The Boundless Sublime (30 page)

It was the air, I was certain. The pollution and the air conditioning and the cigarette smoke and alcohol fumes and fluorescent lighting. We’d only been here a day and it had already contaminated us. Seeped into our pores and begun to rot us from the inside.

Pippa had her hand to her cheek where I’d struck her, her eyes wide and filling with tears.

She’d never be sublime.

‘Hera,’ said Welling, his voice weary. ‘Go into the bathroom. Take a moment to elutriate.’

He was telling
me
what to do? I wasn’t the one who was blubbering. Pippa was an amateur, a slave to her body’s synapses and nerve endings. But I obeyed, slipping into the bathroom and closing the door behind me.

I slid the diamond ring off my finger and set it on the bench beside the sink. I turned the tap on and splashed cold water onto my face. Mascara and eyeliner smudged, and I grabbed a towel and scrubbed it off. I felt a strong and sudden need to see my face, my
real
face. The white towel was soon streaked with beige and black and pink. But I still didn’t recognise the
girl in the mirror, with her sharp cheekbones and sunken eyes. Who was she? Who was I? I thought I was Heracleitus, but Heracleitus wouldn’t have failed today. She wouldn’t have let Daddy down. She wouldn’t have lost her temper with Pippa.

I heard a knock at the door to the suite, and Welling’s footsteps as he crossed the carpet to open the door.

‘Room service?’ said a voice.

‘No,’ said Welling. ‘We didn’t order room service.’

There was a pause, and I heard the crinkling of a sheet of paper. ‘I’m so sorry, sir,’ said the stranger’s voice. ‘I have the wrong floor. My apologies.’

The door closed.

I took a few deep breaths, and went back into the main room.

‘It’s them,’ said Stan with an ominous glance to the door. ‘The Quintus Septum. They’re here. Watching us. Sabotaging our mission.’

I nodded, feeling a frightened chill settle over me, as well as … relief. The Quintus Septum had made sure I lost at the blackjack table. It was sabotage. It wasn’t because I had failed, all on my own. I hadn’t let Daddy down.

‘What do we do?’ Pippa asked. ‘Do we try again? Go to a different casino?’

Welling shook his head. ‘They’re onto us. We have to return to the Institute and report to Daddy.’ He stood up and shrugged on his jacket, picking up the now-empty briefcase. ‘Come on.’

Pippa and Stan stood up too, and walked to the hotel room door.

An image flashed into my mind of the diamond ring sitting by the bathroom sink, where I had taken it off to wash my face.

‘Just a moment,’ I said, and ducked into the ensuite.

I picked up the ring and slipped it onto my finger, and turned to join the others, when a glint of gold plastic foil caught my eye.

The pillow mints were still in the rubbish-bin. My heart started to thump.

No. Poison.

No.

I saw the croupier turn over the last card.

Sorry
, he’d said. Had he been a plant? A minion of the Quintus Septum, sent to make me fail? Had he tricked me into thinking I was winning, and slipped in his cards at the last minute?

Or had he told me the truth? That the casino had measures in place to stop card counters. Measures that Welling didn’t know about.

Was it possible I had lost because that was what happened at a casino? Because despite the strategies and tricks, blackjack was ultimately a game of chance, and the odds were always stacked in the house’s favour?

I took a step towards the basket, moving as silently as possible in order not to alert the others, only a few metres away on the other side of the door.

They’ll know
.
They’ll smell it on you.

I bent over and picked up a mint. The plastic foil crackled under my fingers, glinting and reflecting the white bathroom light.

No
.

No.

No.

I remembered the woman from the casino floor. The way she had stared at me, like she was searching for someone. I remembered the name she had called.

Ruby
.

My name.

Ruby.

I remembered Fox saying my name, and the way the whole earth shifted a little when the syllables signifying me spilled from his lips. I remembered the taste of hot coffee and white bread. I remembered spring blossoms and ducks floating on a pond and the white-hot urgency of Fox’s skin under my fingers, his hands tangled in my hair.

I tore the wrapper away and stuffed the mint into my mouth.

It was electrifying.

The thin chocolate layer melted away on my tongue, leaving rich darkness and the sharp sweet shock of mint.

I felt like I could fly.

