The City & the City - China Mieville [108]
The woman straddled my back and held me in some neck-lock. “Borlú, you are in Breach. This room is where your trial is taking place,” the older man said. “This can be where it’s finished. You’re beyond law now; this is where decision lives, and we are it. Once more. Tell us how this case, these people, these murders, connects to this story of Orciny.”
After many seconds he said to the woman, “What are you doing?”
“He’s not choking,” she said.
I was, so far as her hold would allow, laughing.
“This isn’t about me,” I said at last, when I was able. “My god. You’re investigating Orciny.”
“There is no such place as Orciny,” the man said.
“So everyone tells me. And yet things keep happening, people keep disappearing or dying, and there’s that word again and again, Orciny.” The woman got off me. I sat on the floor and shook my head at it all.
“You know why she never came to you?” I said. “Yolanda? She thought you were Orciny. If you said How could there be a place between the city and the city? she’d say Do you believe in the Breach? Where’s that? But she was wrong, wasn’t she? You’re not Orciny.”
“There is no Orciny.”
“So why are you asking all this? What have I been running from for days? I just saw Orciny or something a lot like it shoot my partner. You know I’ve breached: what do you care about the rest of it? Why aren’t you just punishing me?”
“As we say—”
“What, this is mercy? Justice? Please.
“If there’s something else between Besźel and Ul Qoma, where does that leave you? You’re hunting. Because it’s suddenly back. You don’t know where Orciny is, or what’s going on. You’re …” Hell with it. “You’re afraid.”
***
THE YOUNGER MAN AND WOMAN left and returned with an old film projector, trailing a lead into the corridor. They fiddled with it and it hummed, and made the wall a screen. It projected scenes from an interrogation. I scooted back to see better, still sitting on the floor.
The subject was Bowden. A snap of static and he was speaking in Illitan, and I saw that his interrogators were militsya.
“… don’t know what happened. Yes, yes I was hiding because someone was coming after me. Someone was trying to kill me. And when I heard Borlú and Dhatt were getting out, I didn’t know if I could trust them but I thought maybe they could get me out too.”
“… have a gun?” The voice of the interrogator was muffled.
“Because someone was trying to kill me, is why. Yes, I had a gun. You can get one on half the street corners in East Ul Qoma, as well you know. I’ve lived here for years, you know.”
Something.
“No.”
“Why not?” That was audible.
“Because there is no such thing as Orciny,” Bowden said.
Something. “Well, I don’t give a damn what you think, or what Mahalia thought, or what Yolanda said, or what Dhatt’s been insinuating, and no I have no idea who called me. But there’s no such place.”
A big loud crack of distressed image-sound, and there was Aikam. He was just weeping and weeping. Questions came, and he ignored them to weep.
The picture changed again and Dhatt was in Aikam’s place. He was not in uniform and his arm was in a sling.
“I fucking do not know,” he shouted. “Why the fuck are you asking me? Go get Borlú, because he seems to have a damn sight more of an idea what the fuck is going on than I do. Orciny? No I fucking don’t, because I’m not a child, but here’s the thing, even though it’s goddamn obvious Orciny’s a pile of shit, something is still going on, people are still getting hold of information they should not be able to, and other people are still being shot in the head by forces unknown. Fucking kids. That is why I agreed to help Borlú, illegal be fucked, so if you’re going to take my badge go the fuck ahead. And be my guest—disbelieve in Orciny all you want, I fucking do. But keep your head down in case that nonexistent fucking city shoots