“You’ve always known, Billy.”
“You lied to me.”
“About what?” William turned. “We’re brothers. We have the exact same DNA. It’s no different than coming from the same womb. Now stop arguing and—”
“You lied to me!” Billy was quivering. “You made me do those things. That was you! Your voice in my head, your demands. I didn’t want this, William.”
He grunted. “You’re upset I gave you life. You’re upset I made you ageless, made you the envy of the world. Do you understand what I’m saying? You and the dog were the first ones.” He jabbed his finger at the ground. “You are an impeccable creation!”
William’s face was flush, his eyes dark. He minced tobacco between his teeth and spat with force.
Creation.
“No one has the right to question their existence,” William continued. “You were born like the rest of us, but I gave you purpose. I gave you direction. What would the children give to be you? Think about that, what would they give to have such riches, to have purpose, brother? You are the envy of the world because of me. If it was my voice you heard, it was because you were listening. If it was my direction you felt, it was because we are alike. Don’t whine about your life. You are what you are, brother. You’re no different than the rest of us.”
William threw a bag over his shoulder.
“I want you to remember what we’re doing. We saved children, we gave them a home. And we created life. The truth is near, brother. And the elven is trying to stop us.”
“Gallivanter.”
“We never should’ve monitored his thoughts, that was our mistake. We had everything we needed. We should’ve locked him up and forgotten him, but it’s too late for that. He’s awake, brother. And he put you to sleep.”
“We?” Billy tongued his chipped tooth. “We?”
“We’re in this, there’s no way back. We move forward. The truth is out there.”
“I see the truth, William.”
“Don’t let him put thoughts in your head. We’ve been working for fifteen years—”
“Him? Putting thoughts?” Billy laughed sickly. It was the first time he could remember his head so uncluttered.
“This is his fault.” William swept a heavy arm at the destruction. “Ronin escaped because of him, you understand? Everything we’ve worked for is gone, over that mountain, and I’m sure they didn’t stop there. If he reaches the Pole, he’ll destroy our life’s work. We are on the verge of discovering a centuries-old myth. Don’t let him destroy that.”
Billy scanned the horseshoe, the building, and destruction. It felt so foreign now. He didn’t want any of it.
“What’s my name?” he said.
“What?”
“My name, William!” he shouted. “What is it?”
A frown knitted the old man’s brow. He hiked the bag over his shoulders and snapped the buckles then reached into his pocket. A shadow stretched behind him. The reindeer clone snorted. The thing dropped to its knees.
Billy clutched William’s coat. He wasn’t getting on the reindeer, wasn’t going to follow Ronin. He knew what the old man was planning. He once wanted the same thing.
Not anymore.
A shiver of gooseflesh turned his bones to metal, muscle to stone. An electrical pulse lit up. Billy was as stiff as an ice carving, fingers still clawing the coat. William held up his hand. Cradled between two fingers and a thumb was a black phone.
The screen was alive.
“I don’t have time for this.” He buttoned the top of Billy’s shirt. “I would fix you when I get back, but I’m afraid you won’t last that long. I’ll start over, print another one when I get back. It won’t be you, though. I think you know that.”
He climbed onto the clone’s back. The space warped around the antlers. A strange energy almost pushed Billy over. The clone anxiously pawed the frozen turf. Something hissed like a gas leak. The belly began to swell.
William patted the beast.
The antlers hummed and the air wrinkled. With a great growl, the clone leaped forward and nearly jerked the old man over the backside.
Two steps and they were airborne.
***
The shivers went deep.
Bones turned into titanium and quivered like cold steel struck with a mallet. His skin withered across his cheekbones. The biting cold burned. His whistling breath stabbed his chipped tooth.
Thoughts slowed.
Churning in a flurry of panic, one by one they fell like bricks until only one remained. I’m going to die.
Could he die if he was never born? Life began in the replicator. He was a copy, a clone. No different than the reindeer. These childhood memories weren’t his.
Did he have to be born to be alive?
William was right. His mind wasn’t right. He couldn’t remember much, like his memories had been thrown behind a fence and he was peeking at them through a knothole. Somewhere beyond the barrier were all the things he’d done, every awful thing hidden from him. Those were his memories, the things he’d done. Whether William made him do them or not, he’d still done them.
Tears left hot tracks on his cheeks and disappeared in his beard. They gushed from a well of guilt and shame, a salty brine seeping through whiskers and coating cracked lips.
I want to live.
The bone-quivering cold turned warm, as if his organs were melting. Hypothermia had begun. It wouldn’t be long now. He would end up a statue staring at the naughty wing. A fitting end.
“Hi, Bill.” One of the boys was in front of him, hands in his coat. “You shouldn’t go outside without a coat. You know that.”
He was joined by another boy, who stood eye to eye with Billy, perhaps even a few inches taller. A snarling scar patched his left cheek and misshapen ear.
He knew these boys. He should know their names—he’d brought them here; he’d fed and clothed them—but the memories were behind the fence. The big boy leaned in. A faint whiff of body odor followed.
“Is he okay?” the big boy said.
“He’s sleepy, that’s all.”
“His fingers are blue.”
