Arclight (34 page)

“I’m not mad at you,” her mother says. Her eyes redden with new tears as she lays her hand against the glass. “Is your brother all right?”

Anne-Marie glances toward Trey’s bed.

“It’s weird the first time you see it, but he’s good.” She’s smiling wide when she faces the door again. “He’ll still have a scar from where Honoria burned him, but they’ll fix the muscle. Trey’ll get to use his arm again.”

“Honoria burned him?” Anne-Marie’s mother whirls on Mr. Pace. “You said he was hurt during cleanup.”

“He was,” Mr. Pace says.

“Trey breached containment. Honoria did what she thought was best,” Lt. Sykes says.

“Containment like locking my kids in that room?” Anne-Marie’s mother takes on the same lethal tone I’d heard from Mr. Pace earlier.

“It was a necessary precaution.”

There’s a subtle shift in the air as another body is incorporated into the hall. It’s sharp as a razor, and poised to cut. The mark of someone who’s efficient, with absolute conviction, and it fits Honoria perfectly.

Inside the tunnels, Rue’s picked up on the change in my thoughts; he’s losing patience. Inside the hospital, Bolt and Evergreen have turned their attention from their patients on to us, trying to gather information from their angle, most likely to pass it along to him.

We really don’t need a jumpy Fade on our hands right now.

“Hello, James,” Honoria says derisively. Her scraggled orange hair tints the glass of the ward door as she approaches. She carries a rifle, on its strap, at her side, but not yet in her hands. My new eyes see a darkish blue halo around her skin that seems a foul copy of the aura that surrounds the Fade, showing their harmony in a way only other Fade can see. Another, similar but brighter, hovers around Tobin’s father, strongest at his eyes where it’s very nearly the same shade as that of the two Fade in the hospital.

It’s a fascinating effect as it manifests. Anne-Marie is barely blue at all, with a dusting on her hands and face, but with Trey, they’re speeding through his tissues as they repair the wound in his arm. Jove looks like a patchwork quilt. It’s hypnotic; I could watch it forever if things weren’t so serious.

“Honoria,” Col. Lutrell says. “I hope you aren’t planning on shooting me before I say my piece.”

“You can say anything you like once you’re in quarantine. It’ll be a nice change. We haven’t had much luck getting your people to speak so far.”

“Only because they were too busy screaming in agony to make real words,” Tobin says. He draws closer, one carefully placed step at a time, until we’re shoulder to shoulder.

“Hyperbole doesn’t suit you, Tobin,” she says. “As Marina can attest, the one affected carries no memory of the episode. Had she not seen it, she wouldn’t have known it happened and neither would you, so there’s little reason to argue the point. However, I do have my concerns to address, the first being the fact that I can’t seem to get the lights on. Your doing, James?”

She turns from Tobin to his father.

“The system’s taking a break until it’s safe for the Fade to leave.”

“I’m not unreasonable,” Honoria says. I’ve never heard her sound this way before; she’s so artificially pleasant it makes my skin crawl. “You can leave the ward as it is, but I’d appreciate if you restored power to the rest of the compound. We’ve got a lot of scared people out there—your friends, if you’re truly James Lutrell. And they’d appreciate knowing what you’ve done with their children.”

“The kids are safe, but they’re staying out of sight for the time being.”

“In the tunnels?”

“No fair asking questions you can answer yourself, Honoria.”

“And you seem to have an answer for everything,” she says. “The advantage of so many opinions at your disposal through the hive, I suppose.”

The way they speak is too formal, with a layer of civility covering something far darker and more dangerous. They’re both checking for weak points in the other, figuring out where to go next.

“If you’re determined that we wait for Trey and Jove to recover, then perhaps we should move everyone inside the ward,” Honoria says. “It’ll be difficult for you to prove your point if we’re all out here.”

“Are you serious?” Lt. Sykes asks.

“They’ll behave themselves,” she says. “If they don’t, James loses any hope of convincing us otherwise. And he
wants
to convince us more than anything, because he knows all I have to do is wait for dawn and open the shutters manually—nature will handle things for us. Open the door, Sykes.”

Anne-Marie’s mother sprints into the room as soon as the quarantine door slides back. She runs straight for Trey’s bed, oblivious to Bolt, who has stationed himself beside her son.

