The Killing Jar (11 page)

CPI-AO-301, NEW YORK

AUGUST 8, 2232

The door to his office slammed shut a little too hard. No doubt Nick would notice. Still, Silas pressed his back to the cool metal door and cursed himself. How had he become such a horrible creature?

“Dr. Arrenstein?” came the quiet voice and trio of knocks.

“What?” he asked through the door. Silas knew what would come. A debrief of his interrogation, if they could even call it that. But he didn’t want to talk. He wanted to wash it all away.

“I have a few questions, if you’re not too busy. It can wait until later.”

Damn.

Silas didn’t want to discuss it, now or ever. But if he refused to answer Nick’s questions, it would surely go in the report. Masry would pay one of her famous visits to inquire as to their progress. To pry, more like it. The less she knew, the better.

He wanted to get it over with.

“Yeah, it’s fine.” Silas leaned away from the door just in time for Nick to open it. He moved toward his drink tray at the far side of the room and tried to act as natural as possible.

“How can you drink that stuff?” Nick asked as he watched Silas scoop a few ice cubes into a tumbler followed by a healthy splash of amber liquid from the decanter.

“It’s vintage 1950’s scotch. How can you not?” Silas had given up trying to convert Nick to the old ways. He tired of wasting good liquor on the unappreciative youngsters of this generation.

“What’s the backstory on Wilkinson? She doesn’t have a file, but you didn’t waste two minutes deciding to recruit her. You personally flew to Chicago to collect her and arrange for her transport. What made you think she’d be a good fit for the program?” Nick sat on the modular leather couch and pulled out his tablet to take notes on their conversation.

“Look, Nick. Some of this is strictly off-record. I can’t tell you if you’re going to document this.” Silas sipped his scotch and kept his eyes impassive.

With a huff, Nick folded his tablet into its plain black case and set it on the couch cushion next to him. “All right.”

“Margaret Wilkinson doesn’t have a file with CPI. Her brother did.”

“She doesn’t have a brother. I just ran her demographics report.”

“His name was Alexander, Alex to us. He was recruited back in the old days, when we were still relatively public.”

“Public?”

“Okay, not public, but not lockdown security like we are now. We’d go to the homes, administer the tests in their living rooms, talk to the parents and families. They knew they would be brought to an elite program, but they didn’t know any specifics.”

Nick’s eyes drifted away as he tried to process the information and came up empty. “I guess I don’t follow.”

“I recruited Alex Wilkinson, made at least seven or eight home visits for various tests and interviews. He made it into the final rounds and was eventually recruited, so there were quite a few times I spent an evening in the Wilkinson home in Atlanta.”

Nick stared.

Silas cursed that he would have to explain it, that he would have to relive the past for that much longer. “Maggie was eight, maybe nine. Cute little thing, but smart as a whip.”

“Whip?”

“She’s off the charts, Nick.”

“So why doesn’t she have a file? Where are her test scores?”

“She was never officially tested.” Silas gulped the last of his scotch and poured himself another glass. “A year after Alex was recruited, correlations became clear. We went on security lockdown, and we’ve stayed ever since. You know, sever all contacts with your old life. Never communicate with anyone on the outside.”

“But Alex didn’t sign up for that.”

“Exactly.” Silas sighed with relief that Pastromas wasn’t
that
lost. “He contacted her. We know they spoke for six minutes, but we don’t know what information he passed along. We only know she didn’t show up for school the next day. She disappeared into the underground. We’ve had minimal sightings of her since.”

“But you tried to recruit her before.”

“Once, maybe two years ago. On the way to the facility, she jumped out of the pod as it drove over a bridge. The escort saw the door open, but no one saw her after that. Not until today.”

“Then why would you try to recruit her? At best, she’s a massive security risk.” Nick smoothed wrinkles in his pants and sighed. “You didn’t even escort her. Hell, she’s probably already gone.”

“She won’t run again.”

“I get that you want her, but I can’t see how this is going to work. Untouchables are known criminals, addicts, vagabonds. She’s not a good fit for us.”

“There’s more to the underclass than you think. She’s not a criminal or an addict.” Silas could only hope he was right, that Maggie hadn’t strayed too far in the last few years.

