Judgment

by Sean Platt

  “Stop treating me like an idiot, Charlie. If this is armageddon, I don’t mind going out beating that look off your face.”

  “Smart. Very smart. Don’t look for a solution. Don’t try to find the others so we can get out. Just use your fists. Is that how this goes?”

  “I am looking for a solution. If you’d just listen for a second instead of mouthing off, I could—”

  Jeanine stopped when a dark, low purring sound split the air.

  Followed by a dozen or more.

  Reptars at every entrance, moving in from the outer walls. More spilled from behind, stalking forward like giant insects.

  “Shit,” Jeanine said.

  Charlie raised his hands. “We’re with the viceroy. We’re with Mara Jabari.”

  “I don’t think they care.”

  The Reptars circled. Moved closer.

  She didn’t have a weapon. There were too many to even attempt a fight. Every exit was blocked.

  So she looked down at her chest. She unbuttoned her shirt.

  “What are you doing?” Charlie asked.

  “I’m sorry I hit you, Charlie.”

  “Why … what?” He was staring at her exposed bra, distracted even from the presence of the Reptars, now only ten feet away.

  She pushed aside a flap of fabric between her breasts. Charlie’s eyes widened at the sight of the tiny grenade and its dangling pull-string.

  “Go ahead,” Jeanine said. “I’m sure you’ve never touched tits before anyway.”

  The Reptars purred.

  Charlie looked at Jeanine’s face then at the little black cylinder with its short, dangling cord. Then he met her big brown eyes again, and she nodded grimly.

  Charlie reached.

  He pulled the cord.

  CHAPTER 54

  Peers felt the whiff of air as Jeanine jumped for his foot and missed, falling to the ground in a loud mess. She’d been shouting at him about catching Ravi, but the kid was no longer the problem. He’d lost him a few turns back. Now Peers had a different destination in mind, and a single, troubling refrain kept knocking around inside his head as his feet pumped, knowing he’d have to hurry if he meant to beat the furiously ticking clock.

  The Fool.

  Peers knew all about the Seven. They had the same basic significance for Peers and his friends, back when he’d been part of the clan, as Saint Nicholas had for the kids he met after moving to London. Tales were told about all of the old legends, the ancient scrolls, the aura of prophecies. But the Seven, much like Santa, weren’t folks anyone ever expected to meet. At a certain point, they became myth. Until Astral Day came, and Peers — much as Cameron Bannister must have done, for different reasons — realized that all he’d been taught was actually true. With his eyes open, the pieces all fit. The elders hadn’t lost the thread of truth over time; the old stories fit the unfolding invasion shockingly well, nothing lost through telling and retelling of those legends. It was almost as if the elders did have an ongoing line to the Horsemen. As if the legends weren’t from a disconnected past, but as the inevitable consequence of a long, contiguous present.

  Which, of course, made sense. Outside the Mullah elders, Peers might know that better than anyone.

  They’d all studied the scrolls like other kids study multiplication tables. Some were for elder eyes only, but there were things even the children should know. Legends made it into their bedtime stories and colored their world. And now Peers was beginning to see it. Like the coming of the ships, the emergence of the Seven would be a real thing, too.

  There was the King. In the stories, he was a man with two heads. A man who could think as a pair, and as a single mind. The legend said of the King, Out of two, one. And to Peers, that spoke of the Meyers. Two bodies, not just two heads. But essentially the same.

  The Warrior. The Innocent. The Villain. The Magician. The Sage.

  And of course, there was the Fool.

  A noise came from ahead. Peers had heard it many times, but not for a long while: the deep-throated purr of Reptars. He and Aubrey had left London before the siege, and once he’d started his wandering the Astrals had stayed mostly away. They’d parted before him like the Red Sea before Moses, taking to the periphery. That had always been convenient, and finding the Den and its horde of technology had been ideal icing on the ultimate cake. But looking back, was there a reason for it?

