The First City (The Dominion Trilogy Book 3)

by Joe Hart

  A faint call of a crow somewhere to the south.

  The smell of winter on its way.

  Zoey straightens, no longer sure she’s going to pass out. What can she do right now to make things different? Nothing. Chelsea is the only one who can save Eli. The truth infuriates her, but of course it almost always has that effect.

  She surveys the surrounding area before setting off at a fast walk. If she can’t help Eli directly she can at least make sure they’re safe within the clinic.

  She circumnavigates the building, looking for access points that a person could enter without their knowledge. There are only three, all steel doors secured from the inside. An office at the north end has a broken window and she makes a mental note to board it up before nightfall. When she returns to the entrance, Newton is there looking stricken but meets her eyes and gives her his small smile. She returns it, squeezing his shoulder as she passes. Inside she smells heated steel and finds Rita standing beside Nell outside Eli’s room.

  “I boiled two gallons of water,” Rita says. “Found a gas burner in one of the closets. We were going to start supper soon. Do you want to help?”

  “No. There’s a broken window in one of the offices. I’m going to find a way to block it off.” She begins to move away but Rita snags her arm.

  “He’s going to be okay.”

  “I know.”

  The other woman’s eyes say more, reassurances that Zoey can’t stand to absorb. She nods once and strides down the hall.

  She’s unable to find anything in the office or hallway outside to cover the window with and is about to begin searching for a maintenance room when several lights blink on and a low humming comes from a door near the end of the corridor. A moment later it opens and Ian and Tia appear.

  “Got the generator up and running,” Ian says. He tries a smile on her that she can’t bring herself to return.

  “I’m going to check on him,” Tia says quietly and leaves them where they stand. The silence invades again and Zoey feels herself on the brink of telling Ian everything. Relaying what the assassin said to her. But the words lodge in her throat, a solid stone that threatens to choke her.

  “How are you doing?” he asks.

  “Fine. I’m fine,” she says, raking a hand back through the stubble of her hair.

  “You haven’t slept. You should find a room and lie down.”

  “I don’t think I can sleep.” It sounds like a lie. There’s nothing more she wants than sleep, to sink down away from it all. And when she wakes, maybe it will have been a dream. Something she could laugh about in the moments after consciousness.

  “Then at least let’s go get something to eat.”

  They walk down the empty corridor, passing vacant rooms and pictures hanging skewed on the walls. Here is a boy staring out at a tossing sea. There a deer stands by the edge of a wood overlooking a small farm. Another shows the sun rising past an outcropping of rock, the word “WILL” emblazoned over it. Underneath it says, “Without it, courage is only an idea.”

  She watches the dusty floor, her feet pulling her along as if she is a passenger in her own body.

  They find everyone except Chelsea, Eli, Merrill, and Newton in a conference room on the east end of the clinic. Rita and Nell have somehow made a type of dumplings in broth and the smell twists her stomach into knots of hunger.

  They eat without comment, all of them staring at different places in the room. When Zoey finishes she cleans out her bowl and sits down against the wall, hands on her thighs. Her back is a dull heartbeat of pain. She readjusts herself and rests her head against the wall. She’s about to close her eyes and attempt to drift away for a bit when her fingertips brush a lump in her pocket. She draws it out.

  The square cartridge and the ampule rest in her palm. She turns them over, gazing at the red liquid in the vial. It is still cold to the touch. She examines the black square. It is smooth, without markings, one edge of it lined with what looks like brass teeth.

  Proof. In the arm.

  “Whatcha got there?”

  She jumps as Lyle lowers himself to the floor beside her. She considers hiding the objects away but it would be foolish and in the end pointless. She has to tell them eventually.

  She drops the square and the vial into his hand. “It was in the man’s fake arm. Do you know what they are?”

  “Well this is a memory card. But this . . . this I don’t know.” He holds up the vial to the light. “Looks like blood.”

  “A memory card. So it goes in a computer?”

