by Lydia Millet
Jax shook his head. “Maybe he figured we were going to find out anyway. Maybe he thought there was a possibility that Mom was in closer touch with us, and he wanted to acknowledge it had happened, sort of to take the blame off himself? Like, pin it on someone else?”
“Could be,” said Cara, considering. “I bet he’s sneaky enough.”
“So anyway,” said Jaye. “What’s next?”
“Dial up the Marriott!” said Hayley. “Remember? The place we’re actually supposed to be?”
They didn’t know where they were in the world; when they tried to pinpoint their location with the GPS on their phones, they got nothing. It was like their GPSs weren’t activated. “It must be that nether-space issue,” muttered Jax. “Interesting.”
So the easiest way out would be to use the windowleaf. No one knew where it was, though, so they split up and wandered in the wreckage looking for it.
After ten minutes no one had found it, and Cara started to despair. Mysteriously, the big room didn’t seem to have exits. The door to the small room with the armchair was the only way out they could see, and that room had no other doors. It was a dead end.
You could easily feel trapped, she thought, in a room with no doors. As soon as she noticed there were no doors, she started to feel queasy and her pulse quickened.
“It’s almost four a.m.!” said Hayley as she and Cara passed in the search. “Good news is, my mom’s probably still asleep. Bad news is, if we don’t get back before she wakes up, my young, free life is officially over.”
Jax found his own clothes in a cubby on the wall and switched them out for the hospital gown he’d been wearing in the pod. He still had no coat, though; Cara made a note to lend him a sweater…. She realized she was yawning, as she wandered in the mess, but despite her fatigue she was growing more and more anxious the longer the book didn’t make an appearance.
No doors, she kept thinking. I’m in a room with no doors.
“Here it is! Here!” called out Jaye.
They ran over, relieved. The book had been hidden by a collapsed pod, which—lying on the floor near a puddle of the blue liquid—looked a lot like a deflated Mylar balloon. The pages were waterlogged at one corner; Cara worried that the book wouldn’t work, but she opened it up anyway and bent over the spread white leaves. “You have to hold on to the others,” she told Jax, who’d never seen the windowleaf before. They stayed close, their shoulders touching, while Cara put her finger on the nazar.
Just a few minutes later, thinking back, she would realize she hadn’t been focused. She was exhausted, and what she thought of when she touched the ring and looked into the book and formulated the words take us to them was not the big, bland hotel, where the bus with the purple stripe was parked in the lake-like parking lot and the rest of the team lay sleeping in their rooms. She’d been thinking of that right before she thought take us to them.
And then, at precisely the wrong moment, another image flashed into her mind. It was of the hollows from the cooling tower—the one with the face like Zee’s, holding the hand of a little girl with red hair.
But one of Cara’s friends—she never knew who—was impatient, because before she could even make out the picture that was forming, she was being pulled in. She couldn’t let go, because that would be dangerous—if anyone went in without her they could get stranded.
They were going through the opening.
“This is not the Marriott,” said Hayley.
“Let’s go back!” said Jaye. “This—this can’t be right!”
They were sitting on a massive concrete platform—a cross between a building and a ship, it seemed to Cara—surrounded by an endless expanse of black ocean far below, with crashing waves. The four of them were squeezed into a small corner of it, where two rails met, behind a hut or a shed or something. Near the edge. It was cold. Looming overhead was a tower and next to it what looked like a crane; stars twinkled in the sky, more than she’d ever seen.
“Just wait,” said Jax. “The book’s still here. Look. See? So we can go back. But let’s just take a couple seconds first. To figure out what this is.”
“I think it’s one of those oil rigs,” said Jaye, standing up. “You know, like the one that exploded and killed some people working on it? And all the sea turtles and fish?”
“Deepwater Horizon,” said Jax, nodding.
Cara and Hayley scrambled up, too, and looked off the rail. They were up high; the platform was tall and massive.
“What’s that?” asked Hayley.
Lights from the rig shone onto the water, which shimmered in patches.
“I think it must be oil,” said Jax. “Little slicks of oil.”
“Spilled oil? Like on that other one?”
“I don’t know,” said Jax. “But they say there are small leaks and spills a lot, that never get in the news. So maybe…”
He turned to Cara, and she read his expression and nodded. She was getting better at reading him. He wanted permission to ping her.
What were you thinking of? came the clear tone of his thought. What did you think of when you brought us here?
“The hollows,” she said out loud. “And Zee.”
“What did you say?” said Hayley.
“We—we must be here because I—see, I saw a hollow, back at the power plant, who looked exactly—”
She almost didn’t want to say it, because Hayley bagged enough on Zee already.
“—well, she looked kind of like Zee. She was holding the hand of this little red-haired girl. And just when I was supposed to think of the hotel, I thought of her instead. Of whether it somehow could have been Zee. Of that scene. And those two hollows.”
“So—whoever the hollow was who looked like Zee, whether it was her or not—this must be where she is now,” said Jax. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be here.”
“Cara, this sucks!” said Hayley angrily. “A face reminded you of someone, and now we’re in the middle of the ocean? I mean Jax is safe, right? Isn’t the emergency over? Didn’t we win? I want to go back to normal life!”
