by Sean Platt
Two people.
The first was at an angle, at a featureless wall. The feeling Piper seemed to sense was as flat as the wall and floor beneath it. If sensations had color, this one was black. Or white. Or perhaps colorless and clear like a glass of distilled water. She could almost feel it, and yet its vacancy offered presence.
Confused, Piper followed the other, all too aware that she was probably full of shit and grasping at straws like an idiot. Meyer hadn’t even understood why Piper did yoga beyond its physical benefits, so she’d explained the sense of integration or spiritual calm it gave her. He’d definitely never have understood Piper’s preoccupation with her many New Age interests, so she’d kept them out of sight on her Vellum. But sometimes, at night, she used to swear she could rise above her body. It was mind-trick bullshit, but she’d always wanted to believe, and often chose to. The difference, Piper suspected, might be semantic.
This felt like that. Like something the old Meyer would laugh at — something that was nothing. But still she walked, trying to calm her mind, reminding herself that she’d guessed correctly more often than not in recent months, about hidden emotions and motives. And hey, wasn’t that what all those New Age authors said? That we were all one, in a big energy collective?
And if that was too hard to believe, hadn’t she and Cameron shared thoughts after passing through those twin lines of monolithic stones? Hadn’t Lila sworn she could hear unborn Clara speaking from the womb back at the Axis Mundi, and hadn’t Heather been sure she’d been able to hear Meyer — or possibly Kindred? Didn’t the Astrals communicate with their minds? And hadn’t Cameron and Charlie both said that ancient societies — of humans, not Astrals — were supposedly psychically connected?
If all of that could be true, Piper wasn’t about to beat herself up for trying to help — even if it meant hoping to find Clara using what amounted to Scooby Sense.
But this wasn’t fear Piper thought she could feel. This was interest. Almost obsessive. And really, the intensity of that compulsive, shocked curiosity was a bit much for a seven-year-old girl, even as precocious as Clara was. So it was someone else. Someone adult, who’d felt something strong and compelling in this very same hallway.
Was Clara the object of that obsession? A chilling thought. Piper could almost imagine some creep stalking the girl through the halls, mere feet behind her without the girl knowing, his arms finally reaching out in disturbing lust when she was most remote and vulnerable and …
But no. She’d stopped in front of the utility closet. Where Kamal had taken them to peruse security footage, before he’d realized the surveillance system was down.
“Hello, Piper.”
Piper almost jumped. She turned around, heart racing, hand on chest, unable to hide the depth of her scare. She felt suddenly guilty and ashamed, as if caught masturbating.
But the man behind her was unmoving, standing with his arms at his sides, a somehow-still-intact, somehow-still-unfashionable short-sleeve dress shirt tucked in over brown slacks. His hair had grown long during their wandering but now was freshly cut, trimmed back to something horridly boring. His glasses were perched in their normal place, bug eyes assessing her from beneath them.
“Charlie. You scared me.”
“What are you doing out here?”
Charlie looked like he was trying to speak, but no words came out. Then there was a curious electronic sound — like an amplifier experiencing feedback issues — and Charlie started mid-sentence.
“Really does know what she’s talking about.”
“What?”
“You don’t trust her, do you?”
“Who?”
There was another of those curious noises. Charlie blinked, then said, “Jabari.”
“I trust her enough.”
“But not all the way.”
“You’ve heard what she wants Kindred and Meyer to do. Do you really think that’s wise?”
“I don’t honestly have an opinion,” Charlie said. “I’m impartial.”
“Cameron told me the Mullah note said he needed to open the Ark. But what have we done? We’ve just been sitting around.”
“Waiting for the State of the City address.”
“One doesn’t have to do with another.”
“They all feel that the best chance of opening the Ark without undue … interference? … is to make sure attention is focused elsewhere. All of Ember Flats turns out for the State of the City.”
“But we’re wasting days.”