“He’s okay, Mom,” Anne-Marie says as her mother lays her fingers against Trey’s throat to check for a pulse. “I promise.”

“He continues,” Bolt assures Anne-Marie’s mother, startling her when he touches the hand at her side. “The damage is healing.”

“You can talk?”

“Yours are our base. We do as you do.”

“They sound kind of funny until they get used to talking, but they’ve picked up a ton of human habits,” Anne-Marie tells her mother.

“Like biting your fingernails?” Honoria asks as we’re shuffled into the room along with her.

Anne-Marie drops her hand from her mouth. “I’m not a Fade,” she says.

“Of course not. My mistake. Sykes, seal the door. You can leave if you want, but I’m staying here until sunup.”

“So am I,” Mr. Pace says.

“We’ll try and get the personal trackers on the kids working again.” M. Olivet doesn’t wait long enough to see if the invitation to leave is open to all; she takes the out.

“You should go, ’Nique,” Mr. Pace says.

“I’m not leaving my kids.”

The outer door slides shut, locked from the outside, with the familiar hiss of the closed ventilation system. Honoria’s unusually calm, considering she believes that only she, Mr. Pace, and Anne-Marie’s mother are completely human. I watch her scan the room, pausing on Bolt, then Evergreen, and finally Tobin’s father.

“How long does it take?” she asks.

“The nanites are efficient. They can heal minor wounds in a matter of minutes. Severe injuries can take days.”

“And their marks will be gone until the process is complete?” Honoria’s trying to calculate the chance of sunrise hitting the Fade while they’re unprotected. A half-formed fuzzy image of her making an attempt to “cure” Bolt and Evergreen nudges its way into my mind, but dissolves as though Honoria pulled it back when she realized I could see it.

I feel a presence at my shoulder, one Cherish finds familiar.
Evergreen
. She doesn’t do anything other than stand in that particular way the Fade have of going still, but I no longer find it odd or unnerving. The air grows warmer like a soft blanket, and I realize she’s trying to reassure me; she’s here if I need her.

“Will daybreak kill off anything in their system?” Anne-Marie’s mother asks.

“If the parasitic load is light enough,” Honoria says. “But if they get a foothold, the nanites will spread and multiply. Once they reach critical mass, there’s no way to purge them without losing the host.”

“But Marina was with them for years.”

“Ah, yes, our little loophole,” Honoria says. Her haughty, self-righteous smile is back. “The rules aren’t quite the same for your generation, are they?”

“Wait,” Mr. Pace asks. “You mean she’s right? Marina was never human to begin with?”

Honoria shrugs. “She’s human
now
. It doesn’t matter how she got here.”

“Don’t listen to her, Mr. Pace,” I say. “You made a mistake when you took me from the Fade. I understand why you did it, but if you don’t stop her, they’ll go to war to protect the hive, the same way you would to protect your own children. If that happens, the blood will be on your hands, too.”

Confusion explodes into a writhing cloud around him, with all the options vying for his attention. There are definite groups here—Anne-Marie’s family, me and Tobin and his dad, Honoria and Lt. Sykes, the Fade—but there are no clear sides. The lines are blurred where they cross from one group to the next.

“We can beat them back,” Honoria says, desperate now that’s she’s in danger of losing her advantage. “We made some mistakes, sure, but trying to cure the ones who’ve turned isn’t working. If we can’t save the ones we’ve lost, then we can at least take the Fades’ future the way they took ours.”

She suddenly sounds much younger, and much less sure of herself and her position, as though she’s Mr. Pace’s subordinate rather that his superior.

“This is our last chance,” she pleads. “Darcy came as close as anyone had in decades, and we lost her in six hours when she was exposed, even with her suppressant. Her death doesn’t have to be a failure.”

“You’re wrong,” Col. Lutrell says. “About everything. Marina, the Fade, Cass—”

“If Marina had reacted like Darcy, she’d be dead by now,” Honoria snaps.

The mentions of his mother make Tobin tense. He’s taken her dog tags out of his shirt and slides them along the knotted chain, using the click of metal on metal to ward against whatever new horrors are lurking nearby to taint her memory further.

“Cass didn’t die because she failed. She died because she succeeded.”

“I think the Fade have finally hit your grey matter, James. You’re babbling.”

“Look around you, Honoria. Their first priority is to heal.”

“And?”

