Pure (27 page)

“I guess so.” Bradwell looks at Partridge like he appreciates the admission. “Well, like a lot of historians, my father didn’t believe that the atomic bomb was the sole reason for the Japanese surrender. Leading up to the surrender, the Japanese showed no fear of loss of life and sacrifice. My parents wondered if it wasn’t the emperor’s fear of these abominations created by the bomb. The Japanese were very homogeneous, an island culture. And this may have been too much for the emperor—not that they would be destroyed, but deformed, mutated. The generals were forced to surrender, and all of the people who were merged by the bomb were taken away to be studied. Because of MacArthur’s censorship of the effects of the atomic bomb, the suppression of eye-witness accounts and oral histories, even scientific observations—what was basically a gag order on the Japanese—plus their own sense of shame… It all helped to hush up the true horrors, as well as the mutations.”

They’ve come to a section of gate that’s still standing. Bradwell climbs it first. Partridge follows. They both jump to the ground. Before them is just another stretch of charred remains and melted blobs of plastic.

“What about the United States?” Partridge asks.

“Do you really want to know? I’ve been told I’m too pedantic.”

“I want to know.”

“The US knew about the messy, unintended effects of the bomb, and very quietly developed new sciences—what became your father’s babies. Ones that would build up resistance to radioactivity in structures and allow them to control the effects of radiation. Instead of messy, unintended mergers, the US government wanted intentional mergers to create a superspecies.”

“Coding. I’ve gone through some. I wasn’t a ripe specimen for it, though.” He’s proud of this even though it’s not as if he stood up to anyone. It’s just a fact.

“Really?”

“Sedge was. I wasn’t,” Partridge says. “But how’d your parents get the info they needed?”

“One of the geneticists, Arthur Walrond, was a friend of my mother’s, of Silva Bernt’s. Walrond had a rowdy social life, drove a convertible, and had loose lips and a guilty conscience. One weekend he visited my parents, got drunk, and unburdened some secrets about the new sciences. It fit, of course, with my parents’ theories. He started feeding them information.” Bradwell stops and looks out across the charred remains of a gutted neighborhood. He rubs his head. He looks tired.

“What’s wrong?” Partridge asks.

“Nothing. I just remember how he convinced my parents to get me a dog. ‘He’s an only child in a family of workaholics. Get the poor boy a mutt!’ Walrond was doughy, short, duck-footed, but a fast talker with a sweet car, a lady’s man, weirdly enough. He didn’t have the necessary constitution for his life. He knew what they could do with the things he was working on. The government used the term
unlimited potential
, but he always added
for destruction.

“He was sloppy. When the government found out he was leaking secrets, they gave him warning and enough time to kill himself before they showed up at his house to arrest him. And he obliged. An overdose.” Bradwell sighs. “I named the dog Art, after Arthur Walrond. I had to give it up after my parents died. My aunt was allergic. I loved that stupid dog.”

Bradwell stops and looks at Partridge. “Your father had my parents killed. He probably even gave the order. They were shot in their sleep before the Detonations, close range, silencers. I was sleeping in my bed. I woke up and found them.”

“Bradwell,” Partridge says. He reaches out, but Bradwell backs away.

“You know what I think sometimes, Partridge?” There are animal noises not far off, a yowl, a bird-like caw. “I think we were already dying of superdiseases. The sanatoriums were full. Prisons were being converted to house the infected. The water was already shot through with oil. And if not that, there was plenty of ammo, uprisings in the cities. There was the corn-fed grief, the unbearable weight of pie fillings. We were choking on pollutants, radiation. Dying one charred lung at a time. Left to our own devices, we were shooting ourselves with holes, burning alive. Without the Detonations, we’d have dwindled and finally clubbed each other to bright bloody death. So they speeded that up, right? That’s all.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“No,” Bradwell says. “When I’m feeling a little optimistic, I think we could have turned it around. There were a lot of people like my parents, fighting the good fight. They ran out of time.”

“I guess that passes for optimism.”

“It wasn’t bad to be raised by enemies of the state. I grew up jaded. After the Detonations, I knew not to go to the superstores like everyone else. I also knew that there wasn’t relief coming. That’s what everyone expected—army-issued water and blankets and urgent care. I had heard enough from my parents to know not to trust anyone. Better to go on the record as dead. And so I’m dead. Not a bad thing to be here.”

