Veracity

by Laura Bynum

  "Harper!" Lilly shouts from her spot in a clump of overgrowth. She's alone, as Noam's gone back to help Lazarus.

  She holds out her drive for me to see. It's housed in a sleek black casing the size of a large tablet. If we're caught like this, we're to swallow them, those of us who were chosen to carry them.

  "Aaron!" Lilly points. "Is he wearing his?" The young guard is still sitting up. I can see a chain around his neck, the drive a weight at its end.

  Aaron died too fast. Didn't get the chance to swallow his.

  Christ, help me. I barely have enough spit to swallow my own.

  I elbow my way across the pockmarked ground. Have to feel around on Aaron's torso before the flash drive comes into contact with my hand. I snatch it loose and begin crawling back to my higher bit of weeds when I see his gun shining a surprising distance away. It's half hidden beneath a patch of high grass close to the fence. Too far for an attempt at retrieval. I'll come back for it if given the opportunity.

  Beyond the fence, tall grass is parting. A man is standing up, his face deep brown, eyes black. He has no fear of us. Waves at me and then at Ezra with the small hole at the end of his gun, deciding casually which one of us to shoot first.

  "There!" I shout at Ezra, but she's already seen him.

  I hear the loud popping of weapons being fired but my twisting head can't see from which way it comes. Then the sickening, hard-soft sound of a bullet ripping flesh and the falling spray of blood. Like a sprinkler passing a large-leaved shrub.

  Someone is dead. I don't want to look.

  It's the Blue Coat. He's collapsed into a small, neat circle as if his knees have been cut out from beneath him. Rita's taken him down. She looks back, searching for my face. When she finds me, she smiles as if it's been enough to make me think I was wrong. That she's on our side.

  "Three!" she says.

  "Adams!" Ezra is motioning toward another man who catapults across the fence on a direct course toward me. He hits the ground and raises his gun. I won't be able to get out of the way fast enough. I just start to move when he's made to step sideways and falls heavily into a cross-legged seat. The man looks at me with big eyes. What just happened? Then dies where he sits. He never shows a drop of blood. I'll never know where Ezra's hit him.

  "Two," she shouts. "Watch your ass, Adams!"

  Ezra grabs hold of my shirt and tugs me along to behind the fallen Blue Coat. We use his body as a shield.

  "Where's Skinner?" she asks.

  "Didn't you see him?"

  "No." Ezra pops a new clip into her gun. "That cocky son of a bitch is going to come straight down the middle. You let me know when he does."

  I scan the horizon. Stop where Rita is hanging on to her weapon. She's got both arms up and the muzzle lifted, but no finger on the trigger. Fifty feet beyond her, just over the fence, I see Skinner. He's right in the center of the far field. Coming straight down the middle like Ezra said he would.

  I point. "There!"

  He's with another man. They begin to run. Vault over the fence with long, fast-shooting guns, Jingo first, then the other. Jingo shouts something to his partner. He's to collect our weapons, and us, in whatever order is easiest. There are only three people Skinner wants to keep alive--Ezra James, Harper Adams, and Lazarus Cobb. The rest are to be given one chance to lay down their weapons.

  Jingo disappears into the high grass. I can see his shoulders flexing over a lump of green and brown canvas that's been heavily splattered with blood. It's Aaron, our dead guard. Skinner has removed the boy's boot laces and is using them to tether our guard to his shoulders. When Skinner comes up again, it's with two heads and four arms. Skinner is using Aaron as a shield. Wearing him vestlike on his way to me. As Skinner runs, it's our comrade's body that absorbs the bullets.

  It happens fast. I'm putting up my hand to shield myself from his approach, then I'm up in the air as Aaron falls past. His stubbled head soaked with blood and face peppered with shot, the dead guard falls into the space I'd just occupied.

  "Come on," Skinner says, grabbing one arm and twisting me painfully off the ground. "You're better cover."

  Jingo's wearing a cast on his right arm, from elbow to palm. It pushes painfully against my ribs as I'm yanked in front of him, my arms bound behind me with his belt. He walks us together toward Ezra, who's scrambled away. He sucks in quick breaths as we move. Each step hurts his damaged wrist.

  Ezra is standing ten yards away. Her long-barreled gun is in her hand and pointed at Skinner.

