by Kelli Kimble
“Fiona,” I said. “I’m so glad to see you. We didn’t think you’d come.”
“Of course, I came,” she said. “I came to see you three. I couldn’t believe when they came. How have these people survived? Just look at this place.” She gazed around for a moment, but then her eyes locked back on me.
“I’ve missed you,” Tennie said. She started to cry.
Leif and I backed away to allow Fiona to comfort her with soothing shushes as she stroked her hair. “It’s all right,” Fiona said.
“No, it isn’t.” Tennie flashed a look around to see if anyone was near. Only Tabitha was within earshot, and she already knew how Tennie felt. “We’re being held here, and they want us to swear some kind of oath of allegiance—to live like them.”
“It’s not all that bad,” Fiona said. She looked at me. “You could find a mate here. Have a family. You wouldn’t have done that in the mountain.” Fiona’s eye twitched a little as she said it.
“We could all find mates,” Tennie said. “But, we won’t be free to live as we like.”
“Actually,” Tabitha said, stepping up to our group. “There is very little interference. The rules are basic.” She ticked them off on her hand. “Don’t steal; don’t kill; perform a useful job—which you can choose; contribute to the community garden. That’s pretty much it.”
“And marry as many people as you like. At the same time. And be punished if you don’t do that?” Tennie asked.
“There were extenuating circumstances,” Tabitha said. She paused for a moment. “It’s time to go inside.” She pointed to the doors, where two men were standing to hold them open for us. We moved inside and were ushered into a room with chairs, where we were told to have a seat.
◆◆◆
The day passed in a blur, mostly with me thinking about Tabby. I tried to pay attention, but with her sitting so close, it was hard. She was sitting at the front of the room, next to where our instructor stood. The instructor was a telepath and was using her to speak to us. She repeated his words with little intonation, and from the way she ground her teeth and glared at him when he wasn’t looking, I’d bet he was critical of her performance.
At the end of the day, we were given a practice exam. I didn’t pass, and Tabby gave me a look of concern when she handed me my results. But, then, it was time to separate from Fiona and the others—who’d largely ignored the three of us—and return to our own house with Tabby.
She lectured me the whole way back. Even Tennie had passed the exam, after all her talk of resistance. “You’ve only got one more day to figure this out, Silver. You’ve got to pay attention,” Tabby said.
“I’m trying. But, the teacher is so pretty,” I said. I thought I’d been quiet enough that Tennie and Leif wouldn’t hear me. But, Leif gaped over his shoulder at me. I widened my eyes at him, willing him to turn back around, and he did, but Tabby laughed.
“The teacher’s a jerk,” she said. “It’s your translator that’s pretty.” I smiled, but she nudged me in the side with her elbow. “This is serious. I’m going to have to tutor you.”
That didn’t seem like a punishment to me, but I left it alone.
◆◆◆
Three days later, I was a sworn citizen of the Great Salt Lake. With such dire consequences, nobody failed the exam, and even Tennie managed to blurt out the oath of allegiance well enough to be accepted. When the ceremony was over, we were given our individual housing assignments and allowed to select from a pool of available jobs. Preia directed me towards a job at the power plant, which Tabby told me I should refuse. It was a high-ranking job, but Tabby thought I wouldn’t enjoy it. Several of my siblings did take Preia up on the offer, though. I took a job in the food-services department, delivering food to people who couldn’t leave their homes for some reason or another.
We were all assigned to small, separate apartments in the same building. It wasn’t as nice as the house we’d stayed in before, but it had a bed, a table and chairs, a bathroom, and a tiny kitchen. I settled into life amongst my siblings and the Great Salt Lake citizens alike. I saw Tabby as much as she would consent to, and everything seemed good.
Then, Maestro got sick.
Fiona came to my apartment to tell me. Her face was drawn and pale, and her hands shook when she accepted a cup of tea. “He’s really bad, Silver. I don’t know what to do,” she said.
