Incineration (The Incubation Trilogy Book 2) (7 page)

He bows his head so his forehead rests against my collarbone. “I want to,” he says. “I thought you were dead. Then, when I heard you were alive, on trial, I thought they’d execute you.” He raises his head and searches my eyes. “I was scared, so scared.”

And Cas was dead
. I don’t say his name.

“They told me you were dead, too,” I say, gripping both his hands tightly. “All of you.”

“They hurt you, didn’t they?”

There’s no hiding this truth; he already knows the answer. “Yes.”

He shifts his weight and presses against my ribs. I let out a stifled yelp and he pulls back immediately. “What?”

“Ribs. Don’t worry—they’re almost healed. They stopped—interrogating—me a few weeks back. After I told them everything,” I add bitterly. “I couldn’t help it, Wyck, I couldn’t. The drugs, the electricity . . .” I feel again the jagged bolts of lightning burning through me, shredding every nerve ending, leaving me gasping and flopping like Idris's poor fish. I shudder.

“Ssh.” He gathers me ever so gently into his arms, my face hidden against his shoulder. “You are the strongest person I know, Ev. You survived and—”

“The station master I betrayed didn’t.”

“Don’t.” He gives me a little shake. “Don’t. You couldn’t help it. He knew the risks. We all do.”

We certainly do now.

We walk on. He shows me the dockside factory warehouse only partially damaged in the explosion where the Defiance hides their ACVs. “There’ve only been one or two surveillance drones down this way, but we can’t be too careful,” he says. “I’ll say this for Idris: he’s a brilliant tactician and his paranoia about security has made this cell one of the most effective in the Defiance.”

I hear reservations. “But—?”

“But, he’s too single-minded. Hell, he’s a ruthless bastard. He doesn’t just want to overthrow the Prags and the geneborns—he wants to kill every last one of them.”

“So that’s the Defiance agenda—get rid of the Prags? Turn back the progress they’ve made in restoring our country? Bring back the hunger like before the Prags established the domes?”

He stares at me incredulously. “Ev, you were in a RESCO. How can you condone what the Prags are doing?”

“I don’t support that part of it.” I kick a clod and it explodes in a shower of dirt. “But you can’t deny we need to rebuild the population. And we need food and infrastructure—the Prags have given us that. We need scientists to invent more efficient growing processes and find a way to destroy the locusts. We need engineers to build transportation and communications networks, launch more satellites.”

“None of that matters if we’re not free. I want to pick my own career. I want to have children someday, maybe, and not have to beg the government’s permission. The whole damn country needs to get over its fear of disease so we can explore beyond our borders. Who knows what’s out there?” He turns and looks east, as if he can see across the far off Atlantic to whatever’s left of Europe and the continents beyond.

“Is this about you not wanting to be a border sentry?” I stare at him with disbelief and anger. “You don’t see the irony here? You ran away from the Kube to get out of military service and now you’re a soldier anyway, just without a uniform.”

He turns to me with a pleading expression. “Don’t be like this, Ev. Don’t spoil it.”

I don’t want to fight with him. “You’re right about some of it, the RESCOs. But I can’t think that more fighting is the way to go. Think what happened to this country during the Between.” I gesture to the wasteland around us. “How does this help anything? The dead people, the poisoned people, the homeless people—what freedoms or options did they have? Fighting isn’t the answer.”

He observes me, head cocked. “Then what is?”

I don’t know.

We walk back to the
Chattahoochee Belle
in silence, responding automatically to sentries’ queries, lost in our own thoughts. “I love you,” I whisper before we step on the gangplank.  Now that Halla’s gone, he’s my oldest and dearest friend, and I do love him. I’m not sure
how
I love him—sometimes I think it’s romantic and sometimes it’s brotherly, but I need to say it. The past months have taught me to say what I feel when I feel it and not to wait because there might not be another chance.

“Ditto.” He smiles briefly and hugs me. When we break apart, I see Rhedyn watching us from above, her face set and expressionless.

