THE ELECTRIC HEIR

by Lee, Victoria

  It took Noam fifteen minutes to walk to the school and another fifteen for the suppressants to finally wear off. He spent those last minutes sitting on the porch railing of the café across the street, legs dangling out over the asphalt, watching the cars zip back and forth and wondering if this was where he’d have ended up if he hadn’t dropped out of school in the eighth grade.

  Ninth Street was about a mile from here. They’d started rebuilding. Not tenements, now, but boutique stores and expensive organic groceries. Places where no one who lived there before the outbreak would’ve been able to afford shopping. And there were expensive apartments right next to the school, right across Duke Street. Maybe students from both neighborhoods had attended, Atlantians brushing shoulders with ministers’ kids.

  At last, Noam sensed the flicker of tech working in the engines of all those driverless cars, and he pushed off the railing to land in the parking lot, electromagnetism slowing him down before impact.

  The school was dark as he darted across Main Street, the cars’ AI forcing them to decelerate and let him pass. Someone honked, irritated, but Noam just held up a hand and kept running.

  The security cameras saw nothing but empty space as Noam approached the main building. A twist of telekinesis was enough to unlock the front door—still analog; the school board clearly hadn’t apportioned the money to buy digital security yet—and Noam slipped inside, flicking on the overhead lights.

  It looked remarkably like Noam’s old middle school. There was the same off-white tile floor, same student art on the walls and shitty composite-wood classroom doors. Noam followed in Lehrer’s footsteps down the hall, descending the staircase into the basement.

  The corridors were narrower down here, as if the building was smaller underground than it was above. Or maybe that was Noam’s imagination. But here it felt like the walls were closing in on him, the air stale and difficult to breathe. It smelled weird too. Like something had died in the heating vents.

  Noam inhaled through his mouth and tried the first door on his right.

  Just a classroom, albeit a small and windowless one. Lehrer wouldn’t hide the vaccine in plain sight like that, would he? High schoolers were intrepid. If there was a bag of mysterious vials hidden in a regular classroom, they’d have found it in days.

  Noam realized after a moment that he thought of high schoolers like he wasn’t one of them. Like there was something different about teens who went to public school than teens who went to Level IV. Maybe that was true—he doubted any of these kids had hunched over a sink to rinse someone else’s blood off their hands.

  Or maybe that was Lehrer’s influence: You’re so much older than your age . . .

  The smell was really getting to him now. Noam swallowed hard against the urge to gag and stepped back out into the hall, pulling the classroom door shut.

  He ruled out the other classrooms on the hall, but the last door on the left was locked. Noam frowned and tried the knob again, like it was somehow supposed to turn on second attempt.

  He glanced toward the stairs, half expecting to see Lehrer standing there gazing down at him with shadowed eyes. The landing was empty.

  Noam sucked in a shallow breath, anxiety hot in his blood as he drew on telekinesis and turned the latch. The door swung open by forty-five degrees and caught on something heavy, wouldn’t go any farther. He edged through the gap, shoving against the door with his shoulder and forcing it against whatever was blocking the way—just an inch of give—and he squeezed past, stumbling into a dark, dusty space.

  His magic caught a sense of electricity above the ceiling; he tugged on it, and a single bulb lit overhead. The light was grayish and weak but still enough to illuminate a large room full of . . .

  Noam had no idea what all this shit was, actually.

  The room looked like it was used as a general storage space for anything that didn’t have a better home elsewhere in the school. Cardboard boxes overflowed with sequined theater costumes and polyester wigs; a stack of student art projects towered on a nearby table, the top canvas displaying abstract splatters of paint and what looked like discarded buttons. There was even a toilet abandoned in the middle of the floor, black mildew creeping over the trap.

  Noam was starting to get why Lehrer chose to hide the vaccine at a high school. No way would he find the bag hidden among all this crap.

