Office of Mercy (9781101606100)

by Djanikian, Ariel

  But he had no idea that the thing she was sorry for hadn’t happened yet. She nodded; it hurt not being able to tell him.

  “Maybe you should go back to your sleeproom. There’s no reason for you to be on shift today. I shouldn’t have let you come.”

  “No!” said Natasha. She returned her fingers to the feeler-cube and turned very suddenly back to the screen. “I’ve been at this desk for six years. I want to go out on a good note. I’ll think about it forever if I don’t.”

  “Okay,” Jeffrey said, backing off. “I can understand that.”

  Natasha brought three different visuals up on the screen, all views of the far north deadzone perimeter; it was a place the Pines hadn’t been in months. But no one in the Office knew that but her.

  Jeffrey waited a moment, then he said softly, “Dinner later?”

  “Eighteen hundred hours,” Natasha said. “I’m there.”

  So that would be their last conversation, a lie.

  The morning hours dragged on: the coffee dripped, the fans whirled and quieted, the computers hummed their electric hum, images flashed searchingly across the overhead screen, and the room became warm, as it always did, from the heat of bodies and machines. A woman named Bindi came to Natasha’s desk to drop off some data reports from last week.

  “There’s a rumor you’re leaving the Office,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Natasha, “I think so.”

  “Was it just too much?” she asked in a hushed voice. “After the mission?”

  “No,” Natasha snapped. “To be honest, I’m bored with looking for Tribes all the time. I’d rather do something with more day-to-day stimulation.”

  Bindi made some small remark and went away, clearly miffed by Natasha’s answer.

  The clock changed from 0958 to 0959 to 1000. Arthur sat hunched over his desk, visible through the glass window of his private office. He looked exhausted, overworked. His head drooped over his keyboard. How fast would he be able to respond to what was coming in only two hours? How unprepared would he be when the first alarms came not from the green, but from the Inside—when he found himself in the impossible role of protecting the settlement?

  At 1039, William Donatello, a Beta, beckoned Natasha to the coffee machine, where he was pouring himself a cup. She had to comply, anything else would seem suspicious; apparently, the rumor about Natasha’s transfer had made her suddenly popular.

  “Heard you might be leaving us for Health,” he said.

  Natasha nodded.

  “Did you know I worked in Bioreplacement for over thirty years?”

  “I think you once told me.”

  “It was my first assignment, I kind of fell into it, I guess. I wasn’t as mature at seventeen as you were. Well, I can’t say I took to the job immediately. My stomach got all twisted watching them pump a person full of those fiber needles. My advisers thought I should take a year to watch them go through the procedure again and again, until my stomach got inured to it. But wouldn’t you know? Seven months later, I had mastered the needles and was on to full organ replacements. You couldn’t get the microknife away from me. I didn’t trust anyone else to make the incisions as well as I could. Huh, those were some interesting years. Best job in the settlement, if you want my opinion.” He wiggled his fingers. “It’s all in the touch.”

  “What made you come here?” Natasha asked distractedly while Claudia passed in front of Natasha’s computer, on the way to Arthur’s office. Had she glanced at the screen?

  “Oh, I was anxious for a change, I guess. They say it’s healthy to keep the mind active—give yourself fresh challenges. We’ve got the time, might as well learn something new.”

  Eric arrived early for the afternoonshift. He leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head, his eyes roaming the room.

  “And you know, Natasha,” William continued, “you can always cycle back to the Department of the Exterior, if that’s what you want. You young ones like to rush around, but you’ve got a near eternity before you. The way things are going in Research, potentially a true eternity.”

  “Yeah, definitely. I’m sorry, I think an error just came up on one of the sensors.”

  The minutes began to pass more quickly. It was all up to Axel now. People began to filter out of the Office for the lunchhour. Natasha pulled up the eight visuals of the green—sensors A1 through A8—and selected the north-facing sensor, the one positioned over the Department of the Exterior. She moved the control to rotate the camera up. The sky was a brilliant blue, and the sun burned high overhead. How precise would Axel be? The clock blinked from 1150 to 1151. All was still. Were they really coming? If the plans had changed, if Axel had rejected her instructions and decided he would break in when he wanted, without her help, she would have no way of knowing. Her eyes scanned the visuals, her heart thudding.

