Fuse

by Julianna Baggott

  He nods for the sake of the cameras.

  Iralene reaches into her pocketbook and pulls out the orb. She touches the screen and each of the cameras clicks off, one by one. Partridge sighs and sits down on the edge of the bed. Arvin told him to prepare himself mentally, but how? He looks at Iralene. “I have to ask you something, Iralene.”

  She sits down beside him and draws a crazy eight on his leg. “Anything.”

  He lifts her hand and puts it back in her own lap. “What did you mean when you said you were the lucky ones?” There’s something about it his mind won’t let go.

  “Willux suspends us for the right reasons. You know, the way he’s put in orders to suspend those who are stricken with various ailments, hoping for science to catch up and be able to cure them.”

  “Those stricken? Like who?”

  “People think that we have the resources to take care of all those people in rehab centers who can’t be released back into society and the babies who are born not quite right. Well, don’t waste resources, right? Not when you can suspend them.”

  Partridge thinks of baby Jarv. Is he in the hospital, or is he suspended in a cold capsule somewhere? “Who told you this?”

  “No one tells me anything,” she says. “They talk in front of me like I’m an imbecile, and things sink in.”

  “Are you saying that . . .”

  “We have no neighbors, Partridge, only icy compartments that keep people from aging—or at least slow it all down.”

  Does Glassings know this? My God.

  “It’s all for the best,” Iralene says. “Daddy’s helping people.”

  “Don’t call him that.”

  “But your father is my stepfather and he’s going to be my father-in-law one day too. Right, Partridge?”

  “One step at a time, okay? Just tell me how my father is helping people.”

  “I’ve grown up down there, on ice and not, wandering the halls.”

  “Iralene,” he says. “No, don’t say that.”

  “It’s the truth and I’m not sad about it, because I don’t know much else, do I?”

  “Iralene, I’m sorry.” Maybe he’s apologizing for his father.

  “It’s okay. What I’m telling you is that there are some I’ve found, some capsules on this one corridor on the floor below us, that are different.”

  “How?”

  “They’re Daddy’s little relics.” Little relics. He’s heard the expression before. Ingership said it to Bradwell just before he died. He said that Willux wouldn’t mind adding Bradwell to his collection, his little relics. “I think they’re a collection of people he doesn’t want to kill but doesn’t want alive either. He simply wants to keep them.”

  “Iralene, you’re not lucky. This is no way to live.”

  She puts her hands on Partridge’s face. “Save me from it, then. Save me.” She kisses him. Her lips are soft, but he pulls away. He holds each of her wrists gently

  “We’re going to get through this,” he says. “But not the way they want us to. We’re not falling in love.”

  She stares at him for a moment.

  “I’m not going to fall in love with you, but I’m not going to abandon you either. I’ll see us both through. Are you listening?”

  She nods, but her eyes are fixed and distant, as if looking through Partridge.

  He picks up a few extra pillows and sets them down in the middle of the bed, making a divider. He says, “Here. Sleep on this side.”

  Iralene lies back, stiffly. She gently rests her head on the pillow.

  “Go ahead and dream tonight,” Partridge says.

  She closes her eyes. “But I think I’ve forgotten how.”

  Partridge gets up and walks to the other side of the bed. He imagines Jarv in a child-size capsule—his face frozen stiff. Partridge has to remember Jarv after he undergoes the operation, that Jarv needs him. He has to remember everything.

  Prepare yourself. Mentally. What did Arvin mean?

  The wink. Partridge realizes how much he’s relying on Weed’s stupid wink. He was sure it meant that Weed would save him, but what if Weed’s turned into a tricky bastard? Or what if he’s got some damn eye disorder? Jesus, Partridge thinks. He’s got to go in and risk it, believing in Weed, but he also has to come up with a contingency plan. If his father gets his way, is there someone he could trust to tell him the truth of his life? If Glassings told him that he’d broken out of the Dome, found his mother and his brother, and watched his father kill them, that he has a half sister out there and a girlfriend he’s promised to go back to, he’d think Glassings was drunk. And it wouldn’t be in Iralene’s best interest to tell him that he’s in love with Lyda and that his engagement to her is a fake.

