“Rio Conwy,” True says again, to finish. He shouts my name. Cheers it. Invites everyone to look at me.
I raise my arms into the air, a gesture foreign to me, but it feels right. I hear a smattering of applause and a few whistles from the stands and I almost smile. It’s easy to perform in front of people when you don’t have to say anything.
And then, into this moment of buoyancy, I feel that sudden, deep despair creep in.
This is never going to work, a voice says to me. You think metal fish can replace mines? You think that an air tank will be as good as a pressurized transport? You’re going to die, Rio Conwy. You’re pretending to be a showman, and you’re pretending you can get to the Above on your own, and the only one you’ve tricked is yourself.
You’re never going to get Above.
People keep cheering. The official timer in the stands holds up his arm, raising the red flag that means I’m about to begin.
“Be careful,” True says.
I’m the last, I think. The last siren.
The timer lowers his arm.
I jump in and swim.
I’m the last, so there’s no reason I shouldn’t also be the first. The first to get Above.
That argument makes no sense. It doesn’t have to. I’ve seen the black line, and I swim. I’ll see the black water, and I’ll go up.
Only three fish hit me, but the eels are faster, and I have several burns on my arms and legs. I pull myself out of the water and stand dripping next to True.
“It could have been worse,” True says. He’s shaking his head and looks worried, but there’s also a trace of that expression I’ve seen once before, when he said I was beautiful.
The spectators loved it. They cheer loudly and come down from the stands to surround me. I can hear them calling out questions, especially the bettors, who have a new race on their hands: Rio Conwy vs. Rio Conwy.
I’m about to say thank you when I remember that my voice will ruin the spell.
“Tell them I don’t speak before or after the performances,” I whisper to True. “Tell them it’s part of my routine. It’s better that way. You know. You’ve heard me. But tell them this is just the beginning. We’ll get more eels. I’ll be faster next time. There will be more at stake.”
True gets a strange look on his face; he seems almost sorrowful. But he nods and turns to intercept the crowd while I hold my head high and walk away to the changing rooms. Once I’m inside I stay quiet and listen to the crowd outside. All of that noise is for me.
“This won’t interest them forever,” I say to True, after everyone else has gone. I keep thinking about my mother and what she said about people liking a spectacle. “I need to do something big before they get tired of me. Build up to some kind of final event, take their money, and be done.”
“Like what?” True asks.
“I’m not sure yet.”
We dry off the fish and the eels, cleaning and oiling them and wrapping them in soft cloths so they’ll stay in good shape between swims. We bundle them up like babies, and that makes me smile. And then True touches my hand to get my attention.
“How much more dangerous do you plan to make this?” he asks. He turns my hand over, carefully, so that we’re both looking at a small, red burn on my palm. It happened when one of the eels swam too close to my face and I had to push it away. I know exactly when I got that injury, though I can’t pinpoint the moments when I came by all the others.
“I don’t know,” I say.
CHAPTER 12
I’ve been promoted. Josiah meets me at the door at work the next morning and tells me that it’s time. “We’re moving you to the ocean room today,” he says.
“Congratulations,” Elinor says as I stop near our table to say good-bye. She works quick and capable, and I wonder why they didn’t move her to the ocean room long ago.
“I like it here,” she says. My face must reveal what I’m thinking, or else it’s a question others have asked before. “I’ve requested to stay. The ocean room is—too much.”
I think I can see what she means. Through the window that separates us, I’ve watched the people in the other room and I’ve noticed a tension there that isn’t in the sky room, a striving among the workers. You can see it in the way they work and interact. I wonder if it’s the proximity to the sea, and the fact that real water can be glimpsed through the window in the portal door. I think the ocean can make people anxious. It’s like seeing a real sky. It’s seeing the world as it is, not as we made it to be.
When I sit down at my new workstation, I hear Atlantia breathe deep and even around me.
Somewhere, far away, I think I hear a voice screaming. But when I try to listen more closely, to narrow my hearing down to that sound alone, it disappears.
It’s your imagination, I tell myself. You’re remembering what Maire thinks she can hear.
Bien watches me from her table, her gaze clear and unkind, and I drop my eyes. I still can’t control people, not without revealing myself. I need to be careful.
The morning passes quickly. Josiah shows me the screens that demonstrate and diagnose the more complicated drone injuries that we fix in the ocean room, and it’s easy to see how to repair them from the graphics. My hands are capable and I feel confident as I clamp my visor down and get back to work.
Everyone except Bien is friendly enough, which is to say they ignore me and concentrate on their own work. The damage on the drones is fascinating—ashy scars of injury, torn wires jutting out of their metal bellies—and it turns my stomach when I think of what the mines could do to a person.
That won’t happen to me, I tell myself. I won’t let it.
I wish I could show True the drones. He’d love them.
After work everyone walks to the nearest wishing pool and throws in their coins for me. Elinor comes; Bien, too. People are polite, but they don’t know me well and I never have much to say, and after Elinor leaves, I sit alone at the well looking down at all the glittering coin. It’s a great deal of money, and I find myself touched that they’d do this on my behalf. Of course they might have used the wish for themselves, the way I did with Bien, but I don’t mind that.
I count fifty-three coin, and the amount makes me wonder. Is there a way to gather all of this up? It’s illegal, of course. The money is supposed to go to the people Above. I glance around. The plaza is almost empty, except for an occasional worker or peacekeeper walking across.