Judgment

by Sean Platt

  “So you came to borrow pants?”

  Jeanine sat in a chair beside the dresser, where Peers had temporarily stored the sphere before running back out the night before. “I don’t know who to talk to.”

  “Piper and Lila, maybe? They both seem about your size.”

  “Not about pants, Peers.”

  “Oh.” Apparently that issue was closed without a solution.

  Jeanine seemed more agitated than usual: less distant and hard, more jittery. Maybe this was what she looked like in captivity. It sure wasn’t what she was usually like when nervous, as far as Peers had seen during their brief time together. But then again, she didn’t have her guns or her knives or anything with which she might fashion a shiv. Even the mirror and window glass couldn’t be broken into a blade — he knew; he’d tried, with thoughts of Jabari’s throat in mind. That left Jeanine mostly defenseless, with only feet and fists for protection in the face of an unseen, unacknowledged threat.

  “Look me in the eye, Peers. Will you just … here?” She pointed at her eyes.

  Peers looked. Her eyes were brown and surprisingly soft.

  “Can I trust you?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Are you lying to me?”

  “No.”

  “Promise?”

  “Would you like me to cross my heart? Or pinky swear?”

  “Don’t fuck with me. I’m serious.”

  “Of course. Yes, I promise.”

  She sharpened her gaze. Seemed to bore her glare through the back of his skull.

  “You and me. We’re going to be straight with each other.”

  “Certainly.”

  She watched him for another few seconds then sighed as if he were an impossible buffoon who simply didn’t get her.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I hate this.”

  “What do you hate?”

  “You’re all I’ve got. You’re it. Or Charlie. Maybe Charlie. But I’ve allied with him before, and it’s like being on a softball team with one of the dugouts.”

  “I don’t understand that metaphor.”

  “Fine,” she said as if he’d begged her and she was finally relenting. “Cameron, Kindred, and Meyer are in on what’s being planned. Have to be. They kind of have a forced hand, or at least Cameron does. And Kindred and Meyer? Well, you know how they are when doing their Sherlock thing.”

  “No,” Peers said.

  “Lila’s messed up over her daughter, and Piper’s messed up over Lila. Normally I’d go to Piper. She’s had a real pulse on things lately, but right now it’s like she’s all Lila, all the time. Which I can respect, but it doesn’t exactly leave her head clear. So it’s you or Charlie or your dog.” She turned and raised her pitch an octave. “Hey, boy.”

  Nocturne, in bed, raised his head and licked his lips.

  “What are you talking about, Jeanine?”

  “Why are you here?”

  “You came to my room.”

  “I meant here in Ember Flats. Why did you come here? Why did you want to come here?”

  “I reached the same conclusions as Benjamin’s group — about the Astrals and the Ark, even when we all thought it was Thor’s Hammer. I’ve been keeping tabs on you using the Astral equipment I found in the Den. Grabbing your group and redirecting you here, where you should have gone from the beginning, on the mission you should have undertaken all along, just made sense from my perspective — and Aubrey’s, God rest his soul.”

  “You knew we already went to Sinai?”

  Peers couldn’t parse his lies from truth. He tossed the dice. “Yes.”

  “And you followed us to Derinkuyu.”

  Maybe? Sure, why not.

  “Yes.”

  “So this is all about the Ark for you. About the research because you’ve studied all this ancient aliens shit, too.”

  And now, a test. She pierced him with her stare.

  He sighed heavily. “I also wanted to kill Jabari.”

  “Still do, or no?”

  “The jury is out.” He watched her stand, sit, then cross her legs in the space of ten seconds. “Why don’t you just tell me what’s on your mind?”

  “Do you believe Jabari?”

  “About what?”

  “That she’s on our side?”

  “Like I said — the jury is out.”

  “Or that she’s part of a resistance.”

  “She did build a privacy jammer. I suppose she could have lifted it from someone else, but my gut says no. And she’s human; I do believe that much. Kindred and Clara said the same. So if I have to answer … ” He sighed, unwilling to give the woman he’d been so angry with for years any benefit of the doubt but finding himself unable to honestly do otherwise. “Then yes, I suppose I believe it. Why?”

