The Knowing

by Sharon Cameron

  But it’s not really me he wants. He wants what’s in my hand, and he’s not fussy about how he gets it. I land hard on my back, where I can feel the new rhythm in the stone, and we are grappling over the bottle in my fingers. Reddix digs an elbow into my arm, trying to get me to open my hand, and then Sam’s knife appears at the base of his throat. He goes still.

  “Don’t move, Marcus!” she shouts at the other man. Both he and Craddock go still.

  Reddix looks straight down at me and I can see the crazy in his eyes. He pushes with his elbow, even though it’s making the blade dig into his neck like Thorne, and Sam is begging, “No! Please, Reddix! No!”

  My hand opens like a flower. Reddix grabs the bottle and smashes it onto the platform beneath his palm, a puff of white dust rising between his fingers. Sam screams.

  I have a sense of chaos, not just in my own sphere, but all around me, echoing across the cavern. Fighting. Yelling. The Outsiders are here. The floor is thrumming, and someone is saying “Earth.”

  And nothing happens.

  “Sam,” I say. “Sam!” I get her painted eyes to look at me from beyond Reddix’s shoulder. “It was sand. Only sand.” From the workshop. In a tiny bottle blown by Cyrus, sealed with the same color wax. “If you want to Forget, I have the real thing, and I’ll help you. But you get to choose, and so do the rest of them.”

  Sam blinks, and then she eases the knife from Reddix’s throat. He sits up, his crazed expression gone blank, his palm running red and sparkling with glass. I scramble out from under him, get to my feet, while Sam yells, “Stay away from me, Marcus!” The other man, Marcus, steps back again, hands up. I hold out a hand and Samara is at my side, and then we both have knives, though hers is a little bloody.

  Reddix steps back, toward the mural. One or two small rocks are falling down into the Torrens behind him, the platform pulsing beneath my feet, and when I look over my shoulder, Thorne and Craddock are gone, and there is a roiling, fighting mass of dyed and undyed cloth below us. But Reddix only has eyes for Samara.

  “You heard me?” he asks. “Everything I said?”

  “Yes,” Sam replies. “I heard everything.”

  The man Sam called Marcus is still standing to one side. “Reddix,” he says, moving forward. “Why … ” But Reddix holds out a hand, takes another huge step back. Marcus stops. Reddix is only looking at Sam.

  “And you’re going to remember it now,” Reddix whispers.

  “Yes. But you have to stop. You don’t have to be … ”

  And then his eyes go wide, a little surprised. And Lian Archiva steps from behind Reddix, pulling a needle out of his arm.

  And his face relaxes. Relieved. Happy. He smiles, steps back again, opening his arms. Marcus yells like the needle just went in him. Then Lian gives Reddix a little push and he falls off the edge, down into the churning dark of the Torrens.

  Sam looks up at me, opens her mouth to speak, and a rock falls five centimeters from her head. I look around us. What’s happening? I’ve been on an adrenaline rush ever since that laser came at my head, but now I slow, listen. And then I know what I’m feeling. Understand the rhythm that has been below my feet. I grab Sam’s bare arms.

  “Sam! It’s—”

  And a boom shakes the world and knocks me off my feet.

  Beckett is still wiping the dust from his eyes when I push myself upright. My ears are dulled, ringing, but I can hear the crescendo of shouts. Cries. Some of it fear, and some of it injury. One wall of the cavern has partially tumbled in, two columns fallen, choking the Torrens, and a great crack has opened in the mural wall, like a wound between Earth and Canaan.

  Then Beckett has me by the hand, pulling me to my feet. “Run,” he says. “Run!”

  And we do, down the steps of the platform through the haze, and I can’t see my mother or father, or any of the Noble Wardens, just dazed faces and blood on both kinds of cloth. I look back, but my hand is firm in Beckett’s, and he is sprinting across the Forum, up the wide stairs to the entrance hall, running with people who are trying to get out, and against a steady stream of others trying to get in. Nobody seems to know which is better. Outside or Underneath. We run up the sloping floor, gain the gates, and then we stop, and my hand lifts to my mouth, so I cannot scream.

