by Tim Curran
The machinery grew louder as Elly Vader neared, and then there was a slamming and great knocking as the machines stopped again.
Nougat held her breath and moved closer to Latchkey as the doors slid open with a hiss. Those doors were supposed to have opened only for her. The chamber beyond was supposed to be empty to receive her. She felt a pang of jealousy, though she knew it was foolish. She had been only a simple cleaner in Ops before today.
A figure stepped out of it.
A Scout.
The red jumpsuit, the Kit of Emergence, the mask, all identical to her own. For a moment, she thought she was looking at herself somehow, and her mind quivered like a tense wire.
The other men in the room gasped.
The Scout stood there, until the doors shut behind.
Then it raised one hand, the Armsmasters tensing, put it to its mask, and removed it.
She shuddered.
It was Plum Bob.
He looked the same as the day he’d departed a year before. The same as the day he’d … she didn’t like to think of him like that, of him leering over her, sweating on her, groping her, tearing her clothes. She didn’t like to think of Latchkey sitting in his chair, gripping the arms of it with white knuckles, of the thin line of blood leaking from his lips.
He’d gotten up to leave and Plum Bob had ordered him to stay seated there till he’d finished.
That same balding head, the long, scraggly brown hair down to his shoulders behind, that little mustache, grown to hide the cleft scar the Medicis hadn’t properly repaired at birth.
He leered now, as he had that day, and she wanted to reach into the Kit of Emergence, pull the pistol and shoot him.
He raised both his hands, palms outward, as Uncle Buster-Jangle had done during his prayers.
“Allclear,” he said.
“What?” Uncle Buster-Jangle said.
“Allclear,” Plum Bob repeated. “I have been to the Upper World. Look at my flesh. I am not burned. Listen to my voice. I do not cough. See my clothes. Touch my hands and feet. Ray Dio is no more, and he has taken the Hellabove with him. It is Allclear.”
Gordon the Armsmaster was the first to lower his gun, and fall to his knees, grinning and laughing excitedly. His guards followed suit.
“Wait,” said Uncle Buster-Jangle. “What if this is some trick of Ray Dio?”
“It is no trick, Scion. There is no Ray Dio, if there ever was. Tell the Radmen to use their crackle-wands on me. I have nothing to hide.”
He turned in place, and Latchkey let go of her hand and took his wand and passed it over him. It made no sound she had not heard from it before.
The other Radmen tried. Each one that did, and found nothing, fell to their knees alongside Gordon and the guards.
Plum Bob raised his hands into fists and shouted.
“Allclear!”
Gordon and the other armsmasters lifted their guns and took up the cry.
“Allclear!”
The Radmen took off their hoods. They were smiling. Some of them crying.
“Allclear!”
They got up, crowded Plum Bob, touching him. They took off his gloves and felt his hands, took off his boots and socks and felt his bare feet, and laughed and cried out;
“Allclear!”
And it was like that that he led them out of Elly Vader’s chamber into the outer corridor.
Nougat did not follow, but she heard the cries of astonishment from the gathered people, heard the excitement spread through the bunker with each new shout of ‘Allclear!’
It became riotous. A jubilation like they’d never known in Greenbriar.
Nougat stood in the chamber of her averted destiny. Even Latchkey was gone, caught up in the celebration.
Only Uncle Buster-Jangle remained alongside her. He stooped and picked up Plum Bob’s boots, turned them over in his hands, and frowned deeply.
She took off her mask. She had been afraid to take it off in his presence. She didn’t want him to know she was the next Scout. She dropped it on the console.
She breathed in the cool air of the room. By rights, the next breath she was supposed to take after removing her Scout mask, should have burned her lungs.
She thought about the vision she’d had. She wanted to tell Uncle Buster-Jangles, but would he believe it?
He was mulling over Plum Bob’s boots.
Then he glanced up at her, as if he hadn’t realized she was there. He cradled the boots and left the chamber without a word.
