Shades of Grey

THE BORDER OF TOURNESOL— FEBRUARY 1844

We were silent as we approached Tournesol nearly an hour later, all of us clearly nervous.

“Alright, keep calm. These people are extremely suspicious of strangers,” Liam warned in a low voice. Ryder hid in Liam’s collar in the form of a fly, buzzing in agreement.

“That’s nothing new,” I remarked adroitly.

We stood infront of a large wall made of black marble — nearly impenetrable by commonplace means of duress — that lined the city and snaked up the sides of two nearby mountains, giving the city a very intimidating, omnipresent feel. I held my breath as Liam stepped up to the gate, searching for a place on which to knock.

“Name?” asked a sudden voice, causing all of us to jump.

“What?” I asked, confused as to where the voice originated.

“What is your name?”

We finally turned to one of the podiums in the wall and saw that one of the black panels had slid back, revealing a large sturdy man with dark eyes, wide shoulders and a dimly unintelligent brow. He looked very much like a man you would want to put on the vanguard of an assault line, but not in a university classroom: terrifying to behold but looked not to be in any way loquacious.

“Do you really need to ask?” Liam replied, his hugely fat and bulbous façade glaring at the man with dark authority.

The man looked up from his papers and his eyes widened in horrified respect: clearly he thought he’d offended someone important.

“Oh! Master Hammersmith! My apologies!”

The man slid the panel back into place and disappeared for a moment. I gave a quizzical look to Liam.

“This Hammersmith fellow was one of the soldiers who first tried to arrest me, before I entered the Underground,” he explained in a whisper. “Apparently, he’s done very well for himself in the months since. He’s some kind of police captain I think. Very respected.”

“Well congratulations on your new promotion,” I nodded, feeling better about my inconspicuous LaSalle disguise.

He gave me a playful smirk just the large gate suddenly began to open, revealing the busy streets of Tournesol. I gave an accidental audible gasp upon taking in the full breadth of the intimidating metropolis.

The buildings were constructed in a way that I had not seen before: seeming to sprout up from the brick streets, twisting and turning like strings of ivy along the bark of a tree. There were almost no straight lines in the architecture and there seemed to be no limit to how high the people could build, seeming to almost scrape the clouds. The entire city resembled a great

bear trap. I tried not to think of this mental picture as we took our first steps in.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” I whispered to Liam. “I’ve never seen such dizzying architecture…”

“Just breathe,” he replied, which didn’t help at all.

The buildings were nothing compared to the people, however. They were all equally large and round, walking about in strange fashions I had not seen in my extensive travels. The women wore asymmetrical wire skirts over tightly fitted trousers (not an attractive sight in the slightest) with corset-like tops emphasizing their large busts. The men wore loose fitting trousers and suit jackets with long trains trailing on some ten feet along the ground behind them. Every citizen had painted their fat, bulging faces with strange geometric shapes and wore their hair in similarly bizarre fashions. It was like walking into someone’s Lush-induced hallucination.

“Do you know where you’re going?” I muttered under my breath, trying not to look like an outsider as I took in all the details of the city. Ryder then flew from Liam’s shoulder to mine, buzzing in what I took to be an affirmative answer. Liam confirmed this.

“Yes. Just follow me and talk to no one.”

I nodded, glad that I had Ryder and Liam with me.