The first big blast occurred at 11 p.m. It rocked The Hovels. In The Shanty Alleys, cardboard walls collapsed on top of people asleep on their mats. People pushed out of their shelters and ran in all directions. Nobody knew what had happened. Babies wailed, mothers gathered children, men hurriedly slipped on shoes and grabbed whatever was handy for defense. A fire broke out somewhere, sending a ball of smoke into the sky. It wasn’t clear where the blast was located, so people shouted directions and theories. No one listened to anyone as the chaos gathered momentum. Not knowing where to go for safety, people gathered in knots together. These knots grew larger and then broke apart, scattering to new places.
At regular intervals across the city, and as far as The Ring, blasts sounded like massive fireworks celebrating nothing.
After Gruen left Niko and Father Ignatius, he rode to The Ring, where Fuller lived in a second-floor apartment in the Tower of David. One of the last squatters to claim a space in the building, he had paid a family of eight to move out of their three rooms and go to a higher floor because he was just too big (whenever he referred to himself, he used the word “big”) to make it up more than one flight. Even that was so difficult he rarely left his rooms. He moved in right after the Regime had reorganized him out of the underground abyss known to the Regime as Information Services. Money was tight for Fuller. Free rent, no matter what the living conditions, was better than paying a monthly fee to some grubber of a landlord. After the Regime took over, all landlords’ money ended up back with Villinkash and his cronies anyway. So Fuller thought of squatting in the Tower as a blow against the bastards who had used him and tossed him away like a rag.
Fuller was a guy with some peculiar abilities. For one thing, he had a photographic memory. Everything he had seen while working in the dingy computer rooms was stored in his brain. Things like passwords, strings of code, names of files, were all accessible to him at any time. He was about as antisocial a person as you could find, rarely speaking, uninterested in chatting or gossip, never interacting with groups, never uttering a pleasant “good morning.” But there was no technology beyond his grasp. Which is why the Regime had cast him aside. Because he didn’t operate the way everyone else did, they viewed him as a threat they might not be able to control.
In the end, they were right.
Day after day and night after night, Fuller spread his enormous bulk across a mattress atop the platform he’d built to accommodate not only his size but also his array of computers and devices. The Regime limited access to technology as a perk for their members. So when he moved to the Tower, Fuller instructed a twelve-year-old Scrounger, who was called Shag because of his unruly mop of hair, to install a tiny wireless device on the roof. It was so small that no one ever noticed it. Using it, Fuller could connect to any part of any system with just a few codes and passwords.
Because of his peculiar abilities, which were known only within a small circle, sometimes a person looking for particular information would show up at his door to pay for Fuller’s talents. He compensated Shag for his services and his silence. He was Fuller’s fetcher, gofer, and informer, and that way, he had made a new life and amassed a significant nest egg.
For Fuller there was little distinction between day and night, so when Gruen showed up at barely five in the morning, Fuller’s fingers were busily pecking at one of his many keyboards. He might have closed and locked the door to his unit, but there had never been a door. Most of the glass windows had been blown out long ago, except for the one in the room he used as a bedroom, the largest of his three rooms.
“Hey, Fuller,” Gruen called out as he walked into the unit. “You up?” He peered into the dark room. You never knew who could be around any corner. Gruen heard something that sounded vaguely like a belch and followed the sound toward Fuller’s preferred room.
“Who wants to know?” Fuller asked, his voice scratchy as if he’d been asleep.
“It’s Gruen.”
“Yeah, so you wake me up to tell me who you are? What do you want?”
Gruen walked farther into the room. It smelled like old sheets that hadn’t been washed. Dirty dishes lay stacked on the floor, and there were empty glasses near the edge of the huge bed that took up most of the room. Besides pillows and rumpled sheets, an array of computers and screens surrounded Fuller.
“No. I came because I need some help.”
Fuller maneuvered himself into a semi-sitting position against a wall of pillows. He closed all the open laptops and systematically darkened the other screens.