  "Put down the gun, baby," Jingo says.

  "Put down the Monitor."

  "Let's not do this. I happen to know you need Harper here as much as you need Lazarus."

  Ezra lowers her barrel so it's pointed at one of my legs. She's going to shoot me to prove how little I'm worth. She glances up at my face and I nod. Okay.

  "Shoot out both kneecaps." Jingo kicks at my shins. Splays me out so both legs are offered up as easy targets. "Long as you keep it below the jugular. We need her alive, don't we?"

  I close my eyes. It's a lifetime of waiting before I hear Ezra's gun being tossed into the grass. Skinner doesn't immediately kill her, but it's no surprise. He loves her. Doesn't want to shoot her if he doesn't have to.

  "What do you want, Skinner?"

  "I think that's my question to you, darling. You have any preference for what numbers I call on you?"

  I open my eyes. Ezra's pulled a package of cigarettes from one of her many pockets. "I'll take an eight-aught-five, if you have the energy for it."

  "Don't fuck with me, Ezra. Not today."

  "Oh. Okay, then how about a straight-up nine-sixteen?" She puts the lit cigarette in her mouth. Offers Skinner one from the held-out box. "Smoke?"

  Her nonchalance enrages him. Skinner lifts his gun and sets it atop my shoulder for support. Shoots the offered cigarette away, taking a bit of her finger with it.

  Ezra wasn't ready for this. For a terrible second, her facade of calm slips and I see a fear that tells me she knows what's coming. Then she seals herself off. Flips Skinner the bird with what remains of the digit and smiles.

  "Put her down, Skinner." Ezra is trying to sound bored and unharmed. But her face betrays her. White cheeks and gray lips are the colors of too much lost blood. She needs to sit down before she falls there.

  Skinner reholsters his gun. Behind me comes the sliding friction of a knife being unsheathed, then the cold tip pressed against my neck. "This is what you girls came to do, right? Get rid of your slates? How about we start with this one."

  Ezra has retrieved a cloth bandage from a pocket. She uses it to tie off her finger's bleeding stump. "I thought Helen Rumney needed her."

  "Maybe not." Jingo looks at the side of my face. Turns it in his hand. "We've got other Sentients coming. Rumney has 'em lined up around the block for that BodySpeak program of hers."

  Ezra looks at him as if he was slow. "If you want to kill someone, kill her. But if you want to fight someone, fight me."

  "You're about to fall over, darling."

  "Then we should be about even." Ezra pulls her shirt over her head and drops it to the ground. Beneath her sports bra, she's damp and white, and even more muscular than last I saw her.

  Our remaining guards march forward slowly. We are greater in number, but Jingo and his partner have better weapons, automatics capable of spraying out hundreds of bullets before their clips run dry. And Jingo has me.

  He unleashes my arms and pushes me ahead of him, the hot muzzle of his gun pressed between my shoulder blades. "Hold it there," he says, and our group stops. "Throw 'em down."

  The other Blue Coat collects our weapons as Jingo pushes me onto the grass. I'm kicked forward. Yanked up by the other cop and corralled along with the rest of us. Next to me, Rita's hands are empty. Her gun is lying on the wet ground along with the others. I glance quickly at the fence. Aaron's weapon is still there, ten feet behind Jingo's partner.

  Jingo points his weapon at us. "I'm goin
g to be needing that book now." The muzzle skips up and down our faces, marking our foreheads with the red sights of his gun.

  "Fight me," Ezra says.

  Jingo answers with his gun pointed away from her, the muzzle trained on us. "When we're done killing all your friends here, then I'll get to--"

  Before the last word is out of his mouth, Ezra crosses the short space. Snap. Jingo's head shoots back as she punches him in the face with her good hand. "Are you going to shut up or are you going to fucking fight me?"

  Jingo is furious. He catches Ezra with the heft of his cast, the one I all but put on him at the farm, then looks down at where she's fallen into a rumpled pile. Mouth bleeding. "Fine."

  He waves over his compatriot and hands the man a second weapon, his own. "Watch the others." Jingo begins to turn away, then stops, his eyes stuck on something beyond us. "Missed one." He points.

  No.

  Both weapons in hand, the other Blue Coat walks over to Aaron's gun. He bends down and, with the tip of Jingo's rifle, pitches it into the pile containing ours.

