Fuse

by Julianna Baggott

  He starts running again, passes a Laundromat, a drugstore, a gym. And then he comes to a bank of windows rippling with white—an elementary school with paper snowflakes taped to the glass. Some are intricate and almost lacy. Others are bulky and awkwardly cut. But they all quiver from the air circulation like they’re alive, breathing.

  This was the gift he was going to give Lyda. He said, “Paper snowflakes. Is that all it would take to make you happy?” And she whispered, “Yes. And you.” She kissed him. He remembers the softness of her lips. “This.” He misses her. The pain is sharp, like taking a blow. He’s already breathless and now feels unsteady

  He steps off the path and cuts across Bellevue Park. Its Astroturf is perfectly manicured. He reminds himself that the ground doesn’t have eyes or teeth or claws. It’s fake, harmless grass. This is the ground he grew up on. The trees never grow; leaves never change color. They’re exactly the same as they were when he and Sedge played war games, taking turns as wretch and soldier. Sedge was a good kid, did what he was told, never whined or refused to go to bed on time. He never unwrapped a gift and said, “That’s not what I asked for,” as Partridge had a couple of times. Partridge was sullen. He thought he was tough but cried easily. He asked too many questions, stared at strangers. If someone offered him candy, he took as many as he could get away with. Petty crimes, but they add up. Sedge told Partridge to be tougher, tried to help Partridge fit in, not get in trouble, and just grow up, endure childhood. It doesn’t make sense that Partridge has survived and Sedge didn’t.

  He hadn’t realized how hard it would be to come back into the Dome after losing Sedge and his mother, after leaving Pressia and the others, especially Lyda.

  He hears the soft whir of a motor behind him—an electrical cart outfitted with a searchlight. He slips behind a stand of poplars as the searchlight glances through the trees and roves on. He can see the driver. His belly is wedged in, almost touching the wheel. He wonders who this guy knew to earn a spot in the Dome. Had he once had some powerful job, which secured his family a small apartment and a job in a golf cart?

  Partridge loosens his tie. Was tying men’s neckties part of Iralene’s training? He wishes he could have persuaded her to come with him. He doesn’t trust his father or Mimi. The rows of doors—he sees them in his mind. Specimens. What kind? And for what purpose?

  He feels something tickling his bare ankle. He scratches and a large black beetle lands on its back in the dirt, its legs wheeling in midair. Another insect? He flips it over with his shoe. The beetle gives off a low, dull red glow and then scurries off. Was it partially robotic—like the spiders sent down from the Dome? Partridge isn’t sure what the moth and the beetle mean. Maybe they’re part ofhis father’s latest spying devices to collect information and maintain obedience.

  Now he hears voices. Partridge dips behind a hedge lining the chainlink fence enclosing the tennis courts. Two guards are waddling up the path. One rests a hand on his flashlight. Their keys jingle.

  “He can throw a perfect spiral. Five years old. Perfect. You know, I played.”

  “We all know.” The guards are so close Partridge can see the shine of their shoes.

  “Seriously, the kid could have been good. Now what? No competition, no training. I tell you we’re all just—”

  “Shut it,” the other guard says, stopping in his tracks. Partridge holds his breath. The guard looks around. Partridge feels the blood pumping in his head. But then the guard says, “Anyone could hear you out here. Say whatever you want to yourself in the shower. But not out here. Not to me.”

  The guards then walk on in silence.

  Partridge lets out his breath. How the hell is he going to get to the academy unseen? He feels something on his shoulder—another beetle? No—a hand, pale with long, delicate fingers.

  “Partridge.” A face seems to almost float into view—a boy’s face, skinny and freckled.

  “Who are you?”

  “Vinty Firth.”

  “Vinty Firth?” Algrin Firth was a friend of Vic Wellingsly’s and always hated Partridge, but his father’s name was on his mother’s Cygnus list. Partridge remembers Algrin talking about Vinty. His parents were distressed because they thought Vinty was too much of a runt to get into the academy

  “Yep, that’s me,” Vinty says. “I knew we’d find you!”

