Time Zero

by Carolyn Cohagan

  After a long time, Grace says, “I told you my mother had me out of wedlock. But I didn’t tell you that, uh, the man who made her pregnant was her uncle. She trusted him, he was family—then he did that to her.”

  I stop scraping the soap. “But she went to the Tunnel?”

  “Yeah. Nothing happened to her uncle.”

  “I’m sorry, Grace. That’s awful.” I stop feeling sorry for myself for a moment.

  Anger flashes in her big brown eyes. “I don’t think a person should suffer for another man’s crime.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “For what?” she says, surprised.

  “For being so honest. For believing me.”

  She smiles, her shyness returning. “Do you think . . . we can be friends someday?”

  Now I’m surprised. “We’re friends now!”

  “We are?”

  I nod, smiling as much as I can in my present mood. “Yeah.”

  She pulls her legs up under her, grinning. “Do you want me to tell you some Nancy Drew stories, for distraction? I swear they’ll make you feel better.”

  “I have a lot on my mind. I think I’d just like to be alone for a while.”

  “Of course.” She stands, looking embarrassed. She leaves without a goodbye.

  Normally, I would worry that I’d offended her, but I have too much to think about. Tossing aside the soap, I lie back on the bed.

  I’ve never felt so paralyzed. I want to talk to Nana, but I can’t bear to see her relieved face when I tell her that Juda is gone, or hear her smug voice when she reminds me that she told me he would behave this way. And what will she say when I tell her about Father? Most likely she won’t be surprised at all. She’ll say that the evil of men perseveres.

  I roll to my right, curling into a little ball, trying to ignore the question that’s slowly pushing its way forward into my mind. I’ve created a barrier against it, a pathetic dam that’s started to leak with uncertainty. The question repeats itself, and I can’t hold it back any longer: What if Father knows? What if Ayan is right and he’s been collaborating with Uncle Ruho and Mr. Asher from the beginning? He spends all day, every day, at the water plant. Could Mr. Asher really have pulled off something like this without his knowing?

  I remember Father’s face as he told my mother and me that the Convenes were giving him an award. I saw true pride in his smile. Could anyone be such a good liar?

  My belly twists and turns at the thought. I’ve grown up expecting Mother to lie—to my aunties about my father; to my father about Dekker; to Dekker about me. If Ayan thought my mother was involved with the mercury scheme, I would probably believe her. Mother will do whatever she has to in order to get what she wants. But I thought Father was different.

  Sekena asked if I thought Father knew about Mother and Dekker setting my cloak on fire. I said no, but, if I’m going to be honest with myself now, I said no because I couldn’t handle any other answer. If he knew about the plan, if he condoned the burning of my flesh, I didn’t know whether my heart could take the pain.

  Lying here, stuck underground, I can’t help but confront the possibility that he knew what Mother intended to do with that candle. He never came to visit me when I was recovering in bed. Why? Because he felt guilty? And if that wasn’t the reason, there’s only one other possibility: he doesn’t love me. He didn’t care enough about my injury to see me.

  I sit up in bed, hot tears blurring my vision. I grab the bar of lavender soap, but it’s not enough now. I lunge across the room, my hand closing around a Chanel No. 5 box. I rip it open, yanking out the priceless bottle and smashing it against the wall. The sound of the glass shattering is satisfying, but not nearly as satisfying as imagining Ayan’s face when she sees her precious Relic’s been destroyed. I grab a second bottle and let this one drop casually on the floor. The third, I whirl around and throw toward the door, but it lands with an incredible smash on the left wall, the liquid leaving a terrific yellow stain that looks like urine.

  As my eyes burn with the overpowering stench, disgust contorts my stomach. Breaking the bottles hasn’t soothed my anger or misery.

  I can’t stay here. I run into the hallway, afraid I might retch. I’m amazed to find no one is running toward my room, attracted to the noise or the smell.

  I make my way quickly down the hallway, toward the black-and-white bathroom where I bathed Nana.

