Machinations (9 page)

“I had just started dating a girl. Bethany Tallis,” Samuel adds for clarification, but it doesn't help position me in the timeline. I nod anyway, sensing she's not a point of importance in this story. “And I stayed up late helping her work on her submission for a scientific journal the night before your flight, so I didn't make it in time to see you off.”

Because I can't recall the exact shape and look of the terminal in question, I conjure up a generic one in my mind's eye and populate it with myself and faceless strangers. The feeling that follows is one of loneliness, partial abandonment. Waiting for someone who doesn't show. “
That
I remember,” I murmur, reliving the disappointment. “But you've lost me. What does this have to do with anything?”

Before he can answer, a tinkling chime signals someone at the door.

“I should've been there,” he finishes, standing. I stand with him. “That's all.”

“Hey,” I say, grabbing his arm. “I'm still not sure I get what's going on inside that genius brain of yours.” I give him a friendly poke to the forehead, and he smiles bashfully. “But you're here now, and now is when I've needed you the most. So I think I can forgive you for one instance of friendship malpractice that happened years ago.”

“Yeah,” he says lightly, nervously, and I let him escape my grip. “We should probably see who's at the door.”

Our visitor turns out to be Matt. He's wearing a white lab coat, per his usual dress code. “Doctor Lewis,” he greets Samuel, then leans around him to give a conservative wave to me. “Rhona.”

“Hey, Matt,” I reply.

His attention reverts back to Samuel. “There have been some developments. If I might have a few moments of your time, Doctor?”

“Of course,” Samuel says. “Will you be all right on your own for a while, Rhon?”

It's the first time he's used a nickname with me, and I'm particularly giddy about it for some reason. I try to remember if we ever had a nickname for him, but nothing comes to mind except “Sam,” and that sounds like the name of a dog. Not dignified enough for a doctor.

“Go on,” I say. “I'll try not to burn the place down.”

They leave me to idle on my own, and I keep the door open so I don't feel caged. I'm interested in exploring my old stomping grounds, but I haven't been given permission to move about the base unsupervised yet. On top of that, my neck and head are starting to bother me. The pain meds must be wearing off. I begin looking around, rummaging through my cabinets and desk for anything that will help.

Instead, I come across my former wardrobe. My shirts and pants are clean and folded, untouched since I went away. I sift through them, trying to connect to the textiles in whatever way I can. They have old-drawer smell, as if left unworn for too long.
That doesn't make any sense…

During my search, I'm inexplicably drawn to a dark-purple cardigan. I take it out and hold it to my cheek. It's soft, so impossibly soft for such a hard world.

“I remember when I bought that.”

I turn sharply, holding the cardigan to my chest instinctively.

Camus is standing just outside the doorway, with neither foot placed past the threshold.

“Really?” I say, my heart drumming. “I mean, it doesn't look like your color.”

He almost smiles, and it's the first glimpse I've had of real expression from him. “Not for me,” he adds.

“For me, then.”

“For Rhona.”

“I
am
Rhona, Camus.”

His features change drastically, losing all traces of mirth. I keep trying to find the man I remember in the one standing before me right now, but I'm forced to concede maybe he died with Rhona in the fire-singed snows outside Anchorage. Because this Camus is changed, and not necessarily for the better.

“At best, you're an impressive facsimile of the woman I knew,” he finally replies.

“And at worst?”

He runs a finger along the wardrobe's surface, lifting dust. “An imitation is still an imitation, no matter how hard it tries to be the real thing.”

It's impossible to tell whether Camus is being deliberately cruel or just plain tactless, but I recognize a low blow when it cuffs me across the face. “Thanks for the insight,” I say, letting my sarcasm do the fighting. “I hope you didn't walk all the way here just to insult me.”

“No,” he says, but doesn't apologize. “The council has an assignment for you.”

“The council could have sent someone else to tell me,” I point out. “Or hell, just sent me an email or something.” I'm curious to see if he had a genuine reason for coming himself—or if he'll make up an excuse.

He smiles, but it's humorless, mechanical. I wonder if he even lets himself feel anything real anymore. “Report to training ground six, military level, at fifteen hundred tomorrow.” He relays the orders, carefully sidestepping my statement. “Don't be late.”

“What's happened to you, Camus?” I ask as he turns to leave.

