Pure

by Julianna Baggott

  “So are you going to tell me who this is now?” Bradwell asks.

  “This is Partridge.” She says to Partridge, “Take off the scarf and hood.”

  He hesitates.

  “It’s okay. Bradwell’s on our side.” But is he? Pressia wonders. She hopes by saying it, she’ll convince Bradwell that it’s true.

  Partridge pushes off his hood and unwinds the scarf.

  Bradwell stares at his face, which is smudged with dirt, but unmarked. “Arms,” Bradwell says.

  “I don’t have any weapons,” he says. “Except an antique knife.”

  “No,” Bradwell says. His face is calm, except for his eyes. They look at Partridge sharply, like someone who is about to aim a gun. “I want to see your actual arms.”

  Partridge pulls up his sleeves, and there is more perfect skin. There’s something unsettling about it. Pressia isn’t sure why, but she feels a kind of revulsion. Is it jealousy and hatred? Does she despise Partridge for his skin? It’s also beautiful. She can’t deny it—like cream.

  Bradwell nods at Partridge’s legs.

  Partridge bends down and pulls up one pant leg and then the other.

  Bradwell stands up and crosses his arms on his chest. He rubs the burn on his neck, agitated, and walks around the meat locker, dodging the hooks weighted with hybrids. He looks at Pressia. “You brought me a Pure?”

  Pressia nods.

  “I mean, I knew you were different but—”

  “I thought I was a type.”

  “At first, I thought you might be, but then you told me off.”

  “I didn’t tell you off.”

  “Yes you did.”

  “No, I didn’t. I just disagreed with the way you’d categorized me. And I said so. Is that what you think every time someone corrects you? That they’re telling you off?”

  “No. It’s just that—”

  “And then you give them a mean birthday present, just to remind them of what you think of them?”

  “I thought you liked that clipping. I was being nice.”

  She’s quiet a moment. “Oh. Well, thank you.”

  “You already said thank you but I guess that was sarcastic.”

  “Maybe a little insincere—”

  Partridge says, “Um, excuse me.”

  “Right,” Bradwell says, but then he turns to Pressia again. “You brought me a Pure? Is that some kind of mean gift?”

  “I didn’t know where else to go.”

  “A Pure?” Bradwell says again, incredulously. “Does he know anything about what happened? The Detonations?”

  “He can speak for himself,” she says.

  Bradwell stares at him. Maybe he’s afraid of Partridge. He might despise him. “Well?” Bradwell finally says.

  “I know what I’ve been spoon-fed,” Partridge says, “but also I know a little about the truth.”

  “What truth?” Bradwell says.

  “Well, I know that you can’t trust everything you hear.” He unbuttons his coat and pulls out the leather bag. “I was told that everything was awful here before the bomb, and that everyone was invited into the Dome before we were attacked by the enemy. But some people refused to come in. They were the violent, sickly, poor, stubborn, uneducated. My father said that my mother was trying to save some of these wretches.”

  “Wretches?” Bradwell says, angrily.

  “Wait,” Pressia tells Bradwell. “Let’s stay calm.”

  “That’s us he’s talking about!” Bradwell says to Pressia.

  “This is what I was taught. Not what I believe,” Partridge says.

  It’s quiet a moment. Bradwell stares at Pressia. She braces for a challenge, but he seems to give in. He waves his hand. “Why don’t you just call us brothers and sisters? That’s what you called us in the Message. Brothers and sisters, one big happy family.”

  “What message?” Partridge says.

  “You don’t know about the Message?” Pressia says.

  He shakes his head.

  “Should I recite it for him?” Bradwell asks Pressia.

  “Let’s just move on.”

  Bradwell clears his throat and recites the Message anyway: “We know you are here, our brothers and sisters. We will, one day, emerge from the Dome to join you in peace. For now, we watch from afar, benevolently.”

  “When was this sent?” Partridge says.

  “A few weeks after the Detonations,” Pressia says, and then she turns to Bradwell. “Just let him go on.”

