The City Series (Book 3): Instauration

by Lyons Fleming, Sarah

  “If you say so.”

  It’s not doubt that flickers in Walt’s eyes but more the neediness I see in Roger at times. He side-eyes Paul, his sly smile covering his uncertainty. “Now, Paul, don’t hold out on me because you think I don’t want to hear a dissenting view. I have enough sycophants.”

  I applaud his use of the word. Silently, of course.

  Paul thinks for a moment, then says, “How many people can you bring in there at once? Fifteen? Twenty’s stretching it, without making them suspicious, and I’d bet they’re already suspicious enough. The fifteen of you will be toast in ten minutes. Two hundred people are going to put up a good fight.”

  Paul sips his beer, then motions to Walt with the can. “Now, if you have people inside, and someone outside blows a gate or two, it would take them off guard. They rush to the gates expecting this Mo guy. They’ll think your guys inside are helping until they figure out they’re not. You could get them from both sides.”

  “A fine plan,” Walt says. “But we have no bombs, and ammo won’t cut it. You’ve seen the walls.”

  Paul finishes his beer and sets it on a table. “Maybe I know where to get explosives.”

  Indy’s and my jaws drop. He did not just offer Walt my bombs. “What?” Indy asks.

  “I found them while we were apart.” Paul says offhandedly, almost bored. “I’d be willing to give you a couple. Enough to blow the gates, or blow up Mo, or blow up whatever you want to blow up. But I’m going to need to get them with Sylvie and Indy, by ourselves.”

  “Why shouldn’t I just take them from you?” Walt asks.

  “Why get your panties in a bunch when I’m giving them to you? Or you can do like you did here at Central Park. Mo doesn’t sound like he’s easy to kill, though. They might come in handy.”

  “What do you want for them?”

  Paul crosses his arms. “I want to be a free agent. Indy and Sylvie, too. Maybe they,” he lifts one hand at the drinking people, “don’t care about being told what they can and can’t do, but I don’t need a nanny. I like it here, and I’d like it even more at Central Park. I’ll help make that happen, but, with all due respect, I’m not your bitch.”

  My mouth hangs lower than it did before. Paul is out of his mind, but he delivered his monologue with the perfect level of evenness. He awaits Walt’s response as though he’s not heavily invested in the answer.

  Walt studies Paul, arms crossed and index finger tapping his chin. “What is it they say? If you love something, set it free. If it comes back—”

  “It brings you explosives,” Paul finishes.

  Walt laughs. “You’ve got yourself a deal. How soon can you get them?”

  I want to jump up and down. Paul only shrugs. “How soon can we leave?”

  “As a free agent, I guess that’s up to you. The sooner, the better.” At the call of his name, Walt adds, “Let me know what you decide.”

  He leaves the four of us standing in awe at what transpired. Roger raises an eyebrow at Paul. “Bombs?”

  “Bombs,” Paul says.

  “Looks like we don’t need you to go after all,” I say to Roger.

  His eyebrows come down. “Can I talk to you outside?”

  I grab my coat, too thrilled by this news to ask why. We could stroll through the gates right now, though it’s dark and zombies would eat us.

  Outside, Roger walks the path until we’re in front of the daycare, where he leans against the short wall. He lights a cigarette, and I swoon at the smell. This baby had better appreciate its nicotine-free environment. “You want one?” he asks.

  “No, thanks.”

  He chews his cheek, shooting me a curious look. “What’s this about bombs?”

  “You know as much as I do,” I lie. “Maybe they got their hands on some explosives.”

  “But why would Paul give them to my brother?”

  “I honestly don’t know. Maybe you should be asking Paul these questions.”

  Roger takes a drag of his cigarette. His leg bounces up and down. “Are you guys coming back?”

  “Of course. We wouldn’t leave everyone.”

  He nods quickly and takes another drag. “Okay.”

  “What’s with the not drinking?” I ask.

  “I figured I’d give it a try. Someone told me I wasn’t much help drunk. Must be another one of those life hacks.”

  I smile. “How’s that working out?”

  “Boring as hell. I don’t recommend it.”

