“You’re the driver, right? So just drive the car,” I responded more harshly than I intended, but Andrew didn’t seem to notice the sharpness in my voice. I tried to exhale more calmly, as if that could silence the doubts and fears, and continued in a conciliatory tone. “Listen, I don’t want us to go all this way for nothing either. But I’m sure we’ll gather something useful here. It may be a small town, but it's one of the few open ones on the main connecting highways. Local newspapers are full of news about the chaos in hospitals and quarantined neighborhoods, and that's a good sign – the government’s censorship hasn’t tightened the noose yet. Besides, as you rightly pointed out, it’s one of many border towns to the North. I don’t think the eyes and ears of the political police here are sharp enough to notice any leaks of information.”
“The main thing is that the great mother-censorship lets it through,” Andrew said after a moment. “But the material you want to gather will be difficult to publish, even with our boss's connections. With all the connections, Steph. You’ll need one hell of a trump card up your sleeve. So far, almost all the information on this topic has been successfully cleaned up.”
“Let’s emphasize the word ‘almost’,” I smiled slyly. “Is Sam asleep?” Andrew nodded, and after giving him a pat on the shoulder, I headed inside the trailer.
The car swayed slightly.
Pulling off my jacket, I sank heavily onto the small couch. On the fold-out table in front of me were a battered notebook, headphones, Sam's badge-holder, with "Samwise Dort" written in round, handwritten letters, and a large folder filled with papers, notes, crude sketches, and newspaper clippings – "The Three's speech postponed again – monarchs preparing to make several important announcements?", "Power outages in the capital!", "Eastbound highways closed", "Main underground tunnel through the 'Halls' to the West is closed until autumn" – none of which I wanted to go through.
My head felt heavy, my eyes were closing. The sleepless nights of anxiety during the border crossings were catching up with me. But I knew, if I lay down on the bed now, I wouldn't be able to sleep. I was completely unaccustomed to sleeping in a moving car.
I shifted my gaze to the monotonous landscape sliding past the window: white two-story houses with dark roofs flashed in a repetitive rhythm, and rare arrow-shaped trees pierced the gloomy sky. We passed an expressive bridge with wrought-iron railings; the water in the river appeared dirty, graphite-brown, and its turbulent streams seemed out of place next to the neat, private homes.
In the background of my thoughts, the fleeting realization hit me that the river was rushing toward the Bloody Bay, and I almost regretted that we wouldn't see its fjords. I'd heard they were insanely beautiful.
But the very sight of the stormy waters amidst the trembling calm of the dormant town seemed, for a moment, eerie and terrifying. However, lately, my tendency toward suspicion, emotionality – sometimes crossing all boundaries – feelings of dread and awe, arising out of nothing, had become particularly sharp: they made me spin, twitch, and never gave me peace for a moment—something was approaching, and one didn’t need to be a seer to understand that. The only question was, in which area of our lives would it first strike.
I attributed my own moral exhaustion to general fatigue and the tense atmosphere. Although, without a doubt (and I couldn’t lie to myself), the reason ran much deeper – it was too obvious and too painful. There was no escaping or hiding from the past. You couldn’t drown it out with work, drown it out with risky decisions, or dull it; it always came back in sudden memories during moments of silence, nightmarish dreams, creeping tears, and the lump in my throat… Starting over was hard. Sometimes it seemed like it was only possible if I set fire to the previous chapters of my life, but to do that, I’d have to be either incredibly brave or desperately foolish – and so I sought healing elsewhere. Having completely lost myself, with an absolute emptiness within my ribs, I gave myself over to work. Completely. Without fear or doubt. Maybe that’s why, looking at the houses passing by the window, at the travel papers arranged before me, I didn’t question how I had the courage to do all of this.
I had gotten myself into an adventure, the details of which were frightening to even think about.
Sam was snoring loudly in his sleep, curled up on the small, worn-out couch; he had spent the entire night editing a video and then fixing the antenna – for some reason, it had been acting up with terrible interruptions lately – so it was no surprise that he fell asleep as soon as he sat down. I smiled, recalling how many years of friendship we shared with Dort – playing in the same courtyard as kids, going to school together, and then to college. I never thought life would turn out this way – I never imagined everything would spin, change, twist, and break apart like this – and that we would end up working side by side.
Over four years of working in publishing behind us. So fast, yet unbearably long; what we’ve achieved now is written in blood, tears, and the cold of political investigation cells… There was no easy start, and we didn't fall into rhythm right away – for a long time, our trio wasn’t recognized, so we weren’t involved in any of the shortcuts, gossip, or work for the regime. Courage is tasted in small doses. You don’t read people right away. You find allies only through mistakes. The constant drive to be at the center of events, to dig into topics that shouldn’t be dug into: this led us to the current editor-in-chief of Crimson Skies, a man who was partly reckless, impulsive, but very principled and brave, who managed to find a loophole in censorship and powerful patrons even in our State.
The closer to the center of the city, the more people there are, the taller the buildings, and the darker the sky.
It was an incredible risk to head to the Isthmus Region, but a trusted source assured us that there would be information on our topic of interest, and certain strings had been pulled to set up the meeting.
However, we were nearly a day late for the agreed meeting time: no matter how well-made the entry documents were or whose name was on the signature, movement between territorial units of the State had been, to put it mildly, highly restricted for many decades, and in the past month, customs officials had become downright feral. The tightening of already strict restrictions was, of course, due to the epidemic in the Northern lands, which could no longer be concealed by rumors, speculation, or the machinations of “oppositionists and amateurs.” An unknown disease was rapidly and mercilessly sweeping through the cities, and the impending nightmare, the “wrath of the Heavens,” was only whispered by the lazy.
Yes, Andrew didn’t have to mention the closed North. I was sure that in a couple of weeks, it would fall under the same strict ban as the civil war in the southwestern territories and the organization Ancerb, which had vanished about a year and a half ago. So, no matter how risky our trip was, we couldn’t afford to miss even the smallest chance to understand what was happening.
I sighed heavily, glancing furtively at the fresh newspaper next to Sam. The headlines were full of news about yet another official behind bars; about how the civil war (and any military actions) in the distant southwest had ended last year, and any contradiction to that was lies, sabotage, and attempts to undermine the authority of the