Wordless (9 page)

“Then why was all the thumb-chopping necessary?” I asked. “Can’t you say no when they tell you to do something you don’t want to do?”

Khaya’s voice was soft, distant, as we took our first steps onto one of the steel ramps leading down to the dock. The place was practically empty at this time of night. We had a good shot at sneaking up to the barge. Our footsteps rang more loudly against the grating than I would have preferred, louder than her voice, but there was no one to hear.

“If we say no, they just read the Words instead. Even if they can’t do exactly what they intend to, I become a tool when the Godspeakers use me. I can’t move. I’m like a body possessed—a gauntlet on their hand, bending the way they want.”

It sounded surprisingly similar to my brass knuckle theory, though I still didn’t mention it as we stole between boats, keeping our heads down. Her words were only a whisper along with the gentle lapping of the water against the steel pilings around us, with only the occasional hollow echo of the wooden planks beneath our feet.

“Tools that we are, we still know how to do things that the Godspeakers only dream about. And there are things we have the potential to do that they’ve only begun to realize
. But some of those dreams are nightmares … nightmares that the Godspeakers want to see come to life.”

I didn’t have much time to think about what those nightmares might be, because she stopped in a dark stretch between two looming fishing boats, pulling me up short.

I heard voices in the distance, now: the crew, preparing the barge for departure.

We continued on, falling silent as we drew nearer to the voices, creeping between boats until our section of dock connected to the commercial area. As I expected, the barge sat in the water at the end of the jetty, wide and heavy with heaped garbage under the dock lights and its own deck lights, the five-man crew scurrying along the gunwales and down the gangplank like rats. They looked about ready to go, but they weren’t casting off.

Because Jacques, the captain, wasn’t onboard. He was still standing on the dock, talking to six people who were lined up in front of him. They looked like a police squad of some sort, wearing black uniforms and caps, but the badges on their arms weren’t from Eden City’s force. The insignia was a gold pyramid, stitched on black—the Athenaeum’s.

All of the men were carrying guns. Big guns.

nine

Khaya and I froze when we saw the men. We hid in the shadow of a fishing vessel’s expansive bow, peering out of what I hoped was indistinct darkness. Neither of us dared to breathe.

It wasn’t hard to pick out Jacques’s voice echoing around the dock, bouncing off the boats and water, his French accent sounding harsh rather than sophisticated. “Well, you searched us. Now can we go? I may only be delivering trash, but I’ve got a schedule to keep.”

One of the men in uniform put a hand to the side of his head, and I realized his ear was equipped with a transmitter. “All clear at the downriver dock. No sign of Barnes.”

How had they known where we’d go? But then, this was an obvious place to check. They knew what Drey and I did for a living, that we had connections to the trash barge. It would be a simple way for us to escape the city. But they didn’t necessarily know Khaya and I were trying it, otherwise more than six men would have been here. The Athenaeum’s forces were probably spread throughout the city, searching as many places as possible … including a few random ivy-
covered buildings, thanks to Khaya.

“Yes sir, the barge is leaving now, and so are we,” the man added to the invisible listener, then nodded at the other men, who slung their rifle straps over their shoulders, holding their weapons in a more relaxed manner. Not that any of them looked laid-back.

When they turned to leave, the leader looked at Jacques one last time. “Remember, captain, if the kid turns up, you call us immediately. This is a matter of the city’s security. Don’t let him fool you into thinking otherwise. He’s smart and he’s dangerous.”

I might have taken that as a compliment if I hadn’t had to swallow bile first.

Jacques didn’t comment. It wasn’t clear if he believed them or not. He only stood there, his steely arms folded across his broad chest, which was covered by his usual thick canvas overalls.

Khaya and I shrank farther into the shadows as the men marched away. We were already crouched at the edge of the dock, and kept ourselves from toppling into the black water only by holding onto the side of the fishing boat. Thank the Gods the men took the main way out, straight up to the biggest ramp leading to the waterfront street. Otherwise they would have walked right by us.

“Come on, crew,” Jacques hollered, turning back to the barge. “Stefan, take the helm. The rest of you, prepare to cast off.”

“We’ve got to run for it,” I whispered, glancing at Khaya. All I could see was the glint of her wide eyes in the darkness. “The barge is only a few feet from the dock and only a couple feet higher. We have to jump.”

I made sure the backpack was secure on my back, then seized her hand without waiting for a response. I took off as Jacques started up the gangway, hauling Khaya behind me as fast as I could. We ran through shadows toward the stern of the barge, where the stretch of dock was darker and the deck lights couldn’t quite reach over the mound of garbage. When I hit the end of the jetty, I leapt without hesitation for a shadow-lined patch of trash, hoping Khaya would be able to follow.

So I was surprised when she landed, catlike, on her hands and knees a few feet beyond me. She’d even avoided crushing her ankle in the garbage.

