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Duke of Two Cities Chapter 31
A friend! For the first time in Ali’s life, someone had stood up for him who did not know him. He was not in his father’s employ, or someone from his family. This ‘Devon’ had protected him for no hope of monetary gain or position or status. Ali’s heart flooded with joy as he gave Devon’s hand another shake. Devon, smiling, removed his hand from Devon’s. “It’s all good, man,” Devon said, followed by something else that was just a little too fast for Ali to understand. “It’s all good, man…” Ali mouthed the words carefully. He would have to practice if he was going to better talk with his new friend. The panel began. A few people walked out on the stage to a smattering of applause. A thin, almost skeletal creature of a man took the microphone and began to speak into it. Even through the microphone, the sounds from his throat were wheedling and unpleasant to hear. It was as though the man was cutting off his own voice while speaking at the same time. Ali settled into an uncomfortabl
Duke of Two Cities Chapter 32
This. Panel. Sucked. Forty minutes had passed since the start of the panel and all the writers had managed was to congratulate themselves for being writers: “I think what we’re doing— and by what we’re doing, I mean what we in the writing business call ‘the craft’—is by far one of the most important things we can do as people.”“I agree! We are always looking to push the boundaries and look into ourselves to find deeper meaning of… you know… what it means to be a good person and to be a good human-being. But what is a ‘good human being? There’s a few definitions…”“Oh absolutely. I completely agree. And in these troubled times, that’s something I think we can all come together and support…”Worst of all was their tone—the writers spoke as if drugged, their words slow and droning like the hum of a faraway refrigerator. What could have been even a mildly interesting discussion was instead a slow, winding lecture of the worst sort—self-important, self-righteous, drab, dull, and boring.
Duke of Two Cities Chapter 33
Faster than Devon could react, the two sides drew themselves up in a wave of anger. Zeven’s supporters rushed to the teens with cybernetics. Julio’s around the girl who had dissolved into a furious torrent of Spanish. If he was caught in the coming melee, Devon would lose his free room… and possibly liable for the damages. The two sides swirled around each other, their cries of anger growing loud and vicious. Devon looked toward the exit. There was still a path to the exit, but it was closing quickly as more people stood up to either join or escape the coming brawl. A few closest to the audience made an early exit, not wanting to get involved, followed by a stream of ever-growing urgency. A streams of Julio’s supporters were about to cut off the gap, shouting and pointing their fingers, a phalanx of indignant nerds on the march to war. The organizer had rushed to the microphone, pleading for calm. His thin, quavering voice could barely make it above the growing chaos of a thous
Duke of Two Cities Chapter 34
Ali’s heart was about to burst out of his throat. How did things get so bad? He had been sitting, carefully paying attention to every word. He trawled through all of his English memories to piece together what these Important People were saying—like fitting together a puzzle. In truth, he had put into this more effort than all of his English lessons back home. In the middle of this talk, something changed. The author with half a headphone set on his ear had thrown some strange looks towards another author—a man with greying hair who looked almost like Cousin Sayid. Indeed, there was much about him—the slightly greying hair, the way he wore his beard—that made Ali think that this man, Julio Vasquez, could have been related to Cousin Sayid in some way. Of course, this was impossible. But the similarities were quite uncanny. Then, chaos. Julio Vasquez became upset and stormed out from the panel, and the crowd went into an uproar. This was nothing new—Zhabai also had such moments o
Duke of Two Cities Chapter 35
A third chair sailed over Devon’s head—this one far too close for comfort. “JESUS!” Without thinking, Devon pushed Ali through the conference room doors just as a chair flew over his head. Ali landed flat on his face, his hands shooting up to the back of his head. They had made it out. Just in time, too. Down the hall, a contingent of conference security armed with plastic shields and black truncheons hustled down the corridor toward the conference room. Some of the truncheons were tipped with what looked like a microphone’s head. Devon’s stomach crunched. A sonic stunner. “Cover your ears, man!” Ali’s fingers laced firmly around the back of his head and did not budge. Damn it! Closing one of his ears with his shoulder, Devon blocked Ali’s exposed ears with his hands. HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE A choir of yelping coursed from the conference room. Even outside, the stunner ripped through Devon’s unexposed ear. Pain coursed through his jaw as though someone
