The Lofties (The Echelon Book 2) Page 4

  They didn’t touch us or speak to us, just marched so we had to march with them, down a hall like any other. I saw plain concrete walls, scuffed-up tile floors, and a break room no fancier than our own—a table and two chairs, a kettle for tea. Nobody seemed to be on break. We passed a series of anonymous gray doors, all closed, all numbered but the last one on the right. That one read ADMIN, and it marked the end of our journey.

  A green light flashed twice, and I heard a lock disengage. The ADMIN door slid open. I took two steps forward, and my heart stopped. Just behind me, Ona gasped. I’d heard stories of Lady Lazrad, how she’d lived so long her skin had hardened to marble. How her eyes shone like lamps, how her nails had turned to steel. The stories hadn’t prepared me for the reality. The woman before me shimmered like glass. She shone from within, casting light instead of shadow. I could see through her, I realized, a poster on the wall scattering leaves across her face. She turned, just slightly, and nodded to herself.

  “Two prime, one subprime,” she said. “All bound for—”

  “Excuse me, Governor. The camera—”

  I whirled to see who’d spoken, but no one was there. When I turned back to Lazrad, she was looking right at me. She had Prium’s eyes and his long, slender hands. She stood like him, too, somehow managing to look down on me, though I had a full head on her.

  “Ona Hyde,” she said. “And Myla Hyde, and Lock Powell.” Our names sounded strange on her tongue, sharp and clipped. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve summoned you.”

  I clenched my jaw tight. I wanted to shake her till she rattled—grab her and shake her and scream their names in her face, all the dead she’d left behind. I smiled instead, flashed her every one of my teeth.

  “We’re honored,” said Ona. She dropped into a curtsey, incongruous in pants. Lazrad just stared at her, and Ona straightened up, blushing. “I’m honored. We’re honored. Myla, too.”

  “Honored,” I repeated. It came out flat and venomous, and Lock elbowed me in the ribs. Lazrad didn’t seem to notice.

  “I’ve called you here to congratulate you,” she said. “Given the extent of your accomplishments, I’d hoped to come in person, but this will have to do.”

  I blinked, confused. In person? How had she come, if not in person?

  “Your service to Echelon is to be recognized,” said Lazrad. She rattled off the words as though reading from a script, her weird, luminous eyes focused somewhere beyond my ear. “You kept your heads in the clutches of our enemies. You navigated your captivity with courage and returned to us bearing bounty beyond compare. For this, and for your loyalty, I mean to reward you.”

  I glanced at Ona. She was leaning forward, lips parted, eyes alight with fervor. She’d clasped her hands to her breast, and I’d have sworn she was trembling. Lock was scratching his chin, slack-jawed, like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “Thank you,” whispered Ona. “Thank you. We—”

  “Prium will brief you on the details. As for me—” Lazrad touched her wrist, and she vanished without a trace. I yelped, then nearly screamed as Prium took her place. Ona scuttered backward, her heel thumping the door.

  “What—what—”

  “A hologram,” said Prium. He smirked unpleasantly, tucking his gloves in his pocket. “What, you thought she’d come here? To see you?” His eyes sparkled. “I’m real, though. Didn’t you see me? I’ve been here all along.”

  I stared at his hands, pulse pounding. If he touched me, I’d snap. I’d fly at him, flatten him, pound his brains to liverwurst.

  “Anyway, left to myself, I’m not sure I’d reward you, but here we are.” Prium sat down, propping his feet on his desk. His soles were gold leather, burnished to a high shine. It felt like an insult, him showing us those, like the lowest part of him was worth more than us. “You were foolish,” he said. “You took foolish risks. The resources you wasted, the search parties, the raid—”

  I breathed deep and tuned him out. He’d been sent to reward us. Soon, he’d get to it, and we’d be on our way.

  “Still, I can’t deny your accomplishments. Lock—you’ve logged more missions than any Decemite in history. And Ona.” He tapped his nails on the arm of his chair. “You opened the mines to us, put us on the path to rigur without end. You suffered, you bled...” His tongue darted out, and he sighed or maybe moaned. “As for you, Myla—well, some might call you brave.”

  If he’d hoped to embarrass me, Prium was out of luck. I stood, impassive, waiting for him to be done.

