Fuse

by Julianna Baggott

  “I’m not sitting this out.”

  “Neither am I,” El Capitan said.

  “Neither am I,” Helmud echoed.

  “If you find that airship, you’re going to need a pilot,” El Capitan told Bradwell.

  “A pilot,” Helmud said, some surprise in his voice.

  “My father got a psych discharge from the air force and disappeared,” El Capitan said, “but I spent my childhood learning everything I could about flight and playing those simulators. I don’t have a single memory of my father, but I know we’ve got two things in common. Flying and being crazy.”

  “Crazy,” Helmud said.

  “A crazy pilot? That’s not exactly optimal,” Bradwell muttered.

  “Seriously,” Pressia said, “what are the chances that the airship is going to work like an old flight simulator you played as a kid anyway?”

  But El Capitan refused to listen. “Better to have someone who knows something about flying. It’d be a shame to find the airship and not know the starboard from the aft. Maybe Fignan will help too. As copilot.” Fignan whirled his lights proudly.

  As El Capitan said good night and started walking Hastings up to the dormitories, Bradwell yelled to him from the cottage door, “So we all head out together! See you in the morning!”

  El Capitan just waved a surrender without looking back, and that was that.

  Pressia stands up, stretches her back, and runs over the things in her bag again. She unwraps the swaddled vials, lays them on the table, and holds each of them up, one by one, catching the light. They swirl, bright and amber. She can’t help but think of her mother—a scientist, a brilliant one. But what good did her mother’s logical mind do her? Ivan Novikov kissed her. They were likely dating when he died. Somehow, maybe playing on her grief, Willux—Ivan’s murderer—won her over and she married him. Did she figure out, as Walrond eventually did, that Willux killed Ivan? Maybe that’s what led her to Imanaka, Pressia’s father. Pressia is sure of one thing: Her mother didn’t always do what was rational and logical. She was driven to make choices because she listened to her heart, not her head. Eventually, those decisions killed her.

  Pressia refuses to make the same mistakes—no matter what it felt like to lie with Bradwell in the forest.

  Right now, she has to protect her mother’s legacy. Without these three vials, there will be no cure—for anyone.

  The cloth Partridge gave her to bind the vials doesn’t seem thick enough for a journey as dangerous and possibly deadly as this one. She cuts a rectangle of wool from a blanket and uses it as extra padding before rewrapping them in the cloth.

  “You’re up,” Bradwell says, his voice rough with sleep.

  “Did I wake you? Sorry.”

  “No, no.” He sits up and rubs his head.

  “What should we do with Partridge and Lyda’s maps of the Dome?” she asks.

  “We should leave them here, I guess, where they’ll be safe.”

  “I guess so.”

  Bradwell looks out the window. “Do you ever think about Partridge?”

  “I hope he’s not getting too comfortable,” Pressia says.

  “He’s a Pure. I can look past that, but still there’s a gulf between us. I don’t know if we could ever be able to really read each other.”

  “And what about me?” Pressia picks up the vials and gently secures them to her body.

  “I trust you.”

  “But do you think you can read me?”

  He smiles. “No.”

  “What’s funny?”

  He plumps his pillow and rests his head on it. “This dream I just had. You were in it.”

  “What was it about?”

  “A flying dream. I used to have them all the time when I was little, during the Before.” He thinks for a moment. “I guess I haven’t had a flying dream since I had birds in my back, actual wings.”

  “How did you fly in the dreams when you were little?”

  “I could hold my breath and levitate, little by little, and then eventually I was high enough that I could open my arms so the wind would catch them and I’d just sail.”

  “And in this dream?”

  “I didn’t have any birds in my back, but I wasn’t a boy either. I was myself now but . . .”

  “Pure?”

  “I guess so. Maybe that’s why I woke up thinking of Partridge in the Dome . . .”

  “How did it feel?” Pressia’s never dreamed she could fly.

