Icons

by Margaret Stohl

  Brutus barks.

  “We’re a science experiment? Some kind of—research?” Ro’s head is in his hands, as if he were trying to keep it from exploding. “I’m just another piece of Sympatech?”

  “No, not Sympatech.” Tima says the words slowly. “Human tech.” She looks around. Waiting.

  Lucas gets there first.

  “It can’t be Sympa. We were all born a year before the Lords came,” he says, quietly.

  Slowly, the implications of the truth begin to unfold, for all of us. “Which means somebody knew what was going to happen, before it all happened.” I almost can’t believe the words coming out of my own mouth.

  “Someone knew the bastards were coming.” Ro whistles.

  Tima continues. “There’s more. When I searched Catallus’s files, I found something. It looked like Catallus’s private stash. There was a big section called ‘Icon Children.’ Since they were all labeled ‘Ambassador Eyes Only,’ I’m guessing he stole them. There were a lot of files, and I only had time to copy a few. About us. And the Lords.” She holds up a portable drive and plugs it into the vid-screen.

  I find myself forgetting to breathe.

  “Some of the files are tagged as though they were scans of pages from what I think is the book Dol lost. If it is, she’s right, it was some sort of a notebook.”

  Tima zooms through a few pages. I see what looks like scribblings written by some kind of mad scientist, with blotches and sketches and things I can’t understand.

  “This is really high-level research, way beyond anything I’ve studied. Math formulas, electrical schematics, genetic code, a lot of rambling on about DNA.”

  “Okay, now you’re just talking gibberish.” Ro shakes his head.

  “Fine, let me keep it simple. For Furo.” She sighs and clears the screen. “Somebody really did figure out the Lords were coming. They also learned about the Icons and what they could do.” She pulls up a file. “Look at this. As far as I can tell, these are transcriptions of communications from the Lords. To somebody on Earth. Before they arrived.”

  Lucas looks closer. “What? How would that even be possible? The Day was a surprise attack. Nobody knew what was happening before it was too late.”

  Tima shakes her head. “I don’t know, I didn’t have time to read all the files. But this looks like somebody actually communicated with the Lords and decided to help them.”

  Ro leans forward, a grim look on his face. “Who? Catallus?”

  “It doesn’t say. Whoever wrote these notes also knew a lot about how the brain works. You know how the Icon can kill people and shut down everything around it? Look here.” She scrolls to a new image. “It says that with a little help, people could do the same thing. Or, actually, the opposite thing. And I think that’s what we are.”

  “So we’re some kind of anti-Icon?” Ro looks up when I say the words.

  Tima nods. “Whoever knew the Lords were coming, figured out how to design people who were not only immune to the Icons, but who could cancel them out.”

  “That’s impossible.” Lucas’s face has turned ashen.

  “Insane,” says Ro, shaking his head.

  “You mean, it’s incredible.” Tima sighs, and I feel a wave of admiration from her.

  I try to wrap my mind around it all. “Think about it, how long would it take to design four human emotional time bombs? How many failed experiments?”

  “If it’s true, it must have taken years to just get to the point where we were created.” Tima’s eyes dart as she speaks. “Imagine the resources, the planning, the information required to know how to design us. Let alone when. To know what we were meant to fight.”

  “Do you think our parents knew?” I’m reeling.

  Ro is on information overload. He’s fuming. “My parents were killed on The Day. They weren’t cooperating with any secret plan. They would have hated everything the Embassy stood for.”

  “How can you be so sure of that,” snaps Lucas. “Seeing as they’re dead and everything?”

  “I’d rather they were dead than running the whole Embassy for a bunch of No Face parasites. I don’t know how I’d live with myself, Buttons. If I ended up like you—”

  Lucas lunges for him, but Ro is ready. Within seconds, they are rolling on the floor, knocking over stacks of books, destroying Tima’s carefully arranged nest.

  Brutus barks madly, circling them.

  Tima clings to her vid-screen. The metal box goes flying. Ro picks up a piece of the box and and pulls himself to his feet, rushing Lucas.

