MUSIC FOR THE END OF THE WORLD

“Should we do something about the pirates?” Kae asked.

They were on the air, but only by a few meters. There was a frenzy of activity coming from the left side of the ship, a murmur of mechanisms moving against each other, which Des explained away as the self-repairing process. Kae cursed herself for not peeking being they lifted off the ground.

“Yep,” Des answered. “Put distance between us. Like we’re doing right now, you’ll notice.”

“Ha-ha.” Kae rolled her eyes. “I mean, the old man is clearly deranged, and the family just enables him. He could be a danger to himself.”

“Right now I’m more worried about him being a danger to myself. Also, they’re a family? I didn’t know that.”

Des was right about the distance. Even this far from her top performance, Sliptstream had no trouble distancing itself from the land-bound pirate ship over the hazardous uneven ground. Soon they were cruising a little above the rolling hills, and their pursuers had been left behind.

Des leaned back against her seat.

“So,” Kae began. “Terms.”

“Mmhm,” Des nodded.

“I still don’t know what made you change your mind.”

“My heart of gold,” Des replied, giving her a sidelong glance.

Kae didn’t look amused.

“Are you really writing your thesis?” Des asked. “You look young for that.”

“Actually,” Kae said slowly. “I was working on that. Until it came to light the world was ending, and then I decided I wanted to do something else.”

“And you decided to rob a museum. Makes sense.”

“Well, yeah, sorta.” Kae looked out the window, where the hills were growing taller. A thin line in the horizon, opposite the Wave, signaled the ocean. “I have a theory about this spell.”

“Do tell.”

Kae gave Des a sidelong glance. Des smiled back.

“What? Worried I’m gonna use the intel and kick you out?”

“I… Maybe? Would you?”

“Would you give me enough information that I could solve the riddle myself?”

Kae pondered this.

“Probably not.”

“There you go.” Des sunk lower in her seat, satisfied. “You were saying.”

“Right. Well, we studied this spell in class, yeah? But because it’s secret, and they don’t want spell-seekers knowing exactly what to look for, they never mention what it’s anchored to. They just say it’s a known spell and—”

“Even though you know no one has used it, and can therefore deduce it’s contained,” Des interrupted.

“Exactly. Like, there’s a thousand ways to contain a spell, so they’re not too worried, I think. Anyway. What they do tell us is the riddle—”

“Because if some precocious genius solves it they definitely want to be the first—”

“Hey,” Kae said. “Am I telling the story or are you?”

Des raised her arms in surrender.

“So, we study the riddle as an example of the complexities of Higher Titonian. And this is an exceptionally difficult case, because the riddle can be read in like a hundred different ways, depending.”

“Depending on what?”

Kae reached for the little containment sphere that was sitting on the dashboard. She stopped before she touched it and looked at Des. The woman hesitated, then nodded.

“I’ve been fiddling with it,” Kae said. “I never understood why there were so many ways to look at the thing until I saw this. Look.”

She held up the sphere for inspection. It was covered in a myriad scratches. Could be letters, could be damage. Then, holding the sphere between the outstretched fingers on both hands, Kae twisted.

The two halves of the sphere rotated against each other. The markings changed. The top of one character became the bottom of another. The entire structure of etchings was completely rearranged with that single push.

“A bunch of different surfaces rotate on a bunch of different axes. And Higher Titonian itself can be read in a bunch of different ways, depending on context,” Kae explained as she demonstrated. “So you see.”

Des frowned.

“I don’t think I see. Unless you mean… you don’t even know what the riddle is. Is that what you’re saying?” Des looked at Kae from the corner of her eye. “Didn’t I hire you specifically because you know how to solve it?”

“Actually, you didn’t hire me, and we never discussed terms,” Kae said. “On top of that, I never said I knew how to solve the riddle, only that the leading experts on the riddle were a bunch of idiots.”

“And you’re not.”

“And I’m not. Exactly. Thank you.” Kae smiled. “But admittedly yes, this may take a while. Which reminds me: where are we going, exactly?”

A warning for Low Altitude appeared on the display, as if the trees zipping by weren’t enough indication. The flashing light stuck around for a while then vanished to recover. It had been doing it for the past hour, and the beeping was close to driving Kae mad.

“Merovinia,” Des said, laconic.

“What’s in Merovinia?”

“Someone who can help.”

That was surprising. Merovinia was a nice coastal city, more known for its art and beaches than for the inhabitants’ expertise on ancient languages. Another possibility presented itself.

“Husband? Boyfriend?”

Des stared her square in the eye.

“You’re a bit nosy, aren’t you?”

“I’m just asking!” Kae protested. “I don’t know the first thing about your life. If I’m going to write about you, I need to know the deets.”

“You’re not going to write about me,” Des said firmly. “In fact, I thought you’d given up on your thesis altogether.”