I’m wondering if anything happened between Wyck and Rhedyn—Does she know about Cas?— when I spot movement on the top deck. I make a visor of my hand to shade my eyes. It’s a woman, I’m almost sure, with short black hair spiking up around her head. I gasp.
Fiere
.

I don’t realize I’ve said the name aloud until Wyck follows my line of sight and puts a hand on my arm. “She’s not—”

I pull away from him, race up the gangplank, and circle the cabin until I reach the narrow stairs that lead to the top deck. I pound up them, breathing hard. The woman’s at the stern rail, looking out past the paddle wheel. I can’t believe I cut Wyck off yesterday, fearing that he was going to tell me Fiere had died in the IPF attack on Bulrush headquarters. I saw her get shot. I should have known better than to underestimate Fiere. It would take more than a beamer blast to the shoulder to stop her.

“Fiere!” I call. I’m practically tripping over my feet I’m so eager to greet her.

She starts to turn, and I see the familiar profile, the sharp nose and strong chin, the scar slicing through her eyebrow. She looks thinner than I remember, and holds her right arm awkwardly. I throw my arms around her and hug her tightly. “I thought you were dead.”

I expect her to come back with a scathing comment—scathing is Fiere’s specialty—but she wiggles away from me and takes a step back. Okay, I should have known better. She’s not the huggy type. I’m lucky she didn’t drop me to the deck.

“Sorry,” I start.

She stares at me with unblinking eyes, so dark the pupils blend with the irises. A frown wrinkles her brow. “Do I know you?”

Chapter Ten

Her voice is hesitant, not Fiere-ish at all.

Is she having me on? “I didn’t think four months in prison changed me that much,” I joke. “A little thinner, but there’s a lot of that going around.”

She doesn’t respond in kind. “Leave me alone,” she says irritably. That sounds more like the Fiere I know. She gives me her back and returns to studying the river.

“Fiere, what—?”

Wyck’s hand lands on my shoulder. I give him a puzzled look and he draws me toward the other end of the deck. “I should have told you,” he says in a low voice.

“Told me what?” But I already know.

“The IPF captured Fiere the day they took you. When I joined up with the Defiance, they had just received intelligence about her location. Idris immediately launched a rescue mission—he’s loyal, I’ll say that for him, and hell-bent on ‘no man left behind.' We got her out the day before she was set to be shipped to work in a plastics refinery, if our source was accurate. She’d had a hard time of it, Ev—she was skinny as a laser beam and her arm had been broken in several places and never set right. On top of that—”

“She was memory-wiped.” I steal a glance at the slim figure standing at the rail.

Wyck nods sadly. “Yeah. She’s not Fiere anymore.”

I round on him. “Don’t say that,” I tell him fiercely. “She is. The old Fiere is in there somewhere. Wiping severs the connections between the stored memory and the recall mechanism—it doesn’t fry the actual memory. Those connections can be restored. What have you been doing for her?”

He shuffles his feet. “All she wants is to be left alone.”

I give him a disgusted look. “Really? She says she wants to be left alone so you all leave her alone, make no attempt to help her?”

“We’re not doctors, Ev.”

I
pfft
air through closed lips to let him know what I think of that lame excuse. “Memory isn’t really my field, but there was a researcher at the Kube—”

“Dr. Frangelica.”

“Right. She ran that SMO—specific memory obliteration—experiment and a few of the kids volunteered for it. They used to talk about how you need to help a memory-wiped person rebuild associations, expose them to familiar surroundings, have conversations with them about shared experiences . . . stuff like that. Exercise helps, too, she said, I guess because it increases the blood flow to the brain or something. I’m not sure of the science behind any of it. I
am
sure that letting Fiere mope around by herself has got to be doing more harm than good.” I glance over my shoulder at the woman by the rail paying no attention to us.

“What are you suggesting?”

I try to organize my thoughts. “Well, at the very least, we need to be talking to her, each of us, about things we did together. Idris has known her longer and has more memories in common, so he should spend time with her. She and Alexander were close—almost like father and daughter. Seeing him again might reconnect some of the links for her. Could he come? Do you know where he is?” I realize I miss Alexander, too; I have a feeling everything would be better if he were here.

