The Ask and the Answer

by Patrick Ness

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  I sit up. Then I sit up higher. "What did you say?"

  "Nothing." He won't meet my eye. "I didn't tell you that," I say. "I didn't say a word."

  "It was in your Noise."

  "No, it wasn't." I'm getting to my feet now. Cuz I'm right. I ain't been thinking bout nothing since I came in for dinner except my ma's book. "How did you know?"

  He looks up at me but there ain't no words coming outta his mouth and his Noise is scrambling for something to say.

  And it's failing.

  I take a step toward him.

  There's a ker-thunk at the door and Mr. Collins lets himself in. "There's someone here for you," he says to me, then he notices my Noise. "What's going on?"

  "I ain't expecting no one," I say, still staring at Mayor Ledger.

  "It's a girl," Mr. Collins says. "She says Davy sent her."

  "Dammit," I say. "I told him."

  "Whatever," he says. "Says she won't talk to no one but you." He chuckles. "Pretty little piece, too."

  I turn at the tone of his voice. "Leave her alone, whoever she is. That ain't right."

  "Best not take too long up here then." He's laughing as he shuts the door.

  I stare back at Mayor Ledger, my Noise still high. "I ain't thru with you."

  "It was in your Noise," he says, but I'm already out the door and locking it behind me. Ker-thunk.

  I stomp my way down the stairs, thinking of ways to get the girl away without Mr. Collins bothering her, without her

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  having to go thru any of that for any reason, and my Noise is boiling with suspishuns and wonderings about Mayor Ledger and things beginning to come clear when I get to the bottom of the steps.

  Mr. Collins is waiting, leaning against the wall of the lobby with his legs crossed, all relaxed and smiling. He points with his thumb.

  I look over.

  And there she is.

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  34 LAST CHANCE

  ***

  (Viola)

  "LEAVE US," Todd says to the man who let me in, not looking away from me when he says it.

  "Told you she was a piece," the man says, smirking as he disappears into a side office.

  Todd stands there staring. "It's you," he says.

  But he isn't moving toward me.

  "Todd," I say and I take a step forward.

  And he takes a step back.

  I stop.

  "Who's this?" he says, looking at Lee, who's doing his best to act like a real soldier behind me.

  "That's Lee," I say. "A friend. He's come with me to-"

  "What are you doing here?"

  "I've come to get you," I say. "I've come to rescue you." I see him swallow. I see his throat working. "Viola," he finally says. My name is all over his Noise, too. Viola Viola Viola.

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  He puts his hands up to the sides of his head, grabbing his hair, which is longer and shaggier than when I saw it last. He looks taller, too. "Viola," he says again.

  "It's me," I say and I take another step forward. He doesn't step back so I keep coming, crossing the lobby, not running, just getting closer and closer to him.

  But when I get to him, he steps back again.

  "Todd?" I ask.

  "What are you doing here?"

  "I've come for you." I feel my stomach sink a little. "I said I would."

  "You said you wouldn't leave without me," he says and in his Noise I can hear loud irritation at how he sounds. He clears his throat. "You left me here."

  "They took me," I say. "I had no choice."

  His Noise is getting louder now and though I can feel happiness in it-

  Oh, Jesus, Todd, there's rage, too.

  "What have I done?" I say. "We need to go. The Answer are going-"

  "So yer part of the Answer now?" he snaps, bitterness suddenly rising. "Part of those murderers."

  "Are you a soldier now then?" I say back, surprised, heat growing in my voice, too, pointing to the A on his sleeve. "Don't talk to me about murder."

  "The Answer killed the Spackle," he says, his voice low and angry.

  And the bodies of the Spackle in his Noise.

  Piled high, one upon the other, tossed there like garbage.

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  The A of the Answer written on the wall. And Todd in the middle of it.

  "They might as well have killed me along with them," he says.

  He closes his eyes.

  I am the circle and the Circle is me, I hear.