17

As the van rumbled into the Institute two hours later, I could still taste the chocolate. It fizzed through me like lightning. Daddy had told us that sugar was aphotic, that it would make us sluggish and vacant. But I had woken up. I vibrated with nervous energy. My brain wouldn’t switch off. It kept asking questions, always questions.

What happened, back in the casino?

Why did we fail?

Have the Quintus Septum really taken over?

Do they even exist?

Everyone was gathered in the courtyard, waiting for us. Daddy stood on the dais. My heart swelled when I saw him, and the proud look on his face. I was washed with calm, and the questions all dissolved into wisps and curls of smoke that drifted away on the breeze.

I was home.

Nobody needed to know what I’d done. It had been a mistake. One mistake. I’d never make it again.

Daddy welcomed us onto the dais beside him, his eyes shining with love. I’d worried that he would be disappointed in us. That we had failed him. But instead we were greeted like heroes.

‘My children,’ he said, embracing each of us with emotional warmth. ‘You have returned. You are stronger than I ever imagined. You faced the Quintus Septum and you returned. All of you. No casualties.’

The others stood around us like a guard of honour, their faces open and admiring. Pippa’s forehead was creased in a frown and she opened her mouth to speak, but Welling stepped in front of her, addressing Daddy and the crowd.

‘They were everywhere,’ he said. ‘And they were onto us from the beginning. They knew we were coming.’

Daddy’s eyes closed, and he breathed a sigh of deep sadness. ‘Furicius,’ he said, and the name stirred something deep within me.

Welling nodded. ‘His betrayal runs deeper than we realised.’

The voice sneaked back into my mind.

How would Fox know we were going to the casino? Daddy didn’t announce the mission until after Fox left
.

‘You are lucky to have made it out alive,’ said Daddy.

‘There were some close calls,’ said Welling. ‘One of them hunted us down in our hotel room, dressed as a waiter pretending to bring room service. I managed to confuse him and temporarily drive him away while we made our escape.’

I saw Pippa’s eyes dart from Welling to Daddy to the open-mouthed admiration of the others. I saw the cogs turn. Then she nodded.

‘Welling’s right,’ she said.

‘One of them confronted Hera,’ Welling continued. ‘Right on the casino floor, in front of everyone.’

I remember Mum’s friend grabbing my arm and saying that name, over and over.

Ruby?

Ruby?

Ruby?

‘Hera was something else,’ said Stan, shaking his head in wonder. ‘She slipped from their grasp and vanished into the crowd, just vanished! I’ve never seen anything like it.’

This isn’t true
, said the voice.
None of it is. You know that woman wasn’t a member of the Quintus Septum. She was a woman that your mum used to be in a book club with.

Daddy reached out and clasped my hands. ‘The Quintus Septum can’t hope to challenge our Heracleitus.’ I swam in the intense blue of his eyes. ‘You are magnificent,’ he said, his voice low and just for me. ‘I knew I was right to send you.’

I let Daddy’s words pour over me and run through my veins, and once more the chocolate voice was silenced.

Daddy squeezed my hands. ‘Your efforts will not go unrewarded, Heracleitus,’ he murmured. ‘I have a very special honour planned for you.’

He skimmed his eyes down over my body, in a way he’d never done before. I felt a ripple of unease, and the certainty melted away.

‘We must redouble our efforts,’ said Daddy, raising his voice and turning back to the crowd. ‘We will not give in to the Quintus Septum’s reign of terror. It’s time to prepare for the final battle. The endgame.’

The endgame. I took a deep breath, and pushed away my fear.

Daddy was giving out orders, sending people off on jobs all over the Institute. At last he turned to me.

‘Heracleitus,’ he said. ‘Libavius is in C Block. Please join her for your task after you’ve elutriated and changed your clothes.’

I nodded crisply. In all my months at the Institute, I’d never been in the third building – the one where the Monkeys lived. Curiosity prickled inside me, but I kept my
face neutral as I headed off to my room to change back into my Institute clothes.

When I re-emerged, the Monkeys were being escorted around the courtyard by Newton. I realised it had been days since I’d seen them. They didn’t giggle or scamper or chatter the way they had done when I’d first arrived. Now they walked in single file, their heads bowed and shoulders hunched. They looked hungry and afraid, blinking as if they weren’t used to daylight.

