Life Within Parole

by RoAnna Sylver

  “I do! I was topside yesterday! Food runs, water, I get out, I talk to people—where do you think I got those cards to play with?”

  “You know what I mean. Long-term. Take the Phoenix outta the garage, get it up on solid ground, out of the fire. Hell, you could probably fly it around a little bit inside the bubble, if you gave Garrett Cole a heads-up, and got some kind of permit from Turret. I know that would mean consorting with the enemy, but if it’s that important to you…”

  “Oh…no, that’s okay.” She ran a hand across her smooth head, dropped her eyes to the floor. “Sorry. I’m cool.”

  “Nobody’s making you stay down here, you know,” Will said levelly, breathing deeply, clearly trying to keep his own cool. “Honestly, I wish you’d think about it. Like I said, birds don’t belong underground. You’re dying down here.”

  “You coming topside with me?” she asked, tone carefully light and airy.

  “We’ve been over this,” he said flatly, turning back to the console and blocking it with his large frame. “Someone needs to stay in the tin can. Monitor the ground plate activity, Parole’s structural stability, burn levels. See when we’ll fall, give Radio Angel warning so she can sound the alarm. Nobody knows the equipment or the science like me, and I can’t do it remotely, the interference is getting worse. There’s no way around it. I can’t leave this room, Rock.”

  She sniffed. Pulled her knees up to her chest. “Then neither can I.”

  “That’s bull and you know it.”

  She didn’t answer.

  He sighed at the windowless room. “I swear, I didn’t think it would be like this. Ten years, and I’m still here. And there’s not much else to do but wait for the ground to give out. And play silly games.”

  “Yeah. Games,” Rocket’s smile, when it came back, was mischievous. It only grew when she caught the flush in Will’s round cheeks he made no attempt to hide.

  Well, okay then.

  She licked her lips, hesitated. Then swung herself forward in her chair, slapped her feet to the floor, rested her sharp elbows on her knees, and grinned full and wide. “Hey, let’s play another game.”

  “Rocket….” He pushed his glasses up over his forehead and covered his eyes, pressed in with the heels of his palms. The exhaustion seemed to seep out of him like a slow leak. “I’m really not in the mood.”

  “Okay,” she said quietly, and nothing more.

  It was that rare softness, and how easily she let it out that made Will look up. Slide his glasses back down onto his face, and watch her just as carefully as he had his displays. “What did you have in mind?”

  Rocket hesitated, then smiled. “Guess what I’ve got in my pocket.”

  “Really?” He blinked. Today was just one puzzle after another.

  She didn’t answer, just nodded, sucking on her lips.

  “Your hands,” he tried, eyes flicking down to catch the motion as she took them out.

  “Ha, not anymore.”

  “Fine. Uh…nothing. It’s a trick question, isn’t it? There’s nothing in your pockets.”

  “Ha!” She pressed a knuckle against her mouth, grinning but not meeting his eyes. “Nope, it’s definitely something.”

  “Well, how many guesses do I get? Three? Do I even get a hint?”

  “Um, well…” She paused. Caught her breath. “Maybe…maybe I should ask you a question instead.”

  “If this is still a game, I don’t think I know the rules.” Will said slowly, aware of every change in her body language. They were impossible to miss. She was suddenly hesitant, almost shy, tension a stark contrast to everything she’d shown before. Up until now, around him, her entire being exuded total openness and trust. But not right now. “Go ahead.”

  “Will…” she said haltingly, even her voice tight and unsteady. “Will… you…”

  “I what?” But then he frowned, turning away as a light flashed on the console and stole his attention. “Rock.”

  “Yes?” She smiled, eyes lighting up and heart fluttering. Her hand tightened around the small object that had been in her pocket a moment ago. The metal circle dug into her palm until she was sure it would leave an indent.

  “Something’s wrong,” Will waved her over.

  “No,” she breathed, hurrying to grab the back of his chair with her free hand and lean over to stare at the display, which was indeed lit up intermittently in flashing red. “It can’t be. Not now. Not today.”

