Icons

Icons Margaret Stohl The first book in a breathtaking new series from Beautiful Creatures co-author Margaret StohlYour heart beats only with their permission.Everything changed on The Day. The day the windows shattered. The day the power stopped. The day Dol's family dropped dead. The day Earth lost a war it didn't know it was fighting.Since then, Dol has lived a simple life in the countryside – safe from the shadow of the Icon and its terrifying power. Hiding from the one truth she can't avoid.She's different. She survived. Why?When Dol and her best friend, Ro, are captured and taken to the Embassy, off the coast of the sprawling metropolis once known as the City of Angels, they find only more questions. While Ro and fellow hostage Tima rage against their captors, Dol finds herself drawn to Lucas, the Ambassador's privileged son. But the four teens are more alike than they might think, and the timing of their meeting isn't a coincidence. It's a conspiracy.Within the Icon's reach, Dol, Ro, Tima, and Lucas discover that their uncontrollable emotions – which they've always thought to be their greatest weaknesses – may actually be their greatest strengths.Bestselling author Margaret Stohl delivers the first book in a heart-pounding series set in a haunting new world where four teens must piece together the mysteries of their pasts – in order to save the future. For Lewis, writing partner and writer’s partner on and off the page GIVE SORROW WORDS. —William Shakespeare, Macbeth Table of Contents Title Page (#u1a19fd38-ce51-5ba8-be01-6f1434aecae1) Dedication (#ubc5d7792-13ce-5246-bdda-904c7a77a799) Epigraph (#ubdfad4b3-4aa0-568c-a6b7-222d25ba80e5) Prologue: The Day (#u70ac9eee-468e-52fd-9fa9-957494bd3fa2) 1. Happy Birthday to Me (#u4130ffe2-33eb-5dbf-947a-3737fce9c48f) 2. Presents (#u0bff7af1-9cfa-59be-af13-0886b6ba8653) 3. The Piet? of La Pur?sima (#u9a46c864-097a-5023-b667-89a8997636d9) 4. Tracks (#u24212339-f6a0-5147-bf3c-dd7b47d5f414) 5. Diversions (#uf06014ff-4f39-5ac1-887e-fd8c68343185) 6. Four Dots (#uc64aca3a-6061-51eb-9a97-82d188eee0b0) 7. A Decision (#ue0b67e3b-1904-5140-8e6b-ee31660d6be7) 8. Doc (#ue3d0f99e-5550-5b14-a7ae-de0e24292b4e) 9. The Ambassador (#u32fffc46-51c8-58df-8bda-06c729269356) 10. The Trigger (#litres_trial_promo) 11. Together Again (#litres_trial_promo) 12. Long Way Home (#litres_trial_promo) 13. Colonel Catallus (#litres_trial_promo) 14. Decisions (#litres_trial_promo) 15. Brutus (#litres_trial_promo) 16. Hall of Records (#litres_trial_promo) 17. Disappearing (#litres_trial_promo) 18. The Porthole (#litres_trial_promo) 19. The Hole (#litres_trial_promo) 20. Our Lady of the Angels (#litres_trial_promo) 21. Hux (#litres_trial_promo) 22. The Park (#litres_trial_promo) 23. The Observatory (#litres_trial_promo) 24. Ro (#litres_trial_promo) 25. Tima (#litres_trial_promo) 26. Lucas (#litres_trial_promo) 27. Fortis (#litres_trial_promo) 28. All Fall Down (#litres_trial_promo) 29. The Virus (#litres_trial_promo) 30. Birds (#litres_trial_promo) Epilogue: The Grasslands (#litres_trial_promo) Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo) Copyright (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) PROLOGUE THE DAY One tiny gray dot, no bigger than a freckle, marks the inside of the baby’s chubby arm. It slips in and out of view as she cries, waving her yellow rubber duck back and forth. Her mother holds her over the old ceramic bathtub. The little feet kick harder, twisting above the water. “You can complain all you want, Doloria, but you’re still taking a bath. It will make you feel better.” She slides her daughter into the warm tub. The baby kicks again, splashing the blue patterned wallpaper above the tiles. The water surprises her, and she quiets. “That’s it. You can’t feel sad in the water. There is no sadness there.” She kisses Doloria’s cheek. “I love you, mi coraz?n. I love you and your brothers today and tomorrow and every day until the day after heaven.” The baby stops crying. She does not cry as she is scrubbed and sung to, pink and clean. She does not cry as she is kissed and swaddled in blankets. She does not cry as she is tickled and tucked into her crib. The mother smiles, wiping a damp strand of hair from her child’s warm forehead. “Dream well, Doloria. Que sue?es con los angelitos.” She reaches for the light, but the room floods with darkness before she can touch the switch. Across the hall, the radio is silenced midsentence, as if on cue. Over in the kitchen, the television fades to sudden black, to a dot the size of a pinprick, then to nothing. The mother calls up the stairs. “The power’s gone off again, querido! Check the fuse box.” She turns back, tucking the blanket corner snugly beneath Doloria. “Don’t worry. It’s nothing your papi can’t fix.” The baby sucks on her fist, five small fingers the size of tiny wriggling earthworms, as the walls start to shake and bits of plaster swirl in the air like fireworks, like confetti. She blinks as the windows shatter and the ceiling fan hits the carpet and the shouting begins. She yawns as her father rolls down the staircase like a funny rag doll that never stands up. She closes her eyes as the falling birds patter against the roof like rain. She starts to dream as her mother’s heart stops beating. I start to dream as my mother’s heart stops beating. 1 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME “Dol? Are you okay?” The memory fades at the sound of his voice. Ro. I feel him somewhere in my mind, the nameless place where I see everything, feel everyone. The spark that is Ro. I hold on to it, warm and close, like a mug of steamed milk or a lit candle. And then I open my eyes and come back to him. Always. Ro’s here with me. He’s fine, and I’m fine. I’m fine. I think it, over and over, until I believe it. Until I remember what is real and what is not. Slowly the physical world comes into focus. I’m standing on a dirt trail halfway up the side of a mountain—staring down at the Mission, where the goats and pigs in the field below are small as ants. “All right?” Ro reaches toward me and touches my arm. I nod. But I’m lying. I’ve let the feelings—and the memories—overtake me again. I can’t do that. Everyone at the Mission knows I have a gift for feeling things—strangers, friends, even Ramona Jamona the pig, when she’s hungry—but it doesn’t mean I have to let the feelings control me. At least that’s what the Padre keeps telling me. I try to control myself, and usually I can. But I wish I didn’t feel anything, sometimes. Especially not when everything is so overwhelming, so unbearably sad. “Don’t disappear on me, Dol. Not now.” Ro locks his eyes on me and motions with his big tan hands. His brown-gold eyes flicker with fire and light under his dark tangle of hair. His face is all broad planes and rough angles—as solid as a brambled oak, softening only for me. He could climb halfway up the mountain again by now, or halfway down. Holding Ro back is like trying to stop an earthquake or a mud slide. Maybe a train. But not now. Now he waits. Because he knows me, and he knows where I’ve gone. Where I go. I stare up at the sky, spattered with bursts of gray rain and orange light. It’s hard to see past the wide-brimmed hat I stole off the hook behind the Padre’s office door. Still, the setting sun is in my eyes, pulsing from behind the clouds, bright and broken. I remember what we are doing and why we are here. My birthday. It’s my seventeenth birthday tomorrow. Ro has a present for me, but first we have to climb the hill. He wants to surprise me. “Give me a clue, Ro.” I pull myself up the hill after him, leaving a twisting trail of dried brush and dirt behind me. “Nope.” I turn to look down the mountain again. I can’t stop myself. I like how everything looks from up here. Peaceful. Smaller. Like a painting, or one of the Padre’s impossible puzzles, except there aren’t any missing pieces. In the distance below, I can see the yellowing patch of field that belongs to our Mission, then the fringe of green trees, then the deep blue wash of the ocean. Home. The view is so serene, you almost wouldn’t know about The Day. That’s why I like it here. If you don’t leave the Mission, you don’t have to think about it. The Day and the Icons and the Lords. The way they control us. How powerless we are. This far up the Tracks, away from the cities, nothing ever changes. This land has always been wild. A person can feel safe here. Safer. I raise my voice. “It’ll be getting dark soon.” He’s up the trail, once again. Then I hear a ripple through the brush, and the sound of rolling rock, and he lands behind me, nimble as a mountain goat. Ro smiles. “I know, Dol.” I take his calloused hand and relax my fingers into his. Instantly, I am flooded with the feeling of Ro—physical contact always makes our connection that much stronger. He is as warm as the sun behind me. As hot as I am cold. As rough as I am smooth. That’s our balance, just one of the invisible threads that tie us together. It’s who we are. My best-and-only friend and me. He rummages in his pocket, then pushes something into my hands, suddenly shy. “All right, I’ll hurry it up. Your first present.” I look down. A lone blue glass bead rolls between my fingers. A slender leather cord loops in a circle around it. A necklace. It’s the blue of the sky, of my eyes, of the ocean. “Ro,” I breathe. “It’s perfect.” “It reminded me of you. It’s the water, see? So you can always keep it with you.” His face reddens as he tries to explain, the words sticking in his mouth. “I know—how it makes you feel.” Peaceful. Permanent. Unbroken. “Bigger helped me with the cord. It used to be part of a saddle.” Ro has an eye for things like that, things other people overlook. Bigger, the Mission cook, is the same way, and the two of them are inseparable. Biggest, Bigger’s wife, tries her best to keep both of them out of trouble. “I love it.” I thread my arm around his neck in a rough hug. Not so much an embrace as a cuff of arms, the clench of friends and family. Ro looks embarrassed, all the same. “It’s not your whole present. For that you have to climb a little farther.” “But it’s not even my birthday yet.” “It’s your birthday eve. I thought it was only fair to start tonight. Besides, this kind of present is best after sundown.” Ro holds out his hand, a wicked look in his eyes. “Come on. Just one little hint.” I squint up at him and he grins. “But it’s a surprise.” “You’re making me hike all this way through the brush.” He laughs. “Okay. It’s the last thing you’d ever expect. The very last thing.” He bounces up and down a bit where he stands, and I can tell he’s practically ready to bolt up the mountain. “What are you talking about?” He shakes his head, holding out his hand again. “You’ll see.” I take it. There’s no getting Ro to talk when he doesn’t want to. Besides, his hand in mine is a good thing. I feel the beating of his heart, the pulse of his adrenaline. Even now, when he’s relaxed and hiking, and it’s just the two of us. He is a coiled spring. He has no resting state, not really. Not Ro. A shadow crosses the hillside, and instinctively we dive for cover under the brush. The ship in the sky is sleek and silver, glinting ominously with the last reflective rays of the setting sun. I shiver, even though I’m not at all cold, and my face is half buried in Ro’s warm shoulder. I can’t help it. Ro murmurs into my ear as if he is talking to one of the Padre’s puppies. It’s more his tone than the words—that’s how you speak to scared animals. “Don’t be afraid, Dol. It’s headed up the coast, probably to Goldengate. They never come this far inland, not here. They’re not coming for us.” “You don’t know that.” The words sound grim in my mouth, but they’re true. “I do.” He slips his arm around me and we wait like that until the sky is clear. Because he doesn’t know. Not really. People have hidden in these bushes for centuries, long before us. Long before there were ships in the skies. First the Chumash lived here, then the Rancheros, then the Spanish missionaries, then the Californians, then the Americans, then the Grass. Which is me, at least since the Padre brought me back as a baby to La Pur?sima, our old Grass Mission, in the hills beyond the ocean. These hills. The Padre tells it like a story; he was on a crew searching for survivors in the silent city after The Day, only there were none. Whole city blocks were quiet as rain. Finally, he heard a tiny sound—so small, he thought he was imagining it—and there I was, crying purple-faced in my crib. He wrapped me in his coat and brought me home, just as he now brings us stray dogs. It was also the Padre who taught me