“Speak for yourself,” Rocket shrugged, smiling down at the well-worn but still gleaming pin on the chest of her T-shirt, a metal pair of wings. Beside it were two other small pins: a flying saucer, and a stylized alien head. She breathed down on the mementos and lovingly polished up the shine. “I never needed superpowers to fly.”
“That you didn’t,” he replied, but his faraway tone made it clear he was only half listening. Will adjusted his rectangular glasses and fidgeted as he studied the readouts. His smile faded and his eyes narrowed along with his focus, until the numbers became his entire world, and she felt the distance grow between them. A bomb could have gone off outside and he’d be sitting, calm and still, analyzing the readings.
“How’s Parole doing?” she called after him, hopping off the table and immediately slipping into the chair he’d just vacated. “We gonna make it through the night?” She pulled her sharp knees up to her chest and curled against the still-warm back, casting a nervous glance up at the low ceiling and its humming lights. The sterile white, windowless walls. Even after all these years in the small room, supposedly getting used to it, if she thought too hard about where they were, what they were doing...
“I don’t know.” Will said at last. Rocket blinked in surprise.
“You don’t...” she repeated under her breath, rough voice dropping to something softer. “Can’t remember the last time I heard you say that.”
“Well, now I don’t,” he said, more shortly than seemed to fit his kind voice. He tore his gaze away from the screens and one anachronistically old-fashioned paper-strip printout with seismic activity needle graph. It looked like it took effort. “Radio Angel’s gonna buzz down in about an hour. Ask me what you’re asking now, for the weekly structural integrity and ground stability report. If we’re any closer to falling into the fire, or if we’re gonna be okay for another week. And I’m gonna tell her what I’m telling you.” He gave a slow shrug, shaking his head in a continuous motion. “I don’t know.”
“Will...Come on,” she said, a small bit of urgency creeping into her voice. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked so...she didn’t even know. Didn’t like it. “You live and breathe this data. I look at this and I just see a monster computer and a sea of numbers and dials and little blinking lights and zig-zaggy lines, but you make sense of it all.”
Will shook his head again. Doing that a lot today. “Listen. I know things haven’t been ‘normal’ for a long time, but I’ve still never seen readings like this. Not even back in Radiance Seismology proper. Not even riding the cutting edge.”
He leaned back in his chair, folded arms resting on his round belly and chin tucked down to his broad chest. Fell silent.
Rocket waited. Two, three seconds, fidgeting. If there was one thing she couldn’t deal with, it was silence. “So when Radio Angel calls down...”
“I’m gonna tell her I don’t know, and that’s just gonna have to be it. I don’t know if it’s because of the tectonic plates themselves doing something funky, the long-term exposed burn—or maybe somebody’s electromagnetic ability up there messing with my instruments. The numbers don’t make sense anymore, nothing does, and that’s the one thing that stays the same. And I’ve run out of ways to help. No more good I can do here.”
Rocket opened her mouth to reply...and shut it again. There was a finality in his voice that made her shiver despite the heat of the small room. “You could’ve left, you know.”
“Hmm?”
“When they evacuated. Everyone valuable, anyway. That’s you, ya know.” Her smile wasn’t bitter. “Forget the wild stuff the rest of Radiance was doing, actually creating hurricanes, tornadoes, calling down lightening bolts to smite your enemies? Nah. Anyone who saves thousands of lives, predicting disasters before they strike… that’s gotta be worth at least one life.”
“You’re still here, aren’t you?”
“I’m where I belong.”
“You belong in the sky. You and the Phoenix.”
“Best bird I’ve ever flown.” She leaned back in her chair, hands behind her head, feet up on the console. “Okay, you got me. I’d rather be flying headlong into a swirling vortex. I’m the simple sort.”
“Yeah, simple.” Will smiled, laugh lines crinkling at the corners of his eyes. “Chasing storms. Right for the heart of danger—bullseye, every time.”
“Someone’s gotta do it.”
