by Zach Hines
The Prelate, his robes smeared with insect guts.
“I’ll sort you all out on your next lives!” he shouted.
He steadied his aim square at Julian.
“Hey, Georgie,” a voice said.
The Prelate turned. Someone hobbled over to him from behind a building.
Nicholas.
He was holding a live wire with both hands. It was writhing like a frenzied snake.
“Banzai,” he said, and tossed the wire at the Prelate. It hit him smack in the chest, and bright tendrils of blue electricity danced over him, like spider’s legs cocooning a trapped fly. The Prelate fell face-first into the sand, smoke drifting off his headdress.
He writhed in the sand for a few moments that soon enough settled into stillness. Once he had stopped moving, Nicholas delicately plucked the Prelate’s gun from the sand, using only his thumb and forefinger.
“I’ll take this,” he said. He wiped it on his robe, and then gripped it more fully in his hand.
A mad grin smeared across his face, he turned to Julian and Cody and their gathered group of lost children.
“I’ve found a way out,” he said.
Chapter 44
NICHOLAS DIRECTED THEM DOWN THE BEACH TOWARD THE docks. With all the lights out and the nurses scrambling to secure Attison Camp and the receiving center, the group was able to make it to the shoreline without being followed.
“What the hell was that with those bugs?” Nicholas asked.
“I-I don’t know,” Julian rasped. He could barely understand it either. Did he . . . did he really call them? Was that a Wrinkle? How? But there was no time to dwell on this.
Nicholas had found a back entrance to the overnight bus parking lot. He could use his access card to break into the bus office, grab the keys, and drive out of there. A bus could fit everyone. But they needed to move now, while the confusion was at its highest point.
Cody led the kids from the front of the group, while Julian brought up the rear, assisting Nicholas, who still walked with a limp. Rocky was not going to leave Julian’s side, holding on to his arm like a vise. As they passed the dock, Julian saw all the boats were moored. Nicholas, even as he limped along, kept craning his neck to study something out at the Lake.
“What is it?” Julian said.
“Look,” Nicholas said, and pointed.
In the moonlit shimmer of the Lake, Julian could see a little white crest break in the darkness, splash around for some time, then go still. Minutes later, after they had made it past the docks to the edge of the beach, the little crest surfaced once more, breaking on the opposite side of the Lake now. It thrashed again and then went still again.
“That’s gotta be Georgie,” Nicholas said, a wicked smile hanging lopsided on his face. “He must be a quick rebirth. Oops, too bad there’s no one out there to pluck him from the icy waters.”
Julian looked at Nicholas. His eyes were wild. He clutched the Prelate’s gun against his stomach, dragging his left leg behind him.
At the edge of the beach, Cody, at the top of the group, came up on a row of a dozen parked buses. There was a small office structure beside them, on the edge of the parking lot.
“This is it,” Nicholas said, pulling the keycard out of his robes.
They swiped in and grabbed a set of keys for the number 6 bus, then found it parked a short distance away. They unlocked the door and Cody led the kids into it, Julian, Rocky, and Nicholas rounding up the group from the rear.
Cody hopped into the driver’s seat and cranked the key. The bus roared to life.
“Get on now.” She beckoned to Julian, Nicholas, and Rocky.
But as Julian stepped forward, Nicholas grabbed his shoulder, holding him back.
“Wait,” he said. “We still have some business to settle, you and me.”
Julian’s blood froze.
“Nicholas, please. Not now. We’re so close.”
“That’s why we must,” he said. “This is the only time left.”
Rocky grabbed Julian’s arm, his face twisted into a mask of worry.
Cody looked at them with horror. “Let’s go. What are you waiting for?”
Nicholas whipped the gun up at Cody.
“This doesn’t concern you,” he said, his voice suddenly hard and cold and flat.
Cody raised her hands defensively, leaning back in the seat. “Whoa, whoa. Let’s be calm, all right? I just want to get these kids out of here.”
Nicholas nodded and then flicked the gun at her.
“I want the same, because this has nothing to do with you. So yes. Go. Now. And be thankful I even led you out of here.”
“What about Rocky?” she asked.
“I’ll need him, too. Now go,” he said again, loud and firm.
“Julian, give me the data stick,” she said.
Nicholas thrust the gun toward her. “I said, go now!”
Julian looked at Cody. He tried to tell her with his eyes—he had this. That data stick was everything they needed, and he would hold on to it.
Cody nodded back at him dismally and yanked the bus door closed.
She gunned the engine, and the bus growled as it lurched out of the lot and onto Lake Road.
All Julian could do was watch, Rocky clinging to his arm, as the bus disappeared around the bend. It felt like long moments passed in total quiet as the situation sank in.
Nicholas snorted a half laugh, shattering the silence, and Julian turned to face him.
“Here I am, looking all like the bad guy here,” he said, chuckling.
“What is it, Nicholas?” Julian said, his voice suddenly small and dead, as if all of that fiery rage that had been coursing through him just minutes earlier had been compressed into a tiny, useless pebble that plinked to the ground at Nicholas’s feet.
There was a catch.
Of course, there was.
