The Song of the Orphans

by Daniel Price

  Unfortunately for Melissa, Gingold had done his homework. His snipers kept their infrared sights on every manual escape hatch, while power grid blackouts, both above and below, kept the elevators out of commission. Even Peter Pendergen, a man who excelled at making his own exits, was trapped down here.

  But he knew the underland better than Integrity, and he believed there was an escape route that Gingold had overlooked.

  Melissa followed Peter through the perimeter park, their pathway lit by the ambient glow of the village square. From Freak Street, they’d fled to the lower east quadrant of the dome, a mere forty yards from Integrity’s main entrance. Melissa magnified her infrared vision and saw dozens of soldiers moving back and forth through the blast hole. It was just a matter of time before one of them switched on their thermals and looked back.

  “Are you sure this will work?” she asked Peter.

  “I’m not sure of anything,” he said. “I just know it’s the only lift we have that’s independently powered.”

  “Powered by what, exactly?”

  “Gasoline.”

  Dear God, Melissa thought. Those combustion engines were all decades old. You couldn’t even buy that kind of fuel anymore.

  “Petrol has a shelf life,” she told him. “If you don’t change it—”

  “It’s all right. Our turners reverse the generator twice a year.”

  “Turners,” Melissa echoed. “You mean the people who do what Zack does.”

  “Yes.”

  “I can only guess that they’re your healers.”

  “And gardeners.”

  Melissa’s face went slack. “My God. The world you have. The society . . .”

  “Yeah.” Peter took a glum look at the Integrity floodlights. “It was good while it lasted.”

  The trees broke again to reveal an elevator entrance, a much narrower one than the others.

  “This is it,” Peter told Melissa. “The emergency lift.”

  Melissa studied it skeptically. The door was covered in dust and blocked by trash bags. The generator hatch looked like it had been salvaged from an old British war submarine.

  “I think your turners skipped a few visits,” Melissa said.

  “It’ll work,” Peter insisted.

  He pressed the call button and breathed a sigh of relief when it lit up. Though the generator coughed and creaked, the motor still ran. The car was coming down from the surface.

  Melissa took another thermal scan of the area, then flashed her penlight twice. Theo caught her signal and led the others out from behind a gazebo. Two by two, the orphans and Liam made a skulking procession down the park path.

  “Where does this thing go?” Melissa asked Peter.

  “Grade school. Not far from the southern gate.”

  “Will it fit all of us?”

  Peter shook his head. “Maybe five or six if you squeeze.”

  “Damn it.” Melissa looked back to the invaders at the eastern gate. “We don’t have time for two trips.”

  “We would have had time—”

  “Don’t start that again.”

  “—if you’d been straight with me. You could have come to me at Sunder’s house.”

  Melissa glared at him. They had drawn their guns on each other four minutes ago, when Hannah brought Melissa back to the cul-de-sac. She and Peter didn’t exactly have a history of trust.

  “You had my memory erased,” she reminded him. “I didn’t think for a minute you’d bring me down here.”

  “I wouldn’t have.” He tilted his head at the Silvers. “But I would have gotten them out.”

  Soon Theo, Amanda, and the rest of the group caught up with them. Melissa could see the trauma on their faces; something had shocked them well before the invasion. She only had to register the missing member of their group to get the gist of their misery. What on earth had happened to David?

  Liam threw a frazzled look over his shoulder. “This isn’t right. We can’t just leave them.”

  “Liam . . .”

  “They’re still our people.”

  Peter held him by the shoulders. “Son, listen to me. We can’t help them by staying. We need to get out.”

  “But what about them?”

  “My associate’s working on it,” Melissa told Liam. “He’s in Washington right now, trying to stop this siege at the highest levels.”

  Hannah eyed her jadedly. “A little late for that.”

  “All they need is a stand-down order. They’ll be forced to leave immediately.”

  “And then what?” Amanda asked. “You think they’ll just forget about us?”

  “Forget? No. But under new management—”

  “—nothing will change,” Zack said. “We’re timebending mutants from another planet. They’re not going to rest till we’re locked up or dead.”

  Theo nodded. “Especially after what the Pelletiers did to your people. That’s all the justification they need.”

  Melissa turned her ear to the generator. The elevator seemed to be coming at a snail’s pace. “We’ll have plenty of time to argue about this. Our first priority’s getting out of here.”

  Mia crouched down next to her, her jaw clenched tight. She looked ten years older than the child in Melissa’s files. Something about her had changed dramatically. Something in the eyes.

  “There’s a girl back there who means everything to me. What’ll they do to her?”

  “She . . .” Melissa could feel the start of a dozen non-answers—evasions and platitudes, flimsy assurances of hope. But at the end of the day, this was an impossible situation. There was no good way to spin it.

  “She’ll be sedated,” she told Mia. “Then transported to an aerial facility high above the Atlantic. From what I’m told, they’ve built hundreds of solic cells, enough to hold everyone in the village. They’ll be kept there indefinitely, questioned and analyzed—”

  “Analyzed,” Jonathan mocked. “That’s a nice way of putting it.”

