by Martin Kee
“Can’t blame yourself,” he said. He cringed as a breeze wafted the sickly sweet smell of decay across his face. They both pulled clothes up over their noses.
“I could have saved Melissa,” Dona said. “I could have stopped her death. I could have tackled that Reverend and saved her.”
“And then what?” John asked. “And then beg forgiveness from The Church? They would have gotten her, or Skyla, one way or the other. There’s nothing you could have done, not on your own.”
She gave him a sideways glance. “What are you planning?”
“I thought we weren’t going to tell.”
Dona snorted. “Fair enough.”
They reached the base of the citadel by noon, its thousand-foot, armored walls reflecting warm sunlight onto the street. John had to squint the reflection was so bright. Chemical spotlights sat in dormant arrays around its base, there to reflect light back out into the streets at night. Several guards greeted them.
“We were about to go looking for you,” one of them said to Dona. He looked at John. “Who’s this? We aren’t taking in refugees. We don’t have the supplies, you know that. You’ll have to wait outside like the others, sir.”
“I’m Father John Thomas,” John said. “I’d like a word with the archbishop.”
The man behind the helmet paused, thinking. “The Father John Thomas? The priest wanted for treason?”
“That’s me.”
The two guards exchanged a glance. “You’re turning yourself in?”
“Yep.” John held out his hands.
“Is this a joke?”
Behind them along a distant wall, a murder of crows launched into the air. They were joined by others, and soon the swarm of black shaped blotted out even the sun for a moment. The guards glanced at each other again, a nervous twitch on their mouths.
“No joke,” said John. “Now which one of you boys wants the promotion?”
Chapter 49
Rhinewall
“YOU DON’T TALK, do you?” The girl looked at him from her bath.
Scribble still had a hard time meeting her gaze. He had seen naked people before; Lassimir was never much of a place for privacy. But it was the strangeness of her face, the way that porcelain mask moved with her jaw. It covered the left side of her head, her left arm, her left leg. Beneath it all were the mechanisms, the tubes and living machines. It was simply too much.
He shook his head.
“It’s okay,” she said and he could still feel her gaze. “I’m Gil.”
Gil brushed her damp hair aside with her right hand, her real hand. She was missing part of her middle finger and he wondered if that was from the explosion as well.
From my explosion, he thought.
“Do you have a name?” she asked.
He nodded, but that was all.
The man who had covered his mouth earlier, now stood at the wall of controls and displays, his beaked face glowing in the amber and green lights. Reflections danced in his goggles. Scribble pointed at the man, shyly. Between trying not to stare at her or the beaked man, there really weren’t many places he could look aside from the floor. It was a nice floor. Expensive wood. Very elegant. He decided he would stare at it a while longer.
“That’s Quentin,” Gil said. “He’s a Physician. They are sort of like soldierboys but with medicine. He saved my life when I was in the tank.”
Scribble nodded again. Gary was a soldierboy now. He fought to swallow the ball of anxiety surfacing in his throat.
“Can you write?” she asked. “Words, I mean.”
He shrugged, then shook his head.
“Read?”
No.
Gil sighed. “It’s going to be a long night then, just you and me and Quentin.”
He caught a glimpse of her smile. That half of her face lit up and he could feel himself almost smiling back. He still didn’t look up, though. Looking around the room, he saw books, paper, pencils. He grabbed something to draw with, a notepad. He drew the symbol Gary had said was his name, then turned the page to Gil.
She gave it an appraising look. The letters were wide and elegant, sprouting elongated serifs at the top and bottom. Lines weaved together in a mockery of literacy. She nodded.
“Well Scribble,” she said. “At least you know your name. And you can make it look pretty. ”
He shrugged, so distracted by everything, he hardly noticed the sound of feet coming up the stairs and down the hall. The door burst open and they all turned to see Harold standing there. The man glanced at Scribble, Gil, Quentin, his eyes wide and concerned.
“I heard a commotion… voices.” He looked at the notepad. “Scribble… What’s that? What’s that word mean?”
