“Stamp,” I cry, lurching for him.
Vera yanks me back again.
“It’s okay, Stamp,” I say from the sidelines. “You’re safe now. It’ll all be fine.”
He offers me a small smile before the Sentinels gather him up. They are rough, and the anger starts in the back of my throat, a kind of low, dull hum.
Dad notices and reaches for my hand.
“Maddy, I’m sorry.”
Vera looks down at us both, a note of sadness in her voice. “Dr. Swift, I assure you, you have no idea what sorry means, but you will.”
I stand, turning to her. “What does that mean?”
She swivels, signaling to the Sentinels. In less than ten seconds, I have my hands behind my back again, my wrists tied. We all do: Stamp, Dad, and I. They lead us out of the shattered lab. The Sentinels in the halls pause, letting us pass, watching us with hooded eyes.
They take us back to that long passageway, the dark one with all the cages. They put Dad in the first one, skip one, put Stamp in the third, skip one, and put me in the fifth.
I notice Vera’s not with us. She must’ve stayed behind in the lab.
The Sentinels lock us in and storm off.
All but one. A tall, grim specimen who looks like he’s been dead a long, long time. He watches us carefully, looking from one to the next, then back again.
I look down the hall, to the first cage. “Dad?”
He mumbles something that sounds like sorry twice, then nothing more.
“Dad!” I need him to talk to me.
After the third or fourth “Dad!” Stamp turns to me, eyes yellowy black. “Leave him alone,” he hisses, inching as close to me as his cage will allow. “He’ll talk when he’s ready. Can’t you see he’s not ready?”
Chapter 8
“Be Careful What You Wish For . . .”
They come for Dad first.
It’s night. Or day. I can’t really tell anymore. I tried counting for a while but gave up after I got all the way to 4,987 seconds and Stamp said something pointless to wreck my concentration.
We’ve been showered and fed in preparation of our appointment, as Vera keeps calling it. Now we’re in gray hospital scrubs, all of us, even Dad. His are a little snug, and he keeps fussing with his shirt where it rests awkwardly on his little potbelly. Every time he does, my eyes go to the plastic ties around his wrists and I wince, half guilty, half angry.
Guilty for bringing him to Sentinel City in the first place; angry that they think he had something to do with Val escaping. It’s been less than a day since the first team of Sentinels yanked me out of the library, which means this must be a pretty big deal. I don’t think the Elders usually move this fast.
The Elders don’t stay here at Sentinel City all the time. They’re too valuable to keep all in one place—in case the Zerkers ever found out. Dane says they’re from all over the south—Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina—so they must have some pull to get here this fast. Either that or a few private jet pilot zombies on standby at all times.
“Maddy?” Dad says in a trembling voice, the first word he’s spoken to me since they caged him.
It’s hard to hear over the clanging of the keys and the door and the clattering of the Sentinels’ shoulder pads.
“Honey,” he shouts, high and strange. I can’t tell if he’s mad or scared. “I’m fine. Don’t worry. I didn’t do anything wrong. Nothing’s going to happen to me. To Stamp. To you. Nothing at all.”
“I know,” I shout, wishing Stamp would move out of the way a little so I could get a better view of what’s happening. I hear the clomping of the Sentinels’ boots, the jingling of keys, Dad grunting as they drag him out roughly, the way they do everything all the time.
I see a shock of gray hospital scrubs amidst all the Sentinel black, the back of Dad’s balding head, but that’s about it.
“Vera,” I shout, seeing a flash of powder-blue beret in the mix. But as I inch closer to my door, I see it’s not her at all, just some other Keeper who doesn’t even look back as Dad’s pulled away.
“Dad! Say something.”
