Evensong

Anwar willed his heart not to go into shock, not yet, because he’d decided to gamble. Whoever did this to Levin probably knew about Anwar by now, about his mediocre ratings and cautiousness. But that was then. Brighton had changed him. And I have someone to fight for.

He was standing on the mezzanine, his back to the balcony, when Levin came for him.

Anwar gambled: a tomoe nage. If he mistimed he’d die, but he was dying anyway.

Levin hurtled towards him. Anwar took Levin’s neck in his hands, placed a foot in his stomach—so much of what he was using was broken and hadn’t reset properly—and rolled backwards. Not a classically-executed stomach throw, but not mistimed either, with Anwar holding onto Levin’s neck as Levin flew over him. Over the edge of the mezzanine, smashing the balcony railing.

Anwar landed on his back with his hands still locked around Levin’s neck. He didn’t let go. Levin hung over the edge of the mezzanine, dangling by the neck from Anwar’s outstretched arms, with bits of smashed balcony crashing to the auditorium below. He kept trying to break Anwar’s forearms, or break Anwar’s hands and fingers, but they were already broken and Anwar wouldn’t let go. He felt the neck snap—there was a rightness about it, like when you were hammering a post into the ground and there was a moment when it settled—and he still wouldn’t let go. He felt Levin’s legs and arms and body dancing, like someone on the end of a noose.

Even after the snap, Levin continued trying to smash Anwar’s forearms or break his fingers, then subsided. Anwar kept holding onto him. Levin’s feces and urine poured down into the auditorium, brown and yellow against white and silver. He’d been still for a long time, but Anwar held on to him for longer. Then he let go, and Levin dropped to the floor of the main auditorium below.

Most of the cameras had been smashed and most of the broadcasters killed, but not all. It was still going out, live and worldwide.

Anwar said, “Goodbye, old friend.”

Heightened time ended with Anwar’s stomach throw. Everyone still alive saw Levin die in normal time, but only another Consultant could have seen the rest of it. To everyone else it was a few seconds’ blur. The rubble and dust from where Levin had burst out of the far wall was still settling, even after Levin died. Some of those he’d killed as he burst out and hurtled towards Olivia were still falling.

This strange relativity was why Anwar felt like he’d been laying on his back, with his broken arms still lolling over the edge of the mezzanine, for whole minutes after Levin had gone. Then, as his senses powered down, he realised that people were no longer moving at the speed of continental drift but were actually moving quickly, in fact very quickly, to gather round him.

Olivia was one of the first. She knelt down to say something to him, but then Gaetano ran up and embraced her. She pushed him away and pointed down at Levin’s body in the auditorium. Anwar heard her calmly telling Gaetano, “Go back and kill it. Make sure it’s dead. Shoot it, in the head.” Then he became unconscious. 

13

Even before Anwar had finished killing Levin, Rafiq had dispatched a VSTOL to Brighton. Arden Bierce was in it, among others.

At 11:00 a.m. on October 20 Anwar was taken to the hospital on the New West Pier. They put him in the room where, coincidentally, he’d questioned Taylor Hines a few days ago, and where Hines had died. The hospital was small, but very well-equipped and well-staffed; even more so, while the summit was on.

He hadn’t regained consciousness. He was so quiet and still in the hospital bed that he might not have been there. Sometimes, coming and going in his room, they talked about him as if he wasn’t.

“Why aren’t you doing anything?” Olivia demanded of the hospital’s Director.

“UNEX asked us not to. They’re sending a medical team and they want to attend to him in private.”

“But surely...”

“Archbishop, they expressly asked us not to look at him.”

“Why?”

“Because they don’t want anyone to know what Consultants are like inside. And in view of what he did for you...”

“Yes, yes, alright. But I’m not leaving this room.”

“You can tell them.”

“I’m telling you. Last time I looked, you were still Director of this hospital. ”

She sat by Anwar’s bedside, her body language giving every indication that she was not to be moved or trifled with. He woke once, briefly, and sank back without seeming to see or recognise her.

By 12:20 p.m., a VSTOL had landed on the pad at the end of the New West Pier. The UNEX medical team disembarked and strode into Anwar’s hospital room. Olivia didn’t move. The UNEX doctors shother irritated glances, but said nothing and started unpacking their equipment.

Arden walked in behind the doctors. It was the first time she and Olivia had met or spoken directly.

“Archbishop, the doctors will need you to leave when they finish these preliminaries and start the main treatment.”

“Why?”