  “Stop it! Just stop!” Tima screams, springing between them. They don’t have time to stop charging, so she closes her eyes tight, bracing for impact.

  They both barrel straight into Tima—until they are thrown onto their backs, hard.

  I stand there watching in shock. The boys are equally confused.

  Ro’s nose is bloody and Lucas has a gash in his lip. “What was that?”

  “That was you two being idiots.”

  Brutus growls, and Tima picks him up. Though he’s full-grown now, he’s not more than the size of a puppy.

  “You threw me across the room without touching me.” Ro looks at Lucas, who shrugs. “Both of us.”

  “And you deserved it. Clearly whoever grew you in the lab forgot to grow you a brain, either one of you.” Tima looks like she wants to fight them both herself.

  I scoot next to her, carefully, picking the box up from the floor. I flash back to the image of Tima in the testing room. I don’t know how she did it, but in any event, she doesn’t seem to be processing what she did. “Tima, forget it. They’re morons.”

  Lucas frowns. “You honestly think we were designed by somebody—and at the same time—to be some kind of sleeper cell of human weapons?”

  “That’s what it looks like.” Tima nods.

  Ro is enjoying this. “All I need to know is, who and what are we supposed to destroy—where, when, and how.” He looks at Lucas with a cocky smile. “I have a good idea who and what I’d like to get rid of first.”

  I glare at him. “Quit messing around.”

  Ro winks at me. “Who’s messing? I’m ready. I guess you could say I was born ready.”

  Ro’s mood is improving by the minute, and I can’t figure out why. Ro can’t say anything more, though, because Lucas cuts him off. “This is ridiculous. There’s no conspiracy. Why does everyone always think the entire planet is out to get us?”

  “Lucas,” says Tima, putting her hand on his arm.

  “We were born on the same day. That’s all. That’s all we know. Period. What does that mean, except for the fact that our parents needed assistance to give birth? My mother was in public office before I was born. Of course she would have had access to all the best fertility Medics. That’s not a crime.”

  “Nobody is saying it is. But you have to look at the facts, Lucas.” Tima sounds sad, the way she says it.

  “I know the facts, Tima. You just said them to me.”

  “Not just that. Not just that we were grown in a lab. But what it means, think about that.”

  I see her mind spinning. I can see the connections she is making, from idea to idea, thought to thought.

  “Somebody needs us,” I say, slowly.

  Tima nods. She doesn’t speak, but I know what she’s thinking. We have a purpose. We have a meaning. There is something we can do, if only because someone thinks we can do it.

  Ro looks somber. “It means we have to figure out our next move. Because we have one. Whoever made us, made us for a reason. We just have to figure out what that is.” Ro looks at me, meaningfully. He wants me to tell Tima about what we learned at the Icon, which I will. But it all still makes no sense to me.

  “Why the Ambassador?” I say. “Why would she want to make us, when all she and the Embassy have ever wanted to do was control us? We’re a threat to them. We’ve always been a threat.” I think of today when I speak. We are the only Icon Children, as far as we know. We
are all that can stand against the Icons and the House of Lords.

  “Maybe they were afraid we’d all end up slaves. Maybe they—someone—was hedging their bets. So they put together some kind of hidden fail-safe, in case The Day went wrong. In case the Carriers came and destroyed our whole world.” Tima says the words slowly, but my mind is racing right along with her.

  “Which they did,” Ro says.

  “But who?” I say, though as I say it I know she can’t answer.

  None of us can, not yet. But we will.

  “You’re all as crazy as she is,” Lucas says.

  I put my hand on his arm. “Lucas. She’s right.”

  Lucas refuses to look at anyone.

  Tima throws up her hands. “It doesn’t matter what I say to you, does it? This isn’t logical. You won’t listen to me, you won’t even listen to her.”

  It’s a minute before I realize she’s talking about me.

  Lucas looks at me and shakes his head. “You’re not thinking straight. You saw what I saw, but you don’t understand. None of you do.”

  “Then tell me. Help me understand, Lucas.”

  “There’s no point. You’re not yourself, you’re crazy. You’re all crazy. I don’t want any part of it.”

