Scan

by Walter Jury

  So what did my father want to use it for? Rufus is talking like he knows exactly what my Dad was doing, but he might be bullshitting just like Brayton was. I wish he did know more about my dad’s activities, though, because then I could ask him about Josephus. I could ask him how and why my dad had moment-to-moment population numbers for H2 and humans—including those fourteen anomalies that indicated the counts on that screen in his lab weren’t mathematical estimates . . . they were real-time figures. But again, I don’t trust this guy, so I’m going to keep my mouth shut.

  Rufus hands his mug to a little girl, who scampers over to the keg so David can refill it. Then he stares at the dance floor. At Christina, who is now partnered with a guy who has an Adam’s apple the size of Brooklyn.

  “You don’t think much of Brayton Alexander,” I say.

  His mouth twists into a pouty, un-Santa-like sneer. “Greedy, self-serving bastard,” he rumbles. “When he started selling inventions—including some of your father’s—to the Core, I was done.”

  I’m really wishing my mom had told him Christina was a McClaren.

  “My mom said that he only sells things approved by The Fifty, that there are other things he’s not authorized to sell. You think he’s not following those orders?”

  “Other members of The Fifty call me paranoid, but I call them stupid and naïve.” Rufus takes his refilled mug from the little girl, and thanks her for it by giving her a whiskery kiss on the cheek. “Few of them take the threat seriously. They think it’s better to cooperate with the Core, that the H2 will be more likely to leave us alone if we keep their secret. Appeasement is what I call it. I wonder what they’ll think if the Core gets ahold of the scanner. They’ll see what the H2 are really like.”

  “And you know what they’re really like?”

  “Without a doubt.” Rufus’s eyes reflect the massive fire at the other end of the hall. “They slaughtered one of my ancestors, and the Bishops never forget. Then and now, the H2 are nothing but bloodthirsty aliens, and they need to get the hell off my planet.”

  I STARE AT RUFUS, WONDERING IF HE REALLY MEANS what he just said. If he had his way, would he wage war with the H2? Does he actually think humans could win? He talks like he knew my father, but Dad flat out said the scanner should prevent interspecies conflict, not cause it.

  My gaze darts to my mother, who is taking cautious sips from her mug. I know she brought us here because Christina needed immediate help, and going to the hospital meant handing her over to Race and his goons. But I suddenly wonder if this is much better. She was hoping we could stop over here and make a quick exit, and now we’re caught. Rufus has the scanner, and his intentions seem no better than Race’s or Brayton’s. And if he finds out Christina is one of them—

  A pair of knees bump into mine, and I’m so startled that I nearly drop my mug. Standing before me is a girl. Her rather impressive rack is inches from my face. “Want to dance?” she asks breathlessly.

  Rufus’s belly laugh shakes the table. I’m glad he finds this funny. “Go on, boy,” he says, giving my shoulder a shove. “Be a gentleman and don’t let her down.”

  I spend the next half hour or so being manhandled by Bishop girls of all shapes and sizes while I watch Christina going through the same thing with the boys, except they seem to be more respectful about it. I stumble my way through steps and do my best not to fall. I am being dragged around the floor by Yolanda, whose frisky fingers are trying to find their way into my waistband, when I see Christina sink to the floor. I am by her side in an instant, nearly taking Yolanda’s fingers with me.

  Christina’s latest partner squats on the other side of her. “She just dropped, man, I’m so sorry.”

  Christina clutches her head in her hands and shrinks away when the guy tries to tug her to her feet.

  “Give her a minute,” I snap, fighting the urge to punch him. I’m not angry at him, not really; he’s simply the most convenient target.

  He holds his hands up. “Like I said, sorry.”

  A hand pats him on the shoulder, and he scuttles out of the way to make room for David, whose pale face is almost glowing in the dim firelight. “Hey, Dancing Queen,” he says gently to her, “I think you overdid it.”

  Christina moans softly. “God, it feels like my head is splitting open,” she whispers.

