No one has any answer to that.
“And if it’s true that the Provocation repeats every fifty to sixty years, where is the evidence for that?” she asks. “Apart from what took place forty-seven years ago, nothing on this scale has ever happened in earth’s history.” She turns to me. “Have you come across anything like it in your history sources?”
“No.”
“So why now?”
Willoughby clears his throat. “I think we have to accept the possibility that the Bruelim may have changed their intentions.”
Ethan’s eyes gleam with understanding. He nods slowly. “This isn’t just about self-preservation anymore. They’ve been growing stronger while weakening us.”
“You mean a military invasion?” I gape. “Occupation? Overthrowing Capernica?”
“It is in the realm of the possible,” Colonel Padrillo answers. “Quite logical, actually.”
“So what’s next?” Caedmon asks. “What do we do?”
“We keep investigating,” Willoughby says. “Last time, the disappearances came in two waves over a series of months. School children then adults. It’s still early. Caedmon, I want you to study the physiology of our prisoners. Find out how to identify others like them and learn how to stop them. Ethan, continue monitoring Emerson. He’s our best link to the Bruelim. Jack, finish watching Ruby’s videos. Glean everything you can from them. Especially anything that will give us a clue to their location. With diligence, a little luck, and the talent in this room, it may be possible to stop a second Provocation before it gets fully underway.”
I don’t know if I deserve inclusion in Willoughby’s collection of talent. I’m no science prodigy like Caedmon, nor do I possess Ethan’s aptitude to quickly comprehend any situation and assess it. School came easy for me, but my valedictorian honors were more a result of diligence and a small class size than exceptional brainpower. Only my background and my genetic link to the Bruelim qualify as unique assets, but they seem pretty worthless as I spend the next several days poring over videos looking for…what? I watch the entire collection. Then I watch it again. And I come away with nothing.
By Thursday, I am seething with frustration. Caedmon seems to be in the same frame of mind, because at supper she readily agrees to spar with me in a pugil stick match. As we walk out to the Fire Ring, she casts a sideways glance at me. “Jack?” She hesitates. “Ethan didn’t want me to tell you, but the radiation levels are increasing in Settlement 56. I thought you’d want to know.”
I feel the muscles in my chest tighten until they begin to crush my lungs. Suddenly, solving this case has become very personal. It’s no longer about some city I’ve never been to or people I’ve never met. The settlement is my home. These are my neighbors. While I never developed many close friendships besides Will, I don’t want to see tragedy befall the families of my village.
“Have they been issued additional security?” I ask.
“Willoughby’s ordered in extra Greencoats, and he’s trying to get a Military squad assigned there. I don’t know if he’s had any luck.”
As we suit up, familiar names and faces play across my mind. Ollie’s probably too young to be in danger. But what about Jem Woolwright, three houses down from the Ransoms? She’s the same age as Hobart and walks to school with us sometimes. Or Ernie’s sister Muriel, in her final year. What about all the others? A rush of anger jolts through me at my own impotence. Time is wasting. We’ve just spent an entire week accomplishing nothing.
We enter the ring, and I come out fighting. My skills are nearly equal to Caedmon now, and I get in several early blows. But she’s as stressed as I am. We go a long, furious round before either of us calls for a break.
I screw off the top of my water bottle and pour the liquid into my throat. The exercise feels good. The burn in my muscles. The fire in my lungs. But I know it’s futile. How have the Bruelim been able to avoid detection for so many centuries? Where do they go? How can they hide so many people? Where are they concealing their army? Their weapons factories? The infrastructure of their civilization? How can they possibly stay so invisible in the mountains?
Caedmon and I face off again. I scream out my fury and vent my frustration in a violent string of offensive maneuvers that drives Caedmon back. And suddenly the answer comes to me. Bruel invisibility. Settlement 56. Radiation. The graveyard. The mysterious blue light.
I pause. The answer is so brilliantly clear.
