Fuse

by Julianna Baggott

  Shaken, she scans the field that rises to a hill and then the distant perimeter of trees.

  That’s when she sees what seems like a three-headed Groupie, furred in greenery. She pulls back on the reins, and the horse slows. It isn’t a Groupie. She sees the pale faces—Bradwell, El Capitan, Helmud. She gives the horse a kick and gallops toward them.

  This close, she can see that only Bradwell’s face is blanched and slack. El Capitan and Helmud are looking at her, but with a distant look in their eyes as if they aren’t really seeing her at all. The blood on the gauze wrapped around El Capitan’s head has hardened and blackened. She pulls back on the reins. The horse stops; she swings her leg off and slides to the ground. She sets Fignan down and runs to them. “What happened? What is this?”

  “Souls,” El Capitan whispers.

  “Souls,” Helmud says.

  She sees the knife on the ground, picks it up, and almost starts to saw at the vines, but El Capitan shouts, “No. It only gets worse. They grow back.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He just shakes his head. “Don’t.”

  She kneels, reaches up, and holds Bradwell’s face in her hands. “Bradwell!” she shouts. She cups her hand to his parted lips and feels the faintest hint of warm breath. “He’s alive.”

  “We’re bound,” El Capitan says. “We’ll die together.”

  “No,” she says, and she stares at the vines, looping endlessly around their bodies. “There has to be a root. If I can get to that . . .”

  “Steal our souls,” El Capitan says.

  “Souls,” Helmud says.

  She runs her eyes over the vines frantically, searching for a common source. She puts her fingertips on a thin vine, hoping for some sense of a pulse, some energy she can follow. Finally, she feels more tension in one of the vines. She follows the tension as the vine winds down Bradwell’s body, across his chest, over one hip, around his leg. She keeps with this one vine, feeling a vibration as if the cord is really alive, as if somewhere—maybe deep in the earth itself—it has a beating heart.

  As the vine cuffs Bradwell’s ankle and then passes down below the heel of his boot, she grabs the knife again. She pins the vine to the ground with her doll-head fist and cuts it as fast as she can. The vine snaps and recoils into the ground with the hiss of a snake.

  The thorns break, suddenly brittle and dry. She rips a fistful of vines from Bradwell’s chest and then another from El Capitan’s shoulder all the way down his arm.

  Once his arm is loose, he starts clawing at the vines on his and Helmud’s bodies but Bradwell slumps to the ground. Pressia now sees all the blood. Thousands of tiny cuts all over him. She rolls him to his side. The birds are limp on his back. If they die, does that mean he will too?

  She cups his face. “Bradwell!” she says. “Bradwell!”

  He doesn’t wake up, doesn’t move.

  “Cap,” she says.

  El Capitan shakes his head. “Don’t make me say those words.”

  “Those words,” Helmud says.

  “He’s not going to die!” Pressia says. “I won’t let him.” She grips his shirt, pierced with holes and wet with blood. “Bradwell! I’m here! It’s Pressia!” Her voice cracks. “Itchy knee!” She shouts the words from her dream of telephone poles, the words they said together when they thought they would freeze to death in each other’s arms. “Sun, she go!”

  His eyes flutter open and squint. He purses his lips and whispers, “Did you get it?”

  “I did. Yes.” Her hands are shaking. There’s too much blood. The center of his shirt is soaked. She finds a small hole, rips his shirt wide open. Along the center of his chest, the thorns have chewed an incision as if he were cut by a knife, as if the thorns were serrated like teeth.

  She starts crying. “It’s okay,” she says, “it’s okay. It’s okay.”

  “Pressia,” Bradwell says. “I’m not going to make it. But you will. You’ll save them.”

  “No!” she says. “El Capitan, tell him that it’s going to be okay!”

  El Capitan shakes his head. He stands up heavily, steadying himself by holding on to the trunk of a lean tree. “I can’t.” He reaches out to another tree. He staggers toward the horse, standing elegantly in the field. She knows that he’s giving her privacy. He’s telling her that now is the time to say what she needs to say—including good-bye.