  Peers stormed past Piper and Cameron’s room. Then past Lila and Clara’s. He felt a pang of guilt thinking of the girl, and what might have become of her. But if Ravi left the note rather than the Mullah as a whole, what did it mean? It wasn’t the threat they’d taken it to be — the threat that had sent Cameron to the Ark, that had convinced Meyer and Kindred to go along with Jabari’s plan to rock the city’s complacency from its rut. And judging by the activity outside and the purrs ahead, they’d succeeded famously if unsettling people was the goal. Ravi had said the Mullah were interested in Clara. And considering that Peers had seen her in the hallway the night Nocturne had gone wandering, she must have somehow encountered their hidey-hole. Somewhere in the tunnels, apparently accessible near the place he’d seen Clara last, not far from the room in which he’d found the Astral memory sphere. But where?

  Around a corner. And then there were two Reptars ahead, their large, black, insect/panther bodies entirely filling the hallway.

  He turned. Another was behind him.

  The Reptars purred. They came forward.

  Peers backed against the wall, sweating, swallowing, his heartbeat like the thrum of a rapid-fire tympani. The single Reptar came closer, the blue spark in its throat churning as it exhaled, death on its breath. Peers pressed back harder as if he might go through the wall itself.

  He closed his eyes, waiting for the end. He felt the huge thing press into him, rubbing him with its scaly skin. He heard the clattering of its claws, too close. Then more claws, more breath, more purring. But different now.

  Peers opened his eyes. The single Reptar had squeezed by him, and now all three were moving away, toward greener pastures and more suitable victims.

  He didn’t stop to wonder. His own room was a few doors down, so he rushed to it, turning the knob, practically falling inside. Nocturne, dutifully in his bed with a chew toy, barked a greeting. Peers closed the door then clicked the thumb lock as if a small bit of wood and thin metal might keep Reptars, Titans, or even human guards at bay. Nocturne started to come forward, tail wagging.

  Peers took two steps before the explosion knocked him to his knees, shaking the dog on his four legs, confusion entering his deep brown eyes.

  Jesus. Hurry.

  Whatever was happening out there was falling apart fast. It wouldn’t take hours or days for Ember Flats to eat itself alive; it would be done in clusters of minutes. He shouldn’t even be here. He should already be searching for the tunnels out of this place, ideally for Meyer and Kindred — who, he was now suspecting, were either his ticket out of here or his duty to shepherd safely away. But he could afford the diversion — or rather, he couldn’t afford not to take it. The diversion would take only a second. Then he could find Jeanine, apologize, maybe let her punch him in the face. He’d almost welcome it. She could be the muscle for what came next; the Meyers could be the leaders; Charlie could be the brain. Peers would be happy to coast. To try and find a way out then sit back and let others get them away. Which, of course, they would.

  Because everyone knew the King survived.

  If a few Reptars ran into the King in a hallway, they wouldn’t attack. They’d just … squeeze by him or something.

  Same for any of the Seven.

  Peers shook off a creeping feeling he’d been trying to shed by pouring all of his focus into catching Ravi after he’d inexplicably become afraid and run away. The feeling was the reason Peers followed. An itch that needed scratching even though he wanted to leave it alone.

  He pulled a bag from the corner and fumbled under the bed while Nocturne recovered his wits and c
ame forward, tail still wagging, wet nose investigating Peers’s busy arms. The molding came away easily, and he had the sphere out in seconds. No point in covering his tracks; the device was now mobile, and if anyone learned he’d been hiding something under the bed, so be it.

  He hefted the sphere, moving it toward the bag’s open mouth.

  He thought of Ravi. Of how he’d held them at gunpoint then turned and run. Why had that happened? Peers had been talking about locks, like the one he’d opened to get the sphere. It wasn’t hard to open them even though the elders all had those fancy key rings. Poke three points in the inverted-Triforce keyholes, and doors opened easy as pie.

  And sure, he’d been the only one of the kids who could do it, after he’d discovered how easy it was. He’d remained Mullah for two full weeks between realizing he could open those locks and being ejected, and during that time all the others he’d shown could never get the hang of it. Only Peers. But that was because he had the knack, not because there was something about Peers, in particular, that let him open locks that ought not be opened.

  Just like there was nothing about Peers, in particular, that would cause angry Reptars to pass him by while similar Reptars were out in the streets, ripping people to shreds.