“How can you know that?”

“I know her better than that.” Silas held his glass in both hands and tried to silence the waves of guilt that crashed against him. That was the problem. He knew her, he knew what he’d done to her. He knew how young she’d been, how he’d promised to take good care of her brother and let her see him often. He knew why Maggie hated him.

Silas couldn’t agree more.

Nick must have sensed the end of the conversation. He stood and collected his tablet before he said, “One more thing. There isn’t an Alex Wilkinson in CPI. Even if he had been with us and killed, we’d have record of it. But there’s nothing. What happened? Was he really murdered?”

“No, he’s still alive.” Silas thought carefully about his breathing, keeping it calm and even so as to not betray his agony.

“Why didn’t you tell her that?”

“Sometimes, death is better.”

SCHOLAR ACADEMY, LANCASTER, NORTH AMERICA

AUGUST 8, 2232

The lights flipped on. Theo woke in a strange bed, his muscles sore from tossing all night. It wasn’t all that different from his room at home, metallic walls, sterile lighting. It just wasn’t the same. Sounds of the dozen other Scholars emerged around him as they rose for the day.

On his tablet flashed his Scholar ID number above the first of many unread ecomms:

ACADEMY TOUR AT 0645. CENTRAL LOBBY.

He scrolled past and searched for a message from Nate. He looked at the list four or five times as his heart sank. There was nothing.

Theo tossed his tablet to the side. It was such a clunky thing. When he had a moment to sit and work, he would link it to his wristlet. Until then, he would have to carry the tablet around like a weight on a chain.

With the curtain drawn, they changed into their indigo suits in silence. Theo, for one, was too tired to do much chatting. He kept to the middle of the group as they stopped by the galley before arriving to the central lobby for the tour.

A middle-aged woman in a matching indigo suit met them at the center of the cavernous lobby with branching hallways. She introduced herself as doctor something-or-other and proceeded to march them around the campus, droning on about each department, each mentor, each rule. Theo was intelligent enough to learn it all, he just didn’t care to.

Not until they arrived at the end of the ninth corridor, the one with the sign
NANOTECHNOLOGY AND MICROROBOTICS
above the door. Isaac was kind enough to offer him a pointed elbow to the ribs in case he hadn’t noticed.

A pair of plain white doors opened into the wide room with a low ceiling, giving the room the feeling of a tunnel. Despite the space’s obvious size, it was completely packed with various machinery, devices, and testing apparatuses, some Theo recognized and some he had never seen.

Until this moment, he had never been allowed access to the nanotech lab. It was strictly reserved for Scholars.

He had waited years, had given up the rest of his life so he could live in this building and work in this lab. It was all he ever wanted.

Yet now that he had it, now that he was standing in the room, listening to the tour guide describe the science of nanotechnology, he found he didn’t care. His heart didn’t race, his hands weren’t itching to design mechanisms or use the machinery. There was no tingle of excitement or thrill of discovery. It was another room like all the others they’d already seen. The Scholars were busy at work, failing to notice the thirteen new faces that entered their lab.

There wasn’t a shred of life in the space.

Theo retreated. He carefully navigated himself to the back of the group and slipped through the double doors without anyone noticing.

He didn’t know where he would go, but he couldn’t stay in the lab. It perfectly epitomized everything he didn’t want for his future. Emptiness. Loneliness. He wasn’t afraid of hard work or commitment, far from it, but he didn’t want his whole life to revolve around his duties as Scholar.

Theo wanted more.

He ran to the central lobby and, for the first time, marveled at the high glass ceiling that let in the light. He’d been there twice already and hadn’t even noticed what an interesting building it was.

An interesting building, but nonetheless, a prison. Could he even leave?

Theo decided to find out.

At a jog, he made for the exterior doors and pushed, surprised when they gave way. A moment later, he was outside, soaking in the artificial heat of the morning sun. He released a sigh, relief flooding him.

Why did it feel so good to get out?

He hoped it was a simple matter of asserting his freedom. Leaving had been his choice. Going back would be his choice. It would be better then, when he chose it.

But he had already chosen it. He had selected Scholar. He slid the card in the slot and scanned his thumbprint.