  “Time for more Tylenol,” David announces.

  “Fuckin’ H2, man,” says the hobbit, who’s standing by the fireplace a few feet away.

  Christina flinches, and David, who has his hand on her arm, gives her a concerned look.

  “They had no cause to shoot at a girl, but I guess we shouldn’t be surprised they did. Makes me want to go on a little hunting expedition,” Shoulders says as he watches David and me help Christina to her feet.

  Christina rests her sweat-damp forehead on my chest, and I feel her trembling as she slides her arms around my waist. I don’t know if she’s scared or sick, but whatever it is, she needs me. I put my arm around her back and hold her close.

  “The Dancing Queen is done for the night,” I announce, and lead her up to the tables to sit down, leaving behind several disappointed-looking Bishop boys. My mom meets us at the top of the steps. “Can you get us some water?” I ask. “I don’t think she should be drinking beer.”

  My mom nods and heads off in search of water, giving me a chance to settle Christina into a chair. The music is starting up again now that we’re no longer providing the entertainment.

  “You don’t have to hover over me,” Christina says, but she’s already got her head in her hands again.

  “This was too much,” I say quietly. “We shouldn’t have come.”

  “We had to come.” She lowers her hands from her face. She looks like she needs to sleep for a week straight; I see now that all that flirtatious energy from before was only an elaborate disguise. “Your mom told me they would be really insulted if we didn’t.”

  “But you—”

  “She said it didn’t matter.” She gives me a weak smile, and she must see the anger building in my eyes because she adds, “She was nice about it, though.”

  David slides into the chair on the other side of Christina. He’s considerably less sweaty than the other guys, and it’s because he hasn’t been dancing. I wonder why he didn’t ask Christina when he had the chance. “Tylenol,” he says, offering her a little paper med cup and a sappy smile.

  “I wish you had something stronger,” Christina says.

  He shrugs apologetically. “This is all I can offer you.” His eyes are riveted to her face. “I’m sorry you had to do this. You should be in bed.”

  I bet he didn’t ask her to dance because he didn’t think it was good for her. This guy is killing me. I can’t decide whether to punch him for looking at her like that or shake his hand for trying to take care of her.

  I’m reminding myself to be nice when my mom shows up with the water. She hands it to Christina and leans over, looking her right in the eye. “You’ll feel better soon, won’t you?”

  “Yeah,” mutters Christina. “Thanks.” Her hand shakes as she takes the pills and chases them with the water, and it makes me want to shove and yell and drive everyone away from her, including my mother.

  But as my mom walks by me, she gives me the same look she gave to Christina, only this time I can read it better. Don’t do anything to offend them, and we’ll get out of this all right.

  Even though the golden happiness in my chest has melted away, leaving only bitter residue, I nod. Then I draw Christina close and guide her head to my shoulder.

  For dinner, we get seated near the head of the main table. I’m next to Rufus, and my mom is across from me. Christina sits on my other side, looking a little better after that second dose of Tylenol, though she’s only picking at her food. To her left is a guy Rufus introduces as his oldest son, who looks a few years older than m
e. Like so many of the others, Aaron Bishop has auburn hair, but he has dark green eyes and tanned skin. Rufus beams when he looks at him, enough to tell me Aaron is next in line to the Bishop throne, such as it is.

  He leans around Christina to talk to both of us. “My dad told me you guys escaped from the Core. That must have taken serious skills.”

  “And a lot of luck,” I say, “but thanks.”

  He grins. “I wish I could have been there, man. I’d give my left nut for a chance at those guys. Or any H2, for that matter.” Apparently Rufus has passed his hatred of all H2 to his son. And maybe every single Bishop in this room. Suddenly I’ve lost any appetite I had.

  Christina tenses. “Isn’t that, like, most of the population?”

  He looks at her like she’s cute but stupid. “Exactly.”

