Guardian

by Alex London

  Syd felt the EMD stick tap him on the cheek. It wasn’t reactivated yet. Finch’s onion breath was right in front of Syd’s face. “So, do you still think of me on those long, lonely nights?”

  “Finch,” Syd said. “They would’ve eaten you alive in the Upper City. You’d always have been trash to them.”

  “My name is Furious now.”

  “Furious?” Syd laughed in the dark, hoping his face showed his scorn to their night vision. “That really is a stupid name.”

  Syd felt Finch’s breath hot on his ear. “It’s the last name you’ll ever hear.”

  Syd jerked his head to the side, smashing the boy in the nose as hard as he could.

  “Ah!” Finch stumbled sideways, nearly falling over the small table.

  Syd heard the sound of the book hitting the floor. He tried to yank his arms free, but the other Purifier held him too tightly.

  “Right.” Finch got in front of him again. Syd heard the familiar sound of an electro-muscular disruption stick charging up. “I want this to hurt.”

  He jammed the stick in Syd’s stomach and fired a pulse through him. The darkness of the room turned red; he felt like his teeth had shattered, his fingernails were on fire, his belly button was a blade driven through to his back; and it seemed like the whole world was screaming, though only his voice made a sound. He slumped where they held him because his feet were kicking uncontrollably and his legs could not support his weight.

  When the wave of pain passed, Finch whispered again, “Was it as good as you’d dreamed it would be?”

  Then, with a bare fist, he punched Syd across the face. The punch twisted him sideways. The blood in his mouth was warm and surprisingly sweet, like the juice of a berry left in the sun.

  As Finch hit him again with the other fist, Syd twisted in the other direction. He preferred the flesh and bone of the fist hitting the flesh and bone of his face to the nerve-sizzling silence of the EMD stick. He’d hurt Finch’s knuckles.

  “Just kill him before Liam comes back,” the other voice whined.

  “Let that half-wit thug show up,” Finch said. “I’ll shove this stick just where he likes it.”

  “Where would that be?” Liam’s voice cut through the darkness.

  Syd heard a noise, like an overripe mango falling from a tree, the soft thump, the crunch as the pit cracked on a stone. He felt himself released and he fell to the ground. Beside him, his unrequited high school crush groaned and he knew their faces were mere inches apart. Gentle hands reached under his arms and helped him up, leaving Finch and the other one behind. He heard the buzz of the EMD stick charge, the knocking noise of limbs twitching against the floor, then nothing.

  It was over.

  “Did you kill them?” Syd asked.

  “Does it matter?” Liam replied from the darkness.

  Syd didn’t answer.

  “Can you stand?” Marie asked him. It was her hands under his arms.

  He nodded, but then realized she couldn’t see him in the dark. “Yes,” he said.

  “The Council is gone,” said Liam, without the slightest hint of emotion in his voice. “There’s been a coup and we aren’t safe.”

  “Baram is dead,” said Syd.

  “I’m sorry,” Marie told him.

  Syd felt Liam’s metal hand tugging him through the darkness.

  “The journal,” said Syd. “We need it.”

  “That book?” Liam asked.

  “It was her book,” said Syd.

  “Whose—?” Syd didn’t need to see Liam’s face to know that it dawned on him. “Oh. I . . . I can explain.”

  “You’re going to,” Syd told him. “But not right now. We just need the journal. It’s our only hope.”

  “Where is it?” Marie asked.

  “Somewhere on the floor . . . I don’t know . . . I heard it fall.”

  There was a crashing noise as Marie tripped over the table.

  “We have to feel around for it,” said Syd.

  “No time,” Liam snapped. “Cousin still wants you dead.”

  “He should get in line,” said Syd.

  “I think he just cut to the front of the line,” Marie spoke from the dark. “I’ve got the book. What’s so important about it?”

  “Designs for the Machine, I think,” said Syd. “I don’t understand all of it, but restarting the networks is our only hope of stopping this sickness.”

  “Where’d you get it?” Marie asked. “If we can find the person who wrote it—”

  “She can’t help us,” said Syd.

