The Final Trade

by Joe Hart

  No. Chelsea is simply late. Or maybe she got turned around heading back to camp.

  She follows Merrill as he rushes onward through the trees, Chelsea’s whispered name coming from him every few seconds. Zoey silently wishes for an answer from somewhere nearby, but the forest remains silent.

  Someone curses behind her. A branch snaps.

  Ahead Merrill’s outline disappears and she slides to a stop, bracing herself against a tree, trying to listen for the direction he’s gone.

  There, to the left. The crunch of several footsteps.

  And something else.

  The low throttle of an engine.

  A gunshot.

  Her stomach folds in on itself as she sprints away from the tree, down a small grade, and out into the clearing lit with a sickly orange by the trade’s glow from below.

  She skids to a halt near a low growth of sage, heart skipping every other beat as her mind processes what she’s seeing.

  Several vehicles are parked in the lowland below the rise, their headlights facing each other. Outside the ring of illumination, four figures walk together. Three of them carry weapons, and the other is stooped over as if in pain.

  Zoey hears the rest of the group approaching from behind her and she wants to scream at them not to look, because she doesn’t want to see, to believe what she already knows.

  The figures below step into the wash of headlights. They are only visible for a split second, but it is long enough to see Chelsea’s red hair and her hands bound behind her back before the men shove her into the closest vehicle and tear away in a spray of dust toward the Fae Trade.

  34

  “I wonder how they’re doing,” Sherell says.

  She and Rita sit across from one another in the lunchroom, remnants of their dinner between them. The room is warmer than the rest of the installation, so they’ve taken to spending most of their time there when not outside on watch or idly scanning the radio frequencies on the transistor they found in the garage.

  “As well as they can, I’m sure,” Rita says, nudging a bite of gristle off the table, which Seamus snaps out of the air before it can hit the floor.

  “What would you have done?” Sherell asks after a time.

  “You mean if I were Zoey?”

  “Yeah.”

  Rita flicks another crumb to Seamus. “I don’t know. Maybe nothing.”

  “You’d be okay with the Fae Trade continuing what they do?”

  “I didn’t say that. But there’s a lot of things in the world that aren’t right. Someday she’ll figure out she can’t fix it all.”

  “What if she would’ve kept going after she got out of the ARC?”

  Rita pauses in feeding Seamus. “Then we’d still be there, wouldn’t we?” They fall silent for a time, the dog’s eating the only sound in the room. “One thing I know,” Rita says finally. “With what she’s got Lyle working on right now downstairs, I don’t ever want Zoey angry with me.” She spins her plate in a circle. “At least not again.”

  Sherell smiles. “Speaking of Lyle, I forgot to bring him supper.” She stands and moves to the corner where they’ve taken to storing most of their food.

  “Not like it matters. He’s eaten about four bites since he started working.”

  “Yeah. And he’s always in that chair. I haven’t even seen him go to the bathroom yet.”

  “Maybe he’s wearing a big old diaper.”

  Sherell glances over her shoulder and meets Rita’s honest gaze. They both burst out laughing at the same time. After two more bouts of giggles, Sherell manages to fix a small plate of food for Lyle and leaves Rita, who continues feeding Seamus.

  She moves down the hallway, glancing in each room as she goes, searching for signs of Newton, but he is nowhere to be seen. He’s taken to working most days in the garage, and spends his nights sleeping on a cot in the entrance to the facility. The fact that he takes his job of protecting them so seriously never fails to send a warm rush across her skin. The day before, he let her cut his hair, a task that should’ve taken at the most twenty minutes, but she had stretched it out over an hour, the memory of his soft hair in her hands and his body heat keeping her awake long after Rita’s snores had commenced for the night.

  Downstairs she stops at Lyle’s door and knocks. They call it his room now since none of them have seen him leave the area since the rest of the group departed. Thankfully all the chambers in the facility have excellent ventilation, otherwise she’d be sliding his food in beneath the door.

  “Come in,” Lyle says.

  She enters and sets the plate of food beside the one she brought him for lunch earlier that day. There are several bites missing from the canned potatoes as well as the apple, but other than that it is untouched.

  “You know, you really need to eat more,” she says, picking up the lunch plate. Lyle hasn’t looked away from the glowing computer screen since she entered. He does now, but only for a second before returning his bloodshot gaze to the monitor.

  “Can’t say I’m burning many calories here.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You’re going to get sick if you don’t eat.”

  “I’ll be fine.” He stops his typing for a moment. “But thank you for your concern. And thank you for bringing me food. I can definitely do it myself.”

  “Well, I’m not burning that many calories myself. Does me good to move up and down the stairs.” When he doesn’t respond she inches closer behind him, studying the lit display. “Do you really understand all that?”

  “Code? Yes. More each day in fact. Like riding a bike.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “There’s some things that never leave you no matter how long you’re away from them.”

  She is quiet for a long time before she says, “So do you think my parents would recognize me if they saw me now?”

  Lyle pauses, turning slowly toward her. “Yes. I’m sure they would.”

