Guardians

by Susan Kim

  It was all, Gideon thought with distaste, so pathetic. And so predictable.

  According to Gideon’s informants, Saith’s panicked guards were dealing with the problem the only way they knew how: with a trip to the eighth floor and a bullet to the back of the head. Yet clearly, such actions could not continue much longer. Every day, more and more of the dying were showing up at the front doors of the District; very soon, it would become impossible to dispose of them all that way. It was only a matter of time before word spread . . . and Gideon could only imagine what the reaction of the crowds would be.

  He smiled. Within hours, such things would no longer be his problem.

  The boy now stood alone in his room. Although moonlight shone through the skylight far overhead and filtered down to the basement, Gideon sensed it was still too early. He had told his three guards to move out together when everyone was asleep. He would go first; they would follow, transporting all of the glass in as many trips as it would take.

  Idly, Gideon picked up a few items then set them back down. There was nothing he wanted; he had never cared much for luxuries, and objects held no sentimental value for him. As for clothing, what he wore on his back would do. Certainly, if he were to ever want for anything in the future, he would soon have the means to acquire it.

  Gideon realized that there was one thing that he wanted to bring to his new home. His notebooks, filled with figures and inventory lists, might come in useful. He searched his meager shelves for a few minutes before recalling that he had left them locked in the tiled office upstairs.

  The District was mostly silent. Yet as he approached his office, his hand already digging for the keys in his pocket, he stopped abruptly.

  He thought he heard something coming from within the locked room.

  But that was impossible, he thought; he allowed no one inside. Leaning forward, Gideon pressed his ear against the wooden surface and listened. The sounds were muffled yet distinct: an odd splashing and a voice murmuring low. Trying not to make a noise, he inserted his key into the brass opening.

  Then with one swift gesture, he twisted it and shoved open the door.

  At the far end of the room, Saith stood over one of the white sinks. Too late, Gideon remembered that she possessed the only extra key. She was bent forward at the waist, splashing in the white basin, which was partly filled with water. A gray plastic bucket sat by her feet. The girl was washing what seemed at first to be a doll, until he noticed it was moving. To his confusion, Gideon registered what it was.

  Esther’s baby.

  The mutant infant lay placidly on its back in a shallow pool of water, blinking its strange eyes as it beat the air with tiny fists. Saith was using a plastic cup to scoop up water and pour it over the child, talking to herself as she did.

  “What you doing?”

  Gideon’s voice echoed in the tiled room. Wincing at the sudden noise, the baby jerked its head in his direction. But Saith turned with a smile, as if expecting him.

  “I make it clean. See?” With a cooing sound, she poured something from a nearby bottle, which she rubbed into the child’s pale skin. Even from where he stood, Gideon could smell the sickening scent of flowers as suds foamed up. “It nice and clean now.”

  Gideon pursed his lips. He was not interested in Saith’s little-girl games, and within a few hours, he would never have to deal with them again. Without a second glance at her, he turned to his notebooks, which were stacked against the wall. After he picked them up and leafed through a few to make sure that everything was in order, he turned to go. Then his eye fell on the pile of glass that glittered in the corner. Although he was not sentimental, he could not help himself. On impulse, he scooped up a handful of the smooth green shards and slipped them into his front pocket.

  “You want to know what I do?”

  Gideon started. As always, Saith’s tiny, high-pitched voice had a drawling, singsong quality that made it compelling.

  “No.” Gideon turned and started heading back out. Tired of the girl’s manipulations and game playing, he was looking forward to leaving her forever.

  “I make it clean for the ceremony.”

  Her words had the desired effect. Although Gideon hated being drawn in by her, he could not keep from asking:

  “Ceremony? What ceremony?”

  She smirked. “The one that make me God. I kill this baby, then I gonna live forever.”