“What kind of help? And hand me that bottle, would you?”
Gruen took a water bottle from the floor and handed it to Fuller.
“Dangerous kind of help.”
“Oh, yeah? Dangerous to who?”
“Both of us.”
“Is it for you? This help you want. Or a second party?”
Gruen was uncharacteristically quiet. He walked over closer to the bed. “I’m going to tell you something. Something you could use to get a lot out of the Regime. Something Villinkash would pay more than you can imagine to get.”
Fuller blinked. “And you think I would be interested in helping that piece of shit?”
When Gruen heard what Fuller said, he suddenly realized that there was no light coming from the apartment’s InCom screen.
“Where’s your InCom?” he asked.
“Ha. That’s the first thing I reprogrammed. Now, what is it you want from me?”
“Before I tell you, what would you want to dismantle and reprogram the entire InCom network?”
Fuller opened the bottle and put it to his lips. After drinking from it, he held it by its neck as he said, “You don’t have enough for that kind of a job. No one’s ever done anything like that before.”
“I know. But that’s not all.”
Fuller laughed and then had a coughing fit. He drank more from the bottle.
“What else?”
“The electric grid. Could you get into it and shut down power to The Compound and The Perimeters? And all the watch towers and The Globe?”
“You don’t want much, do you?”
“And there’s one more thing.”
“Yeah?”
“It needs to be done by tomorrow night at eleven.”
Fuller put the bottle down and stared at Gruen. “You must be crazy. What’s all this for, anyway?”
“I’ve told you enough already. Any more and you’d have a tough time denying any of it.”
“So, let’s say, for argument’s sake, I could pull this off by tomorrow night. What are you willing to pay and when do I get it?”
“How much do you want?”
“I want gold. No currency. And I want it delivered here.”
He wrote down an address for Gruen and handed it to him.
“Who do I see? And how much do you want?”
“Give me the paper.” Fuller wrote something else on it and handed it back. “Ask for Jake. He’ll take care of it for you. Have it there by three today. I’ll take it on faith at this point and start working. But I won’t put anything into motion until I know the gold is there.”
“How will you confirm it’s done?”
“My boy, Shag, will let you know. You still live at the same place? In The Hovels?”
Gruen nodded, astonished that Fuller knew even that much about him. “How did you know that?”
Fuller patted one of the closed computers. “I make it my business to know things.” He squinted at Gruen. Light was beginning to filter through the windows in the other room. The sun would be up soon.
“So, change is coming to Infinius,” Fuller said. “Let’s hope we survive it.” “We must go now. Not a good idea to wait until it’s too late in the morning. Put on this hat and follow me out,” Father Ignatius told Niko.
The hat was old and worn, a peaked cap with a faded logo of some team from long ago. Niko had to adjust the back to make it fit properly.
“Are you hungry?” Father Ig
natius asked.
“Yes. Do you have anything we could eat before we leave?”
Father Ignatius went to a carton on the floor and pulled out two bananas and some biscuits. He also took two bottles of juice, then closed the carton.
They ate in silence. Niko didn’t look at Father Ignatius; he was thinking about El.
When they finished, they dropped the peels and empty juice bottles into a bag, tied it, and locked the doors behind them. They slipped through the fence hole, and after a few blocks, Father Ignatius dropped the bag into a trash bin by a lamppost. They passed an InCom screen and saw Niko’s picture with a warning flash across it. Then there was a picture of El all dressed up from The Race night.
No one was out on the street yet. Niko whispered, “See that? Anyone could recognize me . . . or El.”
Father Ignatius kept walking. With every step he felt the fate of many young people in his heart. They were young people who would, in a few short hours, risk their lives at his urging, and now he also felt the pressure of getting Niko and El out of the city. Where should they go? For how long? Such questions spun in his mind like a pinwheel round and round, pushed by the winds of change. In the vastness of time, all things pass, yet in the moment, every detail seems filled with import. He weighed the challenge of reuniting these two young people against what would happen to them at the hands of Villinkash should they not escape.