The simplicity of my question spears through his show of indifference. I watch his shoulders lock up. He looks back at me slowly, something breaking in his eyes. “The woman I loved with all my heart is dead—and you're wearing her face.” His lips flatten against his teeth, and I sense I've woken a violent grief he's been keeping on a tight leash, away from all provocation. “On the subject of insults, why don't we discuss
that
mockery?”

“How do you think I feel?” I snap back. “Just a week ago, we were planning our future, and now I can't even remember most of my past!”

“A week ago?” he says, breathily. His sudden confusion leaves me unsettled.

“Week and a half,” I say.

He shakes his head. “It's been
six months
since Rhona died at Anchorage. Six months I've lived with this loss. I was just beginning to—”

He shuts his eyes, pain registering in the hard set of his mouth, before turning away and rubbing his face. When he opens his eyes again, it's only to glare at me.

“Six…” I whisper.

“Yes. So you'll have to excuse me if I don't have the patience for your pity party.”

Six months
, I think numbly. I can't even begin to process this information; it thoroughly contradicts everything I thought I knew. Six months since I died leaves five months and some weeks unaccounted for. Where was I in that time, just…growing in the capsule? It makes me feel artificial and wrong. Maybe Zelda was right. Maybe I am just a…
thing
.

“I didn't know,” I say weakly.

Camus has regained his composure by this time and fitted his mask back on. The one that is cool, collected, careless. Untouchable. “Now you do,” he says, straightening the collar of his trench coat. He rids himself of the tremble in his voice by clearing his throat. “Three o'clock tomorrow. Don't forget.”

As soon as he's gone, I retreat to the bathroom to be sick.

I don't know exactly how I get from hugging the rim of the toilet to the metal basin that serves as a tub. I crawl inside with all my clothes still on and set the water to run. Then my strength, what remains of my poise and dignity, all escapes through a sudden rush of hot tears. I manage to cover my mouth just before I start crying, for all the good it does me.

It comes on so suddenly I can't stop, and maybe I don't want to. Maybe I just want to hurt for a while.

I lean my head against the rim of the tub, shaking as the hot water rises around me.

I work through my emotions until I'm spent and immune to the water, which is beginning to cool. That's how Samuel finds me an hour later—shivering in a cold bath, all but dead to the world.

“Rhona!” He leans over me, worry scrunching up his face. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? Is it your head?”

“I don't know if I can do it,” I say. “And if I can't be her, Samuel, then what's the point?”

“Come on, we need to get you out of there before you freeze…”

I refuse to budge, so he climbs in with me, clothes and all. There's barely enough room for the both of us. “What are you doing?” I ask after the initial shock wears off.

“Ruining a good pair of pants, probably,” he says with a tiny smile.

“You're getting your cast wet.”

“It doesn't matter.” His eyes say
You do.

That undoes me, and I begin crying again. Samuel wraps his good arm around me, and I allow him to draw me away from the hard metal to the softness of his chest. He lets me break down with no commentary or criticism, and instead just holds me close in the way I wish Camus would.

We both look like partially drowned rats by the time we get out, although Samuel is drenched only from the waist down. I hand him a towel before I begin drying my hair, which is stringy like cooked spaghetti.

“I think I'm going to need a change of clothes,” he says, and I laugh a little.

“There's an understatement.”

“Will you be all right while I'm gone?”

“I'm certainly not going to go jumping back in the bath, if that's what has you worried.”

He starts for the door. “I'll just be five minutes.”

“Make it ten. I should probably do something about my hair.” I measure out a long, floppy strand as evidence.

Once he's left—after several more iterations of “I'll be right back”—I strip out of my wet clothes and select a new outfit. Or, technically speaking, old. I pull out the cardigan, holding it for a few moments, but it's too much too soon, and I toss it back in the drawer, grabbing a sleeveless sweater instead. Despite being located just shy of the Arctic Circle, buried deep in frozen ground, the base is surprisingly well heated, insulated for comfort. I also tug on a pair of pants that are a little loose.
Cloning technology
.
It's the newest weight-loss solution.
All you have to do is die.

After I'm finished dressing, I tackle the issue of my hair. It's a mess of red, and my pale face is lost against the color. As I stare at the sorry thing peeking out from the mirror, an idea occurs to me. I go to my desk looking for scissors.

Before I chicken out, I return to the bathroom and start cutting my lengthy mane, a little bit at first and then more. It's not pretty—a hack job more than an actual haircut. But still…

I smile at the woman I see in the mirror now—the new Rhona Long. I immediately feel better, more comfortable in my own skin.

