Fuse

by Julianna Baggott

  But the third is out of reach. She can’t lose it. It’s too precious. She pushes herself forward, lunging, but the ground starts to crack close to the vial. Its amber fluid trembles.

  A dirt-caked hand emerges from the crack, pulling itself from the ground. A mangled Dust, hunched and battered. The vial teeters near its thick, mud-caked body as it heaves itself up. The Dust’s left hand knocks into the vial at first and then crushes it beneath its palm.

  “No!” Pressia cries out. The liquid soaks into the Dust’s hand. And immediately the hard-packed dirt and sand breaks up. Its joints become bulky and thick. The skin turns ruddy and human looking—a large, swollen human hand. It’s an astonishing hand—human and massive and strong.

  The Dust stares at its hand, rubs it on its chest, holds it up, and gapes at it. Then the Dust just looks at Pressia. Clutching the two remaining vials, she crawls backward, quickly, getting to her feet and running.

  El Capitan shouts to Pressia, “Duck down!”

  She kneels and tightens to a ball. El Capitan takes the Dust out with one shot.

  When Pressia lifts her head, she sees that the ground all around Bradwell is still cracking; fine dark fissures zigzag all around his boots. He sees it now too. He’s surrounded by widening cracks.

  “Bradwell!” she shouts, but she can’t help him. She grips the vials. Could she have helped if she hadn’t gone back for them? She feels sick. “Bradwell!” she calls again, uselessly.

  Hastings, with his hyper-fast reflexes, runs toward him, pitches Bradwell’s body into the air. Bradwell lands on his shoulder and looks up at Hastings astonished just as a hole cracks open under Hastings’ boots. He falls into it and tries to climb out. But the hole isn’t a hole. It’s another trap, and it snaps shut. It has him by one leg. Hastings panics and fires at the ground itself, perforating the dirt. His eyes are wild. Pressia recognizes this look. She’s seen it before in Special Forces—part terror and part determination. Hastings goes into overdrive to save what’s left of him. He wrenches his upper body back and forth as if it’s been fishhooked, and he uses his one leg on solid ground to push himself away from the locked trap.

  Bradwell scrambles to his feet, sees what he’s doing, and staggers backward.

  El Capitan shouts, “No!” Helmud shouts it too.

  Pressia knows it’s the only thing Hastings can do. She turns her back, not wanting to see it.

  And then she looks at the Dust, the dead one whose hand had absorbed the contents of her mother’s vial. Its muscles have flared and bulged—thick and strong, running up the forearm. She thinks about what her mother told Partridge—that the bionanotechnological medicine in the vials can’t disengage tissue. It adheres and builds it. The human cells of the Dust’s hand seem to have rebuilt themselves at a fevered rate. This medicine is a kind of cure that can’t be trusted to know when to stop. It can’t undo fusings. What would the vials do to the human cells lost inside her doll-head fist? She’s amazed by the beautiful transformation, the sudden humanity of the Dust’s hand—the taut elasticity of the skin over bone, muscle tissue. And then she hears the sickening snap behind her. Hastings lets out a hoarse scream—loud and seemingly unending. She turns.

  He has ripped himself loose. His leg, from the knee down, is gone. There’s only a bloody tangle of flesh and tendons, muscles.

  Hastings hops twice and falls. His blood is pouring into the dirt.

  “We need a tourniquet!” Bradwell shouts.

  Pressia presses the vials to her chest with the doll head and, with her other hand, pulls off her belt. She runs to Hastings and Bradwell, kneeling beside him. “I’ll go as close to the wound as possible,” Pressia says. “There’s an artery, the femoral, that runs along the back of the knee. It’s got to be cut off or he’ll bleed out.”

  Bradwell looks at her, impressed.

  “I’m the granddaughter of a flesh-tailor. I’ve held down patients getting amputations.”

  Bradwell pushes on Hastings’ thigh while Pressia loops the belt around the meat of his leg and ratchets the belt, pulling on it with all her strength. El Capitan gives a hand. Together, they force a new hole through the belt’s leather to keep it in place.

