The Song of the Orphans

by Daniel Price

  Zack wagged a finger. “See, that was a better attempt at provoking me. I’ll give it a C-plus.”

  Rebel scoffed. “You’re no man.”

  “D-minus.”

  “Fuck you. There was a time I thought we actually understood each other.”

  Zack sat up, his pencil twirling furiously in his hand. He and Rebel had had some disturbingly agreeable conversations over the last few days. And the man had been a surprisingly honorable jailer. He’d never once hit Zack or starved him or taunted him with threats. He’d even arranged for him to take a shower between his solic generators, the only time during the whole ordeal that Zack had felt like a human being. There was clearly some goodness tucked away in that battered soul, which made his crimes all the more tragic.

  “I hate what the Pelletiers did to me,” Zack said. “I hate what Amanda had to do to save me. I hate the fact that every time I close my eyes, I see what Semerjean did to Mink.”

  Rebel winced in sorrow. He’d been so busy mourning Ivy that he’d barely spared a thought for his cousin.

  “It makes no sense,” he said. “Azral and Esis hate you, but Semerjean keeps saving your life.”

  Zack hunched his shoulders in a nervous shrug. “They don’t always see eye to eye.”

  “Why does he keep sparing Mercy’s life?”

  “I’ve been asking myself that same question.”

  “And why the goddamn mask?”

  “That’s the big one,” Zack admitted. “That’s the one that keeps me up at night.”

  Theo and Peter flanked the kitchen door, surprised by the increasingly civil discussion Zack and Rebel were having.

  “He masks his voice, too,” Zack noted. “He only talks in whispers and—”

  “—wind chimes,” said Rebel.

  Zack nodded uncomfortably. “Like he doesn’t want us to recognize him.”

  “You think he’s someone we know?”

  “It’s possible,” Zack said. “Or maybe he’s someone we’ll meet in the future. The Pelletiers always plan a hundred moves ahead.”

  Rebel chewed his lip in thought. “Our cameras went out right before Semerjean arrived.”

  “So?”

  “It wasn’t coincidence. There was something about his entrance that he didn’t want us to see. I’d assumed he came by portal, but now I’m wondering if maybe he showed up earlier. Maybe he’d boarded the ship with your friends.”

  Zack looked up with a cynical sneer. “I see where you’re going with this.”

  “Maybe beneath all that tempis—”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “—he is one of your friends.”

  Zack laughed off the theory. “Bullshit. Pure and utter horseflakes.”

  “Is it?” Rebel asked. “The more I think about it—”

  “—the more you’re wrong. If the Pelletiers put a spy anywhere, it’s with your people.”

  “I’ve known my people my whole life. How long have you known yours?”

  Zack dipped his head. “Oh, for God’s sake . . .”

  “Did anyone see David while Semerjean was running around the ship?”

  “Yes!”

  “Did anyone see Jonathan?”

  Zack paused a moment before chuckling again. “I think your mental hamster just died in the wheel.”

  “Hey, you opened the door to this.”

  “And I’m glad I did, Rebel, because I find it very illuminating to see how your mind ‘works,’ that razor-sharp sense of deduction that made you kill my brother for no reason.”

  “I had every reason in the world, just like you have every reason to kill me now. But you won’t. And it’s not because you’re clever or ethical. You’re just a coward.”

  Theo moved to intervene. Peter held him back. “Wait.”

  Zack rose to his feet. “I’m the coward?”

  “You heard me.”

  “The people who killed your wife and children are out there right now. They’re laughing at you, Rebel. And what are you doing? You’re praying for death. You’re begging me to kill you because you just can’t take it anymore.”

  Rebel gritted his teeth. “Fuck you.”

  “If you were half the man you pretend to be, you’d open your eyes and think. You want to stop what’s coming? You want the Pelletiers gone? Well, guess what? So do we.”

  Amanda and Hannah opened the door of their bedroom. Mia listened breathlessly from the closet.