  “Let me ask you this: What do you want for yourself, more than anything else?”

  Lock made a surprised sound, a soft, goofy buh? I snorted without meaning to and covered it with a cough. Prium glared at us both.

  “It’s not a difficult question.” He rose and approached Lock, heels squeaking on the floor. “You. What do you want?”

  “My family in the Stars.” Lock spoke without hesitation, his voice ragged with longing. “A big house by the Walk, where the light spills in their windows. Medicine for my mom. She’s got the Undercrud.” He stepped forward, entreating. “Just, I’d want them all safe, safe and happy. I’d die for that. I’d do anything.”

  Prium made a humming sound, as though assessing Lock’s response. He turned to Ona and hooked his thumb under her chin. “And you? What’s your dream?”

  Ona inhaled sharply. “Everything he said, and to go on serving Echelon.” She drew herself up, beaming with pride.

  “Hmph.” Prium let his hand drop, and his gaze fell on me. “And you? Same as your sister?”

  I bristled. To go free, I thought. To take Ona and run, and never look back. But we couldn’t run from her nanobots, the death sentence in her blood. The cure was here, if it was anywhere. Running meant Ona dying in my arms, five years at the outside, then—

  “What’s the matter? Rebels take your tongue?” Prium snorted at his own joke. “Well, if you’ve nothing to say—”

  “I want what we all want.” I spat the words in his face. “Health and happiness for my family. Long lives full of love.”

  Prium looked disappointed. He leaned back on his desk with a huff. “Well, as it happens, my lady will grant your wishes. Today you’ll go home and celebrate with your families. Tomorrow, you’ll show them their new homes in the Stars. The day after that...” His smile contorted into something ugly, a nasty hyena snarl. “The day after that, you’ll Ascend. All three of you.”

  Ona shrieked and clapped her hands. Lock didn’t say anything at all. I stood stunned, waiting for the punchline. Me, Ascend? Lock and Ona, sure—but some rulebreaking nobody? A peon from the refinery?

  Lock’s fingers brushed mine, and I clenched my fists. This was the chance I’d been waiting for. Buried in the Dirt, I might never see Lazrad again. If I wanted to get close to her, to unravel the secret of her longevity, Sky was the place to do it. Still—

  “Do make yourselves presentable before the ceremony,” said Prium. He pursed his lips at me. “That goes double for you, Myla. Haven’t you heard of a nail brush?”

  I frowned. In truth, I hadn’t.

  “Your Ascension is a special privilege.” His expression soured further, like he’d tasted something foul. “I wouldn’t have gone so far, but my lady respects... courage. Myself, I prefer obedience, so see you scrub those nails.”

  I jammed my hands in my pockets. Prium shook out his gloves and pulled them on.

  “Well, run along,” he said. “I’m not handing out sweets.”

  Gears whirred behind me, the door sliding open. I backed away slowly, not wanting to let Prium out of my sight. He was staring me down like he wanted to eat me, smoothing his gloves over his wrists. I didn’t trust him not to touch me, not to run a gloved finger down my neck. It seemed the sort of thing he would do, not for the pleasure of it, but just to show he could.

  The door shut on Prium. I thought I heard Lazrad with him, her sharp voice raised in question. Had she been listening all along?

&
nbsp; “Ascension,” said Lock.

  I felt a jab in my kidney, one of the guards urging me along. A chill ran down my spine, not at his touch, but something elusive, like a word on the tip of my tongue. Something felt wrong, or everything did—Ascension, Prium, Lady Lazrad. Holograms that shone and vanished. Prium pulling his gloves off, smoothing them back on. It didn’t add up, or it added up to something awful, and try as I might, I couldn’t pin down what.

  Chapter Five

  Ona made it nearly to the landing before she erupted in delight.

  “Sky! I can’t believe it.” She darted past the guards, nearly skipping down the stairs. “What are you going to do first?”

  Lock shook his head slowly. He looked shellshocked, at a loss. “What is there to do? I don’t even—I’ve only seen it from Outside.”

  “I’m going up the tallest tower,” said Ona. “I want to dance above the clouds.” She did a little pirouette. “And then I’m going shopping. I want a dress to my ankles. Next time I curtsey, my skirts’ll touch the floor.”