  “Hastings,” Bradwell says, gripping the fabric of his uniform. “Stay with us. Okay? Just hold on.”

  El Capitan looks around. “We’re going to die out here.”

  “Die out here,” Helmud says.

  Pressia can feel it too. The Dusts are being drawn by the scent of blood. “Bradwell,” she says.

  He looks at her. “Don’t say it. I know. I should have had more faith in Hastings, maybe more faith in people in general.”

  “It’s not that.” She wants to tell him something. But what? They could die out here, and last time they were in this situation, she couldn’t think straight, couldn’t speak. Does she want to tell him that he makes her feel like she’s falling? That she wants him to feel the same way about her?

  “What is it, Pressia?”

  She feels like her chest is going to explode. The wind and dirt are flying all around them. She grabs his sleeve. And then there’s music somewhere overhead—plinking notes of some jaunty tune playing loudly over an ancient PA system, the shrill ring of feedback. The song is so worn out, it warbles.

  “Like an ice cream truck,” Bradwell says, but Pressia doesn’t know what that would sound like. Ice cream came in trucks that played music?

  Hastings tries to lift his head. “Stay down,” Bradwell warns.

  The Dusts know this song. By the looks of their contorted faces and their frantic blinking, this song means something awful to them. They lift their heads to the sky. They beat their ears with their arms. They kneel down, bow their heads. Some moan and cry out.

  Then something whistles through the air. One of the Dusts’ heads pitches back. It cries out, and when it pulls its chin to its chest, it’s clawing at its eye. A bullet. Blood pours from the wound, soaks into the dirt-skin of the Dust’s face. Another bullet pops next to Bradwell. He reaches out and pulls Pressia down to Hastings’ chest and covers her. El Capitan and Helmud also cover their heads.

  The Dusts start to push themselves into the ground. They’re capable only of slow movements, but Pressia can tell that they’re panic-stricken. More bullets strike the Dusts. One bullet hits and rolls in front of Pressia—a small, hard ball. She picks it up. Bradwell sees it. “Abeebee?” he says.

  “What’s a beebee?”

  They look up at the amusement park, searching for the attackers. “Where are they coming from?” Bradwell says.

  Then a dart flies through the air, piercing a Dust’s temple. The Dust’s eyes freeze, lock. It makes a gurgling noise in its throat and falls to its chest, limp.

  Pressia looks at the long, knotted neck of the roller coaster. “Whoever it is, they’re protecting us.”

  As the music keeps playing, the Dusts shrink back into the ground until, finally, the last few remaining eyes blink—once, twice—and they’re gone.

  The fence surrounding the amusement park is lined with spikes, which must be buried deep as Dusts can travel underground. She can see the top of the clown’s hard plastic head, the split running along the bald pate, as if he’s about to crack in two and reveal something else inside. His mouth is a bright red semicircle, his nose a red ball, and his eyes are bugged out. She feels watched.

  Not far from the Crazy John-Johns clown head, there’s a tall pole. Dented and bent in the middle, it’s still managing to stand. Attached to the top are two bullhorn speakers that fan out like metal lilies. That’s where the music is coming from.

  Bradwell is on his feet, walking in the direction of the chain-link fence.

  El Capitan and Helmud stand up and move slowly toward the fence, but Pressia stays at Hastings’ side.

  “Are the Dusts gone?” Hastings asks her.

  “For now.”

  Pressia feels dazed. The slow, exhausted chinkle of notes floats in the air. The wind is still strong, the air c
old. Pressia says, “Someone in there saved us. We need their help. We have to get Hastings somewhere safe.”

  “You can leave me here,” Hastings says. “I’ll only slow you down.”

  “Not an option,” Bradwell says. “You saved me. I’ll never forget it.”

  “It’s going to get dark fast,” Pressia says. “And now that the car’s dead—”

  “Don’t say the car’s dead,” El Capitan says. “It’s just . . . resting.”

  “Resting,” Helmud says.

  “Fine then, with the car resting, we’re live targets.”

  “Pressia’s right,” Bradwell says. “We need to know who’s in that amusement park. We need their help.”

