XOM-B (17 page)

“I wouldn’t know,” he confesses. “We didn’t make them.”

“Who did?”

“The Masters.”

“Oh,” I say for the second time. I still know very little about the Masters, but it seems like every new bit of information stands in stark contrast to the last. How could people who kept slaves and killed animals for clothing produce something like music? It’s impossible to comprehend such a dichotomy.

I smooth out the jacket and feel something solid in a zipped-up pocket. I unzip it, grasp the small, hard rectangle and start to pull it out. It’s the music player! I glance up to Heap and he’s already got a finger raised in front of his mouth, requesting silence. I nod, slide the player back inside the pocket and zip it up. I’m not sure how it wasn’t found on Luscious, or how Heap retrieved it, but I’m thankful for it.

I head for the door, but Heap stops me. “Forgetting something?” He looks down at my bare feet and holds up a pair of black boots. “You’re going to need them.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” I say.

He shakes his head. “You shouldn’t.”

21.

“Try not to talk,” Heap tells me as he leads me through a maze of featureless, glowing white hallways. Where I once saw efficient lighting, I’m now reminded of my cell. To alleviate my growing tension, I switch to infrared and find that while the glowing floor, ceiling and walls are bright, they’re not hot. The orange, yellow and white heat of Heap’s large body makes him easy to follow.

“Right now?” I ask.

“When we enter the Core.”

“The Spire has a Core?” I ask, confused by the multiple uses of this term.

“It’s the name given to what could also be referred to as a command center. It’s where important decisions are made.”

“And my talking could distract the decision makers,” I say.

I see the yellow and white glow of Heap’s head nod.

“And if the decision involves me?” I ask.

“Then it will involve me as well, and
we
can discuss it later.”

“That’s fair,” I decide, and just in time. The cool wall ahead isn’t a wall. It’s a door, and it slides open without a sound, revealing so many different heat sources that I can’t make sense of it. I quickly switch back to the visual spectrum and say, “Wow.”

The back wall of the large room is a curved white surface, like the inside of an egg, or at least what I imagine the inside of an egg to look like. Spread out in front of the wall are three levels of consoles, each manned by a single person. They’re all wearing display helmets and black uniforms, so I can’t tell if they’re men or women. This is all interesting, but only holds my attention for a brief moment.

The far wall, which is sharp, is far more captivating. Not because of the way the two flat walls converge, but because of what they show. They’re not walls at all, but massive angled windows on the outside of the building. The entire city is spread out before us, brilliant colors mixed with flat black, and movement. Everywhere movement, like the city is alive.

Ignoring the rest of the room and everyone in it, I approach one of the windows and place my hands on the glass. It’s cool to the touch. For a moment, I see myself in the glass, but focus beyond it, looking down. My eyes bounce around the city, admiring the architecture, the straight and perfectly curved edges.
Harmonious,
I decide. Like the voices in music.

Except for … I look for the Lowers and it’s like they never existed. There’s no smoke, no ruins, no trace.
We’re facing the opposite direction,
I realize. The Lowers are on the other side of the building. Where the Lowers would have been is lush green forest. Endless green that has grown since the Grind ended. Beyond the green, the sun is poking up like a frightened mouse, saying hello before making a dash for the sky. Another day. Seventeen of them.

I feel Heap’s presence next to me. “What’s the name?”

“Of what?” he asks, his voice quiet.

“The city,” I say. “It can’t just be called the—”

“Liberty.”

I smile at this. Liberty is another way of saying “freedom,” and I am Freeman, a free man. I know that Mohr named me and suspect the theme is his. “Did Councilman Mohr name the city?”

“Yes,” Heap says, his voice quieter still.

A startling revelation occurs to me. “You said this tower was built as a monument to the two men responsible for saving us all. Were those two men Mohr and Sir?”

I see Heap nod in my periphery, but he grumbles, “You said you were not going to talk.”

“It’s just the two of us,” I say.