  “Lemme make sure. Might just be that static buildup again.” Will’s hands danced over the old plastic keys, clacking as he punched in commands, eyes zipping from screen to screen and one very old paper readout. With every warning message and flick of the graphing pen making an increasingly sharp zig-zag line, and every flash of that red light, the furrow between his eyebrows deepened. The tectonic plates of muscle and skin on Will’s face were shifting, until his expression was one that made Rocket’s blood run cold despite the heat.

  “It’s not the electro-mag interference, is it?” Rocket whispered, hands gripping the back of Will’s chair with one hand until her fingers started to hurt.

  Will remained silent, still working to confirm.When she didn’t get an answer, Rocket slowly slid the ring back into her pocket and let go.

  The floor was beginning to shake under their feet.

  “God,” Rocket breathed. “Can you get a message to Radio Angel?”

  “I’ve been trying to raise her all this time,” Will said tightly. “She’s not answering any regular frequency requests.”

  “How about CyborJ? He’s gotta be--”

  “If the automatic alerts didn’t signal him on their own, no point in me sending one. Won’t get through, it’s the interference for sure.” Will’s voice was grim as she’d ever seen. “Switching to emergency channels.” He flipped a bright red switch. Just above it, another warning light began to flash, harsh red reflecting in his glasses.

  “Radio Angel?” Will pulled a dusty microphone toward them and spoke up more loudly, voice rough. “This is Brooks in Structural Stability Monitoring. Do you read?”

  They waited. Will’s large fingers manipulated a delicate dial near the microphone, and Rocket watched as the small needle in the display wavered back and forth, scanning through the available frequencies. The sound of static changed, but no human voice came through. It was true they didn’t get Radio Angel’s usual broadcast this far underground, but surely the emergency channels…?

  Boom.

  “Jeez-us!” Rocket jumped. The noise hadn’t been all that close, but she’d felt it in the soles of her feet. “The hell was that? That was an impact, that was some kind of—”

  “Just settle down!” Will snapped, actually raising his voice. “I’m trying to hear!”

  “Sorry,” she whispered, hands over her mouth, wishing she could pick her feet up off the vibrating floor.

  “Hello, now calling all available frequencies—Radio Angel, or anyone else who can hear me—this is Dr. William Brooks, stationed underground in Structural Stability Monitoring. I need to talk to someone. Anyone. Urgently.” A pause. “Now. Please.”

  Rocket held her breath. Nothing but static snow. She looked down at the gleaming pins on her chest. The wings. The flying saucer, the alien. Then her eyes lifted to travel across the room. To rest on the door.

  “Kari,” Will said quietly, almost in a whisper, leaning so close to the microphone his lips almost brushed it. “Kari, please. If you can hear me…this is Will. I’m still down here in the tin can. Rocket’s here too. I…I think something very bad is about to happen.”

  He took a deep breath. They both did. Rocket held it.

  “Kari, please. Please say something.”

  “Will…” Rocket reached out, put her hand on his shoulder. He jumped a little and looked up, as if he’d forgotten she was there. “She can’t hear you. We gotta go.”

  “Had to try,” he said, blinking a few times. “It’s why we’re here. Getting people out. Saving lives,
remember?”

  “I know, babe.” she was blinking too. “Now this thing is going down, and we gotta get out. Come on.”

  “So this is it?” Will whispered, as if he hadn’t heard. Voice dry, eyes hollow. Close to looking broken as she’d ever seen. “Ten years down here. Ten years, and we disappear without a word.”

  “No,” Rocket’s lips formed the word, but no sound came out. Didn’t know if he heard. Because he still said the words that made her heart collapse, as surely as the city would in just a few minutes after the silent countdown.

  “Just like Amelia.”

  “No!” Rocket shouted, spinning him around in his chair to face her, and falling to her knees, both hands on his shoulders. “No, I won’t—I can’t let that happen, that’s not—you didn’t spend all these years in this room, watching and listening and working, trying so hard to save this city that doesn’t deserve you, Will! You didn’t do all that, just to have it end like this!”

