The Creative Fire: 1 (Ruby's Song)

by Brenda Cooper

  They had settled and were watching, but she didn’t have them yet. “As I wore used uniforms and worked as a bot repair girl, I dreamed of you. In the moments between work, in the bits of time after school, in my bed when I woke up in the dead quiet of our shift’s sleep time, I imagined knowing you and knowing The Creative Fire. Because, you see, we didn’t know either.” She paused, testing. They had become quieter. “My best friend died in my arms out there. My friend Onor’s parents died in the fight you are going to.”

  She looked for Onor’s face to point to but didn’t see it. Surely he heard her. “You are fighting for yourselves, for freedom of choice when we get home. You are also fighting for who I was, for all of my family and my friends. We have promise and skills and hope and great hearts . . . as do you.”

  That was almost enough. It was time.

  “Stay safe and fight well and treat the people like me from the outer levels as equals and as friends, and they will help you. As you go out that door, I’m going to sing for you.” She started into “Homecoming”:

  Long and dark is our night flight

  No stars shine inside Fire’s skin, only

  Me and you. And love.

  People shuffled past her, the flow outward constrained by the narrow stairs, so she had time to sing the song through three times.

  As the last fighter left, between verses, she stopped and took a deep breath, glancing around. Ani had come up and was nodding her head to the beat. Claire, still back by the bar, mouthed the words. Onor was easy to spot in the nearly empty room. He stared at her as if she were some entirely new person. Maybe she was.

  Colin said, “Please. Finish the song.”

  PART THREE: ACTING

  48: Returning

  The last note of Ruby’s song lingered in the air. It had sunk deeper into Onor’s heart each time she sang it, so that now, when Ruby was done, he knew—for the very first time since Ruby had told him so—that they were heading for a home lost to memory, to a place none of them had seen or could even imagine. He knew awe. He knew Adiamo was as real as the Fire and much more than a game contained within it.

  The song and her delivery made him part of the ship, the Fire and the people all together, like one organism in the vastness of space, an organism on its way home.

  Home.

  Onor had trouble peeling his gaze away from Ruby. Sweat slicked her brow and damp tendrils of flyaway red hair stuck to her temples and cheeks. She had just sung to him with her very essence, and he felt changed by her.

  A shuddered breath that shook his very center drove him to refocus on his surroundings. The first thing he noticed was the look on Colin’s face, and knew it mirrored his own.

  Ruby turned to Colin, seeking his approval.

  Onor took a deep breath, unwilling to trust his voice to say anything at all.

  Colin embraced Ruby, whispering something for her ears only, smiling, a man tender for a woman. Then he stood and looked around the room.

  About a dozen people remained. A woman near the front desk, Claire by the bar, Ani, Colin, Ruby, and a handful of people who now bent to clean up after the chaos of departing soldiers.

  Colin looked directly at Onor for the first time since the meeting. His eyes narrowed, and he glanced from Onor to Ruby and back again. He didn’t look happy with what he saw. He looked like a man in a trap.

  When he spoke, he seemed to be holding Onor to a promise. “The fighting may come here. You must do what she said you would. You must keep her safe. Take her home.”

  Ruby gasped.

  “To g . . . gray?” Onor hated that he stammered and didn’t sound as strong as he felt.

  “The fighting will be here, I think. I hope. Take Ani with you. Stay very aware, always, every moment. I’ve already told The Jackman where to find you. He’ll keep you safe, but you must defend Ruby. We just announced her presence here to way too many people, so she must not be here.”

  Did that mean Colin thought there were traitors among the men and women he and Ruby had just sent out the door?

  Colin kept pressing. “Be sure she’s surrounded by people who will take care of her. She’s . . . she’s important.”

  “I know how to help myself if I have to,” Ruby said, the words stopping Colin mid-rant.

  He turned to her. “No, I suppose I shouldn’t underestimate you, should I?”

  She laughed in his face, and he laughed back, the tension and the awe and the fear in the room all shattering against their banter so that even Onor felt his shoulders relax.