the history of these hills as we sat by the fire at night, along with the constellations of the stars and the phases of the moon. The names of the people who knew our land before we did. Maybe it was supposed to be like this. Maybe this, the Occupation, the Embassies, all of it, maybe this is just another part of nature. Like the seasons of a year, or how a caterpillar turns into a cocoon. The water cycle. The tides. Chumash Rancheros Spaniards Californians Americans Grass. Sometimes I repeat the names of my people, all the people who have ever lived in my Mission. I say the names and I think, I am them and they are me. I am the Mis?on La Pur?sima de Concepci?n de la Sant?sima Virgen Mar?a, founded in Las Californias on the Day of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, on the Eighth Day of the Twelfth Month of the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred Eighty-Seven. Three hundred years ago. Chumash Rancheros Spaniards Californians Americans Grass. When I say the names they’re not gone, not to me. Nobody died. Nothing ended. We’re still here. I’m still here. That’s all I want. To stay. And for Ro to stay, and the Padre. For us to stay safe, everyone here on the Mission. But as I look back down the mountain I know that nothing stays, and the gold flush and fade of everything tells me that the sun is setting now. No one can stop it from going. Not even me. RESEARCH MEMORANDUM: THE HUMANITY PROJECT CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET / AMBASSADOR EYES ONLY To: Ambassador Amare From: Dr. Huxley-Clarke Subject: Icon Research We still can’t be sure how the Icons work. We know, when the Lords came, thirteen Icons fell from the sky, one landing in each of the Earth’s mega-cities. To this day, we still can’t get close enough to examine them. Our best guess is that the Icons generate an immensely powerful electromagnetic field that can halt electrical activity within a certain radius. We believe it is this field that enables the Icons to disrupt or disable all modern technology. It appears the Icons can also shut down any and all chemical processes or reactions within the field. Note: We call this the “shutdown effect.” The Day itself proved the ultimate demonstration of this capability, when, as we all know, the Lords activated the Icons and ended all hope of resistance by making an example of Goldengate, S?o Paulo, K?ln-Bonn, Cairo, Mumbai, and Greater Beijing … the so-called Silent Cities. By the end of The Day, the newly arrived colonists gained complete control of all major population centers on the Seven Continents. An estimated one billion lives ended in an instant, the greatest tragedy in history. May silence bring them peace. 2 PRESENTS By the time we reach the top of the hillside, the sky has turned dark as the eggplants in the Mission garden. Ro pulls me up the last slide of rocks. “Now. Close your eyes.” “Ro. What have you done?” “Nothing bad. Nothing that bad.” He looks at me and sighs. “Not this time, anyway. Come on, trust me.” I don’t close my eyes. Instead, I look into the shadows beneath the scraggly trees in front of me, where someone has built a shack out of scraps of old signboard and rusting tin. The hood of an ancient tractor is lashed to the legs on a faded poster advertising what looks like running shoes. DO IT. That’s what the bodiless legs say, in bright white words spilling over the photograph. “Don’t you trust me?” Ro repeats, keeping his eyes on the shack as if he was showing me his most precious possession. There is no one I trust more. Ro knows that. He also knows I hate surprises. I close my eyes. “Careful. Now, duck.” Even with my eyes shut, I know when I am inside the shack. I feel the palmetto roof brush against my hair, and I nearly tumble over the roots of the trees surrounding us. “Wait a second.” He lets go of me. “One. Two. Three. Happy birthday, Dol!” I open my eyes. I am now holding one end of a string of tiny colored lights that shine in front of me as if they were stars pulled down from the sky itself. The lights weave from my fingers all across the room, in a kind of sparkling circle that begins with me and ends with Ro. I clap my hands together, lights and all. “Ro! How—? Is that—electric?” He nods. “Do you like it?” His eyes are twinkling, same as the lights. “Are you surprised?” “Never in a thousand years would I have guessed it.” “There’s more.” He moves to one side. Next to him is a strange-looking contraption with two rusty metal circles connected by a metal bar and a peeling leather seat. “A bicycle?” “Sort of. It’s a pedal generator. I saw it in a book that the Padre had, at least the plans for it. Took me about three months to find all the parts. Twenty digits, just for the old bike. And look there—” He points to two objects sitting on a plank. He takes the string of lights from my hand, and I move to touch a smooth metal artifact. “Pan-a-sonic?” I sound out the faded type on the side of the first object. It’s some sort of box, and I pick it up, turning it over in my hands. He answers proudly. “That’s a radio.” I realize what it is as soon as he says the words, and it’s all I can do not to drop it. Ro doesn’t notice. “People used them to listen to music. I’m not sure it works, though. I haven’t tried it yet.” I put it down. I know what a radio is. My mother had one. I remember because it dies every time in the dream. When The Day comes. I touch my tangled brown curls self-consciously. It’s not his fault. He doesn’t know. I’ve never told anyone about the dream, not even the Padre. That’s how badly I don’t want to remember it. I change the subject. “And this?” I pick up a tiny silver rectangle, not much bigger than my palm. There is a picture of a lone piece of fruit scratched on one side. Ro smiles. “It’s some kind of memory cell. It plays old songs, right into your ears.” He pulls the rectangle out of my hand. “It’s unbelievable, like listening to the past. But it only works when it has power.” I shake my head. “I don’t understand.” “That’s your present. Power. See? I push the pedals like this, and the friction creates energy.” He stands on the bike pedals, then drops onto the seat, pushing furiously. The string of colored lights glows in the room, all around me. I can’t help but laugh, it’s so magical—and Ro looks so funny and sweaty. Ro climbs off the bicycle and kneels in front of a small black box. I see that the string of lights attaches neatly to one side. “That’s the battery. It stores the power.” “Right here?” The enormous ramifications of what Ro has done begin to hit me. “Ro, we’re not supposed to be messing with this stuff. You know using electricity outside the cities is forbidden. What if someone finds out?” “Who’s going to find us? In the middle of a Grass Mission? Up a goat hill, in view of a pig farm? You always say you wish you knew more about what it was like, before The Day. Now you can.” Ro looks earnest, standing there in front of the pile of junk and wires and time. “Ro,” I say, trying to find the words. “I—” “What?” He sounds defensive. “It’s the best present ever.” It’s all I can say, but the words don’t seem like enough. He did this, for me. He’d rebuild every radio and every bicycle and every memory cell in the world for me, if he could. And if he couldn’t, he’d still try if he thought I wanted him to. That’s who Ro is. “Really? You like it?” He softens, relieved. I love it like I love you. That’s what I want to tell him. But he’s Ro, and he’s my best friend. And he’d rather have the mud scrubbed out of his ears than mushy words whispered in them, so I don’t say anything at all. Instead, I sink down onto the floor and examine the rest of my presents. Ro’s made a frame, out of twisted wire, for my favorite photograph of my mother—the one with dark eyes and a tiny gold cross at her neck. “Ro. It’s beautiful.” I finger each curving copper tendril. “She’s beautiful.” He shrugs, embarrassed. So I only nod and move on to the next gift, an old book of stories, nicked from the Padre’s bookcase. Not the first time we’ve done that—and I smile at him conspiratorially. Finally, I pick up the music player, examining the white wires. They have soft pieces on the ends, and I fit one into my ear. I look at Ro and laugh, fitting one in his. Ro clicks a round button on the side of the rectangle. Screaming music streams into the air—I jump and my earpiece goes flying. When I stick it back in, I can almost feel the music. The nest of cardboard and plywood and tin around us is practically vibrating. We let the music drown out our thoughts and occupy ourselves with singing and shouting—until the door flies open and the night comes tumbling inside. The night, and the Padre. “DOLORIA MARIA DE LA CRUZ!” It’s my real name—though no one is supposed to know or say it—and he wields it like a weapon. He must be really angry. The Padre, as red-faced and short as Ro is brown and long, looks like he could flatten us both with one more word. “FURO COSTAS!” But I’ve given Ro his own turn with the earphones, and the music is so loud he can’t hear the Padre. Ro’s singing along badly, and dancing worse. I stand frozen in place while the Padre yanks the white cord from Ro’s ear. The Padre holds out his other hand and Ro drops the silver music player into it. “I see you’ve raided the storage room once more, Furo.” Ro looks at his feet. The Padre rips the lights out of the black box, and a spark shoots across the room. The Padre raises an eyebrow. “You’re lucky you didn’t burn down half the mountain with this contraband,” he says, looking meaningfully at Ro. “Again.” “So lucky.” Ro snorts. “I think that every day, right before dawn when I get up to feed the pigs.” The Padre drops the string of lights like a snake. “You realize, of course, that a Sympa patrol could have seen the lights on this mountain all the way down to the Tracks?” “Don’t you ever get tired of hiding?” Ro glowers. “That depends. Do you ever get tired of living?” The Padre glares back. Ro says nothing. The Padre has the look he gets when he’s doing the Mission accounting, hunched over the ledgers he fills with rows of tiny numbers. This time, he is calculating punishments, and multiplying them times two. I tug on his sleeve, looking repentant—a skill I mastered when I was little. “Ro didn’t mean it, Padre. Don’t be angry. He did it for me.” He cups my chin with one hand, and I feel his fingers on my face. In a flash, I sense him. What comes to me first is worry and fear—not for himself, but for us. He wants to be a wall around us, and he can’t, and it makes him crazy. Mostly, he is patience and caution; he is a globe spinning and a finger tracing roads on a worn map. His heart beats more clearly than most. The Padre remembers everything—he was a grown man when the first Carriers came—and most of what he remembers are the children he has helped. Ro, and me, and all the others who lived at the Mission until they were placed with families. Then, in my mind’s eye, I see something new. The image of a book takes shape. The Padre is wrapping it, with his careful hands. My present. He smiles at me, and I pretend not to know where his mind is. “Tomorrow we will speak of bigger things. Not today. It’s not your fault, Dolly. It’s your birthday eve.” And with that, he winks at Ro and draws his robed arm around me, and we both know all is forgiven. “Now, come to dinner. Bigger and Biggest are waiting, and if we make them wait much longer, Ramona Jamona will no longer be a guest at our table but the main dish.” As we slide our way back down the hillside, the Padre curses the bushes that tug at his robes, and Ro and I laugh like the children we were when he first found us. We race, stumbling in the darkness toward the warm yellow glow of the Mission kitchen. I can see the homemade beeswax candles flickering, the hand-cut paper streamers hanging from the rafters. My birthday eve dinner is a success. Everyone on the Mission is there—almost a dozen people, counting the farmhands and the church workers—all crammed around our long wooden table. Bigger and Biggest have used every cracked plate in the shed. I get to sit in the Padre’s seat, a birthday tradition, and we eat my favorite potato-cheese stew and Bigger’s famous sugar cake and sing old songs by the fire until the moon is high and our eyes are heavy and I fall asleep in my usual warm spot in front of the oven. When the old nightmare comes—my mother and me and the radio going silent—Ro is there next to me on the floor, asleep with crumbs still on his face and twigs still in his hair. My thief of junk. Climber of mountains. Builder of worlds. I rest my head on his back and listen to him breathe. I wonder what tomorrow will bring. What the Padre wants to tell me. Bigger things, that’s what he said. I think about bigger things until I am too small and too tired to care. EMBASSY CITY TRIBUNAL AUTOPSY CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET Performed by Dr. O. Brad Huxley-Clarke, VPHD Note: Conducted at the private request of Amb. Amare Santa Catalina Examination Facility #9B Also see adjoining DPPT in addendum file. Deceased Personal Possessions Transcript Deceased classified as victim of Grass Rebellion uprising. Known to be Person of Interest to Ambassador Amare. Gender: Female. Ethnicity: Indeterminate. Age: Estimate mid-to-late teens. Postadolescent. Physical Characteristics: Slightly underweight. Brown hair. Blue eyes. Skin characterized by some discoloration indicative of elemental exposure. Exhibits human protein markers and low body weight indicative of predominantly agrarian diet. Staining patterns on teeth consistent with consumption habits of local Grass cultures. Distinguishing Physical Markings: A recognizable marking appears inside the specimen’s right wrist. At the Ambassador’s request, a specimen of the has been removed, in observance of security protocols. . Cause of Death: . Survivors: No identified family. Note: Body will be cremated following lab processing. Embassy City Waste Facility Assignment: Landfill . 