Caedmon returns my volley with such force I am knocked to the dirt and the world turns black. When I blink my eyes open, Caedmon crouches beside me, slapping my face. “Jack! Jack! I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”
I rise to my elbows and shake my head clear. Other than a fine ringing in my ears, I seem to be okay. “Yeah. How long was I out?”
“Only seven or eight seconds. I didn’t expect you to just stop fighting like that.”
And then I remember my final thought before her pugil stick drove it from my brain. I spring to my feet. “We’ve got to find Willoughby!”
“Take it easy, Jack. You don’t want to fall again. Let me take you inside and we’ll have you checked for a concussion.”
“This is too important. Go find Ethan and meet me in Willoughby’s office.”
“All right. After I walk you in.”
“No! I’m fine. Just go!” And I shove her toward the door.
She leaves reluctantly, and I make my own slow way inside. I’m dizzier than I thought. We all reach Willoughby’s office at the same time.
Ethan grabs my arm. “Jack, are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” But I let him walk me to the sofa and ease off my helmet.
Willoughby closes out the holoscreen he has been working on. His eyes gleam at me intently. “You have something to report, Jack?”
“Something urgent, Willoughby. Something I hope I can show you instead of describing. Something to do with my trial.”
“Shall I call Captain Chase and Colonel Padrillo?”
I hesitate. “I’d rather you record it and show them later. Is Dr. Skynner available?”
“I’ll summon him immediately.”
“Trial?” Ethan asks in confusion.
“I was the defendant in a murder trial eight years ago.”
I see Caedmon’s face open in shock. Even Ethan, who’s usually such a master at poker-faced emotions, cannot contain his surprise.
“She was acquitted,” Willoughby tells them.
“But I killed him, Willoughby, sure as anything. You know it. I know it. The judge knew it. Every person in that courtroom knew it. They just couldn’t figure out how I did it. I’ve only just worked it out for myself.”
I see the flash of horror on Caedmon’s face, the keen intensity on Ethan’s.
“I was ten years old and fostered out to a man named Jud Wilfert. I’ve told Ethan about him. He was abusive. Extremely so. I ran off one time and he flayed me to within an inch of my life. After that I got more cautious. I’d go on short scouting trips whenever the opportunity arose, always careful to get home before I was missed. I was marking the area, planning a foolproof escape. One evening, about dusk, I entered into a meadow half a mile from Jud’s house and stumbled onto the answer.”
I swallow hard. My skin prickles with heat. “I want to show you the rest. I want you to see my memory of the murder.”
There is an uncomfortable pause as we wait for Dr. Skynner’s arrival. Within three or four minutes, we hear him wheeling his scanning unit down the hallway and then into the room. The silence continues as we watch him set it up.
“It’s ready for you, Miss Holloway.”
I lay down on the sofa as I did before and stick my head inside the box. Dr. Skynner buckles the straps around my crown. “I just have to visualize it?” I ask. “And you’ll be able to see it play out?”
“Yes. The unit will pick up the activity in your brain and translate it for us. You all will have to stand beside me to view the screen.”
I
squirm as they migrate across the room, not because I’m physically uncomfortable but because I’m trying to psych myself up to reveal this secret I’ve suppressed for so long. I’ve never felt so vulnerable.
I hear the machine whir to life. “Whenever you’re ready, Miss Holloway.”
I take a deep breath and close my eyes, forcing myself eight years into the past. In my mind I draw up a picture of that fateful afternoon. I recall the sound of Jud crashing through the underbrush behind me. The fear that struck like lightning every time he cursed or called out my name…
Jud’s drunk as a sailor. I could outrun him and disappear into the wilderness, but I keep my stride measured. Keep him close behind me. I have a far more permanent solution in mind.
After leading him through the mountain wilderness for half a mile, the forest opens into a pristine clearing. Tall meadow grasses sway in the sun, dotted by brightly colored wildflowers. A deer bounds away with its white tail-flag raised high. And there it is, a flat, shimmering circle hovering at the far side. Like an energy field, only glowing faintly blue. The diameter is greater than my height. I can feel it before I see it, as if a force connects us, draws us together.
