Veracity

by Laura Bynum

  "Is he hurt?"

  "We don't know." Lazarus leans down so I have to look into his face. "Harper, they're also bringing in John."

  My face falls. Is he hurt, too?

  Lazarus is kind and doesn't make me use the words. "We don't know anything about John's condition, either."

  Noam interrupts with a hand on my other shoulder. "Could you do me a favor? Could you go to Lazarus's room and get his medicine satchel?"

  Despite my desire to stay, I agree and head off toward the sleeping quarters. I pray silently beneath my breath, taking turns: Each step on the left foot, I pray for Ben. Each step on the right, for John.

  I've just turned the corner when a man runs past. He's come from behind me--from the vicinity of Noam's gym--his head forward, legs like a wheel beneath him. Were someone to step into his path, he'd never be able to stop. I open my mouth to shout a warning when I'm nearly hit by another man, also running. They're headed for the main hall.

  Almost immediately, I hear Tabitha's voice. She's running up and down the halls, shouting names, presumably of those of us cleared to proceed to the back. Her voice is still hanging in the air when the place explodes. Canvas doors blow open and the occupants rush out, each with a set direction. It's practiced. No one bounces into anyone. No one is panicked. Everyone is graceful. They are one body with many arms.

  Ben Dean is here. And John.

  I race to collect the medicine satchel, then turn and run back to the gym, which is now filled with a third of us. Lazarus and Noam are standing at the mouth of the rear entrance, waiting for a procession of people who look like black shadows in the dimly lit hall. It feels like eternity before Ben Dean and his group of rescuers appear in parts as they enter the trauma area, their bodies dissected by the dark.

  The light announces them as they proceed into the gym. A thin white arm and ruffled brown hair become a woman named Sally, her head bent over the top of the carried board. A pair of thick legs becomes a sentry, one of two people I've seen carrying guns. I don't know the woman backing toward me. Or the other three men on the team's far side, their arms stretched out, just a finger each on Ben's transport board as there's no helping room left. A skirt showing powerful legs below with a silver blouse on top becomes Ezra, no surprise. Laid out on the board, all dangling fingers and shining clothes, is Ben Dean. So far, John is nowhere in sight.

  Arms, shoulders, and heads sidestep into the gym. They stop and lower Ben Dean onto the board. Their faces are all business, as if Ben Dean is already dead. Then one of his arms moves.

  Lilly shoots forward and takes hold of Ben's wrist. "Where'd you find him?"

  The woman at Ben's head opens her mouth to answer but is stayed by a voice proceeding out of the dark tunnel.

  "Four miles north of Bond."

  We all turn and watch as John Gage is led in by one of Lilly's young nurses. Despite efforts to take cool, even steps, he's limping. His arm finds the girl's every other footfall and she slumps under the sudden and sporadic weight of him.

  As John advances, I log those bits of him revealed by the lights. Unedited face, head, arms, chest . . . No. One side of his shirt has been pulled free of the hem and the loose dart is stained with blood.

  Lilly leaves Ben to examine our Blue Coat, who's trying to lower himself casually into the seat. But he fails to look unaffected and lands with some pain on the hard plastic seat. John's jacket gapes upon impact and there, on his lower left flank, is the hole.

  "Good God, John!" Lilly pushes him forward and pulls at his sleeves until the coat is free and she can poke at another hole, presumably on his other side. "At least it's gone through. You were lucky this time."

  I take a step toward him. John!

  I don't think I've said this out loud but suddenly there's a quiet around me. Noam has put out his hand and stopped me on my way to our Blue Coat.

  "Harper," Noam says. Then, slowly, the way Mr. Weigland used to, he inclines his head ever so slightly while looking at the others. They're watching, Harper.

  "He's hurt . . ."

  "Harper." Noam again tries to draw me back. No. Not now. Or maybe, Not in front of everyone.

  But I don't move. Can't make my legs or my eyes turn away.

  Noam reaches up and slides a finger beneath the satchel's strap, still wrapped over my shoulder. "Thank you, Harper," he says, ever so gently pushing me back into my original position while taking Lazarus's medicine bag with him.