  He can trust only himself. He has to find a way for his current self to tell his future self the truth. Iralene’s asleep already, breathing heavily.

  Partridge spots her pocketbook on the bedside table next to her. He walks quietly back around the bed, picks it up, and pokes through her tissues, lipstick, a few folded bills. He feels the hard edges of Iralene’s identification card—a picture of her, updated per usual at sixteen. She looks the same, down to the gentle waves in her hair. He’s about to slip it back in, but then his eyes catch on the issue date—eight years ago. It’s not possible. Eight years ago, Iralene wasn’t sixteen yet. How long has she been suspended? She was chosen for him, and then her aging was slowed so that he could catch up? Did his father choose her when he was just a kid? Earlier even? Did his father put Mimi and Iralene on the list because he was already seeing Mimi before the Detonations?

  He looks over at Iralene, half expecting her face to have suddenly aged. She’s twenty-four years old. Iralene doesn’t just look young. She seems young. But what makes people grow up? Experience. She’s been robbed of that incrementally for his sake. He’s immediately stunned by guilt. But he didn’t ask his father to do this for him. How dare his father do that to Iralene?

  He puts her identification card back in her pocketbook. He pushes his fingers to the bottom of the purse and feels the ridges of a pencil. He pulls it out, along with a square receipt. Before the party, Iralene bought breath mints.

  Partridge has to write in small letters. He’s so overwhelmed, he numbers his thoughts.

  You escaped the Dome. You found your half sister, Pressia, and your mom. Your mom and Sedge are dead. Your father killed them.

  You’re in love with Lyda Mertz. She’s outside the Dome. You have to save her one day.

  You’ve promised Iralene to pretend to be engaged. Take care of her.

  In this apartment building, there are living people, suspended in frozen capsules. Save them. Baby Jarv might be among them.

  Trust Glassings. Don’t trust Foresteed.

  You don’t remember this because your father made you have your memory of your escape erased. He caused the Detonations. People in the Dome know this. He must be taken down.

  Take over. Lead from within. Start over again.

  These are seven simple truths. From there, he can figure out the rest. And now he has to hide the list. Where?

  He walks around the bedroom and then into the bathroom. Because this is supposed to be a rustic farmhouse, the bathroom is outdated. There’s no shower, just an old claw-foot tub. The sink is a basin with two spouts—hot and cold. And the toilet is the old kind with a worn seat and a box attached to the wall. Instead of a handle to push to flush, there’s a cord to pull.

  There’s a simple problem: If he hides it, how will he know to look for it?

  He looks at the box attached to the wall again, the pull string.

  He flips the lid down on the toilet and stands on top of it. He looks inside the box. It’s half filled with water. A chain leads to a rubber bobber. Pulling the string moves the bobber, lifting a stopper that allows all the water to rush down the pipes and into the toilet below.

  If he unhooks the chain, the toilet won’t flush. He’d have to figure out how to fix it and he’
d find himself back here again, standing on the toilet lid. If he wedges the note in between the box and the wall but fitted under the box’s lid, the note would flip to the floor when he opens the lid the next time.

  He quickly folds the note into an accordion. He writes on the top fold To: Partridge. From: Partridge. Read me.

  He shoves it in and realizes that he’ll need to devise a plan to get back to this room. What kind of plan? He has no idea.

  And then he hears a scream. He runs into the bedroom and over to the bed. Iralene is kicking and thrashing.

  “Iralene!” he shouts. “Wake up!” He holds her shoulders. She claws his chest. “Iralene!” he shouts again.

  She opens her eyes, gasping for breath, and looks around the room, like a caged animal, and then she looks at Partridge. “What happened to us?”

  “Nothing,” he says quietly. “It was just a bad dream. A nightmare.”

  She throws her arms around his neck and holds him tight. “We were so small. We’d become so small, and they’d forgotten about us. I tried to call to them. I tried to fight to get help, but there was nowhere to go. And we were so tiny, Partridge, like dolls in little plastic containers.”

