Guardian (3 page)

“GUARDIANS,” SAID SYD.

“Stay back,” Liam ordered, pushing Syd toward the rear of the stage.

“But Guardians are harmless,” Syd protested.

Guardians had been the enforcers of the old system; biohacked from childhood, they had more data installed in their blood than the DNA they’d been born with. They were engineered to look the same and act the same and live entirely by the instructions of their programming. They were people without fear, morality, or weakness, hardly human at all.

When Knox had blown out the network and deleted everyone’s biofeeds, the Guardians had lost the connection to the software updates in their blood, the instructions from their controllers, the patches that kept them free of blemish. SecuriTech, the corporation that owned them, was wiped away. Now they had no direction, no purpose, and no control. They’d gone dumb the moment the networks fell. They were still strong, but incapable of taking care of themselves. Some were rounded up, put to work like pack animals, hauling and churning and heaving. Others just wandered, feral.

No one called them Guardians anymore. They were officially dubbed “nonoperative entities.”

Most people called them “nopes.”

That’s all they were anyway.

Nothings.

But these nopes weren’t just deaf and dumb; they looked like the stuff of nightmares. The black veins bulged; their cheeks were streaked with bloody tears. They tore at their own skin until it was raw and open.

A few of them tried to come from a side street that was still clogged with vines and they’d gotten tangled in the thick brambles. They squirmed and struggled, bleeding where the long green thorns tore into them. One had scratched and torn out most of her hair. All the veins on her scalp were visible, a network of black wires, pulsing and throbbing. Her face was caught in a thornbush, and in spite of that, she continued to try to push forward, rather than plucking the thorns out. Her cheek tore and black blood ran down. She didn’t react. She didn’t even have language to ask for help.

A Purifier rushed over to her, swung his club down, split her head open.

Syd saw a tall man in a green Purifier’s uniform directing the Purifiers to attack the helpless creatures. At first, his white hood looked like it was made of something reflective, the way it caught the sunlight, but then Syd realized he wore no white hood. He was simply bald, his head smooth and shiny. He had deep-set eyes and long limbs. He didn’t appear to be carrying a weapon, but he moved gracefully through the crowd and shoved any mutated Guardian that got near him to the ground, where others came and whaled upon it. He didn’t even turn to look at the carnage. His calm was disconcerting amid the frothing crowd. People scrambled over one another and screamed to get away from the nightmare figures.

“It touched me!” someone shouted.

“Kill it!” someone else screamed.

“Calm down!” Counselor Baram tried to yell over the chaos, but no one could hear him. “They will be quarantined! Just stay calm!”

A group of three Purifiers had cornered a Guardian, a male from what Syd could see, and were shoving him between themselves, bouncing him off their clubs. When he fell toward one of them, they’d strike him back, and the next Purifier would wind up to hit him, tossing him around, like a game of wounds. When he finally fell, they beat him until it was impossible to tell if he had ever been anything resembling a human.

The Purifiers whooped and rushed to the next one. Years of terror and humiliation at the hands of the Guardians came out with every strike of a club or swing of a heavy blade at the pained creatures’ heads.

Another of the nopes stumbled toward the stage, and a small Purifier, surely no older than twelve, twirled around and around with his machete outstretched to get as much force as possible before sailing it through the neck of his target. The fragile body fell straight down. The head spun off and whirled like a top onto the stage at Syd’s feet.

Liam kicked it away. “We have to get you out of here.”

“But they won’t hurt anyone . . . they’re . . . they . . . ,” Syd stammered. The images came at him in flashes. Guardians—he couldn’t help but still think of them that way—simply stood in place while Purifiers hacked them to pieces, their legs planted firmly on the ground, even after the rest of them was cut apart. They tore at their own skin where the visible veins ran black. It seemed almost a relief to them as they died. The tall bald man strolled through the carnage, his hands clasped behind his back.

Liam had pulled a bolt gun from his belt and held it at the ready.

“They’re harmless,” Syd said. “The Guardians are harmless.”

“They’re carrying an infection,” Liam said. “Come on.”