  “We’re not the people you think we are,” Zack told Rebel. “What will it take for you to finally see that?”

  “You’re their children. Their pets!”

  “That was Ivy’s psychosis, not yours.”

  “Fuck you. You people wouldn’t last a day without the Pelletiers. You wouldn’t last a minute as their enemy.”

  “Oh yeah? Esis wanted me dead yesterday. Amanda didn’t. Guess who won.”

  Rebel pursed his lips and looked away. Zack leaned in close. “You’ve had allies right in front of you this whole time, but you refuse to see it. You’ve gone about this all wrong and it has cost you everything. If there’s an ounce of sense left in you, Richard, you’ll swallow your pride and ask yourself if maybe, just maybe, there’s a better way to save the world.”

  Zack pressed his finger against Rebel’s temple. “Think.”

  He grabbed his sketch and disappeared down the hallway, just as Peter and Theo stepped in from the kitchen. Though Rebel wasted no time hurling curses at them, Theo could feel a shift in the strings. Zack had just opened the door to an interesting new future. Maybe there was hope after all.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  As evening fell on Old Tappan, a portal opened on the wall of the Aerie. Peter and Liam returned to the apartment with bottled drinks and a stack of take-out boxes from Italian Eddie’s Speedery.

  Liam looked at the seven orphans in the room and saw the same cringing expression. “What’s the matter? You don’t like cheese pies?”

  “We do,” Theo said.

  “We did,” Hannah amended.

  One of the more baffling aspects of this parallel culture was its perversion of the American pizza. Instead of mozzarella, they were baked with a colorless goo that looked like snot and tasted like old mayonnaise. The crust had the appearance, flavor, and consistency of saltines. Even more disturbing were the toppings, a mindboggling selection that included boiled beef, fried leeks, mashed potatoes, and apples. Hannah couldn’t even begin to fathom the historical deviations that led a nation to accept apples on its pizza.

  Peter dropped the boxes on the coffee table. “Sorry, guys. It was the only place without a line.”

  “There’s a reason for that,” Zack grumbled.

  “You of all people should be grateful for real food.” He passed a bag of bell peppers to David. “Here. You can juve them if they’re not fresh enough.”

  “They’re fine,” David listlessly replied. No one had to guess why he was sullen today, or why Mia remained tucked away in her closet refuge. They both got testy whenever anyone tried to talk to them about it.

  Amanda opened the door to the apartment’s half bathroom, where their belligerent captive had been stashed for the evening. “I suppose I can’t convince you to eat something.”

  Rebel glared at her from his wheelchair. “You should have shot yourself when you had the chance.”

  “I’ll take that as a no.”

  She closed the door again. Jonathan shot a wrathful look at Peter. “Just give me the word.”

  “No.”

  “He’s gonna die anyway.”

  “Just eat, all right?”

  The orphans and Pendergens sat around the coffee table, dining in silence as they stared down at their plates.

  Heath studied Liam’s hands with idle fascination. “Why does he wear gloves?” he asked Jonathan.<
br />
  “I told you—”

  “Why do you wear gloves?” he asked Liam.

  The boy recoiled as if he’d been slapped. He looked at his father in hot surprise. “You didn’t tell them?”

  Peter shook his head. “I was leaving the choice to you.”

  Liam put down his plate and fidgeted with his gloves. He started and stopped himself three times before speaking.

  “I’m a thermic,” he said. “I burn things. When I was two years old, I . . . uh, I had an accident with my power. A bad one. If you saw my scars, you’d probably never eat again.”

  “That’s not true,” Peter said.

  “It’s true enough.”

  Rebel chuckled from behind the bathroom door. “It’s not the worst part of the story,” he teased. “Go on, kid. Tell ’em.”

  “Shut up!”

  “Tell him what it did to your mom.”

  Peter held back Liam, while Hannah and Zack struggled to keep Jonathan in his chair. Amidst all the clamor, Mia finally joined the others in the living room. She grabbed a small device from an end table and then disappeared into Rebel’s bathroom.