“That’s his name,” said Gil. “It’s fine. It doesn’t mean anything but his name.”
“I thought you were illiterate,” he said to the boy. “You were certainly mute.”
“He is, for the most part. He can draw his name though,” said Gil.
“And you,” Harold shot her a glance. “Felton says you’re to stay in your bath for the rest of the night.”
“I’m in it.” She said, then stuck out her tongue.
“You know what I mean.” He turned to Quentin. “And you’re supposed to be keeping an eye on things.”
Quentin gave a slow nod from the console. “The boy… Scribble, startled us. I was just about to instruct Miss Kastner to return to her bath.” He turned to Gil. “Miss Kastner, please return to your bath.”
Gil rolled her eyes. “I know.”
“It is for the infection.” Quentin continued. “With your immune system suppressed, you are more susceptible to a relapse. We simply cannot have that.”
“I know, I know,” she said. “Why can’t you just up the immunosuppressant and then give me the antibiotics intravenously?”
“Because those are not the sort of medications we have. Your immune system is at a balanced state, too much and you would undergo infection, too little and you would reject the prosthesis before it had fully fused to your bones. I’m sorry. There is no other alternative.”
“Gil,” Harold barked. “I’m only going to say it one more time. Please. You can argue with Quentin once you’re healthy.” Gil rolled her eyes and slid back under the liquid. Harold turned to Quentin. “And you… stop scaring the boy—I mean Scribble. I can see why they banned Physicians now. I’d never have one of you in a pediatrics ward. You’d scare the children to death.”
Quentin bowed again. “My apologies,” he said in that buzzing voice. “The boy is not a bother. He is welcome to stay.”
Harold fumed a moment more, then took a steadying breath. He turned to Scribble, his voice softer. “Do you want to stay? I know… I know you probably have questions. You’ve been through a lot… I was hoping I could talk to you separately, prepare you for all… this.”
Scribble shrugged, then nodded. Through the glass, Gil watched him, her hair swirling around her face, a mechanical mermaid. She smiled.
“Montegut,” Felton called from downstairs. “What’s going on up there?”
“Nothing,” Harold called back. “Just… just getting everyone acquainted.”
“When you’re done, we need to talk more about logistics. The factory is too vulnerable where it is. We should discuss how to move the soldiers across the city. I was thinking we could get access to the trolleys perhaps. Once Gil is well, we should include her.”
A bump came from Scribble’s room and he, Harold, and Quentin all turned. Gil pressed her face against the glass to see. To Scribble, it sounded as if a pile of books had fallen to the floor, followed by another heaving thump. Harold ran from the room and down the hall.
“What was that?” Felton called from downstairs.
“I don’t know,” Harold muttered as Scribble followed him to the door.
The lamplight still glowed, illuminating half of the room. On the table, Scribble saw the coin, still shining beside his other meager belongings. He didn’
t remember seeing any books in the room when he woke up, just paintings and…
A hand emerged from the closet, the middle finger ending not in a nub, but a perfectly flat termination. Harold bolted for the closet, pulling it open. The Crow Girl lay face down on the floor, her goggles shattered as she lay unconscious. Blood coated her clothing, her exposed skin, caked her hair. She struggled once more, then collapsed as Harold scooped her up, yanking the goggles from her head. He froze.
And continued to freeze. It was as if the man had turned to stone on the spot.
Scribble felt his heart quicken as Harold looked down at her, his face hardening, his eyes growing darker. He seemed to forget where he was a moment as he looked at the goggles in his hand, then at the Crow Girl bleeding into his suit. He didn’t move. She was dying and he wouldn’t move. This man was going to let her die. He was going to simply stand there and stare at her while the crow girl died in his arms, murder her with indecision. Her skin was pink, raw, her hair frayed—almost burned.
Blood dripped from her arm onto the floor, pooling on he dark wood when Scribble lunged across the room.
