Meridian (13 page)

“Reflections?” I move to his shoulder for a look myself.

“My God,” he says. “Those are faces.
Human
faces. Their hair. Their eyes.”

They’re hard to make out due to lack of detail and smudging, but if you hold the paper at arm’s length, they get clearer. He’s right . . .
people
. Their eyes aren’t shining, or even pale. They’re dark and wide and terrified, as though death walked in front of them and someone saved the image. Some have long hair, some have short. Some have curls, but not like Blanca’s, where the crystals of her hair twist into spirals against her shoulders. There are no crystals here. The hair comes in waves that blow in the wind.

“They’re human,” I say.

“They’re
strangers
.” Honoria amends the words to something with more weight.

“There’s another enclave?” Dr. Wolff nearly drops his microscope.

“What do you know about this?” Honoria demands of Bolt directly. “Are these accurate? Are there people out there who aren’t part of you?”

“Others resist the Darkness,” Bolt says.

Affirmed.

“You mean they’re fighting the Fade?” Col. Lutrell asks. “Er . . . the Wild Fade?”

“Yes.”

“If they’re holding off active attacks, maybe they can help,” I say. “Something’s given them an edge if they’ve survived this long. What if they’ve found something like what you gave me, something that could save Dante and Silver?”

“I’m surprised you’d suggest such a thing,” Honoria says.

“Dante and Silver weren’t Fade-children taken from their families. It’s different.” I watch the projection dim to nothing when the lamp’s turned off. That monstrosity has nothing to do with me or those I came from.

“We may return to home?” Bolt asks his sister. “Promise?”

I know the value of Honoria’s promises and how fast they expire, but this time we’ve got backup.

“By all means, stop breathing my air,” she says. Surprisingly, she’s not arguing against their release. “You can go at twilight, before the Arc ignites.”

“Is it enough?” I ask Bolt.

“It’s all you get.” Honoria pauses long enough to glance up, then goes right back to shuffling pictures. “There’s containment gear in storage. They can use that.”

“It’s reflective head-to-toe,” Col. Lutrell explains. “Completely fireproof, and UV protective. He’ll make it home.”

Col. Lutrell, I trust.

He leads Bolt back to the wall panel. As Bolt relaxes, the marks return to his face.

“Go back to your friend and wait,” Col. Lutrell says, never mentioning his apartment by name.

“We will wait,” Bolt says, turning to his sister. “Thank you, Honoria.”

She shoos him off with her hand.

“Love you, honeybee.”

Her head shoots up as he disappears.

Whatever ghost from their shared past Bolt raises with that name, it passes quickly. All that matters now is what Trey saw through the eyes of the wild hive.

“It’s massive,” I tell her. “Our Fade are drops of water in their ocean, but they came in on foot and got here fast, if they’re why Dante’s been going into the Grey as long as he has. If they’re close, then so are the people they know. Maybe Trey could try to link up with them again and find out where they are, or—”

“Not necessary,” Honoria says. She straightens the stack of drawings, preparing to take them with her.

“But—” The look on her face stops me cold. “You know where they are, don’t you?”

D
AD
radioed around noon. “I’m on my way home. We’re having company, so clean up your room.”

Basic translation: I’m not free to talk. Move the Fade.

Annie and I wrangled Rueful into the tunnels. Technically, she wrangled him down the hall and refused to go past the door of the closet, but we got there as Schuyler returned.

“He can stretch out in the junction,” I said. Schuyler nodded.

I grabbed a pillow and blanket from the linen closet and threw them in after, just in case Fade use them. The panel slid shut, and by the time Dad got home, we were Fade free . . . unless the nanites in his eyes count. Or the ones I was apparently born with.

Now it’s hours later, according to my wristband, and for some reason, I’ve woken up on the floor of my room. I don’t remember falling out of bed.

I reach up to poke around. Someone grumbles; a hand falls over the side and slaps me in the face. Oh yeah—Annie claimed the bed. Just my luck. I get a girl to stay over in my room, and it’s not Marina.

Dad should have brought her home with him, not let her be sent off alone where there’s no emergency tunnel access for help or escape. I need to see if she’s okay.

I crawl away, not standing until I’m closer to the door.

“Dad?” I call in the hall. I thought he might be sleeping, but the commotion from the living room says he’s still got company.