  A final assessing stare: Jeanine trying to decide if she would take Peers into her confidence or keep whatever was bugging her private. Finally the last wall crumbled, and she sat still, wary, composing her words.

  “I just talked to Cameron, after he talked to Meyer and Kindred, along with Jabari. They have a plan in the works.”

  “To find Clara?”

  “Sort of.”

  “What does that mean: Sort of?”

  “It’s a roundabout thing. It’s ultimately for Clara, the way Cameron tells it. But … I don’t know, I just wonder if that’s the main thing or a side effect. I asked Cameron if he honestly thinks it’s wise. He said yes. He’s thought about it and is totally sure. He’s ‘convinced this is the right thing to do.’ But I don’t think he’s sure at all. I think he’s justifying because that’s what Cameron does. He’s ‘sure’ about everything even when he’s not. I think he’s trying to be strong, but it’s obnoxious because it closes him to other opinions. Like mine. But he didn’t ask me what I thought. He informed me and then got pissed when I tried to argue.

  “What’s the plan he’s so sure about? Or not, as the case may be?”

  “Do you know about the Mullah?”

  Ice chips slid down his spine. Peers stiffened then forced himself to relax. “Somewhat. From my research.”

  “The Mullah have been after us since Sinai. They’ve been trying to get Cameron’s stone key, at what seems like any cost. Hell, since we left Heaven’s Veil, it’s been more about running from the Mullah than fleeing the Astrals. Although we managed to lose them a bit — or maybe they backed off — after we’d run far enough from Ember Flats and made it clear that we weren’t going back.”

  “Why Ember Flats?”

  “Cameron and Charlie say the Mullah guard the Ark, and the Ark was moved here shortly after we found it at Sinai.”

  That wasn’t entirely true, about the Mullah guarding the Ark. In Peers’s childhood, Mullah children had all talked about the mythical archive, and they’d all known how popular myth had distorted around the Ark the way it had warped around so much else: the great flood, the plagues, the reason for the pyramids’ shape. But the Ark wasn’t his old family’s major preoccupation. Much more pressing was the portal, the vestibule, and maintaining balance with the Horsemen.

  “Okay.”

  “But those knife-happy freaks are everywhere, Peers. Especially this close to the lion’s mouth, with the Ark right next door. I guess we made a mistake by coming back, and pissed them off. One of them must have been watching us all along. Here, on Jabari’s staff. Because Cameron says the Mullah took Clara, and that’s why this ‘plan’ is necessary.”

  Peers feigned shock. Now that the plan had been mentioned a second time, he wanted to ask about it, but expressing surprise about this Mullah “revelation” seemed more important. Pretending he hadn’t seen hints inside the alien sphere pointing to Clara’s abduction by the Mullah, Peers said, “What makes you so sure it was them?”

  “They left a note. On Jabari’s pillow, while she was sleeping.”

  “Maybe it’s a hoax.”

  Jeanine shook her head. “I don’t think so. Cameron believes it, and so d
oes Charlie. They both know a lot about stuff like that. Jabari apparently knows ancient aliens too, and she believes it. More importantly, Piper, who has a knack for assessing emotion, says that Jabari really does seem to believe it, meaning she’s not bullshitting about the note. The Mullah don’t fuck around, Peers. Count yourself lucky you’ve never run into them. They don’t give up. Or bluff. They have people everywhere, like a network of spies. Someone told them about us, or they’ve got an agent right in the goddamned middle of our group.”

  Jeanine was watching Peers, but he saw nothing more accusatory than the severe expression she regularly wore.

  “What would a spy tell them about our group to make them take Clara?”

  “That Cameron has the key. And yes, I asked. He says he still has it, that Jabari’s people didn’t take it when they brought us in.” A sour look claimed her face. “Apparently a vital Astral doomsday artifact wasn’t worth confiscation like my pants.”