  “Are you in the academy now?” Partridge asks, as if this kind of thing even matters anymore.

  “First year.”

  “What are you doing out here?”

  Vinty looks around quickly. “You’ve got to come with me—now.” Whose side is Vinty on? He wonders if the moth and beetle have already pointed out his location to some system run by his father. If so, why send a runt like Vinty Firth?

  “Look, I’m not going to be dragged in by my father. You can tell him—”

  “Not your father,” Vinty says. “This is Cygnus. We are Cygnus. We’ve been waiting for you.”

  PARTRIDGE

  UNDER

  VINTY SEEMS TO KNOW that the guard riding the cart is coming long before Partridge hears it. He pushes Partridge down an alley between two shops, and the cart whizzes by. Vinty holds his hand up, meaning wait, wait, wait. The sound fades and they keep on going.

  Partridge starts to ask questions, but Vinty puts his finger to his mouth and they press on. He tries a few more times—forming different questions, bending low to whisper—but Vinty always shakes his head.

  Vinty leads him to the center of the Dome’s elevators, guards his face, dips toward the elevators, and pushes the closest call button.

  A few come and go. Their doors open, but Vinty doesn’t make a move. The elevators are empty. Vinty hits the button again. “When the right one comes, crouch low.”

  Finally, one of the middle elevators opens. Vinty nudges Partridge.

  Inside, there’s a large, wheezy man and a small woman. Their elbows are hooked together in such a way that Partridge imagines them fused like that. The man’s cheeks are flushed and his chest is racked with coughs. He’s obviously on his way to the medical center on Zero. Vinty pushes Partridge to step into the elevator. He doesn’t want to—possible contagion in the Dome is feared above all else, and that old fear kicks in. Plus, why take the one elevator with people in it?

  But Partridge quickly realizes that this has been arranged. The man pretends to be annoyed that the doors are opening on this level, complains to his wife between coughs—all while his broad body and long coat are blocking the camera from picking up on Vinty and Partridge, who crouch and step inside just before the doors close. They’re wedged in so tightly with the man that Partridge can smell his aftershave and medicinal talcum.

  They don’t stop at Upper One, home to the masses—large apartment buildings, schools, some recreation spots, shopping, as well as the rehab center for psych patients, where Lyda was locked up.

  But when they get to Zero, the man and his wife walk out slowly, blocking Vinty and Partridge expertly all the way out of the sleek row of elevators. When they turn right, heading toward the medical center, Partridge and Vinty peel left, toward the academy.

  The academy is only a few short blocks. In addition to the academy and medical center, Zero is also home to farms and pastures, lowestlevel workers’ housing, equipment, food processing, health and science labs, drug manufacturing, security’s headquarters, and the zoo—the Cage’s Cage. If you were allowed to follow the agricultural fields all the way out, you’d eventually run into the Dome’s actual wall—the one shared with the outside.

  It’s exam season, right before Christmas break, and so the academy is quiet—no music after seven p.m., hushed voices in the halls, no sports, no games. The place still feels alive, though, charged with memory. The strangest thing is how, when they walk into the first hall, Partridge can feel his old self transported back to him through the smell—sweaty, rambunctious bodies, the rubber pellets brought in from the turf fields, the wood polish rubbed into the floors and the baniste
rs, an astringent cleanser. He breathes it in.

  Does it feel like home?

  No, but it’s part of him. It’s his childhood, in a way. He showed up at the academy when he was still twelve—early admittance. He was about the size of Vinty Firth, who’s leading Partridge down one hall and then the next. Partridge showed up in these halls innocent—a kid who still told himself his mother’s fairy tale of the swan wife at night. And now?

  The halls glow dimly with security lighting. They walk quickly down the hallway lined with oil portraits of the headmasters. He sees the one who was in place when Sedge had supposedly died, who called Partridge into his office and gave him the news. “It’s going to be okay, son. He won’t make it with us on our journey to New Eden, but he is in God’s paradise now.” God’s paradise—as opposed to his father’s reinvention? That was before Partridge knew his father liked to play God.

