by John Dixon
“I can’t wait any longer,” she said. “I have to see. I have to know.”
“We must follow protocol.”
She told him where he could shove his protocol. “Tell Crossman I quit.”
Bleaker stood, his mouth a straight line, and left the room.
She called after him weakly—it was the best she could manage through her pain and exhaustion—but he didn’t even look back.
Great, just great.
She let her head fall forward onto the desk. There were no tears, only pain and fatigue and the leaden weight of failure and long frustration.
You blew it, she told herself. Pushed too hard, too fast, and blew it.
Out of spite, she pushed again, hard, this time at nothing at all. The line of pain in her skull gave a sharp twang, making her hiss, and then something changed. . . .
Sitting there with her forehead pressed to the desktop, she could feel the room around her. Some part of her mind for which she had no name reached with invisible hands and touched the walls and floor, Bleaker’s empty chair and the staring camera. She could feel the Bunker itself, a mile of stone and steel, crushing down on her like the world’s heaviest coffin lid.
Then she felt something else—or rather someone else—in motion, coming closer. It would have been amazing, were it not for her crippling pain and despair. She could actually feel someone approaching out in the hall, could even feel the stiff manner in which he walked. Bleaker, offended, coming back to tell her to pack her bags, she was out of the program. . . .
But when the door opened and she lifted her head, it was not Bleaker coming into the room but a lean, hard-looking man in a navy-blue suit, staring at her through cold blue eyes she knew all too well.
Director Crossman dropped a sketchpad and pencil onto the desk. “Dr. Bleaker tells me you’re playing hardball.”
She nodded. Even that small motion cranked the pain and summoned nausea from wherever it had tenuously retreated.
“Okay,” Crossman said, and spread his arms. “You win. We’re moving on.”
She glanced at the pencil and pad and shook her head. “I’ve been drawing for weeks.”
And she had. Only drawing wasn’t the right word for what she’d been doing. Like ghosting cards, this new form of drawing, in another place at another time, would have been mind-blowing.
They would give her pencil and paper and tell her to sketch an object. First, it was a brick. Then an archery target, circles inside of circles. Then a basket of fruit, a vase of flowers. She’d drawn them perfectly—only it hadn’t really been like drawing.
Trying to draw from imagination, she was stuck with the same so-so doodling ability she’d always had, but if she sketched a real thing, all she needed to do was begin—a single line would do—and the rest was a matter of position and proportion, one line or curve in relation to others, and these lengths and distances and angles she could feel with more accuracy than she could see. And as she felt these facets, her hand moved, marking the paper as if guided by the very thing she was sketching.
Truly amazing—but again, she’d already learned this trick.
She crossed her arms. “I told Bleaker. Teach me something new, or I quit. No mission, no nothing.”
Crossman’s smile was icy. “He made that clear. Do you really think I’d be here otherwise?” He turned and opened the door, and she was certain she’d overplayed her hand, but instead of marching out, he called into the hallway.
A muscular boy around her age stumbled into the room. Or at least she thought he was her age—it was difficult to say with the sack of red cloth covering his head.
Seeing his broad shoulders, perfect physique, and big hands, hope sprung up and soared within her—but then crashed down as she really saw him. He was too tall. His shoulders were broad yet not broad enough, just as his hands were large yet not large enough. . . .
“Map him,” Crossman said.
“What—draw him?”
Crossman shook his head. “Map him. Sketch his face.”
“You mean the”—she was about to say mask, but that wasn’t accurate—“hood?”
“I mean the face,” Crossman said. His own face looked absolutely serious, even impatient. “Focus. Look through the hood, beyond it. View his face like a landscape. Move over its contours. Map it.”
“I don’t—”
Crossman scowled. “You wanted progress. This is your chance.”
“I,” she said, starting to protest, meaning to tell Crossman that he was crazy—this wasn’t a step ahead, it was a mile’s jump forward—but then she reconsidered. She had to know. Even if she split her head in half, she had to try. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll give it a shot.”
