Pure

by Julianna Baggott

  “I was told he was dead. A suicide. He’s alive, though. He’s up there. He’s on the other side—the soldier holding the hostage. The Dome has turned him into a machine, but also a kind of animal. I can’t describe it. I can tell it’s him, though, from his voice. I’d know it anywhere.”

  “I want to see him,” she says.

  “Does that mean you want to go up? Hand yourself over?”

  “I’m not afraid of facing your father.”

  “But he could kill you.”

  “I’m mostly dead already.”

  “That’s not true.” There is something about his mother that is more alive than anyone he’s ever met.

  “You can do this, Partridge. You can take over and rebuild for everyone. A Pure, that’s what they call you. But what does that really mean?”

  He doesn’t know how to answer. He wishes he did. He wishes the words sprang up from him. But there’s nothing.

  “Our communication with those in the Dome is very weak, and since your escape it’s stopped completely. If we knew that the people from within were still with us, that would help.”

  “They are,” Partridge tells her. “They sent a message through Lyda. It was simple: Tell the swan we’re waiting.”

  “The Cygnus,” she whispers.

  And then, overhead, there’s pounding. The cicadas stir and flit nervously around the room.

  Machine-gun fire.

  EL CAPITAN

  ABOVE

  EL CAPITAN HAS HIS HANDS ON HIS HEAD, and so does Bradwell, who is slightly downhill. They order Helmud to put his hands on his head too, but El Capitan tells them it’s a waste, he’s a moron. “Doesn’t have a thought of his own in his demented head.”

  “Demented head,” Helmud says.

  The soldiers should know this. They’ve watched him and Helmud in the woods, where they seemed so elegant and strong and strangely peaceful. He spots the one who may have given him a plucked hen and eggs. He’s sure it was the one who arrived holding the girl in white—so new to being outside the Dome that her clothes are whiter than any cloth he’s seen since the Detonations. That soldier is the one who seemed to look at him sometimes in such a human way. Actually, he trusted all of them, but he was wrong to. They’ll probably kill him and Helmud out here in the woods. All of them. And that will be the end of it.

  They’ve been stripped of their weapons. They sit in a pile like kindling. The girl has gone placid. In fact, El Capitan wonders if she’s in shock. She’s pretty, dangerously so. Do Special Forces have sexual urges? Should the girl be worried? Or are they neutered like dogs?

  The soldier who’d shown up holding the girl lets her go and walks up beside El Capitan. He finds the rungs of El Capitan’s ribs above Helmud’s thigh and digs in with the muzzle of the gun. The soldier says to the others, “I don’t trust this one.”

  El Capitan wonders if this means he’s going to shoot him. He braces, but instead the soldier just keeps the gun snug in his ribs.

  “Noises on the perimeter,” the soldier says. “Do a quick recon. I will maintain control.” This one is the leader, clearly.

  The other five soldiers do as they’re told, immediately setting off, silently, through the woods, in different directions.

  With his high-tech weaponry glinting up his arms, the soldier then whispers to El Capitan, “When they return, protect the girl. Take cover.” The girl is meant to hear this too.

  El Capitan wonders what this could mean. Is this soldier on his side?

  “You’ll do it?”

  Is he going to turn on the other soldiers? Should El Capitan be prepared to reach for a gun? “Yes, sir,” he says.

  “Yes, sir,” Helmud says. Sometimes when Helmud repeats, the echo feels like it comes from a twitch in El Capitan’s own brain. Helmud isn’t only his brother. They are one and the same. El Capitan looks at the girl again, this time seeing a ferocity in her eyes that wasn’t there before. If this is their only chance, she looks willing to die for it.

  And Bradwell, who stands with his fingers knit on top of his head, gives off a heated energy. He’s restlessly fuming. He’s ready for anything. El Capitan raises his eyebrows, trying to get his attention to let him in on the plan, but Bradwell just looks at him and mouths, What?

  As silently as they left, the squad returns within a few moments of one another. They have nothing to report. No OSR. No wretches. No other beasts. All is quiet.

  “Check your scanners,” the leader says. “No mistakes. No errors.”