“He didn’t wear gloves. You should wear gloves, Bill.”
The big boy threw Billy’s arm over his shoulders and heaved him off the ground. The world jostled as he plodded through the snow. They were halfway across the horseshoe, the building drawing closer with each step, when the big boy spun around.
“You coming?” he called.
The smaller boy was looking at the mountain. He marched toward the door, his eyebrows knitted, lips set in grim frustration. The big boy followed him inside.
Billy’s lips began to quiver as they stepped into an elevator. His pulse quickened. They were going to the lab. He was afraid the fence barricading the bad memories would come crashing down and all at once he’d face the things he’d done. The doors opened to a hallway instead of the lab. It led to a glowing room.
“He’s like ice,” the big boy said.
He gently placed Billy in a rocking chair and draped a blanket over his lap. The room moved like the deck of a ship. Stockings hung across a mantel, festive decorations of holly and garland above them. A warm fire crackled. Somewhere beyond the fence, there was a memory of telling a story.
The boys warmed their hands at the fire. They mumbled to each other, looking over their shoulders every once in a while. Something in the hall grabbed their attention. The smaller boy tickled the end of Billy’s nose. It turned into an itch.
The silence of their departure was filled with popping embers and settling ashes. Billy melted like a block of ice. Sensations returned on sharp edges that squeezed his fingertips. He was able to curl his toes.
The urge to weep threatened to drown him.
He was still unable to move. Webs filled his head. His memories, disconnected and full of holes, were still mostly hidden. His life didn’t make sense.
I gave you purpose, William had said.
F
ootsteps scuffed the floor like coarse sandpaper. Billy stared at the fire and waited. A very short and very round person approached the chair next to him.
A long green coat dragged behind him.
He threw an absurdly large and hairy foot onto the stool and hefted his rotund bottom into the seat. A sigh leaked through the thick whiskers. His beard lay over his belly in two tightly braided ropes.
A memory hopped the fence.
Flashes of an Arctic winter. Conifers spotted the barren land, their limbs heavy with snow. In the distance, a larger-than-life reindeer rooted for lichen. A thrill of excitement rode a wave of adrenaline through Billy’s bloodstream. He had come to the Pole in search of big game.
And stumbled onto the biggest of them all.
Sighting a mutant reindeer with a long-range weapon, he leaned on the trigger. Before the neutralizing dart erupted from the barrel, something moved into his line of sight.
Gallivanter.
He didn’t know the elven’s name at that time. He didn’t even know what he was seeing. Just that he wanted them. The reindeer searched the elven’s hand, nibbling treats from his palm.
Billy fired twice.
From that distance, there was a delay. Billy waited for a response. If there was none, he would take another aim. The first round missed, but not the second one.
The elven fell.
The reindeer sniffed then nudged him before lifting his head. His roar echoed in the distance. Billy felt it. The reindeer looked around, giving him enough time to unload a second shot. The beast swung his head with remarkable speed. Nothing happened. Billy took a third shot and a fourth. Each time, the reindeer swung his head.
He was knocking down the darts.
Billy would keep firing until the thing missed or he ran out of ammunition. It seemed to be jabbing the elven to wake him up, snagging the green tunic with an antler but having to turn his head to block incoming fire. Little by little, the elven was moved behind a tree.
Without hesitation, Billy reached for a new and untested weapon. One that was compassionate and more effective than a bullet, leaving game unharmed. Unlike the sleeper dart, it discharged like a cannon.
The canister spilled its contents as it neared the target. The reindeer had tossed the elven into the air as if to catch him on his back. The entanglement straps reached out with webby lines. Instead of snagging the animal, the elven was wrapped up.
A second roar shook snow from the branches.
The elven was incapacitated and anchored to a tree. He was waving an arm at the reindeer, shooing him away. All the reindeer’s efforts to free him would keep him there long enough for Billy to unload another web. He took aim, finger on the trigger.
And then it happened.
The animal began to inflate, its belly filling like a balloon. Billy watched a reindeer soar into the clouds like a prehistoric animal forgotten by time. He sat in stunned silence, waiting to wake up. When he decided he wasn’t dreaming, he approached his catch. The bearded elven was enveloped in a mess of entanglement straps.
That’s when it began.
Gallivanter watched the fire. When he nodded, a warm sensation melted on top of Billy’s head like an egg spilled into a frying pan. It seeped through him, sweeping away the paralysis.
“Not your memory,” Gallivanter said. “Not you.”
Billy rubbed his face. The air was suddenly thick and hot. He drew quick, stabbing breaths. “But I did... other things.”
Gallivanter stroked the beard braids.
“I couldn’t stop. He was too...” Billy trembled. Too strong.
“Your memories belong to William, most of them. He made you what he wanted. Hid you from yourself.”
A good boy.
He remembered looking at the elven shortly after bringing him home, remembered confining him to a chair and extracting his memories. The urge to weep returned. Those were William’s memories.
“Who am I?”
Gallivanter looked at him. The eyes wrinkled in the corners and twinkled in the center. He hopped off his perch and waddled over, patting Billy’s hand.
“You are this.”
Billy wiped his eyes. He didn’t have to have a name to exist, didn’t have to be born to be alive. I am this.