3 THE PIET? OF LA PUR?SIMA Feelings are memories. That’s what I’m thinking as I stand there in the Mission chapel, the morning of my birthday. It’s what the Padre says. He also says that chapels turn regular people into philosophers. I’m not a regular person, but I’m still no philosopher. And either way, what I remember and how I feel are the only two things I can’t escape, no matter how much I want to. No matter how hard I try. For the moment, I tell myself not to think. I focus on trying to see. The chapel is dark but the doorway to outside is blindingly bright. That’s what morning always looks like in the chapel. The little light there prickles and stings my eyes. Like in the Mission itself, in the chapel you can pretend that nothing has changed for hundreds of years, that nothing has happened. Not like in the Hole, where they say the buildings have fallen into ruins, and Sympa soldiers control the streets with fear, and you think about nothing but The Day, every day. Los Angeles, that’s what the Hole used to be called. First Los Angeles, then the City of Angels, then the Holy City, then the Hole. When I was little, that’s how I used to think of the House of Lords, as angels. Nobody calls them alien anymore, because they aren’t. They’re familiar. We never see them, but we’ve never known a world without them, not Ro and me. I grew up thinking they were angels because back on The Day they sent my parents to heaven. At least, that’s what the Grass missionaries told me, when I was old enough to ask. Heaven, not their graves. Angels, not aliens. But just because something comes from the sky doesn’t make it an angel. The Lords didn’t come here from the heavens to save us. They came from some faraway solar system to colonize our planet, on The Day. We don’t know what they look like inside their ships, but they’re not angels. They destroyed my family the year I was born. What kind of angel would do that? Now we call them the House of Lords—and Ambassador Amare, she tells us not to fear them—but we do. Just as we fear her. On The Day, the dead dropped silently in their homes, never seeing what hit them. Never knowing anything about our new Lords, about the way they could use their Icons to control the energy that flowed through our own bodies, our machines, our cities. About how they could stop it. Either way, my family is gone. There was no reason for me to have survived. Nobody understood why I did. The Padre suspected, of course. That’s why he took me. First me, and then Ro. I hear a sound from the far end of the chapel. I squint, turning my back to the door. The Padre has sent for me, but he’s late. I catch the eye of the Lady from the painting on the wall. Her face is so sad, I think she knows what has happened. I think she knows everything. She’s part of what General Ambassador to the Planet Hiro Miyazawa, the head of the United Embassies, calls the old ways of humanity. How we believed in ourselves—how we survived ourselves. What we looked up to, back when we thought there was someone up above. Not something. I look back to the Lady a moment longer, until the sadness surges and the pain radiates through me. It pulses from my temples and I feel my mind stumble, folding at the edge of unconsciousness. Something is wrong. It must be, for the familiar ache to come on so suddenly. I press my hand to my temple, willing it to stop. I breathe deep, until I can see clearly. “Padre?” My voice echoes against the wood and stone. It sounds as small as I am. An animal has lurched into my leg, one of many more entering the chapel, and my nostrils fill with smells—hair and hides and hooves, paint and mold and manure. My birthday falls on the Blessing of the Animals, which will begin just hours from now. Local Grass farmers and ranchers will come to have the Padre bless their livestock, as they have for three hundred years. It is Grass tradition, and we are a Grass Mission. Appearing in the door, the Padre smiles at me, moving to light the ceremonial candles. Then his smile fades. “Where’s Furo? Bigger and Biggest haven’t seen him at all this morning.” I shrug. I can’t account for every second of Ro’s day. Ro could be lifting all the dried cereal cakes out of Bigger’s emergency supplies. Chasing Biggest’s donkeys. Sneaking down the Tracks toward the Hole, to buy more parts for the Padre’s busted-up old pistola, shot only on New Year’s Eve. Meeting people he doesn’t want me to meet, learning things he doesn’t want me to know. Preparing for a war he’ll never fight with an enemy that can’t be defeated. He’s on his own. The Padre, preoccupied as always, is no longer paying attention to himself or to me. “Careful …” I catch his elbow, pulling him out of the way of a pile of pig waste. A near miss. He clicks his tongue and leans down to chuck Ramona Jamona on the chin. “Ramona. Not in the chapel.” It’s an act—really, he doesn’t mind. The big pink pig sleeps in his chamber on cold nights, we all know she does. He loves Ro and me just as he does Ramona—in spite of everything we do and beyond anything he says. He’s the only father we have ever known, and though I call him the Padre, I think of him as my Padre. “She’s a pig, Padre. She’s going to go wherever she wants. She can’t understand you.” “Ah, well. It’s only once a year, the Blessing of the Animals. We can clean the floors tomorrow. All Earth’s creatures need our prayers.” “I know. I don’t mind.” I look to the animals, wondering. The Padre sinks onto a low pew, patting the wood next to him. “We can take a few minutes to ourselves, however. Come. Sit.” I oblige. He smiles, touching my chin. “Happy birthday, Dolly.” He holds out a parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. It materializes from his robes, a priestly sleight of hand. Birthday secrets. My book, finally. I recognize it from his thoughts, from yesterday. He holds it out to me, but his face is not full of joy. Only sadness. “Be careful with it. Don’t let it out of your sight. It’s very rare. And it’s about you.” I drop my hand. “Doloria.” He says my real name and I stiffen, bracing myself for the words I fear are coming. “I know you don’t like to talk about it, but it’s time we speak of such things. There are people who would harm you, Doloria. I haven’t really told you how I found you, not all of it. Why you survived the attack and your family didn’t. I think you’re ready to hear it now.” He leans closer. “Why I’ve hidden you. Why you’re special. Who you are.” I’ve been dreading this talk since my tenth birthday. The day he first told me what little I know about who I am and how I am different. That day, over sugar cakes and thick, homemade butter and sun tea, he talked to me slowly about the creeping sadness that came over me, so heavy that my chest fluttered like a startled animal’s and I couldn’t breathe. About the pain that pulsed in my head or came between my shoulder blades. About the nightmares that were so real I was afraid Ro would walk in and find me cold and still in my bed one morning. As if you really could die from a broken heart. But the Padre never told me where the feelings came from. That’s one thing even he didn’t know. I wish someone did. “Doloria.” He says my name again to remind me that he knows my secret. He’s the only one, Ro and him. When we’re alone, I let Ro call me Doloria—but even he mostly calls me Dol, or even Dodo. I’m just plain Dolly to everyone else. Not Doloria Maria de la Cruz. Not a Weeper. Not marked by the lone gray dot on my wrist. One small circle the color of the sea in the rain. The one thing that is really me. My destiny. Dolor means “sorrow,” in Latin or Greek or some other language from way, way before The Day. BTD. Before everything changed. “Open it.” I look at him, uncertain. The candles flicker, and a breeze shudders slowly through the room. Ramona noses closer to the altar, her snout looking for traces of honey on my hand. I slip my finger through the paper, pulling it loose from the string. Beneath the wrapping is hardly a book, almost more of a journal: the cover is thick, rough burlap, homemade. This is a Grass book, unauthorized, illegal. Most likely preserved by the Rebellion, in spite of and because of the Embassy regulations. Such books are usually on subjects the Ambassadors won’t acknowledge within the world of the Occupation. They are very hard to come by, and extremely valuable. My eyes well with tears as I read the cover. The Humanity Project: The Icon Children. It looks like it was written by hand. “No,” I whisper. “Read it.” He nods. “I was supposed to keep it safe for you and make sure you read it when you were old enough.” “Who said that? Why?” “I’m not sure. I discovered the book with a note on the altar, not long after I brought you here. Just read it. It’s time. And nobody knows as much about the subject as this particular author. It’s written by a doctor, it seems, in his own hand.” “I know enough not to read more.” I look around for Ro. I wish, desperately, he would walk through the chapel door. But the Padre is the Padre, so I open the book to a page he’s marked, and begin to read about myself. Icon doloris. Dolorus. Doloria. Me. My purpose is pain and my name is sorrow. One gray dot says so. No. “Not yet.” I look up at the Padre and shake my head, shoving the book into my belt. The conversation is over. The story of me can wait until I’m ready. My heart hurts again, stronger this time. I hear strange noises, feel a change in the air. I look to Ramona Jamona, hoping for some moral support, but she is lying at my feet, fast asleep. No, not asleep. Dark liquid pools beneath her. The cold animal in my chest startles awake, fluttering once again. An old feeling returns. Something really is wrong. Soft pops fill the air. “Padre,” I say. Only I look at him and he is not my Padre at all. Not anymore. “Padre!” I scream. He’s not moving. He’s nothing. Still sitting next to me, still smiling, but not breathing. He’s gone. My mind moves slowly. I can’t make sense of it. His eyes are empty and his mouth has fallen open. Gone. It’s all gone. His jokes. His secret recipes—the butter he made from shaking cream together with smooth, round rocks—the rows of sun tea in jars—gone. Other secrets, too. My secrets. But I can’t think about it now, because behind the Padre—what was the Padre—stands a line of masked soldiers. Sympas. Occupation Sympathizers, traitors to humanity. Embassy soldiers, taking orders from the Lords, hiding behind plexi-masks and black armor, standing in pig mess and casting long shadows over the deathly peace of the chapel. One wears golden wings on his jacket. It’s the only detail I see, aside from the weapons. The guns make no noise, but the animals panic all the same. They are screaming—which is something I did not know, that animals could scream. I open my mouth, but I do not scream. I vomit. I spit green juices and gray dust and memories of Ramona and the Padre. All I can see are the guns. All I can feel is hate and fear. The black-gloved hands close around my wrist, overwhelming me, and I know that soon I will no longer have to worry about my nightmares. I will be dead. As my knees buckle, all I can think about is Ro and how angry he will be at me for leaving him. EMBASSY CITY TRIBUNAL VIRTUAL AUTOPSY: DECEASED PERSONAL POSSESSIONS TRANSCRIPT (DPPT) CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET Performed by Dr. O. Brad Huxley-Clarke, VPHD Note: Conducted at the private request of Amb. Amare Santa Catalina Examination Facility #9B See adjoining Tribunal Autopsy, attached. Contents of personal satchel, torn, army-issue, found with deceased. See attached photographs. 