“I know where he
was
. Idris won’t be happy with that idea.”

“Screw Idris.”

Wyck looks around to make sure no one overheard me. “You know Alexander and Idris were butting heads at the end. Idris is the commander here. We can’t fetch Alexander, not even for Fiere, without his permission. Besides, Alexander might not be where he was, or he might not be . . . in condition to travel.”

I know he was going to say “might not be alive.” Alexander was gravely ill even before the IPF attack. “Let’s ask Idris.”

We find Idris in the armory, going over a map with four Defiers—a woman and three men—I haven’t seen before. He looks up when we enter, black brows snapping together. “I’m busy.”

“It’s important.” I stand my ground.

“Ten minutes.”

I’m too keyed up to settle to a task, so we loiter in the corridor outside the armory until Idris appears more like twenty minutes later. He walks past us, saying, “What is it?”

We head for the middle deck where Idris raids the kitchen for a vegeprote bar and bites into it with strong teeth.

“Fiere,” I say.

“Ah.” Idris leans back against the counter. What seems to be genuine sadness pulls at his features. “I’d be happy to kill all the Prags for that alone, for what they did to Fiere.”

“The thing is,” I plunge in, “I think we can undo it, some of it, at least.”

He cocks a skeptical brow. “You managed to acquire an advanced degree in neurology and memory while you were in prison. My, you were busy.”

I’m impatient with his snideness. “Stop it. I’m serious.” I lay out my plan, leaving Alexander until the end.

It’s Wyck who broaches Alexander. “We think—”

I’m grateful for the “we.”

“—that having Alexander around would help Fiere recover her memory. I can find him, bring him back here.”

Idris straightens.“Absolutely not.”

Wyck plows on as if Idris hasn’t spoken. “He knows Fiere better than any of us—you know that. And he
is
a doctor. If anyone can help Fiere, it’s Alexander. He’s no threat to you. Even if he wanted to take over—which he wouldn’t—he isn’t strong enough. Last time I saw him . . . anyway, you’re in command here. Alexander wouldn’t dispute that.”

I know it’s the wrong thing to say even before Idris slams a hand on the counter. “Of course he’s no threat to me! But this is my cell and I’ll do what’s necessary to keep it secure. Bringing in outsiders who don’t—”

I interrupt before he can issue a categorical refusal which he wouldn’t be able to go back on without losing face. “It’s part of your ethic to not leave anyone behind, right? Well, part of Fiere’s been left behind. It’s not your fault, but there it is. You can help her find her way back to who she was by letting Wyck fetch Alexander.”

I can see I’ve caught him up short by the look he gives me. He looks down at me, not really seeing me, I suspect, for a long moment before heading to the door. He turns, one hand stroking his chin. “All right,” he says abruptly. “You can bring Alexander if you can find him and he wants to come. Make sure he understands the ground rules: my word is law, and if he comes, he doesn’t leave. I’m not going to have someone who can pinpoint our location selling that information to the Prags—”

“Alexander wouldn’t—”

“—or giving it up during interrogation. Fiere’s the only person I know who outlasted her interrogators.” He gives me a pointed look. “That’s my offer—take it or leave it.”

“I’ll start this afternoon,” Wyck says. “I’ll be gone a couple days.”

Idris nods and turns to go. I get the oddest feeling that he’s actually pleased to have a reason to see Alexander again. I dismiss it. If Idris is happy with the idea of Alexander being here, it can only be because he wants the opportunity to show off his power.

Without Wyck around, I’m truly on my own. I’m friendless on a ship full of people who don’t precisely distrust me, but who aren’t sure about me, either. There’s Fiere, I tell myself. When Wyck is gone, I climb to the upper deck to find her, but she’s not there. I search the
Chattahoochee Belle
and finally come across her in the hold, peering into a series of tanks. I register filters and pipes and conclude this is a water cleansing system that takes in river water and purifies it for drinking. The water in the first fifty gallon tank is a murky blue and the water in the final tanks is clear, so I guess it works. The room smells of damp wood and iodine's boiled metal tang. Normally, I’d be interested in evaluating the process they’re using to extract the contaminating chemicals, but now I’m focused on Fiere.

