Pure (16 page)

“Where did you catch these?” Pressia asks.

“The defunct sewer system. Some of the smaller pipes stayed intact under the rubble. The vermin use them. And at certain points, the pipelines end. Some break completely, and if you lie in wait at the end of one of the narrow pipes, you’ll eventually catch a small beast.”

“There isn’t much room for them to move in these cages,” Pressia says.

“I don’t want them to move. I want them to get fat.”

Their claws scratch against the cement floor.

The walls are lined with shelves interrupted by vertical rows of more hooks. If you tried to hang a hat on one, it’d pierce the top clean through. Partridge is eyeing the hooks.

Bradwell tells him, “Don’t get too excited and start gesturing wildly or you’ll get hooked and good.”

The meat locker doesn’t have much ventilation except for a homemade exhaust fan over a cook stove. “The shop is on the weak power grid that
OSR
uses to light the city,” he says. A single bulb hangs from the ceiling in the middle of the room.

Wool blankets are draped over two old armchairs that he must have found somewhere out in the streets. One has melted in on itself; the other’s lost one arm and its back. Both have exploding foam that he’s clearly tried to stuff back in, but the stuffing just keeps trying to escape. Pushed together, this must be where he sleeps. He has a small stock of canned meats from the market and some wild berries that grow among thorns in the woods.

Pressia wonders if she’s caught him off guard, showing up like this. He’s tidying up now, putting away a pan, shoving an extra pair of boots under an armchair. Is he embarrassed? Nervous?

She sees the footlocker pressed up against one of the walls. She wants to open it and go rifling through. Sitting on top of it is what seems to be a reference book on butchering, processing, and preserving meats of all kinds.

“So,” Bradwell says, “welcome to my home sweet home.” He still hasn’t gotten a good look at Partridge. He doesn’t know that this is a Pure—flesh and blood. Partridge has his hood on and the scarf. He’s holding tight to his bag, hidden under his coat, like Pressia taught him. Pressia is nervous now. She remembers Bradwell’s talk, how much he hated the people in the Dome. She worries if this was the right decision. How will Bradwell react? It strikes her now that Bradwell might see Partridge as the enemy. What then?

Bradwell pulls the two armchairs apart. “Sit down,” he says to Pressia and Partridge.

And they sit on the lumpy chairs.

Bradwell pulls up the footlocker and takes a seat. She sees the ruffle of birds on his back under his shirt. She feels for him. The birds are his body now—just as the doll head is part of hers. The birds merge with his life span. They live as long as he lives. If one has an injured wing, would he feel it? Once, when she was twelve, she tried to cut her doll head off. She thought she could free herself from it. The pain was sharp, but only at first. When she slid the razor in deep at the back of the doll’s neck where it met her wrist, it wasn’t as painful. But the blood flowed so brightly, and with such force, that it scared her. She pressed a cloth to it, but the cloth went red fast. She had to tell her grandfather. He worked quickly. His skills as a mortician came in handy. The stitches were even, and the scar is small.

Pressia sits back, and even though the sock hides the doll-head fist, she tugs on her sweater sleeve to be doubly sure. The Pure would see it as grotesque and maybe as a sign of weakness.

She glances at Partridge and knows he’s seen the ruffle beneath Bradwell’s shirt too, but Partridge doesn’t say a word. Pressia imagines that he’s in shock. Everything must be foreign. She’s had years to get used to it. He’s only had a couple of days maybe.

“So are you going to tell me who this is now?” Bradwell asks.

“This is Partridge.” She says to Partridge, “Take off the scarf and hood.”

He hesitates.

“It’s okay. Bradwell’s on our side.” But is he? Pressia wonders. She hopes by saying it, she’ll convince Bradwell that it’s true.

Partridge pushes off his hood and unwinds the scarf.

Bradwell stares at his face, which is smudged with dirt, but unmarked. “Arms,” Bradwell says.

“I don’t have any weapons,” he says. “Except an antique knife.”

“No,” Bradwell says. His face is calm, except for his eyes. They look at Partridge sharply, like someone who is about to aim a gun. “I want to see your actual arms.”

Partridge pulls up his sleeves, and there is more perfect skin. There’s something unsettling about it. Pressia isn’t sure why, but she feels a kind of revulsion. Is it jealousy and hatred? Does she despise Partridge for his skin? It’s also beautiful. She can’t deny it—like cream.