No matter how he turned it over in his mind, the conclusion was the same. He had to find a way to make peace between them.
El slept on and off, waking each time she heard a blast outside the convent. Some were muffled, and she figured they were far away. Some were loud enough that she got up and listened at the door, ready to hide in the pit if she heard anyone trying to get in. At some point she fell asleep, falling into a deep rest with no dreams until something roused her and she sat up.
Part of her felt comforted by the familiar surroundings. She had left everything intact when the last sister died and she had to move out. She wondered why the Collectors hadn’t ransacked the convent. She’d heard they were superstitious about some things. Maybe that was the reason. She looked up at the cross on the wall.
She was sore from fighting Niko. She couldn’t get it out of her mind. Even if the sisters had been alive still, she couldn’t have told them what had happened. Thinking about everything Father Ignatius had said, she felt clammy with shame. Tears pricked at her eyes. She lowered her face into her hands and wept.
After her personal storm had passed, she got up and washed herself again, using the cleansing soap and water as a ritual to feel whole again. Moving around helped relieve the soreness. She made an herbal tea and ate canned soup and crackers. She even found dried figs. With her stomach full, she looked around the convent and thought about all the years she’d spent there and how safe she’d felt although she knew about the dangers that were always waiting outside. Now she was vulnerable. She couldn’t stay inside those walls forever. But what to do? Where to go? How to survive now that she was being hunted?
After cleaning the few dishes using water pumped from the old well out back, she sat at the big wooden table to think. Her situation was untenable. That was the only certainty. Outside was nothing but danger. She began to imagine what could happen to her when she had to venture outside of the convent. It was too frightening to contemplate, so she focused her mind on what few resources she had. A mental image of Old Merrie came to her, and she wished she could speak to the old woman to ask her what to do.
Then came the faint sound of a scratch at the secret door. At first she thought it must be a feral cat. The sisters used to leave food for them. But then she heard a creak that told her the door was opening. She ran to a small storage room off the kitchen and crouched down, her heart thumping wildly. She had not even thought to grab a kitchen knife.
Faintly, she heard someone call her name.
“El? Are you here? Don’t be afraid. It’s Father Ignatius.”
Such relief flooded through her that she all but ran into his arms and collapsed against him, her fingers so tight to his jacket that she could feel the muscles tense to hold her up.
“Oh, Father,” she breathed. “I’ve been so afraid. But now you’re here.”
“Yes, child, I’m here. Hush hush. It’s still not safe out there. And I am not alone.”
He gently disentangled her from his arms. That’s when she saw Niko behind him.
In one instant her expression shifted, with the fluidity of water, from relief to disbelief, then fear, back to disbelief, and then to anger as she pushed at Father Ignatius and stumbled backwards slowly, as if the fact of Niko’s presence would not come clear in her mind, as if she was having a recurring nightmare as she distanced herself from them by half the length of the room.
Father Ignatius held out his hands to calm her.
“It’s all right, El. No one’s going to hurt you. We’ve come to help you and to ask for your help.”
“Help?” she asked in a hoarse whisper. “Help him?”
Father Ignatius took two steps forward, placing himself between Niko and El, but before he could say or do anything, Niko rushed to the kitchen and began pulling out drawers until he spotted a long slender carving knife with a sharp point. He grabbed it and moved swiftly around Father Ignatius until he was in front of El.
He threw the knife at her feet. It clattered and lay there, easy for her to grab.
“There,” he said softly. “Use it. I won’t blame you.”
El bent down and picked it up by the handle. Holding it as if to stab, she approached him slowly, deliberately, her eyes narrowed, her mouth set in a hard line.
Niko did not move.
“You . . .” she began to speak. “You come here. You want my help. You think you can make everything between us like it was before?”
“No, El. No.”
He spoke quietly, his lips set in a grim line. He stood in front of her like an animal that had been trapped and realized there was no escape. He tilted his head up towards the ceiling beams as if searching for some signal and it was then El saw his face contort in pain. Out of him came a sob of anguish like nothing she’d ever heard before.
