Exodia (29 page)

Harmon closes his hand around the
device and waits for me to say his name.

“
Talk to your father,” I
say. “Make him understand that he has to let us go or it’ll be your
life that’s lost, not hers.”

A flash of fear comes and goes across
his face. I’m surprised to see a look of strength, of resolve,
replace it.

“
I followed you that day,”
Jamie says. He nods toward Lydia. “You think I don’t know she’s
really a Red?” His laugh is as cruel as his father’s. I’ve
underestimated him. I know which long ago day he means. I glance at
Harmon.

“
She’s not a Red,” Barrett
steps in front of her. He would take a bullet for her. “What are
you talking about? Do you need to see her tattoo? This is
ridiculous.”

Jamie shakes his head. “I climbed the
fence that day. I saw you spot her. I followed you both. When my
father became Executive President he promised me he’d change the
marriage law for one day, just one day, so that I could have
her.”

His facial muscles twitch his mouth
into a sneer. No one moves.

“
I’ll be twenty tomorrow,”
he drawls. “That’s the day this particular arranged marriage will
be legal. It’ll be lights out for you, not me, Dalton.”

“
Harmon.” As soon as I say
his name he crushes the lever on the device and a few seconds later
the lights in the hallway extinguish. The generators stop their
dull hum and only the cloudy light through the window illuminates
Jamie’s wicked smile.

“
Is this supposed to scare
us?” Jamie nearly howls.

“
It’s a warning,” Harmon
says into the gloom. “You won’t be having a wedding because your
father will finally let us go. He’ll be grief stricken by your
death.”

The hillside machine, the last of the
items Harmon brought from Ronel, and the perfect component to our
scheme, does its magic. Besides jamming every other working machine
within Exodia, it pulls a darkening drape of clouds across the
land. The little bit of remaining light is exchanged for sunless
black.

But I can see.

* * *

Lydia restrained her automatic response
as she sensed the blackness growing. She forced herself to stay
calm as she succumbed to virtual blindness. The trace of light that
had filtered through the window a moment ago was gone. She heard
the guards stumble back, pushed perhaps by Jamie. There was some
kind of commotion and she instinctively raised her arms up, ready.
Suddenly it seemed like the air was sucked out of the room followed
by a gasp. A thud. Someone’s last breath slid past flaccid vocal
cords. She heard the tinny clink of something as it hit the floor.
A knife? Was death going to crook its beckoning finger at her
next?

She stretched her hand further to where
Barrett had last been and caught him on the sleeve. He quickly
latched his hand to hers, put his arm around her shoulder, and
thrust her toward the spot where Dalton should’ve been. Empty
space. There was movement and a current of air. She caught a whiff
of the metallic scent of blood – lots of it. And then a familiar
scent. One she liked.

Suddenly Barrett released her and
another set of arms took hold of her. Gently.

The cursing and swearing from the
guards grew louder, but there wasn’t a sound from Jamie. Lydia
heard others, capitol workers most likely, stumbling into the
hallway, adding their voices to the panicked confusion. She felt a
stronger rush of air as somewhere doors were opened. It was still
pitch black, but she was calm, pressed tight against a powerful
body.

Dalton’s steady arms guided her out and
helped her down the steps. She heard a tapping on the ground;
Harmon had taken back the rod. He was leading them away. The
breathing at her back could only be Bear, she hoped. She was afraid
to whisper anything. She trusted Dalton to get her away
safely.

His arms felt like home. She matched
her steps to his as if they were running some crazy three-legged
race at midnight. Where had the sun gone?

* * *

Jamie’s intention was not
indiscernible. Not by me. And I can’t think long on what I’ve done.
I can’t feel guilty. It was prophesied, clearly, on the first page
of the ledger I ripped out so long ago.

Yet I’m drowning in this guilt. My sins
float ever before me. What I’ve done in darkness will soon be
revealed in the light. My palms are damp, my heart beats to a
primitive rhythm.

Harmon’s tapping stops as we pass
through the gates. I lift my eyes to the black soupy sky and watch
it roil around. The device on the hillside will keep things
blackened until morning. Lydia’s grip on me changes as she turns
her head to look at me. I see her eyes searching in the inky fog.
Without the same gemfry ability she sees no more than if her eyes
were closed.

“
Dalton?” she whispers. “Can
you see?”

“
I can. Don’t be afraid.” I
hold her more tightly and the four of us walk shoulder to shoulder
down the center of Exodia. From time to time I lift her over
obstacles or puddles and set her gently back on graveled
lanes.

We reach the abandoned birthing clinic
and I help her find a place to sit on the top step. I tell her
where we are and she’s not surprised at all. It’s barely past
mid-afternoon. The sunless day is as quiet as it is
dark.

“
Should we sing?” It’s
Barrett’s voice that asks and I nod an embarrassed yes for I know
I’m the subject of the song. He starts with a deep resonant note
and I’m astonished to discover yet another astounding ability of
his. His voice carries the subsequent notes to the four corners of
the city as if it were a trumpet. Harmon joins in and Lydia’s pure
alto highlights every phrase and especially the end of the lines
that hold my other name, Bram O’Shea.

I see a candle, hear another voice.
Another light, three, six, ten more candles and dozens more voices
singing. I step down and greet every one with
instructions.

“
Go to your neighbors,” I
say, “and pass the word. The day has finally come. We’ll leave at
midnight. Gather what you can carry. Ask your Blue neighbors for
their coins, for oil, for food, and meet us at the north bridge,
the one marked with a red C.”

No one questions my instructions even
though the highway bridge that was condemned before the Suppression
seems a dangerous choice.