Bradwell nods at Partridge’s legs.

Partridge bends down and pulls up one pant leg and then the other.

Bradwell stands up and crosses his arms on his chest. He rubs the burn on his neck, agitated, and walks around the meat locker, dodging the hooks weighted with hybrids. He looks at Pressia. “You brought me a Pure?”

Pressia nods.

“I mean, I knew you were different but—”

“I thought I was a type.”

“At first, I thought you might be, but then you told me off.”

“I didn’t tell you off.”

“Yes you did.”

“No, I didn’t. I just disagreed with the way you’d categorized me. And I said so. Is that what you think every time someone corrects you? That they’re telling you off?”

“No. It’s just that—”

“And then you give them a mean birthday present, just to remind them of what you think of them?”

“I thought you liked that clipping. I was being nice.”

She’s quiet a moment. “Oh. Well, thank you.”

“You already said thank you but I guess that was sarcastic.”

“Maybe a little insincere—”

Partridge says, “Um, excuse me.”

“Right,” Bradwell says, but then he turns to Pressia again. “You brought me a Pure? Is
that
some kind of mean gift?”

“I didn’t know where else to go.”

“A
Pure
?” Bradwell says again, incredulously. “Does he know anything about what happened? The Detonations?”

“He can speak for himself,” she says.

Bradwell stares at him. Maybe he’s afraid of Partridge. He might despise him. “Well?” Bradwell finally says.

“I know what I’ve been spoon-fed,” Partridge says, “but also I know a little about the truth.”

“What truth?” Bradwell says.

“Well, I know that you can’t trust everything you hear.” He unbuttons his coat and pulls out the leather bag. “I was told that everything was awful here before the bomb, and that everyone was invited into the Dome before we were attacked by the enemy. But some people refused to come in. They were the violent, sickly, poor, stubborn, uneducated. My father said that my mother was trying to save some of these wretches.”

“Wretches?” Bradwell says, angrily.

“Wait,” Pressia tells Bradwell. “Let’s stay calm.”

“That’s us he’s talking about!” Bradwell says to Pressia.

“This is what I was
taught.
Not what I
believe
,” Partridge says.

It’s quiet a moment. Bradwell stares at Pressia. She braces for a challenge, but he seems to give in. He waves his hand. “Why don’t you just call us brothers and sisters? That’s what you called us in the Message. Brothers and sisters, one big happy family.”

“What message?” Partridge says.

“You don’t know about the Message?” Pressia says.

He shakes his head.

“Should I recite it for him?” Bradwell asks Pressia.

“Let’s just move on.”

Bradwell clears his throat and recites the Message anyway: “
We know you are here, our brothers and sisters. We will, one day, emerge from the Dome to join you in peace. For now, we watch from afar, benevolently.
”

“When was this sent?” Partridge says.

“A few weeks after the Detonations,” Pressia says, and then she turns to Bradwell. “Just let him go on.”

Partridge glances at Bradwell, who doesn’t say anything, and then he continues. “We lived in the city on Lombard Street, and when the alarm came to get in the Dome, my mother was out helping these… other people… trying to educate them. And my brother and I were in the Dome already, just on a tour. She didn’t make it in time. She died a saint.”

Bradwell grunts. “There was no alarm,” he says.

Partridge looks at Bradwell sharply. “Of course there was.”

“There wasn’t any alarm. Believe me.”

Pressia remembers the announcement of heavy traffic. That’s all that exists in her grandfather’s story. She glances between Partridge and Bradwell.

“There wasn’t much time. I know that much,” Partridge says. “But there was an alarm. People rushed the Dome. It was a madhouse, and lives were lost.”

“Lives were lost,” Bradwell says. “You make it sound almost accidental.”

“What could we do? We were trying to protect ourselves,” Partridge says, defensively. “
We couldn’t save everyone.
”

“No, that was never the plan.”

The room goes silent for a moment. There’s only the sound of the rat-like beasts’ scratching nails.

“There’s more to all of this than you know,” Bradwell says.

“This isn’t the time for a lesson,” Pressia says. “Just let him talk.”

“A lesson?” Bradwell says.

“You don’t have to be so…” Pressia isn’t sure of the right word.

“Pedantic?” Bradwell says.

She doesn’t know what
pedantic
means, but she doesn’t like his snotty tone. “So
like that
,” Pressia says. “Just let him talk.”

