The Lead Cloak (The Lattice Trilogy Book 1) (33 page)

“Now … all that said, I agree with Helix. I’m not sure I trust him. But we can use him, even if his recent conversion or whatever it is will eventually wear off. We don’t have much time as it is, with work on the lead dome moving so fast. We can get a lot out of him before then. So I vote in favor,” he said.

Shaw looked around the circle, elated. There was a glare from Jpeg, surprise from almost everyone else, except for Kuhn, who was holding Tranq’s hand. If Kuhn was with Tranq, then he didn’t need to worry about Annalise. He had his five votes!

“Kuhn,” Wulf said. And did Shaw hear a little more excitement in his voice? Had Tranq’s flip caught him off-guard, too?

“I vote in favor. For the same reasons,” Kuhn said. Shaw thought he saw her squeeze Tranq’s hand gently.

And there it was, he was going to live.

“Taveena,” Wulf said, and this time his voice was definitely higher and lighter.

“Against.”

The word thudded against Shaw’s chest and lodged there, cracking any hopes he’d just been harboring.

Everyone stared, but Taveena didn’t say anything more.

“Taveena … we
both
sponsored him here,” Wulf stammered.

“I thought you said no arguing with a person’s vote? No grudges or ill-will either way.”

“I’m not arguing—I’m asking you to explain yourself. To me.”

Taveena closed her eyes. “I’ve used the Lattice, I’ve looked inside him, just like you did. I saw the hate his wife holds. How it changed him. He’s come a long way in a week, I don’t disagree. But learning to understand your enemy is not the same as becoming your enemy. I don’t believe he’s changed sides. At least in the long run.” She opened her eyes. “Against.”

Wulf and Taveena held eye contact, something passing between them.

“All right,” he finally said, nodding.

Shaw was the next person around the circle. He didn’t get a vote, that was clear. To his left was Annalise, Erling, and Jpeg. Erling had already told him he was for him, all forgiven from the disaster with the hotel. Jpeg was certainly against.

That left it in the hands of Annalise. He’d nearly killed her, but he’d saved her too.

“Annalise?” Wulf asked. With everyone else, he’d simply stated the name. But this time, the word dripped with emotion; he was practically begging her to vote for Shaw.

Annalise took a deep sigh, and Shaw knew that he had lost. “I appreciate all that Shaw did for me personally.” She turned to him, tears in her eyes. “I hate this part, talking about you like you aren’t here. You deserve more than that.

“I told you, out there on the hull, I would trust you, but in here, you were just the guy who tried to destroy my ship. But you’re not. You
are
more than that. And I’m going to be haunted every day by my decision here. I know what it means to you. What you want, and who you want to see. This is your last chance to see her. Which is why I agree with Taveena. I don’t think what you’re feeling is real.

“You are something of a muddle, Byron. But I know what I want. And what it will take to see it through. And I just can’t force myself to believe that you will truly be there to help me to do it. I’m sorry, Byron.” Annalise turned back to the circle. “Against.”

How quickly Shaw had let hope infect him, and how quickly it had abandoned him.

Everyone knew now. Everything else was just a formality. So maybe it wasn’t an airlock, but what would it be instead? An injection? A painless influx of bots that would slowly put his nervous system to sleep?

“Erling,” Wulf said, his voice barely louder than a whisper.

“I call for an appeal,” Erling said, his voice cracking as he started. He looked at his feet and coughed, before trying to hold his head high.

“An appeal?” Wulf asked. “There’s nothing to appeal yet, the vote isn’t even over. Appeals can only happen—”

“After six months, I know,” Erling said. Shaw thought he was shaking with fear. “But after six months, anyone can call for an appeal of anyone’s right to stay at any time. Isn’t that what you told me?”

Wulf squinted, and scratched at his stomach, thinking. “That’s right.”

In a clear voice that reverberated around the chamber, Erling announced, “Then I am appealing the vote on Jpeg’s right to stay.”

“What?” Jpeg cried out. Elsewhere there was shouting and pointing, but Shaw kept his eyes fixed on Erling. Shaw didn’t know the rules, he didn’t understand what Erling was attempting.
Was he trying to delay the vote on Shaw?
The young man—the adolescent, really—was studiously avoiding looking at Shaw, trying for all the world to look like the calm in the center of the storm.

Wulf finally got the room quiet.