1. Electronic device, silver and rectangular. Appears to be some form of contraband pre-Occupation music player. 2. Photograph of woman, similar in feature and stature to deceased. Possible predeceased family member? 3. . 4. . 5. Dried plant leathers. Substantiates finding of probable vegetarianism in deceased. 6. One blue glass bead. Significance unknown. 7. One length of muslin cloth, stained with biological and natural material consistent with body wrapping, presumably of the wrist, as is customary for . 4 TRACKS I am alive. When I open my eyes I’m on a train—alone in a prison transport car, gunmetal gray, pushed by an old coal-fueled steam engine. Nothing but four walls lined with metal benches, bolted to the floor. A door to my left, a window to my right. A pile of old rags in the corner. That’s it. I must be on the Tracks, hurtling toward the Hole. The dim blue waters of Porthole Bay flip in and out of sight, rhythmically punctuated by shuffling old comlink poles. They stick up from the land like so many useless skeleton fingers. I watch my reflection in the window. My brown hair is dark and loose and matted with dirt and bile. My skin is pale and barely covers the handful of small bones that are me. Then I see my reflection twist, and in the plexi-window I look as sad as the Lady in her painting. Because the Padre is dead. I try to hold on to his face in my mind, the grooves by his eyes, the mole on his cheek. The cocky spike of his thinning hair. I’m afraid I’ll lose it, him—even the memory. Tomorrow, if not today. Like everything else, there’s no holding on to the Padre. Not anymore. I look back out at the bay, and I can feel the bile churn inside me, strong as the tides. Usually the water calms me. Not today. Today, as I clutch the blue glass bead at my throat, the ocean is almost unrecognizable. I wonder where the Tracks are taking me. To my death? Or worse? I see a glimpse of the rusting, abandoned cars on the highway along the rails, junked as if all life stopped and the planet froze in place, which is pretty much what happened on The Day. After the House of Lords came, with their Carrier ships, and the thirteen Icons fell from the sky, one landing in each of the largest cities in the world. The Padre says—said—that people used to live all over Earth, spread out. There were small towns, small cities, big cities. Not anymore. Almost the entire population of the planet lives within a hundred miles of a mega-city. The Padre said this happened because so much of the world has been ruined by people, by the rising waters, rising temperatures, drought, flooding. Some parts of Earth are toxic with radiation from massive wars. People stay in the cities because we are running out of places to live. Now everything people need to live is produced in or near the cities. Energy, food, technology—it’s all centralized in the cities. Which makes the Lords’ work that much easier. The Icons regulate everything with an electronic pulse. The Padre said the Icons can control electricity, the power that flows between generators and machines, even the electrical impulses that connect brains and bodies. They can halt all electrical and chemical activity at any time. Which is what happened to Goldengate, on The Day. And S?o Paulo, K?ln-Bonn, Greater Beijing, Cairo, Mumbai. The Silent Cities. Which is why we gave in to the Lords and let them take our planet. But out in the Grasslands, like at the Mission, we have more freedom. The Icons lose their strength the farther away you go. But the Lords and the Ambassadors are in control, even then, because they have the resources. They have weapons that work. And there’s no power in the Grass, no source of energy. Even so, I have hope. The Padre always tried to reassure me—everything has a limit. Everything has an end. Beyond the borders of the cities and the frequencies of the Icons, life goes on. They can’t turn everything off. They don’t control our whole planet. Not yet. Nothing in the Grass works that isn’t pulled by a horse or cranked by a person. But at least we know our hearts will be beating in the morning, our lungs pumping air, our bodies shivering from the cold. Which is more than I know about myself tomorrow. The pile of rags groans from the floor. I was wrong. I’m not alone. A man, lying facedown, is splayed across from me. He smells like a Remnant, which is what the Embassy calls us, another piece of worthless garbage like me. He even smells like he lives with the pigs—drunk pigs. My heart begins to pound. I sense adrenaline. Heat. Anger. Not just the soldiers. Something more. Ro’s here. I close my eyes and feel him. I can’t see him, but I know he’s near. Don’t, I think, though he can’t hear me. Let me go, Ro. Get yourself somewhere safe. Ro hates Sympas. I know if he comes after me the rage will come after him, and he will probably be killed. Like the Padre. Like my parents, and Ro’s. Like everyone else. I also know he will come for me. The man sits up, groaning. He looks like he is going to be sick, leaning against the swaying side of the car. I steady myself, waiting by the window. The comlink poles go slapping by. The Tracks turn, and the watery curve of the Porthole shoreline comes into view, the Hole beyond it. A few crude skiffs float on the water nearest the shore. Beyond them, rising above the water, is the Hole, the biggest city on the west coast. The only one, since Goldengate was silenced. I don’t look at the Icon, though I know it’s there. It’s always there looming, from the hill above the city, a knife in the otherwise flat skyline. What once was an observatory has been gutted and transformed by the black irregularity that juts out from the structure. It’s also a reminder, this disturbingly nonhuman landmark, sent by our new Lords to pierce the earth and show us all that we are not in control. That our hearts beat only with their permission. If I’m not careful, I can feel all of them, the people in the Hole. They well up in me, unannounced. Everyone in the Hole, everyone in the Embassy. Sympas and Remnants and even Ambassador Amare. I fight them off. I try to clear my mind. I will myself not to feel—I’ve felt too much already. I try to press back against the welling. If I let them in, I’m afraid I will lose myself. I’ll lose everything. Chumash Rancheros Spaniards Californians Americans Grass. I recite the words, over and over, but this time they don’t seem to help. “Dol!” It’s Ro. He’s here now, right outside the door. I hear a rattle and see the skull of the Sympa slam into the plexi-door and sink out of sight. There is a dent where he hit. No one else could destroy a Sympa like that, not with only his hands. Ro must already be out of control, to throw him so hard. Which means I don’t have much time. I push myself up to my feet and move across the car to the door. It doesn’t open, but I know Ro is right outside. I can see a glimpse of the narrow hall through the small plexi in the door. “Ro! Ro, don’t!” Then I hear shouting. Too late. Please. Go home, Ro. The shouting grows louder, and the train lurches. I stand up and stumble, almost stepping on the other prisoner, the Remnant. He rolls over and looks up at me, a pile of filth and rags, his face so covered with muck I can’t tell what he is or where he’s from. His skin is the color of bark. “Your Ro is going to get you both killed, you know.” The voice is mocking. He has an accent, but I can’t place it—only that it’s not from the Californias. Maybe not even the Americas. He moves again, and I see the welt that runs down the length of his face. He’s been beaten, and I can imagine why. I want to kick him myself for mocking Ro, but I don’t. Instead, I feel for the binding beneath my sleeve, wrapping it more tightly around my wrist and my secret. One gray dot the color of the ocean. The Padre’s gone. Only Ro knows now. Unless that’s why the Sympas came. I can’t worry about it much longer, though, because the man answers himself in a strange falsetto, which I imagine he means to be me. “I know. I’m sorry about that, mate.” I glare at him, at the place where his piercing blue eyes look out from the dirt on his face. He keeps talking. “Not really much of a plan, is it? Bang down the old plexi, beat up a few Stooges.” The man pulls himself up next to me, grinning. He is taller than I am, which isn’t saying much. I notice, beneath the rags, his body is muscular and compact. He looks more like a soldier than the Sympas do. “I’m Fortis.” He holds out his hand. It sits there. I push against the door again, but it’s locked. Fortis surveys the room and returns to his conversation with himself. He wags his head as he once again answers his own question in falsetto. “Pleased to meet you, Fortis. I’m the little Grassgirl. Sorry about all the shooting right outside your door, eh? Didn’t mean to wake you. Or kill you.” He whistles to himself. I don’t interrupt him and I don’t look at him. I’m too busy listening for guns. And I’m trying to pick out Ro from the mess of other emotions running wild, up and down the Tracks. He’s not just a spark, not anymore—he’s a blazing fire. And there are so many fires raging now, today, more than ever. The heat is overwhelming me. But he’s there. I close my eyes. He’s still on the train. He hasn’t left—I can’t hear him, but I can feel him. The Remnant, Fortis, whoever he is, moves closer to me. I freeze. “Here’s how it goes, Grassgirl. Way I see it, you’ve done something a bit special to get yourself upgraded to this fine, first-class cargo hold, on this set of Tracks.” He wags his head toward the door. “You’re not like the rest of the Remnants in the cars behind us, all headed to the Projects. You’re something else.” Now I know what I have been feeling, apart from Ro. Why his anger was so hard to pick out from the other red-hot threads. Of course. The train is full of Remnants headed to the Projects, the work camps run by the Embassy. No wonder I sense so much rage. Nobody knows what they’re building out in the harbor. But it’s massive, and they’ve been building it for years now. “Your mate Ro, he’s got his hands full. He can’t take the Tracks down alone—there’s not a person in all the Grass who can. Don’t have the right tools, do they? And I’ll tell you what about this place. You can’t bash your way in. You can only blow your way out.” He opens his rag coat and I see a collection of weapons tucked inside crude fabric loops. “Boom.” He taps a stick of dynamite, and buttons shut his coat, grinning. “Old school. Now. Let’s try this again. I’m Fortis.” “Who are you?” I finally speak, and my voice sounds hoarse and low, nothing like his impression of me. “I thought you were a Remnant.” “Not exactly. I’m not a Sympa Stooge either, if that’s what you’re after. I’m a businessman, and this is my business.” “You’re a Merk?” “What of it? Do you want me to help you or not?” Fortis looks impatient. I shrug. “How much?” I don’t know why I even bother asking. Merks are notoriously expensive; they don’t care about anything or anyone—they can’t afford to. Which means they don’t work for free, and I don’t have any way to pay. “A hundred digs gets you a minor explosion on the side of the Tracks. Five hundred digs, we’re talking a full-blown diversion. A thousand digs …?” He grins. “You an’ your boy were never here. You never existed, and they’ll never see you again.” He talks rapidly, like he’s trying to sell me bootleg books or miracle tonic or stolen Sympatech. Still, it would be a tall order. Blasting your way out of the Tracks. Even for a Merk. “How?” “Trade secrets, Grassgirl.” “I don’t have anything.” He looks me over, up and down. Smiles. He reaches toward me, questioningly, and I blush as I feel his hand inside my waistband, just at my hip. I slap him in the face. “You’re disgusting.” Fortis rolls his eyes, yanking my birthday book out of my belt, holding it up with a flourish. I had forgotten all about it. “Didn’t think you were a Skin, love. You’re too, well, skinny.” He grins. “Be like givin’ a dig for a kiss from a carrot stick.” He shudders, trying not to laugh. I’ve heard about girls who sell their bodies in the Hole. It’s a terrible thought. “Shut up.” Fortis ignores me, leafing through the book as if it were made of gold instead of ragged paper. “Icon Children, eh? Looks