Black Marion

2

Sasha remembered common facts, such as the number of people in the State: six hundred million on the Ground, two hundred million in the Sky, eight hundred million total in the isolated city-state of a ruined Earth. She remembered history, as long as it was not her own. Human anatomy, medical chemistry, select details of the central nervous system. A strange Korean song about a mountain rabbit, though she had no idea why the foreign lyrics flickered in her head as she stumbled along the windowed hall. City landmarks. Politics.

Politics: Vaughn Scio.

He supported Sasha with a hand on her arm, a hand at her side, cautious and intimate. He didn't seem to match the vague impression of his name—Vaughn Scio, the Regent, one man among six who governed their eight hundred million with a righteous, undefiable power. In Sasha's hollowed memory, the name Vaughn Scio belonged to a distant man-made god.

This man did not seem so absolute and separated, humanized as he was by his sweet words and soft handling, but that was the eere. If this man was not the Regent he claimed to be, Sasha wouldn't know it yet. And if he was who he claimed to be, then she should be desperate to believe that he was a genuine lover. Else she was as vulnerable as plated fish for the cat.

For the time, she could do nothing but tread carefully. Holding her questions, she filed away the details about this building in silence.

It was a beautiful space. Beyond the bedroom had been a hall lined with historical art: landscape photographs, unmoving, covered by glass in synthetic wooden frames. The ground was marbled black; the ceiling was embedded soft light. Both stretched into a living area with a wide holo at the center for entertainment and a massive aquarium built into the side wall. The fish seemed happy for fish.

Beyond this area was their current space. It was set by the building edge, and the whole left wall was window glass. From this view, Sasha had a better estimate of their elevation, a better visual of their relative location, and a guess about a landmark building that was suitable for a Regent. It was probably the Arleon, the finest residence in the Skyworld.

"Do you remember this view?"

Sasha glanced at Vaughn, who glanced toward the spanning city in gesture.

"No."

"I see." A pause. "Do you like it, at least?"

It was a beautiful city. This high in the sky, it was not possible to see the Ground—not possible to see even the midground. Sasha had vague, impersonal concepts of both as dimmer, dirtier, but those concepts were drowned out by the immediate image of the smooth, winding lanes and wide green platforms, gardens built on hanging decks, the famously architected skybridge that connected the capital district to the corporate sector. It was clutter, but it looked like the abundance of luxury. 

She said to Vaughn, "It's a nice view."

Vaughn stared at her a moment longer. Sasha imagined that he wasn't very satisfied with this answer, uninspired as it was. She didn't think that an amnesiac was obligated to try very hard.

The moment passed. Vaughn's eyes lidded, softer. He said just as softly, "Yes."

They turned under the wide archway of a lush room. Through it was a gardened patio with a round sapphire pool, with long white seats, a cushioned couch. The clear doors slid open at a sweep of Vaughn's hand below the motion sensors. The fresh air was a biting relief—colder than it was inside, and she winced beneath her loose sweater.

Vaughn glanced at her. Once she was seated on a couch, he went to tap at an embedded screen on the wall.  A few moments later, the couch became heated, so soft in its warmth that it was like liquid. She tucked her feet under her legs and relaxed into the heat.