Judgment

by Sean Platt

“We will find her for you, Miss.” Kamal tipped his head slightly, almost a half bow. “The west wing is under construction, accessible past the kitchen. Nothing dangerous, you understand — no boards filled with screws lying around, no nail guns hooked to running compressors, nothing like that. I assure you it’s quite safe. But if I had to guess, she may have gone that way. The in-progress work is very … cool.” He said the word as if it were foreign to his lips. “Even Ravi isn’t immune to its charm.” He gave Lila a small, warm smile.

  “Thank you.” And as she said it, here in the light, Lila felt suddenly stupid. Of course Clara was investigating the construction. They hadn’t seen the passage off the kitchen; they’d looped back and ended up in the living room or sitting room or whichever room held the fireplace. But it made sense. Much more than Clara vanishing into thin air or being abducted by people who needed their group’s cooperation and trust, who hadn’t even bothered to lock their doors.

  “It’s no problem.” The device in Kamal’s pocket blipped, and he took it out to look.

  “Did they find her?” Piper asked.

  “No, this is an alert from the engineers. The power-surge incident I mentioned. I’ll send someone to your room to update you on the search for your daughter the minute we have one to give. Or you can retire to the grand room by the fire if you’d like.” He tipped a nod. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  He turned to go, leaving Lila still baffled but feeling calmer beside her father, Piper, and Cameron. But after five or six steps he turned and faced them again.

  “Actually, if you’d like, there’s an access point for one of the house monitoring systems in the same room where I’m headed now. It’s an Astral design, quite ingenious. I can’t guarantee that anyone saw your daughter because this part of the system taps into Astral minds and none may have spotted her, in which case we have other means. But if you’re interested … ?”

  Lila was. Only once moving did she stop to wonder what the Astral record might show if something really had gone wrong … and the Astrals had been responsible. But the thought barely had teeth. For weeks now — and especially since they’d entered Ember Flats, where Titans and humans worked side by side like friends — she’d shed much of her fear. The Astrals hadn’t truly threatened their group for months, maybe years. During that time, the Mullah had been a much bigger threat — and thankfully, there’d be no Mullah here in the Capital of Capitals, let alone in the viceroy’s home.

  “This way.” Kamal turned one corner and then another, not stopping until they reached the door where Lila almost thought she’d seen light earlier, the one marked Utility Closet.

  CHAPTER 37

  The alert blipped on the big screen in Peers’s room, across from his bed. It could be used to watch videos or even that compelling news stream (some raw, some stylized and filtered), but in their half day in the palace, he’d seen alerts as well, like the one that had summoned him to the fireside discussion with Jabari. If the alerts were specific to a room’s occupant, you could tap the screen or speak your acknowledgement aloud. If you didn’t respond after a while, the alert would make itself more obvious with an audible reminder.

  But Peers wasn’t asleep. He wouldn’t need a chirp to wake him so he could read the alert. He was still breathing heavy, sweating, wondering if he’d actually got away clean. But he still didn’t acknowledge receipt of the message because the alert was summoning him back to where he’d just been. And if he appeared before Cameron, Meyer, Kindred, and the others with a sheen of nervous sweat, eyebrows would raise. Particularly Cameron’s. He already wondered how Peers had ended up with such clever devices and was able to understand Astral technology so well. Because I grew up studying it like my life depended on it probably wouldn’t dampen suspicions.

  He moved quickly into the bathroom, knowing he could blame some of the time required by a reluctance to wake. But if the alert were true — if Clara really had run off and the whole damned house was rising to search for her — he wouldn’t have long. Eventually, they’d knock on the door, if for no other reason than to see if the girl was in his room.

  Peers was in the bathroom when he heard a light scratching.

  He went to the hallway door, cocking his head, then recognized the sound and opened to Nocturne. The dog slipped inside, wagging his tail, panting up at his master.

  “Run yourself out, did you?”

  The dog sat.

  “Go to bed, idiot.”