  Partridge glances at Bradwell, who doesn’t say anything, and then he continues. “We lived in the city on Lombard Street, and when the alarm came to get in the Dome, my mother was out helping these… other people… trying to educate them. And my brother and I were in the Dome already, just on a tour. She didn’t make it in time. She died a saint.”

  Bradwell grunts. “There was no alarm,” he says.

  Partridge looks at Bradwell sharply. “Of course there was.”

  “There wasn’t any alarm. Believe me.”

  Pressia remembers the announcement of heavy traffic. That’s all that exists in her grandfather’s story. She glances between Partridge and Bradwell.

  “There wasn’t much time. I know that much,” Partridge says. “But there was an alarm. People rushed the Dome. It was a madhouse, and lives were lost.”

  “Lives were lost,” Bradwell says. “You make it sound almost accidental.”

  “What could we do? We were trying to protect ourselves,” Partridge says, defensively. “We couldn’t save everyone.”

  “No, that was never the plan.”

  The room goes silent for a moment. There’s only the sound of the rat-like beasts’ scratching nails.

  “There’s more to all of this than you know,” Bradwell says.

  “This isn’t the time for a lesson,” Pressia says. “Just let him talk.”

  “A lesson?” Bradwell says.

  “You don’t have to be so…” Pressia isn’t sure of the right word.

  “Pedantic?” Bradwell says.

  She doesn’t know what pedantic means, but she doesn’t like his snotty tone. “So like that,” Pressia says. “Just let him talk.”

  “So far, I should be calm and more specifically not like that… Anything else?” Bradwell asks Pressia. “Would you like to do surgery on my personality? How about open-heart surgery? I’ve got some tools.”

  Pressia sits back and laughs. The laugh surprises her. She’s not sure why she thinks this is funny, but it just is. Bradwell is so big and loud, and she’s not sure how, but she feels like she’s gotten at him somehow.

  “What’s funny?” Bradwell says, his arms outstretched.

  “I don’t know,” Pressia says. “I guess it’s that you’re a survivor. You’re almost mythic, but it’s just… You seem so easily… unglued.”

  “I’m not unglued!” Bradwell says. Then he looks at Partridge.

  “You’re slightly unglued,” Partridge says.

  Bradwell sits on the footlocker again, sighs deeply, closes his eyes, and then opens them. “There, see? I’m fine. I’m perfectly glued.”

  Pressia says, “What else, Partridge? Go on.”

  Partridge rubs at the dirt on his hands. The leather bag still sits on his lap. He unlatches the clasp on the bag and pulls out a small leather-bound book. “I came across my mother’s things a few weeks ago,” he goes on. “I just felt like there was this completely different world than the one I’d been taught. Her things, they still existed… It’s hard to explain. And now that I’m here, I remember how the ugliness is what makes the beautiful things beautiful.”

  Pressia knows what he means—one can’t truly exist without the other. She likes Partridge. He’s open in ways he doesn’t have to be, and it makes her trust him.

  “Why are you here?” Bradwell says, pushing to the point.

  “After I found her things, I kept digging. My father…” He pauses a moment. His face clouds over. Pressia can’t read all the emotions.
Maybe he loves his father. Maybe he hates him. It’s hard to tell. Maybe his father is the parent he loves even though he doesn’t deserve it. “He was one of the leaders on the exodus to the Dome. He’s still a prominent figure. A scientist and engineer.” His voice is flat, calm.

  Bradwell leans into Partridge. “What’s your father’s name?”

  “Ellery Willux.”

  Bradwell laughs, shaking his head. “The Willuxes.”

  “Do you know his family?” Pressia asks.

  “Maybe I’ve seen the name,” he says, sarcastically.

  “What’s that mean?” Partridge asks.

  “The Best and the Brightest,” Bradwell says. “Well, look at you. You come from good stock.”

  “How do you know my family?”

  “The Detonations strike and it’s just a coincidence that the Dome exists and some get in and some don’t? You think there isn’t some design behind it all—”

  “Stop,” Pressia says softly. This has to go peacefully. Pressia can’t risk Bradwell losing his temper. She turns to Partridge. “How did you get out?”

