Icons

by Margaret Stohl

  “I’ve thought of that,” Tima responds. “Then again, what if the Lords need us, or at least some of us? Think about the Projects.” She pauses. “And tactically, our best chance to move is now, while we still have the element of surprise. What’s left of it.”

  I look at Ro, sitting with his eyes closed, head against the door, nursing his banged-up hands—serves him right.

  “And?” I look at him, pointedly.

  “Come on, Dol, you don’t have to ask me what I think. I’ve always wanted a chance to fight the No Face. If we get it, I say we take it and don’t look back.” He slams the door again with his fist, just to make his point.

  I nod. “Agreed.” We know what Lucas thinks. Now we know what the rest of us think.

  Then the door knocks from the other side. Ro freezes, staring at it. I feel a familiar surge of warmth, and I wonder—

  A voice echoes into the cell. “Right, then. I’m going to have to ask you to stop doing that. If you break the door over my head, Ro, I won’t be able to open it.”

  “Fortis?” I stand up, pressing my ear against the door. I’ve never been so happy to hear the Merk bastard’s voice.

  Ro grins—even Tima looks relieved.

  I hear him working with the door on the other side.

  “Good thing I didn’t come empty-handed. It’s a bit sticky, this one. It almost gives a fellow the impression they’ve gone and locked you in. Not too hospitable, that.”

  I hear the sound of flint, or maybe a match striking—over and over—followed by the faint splutter of ignition. The scent of sulfur wafts up from beneath the door.

  “Stand clear, then, love.”

  I step away, pushing the others back with my arms.

  There is a pop, and then a flash of light. Smoke snakes up from beneath the shaking door. Slowly, it swings open—

  And I see Fortis and Lucas standing in the opening.

  “The cavalry, as they say, has arrived.” Fortis looks out of place in the full Sympa gear he’s wearing. Lucas, next to him, looks a bit better in his.

  Nobody is speaking.

  Fortis cocks his head and says to himself, “Thank you, Fortis. We owe you our lives.”

  He smiles. “Hello to you all, and again, you’re welcome.”

  I fling my arms around him, though it crosses my mind that the last time I saw him, he abandoned us at Griff Park. Fortis has more than evened the score, I think. But nobody says anything to Lucas. Not even Tima.

  “What’s he doing here?” Ro growls.

  “I’m here to save you.” Lucas crosses his arms. “Of course, if you’d rather stay here, be my guest.”

  “Let me think about it. It’s a tough call.” Ro’s eyes narrow.

  Lucas looks at me. “You should think about it. What you’re doing is suicidal.”

  Fortis raises an eyebrow. Ro, a fist.

  “Lucas—” I begin, but he cuts me off.

  “No. You’re about to do the one thing that could wipe out the entire planet. There has to be a better way.”

  Fortis steps between Lucas and Ro this time.

  “All right, children. That’s enough. I’m here because your friend Lucas here told my friend Doc—who woke me up and tossed my toasty arse out of a warm bed to come paddle in the cold all the way out here and save you people.” He gestures to the door. “Now, if you don’t mind. Less talk. More walk. Follow me, or I’ll leave you to rot.”

  I feel a surge of adrenaline and anxiety. The Sympas are getting closer. “He’s right, we have to go now.”

  We walk down a corridor where he unlocks a door leading to another corridor and a dead end. I look at Fortis. “This was your plan?”

  He responds casually, inspecting the wall. “Yes, actually. I think I’ve got it.” He cocks his head at me. “Oh, and by the by, this one—little Grassgirl—is on the house.” I barely have time to curl myself against the floor when the wall blows and I feel the concrete rubble raining all around me.

  I cough. Dust fills my lungs and stings my eyes. I look up to see that Ro and Tima are out through the wall—or the hole that has replaced it. Lucas sits motionless, eyeing the gray dust that covers him.

  I look at him, but he ignores me.

  Fine.

  I step toward the hole, but Fortis intercepts me, grabbing my arm before I can go through it.

  “One thing—though I know we have to go. The Sympas won’t be far behind.”