  Lucas is right. I don’t feel like myself.

  I feel a lot of things, but crazy isn’t one of them.

  That night, I can’t sleep. I am afraid if I sleep, I will dream. I am afraid if I dream, I will see The Day. Only this time, I know what the Icons look like, what they feel like—and I won’t survive that dream.

  At night, I can’t defend myself. I fall asleep sitting up in my bed, pinching the insides of my thumbs, trying to keep myself awake.

  Instead, I dream of Tima.

  “Tima?” I see only the door to her chamber, locking and unlocking, as if Doc were still playing a joke on her. She stands with her back to me, slight as a reed, slight as ever. Her shoulders are sharp as blades, pale as moonlight.

  A shadow spreads over them, and I watch it unfold in front of me.

  Thread moves everywhere across her like veins, like water. Rivulets of brilliant color grow down from her shoulders in two epaulets. She stretches out her arms, tipping back her head.

  She is screaming. Brutus is barking.

  The stitching pierces her skin evenly, quickly. A hundred times. A thousand. More.

  “Tima,” I say again. “What’s happening?”

  She makes a strange sound, like choking. She turns to me. I see her neck marked with a vivid red thread, ear to ear beneath her throat. A new pattern.

  “I don’t like that one, Tima. It’s scaring me.” The stitches multiply, and the gash deepens. Her eyes are wide, her breathing shallow. I reach to touch her throat with my hands. That’s when I see it isn’t thread at all.

  It’s blood.

  My hands are covered with blood.

  I open my mouth to scream, but I can’t, because my mouth is full and my voice is muffled with thread. Red thread, endlessly spooling out of me. I gag and choke on it, my stomach convulsing.

  I’m still trying to find my voice when I realize someone is knocking.

  “I made a mistake, Dol.”

  That’s what Lucas says, the moment he comes into focus at my door. It’s the middle of the night, and I can barely remember who he is or where we are or why we are standing there, anyway.

  “What?”

  “You need to listen to me. I told my mother about Fortis and the Observatory. And us. Everything.”

  The world snaps back into place—its terrible, habitual place.

  “What do you mean, you told your mother?”

  “After all that talk about joining up with Fortis and the Rebellion, and then Tima’s crazy conspiracy theories, I didn’t want you—us—to end up on a futile suicide mission.”

  “Are you joking?” I know he’s not.

  “I thought she would know what to do. But she lost it. She started screaming, and called in her cabinet, and locked me out of the room. I don’t know what happened after that, although I heard her say something about the Presidio Pen.” He can’t look at me, not in the eye.

  The Pen. The Embassy lockup. He doesn’t need to say it for me to understand.

  “You’ve got to get out. I’ll go find Tima, you get Ro. That’s all I can tell you. There isn’t much time.”

  “Why, Lucas? Why would you do something like that?”

  “I told you. I had to. I wasn’t going to sit by and let Fortis bring the wrath of the Lords down on the entire city. You think you’ve seen the worst of them, but you haven’t. You don’t know what they’re like. You don’t know anything.”

  “I was right there with you at Griff Park, Lucas. I know everything you do.”

  He’s rambling. “No, you don’t. You haven’t seen the Pentagon. You haven’t seen their mother ship—the size of it, the power, the complete control they have.”

  “Lucas.” My mind is racing. His mother knows.

  The Ambassador knows.

  “You think the Icon we saw yesterday is the worst of it? You think destroying that—thing—will make a difference?” He looks ill.

  “Please, Lucas.” I have to think, but there isn’t enough time. I don’t know what to do.

  He won’t listen. “Remember 6/6, Dol. The Day. They’ll strike back, and hard. I don’t want that on my head.” He softens. “And I don’t want you in the Pen. So we have to get you out of here. Now.”

  I can’t move. I can’t breathe.

  Lucas grabs my hands and pulls me out the door. “For once, will you just trust me?”

  We are running before I think how ironic the words are.