Sykes is with him, Mr. Pace, and Honoria, sorting boxes of paper on the center table.

“Here’s another one,” Sykes says. “Different angle.”

Honoria takes a page from him and scans it.

“Definitely the same building,” she says. “This statue sits out front. See the broken tusk? I helped break it.”

She flips the page around. It’s the picture Trey was working on during Annie’s birthday dinner, the one with the pig.

“I never took you for a vandal,” Mr. Pace says. “I don’t know if I should be impressed or horrified.”

“It was their own fault—they cheated us out of the title that year,” she says with a smile that makes her look almost like a teenager. “This is Ridgeline South, complete with survivors. I’d bet my life on it.”

“You are,” Sykes says sourly.

“What’s Ridgeline South?” I ask.

They all freeze, like a bunch of lower years caught misbehaving. Sykes tosses the nearest pages into an open box.

“I was there when they found Trey,” I say. “His pictures aren’t a secret.”

Sykes puts the lid on, anyway.

“I thought you were asleep,” Dad says.

“I was, but it’s after six.” They all check their wristbands. “What’s Ridgeline South?”

“It used to be a school.”

“And there are people—human people—in it?”

“Not likely,” Sykes scoffs. “There can’t be survivors within a hundred miles of here and us not know it.”

“You never saw the place,” Honoria says. “It’s a geometric nightmare made of steel and glass. Everyone called it the Ice Cube.”

Honoria taps the picture she held up. What I mistook for slashes of pencil meant to fill the background aren’t random. They form a grid of windows and doors that reflect dozens of blurred faces. The pig’s broken tusk juts into the image at the bottom corner.

Mr. Pace nods his head. “No grass, no trees, nothing to interest nanites. Just a massive block of ugly surrounded by a cement parking lot and outbuildings for a half-mile square. It could be defensible.”

“If anyone’s still there,” Honoria says. “They’re close enough that we have a shot at making contact.”

“For real?” The words stick in my throat.

I don’t even care that they’re ignoring me—our world just got bigger. All those pictures in my mother’s books, and the cities in her snow globes, aren’t fairy tales anymore. If this school exists, then why can’t they? Someone could have saved them, too. They might lead to another point, and another, and another.

We’re not alone.

“Close enough in which direction?” Sykes asks. “I don’t know any that wouldn’t mean a run through the Dark.”

“James keeps telling us his friends in the woods mean no harm. This is their chance to prove it.”

“We’ll need transport,” Dad says. “Can the equipment take that kind of a trip?”

“We’ve got no better time to find out,” Honoria says.

“You
really
think this is worth trying for, Jeannie?” Sykes leans in closer to Honoria, his voice harsh, turning the conversation into a personal argument between the two of them.

“If not this, then what?” she asks.

“Can you take another disappointment?”

“No, but I can definitely handle a success.”

“Then I guess I’d better go check the oil.” He stands to leave, slamming boxes into a stack to carry out. She takes the rest. Dad motions me toward the door; I run to hold it open for them.

“Our goal is two days,” she says, before leaving. “James, I believe you have some stowaways to escort off the grounds. See if you can’t make them amenable to a path through their territory while you’re at it.”

Slamming the door behind them is a complete accident for the most part. That’s my favorite thing about a swinging door. Sliding panels just click.

“He used to be such a good kid,” Dad grumbles. He and Mr. Pace pick up the plates and glasses from off the table to take them to the kitchen.

“All I did was slam a door.”

“Not you—Sykes. He had a very promising start to his career, then—”

“Then you had to burn him?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

“You told him.” Mr. Pace stumbles with the glass in his hand.

“No choice. He’s seeing things, too,” Dad says.

I wish he wouldn’t say it like that. Sounds like I’m crazy.

“Due to contact, or are they all hitting some natural threshold?” Mr. Pace throws a long look down the hall, toward my room.

“If Annie’s having nightmares, she doesn’t show it,” I tell him. “I think she’s okay.”

Besides, if it’s based on age, she’s two months older than me.

I start rinsing off dishes, mainly so I don’t have to look at either of them.

“I don’t know where to start with Trey,” Mr. Pace says. “How do I tell my own son I did this to him?”

“Try not doing it while a pair of Fade are sitting in your kitchen. Definite improvement over Dad’s method,” I say.

Dad throws a dish towel at my head.