He grabbed the man’s coat, shaking him, pleading, hoping Harold would emerge from the trance. He hit the man, kicked him in the shins, but still the man would not move. He was a statue. Harold’s face slowly turned red, and in a moment of horror, Scribble thought that Harold might be holding his breath, killing both of them.
Air forced its way up into Scribble’s throat, puffing his cheeks out. He felt as though his eyes might burst as the pressure made his ears pop. He squeezed his eyes closed as the words erupted from him.
“Puh-puh-puh-leeeeeeeeze!” he screamed, the word ugly and bitter on his tongue. “Huh-huh-help-puh! Puh-lease! Huh-helpuh!”
He tugged on Harold’s coat. Spit formed on his lips from the alien sounds.
“Puhlease! Helpuh! Pulease! Helpuh!”
He squeezed his eyes shut, spouting the words like a mantra as the Crow Girl bled to death before him.
“Pulease help! Please help! Please help!”
He wasn’t sure for how long he spoke those words, couldn’t be sure of anything anymore as the ugly, malformed sounds echoed in his head, cycling over and over. He felt hands on his shoulders, squeezing. Fear gripped his heart.
Oh no! He’s dropped her to help me. Oh god, I’ve killed her. I’ve killed the crow girl.
He opened his eyes and Harold was still there, his hands on Scribble’s arms.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Stop saying that. It’s going to be okay.”
Scribble blinked. Across the room Felton knelt beside the bed, the Crow Girl laid out along its length. He cut through her shirt methodically with a pair of shears. Quentin floated in with a metal pan. Surgical instruments gleamed from the bottom of a clear pool of alcohol. Felton murmured instructions to Quentin, who sat the pan on the end table. They worked as a fluid team, ignoring scribble, ignoring Harold.
“She’s going to be all right,” Harold said to him. “It’s her shoulder, and her arm. She’s not going to die. She’s just lost some blood. She’ll be okay.”
The man pulled him close as tears of relief rolled down Scribble’s face.
*
Morning light made Skyla wince. She reached up to cover her eyes but winced even harder at fresh pain in her arm, her shoulder on fire. Everything hurt.
“Guh,” she muttered, shutting her eyes even tighter.
She still felt tired, but something had woken her. A noise? An absence of noise? What had it been before? Scratching. Some constant noise had stopped. Paper. The sound of pencil on paper.
But now it was quiet.
Opening one eye, Skyla looked at the ceiling, then slowly turned her head. Objects spun for a moment, and she wished for the goggles again. She had only seen this room from the shadows. She didn’t think she would make it, the way the light skewed against the closet. She remembered tumbling through and falling to the floor. God, her head hurt. And her shoulder. She groaned and stared back up at the ceiling.
“Look, I know you’re there, but I feel like I’m going to throw up if I look for you,” she said. “Could you at least say something?”
The scratching resumed and she lifted her head with great effort towards the direction of the sound. She blinked.
For just a fraction of a moment she didn’t recognize Scribble at all. His hair had been cut and parted neatly along one side. A bangs of dirty blond fell along his forehead in a jagged line as he stared in concentration at the paper. He held the notepad with his bandaged hand, but the other hand… it flew.
He stopped, looked up at her, and smiled.
Skyla sat up slowly, grimacing and swearing at her throbbing shoulder. Her upper arm hurt too, though not as bad. A bandage surrounded her bicep, turning yellow around the pink spot at the center. More bandages hugged her shoulder, surrounding her chest. She pulled the covers up instinctively. Her face felt warm.
“How long have you been sitting there?” she asked in a scratchy voice. Her tongue felt dry in her mouth and she looked around, clearing her throat.
Scribble, noticing this, placed the notepad and paper down, and brought her a glass of water, holding it to her lips. She drank greedily and nodded, thanking him. He placed it back on the table beside the coin.
She watched his movements with wary, ancient eyes.
“You had the coin,” she said. He nodded and sat back in his chair. “I wouldn’t have found my way back otherwise.”