  “But it’s good for you. I’m glad you’re trying.”

  “What’s with you not drinking?”

  “I don’t feel like it,” I say with a shrug.

  “You’re pregnant.” His statement knocks me out of my happy place. Fear creeps up my legs and tightens my back. “Right? That’s why you stopped?”

  “What? No.”

  The solar streetlamp illuminates his skeptical gaze. “You’ve suddenly gone straight edge? You’d choose cigarettes over oxygen if you had a choice. I thought maybe that was why you were leaving. Protect the baby or something.”

  My cheeks are numb from the cold, and the wind whips my hair around my face. I pull up my hood, hands shaking. Roger releases a delicious-smelling plume of smoke and says, “I thought you trusted me enough to tell me.”

  I could try to lie again, but he’d know I’m lying, and then he won’t trust me at all. “Yes, I’m pregnant,” I say. “And I’m not happy about it. Only Paul and Indy know.” Roger nods. Smokes. I want to tear the cigarette from his hand. “I’m also very jealous of your cigarette.”

  Roger half-smiles and stubs it out. “Better?”

  “Yes.”

  “Whose is it?”

  I’ve done the mental math a thousand times. Saying it’s Eric’s will put me about a month later than I am, which will be believable if I say I’m one of the women who show later. By the time I’m due, I’ll either be dead or this will be over, and the truth will have come out. “The night before your brother came, Eric and I…” I decide he doesn’t need details. “My pills chose that moment to stop working. It took me a while to realize.”

  Roger runs a hand through his hair. “Shit.”

  I wait for more, but another minute passes with me shivering in the frigid air and him watching his boots. “So, that’s that story,” I say. “I’m going back in. I know you’re pissed I didn’t tell you, but please don’t tell anyone.”

  He doesn’t answer. I walk for the lit-up Public Safety office, cursing silently. Now Roger won’t help us because of some perceived breach of whatever the hell he thinks our relationship is. We need to use those bombs to blow up Walt, but they’ll be confiscated at the gate and I’ll never see them again.

  “Sylvie.” Roger’s footsteps come up fast, and he taps my arm so that I turn. “I’m sorry. I started thinking about how this is my fault, and I got all fucked up for a second. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say nothing. That’s what I’ve been doing.”

  “Are you taking vitamins and stuff?”

  Geez, these people and their vitamins. “Every day,” I say.

  “Can I help?” He pulls his jacket tighter and looks at me from under his hair. “I mean, whatever you need, I can help. I want to help. Is that too weird?”

  “Roger, every iota of this is weird. There is nothing in this situation that’s not weird.”

  “I’d just be making it weirder?” he asks. “I’m good at that. I can help after it’s born, too. I like kids.”

  Sober Roger is harder to lie to, but I say, “I’d appreciate that.”

  “I’d like to do something more than nothing. I won’t be around that long, but, as long as I am…”

  I nod, watching the light spilling from the windows of Public Safety because I can’t bear to look at him. “Do you have any idea where your insulin is?”

  “I checked a few floors. A bunch of doors are locked, and they weren’t before. I can’t break in without him knowing. But don’t worry about
that right now.”

  At this moment, I wish Roger was drunk and not trying to redeem himself. I shouldn’t feel like a horrible person after all he’s done, but I’ve created a mess of lies, and we’re no closer to saving anyone than we were when I got here.

  “I’m tired,” I say, which isn’t a lie. I’m tired in general. Tired of pretending. Tired of lying. Tired of having no idea what the future holds except a baby I didn’t ask for.

  “Yeah, sure,” Roger says. “Get some rest. Want me to walk you?”

  “I’m fine. Tell Indy and Paul I went back?”

  He nods. Once in the apartment, I sit on the couch. I normally avoid touching my stomach, but I rest my hand on the flesh that might be rounding out now, rather than resembling a bad case of gas. “Sorry,” I say. “I’m already a terrible mother.”

