by L. J. Hatton
“Do you think they’ve done something to Birch?” I asked. “Because of me?”
“That’s a question you should have considered before you opened your mouth.” Greyor began to pace the room. “You really have no idea what’s happening here, do you?”
“No,” I said. “What’d they mean by ‘Bring the rain’? What are all those tanks for?”
“They’re what made you. You, and your sisters, and Birch, and every other person ever touched. Sit down.” Greyor took a spot on the floor. “We need to talk.”
They were breeding Medusae, or at least hoping they could. The tanks weren’t only filled with water. Combined with what I’d thought was pink sand on the bottom, the water Nye had used for a toast would create an alien primordial ooze—some kind of plasma reconstructed from all the samples and tests done after the Medusae left.
Bring the rain . . .
It sounded so simple, but simple was like impossible—it meant nothing anymore.
When the Medusae pressed themselves into our atmosphere, it rained. It’s a background detail in every story told about them, something added because it’s habit, but not really important, and yet it mattered more than anything else.
That rain carried fragments of the Medusae themselves. It soaked into the ground and fell into the water, and for those with the right genetic makeup, it changed them. But unlike Sister Mary Alban, who encountered the Medusae as sentient light, for most the changes weren’t immediate. For those who stood beneath the rain, the changes came in the next generation. The children were touched, but not the parents.
At first, the Commission had tried to cover it up, but there were too many. Then they tried to contain the special ones, fearing that they were harbingers of a second invasion—or worse, that the genetic sloughing was a form of reproductive branching. Maybe the Medusae had grafted their DNA into the touched, and these children weren’t human at all. In fact, they could be sleeper agents.
It was decided that Earth needed an offensive force comparable to the Medusae’s legacy. Gifted individuals that would be loyal to the Commission and humanity, not an alien force. And for that, the Commission needed a way to create touched children of their own.
More elementals were born every day, leading to the assumption that they were the norm. Level-Fives were outliers, and that’s what the Commission wanted. They built the Center in the sky, trying to replicate the precise conditions of the Great Illusion. If they could crack the secret to what happened in the twin sets, they could create people like Birch, with abilities no one could predict. People like me, who shouldn’t exist. They would have the power to defend the world, or change it. But into what?
That question, no one could answer, so people like my father created refuges to save the ones like Winnie who escaped the Commission’s experiments, but had nowhere else to go. People like Greyor and Beryl found ways to watch from the inside and help those of us they could. I’d almost ruined that with my fit at dinner.
Warden Nye didn’t join us immediately, or even soon. He made me wait. And maybe it was my imagination, but I would have sworn I heard the endless ticking of a distant clock.
Finally, the etched glass doors opened.
“When I told you to mind your manners,” Warden Nye said, “you could have warned me that you aren’t possessed of any.”
“Did you really expect me to sit and listen demurely while they compared me to a trained chimp?” I backed away from him, leery of whatever he had in the hand he kept at his back. He followed, never granting me more than an arm’s span of space. “You should be happy I obliged them in showing off a few tricks.”
The hand he kept in the open lashed out, and the next thing I knew, I was on the floor with a throbbing cheek, marveling again at how much stronger he was than he looked. I glanced at Greyor, but he had assumed his “at attention” stance and kept it.
“I could show you a trick or two.” Nye leaned over me.
“What are you going to do? Lock me up? Fuse my mouth shut like you did Winnie? I don’t care! I’d rather be in prison than here with you!”
“And I’d like to know how you know about that.”
“Then it’s my pleasure to disappoint you—was that polite enough?”
Warden Nye dragged me up with one hand until my feet were no longer touching the floor.
“One of Arcineaux’s ghouls muzzled your friend. I’ve not yet found a way to remove the plate without ripping her mouth open.”
He dropped me back to the floor.
“You turned my sister into a hound!”
“Warden Files, of the Midlands, not me. And for that you can thank your father. If he’d kept his promise, she wouldn’t even be here. You can also thank him for this.”
He brought his hand out from behind his back, allowing me to see an open circlet of glass and metal—a hound collar.
“I think a dose of reality will do you good.”
“No, please . . . Please, Greyor. Please don’t let—”
“Silence,” Nye ordered, snapping the collar around my neck.
It fit my throat perfectly, and in the instant the circuits on it closed, my voice stopped. The words continued in my head, screaming until I went hoarse from the inside out, but no sound ever made it to my lips. Invisible fingers held my mouth so tight my jaw wouldn’t open.
“Come along, pet.”
Warden Nye took my hand, and I trotted after him to the other side of the lift column. Chairs and a small table were waiting as though there had been an earlier gathering that no one had bothered to clean up after. The same tablet I’d snooped through lay on the table.
“Have a seat.”
My legs bent and placed me in the nearest chair.
I thought I’d felt pain from the restriction bands, but the collar was nothing but needles turned inward. Every time I tried to disobey, they plunged deeper into my throat, sending a shock to the tips of my fingers and toes. The only way to stop the pain was to do exactly as I was told and not even consider another option.