  “I don’t get it. Why take Clara? Why not take the key if that’s what they care about?” This time, Peers wasn’t pretending, or hiding the truth. Only the elders knew why the Mullah did what it did. The group’s position on the Ark, its key, and so much else was a crapshoot even for a man raised in the secret society.

  “Charlie and Kindred say that Cameron needs to do it. No one else.”

  “Well, yes, of course, but … ” Peers felt himself tripping over his words. Yes, Cameron probably needed to open the archive, but Jeanine’s assumptions were backward. In the absence of true elder insight, Peers had been operating for decades on the same body of evidence as Cameron and apparently Jabari. The conclusion was clear: The Mullah weren’t trying to open the Ark. It was their duty to make sure it stayed closed.

  But before he spoke, Peers thought of the portal. Of the secrets. And of what he’d often heard among the Mullah in whispers. The children could never understand the elders’ thoughts — even the most loyal adult knights couldn’t fully interpret them and would never question their conclusions no matter how strange they became.

  “But what?”

  “Well, when I talked to Charlie … I mean, Benjamin Bannister knew it!”

  “Knew what, Peers?”

  “Haven’t the Mullah been chasing you to get the key? To prevent the Ark from being opened?”

  “I’m just telling you what I know. The note says that if we want Clara, we must open the Ark.”

  “So how are they planning to get her back?”

  “By opening the Ark.”

  Peers went cold. You didn’t open what the Astrals had sealed. You weren’t supposed to shake the wasp’s nest. He’d told the group that this was their mission in Ember Flats, but it was only a means to get inside and exact his revenge on the viceroy. But those old lessons and prejudices still orbited his brain; they’d been drilled in so deeply that they’d never come out. The children weren’t to respect what the Horsemen touched. They were to avoid those things at all times — look the other direction and never turn back unless duty called.

  “I know you told Cameron he had to open it,” Jeanine said, apparently missing what was surely a horrified expression. “But has anyone told you what happened when we found it the first time?”

  “Sort of,” Peers said, figuring a vague answer offered plausible deniability.

  “Something … happened when we were there,” Jeanine said, suddenly seeming cold, arms crossing over her chest. A girl who used to travel with us … she was killed. Shot. There was an accident. But the thing is, the Ark? It … ” She sighed, now pacing, clearly disturbed. “It showed it back to us. I saw her die in my head, over and over and over. And there was this clear feeling of someone poring over every detail. Weighing it. Like a judge looking over an accident’s details. It didn’t matter that there wasn’t any fault. Someone was dead, and thus someone had to pay, the way a police report is used to determine whose insurance should cover the damage. We were all at fault. I could feel it in my bones.”

  Peers looked at Jeanine, sympathetic. He’d felt something like that, once.

  “Whatever’s in the Ark … it doesn’t like us. Maybe the Astrals are more evolved than we are, and maybe that makes us animals to them. Maybe they think they’re being fair, if the point is to judge us. Maybe they even think this is all for our own good. But I know two things, Peers: We all felt the Ark’s advance verdict when we saw it at Mt. Sinai, and based on everything I’ve ever heard anyone say, whenever the Astrals have come to this planet in the past, there’s always been some sort of extinction. They come. They judge us. And we fail. Every time.”

  Peers watched Jeanine finally sit, no longer strong and bold, no longer the leader, no longer the angry grunt with a high wall around her. Now she was only a girl. One more human being in a sea of unworthy souls.

  She’d come to him. The others were either committed or temporarily unfit. It came down to Peers — the one man who, if she truly knew him, Jeanine would trust least of all.

  “We can run,” he said. “We’ll let them open it. We’ll take Clara, and run. We can hide, deep in places like Derinkuyu. There have always been survivors. There must have been, if there’s to be a human race to judge again later.”

  “There’s no way to run,” Jeanine said. “Nowhere to go and no time to do it even if there was.”

  Peers sat across from her.

  “All right. So what do you propose?”

  “We don’t bow to the Mullah and open the Ark. Instead, we cut to the chase, and solve the problem at its source.”

