Idols Read online

  I stop listening. I look past him to the one gun that remains fixed on me. I can’t say a word. I can’t tell anyone everything. Not anymore.

  Not even myself.

  I can’t think of anything to say that will convince the Bishop, so out of desperation I close my eyes and feel my way through him, as if every new detail I pocket is another step closer to safety.

  I push past my own resistance. My own fear. I move into his mind, because I have to, and because I can.

  You can.

  Do it, Doloria.

  Don’t let everyone down now.

  Two boys. Two boys playing in a field. Wrestling in the mud. Ripping each other’s clothes. “Flaco, Flaco, eat another taco,” chants the skinnier one. The fatter one flings mud into his eyes.

  I open mine.

  “I’m her. The girl from the stories.”

  “How do I know that?” The Bishop still isn’t buying it.

  “You don’t have to know me. I know you.” I study his face. “You’ve lost someone too,” I say. “You’re still mourning.”

  The Bishop looks at me like I’m an idiot. I realize how it sounds. There aren’t many humans alive on this planet who haven’t lost half the people they once knew.

  I try again.

  “Flaco, I mean. Your best friend.”

  His face goes white in the cold. “So it’s true, what they say.”

  I shrug. He shakes his head in disbelief, swallowing an incredulous laugh.

  I don’t see him give the signal. He barely flinches.

  I only notice when the gun is no longer pointed at my heart.

  This Bishop is a powerful man.

  GENERAL EMBASSY DISPATCH: EASTASIA SUBSTATION

  MARKED URGENT

  MARKED EYES ONLY

  Internal Investigative Subcommittee IIS211B

  RE: The Incident at SEA Colonies

  Note: Contact Jasmine3k, Virt. Hybrid Human 39261.SEA, Laboratory Assistant to Dr. E. Yang, for future commentary, as necessary.

  HAL2040 ==> FORTIS

  2/24/2043

  PERSES Scans/Data

  //comlog begin;

  FORTIS: HAL, our new friend draws ever nearer. Please tell me you have something.;

  HAL: Covert system scan and analysis have revealed much but have also shown heavily protected sectors.;

  FORTIS: And…;

  HAL: The core systems used by NULL are abstracted, or, as you would say, black-boxed. To wit: they are wrapped in encryption unbreakable by any known method. Brute force is not an option, at least not within the time remaining. As such, fundamental information such as mission, priorities, decision-making systems appear to be obfuscated and inaccessible.;

  FORTIS: And…;

  HAL: However, telemetric, guidance, and more mundane features are transparent, including essential hardware and cargo data.;

  FORTIS: Now we’re talking. Cargo?;

  HAL: Yes. I have yet to catalogue and understand the entire system, but I have found some things you may find interesting.;

  FORTIS: I’m sure I will. Oh, hold on—that’s the White House on the line. I’d better take this one.;

  //comlog ctd;

  9

  THE IDYLLS

  The heart of Belter Mountain is unlike anything I have ever seen. When we emerge through the other side of the tunnel, we find ourselves in a cavernous room the size of a military hangar—like the kind they have near the landing strips at the Porthole, back home. The hangar. That’s what I label it, in my head.

  I realize, from the moment I step out into the pale yellow of the artificial light, that it’s going to be hard to keep my bearings. From the look of it, a new tunnel twists off from the hangar in every direction. Like a labyrinth, I think. A spider.

  I’ll never keep it straight. Even if we’re here for a hundred years. I grew up in the Mission sunshine; I barely came inside, let alone underground. No dark halls to navigate, not in my childhood.

  Only now.

  On the ceiling, impossibly bright lights are connected by an intricate grid of metal runners, reinforcing a thick network of wires that leads into an opening high on the wall. In a space this limited, every detail appears to be ordered and essential. Life underground, I imagine.

