Icons

by Margaret Stohl

  Lucas ignores me but he holds the door. If he’s surprised, he doesn’t show it. I can’t get a feel for him, either. There’s too much going on, too much static in my brain.

  My wrist begins to hurt, beneath my binding, the moment I set foot out the door.

  Strange.

  It’s like the building knows I’m leaving. Of course it does. The Embassy knows everything.

  Except where we’re going—they can’t know.

  Even I don’t know that.

  The blades of the Chopper are already rotating, carving a circle in the sky above our heads. Lucas climbs into the seat behind the pilot. He picks up a set of massive earphones and slides them over his head.

  “Porthole, Freeley,” he shouts at the pilot.

  He’s headed into the Hole.

  My heart skips, and I grip the sides of my seat. I’ve never actually been in the city. Not farther than the Tracks.

  The pilot looks over his shoulder, grins. I recognize the dilated pupils immediately. In the world of Lucas, everyone is sedated and pliable.

  But this Freeley isn’t giving up so easily as Lilias. His mouth is struggling to form the words. He’s putting up a fight.

  “You’ve filed papers, Lucas? You’re not going to get me in trouble this time?”

  Lucas nods, though I know it is a lie.

  “You know, I had my wings grounded for a fortnight after your last little stunt.” Freeley looks amused, but he isn’t about to go anywhere. His hands aren’t anywhere near the controls, they’re twitching in his lap.

  “I’m on business for the Ambassador. In and out, won’t take long.” The pilot doesn’t respond, but I notice he slips his hands under his legs, the whole weight of his body keeping them down. Clearly he’s been with Lucas long enough to know a trick or two.

  “Come on, Freeley.” Lucas is impatient.

  “Right. And if I check the Wik, I’ll see all the proper paperwork, filed just as it should be?”

  “Go ahead, if you don’t believe me. It’s all there.”

  The pilot raises an eyebrow. “Right.”

  “It’s there, Freeley.”

  Freeley moves his hand slowly to the control panel, as if he was underwater—or pulling away from a magnetic force, a hundred times the strength of his own will, as the case may be. He flicks a dial with his gloved finger, and there it is.

  AMARE, LUCAS. The time. The date. The approvals.

  I can’t believe it.

  Freeley looks at me skeptically. I shove the earphones on, sliding into the seat next to Lucas.

  “I don’t know what you did, but I give. Tell your girlfriend to buckle up.” Freeley turns back around.

  Lucas doesn’t say anything. I fasten my seat belt and look out my own window.

  Lucas taps on my shoulder.

  “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Why not?”

  “I have business in the Hole—I’m going to see someone.”

  “Who?”

  “Someone who might have the answers we need. It’s going to be dangerous. The Hole always is. You should go back inside.”

  I nod, as if I can’t understand what he is saying. Lucas only has to look at me, and my hand automatically goes to the door. The familiar warm current pushes me against it, away from him. If I let it, if I let go, I will do what he wants before I know why I’m doing it.

  No.

  I force my hand back down and, like Freeley, shove it under my legs.

  Lucas looks away. “Fine.”

  The noise grows. I feel my body jerk away from the ground and weave into the air. Santa Catalina and the Embassy and the Presidio disappear beneath me, a square of stone walls behind more walls. Ro and Tima and Colonel Catallus and Doc and the Ambassador disappear along with it.

  Or maybe I am the one disappearing.

  Either way, I am ready to go.

  EMBASSY CITY TRIBUNAL VIRTUAL AUTOPSY: DECEASED PERSONAL POSSESSIONS TRANSCRIPT (DPPT)

  CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET

  Performed by Dr. O. Brad Huxley-Clarke, VPHD

  Note: Conducted at the private request of Amb. Amare

  Santa Catalina Examination Facility #9B

  See adjoining Tribunal Autopsy, attached.

  DPPT (CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE)

  Catalogue at Time of Death includes:

  20. A gold necklace found on the body of the deceased. The cruciform charm is

  Filed under Miscellany.