“Someone pulled me through,” protested Cara, suddenly feeling angry back. “I couldn’t let go! It would have been dangerous for you!”
They were startled by a series of loud buzzes, and bright lights shot on—not in the corner where they were huddled, but toward the middle of the rig. The stars seemed to dim overhead.
“What’s going on?” whispered Jaye urgently. “Is that for us? Does someone know we’re here?”
Jax hesitated, then shook his head.
“I don’t think so.”
“We need to see what’s going on,” said Cara. “Please, guys. Because…what if that was Zee?’
“Five minutes,” said Hayley. “Promise! Until we go back! And I’ll hold the book. I’m not letting it out of my sight.”
“We can go closer, I think, but just make sure you stay hidden,” said Jax.
They crept along the ridged metal wall of the small building. If you leaned against the wall even a bit, it made a cavernous, loud bong. Cara jerked her shoulder away.
Peeking around the corner, they saw a clearing in the center of the platform, surrounded by a maze of structures and machinery. It might have been a landing pad, she thought—a helipad?—in any case, a bare paved place with a circle painted on it and then, striking through the circle, some glaring yellow tape in the shape of an X.
And drawing toward that circle with the yellow X were silent people, people shuffling slowly and separately toward the X—trickling toward the middle from all the far edges to converge there. They were all shapes and sizes and ages, from white-haired grandfathers to kids.
Soundless. Waiting.
A kind of awe and chill swept through Cara. It felt sinister.
The crowd on the circle became denser and denser until finally the yellow X had vanished completely. Stadium lights glared overhead, wiping out the sky and the stars, wiping out everything in the wash of their brightness.
“Hollows,” she heard him whisper behind her to Hayley and Jaye.
They must he freezing, thought Cara. Many of the people were wearing nothing but pants and T-shirts, nothing but one layer of cloth against the October cold and the biting wind coming up off the ocean. And yet they weren’t shivering, as far as she could see. They weren’t doing anything at all.
It made her realize that normally, even when people seemed to be standing still, they didn’t really stay still. They did things with their hands—they fiddled constantly, shifted their weight from one foot to the other, messed with their clothes, nodded or coughed—but these people were motionless, from their feet to their hair.
Their bodies were forgotten, she thought—as hers had been, when her mind was underneath.
And then she saw a flash of red hair, low down—and then it disappeared again, behind a dark leg in the crowd.
The little girl. She’d bet on it.
“What are they doing?” whispered Hayley.
“Waiting,” whispered Jax back.
Another light flicked on, and partway up the metal tower someone was illuminated. No, several people.
And one of them was Roger.
They were standing on the tower, presiding.
“It’s Roger,” hissed Cara to Jax. “Can you read him? I bet there’s tons of secrets in his head that we should know. He’s just a regular person, he can’t stop you from reading him—can he?”
Sorry, thought Jax. I can’t ping him from here, and we can’t go closer.
They turned back to the tower, where instead of addressing the crowd Roger was turning to confer with a man beside him. He was wearing a mic, so his voice boomed out over the crowd; but none of the hollows seemed to notice. And in fact, Cara realized, he spoke casually, as though he was in private with a couple of friends.
“OK. Do the partial release,” was what he said.
There was a brief electric crackle and then nothing. Or not quite nothing: after a moment, staring into the crowd, Cara saw a kind of domino effect. One hollow would reach out mechanically and touch the next with an arm, and then that one would touch another, and as the arm-touch spread the hollows began to act human again, rustling with slight movement, coughing, sneezing; a couple made short cries or grabbed onto others near them. It was a ripple effect.
Roger waited a bit, till it seemed the whole crowd had been affected, and then raised his arms, palms down, in a calming gesture.
“Some of you are vessels,” he said. “And some, sleepers.”
Now it was like a speech, with a pompous, grandiose tone. Now you could tell Roger had an audience.
That’s what they call hollows, thought Jax. The bad guys. Vessel is their word for hollow. I can tell because I can read the hollows, and it’s part of their lexicon. It’s kind of like reading really little kids. They’re…infantile.
“Vessels, you have been brought down to your mundane forms for a short time, to hear me speak, so that your minds can know the task. Sleepers—quietly biding your time until you were called—you are awoken now. Vessels and sleepers, we have gathered you in. For that time has come—the time to join in the great mission. You have been chosen.”
There was a murmur in the crowd.
The hollows can think, on a basic level, thought Jax, hut they’re not free. They’re trapped. No free will. But there are others in the crowd I can’t read. Those are the sleepers, I guess. It’s different from the people at the Institute: I couldn’t read them because they knew how to protect themselves from being read. They’re adepts. But with the sleepers—I don’t know. I’m getting brief readings, and then a kind of static. Trying to read them is like making a call that keeps getting dropped….
“Each vessel will be paired with a sleeper, to be your guide and your keeper. Each of you has a special task. Each has a target of his own. To realize the dream of the future, you have been called to a duty.”
“What is he talking about?” whispered Hayley, cranky.
