Wattys shortlist 2021. One morning the sun rises a few hours early, striking levitating skyscrapers in Soliara ahead of schedule. People in the streets stop to look up at the sky and then down at their watches. Most of them, puzzled but disbelieving...
The chief of police arrived late to the boss's party. Guardia Chief Valda had been held up at Louis's Reveur's office searching for the illegal weapon that must have been smuggled out just minutes before the execution.
His officers spread out through the crowd. Ilan Potestas had invited the guardia tonight on top of his armed security forces. The request had been granted, but the situation had changed as a result of the Reveur investigation. Potestas had become a suspect in the case. He was the most likely contact to have provided the lethal firearm to a man without a license. Valda's purpose was now twofold: provide added security to the Invernali director, and collect evidence toward the man's arrest.
Valda had eyes everywhere, but instinct told him to keep his own on Potestas. His officers made reports, their voices coming in loud in his ear from all sides of the roof. The officers each spoke into a portal the size of Valda's earhole, and the only volume control on this new magical development was the number of times Valda had told his detail not to shout. Basic instincts needed time to calibrate with the cutting edge — assumably the generation of the future would have the sense not to shout into a link two inches from his eardrum.
Assumably, the Invernali director would be unarmed, just as he asked his guests to attend unarmed. Potestas Tower checked for weapons, but there were ways to circumvent security. It was the nature of magic. Constellation developed the firearm, then Constellation invented weapons detectors and security systems. Criminals hacked together clever ways to get around the security measures, so Constellation rolled out a new generation of security device, sold more security devices . . . and funded the guardia. Valda was okay with this relationship, but it meant a clever lawbreaker could still get an unauthorized weapon where it wasn't supposed to be.
A cohort of civilian guests meandered into Valda's line of sight on Potestas. Valda strafed to the right to get eyes back on him. Alone on the distant balcony, Ilan Potestas took a drink of his whiskey, gazing out on the city as if the dozens of skyscrapers, hundreds of blinking lights in windows or the cloud cover between the roof and millions of stars above would look any different this night than any other night. As if there was anything to look at — the streets below were quiet under the snow. Hardly anything moved.
Valda caught motion out of the corner of his eye. Someone fast on his left. Heads turned to follow a man in a fox mask. At the same time, a woman in shades instead of a mask climbed up the step to the balcony. Valda knew her, amazingly. The shades didn't hide Lien Cassus's identity in the least, amazingly. The loose legs of her dressy charcoal slacks swishing around her ankles; the long, sleek hair extending from her top knot updo similarly swished. She pulled a gun on the Constellation director. And she didn't care who knew it was her. The man in the fox mask clumsily charged past, scattering the dancers he pushed out of the way. He seemed to be swimming ineffectively through a sea of dresses.
Before Valda could move, a click sounded in his ear drum, and the muzzle of a firearm pressed against his own head. Valda froze, still as a statue and just as incapable of taking action. Neutralized.
A third assailant, in shades and a bowler hat, waved his weapon at the dance floor in an arc to dissuade any heroes. He fired at the man in the fox mask. Missed. Two more shots rang out.
One second later the entire scene changed, and Valda had to shake his head and blink repeatedly.
The man in the fox mask had disappeared. No more shots fired. The assailants stood motionless. Everyone stopped. Other heads shook, as disoriented as he was.
Did he have a seizure? Was he hallucinating? Everything had changed, as if several seconds had passed, but he didn't remember experiencing them. Before Valda's eyes, the assailant who had fired on the man in the fox mask collapsed and didn't get back up.
The people closest gasped.
Valda found where the fox masked man had reappeared — on the balcony next to the boss. Cassus, who should have had plenty of time to shoot Potestas dead, instead stood there empty handed with a dumb look on her face. The man in the fox mask had disarmed her, and when Valda heard a thump behind him he turned to find the suspect who had held him at gunpoint down too.
With no delay, Valda squatted to disarm that culprit, and found a bloody if potentially non-fatal wound in the man's torso. He hadn't heard the gunshot.
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