by L. J. Hatton
“Good,” Anise said.
“What about you?” Nola asked Winnie. A new sadness settled in her eyes when she realized whose photo the candle had been burning for. She kept quiet, wisely choosing not to burden her grandfather with the loss before their escape. She went to the shelf and retrieved the frame.
Winnie stood between us, the picture of indecision. Her family was offering to take her back and welcome her into the new life they’d all be facing. Her second family was poised to run away to draw danger away from the first.
Birch stepped over and took her hand.
“She’s coming with us.”
“Or you could go with them,” I said to him. Maybe that was his answer. Become one of the unseen and uncounted. Get away from me and the constant reminders of the Center that came with me.
“I can?” The suggestion stunned him.
He’d only made a handful of decisions in his life, and he’d never considered that he could pick his own path based on his own desires.
“What do you want to do?” he asked Winnie. “I’ll go with you.”
It would have made for a nearly romantic gesture if not for the intrusion of a Commission cargo hauler sailing past the house. Deceptively fast for their size and cumbersome shape, these transport ships were built to ferry supplies and equipment. They could also move several hundred people—personnel or captives—and now I saw there were three of them. The Commission either intended to land shock troops on the Mile, or fill a detention center with its citizens.
“Whatever we’re doing, let’s do it now,” Jermay said.
I spun toward the stairs.
“You all get in place. Give me one minute.”
“Penn!”
“One minute!”
All I could think was this time I wouldn’t let them take my father’s work. They’d burned the train and demolished the Hollow, blotting nearly every trace of Magnus Roma off the planet. The only thing left was what he’d kept hidden here on the Mile, and it was going with me, no matter how I got off this mile-wide tin can. I took the stairs two at a time, ignoring Anise’s shouts for me to stay with the group.
We had not been through all of this for nothing. We had not been brought to the Mile by coincidence. Nafiza had seen us for a reason, and I believed that reason was within reach. I snatched the briefcase off the desk, hanging tight with my left hand. My right one had mostly thawed out, but I didn’t trust it not to fail me again.
The workroom looked completely different with its walls painted acid green by the light shining through the window. Everything was off-color and too dark. The shadows didn’t fall where they should have. They’d been perverted by the fear that beam represented.
Outside, I could see people still running for shelter. The house across the street opened up. Its roof slid back. The sides popped out, like a square blossoming flower, allowing a small winged vessel to rise from the middle, identical to the one that had hung below our big top’s balloon. I blinked and it was gone, along with a half-dozen others from along the street.
The Commission knew the Mile existed now. I wondered if the community knew they’d have to keep running. All of their children were assets that could be rounded up, collared, and exploited. I’d seen how the wardens fought for control of people with different abilities. They’d go to war over Dev, who could take them anywhere in the world without concern for the security that might keep them out. And Nola, who seemed mundane enough but quietly existed as a divining rod, able to see a person’s touch inside them. Wren might get away unless they realized where he came from; then he’d be back in a cell somewhere, unheard and unmissed.
More pods shook loose from their plots like animals waking from hibernations. They rose, dropping the outer trappings of the lives they were leaving behind. Laundry on lines, snapping and blowing in the wind, but still attached to the pods on one side. Discarded toys falling through gaps in lawns that no longer existed. Walkways and chunks of sidewalk raining down on the world below.
Here was the destruction of the Mile at the hands of those who lived there. Every house torn down to its foundation left the structure compromised and crumbling. There were too many gaps, too close together. The reverberations from a hundred propulsion systems cracked the solid space between them, so it fell away, leaving chasms that stragglers had to fight to escape.
We were at the climax of a cheap sci-fi film. Desolation and invasion backlit by a halo of glowing green.
With the pods removed, I could see all the way to the outer rim through the window of my father’s room. The first of three vessels tried to dock, but the rim proved too brittle. The clamps broke away, leaving the ship to drift until it could make another pass.
The second transport fared better, managing a connection strong enough that its crew could disembark. A three-line column of troops filed out. The Commission wasn’t supposed to have troops. They were a civilian organization with the right to request military support only in extreme or emergency situations. This was the second time I’d seen them land an army with the firepower to support it.
Shining unnoticeables appeared in advance of the third ship trying to dock. Only two holograms, and neither a familiar face. They guided the ship to a spot on the rim that was sturdy enough to use.
My blood ran cold and crackled with energy at the same time. My first instinct was to obliterate everything within two hundred yards of the rim. Anything and anyone allying with the Commission was the enemy . . .
Then I remembered Greyor in his uniform, playing the part as well as he could. Doing things he didn’t want to do in hope that he would rise to a position where he could make a difference. There could be more like him among the men advancing, and if I scorched the sky, more than a few Commission ships would suffer for it. Without knowing how fast the pods were or how they were shielded, I couldn’t risk them being hit by deflected meteors or stray currents.
“Penn, what are you doing?” Jermay appeared in the doorway. “Your minute’s up. This is no time for daydreaming. Get downstairs.”