  So he did. But as Nocturne made three small circles to knead the dog bed conveniently provided by the house, Peers remembered the flash of limbs and hair he’d seen just before entering the utility closet, just around the corner ahead, where the dog had gone. Had that been Clara? Almost for sure. So she was fine, and with any luck they’d find her before Peers even finished composing himself. Then they’d broadcast a retraction alert and he could get some sleep, his telltale flushed skin and gobsmacked eyes safely hidden under covers until morning.

  He returned to the bathroom, ran water, and splashed his face. With his eyes closed, he saw the cave in Sinai’s belly. It had all been so real. He’d smelled the gun smoke, heard the wheezing involuntary exhale as Grace died from Cameron’s gunshot — leaking lungs drowning in her own blood — and been as awed by what followed, he supposed, as the rest of them.

  The bursting energy from the Ark as it recorded a new deed in need of judgment: a man killing a girl — by accident, yes, but the shot had been fired in defense of a previous murder.

  The mental, timeless replay of events as Grace died: the Ark showing them all (not just Cameron, it seemed) the events in which they’d been complicit. Another nail in their coffins. The bullet entering the girl’s chest, exploding out the back. Her shocked, almost betrayed expression as she felt the kiss of lead. The panic in her eyes. The loss of focus as she expired. All of it played over and over on a loop, ten times at least, in the space of a second. Everyone in the cave that day carried those internal visions — and now Peers, thanks to the sphere’s immersive memory, would as well.

  And most of all there was the surety Peers had felt, seeing that vision within his own, that he was being watched from above by the icy eye of absolute impartiality. You couldn’t argue your case to that eye. You couldn’t say It wasn’t his fault or We’re all really good people, promise. Peers felt weighed, measured, assessed the way a butcher appraises meat. There’d been neither vindictiveness in that gaze nor rancor. Nor had there been a molecule of sympathy.

  Peers glanced at himself in the mirror. So what if it looked like he’d washed his face before joining the group? That was a sensible thing to do when knocked out of bed, bleary eyed and exhausted.

  The screen chirped.

  “Fine, fine,” he muttered. He left the bathroom, crossed to the screen, and tapped to acknowledge. The clock was ticking now. Officially, Peers Basara had been roused. If he took too long to show up, people would wonder.

  Something made him look up. Did they monitor the rooms? He’d seen it before — tiny BB-sized surveillance drones that could follow a person and hide just about anywhere. But he dismissed the thought upon arrival. The sphere was an Astral device, but whoever had assembled the room — and built the palace, it seemed — were his old brothers and sisters. It was still tapped into the Astral hive mind, recording their side of at least this part of the story.

  He thought of what he’d seen in his vision: Akeem preparing to steal the sphere, but seen from an Astral’s eye. If the aliens had known Akeem was there, how had he managed to steal — unless they’d allowed it?

  It didn’t really matter. The device had been hidden by Mullah, which meant it was being monitored by them as well. They had to be in the house, even now. If there was surveillance, it would be Mullah eyes upon him.

  And given that the Mullah, too, operated in secrecy, Peers didn’t think they’d chance overt observation. They’d probably built other secret rooms, secret systems, and secret drawers to hold who knows what. They’d probably desig
ned tunnels from the start — or more likely, so they could do it on the sly, branched unknown tunnels off of legitimate ones, like those linking Ember Flats’s government buildings.

  And besides: If anyone had seen him yank the sphere from its tentacle-like tether and smuggle it back here, he was already fucked. No point in worrying further.

  Before Peers left the room, he picked the sphere up from where he’d set it on the entrance table — careful not to activate the thing with his palms; he’d do that later — and tucked it into the back of a built-in dresser drawer. They’d know it was gone, but with any luck, since it was Astral, they’d only be able to use simple human investigation to try and find it. And because the Mullah couldn’t show their hand, Peers doubted they’d search in public or even admit anything had gone missing.

  He’d have time.

  After they found Clara, he’d have time to peruse all the sphere’s Astral memories and find what he needed to find.

  In the meantime, it was safe. And so was Peers.