“The Mullah will wait. They’d agree with Jabari’s thinking.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
Charlie touched his chin. “Funny thing. In the past, the amount of information the Ark has needed to collect must have been much less than it is now. Not just smaller populations but smaller minds. The way it’s had to work this time must be so inefficient, don’t you think? These days you keep so much of your brains out on the Internet.”
“The Internet is gone.”
“True. So where are your brains now?”
Charlie was always strange, but this was particularly odd. Where did he keep his brain, if he was going to talk in second person?
“If I were the archive, I’d be confused,” said Charlie.
“What’s that mean?”
“I don’t know. I’m confused.”
“Charlie … ”
“When you went to the Ark before, did it surprise you what came out?”
“Did it surprise you?” Piper said, tiring of his posturing. He’d always been like this. Superior, putting himself one step ahead.
“Actually, yes. I felt almost vindictive. Which is strange.”
“What do you want, Charlie?” Piper wanted him to leave her alone so she could go into the utility closet and spend some time feeling its aura. Chances were excellent she’d simply leave ten minutes later feeling like an idiot and knowing nothing, but it beat double-talk with King Awkward.
“You’ve been to court, haven’t you? With Meyer.”
“Once. Why?”
“The judge. Was she … stoic?”
“She was normal. She was a judge.”
“Hmm. If you’d gone in and she’d been wildly emotional, do you think that would have mattered?”
“What?”
“Would you have pled your case differently if the judge was manic? If she was depressed?”
“I think we’d have requested a new trial date if the judge had been unstable.”
“Do you think she’d have made mistakes?”
“You mean in the verdict? I don’t know, Charlie; it was an intellectual property thing with Quirky Q, and it took half the ‘trial’ just to explain what the hell my business was about, and even then—”
“I’ll bet,” Charlie said, finger to lips, “a judge who was used to being calm and impartial — but who suddenly found him- or herself dealing with too much emotion and too much confusing evidence … I’ll bet that judge would render a … sloppy judgment.”
“Okay.” Now literally tapping her foot. “Did you need something?”
Charlie’s eyes blinked back from thoughtful to present. He opened his mouth, but again nothing came out.
She rotated to the utility closet. “We’ll talk later, Charlie. Go get a glass of water.”
“Jabari wants Kindred and Meyer to make their appearance in front of Ember Flats while Cameron is sneaking over to open the Ark,” Charlie said, his voice forcing Piper to turn back toward him. “But if the archive reacted with anger before, maybe it’s best not to give it a big, loud background of emotion elsewhere in the city. She wants to create a distraction, but maybe instead all that commotion will be like a bunch of noisy kids screaming while you’re trying to think. And maybe … ” He began losing his voice in spurts, like intermittent laryngitis. “Works so that … Meyer and Ki … tomorrow.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
Charlie said nothing, not smiling. Very like Charlie, but at least
he was finally leaving her alone.
“And yet the more riled up it is once Cameron opens … sure, it’ll be tense and furious, but maybe it’ll be like that judge having a bad day, and make unfortunate mistakes.”
Piper didn’t know what to say, so she turned back to the door as if to remind herself that it was still there. She touched it then decided she was no longer feeling all that woo-woo. Crusader or not — determined not to quit like the others or not — Piper still got plenty tired, and Charlie’s infuriating, obtuse presence had, as always, exasperated her into a puddle. She wanted to take a brief nap and come back later.
She turned back to Charlie.
“Charlie, I’m going to … ” But then she stopped, her mouth still open.
Although she was on an empty stretch of straight hall with no open doors, Charlie was gone.
CHAPTER 43
Lila watched her fathers ready themselves, aware that she had two of them now more than ever. They’d both played that role; they both cared for her and her daughter; they’d both, in real time, loved her mother. Both had memories of Lila’s first steps, her first words, her childhood’s trials and tribulations. Right now, they were almost impossible to tell apart.