  Still, Noam crept forward—carefully, as there were boxes everywhere, the floor littered with general detritus—and tried to figure out where the hell to start. Swensson had told them something about this. Not about searching for illegal magic vaccines the chancellor hid in the basement of the local high school, but about organizing searches more generally. You were supposed to create a grid over the search area and rule out each zone in sequence.

  So he’d start at the beginning, the corner nearest the door.

  He turned back where he came from and met his own gaze reflected in a large ornate mirror. That was what had been lodged behind the door, gilt edged and age spotted—and over Noam’s right shoulder, a pale figure stared out of the darkness.

  Noam yelped and spun around, magic snapping to his fingertips.

  But it was just an old mannequin sticking out from an open box. Probably something the art students used for figure-drawing class, blank faced and nude. Harmless.

  Even so, it took several seconds for adrenaline to stop flicking between Noam’s nerves like static.

  At last he exhaled an unsteady breath and moved forward, dragging the mirror out of the way to search behind it. All he found were cartons of markers and ancient printer paper. And even when Noam moved on from that grid and searched another three-square-foot block—and another, and another—he found nothing but junk.

  Noam’s phone buzzed in his back pocket. He drew it out and glanced down at the screen. Sighed.

  “What’s up, Ames?” he answered.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m downtown. Why?”

  A beat of silence. He imagined her drumming her fingers against her thigh, could perfectly envision the frown on her face. “Is that the truth?”

  “Yes. What the hell?”

  “Not like you haven’t been telling a whole lot of stories lately,” Ames said brusquely. “So if you’re really downtown, you want some company? Bethany keeps trying to get me to help with her math homework, and honestly, I’m fucked up right now, and I don’t want her to notice. Bad influence.”

  Of course you’re high. You always are. Noam bit his lip to keep from saying it aloud and turned his gaze toward what was left of the room—another forty feet, easily. This place was massive, probably covered the whole area beneath the cafeteria. “No,” he said. “I’m actually about to head back. If you’re still up, I’ll take over Bethany duty, though.”

  Although he wasn’t sure why Taye didn’t help out. Taye was the math prodigy.

  “So says the guy who was in remedial math this time last year,” Ames pointed out dryly—and now that he was looking for it, Noam could detect the slur to her words. “Besides. Aren’t you like . . . too good for tutoring now?”

  “I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean.”

  “You’re the new Dara. You’re Lehrer’s protégé. That makes you cool to people who don’t know any better.”

  Noam grimaced into the darkness. “You’re saying it’s gone to my head?”

  “Has it?” There was a sharper edge to Ames’s voice now. The implication: If you really understood, you wouldn’t be where you are right now. Or where she clearly thought he was, at least—with Lehrer, despite everything.

  “I’m heading back,” Noam said again. “I’ll see you in a few minutes. Okay?”

  But when he got back, Ames barely even spoke to him, just took one look at him, then snorted and shook her head, like she knew something he didn’t. And he supposed that was exactly what she thought.

  So Noam lay awake in Dara’s narrow bed until four, staring across the room—past the clothes on the f
loor, past the lump-under-the-covers that was Taye—at the bed where he’d kissed Dara the first time. Where they’d discovered each other’s bodies, that one perfect set of moments fractured again minutes later. Dara was on the other side of the city, maybe even lying awake himself right now thinking how much he loathed Noam for the choices Noam made.

  And he was right. Everything that happened now Noam had chosen.

  He had no one to blame but himself.

  The next day, after Lehrer had finally dismissed him from their private lesson by lighting a cigarette and waving him off, Noam skipped his next class and headed to the second floor of the west wing instead.

  By now, Noam was such a fixture in the government complex that no one even glanced twice at him—not unless it was to tilt their head in recognition. Or sycophancy, given his connection to Lehrer; Noam wasn’t quite clear which.

  No one asked if he had someplace better to be.

  So when Noam knocked on the door to Holloway’s office, he knocked like he had every right to disturb the home secretary in the middle of a workday.

  The receptionist who opened the door was the same one he ran into last year, when he pretended to be Dara and stole emails off the very computer he sensed in the adjoining office now. This time, though, the computer was actually in use.

