Guardian (12 page)

LIAM BANGED ON THE
door, kicked it, slammed his shoulder against it. Then he ran to the back of the narrow room and smashed his metal fist against the window. It didn’t so much as crack. He felt the blow through his metal hand, up his wrist, and all the way back to his shoulder. He’d be feeling that in the morning.

If he ever saw the morning again.

He took a running charge and kicked at the door again. It didn’t even quiver. He screamed in frustration.

“Force is not gonna do it, no matter how strong that hand of yours is,” said Syd, studying the door mechanism. He was sure he could get it open if he had the right tools.

He didn’t have the right tools.

He also didn’t have much time. Another minute had passed. Less than six remained.

Syd’s heart pounded in his chest and he had to focus his breathing to keep his hands from shaking. In spite of that, he smiled. For the first time in a long time, he had a purpose. He had a skill. He was going to save Liam’s life.

“I’ll need a hand,” he said.

“Whatever I can do,” said Liam. “I’m yours.”

“I mean, I’ll need your hand. The metal one.”

“Right.” Liam’s cheeks flushed again. Syd noticed.

“Can you crush that piston there?” Syd pointed at one of the air-locking controls. “The door pins are locked with pressurized air. If we can reverse the pressure back into the system, we might just blast apart the pins and blow this whole door off its hinges using its own locks.”

“Blowing up the door to escape a bomb?” Liam wasn’t sure he understood.

“Blowing it out,” said Syd. “And if you have a better idea, I’d be glad to hear it.”

Liam didn’t, so Syd directed him where to bend, what to crush, and what to break. Meanwhile, Syd worked on the wiring, shorting out the safety valves.

As he worked, Syd noticed Liam wincing. He knew his bodyguard had hurt himself trying to break the door open. It wasn’t the noblest of injuries, but Syd felt bad for him. He knew all about self-inflicted wounds, especially the pointless ones. They weren’t all physical.

There was a high-pitched whine, a squeal as the pressure inside the door built and built. Syd hoped it would build fast enough to work before the bomb on the ceiling went off. He hoped the door would blow with time enough left for them to escape the building, and he hoped it wouldn’t blow into the room instead of out, crushing them both to death.

At least if that happened, they wouldn’t feel it when their bodies were incinerated.

“Move to the back,” Syd ordered, and they crouched down together in the corner. Liam turned and put his arm around Syd, covering him with his body.

“Uh . . . ,” said Syd.

“I’m still your bodyguard,” said Liam. “Let me do my job.”

Syd didn’t resist. He couldn’t have pushed Liam off if he wanted to. Even injured, the guy was stronger, much stronger.

“My ears are popping,” said Liam.

Syd worked his jaw, trying to relieve the pressure in his own. Too much air was releasing into the room and not enough into the door itself. Had he misunderstood the mechanism? Had he made the wrong choice? Had he failed?

Liam was counting to himself in whispers. They were running out of time.

Syd tilted his head up and saw Liam looking at him like he was about to tell Syd something. He opened his mouth to speak, he was cut off by a horrible shriek of twisting metal, and then, with a whoosh and painful pop of pressure, the door exploded out into the hallway, taking a large chunk of the concrete wall with it.

It
had
worked. Syd smiled. He’d made the machine backfire. He’d turned the lock keeping them in into the key to getting out. Maybe he wasn’t so useless after all.

“Go!” Liam shouted, shoving Syd forward. “Run!”

They ran through the door, turned at a bend in the hallway. There were no Purifiers standing guard, no one to stop them. Cousin had evacuated the prison the moment Knox’s father’s corpse hit the floor.

There was no sound of an explosion, but the air around them tasted bitter, and then the hallway brightened. They turned to a stairwell, took the steps three at a time. Syd could see the exit ahead. He felt heat on his back, glanced over his shoulder to see a wall of blue and orange flame dance across the ceiling and turn down the stairway, as if it were a living thing, gulping the air as it chased them. He felt its force pulling him backward, sucking him into the blaze.

A hand on his back shoved Syd through the door. He tripped and flew forward, face first, over a root and into a tangle of brush, just as soundlessly the tongue of flame blasted over their heads. It danced in the air above them a moment, then burned itself abruptly out against the night sky.

Liam had dived on top of Syd to cover him and now his weight was crushing Syd. Syd wriggled out from beneath him and sat up from the ground, catching his breath and looking at the blasted-out building.

“Why would they try to kill me?” he panted.

Liam pictured Cousin’s face, his skeletal grimace. “I don’t know,” he said.

