Interrogator: What did you see then?
Finch: Nothing. I couldn’t see anything.
I: Wrong answer.
[howls and screams and sobbing]
I: Had you ever met the Lady in Blue before?
F: No, but I’d heard her before.
I: Heard her where?
F: On the fucking radio station, that’s where.
[garbled comment, not picked up]
F: It’s her voice. Coming up from the underground. People say.
I: So what did you see, Finch?
F: Just the stars. Stars. It was night.
I: I can ask you this same question for hours, Finch.
F: You wanted me to say I saw her. I said I saw her! I said it, damn you.
I: There is no Lady in Blue. She’s just a propaganda myth from the rebels.
F: I saw her. On the hill. Under the stars.
I: What did this apparition say to you, Finch? What did this vision say?
Finch, at the apartment door, breathing heavy from five flights of stairs, taken fast. The message that’d brought him from the station was already dying in his hand. Red smear on a limp circle of green fungal paper that had minutes before squirmed clammy. Now he had only the door to pass through, marked with the gray caps’ symbol.
239 Manzikert Avenue, apartment 525.
An act of will, crossing that divide. Always. Reached for his gun, then changed his mind. Some days were worse than others.
A sudden flash of his partner Wyte, telling him he was compromised, him replying, “I don’t have an opinion on that.” Written on a wall at a crime scene: Everyone’s a collaborator. Everyone’s a rebel. The truth in the weight of each.
The doorknob cold but grainy. The left side rough with light green fungus.
Sweating under his jacket, through his shirt. Boots heavy on his feet. Always a point of no return, and yet he kept returning.
I am not a detective. I am not a detective.
Inside, a tall, pale man dressed in black stood halfway down the hall, staring into a doorway. Beyond him, a dark room. A worn bed. White sheets dull in the shadow. Didn’t look like anyone had slept there in months. Dusty floor. Even before he’d started seeing Sintra, his place hadn’t looked this bad.
The Partial turned and saw Finch. “Nothing in that room, Finch. It’s all in here.” He pointed into the doorway. Light shone out, caught the dark glitter of the Partial’s skin where tiny fruiting bodies had taken hold. Uncanny left eye in a gaunt face. Always twitching.