As the door chimes, I go to answer it expecting Samuel, but find Hanna waiting on the other side instead. She gives me a horrified look. “Your hair!” she cries.

“What are you doing here?” I ask her as she slips inside.

Maybe she didn't see my lips moving, because my question goes unanswered. Instead, she takes the scissors from my hand. “This,” she says, because she can't sign as clearly with one hand, “is why you can't have nice things.”

She speaks louder than necessary, but it might not be a side effect of being unable to hear herself. Hanna has always been a loud talker. I smile even as she goes on to run her fingers through a few of my mangled locks disapprovingly.

“Why are you here?” I try again, enunciating so she's certain to understand.

“I met Samuel in the hall.”

I should have guessed. This has Samuel written all over it. But I'm not mad he's enlisted Hanna to help—if anything, I'm touched by their concern. I must have done something right in my other life to earn the friendship and loyalty of such good people.

“He was dripping,” she adds as a random point of clarification. “Your doing?”

“I had a leak,” I say and she smiles disbelievingly, catching on to the humor. “But it's better now.”

“Glad to hear it.” She wheels me around by the shoulders and guides me back toward the bathroom. “Now. Let's do something about that hair.”

The following evening around dinnertime, the base's alarm goes off, spoiling the first night I've gotten to eat in the mess hall with everyone else. After spending the last few hours going through a rigorous physical, and performing training exercises on the military level to the satisfaction—or not—of Camus and the council, I was looking forward to unwinding a little. And food. Eating lots and lots of food.

I'm standing in the service line behind a guy who can't decide whether he wants bread pudding or lime Jell-O for dessert when the lights go apoplectic. Although I'm not up-to-date on the latest emergency protocols, it's not difficult to guess from the resulting behavior in the room that this isn't a drill. I snatch a yogurt, my hunger overriding anxiety, before heading back to the table I'm sharing with Samuel, Rankin, Hanna, and about a dozen others.

The tension is palpable as I sit down with my tray. Just as I start to ask what's going on, the wailing klaxons are temporarily silenced and I'm interrupted by a voice devoid of any perceptible emotion speaking over the intercom.

“Emergency protocol 707 active. Repeat. Emergency protocol 707 active. All electronics will be shut off for the next hour. Personnel are encouraged to remain where they are, or take the stairs, as elevators will be inactive. Personnel are also prohibited from using any nonessential battery-operated equipment and/or machinery for the next hour. Repeat. Emergency protocol 707 active. All electronic equipment will be shut off for the next hour…” The recording repeats a few more times, for those hard of hearing or just plain inattentive.

“Damn,” Rankin mutters, pushing around some peas on his plate. “And they were going to play
Goldfinger
down in Entertainment tonight.”

“It's only for an hour,” I point out.

“Guess you don't remember 707s from before, do you?” he replies, earning a hard nudge from Hanna. “Oh. Sorry. Was that insensitive? I only meant, 707s never last
just
an hour. Sometimes they can be days long, if the machines are out there, being particularly nosy.”

Mention of the machines upsets my appetite, but I push through the nausea and swallow some yogurt. “They're nearby, I take it?”

“Yep,” he says. “We're deep, deep down, but it never hurts to be on the safe side. It's why they shut everything off. Don't want any power oscillations giving us away.” He chows down on his dinner, scooping up a mouthful of peas, mashed potatoes, and something resembling meat, all into one bite. “There's been a lot more 707s recently, since you two showed up.” That earns him another elbow to the ribs and he frowns at her. “What? It's true. This makes the third time this week. Don't tell me that's a coincidence.”

“Wait. I don't remember any 707s in the past few days,” I say.

“You were kept in a medically induced coma for a little over a week when we first got back,” Samuel says, like it's nothing, unimportant, but it's news to me. “During that time, we had a few alarms like this. The machines probably registered your identity in the forest. They know you're alive. Thankfully, it seems they still don't know where we're at.”

“Okay. Would have been nice to know that before now.”

My timeline is all screwy since waking up here. It's like every time I fall unconscious, I lose months or weeks of my life.

“Yeah, you were in pretty bad shape when we found you,” Rankin says. “No wonder Camus spent so much time monitoring you that first week.”

“
Camus
visited me when I was unconscious?”

“Visited? The man hardly left at all. One of the doctors even had to sedate him at one point because he wasn't sleeping. Too worried about you, I guess.” Rankin frowns, chews with his mouth open a little. “He didn't tell you all this when you woke up?”

