Fuse

by Julianna Baggott

  The airship’s engine room is noisy. The pumps hiss and thrum. “What was in each of those cities during the Before?” she asks Bradwell, who’s sitting next to her.

  “In Baltimore there was a big harbor, an aquarium and ships, a huge Domino Sugar sign that was always lit up. In Philadelphia, there was the statue of a man on top of a building and an enormous bell that stood for liberty. In New York City, well . . .’’ His voice trails off. “My parents would say that you had to be there before the Righteous Red Wave settled in. You had to be in it to believe it. It was alive.”

  Pressia knows that any number of things could go wrong. They might not make it over the ocean. El Capitan might not be able to land this thing. Ireland may be a dusky crater or filled with Beasts and Dusts more vicious than the ones they’ve known. If they’re lucky enough to get to Newgrange in time for the solstice, the sun might illuminate a spot on the floor, and they might dig to find . . . an empty pocket of air, dirt, nothing at all. And she still doesn’t know how Fignan will somehow act as a key.

  But knowing all of that, there’s still this moment—up in the air with Bradwell, going somewhere, trying to get out, acting on hope. The joy is there, sitting solidly within her. They hold hands.

  El Capitan calls out, “We’re over Horse Island, Newfoundland. Last landmass before the Atlantic.”

  Pressia looks out of the porthole, beading with moisture that streaks the glass like tears pushed from your eyes in a strong wind, and she imagines Horse Island overrun with teams of wild horses. But all she can see is the billowy shift of sooty clouds.

  “I’ll be releasing the first buoy in thirty seconds,” El Capitan says. “It’s going to be loud. Hold tight.”

  Bradwell squeezes her hand. “I’m holding tight.”

  The release of the buoy is so thunderous that the airship vibrates. A flash passes the window, filling the cabin for a moment with a brilliant glow. And suddenly she remembers the Detonations sharply. Light blasting through everything. Glowing windows and walls and bodies and bones.

  Lit.

  Lit up.

  Like an explosion of the sun.

  And then the light fades. The small porthole is dark again. She breathes out, leans her head against Bradwell’s shoulder. She says, “For a moment, it was like . . .”

  “I know.”

  It’s night and this is a small miracle—holding Bradwell’s hand as they’re skimming the clouds, careening over the dark ocean, sailing through the sky.

  PARTRIDGE

  WHALES

  THE SWIMMING POOL has been closed to the public so Partridge and Iralene can swim alone. He isn’t supposed to get his head wet because of his injury, but he’s allowed to wade around.

  Iralene wears a yellow swimsuit with a short skirt wrapped around her waist. She floats on her back, dips underwater and comes up again. Her makeup doesn’t smear.

  There’s a guard named Beckley, standing on the cement, fully dressed and armed. When he’s out of earshot, Partridge asks Iralene, “What’s with Beckley?”

  “He’s watching out for you, if you have symptoms or something,” she says. “Just in case something goes wrong.”

  “Really?” Partridge says, pushing his arms through the water. “He doesn’t look like medical personnel.”

  She seems to change her mind. “Well, if you’re going to be the leader, you need to get used to being protected.”

  “So the guard isn’t really a doctor’s suggestion, but my father’s idea?”

  “Yes,” she says. “See how much he loves you?” It’s also a way for his father to keep tabs on him at all times.

  Partridge feels weak—but it’s more mental than physical. His body is weirdly restless. He wonders if it’s because while in the coma, he stored energy, pacing the cage of his body, waiting to be let loose. He’d like to shoot hoops. “Aren’t there some academy kids around who I could play a pickup basketball game with?”

  “The doctors would never let you do something so dangerous!”

  “I’d like to just see who’s around, maybe even some of my teachers.” He’d like to see Glassings and ask him about his last memory—the lecture on beautiful barbarism. “Did they send me cards? We always did that when kids went into quarantine.”

  “Of course they did! But they were . . . destroyed. The doctors didn’t want to risk germs coming in with them.”

  “Really? You just destroyed them all?”

  “Yes, but there were tons of them. People really like you.”