He had to get Syd out of there. He twirled the gun to chamber a bolt and locked the spring. His only concern was for Syd’s safety. It wasn’t just exposure to the sick nonoperative entities that he feared. The chaos they had created would be the perfect opportunity for another Machinist to take a crack at Syd. Enemies of the Reconciliation were everywhere. They could dress as Purifiers and put a knife through Syd’s back while everyone else was distracted.

Liam would not be distracted.

He tried to drag Syd away, but Syd dodged his grip, ducked around his arm, and jumped from the stage into the melee.

“Stop this!” Syd shouted at the Purifiers. “I am Yovel and I order you to stop!”

They ignored him. Moments ago the crowd had been worshipping him; now he was completely forgotten. Revulsion was stronger than adulation and much harder to quell. The people ran past, trying to get away, as the Purifiers ran forward, gleefully carrying out the slaughter.

Liam waded into the crowd after Syd, knocking people from his path with his metal hand. They bumped him, jostled him, blocked his view. He couldn’t see where Syd had gone. He cursed under his breath.

Losing his assignment twice in one day . . . there would be hell to pay for that. And if anything happened to Syd . . .

Syd didn’t worry about himself. He charged at the nearest Purifier, who stood over a vein-faced nope with a heavy club raised. Syd caught the Purifier’s wrist, spun him around. “I order you to stop this at once. I am—”

He froze. Even with only the eyeholes and the slit for the mouth, he recognized the face beneath the mask. He recognized the sudden twisted smile, and he recognized the devious glint of the eyes.

“Finch,” Syd said.

“The name’s Furious now,
Syd,
” his former classmate sneered at him.

Shortly after the Jubilee, all the kids who had become Purifiers were advised to take new names, names of their own choosing. Their old names had been assigned from databases of stories. Fictional characters. Even Syd’s name. Their new names were grotesque fantasies, emancipated teenagers creating themselves in their own image. They were encouraged to think big, so they could aspire to live up to their new selves. “Furious” was doing his part.

On the ground, the wounded Guardian gaped up at them, bleeding black. Finch—Syd would never think of him as anything else—didn’t look down at her. His eyes were firmly locked on Syd’s. Syd still held his wrist.

“Where’s your shadow?” Finch said. “Does he know you’re down here with the riffraff all alone?”

“I don’t need Liam’s permission to give you orders, Finch. Put down your weapon and leave this nonoperative alone.”

“Why? You got a crush on a nope now? That breaks my heart.”

Syd regretted ever being infatuated with Atticus Finch. He yanked at his arm, but Finch moved fast, stuck out his foot and used Syd’s own momentum to trip him. In a flash, he’d spun Syd to the ground and now stood over him. In the chaos of the crowd, no one even noticed their revered symbol of liberation pressed beneath the boot of an anonymous Purifier. The street was a gory pool of mud and blood, and with one splash from Finch’s boot, Syd’s face was covered in muck, unrecognizable.

“Some hero,” Finch said.

“Let me up.”

“I was going to live a lux life”—Finch talked over him, leaned his weight down—“before you glitched it all up, you Chapter Eleven swampcat prick.”

“It’s treason to long for the past,” Syd said, spitting mud from his mouth. “What would the other Purifiers say if they heard you?”

“Who’s gonna tell them?” Finch pressed down harder. The weight was agony. A root below Syd dug into his back. He tried to get up and Finch’s foot pushed him down again. The front of Finch’s boot had a hole in it and Syd made out a filthy white sock.

“I wonder what would happen if the great Yovel was accidentally trampled to death in the crowd?” Finch leaned down. “Would they blame some crazed Machinist? How long would the people mourn such a terrible accident?” Finch licked his lips, his hands jittery with excitement. He raised his voice. “Oh dear me! I tried to save him, I surely did. If only he had let his bodyguard help!” Finch laughed.

“Let me up,” Syd demanded.

“Make me.” Finch pushed Syd deeper into the mud, grinding his boot into Syd’s chest. “I’ve dreamed about this for a really long time, Syd. The people may worship you, but we both know what you really are.”

Suddenly, a metal hand appeared on Finch’s shoulder and spun him around.

“And what is he, really?” Liam didn’t wait for an answer to punch Finch across the face. Then he lifted the Purifier up by the neck, the metal hand squeezing around his throat. Through his mask, his eyes bulged out. Liam’s were calm, and hard as desert glass. “You know I’m authorized to kill anyone who presents a threat to Yovel?”