  Gray, the cook, emerges from a doorway, and I slow my pace, trying to look calm. Even though I feel disgusting, inside and out, I smile at her. She smiles back, her missing teeth making her look like an evil spirit sent to mock me. As she passes, her smile disappears, the powerful reek of the perfume surely assaulting her nose.

  But she says nothing, and I continue to the bathroom, where I run to the bucket in the corner and proceed to empty my stomach of everything I’ve eaten for the last twenty-four hours. I heave and heave until I think I’ll pass out from exhaustion.

  Then I lie down, placing my cheek on the lovely cool tile. I thank God for allowing me to stop throwing up, for allowing me to live.

  Why did I have to be sick in the only bucket of water in the room? Now there’s no water left for me to drink. I’ve never been very good at planning ahead.

  Should I take a nap in here?

  Maybe. I can’t imagine moving. I need Rayna to come carry me the way she carried Nana.

  After several more long minutes on the hard tile, I decide that perhaps the cold bathroom is not the best place to sleep. I’m not comfortable, and someone will eventually come in.

  But where can I go? Not back to my bedroom, which is full of broken glass and intolerable amounts of perfume.

  Slowly, I pick up my wrecked body, leave the bathroom, and make my way to the small room where Juda was staying. The lock is still smashed, but I don’t think anyone will bother me there. Shutting the door as far as it will go, I crawl over the piles of men’s clothes until I find the large indentation where Juda slept.

  I’m happy to be lying down again. I inhale deeply, hoping to smell a bit of him, but all I can smell is Chanel No. 5 and puke. Serves me right, I suppose.

  I find a packet of “Adult-Size Men’s T-shirts” to make a pillow for my head. It shows a picture of a handsome man in a very tight shirt, smiling, with muscles flexed. I suppose he’s trying to attract the attention of a single girl. Nana said that when marriages weren’t arranged, this was how it worked. Men and women had to win each other with physical attraction only.

  I throw the packet back onto the pile.

  Nana is right. Men are worthless, destined to lead women down a path of misery and destruction.

  I thought Juda and I had a connection—that there were no lies between us. After everything we went through together, he left here without a word. Does he know how selfish and cruel that was? If he were standing here right now, I’d shake him until his teeth clattered. I’d yell, You coward! You’re a little worm, sneaking away without saying goodbye!

  Why are men so impossible to know?

  Juda and my father—nothing like what I thought.

  My stomach lurches again.

  Last Searing Day, my family broke fast with Grandma and Grandpa Silna. Grandma Silna had fixed a special meal of stuffed pigeon, which I found inedible, the entire dead bird sitting on my plate.

  Grandpa Silna, who considers himself superior to almost everyone, had decided to lecture us on the importance of piety and how the Convenes were suffering from the plague because they didn’t pay enough attention to God or the Prophet. His lecture was exactly the kind of thing I would tune out, except that Father interrupted him, unusual in another man’s home.

  Father insisted that the Convenes were sick for scientific reasons, not religious ones, and that they deserved our support, not our judgment. Grandpa Silna got very red in the face but didn’t say another word the rest of the meal. I was proud of Father, even though Mother berated him once we got home.

  Remembering Father in this way, ar
guing with my grandfather, causes the swirling confusion in my brain to cease for a moment, as if the dam has stopped leaking and the doubt has decided to reverse course.

  I know my father. I know what kind of man he is. And I’m not ready to give up on him yet.

  I KNOCK AGGRESSIVELY ON GRACE’S DOOR.

  After a minute, she opens up, book in hand. “Mina? You okay?”

  I push by her. “I’m going.”

  “Where?” she says, pushing her glasses up her nose.

  “To tell Father what’s happening at the plant.”

  She closes her door, nodding, not nearly as shocked as I thought she’d be.

  “I’m sure he doesn’t know,” I insist, but then add, “If he does, I’ll know it the second I see his face. But I have to see him, Grace. I have to know.”

  She keeps nodding.

  “I need you to get me out of here without putting the Laurel Society in danger. Ayan mentioned a different exit that she thought Juda used. Can you show me where it is?”

