The Gryphon Project

by Carrie Mac

  “That same adrenalin gave me a friggin’ asthma attack, Gryph!” That said, Phee turned on her father. “Gunfire? Riots? What the hell were you thinking? Why did you bring me here?” she screamed at him. “Are you stupid? What if I die? One more recon. That’s it!”

  “Well, how about that.” Behind her, a guard scoffed. “Not really a three-per yourself, then, are you?”

  Phee spun around. “Who said that?”

  The guards all looked back at her with solidly blank expressions. One of them dared a shrug.

  “Phee, honey. Please sit down.” Oscar steered her to the seat beside his. He buckled himself in and then reached across Phoenix and buckled her in too. “I’m sorry, baby.”

  “You’re sorry?” She hit his chest, and then hit him again with both hands as the shuttle sped out of the city just slightly faster than her pounding heart. “Why, Dad?”

  “You shouldn’t have brought her,” Gryph said when Phoenix’s tears finally made it impossible to speak. She leaned against her father and sobbed. She still smarted from the comment from the guard too cowardly to admit to saying it. “Not if you knew it was like this.”

  “But I didn’t,” her father said. “I would never put you children at risk.”

  “But you did!” Phee started in earnest again.

  “But I had no way of knowing. In almost twenty years, they’ve never rushed the shuttle like that before.” Oscar held Phoenix as she cried. “And I didn’t recognize any of them from the church. I think someone must’ve leaked that we were coming, and the church couldn’t stop them. I didn’t know. Usually there’s no problem.”

  “Still,” Gryph said, “you shouldn’t have brought her. She can’t handle it, obviously.”

  Phee lifted her eyes to glare at her brother. She wiped her tears, wishing she could argue with him. But there was no point. He was right. She couldn’t handle it. Not at all. What she wondered was why Gryphon could. How was he so different from her? Did he get off on adrenalin so much that danger excited him? Was it because he still had his three recons?

  BACK AT THE SHORES, they collected Fawn and walked home along the waterfront path. The air was warm and fragrant with summer flowers and the salty sea, the sky was a cloudless blue, and the waves rolled up happily against the shore, but it was all lost on Phee. She felt dark and stormy and foul. Still shaken, she hung back from the others, refusing her father’s invitation to walk with him.

  “Why couldn’t I come too?” Fawn tugged her father’s jacket. “How come, Daddy?”

  Oscar kissed her forehead. “Quiet, pet.”

  “But why not?” Fawn skipped ahead and then pirouetted so that she was walking backwards, facing them. “I’d be good. I’d help. I would!” She stumbled, and then turned so that she was walking normally, her back to them. “Next time, I’m coming too. You’ll see. I’m going to tell Mom you guys left me behind. It’s not fair. She’ll make you take me with you next time.”

  Gryph lifted his eyes and looked at Phoenix. This time, the darkness was gone. Replaced by something only slightly less chilling. Blame? Resentment?

  “No one likes a tattletale, Fawn.” Phoenix shoved her hands in her pockets. It had gotten colder suddenly, a chilly wind kicking up off the ocean. “Do up your jacket.”

  “Do this! Do that!” Fawn started skipping again. “Don’t do this, don’t do that!”

  “Your mother—” Oscar covered his face with his hands. “What are we going to tell your mother?”

  “The best thing would be to not tell her at all,” Gryph said. “But little miss motor mouth Fawn is going to make that impossible.”

  “We’re going to have to tell her anyway, Dad,” Phoenix could hear the quaver in her voice. Truth was, she wanted her mother to know. She didn’t want her father to get away with such a stupid decision. He should’ve known better. He was the parent, after all. Sometimes his optimism got the best of him, but ultimately he should’ve known better. “You screwed up, Dad. Own it. That’s what you’re always telling us when we do something wrong. Choose bravery, right? Choose truth.”

  “Fair enough.” Oscar nodded. He walked a little farther, thinking. “You’re absolutely right. I’ll tell her. Of course I’ll tell her. We have no secrets in this family.”

  Phee aimed another glance at her brother. He certainly had secrets. Lots of them. Gryphon stared back at her, challenging her. “I don’t think you should tell her, Dad.”