He could scream until pestilential swarms filled the Lakes and gobbled up all the nurses, and still, there would be a catch.
“You remember when I first asked you to join the Burners?” Nicholas asked, with strange, out-of-place nonchalance. “I said you could be bigger than me.”
He grinned. “And well, here we are. Not even I dreamed that you could do something this big. Breaking into the Lake, uncovering this sick little science experiment, freeing these kids.” He clucked his tongue. “So impressive.”
“What do you want?” Julian asked.
“I want that data stick,” Nicholas said. “I want all those Attison Project files.”
“Why? The world deserves to know this,” Julian said.
Nicholas nodded. “I don’t disagree with that. The world must know. But who is going to tell them? You? That girl Cody? And what then? What if they get you, like your mother? Look what happened to her when she tried to blow the whistle.” Nicholas frowned and shook his head in pity. “Besides, do you think people will listen to a bunch of retrogrades and orphans?” he asked. “You’ll be discredited in a second.”
“So, what? You’re going to tell them?” Julian asked, stunned.
Nicholas grinned. “I have certain plans,” he said. “Best kept to myself for the time being. But, yes, they involve giving the press all the information right there on that stick.”
Julian shook his head. “I can’t do it, Nicholas.”
“What? You don’t trust me?”
Julian glared at him. “Don’t make me answer that.”
Nicholas laughed. “All right, look. You coerced me into coming tonight. But still, I helped you out. I went above and beyond, you have to admit that.”
Julian nodded.
Nicholas removed something else from his pocket. A little black device about the size of his palm.
“So, in the spirit of going above and beyond, I’m going to offer you a fair trade for that stick instead of just shooting you right now. This right here is a numbering gun. I swiped it from the Spoof floor. What I can do with this is brand you and your little brother there w
ith whatever number you want. In exchange, you give me the stick and we go our separate ways.”
Julian tried to swallow but his throat was frozen.
Any number he wanted . . .
He could be a Nine. Rocky could be a Nine. They would never have to burn again. They would get every refund and grant and rebate the state offered. They could fix everything. They would be outside the system.
All he had to do was hand over one little data stick.
Nicholas’s grin was wild and primeval, like a bloodthirsty wolf looking up from a fresh kill. “Boy, I’d sure like to get one of those nice apartments downtown in the Nine District.”
Julian shook his head. “But maybe the life score . . . maybe it’s going to come down anyway, once these Attison Project files get out there.”
Nicholas nodded. “Perhaps,” he said. “Or perhaps they just clean up that project, delete all records, blame some bad apples, and then get back to work. The only thing we can say for certain is that if I give you guys these legitimate Nines right now, however this Attison Project shakes out, it wouldn’t matter to you. You’d be free of the system, no matter what.”
Julian swallowed.
“Why? Why do you care what number I am?”
Nicholas made a tsk-tsking sound with his tongue as he shook his head.
“The simple fact is that I have trust issues, you see. If you know about my number, then the only way I can live with that is if I know you have a fake number, too. That way, we’re both liars.”
“You’re sick,” Julian said. Nicholas twirled the numbering gun on his finger.
“Did I ever tell you about a little phrase I live by, Julian?” Nicholas asked. “You grab life by the neck and you choke it to death.”
Julian nodded. “You did,” he said flatly.
“Ah,” Nicholas said. “Sometimes I repeat myself. It’s mildly embarrassing.”
Rocky squeezed his arm. Julian looked down into his little brother’s big eyes. They were filled with fear. What world was he was going to walk out into when they finally escaped this godforsaken parking lot? A world where their mother and father were both gone? Where they were both low on the totem pole, with nothing else going for them except a hope that people would maybe hear the truth and then maybe decide to do the right thing?
Julian took the data stick from his pocket.
You grab life by the neck . . .
And he handed it to Nicholas, who snatched it quickly, grinning wildly.
. . . and you choke it to death.
“You win, Nicholas. You always win.”
Nicholas pocketed the data stick along with the pistol. He then flicked a switch on the numbering gun, and it hummed to life.
There was no more darkness for Julian to push away tonight. It had all been drained out of him and whipped into a storm of pestilence that had roared through the Attison Camp.
There was nothing else left for him to look at now.
Nothing left to see.
Nicholas put the numbering gun to Julian’s neck. He could feel it vibrating. He could feel its heat.
“Do it,” Julian said.
There was a hot prick on his flesh as the new chip was injected. Nicholas pulled the gun away, and then with the back of his hand, he gingerly touched Julian’s neck on the site of his new tattoo.
“Looks good.”
“Now Rocky, too,” Julian said.
Rocky winced as Nicholas put the gun to his neck—on the opposite side of his One.
“You’ll want to get that One removed once you make it back to town,” Nicholas said. “I know a guy if you need a recommendation.”
Julian didn’t respond. He leaned down next to his little brother, and looked him square in the face. “It’s going to be okay,” Julian said, trying to convince himself of the same thing.
“Or find someone yourself, I don’t care,” Nicholas said as he pulled the trigger.
Rocky flinched as the number was seared on, and the chip injected. Julian pulled him into his chest and hugged him. “It’s going to be okay.”
