by Amie Kaufman
My own relief is like a gust of fresh air, letting me breathe again for the first time since I stepped through her door.
She turns away, leaning on her desk. “I know you went out to that facility; I know that’s why you were asking about it. I was afraid of what you might have seen there. You don’t know what they do to people who know too much. They know everything—they can see inside your mind.”
Lilac LaRoux’s warnings echo in my mind, and I try not to let my own fear rise in response to my commander’s. “Sir,” I begin, “LaRoux Industries is—”
“LRI?” Towers stares at me. “I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about the—the things that are out there. In the swamp.”
My skin wants to crawl, remembering what Merendsen said about his whispers, things we could never hope to understand. “If there ever was anything out there, sir, it’s gone now. There’s nothing to see but empty swampland.”
“That doesn’t mean they’re gone,” she mutters, raking her fingers through her hair and disheveling her normally neat bun. She takes a few more pacing steps, then whirls abruptly and crouches in front of me.
All her blinds are drawn, making her office seem even more cave-like than most of the buildings on Avon. Now that I’ve had a chance to look around, I can see empty ration packets strewn about, dirty coffee mugs littering the drinks station and her desk. It looks like she’s been holed up here for a week.
Her voice is ragged when she answers. “Everyone goes mad, everyone. Except for you. Why don’t you? Why don’t you?” She leans forward, bracing her hands against the armrests of my chair, her face only a few inches away.
I did, I want to scream. I killed over half a dozen people. Except I didn’t. Tarver Merendsen proved that.
“I don’t know,” I whisper instead.
“The facility you saw wasn’t military,” she says finally. “It belonged to LaRoux Industries.”
My pulse quickens—I have to tread carefully to get the answers I need. “Why? What interest do they have in Avon?”
“They approached me when I was first assigned here, said they were working on a way to stop the Fury. They said all the base commanders for the past ten years had been allowing them to do their research here.”
But why? To what end? I open my mouth, but Towers is still talking, her head down, mumbling in a low, droning voice that frightens me.
“We find them out there sometimes,” she mumbles. “Soldiers taken by the Fury. Drowned or buried in quicksand or dead with guns in their hands and bullets in their brains. They go east, into no-man’s-land, if there’s no one nearby to kill when they snap. They’re looking for it. They’re looking for the place. But it’s moving, always moving. It’s never in the same place twice. I tried to find it, but…”
If I didn’t have reason to believe in at least some of what she was saying, I would tell her she’d lost her mind. Her gaze is wild, her eyes sunken, lips chapped. She hasn’t been taking care of herself. She clearly hasn’t been sleeping. She looks like I did, drowning in guilt the morning after the massacre at the rebel base, when I believed I’d killed all those—
I freeze. “Sir, what have you done?”
Commander Towers shakes her head. “It seemed like nothing at the time. An extra bonus finds its way into my account every month, and I provide copies of our medical records. Sometimes the bodies disappear, the ones we find in the swamp. You have to understand, LaRoux Industries conducts such revolutionary medical research, and no one else is helping us, helping my soldiers. I thought they might have an answer to the Fury. You understand that, you know what it is to live and die with your platoon.”
“Yes, sir,” I say cautiously, keeping my voice free of judgment. I’m not sure I would have done differently in her position, and I want her to keep talking.
But it’s like she doesn’t even hear me.
“I can’t do it anymore,” she’s whispering. “That place, the things they study—the Fury’s only getting worse. Taking civilians now, like that man Quinn with no history of violence. I’ve told them I won’t cover for them anymore, Lee. And I’m telling you, in case…” She swallows, taking a deep breath that restores a little of the sanity to her expression. “In case something happens to me.”
My palms are sweaty, pressed against the seat of the chair. “Why me?”
“Why you,” she repeats. “That’s what they want to know. I’ve figured it out. LRI wants to know why you don’t snap, why you never get the dreams. That’s why you’re still here. Lee, they didn’t just pay me to look the other way. They paid me to watch you.”
