by Clay Gilbert
“So did I,” Angel said. “So,” Skylar said, her voice sounding to both Angel and Eternity like she might decide to turn on them at any moment, “this information. Why aren’t you here in the studio, Emily, giving it out to the people?”
Angel felt a moment’s panic, and then the answer came to her as surely as the words of the screencasts used to come into her head through the neuronet electrodes.
“You heard what Isaac said on the screencast. It’s not safe. The rebels could be anywhere. They could be in there with you right now—or out here with me.” She squeezed Eternity’s hand, and smiled.
“You’re right,” Skylar said. “So how do I get the information?”
“Meet me at Eastern Station,” Angel said. “When’s your shift up?”
“In an hour.”
“All right. I’ll meet you at Eastern in an hour, and I’ll show you what I know.”
* * * * * “It’s creepy how empty the streets are,” Eternity said as Angel climbed on the cycle behind him. He had picked her up on a side street close to Studio Block. “I guess everyone who’d be out and about is at the Towers listening to him.”
Angel told Eternity what Skylar had said, and about the meeting they’d arranged. “Do you think that’s safe?” Eternity asked. “I mean, I know Skylar’s your friend, but she’s one of them, too.” He flushed with shame at the expression on Angel’s face. “I’m sorry. That’s what’s so hard about all of this—I’m still just as blind as I say they are sometimes. We’ve got to find a way to deal with this Isaac, short of just riding in with streetriders and cycles and maybe getting a lot of people killed. But is there a way we can do that?”
“There may be. I recognize him, Eternity. I mean, from before. He used to work in Studio Block. He was on the screencasts sometimes, I remember. He did other things too—Iwas never surewhat his real job was. But Ithink They like it that way. Confusing people. Because if one clear signal got through that gave a different message—it would give people a choice.”
Eternity squeezed Angel’s hand. “More than that. It’d show them they’ve always had one.” “I’m hoping that’s what’ll happen when Skylar sees what’s on the drive. I know it’s a big risk, but everything is, right now. I know a million different things could go wrong, but if I had questions—” she said, looking into Eternity’s eyes, “if we had questions—she might, too. We’ve gotta start believing in people, don’t ya think?”
Eternity nodded. “That’s the best thing we can do right now. Because it’s what they’re telling people not to do.” He looked down at his watch. “Hour’s nearly up. Maybe I shouldn’t come with you. Might be too much pressure on what we’re trying to get done.”
Angel laughed. “I think it’d be safer if you and I were together at one of the less-used skycar stations than if the leader of the whole rebel communitywerewanderingaround the City all alone.”
He smiled. “You’re probably right. All right then—Eastern Station. We’ll do our best to fly casual.”
Angel kissed him, then climbed onto the back of the cycle behind him. “You know, in the middle of all of this, you still make me smile. Things like that make me feel like we might be all right, after all—all of us.”
* * * * * When Eternity and Angel arrived, Eastern Station was as empty as they’d expected it to be. The skycar station mainly served the Business Sector, and Busisec had been mostly closed down since around nightfall—all except for the nightworkers, like Skylar, in Studio Block. Eternity brought the cycle down and parked it in one of the spaces used by workers traveling to and from work.
The architecture of the City’s design made it easier for most people to travel on foot inside its more crowded areas, which had the effect of mostly keeping private vehicular transport restricted to the outskirts. Up ahead, they could both see Skylar waiting on a bench near the station platform. She was hunched over, hugging her knees and looking back and forth every few minutes as if she expected a citizen patrol to come out of nowhere. Finally, Angel saw Skylar’s eyes lock onto hers and widen in fear and recognition as she saw Eternity. They were close enough then, that Angel knew the other girl could hear her.
“Don’t go, Skylar,” Angel said. “Don’t run. I’m okay. He’s okay. And nothing’s going to happen to you.”
“All right,” Skylar said in a non-committal tone. “How can you be with him?” she burst out a moment later, looking first at Angel and then glaring at Eternity. “He got Phoebe killed,” she said to Angel, a pleading look in her eyes. “You got my sister killed,” she repeated in an angry whisper, eyes fixed on Eternity again.
