Shield

by Rachael Craw

  My eyes prick and it’s hard to swallow. “I guess we’ll never know.” I press the infuser to my neck, pull the trigger, wince at the sting and rush into darkness.

  JAMIE

  The moment I come to, post-sedation, veins of electricity finger my vertebrae in alarming strokes. Even through the swampy drug haze it reminds me too sharply of Priming pre-Kitty – the gearing up of my nervous system for calamity. I squirm beneath my harness and fumble numbly at the restraint clips, not liking the compression in my chest, the tight space, the low roof of the van. A teaser of panic – like the claustrophobic attack I had in the lower barracks. My vision bleeds colour together. I squint to clear my eyes, looking for light through the van window, but it must still be dark outside. I wonder how long we’ve been in transit. Was the van flown here from hangar eight or did we drive the whole way?

  I try to fill my lungs with a deep breath but I can’t get at it. My mouth and throat are so dry it hurts to swallow. My harness is too tight. I can’t get a grip on the restraint, it slips through my clammy fingers. “Open the door,” I say, my voice a rough croak, but the van is empty. “Open the door!” I scrabble at the clips but the side door slides open – a rush of icy air. Jamie’s signal then him.

  “Everton.”

  Relief almost slays me. “Can’t breathe.”

  “Easy, love.” He hits the control panel and pops the restraints. I crash into him in my hurry to get free. He catches me against his chest and lifts me out into the open air, setting me on my feet. I’m slow letting go – not because the roofless sky swoops at me. Not because the sedation makes my knees weak or because of the dizzying lungfuls of sweet cold air. I shake and he whispers a curse and I touch his chest and he tightens his hold and neither of us can speak. His brow knots and he closes his eyes. I run my trembling fingers over the grooves, coaxing his frown away. When he opens his eyes, full and rimmed with unshed tears, he slowly shakes his head. “You have to run.”

  I stiffen in his arms.

  “Knox,” he says, like it’s poison in his mouth. “You didn’t see the transmission. He’s got everyone in a bloody frenzy. That mob would have ripped us apart to get to you. If it wasn’t for Thurston–”

  “I saw it. I heard everything. Did they hurt you?” I pull back to look at him and lean against the side of the van for support. Beyond him there are tall trees and tall buildings looming in the dark – are we on a campus?

  He digs something from his pocket and flicks open a gleaming blade. He speaks in a low rush. “I’ll take your tracker then you go. Now. As far and as fast as you can. Your dad won’t follow you. Neither will Davis. I can take care of Lane. Helena won’t–”

  “Where is everyone?”

  “Ethan’s with Helena. The others are setting up.” He comes close again. His expression fierce. “Listen to me. If we take you back to the compound, Knox will come for you. Ethan can’t hold him off for good. Neither can Juno.”

  “You saw what Knox did to Miriam. Do you think he would hesitate to do the same to you? To the others?”

  He swallows. “I won’t give you up.”

  “I know and Knox would break you for it. Torture you into stasis. Then he’d hunt me down – and you’d be lost for nothing.” I close my eyes for a moment, gather myself. “I would have handed myself over tonight but Ethan stopped me–”

  “I saw,” he says through his teeth.

  “I’m not running.”

  “I’ll kill Knox.”

  “Jamie.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “Then they’ll kill you and still take me.”

  He slams his hand against the van then leans down, breathing hard through his nostrils. “What am I supposed to do?”

  I blink at him through a film of tears. “Deactivate.”

  He closes his eyes, a quiver in his lips. “If she started all this–”

  “If she did – I don’t blame her. Not any more. Not after seeing what she’s been through. Forgive her. Move on. You could do a lot worse than Helena.”

  His eyes spring open, searing in the darkness, the space between our bodies static-charged. “Worse like Davis?”

  I smile softly but it doesn’t hold. “I’d choose him if I still had a choice.”

  A muscle twitches in his jaw. He slips his hand around my waist and pulls me slowly in against him, a challenge in his look – daring me to deny what we both feel in our skin, in our bones, in the resonant hum of our signals. He tracks the details of my face and murmurs, “You’re better at this than me.”