  "Good eye," he says to Jingo, then plants his feet wide on the ground before us, cocking the barrels of both guns.

  I could die from the loss of hope.

  Jingo's knife flashes under the rising sun. He circles Ezra, who's pulled herself to her feet. "So this is what you do during the day. And here I thought you were sleeping."

  "Now you know."

  Jingo moves closer, keeping his knife at the level of her throat. "We're not that different. If you'd been born a man, you'd be a Blue Coat, too. Hell, you might have been my partner. Damned shame, Ezra."

  "Damned shame," she agrees, widening her feet and taking the sideways posture to which I've become so accustomed.

  The Blue Coat guarding us has become intrigued. We've already become heaps of former things. Discarded bits of waste. He's bored with the lot of us. Would prefer to see the fight.

  I catch Lilly watching him, too. We nod at each other. We'll wait for an opportunity. If it doesn't come, we'll make one.

  "So Lazarus Cobb is right here in my little corner of the world." Skinner looks at Lazarus, who's glaring back at him from his station on the ground. "And The Book of Noah."

  Lazarus pushes himself clumsily to his feet. "You want me, Jingo, you can have me. Leave Ezra alone."

  "I don't want you, Mr. Cobb. It would be best for everyone if you'd sit back down." Skinner points the tip of his knife at the ground. Before Lazarus can bend his knees, Skinner starts toward him, The Book of Noah not ten feet away.

  Lazarus holds up his hands. "Fine. Fine. It just takes me awhile." With a sound like snapping twigs, his hips hit the earth. Ruined shoes go up in the air.

  Skinner marches back to Ezra. "Where is it?" he snarls.

  "It?"

  The thought of killing her has affected Jingo. His eyes are pink and unbalanced. He's developed a taste for retribution that has him constantly licking his lips. "Come on now. Where's your book?"

  "Fight me and I'll tell you." Ezra glances my way briefly. Watch now, Harper. Then looks back at Skinner. "Who sold us out? Was it one of my team?"

  Skinner smiles. "You don't trust your own people very much."

  "They haven't seen the sun for years."

  He points at Ezra with his knife while nodding at his compatriot. "You want a little of that before I gut her?"

  The other man shakes his head, missing Ezra's eyes, which are on mine. "Hell, no. I know where that's been."

  Ezra blinks. Go. It's all the opening I need.

  Three quick strides and then I dive toward Skinner's partner. His gun fires as he falls. The bullets fly over my head and into our people. I don't think about who might have been shot or who's dead. I do it exactly as Ezra's taught me. Use the force of my stride to grab the earth with my hands and swing my outstretched legs into the side of his knees. There's the muted snap of a bone breaking and the man goes down with a scream. He loses his grip on the guns and one bounces toward me.

  I pick it up and turn it round. Point it at the Blue Coat. His eyes grow large as I squeeze the trigger. The man's head recoils before I hear the sound.

  Jesus, forgive me. It's the worst feeling of my life.

  He was someone's son. Someone's father maybe. Someone.

  "Throw it down, Adams!" Somehow, Skinner has found Ezra's gun in the grass. He has it in his left hand, pointed at her head. His knife dangles awkwardly from his right hand. The tendons there no longer pull correctly on the fingers protruding from his cast and he has a hard time keeping up the blade. "I said, throw it down!"

  Ezra's not going to wait for me to decide. She and Jingo are only ten feet apart. She starts walking straight toward him. Is there before I can tell her no.

  "Ezra!" Jingo lifts his gun. "Stop!"

  But she doesn't.

  The first bullet catches her in the top of the shoulder. It turns her sideways, like an invisible hand pushing. Does nothing to stop her progress. The second catches her beneath the ribs and she steps backward, then forward. By the time I have my gun trained on Jingo's head, she's already to him.

  "No, Harper!" she shouts. "He's mine."

  Ezra makes it look so simple. The knife comes easily away from Jingo's bad hand. With a simple swipe of the blade, she's drawn him a second mouth. It forms in the skin above his slate, smiles big. Jingo falls to his knees. His hands are up, trying to catch the blood that's pouring out of him, unsure of what to do with it. He blinks at Ezra, then falls back.

  Ezra walks over so easily that for a precious moment, I allow myself the idea that she's not mortally wounded. But then she turns and the sun catches her clothes and the fresh holes made there. Her blood shining on the grass.

