Beneath the Guarding Stars

by Everly Frost

  “What did she want?”

  I paused, knowing that Arachne had gone to extreme lengths not to mention the message within earshot of anyone else. “She wouldn’t tell me. But … I think … I think she might be able to help.”

  I reached up to hug him and tapped the small lump at the base of his neck. Michael’s expression changed, as though my crazy elevator stunt had distracted him from thinking about it, and now he didn’t want to remember again.

  “I just have to convince her to do it,” I said, not knowing whether or not I already had.

  For the next three weeks, I went to dance practice and met Michael in the gallery. Each day I hoped he’d tell me they’d made progress on the bug, but each night he shook his head and his shoulders slumped even further. Arachne didn’t show, either, and she was starting to feel like a figment of my imagination. The possibility that she could—or would—help Michael became a dim hope.

  Each night, Michael brought me the latest newspaper and there was more from Evereach. More property attacks. Hazard Police buildings destroyed. Olander questioning the administration. By the end of the third week, the presidency was in doubt. Olander was calling for President Scott to step down.

  I tried to put it aside. What happened in Evereach shouldn’t affect me, and despite Michael’s fears, the way the Starsgardians treated me hadn’t changed. If anything, they seemed even more sorry for me. I guessed they must have absolute faith in their defense systems if they thought that the things happening in Evereach couldn’t touch them.

  Finally, Arachne showed up at the gallery, positioning herself in the corner. She didn’t even glance at me. I told Michael I’d be back and sidled around the room, heading to the hot chocolate first, keeping an eye on her in case she decided to leave. When I finally sat down opposite her, I cradled a steaming cup in my hands. I was still adjusting to the lower temperatures.

  “Took you long enough.” Her grumble was barely above a whisper, and I noted she’d placed herself with her back to the camera on the wall. Paper and pencils were strewn across the table. Among them was a smaller pencil, brown, only half the length of the others. I looked closer and realized it looked like a stick insect.

  “Nice of you to show up. Can we talk?”

  She ran her fingers over the pencils as though to choose one, but hovered over the pale brown one. “Sure. The cameras can’t pick up our conversation now. There’s a little sound bubble right here. Keep your voice down, though. It doesn’t stop anyone in this room from hearing us.”

  “I haven’t seen you for a few days.”

  “I’ve been busy.” She glanced in Michael’s direction. “They’re close to a cure but they’re going about it wrong. That thing in his back—it’s a living organism, powered the same way we are. Well, not you, the rest of us I mean.”

  “Thanks.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Don’t pretend to be hurt. If you’re even half as tough as your brother, you already know that your mortality gives you an edge nobody else has.”

  Instinct. That’s what Cheyne had called it. He’d wanted to know if I had instincts that normal people didn’t, whether there was something lying dormant in my DNA that they could trigger and use to their advantage. He’d said that together with nectar, my protective instincts could make me stronger and faster than anyone else.

  Arachne tucked the red stripe in her hair behind her ear. “The thing is, the electro-bug is designed to regenerate indefinitely. It has no shelf life. Right now they’re trying to kill it off with viruses and bacteria. They’ve started with the soft stuff but now they’re getting desperate. They’re talking about trying the serious stuff like Anthrax. Ever heard of it?”

  “Yeah, maybe. There was an outbreak in Seversand a few years ago. It killed off a lot of their livestock.”

  “That’s the one. If the medical unit goes down that path, they’ll have to quarantine Michael. Otherwise he’ll infect you.” She chewed the end of a pencil and gave me a nonchalant shrug. “You’d die if you contract it.”

  I tried not to look over my shoulder at him. I wondered if they’d told him—if that was why he looked so miserable.

  “It won’t work.” Arachne doodled on the paper in front of her. “The bug’s boosted by Michael’s immune system, so whatever he survives, it will survive. Which is basically everything. Kind of cool, as far as weapons go.”

  Another version of my brother’s face began forming on the paper in front of me. As much as I hated needing her help, I couldn’t help appreciating how easily she captured him in her drawings. “Then what do you think they should do?”

  “They should inject him with nano-bots—the warrior kind—that can target the foreign matter, anything not coded to his DNA. The bots will find the bug and excise it.”

  “You mean the bots will cut it out?”

  “They’ll disconnect it and attach themselves to the exposed nerve endings as well as to the receptors on the bug so it can’t reattach to his body. Once the bug is off, his body will heal itself.” She waggled her fingers at me. “No lasting damage.”

  “Sounds too simple.”

  She snorted. “There’s a catch. The only nano-bots in Starsgard are electrical. They use them underground—not on the surface—in case they need to set off an EMP. Which means Michael will have to go underground too.” She smirked. “They don’t allow citizens underground.”

  “There must be a way—”

  There was a gleam in Arachne’s eyes. “It’s okay,” she said, as though she’d decided she’d played with me enough. “I’ve already cleared it with Ruth. She’s as desperate to cure him as you are, although something tells me that’s about you and not him.”

  I frowned at the stick insect on the table and the camera behind us. “If Ruth already knows all this, why do you care if she’s listening in?”