Of course, one of the crew noticed us boarding as he untied the barge’s stern from the dock. He let out a shout, but Jacques silenced him with a sharp wave of his hand. The captain met my eyes from across the deck as he stepped onboard, the gangplank retracting behind him. I didn’t see anything recognizable in his gaze. His light brown hair was spiked straight up, as usual, from the wind. He was probably only forty-five, but he looked ten years older with his silver-lined beard and the deep lines that etched his weathered face. Working hard outdoors did that to a guy—I’d witnessed the same with Drey. I only hoped he wouldn’t act as tough with me as he looked.

Jacques made another gesture and the deck lights winked out, leaving only the powerful spotlights in the bow to navigate upriver to the lake beyond. The barge pulled out into the rippling black water, the current carrying us away from the bright wharf lights and anyone watching us.

Moments later, Jacques strode across the deck, then along the outer edge of the main trash hold. He stopped, standing above us in the dark with his hands fisted at his sides. His arms were bigger than mine, a lot bigger, a rare size to see even in the trash-hefting profession.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t throw you overboard right now, Tavin Barnes,” he said quietly, “or call those pricks on the dock to come get you.” His hard eyes flicked to Khaya. She was crouching in the trash with her head down, her messy hair partially curtaining her face. “And who the hell is she?”

“We need help,” I said hurriedly, not answering his last question. “Drey said you would help me.”

Jacques gave me a dubious frown and folded his massive arms. “Drey and I made a deal, yes, that I would get you and him out of the city if you ever needed it. But that was a few years ago, before I knew you were a wanted criminal—a thief, so I hear—trying to escape with something you stole.” He again eyed Khaya, who was now staring through her hair at him in wary silence, like a cat ready to flee. “Maybe some
one
. She some higher-up’s daughter? Wife?”

“Uh, not really,” I said, hoping that would satisfy him. Not even he could imagine I would do something as insane as take off with one of the Words. Good thing he still hadn’t recognized her in the dark.

“And I don’t see Drey with you,” he added, as if I hadn’t spoken. “Where is he?”

My throat knotted. “He’s dead.” I went on as if my voice hadn’t cracked. “He was mixed up with Athenaeum somehow, and that’s exactly why he wanted us to have a way out, in case we ever needed it. Those guys with guns you were talking to, people like that killed him.” I didn’t mention Herio’s role, since I didn’t want Jacques to be any more reluctant to help us than he already was. Not that he looked afraid in the slightest.

In fact, he growled, “I would have strangled those bas
tard sons-a-bitches if I’d known, so it’s probably a good
thing I didn’t.” He paused, his eyes softening a fraction as he looked out over the river, then back at me. “Damn, he’s dead? Really?”

I nodded, unable to say anything else. I felt a soft touch on my wrist where my hand was buried in trash and jerked away before realizing it was Khaya, not a rat.

Jacques hadn’t noticed our odd exchange. He was looking at the night sky, his head thrown back. “Gods.” He sighed. “I’ve known Drey forever. Well, if there’s one last thing I can do for him, it’s to get you out of here like I promised, no questions asked … no more than I already have. The deal was for two.” He glanced at Khaya—the closest thing to an invitation she was going to get—and then back up at the stars. “I know he cared for you, kid.”

He was honoring Drey’s last wish against his better judgment, like I had. But maybe my first impulse should have been more like Jacques’s—to kill the bastards. Yet I was powerless against a force like the Athenaeum, armed with Words and guns, so I didn’t know if I was smart or cowardly to be running. Then again, it wasn’t about me anymore. I was helping Khaya. Or maybe I was only telling myself that so I didn’t feel like a chickenshit.

I could almost feel the cool weight of the gun through the backpack.

Jacques’s eyes dropped from the sky, sharpening again as they found us. “Keep your heads down. They already searched the barge for you, so they likely won’t again, but we still have to get through the city and out into the lake. We’ll reach it in a few minutes. But even once we do, someone is bound to notice I’m not headed for the incinerator.”

“Where are we headed?” I asked.

“Drey’s designated drop point—where the lakeshore is less populated, around the bend and into France.” Then he strode away toward the cabin without waiting for thanks.

I sagged as he left, and noticed that Khaya did too. Even though we’d slept during the day, it was past the usual time I hit my cot. And Khaya had been healing herself. I didn’t know about her, but I was so tired I could have curled up right there and gone to sleep with my face mashed in a rotting banana peel.

Khaya fell back against the mountainside of refuse, leaning against something that could have been a used diaper. Then she sniffed and sat up straighter.

“It stinks,” she said.

I actually hadn’t noticed. “Beggars can’t be choosers, as they say.”