Nougat wandered out after him, back into the dull grayness of the bunker.
The rest of Greenbriar was ecstatic. The children were laughing, their parents were in tears. She saw people leaping about and kissing. It was Allclear. After two hundred and fifty six Scouts, the Last Reckonnaisance had come. Plum Bob and those that had seen him step out of Elly Vader were spreading the word like an uncontained fire.
Nougat’s thoughts were troubled. She was glad that she was not going to die, but she couldn’t believe that Plum Bob had returned. She couldn’t believe providence had chosen a man like him to unbutton the bunker and lead Greenbriar to freedom. Had Baxter foreseen him?
Then there was the vision she’d had.
“Don’t let him in,” the Scouts had said.
Had they meant Plum Bob?
She wandered aimlessly for hours before she went back to her quarters.
Latchkey was there. He was packing his things into a duffel excitedly.
When she entered, he dropped what he was doing and held her, lifted her off the ground, spun her, and kissed her.
“Allclear!” he exclaimed. “Isn’t it wonderful? I told you! I prayed and Potus heard me.”
“What are you doing with your things?” she asked, unbuckling her Scout belt and sliding off her pack. She slung the Emergence Kit into a corner. She supposed she wouldn’t need it now. She should return the pistol to Gordon.
“Packing to leave, of course,” he chuckled, and went back to it. “Plum Bob says he will lead us out into the Upper World in the morning.”
“Do you believe him?”
He slowed.
“He’s the only Scout to ever return. He spent a year in the Upper World and is unmarked.”
“Where was he?” she asked.
“He says he traveled the land, trying to find Potus himself. He ate sweet fruits from trees taller than the generators. He says he drank cool water from a trench in the ground. The water was bubbling up from stone, and moving like down a pipe. He says there were animals swimming in it. And wild algae. Can you imagine it?”
“But…Plum Bob?”
He stopped, and looked uncomfortable.
“I know. I wish it had been you to come back down Elly Vader with this news. But what does it matter? I mean, there has to be a price for our faith, doesn’t there?”
“Why?” she asked.
He frowned and went back to packing.
“You should eat your salad.”
It was still on the table. Her last meal.
“It’s wilted,” she said, and left their quarters.
She needed to think.
But it was impossible to do that in the tumult and frenzy that Greenbriar had become. She was jostled by ecstatic pilgrims, all packed and rushing to the Porch to line up outside, to be the first to breathe the fresh air of the new world.
They were blessing Plum Bob’s name, using it in the same breath as Potus.
But all she could think of was the line of spittle that had dribbled from his lips onto her naked breast as he’d heaved into her that day.
Did she want to be part of a world where Plum Bob was the messiah?
A hand gripped her arm, and she nearly struck the owner.
It was Uncle.
“You have to come with me, Nougat. It’s important.”
He turned without waiting for her reply, and she followed, wanting to do anything other than return to Latchkey or fall into Plum Bob’s exodus.
Uncle Bust
er-Jangle led her through the happy, singing throngs deep into Greenbriar, to his cloisters, the Great Lab. Only his acolytes and the chiefs ever came back here.
He took the gilded card of Baxter, which bore the image of Baxter himself, the symbol of his office, from the chain around his neck and passed it through a slit beside the heavy, ominous door, and a green light shone on the panel and the door opened.
The Great Lab was all polished silver and glass reliquaries set into some complex mystic order she could not guess the purpose of.
But Uncle did not stop there. He led her between the altar tables with their silver sinks and burners, and took her to a windowless door at the back of the room.
He passed the card through a slot again, and held the door for her.
She went inside.
“What is this place?” she whispered, catching her breath at the sight of Baxter and a smiling, bespectacled red haired woman standing beneath the tallest tree she’d ever seen. Was that Blessed Sheila Baxter?
“This is the Chamber of Baxter.”