“You made the right choice,” Nicholas said as he tore his robe off and tossed it onto the ground. He was wearing the academy school blazer underneath. The blue one.
He tucked the numbering gun into his inside pocket, then turned to look at his reflection in the window of a bus. He straightened his hair.
“I can go back to the receiving center and find my own way out,” he said. “No one is going to suspect me, the son of the Lake director, the unfortunate kid who fell and got hurt in this big terrorist fracas thing, and has to be rushed home now. But . . .” He looked them up and down. “I don’t know about you two.”
Julian grabbed Rocky’s hand.
“We’ll find our own way,” he said.
“Good luck.”
Julian led Rocky across the parking lot, to the edge of the forest. He could feel Nicholas watching him from behind as they disappeared into the tree line.
“Julian,” Nicholas said. “Another thing.”
But Julian would not turn around. There was nothing else that boy could say now that he wanted to hear.
He grabbed Rocky’s hand, and the two of them disappeared into the trees.
Julian and Rocky walked all night until they reached Lake Road, where he tore his robe off and stuffed it in a tree stump—the jumpsuit underneath was dark and would help hide him if they stuck to the shadows. They followed the road, keeping to the tree line wherever possible and hiding whenever the siren of an emergency vehicle screamed by. When Rocky grew tired, Julian hoisted him up onto his back and carried him.
Eventually, they made it to Poplar Heights, and they stuck to the alleys from there as the morning light broke over the day. He led them to the alley behind Bardo Books. A group of Lake cats scattered away from them when they entered.
Julian looked up at the fire escapes, searching for that black cat with the white eye patch, but couldn’t make it out among the glint of alien eyes staring back at him.
He led his little brother down the steps to the basement entrance. He pounded and pounded on the door until finally the woman in the rectangle glasses opened it and peeked outside.
“We don’t do this anymore,” she said, looking over the two disheveled orphans. “You need to find somewhere else.”
“I’m sorry,” Julian said. “But there is no somewhere else for us anymore.”
She looked at them for a long moment. But then she opened the door and led them inside.
Chapter 45
AH, YES. THERE’S THAT DELICIOUS BITTERNESS.
Two members of the house staff carried in a tray containing a carafe of freshly brewed coffee. They set it down before Nicholas, who sat reclining in his father’s chair with his feet up on the desk. He watched them as they poured a steaming cup. He held it close, savoring the aroma, as the staff gathered the tray and left, shooting each other little nervous glances.
Were they worried they wouldn’t have jobs tomorrow?
Or, perhaps, it was the Councilmen who were making them nervous.
Two of the highest-elevated members of the Council of the Awakened were sitting at a table in the back of the room, leafing through stacks of his father’s documents. Their two security officers stood behind them, their hands folded behind their backs.
“Would you gentlemen like some coffee?” Nicholas asked.
They declined.
The Councilmen were dressed in simple dark suits. They were here on business. Business they hoped to conclude swiftly and with minimal unpleasantness.
Nicholas sipped from his coffee and scrolled through the headlines on his father’s computer. News of the Attison Project leak out of Lakeshore was everywhere. Flashing banners on every news site and social media outlet reminded readers that life scores had been suspended across the country and all extinguishment clinics were shut down everywhere, including in the Lake Superior States. “Do not die,” the banners proclaimed. “The risk of failing to be reborn
, while low, is not worth it.”
Effects had quickly rippled out across the world.
Lakes across Europe had been shut and seized by the military as unrest spread even more virulently across the continent. There were legitimate fears of governments falling now. Of perhaps another Great War looming.
In the opinion pages, experts declared that the “Lake Question” was temporary and would soon be solved. Some columnists championed the direct intervention of the Council to assume control from the obviously corrupt Department of the Lakes, while others lamented that bringing the Council into bureaucratic affairs did not portend well for the independence of any of the scientific inquiries assembled to investigate and fix the problem of the Lakes eroding. The Councilmen were politicians, after all, not scientists. Others wondered about the economic consequences: Would nurses be laid off, bus drivers, actuaries?
Yes, yes, yes, all big stuff, serious stuff, but . . .
He scrolled further, and found what he was looking for.
An exposé asking the most important question in this whole matter: “Who was Nicholas Hawksley, the leaker of the Attison Project files and the hero from the unassuming county of Lakeshore who brought the entire system to its knees?”
Nicholas grinned as he saw they had used his good academy portrait: the one with the perfect part in his hair.
Who is Nicholas Hawksley?
Nicholas had to suppress his smile, as there was a commotion outside. The Councilmen rose from their seats, and the guards made their way to the entrance.
Nicholas’s father entered, the servants trailing behind him.
When he saw the Councilmen, he set his luggage on the floor and sighed.
“I suppose it’s my time,” David said.
The skinnier of the two Councilmen, named Rousseau, stood and gestured to security, who stepped beside David, pulling his arms behind his back and cuffing him.
“We’re sorry, Director Hawksley. But we never endorsed your actions.”
David shook his head with contempt.
“You knew. You all knew.”
The Councilmen looked back at him with silent, stony glares.
“You tasked me with an answer to the overuse of the Lakes, and an answer I provided,” David said. “And this is how you repay me?”