One Heartbeat

This morning, a thunderstorm hit town. While I have dealt with monsoons all my life, this is the first time that I have seen towering thunderclouds and lightning hitting the ground all around me, wild like the thundering herds of daraiga. I ran from the apartment complex to the skyrail and stood on the wet platform with brave commuters who forced me to put away my umbrella. Thankfully, I had another gyena in my bag because the dark green and white one I wore today was soaked in minutes; I cannot account for what it did to my hepteri vest. I stopped for a cup of hot nonu from one of the vendors, following the lead of many businesspeople, and dashed down Kisera Street.

Once inside, I stood in the lobby to watch the rain pound against the glass walls and dropped one lh. into Nukena’s fountain. My skin felt cold and clammy when I folded my arms across my chest; my teeth chattered. I ran into the bathroom to pat myself down with towels and change my gyena.

Like me, many people in the office had gotten soaked. Following their suit, I removed my embroidered hepteri vest and hung it from a coat rack near Akah Kara’s room (after, of course, writing my name on the inside to deter theft). My knee-length underdress flowed freely from my shoulders, damp but thin enough to dry quickly. My sandals, thankfully, resisted moisture.

You’re crazy for going in there, the archival assistant said, rolling a kas cigarette from off-world between her thumb and forefinger. From the way she looked out the window, I could tell that she blamed the weather for preventing her indulgence. It’s cold. Try in a few hours when you’re dry.

I put my arms through one of the thick archival coats and lifted it up over my shoulders. While I tied it around my waist, she brought me a pair of gloves. According to the statistics I read, you have one and a half months of dreadful below-freezing weather. If that didn’t deter me from moving here, then the rain won’t prevent me from doing my job. The gloves fit my hands snugly. I went up to the door with my key card and opened it, holding the door against my body as I reached for one of the document readers.

Video disks from the 1830s are large and bulky; most of the documents in the archival section from this period consist of actual paper, maybe paper in binders if they felt especially keen on keeping something—then again, as the Occupation ended in 1826 and the interim government passed power to the states in 1830, people and states didn’t have the infrastructure to provide people with advanced technology. No—in the 1830s, people spent most of their time rebuilding cities and towns or running for government to begin the current order of grand families and prosperous estates. While we may assert Tveshi supremacy in all things, the other continent produced advanced computing units first, and the continent we had not known about until the Occupation successfully drafted and proposed the charter for the International Congress. It also provided us with a working document for planetary entry and exit visa requirements in 1829. Perhaps my state contributed something: diplomats, elitists, policy knowledge, morality, art. Perhaps the Karatha had proposed everything from behind the scenes, using various states as mouthpieces to level the playing field and prevent strong opposition.

The first video I picked up provided a record of a social event in 1841. Sixteen minutes into the film, Akah Khera and Adviser Tenes Sari danced. Adviser Sari has a pale face and high cheekbones; at this party in 1841, dark half-moons pressed beneath his eyes and he looked malnourished. White streaked his hair. If anything, he looks younger now than he did then. Some people say that the nuameč remain so young because they steal youth from others—would this rumor apply to Adviser Sari as well? the Karatha? What makes someone a tesekhaira rather than a normal human being? I confess that I first had these thoughts while standing in the archives today; now that I have revisited them, I am no closer to finding an answer.

Thoughts whirred through my brain so swiftly that I caught myself in their stream. Suddenly, in the real world, I felt a hand against my arm and jumped, nearly dropping the document reader. I hardly understood the figure in front of me who had draped a blue gyena over her forearms, a mockery of some statue I had seen somewhere … Akah Sehutannyi, I said.

Listen … I don’t like apologizing to people, but I am sorry for what happened earlier. I was drunk. I didn’t realize who you were or I would have—

Chosen someone else. That made a lot of sense, but it meant something else, too: Sehutannyi had done this before to other women, maybe even to men, and until now they had all been random encounters to be forgotten in the morning. Don’t worry about it. I … don’t regret what happened. My cheeks felt hot, and I hadn’t even tried to blush. Standing so close to her made my heart rate increase. I couldn’t take my eyes off her lips. To think that this was the woman I needed to disarm and betray.

She smiled and let out a breath. I balanced the document reader on the shelf and moved towards her, catching her arm beneath my once-lost gyena. Her body stiffened. My lips pressed against hers. She smelled like spices and incense, perfume and six-day-old wine, sweat and saliva. Her body melted against mine like wax yielding to a candle flame. Her hands moved up my arms; the gyena fell to my shoulders.

Who needs to be a nuamë to steal life? Sehutannyi gave me hers with each kiss that passed between us—not by osmosis, but with each greedy exhalation I swallowed, each sigh, each gasp, until she was mine utterly.