Burn

by Julianna Baggott

  “How could she love me like this?”

  “Now you know how I feel.”

  “How I feel,” Helmud says. Is he in love with her too?

  “You really do love her, don’t you?”

  El Capitan nods. Bradwell seems to accept this. For some strange reason, he even seems like he’s glad to hear it. “She hasn’t sent word yet, right? We have time. Maybe we can find it.”

  “Maybe,” Bradwell says.

  “Word from on high,” El Capitan says, remembering how Bradwell put it. “There’s still some time.”

  Helmud says, “On high.” El Capitan can feel him arching his back, looking up through the roofless library at the sky. “On high!” he says again.

  “We know, Helmud. We know. Shut it, okay?” El Capitan says.

  “On high!” Helmud says again, and then he grabs El Capitan’s chin and pushes it upward.

  “Get off!” El Capitan says.

  Helmud points at the sky.

  El Capitan looks up grudgingly. Bradwell does too.

  And there is a small dot, jittering in a circle, fluttering down.

  “What’s that?” Bradwell says.

  The little thing sputters and spirals closer.

  They all stare at its fine metal wings as they flit and flit closer to them.

  Freedle.

  He lands on the bottom of El Capitan’s cot, lifts his wings. Helmud reaches out. Freedle hops up on his hand. Helmud lifts him up. And El Capitan sees the small white edge of a piece of paper that’s been slipped into the cage of his body.

  A message.

  PARTRIDGE

  EVERYWHERE

  Partridge is strapped onto the stretcher and covered entirely by a white sheet. They’re out of the hotel now. Iralene and Beckley, dressed in white lab coats and surgical masks, guide the stretcher down side streets, the wheels rattling over the pavement. He can only see the lit-up sheet, sheer and bright over his eyes. He knows people are running nearby. They pass clusters of voices. A fight breaks out—he can hear two angry men shouting.

  There’s a scream then more distant shouting—a few gunshots.

  He’s supposed to be dead, but he feels very alive—his heart is sore, each beat like a punch inside of his chest. Glassings is dead. They might all die. Could his sister really be conspiring to take down the Dome? Is this sheet that covers his face—the thin, white sheet drawn into his mouth each time he takes a breath—a warning? Death—is that his near future?

  He hears Beckley shout, “Watch the curb!”

  The stretcher swerves, slams onto concrete.

  They’re moving as quickly as they can. They hit divots, jerking his body around. There’s no car waiting for them this time. Luckily, they’re on the same level in the Dome as the high-rise with the suspension chambers.

  Partridge can’t stand not being able to see. He pinches the sheet, inches it up on one side, and turns his head. He has a sideways view of it all, the streets jammed with people. Some are running, trailing kids, carrying jugs of bottled water and boxes of soytex pills. They’re packed into stores with lines that snake around the block. Some are busy sealing windows with tarps and duct tape out of fear that the protective Dome will be broken. Because of Foresteed, some have rifles strapped to their backs.

  Still, they push along. As a dead man, he’s ignored. The Pures have gotten used to death. They’re bracing for more. Their faces are a mix of fear, panic, and a strange resignation—as if something they’ve been waiting a long time for has finally arrived.

  But then he sees someone writing on one of the posters, Partridge and Iralene on a date—a man scrawling in dark red paint across their faces: SCUM MUST DIE.

  Partridge is shaken. These people loved him and Iralene. They were why he got married—to keep them happy, to give them a reason to live. And now they’re scum? They must die? He lets the sheet fall. Is he going to be killed by Pures? Is this how it’s going to go?

  Once inside the building, Iralene and Beckley quickly unstrap Partridge. They all run through what’s becoming a more familiar series of passages and long eerie halls, passing dimly lit rooms buzzing with the machinery that keeps the suspended people alive.

  “Just up ahead,” Iralene says.

  Partridge follows her and Beckley around a corner and sees a door, the light spilling out of the room into the hall. Iralene and Beckley slow. Partridge reaches the door, pauses, and then knocks. Peekins and a nurse look up from a chart.