  The figures flooded onto the screen so fast that Natasha started. Ten of them—no, nine. They raced across the top middle window. Sensor A1. Her hand silenced the alarm before it had hardly begun.

  “What was that?” asked Jeffrey.

  “Deer crossing the green,” she answered dully. “I’ve got it.”

  A new window flashed up.

  Do you want to override the alarm?

  Yes.

  Password.

  Waverider4.

  The Pines had found the unbolted panel of the New Wing—the one Natasha had marked some hours ago with a large, scratched X. They had the nova. Axel carried it alone. The others were stacking two stout logs against the wing’s outer wall to use as steps.

  Bindi got up to make a fresh pot of coffee, asking for a show of hands, who wanted more? Right now, two hundred meters away, the Tribe stood poised to enter the settlement, and no one knew. The rest of the group must be close, Natasha thought. And they were.

  They poured across the A3 screen to A4 to A5 to A6. Four alarms flashed and Natasha silenced them one by one.

  “Stupid deer,” she said.

  Eric stared blankly at her, then looked away.

  She watched the larger group; they did not go around to the New Wing to meet Axel and the others as she’d expected. Instead they stopped at the exterior of the Garden and began climbing the walls. A pang of fear shot through Natasha. She had never told them anything about approaching the settlement in two places. They were supposed to come through the New Wing panel together. Hadn’t they understood her? They were supposed to meet her on the scaffold, show the nova, and hold everyone calmly hostage while they emptied the Strongroom. Plus, what further disturbed Natasha was that the skylights in the Garden were the weakest part of the settlement. Debates sprang up every few years about replacing those windows with a solid roof and solar lamps. How had they known?

  The Pines reached the top of the Garden, as quick and sure as insects. Some had guns slung over their backs and others carried bows and arrows. Natasha didn’t know what they were doing, but there was no time to figure it out. She closed the visuals and pulled up the view of the northern deadzone, wondering distantly where Mercedes, Ben, Eduardo, and Sarah were at this moment. How surprised would they be to hear that the Pines were on the green after all? Would the Alphas even allow them to know?

  She pushed her chair back. She had to go; she had to meet Axel in the New Wing. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too late to call the other group away from the Garden. Claudia and William were chatting near Natasha’s desk, something about the satellite feeds.

  Then, from all around came the scream of the manual alarm.

  “What in the name of the Father is that?” a voice shouted from the front of the room.

  “The alarm,” Claudia answered, in shock.

  “The alarm—what alarm?”

  “It’s coming from the Department of Agriculture,” Eric said.

  “Animals loose?” asked Jeffrey.

  Claudia
and William were back at their desks.

  Arthur came bursting out of his office.

  “Someone just typed the invasion code in the Garden.”

  “Impossible,” Jeffrey said.

  Arthur leaned over Jeffrey’s computer, working fast. They seemed to realize at the same moment; Natasha saw their jaws go slack, heard their gasping curses. And then, suddenly, Jeffrey was on his feet, pushing Arthur out of the way.

  “Natasha, did you—”

  She could not move; her mind was screaming at her to run, now, to the New Wing, but Jeffrey’s eyes had her trapped.

  “What did you do?” he demanded.

  The doors to the Office must have opened because the alarm blared louder now. Eric yelled out and put his hands over his ears. Lockers opened and slammed in the hall. Firm voices shouted commands, and the beat of footsteps sounded from those funneling into the hall.

  “This has to be a mistake,” Claudia said. But a second later, the image from Jeffrey’s computer flashed on the overhead screen. The Pines were scattered across the Garden skylights, beating at the glass with stones and the butts of their guns.

  “Holy Father, holy,” said Eric.

  Natasha backed away a few steps at a time.

  Jeffrey threw a furious look over his shoulder.

  “Hey,” he shouted, “you stay right there!”