  The sky is made of metal, a ceiling of pale white with lights that are bright and false, blinking, flashing down against panicking people and wooden walls. The ground pulses beneath my feet, and then I see the gap in the mountains, a missing peak in the surrounding circle. Ugly, like a broken tooth, an orange glow around it that is not the sunrising. Rock has been flying, pebbles and dust, small boulders tossed where they shouldn’t be, and I can smell the fire in the wind. I look at Beckett.

  “You said they couldn’t see us. You said they couldn’t find us!”

  He doesn’t answer, just stares at the surroundings with a jaw that is set, his breath coming hard from between his teeth. He jerks the glasses from inside his shirt and puts them on, eyes moving in that odd way, rips them off again, drops the knife and turns to me, taking my face in both his hands.

  “Sam, you listen to me. You do not get on that ship. No matter what. You fight. You run. You do whatever you have to. You don’t get on the ship. Do you understand?”

  I look at the expanse of metal. I didn’t Know his Earth could explode mountains. I didn’t Know my mother had technology that would cut people up with light.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

  And in the middle of all this chaos, for one long moment, all I can think is how he is not a memory. Not even a dream.

  “You came for me,” I say.

  “Of course I did.”

  “Beckett!”

  We both turn, and it’s Nathan, running through the gates, Grandpapa behind him.

  “Are you okay?” he asks both of us, though he steps back from me. Nathan’s never seen me dressed like the Knowing. Grandpapa kisses my head.

  “Where’s Annis?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” Grandpapa replies. His voice sounds shaky. “She was on the cameras above the gates … ”

  “Where is Jill?” This question comes from Beckett, and the intensity of it brings my gaze back to him.

  “At the house,” Nathan replies. “With the kids.” He looks behind him at the missing mountain. “They’re well away from—”

  “Don’t you get it?” Beckett yells. “They’re coming!” There’s a whoosh through the air, up high, and a sudden burst of wind. “Get some help and guard this gate,” Beckett says. “Get the Outsiders in. As many as you can. But the first person you see who’s dressed wrong, talks wrong, like me, then you have to shut yourselves in, do you understand? They’ll have weapons, but they won’t want to kill. But all of you, you stay off that ship, whatever you have to do … ”

  “Beck,” I say, “where are you going?”

  “To get the kids. I’ll bring them straight back here … ”

  “What about Jill?” Nathan says.

  “Oh, I’m looking for her, too. Sam, stay with Nathan … ”

  “No. The wounded,” I tell him. “Underneath. I’m needed.”

  I see his chest heaving. And then Beckett takes my head and kisses me once, hard. “Yuàn dé yī rén xīn, bái shǒu bù xiāng lí,” he says, his lips still against mine. I kiss him one time more, and he knows my answer.

  “I’m coming with you,” Grandpapa says, but Beckett shakes his head.

  “Let me go. I know what they’re capable of … ” He glances upward, picking up his dropped knife and tucking it back somewhere beneath his shirt. “I’ll be right back. But there’s some who still might want to kill her down there, and I don’t know where they are. Don’t leave her alone!”

  Grandpapa nods, and then Beckett takes off, fast, into the thrumming world of metal and flashing lights that looks nothing like the Outside to me. Grandpapa watches him go, and then he stares at what isn’t the sky. I think he’s crying. And then I f
ind Nathan’s gaze on me.

  “Did she do this?” he asks. His voice has pain in it that I don’t understand. “Did Jill do this to us?”

  He means the ship above New Canaan. The broken mountain. The group of bodies in the street. The bloody people moving Underneath. I don’t Know what Jill did, and only now am I thinking of Beckett’s rules, the ones he was afraid of, that he broke so many times. For me. And with my lips still hot from his kiss, only now am I as afraid as I should be. Because I don’t Know what will happen to Beckett Rodriguez if Earth finds him first.