“He didn’t, Skylar,” Angel said, her voice gentle. “Do you think he’d be here now if he’d done that? Do you think I’d be with him?”
“He’s brainwashed you somehow, Emily. That’s gotta be it. I mean, he seems nice enough, but—I know who he is. I know what he’s done. What his people have done.”
Angel squeezed Eternity’s hand in hers, then looked at Skylar. “Do you really? I used to think I did. You’re not the only one who’s lost family, Sky.
Do you know why I disappeared? Why I never came back til now?” “I thought it was because of them. I mean, I saw the screencast about your parents—for a long time I thought they got you too.”
“Depends on which ‘they’ you’retalkingabout,” Angel said. “Look, I thought the same thing you did about what happened to my parents, and I went after the guy I thought did it. That’s why I left. But I was wrong, Sky.”
Skylar just shook her head, as if answering a question from a voice no one could hear but her. “You said you had information about Phoebe. You said you had something to show me. Show me, and maybe I won’t tell everyone about you when I go back to the Block tomorrow. Otherwise, I might just give the whole City a surprise news report about my best friend the traitor and her boyfriend, the head terrorist.”
Angel didn’t think Skylar would be able to do that even if she wanted to. She herself had never been able to say anything but what she was prompted to say when the screencast electrodes were on her head, but it wasn’t worth taking the chance.
“Maybe this was a mistake,” Eternity spoke up. “Maybe we can find some other way. Some less dangerous way.” Skylar whipped her head back around. “Listen to you talking about dangerous.”
“Stop it!” Angel shouted. “Eternity,” she said in a softer voice, “Show her.” Eternity brought out a transceiver from his pocket, a pair of headphones, and the black micro-drive. He fitted the chip into the transceiver and handed the device and the headphones to Skylar, who pressed the play button without another look at either Eternity or Angel.
A few moments later, they both heard the sounds of sobbing, and the click of the power switch as Skylar turned off the transceiver and ripped the headphones from her head. “I didn’t know,” Skylar whispered, her voice catching between words.
“How were you supposed to?” Eternitysaid, in a calm voice. “Everyone always tells you the Providers never kill; that the ones who serve Them never kill—no, that’s just us rebels. Except we don’t. But it’s all you ever hear, so what are you supposed to think?”
“I wouldn’t believe it now, probably, if I hadn’t seen it,” Skylar said. “But that was real. It was her. She was scared. She begged him. She told him she didn’t know, and he killed her anyway.”
Angel wondered if Skylar was about to cryagain, but the girl just took a deep, hitching breath, then looked up. “What can I do to help?” she asked. “For Phoebe.” Eternity took the transceiver out of the girl’s hands, slipped the microdrive free, and gave the small black chip back to her-- a safe enough move, he thought. If she showed it to anyone, she’d be swamped with questions and under suspicion herself. Eternity thought it was a she’d been shaken up enoughnot to risk that, even if she still had doubts, which given the years of conditioning, thoughtfeeds, and working for Them, she probably did. Faith was strong. But blood was strong, too, he knew. Familywas strong.Stronger, he hop
ed, than a faith built on fear.
“You’ve got to get this seen,” he told Skylar, “by as many people as you can.”
“I will,” Skylar said, looking like she’d at least accepted that what she’d seen on the security camera footage was real.
A sudden beeping from the voceiver on Eternity’s belt startled them all.
“Hey, Shadow,” Eternity said, keeping his voice low. “Everything all right?”
There was a sound on the other end of the line like the rushing of wind. “Been kinda restless. Heard a broadcast that guy Isaac made today from outside the Towers. You and Angel better watch your backs.”
“Yeah,okay.Youtoo. What’re youup to, anyway?”Eternity wanted to sound casual. He didn’t think Angel’s friend Skylar was any real danger, but that was no reason she had to hear every detail either. He hated feeling that way, too.