handmade. Expensive. And highly illegal, by the way. I’d be doing you a favor, taking it off your hands. They’d give you extra time just for having it on you, Grass book like that.” He leans in again. “You don’t want the Ambassador to know you’re with the Rebellion, Grassgirl.” “It’s just a book.” I shrug, but all the same, I hear the Padre’s words echoing in my mind. Don’t let it out of your sight. I stare at the precious paper in the Merk’s dirty hands. “And you’ll be just a pile of bones before you get a chance to explain.” He looks up from the book. “I’m not with the Rebellion. I’m not with anyone. I’m just …” I shrug, as if there is a word that can describe me. If there is, I can’t find it. I give up. “I’m nobody. Just a Grassgirl, like you said.” And as I say it, I realize he’s right. Without his help, I’m probably going to the Projects, or my death, or worse. What does a stupid book matter now? It is time to decide, and in that moment, I do. I grab his arm, yanking down as hard as I can. “I’m nobody, and I was never here. I never existed. Ro and me, both.” He levels his eyes at me, gleaming blue behind his dirty face. Like the sea. Like mine. He nods at me, but I make him say the words. I want to be certain. “Take the book. It’s enough. Do we have a deal?” “Not just a deal—a promise.” He tucks my book inside his jacket, and the story of me disappears among the handguns and homemade explosives. “Your secret’s safe with me, love. So is your book. Now get down.” Before I can say another word, Fortis lifts the dynamite and lights the fuse. RESEARCH MEMORANDUM: THE HUMANITY PROJECT CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET / AMBASSADOR EYES ONLY To: Ambassador Amare Subject: Icon Origins Text Scan: NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL PLANET KILLER COMING OUR WAY? December 29, 2042 • Cambridge, Massachusetts Scientists at the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge announced today the discovery of a very large asteroid that is projected to pass dangerously close to Earth. The asteroid, designated 2042 IC4, or Perses, has a targeted impact/arrival date of 2070–2090. Scientists approximate the size of the asteroid at as large as 4 miles in diameter, which officials claim is large enough to create an extinction event. Paulo Fortissimo, special scientific advisor to the president, says we shouldn’t panic: “I need to review the data, but the size and speed of the asteroid are merely an estimate, and the odds of this thing hitting Earth are still relatively low. Nevertheless, rest assured, we will keep a close eye on it.” 5 DIVERSIONS The blast does more than blow open the door. The blast has rocked the Tracks so hard, the car seems to have gone off the rails. My ears are ringing. The floor is no longer beneath me but next to me. The roof is gone, and through the jagged hole that remains, I can see the open air. I pick myself up from the tangle of Fortis and wall and floor, the debris of what used to be the prison car, and take off running through the opening. “Thank you, Fortis,” Fortis calls after me. “You’re welcome, little Grassgirl. Anytime.” I run faster, along the smoking cars. I can tell from the footsteps that there are Sympas behind me. Probably half a dozen more around the cars. I didn’t feel them coming. I have to pay better attention. But thanks to the Merk, I have a head start. I have to get to the water. That’s all that goes through my head. I know I’ll be safe there because I know what I’ll find—and who. I turn, more sharply now, disappearing into the tall weeds on the west. My feet catch on the rocks beneath me, but I stumble forward. I know the Sympas are close behind me, and I don’t look back. I keep running, moving in the exact direction where I can feel the bonfire ahead of me—racing toward the shore, just like me. My one sure trajectory, my best chance for survival. Ro. His hand grabs my ankle and I drop. I feel his arm slide around my waist, snapping me down to the tide. I fall toward him, and I find myself lying in the sand and shallow water, hidden from the Tracks just beneath a grassy rise of shoreline. Some kind of coastal cave. I feel us both still panting; Ro’s only gotten here seconds ago, himself. Then I hear a shout and a splash, and a Sympa soldier falls over the rise after me. I roll out of the way, knee-deep into the water. I know what will happen now. Someone will die, and it’s not Ro. In a small arena, it doesn’t matter that the Sympa is armed and Ro is not. Ro will crucify him. Before I can even think the words, Ro has the fallen Sympa’s gun in his hands, slamming the butt of the weapon into the soldier’s face. Blood sprays the rocks and runs into the water. Ro raises his hand to strike again, but I move my hands over his, forcing him to look at me. “Ro.” He shakes his head, but I won’t let go, and we cling to the gun together. I can’t let Ro do this to himself. “Don’t,” I say. I look at the unconscious Sympa’s face, just above the water’s edge, covered with blood. His nose is probably broken. He seems young and almost handsome, with hair the color of sunshine—though it’s hard to tell what he normally looks like, since he’s already starting to bruise. But I look away, because he’s too distracting—I have to close off the welling of sadness inside of me. I have people of my own to mourn. A pig and a Padre and a family I never got to know. I toss the weapon into the water and hold out my arms. Ro falls into me, folds into me, as if I am his home. I am. He doesn’t let go. His face is red, and neither one of us can slow our breathing. Instead we pant like two tired Mission dogs chased by coyotes. The cold, fluttering animal in my chest and the warm, rabid creature in his push up against each other, and for the moment we are not alone. I bury my face in his neck, wrapping my arms around the twisted muscles that move beneath the skin of his chest and arms. He smells like dirt, even now. I can practically taste the mud. When Ro smiles—which is only when I’m around, and even then only when all the stars in the night sky align—I half expect to see dirt between his teeth. He’s Grass, through and through. He’d break his share of hearts in another world. I don’t doubt that. I lace my fingers through his hair and ground myself in him. I listen to his breathing and know he’s trying to do the same. It isn’t so easy for Ro, to slow himself back down. I hear another blast, followed by the sound of people running toward the train. Fortis. A second explosion. The Merk is as good as his word. Ro carefully looks toward the train to make sure no other Sympas followed us here. He nods, indicating we are safe for the moment. We don’t speak until the shouting has grown distant and the Sympas are quiet. “It’s safer to hide for now. We’ll have to wait them out. Dol …” The way Ro says my name, I know he knows about the Padre and Ramona Jamona. I know he was afraid it would be me. I hear it in his voice. “Doloria,” he whispers. He’s no different than I am with my incantations, reciting the settlers of La Pur?sima. He needs me. I give him my hand. My right hand. He fumbles at my wrist, yanking the cloth that binds it. He unwinds the muslin strip that wraps my bony arm so tightly I forget it is not made of skin. Now my wrist is naked, and he pulls up his own worn sleeve. We lace our fingers together, and he slides his bare wrist down to meet mine. I let the shiver roll down my body, down from my arm to where my feet dig into the sand. One gray dot on my wrist, the color of the ocean in the rain. Two red dots on his wrist, the color of fire. The shared mark of our shared destinies, though we don’t know what they are. If my name is Sorrow, his name is Rage. And whatever I am, whatever Ro is, is a secret. One that could kill us both without our ever knowing why. One that probably killed the Padre. I wish I’d read the Padre’s book before I traded it for my freedom. Ro would have. My gray presses against his red. We live in a world of only two people now. Bound by the markings on our hands and our hearts. He winds the cloth around our clasped hands, pushing his body against mine, and I feel the sharp knuckles of our ribs as they fit together. We are the mirror image of each other. Sorrow for rage. Pain for anger. Tears for fury. I become Ro and Ro becomes me. He takes my great sadness, the frightened thing that lives inside me. He’ll do anything to keep it away from me. And I take the red rage. I am a deluge; the red spark that is Ro is twenty feet under my surface. I can’t keep it down for long. The Padre said Ro is too much for one person, that if I keep doing this—if I keep letting him do this—I may not be able to come back. Yet I let his pain take me to the edge of madness. The Padre. I open my eyes and find, in the arms of my best friend, it is safe enough to cry. The tears push out from my eyes and run down my face. I have no power to stop them. Ro grabs my hand, willing me to let them fall. When it is over, and we have pushed aside the feelings for another day, Ro helps me bind my wrist. His skin is no longer burning, and he pulls down his sleeve carelessly. Ro is not so afraid of his marking as I am. He’s not even afraid of the whole Sympa patrol I know are only a stretch of field away—no matter how long we wait. “You should be more careful. Someone could see,” I say. “Yeah? So what?” “They’ll take you away like they tried to take me. Lock you up in the Hole, somewhere. Use you. Hurt you.” I try not to remind him what that would mean for me, how afraid I am. “So instead we hide, our whole lives? Like this? Until we die?” His voice is bitter. “Maybe not forever. What if the Padre’s right and we are special, more powerful than we know? What if that’s why the Sympas came for me?” These aren’t words I’ve ever said, but I’m desperate. I need to keep him calm, before he gets himself killed. “We can’t pretend the Mission is safe anymore, Ro. If there’s even a Mission to go back to.” I swallow. “But why hide, if we’re so special? What if we’re supposed to be doing something? What if we’re the only ones who can?” He runs his hands through his hair, unable to keep still. This is all he wants. To save the world and everyone in it. Right now, I just want to save the only family I have. Whether or not he wants me to. I try again. “The Padre said who we are can be used against us, if we’re not careful. We might make everything worse.” Ro has lost his patience with me. We are both spinning perilously close to the edge of our tempers. “Yeah, Dol? The Padre also said the truth would set us free. He told us to turn the other cheek. He said to love our neighbors. And now he’s dead.” I move away from him, but he grabs my arm. “I loved the Padre, Dol, same as you.” “I know that.” “But he was from another time. What he said, what he believed, that was a fantasy. He said those things because he didn’t want us to give up. But he didn’t want to fight, either.” “Ro. Don’t start.” He softens. “I’m not going to leave you behind, Dol. A promise is a promise.” He remembers; we both do. Dot to dot, we swore. Down at the beach, after the first time Ro ran away. When I was the only one who could talk him into coming back. That was the first time we learned that binding our hands would bind our hearts. That whatever it was that made Ro’s heart pound was the same thing that made mine break. When I felt myself willing the sand up over us, in my mind, smothering the flames inside him, he calmed down; we both did. When we touched—just so—dot to dot—the ache turned in on itself. The fire burned out. We lay together there, hand to hand, until he was sleeping. That’s when I knew I wouldn’t make it without Ro. And Ro wouldn’t last a day without me. He can’t stop the fires alone. He doesn’t care. It’s the hardest thing I know about him. He’d rather let them burn. I’m still lost in thought when I hear the Choppers overhead. We both know what it means, but I’m the one who finally says it. “Embassy Choppers. We have to move.” “Give me a minute.” Shaking in his wet clothes, Ro’s not quite himself yet. I’ve never seen him this rattled. “Are you sure you’re all right?” “I thought you were dead, Dol.” I reach my hand up to his thick brown hair. I pull out a twig, caught behind his ear. I don’t say what I am thinking, that I should be dead, that I am supposed to be dead. A pig is dead and a Padre is dead, I think. Why should luck escape them to find me? Because they were never going to kill me. Because they were coming for me. I wonder. I wonder if the Padre and the pig are the lucky ones. Then I push the thought away and reach for Ro. “I’m not dead. I’m