  Still nodding, she closes her eyes, like a Herald in the middle of a powerful prayer.

  She’s probably deciding whether she’s going to tell on me or not, and I can’t blame her. The Laurel Society is her family, and I’m asking her to betray them by helping me.

  “I’m asking a lot, I know,” I say. “But I thought maybe after what you told me about your mom . . . you might understand why I have to leave.”

  She doesn’t respond. I chew my lip. Maybe coming to her was a mistake. She could go tell Ayan my plan before I have a chance to do anything, and then who knows what’ll happen? Unlike Juda, I’m not very good at breaking out of locked rooms.

  “Never mind,” I say, heading for the door. “Forget I was here. You shouldn’t have anything to do with this.”

  Her eyes pop open. “Don’t leave!”

  I freeze.

  “I was coming up with a plan.” Seeing my surprised face, she says, “You need my help to leave without anyone seeing you, but once you’re outside, you still need to be hidden, because if you get scanned by a Twitcher, you’ll be arrested.”

  “That about sums it up,” I say, wondering how this is a plan.

  “What if you were imperceptible to the Twitcher?” Grace says, with a hint of mystery.

  I assume she’s about to tell me the plot of The Invisible Intruder, but instead she takes my hand and leads me down the hall. After several twists and turns, she stops at a locked door and, after looking both ways, pulls a set of keys from her pocket.

  As she unlocks the door, I say, “Does being a librarian include owning keys to all the rooms?”

  Smiling shyly, she says, “Growing up here has its perks.”

  I wonder what other perks she has but forget to ask as soon as I enter the room. Six Twitcher uniforms hang on the wall.

  “From what I understand,” Grace says, “Twitchers won’t bother one of their own.”

  Hanging from hooks, the uniforms—jumpsuits with gloves attached—look like they still contain men, like they’re about to reach out to seize us. Cables dangle out of collars and plug into batteries lining the floor. As I touch a helmet, which sits on a shelf next to three utility belts and three large handguns, my hands shake. I’ve never touched a gun, much less carried one.

  “You’re a real-life Nancy Grew!” I say, amazed at the boldness of her plan.

  “Drew,” she says, correcting me but smiling nonetheless.

  “It’s a brilliant idea, but . . . I don’t know if I can do it, Grace.” I run my hand down the slick fabric of a black jumpsuit. “Fool people on the street, pretend to be a man.”

  If only Rayna liked me a teensy bit, I could ask her for help. I suspect she supports my cause. But her feelings for me seem the same as for a pimple: an irritation she’d like to never see again. Sighing, I say, “I can’t pull off this kind of thing on my own.”

  Grace grabs a helmet, plopping it on her head. In a muffled, metallic voice, she says, “Who says you’ll be on your own?”

  I couldn’t be more surprised if one of her mannequins came to life and said it wanted to join me.

  “It won’t be like one of your books,” I say, reaching over to take the helmet off her head. “This danger is very real.” Her hair, always big, has puffed up even more after being squashed by the helmet.

  “I know,” she says, hurt.

  “I think you need to give it more thought.”

  I would never forgive myself if something happened to her.

  “I’ve been thinking about it for seventeen years.” Her face, usually so open and animated, has become dark and serious. “I’ve never been outside, Mina. Never. The closest I’ve ever come to seeing the ocean is the cover of Moby-Dick. I know it’s dangerous. We may be arrested. Or killed. But I’d rather have one real day up there, with sun and trees and wind and strangers strolling in the streets and the possibility of something new happening, than a lifetime of safety and boredom down here.”

  I study her sincere face, so much like a child’s. Is Grace really two years older than I am?

  “I promised myself that if the chance ever came for me to go up top, I would take it. And I’m not backing out now.” Her cheeks are pink with emotion. “Besides, how else are you going to know how to operate the stupid thing?” She motions at a uniform. “I’ve been watching Rayna get in and out of one of these for at least four years.”

  She’s right. I doubt I’d be able to figure it out on my own.

  Sighing, I say, “You promise you’ll listen to me on the streets? And pay attention when I say there’s danger? And if I say you have to come home, you’ll come home immediately, with or without me?”