  18

  THE PORTHOLE

  The Porthole docks are teeming with life. Small skiffs, battered dinghies, homemade fishing rafts—left over from when there were fish—line the shore. Beyond them, only the Sympa ferries move into the deeper, darker waters. They’re so much bigger and sleeker and more serious than everything else it almost looks comical, like sharks in a goldfish pond.

  We land, and I jump from the Chopper as it’s powering down. Lucas stays behind and says something to Freeley, who smiles and leans back in the cockpit, getting comfortable.

  “I told him we’d be here in a couple of hours. Hopefully he doesn’t get a call before that and come looking for us.” Lucas takes a gray bundle from beneath the seat of the Chopper. “Speaking of people looking for us, remember, we have to keep a low profile.” Lucas pulls an old hooded sweatshirt over his uniform, hood up. “It’s not safe for us here, and I don’t want to take any chances.” He tosses another one to me. “Put it on.”

  I roll my eyes. “I get it. If you’re not careful you’ll have a flock of Remnant girls attacking and tearing off your clothes. I don’t have that problem.”

  “Dol. Have you ever been to the Hole?”

  I shake my head.

  “Trust me. You’ll want it.”

  I pull the shapeless gray thing on.

  I follow Lucas from the landing strip to the highway. Remnant beggars and vendors line the docks. On the other end, I see a pair of Sympa guards walk slowly through the area. One of them casually points a gun at a vendor who drops to the ground, cowering. The other laughs and picks through the man’s food, taking what he wants. The guards let the Blackhole Market happen, looking the other way, as long as they eat well. I pull my hood further down.

  The scene is overwhelming, especially to a Grass like me. We could buy anything within the first few minutes of walking toward the Hole, anything on earth. Clothing. Shoes. Bottles of herb-steeped water. Dried animal meats.

  My stomach turns.

  “Look.” Lucas points. “The Projects.” It’s true. Down in Porthole Bay, I can spot the massive construction site. High walls topped with barbed wire surround the enormous complex, where Remnant workers live. Smokestacks protrude from a billowing cloud of dirty gray-black ash. A jerking crane swings an unseen load of cargo.

  They say the smoke never stops blowing, the cranes never stop moving. Whatever they’re doing, they’re doing it night and day. Whatever they’re building, they’re building it on the backs of Remnants like Ro and me. That’s about all anyone knows. Nobody leaves the Projects once they go in. The Embassy runs the Projects, but they’re under direct orders from the House of Lords. According to the rumors, there are Projects going up near all the Icons, on different coastlines all around the world.

  “It’s a lot bigger than I thought,” I say. I almost can’t take it in. The steel arms reach all the way out past the breakers, like a military base built over the water. “I wonder what it’s for.” People say a lot of things about the Projects. They’re building homes for the Lords. Slave quarters for the survivors, after the Lords turned most of the world into a string of Silent Cities. Massive pumps to leech the earth dry. Processing plants to turn people into food. The list is long and always growing longer.

  Lucas says nothing, which only makes me wonder more. He’s the Ambassador’s son. It’s possible that he knows the purpose of the Projects, or that at least he could find out. But I don’t ask again, and he doesn’t tell me.

  I wonder what that says about both of us.


  We keep walking.

  Out here, on the very edge of the Hole, the cars on the Porthole Coast Highway are empty husks of scrap, abandoned long ago. What do you need a car for if you don’t have power to make it go? Without electricity, they’re merely reminders of freedom that people no longer enjoy. Especially not these people.

  A scrap scavenger stares when we walk by. Her clothes are ragged, her hair a matted mess. Her eyes narrow and she leans forward, looking straight at Lucas. He only sees her as she turns to run, looking back over her shoulder one more time. “Did she just recognize you?”

  Lucas shrugs. “I doubt it. Probably just ran to tell her girlfriends she believes in love at first sight.” He grins, and I shake my head. But I notice how quickly the smile fades.

  He’s the Ambassador’s son. We need to be more careful.

  “Dol.” Lucas stops in his tracks, holding up his hand. “Listen.” He closes his eyes. I look at him like he’s insane, which is how he seems.

  “What is it?” I can’t hear anything.

