Icons (24 page)

“You’re what?” Lucas pushes himself against the table. I think he would bolt if he could, but there are rows of Rebellion Grass between him and the door.

“Was that really necessary, Hux? I should have pulled your plug again.” Fortis shakes his head.

“Hux? You have a name for Doc, too?” I don’t know which I find more confusing, that the Merk is somehow friends with Doc—if you can call it that—or that the Merk is no Merk at all.

“I apologize, Fortis, if I have spoken in error.”

“Did you or didn’t you? Speak in error?” Lucas looks at his wrist, as if Doc is somehow there.

“I believe Fortis and I had agreed that at some point it would become beneficial to reveal certain truths about ourselves,” says the voice.

“Yourselves? What’s the truth about you, Doc? Or do you have more names I don’t know?” Lucas looks annoyed.

“I have been called just over one hundred derivatives of my longer name. Would you care to hear them? It is a slightly different query.” The familiar refrain comforts me.

“No, actually.” He puts down his cup.

“Leave Hux alone. He’s a good enough fellow. I was the one who said you wouldn’t agree to meet me, if you knew who I really was.”

“Why is that? Who are you?” I can feel Lucas’s turmoil radiating into the rest of us. He’s as contagious as ever, only now what he gives me is closer to a chill than anything else.

“Does it really matter? It shouldn’t. What should matter to you is this: you an’ me, all of us—we’re goin’ to take out the Icon.”

“Excuse me?”

“The Icon, at what used to be the Observatory. High time we did somethin’ about it.”

“You’re wrong. We can’t do anything. The Icon can’t be destroyed. Nothing works or lives anywhere near it. No one could get close enough to touch it.” Lucas isn’t buying it.

Fortis continues calmly. “I know more than you might think, and you might learn somethin’ if you stop
and listen. The Icon is how the Embassy controls the Hole. The Icon is how the House of Lords controls the Embassy. Controls everythin’. Everythin’ comes back to the Icon.” Fortis shakes his head.

“Not everything,” says Lucas.

“Actually, the Icon does control everythin’.” Fortis winks at me. “But not everyone, Doloria.”

“Everything and everyone,” I insist. “Even us. Here we are, powerless. Controlled by the Embassy, like everyone else.”

“I won’t argue with you there, Dol. But think about this—how do you suppose you came to have your name? Amoris? Doloris?”

“Because she survived The Day?” Lucas frowns at him.

“Not entirely.”

“Because she has special abilities, then?” He tries again.

Fortis shrugs.

“What are you saying, Fortis?” Lucas rubs his hands through his lank blond hair, frustrated.

I lose my patience. “I don’t know much about the Icon, but even I know we can’t get near it. We’d die, like everyone else.” The images from the Silent Cities flood my mind again, and I focus on the cup in front of me, trying not to see them.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Look. I’ll tell you what. We’ll
pay a visit to the Icon. Have a look around for yourself, let me know what you think.”

“Now?” I don’t believe him. I don’t want to. “Stop playing games with us, Fortis. Tell us what you know. What does this have to do with us? What are we?”

“You feel things, Dol. All four of you. You feel things in a most particular fashion. More than other people. More than anyone.”

“And?”

“And it’s not just an accident. Those feelings, those emotions are what make you powerful. So all I ask is that you have a little look-see. You might be surprised.”

“How do you know what we’ll find at the Icon? How can you be sure of anything?” I’m so overwhelmed, and so tired. I don’t know if I want to scream or cry.

“I can’t. But I know more about you than anyone else, love.” Fortis pulls a book—my book—out of the inside of his jacket.

“You see, I wrote the book. Well, Hux an’ me, when you get right down to it.”

The book about me. The Book of Icons. The book the Ambassador killed my Padre for.

A doctor wrote it. That’s what the Padre said.

Did he mean Doc?

My mind is reeling and I reach for the book—just as Fortis pulls it away.

“You want your precious book back, you’ll have to earn it. Take a little walk with me first.”

“Why should I?” My eyes narrow. Lucas shifts uncomfortably, next to me.

“Because I blew up the Tracks for you. Nearly lost a finger. And a deal is a deal.”

DPPT (CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE)

Catalogue at Time of Death includes:

38. One 10-cm-wide strip of muslin, splattered with what appears to be dried human blood.

Tear is consistent with wrist binding worn by the Deceased.

Will be scanned and sent to Embassy Labs for analysis, as per protocol #83421.

“All right.”

I’ll do it. I have no choice.

Fortis might not be a Merk—but he’s downright mercenary. There will be no book until I go with him to the Icon. It disappears almost as quickly as it came.

“First we walk.” Fortis pulls himself up.

I can’t let it drop. “Fortis. I have to know. What’s so important about that stupid book?”

“Not yet. We take a field trip. We check out the Icon, do a little reconnaissance. Then we can have readin’ hour, as long as you like.”

There is no arguing with Fortis—at least, no more arguing—which is why, within a matter of minutes, we find
ourselves walking down a dusty street in the distinct direction of the foothills.

“He’s following us, do you see him?” I look over my shoulder, nervously. The walk to the Observatory has taken hours, during the last few of which we’ve been followed.

A small, ragged-looking boy walks in the shadows on the same side of the street as us, only a block behind. He looks like a Remnant, tattooed and ratty. But there’s too much purpose to his walk, and as he wanders he keeps his eyes on us.

I say, “That boy.”

“Don’t mind him.” Fortis walks more slowly, if possible. I find myself watching his gait, to see if he is drunk. Especially since what we are doing can only be explained by intoxication or insanity.

“What if he’s armed?” Lucas speaks up, and I can feel his pulse quickening. “We’ve already been shot at once today.”