  This makes her angry. She isn’t saying good-bye, because this isn’t the end. She puts her hands on Bradwell’s face. She’s crying—hot, angry tears. She’s crying so hard that she can barely speak. “You’re going to be okay. You can’t die.”

  “It’s not up to you,” he says.

  She curls forward, feeling her mother’s vials dig sharply into her ribs, and she remembers the Dust near the amusement park, how its hand healed and swelled, strong and muscled. She has two of her mother’s syringes. They push the body to self-generate cells. Why not Bradwell’s wounds? “I can fix this!” She lifts her sweater and unwinds the cloth that holds the vials in place. She holds them up. “Look.”

  He shakes his head. “I want to die Pure, Pressia.”

  She shakes her head. “The drugs can be dangerous, but this is the time to take that risk.”

  “I’m Pure already. You are too. Let me die that way.” He reaches up and touches her face. “Promise me.”

  She nods. She’ll agree with anything he says. She wants him to stay with her. “Okay,” she says, as if she’s negotiating with him. “Just promise me you’ll stay awake. Don’t leave me.”

  He shakes his head. “You’ll miss me,” he says.

  “Listen to me, Bradwell! You can’t go.”

  But he closes his eyes. His face looks calm, peaceful. She whispers, “No, no, no.” She couldn’t save her mother or Sedge. There was nothing she could do. But this time there is. She looks at Bradwell’s face, the two beautiful scars running down his cheek. She promised she’d let him die Pure. She promised.

  But she’s desperate. She’ll never have this moment back—the moment when he can still be saved. She sets down the syringes, pulls off his coat, and rips a tear in the back of his shirt, exposing his bloody back and the three birds, their bodies entwined forever with his. Two look dead already. Their claws stiff, their eyes glassy But the third ruffles its wings and blinks at her.

  She picks up one of the syringes. Her hands are shaking so badly that she can barely uncap the needle. Quickly, she fills it with the contents of the vial. She pushes the thumb rest just enough so that the plunger releases a small bead of thick, golden liquid.

  She promised to let him die Pure, but she didn’t promise to let the birds die too. They’re connected—Bradwell and the birds—forever. She’ll inject the birds. It’s a loophole, a crazy loophole.

  She wedges the needle under the feathers on the back of one of the birds and slowly injects it with about a third of the serum. The bird opens its wings and jerks and bucks for a moment or two and then settles down. She injects the second bird and then the third until the syringe is empty.

  She crawls over Bradwell’s legs to face him again, and she runs her hand through his hair. “Bradwell,” she whispers.

  He doesn’t move. He doesn’t blink. His lips are parted but he’s not going to speak.

  She sobs, her ribs convulsing. Her heart throbs in her chest. She covers her mouth with her hand and then tells herself that he’s going to come back. She can’t lose him, not now. They’ve come so far.

  He’s coming back.

  He’s coming back.

  She lies down on the bloody ground, the curve of her body against the curve of his.

  He’s coming back.

  She pulls his arm, heavy with muscle, around her waist. She stares out into the field. El Capitan and Helmud are standing by the horse, whose muzzle is bent to the grass.

  And then she hears a breath. Bradwell’s arm tightens around her. His hand curls into a fist.

  She turns her head.

  His e
yes are wide.

  He moans and then cries out in pain. Even under the dried blood, she can see the wound on his bare chest—the skin and exposed muscle—stitching itself back together. Each small nick tightens to a hardened knot of skin.

  Bradwell says her name, just once. “Pressia.”

  She hears her name in the distance too. It’s El Capitan. She hears a pretty voice ringing through the trees, singing her name. Could it be Helmud’s?

  She stands up and sees El Capitan loping toward her. “He’s back!” she shouts. “I brought him back!”

  El Capitan’s face is ghostly white, frozen in a grim mask. Terrified. “What did you do?” he says as he reachers her.

  And then she hears a feathery shudder—like the thrum of a massive handheld fan. She touches the tree beside her, afraid to turn around. She feels the rough bark under her hand. She looks at El Capitan. His mouth is opened as if he’s about to speak, but he can’t.