  “It’s nothing. Absolutely nothing. Silence. The best sound in the world.” He begins to move down the road again, with a sharp laugh.

  He’s right, of course.

  I’ve forgotten.

  Inside the Embassy, the hum of white noise is always there. There are screens, lights that buzz, and tech that talks. There is Doc—even when he chooses not to speak, there is the knowledge that he is there. It’s unsettling how quickly I’ve gotten used to it. Machine life has a sound, like a heartbeat, or breathing. A pulse of its own.

  The silence changes when it belongs only to living things. Your ear changes. You pick out the threads of human voices, a child yelling, footsteps echoing in the ransacked houses below us. Animal noises, earth noises. The air is so quiet you can hear the breeze. The sun beats down, prickling the back of my neck. My feet are hot in my thick boots as we walk.

  “Stop—” Lucas pulls me down. “I think I hear Choppers.”

  As he says it, I hear them, too.

  I look to see three Choppers flying in formation, straight toward us.

  “What do we do?” I’m trying not to panic.

  “Stay still.” Lucas watches the sky, squinting. Before long, they roar overhead, flying straight along the road and deeper into the Hole.

  “Not Embassy Choppers. We’re okay.”

  He pulls me up next to him, and we stand, watching, until they disappear.

  He speeds up, keeping his head down. I follow him as he picks a path down the highway. He manages to stay ahead, as if he can’t bear to walk next to me. Maybe he can’t.

  “Where are we going?” I call toward him, but the wind carries my voice in the other direction, and the only words that emerge are so small I almost can’t hear them myself.

  “You’ll see.”

  “Lucas. Slow down.”

  “Hurry up. You didn’t have to come, you know.”

  I pull his arm and he stops.

  We stand there, alone in the sunshine. I look back toward the water and Santa Catalina, back toward the way we came. The breeze has grown, and my hair whips in my face from the wind near the shore, beating against my eardrums like waves.

  “What’s your problem? Why don’t you like me?” I say the words before I realize what I am saying. “I mean, us.”

  He studies me. His face looks somehow different, harsh in the bright midday sun, and I wonder if mine looks the same to him.

  “I like you.” My heart pounds just a little more quickly.

  Lucas looks away. “I mean, I don’t not like you. I like everybody. You guys know that, better than anyone.”

  Oh. I see.

  “That’s not true. You hate Ro and you don’t like me.”

  He looks at me for a long moment before answering.

  “You hate the Ambassador and you hate me. You hate what she did to the Padre and you hate what I didn’t do.”

  “What was that?”

  “Stop her.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  We look at each other, there in the grim, bleached light. My instinct is to run from it, but my feet won’t move.

  “Forget it. It doesn’t matter.” I blush. Again. As always, when I’m around Lucas.

  Why does he do that to me?

  He looks stricken. “It matters, Dol.” He reaches for my hand. “I hate that I have to stand by and watch innocent people get hurt. It kills me.”

  I pull my hand away. “Yet here you are. Perfectly alive.”

  He reaches farther, grabbing for my wrist. “You don’t understand. The House of Lords—even the Ambassador is afraid. GAP Miyazawa is. We all are, and if anyone says they’re not, it’s a lie.”

  I don’t know. “When I think of the Ambassador, Lucas, afraid isn’t really the first word that comes to mind.”

  “I know. It’s hard to explain. She’s terrified—and she’s terrifying. It’s not like I can go running to my parents, whenever something’s wrong. My mother isn’t exactly a mother, not like I think yours would have been.”

  “If I’d known her,” I say, sadly.

  “If you’d known her,” he agrees.

  I didn’t, I think. But he didn’t either. There are lots of ways to lose your family, I guess. I am just beginning to realize how many.

  So I let him take my hand.

  It’s the truth, what he’s trying to tell me. I feel it, in every word.

  Lucas stares at my hand, silent for a moment. Then he looks at me strangely, like he’s trying to figure out how to tell me something.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing. I mean, something, I guess. I need to tell you. To show you.” He carefully reaches toward me, taking my other hand. “I was thirteen, I think.”

