The Vestige

by Caroline George

  “Well, I’m an original, not a human copy.” There, I threw back one of her many punches. She can pucker her lips and giggle all she wants—I won’t be swayed by her manipulation tactic. I know the truth. I’ve seen and felt, given my all to protect it.

  This is a ruse. She must be a monster.

  Her breath cascades over my face, sweet like a floral bouquet. She twists my hair around her pinkie finger—I’ll rip her scalp apart if she continues to play with mine, I’ll grab an iron stoke from the fireplace and thrust it through her chest. “You are quite pretty.”

  “Why am I here?” I grit my teeth as she floats around the room in a blur of crushed velvet and porcelain flesh. “What do you want from me before I meet the torturer and executioner? I expect you’ll send me to them once we’ve had our chat.”

  President Duchene toys with her diamond necklace. She frowns as if my blunt behavior has hurt her manufactured, injected feelings. “I desired to meet one of the people responsible for causing the upheaval in the suburbs. You must understand—the Vestige is not a welcome faction in our new society. We like peace. You do not.”

  “You’re trying to exterminate my race,” I say. “Peace isn’t an option.”

  She entwines her arm around mine and pulls me to her side. “We have much to discuss. Come. I will take you someplace where we won’t be disturbed by the party.”

  Someplace quiet. Someplace out of listening distance. Someplace she can kill me.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Yet do not miss the moral, my good men.

  For Saint Paul says that all that’s written well

  Is written down some useful truth to tell.

  Then take the wheat and let the chaff lie still.”

  Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

  “Hurry. If they witness our departure, they will follow us. We must reach our location before our absence is noticed.” President Duchene takes me down a flight of steps to the basement. Her guard follows at our heels as we breeze past beautiful, laughing people in fringe dresses and beads.

  I dig my fingernails into the hand cuffing my bandaged wrist and cough on what might be a sob when we move through dressing rooms and a large space covered in tiles. A swimming pool replaces the floor. Guests jump off diving boards, squeal, and shout while servants bathe them in champagne.

  We are the lies we tell, and they tell grand, luxurious lies.

  “Why do you shake, my dear?” President Duchene smiles and holds me against her hip. A strand of her glossy hair gets caught between my teeth—a trace of arsenic. “Do you not sense the peace within this house? Here, no one fears the suburban turmoil. I keep my children safe.”

  “You keep them ignorant.” I press my elbow against her side, out of spite. Maybe she’ll cry out, grunt with pain. Maybe I can hurt her before she hurts me again. “Lies aren’t a shield. They offer as much protection as a rowboat in a hurricane.”

  “A liar is someone with malicious intent,” she whispers. “Metaphorically speaking, I cut up their food so it will be easier to swallow. I allow their lives to be without worry.”

  “You’re a dictator.”

  “No, I am a mother. They are, in essence, the same.”

  Partiers tip their hats at us, kiss our cheeks. They look at me but only see an ornate dress, big eyes and satin gloves, a pretty thing in their pretty world, their paradise of sameness, their home-sweet-home.

  “Where are we going?”

  “It is a surprise … a nice surprise.” President Duchene leads me out a backdoor and across the south terrace, away from illuminated balconies and a manicured esplanade. She treads on her tiptoes and squeezes my hand as if we’re best friends sneaking from the party to share secrets.

  Moonlight filters through the treetops and reveals a brick wall severed by an open gate. Millions of flowers and plants arrange the garden beyond in art deco designs.

  “Our destination is up ahead.” President Duchene walks me beneath vine arbors and then pauses in front of a brick and glass structure—a conservatory. She arches her back and huffs as she pries open the main door. “My soldier will stay outside. We will be alone.”

  Alone? Is she stupid? I could tear her to pieces, kill her with a single punch to the neck. Yes, she’s taller than me, but I am thicker, stronger, and less disgusted with getting my clothes dirty. Doesn’t she know—even a glorified beanpole can be snapped in half?