“Must have slipped his mind.”

While I'm trying to process the significance of this new information, I decide to change the subject. “So, who did find me? Back in the forest, I mean.”

“Well, there were several of us out there in the search,” Rankin says. “But I was the one who stumbled across you taking on that machine with a dead EMP-G and half your body immobilized by a sedative. Now there's a party story if I've ever heard one.” He grins and I notice some potato wedged between his bottom teeth.

A part of my history clicks together. “You were the one with the axe.”

“Yes, ma'am. You could even say, I had an
axe
to grind with those machines there.” Samuel smiles at the joke, but Hanna just pats Rankin on the shoulder, patronizingly. I catch a glint of silver on her hand I hadn't noticed until now. Rankin has one, too. Same finger. Huh? “No? Come on, now! You can't tell me that one wasn't at least a little funny.”

I smile. “I guess I owe you my thanks.”

“You're welcome, but don't go thinking you owe me anything. I was just following orders.”

“
Just doing my job, ma'am,” Hanna says, then tips an imaginary ten-gallon hat. She still does a pretty great impression.

“So it's all right for you to make jokes,” Rankin says, shaking his head. “I see how it is.”

She kisses him on the cheek, which tames him immediately. I wonder why I didn't see this before. I try to remember if I knew they were romantically involved, but if I did, the knowledge must have slipped through the cracks in my memory.

I smile, but I can't help feeling the division between my past and present as distinctly and painfully as a beheading. It's the little moments like these which come down on me the hardest, producing the nagging sense of being some kind of an alien—a body snatcher, an intruder in my own life. How much has happened since my predecessor was killed? How many tiny, beautiful moments between my friends have I missed?

“So, how long have you two been married?” I ask Rankin and Hanna, covering my discomfort by swallowing another mouthful of yogurt.

Five months,
Hanna signs, which I mentally translate to a month after my death.

“We were going to wait,” Rankin explains, “but after what happened with you near Anchorage, the ambush…” He takes Hanna's hand protectively in his. “I didn't want to end up with any regrets. Not like the boss man.”

The boss man?
It takes me a moment to understand he means Camus. No one ever called him that before. With me in charge, they never had reason to seek more than a signature from Camus. At best, he was my unofficial second-in-command; at worst, he was a reluctant seat warmer at the council table. Attention and Camus mix about as well as water and oil. Several instances spring to mind: Camus stomaching a wrong order because he preferred indigestion to the discomfort of correcting the server; Camus pretending not to see others cutting us in line at the store or the cinema, trying to sidestep a confrontation; Camus with his head down during council meetings, like a child hoping not to be called on by the teacher.

Maybe it was a British thing—good manners taken to the extreme. Maybe it was simply Camus being himself. Either way, it's hard to imagine the same man running McKinley. Having eyes on him at all times. Everyone turning to him when something goes wrong—and something always, always goes wrong. He'd feel the spotlight like an ant experiences a ray of sun focused through a magnifying lens. No wonder his good humor is gone; command is burning it right out of him.

I want to ask Rankin to elaborate—what would Camus have to regret?—but I'm not given the chance as the lights go off, plunging the room into darkness.

Almost immediately, people begin passing around flashlights, procured from a glass case on the wall. Some then go back to eating like nothing's changed, while others get up and leave, likely headed to their rooms to sleep through the duration of the 707. Our corner of the table remains unchanged population-wise. Neither Samuel nor I have anything better to do, and Rankin is assigned to watch us both. Hanna elects to stay as well.

Ten minutes into a different conversation about Rankin and Hanna's wedding, the entire room quakes.

It lasts seconds only, but it's enough to dissolve the nerves of nearly everyone in the mess hall. When a second one hits, shaking trays off of tables, all but the heartiest McKinley residents join a mass exodus from the hall. Whatever the protocol for this particular situation is, I would guess it was along the lines of hunker down and wait it out. After all, what else is there to do when you're this many kilometers under the earth?

“Could be an earthquake,” Rankin offers helpfully.

Hanna signs something I'm not familiar with, particularly against a background of swerving flashlight beams and creeping shadows.

“Not likely,” her husband responds with a shake of his head. “None of the bunker busters have ever penetrated this deep.”

“Instead of sitting around hypothesizing like old men,” I say, rising and taking one last bit of yogurt, “why don't we go find out what's going on ourselves? Command's only one level up.”