  “Where are you getting all this power?” Ro is in awe of the spectacle, the audacity of running an electrical system

  of this size. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Not in the Grass.” The Belters operate as if they’re daring the Embassy to find them. I look sideways at his boyish amazement, smiling at memories of his last birthday gift to me, the crude pedal generator he made for me a lifetime ago.

  That’s a whole lot of pedaling, I think.

  Lucas shakes his head. “This looks like as much electricity as we had at the Embassy. This shouldn’t be possible—the Lords control all the energy. The only working power plants are near the cities. At least that’s what we all thought.”

  “Natural gas reserves and a geothermal plant provide an almost unlimited source of electricity for us here. Provided no one interferes.” The Bishop smiles. He’s proud, as he should be. “Which isn’t often. The mountain itself shields us from outside eyes.”

  “Sympa eyes.” Lucas looks interested.

  “All eyes,” the Bishop says, meaningfully. “No instrument can see through that much granite. Our ancestors, the ones who built this place, prepared it to keep dangerous radioactive energy from seeping in. They never imagined how important it would someday be to do the reverse—to keep energy locked in and out of sight.”

  Lucas nods, impressed.

  The Bishop continues. “We can grow food underground, even raise some livestock.” He clasps his hand on Tima’s bony shoulder. “This, my friends, is as close to life as it used to be as you will find anywhere on our godforsaken planet.” I feel the emphasis on forsaken, and think to myself that this Bishop, whoever he is, is truly a man like the Padre, with a deep but troubled faith.

  From all corners of the hangar, I can also see the soldiers eyeing us. The Children from the stories. The girl who brought down the Icon. The son of the Ambassador. I can’t help but hear the words the moment they form in their heads. The Bishop isn’t the only skeptic. Compared to his own men, he’s downright trusting. The Belters try not to stare at Lucas, who is still shivering from the cold, white as a sheet. At Ro, who is covered with soot. At Tima, whose face is still streaked with long-dried tears.

  At me. I don’t know who or what I am. I only know how I feel. Which is exhausted and unnerved. Raw and exposed. Like I have seen what I have seen and done what I have done—which is all too much. But at this moment, I am too tired to care. All I want is to crawl into a dark corner and pass out.

  Still, the Bishop seems to understand, now that we’ve sorted things out between us. There is much to talk about, he tells us. On that we all agree. But first, the Bishop says, sleep. No one is arguing. But nobody is moving, either. Lucas’s eyes flicker in my direction, and I understand—they need me to be sure we are safe.

  I pause for a moment, considering the Bishop. I see the sorrow, the anger—but then I also see that it’s not directed at us.

  For the four of us, I see only compassion—something I haven’t felt since the Padre died.

  I blink back the tears, and instead I nod toward Lucas, imperceptibly. Tima and Ro watch, relieved.

  The Bishop is not a threat.

  Not to us, not now.

  And if he is—if I’m wrong—he’s better at hiding his thoughts than anyone I’ve encountered on the entire planet.

  He’s just a boy with fistfuls of mud, I think. The thought is somehow comforting.

  Ro seems satisfied. “All right, then. Let’s go.”

  Lucas and Ro are taken straightaway to the barracks, a series of large buildings, on an adjacent level of the compound. Where the Belter soldiers sleep. Lucas turns toward me as he goes, and I see a tired smile flickering across his face.

  Be safe, he thinks. Be careful
.

  I am, and I will be, but I’m longing for him to curl up next to me. So we can save each other if anything else falls from the sky.

  A warm place, like my old one, in front of Bigger’s stove. The one I shared with Ro.

  I miss it. I miss him. The closeness.

  I can remember the smell of our kitchen now.

  I will myself to forget it as we move deeper into the Idylls.

  Moments later, Tima and I are being led down a warm corridor carved in the rock, to clean, softly lit civilian rooms, with freshly made up, simply carved wooden beds that smell like laundry soap and saplings. Except for the distinct lack of windows, the whitewashed walls and curving ceilings—no straight lines anywhere in these bunkers—would make you think you were in some kind of pleasant farmhouse.