  “Ah, good to see you, Partridge,” Peekins says. “I’m glad you could make it under the…circumstances.”

  The room is surprisingly bright and warm. Beckley and Iralene hover near the door, keeping an eye on the hall.

  Partridge walks up to the capsule and can see the fogged outline of Odwald Belze’s face—his stiffened white hair, his closed eyes, his sallow cheeks—crystallized with a thin layer of ice. The scar on his neck is red, preserved when it was a fresh surgical wound. Partridge remembers the small blue box that held the fan removed from his throat, and Pressia’s face when she realized that this meant her grandfather was dead.

  “Things are breaking down fast,” Beckley says.

  “We’ve got to move quickly,” Iralene says.

  “How do things look?” Partridge asks.

  “Just a little longer, and we’ll know if there’s any long-term damage,” Peekins says.

  “Damage? I thought he either survived or he didn’t.”

  “There are a lot of scenarios in between,” Peekins says, obviously frustrated with him. “Quiet, please.”

  Peekins and the nurse work quickly. They move the capsule into a horizontal position. The bright, incubated heat defogs the glass. The heartbeat on the screen near the capsule picks up speed. In fact, Partridge worries the heart is beating too quickly now. The beeps come fast.

  With an electric hum, the glass retreats into the capsule, revealing Belze’s face—rigid and wet with melted ice crystals.

  “Engaging full lung capacity,” Peekins says, and he inputs data into the computer, his face fixed with concentration.

  Belze’s rib cage heaves, jerking up and down, and then he pulls air in through his nose. His head kicks back, his cheeks and jowls bobble, and then his face flexes. His eyes clench. His lungs seem locked.

  “He’s not breathing!” Partridge says.

  “Hold on,” Peekins says, his eyes ticking over the control panel. “Just hold…”

  Belze’s heart starts to race—the beeping is shrill and relentless—but he lies there rigidly.

  “He’s going into overdrive,” the nurse says.

  Partridge shouts, “Do something! We can’t lose him!”

  And then Belze takes another breath in, which seems impossible. He’s now holding too much air. His face flushes a deep purplish red.

  “Hold on,” Peekins says. “Hold, hold, hold.”

  Belze’s lips start to turn bluish.

  “Jesus. He’s dying,” Partridge cries out. “He’s dying right here in front of our eyes!”

  Iralene tries to pull Partridge back from the capsule. “Partridge,” she says softly.

  Peekins suddenly looks panic-stricken. “I don’t know what more to do! I’ve never done this with someone so old!”

  And then the heartbeat goes flat. The beep turns into one solid, deadly note.

  Partridge reaches out and grabs Belze’s shoulders, which are still cold.

  “Get back!” Peekins shouts, but Partridge pushes the old man’s body enough to wedge his knee onto the capsule then leverages himself onto Belze’s rib cage. He pushes down on his chest with all his strength.

  Nothing.

  Beckley shouts, “Partridge! Let him go!”

  Partridge pushes on his rib cage again.

  “If you’re going to do it, do it right!” Peekins shouts and points to the spot where Belze’s ribs join at the center of his chest.

  Partridge rears and pushes down, his elbows locked. The old man is still rigid.

>   Partridge shuts his eyes and does it again and again. “Don’t die!” he shouts. “Don’t die!” He can feel the old man’s thin skin, the bones of his chest, the give of his ligaments.

  “He’s gone,” the nurse says.

  “Partridge,” Peekins says. “Stop!” He shoves Partridge in the shoulder. “Stop!”

  Partridge, breathless and sweating, keeps going.

  “It’s a lost cause,” Beckley says.

  “Stop, Partridge,” Iralene says. “Please!”

  And Partridge wonders if they’re right. He opens his eyes. The old man’s face is taut. He is already dead. Partridge keeps going. He feels like crying, but then the machine skips. There’s a heartbeat…and another. The man’s eyes flit open and lock on to Partridge’s.

  Belze’s chest jerks up and down. His eyes are wide. He breathes out a deep, rattling wheeze.

  “Odwald,” Partridge says. He leans in close to the old man. “Odwald! You’re here! You’re okay!”