Rankin thinks about it. “We'll have to take the stairs,” he points out.

“I'm not afraid of a little exercise. Samuel? Hanna?”

I'd better not,
she signs. I remember she's been kept out of the field since the accident, away from any and all fighting. In a combat situation, the loss of even a single sense can prove fatally detrimental, and Hanna was never much of a scrapper to begin with. I nod, understanding. Even if these are just tremors, best not to risk putting her in a position where she can get hurt.

“What about you, Samuel?”

“Hanna, is there still a library on this level?” he asks.

“I hope so, or I'm out of a job,” she replies with a wry smile.

Samuel returns the smile, then looks at me. “There are a few books I've been meaning to check out,” he explains. “I doubt my expertise will come in handy on this particular expedition, anyway.”

“Suit yourself,” I say, a little disappointed he isn't coming along. But Samuel can't be my crutch forever. Plus, with his arm still in a sling, he's not going to be much use in a fight. Not that I'm expecting one, but you never know.

“Have fun storming the castle,” Hanna says with a grin, but I notice she whispers something else into Rankin's ear, to which he nods and kisses her.

I look at Samuel who smiles briefly. “Meet you later?” he suggests, and I agree to meet up with him back at his quarters afterward, provided we're not under attack.

“Well, looks like we've got a few flights to catch,” Rankin says, clearly meaning flights of
stairs.
I shake my head at the pun, unable to repress a smile. He hands me an additional flashlight to carry. “Still nothing? Wow, tough crowd tonight.”

The hallways are crammed with people, personnel spreading out in all directions like aftershocks, with the epicenter the mess hall on this level. Being trapped amidst such a mass of moving bodies, especially underground, where there are no windows to climb out of, no back doors to run through, produces a nauseating feeling of being buried alive.

As my geography of the base is a touch rusty, I let Rankin lead the way, our combined beams lighting the vinyl floor ahead of us as we proceed to the stairwell.

While equally busy in terms of foot traffic, almost all of it is flowing down to the lower levels, where it's safer. This clears the way for us to head up, climbing the equivalent of a four-story building to reach Command. The layout of the base is ingenious, really, constructed with every precaution in mind. But size and safety don't necessarily allow for convenience, and it's not a light trek between levels.

Somewhere between the third and fourth flight of stairs, there's another quake, much more powerful than its predecessors. I anchor myself to one of the railings and end up looking over the side. The well in the center seems to go on forever, disappearing into the dark bowels of the earth.

“Out of curiosity, how far would you say that goes?” I ask, my voice echoing a long distance down.
Goes, goes, goes.
The sound dissipates into silence and empty space.

“I try not to think about it,” Rankin says, staring ahead.

“Afraid of heights?”

“It's not the heights I'm afraid of. It's the sudden splat at the end, after the falling.”

“Point taken,” I agree, a sudden wave of vertigo lurching through me.

We keep moving, gripping the handrails as we go. A couple more quakes rock the stairwell, growing in magnitude as we get closer to the command level. Once we reach the door, Rankin palms the scanner for access, which makes me wonder whether my prints and DNA still work. Given the council's distrust, I wouldn't be surprised to find they'd revoked my security clearance entirely. It's what I would do in their position.

The lights on this level are on, but they have that bluish, artificial tint of floodlights. They buzz quietly, producing just enough electricity to illuminate the dark. I flick off my flashlight, but keep it in hand just in case. If nothing else, it'll make a decent cudgel.

Halfway to the war room, we run into Camus, who is hastily giving orders to personnel rushing past. For an instant, his eyes light up, and his lips begin to curve into a smile. He looks genuinely pleased to see me, but then it's like he remembers I'm not
his
Rhona, not the real one, anyway, and his features harden back into stone. My heart, having risen for a single, glorious moment, now crashes into my stomach.

I take a small, calming breath as Rankin and I fall in step alongside Camus. He doesn't slow his pace any to accommodate us.

“Lieutenant,” he says, acknowledging Rankin curtly. Apparently I merit neither a title nor a greeting.

“Commander,” Rankin replies. “What's the situation?”

“We're not sure yet. The machines have been doing strafing runs all day, but that was some miles north from here. It's not clear whether they had a target or were simply testing new weaponry. They've since moved, as you have no doubt noticed. The mountain's as good a location as any to test bunker busters. In all likelihood, they have no idea we're here.”