  Partridge has the urge to throw open the doors to his old dormitory, sprint down the hall, jump up and tap the exit sign attached to the ceiling—an old habit—swing his head into Weed’s room and shout, Mind if I look at your notes later? then walk into his own room to find Hastings combing his wet hair in the mirror. He’d flop on his bunk bed, talking Hastings into playing ball on the quad later even though Hastings just took a shower. No use thinking about any of that now. It’s all gone.

  “Where are we going, Vinty?”

  Vinty says, “Under,” as if this is any help.

  They pass the teachers’ offices, their windows blocked by closed blinds. Partridge sees Mr. Glassings’ door, its metal nameplate, and he’s awash with relief. It gives him some hope that Glassings isn’t gone.

  Vinty passes the science labs too. Finally, they’re near the theater. Vinty opens a door leading backstage and walks up a short set of stairs. Partridge has never been backstage before. He wasn’t in any shows or chorus or band. He never won any awards. Lyda was part of the chorus. In fact, her singing at the spring concert was the first time he’d ever noticed her. There were two dozen girls or more, but she was different. She tilted her head when she sang and closed her eyes like she was feeling the music in a way the other girls couldn’t.

  With the curtains drawn, the space feels muffled and small. A bit of light seeps up from below the stage through the fine cracks between the floorboards. He tries to remember the song that Lyda’s group sang. It was an old song about wanting a piece of the American dream. Was it feminist? Was it the girls’ way of saying they wanted more? He’d have never thought of these kinds of things back then, but Lyda would have, in some way, wouldn’t she have? He’s still surprised that she didn’t follow him back in. She’s changed outside the Dome.

  “This way,” Vinty whispers.

  Partridge follows Vinty through a cardboard set of a cottage and past some lights.

  Vinty squats and opens a trapdoor. Partridge follows him down a ladder under the stage, which is what Vinty meant by under. Partridge is suddenly worried that he’s been led into a trap. He mentioned Glassings to Iralene. Did she rat him out?

  Damn it. Vinty knew the word Cygnus, and Partridge just followed him trustingly.

  There’s light in one corner of the room, which explains the glow between the cracks of the stage’s floorboards. Although it makes no sense, Partridge is afraid that he’s going to find his father here amid boxes, folding chairs, small tables, paint cans and brushes, candlesticks, a random assortment of hats—the wreck of what could have been a home.

  Sitting before him are two wingback chairs. The one facing Partridge is empty, but he’s sure that the other isn’t. He senses someone’s presence. Sitting between the two chairs is an upright wooden barrel. A lamp and a small glass terrarium filled with beetles sit on it. The kind of beetle Partridge swatted off his ankle.

  Partridge looks questioningly at Vinty.

  “It’s okay,” Vinty says.

  Partridge moves forward, his heart kicking in his chest, and calmly takes a seat as if he isn’t afraid at all.

  And there, facing him, is Durand Glassings, his old World History teacher.

  “Professor Glassings,” Partridge says. “Thank God it’s you.”

  Glassings smiles broadly, leans forward, and grabs Partridge’s hand, but only to pull him back to his feet and into a hug. “Jesus, Partridge, I thought I’d never see you again.” He holds him tight. “I’m so sorry about your mother and Sedge.”

  It’s the strangest thing, but Partridge feels like he’s been waiting for this moment—without knowing it. He starts to cry. He wishes that he could pretend he wasn’t, but his breath jerks in his lungs. He’s been waiting for someone to say he’s sorry—someone like a father. And he realizes that’s what Glassings is to him in this moment. Maybe that’s what he always was to him—like a father.

  “Here, take a seat,” Glassings says quietly as he releases Partridge.

  Partridge sits down and wipes his eyes.

  Glassings’ eyes are shiny with tears too, though he’s smiling. “Goddamn it, Partridge. I’m glad you’re here. Look at you. What was it like out there? Tell me.”

