Chapter Text
It was not the first time Kim had sat with Harry in the back of an ambulance, but it was the first time he’d done it while watching a pack of Moralintern officers arguing in the street. They’d both been given hot drinks and blankets in the style of trauma victims. Kim sipped at his and watched Nicolaas Westenberg shriek in rage. He had never enjoyed a too-sugary coffee more.
Next to him, a paramedic—a Mesque woman in her mid-to-late-thirties who, by the bags under her eyes and the frizz popping out of her long salt-and-pepper plait, had been on shift all night—shone her pen light in Harry’s eyes.
“Let’s try something even more basic, lieutenant,” the paramedic said. “What kind of government are we under?”
Harry took a deep and enthusiastic breath.
Kim leaned in. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said. He was not sorry. “He had a blackout six months ago that resulted in total retrograde amnesia. His short term memory is fine, but his long term memory is patchy.” He eyed Harry. “He’s filled most of the gaps with communism and art theory.”
“It’s all true,” Harry said. “I encountered an entroponetic anomaly and drank so hard I experienced total ego death.”
Down the street, Moralintern officers wrestled a wildly swinging Westenberg off someone who was presumably, in the other faction.
“God. Fine. Short term it is. Do you know where and when you are, lieutenant?” the paramedic asked tiredly.
“Clendon Street, Grand Couron, Jamrock, Revachol West. It’s, what, ten thirty in the morning? It’s the beginning of autumn, ‘52.”
“It’s not the beginning of autumn,” the paramedic said. “It’s late summer.”
“I guess paramedics don’t get the mice, detectives, and deciduous trees weather report,” Harry said. He hissed as she dabbed antiseptic into the scratch down his face. “Calendars are basically fake, you know. Time is just kind of an idea we made up.“
Under her breath, the paramedic said, “I don’t fucking believe this.” Her voice was sharp and her eyes were hard, but her hands were steady and gentle.
Harry was watching her in his evaluative way, assessing some puzzle of her body language and her face. He bit his lip. Finally, he said, “Stern Professional Woman, what’s your name? But it’s not allowed to be Julia.”
She looked unimpressed at the non-sequiteur. “Officer In Charge, Paramedic Maite Espina Ybarra,” she said.
“Pleased to meet you, Paramedic Ybarra,” Harry said, smiling genuinely. “I think you ought to discuss my medical history with my colleague Lieutenant Vicquemare. He’s the one over there, by the chestnut horse. He’s known me the longest.”
“Thanks for the tip,” Ybarra said, suspiciously. “Stay put, lieutenant.”
The moment she was out of earshot, Kim said, exasperated, “Oh my god, Harrier. It’s not allowed to be Julia? ‘Lieutenant Vicquemare’? You never call him that! You’re trying to set him up!”
Jean, like Harrier, had been given a revolutionary name as a child. Unlike Harry, he’d been named after a person; Jean Abadanaiz, the partner of Julia Dobreva, one half of the infamous Revolutionary Lovers. It would be in poor taste to try and set Jean up with someone called Julia, although Kim suspected that the cliché of it would rank quite low on the list of priorities if you tried. The first three or four items would all be ’Survive Lieutenant Jean Vicquemare.’
“I just have a feeling about it,” Harry said, denying nothing.
The morning’s cloud cover had dissipated and left nothing but scuffs of white altocumulus behind. The strong sea wind turned the billows of the smokestacks into streamers. The autumn sun shone high and clear above.
“Clear skies over Revachol for the first time in weeks,” Kim said. It gave a clear sight of the Coalition aerostatics overhead. The signal flashes between them seemed more urgent than usual.
Harry hummed. “Storm front’s moved on,” he said.
Jean strode over, the paramedic in his wake. “When you asked me if I wanted you on this case, Lieutenant-double-yefreitor Du Bois,” Jean said, biting off every word, “I didn’t think you meant you were going to fucking level a building.“ He lowered his voice for the last bit, glancing back towards where the Moralintern were having their interpersonal dispute. “We are fucked.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” said Ybarra, pushing past him. “Lieutenant Kitsuragi, you were shot how many days ago?”
“Two,” he said.
“You know you should have mentioned that when I was looking you over. Especially since you carried a goddamn dog.” She jerked her thumb at him. “Jacket off. I need to have a look.”