  Because given all he’d done over the years, there must be evidence somewhere on the thing that Peers Basara had once been Mullah, and that his knowledge of things unknown had managed to grease many questionable wheels. Someone in the house knew how to access the thing even though Jabari might not even know it was there.

  Peers took one final look around the room, noting that Nocturne didn’t raise his head as he opened the door. Exhausted by searching for whatever, it seemed.

  “Stay,” he said. The dog did not respond.

  Then Peers left to join them, hoping his still-racing pulse wasn’t too visible in the hollow of his throat.

  CHAPTER 38

  The utility closet’s screen remained blank, showing nothing of Clara.

  Piper watched Kamal with a strange certainty that he was agitated but unable or unwilling to articulate why. His actions were expected for a man in his station, facing something that had malfunctioned or broken: He tapped the touchscreen on the multipurpose room’s wall, more a by-the-way access point than a proper surveillance station. He touched the device in his pocket, which Piper couldn’t see properly but that seemed to be responding in unexpected ways. There were wires in one corner leading to a stack of human-tech computers on little racks. Kamal went to them too, wiggling wires the way her great-grandfather used to slap the side of his ancient television to improve its reception, even after everything had gone digital. Everyone was watching Kamal, assuming the man knew what he was doing, trusting that in minutes his ministrations would cause the dead screen to flicker and show the many rooms and hallways, Clara safe and playing somewhere she shouldn’t be. Piper scanned the room’s faces to see expectation and barely held patience.

  Piper wondered why her own expression was surely different. Because although Kamal was doing all the expected things, it struck Piper as kabuki.

  He knows why it’s not working. He’s just putting on a show and will seek the real cause once we’re no longer watching.

  Piper closed her eyes. Opened them. She was so tired.

  But the feeling came stronger and stronger, radiating from Kamal, the way Piper sometimes swore she sensed Cameron’s moods better than she strictly should, the way she knew more often than not when someone was lying. The way, when Christopher had gone missing on the bus, she’d been momentarily inside his head, not seeing what he was seeing but hearing the intensity of his mood, feeling his fear and an overwhelming sense of grim, determined duty. And the way a pocket of strange emotion always seemed to orbit the group, disembodied, whenever the …

  She blinked away from Kamal, frowning. Where had the Pall gone to, anyway?

  “This station isn’t working; I’m sorry,” Kamal said.

  It certainly isn’t. And you don’t know why, but you haven’t checked what you think is actually the problem. Why haven’t you checked, Kamal?

  “I’ve already sent someone over to the under-construction wing,” he said, looking sympathetically at Lila. “I’m sure that’s where your daughter is.”

  Lila gave a grim little smile that Piper didn’t buy at all.

  There was commotion from behind. Charlie had arrived and was standing like a statue. Jeanine and Kindred were still absent, but Piper saw Peers arriving, his face wet, looking intensely awake.

  “What’s happened? I saw the alert in my room.” He stopped then added, “Heard it, I mean.”

  Cameron said, “Clara’s gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “She’s just wandered off,” Meyer said, putting an arm around his daughter. Lila sniffed, burying her face against his arm. Her shoulders hitched.

  “No, no, I’m sure he’s right,” Peers said, watching Lila. “She’s just out in the hallways.”

  Piper felt another of those strange, forceful emotions. She looked up to see Kamal looking directly at Peers. When Kamal looked away, Peers craned his neck in a way that was probably supposed to be subtle and eyed the wall beneath the screen, near the floor. There was nothing there, but Peers’s gaze lingered until he saw Kamal looking at him. He flinched and turned, swallowing again.

  With his eyes on Peers, Kamal said, “Mr. Cook — you haven’t seen Clara since last night, have you?”

  “No,” Charlie said.

  The rest of Kamal’s attention turned to Peers.

  “What about you, Mr. Basara? Have you seen her?”

  “No. Of course not. I was sleeping.”

  “Hmm. I’m sorry. The alert woke you?”

  “It woke everyone. Wasn’t everyone sleeping?” He looked around the small group. Some nodded. Kamal did not.

