Icons

by Margaret Stohl

  Lucas’s jaw is set. He shakes his head. “Fortis is not friends with Doc. Doc’s a computer program. Nobody is friends with Doc.”

  “That’s not true. You are.”

  Now we’re both staring out at the city. Lucas is silent, so I say it again.

  “You’ve known him since you were little—you said so yourself.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m going to blow up the Icon, just because some crazy Merk thinks it’s a good idea.”

  “He’s not a Merk. And that’s not why you’re going to do it.”

  “Yeah? Tell me. Why am I?”

  “Because you can. We can.”

  “Stop.”

  “Only us. That has to mean something.”

  The whine of the Icon seems to grow louder and louder, the longer we stay there. Soon I will not be able to stand it.

  “Does it?”

  He’s thinking, but I already know the answer. Or at least, the question.

  What means something?

  Of everything I have seen today, what matters?

  I close my eyes and the fortune-teller enters my mind, unbidden. I can feel the jade figures in my bag. I try to remember what he said.

  There’s a girl, I think. He said I have to find her. I’m not the important one. She is. But how can I do that? I can’t even do this.

  Then I remember the gold cross, the one that belonged to my mother. The one the Ambassador pressed into my hand.

  You lived so you can pay the debt.

  I know why I’m here, even if Lucas doesn’t.

  I’d tell him, but the noise from the Icon is making it impossible to think, and it’s all I can do to grab his hand and pull him back toward the downhill trail.

  This—all of it—is more than one person can bear, in one day.

  More than I can bear.

  There is so much to do, I think, and no one else to do it. It’s not the way I wish it was, but the way it is.

  We have to be strong.

  My parents are dead. Our city is dying. This is about so much more than us.

  RESEARCH MEMORANDUM: THE HUMANITY PROJECT

  CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET / AMBASSADOR EYES ONLY

  To: Ambassador Amare

  Subject: Paulo Fortissimo, aka Fortis

  Education: Doctorates from MIT and Columbia in astrophysics, neurology, genetics, and artificial intelligence.

  Author of Higher Power: Unleashing the Energy of Emotion.

  Special Scientific Advisor, US Department of Defense, through four presidential administrations, 2040–2056.

  Special appointee to UN Commission on Near Earth Objects, instrumental in the detection and planning of response to NEO Perses.

  Purported mastermind and author of research regarding Icon Children.

  Location: Unknown.

  Affiliation: Uncertain, but is known enemy of Occupation Government.

  Highly dangerous.

  Note: Standing Embassy order is to kill on sight.

  24

  RO

  By the time we reach the bottom of the hill, my heart is aching, my head is throbbing, my ears are bloody and ringing—and Fortis is gone.

  “That Merk bastard.” Lucas is furious and so am I. My book—my secrets—have disappeared with him, for now. At least he’s left Lucas’s cuff hanging on the fence.

  Lucas points up at the sky, though, and then I hear it. Freeley is landing, well beyond the gates. The air churns violently in the deserted street, the noise growing so loud I clap my hands over my ears. The Chopper blows dead brush up around us, and I don’t look to see what new bones have been uncovered.

  “Doc must have given him the coordinates,” Lucas shouts over the noise of the engine, as we slip back beyond the fence.

  Moments later, the Chopper doors slam shut behind me, and we pull up and away from Griff Park. I begin to shake—so strong is the surge of relief, and so exhausting was it to feel the Icon, all around me.

  I see Lucas close his eyes in his seat, and know he feels it too. The release. The space.

  Reluctantly, the Icon lets go of us—it doesn’t want to, I can feel that much—and we climb up into the sky like one last lucky bird.

  Freeley gets us home quickly, almost more quickly than I want him to.

  Ro is watching when the helicopter lands. The closer we get to him, the better I can feel him. He is so much more than angry.