  I tilt my head up like a fool, his scent in my mouth. “Better?”

  “At letting go.”

  It’s barely a second, a shared pulse, a single indrawn breath. His naked gaze so raw with longing and grief, my heart feels split to its root. And he’s right. I am better at this than him because I expected the end before we even started, braced for it before our first kiss.

  Familiar active signals ripple over me. I push Jamie away, warning in my eyes. Ignoring the shock in my skin from loss of contact, I look to the right anticipating where they will appear. Lane first, Davis then Ethan and Helena – red-eyed in back. They hesitate, seeing Jamie and me standing apart – the deliberate distance between us, Jamie turned away from the group as though surveying the location, hands clamped to his hips.

  The air ought to crackle – two charged atmospheres colliding beside the van. I watch Helena. He’s told her – Ethan – about me, Miriam, everything. She looks like she’s been taken apart and reassembled in a rush – pieces not properly attached. Ethan, hollowed out, carries the weight of eighteen years of secrets, and every decision he’s made between then and now pressing him down. Davis and Lane wait, stiff and watchful like this is a showdown.

  “Evangeline.” Ethan comes to me, three broad strides, his stern features set like flint. Dappled shadow passes over his face, lamplight glinting on coal-black eyes. He takes in the dent on the side of the van and places his hand in the hollow. He gives Jamie a long look then turns towards me. He cups the side of my face and brushes my cheek with his thumb and my heart cracks again. Here, now, in front of all the others, he marks me as his own. Will Helena hate me for it? I’m too choked up to care. He tilts his head, a brief softening in his eyes and mouth before they settle again into stone. “Do you trust me?”

  “I … yes.”

  He nods and draws a breath that swells his chest.

  He seems huge to me and I feel as young and afraid as I am – afraid that if I don’t burn this moment deep into the cortex of my brain, I’ll never get another chance.

  “We have work to do here tonight but trust me, Evangeline. I will take care of Knox.”

  HELENA

  I watch Lane from the window of the comms van, the pins and needles I woke with still perforating my spine. He’s as focused as I’ve ever seen him, coiled tension, ready to spring. I can’t help thinking of Benjamin, who should be in his place but I know Benjamin would never have agreed to this assignment. Dressed like a civ with a cap pulled low, Lane looks young, really young, dwarfed between Ethan and Jamie. They’re all dressed like civs, Jamie in an army surplus jacket, a beanie pulled down over his ears. Davis wears a hoodie and puffer vest. He holds a tablet and opens a file, the same one that lights our screen. We’re still waiting for final confirmation and the release of the photo ID.

  Helena clicks through the data. Ethan’s voice rumbles through our headsets as he takes the team through the layout of the campus. If it weren’t for the angry buzzing in my spine I’d say I feel lighter, clearer, more certain of what I want to accomplish before I lose my freedom. Yes, I trust Ethan. No, I don’t believe he can save me. No, I will not allow him to endanger his life or his life’s work to keep Knox from claiming me. Not him, or Jamie or Davis. No one else will lose their life because of me. Yes, I’m afraid but there are things I can do before the end for Miriam and for myself and only one person who can help me.

  I turn to Helena.

  Sh
e sits composed, the redness fading from the fine skin around her eyes. At first she pretends not to notice my pointed staring then she swallows and looks at her hands. “I understand you must hate me.”

  I jerk my chin back a notch. “What? No.”

  She gives me that aggravating grown-up’s look.

  “Hate you?” My voice goes embarrassingly high. “I don’t even know you.”

  “You see me as a usurper. A cuckoo in the nest.”

  I give a short strangled laugh at cuckoo and frown so hard my face threatens to cramp.

  She tightens her jaw, cheeks reddening. “You feel I have stolen your father and will take the boy you love.”

  “That’s not true.” It’s completely true.

  “Everything you want has been given to me … is mine … and you despise me for it.”