  “Because she’s not the only one who is. The Northern Councilors have a lot of interest in making sure Michael isn’t cured.”

  “So you know they want me to go north.” She knew a lot. A lot more than anyone else. “What’s your job here anyway?”

  “Like I said, I’m good with technology.” She smiled and inclined her head toward Michael. “Call him over. Tell him what I said. He needs to agree.”

  I paused, and she stared at me, waiting for me to move.

  “Are you going to tell him or not?”

  My instincts were screaming at me that there was so much she wasn’t telling me. I could tell from the look in her eyes.

  I twisted in my seat to find Michael’s intense gaze upon me. He must have been watching me the whole time. He didn’t trust her any more than I did. I waved him over, trying to give him a reassuring smile, and drew him into the seat next to me.

  “Arachne says she’s figured out how to remove the bug.”

  Hope lit his eyes, replacing the heavy darkness for a few moments while I explained to him what she’d said about the nano-bots.

  “I didn’t want to tell you about the Anthrax,” he said, his hair falling over his eyes.

  I squeezed his hand. “Now you don’t have to.”

  Arachne addressed him for the first time, her eyes focused somewhere above his forehead, her voice devoid of emotion. “If you agree, they can have the bots ready and that thing out of you before the mid-summer festival. You’ll spend a night in recovery, and then it will be over.”

  I smiled at him. “You’ll be better in time to watch me dance.”

  Arachne said, “Ava will need to visit you while you’re there. Underground, that is.”

  There it was—the thing my instincts were screaming about. There was something about the underground, some reason she wanted me there, and I guessed it could only be about Josh’s message. Even if I asked her, she wouldn’t answer. Her last words were heavy with meaning, as though she was trying to say things without saying them, and I wondered why, even though we were in a sound bubble as she’d called it, there were still things she didn’t want out in the open. I w
as suddenly conscious of all the other kids around me, all the nearby ears.

  Without waiting for me to agree, she stood and gathered her things into her bag. “I’ll set it up. Ruth will escort you there herself.” She stared at Michael’s chin. “See you in a few days’ time.”

  Then she was gone, leaving me with a strange sense of worry and hope.

  Chapter Eleven

  THE NEXT four days raced by. With the performance so close, all the dancers were on edge and practicing longer hours. I was grateful because it took my mind off Michael and the deep unknown of what might happen if Arachne’s plan failed.

  On the morning of the procedure, two days before the day of the festival, there was an unexpected knock on the door.

  Michael’s smile greeted me when I answered.

  “I know you’re on your way out,” he started, but I didn’t let him finish.

  I drew him in inside with a kiss. I’d be late for dance class but I didn’t care. We were supposed to be trying on costumes that morning and I was sure that would mean a long wait for my turn anyway.

  “I didn’t think I’d get to see you before the operation. I’m glad you’re here. Ruth said you’d go straight down and there wouldn’t be time…”

  He drew away, just far enough to see my face. “I didn’t want to go underground without seeing you once more.” He glanced past me for a second and I realized this was the first time he’d seen Ruth’s place. “Is that the sky?”

  “Pretty amazing, huh?”

  He dropped his backpack next to the door and drew me through the living area, his gaze trailing over the cascade of water through the floor and all the flowers as we moved toward the dining table and past it, to the doors leading out to the balcony, closed against the wind.

  “Our place is nothing like this. It’s just a kitchen and a couple of bedrooms. Which reminds me: Mom wants you to come for dinner. I know you have to rest up tomorrow night before the festival, but I’ll be out by tomorrow afternoon. I thought maybe the night after the festival? Would that be okay?”

  I hadn’t seen Michael’s mom since the day we arrived. Not since the top of Tower One. It wasn’t as though we’d had an argument or anything, but I still felt a sense of nervousness at the thought of encountering her again. If she was inviting me to dinner, then that was an olive branch I was willing to accept.

  “Sure, I’d love to.”

  He pressed his palms against the glass, peering out into the bright blue. “I hope this works.”

  “Me too.” I bit my lip, suddenly nervous. “Ruth will be back in a few minutes. She was going to get you in half an hour. I guess now she can take you straight from here.” I covered his hand with my own. “I wish she wasn’t coming back so soon.”

  He gave me a curious look and I knew, despite how the girls at school had acted around him, that he wouldn’t assume anything from my words because they were my words.

  “This is the first time we’ve been alone since we got here.”

  I nodded, my throat dry, not knowing what to say next.

  He didn’t pause. “Ava.” His voice was a throaty growl and I didn’t think my name had ever sounded so beautiful. He wrapped his arms around me. “One day, I promise you, one day soon, we will be free. And then we’ll be together.”

  Free. I wasn’t sure I knew what that meant anymore.

  “We were supposed to be free here.”

  He swallowed. “I thought so too, but something’s definitely not right here. Evereach is on the verge of civil war, but everyone here is so apathetic about it all. I thought they’d be worried, but they don’t seem to care.”

  I searched his face. “If it wasn’t for me, would you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Before me, before Josh, if you heard about a war in another country, would you care about it? A bunch of buildings will be destroyed, sure. People will live in rubble again like they did in the world war. It won’t be nice for them but what’s the worst that could happen?”