  Pressia spots a bloody dart on the ground, one that a Dust pulled from its eye and dropped. She gets up, walks to it, and nudges it with her boot. The handle is held together with duct tape. “Look.”

  El Capitan walks over. “Duct tape? Jesus. I miss duct tape.”

  Pressia runs the distance to the amusement park’s chain-link fence. She peers in at the small, boxy lean-tos and imagines that they were once game booths, places where people could win a goldfish in a plastic bag, the way her grandfather had as a boy at the Italian Festival. Hadn’t he said he’d thrown darts at balloons attached to a corkboard?

  A shadow scurries from one small lean-to to another. Pressia walks quickly down the fence, hoping for another glimpse. And she gets one.

  It’s a girl, her gold hair long and ragged. Her left arm is shriveled, a stump just below her elbow.

  It’s Fandra.

  After all this time, Pressia’s dear friend is alive. It’s like a piece of herself has been returned—and there is the wrecked barbershop, Freedle in his swaying cage, her grandfather with his stumped leg and whirring throat fan. She and Fandra used to play house, using blankets propped by the table and chair. It hits Pressia now that home, the kind made by her childhood imagination with Fandra, was the safest, truest home of all.

  “Fandra!” she says.

  Fandra runs up to the chain-link fence, hooking it with one hand. She’s wearing a long skirt and sneakers, an old green windbreaker, partially melted at the collar. Pressia grabs Fandra’s good hand with hers, their fingers latching through the metal wires. “It’s you!” Pressia says. She feels almost light-headed with happiness.

  “Pressia! How did you get here?”

  “Fandra?” It’s Bradwell’s voice. “Fandra? Is that you?”

  Fandra looks beyond Pressia. She smiles broadly. “Hello, Bradwell.”

  Pressia looks behind her to see Bradwell standing there, bruised and dusty, barely able to speak. “I thought . . . and it was my fault . . .” He takes a few steps forward, but tentatively, as if she’s a mirage.

  “I’m not the only one who made it out, Bradwell,” Fandra says. “The underground . . . it worked! We just couldn’t send word back.”

  Tears streak down Bradwell’s dirty, ash-covered cheeks.

  “You’re part of New History,” she tells him.

  “New History?” he says.

  Pressia looks back through the fence. A few heads peer out from behind the lean-tos, a miniature train seared to a set of circular tracks and the upended disk of what was once a Tilt-A-Whirl.

  “Fennelly?” Bradwell says, staggering toward the fence. “Stanton? That you?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “I can’t believe it. Verden, you made it!” Bradwell says. “I was sure you were gone. I was sure it was my fault.”

  “We’re here,” Fandra says. “And we’re alive, because of you.”

  PARTRIDGE

  HUMANITY

  THE ACADEMY BOYS are now awake. They’re playing their radios softly behind their shut doors. Partridge knows all the songs on the sanctioned list. This one is about the beach, which seems kind of cruel, as they’ll likely never see a beach again in their lives.

  “Where are we headed?” Partridge asks Iralene.

  She glances at the guard, maybe asking permission to tell him.

  The guard nods. Iralene has introduced him. His name is Beckley.

  She says, “Your father is ready to see you.”

  “Really?” Partridge says, feeling a sick jolt in his stomach. “A little quality time with the old man. Where is he?”

  Iralene looks at Beckley again.

  “His office,” Beckley says.

  It’s in the medical center where Partridge was tortured. He doesn’t want to go back.

  A door at the far end of the hall flies open. A few boys pile out. They’re younger than Partridge, and he knows only two by name—Wilcox Brenner and Foley Banks. They notice the guard first and then they look at Partridge and Iralene. They recognize Partridge. Everyone has always recognized him. But their reactions are charged in a new way. He can’t read their expressions—fear, excitement, or, more simply, alarm?

  They seem to know who Iralene is too. She nods to them, almost regally

  One of the boys shouts, “Partridge! Hi!” like he’s a fan or something. Beckley takes a quick step forward so he’s out in front of Partridge, as if the kid is going to charge him.

  The others knock the kid around. “Shut up,” they mutter.

  Obviously, a story about him has been passed around. Partridge wishes he’d thought to ask Glassings what that story might be.