Dread grips my throat, chokes my voice away. “Who? Who’s doing this?”
She gazes back at me, still standing close. Her mouth opens, then closes. I watch as her eyes focus past me, then snap back, then blur again. “Lee,” she whispers—and then again, this time with an odd urgency. “Lee.”
“Sir?” I force myself to move, to break out of the fear holding me down so I can reach for her. “Sir, what’s happening?”
As I watch, her pupils dilate, her muscles beginning to tremble. It’s what happened to Mori, how she looked as she blew away that teenager in the town. I reach for my gun, but my fingers seize when they touch the familiar grip; I know I can’t shoot my commander.
The first time I watched a fellow soldier die was a few weeks after I went on active duty. We were on a patrol, and he stepped into a poorly constructed—but effective—booby trap leftover from the long-ago rebellion there, and it blew him half to pieces. But there was a moment, after his foot tripped the wire and before the explosives ignited, when we both knew what had happened. His eyes met mine, and that instant unspooled into an eternity stretching between us, the knowledge unfurling on his face that he was about to die, the helplessness on mine, unable to stop it. It was only a split second, but it lasted forever.
That moment comes back to me now as Commander Towers meets my eyes. For an instant, she knows she’s falling.
I brace myself, waiting for the violence to erupt.
Instead, the moment passes, and she straightens. I’m left tense, watching her, waiting for her to snap like Mori did. She gazes through me, her pupils still dilated—and then, giving herself an odd little shake, she turns away and reaches for a stack of files on her desk, walking sedately around to her chair.
I stare as she goes back to work, waiting for the other shoe to drop. But it never does. Though her pupils still seem unusually large, the rest of her body language and movements are utterly normal. More normal, in fact, than she was acting when I first stepped into her office.
“S-sir?”
She looks up, blinking in surprise. “Captain,” she says mildly. “I didn’t notice you come in. How can I help you?”
It’s like a blow to the gut, and I’m left searching for words, floundering for understanding. “Sir, I came in here to speak with you. You were telling me about the medical records. About LaRoux Industries.”
“I was?” She frowns at me, reaching up to neatly tuck a lock of hair into place. A habitual, familiar gesture I recognize, but a tad too jerky. Just a little bit wrong. “That doesn’t sound right.”
“Sir, the records—the facility to the east—”
“I have a lot of paperwork here, Captain,” she says gently. “Can it wait?”
If I hadn’t just seen her ten minutes ago, I’m not sure I’d be able to tell anything was wrong. But looking at her now, I can see it—little signs, here and there. All her gestures are right, the inflection in her voice, her turn of phrase. But it’s all muted. Muffled. It’s like she’s herself, but somehow…less.
“Yes, sir,” I stammer, backing toward the doorway. “I’ll—thank you, sir.”
She doesn’t look up as I salute and hurry through the door.
It’s all I can do to walk back toward the other side of the base and not run; it’s all I can do not to find the nearest shuttle and get as far away as I can from this place.
I don’
t know why LaRoux Industries is here on Avon. I don’t know why my commander was being paid to watch me. But whoever she really was behind the bribes and the guilt, that person is gone now. Because the thing that just politely showed me the door—that wasn’t Commander Towers.
I intended to go look for Merendsen and tell him what I heard so we can try to put the pieces together. Instead I find myself heading for Molly’s. With personnel on duty around the clock, it’s always open. I try telling myself it’s because I want the comfort of a crowd, but I know that’s not why I’m going there. I try telling myself it’s because I want Flynn’s input on what’s going on, hoping he has some rational explanation for what I saw.
But I know the real reason my feet are taking me his way, and I’m not proud. I’m terrified, and for the first time since I was eight years old, I just want someone to tell me it’s going to be okay.
I’m halfway there, my thoughts whirling, my eyes blurring with exhaustion and fear, when my nose starts burning; I recognize the choking, acrid smell of smoke. Something, somewhere, is on fire.