  "Rita?" she asks.

  "I'll handle Rita," I say, and Ezra nods her head.

  "Good, then." Her words collapse in the air. Never really get out of her mouth.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  AUGUST 31, 2045. AFTERNOON.

  Ezra is resting at my feet. Her gun is in my right hand. She's bled out and blue, and in no time at all. Lazarus has come forward and is standing next to me. The rest of us have made a semicircle around Rita, who's been set directly in our center.

  "Why?" I ask her.

  Rita's face is closed. She isn't giving me anything, least of all an answer.

  "Was it Lazarus?"

  Lazarus watches her with a look of incredulity. Betrayal shows as a set of two white circles on his cheeks.

  I step closer. My gun raised. "Was it because he brought you into the bunker?"

  Rita's eyes float over to our leader, then back to me. "I was just a kid," she says, pulling out her gun. "Six years beneath the earth! Six years without--"

  Our weapons fire simultaneously.

  I feel the bullet graze the side of my head, but there's no pain. It feels like someone running their fingers too close, pulling hairs. I have no idea if I've hit Rita.

  Suddenly, I'm lying in the mud. Lilly's face is above me, blotting out the sky. Noam is over her shoulder.

  "Harper!" She dabs a wad of cloth against my head where something warm and pulpy is leaking out. It's soaking my collar and running down my shirt to pool at the apex of my abdomen.

  "Lazarus?"

  Lilly pulls the towel away. The material is soaked in my blood. "He's fine. Rita didn't get the chance to shoot him."

  I'm on the field. I can feel Lilly shaking my shoulders, but I've evacuated the premises. My body's grown tired of fighting me. Always in control. Pressing on when I was supposed to just stop. I never did, so my body's doing it for me.

  I sigh and the breath takes me away from the field and Lilly's voice. The backs of my eyes go bright, then Veracity is there. Sitting in the same old chair, in front of the same yellow wall.

  "Mom . . ." she begins. "I understand now."

  This time I can see the whole room, including the woman who's now her mother. She's petite with black hair and a kind face. I can see their dog, a little brown
terrier they call Scout who sleeps with Veracity at night. I can even see Veracity's room with its four-poster bed and blue and white comforter. Here, everything flows together. I dip my toe in this river and seem to be able to find any answer I seek.

  What you did, you did for me. You were just trying to give me back my name.

  I have no eyes here, no limits to my perception, so I focus on the ubiquitous. The worn floor tiles beneath her chair. The side table and its picture of Scout in an ornate silver frame. A clock and its red, boxy numbers flashing the time, just past seven in the morning.

  I hear the electricity that begins the worst part of this dream. Then the sound of my daughter being electrocuted stops and the room becomes silent. I drag my attention back to her seat and, to my surprise, Veracity is still there. Staring calmly back at me.

  "Mom, it's time."

  Mom . . . Her voice sends me traveling down a tunnel. Then I'm dumped out on a floor and left lying in a closet, Veracity's picture taped to the ceiling above me.

  You can do this, she says. Then, just like before, she reaches down and cradles my face in her small hands. Finish this. Veracity looks me in the eyes and there it is, the answer reflected back to me. So simple and ever present. As most answers are.

  Do this, Mom. Finish this.

  Okay.

  I watch from above as floating bits of me are deposited on the shore of my body below. Watch as my chest rises and falls and the cool air enters my lungs. Immediately and with great force, I'm slammed back into myself. I lie gasping for air, blinking at the bright morning light like a fish just thrown out of the ocean. It is both painful and wondrous.

  "Harper!" It's Noam. He's standing above me, wiping blood out of my eyes.

  All around him, the sky has caught on fire. Thank you, God.

  I push myself upright and stare at the sparkling banks of salmon pink and daffodil yellow disappearing against the dark horizon. It's the aura of night, a set of colors I've never before noticed, or maybe never before had the ability to see. Beneath this sky, a cobalt blue floats over the dutifully breathing grass. The color comes up from each stem with a burst. Combined, these millions of blue exhalations make the earth look like the starriest of twilights. And then there are the colors of my compatriots. Beneath the war-worn colors of puce and ash, each and every one has retained a core of the most magnificent magenta. It is their literal spark of passion, still intact.