  “You heard it…” Will said, staring at her. Past her. Seeing nothing. “Or didn’t hear it, I guess. She can’t hear me. The radio’s down, and that means everything’s down, CyborJ’s networks are fried, I’d bet everything on it. The interference must have finally built up too much. Or maybe Eye in the Sky finally shut everything down. Radio Angel can’t hear us. I can’t tell her it’s happening. I can’t warn them.” He sucked in a shaking breath, shoulders trembling under her hands. “It was for nothing.”

  BOOM.

  The force of the impact almost knocked her off her feet. Her fingers curled into fists around Will’s shirt, and she stared up into his eyes, teeth clenched and jaw set. “I’ve got a way.”

  “What?”

  “It wasn’t for nothing, Will! I’ve got a way we can still warn Parole.”

  She saw him put the pieces together, in the way his eyebrows slowly came together just a bit. “No...” he said quietly.

  “Yeah. Yes. Yes, babe.” She nodded, taking both his big hands in hers, and kept nodding. “The Phoenix.”

  His eyes widened and hung open. “Take off straight up?”

  “Done it a million times.”

  “Through fire?”

  “Haven’t tried that part yet, but we improvise.”

  “And you find Radio Angel, and tell her—”

  “Yes, Will!” She pulled him to his feet, half-dragging him toward the door. “And while I’m flying up out of here, you’re climbing up the emergency exit. It’s slower, but you’ll make it, and we’ll meet up after it’s over—”

  “Wait,” he planted his large feet and stopped them both. “Wait, are you sure that thing’s safe to fly?”

  Her eyes flicked to the door. “It’s the Phoenix, and it’s me, of course it’s safe!”

  “No. No, Rock.” He was shaking his head. “You said your bird was breaking down from the heat. It was fragile and brittle and you couldn’t fix it, you didn’t think it was secure enough for a flight.”

  “I have to get up there!” They both swayed as the room shook from another impact, much closer this time. “It’s not a question of safe, someone has to let them know. I know you get this, Will—”

  “Tell me the truth!” He shouted right back, and that stunned her enough to make her stop. “Are you going up there knowing you’re not coming back down?”

  Her eyes narrowed, set in a grim stare. “Are you staying in this room knowing you’re not coming back up?”

  He shut his eyes. “It crossed my mind. There. Now it’s your turn.”

  She swallowed hard. “This might be a one-way trip.”

  Will’s hands slowly tightened around her shoulders. “The last flight of the Phoenix?”

  “Something like that.” She nodded, face drawn and pale but gaze steady.

  “Then I’m coming with you.” He met her stare for stare.

  “No!” Rocket shot back, word almost drowned out by another shock wave. “You’re getting out of here the old-fashioned way—the safe way!”

  “I’m not letting you go up there alone in a ball of flame!”

  “You can’t! It’s a one-person craft, Will, it’s a tight squeeze even for me, and I have to fly it! God!” Her voice broke, tears stinging at last. “Don’t you think I’d drag you out of here in a heartbeat if I could? But we can’t argue about this, there’s no time! Don’t fight me on this, just go! There’s thousands of people up there and they need to know, and I need to get in the air five minutes ago!”

  A pause the space of a breath. Below them, the roar slowly grew.

  “Okay,” he said quietly. “What are you waiting for?”

  “For you to get out of here!” she cried, hands cupping his cheeks, stroking his hair, holding him close even as she said the words. “I’m not going until you’re on your way up those stairs! If I leave you in this room you’ll never go!”

  “Okay,” he said again. “I will. I promise. Just one thing first.”

  “What?” Rocket almost sobbed, craning her neck to look back at the door, then at the console where every single warning light flashed a brilliant and terrifying red. When she looked back at Will, she gasped.

  Between his finger and thumb, he held up a shining golden ring. Identical to the one in her pocket—whose existence she remembered in a rush—except for the shining red stone.

  “I’ve been hanging onto this for months,” he said, watching as Rocket stared with her mouth hanging open. He had the same narrow-beam tunnel vision he’d had before, except instead of being aimed at numbers and predictions of doom, it was focused entirely on her face. “Just never seemed like the right time. Guess now would be a good one.”