“So far, I should be calm and more specifically not
like that
… Anything else?” Bradwell asks Pressia. “Would you like to do surgery on my personality? How about open-heart surgery? I’ve got some tools.”

Pressia sits back and laughs. The laugh surprises her. She’s not sure why she thinks this is funny, but it just is. Bradwell is so big and loud, and she’s not sure how, but she feels like she’s gotten at him somehow.

“What’s funny?” Bradwell says, his arms outstretched.

“I don’t know,” Pressia says. “I guess it’s that you’re a survivor. You’re almost mythic, but it’s just… You seem so easily… unglued.”

“I’m not unglued!” Bradwell says. Then he looks at Partridge.

“You’re slightly unglued,” Partridge says.

Bradwell sits on the footlocker again, sighs deeply, closes his eyes, and then opens them. “There, see? I’m fine. I’m perfectly glued.”

Pressia says, “What else, Partridge? Go on.”

Partridge rubs at the dirt on his hands. The leather bag still sits on his lap. He unlatches the clasp on the bag and pulls out a small leather-bound book. “I came across my mother’s things a few weeks ago,” he goes on. “I just felt like there was this completely different world than the one I’d been taught. Her things, they still existed… It’s hard to explain. And now that I’m here, I remember how the ugliness is what makes the beautiful things beautiful.”

Pressia knows what he means—one can’t truly exist without the other. She likes Partridge. He’s open in ways he doesn’t have to be, and it makes her trust him.

“Why are you here?” Bradwell says, pushing to the point.

“After I found her things, I kept digging. My father…” He pauses a moment. His face clouds over. Pressia can’t read all the emotions. Maybe he loves his father. Maybe he hates him. It’s hard to tell. Maybe his father is the parent he loves even though he doesn’t deserve it. “He was one of the leaders on the exodus to the Dome. He’s still a prominent figure. A scientist and engineer.” His voice is flat, calm.

Bradwell leans into Partridge. “What’s your father’s name?”

“Ellery Willux.”

Bradwell laughs, shaking his head. “The Willuxes.”

“Do you know his family?” Pressia asks.

“Maybe I’ve seen the name,” he says, sarcastically.

“What’s that mean?” Partridge asks.

“The Best and the Brightest,” Bradwell says. “Well, look at you. You come from good stock.”

“How do you know my family?”

“The Detonations strike and it’s just a coincidence that the Dome exists and some get in and some don’t? You think there isn’t some design behind it all—”

“Stop,” Pressia says softly. This has to go peacefully. Pressia can’t risk Bradwell losing his temper. She turns to Partridge. “How did you get out?”

“Someone framed some of the blueprints from the original design for my dad as a gift for twenty years of service. I studied them, the air-filtration system, the ventilation. You can hear the ventilation system when it’s at work. A deep bass hum that runs underneath everything. I started to keep a journal.” He holds up the leather-bound notebook in his hand. “I noted when it turned on and when it shut down. And then figured out how I could slip into the main system. And I figured out that on a certain day, at a certain time, I could probably make it past the blades of the system of circulation fans when they were down—for approximately three minutes and forty-two seconds. And that, at the end of it, I’d find a barrier of breathable fibers that I could cut my way out of. That’s what I did.” He smiles a little. “I got windblown at the end, but not chopped to death.”

Bradwell stares at him. “And you’re gone. Just like that. And no one in the Dome cares? No one’s out looking for you?”

He shrugs. “By now they’ll have their cameras looking for me. The cameras don’t work very well, though. Never have. It’s the ash. But who knows if they’ll come after me? No one is ever supposed to leave the Dome—for any reason. Reconnaissance is forbidden.”

“But your father,” Pressia says. “I mean if he’s a prominent figure… Wouldn’t they send out people to find you?”

“My father and I don’t have a very close relationship. Anyway, it’s never been done before. No one’s ever gotten out. No one’s ever wanted to—not like I did.”

Bradwell shakes his head. “What’s in that envelope again?”

“Personal stuff,” Partridge says. “Typical mother stuff. Jewelry, a music box, a letter.”

“I wouldn’t mind taking a look,” Bradwell says. “Might be something interesting in there.”

Partridge pauses. Pressia can tell he doesn’t trust Bradwell. Partridge scoops up the envelope holding his mother’s possessions and places it back in his leather bag. “It’s nothing.”