  "Viola?" Lee says from behind me. I turn. He's crossed half the lobby.

  "Wait outside," I say.

  "Viola-"

  "Outside."

  He looks so concerned, so ready to fight for me, my heart skips a little. He broadcast as loud as he could that I was his prisoner on the way here, so loud other soldiers thought he was covering up for a rape he was going to commit and whistled him good luck as we passed. Then we hid by the cathedral, seeing Davy Prentiss riding away from here, thinking things I wouldn't want to see again, thinking about how a celebration was due to him and Todd.

  And so we pretended to be the celebration.

  And it worked.

  Kind of upsetting how easily it worked, frankly.

  Lee shifts from foot to foot. "You call me if you need me."

  "I will," I say, and he waits a second, then steps out the front door, keeping it open to watch us.

  Todd's eyes are still closed and he repeats I am the circle and the Circle is me which I have to say sounds an awful lot like something from the Mayor.

  "We didn't kill the Spackle," I say.

  "We?" he says, opening his eyes.

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  "I don't know who did it, but it wasn't us."

  "You sent a bomb to kill them the day you blew up the tower." He's almost spitting the words. "Then you came back on the day of the prison break and finished the job."

  "Bomb?" I say. "What bomb-?"

  But then I remember-

  The first explosion that made the soldiers run away from the communications tower. No.

  She wouldn't.

  No, not even her. What kind of people do you think we are? she said-

  But she never did answer the asking. No, no, it's not true and besides-"Who told you that?" I say. "Davy Prentiss?" He blinks. "What?"

  "What do you mean what?" My voice is harder now. "Your new best friend. The man who shot me, Todd, and who you ride to work with laughing every morning."

  He clenches his hands into fists.

  "You been spying on me?" he says. "Three months I don't see you, three months I don't hear nothing from you and you been spying? Is that what yer doing in yer spare time when yer not blowing people up?"

  "Yeah!" I yell, my voice getting louder to match his. "Three months of defending you to people who'd be only too happy to call you enemy, Todd. Three months of wondering why the hell you're working so hard for the Mayor and how he knew to go right for the ocean the day after we spoke." He winces, but I keep going, thrusting out my arm and pulling

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  up the sleeve. "Three months wondering why you put these on women!"

  His face changes in an instant. He actually calls out as if he felt the pain himself. He puts a hand over his mouth to stifle it but his Noise is suddenly washed with blackness. He moves the fingertips of his other hand within reach of the band, hovering over my skin, over the band that'll never be removed unless I lose my arm. The skin is still red, and band 1391 still throbs, despite the healing of three mistresses.

  "Oh, no," he says. "Oh, no."

  The side door opens and the man who let me in leans out. "Everything all right out here, Lieutenant?"

  "Lieutenant?" I say.

  "We're fine," Todd chokes a little. "We're fine."

  The man waits for a second, then goes back inside.

  "Lieutenant?" I say again, lowering my voice.

  Todd's leaned down, his hands on his knees, staring at the floor. "It wasn't me, was
it?" he says, his voice quiet, too. "I didn't-" He gestures again at the band without looking up. "I didn't do it without knowing it was you, did I?"

  "No," I say, reading things in his Noise, reading his numbness at them, reading all the horror that sits way down below that he's working so hard to ignore. "The Answer did it."

  He looks up fast, filled with asking marks.

  "It was the only way I could come and find you safely," I say. "The only way I could get past all the soldiers marching around town was if they thought I'd already been banded."

  His face changes again as this sinks in. "Oh, Viola."

  I breathe out heavily. "Todd," I say. "Please come with me."

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  His eyes are wet but I can see him now, I can see him finally, I can see him in his face and in his Noise and in his arms as they drop to his sides in defeat.

  "It's too late," he says and his voice is so sad my own eyes start to wet. "I've been dead, Viola. I've been dead."