  I run through the streets, yelling at every face I see that Earth has come, to get to the gates and go Underneath. The air bikes are up there, I can feel the wind. It smells like burning roof thatch, and the blood is pumping loud through my ears. Jillian. She did this. The evidence was right there in the glasses, if I’d taken time to see. A simple switch to “transmit.” When did Commander Faye think to add Jill’s DNA to the security program of the glasses? How long has she been sitting there in the Centauri, like the fat spider she is, waiting for Jill to realize it, and for me to be so stupid as to never think of such a simple move? Probably since the last time I had a signal. In the cave, or just outside of it.

  I’m so mad it’s hard to see straight.

  I’ll bet the Commander fired that shot to scare them, to rattle the pretech locals, never considering what heat does to some of the metal-infused rock around here. She’s going to be merciful, mostly. She’s getting paid by the head. But I’m not letting one local onto that ship. Not if I can help it. And then, two turns away from the workshop, I see a blond head hurrying down a cross street. And there’s no undyed cloth. She’s back in the jumpsuit.

  “Hey,” I shout. “Hey!”

  Jillian looks over her shoulder, her blue eyes wide, and then she sprints away. Great. I go after her.

  “Did you get what you wanted?” I yell. She looks back, but she doesn’t slow. “Is this what you planned? The dead are in the streets, Jill! And Underneath … ”

  She looks scared of me. She ought to be. I’m gaining on her. Jill darts around a corner, the turn to the Bartering Square, and when I round the same corner I go flying, landing hard on my chest, smashing the glasses and cracking the case with Sam’s hair. Cutting my side with the tip of the knife. I’ve tripped over Jill’s outstretched foot, and now there are more feet, Earth-issued boots all around my head, stunsticks poking into my back.

  “No, Beckett,” Jillian says somewhere above me. “This isn’t what I wanted. It’s just what has to be.”

  I pull the stitches tight on a crying woman’s scalp while Grandpapa holds her arms, keeping her still. What I’m really doing is trying to cache. I’m so much better at caching than I used to be, since I spent all that time in my head. And now, it’s still not good enough.

  The Knowing my mother killed when she missed Beckett with her technology were from the same Engineering family, all three sliced nearly in half, the mess already covered by one of the tablecloths from what was supposed to be our celebratory feast. I thought I was used to blood. I was wrong, and I cannot cache it.

  The weapon my mother used is missing, as is every member of the NWSE, and I have the constant feeling of someone just behind my back, ready to put a needle in my arm. Force amrita down my throat. I can’t cache this, either.

  And then this woman’s tears are making me angry, because Earth saw fit to send half a mountain sailing through the roof of her house, killing her daughter, and I am sick with fear because Annis hasn’t come, the children haven’t come, and neither has Beckett. Why did we let him run off by himself? Because we thought he could handle that ship in the sky? Because Earth was his responsibility? I pull the last stitch and my insides are saying wrong, wrong. He should have been back by now. It’s wrong …

  I jump at a tap on my shoulder. It’s Priscilla, one of the four Physiciansons I found to help with the wounded, this one being Reddix’s cousin. When I first came back into the Forum, I decided not to mention to Priscilla that being surrounded by the injured, the Physiciansons really might have thought of using their medical skills before I suggested it. And she decided not to mention that I was just nearly condemned and held a knife to the throat of our Head of Council. I can’t tell if she’s upset by what happened to Reddix, but she’s been willing to heal everyone, no matter which kind of cloth they’re wearing, and for now, that’s good enough for me.

  “Mama wants me to ask if there are any more wounded coming up.”

  I scan the room. “No, I think the rest can stay down here. How many are in the medical rooms?”

  “Twenty-two, three Knowing and nineteen Outsiders. Six are critical. All Outsiders.”

  The Knowing are going to heal quickly, I think. But why shouldn’t the Outsiders as well? I look up to the platform, then take the steps fast. Wellness injections lie scattered over the stone, jiggling with each pulsing thrum from the Earth ship above us. I’ll bet they’re tainted with Forgetting. Every last one of them. Maybe there’s a Chemist somewhere in here who would Know …

  And then I nearly scream. Marcus Physicianson is rising to his feet from behind one of the overturned tables. His face is calm, expressionless. Like the Knowing should be. But his eyes aren’t. Black paint runs down his face from the corners, and he lifts a dull stare to me.