“They’ve docked,” I said, glancing back at the window. “There are at least a hundred of them out . . . no way . . . it can’t be.”
I couldn’t have seen what I thought I saw. I refused to even consider it. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to. He was an apparition. The next evolution in my body betraying me. This time, it was my brain or my eyes instead of my arm. I was seeing things that couldn’t possibly be real. I wouldn’t say his name. I wouldn’t think it.
“Whatever it is, let it go or deal with it later.” Jermay was in the room now, pulling me toward the door by my weaker arm, but I did my best impression of Xerxes and refused to be moved.
We weren’t going to get a later. Not if he was here.
“But he can’t be here, Jermay. He can’t!”
Frustrated, Jermay leaned toward the window.
His eyes told him the truth I couldn’t, because I refused to speak of the dead and draw danger closer. On the last transport, behind the troops and flanked by the unnoticeables, a man walked down the plank. Badly scarred, with a stony, cruel face.
Warden Arcineaux was here.
CHAPTER 15
The dead don’t come back.
It hadn’t been a full day since I said those words to Nafiza while sitting on Baba’s porch, and yet I was staring at Warden Arcineaux in the very scarred flesh. I’d stabbed this man in the stomach after he murdered Winnie’s brother. Winnie had forbidden him to take another breath for the rest of his life, to protect me. He’d fallen thousands of feet at terminal velocity, trapped inside the Center he’d longed so badly to control.
Three fatal wounds. One living poison. Arsenic.
Why wouldn’t he stay dead?
I’d seen my mother return from the grave, but that Iva Roma had been a duplicate created by my father to be a mole inside Warden Nye’s unit. My father was the only one capable of crafting something so refined; he wouldn’t have wasted that talent on reconstructi
ng something as foul as my gargoyle. He wouldn’t have had the time or inclination to do so since my escape from the Center, and he wouldn’t have known to carve scars into synthetic flesh to make an android’s wounds match the ones inflicted on the man.
“We watched him die, Jermay. He can’t be here.”
The universe had never been my friend, but I didn’t expect it to be so cruel as to flaunt Evie’s death by resurrecting someone as evil as Arcineaux.
“How can you tell from this far away?” Jermay asked. “I see a generic warden in a generic uniform. Assume he’s got a really ugly twin, and let’s go!”
Oh no. Not generic at all. I knew the way Arsenic carried himself. I knew the way he walked. A stiff-legged lockstep concealing a surprisingly agile runner. He was a man who barely grazed the shoulders of his subordinates, yet had a bigger presence than any of them. I knew the patch on his sleeve and the way he wore his cap so that it chopped his face in half, only showing his nose, mouth, and chin.
I was so certain that my entire body locked down, unable to leave the window. It wasn’t like losing control of my arm—I knew I could move, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it. My nervous system had flashed back to the evening Nye had collared me to make me understand what life for someone touched was like under the command of other wardens. He’d only used the device for minutes, but if Arcineaux caught me, it would be permanent. Arcineaux would find a way to imbed the wires in my skin and use me for a remote-controlled toy.
“It’s him,” I said. “I’m sure.”
“Okay, fireman’s carry it is,” Jermay said. Still using my right arm for leverage, he tipped me over his shoulder and carried me out of the room. “We’re not playing chicken with death because you want to stare out the window long enough for the guys over there to make their way over here.”
“Put me down!” I screeched and smacked him in the back with my father’s briefcase. My ability to move was restored as soon as Jermay touched me. Not the first time he’d been the antidote to my worst fears.
“Once we’re downstairs and you’re safely on Xerxes’ back, at which point you’re free to stone me with hail and rockslides.”
I’d been waiting for the old Jermay to come back, bad jokes and all, and I’d gotten my wish. That didn’t mean he got a free pass.
I hit him again.
“I can walk on my own!” We’d reached the stairs, where every step meant me smashing my nose between his shoulders.
“All complaints about transportation must be submitted in writing to a shift supervisor between the hours of—stop kicking me when I’m saving your life.”
I kicked him in the chest as hard as I could. He hopped off the last step and dumped me on the floor.
“Ground floor, everyone off the lift. Thank you for your patronage and don’t forget to tip the attendant.”
I stuck my foot out, bringing him crashing down beside me.
“What?” I asked innocently. “You said to trip the attendant.”
“If you two are done flirting, you might notice that we’re in the middle of a crisis here,” Winnie said.
The boys had returned from upstairs, with Wren helping Dev carry his things in a bursting backpack. Klok had fetched the golems and was waiting for the opportune moment to restore their full size. We were also about ten children heavier than we’d been before I headed for my father’s room. Ten children, Ollie, and a woman I had to assume was his wife, since they were holding hands.
“Our unit was one of the first hit,” he said, regret and rage waging war across his face. He needed our help and was afraid his previous actions had already earned him and his family a rejection. “They’ve disabled our module. We don’t have any way off.”
“What about the seats we don’t need?” Jermay asked.
There were more of them than there were of us, but the kids were small enough to sit on laps, and they couldn’t weigh much. If there was room for all of us and Klok, then ten children and their parents shouldn’t be much of a squeeze.