  “They’re supposed to like me,” Partridge says. “I’m Willux’s son.”

  She swims around his waist and bobs back up. “I like you,” she says. “I’d like you no matter what.”

  Although he couldn’t swear to it, she seems honest. She dips underwater and swims through his legs. When she breaks the surface behind him, she says, “It’s hard to believe it’s winter. Isn’t it?”

  “Maybe it isn’t,” Partridge says. “Who knows what it’s like on the outside.”

  Iralene laughs. “You’re so funny. It’s one of the things I love about you.”

  But Partridge wasn’t joking. “Do I think you’re funny?” he asks Iralene.

  She swims in close, touches her wet nose to his. He feels an ache—is it love? It feels more like homesickness or lovesickness. Iralene says, “You think I’m pretty.”

  “But do I think you’re funny?”

  She looks away. “You think I’m everything you’ve ever wanted!”

  Partridge nods. She’s got to be. Why else would he have proposed?

  Beckley is driving them in a small enclosed motorized cart. They sit in the backseat. They’re being kept out of sight. Iralene’s hair is perfectly puffed. How she managed it so quickly after the swim Partridge isn’t sure. Was there a pit crew in the ladies’ locker room?

  “Where to now?” Partridge asks.

  “The zoo,” she says, looking out the foggy plastic window. “The butterflies and the aquarium are my favorite, remember?”

  He doesn’t remember, so he doesn’t answer. He notices a small beetle on the back of Beckley’s seat. He almost reaches out to touch it. But something in him tells him not to point it out to Iralene.

  They go to the butterfly house first. It’s kept warm and moist. They’re surrounded by dense foliage. The butterflies dip and sputter all around them. Beckley keeps a respectful distance. He looks uncomfortable among all the flitting wings.

  This section has been cleared just for them too, but some parts must be open to the public; Partridge can hear children not too far off. This trip reminds him of Christmases when he used to stay with the Hollenbacks, Julby and Jarv, stockings and little presents, lonesome holidays when his father was too swamped with work to take Partridge for even a few days. Sometimes they came to the zoo and walked around.

  Iralene holds Partridge’s hand tightly, as if she’s afraid of butterflies.

  “I wonder if my father will want me to spend the holidays with him? Will we suddenly bond while he prepares me for my new future?” He can’t even say the words without sounding a little sarcastic.

  A bright blue butterfly alights on Partridge’s shoulder. Iralene points it out. “Look! It’s so delicate and perfect!”

  The butterfly really is beautiful. This close up he can see the black, velvety edges of its wings. But he looks past it, at Iralene—her brilliantly green eyes, her perfect features, her shining hair. “Does my father love me now all of a sudden?” Partridge says, the butterflies batting all around their heads.

  Iralene slips her arms around his waist. “Maybe it’s been hard for him to show his love, what with the losses you two have suffered.”

  “You mean with my mother dead and Sedge having killed himself.” He’s not sure why he says it so bluntly. Maybe he’s testing her.

  “Sad,” she says, “but we really shouldn’t talk about them. The past is gone!”

  Partridge has the desire to defend his mother and Sedge, as if they’ve b
een pushed aside. He’s suddenly angry. He reaches around and unhooks Iralene’s hands. “Don’t say that.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t talk about them like that. The past isn’t the past.” He walks away from her.

  “Now that we’re engaged, there’s hope for a beginning. A new start. That’s what we can be for your father, for each other.”

  “Something’s not right,” he says, rubbing his temple.

  “What do you mean?” She walks toward him, but he takes another step away.

  “I don’t know,” he says. He makes a fist. “My body,” he says, and he stares at himself.

  “What about it?”

  His body doesn’t feel like it’s been bedridden. His muscles are the strongest and leanest they’ve ever been. He doesn’t trust Iralene, even though there’s something about her that’s sincere, innocent.

  “Partridge,” she says, “talk to me.”

  He says, “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

  A sprinkler goes off overhead, puffing out mist.

  Partridge thinks of blood. A misty veil of blood. The image stains his mind. The butterflies become frantic. He looks over his shoulder for Iralene, but he can see only bits of her dress, her hair, as if all the wings have chopped her into small fragments of herself.