  Lucas acts like he doesn’t see him. Once again, Lucas and I have reached an impasse. We don’t have the book, though we know Fortis does. We don’t have a plan, though it seems both the Rebellion and the Embassy do. We can’t fully comprehend the meaning of the things we’ve seen. Or those we haven’t.

  But.

  Though the events of the day have been overwhelming and inconclusive, Lucas and I have shared them. They have sent us both into silence and hiding—from each other, from decisions, from what we must do and who we must trust—but that, too, is something we share.

  He doesn’t know what to think about me, any more than I know what to think about him. But for now, how we feel is totally beside the point. How Ro feels is what matters to me, and as the Chopper nears him—and the Embassy—I feel every bit of it.

  He’s hurt and he wishes I were hurt, too. I’ve never felt that from him, not Ro who would kill anyone who thought about hurting me. Things are changing between us. Maybe things have already changed. I close my eyes. I wish I could tell him. I wish I could make him understand the mess of feelings inside me. I wish I understood them, myself.

  The Chopper lowers itself toward the barren concrete of the landing strip—Ro looms larger and larger—and I know there is no escaping what comes next.

  I left him.

  As always, in the right and wrong and good and bad world of Ro, there are no degrees to my decision. I prepare myself accordingly. I tell myself it will pass, like it always does. But it isn’t true, not anymore. At least, I can’t be sure.

  When the helicopter finally touches down at the Embassy landing pad, he’s gone.

  The blades are still turning when I am up the steps and heading for the Embassy doors. Lucas has to run to keep up.

  I’m not surprised when Lucas charms our way past the front entrance to the Embassy compound—but Ro’s not inside the door, as I hoped he would be. The Sympa guards are there, however, so our day’s adventure comes to a swift halt. Ro’s not in any of the hallways I am marched through—also not in Examination Facility #9B, once my Sympa detail has locked me inside. I realize, all at once, that I may not be able to fix things with Ro, and I think how much has changed since we left the Mission.

  I have to find him.

  After my third try with the lock, I slump against my door. Then it occurs to me that there are easier ways to open doors now at my disposal. “Doc? Are you there?”

  “Yes, Doloria.”

  “Can you open the door for me, Doc?”

  “Of course I can.”

  I scramble to my feet, waiting in silence. Nothing happens. I sigh. “Doc. What I meant was, will you open my door?”

  “I suggest amending your speech patterns to say what you mean—” The bolt reverses itself obligingly.

  “Next time, Doc.” I’m out the door before he can finish scolding me.

  There are no guards posted outside my door—one of the benefits, I imagine, of being considered safely locked in a room. I’ve learned how to dodge patrols all the way to the library, but when I get there, Ro’s not there. I don’t find him in the glass prison classroom either, though Tima’s there, and she manages to simultaneously not look up from her digi-text and yet still glare at me. I sneak up the back stairwell to the catwalk at the Presidio, but there is no sign of him. It’s only when I reach the far end of the catwalk that I spy Ro sitting on the rocky shoreline.

  I make my way down to him—once again, exactly as Tima has taught me—staying clear of the guards, keeping my head down, changing stairwells three times until I find the one that connects to the small strip o
f land behind the Presidio wing of the Embassy. The door slams shut behind me, but the wind is so loud Ro doesn’t know I’m there.

  The air whips all around us, as violently as if we were standing next to the helicopter.

  It’s not the wind; it’s Ro. This is how it goes with him. It starts inside him until he can’t contain it. Then it spreads, the red heat, first to the people nearest him, then farther. When the adrenaline pounds, he’s so strong he could rip a steel girder in half.

  That’s also when he’s chemically, electromagnetically insane.

  I push the burning waves away, though they surge at me, pressing in on me.

  I sit down next to him. He says nothing.

  “I’m sorry.” It’s all I can say.

  “Doc said the Sympas were shooting at you. I thought you were dead.”

  “But we weren’t. Doc should have told you. When we were safe.”

  I see his hands. They’re red and scarred. Burned, bruised marks in his own palms, from his own fists. I’ve hurt him.