  “I felt . . . younger. I was my age, but I didn’t feel the way I do now. It was like I could fly because I wasn’t weighted down with everything. I knew, in the way you know things in dreams, that my parents were alive. And there were fields beneath me and streams, and it was lush. Like the Detonations had never happened.”

  “And I was in the dream?”

  “I saw the river, the one we crossed, and you were in it. I could see you, struggling.”

  “You mean drowning.”

  “That’s what I thought. And as I went down to save you, it was that night again. That cold night.” She nods quickly, blushing at the thought of it. “And I knew that to get to you, I had to remember that my parents were dead and that the world was an ash pit. And once I did that, I started to fall. I landed in the river. I plunged down deep, and I saw you there underwater. And I was myself again—birds in my back, my scars. And . . .”

  “Did you save me?”

  He shakes his head. “I started to tell you the dream because it’s an example of how I can’t read you.”

  “Right.”

  “You were with all these girls—all these faces lining the walls—and you could breathe underwater. In fact, you could sing. You were all singing. The song moved through the water. I could feel the song on my skin; the notes vibrated.”

  She thinks of his skin on hers, the snow coming down like bits of lace. “And?”

  “You didn’t need saving at all. I thought you were drowning but you were fine. You looked at me in this way I can’t describe.”

  “What way?”

  “Kind of ferocious. I couldn’t tell if you were angry at me or . . .”

  “Or what?”

  “Nothing. I can’t read you, even in my dreams. That’s the point.”

  She looks inside her bag as if she doesn’t have its contents memorized. “There’s a dream reader in the market. Have you ever seen her?”

  “I don’t believe in that kind of thing.”

  “I do. Sometimes at least.”

  “Are you going to read my dream?” He sits up and puts his feet on the floor.

  Pressia already has read the dream. Bradwell is coming on this trip to watch over her, to protect her. But maybe there’s some part of him, deep down, that doubts she needs his protection. She picks up her bag and sets it by the front door. “You’re still holding on to your promise to my grandfather. Even in your dreams, you’re being good to your word. And you’re willing to sacrifice a lot to do it—even the idea that your parents could be alive.”

  “Maybe you can read me better than I can read you.” As soon as he says it, she realizes that she wishes he’d argued with her. She doesn’t want him to still be carrying that old debt. She doesn’t want to still feel like a burden. It’s quiet a moment. Pressia isn’t sure what to say. She looks at the girls’ faces—in particular the one who looks like Fandra, her old friend.

  Pressia turns and stares at him. “Why are you coming on this trip?” she asks him. “No survivors have ever really made it far away and back again.”

  “Why are you?”

  “For Wilda. If we can find the formula, there’s a chance we can save her.” This is true, but it’s only part of the answer. Pressia can feel the truth itching inside her, clawing, wanting out. “And I want to see if there are others out there. Maybe they made it out and didn’t want to come back.” She walks to the table and picks up the kitchen knife she used to cut the wool. She touches the edge of the knife—still sharp. “My father. The tattoo of his
pulse was still beating on my mother’s chest. He’s still alive. Out there, somewhere.”

  “But Pressia . . .” Bradwell stands up and walks to the table that sits between them.

  She carries the knife to the chopping block. “I know, I know. The chances of finding him are almost nothing. But you wanted an answer, and that’s what I’ve got.” She’s surprised that she’s said all this aloud. It’s been lodged in the back of her mind—for how long? She couldn’t admit it, even to herself, because it sounded too selfish and childish. She sets the knife down.

  He puts his knuckles on the table and leans closer. His eyes are still tired, but he seems to be squinting through the fatigue as if he’s trying to see her clearly, and as if he’s trying to read her right now.

  “You’re wrong about the dream,” Bradwell says.

  “Really? How?”

  “I’m not going because I still want to protect you. Because of some old promise.”

  “Then why?” Pressia asks.

