Judgment

by Sean Platt

  “You said they were waiting for us inside,” Cameron reminded them.

  “They are,” said Kindred.

  “In the way a city used to expect the pope,” Meyer added.

  “But not as celebrities.”

  “Just as in, They knew we’d be here.”

  “Though we are celebrities, in a way.”

  Jeanine was holding up a hand, trying to make sense of the rapid-fire shorthand streaming between the Meyers. “What are you talking about?”

  “They know we have the key, Jeanine,” said Meyer. “They know we can unlock the Ark.”

  Cameron slapped the satchel against himself.

  Kindred shook his head. “They could have taken it a long time ago if they’d wanted. They won’t steal it from us. They’re waiting for us to use it.”

  “Then fuck that,” Cameron said, unsure of why he was saying it. Any excuse to steer clear of the Ark was welcome, and avoiding something the Astrals wanted would do just fine.

  Jeanine wheeled around. They were mostly concealed in the alley, but several of the passing humans saw her and scattered. Cameron spotted two Titans in the group, but neither paid the people milling in the alley any more attention than they paid those in the rest of the city.

  “This is ridiculous,” she said. “I feel totally exposed.”

  “Calm down, Jeanine.”

  “We need a plan.”

  “We have a plan,” said Meyer.

  “Really? Then maybe you should share it with the rest of us.” She spun back to face him. At the alley’s end, another two people saw her and rushed on. It’s her gun, Cameron realized.

  “Find the Ark,” Kindred said. “Open it up.”

  “It’s the same plan,” Meyer added. “The same plan we had coming in, except that we won’t have to fight our way to it.”

  But Jeanine seemed totally out of sorts. She kept looking around, clearly uneasy. She was like a balloon flying into the upper atmosphere. Freedom was pure up there, but without the surface world’s usual pressure to crush her, Jeanine seemed lost. It wasn’t the threats inside the city, it was the total and complete lack of threats now throwing her for a loop.

  “Now let us past,” Kindred said. “The archive building was over there on Peers’s images. We just need to go one block up.”

  “The crowd is one block up,” Jeanine argued. “Right in the thick of all those people and Titans.”

  “That’s how we know we can get through.”

  “But you’re running right across the open! We’re defenseless!”

  “There’s nothing to defend against.”

  “Goddammit, Meyer, we … we … ” But she didn’t seem capable of finishing the sentence.

  Kindred extended a hand. “Give me your weapon, Jeanine.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re attracting attention.”

  “I’m not attracting attention!”

  Her elevated voice drew a few more eyes to the alley’s mouth. A Titan glanced at her gun but then moved on.

  “This is just a city.”

  “It’s an Astral capital!”

  “We can feel it, Jeanine. We thought it would be like Heaven’s Veil or Roman Sands here. But it’s not.”

  She gripped the carbine, holding it tight. Her body language clearly said that if anyone tried to take it away, they’d be in for a fight.

  “Then stay back, at least,” said Kindred. And before Cameron could think to stop them again, both men were past, now walking briskly. Cameron’s gaze drifted toward Piper, whose color was up from the rushing and running. Her big eyes were frightened, but they were following Meyer and Kindred, urging Cameron to follow.

  But instead of following, Cameron turned to Peers.

  “What’s going on here, Peers?”

  Peers no longer resembled a man with a plan. He’d come to kill the viceroy, but now he looked like another crazy person in dreadlocks and a desert robe — an oddity from the outlands come to the big city with his dog, a new breed of urban nut job for the respectable people of Ember Flats to avoid like New Yorkers once steered clear of beggars.

  “I … I don’t know.”

  “Are they right? Are we really just … allowed to be here? The gates were open. Both gates. Is there really no trap? Are they really going to let us walk right in and do what we came to do? For fuck’s sake, there are armies of cannibals outside, not even walled off! Have you heard anything about Ember Flats that … that … ?”

  Explains this?

  Justifies this?

  Makes any fucking sense at all?

  But in the end Cameron could only let the sentence hang. No one picked it up, so it dangled, unfinished and meaningless.