  I step across the threshold into an indoor jungle. Greenery pours over the walkway, stacks shelves, and christens the glass ceiling. Fountains trickle into stone basins with a spectral chime. Where are the torture devices and executioner axe? What happened to the nightmare I’ve been preparing myself to face? Death will be different here. There will be pain, terror, and then, there will be nothing. No sound. Nothing. Moonlight will fall through the windows, onto me, into me. I will breathe in the air, the light, and die with peace, beauty.

  “Breathtaking, is it not?” President Duchene drifts through the foliage like a phantom. Her dress’s train sweeps the floor. “Your race took this for granted, but we know the value and rarity of such living things. Those who are deprived treasure what they are given, which is why we will be better humans.”

  “Your kind destroyed most of the planet. You’re no better than the people like me.”

  Tally would bash President Duchene’s skull with a pot, and then attempt an escape with the hope a Scav would put a bullet in her back rather than pump her with truth serum. Where’s a brick or a shovel? If I act fast, the President won’t be able to react.

  “We had to create a clean canvas so we could learn to be better. Come. You must see your surprise.” She drags me into a connected greenhouse where high tea waits on a cluster of white patio furniture. “Do you enjoy cucumber sandwiches and sweet morsels?”

  “Not enough to betray the Vestige. That is why we’re here, isn’t it? You expect snacks and civil conversation to give me a loose tongue.”

  “On the contrary. Indulgence gives me, as you say, a loose tongue.” She sits and pours tea into a pair of painted porcelain cups. “You must have many questions for me?”

  “I’m not scared of you.” Creeped out, maybe, terrified of what she could do to the Vestige, skeptical of her charm but not scared—fear comes from a personal will to survive, and I no longer have it.

  “Wonderful.” She offers a cup and flashes a smile of pearls. “Ask your questions.”

  There it is, every answer Jack and I have been wanting, all tied up in a red-lipped, velvet-wrapped package with my name on it. I expected this moment to be more climactic. I thought the truth would offer an ultimatum, not wish to have tea with me.

  “Explain how all this happened.” I lower into the chair across from her and shiver when a palm branch scrapes my back. Death will come for me soon—I’ve never been surer of a theory—but if I’m to become one of the many martyrs for this mission, for this truth, then I’d rather know everything.

  She laughs. “You are a saucy intrigue, are you not? Most young women would rather have a mouthful of chocolate than hear how their petty world ended.”

  “I don’t know any women who’ve watched their family and friends die for chocolate.”

  President Duchene plucks a lavender sprig from a flowerbox and crushes it between her hands. She stares at me until the room’s temperature drops a few degrees. “My people have been on Earth for almost a century. Our invasion was a slow, strategic process. We did not wish for a war or sudden chaos. It was better to end humanity over time. My grandfather, the first Pureblood President, recognized the instability of the human race. He used their weaknesses as a weapon. Mind you, the end of the world took many years to complete. We caused an economic collapse, turmoil in the Middle East that led to a Third World War, and later released an airborne strain of a mutated virus.”

  Her voice makes the truth factual, not some conspiracy delusion I’ve allowed myself to believe.

  “Various domes were constructed befor
e the war’s final nuclear bombing. Pockets of humanity were kept alive to preserve the culture and civilization. Their ignorance was and is easy to maintain.” President Duchene scoops a sugar cube from a ceramic basin and pops it into her mouth. She stores it in her right cheek, lets its sweetness dilute the bitterness of her words. “Here, in the City, we produce food, clothing, and other products for the occupants of the outer layer. All it takes is a Made in China stamp to create the illusion of a normal, importing nation.” She dabs sugar crystals from her lips and furrows her brow into a sympathetic arch. “The time has come, though. We do not need your race’s services any longer. I do wish we could live together harmoniously, but the world is not big enough. Your time of existence has passed. It is our turn to take your place, make humanity better than before, revise your accomplishments, and make them our own. Please say you understand.”