  “I’m coming on this trip because . . .” He leans toward her. “Pressia, because I—”

  “Stop,” she says. “It’s suicidal to care about someone out here.”

  “Then maybe I’m suicidal.”

  Her heart is pounding so loudly in her chest that she presses her hand to it in the hope of steadying it. She stares at him, not sure what to say.

  And then Bradwell’s expression softens. He raises his finger and whispers, “There it is. Right there.”

  “What?”

  “The look you gave me in the dream. The one I can’t read.”

  PARTRIDGE

  BEAUTIFUL BARBARISM

  THE ROOM IS QUIET except for the beetles clicking in the glass terrarium. Partridge can’t speak, stunned by the enormity of the betrayal. All those years, he believed the bedtime story. And then outside the Dome, he thought his father and a few high-level types had duped them all. But they’d always known—all the people who were old enough before the Detonations to weasel their way into the Dome: his teachers, coaches, barber, the women who came to clean the apartment every week, the lab technicians, the dormitory monitors. “All of them?” Partridge utters.

  “All of them.”

  He shakes his head. His plan to tell people the truth and let them choose a better way of living—it won’t work. “It’s not possible. How could they live with themselves?”

  “Many can’t live with themselves. That’s why we’ve had to accept suicide as socially acceptable, which turned out to be convenient. It keeps the populations in check, and each suicide opens a space for someone to have a baby—a baby who doesn’t have to ever know the truth, someone to feed the new story to.”

  Partridge squeezes his eyes shut. “They knew . . . all along . . .”

  “There will be no revolution, Partridge. The ones who were capable of leading a revolt were murdered before the Detonations or died in them.” Partridge thinks of Bradwell’s parents. “Except for a few.”

  “Cygnus,” Partridge says, opening his eyes.

  “We were led by your mother. We’re not the toughest or the bravest. We’re the ones who could live double lives, who could know the truth and keep moving on. We’re the ones left. There are few of us, but we’re growing stronger, bolder.” Glassings props his elbows on his knees. “Partridge,” he says in a voice so solemn that Partridge knows this is the moment he’s going to tell him something awful, something that will change his life forever. He can feel the enormity of the unsaid in the air. He can see the darkness of it clouding Glassings’ face. “There’s something I have to—”

  “Wait.”

  All Partridge wants is a few more minutes with Glassings, just the two of them sitting in this room like father and son. He just wants to stall. He says quietly, “First, just tell me about the beetles. Just . . .” His hands are shaking. He clasps them together. “The beetles,” he says. “One thing at a time.”

  “Okay,” Glassings says. “We sent out thousands of them. Other insects too. They’re cyborgs really. They give us information, and we can control them from afar.”

  “Are they traceable?”

  “Nope. That’s the beauty Of course, Willux’s people have brought him a few. He knows there are people against him. He feeds off it, in fact. But he doesn’t know where they’re coming from or what they’re looking for.”

  “You’re crazy!” Partridge blurts out, and then he remembers Glassings was once his teacher and he apologizes. “Sorry, sir, but really, my father would find a way to trace them. He’d never knowingly allow forces against him to have their own surveillance.”

  “He hasn’t gotten us yet,” Glassings says. “We’re careful. People like us have to be to survive.”

  “And the man and his wife who got me into and out of the elevator?”

  “There’s your proof. Our network is solid, and we can help you do what you need to do.”

  Partridge sits back in the chair. This is it.

  Glassings’ eyes look suddenly soft and weary. He’s older than Partridge remembers him. He says, “You need to assassinate your father.”

  Partridge shakes his head. “No.”

  “Listen,” Glassings says quickly. “We’d set it up. We have a pill. It works fast. The poisons are untraceable. And you could get in close enough. You’re his son.”

  “I won’t do it.” He feels sick.

  Glassings doesn’t say a word. His expression is grave, unmoving.

  “I’m not killing my father. If I become a murderer, then I become my father. Don’t you see that?”

