Burn

by Julianna Baggott

  He took off the blindfold and watched the kids scramble. Helmud wrestled loose from his mother’s grip and joined them, but El Capitan was even angrier now. The kids had been rewarded for laughing at him. “Go on and help yourself,” the girl’s father told him, pushing on his back.

  He refused. He wasn’t going to dive for some rich kid’s scraps. He stood there and watched. Later, he stole some of Helmud’s candy; someone owed him something.

  Now he’s the donkey.

  Even if he had no other fault or sin, he deserves this beating for losing the bacterium alone.

  He hears people calling his name—jeering. His vision is blurred by sweat and blood. He blinks into the bright light of day. The sun—even clouded as always—sears a burning pain into his skull. He sees Dome worshippers mostly, but some of the mothers have also wandered in. They hate him plenty. He recognizes a few OSR soldiers too. Hasn’t he done good things for them?

  Their gaunt faces jump into focus then out again. His recruitment posters promised food without fear and that solidarity would save them. He left, and they were ravaged. They’ve come to view his violent execution because El Capitan abandoned them, because a lot of them have died and those who are still holding on are starving to death. He knows what it is to be abandoned. As a kid, he searched the sky for airplanes, hoping for some small connection to his father, a pilot who left the family before El Capitan could gather even a few memories of the man.

  Still, the soldiers look almost happy. Survivors love a beating. There’s so much to pay for. Whenever anyone is chosen to shoulder some blame, it’s a relief. El Capitan knows that feeling. He killed people and sometimes thought, quite simply, People deserve to die.

  But he said he was sorry. And whether it was God or Saint Wi or some spiritual force he can’t even comprehend, he felt forgiven. Why are they letting him suffer like this? Does he deserve this beating? Has God already given up on him?

  Some of those who stand in line are wiry and stronger than he would think, while others wear their strength with hardened shoulders and beefy guts. El Capitan and Helmud aren’t blindfolded, which seems unfair, as none of them ever just swing at the air. But they are only allowed to hit him three times each. If someone winds up to strike a fourth time, Margit is there to keep the line moving. “Hold it,” she says. “Everybody here wants theirs, so back in line.”

  He looks for Bradwell. He was forced to watch the free-for-all, but he wasn’t beaten in the process. The survivors still hold him in some regard. He’s gone.

  Some of the survivors say a name when they beat him—someone dead, someone El Capitan killed or could have saved if he hadn’t helped set up such an evil regime as the old OSR. Each name rings in his mind. At first, he arched and fought the blows then only braced for them, and now he accepts them.

  A short man with wide-barreled ribs strikes El Capitan’s thighs with a two-by-four. “Minnow!” he cries. “Minnow Wells. My Minnow!” It sounds like the pet name for a child—like the way El Capitan’s mother in some deep way changed who he was when she stopped calling him Waldy. Was Minnow this man’s daughter or son? His sweetheart?

  El Capitan takes the blows. “Minnow. Minnow Wells,” he whispers.

  He knows there will likely be a final blow, like the one he dealt the piñata. He’ll probably die of internal wounds rather than blood pouring from him. Will his heart stop first or will Helmud’s?

  He once imagined what it would be like to tell Pressia that Bradwell was dead. Will Bradwell be the one to tell her that he and Helmud are dead? He hopes that in that moment she realizes that she loves him. That’s all he’s wanted. He imagines that she’ll cry and that Bradwell will be the one to comfort her.

  In this scenario, they might be sitting inside of a cracked Dome.

  They might have made it all the way to that reality—without him.

  He got close.

  Someone hits him so hard that his body arches and then sways. The crowd—now hundreds of them—cheers. But El Capitan remembers being weightless—up in the sky on that airship. If he has a soul, and if the soul leaves the body once someone dies, he’d like it to take off like that airship.

  I’d like to fly. It’s a new prayer. I’d like to fly just once more.

  He’s fighting to stay awake. He feels a dull shade being drawn over his eyes. Darkness. He fights it. His body bucks. His hands are blue claws strung over his head. He tries to wet his lips and tastes blood. He hears his brother’s voice humming in his ear—a dim song, one El Capitan can’t place.