The Monkey at the back looked different from the others. Her cotton shift hung slightly askew, and her hair had started to grow back in orange corkscrews. I saw something in her fist, something brown and shining. I remembered the cicada husks lined up along Val’s bedroom window at the Red House, and Val sneaking snow peas from his plate. Then the Monkeys turned the corner and headed to the back of the building, out of my view.

C Block was large, and must have been used as a secondary storage site, after the warehouse. Double doors opened out onto what would have once been a loading bay. One of these doors was ajar. I slipped inside. Lib was waiting for me in a large room, in front of a wall of stacked cardboard boxes. She was turned with her head slightly away from me, and I realised she hadn’t been there earlier to welcome us home.

As I approached, I caught a glimpse of the other side of her face, and my steps faltered.

‘Your eye,’ I said. ‘What happened?’

It was swollen almost shut, yellow and purple bruises blooming halfway across her cheek.

Lib lifted a tentative finger to brush the swelling. ‘Nothing,’ she said with a rueful smile. ‘A stupid accident. My own fault. I let myself become aphotic with worry for …
for you and the others. On your mission. I wasn’t paying attention. I let the body take over for a moment, and it lost control.’

She’s lying
, said the voice in my brain.
Someone did that to her
.

I tried to recall the look on Daddy’s face when he’d told me I was magnificent. I tried to recapture that feeling of calmness and safety. I shook my head to clear it of the chocolate voice, and smiled at Lib. There was nobody here who would have hurt Lib.

You know who did it. He did it to you too.

‘So,’ I said, my voice a little too loud. ‘What’s the plan?’

The door behind me opened and Val came in, carrying another cardboard box which he placed neatly by the others. There were hundreds of them, stacked almost to the ceiling. I saw Val glance over at a door at the back of the room, and the scar on his forehead twitched into a frown. I followed his gaze.

‘What’s through there?’ I asked Lib. ‘Is that the Monkey House?’

Lib didn’t respond, and Val left the room.

A few of the boxes were open – they were full of water bottles, sealed blue lids but no labels. Other boxes, further back, contained empty bottles.

‘Who puts the water in?’

Lib’s face was as cold as stone. ‘Welling and I usually prepare and bottle the water. This batch has a different formula—’ She broke off suddenly and turned away.

‘Different?’ I asked. ‘Different how? There’s usually a little bit of sulphur in the water, right? Is there more this time? Is there something else?’

The questions spilled out of me, beyond my control. It was the chocolate. It had weakened me. I remembered what had
happened to Fox, the questions that had eventually driven him away. I had to fight it. I had to elutriate.

Lib opened another box to reveal a stack of peel-and-stick printed labels, each one bearing the Institute of the Boundless Sublime symbol, and the words:

BOUNDLESS BODY BOUNDLESS MIND

This was Daddy’s special task for me? Sticking labels on water bottles? How did this relate to the plan? How were water bottles going to overthrow the Quintus Septum?

I realised I’d never fully figured out what the purpose of the water bottles were. Whenever I’d asked anyone about it, they always responded with the same meaningless words.

People get thirsty
.

‘Why are there so many?’ I asked Lib.

‘There’s an election coming up,’ she said. ‘Daddy wants us to hand out water at the polling places.’

‘Why?’

Lib frowned. She didn’t like questions.

‘Because of the Quintus Septum, of course.’

It was Daddy, standing in the doorway, framed with white light from outside.

‘It will come as no surprise to you, my dear Heracleitus, to learn that the Quintus Septum have infiltrated even our highest houses of power. The government is riddled with them, and their influence spreads like an all-devouring cancer. If we can encourage the toxicants to keep their minds clear on election day, maybe there is a spark of hope for us.’

‘So who do you want them to vote for?’ I asked.

Daddy laughed, a low, rolling chuckle. ‘I don’t want the toxicants to vote at all,’ he said. ‘I want them to turn and run as far away from it all as they can. For them to realise that corruption and evil are everywhere. That they are all
tainted. That the only solution is to—’ He broke off abruptly and turned his head away. ‘Forgive me,’ he murmured. ‘Sometimes I can’t help myself. I get so angry, seeing so many actualities in pain. So much potential enslaved to aphotic, rotting meat bodies. It breaks my heart.’