  Ravi’s wide eyes. The change in his expression, after Peers had made a few nothing mentions of events long ago.

  Ravi’s words. His shock. His fleeing feet.

  Peers was setting the sphere in the bottom of the backpack as his mind wondered, What made Ravi run? What was he afraid of?

  Peers felt a static charge rush through his fingertips, locking his muscles. He froze where he was, knowing he now couldn’t drop the sphere if he wanted to. Not now that he’d asked the right question.

  The lights went out.

  The sphere answered.

  CHAPTER 55

  They heard and felt the explosion with Meyer, Kindred, and Jabari in sight. Lila barely knew where she was, but Piper seemed to have no such hesitation. After a few turns through the serpentine palace with her hand in Piper’s, Lila had asked her why she thought to find the others at all, considering they’d been across town minutes before, and now the town itself was burning. Piper had said, “I can hear them.” Funny thing was that Lila could almost hear them, too. But it wasn’t quite auditory. Like a voice behind a curtain, far away, calling her forward. Her fathers’ voices.

  The trio ahead shook with the explosion, Kindred foundering and grabbing a hallway accent table for support. Lila staggered wide, barely staying upright. But Piper barely trembled; her face showed no surprise. She’d stopped and grabbed a doorframe a half second earlier, braced, absorbed the shock as if she’d known it was coming.

  “They’re here already,” Mara said, looking toward the sound. “We may be too late.”

  Piper shook her head. “No. It was Jeanine and Charlie. They’re gone. Whatever they did, they chose to do it. Cameron’s gone, too.”

  Jabari looked like she might ask the most obvious questions, but there wasn’t any time for mourning or regret. Instead she said, “Do we know if he opened the Ark?”

  Piper nodded. “Can’t you feel it?”

  Lila broke free of Piper and rushed to the red-tie Meyer, unsure in the moment which it was. It didn’t matter. She hugged him hard then switched to the other.

  “Thank God you’re okay. I thought—”

  The man in the red tie — Kindred, Lila now saw — said, “Have you found Clara?”

  Lila felt a second’s intense despair, but Piper interrupted her moment to answer.

  “Clara is fine.”

  “Did they let her go?”

  “No. But she’s fine.”

  “If they didn’t release her … ”

  “It was a trick. The Mullah have her, but she’s not in danger.”

  Jabari shook her head, eyes squinted. “Where are you getting this?”

  “I can hear her.”

  “Where?”

  “Everywhere.”

  To Lila: “What’s she talking about? Did something … ?” Then the viceroy kind of ticked her head sideways, an uncomfortable expression on her face — one meant to ask if Piper was losing her mind.

  “Cameron did something,” Piper said. “That’s all I know. Now, it’s like I can hear everything.”

  Lila looked to Meyer, who came forward. He took Piper’s hands, met her eyes, then nodded in a businesslike way and stepped back. He nodded to Kindred next, and Lila watched knowledge flow between them.

  Jabari, observing the exchange, glared at each of the suited men in turn. “Don’t you two play coy on me now.”

  Kindred answered. “I think all of Ember Flats has been able to sense the Ark on some level for hours now, maybe days. Maybe the whole world has been able to. But now that it’s open, it’s like the light’s been flicked on.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Every time in the past, the Astrals came expecting a planet that had learned to tap into its higher mind. This time, we surprised them. We hadn’t developed a higher mind at all, at least not consciously. So they used the rock lines. The henges around the capitals. And now there’s the Ark.”

  “I thought it was an archive.”

  “We gave Ember Flats something to be angry about. It’s feeding the Ark, and the Ark feeds that energy right back at us, repeated out into the other capital cities as a broadcast the Astrals haven’t bothered to kill. They’re letting us do this. Humanity gets angry, sad, full of despair, whatever. But instead of thoughtfully planning a response after learning about Heaven’s Veil, humanity chooses to fight and riot. You saw it. Hell, we barely escaped. It’s Astral Day all over.”

  “What does Astral Day have to do with it?” Lila asked.

  Meyer put a hand on her shoulder. It was almost condescending, but Lila let it be.