“There are doctors here. Have you taken him to see one?”
“The doctors say it’s nothing, just the flu. But, you should see him. He looks terrible.”
Without meaning to, I tsked. “You know we don’t get along. He doesn’t want to see me, and what can I do about it, anyway?”
Someone knocked on the door, and then it swung open to reveal Tabby. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had a visitor,” she said, lurking in the doorway. “Should I come back later?”
I stood up and kissed her, not caring that Tabby didn’t want others to know about our relationship. She blushed and glanced at Fiona. But, Fiona didn’t seem to register it at all. “One of my siblings is sick,” I said. “Fiona was here, telling me about it.” I guided Tabby to sit at the table beside Fiona and went about getting a cup of tea for her. “My brother, Maestro. You remember him?”
“The one you wanted revenge against,” Tabby said.
Fiona laughed. “I like you,” she said. “You’ll be good with Silver.”
Tabby started to protest, but I set her teacup in front of her. “I know,” I said.
“But, I’m worried about Maestro, Silver. Please, won’t you visit him? There’s something very wrong.”
“What are his symptoms?” Tabby asked.
“Vomiting, headache, diarrhea, fever,” she ticked them off on her hand. “Yesterday, he started to complain of dizziness, as well. The doctors say its influenza—that he needs rest and fluids. But, he’s had those for over a week. How can he still be ill?”
Tabby licked her lips and nodded.
“You don’t seem surprised,” Fiona said.
“I’m not,” Tabby said. “It’s happened before.”
“So, what do we do? Will he get better?” I asked.
Tabby shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
A prickle went down my spine. In my days of historic research, I remembered cases of one group of people bringing a disease to another group and killing them off. Were we susceptible to some virus here because we were outsiders? “Is it contagious?” I asked.
“Not from him, no,” she said.
“How did he get it? What is it?” Fiona demanded.
Tabby shook her head. “I can’t say.”
Fiona inhaled a sharp breath. “Can’t or won’t?”
“Fiona,” I said. “Tabby is in a precarious position . . . ”
She cut me off. “Aren’t we full-fledged citizens, just like her? Why shouldn’t we know how to protect ourselves from some known disease?”
“I can’t really talk to you about this,” Tabby said. “I could get in a lot of trouble.”
“But, Maestro could die, Tabitha. Surely, you don’t want to be responsible for that,” Fiona said.
Tabby shrugged. “I’m sorry to say that he’ll die, no matter what you or I do. The doctors can’t save him, and he’ll probably die within the week.”
Internally, I flinched at her blasé attitude. How could she be so callous, to just shrug this off? But, I put a hand over hers. “Why can’t you talk about it?”
“My service of good works isn’t over. But, the punishment for talking to you about this is way worse than doing good works.”
Fiona squinted at her. “Maybe I don’t like you and Silver together after all,” she said. “You don’t seem to have a very strong moral center.”
Tabby stood. “My moral center is trying to keep me and the rest of my family alive.” She went to the door and glanced back over her shoulder at Fiona. “I thought you, of all people, could relate to that. I guess not.” She went out into the hall and
was closing the door when I caught the knob.
“Wait, Tabby,” I said, pulling it open. “Don’t go like this.” I managed to grab her arm, but she wrenched it away.
“She thinks she can judge me for not protecting her family. Well, I’m protecting mine, and what has she ever done for me, anyway?” She turned and stalked away.
“It’s not like that, Tabby,” I said. “Wait!” But, I could already hear her feet slapping down the stairs. She was gone. I turned and went back into the apartment.
Fiona whirled on me as I came back to the table. “She’s hiding something from us. From you.”
“She’ll come around,” I said. “She needs time. She’s afraid.”
“You should be afraid of losing your brother.” She jabbed her finger at me as she said it. “Whether you get along or not, you’ll be sorry when he’s dead, and you did nothing.”