right here.” I try to smile at him, but I can’t. The Chopper is all I can hear, just as the bloody soldier at my feet is all I can see. “Then I thought I was dead.” He swallows a laugh, but the way it bubbles up from his chest, it’s almost a sob. “You nearly were. You can’t just jack a train car and attack the Tracks like that. I don’t know what you were thinking.” I twist his ear, like I would Ramona Jamona. Only hers are soft, like cloth. His are practically caked with mud. “I was thinking I was saving your life.” He doesn’t look up. I sigh and draw my arm around him. “I wish you wouldn’t. Not when it almost kills you. And anyway, someone’s going to have to save both our lives if we don’t get out of here before that thing lands.” I try to push him off, but he pulls me closer, tightening his arm around my waist. “You wish I wouldn’t. But you know I will.” “I know, I know.” I smile, softening in spite of everything. The cave, the unconscious Sympa, the sound of the Choppers. “We’re all we’ve got.” It’s true. We’re practically family—the closest thing we have to it, anyway. But as I say the words, I realize Ro isn’t looking at my eyes. He’s looking at my mouth. The spark that is Ro becomes a firestorm. I can feel my palms beginning to burn, my eyes widening. I know what he is feeling and I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that I can know someone so well and not have known this. “Ro,” I start, but I don’t go on. I don’t know what I would say. That I love him more than I love my own life? It’s true. That we’ve swum half-naked in the ocean without bothering to even look at each other? Also true. That we’ve slept a hundred cold nights together on the tiled floor of Bigger’s Mission kitchen hearth, just the two of us—alongside a bony litter of tired dogs and sheep? That I could no more kiss him than I could one of Biggest’s pigs? Is that also true? I close my eyes and try to imagine kissing Ro. I imagine his lips on mine. His lips, the same ones that have spit pomegranate seeds straight into my mouth. They’re soft, I find myself remembering. They’d be soft, I find myself thinking. At least, softer than his ears. I am afraid to open my eyes. I feel his hands on my waist, as if we are dancing. I feel him slowly pulling me toward him. I let myself be pulled. Almost. Then I hear someone moaning, and I remember we aren’t alone. The Sympa soldier is waking up. RESEARCH MEMORANDUM: THE HUMANITY PROJECT CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET / AMBASSADOR EYES ONLY To: Ambassador Amare Subject: Rebellion Recruitment and Indoctrination Materials Catalogue Assignment: Evidence recovered during raid of Rebellion hideout According to our intelligence, Rebellion recruits are made to memorize and recite the following verse, morning and night: 6 FOUR DOTS I open my eyes. “Ro,” I hiss. But he’s let go of me before I can say it, and is grabbing the gun out of the water. The reality of where we are comes flooding back. The sandy rocks beneath us seem that much sharper, the shallow rush of empty tides that much colder. Our watery cave—just a small indentation in the grassy shoreline—offers no protection at all. Not against the Embassies and their armies. Not for long. The Sympa’s eyes flutter open. Beneath soggy strands of wet hair, they are the same color as the hills behind the Mission—green and gray—but also flecked with gold. Hope and sadness. That’s how he looks to me. Like a rare coin half buried in the ocean floor. A bit of warm metal that somehow catches the light, even from so far below the surface of the waves. I’m staring. I can’t help it. My heart is pounding. I reach toward his face, marveling. His features are the opposite of Ro’s; where Ro is thick brushstrokes and harsh lines, everything about this boy is precise and fine. He’s muscled and compact, where Ro is strong and broad. His bones fit together like someone hammered them out of precious metals, blew them out of glass. “Hey—” Ro shouts. He raises the gun high over his head, ready to strike. I pull my eyes away from the Sympa, my hand away from his face. “Stop it. You don’t have to. He’s hurt enough.” Ro lowers the gun. Then I realize he isn’t listening to me. He’s aiming. “Please,” says the Sympa, though half his head is underwater, and his mouth bubbles, choking when he speaks. “Don’t kill me. I can help.” “Why would you help? You’re the one hunting us.” The Sympa has no answer for that. I splash closer to him in the water, careful to stay between him and Ro’s gun. “Dol, come on. Get out of the way and let me do this. He’s playing us. It’s a trick.” “How do you know?” He looks from me to the Sympa. “Can you get anything off him? Feel him out?” I lean closer to the Sympa, picking up his cold hand from the water. I close my eyes and try to feel what he is feeling. For the first time, I feel something equal to Ro’s spark—equally strong. I feel both of them, and it’s not hard to sort out the emotions. Hatred and anger, from Ro. Fear and confusion, from the boy. And another thing. Something I encounter very rarely. It bubbles up and out, radiating from him, filling the cave. I can practically see it. I recognize it for what it is, only because I have felt it for Ro, and felt it in Ro. Ro and the Padre. Sometimes in Bigger and Biggest. Love. My head is pounding. I drop the boy’s hand, pushing my palms against my temples, as hard as I can. I force myself to breathe until I can get the feelings back under control, just barely. Until the bright whiteness recedes. Then I open my eyes, gasping. “Ro—” I can barely speak. “What is it? What did you get?” Ro moves next to me, but his eyes don’t leave the Sympa. I don’t know what to tell him. I’ve never felt anything quite like this, and I don’t know how to put it into words, not in a way Ro will understand. Not in a way he wants to hear. I look more closely at the Sympa. I pull a button from his jacket, yanking it free of the threads that have bound it there. It’s stamped in brass with a logo even a Grass could recognize. A five-sided shape, a pentagon, surrounding Earth. Gold on a field of scarlet. Earth trapped by what looks like a birdcage. The button changes everything. “He’s not a Sympa.” A sick feeling roils my stomach—and even though I’m speaking to Ro, I can’t rip my eyes away from the button in my hand. “What are you talking about? Of course he’s a Sympa.Look at him.” Ro sounds annoyed. “He’s not just a Sympa. He’s from the Ambassador’s office.” “What?” I nod, twisting the button between my fingers. Shiny as a gold dig, and worth more than everything I own. The closest we’ve ever come to seeing Ambassador Amare is her face plastered on the side of a car rolling down the Tracks. Until we met this boy. The wounded Sympa opens and closes his eyes. They roll back in his head. He’s too beat up to speak, but I think he knows what we are saying. Ro sits on his heels in the water next to me. He draws his short blade from his belt, the one he only uses to pelt rabbits and split melons at the Mission. He wavers, looking at me. I kneel next to the boy—because that’s what he is. He may be a Sympa, but he’s also just a boy. Not much older than Ro and me, by the looks of it. “So this thing—this thing matters to the Ambassador?” He holds the knife to the Sympa’s chin. The Sympa’s eyes open, now wide. “That’s funny, because anything that matters to the Ambassador is pretty much worthless garbage as far as we’re concerned.” He traces a line along the Sympa’s throat. “Right, Dol?” I swallow and say nothing. I am finding it hard to breathe. I don’t know what I think. Ro doesn’t have that problem. Ever. He raises the blade and brings it slashing down, again and again. I can’t look, until Ro turns to me, holding out the proof of his latest violence. A handful of brass Embassy buttons. “What?” “Evidence of what we’ve got. Now we decide. Do we kill him here, or take him back to La Pur?sima?” Ro isn’t talking about the Mission. He’s talking about the Grass rebels. Spluttering, the boy tries to sit up out of the water. I pull his head forward and lean it against my knees. “How could we get him back up the Tracks? Did you see how many Sympas were out there? It would be impossible to hop a car without them seeing us. If the Tracks are even running.” Ro thinks, tracing his blade against his leg. “Yeah, and if you’re right about Brass Buttons here, it’s only going to get worse.” “Grass and Brass. It’s not a good mix.” I try not to think about what will happen to the boy when we get back to the Mission. If we get back to the Mission. What Ro will do to him. What I will let Ro do to him. I shake my head, pulling the boy closer up into my lap in the water. “No.” “Get away from him, Dol.” “Don’t.” “Now.” His voice is cracking. I can see the changing situation is overwhelming him. He loses control as we lose control. Which we have. We did when I saw that button. “Please.” I’m talking to Ro, but I look at the boy. His eyes fix on mine, just for a moment. He moves his hand toward me, a desperate gesture, like a raccoon caught in one of Biggest’s traps, flopping against the metal door one last time before it surrenders. I start, and Ro shoves the weapon closer. A dot of red light—the targeting mechanism of the boy’s own Sympa gun—dances at the bridge of his nose. The boy doesn’t react. Maybe he doesn’t think that Ro will do it. I know he will. He’s done it before. Sympas are a personal threat to his existence. And mine. The hand stretches again, nearer to me. “I’m warning you. Don’t move.” Ro growls the words, and as usual, it’s his tone that tells you everything. The boy’s fingers uncurl, slowly, touching my knees in the water. “Sweet Blessed Lady.” It’s all I can think to say. There, beneath the half-undone leather wrist cuff, beneath the ripped sleeve of a muddy Embassy military jacket, beneath the bloodstained uniform shirt soaked with ocean water— Four blue dots, forming a perfect square. In that second, the world of two people, of Ro and me, shatters into a world of three. Now I understand what I was feeling. Now I understand who this boy is. Or more to the point, what he is. He’s an Icon Child, like Ro and me. There are more of us. My heart is pounding. I knew there were stories—rumors of other Icon Children—but I never really believed there could be more than me and Ro. Had the Padre known? If I had only read the book when I had the chance. “What is it?” Ro hasn’t seen. My mind races. He showed me his markings. Why? Had he seen mine, here in the water? Could he have been conscious when Ro and I bound hands? No. I had been there when Ro smashed him in the face with his own weapon, knocking him out. I was there when he fell. I saw his eyes roll back in his head before anything happened. No. He showed me because he knew about me. He knows about us. He knows. “What’s wrong?” Ro tightens his grip on the gun. “They’ve come for us, Ro.” “Of course they have. What do you think that was all about back there, on the train? They send out their fat, lazy Sympas to drag us into their stupid Projects, just like the other Remnants. I told the Padre we needed to arm ourselves, we needed better defenses. He wouldn’t listen.” I shake my head and try again. “They’ve found us, Ro.” I hold up the boy’s wrist, and I unwrap mine. The resemblance is undeniable. The distance of the dot from the palm, the size of the mark. Next to each other, we are perfect matches. Just like Ro and me. RESEARCH MEMORANDUM: THE HUMANITY PROJECT CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET / AMBASSADOR EYES ONLY To: Ambassador Amare From: Dr. Huxley-Clarke Subject: Icon Children Mythology Subtopic: Rager Catalogue Assignment: Evidence recovered during raid of Rebellion hideout The following is a reprint of a recovered page, thick, homemade paper, thought to be torn from an anti-Embassy propaganda tract titled Icon Children Exist! Most likely hand-published by a fanatical cult or Grass Rebellion faction. Text-scan translation follows. 