  And as they each look at their arm attachments, the leader shoves the girl into El Capitan’s arms. El Capitan lifts her by the ribs, takes three or four running steps, and dives. Sedge opens fire on the other soldiers. Bradwell jumps to a crevice in the rock, taking cover. The closest soldier’s chest erupts. He spins and sprays ammunition into the brush wildly.

  The leader aims coolly with both guns on his forearms. He fires. And then sights unfold from his shoulders and gunshots blast, alternately from each weapon, kicking his shoulders back, one then the other, as if he’s rocking.

  Another soldier fires back in El Capitan’s direction. The reports are almost simultaneous, and one soldier gets caught in the cross fire, shot in the skull.

  Two down, El Capitan thinks. He starts to crawl to his rifle in the stack of weapons on the ground, but Lyda grabs him and pulls him down, forcefully.

  “Wait,” she says.

  Bradwell has made it to the weapons first and picks up El Capitan’s rifle with its clip of ammunition. He turns and starts blazing at the other three soldiers. One gets hit in the neck and lurches sideways, behind some rocks. The leader hits another one in the gut with two or three shots.

  This soldier seems to understand as he drops down into the dust that he must fire on his leader, that there’s something wrong. It’s as if he realizes he has to override some programming. He loads his weapon and fires, hitting the leader in the thigh. The leader buckles, but does not fall. The soldier with the wounded gut retreats behind a tree.

  El Capitan sees that the one Bradwell hit is reloading behind a huge, gnarled stump. He’s overridden his programming, too, and he locks in on his leader. El Capitan can see from his protected position that the soldier is badly wounded, but will not lie down to die. The uninjured soldier has escaped, and El Capitan has a good idea that he’s not a deserter. He’ll be back.

  Lyda says, “Get me a knife.”

  El Capitan crawls to the pile of weapons. He grabs a knife first and tosses it to Lyda, who catches it by the handle.

  He sees Bradwell make a dash to finish off the man he wounded before the soldier can fire on the leader. Bradwell shoots him in the arm, striking the flesh of his bicep, blood glistening as it disappears into his uniform. Is he still fighting?

  El Capitan reaches for another knife and a meat hook, but instead he’s kicked in the stomach by the soldier bleeding from his belly. The blow is so hard that it lifts him from the ground. All the air has been knocked from Helmud’s lungs; he gasps.

  Bradwell charges the soldier who won’t die. The soldier backhands him, knocking Bradwell to the ground. The soldier then grabs Bradwell by the shirt, but the shirt is so shredded that the soldier comes away with nothing but fabric. Bradwell, bare-chested, sprawled in the gravel and dust, kicks the soldier’s knee, but the soldier barely flinches. Calmly, he levels the pistol lodged in his right arm, loads it, and aims at Bradwell, who curls to his side. The birds on his back go still.

  El Capitan hears a report and thinks that Bradwell must be dead, but the soldier is the one who falls. El Capitan can see that the leader worked his way into a shooting angle as Bradwell’s rush bought him some time to move on his injured leg. This leaves the soldier who grips his loosened abdomen. He looms over El Capitan, who scrambles backward, unarmed.

  The leader shoots, blasting the soldier’s hands and crippling his guns. The soldier howls. The guns in his shoulders take over as he turns to search for the leader. The bullets fly. One grazes Br
adwell’s shoulder—the one not already wounded—kicking his gun from his hands. Bradwell grabs his wound, seems dazed by the blood and noise. He staggers behind a rock, his eyes squeezed shut.

  The leader shoots again, although he’s lying on the ground, unable to get up, his blood pooling around him. His bullets perforate the soldier’s chest and the guns on his shoulders. The soldier tries to shoot, but all his guns are jammed. He’s weak, staggering in a circle. Crazed, his eyes lock on Lyda, and he lunges for her. El Capitan leaps onto the soldier’s back, setting him off balance and taking him to his knees. It buys Lyda time to run, but otherwise it’s useless. The soldier is so strong that he staggers to his feet. El Capitan holds on, choking him.

  And then Helmud’s skinny arms appear. He’s holding a thin piece of wiry thread—something that seems to be made of wool and human hair. He casts it out and then pulls it around the soldier’s throat. El Capitan grabs on to the wiry string too, and jerks with all of his weight and Helmud’s. The wiry string gouges into the soldier’s neck. Rearing back, he paws at it with his stubs.

