The Vestige
Page 32
Static echoes through the soundstage. Nash types on the keyboard. Jack works with the sound-system. I grip the desk’s edge as the surrounding screens buzz to life, gain color, and clarify to reveal multiple faces, a conference table crowded with official-looking Purebloods. Their vibrant eyes glow and gaze through my attenuated skin like X-ray machines.
“What’s happening?” I shout. “Is this a public broadcast?”
“No, it’s a private feed transmitting from somewhere in England,” Nash says. “Their system is overriding our signal. They’ve blocked my hack.”
“Greetings. We are the Special Ones,” the gray-haired woman at the end of the table says in a crisp, emotionless voice. “It appears you and your people have surmounted our armed forces. Congratulations. You must be most pleased with yourselves. To have accomplished such a feat with so few fighters is admirable. Our invasion has been occurring for decades and yet you managed to cease its progress in your colony within a matter of months. With sincerity, I applaud you and your people’s insight. You have proven that your race is not one to be underestimated.”
President Duchene waltzes into view, clothed in a lace tea dress. She sits next to the elderly woman and casts me a smile. “Good morning, Julie.”
“You fled the area rather quickly,” I croak.
“Yes … well, I could not risk being injured by your little rebellion.”
Jack bangs his fists against the Plexiglas window and lifts the microphone to his mouth. “You,” he shouts with rage dripping from his tongue. “You’re the whore I caught sleeping with my dad!” He clutches his stomach wound and glares at her. “That night I came home from swim team practice, he beat me up because I saw you two on the couch. But it wasn’t because I saw him doing you. He hurt me because I saw you … the President. Oh. My. Gosh. You slept with my dad!”
“Jack, dear, you have always had such an awful temper.” President Duchene sighs and inspects her buffed nails. “I put your father and mother together. You were born because of me. And after Lavinia did her duty, it was only fair for her to give back what was mine. Be honest with yourself, darling. You are not angry I slept with him. You are angry he slept with me, knowing the truth.”
“Enough, Gemma. Banter is unnecessary.” The elderly woman corrects her posture and gazes at me with daggers in her eyes. “You might have won your temporary freedom, but you shall not live for long. My people dislike threats. We will retaliate, and you will all die. You are a weak species. A virus outbreak or radiation leak…”
“Bring it on,” I scream. “Unleash the whole damn arsenal! It doesn’t matter what you do. We will survive, and you will die. Have you learned nothing from this? You can lie and become better liars, but the truth … the truth will always come to light and when it does, you will crumble. There’s no security in an illusion. There’s no way you can win this war unless you destroy the Vestige, because we won’t stop telling the truth until the world is aware of your layers. So come after me. Come after us.” I grit my teeth and ball my fists. “Bring it on.”
“You will die. War will kill you.”
“If that’s true, then how could I die better?”
“By not dying.”
“Everyone dies. The goal is to die in the best way possible,” I say. “And the best way isn’t the most comfortable way, but the way that changes the most.”
“Fine.” She places her hands on the table and nods. “Let the war for Earth begin.”
“It’s already begun.”
Nash manages to override their signal and end the transmission. He looks at me, wide-eyed. His cheeks flush. “You probably shouldn’t have dared them to attack us.”
“I’m dumb when I’m pissed.”
Jack steals the microphone. “Don’t listen to him, Julie. You were brave. You proved our strength.” He smiles as if to hide his pain. “Ready to save our piece of the world?”
I take a deep breath and return the smile. “Bring it on.”
Throughout Severance, people are watching television, listening to the radio, and in a few moments, they’ll be watching and listening to me. Life won’t be the same after today, but that’s all right. I see our horizon, obscure and bright in the distance. I don’t know where our future is or where it will go, but I believe it’s somewhere, and I pray it’s beautiful. We will make it beautiful.
The cameras flash green.
****
There are certainties, small infinities this world offers like ocean breezes, skies streaked with white lines like mega Etch-A-Sketches, people’s voices as they rush like currents through civilization. Life will forever exist, no matter what happens to us or around us. The sky will remain blue, wind will still blow, and somewhere a voice will mutter.
Jon said my obsession with simple things is cute.
I roll over and stare through the dark lenses of my sunglasses at the manicured green space nestled between Porter’s Lodge and Randolph Hall. Students still lounge on the lawn and car horns still blare from the streets outside the College of Charleston, but there is a different smell in the air, a different look to the world.
It’s been four months since my broadcast aired. The initial panic has calmed. The world has a new pulse, a new perspective, yet people continue to move forward with their lives. Our oasis of civilization is thriving, and so are we. And even though our moment of security will not last for long, we have found peace in the obscurity, in the truth that has set us free. The Vestige has taken control of the government. The Purebloods have joined human society without much protest. We’re healing, uniting. The past is composed of facts, but the future is hope. Together, we’re clinging to the hope of a brighter tomorrow. We will move forward. We will survive. Together.
Captain Jack Buchanan of the U.S. Marine Corps strides across the green space in his uniform, adorned with medals and ribbons. He sits next to me and places his white hat on my head. “Hi.”
“Hi.” I adjust the hat’s brim and roll onto my side. “Don’t you have to be on a plane in an hour? President Buchanan needs you in the City…”
“Dad can wait,” he says. “You’re more important.”
“Wow. I’m more important than the President? I should put that as the bio on my Instagram.”
He laughs. “Yeah. Definitely.”
Jack scoots closer to me. Our foreheads press together. His hand finds mine and immediately, my heartbeat is everywhere. It beats in the tips of my fingers, the back of my neck, everywhere. I look at him. He looks at me. And I smile because the world is no longer diseased with ignorance. The layers have been revealed. We cured humanity. We were the cure.
During the final attack, Missy retrieved the virus from the labs and found a treatment for Tally’s radiation poisoning. They’re both alive and live with me in my house on Rainbow Row, along with Nash, Abram, Levi, and occasionally Jack, when he isn’t working for his father in the City. They fill my house with voices and keep my family’s memory alive. I’m not alone. When I have bad days, nightmares, freak-outs, they surround me and share the weight of my pain.
Normalcy is impossible, but I’ve found an attainable proximity. I’ve resumed college classes and my job at The Grindery. On the weekends, I volunteer at the new government outpost and issue housing assignments to Pureblood transfers. Normal. I’m almost normal. My boyfriend is in the military. My family was killed in a war. My friends are loud, messy, and they love me. Besides the fact I can’t wear red lipstick without flashing back to my time in the City, I dress the same, look the same. And although I suffered from a severe case of PTSD a few months ago, I’m handling the adjustment to civilian life well.
“Julie?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“No. Sorry,” I say, and crinkle my nose. “Tell me again.”
Jack props himself on his elbows, staining the sleeves of his uniform with grass. Sunlight filters through the treetops and illuminates his cobalt eyes and bleached smile. He’s beautifu
l. I know men aren’t supposed to be, but he is. “I was saying I found a new zombie novel we should read.”
“You’re still talking about zombies?”
“Hey, we must be prepared for all possible end-of-the-world scenarios.”
I lean over and kiss him. His stubble-covered cheeks scratch my skin. His lips fit with mine, connecting us, fusing our bodies together. “I love you. I’m so, so in love with you.”
He wraps an arm around my waist and rests his mouth against my cheekbone. “I love you more.”
“Not possible.” I comb my fingers through his short hair. I’m home. The end was my beginning—I see that now. Because of death, I’ve learned how to live.
After the end of the world, there is a world. Life doesn’t stop.
It changes.
And it changes me.
The End
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