  He nods. “It’s basically storage for whatever you want. Pictures, videos, documents.”

  “Do you think you could get a computer working here?”

  “I sure can try.”

  They rise together and as they’re moving toward the door, Chelsea appears with Merrill close behind. Both of them look exhausted, past their breaking points. Chelsea’s eyes are bloodshot and flecks of blood stain the hem of her shirt. Merrill has a hand on her waist, to steady her or himself Zoey’s not sure.

  Immediately the room erupts in questions. Chelsea motions for them to quiet as she drops into a seat. She licks her lips, glancing at everyone before speaking.

  “The bullet nicked an artery leading to his liver. It wasn’t terrible and I was able to get the bleeding stopped.” A general cry of relief and happiness comes from them, but Zoey stays silent, reading the expression on Chelsea’s face.

  “The problem is the bullet didn’t pass through.” The room goes quiet again. “After I got the bleeding stopped his vitals started to drop. I didn’t have a choice but to close him up. The bullet’s still inside him somewhere.” She swallows, looking as if she’s about to be sick but merely shakes her head. “If I would’ve had more time or the right instruments earlier . . .”

  “Stop,” Merrill says, kneeling beside her. “You did everything you could.”

  “So what does that mean?” Tia asks.

  “It means I have no idea what other damage the bullet caused. If I’d kept going he would’ve died,” Chelsea says, beginning to cry. “And he might anyway.”

  Tia stands for a long moment, arms crossed as if she’s holding herself together before striding quickly out of the room. Zoey watches her go, knowing there’s no point in trying to stop her.

  “I just need to sit here for a second. Then I’ll go find the rest of the equipment for the next operation. If his vitals come back I can go in again and find the bullet.”

  “You need to rest right now,” Merrill says, taking Chelsea’s hand and touching her belly. “You and the baby. Besides, you won’t do Eli any good if you’re too tired to hold your instruments steady.” She gives him a wan smile as he rises and ladles a dumpling onto a tray for her.

  Zoey watches the two of them, then nods at Lyle. She follows him out through the door and past Eli’s room. Inside Tia sits by the bed, the low tones of her voice floating into the hall. Zoey looks away, focusing on the sound of their footfalls. Lyle leads her to a small office off another examination room. Inside a computer sits on a shelf beneath a row of cabinets. The unit is much bulkier than the one in the NOA storage room at Riverbend but Lyle seems to know his way around this model as well. After several minutes the machine hums and the smell of warming electronics fills the room.

  When the computer is fully up and running Lyle takes the memory card from her and inserts it into the tower below the shelf. The machine whirs.

  A mixture of anticipation and dread fills her. Maybe it was all a ruse. A trick to make her surrender, to confuse and divide her from the rest of the group. Those at the ARC know her, or at least they used to. Perhaps this is their attempt to collect her without ever lifting a finger.

  She watches the screen, half hoping the card will be damaged or unreadable, half fearing it will be.

  What is worse, knowing or not knowing?

  A black box appears on the screen, symbols at its bottom.

  “It’s a video,” Lyle says.

&nb
sp; “Play it,” she says when she’s able to answer.

  “Are you sure? I could step outsi—”

  “Play it.”

  He enlarges the box and slides partially out of the way, making room as she approaches the screen. Lyle gives her a last look and she nods before he taps the control on the counter and the video begins to play.

  Zoey’s stomach lurches.

  A woman with dark brown hair and luminous hazel eyes looks into the camera, not moving, simply staring at Zoey as if they’re in the same room, without the impedance of technology between them. As unnerving as the other woman’s gaze is, the background is worse.

  Vivian sits in the room with the opaque tanks behind her, cables and tubes leading to the tower with the swimming lights to her left. It is just as Zoey remembers it from the night of her flight from the ARC, the horrible purpose of the equipment taking on a newer and more personal offense.