  “People could be killed.”

  “No, not people. Just me.”

  “Not this time, Ava. They’ll come for you. Whichever side gets you first, that’s the side that will win.”

  “Then that’s why Starsgard isn’t afraid. Because they already have me.”

  He didn’t look convinced. “It’s more than that.” His eyes were far away. “I’ve been in a lot of fights. At the Terminal. I’d fight there every weekend. There was always this thing people did when they thought they had something up their sleeves, when they thought they had the upper hand, you know. There was this look in their eyes, a certain way they held themselves. Starsgard has something they aren’t talking about. I don’t think everyone knows about it but some people do. Like Ruth. She’s so calm, so certain about things.”

  “You’ve seen their defense systems.” I smiled, thinking about the body print. “Even the air keeps them safe.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He caught my eye, his forehead creased. He shook his head as if he was trying to ignore his inner thoughts. “There’s something else. I just don’t know what it is yet.”

  I thought back to the first trip down the elevator with Ruth and Jonah, about their strange conversation about some other thing that might be affecting the moss. Except, whatever it was, I didn’t think it was a good thing since they’d seemed so concerned about it. Then I wondered about Ruth’s cryptic comments to the other Counselors about building bridges for the first time.

  I wondered if the message from Josh would shed any light on it. I wanted to tell Michael about it but sensed I should wait.

  “The smells here are strange.” Michael caught my eye and laughed. “I know that sounds totally weird. But the first day we got here, there was this scent. It reminded me of … I don’t know what.” He stepped away from me, his forehead crinkling. “I sound like a total nutcase.”

  He didn’t. I knew what he meant. The first day we’d arrived, his brother had the same oily, pungent scent around him as I’d noticed about Cheyne. Jason had laughed about the fuel marsh.

  The door opened and Ruth bustled in with a smile on her face.

  “Michael, how are you? Not too nervous I hope?” She covered the distance and pulled him into a brief hug.

  He returned her smile. “I know I’m in good hands.”

  “That you are.” She looked between us. “I have some work to do tonight but I’ll send someone to bring Ava down to see you this evening after the procedure.” Her focus returned to Michael. “Ready to go?”

  “I’m ready.” His hand gripped mine for another second before he followed her to the door, picking up his backpack. I watched them leave, and it was only after they were gone that I realized Ruth hadn’t seemed surprised to see him there, or even made any comment about the fact that she’d expected to pick him up from his home.

  I turned in a circle, appraising the walls, the darkened hallway leading to the bedrooms, and the balcony outside.

  My stomach sank.

  I was in a surveillance zone.

  Now I was glad I hadn’t mentioned the message from Josh.

  I didn’t bother returning to my bedroom to investigate, to knock on the walls and listen for movement on the other side. Ruth had already told me that her home only took up a small portion of the top level and the rest was surveillance. I didn’t imagine the surveillance was inside her home, that as a Councilor she wouldn’t have some degree of privacy.

  The fact that she’d chosen to come in when I was about to mention the fuel marsh told me that Michael was right. There was something else they weren’t talking about. Something they believed kept them safe.

  Maybe it didn’t matter what it was. Because it would keep me safe too.

  Wouldn’t it?

  Eager now to leave, I glanced at the wind-up clock on the wall and gathered my dance things. I was already half an hour late. I raced down through the atrium and past the trees, onto the train platform. There were people milling around, leani
ng against posts, heading out to start their day. The train arrived a couple of minutes later and I hurried onto it. As the doors closed, I noticed someone standing near one of the posts on the platform, who hadn’t boarded the train. There was a flash of white like sunlight reflecting off a mirror for a moment. The train began to move and I glanced back, but whoever it had been was gone.

  When I reached Tower Fifteen and pushed open the big doors, I found the room empty.

  Great. Costume try-outs weren’t here, but I didn’t know where. I reached back into my memory. Luke had told me about them the day before but I’d been so preoccupied with Michael that everything was a blur.

  I chewed my lip for a moment. I caught movement close by on my left and hoped it was Luke.

  Seth stood contemplating the weapons wall, his eyebrows drawn down, his frown intense.

  “Ava.” His voice was an unwelcoming growl. “Luke waited for you but I told him to go.”

  I hovered. “Oh. Um. Where do I need to go?”

  Instead of answering me, he stepped closer to the wall. He ran his hand over the handle of one of the serrated ribbons. “They say that mortals feel fear and pain. I wonder what that’s like?”

  He stared at me and it occurred to me how alone we were in the room. I took a step back toward the door. The look in Seth’s eyes told me that needing to know where the costumes were might be the least of my worries.

  “We can’t kill each other.” He ran his finger over the ribbon’s serrated edge, cutting his thumb in a long pull so that it cut faster than it healed. A single drop of blood dripped across the blade. “But we want to. Like Cain striking Abel. Like Brutus stabbing Caesar.” His eyes pierced mine, pinning me. “Why do you think that is?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he pulled off his shirt and flung it to the floor. He snatched the ribbons from the wall. First one, then the other. Both lashed the air, barely missing his face and chest, but he didn’t even flinch.