  The boys turn the corner and Partridge asks, “What have they been told about me?”

  “Your story has been leaked to the press,” Beckley says. There’s only one newspaper, The Update. “Cleaned up a little.”

  “You can’t call that propaganda a newspaper. It’s just Dome press releases and society stories.”

  “That would make you a society story,” Beckley says.

  The guard opens one of the heavy doors to the courtyard. Iralene’s eyes dart around its fake trees and boxy shrubs, like she can’t drink in enough of what’s around her. She’s looking at the world the way a prisoner does when given a short reprieve.

  “What’s the story say about me?” Partridge whispers to Iralene.

  She ignores him, raises her chin, and looks straight ahead. “Beckley, aren’t we taking a car?”

  “The orders were to take you in by way of monorail.”

  “They’ll be packed this time of day,” Iralene says nervously

  “Yes,” Beckley says.

  “I don’t like all those people staring at me,” she says under her breath.

  “Why will they be staring at you, Iralene? Why won’t you tell me what’s in the paper?”

  “Don’t you remember?” Iralene asks coyly.

  “How can I remember what didn’t happen?” Partridge says. “How about Beckley here tells me?” They walk up the stone path to the school buildings that connect to the monorail on the lower floor. Beckley opens the door wide.

  “You and Iralene met after a dance and fell in love. And then you were showing off for her and there was an accident and you went into a coma. She’s stayed by your side all this time. Devoted to you. Rumor has it you’re secretly engaged.”

  “Huh. So I never escaped?”

  “No.”

  “I never risked my life or found my mother or watched my brother get killed or—”

  “Hush!” Iralene hisses. The school building is empty, as it’s a Saturday. The hushed halls echo with their footfalls and then Iralene’s low voice. “Your father told me the truth about that girl who dared you to escape to prove your love for her.”

  “Lyda?” His father set her up as the scapegoat?

  “Yes, her.” Iralene seems irritated by the mention of Lyda’s name. She unsnaps her pocketbook, finds a tissue, and covers her nose with it.

  “Is that the secret story my father fed you?”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “Well, that’s not what happened.”

  “You regretted it, of course,” Iralene says. “You were wrecked out there, ruined, nearly killed because of her!” She glances at the cap on his finger. “You
r father had mercy on you. People sacrificed their lives to save you!”

  He can’t tell if Iralene believes what she’s saying or not. “Seriously, Iralene. You can’t really think that.”

  “You could be a little thankful,” Beckley says with a shaming tone. “My cousin is now in Special Forces because of the fallout.”

  “The fallout?”

  “The secret search to save you and then finding those poor wretches in such dire conditions,” Iralene says. “Special Forces were built up, immediately, to try to help those poor lost souls.”

  They head down a flight of stairs. “Special Forces were there to hunt me down. And was it also broadcast that my father ordered robotic spiders that would explode those poor lost souls until I was returned?”

  Iralene stops on a landing. “Please, Partridge.” She reaches out and squeezes his arm. “Don’t say things like that.” She means it. She’s begging him.

  “Why are you so upset, Iralene? Because you know I’m telling the truth or because you think I should just go with the lie? But which lie, Iralene? There are so many to choose from.”

  Iralene says nothing.

  “And don’t ever say anything like that about Lyda again,” Partridge warns her.

  Iralene pulls her hand away quickly. The stairs rumble with the noise of an approaching monorail. They all hurry down the rest of the stairs, making it to the tracks just as it’s pulling up.

  She presses the tissue to her nose more tightly. “I hate the smell of this place. Don’t you, Beckley?”

  “What smell?” Partridge says.

  She looks at Partridge, tilts her head. “Don’t you smell it?”

  The doors glide open.

  “No, what smell?”

  They step inside. The monorail car is packed with people, all chattering. Then, as they turn and stare, the car goes silent. A mother and her two children jump up from their seats, offering them.

  “That’s okay,” Partridge says.

  But the woman says, “Please! It’s okay! My honor!” If he says no again, he worries she’ll panic. They sit down, Partridge between Iralene and Beckley. The train hitches forward then glides.