The Dark Intercept

by Julia Keller

  Violet laughed. “Oh, come on. Takes more than that to rile me up. But I still get a free shot as payback.”

  She punched his arm playfully, and he punched hers back. At this moment, she felt completely relaxed and happy. She had another fleeting impulse to ditch her little scheme. She wanted to sink inside this day and pull it over her head like the soft warm covers of her bed, and sort of float away on the feeling.

  But she couldn’t. Because no matter how serene she felt right now, she knew her curiosity wouldn’t leave her alone. Danny would do it again. Tomorrow, the next day, the day after that—he’d go back to Old Earth. He always did.

  And Violet had to know why.

  By the time they reached the Cab, she was ready.

  “When people mention the Intercept,” she said, trying to make her voice sound casual, as if the question had just occurred to her, “does it hit you? Is it like—‘Hey, my brother invented that.’ Does it ever feel weird that way?”

  “Sure. Sometimes.”

  “And?”

  “And—what?”

  “And so what do you do? The memories—don’t they ever—well, bother you? Memories of Kendall, I mean.”

  Danny looked out across the gardens that surrounded the Cab. That was why people lingered here; the gardens were the most sumptuous ones on New Earth, unspooling in a color-rich, texture-varied, scent-infused medley of thick leaves and wild blossoms and nodding ferns. The gardens looked random but really weren’t. In fact, they were about as far from random as you could get. The gardens had been meticulously planned, right down to the precise placement of the ladybugs on the hosta leaves—leaves that had been propagated to grow to precisely the eye level of a person of average height.

  Violet’s choice of a conversational topic wasn’t random either.

  But she hoped Danny would think it was.

  “Sometimes it’s really painful,” he said. “But I don’t want to forget him. So I need those memories. They’re all I have of him now. So even if they hurt—I’ll put up with it.”

  Violet didn’t know a lot about Kendall Mayhew. She only knew what everybody else knew: the story of his genius and then his tragic early death. She and Danny had talked about Kendall now and again, but she’d never pushed for details. That’s why she felt okay about asking the questions today. If Danny wanted to talk about his brother, fine. If not—well, that was fine, too.

  Or so he’d think.

  Danny and Kendall had been invited to New Earth four years ago. Only a handful of new immigrants were allowed to enter these days, but the Mayhew brothers were special—because Kendall Mayhew, after years of work in a scruffy, makeshift lab back on Old Earth, a place filled with jury-rigged equipment and ragtag, scavenged materials, had invented the Intercept. And it was a package deal: If Kendall came, then Danny got to come, too.

  Danny was not like his brother. He was smart, yes, but no genius. Whereas Kendall definitely was a genius. Danny’s preference—he had told Violet this many times—was not to spend long, motionless hours staring at a batch of computers, watching code dump itself out on a screen like breakfast cereal shaken out of a box.

  Danny was restless. He craved action and change. He’d rejected Kendall’s world of advanced biostatistics and molecular genetics and diffuse axonal transfiguration. “And of sitting on my butt in front of a computer screen until it grows right into the chair,” Danny had added, as he and Violet talked about it during one of their long walks across New Earth. Violet understood. That butt-growing-into-the-chair thing—it pretty much described her job at Protocol Hall. She knew what Danny meant. Sometimes she got restless, too, just sitting there.

  So Danny became a cop. The training was rigorous and demanding, although in some ways that training didn’t make a lot of sense anymore. With the Intercept now fully functional, cops had few chances these days of putting it to the test.

  A year and a half ago, Kendall had died of a drug overdose. He’d slipped back down to Old Earth, tracked down a dealer, and took a lethal dose of deckle. His body was found sprawled in a wet, cold, lonely alley. No one had known about his drug use. Not even his brother.

  Kendall’s death was a mystery that had settled over Danny’s life like a gray fog. That’s how he described it to Violet, the few times they talked about it. He couldn’t shake it off. It was as if the grief had been absorbed by his skin. It was a part of him now. It moved when he moved. Breathed when he breathed.

  And that was how she had come up with her awful, terrifying, unthinkable but oddly plausible theory about why Danny kept going down to Old Earth. That was why she was ready to deploy Option Number Two in her quest to discover the secret of Danny’s stubbornness.

  They began walking again, backtracking toward Protocol Hall. Violet was nervous. She had to be very delicate. Also somewhat devious, which didn’t feel good at all.

  “What was he like?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your brother. I’ve never asked you before because I didn’t want to be like everybody else. I mean, people are always coming at you with questions about Kendall, right?”

  “Yeah. They are.” Danny hesitated. “Kendall was a genius.”

  “I don’t want to know about the genius part. I want to know about the brother part.”

  This time the hesitation went on even longer. “It’s hard to talk about him,” Danny said. And then he seemed to rally. He’d give it a try. “My brother was funny and brave. He had a sense of adventure. He was—he was a great brother.” There was a trace of hoarseness in Danny’s voice, and it was softer than normal, but Violet could hear him perfectly well. It was as if his words had carved out a little cave in the middle of the day, a small, perfect place with room enough for just the two of them. “He was the best.”