  “What if it’s self-defense?” Glassings looks at him angrily. “You’ve done some damage out there, haven’t you?”

  “You have to do things you wish you didn’t have to out there. It’s filled with Beasts and Dusts and Groupies and now Special Forces.”

  Glassings stands up and walks to the back of the chair. He holds it tightly with both hands and says, “This isn’t about retribution. We want to stop your father. He’s still a very dangerous man.”

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  “Wouldn’t you kill someone if you knew that they were just going to keep on killing others?”

  Partridge wants to end this once and for all—his father’s brutality, the legacy of death. He could get in close, all right. He’d want his father to know just a split second before he died that Partridge had done it. Partridge imagines that momentary flash of terror in his father’s eyes. He can’t give in to it. “I have to try to lead from within the right way.”

  Glassings sits down again. He presses his knuckles together. He doesn’t look at Partridge. “He has big plans for you.”

  “What plans?”

  “I’ve been told that he wants you to settle down, to prove your stability.”

  “He remarried. Did you know that?”

  “It was a quiet affair.”

  “Iralene is my stepsister. He wants me to settle down with her.” Glassings jerks his head back. “That’s a little incestuous, isn’t it?”

  “Not technically, but yeah, it’s crazy.”

  “He likes to keep everything very closely knit.” Glassings looks at Partridge keenly. “What about Lyda?. . . Is she still alive . . . out there?”

  How could he know about Lyda? “You know she was taken out of the Dome?”

  “As a lure to pull you in. Yeah, we had people in the rehab center. Even the guard who escorted her out is one of ours. Is she okay?”

  “I hope so.” He thinks of her singing on the stage—this stage, the one just above their heads—the music coming from deep within her.

  “Maybe you can just play along with Iralene.”

  “What? I’m not using her like that.”

  “What if it worked to her advantage as well? It wouldn’t be good if you ignored her, would it?” He knows Glassings is right. “The word is that your father is going to show you how he runs things and then hand over the reins. Next in line in the Dome, right now, is Foresteed.”


  “Foresteed, right. I’d forgotten about him.”

  “He’s become the face of the Dome’s ruling body since your father’s gotten older, weaker. But your father would prefer you.”

  “Why me?”

  “You want the truth?”

  Partridge nods.

  “He thinks he can manipulate you.”

  “But haven’t I proven that he can’t really . . .”

  Glassings tilts his head, raises his eyebrows. “Review the facts,” he says. It’s one of his catchphrases as a World History teacher.

  Partridge thought he’d escaped the Dome, only to find out that’s what his father wanted and planned. Willux wanted Partridge to lead him to his mother, and he did. And now Partridge is back because his father threatened to kill people until he returned. “Shit,” Partridge says.

  “You have to think long and hard about your father, Partridge, and what’s best for the greater good.”

  “Murder?”

  “Just tell me you’ll think about it.”

  Partridge grips the arms of the chair. “Where do I go from here?”

  “You’ve got to find your father, get in close with him. You can’t do anything if you don’t have his trust and get information.”

  “Are you going to turn me in?” Partridge asks.

  “If I’m the one who brings you into your father, it’ll shine a spotlight on our relationship.”

  “But it would prove that you’re loyal to my father.”

  “I don’t want any kind of spotlight whatsoever.”

  “What, then?”

  “One of the other teachers here maybe. Did you have a bond with any of them?”

  “Hollenback.” Partridge’s science teacher. “I stayed with him and his family over some of the Christmas breaks.”

  “Hollenback is perfect. He toes the line. He’ll make the call as soon as he sees you. He’s the one who handed Arvin Weed over to them so they could get at Weed’s scientific genius.”

  “I saw Arvin,” Partridge says, “when they were Purifying me.”

  “Arvin is crucial, Partridge. He’s the one Willux has pinned his hopes on. He thinks that he can come up with a cure. He’s working that kid to death.”