  "You haven't," I say, moving a bit closer to him. "These are impossible times."

  He's looking down now, his eyes not focused on anything.

  Feeling nothing , his Noise says. Take nothing in-

  I am the circle and the circle is me.

  "Todd?" I say and I'm close enough to reach his hand. "Todd, look at me."

  He looks up and the loss in his Noise is so great it feels like I'm standing on the edge of an abyss, that I'm about to fall down into him, into blackness so empty and lonely there'd never be a way out.

  "Todd," I say again, a catch in my voice. "On the ledge, under the waterfall, do you remember what you said to me? Do you remember what you said to save me?"

  He's shaking his head slowly. "I've done terrible things, Viola. Terrible things-"

  "We all fall, you said." I'm gripping him hard now. "We all fall but that's not what matters. What matters is picking yourself up again."

  But he shakes me off.

  "No," he says, turning away. "No, it was easier when you weren't here. It was easier when you couldn't see-"

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  "Todd, I've come to save you-"

  "No. I didn't have to think about nothing-"

  "It's not too late."

  "It is too late," he says, shaking his head. "It is!"

  And he's moving away.

  Away from me.

  I'm losing him-

  And I get an idea.

  A dangerous, dangerous idea.

  "The attack's coming tomorrow at sundown," I say.

  He blinks again in surprise. "What?"

  "That's when it happens." I swallow and step forward, trying to keep my voice steady. "I'm only supposed to know the fake plan, but I found out the real one. The Answer are coming over the hill with the notch in it just to the south of here, just to the south of this cathedral, Todd. They're coming right here and I'm sure they're coming right for the Mayor."

  He looks nervously at the side door but I'm keeping my voice down. "There are only two hundred of them, Todd, but they're fully armed with guns and bombs and a plan and a hell of a leader who isn't going to stop until she topples him."

  "Viola-"

  "They're coming," I say, moving closer again. "And now you know when and from where and if that information gets to the Mayor-"

  "You shouldn't have told me," he says, not meeting my eye. "I hide things but he figures them out. You shouldn't have told me!"

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  I keep moving forward. "Then you have to come with me, don't you? You have to or he wins forever and ever and he'll be the one to rule this planet and he'll be the one who greets the new settlers-"

  "With his hand outstretched," Todd says, his voice suddenly soft. "What?"

  But he just extends his hand out into the empty air, staring at it. "Greeting it with his son."

  "Well, we don't want that either." I look nervously round to the front door. Lee is sticking his head in, trying not to look too out of place, but there are soldiers marching by out front. "We don't have much time."

  Todd's hand is still outstretched.

  "I've done bad things, too," I say. "I wish everything was different but it isn't. There's only now and here and you have to come with me if we have any chance of making this come out any good at all."

  He doesn't say anything but his hand is still out and he's looking at it and so i move forward another step and I take it in my own.

  "We can save the world," I say, trying to smile. "You and me."

  He looks into my eyes, searching, trying to read me, trying to see if I'm actually here, if it's actually true, if the things I say are real, he searches and he searches-

  But he doesn't find me.

  Oh, Todd-

  "Going somewhere?" says a voice from across the room. A voice from a man holding a gun.

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  ***

  It's a different man from the one who let us in, a man I've never seen before.

  Except once, in Todd's Noise.

  "How did you get out?" Todd says, surprise rippling through him.

  "You wouldn't leave without this, would you?" he says. In his non-gun hand, he's got the journal of Todd's mother. "You give that to me!" Todd says.

  The man ignores him and waves his gun at Lee. "Come inside now," he says. "Or I will ever so happily shoot our dear friend Todd."

  I look back. Lee's got flight all over his Noise but he sees the gun pointed at Todd, sees my face, and comes forward, his Noise saying so loud that he won't leave me here that it almost distracts me from the gun.

  "Drop it," the man says, referring to Lee's rifle. Lee sends it clattering to the floor.