  “Hello Zoey,” Vivian says in a soft voice. “If you’re watching this then one of our people was able to find you but unable to bring you home.” She pauses as if searching for the right words. “I’m sure you believe everyone here is a monster, that NOA itself is an abomination. I can understand that. But what I ask of you now, Zoey, is to look around you, wherever you are. What do you see?”

  Involuntarily she does. She takes in the blank walls of the office, the dust, disuse heavy in the air, the lack of life.

  “Hopelessness,” Vivian continues. “The world is passing into another age, one without humankind.” She pauses, looking down, then back up at the camera. “For a long time I thought it was inevitable, that there was no solving the Dearth. That was before I met you. You’ve been called the keystone, and that’s an apt title, but you’re so much more than that, Zoey. You are the single most important person on the planet. You have the ability to transcend, to become something no one else has ever been. A savior.”

  Vivian rises from her chair and moves it out of the frame, revealing one of the dark tanks mounted directly behind her. She positions herself behind it, places her hands on the top.

  “I’d like to introduce you to someone. Your daughter.”

  3

  Vivian presses something on the tank’s side and removes her hands.

  At first nothing happens but then the darkness of the tank changes. It becomes lighter, smokier, until a shape is revealed within.

  “My God,” Lyle whispers.

  The baby floats in the center of the now-transparent tank. She is curled in on herself, partially turned toward the camera, a synthetic tube extending from the tank’s side to her stomach. As Zoey watches the baby shifts, rotating within the fluid, one tiny hand opening and closing.

  Vivian touches the tank again and its surface darkens, the girl vanishing in its depths. Zoey catches herself stepping forward, a part of her aching to see the baby again.

  Her jaw trembles as warring emotions riptide through her.

  Rage.

  Fear.

  Helplessness.

  And something else, a bittersweet tinge each time she replays the image of the baby floating there, unborn, innocent, and defenseless. It is the same sensation she had when the little boy, Isaac, had snuggled against her at the Quiverfull farm.

  “I’m sure you doubt what I’m saying, that this really is your daughter. All the proof you need is in the vial that was beside this memory card.” Vivian moves closer to the camera, her gaze unnerving again as it was at the beginning of the video. “Please, Zoey, your daughter will be born within the next weeks or sooner. She’ll need you just as the rest of the world needs you. Come home.”

  The video ends, the screen going as black as the tank that holds the baby.

  Lyle reaches out and shuts down the window, settling back into his chair without saying anything. Zoey closes her eyes, the whirling mass of thoughts coalescing until she can’t define any of them. The scuff of a boot in the hall makes her turn.

  Merrill and Ian stand in the doorway, both of them pale and staring.

  “Zoey . . .” Merrill says, but she’s already moving past him, away from the cloistering room and all she learned there.

  She hurries down the hall, turning at the building’s double doors and bursting through them, startling Newton where he stands watch.

  Her strides double-time until she’s running.

  The night air whips past her and flecks of moisture sting her face. It is snowing; huge flakes drift carelessly to the street, making everything a white facsimile of itself.

  She runs until her lungs burn so much with cold that she has to stop, back beginning to throb again, the threat of paralysis hinted at with a tingling in her legs. She glances around, absorbing for the first time where she’s ended up.

  The street curves ahead, buildings snowy shapes in the night. To the left the dismal church and its broken tower. She walks to its steps and climbs them, sure that the heavy doors will be locked, but when she pushes at one it swings open as if waiting for her to enter.

  The interior is larger than she expected. Thick wooden beams soar thirty feet overhead and her footsteps echo from the darkness of the seating to either side. A curtain of snowflakes fall from the open wound of the bell tower above and she steps through them, their icy touch melting on her scalp.

  Zoey moves up the center aisle past overturned benches. At the front, an empty space waits where she feels something should be. A podium or perhaps an altar. On the back wall is an enormous outline of a cross and it takes her several seconds to realize the cross itself is missing. Only the silhouette remains, an afterimage where it once hung.