My head snaps up. I can see thick black smoke billowing up in the distance, and automatically I break into a sprint. It could be any number of buildings over on that side of the base; there are a couple barracks there, a few supply sheds, even the munitions depot. But disastrous as that would be, somehow I know it’s not.
God, no. Please no.
I’m barely aware of the distance elapsing between me and Molly’s—it’s not even a shock when I burst out from between two barracks to see the bar in flames. I keep running, stopped only when someone grabs my jacket and hauls me back, my momentum knocking me to the ground.
Scrambling in the mud to find my feet again, I’m lurching toward the burning bar when those same arms grab hold of me again.
“Chase!” shouts a dim voice in my ear. “You can’t go in there!”
“There could be people in there!” I scream, my voice breaking as I struggle to get free.
“If they are, they’re dead, and you can’t help them!” It’s Captain Biltmore, and he’s not letting me go. “Get ahold of yourself, Captain!” he snaps.
When he lets go of me I fall again, and this time it’s enough to jar me free of my desperate need to get inside. I stare at the flames, my thoughts grinding to a halt. There’s no sign of Flynn anywhere. I can’t think, can’t feel. There’s no room for grief—I don’t understand it yet, can’t accept it. Not like this.
My heart empties.
I can hear the shouts of the emergency crews, the coordinated efforts of the firefighters, getting the blaze under control before it can spread to any other buildings. A beam crashes down, sending a torrent of flames and sparks shooting skyward. The windows have all shattered from the inferno, and through an empty frame I can see the outline of the bar, red-hot against my eyes. Every breath scorches the inside of my nose with the smell of burning chemicals. Absurdly I think of Molly’s antique jukebox, its red and gold plastic melting in the heat, its memory banks full of old Earth music reduced to nothing more than melted circuitry and noxious fumes.
Someone knocks into me, making me stumble and driving the image out of my mind. Catching my balance, I see a couple of medics hauling a stretcher out of the smoke, laden with a body wrapped in a sheet.
It’s a large person—too large to be Flynn. In an instant I understand who it is and shove past Biltmore.
“What happened?” I snap to the medics, reaching for the sheet. “If it’s just smoke inhalation, maybe he’s not—”
“No, Captain, he’s dead. Please, don’t—” One of the medics tries to intercept me, but I’m stronger than he is, and I shove him aside so I can get at the sheet and haul it down.
There’s Molly’s face, calm and lax. It looks like he’s sleeping, or like he’s faking somehow. But then I see the blood, the scorch marks against his shaven scalp. I lean down and realize part of his skull’s been blown away in the back.
Everything around me slows. Dimly, I hear the medics saying things. He was dead before the fire started. Shot, and with one of our own weapons. The bolt came from a high angle, suggesting he was made to kneel before he was killed. Executed.
When I lift my eyes from Molly’s face, they fall on a pair of soldiers dragging someone away, a middle-aged man struggling and shouting curses.
“Who’s that?” My voice comes out quiet, cold. Very calm. Good.
The closest medic glances at me, then at the man being dragged away. “One of the bastards responsible,” he answers. “They think it was a whole crew that snuck in somehow, but he’s the only one they caught. Gonna interrogate him.”
My heart fills again, rage taking over as the whole world narrows down to the man being dragged away. The man responsible. They won’t need to interrogate him officially—I intend to find out everything myself, no matter the cost. I pull my gun from its holster and slip quietly after him and his escort, steps quickening.
I’ll find whoever did this, and I’ll tear them apart.
The girl is drowsing, up past her bedtime, listening to the click of imitation ivory as her mother stirs the mah jong tiles. She’s curled up with her blanket under the felted table, surrounded by her mother’s friends on all sides.
A tile etched with the picture of a chrysanthemum falls to the floor, and a rumbling voice says, “I’ll get it.” An arm descends over the edge of the table, and the girl stares—it’s covered in tattoos, more than she’s ever seen in one place.
The adults chat as the girl’s mother deals, and the low hum of voices nearly lulls the girl to sleep.
“Who will watch the store while I’m gone?” her mother is asking.