  Mia jumped to her feet. “No. I can’t let them do that. Not to Carrie.”

  “Not to any of them,” Liam stressed. He grabbed his father’s arm. “We have to do something.”

  Peter leaned against a tree, his face racked with conflict. Melissa knew his dilemma all too well, the horrible schism between idealism and realism, society and family. Sometimes you had to look out for the people you loved, and damn the rest of the world. Other times . . .

  He sighed at Melissa. “How are they blocking our abilities?”

  “You know how.”

  “Solis, yes. But where’s it coming from?”

  She pointed her finger at the dark upper reaches. “You can’t see it, but there’s a rather large disseminator at the top of the dome.”

  “Disseminator?” asked Amanda.

  “A portable supergenerator, mostly used for military operations. It has the output of a hundred solic towers.”

  “That’d only be enough to stop a fraction of us,” Peter said.

  “In open air, yes. But in a hermetically sealed chamber, even one of this size . . .” Melissa shrugged. “It’s like smoke in a jar. Gingold knew exactly what he was doing.”

  Hannah narrowed her eyes at the ceiling. She could faintly make out the shape of an upside-down obelisk hanging directly above the clock tower.

  “It takes power to block power,” she said. “Something must be giving it juice.”

  Melissa nodded. “Could be a solar converter. More likely they’ve tapped into the Quarter Hill electric grid. In either case, the energy’s coming from the surface.”

  Zack paced the grass, his eyes dancing with thought. “So we find the plug and pull it. Our powers should work up there, right?”

  “They should.”

  Everyone could hear the skepticism in Melissa’s voice
. Theo raised his eyebrows at her. “But?”

  She tossed her hands up. “Say you succeed. Say you all get your abilities back and turn the tables on your oppressors. Then what?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Integrity’s a massive organization. You can’t erase their knowledge. And if you should slaughter two hundred of their soldiers, it won’t matter who runs the agency. They’ll hunt you down to the ends of the Earth.”

  Melissa watched them closely as they processed her quandary. Her eyes drifted over to the watch on Heath’s arm, a fancy silver antiquity that she’d seen before in countless photos and ghost images. It used to be David’s.

  “Two hundred soldiers,” Liam said. “We have more people than that. Hell, we have more tempics than that.”

  Melissa turned to him. “Did you hear me, boy? I said—”

  “He knows what you said,” Mia snapped. “His point is that we can take them down without killing them.”

  Hannah nodded. “Blind them with lumis. Pin them to the ground with tempis.”

  “Heal the ones who get hurt,” Theo said.

  “And push them out through portals,” Zack added. “Wouldn’t that send a message?”

  Melissa lifted her visor and traded an uncomfortable look with Peter. He knew as well as she did that it wouldn’t be so easy. There’d be casualties on both sides. Consequences. But would it be any worse than this nightmare?

  Amanda kneeled down in front of Melissa. “I knew from the day I met you that you were different than the other agents. You didn’t just see me as a tempic freak. You treated me like a human being with human rights.”

  She jerked her head at the distant floodlights. “There are hundreds of people back there who’ve never hurt anyone. We can’t just walk away and hope that everything will work out for them. I don’t think you can either.”

  Hannah moved behind Heath and put her hands on his shoulders. “You know these pricks. You know their machines. If anyone can help us, it’s you.”

  Melissa pulled off her helmet and held it against her chest. In fact, she’d already marked the global position of the disseminator. Its power source would be directly above. Same latitude and longitude.

  The elevator finally arrived. The door squeaked open. Melissa groaned when she saw the interior. It was even smaller than Peter said it would be. Four passengers at the very most.

  “Gingold’s a cautious man,” Melissa warned. “He’ll expect resistance, which means the generator will be heavily guarded.”

  “I’ll handle the goons,” Hannah said.

  “We both will,” Amanda said.

  Melissa frowned. “Don’t be so confident. On the surface, they’ll have tempic armor and probably speedsuits. I’ll also need a fair bit of time to disable the generator.”

  “I can drop it,” Jonathan told her. “Just lead the way.”

  Heath’s eyes bulged in horror. “No!”

  “I’ll be all right, buddy. Just find a place to hide.”

  Melissa pulled a walkie-talkie from her belt and pressed it into Theo’s hands. “This is set to an encrypted channel. Don’t use it until you hear from me.” She looked to Peter. “Do you have any vaults or bomb shelters here?”

  “We’ve got both down below,” Peter said.

  “Good. The thick walls should hide you from their scanners.”

  A boom in the distance made Mia and Liam jump. Melissa assured them that it was just a warning shot. Integrity used the loud guns to keep people in line.

  “You better go,” she told Peter. “Be careful.”

  “You too.” He looked at Amanda. “Stay safe.”

  As Melissa and the Givens stepped inside the elevator, Heath pulled at Jonathan’s arm. “Wait!”

  “Heath . . .”

  “Don’t go.”

  “I’ve got a job to do, buddy, and so do you. You gotta get to that shelter.”

  “Please!”