With the State of the City address scheduled within the hour, Meyer had shaved his beard in order to look as much like Kindred as possible. If they planned to shock Ember Flats, they’d do it all the way. He was the old Meyer again, like Kindred beside him. The face mattered. Even before Astral Day, Meyer Dempsey (movie magnate, change maker, reluctant philanthropist) had graced the cover of international magazines. He’d been a breed of famous that Mara Jabari had never been, as she’d quietly built her reputation — first with a prodigious rise through prestigious universities then with the da Vinci Initiate — proving herself to be a prodigy and authority worthy of notice. And that, Lila thought as she watched them prepare, gave her father some small measure of comfort. Sure, Jabari had been allowed to rule her city as a human, whereas Meyer had been abducted, held captive for two years, and slyly replaced — twice. But at least she’d never been in GQ.
“Hand me that tie, will you?”
Lila followed the man’s fingers, honestly unsure which one he was. Only when he shifted enough for her to see a recent shaving nick did she know; Meyer had cut himself while trying to clear beard detritus on his own, having refused the palace barber. That and the wedding ring were all that gave him away. Meyer still wore the band from his marriage to Piper, whereas Kindred (just as stubborn, just a wifeless) had re-donned Heather’s ring, pulled from some hock Lila could only imagine after she was gone.
She took the tie from the bedspread and handed it to him. It was blue. Kindred had grabbed the other tie on his own and was fashioning a full Windsor. Kindred’s was red. Lila found the colors fitting. The time Meyer spent starved, weak, and steeped in the thought collective had cooled his temperament, whereas Kindred’s personality was still piping hot.
“Thanks,” he said, taking it.
Lila sat back, watching them primp, saying nothing.
“It’ll be okay, you know,” said Kindred. Lila looked over, her equilibrium fighting to make sense of the room. If not for Kindred’s red tie, she’d have looked away from one thing to see the exact same thing somewhere else. Their suits, shoes, and haircuts were identical, all tailored for maximum shock value.
“I know.”
“I know you know. But I really mean it. I’m not just saying that to make you feel better.”
“Have you run the scenarios?” she asked.
“Of course we have,” Kindred replied. Lila had been kidding, but of course the answer wasn’t a joke.
“It was probably always inevitable that we’d eventually clash with the Mullah,” Meyer said — and when Lila looked into his eyes, she could finally tell the difference between them. The two men had identical genetics, yet Meyer had taken additional scars that showed when you looked deep. “We even thought it likely—”
“Almost for sure,” Kindred interrupted.
“That Mullah would be in the city. The great, ancient societies have always embedded themselves in positions of power. But this time we’ll give them what they want, and everything will be fine.”
“Fine,” Lila repeated.
“You don’t believe us,” Kindred said.
“I’m just worried, Dad. It’s unreasonable if you actually expect me not to worry.”
“Trust us.”
“I do. It’s just that … ”
“What, Lila?”
“Well, you didn’t know they’d take Clara, did you?”
Kindred looked almost affronted, but Meyer sat on the bed beside her.
“No. We didn’t. But they shouldn’t have. We’re getting more data in Ember Flats than we’ve ever had. Kindred can sense the nearby mothership, which knows the citizens’ mood. Just walking around when we came in, I got a million little details. There’s Jabari, her staff, and simple common sense. Putting all that together, it seems ridiculous for them to have taken her. They want something from us, clearly, but showing their hand — exposing the entire Mullah operation inside the city — isn’t the solution. The only way they’d even consider taking Clara would have been if she’d walked right up and asked for it. At least that’s the way we figure it.”
Lila considered a rebuttal. When Meyer and Kindred combined minds, they were right a lot more often than not. But she could think of many times they’d erred, and this struck her as a mistake. Logical or not, the Mullah had snatched her little girl.
“It doesn’t even make sense. Charlie has always said the Mullah wanted to take the key away, not invite us to use it. Or force our hand.”