  “It didn’t happen. You were just dreaming. Shhh,” he says, stroking her hair. “Shhh. It’s okay. You need to fall back to sleep.”

  “Is it really okay? Are you sure?”

  “Just a dream. Everything’s fine. It’s going to be all right.” He tries to believe what he’s saying. “I promise.”

  “Please hold me,” she says.

  He lies down and she puts her head on his chest, fitting her hand in between the buttons of his shirt.

  “I want you to remember this,” she says. “That you were good to me. Tomorrow, after your operation, I’m going to tell you about this moment. How sweet you were.”

  “This is my favorite version of this room, Iralene,” he says. “Tomorrow, when you remind me of this moment, make sure it’s this room—not a vacation spot or a big city. This room feels like home. Promise me you’ll keep it on this one. I want to live in this one. No matter what I say tomorrow, make sure this is the one we come back to. Okay?”

  “This one. I’ll make sure. I promise.” She smoothes the wrinkles of his shirt. Her head on his chest, he imagines she hears his thudding heart. They’re awake and alive in a building filled with suspended bodies—the living dead.

  “Can I turn the cameras back on, Partridge? I feel safer with them on. Watched over. And I want them to see us together like this. Can I?”

  “I don’t like them, but, for now, okay.”

  She reaches over to the bedside table and presses the screen on the orb. The corner cameras’ lens covers retract with the familiar clicking. And once again, the eyes are on him.

  PRESSIA

  SOLSTICE

  PRESSIA SLEEPS FITFULLY and finally wakes up. Beneath the layers of her coat and two wool sweaters, she feels the curve of her back snug to another warm body. She turns quickly.

  Bradwell, fast asleep; she’s shocked by the bulk of him, like finding a beautiful bear in her bed—but she’s not in bed. She’s in a stone underpass. She remembers that there are fairy tales about bears and beds, but she can’t remember how they go. The flank of his ribs rises and falls. Both of them fully dressed, his legs crisscross hers. They kissed and kissed until her lips felt raw and, finally, they had to fall asleep.

  The birds embedded in Bradwell’s back stir beneath his shirt. It’s night but she can make out his face in the ash-dimmed moonlight—his features are so peaceful that he looks young. He is young, she reminds herself. They both are. And he looks so vulnerable that she can almost imagine what he’d have been like if none of this had happened—the murder of his parents, the loss of Walrond, the Detonations . . . Is it possible that Bradwell could have been the sweet, tenderhearted type? Maybe some part of him is still tenderhearted and that’s why it’s taken them so long to find each other again like this. He’s afraid of getting bruised just as she is.

  She instinctively touches the two vials, now wrapped around her stomach. They’re safe.

  She won’t be able to fall back to sleep, and it’s probably time to relieve El Capitan and take her shift. She slips away, pulls her rifle over her back, and picks up her knife.

  As she makes her way out of the underpass, she hears singing—a rough, low voice singing a love song about a man whose lover died in the Detonations. Pressia’s heard it many times before.

  Ash and water, ash and water makes the perfect stone.

  I’ll stand right here and wait forever ’til I’ve turned to stone.

  It has to be El Capitan’s voice. She puts her back to the side of the hill, stays quiet, and listens. His voice is sad, mournful, heartsick. She didn’t know that he had this in him. She wonders if El Capitan is in love with someone or if he’s lost someone he loves. There’s no other explanation for the depth of longing in his scratchy voice.

  She doesn’t want to embarrass him by getting caught listening, so she walks back into the underpass and steps out again, coughing loudly.

  He stops singing—mid-note.

  She calls his name. “Cap?”

  “What is it?” he says gruffly.

  She climbs the hill and finds him sitting between the dented mangled tracks, cradling his gun. Helmud is on his back and El Capitan is rocking a little, as if he’s trying to keep a baby asleep—Helmud or the gun? He doesn’t seem to know he’s doing it. Fignan is there beside him, silent and unlit. “Why don’t you head in and get some sleep. I’ll take my turn.”