“You could’ve left too. Not many people can say that.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t.” She didn’t let out a sigh. That would have felt like a betrayal.
“And now you and the Phoenix are grounded down here with us, in a garage a hundred stories under everybody’s feet. While I stare at numbers, and we all wait to drop.”
“Birds don’t belong underground,” she whispered.
“I know. Neither one of you.”
“Hey.” She turned to look at him, hard. “I don’t regret staying. Not for a second. This isn’t just a job for me, like how saving people with your amazing brain wasn’t one for you. Radiance was good to us. Least we can do is keep trying.” The light in Rocket’s eyes dimmed, and she slumped back. “But Major Turret, and his swarm of Eye in the Sky rotor jockeys running the place now…Radiance used to actually be able to make peoples’ lives better. That was us, babe. Then I fell out of the sky, the bubble went up around Parole, the fires started, now there’s a freakin’ invading army, and nothing makes sense.”
Will sighed, and his round shoulders sank. He cast a wan glance up at the screens and their baffling portents. “And I don’t speak my own language anymore. But things change, and times get strange. Or maybe it’s me who’s changed.”
“There’s a city on fire above us,” Rocket said softly, wide eyes flicking to the white ceiling. “And people with powers they shouldn’t have, holding lightening in their hands and running around the sky doing God knows what. And we’re down here, hanging by a thread in a tin can above a furnace. I’d call that strange any day. It’s not you, babe. You’ll figure it out.”
“Thanks.” Will actually cracked a wistful smile. “Never really thought I’d be one of those guys sitting around thinking about the good old days—”
“Yeah, were they ever that good?”
“I thought so. We saved a few lives. Solved a few puzzles.”As Rocket gazed at the ceiling, Will’s eyes fell to the floor, and the hidden inferno below. “Forget superpowers, didn’t need ‘em. Before everything turned upside-down. We did good.”
“Yeah, we did. Me in the sky, you on the ground,” Rocket said quietly. Her thin chest felt tight, the way it did whenever he talked like this, when his eyes went to the tile floor between his shoes. She tried to keep busy with games, with distractions, but after ten years you started to run out.
“When this city finally goes, we’ll have around 5 minutes of warning.” Will’s voice was flat, and she looked sharply down.
“You bought us that long, huh?” She wasn’t being sarcastic. Five minutes was an eternity compared to what they’d had before.
“That’s as good as I can give.” He slowly nodded. “Still haven’t been able to do anything about the electromagnetic interference. Parole gives it off like…like…” Will stopped, shut his mouth.
Rocket tilted her head. “No clever analogy?”
“You ever pet a cat on a cold day, and the static in its fur shocked your hand?”
“That’s my Will.” She gave a jerky nod and leaned back in her chair. “Nah, haven’t had a cold day in a while. Maybe they should change the saying to ‘When Parole Freezes Over.’“
“Anyway.” He gave a slow blink, but his smile was creeping back. “Winter, it’s cold out, the air is dry, you can feel the electricity in it. You walk on a thick carpet with fuzzy socks on—then go to pet a cat, or touch someone—zap!” He clapped his big hands, making her jump—but she couldn’t help laughing, both at the surprise and the way his eyes lit up as he latched on to a familiar subject, a former life. The
y were alive again, warm and bright, and she watched them as much as she listened.
“Yeah, the static shock feeling. Makes your hair stand on end. You think that’s what’s messing with your machines?” Rocket’s brow furrowed. “No way they’re that sensitive, getting thrown off by a little electricity in the air? Beside, we’ve been down here for years, they’re only just getting fuzzy.”
His eyes narrowed, warmth in them sharpening into something harsher, frustrated, and bordering on desperate. “Well, Parole’s not sitting out in the open air, it’s stuck in a fishbowl. That energy barrier around the city? Glowing, lethal, ever-present? You have seen it, right?”
“Don’t get snarky. Thought you compensated for the barrier,” Rocket’s frown deepened to match his. “That was your first big project. You were just about tearing fistfuls of your hair out trying to account for the havoc the energy sphere wreaked on your readings.”
