by Hugh Howey
Cole was about to say indeed he did, when Father Picoult said, “I haven’t told him yet.”
Cole turned. He watched Father Picoult pull a dark bundle from the shadows of his cloak. With the snap of his wrist, the bundle unfolded into a smaller version of the cloaks Marco and his peers wore.
“For me?” Cole asked. He held out his hands and felt another layer of resistance and doubts crumble. They were letting him into an ever tightening circle of family.
“We’ve never had a Senior Miracle Maker so young,” Marco said. And it wasn’t malice that Cole noted in his tone. It was something more akin to awe—or pride.
Father Picoult opened the hem of the cloak, and Cole raised his arms and wormed his way into the heavy fabric. As his head emerged, the first thing he saw was Joanna’s brilliant smile and shimmering eyes. Cole wanted to wrap her in his arms right then, but refrained from doing so in front of the others.
“Alright,” Marco said. He slapped Cole on the back. “Let’s get started.”
“Started?” Cole watched as Father Picoult guided Joanna away, up toward the entrance of the Church. She looked over her shoulder and waved one last time, the smile of so much pride and joy still on her lips. “Started with what?”
“Training,” Marco said. “You’ve got a lot more to learn in the next nine months than she does.”
10 · The Streets
Cole hurried after the group of Miracle Makers, his legs feeling trapped and confined in the heavy cloak. He watched their long strides and tried to match them, wondering how they ever got used to the garb, especially in the barrio’s afternoon heat.
“What kinds of things do I need to learn?” Cole asked. “Like changing diapers and stuff?”
The other boys laughed at that. They had to stop and wheeze for air, they laughed so hard. At least it gave Cole a chance to catch up.
“I think that’s gonna be taken care of,” Marco said. He pinched Cole’s neck with one hand and wiped tears from his eyes with the other, a wide smile plastered across his face. “Today you’re gonna witness another Miracle, and you’re gonna see how things are done around here, okay?”
Cole nodded—even though he didn’t understand.
“Do you understand why you were picked for this?” Marco asked, the laughter and smiles fading around them.
Cole looked down at his cloak. “You mean this?” He brushed his hands across the rich, dark fabric.
“No.” Marco squeezed his neck harder. “For Joanna.”
Cole blushed. “Because I love her,” he whispered.
The boys howled even louder at that. One of them slapped Cole on the back of his head.
“No, you twit. Everyone loves Joanna, if you really consider what you’re feeling love.”
“I love her the most!” one of the other boys said.
“You just lussst her,” someone whispered in Cole’s ear.
Cole dug his finger in after the tickle of the insult.
“It’s okay,” Marco said, waving down the others. “It’s perfectly natural. But no, the reason you’re perfect for this job is because you’re smart. And you’re one of us.”
“A slumrat,” someone said.
Marco guided him into an alley and off the busier street. He steered Cole away from several bums huddled together around a makeshift campfire.
“I think you’ve got a decent sense of right and wrong,” Marco said, “but I also think you have a practical mind. You understand that sometimes doing right means getting your hands dirty.”
Cole thought about how many meals he’d stolen over the years. He looked back toward the homeless men, thinking about how he always foresaw his old age just like that.
“The world doesn’t get better by hoping and praying,” Marco said. “But it sure would be nice if more people thought that it did.”
Cole frowned. “But then wouldn’t those people spend more time hoping and less time doing?”
Marco popped Cole playfully on the back of the head. “See? That’s the smarts I’m talking about. You see it all at once, don’t you?” He pointed to one of the boys ahead in the alley, who was trying to catch a pigeon. “With these idiots, I have to explain everything a dozen times. But you’re right. If people thought prayer worked, they’d do less to improve their lot. Which would leave the job to us.”
“Which they would pay us for, naturally,” another boy said.
Marco smiled at the boy who had finished his thought for him. “We call them offerings, not payments,” he said.
The other boy laughed.