“It’s harder to die if you’re dead.”

“You know what’s always stuck with me, though?”

“What?”

“I found a note from Walrond in my parents’ things—a drunken scrawl.
The thing is—they could save them all, but they won’t.
It’s always bothered me. And then in this one article, someone’s asked Willux about the radiation resistance of the Dome. He says, ‘Radiation resistance has unlimited potential for us all.’ ”

“But it didn’t. Not for everyone.”

“Your father wanted near-total destruction so he could start new. Was he racing against those who were closer? Or those who were close to coming up with radiation resistance for all? Was he like the inventor of armor and then everyone got armor so he had to invent the crossbow—the escalation of
weapon, defense, better weapon, better defense
?”

“I don’t know. He’s a stranger to me now.” For a brief second, Partridge wishes his father dead. Evil, he thinks to himself. His father isn’t simply capable of evil. He has acted on it. Why? Partridge wonders. “I’m so sorry about your parents,” Partridge says. He takes in the stretches of destruction in every direction. He staggers a little, trying to absorb the loss. And then his foot catches, and he trips on something.

When he regains his footing, he reaches down and picks up a metal object with three spokes fanning out around a sharp tip, caked in the dirt and ash. Bradwell walks back to him and stares at the thing in his hand.

“Is that a dart?” Partridge says. “I remember the kind thrown at a target, but never one that big.”

“It’s a lawn dart,” Bradwell says.

Partridge hears the sound before he sees it—a whir that’s nearly a buzz. He shoves Bradwell out of the way. They both land hard, the wind knocked out of them, as another dart thuds into the ground behind him. Bradwell staggers to his feet. “This way!” he says. They both start running toward a red-and-blue melt and squat down behind it.

The darts come quickly, whirring and thudding. Two darts wedge into the plastic on the other side. And then everything’s quiet.

Partridge looks around the melt and spots a dwelling propped up with bricks and walls supported by melts dragged from other yards. “A house,” he says. “A short fence in front of it.” Partridge remembers picket fences with little latches that swung open that penned trimmed dogs bouncing in the yards. But this fence is mostly sticks wedged into the ground, and on top of each stick something has been hung. He can’t tell at first what the strange things are, but then he sees a blackened rounded cage—a set of wide ribs, some of the bones cracked, gone. Two sticks down, there’s a broad skull. Human. Part of the skull is missing. Sitting in front of the house’s remains are two skulls, lit from within by candles, like jack-o’-lanterns. Halloween. Partridge remembers wearing a box made to look like a robot. The Meltlands were famous for holidays, the trees strung with ghosts and Santas teetering on roofs. He sees what seems to be a garden, overturned dirt with stakes, but it’s just more bones. These are splayed decoratively, hand bones spread to look like blooms. In another world, these things—picket fence, jack-o’-lanterns, gardens—meant home. Not anymore.

“What is it?” Bradwell asks.

“It’s not good. They’re proud of their kills.” Another dart thunks into the plastic. “And they’ve got good aim. Are these the protectors?”

“Could be,” Bradwell says. “If so, we surrender. We want to be captured and brought in. I won’t know if it’s them ’til I see ’em. And I need a better angle. I’m running to that melt there.” Bradwell points up ahead.

“Try not to get hit.”

“How many lawn darts can they have?”

“I don’t want to know what they use once they’re out of lawn darts, do you?” Partridge says, shaking his head.

Bradwell sprints. The darts come at him. He lets out a shout. He staggers, gripping his left elbow. He’s been hit in the shoulder. He keeps running and throws himself behind the next melt.

Partridge takes off after him before Bradwell can tell him not to. He sprints and slides to a stop beside Bradwell, whose jacket sleeve is already bloody. Partridge reaches for the dart lodged in Bradwell’s arm.

“Don’t!” Bradwell says, rolling away.

“You’ve got to get it out,” Partridge says. “What are you, afraid of a little pain?” He holds his arm down at the elbow. “I’ll do it fast.”

“Wait, wait,” Bradwell says. “Do it on the count of three.”

“Okay.” Partridge leans on Bradwell’s arm, pinning it to the ground, then wraps his hand around the dart. It’s in deep. “One, two—” And he pulls it out, ripping some of the jacket too.

“Shit!” Bradwell cries. The wound gushes blood. “Why didn’t you count to three?”