“And Cass had seizures. Her brain wasn’t wired right, so they tried to fix it. When we dosed her, they died. We killed the only thing keeping her alive.” Whatever the Fade have done to his eyes hasn’t stopped them from being able to create tears.

“You killed my mother?” Tobin asks, shattered.

“We didn’t know. Cass shut down almost immediately . . . we thought they were killing her.”

Sorrow’s a horrible experience. Damp and heavy, it clings to my skin.

“They’ve certainly made you a better orator, James,” Honoria says coldly. “Though I’m not sure Darcy would share your sympathies.”

“My mother wouldn’t have wanted any part of this,” Tobin says.

“How would you know? You barely remember her.”

Her words are too cruel to be accidental. She’s baiting Tobin and his father, trying to negate the sympathy Col. Lutrell’s story has created in Mr. Pace and Anne-Marie’s mother. Right now, there’s every chance they’ll turn on her.

Instead of reacting the way I expect, Tobin lets out a breath and relaxes. The dangerous haze around his body lifts, subdued by a rush of clear air.

“Maybe you should ask the Fade to fix whatever’s wrong with you,” he says. “Because right now your people skills aren’t doing you any favors.” He gives her a fairly good imitation of her own mocking smile, then closes his eyes and takes another deep breath. “Thanks for the cool down,” Tobin says. “I almost lost it.”

“Who are you talking to?” Honoria demands.

“Him.” Tobin glances at the Fade I’ve named Bolt.

“I miss your voice.”

Bolt has taken Honoria’s fixation on Tobin as an opportunity to get closer. His sudden appearance in her personal space chips the shine off her phony calm. She steps back, raising her rifle between them. He examines the red dot on his chest, curious. He puts his hand in the beam, seemingly satisfied when the dot appears there instead.

“You went silent,” he says. “I miss your voice.”

“Back away,” she orders; he does the opposite.

Bolt matches her step for step until they’re toe-to-toe, then reaches up for her hair where it covers her scar and moves it aside.

“We were confused . . . now we are regretful. Will your voice return?”

Honoria’s face can’t pick a color. It goes white, then red, finally settling into a sickly greyed-purple.

“Get away from me,” she snarls.

“I came here for you,” Bolt says. His words are smooth, like maybe this isn’t the first time he’s spoken this way.

“Were you human?” I decide too late that’s probably bad timing for the question.

“I was as my other.” He points to Honoria. “I came here for my other. My other came
from
here for me.”

“What’s he mean by ‘other’?” Anne-Marie whispers behind me.

“She’s his sister,” Col. Lutrell answers before I can explain.

“He’s the one you followed out of the Arclight when you were a kid,” I say.

I find myself questioning Dr. Wolff’s assumptions of my age. Honoria’s decades older than her appearance, but Bolt could pass for Trey’s age. Is it possible Rue was serious when he said the Fade are infinite?

“My brother’s dead,” Honoria snarls. “This
thing
isn’t even his ghost—and he’s certainly nothing of mine.”

But she hasn’t taken her eyes off of him.

“What do we do?” Anne-Marie asks.

“I don’t know,” I say.

I’m not sure Bolt understands the danger he’s put himself into. If he keeps pushing her, Honoria’s going to react, and he doesn’t have his nanites to do anything about the damage she’ll inflict.

“Marina.” Tobin nudges me with his shoulder, drawing my attention. A panel nestled between two mounted cabinets sinks back into the wall and slides open along a track, like the one in Tobin’s linen closet.

“Is that—”

“It’s Rue,” I say. A barely there disturbance in the air marks Rue’s edges, and the familiar
click-clack
sounds as he drags himself up the wall and onto the ceiling. “How’d he get here?”

“Left tunnel, Hospital,” Tobin whispers, reminding me of the junction in the tunnel.

We follow him with our eyes until Rue reaches the point where he’s suspended completely from the ceiling.

He strays too close to one of the emergency lights, and pieces of one side of his body come into view: an arm, half of his furious face, and snatches of his clothes where gravity pulls them toward the floor. I give him what I mean to be a discreet signal to move out of range, and even tell him to do so without audible words, but it’s too late. Mr. Pace is already tracking Rue across the ceiling; he starts to raise his rifle.

“Don’t,” Tobin says. “He’s only here for Marina. That’s the only reason he was ever here; he won’t do anything that could get her hurt.”