  Jonathan kneeled in front of Heath and touched the rim of his golden bracelet. “It’s been you and me from the beginning. It’ll be you and me at the end. So keep your head down and don’t get shot, okay?”

  Smiling, he brushed the tip of Heath’s nose. “We still have a lot of songs to do.”

  Melissa held the door impatiently. “Jonathan.”

  “I’m coming.”

  He joined Hannah at the back of the car. Their fingers clasped together.

  Hannah looked at the billy club in Melissa’s thigh holster. “I’m gonna need that beatstick.”

  The door closed. The elevator rose. From the slow, sputtering sounds of the generator, Melissa strongly doubted there’d be a return trip.

  She tucked her helmet in the crook of her arm and passed her club back to Hannah. “How did he die?”

  “Who?” Amanda asked.

  Melissa eyed her guardedly, as if she was being deliberately obtuse. “David.”

  The elevator fell silent. While Amanda and Jonathan kept their eyes on the floor, Hannah tested the weight of her new weapon. “Horribly.”

  —

  Peter led his group north through the perimeter park—a slow, looping path that took them all the way to the Memorial Garden. They heard the footsteps of passing soldiers and took quick refuge behind the Requiem Wall. Mia found it ironic, and more than a little prophetic, that they were hiding behind the names of a thousand dead Gothams. The thought of Carrie suffering in some secret government lab was more than she could bear. She’d be nothing but a lab rat to those scientists, a pin cushion. And if they were truly depraved . . .

  “No.”

  Peter shushed her and peeked around the edge of the stone. The soldiers were barely visible except for the glints in their armor and the lights on their thermal scanners. Luckily, they seemed more interested in the nearby buildings than the graveyard.

  Mia and the others waited breathlessly in the shadows until the soldiers kept moving. After a few more seconds, Peter waved Zack and Theo over.

  “How well do you know Guild Street?” he whispered.

  “Not at all,” Theo said.

  “I went there once with Mercy,” Zack said.

  Peter pointed to the north. “The travelers’ hall is all the way at the end on the right side. It’s the smallest building on the street. There’s a hatch in back that’ll take you down to the tunnels.”

  Liam furrowed his brow. “Dad, what are you doing?”

  “The bomb shelter’s nearby. Just follow the signs.”

  “Dad?”

  Peter looked at his son with heavy eyes. “I’m gonna go join the others.”

  “You mean get yourself captured,” Zack said.

  “We have to be ready when the power comes back. The tempics, the swifters, all of them. If I join the pool, I can talk to the primarchs. We do this right and maybe no one will die.”

  Liam nodded. “I’ll come with you.”

  “No.”

  “I’m coming too,” Mia insisted.

  “No. You get to that shelter, all of you.”

  Liam’s cheeks burned red. He had to fight to keep his voice down. “Goddamn it, Dad. Think for a second.”

  “Don’t you talk to me like that.”

  “I will talk to you like that. You left me for seven months.”

  “I was keeping you safe.”

  “Yeah? How did that work out?”

  Mia saw the agonized look on Peter’s face and couldn’t help but feel a bit forlorn. She’d always imagined herself to be like a daughter to him, but their bond was just a flicker compared to what he had with Liam. The boy held all the keys to the fortress, all the nuclear codes. He was the core and the axis of the world Peter fought to save.

  And in this instance, he was right.

  Liam held Mia’s arm, his blue eyes locked sternly on his father
. “You’re a big, strong man. They’re going to watch you closely. But Mia and I aren’t threatening. We can move through the crowd, spread the word ten times faster than you can.”

  He jerked his head at Mia. “And when the power comes back, you’re going to need every traveler you can get.”

  Mia could practically hear the gears in Peter’s head turning. He stared at the grass for eight long seconds before gripping Zack’s shoulder.

  “You and Heath get Theo to that shelter. Do whatever it takes to keep him alive.”

  Theo glowered at him. “Peter, I told you—”

  “Don’t start.” He pulled a .32 pistol from his belt and pushed it into Zack’s hand. “Whatever it takes. You hear me?”

  Zack studied the gun. “Travelers’ guild. Hatch in the back.”

  “You got it.” He clapped Zack’s back. “Go.”

  Mia watched from behind the stone as Theo, Zack, and Heath crept out the gate. She barely had a moment to catch her breath before Peter turned her around and brushed her hair in front of her eyes.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Keep your head down,” he told her. “Don’t look at anyone. Don’t say a word.”

  Hand in hand, he led Mia and Liam through the western gate of the garden. They barely made it half a block before the glowing red sights of sniper rifles danced across their chests.

  Peter stopped in place and raised his hands high. “We’re unarmed! We surrender!”

  Within moments, a group of soldiers arrived and escorted the trio at gunpoint. As her stomach fluttered with stress and her legs threatened to buckle, Mia pictured Semerjean watching her from a cozy hotel room.

  He knew this was coming, she realized. He let this happen.

  After two more blocks, she heard the anxious chattering of hundreds. She looked up and reeled at the nightmare in the village square. Integrity had turned the whole place into an internment camp, with water stations on one side of the pen and toilet booths on the other. A line of canvas tents had been erected just outside the electric cordon.