  Partridge hops down. Peekins and the nurse work quickly now, stabilizing Belze. Not long after, he’s calm. His breathing and heart rate are steady. Partridge says softly, “We’re going to get you together with Pressia, okay? She misses you. She wants to see you. Okay?”

  “Pressia,” the old man says, his lips trembling with her name.

  “Yes. She misses you.”

  “My wife.”

  Partridge shakes his head. “No, your granddaughter.”

  The old man looks at him confused. “Where am I?”

  “It’s okay,” Partridge says. “It’s okay.”

  “Where’s my wife? Where’s Pressia?”

  “Your granddaughter,” Partridge says.

  “I don’t have a granddaughter. How could we when we couldn’t even have our own children?”

  Partridge looks at the others.

  “He’s disoriented,” Peekins says. “Maybe it’s temporary.”

  “This happens sometimes,” the nurse says.

  Partridge walks to a wall and leans against it, trying to clear his head.

  “Where am I?” Belze says.

  “You’re in a hospital,” Peekins tells him calmly. “You’re going to get well.”

  Partridge says, “He wasn’t her real grandfather. He found her after the Detonations and took care of her as his own. He must have named her after his wife. She was like the child they never had.”

  Peekins is explaining things to the old man. “You’ve been through an operation, and you’ve been in a kind of coma, but you’re going to be okay.”

  Beckley says, “He’s here but he’s gone.”

  Partridge stares at the floor. He’s not finished here. He walks out of the room and down the halls. He’s running even though he feels dizzy. With one hand along the wall, he pushes off of it as he makes a turn.

  Iralene and Beckley are following him. “What’s going on, Partridge?” Beckley shouts. “Where are you going?”

  “Partridge!” Iralene calls.

  They know where he’s going. He keeps running jaggedly down the halls until he comes to the high-security chamber—the one that’s all locked up and waiting for Partridge to figure out some code, some password.

  Partridge stares at the door, breathless, as Beckley and Iralene catch up. “What you got in there? What have you left for me?” He’s speaking to his father directly. He’s everywhere; he’s inside of him.

  “Maybe you don’t want to know,” Iralene says.

  “Maybe you can’t know,” Beckley says.

  Partridge turns around and shoves Beckley. “Pressia’s grandfather doesn’t remember her. I brought back her grandfather—but part of him is still dead. You try to hand that over to Pressia as a gift! You try it.”

  “Easy now,” Beckley says, raising his hands.

  “What if her father’s in there? Hideki Imanaka is the person my father most hated in the world. My father loved his little relics. He’d have kept a relic of Imanaka if he could. And he could do anything just about, right?”

  Beckley walks up to the heavy metal door.

  “I’ve done everything I could to make progress. I need this to be Pressia’s father. I need this.”

  “We’ve tried a lot of combinations, Partridge,” Beckley says. “We can’t get it open.”

  “Blow it up.”

  “Your father made sure that this wasn’t about a show of force,” Iralene says. “It was about a secret. Something that maybe only the two of you would know.”

  Partridge runs his hands through his hair. “My father and I didn’t share secrets! We didn’t share anything.” Not even love, Partridge thinks. His father didn’t even love him. That’s what Partridge said to him before he killed him. You’ll never understand love.

  Does his father want love?

  Partridge looks at Beckley. His hands still hold the memory of compressing Odwald Belze’s ribs. They’re shaking, like his father’s once did. It’s like the old man won’t ever leave him. It feels for a brief moment like his father got his way, that he transferred his brain into Partridge’s skull and is inside of him forever. He hates his father more than ever, and he knows what his father wants now—what he’s demanding.

  “I have to know what’s in there, Beckley.” He grips the sleeve of Beckley’s lab coat. “I have to tell him I love him.”

  “What?”

  Partridge knows that his father wants it to come from Partridge’s own mouth. “There’s a speaker,” Partridge whispers, his back turned to the sealed door. “He wants me to say it.”

  “You sure that’s it?” Beckley sounds unconvinced, but he doesn’t know Willux like Partridge does.