“What we’re aiming for is one Church,” Marco continued, “and not that dodgy one in Rome, or that one in Salt Lake. Portugal will one day be the nexus of all belief, back under one unified roof. Hell, you’ve seen the difference in just the last weeks, haven’t you?”
Cole thought about the crowds in the Church even for the last two Wednesday and Thursday services. He had figured it was just because so many people knew someone who had died in the blast.
“Just wait until you see everything Picoult has in store for the Church,” Marco said. “You’re gonna be one lucky slumrat if you play your cards right.”
“We’re getting close,” one of the boys said.
“Alright,” Marco whispered to Cole. “Quiet now. Think of this as training and as a test of sorts. It’s like a slumrat raid, but to do good.”
With that, the demeanor of the group changed. The boisterous and loud walk transformed into textbook sneakcraft. Each of the kids moved to the shadows and danced forward on the balls of their feet, the heavy cloaks shrouding them in shadow and absorbing any stray noise.
Cole did the same and noticed how well-suited the fabric was for silent movement. The heavy material held him fast, constraining any extraneous motion, allowing him to move with an economy of sound. The others pulled their hoods up, and Cole did the same. He slid around a puddle, avoiding a pile of tin cans, and held up as the group coalesced by a closed door.
The boys flattened themselves to either side, and Cole did likewise. Marco knocked on the door while another boy swished a bottle of something into a dark rag. After a moment, a chain could be heard sliding back, a voice inside calling to someone else that they were answering the knock.
As soon as the door cracked, Marco shoved his way inside. The other boys followed, their actions lithe and serious. There were sounds of a scuffle. Cole looked up and down the alley, his heart racing with adrenaline. He felt like running, but knew there was no place to go. Someone yanked him inside and closed the door behind him.
Marco lowered a woman to the ground, the dark rag pressed over her mouth. The boards above them creaked as someone walked casually across the second floor.
“Who was it?” a male voice rang out. Marco looked to the others and raised a single finger to his lips. The boy with the canister began soaking the rag again.
“Cecília? Did you hear me? Who was at the door?”
The shuffling steps overhead moved away, then creaked on a stairwell. The clomping descended, wrapping back around toward them. Cole looked at the other boys, terrified and confused. Shouldn’t they be running? At least toward or away from this man coming down the stairs? His heart pounded as the footsteps reached the landing and their owner came into view.
The man stumbled down into the small living room and kitchen, his hand brushing the wall. “Cecília?” he asked. His eyes wandered around the room, but they were obviously blind. He felt his way toward the back door, moving closer to the crouched and quiet group of boys.
“You’d better not be giving the last of your copper to them homeless men,” the blind man said. He shouted the words as if the woman were out in the alley, behind the closed door. Patting his way through the stools by the kitchen counter, the old man headed their way as if to go out after her. Marco made a gesture with his hands, and the kid with the soaked rag sprang into motion.
It was over before Cole could even think to breathe. Two boys held the old man, sm
othering him with the rag as he fell unconscious. Another two started carrying the woman up the stairs, one grasping her armpits and the other with her knees.
“What are we doing?” Cole hissed.
Marco just smiled.
“Grab the legs,” one of the boys told Cole, pointing at the man.
Cole did as he was told. They made their way up the stairs with the old man, navigating the twisting stairwell slowly to avoid bumping him into the walls. Upstairs, they found a bedroom with two tiny cots. The woman was already being arranged on one of them.
“They sleep separate,” one of the boys pointed out, which elicited a round of giggling. Cole helped arrange the man on the cot, wondering what the hell they were trying to accomplish. He saw one of the boys pull out a black case. He unzipped it loudly, then produced a gleaming needle. The syringe was passed to Marco.
Cole moved to intervene. “What is that?” he asked.
“It’s so she won’t remember,” he said. He passed the needle to another boy, who plunged it behind the woman’s ear. Cole cringed from the sight of the act.