Kim complied, giving Harry a filthy "you had a good feeling, huh?” look. Ybarra prodded at his shoulder. He grunted when she tugged the adhesive dressing off.
Jean lit a cigarette, watching the Moralintern. “Give it a few days before you submit your report, kids,” he said. “Seeing as I don’t think we know where you’re submitting it to, yet. Pryce and Gottlieb have been pulled into an emergency briefing at INSURCOM. There’s chatter that something has started in Sur-la-Clef. They’re looking at a civil fucking war.”
“Oh yeah,” Harry said, digging in his pocket. He produced a rumpled copy of an A4 printout from Ulrich’s Print And Copy shop and showed it to Jean.
“We do not print homo-sexual propaganda,” Jean read, bemused.
Kim cleared his throat. “Detective,” he said, “I think that’s the wrong A4 flyer.”
“Oops. Hang on.” Harry dug out the other flyer and passed it over. Jean took it and scanned it, his frown deepening. Harry said, “Our suspect, Felicity Breckenridge-Spurling IV, had twenty thousand of these printed. She seems to have been planning, financing, and resourcing an uprising in Sur-la-Clef since at least ’49. Weapons smuggling, Moralintern bribes.”
Jean glanced over his shoulder at one of the Coupris. “Right,” he said. “We’re not going to let her out of sight, then. You might not remember this, Harry, but the last Moralintern bribes suspect we had turned out to be so clumsy, he tripped and fell fatally several times in his cell before he could testify.”
“It’ll help that we have her accountant, then,” Harry said. He glanced at Kim. “I hope the 57th won’t mind if we get Aubert Ulrich to testify? I know he’s their informant, but—“
“I’d rather get both him and his daughter,” Kim said, stoically looking at the ceiling of the ambulance as Ybarra tipped his head to one side, examining the crop of marks on his neck that his jacket collar had hidden. He had a feeling his ears were going red, but his voice was steady as he continued, “Ulrich tends to speculate when questioned, you’ll remember. But no, the 57th won’t mind losing the informant—the Lions haven’t really been active in Revachol for years. Felicity seems to have revived them for this one purpose.”
“So… how many hours after getting shot did you get these, lieutenant?” Ybarra asked, lowly, as Jean and Harry talked over their heads about the logistics of using an informant testimony.
Kim cleared his throat. “Call it…” he did the maths. “Forty… two?”
“Really?” Ybarra said. “Wow. No wonder your lazarus’ stitching is fucking industrial—I guess it is true what they say about the 41st. Are you in pain?”
“It’s tender,” he admitted. He tried not to wince as Ybarra dabbed antiseptic into the wound.
“Next time, keep the physical activity to a minimum when you’re on medical leave,” she advised.
“I’ll keep it in mind,” he said, avoiding looking anywhere near Jean. Kim knew his expression would give nothing away, but he also knew that an occupational hazard of his job as a detective was being surrounded by other fucking detectives, who were experts at noticing anything someone didn’t want them to notice.
Ybarra snorted and started applying a fresh dressing.
Harry was saying, “We can try to inform the families of the smugglers tomorrow. I guess they’ll have some kind of closure, even if I don’t think we’ll be getting our hands on Westenberg himself.”
“That fucker who threw our precinct into disarray yesterday?” Jean said. “No, I don’t think so. You know what they’re like when it’s one of their own.” He took a long pull of his cigarette, looking down the street. Nicolaas Westenberg was being shoved into the back of a Coupris Estanza. Kim wondered if they’d be more just in their treatment of him than he would have been to Brechtje, and decided it wasn’t his business.
Ybarra patted Kim’s back. “Done,” she said. “Please try to take it easy. Or easier, at least.”
“Thank you,” he said, sliding his jacket back on over the bruises and beard burn. Jean gave him a meaningful look.
“Harry,” Jean said, “I need a volunteer to go help the firefighters cordoning off the hole in the street. I think any of them could be in imminent danger of their shirts falling off.”
Harry jumped to his feet with enthusiasm. “I’m on it,” he said.
“Right,” Jean said, as Harry hurtled down the street. “Kitsuragi.” He jerked his head. “Come for a walk.”
The moment they were out of the earshot of others—not hard, considering the chaos of the evacuation area—Jean found a wall to lean against. He offered Kim a cigarette. “No? Suit yourself.” He lit a new cigarette for himself, looked straight ahead, and said, “So, we never had this conversation, and because of that—it is never going to be my duty to report it to our captain.”