  Which couldn’t be further from the truth—but a bed is a bed, and for now, paradise enough. This is the first actual bed I’ve seen in a long, long time. Tima and I sleep in one together. She’s not Lucas, but I don’t mind. Brutus curls up at Tima’s feet and begins snoring before any of us. I feel like I could sleep for days.

  So I do.

  When I sleep I dream. Not of the jade girl, not this time. I dream of birds.

  One bird. A baby bird.

  The word nestles in my mind like a small feathered thing itself. Such a rare thing. I have no idea what kind of bird it is, since I’ve never seen any, not around the Hole. They don’t come anywhere near the Icons; something about the magnetic interference repels them, even kills them. But it is beautiful. She’s a fragile, tiny thing, covered with downy white fluff. Just like I imagined when I stared up into the birdless blue skies of the Mission as a little girl.

  She sits right in the middle of what I recognize as the Padre’s old chessboard. Then I see that the game has changed, or at least the dream has, and we’re not in the jungle, not anymore. We’re in my house, my old house.

  At my old kitchen table.

  I look up as the ceiling fan begins to rattle over our heads. The bird rustles at the sound, anxious. From where I stand, I can sense her heart beating inside her chest—her uneven, rapid breathing.

  No.

  She looks at me as the walls start to shake and bits of plaster swirl in the air between us like fireworks, like confetti.

  Not this.

  The bird lifts her head and squawks, just once, as the windows shatter and the ceiling fan hits the carpet and the shouting begins.

  It’s happening.

  The bird flutters her wings as my father rolls down the staircase like a funny rag doll that never stands up. As my mother collapses against the old crib.

  Not again.

  The bird soars out the broken window just as the other birds begin their drop from the sky, as all our hearts—everywhere—stop beating.

  When I wake up, starving, I eat my weight in warm loaves of thick brown bread. It’s the first human food I’ve seen in what seems like forever, and I don’t let it go to waste. I slather it with gooseberry jam, made by hand and poured into jars as we did on the Mission. I wash it all down with five tall glasses of cold mountain water in a row.

  I can’t stop myself. I devour bowl after bowl of steaming, roughly cut oatmeal, flecked with cinnamon. And fruit—fruit I have never seen before—pressed and shaped into long, chewy dried strips. There are no aboveground crops here, not in the winter anyway, that much I can tell. The food is serviceable, and thankfully, as I watch Ro devour two massive loaves of bread, abundant. It’s not life on a Mission farm, I remind myself. Fruit and vegetables, for this settlement, have to be canned and dried. They may have gardens up top, but too much surface activity draws unwanted attention. It’s life hidden beneath a mountain.

  It’s like another one of my dreams—only, a strangely pleasant dream. I bathe, twice. I dress in fresh clothes that appear miraculously folded in my room. I brush the long tangles out of my hair. I sit still on the edge of my bed until it is dry, listening to the quiet, muffled sounds of the real world, the actual world beneath the mountain. Not the world in my head.

  I am doing nothing, feeling nothing. Remembering nothing. Right now, at this minute, it is what I need to do.

  Forward, not back. Forward, not back. Like switchbacks in a mountain trail.

  I will my mind shut until it is completely silent. The voices, for this one moment, are quiet. I imagine myself safe in the heart of this mountain. I believe what the Bishop said; nothing can penetrate this deep. Not the Lords, not the Embassy, and not the suffering.

  It is bliss.

  And then I go back to sleep for what I hope will be a thousand years.

  The dream returns to me the moment I shut my eyes. Of course it does. I’m back in the jungle again. I see the trees with no tops, the distant field of water. Green layered upon green.

  But where the girl used to sit, there is only the little white bird—on the chessboard across from me. It’s the bird from my dream.

  The bird makes no sound, but flaps up onto my shoulder, and I freeze as its tiny talons dig into me.

  You are still here.