  Behind him, John begins talking. He's giving Lilly a briefing.

  "Jingo couldn't have been with Ben for more than a few minutes," John says, grimacing as Lilly's fingers move on his lower back. "He'd been cut by the time I arrived." His eyes are swinging beneath a sweating brow, looking for someone. "He's lost too much blood, Lilly," John tries to whisper, but can't modulate such hard truth. When he finally finds Mary, Ben's widow, she's heard her husband's prognosis. Down go her arms to cover her round belly.

  Lilly leaves John, who's going to live, to attend Ben Dean, who is not. The others standing there part like a drape and allow her entrance.

  Lazarus puts a hand on my arm while whispering into my ear, "Harper, we need you to read Ben. Find out whatever you can."

  I'm rushed to the board by a collection of hands, my eyes turned backward. Behind me, John's shirt has been removed to allow Lilly's assistant better access to his wound. I can see it from here. A small round bullet hole distal from the spine and just beneath the ribs. The young woman pokes at the plum-colored lesion with a long swab while someone places my hands on Ben Dean's body. The abilities I'm supposed to be using on Ben, I use first on John. I won't be able to focus on our runner until I know he's safe.

  A diffuse, purplish pink light has collected around John's wound and spiraling out of its center is a core of brownish green. Nowhere do I see the thick ash of irreversible damage. Or the fine red lines of death that so often rise out of bullet wounds, spreading and swelling to paint the victim a burgundy-striped, gunmetal gray. Thank you, God. Around John's head, I see a yellow green, the color of worry. But his eyes aren't set on his friend and compatriot who's nearly dead on the table, or even on Mary, the pending widow. They're set squarely on the couple's unborn baby. On the child who will be born into a war and without a father.

  Lazarus clears his throat and I turn my head back to Ben. My eyes don't need to see what my hands already feel. Our runner is sheathed in the colors of death. I have to wave away the roiling clouds of it in order to see his face.

  Another of Lilly's assistants opens a tear already well begun in the fabric of Ben's trousers. She looks up without moving her body and delivers the news with large eyes. "The femoral artery's been cut."

  "What have you done to stop the bleeding?" Lilly calls out to John, who's gritting his teeth. A mix of rubbing alcohol and gin has been applied to his open wound. It foams upon contact.

  "I tried to get a tourniquet above the artery, but he's lost at least three pints of blood . . ." John leaves off. He can see Mary, Ben's wife, now huddled in the corner of the room, listening. The skin around Mary's eyes is streaked with the mascara of tears and dirt, but she's no longer crying.

  Lilly motions for the young woman to come over, if she wants. But Mary shakes her head no. That red, bleeding form on the table isn't her husband. She sinks into the friends still circled around her and Lilly turns back to me.

  "Go ahead."

  I ignore the activity going on around us and watch as Ben Dean's dark colors float up off the board on which he's been laid. They're tinged with green, a burnt sage. It is the color of waste going bad. Of compost, resurrection. These strands of color have almost separated from the young man. They seem attached at his joints by very thin threads.

  God help me. It's too late. I don't know how to pull answers from this man and it's these people's assumption I do. I'm about to disappoint them. All the lucid parts of Ben Dean are already dead.

  The board where Ben's lying has become a blur of hands that pass along cutle
ry and thread and homemade bandages used to blot Ben's continuously leaking blood. Ben's only job is to breathe, and twice he quits and a pair of round paddles are pressed to his chest. They shock him so that, for a fraction of a second, he's up on his head and his hips, then down again. Twice brought back. But it's never permanent. Ben flickers in and out like a wet candle. His colors change as he dies. Now they're all pastels. Pale versions of others.

  "Are we safe, Ben?" I whisper into his ear, knowing it's too late. He's no longer here to answer. He wasn't available for questioning when they got here.

  Ezra leaves her station at Ben's side and runs up the hall toward the sleeping quarters. Elsbeth takes her place. She tells Ben she's going to take over and ask him a few questions of her own. For a yes, he's to wiggle a finger or a toe. For a no, he's to lie absolutely still. Ben's begun to shudder, is losing control of his body. If he moves, it will be an autonomic response.