  “Every time they test us, we behave poorly. We trample each other to get where we need to go. We fight and kill and steal. It happened that first day, when the ships came, and it’s starting to happen again. If the Ark is meant to record our responses and weigh our fate, I don’t know that we’ll pass.”

  “Then why did you — ?”

  Kindred interrupted, his eyes scanning the room, his tone decidedly less placating and sentimental than Meyer’s. “Because it cuts both ways. Now that the tempest is out of the box, the stalemate is broken. Piper’s already changing. Maybe, once the dust settles and humans find they’re more connected than they thought, there will be something we can do. But I don’t think things went our way. I can feel it from both sides: human, like Piper, and Astral. If this was a trial, we’ve already been found guilty. The lit-up human network seems to be pouring minds into the archive, but we can see each other more than ever through that same network.”

  “Come with me,” Jabari said, breaking the mood that threatened to freeze them in place as the city burned. “We thought this might be coming.” She waved at Piper, Lila, and both Meyers. “Come on. All of you.”

  “But Clara!” Lila said.

  “She’s safer than we are, Lila,” Piper said.

  Lila felt her arm yanked hard as they went back on the move, now running with Jabari leading in her long, formal viceroy gown. Through the windows, Lila could see groups of people swarming past, fires burning, Reptars on patrol, shuttles flying by like in the early days of Heaven’s Veil. And what Piper and Kindred had said was true, now that Lila tuned in to her own heavy-handed intuition: She could hear the others out there; she could sense the mood; she did feel that heavy sense of a judgment gone wrong. Not as deeply as Piper seemed to, but the feeling was there. And below it all, she feared for her daughter. Not as a logical being but as a mother. No matter how you sliced it, Clara had been taken from her, and nobody knew where she’d gone.

  They moved into an unknown hallway, through an unmarked door. The room was filled with screens and computers. It was like a tiny version of Peers’s Den, only in a room instead of a cave, using human technology instead of Astral.
/>   Jabari was about to close the door when she paused, hand on the knob. Then, with the door still open, she walked slowly back into the hallway as if she’d spotted something and wanted to get a closer look. Across from the unmarked door was a gallery of windows. Outside, beyond a lush expanse of grass, Lila could see nothing but an outer wall and open sky beyond. There was nothing of the city from this vista. Were it not for the sounds all around and the murmurings in her head, this might be just another peaceful night in the Capital of Capitals.

  Beyond, Lila could see something moving.

  “Ms. Jabari?” Lila said, approaching her.

  But Jabari was shaking her head.

  “It’s too late,” she said.

  CHAPTER 56

  A teen boy of about fourteen stood in front of Peers. It took a while to realize he was staring at himself.

  There was a grating, a grumbling from somewhere behind him. A sort of shifting sound, nothing to worry about. Peers remembered it well, from when he’d been the boy in this vision. One of the big doors closing, or possibly opening. Judging by where they (both adult and boy) were standing, Peers was sure he remembered the day, and why the doors might be moving, though some typically stayed open and others closed, all seldom moved. Today the Mullah was rallying defenses, aware of an intrusion. The adults were scurrying about the tunnels like busy bees rallying to rise and sting.

  And in so doing, they’d left the temple unguarded.

  Well, mostly unguarded. Sabah, one of the elders, had remained at his station when the others ran off. Peers had watched him for a while, hidden, and only recently, as Adult Peers understood the timeline, had he taken a short break to relieve his bladder.

  Watching now as full-grown Peers, he remembered his thoughts on that long-ago day, now around two decades behind him. He hadn’t meant to do anything, not really. But he’d been curious, as he’d always been, and you usually couldn’t even approach the temple, let alone enter. There were all sorts of pain-in-the ass adults milling about and telling nosy kids to get away, to mind their parents and whatever dumb tasks they were supposed to be doing. The kids had many chores. Peers had spoken to children from the outside world, who didn’t live in caves and holes in the ground, worshipping old scrolls and performing ancient rituals. He knew enough about the world beyond these stone walls to know that Peers was dealing with slavery, no more or less. Screw the adults and especially the elders. The soldier ants had to do all the grunt work, while those in the know held their secrets and chanted in circles, probably, laughing about how they ran things and could make others — most particularly Peers and his friends — do whatever they wanted.