  But Oscar shook his head. “Your sister is right. No secrets. Honesty is the best policy.”

  “You’re sure you want to tell her?” Gryph raised an eyebrow. “You’re really sure about that, Dad? We’re okay. No one got hurt. Everyone got home safe and sound, right?”

  “True.” Oscar nodded. “But nonetheless I’ll tell her.”

  Oscar walked ahead, giving Gryph the perfect opportunity to whisper harshly to Phoenix, “Way to go, baby.”

  Phee gave him the smallest of smiles. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Gryph. We don’t have secrets in our family. Right?”

  With an exasperated sigh, Gryph sauntered off ahead of all of them, making a bee-line for home.

  THE CHILDREN STAYED out of the way while Oscar made his confession when Eva came home. Moments later, she stormed upstairs and burst into Gryph’s room, where all three of them were piled on his bed, reading to Fawn while they waited.

  “Pack a bag. Each of you.” She plucked Fawn off the bed and perched her on her hip, as if she were a baby. “We’re going to Grandma and Grandpa’s.”

  Gryph and Phoenix stared at her.

  “Now!” Eva started crying, but quickly gritted her teeth and steeled herself, and the tears stopped. “Get off your butts and do what I tell you!”

  “This is about you,” Gryph said to Phoenix as Eva carried a protesting Fawn out of the room. “This kind of thing is always about you.”

  Phoenix threw a book at him. “Don’t blame me for Dad’s dumb move.”

  “He should’ve taken just me.” Gryph pulled a backpack from his closet and started shoving clothes into it. “Then we could’ve kept it from her. If Fawn hadn’t known where we went. If you hadn’t insisted on telling Mom. Stupid idea, I might add.”

  “Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve. Talk to me after you’ve been reconned, Gryph. I’m sick of your bullshit.” Phoenix slammed the door behind her. She hesitated in the hall, her heart pounding, waiting for him to come after her. When he didn’t, it was almost worse.

  Fawn’s door was open. She was face down on the bed, bawling, as Eva thundered around, stuffing things into a suitcase, muttering to herself. “Go pack!” she yelled when she looked up and saw Phee just standing there, stunned. Phoenix tiptoed downstairs to find her father. He was slumped in a chair in the dark living room, his treasured old Bible balancing on his knee. He looked up and saw her in the doorway, but he didn’t say anything. They looked at each other for a long moment, then Phoenix went back upstairs, her mind and heart in a tandem tailspin. What was happening to her family?

  SYSTEM FAILURE

  On Monday, Gryph and Phoenix walked to the train station in silence, with Fawn swinging between them, her knee socks already drooping at her ankles, her school uniform shirt untucked and buttoned up squint. She wasn’t fazed by any of this. To her it was just a sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa’s. A sleepover that might just go on and on and on.

  “Me and Grandma’s going to make cupcakes after school. And we’re going to ice them with blue icing. And some purple too, maybe. Or red. I’m not sure. But I get to choose. But you have to be careful if you mix the colours too much because then it just looks like baby poo.” Fawn laughed. “Did you hear me? I said baby poo. On the cupcakes.”

  “We heard you,” Gryph said.

  “But you didn’t laugh.”

  “It’s not funny,” Gryph said slowly without looking at her. “That’s why.” Fawn fell quiet. This always shut her up, the way Gryph snubbed her. It worked for Phee too, his famous silent treat
ments. Come to think of it, it worked for everyone in the family. His friends too. He was the only one who could change the mood of an entire gathering just by being in a bad mood himself. Or a good one. He was big like that. He took up a lot of space, both physically and mentally. Not like Phee, who wanted to be as small as possible at all times. Preferably invisible.

  Phoenix glanced back at her grandparents’ house. Her grandmother stood on the porch, smiling and waving, as if nothing was wrong, as if she saw them off to school every day, when in fact this was a first. Some people want to be invisible, some want to play the denial game. Phoenix didn’t want to go back there after school. She wanted to go home. She wanted everything back to normal.

