The Forgotten City by Nina D'Aleo

he’d managed to track her. He always did – and it sent chills of thrill and panic surging through her. It made her feel like running away, but at the same time, she would have been crushed if he stopped chasing. It was a little unbalanced, she knew that, but Copernicus didn’t seem to need any explanations to understand how she felt, which was fortunate since she still found herself struggling for words when he was close – never sure if what she was saying actually made any sense, and whether she was talking to the man or the commander.
    Her feelings for him now were so intense that she felt almost drugged-high when he was around and flat and empty when he was gone, as though he took all the color in the world with him wherever he went. Many times over the past months, she’d looked up from her research to see his eyes on her, and a thought had continued to replay in her mind – While I’m chasing the ghosts of the dead, I’m missing out on living . A few days ago, she’d begun to think that maybe it was time to let her parents go. She wasn’t sure how to actually go about walking away – but she wanted to try. The thought was terrifying, but less so than losing him, and that had to mean something. It was the main reason she was here now – desperately searching for some kind of final door to close – but there wasn’t any, just more questions.
    At this moment there was only one thing clear to her: she would never come back here again. Silho felt like she wanted to say something, but what and to whom? She took one last look around, then turned and left the wrecked house. That was all it was now.
    Copernicus opened the gate for her as she neared it. Half-light shadows darkened his face, making his scarlines glow and eyes burn with black fire. They consumed her, and even if she could have looked away, she didn’t want to. All the pain of her argument with Jude faded now that he was close. His attention shifted sharply to the end of the street, sensing heat and vibrations that Silho couldn’t.
    “Gangsters?” she asked, backing further into the shadows beside him.
    Copernicus nodded. “They’ve been sweeping all the levels, setting off ebombs, trying to flush out the remaining machine-breeds.”
    “I know. I came across a few in Ishtamar,” she confessed.
    His jaw tightened with disapproval, but he didn’t say anything.
    He stepped out in the opposite direction from the gangsters and Silho followed him. They moved down the street, fast leaving Sunnyside behind and entering Knox, a former shopping district. Street lamps that had once twinkled now stood askew in the broken, caved-in paved roads. Every shop was trashed and looted; some were fire-ravaged, blackened. War had turned their colors monochrome – shadows and white. Mannequins lay, half-staggered in twisted positions, doll faces burned and crushed. Tangled among the fake dead were real corpses. The stench of rot made Silho gag. She held her breath, but could still taste it. Copernicus gave no outward reaction, and she thought that it must be a terrible thing to have witnessed so much horror that crossing paths with death became a casual encounter. She glanced at his gloved hands and wondered how he’d react if she grabbed hold and held on.
    Copernicus halted so suddenly that Silho ran into his back. He stood, studying the shadows ahead of them.
    “Go! Move – in there!” he told her, the sudden urgency in his voice sending her running in the direction he pointed. She climbed through the shattered front window of a shop, Copernicus just behind.
    She heard it then, the dull rumbling of a gangster mass-mover, a prison-craft, flying low over the streets. She pushed further back into the destroyed shop, turning into a partially collapsed aisle. Her stomach lurched and she shifted into light-form vision. The silhouette of a person stood several paces away. Copernicus seized Silho’s shoulder and dragged her behind him. He drew his electrifier and