Guardian

by Alex London

  The guy Liam believed him to be.

  He put up his good hand and Syd helped him to his feet.

  “No one else dies today?” Syd said.

  “No one who doesn’t deserve it,” said Liam.

  [20]

  IN THE PAST, LIAM had come to the Council to give them briefings, to receive instructions, or, lately, to be scolded by them. He’d never gone to them to stop a coup.

  When they reached the cleared streets and rows of restored buildings in the heart of the city, Liam stopped. He and Syd crouched together off the side of the avenue in a blasted-out building that was awaiting demolition. It was covered in plants and vines, although it was really only two partial walls and a broken second floor above them, completely open to the elements. Syd’s school building was around the corner to the left. The hotel where the Council held its meeting—if Liam had the pattern correct in his head—was a few blocks to the right.

  Liam went to the left.

  Syd stopped. “Why are we going back here?”

  “We’re going to make sure it’s secure,” said Liam. “And you’re going to gather what you need. I’m going to the Council alone.”

  “No way,” Syd told him.

  “There will be Purifiers at the Council, loyal to Cousin.”

  “But doesn’t Cousin already know about this place?” Syd looked at the squat, depressing school building. He had been looking forward to never seeing it again.

  “He thinks you’re dead from the explosion. I’d like to keep it that way.” Liam continued inside ahead of Syd, who followed reluctantly.

  When Liam was satisfied the building was empty, they entered Syd’s room. It was just as he’d left it, simultaneously messy and bare. Liam shut the door, watching Syd look at his room. Now would be the time to give him that book. Now would be the time to stop being a coward and speak up. He might not have another chance.

  “Are you going to stand there all night staring at me?” Syd said without turning around.

  Liam cleared his throat. “No. I’m not. Sorry. Just tired, is all. My mind wandered off.”

  “No, it didn’t,” Syd told him. “You want to tell something and you’re trying to get up the nerve.”

  “I—”

  Syd turned around to look at him. “The moment you shut the door, you took a breath and held it, like you were getting ready to say something planned, but you exhaled when the moment passed. It’s what people do before they give a speech. So, go for it. Tell me what you want to tell me. I’m listening.”

  Liam took another deep breath. Syd raised an eyebrow. It was now or never.

  “I found you a book,” he said.

  Syd cocked his head. Liam finally managed to surprise him. Syd had not expected a book.

  Liam stepped into the hall and retrieved the book from the loose ceiling tile where he’d hidden it. When he came back into the room, Syd was standing by the door, eager, maybe for the first time, to see him. Liam knew it was just Syd’s curiosity, but he liked the feeling that Syd was waiting for him to come back, instead of waiting for him to go away.

  “What is it?” Syd reached out to take the soft leather-bound volume from Liam’s good hand. As he held it, a brief smile actually flashed on Syd’s face.

  “Just something I found,” Liam told him, even though Syd would surely sense the evasion.

  “You read it?” Syd looked up at him, those dark eyes studying Liam’s face.

  He had to be careful now . . . he also couldn’t look like he was being careful. Syd noticed everything.

  But he’d already hesitated. Syd had noticed his breathing a minute ago; of course he’d notice him hesitate now. People with nothing to hide didn’t pause for so long to answer a simple question. Why was he still pausing? Now he couldn’t stop not saying anything. He’d gone dumb. What should he say? He was definitely hiding something. He had to admit something. It was too late to turn back. Should he blurt it out? I killed a woman for you. The doctor who might have stopped this sickness, and I killed her for you and then I stole this book and I’d do it again too. I’d burn the world down if it would make you smile.

  Instead, he said, “I can’t read it. Never learned how.”

  The best way to cover a lie was with a truth.

  Syd nodded. He thumbed the pages of the book. “Growing up, a lot of guys in the Valve didn’t learn to read. There wasn’t much point.”

  So Syd didn’t think he was stupid. That was a relief. He watched the boy flip through Dr. Khan’s book, his eyes scanning the pages.

  “I wanted to give it to you before—well, you know—in case—”

  “In case you don’t come back,” Syd finished his thought for him.

  Liam nodded.

  Syd looked down at the book in his hand, then looked back at Liam. “Just come back.”

  It was Liam’s turn to smile. He could have stayed there all day, standing across from Syd, but there was no time.

  He pulled the bolt gun from his belt and held it out.

  “You’ll need that,” Syd told him.

  “I’ll be fine,” said Liam. “When I get back I’ll give four long knocks. If anyone other than me knocks . . .”

  Syd took the weapon and held it. It was heavier than he thought it would be from how Liam handled it.

  “Syd, I know I shouldn’t say it, but I want you to know that I—”

  “Don’t.” Syd stopped him. “It’s better if you just don’t.”

  Liam bit down his lip to stop himself from blushing again. He nodded once more and stepped from the room, closing the door and locking it from the outside.

  Maybe Syd was right. Maybe it was better this way. By morning, Liam would probably be arrested for murdering Dr. Khan or dead by Cousin’s hand. Or both.

  He set off for the old hotel, trying to imagine if anyone living would mourn him when he was gone and which of his dead would be waiting for him on the other side.