  But he could not decide whether to go after her or stay at his computer, and in his moment of hesitation, Natasha was gone.

  17

  Natasha slammed the Office door and crashed right into a formation of citizens marching down the hall in full biosuits, weapons drawn. She moved with them, pressing her way between their shoulders. As she was reaching the door, an explosion sent her down to her knees, the side of a LUV-3 jamming into her ribs and someone’s helmet cracking against her head. Her first thought was of the nova, but no, if the nova had gone off in the New Wing, she would have been blown to ash by now, all of them would. A Gamma woman from the Office of Air and Energy began to sob. Natasha forced herself to her feet and ran ahead to the Dome.

  Screams and gunfire sounded from the open doors of the Department of Agriculture. A giant tree had fallen across the lawn, blocking the entrance. People scurried in and out over the trunk and pushed between the dense leaves of the branches. The distant shatter of heavy glass panels striking the ground rippled the air. Two bodies lay blood-splattered on the floor near the hub, while medworkers rushed toward them with stretchers. Natasha stepped quickly, maneuvering around citizens so stunned that they had tangled themselves up in their biosuits or dropped their guns.

  The door to the New Wing called to her; Axel and the others must be inside by now. As for the Health workers who were monitoring the Zetas this morning, well, Natasha had forgotten about them until this second. She guessed that the Pines must have silenced them because no one had set off alarms in there. It occurred to Natasha that she had also forgotten to tell Axel and Raul about the Zetas and, vaguely, amid a hundred other thoughts, she wondered what the Tribe would make of the naked little fetuses swimming around in their clear incuvats.

  She had to go to the New Wing, but she didn’t. The gunfire increased and the burst of another explosion reverberated through the Dome. This time Natasha stayed on her feet. What were they doing? This wasn’t the plan. The whole point of the nova had been to prevent any fighting on their way to the Strongroom. And the guns were only supposed to be a last resort. A terrifying thought took hold of Natasha as she ran, pushing toward the Department of Agriculture. Had this been a spur-of-the-moment decision, or had they planned to attack the whole time and kept it from her? Had Axel lied to her in the woods? Either way, she had to make them stop. She would make them stop, and then she would go meet Axel in the New Wing.

  Beyond the fallen tree at the Department entrance, the citizens stood with their guns raised, firing rounds at the shattered roof. The Garden itself was in devastation. The platform built for the Crane Ceremony had collapsed. The purple and yellow azalea heads were smashed to brown and trampled. The dirt of the paths had been kicked up all across the short, bright lawn. And there were bodies. Citizens still masked in their biosuits were sprawled across the ground. An explosion by the cherry trees sent two people onto their backs. Did the Pines have thermo-grenades too? Or had the citizens’ weapons missed their target and fallen back too soon? Natasha could not see them at first, but then she did. There, at the sharp edges of the broken roof, the Tribespeople appeared as silhouettes against a violent sun, their own bullets and arrows pouring down on the Garden.

  “No!” Natasha screamed. She ran toward the center of the room, waving her hands madly at the people above. She could recognize a blue tunic and, on another, a silver sling strapped across a muscular middle. “Stop it! Tezo! Mattias! What are you doing?”

  “Get out of here! Why aren’t you suited?” Someone pushed her roughly to the side, and she stumbled into the shade of the evergreens.

  “Hey, help me with her,” a second voice called.

  “What?”

  Nolan stomped over the brush and grabbed a person from under the arms. As he did, the head lolled back and the face became visible. It was Min-he. Her visor was cracked and a section of it had lodged into her cheek. Blood congealed around the cut and formed a thick red scab over her eye.

  “Call anyone still in the Dome,” a man shouted behind them. “Send Exterior teams to the roof—”

  High above their heads, a coil of rope unleashed itself in the air. Then another, and another. The figures emerged; they were sliding down the ropes, coming inside. Mattias was laughing, whooping, he swung back and forth at the level of the treetops. His gun sprayed fire across the floor and his wild hair trailed behind him in the breeze of his own movement.

  “Mattias!” Natasha abandoned Min-he to run back to the center of the lawn.