  “Where’s Bradwell?”

  “Asleep.”

  “Really?” he says, as if he’s accusing her of something. Does he know that they kissed?

  “Yeah, really. He’ll take his turn next. I couldn’t sleep.”

  “I see.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing.” He stands up. “You want Fignan here or should I take him with me?”

  “Leave him,” Pressia says. “If it’s quiet enough, I can do some research.”

  “So far, it’s been quiet—more or less.” He starts toward the hill. “We’re really just starting out, and we’re already a man down. We need to focus. All of us.”

  “I know that.”

  He raises his eyebrows at her as if doubtful. She doesn’t like the suspicious look in his eyes. Helmud lifts his head sleepily. He sees Pressia and smiles. Pressia says, “Go back to sleep, Helmud.” El Capitan looks over his shoulder at his brother. “Yeah, go to sleep.” He turns and jogs down the hill.

  It’s cold. Pressia wraps her arms around herself. She hums the song for a few minutes, thinking of Bradwell. The song is about waiting for someone who isn’t coming back. Her fears creep back in.

  The terrain is desolate and quiet, so she says to Fignan, “Wake up. Let’s work.”

  Fignan’s lights blink on. His legs buzz out from his body and he perches on them.

  “I want more information about Ireland, and about Newgrange,” she says.

  Fignan shows her a dizzying array of information—a history of wars, topography, weather, geology, even a few mentions of Irish mythology, poetry, storytelling. The air around her is lit as if she’s warming herself by a campfire.

  Eventually, he homes in on Newgrange, which is older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids, and was built by an advanced ancient culture. Inside its dome, there’s a passage that reaches about sixty feet to the center of the mound. Once a year, during the winter solstice, the sunrise shines light directly into that passageway into the heart of the dome through some kind of special opening, called a roofbox, just above the entranceway. This now happens four minutes after sunrise, but five thousand years ago, it would have happened exactly at sunrise.

  There’s something about it that makes her mind itch. She asks Fignan to tell her about the winter solstice—the shortest day and longest night of the year. “When is it this year?” she asks.

  “December
twenty-first,” Fignan says in his slightly metallic voice. “Sunrise is at eight thirty-nine a.m.”

  “Why were they obsessed with the winter solstice?”

  Fignan takes her to another page of information about how some researchers thought it had been a burial mound, but others thought it had been a place of worship for an astrologically based faith.

  “Which brings us back to Cygnus,” Pressia whispers. “The constellation.” She feels strange all of a sudden. She has a sharp twinge in her chest and she’s breathless. It’s as if her body has figured something out that her mind hasn’t yet understood. Astrologically based faith. Sunrise. December twenty-first. Eight thirty-nine a.m.

  “How long does the sun shine in the chamber?” she asks Fignan. “Seventeen minutes,” he reports.

  “And it illuminates the floor, right? The floor of the chamber?”

  Fignan lights up, as if confirming this information.

  Pressia lifts Fignan and scrambles down the hill beside the underpass. She shouts, “Bradwell! Cap! Helmud! Wake up!”

  Bradwell lifts himself to one elbow. “What is it?”

  El Capitan, who’s sleeping just beyond him, says, “What the hell?” Helmud asks fearfully, “Hell?”

  “Walrond,” Pressia says. “Remember what he said?”

  “What? Can I get a little context?” Bradwell rubs his eyes with his beautiful hands, the hands that were on her body, the hands she loves.

  “Walrond said Time is of the essence in the message. Remember? You wondered why he’d say something like that, didn’t you?”

  He sits up. “Yeah. I mean, time was only of the essence when they had a shot at stopping Willux before he detonated the world—not now.”

  “What’s this about?” El Capitan says.

  “I was just researching Newgrange, and there, time is of the essence only once a year,” Pressia says. “On a certain day at a certain time.” She explains the mound, the passage, and the light that illuminates the chamber. “For only seventeen minutes.”

  “Do you think that’s where Walrond might have hidden the formula?” El Capitan says.