  It strikes Partridge that this is the first time anyone has asked. It shouldn’t surprise him. The people of the Dome don’t want to ever really think about those on the outside, but the question does take him by surprise. “It’s dirty, dark, sooty, dangerous, but, I don’t know, the wretches aren’t wretches. They are some great people who survive, day in and day out, under brutal circumstances.” He thinks for another second, and Glassings waits patiently. “It’s real,” he finally says. “And real is good.”

  “Well, you made it out of the Dome and back in again,” Glassings says, “in one piece.”

  “Not quite,” Partridge says. He pulls the cap off his pinky and shows Glassings where it was chopped off.

  “How’d that happen?”

  “A payment I had to make, I guess you could say.” Partridge replaces the cap. “My father would like to see it grow back.”

  “Your father.” Glassings’ expression darkens. “Well, he’s the man to get it done.” He then says to Vinty, “You can go, Vinty. Thanks for getting him.”

  Vinty starts to scurry back up the ladder, but he stops and says to Partridge, “I always wondered what you’d be like in person.”

  “Me?”

  “Of course! Who else?”

  “And am I what you expected?”

  Vinty cocks his head and says, “I wasn’t sure you could do it, but now I am.”

  “Do what?” Partridge says, glancing at Glassings.

  But Vinty scurries up the stairs, shutting the trap door behind him.

  “My mother told me some things before she died, that you were planning for me to take over from within. Is that what Vinty means? All that time, you were waiting for a sign that I was ready? I had no idea.”

  “Are you ready now, Partridge?”

  “How am I supposed to lead from within?”

  “It won’t be easy.” Glassings looks down at his hands, and Partridge feels like Glassings has something to tell him but can’t quite bear saying it.

  “How can we start a revolution in the Dome?” Partridge asks, hopeful that Glassings has a plan.

  “A revolution?” Glassings wags his head and looks up at him. “Did you listen to any of my lectures, Partridge?”

  “No offense, but you were always going on and on about ancient cultures. None of it seemed to apply to my life.”

  “Without setting off any alarms, I was trying to prepare you. I chose my words carefully. I wrote lectures specifically for you.”

  “What did I miss about revolutions? Tell me that.”

  “Revolutions are usually started by people who are hungry. Sure, there are ideological revolutions, but, again, people rise up because they feel that the alternative is no longer livable. They have to be desperate.”

  “Are you saying that the people here aren’t desperate? I think you’re wrong.” Iralene is one of the most quietly desperate people he’s ev
er met. “I think they are and they just don’t know it.”

  “Oh, they’re desperate, all right, but so desperate that they’re clinging to what they have.”

  “If they knew the truth,” Partridge says, thinking of Bradwell. He wishes Bradwell were here with him now. “If they could see what I’ve seen out there, if they really knew all of what my father did to the world, they’d rise up against him. They would. I know they would.”

  Glassings sits back in the chair. Now that Partridge looks at it, he can tell that it’s not just a wingback. It’s a prop of a throne. “You don’t get it, do you?” Glassings says.

  “What?”

  “All the adults in the Dome already know the truth,” Glassings says. “The things we teach in the academy are bedtime stories. We all know the truth, Partridge. We all carry it with us.”

  PRESSIA

  DREAM

  BRADWELL IS ASLEEP and Fignan is resting by the small heater, soaking up energy, but Pressia is working on the spiders. Each was created with incredible explosives. She’s taken them apart and reworked them into small hand grenades. She’s written instructions on a new stone and has built three prototypes.

  In the morning they’ll head out, following the maps in Hastings’ head, to find the airship. But she wanted to leave these instructions behind. The lawn of what used to be the boarding school is crammed with tents, filled with people who, with proper education, can take all the robotic spiders dislodged from survivors’ bodies and produce a lot of these munitions. Why not put them to work? Plus, she was having trouble sleeping, so she put herself to work too.

  Bradwell thought El Capitan and Helmud should stay, and El Capitan thought Bradwell should. Just before El Capitan and Helmud left with Hastings for the night, they fought about it.

  “They need you to be here in charge,” Bradwell told him.

  “You could play that role. You’re not healthy enough for this trip.”