He nodded and stepped aside.
The boy stood five feet away, still as a statue, save for his breathing.
All right, she told herself. Focus.
For a second, she just sat there, staring at the red hood, careful not to push too hard, telling herself, Don’t burn out. Not now. This is it. Take your time.
Her eyes blurred with the pain in her skull.
So stop trying to use your eyes to see him, she thought, and when she closed her eyes, the ghost appeared.
It was like flying over a land obscured by fog. She could sense topography behind the cloaking mist, could feel it, she just couldn’t see it. . . .
Push harder, she told herself, growling as flames filled her skull, the pain so severe that her gorge rose.
The mist swirled, and—yes!—she glimpsed a line, there and gone, like a ridge of stone seen from an airplane through a quick break in rolling cloud cover.
His nose?
No, she corrected herself. Don’t guess. Don’t put yourself into this. See the lines. Feel the truth. Don’t imagine him; map him.
Breathing through her nostrils, she concentrated despite the pain and nausea, and when the line came once more into view, her hand moved, sketching. She did not think about what she was seeing—did not try to name the part—nor did she check what she was drawing.
And suddenly she was drawing. Her hand moved faster and faster as she explored the boy’s face, not actually seeing it but sensing its contours, her mind reaching out like the fingers of a blind person reading a new acquaintance’s features. Inch by inch, she moved away from the first line, and as her hand sketched, she slid into something like rapture, her mind and body reading and recording with seemingly no thought of her own, no interpretation. The ghost disappeared entirely, and there was only the feel of his face, the truth of every line and curve and angle. Her hand moved faster and faster until she felt dizzy with the speed of it all, a kind of pressure building and building within her until her head snapped back and her eyes opened and she was fully aware of herself, the room, the boy in the red hood, Crossman looking at her through narrowed eyes, and the absolute fountain of pain and nausea gushing within her.
Before her was an incredibly detailed, almost photographic sketch. She’d seen none of it while drawing—a true forest-for-the-trees moment—but now she leaned back and saw the whole thing, not a forest but a face, a good face, a face that would have been handsome, very handsome, if it weren’t for the pain and the nausea. . . .
“Well done,” Crossman said, offering a rare smile. He lifted the red hood, revealing the exact face she’d just sketched: the black bangs, the dark soulful eyes, the bright smile, and dimples, everything accurate down to the scar splitting one eyebrow. “Allow me to introduce your boyfriend.”
“My . . . boyfriend?” she said, a tornado of pain whirling all through her now, spinning down out of her head, dipping into her stomach then lifting again.
“Yes,” Crossman said. “Your boyfriend, Julio.”
Julio stuck out his hand and stepped forward, saying something that she never heard . . . because at that moment, the girl now known as Margarita Carbajal squeezed her eyes shut and vomited all over Julio’s outstretched hand.
THREE
BREAKING FROM THE J
UNGLE, Carl stepped into the bright sun beating down on the stone ridge that ran like a spine across the center of Phoenix Island. Glancing left, he saw the sheer cliff and felt the old fear, faint now in its power over him.
He paused for a moment, struck as always by the beauty of this elevated vantage point, the island sprawling greenly away toward the sparkling ocean that defined the limits of his world. Straight ahead, the rocky ridge led to the apex of Phoenix Island, atop which Stark’s silhouette blocked, punched, and kicked as if engaged in combat with invisible opponents. Carl’s eyes, so different now that the chip had become a part of him, focused, drawing Stark into clearer detail until it was like looking through binoculars—or, he thought, the scope of a high-powered rifle—and he could make out the snarl of concentration, the determined eyes, even the sheen of sweat glistening on the shaven head.
Carl had wondered, when he’d returned to the empty hangar and found Stark’s invitation to the train atop the mountain, what they’d be doing. Now he knew, and it came as no surprise: more kata, more choreographed combat, every move practiced to perfection. Stark believed in repetition.
Stark spotted him then, broke form, and beckoned, calling, “Come on up, son, and give me your full report on Recruit Dubois.”