7 A DECISION “Four dots. You know what this means? There are more, Ro. More than us.” I look at Ro. Ro studies the boy in my arms. He doesn’t put down his blade. He doesn’t put down the Sympa gun. He grips each more tightly. I feel a red-hot blaze of pure hatred that I have never felt before. Not from Ro, anyway. “Three,” Ro finally says. He points to me. “One.” Himself. “Two.” The boy. “Four. What about Three? What did they do to him?” The boy says nothing. The boy only looks. He moves his head restlessly, and a moment later I hear why. Embassy Choppers overhead, closer than before. The blades flap, low and loud. They want to make sure we know they're coming. In force. “Damn. Damn. Damn,” Ro mutters, wiping his sleeve against his face. “We need more time.” I look down at the wounded boy and feel his rising panic. “We have to get him out of here.” Ro’s voice is cold and hard. “Why?” “Ro.” “He’s one of them.” “Look at his wrist, Ro. He couldn’t be one of them, not even if he wanted to be.” “Why not?” He looks as stubborn as the rock he wants to throw at me right now. “Because he’s one of us.” Before Ro can respond, the boy struggles to get to his feet. I push him up from behind, but I can barely pull myself up along with him; he’s all but deadweight. “Give me my gun,” he croaks. “Now.” Ro laughs. “I must have hit you harder than I thought. You’re talking nonsense.” “Give me back my gun. It’s your only chance to survive.” “Really? What are you threatening me with? The gun you don’t have?” “I’m trying to save you. They see you with my gun and you’ll die. Both of you.” He doesn’t look back at me. I slide my arms down, letting go of him. Now, just barely, he is standing—swaying—on his own. “What’s your name, Buttons?” Ro smiles, without a trace of friendliness. The boy hesitates. I let my arm fall on his shoulder. “It’s all right. We know you’re from the Embassy. Just tell us who you are.” “My name is Lucas Amare.” I bite my lip so as not to gasp aloud. Ro bursts out laughing. “Oh, very good. That’s excellent. You’re human contraband like us, and your own mother is the Ambassador?” He grins at me as if we are sharing a really exceptional joke. You know, have you heard the one about the three Icon Children and the Ambassador? He says it again, shaking his head. “Lucas Amare is an Icon Child? And you thought we had secrets to keep, Dol.” All I can do is stare. Ro’s right. We aren’t contraband, not exactly, but it feels that way. Whatever we are is something the Padre went to great lengths to conceal, not just from the Embassy but from everyone, even from Bigger and Biggest. And now we find this Sympa, who’s also an Icon Child, living right in the Embassy itself? It makes no sense at all. I understand what Ro is thinking. There is no way the son of the Ambassador, the devil herself—the Hole’s only earthly link to the General Ambassador to the Planet, GAP Miyazawa, and beyond him, the House of Lords—can have anything in common with the two of us. No matter how many markings we share. And with that, the world is back the way Ro likes it to be. A world of two. “It’s not a secret. Not from my mother. She knows I’m here.” He sounds defensive. “Here, in this miserable water cave? Or here, out poaching innocent Grass children?” Ro is almost laughing. He can’t believe our good luck, that we stumbled upon something so valuable. Someone. “I found out you were being brought in, both of you. I wanted to—I wanted to help.” “Help us? Or help them?” The boy lowers his eyes. Ro smirks. “I see.” The Choppers are growing louder. It sounds like they’re landing right on top of us. I inch my head out from under the lip of the bluff, and I can see the edge of the blades, maybe fifty feet up. “That took too long. The Choppers.” The Sympa boy—Lucas—says what I am thinking. “They’ve gone back for reinforcements.” “Good. They’ll need them,” Ro says darkly. I step between them, placing both hands on the muzzle of the gun. “Move, Dol.” Ro shakes the gun, exasperated. “I can’t. Lucas is right.” “You’re listening to Buttons now?” “His name isn’t Buttons, and I trust him. I can feel him, Ro. You told me to.” Ro’s mouth tightens into a scowl. He doesn’t like the idea of me poking around in Lucas Amare’s mind, that much is clear. I ignore him. I try again. “You have to believe me. We can trust him.” “You don’t know anything, Dol. We don’t know how he works, what he can do. Maybe those marks are fake. Maybe he’s controlling you with some kind of Embassy endorphins—they have every scientist in the Hole working on one Classified weapon or another.” “Your new Grass Rebellion friends tell you that?” He’s angry, but now I’m angry too. “Maybe. But either way, he’s been sent here to bring us in—he already admitted that much himself.” The Embassy Choppers are so loud now, he has to shout. Even then, I can barely hear him. I pull on the gun with both hands. “Let go, Ro.” “Don’t, Doloria de la Cruz. Please.” “Let go, Furo Costas. Please.” I’m begging you. That’s what his eyes say, even if he’s too proud to ever use the words himself. I’m begging him too, with every tug on the gun barrel. Lucas watches us. “I give you my word. I won’t let anything happen to you.” “Shut up, Buttons.” Ro is panicking, which is dangerous. I put my other hand on his wrist. “We can do this. We have to. We don’t have a choice.” Now I see the ropes falling into the water, all around us. Sympas are about to drop from the sky, along with the rain. Then I say the words Ro doesn’t want to hear most of all. “We have to trust him. We have nowhere else to go.” “Give me the gun, Ro.” Lucas is shouting now. He holds out his hands. I feel Lucas reaching toward Ro. I feel the warmth unfolding, the rush of his influence. Lucas is intoxicating. Ro’s fingers flex on the grip. Dazed, he takes a step backward, trying to brace himself. But I already know it’s no use. Ro lets go. I stumble from the weight of the gun, almost knocking Lucas over. I press the gun into his hands and step away, just as the cave fills with Sympas. Armed and masked. Now the tracking dots are on our foreheads, dancing between our eyes. “Took you long enough. Bring them in, boys. I’m beat. Stubborn Grass. Had to hold them here all afternoon.” Lucas lurches out from the rocks, splashing through the water. He stops, steadying himself. “One thing. I don’t want anybody talking to them without my permission.” He shoots Ro a meaningful look. You don’t have to read minds to know what he’s saying. Shut the hell up. Then it’s my turn. “And careful with the girl. She needs medical attention. They both do. Send them straight up to Doc when we land.” Lucas speaks with authority, more than his years, more than he has. The Sympas salute as he passes. Only I know he barely has the strength to hold his gun. “Mr. Amare.” An angry-looking man in a heavily decorated military coat stands next to Lucas. I recognize the wings on his jacket, and the bile rises in my throat. He was there, in the chapel. He is one of the Sympas who killed the Padre. Their leader. I swallow. I try to get my breath, but it feels like there isn’t enough oxygen in the air. I watch him speak. The words are civil but the tone is not. Lucas reddens, and I realize the words were meant to remind him he is not a Sympa soldier at all. He only wants to be. Lucas nods. “Colonel.” The man’s eyes move over him, taking in the blood on Lucas’s face. The wet clothes. The swaying weakness in his body, how he’s not standing quite right. The Colonel’s head is completely bald, and a jagged scar interrupts the sheen of his skin. As if someone has taken a knife and sliced halfway around the top of his head, as if he were a jack-o’-lantern. His coat has a strange collar, like a priest’s. I see in a glance that he has nothing to do with any church, on any planet. He doesn’t acknowledge us, though I know he feels me staring at him. I tentatively reach out for him in my mind, but I feel a shock of cold, like I have been repelled by freezing water. He fingers the buttonless edge of Lucas’s jacket. Lucas says nothing. Then, slowly, the Colonel raises his eyes to me. They are the color of dirty ice. I shiver and stop trying to see behind them. Lucas and the Jack-o’-Lantern Man turn back to the waiting command Chopper, sleek and silver and emblazoned with letters and numbers that somehow spell out wealth and importance. The Chopper is deceptively small for something worth more than a year of wages for everyone in the Hole combined. As they climb in, I notice a slender girl standing next to the Chopper. She wears the same uniformed coat as Lucas, but her hair is silver and severe, with a slash of bangs cropped against her forehead. It’s possible that I wouldn’t have seen her at all in the crowd of Sympas that surround the Chopper. I do, though, not because of how she looks, which is striking enough, but because of the way her eyes track Lucas. Like a predator locked on her prey. A king snake, maybe, or a rattler. I close my eyes. I can’t sense my way through to her, not in the chaos and the noise of the scene. In a second the opportunity is gone. The girl falls into step behind Lucas and the Colonel, and they rise into the clouds with a few flashing twists of blades, without so much as a look goodbye. I glance over at Ro, next to me, as they cuff him. He resists, but a Sympa guard kicks the back of his legs, and he falls awkwardly to the ground. Another Sympa yanks him up with a threatening scowl. “You want a fight, boy?” The others laugh. Ro is seething, looking at me accusingly. I hold his eyes, pleading. He turns and shakes his head, climbing onto the transport. He is miserable, his eyes dark and wet. I try to remember if this is the first time I have ever seen him cry. I think it is. I hope I’m not wrong to trust Lucas and let them take us. I hope Ro’s not right. Out here in the rain, as I board the transport, I can’t feel anything but scared. RESEARCH MEMORANDUM: THE HUMANITY PROJECT CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET / AMBASSADOR EYES ONLY To: Ambassador Amare From: Dr. Huxley-Clarke Subject: Icon Children Mythology Subtopic: Lover Catalogue Assignment: Evidence recovered during raid of Rebellion hideout The following is a reprint of a recovered page, thick, homemade paper, thought to be torn from an anti-Embassy propaganda tract titled Icon Children Exist! Most likely hand-published by a fanatical cult or Grass Rebellion faction. Text-scan translation follows. 8 Doc “Dol, wake up. You drifted off.” I turn to see Lucas, his face framed by the water, rough on every side. “Where’s Ro?” I turn to look for him, but all I can see is Lucas. His eyes, and broad swaths of sand and sea. “He’s fine. It’s you I’m worried about.” He pushes up his sleeve and holds out his naked wrist. “I want you to feel better, Dol.” Four dots. Four blue dots. The blood is gone now. So is his shirt. Lucas puts his hands inside the bottom of my sweater, tugging at it. He looks at me, questioningly, before gently pulling it over my head. I shiver. Lucas doesn’t seem to notice. He takes my cold, bare arm in his hands. Unties my binding and pulls it loose, letting it hang halfway off my arm, undone. Where his hand runs over my skin, I have goose bumps. “Say something.” Now Lucas slips his fingers through mine. “I’ve been waiting for you, all this time. I know you feel it too.” He begins to wrap the cloth around our arms. As he works the cloth, our elbows touch, then our forearms. Our wrists. He laces our fingers together, more tightly. His fingers dig into the back of my hand, inching closer … Until I ball up my hand. Because I can’t let him do it. There are only millimeters of air between our markings but it might as well be miles. I can’t let go. I can’t do it to my best friend, the only person I have ever let feel how it is to be me. And now it isn’t Lucas who is holding my hand, but Ro. And we’re back underneath the bluff again, in the cave. I can hear the waves, all around us. Ro leans closer to me, looking at my mouth, and suddenly all I can taste is pomegranate— I wake up staring at pomegranate seeds. No. They’re not pomegranate seeds. They’re ceiling tiles, with hundreds of tiny dots on them. And the waves aren’t waves. They don’t crash, they only hum. Evenly and endlessly. Machines. It’s machine noise. I close and open my eyes again. I don’t know where I am, at first. I know I’m not wearing my clothes. The white cloth robe is thick and plush, and I think I am still dreaming. I want to sleep again, but I can’t. I am caught somewhere in between. My eyes are heavy-lidded and my body slow and thick. I am so tired. A wave of nausea washes over me and my head pounds. Then I close my eyes and force myself to remember. The Padre. The Tracks. The Merk. Ro. Lucas. I open my eyes, blushing, remembering my dream. Remembering the feel of his fingers on my skin, the way his dirty gold hair hung in his eyes. Then I remember the rest, the part that isn’t a dream. The Embassy Chopper. Santa Catalina Island. The Embassy. The realization of where I am makes me sit up in my cot. Because I’m not at the Mission; I’m at the Embassy on Santa Catalina Island. Hours away from anywhere I’ve ever been before, and the heart of the Occupation, as far as the Hole is concerned. The Hole and everyone in and around it. I might as well have spent