“Can you forgive me?”
Gallivanter shuffled toward the exit. “I will show you.”
Billy was slow to get up. His legs were newborn. He trundled into the hallway. Gallivanter was in the elevator. It went up, the smooth sound of hydraulics easing to a stop. There was chatter on the other side of the doors. They opened to the foyer and the chatter stopped.
The children were waiting.
23
Ryder was afraid to move.
After all, the North Pole wasn’t a land. It was a sheet of ice floating on the Arctic Ocean. They weren’t going to survive long in this weather, but one wrong step and they could plunge through an open lead into dark water.
They would only last minutes.
Ronin’s footsteps were disappearing. The bitter wind blurred his vision. The tracks were quickly eroding.
“Cherry!”
He barely felt her slip from his grasp. She was shuffling in the same direction Ronin was last seen moving, swinging her arms in front of her.
“Stop—” He choked on a mouthful of frigid air.
And then she was gone, too.
Unlike Ronin, he watched her disappear. She didn’t plunge through the ice. She just vanished. First her arms and then the rest of her, like she’d walk through a veil that didn’t part but rather absorbed her. Ryder reached his arm out.
His mitten vanished.
He stuck his arm out again; this time it disappeared up to the elbow. Before he could pull it back, something grabbed him like something taking bait from below the ice.
Silence.
That was the first thing he noticed. He hadn’t fallen into the belly of a sea monster. Cherry was holding onto his arm. The scenery hadn’t changed. The sky was still dark and the stars numerous and bright; the snowy landscape went out to the horizon. It was bone-breaking cold.
The wind is gone.
It was like a window had been rolled up. Their breath streamed out in thick clouds that hovered in front of their faces. There was a slight blur behind him, a watery wall that warped the view.
“What is it?” she said.
A liquid wall hovered in space. He put his arm through it. “I can feel the wind on the other side.”
Ronin had come this way. The snow had been trampled around them like a stampede had swept through the area with no indication of where it came from or where it went. The prints were wide and deep, a mixture of hooves and snowshoes.
Footprints.
“You hear that?” Cherry said.
He slowed his breathing. It sounded like... like singing. It was all around. They moved a few steps and stopped. The celebration grew closer. The hair on the back of his neck stiffened. The air had that funny watercolor look to it again.
“Ryder!”
Cherry pointed back from where they had come. An object was falling from the sky. At the last moment, it threw out four legs and glided over the snow, galloping to a stop and shaking a rack of antlers. Someone fell off.
William.
The old man gathered his coat around his neck. He was prepared for the fierce weather, buttoning up and pulling on a second pair of mittens. The wind pushed him away from the cloned reindeer. He leaned into the gale and worked his way back, using the clone for protection. He reached into a pocket. A chill more frigid than the water below the ice trickled through Ryder’s legs.
The phone.
Ryder had dropped it before Ronin had thrown them on his back. Now the old man cradled it in the thick padding of his mitten, pulling it close to see. Ryder didn’t know how it worked.
He just knew what it did.
Cherry shoved Ryder behind her. The old man waved the phone side to side. He looked directly at them, lifted his han
d and squinted. The loose ends of his coat flapped like a kite snagged in a tree.
Chilling fear had filled his legs and was replaced by red-hot coals, but not the imaginary kind the old man had made him believe. He’d been running his entire life, searching for where he belonged. Now he knew the truth of who he was and why. The old man couldn’t take that away from him. No one could.
I’m not afraid.
“There’s nothing!” Ryder shouted. “You’re alone, William!”
The old man cocked his head.
Cherry kept Ryder from moving forward. Her lips drew a grim line. Crystals had formed on her eyelashes and had begun to melt. Ryder felt a smile jab his cheek. Determination creased her forehead.
“He can’t hear you.” The voice came from behind them.
Two elven were in the trampled snow. One was bearded with a giant bush. Their enormous feet were half buried. They smiled while Ryder and Cherry searched for words. The pause was long and silent, the strangeness wrapping around them and squeezing.
“We’re inside the dome.” The elven who said that wore a long gray braid that pulled the hair from her doughy, grandmotherly face.
“Back-reflecting technology,” the bearded elven added, “allows us to be unseen. The field generator is in the center, you see, and we adjust the radius—”
“Nog.”
The grandmotherly elven touched his arm. Nog went silent, lips still parted as if he might continue.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” she said.
Ryder and Cherry looked at each other. This was what the game room felt like. Vertigo weakened his knees. Reality had flipped upside down.
“Nog and I decided to present ourselves first. This is quite a bit, we realize. A bit overwhelming. So take your time, and don’t worry about William and his reindeer.”
The old man had wandered farther away.
“What Merry means to say is that she decided to show ourselves first. Honestly, I think it’d be better if we went Band-Aid on this. It’s not like time is abundant right now, and the wandering gentleman out there isn’t going to last long, not like that—”
“Nevertheless.” Merry took his hand. “There’s no good way, children. It is Christmas Eve. We’re busy at this time of year and there’s been a lot to celebrate. We don’t invite your kind into the colony, you see. Only three in the last two hundred years.”
Ronin Page 21