  Aaron’s younger brother Steven, one of Christina’s many dance partners who is now sitting next to my mom, scratches at a dark, crusty patch on his pale, freckled face and laughs. “Society has gone to the dogs.”

  “I don’t know how you guys live with it,” Aaron says. “Makes me sick to think about it, being surrounded by them every day.”

  “We didn’t know we were,” I say honestly. “When did you find out?”

  “We don’t hide the truth from our children,” says Rufus.

  My mother takes a sip of beer from her mug, then sets it down. “The other families don’t tell their children until they are at least sixteen. Not until they can bear the secret and the responsibility that comes with it. It makes it easier to live in the world. Imagine a young child telling his classmates that he’s a human and some of them are aliens. Imagine a middle schooler gossiping to her friends about it—and think about how quickly rumors become viral these days. Those disclosures could bring harsh consequences for everyone involved. If the Core got wind of it, maybe they would act. Even against the youngest of us.” She looks right at me. There’s no apology there, just simple explanation. I can’t bring myself to be angry at her for it, because I know what happened the minute Mr. Lamb called Race Lavin. But I have to wonder: What would it have been like to know? Would I have been friends with Will? Would I have gone out with Christina? I’d like to say I would have, but if I had been raised like Aaron, would I have been so different from him?

  “Ignorance is bliss,” Aaron says in this friendly, not-really-friendly voice. I’m not sure why the tone of the conversation changed so quickly, but it surely has. Aaron looks like he’s dying for a fight.

  My mother glares at him. “There are many kinds of ignorance. The Core have historically been our enemies, but the rest of the H2 are innocents.”

  His smile is greasy and I hate the way he’s looking at her, like he’s better than she is. “Easier to cozy up to the enemy than stand up and fight them, I guess.”

  “Is that what you’re doing here?” Christina snaps.

  I grab her hand and squeeze.

  Rufus laughs out loud, though his gaze skates over Christina in a way that sends a jolt of fear through me. “Don’t rile our guests, boy,” he says to Aaron, but there’s no anger in it at all. In fact, I think he’s proud of his son.

  Rufus bangs his empty mug on the table a few times, and the room gets quiet. “We’re here tonight to honor a man most of you have never met,” he says in a loud voice. “But I knew him, and I can tell you he was worthy of honor.”

  My throat is getting tight. I swallow back the grief and sit up straight, trying to look like a guy who deserves to have a father like Fred Archer, even though I spent half my time with him resenting every particle of his being, however unfair that was. I glance at my mother to see that she’s shoved her feelings down deep tonight. I wish I knew what she was thinking, because it might help me figure out what’s going on inside of me. Christina seems to sense the tremors beneath my surface. Her thumb strokes the back of my hand.

  Rufus is standing behind my mother now. His fingers wrap over the back of her chair. “Fred was one of the last of the Archers, who were once a powerful family, who for centuries carried and guarded evidence of what really happened when aliens invaded our planet. Fred Archer was a scientist. Maybe more than the rest of us, he understood what it meant to be human.”

  While he talks about the early, idealistic days of Black Box, I sit there, aching. I’ll never get to talk to my dad about any of this. He’s not here to tell me what to do, to explain things to me, to tell me who to trust.

  Rufus heaves his belly around my mom’s chair and edges back toward the head of the table. “More than ever, we need men like Fred Archer, who understood the superiority of our species and the importance of defending it.”

  The superiority of our species . . . I look up at the heavy wooden sculpture above the mantel, and now I know where I’ve seen it before. My history books. It’s not the most well known of the Aryan signs, but it’s definitely one of them: Odin’s Rune. I swallow hard and hold on to Christina.

  The Bishops haven’t isolated themselves because they’re scared.

  They’ve done it because they think they’re better. They’re not white supremacists; they’re human supremacists.

  Is this what my father believed?

  I look at my mother, whose expression is stone. Her eyes are on Rufus, but I’m not sure she’s really seeing him. Christina is gripping my hand so hard that she’s shaking. Probably because she can see the hatred for the H2 snapping and flashing in the eyes of almost everyone in the room.