  No.

  He’s hurt himself.

  That’s what the Padre would say. Try to find the place where Ro ends and you begin. You are two people. You aren’t the same person.

  We aren’t. I know we aren’t, but it’s hard for me to remember, because I feel everything he feels, more than I feel everyone else in the world. Maybe everyone else in the world, combined.

  Two people. I say it to myself.

  Not one.

  Two.

  But the Padre knows—knew—with Ro and me, it’s more complicated than that.

  Now all I can do is reassure him. “I was fine. You couldn’t have done anything.”

  “That’s the point. I couldn’t do anything. I can’t protect you from him.” The idea is almost funny.

  “Him? Lucas? You don’t need to protect me from Lucas.”

  “You’re right. I don’t need to protect you from someone who takes you with him into the Hole and gets you shot at and whatever other trouble you were into today.”

  I steal a look out the corner of my eye, improvising my story as I go along.

  “He seemed so upset. I only meant to go find him and talk to him. I thought I could convince him to come back into the library. Try again to figure out what was going on with the missing data. But Lucas practically ran straight into a helicopter, and before I knew it we were in the air…”

  It’s a lie, not one of my better ones, and we both know it.

  “Tima’s feelings are pretty hurt. She thinks you’re going after Lucas. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but she…” He shrugs.

  “Hard not to notice that.” Her eyes never leave him. He’s all she seems to think about, other than terrible disasters. Yeah, I noticed. But for Ro to see it too, that’s really saying something.

  He must be angrier than I thought.

  “So.” The word comes out evenly, with all the force of the other words, the words he won’t say.

  “So what?”

  “Do you?”

  “Do I what?”

  “You and Lucas.”

  Ro’s face is red and I stare at it as I have for years, even though he won’t look at me. I try to decide if his face is getting redder. It’s a sign, either way. How I know what I need to do or say.

  But my pride has gotten the better of me, and I feel like I have to defend myself. “Lucas Amare? Love? Everyone on Earth loves him.”

  “So that’s a yes.” Ro scoops up a handful of rocks, throwing one out into the churning tides. The water is already so rough I can’t see anything like a splash.

  “Ro. It’s not all like that. People follow him and shoot at him. Lucas is not exactly a person a girl can…” I sigh, because as I speak I realize it’s the truth. “Not me, not Tima.”

  “Still not an answer.”

  I take a rock out of his hand and hurl it into the water myself. I’m furious. I can’t speak, I can only shout. “We didn’t do anything. There. Are you happy? Now it’s my turn. Here’s a question for you, Ro. Since when did you become such an ass?”

  Now he looks at me. Finally. When he does, his face is so open I wish he hadn’t. “Since I fell in love with a girl named Sorrow, I guess. Should have seen that one coming.”

  There.

  He said it.

  Love.

  He loves me.

  It’s out now, in the wind and the water and on the shore in front of us. And now that he has said the words, I see it, coming from him in waves that are as real and as violent as the ones in front of us that crash against the rocks, over and over again.

  It’s red and pounding, distinctly Ro, but it’s something new.

  It’s love.

  He’s telling the truth. He isn’t confused. It isn’t what he’s always felt for me. Ro is changing.

  “Doloria.”

  He holds out his hand for mine.

  “I need you.” His voice breaks as he says it. “Please—”

  He leans toward me, bringing his face to mine. His hunger for me is overwhelming. Everything he wants wraps around me, a great cloud of Ro. A cloud of fury, like his name. A cloud of speed and sweat and grass and heat. And then—beneath it all—affection. Steady and real. The deepest, truest beating of his heart.

  “Dol.”

  For a moment, I forget to breathe and I feel dizzy. Like my legs could buckle and drop me to the rocks. I could drown in the waves. I could lose everything.

  But I let go.

  I lift my mouth to his.

  We kiss.