  "You liar," Todd says to the man. "You coward."

  "For the good of the town, Todd," the man says.

  "All that moaning," Todd says, his voice and Noise fiery. "All that bitching and moaning about how he's ruining everything and yer just another spy."

  "Not at first," the man says, walking toward us. "At first I was just how you saw me, the former Mayor disgraced and left alive in all his inconvenience." The man passes Todd and comes up to me, putting Todd's book under one arm. "Give me your pack."

  "What?" I say.

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  "Give it to me." He swings his arm back and points the gun right at Todd's head. I slide the pack off my shoulders and give it to him. He doesn't even open it the regular way, just feels along the bottom, feeling right for the secret pouch, the secret pouch where if you press right, you can feel my gun.

  The man smiles. "There it is," he says. "The Answer don't change, do they?"

  "You touch a hair on her head," Todd says, "and I'll kill you."

  "So will I," Lee says.

  The man keeps smiling. "I think you have a competitor, Todd."

  "Who are you?" I say, annoyance at all this protection making me brave.

  "Con Ledger, Mayor of Haven, at your service, Viola." He gives a little bow. "Since that's who you must be, isn't it?" He walks around Todd. "Oh, the President was very interested in the Noise of your dreams, my boy. Very interested in what you thought about while you were sleeping. About how much you miss your Viola, how you would do anything to find her."

  I see Todd's face starting to glow red.

  "And suddenly he became far more agreeable to me, asking me to pass along certain information to you, see if we could get you to do what he wanted." Mayor Ledger looks ridiculous, all the things he's carrying, a gun in one hand, pack in the other, book under his arm, and still trying to appear threatening. "I must say, it worked like a charm." He winks at me. "Now that I know when and where the Answer are going to attack."

  Lee's Noise rises and he takes a furious step forward.

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  Mayor Ledger cocks the pistol. Lee stops.

  "Like it?" asks the Mayor. "The President gave it to me when he gave me my own key."

  He smiles again, then sees how we're all looking at him. "Oh, stop it," he says. "If the President defeats the Answer then all this will be over. Al
l the bombings, all the restrictions, all the curfews." His smile's a bit weaker now. "You have to learn how to work within the system for change. When I'm his deputy, I'll work very hard to make things better for everyone." He nods at me. "Women, too."

  "You'd better shoot me," Todd says, Noise coming off him like flame. "Cuz there ain't no way yer life is safe if you ever put down that gun."

  Mayor Ledger sighs. "I'm not going to shoot anyone, Todd, not unless-"

  The side door suddenly opens and the man who let me in steps out, surprise lighting up his face and Noise. "What're you-"

  Mayor Ledger points the gun at him and pulls the trigger three times. The man falls back into the doorway and all the way to the floor until only his feet are sticking out.

  We all stand there, shocked, echoes of gunfire still ringing off the marble floors.

  There's a clear picture in Mayor Ledger's Noise, of himself with a black eye and split lip, of the man on the floor giving him the beating.

  He looks back at us, sees us staring at him. "What?"

  "Mayor Prentiss ain't gonna like that," Todd says. "He knows Mr. Collins from old Prentisstown."

  "I'm sure the prize of Viola and the Answer's attack

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  will make up for any other misunderstandings." Mayor Ledger's looking around now, trying to find a place to free up his hands. He finally just tosses the book to Todd, as if he doesn't want it anymore. Todd fumbles it in his hands but catches it.

  "Your mother wasn't much of a writer, Todd," Mayor Ledger says, bending forward and zipping open the pack with his free hand. "Barely literate."

  "You're going to pay for that." Todd looks back at me and I realize I'm the one who said it out loud.

  Mayor Ledger digs around in my bag. "Food!" he says, his face lighting up. He takes out a crested pine from the top and immediately shoves it in his mouth. He digs some more, finding bread and more fruit, taking bites of almost everything. "How long were you planning on staying?" he asks, his mouth full.