  For a moment, Gideon felt as if he was going to vomit. He had no sentimentality about infants, certainly not mutant infants. Yet Saith’s bizarre plan revolted him in both its senselessness and cruelty. For the first time, it dawned on him that the girl was not merely grandiose, but insane.

  She actually believed what she was saying. And that made him shudder.

  Head cocked, Saith was watching him, her eyes glittering like black stars. “I know what you do,” she said unexpectedly.

  “What?”

  “You know.” Her voice was still lilting, but now it sounded insinuating. “I know you think you move to the new place by yourself. Without Saith.”

  Gideon felt his face flush as he took in her accusation. How did she know? He began to stammer out a denial, but she continued to speak over him.

  “You think I don’t see what you do. You think I stupid. Maybe even that why you build that altar. So I don’t see.” Helpless, Gideon could only gaze back at her as she continued. “But boys tell me things. That slave master? He tell me everything.”

  Jud. Gideon swallowed hard. He had to force himself to remember that she was just a little child, that he was the older of the two, the more powerful. He had the upper hand.

  But did he?

  “So what you aim to do about it?”

  Saith cocked an eyebrow as if the question was impertinent. “Maybe I move there myself,” she drawled. “Maybe soon . . . after the ceremony. That what you aim to do, ain’t it? Leave without saying? That why you take those books. Well, maybe I do it. I move there instead of you.”

  She gave a smile that was both sweet and self-satisfied. She was missing a tooth, Gideon noted, which made her seem even younger than she was. Suddenly, the boy felt as if the ground had begun to crumble beneath his feet. In the next moment, he was filled with a rage so violent, he thought he would choke on it.

  Blood rushed to his hands. Without thinking, Gideon took a step in the girl’s direction. But even as he did, he heard a sound behind him.

  Two of Saith’s guards stood in the entrance. As if in warning, one kept a hand idly at his waistband.

  Slowly, Gideon forced his arms to his side. Saith was no longer looking at him. She had lifted the baby out of the sink and was drying it on a towel as she cooed at it.

  Their meeting was over. He had, he realized with a sense of disbelief, been dismissed.

  As he walked with faltering steps to the doorway, he heard Saith’s voice at his back.

  “Ain’t you clean now?” She gave a throaty little chuckle. “Ain’t you pretty?”

  The door closed behind him.

  Minutes later, Gideon emerged from the hidden staircase at the end of the lobby.

  Now that Saith was onto his plan, he had no time to lose, and he couldn’t afford to be caught disobeying her laws about comingling of the sexes. So, he took care only to advance when he saw that the coast was clear.

  He headed toward the store on the fourth floor that adjoined Saith’s quarters.

  Seeing that a light was on, he waited behind a corner until two hulking guards walked past. Then he darted into the small room.

  By the glow of a torch, a girl, short haired and thin, stood with her back to him. She seemed to be examining different bottles and jars that were arranged on a glass table. Then she turned, and when she saw him, she gave a cry of surprise. Gideon silenced her with a finger to his lips, and gestured out the door at the guards. She nodded in understanding and fell silent.

  Nur looked different—so much so that for one heart-stopping moment, he thought he had made
a mistake. He had not seen her for several weeks, and during that time, she had undergone a terrible transformation. Gone was the vibrant, luscious, and pretty girl he had been expecting—the one who had once teased his feverish imagination. Now noticeably thinner and with her beautiful chestnut hair shorn nearly to her skull, she looked exhausted, haggard, and older.

  Sensing his dismay, Nur recoiled. Then, turning away, she fumbled with her hood and attempted to draw it over her face.

  “Don’t,” he managed to say.

  She froze where she was.

  He crossed to her and, summoning all of his willpower, took her by the shoulder and gently turned her back around so that she faced him. Since any kind of physical contact made Gideon uncomfortable, it would have been hard enough to touch her like this even in the old days. Now, he had to force himself to hide his disgust.

  With difficulty, he smiled.

  “You look good,” he said. “As good as ever.”