But he never does. Or, if he does, they have him muzzled or, worse, a Sentinel is clamping his dead hand over his mouth, which isn’t much fun when your lips are the same temperature but has to be absolutely grosstastic when you’re 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
The Sentinels never frisked me. I don’t know if that was Vera’s doing or if it was because I’m a girl or if they’re just lazy, but either way I still have my Eliminator on me, wedged into the little fold at the top of my hospital scrubs. Although I can’t reach it with my hands tied in front of me this time, I can rub my wrist against it every so often. I know it probably wouldn’t help against a team of Sentinels, but it makes me feel good just to have it there, slim, sturdy, and violent.
I pace my cage. The hall’s empty except for Stamp, who paces with me.
“Quit doing that,” I hiss.
He gives me his surprised look, as if he didn’t think I’d get ticked off at him matching me step for step. “I will when you will.”
So I stop, thinking he’ll lose interest, like a kid you’ve played peekaboo with too long and now they want to play Marco Polo and then hide-and-seek. But I can’t stand still and start pacing again. He follows, loping with his long cricket legs.
God, how I wish he were the old Stamp, even the jerk Stamp I lived with in Orlando. At least I could talk to him then, in between the living skanks he rotated through like a rock star. A cup of coffee here, a morning walk there, a break between performances of the Great Movie Monster Makeover Show. We could at least converse, share a few civil words, even a smile, though we were exes.
I try, just to see what might happen. I stop pacing and lean toward the bars of my cage that are closest to his. “What do you think they’re doing to him, Stamp?”
He stops too, leaning in. “Doing what? To who?”
I stare back at him, unblinking. “To Dad. To my dad, who’s been taking care of you all this time.”
He nods, eyes growing small. “I know that.” Then, a few seconds later, “I knew that already.”
I grunt. So much for that. I turn to pace again.
He mumbles something.
“What’d you say, Stamp?”
He glowers at me. “I said, I wonder how he likes it in a cage.”
I smack the bars, close to his face.
He doesn’t flinch. Not even a little.
“That’s not nice, Stamp. Not nice at all.”
He doesn’t say anything.
I turn, afraid I will. Then I turn back: “He was just trying to protect you. That whole time. Me too.”
He glares back, indifferent, unmoving.
I wave him off and walk away.
We pace some more, maybe a few minutes, maybe a few hours. It’s hard to tell with no windows or watches or doors. I hear the clomping of Sentinel boots down the hall before he does, so I’m watching his face until—pop—his eyes open wide when at last he hears them too.
“Hey,” he says, moving closer. “Hey, Maddy, I’m . . . I’m sorry.” His fingers are out as far as they will stretch from his side of the cage.
I push mine out until our fingertips touch the outside of the empty cage between us, barely. It’s almost like we’re really touching. Better, probably. Less sad this way than feeling his cold skin against my own.
“I know you are.”
“Away,” a Sentinel says, rattling his keys to open Stamp’s door.
I back up, thinking it might be better for Stamp, but now he clings to the bars of his cage, looking at me, eyes wide as the Sentinels pry him off and drag him out the door.
I expect him to cry out, but once he leaves the cage, a sense of calm seems to wash over him and he never turns back.
The blur of black Sentinel shoulder pads and Stamp’s bristly hair masks a quiet blue presence lurking at the end of the hall.
It inches forward after Stamp’s removal
.
“Vera?” I ask, sagging against the bars as if the afterlife’s just gone out of me.
I told myself I’d be strong. That whatever was happening, I’d be tough for Dad and Stamp. I’d act like I knew what was going on, that it was all normal procedure: nothing to see here, move on. But after Dad left and didn’t come back, and now Stamp, I’ve got nothing left.
I just slouch there and wait for her to say something, anything.
“Yes, Maddy.” She appears across from my cage door, leaning against the off-white cinder block wall.
“Where’s Dad? Where are they taking Stamp?”
“For sentencing. The Council of Elders is giving sentence. You know that. I told you.”
I stand up straight, pacing again. “And what’s the sentence?”
She shifts against the wall. “You know I can’t tell you that.”
“Then why are you here? If you can’t tell me anything, I mean.”
“I came to check on you. Before . . .”
I stop pacing.
She pushes off the wall, steps closer.