  “He wanted to Forget,” Marcus says.

  “No, he didn’t,” I tell him. “Reddix wanted to die. He wanted all of us to die, all the Knowing, including you. That was his plan.”

  Marcus blinks, frowns, turns his running eyes back to the cracked mural, to the roar of the Torrens. “But how could he have done that?”

  And then I feel the tug of memory, insistent, and I don’t resist, because this is a connecting thread. Something my mind is telling me I should see. I let myself fall …

  And I am reading the medical notes of Janis Atan, looking at the three jagged edges, where the pages have been torn out …

  And I fall again …

  … into Uncle Towlend’s deserted office, and the pages he found in the map book are lying on the floor stones, where Reddix must have seen them …

  Then the floor gives way …

  … and I am on the platform of the Forum again, and Thorne’s neck is warm beneath my knife, and Beckett is below me, holding up the bottle of sand they think is Forgetting. But it’s my mother’s face I watch carefully now. She isn’t frightened by that bottle. None of the NWSE are …

  And now I Know. Why Marcus didn’t understand Reddix’s plan. Why Mother made all of the Knowing immune. Because Mother doesn’t Know what immunity does. Did Uncle Towlend never show her those pages after he found them, hidden in the front niche of the map book? He should have. We’re Archivas. But Aunt Letitia was gone not long after that, and then the Archives closed. Maybe Reddix and I are the only ones to have read those pages since my uncle and Janis Atan.

  I rise through my mind and open my eyes. And Marcus Physicianson is only a meter away from my face, a knife in his hand, the one I dropped, with “NWSE” engraved on the blade.

  “It was because of you, wasn’t it?” he says. There’s no calmness to him now. “It was because of you … ”

  He jumps forward, I leap back, and then he drops to the platform like a stone. Because he’s been hit with one. I look up and find Angela, Michael’s mother, with a piece of rubble in her hand.

  “Cyrus said you weren’t supposed to be alone,” she says, a little shocked. I glance down. Marcus is breathing, but he’s not moving. And I’m shaking. I look up again.

  “Where’s Michael?”

  “With his father.” She nods her head toward the crowded Forum, and the foolish thought that comes into my head is that now Angela must know I’m from Underneath. I suppose she always did. She says, “You did something to him, didn’t you?”

  I think she means Michael. I don’t Know what to say.

  “You fixed him, didn’t you?”

  I nod.

  “Th
ank you.” We look at each other. “You go on. I’ll take care of this.”

  “Make sure Michael rests,” I say. I step away. I’m not sure what “taking care of this” means, but it might have something to do with Marcus and the Torrens. And then I move quicker, because Annis is coming down the steps from the entrance hall, Jasmina on her hip, Ari and Luc holding hands just behind her. I meet her halfway across the Forum and hug her until Jasmina protests.

  “Where’s Beckett?” I ask.

  Annis frowns. “I don’t know.”

  “Didn’t he get the children?”

  “No, I did. Do you know where Nathan is?”

  “He was on the gates. Isn’t he there?”

  “No.”

  Annis meets my gaze, and then I hear an echoing boom in the Forum. But this is a familiar sound. Metallic and final, a noise I can feel deep in my insides. The gates are shut, and it won’t be safe to open them again. Not until Earth is gone, or three days after the white sunrise.

  And we are not all inside.

  I don’t know,” I reply. What I do know is to expect the fist in my gut as a reward for my nonanswer. I cough hard, and it takes a few agonizing seconds to get my breath back.

  “So let’s try again,” says Commander Juniper Faye. “What kind of weapons do the locals have?”

  We’ve been “trying again” for a lot longer than either one of us would like. My back is against the stained and pitted post in the center of the Bartering Square, hands cuffed behind me on the other side, facing a squad of about twenty-five soldiers, Faye’s inner circle. Jillian is here, and her mother, Vesta, standing in front of the water clock tower, and if they’d just turn their heads and look all the way back into the window of the potter’s workshop, they’d see that Nathan is with us, too. Watching. When I give an unsatisfactory answer, I get fists. When I take too long to speak at all, it’s the stunsticks.