  Even the halls that connect the butterfly house and the aquarium have been cleared. They walk through a glass tunnel, fish swimming on either side and overhead. The jellyfish puff and glide, puff and glide. Iralene presses her hand to the glass.

  “I wish we had a camera,” she says. “I’d love to have a picture of this.”

  “Don’t you have a million of them from when you were a kid?” There are only so many places in the Dome to take memorable childhood pictures.

  “Of course I do!” She hurries away from the glass and grabs his hand.

  They walk along quietly for a while, and then there’s a commotion up ahead, some quickly scurrying footsteps.

  Beckley lifts his hand and tells Partridge and Lyda to stop. He walks ahead of them, toward a blind turn. “Who’s there?” he calls out.

  A man’s voice calls out nervously, “Just me! I got lost on my way to the restroom!” Glassings rounds the corner. He’s flushed like he’s been running.

  “Please turn back the way you came,” Beckley says authoritatively.

  “Wait!” Partridge says, and he starts to jog toward Glassings but slows down because his head’s throbbing. “Glassings!” he says, reaching out his hand.

  Glassings shakes it with great vigor. “Partridge!”

  Iralene moves in between them. “We can’t talk now!” she says. “Partridge can’t have any visitors. His immune system is very weak! Right, Beckley?”

  Beckley puts a firm hand on Glassings’ chest. “We need you to back off now, sir.”

  “No, no,” Partridge says. “It’s just Glassings.” Iralene pulls on Partridge’s arm. “Let go of me!” he says to Iralene. “Leave him alone, Beckley! For shit’s sake, he’s my World History teacher!”

  Beckley ignores Partridge. He draws his weapon, and although he keeps it pointed at the floor, he says, “I’m going to need you to walk away, Glassings.”

  “Whoa, now,” Glassings says.

  “What the hell is the matter with you, Beckley?”

  “Everything’s okay,” Glassings says. “I was just saying hi. I hadn’t seen Partridge since he made it back.”

  “Made it back?” Partridge says.

  “Shut up!” Beckley says, and he raises the gun.

  “Holy shit, Beckley!” Partridge shouts. “Back the hell off!”

  Glassings doesn’t say a word now. He walks backward very slowly, his hands in the air.

  Beckley says, “Keep moving, Partridge, and everything’s going to be okay.”

  Glassings nods to Partridge. This is serious, Glassings’ expression reads. Do as he says.

  “Come on,” Iralene says.

  He lets her pull him around the corner. Once there, he rips his arm loose. “Quiet.”

  There’s no gunshot. No scuffling. No noise at all.

  In a minute or two, Beckley returns, as if nothing happened. He mutters, “Let’s move,” and walks on down the hall.

  Partridge strides up to him. “What the hell was that back there?”

  “Following orders. No contact with anyone other than Iralene. Period.”

  “Glassings is just a teacher of mine from the academy, and you drew a gun on him!”

  “Nothing personal. Orders.” He keeps walking, shoulders stiff, no expression.

  Partridge doesn’t know what to say. He turns to Iralene. “Orders,” she says, “that’s all!” She tries to reach out to him, but Partridge shrugs her off. He’s so angry that he can’t even speak.

  When they get to the small aquatic theater, Partridge takes a seat in the back and stares straight ahead at a wall made of super-strength glass. On the other side the beluga whales, beautiful and strong, pulse their thick tails through the water.

  Iralene sits next to him. He can tell she’s gazing at him but refuses to look at her. “Why the hell did my father give the order not to talk to anyone but you?” Partridge asks, watching Beckley out of the corner of his eye.

  “For your own safety, for your own good.”

  “Stop it, Iralene. Something’s wrong. I know it.”

  “Of course something’s wrong! You’re just coming back to your life. It’s a great shock, Partridge.”

  “What did Glassings mean? He said that he hadn’t seen me since I’d been back. Back from where?”

  “I don’t know!” Iralene says, jerking her shoulders up and down. “Maybe back from the brink. That’s the way I think of it. You were gone and now you’re back!”