  Lock’s brows went up. “You’ll be wearing more than one?”

  “Of course I will. There’s the skirt, then the petticoat, then the slip underneath. I’ve seen it in pictures. Like a cupcake you wear.”

  “I’d rather have one I eat.” Lock’s expression turned wistful. “And a radio, a good one, and music to listen to.”

  “What about you?” Ona tackled me from behind, throwing her arms around my neck. “Bet you never thought you’d Ascend.”

  “No, I didn’t.” I shrugged her off roughly. “I thought I’d be there for Mom and Dad. I thought they’d have one of us, whatever happened.” We reached the end of the stairs and I kicked the door open hard enough to leave a dent. Ona trotted after me, eyes round with surprise.

  “But this is what they’d want for us. It’s what all parents want. We should—”

  “You’re talking like they’re dead. What they’d want for us? How about what they do want, for our family? No one has kids just to tell them goodbye.”

  “We’ll still come and visit,” said Ona. “This isn’t goodbye. More like—”

  “Whatever.” I hurried ahead as a camera dipped to track us. Ona scurried ahead of me, jogging backward to catch my eye.

  “What are you saying? You’re not coming with us?”

  “I’m not saying that.” I leaned over the railing and looked down. The factory floor lay below us, all heat and sparks. Two workers were loading the autoclave, the same one I’d subdued just a few weeks before. It had roared like a dragon then, breathed fire in my face. Today, it sat quiet, its chamber cold and gray. I closed my eyes and saw Lazrad, silvery and translucent, printed leaves blowing across her face. “Didn’t she creep you out? Lazrad, I mean?”

  Ona laughed. “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know.” I got that feeling again, that sense of something off. “I can’t say, exactly, but...”

  “It’s probably just the hologram,” said Lock. “I nearly passed out when she just up and vanished. One minute, she’s standing there. The next minute—”

  “Two prime, one subprime.” I stopped in my tracks, skin prickling all over. Lock cocked a brow.

  “What?”

  “When we first walked in, before Lazrad turned around—I don’t think she saw us. I don’t think she knew we were there. I think she was talking to someone where she was, talking about us. She said, ‘two prime, one subprime, all bound for—’ Then that voice cut her off, and—”

  “She could’ve been talking about anything,” said Ona. “Meat. Loans. Butts.”

  “Butts?” I kicked at her, missed, and caught myself on the railing. “Seriously, think about it. There’s three of us, two Decemites and...” I tapped my own chest. “Subprime. And this whole Ascension thing—it’s not a reward. This is her buying our silence, the cheapest way she knows how.”

  “The cheapest way would be killing us.” Lock scratched at his chin. He’d gone stubbly already, though I could still smell his shaving cream. “I mean, I guess she was a little strange. But that could be just culture shock—like, that’s how it is up there, straight to the point, no time for small talk.”

  “I thought she was amazing,” said Ona. “You’re just mad ‘cause you screamed.” She marched on ahead of us, putting some swagger in her step. I followed her, fuming. She wanted to believe, so she did. Nothing I could say would shake that.

  “I get it,” said Lock, as we clattered down the stairs. “Me and Ona, we’ve had years to make peace with this. Being a Decemite, you Ascend or you die. For you, it’s not so simple. You had other dreams, maybe.”

  “Maybe I did.” I thought about Ben. He’d be on patrol about now, tramping through the yellow grass. Or he’d be out by the vents, snatching gretha off the Decemites. I could’ve lived like that, too, under the sulfur-stained sky. Under the sun, with the breeze in my face. “Listen, you guys go ahead. I’m going to see Gran.”

  Ona spun on her heel. “What, right now?”

  “I might not have time tomorrow.”

  “Well, don’t take all day. We’re supposed to be celebrating.” She did a little skip-step. “Celebrating. Someone pinch me, quick.”

  I fought the urge to do just that, to pinch her hard, keep pinching till she woke up. I shot her a thumbs-up instead and turned my steps toward the old district, past the reservoir and the market square and the exhaust pipes from the refinery. I cut through the stockyard where old machinery went to rust, and I followed the lamps along the catwalk above the sewers.