  “Claire will lead you three out the back. Pay careful attention in case you need to return that way. The tunnels are less convenient than the train, but they won’t break down.”

  As Claire came forward, Colin pulled Ruby to him and kissed her on the lips, hard and proprietary, looking up at Onor as soon as he was finished.

  Onor managed not to flinch. “I’ll keep her safe.”

  Colin walked out the front door, following the fighters. He glanced back once, and the look on his face told Onor that the man would change places with him if he could.

  Onor felt odd wearing gray again, as if he wore a shadow of the past. The shirt hung big on him, but at least it smelled clean. He, Ruby, and Ani had all traded blues for grays. Claire had pulled an oversized gray shirt over a blue one and still looked decidedly uncomfortable, as if the gray color contaminated her.

  She moved quietly and deliberately, familiar with the twisted and battered spaces between cargo bays.

  Each opening was marked with numbers, and Onor tried to keep track of them as they went, worried he was losing some of the details he’d need to get them back. From time to time he looked over his shoulder, so he’d recognize the way.

  The corridors stank of oil and dirt and stale air, and even of dust. He had to fight not to sneeze.

  They walked for at least an hour. They crossed open floor and squeezed through narrow openings. Twice they had to crawl up ramps that appeared to have been cobbled together from scraps to allow human traverse.

  They’d turned so many times and gone up and down the outside of cargo containers so much that he’d become completely disoriented by the time Claire finally opened a dogged hatch that led to a tunnel, through another hatch, and then into the gray level. “Where are we?” Ruby asked.

  “D.”

  “There’ll be more reds here than anyplace else,” Ruby hissed. “The lockup!”

  “Peacers,” Ani said, like a reflex.

  “Not here, they’re not,” Ruby replied, equally a reflex.

  Claire ignored the entire conversation and fixed her eyes on Ani. “Can you get back to us if you have to?”

  “I can,” Onor said. Colin had given him the job.

  Claire ignored him. Ani’s “yes, thank you” came out quite clipped.

  Onor wasn’t sure which of them was happiest to have the hatch close with Claire on the other side of it. He imagined her stripping off her gray overshirt and becoming herself before she started back.

  Onor finally felt free to talk to Ruby. “You were great back there.” He put a hand on her shoulder, looking into her eyes, trying to read what she felt for him right then. “Your voice has grown.”

  She relaxed a tiny bit under his fingers as she let out a long, slow breath. Her eyes dropped away before he could read anything but worry in them. “Is The Jackman supposed to meet us here?”

  “I don’t know. We should figure out where we are,” Onor said. “Do you know where lockup is? I want to avoid it.”

  Ruby shook her head. Ani answered. “It’s below. Under the reclamation plant.”

  So near where he had been bunking. He laughed. “Figures.” Then he glanced at Ruby. “Marcelle lives in this pod now.”

  Ruby’s eyes lit up. “Let’s find her.”

  Ani interrupted. “We should hide.”

  Ruby shook her head. “Let’s get to common. We need to know what’s happening. Surely there’s someone there.”

  “
Have you gone mad?” Ani’s voice sounded strident.

  Ruby must have heard fear in Ani’s voice, too, since she turned to her and whispered, “We’ll keep you safe.”

  The words shocked Ani into standing straighter.

  Before he got caught looking dumbfounded yet again at how much Ruby had grown and changed, Onor started off, hoping he was going in the right direction. Surely Colin had told The Jackman what pod they were in. He’d find them. Besides, Onor was feeling the lack of sleep again. Whatever benefits he’d gained from the uneasy nap on the hard bar surface were draining away from him. If he stopped, he’d crash, and then it would be up to Ruby to keep them safe.

  Onor peered carefully around each turn before he took it. No reds stalked the halls. In fact, they were entirely too empty. They finally passed a threesome of older workers straggling between shifts, lifting tired hands in greeting. Just as they passed, the tallest of the three narrowed his eyes at them and stopped his brethren. “I don’t know you.”

  “I’ve just been transferred from D-pod,” Onor replied casually.

  “Trains aren’t running,” one of the men said in a hard voice.