Mira appears in the golden shadows,
pulling a wheeled sled laden with things she has prepared for our
journey. She’s followed by a man I recognize as the long haired
mechanic from Vinn and Carter’s camp, the one who had offered to
guide me with his son.

“
I remember you!”

“
And I remember you,” he
says. “My name is Malcolm. I’ve brought something from Ronel to
help keep the thousands of Reds together on this long trek.” He
pats the apparatus on his back and continues, “It’ll create an
electronic cloud to follow as you hike during the day. And if you
move at night it fluoresces white in the sky. I’ll keep it working
for you.”

I thank him.

The time has finally come. Every
prophecy, every hope, is falling into place.

The singing abruptly stops.

“
Dalton Battista? Bram
O’Shea?” A soldier’s voice booms loud within the darkness. A
useless flashlight hanging from his waist catches glints of light
from the candle in his hand. “I have a message from the Executive
President. He is in great mourning over the death of his only son
and commands that you and all the Reds leave Exodia
immediately.”

My lethal act has been discovered
though he doesn’t know it was my hand on the blade. How could I
have slit the throat of an old friend so effortlessly, so
instantly, so coldly? A thousand words sprint to the end of my
tongue, but only one crosses the finish line. “Done.”

* * *

The bright light of the electronic
cloud makes it easy to see the vast numbers of Exodia’s Red
citizens who crowd together. Red soldiers join us, too. Their
government sleeve patches have been ripped away, but their weapons
still hang strapped at their sides next to bulging belt
sacks.

I work my way to the front slowed by
offered hugs, elbow bumps, and words of praise. Broken phones
crunch under my feet, thrown to the ground as symbols that we’re
severing all ties with Exodia. Those who had turned against me this
past year are my biggest fans tonight. The noise is deafening to me
as they cheer and holler. I pick out Lydia’s clear voice singing
that old song again. The crowd hushes and slowly, like a
well-practiced chorus, they join her. Softly at first.
Expectantly.

I will sing of Ronel,
uncommon,

The warrior of
milchamah.

He is triumphant, hero,
law,

Yea, by the power of
zerowah.

The nation will hear and
tremble,

Anguished people of Exodia
assemble.

He devises a way to release
us.

His plan will surely please
us,

At the birth of Bram O’Shea.
Bram O’Shea.

* * *

We reach the abandoned interstate by
morning and tramp down wide lanes to an expanse that is impossible
to cross. The crater left by a disaster mid-century turned this
whole area into a man-made gorge with drops over a thousand feet
deep. I know this from my studies, but most of the Reds, maybe all
of them, know nothing about the catastrophe that separated this
region. People will think I’ve lost my mind to lead them to a place
no one has ever crossed, a place they’ll think is a
trap.

I’ve been holding Lydia’s hand through
the long hours that we’ve been traveling here. Hours that seem like
seconds. I’m afraid if I let go of her I’ll never get to touch her
again. But I have to drop her hand to climb up on a broken slab.
There are giant concrete columns holding up the longest, highest
bridge ever built. It spans the chasm. But they’re the weakest
pillars ever built. Low bids, corruption, government side deals. It
was condemned before it opened, a month before the Suppression of
2071. No one dares to drive or even walk the ramp that leads up to
the wide overpass.

Malcolm comes up to me. He offers the
machine on his back as a way to amplify my voice. My first three
words are projected up and out just like the white cloud that gives
us enough light to see our way. “Listen to me!” The last syllable
echoes once. I repeat myself twice more and expect the Reds to
settle down, but the deep timbre of angry voices among them stirs
them up.

“
You can’t be serious. We’re
not going over that bridge.”

“
No way.”

“
That thing’s not
safe.”

I need to explain to them that we’ll
never be free of Truslow unless we follow Ronel’s strategy. My
throat constricts, a gust of wind comes up from the cavity and
swallows my response.

Another man speaks up, fuming, “Yeah,
why are we here? We should’ve gone east. Toward the
ocean!”

“
Or northwest. Nothing to
cross–nothing to slow us down! Who will follow me
northwest?”

I’m shocked to see the last one who
yells is Korzon. Harmon pushes through the crowd and stands beside
me. He holds the rod out straight above the heads of those nearest.
They fear it and shrink back.

I clear my throat and decisively wrench
against my stubborn tongue. “Listen to me,” I begin again. “Trust
me. Trust Ronel.” Those are all the words I get out before screams
cut me off. I look to the back of the throng and see a man on
horseback forcing his way through the people, trampling a path
until he reaches me. He’s a Blue soldier, one I trained against as
a youth. His stun gun is held in his right hand, reins in his left.
His horse stomps in place. I speak first, “What do you
want?”

“
The Executive President, in
his grief, declared that you could leave. He has rescinded his
permission. He’ll no longer allow you to leave. His army, marching
and mounted, will make you all turn back. No blood will be shed if
you turn south now.” His horse snorts as if in disagreement. “So be
this executive order. You’ve been forewarned.” He backs the horse
away, turns and gallops back through the path he’d made.

“
We haven’t any time to
argue,” Harmon yells. He hands the rod to me and makes a show of
helping Mira pull her sled up the ramp, Barrett on their heels.
Lydia steps onto the slab with me, careful to avoid a rusty metal
bar that protrudes from the disintegrating concrete. I hold the rod
high until it touches a faded red letter on the column, the only
letter still visible from the word
condemned
.

I speak without the amplifier and lift
my voice, “Listen. You’re under the protection of Harmon’s rod.
This is David Ronel’s plan. Please, I urge you to follow my brother
over the bridge!”

There’s no argument this time. The
threat of an army on our tails spurs them all to the same decision.
Korzon is next to move. He hurries to catch up with Barrett. The
rest move just as quickly.