Was this him coming to terms with his Selection? Or something else entirely?

Theo needed to think. He wished for his guitar, to sit and write a few songs to clear his head, to get it out of his system. As it was, he would likely never get a mentor. No one would waste time training someone who couldn’t finish a simple tour of the campus.

It was already too late. He might as well keep going.

If only he had a pod, he could really get away and think.

The idea struck him so fast, he was on his feet and running before he had fully processed what he was doing. A few people stared as he passed them. A rogue Scholar out for a morning jog was far from standard.

A few more blocks.

The movement of his Scholar-issue shoes against the paved-stone sidewalk was exactly the sort of diversion he needed. There was heat in his lungs and stretch in his muscles. Theo had needed it more than he realized.

Lancaster Central Hall rose between the buildings in the distance. He darted around the expansive greens and gardens for the Craftsman classes and raced up the wide steps to the main entrance.

He ran down a few corridors before finally finding the men’s locker room. Thankfully, it was empty in the middle of the day. Theo opened each and every one that wasn’t locked. He had nearly given up hope when there on the last row, he found the locker with a tablet and a pod key. Isaac was lucky they hadn’t been stolen. Then again, he probably hadn’t expected to leave them there permanently.

Theo slammed the locker shut with the pod key in his hand. He felt more committed with the bit of metal clutched in his fingers.

In the underground parking garage, he wandered up and down each row, each level until he found the pod with illuminated headlights. The key synced to its pod and signaled the door to open as he approached.

Theo slid inside.

Isaac’s pod was pretty standard. A spherical seating chamber of ultra-strong transparent acrylic housed over a set of four wheels that rotated 360 degrees. It was outfitted with fully automatic controls so that the pods could communicate and even link up for long trips.

Theo had no intention of riding around on autopilot. He wanted to
drive
.

The electric engine hummed to life. He canceled the automatic programming and grabbed the steering handles. Even in someone else’s pod, they felt comfortable, familiar.

He pulled out of the parking spot and steered onto the street. A semi-transparent shade automatically covered the top of the sphere as the sensors registered the mid-day light. The wheels silently navigated the lane. He headed east, out of town, out into the hills.

Approaching the edge of the dome, the pod—registered to Isaac’s parents—easily passed through the security check. Theo waited for the air locks to release him to the exterior. It was the first time in his life had had truly broken the rules, forsaken his duties and expectations. Still, he wasn’t nervous. He felt oddly at peace.

Theo hadn’t ventured to the exterior of the city since he was a boy. A Youth class on civil duties took his whole group to see the world on the other side of the dome, but that had been at least ten years ago.

Now, it was much the same. Cast-off debris littered the once living streets. Buildings stood in various states of disrepair, some of them in stages of collapse. The dark orange of the haze hung in the air so thick he had to drive slower than he would have liked.

The eerie quiet of the exterior gave him chills, but in a good way. He enjoyed seeing what the world was like outside the sterility of Lanc Central or the Scholar Academy. It reminded him all things come to an end, all things change, sooner or later.

Several miles outside of town, the haze thinned enough to let him drive faster, which he did gladly. The whir of orange past the transparent pod sphere hypnotized him as he picked up speed. Before long, the pod alerted him that he was reaching the upper levels of the velocity governor. Theo turned off all the safety restrictions. He wanted to maintain this little piece of freedom while he could.

More than once, Theo had the feeling he should turn back, that his time was over. He never did. Maybe if he had, things would have turned down differently. If he had, he wouldn’t look back at that moment and wonder what happened. It wouldn’t be the biggest regret of his life.

But Theo didn’t turn back. He continued on, racing through the light haze and the debris. Too late he saw the silhouette, a black shape in the orange mist.

His foot hit the brakes. The pod screeched to a halt. He would never forget that sound. The thud. It would live inside him forever.

The pod put up a fight, refusing to give him access to the toxic air outside. It took several seconds to override the safety controls, several eternal seconds.

Outside, in the metallic taste of haze, he ran back and found a boy, maybe ten or twelve. A respirator covered his face, shaggy blonde hair on his head. The green shirt across his chest was entirely too still. When Theo saw the blood running from his ears, he knew.

The boy was dead.

Theo had just killed him.