“You were right. We have to go to Baram,” said Syd. “It’s treason for them to try to kill me. Baram will know what to do.”

Liam didn’t answer. If Syd leveled an accusation at Cousin, Cousin could just as easily turn it back on Liam. Liam had killed Dr. Khan, after all. He’d killed two Purifiers too, just because they had known where Syd was stowed away. If Cousin had become a traitor to the Reconciliation, he had made Liam an accomplice. He had just as much blood on his hands.

On his hand.

Syd was thinking out loud now. “Chairwoman Pei might not care that it’s treason. She gave that guy—”

“Cousin,” said Liam.

“Cousin? Whose cousin is he?”

Liam shook his head. It was just what the man was called.

“Well, she gave Cousin control of the Purifiers and orders for Eeron Brindle’s execution. Maybe she gave him orders to kill me. Maybe she’s making a move to take over, staging a coup.”

“If that’s true,” said Liam, “then you aren’t safe anywhere the Reconciliation controls.”

“Forget about me,” said Syd. “Marie was going straight to the Council from her parents. And she doesn’t have a bodyguard with her. We have to get her.”

“No way.”

Syd pushed himself up off the ground and stood looking down at Liam. “I’m not asking your permission. She’s the closest thing I have to a friend and we’re going to save her.”

Liam looked up at Syd, standing dark as ash against the burning building behind him. Syd was implacable when he got an idea in his head. He wasn’t moping anymore. He wasn’t sulking. He might be crazy, but he was starting to act like the guy everyone believed him to be.

The guy Liam believed him to be.

He put up his good hand and Syd helped him to his feet.

“No one else dies today?” Syd said.

“No one who doesn’t deserve it,” said Liam.

IN THE PAST, LIAM
had come to the Council to give them briefings, to receive instructions, or, lately, to be scolded by them. He’d never gone to them to stop a coup.

When they reached the cleared streets and rows of restored buildings in the heart of the city, Liam stopped. He and Syd crouched together off the side of the avenue in a blasted-out building that was awaiting demolition. It was covered in plants and vines, although it was really only two partial walls and a broken second floor above them, completely open to the elements. Syd’s school building was around the corner to the left. The hotel where the Council held its meeting—if Liam had the pattern correct in his head—was a few blocks to the right.

Liam went to the left.

Syd stopped. “Why are we going back here?”

“We’re going to make sure it’s secure,” said Liam. “And you’re going to gather what you need. I’m going to the Council alone.”

“No way,” Syd told him.

“There will be Purifiers at the Council, loyal to Cousin.”

“But doesn’t Cousin already know about this place?” Syd looked at the squat, depressing school building. He had been looking forward to never seeing it again.

“He thinks you’re dead from the explosion. I’d like to keep it that way.” Liam continued inside ahead of Syd, who followed reluctantly.

When Liam was satisfied the building was empty, they entered Syd’s room. It was just as he’d left it, simultaneously messy and bare. Liam shut the door, watching Syd look at his room. Now would be the time to give him that book. Now would be the time to stop being a coward and speak up. He might not have another chance.

“Are you going to stand there all night staring at me?” Syd said without turning around.

Liam cleared his throat. “No. I’m not. Sorry. Just tired, is all. My mind wandered off.”

“No, it didn’t,” Syd told him. “You want to tell something and you’re trying to get up the nerve.”

“I—”

Syd turned around to look at him. “The moment you shut the door, you took a breath and held it, like you were getting ready to say something planned, but you exhaled when the moment passed. It’s what people do before they give a speech. So, go for it. Tell me what you want to tell me. I’m listening.”

Liam took another deep breath. Syd raised an eyebrow. It was now or never.

“I found you a book,” he said.

Syd cocked his head. Liam finally managed to surprise him. Syd had not expected a book.

Liam stepped into the hall and retrieved the book from the loose ceiling tile where he’d hidden it. When he came back into the room, Syd was standing by the door, eager, maybe for the first time, to see him. Liam knew it was just Syd’s curiosity, but he liked the feeling that Syd was waiting for him to come back, instead of waiting for him to go away.

“What is it?” Syd reached out to take the soft leather-bound volume from Liam’s good hand. As he held it, a brief smile actually flashed on Syd’s face.

“Just something I found,” Liam told him, even though Syd would surely sense the evasion.

“You read it?” Syd looked up at him, those dark eyes studying Liam’s face.

He had to be careful now . . . he also couldn’t look like he was being careful. Syd noticed everything.