  The moment had arrived, Violet realized. If she didn’t go for it right now—when their conversation was close and easy, when his defenses were down—she’d lose her nerve.

  “Danny.”

  “Yeah?”

  It was harder than she’d thought it would be. It was almost impossible to get the words out. But her hunch wouldn’t leave her alone.

  To the question she’d been asking herself for months now—What’s on Old Earth that you can’t get on New Earth?—she’d finally come up with a possible answer:

  Deckle. The drug that had killed Kendall Mayhew.

  Or maybe another illegal drug. Maybe tumult or trekinol, one of the other mind-scrambling, mood-shifting, life-threatening substances bought and sold daily on the ravaged streets of Old Earth. Hard to get on New Earth—but depressingly easy to buy down there.

  She blurted it out, eager to get the questions over with as soon as possible: “Are you—are you taking deckle, Danny? Like Kendall did? Is that why you go down there? To get more?”

  His answer came almost before she’d finished the question. “No,” Danny said.

  She believed him. She knew he was telling her the truth. She just knew it. But she also knew that she’d needed to ask the question. Because some people didn’t show the symptoms of illegal drug use until it was much too late. It had been too late for Kendall.

  If Danny had answered yes, if he had admitted to being in that kind of trouble, then she would have done whatever she could for him. She would not have abandoned him. And she would not have stopped loving him.

  You didn’t love someone because he was perfect. You loved him because you loved him.

  “I’m sorry you even had to think that,” Danny went on. “For even a second. I’m sorry that anything I’ve done made you go there. I’m not taking deckle. I’ve never taken an illegal drug in my life. That’s something I would never—” He swallowed hard. “Never. Never. I would never do that. And not just because of what happened to Kendall. Because it’s wrong.”

  He turned to face her. There was sadness in his eyes, and a kind of weary, beaten-down disillusionment, too. All at once, he looked almost as exhausted as he’d looked when he last
returned from Old Earth, after all the shaking and jarring.

  But this time, it was another kind of jarring that had taken its toll on him. The emotional kind. He had just realized that her choice of topic wasn’t accidental.

  “So that’s why you wanted to talk about Kendall,” he snapped. “That’s why you were asking me about my brother. You were—what? Trying to soften me up? Hoping to trick me into confessing that I’m a drug addict, too? Was that it, Violet? I asked you to trust me. To just be patient and trust me. But you couldn’t do that. You had to keep pushing.

  “By the way—I saw you,” he continued. Resentment hardened his voice. “When you followed me. You didn’t see me, but I saw you. I saw you going after that guy you thought was me. And now you’re doing it again. Snooping around.

  “Next time,” he said brusquely, “don’t pretend you just want to take a walk, okay? Don’t try to fool me.”

  He bolted away before she could figure out what to say. By the time she did, he was so far away that she had to raise her voice. “Danny—wait—it’s not—”

  He didn’t turn back.

  Great. She’d hurt him. She’d wounded and disappointed somebody she cared about. And she wasn’t one bit closer to solving the mystery.

  Violet gritted her teeth in frustration. She hiked the strap of her bag higher up on her shoulder. She watched Danny’s fast-moving figure until he was just a brown blur, a blur that merged with the midday colors of the horizon of New Earth. She was upset with him for taking off like that, and she was annoyed with herself, and she was worried that, unless she ran all the way back to Protocol Hall, she was going to be late for her shift.

  Mixed in with all of those feelings was yet another one: simple relief. So drugs weren’t the reason Danny kept doing what he did. Drugs didn’t make him hop down to Old Earth every chance he got, infuriating Chief Callahan, imperiling everything he’d achieved since he and Kendall had come to New Earth, everything he’d worked for, everything that mattered to him.

  But if that wasn’t the real reason, then what was?

  Violet had one more trick up her sleeve to help her discover the truth about Danny. Option Number Three was far more drastic and intrusive. She’d really hoped she wouldn’t have to use it.

  That hope was now officially gone.

  8

  The Intercept Strikes

  It hit.

  It happened the next morning. Violet had just finished breakfast. She was back in her room with a glass of orange juice, sitting cross-legged on her unmade bed, using her wrist console to catch up on the news.

  Her father was already gone; he always left for work when it was still dark outside. A big black car picked him up at the curb in front of their apartment and ferried him away to his office.

  Violet twisted the small dial on the side of her console. She rarely paused to read more than a headline before racing on to the next, the next, the next, the next.

  She saw a flash of color in front of her eyes.

  Blue.

  No—red.

  Okay: blue and red.

  And purple. And yellow.

  Wait—green. Yes, green. Green! Green, brown, black, pink, white, gold—and swirling combinations of other colors, too, chopped and blended into spinning frenzies. The colors seethed and hovered and then zipped away, as if they had pressing business elsewhere.

  Violet was suddenly dizzy. The dizziness seemed to grip her temples and shake her head from side to side. Her limbs were hot, buzzing. Her console felt unbearably heavy, too heavy for her arm. Her stomach was queasy. It lurched and it churned. The orange juice she’d swallowed felt like a burning knife, thrusting itself back up into her throat. She was afraid that she was going to throw up all over her sheets.