“I’m not complaining. Well, I am, but not in the way you think.” She stared off the stern, at the inky river rippling in our wake. Eden City’s lights were passing by on both sides of us. “They’re going to have dogs. The smellier we are, the easier we’ll be to find. We’ll have to rinse off, probably in the lake, wherever the captain drops us off, and follow streambeds from there.”

I hadn’t thought that far ahead and didn’t want to, especially now that dogs had entered the picture. I liked puppies, but fully grown dogs always chased me as I was hanging off the back of the garbage truck.

“You never really finished your story,” I said, changing the subject. “You said something about nightmares … what do the Godspeakers want with the Words, and with you?”

When she answered me, the gravity in her low voice drew my eyes to hers, which were as dark and liquid as the water. “I can give life where it can take root, and return life to something that has died, only if that …
spark
of life is still there. The Word to create life from nothing is lost, or maybe it only ever belonged to the Gods. If there isn’t a spark and I try to make something live, it’s a false life. The thing lacks true consciousness, a will. You’d think this would be an undesirable trait in a living creature, but that’s exactly what the Godspeakers and the City Council want.” She shook her head, making a disgusted noise in her throat, and then her gaze returned to me with an even greater intensity. “The Godspeakers used the Word of Shaping, Cruithear as she’s called—‘shaper’ in Scots-Gaelic—to create a humanlike form out of simple organic material.”

There, sitting in a pile of trash, I couldn’t grasp the significance of what she’d just said. Like I’d often done with Drey’s lectures, I focused on a smaller detail, noting that the Word of Shaping, or at least her donor parent, must have come from the United Kingdom, Scotland in particular. Even the Words’ names didn’t belong to them. Tavin—even Gustav—didn’t sound so bad now. At least when Drey chose the name, it hadn’t labeled me as the genetic contribution of some country while specifying my future job at the same time.

I wondered in what language “khaya” meant “life.”

Khaya had been watching me for a reaction, then continued when she didn’t get one. “This took years and years,” she said, as if stressing the immensity of something that already sounded beyond believable to me. “It was the continuation of a project begun during the previous generation of Words, and it took cracking the human genome for Cruithear to have the building blocks to make a human body. But she finally succeeded, and while these things are only dolls, made out of flesh and blood, I can bring them to a sort of half-life.” She took a deep breath. “At first the plan was to create an army.”

“An army?” The word was a sickening reality check, like the ground hitting me after falling on my face.

Khaya’s intensity dropped her voice even lower. “What better soldiers could you have—unthinking, obeying automatons with no real life to lose? But they weren’t practical; they’re not as expendable as originally hoped, since it takes Cruithear so long to make them, and worse, they’re not as intelligent. They’re more versatile than robots, tapping into the body’s natural instincts, but they still need orders. They don’t have the ability to think on their feet or make decisions, which ended up getting most of them slaughtered in the mock battles the City Council staged outside of Eden City a couple of years ago. It was … ”

She paused, staring into a pile of broken eggshells as if seeing something else. Then she shuddered. “It was a bloodbath. It was hard to watch, even when I kept telling myself they weren’t really human, not really alive, not really dying … just sacks of meat.” After a pause, she blinked, seeming to come back to herself. “So they failed as soldiers. They only work as replacements for people who don’t need will, whose ability to reason is a hindrance to their function. Then they’re perfect.”

“As Words.” I said it before I’d even realized it, as if my mind had made the leap without taking me along.

“You
are
smart,” she said, a smile cutting across her face. “Without a will, we’re utterly controllable. If you told the Word of Earth to make a mountain, and if it was within his power—within his programming, written on his back—then the Godspeakers or even his own mind wouldn’t need to muddle through the process. He would just do it.”

I pictured an army of automatons that could destroy an enemy or even themselves at a single command … and then an army of a different sort, much smaller in numbers, but with much, much greater power.

“Or at least that’s what they think would happen if the Words became automatons,” Khaya added. “They haven’t gotten that far.”

“Because you left before they could,” I said, making another leap.

Khaya nodded, looking out at the shimmering water.

“Where should we go?” I asked.

She glanced at me. “I thought you might want to find the address on that postcard.” She shrugged her slim shoulders. “But I don’t care where I go, as long as it’s as far away from Eden City as possible.”

So Khaya really didn’t care about herself or her future. As a tool in the hands of someone else, she was dangerous, and all she wanted to do was get away. I found myself wishing she would think about herself a little more; never mind that I had accused her of selfishness earlier.

As for myself, I didn’t know where I wanted to go. All Drey had left me was an address, an escape pack, and a whole ton of questions. But maybe that place held the answers.

The city lights parted around us, dropping back as we entered Lake Eden and passed the lit-up fountain shooting hundreds of feet into the night sky. Eventually, the north shore of the city receded into an indistinct glow. We were almost out; it was the farthest I’d ever been from home. I’d always wanted to leave and see a new place, but I didn’t feel as eager now as I’d imagined I would be. I felt sick.