It’s clear that Jud hasn’t seen it, just as I knew he wouldn’t. Only the week before, I led two of the other children here when Jud sent us to pick berries. Even when I stopped right next to it, they remained completely oblivious. In fact, I had to stop one of the girls from walking straight into it. Now I lead Jud on a merry chase through the meadow, directly toward the wavering light. At the last second, I step around and duck behind, so the circle hovers directly between me and the man I have come to hate.
I know full well what will happen next. The first time I saw the light, I reached a hand into it. I felt nothing, but my hand disappeared up to my wrist. After that, I went around the meadow collecting rocks, sticks, flowers—anything I could pick up and carry. One by one I chucked them into the light. One by one they disappeared.
As I wait on the far side of the glowing disk, I can see Jud through it, face florid, eyes mad, matted hair flapping like the ears of a dog. I hold my breath as he draws closer. And suddenly…he disappears. Just like that, Jud Wilfert simply flashes out of existence.
I draw in a sharp, shaking breath as I relive the memory.
My plan has worked just as I hoped. Even so, I have to slow my racing pulse, regather my composure. I have taken a calculated risk. If I had failed, I would probably be dead before nightfall. So I drop into the grass to recover and let the joy of my liberation soak in.
My pulse quickens and my breath grows ragged inside Dr. Skynner’s box. The worst still lies ahead. It has haunted me since the day I witnessed it. I grip my hands into fists, willing myself to stay in the memory.
After resting several moments, as I am preparing to rise, something shoots out of the light. I don’t see it clearly, so I circle to the other side and peer into the grass. Horror and revulsion hack a road through my chest. A severed arm lies at my feet, still wearing the sleeve of Jud’s shirt.
I stumble backward only to have the next object hit me squarely in the chest and knock me to the ground. Blood seeps from the torn end of a leg and soaks into my shirt. I fling the revolting thing off me and scramble away in a mad rush of panic. Something else flies out at me, but I don’t stop to look. I tear out of the meadow without looking back, pausing only to throw up my meager dinner at the edge of the woods.
I cut off the memory. I am panting now and trembling violently. Sweat pools on my forehead and drips under my arms. I put my hands up to my face only to find a track of tears leaking from my eyes into the box. I unfasten the head strap and sit up without looking at my companions. I can tell from the quiet tension in the room that I have stolen their ability to speak.
I feel weaker than if I had run ten miles. I wipe the moisture from my face with the cuff of my sleeve and shake as I finish the story. “I went straight to the authorities and brought them back to the meadow. By that time, the rest of Jud was lying in the grass. No one had any doubt of my involvement, bloodied and terrified as I was, but no one could figure how a little girl could rip a man into pieces like that.
“I swear I didn’t foresee what would happen. I’d thrown a dozen objects into that light and not one of them ever came spitting back out at me. I didn’t even understand what that circle was until today in the Fire Ring, when I was pondering where the Bruelim could possibly be hiding. That’s when it came to me. When it all made sense.”
I pause to give myself a final nudge. “The light is a portal.”
The silence deepens.
“Don’t you see? It explains how the Bruelim can stay hidden. How they make their raids. How they moved so many people without a trace during the Provocation and how they’re stealing our girls now. Ruby must have escaped through one without even being aware of it.”
Willoughby’s expression has lengthened. He pulls off his glasses and sets them on his desk. “Could you lead us back to that meadow?”
“Possibly. If someone could get me to Jud’s house. But I know where there’s another one just like it. It’s located in a graveyard in 56.”
TWENTY
The aeropod lands in the center of the village, right in the middle of the marketplace. Every eye in Settlement 56 watches as I jump down in my maroon and black Axis uniform with a handgun holstered at my waist, a blade sheathed to my thigh, and a slim, snug-fitting pack on my back. A blackpack, Ethan called it. He drops beside me in the black and blue of the Military, chest crisscrossed with an impressive array of ammunition and weapons. Then the aeropod rises silently and zooms out of sight. Anyone who hasn’t seen our spectacular arrival will certainly hear about it soon.