  The beatings have stopped. There’s a rush of wind in El Capitan’s ears. Things have gone quiet and still.

  Except there’s a voice.

  El Capitan forces open one eye.

  He sees Bradwell’s wings arching over his shoulders. The wind buffets the feathers. The survivors are still holding on to their sticks and clubs, but they’ve gone quiet.

  Bradwell has a way of talking that makes people listen. He always has. Shadow History. The underground. He had a following. He led a movement.

  Has Bradwell convinced Gorse to let him talk to the people? Is he making a case on behalf of El Capitan and Helmud? Is Bradwell trying to save them?

  He hears the word evil. Maybe Bradwell isn’t trying to save them at all. El Capitan knows what evil feels like—on your skin it feels like hatred, but when you find it riding low in your gut, it’s really fear. Fear is where evil comes from. And hatred always came so easily to El Capitan because he hated himself—so deeply, so thoroughly, like he’d been shot through with self-hatred, a spray of buckshot.

  For a vengeful second, he thinks, Let them beat me to death. Let them beat their hate into me. He knows that beating him to death will be their punishment. Killing someone—that can’t be washed away. They’ll have to carry it around—easier in a group, easier to shift the sin from one person to the other, but never painless. They’ll have his death forever.

  Helmud’s too.

  Equality—that’s what Bradwell is talking about now. In this world?

  But whatever he says, it works. Someone has climbed the top of the old swing set and is sawing at the ropes with a knife. Other survivors have wrapped their arms around El Capitan’s legs so he and Helmud are caught once the ropes snap.

  Their lives have been spared. By God? By Saint Wi? By Bradwell?

  And then Bradwell is there. He hugs El Capitan and Helmud.

  “What happened?” El Capitan whispers through his swollen, split lip.

  “I struck a deal with Gorse. I promised to take him to his sister if he’d give me a couple of minutes to address the crowd. And then I told the people I was sent from God. An angel.”

  El Capitan smiles even though it hurts. “The wings helped.”

  “Finally they’re good for something,” Bradwell says.

  “Good,” Helmud says.

  Bradwell calls some survivors over. “Get them cleaned up. El Capitan was lost, but now he’s found.”

  The survivors start giving each other orders. They gaze at El Capitan and Helmud, perplexed but a little awestruck too. The look makes El Capitan nervous. He always preferred fear to admiration, but maybe it’s the same thing. Power. For a second, he wonders if Bradwell really saved him and Helmud because he loves them like brothers or because of some other more complex reason. Maybe he knows Bradwell needs El Capitan to get what he wants. And what does Bradwell really want? To take the Dome down or to get Pressia back before she decides to stay there?

  “What’s next?” El Capitan asks Bradwell, but Bradwell can’t understand him. El Capitan’s voice is so raw he can only whisper, and his lips are so puffed his words come out garbled.

  Bradwell kneels down and lays a hand on his chest. “What did you say?”

  “What’s next?” Helmud says, speaking for his brother.

  Bradwell says, “We await word.”

  “From Pressia?” El Capitan asks.

  “We await word from on high,” Bradwell says loudly so every
one can hear. “Who else? Where else?”

  The brightness zeroes in on Bradwell’s face. Blackness swallows the edges of El Capitan’s vision. He blinks and blinks and tries to say something. But then the world is dark.

  PARTRIDGE

  DREAM

  Partridge wakes up; a figure’s looming over him. He jerks, sits up. “What the hell?”

  He’s on the couch in his honeymoon suite. The curtains are drawn except for one small inch of light…and there’s Foresteed, staring down at him. He’s wearing his military uniform—an old one from the days of the Righteous Red Wave. A red armband is cinched around his bicep, medals glint on his chest, and a cap sits slightly cockeyed on his head.

  “What the hell do you want?” Partridge says.

  “This is what we’ve been waiting for, Partridge. All these years. It’s time.” His voice sounds almost nostalgic.

  “Time for what, Foresteed?”

  “They’re coming for us. Your father is dead. It’s just us now. Just us.”