  I give The Parasite a pat and run the moonstone along its chain. If Grace were here, I could give her the baby. I laugh aloud even as a part of me protests the thought of someone else caring for this kid. If it comes out as an actual baby instead of ice cream or a water bottle, maybe I won’t fuck it up too badly. If Grace were here, she’d tell me to envision what I want. I don’t need a vision board to know the answer: I’m in Central Park, and the person with me is Eric.

  I’ve always burned my bridges. I toss a match over my shoulder and walk away, especially if I’ve been hurt. And he hurt me enough that I told myself I couldn’t forgive, shouldn’t forgive. But I’m not so sure that’s true, and I want to find out. If Eric’s not there, we need to warn them anyway. They plan to use freezing days to hit those midtown blocks, and that’s a bad idea if they’re being hunted.

  I wait on the couch until Paul and Indy come in, and I say, “Let’s go tomorrow.”

  100

  Eric

  After a week at the High Line, I’m antsy. We’ve brought over all the nitro we made in Brooklyn, we’ve found more food in a couple of buildings in Midtown, and I’ve stared at StuyTown from the top of a high-rise. I got a glimpse of Sylvie yesterday. She was bundled up, walking with Indy, and they entered the café. A while later, I watched them head for their building with Paul, May, and Brother David. Susan wept at the sight of Emily prancing beside the adults, her red dress peeking out the bottom of her winter coat, and she sobbed when Brother David took Emily’s hand and skipped to their building with his brown habit swinging.

  I wanted to weep along with her. To see them so close and yet so far out of reach was a special kind of torment. I almost went back today, when it wasn’t my shift, but Jorge asked for help organizing weapons, ammunition, and explosives. Now, in late morning, he stands in the kitchen-turned-laboratory in Chelsea Market, looking over our explosives.

  “Think we have enough,” he says.

  Bottles and packages cover the tables and countertops. We’ve made much of our nitroglycerin and nitroglycol into a somewhat less volatile gelatin, and there might be enough to blow up most of Central Park and StuyTown.

  “Now we need to figure out how to detonate it remotely,” I say. “Hundreds of feet of wire is too conspicuous.”

  “How do you detonate them?” Farina asks. She’s thrown herself into every task there is, likely because we haven’t heard from Carmen. This includes testing me on Morse code throughout the day. I’m still not as fast as her, but I’m better than I was.

  I pick up a detonator made from aluminum tubing and turn the crimped metal over in my gloved hand. “Kate says you can use all kinds of things, but we used an electric current. You need the bridgewire to melt or explode.”

  “Radios might work,” Farina says.

  “We guessed that much. But how?”

  She bundles her dark hair behind her head, slips a hair tie off her wrist, and makes a messy bun. “How far does the signal need to reach?”

  “No idea. But as far as possible.”

  “Okay, so we’d need receivers, one per bomb, along with a battery?”

  “We used a generator, but we had a dozen going at once,” I say. “They used a 12-volt battery. But, if we want it portable, we can’t tote around a bunch of car batteries.”

  “Okay, it needs a higher voltage than a small battery can provide.” Farina’s eyebrows form a V before she smacks her forehead. “Capacitors!”

  “Those store electricity, right?” Jorge asks.

  “Yes. Let me think about it some more. But, with enough voltage, you could set them off if it’s just a matter of getting a wire to melt or explode.”

  “They say you can use small lightbulbs, too,” Kate says from the doorway. “The filament is easy to melt.”

  Farina winds her scarf around her neck. “Anyone feel like going shopping?”

  Four hours later, we’ve visited an auto shop, an audio-visual rental place, and camera store on our bikes. The Lexers may be sluggish with cold, but they’re still deadly, and the High Line made it easy to hop off nearer our destinations.

  Now we sit in the warmth of The Box, tucked away at a table in the corner while others eat tonight’s version of Second Meal at the tables and on the couches. Farina had me connect camera flash capacitors in parallel, which I understood, and I’ve tried to keep up with the rest of it while she talks a mile a minute. If I’ve learned anything today, it’s that Farina loves radios and anything having to do with radios.