She’s watching bubbles rise in one tank and doesn’t acknowledge my presence. She’s cradling her fight elbow in her left hand. Each vertebra makes a clear bump through the jumpsuit she’s wearing and I get a lump in my throat. Those knobs poking through her clothes make her seem so vulnerable.

“Hey, Fiere. Let’s go for a walk,” I suggest.

“Leave me alone.” Her voice is monotone, uninterested.

“Nope. Not going to happen. A walk will do you good.”

She faces me, frowning. “Gad, you’re irritating.”

“See, my technique works—you’re beginning to remember me already. Come on. Who knows what poisons we’re absorbing sitting down here?”

She gets up which I count as a victory. “What did you say your name is?”

“Everly.”

“Were we friends?” She sounds doubtful.

“Yes,” I say firmly. “We are friends.”

We walk along a bluff that overlooks the river. A gusty wind blows away the earlier humidity and riffles our short hair. I don't think our prison cuts are going to start a new trend. Heavy-bellied clouds pile on the horizon and I think we might be in for a storm. We walk briskly for a quarter hour and I’m pleased to see a bit of color return to Fiere’s face.

“Do you remember anything?” I finally ask.

“That’s a stupid question. Clearly, I remember how to walk, talk, dress, feed myself, breathe.” She quickens her pace so she’s half a step ahead of me and I can’t read her face.

I squelch my reaction to her tone. It must be almost unbearably frustrating to lose your memories, to not remember great chunks of yourself, to know there’s
more
of you, tantalizingly close, but just out of reach. “Okay, then, what’s the last thing you remember? Before coming to the
Belle
, of course.”

She’s silent so long I think she’s not going to answer. Then, she says, “I remember being pregnant. Of looking down at my belly, obscenely swollen, and wanting to rip the fetus out of there, to reclaim myself. That can’t be right.” Her voice pleads with me to tell her she’s remembering incorrectly.

This first memory and the rawness in her voice make me realize I might have taken on more than I’m qualified for. I don’t want to screw her up forever by saying the wrong thing, but I don’t want to deny her memories, either, even the ugly ones, because they’re part of who she is.  After a beamer quick evaluation of the options, I decide on total honesty and lack of judgment.

“That would have been at the RESCO.” I keep my voice matter-of-fact. “The Reproduction Support Community run by the government. They implanted a zygote in you against your will, turned you into a surrogate. It’s like rape, in a way, so of course you wanted the ba—fetus out. In fact, you bore two children before Alexander and Bulrush helped you escape. Do you remember Alexander?”

She squints, and then shakes her head. “The name rings a bell, but I can’t place it.”

“Don’t worry about it. It will come.”

“You can’t know that.” Her tone is flat and she continues along the bluff.

“I remember when I met you.” I go through the story of her and a small cadre of Bulrush members rescuing me, Halla and Wyck from bounty hunters. “I was intimidated by you. You were so fierce, so sure of yourself. You didn’t think much of me at first,” I say ruefully. “You took one look at my hair—it was much longer then—and the fact that I hadn’t tried to disguise that I was a breeder age female, and told me off. You thought I was stupid.”

“Still do,” she says, but there’s a hint of a smile. She bends and scoops up a stone, and then straightens and flings it out over the river. With her injured arm hanging limp, her movement is jerky, off-balance. We watch the pebble drop but can’t see where it impacts the water. She picks up another rock, and then another, using all the force of her depleted muscles to hurl them as far as she can. After a moment, I join her. It feels good, the force rippling through my back and shoulder muscles, my fingers opening to release the stone as my arm starts the downward arc. It makes my ribs hurt, but it still feels good.

Finally, Fiere says, “Let’s go back.”

I can see she’s tired, but she’s not admitting it. That’s proof to me that she’s still Fiere, still determined not to admit to any weakness. Maybe I’m grasping at straws, but I’m heartened and there’s a spring in my step as we traverse the rocky path back to the ship, fend off the sentries with the password, and trudge up the gangplank.