“And now for the Miracle,” Marco said. He grabbed Cole’s arm and turned him toward the old man. More syringes were produced, one identical to the last and another that was much larger and gleaming with a stainless steel casing.
The boy with the smaller syringe held it out toward Cole. “You wanna do this one?”
Cole shook his head, and several of the others laughed. The needle dove behind the man’s ear and the plunger was depressed.
“Hold his head steady,” Marco said.
Two boys knelt by the cot and braced the man’s skull. Marco accepted the larger syringe and moved behind the head of the cot so he could lean over and steady himself. One of the boys holding the man’s forehead used two fingers to pry open his eyelid.
“What is that?” Cole asked. “What are we doing here?”
“We’re gonna make the blind see again,” someone whispered.
Marco paused before inserting the needle. He looked up at Cole. “It’s stem cells,” he said, waving the syringe. “Doctors perform this procedure all the time, only these people can’t afford it.”
“I thought we were against stem cells,” Cole said.
Marco laughed. “We’re against doctors, slumrat. People can’t afford to pay them and tithe at the same time.”
With that, he looked back to the blind man’s open eye and lowered the large needle. Cole fought the urge to look away as the metal rod slid into the corner of the open eye. The plunger went halfway down, and then the other eyelid was pulled open. The procedure was repeated, the old couple tucked in, and before Cole knew it, they were back in the alley, locking the door behind them.
“What did we just do?” Cole asked.
“Our good deed for the day,” someone called out.
The boys had returned to their youthful state, jostling and joking as they skipped toward the end of the alley.
“These people will be approached later in the week,” Marco said. “A group of Sisters will go door to door, telling everyone in this neigh-borhood about the Church. The Sisters won’t know what happened here, but they will hear about it soon enough, right from the source. And you can bet this couple will be in church next Sunday. And you can bet Picoult will have them on stage, asking them about this Miracle.”
“That was a Miracle?” Cole asked.
“There’s nothing like your first one,” Marco said. He clasped Cole’s shoulder and squeezed. “Congrats again on the promotion.”
They hadn’t even reached the end of the alley when everything else clicked into place for Cole. The obvious punched him in the gut, taking away his breath and making him feel sick to his stomach. He staggered out into the busy street, leaned on a rusted light pole, and clutched his abdomen.
“You okay?” someone asked.
“I think he’s gonna be sick.”
Cole looked around for Marco, who moved to his side.
“She’s really pregnant,” Cole said.
Marco knelt down beside Cole. “That she is.”
“Did you do it?” Cole asked.
Marco smiled. “Yeah, but not like you think. She’s still a vir—”
Cole’s hands clamped around the rest of the sentence, squeezing Marco’s throat. The other boys stopped giggling and tensed up. Marco pried Cole’s hands away from his neck, then slapped Cole across the face.
Cole hardly felt the blow. His body was bristling with rage. All he could think of was Joanna on a cot, pinned down by a pack of boys, needles or worse invading her flesh. He launched himself at Marco, tackling the boy. He landed a few blows before someone pried him off, the other kids a tangle of cloaks around him, all of them grasping and clutching at Cole.
Cole felt himself pinned in place. Marco was on his hands and knees, his nose bleeding. The other boys had fistfuls of his new cloak.
“Hold him,” Marco said.
Cole sagged down, wiggling his arms out of the wide sleeves. He felt a primal fury coil up in his gut as the lie of the black hole and its explosion dawned on him as well. He thought of the grieving widows and the confused orphans all around the Church the past weeks. He thought about how Joanna had cried and cried over their losses. He fell to the pavement, leaving the boys holding his empty cloak, and emerged a free and mad animal.
Cole lunged forward and kicked at Marco’s face. He landed a serious blow, but kicked again. And again. He kept kicking, even as the other boys realized they no longer had him and reached to seize him once more. He kept kicking, even as they rained their own blows against him. He was kicking still when the cops came and took their turn at holding him down. Even as they peeled the other boys off him, he kicked. As they shoved him to the pavement and cuffed him, he kicked. He even kicked later as they dressed his myriad new wounds. Cole kept kicking and kicking and kicking at anything he could.