Heap’s large hand envelops my head and turns me around. Seventeen men are seated on stools, their bodies forming an oval. All eyes are on me. I recognize all of them immediately. The Council. Each one of them looks very different from the rest, a mix of colors and sizes and builds, each one a stereotype for their profession. Councilman Cat is in charge of construction. He’s a big boxy man who dresses in yellow. Councilman Deere, whom I’ve only ever seen in green, manages the environment. Space exploration is run by a man in off-white, Councilman Boeing. I’ve met them all individually before, but I’ve never been in their collective presence. Seeing them all together makes me realize that this group of representatives is actually incomplete.

Of all the different kinds of people I saw in the Lowers, none are represented here. Instead, I see professions that I suspect are most valued and tied to growth, whether that be physical or knowledge based. Sir sits at the far end of the oval, his perpetual frown directed toward me, but Mohr is missing.

“Apologies,” I say. “I didn’t realize—” I stop talking when I notice that most of the Council is staring at me with a kind of admiration. Or is it satisfaction? Are they pleased by my presence or that I survived the unnecessary viral purge? Most of these men were kind when they met me, some of them even petitioned me to join their profession, but I now find their combined interest disconcerting.

The door through which Heap and I entered the room opens once more. Luscious—as Kamiko—enters, followed by Mohr. She’s dressed in tight black leather clothing that matches mine but fits her … differently. It’s not the clothing really, it’s her body. The lines of it are smooth and curving in a way that forces my eyes to travel along her shape. When my gaze reaches her face, she smiles and rushes to greet me. I take her hands in mine and fold them together between our bodies as we speak in quick, hushed tones.

“Are you okay?” she asks, beating me to it.

“Fine,” I say. “You?”

“I’ve been through worse,” she says. I’m not sure what to think about that, but her eyes seem to blaze through mine. Such an odd thing. I’m feeling things without actually
feeling
anything. A physical response to a visual stimulus. The body is strange.

“I actually haven’t,” I say. When her smile fades and a look of anger takes hold of her eyes, I’m freed from their grasp. “It’s okay. I understand why it had to be done.”

Her eyes drift up to my hair and she frowns, but the expression carries traces of humor. She runs her fingers through my hair, pushing it to the side and down.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Your hair,” she says. “It looks awful.”

“I didn’t realize hair could look bad,” I say, quickly realizing that I have, in fact, admired her hair, both while sleek and black and wavy orange.

She finishes and says, “There. Good enough for now.”

Feeling embarrassed about the attention to my physical state, I glance toward the view and say, “Have you noticed where you are?”

She looks beyond me to the window. Her eyes widen at the view, but she doesn’t move. “Convenient direction to be facing,” she says, noting right away what it took me some time to notice. But like me, she has failed to notice the men seated beside us.

“Kamiko,” I say, forcing the name from my mouth. “Have you met the Council?”

She turns as I motion to the group of seated men. She gasps and takes a step back. Many of the men are smiling at her, at us, but a few are now frowning as deeply as Sir.
Not very good at hiding their emotions,
I think.

“This is Kamiko,” Mohr says to the group. “She is a … friend of Freeman’s. She is present at his request.”

A few of the frowners nod at this, but others remain displeased.

“While Freeman and his exploits are interesting,” Sir says, “we have more pressing matters to attend to.”

“Right,” I say, stepping back away from the group. “Don’t let us distract you. We’ll just”—I look behind me and find some plain white stools along the side wall between the curved back wall and angular windows—“just sit. Over here.”

Sir appears to be fuming, but doesn’t respond. He just watches us until we sit. When he continues to stare, I fidget in my seat and say, “Carry on.”

A few Councilmen chuckle, but stop when Sir snaps his head toward them. The group quickly falls into rapid discussion, covering the latest events. When the Lowers is mentioned in very cold and calculated terms, Luscious takes my hand and squeezes. She’s angry—furious—but knows that we’re at Sir’s mercy. Any infraction in the presence of the Council would most likely end badly for both of us, though given the Council’s apparent affection for me, perhaps just her.

We listen as the bombardment is described. Every detail is given, except, I note, the number of casualties. It’s almost as though they bombed an empty city. Talk of containment comes up. Of eradication. Quarantines. The results of similar military actions outside other cities around the world. Success, it seems, is the theme of this meeting. But I find that hard to believe. There were so many undead capable of growing their numbers via simple bites. Eradicating them with bombs seems unlikely.

