Talker 25 (23 page)

“Activate fire for Three, Six, and Seven,” Major Alderson says. “Draw them away from the rest of the group.”

Seven:
Ugarth, the invisible monsters come. Let us show them the glory of your flame
. Ugarth and the other two selected Greens swoop from the pack to intercept.

Black jets race into view on the displays of Three, Six, and Seven, who shout frantic orders at their dragons. Fire geysers, missile blurs, and bullet tracers flash across their screens. Planes plummet left and right, streaks of smoke and flame that fade into the background until they explode against the earth.

The remaining jets regroup and direct their attacks at Six’s dragon. He dodges the first several missiles, but then one catches him in the chest and the video signal blacks out. I can’t contain my smile.

Alderson scowls at me. “What’s happening, Six?”

“I’ve lost communication.”

“Redirect the templar to confirm,” the major says. The satellite image shifts from the city to the countryside and zooms in on a dead Green among crushed trees. He nods to
the soldier monitoring Six. “Initiate cleansing.”

The collar explodes, severing the dragon’s neck. Major Alderson looks at me. “The first rule of the battle room: cover your tracks. No more—”

“We’ve entered the blind zone, Major.”

While Three and Seven continue their battle with the remaining planes, the other four Greens advance on a thickening checkerboard of black homes and buildings. In rapid succession, orange bursts of fire explode from artillery and rocket launchers hidden in the dark city.

The talkers give fast instructions.
Swerve left, barrel roll left, dive, climb! Fire, fire, fire!
Flames, smoke, sky, buildings whirl together.

“Switch the templar to thermal,” Major Alderson says.

The satellite image, clouded with gun smoke, shifts to a color map. Among the blue buildings, bright red dots appear. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands, packed in tight bunches. On the display, it doesn’t seem like they’re moving fast, but they’re all moving in the same direction. Away from the dragons.

People.

“I’m losing him!” Seventeen bellows. I check his screen. Blinding bright, Morth plunges through the clouds, swerving and bobbing in wild gyrations, ever downward despite repeated shocks and Seventeen’s orders to regain altitude.

The major draws my attention to Morth’s dialogue box.
I smell them. I smell them. I will eat human. I will eat well now.
“The second rule: if a dragon gets out of line, make an example of it for the others. Cut off transmission.”

The soldier monitoring Seventeen’s CENSIR inhibits him.

“Activate Morth’s fire,” the major says.

My throat tightens. “What are you doing?”

“He’s beyond control and would undoubtedly be at full throttle by now.”

Morth unleashes his inferno toward the meal he can smell but cannot see, for all the black buildings that blind his view. Through the fire and smoke clouding his screen, a skyscraper rushes into view. He crashes through the top story in a rush of flames, glass, and office equipment.

He tumbles out, regains speed, and immediately plows into another high-rise. I bite hard into my lip. Five long counts later, the building about to crumble atop him, the Green emerges from the other side, staggering on the edge, glow gone dim, fire down to weak plumes, one wing shredded. Major Alderson orders another collar decapitation. The video signal dies with Morth.

“Why didn’t you do that earlier? There could be people in there!”

“Plausible deniability—”

“That’s bullshit. Greens don’t fly in packs. They don’t fly in formation.”

“They do if they’re Diocletians.”

So they’re the scapegoats in this. I wonder what else they’ll take the blame—

Suddenly it all seems so familiar.

My stomach lurches.

My chest hitches.

I forget how to breathe.

“Arlington?” I croak.

“What?” Major Alderson says, his gaze locked on the satellite image to our left.

“Arlington?”

“We are in attack range of the target, Major.”

“Mom?” I find a breath. Not much of one, but enough. “Did you kill my mother?”

“Arlington was a mistake,” Alderson says. “That Green went wild. We’ve taken measures to ensure that will not happen again.”

“How big of you.” I fight back tears, focus on the rage. “Now your killing’s intentional.”

“Control yourself, Twenty-Five, or we’ll do it for you.”

The dragons drop through the smoke and glides several stories above the streets. I can see the people now. Sprinting, looking over their shoulders, stumbling . . . often over each
other. It’s a stampede. And the dragons haven’t even done anything—

“Activate Five, Nine, and Fifteen. Open fire,” Major Alderson says.