  There was a flash freeze in Charleston a few months ago, the night Jack and I went to a music venue downtown. He turned up the heat in his rented Jeep until I couldn’t distinguish air from skin, and then plugged his phone to the speaker system and activated his favorite playlist. We sat in silence, tilted toward each other at an attracted angle and gazed at the flickering dashboard in an industrial darkness. His profile caught the bluish light, became a perfect sketch of stubble, dimples, and a ball cap. He mouthed the song’s lyrics as they played on repeat: Give you up—I’d rather die, for you are my battle cry. Give you up—I’ll never give you up.

  “Do you understand?” She pounds a fist against the table and snaps her fingers to regain my attention. Her pupils shrink to dots, and her smile becomes a cartoon-like grimace—I’d laugh at her if she wasn’t talking about the extermination of humanity. “Your time of existence has passed.”

  I smooth my skirt and force a smile. “Listen here, you small-minded witch.” Oh, explosive. This is a new characteristic. “Our little tea party is cute, but it doesn’t fool me. You are a manipulator, a devious politician who has controlled most of my life from behind an invisible curtain. You destroyed my illusion, and you let me see you through the smoke and rubble. I am not a traitor. I will not negotiate such behavior. Torture, kill me—I won’t betray the Vestige because their mission, the truth, is worth every ounce of pain you could inflict. I mean, come on. You think your kind is better than mine? Look around. You’ve become the part of us you hate while we strive to fight the poison that ruined our system.”

  “Do you not like what we have done with your world? It is beautiful now. No crime. No unreasonable behavior or complex feelings.” She rubs her foot against mine as if physical contact will somehow shrink my rage into a manageable temperament. “Julie, my love, your conviction would make a brilliant addition to our society. Listen. I shall make a deal with you. Tell me what I wish to know about the Vestige, and I will allow you to stay here. The Special Ones will not protest my offer.”

  “Go to hell.”

  Her brow furrows, creates creases in her forehead. “I do not have to be a hospitable host, Julie. The Special Ones requested I send you to the labs immediately, but I wanted to offer you a chance to be smart.” She corrects her posture and bites into a cucumber sandwich. “Be smart, Julie.”

  “Smart people are tearing away your layers. Smart people discovered the truth and are fighting to reveal it,” I yell. “You don’t want me to be smart. You want me to be a coward.”

  “Humankind was dwindling on the brink of extinction before Purebloods arrived. People lived in their nice little towns, oblivious to the chaos occurring in other continents, terrorists invading their country, and the slow crumble of their governments and society. They believed what was told to them. They not once dared to question what they considered truth. Is that not stupidity? Should stupid people be left alive even after they have earned their deaths? We hurried your demise, nothing more. We are not the villains. We are the new beginning. I can give you the life you want for yourself. The truth is dangerous. It will destroy you. I want you to live. Please. Let me save you.”

  Saved from death to exist in a universe without Jack, to inhabit a place where I’m a miniscule minority dwelling side by side with the parasites who sucked the identity out of my race? No, thanks. Even the thought of pretending the invasion never happened, going about my days with a distinct knowledge that humankind switched genetic makeup, makes me want to choke on a creampuff.

  “I’ve made my decision.”

  President Duchene shrugs. She smiles in a sinister, I’m-going-to-gut-you-like-a-fish sort of way. “So … what will you do if you survive the night?”

  Find Jack. Kiss Jack. Rescue parents. Save the world. Buy a latte.

  In no exact order.

  A rusted nail tears my skirt as I squirm in the chair. I tear off my satin gloves and toss them to the ground. “First, I’ll get my parents out of your disgusting Reproduction Institute.”

  “Oh, my dear, you are greatly mistaken. Your parents are not in my Reproduction Institute,” President Duchene says with a laugh. “They are dead.” She waves her pinkie and gulps her tea.

  Breakfast waited in the kitchen. Mom hovered over the stove. Dad sat at the table, reading the newspaper and drinking his daily cup of Italian Roast. Jon entered the room with clarity glittering in his eyes. He plopped next to me, made my stomach ache with joy. I laughed with him hours before I cried over him. I sat beside Mom and Dad in a house on the verge of becoming a ghost town.

  “I had them killed the day your brother was assassinated. They are buried in a mass grave fifty miles north of Charleston. If you do not believe me, I have pictures I can show you.”