“Fine. I’ll go with you to see him. Let’s go.” I stalked back to the door and held it open. Fiona went out into the hall, and I followed her to Maestro’s apartment, two floors above mine. She opened the door without knocking, and as she did, a cluster of my siblings sitting at the table turned to look. They brightened as Fiona entered, but as each of them registered my presence behind her, their expressions dulled.
“How is he?” Fiona asked.
“The same,” Opal said, popping up from the table.
“We’d like to see him,” Fiona said. She didn’t mean it as a request; she was only stating why we were there. But, the atmosphere immediately turned sour.
“He isn’t welcome here,” said one of my siblings, whom I’d never bothered to remember. He tossed his hair back as he said it, lifting his nose high, as if he’d smelled something rotten.
Fiona shot him a withering look. “He’s here with me, and you can sit down and mind your own business. Come on, Silver.”
Heat flooded my cheeks, and I cast my eyes down to the floor as I followed her into the bedroom. The smell of urine and feces came at me as I entered, and I had to pause to suppress my instinct to gag. Maestro was in the bed, looking somewhat smaller than the last time I’d seen him. His eyes were closed, and his mouth was hanging open.
Paisley sat in a chair next to the bed, reading. She glanced up when we came in and put her finger in her book to keep her place. “Fiona. Silver,” she said.
“How is he?” Fiona asked.
Paisley shook her head. “No different. I don’t really know what more to do for him. Maybe we should take him back to the doctor.”
Fiona sighed.
“What?” she asked. “Maybe the doctor could help him now. He’s stopped vomiting.”
I shook my head. “The doctor isn’t being straight with you,” I said. “I don’t think he’s going to survive.”
Paisley dropped her book on the bed and rushed toward me, crowding me towards the open door and shushing. “Don’t talk like that,” she hissed. “He’ll hear you.”
“Don’t,” Maestro said, his voice a low croak. “Silver’s right. I’m dying. I don’t need him or a doctor to tell me that.”
Fiona dropped to her knees next to the bed and took Maestro’s hand into hers. She rubbed his knuckles over the back of her cheek for a second. “I’ll do everything I can for you. I promise. So will Silver. Right, Silver?” She didn’t look at me as she said it. But, her meaning was clear: I had to get what I could out of Tabby.
I coughed into my hand once and shifted my feet. “Yeah, uh. Right,” I finally said.
“Hey, come here, Silver,” Maestro said. He patted the bed with his free hand. “Give us a minute, would you?”
Fiona got to her feet and swiped imaginary dirt from her pants. Then, she gave me a pointed look and announced they’d be right outside the door. She guided Paisley out, then swept out herself, pulling the door almost shut behind her.
“Thought they’d never leave,” he said, smiling weakly. He opened his eyes for a moment and looked at me. I hadn’t moved, and he gestured towards the chair with his fingers, making an obvious effort to move as little as possible. “I love them, but they sure know how to smother.”
I sat in the chair Paisley had vacated and looked around the room. I struggled for something to say. “Your apartment’s nice,” I said.
“You don’t have to make small talk,” he said.
I cleared my throat. “Okay,” I said.
“It’s obvious I’m not going to get better, and I wanted to clear the air between us. You know, as brothers.” He met my gaze and held it. “So, I wanted to say I’m sorry about the hard time I gave you over your, uh, project. I shouldn’t have done that. It was uncalled for, and I should’ve been supportive. I apologize.”
I gaped at him. “All right,” I said, half-convinced I hadn’t heard him right. “I accept your apology.”
“Do you have anything to say to me?”
“Um, I appreciate the help you gave me, when I got out of the tanks,” I said.
“I did that for everyone. It wasn’t anything special.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t easy, though, and I appreciated your help.”
“Yeah. I didn’t mean that.”
I suppressed the urge to sigh. “Then, what did you mean?”
“I mean,” he said, in the strongest voice he’d summoned since I came into the room, “that I’m lying here, dying, because of you. Because of your stupid quest.”
