from her before.
"There you are," she said. The relief in it was audible.
He was on his back in the hollow. Fred was to his left, also looking at him with an attention that suggested the last few seconds had not been calm ones.
Leon pushed himself up to sitting. His head felt like something inside it was settling back into place after being briefly displaced.
"How long," he said.
"Not long," Fred said. " around two minutes. We were about to forfeit."
Leon looked at Emma. She looked back at him steadily and didn't say anything, which told him she had genuinely been considering it.
"I'm fine," he said.
"You fainted," Emma said.
"I know."
"People who are fine don't faint." Her eyes looked a bit teary.
"I'm fine now."
Fred handed him the water bottle without being asked. Leon drank, slowly, and felt the settling sensation continue. The headache was there but dull now, the sharp edge of it already fading.
"Do we need to call extraction," Fred said. "Seriously. We can take the penalty."
"No." Leon lowered the bottle. "It's not a health thing. I haven't been sleeping properly. It caught up with me."
Neither of them looked entirely convinced. Emma was already opening the small medical pouch from her pack — the standard one included in every kit. She shook two fever tablets into her palm and held them out.
"Take these anyway."
He took them. Swallowed them with another mouthful of water.
"What happened," Emma said. "When you went down. Were you conscious at all?"
"Not really." He looked at his hands briefly. "It was nothing. Probably just low blood sugar on top of no sleep."
Fred and Emma exchanged a glance that they probably thought he didn't catch.
"Rest," Fred said. "We're not going anywhere until dark regardless. Lie down."
Leon didn't argue. He shifted back against the timber wall and closed his eyes. The hollow was quiet. The Laughing Kid continued grinning on his band screen.
He thought about the name Harry Davies, sounded somewhat familiar, like he had heard it a news or something. Isn’t he some kind of politician.
The entourage moved through the city in a tight formation — three vehicles, security detail in the lead and rear, the route pre-cleared. Simon sat in the middle vehicle looking at his phone, not reading anything in particular.
His grandfather's residence was forty minutes from the academy complex. The old man would already have guests by now. The celebration among the corporate network's senior figures had apparently been planned for some time, the date set well in advance of the broadcast's public announcement, which said something about how certain people had been about the outcome.
Simon put his phone in his pocket and watched the city pass outside the window.