“I can do that,” says the man with the tattoos.
“And when you’re gone? Who will watch her then?”
I’M WATCHING FROM AN ALLEYWAY between a barracks and the munitions shed, leaning against the hard wall and forcing myself to breathe. I can’t make out who it is they’re hauling away, and I can’t see Molly’s huge silhouette anywhere, and I can’t do anything but stand here, hands curled into fists, and wait. If my people did this, and they see me, all hell will break loose. More people will die.
When Jubilee stalks past, I’m so fixed on the flames I nearly miss her. I reach out to grab her arm and swing her in toward me, reflecting in the same split second that she’ll probably break my nose for this. I’m sure if she were any less shocked, she would. Instead, I catch a glimpse of something wild in her eyes, of a soot-stained hand lifting to reach for me, and I duck. “Jubilee, it’s me.”
With a wordless sound, her face stricken, she jerks back from me and stumbles to crash into the barracks wall. The jolt makes her look up, her gaze focusing with an effort—and then she sees me, her heart in her eyes. The gun she’s gripping goes clattering into the mud. Her hands grab for my arms, grasping at my sleeves and pulling me closer, as though she has to convince herself I’m real. “Flynn?” she whispers.
The mix of anguish and relief on her face has me moving before I can think to stop myself, and I pull her in against me so I can wrap my arms around her. She holds me just as tightly, and for a moment we stand there together, unmoving, as the chaos beyond the mouth of the alley unspools.
“I thought you—” she rasps, easing a half an inch away, shaken by the intensity of her own reaction.
I’m a little shaky myself, and I have to clear my throat before I can speak. “I was on my way to the supply shed when I heard the shouts. Where’s Molly? He was in there when I left, I should—”
My words die in my throat as the look on her face delivers the news. Our hands fall apart, and I have to brace against the munitions shed to stop my knees from giving out.
“They caught one of the rebels who did it.” She turns toward the mouth of the alley. “The others escaped. I was heading to interrogation, they’re taking him—”
“Get me in there,” I interrupt, urgency making my voice stumble. “Maybe I can convince him to talk. Offer him a
deal.”
“He’s a murderer, Flynn,” she snaps, her grief over her friend turning white-hot. She retrieves her gun from the ground, her face grim. “He doesn’t get a deal, he gets justice.”
“And if he’s one of McBride’s men? What if he knows what they’re planning next?” I can’t imagine any of my people starting the fire. It has to have been a mistake. “Please.”
She knows I’m right, but the desire for vengeance runs almost as deep. I watch her struggle, feeling it echo deep within my own heart; whoever killed my people is still out there too. Finally, shoving her Gleidel back into its holster, she murmurs, “Don’t promise him anything.”
When we reach the holding cells, she sends away the guard with a couple of snapped orders. The nervous corporal looks at me but doesn’t stop me from following before he vanishes. Perhaps he hopes I’ll stop her from killing the prisoner.
My heart sinks when I see who’s huddled on the bench in the corner of the room. It’s Turlough Doyle, his mop of blond hair turned gray with ash, his eyes red with smoke and grief. He was only ever in the swamps because his sister sabotaged one of the algae farms, and the trodairí wouldn’t stop coming by to ask him where she was, more forcefully every time. Then he met Mike, and he had reason to stay. But he’s no blood-soaked rebel. He used to be a biology assistant.
His head’s down, exhaustion and fear taking their toll. Jubilee doesn’t hesitate, slamming the cell door behind us. “Who did this?” she snarls, stalking over to meet him eye to eye.
She was too blinded by shock and the Fury in the caves to recognize the man widowed by the massacre. But Turlough remembers her. When he lifts his head, his eyes fix on her face with a single-minded hatred that makes my heart freeze. “You’re going to kill me anyway, trodaire.” He spits the word. “I won’t help you kill anyone else.”
“You tell me,” she spits right back, “or you’re goddamn right I’m going to kill you, and I’ll make it last. Which one of you killed Molly?”