  Rufus takes another step to the side and puts his meaty hand on my shoulder. “This young man is now the last of the Archers, the one responsible for his father’s legacy, for carrying on his line, for maintaining the purity of his blood.”

  Christina becomes very still.

  Which is when Rufus lifts his other hand high in the air. I twist in my seat so I can see his eyes, which glint with something cold and deadly.

  He’s holding the scanner.

  “And he’s brought us this!” He switches it on over my head, and blue light glints off my silverware and my heart rate goes stratospheric. “Fred Archer gave us the power to identify whom we could trust and whom we couldn’t. This is his final gift to us. When the light is blue, you’re looking at a pure-blooded human!”

  There’s nothing I can do. No way I can stop this. It feels like my world is unraveling in slow motion as he waves it at the row of people sitting across from me—my mother, his younger son, David—and beams of blue light streak across the table as everyone starts to clap.

  Then he holds it over Christina’s head.

  She stares at me in horror as red light courses down her face.

  AFTER A SECOND OF COMPLETE STILLNESS, HALF THE people at the table shoot to their feet while the rest sit there, wide-eyed, like it’s taking them a little longer to process that there’s an H2 among them. Aaron moves faster than the others; he grabs Christina’s arm and jerks her toward him. All reflex and rage, I hit him with a throat strike that bugs his eyes and leaves him gasping. He lets her go and I pull her away, tossing her chair toward a couple of the others pushing past Aaron to get to her.

  Rufus grabs me by the collar of my shirt and yanks me backward. My legs get tangled in my own chair, and I fall back hard. Christina lands on top of me as my head thwacks against the wood floor.

  When the stars clear from my vision, my mother is standing over us.

  I don’t know where she got the gun, but I assume she swiped it from someone—and she’s got it leveled at Rufus’s head.

  One of the twins is standing next to him, and his gun is pointed at my mom’s face.

  “How dare you?” Rufus pants, waving the scanner at me and Christina, sending blue and red light scattering in crystalline prisms around our bodies. “How dare you bring that creature here?”

  Christina’s breath is coming in high-pitched gasps, and she’s holding on to me like she’s drowning. With
my ears still ringing, I hoist myself up and bring her with me, keeping my arms wrapped around her, shielding her any way I can. There’s a bunch of Bishops behind us, next to us, everywhere I turn, and I know this is hopeless. I might be able to fight a few of them, but there are nearly a hundred of them and only three of us.

  When my eyes refocus, the first thing I notice is David, who looks like somebody’s punched him in the balls. His bloodshot eyes are glued to Christina, and I take a step to the side so we’re both solidly behind my mom.

  “She didn’t even know she was H2 until a day ago,” my mother says in a high, commanding voice. “She’s not a part of this fight, but she’s saved my son’s life several times, at great risk to her own.”

  “I can’t allow her to leave. Now she knows about us,” Rufus hisses. “She could alert the Core to our location.”

  “So could we,” my mother snaps. “But that won’t happen. I promise you.”

  “But she’s H2!” the hobbit shouts.

  “Yeah, but they brought her here,” says Shoulders, glaring at me.

  “It’s against The Fifty’s bylaws to keep members of The Fifty against their will,” answers a hard-faced woman standing next to Rufus. She looks like she wishes she could, though.

  “But so is threatening or endangering another member of The Fifty!” someone else calls from the crowd. “And by bringing that thing into our secure compound, they’ve endangered all of us!”

  There’s a rumble of approval from the crowd. The hard-faced woman nudges Rufus. “But if Angus were to find out . . .” Her lips keep moving, but whatever she says to him is drowned out by shouts from the other Bishops.

  Aaron, who’s still rubbing his throat, takes a step toward me, trying to edge around my mom, but she instantly shifts her position so she can aim at his head while keeping an eye on the gun-wielding twin.