  “I … I have no idea,” Peers stammered.

  “We have to go,” Piper said. “We’ll lose them.”

  Cameron followed Meyer and Kindred to the alleyway’s end then into the uncaring flow of the crowd going about its daily business, leaving Jeanine with her weapon and Peers to choke on his neutered presumptions.

  CHAPTER 25

  They edged into the crowd. Everyone was looking at them.

  Piper could understand. She’d been a city girl once, a lifetime ago. When you lived in the city, there was a code about what you saw, what you accepted, what you ignored, and what you only pretended to disregard. She knew that the people of Ember Flats had noticed them plenty and were averting their eyes, sliding away to make room for the weirdoes among them.

  Piper, Lila, and Clara might pass for normal; the city’s dress code had settled somewhere between new and old, and the people wore a mishmash that wasn’t new-world modern or old-world modern, nor was it ancient like Piper always somehow expected Egypt to be. Piper’s worn and dirty jeans fit in, as did her still-intact button-up blouse. Meyer and Kindred, both of whom somehow kept clean and crisp even through all the grit, fit even better. Cameron was used to blending in anywhere and anonymous enough in appearance. Charlie was a sore thumb in the best of times but at least dressed normally. But Peers’s desert robes and the black dog at his knee were another story — and Jeanine, with her automatic weapon, was another world’s worth of story. The crowd was parting around her, saying nothing, murmuring once they were past. Piper felt a spotlight of attention while nobody intervened to stop them.

  “This way,” said Meyer, at the group’s head.

  They followed. Down a broad street — all pedestrians save the occasional gliding platform that seemed to serve as open-air public transportation. Past parked Astral shuttles that didn’t flinch as they walked by. Down what might have passed for a New York boulevard in the 1900s, with shorter buildings, a distinctly eastern architectural style, and several enormous blue-glass pyramids visible on the pinched-down horizon — plus a few new monolithic sculptures Piper could barely see but that made her skin go cold.

  Heads turned to watch them.

  They passed a low gate that had been propped open, more ornamental than restrictive. The gate and its low stone wall let them into a courtyard surrounded by white buildings that reminded Piper of Washington, DC, which she’d visited as a girl but knew little about now. It had to be the government seat, and these had to be government buildings. This was a human place; Astrals didn’t make buildings like this.

  Meyer and Kindred stopped, seeking the next set of directions. Cameron came to join the small circle, glancing at the fewer milling pedestrians around them, Titan and human alike.

  “I don’t understand this place. There aren’t any Reptars. None of the Titans have guns. No shuttles patrolling the sky.”

  “It’s almost like it’s just a city going about its business, isn’t it?” The way Kindred said it was almost insulting, as if that had been obvious from the start. But it hadn’t been; they’d all been there for Heaven’s Veil, and they’d all seen the other cities and capitals. Ember Flats had a reputation, just like everywhere else: It was supposed to be a hellhole, a prison without cells, a city living under martial law, ruled by t
he bloodthirsty viceroy. There were supposed to be legions of slaves building effigies like the ancients. Beatings, executions, and streets filled with nothing but Astral enforcers and human turncoats. There should be death squads. Bars and barriers, surveillance and chains.

  “There,” Meyer said, pointing. He and Kindred started to move off again, toward an open spot that looked like some sort of sculpture patio or memorial garden — a tourist spot if ever there was one — but Cameron grabbed Meyer by the sleeve.

  “I changed my mind.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Peers, speaking up from the rear. “I’ve already explained.”

  “I don’t like this.”

  Peers looked at Kindred then Meyer. “We came here for a reason. Christopher died for that reason.”

  Cameron was ignoring Peers, appealing to Meyer. “You have to feel it. This isn’t right. Come on, Meyer, I know you can feel it.”

  Peers answered instead. “You’re just afraid.”

