by Sean Platt
Meyer’s hand on Kindred’s upper arm, surprising him enough to make him jump.
“What’s wrong with you?” Meyer asked, his voice a near-whisper.
Kindred, startled enough that his emotions fell to neutral, turned to Meyer. It was like looking in a mirror except that Kindred, during their time in the basement, had shaved whereas Meyer hadn’t — probably planning to regrow his salt-and-pepper beard. But why wouldn’t Kindred shave? Life went on. And if he needed to shave again now that things had gone red, he’d lather up and shave with blood. It’d be very pagan. Very manly.
“Nothing’s wrong with me.”
“Bullshit. You’re all pissed. You’re making it hard to concentrate.”
“What do you need so badly to concentrate on?”
“Peers.”
“What about him?”
For the second Meyer spent glaring, Kindred thought his double might slap or shake him. But then Meyer’s incredulous look became words, and he said, “I’ve been in your head for a half hour at least about this. You haven’t noticed?”
“I’ve been preoccupied.”
“I gathered. About the Ark? But who cares? It’s open. It’s over.”
Even having this discussion was proof of how much things had soured. Normally there was no need to whisper because anything that required whispering could be done in their shared mind. Meyer had gained intense human insight during his time in captivity, and Kindred was supposed to be their Astral half, able to access the motherships and Divinity, even if only partway. Together their shared headspace was like a room full of supercomputers. At least that’s the way it was supposed to be, with interoffice memos passed between them below the level of conscious thought. Meyer’s presence in that shared space — borrowing from Kindred’s mind, basically — without him noticing? That was troubling. And the way Meyer seemed not to understand why the Ark still troubled Kindred? That was troubling, too.
“Tell me why you’re concentrating on Peers,” Kindred said, deflecting Meyer’s question.
“You’ve seen the scenarios. You’ve seen the conclusions.”
Kindred looked inside. Yes, Meyer had begun assembling their usual scenarios, but the quiet part of Kindred’s mind didn’t seem to have been terribly involved. They’d be weak logical arguments at best, but it also meant that Kindred wouldn’t have a clue, without delving in, as to what they even were.
“Pretend I haven’t.”
Meyer gave him a look.
“Just spell it out. I’m an auditory learner sometimes.”
The look persisted. But after another few steps down the long hallway, lagging farther behind Piper, Lila, and Peers at their group’s head, Meyer complied.
“Peers is hiding something.”
“We knew that.”
“He knows far too much without logical roots. He’s making assumptions about Clara and the Mullah with nuances that would only come from experience.”
“You think he took her?”
“No.”
“He was in on it,” Kindred said.
Meyer paused. Apparently he was having trouble accepting that now was the first time Kindred was hearing any of this. “Not necessarily.”
“What, then?”
“He might be Mullah.”
“In which case?”
“We’re headed to tunnels only Peers knows about. Tunnels. Tubes underground in which we could be easily surrounded. The Mullah have been trying to catch us, but we’ve always managed to get away. Maybe this is their chance, and Peers is their tool.”
“So we shouldn’t go.”
“You really haven’t looked at the scenarios?”
“Just tell me, dammit.”
“Given the alternative, it’s still the best option. But there are other questions. His nerves, for one. And some of his biometrics. He’s sweating too much. His pupils are dilated. His pulse is up. I can hear it, for fuck’s sake. And that makes us think that he’s hiding something beyond being Mullah. Something more present than a plot to trap us.”
Kindred noticed Meyer’s use of the word “us,” as if Kindred had been involved in the analysis. He let it go.
“What’s the assessment?”
“Guilt.”
“Guilt over what?”
“It’s hard to say. That’s why we’re concentrating on watching him — so we can see if it’s guilt that makes him dangerous or guilt that will make him helpful. Perhaps he’s guilty because he was involved in Clara’s abduction and now he plans to make amends. Or maybe it’s something bigger. My money’s on something bigger. But I can’t really tell because I keep trying to concentrate, and all I hear is your bitching. About the Ark.”
“It’s been on my mind.”
“Why?”
Kindred glanced at Meyer. If there was one person he could be honest with, it was Meyer. But in the end they weren’t actually the same person. Meyer was human, and Kindred — despite all he’d been forced to go through — was still Astral. The minute he admitted to being more angry than sympathetic toward humans, the group would turn on him. What was happening in Ember Flats? It was Us versus Them. Only perimeter security had kept the hordes out of the palace so far, but the power wouldn’t stay on forever. Then the obnoxious, panicky human assholes would come inside, too, with little patience for Astrals of any shape or size — especially if they seemed to be losing a grip on what had made them human-ish in the first place.
“It’s just another datum for our scenarios,” Kindred lied.
“Seems like a big datum. And I’m not even seeing your mind inside.”
Kindred forced himself to focus. He entered the mindspace. He felt Meyer join him, and together their mental selves moved to the cognitive planning tables to work scenarios about Peers and his potential plans.
“Better?” Kindred said.
Meyer watched him for a long moment. His beard was already noticeably back, stubble dark and obvious. Humans were so damned hairy. This one in particular.