  And now Tezo, swinging on a rope beside him, came into view. But he was different. His beautiful face was contorted with hatred. He raised his gun, shooting carelessly at the citizens beneath him.

  “Stop!” Natasha screamed. Tezo saw her, and a look of confusion passed over his face. “Stop or I’ll let them kill you!”

  He stared, stunned out of the fight. She was supposed to be in the New Wing helping Axel and he knew it, but she didn’t care.

  “What are you doing?” she screamed.

  He raised his gun. He was looking right at her.

  A sharp pain erupted deep in Natasha’s shoulder. The world hung strangely for a moment, as if it were resting on a sheet of ice and about to fall through. Then she fell, tripping forward, her hand rising to touch the pain. He had shot her; Tezo had shot her. The heat burned through her cells. She lay with her cheek on the cold grass, lines of green breaking her sight; her hand tightened over the fire in her skin while boots stamped by, near to her face. She must keep herself whole—suddenly that was her only purpose. Her mouth tasted sour and the room rocked above the green forest of grass.

  The thought drifted through Natasha’s mind that she needed to get to the New Wing. Axel and the others had a nova, and they were waiting for her. And if she failed to show up, she could not predict what they’d do. Now she had diverged from the plan, she realized, as much as they had. She wasn’t on the scaffold to meet them and take them to the Strongroom. Boots trampled the orange-green beds of stargazing lilies and Natasha thought, with a kind of distant regret, that the Agriculture workers would not be able to replant those flowers until the following spring.

  The sound and the colors swirled and moved, and then she really was moving. Past the guns, through the branches of the fallen tree, the rough leaves scratching her face. They had her on a stretcher; a gloved hand gripped the corner close to her eyes.

  “The New Wing,” she whispered, to remind herself.

  Two citizens lowered her to the floor, and a new pair of hands gripped her, and then sh
e was leaning against the curving wall of the Dome. A Health worker named Teresa injected something cold into Natasha’s arm.

  “Close your eyes and try to relax,” said Teresa. “This will take the pain away. I’ll come back to check on you soon.”

  Tiredness washed over Natasha from the top of her skull to her legs. They must have put more than pain relief in that syringe. She would only close her eyes for a minute. She could sleep, she could have fallen asleep at this moment, except—

  A shot rang out inside the New Wing. In the clamor, no one had heard it. But it was there. She listened, but heard only silence. The New Wing did not have lockers yet, with biosuits and guns stashed away for the citizens. It must have been one of the Pines who fired the shot. Natasha held her injured shoulder with one hand and pushed herself up. Realization was spreading through her thoughts: The Tribe had lied. They were attacking full-force, attacking to kill.

  “Last team!” a Delta leader shouted from his spot near the elephant doors. “One strong push and we’ve got them.”

  “There’s a second group!” Natasha shouted. The floor swung and Natasha braced herself against the wall. A few people stared at her. “There’s a second group of Pines and they’re attacking in the New Wing!”

  The Delta had heard her. His arm froze above his head. A Gamma clutching his thigh yelped and scooted away from the New Wing doors. The citizens turned in different directions, uncertain.

  Then Arthur broke from the crowd. He was not wearing a biosuit, but he held a LUV-3 and had no visible injuries. He barreled toward the New Wing and kicked the doors open with a shout. The others fell into formation behind him. And as the citizens’ cries of victory came from the Garden, the first rounds of gunfire erupted from the New Wing.

  Natasha staggered forward, watching the battle through weary eyes. They carried out two Health workers on stretchers—each of them bleeding heavily. Natasha could see the Pines on the scaffold, the panel open to the Outside behind them, and she could see the citizens’ fear and confusion when they realized the Tribe had a G3 nova. She watched with a still, distant gaze as a team of four citizens aimed their guns and shot Raul, without bringing any harm to themselves. The body fell from the scaffold and hit the floor face first, with a sickening limpness. The citizens had to be more careful now, because of the nova; but they shot Hesma, still wearing her red beads, so that she stumbled back against the wall, blood breaking out from under her arm with the force of water from a busted pipe.