  RESEARCH MEMORANDUM: THE HUMANITY PROJECT

  CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET / AMBASSADOR EYES ONLY

  To: Ambassador Amare

  Subject: Lords/Icon Origins

  Catalogue Assignment: Evidence recovered during raid of Rebellion hideout

  Handwritten notes transcribed as follows:

  EARLY COMMUNICATIONS WITH OUR VISITORS IS PRODUCTIVE.

  THEY MEAN BUSINESS.

  RESISTANCE IS NOT AN EFFECTIVE OPTION. BETTER TO LET THEM COME AND TRY TO MAKE THE MOST OF IT.

  METHOD OF SUBMISSION IS ESPECIALLY TROUBLING.

  COUNTERING WILL BE… DIFFICULT.

  NOTING A LACK OF EMOTION IN COMMUNICATIONS.

  AI?

  POSSIBLE WEAKNESS.

  27

  FORTIS

  Three of us sit in a gloomy gray cell in the Presidio Pen, just as Lucas said we would. Concrete walls, a solid metal door, a disgusting sink and toilet are our only companions.

  We wait in the cold, damp silence.

  It’s me who finally breaks it. “I should have known. You can’t run from Sympas.”

  “Why not? We have before.” Ro shrugs.

  I flash on the guards stepping out of the shadows at the bottom of the stairwell. On Lucas’s face, as he tries to influence them. His eyes widening in surprise when he can’t focus enough to do it.

  I stare at the rough cuffs around my wrists. The skin beneath them is pink and raw. Here I am, shackled again, just like the first night I came to the Embassy.

  Tima’s words are quiet. “No. She’s right. You run and they’ll kill you.”

  After I’d seen them kill the Padre, after I’d seen the fortune-teller slump, after my attacker at Griff Park went limp—I didn’t even try to get away. Sitting here now, I wonder if I should have.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, miserable.

  “Yeah? You should be. I never trusted him.” Ro glares at me through a cut eye and winces in pain when he leans forward. His shirt is ripped and bloody.

  I look away. “I hate seeing you like this.”

  “This? This is nothing. The other guy—guys—they definitely got the worst of it.” He tries to raise his arms over his head—Ro’s victory gesture—but the cuffs won’t let him, and he gives up.

  Tima has her head down, making herself small.
She is talking to herself. “I can’t stay here. I have to get back to Bru.”

  She stares at the cuffs, pushing them back and forth.

  When she speaks, she ignores me. “Dol knows why we’re here, Ro. She was with Lucas last night, and he’s not here. Even you can do that much math.”

  He looks at Tima. “Or maybe Superfreak here upset the librarian. Didn’t put your little boxes back in the right place?”

  I raise my voice. “It’s not what you think. Lucas came to warn me—to warn all of us—but it was too late.”

  “If he needed to warn us, why was he in your room instead of Ro’s or mine? We didn’t do anything. We shouldn’t be here.” Tima’s eyes are blazing.

  “He—Lucas—” I still can’t believe it as I say it. “He told the Ambassador everything. The visit to the Icon, what Tima learned from the records, Fortis’ plans. Everything.”

  Tima’s mouth drops open. “There m-must be a good reason,” she stammers. “Lots of reasons. He didn’t want us to go. He didn’t want his life to change. He didn’t want us to hurt his family.”

  “Listen to yourself, Tima. Wake up.” Ro stands and starts to pace. “I knew we couldn’t trust him. He set us all up. Us, the Rebellion, Fortis. We’ve been sold out.” He pounds on the door.

  I see the metal bulging and denting. I see his fists turn red with blood. I’m too exhausted to stop him.

  As we sit in the dim light, I consider our options. “Look, I know we don’t want to talk about this, but with Lucas—”

  “Gone rogue?” Ro slams the door again.

  “I think we have to.” I look at the two of them. “Tima, is there even a small chance that we can destroy the Icon?”

  Tima looks at the ground, composing her thoughts. “Yes, actually. Very small. A lot of variables. We’d need help. I don’t like risk, but I would try.”

  “What about the risks? What if Lucas is right and the Lords retaliate? Think of how many people could die. It’s more than just us in danger here.”