Life Within Parole

by RoAnna Sylver

  She sucked in a breath and let herself have one precious moment of flight. Let her blood sing and scalp tingle and heart slam against her breastbone. Let tears well in her eyes and warmth under her ribs, even as cold heaviness pooled in her belly at what she was about to do.

  As the Phoenix climbed higher, her hands began to shake.

  Rocket closed her eyes. One more breath. One more moment of sky.

  “I love you,” Rocket whispered into her headset. Like before, she didn’t get an answer.

  The Phoenix slammed into the energy barrier arcing up over Parole with all the velocity and force its engines could muster. It hit—and erupted into a ball of flame. The fire raced along the curve of the dome like an oil fire spreading across the surface of a lake. Slowly, the crushed metal craft dropped from where it hung, and fell like a flaming comet through the air.

  A signal flare.

  Maybe the tremors below hadn’t been powerful enough to be felt up above. Not strong enough to alert anyone to the danger. But anyone looking up would see the fireball lighting up the night sky.

  The small, dark shape falling from the explosion was harder to see.

  Just after programming the autopilot for the very last time, Rocket secured a parachute and took a leap of faith just as big as the one she’d taken when she held out the ring. When it opened and stopped her freefall, it felt like that ring slipping onto her finger. Now she hung a thousand feet up, buffeted by the searing wind of the explosion—from her dying Phoenix, she thought, sick, as she held on tight to her safety harness.

  Off in the distance was the thrumming of helicopter blades: the ever-present Eye in the Sky. Pretty soon they’d be coming on fast to inspect the impact and sudden blaze, probably thinking it was someone trying to get through the barrier again. They might shoot at the wreckage. They might shoot at her, once someone lit up the lone figure parachuting out in their searchlight. But right now, it was just her and the falling Phoenix, and a whole lot of empty air under her feet.

  And still, in her headphones, silence.

  “Will?” Rocket yelled into her headset. No answer. “Will! Do you read? I got out! The Phoenix is down—I crashed it into the barrier! It’s falling! The shield is burning! If that doesn’t get their attention, nothing will!”

  No answer. She bit her lip so hard she tasted copper.

  Then, a voice crackled into her ears. It wasn’t Will’s, but she knew it well just the same.

  “It’s finally happened, babies,” said Radio Angel, speaking on every channel, every frequency, as the ground shook below and the sky scorched above. “Parole is burning.”

  “Angel?” Rocket cried. “Angel, can you hear me? It’s Rocket! I’m up here!”

  “They say we started out in a blaze of glory, and now and we’re all going down in flames.”

  “She can’t hear me either…” Rocket whispered. For a moment she just hung there in space, watching the smoke rise, the fire that played across the curve of the barrier overhead like a burning oil slick that spread over water’s surface. Her precious ship, still falling, lighting up the night like a meteor burning through the atmosphere. Her aim had been good: the wreckage would fall into the crater at the center of the city, slipping painlessly into the fire. It wouldn’t hurt anyone. She’d made sure of that.

  “Nobody can hear me.” She sniffed. Thought about a thousand miles of ocean, and wondered if going down in flames was any better. Radio Angel was still talking into her ear, but she didn’t hear the words anymore.

  “But everyone can hear her,” she realized slowly. “And she heard us! And that means we win! You hear that, Will?” Rocket shouted into her headset, throat raw and hurting, maybe from the smoke, maybe from the wracking sobs that shook her from deep in her bones. “She heard you! Radio Angel heard you! We got the message out, babe! Parole’s gonna…” She stopped. Sucked in a shuddering breath, and just held on as her parachute spiraled down over the collapsing inferno. Where she’d land, she didn’t know. “Parole’s gonna be okay. You did good.”

  It took her a few seconds to realize she wasn’t hearing Radio Angel’s voice anymore. When the quiet in her headphones finally became apparent, Rocket made no effort to adjust the signal. Just held on, hanging suspended in the endless darkness and radio silence, surrounded by the roar of the fire and wreckage below, emergency sirens, helicopter blades, and screams.

  She twisted the new ring on her finger. It was warm.