She reeled. She had never known this room even existed. There was a desk against one wall, and a flat, slate-black plate sat in the middle of it. A lustrous green glass lamp stood on an ornamental brass stand, the finest electric light she had ever seen. There were more pictures on the wall, some of them displaying only paper sheets with writing on them.
She reached out and touched one, her finger cutting a path in the thick dust.
Then she stiffened, for Uncle went right to the desk and sat down in the soft, wheeled chair.
“Why have you brought me here?”
“It is the will of Baxter,” said Uncle, and he turned to the dark rectangular plate, and opened it like a book. On the bottom half were buttons with letters and numbers, which she knew. The top half was blank.
Or was, until Uncle touched one of the keys and a tiny motor whirred to life somewhere in the plate. The blank space began to glow.
“What is this?”
“Baxter passed down a secret tradition, known only to the Scions of Tist,” said Uncle. “I have borne it all my life, and my replacement would have borne it, too, as it has always been borne.”
“What tradition? Why are you telling me this?”
“Because Plum Bob is false. He is a servant of Ray Dio. A servant of the Old Ones.”
“What?”
“Nougat, I have to tell you something. I have to tell you the truth about Allclear, and the Hellabove, and about Potus and Usgov and the mushrooms and Ray Dio.”
It was pouring out of the old man, almost as if he couldn’t stop it, as if it were a sickness he needed to expel.
He turned to the electric book as a white box appeared on the blue screen. He tapped in some mystic manner at the buttons, and stars appeared in the box.
Then the blue screen disappeared and, instead, she saw a static gray and black and white picture. It was moving, trembling, and that terrified her.
“What is that?” she asked fearfully, wanting to look away.
The picture was of a lonesome light shining out from a doorway, looking out onto a vast empty space. That wide black emptiness frightened her somehow. It was bigger than any space she had ever seen, and yet it was entirely empty.
“It is as I feared,” said Uncle. “It is the Contingency.”
“What is that?” she asked again.
Uncle looked back at her.
“An electric eye keeps watch above the door of Elly Vader, where it opens into the Hellabove. This is all it sees. An empty land of black ash.”
“Then it is not Allclear?”
“Nougat, there can be no Allclear. Not ever. Baxter invented the Allclear to give the people hope, to keep them going through the years.”
She felt her heart tremble in her chest, and slide down into her stomach. She wanted to vomit.
“But Ray Dio … and Potus of Usgov. The Path O’Jen and the mushrooms …”
“Potus was the ruler of Usgov, the Upper World, yes. And he and the Chiefs did plant the mushrooms to stop the enemy. The Path O’Jen was a disease, a living, thinking disease. That was the route by which the Old Ones came. Baxter knew them, because he brought them to this world. They existed beyond our perceptions, incalculable creatures of ferocious power. They whispered to him in dreams and through the insidious boxes of Teevee and Ray Dio. The Old Ones manipulated him into bringing them forth with ancient math magics and experiments, fooling him into believing it was his own inspiration. That was the Outbreak. The Path O’Jen spread everywhere. Baxter couldn’t call it back. And those infected became hosts for the Old Ones so they could take physical forms and conquer Usgov and the lands beyond. Potus and his Chiefs ordered the sky bullets to plant the mushrooms to destroy them, to cure Usgov as the worst infections must always be cured: with fire. But it did not stop them. It tempered them, baked them like cakes. Baxter took everyone he could find down into Greenbriar to escape. That was why he burned all the books, broke all the records of what had happened. The Old Ones made the Upper World into the Hellabove, so that they could thrive. Baxter and the survivors wanted them to forget us, and for us to forget them, so that we would never meet.”
“But Plum Bob?”
Uncle tapped the electric eye screen.
“Look at the ground. Ash. And Ash in the sky. But there was no ash on the soles of Plum Bob’s boots or on his clothes.”
“How can that be?”