  “I killed her,” Liam told them. “Cousin tricked me. It was a mistake. I can’t make it right, but I can promise you I won’t make another.”

  Syd took a breath and let his silence answer Liam. It wasn’t forgiveness he offered, which hadn’t been sought, so much as acceptance, which Liam needed.

  Liam’s metal hand rested on Syd’s arm, gently, and he guided Syd through the hallway. As they rounded a corner, moonlight streaked in from a broken skylight. There was a splatter of blood across Liam’s pale cheek and flecked in his short copper hair. His face was a mask of determination.

  How many people had Liam killed in his short life? How many could Syd accept?

  Marie walked behind them with the journal in one hand and the bolt gun in the other.

  “Found it on the floor by the cot,” she said. “I thought it might come in handy.”

  Liam nodded.

  “Is there a hovercraft we can use?” Syd asked. “We need to get to Mountain City.”

  “Why there?” Marie asked.

  “It was Knox’s idea,” Syd told her. He didn’t need to look at her to see the puzzlement.

  “Hovercraft are held at secure depots around the city,” Liam said. “They’ll be guarded.”

  “But . . .” Syd cleared his throat. “You can deal with guards?”

  Liam exhaled, nodded. His cheeks flushed a bit in the moonlight.

  A lot of questions bubbled up in Syd’s mind, about how Liam came to be a soldier, when he’d learned to kill and why it seemed to embarrass him. About how he’d lost his hand. Syd surprised himself by wanting to know the answers, wanting to hear the stories. He never had before.

  But now was not the time for questions.

  “If you can get us inside a hovercraft, I can start it,” said Syd.

  They followed Liam from the building, creeping through the street toward a nearby vehicle depot. Liam tore brambles and thorns away, grunting with the effort. Watching him work in the nighttime heat, the blood drying on his clothes and on both his hands, Syd wondered when the last time was that Liam had slept. He wondered when Liam would reach the limits of what he could do and what would happen to all of them then.

  They stopped at a low wall of crumbling concrete opposite a fenced lot where three hovercraft were stored. Two Purifiers stood guard at the gate, chatting quietly with each other. They were armed, but seemed relaxed. They probably had no idea there had been a coup, no idea that a madman gave their orders now, no idea that they were going to get sick and die if Syd couldn’t find the Machine to restore the networks.

  “It’s not going to be pretty to break in there,” Liam warned. The way he said it was like he was asking permission.

  “I know,” said Syd, knowing full well the permission he had just granted. “If you can avoid . . .”

  Liam turned on the EMD stick he’d lifted off Finch. “I’ll try.” He looked at Marie. “Stay alert.” He disappeared over the wall.

  “Looks like you’re my bodyguard too,” Syd told her as they leaned against the wall waiting in silence.

  “I’m not doing this for you, Syd,” she said back to him.

  “I know,” Syd replied.

  He could picture her parents’ faces, the barracks stuffed with the s
ick and dying.

  It’s your future. Choose.

  “I’m trying,” Syd answered out loud and tried not the hear the sounds from half a block away, a stifled shout, a grunt, a gurgle. The silence that followed was even louder.

  Liam suddenly appeared over the wall again. “Time to go.”

  As they made their way to the first hovercraft, Syd didn’t ask what Liam had done, if he’d had to kill the Purifiers or not. One way or another, they were taken care of. Syd’s silence was a small mercy, but Liam was grateful.

  [23]

  WITH A FEW WIRES crossed, Syd shorted the security on the hovercraft. A few more wires reconnected and the engines roared to life. The batteries discharged, the hovercraft lifted, and Syd smiled. Machines, unlike people, were predictable.

  Liam stood behind him, leaning on the pilot’s chair and watching with fascination as Syd worked his magic. “How do you know how to do that?” he asked.

  Syd shrugged, feeling the hovercraft come to life. “I studied. I practiced . . . How do you know how to do what you do?”

  “I practiced,” said Liam.

  The controls shuddered in Syd’s hands and he felt the power of the machine running through him. He shifted the pitch where they hovered; tweaked the roll to get the feel of it, leaning the hovercraft left and then right.