  She winced as if struck. “You lie.”

  “No,” he insisted. “You pretty.”

  Tears brimmed in her eyes. Then she wrenched herself away as they spilled down her wasted cheeks and she began to sob.

  Gideon had hoped that Nur would be upset, but he hadn’t realized how bitter she would be. Seeing her now, her beauty gone, he realized he had seriously underestimated her reaction to what had happened under Saith. He understood that Nur had had a treasure stolen from her, not one that could be tallied and entered in a book, like glass, but one just as valuable.

  Still, her pain was to his advantage.

  “I been thinking of you,” he continued. “All the time. The way we used to be.”

  As she wept, Nur gave a mirthless laugh. Even so, he noticed, she was listening. He racked his brain for more compliments.

  “I think of your face,” he said, stumbling over the words. “Your body. How you let me watch you.”

  She shot him a look through reddened eyes, and Gideon realized he had struck a nerve.

  “I miss talking to you,” he said. “You the only one who ever understood me. I miss you.”

  A smile flickered across Nur’s face. “Me, too.”

  “You been up here too long,” he said. “I want you back. This time for real.”

  The girl didn’t say anything for a moment. “What you mean?”

  “I mean . . .” Gideon let out a breath. “I want you be my partner. My queen.”

  To his surprise, Nur didn’t break into a smile or attempt to hug him. She continued to stare at the ground, as if the pattern of tiles fascinated her. Then she spoke. “How I know you serious?”

  Gideon was flummoxed. “B-because,” he managed to say at last. “I told you how I felt.”

  “Did you?” She glanced up at him, and he was startled by the hardness of her expression. “So how come you leave me up here all this time? Make me work for that girl who treat me so bad? How come you forget me?” The boy tried to answer, but she wouldn’t let him; the accusations were now tumbling from her lips as if they had long been held back and finally allowed to burst forth. “You told me before we be partners. Then Esther come around. After that, Saith. All the time you don’t come to me. Not even downstairs, where all the boys come. Why would I trust you now?”

  Because Gideon had no defense against what she was saying, he acted purely on instinct; he had no idea what else to do. Forcing down his distaste, he reached out and took her clumsily in his arms. At first, she struggled against his awkward embrace; then she stopped. Suddenly, she was clinging to him and burying her face in the side of his neck. She was crying again, but this time he sensed it was not from anger but for release.

  “I saved you,” he said. The stubble of her hair felt unpleasant against his lips, and he was keenly aware that her thin body, shaking with sobs, was bony, hot, and sweaty. Still, he could tell it was the most effective thing he could do. “When she found you and brung you upstairs? She wanted to kill you. I saved your life.”

  Nur could only nod.

  At last, she pulled back to look at him. Her nose and the rims of her eyes were pink, and a trail of mucus gleamed beneath one nostril; still, she looked happy.

  “You take me away from here?”

  “Yeah. This time, I promise.”

  “Where we go?”

  Briefly, Gideon told her of the new building. Nur listened, smiling, then spoke. “When?”

  “Tonight.” He paused. “Only there something I need first.”

  The girl shot him a questioning look.

  Gideon had taken a corner of his robes and was using it to remove something from his pocket. He handled the object gingerly: a small glass vial that minutes before he had filled up on the moonlit roof. It held an inch or so of dirty water that he had drawn from the immense tank where rain was collected prior to being boiled.

  “I need you do something,” he said. “For both of us.”

  As always, Saith’s room smelled of flowers.

  The little girl appeared at the doorway. Wearing an oversize robe of a soft and slippery fabric, she frowned at what she saw. Nur had dragged in a small metal tub, which she had filled with warm water. Now she knelt by its side, stirring it with one hand as she poured in powder from a small plastic jar.

  “What that?” asked Saith, her nose wrinkling.

  “It a special bath.” Nur had managed to whip the crystals into a glistening white froth. Wiping the sweat from her brow, she sat back on her heels, waiting.

