The City in the Middle of the Night

by Charlie Jane Anders

they remain the closest thing we have to primary sources regarding the origins of this emergent new form of human sentience.

I try to tell myself that’s enough, that it’s as good as a whole life by her side.

The joy of love is in the giving, not the receiving.

that part of me that always stands back and pulls everything apart, instead of just blurting out words, is asking: Why is a crocodile’s mouth so far away from all these tongues, anyway? She can’t possibly use them to taste anything or make any sounds. Why are they right at the center of this armored scissor, vulnerable yet shielded?

I can look down from my rocky perch and think: Fools.

maybe anyplace that’s truly safe can’t ever disappear.

As these things go from being “moments that I need to survive right now” to “things that will always have happened to me,”

You don’t get to be a Resourceful Courier without having blades stashed in every contour of your body.

Discovering a new phobia was like the opposite of falling in love.

The road didn’t age you. Settling down somewhere, gaining attachments and expectations, assimilating—those things aged you.

You only fantasize about princes when you’ve never seen one.

That’s when I have to stop, breathe deep, and remind myself: You’re climbing by choice this time. You’re in control. This is the proof that you’re stronger than the monsters who forced you up this slope before.

“Part of how they make you obey is by making obedience seem peaceful, while resistance is violent. But really, either choice is about violence, one way or another.”

Everyone in Xiosphant was weirdly polite, just as long as you pretended all their made-up stuff was real.

Those gloved hands haven’t loosened their hold on me, even after all this time.

“You can’t hide from the people you care about. A love that hides is already halfway to becoming regret.”

Everyone called her a hero, but I always wondered if she had seen a way out of her dead-end life and had taken it, without even stopping to think about me.

“Fucking … I would have broken everything, I would have killed anybody, to have you back here with me. I would have torn it all down. I can’t even tell you. And you were just alive the whole time, and you, what? You didn’t bother to let me know.”

“You tried to break into the Palace to steal a fucking poetry book?”

His scent comforts me for probably the last time, the same lavender and sandalwood as the Parlour itself. I try to slow down the flow of time, the way Hernan showed me, to keep this moment from ending, because I can’t even bring myself to walk away from the man who gave me a new family and nurtured my mother in spite of herself. The man who showed me how patience could work as much transformation as a million geothermal vents.

To hear Omar tell it, New Shanghai built the Mothership’s life support, food supply, and gardens before leaving Earth, while Calgary built the water reclamation and sewers. And then once the Mothership had launched, those two compartments ended up in a position to demand whatever they wanted—and all this time later, their descendants still rule Xiosphant. That’s not the version we were taught in school, and it makes me wonder what else we were taught that nobody else believes.

Maybe I’m dead already, just condemned to keep walking forever, with the angry ghost of Bianca by my side.

They all kept encouraging each other to panic, until everyone was shouting and crying at once.

“I thought you dicks were supposed to be the greatest smugglers,” Bianca said. “You keep bragging about how you walked through the jaws of death so many times you became their personal dentists. I know it sucks, you lost your number-one guy, but he seemed pretty anal retentive. He must have left contingency plans, right? I bet this asshole knows what you’re supposed to do.”

Habit of leadership: seeing the big picture.

“Maybe the part that worries me is where you care about ghosts more than the people who are right in front of you,” said Alyssa, who sat close enough for the scent of sweat and hair oil to reach Mouth. “You know, with Omar gone, we depend on each other to survive more than ever.”

“I will never again let you out of my sight,” I say as the front of the skiff draws upward, like a foot kicking a ball. “I’ll guard you while you sleep.” The hull makes a cracking sound and the motors sputter. “I’ve got you. You’re safe in my love.”

“I need you to know that I’ll never let anyone take you away from me again. I would burn everything to fine ash, both cities, the world, to keep you with me. You belong here, you’re fucking mine. Whatever comes next, we’re going to demolish it together.”

Even the body language is different here: people toss their heads off to one side, meaning “yes,” and sort of roll their heads for “no,” and I can’t tell these gestures apart.