But he’d already hesitated. Syd had noticed his breathing a minute ago; of course he’d notice him hesitate now. People with nothing to hide didn’t pause for so long to answer a simple question. Why was he still pausing? Now he couldn’t stop not saying anything. He’d gone dumb. What should he say? He was definitely hiding something. He had to admit something. It was too late to turn back. Should he blurt it out?
I killed a woman for you. The doctor who might have stopped this sickness, and I killed her for you and then I stole this book and I’d do it again too. I’d burn the world down if it would make you smile.

Instead, he said, “I can’t read it. Never learned how.”

The best way to cover a lie was with a truth.

Syd nodded. He thumbed the pages of the book. “Growing up, a lot of guys in the Valve didn’t learn to read. There wasn’t much point.”

So Syd didn’t think he was stupid. That was a relief. He watched the boy flip through Dr. Khan’s book, his eyes scanning the pages.

“I wanted to give it to you before—well, you know—in case—”

“In case you don’t come back,” Syd finished his thought for him.

Liam nodded.

Syd looked down at the book in his hand, then looked back at Liam. “Just come back.”

It was Liam’s turn to smile. He could have stayed there all day, standing across from Syd, but there was no time.

He pulled the bolt gun from his belt and held it out.

“You’ll need that,” Syd told him.

“I’ll be fine,” said Liam. “When I get back I’ll give four long knocks. If anyone other than me knocks . . .”

Syd took the weapon and held it. It was heavier than he thought it would be from how Liam handled it.

“Syd, I know I shouldn’t say it, but I want you to know that I—”

“Don’t.” Syd stopped him. “It’s better if you just don’t.”

Liam bit down his lip to stop himself from blushing again. He nodded once more and stepped from the room, closing the door and locking it from the outside.

Maybe Syd was right. Maybe it was better this way. By morning, Liam would probably be arrested for murdering Dr. Khan or dead by Cousin’s hand. Or both.

He set off for the old hotel, trying to imagine if anyone living would mourn him when he was gone and which of his dead would be waiting for him on the other side.

He didn’t expect they’d be forgiving.

• • •

Syd stood in the center of the room with the journal is his hands. The leather cover felt good against his palm and he liked the weight of the pages. A holo was just a trick of light and the words it shared were illusions. They could change, appear, and disappear on a whim. Kind of like people. But these words, handwritten in some kind of dark stain, they were real, solid, immutable. The book was more real than Syd was. It occurred to him he hadn’t even thanked Liam for it.

Could a simple thank-you really have been so bad? He wouldn’t be dooming Liam to a miserable death just by saying thank you, would he? He took a step toward the door, then stopped, took a step back again. It was better if he didn’t reach out, better for Liam, better for Syd. They had to focus on staying alive. They couldn’t be worried about each other
that
way.

Still . . . Syd had never known another guy like Liam. Knowing someone
that
way hadn’t ever been an option before. Why was he so scared of it now?

He sat down on the edge of his bed, listened to the silence of the room.

Nothing to do but wait. He set the bolt gun down on the table beside his cot and opened the book to the middle.

My work progresses, day in and day out, but little has been accomplished.

So someone didn’t like their job. Join the club. Pretty brave, however, for the author to complain in writing. Discontentment was a crime in the Reconciliation. He wondered what this job had been.

Syd had never owned a book before. He wasn’t actually sure which order one was supposed to read it in. Could you just start anywhere, like a holo, or did he have to start at the front? He turned to the first page of it and a chill ran through him. The owner of the book had inscribed it.

Property of Dr. Adaeze Khan,

Medical High Command.

For her eyes ONLY.

Dr. Khan.

That was the name Cousin had said.

The doctor who was murdered.

Why would Liam have this book?

He pictured Liam’s face when Cousin mentioned the murder, tried to remember word for word what he said.

“Dr. Khan, very tragically, was murdered last week,”
Cousin said.

“You—”
Liam replied and then,
“She—?”

How did Liam know Dr. Khan was a she? He couldn’t read; he’d just admitted that, so he hadn’t read the inside cover. How else would he know?

For the same reason he had the book to begin with, the same reason he and that man called Cousin had shared such a knowing look with each other.

Liam wasn’t just Syd’s protector.

He was a killer.

Of course he was a killer. That wasn’t news. He’d been a soldier since he was a boy. Syd knew that much about him. He’d seen him kill, even.

But why would Liam kill a doctor? Why kill the one woman who could’ve helped them?

Syd flipped the pages frantically, scanned the words without really absorbing them.

Resilience factors in Nonoperatives unpredictable yet evidence suggests their presence in a percentage of the control group. Negative correlation with affected treatments. Fatality rates inoptimal.

