BLUEMANTLE by Karen Langston (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud TXT) 📕

led them into Riat’s, a noodle bar of sorts. Inside was dark, the only light coming from the open double doors that constituted the bar’s frontage. The building was vintage Wydeye: thick limestone walls, low timber ceiling, ceramic tiled floor. Along the far end of the long room ran the food counter, selling bowls of highly spiced noodles served with a choice of undefined meat or vegetables. Customers invariably washed this down with a pint of Kitson or a gill of Pyncher schnapps, both brewed at the local Tramways Brewery in the Hundred of Creaser.

Furniture in Riat’s was hotchpotch and sparse: an uncoordinated assortment of stools and makeshift tables, mostly occupied by small groups of lean and muscular men and women – the contours of manual labour.

Chase and Naylor weaved through the room, navigating a course to the counter. Chase glanced at the huddled groups. He doubted he would even recognise any of Wella’s friends.

Behind the counter, a radio played. There was no music, just the monotonous voice of a woman, her expression sales-pitch and scripted. “Citizens of Wydeye, fear not the events in Glos. The situation is under control. A distracted mind is a suboptimal mind. Those targets won’t reach themselves. Workers of Wydeye, remain focused on your job, just as the Authority is. We are protecting you. You’ve nothing to fear. Good citizens…”

“Meat or veg?” said a short man behind the counter, his voiced raised to compete with the mandatory broadcast. The man looked at Chase, ladle poised, expectant.

“Neither. Sorry,” said Chase.

“What you want then?”

“I’m looking for my sister. Wella Newell. I think she comes here. Do you know her?”

“Lots of people come here. What she look like?”

“Taller than you. Short fair hair. Wears a black tunic with a purple patch on the back.”

“Ah yes, I’ve seen her. Pretty. Comes in here couple of times a week, maybe.”

“When did you last see her?”

“Few days ago, I guess.”

It was Friday. The swallow hole had appeared on Wednesday night. Chase leant forward, his voice strained. “You sure you didn’t see her yesterday?”

The man rubbed his chin with the tip of the ladle’s handle. “No. Definitely Wednesday. I remember now because something got me stirred.”

“What?”

“Well, one of the people she was with got out a street map for Wakenfold. Got me thinking they might be from the A. I don’t trust them bastards.” The man dropped the ladle and stared at Chase. “You don’t…? I, er…”

“No. We’re not from the Authority. Neither is Wella. So, drop your guard and tell us what you know.”

“Merciful Deep. Thought I’d tipped the crow there.” A line of customers had formed behind Chase and Naylor. “But that’s all. Can’t tell you nothing else. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to serve.” He looked over their shoulders to a woman behind. “Meat or veg?”

“Listen, if she comes in here, tell her to contact me straight away. Tell her I’m worried.”

The man nodded as he spooned a pile of grey meat onto a bowl of noodles and passed it over Chase’s shoulder.

“Come on, let’s go,” said Naylor. He pulled Chase by the arm and led him back through the crowded room, into the glare of the sun. Blinded for a moment, they both stood still, wary of stumbling into the path of another carter.

With his vision restored, Chase remained motionless, eyes horror-wide. “The street map. It covers Glos. She could’ve been near the swallow hole after all…”

“He said someone else had the map.”

“Yeah, but they were all together. He said they were all talking. Maybe they were planning to go somewhere that evening. She could’ve been there.”

“There’s nothing in Glos. Wakenfold is off limits. And it’s a curfew zone. She’d have no reason to be there.”

“But the map…”

–

“I can’t believe the state gets away with charging rent for these shitholes. It’s criminal,” said Naylor, glaring grim-faced at the tenement block where Wella lived.

They had checked out a couple of other places in Five Wents, blindly second-guessing where Wella might have frequented. Whilst a few barmen and stall holders recognised her description, no one had seen her since Wednesday.

Weary from the draining heat, Chase had sought shelter in a phone kiosk: a steel cubicle the shape of a giant bullet, one of millions positioned around the city. He had put in calls to the furnaces, the Bayley Road sports centre, random bars and restaurants. He had even chanced a call to the kiosk outside Wella’s tenement block in Rader.

He had let it ring for over five minutes. No one picked up.

“You know what it’s like this time of day,” Naylor had said. “People returning from work. They just want to get home, clean up and cool down. Too hot and tired to do favours for strangers.”

“Bastard A. They have to control everything. The system’s fucked.”

“Forget it, Chase. We’ll take the Elevated over to Rader and look for ourselves. Worth a try.”

They had travelled the tramway in silence, squeezed inside a packed trailer on the upper deck. The air at this height was still humid but less suffocating than at ground level. And whilst the steam locomotives emitted their own distinct smell, the air was free of the potent cocktail of odours that lingered in the streets: a blend of spice, rotting garbage, sewers and goats’ piss.

Chase had stared out of the window, his bulky frame wedged into one of the trailer’s narrow seats. Despite the discomfort, he liked to ride the Elevated. The view afforded a striking perspective: the dividing line between a city of two landscapes, above and below.

As the railmotor left the bustle of Five Wents, arcing north-east through Spire Wells, Chase gazed at these parallel planes. Below, the snaking underpass, lined with the stalls of street traders, smoke rising from coal braziers, citizens hugging the shade, homeless Wethers scavenging for scraps.

Above, a vista of imposing concrete structures, commanding and severe.

The architecture was brutal – an uncompromising statement of intent. Most of it was built during a period of rapid expansion, under the ambitious rule