Carl climbed up to the flat peak and delivered his full report in five words: “Feed him to the sharks.”
Stark laughed. “Outstanding. But I’m surprised to hear this from you. Certainly you know that anger is defeat.”
True enough—Carl had often used opponents’ anger against them—but sometimes feeling was stronger than knowing. Sometimes rage trumped truth.
He had always struggled with his temper, but rage was different in him now. Stronger and more demanding, manifesting within him another Carl, one capable of horrific things—like that day early in his apprenticeship, when, out of the blue, he’d snapped on Sanderson and nearly beaten him to death. Since that nightmare afternoon, he had been on guard against his rage. Was the chip trying to reprogram him into a killer? A terrifying notion . . .
“He’s a punk,” Carl said, feeling only normal anger now. “He acted all friendly. Then he tried to take my head off.”
Stark scooped up a small stone and flung it out into the open air.
Carl tracked it, his eyes autofocusing as the rock dropped in a spinning plummet toward the canopy, and he felt a curious unease, as if the little stone might suck him into its wake, pull him once more into the void that had almost killed him several months earlier, when boys now dead or beneath his unofficial command had hunted him with spears and knives and guns.
“Of course,” Stark said, turning to him with a dangerous smile, “if you’re serious, I’ll see that he’s shark food within the hour.”
A tempting concept—Tex had tried to kill him, after all—but Carl knew Stark meant it. He shook his head.
“In that case,” Stark said, “I believe I’ll keep him around.”
“What’s so special about him?” Carl said. “He’s just one more psychopath.”
Stark nodded slightly. “Psychopaths can be useful in their own way. Besides, I believe there is more to Texarkana Reginald Dubois than meets the eye.”
Carl kicked a stone across the flat summit but not hard enough to send it over the edge. The sun was very bright up here, very hot. With barely a thought, he dialed back his body temperature.
“Your idealism blinds you,” Stark said. “It’s neurotic and foolish, even dangerous, for a leader to evaluate someone on only his worst trait.”
“Maybe I’m not a leader, then.”
“You’d rather be a follower?”
“Maybe I’m not a leader or a follower,” Carl said. “Maybe I’m just me.”
Stark seemed to consider this. “Whether or not you wish to lead, people will follow you.”
Carl started to say more but reined himself in. Anger had already loosened his tongue. He couldn’t allow it to ruin everything, not after six months of pretending to be Stark’s loyal apprentice, six months during which he’d hated himself for bumbling around like Hamlet, waiting, waiting, waiting. . . . But what choice did he have? If he acted rashly, if he rebelled or fled the island, someone would call the mainland, and one of Stark’s monsters—dressed, perhaps, as a nurse or an orderly or even a doctor—would enter Octavia’s room and press a pillow over her face, and . . .
No. He couldn’t strike until he was certain of total victory, and for that, he needed access to Stark’s computers: his documents, the location of Octavia’s hospital, video clips of training exercises and Phoenix Force’s atrocities, and the ability to contact government agencies. However he gained access, he needed to do so quickly. Stark had temporarily halted chip implantation, wanting time to study Carl’s progress prior to chipping others. Once he flipped that switch, there would be no stopping him. What havoc would hundreds of chipped, combat-experienced, and fanatically loyal Phoenix Forcers unleash on the world?
Stark was bent on destroying civilization and blasting humanity back into the Stone Age. In this twisted future, hobbled survivors would worship a new Olympus: Stark and his pantheon of genetically and technologically augmented gods. It didn’t matter to Carl that he was slated to play Apollo to Stark’s Zeus. He didn’t desire power. He wanted only to stop the madman and save Octavia.
Stark stooped again, this time picking up not a stone but a handful of loose grit. He let dirt and pebbles sift slowly from fist to palm, seeming to study each fragment. “Tell me,” he said. “What is the most valuable trait a soldier under your command could possess?”
Carl thought for a moment—Stark valued many traits, including bravery, composure, intelligence, strength, and endurance—then said, “Training.”