Finch couldn’t answer. His windpipe was squeezed shut. His face turned red. Liam wasn’t even breaking a sweat, holding Finch aloft.

“Don’t,” Finch squeaked out. “Just messing around . . . old friends . . .”

“I fought with the Rebooters while you were sitting in Mountain City playing holo games,” Liam continued. “I killed more people before puberty than you’ve met in your entire life. I wouldn’t even remember your name by lunch.”

“Stop it,” said Syd. The veiny nope on the ground writhed beside him.

Liam squeezed harder. “You can’t go running off like that,” he told Syd. “You know it’s not safe.”

“I know,” said Syd. “I’m sorry. Just let him go.”

Liam looked at Finch, made hard eye contact. “You will leave Syd alone from now on?”

Finch did his best to nod.

“You won’t so much as look at him ever again?”

Finch was about to pass out.

“Let him go,” Syd repeated. “You’re killing him.”

“I
should
kill him.”

“Don’t,” Syd pleaded. No one else had to die because of Syd. No one should. This was not what he wanted.

Liam looked back at Syd, took a deep breath, and dropped Finch to the ground. Then he bent down and helped Syd up.

“I am getting you out of here.” Liam gripped Syd around the arm with the metal hand—always with the metal hand, Syd noted—and dragged him through the crowd toward an alley off the avenue. Liam took his bolt gun back out.

“Let go of me.” Syd tried to rip his arm free. He knew he’d be bruised, but Liam’s grip was relentless. They rounded a corner to a quieter clearing. They could still hear the screaming, but not see it anymore. Syd struggled and finally, Liam let go.

“I can take care of myself,” Syd told him, wiping the mud from his face.

Just then, another figure in a white balaclava came tearing through thick brush from the other end of the alley, a large serrated knife gripped for attack.

“Drop the blade!” Liam shouted.

The Purifier skidded to a stop. He did not drop the blade.

“I said drop it!” Liam repeated.

The Purifier’s eyes darted to Syd and then to Liam, and his arm came forward, tossing the knife straight for them.

Liam did not hesitate this time. He shoved Syd sideways to the ground at the same time as he released the spring of the bolt gun with a flick of his thumb.

The spring unwound and shot a small bolt from the end of the barrel. There was a snap as it broke the sound barrier and tore clean through the Purifier’s shoulder. “Ah!” the Purifier screamed, as the force of the bolt spun him around and knocked him against the broken wall of a building. At the same instant, the knife hissed through the air just beside Liam’s ear and crunched straight into the forehead of a nope that had shambled into the alley behind them.

Liam snapped the spring back and chambered a second bolt, bending down to pick up Syd as he did so. The nope took one more step forward before falling against Liam’s back with a spurt of black blood, then tumbled sideways into the dirt.

“Liam! Syd! It’s me!” The Purifier held himself on his feet, his right arm hanging useless at his side. With his left, he peeled the balaclava off his head and Syd gasped.

Liam cursed under his breath.

The Purifier was a she.

“Marie,” said Syd as his only living friend in the world bled through the green of her uniform.

MARIE ALVAREZ WAS THE
only patron allowed into the ranks of the Purifiers, because of her role in the Jubilee. She served the Reconciliation faithfully, efficiently, and with tremendous skill. She never expected to get a bolt in the shoulder from Syd’s bodyguard.

“You could have killed me!” she yelled at Liam, shoving her mask into the pocket of her uniform. Her black hair was cut short, her milky tea skin quickly losing color even as her crescent eyes blazed anger.

“Impossible,” Liam said, trying to regain his composure. “I was aiming to disarm you, which is what I did. If I’d wanted you dead, you would be. Anyway, you should know better than to come at Syd with a weapon.”

“I was trying to stop that nope from infecting him.”

“Marie . . .” Syd caught his breath. He looked at the dead Guardian on the ground, her black blood pooling around her veined face. It was hard to believe she had once been beautiful, that all the Guardians had once been beautiful. “What is . . . happening?”

“I don’t know,” said Marie. “But our orders are to terminate them. You need to get out of here.”

“Syd came into contact with a lot of their blood,” said Liam. “I think we need to—behind you!”