  “That’s not what it sounded like, though. It sounded different.”

  “I’m going to ask the doctor if it’s normal for patients like you to be suspicious of the gap in their memory. I bet it is.”

  “You think so?”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  The belugas glide by, two of them, side by side. Partridge is deeply tired. He rubs his eyes and lets them blur as he stares into the water. “Why are we doing all these things, Iralene?”

  “We have to rebuild,” she says. “We fell in love this way. I can’t sacrifice all our past. It would break my heart if we couldn’t remake the memories.”

  It surprises Partridge that a girl like Iralene loves him. She seems so normal, so perfected, and he’s never felt normal and has always been far from perfect. It seems cruel that he’s doomed to not remember any of it. He wonders how intimate they’ve been. It’s a fair question. Not one that he’s comfortable asking. What if they’ve acted like a married couple already and he doesn’t remember it? He’d love to know and, at the same time, he wouldn’t, because even though she’s attractive, he’s not attracted to her. He knows Iralene but he doesn’t; that’s the strange thing. They’re close and also strangers.

  “Are we supposed to rebuild the memories or remake them?” he asks. “What’s the difference?”

  “Do you believe that memories can be rebuilt? I mean, will I ever remember the first time we were here together? Or do we just have to redo everything? Remake the memories.”

  “I don’t know,” she says. She seems to stiffen up a little. “Your father told us to have fun. It was an order.”

  “Maybe I don’t like to be told what to do.”

  “Don’t be like that,” Iralene says, and it’s the first time he’s heard an angry edge in her voice. It surprises him, in a good way. He’d like to think she has some fight in her. She glances at Beckley as if he weren’t just a guard but also an informant, a tattle. She points to the belugas. “They have belly buttons, you know. They’re a lot like us.”

  The belugas swish their tales so powerfully it’s as if he can imagine human legs like a mermaid’s beneath their skin. “Maybe we’re like them,” he says.

  Iralene smiles at him. “This is th
e happiest I’ve ever been.” She’s telling the truth. He can feel it in the way she’s gazing at him. And, too, she’s waiting for him to agree. Her eyes are brimming with tears. “You still love me, don’t you?”

  The question makes Partridge panic. Beckley shifts his weight, glances at them and then away. He’s too far away to hear, but still Partridge hates that he’s here at all. It’s like he has an audience—a grudging one that sometimes pulls a gun.

  How can Partridge tell Iralene that he’s not sure? He feels an ache of love. He feels it when he looks into her eyes. If he’s not in love, he once was. Still, he can’t honestly say that he loves her and he couldn’t possibly tell her that he’s not sure. He doesn’t even have a memory of having first kissed her, much less having loved her.

  Her lashes are dark, her lips full. She’s there, waiting, and so he leans in and kisses her. She’s surprised by the kiss at first. She stiffens for a moment and then relaxes into it. He waits for the rush—something passionate or at least familiar. But the kiss doesn’t bring anything back. It’s as if this is their first kiss, except it doesn’t have the tingling of a first kiss. It feels hollow, empty.

  When he pulls away, she says, “It’s okay, Partridge.”

  “What’s okay?”

  “I understand.” Does she understand that he can’t tell her he loves her? He wishes the memories would flood back to him. She deserves that much.

  “You’re beautiful,” he says. “You really are.”

  She puts her hand on his cheek.

  He says, “I could . . .” What? Try to fall back in love with her? “We have time,” he says. “We don’t have to rush it.”

  She shakes her head, puts her mouth to his ear. “But we don’t have time, Partridge. We don’t.”

  LYDA

  WEAKNESS

  THE NOISES OUTSIDE are drumming loudly in Lyda’s ears. They’ve been at it all day—the mothers calling names from rosters, organizing the women into groups, hammering, sawing, children squalling. The place is a hive.

  They’re preparing for their attack on the Dome. Lyda can do nothing to stop them. She sits cross-legged on top of her blanket, feeling useless. She resists the urge to slam her hands over her ears and pound the floor with her feet. The mothers haven’t explained their plan to Lyda, but she knows it’s doomed.