“Only once? That’s a bit anticlimactic and all, don’t you think? Seeing as you made the trip all the way here?” Fortis takes a handkerchief out of the pocket of his long jacket. He mops his brow and I wonder what else he has in there.

“You’ll be fine. We’re almost there, aren’t we, Hux?”
Fortis glances at Lucas, but it’s not Lucas he’s speaking to.

Doc replies, as easily as if it was Lucas who had asked. “Just around the next turn, Fortis. You should be safe until you reach the perimeter.”

“And the field?”

“All systems operational. The pulse wave is transmitting normally, directly from the Icon.” Doc’s voice seems farther away, now that we are outside, on the street.

Though of course he was never here, not really.

The fallen sign on the edge of the road says
GRIFF PARK
, or at least those are the letters that remain. Somewhere up this road and up this hill, the Icon waits for us.

In the scrubby green-brown foothills that surround us, there is no sign of life. No birds sing; nothing rustles in the stiff, dried brush. There is only the buzz of the atmosphere, and the silence of certain death. That is what the pulse field sounds like. Like machine noise and nothingness in my ears.

The road is called Mossy Fern; at least, it looks like it used to be. The sign is overgrown now, as is the road. Overwhelmed with brown, decaying ferns. It looks like the wrong place. It looks like nowhere anyone would ever go.

But then the road twists, and the gates come into view.

Of course.

Griff Park is gated off.

A chain-link fence is wired carelessly shut, probably
because the Embassy knows that nobody can survive long enough to enter, and if they did, they wouldn’t make it all the way up the hill to the Observatory.

Lucas stands in the road, staring up the hill, or what we can see of it through the brown piles of dead plant life, banked against the gates. It looks like it once was a neighborhood, with nice houses and nice lawns and probably nice families. Now it is a ghost neighborhood, haunted by memories that no one is left to remember.

I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be a ghost. I turn and look behind me. The boy is that much closer, standing now where I was standing, minutes ago.

“Why are we here? There’s no point. There’s nothing we can do.” I’m annoyed.

Fortis just stands there, hands in his pockets, waiting. For what, I don’t know.

“So this is the perimeter, I guess.” The words sound strange in Lucas’s throat, and he doesn’t move his eyes.

Fortis nods, his eyes equally fixed. “Apparently so.”

Then I see why they are staring. It’s not only the brush that is dead.

Around me, piled in the debris at the base of the fence, are skeletons—four, six, ten skeletons, pressing against the wires, dumped like trash on the side of the road.

One has his hand at his throat.

My heart skips a beat.

I’m looking at the bodies of people who have tried to
infiltrate the Icon, tried to do something about our common situation. People braver than me.

They’re all dead
.

I turn to Lucas and Fortis. “We should go back. We can’t—they’re everywhere.”

Fortis sighs. “That’s what happens when you try to get near the Icon, for us regular blokes. Like I said.”

“Why are there so many?”

He laughs, but he isn’t smiling. “Are you pulling my chain, love? This is nothing. Think about it. Since 6/6, any time people try to demonstrate, they drop dead. Any time we try to stage a protest. Any time we make our voices heard. As long as that Icon stays in place, the Lords control everything we say and do. It’s the Silent Cities, every day, all over again.”

He shrugs. “After a while, we just stopped tryin’. Now we take our numbers and stand in line with the resta the livin’ dead.”

Lucas is silent. Instead, he starts to walk around the perimeter of the gate, searching for something.

“What are you doing? You’re going to get yourself killed.”

I grab Lucas’s arm—I have to stop him. I’m thinking of the newsreels. I’m thinking of the empty streets and the faces of the dead. How could I not be? It’s what we’re staring at, right now. It’s where we are.

I’m panicking. This may not be a Silent City, but it’s still an Icon. It can still kill us.

We all know that.

“There. Look.” Lucas points to where the chain-link fence bends up into the brush. A hole, not big enough for him, but barely big enough for me. “You’re the smallest. You can get through there. You can go around and let me in the front gate.”

I shake my head in disbelief. “What? I’m not going to die for you.”

“I’m not asking you to die for me.”

“Look at those piles of bones. That’s exactly what you’re asking.”

“No, I’m not. Look at me, look at us. Does it seem like anything’s wrong?”

I stare at him.

“We’re not tired. Our heads aren’t aching. Our hearts aren’t pounding erratically.”

Speak for yourself.
I notice, though, that Fortis is not looking well and is once again wiping the sweat from his forehead.

“Don’t you get it? It doesn’t affect us.”

“That’s impossible. The Icon affects everyone. That’s the whole point of the Icon.”

“We don’t know that,” Fortis says. “That’s why we’re here. Each brain is unique. Your brains seem to be—uniquely
unique. You may not be affected in the same way as everyone else. At least, that’s what I’m bankin’ on. Fingers crossed.” He holds them up, double crossed, even.

“What if Fortis is right?” Lucas looks at his hands. “What if we’re the way into the Icon? Around the Icon?”

“You don’t trust Fortis! You’ve never trusted Fortis. Look at those skeletons and then tell me you think Fortis is right—”

“Hey now. Be kind. I’m standin’ right here.” Fortis grins. Nothing I’m saying gets to him. Not even standing in the shadow of the Icon bothers Fortis, aside from a bit of sweat. It’s like all this is a game.

“I don’t know if Fortis is right, but I know something’s going on. They’re lying to us, the Embassy.”

“Your mother.”

“My mother. Especially her. She hid the records. She sealed off the secrets. We need to find out—whatever it is they don’t want us to know.”

“Is that why you came? To find out if the Icon can kill you or not? Or is it that maybe you just don’t want to live anymore?”