“You know, man,” Shadow said. “Cruising’ the neon, takin’ in some air. Trying to stop worrying. You guys stay safe, okay? See you soon.”
“You too, man,” Eternity said. “See ya.” “A friend?” Skylar asked. Her blue eyes looked calm, her face free of tension for the first time since the three of them had met.
“Yeah,” Angel said. “Hejust wanted to see if we wereokay.” Across from them, the lights on the platform flashed on and off, and back on again.
“That’s weird,” Skylar said. “Night shift doesn’t usually come home until dawn.”
“Idon’t think it’s the night shift,” Angel said. The panel next to the platform read ARRIVAL FROM GOVSEC TO NORTHERN. STAND ASIDE.
When the skycar doors slid open, and Isaac stepped onto the platform, Angel gripped Skylar’s hand in hers. “Our cycle is back in the lot. Run.”
Instead of turning and running for the lot that lay just behind them, Angel and Eternity were shocked to see Skylar break for the still-closing doors of the skycar paused at the station platform.
Angel started to move toward the platform, but Eternity caught her arm.
“He looks distracted. Maybe she’ll make it. If she does or doesn’t—we’ve still got to get back. Come on.” In spite of his words, Eternity looked back long enough to see Skylar slip past Isaac—hopefully, he thought, with the microdrive still safely hidden away. As she leapt onto the skycar and the doors slid shut, Eternityfollowed Angel, who had already begun to run for the cycle. He heardsaac behind them, and he knew Skylar’s distraction hadn’t bought them much time.
Infidels, Isaac thought, catching sight of the rebel leader and the traitor girl. There seemed to be traitors everywhere in Studio Block. That was whyhe’d left. Itwas like aninfection spreading. And these two—this Eternity and his companion—were its agents. The girl Skylar could be dealt with later. They were just ahead of him.
Eternity watched Isaac’s cycle through his viewscreen. As Eastern Station and the rest of Busisec receded further behind them, he turned toward Western Sector and beyond its farthest reaches, the Forgotten City—home.
“Do you think he’ll follow us all the way back?” Angel asked, her voice nearly being swept away in the wind-wake of the cycle’s acceleration.
“I hope not.”
“Do you think Skylar made it back to the Block?” “I don’t know. I hope so.”
They crossed into Western Sector and were about two miles from its farthest edge, where the Wall stood, when the ‘com on the cycle crackled to life, startling both Angel and Eternity.
“You guys comin’ home?” It was Shadow.
“What’s the deal, man? You’re startin’ to sound like my mom.” He laughed. Shadow laughed, too, and then his voice grew serious. “I caught somebody on your tail. He doesn’t know the back ways and side routes like we do, so I got the drop on him. I called Brain for backup, but you two better get here as quick as you can. I can’t hold him forever.”
The com link went silent.
“Dammit, it’s Isaac.”
Angel pressed close against him, and kissed his neck. “How fast can this thing go?” “Let’s find out.”
* * * * *
Two miles’ distance passed in what seemed an instant, and they caught sight of Shadow and Isaac, locked in a standoff in midair, just on the Cityside of the Wall. The two cycles and their riders hovered near each other like two maddened hornets, each poised for the slightest chance to drive the other to his death.
Eternity punched down the ‘com button on his cycle. “I see you, man! I see both of you. Do you want me to come help? Where the hell is Brain?” “Don’t know. Wish he’d get his butt over here though. Doesn’t matter. I got it handled, brother. You and Angel get over the Wall, get home and get safe. I’ll cover you. Go on, now!”
Eternity throttled the cycle upward, not even daring a glance behind him until he was hovering just on the other side of the wall, with the roofs of Oldtimer Town beneath. Then he did look back, long enough to glimpse the two cycles falling togetherin an arcof fire, to hear the sickeningcrunch of steel and bone, and finally to see a great pillar of fire and black smoke rising to where, moments before, Shadow and Isaac had struggled together in the air.
Feeling the sudden sting of Angel’s fingernails digging into his side, Eternity looked back at her. Her face looked nearly white, and he could see the same tears in her eyes that he could feel welling in his own.