“You tell him the same way you do anyone else,” he says to Mr. Pace.

“Do people freak out when they find out the truth?” I’ve known Dad forever, but there are still times that the change in his eyes makes him seem like a stranger. I’ve wanted to rip my own skin off to see what’s below it since I saw my blood projected on that wall.

Great. That image will probably find a way to work itself into my nightmares now.

“There’ve been some hard years,” he says. “A few of the early fights were so big, they nearly destroyed the whole place. There were more like us right after the takeover, but when the others realized . . .” He trails off.

“It got bad?”

“It became a witch hunt,” Mr. Pace says. “Most of us didn’t survive.”

“But you heal so fast—”

“Witch hunts end in fire, Tobin; so did this.”

It’s impossible, but the knife-shaped scar on my back burns. I roll my shoulder and can smell the charred skin. I see the flames that destroyed our old carpet, and I imagine it all spreading.

Is that what Dante and Silver have to look forward to if Dr. Wolff can’t fix them? Once people figure out what’s happened, will they go after Trey because his eyes are blue now? Or will they turn on Marina, again?

I have to get out of here.

O
PEN
the door. Open the door. Open the door.

“Shut up!” I scream at Cherish’s voice. She didn’t respond when I only said it in my head. Saying it out loud doesn’t do any better.

After Honoria kicked me out of the conversation and the hospital, I was dumped back into my room and told to wait. I burned a few hours sleeping, but now I’m awake, and my door won’t open, and now I know why Anne-Marie goes berserk in tight spaces. Cherish is doing the same thing, and I’m coming out of my skin.

Open the door. Open the door. Open the door.

“It’s a security measure,” I’ve tried to explain. “We aren’t prisoners.”

Open the door.

I stood in the corner where Blanca’s bush lives and breathed in the smell. Surely, our sister would—

Open the door.

I took her to Rue’s picture and imagined the sound of the bird as it flies.

“Try thinking about—”

Open the door.

I picked up Tobin’s snow globe from the table and shook it hard to scatter my frustrations with the stars inside.

Open the door.

Cherish hasn’t deviated from that single thought in twenty minutes, other than adding the sound of a rattling door to the mix. We’re still stuck.

“Stop it!” I command. “Driving me insane won’t get us out of here. No one’s allowed out. The doors are all—”

Click
.

The doors
were
all locked, but mine’s opening, and the person outside it is not a welcome sight. Honoria’s never been to my room before.

“Who were you talking to?” she asks.

“Myself. The door was locked. I couldn’t get out.”

“Oh.” Her face falls. “Claustrophobia’s usually only a concern with Annie. I didn’t think.”

Was that an apology?

Run. Hide. Conceal. Flee.

Cherish’s chant changes.

I seriously wish I could slap her.

“Is the lockdown over?” I ask, peeking into the hall, but it’s empty.

“No. Come with me.” It’s not a request.

We start to leave, but I dash back into my room and grab Honoria’s book from under my pillow. She doesn’t take it when I hold it out; she doesn’t even acknowledge it, so I tuck it back into my waistband and follow her into the hall so that my hands are free.

“Your Fade got out, in case you were wondering,” Honoria says.

If you hadn’t been so loud, we would have known that,
I tell Cherish.

I’d hoped to get the chance to see them off.

“According to James, they were well into the Grey before the lights came up.”

That’s an uncharacteristically kind detail to add.
What’s happened to her since last night?

The guidelines on the floor transition from the green that marks my home hall, past the main areas, where several other colors branch off to other sections. We’re into red and gold, the colors used for high security areas.

“Are we going downstairs?” I ask, slowing my pace so a gap forms between us. If she thinks I’m walking blind into the section where the White Room is, she’s crazy.

Run,
Cherish says.
Flee
.

“We’re going to the motor pool,” she says.

The words mean nothing to me. Machines can have motors, but pools usually involve water. The two don’t mix well unless it’s a boat, and I don’t think we have any boats here.

“Keep up.” We pass the secure entrance to the Arclight-below; she opens a different door, instead. I’ve never been this deep into the aboveground security sector.

“My legs are shorter than yours. If you want me to keep up, then slow down,” I say. “And give me some details while you’re at it.”

“You wanted to know what I saw in that picture.”

“And that’s in a motor pool?”

“No, but the way to get to it is. We’re preparing to leave.”