“Let me tell you a few things while I have your attention.”
Nye removed his coat and set it over one of the other chairs. He unbuttoned his sleeves and began rolling them up.
“I met your father on Brick Street, during my trial by fire—did he ever tell you that? No. Of course he didn’t.”
What I knew of Brick Street was that it had been a thoroughfare of restaurants and shops that people traveled hundreds of miles to visit. No matter what you wanted, or where it came from, chances were it could be found there.
But that was before.
Now, nothing was left. It was there that anger and desperation had boiled into the streets as blood and violence, seven years after the Medusae appeared in the sky. Most people said it was a riot that flashed into existence due to mass hysteria and mistaken assumptions. A crowd had organized a protest in hopes that it could force the Commission to release all of its findings on the Medusae. Whatever started it, it ended in fire, and it was remembered only in a children’s rhyme set to a cloverleaf.
Brick Street was where Nagendra began to hide himself inside tattoos and piercings so he couldn’t be known on sight. And officially, it never existed as anything other than the scorched and rubble-filled husk it became.
“I know my superiors like to play at forgetting what happened there, but my reminders are a bit more difficult to shove into a closet.”
Warden Nye peeled off his gloves, revealing his hands. Wires dipped into the skin near his wrists. Where use and repeated motion had worn away the coverings, tiny pistons showed through at the joints on his fingers. One palm was a mass of exposed optical line.
He crouched in front of my chair, wiping the tears I couldn’t blink out of my eyes. They’d started to burn, but I couldn’t close them; he hadn’t given me permission.
“You
know there’s only one man capable of producing something this intricate.” He flexed his fingers.
An immediate rebuttal formed in my mind, and was just as quickly demolished by the plunge of those infinite needles into my neck and the shower of splintered ice along my nerves. That was all it took for the version of Magnus Roma I had known to warp.
“Stop fighting it. It’ll only get worse until you do.” Warden Nye thumbed another tear away, then stood and paced to the wall. “I was young, and foolish enough to think that I could make a difference. I actually thought we were there to help. If not for your father, it would have been my final mistake.”
He turned back to me with a cryptic half smile.
“And if not for me, you would have been born in a center, like your new friend with the green thumb.”
Even denial of his words brought a wave of nausea. Something warm and wet ran from my nose. I was certain it was blood, but couldn’t look down to check.
Warden Nye twitched his head at Greyor, who came to wipe my face with a handkerchief. When there was no way for Nye to see the shared look between us, Greyor’s eyes turned heavy with regret.
Be strong, he mouthed.
“I was part of an information dispatch sent to placate the crowd. My partner and I were expecting hundreds, but there were thousands. And neither of us anticipated the children.”
The warden kept talking in a distant drone, spilling the forbidden details of a day that had been erased. He reached toward the table beside my chair and picked up his tablet, swiping through images he didn’t let me see. When he found the ones he wanted, he turned the screen toward me, showing me images of the day the world forgot.
“So many of them had children by the hand or on their hip—touched children. They’d come looking for answers, you see. Hoping we’d provide more than a few diagrams and a lot of double-talk. It was sweltering that day. Tempers flared, and the screaming didn’t help. The little ones started to cry.”
He found another image on his tablet and turned it back to me. I could see him as his younger self, scared and unsure on the verge of chaos. Young Nagendra stood beside him in matching uniform.
“They went off . . . We thought it was bombs at first, terrorists, but it was the kids. Fires erupted. Water pipes burst. The ground shook, and then the wind . . . We had no idea the mutations were that powerful. By the time I caught my breath, the street was a crater and I was half-buried in the remains of the building I’d been standing in front of. All from kids. None of them over seven. But I knew from that moment, my superiors wouldn’t consider them anything but biological weapons.”
He shivered. I would have sworn I saw tears, if I’d believed him capable of them.
I tried again to turn my head, searching for Greyor in the room, but it was still no use. I couldn’t even move my eyes. He forced me to sit through frame after frame of devastation and loss.
“In the middle of it all was Magnus doing what he does best, every bit as careless with it as you are. He and my partner were among the few who had the foresight not to bring their children to the gathering. If your sisters had been there, I’m sure he would have been preoccupied with getting them to safety. Alone, he could focus on the crowd. He took trash in his hands and made excavators to find those lost in the rubble. He created devices that could set bones and seal split flesh, his fingers moving so fast I couldn’t follow the motion. I’d never seen an adult with such abilities before—or a male. I should have reported him, but my thoughts were elsewhere.”
The warden brought his hands up from behind his back and examined them. He pumped his fists and turned them over as though this were the first time he’d ever seen them.
“They were crushed and burned beyond use, and I was in so much pain I could hardly see. Your father noticed me shortly after I did him. I’ve often wondered why he didn’t just kill me rather than risk exposure. It’s what I would have done.”
That statement I had no problem agreeing with, and a rush of cool relief washed over my body; the collar had registered my response as obedience. Warden Nye placed his tablet back on the table.