  “That’s not what I heard,” came a voice. I spotted two watchmen below me, trudging about their patrol. One of them was smoking a cigarette, and he stubbed it on his boot. “I mean, they’re all going at once. Has that ever happened?”

  “They send the squads out in twos when the mutants are swarming,” said the other. “But all fifty at once, or however many she’s got?”

  I froze where I stood. All fifty? The Decemites?

  “I heard it’s not mutants they’re after.” A lighter sparked, and I smelled smoke. “I heard there’s this—”

  “Shut up. Someone’s listening.” Two faces turned my way, pale circles in the dark. I took to my heels. Nobody followed, but I kept running anyway. I ran till my chest ached, only slowing when the swing shift crowd poured from the factory gate. They streamed around me, and I lost myself among them, hunching over to blend in. It wasn’t hard to walk like them, all stooped and glassy-eyed. I’d been the same, till just recently, marching to the same beat. I marched to it now, all the way to Gran’s building, and up the side stairs.

  The warm smell of ginger spice greeted me at her door. I closed my eyes and breathed it in, but my stomach was tied in knots. All fifty at once—who could it be but the Decemites? What could they be planning, if not war with the Outsiders? I swayed and caught myself. My heart hadn’t stopped pounding since Lazrad pulled her disappearing act. Since Prium had sprung from her shadow, grinning his snake’s grin.

  “Hello?” Gran’s voice came quavering through the door. “Myla? Is that you?”

  I kicked off my boots and let myself in. “Yeah. How’d you know?”

  “I heard you’d come home.” Gran came shuffling to meet me, arms outstretched. Her smile was everything Prium’s wasn’t: warm and welcoming, full of joy. I melted into her embrace, and for that moment, all was well with the world. I was home. I was safe. I felt like a kid again, and I sank into that feeling.

  “Come sit,” she said at last. “Oh, sweetheart. You’re so thin.” She pinched my arm, and I laughed.

  “You always say that. I’m always the same size.”

  “Then you’re always too thin.” She went to the kitchen and came back with a tray of cookies—the fat, fluffy ginger kind, fresh from the oven. I took one and bit into it, more to please her than anything else. Her tarot cards sat on the table, face up from her last reading, and I gathered them into a pile.

  “Will you read for me
?”

  “I don’t think so. Not today.” Gran sipped her tea. “Why don’t you tell me a story, all about your adventures?”

  I looked down at the table, at its patina of tea stains. “I can’t,” I said. “What’s out there, I’m—”

  “I know about the Outsiders.” Gran took the cards from me and tucked them into their pouch. “Oh, don’t look so shocked. I raised a Decemite daughter. I saw her through childbirth. She told me for your sake, in case you lived. In case one day it got too much for you, living the lie she left you.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “Why didn’t you ever ask?” Gran took a cookies and nibbled around the edge. “I knew you’d see for yourself, when you were ready. And now you have.”

  “They’re good people,” I said. “They’re not like the Decemites’ll tell you, all brigands and thieves. I lived with them. They were kind to me. Made me feel like I belonged.”

  “Your mother suspected as much.” Gran looked sad. “She had to shoot one of them, a boy about Ona’s age. She said he called out his name, over and over again, like he wanted her to know him. Cameron, it was. Cameron Stark.”

  I nodded, unsurprised. Time was, I’d have cried for that, let it haunt me through the night. Now, I had more pressing concerns. “I heard something, heading over here, about the Decemites riding out. I heard they’re—”

  Gran laid her hand on mine. “You found someone out there, didn’t you? Someone you care for? Maybe someone you love?”

  At that, my eyes stung, and I pressed my lips together. “Ben. His name’s Ben. I have to warn him—warn all of them. If I don’t...” I waited for Gran to tell me I shouldn’t, not now, not in wartime. Instead, she sipped more tea. I stood and went to the window and leaned my head on the glass.

  “I think Ona’s dying,” I said. “Not just her. All the Decemites. I think they have an expiration date. That’s what Ascension is, not a reward but a funeral—far away from the Dirt, so no one knows it’s coming. If I run to Ben, I might never see her again.”

  “And if you stay?” Gran’s voice was gentle. “You can warn Ona, but you can’t save her.”