  Yes. “No.” Okay … only the deeply wounded animal version of myself but I’ve chained that up in the darkest recesses of my curdling resentment. The reasonable, rational, even sympathetic part of me understands Helena has done nothing wrong – except maybe hand me to Knox, but I don’t know that for certain and I’ve already decided I don’t blame her for that.

  “Knox murdered my parents,” she says.

  My breath cuts short like it’s been stoppered with a cork.

  “At least he was a part of it – the resistance to the Reform. I don’t know if they died by his hand but he did not seek to save them.” She lifts her shoulders. “I have no memory of them. No memory of that time. Gerrad Schuller and Madeline Foster. He was Ethan’s Watcher. She was a civilian who came to Affinity with the CIA. She recruited Ethan for the committee for Reform. They were very close. I was six when they died. I should have some memory of them but I don’t. Papa … Ethan is the only father I have known. He is where my life begins.”

  The compression in my chest is agonising. “I understand.”

  “And now Jamie.”

  “I don’t blame you for your DNA.”

  “He loves you.”

  “He’ll do the right thing.”

  She draws a shuddering breath. “I wish it were otherwise.”

  I’m not sure what she means and I’m too much of a coward to ask. “It can’t be easy for you either, finding out about me, Aiden, Miriam.”

  Her brow wrinkles. “It explains a lot. He has always been … closed. Not cold. Pre-occupied. Burdened.” She looks up, paling. “Forgive me. I don’t mean to imply–”

  I shake my head, though the weight in my belly is heavy as stone. “It would have been tough for anyone.”

  She holds my gaze for longer than I expect. I surprise myself by not looking away. Her eyes are very blue. Beautiful. Sad.

  “It is a hard thing,” she says, selecting each word with care. “To be the cause of another’s pain. I have not wished to be yours.”

  I nod because I can’t speak.

  “I think you have not sought to be mine.”

  I mean to shake my head but systems fail. I strangle a whispered, “No.”

  She blows softly through her lips. “I wish there was something I could do to make things better for you.”

  “There is.” I take a breath as though I’m about to leap into open water. “Help me save my mother.”

  SPARK

  Final confirmation arrives with the photo ID of the Spark and everything, everything else ceases to matter. I stop insisting my plan to save Miriam will work. Helena stops insisting everything I’m asking her to do is against protocol, dangerous – potentially life-threatening and utterly impossible without outside help. I stop insisting I don’t care about the risks and that I’m confident we can pull it off before Knox comes for me – the last bit is empty bluster but I make my voice implacable. Now, we both shut up and stare at the screen.

  Seeing the Spark’s face hits me gut-deep, in a way the file of data couldn’t. Michael Jessop is real. Nineteen years old. Five foot nine. One hundred and forty pounds. Born in Missouri. Episcopalian. Freshman at Jackson Heights Technical College, Connecticut. Connecticut! Signed up for Saturday night’s interfaith campus mixer.

  We’re parked in a shadowy lot behind a thickly treed embankment on the west side of the campus. From here there’s a glimpse of the white weatherboard converted villa beyond the rise. The plaque says: JHTC Freshman Commons – according to the close-up photograph of the slightly run-down building on our screens. The schematics are laid out. The mixer is located in the main reception room on the first floor – there’s a connecting kitchen, foyer, study hall and a central staircase to the remaining three stories. Two fire exits and multiple balconies. It’s already showing signs of life with the sound of vehicles arriving, music echoing, occasional raised voices and bursts of laughter.

  I can’t concentrate on Ethan’s instructions to the team. He’s saying something about the order of approach, the possible exits for swift retreat, he’s flicking through the schematics of the building and talking about standard Supply Protection protocol. I can’t take my eyes off the Warden’s brief in the bottom corner. This boy was identified only hours ago as a newly activated Spark. His uncle is registered as an active Shield. His second cousin is recorded as deceased with an icon next to her name indicating she was a Spark lost in an unsuccessful Supply Protection assignment three years ago. The Stray was never identified. Jessop has been observed since he was thirteen years old.