  And then Lyda appears. She stabs him in the lower stomach and then yanks the knife up as hard as she can.

  The soldier staggers. She pulls the knife out, wipes it clean on her white jumpsuit, ready to stab again. But she doesn’t have to. The soldier falls forward with El Capitan and Helmud on his back.

  El Capitan pulls the string out with one hand and holds it—a bloody thing, now clotted with flesh. He remembers all the times he told Helmud to stop his nervous fiddling, that old agitated motion he made behind his neck. “Helmud,” he says, “did you make this so you could kill me with it?”

  And this time, Helmud doesn’t repeat his brother’s final words. His silence means yes.

  For the first time in as long as he can remember, El Capitan is proud of his brother. “Damn it, Helmud! Shit! You’ve been planning to kill me!”

  And then he hears noises. They all freeze and brace themselves. Maybe it’s the soldier who got away doubling back.

  But no, it’s coming from the crescent window in the earth.

  Two hands grip the sides of the window frame and then Partridge is pulling himself up, as if climbing from a grave.

  PARTRIDGE

  KISS

  WHEN PARTRIDGE GETS TO HIS FEET, he takes in the carnage. El Capitan and Helmud are bloodied and bruised. Bradwell is bare-chested and bleeding again from the shoulder, but the other shoulder this time. He’s on his knees, his head bowed, his chest heaving. Is he praying? His hands are clasped. Lyda’s white jumpsuit is splattered and streaked with blood. She’s breathless, stunned. She stares at Partridge with her bright blue eyes and then at all he sees.

  And there are the bodies of soldiers. One’s chest is exploded. Another, sliced up the middle, has bloody stumps instead of hands. One has been shot in the skull. There’s a small hole in the back of his head, but as Partridge walks around him, he sees that his face is gone.

  “What is this?” He feels sick, his knees weak. “What is this?”

  And then he sees his brother, half hidden by underbrush. He runs to his side, falls to his knees. “Sedge,” he says. The muscle of Sedge’s right leg has been chewed through with bullets. There’s blood under his ribs. It seeps into the knees of Partridge’s pants. “God,” Partridge says. “No, no.” His brother’s chest rises and falls unevenly. He bends down to Sedge’s head—his oversize skull and heavy jaw. “You’re going to be okay,” he whispers. “Mom is here. She’s coming. You’ll see her.” Partridge yells to the others. “Get my mother! Help Pressia get my mother up here!”

  Pressia is already aboveground. She looks at all the bodies. “My God,” she says. “My God, no.”

  Bradwell staggers up and runs to her. “Pressia,” he says, but she’s obviously shaken, unable to respond to him.

  El Capitan shouts to Bradwell, “Help me here!”

  Together they lift Aribelle up from the window, her thin trunk and useless limbs. Caruso is pushing from below, but he doesn’t follow her aboveground.

  Partridge lays a hand on his brother’s chest. The blood is wet and warm.

  Sedge looks at Partridge and smiles. “Partridge,” he says, “you’re the one.”

  “No,” he says, “it’s you. It’s always been you.”

  Partridge calls to Pressia again. “Is she here?” He turns and sees Bradwell cradling his mother. He carries her to Partridge, setting her down beside her two sons. Her eyes are wild.

  “Baby, what happened to you?” Her voice is ragged and sharp. “Sedge. Look at me. Sedge.”

  “Look, Sedge,” Partridge whispers. “It’s her. She’s here! She’s really here!”

  Sedge closes his eyes. “No,” he whispers, “the story you told me. The swan.”

  “She’s real,” Partridge says. “She’s here.”

  His mother takes a bottle of pills in her metal pincer and shoves them at Partridge. “Tell your father that he can have whatever he wants. He can have the pills. He can take me. Just not this. Not this.” Her watery eyes skitter over Sedge’s body.

  Partridge takes the bottle and nearly falls backward. His brother is going to die. He’s going to watch it happen. There’s nothing he can do.

  “Sedge!” his mother calls. Sedge’s eyes catch hers and lock on. It’s as if he truly sees her now, as if he recognizes her. His mother says, “Sedge, my baby!” And for a moment, Partridge thinks that maybe she can save him. There is hope in her voice.

  Sedge smiles and then closes his eyes.