  He didn’t expect they’d be forgiving.

  • • •

  Syd stood in the center of the room with the journal is his hands. The leather cover felt good against his palm and he liked the weight of the pages. A holo was just a trick of light and the words it shared were illusions. They could change, appear, and disappear on a whim. Kind of like people. But these words, handwritten in some kind of dark stain, they were real, solid, immutable. The book was more real than Syd was. It occurred to him he hadn’t even thanked Liam for it.

  Could a simple thank-you really have been so bad? He wouldn’t be dooming Liam to a miserable death just by saying thank you, would he? He took a step toward the door, then stopped, took a step back again. It was better if he didn’t reach out, better for Liam, better for Syd. They had to focus on staying alive. They couldn’t be worried about each other that way.

  Still . . . Syd had never known another guy like Liam. Knowing someone that way hadn’t ever been an option before. Why was he so scared of it now?

  He sat down on the edge of his bed, listened to the silence of the room.

  Nothing to do but wait. He set the bolt gun down on the table beside his cot and opened the book to the middle.

  My work progresses, day in and day out, but little has been accomplished.

  So someone didn’t like their job. Join the club. Pretty brave, however, for the author to complain in writing. Discontentment was a crime in the Reconciliation. He wondered what this job had been.

  Syd had never owned a book before. He wasn’t actually sure which order one was supposed to read it in. Could you just start anywhere, like a holo, or did he have to start at the front? He turned to the first page of it and a chill ran through him. The owner of the book had inscribed it.

  Property of Dr. Adaeze Khan,

  Medical High Command.

  For her eyes ONLY.

  Dr. Khan.<
br />
  That was the name Cousin had said.

  The doctor who was murdered.

  Why would Liam have this book?

  He pictured Liam’s face when Cousin mentioned the murder, tried to remember word for word what he said.

  “Dr. Khan, very tragically, was murdered last week,” Cousin said.

  “You—” Liam replied and then, “She—?”

  How did Liam know Dr. Khan was a she? He couldn’t read; he’d just admitted that, so he hadn’t read the inside cover. How else would he know?

  For the same reason he had the book to begin with, the same reason he and that man called Cousin had shared such a knowing look with each other.

  Liam wasn’t just Syd’s protector.

  He was a killer.

  Of course he was a killer. That wasn’t news. He’d been a soldier since he was a boy. Syd knew that much about him. He’d seen him kill, even.

  But why would Liam kill a doctor? Why kill the one woman who could’ve helped them?

  Syd flipped the pages frantically, scanned the words without really absorbing them.

  Resilience factors in Nonoperatives unpredictable yet evidence suggests their presence in a percentage of the control group. Negative correlation with affected treatments. Fatality rates inoptimal.

  Scientific jargon. Syd couldn’t make much sense of it. He flipped the pages and he saw sketched strands of DNA, a face webbed with veins.

  Before her death, she had taken extensive notes about the infection.

  He stopped at one sentence, underlined: No organic cure viable.

  No cure.

  He kept turning pages. Midway through the book, just before the writing stopped, he found another passage he understood. The understanding quickened his heartbeat.

  I begin to understand the fatality of the condition. Will present my findings to Chairwoman P. next week. I fear she will not be receptive. My recommendation: network reactivation. Feasibility of machine: TBD.

  Others have been disappeared for less, but biodata linkage appears to be the only way to prevent population morbidity.

  Population morbidity? Syd untangled the words. It was a lux way of saying what Eeron Brindle had said: Without the networks back on, everyone would die.

  Feasibility of machine: TBD.

  To Be Determined.

  There were drawings, mechanical schematics, programming notes.

  So the doctor believed a machine was possible. Not just the fever dream of anti-revolutionary cultists, but a real machine that could really turn the network back on.

  Was that why the doctor was murdered? The chairwoman didn’t like her findings, and had Liam kill her?

  Syd looked to the door. He didn’t know what he would say to Liam when he saw him again. If he saw him again. Liam was shocked when Cousin told him Dr. Khan was dead. Shocked not because she was dead, but because . . . what? Because he hadn’t known who she’d been when she was alive. Syd felt sure of it. Liam had been tricked. He had to believe that Liam had been tricked. No one with those sad puppy eyes could willingly kill an innocent person, could he?

  Syd kept flipping pages, looking at diagrams—could those be instructions for the machine? Syd understood mechanical things, far better than he understood people. Machines could be programmed, rewired, redesigned. Fixed. People were another matter entirely.

  He didn’t really understand the schematics the doctor had drawn. They were way beyond him, but at least reading felt like doing something. What else could he do? He was just one person. He wasn’t the great and powerful Yovel. He was just Syd.

  “Self-pity’s pretty easy,” Knox scoffed at him, perched on the end of the bed, his light brown hair shining even under the grim lighting, his green eyes twinkling mischief.

  Syd was pretty sure he was dreaming. He stood up and looked down at himself sitting in the chair with the book against his chest and a trickle of drool running down his face, sound asleep.

  “Charming,” said Knox, suddenly standing at Syd’s side.