Flames appear on each screen, growing funnels that blast into the crowds. The video cameras don’t have audio, probably because it would make everyone’s job harder, but you can see the people screaming, almost feel it through the silence broken only by All-Black commands and talker voices.

“They’re innocent people. Please stop,” I say. “You can’t do this.”

“Control yourself, Twenty-Five,” Major Alderson says. “This is what it costs to keep your family and mine safe.”

I think of actions.

I think of consequences.

I think of Mom. And I make my choice.

On my CENSIR screen, the
Current synaptic state
blinks bright red, and the text beside it shifts from
angry, sad
to
violent, dangerous to others
.

As the major reaches for the handcuffs on his belt, I slam my heel into his shin. He doubles over, grabs for me, but not fast enough. I tap the incapacitate buttons for Nine and Fifteen before someone cracks the butt of a machine gun against my skull.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

I
killed Claire.

Nine remains unconscious in the infirmary. Evidently, going from transmit to incapacitate causes serious injury, or worse in some cases.

After a nurse bandages my head, Major Alderson takes me to view the body. Claire looks monstrous in death, her eyes wide, mouth open in a silent scream, upper lip snarled.

“You know, all you’ve done is delay our timetable,” the major says. “More will die now because we’ll have to come in over the main district. Good job, Twenty-Five.”

It takes me awhile to speak. “Go to hell.”

He gestures at Claire. “Looks like that’s where you sent her.”

“Do whatever you’re going to do to me and get it over
with.”

He sighs. “Not my call.” He grasps me by the shoulders, regards me with a paternal expression that sickens me. “You’ve got spirit . . . and talent. But you need to channel it in the right direction. We don’t want you to end up like this one. We really don’t.”

When we return to the barracks, most of the girls are gathered in excited conversation around Five and Seven. Major Alderson clears his throat. They notice us; the chatter dominoes to silence. Five and Seven glare at me. Evelyn wears a tight smile. “Welcome back, Twenty-Five. We weren’t expecting you so soon.”

“Today was not one of our finest, ladies,” Alderson says. “Unfortunately, until Nine recovers, shifts will be lengthened by two hours. Good night.”

The moment he’s out the door, the hateful whispers begin.

“Thanks a lot, Twenty-Five.”

“Should have reconditioned your ass.”

“Who you gonna murder next?”

I want to shrink into the corner and disappear, but before I’ve gone two steps, Evelyn raises her hands. “Now, now, everyone, let’s calm down. In fact, I think we owe Twenty-Five a round of applause.”

“What?” Five says.

“Yeah, that stupid bitch could have killed us,” Seven
adds.

Evelyn raises her hand, but Seven waves her off. “No, she needs to get a goddamn—”

“Do not profane the—” Pam starts.

“Shut it, Thirteen,” Seven says. “Twenty-Five, maybe you don’t like us, but you better start caring about us, because we’re the only ones who have your back. We’re your family now. Even Fifteen. You should have seen her flopping on the floor. They say she choked on her own tongue.”

I bite into my cheeks, clench my stomach, desperate to keep from crying.

“Submit yourself to God, Melissa,” Pam says. “And the devil will flee from you.”

“Leave her alone,” Lorena says, grabbing my hand. I squeeze it like a lifeline.

Evelyn nods. “I’m sure Twenty-Five has learned her lesson. Let’s not dwell on the loss of our sister or the punishment she’s inflicted on us with this unfortunate occurrence. Let’s find the silver lining, girls.”

“Silver lining?” Seven hisses.

“Yes, think about it. We won’t have to worry about Fifteen bothering us with her incessant pounding, getting the screen bloody, or sitting all retarded in the restroom.”

“And I’ll get more chocolate now!” Twenty-One says from the corner.

It’s too much. I race into the bathroom and collapse against the wall.

Lorena enters soon after, an Almond Joy in hand.

“I can’t . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to kill . . .” It hurts too much to say her name. “I’m sorry.”

“You did her a favor.”

I shake my head, unable to speak.