  Sea Foam was the color I’d planned to repaint our dining room—Jack found a swatch in the Underground’s supply room, taped it above my cot to act as propaganda for hope. I knew Mom and Dad wouldn’t be the same once I rescued them. I’d have to fix them again, rebuild their minds while we rebuilt our home. If Mom was pregnant, I’d take care of the baby.

  A single burst of laughter slips from my mouth without warning and then reverses into a convulsive sob. I clutch my chest when a shutter of pain moves into my heart. Empty pain. Evidence of loss. The hollowing torment of acceptance.

  “You poor, foolish child.” President Duchene pouts her lips and scoots her chair closer to me. She rubs my hand until I jerk it away. “All this time you thought them to be alive.”

  Dead—it’s the truth. They are gone. I must’ve known, which was why I didn’t fight to retrieve them. I clung to the unachievable dream of our future because I had nothing left but memories and scars.

  “You might as well have tea. You must be hungry after such a long day of attempted terrorism.” President Duchene pours hot water into a cup and forces me to take it. “Cheers.”

  I shake with occasional sobs like an engine sputtering to life and inhale steam. The tea is drugged, I’m sure, but I want to drink it. Unconsciousness will save me from the pain, numbness and sorrow. I’ll wake up and after being interrogated, I’ll die. Easy.

  “Drink your tea.” Her face sloughs into a canvas of wrinkles and smeared makeup. Her baby-doll eyes lose their luster, become cold as glass. “Go ahead. Take a sip.”

  Jon’s blood oozes down my fingers in hot, thick globs. It’s not real. I can escape it. I can escape these walls. The Scav is outside. I’m alone with the President. There are many exits. I have a chance to survive. Do I want to keep fighting? What will I have if I live? Jack. I’ll have Jack. I won’t be alone.

  “Drink your tea.” President Duchene drums her polished fingernails on the tabletop. Her voice shifts into a gravelly tone, reminiscent of Grandma’s before she died.

  “Swallow your own tea.” I throw the cup at her face and lurch from my chair as the vessel bursts into a firework of painted porcelain. She squeals when I sprint out of the greenhouse and into the conservatory, howls like a banshee in an old horror movie. I shove through the maze of greenery, stumble into moonlight and shadows. Plants wrap their ivy tendrils around my arms—dang it, I p
eed a little.

  “Oh, Julie,” President Duchene shouts in a singsong voice. “Where did you go, Julie?”

  No time. She’s coming. Her footsteps echo all around me. Where can I go? How do I get out?

  I duck beneath a counter of rare flowers and press my body to the sludge-covered wall. Air stings my throat, lungs, and then lessens its pressure as my heartbeat quiets. If I breathe or move, she’ll find me. If I let fear overcome my senses, I will lose the fight.

  A spider drops onto my shoulder and crawls across my skin—I flinch, cage a scream.

  “You cannot hide forever. I will find you.” President Duchene drifts past like a ghost or demon. Her gown brushes the stone floor, gathers leaves and petals in a processional puddle. She pants—I swear, her breath lowers the conservatory’s temperature ten degrees. “Oh, Julie. Come out, Julie.”

  I roll from beneath the counter and race in the opposite direction.

  “There you are,” she hisses.

  Sweat or tears stream my cheeks as I swat brush, dive through darkness. I turn right—President Duchene waits at the end of the aisle. I sprint down a narrow path—she confronts me, laughing, with a cup of tea in her right hand. I slam my weight against various doors—they’re locked. I beat my fists against windows and crawl over workbenches—her sinister smile greets me at each intersection.

  Give you up—I’d rather die, for you are my battle cry. Give you up—I’ll never give you up.

  I reach the main door and yank its knob as the President soars in my direction with her arms outstretched. It swings open, but a Scav blocks the threshold. He clasps his gloved hands around my throat, tosses me to the ground, and pins me in place.

  No. This can’t happen. I was too close.

  President Duchene kneels at my side and lifts her cup to my lips. “Drink. Your. Tea.”