  “You’re dead,” Syd told him. “You don’t get to make fun of me.”

  “Someone has to,” said Knox. “You think you can just walk around letting people worship you? Ha!” Syd smirked. He’d missed Knox’s sarcasm. “You know what they call you behind your back?”

  Syd shrugged. “I must, if you’re about to tell me. I’m the one dreaming you.”

  “So logical,” Knox tucked a stray hair behind his ear. “I guess I don’t need to tell you then.”

  “No,” said Syd. “You don’t.”

  “So . . . Liam, eh?” Knox’s mouth twisted into a crooked smile. “He’s cute.”

  “I didn’t think you went that way,” Syd grunted at him. “Or is there a shortage of girls in the afterlife?”

  “You just said it, I’m your subconscious.” Knox looked around the room, picked up a shirt from the floor, examined the toilet bucket behind the screen in the corner. “The real Knox wouldn’t be caught dead in a room like this.” Knox smirked. “‘Caught dead’? Get it?”

  Syd rolled his eyes.

  “He died so you could live,” dream Knox said.

  “I know that,” said Syd. “I’m alive, aren’t I?”

  “Being alive and living aren’t the same.”

  Syd looked back at his sleeping self, willed himself to wake up. He did not want to stand here chatting with a subconscious manifestation of his own guilt, even if he did miss Knox terribly.

  Syd looked around the filthy room. “I don’t know what else to do.”

  Knox shrugged and brushed imaginary lint off his broad shoulder. He was suddenly wearing the uniform of the Guardians. He smoothed the fabric across his chest. “Yes, you do. Fix it.”

  “I don’t know how,” Syd told him. “I can’t understand this book. I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Start at the beginning,” said Knox, with a wink, and was gone.

  Syd opened his eyes. He was awake. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and the book splayed open on his chest tumbled to the floor. He stared at it.

  Start at the beginning. Fix it.

  “The beginning,” he said to himself. He knew.

  He was going back to the Mountain City. He was going to fix it. He was going to find the Machine, or he was going to build one himself.

  That’s who he was.

  He fixed things.

  If the people wanted a savior, they’d get one, but on his terms, not theirs. No more speeches. No more waving. If he had to betray the revolution and join the Machinists to save everyone’s lives, then that’s what he would do.

  He was going to turn the network back on and reboot the world.

  [21]

  THERE WERE THREE ENTRY points to the grand ballroom, and four access points to the floor the ballroom was on. Liam had already plotted a half-dozen escape routes, if it came to it. Force of habit. If Syd had been with him, he would have planned a full dozen in his head before setting foot inside. He was glad he didn’t have to.

  When he did enter the room, he worried he’d gotten the pattern wrong.

  The room was empty.

  He knew he was in the right building, but was it the right day? Or was he too late? It was night, but not late. The sun hadn’t set that long ago. The Council should still be there. Marie should too.

  As Liam reached for his light, he stopped short, froze, and listened. Something scurried in the dark on the far side of the room, something small, like a startled lizard.

  If it was a lizard, then something had startled it.

  He dropped to a crouch and slanted sideways from the door, regretting for a moment that he’d left Syd with the bolt gun.

  “Relax, Liam,” Cousin’s granite-smooth voice slid from the darkness. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Liam pivoted toward t
he sound, angling his body to make a smaller target. He had no reason to believe a word Cousin said. He stayed low and moved diagonally toward the sound of Cousin’s voice.

  “You know if I meant you to die right now, you’d already be dead,” Cousin said. “Stop all your skulking about. It’s embarrassing.”

  With a loud hiss, a lighting fixture in the center of the floor flared on, casting the ruined old ballroom in an orange haze. Cousin stood beside it with his hands behind his back, watching Liam the way a spider watches a fly in its web, a hunger in his stillness.

  Beside him stood Marie, gagged with her own white Purifier mask, her arms bound behind her back.

  “Where are the counselors?” Liam demanded, standing up straight.

  “There has been a change of leadership,” Cousin said. “The counselors were feeling unwell, and limited in their capacity to function. Chairwoman Pei saw fit to dissolve their authority.”

  “She can’t just do that.”

  “It’s already done.” The chairwoman of the Advisory Council stepped into the room from a small door at the rear. “They lacked the vision to see us through this time of trouble. They thought we had a public health crisis, when what we had was a crisis of leadership. Leadership means making the hard decisions. Life and death decisions. Those who could not understand that have been eliminated.”

  “You ordered that bomb at the prison?” said Liam.

  “I did.”

  “You killed Syd,” said Liam.

  A whimper escaped from Marie through the gag in her mouth. The chairwoman’s eyebrows shot up; a smile broke open her mouth.

  “So that Yovel might live on in the people’s memory,” she said. “He’ll be remembered as a hero who died a martyr’s death. No one will know the moping degenerate he really was.”

  Liam clenched his metal fist.

  “Unfortunately, Chairwoman Pei,” Cousin interjected, “young Liam here is not being truthful. Syd is alive. If he weren’t, Liam wouldn’t be in this room with us.”