  “I’m here to see Minister Holloway,” Noam said. “He’s expecting me.”

  This time, the receptionist didn’t bother asking his name.

  Noam lingered there in the anteroom while the woman announced him to Holloway. Noam could barely hear the murmur of muffled voices through the closed door.

  This was it, moment of truth.

  But when the receptionist emerged, it wasn’t to tell him to leave. Instead she ushered him past the heavy mahogany door, into a broad window-lit office and the presence of Minister Maxim Holloway, who rose up from behind his desk even as the door fell shut.

  “I hope you’re here to discuss the outbreak in Atlantia,” Holloway said dryly, “and not anything incriminating.”

  “Sorry to disappoint.”

  Noam stepped deeper into the room, far enough to rest his hands atop the back of one of Holloway’s guest chairs. Holloway himself hadn’t moved, sharp gaze tracking Noam as if he thought Noam might be liable to pull out a gun and shoot him in his own office the way he shot Tom Brennan.

  Don’t think about Brennan.

  “Are you involved?” Noam asked.

  Holloway lifted one black brow. “That’s very bluntly put. But, yes. I am. I have been, since the beginning.”

  Both of them were carefully stepping around the words that mattered, the ones that felt like pinned grenades: Resistance. Rebellion.

  Noam’s grip tightened on the chair.

  “I want to help,” he said.

  Holloway sighed. He placed his fingertips lightly atop the surface of his desk, as if that would ground him. “Dara said you might.”

  So Dara did want Noam involved, after all.

  “Your position is precarious,” Holloway went on. “You might find it difficult to escape the complex to make meetings. I suffer the same problems. We’re both very visible—to Lehrer, among others.”

  To Lehrer. That was delicately put. Did Holloway know the truth?

  “I’ll figure it out.”

  “I’m sure you will.” Holloway tipped his head to one side, considering. And for a moment, Noam worried this had been a mistake. He’d assumed Holloway was with the resistance because he delivered a message from Dara. But he might be a double agent. All of this could be fed right back to Lehrer the moment Noam left.

  And by now Noam ought to know: there was no one he could trust. Not really.

  He’d paid attention to Holloway’s political rise following Lehrer’s coup. Holloway had taken a bold position in government, hard on crime and harder with punishment. He was a member of Sacha’s party, the Republican Democrats. Most of the legislation he supported was far right of center. In fact, he took the opposite stance from Lehrer on almost everything—only Noam got the sense that was exactly how Lehrer wanted it. If Lehrer truly saw Holloway as a threat to his power, he could easily put him under persuasion.

  Lehrer and Holloway might be enemies on the public stage, but in the shadowy wings of the political theater, they were allies.

  Just how deep did that alliance run?

  Noam had to decide. The only thing worse than the wrong choice was complacency.

  Holloway was still watching with that same suspiciously penetrating gaze. “We could use your help,” he said. “Now that Lehrer is aware of our existence, we’re hamstrung. He expects an attack.”

  “I know exactly what Lehrer expects,” Noam said grimly.

  Holloway’s lips twitched, almost a smile.

  “There’s a meeting tonight,” he said. “The bar on Rigsbee next to the barbecue joint. Nine o’clock.”

  Noam’s heart leaped toward his throat. Holloway wasn’t wrong about the challenges of getting away. At nine, he’d be expected to be one of two places: in the barracks, getting ready for bed, or in Lehrer’s apartment. And he didn’t think Ames was gonna buy it’s classified as an excuse much longer. But.

  “I’ll be there.”

  What a fucking mess, he thought all the same that night when Lehrer texted him 8:00 p.m. and Noam hurled his phone onto the opposite side of the sofa.

  “That’s aggressive,” Bethany commented from her position in the armchair by the window.

  “Sorry.”

  “Ex-girlfriend?” Taye said, smirking.

  Ames was conspicuously silent. She had one of her curriculum books open on her knee, looking down at the page, but her eyes weren’t moving.