  Eva had joined them at the breakfast table, bedraggled and small, awash in one of her much larger mother’s housecoats, her face a puffy tear-stained red. She’d managed to nurse a cup of coffee and then she’d folded her arms on the table and laid her head down and started crying again, only taking a breath to tell the three children to come back there after school. They would not be going home. At least not yet.

  “But when?” Phoenix pushed her breakfast away, the jiggly eggs and grease-slicked bacon suddenly repulsive. This was all Phoenix’s fault. How she wished she hadn’t gone with Gryph and her father. “He didn’t mean for it to happen like that! It’s not his fault! He just wanted us to understand, Mom.”

  “Understand,” Eva said into the folds of the housecoat’s arms, her voice muffled. “That’s just it. You don’t. You don’t understand, Phoenix.”

  Eva’s mother hugged her daughter, raising her eyes to the children in a silent suggestion that it was time to leave for school.

  “KNOW WHAT, PHEE?” Fawn had given up on Gryph and had turned her attention to her sister. “Grandma started reading me The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe last night.” Fawn swung hard, jerking Phoenix’s arm back. “She’s going to read me the whole thing. She says Grandpa read it to Mom when she was my age, but he can’t because his brain is foggy. Grandma says that he read it to you too, but that was before you died that time in the park. So you don’t remember neither.”

  “Can’t you just be quiet for once, Fawn?” Phoenix yanked free of Fawn’s hand, sending her stumbling forward.

  “You pushed me!” Fawn planted her fists on her hips and glared at Phee. Then she switched to one of her perfected pained looks and appealed to Gryph. “She pushed me, Gryph!”

  “I did not.” Phoenix hurried ahead. “I can’t stand you babbling on and on anymore. It’s driving me crazy.”

  Thankfully, Gryph stayed with Fawn so Phee could march on ahead, fully engulfed in her misery. He was good for that, even now.

  At the station, Gryph waited with Fawn until her train came, and then he signed for her with the children’s monitor and joined Phoenix at the other end of the platform, where the train that picked up the high school students would stop.

  “Don’t take it out on her.” Gryph shoved her. “She’s just a kid.”

  “Take what out on her? I don’t even know what’s going on.”

  “Doesn’t matter what’s going on.” Gryph shrugged. “Don’t pick on her.”

  “Fine, Gryph. Whatever you say.” Phoenix hugged herself. “I won’t pick on her, if you won’t pick on me. Deal?”

  “Wow. Sometimes you can be a real bitch, you know.”

  Phoenix shrugged. “Takes one to know one.”

  Gryph laughed. “That’s the best you’ve got?”

  “Yeah, it is.” Phoenix backed away. “Leave me alone, Gryph.”

  “Happily.” Gryph wandered off down the platform to talk to a redhead who was new to the Shores. Phoenix rolled her eyes. The girl was smiling up at him, twirling her hair and batting her eyelashes like a living cliché. She got on the junior high train and waved at him until it was out of sight. At times like this, Phee wished her family had a private shuttle so she wouldn’t have to take the train and endure the drama that surrounded Gryph every day.

  “A bit young for you, don’t you think?” Phoenix said, as Gryph rejoined her when their train pulled in.

  “She was at the snowboard race,” Gryph said. “And my last rock climbing competition.”

  “A groupie. How exciting for you.”

  Gryph shrugged. “I was just talking to her, Phee.”

  They got on last, and as Phoenix stepped on, the door shut too soon, catching her backpack. She yanked it free, and found a seat.

  “Something must be wrong with the sensors.” Gryph took the seat across from her. “Huh. Interesting.” He watched the door at the other stops; it was definitely shorting out or something. Jackets, backpacks, even arms were getting stuck. Each time, they expected the intercom to announce that the car was being removed from service and they all had to get off, but it would seem that a cascade of security and safety measures had failed, leaving the doors of the car to work like jaws, snapping shut on the unsuspecting. Phee figured they were working on fixing it remotely.

  Nadia and Neko got on at the first Bay View stop, and Phoenix told her what had happened the night before. She was only half listening, though, because she and Saul were texting back and forth, even though they’d see each other in minutes.

  “It’ll blow over,” she said, smiling at whatever Saul had just texted her. “You’ll see.”

  “I don’t know, Nadia.”