“There’s nothing we can do for him,” he told her, although he hated himself for saying it. “He’d want us to go home.” As they headed toward Crown Avenue and the Leader’s Hall, they saw another cycle approaching from the side. Eternity tensed for only a moment before he realized it was Brain. He slowed down enough so that his friend could catch up, and pull his own cycle alongside theirs.
“Look, man,” Brain said, after a few moments of silence, “I’m sorry. I tried to get there. We found something today, in the records. Something about the computer systems in the City. Apparently most of them are on the same network— nearly all, but not all of them. We don’t know the details, but—I’m sorry. Things were going crazy down there, and I just didn’t get away in time.”
Brain’s words seemed to Eternity, at that moment, like the automated voices of the thoughtfeeds—just so much information clutter, like a wall of noise to shut out the only fact that was important:
Shadow’s gone. My best friend’s dead. “ Tell me later, man. Ican’t deal with it right now. All Iknow is he’s gone, and I don’t know if I could have done anything to help.”
When Eternity and Angel returned to the Leader’s Hall, Eternity headed straight for their bedroom and closed the door behind him, the way he wanted to close a door in his mind against everything that had happened—especially Shadow’s death.
I don’t have time to break down. How can I keep everything together for everyone else, if I can hardly hold myself together right now?
Tears stung his eyes, and he gave a shuddering breath that broke into a sob against every wish he had to keep it from happening. He gave himself over to his grief, and sometime after that, to sleep.
The next thing he was aware of was Angel’s hand on his shoulder, her lips against his cheek, and her soft voicesaying words whose impact was anything but soft.
“Eternity, wake up. There’s a broadcast coming through on the glass wall in the Council Room. It’s Skylar.” As the transmission began, they could see Skylar was seated behind a desk in one of the Block’s studio rooms. Angel hoped it was the one on the east end of the building, closest to the exit. The other thing they both noticed was that Skylar wasn’t wearing the electrodes that usually fed thoughtprompts into a newsperson’s brain to tell them what to say. Whatever she said—these would be her words, and hers alone.
“Good evening, Citizens. By the time you hear these words, I will be dead, or I will be outside the boundaries of the City, in a place Inow know is more than just a legend. Either way, I will be free. My sister Phoebe died because someone thought she had thoughts like mine—thoughts of escaping the onlylife most of us ever get to know. If this
transmission gets through, They will try to explain it. They will say I was delusional, that the rebels who want to destroy the City got to me and poisoned my mind. They did get to me, but my mind is free of poison now. I hear footsteps outside—I’ve got to try to get out of here. Live well if you can—but live free.”
There was the sound of a lasgun blast, then the signal faded to white noise, and then to black.
Eternity’s voceiver went off mere seconds after the glass wall went dark. “Yes, Brain, I saw it. Angel and I both saw it. Put the word out. I’m calling a meeting. We’ve held the storm back for as long as we can.”
Book Three
Behind blue eyes CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Flames danced in the darkness. Frightened figures robed in granite-grey clutched each other in fear and ran at the roar of the metal beasts that swept down from the skies to strike, then rose to strike again. And somewhere, above the chaos, shadowy faces laughed from an unseen sanctuary.
A sinister laugh, yet so familiar—
Eternity awoke, and put his hand on Angel’s shoulder. The same dreams now, for three months. Since the war began. “Baby, wake up.” She turned toward him, opened her eyes. “The dream again?” He’s been having it more and more often since the war started. God—three months, and it feels more like three years. Feels like thirty.
“Yeah,” he answered. He looked at the clock beside their bed. Seven o’clock. Not too early. “I’m going to call Brain and the others. It’s time we made some more plans.”
* * * *
“All right, man,” Brain was asking. “What do you want us to do?” It was just past eight o’clock, and Eternity, Angel, and Brain were gathered around the table in the council room. “More people,” Eternity replied. “Find more people. I need people I can trust, people I know won’t cut out for the Beyond or even go over to Their side if we keep having hard times.”