“Of course,” Kim said.
“Because it would be hilariously unprofessional for me to overlook a breach of RCM policies within my wing of the 41st.”
“Absolutely.”
“Good. So, with that out of the way—are you goddamn sure you’re in your right mind, lieutenant?” Jean said, sounding pained. “You’ve seen him lick fucking crime scenes.”
Kim looked over. Jean seemed perfectly sincere. “Yes, I think I am,” he said. “I suppose… I stopped trying to fight the jaws of life.”
“Thank god someone in C-Wing is finally taking my fucking advice,” Jean said, bumping his head against the brick wall behind him.
“I really assumed this would be more of a threat-based conversation,” Kim admitted.
Jean shrugged from where he was leaning against the wall. “We can do that too, if you’d like,” he said. His frown deepened. “If you hurt him, Kitsuragi, or make him break his goddamn sobriety—I’ll make your life as miserable, messy, and short as only a Jamrock cop knows how.” He cleared his throat. “Better?”
Kim considered it. “Somehow… yes,” he said. “Thank you.” In the distance, Harry was gesturing enthusiastically at the firefighters while he helped drag out the cordon rope. Thankfully, all shirts remained on.
“I know I don’t need to tell either of you to be careful,” Jean said, “but we work with fucking assholes, Kitsuragi.” He sighed. “Goddamn cops. I try to weed them out, but some of them are still getting their heads around ‘women are clever enough to commit crimes,’ let alone anything that’s, uh, fucking…” he hunted for an appropriate euphemism. “Subterranean in nature, yeah? I’ll do what I can, but I can only do so much. So play this close to your fucking chests, okay?”
Kim nodded. Jean continued, “And it had better not interfere with your fucking jobs—though I’ve been thinking, the décomptage structure was based on the Dobreva-Abadanaiz partnership. So I guess there’s a precedent.”
That reminded him. “Speaking of,” Kim said, “you should probably know that Harry is trying to set you up with Maite Ybarra.”
Jean snorted. “Yeah, when a woman approaches me and says ‘so, why isn’t my name allowed to be Julia?’ it’s a huge fucking clue.” Jean took a long drag on his cigarette. “Anyway, we’re getting drinks on Friday.”
Kim raised his eyebrows. “Really,” he said.
“Sure,” Jean said amicably. “Shitkid’s a fucking lunatic who licks crime scenes, but he’s got a knack for pickin’ em. If he reckons we’re worth each other’s time, he’s probably right. No better judge of character on the fucking isola.” He huffed out smoke, and added, offhandedly, “That’s why I’m not worried about this thing he’s gotten into with you.”
Kim opened his mouth and realised he didn’t know what he was meant to say. He settled for, “Thanks, Jean.”
“Don’t go and fucking tell him that,” Jean said, abruptly.
“I won’t,” Kim said. The breeze ruffled his hair. “Although that doesn’t mean he won’t just… figure it out.”
Jean grimaced. “Always a danger,” he said. “Now.” He ground out his cigarette against the heel of his shoe. “I reckon I’m done talking about goddamn personal affairs for about the next goddamn fucking calendar year.”
“Me too,” Kim agreed, wholeheartedly. “So… work, then.”
Jean snorted. He gave a crooked half-grin that was more familiar than Kim thought he’d like to hear. “Work, then. DeMettrie starts next week.” Kim didn’t bother disguising a smile. Jean continued, “Two shifts with Jules to get her bearings—I don’t care if she hates that—and then I’m gonna pair her up with Patrol Officer Enzi Ardoine, since fucking Junior Officer Pichon got that scholarship.” The wind pulled at his tie.
An instinct stirred in Kim’s chest. He didn’t turn his collar against the wind. Instead, he looked up.
Above the city, the air hummed. One of the Coalition warships dropped a mist of ballast water, which harmlessly misted across Couron and Grand Couron. Kim had watched the Coalition aerostatics all the time as a child. No matter where he had been moved in the city—orphanages, foster homes, group housing—the aerostatics had been consistent. He’d spent hours learning their names and the patterns they followed, using fragile binoculars to watch the smaller and faster shuttle aerostatics dock in order to exchange fuel, supplies, and personnel.
This was the first time he’d seen a warship move like this.
“Shit,” Jean breathed.