  She nods and gives him a quick smile before stepping into the hallway. After a few seconds, she hears Lyle resume his typing.

  Sherell climbs the stairs and carries the old plate to the lunchroom, setting it on the floor for Seamus to find. She’s about to go looking for Newton when Rita steps into the doorway holding an oblong object. Its body is a curved, hollow box with a hole in it while its opposite end narrows to an oddly shaped head, thin brass wires strung down its length.

  “What the hell is this thing?” Rita says, holding it out.

  “I don’t know. Where’d you get it?”

  “In one of the storage lockers upstairs. I’ve been cutting the locks and going through the last few we didn’t search right away. There hasn’t been anything really useful besides clothes so far. This was leaning in the corner of the last one.” She turns the thing in her hands and runs her fingers across the strings. A discordant thrum issues from it and she glances up at the sound.

  “It’s an instrument,” Sherell says, reaching out to take it from her. “Remember Chelsea telling us about, oh, what were they called? Bands? Remember? People would go and listen to them play music.” She strums the wires and the same ugly hum comes from the wooden box.

  “That sounds like shit,” Rita says, and Sherell shoots her a look. “Well it does. That one disc Ian calls Elvis, now that’s music.”

  Sherell laughs but quiets at the sight of Newton standing in the hallway outside the room, watching them.

  Except he’s not watching them, he’s watching what she holds in her hands. He stares at it, an unreadable emotion running beneath his features. Sherell looks from him down to the instrument and back before holding it out.

  He blinks and steps into the room, hands coming out to take it from her. He holds it so lightly and gently she’s sure he’s going to drop it, but he doesn’t. Instead he goes to the nearest chair and sits, fingers moving to the end of the instrument where he turns the windings the strings are attached to, flicking at them all the while. Each note bends, rising and lowering in pitch as he
works. Sherell watches, transfixed, until Rita’s voice pulls her out of her daze.

  “That thing’s broken, Newton. Sounds like a dying animal. Maybe we could use it for firewoo—”

  But her words are cut off as Newton strums out a chord so soft and clear, Sherell feels her mouth open slightly.

  His fingers begin to work down the instrument’s neck, pressing and sliding across the strings, first slow, then faster until a melody begins to build upon itself and fill the room. Sherell moves to the closest chair and sits, watching his hands, his graceful hands, create the sound that is something she could never put into words.

  The song tilts between beauty and sadness, and she imagines if she knew its name it would give her hope and make her want to cry at the same time.

  And even as she wishes he would never stop playing, his fingers fall still and the last note fades into nothing.

  Newton tilts his head and reaches up, turning one of the windings slightly, then simply looks at the instrument before holding it out to Sherell.

  “God, don’t give it back to her. Not after that,” Rita says.

  Sherell smiles as Newton glances between them. “You keep it, it’s yours,” she says.

  His lips begin to move and for a moment she thinks he’s going to cry. But then she sees his tongue working behind his teeth along with the concentration on his brow.

  He’s trying to talk, she realizes.

  His lower lip shakes and a wheeze comes from his throat. Then he is on his feet, shoving the instrument into her hands, and is out the door before she can reach for him, try to hold him like she wants to even if Rita’s watching.

  But he’s already gone. Not only from the room but receded into himself the way he is the rest of the time, between the small glimpses of who he truly is.

  Rita looks after him before glancing at Sherell. “Where did he learn to do that?”

  Sherell sets the instrument on the table, the haunting melody still echoing in her mind. “I don’t know, but I think he was trying to tell us.”

  Newton wakes, the dead of night surrounding him in the entryway to the facility. He brings the handgun he keeps beside his pillow out, unsure of what woke him. He listens, hearing only wind outside the secure door, then below it, the soft shush of footsteps.

  Instantly he is fully awake, sitting up and sliding into a crouch, eyes seeking out the sound. But it isn’t coming from the exterior of the building, it is to his right, up the corridor leading to the stairway. He catches a glimpse of Sherell ascending the stairs in the faint light at the far end of the hall, then she is gone.

  Newton relaxes, rising to sit on the edge of his cot as he replaces the pistol, but something is different in the entry, and he freezes.

  The guitar leans against the wall across from him and a sheet of paper is woven between three of the strings. He moves to the instrument, drawing the paper free before flicking on the small flashlight he keeps beside his cot.

  His breath catches.

  The drawing is charcoal, made in sweeping shades that cover almost the entire page. He recognizes himself in the center holding the guitar, head down in concentration. The detail of the drawing is remarkable and he takes it all in, noting the skill and reflection that went into it.

  Newton looks at the drawing for a long time before turning off the light. And in the darkness he lets himself smile.

  Lyle finishes the sequencing command and waits, eyes itching from lack of sleep. He glances at the mattress he moved into the corner of the room and wonders if he’ll be able to drift off tonight. The insomnia hasn’t been this bad since those first months after everything went to hell. When he was afraid to close his eyes for fear of opening them to the sight of a gun barrel inches from his face.

