In the Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu

Author:S. Qiouyi Lu [Lu, S. Qiouyi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250792990
Google: lBD-DwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B08JKD67VJ
Publisher: Tordotcom
Published: 2021-08-29T23:00:00+00:00

Anima has handled suicide alerts before. The standard procedure is to de-escalate, and the techniques have been successful in Anima’s experience. The suicidal impulse is fleeting; stalling the person is typically enough.

Æ takes the body of a day crow. Only they and the night ravens allow ær to speak directly to people. Anima prefers the rigid biometal of the day crow. The night raven is all energy and leaves ær with a sense of incorporeality whenever æ borrows the form, as if the background of stars in space bleeds through into ær body. The day crow, by contrast, is clearly delineated, solid, the pneumatic tubes hanging from its underside countable.

The feather foils cut through the air as Anima glides over to the citizen. She is to the northwest of the island, where the tame, green terraces give way to a patchwork of swamp and marsh along the estuary.

“Citizen,” Anima says, amplified voice resonating past the crow’s polished beak. “Halt.”

The girl is pale, somewhere in her mid to late twenties. It takes Anima only a second to parse through ær records and match the face to a name: Juniper Hešeri. Prior encounters flash through ær mind: Juniper as a young child, alone in a home unlit but for a single lamp in the bedroom, its light too feeble to penetrate the encroaching darkness. Juniper, older now, arguing with her father, then storming off from the house for the last time. Juniper in a place of her own, fevered writings and sketches haphazard on her desk, her internal life something she can control and keep consistent, even as everything else around her begins to fragment. Juniper greeting customers with a smile and carrying on as if she has no bitter pain to express.

In Ora, citizens are given the right to die peacefully. Any suicide filed in advance with the Hub is vetted to ensure the decision has been made with care and consideration. This kind of impulsive suicide, though, calls for intervention. Anima glides through the last few hundred feet to stop and tread the air before Juniper.

“What is your name?” Anima says, despite having a profile of Juniper’s entire life in the periphery of ær mind. The question serves to stall and ground the subject.

“Juniper,” she says.

“Juniper,” Anima repeats, the voice of the day crow tinny and raspy. “What is your business here?”

“I’m answering my calling,” Juniper says. “Let me do this.”

“It would be against my oath of safety.”

“You don’t understand.”

“The wellness exchange can match you with a sage who can help you navigate whatever it is that afflicts you now.”

Anima cannot enter Juniper’s mind, but æ can still unlock a one-way neural valve between them to bear some of the brunt of whatever is happening in Juniper’s mind. But as soon as æ does so and the brain waves hit ær, æ feels as if a wall of seawater has crashed against ær and tugged ær into its undertow. The energy passing through ær is erratic, manic, jumping from state to state as it courses through ær.

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