Duke of Two Cities Chapter 36
A sharp yelp came from the conference, and that was the last sound that came from the room. It was the last Devon and Ali heard from the rumbler. For ten minutes, the security walked slowly, almost leisurely, waving the stunner with professional ease. The convention’s security was unhurried in their pacification—no different from an exterminator flushing out termites from the walls. Meanwhile, three hundred terrified panel goers backed themselves into whatever corners they could find. Zeven’s supporters crammed themselves into the same corners as the followers of Julio, their former enmity washed away by the waves of sonic pain. Then, without a word, the convention security left. No orders, no demands. They just walked out of the room. Devon wouldn’t even look at them as they passed. Ali, however, did. They wore old police uniforms, complete with bulletproof, anti-stabbing vests. Their faces were covered with angular breath protectors, giving them the appearance of armored beetle
Duke of Two Cities Chapter 37
“S-sure!” Devon pulled over a table and Ali, burying himself fully in his last taco, helped to pull a chair. Up close, Julio Luis Vasquez looked even more like an author than on the panel. He was neatly, if conservatively, dressed in lecturer’s tweed with small round glasses. His goatee was a cloudy grey, but still holding on to a few patches of the original color, which must have been coal black at one point. His eyes twinkled, alert and bright, but the bags under his eyes suggested many nights without rest. After some polite introductions, Julio took out his own taco and gave it a deep bite. He closed his eyes, sighing with contentment. “Dios mio… that is good.” “Does it… uh… taste like home?” asked Devon. “Oh, not at all,” Julio said. “I am from Spain and tacos are not Spanish food, so I did not grow up with this.” Julio pronounced Spain like “Ehs-pain,” an accent which Devon had never heard before. “But I have been to Mexico, and this is far, far too fancy. Over there, taco
Duke of Two Cities Chapter 38
There sat the three of them; Ali, Devon, and Julio Vasquez. His speech on the sorry state of his city and its people had put him into a dreary mood. Julio wasn’t wrong. This whole day had been living proof, and Julio had stories of his own. A part of him wanted to defend his city—New Hudson wasn’t all bad! Devon had lived here his entire life and had gotten to see it from al sides. There were plenty of reasons why today seemed to go so wrong— it was right smack in the middle of the summer, blazing hot even in the shade. That people were a little big on edge was reasonable. And what invention of people didn’t have the occasional spat here and there? Nevertheless, Devon could not help but feel a bit ashamed of his city. Out of nowhere, a quiet voice began to chant:Poor rocky pebbles built my walls Four handfuls each do I call home Humble as the prophets Who without complaint or soundShield me from wind and sand and rainAnd I, safe and warm and dry Would not trade this place For
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Chapter 52
His room had been cancelled. Just like that. No warning, no notice. At the snap of Marc’s fingers, Devon had been unceremoniously tossed out of a Convention that he literally gave up his family to attend. Devon stared at Marc for a while. Then, he laughed. He laughed quietly, then he laughed loudly, cackling, until he had no more breath in him. And still he laughed. This had been, by far, the most ridiculous weekend in Devon’s entire life. He had given up his family in a moment of anger, suffered assault and insult nearly daily, only to befriend some kind of foreign royalty who, while defending his newfound friend, had sacrificed the only housing he would have for the foreseeable future. Ridiculous! His life had become a joke, some absurd and wild story written by a mad idiot. This was a weekend that would define the rest of his life, and it all had just been so unbelievably stupid. Meanwhile, Marc looked as though he were about to leap out of the Executive Lounge window from shee
Chapter 51
Things were getting out of hand. Zayin needed to think quickly; his Prince was going to start digging himself into a deep and terribly expensive hole. Yes, Ali had certain entitlements to his family’s wealth…in theory. But Ali had never tapped into his family’s wealth before—Zayin wasn’t even sure that he could. It was a poorly kept secret that more than one relative had access to Ali’s accounts…including Cousin Sayid. To his shame, Zayin was quietly praying that there was not enough left to embarrass the Prince. He never thought that he would ever wish for relatives to embezzle the Prince’s funds. Even with his Aunts and Cousin Sayid dipping into his funds, Ali’s personal wealth was enough that he could make serious trouble for himself, as well as the Kingdom. And with the stone-set fury on Ali’s face, trouble would come. Perhaps the key to solving the trouble lay in Ali’s ‘brother’. “You.” He pointed at Devon and spoke in English. “Come with me, please.”Quietly, Devon complied.