The warship rose higher into the sky. Engines droned as it turned in place, slowly, and began to accelerate towards the open ocean.
“Fuck,” Kim said. He broke into a run at the same time Jean did, heading for the line of emergency vehicles. There was a knot of officers and civilians there, looking up. Harry was with them, his eyes narrowed as he stared at the sky, a coil of red-waxed cordon rope over one shoulder. Kim made a mental note in the shape of:
- HDB, rope, come back to that.
Jean cupped his hands and hollered, “Oi! Najjar! Get your ass over here!”
The junior communications officer had been patting the horses. At Jean’s yell, she leapt a foot in the air and hurried over.
“Can you get onto the Coalition channels from here?” Jean asked.
Junior Comms Officer Najjar glanced around. “I’ll need a bigger antenna than I have, sir—“
One of the firefighters heaved up the antenna on top of their truck. Kim was commandeered immediately to help the teen set up her portable radio. She cranked the handle several times before it sputtered to life with a crackle and a whir.
“Give me a second, sir,” Najjar said, searching for the frequency with one hand on her large headphones. When she found it, she pulled out the headphone jack. The burst of static from the radio was loud enough to silence all conversation.
“—10-9, Homebase,” a Coalition warship signaller said. “Can you repeat the message, over?”
There was another burst of static. Whatever the incoming message was, it was from too far away for the truck’s antenna to pick up.
“10-5, Homebase,” the signaller said. “ETA two hundred twenty hours.” Static disguised their voice, but Kim thought he heard disbelief—or relief, maybe. “Warship Lancer is returning home. 10-10, over-and-out.”
The junior officer stared at the radio with huge brown eyes, and double-checked the dials like she thought it could be a prank. It wasn’t.
“No way,” one of the paramedics said, too loud in the silence that followed. Another mist of ballast water fell harmlessly on the rooftops of Revachol West. Propellers whirred to life over a city holding its breath.
It was too early to know—it was certainly too early to celebrate. But if Sur-la-Clef was putting down a nationalist uprising, and the Coalition was starting to compete within itself—would any of them really have the resources to spend on Revachol? Did they really want all their immense gunships an ocean and the pale away?
Kim wet his lips, looking up. It was too early to know, but he hoped.
“…Right,” said Jean Vicquemare, unsteadily, as Najjar scanned the channels and the assembled citizens started arguing. He scratched at his beard, looking around. “Du Bois, Kitsuragi, can you radio this in? And then—you’re on medical leave still, right Kitsuragi? God.” He flapped his hand in a dismissal. “The pair of you, never slowing down. Making me goddamn tired just looking at you.”
Harry squeezed his shoulder and said, “Thanks for the backup today, Vic.”
Jean’s scowl remained stoically unaffected, which was a trick Kim was familiar with. “Oldboy or Najjar’ll call you if we need you to come in early,” he said. “Get the fuck out of here, or I’ll make you stay for cleanup.”
That was a threat Jean would follow through on. “Lieutenant,” Kim said, nudging Harry in the side with his elbow. “Good work today,” he added, over his shoulder. He’d figured out that the only way to give Jean positive feedback was to leave before he could shout at you.
The R20 looked not so bad, in the sunlight, now he had started work on repairing it. It at least had more style than a Coupris 40.
“Knew you’d come around,” Harry said.
“I don’t see we have any other choice,” Kim said. He opened the door and started the engine.
As he spoke to Jules, he kept one eye on Harry, who was sitting in the footwell of the R20, legs stretched out, head tilted back, and eyes closed. Whatever he was listening to now, Kim couldn’t hear it, even once he ended the call. The wind brushed his cheek.
“La Retour,” Harry said, very softly.
“Did we start it?” Kim asked, just as softly.
“The city started it,” Harry shivered and opened his eyes. He raised his eyebrows. “Unless you snuck off and started a civil war in Sur-la-Clef while I wasn’t looking? There were a few minutes in the last week where you weren’t accounted for.”
Kim shifted over on the seat, joining Harry in the sun. Autumn in Revachol always made him conscious of how many hours of daylight he had left, like he needed to soak up the heat and store it for winter. “I meant, detective,” Kim said, “do you think blowing up the most expensive building in Revachol and bankrupting a couple of international banks in the process might have helped it along?”
“Who can say,” Harry said. He scratched at the stubble on his chin. “My opinion? We were a red rubber ball. If we did anything, we were only setting off what was already there.”