  “The charging circuit charges the capacitors,” she continues. “We have the wires of the detonator attached to those, and we need to figure out how to complete the circuit using a transmission. It’s all going to fry when it discharges, but that’s the point.” She finishes unscrewing a handheld radio to show me the green circuit board inside, then points to a black and a red wire. “Speaker wires. We connect those to the wires in the circuit. You speak into the transmitter, circuit closes, and off it goes.”

  “Want to try it?” Kate asks.

  Farina’s eyes widen with excitement. “Like, try it, try it?”

  “Yeah. Just with guncotton for now. The most we’ll get is a big pop.”

  Farina practically throws her chair back in her haste. We follow her up and stop when Jorge enters The Box, beaming. “Look who I found outside.”

  Sylvie, Indy, and Paul come through the door. Kate is over like a shot to hug the three of them. Paul catches Leo mid-leap and buries his head into Leo’s soft hair before Sylvie takes a turn. Guillermo gets hugs and kisses. Jerry is the recipient of a giant cheek kiss. Even Kearney gets a handshake.

  I don’t move. I’ve been waiting for this, but, now that the moment is here, I’m afraid of her answer. Sylvie glances at where I stand, then greets Casper, Julie, and Chris like I don’t exist. But I didn’t miss the brief flash of hurt in her eyes or the tension that’s turned her happy reunion stilted. I wait until the hellos are winding down and walk to her, acutely aware that everyone is watching, though they act as if they aren’t.

  “Hi,” I say.

  She’s recovered from the emotion I first saw, and her smile is remote enough to cool the room a few degrees. “Hi. Paul said you might be here.”

  “I am.” As if that weren’t stupid enough, I add, “Obviously.”

  I search her face. It’s the tiniest bit rounder, her breasts fuller, her hips curvier. I would assume it’s from a steady diet if I didn’t know better. I want so badly to touch her, explore those changes along with all the constants: her lips, her smell, her taste. But I keep my hands by my sides.

  “Can we talk?” I ask.

  The aloofness in Sylvie’s eyes is replaced by tears. She blinks furiously. “Maybe later. I have something to do, and we need to get back soon.”

  She pivots on her heel and rushes out the door. Indy and Paul stand off to the side holding hands, with Leo perched on Paul’s other arm. All three pairs of eyes are sympathetic. “She doesn’t have anything to do,” Indy says. “And we don’t have to get back.”

  I start for the hall. “Eric,” Indy calls. “Be gentle. She’s had a lot on her mind.”

  Paul didn’t tell her I
know about the baby. I nod at him, and his lips twitch. “What are you waiting for?” he asks. “Another punch?”

  “Thanks, Paulie,” I say, and head after her.

  101

  Sylvie

  I was fine until the tears began. My old plan of seeming indifferent until I know where Eric stands is in tatters, and my new plan is to stay away until the crying stops. I can harden my heart against him when he’s not in front of me, but there’s no file drawer that can contain these emotions. The drawer isn’t just open—the cabinet itself is demolished.

  Footsteps sound behind me on the stairs. I reach the hall and then my door, where Eric’s hand closes on my arm. “Please don’t leave.”

  I drop against the wall. I can’t outrun him forever, especially since I’ll soon be the size of a manatee. “Why? I thought that’s what we do.”

  It’s meant to be a dig, and, judging by the way he blinks, it went deep. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I said, and how I said it, and I am so sorry I left.”

  I swallow, unable to speak. He lifts a hand to my cheek, and I close my eyes at the light touch of his fingers. My stupid body melts, wanting so badly to be handled it’d sell my brain out in a second.

  “If I could take back one single thing in my life, it would be that,” he says, voice hoarse. “I swear I will never leave again.”

  I’m tired of not being me. I was always able to be myself with Eric, and I want so badly for that to be true again. A month ago, maybe this would’ve been all I needed to hear. But things are different now. I open my eyes. “I’m pregnant. And, in case you have any doubts, let me assure you it’s yours.”

  He winces at the last part and does his best to look surprised, but it’s obvious he already knew. I believed Paul when he said Eric was miserable, and I believed him when he said Eric didn’t know. Now I don’t know what to believe.

  “Paul told you. Is that why you’re here?” I step inside my room. “Don’t worry about it, I’m fine.”