  “Someone framed some of the blueprints from the original design for my dad as a gift for twenty years of service. I studied them, the air-filtration system, the ventilation. You can hear the ventilation system when it’s at work. A deep bass hum that runs underneath everything. I started to keep a journal.” He holds up the leather-bound notebook in his hand. “I noted when it turned on and when it shut down. And then figured out how I could slip into the main system. And I figured out that on a certain day, at a certain time, I could probably make it past the blades of the system of circulation fans when they were down—for approximately three minutes and forty-two seconds. And that, at the end of it, I’d find a barrier of breathable fibers that I could cut my way out of. That’s what I did.” He smiles a little. “I got windblown at the end, but not chopped to death.”

  Bradwell stares at him. “And you’re gone. Just like that. And no one in the Dome cares? No one’s out looking for you?”

  He shrugs. “By now they’ll have their cameras looking for me. The cameras don’t work very well, though. Never have. It’s the ash. But who knows if they’ll come after me? No one is ever supposed to leave the Dome—for any reason. Reconnaissance is forbidden.”

  “But your father,” Pressia says. “I mean if he’s a prominent figure… Wouldn’t they send out people to find you?”

  “My father and I don’t have a very close relationship. Anyway, it’s never been done before. No one’s ever gotten out. No one’s ever wanted to—not like I did.”

  Bradwell shakes his head. “What’s in that envelope again?”

  “Personal stuff,” Partridge says. “Typical mother stuff. Jewelry, a music box, a letter.”

  “I wouldn’t mind taking a look,” Bradwell says. “Might be something interesting in there.”

  Partridge pauses. Pressia can tell he doesn’t trust Bradwell. Partridge scoops up the envelope holding his mother’s possessions and places it back in his leather bag. “It’s nothing.”

  “So that’s why you wanted to come here—to find your mother, the saint?” Bradwell says.

  Partridge ignores Bradwell’s tone. “Once I saw her things, I started to doubt everything I’ve ever been told. I was told she was dead, so I doubted that too,” he says.

  “And what if she is dead?” Bradwell asks.

  “I’m used to that idea,” Partridge says, stoically.

  “We’re used to the idea too,” Bradwell says. “Most people here have plenty of people they’ve lost.”

  Bradwell doesn’t know Pressia’s story of loss, but he knows she has one. Every survivor has one. Partridge doesn’t know anything about her or what she’s lost either, and she doesn’t feel like acknowledging it now. “Partridge needs to find Lombard Street. That’s where they lived. He can at least start there,” she tells Bradwell. “He needs the old map of the city.”

  “Why should I help him?” he says.

  “Maybe he can help us in return,” she says.

  “We don’t need his help.”

  Partridge doesn’t say a word. Bradwell looks at the two of them. Pressia leans toward Bradwell. “Maybe you don’t, but I do,” she says.

  “What do you need him for?”

  “Leverage. OSR. Maybe I could get off the list. And my grandfather is sick. He’s all I’ve got. Without any help, I’m sure…” She suddenly feels sick, like saying aloud her fears—that her grandfather will die, that she’ll be shipped to the OSR and because of her lost hand, she’ll be of no use—will make them undeniably true. Her mouth is dry. She almost can’t say it. But then the words tumble out. “We won’t make it.”

  Bradwell kicks the footlocker. The birds, startled but with nowhere to go, beat madly under the shirt on his back. He looks at Pressia. He’s giving in, she can tell. He might even be giving in for her sake.

  She doesn’t want his sympathy. She hates pity. She says quickly, “We just need a map. We can make it.”

  Bradwell shakes his head.

  “We’ll be fine,” Pressia says.

  “You might make it, but he won’t. He hasn’t adapted to this environment. It’d be a waste of a perfectly good Pure to let him go out and get his head bashed by Groupies.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Partridge says.

  “What’s the street?” Bradwell says.

  “Lombard,” Partridge says. “Ten Fifty-four Lombard.”

  “If the street exists, I’ll get you to it. Then maybe you should go home, back to the Dome and Daddy.”