  One by one, her companions stopped what they were doing and listened to the sharp, buzzing sound coming from behind the wooden door.

  “What’s happening?” asked Hannah.

  Eight seconds after she entered, Mia re-emerged. Though her eyes were red and cracked with grief, her expression was as hard as stone. She put Peter’s stun chaser back where she found it, sat down at the coffee table, and took a drippy slice of cheese pie for herself.

  “He’ll be quiet for a while,” she matter-of-factly informed the others. Her heavy eyes lingered on Liam. “Sorry about your mom.”

  —

  Rebel woke up two hours later, his head full of cobwebs, his whole body throbbing with pain. He scanned his surroundings with bleary eyes and saw that he was back in the living room. His captors had wheeled him into a circle of seats. Everywhere he looked, a Silver or Gold looked back at him.

  Zack faced him from the other side of the coffee table, his hands folded serenely in his lap. “Hello, Rebel. I think it’s time we talked.”

  With the exception of Heath, who was fiddling with a lumic puzzle sphere, the breachers made a point of maintaining eye contact with Rebel. He shot a dirty look at each and every one of them.

  “No Pendergens,” he noted. He chuckled at Theo. “This is your doing.”

  “It is,” Theo admitted.

  “Hide the two people I have history with. Face me as a group. Stay calm. Stay focused. Let Trillinger do the talking. Is that the big plan?”

  “More or less,” said Zack. “Except we’re hoping you’ll do most of the talking.”

  “Me?” Rebel laughed. “That’s not gonna get me to change my mind.”

  “Then change ours,” Amanda challenged. “Convince us why we have to die.”

  Rebel lost his smile. There was a cold new wind blowing in from the future, an ominous hint of grief to come. He couldn’t see the shape of it. All he knew was that he’d be weeping like a child before this was over.

  “I’m not playing your bullshit game.”

  “What game?” David asked him. “We just want to know your reasoning.”

  Hannah nodded. “You’ve shot half the people in this room. Killed six of our kind, including Zack’s brother.”

  “And for what?” said Zack. “I’ve been asking you the same question for the last three days, and you won’t answer me.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “What makes you think that killing us will save the world?”

  Rebel heard harsh whispering in the kitchen. Of course Peter and Liam would be hiding in earshot. They wouldn’t want to miss a word.

  “What’s the matter, Pendergen? Too scared to face me yourself?”

  “Answer the question,” Mia said.

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re the one who zapped me.”

  “And you’re the one who put a bullet in my chest. I almost died last year.”

  “I wish you had.”

  “Tell me why.”

  “You goddamn know why!”

  “You think we’re the death of this world.”

  “I know you are.”

  “How?” Theo threw his hands up. “You’re an augur, just like me. You must have seen something to make you so sure. What was it?”

  “Why can’t you just tell us?” Zack asked.

  Rebel wriggled in his chair. The grief was getting ever closer. Stay strong, his inner Ivy told him. Don’t you dare let them break you.

  “I’ll answer your question,” he promised. He jerked his head at Jonathan. “If he answers one first.”

  Jonathan sat up in his easy chair, suspicious. “If you’re just trying to piss me off—”

  “Where were you when Semerjean was running around yesterday?”

  A cold, hard silence overtook the living room. Heath looked up from his puzzle sphere, baffled.

  Jonathan squinted at Rebel. “What the hell are you getting at?”

  “You’re the only one on the ship who didn’t run into him. I find that mighty interesting.”

  Hannah scoffed. “You’re an idiot.”

  “You’re also wrong,” said a voice from the kitchen. Liam stood in the doorway and eyed Rebel sternly. “I didn’t see one bit of this Semerjean. Maybe I’m the man beneath the tempis.”

  Rebel laughed. “You’re no man at all.”

  “Neither are you,” Liam said. “The more you stall, the more I think you made up this whole tale about the breachers.”

  “Watch it now.”

  “Your wife, your cousins, your unborn sons. All dead because of your lie.”