“I guess Charlie was wrong.”
Meyer watched Lila for a long moment. Then, seeming to decide she was as okay as she was going to get, he stood.
Lila recrossed her legs, running an idle finger along her knee, trying not to fret, failing miserably.
“What are you going to tell them? When you get up to speak?”
“The truth,” said Kindred.
“Don’t you think that the Astrals will stop the broadcast to the other cities if they have a problem with what you’re saying?”
“We’re sure they will. But Ember Flats will see and hear it.”
“Unless they shoot you.”
“Shooting us makes our case even stronger, don’t you think?”
Lila didn’t like the way Kindred had put that. It implied that if both Meyers were shot and killed, it was a fair trade for their message. And all this while Jabari, who’d insisted they do it, sat clear of harm.
“They won’t stop us, Lila,” said Meyer. “Only in 4 percent of scenarios do they stop us. We will have our say.”
“Then what?”
“Unrest.”
“That’s what Mara Jabari wants, you know.”
“It’s fine. It’s what we want, too. It draws attention from the Ark. We have guesses as to what might happen when Cameron opens it, but of that, we’re the least certain. Fewer variables is better. There’s usually a lot of pedestrian traffic around it. This will make sure there’s none — not once word gets around that not only is Meyer Dempsey alive as rumors have claimed but that there are now two of him. So Cameron can open it quietly.”
“And then?”
“The clock starts.”
“Cameron is afraid of what it will decide about us. The Ark, I mean.” She said it with eyebrows raised, waiting to see if either man would offer their calculations as to the Ark’s judgment. But neither spoke, either not hearing or knowing or wanting to say.
After a quiet, collar-straightening moment, she said, “Do you really just expect me to sit back here while all this happens? While you rile the city, Cameron opens that damned box, and my daughter stays missing?” Lila hadn’t realized she was angry, but now her cheeks were burning, and her eyes were starting to water. “Is that really what I’m supposed to do? Just sit on my ass and twiddle my thumbs. Wai
t and see?”
Meyer and Kindred shared a glance.
“Not at all, Lila,” Meyer said.
“She doesn’t understand,” Kindred added.
“Lila … ” Meyer raised a hand as if preparing to make a very important, very precise point. “When we say what we must and the Ark opens, there’s an excellent chance that all hell will break loose. Perhaps literally. We can’t calculate what the archive will decide. We can only break the seal and see. To get Clara back and for a dozen other reasons, breaking that seal is something that needs to be done. But anything could happen, and we must be prepared.”
“Okay,” Lila said.
“You’re staying back for only one reason. Same as Piper, and everyone who’s not us or Cameron: protection.”
“If today is judgment day,” Lila said, “I don’t think the viceroy’s palace will protect anyone.”
“I’m not talking about the palace,” Meyer said. “It’s staying close to Jabari that matters.”
“I don’t care about her! I care about you!”
And Kindred said to Meyer, “She still doesn’t understand.”
There was a knock at the door. Kamal stuck his head inside and said, “It’s time.”
CHAPTER 44
Cameron sat on the carved stone bench in the western palace garden, not more than fifty feet from the gate. Beyond the open gate the courtyard was ringed, at comfortable, open distances, by the other gray stone Ember Flats government buildings. Somewhere in the middle, obscured, was the Ark’s place of honor, bordered by fountains, its soundtrack the chirping of birds and the bubbling of running water. It was as if someone were pretending the thing was in Eden, as if it promised only blessings to those who greeted it.
Looking through the open gates (unguarded; the Titans had been called away and replaced by human guards, who’d already left on Jabari’s orders), Cameron felt his legs flexing and trying to make him rise. Only, he wouldn’t stand and dash toward the Ark to do his duty. He’d run out of the courtyard, out into the city — into the cannibal-strewn wastelands beyond if need be. Anything but face that cursed thing again. Anything to avoid its horror show and the wrath he felt certain it stood eager to unleash.