  “I promise,” she says gravely.

  I hand the helmet back, hoping I’m not making a horrible mistake. “Okay. Which part goes on first?”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  AS THE SUN RISES, THE DEVOUT MEMBERS OF the Laurel Society tend to their morning prayers, while the remaining women savor their safe, comfy beds. Grace leads me to the south entrance of Macy’s, which is supposed to be used solely for emergencies. She peeks out at the street from a concealed staircase to make sure no one is coming. I hear her make a small plea to the Prophet as we emerge onto 34th Street, the shortest Twitchers in Manhattan.

  I look back at the hidden entrance, hoping to find a marker for when we return, and am amazed by how completely the rubble conceals it. “Will you be able to find your way back in?” I ask Grace, my voice metallic and strange.

  She nods.

  “Then we’re off,” I say, trying to sound braver than I feel.

  We begin by heading west on 34th Street. This is so weird. I’m not sure how to walk. Should I swing my arms or keep them still?

  We make a right on Seventh Avenue. The helmet allows me to see better than I’d hoped, but the rest of the uniform is heavy and stiff. The boots are cinder blocks on my feet. Grace fetched us each several pairs of socks so we could fit into the enormous shoes. We put on extra pairs, then stuffed the rest into the toes. We tried to cinch the utility belts low, to keep from emphasizing our girlie waists, but I fear the weight of my handgun, in addition to the small tools placed in attached pockets, will slide the belt down around my feet as I keep walking.

  As morning prayers end, the city comes to life. I hold my breath for the first few blocks, ready to be scrutinized, but soon find that people want nothing to do with us. They look away and move aside. Grace and I are able to move up the sidewalk quickly.

  As a girl, I’m frequently invisible to the world swirling around me. A walk through the market can take forever as men block my path or elbow me aside. But when one is a Twitcher, the sidewalks empty as if a plow were coming through.

  I want to bar the women from bowing their heads to us, to lift their chins and say, “Stop.” But I enjoy the men’s deference. I thrill at the power of catching the glimmer of dread in their eyes. I never knew causing fear could feel good, and I’m disturbed by the revelation. Do I have mo
re of my mother in me than I would like to admit?

  I still can’t believe we’re doing this.

  Leaves blow across the sidewalk as daybreak reveals a slate sky. We reach 40th Street, stopping for a light. Across from us, a woman struggles to hold a baby with one arm and lead a toddler with the other. As I watch her, the computer screen on the inside of my visor says, Scan Human Female?

  Curious, I wiggle my right hand, as Grace taught me. A keyboard appears. I hit YES, setting off a low hum that must be my Senscan moving up and down. Data soon scrolls up the screen. How do Twitchers walk and read this stuff at the same time?

  As a fingerprint flashes, I read,

  Lydia Ferall, 37, Deserver, 5'3", 130 lb., history of high blood pressure. Two children. One miscarriage. 36 days pregnant. Husband: Henry Ferall.

  I have a new prompt: Spiritual Scan?

  Why not? I hit YES.

  The Senscan hums. I see brief flashes of Lydia underneath her cloak, her face and naked body.

  Negative for: seditious materials, explosives, hidden devices.

  Negative for: makeup, nail polish, tattoos, piercings.

  Oh my God. All those years, Sekena and I argued about how much the Twitchers could see, and I was right. I saw Lydia’s naked body. I feel faint.

  I want to run to Lydia and apologize.

  I can’t believe Twitchers can see so much about us whenever they want.

  How dare they?

  Grace is saying something to me, but she’s not turning her head; she’s trying to look official. “What?” I say, also looking straight ahead.

  “My feet hurt,” she says, more loudly this time.

  We’ve only walked six blocks. We have nineteen to go. “Are you having second thoughts?” I ask.

  “No!” she says, with defiance. “It’s the boots.”

  She’s right. They’re unbearable.

  “Maybe we could take a bus?” I say.

  I’m not very confident about my suggestion, having no experience with buses. Girls aren’t allowed.