  “They’re going to know you were here, Fortis. What if we’ve endangered the whole Rebellion?”

  Fortis shrugs. “They’ll just know a Merk came and blew you out of the Pen. So what? That’s our bread and butter, love. Fortis the Merk would never pass up an opportunity as rich as this one.” He eyes Lucas. “Brass Buttons over there makes it all worth my while, as far as anyone knows.”

  “Great.” Lucas is despondent.

  “Here’s the thing. There’s one part of this plan you’re not going to like.” Fortis looks me squarely in the eye. “You’re not going to survive the escape. In fact, you’re going to have to let Hux kill you.”

  “Excuse me?” He isn’t joking. “That doesn’t make sense. Hux isn’t going to kill me. Neither is Doc or Orwell, for that matter. He isn’t even real.”

  Fortis lowers his voice. For once, he sounds as serious as things are. “You can’t think you’re going to run wild and free in the peonies after this, can you? You’re messin’ with the big dogs now. You, Doloria, are going to have to die. You more than anyone.” He wags his head toward Ro and Tima. “More than the rest. Believe me, I should know.”

  A thought comes to me. A glimmer, something familiar.

  I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.

  “You mean, I have to die like you did?”

  “What’s that?” He knows what I’m asking, but he’s going to make me put it together myself.

  “You designed Doc, didn’t you? You’re his friend, the one who left. The one who’s dead to him.” I try to remember the exact words, but I can’t. All I remember is that Doc had a friend, and lost him. Fortis. It has to be.

  Fortis shrugs, but I don’t stop. “You named him. The science fiction books—and the jokes—and all the Latin—that’s you. Doc is yours.”

  “Ah, there’s a story there, love. A good one. But first I have a little question for you.”

  “What?”

  “Can you shoot a gun?”

  Without another word, he shoves a Rebellion pistol into my hand and pushes me through the hole in the wall, hard.

  There is a loud thump and the wall next to where I was standing turns to rubble.

  The Sympas are here.

  I take off running as Fortis fires. As I round the corner, I know there are more feet coming after me than just Fortis.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see Lucas right behind him.

  We don’t resume the conversation until we are in sight of Fortis’s boat—at least, the boat he hijacked from the Sympas. Searchlights crisscross in the air above us, slicing through the night with laser precision.

  I try not to look at the dock, where two Sympas lie facedown along the foaming shore. “Casualties of war,” says Fortis, grimly.

  He climbs through the shallow, rocky water, not far from where I stood with Ro yesterday.

  “Come on. Hurry it up, then, they’re fast buggers, the whole lot of them. Fast and rather unfortunately armed.” Fortis stands there in the center of the skiff, waving us in. His long coat flaps like ragged wings around him. Ro leaps into the boat, nearly capsizing it. I scramble along the rocks after him, carefully hoisting myself over the side. Tima and Lucas stand on the shore.

  “You coming?” Tima looks at Lucas, then at us.

  He doesn’t say anything.

  “Lucas?”

  He shakes his head. “I’m not going with you.”

  Tima nods.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  She looks at him for a long moment, her silver hair whipping in the wind. �
��I know. But I have to go.”

  She leans in to kiss his cheek, and he pulls her into an awkward hug. They cling together, just for a moment, but I have to look away. It’s so personal, and so not something for me to see.

  Or feel.

  Maybe they’re more like Ro and me than I thought.

  I hold out my hand to Tima, and she takes it. We aren’t friends, but we aren’t enemies. Not anymore.

  As I pull her into the boat, Tima calls over my head to Lucas. “Take care of Brutus for me—”

  I hear the shout back—“Promise.”

  Brutus. That’s when I realize, between Lucas and her dog, Tima’s leaving the only family she’s ever known.

  I look back at Lucas. His green-gray eyes meet my blue-gray ones.

  We don’t say goodbye. We can’t.

  But inside, I can feel him, pulling back. This is the way our separate paths must take us.

  My mother may live in the past, but she pulls me one way. His lives in the present, and she pulls him the other.