  She has to turn and see what he sees. She feels sick, but she twists her head, looks back over her shoulder.

  There is Bradwell—alive but in anguish. He writhes on the ground, flexes, and throws his head back in pain. He staggers to his feet, his bare chest ripped open and now sealing itself, blood-caked, knitting into a long, dark scar. His arms look stronger and, for a second, it seems like he’s wearing a thick, dark cape—a feathered cape.

  But Pressia knows that it’s not a cape. She knows that the birds have taken hold. What else did she think would happen? She isn’t sure, but not this . . .

  Arching from his back in either direction are wings, large and sleek—and not just one set. No. Six wings start to riot on his back. His whole body shaking violently, he looks at Pressia. “What did you do to me?”

  For a few moments, her voice is lost in her throat, and then finally she’s able to tell him, “I brought you back.”

  PARTRIDGE

  KISS

  BECKLEY IS THERE IN THE MORNING, knocking on the door with what sounds like the butt of his gun. Partridge is dressed. The pill sits in the envelope in one pocket of his pants, and the list is in the other. He should destroy the list, but he can’t. He needs to have some kind of truth he can hold on to.

  When Partridge opens the door, he’s not surprised to find Iralene standing in the hall, her arms folded on her chest, her eyes darting around nervously.

  “You ready?” Beckley says.

  Partridge nods, but he’s not ready. He spent the night trying to apply logic to the situation, and he decided that his father isn’t going to kill him. His pinky—nearly grown back now, its nail bud forming above the final knuckle—and his memory swiped clean are proof. His father wouldn’t do these things if he was going to kill him. Why bother? He’s decided that Iralene must have gotten it all wrong somehow. Still, he doesn’t leave the pill behind. Is there some nagging doubt in his mind? Maybe.

  They use the private routes to the medical center and arrive a little early. A tech ushers the three of them to a private room. “You can wait out here,” she says to Beckley. “Guard the door.”

  The room is small and beige. There’s a bed covered in a sheet of white, crinkly paper, a few chairs, a computer fitted into the wall. “I’d like to see my father before this starts,” Partridge says.

  “That’s not part of the plan.”

  “We’re here early, and he’s here, isn’t he?”

  The tech nods but looks flustered. “I can’t okay that kind of thing.”

  “I’d like to see Dr. Weed, then,” Partridge says.

  “I don’t think Dr. Weed was planning a consult before the procedure. You’ll talk to him after.”

  Iralene links her arm around Partridge’s and gives him a small pinch just above his elbow. She says to the tech, “You know who this is, right? Or, should I say, who he’s going to be one day? One day soon, you realize. Very soon.”

  The tech gives a smile that’s more of a twitch in one rouged cheek. “Partridge Willux,” she says. “Of course I know.”

  “And you know that his father’s will and testament is in order. It’s been signed. The transfer of power to his son will be immediate. Do you understand what I’m getting at? So Partridge would like to see his father, okay”—she leans forward, reading the tech’s name tag—“Rosalinda Crandle?”

  “I’ll contact Dr. Weed. I’ll ask for his permission,” she says. “Excuse me.” She hurries out of the room, which is outfitted with a camera mounted in one corner.

  Partridge pulls Iralene in close. He touches her cheek lightly and hides his face by nuzzling her neck. He whispers in her ear, “I’m not going to do it. He’s not going to kill me. It doesn’t add up.”

  She smiles—for the sake of the camera. She kisses him on the cheek and whispers, “You haven’t figured it out yet?”

  He shakes his head.

  She hugs him tightly. She cups her hand to his ear and says, “He wants to live forever. He wants his brain to continue on. His body won’t let this happen. But yours . . .”

  Partridge’s chest courses with burning heat. My body, he thinks. My father needs my body. And suddenly everything clicks into place. This is why he’s transferring power to Partridge. He will be Partridge. He’s going to attempt a transplant. Jesus, is that what Arvin Weed’s team of researchers figured out? Is that why he was being congratulated at the engagement party? When his father’s brain is transplanted into Partridge’s body, he wants a pinky that’s fully intact? Partridge leans into Iralene. He feels dizzy and sick. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

  “I told you he was going to kill you. I don’t like to give any more information than I need to at any given moment. Sometimes your secrets are your only value.”

