Finch by Jeff VanderMeer Read Online Free PDF

better or worse than his?

    Finch sees again, back across six long years, the columns of tanks and
infantry in retreat, traveling through the city toward the north.
Recognizes with hindsight that the path they took had been chosen
by the gray caps. Forced by the rising water.
    Distant explosions had split the air as the gray caps attacked
stragglers at the end of the column. Even then, small-arms fire no
longer registered with Finch unless it was close by.
    Despite the risk, many people had come out to watch the rebels.
From the roadside. From balconies. Peering out of windows reinforced
with metal bars. To bear witness to the rumbling tread of the tanks.
To remember the faces of the troops: pale and dark, old and young
and middle-aged. Beneath green helmets with the intertwined
H&S/F&L insignia that rankled so many. Armed with automatic
weapons, bayonets, knives. Most in uniform. Many damaged. A welter of bandages on heads, legs, arms, that hid evidence of strange
fungal wounds.

    One man's face held Finch's attention. Salt-and-pepper beard,
creases in his forehead, wrinkles that made him look as if he were
squinting. A red patch on his cheek. Body slumped, then tensed,
against the lurching of the tank. A gaunt hand clutching his Lewden
rifle, knuckles prominent. Gaze turned forward, as if unwilling to
acknowledge the present.
    Which had made Finch realize again that these men and women
leaving, they were the same ones who had fought one another during
more than three decades of the War of the Houses, broken only by
armistices, cease-fires, and the dream of empire. The ones who had
brought ruination upon Ambergris in so many ways before the Rising.
    Yet they were still from Ambergris, of Ambergris, and even Finch
felt it in his chest, Wyte standing there beside him with his Emily.
Almost as if Ambergris itself was retreating, leaving behind only
ghosts and children. But also leaving a perverse giddiness. A sense of
celebration at seeing such a mighty force. The retreat portrayed as a
new beginning. The lull before the launching of a great offensive.
    Even the tanks were part of Ambergris. They'd come out of the
eighty-year-old metal deposits found in eastern Ambergris that had
catapulted the city out of the past but not yet into the future.
    Rebel tanks had two turrets: one pointed ahead, one unseen beneath
that pointed at the ground. Specially built to open up and deliver bombs
to underground gray cap enclaves. Once, their rough syncopated song had
been heard all over the city. Juddered through the ground into the walls
of buildings and tunnels alike. Like a kind of defiant echoing growl.
    In retreat, though, it was the singing of the troops as they left that Finch
heard, their voices ragged over the rumble of the tanks. Patriotic songs
composed long centuries before. A refrain that had started as a prayer by
the Truffidian monks.
    Holy city, majestic, banish your fears.
Arise, emerge from your sleeping years.
Too long have you dwelt in the valley of tears.
We shall restore you with mercy and grace.

    City of wounds. City of wounding. For a moment, Finch had felt
the urge to climb up onto one of the tanks, to join them in what was
then the wilderness of North Ambergris. But Finch wasn't one of
them. He'd had no officer to report to. Had bought his own weapon.
Off the books, off the record. An Irregular, fighting alongside other
Irregulars in his neighborhood. Defending their sisters, brothers,
parents, and neighbors against the invaders.
    After the last tank had rumbled past, Finch had gone back with
Wyte and Emily. To await the next thing. No matter what it might
be. The need to work. To eat. To have shelter. People were already
telling themselves things might still be better under the gray caps
than during the War of the Houses, at least. Joked about it. Like you
might about a passing storm.
    Waiting it out at Wyte's house. By candlelight. Drinking. Laughing
nervously.