  The Intercept, Violet thought. It’s really happening. It’s starting RIGHT NOW.

  And with that, the present melted, losing its firm shape, becoming … something else.

  * * *

  Six years ago:

  A bedroom.

  Her mother’s bedroom. The thick green curtains hang in a series of symmetrical folds at either side of the tall leaded window. Books are stacked on every surface.

  The bed.

  The smell of death.

  Her mother lies in the middle of that bed, covered only by a flimsy white nightgown. Her long red hair is spread out around her head in a soft wavy fan. She is sweating. The heat rises from her in twitchy little waves. Even the gossamer-light garment seems to torment her everywhere it touches.

  Lucretia Crowley’s skin is orange. Her arms are straight at her sides. Her eyes are open, and Violet can see that the whites of her eyes are now orange, too.

  Missip Fever.

  Violet is ten years old. She feels a stabbing pain, as if someone is hammering a nail into the center of her stomach. She even looks down to check. But, no. Nothing there. What she feels is the unfathomable pain of watching her mother die.

  Her mother has just returned from one of her trips to Old Earth. Lucretia is a doctor. She has long been upset by the fact that few nurses or doctors live on Old Earth anymore. She cares about the people down there, and she would have stayed permanently to treat them, Violet knows, were it not for her love for her and her father. As it is, she goes back much too often, helping as many patients as she can. Lucretia repeatedly visits the worst parts of Old Earth, the rawest, roughest, and most dangerous places, and treats the sick and the dying.

  But now those risks have caught up with her.

  The first symptoms of Missip Fever appeared an hour after her return this time. Now, Violet’s beautiful mother is in the final throes of the terrifying disease: the crushing fatigue, the sheet-soaking sweats, the cough, the bright orange phlegm, the overripe-fruit smell of the breath, signaling the breakneck disintegration of the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, pancreas, the heart. Name your organ, and Missip Fever shreds and dissolves it.

  Her mother’s lips move. She is trying to say something.

  Violet leans over. She puts her lips next to her mother’s ear. She can feel the intense heat of her mother’s body, the disease-stoked furnace that is destroying her at a ferocious pace.

  “Mom. Mom, I’m here,” Violet whispers.

  The smell is horrific. To be dying amid such a foul, rancid odor is an indignity, Violet thinks. It’s as if her mother is being mocked. But there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

  “Vi … Vi … Violet…” Lucretia’s lips are cracked and split. Watching them as they try to form a word is excruciating.

  Where is her father? Violet looks around. There he is: back in the corner, hunched over, clutching the knob of his cane with his trembling right hand, the other hand locked into a fist, his face a tight mask of fierceness. Ogden Crowley has said his good-byes. He wants Violet to have this moment with her mother.

  “Mom,” Violet says. “Mom, I love you.”

  Lucretia’s eyes slide up and over to meet her daughter’s eyes. She is too weak to move any other part of her body. Her lips flutter again. There is something she must say:

  “Ta … take. Care. Of … of your fath … your father. He … he needs you.”

  “I will, Mom. I promise,” Violet replies, even though she can’t imagine Ogden Crowley ever needing anyone—except for the woman who is dying in front of their eyes.

  Violet feels the tears wetting her cheeks. She didn’t know she was weeping. But she is. She’s been weeping for the past hour. Maybe longer. She didn’t realize she had this many tears inside her.

  With the last bit of strength she can summon, Lucretia blinks. It means, Violet believes, that her mother hears her, that she’s aware of Violet’s promise. They have exchanged precious gifts in this moment: To Violet, Lucretia has given the gift of her trust; to her mother, Violet has given the gift of being worthy of that trust.

  Lucretia’s body is rocked by a spasm. When the spasm is finally over, she lies still. Her eyes seem to be looking past Violet, past this room, past this moment, past lo
ve and pain and disease, into the heart of a distance that the living will never visit.

  No, Violet thinks. She is gripped by panic. No, this CANNOT be happening. No, no, no.

  She needs to do something—to yell at somebody, to insist, to cajole. To pray, to threaten, to beg, to plead, to swear, to scream, to demand. To hit somebody. There’s been a mistake. A terrible, terrible mistake.

  But she doesn’t do anything. Because there is nothing to be done. There is no escape from this moment. No way out.

  Violet is quiet. She looks at the body in the bed, her gaze moving fitfully up and down and sideways, trying to take it all in, every inch of her mother, for the last time. She sees the lacy trim across the bottom hem of the nightgown. She sees the horrid orange skin. She sees her mother’s red hair. She sees her mother’s feet—such tender, intimate things, feet are. Violet reaches down to pull the sheet over those feet. Funny how most people want to cover the face, but for Violet, it’s the feet that seem most private, most deserving of her protection.

  Wait—did her mother twitch?

  Oh my God—is she still alive? Do I have another minute with her, another few seconds, one second?

  I’ll take it, Violet thinks, frantic with joy. I’ll take it. Is she—?

  No. It’s an illusion. Her mother is gone. Forever.

  That truth is like a savage blow. Violet staggers backward. It is unendurable. She can’t go on. But she must.