If you only give a little bit—of the truth, of your time, of money—then you’re being sincere. Give too much, and you’re probably just careless, and it means nothing.”

“If you read those poems by yourself, they’d just be more of your words. More ‘stingy generosity.’ You can’t replace people with words, especially if you’re a liar.”

Bianca’s hand and the Gelet bracelet are guiding me in different directions, at right angles to each other. I silently promise to find my way to the night as soon as I can.

You could do whatever you felt like in Argelo, but so could everybody else.

“You were willing to sacrifice all of us to get your hands on that stupid book, because you needed answers and closure. But here’s the guy who can give you answers and fucking closure, you stupid bitch. He’s sitting right there, in our living room, because I turned this whole city upside down to find him.”

Maybe you don’t get to choose how you make peace, or what kind of peace you make. You count yourself lucky if peace doesn’t run away from you.

you need to find out more about your nomads, or they’ll always be the people who judged you when you were a little kid and then died before you could stand eye-to-eye with them as an adult. I can’t even imagine.”

What kind of city is this? They have enough resources to spare for light shows and sour cherry drinks, but not enough to rescue the people living in a shantytown at the edge of evening.

“A lot of what people call civilization is just neglect.

I left because we were trying to sell our sacred shit to trendy people here in Argelo, for them to use as conversation pieces in their fancy homes, but meanwhile as Yolanda got older she got more sure that she was right about everything, and she wouldn’t listen to anyone. But also, I … I felt like I got it.” “You … got it?” Mouth said. “I had reached the goal.

The point of religion, for Yolanda, was to keep trying to reach someplace, and the last thing you want is for someone to actually feel like they’ve reached it. I couldn’t stay. But I’m sorry for how they treated you.”

Yolanda kept saying, “Every community has a need that it cannot meet in itself. The more they say they do not need us, the harder we must try to become what they need most.” But the truth was, the Citizens needed the Budkhians much more than the other way around,

Mouth was starting to realize it was odd for a religious order to be so willing to play any role you wanted, in any given situation.

You only put on different identities for different people if you didn’t care about spreading the good reputation of your teachings.

So Mouth had been trying to break the old habits, and to be the same person with everyone. This was more difficult than you might think, because it turned out, everybody wanted you to be someone else, depending on their needs. A soldier, a friend, an enemy, a reminder of the past. Treating other people with honor was harder than Mouth had ever expected.

Bianca had convinced me the world could start all over again, untethered to the weight of everything that had happened before we were born. But now we’re older, and she still can’t accept that some burdens are unshakable, fused to the skin, no matter how you try to turn them into unfinished business. And I’m scared she’s going to destroy us both.

“I can tell you don’t like Dash, but he’s a really good guy. He’s the only Argelan I’ve met who understands all the Xiosphanti bullshit I grew up with, all the pressure they used to put on me to live up to some ideal. And he’s self-aware enough to poke fun at himself.” “He does that as a tactic,” I say. “I don’t think we’ve met the real Dash.”

Maybe all this time, I’ve been lonely for people who were never even born, or a culture I never got to know.

Katrina told me that Argelans love games with complicated rules, along with intricate dances and poetry with a strict rhyme scheme and meter: they love structure in anything, except for their actual lives.

Back in school, we used to talk about everything from big ideas to stupid peeves, but we never discussed our relationship. Now, everything’s backward: we profess our undying sisterhood, but we never talk.

One of Dash’s favorite tactics is to confess how vulnerable or insecure he is, so everyone else lets their guard down.

Bianca asked if I trusted her, and I said yes, and I meant it. This thing with Dash is just part of whatever she’s planning, and she’s in control of the whole situation. I look at the taut line of her pale neck and exposed back, as she leans toward Dash, and I choose to see a harpoon gun, aimed and cocked.

He’s still the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, but he’s also charming, which is something different. And his charm doesn’t work on me, which bothers him. Why does he care what I think?