Page 3 of Godslayer
“Oh,thatplan.” I smile, keeping hold of her hand as we turn in unison and walk towards the stairs that wind up the side of the cliff to the city above.
She gives my hand a squeeze and then I let go, turnin’ around and bendin’ down a little so she can hop on my back. She does this without comment. We’ve come down to the beach four times now and each time I’ve carried her back up.
Not once has she declined the ride.
Not once did she feel heavy.
“I guess this is your lot in life, Mr. Saarinen.”
“What’s that?”
“To carry me up a million flights of stairs.”
I can live with it.
Every time Claraenters our apartment, she makes a tiny gasp. The first week we were here, they were bigger gasps, but she’s tempered them back since then. And now, it’s mostly just a little sigh.
The view. She can’t get over it.
It’s nice, I will say that. Delta did set us up with a top-notch apartment for our stay here. Penthouse level and fully furnished. And that viewisstunnin’. You can see the water, but it’s not really the ocean that makes the view special. It’s everythin’—the city itself. I guess I had forgotten how beautiful Delta City was. I guess I’d just been stuck on the far end of things for so long, I assumed all cities were a collection of steel and glass surrounded by sand.
That’s not what it looks like here. It’s a lot like the way Clara described her city with tall towers made of stone and brick. And where there aren’t towers, there are smaller homes built into the side of the cliffs. The whole city is on a slant with Delta’s tower at the top and everything else spilling down the mountain towards the beach on one side, and the valley on the other.
All the roads are cobbled with black-sand bricks and it’s a nice contrast to the towers and houses, which are every possible shade of gray. The rooftops are mostly shiny copper. Which is not an easy thing to maintain with the salt water in the air. Roof polishing is a mega industry here because Delta doesn’t tolerate patina on his rooftops.
Our building is two streets up from the edge of the cliff and our living room has a window that spans a hundred-and-eighty degrees so we see a little bit of everything. Even the tower at the top. This is the view that makes Clara gasp and sigh.
Beautiful Delta City.
I don’t like him but he does keep the place nice. I would not say Tau City is ugly. I mean, in its own right, it’s pretty fuckin’ spectacular. But compared to this place, it’s a slum.
Clara walks over to the window and presses her face against it. “I’ll never get tired of this view.”
I close the door and walk up behind her. Looking out. In addition to the water, and the night sky, and the moons, and the city lights, and the tower, I also see the spark.
Sometimes it’s so thick, I can’t see anythin’ else.
Other times it’s so thin, it’s like a mist.
Tonight, it’s something in between. And overlaying all that spark is the overlay itself. The Sweep Army overlay. That should not be there in the first place, let alone work.
It covers everythin’ if I let it. Meanin’, it labels things. It gives me information about everythin’ I’m seeing unless I modify the settings. Tonight, I’ve got it toggled to about half-strength so it only highlights things like the phase of the moons, or the cycles of the tides when I look at the sky or the sea.
When I glance down at the city it gives me the names of the streets and buildings, if they have one. If I’m walkin’ down the street, and have it turned all the way on, it gives me facial recognition. I can identify every single person in this city just by lookin’ at them.
Why it’s doing this, I have no idea.
I wish I’d been introduced to the other augments that have come home. But either they’ve been redeployed by Delta or he’s keepin’ them secret because I asked around at the parties Claraand I have been attendin’, and no one knows of any augments but me.
If I didn’t already know that there were several little gods down there in that school on the beach, I might let it go. But I do know they’re there, andsomeonehad to bring them here.
“Wow, you’re really distracted tonight, Tyse.”
I look down at Clara and shrug. “Sorry. I’ve got a lot on my mind, I guess.”
She turns, pressing her back against the window. Then she walks her fingertips up my arms and rests her hands on my shoulders. “Anything you want to talk about?”
“No. I’m just thinkin’.”