“For my silence, he offered me new hands, but accepting such an arrangement would have meant compromising the few principles I’d managed to salvage, so I proposed a different one. He’d cooperate with the Commission, tell us how he gained his unique mutation, and use it for us; that would buy his safety and my future. In return for using my new position to protect his family, all I wanted was one small favor.”
I was sobbing on the inside. This was my father’s tale turned sideways. Warden Nye painted my father as someone groveling for the chance to breathe free air and begging the Commission to take his inventions instead of his children.
“I’ve known who you were since the day you were born, and I’ve protected you longer than that. You see, you were the favor he owed me. His machines bought him time; my silence bought me a Celestine.”
No! Nye was a liar, and if he wasn’t, then the promise had to have been a ruse. My father’s every move had been to protect me and my sisters. He wouldn’t have willingly handed me over to be used by the Commission, especially not to this man.
New pain exploded down my spine for the argument. It was so intense I would have blacked out, but the collar kept me conscious. Warden Nye returned to my chair. His intent was a mystery I couldn’t figure out, not when I couldn’t focus on a single thought before it was driven out of me like a hammer hitting a nail.
“When it came time for him to honor our arrangement, Magnus chose the coward’s end. Had he followed through, your sisters would still be tucked safely in their beds on board your train. Your friend with the golden voice would still be swimming in her tank. He could have kept them all, but he was a greedy fool, and now you’re suffering for it. And if Arcineaux convinces those who’ve gathered here to speak on his behalf when they return to the ground, your suffering is only beginning.”
He wrapped his hand around my throat, over the collar, and lifted me from my seat. I could feel myself strangling from the pressure, but only managed to raise my arms a few inches before the pain was too much. They fell limp at my sides while Nye headed for the control panel on the wall.
“You need a new perspective, pet,” he said.
With his free hand, he pressed his thumb to the controls, and the room began to move. Wall panels turned to shutters, flipping out to stack on top of one another. They retracted first around the ceiling, then the main sphere of the room, revealing nothing but clear glass behind. The entire structure was a bubble floating above the Center.
“They stopped right up there,” he said, looking to the sky. “That’s why this spot was chosen. To replicate the rain, conditions have to be as close as possible.”
One of the glass panels slid back, creating an open-air platform; he walked us to the edge, forcing my legs to dangle over the side.
“Take a look around,” he said, and at his words, I could.
The world spun beneath my feet in a maelstrom intent on dragging me to the depths.
“To the men and women you just went out of your way to insult, you’re a control specimen, and nothing more. Any one of them would have you collared and locked in a lab for study.”
Warden Nye’s tone turned dark and somber as a new ship docked. A retractable metal arm clamped down, keeping it securely in position.
“I can send you back to Earth right now—call it euthanasia. It would certainly be a kinder end than allowing Arcineaux to have you.”
My attention split between the pain of fighting the collar and the fear that Nye really would drop me. Over his shoulder, I could see Greyor twitching nervously, but he couldn’t risk helping me.
“Where’s your fire, pet? Where’s your spirit? Go ahead—speak your piece.”
“Please don’t . . . Let me go. No! Don’t let go. Don’t drop me . . . please.”
All my anger and ranting, none of it mattered. I had promised myself that I would curse him with my first free breath, and instead, all I could do was beg. My threats to kill myself lost all their weight.
I wanted to live.
“So easily broken,” he said, shaking his head.
He stepped forward, so my feet were now as far beyond the edge of the platform as his reach. I closed my eyes, wondering how long the fall would take, and if I’d feel it when I hit the ground.
As my mind spun with the possibilities, I took notice of the wind. It was howling now, making my dress flap. The more attention I gave the wind, the stronger it became. I opened my eyes. The men who had left the new ship ran back to it, grasping at each other’s hands to stay upright. The ship pitched against its clamp and broke free, tumbling toward Earth until someone inside got its engines running.
Vesper, I thought. Help me.
A gust picked up, as solid as a hand shoving my shoulders, so that I fell toward the Aerie and Warden Nye toppled with me.
We landed in a heap, with me on my side. Greyor ran forward, now that he had the excuse of helping the warden. Nye reached for me. I felt his hand on my throat again and anticipated a sharp snap that would stop me forever, but instead, my arms and legs began to thaw.
“Is this the life you want? Will it make you feel less guilty for doing as you’re told? If so, I’ll put the collar back on.”
I turned my head and saw the collar, open in Nye’s hand as he stood over me.
“N-no.” I shook my head, but my whole body was trembling while I tried to get enough control over my own limbs to prop myself up. In those few minutes under the collar’s influence, my reflexes had been rerouted, and everything took longer to accomplish.
“Never force me to use this abomination to make you reasonable again. If it goes back on, it doesn’t come off. Take her to her room,” he said to Greyor.
Nye clicked the collar shut and went to close the Aerie’s dome, while Greyor scooped me off the floor and carried me out.