El didn’t know what to do. She fingered the knife, thinking that if she killed him now, that act would stay with her, forever layered over what he had done by choosing her and what she had done to him. There was no going back, she realized. And to add to that pain by creating another one would only hurt her further.
“Whatever you do to me, I deserve. Whatever you think of me, I deserve,” Niko sobbed. “I’ve done too much. And to have hurt you is too much for me to bear.”
Father Ignatius stepped forward and spoke.
“Please, both of you, I want you to understand that there is no going back in life. We all do terrible things. Sometimes to the ones we love the most. And terrible things are done to us. I wish I could explain to you why, but I cannot. In all my years and with all my experience, I still cannot fathom why people are so cruel and so filled with all the sins in the Bible. No one can avoid all those sins. No one can say he or she is absolutely pure.
“Niko has harmed El in a way that she feels cannot be forgiven. El has harmed Niko in a way that will show on his face for the rest of his life. The system you were born into has harmed us all. So we must change. First ourselves. Yet how? By forgiving, as the prayer says, those who trespassed against us. And then we must change the system. Because corruption breeds corruption. Greed breeds greed. Evil breeds evil. It isn’t hard to breed these things. All it takes is turning people away from their innate need to love, to forgive, to build a better life. Because destruction is so easy. But creating is so hard.”
El stood there, the knife still in her hand.
Niko looked up at her with tears streaming down his face. He held out his hands, palms up.
“Forgive me, El. Please, forgive me. I don’t understand what happened. I never wanted to hurt you. I will never hurt you again. But if y
ou must seek revenge, do it quickly. And then I hope you find a way out of Infinius. Because if I die here, at least I’ll know I didn’t completely kill the feelings we once had for each other.”
El relaxed her hold on the knife. Could she believe what he said? Or was he saying these things only because of Father Ignatius and because he was in trouble? It was impossible to know for sure. He seemed sincere. But how could he know what she’d gone through and how she felt now? It was still about how he felt, about what he’d done. It was still not about her, not about her feelings. And now her feelings were more confused than ever. Because she did remember how she’d felt before. Before The Race and everything that came afterwards.
She turned to face Father Ignatius.
“I see you are confused, child,” he said softly. “And that is normal, too. Even expected. But the wonderful thing about humans is their capacity to heal. It’s something miraculous that we see all through the natural world. We are a part of that world. If you strike a tree, it will grow tissue back over the wound. After a forest fire, new life sprouts. So it is with us. Part of healing is rediscovering trust. In yourself and others. Not blind trust, but trust that is warranted. I cannot guarantee that you will never be hurt again, but if you carry this hurt forever, without forgiveness, you will never heal.” He reached for the knife, but she held back.
“How can I forgive him, Father?” El asked.
“Perhaps you can’t forgive him now. Perhaps in the future you’ll find a way. For now, try to trust that he is remorseful and that he truly cares for you. Blame the system. And blame his desire to be close to you. He chose you because he wanted something real, not some tawdry, meaningless, empty liaison.”
El stood there looking from Father Ignatius to Niko, still crumpled on the ground like a fallen leaf. Her hand shook as she released the knife to him.
Father Ignatius put them knife back in its drawer and carefully shut it then leaned down to help Niko to his feet.
“I wish we could stay here and speak about the future and how to unravel the emotions you both have experienced. I wish many things for you, Niko and El. But there is no time. You’re in too much danger. The Regime will hunt you relentlessly. There will be a price on both your heads and many people will try to make money on you. So neither of you can stay in the city. And neither of you will get far away on your own” He turned to El. “We have made a plan for your escape, but that is only a part of the plan. Many things will begin to happen tonight, and the city will be engulfed in turmoil. The Regime will be out in force but so confused that I think we can slip you past The Protections. From there you’ll be on your own.”
A Place Called Zamora Page 17