We both hear the Sentinel boots trudging down the hall toward us.
“Before they come for you.” She sounds almost glad.
I look to the right of me, to the empty cages where Dad and then Stamp once stood. Before they came for them.
“I’m not coming back here, am I?”
She shakes her head, looking toward the Sentinels’ footsteps.
“Good.” I’m pressed against the bars now, her face an arm’s reach away if only I could fit more than a few fingers between these stupid bars and wire mesh. “Because whatever happens, Vera—outside these bars, down that hall, with the Elders, whatever it is, whatever the sentence—no one’s ever going to put me in a cage again.”
Vera looks at me as she opens the door, voice as cold as her ashy skin. “Be careful what you wish for.”
Chapter 9
Vanished
There are no CPR dummies in the gym this time. The air of finality that fills the vast room means there probably aren’t going to be a whole lot of CPR dummies in my future.
Midafternoon sunlight filters in from the windows high above the raised basketball hoops. Vera and a team of Sentinels lead me inside so slowly, as if we’re at some kind of funeral or something. And maybe we are. Who knows?
As always, I shiver at the sight of the withered Elders seated at the far end of the gym at fold-up picnic tables well below their station in life, or afterlife. Behind them, just as with the first time we were introduced, stands an elite team of what I call Super Sentinels, kind of like Elder Bodyguards. All they do is follow the Elders around.
The Elders watch me approach, hands tied in front of me. The room is eerily silent except for the squawking of my shoes on the varnished gym floor. There is a single chair set up in front of the Council, and the Sentinels lead me to it.
I picture Dad walking in, sitting in this same chair. Looking at the Elders’ skeletal faces and long, veiny necks, their coal-black eyes and popcorn-yellow teeth. What did they say to him? How did he respond?
Knowing Dad, he probably approached the meeting in a clinical manner, studying their skin, their nostrils, their eyelashes, wondering if I might look like that in three or four hundred years. The thought of Dad analyzing the Elders even as they chastised him almost makes me smile.
And then I think of Stamp. Right here in this chair. Did he know what was happening to him? Has he figured it out yet? And the $64,000 question: where did they both go after the Elders gave sentence?
The six Elders stare back at me, glossy eyes bulging out of their shrunken heads, frail but menacing in their identical white pajamas. I know they’re probably not really pajamas, but that’s what they look like—either that or karate uniforms, and why would they wear those?
Vera stays standing by my side after the Sentinels have shoved me into the chair and stepped away. She looks down at me, but I ignore her, so I don’t know if she’s scowling or shaking her head or what. Eventually, she approaches the Sentinels.
She turns and points to me (as if she could possibly be talking about anyone else; the bleachers, maybe?). “The third and final prisoner, gentlemen.” That sounds so Vera. So precise, so clipped, so accurate.
They nod slowly, some imperceptibly.
One of the Elders in the center grunts. “What is she accused of, Keeper?” His voice is crackly.
I squirm a little and look away, but I can’t miss any of this, because who knows when I might see the Elders again? Or anyone else, for that matter?
I sit up a little, hoping to hear Vera better.
“Maddy is the reason Dr. Swift, who allowed the Zerker to escape, is here, Elder.”
“How is that possible, Keeper?”
“Elder, he is her father.”
The Elder, who is obviously the ringmaster here, is fleshier than the rest, which means that rather than being 500 years old maybe he’s only 300. He wears a blond wig. A good one but a blond one. I’ll call him Blondie for that.
Blondie says, “How is it that she brought him here?”
“For protection, sir.”
“You know all this,” I shout, rising.
Sentinels come out of nowhere to shove me into my seat.
“This is not news! You allowed him to stay here with me. He’s a doctor! Even better, he’s a coroner. You wanted his help studying the Zerk—”
“Silence,” says Blondie, never raising his voice but implying all kinds of violence with those buggy eyes and bulging veins. “Prisoners are not to speak unless spoken to. Keeper, what of the girl? What did she do to help the Zerker escape?”
