Icons (19 page)

“Orwell!” Tima snaps.

Time to go.

“What now?” I’m the one who says it, though we’re all thinking it as we find our way back through the closed doors and leave the far recesses of the library, moving toward our glass prison classroom.

Colonel Catallus is standing there waiting. We can see him from the other side of the room.

“We could ask the Ambassador nicely? Say ‘pretty please’?” Ro trails his hands against the wall as he walks. The archivists look at him as he passes. Ro is good at irritating people; he’ll find the one thing you don’t want him to do, and do it every time. It’s one of his many gifts.

“Shut up, Ro.” Lucas doesn’t even need Ro to try. Everything Ro does irritates him naturally.

Ro doesn’t stop. “Come on, Junior. There has to be a way around a PP Ass-ified designation.”

“Classified PD designation.” Lucas rolls his eyes. “And there isn’t.”

“Or maybe you just don’t want to know.”

Lucas turns to Ro, so slowly that I have time to move out of the way, backing against the library wall.

“Lucas,” Tima warns.

I say nothing. I only look at Ro, begging him to let it go.

“What are you saying, Grass?” Lucas is seething.

“I’m saying you’ve got a pretty good deal here, don’t you, Buttons? The rest of us might get sent to the Projects, but not you.”

Now Ro takes a step toward Lucas.

“You see, our families might get killed—oh wait, they did—but not yours. You don’t want things to change. In fact, you need them not to. Because if the Rebellion succeeds, Mom’s out of a job, and you might just end up back in the Projects, hauling dirt for a living, right along with the rest of us.”

Lucas leans toward Ro and I no longer see the two of them, only a cloud of white and a streak of red.

“You don’t know me,” I hear Lucas say. “You don’t know anything about me. You don’t know what I know or what I can do.”

I close my eyes and feel the two currents clashing so strongly that I stumble.

I open my eyes—to see Lucas disappearing down the aisle that leads to the library exit.

I don’t know why or what I am doing, but before I know it I am running down the aisle after him. Ro doesn’t follow me.

“Dol! If you—”

If you take his side.

If you leave me for him.

If it—this—we change
—

He doesn’t have to say the words. I feel the reddening fury, directed at Lucas, me, the universe, but he doesn’t move.

Ro knows this isn’t about him. He knows it and it hurts him and he probably also knows I’m sorry. And it doesn’t make anything better.

Life will burn you off like that, as Ro would say.

“Dol! Wait!” This time, it’s Tima.

I wish I could.

“Where are you going?” She asks again, because Ro doesn’t. Because he won’t.

I don’t answer because I can’t.

I run all the way until I catch up to Lucas as he walks out the front of the Embassy complex. I am breathless,
tumbling through the door after him, before the guards he’s talked his way past can change their minds.

Lucas ignores me but he holds the door. If he’s surprised, he doesn’t show it. I can’t get a feel for him, either. There’s too much going on, too much static in my brain.

My wrist begins to hurt, beneath my binding, the moment I set foot out the door.

Strange.

It’s like the building knows I’m leaving. Of course it does. The Embassy knows everything.

Except where we’re going—they can’t know.

Even I don’t know that.

The blades of the Chopper are already rotating, carving a circle in the sky above our heads. Lucas climbs into the seat behind the pilot. He picks up a set of massive earphones and slides them over his head.

“Porthole, Freeley,” he shouts at the pilot.

He’s headed into the Hole.

My heart skips, and I grip the sides of my seat. I’ve never actually been in the city. Not farther than the Tracks.

The pilot looks over his shoulder, grins. I recognize the dilated pupils immediately. In the world of Lucas, everyone is sedated and pliable.

But this Freeley isn’t giving up so easily as Lilias. His
mouth is struggling to form the words. He’s putting up a fight.

“You’ve filed papers, Lucas? You’re not going to get me in trouble this time?”

Lucas nods, though I know it is a lie.

“You know, I had my wings grounded for a fortnight after your last little stunt.” Freeley looks amused, but he isn’t about to go anywhere. His hands aren’t anywhere near the controls, they’re twitching in his lap.

“I’m on business for the Ambassador. In and out, won’t take long.” The pilot doesn’t respond, but I notice he slips his hands under his legs, the whole weight of his body keeping them down. Clearly he’s been with Lucas long enough to know a trick or two.

“Come on, Freeley.” Lucas is impatient.

“Right. And if I check the Wik, I’ll see all the proper paperwork, filed just as it should be?”

“Go ahead, if you don’t believe me. It’s all there.”

The pilot raises an eyebrow. “Right.”

“It’s there, Freeley.”