  “How?”

  Jeanine fixed Peers with a dire stare.

  “We find out who the Mullah are,” she said, “and we kill them ourselves.”

  CHAPTER 42

  The next day passed.

  Then the day after that.

  Clara still hadn’t been found.

  Piper stalked the halls, searching for remnants of emotion. Sometimes she took Meyer with her because he’d walked the fine line between Astral and human. Sometimes she took Kindred because he was even more plugged into the Astral collective (or at least, he felt it at times even if it defiantly barred him), and walking with Kindred awoke a different part of Piper than time with Meyer. It was odd: The men were identical in every measurable way besides temperament, and Piper had bedded down with and been married to both — individually at first, then in the strange but also strangely fitting three-way bigamist’s paradise they’d tried after she’d found herself with duplicates. And yet her relationship with each now felt distinct, like a before and after, though neither was better or worse.

  Sometimes, she walked the halls with Lila, and often felt the strongest clues. Even with Lila, what Piper felt of Clara was like little more than a scent left behind — cinnamon tea brewed long ago in one spot, with its aroma still lingering — but finding those clues was better than nothing. Better than lying around in bed all day; better than watching videos in her room or together with the others in one of the lounges; better than accepting the staff’s offers of massages and time in the hot tub to release tension. Better, even, than sex — though Cameron dealt differently than Piper, and she didn’t blame him. Their few tumbles had taken her mind from troubles for a few minutes even if she’d been too distracted for climax.

  There was a time when Piper would have sat back and accepted the situation: Clara was being held by unfriendly forces; those forces couldn’t be found or reasoned with, in part because everyone felt sure there was a traitor among them; the chance to fulfill the ransom and free Clara was still a day away, so there was, practically speaking, no point in fretting. But that was then, and this was now. Piper was no longer that woman. She’d been little more than baggage when Meyer had dragged the family across the country to his Axis Mundi, and she’d been a mostly complicit dishrag during her two years as queen of Heaven’s Veil. For five years after she’d faced lean living, deathly challenges, heartbreak, and horror. Some of the people once dearest to her were dead. And she’d reached her limit: no
more would join them.

  Maybe Clara was unreachable. It certainly felt that way when she prowled the palace, entirely unimpeded by Jabari, her people, or the Astrals. But she wouldn’t just sit and wait to see what happened. She wouldn’t accept massages and mud-cake facials. She wouldn’t betray that little girl by giving up, or sighing and saying, “We’ll have to wait and see” like everyone else seemed to be.

  Piper seemed able to extend her emotional antennae — that curious sense of extended empathy she’d been growing while Kindred and Meyer were nurturing their hybrid mind — further out when she walked with others. But mostly, she walked alone.

  Piper stopped. Inhaled. There was nothing, literally, on the air, but she closed her eyes and allowed herself to feel the breath sliding inside her. She tried to empty her mind, to let the sense/scent come to her. And she thought, as Piper always did in the wing where they all stayed, that she could indeed feel a lingering trail of Clara’s essence. But it might also be all in her head; she might be fooling herself into believing something she desperately needed to.

  But with her eyes closed and her mind on her breath, Piper could almost feel a sense of Clara passing, as if she were scampering by on silent feet. And a feeling of …

  Companionship?

  Fellowship?

  But no, it was subtly different. This was sort of like a game. Maybe like a game of leading and following. Like hide and seek.

  But the feeling was already gone.

  Piper resumed walking. Through the kitchen. Through the second entrance to the kitchen and into the construction area. The project wing was very human. Piper saw boards and cinderblocks and bricks and compressors and buckets of cement and compounds. There was a large padlocked tool trailer just beyond the window, accessible through a closed door. The kind of thing she might have seen on any construction site before the world had ever heard of the Astrals. Before —

  (It’s this way)

  Piper stopped midstride, then slowly turned. The sense of something nearly heard or seen or felt, like an apparition’s whisper, called her back into and through the kitchen. Back to the hallway. But it wasn’t just Clara’s emotion — someone else had left something behind.