“And I did!” Will looked torn between laughing and crying and collapsing all over again. “Took me seven weeks of blood, sweat and tears, I made a couple deals with God I have my doubts about, but I finally—no! That’s not what this is about, don’t distract me, Rock! You know how I get about that damn barrier.”
“Sorry! So what’s the problem?”
“Two big problems. First of all, that same—thing—that’s keeping us trapped in here? It’s keeping all the energy in the air trapped in here too. Electricity, radio waves, everything. It gives off an incredible amount itself—which I compensated for, yes, because that’s what I do best—but the city itself, or maybe the fire down below...Or maybe the people in Parole, people with powers, people giving off sparks and bursting into flames every five minutes? They give off energy too. Lots of it. And thanks to that barrier...It’s got nowhere to go.”
“...Oh.”
“Yeah.” He nodded slowly. “And it’s been slowly building up, over years. And energy like that messes with my instruments. And short of punching a hole in the barrier—which isn’t an option, you know what happens to any fool who tries—there’s no way to blow off the excess.”
“Well, shit.”
“Basically.” He nodded. “And to make matters worse—the same energy that’s scrambling my numbers, don’t you think it might mess with other signals?
“Uh, yeah?” Rocket snorted. “Good thing we got Radio Angel’s airwaves, and CyborJ’s home-brewed internet…yeah, Parole’s a media hotspot, that’s for sure.” She frowned. “Wait. You think this buildup is shorting out everything else?”
“Mm-hmm. There’s no escaping Parole, not for people, and not for energy…and there’s no getting in, either.”
“Huh?”
“Haven’t you ever wondered about why nobody’s ever tried to help us?” he asked quietly.
“Think most people did at first. Then stopped. Why torture yourself?”
“Nobody’s coming because nobody can hear us,” Will said slowly. “The communication signals get eaten up by the interference. Everything but Radio Angel’s broadcasts, because they’re a different kind of signal. They’re someone’s ability, they break through. But other than that? Parole is a dead zone. No calls in or out. I’m starting to think…maybe the rest of the world really doesn’t know about us.”
“Jesus,” Rocket breathed, eyes slowly widening. “Will…how did you come up with this?”
“I got a lot of time to think down here,” he said simply. “And it just makes logical sense.”
“Yeah…sense.” She shook her spinning head. Will was buried in his data again, not noticing the look of horror on her face, so he continued.
“And then there’s the second problem. I don’t think that effect is entirely natural. The dampening effect, I mean. The buildup, yes. But that in itself wouldn’t kill every single communication attempt—people find a way. Especially scared, desperate people like we have here.”
“So what are you thinking?”
“I was looking at some numbers, tracking some signals—not the big stuff, just what happens to small signals like cell phones when people try to make outgoing calls, calling for help, trying to reach loved ones, stuff like that. And I have seen readings like this at one point.”
“Where?” Rocket was almost afraid to ask.
“Where else? Radiance.”
“Wh—no!” She shook her head so fast her vision blurred. “They wouldn’t lock us in here! Not our own people! They—”
“Not them. But how hard would it be for Major Turret to get his hands on it if he wanted it? Nothing’s ever stopped him from taking what he wants before.”
“Oh, God.” She sucked in a breath. “The bastard shut down our phones. Our internet, our TV. He cut us off from the world. The quarantine isn’t just physical, it’s…it’s everything.”
“Yep. Can’t blame that on the barrier.” He turned in his swiveling chair to face her, and any of his remaining buoyancy slipped away, leaving behind only fatigue and sadness. “So now we’re flying blind. The tectonic plates are still shifting around us, the fire’s still burning down below, Parole is still going to fall...But the computers stopped talking to me. So I don’t know when.”
“So we’re back to square one.” Rocket’s mouth felt dry as the scorched earth outside.
“Worse than that. Because I’ve been down here long enough to see every option, every outcome. I’ve...” Will broke their shared gaze, shut his eyes. “I’ve known this was coming for a while. Did everything I could to avoid it. Find another way. A solution. There isn’t one.”