  “Work,” Noam said after a beat. “Emergency meeting in two hours.”

  “Dude, tell them you have basic in the morning and make them fuck off.” Taye spread both hands to either side, half a shrug. “You’re Level IV. You can’t spend all your time liaising, or whatever else it is liaisons do. You have, like, homework.”

  “Believe me. I know.”

  Noam glanced at Bethany, who was watching him over the edge of her holoreader with steady, unreadable eyes. She hadn’t said much on the subject, although she must have noticed Noam was gone as often as Ames and Taye had. But she was also probably the only reason Ames hadn’t publicly and violently lost her shit at Noam yet—she didn’t want to make a bad impression on a fifteen-year-old.

  “You can do my homework for me, if you’re looking for extra work,” Taye added, lifting his geology textbook and wiggling both eyebrows.

  “Definitely, if you don’t mind failing Bennett’s class.”

  “I’m already failing Bennett’s class. Too many rocks, not enough numbers.”

  Bethany hid behind her holoreader again, and something twinged in Noam’s chest—an odd guilt he couldn’t quite place.

  “It’ll be okay,” Noam said, mostly for Bethany’s sake. “I signed up for this, after all. It’s important. I won’t ever be as good an Atlantian liaison as Brennan was, but . . .”

  He couldn’t finish that thought. Was he seriously using Brennan’s memory as a shield to justify having an affair with the man who made Noam kill him? Vile. The bar for basic human decency was underground at this point, and Noam still couldn’t clear it.

  “We can all go out this weekend,” he ventured. “Catch a movie in Raleigh . . .”

  “You gonna be free this weekend, Noam?” Ames said idly, and popped her gum.

  “Should be,” he said. He forced a smile when Ames looked at him. “What do you think, Bethany?”

  Bethany slapped her book shut and dropped it on the floor with a loud thump. “I think you should both leave me out of it.”

  She shoved herself up and stalked out of the room. The girls’ bedroom door slammed shut behind her, a painting rattling on the wall.

  “What’s up with her?” Taye said.

  Ames’s cheeks had flushed red. Noam knew exactly how she felt.


  “I’m going for a run,” he muttered and pushed up from the sofa, heading back into the bedroom to change—although not before grabbing his phone from the other cushion. The last thing he needed was someone bringing it to him, staring at the screen right when Lehrer inevitably texted again.

  It was six miles from the government complex out west, past Noam’s old neighborhood, then north—carefully evading the whole Geer Street area, just in case—then back again down side roads and residential streets, cutting past the catastrophe memorial to return home. He always did the same loop, always tried to run it faster than the previous time, until his muscles burned and his lungs ached from the frigid winter air, until he couldn’t see for the sweat dripping into his eyes. When he ran, there was nothing. No thoughts. No fears. Just the crunch of the snow under his feet and the pounding of his own heart in his temples.

  He hunched over his knees when he finally made it back to the government complex, sucking in a series of sharp shallow breaths and fighting a wave of light-headedness. His clenched fingers were pale and bloodless with cold.

  But he’d beat his personal best time by thirty seconds.

  And—more importantly—he’d figured out his next move.

  Lehrer didn’t notice him come in.

  That much was obvious as Noam toed off his running shoes in the hall—he could hear Lehrer in the kitchen, the sizzle of a frying pan, and Lehrer’s voice narrating out loud: “The most difficult part is folding the dumplings. It helps to use an egg glaze, like this, to glue the edges of the dough together . . .”

  He’s finally lost it, Noam thought as he moved across the living room on sock feet. Lehrer has finally, actually lost it.

  But when he came into the kitchen, he found Lehrer standing with a little pat of flattened dough in one palm. Wolf sat by the table with his amber gaze fixed unblinking on Lehrer’s hand.

  “He seems very attentive,” Noam said.

  Lehrer glanced up, a smile quirking his lips. “I won’t flatter myself. He’s far more interested in the ground lamb, I think.”