Marie glanced over her shoulder to see another nope crashing through the jungle. It moved fast, its hands scouring its body, ripping at itself, tearing its own flesh open as it charged. With one arm limp at her side, Marie grabbed it with her good arm, rolled the nope over her shoulder in a flip, and smashed it onto the ground on its back. She raised her foot to stomp down on the gasping creature’s neck.

“Stop it!” Syd yelled. “They’re harmless! The Guardians can’t even feed themselves!”

Marie brought her foot down, crushing the nope’s throat. “They aren’t Guardians anymore. They are nonoperative entities and they have to be put down. Orders of the Reconciliation.”

“This isn’t right.”

“It is not our place to question the advice of the Council,” Marie said back.

“Then I will speak to the Council about it myself.” Syd got in her face.

“That is
your
right,” she said back.

Syd stared her down. She didn’t look away from his mud-and-blood-coated face; she didn’t even flinch. Her face was going pallid as she bled, turning the color of rotted concrete. The gentle slope of her eyelids had caved into steep chasms. The bit of purple left over in her corneas from the fancy gene hacks she had before the Jubilee were hardly visible anymore. Still, she didn’t move a muscle. She wasn’t about to back down. She’d bleed to death first. Stubborn as ever.

Syd turned away. “Liam,” he snapped. “Can you bandage her up? We can’t let her bleed out.” He turned back to Marie. He cocked his head.

“Fine,” she said.

Liam nodded. He pulled out a smart bandage from his emergency kit, not because he wanted to, but because Syd had asked him to. While he packed her wound, Syd took the opportunity to glance back out of the alleyway to the open avenue and the stage. What he saw took his breath away.

Everyone but the Purifiers had left. They were stacking the bodies of the Guardians in a pile in the center of the avenue, tossing them like unsalvageable garbage onto a heap. There were over twenty bodies piled and more on the way. Some of them were just pieces.

The bald man was gone, but Syd quickly saw that Finch was not. He was kicking a severed head up in the air, trying to keep it aloft for as long as he could.

“I got twenty-three!” he shouted when his last kick missed and the head smashed onto the pavement.

Syd took a step forward. He was going to destroy Finch this time, in front of his friends. He didn’t need Liam to do it. He’d take Finch apart and, when he was done, he’d have Finch transferred to sanitation detail. What good was being Yovel if he couldn’t settle a few scores for himself?

“Don’t go back out there,” Liam told Syd. “Or I won’t bandage your friend.”

“How kind of you,” Marie grumbled.

Syd stopped and watched from the edge of the alley. “This is sick.”

“Nopes don’t feel any pain,” Marie said, wincing while Liam packed her wound with the gentleness of a battering ram.

“How do you know?” Syd replied.

“Guardians never did.”

“Like you said.” Syd turned to her. “They aren’t Guardians anymore.”

“Syd.” Marie shook her head. “Do you really care? Back when they were part of the system, they wanted to kill you, remember? They tortured you. They’re getting better treatment than they deserve.”

He looked down at the Guardian with the knife in her head, the other with her throat crushed. He thought of the dead Machinist assassin. He felt sick to his stomach. He was Yovel, the symbol of the revolution. And the revolution was capable of this.

“So are we,” he said.

Knox’s word’s echoed in his head again:
It’s your future. Choose.

This couldn’t be what Knox had meant.

Syd heard a cheer and turned back to the avenue. The Purifiers stood in a circle around the heap of bodies. One of them lit it on fire and the smell of burning cloth and flesh and hair carried on the breeze. It filled Syd’s nostrils, overwhelmed his senses. A plume of black smoke rose from the bonfire, a spreading stain on the cloudless blue sky.

It’s your future. Choose.

“Syd, are you okay?” Marie asked.

“He was exposed to a lot of their blood,” Liam said again.

“The Reconciliation says the infection can’t spread to regular people,” Marie told him.

“Still, I’d like to get him to a medic, just to be sure.”

Syd heard their voices, talking about him, as if they were a thousand miles away. His ears rang and his vision went red around the edges. Blurred. He felt sick. He tasted black blood on his tongue, felt the mud hardening on his face.

He needed to lie down. He needed to talk to Baram and the Advisory Council. He needed to get some clean air. He needed to stop the bloodshed. He needed to—

He passed out and Liam couldn’t move fast enough to catch him.