  “Please, please, God, please,” a voice crackled in her ear along with a burst of static. “I got one more deal to make here. Just one line. Just one signal. Just one more, please let it get through, don’t let it—”

  “Will?”

  Silence again. Her hand went to press her helmet closer against her head, as if that somehow would bring back the voice she thought she’d heard—but now couldn’t be sure. Had she just been wishing? Disoriented from the jump? Traumatized from—

  “I’ve got you, Rocket!” His voice was triumphant and loud in her ears. She threw back her head and flung out her arms, fell into the sky and let her parachute do the work for a second, let it catch and carry her down on a breeze that felt gentle and kind.

  “Oh, my God!” she sobbed. “Will! You’re alive!”

  “You’re alive! You made it?”

  “You made it! You’re alive?”

  “Caught in a feedback loop, babe. Tell me what happened!”

  “I crashed the Phoenix!” she cried, tears streaming down her face, visor of her helmet streaked and fogged even where it wasn’t obscured by ash. “I sent it right into the barrier—you’re right! Screw that thing! And it made a warning flare—”

  “I know! I saw it! Everybody saw it, Radio Angel saw it, she understood, she’s telling people right now!”

  “God. Yes! Yes!” Rocket’s heart was slamming in her chest again, and she made herself breathe. Don’t hyperventilate, don’t pass out, even from relief. “I’m parachuting down, right now. Should hit the ground in...five, six minutes. Where are you? Are you safe?”

  “I’m at the Emerald Bar,” Will said, after the smallest hesitation. “Once you get down, you get here as fast as you can. They can send someone out to get you if you need it. This place is rock-solid, it’ll withstand the end of the world. Which I guess we’re looking at.” He took a breath too. “Listen, Rock…I—you got me out of that room. You. Without you, I—”

  “Don’t start,” she cut in. “You did get out. And I bailed out before the crash. We both made it, we’re alive. Don’t have to think about the alternatives.” She swallowed hard. “But we can talk more when we find each other again.”

  “Yeah we will.” His voice was so warm it made her chest—not ache, in the same old way. Soar. In the way it felt that heartbreakingly brief moment when she’d been able to shut her eyes and just fly.

  Suddenly, she laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Will asked, and she could just about see the nonplussed look on his face. “I could use a joke right now. Share ‘em if you’ve got ‘em.”

  “Oh, it’s just,” Rocket wiggled her dangling feet. “Think this is the very first time I’ve ever actually wanted to get down to the ground. I can’t wait. ‘Cause I gotta find you.”

  Will let out a long sigh and she closed her eyes, tried to relax her whole body and sink into the sound. Around her, the air still blazed with fire. Below, a disaster unfolded, marking the start of a coming storm unlike anything into which she’d ever flown. But her head was cool and her heart was calm. If this was a storm, she was safely in its eye.

  “Hey, Rock.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You started picking out honeymoon spots yet? I hear Bermuda’s lovely this time of year…”

  “After tonight? Sounds like heaven. But no triangles.” She rubbed the smooth ring on her finger, finding comfort in the new weight and warmth. As she descended, she felt less like a stone, and more like a feather. “Just circles.”

  The first Halloween after C
HAMELEON MOON…

  ☾

  The reports of Parole casualties just kept coming in, and Evelyn had a headache. It pounded at her temples the way the gunfire rang outside. Her elbows rested on Garrett Cole’s desk—no, her desk. The plan was always to fall back to the Emerald Bar in a crisis. It was sturdy and defensible, easily protected by Danae’s technology and energetic barriers, and everybody knew its name. So they’d set up their fortress here: Evelyn, Danae, Zilch, Finn, and everybody else they’d been able to scrape together to form a functional team, powered and otherwise.

  That Evelyn would lead them hadn’t even been in question. Everyone already looked to her for answers and protection and courage; now it was just a little more direct and official. And every leader needed an office. Fortunately, the Emerald Bar had one. So it was only natural that she ended up in Garrett’s room.

  Where he had died.

  Evelyn very clearly remembered coming here with Regan—her stomach jerked remembering him too—and seeing the yellow police tape around the Bar’s entrance. Jenny Strings saying Garrett had left a message for her. Listening to that recording, right here. She tried to avoid this room as long as she could, and never stay too long. But she couldn’t stay away forever.