  “Oh…”

  “You don’t have to answer. Don’t want you saying yes just because you think we’re gonna die, don’t want that kind of pressure. But I had to let you know I meant it, before we…split up.”

  Rocket’s mouth moved. She tried again, formed the word.

  “Circle,” she whispered—and pulled the matching ring out of her pocket. Held it up, watched as his face turned to a matching one of shock. “Guess we read each other’s minds after all.”

  “That’s…statistically impossible.” He stared at it, then her, then back at the table where the ESP cards still rested.

  “We live under a city of superheroes, you adorable nerd.” She was smiling now, so hard her cheeks hurt. “Now if I could finish my sentence from before…Will, will you marry me?”

  Warning lights still flashed around them. The ground shook. So did they.

  Will spread his arms. She almost thought he was shrugging, that he was undecided about something she’d never been more sure about in her life--but then he kept his arms open wide, and smiled even wider. “The worst day of my life just turned into the best. Yes.”

  Rocket flew into his arms so hard the wind rushed out of him. He backed into his console against several buttons and didn’t care, their arms were around each other and lips, and teeth and tongues and knees and hips and waists, meeting with the same fierceness they had for over ten years, hands fumbling with fingers and rings, no ceremony or kneeling. Within seconds they were on, and Will and Rocket were pressed together in a very familiar position—from which they both reluctantly pulled back.

  “We’re gonna pick this up right where we left off,” Rocket resolved.

  “Yep, yep, hold that thought,” Will agreed.

  “See, now you have another reason to get out of here and live!”

  “And you got one to survive that flight! Beautiful!”

  “Yeah, great! Everything’s great!” she said—but her arms were still around Will’s thick waist, eyes stinging.

  “Babe…” he said quietly. Gently, he detached her grip, and stepped back until they were at arm’s length. “We gotta go. Been here too long already.”

  “I know,” Rocket whispered. “This is bigger than us. They gotta know.”

  “They’re all gonna know soon enough,” Will said grimly, as the tremors in the floor intensified. “Bu
t we can give them a fighting chance.”

  “I love you,” she said, rushing forward once more to kiss him again, with so much strength and certainty their heads didn’t so much spin as clear, seeing that out of every varied calculation and scenario, this was the only possible outcome. “Just get out of here.”

  “I love you too. You in the sky, me on the ground.” His eyes were shining for several reasons, even as his face hardened. “Go!”

  Rocket took one last long look—then turned and bolted out the door.

  Into the adjoining garage and up to the small craft inside. The Phoenix. Which looked nothing at all like an airplane…and everything like the small flying saucer pin she wore. It was round and smooth and a silvery chrome, with a clear dome on top, something alien conspiracy theorists would draw flying in formation over Roswell. Rocket dashed up to it and slapped its mirror-reflective side; an arching door opened in it without hinges, simply appearing where she indicated, and she vaulted inside.

  She jammed a pair of headphones onto her head and adjusted the microphone in front of her mouth as her free hand flew over controls with all the speed and surety Will had shown at his own machine.

  “Can you hear me, babe?” She waited one second for an answer. Two. None came. “You’d better be out.” Her eyes narrowed as her hands closed over the control stick. “Because I’m getting out too.”

  Within moments, the tiny craft hummed to life and lifted right off the insulated floor. The garage door opened and the Phoenix slid out, smooth and entirely silent. There was no blaze of chemical engines or propulsion roar. It simply surged forward, and then it was gone.

  As soon as it was out of the garage, it shifted direction—straight up. Like a leaf blown on a powerful updraft from the fire, it shot on a straight vertical trajectory, rocketing higher past the fire, past layers of earth and stone and scorched metal scaffolding and reinforced beams. Rocket was not gentle to her craft, she didn’t give it time to warm up, instead opening it up to a dangerous speed in the tight crevasse, zipping past outcroppings of rock and narrowly avoiding smashing into overhangs and beams, until it shot up into the open air.