  So I let go. It’s all I can do.

  Lucas looks small on the shoreline and only gets smaller, the farther we drift away.

  “Were you serious—I mean, about me dying?” I scoot in the boat until I am next to Fortis, or nearly next to him. As close as the wet bench seats will allow.

  Tima stares back at Santa Catalina. Ro stares the other direction, toward the Porthole.

  Fortis keeps his eyes on the shoreline and one hand on the motor as he talks. “I did it, long ago. It’s bloody difficult, what with all the ways the Embassy can track a person. Your digital signature, it’s everywhere. But Hux can do it. He’s done it before.”

  “Once?” I ask, looking at him.

  He nods. “Like I said, you’ll never be free. Not until you’re dead.”

  “You make it sound so easy.”

  Fortis holds up his wrist. On it I see a leather cuff, exactly like the one Lucas wears.

  “Did you—?” I point to the cuff.

  He nods. “One a my earliest designs.” He raises his voice, speaking into his wrist. “What do you say, Hux? Can you hook a mate up?”

  “Yes, Fortis.”

  As I look over the edge of the boat into the black depths, I think of how many times I have come so close to making the digital record real. A stray bullet could have found me, instead of the old fortune-teller. The Icon could have killed me, instead of the boy at the fence. I could have drowned in this dark water, sinking down until the cold and quiet consumed me.

  I am lucky to be only this kind of dead, I think. Who knows what lies ahead? I pull myself out of the thought and back into the boat. My knuckles are white as I hold on to the seat.

  “How long will it take, Hux?” Fortis looks grim.

  “Doloria will die in four minutes. The record will reflect this.”

  A wave hits the side of the boat and I grip tighter. “Super.”

  “As the deceased, do you have a preference as to the terms of your tragic loss? A heroic narrative? A casualty of battle? Bringing what the ancient Greeks would call kleos, the eternal glory that awaits all warriors?”

  I consider. “Just something simple.” A simple death for a simple Grassgirl.

  “There are so many choices,” Hux offers, affably. “An electrocution. An explosion. A decapitation. A drowning, I believe, is the most appropriate.”

  I imagine each in turn, overwhelmed. I don’t respond.

  “I will include the digital record of your chestpack. We will find it at the site of the accident. Digitally speaking.”

  I don’t know what to say. “Thanks, I guess.”

  “All right. I understand. Sarcasm. The discourse of human cessation is typically thought to be uncomfortable to humans.”

  “Exactly.” I turn to Fortis. “One more thing. Why me? Why did you say me, more than the rest?”

  “You haven’t figured it out?”

  I shake my head.

  “Just wait. You will, Doloria Maria de la Cruz.” He grins, but his eyes aren’t smiling. “It’s something you carry within you. The most important thing. The one thing that I hope will save us all.”

  My mind flickers to the old fortune-teller, and the girl he spoke of. The one who matters—who is not me. I put her out of my thoughts, because in this boat, in this bay, there is no room for anything else.

  “And that’s why I have to die?”

  He’s not making sense, but he keeps going. “They know it too—or they will, soon. And when they do, they won’t stop until they find you. Trust me, little Grassgirl.”

  Trust me, Dol.

  I know Fortis is speaking but the voice in my head is Lucas’s.

  “Doloria,” says Doc.

  “Yes?”

  “I have digitized and catalogued the contents of your chestpack, according to the data from your last night at the Embassy. They will be recorded in the Embassy Wik.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “And Doloria?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I will be sorry to end your life.”

  I smile and look at Fortis, who seems more and more like the human twin of Doc. Or maybe his brother.

  “I know, Doc. I’m sorry, too.” I realize how distressing it is, just as my death becomes official.

  Maybe Fortis is right. Maybe I do have something inside me, something to offer.

  I hope so.

  “I am searching my drives for something appropriate to say, to mark this event.”

  “I’m not sure there’s anything in the classics that applies here, Doc.”

  “How about goodbye?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t like that word. Sometimes I feel like it’s the only word I know.”