  It makes me woozy putting his photo to those details. He’s nineteen, studying to be an engineer, has hopes for the future. Family. Friends. No idea he’s walking around with an invisible target on his back. More than that, a beacon. A tolling bell. His signal in the bandwidth like blood in treacherous water. I shift on my stool, stretching my back against the uncomfortable zapping in my spine.

  I haven’t felt right since I came to, but no one feels right after sedation. I’m seriously overdue for a run or some kind of physical exertion to calm my system. That’s a major factor. The bandwidth is muddled too, and it’s not a good feeling. I realise my overly sensitive radar will be picking up on the tension of the other Shields – the collective increase in adrenaline. I find myself reaching into the bandwidth for foreign signals instead of paying attention to Ethan’s instructions.

  “Do you need to get out and stretch?” Helena asks, her fingers poised over the keyboard. She has another screen open that’s hooked up to the Affinity Project database, ready for us to upload images for facial recognition analysis. I think of the white cells in the bottom of the Affinity compound. It’s hard to imagine putting someone in one of those cells, chaining them up.

  “I’m fine.”

  She turns back to the screen but I can feel her tension. Her eyes can’t settle on the screen or the keyboard or the view from the window. She must be afraid for the others, knowing what they are about to attempt. And for opting out of field duty, guilty for not going with them. But I don’t blame her. Not after seeing her memory of Luca.

  “Data record, blocker administered twenty-one hundred hours and seventeen minutes,” Ethan says, through the headset. A soft groan of discomfort follows. I look out the van window. Jamie clamps his hand over the injection site beneath the collar of his shirt. He buckles forwards, one hand on his thigh, shaking his head as the drug enters his system. My spine is the scene of a thousand tiny stabbings and I dig my fingers hard into my knees. The thought of Jamie going into the situation without the full capacity of his abilities scares me senseless. I know the theory. I agree with the theory. If the Stray is nearby we want him alive but hell, the reality. I can’t help but recall how strong Aiden was, how vicious.

  Ethan doses Lane and Davis and then himself. There’s a good minute of groaning and leaning and head shaking. Helena is rigid next to me, as thrilled with the idea as I am. Ethan straightens up and loosens the top button of his civilian shirt. According to the intel, there will be ministers and local youth workers in attendance. With a quick web search, Helena has identified a small chapel on the outskirts of the town that might conceivably
serve students at Jackson Heights Technical College. Ethan is now Pastor Ethan Taylor, Davis his associate Youth Pastor, Jamie and Lane attend the chapel and have recently enrolled at the college. Jamie is studying design, Lane hopes to become an engineer.

  The screen is divided into four viewing blocks. One for each lapel-pin camera. At first it makes me dizzy trying to follow the moving footage. Camera one is Ethan – top-left of the screen. Davis camera two, Lane and Jamie, three and four, in order of approach. They follow the embankment in a loose group to a set of narrow steps that climb between the trees to the sidewalk above. I lean to see them through the van window but they’re out of sight.

  The second monitor displays the current readings detected by each of their trackers. Blood pressure, heart rate, brainwaves, ETR, body temperature. A pulsing graph of coloured lines dancing next to a list of changing numbers. Helena is supposed to be explaining the readout to me as we go – showing me how to operate the instrumentation – but she seems to have been struck mute with anxiety.

  My own breathing seems far too loud in my head. I have to wall myself off from Helena – the sound of her heart and the frenetic pulse of her signal. The volume through the headset increases and the team climbs the crowded steps to the party. It must be nine-thirty and it’s packed. There’s jostling and movement as they file in. My skin puckers at the thought of all the accidental touching. I have to remind myself that Michael Jessop is the only registered Spark in the area. The Warden found no other readings. No new Shields. Nothing.

  Ethan mutters something. Davis grunts in reply. Lane hums along to the blaring music. Jamie says nothing. Every screen shows faces turning to look. Some of the partygoers are subtle. Some of them aren’t. Double takes. Eyebrows lifting. Slow smiles. Parting lips. Even a couple of head to toe and back again appraisals. It’s difficult for me not to stare at the bottom-right screen. Jamie gets attention from girls and boys.