  Liam stumbled off his feet, landing sideways wedged behind the copilot’s seat.

  “Maybe I should drive,” he suggested as he tried to pry himself up and regain some of the dignity he liked to think he still had.

  “Not on your life,” Syd replied. “Or on mine.”

  And with that, Syd pushed the throttle and they roared from the depot, smashing through a flimsy fence. Syd rolled hard, taking them along the eastern road out of the jungle city.

  “Aren’t we headed west?” Liam asked.

  “This Cousin guy doesn’t know that. I want people to see us going east.”

  Liam nodded, impressed with Syd’s thinking. Liam was good with blunt force, and he was glad Syd had a head for tactics. Together, they made a powerful team. He wondered whether Syd would see it that way. He also wondered how Marie fit in. She’d served the Reconciliation well. What would she do without a cause to get behind? Could they trust her? In the cabin, she began rummaging through the vehicle, taking an inventory of their supplies. She had the bolt gun now, but Liam had the EMD stick. The only one unarmed was Syd.

  Syd accelerated, smashing undergrowth out of their path, slicing past the urban farming co-ops where young Purifiers stood idly about, wondering where most of their workers had gone, and past security checkpoints where young Purifiers didn’t even move to stop them, unaware that they were a vehicle full of fugitives. These young cadres hadn’t yet been told that a hovercraft had been stolen, nor were they yet aware that the Council had collapsed. It was just as well. If they’d tried to stop the hovercraft . . . Syd didn’t let his mind go there.

  The vegetation thinned. The ruins of buildings spread out and minute by minute they sped from jungle to desert, cruising over an ancient bit of broken blacktop, the same route Syd had first taken into the city with Knox and Marie all those months ago.

  He reached over and hit the intercom.

  “Marie?” he asked. “How you doing back there? What do we have to work with?”

  Silence.

  “Marie?” he repeated, casting a nervous glance at Liam.

  “I’ll go check on her,” Liam said.

  Suddenly, there was a crashing sound, a shout.

  “Marie!” Syd yelled.

  Liam rushed back into the cabin. He saw Marie doubled over on a bench, her cheek dripping blood, and standing in front of her, his face bloody, his nose broken, was Finch.

  Liam cursed himself for not killing the boy in the dark. He’d been too eager to get Syd away. He hadn’t double-checked his work. Two times he’d allowed Finch to live, which was, to his mind, two times too many.

  Finch stood in fighting stance, ready.

  Liam adjusted his footing, raised the EMD stick.

  Finch whirled on him with a high kick. As Liam dodged, Finch shifted his momentum into a low slide that swept out Liam’s legs. The instant he began to fall, Finch jumped, slamming into Liam’s rib cage. He hit the hard metal deck of the hovercraft with a thud, the EMD stick pinned between them, humming with life, just a hair’s width from his chin. Finch pressed, using the full weight of his body to nudge it closer. One tap against Liam’s skin and it would be over. Liam couldn’t get any leverage to break free.

  Suddenly, the hovercraft pitched hard, and Finch fell off him, crashing down onto the side of the vehicle. Liam caught on to the bench to keep from falling after him, and as the hovercraft spun in a tight circle to land, he hopped to his feet, rushing Finch before the boy could get up again.

  But then he froze.

  Finch had Marie’s bolt gun and it was pointed at Liam’s chest. His eyes were locked on Liam’s hips. Finch had gotten good training somewhere along the line. A person could fake a lot of movements before a dive to one side or the other, but you couldn’t fake with your hips. His first move and he’d get a bolt through the gut.

  “I’m taking Syd back,” Finch said.

  Around them, the engines powered down. Syd stepped into the cabin.

  “Take cover!” Liam shouted.

  “Finch,” Syd said calmly. “Put the gun down. You’re outnumbered.”

  “I can handle this,” said Liam.

  “Nothing to handle,” said Syd. “We’re all going to relax and lower our weapons, okay?”

  Finch’s eyes darted to Syd. In that instant, Liam started to move forward, but Finch shook his head. “Don’t move. Drop that stick.”