  She lowers herself to the frontmost bench and stares at the outline. She knows the general idea behind most faiths from Ian’s books, the prayers, sacraments, and other common practices all similar in one respect or another. The idea of believing in something greater than what can be seen is an attractive one, a type of invisible safety net.

  Hope, faith, belief.

  Giving away fears instead of giving in to them. She imagines letting go, trusting in fate or a higher power to her life and those around her.

  It is a flicker in the darkness that instantly goes out.

  Prayers don’t stop bullets.

  Faith won’t bring back the ones she’s lost.

  She gazes at the outline of the cross, the empty church. Listens to the silence.

  All the belief in the world didn’t keep the end from coming.

  But now she has a choice. An actual way to make a difference.

  You have the ability to transcend, to become something no one else has ever been.

  A savior.

  She breathes out, an exhalation of white in the cold air.

  How much is a life worth?

  She hasn’t asked herself the question in a long time. But now it isn’t only a life, it is all life. The true realization is too large to comprehend, the weight of it crushing.

  Come home.

  Her throat constricts, panic flaring in her chest as she recalls the feeling of her finger on the button that controlled the missile—a missile intended for the ARC. If she’d pushed it . . .

  “I would have killed her,” she whispers. “I would’ve killed my daughter.”

  She hugs herself, leaning forward, crying silent tears that drop to the cold dusty floor.

  Why? Why did this happen? Why was she born when she was? Born into a dying world, having such a burden thrust upon her. The seething hatred returns with the thought of the Director making his speeches. She grits her teeth, remembering the feeling of pulling the trigger and seeing him fall. She’d kill him again if she had the chance, destroy everyone at the ARC: Vivian, Reaper, and every lying face that had kept her and the other women—like Halie and Terra—trapped there and forced this on her.

  This responsibility.

  This choice.

  Keep running or go back?

  She slumps to her side and tucks her legs up, tears already cooling on her face.

  The thoughts are s
till churning in her mind as she drops into a fitful sleep, muddied with nightmares of the room of tanks, all of them still dark but seeping blood onto the floor. And the tower of lights becomes a person in black, their back turned to her so she can’t see their face. But she knows who it is, she’s always known. The figure begins to turn but gravity loses its hold and she floats backward, all sense of direction gone, tumbling over and over, the sensation of falling so strong she jostles awake and barely stops from slamming face-first into the floor of the church.

  Zoey props herself up, looking around dazedly.

  Night still holds sway. The snow’s quit falling through the broken bell tower. All is still.

  She rises, stretching taut muscles and blowing on frozen fingers that don’t feel like her own. The outside door is still partially open and she pauses on the threshold, gazing back at the lonely outline of the missing cross before moving outside to the snowy town.

  Rita is on watch when she approaches the clinic and levels a rifle at her as she nears.

  “Just me,” Zoey says.

  “Where the hell’d you get off to?”

  “Went to church.”

  Rita’s lip curls. “What for?”

  “Needed to think.”

  The other woman nods. “Merrill told us. Told everyone about the video.” When she doesn’t answer Rita says, “They’re having a meeting now about what to do. They waited for you but . . .”

  “It’s fine. Is Eli awake?”

  “He was an hour ago. Asked for some water, which Chelsea said is a good sign.” Zoey nods and moves past her but Rita snags her arm. “If you want to talk, Sherell and I—”

  “I’m fine.” She walks away, knowing she shouldn’t be angry but is, nonetheless. But when has anger ever been reasonable? She stalks toward Eli’s door, ignoring the low voices of conversation in the room they ate in earlier. The door is ajar and she pushes it open slowly.

  Eli lies, partially elevated, in the bed, several heavy blankets pulled up to his chest. A small electric heater hums in the corner throwing warmth into the room.

  She steps close to the bed, studying his face, how gaunt he appears even though he was only wounded the day before. Zoey finds his hand in the blankets and holds it. After a moment he opens one eye, the corner of his mouth curling up.