After Destiny

by Tanya Lisle

  Brady kept his body calm as he sat back, but she could see how tense he was. His eyes kept darting between Ed and the empty window, and he pulled his good leg up onto the chair. She caught the twitch of his arm as it went to hug his legs closer and he forced himself to relax again.

  The glass next to him was empty.

  “What happened?” Ed asked. “That isn’t all from just coming down here, is it?”

  “I’ve been talking to a lot of people,” Brady said. “A lot of people, they hear I’m from Upstairs and they ask if I knew you. I remember hearing you came Downstairs once before.”

  “I did,” Ed said. “I was having a lot of issues Upstairs and, I stayed down here for a few years to let it all cool off. Learned a couple trades. Made some better friends who helped me figure out what I wanted and what I needed. Left when I was ready.”

  “I heard you came down after someone made you blind.”

  “It didn’t quite work. I can still kind of see out of that eye.”

  “I heard you were a guy when you came down and were a girl when you went back up.”

  “Yep. That’s one of the things I figured out.”

  Brady nodded and said nothing.

  Ed took a sip of the wine and looked back at the window. Snow stood there now with both hands resting on the windowsill as she looked outside. Concern and confusion spread across her face and her eyes darted left and right, looking at nothing at all. Her hands twitched, but the rest of her body stayed perfectly still, the stars on her dress moving very noticeably now.

  “She wasn’t there a minute ago,” Ed said.

  “Nope.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “She’s trying to remove marks from people now that she knows how,” Brady said. “So there’s less people who might kill her when everything happens.”

  “Upstairs?”

  “Yep.”

  Ed fell silent at that, not sure what she could say. She still didn’t know what was going on, or how much of it she should believe, though it seemed Brady did.

  He wasn’t even supposed to be down here.

  “You should at least call your mother,” Ed said. “Just to let her know you’re okay.”

  “You were sent down here by Kitty and Mac to find out about the next attacks, right?” Brady asked. “We’ve been talking about it and there’s some problems with coming up with the exact date and time like last time. I mean, we’ve been trying, but it’s not really working like it did the last time.”

  “You can’t just keep changing the subject, Brady.”

  “Snow, how’s it going over there?”

  Snow closed her eyes and shook her head. “Poorly,” she said, turning back to both of them. “There’s so many things I can’t see. What I can see keeps changing every time I look. I can’t keep up. They aren’t working together. Providence is collecting people on the mountain. Niyati and Kumari are arguing. Tavorian has moved to the shadows where I can’t see what she’s doing.”

  “Niyati and Kumari are — is — too disjointed and random to actually do anything useful,” Brady said, stumbling as he got the sentence out. “She’ll probably start something and blow her own people up because she got bored.”

  “She has a pilot,” Snow said, walking back over to them. Ed poured her the last glass and she took a seat on the floor in front of the table. “The plane will be sent, though I can’t tell where it will land yet. It might crash. The pilot is intoxicated and can’t see through the haze. He needs to make a landing.”

  “What about someone else? Does anyone Upstairs see a plane crash into Janus?”

  “I can’t see. I don’t know when to look.”

  “That’s fine,” Brady said quickly. He looked apologetically at Ed. “We can narrow it down later. What about Tavorian?”

  “I don’t see what she’s doing,” Snow said. “She marks humans only when she competes with the others. She marks other things instead for later, which I can’t find now. She will not be one to ignore.”

  “Are they still just after you?” Ed asked.

  “Partially. They want me dead still, but they are also unhappy with your people. You’ve stopped their plans once, so they want to make sure you won’t be able to do it again. They plan to destroy Upstairs regardless of whether or not I’m still here.”

  “And Downstairs?”

  “They have no interest in Downstairs yet. I can’t see what Tavorian plans, but if I leave Downstairs, it might be left alone. They will be trapped and Iris will cease to exist, but they will live.”

  “Not for long,” Ed muttered.

  “Why not?” Brady asked. “Everything looks pretty self-sufficient down here. Food and supplies and lights and-”

  “The energy it takes to run everything,” Ed said. “We use panels to convert the radiation outside into energy that feeds into everything down here. Once those are gone, there’s enough power to last a couple years, and then it’s gone. And without Iris, a lot of stuff down here shuts down and seals. There’s no telling if they’d be able to even get out and fix anything before the power runs out. And even if they did, without Iris, it’s going to be tough to figure out how to fix or rebuild anything.”

  “Yes,” Snow said. “That’s probably accurate.”

  “Probably?”

  “I can’t see anything past the next ten days,” she said. “At most, it will take Providence ten days to gather her forces to make their attack. There are many people who want me dead and she is giving them visions to tell them I’m here. I can’t see what Tavorian is planning. Niyati and Kumari’s plane will take off in eight days, but I cannot see where it lands.”

  “Stop, Snow,” Brady said, getting to his feet. Snow’s eyes were bleeding and he pulled a napkin off the tray to hand to her before walking to get a small medical kit in the corner. “That should be plenty. We don’t need to do anything else today.”