“You didn’t tell me.” Now Rocket folded her arms, a sharper, harder version of his introverted thinking pose from a moment ago.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Nothing you could do about it. Why worry you?”
“Because it worried you. And I wanna know, even if I can’t help. That’s what we do.” She shivered again. The sweat that made her clothes cling to her skin now was cold. “Besides, I live here too. Even if I never see the sky again, I still wanna know how much time we have left together.”
“You’re sweet.” Will gave a long sigh, shoulders slowly sinking as he reached out, finding first one hand quickly met by one of hers, then the other. “Sorry, Rock.”
“Don’t apologize,” she said immediately. “You’re the only thing that made getting shut in this god damn cage livable.”
Will didn’t answer. Rocket kept thinking, glaring at the ceiling. “This static interference...It’s like what they think happened to Amelia Earhart.”
“Hmm?” Now it was Will’s turn to look confused. “Her plane went down in the Atlantic, didn’t it?”
“That’s what they say,” Rocket nodded, smiling even as her chest tightened again. Nice to be the one sharing the arcane knowledge for once. “Nobody really knows. But I studied her, uh, some!”
“Some... now she’s ringing a bell, but not for any urban legend. Didn’t you join a fan club or something way back when?”
“Hey, the woman’s a legend. Show me a pilot who hasn’t looked her up at some point.”
“Looked her up, maybe. Looked at her with stars like those in their eyes?”
“And do you know where she went down?” Rocket continued, ignoring his smile. “Right smack dab in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle.”
“Uh-huh.” Just because she ignored it didn’t mean it went away.
“And it’s not just Amelia,” Rocket went on, clearly warming to her subject the way Will had when he talked about the enigma of the barrier. “Hundreds of craft have gone down there, private, military—an entire training squad, once. I heard the audio tapes, read the reports, and they all say the same thing!”
“And what’s that?” He rested his chin on one fist, asking less for scientific reasons and more because it meant he might catch another flash of light in her eyes. Neither of them had seen the unobscured night sky for ten years, but he still saw stars from time to time.
“Right before it cuts off, they talk abou
t how none of their readings make sense. Their instruments are all messed up, compasses are whacked, they’re getting electromagnetic interference. Then they disappear.”
“Electromag...” Will’s smile faded. “Like what’s happening to my readings right now.”
“That’s right,” Rocket said quietly, suddenly deadly serious. “I think Parole is somehow becoming a little Bermuda Triangle all on its own. We’ve got the energy buildup, the unexplained phenomena, weird shit happens here every day...And now the screwy readings. All that’s left is for us to all just disappear.”
“Don’t say that...”
“Just like Amelia.”
“Rocket!” His eyes were wide, pained, an edge of panic in his voice. “Please.”
“Sorry!” She clapped a hand to her mouth, seeming horrified at what she’d just let escape. “I’m sorry.”
She cast a glance straight up. Even though her line of sight was interrupted by white tile, they both knew what she was glaring at. “I hate that damn shield too. God, I miss the sky. Being cooped up down here...It’s doing stuff to me, that’s all.”
“I do hear that.” Will shook his head and turned back to the console.
Rocket cast a look at the door. “And my poor Phoenix. For a firebird, she wasn’t really meant for this kind of heat.” She gave a sad sigh. “She’s safe enough in the insulated garage, and she’s meant to withstand temperature extremes, sure. But the superheated air outside, all this open flame? I dunno. I open her up and check her out every day, maintain as much as possible, but the heat takes its toll. She’s brittle from the inside. There’s only so much I can do. Starting to think she’s on her last legs.”
“Well, you can go topside any time you want.”
“Huh?” She jerked her head back down. When she looked at Will again, he looked a combination of sad and fond that made her chest ache in a different way than it had before.
“Get outta here. Get some air. Stretch your legs, spread your wings.” He shook his head, spread his big hands. “I just hate seeing you like this.”
Life Within Parole Page 16