“I had. But now I’m travelling with a Guardian, or whatever it is you are, and since the chance presents itself…” Kae shrugged. “Look, I’m not going to be doing citations and indexes. I just want to know more about the subject, about… well, everything. It’s all so secretive and at the same time so spectacular. It seems like the First Guard fight off world threats every other week, and yet barely anyone knows how you guys work. Or not you guys. Whatever.”

Des was smiling. That unnerved her. The woman hadn’t frowned, or told her to shut up, or tried to interrupt. She was just piloting while a tiny, secret smile danced on the corner of her lip.

The beeping came on again. Low Altitude, Low Altitude, Low—

“Gah. Can’t we do something about this?”

“Most resources have been allocated to self-repair. It’s a miracle we’re flying at all,” Des said. Her tone was admonishing. “We’ll gain altitude over time, alright? That thing will stop in time.”

“Can we at least put on some music?”

“Sure. Check the glovebox.”

Kae did. The box opened with a pop. Inside a bunch of data cards clacked together, transparent and colorful. She pulled out a couple and read the carefully penned notes. Playlists.

“Cash Metro and the Bullies? A Royal?” Kae looked up to find Des unamused behind her sunglasses.

“They’re classics,” the woman said.

“Hum. Sorry. These are…” Kae hesitated. “Uh, great! Nothing wrong with classics,” she added tactfully. “But they don’t really spell out road trip, do they? Especially road trip in the end of the world. You gotta have something a bit more…”

She searched the pile. The top ones were unapologetically classics. They conjured images of mustaches and long hair and guitars that went Wooooom. She was almost through the pile when a card jumped out at her. It was nearly completely transparent, with only hints of blue at the edges.

A different hand than on the other cards had written on it in black marker. Duets, the title said. Underneath, there was a list of bands and songs.

Kae’s mouth opened of its own volition.

Quickly, she found the slot on the dashboard and inserted the card, which was immediately accepted.

“What is it?” Des asked suspiciously.

“You’ll see.”

“Fine,” Des rolled her eyes. “But we’re listening to Cash after. Say what you want, no one has ever surpassed—”

A quit, dainty pluck of metal strings interrupted her. It was followed by silence, and then…

The drums fell like thunder, blasting the cockpit into Pink Labia by Slim Eros. The song was a hymn. The vocals were so scratchy and terrible that no one could ever confuse Eros with a professional singer, which they were, but the lyrics, oh, the lyrics… It was the sort of song you transposed verbatim onto your arm during a boring class and yet lyrics you would never considering tattooing because they were so sacred and so pure, and so impossible to communicate without the drums, and the strings, and the rhythm. It was sex, and it was love, and it was talking to a stranger you’d known for years and years before you ever met them…

Eros came up for air. The melody continued, climbed, drifted off with two squeaky hammerings on a brutalized piano. Silence but for the lingering bass, the rollercoaster at its peak, the stomach sprouting butterflies in preparation.

Here it comes.

Drums. Chaos. Slim Eros screaming to the infinite, their poet-voice carrying the instruments, a call to action against the universe entire.

“Now this,” Kae said, eyes closed. “This is end of the world music.”

She looked to the side, drunk on the sheer energy, and stopped. Des was piloting with both hands, body perfectly still, looking forward into the distance. A tear had just streamed down her cheek, leaving a shiny patch on the surface of her skin.

Kae reached a hand, touched her shoulder. As soon as she touched her, Des bit her lip, sniffed, smile.

“Sorry,” she said. “Just… memories.”

“Are you OK?” Kae asked. “I’m sorry I didn’t know…”

Des shook her head and nodded to the dashboard.

“Could you…?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Kae pressed the eject button, retrieved the data card. It was a shame. Some other names in the were pretty good, too, and there were a bunch she’d never heard of. Just then, the Low Altitude sign beeped again, insistent but not as much as before. They were a little bit higher up in the sky, though steadily descending again.

“Alright,” Kae said, to break the silence. “Admit it, you just wanted to listen to Cash.”

Des snorted back a laugh and shook her head again. She passed a hand on her cheek, wiping away the tear trail, and nodded.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice a little shaky. “You got me.”

“I had a thought,” Kae said, searching through the glovebox. “If a mechanic could have a look at the ship, do you think it would help?”

Des shook her head.

“Nah. Slipstream is biomechnical. Few know what that is, and no one works with them except for First Guard scientists.”

“What if I knew someone who did?”

Des gave a curious look.

“Do you?”

“Well, he’s a student. But kind of a mad genius. He’s the one who told me these ships even existed.”

Des was silent for a moment, thinking. Then:

“Maybe it could save time, in the long run. Can’t hurt, anyway. Do you know where your friend is? Is it close?”

Smiling, Kae told her.