“We’ve got the room, but the pod’s a no-go,” Nola said.
“Show me where it is,” I said. I could get it started.
“It’s the launch mechanism,” Baba explained. “I’m afraid that some of my older repairs to the house blocked the opening. It would take us too long to clear it.”
No, no, no, no.
This was spiraling out of control. I couldn’t straighten my thoughts out. I couldn’t find my center.
“Where’s Anise?” I asked. She wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and neither was Birdie.
“That’s the other problem,” Birch said. “Birdie took off and hid as soon as she saw the transport ships. Anise is trying to track her down.”
“How do you find someone you can’t see?” Wren asked.
“She was here, and then she wasn’t,” Dev said.
“Yeah. She knocked me sideways running down the stairs, and I never saw her.”
Okay, plan . . . we needed a new plan.
Planning was my father’s department and Anise’s, not mine. I started to pace the small area left to me in the entryway of the living room, holding my head in my hands. This was impossible.
No! Nothing was impossible. Nothing. That had been the mantra of The Show, and something I’d heard since I was a toddler. I believed it like I believed there was oxygen in my lungs.
There was a way to do this, but I couldn’t see it, and the longer it took to figure out, the closer Arsenic and his men came to the house.
What did we have? There was Birch, but even he couldn’t grow us a beanstalk tall enough to climb down. Anise’s touch was useless in the air, and Winnie couldn’t order a hundred people at once. We had a couple of golems who couldn’t carry half of us; Nola, who could see our efforts but not join them; and Dev, who—
“Dev!” I shouted and stopped pacing. “How far can you teleport?”
“It’s not a matter of distance. It’s trajectory. I can go as far as I need to, so long as I know where I’m going.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes! I can do it!” he said, thrilled by the prospect of saving the day. If his range was truly limitless, he could escort his family and Ollie’s to the ground, exactly like the teleporters who brought refugees to the Mile. “I can’t take everyone at once, but I can do it.”
“No!” Nola said. “He’s never gone that far. He might not make it, or he might not be able to get back. He’d be jumping blind. What if there are trees or rocks? We don’t know what’s down there. He could materialize inside a mountain.”
“Klok, do you know what the terrain is like below us?”
“I can provide detailed analysis,” Klok beeped.
“Then I can make it,” Dev said. “I’ve been practicing—I go all the way from one side of this place to the other and back. We just have to start in the kitchen, where there’s more room.”
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Winnie said nervously. “He’s too young. He—”
“The warden in charge of this raid is Arsenic.” I hadn’t wanted to tell her, but if anything could get her on board, it was hearing his name.
She backed up. Birch’s legs gave out, forcing him onto the floor.
“No,” Winnie said. “He’s dead. We stopped him.”
“I don’t know how he’s here, but it’s him. I saw him. He’s headed this way with a transport of armed men and a pair of unnoticeables, and you more than any of us know what will happen if he sees you.”
“We can’t let him get his hands on Dev,” Birch said. “A teleporter would extend his reach exponentially.”
“He knows Anise’s face, too. I’ve got to find her before he does. Get as many people to the ground as you can.”
I jerked the front door open into what was left of the neighborhood. Most of the pods had already taken flight, leaving the Mile in pretty much the same shape as the original after Brick Street. It was a wasteland.
“Anise! Birdie!” I screamed.
The few units still standing were in total chaos, with the inhabitants arguing over what to take and what to leave. All the planning in the world couldn’t account for human sentiment or a child’s attachment to her possessions. The little girl Birdie had carried through their game of tag was playing keep-away from her parents. Her arms were full of as much as she could hold while running. Bits and pieces of her treasures fell to the left and right, causing her to stop, which finally allowed her father to grab her off the ground. She bawled as he knocked most of her things from her hands and rushed inside. The sound of marching feet rounded the corner.
Overhead, a dark and quickly moving cloud came into view. Swarming hummers, each dispatched to bring down the pods.
Windstorms swirled to life in their path. The hummers hit full on and fell sparking like flies in a bug light. Swaths of fire seared across the remaining building tops from one street to the next. Aeros and pyros of the Mile were fighting back to protect their families and friends. Hydros had the place awash in a monsoon. Normally, the Commission would have responded with indentured hounds, but I’d yet to see any.
I closed my eyes and thought of storms. Rain and lightning and most of all, clouds thick enough to impair visibility. I called them up through the cracks and breakaway holes, returning fog to the Mile. Anything to snarl troop movements and slow Arcineaux’s advance.
“Anise!” I screamed into the blowing rain, but this time the soldiers were too close.
“We’ve got a live one,” a soldier broadcast through a speaker on his helmet. “Pursue and secure.”
“Pursue and secure,” multiple voices answered back, muted by the weather.
Four men broke away and charged toward Baba’s unit. Two fell through gaps in the walkway hidden by my fog. I ducked back into the house and slammed the door, channeling Evie long enough to fuse the lock into the metal plate, but even that wouldn’t hold them long. There were still windows and other ways in.