“Good enough,” Meyer answered.
At the group’s head, Peers stopped. Piper and Lila paused behind him, and Meyer and Kindred brought up the rear. They all looked forward at nothing. The wall at the group’s head looked ordinary enough to Kindred, but it seemed special to Peers — and after a few moments’ searching he popped open a concealed panel under the baseboard. Kindred bent forward to assess it. Inside the panel was what looked like a very strange keyhole: an inverted triangle made of three smaller inverted triangles.
Peers pulled a keyring from his pocket. Kindred half expected him to brandish a key to match the strange hole, but instead he made three of the normal-looking keys into tips and touched them all to the contact points as if hoping to short-circuit a mechanism.
There was a grumbling of stone on stone. A section of wall moved back, separating from its neighbors at cleverly concealed gaps in the panels.
Below was a tunnel lined in ancient-looking stone, lit by what seemed to be dangling, naked bulbs.
One by one they descended.
Then, as they walked the tunnel at a fair clip, Kindred’s natural ability to mesh with Meyer’s mind returned, and they both repeated the same conclusion, one to the other.
There is only ahead and behind. There is no way to escape if we are surrounded, and none of us but Peers knows where we might be going.
This is a Mullah place.
And even now, I can hear them stirring.
CHAPTER 18
The Lightborn children moved toward one end of the big room with all its tiny, nomadic living spaces, centering on a tall teenage boy that had to be Logan. To Clara, the movement seemed to be unspoken, unannounced — almost instinctual. Nobody had called them together. It was simply happening.
But the message hadn’t reached Clara and didn’t seem to have reached Nick. Ella had moved on with the others, but Nick was still facing Clara as the others passed them, unheeding. The others must not be hearing either of their minds, either, because n
one perked up as they passed. They were all focused on something, and no distraction, for anyone, seemed loud enough to cause a diversion.
“What do you mean, ‘expected plagues’? What kind of a ‘show’?”
“It’s just a feeling I get.”
Nick moved closer. He used his voice, but Clara could feel his thoughts reaching out as well, grabbing her by a mental arm, gripping it too tightly.
“I get it. I’m asking, what’s the feeling?” It was more a demand than a question. Like Clara herself, Nick acted older than his years when compared to non-Lightborns. They were like a tribe of stunted adults. Pods grown to age fifteen or more before the day they entered the world.
Clara looked around, uncomfortable. Her words were like a confession to clear the air of secrets and mental withholdings, but she hadn’t thought it would strike Nick as a surprise. They were all gifted. They could all see, hear, and sense things on the air that the others couldn’t. Clara had wanted to toss in the helpful information that seemed missing from the Lightborn Collective, but it hadn’t dawned on her that they’d have sighted none of it.
Clara stammered to catch up.
“The … the voices I hear. They seem to say … ”
“Like the voice from earlier? From on our way over, when you stopped on the street like you were listening?”
“No. This is different.” And yet that voice was back as well. Or one an awful lot like it. Something inside her mind was rising, building steam. Did the others feel the same thing, or was she alone in that, too? She’d finally found a group of like minds who wouldn’t see her as a freak. But was she strange even within the Lightborn? A freak among the freaks?
“Clara?” Nick prompted when she stalled. There was urgency in the air, like the building of a static charge. That, all of them seemed able to feel. Clara saw it in her mind like a timer ticking to zero. It was why the others were going to Logan, the reason Nick sounded so rushed and impatient.
“Chatter. You can’t hear chatter?”
“I hear the others in this room.”
“What about the others outside this room?”
“You’re saying you hear other Lightborn?” Nick’s raised eyebrows told Clara all she needed to know: They only knew those in the city. Another reason she’d never sensed collectives before now. They were local. Except that now that Clara knew what to listen for, she could swear there were ever more on the air.
Freak among the freaks.
She shook the thought away.
“No. I mean like the siren. From before the blood. When we knew something was about to happen?”
“Yeah … ”
“That’s it! That’s all I mean: like before, when we knew it was coming.”
“Ella and I knew something was coming before the blood. Not what it was.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Did you know, Clara? Did you know the water would turn to blood?”
The technical answer was no. She hadn’t know that the citizens of Ember Flats were turning on taps and stepping into baths made of liquid that would clot at the edges. But the story behind the story had been clear as day. The gist of her mind’s translation?
Let’s see how they react to this.
Even now, thinking back, Clara could see those moments from a distance. There weren’t specific words — at least not in English — but there was meaning and intent. There was curiosity, and dispassion. It hadn’t felt like punishment. It hadn’t felt like the Bible’s portrayal of ancient Egyptian plagues. Even now, it felt more like a science experiment. The mood behind the chatter was investigation and analysis, not retribution.
“No.”
“But you knew something.”
“You didn’t?”
“I told you. No.”
“Why is it a big deal?”
Clara jarred something in Nick. Maybe he sensed her agitation — the feeling of being accused. So he let go a little, and the mental grip Clara felt on her mental arm relaxed.
“Look. You’re different. Ella already sorta told you that, but the more time you spend here, the more obvious it becomes. To all of us.”