“Erling, there’s already business before us. Can’t this wait?”

“Anyone can call for an appeal of anyone’s vote at any time. That’s what you said. I choose now. Nothing in your rules says I can’t.”

“They’re
our
rules, Erling. Not just mine.” Wulf hesitated. “Taveena, what do you think?”

Taveena shook her head, and passed it back to Wulf. “You wrote them.”

Wulf grimaced. “All right. Our rules say you need another to support your appeal. If no one else supports it, we’ll continue dealing with Shaw, understand?”

“Yes,” Erling said.

“Does anyone wish to second Erling’s appeal of Jpeg’s right to stay?” Wulf asked the room.

“Second,” Annalise and Tranq said at the same time. They looked at each other and then away.

There was a gasp, a strangled cry from Jpeg. Three already against him.

Wulf looked like he hadn’t expected that either. “All right. Annalise seconds,” he said, although Shaw couldn’t say why he’d chosen her. “Erling, uh … would you like to say something about your appeal?”

“We are all supposed to be one, working together. No mistakes. But Jpeg has put us in danger twice. He’s in charge of communications, but he failed us. He should have realized that fingerprints might be transmitted through the spheres. Then, he failed us again two days ago. He should have known that the sphere room could be used against us. We say we don’t tolerate mistakes. But that’s two. I vote against his continued stay.” Erling had finished his speech, and was now much more visibly shaking. He’d memorized it, Shaw realized. He was so scared of condemning someone to death, that he’d memorized what he needed to say.

“Erling, I
taught
you how to use the spheres,” Jpeg said. But Erling kept his eyes fixed on a far point.

“Jpeg? Do you wish to offer something in your defense?” Wulf asked.

Jpeg looked stunned that this vote had even gotten this far. He turned from Erling to the wider circle.

“I don’t even … I’ve been working side by side with you for almost a year now.
No one
thought that
he
—” Jpeg pointed furiously at Shaw “—would have figured out a way to get the spheres turned against us.
No one
thought about the fingerprints. Why am I the one to blame? Erling’s appealing my stay because he knows which way I’ll vote on Shaw! This isn’t about me, it’s about
Shaw
!”

Jpeg looked like he had more to say—a lot more. His lips moved, but he was silent. Eventually he stepped back into place. Wulf turned to his left again.

“Helix?”

“For. I agree with Jpeg. He’s being blamed for what we all should have realized.”

“Tranq?”

“Against. I’m sorry, Jpeg, but even though we all missed it, you were responsible for it.”

“Kuhn?”

“For. We can’t start turning against each other. We’re too few as it is.”

“Taveena.”

“Against.”

They waited, but she didn’t elaborate.

“Annalise.”

“Against.”

“Erling.”

“Against.”

Wulf’s eyes flickered to Shaw. Jpeg was right. To Wulf, this vote was about Shaw, not about Jpeg. Wulf was weighing who he wanted on his team more. The loser would be put to death.

“I vote … against. Jpeg’s right to stay has been repealed, five votes to two. I’m sorry, Jpeg.”

Shaw felt like he’d gone through whiplash.
What had just happened here?

“No … No! I’m one of you guys,” Jpeg was crying, but he was quickly getting angry. “I’m with you one hundred percent! This is the guy you should be voting against! This guy here! Who didn’t even believe in this cause until two days ago? What are you all thinking?”

Jpeg leapt through the air, wildly aiming at Shaw, but Tranq was suddenly there between them. He clamped down on the back of Jpeg’s neck and forced him against the floor.

“Taveena!”

Taveena was at his side, and she placed something against Jpeg’s writhing forearm. In a few moments, he slowed, and then stilled.

“He’s asleep,” she said, looking up at Helix. “We’ll give him a chance to wake up and say goodbye. Can you get him to his bunk? He’ll be out for at least the next six hours.”

Tranq nodded. He and Helix peeled Jpeg off of the floor and floated him gently through the air to the door. They were gone, everyone staring after them.

Wulf looked back at the remaining circle, scanning faces as if he were trying to remember where they were. His gaze stopped at Erling.

He took a deep breath. A man trying to clear his conscience? “Your appeal was successful, Erling. Do you have anything else you wish to bring to the attention of the group?”

“No.”

“Then, in the matter of Byron Shaw, which currently stands three votes to three, how do you vote?”