I drew back as if he’d taken a swing at me, though naturally, he hadn’t. He didn’t have the strength.
He shook his head. “You never even thought of that, did you? How if you’d just stayed where you belonged and did what Fiona said, we’d all still be back in the mountain? Healthy and happy?”
“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” I said. “I didn’t know there were other people. We all thought we were alone—the last of our kind.” My hands were starting to sweat, and I wiped them on my pants. “Do the others feel this way? That being here is my fault?”
“Of course, they do. Only an idiot wouldn’t be able to see that.”
I felt frozen to the seat. They’d all been brought here, against their will, because I’d gone looking for something. Something that didn’t need to be found. Something of no consequence at all.
“So? Are you going to apologize?” he asked.
Before I even knew what I was doing, I’d shot up out of the chair and was out the door. Fiona and Paisley were standing beside the door, and I nearly knocked Paisley over in my rush.
“What’s the matter? Is he all right?” Paisley demanded. Her face was pinched with concern.
I paused only long enough to say he was just as they had left him. Then, I made my way to the apartment door. More siblings had collected, and I pushed my way through them.
“Silver,” Fiona said. But, I didn’t want to speak to her.
I finally reached the door and exited. But, I didn’t want to return to my apartment. Fiona would be at my door momentarily, and I didn’t want to talk to her. My feet skimmed over the stairs, hardly making any sound in my rush. Or maybe it was just my labored breathing, drowning out the sound. I pushed out the door and onto the street. I glanced behind me, but nobody was following. I didn’t know where I was going, but I had to move—had to escape this feeling—and it wasn’t until I got there that I realized what I was doing.
I steeled my resolve, and I went inside.
Chapter 11
Preia didn’t look up from her desk when I barged in to her office. My chest was heaving, and I stood in place, the door creaking on its hinges as it slowly came to a stop from my violent entry. “I need answers,” I said, when my breath started to slow.
She still didn’t look up, but she pointed towards the couch, and I did as she asked. “I’ve been wondering when you’d come,” she said. “Tabitha just can’t learn, can she?”
“Can’t learn what?” I asked.
Now, she did look up, her expression mildly surprised. “What sort of answers?”
“The
sort I deserve,” I said. “Am I not a member of this community?”
She clucked her tongue. “That’s debatable, of course.”
“What’s wrong with Maestro?” I asked.
“Ah. Your family has prevailed over you.”
“I don’t know what you mean. He’s my brother, and he’s ill. Clearly, the doctors are hiding something from us. He’s not getting better. What’s wrong with him?” My voice started to shake, and I took a deep breath to calm myself.
“I know he’s the one whom you wanted revenge against. Did he eat some shit? Tell you he was wrong, and you were right?”
“No. Okay, he did apologize. But, it wasn’t sincere. He wanted me to apologize for getting him into this mess, and I can’t say I blame him. I mean, he came here to avoid being executed, and he ended up lying in bed, wasting away towards death anyway. Of course, he’s mad.” I clamped my mouth shut. Why was I telling her these things? Was that how I really felt—I didn’t blame him?
“I’m going to tell you something, Silver. Something that’ll change the way you view our great city, and its inhabitants. But, before I tell you, I need you to agree to something. Can you do that?”
“What is it?”
“For someone like you, it should be easy. I want you to consider taking my place. Would you like that? To be the leader?”
“Why would I do that?” I shifted in my seat uncomfortably. Even as I asked why, I knew why. Because of my ambition. “Nobody would want an outsider to do that. I can’t even hear half of what’s going on around me, since I’m not a telepath.”
She waved a hand dismissively. “They’ll see you as incorruptible. Nobody can get in your mind, you see?”
“I don’t see how that logic pans out.”
“Well, I do. I can make you into my successor. You only need to do what I tell you.” She patted her hair against her head. “Now, will you consider it?”
“Fine, I’ll consider it. What’s wrong with Maestro?”