“As in, into the Dark?” I ask. A human can’t outrun a single Fade in open territory, much less a group of them on the hunt. “How are you going to outrun the Fade for miles?”

“We won’t be running on foot.”

Honoria opens the last door on the hall, revealing a room five times the size of the Common Hall.

Dead,
says Cherish of the air.
Stale
.

It’s dusty and full of old boxes. Tarps cover piles of things with no discernible shape. Scattered throughout are vehicles similar to those abandoned along the ruined roads of the Dark, only these aren’t rusty. Someone’s kept them clean. People in security uniforms mill about, uncovering equipment and moving it away from the wall.

I touch the vehicle Honoria stops at, running my hands over the smooth metal sides. It isn’t warm, like I expect. I press a button, and a door swings open with a high-pitched creak that makes Cherish yelp.

“It’s a truck,” Honoria says.

Cherish supplies impressions, drawn from various Fade who remember their human lives: Trucks are smelly and loud, with the rumble of a storm.

“Can this really outrun a Fade?” I ask.

“This old girl got me here. She won’t let us down.”

“Us?”

“However you get your information, you’re the closest thing to an asset we have. Once this vehicle is road ready, we’ll need all the assets we can carry.”

Something pops at the front of the truck where Col. Lutrell’s propped a metal panel up on a long pole, exposing the parts inside. He pulls out different metal wicks, testing the levels of fluid on them, while Mr. Pace checks the tension on belts and wires. I hope they know what they’re doing.

“How long?” Honoria calls up front.

“Considering the closest thing you’ve got to a mechanic is a high school teacher and a guy whose wife was the technologically inclined one?” Mr. Pace asks.

“Stow it,” Col. Lutrell says. “We’ve got the battery charged, but she hasn’t made a distance run in a long time. Three of these hoses need to go, and I’d feel a lot better if we replaced the fan belt. Coolant’s going to be an issue, not to mention cold starting the engine. It could—”

“Get it done,” she snaps back.

“Don’t vehicles need some kind of fuel?” I ask.

“We’ve protected a small amount for our generators, so we can keep the emergency lights burning and to use for fire fuel if we need a blaze quickly. Most of our salvage has evaporated over the years, but we’ve got enough to keep a truck going a few miles and back.”

I hoist myself into the seat. The smell’s unfamiliar, and it crinkles under my weight. The whole thing seems sort of boxy rather than maneuverable.

“Someone will take you to get your gear soon,” she says. “Stay here. I want you in sight until we leave.”

All my attempts to reach Rue fail, but I keep trying. Bolt doesn’t answer, either. I get desperate enough to try for my sister and mother, but there’s not so much as a whiff of flowers or pine. Just air that’s thick with the smell of rubber and engine fluids.

I’m left to wander the room, peeking into boxes that have been sealed for years while the team trying to move them give me nasty looks. I wish I knew what this stuff was, but I’ve never even seen most of it in pictures.

I try sleeping in the truck’s backseat, but there’s too much noise, so I turn to the only thing I have left. I haven’t looked at Honoria’s book since my nightmare. Was that really only a day ago?

I open the cover and flip through to the end, skimming lines here and there.

K. Sykes is, indeed, “Kevin.” He’s also the officer Honoria found cute. There are several entries about him, all addressed to the Trinity from the book but not Rashid; they’re too embarrassing to share with a guy. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to look Sykes in the eye again.

Honoria describes so much loss the first few years, I’m surprised anyone survived. And then behind the last page, folded up tight, I find one, final letter.

The page is warped in spots.
Tears
.

She mourned them. They were more than a couple she never met. They were her imaginary friends after she lost the real ones.

Maybe she was mourning herself.

I put away the book, pull my jacket over my head, and cry myself to sleep.

Eventually, I’m woken up and dragged to a storage area. The clothes here are similar to our daily uniforms, but rather than the tiered monochrome of yearly designation, or the khaki Mr. Pace and the adults favor, they’re shades of gray camouflage, but it’s nowhere near as effective as the Fade’s.

“I don’t know how much good they’ll do, but hopefully they’re an advantage,” Mr. Pace tells me as he hands me a folded stack.

The jacket’s too bulky and the pants are too long. I can actually fit Honoria’s book in a deep pocket. They’re obviously not meant for a teenage girl, but I do my best to resize them with tucking and belts, and I finish just in time to see Trey ushered in by Lt. Sykes and Dr. Wolff.