  The tall one had set his face in a stubborn look. “How do I know you’re one of us?”

  Ruby laughed, an easy laugh that didn’t show any of the tension Onor felt. “We’re on your side. There’s a fight happening, a fight between us and the worst reds.”

  “Worst reds?” the man replied.

  “Watch,” Ruby said. She pulled a necklace out of her pocket and fastened it around her neck. The same blue and red and gray one Daria had made for her just before the test, just before she disappeared. “You’ll see this sign, these colors. Maybe some green, too.” She pointed at Ani, who wore the sign in a swatch of thin ropes she’d attached to her belt. “Tell people. The ones with this sign are helping you. Even the reds or blues wearing the sign are helping. Helping us.”

  The tall man looked confused and still dangerous. Then the one who hadn’t spoken yet whispered, “Ruby. That’s Ruby.”

  Ruby smiled, lighting up at the reverence in the man’s voice. “Yes.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Common,” Onor said.

  “No.” The expression on the tall man’s face had changed entirely, his voice less suspicious as well. “Our children are there. We don’t want fighting in common.”

  “The park?” Ruby asked.

  “Under. Go under.”

  Onor didn’t like that. “By lockup?”

  Boot steps echoed behind them. Onor didn’t need to turn to see if it was reds because the men’s eyes widened.

  “Hide,” the tall one hissed again. “We’ll distract them. Now.”

  The men started forward, a determined look on their faces.

  Ruby whispered after them, “Watch for the sign.” They ducked into the first doorway they found. A storage room, the walls lined with closed doors and drawers. As the door closed behind them, the light in the room snapped off and they stood in the dark.

  “I can’t believe Colin sent us here,” Ani whispered. The dark accentuated the slight quiver in her voice.

  Ruby grunted. “These are my people. They’ll protect me. And anyone with me. You’ll be okay.”

  “Shhhh,” Onor cautioned as the sound of boots went by outside.

  A few breaths after the last echo of a step had died, Ruby opened the door, the light an assault on Onor’s eyes.

  “There they are!”

  Onor prepared to run, but Ruby stopped him with an outstretched arm in front of his chest. “It’s our friends.”

  Sure enough, the same three men. “Do you know what’s under the park?” Onor asked. “What happens there?”

  The tall one nodded, his eyes showing a tiny bit of surprise and then acknowledgment.

  “Can you take us there?” Onor asked.

  A smile crossed the man’s face. He nodded. They walked quickly, the three strangers no longer slumped.

  A group of twenty people milled at one end of the room under the park, apparently waiting for something. Some of them turned and then jostled their neighbors, and soon they were all looking at the newcomers. A few said her name, “Ruby.” One called it loudly, sharply. Not happy.

  Onor recognized it.

  Lya. She, too, had grown thinner, and dark circles smudged the spaces under her eyes. In the time since they had all been broken apart, Lya had changed as much as Ruby, but not in the same way. She looked older and smaller and frightened.

  Onor looked for Hugh, spotted him in the back of the crowd talking to a group of men. He didn’t recognize anyone else. The group was clearly waiting for something or someone. He’d thought it might be the men they came with, but they had melted into the group as well, joining the waiting, the small talk, most people still looking at Ruby.

  Lya raced to Onor and clutched him in an embrace so tight it hurt a bit. He breathed her in, smelling sweat and fear. She trembled.

  He brushed the hair away from her face. Her cheek was wet with tears. “What happened?” he asked her. “Are you okay?”

  “No.” She stepped away from him and glared at Ruby. “No, I’m not. I don’t want to fight. I don’t want anyone to die.” She took a step toward Ruby, her voice trembling but sharp and loud. “It’s your fault. This is all because of you.” She took another step, her face so angry. Onor grabbed her arm lightly, keeping her from getting closer to Ruby.

  “Let it go,” he whispered to her. “It’s happening now and nothing will change it. We’re going to be free. It’s the only way.”

  Lya pulled away and spat at his feet. “Only if we’re not dead.”