  Saith sniffed. “Where you get the water?”

  “From the reserves.”

  Nur knew better than anyone that water was strictly rationed. There had been a heavy yet brief rainfall the week before; that was nearly gone and there was now precious little to drink. That she had squandered so much of it on something as frivolous as a bath for a single person was beyond indulgent. Yet it was exactly the extravagance of it that she secretly hoped would appeal to the priestess.

  And she was right: Saith smiled. Then she slipped off her robe and stepped into the tub.

  Nur was waiting as the little girl leaned back. She was already working some special soap into a lather, which she began massaging into the child’s head.

  “Harder,” said Saith.

  Nur continued to rub the girl’s scalp, using all the skill she had to make the child relax. And it worked: Saith grunted once or twice with pleasure and sank deeper into the water. Soon she was nearly asleep. Occasionally, Nur was aware of a figure moving past the screened doorway: Four guards surrounded the entrance. Other than that, the room was silent but for soft and rhythmic splashing sounds.

  The jar of rainwater was in the front pocket of Nur’s robe. When she moved, it bumped against her thigh, reminding her of its presence. She had promised Gideon she would do it. Their future together depended on it. No one would ever know; unlike, say, drowning the child outright, it was something she could accomplish surreptitiously, without drawing any attention or suspicion to herself. Even with armed guards a few feet away, the risk would be minimal.

  Yet now that the moment had arrived, she felt sick with doubt and anxiety.

  “That feel good,” said Saith at last. “Now wash it off.”

  Nur dipped a plastic bowl into the bathwater and poured it over Saith’s head again and again until every trace of soap was gone. Then Saith stirred in the tub and stood.

  “Dry me,” she commanded.

  Nur hesitated. If the girl got out of the water, it would be too late.

  For a second, Nur shuddered to think what would be her fate if she were caught. But then she noticed something.

  Saith was turning this way and that, admiring her pretty little body in the long mirrors that hung along one wall. With her gleaming skin and damp hair fresh and soft from the bath, the child looked perfect.

  She was so lovely, Nur thought with a stab of bitterness.

  She took out the bottle from her pocket, unscrewed the lid, and poured the contents into the tub.

  The murky
rainwater swirled and blended. As Nur lifted a towel and draped it over the little girl, the invisible poison made its way to a new victim.

  TWENTY-TWO

  A WEEK LATER, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, THE CALL OF A SINGLE BIRD echoed through the steel and glass canyon of downtown Mundreel. Its faint cries carried across the dusty marble lobby of a huge white building called “museum.” There in the high-ceilinged space, more than two dozen people, a dog, and a cat lay motionless, fast asleep.

  Only one person was awake.

  Esther had spent the night huddled near a lit candle, poring for the hundredth time over the odd picture that Uri had sketched for her of the District. This “diagram” was meant to depict all ten floors of the building, as well as the surrounding block. After studying it, Esther found she was able to follow the layout of the floors, the locations of the doors, the stairwells, entrances, and exits. With Silas’s help, Uri had been also able to add useful details: where Saith’s altar was, where she slept, and where her many guards stood lookout.

  The guards were the most worrisome factor.

  Esther was all too aware that by comparison, hers was a small band, made up of the sick, the young, and the starving. They were sparsely armed with only the makeshift weapons they had been able to Glean from stores and homes: table legs, bricks, broken glass, household utensils. Saith’s and Gideon’s boys were not only older, stronger, and better trained; they outnumbered them and carried guns. Esther knew that the only advantage they had was the element of surprise; without it, their attack would lead to certain slaughter.

  She could not allow that to happen.

  In the past, Esther wouldn’t have bothered to plan anything. She would have confronted Saith on her own, slipping into the District on impulse and without any thought or strategy. Back then, she was reckless and confident enough—foolish enough, she realized now, ruefully, to throw herself into danger without any thought of what might happen.