  He looks at Iralene. “But that means . . . you’d be . . .”

  “This was always part of his plan,” she says, her breath warm on his neck. “I was meant for you, but if he could get the transplant perfected, then . . .”

  “For him?”

  “It’s my role.”

  “And your mother?”

  “Her duty will have been served. She will no longer require resources.”

  Partridge feels sick. He wants to bash the camera, punch the computer, shove over the examination table.

  “You were right,” she whispers to Partridge, playing with his hair. “Willux framed my father. He put him in jail so he could have my mother. It started long ago and far away. Kill him.” Her voice is low. “Do it.”

  He recognizes the pit of fury in her. He has it himself, and it burns now. For himself, for Iralene, for all the survivors and all those in the Dome who’ve lost the ones they’ve loved. For his mother and brother. Loss. So much loss.

  But there are things that still don’t sit right. “His brain,” Partridge says. “It has to be deteriorating alongside all his organs, if not even faster. He had brain enhancements, after all. Why would he think that moving his RCD-ravaged brain into my body would work?”

  Iralene pulls away and grasps his pinky. “As long as some healthy part of his brain is still intact, as long as it has conditions where it can thrive . . .”

  Weed can regrow his brain from the healthy part remaining? If he can manage this kind of re-creation with a pinky, maybe he can do it with brain tissue too. “Okay,” Partridge concedes, but there’s one fact that still doesn’t make sense. “I know why my father might want to have a scarless body to move into, but why swipe my memory? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Do you really expect to understand your father?” Iralene stares at him, steely-eyed. She places her hand on his chest. She whispers, “All I know is that you’ll have forty seconds before the capsule dissolves and releases the poison. If you don’t want the cameras to see, you should . . .” But she doesn’t finish the sentence. Instead she rises on her tiptoes and gives him a light kiss on the lips.

  There’s a knock at the door.

  The tech pokes her head in. “Dr. Weed wanted you to know that your father is also having a light procedure
done today. Something cosmetic. He will be under. But since you haven’t seen him in a long time, Dr. Weed has indicated his approval of a short visit.”

  “Good,” Partridge says. Weed. Is this some small concession? Is this, in the end, his role—to provide this small window, an opportunity for Partridge to kill his father?

  “Beckley will lead you there. But first, you need to be in scrubs.”

  “Is my father contagious?” This could be the worst thing you can accuse someone of in the Dome.

  “No, but we don’t want you to get him sick.”

  “Tell him I want to see him without all that stuff on unless he’s too weak.”

  This flusters the tech even more. She looks at Iralene, who simply smiles at her. She scurries off and disappears. Finally, she returns and only nods.

  “Good,” Partridge says. He feels like he’s won a small battle of wills. It’s good to keep his father a little off balance.

  When they walk down the hall, Partridge notices people crowding together, whispering.

  “What’s going on?” Partridge asks.

  “Nothing,” Beckley whispers.

  “I want to know.”

  “A prisoner brought in from the outside. A wretch.” Docs are running in and out. There are technicians on hand, a few of them wearing full contamination suits.

  “A wretch?” Iralene says.

  “What are you talking about?” Partridge says. “How could a wretch get into the Dome?”

  Beckley shakes his head and smirks. “I’ve got orders not to talk. This is high-level-clearance information.”

  “But Beckley, I’m scared,” Iralene says. She stops walking and grabs hold of Beckley’s biceps. Her eyes are suddenly filled with tears. Partridge isn’t sure how she does it.

  “Don’t be, Iralene,” Beckley says. “Supposedly there was an attack on the Dome, but it didn’t accomplish much. They hauled in one wretch for questioning and probably to make an example out of her.”

  “Her?” Partridge says.

  “Well, yeah,” Beckley says, “but you wouldn’t know it was a girl, what with her hair buzzed like it is.”