Scientific jargon. Syd couldn’t make much sense of it. He flipped the pages and he saw sketched strands of DNA, a face webbed with veins.

Before her death, she had taken extensive notes about the infection.

He stopped at one sentence, underlined:
No organic cure viable.

No cure.

He kept turning pages. Midway through the book, just before the writing stopped, he found another passage he understood. The understanding quickened his heartbeat.

I begin to understand the fatality of the condition. Will present my findings to Chairwoman P. next week. I fear she will not be receptive. My recommendation: network reactivation. Feasibility of machine: TBD.

Others have been disappeared for less, but biodata linkage appears to be the only way to prevent population morbidity.

Population morbidity? Syd untangled the words. It was a lux way of saying what Eeron Brindle had said: Without the networks back on, everyone would die.

Feasibility of machine: TBD.

To Be Determined.

There were drawings, mechanical schematics, programming notes.

So the doctor believed a machine was possible. Not just the fever dream of anti-revolutionary cultists, but a real machine that could really turn the network back on.

Was that why the doctor was murdered? The chairwoman didn’t like her findings, and had Liam kill her?

Syd looked to the door. He didn’t know what he would say to Liam when he saw him again. If he saw him again. Liam was shocked when Cousin told him Dr. Khan was dead. Shocked not because she was dead, but because . . . what? Because he hadn’t known who she’d been when she was alive. Syd felt sure of it. Liam had been tricked. He had to believe that Liam had been tricked. No one with those sad puppy eyes could willingly kill an innocent person, could he?

Syd kept flipping pages, looking at diagrams—could those be instructions for the machine? Syd understood mechanical things, far better than he understood people. Machines could be programmed, rewired, redesigned. Fixed. People were another matter entirely.

He didn’t really understand the schematics the doctor had drawn. They were way beyond him, but at least reading felt like doing something. What else could he do? He was just one person. He wasn’t the great and powerful Yovel. He was just Syd.

“Self-pity’s pretty easy,” Knox scoffed at him, perched on the end of the bed, his light brown hair shining even under the grim lighting, his green eyes twinkling mischief.

Syd was pretty sure he was dreaming. He stood up and looked down at himself sitting in the chair with the book against his chest and a trickle of drool running down his face, sound asleep.

“Charming,” said Knox, suddenly standing at Syd’s side.

“You’re dead,” Syd told him. “You don’t get to make fun of me.”

“Someone has to,” said Knox. “You think you can just walk around letting people worship you? Ha!” Syd smirked. He’d missed Knox’s sarcasm. “You know what they call you behind your back?”

Syd shrugged. “I must, if you’re about to tell me. I’m the one dreaming you.”

“So logical,” Knox tucked a stray hair behind his ear. “I guess I don’t need to tell you then.”

“No,” said Syd. “You don’t.”

“So . . . Liam, eh?” Knox’s mouth twisted into a crooked smile. “He’s cute.”

“I didn’t think you went that way,” Syd grunted at him. “Or is there a shortage of girls in the afterlife?”

“You just said it, I’m
your
subconscious.” Knox looked around the room, picked up a shirt from the floor, examined the toilet bucket behind the screen in the corner. “The real Knox wouldn’t be caught dead in a room like this.” Knox smirked. “‘Caught dead’? Get it?”

Syd rolled his eyes.

“He died so you could live,” dream Knox said.

“I know that,” said Syd. “I’m alive, aren’t I?”

“Being alive and living aren’t the same.”

Syd looked back at his sleeping self, willed himself to wake up. He did not want to stand here chatting with a subconscious manifestation of his own guilt, even if he did miss Knox terribly.

Syd looked around the filthy room. “I don’t know what else to do.”

Knox shrugged and brushed imaginary lint off his broad shoulder. He was suddenly wearing the uniform of the Guardians. He smoothed the fabric across his chest. “Yes, you do. Fix it.”

“I don’t know how,” Syd told him. “I can’t understand this book. I don’t even know where to start.”

“Start at the beginning,” said Knox, with a wink, and was gone.

Syd opened his eyes. He was awake. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and the book splayed open on his chest tumbled to the floor. He stared at it.

Start at the beginning. Fix it.

“The beginning,” he said to himself. He knew.

He was going back to the Mountain City. He was going to fix it. He was going to find the Machine, or he was going to build one himself.

That’s who he was.

He fixed things.

If the people wanted a savior, they’d get one, but on his terms, not theirs. No more speeches. No more waving. If he had to betray the revolution and join the Machinists to save everyone’s lives, then that’s what he would do.

He was going to turn the network back on and reboot the world.