  And now she stared down at his desk—no, her desk, she kept reminding herself—and the papers that covered it. Updates. Reports. Since the power went out so often in Parole, they had to go low-tech. Just write down what you see and hand it in. And so often now, the papers she got had the names of the missing and the dead on them. So many papers all over Garrett’s—her—desk. So many names.

  They blurred in front of her eyes, blended together like the hours.

  “Trick or tree-eat!”

  Evelyn nearly jumped out of her skin at the singsong voice, looking up to see a teenage boy sauntering into the room, hands in his pockets and wearing a wide grin. His head hung at a funny angle, and a smear of dried blood was just visible under his black bangs. The side of his head looked…wrong. Flattened.

  “Hello, Hans,” she said through gritted teeth, looking back down at her own clenched fists on the desks and its many papers.

  “Like my costume?”

  “That’s not funny!” she snapped. “Have some respect for the dead!”

  “Sorry,” the boy shrugged, not looking sorry at all. “Just having a little fun. Something I haven’t had in about ten years. Gotta make up for lost time.”

  “Fun?” Evelyn’ s lip curled. “That’s what you call possessing a dead child’s body?”

  “Actually, I’d call it practical.” The boy held out one hand, turned it over, examining it at all angle s like a magpie with a piece of shiny foil. “Wasn’t like he was using it anymore. And weren’t you the one who said we had to use every single limited resource at our disposal? That we’re fighting a war, and need every able…body?”

  Evelyn said nothing. Hans grinned and pushed his advantage.

  “Why lose a soldier when you could gain a functioning ally? Come on, Ev. Every cloud has a silver lining. Right now, that’s me.”

  “You had a body. Toto-Dandy. What was wrong with him?”

  “A robot wolf? Fun for about ten minutes, but come on. I missed the little things. Breathing, speaking. Opposable thumbs.” Hans grinned with the dead teenager’s mouth, spread his arms wide. “Look at me! Ten years as a ghost, a month as a dog—and now I’m back! I’m a real boy!”

  “No, he was a real boy.” Evelyn glared. “I don’t know what you are. And you don’t know who he was. Do you? Do you even know the first thing about the person whose grave you robbed?”

  “Nope, sorry, I can only access the brains of living people. Dead brains are no good to me. Body still works great though! All ten fingers and toes. Broken bones are a little weird. But hey, look what this neck can do!”

  Evelyn looked away from the nauseating sight. “You don’t even know his name, do you?”

  “Bobby? Beanie?”

  “His name was Benjamin. Benjamin Kim. Everyone called him Benji.”

  “There, see, I was close. Damn, this kid’s got earwax.”

  Evelyn stared at him for a moment, face entirely blank; then her eyes went hard. She stood up from behind her desk. “He was so creative. Making things, instead of wrecking them… Something you wouldn’t know anything about, would you, Hans?”

  “Hey, now that’s not fair. It takes a very creative person to stay alive as long as I have. You know, so to speak.”

  “He was sixteen years old, almost seventeen; his birthday’s next Saturday. A musician. Talented. We jammed a couple times. He played the—what do you call it, the three-stringed guitar?”

  “Ukelele?” Hans supplied, examining his new fingernails.

  “That’s the one. Makes everything sound happy, kind of sunny. Like the world isn’t going to hell all around you. God, now I’m forgetting the names of instruments. Who am I, and what have I done with me?”

  “Careful, Ev. Nobody likes a mental breakdown. Believe me, I should know.”

  “And a couple weeks ago, I overheard him talking to Jenny. He was asking her what her favorite flower was. Lilies, she said. Can you believe that, thinking about flowers, in Parole?” She gave a harsh laugh. “I mean, I do, because Rose, I… She’s still missing, and…and I…” She paused, hand going to pinch the bridge of her nose. Stave off tears. “You know those…patches of green she leaves around the city? Her little breadcrumb trails? Where it’s Rose saying ‘hey guys, I can’t stay here for long, but we’re alive, and still looking for you?’ Sometimes there are flowers in them. And I guess some of them are lilies. Because a couple days ago, Benji walks in with a bouquet of lilies and gives them to Jenny, and—and you should have seen her face…”

  “I did! It was great.” Hans made Benji’s mouth smile, made his head nod. “I did see stuff when I was a dog, you know.”