  Iralene puts her hand on the cold metal of the door.

  “The room inside the war room was filled with old pictures, love letters—written to each of us. All the things he never said. Because he never said them, he never heard them back. I know what he wants. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.” Partridge knows it because his father is inside of him—a haunting from within. That’s what he can’t tell Beckley.

  “Say it,” Iralene whispers.

  Partridge turns toward the door. He walks up to the small speaker. He clamps his mouth shut and shakes his head. He won’t say it. He can’t. He wants to say, Leave me alone. Is this what happens to all murderers? His body is a prison. Partridge slams his fists on the wall over his head.

  Partridge tries to think of someone else. He can fake it. But his father is there in his head—his curled, blackened hands, his hissing breaths. A wretch in the end. And then, he’s not sure where it comes from, but he says, “A wretch like me.” There’s a song about being a wretch, about the grace of God. He wants to tell his father we’re all wretches. We all need saving. He puts his mouth to the speaker. “I love you,” he says. “You’re my father. I always loved you. I had no choice but to love you.”

  Somewhere inside of his father’s elaborate locks, his words meet some criteria. Was it just his words? Was it the ache in his voice that activated something? He’ll never know.

  The clicking begins. The door finally gives. Its seal is broken. Cold seeps from the chilled room. Fog rolls into the hallway.

  Partridge puts his hand on the door and slowly pushes it open.

  An overhead light flickers to life, illuminating four small capsules.

  Partridge walks up and sees infants in each of the capsules. They lie on their sides. They have tubes in their mouths. Their skins are all lightly crystallized and tinged blue, the way Jarv Hollenback’s was when Partridge first saw him down here. The room also has one table in the corner with a metal box sitting on top of it.

  “Four little babies,” Iralene says, walking into the room and leaning in close to one of them.

  “My God,” Beckley says as he steps through the door. “My God.”

  Partridge doesn’t understand. He looks at Beckley who blanches and backs away.

  Beckley grips the doorframe and looks at Partridge, wide-eyed. “Jesus, P
artridge. Don’t you know?”

  Partridge shakes his head and looks at Iralene. He watches the realization wash over her face too. He looks at the capsules again. This time he searches the edges of them for nameplates. He finds a small silver tag on the front of each capsule with initials: RCW, SWW, ACW, ELW.

  RCW—his initials: Ripkard, his real name; Crick, his middle name; and Willux.

  SWW—his brother’s initials: Sedge Watson Willux.

  He grips this second capsule, and then moves quickly to the third nameplate: ACW. Aribelle Cording Willux, his mother.

  He says, “No, no,” as his eyes dart to the final nameplate: ELW. His father. Ellery Lawton Willux.

  Could this be his family—rebuilt?

  He thinks of the premature babies behind the bank of windows in the nursery. Clones—made from the genetic coding of Pures and wretches.

  Is he looking at his mother and father—as infants? Is he looking at Sedge and himself? Is this what his father has given him? His family, returned?

  One of his knees buckles. He grabs the edge of a capsule and walks to the metal box on the lone table. He stares at it for a moment. His ears are rushed with blood. His eyes blur. He blinks, and the box clicks back into focus.

  He has to open the lid.

  “Don’t,” Iralene says. “Leave it.”

  But he can’t. He pushes the lid off with his thumbs. It clatters against the table.

  Inside, there are medical instructions—a schedule for aging the specimens so that they will eventually have the correct age differences to be a family again. ACW and ELW have to be brought out and aged for twenty-five years, and then SWW can be brought out. Partridge’s mother and father had Sedge when they were twenty-five years old. RCW can be brought out two years later.

  And then…what did his father have in mind? They would be a family? A normal family? Reunited and whole?

  Maybe his father didn’t regret killing his wife and his oldest son because they were still alive.

  Partridge walks back to the capsules—the tiny infants. What will he do with them? This is his inheritance.

  Beckley’s radio squawks. Has Partridge’s sister set her plan in motion? Are the survivors invading? Is this the beginning of another bloody war? He says, “Iralene, tell me something in this world matters. Tell me something is sacred.”