“None of it was a coincidence, was it,” Kim said. “The storms that kept our suspect from leaving, the R20’s first aid kit, the picric acid, the boat sinking—probably even me finding the fucking bottle cap. It was her, wasn’t it? The city.”
“I think so. Probabilities get weird, with La Revacholière. You know, lightning struck 35 Clendon eleven times last night?”
“There’s no way I could know that,” Kim said. “But…I heard her, you know.” Overheard, two of the shuttle aerostatics were docking with a warship. The smaller ones weren’t equipped to traverse the Pale alone. “La Revacholière. The voice was like…” he struggled for the words to capture it. He had a suspicion the experience might have left him forever changed. “Like being lit up from inside. A clarity. A fire in my lungs.”
“That’s a good way of putting it,” Harry said, leaning back to look up at him. “A poetic twist on classical Dolorian imagery.”
Kim looked down at him. “But I refuse to believe you knew you needed that ball,” he said. “I think you were just attracted to the bright colour. Like a bumblebee.”
“Come on. I could tell it was related to the case,” Harry said. The sun lit up his bruised face. He looked exhausted. There was blood on his collar. In Kim’s opinion, he had never looked better, and he was even more handsome when he broke into a grin. “I just don’t always know what the case is.”
“Oh my god,” Kim said, elbowing him. “You’re full of shit!”
“Come on, you love me,” Harry said.
“Then, with love; you’re full of shit.”
Harry laughed. He leaned to rest against Kim’s knee and surveyed the street; arguments around the radio antenna, the horse shit on the pavement, the petulant rich people asking about the property price ramifications. Behind it all, the pile of rubble and green glass that had been 35 Clendon Street was still lightly smoking.
“So, what now?” he asked. “You want to head home?”
Kim looked up. The remaining aerostatics drifted overhead in the autumn sunlight, their comms relays blinking furiously. Perhaps they really were witnessing La Retour; perhaps the Coalition was leaving Revachol forever. Perhaps the skies over the city that night would be clearer than they had been in fifty years, and the view of the stars would be interrupted only by light pollution, smog, and atmospheric dust. Perhaps he was supposed to be more worried about the Moralist International abandoning their project before it was done.
But this was Jamrock, a place that became all the more beautiful when it was neglected; a wisteria and a wartorn apartment block holding each other up. Whatever happened in the sky, life would continue on the ground. And there was never any backup—only them.
“No, not home,” Kim said. “Not yet.” He smiled. “How does the RCM motto go?” he asked. “Jog my memory. Après l’affaire—le déjeuner?”
Harry grinned. He put his hand solemnly on his sternum. “After the case, lunch,” he said. “After lunch, the case again. So, what’s the case?”
“Cases, actually. I think you’ll like this. After the interview with Brechtje yesterday, I was reading through THE BROKEN WINDOW and THE CASE OF THE SAME GODDAMN SHIT AS LAST TUESDAY. I think they’re connected. Perhaps in a literal sense.”
Harry looked intrigued. “How?” he asked.
“I think what would be best for my convalescence,” Kim said, “would be going to North Jamrock to look for a secret passage.” Harry sat up much straighter. Kim smiled. “And then we can head home.” He contemplated his partner thoughtfully, sidelong. “I do recall some comments last night about taking point I’d like to return to.”
Harry grinned, flushing pink. He scanned the street for a moment, and reached up to tug Kim into a brief, warm kiss. He released him quickly—as though anybody might look at two cops in the background when they were faced with the spectacle in the sky and the rubble in the street—but his hand lingered on Kim’s cheek. “Lieutenant-yefreitor Kim Kitsuragi,” he said, “you’re so goddamn cool.”
Kim turned his head to kiss Harry’s palm, lightning-quick, just to see his flush get darker. “Come on, detective,” he said. He slid across into the driver’s seat and adjusted his jacket over lungs that burned bright; the glow of the city, and something else. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
SHIVERS [Easy: Success] — Down the street, behind the evacuation line, there is a park with springy green grass. A dog thought too old to run gambols across it, tongue lolling, drunk with joy on new smells and sensations. When he and the laughing elderly man look up at the sky stretching overhead, they’re not thinking about the departing airships; they’re just enjoying the autumn sun.
CONCEPTUALISATION [Easy: Success] — They’ve never been younger in their lives.