“You know how many times I considered interfering?” Lorena says. “I couldn’t, though. I was scared. Terrified. We all are. I know it feels like they’re against you now—”

“The entire world.”

She laughs. “Yeah, them, too. They’ll hate you for a while, but deep in that buried part of them, from the time when they were names, not numbers, they know what you did was right. That goodness you showed today will give them something to hold on to.”

“Bullshit.”

“Know the difference between fairy-tale heroes and real heroes?”

I think of Mom. “In fairy tales they don’t die. Why did she have to die? Why did she leave me alone?”

She hugs me. I sob into her shoulder.

I compose myself, push away. “For the record, you suck at pep talks.”

She laughs. “I can only be so perfect. Now eat up. . . .Take
it, Melissa. Allie will be annoyed with both of us if she finds out you rejected her donation to the Make Melissa Feel Better Fund.”

I bite into the candy bar. Close my eyes, pretend I’m on Twenty-One’s tropical island . . . no All-Blacks, no dragons, no battle rooms or CENSIRs—

A beep sounds. I stop chewing. It’s not a news clip this time, but the premiere of
Kissing Dragons: The Other Side
.

I watch in numb silence as they transform me from an all-American girl to a delusional insurgent suffering from what a famous psychiatrist calls “dragon exposure.” Watch farmboys lie and smile and lie some more. Watch Sam go from confused to enraged to repulsed all over again.

“This is what becomes of traitors,” Simon says. “They don’t just ruin their own lives, they ruin the lives of those closest to them. But is Melissa truly the one to blame? Maybe her transformation didn’t begin after her mother’s death. Maybe it began much earlier. . . .”

Unveil Mom’s treachery.

Starts with a montage of her on various salvage missions.

Fast forward to protest rallies.

End with the photo taken at Shadow Mountain lookout, where she’s standing beside Oren White, the Diocletian leader responsible for the recent terrorist attacks on day-care centers.

Simon interviews a stern-faced general who looks familiar, though I don’t know why until they show a picture of him handing Dad a folded-up American flag at Mom’s funeral.

“What do you know about the relationship between Olivia Callahan and Oren White, General?” Simon asks.

“Major Callahan and Sergeant White worked together at several points in their careers,” the general says. “After the sergeant’s wife died, he snapped and joined the other side. We believe he recruited Major Callahan. It’s unclear when exactly this occurred, but we do know it was well before the attack on Arlington.”

“Why does that matter?” Simon prompts.

“We believe she and Sergeant White used their specialized background in military intelligence to hijack the national defense system.”

“So you’re saying that Olivia Callahan, a decorated war hero, instigated the attack on Arlington, an attack that killed more than twelve hundred people?” Simon says.

Play cell-phone video of the Green roasting victims on the Wilson Bridge.

“We believe their actual intent was an attack on Congress or the president.”

“With a dragon? There was nobody flying it. It couldn’t know where it was going.”

“It knew exactly where it was going. When we examined
the creature’s corpse, we found a high-resolution camera attached to a high-tech collar.”

Switch to a “live” shot of Simon, brow pinched. “General Sparks allowed me to see some of the footage recovered from the camera. Though much of it remains classified, he has given us permission to share a sample. Please be warned . . . what you are about to see is not for the faint of heart.”

Show Wilson Bridge massacre from the dragon’s perspective.

Back to the general. “Originally we thought they wanted to record their efforts for propaganda, but when we investigated the collar, we discovered a remote sonic communicator—an advanced dog whistle for dragons. With video and acoustics, they could tell the dragon where to go.”

“It went the wrong way,” Simon notes.

“Either it got confused, or, as we believe, it decided not to listen.”

“But if they initiated this murderous strike, why would Major Callahan have sacrificed herself to divert the creature she was supposedly in league with?”

Run clips of Mom steering the Green away from the suburbs toward the river, first from a drone’s perspective, then from the dragon’s.

“Her family lived two blocks from the dragon’s fire path,” the general says. Show snapshot of burning suburbs,
highlight our house in neon green. “You do the math.”

“What do you think of the general’s claims, Ms. Callahan?” Simon asks.