“Out there,” said Roger, and gestured with the broad sweep of an arm, “in homes and schools, in office buildings and neighborhoods, there is dissent.”
Some of the crowd nodded their heads vaguely.
“There is dissent, and there are dissenters—those who would keep us in this dingy and broken-down old world. Those who fear, rather than embracing, the dazzling prospect of the new. Who cling stubbornly to the old ways.”
Old ways, thought Jax. He’s talking about us.
“And some of these dissenters are powerful. A group of them, a small but deeply misguided group, has the ability—and the desire—to stop us in our mission. A mission handed down to us by the One Who Knows.”
That’s what they call the Cold, thought Jax.
“They are spread over the Earth; they lurk in their hidey-holes, waiting to strike. They wear many disguises, but inside they are all the same. They hate us; they hate our perfection. They cower in their filthy nests like creeping things.”
A murmur of disapproval went through the crowd. Some people shook their heads.
“And you, my children, his vessels and his sleepers, you have been chosen by the One. Vessels, you have been chosen to stop these dissenters in their tracks. To stop them from stopping us from doing what have to do. From cleaning up this unclean world, that it may be made new. For we know who these vermin are. And we will root them out. Sleepers, sleepers, you will live amongst the vermin. You will pretend to befriend them. You will learn all that you can about the vile dissent. And finally, when the order is given by the One Who Knows, you will deploy your vessel. At that moment, o vessels, you will open yourself wide. You will be channels for the Burners of the One. And you will incinerate the vermin.”
His voice dropped, turning raspy.
“You will burn them to cinders.”
Behind him a flame sprang up, growing larger and larger. Cara couldn’t tell what it was burning on, but the top was blue and there was something hypnotic about its rhythmic wavering.
“In this last war, vessels, your sacrifice will not go unnoticed. Your sacrifice will be the greatest sacrifice of all. And there will be a special place for you in the new world. You will sit at the right hand of the One Who Knows; he will come up on the Earth and reign here forever. You will be kings and queens of the new and everlasting kingdom.”
“Seriously?” muttered Cara.
“He’s like my uncle Curt, the snake handler!” whispered Hayley.
“Shh,” said Jax severely.
The tongue of fire was so high now that it almost reached the top of the tower, long and straight and blazing. Cara thought: like a flaming sword.
“Prepare yourselves,” said Roger, who didn’t seem like Roger at all anymore. “You will be taken to the chosen positions. You will receive your instructions. Now, look there!” And he flung out an arm, pointing dramatically.
All heads turned. Cara heard a whirring sound and saw what looked like a sea of lights in the sky.
Helicopters, she realized. A great fleet approaching.
“Each one of you will be dispatched tonight—each vessel with your sleeper, each pair of you to the place where your sleeper has been dwelling. And there you will take up the duties of your missions.”
“We need to be gone by the time the choppers land,” whispered Jax. “Or they’ll see us. There are too many. We need to go back through the book. Now.”
“Cara! Let’s go!” said Hayley urgently.
The helicopters were closer, almost above them now; the whirring of their blades was loud.
So the four of them squatted down beside the wall of the shed. Just a few feet away the crowd stood entranced, gazing up at the helicopters’ lights.
“Don’t get distracted this time,” said Hayley. “Please!”
“So no one pull on me this time!” hissed Cara back. “Wait till I step!”
She tried to close out the no
ise of the choppers and the imprint of the flaming sword—tried to forget the bitter cold numbing her nose and fingertips. She thought carefully of the room in the big hotel, with the painting she’d noticed when they’d dumped their stuff off and left for the meet. It was practically the only thing she did remember about the room, so she focused on it: a man in a red coat and black helmet sitting atop a brown horse. It hung over one of the two beds. Behind the horseman was a landscape she guessed was English, with rolling green hills and hedges. She thought of that scene and realized she could remember the bed beneath, with its homely maroon bedspread of flowers and paisley.
Details, details—she had to fix the details in her mind. Take us.
And there it was, surfacing across the fading pages of the book: their hotel room, in all its boringness. The red-coated man on the horse (which looked like a Paint-by-Numbers). There was the bedside table with an old TV remote and a phone.
“Go,” said Cara, and stepped forward.
But as she stepped, she raised her eyes and caught sight of the very edge of the crowd, which was spreading out again as people retreated from the helipad to make room for the descending helicopters. The rotor noise was deafening, and wind was blowing people’s hair around. And on the edge of the crowd, just as it vanished from her sight, she caught sight of a flash of red hair and, not far above it, one more time, the face of Zee.
They landed next to the hotel bed, with Jax sliding down the side of it and onto the floor, snagging a coverlet with his foot.
Cara had never felt so relieved to be in a hotel room. The stale warmth of the wall heater washed over her, making her frozen fingers and burnt hands feel better right away, and the tacky décor was comforting.
They sat there a minute, relaxing as they adjusted. The book had fallen on the floor, too, the nubbly brown carpet beside Jax. Cara took in the cabinet with the TV in it, the brochures on the table, the chunky lamps. The clock-radio on the nightstand read 4:44. She was too tired to think of Zee’s face, of any faces at all. All she wanted in front of her eyes was her pillow.