  My eyes are watering. It must be the air, I think. I would never cry at my own funeral. At the same time, I feel a new connection to my parents, to the millions who have died since the Lords came. I think of the meaninglessness of their deaths.

  I promise to make this one count. “No goodbyes, Doc.”

  I hear the voice crackle. “In that case, how about hello?” I take the wristband from Fortis’ hand and hold it up to my ear. It’s all I can do to nod.

  “Salve, Doloria Maria de la Cruz. I will see you again, soon.”

  “Salve, Doc.”

  “It is done. Your files have been deleted and replaced. As far as the world knows, Doloria Maria de la Cruz dies tonight. The Grass Rebellion was to blame.”

  I stare down at the dark, churning water and wonder if he will be right.

  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:

  WHAT HAVE THEY DONE—

  HOW CAN THEY KILL ENTIRE CITIES—

  WOMEN, CHILDREN, INNOCENTS—

  MISJUDGED INCOMPREHENSIBLE CRUELTY OF LORDS’ METHODS—

  NOBODY MUST KNOW—

  WHAT HAVE I DONE—

  —ACCELERATING RESEARCH—

  MUST GATHER THE CHILDREN—

  TEST—

  TRIGGERS—

  NO TIME, MUST JUMP-START—

  THEY AREN’T READY BUT—

  THIS MUST BE STOPPED—

  I MUST STOP IT

  6/6 6/6 6/6 6/6 6/6 6/6

  28

  ALL FALL DOWN

  Fortis turns to me. “Now. Open your chestpack.”

  “Why?”

  “I need to take a look at the shard.”

  “The what?”

  “The broken bit of the Icon. The piece you brought back to Santa Catalina.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “Hux was the first one to notice. You think you can bring somethin’ like that into the Embassy without settin’ off a few bells and whistles? He scanned it for me, straightaway, and we’
ve been usin’ the data to plan our attack.”

  I open my pack.

  There it is, luminescent in the moonlight. It’s not very long, but I can feel its peculiar weight the moment I reach for it.

  “There you are,” Fortis says, with a gleam in his eye. I hand it to him. Fortis rolls the shard through his fingers—then kisses it.

  “This little beauty is absolutely critical. We’re not sure what it is, exactly, but we’ve been tryin’ all sorts of explosives against its data profile. I think we’ve finally gotten it right—light enough to carry, but causin’ enough damage to do the trick.”

  Ro sits forward. “Military grade? There’s an abandoned base near the Mission, I know there’s a lot of good stuff there.”

  Fortis nods. “Believe me, I’m fully aware of your Grass contacts, Furo. Half those crazy buggers are with my people now.” Ro grins. “We’ve got a plan in place, all right. When we get to the Cathedral, you’ll be able to talk to our munitions team about how it all fits together. And how the Icon will come apart.”

  Tima is bouncing nervously. “I’ve thought a lot about how the Icons work, and I’m pretty sure they’re all connected, somehow.”

  “That’s what we think,” Fortis offers.

  She takes a deep breath. “I read about the initial invasion, how the Icons landed a few days before 6/6. The Day.”

  “To link up,” Fortis muses.

  She nods. “Like a web, covering the planet. Once they hooked up—it was all over.”

  I turn to Tima. “When I was there—really close—I had this creepy feeling it was alive. Like it was aware of me, or something.” I know how it sounds, but feel like I have to say it. “And, well, living things can die, right?”

  Fortis nods. “Clever girl.”

  Tima is so excited she jumps up and almost falls out of the boat. “I don’t know why we didn’t see it before. It’s obvious. We need to disconnect them.”

  “It’s possible you’re right.” Fortis strokes his chin.

  Ro looks up. “So what you’re saying is, if we take them out one by one, the network is weakened. And eventually the whole network comes down.”

  “As far as we know,” says Tima.

  “How many are there again, anyway?” Ro looks at Fortis.

  Fortis frowns. “Thirteen.” The word is like a death sentence. But I refuse to accept it. I’ve already died once tonight.