  It begins as small as everything does, but it isn’t enough. He isn’t satisfied. The heat is raging inside him, and I feel like I will burn up and dissolve into ash. I’m turning cold, even though I’m burning.

  His hands fall on my shoulders, slide down my arms. He tugs at my binding.

  My fingers curl into a fist. I know he needs me. I know I calm him and soothe him and even, in a way, complete him. But my arm is frozen. My arm is ice.

  Ro pulls his mouth away from mine. He doesn’t take his eyes off me. I feel him fumbling at my binding. His fingers don’t seem to work, and he pulls harder. He yanks the muslin loose, frustrated.

  I look away from him just as the white fabric flutters to the rocks below us.

  “Dol.”

  He pulls me closer to him. I try to let him take me back. I feel like a doll, like a thing.

  I can’t.

  I can’t bind with him, not like this. Not when it means something more than our shared kitchen floor, our Mission childhood, our Grass brotherhood.

  I don’t know enough about how I feel. I don’t know anything about myself. I only know I can’t bind with Lucas and I can’t bind with Ro. Even though there’s part of me that wants to give myself to both of them.

  What’s wrong with me?

  I shake my head.

  “I can’t.”

  It doesn’t make anything easier. The red rage isn’t gone. Neither is the love. Nothing’s gone.

  “Ro. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let you kiss me.”

  “You feel it too. Don’t pretend like you don’t.”

  “I don’t know how I feel.”

  “But I do. You’re just afraid. You don’t want to get hurt. You think if you love someone they’ll leave. That I’ll go and you’ll be alone.”

  “Yes.” It’s true. I won’t deny it.

  “But I’m here. I stayed. I’m the one who stayed.”

  “Maybe I want everything to be the same.”

  “Look around, Dol. People are dying. The whole planet is dying. Nothing is the same.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m so confused.”

  He looks away. Then he sighs, and picks up my binding from the rocks. Hands me the dirty fabric.

  “Whatever.”

  I love Ro, I always have. We love each other, which is also something he knows.

  But it doesn’t seem like I should be reminding him of that right now. And that isn’t what he means, anyway.
<
br />   I begin to bind my arm. I want to tie off everything. How I feel, how he feels. I don’t want any of it.

  I knot the strip of muslin so hard I think the blood won’t reach my hand. Maybe it’s better that way.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Ro says, chucking the last of the rocks. He watches it fly out at the waves. It’s not the peaceful ocean of our Mission beach, up the Tracks by La Purísima. This water is pounding and restless and as chaotic as the Hole itself. As angry as Ro. As complicated as Lucas. As confused as me.

  “Like I said, I’m sorry.”

  It’s not what he wants to hear, and I’m sorry for that too. His face looks dark, and he sighs, shaking his head.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Another lie. He begins the short walk up the shoreline, and I scramble after him.

  “Did you figure anything out in the Hole, at least? Or was it all just fun and games, except for the getting shot at part?”

  By the time we make it back to the medical wing, I’ve told him everything. About the Icon. About how it killed the boy, and not me. And not Lucas. How we hiked up to it, and what we saw.

  About Doc and Hux and Fortis and the Rebellion.

  “So there is something we can do.” He stares up at the sky, the soaring top of the Presidio, thinking. “We’ve got to tell Tima. She’ll know what we need. And maybe she has access to information we can use to hit it.”

  “Hit what?”

  He looks at me like I’m stupid.

  “For the first time in our lives, we can do something to actually help ourselves. To help everyone.”

  “We have to be careful, Ro. There are only four of us.”

  “Three. There’s only three of us.”

  “What?”

  “You’re a fool if you think Lucas is going to help us blow his mommy’s job right out of the sky.”

  “You don’t know Lucas.”

  He looks at me, incredulous. “Lucas doesn’t matter anymore. None of the Brass do. This is a Grass thing. I wish I was back at the Mission. I know a few people who could help.”

  “We don’t even know if there still is a Mission.” My heart twists as I think of Bigger and Biggest, left behind.