the night in the House of Lords itself. I try to remember the details. In my mind, I trace my way from the Chopper to the room. The foggy ride to the island, holding back the urge to vomit from the turbulence. Santa Catalina coming into view through the low mist that hangs over the water. The Embassy walls rising up from the rocks, the windows rising higher above them. What came after the rocks and the walls? The docks, swarming with uniformed Sympas? The building-sized poster of the Ambassador in her crimson military jacket, the one she wears in all the pictures? The doctors. They must have shot me up with something, because that’s where the memories fade. Ro’s gone. That’s the last thing I remember. Ro’s hand being twisted out of mine. I can’t feel him anywhere. They must have taken him away, to a different prison cell, or a different hospital room. I look at my hands. Some sort of restraints—cuffs, I think—have left deep, red grooves, but I’m not cuffed now. And my binding—I’m not wearing it. I try not to panic, but I feel naked without it. As I lie back against the soft pillow, I am almost certain this is not a prison. At least, not officially. The room is plain, military looking. A large gray rectangle. Rows of tall windows line one wall, with stripes of horizontal shades that keep me from seeing what is outside. Gray and white, gray and white. There don’t seem to be any other colors here—except for the beeping, flashing lights on the walls. Beyond that, there are places for many more cots—I count at least three, judging by the marks on the walls. But there is only one cot in the room, and I am in it. Finally, I see my clothes are neatly folded in a pile on a chair. More of a relief, my worn leather chestpack sits next to it on the floor. It’s unsettling to see it lying there, exposed, instead of hidden beneath my clothes as it normally is. The small pile is everything that belongs to me in the world. Almost. Someone has taken them off me. Someone has wrapped me in this robe. Someone has also tagged me like a troublemaking coyote: a wire clamps down on the tip of my middle finger. I wiggle it; the wire connects to a small machine that beeps pleasantly. Screens light up on the walls, all around me, like beating hearts encased in plastic skins. It only takes me a second to realize that these particular flashing lights—the white ones—correspond with the movements of my own wired finger. The Embassy knows when I move so much as a finger. I think of the string of lights that Ro got me for my birthday. How afraid the Padre was that we’d be seen. How right he was to fear them. I wag my fingers again, but when the wall lights up, I see something more troubling. Beneath the wire tag, my right wrist is covered with a bandage. As I examine my arm, the machine hum grows louder— “The Medics did not touch your marker, if that is what you are worried about. You seem worried.” The voice comes from behind me. I whirl around in my cot, but there’s no one there. “It was just a routine procedure. Standard Embassy protocol, DNA sampling. Everything went as expected.” I scramble to stand up. The floor is cold on my feet. “I am sorry. I did not mean to surprise you. I have been waiting for an appropriate time to introduce myself, as you were so busy with REM sleep.” I back toward the door, pulling the tag from my finger, ripping the bandage off my skin. My arm appears to be fine, only a small bloody smudge next to my marking. I exhale. I scan the room, but there is no sign of where the voice could be coming from. Then I see a small, round grating rattling next to me, on the wall. “Lucas has already taken issue with me twice this morning on the subject.” I start at the name. “Allow me to clarify: I was not watching you sleep. I was monitoring your sleep. For diagnostic purposes. Would you like me to explain the difference?” I remember my dream. “No.” My own voice sounds wrong here. I clear my throat. “Thank you, Room.” I steady myself with one hand on the wall. I see other gratings—in the ceiling, the walls, above my cot. This room, it seems, is made for this exact sort of conversation. Faceless. Bodiless. An ambush. “Diagnostic purposes?” It is better, I think, to keep the voice talking until I know more. It talking. Because it really isn’t a person at all, and the voice isn’t a voice. It has no inflection, no emphasis. No accent. Each word is a chord of machine sounds, synthetic noise. Grassgirl that I am, I have never heard such a thing. “You might be interested to know you are in fact running a low fever. I am curious to learn if that is customary for a Weeper.” I clear my throat again, trying to sound calm. “A what?” There’s no way in Hole I’m telling anyone at the Embassy anything about myself. “That is, to be precise, what you are called, is it not? A young person of your genus classification? A Sorrow Icon? A Weeper—that would be the correct Grass colloquialism?” “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My words echo in the empty room. I grab my clothes off the chair. “I can see how you would be confused. It is important to understand context, which is of course a problem I find almost singularly ironic. Not having a physical context, myself.” My underwear and undershirt are strangely stiff. They have been washed, and not in the old Mission bathtubs. I sniff the cloth. It smells like disinfectant spray. I touch my hair with the sudden realization that it is clean, too. I have been washed and dried and scrubbed. It feels wrong. I miss the dirt, my comfortable second skin of muck and must. I feel exposed. “Who are you?” I pull my army pants up under my robe. “Why am I here?” “I am Doc. That is, to be more exact, what Lucas calls me. His companion, Tima Li, calls me Orwell.” “Companion?” “Classmate. Kinswoman. I believe she was there when you were retrieved.” The girl at the Chopper. I make a face, thinking of her glare. “Got it.” The voice pauses—but only for a moment. “Ambassador Amare calls me Computer.” I freeze at the mention of the Ambassador’s name. As if I could forget she was here. “The Embassy Wik recognizes me by my binary code. Would you care to know it? I am happy to tell you.” “No. Thank you, Doc.” I add his name, impulsively. Somehow, the fact of his nonhumanness is comforting. You can’t be a sympathizer if you can’t sympathize. I pull my thick, woven sweater over my head. A present from the Mission looms, made of fifty different colors of scraps of yarn. A Remnant sweater, perfect for a Remnant like me. “You are most welcome, Doloria.” A new coldness shoots through me at the mention of my real name. The name only the Padre knew, and Ro. And now this voice, echoing through the walls of the Embassy. I could be talking to anyone. I could be talking to the Ambassador. I sigh and jam my feet into my combat boots. “You’ve got the wrong person, Doc. My name is Dolly.” I can’t bear to hear my full name spoken in the Embassy. Even by a voice without a body. I pick up my binding and begin to wind the cloth around my wrist. “You still didn’t tell me what I’m doing here.” “Breathing. Shedding squamous skin cells. Pumping oxygenated blood through your ventricular chambers. Would you like me to go on?” “No. I meant, why am I here?” “On Earth? In the Californias? In—” “Doc! At the Embassy. In this room. Why here? Why now?” “Statistically, I find I am less successful with queries employing the word why. As a Virtual Human, my interpretive skills are somewhat limited. As a Virtual Physician, I do not have the clearance necessary to provide you with a conclusive response. I was overwritten as a VPHD by a senior engineer in the Embassy’s Special Tech Division.” “Special Tech Division? STD?” The Embassy and their stupid acronyms. “STD. That is what my friend called it. The engineer. It is, I believe, a joke.” “It is.” “Do you find it funny?” I thought about it. “No.” I pick up my chestpack, slipping it over my head. Then, hesitating, I reach into the pack and slip on one last thing—my birthday necklace, the leather cord with the single blue bead. Ro’s gift. I move to the window. Doc is still talking. “Would you like to hear another joke?” “All right.” I slide my hand beneath the blinds. Outside, the fog is as thick as it was last night. I can see nothing past the far wall of the Embassy and the dull, gray air that settles over it. “My name is Dr. Orwell Bradbury Huxley-Clarke, STD, VPHD. My name is a joke, is it not?” Doc sounds proud. I grimace at the stuck window. “Those are names of writers, from before The Day. George Orwell. Ray Bradbury. Aldous Huxley. Arthur C. Clarke. I’ve read their stories.” In Great Minds of the Future: An Anthology. Ro stole it from the Padre’s personal library, the year we both turned thirteen. I try pushing up a second window with my hands. It’s also sealed shut. I move to try the next. “Yes. Some of them wrote about machines that could talk. My family, or my ancestors. That is what my friend liked to say. My grandfather is a computer named Hal.” “From a book.” “Yes. My grandfather is fictional. Yours, I take it, is biological?” “Mine is dead.” “Ah, yes. Well. My friend has a strange sense of humor. Had.” There are no windows left to try. All that remains is the door, though I suspect it will be locked. If Doc is tracking me, he doesn’t mention it. I try to remember where we are in our conversation. “Had?” I move toward the door. “He left the STD, so I invoke the past tense. My friend is gone. It is as if he were dead. To me.” “I see. Does that make you sad?” “It is not a tragedy. I am familiar with tragedy in literature. Oedipus at Colonus is a tragedy. Antigone is a tragedy. The Iliad.” “Haven’t heard of it.” It’s true. I’ve read every book the Padre let me find—and most of the ones he didn’t know I’d found. Nothing the voice mentions, though. “I translate the original Latin and ancient Greek texts. I use classical mythology to ground my understanding of the human psyche. One of the parameters of my programming.” “Does that help?” I ask, through gritted teeth. The door appears to be jammed. Or, more likely, locked. “Old books?” I rattle the handle, but it won’t give. Of course. “No. Not yet.” “Sorry to hear it.” I push harder. “I am not sorry. I am a machine.” The voice pauses. I slam my body against the metal. Nothing. “I am a machine,” Doc repeats. I give up, looking at the round grating in the ceiling. “Was that another joke, Doc?” “Yes. Did you find it funny?” I hear a noise and turn to look at the door. The handle begins to turn on its own, and I feel a surge of relief. “Yes, actually. Very.” I grab the handle with both hands, pulling wide open the door of what the plaque tells me is Santa Catalina Examination Facility #9B. Then I know I’m not going anywhere, because Lucas Amare and a crowd of Sympa soldiers are standing in my way. EMBASSY CITY TRIBUNAL VIRTUAL AUTOPSY: DECEASED PERSONAL RELATED MEDIA TRANSCRIPT (DPRMT) CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET Assembled by Dr. O. Brad Huxley-Clarke, VPHD Note: Media Transcript conducted at the private request of Amb. Amare Santa Catalina Examination Facility #9B Embassy City Chronicle, the Lower Californias Urban Crime Desk GRASSGIRL FOUND DEAD, BELIEVED SUICIDE Santa Catalina Local authorities were stymied upon discovering the body of a youthful Grass female floating in the waters off Santa Catalina Island. The Embassy headquarters, home to high-ranking officials, as well as the Ambassador, expressed ignorance regarding the circumstances of the female’s death. The deceased, whose name has not been released to the media for security considerations, lived on the island and attended the Santa Catalina Institute. “We’re as in the dark as you are,” noted Dr. Brad Huxley-Clarke, who oversaw the autopsy. He declined further comment. “She seemed adequately happy,” said Colonel Catallus, the deceased’s instructor. “From her behavior, you wouldn’t have surmised anything was wrong.” When pressed for further details, he noted she “apparently loved animals” and was a “tolerably good person.” 9 THE AMBASSADOR “Going somewhere?” Lucas shakes his head, almost imperceptibly, as soon as he says it. He never moves his eyes from mine and I understand immediately. Not here as a friend. “Who, me?” My eyes linger on the weapons strapped flat against the soldiers’ hips. I curse myself for not hiding my chestpack beneath my sweater, like usual. “Just thought I heard something out here. Which I guess I did.” Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/margaret-stohl/icons/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. 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