  It isn’t the girl’s voice. It’s someone watching my dream, just like I am. It’s a strange voice—not male or female, not young or old—that sounds like many voices at the same time. Like a chorus—only spoken, not sung. The words are everywhere and nowhere—they flood the field and the sky and the chessboard and the green upon green, all around me.

  Only now the sky is dark and the chessboard is empty. In the distance, a pointed golden temple roof—or maybe a tower—rises from the top of the hillside.

  Strange. I didn’t notice that before.

  The bird’s claws dig deeper into my skin.

  They come for you, again and again. Yet still you live, the voice says.

  “I do,” I say. “I’m alive.” It’s almost all I know.

  I say nothing else.

  It pauses.

  Fascinating.

  “Why?”

  Inexplicable.

  “I don’t understand.”

  You are a thing of quick and endless and always-changing beauty. Humanity.

  “I’m what?” I look around the field. “Why do you say that?”

  Another pause, a longer one.

  I do not know what or why you are. I do not comprehend anything about you. You defy all protocol. You are an anomaly. An exception. Exceptional.

  “Do I know you?” It’s all I can think to say.

  Do I know you, the voice repeats.

  “Who are you?” I try again.

  Who are you, the voice repeats.

  I shake my head, back and forth. Lift my hands and pinch them.

  “I have to wake up. I’m dreaming. You’re just something in my dream.”

  I am—that. Your dream is one place I am. Also fascinating. And inexplicable. Another unexpected exception to the rule.

  “What?”

  This time the words come slowly, as if they require great searching.

  I hope you keep living. I do not believe you will, it is not something I have foreseen. But I hope you do.

  I pinch harder. Still harder. “Who are you? What’s your name?”

  I am nobody. I am Null.

  I dig my fingernails into my own skin at the sound of the name I do not want to know.

  Null.

  Until I wake up, staring into the darkness as if I have seen a ghost. Listening to the echo of tiny wings as they flutter their way up into the sky.

  Gripping my chestpack—and the Icon shard—in my hand. It has become my nighttime companion. I don’t know why, but I am continually drawn to it. Even if it only brings the most troubling thoughts into my mind.

  I try not to forget a thing.

  GENERAL EMBASSY DISPATCH: EASTASIA SUBSTATION

  MARKED URGENT

  MARKED EYES ONLY

  Internal Investigative Subcommittee IIS211B

  RE: The Incident at SEA Colonies

  Note: Contact Jasmine3k, Virt. Hybrid Human 39261.SEA
, Laboratory Assistant to Dr. E. Yang, for future commentary, as necessary.

  FORTIS ==> HAL2040

  2/24/2043

  PERSES Scans/Data

  //comlog ctd;

  FORTIS: OK, I’m back. The president is requesting daily updates. I think she might have a thing for me, actually.;

  HAL: Difficult to say, dialogue analysis does show a high ratio of innuendo, largely on your side…;

  FORTIS: Enough, HAL. How’s that cargo analysis coming?;

  HAL: Yes. As I was saying, I have focused on what I believe is cargo or equipment that is or may be hazardous.;

  FORTIS: Hazardous, you say. You mean, of course, aside from being part of tons of rock speeding toward Earth, with enough mass to create an extinction event?;

  HAL: Yes. In addition to that. Highest priority: schematics and data on cargo indicate what can be best described as a weapon. Or weapons. Constituent material analysis requires double-checking, but weapon/s could be a highly advanced and effective method of—suppression. Could also be used to achieve, as you said, extinction. Possession of weapons points toward probable intent to gain control of, or eliminate, indigenous life on any “target.”;

  FORTIS:… I see. You have prioritized well, my good boy. Send all available data and analysis to my terminal immediately. I need to know just how effective this “method of suppression” really is. And if there’s anything we can do to prepare.;

  HAL: Done.;

  //comlog end;

  10

  PECULIAR PEOPLE

  When I can force myself awake, I make my way out to the mess hall, where Tima and Ro and Lucas sit around the table.

  “I wish Fortis was here,” I say. I have so many things to ask him—and even more to tell him.