  Partridge is pissed. He leans forward. “I don’t need any—”

  Pressia cuts in, “We’ll take the map. If you can get us to Lombard, that would be great.”

  Bradwell looks at Partridge, giving him a chance to finish. But Partridge must know that Pressia’s right. They should take whatever help they can get.

  “Yeah,” Partridge says. “Lombard would be great. We won’t ask for any more than that.”

  “Okay,” Bradwell says. “It’s not easy, you know. If the street didn’t have any big important buildings on it, then it’ll be lost to us. And if it was anywhere close to the middle of the city, it’ll just be part of the Rubble Fields. I can’t guarantee anything.” Bradwell squats down and opens the footlocker. After a few moments of careful sorting, he comes up with an old map of the city. It’s tattered; the seams have worn through to a soft fray.

  “Lombard Street,” he says. He opens the map on the floor. Partridge and Pressia kneel beside him. He runs his finger along the grid at one side, then puts a finger on section 2E.

  “Do you see it?” she asks, and suddenly, she hopes the house is still standing. She hopes, beyond all reason, that it’s the way it once was: big houses in a tidy row with white stone steps and fancy gates, windows with curtains that open to beautiful rooms, bikes locked to front gates, people walking dogs, people pushing strollers. She doesn’t know why she even lets herself have this kind of hope. Maybe it has something to do with the Pure, as if his hopefulness is contagious.

  Bradwell’s finger stops on an intersection. “Are you always this lucky?” he says to Partridge.

  “What? Where is it?”

  “I know exactly where Lombard is.” He gets up, walks out of the meat locker into the larger room. He kneels next to the toppled wall and pulls a few bricks away, exposing a hole filled with weapons—hooks, knives, cleavers. He pulls some out and brings them back into the cooler. He gives Partridge and Pressia each a knife. Pressia likes the weight of it, although she doesn’t want to think of what it’s been used for here in the butcher shop—and by Bradwell too.

  “Just in case,” he says, and he slips a knife and a hook onto loops stitched inside his own jacket. He then holds up a gun. “I found a bunch of these stun guns too. At first I thought they were some kind of bike pump. Instead of bullets, they’ve got a cartridge that delivers a stunning blow if held to the head of a cow or pig. Good fo
r hand-to-hand combat. Good if you’re attacked by Groupies.”

  “Can I see it?” Partridge asks.

  Bradwell hands it to him, and Partridge holds it lightly, like it’s a small animal.

  “The first time I used it was on Groupies,” Bradwell says. “I pulled the gun from my waistband, and, within the dense tangle of bodies, I found the back of a skull. I pulled the trigger and the head went limp. The Groupies must have felt the sudden shock of death throughout their shared cells. They reared and spun a slow circle, like they were trying to release themselves from the dead one. Its head was lolling and flopping, and I ran off.”

  “I don’t know if I’d be able to do that,” Pressia says, looking at the knife in her hands.

  “Life or death,” Partridge says. “I think you would.”

  “Maybe I don’t know how to process a cow,” Bradwell says, “but I know these weapons as well as any butcher ever did—as a means of survival.”

  Pressia puts the knife into the rope of her belt. She’d rather use the knife to cut wires and make her small windup toys than kill anything. “Where are we going exactly?”

  “The church,” Bradwell says. “Part of it still exists. A crypt.” He stops, stares at one of the walls of the meat locker as if he’s looking through it. “That’s where I go sometimes.”

  “To pray?” Pressia says. “You believe in God?”

  “No,” he says. “It’s just a good safe place. Tight walls, sound structure.”

  Pressia doesn’t know what she thinks about God. All she knows is that people around here have pretty much given up on the idea of religion and faith, although there are some who still worship in their own ways, and some who’ve confused the Dome with a version of heaven. “I’ve heard whispers of people who meet and burn candles and write things down. Do they meet there?”

  “I think they do,” Bradwell says, folding up the map. “There’s evidence of it—wax, small offerings.”

  “I’ve never thought that there was anything I could hope to get by praying for it,” Pressia says.

  Bradwell grabs his coat off a metal rail overhead. “That’s probably what they pray for. Hope.”