“Training is indeed valuable, even indispensable, but no,” Stark said. He lifted his palm and blew, expelling a gritty cloud and leaving only a few larger chips of stone. “The most valuable trait is loyalty.”
“Loyalty?” Carl didn’t bother to keep doubt out of his voice. As a mentor, Stark didn’t mind questions. He was more concerned with answers.
“Loyalty.”
“More valuable than training? More valuable than guts or strength or brains?”
“Yes,” Stark said, and tossed away the remaining chips. “A loyal soldier will go to his own doom on his commander’s whim. A disloyal soldier will doom his commander on his own whim.”
“Fair enough,” Carl said, “but if you’re a good leader, can’t you assume loyalty?”
Stark snorted. “Start assuming loyalty, son, and you won’t lead long.”
Fine by me, Carl thought.
Stark said, “Until very recently, civilization valued loyalty above all other traits. Consider a samurai’s loyalty to his emperor, a knight’s loyalty to his king, or the gallant loyalty of those poor Confederates serving under Pickett on Gettysburg’s fateful third day.”
Carl nodded. They had covered a lot of military history over the last six months.
“This modern age of self-worship would have us discard honor for individuality, but reverence for loyalty—and a corresponding loathing of disloyalty—stretch all the way back to the very roots of Western civilization. Certainly the Greek myths prove this. And what of Dante? Have you finished his Inferno?”
Carl shook his head. “Not yet.” He could read very quickly now—two pages every ten seconds or so, one eye reading one page, the other eye reading the opposite—with absolute retention, but that only worked for straightforward material: handbooks, simple prose, and, thanks to the way his mind now processed notation, chess manuals. He was still stuck, however, with his own vocabulary, so trying to read Dante’s Inferno was like trying to run through chest-deep water, every line an Olympic length. At this point, he’d struggled through enough to understand the gist: Dante’s tour of hell’s nine circles, with sections of each ring reserved for sinners of a specific stripe.
“Spoiler alert,” Stark said with a smile. “Dante’s hell is much like the Greek un
derworld. Asphodel, Styx, it’s all in there, and the Greeks’ idealized punishments live on in the Inferno’s contrapasso . . . poetic justice in scale with sin. Outside the gates, Dante saw those who had done neither good nor evil in life, fated in death to mill eternally in limbo, but Virgil led him down through the circles, past pagans and adulterers, gluttons and suicides, lower and lower, the punishments growing ever more severe the deeper Dante descended, until at last they arrived at the lowest, the most severe level of hell.”
“The ninth circle,” Carl said.
“Not a lake of fire,” Stark said, “but a lake of ice, the lake itself tiered, with its lowermost level known as . . . ?”
Carl shrugged.
“Judecca. Named for . . .?”
Carl could only shrug again.
“Judas.”
“Like the cow?” Carl asked. Stark had told him of how, when nervous herds scheduled for processing wouldn’t enter a slaughterhouse, workers would introduce a trained “Judas cow” that would mix with the herd, then lead the way up the ramp. Cows, being cows, would follow. At the top of the ramp, just before the conveyor belt that would suck incoming beeves to their bloody deaths, workers would divert the Judas cow. By that time, the herd would be pressing hard from below, and the cows in front would stumble forward into the factory of death.
Stark laughed. “Not exactly, though if beasts faced the abyss, Judas cows would undoubtedly belong in the lake of ice. Judecca was named for Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Christ.”
“Oh,” Carl said, feeling stupid.
“The lowest level of hell was reserved for the treacherous,” Stark said, “and Judecca itself was reserved for the absolute worst sinners, those who had betrayed their benefactors.”
“Oh,” Carl said again, not liking the direction of this discussion.
Stark turned and surveyed the sparkling ocean. “Loyalty is the central pillar of humanity, society, and goodness. And as a leader of men, no matter what the outside world would have you believe, loyalty is the most valuable currency. Instill it in your troops, and you will march to victory. Forge on without it, and you and your men are so many cows on a conveyor belt.”