The boots,
I think, looking up at Heap. His emotions are masked, but I sense tension in his joints. Does he know something the Council doesn’t, or does he simply realize, like I do, that the undead situation is far from over?

“Now,” Sir says loudly, focusing attention back on himself. “What of these seismic irregularities?”

“I would rather discuss the radio signal I detected,” Mohr says with surprising conviction.

“We have already discussed this,” Sir replies, his impatience barely contained. “The radio signal, if there ever was one, is gone. We’ve analyzed the burst you recorded and found it to be benign, akin to the static created by a solar flare, of which there have been several lately.”

“But—”

“The subject is closed,” Sir says and then adds, in an even more serious tone, “The seismic irregularities.”

After a moment, Mohr sighs and says, “It’s rather insignificant … but odd nonetheless. Sensors beneath the city are detecting a constant rumble. Minute, but increasing, imperceptible but to the most sensitive of equipment. Possibly just reverberations from the increased action above.”

“The shuttle tunnels are clear,” Councilman Cat says. “As stable as they have been and will be for the next thousand years.”

Councilman Deere nods. “At first I thought it might be a natural tremor. A shift of the tectonic plates. It’s not common in this region, but such things have been recorded from time to time in the Masters’ historical records. But … the sustained and slowly building nature of the disturbance suggests another source. That said, I believe—”

I tune out the Councilman’s words and lean closer to Luscious’s ear. “What is beneath the city?”

“Just the shuttles,” she says.

I know about the shuttles. They’re high-speed vehicles that hover over magnetic tracks and can rocket through the city, and from city to city, without taking up space or disturbing the natural world. They’re one of the many improvements the Council has made since the end of the Grind that focuses on increased efficiency and a restoration of the environment.

“Wait,” Luscious says. “There are also remnants of the old city. Tunnels for utilities we no longer use. Sewers. Gas lines. But I’ve always assumed they were destroyed or filled in.”

I’m not really sure what these things are, but it confirms my fear. I stand from my seat. “It’s them.”

“Freeman,” Heap says quickly, his voice a warning.

“Sit. Back. Down,” Sir says loudly.

He’s so incensed by my speaking that I start to comply, but Luscious speaks up. “Let him speak. What harm can it do?”

Sir glowers at Luscious, but says nothing. I use the silence as an opportunity to speak. “In the ruins,” I say. “The undead—” I see that none of them know this term. “—the infected. They were in the woods. They were everywhere. But they weren’t coming from the forest.” I look at Sir, meeting his horrible, angry eyes. “They were coming from underground. They’re not in the shuttle lines yet, but what about
beneath
them?”

Councilman Rexel, who represents the power industry, leans forward and asks, “Are you suggesting the seismic activity is being caused by the
footsteps
of the infected?”

“Impossible,” Councilman Boeing says. “That would take—”

“Millions,” I say. “I know.” I turn my attention back to Sir. “Don’t wait until it’s too late.”

“You presume to tell
me
about preemptive actions?” Sir is on his feet, storming toward me. He stops only when our faces are inches apart. “I was steeped in military and strategic—” Sir stops and just stares at me, but something in his eyes has changed, like he’s had an epiphany. The anger is gone, replaced by … resolution? Satisfaction?

He returns to his chair and sits, leaning back in a posture that seems unfitting for him and somehow makes me feel anxious. “For years, Councilman Mohr has extolled the wonders of the man who would be named Freeman. A man born into freedom and allowed to become his own person. Unbroken. Uncorrupted by the Masters. Humanity’s potential finally realized. And here you are, finally, standing among us. And yet, I am not impressed.” He turns to Mohr. “Far from it.” Back to me. “Perhaps you would like to demonstrate your worth? Show this council that you
are
capable of more than insubordination and distraction. Prove your theory true.”

I can’t decide if he’s just trying to mock me, or if he’s serious, but I decide it doesn’t matter.
I
believe my theory and the sooner Sir sees it, the better. “Are there sensors in the underground? Heat? Cameras?”