Clara looked toward the assembling knot of Lightborn. Logan must have been standing on something in the group’s middle because he was above them all, his head as high as someone seven or eight feet tall. The others kept glancing back at her. Curious, yes. But maybe afraid.
“Maybe it’s because you haven’t been around other Lightborn, or because you’re Viceroy Dempsey’s granddaughter. But you shone so bright we had to go out and get you. It’s not like light from the others. I can see into you just fine. But there’s … more.”
“More how?”
“That kid? From earlier? Cheever. He’s gifted. And nosy. Normally, people can’t keep secrets from him if he really wants to know them.”
“I’m not trying to keep secrets!”
“I’m not saying you are,” Nick said, subtly patting the air between them. “I’m saying that you puzzled him the way you’re puzzling the others whether you realize it or not.”
“I realize, all right,” Clara said, again looking toward the group. Toward Logan, who was now looking right at them.
“Point is, whatever you’re talking about with the plagues and the Astrals, I haven’t seen it in our hive. That means the others haven’t either. From where I’m standing, there was a warning, then the water turned to blood. But now you’re talking about a show. You’re talking like there’s something else behind it all.”
“I don’t know. Maybe there is.”
“Like how?” Nick asked.
“I don’t know, Nick.”
“You brought it up!”
Clara’s patience broke. Her voice rose, and heads turned. “I don’t know! I don’t know! I just get a feeling, but I can’t tell you what it is, okay?”
“Try. Just … try.”
“Okay. Do you know how people say, It’s not what you said; it’s how you said it?”
“Yeah. My mom used to say that to my dad all the time. Usually right before he got himself in trouble.”
Clara smiled; the tension softened. “It’s like that. I don’t really hear words, but I get the vibes behind them. And with the siren thingy we heard … I can’t explain why, but I was pretty sure it was them talking to them like it was time for something to happen.”
“For water to turn to blood.”
“No.” She groped for the internal word then found one that would make her mother’s eyes roll, because it sounded like something a twentysomething might say. “It was more meta than that.”
“How?”
“Like it was time for the test to start. Or the next test.”
“What test?”
“I don’t know. I only get little bits.”
“But … you think the blood is like a test?”
“A test or a show.”
“A show?”
“Yeah. Like a performance. That’s what I meant when I said the plagues are expected. They’re like something out of an old movie about Judgment Day. Or at least Moses and pharaohs and stuff. And I just … ” She shook her head, frustrated. “I can’t say why, but it’s like they’re all whispering behind their hands, like, Don’t let them see the wires.”
“Wires?”
“Like in an old space movie where the fake spaceships were held up by wires.”
“I’ve never seen any old movies. I didn’t grow up in a palace.”
Clara wondered if that was a jab. She let it go. “But you get the idea?”
“Kinda. So what does it mean? What do we do?”
That was a great question. Clara didn’t know how to answer, and the strange voice she’d sensed all day offered no help. Even the new, distant collection of others she seemed to hear — human, not Astral — had no idea. The last was new. Just one more thing she couldn’t integrate, that made her feel like she was losing her mind. Maybe telepathy-blocking stone walls weren’t a bad thing. Maybe, in the pas
t, they were the only thing keeping her sane.
“I don’t know.”
“If the blood and stuff is only an act, what’s behind it? What are the Astrals really up to?”
“I don’t know.”
“Clara, I can’t help if you don’t — ”
Nick stopped when the great grinding came from above. All the electronic devices in the room emitted a squeal so intense and piercing, every child winced and curled inward, fingers jamming into ears, faces contorting in pain.
There was a bark of static. A roar of electronic disruption belched from every tablet, every tiny juke — even, seemingly, the light fixtures keeping the warehouse space from darkness.
There was a pregnant pause while everyone stopped to listen, from Logan to Ella to Cheever. Inside Clara’s mind, she heard Nick whisper, Clara, what should we do?
Another tiny bark of electronic disruption. Then three short beeps, like a forthcoming communication clearing its throat.
Clara gave the only answer she could, fake plagues or no:
Whatever they’re about to tell us.
Then the lights went out, and Clara saw only blackness.
CHAPTER 19
Peers felt the memory sphere’s weight, clunking against his back with every step. It looked heavier than it was. That was good. The way it kept wagging around in his pack — alone except for a few small supplies and the sheet he’d wrapped it in before making his way from his palace room — it’d be crippling. But as things stood, it was merely uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable because it kept whacking his shoulder blades.
And uncomfortable because with each passing minute, it became clearer and clearer that the others knew he was keeping something from them.
Lila and Piper kept eyeing his pack. They wouldn’t demand he open it — yet. But the deception had gone on for too long — he couldn’t reveal the sphere now. Without a reason to broach his secret, it would come off terribly. Even with an excuse it would probably be awful. Lila kept staring at his pack as if it held a bloody machete, and with the big, fat, round way it looked, there was little denying he had something more than toothpaste. The longer nobody asked him to open it, the longer he didn’t show them. The longer he didn’t show them, the more it would look like he’d been deliberately hiding it when the secret finally came out.