“Baxter warned us that this might happen. That one of the Old Ones might find Greenbriar, come to us as one of the Scouts, or maybe enslave a Scout into luring us out. He thought of everything.”
“Last night, I had a vision,” she said, and told him everything.
“It’s a sure sign,” Uncle said, eyes wide. “We must enact the Contingency.”
“What is the Contingency?”
“Plum Bob must not unbutton Greenbriar. Plum Bob….must die.”
“I still have the pistol from the Lord of Ops,” she said. It was in her quarters, but she had it. She would like nothing better than to shoot bullets into Plum Bob. That it was part of Baxter’s plan only made it sweeter.
“Many of the people will believe Plum Bob. They will kill to protect him.”
Uncle reached into the pocket of his coat, and brought out a ring of keys, much like the one the Lord of Ops carried on his belt.
“And this,” he said, taking the talisman of Baxter from his own neck. “It will get you into any room the keys do not. It will get you into the Armory. Into the Splo-sieves room where even Gordon cannot go. The Splo-sieves are in pieces. You must bring the components to me so I can assemble them.”
He took a pad of yellow paper from the drawer of Baxter’s desk and drew a picture on it. He pointed out each component. The block of soft gray matter. The coil with brassy needles stuck into the block. The box with numbers, into which the wires ran.
“What about Gordon?”
“Gordon and the guards follow Plum Bob wherever he goes. Gordon has abandoned his duties. The Armory is empty.”
“What do we do then?” she asked.
“I will take the Splo-sieves into Elly Vader, set the numbers to counting, and send it up. This will destroy Elly Vader, so that Plum Bob cannot unbutton.”
Uncle was right. With all the excitement, none of the guards were at their posts, and the way to the Armory was clear. It was nothing to unlock the door and slip inside. The Armory had been cleared of weapons. Gordon must have taken everything for the unbuttoning. But the old door at the back, the one no one could open, did open for Baxter’s talisman.
It took her some time to find the right components, and even then, Nougat wasn’t exactly sure she had the right things, so she took extra and slid it all into a pack Uncle had given her.
She put the heavy pack on her shoulders and returned to the Great Lab.
She almost walked right into Gordon and the guards, but she ducked back behind the corner before anyone saw her.
She peered
around, and saw two Medicis emerge, carrying a bloodstained stretcher, and Plum Bob walking behind them, smiling.
“It was the will of Potus,” he told Gordon, wiping blood from his Scout’s knife on the sheet and putting it back on his belt.
She knew it was Uncle under the sheet, and that she was alone.
Did Plum Bob know she knew? He hadn’t seen her under the Scout’s mask. Had he made Uncle tell?
She didn’t have much time.
She fairly ran back to her quarters.
She found her Scout’s pack, got the pistol and slipped it into her pocket.
She spread the Splo-sieve pieces out on her cot. She’d taken three of everything, and after much fumbling, she thought she had one assembled as in Uncle’s drawing. She slipped it into her Scout’s bag. The second came easier. Much easier. It fit together like a puzzle. The brass needles sank into the soft clay-like block. The other ends clicked easily into the number box.
She was reaching for the third set of components when the door opened and Latchkey walked in.
“What are you doing, Nougat?” he asked. He was sweating, and his eyes had a strange look.
She couldn’t hide the components on the bed.
She stood.
He took a step closer, closing the door behind him.
She drew the pistol from her pocket. She didn’t know just why.
He stared.
“Plum Bob lied. It’s all wrong. It’s all lies,” she stammered. How to tell him everything now? She barely had it straight in her own head.
“How could he lie? He returned from the Upper World.”
“There is no Upper World. There are these things. These things that live in the Hellabove.”
“What are you talking about?” he said, coming closer, holding out his hand. “Give me that.”
She thumbed off the safety as she had seen Gordon do.
“Don’t,” she warned him.
“Plum Bob wants to see you.”
She sucked in her breath.
“What?”
“He wants to see the last Scout.”
“You told him it was me?”