Seeing his eyes the same color as mine against his dark skin is strange. They’re so small a thing, but the change is huge.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“I hoped you knew the answer to that one,” Trey says. “Doctor Wolff released me. I thought I was going home, but they brought me here. No one would say why in front of Mom.”

“We’re going outside.”

“They’re putting us out?”

“I will never let that happen—to either of you.” We turn as Mr. Pace joins us, holding another stack of clothes out to Trey. “Didn’t they tell you anything?”

“Sykes said something about my drawings, but I don’t remember most of them.”

Did they even bother to tell him his eyes are blue? If not, he’s got another shock coming.

“Marina, can you find your way back?” Mr. Pace asks me. “Trey and I need to talk.”

No, I don’t know my way back to the motor pool, but I tell him the exact opposite and hope I stumble through the right doors.

Cherish chooses to be helpful. She doesn’t know the twists and turns the way Rue does, and she can’t draw me a map, but between us, it only takes me twice as long to get back to the motor pool as it did to reach the storage center from it.

I walk straight into an argument between Col. Lutrell and Tobin.

When did he get here?

“You’re not going,” Col. Lutrell says. “End of discussion.”

“But, Dad—”

“Forget it. Absolutely not.”

“But Marina—”

“Is possibly immune—you’re not. And if Trey’s anything to go by, you may be more susceptible than most. We’re not giving them another contact point—especially my son.”

Tobin stiffens, steeling himself for a fight, but his father knows him.

“Let it go, Tobin. I make a lot of allowances for a lot of things, but not this. I cannot make the choice between my son and what’s best for everyone else. If you stay here I can do my job and not be a bigger failure as a father than I already am.”

“You’re not—”

They look my way, so I pretend I’m stuffing more of this awful uniform into my belt rather than eavesdropping. But staring at the pattern on my clothes makes me imagine Fade-lines and protrusions on my skin—a final warning from Cherish to scare me off going, I think. I shake my head, and the image is gone.

“Tell her good-bye, son,” Col. Lutrell tells Tobin.

If there was a little more time, we could slip off to the Well, but as it is, Tobin and I take refuge in a tarp-covered truck that’s missing its wheels. His father leaves us alone with our illusion of privacy.

“Whose jacket is that?” Tobin asks, helping me straighten it. The shoulders still droop where they’re too broad.

“I don’t know, but I think you could fit in here with me.” I flap my arms to show off how ridiculously long the sleeves are.

“Careful. I might try.”

“I’m not sorry your dad said no, Tobin.”

Quite the opposite. I wish I had my father here to tell me this was too dangerous and that he’ll handle things for me, but mine’s in the Dark protecting his Fade-daughter. Tobin doesn’t know how lucky he is.

He catches my eye for second, gets an idea that I practically see flash there, and looks away, suddenly interested in a shallow tray of junk attached to the console in front of us.

“Hold this.” He picks up a paper clip, then fishes a rubber band out of the mess.

“What are you doing, trying to tie us together?”

“I’m being useful.”

He ties the band to the paper clip and slips it over my wrist, sliding the clip through the jacket’s buttonhole. The rubber band shrinks down, holding the cuff snug to my wrist.

“Now they won’t drag,” he says, grinning.

“Thanks, but I still agree with your dad.”

The grin’s gone. He changes the subject, snapping the back of his hand with a rubber band as he talks.

“It’s getting tense up top. No one knows what’s happened to Dante and Silver, but they know it’s bad enough to close the hospital. Half of them think you and Trey are dead. Annie’s a wreck; Doctor Wolff had to sedate her when she found out Trey was leaving.”

“Your dad says Doctor Wolff’s staying here.”

“So’s Sykes,” Tobin says. “Just in case someone else . . . you know.”

“How’s Silver?”

I don’t want to ask about Dante. I can’t handle bad news right now.

“Puking her guts out. She keeps sweating out into the sheets, and every time she does, they branch black and have to be burned. They shaved her hair off to get the ones hiding there.”

“Maybe one of Rue’s people could try again now that there are fewer in her system.”

“I don’t really want to think about him right now.”

He takes both of my hands so we’re turned completely toward each other; leans his forehead against mine, so he’s all I can see, and I’m the same for him.