Chapter 50
It was not the strangest occurrence to ever happen, but it was one of the strangest that had ever happen to Zayin.He stood nearly speechless as Marc, a hotel functionary, sputtered and nearly fell down on his knees trying to explain to Ali how all of this had been an enormous mistake. There had been in Marc’s words, ‘a deep and serious cultural miscommunication that New Hudson Convention Center will work tirelessly to reconcile’. It was ten minutes of this kind of diplomatic nonsense, and Zayin had to admit that he was doing quite well with it. In another life, and with another passport, Marc would have made a great presenter for one of the old State Television channels. More amusing still was, for the first time since knowing him, Ali acted like a prince. This was the greatest shock. Zayin was confident in this assessment—that Ali would be easily brushed aside by his more competent cousins and tossed out of Zhabaiye public life. Cousin Sayid would place him on a farm in the middle
Chapter 49
Since the construction of the New Hudson Convention Center, there had never been a moment quite what Marc Abramov experienced in that Executive Lounge. Since its actual opening some twenty years prior, there had never been so many people silenced all at once with just a few short words. Time seemed to freeze and Marc’s armhairs stood straight on their ends. The VIP…more like the VVIP in fact…was expecting an answer. Why did Marc make the VIP’s brother cry?He clasped his hands and began, “Well—“ Well what? Nothing. The words caught in his throat. Something about the young man’s look—and he barely registered as a man at all—struck him with a sense of absolute terror. The VIP’s gaze encompassed his entire being, utterly and completely, as though he were no more than a fixture of the room. Marc had a sudden, curious idea that there was a sword hanging over his neck. And if he did not speak very, very carefully, that sword would drop and lop his head clean off from his body. There
Chapter 48
Devon sat crosslegged on the floor, squishing his hunter’s hat for comfort. He stared at a spot of carpet, trying to drown out the sounds of the frightening-looking man screaming at Ali. Devon could piece together that the goons all worked for him—some of them were half in costume, others dressed like regular folk. A few wore golden watches. Were they thugs? If so, they weren’t like any gang members that Devon had ever seen, and New Hudson was unfortunately filled with those. These men looked too clean-cut. They didn’t have the casual swagger of the gangs he knew, and other than a little bit of rough-handling on the way to the top-floor lounge, they hadn’t been beaten. Furthermore, gang attacks usually don’t take this long, and by this point they had been sitting in the lounge for twenty minutes. Meanwhile, Ali had begun to shout at the man who kidnapped him. That was the strangest part of all of this--when Ali shouted, the man who kidnapped them listened. And so did his goons. At
Chapter 47
Zayin’s head throbbed. He wished, more than he’d ever wished for anything in his life, that he could wake up back home, in Al-Zhabaiye. He missed his coffee, he missed his 17th story view of the desert, he missed the smell of the cedar paneling of his building’s elevator. All these little things he missed, many of which he had not appreciated before. His head ached until the pain seeped down into his shoulders. So tense were all his muscles that even the slightest movement ached. And it was well to be tense, because his ward, the PRINCE OF AL-ZHABAIYE HIMSELF, chose to behave like a childish idiot. Now Zayin and his security team occupied the hotel’s Executive Lounge, where they had extradited the Prince from a possible attempt on his life. The Prince sat on the couch with his head in his hands, refusing to look at or speak to anyone. One of his security team had thoughtfully prepared a plate of dried fruit and cheese. The plate sat in front of the Prince, untouched. Good. Maybe the
Chapter 46
Far away from the chaos of New Hudson, in the Golden City of Al-Zhabai, King Ibrahim al-Zhabai stood on his private balcony, thinking of a joke. Once, the land that his Kingdom sat upon was a flat cropping of rock surrounded by a lake of sand. No trees, no oil or minerals, or any of the other resources that make a city worth building existed there. A hundred years before King Ibrahim’s time, this useless plot of land was gifted to his great-grandfather, Usman al-Zhabai, Founder of the Kingdom, as the world’s most expensive prank. It was a little known truth. Very few people beyond the deepest circle of the royal family knew this story. Not even foreign websites could publish it, for the instant they did al-Zhabai’s Ministry of Communications used every means at their disposal to take it down. Family lore said that when Founder Usman, talented and overlooked, was finally gifted the land he had worked for all his life. When the empty plot of land was finally revealed, his “benefac
Chapter 45
It began with a push. Once again, Ali was surrounded by an angry crowd, with someone screaming at him in a language that was not his mother tongue. In Al-Zhabai, nobody would dare speak to him in such a way—even the cousins who looked upon him with contempt would never stoop to such behavior. In the moment, Ali felt the most curious sensation—that his soul was leaving his body, watching it from above. Perhaps the shock of the push had killed him, he thought. Curiously, in this dissociated state, he didn’t seem to have any feelings at all, though his body was nearly convulsing in terror. Time seemed to lose its smooth passing. Suddenly everything became terribly slow, as if the convention and everything in it was moving through thick honey. Down from above his own body, Ali gazed as Tamyra, whose face had become a terrible mask of vindictive rage. She lunged at Ali— to snatch Devon’s gift, he thought. But Tamyra’s dexterity had vanished before the heat of her own anger, and whom m
Chapter 44
“Of course it would be you,” Tamyra snarled. “Who else would be so entitled? All I needed to finish my was going to finish my Warriors of the Endless Road collection was that Dashu. And you took it.”Tamyra’s face had flushed past crimson and was on its way to purpose. Her princess wand was quavering in her hand. At the slightest provocation, Devon feared she might actually use it. He held up his hands as though the wand were about to shoot lightning from its glittery points. “Look,” Devon began, “I’m sorry about your collection, but like—how are any of us supposed to know that? We can’t read minds or anything.”“You took it,” Tamyra intoned. Devon’s logic had no place amidst her anger. And there was much to be angry about—between the incident at the entrance, the horrible mess in the Fantasy writer’s panel, and now this. Just over the past two days, Ali and Devon had been a thorn in her slippers. and she had just about enough. “And it’s not enough that you have the nerve to troll in