He held her in his gaze. If there was any confusion there, he didn’t show it. He seemed to simply be waiting for her to continue.
“The bomb… do they know?”
She watched the shadows squirm beneath his chair. He shook his head. She felt a lump in her throat as she prepared for the next question.
“Gil,” she said. “There was a girl. She… she was in the bombing… did you see her?”
Eyes darted to the side as Scribble shifted his weight in the chair. He nodded, but the trepidation was clear on his face.
“And is…” She felt the tears before he even answered. “Is she… is she…”
He held up a picture. It was Gil. She sat in a chair, looking out a window, her arm and leg wrapped in a lattice of strange plates and wires. In the background stood a Physician, like the one from the lab, but moving. He appeared to be tending to some machinery against the wall.
“She’s alive?” Skyla felt new pain as her heart raced. Her head began to throb dizzily and she closed her eyes, trying to relax. Alive, she thought. A friend who I haven’t gotten killed.
Scribble nodded and pointed to the wall.
The bedroom door opened and the Physician entered. Skyla recoiled slightly at the sight of the beaked man. He glided towards her across the room. There was almost no shadow at his feet.
“I see you are awake.” His voice was hollow and alien, flat and buzzing.
She nodded up at the strange raven face.
“Miss Kastner requires your attention when you feel you have regained enough strength to stand.”
“Do you have something for the pain?” Skyla asked.
A needle appeared almost immediately in his hand. Skyla regretted her question at once as it jabbed her shoulder. It retracted, and soon the pain began to fade, her eyelids grew heavy and she drifted once again into dreamless darkness.
*
Gil turned from the window as Skyla and Scribble entered the room. At its center sat what looked like a giant fish tank, emptied of water. Tubes hung limp from the ceiling, draining into a central hole in the floor. Along the far wall stood stacks of machinery, now dormant, their purpose served for now.
“You’re up,” Gil said, smiling with half of her face—the other half lay hidden behind a porcelain mask. She wore clothes, but Skyla could see the way they bunched up in weird places around the machinery beneath as Gil limped towards her.
“So are you,” Skyla said. She wanted to hug the girl, wanted to cry out with relief, bu
t everything was different now. Something in Gil’s lucid eye had aged. “How long was I out?”
“Almost a week, and you were lucky,” Gil said. “They almost depleted their emergency stores of blood plasma on me. There almost wasn’t any left for you. How’d you get shot?”
“Same story.”
Gil snorted. “Couldn’t keep your mouth shut again?”
“Pretty much,” Skyla said. She smiled, but it quickly faded as memory returned. “I… made a mistake. A very big mistake.”
The clockwork girl tilted her head to the side, a human gesture. “What do you mean?”
“The scars. Do you remember? The ones Melissa showed me?”
“Yes.”
“I made them worse. Things leaked through.”
“What sorts of things?”
Skyla sat in a nearby chair. Her legs were still weak. “I want to say it could have been prevented, but Melissa said that they hadn’t happened yet…”
“What are you talking about?” Gil asked. “What hadn’t happened yet?”
Skyla looked up at her. “Bollingbrook… it’s gone… everyone dead… or most of them.”
“How?”
“I opened something… I opened a door and things escaped. They overran the city.”
A hand went to Gil’s mouth. “All those people.”
Skyla stared at the empty tank. “And what’s worse, I didn’t even find the Reverend. He’s still out there and I have no idea where. I’ve utterly failed at every single thing I set out to do. I honestly don’t even know where to look anymore.”
Gil held her in her gaze, no longer speaking. The silence in the room was interrupted only by the faint ticking of clocks and clockwork people, the dripping of fluid, the stretching of leather. But there was another sound, one that had been there all along—a low, thrumming hum.
“What?” she asked Gil. “What is that?”
It sounded like a swarm of giant angry wasps had descended upon the city. Skyla stood on shaky legs and crossed the room to the window. The sea breeze felt damp against her fevered skin, and she turned to the ocean. Her stomach sank.