  But the last weeks since Zoey’s group arrived have been a Godsend. Truth be told, he doesn’t care how Ken and his despicable crew went out. In fact, what Zoey did was probably too good for them.

  No, the insomnia hasn’t been due to fear but to excitement.

  Hacking was never something he truly pursued or endorsed while he was employed, but he realizes now it was simply because he’d never seriously delved into the act before. Now after days and days of work, each breakthrough is like a dose of a powerful drug, leaving him craving more in the aftermath.

  Even if the ultimate endgame is something that sends chills through him each time he contemplates it.

  He shakes the thought from his mind and focuses on the percentage of correct binary series that he’s already determined. He’d broken through the military’s firewalls within thirty-six hours, but to do what Zoey tasked him with meant he would have to dismantle the very fabric of the system’s security before he could gain full access.

  And he’s close. Very close.

  The computer pings and brings him back from his musings. He opens the file he’s been running on the side, associated with the last information NOA stored in the database. Lyle clicks on a series of icons, the pages opening various memoranda concerning medical supplies, stage settings for operations in different parts of the country, as well as personnel listings for departments within the organization itself.

  He scans the files and slowly shuts them down one at a time and is about to return to the progress of the sequencing application when another NOA pathway link appears in the search parameter he set earlier.

  Lyle leans closer to the screen, rubbing his eyes and readjusting his glasses. “What the hell?” he says quietly seeing the volume of contents. He frowns, clicking on the link.

  The entire screen lights up with rows of downloads. It takes a second for him to realize what they are.

  E-mails.

  Thousands and thousands of e-mails.

  After nearly five minutes the list finishes populating. He hesitates before opening the message at the top of the section. It is scrambled, half of the words missing in a jargon of nonsensical code. He sends several commands through the server, searching for the matching message header but turns up nothing. With trembling fingers he searches for the recipient e-mail and waits, breathing shallowly as the computer hums.

  Just as he hoped, the original message appears in its entirety, attached to the recipient’s response.

  Lyle reads slowly at first then faster as more and more words that chime memories in his mind appear. Soon his eyes are leaping down the page, the inquiries and responses forming a picture that finally makes him sit back in his chair, his hand slowly coming up to cover his mouth.

  “Oh my God,” he whispers to the empty room.

  35

  Zoey watches the sun dash itself on the side of the mountain, dead grass below it shifting from brown to gold in the morning light.

  She’s cold and hungry but can’t get herself to move from the tree she leans against. The trade is quiet now in the early hours, the music having spiraled into silence before dawn. The valley is crystalline with a coating of frost that came down in the night, and she feels like it not only covers everything she sees, but has penetrated her skin as well, chilling her to her core.

  Her fault. Meeka, Crispin, Simon, Lily, and now Chelsea. All of them gone because of her.

  When Merrill realized what happened the night before, he’d raced after the receding taillights, stopping only when they blended into the glow of the trade itself. He didn’t say a word to her as he passed back by in the direction of the ASV and she hasn’t been able to return to camp and face any of the others either.

  Zoey looks down at her hands. How has it come to this? From where she started to where she is now, at what point did everything fall apart?

  But I’m asking the wrong question, aren’t I? It’s not how this happened, it’s why. And I know why. It’s because of who I’ve become. I’m what’s changed, and the problem is, I never really knew who I was to begin with.

  She feels the urge to cry. To lie down in the frosted undergrowth of the forest and simply let it all flow out of her. She’s sure if she did that she wouldn’t ever get bac
k up. And the others would be better off for it.

  When the sun begins to melt the frost around her, she rises, moving through the trees until she can see the tan shape of the ASV beside the bluff. Ian, Tia, and Eli all sit around the cold fire ring, glancing up as she enters the clearing.

  No one says anything for a time. Finally Ian motions to a rock beside him where an open jar of fruit waits. She goes to it and sits, using a plastic spoon to eat while the others avoid looking at her. When she finishes she clears her throat and struggles to find the right words.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, meeting each of their gazes. “It’s my fault that Chelsea was taken. It’s my fault we’re here at all. I never wanted . . .” She shakes her head, her voice failing her.

  Ian appears as if he’s going to respond but then looks at the ground. A raven flies overhead, letting out a mournful call before coasting off in the direction of the trade.

  “Where’s Merrill?” she asks after a time.

  “In the ASV,” Tia says. “He hasn’t come out all morning.” Zoey rises and turns toward the vehicle. “I’m not sure he wants to speak to you.”

  She hesitates but muscles past the impulse to simply run into the woods and never look back, run until her lungs burn and her legs fail her, run until she can’t remember. Instead she knocks softly on the ASV’s door.

  “Merrill, it’s me.” She pauses, tongue growing numb. “I can’t say anything that will make you forgive me. I know that. But please let me help you get her back. We can, I know we can. Please, let me help.” She rests her forehead against the cold steel of the door, listening for a reply but there is none. Gathering all her courage she slides the door open and climbs inside.

  The interior is dim and it takes a second for her eyes to adjust, to search the benches for Merrill’s form, but even as her mind is processing the emptiness of the vehicle, she already knows he’s gone.