Paybacks, Partridge thinks, an impulse to get back at Bradwell for holding him in such contempt, for punching him when Pressia was first missing. He kind of hates Bradwell, but maybe only because Bradwell hated Partridge first. “We’ve got to wrap it up,” Partridge says.

“Damn it!” Bradwell says, gripping his elbow to his ribs.

“Take off your jacket.” Partridge helps Bradwell shrug it off. Partridge uses the small rip to tear the sleeve off and wraps the sleeve around the muscle of shoulder, tying it tight. “I wish I’d gotten a good look at them,” Partridge says.

“Ah, you know what? I think you’ve got your chance.” Bradwell points right in front of him.

And there is a set of eyes, low to the ground. A child is peeking out from behind the leg of a larger creature, wearing battle gear—metal chest plates made of mower blades, a helmet. A long braid curls over one shoulder. She’s armed with weapons only recognizable in their parts—a bike chain, a drill, a chain saw.

“That’s not bad,” Partridge says. “Only one of her and a child. Two of us.”

“Wait,” Bradwell says.

Others drift in silently behind her. They’re women too, and most of them also have children, either being held or standing next to them. More weapons—kitchen knives, two-pronged grill forks, skewers, weed whackers. Their faces are mottled with glass, chips of tile, bits of mirrors, metal, shards of flagstone, the sheen of plastic. Many of them have jewelry fused into their wrists and necks and earlobes. They must pick at the skin to keep it from growing over the jewelry, which is outlined in small dark red-crusted scabs.

“Have we been found? Was this the group you were hoping for?” Partridge asks.

“Yep,” Bradwell says. “I think so.”

“I think they’re housewives,” Partridge whispers.

“With their kids,” Bradwell says.

“Why haven’t the kids grown?”

“They can’t. They’re stunted by their mother’s bodies.”

Partridge has a hard time believing that the people who once lived in these homes were capable of survival. They were always followers who lacked the courage of their convictions. And those who were courageous, Mrs. Fareling, perhaps, disappeared. Are these the mothers and children of the gated communities, the ones who once delighted in plasticware? “Are we about to be beaten to death by a car pool?”

As the crowd moves closer, Partridge sees that the children are not just
with
their mothers. They’re attached. The first woman they saw walks with an uneven gait. The child who’d seemed to be holding on to her leg is actually fused there. Legless, the boy has only one arm, and his torso and head protrude from her upper thigh. Another woman has eyes peering out from a bulbous baby head that sits like a goiter on her neck.

Their faces are angular and grim. Their bodies are slightly hunched as if ready to lunge.

Partridge pulls the scarf tight to make sure his unmarked face is hidden.

“Too late for that now,” Bradwell says. “Just put your hands up and smile.”

Still on their knees, they both hold their hands over their heads.

Bradwell says, “We surrender. We’re here to see Your Good Mother. We need her help.”

A woman with a hip-fused child steps up, pushing a knife-armored stroller up to Partridge’s face. Another woman holding a long sharp pair of hedge clippers walks up to Bradwell and kicks him in the chest with incredible force. The hedge-clipper woman holds the blades in front of Bradwell’s face, opening and closing the blades, glinting, sharp. The clipper has been fused to one of her hands, but the other hand pumps the blades. And then she puts her bare foot on Bradwell’s sternum, opens the clippers wide, and holds them over his throat.

Partridge feels his arm jerk backward. He pulls out the meat hook and spins around, swinging over the head of a stunted child. The little girl’s mother’s hand is fused into the center of her daughter’s back. He stumbles forward with the miss. The woman quickly puts a knee into his gut, uppercuts his chin, and holds a kitchen knife to his heart.

Her daughter laughs.

Partridge knows these women and their fused children are tactical and violent. They are soldiers. With his strength coding he could overtake half a dozen of them at once, but now he can see that there are more than a hundred. Their shadows shift. Other women move in quickly and strip them of their knives, the meat hook, their newly acquired lawn darts.

The woman with the kitchen knife grabs Partridge’s arm with a grip that feels like it’s embedded with rows of sharp teeth cutting into his skin. She pulls him to his feet with great strength. He looks at his pale arm, now smeared with blood, then glimpses her palm, which is shiny with shards of a mirror. She pulls an old dark pillowcase from her belt. Another woman, behind him, wrenches his arms and binds them so tightly that his elbows nearly touch behind his back. He glances at Bradwell, who’s on his feet too now, also being bound.