  Partridge watches his mother as she bends over Sedge’s body. She is giving him the kind of kiss on the forehead that she gave to both of them every night as children at bedtime.

  And then, triggered by the flip of a distant switch, Sedge’s head explodes, and, with it, Partridge watches his mother’s face shatter.

  The blood is a spray, a fine mist that fills the air.

  Partridge hears nothing. He sees nothing but the bloody mist. He tries to reach for them, loses his footing, and then falls. He stands again. He turns a slow circle. His mother and his brother are dead.

  Pressia is screaming. He can see her open mouth, her eyes wide with terror, the doll-head fist clasped to her chest. Bradwell is holding her up.

  Partridge hears nothing.

  Lyda is at his side. She has him by the arm. Her lips are moving.

  El Capitan reaches for his shoulders. Partridge balls his fist and takes a swing. El Capitan dodges it, which sets Partridge off balance. He catches himself on a rock. Lyda is saying his name—he can read her lips. Partridge, Partridge. He stands. He yells her name, “Lyda!” But he can’t hear his own voice.

  El Capitan is speaking to him too. He’s saying something loudly. Partridge sees the veins in his neck straining. Helmud closes his eyes, his lips muttering El Capitan’s echo.

  And then Partridge sees Pressia again. He locks onto Pressia’s eyes. Pressia is bugged—eyes and ears. The Dome is watching; his father is there. Partridge marches straight for Pressia, who is still screaming. He holds on to the flesh of her upper arms.

  She closes her eyes.

  “Open your eyes!” he shouts and the noise of his own voice floods his ears. “Open your goddamn eyes!”

  Pressia looks at Partridge, and Partridge stares past his sister. He stares through the lenses of her eyes, into his father’s eyes in the Dome. “I know you’re there! I’m going to come for you, and I’ll kill you for this! If I could, I’d rip out the part of you inside of me. I’d rip you clean out.”

  He stares up at the sky. His body starts to shake. He lets go of Pressia’s arms. He looks again, and there is his sister’s face. She stares at him, her face streaked with dirt and tears. It’s his sister.

  The bloody mist is gone.

  PRESSIA

  BLOOD

  ONCE FREE OF PARTRIDGE, Pressia runs to her mother’s body. Her jaw is gone. Her face is covered in blood, but one of her eyes is clear. The eye blinks. She’s still alive. Pres
sia puts her hands on her mother’s bloody chest; three of the six small squares are pulsing. Should she pump her heart? “She’s alive!” she screams. “She’s alive!”

  Bradwell kneels beside her and says, “She’s dying, Pressia. It’s over. She won’t survive.”

  Partridge is in the woods, deep in the woods. She can hear his choked sobs.

  Her mother stares up at her.

  El Capitan’s voice says, “She’s suffering. She could linger.”

  Her mother struggles to breathe. Her eye blinks furiously.

  Pressia stands up. Bradwell does too. She turns to El Capitan.

  He says, “Can you offer her mercy? Can you do it?”

  Pressia looks at El Capitan and then at her mother, who starts to seize. Her bloody head is thudding against the dirt and rocks. “Give me a gun.”

  El Capitan hands it to her. She raises the gun, takes aim at her mother, draws in a breath, lets it halfway out, and then she closes her eyes. She pulls the trigger. She feels the blast run through her body.

  Pressia is frozen. She stares. Her mother’s face is gone. The three small, pulsing squares flicker and then stop.

  “She’s at peace,” El Capitan says.

  She gives the gun to El Capitan. She doesn’t look back. She knows what she wants to remember. She starts to walk downhill.

  “Let’s move!” Bradwell shouts. “There’s one more soldier out there somewhere!”

  Leaves. Vines. The unfixed earth shifting underfoot.

  I’m here, Pressia thinks. I’m in the next moment and the next. But who is she? Pressia Belze? Emi Imanaka? Is she someone’s granddaughter or daughter? An orphan, a bastard child, a girl with a doll-head fist, a soldier?

  She is rushing downhill, everyone jostling around her. In her mind’s eye, her mother’s face comes loose again, scatters, splintered bone, their heads—her mother’s and Sedge’s heads—so full of blood. Then it’s everywhere—a film of blood on nettles, grass shoots, thorny weeds.