  49: A Choice

  The industrial light of the storage level below the park made Lya’s face look white and nearly dead. Ruby cringed at the look Lya gave her: fear and anger and maybe even hatred all at once. Strong, and dangerous. Ruby didn’t dare smile, but she met Lya’s eyes. “This has to be done, Lya. I don’t like it, and it’s not fair. But neither is the way we’ve been treated.”

  “You love it,” Lya screeched at her. “It’s all you ever wanted—attention from everybody. You started this!” She put hands over her face and let out a wracking sob. “You made us believe.”

  “I didn’t make you do anything,” Ruby replied, struggling to sound reasonable. “I’m only a singer. I try to draw attention to the things that need to change, but I don’t make the injustice.”

  “We’re going to die because of you.”

  “No, Lya,” Onor said loudly enough to address the whole gathered crowd. “You’re afraid. It’s okay. This is something to be afraid of. But it’s not Ruby’s fault.”

  Hugh had noticed the conversation. He came nearer but didn’t intervene. Ruby felt as if he was waiting for a chance to talk to her.

  A hand fell on Ruby’s shoulder from behind, and Onor’s eyes lit. She turned to face Conroy as he said, “Well, who do we have here? A slip of trouble come to send us off?” His voice didn’t sound unfriendly, but he also didn’t seem overjoyed to see her.

  “Send you off? Where?”

  “Why, to fight for the Gem of the Fire’s freedom, of course.”

  Gem of the Fire? Gem of the Fire? That was all she needed. She straightened her back. “Not to send you off.”

  Conroy raised an eyebrow at her. “Colin or Fox would let you fight? What are you going to do, sing the reds a song?”

  First Lya, and now Conroy. “I might. Or I might know those levels well enough by now to help you get around.”

  Conroy’s lips thinned. “You really do mean to go?”

  “Yes.”

  Sure enough, Onor was at her side, whispering in her ear. “You can’t do this. I promised to keep you safe.”

  Ruby didn’t take her eyes off Conroy. The room had gone quiet, everyone’s attention on her now. “It’s the right thing. I can’t sing about blood and not ever see it. I’m going.” And she would. She would write songs about whatever happened today. S
he could hear them inside her already, wanting out even though the words weren’t there yet.

  “You’re not leading,” Conroy snapped.

  She had to laugh. As if she even could lead a fight! “I’m not that stupid.”

  Conroy appeared to be trying to turn purple. He glared at her and Onor, a look so harsh that Ruby felt Onor step back from it. She had to force herself not to go back with him. She spoke so softly that only Conroy and maybe Onor could hear. “I’ll help you.”

  Only after he nodded did she step back. Conroy went around the group, as far from Ruby as he could get, and started calling out orders. She ignored Onor and Ani, and was careful to do exactly what Conroy asked her to do.

  She felt more like her old self again, dressed in ragged grays, her face a mess, her hair streaked with oils from a few places where she’d bumped pipes or walls climbing or crawling through the tunnels between the cargo bars and here. She even smelled like herself again. It felt right, going into the fight, being in gray, being with her people, even arguing with Conroy. It was all familiar and easy, edged with danger.

  Surely Joel was out there fighting somewhere. Wherever he was, he would be focused on what he was doing. What could she do? What did she need to do, or better, what one thing could she alone do?

  Conroy had finished giving direction. He stood and watched his commands being executed. People lined up and quieted down, getting ready. She went up to him and stood on tiptoe, whispering in the big man’s ear in spite of the annoyed look he gave her. “Can I talk to them all for a moment? Please.”

  He looked at her with a stone face. She could feel him about to say no. “Please. It’ll help.”

  “Damn you.”

  “Thanks.” She almost darted in to kiss his cheek, but she’d pushed him far enough. She cleared her throat and took deep breaths, the same kind Jali had taught her to use to center before a performance.

  Finally, all eyes were on her and Conroy. She started: “How many of you have heard my messages over the last few days? Not the songs, the messages?”

  Fewer than half raised a hand. Better than nothing, but not enough. “Do you remember tales of Lila Red the Releaser?”