  Evelyn stared at the dead boy in front of her. “I think I liked you better as a dog.”

  “Aw, now that’s not nice. Hey, happy thoughts! Remember how smiley you were a second ago? Jenny’s little heart melting about the flowers Benji gave her? Gosh, bet they were cute.”

  Evelyn folded her arms. “The next day, we used the lilies for his funeral.”

  Hans winced. “Ooh. Harsh. Yeah, I thought those things looked kind of old. Hey! Speaking of Jenny—I just remembered why I came in here.”

  “Oh, so you had a reason. Great.”

  “You know, I don’t remember you being nearly this sarcastic, Evelyn. You okay? Anything you wanna talk out, just you and me, one on—”

  “Get. To the. Point.”

  “Jenny wants to see you.” Hans clasped Benji’s cold hands behind his back, rocking back and forth on his heels. “She’s set up a little surprise for you down on the main stage.”

  “A surprise.”

  “Yep!”

  “What kind of surprise?”

  “The kind that if I told you, it wouldn’t be one!” Hans made Benjamin Kim’s lips curl into a grin. His teeth were stained red with blood. Some were missing.

  Evelyn thought about the Jack-o-Lanterns people were putting up outside. People celebrated, even in Parole. Defiant until the end. Determined to get some joy out of life. By carving a pumpkin or playing a ukulele or digging through a burnt and gutted city to find lilies to make a girl you like smile.

  She wondered at what point you could keep calling yourself a good person. Or a person at all. She wondered if she would ever be able to sleep again. Or if she did, if she would ever stop seeing faces of the dead. Or bloody teeth with the gaping holes. Or Jack-o-Lanterns.

  Wordlessly, Evelyn circled her (Garrett’s) desk, and stalked toward the door.

  “Oh—one last thing!” Hans called with Benjamin’s voice. She stopped in the doorway, hand gripping the frame and fingernails digging into the wood. She did not turn around. ”Happy Halloween!”

  ☾

  The Emerald Bar’s stage hadn’t seen a performance in a long time.
It was much more useful as a conference and discussion center, and music and lights tended to attract unwanted attention. But tonight a single white spotlight lit up the otherwise dark center stage. In the middle sat Jenny Strings, and around the edge of the circle of light was a ring of lit candles, small flames casting wan glows and wavy shadows on her pale, thin frame and long silver hair. On her head sat a large black witch’s hat.

  “Hey, Jenny,” Evelyn called softly as she entered, stage left. She always took care not to sneak up on the girl; she’d had enough scares in her life. Actually, she was a little surprised Jenny seemed to enjoy Halloween this much. “Getting into the trick-or-treat spirit?”

  “Evelyn!” She smiled brightly, carefully waving without jostling the candles but not standing up. “I’m so glad you’re here. Come closer! I want to show you something.”

  Evelyn crossed downstage to the edge of the candles, encouraged by actually seeing Jenny smile. She couldn’t remember the last time. “Glad to see someone’s having a good night. The one I’ve had…” She sighed. “I used to love Halloween as a kid, you know. But now, all I can think about is. You know. The dead. The real dead people.”

  “Oh, I know what you mean. Hello, Benji!” Jenny waved over Evelyn’s shoulder. And Evelyn turned around in surprise which quickly became irritation.

  “Hans.” She glared.

  “Hey there!” Hans waved back, a bright smile on his stolen face. “Thought I’d tag along! Wouldn’t want to miss the show.”

  “Of course,” Jenny Strings nodded, smiling. “Thank you so much for the flowers, Benji. They were so lovely.”

  “Jenny,” Evelyn said haltingly, a cold sliver of worry in her gut. “Do you remember…?”

  “Hmm? Oh!” Jenny looked at her, perplexed, then actually giggled. “Oh, of course I know it’s Hans! He’s just borrowing his body for a while.”

  “Then why—”

  “Why am I talking to Benji like he’s still here?”

  “Because he is still here,” she said, entirely matter-of-factly. “As long as we remember and care about him and keep loving him.”