11 · The Courtroom
The courtroom remained silent long after Cole finished relaying what had happened. Even the lawyer in the dark suit seemed unsure of what to say. He paced over to his desk, slid a few pieces of paper around, then returned to Cole.
“Is that where the bruises came from?”
Cole brushed his fingers across his cheek, which was only sore when he touched it. The swelling had gone down the past weeks. He nodded.
“So you resisted arrest?”
Cole shrugged. He did remember becoming even more violent when he saw one of the cop’s badges read “Mendonça.” He remembered trying to punch that officer in the face, but couldn’t recall if he’d landed the blow.
“And now you want this court and a jury of your peers to take the word of—what did you call yourself?”
“A slumrat,” Cole said.
“Yes, a slumrat. And a murderer. And probably the planner behind the bomb that killed thousands—”
“Objection.”
“Sustained.”
The lawyer in the black suit smiled.
“I’m not asking anyone to take my word,” Cole said. He looked to the jury box, ignoring the lawyer, who was raising his hands, palms out, as if suddenly Cole shouldn’t speak. “I’m just telling you what I know. For context. It was part of my deal.”
“For context?” the lawyer asked. “Context for what?”
Cole’s lawyer stood from behind her desk. “When you’re done badgering my witness, I’ll call my next one and we can get on with this,” she said.
Cole looked out to her and saw a smile on her face. He was pretty sure he’d screwed some things up, but he’d related everything the way he remembered it, and that was all they’d asked of him. He watched the other lawyer mumble something and sit, and then an officer led him out of his stand. Cole shuffled through the small wooden gate and down the aisle between the silent and rapt pews. When he got to the door, another officer opened it, the flash of a badge catching Cole’s eye, a familiar face smiling at him above it. Cole looked to the man and saw a patch of dull purple arou
nd his happy eye. Cole was glad that the punch had landed.
The door was pulled open, obscuring the officer. As Cole was led out, another familiar face was led in. It was the blind man from the alley house, his eyes much brighter and younger-looking than the rest of his weathered face. The man smiled at Cole and nodded. Cole’s lawyer called the gentleman to the witness stand, her voice sonorous and confident, and Cole realized how little he’d been needed for how much he’d bargained away.
•• TWO YEARS LATER ••
The crowded bus jerked to a halt in front of a tall gate with coils of razor on top. An American in a military uniform stepped out of a guard booth and spoke to the driver through his open window. Soon after, the gates let out a metallic clang, then began parting, sliding to either side on squealing wheels.
The brakes hissed as they let go, and the bus lurched forward and into Cole’s latest in a long string of adoptive homes. Immediately, however, he saw that the Galactic Naval Academy would be nothing like his previous shelters. Low, shiny buildings consisting almost entirely of glass greeted them beyond the gate. White walls, silvery windows, flawless pavement divided up with painted lines that still appeared wet and new—it was the opposite of his home on the dingy barrio streets. And there were no gardens or greenery like the orphanage, no wandering Sisters and Brothers like the Church. It bore no resemblance at all to Lisboa’s Military School for Young Boys, his latest home, which had been carved out of a castle complex, crumbling and old.
This new home of his in a state called Arizona was all orderly and new and sitting amid an excess of emptiness that would’ve made any structure in the barrio blush with embarrassment. Cole was in an alien land, as far from any life as he’d ever dreamed of living, and he was giddy with nerves and excitement.
“Look at all them kids.”
The boy in the seat beside him leaned over Cole and pointed to a string of buses lined up by the curb. Their own bus took a circuitous route through the parking lot and ended up at the back of the line. The brakes squealed and the doors popped open. A man with a shaved head stomped into the bus and began barking orders, the first familiar thing in Cole’s new home.