  As Cameron protested, Kindred inched forward. Meyer, guiding Cameron by his sleeve, casually followed. They were shifting around a semicircle, and now, as their perspective changed, Piper thought she spied something ahead. Something she’d seen before and naively hoped she’d never see again. They’d raised it up, built a cupola made of polished rock and a wide courtyard of flagstones. They’d put it in the spot of honor in this circle of buildings, easy to climb low steps and reach, easy to see, easy for anyone to walk up to and try their hand. It was the opposite of hidden — for the citizens of Ember Flats, but especially for them, the red carpet practically rolled out.

  “Charlie,” Cameron said, turning to the scientist. “Think for a second. They could have beat us to Sinai. They let us reach it first. Then when the crowds came to the mountain, they moved it here, put it out in the open, then practically advertised so the world would know where it was. Why do they want us to reach the Ark so badly? And should we really do what they want us to?”

  “We’ve talked about all of this,” Charlie deadpanned. “For years.”

  They could see the golden chest fully, maybe five feet off the surrounding ground, held high on its platform like something angelic. The Astrals had cleaned what was dull with dust when they’d found it the first time. The Mullah had guarded it in its old resting place but seemed to have done so through a closed door as if afraid to face or touch it, even without its activating key. Not that the Mullah had needed to worry when Cameron had come to open it, of course. They’d been dead when Piper and the others had arrived, killed as efficiently as if by an advance team of Astrals who’d come to clear a path for the crusading heroes — for King Arthur, by Peers’s analogy.

  “There’s something wrong about this. You feel it, don’t you?” Cameron turned to Piper, and she saw something that broke her heart: he was absolutely terrified.

  Jeanine held out a hand toward his satchel. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Give me the plate. I’ll do it.”

  “It won’t work for you,” Peers said.

  “That’s ridiculous.” She reached, but Cameron backed away. Then: “Just give me the key, Cameron.”

  “It won’t work for you,” Peers repeated, his patience obviously thin.

  “Then Clara,” Jeanine said. “Clara’s Lightborn. She can do it.”

  Lila pulled Clara close, holding the girl against her, eyes wide.

  “It has to be Cameron,” Peers insisted.

  Cameron snapped toward Peers, his fear now something sharper. “You certainly know a lot about this, don’t you?”

  “I’m just agreeing with Charlie’s research. Your father’s research.”

  “They’re just making guesses. Even he’s guessing.” Cameron jabbed a finger toward Kindred, who up until now had seemed to be leading them. Piper could feel emotion rising from Cameron like heat, plenty loud enough to register on her increasingly empathic senses. He was a drowning man who’d pull anyone down to save himself. It might be ignoble, but it was intensely, horribly, irrevocably human. Even Jesus had wished for someone to take the cup from his lips, and Cameron was only a grown-up boy.

  “You, on the other hand,” Cameron continued, again indicating Peers, “seem so goddamn sure.”

  Peers blustered. “I’m just following the lore and what the Den’s equipment revealed about—”

  “The Den. Right. That convenient place filled with Astral technology that nobody ever came to claim, or kicked you out of. Right in the middle of open land we were allowed to cross without interference.”

  Peers suddenly puffed up, seeing all the eyes on him as the group’s lone outsider. “Say it, Cameron. Just say what you need to.”

  Cameron jabbed a finger in Peers’s face, turning to Meyer, to Kindred, to Jeanine.

  “He’s with them. He’s with them, and we all know it.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “You might even be one of them for all we know.”

  “He’s not Astral,” Kindred said. “And neither is his dog.”

  “Then you’re working with them.” He rounded on Peers, now very close. “What’s in it for you, Peers? What did the Astrals promise you? Will they let you kill the viceroy, so you can take her place?”

  “Cameron … ” Piper could feel him unraveling. He was too angry, deflecting, panicking. This wasn’t about Peers. He simply made the best target.

  “He showed up in Derinkuyu right as the Astrals pinned us down! Peers to the rescue! Doesn’t that strike you as convenient?”

  “How dare you,” Peers said, his voice narrow and dangerous. “My good friend lost his life getting you here. To this place that you agreed you needed to reach, for a second chance after whatever cowardice stopped you the first time you found the Ark at—”

  “Don’t you fucking talk that way to me! Don’t pretend for one fucking minute that you know what you’re talking about!”