“I vote in favor of Byron Shaw to stay.”

Wulf nodded, expecting it. And that was it. Shaw would live. Four was not a majority of eight, that’s what Wulf had told him. But it was a majority of seven. Instead of fighting for five votes as Shaw had done, Erling had instead shrunk the crew, and removed the need for the fifth. He voted to kill in order to save Shaw.

“Byron Shaw,” Wulf said, “our crew has voted, and a majority of us has voted to bring you into our crew, four votes to three. In accordance with our rules, you are invited to stay. Welcome.

“I am instructing you now that you should not bear any ill will toward anyone who voted against you. They had their own reasons, and their own motivations for doing it. You should not bring it up with them, and should not indulge them if they try to bring it up with you. They do not owe you an apology or an explanation. You are one of us now. We are one team. And together we are going to destroy the Lattice.”

Shaw went alone to the mess hall. He was starving—he’d barely eaten before the vote. But what he was mostly looking for was quiet.

Whatever was going to happen with Jpeg, he wanted nothing to do with it. This was for the old crew. That knew him and cared for him, and still sent him to his death.

He thought of Jpeg in the bar in Montreal, and the illumination of his mind with the idea for a slingshot. He thought of Jpeg giving Erling a noogie. How close had these two been?

Shaw couldn’t help but marvel at Erling. What kind of guts had it taken to launch that gambit? To be willing to live with that for the rest of his life, seeing those faces just like the others who had died. What must Shaw mean to the young man for him to do it?

Had Erling known it would be successful? Shaw couldn’t imagine that he did. What would he have risked, if he’d failed? Shaw shook his head. It didn’t feel right to still be alive. To have relied on a boy of nineteen to do his dirty work for him.

He let his door close and slipped into his bunk. He was one of them now. He had to work with them. With Helix. Shaw wasn’t sure of anything, but he thought that she had loved Jpeg. With Tranq. Tranq who didn’t trust Shaw, despite his vote. With Taveena and Annalise. Who had voted to kill, and who still believed that he would betray them. And with Erling. How could he manage to look Erling in the eye again, without constantly being reminded of what he’d done?

It was Taveena who came to him first. He might have expected to see some embarrassment, or even a chagrined look and a quick “you know I was only doing it to protect the crew and the mission” half-apology. But that wasn’t Taveena. “I still think you’re going to end up betraying us all to our deaths,” Taveena said, by way of a greeting. “But, for now, at least, you’re here.”

“Taveena—”

“The rest of us have some things to take care of with Jpeg that I think will go a lot smoother if you sat it out in your bunk.”

“I had the same idea. If you see Erling, tell him …”
Tell him what?

“I’m not your messenger.”

“I just can’t believe what he did for me. He’s just a kid.”

“He’s a man, a young one. If all your jumps into history have taught you anything, it’s that young men usually act rashly under pressure. They all think they’re heroes. In time, he’ll come to regret what he did.”

Taveena seemed to know the exact words he least wanted to hear. “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Shaw answered.

“Here’s a wrap and a ring,” Taveena said, holding them out. “You are not to jump into the thoughts or backgrounds of any of us here on the
Walden
. Also, neither of these has any communication settings enabled. Other than that, they are yours to use as you see fit.”

“I thought I was part of the team now.”

“No one gets to talk to anyone, except through the spheres, and with permission.”

“What am I supposed to do with these, then?”

“We were having a strategy meeting about our plans when you so ably interrupted us two days ago. We still don’t have a way to move forward. Use the Lattice and learn everything you can about that lead dome before then. Tranq voted for you because he thought you could help us with strategy, so come prepared. They’re going faster. The dome’s going to be finished in less than six days.”

Shaw took Taveena’s advice. He strapped into his bunk and fought the urge to check in on Ellie. Any time he spent now was wasted, he told himself. Do this job right, and he’d see her soon enough.

He jumped to the Lattice Installation and was able to explore the new lead dome in great detail. He was astounded that the entire Installation was being covered by this massive dome. The walls had climbed up the dome’s skeleton, leaving a massive skylight at the top of the dome. As he watched, teams of drones pumped molten lead up tubes in the walls while nanobots slowly shaped it into place, narrowing the hole at the top an inch at a time, but immovably so—like a volcano cauldron being rebuilt and sealed with its own lava flow.