Vera turns to me, looking hesitant. Then she turns back to Blondie. “Elder, Maddy knew her father took the Zerker out of her cage at night for additional studies without the consent or consultation of trained Sentinels assigned to guard her. Maddy knew the danger and, despite being in Keeper training, never reported it.”
Blondie nods, looking left, then right. One by one, though it takes a while, the other Elders nod.
“Maddy,” says Blondie, pointing to me, his finger skeletal and bone pale just like the Ghost of Christmas Future in that old movie Dad made me watch with him every December. “Rise.”
I jump up and stand in place, but something’s not right. Everyone is still looking at me funny. Nobody’s saying anything, and it feels like I’m forgetting something.
Vera cuts me a look and nods toward the table.
I gulp and nod back and walk to where she’s been standing this whole time.
Up close, Blondie looks even worse. The skin of his nose has pulled back so that he has almost no nostrils, and his lips are gone, showing giant yellow teeth even when he isn’t speaking.
“Maddy, for the crime of aiding and abetting the Zerker’s escape, you are hereby Vanished. I can’t say I wish you well out there, but I can say I’m sorry things turned out this way. We had high hopes for you. Good luck on the outside.”
With that, the Super Sentinels move in, helping the Elders up and scooting them outside. Before I know what’s happened, I’m looking at a row of empty tables.
Chapter 10
The (Electric) Pen Is
Mightier Than The Sword
What’s Vanished, Vera? What does that even mean? Why can’t anyone ever just say what they mean around this stupid place?”
I’m leaning against the empty picnic table where Blondie and his skeletal friends just sentenced me to . . . something.
Vera has pulled the single chair up next to me and is sitting in it, as if she’s the one who just got Vanished or whatever. She seems more relaxed now that the Elders and Super Sentinels are gone.
She looks up at me. “It’s kind of the same as being banished.”
I knew it. Stupid Elders and their stupid Elder words. “So why don’t they just say that? Why are they always talking in code?”
She frowns, looking at the pocket flap on the side of her thigh and t
rying in vain to get it to lie flat. “It’s an Elder thing.”
“So what, then? We’re banished from Sentinel City?”
She looks up and makes a crumple face. “Where’s that?”
I sigh. “Here. It’s what Dad always called it. And Dane and I picked up on it. And Stamp and even Courtney. And I dunno. It’s kind of a thing.”
“Sentinel City. I think I like that. I think the Elders would like that, too.”
She smiles but doesn’t answer my question. I ask it again: “We’re all banished?”
“Just you and Stamp.” She shakes her head. “At least you’ll be together.”
“And Dad? What about him?”
Her eyes grow darker right in front of me. “Maddy, he’s a Normal. We can’t very well let him wander around grumbling about Zerkers and Sentinels and whatever else he learned while he was here. Besides, he’s learned more about Zerker physiology and rehabilitation in months than we have in decades. He’s being transferred to ZED, where we can keep a closer eye on him and his studies this time.”
“ZED?”
“Zerker Education and Dismemberment.”
Gross. “Sounds cheery.”
“Believe me, it’s better than the alternative. Although he’ll basically be a prisoner there, at least he’ll still be working in his field. In fact, as a coroner he’s one of the most qualified physicians at ZED.”
“I’m sure that will make scrubbing up in handcuffs all the more worthwhile.”
She opens her mouth to speak but bites her lip.
I wish I had that kind of self-control. If I did, I probably wouldn’t be here, on the verge of being Vanished right now. I look at my feet. “And Dane? What about him?”
“Seriously? He’s a Sentinel now. He’s been out on patrol since after you and Stamp and your father were apprehended.”
“Doing what?”
“Doing what Sentinels do. Looking for Val and any other Zerkers she may have befriended or created since your dad let her out.”
I glare at her, but it’s too late to defend Dad now. Besides, that’s only half of the equation. “And Courtney? Who’s she going to support now that Dane’s out in the field hunting for Val?”
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