Freeley moves his hand slowly to the control panel, as if he was underwater—or pulling away from a magnetic force, a hundred times the strength of his own will, as the case may be. He flicks a dial with his gloved finger, and there it is.

AMARE, LUCAS
. The time. The date. The approvals.

I can’t believe it.

Freeley looks at me skeptically. I shove the earphones on, sliding into the seat next to Lucas.

“I don’t know what you did, but I give. Tell your girlfriend to buckle up.” Freeley turns back around.

Lucas doesn’t say anything. I fasten my seat belt and look out my own window.

Lucas taps on my shoulder.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“Why not?”

“I have business in the Hole—I’m going to see someone.”

“Who?”

“Someone who might have the answers we need. It’s going to be dangerous. The Hole always is. You should go back inside.”

I nod, as if I can’t understand what he is saying. Lucas only has to look at me, and my hand automatically goes to the door. The familiar warm current pushes me against it, away from him. If I let it, if I let go, I will do what he wants before I know why I’m doing it.

No.

I force my hand back down and, like Freeley, shove it under my legs.

Lucas looks away. “Fine.”

The noise grows. I feel my body jerk away from the ground and weave into the air. Santa Catalina and the
Embassy and the Presidio disappear beneath me, a square of stone walls behind more walls. Ro and Tima and Colonel Catallus and Doc and the Ambassador disappear along with it.

Or maybe I am the one disappearing.

Either way, I am ready to go.

DPPT (CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE)

Catalogue at Time of Death includes:

20. A gold necklace found on the body of the deceased. The cruciform charm is

Filed under Miscellany.

The Porthole docks are teeming with life. Small skiffs, battered dinghies, homemade fishing rafts—left over from when there were fish—line the shore. Beyond them, only the Sympa ferries move into the deeper, darker waters. They’re so much bigger and sleeker and more serious than everything else it almost looks comical, like sharks in a goldfish pond.

We land, and I jump from the Chopper as it’s powering down. Lucas stays behind and says something to Freeley, who smiles and leans back in the cockpit, getting comfortable.

“I told him we’d be here in a couple of hours. Hopefully he doesn’t get a call before that and come looking for us.” Lucas takes a gray bundle from beneath the seat of the
Chopper. “Speaking of people looking for us, remember, we have to keep a low profile.” Lucas pulls an old hooded sweatshirt over his uniform, hood up. “It’s not safe for us here, and I don’t want to take any chances.” He tosses another one to me. “Put it on.”

I roll my eyes. “I get it. If you’re not careful you’ll have a flock of Remnant girls attacking and tearing off your clothes. I don’t have that problem.”

“Dol. Have you ever been to the Hole?”

I shake my head.

“Trust me. You’ll want it.”

I pull the shapeless gray thing on.

I follow Lucas from the landing strip to the highway. Remnant beggars and vendors line the docks. On the other end, I see a pair of Sympa guards walk slowly through the area. One of them casually points a gun at a vendor who drops to the ground, cowering. The other laughs and picks through the man’s food, taking what he wants. The guards let the Blackhole Market happen, looking the other way, as long as they eat well. I pull my hood further down.

The scene is overwhelming, especially to a Grass like me. We could buy anything within the first few minutes of walking toward the Hole, anything on earth. Clothing. Shoes. Bottles of herb-steeped water. Dried animal meats.

My stomach turns.

“Look.” Lucas points. “The Projects.” It’s true. Down in Porthole Bay, I can spot the massive construction site. High walls topped with barbed wire surround the enormous complex, where Remnant workers live. Smokestacks protrude from a billowing cloud of dirty gray-black ash. A jerking crane swings an unseen load of cargo.

They say the smoke never stops blowing, the cranes never stop moving. Whatever they’re doing, they’re doing it night and day. Whatever they’re building, they’re building it on the backs of Remnants like Ro and me. That’s about all anyone knows. Nobody leaves the Projects once they go in. The Embassy runs the Projects, but they’re under direct orders from the House of Lords. According to the rumors, there are Projects going up near all the Icons, on different coastlines all around the world.

“It’s a lot bigger than I thought,” I say. I almost can’t take it in. The steel arms reach all the way out past the breakers, like a military base built over the water. “I wonder what it’s for.” People say a lot of things about the Projects. They’re building homes for the Lords. Slave quarters for the survivors, after the Lords turned most of the world into a string of Silent Cities. Massive pumps to leech the earth dry. Processing plants to turn people into food. The list is long and always growing longer.

Lucas says nothing, which only makes me wonder
more. He’s the Ambassador’s son. It’s possible that he knows the purpose of the Projects, or that at least he could find out. But I don’t ask again, and he doesn’t tell me.