  “I need to know-”

  “Not right now, you don’t,” he told her. He hobbled back and she turned to face him as he started to check her pulse. “Sorry, Ms. Ed, but that’s got to be it for today. But it sounds like ten days might be a good time. It’s more than we’ve been able to get so far.”

  “How long have you been working on this?”

  “Since she said there was something else coming,” Brady said, not looking up from Snow. “She wanted to start figuring out everything as soon as she got up. It looks like it’s starting to come together, though. In the past, she says the Fates all ganged up on the tapestries they wanted destroyed at once, so it would make sense.”

  “You will be the first to spot them,” Snow told Ed, their eyes meeting. Ed’s head spun, but she kept looking, feeling like she was falling into that abyss. “You will look and see the first coming with enough time to warn the others.”

  “Stop that,” Brady said, turning her face back to him and frowning at her. “You need to take it easy until you don’t feel like you’re bleeding internally anymore.”

  “In that case,” Ed said, watching Brady as he worked, “how about you tell me what happened to you?”

  “We’re not talking about that either.”

  “Snow, what happened to him?”

  “Ms. Greenwood was-”

  Brady put his hand firmly over Snow’s mouth and silenced her. “No,” he said. “We don’t need to talk about that.”

  Snow inclined her head in agreement and he withdrew his hand as a dense silence fell over them. Brady continued to check her in silence, very careful not to turn his face so that Ed could see it. His ears were bright red.

  She didn’t know what to say at that. There was nothing to say, really. Brady didn’t want to talk about it and she wasn’t about to make him. She also wasn’t about to make him head back Upstairs. He was more than old enough to decide to take a year or two Downstairs if he so chose, as well, and Ed wasn’t about to fault him for that after her own past.

  Ed nodded to herself and took a deep breath. “You know,” she s
aid, “you might like working with Shavir. He’s a little sloppy with some of his math sometimes, but at least he’ll always look you in the eye. Plus, they usually work on some pretty interesting stuff. I think they have their hands on those samples from the mountain right now.”

  “I don’t even really know what they do down here yet.” He backed away from Snow and stayed sitting on the ground, leaning back against his footstool and bringing his knees up to his chest. “But if I get the chance to actually be treated like I’m my own age, then I’ll do whatever they tell me.”

  “Might want to be careful what you wish for.” Ed smiled and joined them on the floor, finally feeling more comfortable. She started to tell him about the things she learned when she came down before. There were certain jobs that he should know not to volunteer for and customs that she could warn him about to make sure he could avoid undue embarrassment. She could deal with Miranda when she got back Upstairs, but for now, she wanted to at least make sure Brady would be all right.

  Snow added her own wisdom when she saw fit. There were things that had changed since Ed had been here last and she was able to fill in the blanks in Ed’s stories, as well as inform her of where all these people were now, as well as how many of them would want to speak to her at dinner. Ed was glad for the warning, since it sounded like she would have a lot of names from a decade ago to try and remember.

  “Everything okay in here?” Liah asked as she let herself in. She looked at Brady. “Looks like everything’s okay.”

  “It’s okay,” Brady said. “Snow’s almost got the date. And I’m guessing it’s dinner?”

  “Time flies, I know,” Liah said. “You need a hand down?”

  “I’ll be okay,” Brady said, letting Ed help him to his feet. “The ankle’s already a lot better. How did it go with the new guys?”

  “Same as usual. A little bitching and moaning, but they got into it by the end.”

  Ed hung back, looking at Snow. She got to her feet and waited, looking from Ed to Brady as if waiting for something to happen before she could be permitted to move from her spot. Brady hesitated a pace in front of door before he turned back around.

  “Ms. Ed? How’s Clyde doing?” Brady asked, once more avoiding meeting Ed’s eyes. “Snow said he was yelling at Mom and I — well, Snow said he…”

  “He’s fine,” Ed told him. “He was already up and back to normal when I came down.”

  Brady nodded and went ahead, out the door and heading towards dinner. Ed watched him go, still trying to figure out if it would be alright to leave him down here. She had no idea how to handle Miranda in this case, though with everything else that they were going to be dealing with, she wasn’t sure she’d have time to.

  “There are a lot of people who want to catch up,” Liah said, nudging Ed through the door.

  “I’m going to be here all night, aren’t I?”

  “You’re always free to stay the night, Ed. I’ve always got space for you. Now, come on. I’m starving.”

  Chapter 17

  Ed left the next morning and Brady spent the next couple days near the elevator, waiting to see a head of flaming red hair coming to take him back Upstairs. Snow was happy to work from the orchard, moving between the trees and growing fond of one particular black tree.

  Well, it was black.

  After Snow spent a day sitting in the tree, the black leaves faded away into green and the purple fruit grew golden. Brady hadn’t noticed the change after sitting under the shade of it all day with Snow, but everyone else had and they were fascinated. They kept their distance. Not that he minded. It meant that Brady got to taste the sweet fruit of it first.

  “The elevator is sealed, you know,” Liah told him, plucking a golden apple from the tree and taking a bite of it. “They’re running around and running drills and trying to prepare for just about everything. It’s exhausting to watch. Ed doesn’t have time to open that thing for anyone at this point.”