  "What are you doing?" I ask, and the whole room looks over.

  Elsbeth draws herself up and stares at me with her small button eyes. "What somebody else should have already done!"

  Immediately, she leans down and asks her questions. Has our medical contact been compromised? Does Jingo know anything about us? God bless you, we'll love you anyway, but did Jingo get anything out of you? Did you throw out your kill pill? We didn't find it in your pockets, and we know you didn't swallow it. Did Skinner knock it out of your hand before you could take it? We know you'd never compromise us, would you? We haven't been compromised, have we, Ben? Or the war?

  Ben doesn't move and Elsbeth comes up beaming.

  I begin to interject, but Ezra does it for me. Already she's back, now wearing a clean black skirt and green tube top. "Move it!" she shouts, pushing Elsbeth out of the way. "Harper!" She turns to me. "What did you find out?"

  "He's gone," I say. And, as if he needed it spoken, there is the smallest trembling of release from Ben. A sigh, like a tire punctured. And he's dead, so simply. As if there was no pain in the going, just the staying.

  "Too late," Lilly announces. "We didn't have time to debrief." She undoes the blood-staunching pliers set tight against Ben's leg and throws them haphazardly into the dark hall.

  I don't have to turn my head to see John Gage's expression of grief. It's coming across the room like a storm. Next to me, Ben's eyes are rolled up in his head. Large purple poppies have begun blooming beneath his skin. Stagnant pools of blood with nowhere else to go.

  Ezra frowns at Lazarus, who's propped himself against the rear hall. "I'm on damage control," she says, and marches away toward the front of Lilly's house, making fast progress in a pair of needle-thin heels.

  I see something reflecting light as she goes, in and out, in and out, beneath the overhead bulbs. There's something shiny on her arm.

  "Ezra," I call out, but she doesn't stop.

  "Let her go," Lazarus says. "We'll meet up again later, when she gets back."

  I can't wait. Bolt down the hall after her. Ezra's fast. Already she's on the stairs leading up to Lilly's pantry. "Wait!" I shout.

  "I don't have time for you now, Adams!" Ezra looks down between the rails. The outer door's already open. I can see the slightest hint of light behind her.

  "Wait!" I take the stairs two at a time. Catch her just before she steps onto the landing.

  "I don't have fucking time!" Ezra tries to buck me off and I grab at her elbow. Hold up my fingers.

  They're shiny and red. She's touched Ben Dean. Accidentally marked herself with his blood.

  I take off my T-shirt and she turns around, offers me her arm. I wipe until it's clean, then push her into the upstairs pantry. Ezra peeks back at me through the closing door, but doesn't say a thing.

  apostasy

  discriminate

  ego

  fossil

  heresy

  kindred

  obstreperous

  offline

  veracity

  ob-strep-er-ous: resisting control or restraint in a difficult manner; unruly.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  AUGUST 15, 2045. MIDAFTERNOON.

  There are twelve council members assembled at a long table made from other, shorter tables, all pushed together. They've been assembled to talk about the incident. The council is half women, half men, and mostly older. Lazarus sits in their center with Noam and Lilly on either side of him. Ben Dean's body has been cleaned and dressed, laid out in the main hall for something Lilly calls a wake. And a patched-up John Gage had to go back up top before I was able to speak to him. We've been assembled to discuss the fallout of Ben's capture and, to my surprise, the council is looking at me.

  I smile back at the assembled faces and turn to Ezra, who's seated next to me. She's put on a new set of clothes since her return. Black stiletto heels. A black see-through blouse with the bra showing beneath. A sequined green skirt with a slit that opens to midthigh. I don't know how to begin this proceeding and Ezra can tell.

  She holds up a hand but doesn't wait to be called on and stands up. "Ezra James asking for permission to speak."

  Lazarus nods. "The council recognizes Ezra James."

  "I found Jingo at 6:05 this morning at his residence. He was inebriated when I arrived." Ezra pulls out a cigarette. "There's not much to tell. He's not talking. Or anything else."

  Lazarus taps his long fingers against the table and looks down at a woman named Casey who'll be our future Secretary of Defense. She's long and thin with flesh as orange as the wood used to make the library door. "Do we know when Skinner's debriefing is scheduled?" he asks her.