  “It will.” Nadia sent a reply off, her phone beeping to confirm it was sent. She looked up. “My parents fight all the time, and they always work it out.”

  “But your parents hate each other.” The train slowed at Saul and Tariq’s stop. “My parents aren’t like that. They never fight.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Nadia’s phone rang. “Morning, handsome,” she purred into it as she rose from her seat, craning over the other students to catch a glimpse of Saul. He was making his way to their car, phone at his ear. “See me, baby?”

  He waved. She blew a kiss at him. Phoenix groaned.

  Tariq came up behind Saul just then and tripped him, sending him sprawling. His phone soared through the air and over the edge, plummeting to the ground two storeys below the elevated tracks.

  “What an asshole!” Nadia said. “He’s going to have to pay for that phone.”

  Saul leaped to his feet and sprinted to catch up to Tariq. They scrapped playfully on the platform, like a couple of puppies, until the lights flashed and the recorded voice announced the train’s departure. The two boys got up, and made one last dash for the car. They reached out as the door was shutting, which would normally trigger the sensors to reopen the door and delay the train. If the sensors had been working.

  “This should be fun.” Gryph stuck his hand over one of the security cameras. “Neko, get the other one.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Nadia said.

  Neko glanced at Nadia, then back at Gryph.

  “I’m not going to tell you twice, scrote. Do it.”

  Neko stood on a seat and covered the other camera.

  “Saul!” Nadia screeched as the doors rhythmically tightened against his arm, trying hard to shut.

  “Hey!” Tariq yanked at the door with his free arm as the train started moving.

  Neko dropped his hand, eyes wide with fear.

  “Camera, Neko,” Gryph growled. “I’m warning you.”

  Huy gave Neko a shove and he obscured the camera again.

  “Open the doors!” Phoenix yelled. “Stop the train!”

  The other students on the train yelled for it to stop too, several of them frantically pressing the emergency buttons located at intervals along the wall.

  “Don’t worry,” Gryph said, but only loud enough for Nadia and Phee to hear. “We’ll open the doors before it’s too late.”

  He was putting a show on for everyone else, Phee decided. He knew what he was doing. And for a few seconds, that seemed to be true.

  Tariq and Saul jogged along the platform as best they could as the train sped up.

  “No emerge
ncy detected,” the automated voice said. “Passengers are reminded to access security only in the case of an actual emergency.”

  “It’s true!” Nadia screamed, trying to push her way to the door. “Stop the train!”

  “Open the doors,” Gryph finally ordered, and as if he’d broken his own spell, students stormed the doors, trying to pull them open.

  But the doors were jammed, still trapping the boys.

  And the technical failure was system-wide, so the train kept gaining speed.

  “We should be able to get the doors open.” Gryph pushed his way to the door and pulled with all his might.

  The end of the station was coming up, after which the train tracks launched into the air, high above the city.

  “Recalibrating systems. Please stand by.”

  “Stop the train!” Nadia screamed. “Make it stop!”

  “I’m trying!” Gryph and the others tugged hard on the doors, but they would not budge.

  “This isn’t funny, Gryph!” Outside, Tariq stumbled, banging on the train with his free hand. “Come on!”

  “Help!” Saul screamed. Tariq’s expression was one thing, but Saul’s was another entirely. He reminded Phoenix of the people rioting below the shuttle in the no-per zone. Flooded with panic. Fear. Desperation.

  Gryph saw it too. “I’m trying, Saul! Hang on!”

  Phoenix pushed the alarm button nearest her again, but there was still no familiar ding.

  With a primal growl, Gryph yanked on his side and Neko on his, along with the strength of anyone who could gain purchase on the steel doors. “Saul! Hang on!”

  “Systems recalibrating. Do not access alarm until the system has been recalibrated.”

  “Stop the train!” Phoenix pounded on the alarm button anyway, as Nadia screamed and screamed, her face fixed with terror.

  “Pull harder!” Gryph commanded. His face was white, and his arm muscles bulged from the effort.

  Outside, Tariq and Saul stumbled and tripped, trying to stay on their feet. And then the look on Saul’s face fell into sheer despair. Phee turned to see what he was seeing.