I’m seized immediately by the memory of Will. The village oozes with his presence. Here, I spent every day of my life with him for eight years. From this spot exactly, I watched him board the ship and sail out of sight. I have to consciously push away the ache and focus on the task at hand.
I catch the eye of the baker, who observes us from the door of his shop with a smudge of flour across his brow. I force a normal smile. “Morning, Mr. Parker.”
“How do, Jack. Beautiful day.” He’s too polite to ask my business. They all are. But a million speculations will float around their dinner tables this evening.
“Sure is. Are Councilman and Mrs. Sweeny at home?”
“Reckon so. Haven’t seen them today.”
“Thank you. Tell your wife hello from me.”
“Will do.”
Ethan grins as we walk away. “Just another morning in the village.”
I chuckle. “You have no idea what a legend this will turn into in the months to come.”
“Oh, I think I’m getting an idea.”
I lead Ethan through the marketplace stalls to the brick house with its pillared portico and sweeping view. The town looks just as I remember. Nothing has changed in the couple months I’ve been gone—nothing but me. I march up the steps to the councilman’s house, each footfall firm and authoritative, and realize that at some point I have gained the confident posture of the Military.
Mrs. Sweeny stands on the porch, gawping at us as we approach. It’s clear she has seen the aeropod. Her eyes bulge as she recognizes me. Then they shift to Ethan, who always carries an imposing air. Together, we look very, very official.
I smile. “Good morning, Mrs. Sweeny. May we come in? We have some matters of business to discuss.”
Her eyebrows ratchet high up her forehead. Curiosity alone would have given her reason to admit us, but playing to her sense of self-importance ensnares her completely. She moves back a step. “Yes, yes. Of course. Come in. May I take your bags?”
“We’ll keep them with us, thank you.”
She ushers us to the kitchen table. “Just give me a moment to fetch Councilman Sweeny.”
“Is this the height of grandeur in 56?” Ethan murmurs, glancing at the cracked plaster, the faded carpet, the tacky floral wallpaper.
“This is it.”
“Then I understand why you were rubbernecking in Epson City.”
Councilman Sweeny enters the room, followed closely by his wife. I see him now through new eyes, a silly old man puffed up with his own sense of importance. It’s sadly pathetic. I can’t believe I ever held him in any awe.
“Good morning, Miss Holloway.” He comes over to shake my hand, taking in the measure of my companion. By the way his back straightens, I can tell he is impressed.
“Councilman, this is my partner, Captain Ethan Alston.”
“A pleasure to meet you, son.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Councilman Sweeny keeps his eyes glued on Ethan. “Do sit down. Georgina, some coffee, please,” he calls to his wife.
Ethan holds up a hand as he seats himself. “No, thank you. We’ll be very brief.”
Councilman Sweeny continues gawking at him expectantly, but Ethan defers to me with the hint of a smile.
I clear my throat and inject some authority in my voice. “Councilman Sweeny, we’d like to speak with you about the Provocation.”
The councilman regards us blandly, but I hear a muffled gasp from his wife and find her face has drained of color. She clings to the wall weakly and peers at me as if she’s never seen me before. I exchange a glance with Ethan. Her reaction mimics Opie’s, but it carries something more…personal. I wonder what memories she carries from that time.
“What about the Provocation?” Councilman Sweeny asks gruffly.
I have been granted no authority to command him, been given no message to carry. Our purpose for coming here is strictly to investigate the portal. But I asked our pilot to drop me in town instead of in Opal’s front yard. Not only was it vastly rewarding to make a grand entrance—I admit, it was mostly for the benefit of Mrs. Sweeny—but her husband is making it so easy to make demands. And I want to ensure my village remains as safe as possible.
Recompense (Recompense, book 1) Page 24