  “Keep your voice down.” Meyer was looking around the courtyard, suddenly cleared. There were people at the periphery, beyond the buildings, looking in at them, wary.

  “Go on, Cameron,” Jeanine said, noticing the same wary faces. “If it has to be you, it has to be you. So man up, and do it.”

  Unbelievably, Cameron crossed his arms.

  “Cam … ” Piper tried.

  “No. Just … no. Fuck this. Fuck all of it. He’s wrong. They’re all wrong. You saw what it did last time. You felt what it did. This isn’t what’s supposed to happen. My father died to get this key.” He patted the satchel. “They certainly didn’t want us unlocking anything back then. Now they’re waiting for us to? And that doesn’t strike anyone as suspicious?”

  “Goddammit, Cameron,” Charlie said. “If you don’t get up there soon, someone is going to show up and — !”

  “What, Charlie? What will happen? Will they stop us from opening the Ark? No. I don’t think so. Because, look: it’s right there on a silver platter, like cheese in a trap!”

  Jeanine shoved Cameron back then shot her hand into his satchel. A second later she was marching toward the raised platform, stone key firmly in hand.

  Piper heard shuffling sounds behind her then a blur from all around. Jeanine paused, seeing it as well.

  Human men and women with weapons, interspersed with Titan guards. Their leader appeared to be a thin black man who stepped forward and said to Jeanine, “Please, ma’am. Set that object down slowly, then raise your hands high where we can all see them.”

  Jeanine’s eyes darted around the circle. They were outnumbered three to one, and she held the only weapons. But she raised the key rather than lowering it, her eyes seeming to say, Let’s see what happens next.

  “I’ll smash it,” she said.

  “Go ahead. Just don’t touch your weapon.”

  Titans and humans inched forward. Jeanine raised the key higher, but they didn’t hesitate.

  Beside Piper, Kindred slowly shook his head. Then as the guards reached Jeanine and began to carefully confiscate her carbine and pistol, she simply lowered it, let
ting the ceramic plate hang at her side.

  Piper went to her knees when asked then put her hands behind her head. The armed men and women produced rather ordinary handcuffs, and thirty seconds later everyone was wearing silver bracelets except Nocturne and Clara. The guards frisked the group, this time including Clara, and took a knife from Peers.

  They each received a pair of escorts and were led out of the courtyard onto a strangely stable levitating platform.

  Except Nocturne, trotting behind Peers without escorts, his tongue out and tail wagging.

  CHAPTER 26

  Meyer blinked himself awake, suddenly aware of a strange sensation on his face.

  He was confused by everything: the room he found himself in, the scented tinge of the air, bearing the pleasant tang of cinnamon, and definitely the wet sandpaper stir on his cheek, accompanied by a dark cloud in his peripheral vision. But most of all Meyer was confused because he didn’t remember falling asleep.

  He rolled his head on what seemed to be a pillow, fighting for clarity. He blinked again and realized that the big black cloud was Peers’s dog, licking his face.

  Meyer raised a heavy arm to shoo the dog away, but Nocturne stopped on his own before he could. Then he turned and walked through an open door into a lit hallway, his errand apparently complete.

  “It’s a good thing Raj isn’t here,” said a thin, helium voice from behind him.

  Meyer rolled over. Heather was sitting on a padded armchair, her posture like a man.

  “If Raj were here, that dog would have been dinner a long time ago.”

  Meyer considered pointing out that Heather’s racism didn’t even make sense but didn’t bother once he remembered that you couldn’t talk Heather Hawthorne out of being Heather Hawthorne, no matter how inappropriate she was. And also, Heather was dead.

  “Don’t ask if this is a dream,” Heather said. “That’s like something Piper would say, not you.”

  Meyer opened his mouth.

  “Maybe we’re on drugs,” Heather said, preempting him. “Maybe the alien invasion never happened, and we’re lying on the ground, totally high, back at the LA house.”