  "Tomorrow at seven p.m. in Antioch."

  Lazarus turns to an old man named Fitz who's sitting at the table's other end. In our new world, he'll be a Supreme Court Justice. "Fletcher can get her in."

  Fitz pulls at his chin. "Yes, but we'll have to set it up immediately." He turns his worn eyes to me. One is completely white, the blue of the other almost gone. "Harper, we're going to have you attend this session. It's vital we know what he's discovered, if anything."

  Involuntarily, I flex and the heel of one foot hits the leg of my chair. "Yes, sir." I know what a debriefing is and where it's usually done.

  Lazarus nods. "Good. Harper, I need you to watch closely. What happens tomorrow is crucial."

  Tomorrow afternoon, while everyone else is in the back field putting Ben Dean in the ground, I'll be heading out the front door. Getting into Lilly's car and driving to a cornfield ninety miles north of Bond, to the X on Lilly's map. Once there, I'll wait until my contact arrives. Then I'll bury my purse and Lilly's keys and ride with this stranger the final few miles to Antioch and Jingo Skinner's debriefing. Afterward, I'll make sure to gas up in Antioch before driving the ninety miles home. When I get back, I'll know if it's safe to go to war.

  They're so sure I'll know just by watching. But that's not the way it works.

  "I can't always tell when someone's lying," I say quickly before Lazarus can adjourn this meeting or move on to something else.

  "What do you mean?" he asks.

  I avoid the up-and-down eyes of the council. All of their attentions snapped to my face. "I'm just saying, it's not a sure thing."

  A woman with bright red hair leans forward. She has nails that have been painted pink. I can't take my eyes off them as she folds together her hands. "Then how does it work?" she asks.

  There's no way to describe it. "I don't know."

  "You don't know?" The woman puts away her lacquered nails and looks at Lazarus. "Well?"

  Lazarus frowns. At me, then at the woman. "She doesn't know how to explain it, Florence."

  "What I'm hearing, Lazarus, is that she doesn't know how to do it. What I would like you to do is explain to us why we went to so much trouble to acquire her if she's of no use to our cause."

  As much as I hate to agree with her, Florence is right to be worried. My sessions with Noam haven't been progressing my abilities as quickly as I'd hoped. Our new technique has become
Noam repeating in soft, tender words the thing I'm to find or the place I'm to go. He does this over and over until that one thing erupts over the horizon of my consciousness, bright and beautiful like the sun. Noam's calm voice gets me there, but once I'm at my goal, maneuvering is difficult. I still don't know how to will myself from one point to another and for our purpose--finding the main redactor--this ability is vital. I need to be able to guide John to the master. To create for him a map. And while Lazarus still won't tell me how much longer I have, I feel it has to be soon. Maybe weeks, or even just days away.

  Lazarus answers the question about my abilities deftly, steering the woman back to the task at hand. "The most Harper will be able to do is offer speculation about Jingo's knowledge, albeit speculation that profits from a gift for which there are no words. It will be an honest guess, and that's all. And we can't ask her for anything more. Harper can't explain how it happens any more than we can explain the atomic structure of love. For this, the empirical does not apply."

  Florence nods. She's considered his argument and has turned to stare at my nervous, bouncing knees. "Lazarus, you seem to have more faith in this girl than she has in herself."

  "That could have been said about all of us at one time or another."

  Florence bobs her head and turns to me. "Thank you, Harper. Now, since you're going to be up top for a few hours, there's a little protocol we need to cover. Lilly has something to give you."

  Lilly comes down from her seat and drops an amber-colored pill into my palm. "Cyanide. Instant death with a minimum of suffering. We call it a kill pill, as awful as that sounds." She curls up my fingers until the pill has disappeared. "If you get caught, use it. They'll torture you to get to us."

  Lazarus stands. "We have a lot of work to get done. Is there anything else before we table this meeting?"

  Elsbeth stands up. She's been sitting with her husband, Charles, at the edge of the room. "John Gage might be considered worth talking about," she says.

  Despite myself, my legs flex. I kick my chair.