  Liam gripped the EMD stick tighter.

  “I said drop it!” Finch’s finger moved to fire, just as Marie sprang from the bench and charged at him. Liam tossed her the stick, which she caught and swung into Finch’s face. It hit him with a full blast of power, knocking him back against the bulkhead. His limbs flailed out of control, and as he fell, his fingers released the bolt gun’s spring.

  There was a loud crack as it fired. Liam dove and the bolt smacked into the metal wall of the hovercraft with a clang and an ear-popping echo. On the floor beneath Marie, Finch’s body quivered and then fell still. A full charge from the EMD stick was enough to stop his heart. He wouldn’t be getting up again.

  When Liam stood, he felt a sharp pain. The bolt had grazed his rib cage, slicing open the side of his shirt and a thin line of his skin. It bled fast, like a waterfall.

  Marie kicked the gun away from Finch’s lifeless hand as Syd stepped forward and looked down at the body. The mangled face and lifeless eyes stared up at him. It’d been high school the last time Syd had let his stare linger on Finch. The world had changed a lot since. Looking down on him, Syd was surprised he still felt a clenching in his chest. The boy had hated him, had tried to kill him. Why should Syd mourn him? Why should Syd be the only one left who would?

  He remembered that line from an old book that Baram had muttered to him: God gives burdens, but also shoulders. A half-understood line from a mostly forgotten book. Funny what occurred to you when you weren’t sure how to feel.

  “Are you okay?” Syd turned to Liam.

  Liam touched his side and made sure not to wince. “Yeah,” he said. “Just a little cut.”

  “It doesn’t look little,” Syd told him.

  “We need to get moving. Cousin will be after us.”

  “The sun’s going down soon,” Syd said. “I can’t see in the dark and if we run with lights on, we’ll be easy to spot from miles away. I set us down by some kind of rock formation. We’ll wait out the night, let anyone chasing us go by, thinking we’re still headed east, then we can double back and head west in the morning. We’ll make the Mountain City before noon. Right now, we
can rest a minute. We can eat.” He pointed at Liam’s side. “And we can stop your bleeding.”

  Liam sat back on the bench behind him. He was tired. He felt lightheaded. Hunger, exhaustion, and blood loss. A rest wasn’t the worst idea. He nodded.

  Syd squatted and pulled out the emergency kit from under the passenger bench. He was glad the Reconciliation kept their vehicles well supplied.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Liam objected. “I’ll be fine.”

  “It’s not a problem,” Syd told him. “Remember? I’m good at fixing things.” He pulled a tube of BioGlue from the kit. It was lux, high-end stuff from before the Jubilee. The Reconciliation didn’t manufacture anything nearly this good. All their stitching was done with needle and thread, like ancient cave people.

  “The BioGlue’s not even expired yet,” Syd told him. “It won’t leave a scar.”

  Liam hadn’t actually ever had a wound patched with the good stuff. All his wounds scarred.

  “Take your shirt off,” Syd ordered.

  It was Liam’s turn to hesitate.

  Syd raised an eyebrow. “So now you care about privacy?”

  Liam glanced at Marie, who busied herself looking out the small porthole at the desert, pink and red as the sun went down. Liam took a deep breath and peeled his shirt off. The movement was agony and he tried to stifle a groan.

  Syd froze looking at him. His entire right side, from just under his armpit down to the waistband of his pants, was sliced open, soaked with blood. That, however, wasn’t what startled Syd.

  On the upper left side of Liam’s chest, scrawled across his pectoral muscle just below the collarbone, he had four letters roughly tattooed. The ink was slightly blue, some natural pigment, and there was no telling how long he’d had it, but the letters were clear as day. They were the same letters that were behind Syd’s ear, the letters for Syd’s other name, Yovel.

  “I just—” Liam began, but how could he explain? Syd hadn’t put those letters on his body by choice. They were a curse to him, a symbol of all the agony he’d endured and the death he’d caused. On Liam, they represented a promise. Debts forgiven. What he gave, he gave freely.