  “How do you know what they’re doing up there?”

  “Iris,” Liah said with a smile. “Someone’s gotta keep an eye on Upstairs now and then. Speaking of, have you figured out anything more yet?”

  Brady shook his head, looking up at Snow. She sat in one of the lower branches of the tree and gazed upward through the leaves at the pale yellow light that the black bulbs should not be creating. She looked troubled all the time now, her mind constantly trying to figure out what the Fates were planning and how she could best move against them.

  Her dress still danced with stars, but there were white patches on it now where the stars disappeared. It started as three small spots, but they were growing larger, slowly creeping up and around to swallow up more and more of the night sky. He didn’t know what to make of it, but he didn’t like it.

  “The plane’s going to crash into Janus,” Brady said. “She can’t quite tell where yet, but it’s landing right on top of us. Providence has a force of about 138 people who have walked onto the mountain so far and who will be coming our way, all of which blame her for something the Fates did.”

  “And the last one?”

  Brady shook his head. “But that’s not what’s weird about this,” he said. “Last time, she knew exactly when and where people were coming from. This time, she loses track of them as soon as they step onto the mountain. There should still be some way to keep track of what happens once they get off of it. I mean, they set all of that into her, right?”

  “In theory.”

  “She still sees what else they set,” Brady told her. “The rest of the world, all the other people out there, they’re still getting things set. She can see the futures of everyone except those ones that are coming here.”

  “You are the second person today who has told me that there are people out there.”

  “What?”

  “She spoke to Roland,” Snow said, appearing behind Liah. “Providence brought him to the wasteland several years ago with the promise that he would one day find and kill me here. He would still like me dead, though that isn’t because of Providence any longer.”

  “Who’s Roland?” Brady asked, looking between both of them.

  “One of the guys who tried to break in Upstairs the last time,” Liah said.

  “He’s from Argentina,” Snow added. “There was a political uprising happening in his city at the time. He and several others came to me for help. They instructed me to answer all of the questions asked of anyone who came to me. All sides of the conflict used their information and the power changed hands frequently. When she grew tired of the conflict, Tavorian brought an earthquake that destroyed the city, though that was after Roland discovered I was talking to other people. He thought it was a betrayal. He also thought I should have warned him about the earthquake, even though he never asked.”

  “Brady didn’t ask any of that,” Liah told her.

  “He would,” Snow said. “But Roland isn’t willing to answer those questions and it will only shrink the window of time where he will speak with him. Brady will be upset that I did not think to tell him sooner.”

  “Okay,” Brady said, turning to Liah. “Can you take me to see him?”

  “Fine,” Liah said, shaking her head. “But I don’t like this.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Brady said.

  Liah looked back at him, her eyes crawling over him before returning forward. “Question,” she said. “How long does it usually take a fractured wrist to heal?”

  “Couple weeks. Why?”

  “No reason.”

  Brady fell in step beside her, his ankle now fully recovered. He left the bandage on his wrist to cover the still healing bruise, though there was nothing wrong with it besides being a little sore. He’d be ready to start trying out actual jobs soon, though he’d given them barely any thought with Snow down here and threat of attack Upstairs.

  Even if he was going to stay down here for a while, he didn’t want everyone Upstairs dead. The other kids weren’t that much of a pain and people
like Clyde didn’t deserve death. Plus, his mother was still up there.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” Liah asked as they crossed the fields. She ignored the calls for her as they went, shaking her head and looking more pissed off than Brady had seen. They stopped before two large doors leading into one of the processing areas for the crops.

  “No,” he told her. “But if Snow thinks I can get something out of him, then I’m going to get something out of him.”

  “You need me in there?”

  Brady shook his head. “I’ll be fine,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”

  Liah watched him as he went through the doors. Brady thought she worried a little too much, but it was good to know there someone watching his back while he was down here. Until he learned the ropes, he needed to know he had backup somewhere.

  The inside was cold and filled with baskets of crops. The light was white and sterile, illuminating everything a little too clearly for comfort. Brady moved through it, finding where they had conveyor belts and people working on them, filtering through the crops to find those that were still in good condition and those that were too bruised and damaged to use.

  He couldn’t tell much more than that just looking at it, finding several people sitting off to the side and eating. They sat in small clusters with a few on their own, all of them looking weary from their work. Three of them were dark like they had spent time out in the haze.

  Brady latched onto the man sitting apart from the rest. All he knew so far about Roland was that Providence brought him here on a mountain from Argentina and this man had several dark marks visible even through his beard. If anyone could have been sent to kill a tapestry, it was probably him.

  Argentina. Brady hadn’t even considered that there was still life outside. They discussed the possibility in his classes before, but no one ever really knew if the world continued without them. If this guy really was from Argentina and there was really a whole world out there ignoring them...

  He could think about that later. Brady walked over and took a seat next to the man, reaching over to the bowl in front of him and plucking a fruit out of it. He wasn’t sure what he needed to ask, but with any luck, he could just make Roland tell him if he played his cards right. He looked up at the man and kept his eyes just a little wider than normal. “Can I have this, Mister?” he asked. “Please?”