  “Of course,” Kamal said. “I’m very sorry. And I’m sorry our systems are malfunctioning. I don’t suppose any of you knows anything about Astral technology? Many of the systems in Ember Flats are hybrids of our two worlds.”

  A few in the group mumbled. Kamal bit his cheek, still looking at Peers. His eyebrows reset, then he sighed and turned his hands palms up, again the eager assistant.

  “Well, it is what it is. I’m very sorry if this has caused you concern. We will need to wait for the teams to report in. But I can assure you, this house is very safe. I wanted to station Titans outside your doors to prevent … ” He paused, searching for the right word. “Accidents. But Viceroy Jabari declined my suggestion. She said it would make you feel confined rather than like guests. And perhaps I shouldn’t have raised the general alarm. I tend toward overcautiousness. Those of you who wish to stay and search may, and the rest can return to bed. It will be fine. But before you go: You’re all positive that you haven’t seen Clara? Nothing at all? You haven’t heard anything that may have been a girl running past your door, seen shadows in the hallway in the gap under your threshold, anything at all that might help Lila find her daughter?”

  Heads shook. Lila wiped her eyes. Peers stared at his feet.

  “Please, then. Return to your rooms. All is well. We’ll summon you in the morning.”

  But nobody moved.

  “Really, it will be fine. We will handle what needs handling.”

  Still, nobody moved.

  “Very well.” Kamal sighed, tapped his device again, then extended a hand toward the great room. “I suppose we’ll have midnight tea while we wait.”

  Lila wrenched herself from Meyer’s embrace and pushed back through the knot of people, past Cameron and Charlie. Piper watched a flash of motion beyond, then Charlie staggered back a step, now struck by Lila from the other side as if she were a pinball and he was a rebounder.

  There were six Titans outside the room, blocking the hallway.

  CHAPTER 39

  Mara Jabari put a hand on Cameron’s shoulder. It was almost sensuous, not like the annoying tap of someone mining his attention. He turned to see her perfectly smooth dark skin and exotic facial features then watched her slowly nod and purse her lips, putting one finger of the other hand in front of them.

  Cameron nodded to acknowledge her request for quiet then tipped his head toward Pipe
r and Lila, who’d finally fallen asleep — collapsed from nerves and exhaustion.

  What about them?

  Jabari’s nod was equally simple, but Cameron heard her oath as if spoken: They will be fine.

  It was a meaningless assurance, seeing as Cameron was easily as emotionally threadbare as Lila and Piper and only awake due to adrenaline and a sense of duty: If the girls must sleep, he must stay on guard. They were all in a strange place under decidedly strange circumstances, and Cameron trusted nothing. Ember Flats wasn’t the bloody, chaotic dictatorship they’d all been led to believe it would be, and Mara Jabari wasn’t the dictator portrayed. Even Peers had stories of the woman standing above him, and only providence or uncertainty seemed to have kept him from finding something sharp to slit her throat. But then again, he didn’t entirely trust Peers, either.

  Of all the people Cameron shouldn’t believe about who’d be fine under which circumstances, the Ember Flats viceroy was top of the list. But something in Jabari’s soft brown eyes swayed him. He did believe her even if he shouldn’t. And though he’d never admit it to anyone, her simple touch was reassuring in a way nothing else could have been. The woman had elegantly managed this fucked-up situation. Clara had been gone for hours, now certifiably missing. And yet Jabari’s hand on Cameron’s shoulder said, Clara will be fine. They will be fine. You will be fine. All of it, Cameron, will be fine.

  He looked up at her before finally rising, reminding himself that even if circumstances had changed with much time passed, this was a woman his father had admired. A prodigy. She’d studied the Astrals, same as Benjamin had, and Peers at his London institute. She claimed to be on their side. It was probably folly to believe her — but honestly, was believing Jabari any worse than any other option?

  Cameron stood and followed the viceroy, leaving Lila and Piper slouched in their side-by-side easy chairs by the cool fire, their hands on adjacent armrests, fingers touching. His eyes found the clock. It was after 5 a.m., and he’d barely slept.