  “It’s no lie!”

  “Then tell us,” Theo yelled. “Tell us what you saw!”

  “I never said I saw anything! I said I got my information from the future.”

  At long last, David and Mia made eye contact with each other. They traded a confused look before turning back to Rebel.

  “Meaning what?” asked David.

  “A future self?” asked Mia.

  Theo suddenly caught a hint of the revelation to come, the real reason why Rebel was dodging the question.

  “It was someone else,” he mused. “You got your information from another augur.”

  Rebel lowered his head. “She’s never steered me wrong.”

  “Who?” Liam asked. “Gemma? Prudent?”

  “No. She’s not anyone in the clan. She . . .”

  Peter stood in the doorway and stared at Rebel intently. “Who?”

  “She’s been popping in and out of my life ever since I was a kid. A young woman, never aging, always filled with knowledge. Every single thing she’s told me about the future has come true. She’s never missed a beat. She told me the Pelletiers were coming a month before they arrived. She knew all three of them by name.”

  He chuckled darkly at the orphans. “She told me the names of all you bastards.”

  Only Hannah knew what to do with the information. She walked around the coffee table and crouched at Rebel’s side.

  “This woman. Describe her.”

  “I don’t know. She’s young, short, pretty. Her hairstyle changes every time I see her, but the rest of her stays the same.”

  “And she wears two watches,” Hannah guessed.

  Rebel stared at her, dumbstruck. “How the hell did you know that?”

  “Because we know her too,” Theo said. He covered his face with his hands. “Shit.”

  Jonathan blinked at him. “Wait, Ioni? He’s talking about Ioni?”

  “Who’s Ioni?” Liam asked.

  “We’re not entirely sure,” Mia admitted. “She visited me and Theo once, and met Hannah a month later. She�
��s always given us good information. She even saved Theo’s life.”

  David tapped his leg in edgy thought. “She’s been playing us this whole time.”

  “All of us,” Zack stressed. “We got conned, Rebel.”

  “No . . .”

  “You got conned.”

  “No!” Rebel shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. She’s been nothing but a saint to me. Why would she—”

  “—help your mortal enemies?” Amanda asked. Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Take a wild guess.”

  “She’s not a Pelletier!”

  “I don’t think so either,” Theo said. “But she’s obviously playing some kind of game.”

  Mia caught Hannah and Jonathan exchanging a worried look. Ioni was the one who’d brought them together, but why? What was her angle?

  Peter crossed into the living room. “Look, I never met this Ioni woman. But if she’s your only source of information—”

  “Bullshit,” Rebel hissed. “I still trust her more than I trust you.”

  “What exactly did she say about us?” Theo asked. “Did she specifically tell you to kill us?”

  “Of course she did! She . . .” Rebel closed his eyes. It felt like a hundred years since their last encounter. Ioni’s words had become lost in a fog of grief, twisted by desire and his wife’s interpretations. Of course she wants us to kill them, Richard! Why else would she say it?

  “Answer us, Rebel. What were her exact words?”

  “She said this world couldn’t live as long as you people were on it!”

  The room went quiet again. Zack’s hands clenched into fists. “And that’s all it took, huh? No questions. No ‘show me the proof.’ Just point the way and pass the ammo.”

  “The world is dying. That’s a fact!”

  “My friends died faster,” Jonathan fired back. “You killed them all on a goddamned rumor. That’s a fact.”

  “You made my dad a pariah,” Liam added. “He tried to warn you, but you turned everyone against him. Even me.”

  “Shut up! All of you!”

  Amanda gripped Rebel’s chair by the armrests, her face mere inches from his. Though her sharp green eyes were as intense as ever, her voice was calm, even sympathetic.

  “I never in my life thought I’d say this, Rebel, but I understand where you’re coming from. I get it. You saw the end of the world and you were desperate to stop it. A woman you trusted gave you the answer, and you believed her. If I had to kill a few dozen people to save billions, I’d do it. I might not even wait for proof.”