  “Who’s coming? You’re not making sense. Jesus. Where’s Beckley? Where’s Iralene?”

  “I wanted us to talk alone,” Foresteed says, reaching into the pocket of his dark uniform jacket. “I have another little recording for you, Partridge.” He pulls out the handheld and gives it to Partridge. “Press play.”

  “I don’t want to hear any more recordings. You got me?”

  Foresteed unbuttons his jacket, reaches into a holster strapped around his chest, and pulls out a small pistol—again, it looks like it’s from the Before. He holds the gun at his side, pointed at the floor. “Press play.” It’s the calmness of his voice that scares Partridge the most—detached, bloodless.

  Partridge swallows dryly. He touches the play button. The screen remains dark, but he hears voices—lightly muffled but still distinct.

  “We have to get you out.” It’s Pressia’s voice, unmistakably. “They’re going to put you away and take the baby once it’s born.”

  Partridge glances at Foresteed, but Foresteed has his back turned. Pressia isn’t talking to Lyda, is she? They won’t take the baby, Partridge wants to say. That’s crazy. Where did Pressia come up with that? His pulse quickens.

  “I want to go back to the mothers,” Lyda says. “This place—it can’t be saved.” Partridge almost laughs. Lyda can’t want to go back to the mothers. She’s here, safe. But he knows that Lyda didn’t want to come in in the first place.

  “Listen,” Pressia says. “We have the means to take down the Dome.”

  “Do you hear that?” Foresteed mutters, turning back to Partridge. With a stiff arm, he starts banging the pistol against his leg.

  “Are you really going to?” Lyda says. “Can you?” She sounds hopeful. My God. Why would she want to take the Dome down? Is she just jealous of the wedding? Has she believed Pressia about the baby being taken away? Has she gone crazy?

  “If Partridge has turned on us,” Pressia says, “we might have to.”

  That’s it. The sounds fade away. Partridge stares at the black shiny screen. “Turned on them?” Partridge says. He feels utterly betrayed. “She walks in here, sees a wedding, and thinks she’s got a handle on the whole situation?” Partridge is stunned, but then he hears the beat of Foresteed’s pistol steadily banging against his leg. Foresteed thinks Pressia’s going to take down the Dome. This is what we’ve been waiting for, Partridge. All these years. It’s time. He thinks the wretches are coming for them. “Listen, Foresteed. They can’t take down the Dome. There’s no way.”

  “You don’t know anything. That trip to Ireland put her in contact with a very advanced people who might see us as a threat.”

  “No, no.” Partridge rubs the back of his neck. “Something’s wrong. You’ve taken this recording out of context.”

  “We have to put a stop to her,” Foresteed says. “She can’t be allowed to gain any momentum. I’ve had to take action.”

  Partridge stands up. “Foresteed…what did you do?”

  “I’m arming our militia in the Dome.”

  “You’re giving out guns to people who’ve been killing themselves?”

  “Only our militia—able-bodied men. We must defend what’s ours. The Special Forces troops out there now are pathetic. They were rushed—a bad batch. We have no one protecting us anymore. Not really. I had to open up the stocks.”

  “This is crazy. Let me talk to Pressia and Lyda. I can set them straight. It’s just a mix-up.”

  “You can’t talk to Pressia and Lyda,” Foresteed says.

  “Why not?” Partridge says, feeling threatened.

  “They’re gone.”

  “What? Are you kidding me?” Partridge walks to the curtains and pulls them wide open. There’s a view of the street. He sees people bustling below, running in all directions. Panic. Are they carrying guns? It’s a disaster. “Gone where?”

  “If we knew where they were,” Foresteed says, “you’d be able to talk to them.”

  Partridge turns to Foresteed. “Have they gotten out of the Dome?”

  “We have no evidence that anyone has escaped. We think they’re here somewhere.”

  “It’s a Dome, for shit’s sake! It can’t be that hard to find them!”