  He closes his eyes and I let the feelings find me, until I can see what he is thinking. I close my eyes and out of the darkness, the Embassy testing room comes into focus.

  I rip my eyes open. “Lucas, no. I don’t want to see this. Not again.”

  He holds my hands tight. “Please. I haven’t told anybody about this. I know you don’t trust me, but I trust you.”

  There’s nothing more I can say. I shake my head, but close my eyes again.

  I’m back in the room, and I see a frightened young girl, maybe twelve or thirteen, in dirty, worn clothing. She sits in a metal chair with her hands under her legs. Her face is streaked with tears, her hair cut short. She looks almost like me at that age, I think.

  A younger Ambassador Amare is in the room, with a nervous Lucas hiding behind her. He is skinny, almost gangly, with short hair. He looks so innocent.

  The Ambassador sits Lucas down opposite the girl and stands between them, arms folded. For a long time, she says nothing.

  Lucas looks up at her. “Why am I here, Mom?”

  The Ambassador cuts him off with a stern look. “In this room, I am your Ambassador, not your mother.” She turns to the girl, who wipes more tears from her eyes. She’s obviously terrified to see the Ambassador.

  “Sorry, Mo—” Lucas swallows. “Madame Ambassador.” His voice cracks.

  His mother’s lips press tightly, into her best imitation of a smile. “We believe this girl is a collaborator, a part of the Grass Rebellion. Her father is widely held to be a traitor and a terrorist. But we need proof.”

  The girl’s eyes go wide. “No, please, it isn’t true! My father is a farmer, not a criminal!” She strains to stand but I see the chains around her waist and legs, holding her down. The Ambassador glares at her and she sits down, sobbing.

  “Lucas, I need you to get a confession out of her. We have her father in custody, and we would like to have proof of his guilt before we prosecute him.” A look of panic crosses Lucas’s face. The Ambassador locks her eyes on him. “I know you want to do the right thing. Now I just need you to prove it to me.” The Ambassador gives Lucas a short nod before she turns and leaves.

  Lucas doesn’t say a word.

  The girl looks at him with
pleading eyes. “You have to believe me. I don’t know why we’re here. My father grows strawberries. He works hard and takes care of us. He would never hurt anyone. Please.”

  I feel Lucas’s heart tearing. He knows the girl is telling the truth. But his mother’s grip on him is so tight, he can hardly breathe. I feel it overwhelm him—the desire for her approval slowly smothering his guilt.

  After a moment, he speaks. “What’s your name?”

  She pauses and looks at him, warily. “Elena.”

  “Elena. I like that name.” Lucas pushes his conscience into a dark corner and looks at her.

  My heart begins to pound. I can’t believe he’s doing this. I can’t bear to watch.

  But he is. His pupils dilate as he draws her in. The girl is confused at first, then starts to look slightly embarrassed.

  “Elena, are you sure your father hasn’t been working with the Grass Rebels? I mean, how do you know he’s not? I can’t blame you for wanting to protect him.” Lucas stands and pulls his chair closer to Elena, who shivers from the proximity.

  He knows what he’s doing. He sits down right next to her.

  “I, I—” Elena is clearly confused, almost dizzy with the rush of his influence.

  “You know the Grass Rebels hurt a lot of innocent people. People who are trying to do good and keep humanity safe from the Lords.” Elena looks wide-eyed, then nods her head.

  “I guess so.”

  “You would be doing yourself and the rest of us a favor if you just tell us the truth. That your father is working against humanity. That he is part of the Rebellion.”

  I can feel Lucas heating up with the immense effort. Elena is fighting, as hard as she can, but it’s a losing battle. Lucas looks away for a moment, only to gain strength. If he hesitates now, he won’t be able to do it.

  He turns back and speaks slowly. “Your father is a Grass Rebel.” Lucas looks Elena again in the eye, and puts his hand on hers.

  Her resistance falters—and her eyes change, glassing over. Shifting from tearful to calm. “My father is a Rebel.”

  “He hurt innocent people.”

  She nods, no longer resisting. “Innocent people.”