  Foresteed lifts the pistol, rubs it gently. “You know what we could be in for…”

  Partridge takes a deep breath. He imagines the Dome being infiltrated by Beasts, Groupies, the mothers, the OSR… He sees the Pures—pale and dazed, completely unprepared, walking around in their cardigans, their boat shoes. They’ll be bludgeoned to death. The Dome will be ransacked. Special Forces will only make things bloodier. The inferior race—Pures. The wretches will bring diseases with them—ones they’ve already survived but that the Pures won’t have immunities to. If the Dome’s seal is broken, the air itself will choke them. Chaos. Bloodshed. A huge death toll. And then it hits him. “If my sister says she has the means, it’s the truth.”

  “We have outside confirmation,” Foresteed says. “We’ve captured the traitor who led them to the airship. We’ve gotten enough data from him to confirm that they have some kind of agent—chemical warfare of some kind.”

  “What traitor?”

  “A Special Forces soldier who went rogue.”

  Not Hastings. Not Silas Hastings. Please, no. “Who?”

  “Someone you once knew well, it turns out. Hastings.”

  Partridge tightens his grip on the curtains. “You didn’t torture him to get—”

  “No. He tried to fight it, but there was only so much he could do. He’s programmed to give in to us. Behavioral coding,” Foresteed says wistfully. “If only your mother hadn’t blocked yours.”

  Partridge is thankful for that. He can still make his own decisions—for better, for worse. “Can I talk to him?”

  Foresteed walks up to Partridge, stepping into the beam of fake sun streaming through the window. Foresteed is glazed in sweat. He lifts the gun and positions it in the soft pocket behind Partridge’s jawbone. He says, “We are going to be ready. Your sister, if found, will be executed. And you, Partridge—you’d better do the right thing and help draw her in. Because you know what happens in a revolution?” Foresteed pushes the pistol in deeper. “The wretches will chop your head off first, but not if I’m moved to do it for them. Do you know what I’m saying?”

  Partridge nods, and then, like a shot through his gut, he thinks of his own baby. Will his child be strong enough to survive if the Dome is taken down? Just because the child was conceived out there doesn’t mean it will be tougher or more immune.

  “Do you have a plan?” Foresteed asks.

  “I need to get her grandfather for her. I need that.” Could he trust Arvin to send word out among Cygnus? Did they help her escape? Or are they looking for her too?

  Foresteed squints. His eyes tighten to watery beads. He says, “Can I trust you?”

  “You already said it. My father’s dead. It’s just us now, Foresteed. You and me.”

 
Foresteed smiles with one side of his mouth and lowers the gun. His eyes quiver over Partridge’s face. “That’s right. You and me.” Foresteed straightens his Righteous Red Wave uniform with a few quick jerks. It’s possible that Foresteed is looking forward to this, as nostalgic as he is for the good old days of the Righteous Red Wave. He gives Partridge a quick salute and then walks to the door, his pistol still held in one hand. Without looking back, he says, “Get the old man.” And then he walks out the door and down the hall.

  Partridge tries to rub away the lingering feeling of the gun pressed under his chin.

  Beckley appears. “Report went out. State of emergency. Recorded message from Foresteed. He said the wretches are going to rise up. He said the time is now. Is it true?”

  Partridge studies Beckley’s face for a moment. “I know what you think of me.”

  “You do?”

  “You think I’m in too deep. You think I have no idea what I’m doing. You think I’m going to drown. Sink or swim, and you’re betting I sink.”

  “Are those metaphors? I don’t understand metaphors.”

  “Knock off the bullshit. You think I’m sinking, don’t you?”

  “Partridge, we don’t have time—”

  “I can’t even tell if I’m sinking or the water’s rising all around me.” He looks around the room seeing none of it, feeling blind.

  “Partridge, what can I do? Give me an order.”

  That’s right. Partridge is supposed to be in charge—even if he has no power, Beckley’s on his side, isn’t he? “You’ve got to get me to Peekins—the chambers.”

  “We should go fast. It’s starting to get chaotic out there.”

  “Iralene’s coming with us. And no one can see us.”

  “I’ll figure it out.”

  “Glassings. I need him safe. I need to talk to him too.”

  Beckley shakes his head and looks out the window, as if he’s trying to figure out the weather—as if it could change. The skin around his eyes is dark—sleeplessly so.